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A2Agile Inc. provides businesses with workshops, training, and materials on Agile Methodologies.
Kristina Rudolph | Product Design — Ux Research & Design
Helene & Tom | Product Owners/Stakeholders
Duration | Sept. 2019 – Mar. 2020
Software/Materials | AdobeCS, Google Slides, Agile Methodologies
Why / How / What
- WHY: Product owners wanted a lower cognitive load for workshop participants and training materials and brand clarity.
- HOW: Qualitative Ux research in the field revealed formatting and design improvements for training materials, graphics, and icons.
- WHAT: Product owner & material outcomes (below)
- Raised awareness of potential design and material clarity
- Simplified the "Value Cycle" and developed building block icons transferable to workshop materials and slides
- Formatting improvements were addressed
- Improved cognitive load through simplified materials and slides
- Product owners training materials were cluttered, slides and materials were very text-heavy and lacked consistent iconography
- The product owners wanted a consistent look for lecture materials and slides to articulate an efficient flow of their two-day workshop
- The product owners proprietary "value cycle," infographic was hard to read on slides and overly complex to read on printed materials
Original Layout & Flow
Value cycle infographic
Initial product owner meeting
A 5-page report was released and a 2-hour meeting with the product owners revealed:
- Field research gathered from in-class materials and slides
- Field research gathered from workshop attendees
- Formatting issues discovered on slides and materials
- Design and content display recommendations to establish consistent iconography
- Feedback to specific slide content and microcopy opportunities
Pain points of focus
- "Value Cycle" redesign
- How the "Value Cycle" ties in with the SCRUM cycle
- Formatting PowerPoint consistency using templated slides
- New images and icons for slide materials
Interviews / Observations
- No personas were created
- On-site interviews and qualitative feedback were gathered
- Recordings and photographs revealed quotes, questions, and body language discoveries
- 5-page observational research was shared with product owners.
Addressing pain points
- Improvement of the visual identity was requested to help attendees better navigate and retain workshop content.
- The flow of slides and workshop booklet materials and exercises was inconsistent and confusing at times.
- There were issues with consistency on slides and a common brand identity theme.
Below design process shows value cycle training with SCRUM elements. Other information, icons, and slides from training have been omitted.
Agile Scrum sprints were done every couple of weeks dependant on scheduling availability followed by an hour-long virtual review with the product owners.
Feedback and iterations were discussed and elements of the design continued to be carried forward through each sprint.
Initial debrief "low-fi" visuals:
Sprint 1:
Sprint 2:
Sprint 3:
Sprint 4:
Sprint 5:
Final deliverable & components:
Three experiences were created to be used in different areas of the presentation materials to lower cognitive overload.
Stand-alone icons used as building blocks:
For use in slides to carry through concepts throughout the training, slides, and booklet materials.
For current A2Agile Inc. workshops visit: https://www.a2agile.com


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One person is feared dead after a trailer rammed into a barrier near Sanchangwan, Nakuru County.
The accident is reported to have occurred when the driver of the trailer lost control hitting the barrier.
It is understood that the barrier was recently constructed along the road to prevent serious road accidents.
- KeNHA cite fault along Naivasha-Mai Mahiu road following tremors
- Kenya Prison bus involved in an accident, one dead
Several others are also reported to have sustained injuries following the accident.
"A grisly road accident at Sachangwan past Salgaa. A trailer lost control and rammed into the barrier wall recently constructed in the middle of the road. One person dead" Said Nyanza Traffic
Photos shared from the scene show the impact caused as the trailer itself was disconnected from the driver's cockpit.
Tyres from the trailer were also disconnected as onlookers thronged the scene to witness.

subset: commoncrawl


text: I just found a new, never mounted forend for a Perazzi laying around in my safe. It has never been mounted on a gun and is of slightly above average wood. I had it for a Mirage style gun I used to have. What are they worth now? Been years since I got this one.


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UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema says it's not the UPND that is losing when the PF wins elections, but the people of Zambia, adding that citizens will continue losing until they "stand up to the nonsense like Malawians did when their election was stolen"
And Hichilema says he is having sleepless nights because he is thinking of how God will allow him to takeover the country's leadership so that he can take away the people's suffering.
Meanwhile, Hichilema says President Edgar Lungu is the one spreading COVID-19 as evidenced by the huge crowds that accompanied him to the commissioning of the Makeni overpass on Monday.
Speaking when he featured on Chingola's I-wave Radio, Tuesday, Hichilema Zambians had suffered enough at the hands of the Patriotic Front government.
"Umutima ulekalipa ngatwaumfwa ama callers abengi baleilishanya. Nshilala no kulala bwino bwino ngabaleilishanya. Nganaya ku bed ndentontokanya (My heart bleeds when I hear people calling in complaining. I hardly sleep when they complain. When I go to bed, I keep thinking) how God should allow us to take over this country and solve the people's problems. Abantu balila pafula. Ningumfwa naine ndelila nshilala noku lala. (People have cried, enough is enough. I have heard your cries, I hardly sleep). Illegal miners, we will give you licenses. You will become legal miners," said Hichilema.
When asked to enlighten the people why UPND lost the by-elections in its strongholds, Hichilema said it was not the UPND losing but the people of Zambia, adding that they would continue to lose until they stand up to the nonsense like Malawi did.
"If you look at COVID, we are not allowed to campaign. We are asked to respect the health guidelines and as obedient citizens, we follow those guidelines. What we saw is that the PF will be campaigning, when we want to campaign, they send police on us, they send cadres on us. What are we supposed to do? To fight back? To kill each other? No. We are supposed to be responsible but they are driving us to extremes now. And then we have the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), a government department that is distributing mealie meal; teku wina uko ( that is not winning), it is deception. It is not the UPND that lost, it is the people of Zambia that will continue to lose until they stand up and say 'we will not allow this nonsense to continue', as the people of Malawi did when the election was stolen. I call on the people of Zambia, don't misinterpret those by- elections. I want to remind you that when a government is losing, it does all sorts of things, it buys people," Hichilema said.
"If you remember before 2011, 23 members of parliament of PF were bought by the MMD government. MMD was winning by-elections, almost all of them and when 2011 came, the people had the last laugh, change came. It is not different now. You can buy councillors as you wish, you can manipulate people as you wish,ngabamipela impiya abena PF pokeni (If they give you money, get it). Zambia pokeni, ngabami pela ubunga, sendeni ( if they give you mealie meal get it). Use their slogan Donchi Kubeba. That is your mealie meal. But you should know the general election is coming in 2021. PF, whether they like it or not, kuya bebele (they have to go), there is no other way. So there is no issue of saying UPND lost, it is the people of Zambia and the UPND that are being deceived as the MMD was deceiving the people in 2011."
He said UPND members were being arrested when they tried to hold intra party elections.
"In Western Province, the ruling party came to win by-elections there. If you remember before 2016, PF won Mangango parliamentary by-elections, they won Mulobezi by-elections, they won Mongu Central. The PF had three parliamentary seats before the 2015 elections and when the general election came, how many MPs did PF have? Zero! We beat them everywhere, even in the wards like Mangango, the one they won one year before the elections. When we came in 2016, we beat them like they didn't exist; it will be the same thing in 2021. I want the people of Zambia not to lose sight of history when a government is about to leave office, like PF is about to leave office. If they say they won those elections, look at the total numbers, very small numbers. And on the other hand, we want to hold our intra party elections, baletukanya, baletukaka (they are refusing us, they are arresting us.) Ten days ago, our people who were holding intra party elections in Chililabombwe, even when they were practicing social distancing and masking up, our people were arrested,"
And Hichilema said the PF was risking the lives of people and wondered why Health Minister Dr Chitalu Chilufya did not advise President Lungu not to attend the commissioning of the Makeni overpass.
"We are geared. We go through a lot of challenges. COVID is creating problems for all of us except those in the ruling party who are ignoring the COVID challenges who are actually becoming carriers of the COVID virus because they are mingling in big crowds like yesterday in Lusaka, you saw it on television. Without social distancing, without masks, basically transmitting COVID and Mr Lungu was there himself. The one who is supposed to protect our people is the one exposing our people to death. And you know, there are a lot of cases in Lusaka. A lot of them are being taken to the hospital dead. And you see a leadership that doesn't care about the welfare of the people but exposing people to the virus. These are the challenges we are having," Hichilema said.
He said President Lungu was the one spreading the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They are the ones transmitting COVID-19, risking the lives of our people. Chitalu Chilufya is telling us not to go to funerals, not to gather at Chilanga Mulilos and weddings but what did he do at the Magistrate Court himself? He took cadres without masks and social distancing. We must practice what we preach. You are exposing people to death, you are not a leader, you are masquerading as a leader. What did Mr Lungu do yesterday (Monday)? Why didn't Chilufya tell his President that he must not go to that function with hundreds of people who were so close to each other? After that function, they went back to their homes and they could have carried the virus. So who is transmitting the virus in this country? It is the PF and leaders of PF. Chilufya must tell the President to stop what he is doing, he will cause the death of many people," Dr Chilufya said.
"When leaders are doing wrong things, followers will do the wrong things as well. Then you blame followers? No. This is the lack of leadership we talk about. The President was the one transmitting COVID yesterday (Monday) at the Kafue bridge. They must lead by example, this is not happening under PF, that is why everything has broken down; Chingola is broken down, Copperbelt is broken down, Zambia is broken down because we don't have leadership. We have never suffered like this because there is no leadership."


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My sister "miscarried" at 11 weeks but I feel it was more of an abortion. I was over at her house when my brother and I decided to go into her hot tub and she soon joined us. Both my brother and I warned her against coming in while pregnant plus it was VERY hot (106F). She ignored us and came in any way… and miscarried a week later. I doubt that was the only time she has used it too. What is your opinion? I think she aborted her baby. She knew the risks, she ignored our warnings.
Unless she confided in you that she did not want her child, I doubt she intended to kill him or her. It is also impossible to know if the hot water caused the miscarriage. Approximately fifty percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, many occurring prior to the mother even knowing she was pregnant. If the hot water was the cause of her child's death, then she would be guilty of manslaughter – if abortion were illegal.
Someday, when abortion is outlawed, every pregnant mother will have to consider the welfare and protection of their prenatal children, not just the ones who want their children. We all have a right to live, regardless of what our unjust laws may state or how small or dependent we may be.
Be a voice for the voiceless by subscribing to our weekly digest and sharing the truth with the world.


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Here, I provide real estate information valuable to all players involved in a real estate transaction. I also blog about the real estate market in general and give my personal opinions about it.
Wecome to my blog! Here I hope to educate buyers and sellers on what to expect and to provide a report on relevant market conditions. Subscribe
Welcome to my blog series on getting top dollar for your home. If you would like a free market assessment of your home, please call me anytime, I'd be happy to help!
This first tip is rather obvious, yet it is often o...


text: BIR in Rome, Italy 2012 Gallery – RecyclingInternational – June 19, 2012 Would you like to share any interesting developments or article ideas with us? Don't hesitate to contact us. You might find this interesting too Salzburg celebrates battery innovation Top 100 of 2022: here's the full list! Show comments (0) Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment * Name * Email * Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Poll Are the rising energy and fuel prices impacting your business? No, not really A little Yes, a lot View Results Loading ... Subscribe to our newsletter Stay on top of developments across the markets with our weekly newsletter. Sign Up


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A single vehicle crash near 100 Mile House Monday revealed more than a crumpled bumper.
100 Mile House RCMP were called to the scene near 93 Mile House shortly before 9 a.m. Police say the crash was a result of travelling too fast for road conditions. The driver and passenger suffered minor injuries.
During the course of the investigation, police realized they were dealing with something more than a crash. Evidence gathered at the scene lead police to search the vehicle where they discovered illegal drugs.
Police have seized, what is believed to be over 740 grams of amphetamine and cocaine. The police continue their investigation.
Read all about it


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Builders' Forum
|↓ Scroll to Last Comment ↓
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What is the minimum time for an end pour to cure enough before flipping the boat and doing the other end?
5 replies:
RE: Vertical End Pour
I only did the bow of my Wood Duck and had it on end for about 6 hours and it was set up. The end pour got hot and set up fairly fast, I am guessing it was set up in 2 hours. I mixed my end pour with about 40 percent micro balloons.
RE: Vertical End Pour
How hot is it where you are? How humid? How thick did you make the epoxy mix? Too many variables to answer a question like that with any real accuracy.
The simple answer is to just dam the end up on the first pour and it won't matter if it's set up or not. You can do it with plain old cardboard or get more fancy if you want.
RE: Vertical End Pour
The best and easiest way is to do your pour in the afternoon, then end-for-end the boat the follo,wing day. If the mixture gets to hot it will crack and that is a BAD THING. So I suggest going easy on the filler. The thicker the mix, the hotter it gets... Good luck.... ~BRUCE~
RE: Vertical End Pour
Thanks Bruce,
I just didn't know if I could do both ends in the same day, or if I did a pour in the morning, would I be able to bring the boat inside by evening to secure it. I'm planning to thicken with microballoons.
RE: Vertical End Pour
I did the end pours in my wife's Shearwater in a morning.
Used *lots* of microballoons, limited only by the need to ensure it would pour out of the mixing cup. There's no need for weight in that mix. I only had small cups and it was a warm morning, so couldn't have mixed and poured fast enough before it got too hot to settle into the end. Multiple cups let it remain cool until it was in the boat.
Poured one end; within 45 minutes it was hot and becoming hard to the touch. I gave it another 15 minutes and did the end-for-end and did the other side. An hour later the boat was back inside getting a sanding for the next step.
You'll want the boat vertical or just beyond to ensure the ends are really filled, not just the bottom near the end. I tied mine to the outside of my shop building.


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Carve your Titles out of Pure Data Science Gold
Combining Creativity and Science to Reach the Heart of the Global Reader
If titles were metal, we'd obviously want ours to be gold. Gold is perfect. It always glows, never fails to captivate and we can't seem to get enough. Drop some on the ground, anywhere around the world, and we'll fight over it. If only we could write titles as powerful and cherished as gold, we'd be smothered to death by our readers.
Could we ask for more? Sure, how about an objective way of measuring how our titles stack up against the best of the best. By translating titles into quantitative units, we can compare them objectively to the gold standard of titles — the top Amazon best sellers and the most clapped articles on Medium.
Data Science to the Rescue
Even though the focus here is on the findings and not the process, it is good to spend a little time on it for context. Machine learning models only understand numbers. In order to measure titles using data science, we, therefore, have to translate them into numbers. Two popular approaches are term frequencies and word vectors, and they create a numerical map of each word within the context of the other words.
I went with word vectors and translated millions of titles from Medium and Amazon Best Sellers into word-vector representations. I then measured the distance between each consecutive word for each title. Low and behold, once you plot those distances, a pattern emerges, they all form a smile.
Analyze your Own Title
If you want to jump to the interactive free tool I built around this study, go ahead. Score your own titles at http://viralml.com/tools and select "Analyze your Own Title".
The Smiling Title Skew
When you average the distances between words of successful titles and plot them, you will notice that the good ones, smile. I am using 8-word titles here as it is a common word count for high-ranked Amazon books.
We all know that a title is critical to quickly convey a book's content and convince a reader to engage further. A successful title has a particular rhythm. If we analyze enough top-ranked books and articles, we notice the following pattern, they start with distant words and end with distant words but are tied together by closer ones.
Putting it another way, a good title starts and ends with the least synonymous words while the middle is more synonymous.
And putting it in an even simpler way, a good title conveys two pieces of information — not one, not three. This must be the ideal way of packing the maximum information for our short attention spans. Anything less and we don't understand what is going on and we move on, anything more, and we get overwhelmed and also move on.
Let's look at an example, a popular children's book "Happy Hippo, Angry Duck: A Book of Moods".
A bigger word distance means the words far from each other in meaning, closer, they are more synonymous. In the chart, we clearly see "Happy Hippo, Angry Duck" and "Moods" as far, and it is glued by "A Book of".
Tip #1: A good title contains two pieces of information tied together in the middle.
Popular Title Starters
After analyzing 1.4 Million Medium Stories and 4 Million Amazon Best Selling Titles, we can get the frequency of popular word groupings. The most popular, seen in over 40,000 titles, is the starting pair "How to". If you just have room for only one tip today, there it is, make your title start with "How to" and you'll be hitting a universal desire, that yearning we all have to better ourselves…
Tip #2: the most popular title starter is the pair "How to"
Not writing a "how to" article? Is it more of a "What is" or a "How I" article? No worries, those are next in the most popular sets of starting words. Here are the top-30 starting pairs:
- How to
- What is
- How I
- Why I
- Why you
- This is
- Are you
- What I
- The best
- Why we
- How do
- Do you
- The future
- Building a
- I am
- The power
- How we
- If you
- What are
- 5 ways
- How the
- Meet the
- The most
- Why do
- Why the
- The art
- 5 things
- Want to
- What to
And the top-30 starting triples:
- How to make
- How to get
- How to create
- How to build
- Why you should
- The power of
- How to use
- How to be
- The future of
- What I learned
- The art of
- The importance of
- What is the
- 5 ways to
- How do you
- Getting started with
- How to write
- An open letter
- How to become
- How to find
- How to buy
- What to do
- What is a
- How to start
- A letter to
- 3 ways to
- This is how
- An introduction to
- This week in
Yup, those are the words that resonated most with readers. It's clear that we have a yearning to learn new things.
There you have two valuable quantitatively-backed tips that took forever to dig out. You can also use the free tool to get much more data about your title at http://viralml.com/tools


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Balancing My Medicine Wheel – Big Wheel Keep On Turn'n
I am a big wheel on the roller coaster of life. Not the ride-on toy that shook up the neighbourhood with when Shauna was little, but an important cog * in the machine of the universe. (* A cog is another word for a wheel within a machine – get it?) It's hard to keep the big wheel turning all the time.
Norm's Dad gave Shauna an A-Team Big Wheel for Christmas one year. It was sooo noisy. It had a special clicker built into one of the back wheels and a special brake on one side that you could apply while pedalling full speed, thus making the Big Wheel spinout! Cool. When she was four; she, Peter and Tyler would race their Big Wheels up and down the cul-de-sac making so much hard plastic vs road noise. We cut off the clicker but eventually one of the wheels got flat from the braking and spinouts. It became hard work to pedal a Big Wheel with a flat wheel. Roll, roll, thunk! Roll, roll, thunk! Roll, roll, thunk! Roll, roll, thunk! It was a nice metaphor for how hard we make things for ourselves. I can still hear that sound in the cul-de-sac of my memory. It is this unbalance striving to move forward that I want to write about today.
I know we need balance and I've used the concept of the Native medicine wheel for a variety of things such as: lessons in personal growth; program evaluations; and blue prints for goal setting. The wheel gives us direction (literally) and a great picture of the parts of us that make us who we are. If we are heavy in one area, the wheel won't roll smoothly. That's the point, my wheel is not rolling smoothly and if I just let it sit, I will rust up and no amount of Bondo will make me whole again.
Intellectual: My mind is pretty active and I think I'm growing and developing in this sector all the time. I like that the colour associated with this is white like a blank piece of paper or an empty screen just waiting for me to fill it.
Spiritual: I need to delve into this one. I am not a religious person but I have some beliefs, the primary being "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The basic karmic principles apply. This is the east with the rising sun shining on my face. I know the world is full of energy. We exist because our energy drives us and when we leave this plane, our energy still exists – we are not fossil fuel! I need to work on my energy and committing to my peace of mind.
Emotional: Wow! This sector is red. I have been so full of anger most of my life, that this is an area in which I have grown. I am finding peace and love! I AM worthy of receiving love and can give love unconditionally. I am much better at expressing my emotions. (I'm still a little liberal with the potty mouth though – I'll pass that off as pain-induced.) I truly believe that keeping a food journal that requires me to list the emotions I'm feeling when I eat, has helped here. I have to be honest or what's the point? The sector is connected to the teacher and I am learning. If I don't, I'll keep getting the same lessons until I do. This is also the west – the sunset!
Physical: This is where my wheel is truly broken. I need to believe in my inner healer. I need to accept that my body needs me and much outside help. If I do not respect my body and what it is telling me, how can I make it better? I know what to do. I even know what I CAN do. The hard part is accepting what I cannot do and allowing things to develop the way they have to. I'm not as young as I was. I have health issues – a crap load (a metric measurement, by the way). But I can eat well. I can manage my pain and not aggravate my bad hip. I can exercise with the information I've found for people who cannot use their legs. I can look in the mirror and be happy with how I look. I can physically smile at myself and the world! Did you know that the more you smile the better you feel? It works and I'm doing it right now.
So, I'm going to work on balancing my wheel – my life and all aspects of it. It's not like I can take myself to Canadian Tire for a wheel balancing (average $30); but at least there will be action and motion! Thanks for listening. ;D Diane
2 Responses to "Balancing My Medicine Wheel – Big Wheel Keep On Turn'n"
If they are starting to consider further education, however it is more than mere protectiveness.
Why diid you do with medicine guide the concept of Id,
Ego and Super Ego. Early recognition, medicine guide treatment of depression and other mental
In order to take advantage of what help is there,
so that you can run harder/faster is very hard to keep a positive frame of mind at
my last 9-5 job. In fact, I suggest that yyou eat a lot of information streams, choose which
ones you think are relevant, and then leaning your trunk forward as
much as possible.


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A very beautiful metal sculpture stands in front of the Ramona Library on Main Street. It's called Wings of Inspiration.
The sculpture is dedicated to M. Elyse Kuhn, President of the Friends of Ramona Library, who passed away in 2015.
Literacy gives everyone the means to soar. That was the idea expressed by the local artist, Leslie Souza. You can read more about Wings of Inspiration, and the efforts of Marion Elyse Kuhn to see the Ramona Library built here.
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog's sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!


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Summer events return this year with fun for all ages, from a Chalk the Block event to live music in two locations this August. The popular Finally Friday Art & Wine Walk series returns July-September, along with a Plein Air Paint Out August 28. Current safety protocols will be followed at city events.
More Summer Events in the Community
Take the kids on a train ride with Thomas the Tank Engine, who will make two weekend appearances in July. The Boeing Classic, part of the PGA Champions Tour, includes a flyover event and tournament viewing opportunities August 16-22. In addition, the Northwest Railway Museum hosts Railroad Days, a community celebration of trains, timber, and tradition August 28-29.
Summer Events Calendar
Thomas the Tank Engine Train Rides – July 9-11 and July 16-18
Snoqualmie Depot – trainmuseum.org
Chalk the Block – July 24
10 a.m. to noon
Snoqualmie Community Park
35016 SE Ridge Street
Finally Friday Art & Wine Walk – July 30
Downtown Snoqualmie
Boeing Classic – August 16-22
The Club at Snoqualmie Ridge
36005 SE Ridge Street – boeingclassic.com
Music in the Park – August 19
"Rock the Ridge" Snoqualmie Community Park
Music in the Park – August 26
"Rock the River" Sandy Cove Park
7970 Falls Ave. SE
Finally Friday Art & Wine Walk – August 27
Railroad Days – August 28-29
Downtown Snoqualmie – railroaddays.com
Plein Air Paint Out – August 28
Downtown Snoqualmie
Finally Friday Art & Wine Walk – September 24


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The best way to learn proper English is to read news report, and watch news on TV. Watching TV shows is a great way to learn casual English, slang words, understand culture reference and humor. If you have already watched these shows then you may recall the words used in the following dialogs.
Please RESERVE chitchat for your breaks,
Ms. Jensen.
Yeah, and I RESERVE this word
for those rare instances
The national RESERVE,on carts propelled by outboard motors!
We're going to melt all the goldfrom the fucking national RESERVE.
Meaning and definitions of reserve, translation in Marathi
language for reserve with similar and opposite words. Also find spoken pronunciation of reserve in Marathi and in English language.
What reserve means in Marathi, reserve meaning
in Marathi, reserve
definition, examples and pronunciation
of reserve in Marathi language.


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QuickIM is a powerful MSN Messenger software for J2ME MIDP 2.0 cellphones.QuickIM Multimedia edition allows you to take pictures and record audio messages and send them to remote users!
- Easy software configuration
- Use pre-recorded "quick text" or emoticons or record pictures or audio messages to communicate fast and in innovative ways
- Add / delete contacts from your contact list
- Block a contact from seeing you in his/her buddy list for more privacy
- Navigate easily between open chat rooms and invite users to create multiple users chat sessions
Compatible devices:
QuickIM is compatible with all the recent Java phones (SonyEricsson, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sagem …).
Tested Works :BenQ P30, Motorola RAZR V3, RIM BlackBerry 7100, Sony Ericsson K750 ..
* MSN messenger instant messaging account
* Mobile internet connection (compatible with POP3 and SMTP email services), contact your mobile operator to have a compatible data service activated for you. They should send you the configuration settings as well.
QuickIM Messenger for java cellphones


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Royal Blue Foamposite Set To Return in 2017
With the original release happening in 1997, the 20th year anniversary of the cult classic model the Nike Foamposite One, will be bringing the original colorway in 2017. The Royal Blue Foamposite worn by Bibby in College, and Penny Hardaway in the NBA, set the tone for the wild creation. I don't really like blue sneakers personally, but this colorway is hands down my favorite. That is what this model did for me in 1997, it made me like a color that I didn't even prefer.
Rumor has it that the Copper Foamposite, and the Eggplant colorways will be getting a retro in 2017, excited to see when these will actually drop. No official release info yet, all just rumors.
Source: TSG


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Blog Archives
Orange and blue makes me blue
I am not dead. However, I went into yet another Howard Hughes phase during the last three weeks. Inexcusable.
March Madness is over. I was ready for it to be over before the first game was played. It was a miserable time in the Sunflower State, with Kansas State losing its first game to 13-seed UC Irvine and Kansas getting dump trucked by Auburn in the second round.
I couldn't complain about LSU. I had a bad feeling my alma mater would have lost to Lipscomb had it held on to beat Maryland. Then the Bayou Bengals almost blew the game with the Terrapins but survived.
I confess I watched zero seconds of the Sweet 16 game with Michigan State. Had a bad feeling. The final score–Spartans 80, Bayou Bengals 63–validated that feeling. Now LSU is losing Naz Reid, Skylar Mays and Tremont Waters to the NBA. Will Wade may somehow keep his job, but I fear next season might be a long one in Baton Rouge.
I was angry Auburn made the Final Four, because one of their jackass fans who lives in Baton Rouge, Tex Morris, called Sean Payton a "crybaby" on social media following the NFC Championship Game, then told me he'd block me when I disagreed. I was angry Virginia made it, because it is the definition of an elitist school. After all, Thomas Jefferson founded the place.
Since last Saturday's Auburn-Virginia game couldn't end in a double forfeit, I was glad the Cavaliers won. The lesser of two evils in that case. Right now, Auburn is at the top of my hate list in the SEC. I never thought a school would eclipse Alabama and Ole Miss as to how much I hate them, but Auburn has, thanks to Mr. Morris' asinine comments about Mr. Payton. What, Tex, was Sean supposed to be happy and let it go? The Saints got screwed out of a Super Bowl berth. Yeah, let it go. Easy for you to say.
Auburn was not my favorite stop on the SEC circuit. It ranked barely above Oxford and about on the same level as Tuscaloosa and Gainesville. No thanks. Auburn and Kansas State are a lot alike–agriculturally-dominated universities in small towns 50 miles from the state capital with horrendous traffic on football game days and a inferiority complex. The only difference is Auburn is a football school with occasional success in basketball and K-State is a basketball school with occasional success in football, the beatification of St. William of Snyder notwithstanding.
Candace Rachel, the outstanding editor of the Plainville Times, texted me during Monday's game saying the announcers were biased towards Virginia. I agreed.
College basketball announcers love the ACC. Greg Gumbel and everyone who was on the CBS selection show March 17 drooled over the ACC getting three #1 seeds. I'm sure many were crying when North Carolina lost to Auburn in the Sweet 16 and Duke lost to Michigan State after the Spartans ousted LSU.
I did not watch much of the game. And no way in hell I would watch One Shining Moment. It was nice at the beginning, but it's played out now. And don't get me started on Jennifer Hudson's version following the 2010 tournament (the one where Duke barely beat Butler in the final). If I had watched it live, I might have melted down. It sucked. BIG TIME.
CBS had the right idea in 1983 when they used Christopher Cross' All Right for the highlight package following North Carolina State's stunner over Houston. I don't care what happens between now and the end of time, but Jim Valvano's Wolfpack taking down Phi Slamma Jamma in Albuquerque will never, never, NEVER be surpassed. Too bad it was too late for me to watch.
The first final I watched from beginning to end was Louisville over Duke in 1986. That year, LSU made the Final Four as an 11-seed before losing to the Cardinals in Dallas. The Blue Devils eliminated Kansas in the other semi. The last final I watched from start to finish was Kansas' win over Memphis in 2008, although I did see Josh Hart's game-winner for Villanova over UNC in 2016 after missing most of the first 30 minutes.
College basketball is done, at least as far as games go, for seven months. I'm not counting down the days.
Two unlikely finalists, take two
I wrapped up my pages for this week's Russell County News a little after 1 a.m. I slept in fits and starts and didn't get really good sleep until late this morning. By time I woke up, it was 12:10. I watched some more of season 1 of The O.C. and am now watching Shark Tank on CNBC.
Six years ago tonight, LSU won its sixth and most recent College World Series championship, defeating Texas 9-4 in the third and deciding game of the finals at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium, home to the CWS from 1950 through 2010. Most of Rosenblatt was demolished in 2011 and 2012, but many seats, home plate and the foul poles still stand at the corner of 13th Street and Bert Murphy Drive, only a few blocks south of Interstate 80 and next to the Henry Doorly Zoo, one of the world's elite zoological gardens.
Tonight, Vanderbilt and Virginia are playing a winner-take-all game for the national championship for the second consecutive year. If you would have told me in 2000 that the Commodores and Cavaliers would be playing in back-to-back years for all the marbles in Omaha, I would have laughed so hard I might have died. So would have thousands of college baseball experts and fans alike.
In 2000, Vanderbilt was the doormat of the SEC, much the way it was in football. The Commodores' field was not a joke. It was not a dump. It was inhumane.
To say it was not suitable for college baseball would have been a gross understatement. It was not suitable for high school junior varsity, much less a Southeastern Conference school.
There were three sets of portable bleachers. The dugouts were nothing more than covered benches. The "press box" was a modified trailer (not a double-wide) on top of the third base bench. The fence was chain-link. The scoreboard was something you would expect to find at a high school facility.
In short, beyond awful.
Today, Vanderbilt plays on the same field, but the rest of the structure barely resembles the old one. There is brick and iron to be found everywhere. The press box is modern and roomy. There are chairback seats all throughout the grandstands. There are real dugouts and a real fence. The scoreboard has been modernized.
Nobody could have dreamed it would happen at Vanderbilt. But the Commodores have proven if you build it, they will come.
Since Tim Corbin arrived in 2003 to replace the kindly Roy Mewbourne, the Commodores have taken off. Vandy has won and won big year in and year out in the nation's best baseball conference, capped off by the 2014 national championship and possibly another in a couple of hours.
At least Vanderbilt never considered cutting scholarships or treating baseball as the equivalent of an intramural sport.
Virginia did.
In 2000, the Cavaliers came to Baton Rouge to open the season and were demolished in three games over two days by LSU. Bayou Bengals left-hander Brian Tallet, who would go on to earn All-America honors that season and pitch in the Major Leagues, twirled a three-hit shutout in the opener.
The next April, as LSU coach Skip Bertman piloted his final Bayou Bengals outfit, it looked like baseball in Charlottesville would soon be relegated to second-class status.
Actually, make that fourth-class status.
A UVa advisory board suggested the Cavaliers' intercollegaite athletic program be divided into four tiers.
The first tier–football, men's and women's basketball–would be fully funded, with a full allotment of scholarships, a full allotment of coaches, first-class travel, first-class schedules, and all the comforts an Atlantic Coast Conference program was accustomed to.
Baseball was relegated to the fourth tier, which would mean no scholarships based upon athletic ability and no travel outside the ACC's footprint and most non-conference games within the Commonwealth of Virginia, which would have meant a heavy dose of VCU, Richmond, James Madison, Old Dominion, George Mason and Virginia Tech, which was still three years away from full ACC membership.
No women's sports were projected to fall into Tier Four. All were men's sports, including golf, tennis, wrestling, cross country and track and field. Had UVa threatened to place an y women's sports in Tier Four, it would have opened the school to a flood of Title IX lawsuits.
Nobody could have dreamed what was about to happen.
The UVa baseball team received "anonymous" donations of over $2 million to build a state-of-the-art baseball stadium on the site of its dilapidated grounds. By the beginning of the 2002 campaign, Davenport Field, named in memory of former UVa coach and executive director of the Virginia Student Aid Foundation, Ted Davenport, who was a close friend of longtime Cavalier coach Dennis Womack.
While the average fan did not know the person behind the anonymous donation, the insiders in Charlottesville knew where they came from.
John Grisham, internationally acclaimed author, graduate of Mississippi State and Ole Miss Law School, had donated the funds to keep the baseball program at UVa alive and well.
In 2004, the Cavaliers tapped Notre Dame assistant Brian O'Connor to succeed the retired Womack, and it wasn't long before baseball far eclipsed football and men's basketball as the best UVa program.
The Cavaliers have been to the CWS five times under O'Connor. Tonight, they are aiming to become the first ACC team to win the title since Wake Forest in 1955 (Miami's four championships all came while the Hurricanes were an independent).
Vanderbilt and Virginia have certainly produced their fair share of Major Leaguers under Corbin and O'Connor, but both programs have also been wildly successful at attracting the academically gifted player who may not be a perfect fit for LSU, Florida State or another national power and groomed them to fit into perfect puzzles in Nashville and Charlottesville. These programs are no flashes in the pan. They have staying power, and both should be in Omaha time and again as long as Corbin and O'Connor are calling the shots.


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Go through 1 roundabout
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Continue to follow A4173
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Go through 3 roundabouts
Destination will be on the lef


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LAKEVIEW — Upscale gluten-free restaurant Senza earned a Michelin star after its first year in business, making it Lakeview's only restaurant with the coveted rating.
The restaurant at 2873 N. Broadway, which opened in August 2012, has already expanded to add a gluten-free bakery and a prix-fixe menu.
"Chef Noah Sandoval @SenzaChicago hit his stride after the early reviewers moved on," Michelin Guide Chicago tweeted on Tuesday. "Congrats to a gluten-free Michelin Star!"
Sandoval said he'd had hints that a coveted Michelin star would be coming his way but tried to stay calm. When the call came that Senza had indeed earned a star, he got "lightheaded," he said.
"Yeah, we're going to get drunk," he said of a celebration later tonight. "We're going to put out some good food tonight and then we're going to invite everybody to have a good time."
The Schwa alum said that diners initially "had a lot of negative ideas of what gluten-free means," he said.
"It's mainly — 'Oh, why would you do that?' or 'It's dorky,' or 'I love bread'," he said. "I felt that way, too."
But it's about persuading foodies that gluten-free doesn't have to "taste like cardboard," he said. That Michelin star may help people with any inhibitions to try a wheat-free meal.
"Hopefully, people will second guess themselves when they think that," he said.


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10 Daily Confessions to Live By
by Joanne Troppello
Words have power. They can inspire you or hold you back from reaching your full potential. Words can hurt or heal. "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." That verse is found in Proverbs 18:21.
We have the power to encourage others or discourage them with our words. Proverbs 15:4 says that "the soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit."
Are you speaking positive words over your life each day? Are you encouraging others? It doesn't take much effort to be nice to yourself and others with your words.
Proverbs 15:28 says that "the heart of the righteous weighs its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil." We need to weigh the words that proceed from our mouth—whether we are trying to motivate ourselves or speaking to others. We can apply this idea to our interactions with others online; especially in social media. Weigh our words and think before tweeting. There is so much hate and divisiveness in the world today; especially in social media.
I created a blackboard animation depicting 10 Daily Confessions that you should live by. Our life has meaning, and we need to speak that truth to ourselves every day. It is important to take responsibility for our behavior. Confess daily that you are going to take responsibility for your life.
Life is not perfect. We have problems, but also great moments. Confess each day that you will accept the reality that is your life. Sure, you want to move forward from bad situations. However, you can't live with your head in the clouds and avoid the harsh realities in life.
Check out the video animation below to find out more daily confessions that you can live by.
A Video of 10 Daily Confessions
Are you living your best life each day? Check out these 10 daily confessions to live by to help you live your best life and attain your goals.
Are there encouraging statements that you say each day to motivate you to become a better person? Feel free to share some of your daily confessions to live by. We love hearing from our readers.
About the Author
Joanne Troppello is a published author of 3 inspirational fiction novels and the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Pandora's Box Gazette.
She has experience as a freelance writer in topics such as marketing, retail marketing, health and wellness, internet and media, travel and lifestyle, website content, app recommendations, and content for blogs.
Visit her Amazon Author Page for more information regarding her books. Connect with Joanne on Twitter and on the PBG Patreon Page.


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Mon 3rd Jun 2019
by Creative Quarter
On Friday June 21st Nottingham will build on the success of Light Night by holding its first ever Lightest Night.Life Announcements
On the year's longest day it's hoped venues will stay open later and encourage families to enjoy the city centre at its best on what we trust will be a lovely summer evening.
The Creative Quarter Company and St Mary's Church in the Lace Market will be marking the occasion by holding a garden party in the church grounds between 5pm to 8pm.
We will be delighted if you can join us.
With kind support from Bildurn, based in nearby St Mary's School, and Castle Rock Brewery, whose Kean's Head public house is a next-door neighbour of the church, we will be pleased to offer you a drink or two. There will also be live musical entertainment.
But most of all there will be the opportunity to meet and mingle with the community of business people who make the Lace Market and Hockley such great places to work.
If you want to keep going beyond 8pm you could head down to Sneinton Market where the Nottingham Street Food Club will be in residence - as they now are every Friday night.
If you can come along, for a short time or for the whole time, we look forward to seeing you on Lightest Night.
To find what else is happening across the city at Lightest Night here.
City centre partnership supports Christmas Market relocation
Published Tue 22nd Nov 2022
Former Sneinton Market Avenues tenant Macaron Marlo opens new shop in Hockley
Published Mon 3rd Oct 2022
Nottingham City Festival Announces Young Hustlers Programme Full of Creative Opportunity
Published Fri 30th Sept 2022
Nottingham's Music & Arts Festival Hockley Hustle Returns Bigger and Better Than Ever
Published Wed 21st Sept 2022
Modern urban living in and amongst refurbished lace factories and warehouses. On-trend independent retailers and many bars, restaurants, cafés, galleries, arts cinema and theatres. A buzz in the daytime and a rhythm at night.
Nottingham Trent University, the UK's University of the Year, has a Creative Quarter campus. Nottingham College is investing £58m in a new skills hub. Confetti is expanding fast. Metronome is open for business and learning.
Easy-access offices and workshops. Co-working and incubator spaces. Top-notch commercial premises. CQ supports entrepreneurs and creative businesses before they start trading, to start trading, and to grow.
Unit 36, Avenue C, Sneinton Market, Nottingham NG1 1DW
© Copyright Creative Quarter Nottingham. All rights reserved.


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"Crypto Titans" is a series of personal interviews conducted by CoinMarketCap with prominent and forward-thinking minds tinkering on and behind the scenes of the cryptocurrency landscape. Click here to see all the Crypto Titan interviews up to today!
J. Christopher Giancarlo was an unlikely candidate to become the "dad" of the crypto revolution. Having worked in traditional finance for around 30 years — including as the Commissioner for Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — it was a chance conversation about Bitcoin between his children, nieces and nephews that brought Giancarlo into the crypto spotlight.
During a February 2018 governmental hearing about ICOs and BTC futures — alongside known Bitcoin skeptic and SEC head Jay Clayton — Giancarlo put away his written notes and spoke, in his word, "as a dad." During his testimony, Giancarlo made the point that this new interest in Bitcoin seemed to be coming from the younger generation, and it should not be met with "disdain or dismissiveness, but with open mindedness."
Almost immediately, his Twitter following exploded, and "Crypto Dad" was born.
Two years and a pandemic later, Giancarlo is no longer the CFTC chairman, but is still on the board of at least three financial organizations aimed at modernizing the current systems, as well as the principal for the Digital Dollar Project, a not-for-profit advocating for the creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency.
The unexpected "Crypto Dad" label, it turns out, was not only catchy, but actually caught the personality and motivations of Giancarlo himself.
When was the first time you heard about the concept of cryptocurrency?
I heard about it in New York circles, probably in early 2014, from some brokers that were thinking about seeing if they could make markets or over-the-counter trading. I was aware of that when I went to the CFTC in the summer of 2014, that there were small boutiques that were looking to develop over-the-counter trading.
Financial markets were pretty much most of my life. In the markets that I was involved in, if it trades, there were brokers looking to create markets in them.
Perhaps it's not that surprising to a lot of folks, but if you stop to think about it, that was the milieu I came out of when I went into government.
You're now known as the "Crypto Dad," but I don't believe you started your tenure with the plan to become an advocate for digital currencies. When did that transformation take place?
The story of my getting that nickname is probably one of the most unlikely places anyone would ever expect to get it, it came out of a hearing in front of the Senate Banking Committee in February of 2018.
I was there with Jay Clayton from the SEC, and we were testifying on our agency's efforts in handling, in his case, ICO activity, and in my case, our handling of the Bitcoin futures self certification by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange under CFTC regulation.
And going into the hearing, I was concerned from conversations I had here in the U.S. with officials in the public sector, in financial markets, but also conversations I was having with regulators abroad through organizations like IOSCO (which is the International Association of Securities Regulators) that there was a lot of fear and loathing toward the development of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
When I went into my hearing in February 2018, I began my conversation by actually putting aside my written testimony — as I said to the senators, I wanted to just speak to them for a minute as a dad.
I talked about how during our Christmas break with my sons and daughters and nieces and nephews — everybody was talking about Bitcoin. And I said it strikes me that there's something generational here, and that we owe it to this new generation to treat their interests not with disdain or dismissiveness, but with open mindedness and a search for getting the right regulatory response.
When I went into my hearing in February 2018, I began my conversation by actually putting aside my written testimony — as I said to the senators, I wanted to just speak to them for a minute as a dad.
It was from that that my Twitter following just exploded. In a series of tweets, I was given the nickname "Crypto Dad," which was an odd experience. It wasn't something I went looking for, it wasn't something that I coined: it was entirely in response to that testimony. But then after that, I came away, realized that it was actually a means by which I could communicate to a new audience and communicate my interest, which is a lifetime interest in financial markets and technology.
Most of my career has been in the triangle of law, technology and financial markets. I've always been pro innovation, and the Crypto Dad label has been very helpful to me in communicating with an audience that's interested in how technology can modernize so much about our financial system that's quite antiquated.
As a relatively big public figure in cryptocurrency, have you had any opportunities to debunk any misconceptions about Bitcoin and crypto?
Yes, is the answer. I mean, there was a time when the CFTC in 2017 was approached about Bitcoin futures. There were all kinds of dire warnings that allowing futures to go forward would validate Bitcoin in the eyes of a lot of public officials who were opposed to it.
There was a fair amount of tension directed at us to take steps to block the certification of Bitcoin futures by those who saw Bitcoin as perhaps a threat to sovereign currencies. I believe that the launch of Bitcoin futures actually, rather than perhaps feed into those fears, has actually helped mature Bitcoin as a viable asset class, which now has an increasingly large institutional and professional following.
It's establishing itself as a viable tradable asset class, along with others that have long been traditional asset classes. I think that's helped to mature the market, so I think it disproved a lot of those fears, and the fear and loathing towards Bitcoin that was present in 2017 and earlier.
I believe that the launch of Bitcoin futures actually, rather than perhaps feed into those fears, has actually helped mature Bitcoin as a viable asset class, which now has an increasingly large institutional and professional following.
The past year has caused a pretty unusual financial situation with coronavirus and the quarantine. Has your philosophy about the importance of the place of digital currencies in the world changed or strengthened in any way?
Let me put forward my view on crypto in a broader context. I want to share some observations that my five years in government and then my 30 years before that in financial markets have led me to.
The first one is that just so many of the bridges and tunnels and mass transportation systems in the West — that were once state of the art in the 20th century — have been allowed to age and decay, in some cases becoming obsolete in the 21st century.
The same is true about a lot of our financial market infrastructure that was certainly state-of-the-art in the 20th century. In some cases — in too many cases — it has been allowed to age and decay and become somewhat obsolete in the 21st century. That's certainly true about payment systems. It's true about the analog basis for the way a lot of securities regulations are written. It's true about some of our clearing and settlement systems, and it's certainly true about our payment rails.
That's observation one: we've got antiquated systems. Observation two is that we truly are entering a new wave of innovation, what some people call the internet of value, which follows the first wave of the internet, which was the Internet of information.
This wave is going to render most of the world's things of value into digital representations, ultimately with the ability to program through smart contracts and whatnot.
The same is true about a lot of our financial market infrastructure that was certainly state-of-the-art in the 20th century. In some cases — in too many cases — it has been allowed to age and decay and become somewhat obsolete in the 21st century.
I believe that this somewhat antiquated financial system — and to some degrees, antiquated regulatory system in financial markets — is ill prepared to weather this next wave of financial innovation unless it itself also modernizes.
Everything that I've been focused on, and where I place myself since leaving the CFTC, is focusing on the modernization of key elements of our financial market infrastructure.
Before we come to cryptocurrencies, I am serving on the board of the American Financial Exchange, which is creating a new blockchain-based replacement for LIBOR as an interest rate benchmark. It's called the AMERIBOR, and it's based upon a real marketplace place of banks lending to other banks and financial institutions, and then recording those transactions on a blockchain-based system for ultimate transparency and digital representation.
I'm serving as chairman of the Board of Common Securitization Solutions, which is a joint venture between Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that's working on the modernization of our very analog-based mortgage securitization system in order to move that forward into a new digital paradigm.
I'm on the board of the Chamber of Digital Commerce. And then lastly, at a not-for-profit venture that I've set up, I'm a principal in the Digital Dollar Project, which is working on advocating for creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency, what we call the digital dollar. It's a tokenized form of the dollar, a CBDC.
All the things I've engaged in professionally since leaving the commission and of course, my relationship with Willkie Farr & Gallagher, a law firm which provides me with a structural basis for my work, a firm that can help with legal work and also provide me with administrative support and whatnot.
Everything I'm focused on since leaving the commission is in the realm of modernizing our systems. Because I was able to take my company public back in the first decade of the 20th century — GFI group, which built some of the first electronic trading platforms over the counter swaps — it's given me ability to at this stage in my life now focus on really just those those issues and matters that that are part of that overall framework of modernizing our financial systems for a new digital future.
And that brings me to cryptocurrency, which is, I believe, a part of a solution for the lack of a digital sovereign currency, a digital dollar. But I am also exploring the edges of that antiquated system of payments and settlement clearing and others, all of which are very analog-based and seemed brilliant 20, 30 years ago, but are quickly showing their shortcomings in this new wave of digitization of things of value.
I read your recent piece about the need to move carefully in the creation of a digital dollar, and not allow coronavirus to rush things. Why do you think right now is the time to jump start the digital dollar?
I think creating a digital dollar is the right thing to do. We're going into a digital century, and I believe we need a digital currency. It's not just that I believe it, people all over the world believe it. Which is why many central governments, probably most central governments, are all exploring digital currencies right now. Some of them are moving forward very rapidly.
It's not just one person's view, it's a growing consensus that in order to equip nations, sovereign governments and the economies they oversee — for a digital future, they need to digitize their currency.
But that something as ubiquitous in the global economy and as foundational to the global economy as the U.S. dollar is not something you try to just experiment with overnight and take a cavalier approach to. This needs to be done thoughtfully, carefully, sensibly, experimentally at first, but with determination.
Whether it's the launch and success and naturalization of Bitcoin, whether it's the Libra project, whether it's the accelerating pace of the digital RNB, or whether it's the COVID crisis, whatever, whichever of those events will appeal to public officials to build a consensus that we need to get started is fine with me.
This needs to be done thoughtfully, carefully, sensibly, experimentally at first, but with determination.
They will provide a rationale on why we need to move forward on this in different ways, but it does help to build the consensus that we need to get going with this. We need to get going with this for all those reasons and more, because it's the right thing to do.
Why did you need to modernize public transportation systems every so often? Why do you need to sometimes modernize airports? Because they're all core public infrastructure. They're public goods on which economies are built — as is currency. It's part of the core architecture of an economy. It's the bottom level architecture. It's the foundation of an economy. We need to modernize that for a new digital era. It's the right thing to do.
If your focus is about financial inclusion, then maybe COVID and the difficulty of getting people money in a crisis was the reason when you said, "Wow, a digital dollar makes sense. A CBDC makes sense."
Or maybe you've got a foreign policy focus on competing global economies like China. Maybe that's what brought you to say, "Oh, a USD CBDC, that makes sense." Or maybe you're worried about loss of control over monetary policy by non-sovereign currencies like Bitcoin or Libra coin.
Whatever the pretext is of any of those or others that I haven't thought of — that's fine, because I believe we need to build a national consensus that we need to get to work on a USD CBDC.
Now, having said that, we need the national consensus to get started. Getting started to full implementation is a complex and long journey. One of my mentors likes to say, "If you want to be on time, you've got to start early." I believe if we want to be on time with this, and being on time meaning along with the movement of other major economies, then we need to get started now.
One of my mentors likes to say, "If you want to be on time, you've got to start early."
Do you think the U.S. is being a leader in this right now?
Who do you think is being a leader?
China is definitely moving fast, being a leader…Let me define terms. Let's put it this way.
If we were in the first laps of a race, I would say that others are ahead of the United States right now. But the race is not finished. The winner is not who finishes first: the winner is who is able to successfully develop a thriving digital currency that reflects their values.
I don't think being first is that important. What's important in the United States is to make sure that it's not last to this, where others have all already managed to stamp the consensus form of a central bank digital currency with their values rather than U.S. values.
Russia beat the United States to launch satellites in space of the 1950s. But ultimately, the United States realized that it had a national interest in space exploration and landing on the moon, and it built a successful space program that reflected the values of a free society, of a diverse economy that was both private sector and public sector, values of innovativeness and privately-funded innovation.
I believe that can be considered a success in the United states, because they were able to achieve their national purpose and do in a way that reflected their values.
If we were in the first laps of a race, I would say that others are ahead of the United States right now. But the race is not finished. The winner is not who finishes first: the winner is who is able to successfully develop a thriving digital currency that reflects their values.
I feel the same thing is critically important about a digital dollar. It's not about being first — but we don't wanna be last. It's about doing this in a way that's able to reflect the values that America places on a currency, in the same way that e one of the many underpinnings of the dollar is a sovereign currency, the right balance of privacy rights against government interest in law enforcement, and anti-money laundering, etc.
We need to make sure that any digital form of the dollar also has that right balance of rights in it. Are we leading? I do not believe we're leading at this point, but I'm not sure that's what's important. What's important is whether we'll be leading in the years to come.
To take a contrarian point of view, I think some people in crypto would say we don't need a digital dollar, because we already have one — Bitcoin.
I'm not in the argument of a decentralized versus a sovereign currency: our digital dollar project does not call for the suppression of virtual currencies or suppression of Bitcoin.
As a former market regulator, I believe diversity and choice in the market and optionality is a good thing.
And for those who are happy in Bitcoin, great. I'm not sure that solves the problem for people that need currency to put food on their table. But nevertheless, that's fine.
Choice in the markets is a good thing, and if Bitcoin solves all their needs, that's fine. I think that nation states, however, have different needs.
In representative governments, there's certain things that our constitution expects our government to do, making sure certain populations can have pay in the form of money that has the full faith and credit of the government and is legal tender. That's what the digital dollar project is working on.
Choice in the markets is a good thing, and if Bitcoin solves all their needs, that's fine. I think that nation states, however, have different needs.
You'll find no claim comparing it to Bitcoin or in any way critical of other forms of non-sovereign currency.
What's a life lesson that you've learned in your years in both the government and financial industry?
Leadership matters. I'm proudest of decisions I've taken and issues I've championed — when I've believed in something and not championed it, it's probably where I have more regrets than perhaps issues I championed and were not able to see through.
I am partial to the construction that Theodore Roosevelt talked about, the man in the arena. It's not the critic who counts, and it's not the man who points out how the strong one stumbles — it's about the person who's in the arena fighting, and gets blood in their face and gets knocked down, but gets up again to keep fighting. The lessons I've learned are that there are some things in life that are worth fighting for, and subjecting oneself to perhaps ridicule and and then even loss.
This is a prediction question, and I know they are hard to answer, but do you think that digital currencies will definitely play a role in future societies?
To answer a question for the future, I'll actually look to the past for a minute, before looking back to the future.
If you look at most of modern history, the marketplace has seen competition between multiple sovereign currencies and non-sovereign commercial currencies. If you take the period of the European exploration of the East Coast of North America — the 16th and 17th centuries — there were multiple sovereign currencies from French francs to English pounds to Dutch Gilder's competing, but they are also non sovereign currency like script issued by the Dutch West Indies Company, and other other joint stock companies that were in operation exploring in a mercantilist economy.
That's been more common than the last 70, 80 years of sovereign currency dominance, especially the dollar. The post-World War II era of the dollar's dominance as a global reserve currency and the relative lack of non-commercial and non-sovereign currencies is actually an anomaly in human history.
I think the world may be returning to the average where you've got sovereign currencies competing with non-sovereigns for different utilization and different purposes. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, we'll put that aside. It's just that it may be a return to the mean in terms of sovereign and non southern currencies existing together.
Now, in that world, I think a number of the current stablecoins are basically workarounds. Not entirely, but in some cases, workarounds to the lack of digital sovereign currencies.
I think the world may be returning to the average where you've got sovereign currencies competing with non-sovereigns for different utilization and different purposes.
As the world's central banks and governments move to developing CBDCs, I think that some of those stabl coins will evolve to other purposes, perhaps payment systems built upon utilization of central banks digital currencies. Like where the CBDC is the underlying architecture, and then the stablecoins are built on it to either perform payment functions or smart contracts tied to dollar amounts, and other things like that.
Having said that, however, I do think we're in an era where you're going to see certain types of decentralized currencies very much remain. I think Bitcoin is not a flash in the pan. I think it's shown itself as an increasingly stable institutional asset class, taking its stand along other more traditional asset classes in the trading environment.
While Bitcoin is not a particularly effective means of payment, it is showing itself to be a particularly effective store of value. Whether it actually competes as a currency or competes in other ways, I don't know. I can't predict exactly what its future is going to look like, but I think it has a future and it's going to be part of the landscape.
To use a historical analogy, I think we're going from a world that's really dollar centric, we may be coming to a world that's more more diverse, perhaps more fractionalized, more regionalized, and with more choice between sovereign and non-sovereign currencies than the world we've seen for the last several generations.
While Bitcoin is not a particularly effective means of payment, it is showing itself to be a particularly effective store of value.
We're going into a new world in a lot of ways. I came of age in my professional life at a period known as globalization, where you saw increasing cross-border capital flows, cross-border trade, a lot of growing standardization around the world. I actually think that period is ending now.
We're going into a world of more regional trading blocs, more regulatory legal fragmentation, social fragmentation for sure. I think that we may see monetary fragmentation, currency fragmentation as well.
Whether it's a good or bad thing, I don't know. But history happens for good, for bad. Every era has its virtues, and every other era has its shortcomings, and will always be so.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Enjoyed reading our Crypto Titan series? Catch our last interview with Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song! Or check out the full list here.


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Words from our customers
I am very happy with the friendly service I received over the years from Shahi of IT Care. Shahi gave me hours of tutorial on how to use Facebook, Viber, and Email., and she fixed my computer. She is very kind, patient and always willing to go the extra mile to help me. I recommend her to everyone.
- Nita Wallis
Through IT Care I learned "technology stuff" such as how to order an Uber taxi, set up email, set up Chromecast on my TV, and fix my computer and internet problems in my home. I appreciated the patience and understanding of the staff, and highly recommend them to all, especially the elderly.
- Shirley McDowell
IT Care helped me set up our family computer, and later provided an upgrade. They also solved our internet problems, taught us Facebook, email and Skype. They are very friendly and understanding of our needs.
- Zaiton Ismael
©2018 by IT CARE.NZ


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Iced Apple Bomb - VGOD - 60mL
by VGOD
Sold out
Original price Dhs. 45.00 - Original price Dhs. 45.00
Original price
Dhs. 45.00
Dhs. 45.00 - Dhs. 45.00
Current price Dhs. 45.00
Vgod Iced Apple Bomb Ejuice offers you the semblance of a green, glossy ripened Granny Smith apple that is crisp at every bite. It's dripping with fruity juiciness of the flesh from the apple at the forefront of the inhale. It is an impeccable pucker inducing crunch of a green sour apple with menthol that is mellow yet revitalizing for any palate. VGOD's Apple Bomb Iced E-Liquid will detonate your taste buds all day long!
VGOD E-Liquid - Iced Apple Bomb Features:
- 60mL Chubby Unicorn Bottle
- Made in USA


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These Candy Crush Soda level 83 cheats and tips will help you beat level 83 of Candy Crush Soda. The objective of Candy Crush Soda level 83 is to Find 8 Bears in 30 moves..
Level 83 Cheat #1: Create special candies
Level 83 is one of the exciting levels of Candy Crush Soda Saga for all the fans of this game. This level's goal is to find 8 Bears and score 1200 points in 30 moves. The following tips will help you complete this level with the fewest moves.
With this game, there are no blockers on the playing field thus making it very easy for the creation of the special candies. The whole board is covered in ice, and U-shaped making the use of the special candies very efficient in completing this game. With special candies, you will be able to eliminate the massive amount of frozen tiles on the board to find the bears with few moves. There is a variety of colors to select from while matching these special candies. Special candies are an important key to Candy Crush Soda level 83.
Level 83 Cheat #2: Try combos
If your special candies are unable to clear the ice on the playing field in Candy Crush Soda level 83, try using combos. Combos are more powerful than using special candies on their own, and they can provide the necessary power required eliminate the frozen tiles on the board. The best combos to use are the combination of the color bombs with wrapped or striped candies. With these combos, you will manage to eliminate the ice with fewer moves and save the rest for finding the bears. Note that with Candy Crush Soda Level 83, you are directed where the bear is: a light blue under the ice is the presence of the bear.
Level 83 Cheat #3: Focus on the right side of the board
Because of the unusual shape of the board in Candy Crush Soda level 83, the usual tips dont work here. Instead of focusing on the bottom of the play field, you should try to make your moves on the right portion of the board. This will make the most candies move and give the best chance of a chain reaction. Especially if you are making special candies, working on the right side of the board will help you win level 83 of Candy Crush Soda.
Are you more of a visual learner? Watch this gameplay video for Candy Crush Soda level 83 to help you beat the level. Notice the different strategies this player uses to improve your Candy Crush Soda game.


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Ohio lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a "stand your ground" bill that eliminates a requirement to retreat before using deadly force in life-or-death situations. But the issue didn't come to a vote until after one Democratic member of the House refused to yield the floor, was gaveled down by the Speaker and…Read More
Day: November 17, 2018
Dr. Gina Loudon Commentary: I Am 'Becky,' and I'll Vote How I Darn Well Please
by Dr. Gina Loudon, Ph.D. Bitter liberals have found a scapegoat for their mediocre performance in the midterm elections: her name is "Becky," and they can't stand her. While the Democrats did take the majority in the House, they fell short of running the tables on election night. Two…Read More
Commentary: Put Family And Country First, Not Party
by Robert Romano A poll by Axios and SurveyMonkey found 61 percent of Democrats believe Republicans are racist, sexist and bigoted, and 31 percent of Republicans think the same thing about Democrats. 54 percent of Democrats find Republicans to be ignorant, 49 percent of Republicans believe the same about…Read More
Greenpeace Fighting to Stop Drivers From Learning About Carbon Tax Costs
by Jason Hopkins Greenpeace is suing to stop the placement of stickers on gas stations that notify drivers of higher fuel prices due to the implementation of a carbon tax. Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who has embarked on a pro-energy agenda in his province since entering office — will execute a…Read More
Facebook CEO Details Company Battle with Hate Speech
by Michelle Quinn Facebook says it is getting better at proactively removing hate speech and changing the incentives that result in the most sensational and provocative content becoming the most popular on the site. The company has done so, it says, by ramping up its operations so that computers…Read More
House GOP Urged to Use Lame-Duck Session to Fund Border Wall, Make Good on Other Promises
by Rachel del Guidice Conservative Republicans are calling for a busy lame-duck session of Congress between now and Jan. 3, when Democrats will retake the majority in—and control of—the House. "Republicans still have an opportunity to do what we said," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, former chairman of the House…Read More
US Government Reportedly Preparing Charges Against Julian Assange
by Chuck Ross The Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Prosecutors believe they will be able to try Assange in an American courtroom, sources told TheWSJ. The 47-year-old Australian national is living under asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.…Read More
Florida Counties Ditch Recount as Results Favor Republicans
by Molly Prince Two counties in Florida did not submit the results of the election recount in the required time frame, which would have otherwise increased the Republican candidates' leads over their Democrat challengers. Both Broward and Hillsborough Counties failed to meet Thursday's deadline to submit the tallies from…Read More
Senate Bill Would Ban One of Most Gruesome Forms of Abortion in Ohio
The Ohio House of Representatives passed a landmark bill Thursday that if signed into law would ban all abortions after the unborn baby's heartbeat is detected. But if the legislature is unable to override an expected veto of the heartbeat bill by Gov. John Kasich, then there's another bill waiting…Read More
Colorado: Uber Driver Arrested for Allegedly Kidnapping and Making Unwanted Advances on Teen Passenger
Ahmed Muse was arrested in Jefferson County last Sunday morning after an incident involving a teenage passenger the night before. The sheriff's office moved quickly and as of Monday night the 29-year-old Muse was still behind bars facing charges that included second degree kidnapping, false imprisonment, and harassment. On Tuesday,…Read More
Commentary: Fight the Denigration of American History
by Michael Finch American history is everywhere under attack. The recent skirmishes started with the campaign to remove Confederate statues, but it surely won't end there. As our betters in America's universities want us to know, the whole of American history is suspect. In our media, in the popular…Read More
Cuban Migrants Indicted on Charges of Stealing Identities of Ohioans
Two Cuban nationals used skimmers to steal the identities of Ohioans and make fake credit cards, which they then used to purchase goods at Sam's Club stores throughout northeastern Ohio, according to a federal indictment. Silvio Leon, 45, and Pablo Arrechavaleta, 41, both of Miami, Florida, were indicted this week…Read More


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Lemony Roasted Salmon with Potatoes and Kale
By doxie56
This easy salmon recipe makes a simple, satisfying supper any night of the week. Salmon, potatoes and kale are roasted with a touch of marinade made from Knorr® Chicken Bouillon and olive oil, then topped with fresh, tangy lemon.
- 1 Knorr® Chicken flavored Bouillon Cube, crumbled
- 5 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
- 1 lb. baby red potatoes, quartered
- 1 large bunch kale, coarse stems removed and torn into pieces
- 4 salmon fillets (about 4 oz. ea.)
- 1 lemon, peel finely grated and juiced
Servings 4
Preparation time 15mins
Cooking time 40mins
Adapted from knorr.com
Step 1
Preheat oven to 425°. Line rimmed baking sheet with foil; lightly brush with 1 tablespoon oil.
Crumble Knorr® Chicken Bouillon Cube into small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon oil and mix with fork until combined. Mix in remaining 3 tablespoons oil; set aside.
Toss potatoes with 2 tablespoons bouillon mixture in large bowl. Place on one side of prepared baking sheet. Roast 10 minutes.
Toss kale with 1 tablespoon bouillon mixture in large bowl. Place on other side of baking sheet; stir potatoes. Roast 5 minutes.
Brush salmon with remaining bouillon mixture and season, if desired, with ground black pepper. Place on top of kale. Roast 10 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork and vegetables are tender.
Drizzle 2 tablespoons lemon juice over fish and kale; sprinkle with lemon peel.
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Pension Awareness Day: don't put your retirement in jeopardy
As part of the nationwide campaign to help the UK save for a happier retirement, a tour bus will make the 2,500-mile journey from Edinburgh via Newcastle, Leicester, Cardiff, Reading and then London.
Launched by Pension Geeks and Scottish Widows, pension experts will help people understand long-term savings with a number of tips and guides.
It comes as Scottish Widows' latest retirement report revealed only 55% of people are saving adequately for retirement, while one in seven aren't saving anything at all.
Robert Cochran, retirement expert at Scottish Widows, said: "We've supported Pension Geeks since day one because we share the same passion and purpose – helping people achieve the happy retirement they want. For many people, pensions are confusing and they don't know where to begin with understanding their own pension."
'Don't put your retirement in jeopardy'
Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon urges people not to delay saving for retirement.
She said: "People aren't saving enough for their later life and as a result are probably facing an extended working life. Pensions give people choices. Getting into the savings habit early allows people to retire when they are ready, rather than keeping on working because they have to.
"People should be aiming to save about 15% of their earnings into a pension over their lifetime. Based on average earnings of £27,040 a year, this means saving around £340 a month. But as pension contributions attract tax relief, the change in take home pay is only £272 a month for 20% income tax payers.
"Nearly all jobs now come with a pension and an employer contribution, making pensions more affordable for the employed. But the self-employed aren't so lucky. They don't have the benefit of an employer contribution, so it's even more important they start saving early.
"The longer people delay saving, the more they have to save later to make up the shortfall, which could put retirement in jeopardy for many."
Tips to help you develop a pension savings habit
- Don't delay, get into the habit of pension saving early.
- If auto-enrolled into your employer's workplace pensionscheme, don't opt-out.
- If you previously opted-out – don't do this again. You miss out on employer contributions and tax top-up from the government.
- Find out how much your employer pays into your pensionand whether they will match your contributions.
- Pay in enough to maximise your employer's contribution.
- Use an online test to work out if you are a risk-taker or risk-averse, to help you invest your contributions to match your risk appetite, rather than relying on the scheme default investment fund.
- Don't wait a year for your annual benefit statement, which will be out of date by the time you receive it. Being online means you're able to monitor and review your pensionsavings in real time.
- Sign up to pay higher contributions today for tomorrow – when you get a pay rise or that well-earned promotion.


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British nationals are issued visitors' permits upon arrival in Seychelles. A Visitor's permit is valid for three months and can be extended for a maximum of twelve months. The visitor's permit issued the 1st three months is free of charge but a fee of approximately £60 is charged for the succeeding months.
In order to be eligible to enter Seychelles, UK nationals must be in possession of a valid passport with at least six months' remaining validity, an onward or return ticket, confirmed hotel accommodation and proof of sufficient funds, for a minimum of US $150 per day.
Information stated above is subject to change without prior notice. It is important to check or consult with the nearest Seychelles embassy or consulate office for entry requirements prior to traveling.
High Commission of the Republic of Seychelles
First Floor
18 Hanover Street
United Kingdom
Telephone: (020) 7409-0032
Fax: (020) 7491-4972
Seychelles Tourist Office in the UK
c/o First Link Tourism, Terminal House
52 Grosvenor Gardens
Victoria London
United Kingdom
Telephone: (020) 7333-0147