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Art imitates nature as well as it can, as a pupil follows his master; thus it is a sort of grandchild of God.—Dante, 1315
Robert Towne on the Plight of Screenwriters
The difficulty of maintaining the cinematic illusion.
No one can really say what makes an effective screenplay, because no one really knows what makes a screenplay effective. Certainly part of the problem stems from the fact that screenplays can't be judged by reading them. They may read well or badly, but that often says more about the reader than the screenplay.
The only way a screenplay can be evaluated, almost by definition, is not on the page, but by viewing the movie it caused to be made. It certainly can be read and even enjoyed, but you're stuck with the inescapable fact that it was written to be seen.
"Causing the movie to be made," incidentally, is no small thing. From it stems the historic hatred Hollywood has always displayed for the screenwriter. No matter what is said about how a movie gets made, one fact is inescapable: until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else, like actors, can do theirs. Until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else has a job. In other words, he is the asshole who keeps everybody else from going to work.
The hatred on their part usually takes the form of contempt for him because he's not good enough to put them to work—and fear of him because they need him to go to work. Meanwhile, their wrath at being kept waiting is likely to assume various forms. In a sort of mini-Dante-esque exercise, we might say studio execs and agents rage at being kept in limbo, ambitious actors and producers fulminate about doing time in purgatory, and aging movie stars and all directors swear you've damned them to hell.
Another reason for their anger is the pervasive tendency to underestimate the true difficulty of the screenplay form. It started with contempt for the form itself, born and bred in those decades when novelists and playwrights would come out to a California bungalow and condescend to knock out a script in a couple of weeks for big bucks so they could go back to their daytime job and do some really serious writing. It's rare, however, that anyone has an understanding of how disciplined a good script must be, and how much work goes into achieving that discipline.
Concert in the Egg, attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, sixteenth century. Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Lille, France.
Then, too, the usual readers for the screenwriter's script—studio execs, producer, director, cast, and crew—could not exactly be said to approach their task with enlightened disinterest. There is hardly anything more threatening to them than this 120-odd page document. Generally, the writer's professional colleagues, particularly actor, director, and producer, ask three questions as they read his work, none of which anyone is in a position to answer: 1) Will this script be any good as a movie?, 2) Will it make me look good?, and 3) Will I work again if I do it?
Most screenwriters have never been an ongoing part of a motion-picture production, and most production personnel know it. They therefore know that a screenplay is a peculiar act of prophecy by someone who's no more licensed to work with a crystal ball than he is experienced in working on a film. That he would presume to write something that's going to cost fifty million dollars, be cast with actors he doesn't know and has never met, made with a director and crew he doesn't know and has never met, on locations that may or may not exist, in weather conditions that may make it impossible to shoot, can only confirm their suspicions about him. The mere fact of writing the screenplay is an act of astonishing arrogance and proves the writer should never have written it in the first place.
However, I think it is true that narrative skill in screenwriting may be at an all-time low. There was an undeniably greater story sense evidenced by the preceding generation of filmmakers. It may have been due in part to the fact that directors like George Stevens and producers like Darryl Zanuck (who also wrote)—for that matter, everyone from Ernst Lubitsch to William Wellman—began their careers in silent pictures. Without sound, they were obliged to think very carefully about making the story and motivation clear. This obsession with story and with clarity never abandoned them when they abandoned silent film.
Why are the director, the producer, the writer less skillful at filming a story now than then? Some of it lies in the disadvantages of present training. A large part of directing talent today comes from the world of music videos and commercials. Directors generally work in thirty- to sixty-second "bytes," as they say, and therefore narrative skill takes a distinct back seat to visual impact. It's also regrettably true that the effect of their sixty-second visual/aural barrages is to limit their attention span even as they limit the television audience's attention span. They don't allow the actor or the audience to do any "work"—visually they do it for them with shock cuts and long lenses and wild juxtaposition of imagery—so very often, an actor working in motion pictures for a director honed and toned in MTV is shot more like a perfume bottle than a person.
But there are other reasons for the dearth of affecting dramatic screenplays. To look at what I believe is the most critical one, it helps me to go back to the time when I first started looking at movies.
San Pedro, California, in the early '40s was a big seaport and a small town. It was full of fishermen, merchant marines, cannery workers, dock workers, shipyard workers, soldiers at Fort MacArthur, sailors from everywhere, first-generation Slavs, Italians, Portuguese, Germans, Filipinos, Mexicans, and even a sprinkling of blacks and Jews. Only if you were five years old could you count on English not being the second language of your peers.
It was with just such a crowd of my peers that one Saturday morning in 1941 I took my half-dozen DiCarlo bread wrappers, my dime, and myself to the Warner's Theater on sixth street in San Pedro to see a bunch of Saturday serials, and Sergeant York. Alvin York was a religious pacifist from a rural Kentucky community so shut off from the outside world in 1917 that it didn't have electricity, phones, or movies—and for whom New York, let alone Europe, was as far away as Mars.
Still, kids in small-town San Pedro found that they shared common values with a rural Kentuckian like York. Like him, our folks, like most Americans then, didn't believe in sticking their noses into other people's business. They were God-fearing, wanting mainly a chance at a decent job, five thousand dollars in the bank, and the opportunity for their children to have an education and a better life than they had had. These were York's values, and they were ours. They were the truths we held to be as self-evident as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
If all this is redolent of a Norman Rockwell portrait, a Rush Limbaugh wet dream, its validity didn't lie in the likelihood that it was or would come true. Like most dreams, its greatest significance was our belief in it. We took heart and example from Sergeant York: his beliefs mattered and his actions counted. And even when our society changed dramatically in the '60s and '70s, many films—The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and Chinatown among them—found receptive audiences. They did so by dramatizing the disparity between the Establishment's view of the country and what many Americans were beginning to take to be the awful truth: Vietnam, Watergate, perceptions of hideous racial inequality. Again, a series of shared beliefs, in this case focusing on what was wrong with the country, created a sense of communion between filmmakers and filmgoers.
We share no such beliefs today. That, in fact, is pretty much at the heart of the screenwriter's difficulty now: it's tough to write effectively without common ground between you and your audience. Shared beliefs, like shared experience and shared myths, provide that ground. They give us substance and structure, allow us to interpret and make sense of experience, tell us how we should and shouldn't behave, help us find significance in our lives. It is belief that makes the real world real and not a surrealistic nightmare. It is belief that makes us think there's such a thing as truth. It is belief that makes drama—"make-believe"—possible.
For me, this is the problem the contemporary screenwriter faces: how can he tell a compelling story when there's nothing the audience believes to be self-evident? How can he create an illusion without a contrasting reality against which to gauge the effectiveness of the illusion? It's difficult to lie credibly without belief in the truth.
© 1995 by Robert Towne. Used with permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Robert Towne
In 1971 Robert Towne declined Robert Evans' offer of $175,000 to adapt The Great Gatsby, opting to take $25,000 for an original screenplay on which he was working. The inspiration came from a Los Angeles vice cop who told him that when he was in Chinatown he did "as little as possible." Towne won an Oscar for Chinatown in 1975 and was nominated for The Last Detail and Shampoo. He was an uncredited script doctor on Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather.


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Morning folks i hope you all had fab weekend we had a nice quite one for a change.
Anyway i have a card for using the gorgeous wintergreen wishes you can get her HEREbut i've coloured her in purple and i've used copic markers to colour her and the frame behind her is a spellbinders Fleur de lise which i absolutely love, well i think that's it for now folks i hope you have a good day.
Don't forget our Challenge over at Crafts and Me challenges you still have a couple of days to enter the current one
Monday, 22 November 2010
Winter Green Wishes in Purple
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subset: commoncrawl


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Gift Card
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Gift cards are delivered by email and contain instructions to redeem them at checkout. This is a digital gift card. No physical gift card will be mailed. Gift cards can be used online or in-store.
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VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Three children who were injured after a Tuesday morning mobile home fire are now in Boston recovering.
The children's grandmother, Monica, told News 3 that 7-year-old Kaira Pentz is awake and has been treated, while 5-year-old Jaxson Pentz and 2-year-old Aurora Pentz will need skin grafts.
Officials say that when firefighters arrived, Jaxson and Aurora were still inside the mobile home, while Kaira and her parents had made their way outside of the trailer.
Their mother, Alyssa Pentz, said she woke up when her husband asked if she felt hot. She said they could not get to the children down the hall because of the fire and smoke.
A neighbor helped them pull Kaira out of the house, but a firefighter had to rescue the two younger kids.
"You don't think about yourself; you think about the kids," said the firefighter, who entered the mobile home to save the kids and almost lost his life doing so.
"He had to literally dive out the window himself, falling a distance of about six feet to the ground out of the window," added Virginia Beach Fire Department Public Information Officer Art Kohn about the heroic and life-threatening rescue by the firefighter. "Because at that point, the whole thing just flashed over and it was huge flames and smoke and even with his protective gear on, [he] couldn't remain in that structure anymore. Probably safe to say that he got out just in time."
According to Monica, the firefighter told her he couldn't believe Aurora lived through the fire.
All three children were initially taken to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk. Aurora was unresponsive after being rescued, but according to her grandmother, she did not sustain brain damage.
Kaira has burns to 4 percent of her body and cuts to her stomach from being pulled through the window. Her grandmother said that she is "happy and smiling" and will be able to see her parents soon.
Jaxson has burns to 20 percent of his body and is in surgery now, she said. He was "somewhat responsive" on Wednesday.
Aurora has 30 percent burn injuries. She is having liver issues, according to her grandmother, so she will need to be moved to a more intensive unit.
Chiniqua Radford is collecting shoes, clothes, food and toys for the Pentz family until Saturday.
"It hurts because although I don't know them, when you have a heart for people... when you see people hurt, you hurt," Radford said.
Friends have set up a GoFundMe account to help with these and relocation expenses.


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In the spotlight: Anton Bruehl photographs 1920s-1950s
From his studio in New York, Australian-born Anton Bruehl (1900-1982) created inventive and perfectly realised colour photographs for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. His work ranges from advertising to images of stars of the stage and screen, to his personal photography in the classic documentary tradition.
Bruehl was a leader in the new field of colour photography and remained at its forefront until his retirement in 1966. He was best known for his elaborately staged, densely coloured advertisements and theatrical tableaux. American photographer Ansel Adams described his work as being 'entirely contrived, and yet absolutely sincere'.
A National Gallery of Australia exhibition
18 February 2012 - 15 April 2012


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You have found your dream home and it is a HUD foreclosures. A HUD owned home is a home that was owned by someone with an FHA loan. HUD stands for Housing of Urban Development. You must have a real estate agent to bid on a HUD home, your realtor will be able to place the bid on your behalf. Bids are accepted during a given time period, after which the bidding is closed and all offers are opened and examined.
Once the Offer Period expires, the department will then choose the winning bidder. FHA 203K loans are the most popular financing used to purchase HUD homes. 3 Options Realty has a team of agents prepared to help you navigate your way through the process of purchasing a bank foreclosure.
Purchasers may be required to have a property re-winterized after the home inspection has been completed depending on the time of year. Besides getting a good deal on the price of HUD properties, they come with several other great b benefits. A HUD home simply means it is a home that went into foreclosure on an FHA loan.
The rules for buying HUD homes for sale are different for home buyers (HUD calls them Owner-Occupants) and investors. You need to locate an experienced real estate agent in buying HUD houses. For this reason, Wilmoth Group offers a referral program to brokers who do not have a NAID number but do have a client wishing to make an offer on a HUD home.
After that 15 day period, if no offer has been submitted, HUD opens up an extended bidding period to investors. Don't bid on those if you plan on using an FHA loan. If you are considering purchasing a HUD home, or if you are a Realtor representing a buyer of any kind, you need to know about the special HUD programs.


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You may have heard the term mobile responsive or mobile compatible or even just responsive on its own. It really just means that your website is easy to use on all screen sizes such as smartphones and tablets.
If you're not already aware a website that isn't optimised means lots of zooming in (known as pinch zooming) where buttons are smaller due to the lack of width and horizontal scrolling to read text. It's very frustrating for the website user. See below:
More than 80% of websites are now viewed on mobile devices so it's important your website works on as many devices as possible. If it isn't and your website is hard to use on an iPhone for example people will get def up and go to a competitor whose website is easy to use. This means a lot of testing which may need to be revisited in the future as technology evolves. Smart Watches for example may become much more common than they are now and will have a huge impact on how websites are used.
Tappable phone numbers
Design layout is just one aspect of making your website mobile, having your phone numbers tappable is a must to. This means that when someone taps the phone number on a website while on a smartphone it calls the number. You can do this by adding 'telephone: 020 8133 5872' as the link in the telephone number. It makes it easy for people to call when they're on the go without having to copy or memorise your number.
Galleries and slideshows
If you have a gallery on your website it's probably in grid form, you'll want the images to remain at least 45% of the screen width / two across for smartphones in portrait rather than five across shrinking down tiny. Slideshows can become swipeable when collapsed down for tablets and smartphones which gives the interaction of a website a more intuitive feel.
Image download speeds
Even with 4G people can still be left waiting for a large image to download and this can also eat into their data allowance, it also means they may lose interest if they're buying a photo or poster from your website and go elsewhere.
Make sure you have image compression that doesn't reduce the quality but does mean your photos download fast enough for people to view before their attention span runs out.
Google has been favouring mobile compatible websites for sometime now. You can test to see if yours is here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly.
We make all of our website mobile, if you would like us to help you with your website contact us


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Man charged with shooting victim as he slept
Yolanda Jones
The Commercial Appeal
Police have arrested a suspect accused of shooting a man as he slept on a couch.
Tobias Trent, 21, has been charged with attempted first-degree murder.
The incident occurred on March 5 when police said the defendant entered a South Memphis home in the 700 block of Waldorf and shot the 24-year-old victim three times as he slept.
The victim was taken to the Regional Medical Center where he was treated for gunshot wounds to his stomach, arm and leg.
A witness in the home identified Trent who was arrested Wednesday. He remains in jail on a $500,000 bond.
This shooting occurred during a violent weekend in the city when three people were killed and at least 12 others shot.


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Garden Route Fires Facebook page
Garden Route Fires Facebook page
The South African news today wrap is a sombre affair on Tuesday, as we've got updates from the Garden Route fires and details of two memorials for HHP. Here's what's happening.
The death toll from the raging wildfires in George and Oudtshoorn has now reached eight people overnight. A baby and two other infants are among the fatalities, as is a pregnant mother. Rain is due to fall in the region on Tuesday.
The official memorial for Hip-Hop Panstula (HHP) gets underway today in Johannesburg, with another service planned in Mahikeng on Wednesday. The artist passed away last week, aged just 38.
The Oppenheimer family will face Parliamentary questions this afternoon, over their conflict with Malusi Gigaba and a "private terminal" debate. Fireblade Aviation, owned by the billionaires, saw Gigabyte back out of a deal to give them their own customs and immigration department at OR Tambo.
Meanwhile, there's a meeting of the National Assembly today to discuss "The State of the Nation: What went wrong and what must be done to fix it". They'll probably need longer than just one standard Tuesday afternoon if they want to find all the answers.
It's a big day in the Timothy Omotoso trial, as we have the peculiar situation of a judge having to consider his own recusal. The defence accuses Judge Mandela Makuala of accidentally showing bias towards state witness Cheryl Zondi, and want him off the case, or they'll go to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
In a bid to slash R440 million a year at the beleaguered broadcaster, up to 981 jobs could be cut and over
1 000 freelancers would be affected. Their "section 189" restructuring would affect Group Services, Provincial Operations, Commercial Enterprises, News, Radio, Sport and Television. [Read more: Daily Maverick]
Struggling against a resurgent dollar, the rand is currently trading at R14.64 to the greenback.
Some volatile weather systems are operating across South Africa on Tuesday. Catch the updates here.
A lucky day in store? We're rooting for ya! Check out your horoscope here.


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Recently I read a novel I really liked, 'Admission', by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The title of the book is actually rather subtle. In the first instance, it seems to apply simply and directly to the quasi-vocation of the heroine, Portia Nathan, a Princeton admissions officer.But as the story unfolds, the title turns out to also refer to the legal meaning of admission (i.e., a confession of a sort) and finally, to one particular admission decision of one candidate to Princeton, on which the heroine stakes her career.
The basic appeal of the book is obvious. Ms. Korelitz has published four novels, but her day job the last few years has been as a reader of Princeton admission applications. So the book offers a peek behind the curtain from someone who knows, at the actual workaday process of Ivy League admissions, a subject of absorbing interest to anyone who's been through it (twice in the last seven years, undergrad and professional school, with oldest child). The novel spans roughly an academic year, September to April, during which Portia Nathan makes presentations to secondary schools in her assigned area, reads and evaluates admissions application - this being a novel, the essays of the applicants are of particular interest to her - discusses her job and Princeton admissions with all sorts of students and parents ar various stress levels, participates on the admission committee that makes the ultimate decision on these matters, and finally becomes so involved in one special application that she puts her job on the line for that young person. It's all fascinating stuff for an outsider, written by someone in a position to know who writes awfully well.
(Some full disclosure here. My stepson graduated from Princeton in May of 2008, so the setting of the novel was of particular interest to me. I attended the graduation. If I can believe the novel - and on this point, I do - Princeton seeks to admit a class of brilliant kids who are not self conscious about either the brilliance or the Ivy League status. From what I saw, admissions does a great job on the brilliance. The absence of self-consciousness? I'm not so sure.
Also, Portia Nathan makes the same point to just about every one she meets, that Princeton is looking for more than academic ability, that 'little extra something' that sets the applicant apart. That would be just wonderful if Princeton were the only elite institution with that criterion. But Stanford also looks for that little extra something, as does Harvard, as does Yale, as do all of them. The practical result is that an entire cottage industry exists, specializing in creating that little extra something on a mass produced basis. Obviously, when everybody has that special cachet, no one does.
The practical effect of all this is a strong statement to the youth of the land, that, if you want to join the establishment, you had better have done something noteworthy before you're 17. This is almost certainly an appalling thought to both the author and her alter ego. (One of the best short passages in the book is a little section where Portia speculates how many Princeton undergrads wrestle uneasily with some version of impostor syndrome.) But I do believe that an insistence on some sort of labored, artificial precocity in applicants is one of the consequences, doubtless unintended, of this emphasis on 'something special'. Two generations ago, James Michener opined that nothing a man (sic) did before he was 40 was really of much value, that that time was all preparation. That's probably too emphatic the other way. But if I had to choose between the two, I'll take Michener.
One other point. There's a big emphasis throughout the book on the importance of diversity, the end of the white male bastion of privilege. Well and good - I don't think any one really disagrees with this. But I was struck by one factoid I ran across while reading the second volume of Rick Atkinson's history of American troops in Europe, The Day of Battle. In commenting on the extraordinary demographic breadth of the US Army in World War II, he used Princeton as an example. (These days, Princeton and/or Stanford seem to be the universal stand-ins for elite universities.) Eighty-four percent of the graduating class of 1942 joined the armed forces. Both the valedictorian and salutatorian joined as enlisted men.
So I don't know. Sixty years ago, Princeton may have been a fortress of privilege, but when push came to shove, the privileged joined the rank and file. Looking back at the brilliant young people of the class of 2008, I wondered how many of them would have the same sense of obligation in a true national crisis. For sure I couldn't envision too many of them doing KP. The thought crossed my mind that underlying all this diversity (with that 'little something special' yet) was the same old 'noblesse', but without the same old 'oblige'. I wondered whether that was really all that much of an improvement.
The background was not the only thing I liked about 'Admission' - a slight, but well written, well executed little book. The book has other interesting aspects, and I am going to devote another post to them. But this one is long enough.


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What does the new leasing standard do?
Under prior guidance, leases were classified as either (1) capital leases, which were capitalized on the balance sheet, or (2) operating leases, which were expensed and appeared only as disclosures in the notes to the financial statements.
Many companies worked to structure their leases as operating so they were off balance sheet. Fewer capital leases meant fewer liabilities viewed as debt; less debt improved leverage and made the company more attractive to banks and other lenders. Cash-strapped companies with high debt were especially eager to keep lease obligations off the balance sheet.
To increase transparency and eliminate incentive for off-balance-sheet strategies, the FASB issued ASU 842. Now all leases — with a few exceptions, like those less than 12 months — will be on the balance sheet. The benefits of structuring leases as operating leases mostly disappear. Leasing decisions will be made for primarily business reasons rather than accounting purposes.
As opposed to lessees, lessors don't face as big a change to their accounting. They'll generally continue to classify leases as sales-type, direct financing or operating. Our discussion therefore focuses on issues for the lessee.
When is the standard effective?
ASC 842 is already in effect for public calendar year-end companies. For private companies, it is effective for calendar years beginning January 1, 2020.
Healthcare entities often have service arrangements which include a physical asset (e.g., a medical device) and/or other goods (e.g., medical consumables) and services. These service arrangements must be scrutinized to determine whether the physical asset is indeed being leased under the new standard. These arrangements containing a leased asset within an overarching service contract are referred to as an "embedded lease." An embedded lease likely exists if the arrangement contains an identified physical asset that is indeed controlled by the customer.
In some cases, the existence of embedded leases may be easily overlooked. In other cases, entities must make difficult decisions about whether the service arrangement contains a lease.
Many calendar year-end public healthcare companies found the adoption (aka Day 1) and planning for operationalization (Day 2) of the new standard to be longer and costlier than expected, given the complexity and volume of operating leases, including embedded operating leases. Simply identifying and inventorying all leases proved a greater challenge than anticipated.
Also, some entities underestimated the time and effort required to understand and adopt the new standard because it is principles-based and no longer contains clear rules, thus requiring subjective judgment.
Most simply did not devote enough internal resources, or enlist the help of external resources and/or technology solutions soon enough. Due to high lease volume, the effort to abstract and validate data proved overwhelming. Many companies rightly selected a technology solution but struggled with the brute-force effort to obtain and digest data to put in it. To be clear: This was not a system problem, but rather a data issue.
Overall, healthcare companies struggled with fundamental problems that can be avoided with proper planning and assistance. Unfortunately, these struggles left many companies scrambling for Day 1 compliance while tabling Day 2 operational optimization.
The following recommendations address areas of focus for healthcare companies as they seek to adopt and operationalize the new standard.
Achieve buy-in internally by involving key internal stakeholders early.
Adopting the new standard requires engagement and support from key stakeholders across the company.
Key internal stakeholders must be made aware of the new guidance, so they can better understand how it will impact them. Such stakeholders outside of the accounting and finance area may include real estate, procurement, internal counsel and IT personnel. All will need to be educated on the new standard and their own importance to the overall success of adoption and post compliance.
Some key internal stakeholders will have little contact with the accounting and finance department or experience in adopting new accounting standards. Thus, some may deem the project a low priority without a better understanding of the overall impact and scale it may require. Achieving buy-in from top management to ensure cooperation across the business prior to project commencement is essential.
Note: Complexity of a project can easily double, or triple when there's an increased number of locations and key internal stakeholders in a highly decentralized company.
Involve external stakeholders: They have an important role throughout the project.
A healthcare company will have numerous external stakeholders that should be involved during the project, including lenders, service providers and auditors.
Lenders: Depending on a healthcare company's capital structure, many having debt will need to discuss with their lenders what impact, if any, the standard may have on their debt covenants. Many lenders are familiar with the new standard and are working to understand potential impacts on their lending arrangements. Taking a proactive approach is generally appreciated by lenders; failing to do so could result in potential covenant failures in the future when lenders surely will not be so accommodating.
Service providers: Enlisting the help and having an arrangement with a service provider can greatly assist in assessing whether an embedded lease exists. In general, both parties to the arrangement should look at it similarly (i.e. the arrangement is, or isn't, a distinct physical asset controlled by the customer). Consider involvement by landlords and equipment vendors as well when evaluating subjectivity or ambiguity in a lease contract.
External auditors: They should be involved throughout the initial adoption process to avoid challenges and rework. Auditors can be particularly helpful when companies are drafting policies to help develop agreed-upon rules upfront. Additionally, involving auditors in making subjective judgments among varying material outcomes should be welcomed by both parties.
Inventory all leases: Search and identify a comprehensive and complete list of existing and new leases.
For many healthcare companies, simply identifying all leases will prove to be a challenge. It will be especially difficult in highly decentralized hospital systems with multiple locations and complex service arrangements.
First, healthcare companies should start to inventory existing operating leases by working backwards from their latest five years and thereafter commitments and contingency footnote support and known operating leases. Second, companies should develop and leverage lease questionnaires that both seek to uncover unknown leases and validate known leases by decentralized locations and accounting. Last, in conjunction with procurement staff, service providers should be identified in which physical assets may be being conveyed as part of the arrangement, thus creating the potential for an embedded lease.
Companies should strongly consider having a repository to store electronic copies of leases as they are identified and inventoried. Having easy access to lease documents will become crucial in performing data abstraction and validation.
Healthcare companies should not expect employees in the field to fully understand the new standard. Employees will benefit from additional resources and protocols when attempting to identify and interpret leases in accordance with new corporate policy.
Solve the data problem: Perform data abstraction and validation by individual lease, identifying ALL pertinent data and aggregate lease data in a highly uniform and structured format ready for a technology solution.
For many companies, abstracting and validating key lease information has proven to be very difficult. Furthermore, companies should strongly consider all data elements that may be necessary for proper accounting with their chosen technology solution in mind.
Healthcare companies should not underestimate the resourcing and expertise necessary to abstract and validate lease data. Companies should be careful to think about what format and data elements will ultimately be required for their chosen technology solution. Analyzing and extracting lease data one time for the right information and data elements will mitigate the need to revisit and reexamine leases for additional data elements, which will be very time consuming and costly.
Abstracting and validating data may well be the most labor-intensive and time-consuming activity as companies work to adopt the new standard. Companies should strongly consider budgeting time per lease and then double it!
Choose a technology solution wisely: Not all lease technology solutions are created equally — each has its advantages and disadvantages.
Overall, healthcare companies with a high volume of leases will need a strong technology solution, of which there is not a shortage. The majority of the available lease technologies are cloud based and will work with most ERP systems.
Some lease technology companies have been in business for many years. Others have been established more recently for helping companies adopt the new standard. Historically, some focused on real estate leases, others on equipment leases. Now most accommodate both.
The new standard gives companies the opportunity to rationalize a lease technology solution by automating processes and mitigating manual effort through automation, built-in workflow and inherent controls. Generally, there is a strong case for achieving ROI within one to two years.
Structuring of pricing for implementation and on-going subscription costs can vary significantly by solution. Generally, most are priced based on volume of leases or lease portfolio value, or a combination of both. Healthcare companies with a high volume of leases should be especially wary of low cost and unproven solutions.
When selecting a technology solution, healthcare companies should prioritize and consider the following:
Note: Lease technology solutions discussed above focus on leases by a lessee and not the lessor. Some of the solutions will allow and account for sublease income but are specifically designed to accommodate lessor accounting.
Plan for Day 2 operationalization: A technology solution will go a long way to ease lease accounting under the new standard; however, necessary change management involving people and process cannot be ignored to maintain compliance post adoption.
Many companies that fell behind in their implementation plans for Day 1 adoption were forced to forgo efforts to further operationalize for Day 2 optimization. Some have potentially risked on-going compliance as a result.
Getting a healthcare company to Day 1 adoption is not the end of a leasing project. A well-thought-out project plan and implementation partner will drive a Day 2 focus that will mitigate risk and lower on-going costs of compliance.
Starting up a leasing Center of Excellence (COE) within the company to focus on Day 2 is considered a best practice. A properly established COE might perform the following:
The new lease accounting standard will have a significant impact on most healthcare companies given the historical high volume of operating leases now required to be shown on the balance sheet.
Healthcare companies will struggle and risk compliance if they fail to adequately plan, involve the right partners and technology solutions and generally underestimate the overall effort. However, with proper foresight a prepared healthcare company can successfully:


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Armada Carmel Windstopper Mittens Men's
Item#: R00411
Availability : In-Stock
Have your wind protection and comfort too. Gore Windstopper® keeps out gusts from mother nature and the fleece lining wraps your hand in a soft embrace. Thick enough for protection and durability but thin enough for dexterity and articulation. Silicone palm keeps poles from slipping on skin track to holding grabs even longer.Armada Carmel Windstopper Mittens Men's Features:
- Articulated Fingers
- Palm: Synthetic Suede Silicone Palm Print
- Tech: Gore Windstopper® Lining
- Lining: Gore Windstopper® 177g Fleece on hand back
- Gore Windstopper® 140g Fleece on palm


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This week I'm taking part in WWW Wednesday, it is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words.
There are just three questions to answer:
- What are you currently reading?
- What did you recently finish reading?
- What do you think you'll read next?
What are you currently reading?
Autoboyography by Christina Lauren – I've been trying to get back to this book for a month. Like I discussed in my March TBR, I started this book in January but then got distracted and never got back to it until now! I'm so excited to get back to this.
What did you recently finish reading?
Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare – I can't quite believe this is the first book of the series. The first book distroyed me, I'm not sure how I am going to wait the year or how I am going to survive the series.
What do you think you'll read next?
Dear Girl by Aija Mayrock – I'm keeping my answer from last time I did this. I still need to finish this collection. I am about 75% done with it, so hopefully I can finish it soon!
Comment down below what you're reading!


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A man has been accused of raping a woman in her 80s while robbing her house in west London.
Robert Lashley, of Blythe Road, in Brook Green , has been charged with the rape of the pensioner and of burglary.
It is not known where the pensioner's home is but police confirmed the attack was at around 8am on Saturday (August 16) in west London and the woman physically did not suffer any serious injuries.
The 32-year-old man appeared at a short hearing at Hammersmith Magistrates Court this morning (August 18).
He has been remanded in custody and magistrates committed him to return to Isleworth Crown Court on September 2.


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Increase Revenue with Modern Continuing Education Software
How using modern eCommerce principles drives revenue in Continuing Education
Community colleges have an opportunity to not only retain but gain enrollment rates and increase their revenue through non-credit programming. Easier said than done, community colleges first need to ensure that their students understand the value of non-credit programs and how they can benefit their career growth. It's up to the colleges to provide their learners with the education they need, while guiding them through it. In this interview, Kristin Gubser discusses the obstacles community colleges face, the importance of transfer pathways for students and how focusing on non-credit degree programming can help bring in more tuition dollars.
Kristin Gubser (KG): From the global perspective, one of the biggest roadblocks is making sure that students understand what they're choosing when they enroll in college training, whether that be a credit or non-credit program and whether they earn a credential, certificate or degree. College certificates and degrees still hold a lot of value. As individuals start with the non-credit training program, they shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the credit, certificate or degree can serve a purpose throughout their careers. Making sure students really understand what they're taking, when they're taking it and why, is important.
One of the biggest roadblocks specifically to community colleges in growing non-credit enrollment is technology. The records systems, enrollment systems, and procurement systems that community colleges have become dependent on to report to the federal government and to our accrediting agencies are cumbersome. It is a real challenge for community colleges to be significant players in the non-credit training space if backend support isn't there for them.
KG: It's virtually impossible for a community college to try to mimic an Amazon-like system on its own. That type of marketplace is so important to non-credit training because there is so much training available. In order for a student to be able to find the best type of training for the right price at the right time—having a one-stop shop—is incredibly valuable. But with the systems that colleges rely on today, having that storefront marketplace is practically impossible.
KG: Non-credit and credit programs tend to attract different audiences. So, you're reaching out to and serving different markets. Oftentimes, the credit programs are really targeting the just out of high school, first to college, straight into school type of student as well as the older adult student. These students might have some training, and a family to take care of, and they tend to be more mature in their careers. These individuals may need that college credential in order to move up into leadership and managerial positions.
The non-credit market is really for skill enhancement–to be able to test professional competencies, where individuals can access training very quickly on their own time. They're not looking for programs for which they're going to need federal financial aid. They understand that they are paying for non-credit training that it is immediately going to pay off in terms of a pay raise and increased responsibility.
If community colleges don't enter that space, they're losing that type of non-credit student. If we can attract them with quick training, non-credit credentials, and deliver them a great experience, they're more likely to stay with the community college. And their families will stay with that college through generations of the lifelong learning cycle.
KG: It's incredibly important. We, at GateWay Community College, which is part of the Maricopa County Community College District in Arizona, were eliminated from our state budget a number of years ago. We have tried–and we continue to pursue–different ways to generate revenue to make up for that loss in aid. but it's almost a catch-22. We have to generate revenue, so we can keep our programs affordable. Many of our programs are equipment-heavy and technology-heavy so that we can graduate the most highly trained professionals who don't need on-the-job training. They're ready to work in the field on day one. That type of equipment and technology is very expensive.
It's quite an interesting balancing act–to generate revenue but stay faithful to our commitment and mission. What we want to do for students is be as affordable, accessible and high-quality as we possibly can. So, we are very creative and always looking at ways to leverage our assets through either cost-sharing or revenue-generating partnerships. We want to help fill that gap so that we don't have to depend on increased taxes and tuition. That isn't part of our mission. We want to be the solution, not the problem.
KG: It doesn't replace what we're doing in terms of trying to scale and strengthen non-credit training. It certainly complements it and allows us to really expand our reach across the country in areas that we wouldn't be able to reach on our own. It enables us to leverage our collective strengths and highlight the program areas that we're really strong in at GateWay. We can conduct feasibility tests for new training and programs by tracking data in ways that we haven't been able to before. The marketplace platform provides a lot of rich data on what is trending with students and what price points they're willing to pay for non-credit training.
Where the opportunities exist, we can then then extrapolate full credit programs from some of the non-credit training, and perhaps outreach to those students so they can finish their certificate or degree as they move through their career.
Locally, we will continue to offer non-credit community education workshops for enrichment, as well as custom contract training. But by being a part of a marketplace, we're able to make sure that if we don't have what a student needs, we can connect them to training at another college. We're making sure that students succeed no matter where they start or what program they choose. It's been a real benefit for us to scale some of our efforts nationally, as a lot of the things we've wanted to do solely as one college would've been too manpower-intensive, marketing-intensive, and technology-intensive.
KG: We would encourage them to go to the marketplace. The marketplace is a wonderful tool and a resource for individuals looking to compare cost, time, programs, and training. When it's a business-to-business need, when an employer needs custom or non-credit training for a group of employees, it would be more of a college-to-business relationship. Whereas with any individuals looking to move up to that next level, to get into a field, to re-career, we would direct them to the marketplace to do that comparative shopping.
KG: It's going to take an institution-wide understanding of the benefits of that type of delivery. At GateWay we offer clock-hour training in addition to non-credit and credit-hour programs. A collective understanding of the markets we serve through each type of training, and that each type of training presents different opportunities for student success, will position us well to maximize lifelong learning potential for all.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Disclaimer: Embedded links in articles don't represent author endorsement, but aim to provide readers with additional context and service.
How using modern eCommerce principles drives revenue in Continuing Education
Author Perspective: Administrator, Community College


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A key component of meeting global carbon reduction targets will be the strong development of the renewables sector. But with it comes huge capital requirements. As financiers seek alternative financing models that ease issuers' access to capital, Trevor D'Olier-Lees, senior director, global infrastructure ratings, S&P Global Ratings, believes the growing use of "bundling" will be part of the solution particularly with respect to distributed generation
There's a global need for more renewable energy sources, driven mostly by their favourable economics but, in part, following the Paris Climate Agreement's (COP21) ratification, which requires countries to limit their carbon output. Although this has inadvertently created investment demands in the region of US$1 trillion a year for renewable projects globally, finding ways to tackle this huge sum is a monumental task – especially when projects that are otherwise financeable may not gain interest on account of their smaller size. After all, a US$5 million wind farm deal is unlikely to gain the attention of the larger investors.
On the bright side, we have observed that infrastructure financiers and issuers have already found ways to increase asset financing volumes via more inventive financing arrangements. Notably, the aggregation of portfolio assets, known as "bundling", has become increasingly recognised as a potential investment vehicle for infrastructure finance, but it has found its sweet spot in renewables financing.
Bundling: a result of requirement
Traditionally considered a staple for mortgage securitisation, bundling works by an issuer grouping similar assets (such as rooftop solar) into a single unit in order to sell to investors. This allows issuers to transform smaller asset financings into a larger tranche of debt that can attract the interest of institution investors – a reason why it is particularly apt for the renewables sector.
This trend has manifested for various reasons but the key factor is the challenge of trying to balance the interests of multiple parties. Indeed, the issuer's need for value for money can often be misaligned to the investors' requirement to maximise returns while minimising risk. And opportunities to match these requirements are not easily met via single asset financings that command relatively low transaction values.
The increasing prevalence of bundling, however, presents additional financing options for institutional investors to connect with the vibrant pipeline of planned renewables assets. By combining assets, each party's priorities can be harmonised more easily and this can, therefore, lead to greater interest from capital markets.
The rise of bundling in renewables
It must be stressed that bundling is not new for certain types of renewables such as project financing of larger utility scale on-shore wind assets. Yet, infrastructure financiers are increasingly looking to bundle smaller sized assets, including smaller commercial and rooftop solar installations – with strong interest in bundled deals being seen across Europe and Asia.
In this respect, we've seen various financing models in the renewables sector come to the fore and their application is dependent on the issuer's preferences. First, corporate vehicles – such as the Brookfield Renewables Partners L.P. (BEP), which boasts a well-diversified portfolio comprising mostly hydropower plants – can ensure more stable cash flows by securing lower operating costs on account of their larger scale, and long-term contracts backed by investment-grade counterparties. And in BEP's case, with assets on 82 river systems in three continents, the transfer of asset risk is more readily achieved.
Another option we've observed is a bundled project financing structure. In 2016, for instance, Vela Energy ensured the refinancing of bank loans used to construct a group of 42 solar photovoltaic (PV) parks, located across Spain, with an aggregated gross generation capacity of approximately 87.7 megawatts (MW).
Given that these systems can be made up of hundreds (even thousands) of individual panels, bundling of similar assets can lead to lower technical review costs in those instances where a more systematic approach can be taken to evaluating overall asset quality.
Lastly, institutional investors can explore the use of securitisation structures – most commonly associated with mortgages – whereby illiquid infrastructure loans or debt are converted into tradable securities. A key feature is the creation of tranches which allows investors to select a profile suitable to their risk appetite.
Ultimately, what these methods have in common is the ability to create scale – a crucial factor in appeasing all parties' interests. While it cannot be considered a magic bullet for the financing gap, bundling could help produce win-win scenarios for all involved counterparties. With this in mind, we expect bundling's application in renewable energy financing to continue.
Trevor D'Olier-Lees is senior director, global infrastructure ratings, at S&P Global Ratings


text: I love baking and I love sweets. Except, I try to limit the amount of refined sugar and fat I have in my diet. This creates a problem. How can I still bake but not create food that isn't good for me? Well, I've been experimenting a little more with adding in beans. I know it sounds weird, but black bean brownies actually work. It's not just black beans either. I tried chickpea chocolate chip cookies last month, and those were pretty delicious also. So these black bean brownies aren't the healthiest thing on the planet. They still have some sugar and chocolate. But as a whole, they are much better for me than any other brownie recipe I've ever made. I even lightened them up a little more than the original recipe by taking out a 1/4 cup of sugar. These black bean brownies turned out really well for two reasons. First, the addition of the coffee (I actually opened a nespresso capsule and added that directly), really brings out the richness of the cocoa powder. Second, the chocolate chips give it all the richness and sweetness it needs, in my opinion. The black bean brownies are actually quite rich, even with very little fat in them. If you're trying to eat on the healthier side, I'd definitely suggest you give these a try. Or, if you're like me, you might want to find ways to sneak in more healthy ingredients for your kids. They don't love beans on their own, but I know they'll eat a black bean brownie or a chickpea cookie if I offer it to them. Mom win. Are you looking for a classic brownie recipe? Check out my phish food brownies or my friend Ramona's Fab Everyday's classic foolproof brownies. Easy Gluten Free Black Bean Brownies Ingredients: 1 (14 oz) canned low-sodium black beans, rinsed and drained 2 large eggs 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon oil 1 tablespoon unsweetened almond milk (or skim) 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground coffee or instant coffee 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, divided in half Directions: Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease a nonstick 9 x 9-inch square baking pan with baking spray. Blend the black beans, eggs, cocoa powder, sugar, oil, almond milk, balsamic, baking soda, baking powder and coffee in the blender until smooth and pour into a bowl. Fold in 1/2 cup chocolate chips until combined. Pour the brownie batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips evenly over the top of the brownies. Bake the brownies until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes. Allow the brownies to cool completely before slicing them into squares.


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My parents, Sidney and Lucy, were members of what has become known as "America's Greatest Generation."
They were both born to very poor southwest Louisiana farming families in southwest Louisiana near the junction of St. Landry, Acadia and Evangeline Parishes.
They were born to much simpler times when things were a lot easier going than the hectic pace of today.
Both were products of stern, hardworking and proud people. They worked the land and drew simple rewards from their religion, their family, their land and their community.
They grew up during the 1920's when major changes were happening and eventually the Great Depression set in.
My mother had thought that she was going to be an "old maid" at 21 until my dad asked her to marry him. As products of these trying hard times, they eventually met and were married on February 2, 1938.
Little did they realize that a second great war was looming just over the horizon.
Mom was a devout Catholic, religious and a wonderful protector of her children. Mom spent the war years bringing into this world and raising three of her five children. I was one of the children born during the war on the very same day that my Dad was in Lafayette undergoing his physical exam in preparation for his service in the U. S. Marine Corps.
Dad was the family provider -- often working long hours six and sometimes seven days a week to provide the basic necessities for his wife and five children. Dad relished hard work. He worked as a butcher, a laundry delivery man, a bread route supervisor, a factory worker, a gas station worker/owner and an apartment manager which he held for the last 25 years of his life.
Mom spent all of her life dedicated to her family and was paramount in instilling decent values into us as children. She was instrumental in teaching us right from wrong, caring for others and loyalty to family. She always gave of herself and would always put her children's needs before her own.
During the last year of the war, Dad served in the U. S. Marine Corps. He entered into the service too late to see any combat action and served on the west coast as a military policeman. He was to take part in the inevitable invasion of the Japanese home islands -- but along with millions of others was spared this great battle.
Mom was but a simple country girl. She held on to her beliefs of family tradition, family respect and a strong understanding that there was good in each and every person whose path touched her life.
Dad always made sure that Christmas was a special time for the Richard children. Each and every Christmas, the children of Sidney and Lucy always had something to open on Christmas morning -- even during the very lean years of the early 1950's -- when things were very tight for them financially.
He made a point of getting gifts for his children on an installment plan and then paying for those Christmas presents over the coming year.
Both Mom and Dad were devout Catholics, religious and stern. They raised five children -- a daughter and four sons. They always were extremely proud of their children and their accomplishments.
We lost Mom on September 27, 2002 following a short hospital stay. She was admitted for a surgical procedure to correct an ongoing problem.
Two weeks later, the family gathered to remember her passing and to place her in her final resting place in Eunice -- the town where she had spent most of her life.
Less than a year later, we lost Dad on August 30, 2003. With his favorite Grandson by his side, Dad died peacefully in his sleep, following a three month battle with lung cancer.
Mom and Dad now rest peacefully, forever side-by-side in the small town of their birth.
Mom and Dad,
you are in our thoughts
for all time.
We Miss You.


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The beach of San Giovanni di Sinis is in the municipality of Cabras, Oristano. It is one of the most beautiful beaches of the island and one of our favorite places. Not only for its natural beauty and crystalline waters, but also by the special energy that sit next to the ruins of the Phoenician city of Tharros.
The beach is known for its characteristic fishing huts made of wood and rattan. Its beach is notable for the presence of these houses and the typical Mediterranean vegetation growing on the dunes. It is possible to practice surfing, snorkeling and diving. It is a beach to enjoy the sea and sun without crowds even in summer.
The beach has several restaurants. We usually go to the bar Ristorante da Marina, where they serve various fish dishes, salads, etc and have a great terrace to eat in the shade. You can also go to dinner (and yes, we recommend at night better to dine inside by mosquitoes).
Comment of the tourist: It is very important to carry an umbrella that will serve to protect us from the strong sun in the morning, and probably often wind up in the afternoon. If you decide to visit the ruins of Tharros in summer (would be a sin not to!) best to go early in the morning if the day is sunny or late afternoon when the sun is not so strong. Especially we recommend buying the ticket which includes a visit to the ruins and the entrance to the Spanish tower (the view from the top of the tower are the most breathtaking of the whole island! Do not forget the camera!).
And I said how much I like touristic miniature trains? People often say "ah, that's for tourists !!", they don't know what they're missing !!. In Sardinia I am happy because there are several for my enjoyment and in Tharros could not miss one! You can leave the car comfortably in the parking lot next to the church of San Giovanni di Sinis (since in the area of the ruins and below are not allowed to park), and right there you can take the little train "Trenino di Tharros" that will take us for a full tour of the beach about 35 minutes, passing through the ruins until the end of the peninsula.
The train makes several stops and we can access to the remote beaches at the end, and take a bath in that area, even to swim up right in front of these ruins. An experience that takes us to a distant past .. and unique in the Mediterranean. The little train runs from March to September, from 9am to 19pm daily and the price are 2.5 €
Situación: https://www.google.es/maps/place/SanGiovannidiSinis


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BAR: Where should you set your 2018 expectations?
The Blog Above Replacement a daily look at the Cincinnati Reds, their minor leagues and whatever else is on the mind of Enquirer Reds beat writers, C. Trent Rosecrans and Zach Buchanan. You can follow them on Twitter (@ctrent and @ZachENQ), Facebook (C. Trent Rosecrans and Zach Buchanan) and Instagram (ENQReds).
It would be impossible to feel worse about the starting pitching situation for the Reds now than you did in at the end of June.
Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle, though both shut down for the season, impressed once reaching the majors. Sal Romano and Robert Stephenson seemed to have turned a corner in a major way. Even Homer Bailey seems to have worked out his kinks.
The rotation will be in better shape next year, even before you get to the returns of Anthony DeSclafani and Brandon Finnegan from their respective injuries. So it's full steam ahead for this team in 2018, right?
Not so fast, I'd say. Now there are questions about the bullpen and the offense, the two things that propped the Reds up early in the year. Adam Duvall and Scott Schebler have experienced deep second-half slides, although one of them may have to sacrifice time for Jesse Winker next season. The Reds will lose Zack Cozart and likely replace him with Jose Peraza. It's anybody's guess whether Scooter Gennett can repeat his 2017 season.
In the bullpen, the only proven leverage arm is Raisel Iglesias. Michael Lorenzen is still finding his way after a rough second half. Wandy Peralta's had a nice rookie season, but that's no guarantee of future success. Drew Storen will be gone, and all that will remain are intriguing but unproven youngsters like Ariel Hernandez, Kevin Shackelford and Jimmy Herget. Or converted young starters who haven't done it before.
So where to set your expectations for next year? That's what C. Trent and I discuss on this week's episode of the Reds Beat Podcast, along with what trade chips make the most sense for the Reds to move this offseason.
How to listen:
• In the podcast section of the Cincinnati.com Reds app, available on iTunes and Google Play
• Subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher Radio
• Subscribe on Audioboom
• Or simply hit play below
- Billy Hamilton could be back as soon as today, but he'll be limited.
I am handling our Friday mailbag, so email me your Reds questions at firstname.lastname@example.com or tweet them to me with the above hashtag.
And since you made it this far...
- Alex Gordon hit the record-breaking home run yesterday, and Tyler Kepner of the New York Times takes you through the theories behind sped-up home run pace this year.
- Here's an uplifting story about how a community helped improve things for a young boy with Treacher Collins syndrome who was getting bullied at school.
- UC's Crosley Tower was dragged for being ugly by Architectural Digest.
- Today in Zach Watches Too Many Movies and TV Shows: I'm happy Vice Principals is back on HBO. I was iffy on it when the first season started a year ago, feeling it was just a watered-down version of Eastbound and Down. But call me a convert. It's all about Walton Goggins' performance as Lee Russell. I want to consume it intravenously. It's that fun.


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British post black metallers Cairiss are proud to announce that they have released their debut EP "Fall" since the 6th of June 2016. Cairiss is a female-fronted, atmospheric black post metal band from Southampton, UK and the brain child of Ethan Bishop in collaboration with his partner, Freyja Brown. Their influences include bands such as Opeth and Alcest. They released their first demo track "Disgraced" in 2014, which has generated over 70,000 views on YouTube and over 600 downloads via their official Bandcamp page! The new EP "Fall" is available for now only digitally, while a few physical CDs are available at the band's gigs.
1. For the Lives He Stole – 12:47
2. Disgraced – 09:35
3. Fall – 07:56
Freya Jane Brown – vocals, lyrics
Ethan Bishop – guitars, bass, production
Connor Frapwell – drums
Martin Williams – guitars
Cairiss official page
Cairiss @ Facebook
Cairiss @ Twitter
Cairiss @ Bandcamp


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Gateway City educators returned to school following the winter break pinching themselves. Just before the holidays, Gov. Baker signed the Student Opportunity Act (SOA), a landmark bill that promises to deliver $1.4 billion annually in new state aid. Districts now have until April 1 to file spending plans with the state detailing how they will
How Gateway City schools capitalize on new funding
Gateways Episode 45
This week on Gateways, we look ahead to implementation of the Student Opportunity Act. Passed by the legislature in November, the new law will provide Gateway City schools with millions of dollars in additional state aid beginning in 2020.
With education bill-signing, cheers and challenges
State now must maintain funding and ensure it's well spent
AFTER YEARS OF false starts and Beacon Hill standoffs on a growing funding crisis that has seen school districts shed hundreds of teachers and pare back vital curriculum offerings to balance budgets, Gov. Charlie Baker signed landmark legislation on Tuesday committing the state to $1.5 billion in new aid to Massachusetts schools. There was a
MassINC Insights, Part II
Gateways Episode 40
In this second installment of MassINC Insights, we hear from the journalists and thought leaders of MassINC about the education funding debate.As lawmakers on Beacon Hill approach agreement on a school finance package, MassINC members dig in to the history of Massachusetts school funding that's led
New education funding bill spells opportunity for Gateway Cities
Gateways Episode 33
This week on Gateways, Ben Forman talks with Rep. Antonio Cabral, chair of the Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus, about the state legislature's rollout of a long awaited education funding bill. The bill, known as the Student Opportunity Act, would provide school districts with high percentages of low-income students
A guide to help Gateway City schools capitalize on a major opportunity
The Gateway Cities Journal
This morning Gateway City leaders received hopeful news when the Joint Committee on Education unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to bring state aid in line with the resource needs of K-12 public school districts over a seven-year period. In the words of the State House News Service, Gateway Cities have been waiting 1,400 days for this announcement.
How student leaders changed the culture at a Lynn charter school
Gateways Episode 29
This week on Gateways, Juana and Ben chat with guest Hannah Parker about the importance of high standards in education. Hannah recently graduated from KIPP Academy Lynn Collegiate, where she said she was shaped by the rigorous courses and and high standards. But as she progressed through school and
MassINC Research Provides Common Ground for Win-Win Chapter 70 Compromise
Uncovering the need for more focus and attention on local accountability
The dog days of summer are here. While parents, students, and a good number of teachers try to put school far out of mind, Massachusetts legislators are under the golden dome working through a once-in-a-generation education aid package. The sticking point seems to be "accountability"—some want schools to accept more supervision from the state in
Caradonio and the Lowell Citywide Family Council
Gateways Episode 24
The last installment in our local education accountability series begins with reflections from Ben and Juana on the journey. Then Jim Caradonio, former Superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools, visits MassINC to share lessons from his long career in public education.
In Holyoke, arts education takes front seat
Non-profit helps integrate creativity into the regular curriculum
SIX-YEAR-OLD JUAN patted an inflatable ball as he peered out of his blue-rimmed glasses. Which way to send the ball? What could he knock down? Juan was playing "human bowling" in Kat Lorenzi's kindergarten class in Holyoke. The objective was to get the ball to bounce off a few of his classmates, and figure out


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I have a number of customers who wants to set the power settings trough the TS, as opposed to using GPO's. I guess that makes sense if you want to allow you users to change the settings them self…
By default windows 7 will set the following power options:
- Sleep/standby in 15 min on battery (DC),
- Sleep/standby in 30 min on Power (AC).
- Hibernation after 360 min on both AC and DC.
- Sleep/standby when lid is closed on laptop.
Some of my customers do not want their machines to sleep or hibernate, unless the user makes this choice. this kind of rules out GPO, as that would prevent the users changing the settings. So to set the wanted default power options, we use POWERCFG, which is a native tool in Windows.
To see what options are available, open a command prompt with elevated privileges (Run as Administrator).
Type POWERCFG /?. to have all available parameters listed. You will see that there are quite many parameters to choose from, so to make it a little easier to work with, you can pipe the output to a TXT file like this powercfg /? > c:\PowerSyntax.TXT.
The best way though, is to check out Technet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748940(WS.10).aspx
As I explained earlier, I needed to disable automatic sleep and hibernation. The first ones are quite easy, as there are standard commands for setting the timeout for both sleep and hibernation. Setting the value to Zero will disable the feature…
Disable Standby/Sleep
- powercfg -x -standby-timeout-dc 0
- powercfg -x -standby-timeout-ac 0
Disable Hibernation
- powercfg -x -hibernate-timeout-dc 0
- powercfg -x -hibernate-timeout-ac 0
The next task was to not have anything happen when the Lid of the laptops is closed! This proved a little harder, as it not just setting a timer, but rather setting a function… Looking trough the Technet article, reveals the following method of doing this!
Disable Standby/Sleep when closing the Lid
- powercfg -setdcvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 4f971e89-eebd-4455-a8de-9e59040e7347 5ca83367-6e45-459f-a27b-476b1d01c936 0
- powercfg -setacvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 4f971e89-eebd-4455-a8de-9e59040e7347 5ca83367-6e45-459f-a27b-476b1d01c936 0
The above syntax is actually the valueindex switch with 3 GUID's and an index number
To find the correct GUID's you can run the /Q switch and pipe the output to a TXT file
- Powercfg /Q > C:\PowerGUID.txt
From the TXT file you can now pick up the Needed GUID's
- SCHEME_GUID – (notice the friendly name of the GUID in the Parentheses to the right of the GUID)
- SettingsIndex – (notice the friendly name of the index just beneath the index number)
You now have the info you need, so all there is to left do is run the commands as a step in your TS. Because its all command line stuff, I choose to use a bat/CMD script for that:
Running the script from a TS:
Add the command lines to a .CMD file, and place it in your scripts package. Create a "Run Command Line" Step, somewhere after the "Setup Windows and ConfigMgr" Step, and be aware that powercfg is placed in system32, so disabling 64-bit redirect on x64 systems, is necessary.


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We Provide Services - Employee salaries, employer payments for health insurance or similar benefits, payroll taxes paid by the employer, bonuses, commissions and similar expenses.
Training | Consulting
Learning organizations that demonstrate value to the business.
Management strategies that deliver results are more likely to receive investment from the business in future.


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After the Cranes drew 0-0 with Burundi in their CECAFA 2017 group B opener, their is little or no room for error in the remaining two games.
First up is a date with South Sudan, the team that beat in the first round of qualification for the CHAN tournament.
The Cranes attacking detail left alot to be desired in the first game and emphasis in training has been put on how to bleach defences.
"We have been working on several situations when attacking. Said Head coach Moses Basena.
"We are not looking at what South Sudan can do but rather concetrating on what we can do and trying to make those things better.
"We have most of the top scoring players in our league and hopefully the goals can start flowing in.
"There will be one or two changes to the team that started the game against Burundi because we need to win to stay in contention.
It is highly anticipated that Bright Stars' captain and joint second league top Scorer Nelson Ssenkatuka will start in today's game but it remains to be seen whether he will replace the misfiring Derrick Nsibambi start alongside him.
Uganda is currently third in the group with Burundi the leaders and Ethipia who at in second having played a game more that the Cranes.
The Cranes will face Ehtiopia in the last game of the group stages on Monday.
Meanwhile in Zambia, the U20 side The Hippos will be hoping to secure their second win of the tournament when they take on Swaziland.
The Hippos put on one hall of a show in the first game against host, defending and 10 time record COSAFA U20 champions Zambia as they defeated the Young Chipolopolo side 2-0 thanks to a brace from captain and teenage sensation Muhammad Shaban.
"We are lucky we won the first game but everyone knows it's not the end of the journey. Said Hippos head coach Matia Lule.
"We have been trying to correct the mistakes we made in the first game so as we don't make them against Swaziland.
The Hippos opponents Swaziland played out a 5 goal thriller with Malawi which they lost 3-2 in their first game.
Looking at the fact that they(Swaziland) are capable of scoring, The Hippos will have to beon guard at the back and shut out the South African side out whilst grabing one or two goals them selves but in Shaban who is in the form of his life, Matia Lule's side will surely be confident that the net will be ruttled.
Uganda will qualify for the quater finals with a game to spare if they win today while Swaziland will go out once defeated.
Malawi takes in Hosts Zambia at the same venue at 6:30 today while group C will see Angola play Namibia in the early kick-off.
CECAFA Senior challenge cup
Uganda vs South Sudan
Bukhungu Stadium, Kakamega-Kenya
COSAFA U20 Championships
Uganda vs Swaziland
Arthur Davis Stadium, Kitwe-Zambia


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Tag: trail running
It's the FINAL Countdown
The count down is over, Rebel Race is here. I am totally intimidated and totally under-trained! For the readers that aren't sure what I'm talking about, Rebel Race is a mud-endurance-obstacle race. It's a little like a mini-Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder is on my 40 before 40 list and I have never officially taken steps […]


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Defining the Spatial Localization of Human Innate Cell Precursors in Tissue by IMC | Emily Mace ,PhD
Hear how Emily Mace at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York is working to understand the spatial relationship between natural killer (NK) cell precursors and other immune cells and relevant cytoarchitecture using Imaging Mass Cytometry™. Human NK cells are critical immune effector cells that control viral infection and malignancy. Their importance is underscored by the severe disease that occurs when their development is impaired or dysregulated. In the work she describes here, her lab seeks to understand the molecular events that drive NK cell differentiation from common lymphoid progenitors.
In this webinar presented initially at the CYTO® 2020 virtual meeting, Mace introduces her lab's approach to answer key questions about human NK cell development. She discusses:
- The spectrum of developmental intermediates that show increasingly restricted lineage potential that can be isolated from tissue and give rise to mature, functional NK cells
- The spatial localization of NK cell developmental intermediates within human secondary lymphoid tissue
- Preliminary findings that provide an exciting foundation for the first in situ roadmap of human innate immune cell development in tissue
Emily Mace, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatric Immunology
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Emily Mace studies human natural killer cell development, particularly with quantitative image analysis and cell biological approaches. This includes the use of highly spatially and temporally resolved and super-resolution microscopy to understand interactions between NK cell precursors and the microenvironment. She also identifies novel requirements for human NK cell development through the identification and study of rare patients with NK cell deficiencies. This has included the characterization of NK cell functional and cell biological phenotypes associated with MCM10, GATA2, IRF8 and coronin 1A deficiencies.


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Craggy Collyde – Brno – Desert – 28 May 2022
Livestream from Masaryk University, Brno
On Friday 6 May we were invited to the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno to film a livestream. The full video can be… Read more "Livestream from Masaryk University, Brno"
New video for "Don't Put Me Down"
Here is the brand new video for "Don't Put Me Down", filmed at the Brno Exhibition Centre.
Brand new video for In The Shade of the Wild Oak Tree
New video clip for the song In the Shade of the Wild Oak Tree, taken from the 2020 mini-album Wrapped up in Ribbons, available here on Bandcamp
Wrapped up in Ribbons now on vinyl
New mini album Wrapped up in Ribbons will be available on limited edition 10″ vinyl from 29 May. Check the link for more details: https://craggycollyde.bandcamp.com/
English/Slovak duo Craggy Collyde release new album
Originally posted on R*E*P*E*A*T Fanzine- Fighting the Power Since 1994:
'Wrapped up in Ribbons' is the new six song mini album from English/Slovak duo Craggy Collyde,…
Wrapped up in Ribbon – out now
'Wrapped up in Ribbons' is released today. Our 6-track mini album is our first release since the Sorry Now/Go Ahead and Break Me in 2018. Listen, enjoy,… Read more "Wrapped up in Ribbon – out now"
New song 'Dead Refrain' out now: pre-order the new album.
We are thrilled to deliver unto you our new song 'Dead Refrain' from the upcoming mini-album 'Wrapped up in Ribbons'. The album will be released for download… Read more "New song 'Dead Refrain' out now: pre-order the new album."
More shows added for 2020
More to be added soon… 09/04/2020 – Turbina, Boskovice, CZ 18/04/2020 – Record Store Day at Romerov dom (formerly Prešporák), Bratislava, SK 23/04/2020 – Cafe Flexaret (acoustic… Read more "More shows added for 2020"
PRM Online interview
We stepped in to the RPM Online offices for a quick brew and a chat. Find the interview here: Craggy Collyde Interview


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Beautifully fitting pull-up pants, an essential in every woman's cupboard. Tailored in ponte.
- Skinny
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Learn more about styling below Explore Styling Tips
- Designed to be a tight fit
- Model wears a size S
- Model height 5'6


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Date/Time: Saturday, Feb. 18 at 2:30 p.m. ET
Channel: NBA TV
Live Stream: DIRECTV NOW (free 7-day trial) or Sling TV (free 7-day trial)
To give fans even more to be excited about for the NBA All Star Weekend, the NBA has decided to make the D-League All Star Game a part of the weekend's festivities in New Orleans. The NBA D-League (or developmental league) is the official minor leagues of the NBA, which means the league features the biggest names on the brink of becoming the next NBA stars.
NBA TV will be airing the NBA D League All Star game (you can check out the rosters here), but that doesn't mean you absolutely need cable to watch. If you want a NBA D League All Star Game live stream, you do have options available to watch it online free. Follow our guide below to watch the NBA D League All Star game online.
Watch A NBA D League All Star Game Live Stream Online With DIRECTV NOW
If you want to watch the NBA D League All Star Game online free, consider DIRECTV NOW. DIRECTV NOW is a streaming TV service that works just like cable, meaning you get dozens of channels live. But the price is around 25% of what you'd pay for cable. Over 60 live networks are a part of DIRECTV NOW's base package. You get TNT, TBS, Fox Sports, ESPN and way, way more for just $35 a month.
If you want to see how it works for yourself, there's a free 7 day trial of DIRECTV NOW available. You could watch a free stream of the NBA D League All Star Game, stay on for the whole NBA All Star Weekend, and then have the rest of the week to enjoy the service's channels without paying a thing. You do need to register your account with a credit card, but as long as you cancel your trial in time, you won't pay a thing. Read our DIRECTV NOW review to learn more.
Live Stream the NBA D League All Star Game With Sling TV
SlingTV is one of the leading ways to get a free NBA D League All Star Game stream that's 100% legal. If you don't know what SlingTV is, you need to pay attention if you're a sports fan. Sling TV is a cable alternative that has all the same networks as cable, just streaming online. The best part is that the price is a fraction of what cable costs. With SlingTV, you can watch TBS, TNT, Fox Sports, ESPN, and dozens more channels all live for just $20 a month.
If you're a basketball fan, you can take advantage of a free week of SlingTV to watch the whole NBA All Star weekend. Sling's free trial offer does require you to put in a debit or credit card, but nothing will be charged if you cancel in time.
And SlingTV can be streamed on just about any device you have, like a smart phone, a tablet, a smart TV and more. SlingTV can literally save thousands of dollars over cable, so it's worth checking out if you never have!
PlayStation Vue Will Have A Free NBA D League All Star Game Live Stream
One more way to get a NBA D League All Star Game live stream online is PlayStation Vue. You can read our full review of PS Vue to learn more, but here are the basics: Vue costs less than $30 a month for the cheapest package, and it's great for basketball lovers, spots fans, or anyone who watches cable TV. You get all the cable channels that you're used to – about 50 networks overall – for one low price. And you don't need a PlayStation to use Vue – you can watch almost anywhere on almost any device.
The NBA D League All Star Game is your chance to see some of the NBA's biggest stars before they become household names, so if you're a basketball fan, you're going to want to tune in. And with this guide, you can watch a NBA D League All Star Game stream on your cell phone, computer or TV completely free.


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'Invisible Child' wins $50,000 Gotham Book Prize
Andrea Elliott's Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, an in-depth portrait of New York City and the struggles and achievements of a black girl from Brooklyn, won the Gotham Book Prize for outstanding work on the city.
Elliott, whose book expands on his investigative series published in The New York Times in 2013, will receive $50,000.
"I often felt during the years of reporting on this book that New York City was a central character in the story," she said in a recent interview. "Any New Yorker knows that there are many cities in one city. But I think 'Invisible Child' also shows that it's one city.
Earlier this week, "Invisible Child" received the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, a $15,000 honor presented by the New York Public Library.
The Gotham Prize was established in 2020 by businessman and philanthropist Bradley Tusk and political strategist Howard Wolfson, who fund the prize themselves and have been committed to it for at least 10 years. James McBride's novel 'Deacon King Kong', set in Brooklyn in the late 1960s, won the award in 2021.
"Last year, the jury chose a novel that was outstanding but could have come out at any time," Tusk and Wolfson said in a statement Wednesday. "By choosing 'Invisible Child', the jury not only showed their willingness to embrace non-fiction, but they also clearly wanted to shine a light on the extremely difficult problem of homelessness, which has become even more serious in recent years. We hope Andrea's success here will inspire other writers to delve into the public policy issues that matter so much to our city.


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Robert Reich: Trump's Impeachment Is Getting Likelier With Every Tantrum—And He Can't Count on the Senate Anymore | Opinion
Donald Trump will almost certainly be impeached in the House, possibly as soon as Thanksgiving. The odds are rising that he'll be convicted in the Senate.
There are only two questions at stake, and the answers to both are becoming more obvious to more Americans every day.
The first is whether asking a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political opponent is an impeachable offense. The answer is indubitably yes.
When the framers of the constitution gave Congress the power to impeach a president, one of the high crimes they had in mind was acceding to what Alexander Hamilton called "the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils." James Madison argued for impeachment lest a president "might betray his trust to foreign powers."
The second question is whether Trump did this. The answer is also an unqualified yes. In the published version of his phone conversation with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump asks for the "favor" of digging up dirt on Joe Biden.
Everything Trump has tried to do to divert attention from these two facts is further undermining his case and his credibility.
Trump denies he ever asked Zelenskiy for help, claiming it's all hearsay. He blames the whistleblower. He likens the witnesses who informed the whistleblower to "spies". He blames it on a "political hack job." He accuses Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee and the person now in charge of the investigation, of "treason." He calls it a "coup" and suggests that if he's removed from office there will be a civil war. He dares the political system to stop him by publicly calling on China to help dig up dirt on Biden's son.
Trump's off-the-wall accusations, tantrums and defiance illustrate the need for parental control. Pelosi and Schiff are the adults—somber and restrained. The more Trump is the out-of-control child, the more they look like responsible parents.
A majority of Americans now support his impeachment.
Trump refuses to allow any administration official to appear before the House committees considering impeachment. No matter, because Congress doesn't need more evidence. The cookie is in plain sight. Everyone has seen Trump's hand in the jar.
House Democrats will vote to impeach, but will Senate Republicans vote to convict? Until now that seemed implausible. Democrats hold 47 Senate seats. If they all vote to convict, 20 Republicans would have to join them in order to have the necessary two-thirds of the Senate.
What was implausible is now possible. If the vote were held in secret, says Republican strategist Mike Murphy, 30 Republicans would vote today for impeachment. Former Republican senator Jeff Flake puts the likely number at 35.
Will they go public? Twenty-three Republicans are up for re-election next fall. Most are from red states that support Trump. But in a few months they'll be safe from primary challenges. They'll be free to vote him out.
Others—Susan Collins of Maine, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio, for example—are from purple states where they'll be challenged by a Democrat and have every incentive to vote Trump out. Trump has no leverage over long-serving senators planning to retire, such as Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
Meanwhile, he's losing support among responsible Senate Republicans like Mitt Romney of Utah, who calls his actions "troubling in the extreme", Nebraska's Ben Sasse, who urges colleagues not to "circle the wagons", and intelligence chair Richard Burr of North Carolina, who vows to "get to the bottom" of what happened.
Trump remains hugely popular among Republican voters but most of them care more about the economy than about Trump, and the economy is slowing—in large part because of Trump's trade wars.
The manufacturing sector is contracting. Spending on warehouses, offices and factories is falling. Agriculture is taking a big hit. A fifth of the economy is effectively in recession. In September, wage growth slowed to weakest pace in more than a year.
It's still unlikely Trump will be pushed out of office before the 2020 election but the odds are rising by the day. And Trump knows it, which is causing him to behave more like a wild child who deserves to be impeached.
Robert B. Reich is an American political commentator, professor, and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.


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George Adeosun
2014 – Recognized on the ACC Academic Honor Roll
2014 – Did not appear in any games … medically unable to perform. 2013 – Did not appear in any games … redshirted season after suffering a foot injury during fall practice.
Played offensive tackle at Alpharetta High School for head coach Jason Dukes … a native of Nigeria, didn't start playing football until reaching high school … started junior season on the junior varsity team and an injury forced him to make varsity debut blocking ESPN's No. 2 recruit and Auburn signee Carl Lawson … holding his own, he remained on varsity for the remainder of his career … student body president at Alpharetta High School … a four-star player by 247sports … a three-star player by Rivals.com, ESPN.com and Scout.com … major is undeclared and is currently studying in UVa's College of Arts and Sciences.


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Pakistan's trade deficit saw a decline of 35%, as it shrank to $5.72 billion from $8.79 billion in the first quarter of this fiscal year (July-September). There was a decrease of $3.06 billion in the trade deficit and almost all of it came from falling imports.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released the trade figures on Friday


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Russia defied all the odds to beat Spain on penalties and progress to the quarter-finals in one of the great World Cup upsets.
Goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev was the hero, saving penalties from Koke and Iago Aspas after 120 minutes of Russian resistance.
Artem Dzyuba's penalty cancelled out a Sergei Ignashevich own goal in normal time as Spain spent two hours on the ball with no threat.
And now the hosts, ranked the lowest team heading into the tournament, remarkably find themselves in the last eight of it as the 2010 world champions were left stunned.
It all started so well for La Roja after an own goal from Ignashevich, the ball bouncing in off his heel as he wrestled with Sergio Ramos in the 11th minute.
And the game settled into a predictable pattern, with Spain typically dominant in possession but reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.
Their lethargy was punished on 41 minutes when the ball struck Gerard Pique's outstretched arm in the box. Dzyuba sent David De Gea the wrong way to inspire one of the roars of the tournament.
A tense second-half saw a battle between Spanish tiki-taka and Russian legs. The hosts, visibly exhausted, managed to absorb their opponent's unrelenting but uninventive pressure.
Another 30 minutes seemed impossible for the tiring underdogs, but they kept their shape and continued to frustrate Spain.
La Roja's self-inflictive patience offered nothing for 105 minutes until Rodrigo was introduced and brought the kitchen sink on with him. One breath-taking dummy and he was in, forcing the first good save from Akinfeev and causing panic in the Russian box.
VAR threatened to crush Russian dreams but a tug on Pique in the box was not referred as the rain came crashing down on a stormy encounter and we had the first penalty shoot-out of the 2018 World Cup.
All four Russian penalties were converted, and crucially, two Spanish ones were saved. Akinfeev will be immortalised in Moscow after saving tame efforts from Koke and Aspas.
Star man
Over 100 appearances, but his career will be defined in five special minutes.
Moment of the match
Arguably the greatest moment of the World Cup so far. Russia, against all the odds, had beaten Spain.
talkSPORT are with listeners all day and all night at this year's 2018 FIFA World Cup™ with over 800 hours of World Cup content and all 64 games live across the talkSPORT network.


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Biome Update Now With Teleporter (#29)
Hey Tal'Dorians!
The Update is finally ready to go out; we are just giving it over to a couple of streamers to playtest for us and then off it will go to the community! Want to know who will be going live with it and when? Head over to our Twitter or Discord Server where we will alert you when they are going live!
Our Point Of Interest (POI) system has received many new objects and locations for you to find in the biomes, we won't spoil the fun and name them here so you will have to go and check for yourself. We also reworked a couple of our biomes on the world generator side of things, giving you a more varied experience when it comes to the terrain.
A new Enemy has entered the ring! Slime creatures have invaded Tal'Doria, and you can find them throughout the different biomes, but watch out as these guys have the ability to squash you from above.
We have added new POIs you can discover while traveling through the biomes!
So we have a secret that many of you missed in the demo! We noticed that very few people were able to find them, but in the demo, we had Treasure Gnomes that you could find as an Easter Egg in the game. They will be making their official return in this update and will come in all shapes and sizes and as the name suggests if you can take them out (That is if you're able to catch them before they escape), then you will have a pile of treasure to keep.
Food isn't the only crafting that will be in the game, and while the professions for the other crafting jobs are not finished, we have been busy making recipes for weapons, armor, healing and mana potions, rings, and amulets. Currently, we have over 600 recipes, and that is just scratching the surface of our recipe todo list!
Inventory is a massive thing in ARPGs, and many of you have requested bigger backpacks to store all your items. With the new update, there will be two tailor masters traveling the world who would love to make that backpack bigger for you, all you need is to provide them with the material and some coin for their time to get extra slots added to your backpack.
With crafting tables being needed for many recipes, being able to get quickly to one of those tables without having to spend hours walking through past biomes was something we felt was essential to the player. This is where 'Portal Stones' come into play, you will find these stones in some of the biomes, and once you activate them once you can teleport between them. Teleporting cost a few gold coins and so far no one in Tal'Doria has learned the secret as to why maybe you will be able to find out?
Discord: https://discord.gg/93RQdvz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuneXGames
Facebook: https://facebook.com/SuneXGames
Website: http://sunex-games.de/
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Liberal Democrats who like to talk politics at family functions. [Italics are me.]
"We were traveling in Canada recently, and you know what impresses the people up there most about Obama? He hasn't said one bad thing about Bush. He's just came in and got down to business."
"I didn't think Obama was going to win. I thought a bunch of racists were going to come out and vote against him."
Many yeah's, and much head nodding around the table as consensus is reached.
"Of course he was going to win. The Rethuglicans weren't even trying. McCain and Palin?! Come on!"
More yeah's, and head nodding, and a few chuckles.
"Waht it was, is the Republicans didn't want to be stuck holding the bag on the economy."
"You know what I like about Obama? That you don't have to hold your breath every time he strings together more than four sentences."
"Yeah, Bush was awful! I cringed every time he opened his mouth!"
"Wait. Seriously?"
What I had planned on asking, before the above conversation broke my will to utter the words, (guess I'm not so hardcore after all,) was this: "What do you make of all the unmanned drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan killing civilians and militants at a rate of 50 to 1?"
To tie it in with a favorite progressive trope of the Bush years that I hadn't been able to disabuse one particular cousin of, I thought I might add, (again, turns out I'm not hardcore at all!) "Think we would be doing that if Gore was president?"
[I follow Maine Owl's incessant drone coverage. Why are you trying to ruin my family dinners, The Owl? Well it didn't work this time, you scoundrel!]


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Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems play a significant role for all individuals by ensuring the registration of births, deaths, marriages, and other vital events, and the recording of causes of death. They provide individuals with legal forms of identification, enabling access to government services such as education and healthcare but also facilitating opening a bank account, formal employment and getting a driving license or a passport.
However, people in many countries face barriers that limit registration, and the impact of registration or lack of registration often depends on sex. The barriers potentially block women and girls from accessing services, restrict their enjoyment and exercising of rights and reinforce a gender gap. As a result, a gender lens is required because gender inequalities shape the constraints of CRVS systems, thus determining many of the gaps and challenges in using civil registration data for producing vital statistics.
This information note, developed by ESCAP, elaborates on these points and highlights the efforts underway in Asia-Pacific to address these issues.