text:
Victorians Institute Journal Annex content in NINES is protected by a Creative Commons License.
Charles Dickens and Authentic Happiness: Theorizing the Good Life in a Materialistic World
In his 2002 book, The High Price of Materialism, psychologist Tim Kasser seeks to understand the relationship between the good life and materialism through the following questions: "…what happens to our well-being when our desires and goals to attain wealth and accumulate possessions become prominent? What happens to our internal experience and interpersonal relationships when we adopt the messages of consumer culture as personal beliefs? What happens to the quality of our lives when we value materialism?" (4). These pressing twenty-first-century questions are not so different from the questions that Charles Dickens struggled with as he attempted to define authentic happiness—the good life—in a period dominated, according to Christopher Herbert, by a "capitalist cult of money-getting" (203).
That Dickens engages in a sharp critique of materialism in his novels is surely not news to anyone at this year's Victorians Institute conference. Even a surface reading of his novels will reveal as much. What remains fascinating, however, is the degree to which Dickens counters the illusory appeal of material success with a theorization of the good life—what Greek philosophers called eudaimonia—that anticipates our most current philosophies of happiness (made popular by such phenomenon as Harvard's über-successful "Happiness" course@ According to the online catalog, Psychology 1504: Positive Psychology "focuses on the psychological aspects of a fulfilling and flourishing life. Topics include happiness, self-esteem, empathy, friendship, goalsetting, love, achievement, creativity, mindfulness, spirituality, and humor." It could be argued that these are the very same topics that Dickens tackles in his mature novels. and best-selling author Martin Seligman's 2004 book, Authentic Happiness@ Happiness is indeed a hot topic these days. Numerous books have been written on the art and science of happiness in the last decade, including The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (2006), Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (2006), The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama XIV (1998), Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard (2006), Authentic Happiness by positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2004), and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Craft Rubin (2009). As of June 2000, there is an international Journal of Happiness Studies, dedicated to "subjective well-being" and an "appreciation of life" (Veenhoven, Diener, and Michalos v). ). In three of his most overtly economic novels, Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Little Dorrit (1855-1857), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865), Dickens flatly rejects a materialistic approach to happiness, privileging instead a life that focuses on meaningful relationships and nonalienating work. Through this vision of eudaimonia, Dickens champions a process-oriented, "internal" mode of satisfaction as a powerful antidote to the false materialism of a silver-plated age. This vision locates Dickens the social critic as a figure who looks both backward and forward, for it hearkens back to a virtue-based model of happiness that precedes the amoral conceptions of happiness that arose with the new consumerist ethos of the eighteenth century (Potkay 4) and also anticipates the positive psychology of Seligman, who establishes three possible paths to happiness: (1) the Pleasant Life; (2) the Good Life; and (3) the Meaningful Life. Like Seligman (and the Stoics of the past@ Potkay writes of the Stoic philosophers, "virtue was sufficient for the happy life, and…a person was no less happy for being sick or poor, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes" (3).), Dickens concludes that the pleasant life, fueled by materialist concerns, is the least likely to result in a continuing and sustained happiness because it is determined by external factors, whereas the good and meaningful life lies within the agency of even the most powerless characters—the Florence Dombeys, Amy Dorrits, and Jenny Wrens of the world.
In Dickens's early novel, David Copperfield (1850), the perennial debtor Mr. Micawber defines happiness in distinctly materialistic terms: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery" (209). This definition of happiness mirrors the concept of hedonic well-being—what psychological researchers Alan S. Waterman, Seth J. Schwartz, and Regina Conti characterize as the "positive affects that accompany getting or having the material objects and action opportunities one wishes to possess or to experience" (Waterman, Schwartz, and Conti 42). In this formulation, which Adam Potkay reminds us took center stage following the materialist philosophy and new consumerist ethos of the eighteenth century (4), the key to happiness is located outside of the individual; it is bound up with one's relationship to an external object—money. This notion reflects the dominant ethos that Frederick Engels had already noticed in 1845: "the middle classes in England have become the slaves of the money they worship…. They really believe that all human beings […] and indeed all living things and inanimate objects have a real existence only if they make money or help to make it. Their sole happiness is derived from gaining a quick profit. They feel pain only if they suffer a financial loss" (qtd. in Herbert 188). For Dickens, as Audrey Jaffe notes in The Affective Life of the Average Man, Micawber's comment is symptomatic of a society gone astray, "a society to which money is so crucial that a confusion between money and happiness—as in the imagined substitution of one indispensable substance for another—might sometimes, understandably (but, we are always reminded, mistakenly) occur" (94).
In the fictional world of Dickens's novels, the simple hedonic "wisdom" of the debtor, Mr. Micawber, is indeed presented as idiosyncratic and mistaken. While Dickens seems to agree with the Stoics that "external goods…[are] 'indifferents to be preferred'" (Potkay 4), materialism is not in fact the path to happiness. Instead, Dickens promotes the eudaimonic tradition of the "good life," especially in his economic novels. Eudaimonia, as defined by happiness researchers Jack J. Bauer, Dan P. McAdams, and Jennifer L. Pals, consists of "pleasure, a sense of meaningfulness, and a rich psychosocial integration in a person's understanding of himself or herself" (qtd. in Deci and Ryan 6). According to psychologist Richard M. Ryan and colleagues, "[e]udaimonic conceptions of happiness focus on the content of one's life, and the processes involved in living well, whereas hedonic conceptions of well-being focus on a specific outcome, namely the attainment of positive affect and the absence of pain" (Ryan, Huta, and Deci 140). As manifested in 21st century psychological approaches, the eudaimonic concept of happiness is not associated with the material world, but instead with virtue or one's act of making the right choices. The key difference from hedonic well-being, according to Edward Deci and Ryan, is that "eudaimonia concerns how one lives one's life rather than the well-being outcome, per se" (Deci and Ryan 9). Happiness in this formulation is about process, not product.
Dickens examines the relationship between happiness and materialism carefully in the economically-preoccupied Dombey and Son, and this novel reveals a rejection of the hedonic model of happiness as well as an endorsement of the eudaimonic concept. Commodity-driven happiness characterized by unrestrained consumption is shown in this novel to be illusory. When Edith tours Mr. Dombey's home before the wedding, for example, it is clear that wealth will not provide happiness:
Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion of which she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of all the elegance and splendour it began to display. The same indomitable haughtiness of soul, the same proud scorn expressed in eye and lip, the same fierce beauty, only tamed by a sense of its own little worth, and of the little worth of everything around it, went through the grand saloons and halls, that had got loose among the shady trees, and raged and rent themselves. The mimic roses on the walls and floors were set round with sharp thorns, that tore her breast; in every scrap of gold so dazzling to the eye, she saw some hateful atom of her purchase-money; the broad high mirrors showed her, at full length, a woman with a noble quality yet dwelling in her nature, who was too false to her better self, and too debased and lost, to save herself. She believed that all this was so plain more or less, to all eyes, that she had no resource or power of self-assertion but in pride: and with this pride, which tortured her own heart night and day, she fought her fate out, braved it, and defied it. (356)
The incongruity between such a situation and happiness is emphasized by the narrator, whose voice breaks in, lamenting: "Oh, Edith! it were well to die, indeed, at such a time! Better and happier far, perhaps, to die so, Edith, than to live on to the end!" (356).
Reliance on an external source for happiness is problematic for Mr. Dombey, as well, notwithstanding his secure financial position at the beginning of the novel. After Edith elopes with Carker, Dombey feels the negative effects of relying on "the world" and its opinions for one's happiness, for the withdrawal of approval can just as easily become a source of misery: "What the world thinks of him, how it looks at him, what it sees in him, and what it says—this is the haunting demon of his mind" (600). Happiness eludes Dombey at this point in the novel because it is dependent upon other people's minds, which he cannot always control. At this moment of isolation, when "Mr. Dombey and the world are alone together," he realizes that money (and the status that it brings) cannot buy happiness. In this respect, Dombey senior appears to closely anticipate the hypothesis of Richard Ryan and colleagues, who assert in a 2008 article in the Journal of Happiness Studies that "the more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community. Prescriptions based on maximizing pleasure are too often associated with dead-end routes to wellness such as selfishness, materialism, objectified sexuality, and ecological destructiveness" (Ryan, Huta, and Deci 141-42). In the novel, Dickens narrates this route step by step. As David W. Toise notes in his study of domesticity in the novel, "Dombey's prideful and obsessive devotion to his wealth only leads, in this Victorian novel, to his downfall—the destruction of his business, the collapse of his health, and the loss of everything that is meaningful to him" (326).
One of the advantages of literature as a tool for theorizing happiness is the ability to narrate such pathways so as to open them up for assessment (Potkay 1). In Dombey and Son, Dickens contrasts his patriarch's ineffectual pathway to happiness with a second and more sustaining framework. The second model, represented by the innocent Florence Dombey and her inexhaustible "sea of love" (Bar-Yosef 222), shows a route to happiness that is achieved in part by disengaging from the material world and its frenzied consumer culture.@ Eitan Bar-Yosef identifies this shift in cartographic terms. The novel embodies competing systems or "maps," he argues. The first is an "imperial/mercantile" map labeled the "empire without" and associated with Mr. Dombey himself (226, 227). The second is a feeling-oriented moral map labeled the "empire within" and associated with Florence Dombey (225). In Bar-Yosef's schema, the first values material wealth and power, whereas the second values love and human relationships. In contrast to her father, who is guided by what Eitan Bar-Yosef has called the "empire without" (226), Florence is guided by the "empire within" (225). For example, it is telling that on Florence's wedding day, she thinks only of personal relationships and not of economic factors. As she walks with Walter:
They take the streets that are the quietest, and do not go near that in which her old home stands. It is a fair, warm summer morning, and the sun shines on them, as they walk towards the darkening mist that overspreads the City. Riches are uncovering in shops; jewels, gold, and silver, flash in the goldsmith's sunny windows; and great houses cast a stately shade upon them as they pass. But through the light, and through the shade, they go on lovingly together, lost to everything around; thinking of no other riches, and no prouder home, than they have now in one another. (675)
Florence's mind is on solidifying a relationship—on uniting fully with another human—and not the material trappings that might accompany the marriage. As Toise has astutely noted, hers is an "economy of sentiment" (338).
Florence's detachment from the materialism of London society is emphasized, too, by her immediate journey by sea where she is quite literally unmoored from the material world that connects her to her father's house. In this scene after her wedding, Dickens depicts "a stately ship," with Florence "upon the deck" (679). She is "graceful, beautiful, and harmless—something that it is good and pleasant to have there, and that should make the voyage prosperous" (679). As she sits with her new husband, Walter, she experiences an overload of emotions: "she lays her head down on his breast, and puts her arms around his neck, saying, 'Oh Walter, dearest love, I am so happy!'" (679). This outpouring of feeling is not just for love of him, but also because of a vast connectedness with humanity, it seems. Taking up where she leaves off, the narrator clarifies for us that the sea makes Florence think of her lost brother, Paul, as well as Walter. In fact, "the voices in the waves are always whispering to Florence," he notes, "in their ceaseless murmuring, of love—of love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away!" (679). Unlike the material world, which traps Mr. Dombey in his unhappiness, the boundless sea unleashes a great wave of happiness within Dickens's heroine. The economy of sentiment proves in this instance to be richer than the economy of money, for it involves eudaimonic well-being, a "way of living that is focused on what is intrinsically worthwhile to human beings" (Ryan, Huta, and Deci 147).
As the novel reaches its close, Dickens dramatically illustrates the permanency of this kind of happiness as opposed to the fragile pleasure built within an economy of money, which can fall victim to bankruptcy. In the nineteenth installment, this is vividly depicted through Dombey's empty home. In the end, the house of Dombey and Son—which Raymond Williams astutely identifies as both business and family residence in his introduction to the novel—lies empty (qtd. in Elfenbein 364). At the end of the day, "Nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door…. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it" (697). For Mr. Dombey, happiness cannot be achieved by participating in the global marketplace, but instead by finally connecting with his daughter. For Florence, unlike his worldly riches, never changes:
He thought of her as she had been, in all the home-events of the abandoned house. He thought, now, that of all around him, she alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had sunk into a polluted creature, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him…. (702)
When Florence returns to nurse her father in his critical illness, even the previously aloof and broken Mr. Dombey experiences a kind of well-being. "Florence and he were very different now…and very happy" (720), Dickens writes.
Once the sentimentality of such a scene is put to the side, Dickens's theorization of happiness begins to feel eerily familiar—at least to those who have been following happiness studies. Indeed, it is virtually identical to the concept of happiness found in Seligman's book. According to Seligman, "How important money is to you, more than money itself, influences your happiness. Materialism seems to be counterproductive: at all levels of real income, people who value money more than other goals are less satisfied with their income and with their lives as a whole, although precisely why is a mystery" (55). Dickens's fiction gives us a similar conclusion, but he takes a stab at the "why" as well. He does this by theorizing, through fictional characters, eudaimonic, as opposed to hedonic, happiness.
This is readily apparent in Dickens's 1855-1857 novel, Little Dorrit, which has an especially familiar ring for 21st century readers. As one newspaper article announcing a 2009 televised version of the novel on PBS states, "the story is too familiar lately: crippling debt, government choked in red tape, financial insolvency, and a well-heeled scoundrel who leaves every one of his investors bankrupt" (Shaw). In this now familiar saga of investment gone awry, Dickens returns to the precarious relationship between money, happiness, and human relationships. And, once again, eudaimonia prevails as the only viable source of authentic or lasting happiness.
Throughout the novel, we see this play out as Amy Dorrit embodies the "good" and virtuous life in the face of vast external changes of circumstance. It is reinforced, moreover, in the very last paragraphs of the novel. As he winds down the novel, Dickens purposefully demotes his heroine from the pedestal of the novel – figured as a tale recorded in three volumes of the church "Registers" (birth in vol. 1, sleep in vol. 2, and marriage in vol. 3). Little Dorrit ceases to be "one of our curiosities" (365) and becomes an ordinary bride going "down" literally into the street with her groom and more figuratively into "a modest life of usefulness and happiness" (365). Dickens's novel—consisting of Amy Dorrit's life story—suggests that happiness is not in fact about changing the external world, but instead about looking within for satisfaction. The streets are still roaring with "the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain" (365) but Arthur and Little Dorrit walk through this unscathed. Dickens critiques capitalism and especially speculation in the novel, but he doesn't necessarily suggest that even a huge crash will change the system in significant ways. What can be changed, however, is one's personal attitude toward debt, and one's responsibility to others. Reciprocal human relationships (underscored by the image of Amy and Arthur hand in hand) take over and stand up against the din of the competitive, materialistic world. Like so many of Dickens's other novels, happiness isn't about material comforts at all (although he never lets readers forget what lack of comfort feels like), but rather about personal development and deep human connections. With this ending Dickens promises, like a Victorian version of positive psychologist Seligman, that cultivating "kindness, originality, humor, optimism, and generosity" will bring happiness (or at least a sense of well-being), despite the squalor of a harsh and even cruel, materialistic world ("Can We Cultivate Our Own Happiness?").
Dickens again explores the idea that true happiness must originate from within, rather than without, in his last-completed novel, Our Mutual Friend. The allure of materialism immediately confronts readers of the original serialized version of the novel through the commodification of happiness in the advertisement pages. Products promise happiness to readers, in the form of "love and kisses!" (Piesse & Lubin's New Perfume for the Festive Season), pleasant leisure time (Jaques' Croquet Games), and personal beauty "for all who court the gay and festive scenes" (Rowlands' Macassar Oil, Kalydor, and Odonto). They also promote materialistic fantasies for middle-class readers, who are encouraged by advertisements for Slack's electroplated silver, H. J. & D. Nicholls tailors, and other sellers to buy cheap goods that mimic more expensive goods like silver and fine clothing. Repeated ads for electroplated silver suggest that common symbols for wealth, including a table laden with precious metal, might be within the average reader's reach. One ad boasts: "Slack's Electroplate is a coating of pure silver over nickel. A combination of two metals possessing such valuable properties renders it in appearance and wear equal to sterling silver." The emphasis here is on illusion or fantasy, the appearance of wealth for a fraction of the cost.
The world of "silver-plated" happiness glibly displayed in the advertisements is almost immediately rejected in the novel, however, through Dickens's vitriolic characterization of the nouveau riche Veneerings and their circle of acquaintances. Beneficiaries of the mid-Victorian "capitalist cult of money-getting" (Herbert 203), the Veneerings embody the values of materialism through their ridiculously conspicuous consumption, and Dickens mercilessly exposes the shallowness of this worldview. It is clear, from the moment these characters are introduced, that a single-minded quest for material possessions results in an absurdly disconnected life:
Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French-polished to the crown of his head. (6)
The danger of this kind of uprooting—and its accompanying reliance on money rather than personal relationships—is shown when the Veneerings' bosom friends, the Lammles, are found out to be penniless. The materialistic set easily cuts the relationship, and "sweeps these inconveniently unexplainable wretches who have lived beyond their means and gone to total smash off the face of the universe" (627). Readers learn near the end of the novel that this will be the fate of the Veneerings, too, although "the next week's book of the Insolvent Fates" had "not yet opened" (815). Unlike the redeemed bankrupt, Mr. Dombey, or the beloved Father of the Marshalsea prison, William Dorrit, these characters do not have the good fortune of knowing a loving Florence or Amy, whose economy of sentiment is wide enough to embrace even the wretched, thus allowing for a tempered but sustaining happiness. Nor do they have an opportunity to achieve a modicum of happiness through suitable, sustaining, and meaningful labor, as is possible for working class characters like Dickens's extraordinarily sharp dolls dressmaker, Jenny Wren.@ While the life of this young working-class needlewoman is unmistakably difficult, a point emphasized by her lameness and the fact that she is "poorly paid" (223), her labor—dolls' dressmaking—is not mindless and alienating. Instead, the work of transforming scraps of fabric into doll clothing includes an element of positive self-development (albeit within extreme material constraints). Jenny's type of labor, as opposed to factory work, allows for this development. As Jenny tells Sloppy near the end of the novel, she was "never taught a stitch…just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do it. Badly enough at first, but better now" (809). Indeed, her skill as an accomplished seamstress is highlighted when she is first introduced:…the little figure went on with its work of gumming or gluing together with a camel's-hair brush certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was there), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all her other sharpness. (222)Jenny's life is a struggle, but it is a forward moving struggle, allowing this needlewoman to create her own unexpected "happy" ending.
Dickens's theorization of happiness in the novels discussed anticipates the findings of Tim Kasser and a host of other 21st century psychologists who have discovered that personal relationships and meaningful work do make us happier than material goods. And this is indeed comforting in a world characterized by ambition, anxiety, and changing economic circumstances—whether that is 19th-century London or 21st century America. Perhaps part of the joy of reading Dickens's novels today is that they do show happiness to be possible even in a materialistic society, and even for those who have not prospered in material terms. According to Dickens, happiness does not arise through the acquisition of wealth or goods; instead, it lies within an economy of sentiment, in the individual's ability to connect emotionally with those that he or she encounters within the vast sea of humanity. Importantly, this is a happiness that is potentially available to anyone.
The Dickensian idea of living the good life may seem quaint, overly simplistic, or even nauseatingly sentimental, but the degree to which Dickens believed in the connection of interpersonal relationships and happiness can be seen time and again in his imagined relations with readers. In his Preface to Dombey and Son, written at the end of its serialization, for example, he admits:
I cannot forego my usual opportunity of saying farewell to my readers in this greeting-place, though I have only to acknowledge the unbounded warmth and earnestness of their sympathy in every stage of the journey we have just concluded.
If any of them have felt a sorrow in one of the principal incidents on which this fiction turns, I hope it may be a sorrow of that sort which endears the sharers in it, one to another. This is not unselfish in me. I may claim to have felt it, at least as much as anybody else; and I would fain be remembered kindly for my part in the experience. (n.p.)
If any of them have felt a sorrow in one of the principal incidents on which this fiction turns, I hope it may be a sorrow of that sort which endears the sharers in it, one to another. This is not unselfish in me. I may claim to have felt it, at least as much as anybody else; and I would fain be remembered kindly for my part in the experience. (n.p.)
Dickens characterizes the work of writing and the work of reading as a shared experience of "warmth and earnestness" that forges the human bonds that have the potential to lay the groundwork for eudaimonic happiness. Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit, and Our Mutual Friend are dark novels that show the cruelty of the marketplace and the suffering that it can cause. At the same time, they show the way to survive and triumph over the dehumanization of external circumstances and place that triumph firmly within each reader's control by connecting it to one's internal life. Moreover, adopting this kind of moral map does not necessarily result in an impoverished material existence. Psychologist Alan S. Waterman and his colleagues suggest that if a person experiences eudaimonic living he or she will necessarily also experience hedonic enjoyment (Waterman, Schwartz, and Conti 43), and the happy endings of Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit, and Our Mutual Friend support this conclusion. For Dickens himself, adopting a eudaimonic theory of happiness also resulted in a two-fold reward. Not only did it make him a more beloved author; it also made him rich.
Julia McCord Chavez is an Assistant Professor of English at Saint Martin's University in Lacey, Washington. Her research and teaching interests include nineteenth-century British literature, novel studies, gender studies, Victorian print culture, and the intersections of law and literature. She has published articles on the gothic aspects of serial novels by Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, the pedagogical value of Victorian periodical reading, and the transatlantic publication of Thomas Hardy's novel The Return of the Native. Her current book project is entitled "Victorian Wanderers and the Serial Form".
Works Cited
Bar-Yosef, Eitan. "'An Ocean of Soap and Water': Domesticating Imperial Imagery in Dombey and Son." Dickens Quarterly 19.4 (2002): 220-232.
Bauer, Jack J., Dan P. McAdams, and Jennifer L. Pals. "Narrative Identity and Eudaimonic Well-Being." Journal of Happiness Studies 9.1 (2008): 81-104.
Bstan-'dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.
"Can We Cultivate Our Own Happiness?" Good Morning America. 4 Sept. 2011. ABC News.com. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Deci, Edward L. and Richard Ryan. "Hedonia, Eudaimonia, and Well-Being: An Introduction." Journal of Happiness Studies 9.1 (2008): 1-11.
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1997.
----------. Dombey and Son. Ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982.
----------. Little Dorrit. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Publishing Classics, 2008.
----------. Our Mutual Friend. Ed. Michael Cotsell. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
Elfenbein, Andrew. "Managing the House in 'Dombey and Son': Dickens and the Uses of Analogy." Studies in Philology 92.3 (Summer 1995): 361-82.
Engels, Frederick. The Condition of the Working Class in England. 1845. Trans. W. O. Henderson and W. H. Chaloner. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1968.
Gilbert, Daniel T. Stumbling on Happiness. New York: Knopf, 2006.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Herbert, Christopher. "Filthy Lucre: Victorian Ideas of Money." Victorian Studies 44.2 (Winter 2002): 185-213.
H. J. & D. Nicholls, Tailors. Advertisement. In Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1864-65. Part 4 (August 1864): back cover; Part 8 (December 1864): unnumbered page.
Jaffe, Audrey. The Affective Life of the Average Man: The Victorian Novel and the Stock-Market Graph. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2010.
Jaques's Croquet Games. Advertisement. In Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1864-65. Part 1 (May 1864): 21.
Kasser, Tim. The High Price of Materialism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
Piesse & Lubin's Love and Kisses! Advertisement. In Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1864-65. Part 1 (May 1864): 20.
Potkay, Adam. "Narrative Possibilities of Happiness, Unhappiness, and Joy." Social Research 77.2 (Summer 2010): 523-44.
"Psychology 1504: Positive Psychology." Course Catalog: Spring 2007-2008. Harvard University. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Ricard, Matthieu. Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. New York: Little Brown, 2006.
Rowlands Macassar Oil, Kalydor, and Odonto. Advertisement. In Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1864-65. Part 1 (May 1864): 30.
Rubin, Gretchen Craft. The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. New York: Harper, 2009.
Ryan, Richard M., Veronika Huta, and Edward L. Deci, "Living Well: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Eudaimonia." Journal of Happiness Studies 9.1 (2008): 139-170.
Seligman, Martin E. P. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press, 2004.
Shaw, Mary Liz. "Dickens' 'Little Dorrit' Has a Modern Story to Tell on PBS." Jsonline. 28 March 2009. Web. 21 Oct. 2011.
Slack's Electro-Plate. Advertisement. In Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1864-65. Part 1 (May 1864): 23; Part 8 (December 1864): 13.
Toise, David W. "'As Good as Nowhere': Dickens's Dombey and Son, the Contingency of Value, and Theories of Domesticity." Criticism 41.3 (1999): 323-48.
Veenhoven, Ruut, Ed Diener, and Alex Michalos. "Editorial." Journal of Happiness Studies 1.1 (2000): v-viii.
Waterman, Alan S., Seth J. Schwartz, and Regina Conti. "The Implications of Two Conceptions of Happiness (Hedonic Enjoyment and Eudaimonia) for the Understanding of Intrinsic Motivation." Journal of Happiness Studies 9.1 (2008): 41-80.
Williams, Raymond. "Introduction." In Dombey and Son, by Charles Dickens. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1970.


text:
Colors of the Stone
Phone: 530-263-7500
Show Dates: January 30 - February 6
Hours: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Over 700 artisan booths, galleries, and merchant displays are presented by well-known artisans and emerging designers, along with one-of-a-kind artisan jewelry makers, stonecutters, and mineral dealers, COLORS OF THE STONE offers antique gemstones, vintage collectibles, and antiquities, including fine art jewelry, handmade gold and silver pieces, nomadic artifacts, rare ethnographic objects, rare vintage gemstones, synodic crystals, ceremonial pendants, antique opals, pearls, and amber, old lapis lazuli, carved marble figurines, Victorian silver, antique Burmese rubies, Jizera garnets, and vintage art deco emeralds. Walking through the front door, attendees explore the visual qualities of stone--natural, creative, spirited color, abstract transparencies, geometric patterns, intricate contrasts, saturated color, colors which articulate physical and spiritual aesthetics, and all the colors of the stone. There will also be over 400 workshops in beadmaking and jewelry design. Handicap accessible.
For inquiries, please emaill: firstname.lastname@example.com.
For Directions
- Location: Casino Del Sol Resort, 5655 West Valencia Road
- Wholesale?: Public & Wholesale
- Gem Ride Loop: Casino del Sol
- Gem Show Ride Stop #: 3
- Type of Merchandise: Art, Beads, Carvings, Classes/Workshops, Finished Jewelry, Gemstones, Glass, Lapidary, Metaphysical, Mountings & Findings, Supplies, Tools
See More
Featured Events
Gem Show: Colors of the Stone January 30, 2021 - February 6, 2021
Casino del Sol hosts Colors of the Stone, part of the Tucson Gem,... Read More

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Jaipur, Jun 12 (PTI) Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel arrived in Udaipur today and said that he would leave for Mandsaur, the epicentre of the farmers stir in Madhya Pradesh, with his supporters tomorrow.
He arrived in Udaipur from Gujarat by road to attend a private function.
Gehrilal Dangi, the district president of Patel Navnirman Sena had yesterday said Hardik Patel has plans to leave for Mandsaur, but it is uncertain whether the administration allows him to do so.
He said the Patidar community in Gujarat and Rajasthan stands in support of the Madhya Pradesh farmers.
Asked about his plan to go to Mandsaur, Patel said he will go there tomorrow.
"I will do my work and police and administration will do their job," he told reporters when asked what if the police will prevent him from going to Mandsaur.
Hardik, who had spent six months of exile in Udaipur after a Gujarat High Court order, had returned to his hometown in January this year. He was staying at a former Congress MLAs house during this period
He was released from jail in Gujarat after nine months in confinement in July last year.
The Mandsaur-Neemuch region, about 300 km from Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal, became the nerve centre of the storm of farmer distress, as protests over low prices for crops and heavy farm debts started on June 1 and snowballed into a widespread agitation.
In Mandsaur, curfew was imposed after the five farmers were killed in two incidents of police firing during the protest on June 6. PTI SDA NSD


text:
On this Friday, April 29, 2011, the Empire State Building will be lit up blue, white and red in honor of "the British Consulate General in New York, in celebration of the royal wedding of His Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton," according to the official lighting schedule. George Washington would be so disappointed. [via NewYorkology]
This article from the Village Voice Archive was posted on April 29, 2011


text:
Your heating appliances play a major role in your home no matter what time of the year it is. They heat up the water for your showers and dishwashers, and they keep your home feeling cozy when it snows.
To keep your heating appliances in the best shape, check out these great repair tips.
Stop Problems Before They Happen
Unless you're a psychic, this repair tip may seem impossible. While it's true that you can't stop every heating appliance problem from happening, you can head off problems before they become too big by scheduling routine maintenance checks.
During one of these checks, a professional technician will go over your heating system and check that everything is working as it should. Technicians will also clean heating ducts, which will help your system run smoother.
Replace Filters Often
Most filters need to be replaced every year or so, and they're simple to install. Filters catch dirt before it flies through your air ducts, but when so much of it collects, warm air may struggle to get through the filter, forcing your heater to pump out more warm air to keep up and putting excess strain on your heater.
With more stress, your heater will be more likely to break down. Check out your filter at least once every six months and replace as necessary.
Relight Pilot Lights
If your pilot light goes out on your water heater, then you will be in for some cold showers. You can relight this flame yourself, but if you have drafts or clogs in your home, then you might have to keep relighting the flame. If that's the case, then seek professional help.
Call a Professional
Working with heating appliances is tough work. It takes a licensed technician to fix most problems. Many problems are too dangerous to be handled by someone without much experience with heaters, so when in doubt, call a professionally licensed technician.
Northern's One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning® offers great tips for repairing heating appliances. To learn more about our services, contact us at (763) 284-8639 today.


text:
A Hole in the Attic
In Mary Ellen Dias' debut novel, A Hole in the Attic, Trish Montgomery has retired from teaching in San Francisco and moved to Fernville in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Having found the right house, she buys it and begins fixing it up. However, some of the townspeople fear the old Brookins house because of tales of mysterious disappearances in the past. "No good'll come of your living there," one character tells Trish. "It's evil."
Trish begins teaching an art class, attends cookouts, and makes friends in her new town. She also meets and falls in love with Dylan. Meanwhile, the old rumors about the house resurface when Trish's handyman suddenly goes missing. Trish hears sounds of moaning and a baby crying, and black swans mysteriously appear on her lake. Evil is leaking out through a hole in the house, and no one seems to be able to deal with it. At one point, a medium fails in her attempt to deal with the evil. "The wall has opened!" she cries. "On the other side is evil. Demons. Pestilence. Oh, woe! God save us all! I opened a portal to hell!"
A Hole in the Attic is an easily readable book with a tone that is light, not heavy. Language is simple and the writing style direct. The story pulls readers along with small developments and several successive attempts that fail to exorcise the evil. This results in some minor redundancy which is mostly necessary to the plot. Rather than frightening, the evil and mystery create a sense of fantasy adventure as the unbelievable turns out to be true. Characterization is generally shallow, and readers are left to wonder how some of the characters muster the courage to confront the evil they fear so greatly. The story also starts with too much detail that fails to move the plot forward. Once it gets going, however, the plot develops nicely with good foreshadowing. Dias manages plot and characters well enough in this world, but as the story turns toward fantasy, believability suffers a bit.
Despite its shortcomings, this imaginative and outlandish story makes for a fun read that is not too juvenile for adults and not too frightening for a younger audience. Both the writing and plot have a fresh flavor that many will enjoy.
Reviewed by
David George
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.


text:
Before I apply some masonry paint to an external brick-wall I would appreciate some advice on how best to prepare the surface.
The bricks seem in good condition.
The mortar however is very powdery and crumbles to the touch in some places.
What are the steps I need to take to get the wall ready for applying the paint?
Thanks for your help,


text:
- For the primary universe counterpart, see Nero (Romulan).
Nero, was a male Romulan native to one version of the prime reality of the 24th century. He ended up a prisoner on the Klingon prison planet Rura Penthe after traveling to the past of a variation of the mirror universe .
Following the surrender of the Klingon Empire to the Terran Empire, James T. Kirk was able to capture Nero's ship, the Narada. Kirk proceeded to beam to the surface of Rura Penthe and killed Nero by breaking his neck, as a means of revenge for killing his father. (TOS - Mirrored comic: "Part 1")
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.


text:
Alan Trammell Rookie Card
On Sunday December 10, 2017 Baseball's Hall of Fame Veteran's Committee announced their picks for the 2018 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. The Committee voted and it was a proud day for the city of Detroit as two of their own were chosen: Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. There were 10 players on the ballot.
Also eligible was: Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Marvin Miller, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, and Luis Tiant. The sentiment throughout baseball was that the Veteran's Committee made the right choices, of course this is #debatable.
Drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 1976 Trammell debuted on September 9, 1977 and by 1980 was in his first All-Star game, first of six appearances. His most memorable season was 1984 the Tigers started the season with a dominating 35-5 record and finished the season winning the World Series Championship. Detroit won that series in five games thanks largely in part to Alan Trammell who went 9 for 20 with a couple of homeruns in game 4 and went on to be voted World Series MVP.
Alan also won four Gold Glove Awards and was known for his quick release and accurate throws. He played for 20 years and batted over .300 seven times, finished his career with .285 Batting Average | 1,231 Runs | 1,003 RBI's |2,365 Hits in 2,293 Games Played.
1978 Topps, Card No. 707 (shop eBay)
Two things immediately stand out to me. Both Hall of Fame Inductees, Morris & Trammell, have rookie cards inside the 1978 Topps set and both were rookies with the Detroit Tigers. Also, this card is in a lot of collectors PC (personal collection) or on their want list because it also depicts the rookie card of Hall of Famer Paul Molitor. Two HOF rookie cards on one card! This makes this card unique and desirable.
In 1978 Topps increased the size of its set, from the previous 660 card set to the new and improved 726 cards. In typical fashion Topps offered collectors multiple subsets: Record Breakers subset, AL & NL Statistical Leaders subset, World Series subset and how can we forget the Rookie subset. The rookie cards, which appear toward the back-end of the set features four players per card by position rather than by team. Although many collectors are not a fan of multi-player rookie cards we make exceptions when they include rookie cards of Hall of Famers. The 1978 Topps card design is one of the most beloved in the hobby, although the Rookie subset doesn't show all its design swag it does give us the basics. Card #707 gives us four rookies. The yellow back drop outlined with a thin red line really gives it nice eye appeal. Follow that red line around and it will lead you to the year '78 in big bold font. Towards the bottom of the card in a bit smaller font Topps tells you what you're looking at, "Rookie Shortstops." The card backs are a brownish/copper color with navy blue font. And since there's four players featured on the card we only get a short bio of each player, there's not much room for anything else.
As of the date of this post raw copies can be purchased for $10.00-$20.00; graded near mint copies (7's) sell between $20.00-$45.00 and near mint to mint copies (8's) sell in the $70.00-$100.00 range. High end grades (9's) are selling for around $450.00-$650.00 and on November 27, 2017 a mint PSA 10 sold for $9,368.00!


text:
Add to Favorites
- bio With a gorgeous face and curvaceous body, Kendra Lust is one of the hottest performers in the adult industry today. She's a multiple AVN award winner and not only acts, but directs and manages other talent. A midwest girl with Italian and French-Canadian heritage, she was a tomboy and played on her high school softball and basketball teams. At the same time she was very promiscuous, and played around with both boys and girls. Despite that, she graduated with honors and was homecoming queen. Kendra started stripping to pay off her college bills. Afterwards she worked as a nurse, but couldn't resist the temptation to get naked again, so she quit and began webcam modeling before quickly jumping into the world of porn and making a huge splash!
- birthdate1978-09-18
- born Madison Heights, Michigan
- age 42
- measurements 34D-26-35
- eyes Brown
- hair Black
- weight 120lbs
- height 5' 4"


text:
"Pre-apprenticeship is defined as a program or set of strategies designed to prepare individuals to enter and succeed in a Registered Apprenticeship program and has a documented partnership with at least one, if not more, Registered Apprenticeship program(s)." – Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
Youth Apprenticeship is a framework in which students between the ages of 16-24 are receiving classroom-based education (related technical instruction) and work-based learning. Quality youth apprenticeship programs link directly to an employer (s) engaged and invested in the student(s)' learning and employment outcomes. The student receives related technical instruction, on the job learning, and is employable, as demonstrated by an employer's willingness to hire the youth if program successfully completed.– Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation
Apprenticeship Readiness is defined as a student who is enrolled and engaged in classroom-based education (related technical instruction) with academic alignment to industry, or with any youth apprenticeship or registered apprenticeship program. A student who has successfully completed a level 1 course from a Career Technical Education program and is pursuing a level 2 or enrolled in dual credit at the postsecondary level is receiving related technical instruction because the courses are academically aligned with industry. – Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation
OWINN is working to scale youth apprenticeship work-based learning opportunities for young adults 16-24. More information will be shared as it becomes available.


text:
The overall responsibilities of the House Parents are to provide Christian nurture for the Boardwalk Chapel staff living in the Dunn House throughout the summer. This position requires that the couple have a genuine love for Jesus and for young people who are seeking to serve the Lord and also that the parents be patient and understanding toward college-aged individuals during the busy months of seasonal ministry.
Specific Information
One of the primary day-to-day responsibilities of both Parents include holding staff accountable by encouraging them in their daily work and enforcing the house rules. Each staff member is aware that he or she follows a particular ministry schedule and is expected to be punctual and respectful toward others in the house. At times, Parents will need to graciously remind forgetful or negligent individuals regarding time frames at the Chapel and completing assigned chores around the Dunn House.
Staff are expected to have their own personal devotions with the Lord and the group of staff also meet four times a week for Bible reading and prayer. The House Parents should be available to assist with leading those times as needed. Also, whenever needed, the House Parents should be available to meet individually with the young people on staff for counsel and advice. As in all counseling situations, Parents are asked to show discretion, pray for wisdom, respect each staff member's privacy, and speak to the Director when necessary. All interactions should provide a way for the House Father to spiritually and emotionally minister to the young men on staff and for the House Mother to do the same for the young women on staff.
In the event that a staff member repeatedly disrespects any of the rules, the House Parents are responsible for enforcing the disciplinary measures that are already established at the Chapel and staff house to include extra work and discussion about removal of privileges in an extreme example. Common infractions include breaking curfew, neglecting to act in a punctual manner, and behaving in an way that does not show love toward the other brothers and sisters in the Dunn House.
Specifics for the House Father
Some of the daily duties are specific for the House Father, particularly in the area of security. The Dunn House is situated in a relatively dangerous part of Wildwood and criminal activities regularly occur in the area during the summer. While the staff are trained in the beginning of the summer on safety awareness, it is easy for individuals to forget, relax their guard, or become negligent as the summer progresses. It is the responsibility of the House Father to regularly remind staff members to practice safety precautions, including, but not limited to, closing and locking doors, being accountable to each other regarding their whereabouts, traveling in groups, and not walking on the streets after dark.
The House Father is also responsible for maintaining curfew each night and assigning a particular Coordinator to lock every door and downstairs window at night. On weeknights (Monday through Friday), staff should be back at the Dunn House on midnight and be in their individual rooms at one. On weekend nights (Saturday and Sunday), curfew is an hour earlier, with staff returning to the Dunn House at eleven and retiring to their rooms at midnight. At the discretion of the Director, Father, and Coordinators, curfew may be changed.
Specifics for the House Mother
Other daily duties are specific to the House Mother, especially in the area of assisting with household responsibilities. The Domestic Coordinator oversees all operations at the staff house that relate to purchasing groceries and supplies, cooking five suppers per week, managing staff and visitor schedules, and so on. Since the summer season is busy and often unpredictable, the House Mother is asked to be flexible and willing to assist with domestic tasks as they come up each day. In the event that the Domestic Coordinator becomes ill or has a personal emergency, the House Mother should be willing to delegate responsibility to other staff members.
The primary household responsibility of the House Mother is to set up and supervise chore lists at the Dunn House. It is up to the House Mother's discretion when chores are to be completed, how she should encourage the staff to complete their specific jobs in a timely fashion, and what disciplinary measures should be taken when staff are negligent in this area.
Additional Information
While the position of House Parents is unpaid, free room and board are provided for the length of the summer, an estimated value package of $4000. It is possible for one or both Parents to find employment in the area as long as outside work does not interfere with duties at the Dunn House. As much of their time is flexible while the staff are involved in their daily responsibilities, Parents are free and welcome to volunteer their time at the Chapel or in any other work or recreational activities.
If you interested in this position, please contact the director at (609)-522-8489 or email [email protected].


text:
Remove Dents from Wood
April 19, 2013 | Money Saving Tips & Tricks | No comments
Try this helpful tip if you've got any dents in wood floor/ furniture in your home. It will work best on 'new' dents but can help get rid of older dents as well.
Important things to note:
- This will only work where the wood has been compacted or compressed, not where it's been removed completely
- If the wood has a finish or been painted (which most probably will) we do recommend you test in a hidden spot to make sure the finish won't come away
You'll Need:
A clean damp cloth or paper towel and an iron with a steam function
- Wet the dent
- Apply a wet cloth or paper towel to the area
- With the iron on High apply to the wet towel or cloth and make a circular motion. Be sure to keep the iron moving so as not to burn the towel
- Make sure there is a lot of steam being generated and keep doing this for 3-5 minutes
- Check your results!
For deeper and older dents you might find a bit of dirt rises to the surface, leaving a bit of a mark. If this is the case, you can try to gently sand the area and then apply some oil or finish to match the wood.
Good luck and happy fixing!
Tags: DIY Tips, Home Improvements, Wood Care


text:
Ron Roberts
Sponsored By
Rothstein Files: This And That Around College BasketballWe're hearing that Kentucky's starting five will be Ryan Harrow, Archie Goodwin, Alex Poythress, Kyle Wiltjer, and Nerlens Noel.
Rothstein Files: Five Observations From St. Joseph'sThe biggest thing for this group? Something they've never dealt with before -- expectations.
Rothstein Files: Martelli, St. Joseph's Eyeing Return To NCAAs in 2013Phil Martelli and his St. Joseph's Hawks are looking to return to the NCAA tournament in


text:
จองโรงแรม อพาร์ทเมนต์ White Coconut Studio
Property Location With a stay at this apartment in Silver Sands (Parish of Christ Church), you'll be convenient to Silver Sands Beach and South Point Lighthouse. This beach apartment is within close proximity of Chancery Lane Swamp and Miami Beach. Rooms Make yourself at home in one of the air-conditioned rooms featuring kitchens with full-sized refrigerators/freezers and ovens. Complimentary wireless Internet access is available to keep you connected. Conveniences include coffee/tea makers and ceiling fans, and housekeeping is provided on a limited basis. Amenities Take advantage of recreation opportunities such as bicycles to rent or take in the view from a terrace and a garden. This apartment also features complimentary wireless Internet access and tour/ticket assistance. Business, Other Amenities Featured amenities include luggage storage and a safe deposit box at the front desk. A roundtrip airport shuttle is provided for a surcharge (available 24 hours), and free self parking is available onsite.
- ที่จอดรถ
- free
- สปา


text:
click on thumbnails above to see larger photo.
Route 73 Improvement Project
In April of last year Onyx Valve was awarded with the task to prevent the flooding of a section of Route 73 right here in South Jersey.In response to this problem, Onyx Supplied four of our state of the art duckbill check valves to prevent the backflow of water from the local stream from reaching the road surface.These check valves part of a large reconstruction process to improve road conditions in South Jersey, and have been able to hold back the flow of water and keep the streets clear from flooding even with the stream at the highest height in recent years.
duckbill check valves


text:
CDOT plans to set up detour at U.S. 85 and Weld 18 this week
January 7, 2019
The Colorado Department of Transportation plans to set up a detour Thursday at U.S. 85 and Weld County Road 18 north of Fort Lupton, according to a news release.
Crews will close the right northbound lane of U.S. 85 and the east side of the intersection. The detour will take drivers to Weld 14.5, south of the project.
Officials said the detour will stay in place until early February, but access to the gas station at the intersection will remain open.
Southbound traffic on U.S. 85 will have two lanes starting Wednesday.
According to the release, the detour is necessary while crews resurface the intersection. Once the project is finished, the contractor will complete other work, including installing a new traffic signal, in the spring.
Work hours are set for 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Officials expect to complete the project at the end of spring.


text:
Spanish squad Comunitat Valenciana have had their invitation to take part in the Tour de France withdrawn, after one of their assistant directeur sportifs was arrested in a anti-doping investigation last month.
Tour organisers ASO said today that no team would replace Comunitat Valenciana, cutting the number of Tour squads taking part in the 2006 race to 21.
Valenciana?s assistant directeur sportif Jose Ignacio Labarta was one of five individuals detained during ?Operacion Puerto? in late May, the biggest anti-doping operation in the history of Spanish sport.
Released less than a day later, Labarta then resigned from his post. However, the Tour has nonetheless excluded his team.
A decision whether another Spanish team, Astana-Wurth whose former team manager Manolo Saiz was involved in the doping probe, can race the Tour is expected soon.
However, the Tour are waiting for the UCI ProTour council to deliver a verdict on whether the squad continues to belong to the top cycling league following Saiz?s detention, before acting themselves.
The Tour de France starts in Strasbourg on July 1, 2006.


text:
I started in this industry after being a hobbyist and having no formal CS background - I studied neuroscience and was well on my way to an academic career when I decided (with the assistance of a friend who from then on became my career sherpa) I should take my hobby into a fulltime job. I was speedily doing code challenges, TA'ing classes, running my thesis experiments, and writing my thesis while simultaneously applying to every job I could find.
After over 100 submissions with either rejections or no responses, I finally had an interview! Some time after, I was plopped into my first software job in a new city, and had no idea what I was doing. I struggled with imposter syndrome for almost a year - how did I conquer this? Sometimes it's hard to really think about, and sometimes I wonder if I truly did ever conquer it. A few different things, in my mind, helped me with this:
Realizing this is a very meritocratic industry, despite how HR departments treat things. This becomes most clear when other developers start coming to you with questions, and you can comfortably answer them. This comes with the next point:
PRACTICE. I always felt like (and still do) that I have to prove something because I don't have a degree. I do a lot of coding and reading about coding in my free time - it helps that it's a passion of mine, but I make sure to maintain balance with other things in my life, such as exercise, pleasure reading, etc. But this gets you the knowledge to start answering questions your teammates you have, and as you do this more and more often (it'll come as you practice, because the questions will naturally seem like easy ones to you), your own confidence will build along with the confidence others have in you. It's a nice positive feedback loop.
Work on actual projects for your practice - yes you should take online courses, yes you should do coding practice, but you should contribute to open source, build projects that are interesting to you, etc. This skill transfers over - and I actually have a story about an instance in which this happened to me just over the last week, but it's a long one that should probably be its own post.
Jump into the deep end. This is always a leap of faith - once you get past the drowning feeling, you'll find yourself swimming. Challenge yourself - take the initiative to rewrite your company's testing procedures, learn big data processing by building a big data app, deploy your first single page app, do some embedded programming - then break it all or have others break it, and fix it. And break it. And fix it. It will then become routine and old hat - then comes the knowledge, the confidence, and it starts replacing that feeling of being an imposter.
I think the key takeaway here is building confidence, and constantly pushing your limits. Failure doesn't exist - you will always learn something and become better, and as you build that understanding and the confidence I talked about above, you'll welcome 'failure' and success: failure is learning, success is demonstrating what you learned.
As for my personal example - I've been in the industry for 3 years now, am building out my own startup (remember when I said to jump into the deep end?), and am loving every minute of it.
Thank you for this thoughtful response. I also don't have a CS degree (in fact, I have a BFA), so that part especially hit home for me! Contributing to an open source project is one of those things that has been on my dev "bucket list" for a while, but I just haven't worked up the nerve to do – it's reassuring to hear it was such a positive experience for you. Your points about failure are also completely on point, although it sure can be hard to see that when you're in the middle of it! I think it's really an important perspective to have.
Best of luck with your startup!!
Thank you so much! Most OSS projects are very welcoming to people of all experience levels, so jump right in, I'm sure your PRs will sail right through review :)
These are very wise words Kyle! Best of luck :)


text:
Ethereum's Fourth Hard Fork, Criticisms on Security
Ethereum has completed the execution of yet another hard fork. "Spurious Dragon" is the Ethereum network's fourth hard fork to date and is expected to mitigate various DoS attacks targeting the network.
Technically, the hard fork was a success. Ethereum developers state that general technical problems have been addressed and it is presumed to prevent more attacks on the Ethereum network for the foreseeable future.
Leading bitcoin exchanges supported the execution of Spurious Dragon, temporarily disabling Ethereum and ETH-based assets for the duration of the hard fork. ShapeShift and Korbit amongst many other exchanges and trading platforms addressed the hard fork.
However, in spite of the successful execution of the hard fork, developers, experts and users began to criticize the Ethereum network for weak security measures and network instability.
Chris Ellis, founder of bitcoin peer-to-peer tipping platform ProTip, noted that since the DAO, the Ethereum network has not been able to reliably host useful applications due to various issues with security.
Furthermore, several Ethereum developers have terminated their projects and applications as well, after discovering that certain technical aspects of the network could make the application prone to various attacks.
For example, the Velocity development team stated:
"Even if we attempt to decentralize this component, we will be prone to attacks and data will never be real time, there will be at least a delay of 10 seconds and this is a huge attack vector. This problem cannot be solved without the platform evolving to the point where required data is available natively inside the Ethereum blockchain itself."
The team at Velocity also stated, while they reckon that the future of Ethereum is bright, introducing financial derivatives at this stage seems to be a bit premature for the ecosystem.
Within the past five months, the Ethereum development team have completed the execution of four hard forks, beginning with the DAO hard fork on July 20, 2016. Although each hard fork addressed different issues including memory bugs and external attacks, DoS attacks on the network were one of the major factors that pressured the Ethereum development team to introduce an urgent fix.
The latest hard fork addressed the same issue the Ethereum network has been dealing with for months. DoS attacks have been mitigated and transaction delays have been solved, enhancing the functionality and flexibility of the Ethereum network.
Hudson Jameson, Ethereum developer and communication officer, released an official announcement on November 20, explicitly describing specific changes and network alterations the hard fork will bring. These changes included; replay attack protection, EXP cost increase, and changes to the maximum code size of contracts.
"Spurious Dragon is the second hard fork of the two-round hard fork response to the DoS attacks on the Ethereum network in September and October. [Spurious Dragon] addresses important but less pressing matters such as further tuning opcode pricing to prevent future attacks on the network, enabling "debloat" of the blockchain state, and adding replay attack protection."
In all, the hard fork is presumed to bring improved stability and reduced transactional delays for both users and developers. Because decentralized applications on the Ethereum network struggled to settle contracts and transact payments, the execution of the hard fork was the priority of the Ethereum development team.
Still, developers and experts believe that the fourth hard fork is not sufficient enough for the recovery of Ethereum and to allow the network to demonstrate resilience toward attack. Several experts criticized the fact that the Ethereum development team forced exchanges to update their platform four times over the past five months, which BTCC COO Samson Mow emphasized in an interview with BTCManager earlier this month.
Mow stated that if the Ethereum development team continues to put this burden and pressure on developers and exchanges, the merit of its network will decline.
"I would be more worried about exchanges than developers getting tired of the major changes. Developers for Ethereum should be more tolerant having to update but for an exchange, the constant updates, often with little notice, are very problematic," Mow said.
Some respected cryptographers and companies, including ShapeShift and its CEO Erik Voorhees, expressed their concerns toward the cryptocurrency community dismissing Ethereum due to short-term issues.
The markets have taken the latest hard fork positively so far, whereby ETH-USD posted a fresh, one-week high at $10.30 on the day of the protocol update. So far on November 23, buyers are suggested to be in control; sellers managed to push the market as low as $9.70 but since then, ether has increased to $9.82 at the time of writing, illustrated below.
Will ETH-USD continue to make gains in response to the latest update or will concerns about the network see the cryptocurrency remain subdued below $10? Let us know your thoughts below.


text:
There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page.
From Conservapedia
This page has been deleted. The deletion and move log for the page are provided below for reference.
- 10:03, 20 June 2014 Conservative (Talk | contribs) deleted page User:Fantomas (content was: "{{Userboxtop|Fantômas}} {{User Mathematician}} {{User LaTeX}} {{User Irish Gaelic}} {{User caffeine}} {{User noracists}} {{User free software}} {{User binary}} {{User environment}} {{User Brazilian Portuguese}} {{Userboxbottom}} Use...")


text:
What can I do to avoid gum disease?
To keep your teeth for a lifetime, you must remove the plaque from your teeth and gums every day with proper brushing and flossing. Regular dental visits are also important. Daily cleaning will help keep calculus formation to a minimum, but it won't completely prevent it. A professional cleaning at least twice a year is necessary to remove calculus from places your toothbrush and floss may have missed. To make an appointment with us for gum disease evaluation in the Philadelphia area, please call (215) 735-3660.
Can I pass my periodontal disease to others?
Gum disease may be passed from parents to children and between couples, according to an article in the September 1997 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association. Researchers suggest that bacteria causing periodontal disease are passed though saliva. This means that when a family or couple comes into contact with each other's saliva, they're at risk for contracting the gum disease of another family member. Based on this research, the American Academy of Periodontology recognizes that treatment of gum disease may involve entire families. If one family member has gum disease, the AAP recommends that all family members see a dental professional for a periodontal disease screening.
I'm over 55. Does this mean I'm more likely to get gum disease?
Your chances of developing gum disease increase considerably as you get older. More than half of people aged 55 and older have periodontitis. The good news is that research suggests that these higher rates may be related to risk factors other than age. So, periodontal disease is not an inevitable part of aging. Risk factors that may make older people more susceptible include general health status, diminished immune status, medications, depression, worsening memory, diminished salivary flow, functional impairments and change in financial status.
When should I see a periodontist?
If you value your oral as well as overall health, anytime is a good time to see a periodontist for a periodontal evaluation. Sometimes the only way to detect gum disease is through a periodontal evaluation. A periodontal evaluation may be especially important in the following situations:
What can I expect the first time I visit a periodontist?
During your first visit, your periodontist will review your complete medical and dental history with you. It's extremely important for your periodontist to know if you are taking any medications or being treated for any condition that can affect your periodontal care. You will be given a complete oral and periodontal exam. Your periodontist will examine your gums, check to see if there is any gum line recession, assess how your teeth fit together when you bite and check your teeth to see if any are loose. Your periodontist will also take a small measuring instrument and place it between your teeth and gums to determine the depth of those spaces, known as periodontal pockets. This helps your periodontist assess the health of your gums. Radiographs (x-rays) may be used to show the bone levels between your teeth to check for possible bone loss.
What kinds of oral care products should I use to prevent gum disease?
Here are some guidelines for choosing dental care products — what works for most patients most of the time. To find out what is best for your particular needs, talk to your periodontist.
Other options include interproximal toothbrushes (tiny brushes that clean plaque between teeth) and interdental cleaners (small sticks or picks that remove plaque between teeth). If used improperly, these dental aids can injure the gums, so it is important to discuss proper use with your periodontist.
How should I choose oral care products?
Choose products that carry the American Dental Association Seal of Acceptance — an important symbol of a dental product's safety and effectiveness. Please contact us if you have any other questions or would like to schedule an appointment!


text: Dissipative solitons are self-localized structures resulting from a double balance between dispersion and nonlinearity as well as dissipation and a driving force. They occur in a wide variety of fields ranging from optics, hydrodynamics to chemistry and biology. Recently, significant interest has focused on their temporal realization in driven optical microresonators, known as dissipative Kerr solitons. They provide access to coherent, chip-scale optical frequency combs, which have already been employed in optical metrology, data communication and spectroscopy. Such Kerr resonator systems can exhibit numerous localized intracavity patterns and provide rich insights into nonlinear dynamics. A particular class of solutions consists of breathing dissipative solitons, representing pulses with oscillating amplitude and duration, for which no comprehensive understanding has been presented to date. Here, we observe and study single and multiple breathing dissipative solitons in two different microresonator platforms: crystalline MgF2 resonator and Si3N4 integrated microring. We report a deterministic route to access the breathing state, which allowed for a detailed exploration of the breathing dynamics. In particular, we establish the link between the breathing frequency and two system control parameters - effective pump laser detuning and pump power. Using a fast detection, we present a direct observation of the spatiotemporal dynamics of individual solitons, revealing irregular oscillations and switching. An understanding of breathing solitons is not only of fundamental interest concerning nonlinear systems close to critical transition, but also relevant for applications to prevent breather-induced instabilities in soliton-based frequency combs.


text:
Partnering with us means development
Mega Brokers is your ally. Working with us brings you a step closer to success.
Over 1,300 insurance agents and brokers as well as 60 office executives work with us because:
- Mega Brokers has its roots in the insurance market and was founded in 1989
- We bring first the most innovative IT systems for portfolio management and business development in the insurance market
- We provide 360 services for our partners across the spectrum of the insurance business with::
• Life, health, savings and investment department
• General Insurance and Corporate Business department
• Claims department
- We are the only insurance brokerage company in Greece with over 240,000 customers and stable annual growth rates
- We have great financial strength
- We educate and constantly train our partners with the most modern educational methods
- We offer the highest economic benefits in the insurance market
- We organize a Mega Brokers annual sales award trip
- We support our partners regularly to develop their portfolio
- We have partnerships with leading insurance companies in Greece as well as with Lloyds of London
- We design a wide range of very competitive tailor made products available exclusively to Mega Brokers network
Interested in becoming a Mega Broker partner?
Fill in the form below!
For more information on what we offer to our partners please contact:
Michalis Kostis
Sales Manager
Phone: +30 211 180 1935
Email: email@example.com


text:
This post isn't to ask for advice but just to say that I got a job offer from a much larger company! I would be doing similar work as I do now but be paid ~$15k more per year. They sent me a starting offer and I think they low-balled me a bit (full disclosure: I have a former colleague who works there and she has been giving me lots of guidance on everything) so I sent back my counter offer. The HR person said they would have to ask the hiring manager. I'm hoping they come up just a little bit, but even if they don't I'll take the job anyway. I know people send counter offers all the time but the irrational part of me is just like "What if they just rescind it altogether?"
It's a big career upgrade. I can commute from my current location (~1 hour one way) but will probably be moving before the end of the year. I need some time to save up for new pet deposits, down payments, and movers because I am not moving our apartment again.


text:
- High visual impact
- Economical means of advertising
- Property identification
- Simple application
- Full colour
- Cut to shape
Camera Labels
Fire & Security
CCTV Camera Labels
Security Camera stickers are effective ways to advertise your business or to display your company contact details clearly.
Our CCTV labels are printed onto a wide range of materials and are suitable for both external and internal use.
We are able to cut the labels to any shape or size to fit a wide range of camera units.
These labels are extremely durable and will last for a number of years, our experience in print can tailor a label that suits your exact specifications.
Talk to a member of the team today for a quote or friendly expert advice, we love to help. 01443 816414 – firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Back on January 25th, when I was confined to one finger on my IPhone, I promised to write about Jacqueline Jones' new book, A Dreadful Deceit, when I returned home and could type with both of my forefingers. The time has come to fulfill that promise.
Jacqueline Jones is one of the most distinguished and accomplished scholars now writing American History. Intellectual disciplines go through moments of extraordinary accomplishment separated by long deserts of mediocrity. I have many times observed that Philosophy, far and away the oldest of the disciplines, has had stretches of five hundred years or more when nothing much seems to be happening, interrupted by eruptions of sheer brilliance. Think of fifth and fourth century B. C. Athens, twelfth and thirteenth century Europe and North Africa, Seventeenth and Eighteenth century Great Britain and France and Prussia. The same seems to be true for the younger disciplines. Sociology, now mired in the tedium of opinion surveys and statistical manipulations, was, somewhat more than a century ago, the most exciting of the Social Sciences, with Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Mannheim and many others transforming our understanding of the social realm. There have been moments [not now, I think] when Literary Criticism sparkled. Economics has flourished, especially when Karl Marx was alive. Even Political Science, which is not really a discipline at all, has had its moments. This seems to be American History's time. The depth, richness, complexity, and sophistication of the work now being done by the best American Historians, especially on the story of African-Americans, is worlds better than what is being written by philosophers, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and literary critics these days. And in this moment of its flourishing, Jackie Jones is one of the very best. Two of her previous books, American Work andLabor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, are among the best things ever written about America.
The subtitle of A Dreadful Deceit is "The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama's America." Jones presents her book as the detailed stories of six individuals, ranging in historical time and place from seventeenth century colonial Maryland to 1970s Detroit, but these stories are a device for organizing a sweeping survey of the entire history of race in America. It is, contrary to superficial appearances, a book with a strong driving thesis that informs Jones' selection of the stories and of the vast amount of historical detail of time and place that she weaves around those stories. The thesis is nicely summarized exactly halfway through the book:
"The notion of racial differences between blacks and whites would provide a guiding principle for postwar [i.e., post Civil War] political relations and create a social superstructure to replace the legal institution of slavery. Southern yeoman farmers could ignore the material similarities between themselves and freedpeople and embrace a notion of whiteness that guaranteed them considerable privileges and legal rights, without altering their lowly class status. Politicians could appeal to their impoverished white neighbors and exalt solidarity among white men, all the while exploiting the labor of tenants, sharecroppers, and field hands regardless of color. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) the widespread acceptance of the notion of race, that notion did not necessarily lend itself to proof -- or to rational discussion for that matter" [p. 151]
The seventeenth century colonialists who sought to make their fortunes on land granted to them by the English King needed labor to transform the virgin forests into fields on which they could grow cash crops for the home market [tobacco, rice, later cotton.] Their first solution was to bring the labor with them in the form of indentured English workers, but though they continued to use these workers for almost two centuries, they posed certain problems. The indentured workers were English subjects and hence had legal protections that the courts set up in the New World were bound to observe.
The colonists tried to use the labor of the indigenous peoples, but this also posed problems. These "Indians" were often members of powerful nations ["tribes"] with whom the colonists entered into political and military alliances, and to whom they could appeal for protection when their "masters" sought to exploit them. One of the many fascinating elements in the early chapters of Jones' book is her detailed account of the political negotiations and shifting alliances between the colonists and the various indigenous nations. These relationships were really no different in motivation from those into which European nations entered with one another in their endless jockeying for power and material advantage.
The men and women captured, or sold into bondage, in West Africa and brought to Virginia and Maryland also belonged to nations, some them powerful, but those nations were too far away to offer protection, and so the Africans could be exploited and subdued to bondage more easily.
Race played virtually no role in all of this. As Jones says early in her first chapter, "Local political economies and labor demands shaped by military imperatives -- not racial prejudices -- account for the origins of slavery in the colonies." [p. 7] So long as slavery was legal, the slave owners had no need to justify their treatment of their slaves, any more than they had a need of an elaborate ideological rationalization for their treatment of their livestock, their horses, or, for that matter, their tables and chairs. But with the defeat of the South in the Civil War and the end of slavery, a situation emerged that was anomalous and required justification. "[W]hites -- surrounded by a group of people toiling at ill-paid tasks, the men deprived of the right to vote and the women limited to domestic service -- devised a racial ideology from a harsh reality, an ideology that justified the immiseration of black men, women, and children, all in the name of racial difference. [p. 135]
The implications of this central insight, which Jones pursues through four centuries in the pages of her book, are profound, and of the very greatest importance for our understanding of contemporary politics. The subordinated position of African-Americans, and now of Hispanic Americans, was inflicted upon them and exists today not because of the subjective, private, irrational prejudices of White Americans, but because it has served the economic interests of the rich while placating exploited Whites, whose disadvantaged status is made more or less palatable to them by the knowledge that their condition is at least superior to that of their black and brown neighbors. So long as that subordinated economic position remains essentially untouched, not even the ascension to the White House of one of their own will address the roots of what today we call "racism."
It would be foolhardy of me to attempt to summarize Jones' book, for its real strength lies in the rich detail with which she fortifies and elaborates its central thesis. This is not a quick read. Indeed, it took me more than a month to read the entire book, even though it is only 301 pages long. But it is a book of the very greatest importance, and I recommend it to you most strongly.


text:
Margaret Atwood has written more than forty books, including the novels "The Handmaid's Tale," "The Robber Bride," "Alias Grace," "Oryx and Crake," "The Year of the Flood," and "The Blind Assassin," which won the 2000 Man Booker Prize. Her most recent book, "In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination," about her relationship with science fiction, came out last year.
Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for her novel "A Visit from the Goon Squad," parts of which first appeared in The New Yorker. Her previous books include "Emerald City," "The Invisible Circus," "Look at Me," and "The Keep." Her story "Black Box" appeared in the magazine's June 4th & 11th Science Fiction Issue.
George Saunders has written three story collections, including "In Persuasion Nation"; an illustrated novella, "The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil"; and "The Braindead Megaphone," a collection of essays, many of which were first published in The New Yorker. His new story collection, "The Tenth of December," comes out next year.
Daniel Zalewski is the features director of The New Yorker.
[#image: /photos/59095481c14b3c606c104642]
Friday, October 5
7 P.M. Gramercy Theatre
127 East 23rd Street ($30)
Duration: 90 minutes
(Please note: you must be 21 to be admitted to this venue.)
Photographs: Atwood: George Whiteside; Egan: Pieter M. Van Hattem; Saunders: Caitlin Saunders.


text: CSA provide updated guidance on non-GAAP financial measures18 janvier 2016 Stikeman Elliott Ce billet est disponible en anglais seulement. The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have provided revised guidance on the use of non-GAAP financial measures aimed at ensuring that information disclosure by issuers does not mislead investors. An updated version of CSA Staff Notice 52-306 (Revised) Non-GAAP Financial Measures (Notice 52-306) was published on January 14, 2016 reflecting amendments to IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements (IAS 1) regarding additional subtotals presented in financial statements. Notably, Notice 52-306 recognizes that an issuer's GAAP may require the presentation of additional subtotals in the financial statements when such presentation is relevant to an understanding of the issuer's financial position or financial performance as, for example, may be required by paragraphs 55 and 85 of IAS 1. Issuers who wish to include these additional subtotals in a press release or outside of the issuer's financial statements before the financial statements are filed on SEDAR should explain the subtotals' composition so as to avoid any confusion. Notice 52-306 states that this may be done by including a copy of the statement containing the additional subtotals or reconciling the additional subtotals to the most directly comparable line item specified or defined by IFRS that will be presented in financial statements. Issuers should also comply with the requirements found in IAS 1 applicable to additional subtotals presented in the statement of financial position and statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income. As before, Notice 52-306 includes, among other things, specific guidance to issuers regarding additional GAAP measures required by IFRS and a list of suggested practices to help issuers address obligations in relation to additional GAAP measures. Notice 52-306 was last updated on February 17, 2012. MISE EN GARDE : Cette publication a pour but de donner des renseignements généraux sur des questions et des nouveautés d'ordre juridique à la date indiquée. Les renseignements en cause ne sont pas des avis juridiques et ne doivent pas être traités ni invoqués comme tels. Veuillez lire notre mise en garde dans son intégralité au www.stikeman.com/avis-juridique.


text:
So I saw Liz over at Travel in Retrospect do this tag last month, and I have blatantly stolen it because I thought it was a good list, and may give me a few more books to put on my "challenge" list. That's my list of books I'm going to read one day. Not necessarily hard books, or all classics, just ones I keep saying I will read and don't get around to! One day I may even post that list here haha. But for now I will keep it as a list on my phone 😉
1. Include a link back to Amazon's official 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime
2. Tag Perfectly Tolerable, the creator of this meme
3. Tag the person who nominated you (I wasn't nominated by anyone, but saw this on Travel in Retrospect)
4. Copy the list of books and indicate which titles you have read.
5. Tally up your total.
6. Comment on the post you were tagged in and share your total count.
7. Tag five new people and comment on one of their posts to let them know.
Let's get on with the list:
1984 George Orwell
A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking
A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
A Game of Thrones George R R Martin
A History of the World in 100 Objects Neil MacGregor
All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque
American Gods Neil Gaiman
American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis
Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer
Atonement Ian McKewan
Bad Science Ben Goldacre
Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
Brideshead Revisted Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding
Brighton Rock Graham Greene
Casino Royale Ian Fleming
Catch 22 Joseph Hellier Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevesky
Dissolution C J Sansom
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Philip K. Dick
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Goodnight Mister Tom Michelle Magorian
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone J K Rowling
High Fidelity Nick Hornby
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
Knots and Crosses Ian Rankin
Last Orders Graham Swift
Little Women Louise May Alcott
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
London Fields Martin Amis
London: The Biography Peter Akroyd
Long Walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela
Lord of the Flies William Golding
Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
My Man Jeeves P G Woodhouse
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami
Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
Stormbreaker Anthony Horowitz
Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett
The Commitments Roddy Doyle
The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank
The Enchanted Wood Enid Blyton
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje
The Fellowship of the Ring J R R Tolkien
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Gruffalo Julia Donaldson
The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
The Hound of the Baskervilles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks
The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
The Road Cormac McCarthy
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Sue Townsend
The Secret History Donna Tartt
The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins
The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes
The Stand Stephen King
The Story of Tracy Beaker Jacqueline Wilson
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter The Tiger Who Came to Tea Judith Kerr The Time Machine H G Wells The Worst Witch Jill Murphy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John Le Carré
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
Venice Jan Morris
Watchmen Alan Moore
Watership Down Richard Adams
We're Going on a Bear Hunt Helen Oxenbury
White Teeth Zadie Smith
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Jung Chang
Winnie the Pooh A A Milne
Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë
I have read 23/100 books. I'm not too sad about that actually, even if a decent percentage are children's books! There's a couple on there that I may have read but wasn't sure about as well, so I didn't include them, also Pride and Prejudice, as the zombie version probably doesn't count! Though I did include Catch 22, which I DNF'd, and Hitchhiker's Guide, which I only read the first one for.
Adding to my TBR are:
The Handmaid's Tale (I own this, so hopefully soon!!), The Great Gatsby, The Hound of the Baskevilles (not really an add, I have been meaning to read this for aaaaages), Birdsong, American Gods and 1984.
To be fair actually about half were secretly on the list anyway. 😀
How did you do with the list? Comment and let me know! I am not tagging anyone, but do let me know if you tag yourself! ❤


text:
Liberty Mutual Insurance Group revised its strategy and subsequently acquired Prudential Insurance Group in Europe. As the Director of Human Resources for Liberty Mutual I have been asked by the CEO to prepare a comprehensive staffing strategy for the newly expanded company in preparation for a strategic audit of the HR systems at Prudential. Liberty Mutual operates in the insurance industry and it is expanding in the European marketplace specifically in England.
In the following paper I will discuss Liberty Mutual Insurance Group's acquisition of Prudential. I will discuss the human resource challenges that may arise from an acquisition, the cultural and regulatory issues, and how these will impact organizational effectiveness. Furthermore I will discuss the recruitment and selection practices will be used in staffing the newly acquired company potential outcomes.
A company's ability to adapt to change is critical to their ability to remain competitive. If a company fails to change with the competition the company will become stagnant and may be unable to sustain long-term success.
To gain security many organizations seek to acquire other companies or negotiate mergers.
The dictionary defines an organization as, "A structure through which individuals cooperate systematically to conduct business." In today's job market, many companies have learned that they must provide a supportive and employee friendly work environment to attract and retain the most desirable employees. This is even more critical when an organization is redefining its corporate culture after a merger or acquisition.
Acquisitions pose significant challenges to the human resource department. Merging two separate and divergent workforces is a considerable task for the human resources of those organizations going through acquisitions. "According to a Hewitt Associates survey of 218 major U.S. organizations, integrating organizational cultures was the top challenge for 69 percent of the surveyed companies-even those with previous...


text:
Mill Street is a large, modern development. Situated round the corner from the Leeds College of Music and the bus station, it is very popular with LCoM students, and Leeds Arts University and Leeds Beckett first year students.
A ten minute walk from the hustle and bustle of the city centre and even closer to the beautiful docks, Mill Street is not far from the wide variety of bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants that Leeds has to offer.
Flats available vary from 3 to 5 beds and offer a choice of either shared bathrooms or en-suite. A limited number of parking spaces are available to permit holders.
Fully let
Let us know when you are available and how we can get in touch.
Please connect with your Facebook or Twitter account to save properties to your wishlist.