text: SANTA MONICA, California — Spencer Canon didn't set out to start a bicycle company. He just wanted a kit that didn't suck. He found the jerseys and shorts road riders wear boring. Uninspired. So he designed his own, black with light blue and red and yellow stripes. The old-school Belgian vibe looked great, but it needed something. It needed a story. Canon found one in the life of Henri "Ritte" Van Lerberghe, who once won Belgium's biggest race on a borrowed bicycle after downing a few pints at the pub. His improbable career underscored everything Canon thinks cycling should be: fun, free and a bit irreverent. He and his friends started wearing the kit on rides. That's when things got weird. "We were riding as a fake Belgian team that doesn't exist, but the kit looked so cool we actually got sponsors," Canon said, laughing at the recollection. "It took a few months, but our fake team and our fake brand just exploded. I realized I could take a fake team and make it real." Ritte Van Vlaanderen Bicycles was born. Above: One of Ritte's neighbors offers his opinion on the Ritte Muur, the company's latest model.The guys at Ritte (pronounced "Rit-uh") had no experience in the bike biz when they launched the company in 2010, which may explain why they've done everything backward. They started with a jersey, which led to a team, which led to them building bikes, which they sold through a viral marketing campaign. In one particularly funny ad, the UCI announces it is banning the Ritte Bosberg from racing because it provides "an unfair aesthetic advantage." "Riders in the peloton may be distracted by the Bosberg's handsome design, striking color and erotic geometry," a UCI official earnestly proclaims. "We also believe this bicycle may cause its rider to feel stronger and more confident, which is nothing less than psychological doping." The ads resonated with cyclists who, like the guys at Ritte, think their sport takes itself just a bit too seriously. "The mountain guys are all so nice and they all have fun," Canon (pictured) said. "The (cyclo)cross guys are all so nice and they all have fun. And the road guys? They're all Type As. We wanted to bring fun and irreverence back to cycling." No one at Ritte is a Type A. They started almost on a lark, with little more than a dream, an attitude and beer money. World headquarters is a second-floor apartment in a cinderblock building with a great view of the city recycling center and a homeless guy's encampment. The location, in the one part of Santa Monica you could call sketchy, is oddly appropriate. It shows how serious Ritte is about not taking itself too seriously, even as it elbows its way into the world of high-end boutique bicycles with what are, truth be told, some pretty sweet rigs. "You can say this whole thing is crazy, that it will never work," Canon said. "But I'm good at finding holes in the market. There was a space for a brand like ours." <script src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js" type="text/javascript"></script><object class="BrightcoveExperience" id="myExperience1418440521001"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"></param> <param name="width" value="660"></param> <param name="height" value="423"></param> <param name="playerID" value="3698508001"></param> <param name="publisherID" value="1564549380"></param> <param name="isVid" value="true"></param> <param name="dynamicStreaming" value="true"></param> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="1418440521001"></param></object><script type="text/javascript"> runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1418440521001 ', 'anId'); </script><script type="text/javascript">brightcove.createExperiences();</script>Canon is an avid cyclist, one of those rail-thin guys who looks like he only gets off his bike long enough to eat some pasta and get some sleep. He's always loved bicycles and started racing at 12, with the dream of one day seeing his name on one. "I would draw bicycles as kid," he said. "I dreamed of designing bikes." He especially loved the early monocoque Kestrels, which are beautiful to behold. But life intervened, and after studying sculpture in college and earning a master's degree in philosophy he went to work in advertising. He was the creative director for a firm and doing quite well, but decided three years ago to change course — which is to say he was fired. "Turns out I don't like being told what to do," he said. Being out of work leaves you with lots of time to ride, and what cyclist wouldn't rather be doing that anyway? If you're going to ride, you might as well look good doing it, so Canon sat down to design a kit worth wearing. A proper kit needs a proper sponsor, so Canon invented "Ritte van Vlaanderen." If you're wondering, it means "Ritte from Flanders." Canon and his crew "looked like some farm-league pro cycling team from Belgium." People loved it. Some of them even got the joke. Sponsors came calling. Canon and his friends realized they were onto something. "It was a made-up thing," said Dan Green, a former motorcycle racer turned cyclist who handles Ritte's PR, such as it is. "But by the time anyone figured that out, it was just that much more awesome." Above: The world headquarters of Ritte Van Vlaanderen Bicycles.The success of Ritte Racing, with its fake team but real sponsors, got Canon thinking about building bikes. He knew enough to know a good rig from a bad one and wanted more than anything to provide riders with a race-ready ride at an affordable price. It had to provide great power transfer, light weight and stable handling. And it had to be gorgeous. Definitely gorgeous. Trouble was, Canon didn't know anything about working with carbon fiber. So he did what all entrepreneurs do when they need help with manufacturing. He looked to China. Canon was at Interbike, the annual bike biz bonanza, three years ago when he hooked up with a Taiwanese firm that specializes in carbon fiber bicycle engineering and manufacturing. (Canon refused to name the company because he doesn't want competitors cribbing from his business plan.) "They had a prototype frame that was amazing," Canon said. "I convinced them to build me 20 bikes. I went out and presold them at cost, then presold 50 more." Ritte's first bike was the Bosberg, an all-around road frameset you can have for $2,150. The Crossberg cyclocross rig ($1,850) arrived last September. Most recently, the company unveiled the 1919TT, a super-aero time trial bike that hits the market next month. The company sold 120 frames in 2010. That climbed to "around 350" last year. The goal for 2012 is 600, but the emphasis is on refining the product line and ironing out the manufacturing process. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired.comMore than a dozen bike shops and three international distributors are selling Ritte's frames, most of them small independent outfits specializing in high-end custom builds. "We wanted to go with smaller brands in our store, the up-and-coming brands, and Ritte is a really new company," said Niklas Pearce, the general manager of Cykel, a bike boutique in San Francisco. "We wanted to support the small brands. And they're nice to deal with, easier to deal with, than some of the larger companies." Still, not everyone is convinced Ritte is the real deal. The company has taken heat from haters who say it isn't building bikes, just slapping its name on commodity rides churned out of a factory in China. Canon has one thing to say about that: Nuts. Although he concedes his Taiwanese partner designed "95 percent" of the first-gen Bosberg, Canon insists Ritte called the shots on later models. "We have a lot more control over the design," he said. "I've designed the new Crossberg. We've completely redone the tubes." And, he argues, Ritte isn't doing anything many of the bigger companies aren't doing too – outsourcing to experts. The way he sees it, he can't match the expertise of a company specializing in carbon fiber design and manufacturing, so why try? Above: Tomas Pearce of Cykel plays with shop mascot Zoe Dumplin' next to display racks of bicycles, including Ritte models. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired.com>The point is largely moot because the Bosberg is, by many accounts, a sweet ride. Road Magazine said it "has a comfortable geometry" and "purrs along smoothly" but "where this bike really shines is when descending." "You can't argue with the cool factor of this bike both in design and the way Ritte brands itself," the magazine concluded. "In this case the style and substance coexist peacefully." Further making the entire argument pointless is this: Ritte has expanded beyond carbon fiber to design and manufacture a line of bicycles in Southern California using a somewhat unusual material. Stainless steel. Above: Frame builder Russ Denny, who builds Ritte's stainless steel frames, with notes on previous bikes he's built.Ritte pulled the sheets off Muur roadie and Steeplechase cross frames at Interbike in September. The Ritte Lab line features stainless rear triangles with carbon main tubes and stainless lugs. They are, in a word, beautiful. If you don't like off-the-shelf rigs, Ritte will build something to your exact specs. Everything's made one at a time by Russ Denny, a welder who has been building bicycles since master framebuilder Dave Moulton taught him the ropes in 1986. So why stainless? "The stainless steel triangle transforms the bike," Canon said. "It makes it unlike any bike you've ever ridden. It's crisp. It's snappy. The ride quality is like steel, but the power transfer is like carbon." The stainless bikes are what Canon, co-founder J.C. Samuels and the rest of the crew at Ritte have wanted to do from the beginning: Design and build their own high-end bicycles. "The Asian, mold-made frames we sell are great, purpose-built racing frames, and they'll be keeping our lights on," Canon said. "But the hand-made frames here in the U.S. and Belgium really exemplify where our brand mantra and and products come together pretty damn nicely." Above: Russ Denny, on the left, with Ritte's Dave Lieberman at Denny's shop in Hemet, California. Above: A one-off Ritte 29er mountain bike, commissioned by a customer. Lieberman, an avid mountainbiker, is pushing for Ritte to add the bike to its lineup. "I think it will be a really nice addition," he said.And it's just another example of how Ritte has done everything backward. Most bike companies started out building hand-made high-end rigs, then went mass-market with bikes churned out of a factory in China. "We still do everything ass-backward every day," Cohen said with a laugh. "But our business plan still works." How well it works remains to be seen. The guys at Ritte hold no illusions that they'll pose a threat to the likes of Specialized or Cannondale, but they don't want to. They just want to build cool bikes for a cool brand with a cool outlook on a sport they love. "We want to show that you can take the sport seriously without taking yourself seriously," Canon said. Above: Canon, flanked by co-workers J.C. Samuels (left) and Dan Green atop the empire they've built.Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com unless otherwise noted.


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As a G2 driver, Warren Ferns wasn't supposed to have consumed any alcohol when he got behind the wheel with three friends on Labour Day Monday in 2016.
Now the young man sits in a downtown courtroom with his friend dead and his future in limbo — he faces years in a federal prison if Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly finds him guilty of impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death.
The death of his friend, Akhil Sankeshwar.
Sankeshwar was 28 and had moved here from India three years earlier to study hospitality management at Lambton College. Described as jolly and sweet, he was working as night manager at the Courtyard Suites in Markham and Facebook photos show him beaming in front of countless Toronto landmarks.
His mom was hoping he would return to Mumbai soon. But Sankeshwar would never come home again.
It's a story repeated so many times on our roads — a suspected drunk driver, a fatal crash — and even after all the warnings and all the cautionary tales, nothing seems to change.
At the judge alone trial, Ferns has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer is challenging the blood alcohol readings taken at the hospital and insists his client wasn't impaired by alcohol at all. That it was all a tragic accident.
And not a criminal act that should be punished by law.
Ferns was 24 and working as a delivery driver at Marigold Indian Bistro. After his shift ended at 11:30 p.m., he and three friends went to Crocodile Rock in the entertainment district.
Court heard they each had two beers and at least one shot, maybe two, before they left for home in Ferns' Mazda — despite Ferns, as a novice driver, not being legally allowed to drive after consuming any alcohol.
One of the four, Eric Hovland, would testify that Ferns showed no sign of impairment. They were all talking and listening to the radio, heading north on winding Mt. Pleasant Rd. near Roxborough Dr..
It was about 2:20 a.m. The speed limit had just changed from 50 to 60 km/h.
A collision reconstructionist said Ferns was driving at least 76 km/h. Hovland recalled their car suddenly jerked to the right and then jerked to the left. The Mazda then slid an estimated 40 to 50 metres before slamming into a hydro pole.
Sankeshwar, seated in the back on the driver's side, was the only one of the four who couldn't get out of the smashed car. He would die soon after.
"While impaired to some degree by alcohol, Mr. Ferns lost control of the car," Crown attorney Sean Doyle said in his closing argument.
"Alcohol isn't a coincidence here."
Blood taken from Ferns at the hospital put his blood alcohol level at the time of the crash at between 103 and 123 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres, well over the legal limit of 80.
At 6 a.m. — almost four hours after the fatal collision — the driver registered 68 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood on a breathalyzer.
Doyle dismissed suggestions that Ferns wasn't impaired because he showed no obvious signs of intoxication such as glassy eyes or weaving across lanes.
A sober driver would have been able to negotiate the Mt. Pleasant curves, not swerve and then overcorrect, the prosecutor said, insisting Ferns be found guilty on both counts.
He maintained Ferns showed no signs of alcohol impairment and called his client's speeding "not excessive," and his driving not a "marked departure" that would prove dangerous driving causing death.
"It was his friend. It happened in a split second," the lawyer explained outside the courtroom.
"He was under the legal limit from our perspective at the material time. They're trying to make an example that any amount of alcohol at the time of an accident can result in a penitentiary sentence."
Kelly is expected to release her judgment next month.
"These cases are the most difficult," she said.
Until then, Ferns remains free on bail.
And Sankeshwar's family awaits word in India, where they grieve the son who was only supposed to go to Toronto for a few years and then come home to them.

subset: commoncrawl


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I was doing my daily "let's avoid accomplishing anything" by searching for new blogs to read. This is purely in the name of research and to get me out of the rut of writing blogs and then deleting them, prior to publishing, as they are not funny. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
Then, there is the Christmas stocking issue and the knitted Christmas gift that I could work on 24/7 from now till Christmas and probably still not have it done. I am on my second yarn and my twentymillionth rip out on this thing. So, my days go, dishes, feed animals, knit four rows, search the internet for Vegan no oil food and any other excuse I can use.
When I am searching blogs, I am mostly looking for ones that make me laugh and today, I was in stitches over a new blog I found. Truckstop Oysters. How Bad Could They Be? | Blurt via Truckstop Oysters. How Bad Could They Be? | Blurt.
All I can tell you, is I think it's a
guy girl (she asserted her he just asserted his alpha female status over Angelina Jolie's dolls, another funny post, and he lives in North Carolina and he is funny! And, he can tell you just exactly how bad of an idea it is to have truckstops serve oysters.
If you have ever traveled, then you probably have a state that is NOT your favorite. My state is Missouri. I have broken down every single time I cross Missouri, except the last time. Perhaps I am making my peace with the state. But, I am pretty sure it just felt like it owed me as one trip, I broke down three times. Never buy a used motorhome.
It isn't just that though. Missouri is the state that has nice restaurants who bring you a cup of hot water and a packet of cocoa when you order hot chocolate. What is more upscale than bringing you hot water and packets of cocoa? I now travel a long way out of my way to avoid Missouri.
Let me know if you hear where Truckstop Oysters is playing. Sounds like a great band to me.


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Returns & Refunds
Our policy lasts 14 days. If 14 days have gone by since your purchase, unfortunately we can't offer you a refund or exchange.
Please do not send your purchase back to the manufacturer, as your return will not be honored and you will not be eligible for a refund or exchange.
To be eligible for a return and credit, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.
Additionally, you need to contact us first and get our approval, at this time we will provide you with an RMA# and the return address. Returns are not acceptable without an RMA#. To complete your return, we require a receipt or proof of purchase.
If the manufacturer of an item does not permit SunPlum to return it, we may withhold authorization to return the product from you or we may still allow you to return it depending on the item. All returns for "buyers remorse" are subject to 15% restocking fee and no refund is made for cost of outbound shipping cost. The restocking fee covers some of the costs we incurred to process, pick and ship the item and process the return and get it back onto the shelf, including the cost of the box and packaging.
Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.
Additional non-returnable items:
Gift cards
Downloadable software products
Some health and personal care items
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable)
Book with obvious signs of use
CD, DVD, VHS tape, software, video game, cassette tape, or vinyl record that has been opened
Any item not in its original condition, is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to our error
Any item that is returned more than 30 days after delivery
Refunds (if applicable)
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, within a certain amount of days.
Late or missing refunds (if applicable)
If you haven't received a refund yet, first check your bank account again.
Then contact your credit card company, it may take some time before your refund is officially posted.
Next 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 at email@example.com
Sale items (if applicable)
Only regular priced items may be refunded, unfortunately sale items cannot be refunded.
Refusals (if applicable)
If the item if REFUSED by the customer when UPS or USPS attempts delivery, then in addition to deducting the outbound postage, we also deduct the same amount for the cost of the return postage which is charged by UPS and USPS to SunPlum when the item is return to sender.
Exchanges (if applicable)
We only replace items if they are defective or damaged. If you need to exchange it for the same item, send us an email at email@example.com and we will provide you with an address to send back your item for exchange. As we ship and receive from different locations, depending on the item and ship from location, to ensure our costs are manageable, while having the ability to pass on more savings to our customers.
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 card will be emailed to you.
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 he or she will be notified about your return at that time.
To return your product, you will automatically be provided with a return address at the time of approval and return processing.
You will be responsible for paying for 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.
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 over $75, you should consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don't guarantee that we will receive your returned item.


text: With 20 years of watch-making expertise, Guess Connect provides the luxury look for an affordable price. Creating masterpieces for men and women, Guess Connect Watches provide Swiss watch-making heritage with expressive designs, which are sure to boost confidence and fit any attire with meticulous detail. Whether wanting a striking or sophisticated aura, Guess Connect Watches will always supply indulgence to hand, powered by Martian technology. Compatible with IOS and Android technology, Guess Connect Watches obtain smart technology that will drive you on in the 21st Century. Therefore, if you ever get a text, call or notification; the Guess Connect will alert you on the dot, keeping you informed and your possessions safe. Containing a camera, voice activation and music control with a battery life spanning the working week, this modern apparatus is perfect for the forward-thinking, busy and active individual – as Guess Connect also allows you to monitor and track your health progress. Whether you're looking for men's - Guess Connect C1002M1 Watch – or women's - Guess Connect C1001G4 Watch – Guess Connect will get you connected to a watch like you've never been connected before.All Guess Connect Watches


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Phil's Advanced 10K Plan (5~7 hrs/wk) + Email Access to Coach: 24 Weeks
Structured Workouts automatically sync with compatible devices and guide you through workouts in real time.
Learn More about Structured Workouts.
Phil Mosley + Free Email Coach Support (Rated 5.0/5). MyProCoach™All plans by this Coach
24 Weeks
Refund Policy
This plan is protected by our Refund Policy and may, with the author's approval, be exchanged for a plan of equal value from the same author.Still have questions about this plan?
Structured Workouts automatically sync with compatible devices and guide you through workouts in real time.
Learn More about Structured Workouts.
Plan Description
Peak for your best ever race!
"I'm already reaping huge gains. I'm running 5k's in just over 20 mins which is faster now at 40 yrs than when I was in my mid 20's!" Daniel Dragic, 2018
"I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying the plan. It's amazing to know what I'm doing weeks in advance!" Rachel Kjearsgaard, April 2018
Read more >>
Visit "Training for 10K Running" for more information. Key features include:
- Progress from 5:15 to 7 hrs training p/wk
- 5-6 runs, 2 strength sessions and 1 day off each week
- Every 4th week is active recovery
- Regular fitness tests to track progress
- Train using Pace, HR or RPE (Feel)
- Screenshot of the first 2 weeks (JPG)
- Screenshot of the biggest 2 weeks (JPG)
Still not sure? We'll happily switch your plan free within 14 days.
- Unlimited swaps between all of Phil's 800+ Plans
- FREE TrainingPeaks Premium (discounts apply if you already have it)
- Non-stop email coach support
A Recognised Expert, As Featured On:
Email Support:
Our Certified coaching team are on hand to answer any questions during the first use of your plan, plus a bonus 3 months after its completion. During checkout, please share your email so I can send you a series of 5 helpful emails.
Quick Links
- Visit our website for all our 10K Training Plans
- Or compare directly on Training Peaks Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced.
- Read our Full Coach Biography
- Email us here
Training Plan Sample Week
Average Weekly Breakdown
|Weekly Average
|Longest Workout
Run x6
|4:22 hrs
|1:25 hrs
Strength x2
|1:03 hrs
|0:40 hrs
Day Off x1
Custom x1
|Workouts Per Week
|Weekly Average
|Longest Workout
|4:22 hrs
|1:25 hrs
|1:03 hrs
|0:40 hrs
Training Load By Week
This plan works best with the following fitness devices:
- Heart Rate Monitor


text:
Taped interviews offer glimpse into confessed killer's mind
Derek Richardson killed self in jail while awaiting trial
Authorities released video of interviews with a man who admitted that he killed two women and dropped hints that he may have killed more.
Derek Richardson, 27, committed suicide in the Clay County Jail last month while awaiting trial on murder charges.
After he was arrested in connection with deaths of Tamara Sparks and Nicoleone Reed, police recorded the interview sessions. They said Richardson requested the opportunity to talk to police, an interview investigators said may have confirmed their suspicions that they were speaking to a serial killer.
Richardson told the detectives how he stalked a woman jogging on the Katy Trail in Columbia, Mo., a few years ago. He said he was riding a bicycle as the woman approached.
"I rode past her to where it was, like, around the corner where she wouldn't see me stop," he said. "I put the bike down and crouched down like I was tying my shoe, and I just waited for her to come by. And when she did, I just jumped up and grabbed her."
He said he choked the woman for between five and ten minutes. He said he dragged her into the woods and covered her with brush.
Richardson also said he seems to remember going after a woman in New Mexico.
"I just can't tell if it was something I just dreamt," he said. "I just don't know."
Police said they won't ever know exactly what Richardson had done. He was married and a father.


text:
At a glance, the App Store looks pretty full, but there's still plenty of room for original ideas — if iFart can make a million, pretty much anything can. If you're thinking of getting into development, here's 79% off a bundle of courses to speed things up.
So it's going to be a while before you build an Instagram killer, but if you're committed to learning, these 9 courses from Infinite Skills cover pretty much all the fundamentals of iOS development. That includes XCode and Objective C, iCloud and Social API integrations, working with Location Services and the Motion Framework, as well as in-app purchasing and more besides. And there's a Non-Programmers course for a gentle introduction to coding, too.
In total, it's 21 hours of content plus resources for $79 — that's 79% off. Scroll down for a look at the courses…
>> Get 79% off the iOS 7 Dev Bundle
- Learning to Program in Objective C and Xcode for iOS 7 – Gain a solid understanding of programming for both iOS and OS X
- Learning iOS 7 to Build iPhone and iPad Apps – A comprehensive start-to-finish course teaching the skills needed to build your first app
- A Non-Programmers iOS Training Course to Building iOS Apps – A ground-up education in XCode, Objective C, and other basics like interface controls and animation
- iOS Development Workshop for iOS Motion Framework – How to utilize the gyroscope and accelerometer in Apple devices via the iOS Motion Framework
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- iOS 7 Development Workshop for iOS Media Library – showing you how to access and use images, video and audio in your apps
- iOS 7 Development Workshop for Using iOS 7 Location Services – How to make your apps location-aware for maps, directions and distance measurements
- Mastering iOS Development for Integrating iOS Apps with iCloud – Get your apps talking with Apple's online storage system
- Mastering iOS Development for Integrating Social APIs – Allow your users to post their activity to Twitter and Facebook
Please note that you'll need a Mac to follow these courses. This offer includes lifetime access to all the courses on Udemy, and a 30-day money back guarantee. Check out the link below for more info or to grab the deal.
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Written by Mark Myerson
StackSocial is partnering with the Commerce Team to bring you deals on software, apps, gadgets, tutorials, and design. So to be clear, this post is not editorial and we make money on sales.


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[ Calendar 2015, Clocks, Clothing, crossroads, Donegal, duvet, HDR, houses, iPad cover, iPhone cover, Kilcar, lamppost, Laptop cover, main street, mugs, panorama, planet, postcard, road, Slieve League, SW Donegal, shops, sky out, streetscape, summer, throw pillows, tote bag, village, >500 >1,000 >2,000 >3,000 >4,000 >5,000 >6,000 >7,000 >8,000, >9,000 >10,000 >11,000 Views, Featured, seven features]
Featured in seven RB groups – see History below for details.
It is the Cover Image of my 2016 (or 2017) (remember to set the year when ordering) calendar called "Panoramic Views of Ireland"
The source images were shot in Raw-mode on a Canon EOS 5d DSLR with a 16 mm Zenitar fisheye lens.
This stereographic panorama was shot on the main street of the village of Kilcar, in SW Donegal, Ireland.
Kilcar is located on the main tourist route between the fishing port of Killybegs and the sea cliffs of Slieve League (the highest sea cliffs in Europe).
This is part of my new postcard range. You can follow on to another gorgeous Very Ireland Post card .
Kilcar is promoted as "the gateway to the Donegal Gaeltacht ". At one end of the main street is a church at the other end are two textile factories. (Donegal's primary tweed weavers.) In between there are a few shops and five pubs.
The two visitors (I guess from the accents that they were German) on the bench outside the pub took a keen interest in watching my back while I took the shots needed for this panorama, calling out "Do not DIE for your art!" whenever a vehicle loomed up. Most drivers were patient – there was only one occasion when I had to grab the tripod and dive for the pavement!
It is one of a pair of stereographic panoramas both generated from the same set of images. The other is
|This image is also available as part of a calendar
|Panoramic views of Ireland
History of this Image on RedBubble
Photographic Method and Processing detail
The panorama was created by combining 27 separate digital photographs covering every angle and with bracketed exposure. Hence the HDR effect with detail both in the most brightly lit areas and in the shadows.
Nine separate "shots" were taken: six horizontal at 60° intervals, two down at the ground and one up at the sky. Each "shot" was actually three bracketed exposures: a middle, a +2 stops and a -2 stops.
Hugin delegates the generation of the High Dynamic Range effect to a program called "Enfuse" which does the exposure blending it is a close cousin of the "Enblend" program that it invokes for blending the joins.
The Source images were shot in Raw-mode on a Canon EOS 5d DSLR with a 16 mmm fisheye lens, and were stitched and blended into a HDR Panorama using Hugin – a free open-source panorama stitching program.


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As the leading climbing wall and handhold manufacturer, Nicros, Inc. prides itself on offering the finest products and services in the climbing industry. Nicros has been in business since 1992 and has built over one million square feet of climbing wall surface. Bringing together climbing experience, technical expertise, engineering know-how, a history of successful projects, as well as the operational experience of multiple large commercial climbing gyms, the Nicros team is uniquely qualified to find the best solution for your project.
Nicros' complete line of products and services span everything from the construction and design of climbing walls and facilities to route setting and risk management training for your staff. Nicros has built a working rapport with their customers and have acquired a depth of knowledge unequalled in the climbing industry. These qualities combined with the experience of a professional staff, make Nicros, Inc. the superior choice for any climbing wall project.


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Dimensions: 18″ Heart Shape
Delivery is available same day if order is placed before 4pm Monday – Friday. Saturdays, before 12pm.
Schedule delivery in the future. The calendar gives you the option to schedule deliveries in the future.
You can also pickup your order from any Flower Patch store. See Store Locations.
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Completion Date: February 5, 2012
Reason for Reading: Author auto-buy/read.
Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.Once upon a time I didn't read young adult novels. I didn't like them when I was a young adult, so I planned to avoid them when I was an adult. Then, I started blogging. I was amazed by how far young adult books had come and slowly started working a few here and there back into my reading line-up. It was slow at the start and mostly consisted of books I received for review. I remember the book that started it all was A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Then, in 2009 I rejoined the local library and started exploring some of the young adult authors I had been hearing so much about. That year was a bit year for new finds including John Green. And, it all started with Dewey.
Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.
Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.
You see, Dewey was a book blogger that unexpectedly passed away a few years ago. In 2009 Chris hosted a challenge in her memory and the aim was to read books that she had read and recommended. One such book was Looking for Alaska by John Green. (If you click the link you will be taken to a letter I wrote to Dewey after reading this book). Now it is 3 years later and I have read everything that John Green released. I wound up reading An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns in 2009 and also writing letters for Dewey. It was sort of my 'thing' that year. I would have kept it up but her blog no longer exists... The whole point is that Dewey and John Green are connected in my mind. When I heard that he had a new book coming out I knew that not only would it probably be another wonderful read, but I would also have the chance to connect with an old blogging friend. It's sad that the person that lead me to John Green in the first place wasn't around for me to be able to discuss the book with when I finished.
Anyway, since a lot of bloggers have no idea who Dewey even was outside of maybe the Read-a-thon, I should probably move on to the actual book. I finished it yesterday and let's just say it was my first 5 star review of the year. I had started it the night before, but only read 50 pages. Yesterday I planned to sit down with it for a bit and then move on to something else. That did not happen at all. I pretty much read the book in one sitting. I only stepped away from it for a moment because folks, the book made me cry a bit. I am not much for crying during books and movies, but I got so caught up in the story and the characters that I felt a lot more emotion than I normally do. (I was a bit glad that other than the cat I had the house to myself at the time...) I really thought I had my favourite John Green and nothing would replace it, but this book was amazingly well done. I don't even really enjoy contemporary novels, but this one will likely make my best of list for 2012. I don't care if it really is too early to say.
I chose to ramble about other things because this book is really making the blogging rounds; so you probably have heard a few times what the book is about. And, if you haven't you can visit blogs such as things mean a lot, Stuff as Dreams are Made on... and still with nothing of importance who chose different ways to express their thoughts on this book and maybe even mentioned the plot...
And, I can't join in on what colour my signature is because my book is not signed... I pre-ordered it and then had to email the book store looking for my copy. They were nice and sent it, but I guess by then all the signed copies were gone. I was a bit disappointed, but I'll live.


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Directed by Moon Hyeon-seong (문현성)
Screenplay by Kwon Seong-hwi (권성휘), Yoo Yeong-ah (유영아)127min | Release date in South Korea : 2012/05/03
Previously known as "Korea"
A unified team representing the two Koreas competed at the 1991 Chiba International Table Tennis Championships. It was the first such sport team since the division of the Korean peninsula. The unified team won the group competition event, beating the front runner, China. HA Ji-won plays the South Korean table tennis player, HYEON Jeong-hwa and her North Korean counterpart, LEE Bun-hee, is played by BAE Doona. The real-life HYEON Jeong-hwa makes a special appearance as their coach. HA Ji-won, with "Duelist" and "Miracle on 1st Street" under her belt, is a rare breed of actress who can tackle action scenes with finesse. Despite the dismal box office failure of "Sector 7" last summer, HA is still one of the few Korean actresses who can single-handedly provide high box office results. Even though there is a fair amount of attention on the recent development in North Korea, we will have to wait and see whether it will have an impact on the film.
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Women and young investors are saving more and retirement plan participants overall are borrowing less, MassMutual's Retirement Services Division announced Tuesday. In an analysis of its defined-contribution participants, the company found female defined contribution participants increased their deferral rates at twice the level men did in the first quarter of 2012.
Average account balances rose for women too, increasing 7.93%, while average account balances for men increased 7.27%. The gap between women's average account balance and men's narrowed from 40.5% in late 2010 to 38.8%.
Women aren't the only group to increase their savings. While Gen Y participants still have lower deferral rates than their older coworkers, they are increasing their savings at an accelerated rate. Participants under age 29 increased their savings level by 2.29%, compared with the 0.42% increase seen among participants over 60. The 40-49 age group also increased their savings by 0.57%. Furthermore, just 1.3% of participants overall decreased their savings during the first quarter and just 2.98% stopped making deferrals.
In other encouraging news, participants who took a loan or hardship withdrawal fell to the lowest level since 2007, MassMutual said. Less than 1% of participants took a hardship withdrawal and just 1.26% of participants initiated a loan.
"Participants on our platform are taking positive actions towards their retirement savings goals," Elaine Sarsynski, executive vice president of MassMutual's Retirement Services Division and chairman and CEO of MassMutual International LLC, said in a statement. "Deferral percentages are up, with the greatest increase coming from Gen Y, and participants are letting their money work for them by avoiding loans, withdrawals and other behaviors that can have a negative impact."
Overall, participants in MassMutual plans favored target-date and risk-based options. The percentage of total assets in those funds reached an all-time high, according to the company, at 24.7% of total retirement assets. Women are especially likely to utilize age-based products, with 72% choosing age-based investments, compared with 28% who chose risk-based investments. Men were more evenly divided; 53% chose age-based products, and 46% chose risk-based investments.


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Academics . Jewelry + Metals . Courses
Jewelry + Metals: Color
Course No. MET 260-360-460 Credits: 3.0
Faculty Gretchen Goss | Kathy Buszkiewicz | Matthew Hollern
The use of color in jewelry and metals presents great possibilities. This course will explore a range of approaches to the use of color and colored materials in the creation of jewelry, functional objects, and small sculpture. Beyond the classic greens and browns, we will develop and apply chemical patinas to produce a range of effects in colors and patterns. In aluminum, the electro-chemical process of anodization will allow pigment dyes to be deposited in the surface of the metal. Plastics will be presented to allow for fabrication with stock materials, casting of resins and polymers, and laminations. Other pigments such as colored-pencils, paints, and powder coating are also addressed. Extensive samples and slides supplement the course. Open to sophomore Jewelry + Metals majors and all electives.
Gretchen Goss
Gretchen Goss is a visual artist who works primarily in enamel, inspired by the natural world. Her work has be...more
While at CIA, you'll learn from the masters through our rigorous, world-class curriculum and connect with working professionals to begin your career.


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highly recommended
'My god,' said Geoff, 'so it's true. We hold in our very hands the original draft of the hitherto unknown third treaty of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III himself.'That's from a post entitled "Present your research in the form of dialogue" on the excellent How to Write Badly Well blog.
'Yes,' confirmed Sally. 'Who would have thought when we set off this morning for this remote Swiss village that we would end the day in possession of the very document which marked the birth of modern European statehood?'
'Certainly not me!' laughed Geoff.
'Nor me!' guffawed Sally.
'And to think,' Geoff extemporised, 'the Ratification of the Treaty of Münster occurred exactly three hundred and sixty-one years ago today!'


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vertical_split11900S Slat Jumbo Rocker Details
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List of Blade Runner characters
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e
Blade Runner is a 1982 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. The film, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is an adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
Rick Deckard
Rick Deckard is a "Blade Runner", a special agent in the Los Angeles police department employed to hunt down and "retire" replicants. His ID number is B-263-54, which is stated twice in both the 1992 Director's Cut and the 25th-anniversary Final Cut of the film.
He is the protagonist of the film and the narrator in the original theatrical release.
Agent Deckard was played by Harrison Ford.
Roy Batty
Roy Batty is the leader of the renegade Nexus-6 replicants and the main antagonist of the film. He was activated on January 8, 2016, which makes him 3 years and 10 months old by the time of the events of the film. He is highly intelligent, fast, and skilled at combat, and yet still learning how to deal with developing emotions. With an A Physical Level (superhuman strength & endurance) and an A Mental Level (genius-level intellect), he is probably the most dangerous of all the fugitive replicants. He is a combat model, used off-world for military service. He and five other replicants come to Earth hoping to find a way to lengthen their lifespan. He is able to use J. F. Sebastian to get a meeting with Tyrell, the head founder of the company and his creator. Tyrell refers to him as his "prodigal son", and tells him his life cannot be extended, but that he should revel in the life that he has, as he has done and seen things others could only dream of. Following this, Batty kills Tyrell and likely is the killer of Sebastian.
Deckard retires the remaining replicants and is hunted by a dying Roy. Trying to escape, Deckard ends up dangling from a building and is saved from the fall by Roy. As he dies, Roy tells Deckard about the things he saw in his life and how all those memories would be gone forever, "...like tears in the rain." He then smiles, saying, "Time… to die", and passes away.
In the original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, his name was spelled "Roy Baty", and was the leader of the eight androids who killed their human owners so that they could escape their life of slavery on Mars. Roy was married to Irmgard Baty, another android. In the novel, Roy's relationship with Pris (who was his lover in the film) is only one of friendship.
In the novel Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, Batty is one of a series of replicants based on a mercenary of the same name. The template for these replicants suffered from "neural malformation", which made them unable to experience fear. This, it is suggested, might be one of the reasons replicants of that particular series were so difficult to kill.
Roy Batty was played by Dutch actor Rutger Hauer.
Harry Bryant
Harry Bryant is the captain of the Rep-Detect department of the Los Angeles Police Department. His job in the film is to deal with a group of escaped Nexus-6 replicants (whom he refers to as "skinjobs") that have landed on Earth. His top Blade Runner, Holden, was in hospital on a medical ventilator after an encounter with the Leon replicant, earlier in the film. Bryant uses thinly-veiled threats against Rick Deckard — a retired Blade Runner — to enlist his aid.
In the original theatrical version, Deckard, during his narration, compares Bryant to the racist cops of the past. "Skinjob, that was Bryant's term for Replicants. In history books, he's the kind of cop that used to call black men niggers."
Capt. Bryant was played by Michael Emmet Walsh.
Hannibal Chew
Hannibal Chew works for the Tyrell Corporation as a genetic engineer. His job is to create the eyes for the replicants, Roy's and Leon's, in this case.
In the film, the replicants visit him while he is working in a freezer. The replicants pressure him into telling them who can get them into Tyrell's inner sanctum – J. F. Sebastian.
He was played by Chinese-American actor James Hong.
Gaff is a Los Angeles police officer who escorts Deckard throughout his mission. He primarily uses Cityspeak, a creole of Spanish, French, German, Hungarian, Chinese, and Japanese, which Deckard pretends to not understand. Gaff is never shown participating in Deckard's investigation, preferring to linger in the background crafting origami figures.
Gaff was played by Mexican-American actor/director Edward James Olmos.
The sequel by K. W. Jeter mentions that Gaff is killed in the line of duty. At the beginning of the novel, Bryant has just returned from the funeral and expresses his distaste for the Cityspeak written on Gaff's headstone.
In the sequel Blade Runner 2049, Gaff is questioned by Officer K (Ryan Gosling) in retirement house asking about Deckard's whereabouts.
Dave Holden
Dave Holden is the Blade Runner testing new employees at the Tyrell Corporation on the premise that the escaped Replicants might try to infiltrate the company.
During a Voight-Kampff test, Leon shoots Holden and leaves him for dead. Later, Bryant mentions that Holden is alive, but his breathing is assisted by machines.
There were two hospital scenes with Holden and Deckard that were filmed, but not used in the movie. One scene is shown in the documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner. Both scenes appear in the deleted scenes section on the Blade Runner Special Edition DVD.Template:Citation needed
He was played by Morgan Paull.
Leon Kowalski
Leon Kowalski is a replicant who came to Earth with five others looking to extend their lives. He has an A physical level, which means he has superhuman strength and endurance (according to the Final Cut he was used as a 180 kg/400 lb nuclear-head loader in the outer space colonies as well as a front-line soldier). Leon is classified mental level C. He doesn't have the speed of thought that Roy does when it comes to solving problems. He was activated on April 10, 2017, making him 2 years and 7 months old by the time of the film.
Leon shoots Blade Runner Holden as he administers the Voight-Kampff test on him while he works at the Tyrell Corporation, which he has infiltrated. Leon attacks Deckard after he witnesses Deckard kill Zhora, but is himself killed by Rachael who shoots him with Deckard's gun, which Leon had knocked out of Deckard's hand as he drew it.
Leon cherishes photographs of his friends. Unlike Rachael's false photos of her childhood, these include current photos of people who mean something to him.
Leon Kowalski was played by Brion James.
Taffey Lewis
Taffey Lewis is the owner of Taffey's Snake Pit Bar. The bar features music, exotic dancing, and something being smoked in pipes. He dismisses Deckard's threats with a free drink.
He was played by Hy Pyke.
Pris Stratton
Pris Stratton is a "basic pleasure model" incepted on Valentine's Day, 2016, making her the second-oldest of the four fugitive replicants at 3 years, 9 months. She is the girlfriend of Roy Batty and is responsible for gaining J. F. Sebastian's trust. At an A Physical Level, she is shown to have superhuman endurance (as in the scene where she grabs a boiling egg with her bare hand without harm). Her B Mental Level puts her at a lower intellectual level than Roy but higher than Leon. She sets a trap for Deckard in the Bradbury Building, disguising herself as one of Sebastian's toys and then attacking Deckard with her gymnastic skills. As she rushes Deckard for another attack, he retires her.
Her surname Stratton appears in the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but is never explicitly used in the movie.
Her punk outfits were inspired by a new wave calendar.
It is suggested in Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human that Pris, actually, was an insane human woman who believed that she was a female replicant.
She was played by Daryl Hannah.
Rachael is the latest experiment of Eldon Tyrell. He believes that since the replicants have such a limited lifespan, they have little time to develop control of their emotions, causing difficulty in managing these emotions. He believes implanting the replicants with memories would create a cushion that would allow for emotional development, and make them more controllable.
Rachael has the implanted memories of Tyrell's niece, and Rachael is then led to believe that she is human. It is not revealed in the film how long she has been living, but Tyrell admits that he thinks she is beginning to suspect the truth of her nature.
When Rachael learns the truth, she is ignored by Tyrell. In desperation, she turns to Deckard, who has been told by Captain Bryant to retire her. He eventually falls in love with her.
Both of them are allowed to live: Roy saves Deckard from falling off a building, and Gaff does not kill Rachael. Gaff leaves his calling card, an origami model (this time, foil shaped like a unicorn) at Deckard's apartment to show he's been there. At the end of the film, Rachael and Deckard flee from his apartment to presumably go into hiding, or at least leave the conditions of their former lives.
In Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, she is kept within a Tyrell transport that slows down her aging process located in an isolated shack outside of Los Angeles. Near the end of the novel, Sarah Tyrell, who is Eldon's niece and Rachael's template, brings her to Tyrell headquarters in order to meet with Deckard and allowed to flee. However, it is ultimately learned that Rachael is killed by Tyrell agents while Sarah and Deckard escape, allowing Sarah to reclaim her place as Tyrell's niece.
In a deleted scene, Deckard states "[Rachael] was a Nexus-6 with a phony snapshot and phony memories which made her think she was one of us."
In Blade Runner 2049, a sequel to the original film, it is revealed Rachael was given the ability to reproduce by Tyrell. During an apparent routine investigation, Blade Runner Officer K uncovers a mysterious box containing bones and hair buried under a tree. The remains are initially mistaken for that of a human being who died after a caesarean section, but K discovers they are actually the remains of a replicant who fell in love with Rick Deckard.
Rachael was played by Sean Young, who also played the clone of Rachael which appeared in the second Blade Runner film. This was achieved through the use of CGI facial de-aging. The sequel also used archival footage of the original film.
J. F. Sebastian
J. F. Sebastian is a genetic designer working for Tyrell. He is not allowed to emigrate off-world because he has Methuselah Syndrome. Because of this, he ages faster and has a shorter lifespan, something he has in common with the replicants. He is only 25 years old, but his physical appearance is of a middle-aged man. With the Bradbury Building all to himself, he makes the most of his considerable talents creating automata companions. He is loosely based on the character J. R. Isidore from the novel.
He is approached by Pris, whom Sebastian takes in because he thinks she is homeless, and Roy comes to stay with him soon after. Roy and Pris point out that because of his condition, Sebastian has much in common with them, and argue that if they don't get Tyrell's help to extend their lives, Pris shall die soon. Sebastian is playing correspondence chess with Tyrell, and Roy suggests a bold move which gives rise to an opportunity to visit Tyrell and smuggle Roy in. When Tyrell claims that he cannot extend Roy's life, Roy kills him.
Sebastian is seen running away from Roy, who later descends the elevator alone. A police radio message heard by Deckard after Tyrell is killed states that Sebastian's body was also discovered by the police with Tyrell's at the Tyrell Corporation.
The makeup for Sebastian was a "stretch and stipple" technique with no prosthetics.
He was played by William Sanderson.
Dr. Eldon Tyrell
Dr. Eldon Tyrell is the genius who has built up the large Tyrell Corporation. His creations are Replicants, some of whom have been given away as an incentive for people to emigrate to the Off-World colonies. Others are used in combat to protect those settlers. Roy Batty, along with J. F. Sebastian, finds Tyrell, and asks him to extend his life beyond the four-year limit built into Nexus Six replicants. However, Tyrell claims this request is impossible to satisfy due to the inherent instabilities of replicant genetics. Upon hearing this, Batty kisses Tyrell before gouging out his eyes and crushing his skull with his bare hands, killing him.
He was played by Joe Turkel.
Zhora Salome
Zhora Salome is a replicant with an A Physical Level (super-human endurance) and a B Mental Level (intelligence equal to that of Pris), and has been used in murder squads. She was activated on June 12, 2016, making her 3 years and 5 months old. She gets a job as an exotic dancer at Taffey's Bar, creating an act using her own pet snake. Deckard tracks her down at Taffey's after finding her snake's scale, and she soon realizes that he is dangerous. She attacks him, but Deckard narrowly escapes death when people walk in just before she delivers a killing blow. Zhora tries to escape by running into a busy street, but Deckard chases her and finally shoots her in the back, "retiring" her.
She was played by Joanna Cassidy.
Unnamed replicant(s)
According to dialogue spoken by Bryant in the Final Cut of the film, two other unnamed replicants (only one in earlier versions) were killed while attempting to enter the Tyrell Corporation. The term used by him when describing their deaths ("Two of them got fried running through an electrical field") suggests they were stopped by an electrical barrier or security device of some sort. (In the theatrical cut of the film, the spoken line is "One of them got fried running through an electrical field" leaving one replicant unaccounted for.)
Earlier drafts of the script name these replicants as Hodge and Mary. In Hampton Fancher's early drafts of the script, Mary lives and Hodge is the only replicant fried in the electrical field. Mary was intended to reflect the novel's character of Irmgard Baty, and was meant to be a "mother figure" model of replicant, performing housework and childcare duties, and she was supposed to be reminiscent of the stereotypical housewife of the 1950s. Her incept date is given as November 1, 2017. Mary was to be played by Stacey Nelkin, who had originally tried out for the role of Pris, but Mary's scenes were cut before filming.


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68:15 minutes (15.62 MB)
Exciting conversations are budding on Youth Voices and on Voices on the Gulf.
Martha, a senior at the East-West School of International Studies in Queens (Paul Allison's school) begins this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers by putting out a call for other students to join us on TTT. She wants to talk about how students express themselves creatively outside of school. We hope more students will be able to join us on the next TTT, Wednesday, October 13, 9:00 pm Eastern / 6:00 Pacific.
Margaret Simon, whose elementary school students have been shining on Voices on the Gulf joins us on this podcast as well. Margaret has invited a few of her students to join us on TTT this coming Wednesday as well.
Gail Desler, Chris Sloan, David Pulling have updates to share with us as well. We talk about research, I-Search and more!
Enjoy this podcast. Join us on Wednesday, and invite a student to join us as well.
Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.


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Japanese regulators widened their investigation of AIJ Invesment Advisors Co. to Hong Kong as they considered extending the suspension of AIJ's activities. At the same time, a client of the advisory firm said as its own shares tumbled that it will seek to recover its losses.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that Japan's Financial Services Agency is considering a continuance of its suspension of AIJ's business for an additional 30 days as it reaches out to its colleagues in Hong Kong to assist in determining the whereabouts of some 185.3 billion yen ($2.3 billion) in pension assets, much of which are currently unaccounted for. It also seeks help in uncovering possible wrongdoing in the case.
The case has caused the FSA to launch its largest-ever probe of fund managers in Japan, and concern is running high over missing pension funds in the country where over 20% of the people are older than 65. AIJ President Kazuhiko Asakawa is scheduled to be questioned by parliament next week in the matter. AIJ has told regulators that its assets under management have fallen to around 24 billion yen, and it cannot account for the missing funds. Currently, Asakawa's whereabouts are not known.
Katsuyuki Tokushima, head of pension research at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo, was quoted saying that the matter demonstrates the need for Japanese regulators "to consider hiring specialists who can trace the flow of investments that are channeled through overseas funds. It's time consuming to uncover money flows through offshore locations like the Cayman Islands with fund administrators based in a different location."
Meanwhile, Human Holdings Co., a school and healthcare company that has seen its stock price tumble 9.4% since it revealed that it was an AIJ client, is talking with its lawyer to see if it can claim damages on about 330 million yen ($4.1 million) that AIJ managed for it as of Dec. 31. Yusuke Kawashita, an executive officer of Human Holdings, was quoted saying, "We find it very regrettable that the reported performance was unrealistic and untrue. We are now in discussions on how to legally claim as much compensation as possible."


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On Assignments
This morning, after waking up earlier than usual and drinking the gas station coffee that my husband bought for me (I love gas station coffee), I settled into the enormous chair at my desk in front of my computer. Suddenly, I had no idea what I meant to do. It occurred to me that if a poet or writer is to develop discipline, he or she must have some sense of assignment. And so bereft of direction or purpose, I called downstairs to my husband and asked him to provide me with an assignment. He said, "Write an essay on Coleridge's 'Frost at Midnight,' and enter the poem in a new way." It sounded interesting to me, but ultimately too huge of a project to suddenly launch into at 6:30 in the morning.
The truth is that as writers and poets, we all discover what it is that we want to write about by what presents itself to us as a deviation from an assignment, or a method of getting around an assignment in order to actually fulfill the assignment. I needed my husband to provide me with an assignment, not because I wanted the confinement of specificity or structure, but because I needed the inspiration to begin from somewhere, even if where I began was completely unrelated to the assignment. From where does a poem arise? I think for each of us, our poems are born by way of our own mysterious processes. And yet when we attempt to intentionally enter into mystery, we often don't know where to begin, nor do we even understand the mystery.
When I am without a formal assignment or prompt, it's like attempting to trespass on something where there is no territory to trespass. I'll stare out the window at the evergreen tree in our backyard and hope that the first line will somehow be infiltrated into my consciousness simply by sitting still. This is a peculiar device which is contingent upon the premise of "waiting for something to happen." I'll watch the sun spread itself on the snow, and then slip again into the shadows. Once in awhile, our neighbor will wander through the backyard with her dog. Yesterday, I heard two rifle shots. And then sometimes there are divine moments when a flock of geese will fly over the river and honk out a cacophonous sound.
But sometimes, nothing happens. I bite at my cuticles and wallow about being blocked for the rest of my life. So here's a trick: I'll pick up somebody's book of poems and read something they've written. I'll find two compelling words, or perhaps just one. And then I'll begin the poem with those one or two words and see if it inspires me. After all, words implicate ideas, and if you begin sorting through all the words that pass through your mind, you're bound to eventually come up with a phrase. Once you have a phrase, the trick is in contextualizing it into story, concept and form. But the other trick is, it's probably not a good idea to write poems deliberately. Some of the best lines and images are often not deliberate. We arrive at them completely by accident, and that it what makes them resonant, entertaining, and unique.
Even mechanisms like enjambment and rhyme are better when they aren't deliberate. Once I wrote a poem all in slant rhyme and wasn't even conscious that I was doing it. The fantastic thing about having a husband who is both a poet and a critic is that after he reads a poem that I wrote, he exposes it as conceptually complex, as if I had determined the concept before I began to write it. He has an uncanny knack for seeing the poet's intentions even as the poet is unaware of them. He sees the consciousness of the poem. I am never conscious of the poem's concept until someone has the insight to see it as a whole and complete entity, operating in terms of oppositions, disparities, and reconciliations. This is why I think it is the poet's advantage not to outline or premeditate a concept before the poem actually conceptualizes itself.
So what is my assignment this morning? Oh, right "Frost at Midnight." So the first line (which is one of my favorites in the annals of all poetry) "The frost performs its secret ministry,/Unhelped by any wind" is Coleridge's very perspicacious manner of identifying something in nature and personifying it so that it retains its ethereality. The irony is that the very idea of something "performing" almost implies that there would be something auditory involved---something perhaps loud and showy, and yet the frost performs in silence. In fact, as the whole poem is somewhat of a performance of nature, all of this is performed without sound, except in two places. First, "the film that fluttered on the grate," ("the sole unquiet thing"). What Coleridge achieves by emphasizing the only thing in this performance which makes any sound is the reinforcing of just how quiet everything else is. The second place in the poem which references noise is only in the memory of the church tower, "Whose bells [are] the poor man's only music." What this does is juxtapose the quiet of the present with the memory of a great influx of music, thus also reinforcing the calm and soundless moments of the poem. The last line of the poem, "Quietly shining to the quiet moon" allows us to actually "hear" the quiet moon shining, along with contrast of the fading echo of those church bells and the almost indecipherable fluttering of film on the grate.
So, was Coleridge thinking consciously that he would juxtapose quiet with sound in order to reinforce these mysterious performances of nature? I doubt it. A poet never writes a poem with the intention of predetermining how any given reader will interpret it. A poet should never say, "this is how my poem should be interpreted." The poem is simply an extension of the poet's arbitrariness, and often, if the poem is good, it doesn't even make sense to the poet. After that, it is up for grabs and out of the poet's hands. No one will ever know what the poet was thinking. But, they can conjecture and twist it into the meaning which suits the poem as a whole, whether by imposition or simply innocuous speculation.
The way I would harness this poem as inspiration for my own poem would not be to say, "I think I'll write a poem about the way nature performs," or "I want to juxtapose quietness and sound."
I would take the word "ministry" and the idea of the slumbering infant, ascribe it to a present situation and begin like this:
For the time being, we will exist in separate rooms
lest we should be inattentive to the literature.
The hidden ministries of our holy languages
spin their separate webs---
allow our imaginary child to sleep without babble or fuss---
allow the morning to call itself into its order.
There is no trumpeting or wail---
no storm or fallen branch---
no love that desires itself more
than the awareness
that I can hear you drop a coin by accident
in the other room.
So for now, I think I have more or less completed a part of my husband's assignment, and that assignment has provided me with a sense of orientation. And it was exactly that orientation I needed in order to disorient myself. And yet, by way of that disorientation, I still managed to address the Coleridge poem.
Since I began writing this, not a thing has occurred in the backyard, except that the sun slipped into a winter shadow. But I did hear my husband's coin drop. I don't know what that really means in the context of the poem, and yet I have a vague idea that it means I can be assured with the certainty that he is there. I didn't say that explicitly in the poem because I was hoping that this might be implied. But the poem is out of my hands now. It spoke for an occasion, and the occasion has been documented. So now I must wait for the next occasion. After I make my husband breakfast.


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Dust Bowl
In the latter half of the 1930s the southern plains were devastated by drought, wind erosion, and great dust storms. Some of the storms rolled far eastward, darkening skies all the way to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The areas most severely affected were western Texas, eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle, western Kansas, and eastern Colorado. This ecological and economic disaster and the region where it happened came to be known as the Dust Bowl.
According to the federal Soil Conservation Service, the bowl covered 100 million acres in 1935. By 1940 the area had declined to twenty-two million acres. It disappeared in the forties. A prolonged drought, combined with unusually high temperatures and strong winds, caused the normally semiarid region to become for a while a veritable desert. During some growing seasons the soil was dry to a depth of three feet. Lack of rain plagued the northern plains states too, though less severely.
Droughts occur regularly on the plains; an extreme one comes roughly every twenty years, and milder ones every three or four. But in historic times there is no record of such wind erosion as accompanied the drought in the thirties. In 1932 there were 14 dust storms of regional extent; in 1933, thirty-eight; in 1934, twenty-two; in 1935, forty; in 1936, sixty-eight; in 1937, seventy-two; in 1938, sixty-one; in 1939, thirty; in 1940, seventeen; in 1941, seventeen. In Amarillo the worst year for storms was 1935, when they lasted a total of 908 hours. Seven times, from January to March, the visibility in Amarillo declined to zero; one of these complete blackouts lasted eleven hours. In another instance a single storm raged for 3½ days.
Some of the storms afflicting the plains were merely "sand blows," produced by the low sirocco-like winds that came from the Southwest and left the sandier soils drifted into dunes along fencerows and ditches. Less frequent but far more dramatic were the "black blizzards," which appeared with a sudden, violent turbulence, rising like a long wall of muddy water as high as 7,000 or 8,000 feet. The most notorious of these occurred on April 14, 1935. Like the winter blizzards to which they were compared, these storms were caused by the arrival of a polar continental air mass; the atmospheric electricity they generated lifted the dirt higher and higher in a cold boil, sometimes accompanied by thunder and lightning and at other times by an eerie silence. Such "dusters" were not only terrifying to observe but immensely destructive to the region's fine, dark soils.
Repeatedly in those years dirt and sand destroyed crops, property, and mental and physical health. The misery of the era was widely chronicled and eloquently captured in such books as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939). People shoveled the dirt from their front yards and swept up bushel basketfuls inside their houses. Automobile and tractor engines were ruined by grit. The human costs were even harder to calculate and bear. Old people and babies were the most vulnerable to eye and lung damage, as were those with respiratory ailments like asthma. The medical remedies available to them were primitive and makeshift. The Red Cross furnished light gauze masks, and people stuffed rags around windows and door cracks. Domesticated and wild animals often suffocated or were blinded.
As the agricultural base of the region was buried under dust, extreme hardship loomed over the southern plains. In May 1934 dust fell from a massive storm on the Mall and the White House in Washington, D.C., and helped focus federal attention on the desperate situation. The Soil Erosion Service of the United States Department of Commerce established the Dalhart Wind Erosion Control Project in 1934 under the direction of Howard H. Finnell. That year $525 million was distributed to cattlemen for emergency feed loans and as payment for some of their starving stock; farmers were provided with public jobs such as building ponds and reservoirs or planting shelter-belts of trees. Seed loans were provided for new crops, and farmers were paid to plow lines of high ridges against the wind. In 1935 the Soil Conservation Service of the USDA replaced the Soil Erosion Service and opened the Region Six office in Amarillo. There Finnell supervised the conservation work for the entire Dust Bowl. With the cooperation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Work Projects Administration, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Resettlement Administration, the Farm Security Administration, state extension services, and other agencies, the Soil Conservation Service made efforts to limit the worst effects of wind erosion. Also in 1935 the Texas legislature established conservation districts for wind-erosion control in nine Panhandle counties, where local authorities were given power to force farmers to institute measures to halt blowing dust. Between 1935 and 1937 over 34 percent of the farmers in the area left.
The Dust Bowl was not only the result of bad weather but also of human actions that exacerbated the drought. Immediately before the thirties men had entered the plains fired with enthusiasm to make them yield abundant wealth, and, in a few short years, they had destroyed much of the native grass holding the dirt in place (see GRASSLANDS). Some of them had overstocked the land with cattle and reduced its ability to survive a time of severe drought. Others had come intent on transforming the area into row-crop agriculture. Both sorts of settler ignored the hard-won experience of their predecessors on the plains as well as available scientific data and thereby put at risk a vulnerable environment.
In the boom years of the twenties, from 1925 to 1930, the time of what one writer has called "the great plow-up," farmers tore up the vegetation on millions of acres in the southern plains, an area nearly seven times the size of Rhode Island. They introduced new gasoline tractors, which allowed them to plow faster than ever before. Some "suitcase farmers" had no more responsible plan than speculating on a quick crop or two. More grandiosely, the movie mogul Hickman Price arrived in Plainview, Texas, in 1929 to establish a factory farm covering over fifty-four square miles in Swisher, Castro, and Deaf Smith counties. To every part of the region came similar pacesetters who fervently believed in the twenties' creed of unlimited, laissez-faire economic expansion and who were convinced that modern methods of industrial capitalism, so apparently successful elsewhere in the economy, were what the plains needed. Even traditional conservative agriculturists were induced to follow these entrepreneurs' lead and try to cash in on a period of good weather and high market demand. Most of the freshly plowed ground went into wheat, so that during the twenties wheat production jumped 300 percent, creating a severe glut by 1931. When the black blizzards began to roll, one-third of the Dust Bowl region-thirty-three million acres-lay ungrassed and open to the winds.
The origin of the Dust Bowl was therefore related to the near-simultaneous collapse of the American economy. Both catastrophes revealed the darker side of entrepreneurialism, its tendency to risk long-term social and ecological damage in the pursuit of short-term, private gain. The New Deal was elaborated partly to prevent such disasters in the future. Some argue that plains agriculture was chastened by the Dust Bowl years and has, with government help, reformed itself adequately so that the thirties nightmare will not recur. Others, less sanguine, point to the dust storms of the mid-1950s and 1970s as evidence that the old Dust Bowl can be reborn, if and when weather and market forces collide again. See also WEATHER.


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"The communication channels were always open and we felt that our ideas were heard and responded to professionally and quickly."
- Owner Yosh Enterprises, LLC
"The design choices were all great and we were able to move quickly from idea to production."
- CEO B2H Management, LLC
"Mark [of 8oz Studios] did a really great job on my website. Not only did he take his own creative initiative, but was excellent at listening to my needs and desires for the overall aesthetic approach. Mark designed a clear, easy to navigate, beautiful, original website."
- Mariel Berger, Client
"Our projects were always on time, and communication was excellent. Mark [of 8oz Studios] always made sure we got what we were looking for, while his professional input helped us have better and more effective marketing materials."
- Jess Collazo
Electronics Design Group, Inc.


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Arguably, it's the 2012 Dodge Charger SRT8 that benefited the most from SRT's latest makeover. Last time we drove it, back in 2008, we loved it for its brute force, but thought the running gear was "unsettled, jittery, and unpolished." That's all done with. A new adaptive damping system, incorporating Bilstein coilovers, does a tremendous job soaking up the heavy car's former slop.
The suspension changes are most obvious on Willow Spring's Omega series of turns — a punishing, up-and-over section where the car is forced into corners with the suspension alternately weighted and unweighted. Here the Charger feels surprisingly on point.
As for the Hemi, let's get the specs out of the way, right up front. SRT's spent a bit of brain currency pulling out more low-end torque. The new, 6.4-liter Hemi gets a trick active-intake manifold using two different lengths of intake runners. They've also added a high-lift camshaft with cam phasing, all of which adds 80 lb.-ft. of torque at 2,900 rpm. Horsepower's up to 470, with torque peaking at 470, an 11 percent and 12 percent increase, respectively. Yes, the muscle is there. Are we being petty to have hoped for a solid 500?
The Charger also gets the best-looking dash cluster of the bunch, with a new, SRT-only steering wheel providing a much-needed tactile connection to what's happening underneath. Yes, they listened.


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Christie lent his powerful voice to that sentiment last week when he condemned as "disgusting" the House Republicans' decision not to take up a $60 billion Hurricane Sandy recovery bill because tea-party lawmakers considered it wasteful. "That's why people hate Washington," Christie said at the time, helping to force House Speaker John Boehner to reconsider.
It was just the latest of Christie's many breaks with tea-party orthodoxy. Just before the election, his effusive praise of President Obama's "outstanding" response to Sandy earned him condemnation from Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch.
He unnerved fiscal conservatives by saying that the hurricane recovery would probably require higher taxes, because "there's no magic money tree." He came out against the National Rifle Association's plan to have gun-wielding guards in schools, saying, "You don't want to make this an armed camp for kids." …
It's a lesson that could help the national Republican Party loosen the tea party's death grip.


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Rackspace Rallies Partners Around OpenStack Private Clouds
Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) is working Dell, HP, EMC and other technology vendors to ease large-scale private cloud deployments based on the OpenStack open source cloud platform.
Rackspace has released a series of Private Cloud Open Reference Architectures to drive the effort. Included in the development of the architectures are AMD, Dell, EMC, HP, Arista Networks, Brocade, Hortonworks, NetApp and CommVault. The launch, which was announced on the Rackspace blog, includes three reference architectures.
As Paul Rad, Rackspace vice president of private cloud, noted in his blog post, "deploying, managing and running a large-scale, enterprise private cloud is not an easy task." Included in the reference architecture list are:
- Mass compute with external storage, an architecture design for scalable cloud compute where data can be stored to external resilient volumes and exported to iSCSI.
- Mass compute, a scalable compute cloud architecture designed for variable workloads in which data resides on the compute nodes directly.
- Distributed object storage, which is an architecture for an object storage cloud for enterprises to store critical data across multiple zones for increased resiliency.
Reference architures are one way toward achieving maturity in a business technology, and that's what Rackspace is hoping to do. At the same time, it may give it and the channel partners that deal in private OpenStack cloud infrastructure and deployments an advantage, as the references should, ideally, make it easier for them to design private clouds for their customers.
At the same time, Rad introduced the Rackspace Private Cloud Certification Toolkit, which "validates all of the functionality of an OpenStack private cloud so your cloud operations team can be sure that your cloud is operational and that it has all of the necessary components properly installed and configured." It sounds like another good tool for partners that are deploying private clouds, but for remote private cloud operations, Rad forwarded readers on to Rackspace CORE software support.
What's next for Rackspace and OpenStack-based private cloud? Certification, of course. Rad wrote that Rackspace intends to certify Open Compute Project providers for integration with the Rackspace Private Cloud. The company also plans to add to the reference architectures over time, adding new ones based on high availability, security and software-defined networking (SDN).


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Steelers battered, bruised after loss to Titans
Steelers lose third straight road game to fall to 2-3
Max Starks stood in the midst of an equally parts stunned and downtrodden Pittsburgh Steelers' locker room on Thursday night and tried to put yet another second-half road collapse in perspective, this one a 26-23 loss to the previously woeful Tennessee Titans.
"I think that if this is the worst that can happen then we will be alright," the veteran left tackle said. "Adversity is here and as long as we overcome it then we will be a better team in the end."
At this point, the only way to go is up.
The Steelers (2-3) posted their third straight road defeat to start the season, and it followed an all-too familiar pattern. They jumped to an early lead. They were in control in the fourth quarter. They let another veteran quarterback well past his prime pull off an unlikely comeback.
In the opener it was Peyton Manning. Two weeks later it was Carson Palmer. On Thursday night it was Matt Hasselbeck channeling 2005 while leading the Titans to 10 points in the final 4:19, the last three coming on a 40-yard field goal by Rob Bironas as time expired.
During the short week, the Steelers stressed the need to finish off an opponent. Instead, they find themselves on the verge of being finished as a legitimate AFC contender barely a month into the season.
Injured stars Troy Polamalu and LaMarr Woodley were joined on the sideline by running backs Rashard Mendenhall (Achilles), Isaac Redman (ankle), center Maurkice Pouncey (leg) and right tackle Marcus Gilbert (ankle), all of whom limped gingerly off the field on a night the Steelers exhausted all seven of their linemen and had third-string running back Baron Batch playing in crunch time for the first time in his career.
Batch scored his first NFL touchdown on a 1-yard dive to give Pittsburgh a 20-16 lead early in the fourth quarter. He also lost a critical yard on the Steelers' final drive that helped push the team to the edge of kicker Shaun Suisham's range. Suisham's 54-yard attempt fell just short of the crossbar with 54 seconds left, giving Tennessee one last shot that Hasselbeck turned into the second game-winning drive given up by Pittsburgh's defense in the last three games.
"Guys just have to play better everybody, especially in the fourth quarter," linebacker Larry Foote said. "You have to make plays and you can't have mental breakdowns. That's what gets you beat in this league."
And has gotten the Steelers beat with alarming regularity. Pittsburgh is under .500 this late in the season for only the second time under coach Mike Tomlin, who took responsibility for opting for Suisham's field goal attempt rather than going for it or punting on fourth down.
"We didn't do the job obviously (and) defeated ourselves in some areas," Tomlin said.
In addition to Suisham's miss - which would have been a career-long if it had gone through - the special teams allowed a blocked punt. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger passed for 363 yards and broke Terry Bradshaw's franchise record for career passing yards but also tossed a pick late in the first half that allowed the Titans to kick a field goal just before the break.
"It stinks," Roethlisberger said. "We have to get better."
The defense had its own issues.
Cornerback Ike Taylor was victimized by Hasselbeck all game long and picked up a pair of pass interference penalties in addition to getting beat repeatedly by Tennessee wide receiver Kenny Britt, including for the game-tying touchdown with 4:19 to play. The defensive front seven failed to get pressure on Hasselbeck on the final drive and surrendered a 25-yard pass to tight end Jared Cook that put the Titans in position to win it.
While safety Ryan Clark understands why Roethlisberger would try to bear the brunt of the blame, Clark would rather put it on the defense. The Steelers are averaging 24.3 points in their three road games.
Most years, that's more than enough for Pittsburgh's defense.
Not this year.
"They're going to say it's a team game and they should have made one more play, but it's not true," Clark said. "They gave us enough points to win, they made enough plays to win the game. We had the lead in the fourth quarter, we need to keep it and we didn't do it."
The Steelers have 10 days to get ready for Cincinnati. They'll eagerly accept the rest and hope some of the injuries clear up. Woodley, who sat out with a hamstring injury, will likely be back. He may be one of the few, however.
Pouncey has dealt with ankle injuries in each of his first two seasons and watched his right leg bend awkwardly after getting rolled into by Gilbert in the first half. He spent the rest of the game on the bench with the leg immobilized. Mendenhall left early with an Achilles injury that doesn't appear to be related to the torn ACL in his right knee that sidelined him for nine months. Redman was in the midst of a standout game before an ankle injury sent him limping off.
The Steelers, however, don't do excuses. The standard is the standard regardless of who's in the game.
Still, even the ever-optimistic Starks allows the Steelers have no more wiggle room.
"I have been here through a lot worse situations at more critical points during the season," he said. "It's still early and I think that's one of the biggest things that we have on our side is that there is still some time and we have to be vigilant."


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Some fans of Fifty Shades of Grey are displeased with the recent casting of Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam in the upcoming film adaptation of their favorite racy novel. In response, the angry fans have created an on-line petition to recast the leads with two Houston-area natives: Alexis Bledel and Matt Bomer.
In just the few short days since the casting news broke, the petition on Change.org has already collected more than 40,000 signatures, and reads [sic]:
We want Matt Bomer and Alexis Bledel as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele on 50 Shades.
Matt Bomer is the PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF CHRISTIAN GREY AND ALEXIS BLEDEL IS THE PERFECT ACTRESS TO REPRESENT ANASTASIA STEELE and if THEY ARE NOT, NOBODY WILL BE And I read the whole trilogy and I can assure that Matt is the perfect actor for this movie and Alexis too. So please PLEASE, all of the GREYsessed and Bomerettes in the world NEED those actors. They always will be for us the Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. WE CAN DO ANYTHING GUYS, ANYTHING.
Matt Bomer, who is originally from Spring, TX, currently stars on the USA crime dramedy White Collar. He recently also had a small role in the male stripper film, Magic Mike, alongside Channing Tatum. Alexis Bledel, who is originally from Houston, is best known for her role as Rory Gilmore on The CW (and WB) series Gilmore Girls. Recently, she had a recurring role on Mad Men as Pete Campbell's depressed mistress.
Dana Brunetti, the film's producer, replied to the casting controversy on twitter, writing: "There is a lot that goes into casting that isn't just looks. Talent, availability, their desire to do it, chemistry with other actor, etc. So if your favorite wasn't cast, then it is most likely due to something on that list. Keep that in mind while hating and keep perspective."