text:
Edwards not guilty on 1 count, mistrial on others
Published 12:00 am Thursday, May 31, 2012
GREENSBORO (AP) — John Edwards' campaign finance fraud case ended in a mistrial today when jurors acquitted him on one charge and deadlocked on the other five, unable to decide whether he used money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president and his wife was dying of cancer.
The monthlong trial exposed a sordid sex scandal, but prosecutors couldn't convince jurors the candidate masterminded a cover-up using about $1 million, and ultimately, jurors decided tawdry didn't necessarily mean criminal.
"While I do not believe I did anything illegal, or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong and there is no one else responsible for my sins," Edwards said on the courthouse steps.
The jury's decision came on a confusing day. The judge initially called jurors in to read a verdict on all six counts, before learning that they had only agreed to one. About an hour later, the jury sent the note to the judge saying it had exhausted its discussions.
It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would retry Edwards on the other counts.
When the not guilty verdict was read, Edwards choked up, put a single finger to his lip and took a moment to compose himself. He turned to his daughter, Cate, in the first row and smiled.
When the judge declared the mistrial and discharged the jury, Edwards hugged his daughter, his parents and his attorneys. Later, he thanked the jury and his family, even choking up when talking about the daughter he had with his mistress Rielle Hunter. He called Francis Quinn Hunter precious "whom I love, more than any of you can ever imagine and I am so close to and so, so grateful for. I am grateful for all of my children."
Then he started talking about his future.
"I don't think God's through with me. I really believe he thinks there's still some good things I can do and whatever happens with this legal stuff going forward, what I'm hopeful about is all those kids that I've seen, you know in the poorest parts of this country and some of the poorest parts in the world that I can help them," he said.
The jury reached a verdict on count three, which involved to $375,000 given by elderly heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon in 2008. The other counts dealt with $350,000 Mellon gave in 2007, money from wealthy Texas attorney Fred Baron, filing a false campaign finance report and conspiracy.
Jurors did not talk to the media as they left the courthouse, and prosecutors did not immediately comment.
The trial recounted the most intimate details of Edwards' affair with Hunter, including reference to a sex tape of the two together that was later destroyed. It also rehashed the elaborate cover-up that involved his most trusted aide, the aide's wife, and Baron and Mellon.
It featured testimony that sometimes read like political thriller, as aide Andrew Young described meeting Edwards on a secluded road, and Edwards warning him, "you can't hurt me." There was also the drama of John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, tearing her shirt off in front of her husband in a rage after a tabloid reported the affair.
Edwards was accused of masterminding a plan to use the money to hide Hunter from the media and from his breast cancer-stricken wife. Prosecutors said Edwards knew of the roughly $1 million being funneled to former aide Andrew Young and Hunter and was well aware of the $2,300 legal limit on campaign donations.
In closing arguments, prosecutor Bobby Higdon used Edwards' own campaign rhetoric about the need for the rich and poor to have an equal say in elections — what he called uniting the "two Americas."
"Campaign finance laws are designed to bring the two Americas together at election time," Higdon said. "John Edwards forgot his own rhetoric."
Edwards' attorneys said prosecutors didn't prove that Edwards knew that taking the money violated campaign finance law. They said he shouldn't be convicted for being a liar, and even if he did know about some of the money, it was a gift, not a campaign contribution.
"This is a case that should define the difference between a wrong and a crime … between a sin and a felony," attorney Abbe Lowell told the jury. "John Edwards has confessed his sins. He will serve a life sentence for those."
They also said the money was used to keep the affair hidden from his wife, not to influence his presidential bid.
Neither the Democrat nor his mistress took the witness stand during about four weeks of testimony.
Baron died in 2008 and Mellon, who is 101 years old, did not testify.
Edwards met Hunter in a New York hotel bar in 2006 and they spent the night together. She soon joined his campaign, and despite a lack of filmmaking experience, the politician arranged a $250,000 contract for her to make a series of behind-the-scenes documentaries from the campaign trail.
Word of the affair eventually got back to Edwards' wife. On Dec. 30, 2006, the day Edwards officially announced his bid for president at an event in his hometown of Chapel Hill, Elizabeth Edwards bumped into Hunter for the first time and became visibly upset, according to testimony. She told her husband to get rid of her, and while Hunter officially left the campaign, John Edwards continued to meet with her on the road.
Hunter became pregnant in the summer of 2007. As Hunter's belly began to show that September, tabloid reporters began tailing her. Within weeks, the Youngs had set up Hunter in a $2,700-a-month rental home not far from the Edwards estate in Chapel Hill, using the donated money.
In October 2007, a day after a tabloid reported the affair, Elizabeth Edwards blew up at her husband, according to testimony from former adviser Christina Reynolds. Edwards' now-deceased wife stormed away from her husband at a private hangar, collapsing into a ball on the pavement. After composing herself in a nearby ladies room, Elizabeth Edwards ripped off her shirt and bra and screamed, "You don't see me anymore!" As staffers scrambled to cover her up and whisk her into a car, her husband boarded a jet and headed to a campaign event in South Carolina.
That December, in an attempt to contain the scandal, Young issued a statement claiming the baby was his. Prosecutors presented phone records showing Edwards and Young — and Young and Baron — talked with each other that day and claimed they conspired to come up with the plan.
About a month later, Edwards' presidential campaign began to fold with poor showings in the early presidential primary states. Even before he officially suspended his presidential campaign at the end of January 2008, Edwards had begun wooing the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for a spot in their administration, perhaps as vice president.
Meanwhile, Hunter was on the run with the Youngs. Baron let them stay at his vacation mansion in Aspen, Colo., and paid for them to live in a $20,000-a-month manor in Santa Barbara, Calif. Hunter gave birth to Francis Quinn Hunter in February 2008.
Records at trial showed Baron paid Hunter a $9,000 monthly cash allowance, on top of providing flights on private jets and stays at luxury resorts.
The deposits began in June 2008 — several months after Edwards ended his White House run — and continued until December 2008, two months after Baron died.
The timing of the payments may have been important. The defense argued most of the money was spent after Edwards ended his presidential bid. Prosecutors claim Edwards was still seeking the Democratic vice presidential nomination or a future appointment as attorney general.
Although Edwards' attorneys have conceded he had some limited knowledge of Baron's support for Hunter, they deny he knew anything about $725,000 provided to Young by the wealthy heiress Mellon, an ardent supporter of Edwards' campaign.
Edwards admitted to the Hunter affair in August 2008. Days later, he met with Young briefly on a secluded road near the Edwards estate outside Chapel Hill. According to Young's testimony at the trail, the two talked about the secret checks Mellon had provided to the campaign aide.
"I didn't know about these, did you?" Edwards said, according to Young.
Worried he was being taped, Young lied and said no. Young told Edwards he had kept evidence of the cover-up, including voicemails, emails and the tape that purportedly showed Edwards and Hunter having sex. He said he threatened to go public if Edwards' didn't come clean about the baby.
"You can't hurt me, Andrew," Edwards told Young as he opened the door to get out, Young said. "You can't hurt me."
Edwards announced he was the father of Francis Quinn Hunter in January 2010, nearly two years after she was born and his candidacy ended.
Edwards died in late 2010.
The jurors, whose identities were withheld throughout the trial, asked to see dozens of trial exhibits during deliberations, relating to Mellon and Baron's donations. Some jurors raised eyebrows in recent days by wearing matching colored shirts to court, and one alternate juror was said to be flirting with Edwards. Eagles warned the jury on its sixth day of deliberations not to discuss the case in small groups.


text:
Check Me Out Premium T-Shirt
Many in stock
CARE INSTRUCTIONS: Machine wash cold, inside out, with like colors. Only non chlorine bleach. Tumble dry medium. Do not iron. Do not dry clean
CARE INSTRUCTIONS: Machine wash cold, inside out, with like colors. Only non chlorine bleach. Tumble dry medium. Do not iron. Do not dry clean
Return Policy
Why would you want to return anything with RIDE International on it? Our apparel & accessories are awesome! But if you still need to...
Our return policy lasts 30 days from the date your shipment was delivered. If more than 30 days have passed since the date your shipment was delivered, unfortunately we cannot offer you a full refund.
Exchanges also have a 30 day exchange policy.
To be eligible for a refund or exchange, your item(s) must be unused, unworn and in the same condition that you received it / them in and in the original packaging (if applicable).
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable). Those situations include:
- Greater than 30 days but no longer than 45 days past the date you received your shipment and the item(s) are in original condition
- You were attacked by a heard of rabid gophers who ate holes in your gear. Hey, Farmer's Insurance might cover it too ;-)
A partial refund is defined as the purchase price, less 25%. Why? This is due to changes in demand and inventory affecting the resalable value of the items. Thank you in advance for understanding.
To complete your return or exchange, we require an original receipt or electronic proof of purchase.
Once your return is received and inspected, we will send you an email to notify you that we have received your returned item. We will also notify you of the approval or rejection of your refund.
If you are approved, then your refund will be processed, and a credit will automatically be applied to your credit card or original method of payment, generally within 10 business days.
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We replace items if they are defective or damaged by us. Normal wear & tear and washing shrinkage in apparel does not qualify!
If you need to exchange your purchased item for the same item in a different size, (subject to our stated return days policy) click on the link above and we will give you an RMA number and instructions on where (and how) to return the item for exchange. Shipping fees for size exchanges due to customer ordering errors will be born by the customer.
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Sales of all items whereby the proceeds are donated to a charity, charities or a charitable cause are non-refundable due to the proceeds being donated to charity. Any exchanges for size will be made on an "as-available" basis and all shipping costs will be born by the customer unless an error in fulfillment is made by us.
If the item was marked as a gift when purchased and shipped directly to you, you'll receive a gift credit for the value of your return. Once the returned item is received, a gift certificate will be mailed to you.
FYI... If the item wasn't marked as a gift when purchased, or the gift giver had the order shipped to themselves to give to you later, we will send a refund to the gift giver and they will find out about your return.
Unless the item being returned was fulfilled incorrectly due to our error, you will be responsible for paying your own shipping costs for returning your item.
Shipping costs are non-refundable. If you receive a refund, the cost of return shipping will be deducted from your refund.
Shipping fees for size exchanges due to customer ordering errors will be born by the customer.
Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you, may vary.
If you are shipping an item(s) over $50, you should consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don't guarantee that we will receive your returned item.
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If you haven't received a refund yet, please check your bank account or credit card again.
If you do not see a refund having taken place (or pending) then please do the following as applicable:
- Contact your credit card company, it may take some time before your refund is officially posted. Also, since you have them on the phone, ask them to lower your interest rate!
- Contact your bank. There is often some processing time before a refund is posted.
If you've done all of this and you still have not received your refund yet, please contact us by clicking here to access our customer email communication page.
Several Federal & State laws prevent returns for the following items:
Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. They include products that are categorized as (or contain in any way)
- Hazardous materials
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- Batteries
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Additional non-returnable items:
- Gift cards
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- Some health and personal care items
- Scary monsters or things that go bump in the night :-)

subset: commoncrawl


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It produced some of the city's most notable residents, including TV producer Aaron Spelling and retail guru Stanley Marcus.
But in 1956, four decades after the doors to its Italian Renaissance-style building opened, Forest Avenue High School faded into Dallas' history books: Once a premier all-white school, it was rechristened a "Negro" school to stave off integration, and renamed James Madison High.
Forest Avenue High's dwindling alumni, once numbering in the thousands, host an all-school reunion every other year to share memories and keep the Fair Park-area school's early legacy alive.
"There aren't too many of us left," said Madelyn Cohen Schepps, who graduated six decades ago and is helping organize Saturday's reunion of Forest Avenue High School alumni.
"We still have 800 members," said Schepps, whose late husband, Stanley Schepps, was related to the Schepps Dairy family. "At least 100 or more show up each year."
Alums say their reunions are like other high school reunions, with classmates reacquainting and reminiscing about the time they spent together. The racial dynamics that, historically speaking, give their reunions more of an edge are a thing of the past.
"That's just the way things were back then," said Schepps. "Society was changing."
The alumni association's goal is to keep the class reunions going for four more years, when Forest Avenue High will reach a symbolic milestone. The original Forest Avenue High was constructed in 1916 and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
"We're going to stay in business to 2016," said Melvin Cohen, a 1950 graduate who is Ms. Schepps' brother. "We want to reach that mark — from the beginning of the school to the end of school, a hundred years."
The school technically ended in 1956. On June 14 of that year, with racial segregation still in effect and black residents steadily settling into the Fair Park/South Dallas area, Dallas school trustees made a black-and-white decision.
The school board agreed to redraw school boundary lines and convert the school from white to black.
The move served two purposes — it helped preserve stark segregation and bring immediate relief to two overcrowded "Negro" high schools, Lincoln and Booker T. Washington. The white and Jewish families in the area were assigned to Crozier Tech High School, and they took many goodies with them.
According to a Dallas Morning News report, the Forest Avenue High "Dad's Club and Parent-Teacher Association," along with the student body, signed a petition requesting that the school's name, green-and-white colors, and lion mascot be preserved for any future white school that might be built.
The school's principal at the time declared that all Forest Avenue High School trophies and other memorabilia also would go to Crozier Tech.
Thus, all ties between the old white school, Forest Avenue High, and the new black school, Madison, effectively were broken, for better or worse.
The changing demographics of the Fair Park area around the school caused racial rancor and resentment for years, some Forest Avenue High alums say.
Milton Leventhal, a 1949 alum, said that after World War II, more and more black residents began moving into areas once dominated by whites, starting a domino effect.
Some of "the white people around there didn't like it," said Leventhal, a retired surgeon who now lives in Far North Dallas.
Leventhal said he and other classmates had black friends they'd play with after school or during summer and winter breaks, even though institutions were segregated at the time. He said white kids from Forest Avenue and black kids from Lincoln High would huddle up and play sandlot football together.
"There were no fights or anything like that," he said. "They'd play hard."
Eventually, more black families moved in and white families, including prominent Jewish families who lived in the prestigious Park Row mansions, moved to white neighborhoods in East Dallas, Oak Cliff and other fast-growing areas.
Still, the racial shift created some tension as white families uprooted and moved away, sometimes begrudgingly.
"There were some hard feelings with the people there," he said. "It was something [they] really didn't want. It just came."
The change kept coming. In 1981, a quarter-century after Forest Avenue High shut its doors, the street that runs in front of it was changed from Forest Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Over the years, however, the Forest Avenue Alumni Association began to take stock of the school's heritage and significance. In 1983, the alumni association donated many of the school's artifacts to the Dallas Public Library, where they remain in the Texas/Dallas History collection.
The collection, located on the seventh floor of the downtown Dallas central library, is a "pretty extensive collection and it's got a lot of neat things," said library archivist Brian Collins.
It includes boxes of trophies, a green letter sweater with a big "F" on the front, a leather helmet and, of course, yearbooks featuring prominent grads such as Marcus and Spelling.
In its old age, the alumni association began reaching out in other ways, too.
Although it has never had a joint reunion with Madison, which has many notable graduates of it own, Forest Avenue alums started giving college scholarships to outstanding Madison graduates.
"We had to stop the scholarships" a couple of years ago, Leventhal said. "Money got a little short."
Schepps said the idea of a joint reunion with Madison has never come up at their annual alumni meetings. "Maybe we can look into that," she said.
For now, however, Forest Avenue High alums are focusing on Saturday's reunion.
And they're anxiously awaiting the reunion four years from now. "We're trying to hang on to 2016," said Schepps. "We'll be 100 years old."
The reunion is at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Doubletree Hotel, 4099 Valley View Lane. Tickets are $35 per person.


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The Ultimate Fighting Championship® organization today announced the appointment of Garry Cook as its Executive Vice President and Managing Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Cook, 50, has an impeccable track record of business success throughout his career. He joined Nike in 1996, rising to President and General Manager International of Brand Jordan in 2005. During his tenure at Nike he held a wide range of management positions from overseeing the licensing of Nike Team Sports in the US to leading the pan-European commercial strategy for Nike apparel EMEA.
After 12 successful years with Nike, Cook became Chief Executive of Manchester City Football Club and led the organization during a period that saw tremendous achievements both on and off the pitch. The club won both the FA Cup and Barclays Premier League, its first league championship for 44 years, and Cook was responsible for executing a global media and market development strategy resulting in unprecedented growth.
On the appointment, UFC president, Dana White, said: "Garry is a man with a fantastic record for high profile achievements in the sports industry with tremendous international experience. We are confident he will continue the huge developments the UFC has made internationally and lead us to further success."
Garry Cook added: "I am absolutely delighted to be joining the UFC. Mixed martial arts is one of the most popular sports globally and to be working in such a dynamic and exciting industry, with the UFC's talented, passionate and committed staff and athletes, is an honour. I look forward to being a part of the team as they continue to grow internationally."
UFC Performance Institute
Dana White On The Opening Of UFC PI Mexico


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Karl Lindholm: A Mess: Sports fan and hypocrite
Our sportsworld is a mess — and I'm a hypocrite.
I am both a fan and a skeptic. Much of what happens in sports at its highest levels I deplore, yet my days and nights are taken up by watching games or by reading and writing about sports. Sports are an essential part of my life.
Every day, it seems, brings another revelation of corrupt, immoral, unprincipled, deceptive, distasteful, or unhealthy practices in the world of sports: arrests, gun violence, DUI with death resulting, illegal performance-enhancing drug use, child-abuse, cheating, lying, suicide.
And the money involved and at stake ensures the rampant commercialism of sports, greed, and over-the-top conspicuous consumption.
Pro football is a mess.
Over 4,000 former NFL players are suing the league for withholding information about the dangers they faced in their playing careers from concussions, repetitive blows to the head.
Rodney Harrison, 41, last played for the Patriots in 2008. He admitted that he is "scared to death" about his future health.
All-Star linebacker Junior Seau, 43, took his own life last May by shooting himself in the chest, choosing this method of suicide so his brain might be intact for scientific study. Posthumous analysis indeed showed evidence of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy).
Football's apotheosis, the Super Bowl, recently attracted 110 million viewers, the third-most-watched TV event in history (the other two were previous Super Bowls).
How do we balance safety concerns in football with the enormous popularity of the game?
Simply put, we don't.
We are inured to the danger of the game. We are absorbed by the spectacle.
Did I watch the game?
Of course.
Amid misgivings about the orgiastic excess of the whole enterprise, I rooted hard for the Niners and was dismayed when their furious rally fell just short of victory.
Baseball is a mess.
Steroids are back in the news, with A-Rod and National League MVP Ryan Braun implicated again in the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
Melky Carera, suspended last year for testing positive for testosterone, watched his Giants team go on to win the World Series. He got a $16 million, two-year contract from the Blue Jays this year.
The so-called Steroid Era in baseball is an enormous stain on the game. When statistical landmarks are discounted, all records subject to interpretation, much of the fun out of following the game is lost.
So I'll not be watching much Major League Baseball this season, right?
Not on your life. I've already started draft preparation for my fantasy baseball league. I can't wait to see how the Red Sox's new approach will work.
Big-time college sports is a mess.
It has very little to do with "college," making a mockery of the "student"/athlete.
Coaches move from school to school, paid more in salary than their Presidents. The athletes themselves are uncompensated, unless you consider a scholarship for an education that few want and only partake of reluctantly adequate compensation for the millions of dollars they earn for their universities.
Events like the BCS football championship games and basketball's March Madness bring in millions for the schools and the NCAA.
My response: I'm headed to Atlanta in early April with my son Peter for the Final Four. It's his high school graduation present.
How do I reconcile the excess and corruption of this sportsworld and my devotion to it?
It's not easy.
Sometimes I tell myself that I like these sports in an essential way and played them myself and will not deny myself the opportunity to watch their most skilled practitioners.
Mostly, though, I take heart from watching sports at the lower levels of play and hoopla where it's not a mess, where kids and young adults play for one another and the sheer enjoyment of the game and the exhilaration of competition and physical effort.
When I'm most discouraged by sports at the highest level, I am restored by going to a game locally.
I am not one to make exaggerated claims for sports participation as preparation for later life, but I do believe that kids benefit from the collaboration of team play and learn loyalty and discipline on teams. I am glad my kids — I have four — have played (or are playing) sports in school.
I am thrilled when I go to games, like the recent Vergennes-Middlebury boys' basketball games, where the whole town turned out and the kids played their hearts out and shook hands at the end of the game.
Last week, at Middlebury College, along with 1,200 other fans, I saw perhaps the best basketball game I've ever witnessed, after all these years of watching games, when the college men's team lost to Amherst, 104-101, on a shot in the final seconds of the third overtime period.
The quality of basketball in this game was high, played by real students, very good players, true, who are unpaid and go to class and study willingly, who commit themselves to sacrifice and dedication, and know that it will all end, soon enough.
These contests distilled the true essence of sports.
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MIDDLEBURY — Bernard D. Kimball, 76, passed away in Bennington Hospital on Jan. 10, 2023. … (read more)
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BRISTOL — A memorial service for Mark A. Nelson of Bristol will be held 1 p.m. on Saturday … (read more)


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Chrono24 – Guarantee of Authenticity
Scope of Application
- The Chrono24 GmbH, Haid-und-Neu-Str. 18, D-76131 Karlsruhe (hereinafter referred to as "Chrono24") is the operator of the Chrono24 online marketplace for high-quality watches (hereinafter "the platform").
- The following Guarantee of Authenticity only applies to watches purchased from professional dealers on this platform. Private sellers are not subject to the Guarantee of Authenticity.
- The currently applicable conditions of this Authenticity Guarantee can be downloaded and printed out at www.chrono24.com.
Content of Guarantee
Chrono24 warrants in accordance with the following guidelines that the watch is not a counterfeit:
Guidelines for new/unworn watches:
- Every new/unworn watch shall be in unaltered condition – as delivered by manufacturer (apart from protective films or tags).
- If accessories such as wristbands, boxes etc. are not original or not as delivered by the manufacturer, the vendor has to inform about this in the respective product description.
- New/unworn watches which have been "modded" or decorated subsequently have to be marked as "custom" in the respective product description.
Guidelines for used watches:
Watches are objects of daily use which are subject to wear and tear. It is therefore self-evident that watches require maintenance. A watch which was sent for revision still is an original, authentic watch, even if components have been exchanged. The elements affected by such exchange or replacement often are the protective glass, the watch-dial, certain springs and wear parts in the mechanism, housing sealing, screws or sets of hands. Even for proven experts it is often impossible to trace all repairs (e.g. each exchanged component and its originality or the use of an identical component from another manufacturer, such as screws) in a watch when appraising the watch movement. The exchange or replacement of elements does not impair the originality of the purchased object.
On these premises, the following applies to used watches:
- The vendor shall check the watch for possible repairs or replacement parts.
- The vendor shall inform about known deviations from the original condition in the respective product description.
- It can not be guaranteed that used watches feature original wristbands or the complete accessories. However, the vendor shall inform about known deviations as detailed as possible.
Guarantee / Appeal Period
This Guarantee of Authenticity applies only if the Buyer sends a complaint to firstname.lastname@example.com within 14 days after receipt of the watch.
Expiry of Guarantee
The guarantee expires if the buyer himself or a third party opens the watch or removes parts of the watch without prior consent of Chrono24 in text form (e.g. e-mail).
Settlement of guarantee / Guarantee claim / Maximum Guaranteed Amount
- Chrono24 will get in touch with the vendor after receiving a complaint to examine the case and find a satisfactory solution.
- If no other satisfactory solution can be found, Chrono24 will reimburse the paid purchase price to the buyer, provided that the buyer has sent the watch back to Chrono24 or to the vendor with consent of Chrono24 ("Guarantee claim").
- The total amount which will be reimbursed to the buyer within the scope of Chrono24's Guarantee of Authenticity is limited to 50,000 EUR per person and lifetime for all guarantee claims ("Maximum Guaranteed Amount ").
- For watch purchases from vendors not holding the status "Trusted Seller", the total amount covered by the Guarantee of Authenticity is limited to 7,500 EUR per person and calendar year.
Obligation to Mitigate Loss / Assignment Agreement
- The buyer shall take all necessary steps (a) to avoid the occurrence of a guarantee claim and/or (b) to recover payments which have already been made to the vendor.
- The buyer irrevocably assigns all claims against the vendor and third parties (e.g. insurance providers) which are connected to the transaction covered by the guarantee as well as ancillary rights to Chrono24. Chrono24 accepts the assignment. The assignment shall enter into effect in case of guarantee claims (cf. Sec. 5 (2) of these guarantee conditions).
Final Provisions
- Should one or several of the provisions in these Guarantee of Authenticity conditions be or become invalid, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.
- German law solely shall apply to these Guarantee of Authenticity conditions to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). This choice of jurisdiction does not apply or does apply only to limited extent, if the user is a natural person and concludes this contract for a purpose which can be regarded as being outside his trade or profession (consumer) and where such commitment of the user has the effect of depriving the user of consumer protection legislation of his country of residence, which is mandatory according to the law of his country of residence. In this case, aforementioned choice of law is supplemented by the respective consumer protection legislation of the user's country of residence.
- Karlsruhe, Germany is the place of jurisdiction for any disputes arising from or in connection with this guarantee, if and to the extent to which the Customer is a merchant in the sense of the German Commercial Code (HGB).


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Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor – 67601
Looking for an ideal juice drink that's fresh, free of preservatives and tastes 10 times better than store-bought juices? Take the plunge and go with the Big Mouth Juice Extractor from Hamilton Beach. It packs all the punch you would expect from a Hamilton Beach juice extractor: reliable efficiency, high speed and no-fuss cleanup.
Rated a "Best Buy" by a leading consumer advocacy publication, the Big Mouth Juice Extractor delivers on the juicing performance people ask for most, instead of skimping out on the nutrients they need. Equipped with a powerful 800-watt motor and extra-wide 3″ feed chute that tears through almost anything you put in, it flawlessly performs the task of extracting the juice from whole fruits and vegetables in seconds. And that's not all. The designers of Hamilton Beach have minimized the fuss of cleanup, making all the removable plastic parts dishwasher safe.
Ideal for anyone who wants to personalize their juice drink recipes, rely on convenience for a busy schedule or help kick-start a healthy routine, the Big Mouth Juice Extractor is well worth the investment.
Part of a Healthy Lifestyle
Did you know that eating fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy lifestyle? According to studies by the USDA, eating more fruits and vegetables reduces your risk of chronic diseases like heart attacks and strokes, some cancers, heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, in addition to acute ailments like kidney stones and high blood pressure.
A glass of fresh, natural juice is an excellent, healthy way to begin your day or inject some serious energy into a lazy afternoon. With the Big Mouth Juice Extractor, healthy living is now easier, more convenient and more affordable. Designed and engineered for health-conscious people who want greater variety in their juicing routine, it can turn your whole fruits and vegetables into smooth juice form, while still keeping in all the nutrient-rich flavors your body needs. In just one 6 to 10-oz. serving (175-300 ml), one cycle of the Big Mouth Juice Extractor can fulfill the recommended daily value of Vitamin A and D, calcium, potassium, protein and fiber.
- Yields up to 24% more apple juice than a leading competitor
- 800 watts of peak power extracts juice from toughest of produce
- Extra-wide 3″ feed chute fits whole fruits & vegetables, reducing prep time
- Stainless steel cutter/strainer juices quickly
- High juice spout funnels juice directly into a variety of glass or container sizes
- Extra-large pulp bin provides for continuous juicing – no need to stop midway through juicing to empty the pulp bin
- Designed for easy assembly, handling, operating and storage
- Removable plastic parts are dishwasher safe
- Cleaning brush with micro-soft bristles provides easy strainer basket cleaning
- Rated "Best Buy" by a leading consumer advocacy publication
Variety is Key
In addition to its speed and durability, the Big Mouth Juice Extractor comes with healthy recipes and suggestions for adding more vegetables to your day and "smart shopping" for the flavor and the season. Try out one of these healthy, delicious recipes to taste the difference in freshness:
- 4 medium kale leaves
- 2 medium carrots, trimmed
- 1 cup baby spinach leaves
- 1 Granny Smith apple, quartered
- 1/2 lemon, peeled
- 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled
Juice all ingredients in order listed. Stir well and serve. Makes 2 servings
- 2 broccoli flowerets with stalk
- 1/4 green pepper
- 1 carrot
- 1 celery stalk
- 1 tomato
- Hot pepper sauce to taste
Juice all ingredients in order listed. Stir well and serve. Makes 1 serving
Alternative Uses
Not sure what to do with the leftover pulp? The leftover pulp is mostly fiber and cellulose, which like the juice, contains necessary vital nutrients for the daily diet. Any leftover pulp can be used in a variety of recipes, frothy drinks, casseroles or soups, as well as for garden composting.
Thirsty for something other than juice? The Big Mouth Juice Extractor can help children, teens and adults get their daily vitamin intake with the option of making soy, almond or rice milk. To start, soak one cup of soybeans, almonds or rice in four cups of water for 24 to 48 hours in the refrigerator, and then slowly pour one cup into the food chute. The liquid extracted from the soaked mixture is "milk." For enhanced milk flavor, consider adding vanilla or honey.
Easy Cleaning, More Enjoying
Ease of cleaning is particularly important, because as with any small kitchen appliance, you will naturally use it more frequently if you can anticipate a hassle-free cleanup. With the Big Mouth Juice Extractor, it's easy to assemble and disassemble when preparing to juice or putting away. All parts – except for the motor base – are dishwasher safe. Here are some more easy-to-follow tips for effortless cleanup:
- Place a plastic grocery bag in the pulp bin container to collect the pulp and once juicing is complete, simply discard.
- When you're done juicing, pass the strainer basket under running water and brush off excess fiber buildup or pulp with included cleaning brush.
Some extractors yield more juice than others, and the proportion of pulp to juice varies from fruit to fruit. Most fruits and vegetables such as apples, carrots and cucumbers will not need to be pre-cut into smaller pieces since they are likely to fit into the extra-wide feed chute. However, it is recommended that oranges, pineapples, melons and mangoes be peeled before placing in the unit to minimize impact on juice flavor. Also, all fruits with pits and large seeds, such as nectarines, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries MUST be pitted before juicing. To extract the maximum amount of juice every time, gently guide food down the feed chute slowly so that juice doesn't spray out of the spout. Do not allow pulp container to overfill, as this may prevent correct operation or damage to the unit.


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13 April 2017
The findings were published in Scientific Reports. The study was carried out in the LC-MS Metabolomics Centre of the University of Eastern Finland together with a large number of partners from Finnish and Swedish research institutes.
The study compared two groups participating in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study, DPS. At the onset of the study, all participants were overweight and had impaired glucose tolerance. The researchers investigated the serum metabolite profile of 200 participants with impaired glucose tolerance, who either developed type 2 diabetes within the first 5 years, or did not convert to type 2 diabetes within a 15-year follow-up. The differences between the groups were analysed by non-targeted metabolomics analysis. Instead of focusing on just a few pre-defined markers, metabolomics analysis allows for the determination of the study participants' metabolic profile, i.e. the concentrations of several metabolites.
The greatest differences in the metabolic profiles of those who developed type 2 diabetes and those who didn't were observed in the concentrations of indolepropionic acid and certain lipid metabolites.
A high concentration of indolepropionic acid in the serum was discovered to protect against diabetes. Indolepropionic acid is a metabolite produced by intestinal bacteria. A diet rich in whole grain products and dietary fibre increased the indolepropionic acid concentration. A higher concentration of indolepropionic acid also seemed to promote insulin secretion by pancreatic beta cells, which may explain the protective effect.
In addition to the DPS data, the association of indolepropionic acid with the risk of diabetes was also studied in two other population-based datasets: in the Finnish Metabolic Syndrome In Men Study, METSIM, and in the Swedish Västerbotten Intervention Project, VIP. In these datasets too, indolepropionic acid was discovered to protect against diabetes.
The study also identified several new lipid metabolites whose high concentrations were associated with improved insulin resistance and reduced risk of diabetes. The concentrations of these metabolites were also associated with dietary fat: the lower the amount of saturated fat in the diet, the higher the concentrations of these metabolites. Similarly to indolepropionic acid, high concentrations of these lipid metabolites also seemed to protect against low-grade inflammation.
"Earlier studies, too, have linked intestinal bacteria with the risk of disease in overweight people. Our findings suggest that indolepropionic acid may be one factor that mediates the protective effect of diet and intestinal bacteria," Academy Research Fellow Kati Hanhineva from the University of Eastern Finland says.
A direct identification of intestinal bacteria is a complex process, which is why identifying the metabolites produced by intestinal bacteria may be a more feasible method for analysing the role of intestinal bacteria in the pathogenesis of, for example, diabetes.
The Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study was the first randomised, controlled lifestyle intervention study to show that in persons with impaired glucose tolerance, type 2 diabetes can be prevented by lifestyle changes. The most important lifestyle changes included weight loss, more exercise and dietary adjustments to include more whole grain products, fruits and vegetables.
This article is featured in: Target Identification/ Validation
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Mislabeled painkillers "a fatal overdose waiting to happen"
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Authorities are sounding the alarm about a new and deadly twist in the country's drug-addiction crisis in the form of a potent painkiller disguised as other medications.
Tennessee officials say they've seen two dozen cases in recent months of pills marked as the less potent opiates oxycodone or Percocet that turned out to contain fentanyl, a far more powerful drug. One official likened the danger to users playing Russian roulette each time they buy a pill on the street.
In San Francisco, the health department blamed several overdoses last summer on lookalike Xanax containing fentanyl, while Canada has issued warnings about multiple recent cases of lookalike oxycodone pills containing fentanyl.
And in suburban Cleveland, federal agents arrested a man this month after seizing more than 900 fentanyl pills marked like oxycodone tablets.
"These pills are truly a fatal overdose waiting to happen," said Carole Rendon, acting U.S. attorney in Cleveland.
Because fentanyl is cheap to manufacture illicitly, dealers see a chance to make more money by disguising it as oxycodone, which typically can sell for more, she said.
Lookalike pills were likely to blame for some of the county's 19 fentanyl-related overdose deaths in January alone, said Dr. Thomas Gilson, the Cuyahoga County medical examiner.
"People might otherwise say, 'I know I can abuse this much of oxycodone,' and they may be in for a really, really bad surprise when they find out that's fentanyl and not oxycodone," Gilson said.
The drug, typically used for treatment of chronic pain in end-stage cancer patients, is 25 to 40 times more powerful than heroin. Properly prescribed, it's often applied through a skin patch. Fentanyl produced for the illegal street market comes from Mexico, while chemically similar components have been traced to China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
In a second Ohio indictment, federal authorities have charged a man with obtaining fentanyl from China that killed an addict to whom it was sold in Akron.
The DEA says fentanyl-related overdoses killed more than 700 people nationwide between late 2013 and early 2015.
Mimicry of other drugs is one way fentanyl is now being illicitly marketed, the agency said.
"The fact that fentanyl has been found in this form should hopefully make people nervous that do abuse these types of opiate pills, that they could be getting their hands on something even more lethal," said DEA spokesman Rich Isaacson.
China announced in October it would regulate the sale and distribution of 116 chemical compounds used in the production of synthetic drugs, including acetyl-fentanyl.
The problem of lookalike fentanyl comes as the country struggles to contain a drug overdose epidemic that began with illegal use of prescription painkillers and developed into a heroin crisis.
Ohio experienced 502 fentanyl-related deaths in 2014, up from 84 the year before. In all, 2,482 people in Ohio died from accidental overdoses in 2014, an 18 percent increase over the previous year.
Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses rose again in 2014, driven by surges in deaths from heroin and prescription painkillers. Overdose deaths in the U.S. surpassed 47,000 - up 7 percent from the previous year.
Heroin deaths also continued to climb, by 28 percent to about 10,500.
Despite these statistics and the danger of lookalike pills, addicts aren't always deterred, said Rendon, the acting U.S. attorney.
"When there is an overdose death, users do tend to flock to that drug dealer, because they think that he or she must have incredibly potent - either heroin or fentanyl or a combination thereof," she said.
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Topics Per Page plugin – new problem
Re-posted my comment from another thread to here….thought it might get better exposure this way to help find a solution sooner.
When I am on my Front Page and click on any of the other pages numbers (2, 3, Next>>, etc) that are inserted by this plugin, I get this error:
Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: Compilation failed: nothing to repeat at offset 0 in /[myURL]/Forum/bb-includes/template-functions.php on line 925
This only happens on my front-page.php. Clicking on the numbers in my forum.php or topic.php works just fine – goes to that page number.
Any ideas?
Always try to post questions like this on the page for the plugin itself in the extend section so I'll see it sooner.
Are you using pretty-permalinks? Give me an example url from one of the links off the front-page.
You reported this working the other day so I am confused as to what changed. Did you change the plugin in any way?
Hi _ck_ – thanks for helping.
Here is a link from the front page to a topic:
I reported it working because the numbers showed up exactly how I wanted to see them, but I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't actually "click" on the numbers at that point to be sure they actually worked correctly.
I didn't change the plugin in any way. It does work perfectly on the other pages – the individual forum list of topics (forum.php) and the topic itself with the posts (topic.php)……I only get this error if I click on the additional page numbers on the front page.
(p.s. – I would LIKE to use pretty permalinks, but have not been able to get that working, even after reading everything I could find here on the subject and trying all of the suggestions – I'm hoping a future version of bbPress will fix this issue, but for now I'm stuck with the ugly permalinks)
Hmm that's a really strange problem that I am going to have to explore a bit later.
You are using the final copy of the plugin correct?
And you didn't modify it at all?
Even though I can't reproduce the problem on my copies of bbPress, this may be an internal bug since I can workaround the issue by doing this (note the
ps. the best way to do pretty-permalinks is to use the .htaccess method with "rewrite" where you have to copy and paste the rules that bbPress offers here:
Once you do that, then you have to turn on the option in your bb-config.php
Yep I downloaded the most current version of the plugin, and did not modify it in any way at all.
I did try using the mod_rewrite instructions (called the file rewrite-rules.php from my browser, copied and pasted the resulting rules into my .htaccess file, and then went to settings and chose the pretty permalink), but it just results in 404 errors when I click on any of my links.
I'm certain that's because the rewrite rules are adding in to the URL an extra level as such:
what should be /Forum/forum-guidelines-please-read/ becomes /Forum/topic/forum-guidelines-please-read
Same for the forums – it is inserting and extra /forum into the path. Unfortuanately I don't know enough about mod_rewrite (okay really nothing at all about it) so I am not able to correct the rules myself. OR if the problem is not with the rewrite rules but something in the core code, that's beyond me too. I just know it's adding something to the path that shouldn't be there.
The rewrite rules are correct to add the topic and forum in the URI. If it didn't, bbPress would not know based on the permalink if you were talking about a topic of a forum. So, that part of it is correct. You have another issue causing the permalinks to not work for the forum. Maybe a .htaccess file one directory up?
You need to make sure the .htaccess is in /Forums/ and not the root of the entire site. Your host's directory structure is a little strange but I don't think it will interfere with mod_rewrite.
There is a possibility that there is a rule in the root .htaccess that is interfering the lower .htaccess. But let's first make sure it's in the correct directory.
By the way:
is correct.
is wrong.
bbPress needs to know that the string following is a topic, otherwise it doesn't know what to do with it (it might be a forum).
is also legit.That's probably the problem – maybe I misinterpreted the instructions, as I WAS adding those rules to the .htaccess file in my root directory, not in the /Forum directory.
However, I just tried adding an .htacces file to my /Forum directory, and pasted the rules into that, but that gave me a 500 Internal server error, so I deleted that file again…..
There must be something I'm missing still……..if I could get the pretty permalinks working, would that fix my problem with the page numbers?
It will indirectly fix the problem with page numbers.
Doesn't actually fix the bbPress internal issue but avoids it instead. I still don't understand why I can't reproduce the error on my installs.
You are probably getting an internal server error because of a conflict with a rule in the root htaccess. Make sure you don't still have the old rewrite rules in the root one. You can also post that root htaccess here for me to look at. Be sure to put it between code backticks.
You have a couple different problems. I have no idea if fixing the permalinks will fix the page numbers.
If you have an .htaccess in the Forums directory and there is a 500 error, then there was a problem with that file. You can verify the syntax of an .htaccess file here.
Well it might validate but there still might be a conflict.
Has to be examined by hand.
With a 500 error, I figured it would be a pretty blatant syntax error (or it's a directive that's not allowed, but if it works on the host in a different directory, I figured it would not be an allowed directive problem). Can't verify that it will work, but I think it can tell you if it will error out.
Well the logic is that her webroot works, it's just the forums that 500 when the rewrite rules are present in the lower directory.. To me that's a rule conflict that apache can't resolve.
ps. all my post editing right now reminds me of another plugin I need to make – "look behind" when editing. Of course if ajax editing was put back in, we wouldn't need that.
Okay lets see if this sheds any light:
here is the htaccess file from my root:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^travel-writers-exchange.com
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.travel-writers-exchange.com/$1 [R=301,L]
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END WordPressHere is the htaccess I would put in my /Forum directory, if it didn't trigger the 500 error
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /Forum/
RewriteRule ^forum/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/forum.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^forum/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/forum.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^topic/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/topic.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^topic/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/topic.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/tags.php?tag=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/tags.php?tag=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/?$ /Forum/tags.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/profile.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2&page=$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/profile.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/?$ /Forum/profile.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^view/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/view.php?view=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^view/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/view.php?view=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/?$ /Forum/rss.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/topics/?$ /Forum/rss.php?topics=1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/forum/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/rss.php?forum=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/forum/([^/]+)/topics/?$ /Forum/rss.php?forum=$1&topics=1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/topic/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/rss.php?topic=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/tags/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/rss.php?tag=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/profile/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/rss.php?profile=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/view/([^/]+)/?$ /Forum/rss.php?view=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>I've verified that there are no errant spaces or line breaks……it doesn't look to me like there are syntax errors or conflicts, but I'm no expert……
Ah I forgot it's wordpress integrated – that's your whole problem with 500 error. I have to lookup the workaround.
I really wish I could say that this worked, but sadly it did not.
I made the changes to my .htaccess file in the root, and the root site still worked (which is good), then added back in the .htaccess file to my /Forum folder, but still got the 500 error. Even when removing all but the /Forum in the line added above in the root .htaccess.
I'll try anything you care to suggest though, so don't give up and I won't!
Try replacing that new line as:
`RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/Forum/
(note the entire line has changed)
By the way, once we do get this working, you'll need to add these three rules to the .htaccess in
because bbPress's rule generator is not complete (and for my plugin to work)RewriteRule ^topic/?$ /Forum/ [R=302,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^forum/?$ /Forum/ [R=302,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^page/([0-9]+)/?$ /Forum/?page=$1 [L,QSA](put them just before
)No luck Here is my root .htacces:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^travel-writers-exchange.com
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.travel-writers-exchange.com/$1 [R=301,L]
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/Forum/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END WordPressRoot (WP install) works fine, but when I put the .htaccess file in /Forum then I still get the 500 error….
I have to run out but will be back in about 1/2 hour…..
There is a chance your host has multiviews already turned on by default so let's make sure it gets turned off.
At the start of the root .htaccess try putting
Options -MultiViews
Other than that, I'm out of ideas for today and will have to "sleep on it".
Sigh…..still no luck……I put that as the first line of my Root .htaccess, then copied the /Forum htaccess file over to /Forum, still getting 500 error……..
I do appreciate your time and efforts – maybe when you wake up the morning a new idea will be dancing around in your head……
Oh! I just realized your IP is on 1and1 (1&1).
There were reported problems with them.
I'll have to research.
You can try also putting
Options -MultiViews
at the top of the .htaccess in the /Forum/ directory too. Note it goes above and before the first<if
(first line)Sorry! I guess I should have mentioned 1&1 – didn't realize that they might be part of the problem…….I'll try calling their Tech Support to see if they can help, however, I've been with them for around 5 years with a lot of domains, and while I'm happy with their hosting packages, their Tech Support is lousy. They used to be very good, but since they moved it to India I've had a very poor experience with them – very rarely do I get anyone who knows anything about computers, let alone how to actually fix a problem…..and something advanced like server configuration? I'm not holding my breath…..
I doubt your host's techs will help you with something so specific other than telling you to disable multiviews.
Apparently others here who use 1and1 solved it so you probably can too.
By the way, you are adding
$bb->mod_rewrite = "slugs";
to the bb-config.php correct?
Sorry for the delay in responding – for some odd reason my primary (desktop) computer logged me out of this forum and would not let me log back in….tried many times making certain I was typing my username/password correctly…….so I had to go boot up my laptop…
Anyway, to answer your question, no – I read all the instructions on pretty permalinks and did not see that – I thought I read most of the posts on the issue but must have missed that. In any case it did not work for me….
I put
$bb->mod_rewrite = "slugs";
into my bb-config.php and uploaded – this of course changed my default permalinks to the name-based ones (great) but when I click on the links, I get this error message:Multiple Choices
The document name you requested (/Forum/topic/article-titles) could not be found on this server. However, we found documents with names similar to the one you requested.
Available documents:
/Forum/topic.php/article-titles (common basename)
Please consider informing the owner of the referring page about the broken link.And of course if I have the .htaccess file uploaded, I still get the 500 Server error
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text:
This article is more than 1 year old
Welcome to .NET – how MS plans to dominate digital music sales
It's a lot more complex than the air supply stuff, too...
Once upon a time Microsoft discovered the Internet, and the browser wars ensued. More recently it's become apparent that the company sees music sales as the Next Big Thing, but so far, the extent, intricacy and all-encompassing nature of its plans for Digital Rights Management and secure content distribution haven't been widely grasped. When they are, the browser wars may look like a sideshow.
Essentially, there are three major components to the plan. First, the ubiquitous platform - Windows Media Player is reprising Internet Explorer as an integrated part of the OS, so it will become the client of choice manque, and the associated technologies will become the standard technologies. Second, there's the music business. Presented with a near-universal (one might muse that Apple can expect another visit on the subject of MS Office shortly) platform and associated protection mechanisms, the record companies can surely be induced to adopt it. Especially if they still can't figure out an alternative mechanism for stopping their revenues escaping via the Net.
Finally, there's the matter of securing the data itself. Get all of these steps right, ubquitous platform, near-universal adoption by the people who actually produce the data, and bullet-proof security, and Microsoft has a goldmine on its hands. And the mechanisms themselves can and will be applied to .NET, where - as Microsoft was saying just the other day - "the protection of digital content must accompany the facilitation of Internet services." It's surely no coincidence that the guy who's been closest to content, consumer group head Rick Belluzo, has just been kicked upstairs to COO. It's content, and controlling it, right?
Given that Microsoft has the ubiquitous platform already and the content providers will follow if it all works, security is the part of the picture to focus on. As Microsoft explains it: Content owners can use digital rights management (DRM) technology to protect Windows Media files by packaging them. A packaged file is encrypted with a key, and contains information about the content, such as the title, author, and copyright. To play a packaged file, a user must first obtain a license. This license contains the key to unlock the packaged file and specifies the rights that are allowed, such as unlimited play on a computer."
Your personal licensing made easy
There's quite a bit of cute stuff associated with this. Microsoft's Secure Audio Path technology is designed at an operating system level, allegedly) to keep the content encrypted right up until the machine's sound card is actually playing it. This means that if an application tries to intercept the data stream it needs to break the encryption as well and: "Decrypting an isolated Windows Media file would require breaking industrial-strength cryptographic algorithms." Extending the security to the audio playing device, incidentally, requires Microsoft approved signed drivers for that device, so the system also integrates with the signed driver regime the company is introducing.
But there's a lot more to it than that. The operating system will provide users with a central repository for digital certificates, passwords and licences, and will support "silent" licence aquisition. Your PC will just go ahead and check you're licensed to play what ever music (or use whatever data) you acquire, and will only need to bother you whenever it needs a credit card number. Another cute bit is that the licences you acquire each come with a revocation list which "contains all the application certificates of those player applications known to be broken or corrupted."
So if, or more likely when, previously trusted certificates become compromised they are automatically rendered invalid by the very act of you licensing more content.
What happens if you want to play the music on another PC, or you give it to a friend, or your hard disk gets trashed and you lose all your licences and certificates? Give it to a friend and it's cool, the friend just needs to get the right certificate. You can back up your certificates and restore to another PC, so that's cool too. But apparently you can only do this a number of times, the number itself not being something Microsoft seems yet to have specified. So if somehow your stuff accidentally gets backed up and then restored to a couple of thousand PCs, it's all going to go on the revocation list, and stop working.
We have your PC's fingerprints...
One of the reasons it's able to do this is "individualization." Windows Rights Manager "individualizes the critical components of each run-time client. Individualization binds the run-time client to the machine on which the client was initially installed. Every consumer is given a different executable file and different certified license keys. This significantly reduces the danger of global breaks. If a specific Rights Manager client becomes compromised, it can be disabled from acquiring licenses for new media files."
You can spot a likeness here - is the Product Activation technology used in Windows XP somehow related? Product Activation sets out to individualise the PC, and although you can see how useful Rights Manager's individualisation of the player client is in the narrow but potentially lucrative field of digital music, you can see how even handier it would be to broaden it. Wouldn't it be great (not from your point of view, obviously, you're just a user) if you knew absolutely about absolutely everything each and every individual PC was allowed or not allowed to run?
Or do. A CD ROM burning capability will likely ship with XP, and by some strange coincidence: "Rights Manager has the ability to set the appropriate license right to 'burn-to-CD.' To burn a protected Windows Media file onto a CD-ROM, the consumer must have a license that includes the right to do so. CD-ROM-burning applications are required to honor the rights set by the content owner and distributor." Or what? But the idea of getting a lid on burning will certainly appeal to the music business.
Inevitably one's thoughts turn to the matter of how, or even whether, the plans can be circumvented or stopped. As far as competing with it is concerned, the signals are contradictory, but with Netscape's experience in mind sensible people aren't going to believe the nicer sounding stuff anyway. Microsoft says: "All of the Rights Manager application programming interfaces (APIs) are open and published, which allows third parties to customize and extend their digital rights management system. Microsoft only provides the core components."
Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. As a Microsoftie told Wired earlier this week: "The Secure Audio Pathway is a component of Windows, but only works with Windows Media technology in order to keep the system truly secure. At this point, we don't know whether that will change. There are other forms of complexity and security risks if we start adding in other solutions to our system." So it's open and shut, right?
And in the Dotnet bind them...
If the content providers don't embrace it wholeheartedly, it clearly doesn't work. But if they do, refusenik users are likely to find life difficult. On an individual scale it will be hard (or if the lovable music business has its way, next to impossible) to get hold of content that doesn't conform to the Microsoft standards, and on a broader level swapping data will attract Napster-style flocks of lawyers. You could, as Linux and Mac users currently try to with Windows, treat the matter with what the late George Brown called a "complete ignoral," but this time around it would be rather harder, as Microsoft would have stuff you wanted access to.
It won't, ultimately, be a problem for Microsoft if non-Microsoft clients have access to the DRM feast, because by then Microsoft will have something far bigger - it'll own the standards for controlling access to digital content, and so long as you pay, you can run a Mac or linux if you like. Welcome to .NET... ®
Related story
WinXP to include pirate music 'terminator'
Microsoft's reading list
Secure Audio Path
FAQ on Windows Media Right Management
How license acquisition works


text:
NationStates News
News Archive: 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011 • 2010 • 2009 • 2008 • 2007 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004 • 2003
Ad-Free: You Too Can Be This
People have long complained that there was no way to give us money. "Please," they begged, "let me pay you for this wonderful site." But no. We would not take it.
Now I can finally announce: You can give us money! And as if that wasn't enough, the ads go away! For US$2.99, your nation need never be sullied by commercial imperatives again.
(If you are concerned that we are turning into one of those games that charge for everything: We're not doing that. This isn't the beginning of a Zynga-like devolution, I promise. I don't like games like that. There are some things I think it makes sense for us to offer in-game, like an ad-free experience, because that won't give anyone an unfair advantage, and we can't offer it free to everyone. I mean, servers don't run on air. Another possibility in the future is a larger inbox for Telegrams. But we will never sell better stats or gameplay bonuses. That would screw things up.)
You can even gift to other nations! Just if you are feeling generous. The store uses PayPal and Google Checkout, which accept any credit or debit card.
A Decade of NationStates
We just turned ten. Seriously. In Internet Time, that's like a hundred years old.
Visit our 10-Year Anniversary Page! Chat! Mini-game! Memories!
I remember coding this game up and hoping one day it might get 1,000 players. That, I figured, was the number that would make all the time I was spending learning programming worth it. I remember weeks of freaking out about ballooning player numbers, which hit my long-term target on day 13 and kept doubling every day from there. I remember being kicked out by my web host for overloading their service. I remember mass downtime and lag and Jen being pissed at me because she hadn't seen me all day and I was heading back to my study because every time player numbers doubled, the site went down.
Against all odds, this site turned into something awesome. And that happened because people like you showed up and breathed life into it. You created nations and regions and communities. And that's the reason why we're still here ten years later, while plenty of other online games have disappeared.
I've tried to do my part to keep us running, but it's the ongoing contributions of so many different people—admins, moderators, and players—who have made it all possible. I'm deeply grateful to all of you. Thank you.
M-M-M-Mega Update
Hello! There haven't been any news posts for a while. But there have been changes! I've just been so busy making those changes that I haven't had time to post about them. Either that or lazy. It's one of those.
- New forum hardware! Seriously, the forum doubles in
size like every six months. It's a beast. Things were getting pretty
slow, but a few weeks ago we completed a major move to new hardware,
and now it's super-fast again. For at least the next few weeks.
- Rippling Flags! When you upload a custom image for your nation's flag, you can check a "Ripple" box, to make it look more like an actual rippling flag. Unless it's very dark. It doesn't work so well on very dark images. But everything else: beautiful! This feature uses a template designed by deviantArt user alxfa, who has kindly allowed us to use it here!
- Advanced Dossiers! Hardcore players who manage lists of hundreds or thousands of nations can now download and upload their dossiers for offline management.
- More API Shards! We have an API. You probably didn't know that. You probably don't even know what an API is. That is okay. You have a life instead. But for those of us who think life is meant for building web sites that automatically suck data from NationStates and display it in new and innovative ways, we have an API. Which now supports more data calls than ever!
- WA Vote Percentages! When you consider a World Assembly Resolution, you are shown numbers on how the rest of your region has voted. Some people argued that this would function as a kind of peer pressure, increasing the "lemming effect" of votes. I'm not sure if that actually happened. But you could figure it out with the API.
- Random Nations! When you create a new nation, you can set its starting government type as "Random." There used to be a "Psychotic" option, but that's gone, because frankly it was too psychotic. It didn't make sense even by our standards.
- Daily Update Speed Variance: The update time of regions (i.e. the time at which votes are tallied to determine the WA Delegate) has become a lot more predictable since we shifted to new hardware, and this means invaders can time their attacks to within a few seconds of perfection, making them near-impossible to stop. This isn't quite how things are supposed to be, so the update now has inbuilt cleverness to randomize its speed a little. There's more planned in this area, but that's what we have for now.
We also have a few major new features that have been in the works for a long time and are nearly ready to let loose. I can't tell you what they are! That would spoil the surprise. But one of them rhymes with "Bent Bitems Bolder bor Belegrams."
By the way, did you know that November 13, 2012 is our 10-year anniversary? It totally is. Expect something for that, too.
New feature: Factbooks
Nations now have the ability to write their own Factbooks, which are collections of "facts" about themselves. I put "facts" in quotation marks because obviously they will be full of lies and distortions.
But that aside, I know this is going to be nifty, because it's an extension of what's been happening in the forums for years: nations expanding on their own descriptions, often in amazing detail. You go there, you can read about historical events and cultural landmarks and how the current government gained power for as long as you want.
But these have never been easy for most players to find, and deserve to be more visible. In the future, we also want to add ways to quickly find the most well-regarded Factbooks in the world, so that good content can be seen by more people.
Also planned are more uses for dispatches beyond Factbooks, allowing nations to issue inflammatory statements about each other, for example.
But for now it's just Factbooks! You will find a "Factbook" link on your own nation, in amongst "Overview," "People," "Government," and so on. This link will also be present on other nations you view, but only if they've written something.
What Went Down
A recap, for those who missed the April Fools frivolities, and some questions answered, for those who were here.
So every year since 2004 we've done an April Fools thing. These started out small and quirky, but escalated over the years until I could practically feel thunderclouds of disappointed players hovering overhead as April drew nearer, waiting to shower me with, "Last year's was better"s.
In 2011, under this pressure, I made a last-minute decision to do a haxx0ring stunt, and while this was very effective, it scared the bejeesus out of people, and I felt bad afterward.
So this year I was looking for something a little more fun and a little less email-generating. Our lead moderator, Reploid Productions, had the idea for the IPO, which could be a fun mini-game, where people formed alliances to gain the most shares. Everyone would start with 1 share per million population, and could trade them as they wished.
I also gave myself some shares, as a target for people to beat. I had no real idea how many would be a challenging but not unbeatable amount, but guessed 25 million.
Up went an IPO page, plus, at the last minute, a new subforum in case people wanted to talk about share trading. (Looking back, this is very much like how I added the original forum to NationStates, just in case anyone wanted to talk about their nations.) This forum filled with thousands of posts. With shares as currency, people hawked haiku, nations, art, dignity, insults, influence, ad space, and more. Lotteries and banks sprang up, as did scams, which were sometimes the same thing. There were pyramid schemes and standover merchants and many, many beggars. It was a spontaneous, concentrated eruption of inventiveness. I spent a lot of the IPO days chortling over those threads, because most of them are frickin' hilarious.
As nations pooled shares in order to reach the higher rungs of the share leaderboard, another unexpected thing happened. The leading nation—second on the list, after me—stopped being a faction-based effort, collecting shares primarily from deals and alliances, and instead started representing practically everybody. It was represented by The NationStates Community, and was genuine a community-wide movement as I've seen.
For a long time, it looked like they'd make it, but in the last hour, it tapped out at a little under 20,000,000 shares, five million short of the goal. The rest of the leaderboard was full of people who had decided to hold on to their own shares, or had gone to bed. (Because for anyone in North America, it was really late. It was meant to finish an hour earlier, but I coded in the wrong time zone. Sorry about that.)
At this point, the organizers of The NationStates Community reluctantly decided (via a vote) to transfer shares to the next-placed nation, in order that it, at least, would beat the target. This would be NewTexas.
Obviously, I should have just let that happen, and we all could have learned a somewhat sour yet useful lesson about the power of holding a non-negotiable swing vote in a high-stakes negotiation. But that seemed like a shame, to me, given the nature of the community effort, and how ridiculously hard the organizers had been working. So I decided to transfer my 25M shares to the community. But only at the last minute, as trading closed, so I also secretly disabled the ability of "The NationStates Community" to trade away its own shares in the meantime. This was cheating, of course. But very fun.
In the last few minutes, chaos reigned. There is a whole IRC transcript up here (the IPO ends at 04:00).
Over the thirty-something hours, 37,505 nations claimed a total of 95,407,494 shares, representing 95 trillion NationStates citizens. (It's a big world.) There were 29,448 trades, after which 14,898 nations held at least one share. The other 22,607 nations who claimed shares had given them all away. You needed 251,781 shares to make the Top 25 leaderboard, while 59,763 shares would have placed you at #100, and 11,789 at #1,000. Nine hundred and fifty-nine nations finished with exactly 1 share, for some reason.
Again, I just want to say how much fun this was. And the reason it was fun because of how madly you embraced it, so thank you to everyone who made it so. I've said it a million times before, but I really am in awe of this place sometimes. On the surface it just looks like a website.
Some people are asking if we can make this a regular thing, and I don't have an answer to that. There are a few reasons why this worked for April but wouldn't be the same if done again. But I'm going to look at how it might be possible. Because... fun.
You may now begin preparing for disappointment next April.
— Max.
NationStates IPO: Share Offer
Since NationStates successfully achieved its primary financial goal of not sending me broke, it's time for the next step: an IPO! All the big gaming companies are doing it.
But unlike them, we're not just interested in making out like bandits while crapping all over our playerbase. No, our IPO is different: we're giving stock to you, the players!
For a limited time only, you can claim 1 share in NationStates Corporation Pty Ltd for every million citizens in your nation. Also, as kind of a last-minute thing, you can trade shares with other nations.
I have, of course, assigned myself a sufficient number of shares to ensure that I remain the largest shareholder. Obviously, we can't have the lunatics running the asylyum. That would be a disaster.
Update: Two hours in and I'm close to losing my majority holding. This isn't going well.
Update 2: Well, it happened. I no longer own a majority of the company. Luckily, though, I'm still the largest individual shareholder, and there is no plausible way anyone could overtake me.
Update 3: There's plenty of trading going on in the new IPO forum. (Note: Please ignore any threads about a revolution.)
Update 4: So it seems that some people think it's possible to overtake me as the #1 shareholder. Ha! Well I'm not worried! That would take, what, some kind of massive pooling of shares on a ludicrous scale. People trusting each other and working toward a common goal? On NationStates? Hahahaha!
Update 5: Ohhhh, now it's got a warm and fuzzy name. "The NationStates Community." How completely heart-warming. You're never going to make it, don't you realize? You only have twelve million shares with less than seven hours left! You're throwing away shares for nothing!
Update 6: Okay. Okay. Let's just take a breath. I may have been a little hasty. It's possible you could make it. But how—by giving absolute power to one nation? Is that what you want? Because you know what that smells like? Tyranny! How much do we know about this "The NationStates Community," anyway? Do we really want to take orders from a College State?
Update 7: That's it. Hoard your shares. Hoooooaaaaarrrrd them.
Update 8: And so I watched as "The NationStates Community" crept closer toward its goal of 25,000,000 shares, ever-more slowly, until it became obvious that it was destined to fall just short. I felt relief... and something else. An emotion strange and unfamiliar. Was I perhaps... moved? These disparate nations that had come together in shared puropose, discarding personal glory in order to shift the world together: had that impressed me? Did I find them... admirable?
Clarity filled me. Yes, many of those nations that donated to the cause had done so to oppose me, while many of those who held back were my greatest supporters. But this wasn't about me. Not any more. This was about NationStates.
So I have chosen to trade my own 25,000,000 shares to The NationStates Community. It is a privilege and an honor to be a part of this place. Thank you.
P.S. Most fun April Fools Day ever.
Back, Kind of
And we're on a new server! But some data is taking an awful long time to copy across, so we're the kind of back where not everything works yet. Specifically, what's not working is new nation creation and old nation restoration. We should have that within the next day.
Also, not everyone's custom flag is displaying. Those have almost finished transferring, though! Resist the temptation to change yours, and it'll be restored shortly.
Thanks for bearing with us!
Update! Normal service has resumed.
Here Goes Nothing
Downtime imminent! As mentioned, the game will be down for a few hours as we migrate data to a new server. This will happen soon!
Onward, Ever Upward
Almost exactly three years ago, we boldly embarked on a quest to answer the great question: if I pay for hosting myself, am I going to go bankrupt or what?
Not yet! is the answer. We've been able to keep the game going and support its growth, as we've added our own forum (now home to 7 million posts and running on two servers) and nearly doubled active player numbers.
Now it's time to upgrade the game server! Because that thing is really struggling. There will be some game downtime over the next few days as we do that, during which you also won't be able to log in to the forums (although you'll still be able to browse them). Also, we have temporarily disabled nation restoration.
For those of you who have been with us all that time: really? You didn't... you didn't find anything better to do? Well... okay. And thanks.
Big World
Happy New Year! And for the first time, nations have started hitting 20 billion population. Congratulations to the somewhat crowded Korinekia for being first to pass the milestone!
And very closely following: The Republic of Kyupaa.
(These statistics sniffed out by handy resident number cruncher Ballotonia.)


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Super Furry Animals' ninth studio album is set for a digital release on 16 March, with a physical one following on 13 April. It's still untitled, but that hasn't stopped the Welsh outfit talking about it. A lot…
"Musically it's based around riffs and grooves we've been playing around with over the last few years," recalls the band in an official statement.
"It's recognisable as a melodic SFA record, but is very focused musically as a cohesive album. And no country rock as Daf [Ieuan, the band's drummer] has developed a pedal steel phobia. Which has confined the great Nashvillian instrument along with the Saxophone to the banned instrument directive of the SFA board. There's only one slow number which isn't slow at all."
Frontman Gruff Rhys and co have also kindly provided a track-by-track guide. Good thing, too: who would have guessed The Very Best Of Neil Diamond is about "houses being destroyed by jets" and LLiwiau LLachar "would be great theme music for 'CSI Cardiff'."
SFA's track-by-track guide
1. The very best of Neil Diamond
"It's about all these houses being destroyed by jets etc. Someone put a Neil Diamond tape on before hand, and you can still hear it playing through the rubble."
2. White socks/Flip Flops
"It's a song by Bunf [Huw Bunford, guitarist] concerning the type of footwear one needs to write a good novel."
3. Inaugural Trams
"A celebratory anthem regarding the opening of a new tram line in a fictitious utopian mainland Europe town. Featuring a rap in German by a special guest."
4. Sounds Familiar
"It does. But not in the way you think!"
5. Cardiff in the sun
"Doesn't happen often, would probably sound like this."
6. Where do you wanna go? / 7. LLiwiau LLachar
"These are twin songs. If they were cities they would probably be Minneapolis and St. Paul. Lliwiau Llachar means Intensely Bright Colours. With all the synth arpeggios and Daf going nuts on drums it's like the Who or something, would be great theme music for 'CSI Cardiff'."
8. Mountain
"A euphoric glam rock stomp by Cian [Ciaran, keyboardist] that sounds as big as the title, and concerns people turning molehills into extreme sport venues."
9. Moped eyes
"We've been playing this song live for a couple of years, it's been called 'Hot Clubs' and 'Hot Nuts' in the past. You can see a crude early version on YouTube."
10. Inconvenience
"We've been playing around with this heavy guitar riff for a few years now. It's so heavy it features both Guto [Pryce, bassist] and Bunf on two duelling bass guitars."
11. Crazy Naked Girls
"Bunf wrote this tribute to a Cardiff bar he used to drink in before re-development. It's now a block of unsold 'luxury' flats. It's a song in three parts."
12. Earth
"Anyone who attended a SFA gig on the Hey Venus! tour would know this song. It features very distinct audience participation. You can see numerous versions of it performed from Tokyo to California and beyond on YouTube."
13. Prick
"This song is built on Cian's Moog groove and builds and builds into a great big house or castle of noise."


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(Approved by the Executive Vice President by authority of Administrative Order No. 9)
Under the authority of the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 28B.20.130 (2), the University of Washington has established the professional staff program for non-faculty staff positions that are exempt from the provisions of the Civil Service Laws, Chapter 41.06 RCW.
Professional staff appointments are made in accordance with Executive Order No. 9 authorizing the Vice President for Human Resources or the Vice President for Human Resources's designee to determine which positions are eligible for placement in the professional staff program.
Professional staff serve solely at the will of the employing official. Professional staff do not serve a probation period and do not attain permanent employment status. Professional staff appointments can be modified or ended for any reason that does not unlawfully discriminate against the employee, or violate public policy.
Professional staff employees make essential and significant contributions in support of the University's mission of education, research, public service, and patient care. Accordingly, the University's Professional Staff Program is intended to support the University's commitment to:
The professional staff compensation policy is rooted in a merit based pay for performance system and seeks to allow management flexibility within available resources in order to reward meritorious performance and create incentives for achievement. The compensation system for professional staff strives to achieve a balance between salary equity considerations within the position's occupational group, the employing school, college or equivalent unit, and the University at large, and external market considerations specific to the position's occupational group, the individual recruitment, and the employing organization.
Although the professional staff employees are paid from several separate funding sources (i.e., state appropriations, hospital funds, grants and contracts, and self-sustaining activities), it is intended that the classification and compensation plan will be administered on an equitable basis for all staff members within the purview of the employing school, college or equivalent organization independent of the funding source.
The University Human Resource Committee advises the President on matters of policy relating to the Professional Staff Program and Human Resources has responsibility for overall coordination and modification of the program. The implementation of professional staff policies is the responsibility of the vice presidents and deans in their respective units. The responsibility for administering certain aspects of the professional staff classification and compensation plan is delegated to Human Resources' Compensation Office. Consultation regarding other aspects of the Professional Staff Program is provided by Human Resources Consultants.
For detailed information about the professional staff program see the UW Human Resources website.
October 21, 2002; December 16, 2004; RC, February 21, 2014.


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- The Humane Society of the United States' Animal Rescue Team is assisting animals and people in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's destruction, and is prepared for ongoing disaster relief after this historic storm. Click here.
- Catholic Charities Responds to Hurricane Sandy - Click here.
- New York Cares - Click here
Always be cautious of scams by those posing as raising money for charities. Best be is to deal with the an individual charity that has a reputation of assisting. Verify information before you give.


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Beware of the social ideas
May 29, 2011starting up
Last time I wrote about how to start your startup in 4 steps, and the first step I mention is to "Have an idea". This can mean becoming serious about an idea you've had in the back of your mind, or it could mean experimenting with ways to have more ideas. In this post I want to talk about two types of ideas: "social" and "tools".
Why we all love social ideas
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned serial entrepreneur, I think it is inevitable that we naturally get excited by the social ideas. Things like Twitter and Facebook have taken off big time, and occupy the media and our attention much more than other ideas. We also tend to spend a lot of our time on these kinds of social platforms, and our ideas are likely to come from places we are already familiar with. I think for that reason, it can be quite easy to have these platforms in mind and discover things we'd like to be able to do on them that we can't already. Thus, a new social idea is born.
The problem with social ideas
The problem with social ideas is that often even though they may be solving a problem in a novel and useful way, they almost always have the following traits:
- take longer to validate that the problem is something people want
- product/service is not as useful when there are fewer users (network effect)
- revenue usually comes after some kind of "tipping point" which is hard to specify
I was recently reading some great new research with data gathered from 650 startups in the Startup Genome Report, and they have some data which seems to confirm these problems. In the following snippet, "The Social Transformer" is their phrase for social ideas, and "The Automizer" is how they describe "tools":
Type 1N - The Social Transformer
- need 50% longer than Type 1 (The Automizer) and Type 2 (The Integrator) to reach scale stage
- need more capital than Type 1 (The Automizer) and Type 2 (The Integrator)
Why tools are often the better option
When you're working on your first real startup venture, you're often working part-time or even full-time whilst you build your idea on the side. When I had the idea for Buffer six months ago, I was working as a contract web developer for two different clients and as a result I was working five days per week. It is hard to move fast when you have little time, and one of your goals should be to reach a stage where you can work on your idea part-time or full-time.
As a first-time entrepreneur with no track record, if your experience is anything like mine you're going to struggle to raise funding. Therefore, you're going to need to bootstrap your idea on the side. Bootstrapping involves generating revenues early and building on top of them. This is where social ideas give you a real disadvantage. Spencer Fry put it very well:
To bootstrap you typically need a single user to be able to benefit from the service without having to connect with anyone else. Thats Carbonmade. A user can sign up and create their own online portfolio without needing other people in the system to benefit from it.
Avoid the "network effect"
I think that's the key - an idea where a single user can benefit immediately when they sign up. Put simply, "tools". This is the single biggest difference between the idea of OnePage, my previous startup, and the idea of Buffer. OnePage, with its network effects, constrained me to working part-time for a full year and a half whilst building (little) traction, whereas Buffer, which was useful for people and had payment options from day 1, allowed me to quit my contract work completely within 5 months.
Whilst I think social ideas can be great, my point here is that if you're starting out and want to be working on your idea full-time in the near future, you are much more likely to achieve that goal by building a tool which people find immediately useful.
Photo credit: Kate Gardiner


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Toronto-area house hunters took a vacation from open houses and bidding wars in June after an earlier than usual buying spree in April and May.
Home sales declined 5.4 per cent across the GTA last month, lead by a 13 per cent downturn in sales in the City of Toronto over June of 2011, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB.)
The biggest sales decline was in the resale condo sector. Sales dipped 20 per cent in the 905 regions and 18 per cent in the City of Toronto in June over a year earlier.
But all of that was a far cry from the 28 per cent drop in home sales in Vancouver reported this week, the biggest decline in a decade in what has long been Canada's hottest real estate market.
All eyes are now on Toronto which is bound to be further impacted by tighter new mortgage lending rules, set to kick in July 9, which were imposed by Ottawa in a deliberate effort to cool what many believe has been an overheated market.
But even last month's breather in buying had virtually no impact on prices: The average GTA home sold for $508,622, up 7.3 per cent from June of 2011.
That means in the last year alone, the average price of a home in the 905 regions has increased from $448,579 to $481,512, while a house in the City of Toronto has jumped from $511,591 to $554,077, according to the TREB numbers.
"Right now market conditions remain tight," with listings continuing to lag demand, said Jason Mercer, senior analyst for TREB, "so we continue to report strong price growth."
The real estate board was quick to blame the disproportionate decline of home sales in Toronto on "the substantial upfront cost associated with the City of Toronto's unfair Land Transfer Tax."
That local tax, which adds about $5,900 in upfront costs on a $508,000 home, doesn't apply to home sales in the 905 regions.
Toronto Star