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Privacy Policy
The city of Marietta respects the privacy of visitors to our site. This privacy policy governs the use and collection of information from you by the city of Marietta ("we" or "us") through your use of this website. This privacy policy does not apply to any information you may provide to us through other means; for example, via mail, email or telephone. Please read this privacy policy carefully so that you understand our online privacy practices. By visiting this website, you agree that your visit, and any dispute over our online privacy practices, is governed by this privacy policy and our visitor agreement. Questions regarding privacy issues should be directed here.
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The city of Marietta reserves the right to change this agreement and policies at will, with or without advance notification to website users. This agreement and policies, and any subsequent changes or additions, will be posted on the city of Marietta's website at all times.


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Regardless of what you may think of Facebook as a platform, they run a massive operation, and when you reach their level of scale you have to get more creative in how you handle every aspect of your computing environment.
Engineers quickly reach the limits of human ability to track information, to the point that checking logs and analytics becomes impractical and unwieldy on a system running thousands of services. This is a perfect scenario to implement machine learning, and that is precisely what Facebook has done.
The company published a blog post today about a self-tuning system they have dubbed Spiral. This is pretty nifty, and what it does is essentially flip the idea of system tuning on its head. Instead of looking at some data and coding what you want the system to do, you teach the system the right way to do it and it does it for you, using the massive stream of data to continually teach the machine learning models how to push the systems to be ever better.
In the blog post, the Spiral team described it this way: "Instead of looking at charts and logs produced by the system to verify correct and efficient operation, engineers now express what it means for a system to operate correctly and efficiently in code. Today, rather than specify how to compute correct responses to requests, our engineers encode the means of providing feedback to a self-tuning system."
They say that coding in this way is akin to declarative code, like using SQL statements to tell the database what you want it to do with the data, but the act of applying that concept to systems is not a simple matter.
"Spiral uses machine learning to create data-driven and reactive heuristics for resource-constrained real-time services. The system allows for much faster development and hands-free maintenance of those services, compared with the hand-coded alternative," the Spiral team wrote in the blog post.
If you consider the sheer number of services running on Facebook, and the number of users trying to interact with those services at any given time, it required sophisticated automation, and that is what Spiral is providing.
The system takes the log data and processes it through Spiral, which is connected with just a few lines of code. It then sends commands back to the server based on the declarative coding statements written by the team. To ensure those commands are always being fine-tuned, at the same time, the data gets sent from the server to a model for further adjustment in a lovely virtuous cycle. This process can be applied locally or globally.
The tool was developed by the team operating in Boston, and is only available internally inside Facebook. It took lots of engineering to make it happen, the kind of scope that only Facebook could apply to a problem like this (mostly because Facebook is one of the few companies that would actually have a problem like this).

subset: commoncrawl


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. Agenda item 3.11: Economic valuation of biological diversity
Agenda Item 3.11: Economic valuation of biological diversity
The SBSTTA,Recalling that recommendation I/9 decided that the SBSTTA would consider at its second meeting advice to the Conference of the Parties on the economic valuation of biological diversity and its components, in particular in relation to access to genetic resources,
Recalling also that decision II/11 of the Conference of the Parties requested the Executive Secretary to compile an annotated list of studies and other relevant information on the social and economic valuation of genetic resources, including the demand by industry for genetic resources,
Having examined the Note prepared by the Secretariat (UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/2/13),
Recognizing that a better understanding of the full value of biological diversity at the genetic, species, and ecosystem level will greatly assist Parties in their efforts to implement effective policy and management measures to meet the threefold objectives of the Convention,
Recognizing that information on the economic value of biological diversity and its components is severely deficient, and that methods for providing this information need further development,
Recognizing also that biological diversity and its components provide a wide range of benefits, representing significant use and non-use values. Some of these values are difficult to define fully in terms of economic value. These include intangible, yet critical, socio-cultural values and existence values,
Further recognizing that, while more information on economic values is needed, the lack of this information need not delay the implementation of economically and socially sound incentive measures to sustainably manage biological diversity. In this regard, consideration of incentives having a perverse impact on biological diversity and its components should be regarded as a priority area,
1. That future work should include regular review and syntheses of current information, case studies of economic value, research into appropriate and cost-effective methodologies for determining these values, and means of facilitating access to this information.
2. That economic valuation should be integrated into the sectoral and thematic items under the Medium-Term Programme of Work of the Conference of the Parties, and should be reflected as appropriate in relevant agenda items including, in particular, incentive measures, and also agricultural biodiversity, genetic resources, environmental impact assessments, inland water ecosystems, and marine and coastal biodiversity, taking the ecosystem approach as the primary framework of action to be taken under the Convention.
3. That the Conference of the Parties encourage Parties to draw upon research into the economic valuation of biological diversity produced by, inter alia, regional and economic groupings in order to assist the appropriate development of policy and management measures for conservation and sustainable use;
4. That the Conference of the Parties, in its consideration of Incentive Measures at its third meeting, emphasize the importance of developing well-targeted local level incentives, participatory approaches to the design of new measures, and capacity-building.


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Wondering about Wonder Bread? 'Brand equity is the best thing going for it by a long shot', says analyst
Last week Flowers Foods emerged as the first 'stalking-horse' bidder for assets from bankrupt baker Hostess Brands. The US bakery firm placed a $360m bid for Wonderbread, Nature's Pride, Merita, Home Pride and Butternut bread brands; 20 bakeries; and around 38 depots.
Matthew Hudak, research analyst at Euromonitor International, said that should Flowers Foods' bid go through, Wonder Bread will require the most investment.
"Flowers Foods will need to invest more in turning Wonder Bread around. It really will require more effort – it's not going to happen overnight," Hudak told BakeryandSnacks.com.
Wonder Bread sits as a simple packaged bread among fiber enriched, flaxseed artisanal types that really ring well with current consumer sentiment towards health, he explained.
"Strategy moving forward will have to hinge around brand equity, which is the best thing going for it by a long shot," he said.
The brand should be made culturally significant, positioned as the independent bread of choice, he said, or it could target consumers who used to eat it as a kid.
Talking price points and private label
Hudak said that Wonder Bread, as it is, is not cheap enough to 'beat off' private label and not premium enough to battle in the upper bread segment.
He said that the brand could attempt to target private label consumers though – if it was positioned as an affordable, low-end, healthy bread.
"The idea of appealing to private label consumers could be an interesting direction to take it," he said.
Overseas could work…
The research analyst also flagged international markets as a potential target for the bread brand.
"Wonder Bread has the brand equity of a safe bread to eat – and this safety combined with the convenience of being packaged could appeal to international developing markets," Hudak said.
"Flowers Foods is a pretty sharp company. They're in the bread market and know that market. I would think they would have some idea on how to take on the brand," he said.


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A FAKE contract scam using the identity of Swindon Wildcats head coach Ryan Aldridge has spread to Las Vegas, where pro Connor Haney has been targeted.
A con artist has been using Ryan's name and offering fake contracts to players around the world in return for cash.
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau is investigating the claims made by Ryan, who reported the offences involving more than 15 players last week.
Connor, 22, played professional ice hockey in the Czech Republic last year, but as a free agent this summer, was looking for a new club when he was approached by a supposed agent.
His mother, Lori Orchow Haney, 49, was dealing with the scammer on behalf of her son.
"My son got an email from an agent telling us about this British team looking for players," she said.
"I then saw a post also on a hockey site called europlayers.com "We sent an e-mail looking for information. The next morning we got a scam warning letter from the site and I was angry because I assumed they checked the legitimacy of teams.
"I sent an email to the team e-mail and that went unanswered. The next day I noticed I had a new follower on Twitter named Ryan Aldridge.
"When I looked at the icon picture I noticed it was a picture of the NFL Kansas City Chiefs head coach, which clearly was a red flag.
"I read the five tweets and they all were trying to get players. So I did some sleuthing and found the real Ryan's Twitter account and contacted him."
The conman puts out notices across the ice hockey message boards, with pleas for players to contact him on a fake e-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Once a dialogue has been started a payment of £710 is requested in order to process a work permit for players, who, in the main, live in the European Union.
Offers of two-year deals went out to players in North America and Eastern Europe, on salaries of £3,000 a month.
The experience has made Lori think twice before giving her son's personal information to prospective teams in future before doing her research.
"My first thought was someone really disliked Ryan or the team itself, but maybe it's one of those annoying Nigerian prince type of scams," she said.
"It's made us take a hard look at all info before ever sending out a resume again. I hope they find out who did this."
Ryan is confident the scam has not left any dent on the reputation of the Wildcats and he does not expect to encounter any problems with recruiting players for real, as a result.
"Hockey's a small world. We are known, especially in the UK, as a team to look after players," he said.
"A lot of people will know it's a scam and nothing to do with us."
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Entitled Orizzonti 1961-1978, the Retrospective at the 68th Venice International Film Festival 2011 will be dedicated to Italian experimental cinema from the Sixties and Seventies, creating an ideal bond this year with one of the strongest signals of change in the recent editions of the Venice Film Festival: the reformulation of the Orizzonti section.
The 68th Venice Film Festival will take place on the Lido from 31 August to 10 September 2011, directed by Marco Mueller and organized by the Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta.
Curated by Enrico Magrelli, Domenico Monetti and Luca Pallanch, the retrospective Orizzonti 1961-1978 has been co-produced by the Biennale with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale, the agency responsible for the promotion and preservation of the Italian film heritage, with the support of the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Once again this year, the collaboration with the Cineteca Nazionale is being renewed to discover forgotten Italian cinema, in an ideal link with the retrospectives successfully presented in Venice in recent years, from the Italian Kings of the B's – The Secret History of Italian Cinema (2004) to Italian Comedy- The State of Things (2010).
"This year's retrospective," declared Director Marco Mueller, "anchored in the Orizzonti section and its idea of open, fluid cinema that questions its nature as a linguistic device, as a technique that can fathom and stimulate reality, and as an art form that wishes to engage, with abundant sang-froid, in a dialogue with other art forms, is a contribution to the historic reconstruction of a contemporary outlook."
New realities are coming into focus on the movie horizon, and they often escape classification: from the (in)finite duration of Die Kinder von Golzow (The Children of Golzow) to the fleeting fragments "stolen" from Youtube or MySpace. In this scenario of increasingly fluid images, thanks to the digital technology now available to everyone, the Orizzonti section (in its latest incarnation) has chosen to bring together a wide diversity of outlooks and styles, in works that innovate on traditional celluloid and electronic-digital experimentations.
Such a rich and seething present needed to build its memory and to virtually suggest a past, as well as create new intersections between the old and the new with a focused program of retrospectives. Yesterday, like today, these are works that refuse to be pigeon-holed within a particular aesthetic field, because they are too transversal or eccentric, thus eschewing any specific labels of origin.
A possible center of gravity for this memory "for Orizzonti" could be the landmark film Anna by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, restored for the occasion. One of the first movies to be filmed in video before being processed on a film recorder, and transferred from magnetic tape onto film, Anna, which was presented in Venice in 1975, emblematically ended a season in which politics and aesthetics were inextricably bound together. The film corresponded to existential defeat, to the inability to change the course of events, in this case the life of the pregnant underage girl, Anna.
If Anna was a point of arrival, and simultaneously a pioneering consideration from a technical point of view (because the video made it possible to immediately view all the material that had been filmed), the short films by Romano Scavolini and Mario Schifano were the seminal terrain in which these authors-artists would nurture the techniques and poetics for their future feature-length films. The former, by experimenting with images that he interweaves with photographs, illustrations, animation art, using multiple exposure, or changing from positive to negative, relying on rapid editing with a frequent use of panning to describe themes and obsessions that are important to him: the painful memory of the war, solitude, the relationship between man and woman. The latter, by creating what amount to filmed diaries, with a total freedom of outlook, with the same compulsion that drove him to continuously photograph the people around him, to transform reality into spatial hypotheses that would become "painting". This is experimental cinema that meets familiar, domestic cinema, that annuls language and this annulment has the same value as the monochrome in Schifano's paintings, and then captures unexpected gestures and expressions with the camera.
The familiar horizons, where the weight of history and the suggestions of art break through to disrupt the equilibrium, are also explored and redefined by Nato Frascà, a painter (and founder of Gruppo 1 in the early Sixties), production designer, director. More than experimental cinema, his was a cinema of experimentation in which the artist transforms the film into a kind of magma, and the echoes of the Sixties (Kappa) and Seventies (Soglie) bubble up, filtered through an intimate personal interpretation.
The adventures of one of the most innovative art groups formed around 1968, Laboratorio '70, later known as the Gruppo di via Brunetti, which included Marcello Grottesi, Paolo Matteucci and Gianfranco Notargiacomo and for a short time the brilliant Gino De Dominicis, were immortalized by the photographer and documentary filmmaker Mario Carbone in Zoomm, Track!: the guillotine transported into Piazza del Popolo to the sound of a drum rolls: the revolution has come; with their hair dyed red riding on a tridem (a three-seat tandem bicycle), a feat narrated by Pasquale Squitieri on the pages of "Paese Sera": "In Tridem a colori"; aniline red poured into the fountain of Piazza del Popolo (a gesture that has recently been imitated).
The documentary has often been an ideal form for breaking free of a functional narrative grid. Il respiro and The City are two excellent examples in which documentary filmmaker Axel Rupp willingly foregoes the voice of a narrator and uses images alone to describe sounds, faces and bodies at the Stazione Termini in Rome or in the City of London, years ahead of the visual suggestions of Godfrey Reggio's cinema.
Another artist devoid of formats and aesthetics was Paolo Brunatto, who recently passed away and to whom the Biennale pays tribute with his Vieni, dolce morte…, an authentic example of expanded film, a film not just made to be seen, but to be experienced as a mystic collective happening. But eccentricity is transversal and extends beyond the usual "experimental" cinema – which is often courageous in defending an art (and film) history that must be considered intact – to become an authentic free port of underground creativity. Augusto Tretti is certainly one of the most singular filmmakers in the history of Italian cinema (and not only), thanks to two "unclassifiable" feature-length films with a rocky production and distribution history (La legge della tromba and Il potere [Power]). Using Brecht's method in an original way, Tretti dismantled the rituals and stereotypes of film (the conventional acting and formal structures of mainstream films – the gorgeous photography, luxury and opulence) to achieve the most surprising productions in terms of aesthetics and substance.
Even at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, there were many instances of borderline works, conceived perhaps during the restless years of protest. Such as the interesting essays for the diploma In punto di morte by Mario Garriba and Sul davanti fioriva una magnolia by Paolo Breccia. Filmed in just 15 days, with a budget totaling 7,819,000 lire, In punto di morte is a precursor of Nanni Moretti's films (Io sono un autarchico, Ecce Bombo…), highlighting the "golden dreams" of a young man from the middle class (starring Fabio Garriba, the director's twin brother) who refuses to grow up, deriding and criticizing everyone (his mother, his friends, his girlfriend). Beautifully shot by Renato Berta, the film won the Golden Leopard as best debut film at the Festival in Locarno. A twist of fate: director Mario Garriba would participate as an actor in Sogni d'Oro and Bianca, both directed by Nanni Moretti.
Sul davanti fioriva una magnolia, strongly supported by Roberto Rossellini who provided three thousand meters of film for the young director, was presented at the Venice International Film Festival and was universally applauded, especially by Bernardo Bertolucci. But despite the many positive critical reviews ("memorable maudit out-of-season fruit, the most limpid of hermetic films, the most optimistic of apocalyptic films, the most literary of didactic films"), the film was never released in the theatres. This is a shame because not only is it an extraordinary film-essay reminiscent of Godard, Straub and Bertolucci in Prima della Rivoluzione, it also features a very special actor: future director Peter Del Monte.
Three films in this retrospective create a "Carmelo Bene space": Bis, Il canto d'amore di Alfred Prufrock, Hermitage. Bis by Paolo Brunatto was filmed in Maria Monti's apartment in Vicolo del Cinque in Trastevere (where the Living Theatre also spent time), Brunatto with Marco Masini filmed Carmelo Bene rehearsing before the first act of the play Il Rosa e il nero, inspired by Lewis, which went on stage shortly thereafter at the Teatro delle Muse. In the film Bussotti, Braibanti, Gelmetti and the singer-songwriter Silvano Spadaccino all make an appearance to analyze Bene's theatre. This is a perfect example of irregular documentary because, as in the earlier Un'ora prima di Amleto, Bene does not answer Brunatto's questions. And Brunatto himself can do no more than capture shreds of answers on camera, but out of synch with the images.
Il canto d'amore di Alfred Prufrock is Nico D'Alessandria's essay for the diploma at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. This extremely ambitious work is sustained by the genius (purely verbal) of Carmelo Bene (voice of the narrator) and Luciano Berio (who wrote the soundtrack). The rest is by Nico D'Alessandria, the loose cannon of Italian cinema, who probably made the most interesting debut film in the Eighties, L'imperatore di Roma, followed by the intense L'amico immaginario and the unsuccessful Regina Coeli, shot many years after the screenplay was written. A rather marginal author, who slipped away from Italian cinema as it turned to other narrative and performing dimensions, who acted for his own film, at the service of a painful text by T.S.Eliot, read, interpreted and manipulated by the voice of Bene, with accents that anticipate those of Volonté in Indagine di un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) and is well matched to the sound distortions produced by Berio.
Hermitage is a short film directed by Carmelo Bene that borrows its title from the hotel in which it was filmed (suite 805 of the Hotel Hermitage). Bene's talent shines with all its greatness in this unclassifiable object, 24 minutes of cinema/anticinema/metacinema, with constant references to himself, to history, to earlier and later stories, to the disparate conscience of a man/actor who puts his entire destructive culture at stake and gets lost within it. Yesterday like today. Get a ten in history to make his mother happy, or kill his mother to make history happy…
The programme will present
- ANNA (1972-1975, 225') by Alberto Grifi
- IL POTERE (1972, 83') by Augusto Tretti
- IN PUNTO DI MORTE (1971, 57') by Mario Garriba – I PARENTI TUTTI by Fabio Garriba (1967, 19'21'') – VOCE DEL VERBO MORIRE (1970, 16'37'') by Mario Garriba
- SUL DAVANTI FIORIVA UNA MAGNOLIA (1968, 111') by Paolo Breccia
- LA QUIETA FEBBRE (1964, 10'10'') – DIARIO BEAT (1967, 11') – ATTACCO (Zen-Shin) (1970, 11') – LSD (1968-1970) by Romano Scavolini
- REFLEX (1964, 8') – FERRERI (1966-1969, 12') – SOUVENIR (1967, 11') – FILM (1967, 15') – FOTOGRAFO (1966-1969, 2'32'') – VIETNAM (1967, 7') by Mario Schifano
- VIENI DOLCE MORTE (1967-1968, 50') – BIS (1966, 20'26'') by Paolo Brunatto
- HERMITAGE (1967, 26') by Carmelo Bene
- IL CANTO D'AMORE DI ALFRED PRUFROCK by Nico D'Alessandria (1967, 20')
- IL RESPIRO (1964, 8') – THE CITY (1961, 8') di Axel Rupp
- ZOOMM, TRACK! (1968, 9'50'') by Mario Carbone
- KAPPA (1965-1966, 47') – SOGLIE (1978, 11') by Nato Frascà
Events in the Retrospective
- IL VETTURALE DEL SAN GOTTARDO (1942, 83') by Ivo Illuminati
- L'ACCADEMIA MUSICALE CHIGIANA (9'20'') by Vittorio Vassarotti and Franco Mannini (sets and costumes by Franco Zeffirelli)


text: On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 6:10 AM, John Hearns <hearnsj at googlemail.com> wrote: > I do agree with you that there are situations where you transfer the > data to faster storage before running on it - > I am thinking on one particular case right now! > I Also agree with you that you then have the danger of 'squirreling > away' copies on the fast storage, and forgetting why they are there. > The systems administrator must put in place strong policies on this - > leave your data on the fast storage, it gets deleted after N weeks. Do you find such a policy hard to enforce with researchers? I don't have tiered storage today, but in the future i can see a need to have a storage pool with SATA and a storage pool with SAS or faster drives in it. Some of the researchers where I am, work on data for months. Is this something better solved with pre/post-amble copies or through policies?


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"Making up quotes and claiming them as my own? Wouldn't dream of it!"
Fake is a word in the English language that, when directed at any entity, indicates that entity is a cheap, poorly manufactured, or blatant ripoff of something else. Faking is usually done by pathological liars, the government, and women. It is also known as the only way to get people to do what you want them to do.
Professional fakers study with a Zen master for ten years to receive a Master of Business Administration degree. At the end of this period of study, they realize they can just tell people they've finished the degree without actually having done it.
The Science of Fakes
Fakes have a life cycle: imitation → bastardization → misrepresentation → stolen trade secret → copyright infringement → fake → lawsuit, and finally - statistics. Statistics are in turn stolen by pundits and the media to create new fakes.
The advent of quantum physics has changed the modern perception of fake formation. Karl Marx, in his landmark book The Evolution of Physics, asserts:
"A lie is a statement based on a logical discrepancy, which draws energy from its surroundings with the relationship
where E is the energy, m*g is the weight of the lie, and q is the probability that you are not in a movie (q = 1 - probability you are in a movie). As this simple relationship shows, I totally just pulled all of that out of my ass. Or did I?"
However, commonly used basic measure unit describing the amount of fake retained by a given object is Photoshops or Ps.
The book also predicted the existence of a new type of fake, the hoax, which is used to confuse people in order to control them. An example of a hoax is:
" | The following statement is true. The previous statement is false, and I took pictures of a UFO I saw when I went camping last weekend. | " |
See also
- Pander
- Flip-flops
- Truth
- Dr. Phil
- Bill Clinton
- George W. Bush
- Pathological Liars
- Liar Liar
- Fake announcer voice
- Education


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In Resonance of Fate, you can get colored hexes primarily as a drop from human enemies or as a bonus prize after specific overworld battles. Once you figure out where to get each drop, it becomes not too difficult to harvest them... until you advance the plot. In later chapters, enemies in battles are replaced by much more powerful encounters, which not only replaces the drops of the enemies themselves but also affects that bonus prize in overworld battles. This makes it much harder to get some of the earlier hexes when you're approaching the late game.
My question is, what are the most efficient ways to harvest the different colored energy hexes throughout the game? Ideally, I'd like to know not just where they are best found, but during what chapters I can use those sources and what alternatives are available after those points.
In particular, the purple energy hex in the diamond shape seems to be almost completely absent at the stage of the game we're at. It is only ever dropped by a single normal enemy (the Outcast STG in the Hughes Power Station), which does still occasionally spawn but is more often replaced by the more annoying Mask Raiders who do not drop purples. Unless we somehow skipped over it, we also have not found any Arena battle that drops purple hexes. And all of the encounters where they used to be dropped (primarily on Level 6) have been replaced with more difficult battles that prefer to give greens instead.


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Bratty Boo, I love you!
7:22 PMSo recently for work I was researching reusable bags. Although I won't be so bold to say I'm a lean mean greenie, but I do recycle and hate waste. The idea of reusable bags really appeals to me, and my husband and I use them for our groceries regularly (and use old plastic bags for trash too). As a whole, I would say that the design for reusable bags have gotten better but still not super fashionable or something I'd want to carry around on a whim. This is until I came across Bratty Boo.
OMG isn't this thing hilarious? There are many manifestations of "The Boo Dog" including this main one, Goth Boo, Bebe Boo, and my personal favorite, Bratty Boo.
Now I don't condone smoking at all but how ridiculously awesome is Goth Boo in her fishnet tights and dark undereye circles? And I just think Bratty Boo is perfect with her pearl necklace and grumpy expression. What better way to carry my tools around for my makeup jobs?!!!
Here is the bag I got, the Dual Handle Canvas Bag with Bratty Boo.
It's very, very spacious. 12"x12"x8" and has a nice pocket to fit my cell phone, wallet, combs, lashes, whatever extras I need. I can fit my whole small train case inside as well as a towel and there's still room on the sides for a hairspray and water bottle. There's a hard plastic panel at the bottom too, so it's very sturdy.
Here you can see both the long and short handles. Comes in handy depending on how much stuff I am carrying!
And a close-up of Bratty Boo herself. LOL. I love it so much.
The dual handle bag sells on http://theboodog.com/ for $20 and there are other styles of 100% eco-friendly bags to choose from including a canvas bag for $15 or even a set-of-2 onesies for $10.
"The Destroyer" onesies XD
Seriously, I'm not even kidding, I love this bag so much. I e-mailed her right away and I was like PLEASE SEND ME THIS RIGHT NOW AND FREE STICKERS PLEASE!!! Did I mention she gives away free stickers of boo on her site? 'Chyeah. Totally awesome. It even had a bone-shaped paper clip. I may or may not have squealed when I saw it.
Here's me carrying the bag. You must note that I am only a stitch above 4'10" so it looks huge on me but it has made my makeup jobs so much easier!
And here was my outfit that day. I am probably equally as obsessed with this BB Dakota cotton blazer as I am with my Bratty Boo bag.
Blazer - BB Dakota, t-shirt & skirt - Forever 21, Boots - Minnetonka
I was going for a really "no makeup" look that day so I decided to just use eyeliner, mascara, and Wonder Eyelid Tape. This is a double-stick tape that looks very natural but I'll go more in-depth into that for a future post. :)
Close-up of the eye. Urban Decay 24/7 pencils in Zero for upper lash line and Lucky for the outer half of the lower lash line. Covergirl Lash Exact Waterproof mascara.
Alright, that's all I got. Please check out http://theboodog.com because, well, I just love sharing a great find. (I almost wanted to keep this as my little secret, haha! But that would be selfish of me. :P)
Peace out, girlscouts!
18 comments
that bag is oh-so cute!! <3 Boo! haha xD i've been away from reading blogs and blogging for so long! :( i miss you, Jen! trying catch up with your blog whenever i have time! you are SOO GORGEOUS!! I swear, you get more and more beautiful with every new post! <33 I hope you've been well! Are you a makeup artist now?
<3 carolinethe little dogs are so cute! i love how they're recycled too. i looovee the boots, they're too adorablee.
the no makeup look is soo pretty, i look terrible without makeup >__>Cute bags! Our university always promotes eco bags.. so I've got TONS of them.. but NONE as cute as yours!! Also, Wonder Eyelid tape is wonderful! I used to use it, and it helped me get permanent double eyelids in just one pack =)
ReplyDeleteSo cute! Thanks for sharing! I'm obsessed with eco bags myself. For some reason, I keep buying target eco bags. hahahaha.
ReplyDelete- AnonymousSeptember 23, 2009 at 11:33 PM
you're so pretty and i LOVE your blog! thanks for posting :)
ReplyDelete Sweetie thank you for this post! I'm surely ordering one now. I don't care, I want one! For grocery and all the make up stuff I bring with me!
Thaaank you!- AnonymousSeptember 24, 2009 at 7:58 AM
im one of your readers, I love how your so different from other beauty bloggers, you always have something new and different to share =]
ReplyDelete Caroline :]: Aw, it's glad to have you back! I read your blog entry and honestly, it sounds like your internship is a blessing even though it's been so consuming and tiring. My job is tiring too since I have to drive an hour just to get there everyday (2 hours of driving everyday takes its toll) so I understand a bit of what you are going through. Maybe you can get a netbook so you can use the wi-fi internet at borders. :) And yes, I've been doing makeup artistry on the weekends. I just did a huge wedding last Saturday and it went really well! Thanks so much for your support, babe!
Lily: Hahaha! I feel weird without makeup too. That's why it's a "no makeup look," not actually not wearing makeup. A little bit never hurts. ;)
Lisa: Wow, that's so fast. They do give me semi-permanent lids more often than not. You have to tell me where you bought your tapes. You don't sell them, do you?
rae630: I have the target one too! I might have two target ones cause my husband really likes them for some reason. :P
Shopn'Chomp: Thank you so much! I know, the bag is just too cute!
Anonymous 1: Thank you!
Tamara: Yay! You won't be disappointed, it's really good quality! :D
Anonymous 2: Oh man, that really means a lot to me. I just try to write about things that interest me in a down-to-earth way, so if that comes across at all, I am totally happy about it. Thank you so much. :)Jen, I actually ordered them about a year or so ago directly from Japan..
Their website... seems to not exist anymore -_-. I'm going to email the contact that I have in the company, and get back to you on pricing, etc, because I want more! I bought it for about $12 a pack of 50 pairs. I don't sell them because they were kinda hard to get my hands on. I'll give you her contact info if she responds back to me!- StephanieSeptember 24, 2009 at 3:47 PM
Hey Jen! Do you use the wonder eyelid tape for extra double eyelid or just the natural?
ReplyDelete reusable bags and recycling is always a start, but if you really want to cut your consumption and carbon footprint, you might want to take a look at this:
cheers.that is sooo cute!
by the way, I read your blog for the past few months, and I wanted to introduce you to my newly opened one :)
http://maxyourlifebyronnie.blogspot.com/Stephanie: Sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean! I only get one type of double eyelid with it, and it looks pretty natural? Just like in that photo. But I'll go more into details about it in an upcoming blog entry. :)
ReplyDeleteone word. CUTE! these are great especially now when you go shopping and you have to fork out money to get a bag :S. Might as well use one that's pretty neh?


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Show All Answers
P.A. Crimson Fire Risk Services is located at 920 N. Ridge, Unit C-7 in Lombard. Their phone number is 630-424-3400.
Lombard Pharmacy is located at 805 S Main Street. Their phone number is 630-495-2333.
If you have a group that would like to tour either of the fire stations, call the Fire Department's Administrative Office at 630-620-5736 during regular business hours. A time will be set up for your group to tour either of the fire stations. If you and your family are in the area and would like to stop in, please do so. The firefighters will be glad to show you around.
Speakers will make presentations to any group in the Village upon request. The Fire Department will try to accommodate your subject matter or provide one of its own. Schedule a speaker by calling the Fire Department's Administrative Office during business hours at 630-620-5736.
The Fire Department will come to block parties if the on-duty companies are available. There is a chance they will be late, have to leave early or not arrive at all depending on the amount of emergency calls received.
Use an A-B-C extinguisher anywhere in your home. Class "A" is for ordinary combustible materials (wood, paper, and most plastics). Class "B" fires involve flammable or combustible liquids (grease, oil, kerosene or gasoline). Class "C" fires involve electrical equipment such as appliances, wiring, circuit breakers and outlets. An A-B-C extinguisher will cover all possibilities. These can be purchased at local hardware stores.
Cooking fires are the number one cause of fires in the home. Stay alert and keep a fire extinguisher close by when cooking and grilling.


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Music is among the most primitive forms of entertainment and self-expression, with the oldest confirmed musical instrument – a bone flute – dating back at least 35,000 years, and it's believed the human voice, hand clapping and other bodily-derived noises were used to produce rhythmic melodies long before then. Fast forward to the present day and we have instant access to millions of songs spanning thousands of genres and sub-genres containing everything from blue dudes wailing on PVC pipes to CGI pop stars (for better or for worse).
With the advent of smartphones and streaming services like Spotify and YouTube it's never been easier to drown out a boring conference with your preferred tunes. With that, we want to ask: what's your favorite music and how do you access it? Feel free to share your favorite genres, artists and songs (links must be legal). I can't say I have a particularly favorite genre, though I tend to favor music without vocals – anything from classical to electronic. That said, I've probably listened to Pink Floyd's "Animals" album more than anything else in my collection.


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Kid Rock Sends Message to Burglars After Home Invasion: 'I Would Not Hesitate to Shoot'
On Wednesday (July 31), Kid Rock's home in Michigan was burglarized, and the sometimes country singer had no problem publicly dishing out the surveillance photos -- and a serious warning to any would-be burglars.
Thanks to Rock's security system, it was relatively easy to see the man, who rammed the driveway gate open with a white van and was shown walking on crutches on the rocker's property, according to Loudwire. Although the suspect tried to gain entry into the home, he was not successful.
He also wasn't successful in getting away with the criminal act, because after Rock's home was invaded, the 'Rebel Soul' singer took to the internet, posting a blog on his website titled 'Don't Mess With a Mother Fu-- Like Me.'
In the blog post, Rock gave a detailed description of the trespasser. "Suspect wanted for trespassing, destruction of property and attempted home invasion in Clarkston, MI. Please help the Oakland County Sheriff identify and capture this man," the statement reads. "White male. Late 40's - early 50's. Receding hairline. Mustache. Sideburns. Smoker. May have crutches. Last seen in the area of M-15 (Ortonville Rd) and Hubbard (just north of I-75) Wednesday afternoon, July 31, 2013 around 4:15pm."
Rock added pointedly, "Thank God I was not on the property at the time of this attempted break in. I am an avid hunter and marksman and I will not hesitate to shoot anyone who has myself or family in fear for our lives. I take the invasion of my personal space very seriously regardless of who you are and YES, I do profile people. I am currently profiling any balding white male on crutches driving a white creeper van. Please contact the Oakland County Sheriff Tip Line at 1.800.773.2587 with any information on this jacka--. I am offering a $5K reward for any information leading to his arrest."
Rock's plea for help worked -- the police found the man and arrested him on Saturday (August 3) after the blog was posted and two people revealed the criminal's identity to authorities, according to the New York Daily News. The suspect is being held at a county jail and is likely to be arraigned Monday (August 5).
Hopefully, with Rock's very clear message, he won't have to deal with this again. The singer is currently on his $20 Best Night Ever Tour, which gives fans a fantastic show, discounted food and beverage prices, and free coffee. Although he's generous to his fans, Rock is not generous with his home goods -- and for good reason.


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In my last article, we talked about developing a strategic plan, and what it can do for your business. In this article, we want to switch gears and talk about setting both personal and business goals. Have you ever given goal setting much thought? We've all heard that you should write your goals down and look at them every day a couple of times a day so that you can focus on making them happen.
Have you set both personal and business goals? Is there really a need to have a goal or goals? Does writing your goals down really help make them happen? Should goals be long term or short term? What's necessary to have a goal? What else should you know about setting goals? Are there any secrets that you should know?
Goals need to be audacious! Don't set wimpy, safe, little goals because they don't excite anybody. If you are old enough to remember September 12, 1962, (if not, you've heard the speech) you no doubt will remember, President John F. Kennedy's speech at Rice University in Houston, TX. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." In 1962 we put a man in orbit. Our rockets had improved and weren't in danger of blowing up on the launch pad. Can you imagine a more audacious goal at the time? Could we even do it again now, or go to Mars?
Do your goals excite you? You must aim for the stars. Your goals must force you out of your comfort zone to achieve them, and they must make people question your sanity. In the 60's the thought of going to the moon was crazy. What would you like to do that is a big stretch from where you are now to where you want to be in a year or two? Secret number one, make your goals big, outrageous and audacious!
One of my goals is to write a book. I'm writing a book titled "Navigating the Maze: Secrets to Succeeding in Business without Breaking Your Budget." My book's ISBN number is 978-1-935586-85-2 and its Library of Congress control number is 2012906847 and it is going to happen. I have a publisher and the book is due out this summer. I am working my way through my first goal – "to write a book." My second goal is to sell 30,000 books the first year and become a bestselling author. My third goal is to book four speaking engagements per month and to sell my consulting services across the U.S. and Canada. Of course, there's the money part in all of this too. You need money to live on and you might as well do something that you enjoy while you are making it. What gets you excited; what makes your juices flow; what do you want to accomplish that will make you stretch and grow to achieve your goals?
The next part of goal setting is the "how" part of the equation. How are you going to make your goals happen? How am I going to sell 30,000 books? That's the amazing thing about your mind; once you give it a task it begins to work on the problem. When I first set that goal I didn't have a clue how to do it, but now I'm starting to have people approach me saying, "My organization has a bookstore, or suggested reading list, would you like me to have it list your book when it's printed." Of course! Yes! Great! How many doors will open for you, once you set your goals and you start working towards them? Let the power of your mind work for you to help you bring your goals to fruition. Secret number two, use the power of your mind to show you how to achieve your goal.
President Kennedy didn't keep his goal of going to the moon by the end of the decade to himself, he told the world! That was an audacious move. Next he had to get congress to appropriate the money to fund the endeavor with the world watching to see if America would fail or succeed. Share your goals publicly and be brave. The Yankees were playing St. Louis in the 1926 World Series when Babe Ruth received word of a seriously ill 11-year-old boy, named Johnny Sylvester, who was a big Yankee's fan. Babe Ruth tells Johnny that he would hit a home run for him in the fourth game of the Series, a series where he hasn't hit any home runs to that point. During the fourth game, he hits three home runs. Follow their lead and tell the world what you intend to do. The world will take note and hold you accountable. Allowing others to hold you accountable, forces you to perform. Secret number three, tell the world your goals and let it hold you accountable.
Put a date on your goals, you need to know when you are going to reach your goal. President Kennedy, set the date as December 31, 1969, the end of the decade. America landed a man on the moon, July 11, 1969, meeting the goal set by the late President John F. Kennedy. What would have happened, if President Kennedy had just said we want to go to the moon, but never set a date? Would we have ever achieved his goal? What would have happened if Babe Ruth didn't specify the fourth game of the World Series to hit his home run for little Johnny Sylvester? The date makes it real. It gives your mind an endpoint on the timeline, and it creates a sense of urgency. Secret number four, set a date, and you create a sense of urgency.
Finally, write your goals down and review them regularly. Let your eyes imprint your words on your brain so your mind can see your goals and make them reality. The process of writing your goals down on paper, or typing them into your computer, involves your whole person, mind, body, and soul. Secret number five, write down your goals and carry them wherever you go. When you have a spare moment, take them out, read them, commit them to memory, and open yourself to possibilities to achieve your goals.
My website contains links to all the marketing articles I've written for the HVAC-Talk Newsletter. If you want your marketing efforts pay big dividends, contact a marketing professional. I'm available to assist you in all of your marketing efforts. If you need a branding consultation, a complete strategic marketing plan, help with marketing strategy, or management services, call or send an email to discuss your needs.
Andy Fracica is president and CEO of Fracica Enterprises, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in marketing, PR, social media, and lead generation strategy. He has over 30 years of sales, marketing, and product management experience in the heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) industry. He concentrates on helping companies deliver their message in an ever increasingly crowded market by teaching businesses to do more with less ($). Contact him at 260-338-4554, [email protected] or visit the Fracica Enterprises, Inc. website.


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Free shipping on orders over $75. Use code buy4get1 to get 1 JTC nappy free when you purchase 4.
The Nighty Nite AIO is our version of an overnight nappy, they are very soft and absorbent and easy to reuse. One of our favourite features is that they are super easy to adjust so you can fit them perfectly to your babies size. They come with a bamboo & hemp tri-fold and booster which can easily be removed, washed and clipped on again.
Some of the best features include:
**Disclaimer** Photo is of the Junior Flex nappy to show print


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Life in the NFL isn't about fair. Mike Mularkey learned that Thursday when he was fired by the Jacksonville Jaguars after only one season.
Mularkey was hired by a GM, Gene Smith, who is long gone. Caldwell needs to have the freedom to remake the organization in his image. He always would want his "own" coach hire, so it's better to make a clean break with Mularkey now.
We've seen new GMs hang on to inherited coaches, but it rarely lasts for long. Think Ted Thompson and Mike Sherman together in Green Bay. Think Mike Holmgren wasting a year with Eric Mangini in Cleveland. Think Lovie Smith being fired after a 10-6 season because Chicago Bears GM Phil Emery wanted his own guy.
San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman and St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer are two names mentioned early as potential "Caldwell guys."
The Jaguars are a mess. Whoever takes over will inherit one of the most talent-poor rosters in the NFL. Blaine Gabbert will have his third head coach in as many seasons; he'll have to battle for playing time. Chad Henne is under contract next year. The team's long-term answer at quarterback is not on the roster. Mularkey didn't show anything to make his bosses believe he could turn around a lousy squad.
Mularkey probably knows he's not going to get another bite at the NFL head-coaching apple. He walked away from a head-coaching job in Buffalo in odd circumstances after two seasons, then lasted only one year in Jacksonville. He should land on his feet as a coordinator somewhere, and he is regarded as a very good man in the business.
It's just a brutal business. The Jaguars had to make a change.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.


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I do not see anything suspicious on the server (no netstat connections to remote 80 port), but I'm not a professional server admin (I'm a hardcore software developer). Please do not write obvious comments (hire a professional person/company) - we'll consider that after this issue is resolved. Server is running under Windows Server 2008 R2. What tools should I use to analyze this situation?
This is not an exact duplicate of multiple "what should I do if my server is hacked" as I basically need to provide evidence that my server is clean.
Basic security measures were taken since the beginning (windows firewall on, windows update pataches applied, Clamwin up and running).


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Support for anti-obesity program
Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center has donated $1,000 to support Mayor Allen Joines' Childhood Obesity Initiative. The money will be used for community programs aimed at reducing obesity in children through proper nutrition, physical exercise and healthier lifestyles.
"Obesity is our community's number one health concern because it leads to life threatening conditions including diabetes and heart disease," Joines said. "We are grateful for the support we are receiving for this program from community leaders, including Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center and the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation."
Funding by community organizations has supported a number of projects across the community, such as the Garden of Healthy Living recently planted by fourth- and fifth-graders at Petree Elementary School.
Jeff Lindsay, the president of Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center, said, "Promoting healthy lifestyles to help prevent disease is a key mission of our medical center. Through hands-on projects like the Petree community garden, children take home to their parents the lessons they have learned about good nutrition."


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One of the biggest games released for Xbox One so far is Halo 5: Guardians. Halo has been the flagship franchise for Xbox since 2001 when Combat Evolved convinced millions of gamers to buy the original Xbox. Microsoft hopes that the first Xbox One Halo game can give their next-gen console a lift as well.
The new chapter of Halo brings some big changes to the series. However, Microsoft has also included plenty of familiar elements as well so long-time fans will feel at home. Here's everything you need to know about Master Chief's return.
Master Chief
Initial clues about Halo 5's story came from the cinematic trailer from E3 2013. The trailer began with a cloaked figure walking through a desert. An enormous robot rises from the sand and flies into the sky. The cloaked person pulls out a crystal chip on a dog tag and inspects it. The robot opens up its wings, sending out a blast of wind. The wind knocks off the cloaked figure's hood, revealing that it's Master Chief (aka John-117).
Later trailers for Halo 5 revealed that the story has more shades of grey than past games. We learn that Agent Locke and a squad of Spartans are actually hunting him down. That's a big shock, considering he's a hero to all of mankind. What could Master Chief have done to provoke this manhunt?
In one commercial for the game, we see a UNSC representative announce that Master Chief has been killed in action. Is that just propaganda or will we see Chief go through yet another near-death experience? We'll find out in Halo 5. Players take on the role of Master Chief and three Spartan allies in the four player co-op campaign.
Agent Locke
The official box art for Halo 5: Guardians shows an armored figure standing in the desert. A mirror image below him shows Master Chief in the exact same location. Some speculated it could be Spartan Palmer or perhaps even Cortana. Executive producer Josh Holmes said on Twitter that it's a brand-new character, though.
We were then introduced to this character, Agent Jameson Locke, in a live-action series called Halo: Nightfall. In Nightfall, Locke is part of an ONI unit sent to stop a Covenant group from detonating a biological weapon. In the course of the mission his team destroys a part of Installation 04, one of the Halo installations throughout the galaxy.
After the events of Nightfall, Locke receives SPARTAN-IV augmentations. He's then placed in charge of Fireteam Osiris, a squad sent to find Master Chief. Players will control Locke and his Osiris squadmates on this mission for part of Halo 5's campaign.
The data chip Master Chief was clutching in the Halo 5 trailer is probably the storage device that once held Cortana. Cortana, his A.I. companion for the previous Halo games, began to deconstruct in Halo 4 because she was past her seven-year lifespan. She manages to save his life and say goodbye before shutting down for good.
Master Chief is probably keeping her data chip solely as a memento of his long-time friend. Her "death" was one of the most pivotal moments in Halo 4 and the series so it seems unlikely that the development team would reverse it by allowing Chief to resurrect her somehow in Halo 5. Maybe her data chip will prove useful to him in some way in his journey, though.
The giant robot in the trailer isn't something we've seen before in another Halo game. However, its crystalline shape and orange/yellow lights suggest that it's a Promethean construct. Prometheans, warrior-servants of the ancient Forerunner race, were the main enemies in Halo 4.
Though the Prometheans were decimated during Halo 4, it's almost certain we'll see them again. They were the first new group of enemies introduced in the game since Combat Evolved so why discard them so quickly? Even if the Covenant and Flood appear in Halo 5, the Prometheans are different enough from those foes that they won't feel redundant from a gameplay standpoint. Plus, the trailer suggests there are still some Promethean weapons and vehicles we haven't seen yet.
UNSC Infinity
A piece of Halo 5 concept art from January seemed to show the UNSC Infinity hovering above an unknown planet. The Infinity is an experimental warship built from Forerunner and Covenant technology. The world they're visiting doesn't look like the desert Master Chief is trudging through but it could still be the same planet.
The ship's presence in Halo 5 would be no surprise. The crew of the Infinity helped Master Chief on his mission during Halo 4. They were also the subject of a DLC campaign for the game called Spartan Ops. Sarah Palmer, one of the Spartans serving on the ship, was a main character of twin-stick shooter Halo: Spartan Assault. Acting captain Thomas Lasky's time in the academy and his first meeting with Master Chief were chronicled in a live-action series. The Infinity also appeared in two novels and two comic books.
The Infinity and its crew are clearly important to 343 Industries' future plans for Halo. The departure of Cortana makes them even more vital as supporting characters. Wherever Master Chief ends up in Halo 5, you can be sure that the Infinity's going to be there to help him out. Maybe they'll even get their own campaign in this game.
Reclaimer Saga
It makes sense that Halo 5 brings back friends and foes from Halo 4. Before H4's release, Microsoft said that it was the first chapter in a new "Reclaimer Trilogy". Phil Spencer later clarified that the "Reclaimer" story is actually a "saga" rather than a trilogy, so it could be far more than three games.
As the second game in a longer saga, Halo 5 won't have a self-contained story. It's going to create more loose ends than it wraps up. Master Chief's going to be a constant companion for the Xbox One in the years ahead.
60 Frames Per Second
343 Industries general manager Bonnie Ross said at E3 that Halo 5 will "take full advantage of the power and flexibility" of the Xbox One. The Halo Engine will be enhanced by the XB1's cloud-computing servers. Ross added that the game will run at 60 frames-per-second, making it the first console installment in the main series to do so.
Ross re-confirmed the game's framerate in May 2014. She also said that the game features a brand-new engine.
Like Nintendo and Sony, Microsoft uses their first-party games as a showcase for their hardware. They want Halo 5 to demonstrate the capabilities of the Xbox One. A smooth-running, beautiful Halo can go a long way in proving to developers and gamers that Microsoft's new console can go toe-to-toe with the PS4.
Halo 5: Guardians
343 Industries confirmed in May 2014 that the game's full title is Halo 5: Guardians. This wasn't a huge surprise. The first trailer clearly points toward a continuation of Halo 4 storyline. Furthermore, every Halo game starring Master Chief has had a number. The developers have only resorted to subtitles (Halo: ODST, Halo: Reach) when they're telling stories with other characters.
They haven't revealed what the Guardians subtitle means, though. Is it a reference to the Forerunners or Prometheans? Or is it an entirely new faction?
Release Date
Halo 5 officially launched worldwide on October 27th, 2015. You can purchase it in four packages: the standard edition, $90 digital deluxe edition, $100 limited edition or $250 collector's edition. The CE comes with a statue of Locke and Master Chief and bonus story materials in addition to the in-game items from the cheaper packages.
Microsoft also released a bundle with Halo 5 and the Xbox One. The console included with the package features a 1TB hard drive as well as a special paint job. It also plays Halo-themed sounds when you press the power or eject buttons. The Limited Edition extras for Halo 5 is also included.
One of the main components of Halo 5's multiplayer is the Arena. The Arena modes are focused on small teams and include the traditional Team Slayer, Capture the Flag, Strongholds modes along with the new addition Breakout. Breakout pits teams against each other in a best-of-five series of rounds with no respawns.
Arena also supports ranked matchmaking. Players will be pitted against opponents of comparable skill automatically. As they rack up wins, they'll climb through the ranks. The seven-tier ranked system is topped by the Champion rank, composed of the game's 200 best players.
To accommodate Halo 5 players looking for larger battles, the developers included Warzone. In Warzone, two teams of 12 players will face off in expansive maps. The teams must capture strategic points and attempt to destroy the core at their enemy's base. Destroying the core isn't an easy task because the bases are defended by A.I. marines. 343 Industries estimates that these matches could take around 20-24 minutes.
In an added twist, though, they'll also be attacked by a third force composed of A.I. foes. These enemies have to be cleared out of your team's base at the outset of the match. Boss characters will spawn periodically on the map as well. Defeating them will grant your team Victory Points. If one team fails to destroy the other's core, they can still win by having the most Victory Points when time runs out.
Warzone is only available through matchmaking. You won't be able to create custom matches of your own. Furthermore, you can't edit the massive Warzone maps with the game's Forge tools. Speaking of which...
Like past Halo games, Halo 5 includes a Forge so that players can create and share custom maps. However, this latest version of Forge includes various improvements.
Halo 5 players will have over 1600 objects at their disposal for crafting these maps. New object types include invisible blocks, decals and FX emitters. Forge maps can now hold up to 1024 objects so players can make bigger, more detailed maps. They'll look especially pretty in this game, too, thanks to an overhaul of the lighting system.
You can use Forge to edit any Arena map that shipped with Halo 5. 343 also included three canvas maps called Alpine, Glacier and Space that players mold to their liking.
Spartan Abilities
The Armor Abilities from past Halo games have been replaced with Spartan Abilities. These powers are available to all players and don't have cooldowns.
- Thruster Pack: Players get an extra lift to their jumps. It's speedier than the Thruster Pack from past games and keeps the player in first-person.
- Ground Pound: While in the air, players can slam down on the ground below and damage anyone you land on.
- Slide: Sprinting players can use their momentum to slide along the ground.
- Charge: While sprinting, a player can ram into an enemy.
- Sprint: Sprinting can be performed for an unlimited duration but stops the player's health and shield regeneration.
- Smart Scope: Players can zoom in with any weapon for added accuracy. The degree of zoom varies from weapon to weapon, though.
As you can see, these abilities mainly enhance players' abilities to move through the map. On the bright side, this means the multiplayer will have a faster tempo. The downside, though, is that it's going to make enemies a lot harder to hit.
343 Industries plans to release 15 new multiplayer maps for Halo 5 by June 2016. They won't be charging players for these maps.
"When you have paid map packs and content, you divide the player base into two groups: the haves and the have-nots," creative director Josh Holmes told Game Informer. "The people that have the map pack can play together but the people who don't cannot. That to us is a real problem. So we're delivering all the maps to all players free so everybody will be able to play together. That, we feel, is really important to having a great multiplayer ecosystem."
While the developers will be dramatically expanding the multiplayer side of the game, the campaign won't receive any additions. Holmes said in an interview this week that there won't be any campaign DLC. Guess we'll have to wait until Halo 6 to see more of Master Chief and the rest of the Spartans.
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In a couple months, I'll do the Millikan experiment. Then, I'll end up with a number of charge measurements and their errors $$((q_i, \Delta q_i))_{i \in \mathbb N}.$$ The idea is that all those $q_i$ can be represented as a multiple of a fixed elementary charge $e$ like $$q_i = n_i e.$$
Now I do not know $e$ in advance. Is there some method to get $(e, \Delta e)$ out of the sequence of measurements?
I found this question on StackOverflow, but it does not have any answers that solve the problem in a stable way.


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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- ConAgra Foods is combining its North American flour milling business with that of a joint venture of Cargill and CHS Inc. to create a new business that will be called Ardent Mills.
The three companies say the deal announced Tuesday will create a business that will have a broader view of the marketplace and be able to serve their customers better.
Ardent Mills will draw on support from 44 flour mills, three bakery mix facilities and a specialty bakery, all located in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.
ConAgra Mills had about $1.8 billion in sales for fiscal 2012, while the Cargill-CHS joint venture named Horizon Milling had sales of approximately $2.5 billion.
ConAgra Foods Inc. and the privately-held Cargill will each get a 44 percent stake in Ardent Mills while CHS will get the remaining 12 percent.
"Ardent Mills will set the new industry standard by addressing the most important issues facing customers, such as commodity price volatility, increasingly sophisticated food safety requirements, the need for more cost-effective supply chains and growing market demand for more innovation in products and processes," ConAgra Foods Inc. CEO Gary Rodkin said in a statement on Tuesday.
ConAgra Foods's brands include Banquet and Chef Boyardee. Cargill, based in Minneapolis, is a producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services. St. Paul, Minn.-based CHS is an agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the U.S.
The companies expect to receive cash distributions from Ardent Mills at closing. Total proceeds are estimated to be between $800 million and $1 billion.
All three companies will have representation on the Ardent Mills board.
Ardent Mills will be run as a joint venture, with Dan Dye serving as its CEO once the new company is formed. Dye is currently president of Horizon Milling. ConAgra Mills President Bill Stoufer will become Ardent's chief operating officer and chief integration officer.
Ardent Mills' headquarters will be determined at a later date. Its formation is expected to be finished later this year.
ConAgra Foods shares rose 16 cents to $34.84 in morning trading Wednesday after rising as high as $34.91 earlier in the session, its highest level since August 1997.


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Unless you happen to have gone into hibernation during the past couple of weeks, if you live in the UK you'll know that Lily Allen's cover of Keane's Somewhere Only We Know is currently being used to soundtrack department store John Lewis's latest Christmas advert: a multi-million pound animated mini epic featuring a bear and a hare.
Now the company has thrown down a festive gauntlet to unsigned musicians, asking them to submit their own 90-second versions of the song (to soundtrack the video above) via YouTube. These will then be judged by a panel that includes the members of Keane, with the winner being invited on an all-expenses paid trip to London to record the track in a professional studio. They'll then have their cover used on the ad when it airs on ITV1 on Christmas Day.
As exposure goes, that's pretty massive, so if you want to work up your own death metal, techno or brostep version of the song, head over to the John Lewis YouTube channel for all the details.


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Hard times call for Cheap Thrills! That's our story for Best of St. Louis 2009, and we're sticking to it.
If a free paper's not cheap enough for you, when you need a break from browsing through (and quarreling with) our 400-plus top picks, check www.dailyrft.com/bestof2009 for a growing number of videos highlighting some of this year's winners.
When you're done with that, by all means join us on Thursday, November 5, when we celebrate Best of St. Louis honorees with a gala at the City Museum (see "Best Place to Take Out-of-Town Guests"). Festivities commence at 7 p.m. and go on till 11. Yep, you read right: We're partying an extra hour this year! And it's even better than cheap — it's free! All you need to do in order to revel in the food, drink and cornucopia of Cheap Thrills is to RSVP in advance by e-mailing [email protected].
To help pass the time, we're rounding up a few dozen of our closest friends for a rousing game of Nails, this year's "Best Cheap Thrill."
— RFT editorial staff and contributors
Writers: Jessica Baran, Dennis Brown, Bill Burge, Tom Carlson, Ellis Conklin, Suzy Crancer, Mark Dischinger, Zach Dyer, Meghan Edmonds, Tom Finkel, Brooke Foster, Ian Froeb, Chad Garrison, Keegan Hamilton, Kristen Hinman, Roy Kasten, Tom Kavanaugh, Aimee Levitt, Nick Lucchesi, Kristie McClanahan, Todd McKenzie, Dean Minderman, Shae Moseley, Dave Nelson, Nicholas Phillips, Stefani Pollack, Christian Schaeffer, Aaron Schafer, Alison Sieloff, Bonnie Spinola, Dara Strickland, Kristy Wendt, Robin Wheeler, Annie Zaleski
Design: Tom Carlson
Illustrations: Tim Lane
Layout: Sarah Norwood
Videographers: Nick Lucchesi, Stew Smith
Ballot tally: Courtney Schilling
Fact-checking and proofreading: Margaret Bauer, Meghan Edmonds, Kristie McClanahan
Editorial coordinator: Alison Sieloff


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Earlier this summer, Gallup released the results of its latest poll on American belief in evolution, creationism and "intelligent" design. The results are among the most depressing numbers ever posted about the decay of American thought and education. Yet although this should set off the warning bells to both US presidential candidates that something needs to be done to stem this problem, none of this has been raised in the debates or on the campaign trail.
How can this have happened in one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world? How is it that the only nation to put a man on the moon, a nation that can put a rover on Mars or a satellite into orbit around Saturn with pinpoint accuracy, has so many superstitious dunderheads?
American fundamentalism is becoming increasingly pronounced in the political process, and has interfered at many levels in the education system to force its beliefs into curricula. Surely some of the American policy makers recognize this disturbing trend, but none have, so far, addressed it.*
In the excellent TV drama, The Newsroom, Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) attacks the American fundamentalists in politics – the so-called Tea Party wing that has hijacked the Republican party – calling them the American Taliban. It's easy to see the parallels between them – they both want a faith-based curricula, to punish non-believers in their particularly myopic faith, to merge that faith with the political process, and to repeal women's rights and return them to a subservient role as chattel. McAvoy's statement, made in the final episode of series one, is easily understood by anyone who has been watching recent US election campaigns.
The question about belief in evolution or other notions has been asked by Gallup since 1986 and the results have been fairly consistent. Gallup asked the following questions. The current and historical results are charted below.
Forty-six per cent of respondents believe in magic and myth rather than the copious scientific proof for evolution. That is nearly half of all Americans! That number has not dipped below 40% since Gallup started asking the question. A third of Americans (32%) believe humans evolved, but under their god's guiding hand.
Gallup has asked Americans to choose among these three explanations for the origin and development of human beings 11 times since 1982. Although the percentages choosing each view have varied from survey to survey, the 46% who today choose the creationist explanation is virtually the same as the 45% average over that period — and very similar to the 44% who chose that explanation in 1982. The 32% who choose the "theistic evolution" view that humans evolved under God's guidance is slightly below the 30-year average of 37%, while the 15% choosing the secular evolution view is slightly higher (12%).
The American belief in the science of evolution**, as a natural process independent of deities or magical intervention, has never risen above 16%. It's at 15% today. Only one in seven Americans believe in one of the most important, most most heavily documented and evidenced laws of biology. So why isn't this failure of education in the front lines of the presidential debate?
Some of this is the result of the unrelenting political and social campaigns and lobbying by the Christian right and its anti-science organizations to reinforce their fundamentalist grip on US politics. And they seem to have succeeded in getting may of their supporters into office.
The presidential candidates are likely too scared to confront this army of ignorant believers – especially Romney, whose Republicans make up the largest group of superstitious believers, as Gallup noted:
Majority of Republicans Are Creationists
Highly religious Americans are more likely to be Republican than those who are less religious, which helps explain the relationship between partisanship and beliefs about human origins. The major distinction is between Republicans and everyone else. While 58% of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, 39% of independents and 41% of Democrats agree.
But Obama is equally silent on the issue to, maybe because the poll showed 41% of Democrats are equally superstitious and believe in creationism.
Yet both candidates (and see here) have admitted they believe in evolution, not creationism, and oppose teaching creationism in schools. So why don't they say so on the campaign trail, especially in states that have brought this nonsense into schools?
No one, it seems, wants to confront the idiots who support creationism, and rub their noses in their ignorance. And by not doing so, politicians have allowed the fundamentalists to set the political agenda.
Madness. I'm not the only one concerned about how the religious right as hijacked the political debate – almost any topic from abortion to gay marriage to science to other faiths comes with a heavy doze of fundamentalist disapproval. As Katherine Stewart recently wrote,
The far right's fixation on same-sex relationships is so ludicrous that it defines a sub-category of camp. But let's take a step back for a moment. The big question, the one that keeps coming back in every one of these skirmishes in the culture wars, is: why is the loudest religion in American politics today so much about hate?
(A comment on the GOP's religiously-fuelled policies over women's rights and abortion can be found in a recent HuffPost blog by Ethan Rome.)
Can you imagine an elected politician who sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee making a statement that evolution is a lie "straight from the pit of hell"? But that comment came from Republican Rep. Paul Broun last month.
An ultraconservative congressman whose district includes the University of Georgia campus, Broun told a Baptist church last month that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory were lies spread by scientists out to erode people's faith in Jesus Christ. He also claimed the Earth is roughly 9,000 years, a view held by fundamentalist Christians based on biblical accounts of creation.
Here are his actual words:
"God's word is true. I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There's a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says. And what I've come to learn is that it's the manufacturer's handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I'll continue to do that."
Another recent member of that committee was Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, who claimed victims of "legitimate rape" were unlikely to become pregnant because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
That, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with American politics in 2012: the religious right. It's also what is particularly wrong with the Republican Party. And for the life of me, I can't find anything to disprove Will McAvoy's statement.
Let me close with a few quotes from this American Taliban:
"The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church's public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship."
"This is God's world, not Satan's. Christians are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians."
Gary North (Institute for Christian Economics)
"When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil."
Gary Potter (Catholics for Christian Political Action)
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
George Bush Sr. (former President of the United States)
"The Christian community has a golden opportunity to train an army of dedicated teachers who can invade the public school classrooms and use them to influence the nation for Christ."
James Kennedy (Center for Reclaiming America)
"Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it…Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory."
Jimmy Swaggart (Jimmy Swaggart Ministries)
"Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody's pseudo-right to worship an idol."
Joseph Morecraft (Chalcedon Presbyterian Church)
"I'm an old-fashioned woman. Men should take care of women, and if men were taking care of women today, we wouldn't have to vote."
Kay O'Connor (Kansas Senate Republican)
"Anybody that believes in separation of church and state needs to leave right now."
Star Parker (Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education)
* In Canada, when PC-then-Alliance-politician-then-Conservative cabinet minister, Stockwell Day, was exposed as a "young-earth" creationist in national media, he was widely ridiculed and criticized for for holding both a top political job and erroneous ideologies. In 2008, an Angus Reid poll showed "58 percent (of Canadians) accept evolution, while 22 percent think that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years." That's better than the US, but still way too high.
** Without evolution, almost everything we know and understand about biology fails. It would be like astronomy without believing in the speed of light – which is exactly what creationism is, because without the time required by Darwinian evolution, the distant galaxies can't be millions of light years away. Cosmology fails without evolution because it means everything we have learned or posited about the development of stars and planets is false.
The law of entropy, which governs all physics – the second law of thermodynamics – is repealed under creationism. We need a new model to teach us how energy behaves. If creationism is correct, then the entropic effects we have measured in stars and galaxies can't have happened, since they require millions, even billions of years to occur. Einstein's relativity, too, goes out the window.
Creationism means humans and Mesozoic dinosaurs co-existed. Humans and Permian dimetrodons co-existed, too. Paleozoic trilobites crawled in the shallow water while humans walked the shore, although no fossil record of them exists after the great Permian extinction. The sea giants megalodon, the giant shark, swam in the oceans with reptilian plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, pliosaurs and the giant armoured fishes of the Devonian, the placoderms.
Woolly mammoths preserved in the Siberian ice during an Ice Age that must not have happened, walked the earth while pterosaurs (extinct 65 million years ago) sailed in the skies above them and Tyrannosaurs hunted on the plains. Humans walked under lepidodendrons, the giant Carboniferous fern-trees we thought extinct along with the trilobites, 250 million years ago. Silurian Eurypterids, the giant sea scorpions, hunted in the shallows. Human-ancestor primates like Australopithecus and other species of humans like Neanderthals, must have also shared the earth with modern humans, if creationism is true.
Creationism means no fossils millions of years old. All that life preserved in rock lived no more than 10,000 years ago (and in some schools of creationism, 6,000 years ago). It must have been a frighteningly dangerous time, with all those giant predators on land, in the sea and air. And all of these creatures disappeared from the planet before 3,600 BCE, when the world's oldest writing system was devised. Why? Because there is no written record of any of these plants, fish, arthropods, dinosaurs and giant mammals.
Or is there? Some creationists believe that nonsense, and have gone to many great lengths to "prove" the impossible: that humans and dinosaurs co-existed before written history. Claptrap. This is not better than the early creationists who claimed fossils are nothing more than natural formations of stone that look like bones, or that their deity inserted millions of fossils into the rocks to test believers' faith. Some even claim scientists make fossils from plaster in factories in China! (Note that some museums have plaster casts made from authentic fossils.)
Such crap. Unadulterated, mindless, stupid crap.


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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2023 / Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is investigating potential claims on behalf of purchasers of XPEL, Inc. ("XPEL" or "the Company") (NASDAQ:XPEL). Investors who purchased XPEL securities are encouraged to obtain additional information and assist the investigation by visiting the firm's site: bgandg.com/xpel .
The investigation concerns whether XPEL has violated federal securities laws.
Investigation Details:
On October 19, 2023, Culper Research released a report on XPEL. In this report, Culper stated that it was shorting XPEL stock because it believed "the Company has grossly understated its reliance on Tesla", and because it believed "the Company is concealing a massive undisclosed risk from its primary supplier which threatens to upend the Company's entire reason for being."
On this news, XPEL stock declined by $10.57 per share, or 17.2% on October 19, 2023.
What's Next?
If you are aware of any facts relating to this investigation or purchased XPEL securities, you can assist this investigation by visiting the firm's site: bgandg.com/xpel. You can also contact Peretz Bronstein or his law clerk and client relations manager, Yael Nathanson of Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC: 332-239-2660.
There is No Cost to You
We represent investors in class actions on a contingency fee basis. That means we will ask the court to reimburse us for out-of-pocket expenses and attorneys' fees, usually a percentage of the total recovery, only if we are successful.
Why Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman:
Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is a nationally recognized firm that represents investors in securities fraud class actions and shareholder derivative suits. Our firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors nationwide.
Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC
Peretz Bronstein or Yael Nathanson
332-239-2660 | [email protected]
SOURCE: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC


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While at work one day, [Marco] was approached by a colleague holding a portable USB hard drive. This hard drive – a Freecom ToughDrive – has a built-in security system requiring a password every time the drive is mounted. Somewhat predictably, the password on this hard drive had been lost, so [Marco] brute forced the password out of this drive.
The Freecom ToughDrive requires a password whenever the drive is plugged in, but only allows 5 attempts before it needs to be power cycled. Entering the passwords was easy to automate, but there was still the issue of unplugging the drive after five failed attempts. [Marco] called upon his friend [Alex] to build a small USB extension cable with a relay inserted into the 5 V line. An easy enough solution after which the only thing needed was the time to crack the password.
The rig successfully guessed the password after 500 attempts, or after cycling the power 100 times. This number is incredibly low for getting a password via brute force, but then again the owner of the hard drive was somewhat predictable as to what passwords they used.


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What we do
Market Data
Forward Curve Methodology
The forward curve algorithm uses trades, quotes, and known historical information. Those inputs provide the shapes, spreads, and historical correlations necessary to generate granular data. Data is shaped along the entirety of the curves using the liquid front seasons. Granular curve shapes allow more accurate pricing of individual contract months.
Spreads are utilized for illiquid products to provide the inputs for formulaic pricing. Further, correlations are utilized to interpolate day over day changes when necessary. Implied day over day changes keep the curves in line with the overall trend(s) of the market in absence of trades or quotes.
Volatility Methodology
The implied volatility algorithm uses trades, quotes, and historical data. Utilizing those inputs the algorithm cleans, and calculates implied volatilities for each individual price. Time spreads and historical relationships are used to create synthetic implied volatilities when no options data is available.
Individual brokers within all the companies under OTCGH are registered with the NFA as 'Associated Persons' of EOX Holdings LLC