text:
W. C. Handy
|W. C. Handy
In July 1941, by Carl Van Vechten
|Background information
|Birth name
|William Christopher Handy
|Also known as
|The Father of Blues
|November 16, 1873
Florence, Alabama, U.S.
|Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
|March 28, 1958 (aged 84)
New York City, New York, U.S.
|Blues, Jazz
|Composer, songwriter, musician,bandleader, author
|Piano, cornet, trumpet, guitar,vocals
|Years active
William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues".
Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to one of the dominant national forces in American music.
Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers.
Early life
W.C. Handy at age 19
Handy was born in Florence, Alabama. His father was thepastor of a small church in Guntersville, another small town in northeast central Alabama. Handy wrote in his 1941 autobiography, Father of the Blues, that he was born in the log cabin built by his grandfather William Wise Handy, who became an African Methodist Episcopal(AME) minister after emancipation. The log cabin of Handy's birth has been saved and preserved in downtown Florence.
Growing up he apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking andplastering.
Handy was a deeply religious man, whose influences in his musical style were found in the church music he sang and played as a youth, and in the natural world. He later cited the sounds of nature, such as "whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises", the sounds of Cypress Creek washing on the fringes of the woodland, and "the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art" as inspiration.
Handy's father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil. Without his parents' permission, Handy bought his first guitar, which he had seen in a local shop window and secretly saved for by picking berries, nuts and making lye soap. Upon seeing the guitar, his father asked him, "What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home?" Ordering Handy to "Take it back where it came from", his father quickly enrolled him in organ lessons. Handy's days as an organ student were short lived, and he moved on to learn the cornet. Handy joined a local band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a fellow band member and spent every free minute practicing it.
Musical development
He worked on a "shovel brigade" at the McNabb furnace, and described the music made by the workers as they beat shovels, altering the tone while thrusting and withdrawing the metal part against the iron buggies to pass the time while waiting for the overfilled furnace to digest its ore. "With a dozen men participating, the effect was sometimes remarkable…It was better to us than the music of a martial drum corps, and our rhythms were far more complicated." He wrote, "Southern Negroes sang about everything…They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect…" He would later reflect that, "In this way, and from these materials, they set the mood for what we now call blues"
In September 1892, Handy traveled to Birmingham to take a teaching exam, which he passed easily, and gained a teaching job in the city. Learning that it paid poorly, he quit the position and found industrial work at a pipe works plant in nearby Bessemer.
During his off-time, he organized a small string orchestra and taught musicians how to read notes. Later, Handy organized the Lauzetta Quartet. When the group read about the upcoming World's Fair in Chicago, they decided to attend. To pay their way, group members performed at odd jobs along the way. They arrived in Chicago only to learn that the World's Fair had been postponed for a year. Next they headed to St. Louis but found working conditions very bad.
After the quartet disbanded, Handy went to Evansville, Indiana, where he helped introduce the blues. He played cornet in the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. In Evansville, Handy joined a successful band that performed throughout the neighboring cities and states. His musical endeavors were varied: he sang first tenor in a minstrel show, worked as a band director, choral director, cornetist andtrumpeter.
At age 23, Handy became band master of Mahara's Colored Minstrels. In their three-year tour, they traveled to Chicago, throughoutTexas and Oklahoma, through Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, and on to Cuba. Handy earned a salary of $6 per week. Returning from Cuba, the band traveled north through Alabama, and stopped to perform in Huntsville. Weary of life on the road, he and his wife Elizabeth decided to stay with relatives in his nearby hometown of Florence.
Marriage and family
In 1896 while performing at a barbecue in Henderson, Kentucky, Handy met Elizabeth Price. They married shortly afterward on July 19, 1896. She had Lucille, the first of their six children, on June 29, 1900 after they had settled in Florence, Alabama, his hometown. Henderson's W.C. Handy Music Bar B Q and Blues Festival is held annually in June. There is also a 10 day, 200 event W.C. Handy Music Festival in Handy's hometown of Florence, Alabama annually the last week of July. http://www.wchandymusicfestival.org
Teaching music
Around that time, William Hooper Councill, President of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (AAMC) (today named Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University) in Normal, Alabama, recruited Handy to teach music at the college. Handy became a faculty member in September 1900 and taught through much of 1902.
His enthusiasm for the distinctive style of uniquely American music, then often considered inferior to European classical music, was part of his development. He was disheartened to discover that the college emphasized teaching European music considered to be "classical". Handy felt he was underpaid and could make more money touring with a minstrel group.
Studying the blues
In 1902 Handy traveled throughout Mississippi, where he listened to the various black popular musical styles. The state was mostly rural, and music was part of the culture, especially of the Mississippi Delta cotton plantation areas. Musicians usually played the guitar, banjo and to a much lesser extent, the piano. Handy's remarkable memory enabled him to recall and transcribe the music heard in his travels.
After a dispute with AAMC President Councill, Handy resigned his teaching position to rejoin the Mahara Minstrels and tour theMidwest and Pacific Northwest. In 1903 he became the director of a black band organized by the Knights of Pythias, located inClarksdale, Mississippi. Handy and his family lived there for six years. In 1903 while waiting for a train in Tutwiler in the Mississippi Delta, Handy had the following experience:
"A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept… As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars….The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard."
About 1905 while playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, Handy was given a note asking for "our native music". He played an old-time Southern melody, but was asked if a local colored band could play a few numbers. Three young men with a battered guitar, mandolin, and a worn-out bass took the stage.
"They struck up one of those over and over strains that seem to have no beginning and certainly no ending at all. The strumming attained a disturbing monotony, but on and on it went, a kind of stuff associated with [sugar] cane rows and levee camps. Thump-thump-thump went their feet on the floor. It was not really annoying or unpleasant. Perhaps "haunting" is the better word."
Handy noted square dancing by Mississippi blacks with "one of their own calling the figures, and crooning all of his calls in the key of G." He remembered this when deciding on the key for "St Louis Blues".
"It was the memory of that old gent who called figures for the Kentucky breakdown—the one who everlastingly pitched his tones in the key of G and moaned the calls like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting. Ah, there was my key – I'd do the song in G."
In describing "blind singers and footloose bards" around Clarksdale, Handy wrote, "[S]urrounded by crowds of country folks, they would pour their hearts out in song … They earned their living by selling their own songs – "ballets," as they called them—and I'm ready to say in their behalf that seldom did their creations lack imagination."
Transition: popularity, fame and business
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they started playing at clubs on Beale Street. The genesis of his "Memphis Blues" was as a campaign tune written for Edward Crump, a successful Memphis mayoral candidate in 1909 (and future"boss"). Handy later rewrote the tune and changed its name from "Mr. Crump" to "Memphis Blues."
Handy's first popular success, "Memphis Blues". Recorded by Victor Military Band, July 15, 1914.
The 1912 publication of his "Memphis Blues" sheet music introduced his style of 12-bar blues; it was credited as the inspiration for the foxtrot dance step by Vernon and Irene Castle, a New York–based dance team. Some consider it to be the first blues song. Handy sold the rights to the song for US$100. By 1914, when Handy was 40, he had established his musical style, his popularity increased significantly, and he composed prolifically.
Handy wrote about using folk songs:
"The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect… by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key was major…, and I carried this device into my melody as well… This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot."
"The three-line structure I employed in my lyric was suggested by a song I heard Phil Jones sing in Evansville … While I took the three-line stanza as a model for my lyric, I found its repetition too monotonous … Consequently I adopted the style of making a statement, repeating the statement in the second line, and then telling in the third line why the statement was made."
Regarding the "three-chord basic harmonic structure" of the blues, Handy wrote the "(tonic, subdominant, dominant seventh) was that already used by Negro roustabouts, honky-tonkpiano players, wanderers and others of the underprivileged but undaunted class". He noted,
"In the folk blues the singer fills up occasional gaps with words like 'Oh, lawdy' or 'Oh, baby' and the like. This meant that in writing a melody to be sung in the blues manner one would have to provide gaps or waits."
Writing about the first time "St Louis Blues" was played (1914), Handy said,
"The one-step and other dances had been done to the tempo of Memphis Blues … When St Louis Blues was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels."
His published musical works were groundbreaking because of his ethnicity, and he was among the first blacks to achieve economic success because of publishing. In 1912, Handy met Harry H. Pace at the Solvent Savings Bank in Memphis. Pace was valedictorian of his graduating class at Atlanta University and student of W. E. B. Du Bois. By the time of their meeting, Pace had already demonstrated a strong understanding of business. He earned his reputation by recreating failing businesses. Handy liked him, and Pace later became manager of Pace and Handy Sheet Music.
While in New York City, Handy wrote:
"I was under the impression that these Negro musicians would jump at the chance to patronize one of their own publishers. They didn't… The Negro musicians simply played the hits of the day…They followed the parade. Many white bands and orchestra leaders, on the other hand, were on the alert for novelties. They were therefore the ones most ready to introduce our numbers." But, "Negro vaudeville artists…wanted songs that would not conflict with white acts on the bill. The result was that these performers became our most effective pluggers."
In 1917, he and his publishing business moved to New York City, where he had offices in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square. By the end of that year, his most successful songs: "Memphis Blues", "Beale Street Blues", and "Saint Louis Blues", had been published. That year the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the first jazz record, introducing the style to a wide segment of the American public. Handy initially had little fondness for this new "jazz", but bands dove into his repertoire with enthusiasm, making many of them jazz standards.
Handy encouraged performers such as Al Bernard, "a young white man" with a "soft Southern accent" who "could sing all my Blues". Handy sent Bernard to Thomas Edison to be recorded, which resulted in "an impressive series of successes for the young artist, successes in which we proudly shared." Handy also published the original "Shake Rattle and Roll" and "Saxophone Blues", both written by Bernard. "Two young white ladies from Selma, Alabama (Madelyn Sheppard and Annelu Burns) contributed the songs "Pickaninny Rose" and "O Saroo", with the music published by Handy's company. These numbers, plus our blues, gave us a reputation as publishers of Negro music."
"Ole Miss Rag", a ragtime composed by W. C. Handy and recorded by Handy's Orchestra of Memphis in 1917 in New York.
Expecting to make only "another hundred or so" on a third recording of his "Yellow Dog Blues" (originally titled "Yellow Dog Rag", Handy signed a deal with the Victor company. The Joe Smith recording of this song in 1919 became the best-selling recording of Handy's music to date.
Handy tried to interest black women singers in his music, but initially was unsuccessful. In 1920 Perry Bradford persuaded Mamie Smith to record two of his non-blues songs, published by Handy, accompanied by a white band: "That Thing Called Love" and "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down". When Bradford's "Crazy Blues" became a hit as recorded by Smith, African-American blues singers became increasingly popular. Handy found his business began to decrease because of the competition.
In 1920 Pace amicably dissolved his long-standing partnership with Handy, with whom he also collaborated as lyricist. As Handy wrote: "To add to my woes, my partner withdrew from the business. He disagreed with some of my business methods, but no harsh words were involved. He simply chose this time to sever connection with our firm in order that he might organize Pace Phonograph Company, issuing Black Swan Records and making a serious bid for the Negro market. . . . With Pace went a large number of our employees. . . . Still more confusion and anguish grew out of the fact that people did not generally know that I had no stake in the Black Swan Record Company."
Although Handy's partnership with Pace was dissolved, he continued to operate the publishing company as a family-owned business. He published works of other black composers as well as his own, which included more than 150 sacred compositions and folk song arrangements and about 60 blues compositions. In the 1920's, he founded the Handy Record Company in New York City. Bessie Smith's January 14, 1925, Columbia Records recording of "Saint Louis Blues" with Louis Armstrong is considered by many to be one of the finest recordings of the 1920's. So successful was Handy's "Saint Louis Blues" that in 1929, he and director Kenneth W. Adams collaborated on a RCA motion picture project of the same name, which was to be shown before the main attraction. Handy suggested blues singer Bessie Smith have the starring role, since she had gained widespread popularity with that tune. The picture was shot in June and was shown in movie houses throughout the United States from 1929 to 1932.
In 1926 Handy authored and edited a work entitled Blues: An Anthology—Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. It is probably the first work that attempted to record, analyze and describe the blues as an integral part of the U.S. South and the history of the United States.
The genre of the blues was a hallmark of American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s. So great was its influence, and so much was it recognized as Handy's hallmark, that author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his novel The Great Gatsby that "All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the "Beale Street Blues" while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor."
Later life
Following publication of his autobiography, Handy published a book on African-American musicians entitled Unsung Americans Sing(1944). He wrote a total of five books:
- Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs
- Book of Negro Spirituals
- Father of the Blues: An Autobiography
- Unsung Americans Sing
- Negro Authors and Composers of the United States
During this time, he lived on Strivers' Row in Harlem. He became blind following an accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954, when he was eighty. His new bride was his secretary, the former Irma Louise Logan, whom he frequently said had become his eyes.
In 1955, Handy suffered a stroke, following which he began to use a wheelchair. More than eight hundred attended his 84th birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
On March 28, 1958 he died of bronchial pneumonia at Sydenham Hospital in New York City.[26] Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects. He was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.
Handy's songs do not always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses.
- "Memphis Blues", written 1909, published 1912. Although usually subtitled "Boss Crump", it is a distinct song from Handy's campaign satire, "Boss Crump don't 'low no easy riders around here", which was based on the good-time song "Mamma Don't Allow It."
- "Yellow Dog Blues" (1912), "Your easy rider's gone where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog." The reference is to the crossing at Moorhead, Mississippi, of the Southern Railway and the local Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, called the Yellow Dog. By Handy's telling locals assigned the words "Yellow Dog" to the letters Y.D.(for Yazoo Delta) on the freight trains that they saw.
- "Saint Louis Blues" (1914), "the jazzman's Hamlet."
- "Loveless Love", based in part on the classic, "Careless Love". Possibly the first song to complain of modern synthetics, "with milkless milk and silkless silk, we're growing used to soulless soul."
- "Aunt Hagar's Blues", the biblical Hagar, handmaiden to Abraham and Sarah, was considered the "mother" of the African Americans.
- "Beale Street Blues" (1916), written as a farewell to the old Beale Street of Memphis (actually called Beale Avenue until the song changed the name); but Beale Street did not go away and is considered the "home of the blues" to this day. B.B. King was known as the "Beale Street Blues Boy" and Elvis Presley watched and learned from Ike Turner there. In 2004 the tune was included as a track on the Memphis Jazz Box compilation as a tribute to Handy and his music.
- "Long Gone John (From Bowling Green)", tribute to a famous bank robber.
- "Chantez-Les-Bas (Sing 'Em Low)", tribute to the Creole culture of New Orleans.
- "Atlanta Blues", includes the song known as "Make Me a Pallet on your Floor" as its chorus.
- "Ole Miss Rag" (1917), a ragtime composition, recorded by Handy's Orchestra of Memphis.
Performances and honors
- On April 27, 1928, he performed a program of jazz, blues, plantation songs, work songs, piano solos, spirituals and a Negro rhapsody in Carnegie Hall.
- In 1938 he performed at the National Folk Festival in Washington, DC, his first national performance on a desegregated stage.
- He performed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and 1934 and the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.
- In 1940, NBC broadcast an all-Handy program as part of its weekly series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. His songs were performed by Dinah Shore and by the composer himself.
- On September 1, 1951, Handy and Dizzy Dean were among the guest stars on the CBS live variety series, Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town.
- Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954)
- He is referenced in Prof. Harold Hill's lead-in to the song Seventy-Six Trombones in Meredith Willson's 1957 musical The Music Man.
- In 1958, a movie about his life – appropriately entitled St. Louis Blues – was released starring legendary African-Americans Nat "King" Cole (in the main role), Pearl Bailey, Mahalia Jackson, Ruby Dee, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, and Eartha Kitt. It was released the year of Handy's death.
- On May 17, 1969, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honor.
- Inducted in the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
- He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983.
- He is referenced in Joni Mitchell's 1975 song Furry Sings the Blues.
- He is referenced in Marc Cohn's 1991 song Walking in Memphis, covered by Lonestar, Cher, and other artists. "…Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues, in the middle of the pouring rain. W.C. Handy, won't you look down over me?"
- He received a Grammy Trustees Award for his lifetime achievements in 1993.
- He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985, and was a 1993 Inductee into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, with the Lifework Award for Performing Achievement.
- Citing 2003 as "the centennial anniversary of when W.C. Handy composed the first Blues music…" the United States Senate in 2002 passed a resolution declaring the year beginning February 1, 2003 as the "Year of the Blues."
- Each November 16, Handy's birthday is celebrated with free music, birthday cake and free admission to the W.C. Handy Museum in Florence, Alabama. The hand-hewn log cabin made by his grandfather is his birthplace and museum.
- An autographed 1937 photo from W.C. Handy to Anton Lada of Lada's Louisiana Orchestra sold for $850 in 2006.
Awards, festivals and memorials
- The Blues Music Award, widely recognized as the most prestigious award for blues artists was known as the W. C. Handy Award until the name change in 2006.
- The W. C. Handy Music Festival is held annually in Florence, Alabama and the greater Shoals area. The festival has evolved into a 10-day long celebration that includes a parade, various artists at restaurants and venues around town, and larger music events at Wilson Park in downtown Florence. The park features a statue of Handy and is close to his birthplace and museum. Previous festivals have featured jazz and blues legends including Jimmy Smith, Ramsey Lewis, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Blue Bland, Diane Schuur, Billy Taylor, Dianne Reeves and Charlie Byrd, Ellis Marsalis and Take 6. The festival also features a roster of annual regulars, called the W. C. Handy Jazz All-Stars.
- W. C. Handy Park is a city park located on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. The park contains a life-sized bronze statue of Handy.
- The W.C. Handy Blues & Barbeque Festival is a week-long musical event that features blues and Zydeco bands from across the U.S and is held every June on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Henderson, Kentucky.
- In 1979, New York City joined the list of institutions and municipalities to honor Handy by naming one block of West 52nd Street in Manhattan "W.C. Handy Place".


text:
I finally did it. I sold a painting. Two, actually. The first was an old, angsty piece from a long time ago:
And the other was specifically commissioned for by the customer:
I could hardly contain myself, I was so excited. Cloud nine. You'll notice I say this in the past tense, as in, not anymore. Because I have the shittiest luck…
In a blur I went to the mail center to ship to my customer. I was so anxious, I had never shipped a painting before and it felt a little like I imagine parents feel when they take their kids to day care for the first time. I balked at the price — $50 to ship them to Illinois. But I didn't ask questions, I just paid and said goodbye.
All week I thought about them. Would the package hold up? Would the customer like them as much in person?
Well, the paintings never showed up. Fedex says they were delivered but my customer does not have them. They have until Wednesday to recover them, and if they don't I have to file a claim. I didn't think to add signature service — they didn't ask me and I've never done this before.
So two fragments of my heart are lost in the world…and I have to give the customer something. I am repainting them, which is a grueling process. It's like trying to relive a moment in perfect clarity. I finished one:
It doesn't look as good as my original, but the concept is there. I don't know if I'm just so disappointed that I can't be happy about replicating it…
Has this happened to anyone before? It's a first for me…I didn't even consider it as a possibility.

subset: commoncrawl


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Stairsport.com was created as the home for the United States Stair Climbing Association (USSCA) to create a community for USA amateur tower racers.
We define a "USA amateur" tower runner as any US citizen who is crazy enough to run up towers in formal organized races and has another full time job (working more than 30 hours per week) that would keep him/her from training more than anyone else who has a full time job. A professional athlete on the other hand, gets paid to train and workout, so that's just not fair for the rest of us to have to race against them. A professional athlete also gets money for winning and/or travel expenses and/or promotional and/or endorsement/ sponsorship/fundraising fees. The cutoff for our purposes (at this point until further refinement is necessary) is $7,777.77. If you earn more than than through winnings, sponsorships and endorsements, you are a professional athlete and are not eligible to compete with the rest of us amateurs.
We amateurs on the other hand, have to pay out of our own pockets for all our own expenses, fees and stuff, so it makes frequent racing more prohibitive which in turn, makes it harder for us to rack up points. Lastly, the pros have pressure to take drugs and if they do, makes it an even more unfair playing field for the rest of us amateurs who don't feel the pressure to dope. Any drug banned by the IOC is not allowed in our sport either, so if you are on one or more of those, you can't compete with us. And shame on you. You're mom would be very disappointed if she knew.
Bottom line recap: If you are drug free, work more than 30 hours per week in another job (other than training and working out) and earn less than $7,777.77 per year in winnings and sponsorships (in any athletic sport), you are probably considered an amateur by our standards at this point (until we see a need for further clarification anyway).
The races on stairsport.com are selected and scored by the volunteers who help with this site (like PJ Glassey, David Hanley, etc.), so all USA races may not be included or scored. To find out a score based on placement for a particular race, click here for David Hanley's nifty calculator.
The list of 2015 US circuit races and their points are listed below. Races not listed here may be counted as 50 points IF they are submitted to us this way: Simply acquire the results from the race timing company in spreadsheet form and email that sheet to David Hanley with a link to the online results page showing those published results. Hurry though, because David must have those results within two weeks of the race in order to qualify for points in this system!
Upper Midwest (1000):
- Aon Chicago, IL ( 200 ) 1/25/2015
- Springfield Hilton, IL ( 100 ) 2/8/2015
- Presidential Towers Chicago, IL ( 200 ) 3/8/2015
- Hancock Chicago, IL ( 200 ) 2/22/2015
- Willis tower, IL ( 300 ) 1/3/2015
- CF climb for life ( 100 ) 1/8/2015
Southeast (900):
- Jacksonville, FL ( 200 ) 2/7/2015
- ALA Miami, FL( 250 ) 6/6/2015
- Greenville, SC (150) 9/19/2015
- Atlanta, GA (100) 4/18/2015
- Tampa, Fl (200) 3/21/2015
Lower Midwest (1000):
- Bop to the Top ( 100 ) 1/17/2015
- Big "D" climb, TX ( 250) 2/2/2015
- Tower Climb & Run, San Antonio 150 2/7/2015
- Dallas Renaissance Tower, TX ( 150 ) 2/21/2015
- Master the Met St Louis, MO ( 100 ) 4/28/2015
- Fight for air houston, TX ( 100 ) 2/28/2015
- Austin 30 floor climb – Frost Tower, TX ( 150 ) 5/30/2015
Northeast (1000):
- Boston Place, MA ( 200 ) 2/7/2015
- Empire state run up, NY ( 150) 2/4/2015
- BNY Mellon Center, PA (50***) 2/22/2015
- Rockefeller Center, NY ( 100 ) 3/1/2015
- 3 logan square, PA ( 200 ) 3/21/2015
- Hartford, CT ( 250 ) 4/25/2015
- Bennington Monument, VT ( 100 ) 5/6/2015
Southwest (1000):
- Fight for Air, San Fran, CA ( 100 ) 3/28/2015
- Aon, LA, CA ( 200 ) 4/11/2015
- YMCA climb Los Angeles – US Bank Tower, CA ( 300 ) TBD
- Fight for Air San Francisco ( 100 ) 4/11/2015
- San Diego Towerthon, CA ( 200 ) 6/27/2015
- Wilshire Figueroa Tower, CA ( 100 ) 11/14/2015
Northwest (900):
- Rainier Tower, Seattle, WA ( 200 ) 1/24/2015
- Big Pink, Portland, OR ( 100 ) 1/25/2015
- Big Climb, Seattle, WA ( 300 ) 3/22/2015
- WaMu, Seattle, WA ( 200 ) TBD (may be in November 2015)
- FFA Boise, ID ( 100 ) 4/4/2015
Mountain (800):
- Denver, CO ( 200 ) 2/22/2015
- Scale the Strat, Las Vegas (400** ) 3/1/2015
- Reno, NV (100) TBD
- Little Willie's triple Dog Dare (200) 12/5/2014
- Fight for air Oklahoma City (100) 2/28/2015
Coming races to post soon for 2015:
** Scale the Strat represents the 2013 US championship race, so it's worth 400 points.
*** Honorable mention race is a potential point earner beyond the normal 50 point races, pending compeitive participation. If one of these races becomes more competitive, it will gather more points the following year. If one of these is your race, then recruit elites to it and watch the points grow!
Special thanks to towerrunning.com for having the most complete world stair race list on the web! If you want to see a great list of the recent upcoming races in the US and the rest of the world, click here. If you want to download an amazing list of races for the whole year, click the "Event Database" link on this page. Once again – many thanks to towerrunning.com! They really do rock and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for all the work they have done and continue to do for our crazy sport!
For purposes of computing national rankings, your best five race point totals will count towards your overall points total and and national rank. Additional races are encouraged, because if you do better in one of those than another you did previously (with the same or higher point rank) then you get to replace that better race with the worse race. Otherwise, there is no benefit to additional races other than it's just dang fun. However, even if additional races past your best 5 that don't increase your points, they could still be used for tie breaking if needed.
We aim to award an overall champion for each gender as well as age-based champions for each gender. Each age bracket would begin with a 'zero' year and end with a nine year (i.e. 20-29, 30-39). This of course is dependent on how much time our volunteers can put into this system.
Disclaimer: We aren't perfect and we will make mistakes, so please expect that. Comments and suggestions are always welcome – as well as complaints – because all feedback helps improve this site, but please remember the following points:
- You're getting this for free.
- We're doing this for free.
- Tower racers are ALL super nice people.
- If you get upset with the stairsport.com volunteers or this free service and become belligerent, refer back to points #1, #2 and #3.
- If you are still being a jerk, we'll just boot your ass out of this system because you don't fit in with #3 and you don't appreciate #1 or #2. Additionally, we will likely hit you in the face with a pie at floor 102 in the Willis Tower if we see you there.
P.S. If you want to learn stair climbing techniques and unique training methods to get faster, check out the X Gym stair training page by clicking here.
P.P.S. Another great resource is Stan Schwarz's tower maps page. This will help you calculate your pace because it shows extremely accurate stair counts, landings, etc. for many of the towers we race. More stairwells are added regularly, so check back to it often!


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Published on December 1, 2014
As 2014 comes to a close in a rapidly-evolving industry, the year ahead looks as dynamic as ever for marketers.
Nick Rappolt, chief executive officer of experience design agency Beyond, looks ahead to three of the marketing trends with the biggest business potential.
Sensors will be pivotal for proactive marketing
Soon, we will find sensors in everything from smart watches to patches on our skin, gathering data on heart rate, sweat composition and body temperature in real time.
In 2015, brands will tap into this sensor-gathered data to add real value, building loyalty by helping consumers make better decisions based on the analysis of their behaviour.
Healthcare is the most obvious area in which such technology will improve customer relationships, with increasingly intelligent apps able to detect health problems early and change lives.
Gartner predicts that by 2017 smartphone sensors will reduce the costs of diabetic care by 10%, while by 2020, wireless health monitoring technology will increase life expectancy in the developed world by six months.
Read the full article on The Wall


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Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Time To Man Up
(this post may sound solemn - but hey, this is a big moment in my life - just go with it. : ) )
It is my pleasure to humbly introduce my very humble (I hope!) attempt to change the world.
Up at the top of my blog, in the pages list, you should see a new tab - Man Up Adventures.
Go ahead and click on it - I didn't hire my techy friend to install a virus on your computer if you do, so you should be safe.
Man Up Adventures will be my business teaching young men survival and wilderness living, and trying to accomplish two goals :
One, to get men and their sons up off of the couch and into the great wild of God's creation,
- and -
Two, to push them beyond their comfort zone out in the wild with activities unfamiliar with most modern men. Starting fires from primitive materials, building shelters, cleaning and purifying water for drinking, and other basic survival skill that everybody, no matter their age or gender, should know just a little bit of.
I want to encourage men and their sons to get out into the great wild of God's creation, and not only to get out there, but most importantly, to have dominion over it. It's hard to have dominion over the wild if you can't venture into it without bringing the refrigerator and a mattress.
I intend to lead men into the wild and teach them these skill first hand, hoping, in my own small way, to affect some change on the world, starting with the most important key to the entire chain - the men.
Hence the title. Man Up Adventures is about just that - Maning Up. Most guys couldn't handle a full day of hiking into the unknown, setting up their own camp, starting their own fires, building their own shelter, and then hiking back out the next day, in a wild filled with bugs, snakes, water, rocks, and the most feared denizen of all the wilderness - the sleeping bag on the cold hard ground.
As of yet, I am not ready myself to teach men to do this, so while I am learning and training myself, I have started a website with preliminary knowledge about survival, and I will keep updating it as I can, so that while I can't be out in the field with you myself, I can at least give you the mental arsenal to get out there are do it.
Please excuse any discrepancies or anything that is out of place - I am still constructing the site. But for what it's worth - thar she be.
So, there it is. Grand announcement over. Check out the site, and of course let me know what you think! I hope the information there will help you all, and shoot me an email if you have any suggestions!
Thanks a heap -
10 comments:
My first reaction when I clicked the link was my mouth fell open and I uttered aloud "Oh my goodness-!" David, that looks epic! I sincerely congratulate on the website, and on your mission here! Bravo! I'm looking forward to seeing where God takes you with it!ReplyDeleteReplies
Thanks Bushy! Who knows, maybe someday this will get big enough and I will do a survival Man-Up trip down unda!Delete
That'd be so awesome!! Except for the fact I wouldn't be able to come on the expedition because its for guys. :P (Seriously, you guys get all the fun) You would have to bring Lisa so we can have an expedition all our own. ;)Delete
Hear ye, hear ye!!Delete
David, David, David! That's so cool! And it suits you perfectly! I hope you don't mind if I point out that there is a display error on the Survival page when viewed with Safari 6.0.5. Where it says The Four Priorities of Survival, the word survival is down in the body of the text, making it hard to read. (I do this for Bud, too). But it looks great and I hope to see it blessed abundantly!ReplyDeleteReplies
Odd -I use Chrome and it doesn't appear to be a problem. Grr.Delete
But no, I din't mind one bit - in fact I just went back and fixed a typo. :)
Love it!!!! So excited to see where this will go!!!!!ReplyDelete
David, it looks fine on Firefox also, but since every browser is different it will do that sometimes. Might also see if someone has Oprah and check it on that browser as well.ReplyDelete
This is awesome David!!!! Keep up the work. :)ReplyDelete
This is so cool!! What a fantastic idea too! Definitely telling my bros about it, they'd love it. Hope it goes well and grows! :)ReplyDelete


text: Jerome's season (and, perhaps, career) has come to a predictably inglorious end: "The Knicks revealed today that Jerome James suffered a ruptured right Achilles tendon and is out for the season. Considering the severity of the injury — not to mention the complete disinterest in getting him back — we've likely seen the last of Big 'Rome. The injury happened during Sunday's practice. And just in time to save the Knicks some luxury tax money. James' $6.2 million salary can be picked up by insurance after he misses 41 games. Today's game against the Chicago Bulls is Game 40, which leaves 42 games to go."


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Don Cheto is a Mexican-American entertainer based in Los Angeles whose morning radio show (syndicated in more than 30 markets in the US), television variety show, and musical recordings made him one of the most beloved personalities in the Hispanic media during the late 2000s and and the present. Don Cheto's most recent hit "Ganga Style" has generated more than 30 million+ youtube video views.
Born Juan Razo on September 21, 1962, in La Sauceda, Michoacán, Mexico, he made his commercial recording debut as a featured guest on Yolanda Pérez's 2004 hit single "Estoy Enamorada," a humorous song on which he plays the role of the singer's angry father. A year earlier, Cheto made his full-length album debut with Hablando por lo Claro (2003). He subsequently signed a recording contract with Fonovisa and released the follow-up albums Piporreando (2004), El Hombre del Vozarrón/El Chancho Frijolero (2005), and El Gran Show de Don Cheto y Sus Amigos (2007). In the meantime, he hosted a morning radio show on regional Mexican station KBUE and a television variety show on Channel 62, both stations based in Los Angeles. After switching from Fonovisa to Platino Records, Cheto released the albums El KTME de Ustedes (2009) and El Amigo del Pueblo (2010). Numerous best-of compilations were released over the years, among them Vamos pa'l Rancho/Muchos Éxitos Más (2007), 15 Chetazos con Don Cheto (2008), and La Crisis (2010), and Ganga Style (2012).


text:
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." — Albert Einstein
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Labels: Sunny Leone, Topless
Posted by FunBath at 8:00 AM
2 comments:
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- Monday, January 28, 2013 4:00:00 AM
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- Thursday, October 03, 2013 1:32:00 PM
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text:
Expedited ShippingAs Louis lashes out against everyone around him, his betrayal by Donna seems to cut the deepest. 2015.01.29S04.E11
And the suits are going to wish he never found his way back. 2014.08.21S04.E10
Picture ShowLet's review their looks -- in and out of the office. 2014.06.19S04.E02
Expedited ShippingProbably giving some too. If you follow. ('Morning meeting' = Sex.) 2014.06.12S04.E01
The third season of Suits was invaded by the cast of Game Of Thrones. Fortunately, winter is coming. 2013.09.18S03.E10
Toronto's CBC Broadcast Centre guest-stars in the latest Suits. 2013.09.11S03.E09
Of course it's hard to time shots in order not to have TTC streetcars in them. But Suits should try. 2013.09.04S03.E08
Nice try, but our commentator's determination to spot Toronto will not be denied. 2013.08.28S03.E07
Flashing back to some recognizable Toronto architecture. 2013.08.21S03.E06
Hi, TTC sign! 2013.08.14S03.E05
Don't make the same mistake our commentator did and get way too excited about it. 2013.08.07S03.E04
Canada was all over Suits again last night. Sloppy! 2013.07.31S03.E03
Expedited ShippingMike finds himself in the middle of a friendship triangle on Suits. 2013.07.24S03.E02
We spotted some Canada in the Season 3 premiere. 2013.07.17S03.E01
But I understand why you might mix them up. 2013.01.25S02.E12
A list of our most popular feature story types.
Fair warning on when we warn you.
The people who write this stuff.
How to get a hold of us.


text:
Dear blogfriends,
I am once again sorry for slacking on blog duties. I was away because September always is kind of crazy and i am always trying to catch up with the circumstances. Do n't you love this month? I watch the leaves change colours and i feel the change of the season. It is beautiful. Even the air smells different.The weather is not hot anymore and it is great for long walks and lazy afternoons. Too bad i can't afford one!
Anyway, enough rambling out of me! I wanted to make a post on smudges. They are really easy to make and use. The difficult part is finding the fresh herbs you need. You want them to be fresh because otherwise they will break and crumble. So, you cut your herbs ,lets say, rosemary at the length you want your smudge to be, take some thread and bind it from top to bottom really tight (you bind the thread around in circly moves from one end to the other). Then you leave it somewhere to dry and when it is ready you use it.
The good thing about making your own smudges is that you can make any mix you want for whatever need you have. So if you want to cleanse your work space you make one with rosemary, sage, pine needles and chamomile. If you want to cleanse your bedroom you can make one with sage,rose petals and sandalwood . If you want to enhance your psychic abilities you can make one with lavender, valerian root, damiana and St John's wort.
When you make a smudge you have to pay attention in the colour of the thread. You can use a combination of colours. Black is for removing dark energies. White is for attracting bright energies. Gold, brown and green is for attracting money. Pink and green is for love. Dark red is for passion. Purple is for metaphysical purposes.Blue is for good fortune.
Because smudges are tightly bound there is n't enough air for them to burn for long. So, when you burn one it would be good to have a plate(so you can burn the smudge over it and do not make a mess with the ashes all over the place) and a tealight candle for when your smudge goes out.
With everything that has to do with fire we are always careful and we do it safely.
Be blessed.
Dear blogfriends,
at 8:55:00 PM
9 comments:
- TickleTeckla said...
I love making my own smudge sticks. I plan of making some from my lavender plant this year and giving them to people for Yule. :D
- September 15, 2010 at 3:54 AM
- Mother's Moon's Message said...
I could not agree more on using your own herbs for anything that you may need... and yes it is the perfect time to do such things.... love the fall season
- September 15, 2010 at 5:02 AM
- Diandra said...
Being careful with fire energies, always a good idea. Ha, I remember one New Year's Night when I left an offering of home-made very dry bread in my room, blessed and prepared to be given to the wild the next morning. The next thing I know is, my room was on fire, starting in the corner with the blessed baked goods and the altar. (We still don't know what caused it, guess that fireworks set the old roof (which had been "isolated" with old newspapers) on fire.)
- September 15, 2010 at 12:37 PM
- jaz@octoberfarm said...
i was just looking at my sage today and thinking..smudge sticks! i'm not sure what you are making? stuffed pasta? if so, look at my pasta cake on my sidebar because you could use the same ingredients. it's listed under pasta pie or pasta cake. i can't remember. i need to clean up that sidebar.
- September 16, 2010 at 2:52 AM
- Soraya said...
This is the reason why I need to grow my own herb garden. :-p I am lacking in fresh herbs near me.
As for a response on my blog... I HIGHLY recommend Fire spinning :-p I do however suggest practicing with LED lights or glowsticks on the end of whatever it is you're spinning, just so that you have the practice, and once you're ok with spinning it like that, then find one that you can light up. :)
- September 16, 2010 at 11:44 AM
- jaz@octoberfarm said...
good for you!!! i am so happy to hear they worked out for you and were yummy!
- September 18, 2010 at 3:52 PM
- Indi said...
Thank you for this very interestin insight in to how to use my 3ft high rosemary plant which is takin over my garden. So I will have a go at this. I also watch a tv program with Lisa Williams who is English but lives in the states, she is a clarvoyant.. she some times uses dried sage I thin it is any way to scare of bad omens? I also so have lavender in my garden.. oh I am excited now... than you thank you thank you ;)
- September 18, 2010 at 3:52 PM
- Wendy said...
Ah, perfect timing for a post about smudging. I have a giveaway on my new blog and I have a smudge stick included. I'm going to post the link to your great and informative post :)
- September 18, 2010 at 4:11 PM
- apinkdreamer said...
hi my dear greekwitch! i have a surprise for you on my blog!!!!
- September 21, 2010 at 6:34 PM


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If you are a party-animal and a rave enthusiast, the new Rave Party Attire by Electric Styles should be your next party gear.
Electric Styles's Rave Party Attire caters exclusively to the Generation Y who enjoy the night life of cities like New York, L.A., Tokyo and Miami.
The Rave Party Attire, available at the brand's website, currently offers everything from light-up wire bras, to hats, dresses, eyewear and even bowties. The bowties demonstrate how the brand is able to market its products to a variety of consumer groups. While bowties are something typically worn at a wedding versus an all-night dance party, the design merges sophistication and playfulness in the perfect way.
The collection of light-up options ensure the party will stay lit until dawn.
Electric Rave-Ready Clothing
More Stats +/-
Pole Dancing Photography
Club Kid Streetwear
Glowing Beer Bottles
Rockstar Party Clubs
Ocular Raver Accessories
This Rave-Appropriate Clothing Collection Keeps the Party Glowing
- By: Olivia SinghFeb 12, 2015
References: electricstyles & facebook
References: electricstyles & facebook


text:
I have come to learn about another side of my husband through Facebook. His friends are many of his former colleagues and assistant coaches, former students and athletes since he has been a teacher and coach for decades. He also connected with friends and acquaintance from his native Greece before he emigrated over 20 years back. Since those communications are in Greek, I can only imagine what they say but it reminds me of the person he was before we met. He uses games like Farmville and Cityville to interact with a broad variety of people. Getting updates that my city born husband is "harvesting his crops" or "has found a pig on his farm" makes me smile.
When our then thirteen year old son asked to join Facebook, we said, "No. All your friends live around us. You can call them up or ride your bike to visit them." But he persisted. When we were in Greece visiting my husband's family, he asked again if he could join. He appealed to his father's desire for him to share a connection with his homeland. "Dad, If you let me join I can keep in touch with my friends here and your family. Given the time change and distance, phone calls and visits are hard." Hmmm . . not a bad argument. After setting parameters (we were friends, no "unfriending" us, no inappropriate content and a lecture on dangerous folks lurking on the Internet), we relented. He had his own request. "Please, don't post messages on my wall." We agreed and chuckled. I was reminded of when I was his age. He immediately set up his account and invited friends from both Greece and Seattle.
Now an additional enjoyment of Facebook is the peak it gives me into different sides of my firstborn. His "likes" evidence our shared interests and those that are uniquely his. His status updates on everything from getting braces to painting a wagon to going to a Seahawks game demonstrate his wide ranging thoughts. He is visibly growing up as you can see from this image I captured of him (despite his best efforts to hide). And I have very mixed feelings about that. Facebook allows me to watch a portion of his life without intruding. He posted two quotes that had me laughing out loud because they captured his essence.


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Categories: LIFE project Date: Oct 13, 2011 Title: Conference about the Steppe Oak Woods
The Steppe Oak Woods and Pannonic Sand Steppes international conference was held between 6-8 October in Kecskemét, Hungary. During the versatile scientific programme and the many presentations the participants could discuss the present situation of the steppe oak woods. On the last day of the conference we visited the oak woods of the LIFE project area near Nagykőrös, and also the magnificent Pálfája, an ancient oak tree.
We organised an international conference on the Nagykőrös LIFE project and the long lasting pink (Dianthus diutinus) endemic to the Danube-Tisza interfluve. The researchers, experts and foresters of habitats similar to the steppe oak woods shared their knowledge and experience with the participants. Besides the results of the habitat restoration work in Nagykőrös, we were given insight into other areas, such as the dry oak woods of Turkey, or the Ukrainian steppes.
The opening speech of Professor Zoltán Varga gave an overview about the whole Eurasian forest steppe belt. Afterwards the forest steppes – especially the sand steppe oak woods – from within and outside the Carpathian basin were presented by well-known Hungarian and international speakers. We learnt that the protection of ancient steppe oaks is of great importance, because their regeneration capacity is very low. Wherever their stands were destroyed, there is hardly any hope of restoration. We also heard an interesting presentation about the chances of sustaining a sand steppe oak woodland in the middle of a city – Nyíregyháza was the example. A German researcher talked about the role of old oak trees in forest ecosystems, highlighting the engineering work of the larvae of the great capricorn beetle (Cerambyx cerdo) in the rotting wood, which creates a habitat for other species. In the further scientific programme we could look into the difficulties of replanting the rare Hungarian long lasting pink, as well as into the role of verges in nature conservation. The importance of the problems threatening this habitat was also emphasised, such as the possibilities of stopping the expansion of the so-called invasive species, the analysis of groundwater levels based on up-to-date field data, or the effects of growing big game population on the vegetation. Naturally, the old and new methods of forestry were also in the focus of the scientific programme. There was enough time to discuss controversial issues after each section.
On the last day of the conference we organised a field visit to the LIFE project area. The aim of the visit was to show a Hungarian sand steppe oak forest in real life, and thus make the participants experience what the previous two days were really about. In the first part of the excursion we walked through the oak woods near Nagykőrös, and then we visited the Pálfája Education Centre, and also the famous Pálfája, an ancient oak tree.
The given presentations, the abstract book and the posters can be downloaded from here.


text:
NVIDIA Research is seeking outstanding graduate students for intern positions in the areas of computer architecture, programming systems, VLSI, circuits, networking, computer graphics, display technology, computational photography, computer vision, and machine learning. NVIDIA Research is developing technologies to improve the efficiency and programmability of future GPUs, as well as increase their applicability to a wider range of applications.
Topic areas include but are not limited to parallel systems, programming languages, energy-efficient architectures, compilers, mobile computer architectures, interconnection networks, design automation, memory systems, architectures for computer vision and machine learning, and low-power circuits. NVIDIA Research also works to advance the frontier of visual computing, including algorithms and architectures for real-time rendering, virtual and augmented reality, display technology, light transport, machine learning, computer vision, computational photography and computational sensing, and human-computer interfaces. Past summer internships have resulted in publishable research and work applicable to student doctoral dissertations. Competitive candidates will have a track record of research excellence, a strong recommendation from a research supervisor, excellent programming skills, and the ability to work in a team environment.


text:
JOHANNESBURG -- The first official results from Zimbabwe's election and unofficial tallies indicated Thursday that President Robert Mugabe's party was headed for a landslide win. But Mugabe's main rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, rejected Wednesday's poll as a sham and warned that the country was headed for a crisis.
A number of observers and civil society groups said Mugabe's ZANU-PF party made huge gains in areas that were strongholds for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, including Matebeleland South, Manicaland and Masvingo. The party had an overwhelming lead in early parliamentary results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
ZANU-PF made no official victory claim over Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change, withdrawing what it described as an unauthorized tweet from the party account that had claimed a resounding win. But a senior ZANU-PF figure told Reuters news agency that his party had crushed the opposition.
"We've taken this election. We've buried the MDC. We never had any doubt that we were going to win," the anonymous official was quoted as saying.


text:
Legal Authorities
- Section 1, School Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. S-3
- Calgary Board of Education: Administrative Regulation 6000 – Independent Students
However, many youth find themselves in situations in which they need to be able to make their own decisions and can't rely on a parent or guardian. Several organizations in Alberta have recognized that youth under 18 sometimes need to make their own legal decisions or leave home.
Medical decisions
When healthcare and medical decisions about you need to be made, in some situations you can get what is called "mature minor" status and then you and your medical service provider (doctor, dentist, etc.) can make decisions about your healthcare together without your parents or guardians. (Hyperlink #192 "I want to make medical decisions without the consent of my parent(s) or guardian(s). What is 'mature minor' status?")
School decisions
Another example is "Independent Student Status" which means you can be responsible for making your own decisions about your education and sign your own school forms. (Hyperlink #278 "What difference does it make if I am classified as an independent student?")
Legally, if you are a minor, once you turn 16 you are allowed to enter into a contract (a rental lease) for accommodations – because it has been determined to be a necessary of life. Landlords and rental companies are often reluctant to rent to a minor, so you want to be able to show that you'll be responsible and a good tenant. After signing a lease, you will also become bound by its terms – so make sure you understand everything before you sign, or ask for someone's advice before you sign.
If you're struggling and feel the need to leave home and become legally responsible for yourself, or if you're under 18 and living on your own, please contact CLERC at (403) 207-9029 or use the "ask a lawyer" part of our website. You can contact us confidentially to discuss your situation and specific options.
Legal Authorities
- For information on the laws in Quebec, visit http://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/emancipation-when-teenager-gets-legal-rights-adult
- Family Law Act, S.A. 2003, c. F-4.5, s. 19 – children subject to guardianship
- C.(J.S.) v. Wren 1986 ABCA 249 – mature minor
- School Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. S-3, s.1(1)(m) – definition "independent student"
- Pyett v. Lampman (1922), 1922 CarswellOnt 117 (Ont. C.A.) – contract by infant for purchase of car for use in infant's business; not necessary for infant to carry on trade, occupation or business
Reviewed 07/16
You may be considered an Adult Interdependent Partner if any of the following apply:
- You have lived with your partner in a relationship of interdependence for at least 3 years
- A relationship of interdependence means that two people share one another's lives, are emotionally committed to one another, and function as a single economic and domestic unit
- You have lived with your partner in a relationship of interdependence of "some permanence" and have a child together
- The length of "some permanence" for couples living together with a child is unclear and whether you're determined to be AIPs will depend on your specific circumstances; or
- You and your partner have entered into an agreement saying that you are adult interdependent partners
- Persons who are related to each other by blood or adoption may only become adult interdependent partners of each other by entering into an adult interdependent partner agreement.
Please note that you can only be in an adult interdependent relationship with one person at a time.
Legal Authorities
- Adult Interdependent Relationships Act, SA 2002, c A 4.5, s 1(f) ("relationship of interdependence"), s 3 (Adult interdependent partner), s 5(1) (Restrictions), s 7 (Adult interdependent partner agreement).
Reviewed 09/15
In Alberta, you may be considered an 'independent student.' You are an independent student if you are:
- 18 years of age or older, or
- 16 years of age and living independently
At school, a student's principal decides whether or not they are able to be an independent student.
- An independent student is entitled to the same rights and powers that parents have.
- An independent student also has all the responsibilities of a parent. For example, if an independent student damages school property, that student is the only one who will be held responsible.
- The rights of an independent student include the ability to register for school and sign permission slips for field trips.
- An independent student controls access to his or her school records, including report cards.
Legal Authorities
- Section 1, School Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. S-3
- Calgary Board of Education: Administrative Regulation 6000 – Independent Students
An exception is the Royal Bank of Canada. To open an RBC "Leo" youth account, you must be 12 years or older and bring two pieces of ID (i.e. birth certificate, driver's or learner's license, SIN Card, Alberta Health Care Card). No parent/guardian signature is required.
Royal Bank of Canada
Legal Authorities
Legal Authorities
Yes, but if you are under 18 a parent, step parent, legal guardian, or social worker must consent. This rule also applies to Learner's Licenses.
Legal Authorities
Although it is not common, you can get child support directly from a parent. This usually occurs if you are attending school or unable to work full time. Contact CLERC at 403-207-9029.
Legal Authorities
- In Landymore v. Landymore [1995] CarswellAlta 709 (Alberta Court of Queen's Bench), child support was ordered to be paid directly to a 19 year old who was living independently until the completion of her first University degree
See also:
- O.C. v. A.C., 2011 ABPC 24 (CanLII)
However, there are some exceptions to the law.
You only need the consent of one parent or guardian if:
- Your father is not on the birth certificate.
- In such a situation you would only need your mother's consent to change your name (and the consent of any other guardian(s) you may have).
- If a parent or legal guardian has a court order for sole guardianship over you.
- In such a situation you would only need the consent of that parent or guardian.
You do not need any parental or guardian consent if:
- You are married
- You are an Adult Interdependent Partner (see "What is a common law relationship"); or
- You are a parent or guardian of a child.
If the above exceptions do not apply, another option you may have is to make an application to the court for an order saying that you do not need the consent of a parent(s) or guardian(s) to legally change your name.
If you have more questions please contact CLERC (by phone at 403-207-9029 or use the "Ask a Lawyer" part of the website) for more information.
Legal Authorities
- Vital Statistics Act, SA 2007, c V-4.1, s 22 (Eligibility), s 23 (Name to be changed), s 69 (Dispensing with consent).
Reviewed 09/15
Your parents and/or any legal guardians need your consent to legally change your name.
If you are younger than 12 years old:
Your parents and/or any legal guardians do not need your consent to legally change your name.
Legal Authorities
- Vital Statistics Act, SA 2007, c V-4.1, Part 3 Changes of name, s 23(6) (Name to be changed).
Reviewed 09/15
The first step is to visit a registry office and get a Legal Change of Name Application form. There are some necessary supporting documents you will have to gather as part of the application. The necessary supporting documents may include proof of name and proof of marital status. You will also have to give up your Canadian birth certificate but will receive a new one with your new name.
The next step is to get electronic fingerprints from a fingerprinting agency. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police website, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/index.shtm, has more information on this process. Please note, the fingerprinting agency will require a fee.
Once you have completed the necessary steps you will have to submit the application to a registry office. The application fee is $120.
The current average processing time for a Legal Change of Name Application is approximately 6 to 8 weeks (as of August 2015).
For more information visit the Service Alberta website at http://www.servicealberta.gov.ab.ca/1490.cfm.
Legal Authorities
- Vital Statistics Act, SA 2007, c V-4.1, s 24 (Requirements for application).
Reviewed 09/15
If you're in Calgary
The Script program at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Calgary at 403-828-4673
The 24/7 crisis services with Woods Homes at 403-299-9699
McMan Youth, Family and Community Services Association
In Calgary, some grade 12 students might be eligible for the Burns Memorial Fund. You should talk to your guidance counselor for more information.
Outside of Calgary
If you are under 18 and were forced to leave home due to severe abuse or neglect, you should call Child and Family Services (Calgary: 403‑297‑6100;
Depending on your age and the circumstances of leaving home there are different options for available resources. We recommend that you call CLERC at (403) 207-9029 or use the "ask a lawyer" part of the website and we can help you figure out the best resources for you.
Legal Authorities
No Legal information available for this question.
Reviewed 07/16
If you are 16 or 17 years old, you will need parental consent to get married.
If you are younger than 16 years old, you cannot legally get married, unless you are pregnant or the mother of a child. In such a circumstance you could legally get married if you have parental/guardian consent or a court order.
If somehow you were married and didn't have the necessary parental/guardian consent or a court order, your marriage may be declared void (as if it never happened). However, if either of the following applies, you could have a case for your marriage to be considered valid:
- You had intercourse with the other party before or after the marriage ceremony; or
- You and the other party have lived together since the marriage ceremony.
If you fall under any of these circumstances, we recommend that you call CLERC at (403) 207-9029 or use the "ask a lawyer" part of the website and we can help you figure out options.
Legal Authorities
- Marriage Act, RSA 2000, c M-5, s 17 (Marriage of persons under 16), s. 18 (Marriage of persons under 18), s 19 (Consent), s 20 (Order dispensing with consent), s 22 (Voiding marriage of minors).
- Civil Marriage Act, SC 2005, c 33, s 2.2 (Minimum age).
- Amended by the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.
- As a result, the federal minimum age requirement for marriage is now 16 years old.
- Amended by the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.
Reviewed 07/16
The minimum age to apply for this ID is 12. If you are between 12 and 18 years old a parent or guardian must sign your application.
No Parent/Guardian
If you are between the ages of 12 and 18 and you don't have a parent or guardian to sign your application, you can still apply by proving:
- you are married; or
- you are an Adult Interdependent Partner; or
- you are self-supporting.
A registry agent will require proof that you are self-supporting. Some items that may be accepted are:
- A rent receipt in your name or a copy of your lease agreement;
- A utility bill in your name (ex: gas, power, etc.);
- A paystub in your name; or
- A letter from your employer, on company letterhead, stating that you work for that company.
You will also be asked to produce identification (birth certificate, permanent resident card, citizenship certificate/card, etc.) and proof of Alberta residency (unless you are a student from another province).
Out of Province Student
If you are going to school, university, technical institute or college, and you are not from Alberta you can still get an ID if:
- You have lived in Alberta for more than three months, and
- You are in taking classes as a full-time student.
For more information see the Service Alberta website.
If you have any questions about this, you can call CLERC at 403-207-9029 or use the "ask a lawyer" part of the website.
Legal Authorities
- Identification Card Regulation, Alta. Reg. 221/2003 s.4 – Applicants under 18 years
- Identification Card Regulation, Alta. Reg. 221/2003 s.14 – Fees
- Identification Card Regulation, Alta. Reg. 221/2003 s.5 – Residence
Reviewed 07/16
Normally if you are under 18 you cannot sign a contract without a parent or guardian signing for you. There is an exception for necessaries which are for your benefit, like food, housing and clothing. A car may be seen to be for your benefit if it helps you carry out your job or gets you to school.
It is important to realize that, once you sign a contract, you are responsible for carrying out that contract. For example, if you buy a car and then change your mind you cannot get your money back.
Legal Authorities
- The only contracts which, if for a minor's benefit, are enforceable against him or her are contracts relating to the person, such as contracts for necessaries, including food, clothing, housing, marriage, and apprenticeship and service (Pyett v. Lampman, [1922] 53 O.L.R. 149).
- In Coull v. Kolbuc, [1969] 68 W.W.R. 76 (Alta. Dist. Ct.) a minor who contracted to purchase a sports car was not allowed to avoid the contract, which was deemed to be for his benefit.
- Where a minor's contract for something other than a necessary has been fully executed and the minor has derived some benefit under it, he or she cannot repudiate the contract. See Fannon v. Dobranski 1970 CarswellAlta 81 (Alta. Dist. Ct.)
- Any contract that is not for the minor's benefit is void. Any contract that is for the minor's benefit, but not for necessaries is voidable. See Beam v. Beatty 1901 CarswellOnt 657 (Ont. C.A.). This principle has been limited to executor contracts containing continuing or unfulfilled obligations at the time of repudiation, and not to executed contracts under which the minor has benefitted. See Fannon v. Dobranski.
- In Alberta, the court has jurisdiction to confirm any contract entered into by a minor. See s. 3, Minor's Property Act, S.A. 2004, c. M-18.1.
Reviewed 09/16
In Alberta you generally can only make a will if you are 18 years or older. There are some exceptions to that rule, for example if you are married or have an interdependent partner, or if you have children. Also, those serving in the Canadian Forces can write valid wills.
If you are under 18 and you do not fall under any of the exceptions mentioned above, the court may make an order allowing you to create a valid will if it thinks it is appropriate.
Legal Authorities
- Wills and Succession Act, SA 2010, c W-12.2, s 13. – Who can make a will.
- Wills and Succession Act, SA 2010, c W-12.2, s 36. – Court may make an order allowing minor to make or alter a will.
Reviewed 09/16
You must be 18 years or older to act as an executor of an estate. It is unlikely that you will be named as an executor in your parents' will if you are under the age of 18. If you are under 18, and you are the only person named as executor in the person's will, a court will appoint another person as executor until you turn 18.
Legal Authorities
- Estate Administration Act, SA 2014, c. E-12.5, s. 13(5)
Reviewed 09/16
There may be in exception if you qualify on "Compassionate Grounds" for a waiver of the Immigration requirements. You may qualify if leaving Canada would cause a serious risk to your health and safety. For example, if your parents or guardians died during the citizenship application process and you are facing deportation alone.
An application for compassionate grounds for someone under 18 must be made by their parent, guardian, or other person who has the child in their custody.
Legal Authorities
- Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-29, s. 5(1)(b). – 18 year old age requirement.
- Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-29, s. 5(2). – grant of citizenship to minor child of citizen.
- Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-29, s. 5(3)(b). – waiver on compassionate grounds to minor.
Reviewed 09/16


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If you really want to show off with a delicious but healthy low-carb appetizer you should definitly try this recipe. Not only does it look impressive it also tastes delicate and transforms your dining room into a 3-Star restaurant (especially if you care for the right ambiance).
The Serrano ham and the mozzarella contain a lot of good proteins and the rest of the ingredients give your body lots of vitamins and fibres that it demands. Best thing is that even if it looks special it's pretty easy to prepare.
Ingredients (for 2 servings):
For the salad:
- 4 oz. (approx. 110g) rocket salad
- 1 oz. pine nuts
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
For the mozzarella:
- 2 mozzarella balls
- 4 slices of Serrano ham (or another crude ham)
- 4 walnut halves
- some basil leaves
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 4 dried tomatoes (in oil)
Heat a pan and toast the pine nuts until they are fragrant and begin to brown without oil. Chop the dried tomatoes in small pieces. Cut a pocket into the mozzarella balls in which you fill the dried tomatoes. Put the basil, a dash of olive oil and the walnuts in a mortar and use the pestle to grind it. Slather the mozzarella with the basil pulp and wrap it with the Serrano ham. Now heat a pan with some olive oil in it and sauté the coated mozzarella shortly from all sides. Meanwhile wash the rocket salad and arrange it on 2 plates. For the salad dressing mix olive oil with balsamic vinegar and add salt and pepper to taste. Decorate the salad with dressing and toasted pine nuts. Eventually you just have to put the mozzarella on the salad and voilà...
Enjoy your meal!


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For the next 2 weeks(Jun 20-Jul 3),We have a fun challenge over at Love To Scrap! Challenge Blog#80 - Anything Goes! I'm so happy to share my DT inspiration project for you. I using imagine provided by sponsor Lemon Shortbread. Hope you like it.
Proud to enter my card into the following challenges:
- Glitter 'N' Sparkle #193 ATG
- Simply Create Too Ch. #111- Use Buttons or Bows
- Creative Artiste's #15 Anything Goes
- Crafting-With-Friends #23 ATG
- Crafting With An Attitude #16 ATG
- Little Miss Muffet Challenges #140 - Anything goes


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While the advance of technology means that new jobs are being created all the time in software development, the current area of the most dramatic changes and increase in employment is in the development for handheld devices. The iOS SDK is a software development kit used to develop native applications for iOS, the operating system for Apple iPhone devices. The SDK is written in Objective-C, which is an object-oriented version of the C programming language.
Given the enormous popularity of the iPhone and the rapid speed of innovational improvements, there is a great demand for developers that can program using the iOS SDK. It is a complex programming platform with a slow learning curve; it takes a great deal of time to become proficient in how it is used. Furthermore, the iOS SDK programming skills have a somewhat short shelf life in the sense that proficiency tends to fade over time if not refreshed.
This book is designed to be that refreshment tool for the programmer that understands the iOS SDK and needs a quick refresher to prepare for an upcoming technical job interview. There are 200 questions and answers with a wide variety of difficulty. Some deal with the fundamental concepts of the C programming language and object-oriented programming while others are very technical and specific about the iOS SDK. For example, number 194 is "What is the best method to use for sorting arrays of dictionaries."
If you are facing the make-or-break job interview in iOS SDK in the near future, this is a book that you can use to give yourself a crash course refresher in the development environment. If you have little experience in the iOS SDK, then this book will be of little value. A set of fifty standard job interview questions is included in this book; those questions are generic and have appeared in many other publications. Therefore, that section does not differentiate this book in any significant way
iOS SDK Interview Questions You'll Most Likely Be Asked
Date Added: 07/23/2013 by Charles Ashbacher


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The Underground — Issue #90
Everything you need to know about in this weekly series: One of the best directors in the world explains where he gets his ideas, The Black Keys explain their incredible beginning, 16 misconceptions about football, and how a parking lot at LAX has become a make-shift home for airline workers.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what's underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that's our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That's The Underground.
1. David Lynch explains where ideas come from. David Lynch has made some incredible films and TV shows. I remember being in a film class in high school and having and eccentric teacher. We literally watched Twin Peaks from beginning to end every day. Not only did that mean I had 2 hours a day to watch and episode of TV in school every day, we also spent the other hours discussing all things David Lynch. The show was really something beyond anything I have really witnessed before. The death of one girl brought an FBI agent to a small town, strange things start to happen, and then it goes off into a huge mind-trip at the end. It's one of the only things I haven't blocked out in those 4 years.
Below, Lynch explains where and how his ideas come to him. They're similar to mine, only I jot them down as a memo in my phone. Song idea? I record the guitar or piano sound into my phone very crudely so I can remember it later. Lynch is sort of the same, except he's a genius. Watch him explain his process and use it in your life.
2. The Black Keys explain their unlikely start into the music scene. The Black Keys are one of the biggest bands in the world, but they had very humble beginnings: Two strangers that lived a few houses away from each other that met through friends and started jamming. They recorded a 4-song demo, sent it to 10-15 labels, then got a record deal. They've never played a single show together, but they got a record deal. Soon, they recorded a 12-song record titled The Big Come Up, and people began to flock to their shows. 500 albums turned into 200,000 albums sold. Soon they were playing with Radiohead.
I heard a few songs here and there, but I never really checked to see who they actually were until their album El Camino came out. I was hooked after that. However, this show on HBO called Hung had an interesting theme song that played before the show. The guitar was gritty, drums booming, recording was slightly amateur, but then his voice started singing. It sounded familiar, but there was no way. Sure enough, it was The Black Keys. It was a song from their very first album. From that point on, I bought all of their albums. They're all so different, but all so good.
Check out the Rolling Stone doc about their first album and beginnings below. I had no idea how they managed to get so lucky so fast. Probably because their music is so damn good.
3. 16 misconceptions about football really teaches you about football, obviously. I love football. Well, I love college football. I really don't care that much about the NFL because of the horrible criminal stuff, the advertising, the managers, the using of public funds to build new stadiums, and also THE LIONS. Plus, it's really hard to explain American Football to people who have no idea. Explaining the downs, plays, rules, and everything else is annoying.
The video explains the misconceptions people have about football. There is one part where he explains that the half-time shows used to be really bad. I will disagree with that since they've always been awful. Katy Perry? Britney Spears? There's never really any rock bands that play that weren't popular in the '60s. I'd rather see, well, The Black Keys go up there for 4 songs and get me pumped for the second half instead of Katy Perry and some dancing sharks.
Either way, the video below does really inform you about things you might have wrong about football. Concussions? No, they still screw up entire brains and families of the players. We can't forget about that.
4. An airport parking lot in Los Angeles has become an improvised city for airplane workers. When you work in the aviation industry, you tend to travel A LOT. I've known people who have expensive apartments in the city they're from, but they are barely home at all, have to pay the bills for a place they are barely at, and then continue their trips around the world. Imagine having that plus a leased car or a family. You never get to see them, and it can break up families since you're never there.
Many of the people in the aviation industry have set up an improvised city in the parking lot of A Los Angeles airport. Why? Look at what I wrote above. Imagine you're a flight attendant who has just traveled like 40 hours to various locations, get back to your home base, have to be back in 7 hours where you're going to various cities for the next two weeks. Would you rather go to your apartment that's 3 hours away from the airport because of traffic, not get any sleep at home for the hour you're there, then drive back in that same traffic? OR would you rather just walk to the parking lot to your motor home and get some sleep before you head back out? That's essentially what these flight attendants, mechanics, and other people who work at the airport deals with. It makes perfect sense.
Watch this documentary on the subject from The New York Times below. Makes me tired just watching what they go through.
Follow Jeff Sorensen on TWITTER
Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
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International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition Engineering
p-ISSN: 2166-5168 e-ISSN: 2166-5192
2012; 2(5): 85-88
doi: 10.5923/j.food.20120205.03
Pratiksha Saxena 1, Vinay Pathak 2, Vinod Kumar 2
1Assistant Professor, School of Applied Sciences, Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida 201308, India
2School of ICT, Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida 201308, India
Correspondence to: Pratiksha Saxena , Assistant Professor, School of Applied Sciences, Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida 201308, India.
Copyright © 2012 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
This paper proposes a technique for animal diet formulation using Non-linear programming and C language. Objective of this technique is to maximize animal weight gain. Most of the existing techniques use linear approximation of objective function. This technique uses Non-linear programming, which overcomes this drawback. C language program explores the area of programming in the field of animal diet formulation. Outcome of this technique is applied on sample data and provides optimized set of nutrient ingredients to animal which fulfill the nutrient requirement better than the linear programming technique.
Keywords: Animal diet formulation, Non-linear programming, C programming
Cite this paper: Pratiksha Saxena , Vinay Pathak , Vinod Kumar , "Programming Technique for Animal Diet Formulation: A Non-linear Approach", International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition Engineering, Vol. 2 No. 5, 2012, pp. 85-88. doi: 10.5923/j.food.20120205.03.
|Wilfred Candler, 1960, A "Short-Cut" Method for the Complete Solution of Game Theory and Feed-Mix problems, Econometrica, 28(3), 618-634.
|Brown, William G., G. H. Arscott, 1960, Animal production functions and optimum ratio, J Farm Economics, 42(1), 69-78.
|Sabir A. Rahman, F. E. Bender, 1971, Linear Programming Approximation of Least-Cost Feed Mixes with Probability Restrictions, Am J Agricultural Economics, 53(4), 612-618.
|Bill R. Miller, Ronaldo A. Arraes, Gene M. Pesti, 1986, Formulation of Broiler Rations by Quadratic Programming, Southern J Agricultural Economics, 141-151.
|Black J R, Hlubik J, 1980, Basics of computerized linear programs for ration formulation, J Dairy Science, 63(8), 856-864.
|Agway, Robert H. Stock, Terri L. Cravener, Thomas H. D'Alfonso, 1994, Using Chance-Constrained Programming for Animal Feed Formulation, Interfaces, 24(2), 53-58.
|Rosshairy Abd Rahman, Chooi-Leng Ang, Razamin Ramli, 2010, Investigating Feed Mix Problem Approaches:An Overview and Potential Solution. Proc. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 70, 467-475.
|D. Darvishi SalooKolayi, A. Teimouri Yansari, S. h. Nasseri, 2010, Application of Fuzzy Optimization in Diet Formulation, J Mathematics and Computer Science, 2(3), 459-468.
|José M. Cadenas, David Pelta, Hector Pelta and Jose Luis Verdegay, 2004, Application of Fuzzy Optimization to Diet Problems in Argentinean Farms, European Journal of Operational Research, 158 (1), 218-228.
|Guevara VR, 2004, Use of nonlinear programming to optimize performance response to energy density in broiler feed formulation, Poultry Science, 83(2), 147-51.
|Alan G. Munford, 1996, The use of iterative linear programming in practical applications of animal diet formulation, Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, 42(2), 255-261.
|Report of Commission on Natural Resources, 1981, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D. C.
|Morrison, Frank B., 1957, Feeds and feeding, Twenty-second edition, The Morrison publishing company, New York, 168-201.
|Maynard, Leonard A. and Loosli, John K., 1956, Animal nutrition, Tata McGraw Hill, 138-145.
|Virendra Kumar, "Effect of feeding cotton seed cake with and without molasses-bound NPN compounds on nitrogen utilization and milk production in ruminants", Ph.D. thesis, Panjab University, India, 1976.


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Twinkle & The Power of a Single Star – II
Part II – Stargazing on Earth
We on Earth – are on a spaceship, and inevitably some of us become obsessed with celestial bodies and the space that is the Universe.
This obsession manifests as the urge to stargaze. In so doing, we seek to expose the mysteries of the Universe and to unravel its origins and the meaning of life.
Today, 6th June 2012 marks the Transit of Venus, a day when planet Venus passes in between the Sun and Earth. During this day, Venus will appear as a black dot moving across the Sun. Unfortunately, due to the capriciousness of the weather, the sky was overcast and prevented my witness to this event. Another 100 years or so has to pass before the next transit.
I loathe to be thwarted in my astronomical escapades but I have no choice. I am too minute in the scheme of things to make any demands on the Cosmos. For all the difficulties of stargazing from Earth, I am however consoled by the ease of stargazing on Earth.
Man's gravitation towards pretty and wondrous things is only nature taking its course. Even though we loathe to admit, in life, we bear witness to both the pleasant and the ugly. To this end, people abhor evil and while nice and pleasant things are easily accepted, pretty things get all the attention.
As we appreciate the two ends of the spectrum and come to realise the limited time that we have, our attention turns to search for understanding and meaning to it all. As we search for meaning in life, we inevitably question the purpose of each of our lives.
As we search for the purposes of our lives, we realise the need to get in touch with ourselves.
To get in touch with ourselves, we need to look at ourselves, our identity, our thoughts, our feelings and emotions.
This change in focus must not be equated to nelsonian blindness – as in seeking to block out the unpleasant and the ugly but rather a looking to understand the self better. This is in itself by no means a small feat and aptly qualifies as a revolution on the personal level nonetheless.
To the seemingly innocuous question – Which is your favourite star?
One would normally expect an answer pointing towards a particular stellar constellation.
But when we find instead an answer referring to a member of the K-pop band Girls' Generation, other than acknowledging the power of a single star in this instance, one would need to acknowledge that there certainly is a need for some serious investigation in one's aspirations, adulations and obsessions.
Girls' Generation is the translated English name for So Nyuh Shi Dae, more commonly known by the acronym SNSD, the original Korean name of the South Korean K-pop band that is now famous across the entire Earth. They are to me, the best girl band to have ever walked, danced, pranced and adorned the face of this earth. Girls' Generation is also made up of 9 distinct members: TaeYeon, Jessica, Tiffany, Sunny, HyoYeon, SooYoung, Yuri, SeoHyun and Yoona.
SM Entertainment recently changed its focus. SM separated 3 girls from the rest to form a sub-group and named them TaeTiSeo – TaeYeon, Tiffany and SeoHyun for short. And TaeTiSeo have released an album called Twinkle.
The ensuing performances of the songs in Twinkle seem deliberate in showing off the trio and their talents more intensely. The coverage of TaeTiSeo's performances are also markedly more close-up, more personal, and more intense.
Fans are on one hand thrilled by the focus on 3 very able members of our favourite band, it certainly does not mean that the rest are forgotten. The hope is that the focus is temporary and not permanent. Like the Venus Transit today is a focus on the play of the Sun, Venus and Earth, our Solar System will only truly be Complete with the Sun and its 8 planets. 🙂
By all logic of reasoning and the confines of definition of the English language, the answer, albeit unusual, is nevertheless gramatically and logically correct. For it is irrefutable that the girls in Girls' Generation are each also stars in their own right, K-pop stars to be exact. 🙂
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Is It Rational To Believe that Global Capitalism Isn't Completely Corrupt?
I know a lot of folks think that free markets are the key to social, political, and economic structural stability, growth, and fairness. But in light of so many recent revelations about how things really work at the institutions in the marketplace, can that view be rationally supported anymore?
I am not one for conspiracy theories. Occam's razor generally leads one to prefer explanations involving incompetence or individual malfeasance over larger, complex, well-orchestrated wrong-doing. But there does seem to be some significant differences in the case of contemporary, global, corporate capitalism. First, you have a small number of central institutions and functions that require the working of a small number of major actors. Second, there is an almost complete lack of transparency in these dealings that arise both from secrecy and from technical complexity. Third, the players in the game are there with the sole aim of maximizing their own profits, that is, they have incentive to cheat from their very reason for being. Finally, the rules that are supposed to keep them in line and the referees who are supposed to enforce them are controlled by politicians who have a stake in not seeing the rules enforced.
The Libor scandal that is just breaking will be huge. We have seen Barclay's nailed, but for any real interest rate fixing to have occurred, it would have taken collusion with several other banks -- a number of which we know are currently under investigation. As I've been following this, it reminded me of a recent Matt Taibbi piece, The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia, chronicling the case of United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm.
In most cases, towns and cities, called issuers, are legally required to submit their bonds to a competitive auction of at least three banks, called providers. The scam Wall Street cooked up to beat this fair-market system was to devise phony auctions. Instead of submitting competitive bids and letting the highest rate win, providers like Chase, Bank of America and GE secretly divvied up the business of all the different cities and towns that came to Wall Street to borrow money. One company would be allowed to "win" the bid on an elementary school, the second would be handed a hospital, the third a hockey rink, and so on.
How did they rig the auctions? Simple: By bribing the auctioneers, those middlemen brokers hired to ensure the town got the best possible interest rate the market could offer. Instead of holding honest auctions in which none of the parties knew the size of one another's bids, the broker would tell the prearranged "winner" what the other two bids were, allowing the bank to lower its offer and come in with an interest rate just high enough to "beat" its supposed competitors. This simple but effective cheat – telling the winner what its rivals had bid – was called giving them a "last look." The winning bank would then reward the broker by providing it with kickbacks disguised as "fees" for swap deals that the brokers weren't even involved in.
The end result of this (at least) decade-long conspiracy was that towns and cities systematically lost, while banks and brokers won big. By shaving tiny fractions of a percent off their winning bids, the banks pocketed fantastic sums over the life of these multimillion-dollar bond deals. Lowering a bid by just one-100th of a percent, called a basis point, could cheat a town out of tens of thousands of dollars it would otherwise have earned on its bond deposits.We have a financial structure in which big money transactions have to go through a set of fixed convoluted routes shepherded by financial overseers whose only interest is making as much as possible. If honest competition among the players is supposed to be what keeps them legitimate and protects us and our money from them, then they have every reason in the world to try to undermine that competition when we aren't looking and the system is created so we can't see much.
Is it the view that the central institutions and functions underlying our financial system are rigged in favor of big banks and investors like believing that the Jews and the Masons control the world or is it more rational than that? Do the continuous scandals make it rational or would it have been justified to believe before they broke?


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Cap and Tube Labels
CILS Cap and Tube Label sets are available in various label shapes and sizes and can be customised to fit your labware. Available on a single roll or A4/A5 mini-sheet the labels are printable straight from a standard laser or thermal transfer printer.
Printed data such as linear and 2D barcodes, batch numbers, expiry dates, lot numbers, patient and sample ID etc. remains clear and legible even when labels are exposed to, MEK, IPA, DMSO cleaning agents, autoclaves, extreme temperatures (-196°C to +155°C), freeze / thaw cycles etc.
CILS Cap and Tube labels stick securely and precisely to Eppendorf conical tubes, microcentrifuge tubes and vials. Labelling consultants from the Label Technology Centre are available to recommend materials, adhesives and colour-coding as required.
- Unique CILS coatings provide ultimate solvent resistance without secondary clear tape
- Label sets can be colour-coded for immediate sample recognition
- Printable in seconds straight from your PC and standard laser or thermal transfer printer
- Adhesion to all surfaces, glass and plastic labware etc.
- Cap and tube labels sets are made to any tube size, shape and design - matched perfectly to your requirements
- Extreme temperatures (-196°C to +155°C)
- Cryogenic and LN2 storage
- Pre-cooling alcohol
- Laboratory solvents (xylene, DMSO, IPA, etc.)
- Sterilisation and autoclave cycles
- Water baths
- Centrifuge processes
- Diagnostic reagents
- Humidity and moisture
- Repeated handling
- Permanent solvent acrylic
- High-tack solvent acrylic
- Heavy-duty high-tack solvent acrylic
- Removable
- Ultra-removable
- Void/tamper evident
- Opaque
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- Repositionable
- Thermal transfer
- Laser
- Cryotubes
- Test tubes
- Vials
- Ampoules
- IVF liquid straws
- Barcoding
- Caps and enclosures


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Perhaps best known for its inclusion on Levi's jeans, washed Kraft paper is an environmentally friendly alternative to leather. It comes in a variety of different colors, is durable and even biodegradable.
This allows it to function as the perfect material for CulCreat's accessories -- with the start-up manufacturing everything from passport holders and wallets to tote bags and backpacks with it. To start out, the brand's founder adapted a Levi's label into a headphone strap.
This prompted him to realize the immense potential of the material, which has largely gone unnoticed in the fashion world. With its products, CulCreat aims to change how both consumers and designers view washed Kraft paper -- hoping that this will increase its sustainable usage.
Sustainable Paper Accessories
More Stats +/-
Controversial Drug-Themed Clothing
Pet Hotel Gift Boxes
Fidget-Friendly Writing Pens
Charming Smartphone Chargers
Exploded Battery Phone Stickers
CulCreat's Unique Products Utilize Durable Washed Kraft Paper
- By: Riley von NiessenNov 30, 2016
References: facebook & kickstarter
References: facebook & kickstarter