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Emerging Microelectronics Technology
The Digital Evolution
- [IEEE Spectrum]: The Lost History of the Transistor - Silicon Revolution: How, 50 years ago, Texas Instruments and Bell Labs pushed electronics into the silicon age. In the Beginning: Gordon Teal directed the development of the silicon transistor at Texas Instruments. William Shockley led the team at Bell Telephone Laboratories that developed the very first transistor, which was made of germanium. TI's silicon device with its three long leads became famous, making the Texas upstart the sole supplier of silicon transistors for several years in the 1950s. Morris Tanenbaum at Bell Labs actually made the first silicon transistor, but he felt "it didn't look attractive" from a manufacturing point of view.... [more details...]
- [A Brief History of the Digital Revolution]: The Digital Revolution refers to the advancement of technology from analog electronic and mechanical devices to the digital technology available today. The era started to during the 1980s and is ongoing. The Digital Revolution also marks the beginning of the Information Era. The Digital Revolution is sometimes also called the Third Industrial Revolution. [more details...]
- [World Economic Forum]: The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. [more details...]
New Smart Metal Could Replace Silicon
A revolutionary new metal, GA-31 (Gallium-31), has emerged… MIT calls it the "new silicon"… The U.S. Government calls GA-31 a "smart metal… Because of its one-of-a-kind molecular structure, GA-31 is able to perform feats of scientific wizardry that put silicon to shame. As a result, every major company on the planet - from Google, to Apple, to Intel, to Facebook and beyond - are stampeding out of silicon…and into GA-31.
And there are several reasons why:
And there are several reasons why:
- First, because of GA-31's unique molecular structure, it has an astounding ability to conduct electrons. In short, they fly around at up to 1,300 miles per second. As a result, this metal offers astounding speed and power, far beyond the abilities of silicon. In fact, this GA-31 is up to 100 times faster than silicon… Not only does this allow Smart Phones and Laptops to perform with dizzying speed and prowess…But it also allows for modern-day technologies that silicon simply can't support… We are talking about Lasers, 3D-Sensors, Virtual Reality, Facial Recognition, Self-driving Cars, Smart Homes, and more.
- As you may know, silicon degrades at high temperatures. That's a big problem because today's smartphones contain billions of transistors all operating simultaneously. That generates tremendous heat. Silicon can't handle it. But when you "dope" GA-31 with a second ingredient, it can withstand extreme heat, up to 4,532 degrees Fahrenheit! This makes it ideal for cutting-edge applications, including weather satellites, solar panels, radars, and military defense systems. Add it all up, and GA-31 is essential to modern society.
Again, every major company on the planet – including Intel, Apple, and Google—are transitioning out of silicon and into GA-31!
[More to come ...]


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Intrigue, Not Romance, For 'The Good Wife'
The latest episode of CBS's "The Good Wife" spins marital infidelity into a major plot twist.
In the last episode, attorney Alicia Florrick (Juliana Margulies) and her husband Peter (Chris North) decided to renew their vows. But in this week's episode, she again kisses her extramarital flame Will Gardner (Josh Charles).
When Peter wins the Gubernatorial election for Illinois, he meets his wife in the bedroom, but after kissing him, she retreats to the bathroom – "I need to freshen up."
Caught in a storm of supporters, Peter gets lost in the crowd, and Alicia leaves for her apartment after a brief phone call. Getting home, she drinks a full glass of wine and plays classical music, sighing repeatedly and asking herself, "is this stupid?"
When the knock at the door finally comes, it isn't Will, but Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry), who has repeatedly asked Alicia to leave her law firm for his start up. The firm just elevated her to the rank of Partner, and she denied him many times.
But standing there in the doorway, she tells him, "I'm in." Business – not her side romance – drives this woman away from the arms of her husband on his big victory night.
Double slight for the hubby.

subset: commoncrawl


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LATEST CONTRIBUTIONS12.17.14 - Nostradamus Predicts The Anti-Christ Comes From The Middle-East
12.04.14 - Nostradamus Issues A Stark Warning About The Impending Economic Collapse
12.03.14 - Is ISIS The Beginning of World War Three
11.11.14 - Did Nostradamus Predict Ebola? Nostradamus Ebola Prediction
Bible Prophesies: The Second Trumpet of Revelation
The second trumpet of Revelation doesn´t make for any better reading than the first, and some scholars belief there is a suggestion of war, in particular a naval battle. Nostradamus also repeatedly indicates a period of war in his quatrains though the French seer concentrates on the land rather than the ocean.
"The Second angel sounded and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Revelation 8:8
Some researchers have linked the prophecy of the Apostle John with World War II as massive naval battles played a major part in that war. Likewise, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be considered as "something like a huge mountain all ablaze." They also quote that approximately 36,000 ships of the 105,000 utilised in World War II were destroyed.
The link with the revelation and World War II seems a fitting combination, though is it realistic to expect the trumpets signaling the end of to take over 60 years. The trumpets are warnings that something is about to happen. Sixty years is a long period of warning!
However, that the above prophecy has been linked with a naval battle is plain to see. Could World War III be just around the corner, because if so it is likely that the weapons fired by armed forces are likely to be bio-chemical and would indeed wipe out at least "a third of living creatures in the sea."
Nostradamus mainly focuses on land battles, particularly in Europe, when referring to wars, "cause mountains trembling with great war," and "from Monaco as far as Sicily," though he does envisage mass deaths at sea, supposedly in naval battles.
Century 2 Quatrain 94
Great Po, great evil will be received through Gauls,
Vain terror to the maritime Lion:
People will pass by the sea in infinite numbers,
Without a quarter of a million escaping.
On December 13th 2011, Chinese President Hu Jintao told the People´s Liberation Navy of China to "make extended preparations for military combat," in the face of maritime disputes with the United States in the South China Sea. On New Year´s Day 2012, the Iran Navy is known to have test-fired cruise missiles in another display of military strength.
Whilst ever the influence of US presence in unstable parts of the world provokes their enemies, the world teeters on the brink of a crevice. On false footstep and we could all fall down the side of the mountain and crash to the bottom. Given the power-hungry whores that have strong political and financial influence in the world reside in the United States, and they and their ancestors have arguably orchestrated every war, crisis and conflict throughout the annals of history, the predictions found in Revelation and those of Nostradamus seem to be looming ever nearer.
Read more about nostradamus, quatains, prophecies and 2012.
Don't miss the How The World Will End or 5 Creepy Paintings That Predicted Real World Events
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All prices are in All prices are in USD
Shop for the best Car Seat Toys and Stroller Toys in our stores's huge selection. We have organic sensory hanging baby toys by the Danish toy company Franck & Fischer, quirky & colorful soft toys that jingle, rattle and squeak by Manhatton Toy, Kathe Kruse and NA Bear Company and also high contrast black and white cards by Wimmer-Ferguson for stimulating your baby's senses. These car seat and stroller toys attach easily and will keep your baby entertained on car rides, walks thru the park or wherever your travels may take you. Small, portable toys are great for stashing in your diaper bag and bringing out to keep baby happy with fun sounds, textures and designs.


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My reading of world history tells me that the saying, "Be careful what you wish for – you might get it!", can be as true for nations as it is for individuals. Britain against France The British comprehensively defeated the French in the Seven Years' War (1756-63). In US history this is known as the […]Read more
Category: My views on things
Let's have a little respect for each other
The UK and the USA are both reeling from tragedies at the moment; we'll overcome the divisions within society by showing a little respect for each other.Read more
The Fall of Rome was not a walk in the park
Many of today's historians represent the Fall of Rome as a time of peaceful transition; one recent book flows this idea away.Read more
Scholars behaving badly
It seems that historians, anthropologists and probably other scholars ignore or downplay evidence which does not support their preconceived ideasRead more
A long-ago event in India's history is still important today
We would be wrong to think that long-ago events in India's history are irrelevant today. The Buddha's Enlightenment, for example, helped shaped modern India, and the modern world.Read more
Christianity, and the freedom not to believe, in Western civilization
The freedom not to have a religious faith is a distinctive, important and hard won part of Western thought and cultureRead more
…and history did NOT come to a full stop
It is easy to think that history is all in the past - but it isn't.Read more
New articles on Ancient China
New articles have been published in the Timemap of World History, on Ancient ChinaRead more
Christian missionaries in Africa – part of my family history
The role of missionaries in Africa and other places in colonial times was by no means entirely negativeRead more
Happy Christmas!
See 2015 in in the light of Christmas, not of world historyRead more
My mother's place in world history
My mother was an ordinary person who lived an ordinary life, but that does not mean she left no mark on world historyRead more
New England – reflections on a wilderness
Much of New England is covered by wilderness -why is this?Read more
Did British admirals of World War I lack the "Nelson Touch"?
Nelson was one of the great naval commanders of history, but his achievements were of a particular time and place. World War I was very different from the Napoleonic Wars.Read more
Social mobility through history
A new book says that social mobility is very rare and very gradual, whatever society one looks at in world history - but I will be hard to convince!Read more
More on social mobility (or its lack)
History seems to show that elite families keep their status within the ruling class through access to social privileges denied the rest of society.Read more
A Terrible Air Crash
A terrible air crash rocked the small island of Tenerife in 1977 - with casualty figures exceeding those of some major military engagementsRead more
Why do I prefer World War 2 to World War 1?
I prefer looking at World War 2 as a period of history than World War 1Read more
What did the Sahara Desert ever do for us?
The Sahara desert has had an important role to play in world historyRead more
A Remembrances of Lives Past
A moving tribute to all those who died in a long ago battleRead more
An Exception that Proves the Rule
Have more egalitarian societies proved happier in history? Yes, in the case of Costa Rica.Read more


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Part Two: How Well Does YOUR Birth Control Work?
Rachel Flink, MD
People have been trying to control family size throughout history, but with the advent of modern contraception, it's become easier and easier to plan pregnancies. This is because modern methods, in addition to being safer, are more effective than many methods used previously. This factor may matter different amounts to different people. If a woman knows she does not want to become pregnant for a certain time and she feels it is very important to delay pregnancy until that time, then effectiveness may be a critical factor in her decision about birth control options. If a woman would ideally like to delay pregnancy but would not be upset if it happened sooner, or if she and her partner would welcome a pregnancy, but don't feel comfortable actively planning for it, then effectiveness may be less important or even a deterrent to using a certain method. (As a side note, if there is a reasonable chance of pregnancy, women should optimize other health factors, such as control of chronic conditions, prenatal vitamin use, achieving a healthy weight, and cessation of smoking and substance use.)
Before launching into particulars, let's discuss how to interpret effectiveness and failure rates. In a typical year, a woman who is having regular unprotected intercourse has an 85% chance of getting pregnant, meaning that 85 out of 100 women will become pregnant in a year. This translates to about a 30-35% chance each menstrual cycle for a woman in her twenties. Younger women have an even higher chance of pregnancy, and older women have a lower chance. When people talk about effectiveness of birth control, they can refer to "perfect use," which is under ideal research conditions, or "typical use," which refers to how effective birth control is under real world conditions. Failure rates are the opposite of effectiveness and are easier to understand – they're the chance of getting pregnant in a given year of using a contraceptive method. All of these should be compared to the 85% "failure rate" of using no method at all.
As far as the particular birth control methods available, effectiveness tends to go hand-in-hand with ease of use, with the easiest methods to use being the most effective. Most people know that tubal ligation is extremely effective, requiring a quick outpatient surgery and having failure rates less than 1%, meaning that fewer than 1 in 100 women will get pregnant each year. For those women who don't want to close the door on childbearing, or who don't want surgery, long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC), like intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants, are just as effective if not more, with fewer than 1% of users each year having an unintended pregnancy (sometimes much fewer). LARC also tends to be safer, avoiding the need for surgery, and can last for 3 years (Nexplanon® implant, Skyla® IUD), 5 years (Mirena® and Liletta® IUDs) or 10-12 years (copper IUD), with a quick doctor's office visit for placement and removal.
Other options require more frequent dosing and have higher failure rates. Injectable contraception (Depo Provera) requires an office visit every 3 months for administration with a 6% failure rate each year. The vaginal ring (NuvaRing®) needs to be changed every 3-4 weeks. The birth control patch (OrthoEvra, Xulane) needs to be changed every week. Birth control pills need to be taken every day at the same time. Pills, patches and the ring all need prescription refills every 1-3 months and have failure rates of 9% each year.
Barrier methods, like condoms and withdrawal, need to be used every single time a woman has intercourse, and have failure rates of 15-25% each year, although they have the benefit of not requiring visits to a doctor's office. Fertility awareness or natural family planning involves monitoring of body temperature, vaginal secretions, urinary hormones and/or other cycle factors, and requires abstinence or condom use for around half of each cycle, with various amounts of training needed to understand and use the method properly. Fertility awareness-based methods have failure rates of 10-25% each year, depending on the method, the woman's natural cycles, and commitment by both partners.
As mentioned earlier, effectiveness is an important component of choosing a birth control method, but each woman has different goals, which should be discussed with their doctor or other health care provider. The next post will discuss the side effects of different birth control options, which is the other major factor most people use to make their decisions about birth control.
Rachel Flink, MD is an OB/GYN currently practicing in Western Pennsylvania and obtaining her Masters in Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. Her clinical interests include reproductive health, pregnancy care, family planning, and minimizing barriers to care. Rachel's research is focused on understanding women's experiences with and preferences for reproductive health care. Outside of work, she enjoys reading, being active outdoors, and spending time with her husband, two-year-old son, and rambunctious dog.
This Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the Site! For more information regarding the use of this site, please read our Terms of Use.


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From RIGHT ON TIME
Written by David Foster & Bill Champlin
Margriet Eshuijs is a veteran Dutch singer who enjoyed good success during her career with several hits on her homeland's charts. In 1981, the singer released an interesting pop album entitled "Right On Time" as leader of the Margriet Eshuijs Band.
Continue reading »


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DOOGEE releases another entry to its rugged phones lineup. The all new DOOGEE S90 Pro comes with an increase in performance, better modularity, increased battery life, and runs on the latest Android v9.0 (Pie). Doogee S90 Pro Specifications CPU: MediaTek Helio P70 with Mali-G72 GPU RAM: 6Gb Storage: 128Gb on-board (~100Gb useable) Screen: 6.18″ FHD+... Read more
Doogee S90 Pro: Modular Rugged Survival Smart Phone
August 8, 2019 Published by mvpbed


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PSN back up…
I read today that the Playstation Network is back up again. Hell, that took the very, very long.
I don't have a Playstation 3 myself, so I could laugh at Sony without feeling the pain of not being able to play online.
Honestly, though, as far as I know they did a fucknut job when it came to protecting costumer information. Passwords apparently saved in plain text, without any encoding? Pha! Fools!
I still find it unacceptable all credit card info got leaked. But bleh, they should've went with Paypal anyway, its waaay more accesible. (I, for example, don't have a credit card, but I do have internet banking, so I can easily set up Paypal. You can even do so without internet banking.)
And apple pie was made today. Delicious apple pie.
~ Fang


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Great News for all our patients below!
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Ample parking is available at the rear of the practice or opposite at The Avenue Shopping Centre (Woolworths).
Level 1 Dental Restrictions are currently in effect. This means we are able to do all of our procedures with standard precautions. Yes, this includes cleans!
***Please note our opening hours have changed temporarily during the Stage 4 Covid-19 restrictions***
We are taking additional precautions to help safeguard our staff and patients:
Online bookings are still active for your convenience - Our team will have to make contact with you after you book online to run through some questions with you.
Thank you for your support and understanding as we navigate these tough times!
- The team at Cranbourne North Dental
ALERT: If you have an appointment with us but have recently been overseas, feel unwell or have any cold and flu symptoms, please call us ASAP.
Great News for all our patients below!


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PEVELY, MO (KTVI) – A mother and her newborn had a brush with death after a piece of metal falls from a train overpass as they drove underneath.
The track and trestle, located along Highway Z in Pevely, belongs to Burlington Northern Santa Fe. A spokesperson said it's quite rare for a metal plate tie to fall from the track. They're investigating the situation and working with the family to cover all the damages.
Trains pass over the trestle several times a day and Mindy Damico said she always drives beneath the trestle on her way to her parents' house.
"I felt the vibration of the train, I felt it going over; then I hear something pop," she said.
Damico said she couldn't tell what it was so she pulled over to check it out.
"I got out of the car and realized that my preemie infant was in the back and started screaming because there was glass all over her," she said.
A near 40-pound metal base plate came off the track, smashed Damico's back window and tore holes in the roof right above her baby's car seat.
"I'm just in shock. I can't even function, really," she said.
Damico said it's a miracle neither of them was hurt, but she doesn't want to press her luck.
"I'm very nervous. I probably will not go under that railroad on Pevely. I will pick a different way to go to my parents' house," she said.
The rail line spokesperson said all of its bridges are inspected four times a year and they have people check the tracks every week.


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The impetus for Rosamond Casey's latest exhibition, "Tablet and Cloud: Pilgrims in Cyberspace," was a sight that has become so familiar to us that we often overlook it: the tangle of wires beneath our desks. "The way I usually start is I get fixated on a thing, a material or a form so pervasive in our culture it needs to be unpacked," says Casey, a local artist who has lived in Charlottesville for more than 30 years.
She began her first painting of the underbelly of workspaces two years ago. As society becomes more and more wireless, she recognized the presence of wires as a moment likely nearing its end and wanted to capture it. For her, the tangle of wires represents "a realm of our imagination, a corner of the mind we don't want to look at."
"I painted it with a reverence for what it was and what it might symbolize," she says. She also thinks of it as analogous to social media. "There's no map, no system, no sense of a neighborhood," Casey says. "Just a tangle of chaos."
From this initial idea she constructed a visual narrative that explores our relationship with technology and its impact on human interaction, conveyed through the expressive hands of her painted figures. In "Madonna and Child," an infant subtly points one finger toward her mother who is preoccupied with her cell phone while a bear hovers over the child.
In "Tabula Sacra," one hand threads a wire up through a hole in a table while another hand reaches down to receive it, the table bisecting the potential contact. Casey presents the idea of connection via the wires, while the hands that are close but never touching emphasize the withdrawal of human connection as we become more engaged with our devices. "I drew them with sadness," Casey says. "There's an aborted sense of touch."
The title of the exhibition comes from this idea that we're moving away from personal computers to a "tablet and cloud" culture as we rely more on virtual storage. The juxtaposition of the two terms intrigues Casey, who says, "'Tablet' casts back to something ancient while 'cloud' suggests a mysterious future." Incidentally, the term "the cloud" originated because of graphic representations of it by computer scientists and engineers as they attempted to diagram it for patenting purposes. And while there are physical locations for cloud servers, we tend to think of the cloud as the nebulous thing its name suggests.
"We're taking a pilgrimage through unseen territory, heretofore unknown," Casey says. The style of her figures is inspired by art from the Middle Ages, in addition to futuristic influences, as she plays with a distortion of time. "These people are of the past or the future because we're moving through the present so rapidly there is a less fixed idea of what 'now' is."
The very mutability of this present moment spurred Casey to grapple with the visual changes technology has created in our society and to convey a sense of awe for them. "Phones, computers and our faces in the light of our own devices," she says.
"It makes me think about something my father said: 'We're all chewing through this planet like an apple.' I have this conviction that in spite of investing everything in this future, it will fail us in a dramatic way. It feels fragile to me," she says. "The Butterfly Effect" is an example of this fragility as one person jumps from a boat, causing it to rock the three remaining individuals, one of whom drops a cell phone into the water.
The human figures are so haunting and compelling, it is a surprise to learn that in her 40 years as an artist she has never painted figurative work before, only abstract. In fact, she says, her current work is so different from anything she's done that it will not be recognizable to those familiar with her previous work. "It surprised me just as much, how fascinated I was by faces, illuminated, attentive and yet vacant," she says. The series not only represents a shift in genre for Casey, but medium as well. "This is the first time I've done oil painting in my life," she says.
Even more surprising are her artistic origins. "What has been the ballast of my art life is calligraphy," she says. "Every art project has some reference to the alphabet." In "Tablet and Cloud," the calligraphic mark can be seen in some of the lines and curves delineated by the seemingly random arrangements of wires. "All these years I've been breathing life into that line and seeing where it would take me."


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Sen. Jim Oberweis
Sponsored By
Tollway Committee OKs Plan To Increase Speed Limits, But Not To 70 MPHAn Illinois Tollway committee on Thursday recommended increasing speed limits on portions of the Tri-State, Reagan Memorial and Veterans Memorial tollways, but not to the 70 mph allowed under a new law.
Rev. Brooks Reflects On Support For Rauner, Oberweis"I've discovered that … when you go against the status quo, and you go against what people have been doing for years, everybody is not going to be pleased with it," Rev. Corey Brooks said after endorsing Republican candidates Bruce Rauner, who won, and Jim Oberweis, who lost.
Durbin: Voters Want Congress To Be More ProductiveA day after he sailed to his record fourth term in the Senate, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin was out thanking voters for their support, and urging the rest of Congress to come together to end the gridlock in Washington.
Former President Clinton Stumps For Quinn, DurbinFormer President Bill Clinton became the latest high-profile Democrat to back the re-election bids of Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, saying Tuesday that the candidates focus on issues important to voters, like jobs and health care.
Durbin, Oberweis Clash Over Tax Break LegislationU.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and the Republican state lawmaker who wants to unseat him have been clashing over proposed legislation favoring companies that keep jobs in America, over those that move operations overseas.
Kirk Reverses Course, Endorses Oberweis Against DurbinSeeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Durbin in November, Republican state Sen. Jim Oberweis on Thursday welcomed the belated support of Durbin's GOP colleague on Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk.
Oberweis Pitches His Own Minimum Wage PlanState Sen. Jim Oberweis (R-Sugar Grove), who is challenging U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in the November election, has reversed his stance on the minimum wage, and unveiled his own plan to raise it to $10 per hour over three years for adult workers.
FTC: Ban On Sunday Car Sales Is Bad For CompetitionThe Federal Trade Commission says the prohibition on Sunday automobile sales also makes it more difficult for drivers to shop around for the best deal.
Gay Marriage Opponents Invoke God, Free SpeechOpponents of legislation to legalize gay marriage in Illinois rallied Wednesday outside the state Capitol, one day after thousands held their own event to urge lawmakers to approve it.
Ex-GOP Boss Brady To Lobby For Same-Sex MarriageFormer Illinois GOP Chair Pat Brady, who was pushed out by party conservatives because of his vocal support for same-sex marriage, is writing his next chapter by tackling the same issue.
Does 70 MPH Highway Speed Limit Apply To Chicago Area? Maybe, Maybe NotIllinois raised the state's highway speed limit 70 mph on Monday, but don't go flooring it just yet until the politicians who put this new law on the books figure out whether higher speeds were really meant for urban highways, or just rural interstates.


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Cancellation Of Privatization Of T1 & T2
Toronto Pearson International Airport
Toronto, Ontario
As a result of the cancellation of privatization of the redevelopment and operation of Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Parsons Brinkerhoff Construction Services Inc. requested us to assist them in reviewing the capital cost estimates prepared by the developer. These estimates were prepared for the scope of work defi ned in the Umbrella Design and Construction Brief.
Our scope of work in support of the litigation process included:
- Validation of the contractor's costs up to and including termination;
- Preparation of an expert report; and
- Assistance in the negotiating the settlement.


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The field of mental health will face its greatest upset in years on Saturday with the publication of the long-awaited and deeply-controversial US manual for diagnosing mental disorders.
Early drafts of the book, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, have divided medical opinion so firmly that authors of previous editions are among the most prominent critics.
Known informally as the psychiatrists' bible, the $199 tome from the American Psychiatric Association is the guidebook that US doctors will use to diagnose mental disorders. The latest edition is the first major update in 20 years.
Though not used in the UK, where doctors turn to the World Health Organisation's International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD), the US manual has global influence. It defines groups of patients, and introduces new names for disorders. Those names can spread, and become the norm elsewhere. More importantly, the categories redefine the populations that are targeted by drugs companies.
Criticisms have come from almost every corner. There are claims of expansionism, with common experiences and behaviours becoming newly medicalised. Temper tantrums become disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD); grief becomes major depressive disorder (MDD), according to Allen Frances, an American psychiatrist who chaired the task force behind the fourth edition of the manual. Other behaviours get their own labels: overeating becomes binge eating disorder; keeping too much junk, a hoarding disorder; a bit forgetful could be mild neurocognitive disorder.
David Clark, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, said mental health disorders are often hard to divide into clear categories, because too little is known about them, and there can be major overlaps. But the definitions are often valuable. For example, greater distinctions between various types of anxiety have led to more specific and effective treatments, he said.
Nick Craddock, professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University, and director of the National Centre for Mental Health in Wales, said some of the stranger aspects of the US manual will have no impact in Britain. But he said DSM-5 was flawed because definitions of disorders were sometimes changed on the basis of too little fresh scientific evidence.
"I don't believe the science has advanced sufficiently in 20 years since DSM-4 to warrant making a new system," he said. "That essentially is just a group of people agreeing on tweaking things and making them a little bit different. That to me is not a very helpful stage in the develop of psychiatric diagnosis. This is the wrong time in history to change the diagnostic system. "
Changing the definitions of disorders alters who has them. That affects who gets drugs and other support, and who interventions are trialled on. If the criteria for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are broadened, then more people are likely to be diagnosed with the condition.
The arrival of DSM-5 will mark the end of Asperger's syndrome in the US.
Along with some other autism-related conditions, Asperger's will now be consumed by the new category of "autism spectrum disorder".
Some people diagnosed with Asperger's are unhappy about the coming change. Carol Povey, director of the National Autistic Society's Centre for Autism, said: "The term Asperger Syndrome is a core part of their identity for many people and they understandably feel anxious about moves to remove the term. The changes won't prevent people from continuing to use it to define themselves and nor should it," she said.
Debbie Tucker, chair of the Asperger's Syndrome Foundation, said the label can be useful in treating people, but that some did not want to be labelled. "Labels only become unhelpful and sometimes dangerous if used to discriminate. People with Aspergers are vulnerable to this," she said.
Last month, Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, declared that the organisation would not use DSM-5 definitions to set its research priorities. Writing about DSM-5 on his blog, he said: "The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischaemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure." Instead, he said the NIHM would lay the foundations for a new classification system, based on brain imaging, genetics, cognitive science and other research.
"We need to begin collecting the genetic, imaging, physiologic, and cognitive data to see how all the data – not just the symptoms – cluster and how these clusters relate to treatment response," he said.


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Your most marked characteristic?
Prolly th e psoriasis. It sure seems to be a conversation starter and has definately colored my perspective.
To what things do you feel most indulgent?
my friends.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
the worry of not having enough to take care of the people you love.
The quality you most like in a man?
Age, Humor, Confidence, and Patience
The quality you most like in a woman?
What do you most value in your friends?
What is your principle defect?
Obesity. I'm also parabnoid, all the time, about everything.
What is your favorite occupation?
Classic socialite (not paris Hilton. Think more Truman Capote.)
What is your dream of happiness?
I simple home in the middle of nowhere with my friends where we all have enough.
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
going deaf. no one is really alone that has music.
What would you have liked to be?
a magician.
In what country would you like to live?
France, or maybe England (like bristol or sussex)
What is your favorite color?
cerulean blue
What is your favorite flower?
Blue roses or calla lillies
What is your favorite bird?
The one given by an exasperated partner losing a fight.
Who are your favorite prose writers?
Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, JK Rowling, Bret Easton Ellis, Dominic Dunne, Dr. Suess, and Shakespeare as I love the plays but not the poetry.
Who are your favoite poets?
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair
And so he was quiet. & that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black,
And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind.
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
A little black thing in the snow,
Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
"Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
I hardly suppose I know anybody who wouldn't rather be a success than a failure,
Just as I suppose every piece of crabgrass in the garden would much rather be an azalea,
And in celestial circles all the run-of-the-mill angels would rather be archangels or at least cherubim and seraphim,
And in the legal world all the little process-servers hope to grow up into great big bailiffim and sheriffim.
Indeed, everybody wants to be a wow,
But not everybody knows exactly how.
Some people think they will eventually wear diamonds instead of rhinestones
Only by everlastingly keeping their noses to their grhinestones,
And other people think they will be able to put in more time at Palm Beach and the Ritz
By not paying too much attention to attendance at the office but rather in being brilliant by starts and fits.
Some people after a full day's work sit up all night getting a college education by correspondence,
While others seem to think they'll get just as far by devoting their evenings to the study of the difference in temperament between brunettance and blondance.
Some stake their all on luck,
And others put their faith in their ability to pass the buck.
In short, the world is filled with people trying to achieve success,
And half of them think they'll get it by saying No and half of them by saying Yes,
And if all the ones who say No said Yes, and vice versa, such is the fate of humanity that ninety-nine per cent of them still wouldn't be any bettter off than they were before,
Which perhaps is just as well because if everybody was a success
nobody could be contemptuous of anybody else and
everybody would start in all over again trying to be a bigger
success than everybody else so they would have somebody
to be contemptuous of and so on forevermore.
Because when people start hitching their wagons to a star, That's the way they are.
Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Carl Streator of Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
Bruce wayne of Batman by Bob Kane
Who are your favorite composers?
George and Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter
Who are your favorite painters?
Edward Hopper
Norman Rockwell
Damien Hirst
HR Giger
Who are your heroes in real life?
Richard Dawkins
Carl Sagan
Harold Lloyd
Frank McCourt
Who are your favorite heroines of history?
I have none.
What are your favorite names?
Maggie (but not Margaret)
Lola (but not Delores)
Bertram (but not Bert)
...there are others, but I'm holding out for children.
What is it you most dislike?
People who ignore their children. Religious zealots.
What historical figures do you most despise?
Hitler, Jerry Falwell, Anne Howe, mark chapman,
What event in military history do you most admire?
I admire them all. I only wish there weren't so many.
What reform do you most admire?
The repeal of prohibition. It's the one time I can think of that our civil liberties were restored since the declaration of independence.
What natural gift would you most like to possess?
I'd like to be more creative.
How would you like to die?
I'd like to drown, so I don't miss anything.
What is your present state of mind?
Anxious. I am looking forward to things to come, plus my favorite time of year is approaching.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
I procrastinate, I'm lazy (comedically so) and I waffle. Sometimes. Maybe. Maybe I waffle.
What is your motto?
All the water of the seven sea cannot sink a single ship, until it gets inside.
What is your greatest fear?
I fear, more than anything else, that things happen for a reason.
What is your greatest extravagance?
That I do not work in a conventional sense. My extravegence is time.
What is your favorite journey?
Anyplace I've never before been. Alone.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
On what occasion do you lie?
I can't even think of one. I'm really trying, too.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Oh my god. I know, right?
What is your greatest regret?
Forgiving them.


text:
'God help us': Evangelicals erupt into white-hot meltdown over Cruz's exit from the GOP race
Leaders from the religious right are bemoaning the fact that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Christian figurehead, has dropped out of the presidential race, effectively leaving real estate mogul Donald Trump as the GOP nominee, Right Wing Watch reports.
Cruz courted conservative Christians with his staunch anti-abortion stance, position on same-sex marriage and views regarding the separation of church and state. But after his defeat, shortly after tapping Carly Fiorina as his running mate, the Christian right began calling on the all-mighty for help.
God help us.
— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) May 4, 2016
Apparently @secupp has a #NeverTrump list to see who keeps their word to the end. You can sign my name in blood. — Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) May 3, 2016
Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has long been both a Trump critic, and a critic of religious leaders that have backed Trump. He joked that he would write in a candidate rather than vote for Trump.
Filling out paperwork for the kids' summer mission trip, but I keep writing in "Ben Sasse" on all the blank lines… — Russell Moore (@drmoore) May 4, 2016
American Family Radio host Bryan Fischer echoed the sentiment that evangelical voters should write in candidates.
43 states allow write-in votes for president. Does the write-in campaign for Ted Cruz start tomorrow? — Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) May 4, 2016
Michael Brown, a North Carolina anti-LGBT pastor, lamented that Trump ascendance was a sign of "God's judgment," according to Right Wing Watch.
Trump, he said, is the result of a ""generation raised on a steady diet of amoral and immoral reality TV." He went on to call Trump the "National Enquirer candidate for a Jerry Springer generation" and said it is a sign of "divine judgment on America."
But Brown added there could be apocalyptic-type implications if Trump wins the election.
"I have also listened carefully to the prognosticators who have predicted for months that Trump would be our next president — some even claimed prophetic inspiration for these predictions — and that he would be a tool in God's hand to destroy the corrupt political establishment and do good to our nation," he wrote, according to RWW. "I fervently hope that these prophecies will prove true and that I will have to eat every word I have written — and I am writing."


text:
Going beyond dialogue
The idea that business can play a role in alleviating poverty has long been a subject of real significance for academics and practitioners – in for-profit and non-profit sectors alike. Today, the debate on the role of 'Business and Society', 'Responsible Business', and a host of other related terms point not just to an emerging trend, but more significantly, to a new normativity in which corporations, NGOs, charities, and indeed a technologically empowered civil society are all co-constructors. This transition from emerging trend to normative value is represented in literatures and conversations that have moved beyond the question of if the private sector has a role to play in addressing poverty (and a host of other social and environmental challenges), to the question of how. This new normativity is neatly summarised in the mantra, 'doing well by doing good'. In other words, there is a possible synergy between commercial and social value that can be harnessed to tackle serious social and environmental challenges.
In the context of answering the 'how' questions, earlier this year, in April, the Skoll Centre and Acumen co-hosted Beyond Dialogue with generous support from Mars Inc, PepsiCo, Levis Strauss Foundation, EY, and Johnson & Johnson. The event was designed to bring together corporations and social enterprises to discuss their warts-and-all experiences of cross-sector partnerships. Through a series of facilitated roundtable discussions, experienced cross-sector partnership managers shared their learning, reflections – whether positive or negative – and made suggestions for improvements and future collaborations. The details of the themes and lessons of Beyond Dialogue are outlined in this report that also includes six case studies of cross-sector partnerships between social enterprises and corporations.
In the on-going pursuit of tackling poverty, corporations and business managers will continue to find that when working in complex, unpredictable, and unfamiliar environments, the creation of new strategic partnerships can offer the best way forward. Social enterprises and entrepreneurs, on the other hand, will continue to find that relating to vast, billion-dollar companies with a myriad of internal stakeholders and managers can be just as challenging as the 'wicked problem' they are trying to solve. Ultimately, the challenges of cross-sector partnerships will only be improved over time, when mistakes are made and lessons are learned. This is why convenings such as Beyond Dialogue and the conversations that they spark are important contributions to answering the how questions of 'doing well by doing good'. Please download the report and continue the dialogue.


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The Providence Group is pleased to announce their new model home is now open at Ruth's Farm in Alpharetta. Ruth's Farm is located in a desirable North Fulton location offering spacious Executive style homes offering four to six bedrooms, three car garages and 3,400 to 5,292 square feet of luxury living. Along with the model home, several homes are under construction offering early Fall move-in dates as well as presale opportunities. Homes at Ruth's Farm are priced from the $600s to $700s offering beautiful, upscale interior features plus the opportunity for home buyers to select their interior design options and colors at The Providence Group's new Design Center.
The model home showcases the popular Brentwood home design which offers a spacious Owner's Suite on the main level with elegant bath featuring dual vanities, soaking tub, separate showing and walk-in closets. The model home includes a gorgeous Gourmet Kitchen with large island overlooking the Breakfast Room, Family Room and Keeping Room/Sun Room. The main level design is ideal for entertaining as it includes a large separate Dining Room with Butler's pantry with easy access to the Kitchen and Family Room. The upper level features four additional bedrooms plus a teen retreat and the finished basement with outdoor living space is a must-see!
Five additional home designs are available at Ruth's Farm with fantastic layout options including third level retreats, keeping rooms, media rooms, sunrooms, covered porches, Owner's Suite sitting rooms, additional bedrooms and Owner's Bath with two sided fireplaces.
The model home is open daily (Mon-Sat 11-6, Sun 1-6) so come out and take a tour! For a limited time only, home buyers can not only take a tour, but take advantage of a $15,000 model home grand opening incentive! This special incentives is valid on designer options at The Providence Group's Design Center. Make sure to see the sales manager or register online for all the details!


text:
Published in Austin's Natural Awakenings Magazine January 2017 Issue
View it online http://austinawakenings.com/past-issues/ – Click Jan 2017 > Page 10
A companion article was published in June 2016 issue:
The Grand Design For Success & Holistic Wellness
by Lamar Irwin
Holistic wellness leads to an empowered life and a real sense of well-being inside and out. It occurs when the matrix that makes up a person's life causes he or she to feel fulfilled by living a desired life. A person subjectively measures well-being in many aspects – career, friends, partner/spouse, money, love, play, emotional/mental, spiritual and other aspects that are important.
There are those that recognize room for improvement and are ready to make some adjustments to increase a sense of well-being. The greatest wellness develops by deliberately choosing one's desired results in life while deepening the understanding of working with life. People are designed with all the inner skills necessary to maintain, establish and increase holistic wellness. With the right knowledge these inner unseen skills are utilized to change life externally and internally.
Permanent change for the better in a person's life begins from within. The grand design for people is that everyone is born with skills to make the life they desire. It is simply a matter of the right education. The good news is it works for every person.
"Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
by 20th-century sociologist Robert K. Merton
Meditation is the most well known tool for making life changes, and is continuously being confirmed by new scientific technologies. Meditation is when a person is focusing thought, and heart, on a single thought, or feeling. Sometimes it is staring at a single point or flame. For the advanced meditator it is to be without thought. A meditative state focuses one's whole being in a single direction. This is what causes deliberate life changes.
A meditative state occurs when the brain's operating frequency range is about 7 to 14 hertz (cycles per second). In daily life, people's brains are operating above 14 hertz. This is when eyes are open and the physical senses are engaged. Every person has a built-in switch to change the brain from outer reality activity mode to inner reality creative mode.
The switch involves mental focus, intent and controlled breathing. To go within begins with an intent to disconnect from the stimuli of the physical world. Relax and do some deep breathing focusing on the air movement and how it feels. Deep breathing is enough to get the process started. In a short while the brain frequency adjusts to the right frequency range, and one feels relaxed. From this point there are a multitude of activities that will benefit in different ways.
Once a person is at this level of peace and relaxation the intelligence expands to include the intuitive and creative mind. At this point there are a multitude of options.
Some of the known uses of being in a meditative state
Find and Establish Peace Within = Most people are introduced to meditation where the goal is to relax and clear the mind. This is new to people living a busy life in a busy world.
Dynamic Meditation = Cause deliberate changes in life. Visualization is a much validated and scientifically measured skill that directly alters our being. Proper visualization techniques are known to alter the neural programming in the brain and heart real time. Brain difficulties have been overcome using these techniques. There are other trained uses of the imagination that will cause change at different levels in a person's life.
Oneness Meditation = Allow the release of attachment to what the eyes see as separation between people, things and other so the person establishes a strong sense of connectedness to all things.
Visioning = Ask questions of a higher knowing, universal love or other name. Receive direct answers in some form. Establish a strong sense of love within one self fully connected to the Universal Love
Sports Performance and Task Improvement = Some studies show that when a person effectively imagine their sports performance beforehand, it can significantly improve his or her performance. This has been also applied to desktop or other work tasks to improve the quality and performance.
Open One's Heart Center and Fill Up with Healing Unconditional Love = To those who have had their hearts awakened they know this energy can be drawn in, received, magnified and sent. This is a good heart healing process. The more a person opens their heart, the more their heart will heal and stay open for more love.
[Author: I would have included the following had there been more space for the article]
Change stress level = Integrate a simple countdown method, based on brain science, into your life that instantly relaxes your mind and body, on cue. This is also the key to health and health.
Eliminate headache/pain through Precise Thinking = Every person who uses this gets off pain medications and one man had a spinal implant; he turned it off after the first session. Precise Thinking is incredibly powerful.
Access Logical & Intuitive/Creative thoughts to Build a Magnificent Project = The brain's logical thoughts are accessed always when the eyes are open and we are engaged in our physical life. With intent and breathing with eyes closed the mind can be shifted to access intuitive/creative thoughts. Best practice: When you are creating a project: First, write down all that is in your mind with your eyes open. These are the logical thoughts based on what has been learned, experienced and absorbed in this life. When you want a new idea, think of the question that will bring you the answer. Close your eyes, breathe deeply several times and imagine walking down some stairs to go within yourself. Then pose the question in your quieter mind. Pause and listen for new thoughts, ideas, colors, images, smells, sounds. It will come to you however it can reach your awareness.
Develop Your Mind to Focus Thoughts, Logical & Intuitive, for Evolving Personal Benefits = When a person uses this precise process to relax the mind and body there is a wealth of inner skills that begin to unfold in a person's consciousness. There is a predictable progression for the inspired person who practices it regularly. It begins with the ability to de-stress and relax mind and body on cue making this process shorter and more usable. Intuitive, creative and new thoughts begin to bubble in then they flow more so. Much more…
Basis for Being a Medical Intuitive & Sending Focused Corrective Energies = With a mind that is being mastered and directed by its owner it can be trained to enter different assigned dimensions for a particular purpose. One is the ability to remotely scan an imaginary image of a person – given name, age, gender, location – and detect what is not working correctly and where it is. This is precise and everyone experiences this.
The mind is an incredible place. Mastery is a lifelong pursuit with Life Mastery as a great side effect.
Choose a practice ~ Learn it ~ Practice it ~ And witness life unfolding in much grace and ease.
Lamar Irwin is an electrical engineer, licensed spiritual coach, life empowerment coach and brain trainer. For more information, visit Curious Mind News blog at CuriousMindNews.com.
Published in Austin's Natural Awakenings Magazine January 2017 Issue
View it online http://austinawakenings.com/magazine/ Page 10


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Mon, 19 Oct 2020
Cheera and Parippu Curry Recipe
Cheera and Parippu Curry Recipe
Cheera (Spinach), Thuvara Parippu (Split Gram) Curry
Spinach - 1 kilo
Split gram - 1 kilo
Salt - As required
Oil - As required
Cumin - 1 tbsp
Green Chili - 6 nos.
Red Chili - 6 nos.
Pudina - little
Garlic(chopped) - 8 nos.
Ginger(sliced) - 2 tbsp
Wash and cook parippu with water and salt. Wash spinach and put it in boiled water for 5 minutes. Then cut it into small pieces and add this to the cooked parippu.
In a pan pour oil and let it heat. Put Green chili, Red chili, Pudina, Chopped Garlic and Ginger and sauté well. Pour the mixture to parippu curry and stir.
Back to Recipes Home


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edited by toastcfh to avoid mishaps
Update: Thanks to Calkulin there are now flashable zips on my blog post as well as just the driver. Just flash them like any other update.zip file.
So the Evo's WiFi chip supports Wireless N technology, which allows for faster throughput on your WiFi connection. To use this you obviously need a Wireless N capable AP or router. Basically, for some reason (I am going to assume battery life?), HTC decided to disable the wireless n capability of this chip but this can be fixed. Since we don't have the source for the driver we need to use a hex editor. Note, if using AOSP wireless n will already be enabled using the AOSP driver. But if you are using a Sense rom then you will need to do the following. Also I am including a download link with the driver that you can just push if you don't want to get dirty with a hex editor. Anyway, here we go:
1. Download a hex editor (I just googled hex editor and downloaded this one: http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delph...vi32/xvi32.htm)
2. Go into a command prompt or shell and perform:
adb pull /system/lib/modules/bcm4329.ko ./bcm4329.ko.old adb pull /system/lib/modules/bcm4329.ko ./bcm4329.ko
3. In your hex editor open the file you just pulled. Now, in two spots HTC added 'nmode' in here to disable Wireless N. All we have to do is modify this string to be any other 5 character string and wireless N will be enabled. I did a search and replace and replaced 'nmode' with '-----' (Note: Do not include the single quotes).
4. Save the file.
5. Perform the following in a command prompt or shell:
mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system adb push bcm4329.ko /system/lib/modules/bcm4329.ko
mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system adb push bcm4329.ko.old /system/lib/modules/bcm4329.ko
Below is the download link for the already modified wireless driver.


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- News
- Business
- Sports
- Entertainment
- Lifestyle
- Health
- Travel
- Technology
OTTAWA — We have once again been hit with devastating news and cannot imagine a worse ending to the year. Four of our Canadian soldiers, Private Garrett William Chidley, a member of the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Shilo, Manitoba; Corporal Zachery McCormack, a member of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, 4th Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton, Alberta; Sergeant George Miok, a member of 41 Combat Engineer Regiment, based in Edmonton, Alberta; Sergeant Kirk Taylor, a member of 84 Independent Field Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery, based in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; and Michelle Lang, a journalist with the Calgary Herald, were killed Wednesday when their armoured vehicle hit an improvised explosive device during a patrol four kilometres south of Kandahar. Four more soldiers and an official member of Canada's civilian personnel were also injured in this attack.
This new tragedy is shocking. It reminds us of the underhanded, blind, daily violence facing our Canadian soldiers, journalists and humanitarian workers in Afghanistan, who are working alongside the local population already hard hit by decades of terror.
Whether they are soldiers so bravely answering the call and giving their all to protect and secure communities in danger, or journalists who also take risks to inform us and keep us up to date on what is happening on the ground, these men and women all share a desire to help, in their own way and at the height of their profession, build peace in this troubled region of the world.
May the families, loved ones and colleagues of the deceased, all inconsolable right now, know that Canadians stand by you, that our thoughts are with you, and that you are not alone. The entire country joins those left behind in their mourning. We also wish the injured a swift recovery.


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The PC Club Enpower ENP680's silver lid and black case could almost pass for a Dell or a Toshiba laptop, and its $1,499 price tag, which includes the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a discrete Nvidia graphics card, adds to its allure. Unfortunately, the Enpower ENP680 suffers from a few design flaws, such as a superreflective display and an overly flexible keyboard, that some users may not be willing to accept in exchange for the low price. Looking strictly at performance and battery life per dollar, though, the Enpower ENP680 offers a decent, low-price alternative to Core 2 Duo systems from some of the larger laptop manufacturers.
Measuring 14.3 inches wide, 10.4 inches deep, and 1.3 inches thick, the PC Club Enpower ENP680 is a bit larger than the Gateway M255E and thinner than the HP Pavilion dv2000t. Weighing an even 7 pounds, the Enpower ENP680 is heavier than its competitors; its AC adapter brings the total travel weight to a barely portable 8.1 pounds.
The PC Club Enpower ENP680 features a beautiful 15.4-inch wide-aspect display with a native resolution of 1,280x800. We usually like a glossy display that makes colors in movies and games pop, but the Enpower ENP680's screen is too glossy for its own good: we were annoyed by glare and reflections. We like the sliding cover for the 1.3-megapixel Webcam, however, which sits above the display.
Along the left side of the PC Club Enpower ENP680's metallic silver keyboard deck are raised rectangular buttons to control media, as well as a key that launches a media player without booting the OS. Above the keyboard sit four similarly styled programmable quick-launch buttons. The overall effect of the raised buttons is retro chic--they reminded us of the controls on our dad's late-70s stereo system.
The overall construction of the ENP680 feels about as sturdy as a laptop from a major manufacturer, but its keyboard is extremely flimsy. Though it's full size, key travel is shallow, and the keys make an annoying clacking sound when you type. In addition, the board flexes noticeably with even light typing pressure. The touch pad is ample, and we like its scroll zone, but the pad is so close to the keyboard that it's impossible to type more than a sentence without misplacing your cursor--we really wish there was a hardware switch to turn it off for long periods of typing. The mouse buttons are large and have good travel; a fingerprint reader sits between them. The final design feature of note is the Wi-Fi on/off switch along the laptop's front edge.
The Enpower ENP680's large case leaves plenty of room for ports and connections; you get four-pin FireWire, VGA, S-Video, and three USB 2.0 ports, as well as a microphone jack and a headphone jack that supports S/PDIF output. The laptop includes a PC Card slot and a slot for the latest ExpressCards, plus a four-in-one card reader that recognizes Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Secure Digital, and MultiMediaCard formats. Networking options include Ethernet, modem, and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. A dual-layer DVD burner rounds out the feature set. In keeping with its consumer focus, the PC Club Enpower ENP680 runs on Windows XP Home Edition; its software bundle includes a year of antivirus protection plus some basic disc viewing and burning apps.
The Enpower ENP680 we reviewed cost $1,499 for a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor; 2GB of screaming 667MHz RAM; a blazing 7,200rpm hard drive with a modest 80GB capacity; and Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics with 256MB of system memory. Those are some pretty sweet specs for the price, and the system performed admirably on CNET Labs' application benchmarks, matching the faster processor of the HP Pavilion dv2000t on our MP3 encoding test and besting both the HP and the Core 2 Duo-based Gateway M255E on our Photoshop test. The Enpower ENP680's battery lasted an above-average 3 hours, 54 minutes in our battery drain test, but was unable to match the HP and the Gateway, both of which lasted more than 6 hours.
The PC Club Enpower ENP680 is backed by an industry-standard one-year warranty on parts and labor, with extensions to two years of coverage available. The company's online downloads and FAQs are paltry, though there is a helpful user forum, and if you live in one of the eight states with a PC Club retail store, you have the option of carrying your system in for service.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
|iTunes 126.96.36.199 AAC-to-MP3 conversion (seconds)
|Photoshop CS2 performance (seconds)


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To make your lure track perfectly, we provide hook stops with all of our big game lures. After crimping the pro-rig to your line, slide the line through the hook lock from the back of the lure. Then push the sleeve into the hook lock until it is snugly in place. Done properly, this makes an awsomely effective hook arrangement that keeps the lure tracking perfectly plus it releases when you have hooked a fish. If you need further instruction, please call me anytime.
We use the QUICK RIG'S DR. "J" Stainless Hooks on the front and QUICK RIG'S SOUTHERN AND TUNA STAINLESS HOOKS on the rear. Order by hook size 7/0, 8/0, 9/0, 10/0 and 12/0. (Most standard 12" lures would use the 9/0 pro rig)


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The breeze blows this way;
As the leaves dance like masquerades.
The white man stands in the centre
of the wide dark sky.
I feel it could drop down to the earth
at any moment and scatter like
snowflakes on our roof tops.
What if the river overflows
Will it take my bed away?
Then the universe resides beneath the water.
A whole new world, everything changes;
we would no longer feel the rain.
The water cools us when the
sun raises its head.
Our legs will take a break
As we are now clothed with fins
And wiggle at the sound of the waves.
Written by: StacySpeaks.
Photo source: Google Chrome.


text:
FREE Business Forms from Mary Kelly!
- Mary's List of Lists (pdf)
- The 5-Minute Year-in-Review (pdf)
- The 5-Minute Business Plan (pdf)
- Fill-in-the-Blanks Business Plan (Word)
- 15 Ways to Grow Your Business – Fill in the Blanks (pdf)
- Mary's Interactive Profit and Loss Statement (Excel)
- Productivity Sheet (pdf)
- Things to Do Today (Word)
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text:
This week, Organic Health Response started the construction of the new Ekialo Kiona Emergency Boat! Local Abasuba boat builders will carefully construct this custom design boat using generations worth of local expertise.
This process will be broken into three phases:
- Fundi Phase (local builders): Build boat hull and cross beams
- Carpenter Phase: Install custom boat flooring and seats
- Finishing Phase: Painting and outfitting of canopy
The new EK Emergency Boat is set to sail by July 1, 2014. In the meantime, stay posted and watch our video to learn about the boat building process and emergency needs on Mfangano.


text:
Immunoprecipitation of RASSLs
List of reagents is not yet complete
1. Add the following to the supernatant of the solubilized sample:
- 2 ml of 1 M CaCl2
- 2 ml of M1-Antibody (1mg/µl) (Eastman Kodak Co. #IB13007)
- 15 ml of 50% suspension Prot-A agarose beads (Sigma # P-2545) *IP Standard, use 50 ng of a flag-tagged protein.
2. Incubate overnight at 4°C on a rotator.
3. Spin down beads for 1 min at 4°C at 3,000 rpm.
4. Discard supernatant using a pipet or a vacuum. Be careful not to remove beads.
5. Add 1 ml of TBS-T Ca++ Wash buffer to beads. Invert tubes a few times and spin for 1 min at room temperature at 3,000 rpm.
6. Discard supernatant using a pipet or a vacuum.
7. Repeat wash (steps No. 5 and No. 6).
8. Add 50 ml of 1x electrophoresis sample buffer to beads.
9. Vortex. Boil sample for 5 minutes.
10. Vortex. Spin for 2 min at room temperature at 5,000 rpm.
11. Transfer supernatant to new tube using flat tips or load supernatant on gel using flat tips. Pipet carefully and try not to disturb bead pellet.
TBS-T Ca++ Wash Buffer:
- 1x TBS (50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.4, 150 mM NaCl)
- 0.1% Tween-20
- 1 mM CaCl2
Sample Buffer:
- 2x Tris-Glycine SDS Sample Buffer (Novex #LC2676) plus 5% beta-mercaptoethanol dilute to 1x with ddH20
Tribromoethanol is extremely light sensitive. Its degradative products, HBr and dibromylacetaldehyde, are both very toxic.
No further notes are available at this time.
No references at this time
- Who has experience with this protocol?
or instead, discuss this protocol.


text:
A couple of weeks ago I bought a gratitude journal and every night I write down three things that I am grateful for, or three things that went well that day. This process is supposed to make you happy as you start realizing all the things you already have to be thankful for.
The first entry in my gratitude journal is from July 15th so I've been writing in my journal for a little over a month. I bought my journal after reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (read more about this wonderful book here). She started a gratitude journal hoping it would bring her joy and happiness, but unfortunately it didn't work for her. I thought I'd give it a try, since it certainly can't hurt to remind yourself of all the things you have to be thankful for. In this post I share five things I've written in my gratitude journal that I am thankful for. Perhaps I will inspire you to start your own journal.
1. My health
Health is one of those things many healthy people take for granted. You only miss it when it's gone and then nothing matters more than getting it back. I've seen many people around me get ill and I really feel extremely grateful that I am healthy. Whenever I have to think about what to write in my gratitude journal, the fact that I am healthy is on the top of the list. No matter what went wrong that day, I am going to be around to live another day. My health is definitely my most valuable possession.
2. My strength
The more struggles I go through, the more I realize how strong I actually am. I think this goes for a lot of people who go through hard times. We are all so much tougher than we realize. The problem is, you don't realize it until you have no other choice but to be strong. Sometimes I think back to some of the bad times I've gone through and I just think "how am I still standing?" I'm much stronger than I thought and I also know I'll be able to handle all the tough times ahead. In a way that's a comforting thought.
3. My dreams
I really think that the happiest people in life are those who dream and I am thankful that I am one of those people. I can't imagine what it's like to feel like you have everything you ever wanted and nothing left to wish for. Because no matter how uncomfortable or how difficult it is to pursue your dreams, it's much worse to not dream at all. It's my dreams and goals in life that get me out of bed each morning. It's the wishes I have in the back of my head that get me through each hard time. If I didn't have my dreams to hold on to and that fire in my belly, life would be a whole lot less interesting.
4. My freedom
With all the bad stuff happening in the world I realize very well how grateful I am to be free and safe. I can leave my house without looking over my shoulder, or drive to work without being afraid. I am completely free to do anything or be anyone I want. I can wear any kind of clothes I want, I can live anywhere, I can have any job and I can date whomever I choose. I know a lot of people aren't so lucky and I am very grateful that I have the freedom to do all those things.
5. My siblings
I have two younger sisters and a brother and they are my heroes. We've all gone through some hard times, especially lately, which have brought us even closer together. I realize more and more how grateful I am to have them and how lucky I am to not be an only child. Friendships come and go, but the bond we have really is unbreakable. We are so honest with each other, support each other, laugh at each other, make fun of each other and even scream at each other (via WhatsApp more than any other channel – bold, shouty capitals work very well). Whenever something good happens I want to tell them straight away – and the same is true for when I'm having a hard time. I wouldn't know what I would do without them and I am extremely grateful to have them.
With this post I want to remind everyone, including myself, that we all have so much to be grateful for. Even on the darkest days there's always a hidden light: there's always something that went well, or someone by your side. Focus a little less on all your problems and be thankful for what you have. It's a powerful process and almost guaranteed to make you a happier person.
Emmelyn X


text:
After learning in a funny way that in Javascript
Date.parse(DateToValue) <= Date.parse(DateFromValue)
does not behave the way it was expected, using American date format in the DateXXValue parameters and having no ability to specify that, I looked into solutions for comparing the dates in the input fields.
There is a date.js library that is very useful in solving the above issue. I posted the links here.


text:
I have been working hard since my last evaluation and now they are making a special brace for my left rear leg 'cause my knee wants to turn inward which limits the amount of stability I have on that leg.
I tolerate the water treadmill better now and have pretty much stopped my "doggy diving" routine with my head. There are still two people who get in the tank with me to assist my leg placement and mom says she feels sorry for the one who gets stuck with my head 'cause I like to wait until I get just enough water on my face and ears then I shake it really hard! Whew, you should see the water fly! I like that the girls scream every time with surprise! Hey at least I haven't pee'd or pooped in the tank like some dogs I know of - ooh Yuuck!!
Oh and one of the nicest Chiropractors is giving ME, Mr. Rhu, treatments once a week for FREE!! Is that awesome or what?? I really like him and I get all energized when he's done. I hope one day I can walk up to him and give him a big slurp! Yeah, that would "Rhuuu-le!
Mom was just saying it's been a year since we met each other at Best Friends and I can't believe how quickly time has gone by. It will soon be a year we'll be celebrating our actual year together as a family!!! It's been an incredible journey for us all. There was a wonderful musician that came through here telling us how each decade he took on a new challenge and I believe that I will go down in mom's memory book as the summer of special hopes, dreams, and the true meaning of unconditional love for us all. When all of the jumping through life's hoopla of tasks are done and we get to gather around the tele together - no phones or emails to answer that's the best time of the day...well perhaps with the exception of a cart run and some frozen yogurt to follow!
Summer's been great to us here at the beach and we are all very grateful for what we have.
Mom is also posting some new photos of me so check out my photo section! Keep on waggin'


text:
One thing that makes Java such a pleasure to use is that it is a safe language. This means that in the absence of native methods it is immune to buffer overruns, array overruns, wild pointers, and other memory corruption errors that plague unsafe languages such as C and C++. In a safe language, it is possible to write classes and to know with certainty that their invariants will remain true, no matter what happens in any other part of the system. This is not possible in languages that treat all of memory as one giant array.
Even in a safe language, you aren't insulated from other classes without some effort on your part. You must program defensively, with the assumption that clients of your class will do their best to destroy its invariants. It is worth taking the time to write classes that are robust in the face of ill-behaved clients.
For example, consider the following class, which purports to represent an immutable time period:
// Broken "immutable" time period class
public final class Period {
private final Date start;
private final Date end;
* @param start the beginning of the period
* @param end the end of the period; must not precede start
* @throws IllegalArgumentException if start is after end
* @throws NullPointerException if start or end is null
public Period(Date start, Date end) {
if (start.compareTo(end) > 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
start + " after " + end);
this.start = start;
this.end = end;
public Date start() {
return start;
public Date end() {
return end;
... // Remainder omitted
At first glance, this class may appear to be immutable and to enforce the invariant that the start of a period does not follow its end. It is, however, easy to violate this invariant by exploiting the fact that Date is mutable:
// Attack the internals of a Period instance
Date start = new Date();
Date end = new Date();
Period p = new Period(start, end);
end.setYear(78); // Modifies internals of p!
To protect the internals of a Period instance from this sort of attack, it is essential to make a defensive copy of each mutable parameter to the constructor and to use the copies as components of the Period instance in place of the originals:
// Repaired constructor - makes defensive copies of parameters
public Period(Date start, Date end) {
this.start = new Date(start.getTime());
this.end = new Date(end.getTime());
if (this.start.compareTo(this.end) > 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException(start +" after "+ end);
With the new constructor in place, the previous attack will have no effect on the Period instance. Note that defensive copies are made before checking the validity of the parameters (Item 38), and the validity check is performed on the copies rather than on the originals. While this may seem unnatural, it is necessary. It protects the class against changes to the parameters from another thread during the "window of vulnerability" between the time the parameters are checked and the time they are copied. (In the computer security community, this is known as a time-of-check/time-of-use or TOCTOU attack [Viega01].)
Note also that we did not use Date's clone method to make the defensive copies. Because Date is nonfinal, the clone method is not guaranteed to return an object whose class is java.util.Date: it could return an instance of an untrusted subclass specifically designed for malicious mischief. Such a subclass could, for example, record a reference to each instance in a private static list at the time of its creation and allow the attacker to access this list. This would give the attacker free reign over all instances. To prevent this sort of attack, do not use the clone method to make a defensive copy of a parameter whose type is subclassable by untrusted parties.
While the replacement constructor above successfully defends against the previous attack, it is still possible to mutate a Period instance, because its accessors offer access to its mutable internals:
// Second attack on the internals of a Period instance
Date start = new Date();
Date end = new Date();
Period p = new Period(start, end);
p.end().setYear(78); // Modifies internals of p!
To defend against the second attack, merely modify the accessors to return defensive copies of mutable internal fields:
// Repaired accessors - make defensive copies of internal fields
public Date start() {
return new Date(start.getTime());
public Date end() {
return new Date(end.getTime());
With the new constructor and the new accessors in place, Period is truly immutable. No matter how malicious or incompetent a programmer, there is simply no way to violate the invariant that the start of a period does not follow its end.
Defensive copying of parameters is not just for immutable classes. Anytime you write a method or constructor that enters a client-provided object into an internal data structure, think about whether the client-provided object is potentially mutable. If it is, think about whether your class could tolerate a change in the object after it was entered into the data structure. If the answer is no, you must defensively copy the object and enter the copy into the data structure in place of the original.
The same is true for defensive copying of internal components prior to returning them to clients. Whether or not your class is immutable, you should think twice before returning a reference to an internal component that is mutable. Chances are, you should return a defensive copy. Remember that nonzero-length arrays are always mutable. Therefore, you should always make a defensive copy of an internal array before returning it to a client. Alternatively, you could return an immutable view of the array. Both of these techniques are shown in Item 13.
In the case of our Period example, it is worth pointing out that experienced programmers often use the primitive long returned by Date.getTime() as an internal time representation instead of using a Date reference. They do this primarily because Date is mutable.
Defensive copying can have a performance penalty associated with it and isn't always justified. If a class trusts its caller not to modify an internal component, perhaps because the class and its client are both part of the same package, then it may be appropriate to dispense with defensive copying. Under these circumstances, the class documentation must make it clear that the caller must not modify the affected parameters or return values.
In summary, if a class has mutable components that it gets from or returns to its clients, the class must defensively copy these components. If the cost of the copy would be prohibitive and the class trusts its clients not to modify the components inappropriately, then the defensive copy may be replaced by documentation outlining the client's responsibility not to modify the affected components.
Reference: Effective Java 2nd Edition by Joshua Bloch


text:
Friday, July 19, 2013
Christmas in July with Magnolia!
8 comments:
Very cute card! Love your embellishments! Thanks for entering the ClearlyiStamp Christmas in July Challenge! Debbie McNamee CiSCDTReplyDelete
This is a really lovely card, I love how her wings glitter! Thanks for joining us at the Sweet Stampin' Challenge & good luck!ReplyDelete
This is gorgeous!! I love your papers and your distressed image. And that lace is beautiful, too. Thanks for playing in the Clearly iStamp Challenge.ReplyDelete
Great card and just right for our challenge over at Sweet Stampin', thank you for calling in. DebbiexReplyDelete
What a great holiday card! Love all the layers! So glad you shared at Clearly iStamp's Christmas Challenge!ReplyDelete
This is just beautiful! Great coloring on your digi and I love the butterfly! Great layers too! Thank you so much for joining us at Clearly iStamp! Hugs-Katy DT:)ReplyDelete
great texture. Your coloring is wonderful....like her stockings.ReplyDelete
Thanks for playing in Clearly iStamp Challenge #3 - Christmas in July! See you TODAY when challenge #4 is posted. I'm so excited it will be so fun!!
Kathy D.
Clearly Digi Stamps DT/Clearly iStamp Challenge Coordinator
¡Gracias por tu visita y tus comentarios, me encanta leerlos y me hacen muy feliz!
Thanks for your visit and your comments, love to read them all, they make me very happy!!!


text:
"The Poker Night" was once the working title for what would become Tennessee Williams's most celebrated work. So perhaps it's appropriate that a poker game provides one of the few moments approaching excitement in the torpid revival of the play that was renamed "A Streetcar Named Desire."
That moment occurs early enough in Emily Mann's production, which opened on Sunday night at the Broadhurst Theater, to fan hopes that the show might strike the occasional spark. Four manly men are sitting around a table in a sullen pool of light, studying their cards, swapping insults and looking as picturesque as those figures in the often-reprinted Thomas Hart Benton painting inspired by "Streetcar."
And then — boom! — they're on their feet yelling, looking as if they might tear out one another's throats with their teeth. Testosterone has turned into nitroglycerin. And you can't help agreeing when one of these fellows' womenfolk says, "When men are drinking and playing cards, anything can happen."
It comes in a flash, that explosion, and it probably wouldn't stand out in most productions of "Streetcar." I wouldn't be lingering on it, except — help me here, I'm grasping at air.
'A Streetcar Named Desire'
10 Photos
View Slide Show ›
You see, the more significant, subsequent action in that scene — a man starting to beat up his pregnant wife, the other men wrestling him down, a floridly feminine visitor aflutter with horror — has none of the spontaneity or urgency of that first eruption. Nor, I regret to say, does anything else in the play, including a rape that leads to the most heartbreaking nervous breakdown in American drama.
You may have read that most of the principal roles in this "Streetcar" have been cast with African-Americans, including Blair Underwood (best known for "L.A. Law" on television) as the brutish Stanley Kowalski and Nicole Ari Parker (the Showtime series "Soul Food") as the breakable Blanche DuBois. Ms. Mann has said in interviews that Williams had always liked the idea of an African-American "Streetcar."
Given the easygoing ethnic eclecticism of the New Orleans quarter in which the play is set, you could argue that such casting makes a certain sense, especially if you eliminate all nontracking references, like Stanley's being Polish, as this version does. And after the commercial success of the 2008 production of an African-American "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," why shouldn't the same approach be applied to "Streetcar"?
Heck, I wouldn't care if all the performers were green and they called it "A Spaceship Named Desire," if the acting were good enough. One of the advantages of theater, where metaphor reigns, is that it doesn't have to be literal minded in the way film does. Part of the contract between any play and its audience is our willingness to make a leap of imaginative faith.
James Earl Jones is so unerringly on target playing a former president in the crackling Broadway revival of "Gore Vidal's The Best Man" that I didn't stop to think that a man of his color would never have been elected to this country's highest office in the 1950s. And I was more than prepared to be seduced by Mr. Underwood and Ms. Parker, exceptionally attractive people who can fill a stage just by standing there.
But when the woman in the seat beside me started to nod off during the first act of this "Streetcar," I didn't have the heart to nudge her. Handsomely designed by a top-flight team — including Eugene Lee (set), Paul Tazewell (costumes) and Edward Pierce (lighting) — this "Streetcar" is mostly an exquisite snooze.
Allow me to say that, to their credit, the performers here don't seem daunted by the ghosts of illustrious actors past. (Cate Blanchett's devastating portrayal of Blanche in 2009 remains tattooed on my memory. And Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando's definitive performances in the 1951 film are still very much with us, on screens small and large.) Mr. Underwood, Ms. Parker, Daphne Rubin-Vega (as Blanche's sister, Stella) and Wood Harris (as Blanche's suitor, Mitch) never give the impression of trying desperately to erase fond memories via outrageously stylized portraits.
On the contrary, they speak Williams's lyrical prose in a fluid, conversational style. Often they exude the ease you associate with actors in long-running television series, for whom banter has become second nature. They sound so relaxed, in fact, that you can't imagine that there's ever much at stake — a marriage, financial solvency, sanity.
Ms. Parker's Blanche registers as a lively, self-assured gal, accustomed to manipulating others with her feminine wiles. Sure, she's a schemer and, on occasion, a liar. But so was Lucy Ricardo in "I Love Lucy." And whenever Blanche was caught out in a fib — about her age, drinking habits or sexual past — the audience with which I saw the show chuckled indulgently.
But when Blanche says that her nerves are shot and that she's at the end of a fraying tether, you figure it's just another stratagem to get her way. No wonder her sister, Stella — Ms. Rubin-Vega done up to look like the pin-up girl Bettie Page — seems so snappish and resentful around her. And there's never any question that Stella's loyalties lie with her big lug of a husband, Stanley.
Mr. Underwood looks smashing and appears to have spent many hours at the gym of late. But mostly he comes across as your average overworked husband, understandably testy with that sister-in-law of his always hogging the bathroom. The primal sexual danger he embodies for Blanche surfaces only in flickers. As Stanley's friend Mitch, Mr. Harris is most notable for his likable gangliness.
The one upside to this production is that you don't have to interpret Blanche's fate as tragic. When Miss DuBois is ushered offstage in the fabled final scene, you expect her soon to have that psychiatric doctor eating out of her hand and setting her up in style.


text:
Will InqScribe play .MPEG-2 files on Windows?
In our testing, .MPEG-2 files play normally on Windows 7 with Windows Media Player 12. In these conditions, InqScribe will play .MPEG-2 files just fine.
However, we've experienced audio-only when playing .MPEG-2 files on Windows 8 with Windows Media Player 12. Since InqScribe relies on Windows Media Player (or QuickTime) as its underlying media player, it will mimic the playback you experience in your media player. So, if you're can't see any video using Windows Media Player 12, then you probably won't see any video in InqScribe.
Remember, you can always try out your media files in InqScribe by downloading it for free. This way, you can see for yourself whether or not InqScribe is the right tool for you.
Note that Windows users have the option of downloading and using QuickTime 7.
(If you're a Mac user and you're having trouble playing .MPEG-2 files in InqScribe, please refer to this article.)


text:
Thirtieth in a series of pioneer profiles
Arthur Perrier was generous to a fault. During the Depression, the Poole Drug Co. proprietor extended credit to fellow Baker Street merchants, expecting them to pay him back once times improved. But his willingness to help others cost him his own livelihood: around 1931, the pharmacy went broke.
"He lost out in the end because his accounts receivable dried up," says his son Joe. "He had a black book with so much in it that he could have retired if anything had been paid back."
Only one man ever made good on a debt, an Ontario hobo who said: "I'm told you're an honest man. I am honest too. I've been riding the rails for three years and I'm tired and want to go home."
Arthur gave the grateful man $350. It took until 1939, but the loan was repaid, with six per cent interest.
Joe, 84, says it was typical of his father, of whom he is proud, even though his giving nature sometimes came at the family's expense. One night Arthur asked his wife Frances what was for supper and she began to cry.
"If you can find anything to eat, I'll cook it," she said. The cupboard was bare. And Arthur noticed something else: his collection of gold coins was missing.
Frances revealed she had been pinching one coin at a time for three years to pay for food and other groceries. Now there was nothing left.
But just as they despaired about feeding themselves, there was a knock at the door. It was Wong, a Chinese market gardener who lived near their cabin on the Johnstone estate opposite Nelson.
Joe, only a small child, had been catching gophers and giving them to Wong, who used them for stew. Wong sensed the family's plight and presented them with a heaping basket of vegetables.
"That was the best meal I ever had," Joe said. "Every week after that, on Fridays, he brought the basket over and I kept trucking gophers to him."
It earned Joe his father's respect.
Arthur came to Nelson from Ontario in 1896 and played for the city's hockey team that won three consecutive championships. He was also secretary of the 1909 team that won the BC title with the Patrick brothers' help.
Late in life, he married Frances Maude Etter; he was 56 when Joe was born on Valentine's Day 1928. They also had a daughter, Naida, 11 years Joe's senior.
When the crash hit, the family was forced to sell their home at 813 Josephine Street and buy a smaller one at 1024 Hoover. Later, they lost the summer cabin as well, originally acquired in lieu of a drug bill. After the pharmacy closed, Frances became a housekeeper at the Annable block while Arthur worked a string of jobs before getting on with the liquor board.
"He'd get a job for maybe three weeks or a month," Joe says. "We never saw the money, Mom and I. He paid his debt. He was that honest."
Arthur died in 1948, as a result of being exposed to ammonia while fixing a pipe at the old curling rink years earlier. A week after his passing, an anonymous tribute appeared in the Daily News, praising his citizenship.
"He was a person of the greatest generosity and kindness," it said. "No one ever asked his help in vain, and surely a great many people here have reason to be grateful for his generous heart."
Perrier Road was also named after him — sort of. It was city council's intention in 1965 to honour Arthur, a former alderman; their rationale for choosing that particular road was that he owned the Perrier mine at the top of the hill.
Only he didn't.
"It's true a Frenchman owned the mine," Joe says. "But Perrier was his white horse. He named the mine after a horse."
Joe, meanwhile, went to work at 16 for the forest service, thanks largely to a recommendation from Jimmy McGregor, an early Nelson photographer for whom he chopped wood. He also worked for the highways department and the city's electric utility, doing everything from firefighting to truck driving to carpentry to chasing delinquent bills.
"I never had a [journeyman's] ticket but I've done about 14 occupations," he says. "Life has been interesting for me. And I married one hell of a good woman."
He and Vivian McGillivray met on the ice at the Civic Centre in 1949, but didn't become serious until three years later. He finally proposed in 1953.
"I went to [jeweler] Ted Allen and said 'I need an engagement ring.' I had $161 in the bank. He took $160.50! I wrote a cheque and wondered if it was going to [clear].
"We were going to South Slocan — I had just bought a new truck — and at Beasley bluffs, I said 'Vivian, there's something I've got to say to you.' So I blurted it out. She dove across and gave me a kiss. Then she said 'And tomorrow, we will talk. Tomorrow, you'll know what I expect of a man.'"
They married a few months later and had five children.
For the last 17½ years, Joe has been caregiver to Vivian, who suffered a bad fall. She's now at Jubilee Manor, across the street from his apartment. He visits every day.
Previous installments in this series