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The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 15, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.
KIRKUS REVIEW
A business-strategy tome heavy on generalizations.
There is an overabundance of books on business strategy. What tends to differentiate one from another? Truly new insights–which are admittedly hard to come by–or detailed case studies that demonstrate the strategies in action. Unfortunately, Rx for Business: Thinkivity lacks both. While Evans is clearly well-versed in business strategy, she covers little that’s new. Most of the information about strategic planning has been addressed elsewhere and with greater authority. Evans claims “Thinkivity” is “a revolutionary system that has helped top executives at S&P 500 companies turn strategy and long-term goals into tangible financial results for their organizations.” Yet none of these executives are quoted in the book and few companies are referenced. American Express and Hewlett-Packard, the only two firms used as examples, appear very briefly in anecdotal form. It would be generous to refer to them as case studies. The book offers a decent discussion of strategic planning, and the author is skilled at explaining the value of workflow design. Probably the most useful content in terms of innovation is the chapter on “What If” strategy. Here, Evans offers advice for becoming “pilot, navigator, and ground control”–as the business leader explores various “what if” ideas, he or she is guiding efforts, keeping things moving in the right direction and making pieces work together. In this section, Evans includes questions to ask, a sample idea-generation agenda and evaluation methodology for assessing each idea, all of which are helpful. The other useful tools in the book are sample mission statements, process flow diagrams, a strategic-planning worksheet and a sample strategic plan. Such tools are not uncommon in business-strategy books. This book follows Rx for Business: Qualitivity (2006), Evans’ first book about the synergy between quality and productivity. This second book in the series does a reasonably decent job of offering a structured approach to strategic planning, but it doesn’t present anything groundbreaking.
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Delta struggles to resume flights after computer system fails
A global computer system failure at Delta Air Lines left hundreds of passengers stranded for up to 12 hours at the Portland International Jetport on Monday.
Twelve hours after a power outage knocked out its computer systems worldwide, Delta Air Lines was still struggling to resume normal operations and clear backlogs of passengers stranded by canceled flights.
Passengers wait in line to check in for Delta flights Monday at the Portland International Jetport. Delta faced delays around the country because of a system problem in Atlanta.
By early afternoon, Delta said it had canceled 451 flights around the globe. Tracking service FlightStats Inc. counted 2,000 delayed flights – about one-third of the airline’s entire schedule.
Delta representatives said the airline was investigating the cause of the meltdown. They declined to describe whether the airline’s information-technology system had enough built-in redundancies to recover quickly from a hiccup such as a power outage.
Many passengers were frustrated that they received no notice of a global disruption, discovering that they were stranded only after making it through security and seeing other passengers sleeping on the floor. Delta said the outage caused a lag in posting accurate flight-status information on its website.
All Delta flights to and from the Portland International Jetport had been delayed or canceled as of 5 p.m. Monday, affecting an estimated 1,750 scheduled passenger trips. The longest delays were for flights headed to Atlanta, Delta’s hub. The first departure from Portland to Atlanta was supposed to leave at 5:50 a.m. As of 5 p.m., it had yet to leave and was tentatively scheduled to depart at 5:45 p.m.
Jetport Director Paul Bradbury said that while he was not in a position to say why each individual flight was delayed or canceled, the general issue was that initial flight delays caused a ripple effect throughout the day, similar to when there is a major weather event.
In some cases, flight crews had “timed out” from working or being on-call too long, and there was difficulty finding other crews to replace them, he said. In other cases, earlier delayed flights were late returning to Portland to carry the next load of passengers.
“These are the same aircraft, that is the problem,” Bradbury said. “You need one to leave before they can return (and pick up more passengers).”
Bradbury said Delta set up customer service centers at two gates, as well as the ticket counter, to assist stranded passengers. Delta also provided free snacks and beverages to customers during the delay.
Although Delta allowed passengers to switch their flights to other airlines Monday at no additional charge, Bradbury said there simply wasn’t room on most flights to accommodate stranded Delta passengers.
“In the summer, our load factors are very high in Portland,” he said. “There’s not enough room to absorb all the canceled flights.”
WAITING AND WONDERING
Delta said that almost 1,700 of its scheduled 6,000 flights had operated by midafternoon. The airline posted a video apology by CEO Ed Bastian, who stood in the airline’s technology center and assured customers that employees were working hard to resume normal operations.
A power outage at an Atlanta facility about 2:30 a.m. local time initiated a cascading meltdown, according to the airline, which is based in Atlanta.
A spokesman for Georgia Power said the company believes a failure of Delta equipment caused the airline’s power outage. He said no other customers lost power.
Delta spokesman Eric O’Brien said he had no information on the report and that the airline was still investigating.
Joshua Silver, a cyber security expert and shareholder at Bernstein Shur law firm in Portland, said it is surprising that a large airline such as Delta could find itself completely paralyzed by a computer system failure. He noted that other airlines, including Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, have suffered similar problems recently.
“Airlines that have experienced these sorts of problems almost certainly have robust disaster recovery (and) continuity of business systems in place that are intended to avert a system failure like this one,” Silver said via email. “My best guess is that airline computer systems are extremely complex and contain many layers of systems. It is possible that when one of those layers fails, it affects some of the others.”
Silver said that if enough layers of a complex computer system are affected, it brings the entire system down. Some failure in the Delta computer systems must have prevented the disaster recovery systems from working properly, he said.
“I’m sure that was a little irritating for Delta given that they have probably spent many millions of dollars building out their disaster recovery systems,” Silver said.
Flights that were already in the air when the outage occurred continued to their destinations, but flights on the ground remained there, including all of the airline’s flights to and from Portland.
Daniel Baker, CEO of tracking service FlightAware.com, told the Associated Press that after years of rapid consolidation in the airline business, these computer systems may be a hodgepodge of parts of varying ages and from different merger partners. The systems are also being worked harder, with new fees and options for passengers, and more transactions – Delta’s traffic has nearly doubled in the past decade.
“These old legacy systems are operating much larger airlines that are being accessed in many, many more ways,” Baker said. “It has really been taxing.”
That has afflicted airlines in the United States and abroad.
Last month, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights over several days after an outage that it blamed on a faulty network router.
United Airlines suffered a series of massive IT meltdowns after combining its technology systems with those of merger partner Continental Airlines.
Lines for British Airways at some airports have grown longer as the carrier updates its systems.
On Monday in Richmond, Virginia, Delta gate agents were writing out boarding passes by hand. In Tokyo, a dot-matrix printer was resurrected to keep track of passengers on a flight to Shanghai.
“Not only are their flights delayed, but in the case of Delta the website and other places are all saying that the flights are on time because the airline has been so crippled from a technical standpoint,” Baker said.
Many passengers, like Bryan Kopsick, 20, from Richmond, were shocked that computer glitches could cause such turmoil.
“It does feel like the old days,” Kopsick told the AP. “Maybe they will let us smoke on the plane, and give us five-star meals in-flight too.”
The company said travelers will be entitled to a refund if the flight is canceled or significantly delayed. Travelers on some routes can also make a one-time change to the ticket free of charge.
Yet many passengers still did not know where the rest of their day would be spent, and decisions on refunds would have to be made later.
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^abDaniels 1997, hlm. 45: “Conceptualizations of class and state converge in the white supremacist discourse in the characterization of the United States government as the ‘Zionist Occupation Government’ (ZOG)... As indicated by the ubiquitous reference to the state as ‘ZOG’ (‘Zionist’ is equated with ‘Jewish’) within these publications, the state is depicted as inherently ‘Jewish’, a racial identity within the discourse. The government, as well as the corporate elite, is supposedly ‘occupied’ and controlled by Jews.”
^Bronner, Stephen Eric (2000), A Rumor About the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", Palgrave Macmillan, hlm. 136, "The National States Rights Party and the California Noontide Press distributed the Protocols during the 1970s and it is still hailed by representatives of right-wing militias: William Luther Pierce, author of the neofascist bestseller The Turner Diaries, for example, identifies the American state as a "Zionist Occupation Government."
^Brasher, Brenda (2001), Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism, Routledge, hlm. 305, "With the racist and anti-Semitic theology of Christian Identity as their justification, they blame the Jewish Antichrist, or the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG), which rules in Washington, taking its orders from internationalist Jews in Israel, the United Nations, and the Fortune 500. Attracting old-line hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and inspiring newer ones like the Aryan Nation Alliance..., the militia and Patriot movement have helped to legitimize racist and anti-Semitic hate groups..."
^Perry, Barbara (2003), Hate and Bias Crime, Routledge, hlm. 325, "...vivid philosophy of White supremacy, including the belief that the United States is manipulated by foreign Jewish interests collectively known as the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG). With this conspiracy theory, the strain is "explained" (e.g., the Jews are behind multicultural curricula), and the solution is presented: hate crimes and race war."
^Pilch, Richard F; Zilinskas, Raymond A (2005), Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense, Wiley, hlm. 114, "The importance of Christian Identity (CI) in the context of bioterrorism is that it has been openly embraced by certain U.S. right-wing ‘militia’ and terrorist cells whose members have expressed interest in acquiring or utilizing pathogens and toxic chemical agents... as weapons against their opponents, including representatives of the ‘Zionist Occupation Government’ (ZOG) that they feel is controlled by ‘satanic’ Jews."
^Sauter, Mark; Carafano, James (2005), Homeland Security, McGraw-Hill, hlm. 122, "The Order, a faction of the Aryan Nations, seized national attention during the 1980s. The tightly organized racist and anti-Semitic group opposed the federal government, calling it the ‘ZOG,’ or Zionist Occupation Government."
^Schwarz, Rabbi Sidney (2006), Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World, Jewish Lights Publishing, hlm. 96, ISBN1-58023-312-0, "One of the most widely distributed anti-Semitic tracts in history is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a book of canards authored in the nineteenth century that portrays Jews as conspiring to seek global dominance. Similarly, American-based racist groups in this last century have frequently leveled accusations against Jews for controlling both banks and public officials.". | {
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My early experiences with Commodore computers
[WARNING: this post is pretty much pure nostalgia for 1980s hardware, and has little technical content. It does, however, set up something else that I want to write about soon.]
I was born 1968; I finished primary school and went to secondary school, at age 11, in 1979. At that time I’d never seen a computer, but at secondary school I met Myles Kelvin, and we quickly became best friends. His dad had recently bought a Video Genie to run a small business on, and that was the first computer I used.
(I know it seems odd to start an article about Commodore computers with a Video Genie photo, but bear with me.)
I cut my programming teeth on two computers more or less simultaneously: that Video Genie, and a Commodore PET 2001 belonging to Richard Lewsey, the father of a boy that my mum used to child-mind. I’ll probably write about the Video Genie some time, but today I want to concentrate on the Commodore stream, because that’s where I ended up putting most of my efforts for the next seven years.
Remember the PET 2001? The PET was the initial line of Commodore computers, predating the VIC-20 (see my blog banner image) and the Commodore 64. As far as I recall, the 2001 was the earliest model, blessed with 8 Kb of memory (half as much as the Video Genie), and a 40×25 character monochrome screen. PETs have a very distinctive profile, and the 2001 is instantly recognisable by its hideous keyboard — an array of tiny, closely packed squares, with lots of blue and red all over it.
I can’t begin to tell you how my inner self wells up with nostalgia just from seeing this image. The funny blue OFF/RVS and RUN/STOP keys; the white letter and number keys and silver punctuation; the weird graphics characters above the main glyphs (which you got using SHIFT, since there were no lower-case letters.)
Richard was an amazing man. It’s been 24 years since I last saw him, but I owe him a huge debt. He let me spend a huge amount of time camped in the corner of his living room, hacking away on his computer; he taught me all sorts of important techniques, critiqued my early programming efforts, and built me a truly unique piece of hardware (see below).
Programming on the PET was either using the built-in Microsoft BASIC interpreter (back from when Microsoft were the Little Guy) or in machine code. I’ll admit I did much more of the former than the latter, but enough machine-code stuck that I still remember far too many of the 6502 op-codes: A9 for load immediate, AD for load absolute, AA for transfer A to X, 00 for BRK. (What is all that stuff still doing in my mind, when I can’t seem to find space to remember the difference between the virtual factory maker pattern and the virtual builder factory pattern?)
When I was about thirteen years old, I started doing a milk round to earn the money to buy my own computer. I got up at 4:30 in the morning every Saturday and Sunday, and worked through to about mid-day, for £5 a week. (Sorry if this is a bit of an Old Fart story, but it’s in here as background.) By Christmas 1981, I’d accumulated about £140, and for Christmas my parents gave me the rest of the money that I needed to make it up to the list-price of the VIC-20 — a number engraved forever in my mind, £189.95.
A few days after Christmas, Dad took me shopping — I think this was literally the most exciting day of my life (sorry, Fiona!). I’d been happily expecting each programming session to consist of turning it on, writing a program, turning it off, and starting all over again the next time, but to my amazement Dad had another forty quid or so, and I was able to get the external tape-drive that would enable me to save my work! Awesome!
It was called a “Datasette”. With a VIC, you had to use Commodore’s official tape drive, unlike the Sinclair Spectrum and other such computers that would let you plug in any old tape deck. Under control of the firmware provided, the Datasette could transfer a less than awe-inspiring 50 bytes per second.
The VIC-20 was both less and more than the PET. On the positive side, it had a much better keyboard, eight colours, three-channel sound (the PET was silent, although I seem to remember that Richard had hacked his hardware to get a non-standard sound-card working on his PET) and lower-case letters (though not at the same time as the graphics characters). And of course, it had a much lower price. On the negative side, it had only 5 Kb of memory, of which 1 Kb was used by the system and 1/2 Kb for the memory-mapped screen, leaving a rather meagre 3583 bytes for the programmer — one byte shy of three and a half Kb. Finally, its truly tiny screen resolution: 22 characters across and 23 down, each drawn in an 8×8 pixel space for a total size of 176×184 pixels — 32384 pixels, or 0.03 megapixels in modern camera terms.
It’s worth taking a moment to think about that. My main work machine now has a 1920×1200 screen, which means you could tile it with 71 VIC-20 screens.
So about that three-and-a-half Kb. You could actually do a surprising amount in that space: I remember writing a Donkey Kong game with custom graphics characters, a fruit machine, various games where your spaceship had to avoid meteors falling down the screen and suchlike. (I got really good at writing Meteors. When I was in the local shopping centre, I’d often pop into Dixons, write that program on their display model VIC-20 and leave it running.)
Still, more memory was obviously needed, but I had a problem: money. We weren’t a rich family, and I’d stopped earning from the milk round because I was now spending all my early-morning time playing with the VIC instead of delivering milk. If I’m remembering right, the 8 Kb expansion cartridge cost a massive £35, and there was no way that was going to happen.
Richard Lewsey to the rescue! He made a memory expansion. I didn’t even know that was possible. He got hold of the chips, designed and soldered the board and housed it all inside … a cassette case! I still have it up in my office, and here it is for your enjoyment:
Armed with a full 11.5 Kb, I was ready to start making some real programs, and what moved me most was Adventure games. (“I’m in a forest. I can also see: trees.”) I wrote a whole sequence of these on the VIC, of which the first two were published: Magic Mirror and Nosferatu. Thanks to the wonder of emulators, I can still play them today, which I think is pretty astonishing. More worryingly, I can see the horrible code that I wrote back then, and marvel that it ever got published. (I’ll talk more about this in a future post.)
Those two games made me a bit of money — I think something like £650 all together, which was a lot for our family. I spent nearly all of it on more Commodore hardware: first the amazing new C64, which had a massive 64 Kb of memory:
Yes, the 64 looks very, very much like the VIC-20: basically identical except that the plastic casing is a duller shade of cream and the function keys are grey rather than sand-coloured. Around the back, it was a little more different — for example, the cartridge expansion slot was narrower.
Of the 64 Kb on board, 38 Kb was directly available to programs: if I’m remembering correctly, 16 Kb of the remainder was hidden behind the ROMs (8 Kb kernel and 8 Kb BASIC); some of the other 10 Kb was screen-mapped or zero-page, but I’m not sure where the rest of it went. (Note that loading a program that used the easily accessible 38 Kb, at the rate of 50 bytes per second, would take 13 minutes, plus however long it takes to get the milk.)
You could switch out the kernel and BASIC ROMs by setting certain magic memory locations to special values; but of course if you did that from BASIC using POKE, the interpreter would suddenly not be there any more and the computer would crash. So to access the hidden memory, it was necessary to use machine-code. I remember writing routines to copy chunks of memory in and out of the hidden banks to an area where I could access it from BASIC. A popular trick was to copy the ROMs through to the RAM hidden behind them, then switch the ROMs out and run the kernel and BASIC from RAM, where they could be tweaked.
As well as the C64 itself, I bought the astonishing (I am not being sarcastic) 1541 disk drive:
The reason I describe this drive as astonishing is that it was connected to the computer by: a serial lead. Yes: a line with DIN plugs at each end, connecting to a bit-serial IEEE 488 interface. Although its capacity of 170 Kb per disk compared fairly well with the disk drives of competitor computers such as the BBC Micro, the super-slow serial interface meant that its speed was tortoise-like. What’s that? You want a number? OK, here it is: 300 bytes per second. That’s 3000 baud (allowing for stop-bits and suchlike), which is 1/17 as fast as a typical modem (if you can even buy them any more). At that speed, copying a 170 Kb disk took ten minutes — but that was if you had two drives and could copy directly from one to the other. In practice of course, with only one disk, the process was read into memory for a while, prompt the user to switch disks, write to the destination disk for a while, prompt the user to switch back, and vamp till fade. All in all, it was a twenty-minute-plus process. To add insult to injury, lots of third-party drivers turned up for the tape drive, increasing its speed by an impressive 10x, yielding 500 bytes per second: the upshot was that the cassette drive was actually half as fast again as the disk drive.
How did we ever get anything done?
Completing the menagerie was the Commodore 1702 monitor, which meant I could dump the old black-and-white portable TV I’d been using:
Later I got a slow, noisy Commodore dot-matrix printer whose characters were bitmaps in an 8×8 matrix, and which therefore lacked descenders for the lower-case g, j, p, q and y characters. It printed, of course, on fanfold paper — everything did in those days. But I don’t remember the model number, and googling for photos hasn’t turned up anything that rings bells, so here is a picture of battleship-style salmon roe sushi instead.
Armed with my C64, 1541 disk drive, 1702 monitor and the printer, whatever it was, I was able to get more done, more quickly, than with the VIC-20. I wrote a multi-user[1] adventure game called The Causes of Chaos, which I sold via a London-based software house called CRL, and which made enough money for me to survive through university without accumulating any debt. (Note that this was in England, where tutition is free; and in the late 1980s, when there were student grants instead of loans. So this is not as impressive as it probably sounds to anyone who’s working their way through Yale.)
So by 1986, I was firmly established in the world of Commodore computers, subscribing to ICPUG (the newsletter of the Independent Commodore Products User Group), and cheerfully hacking away mostly in BASIC with a bit of 6502 machine-code on the side, and dreaming of the day when amazingly advanced languages like COMAL would revolutionise the programing world by being even better than BASIC. (I knew this because I’d read about it in Practical Computing.) I was very comfortable and very happy in this world.
Then I went to university and met Unix. But that is a story for another day.
Note [1]. I am embarrassed to admit this, but “multi-user” here meant that the players would take turns at the keyboard. I doubt that anyone, ever, actually played it that way.
40 responses to “My early experiences with Commodore computers”
Wow, that’s a trip down memory lane. My old C64, and possibly a C128 is still stuffed away in my parents attic somewhere. I wonder if they still work. The monitor was great, I used it for years because it had RCA jacks. I sure wish my fancy flat panel display I have today had an input so simple and versatile. I never understood why the IBM monitor I got later didn’t have them.
Ah! Bringing back memories (nightmares) of sector patching TRS-80 floppy discs that had been corrupted by crashing software… And tweaking the 8008 assembler code for a home-brew (wire-wrapped) rally computer I and a friend built.
I had much the same C=64 set-up as you when I was younger. I used it through high school (graduated 1994) for everything. The printer I had was the 1526 – sounds like it could be what you had, too. And I can’t believe I remembered that number off the top of my head without looking it up. . .
I have my Commdore 64 sitting next to me right now. I would like to get back into coding on it, but the issue is always relevancy. Unfortunately the world is not what it was once and the Internet does spoil one rather.
To be honest, it saddens me that the console-de-jour these days is so closed and that there just isn’t that bedroom coding nature anymore. Imagine what could be achieved if the Wii came with a “Programming Channel” and full documentation. Gosh, we would have killed to have access to a computer with an always-on wireless connection to the Internet and every other console.
I’m amazed you got something published, well done. I wrote a lot, but lacked the [what we now call] ‘social network’. I’m quite proud of myself for writing a machine code IRQ routine to move a mouse pointer sprite around the screen using the joystick.
mdhills, your memory serves you well: 6502 in the PET, 6510 in the C64, and I don’t remember which in the VIC-20. I seem to recall that the chip actually ran slightly slower in the C64 than in the VIC. Weird.
Croc Kamen, I’ll be writing more about my experiences getting my games published, and more generally about the cottage-industry feel of the computer-games world in those days.
I don’t recall the exact speed ratings for the CPU of the V20 vs C64, but I do seem to recall that a part of the relatively slowness of the C64 was the larger display area which stole cycles from the CPU.
In any case, awesome blog. If if you are just *slightly* younger than I am and more successful. :) Subscribed.
You may be surprised to learn that there is an active community of VIC-20 users and that new software and hardware is *still* being released. No nostalgic VIC-20 journey would be complete without a visit to:
I think that Video Genie was sold in Australia as a Sorcerer. That was the first computer I ever saw – one of The Dads brought it along to my Cubs group. I think I was 7. He typed:
10 CLS
20 PRINT “HI”
30 GOTO 20
RUN
The screen strobed with HIs and I was lost. The next year I got my first VIC-20. Those few short years with it are the bedrock of my current programming practice. I can’t imagine myself now trying to PEEK and POKE to manipulate the _actual graphics memory of the display_, but (and this is related to your other post about frameworks): I know how computers work. Not just how CoreGraphics or Cocoa or X-Windows or Unix work, but how the _computer_ works.
And that tiny 3.5k of memory? It was freedom! I devoted one Christmas hols to writing an entire Star Wars adventure game (Episode IV had just come out, remember) including a stupidly lengthy intro sequence with graphics and sound (the programmable sound chip was awesome – Attack Decay Sustain Release!). How did we do it? I’ve no idea, but by jiminy I’m glad we did.
I’m certain it makes us better programmers now, if only because it taught us to relish the unknown, to think of the computer as a very large bucket of generic lego, rather than the Star Wars Jar-Jar Binks Torture and Execution set (5 pieces, batteries not included, not compatible with sets from other manufacturers).
According to Wikipedia, the Video Genie was a clone of the TRS-80. The Sorcerer was a similar Z80 machine made by Exidy. The Sorcerer was my first computer, so my head is filled with Z80 opcodes rather than 6502, but my first computer programming stories are more-or-less the same.
The Sorcerer had these plug-in ROM packs with different software, the BASIC interpreter was the most common one. It had a cassette interface, and the S100 expansion bus allowed you to plug in this bus enclosure that you could slot S100 cards into (like floppy drive controllers).
It also had a small “monitor” program burnt onto ROMS, I remember we completely rewrote the monitor in machine code and burned it onto EPROMS to replace those original ROMs. We also modified the video controller (all hardware in those days, fixed clock rates, etc) to change the 64×30 character display to 80×24. Wow!
I think the machine and the S100 expansion box are still in my father’s cupboards somewhere, I hope to pull them out some day to show my son.
As for me, my first machine was a Commodore 64. My brother and I wanted an Atari 2600 and saved up money from our paper round. Our father talked us out of buying the Atari because he thought that, when we got bored playing games, we could use it for programming and learning about computers. This was the start of my career in IT (thanks, Dad). Our father also came up with the extra money ($A50) to buy a Datasette for us.
After a few years my brother got bored of the C64, so I bought out his share and sold it to fund the purchase of a Commodore 128, which I still have.
@Scott Yes of course it was the System 80, not the Sorcerer. I remember it was popular with Ham Radio enthusiasts because someone had written some logbook software, and they used to tell each other about it over the air. Pre-Internet – a viral marketing campaign!
I also remember Dick Smith (for Podean readers, Dick Smith Electronics was a slightly more upmarket version of Radio Shack – or Tandy as it was called in Australia) used to sell a computer called the CAT, which was an Apple II-compatible that looked a bit like an Atari ST, back when those things were important.
About load times being slow on the C64 is an understatement. We used to play darts while we waited. Then I got a Super Snapshot cartridge and all was good (the code for the fast loader was written by someone that went to my school. My brother knew him and was in the same class.).
One thing I remember doing for kicks was building a parallel cable between the CIA chip in the disk drive (yes, the drive was its own computer with its own processor) to the user port of the C64. I had to write code both for the disk drive and the C64 and have them talk to each other and stay in sync without losing speed. Today, this is called distributed computing. Or at least client/server programming. I was doing it for kicks and got a 10x speedup. Then I obtained fast loader software designed for this parallel cable and it was insane the speedup. No more wait times at all. Didn’t work with copy protected materials unfortunately since they used their own disk drive code for the copy protection, but for most things, it worked great.
I actually miss going to the electronics store (the kind that sold resistors and capacitors) and asking the guy who worked there all sorts of questions. His faces were quite telling at how he found us annoying, but we learned a lot and after a while, he seemed anxious to find out what crazy projects we’d be working on next. (One project was a sound sampler I saw in a magazine. 4-bit sound, YAY!) Those stores don’t exist around here anymore.
Wow, nice stroll down memory lane. My first exposure to computers was with Apple II’s in high school. Then with an original IBM PC & PCjr during senior year.
The VIC-20? My best friend had one and when he got a 64, he loaned the VIC-20 to me to see if I wanted to buy it. I played with it for one evening and took it back. I’ll admit it – I was spoiled after working with the Apples & IBM’s.
Enough about me though. That custom memory expansion module is utterly cool! I’ve always envied those who had a knack for tinkering with hardware in ways that I could only dream of. The closest I ever came was a DIY car charger for my walkman (X-mas gift in ’82) – and duly fried it. Sorry Mom & Dad.
Ah yes, the 1541. It really *was* an astonishing drive, though, because it had a CPU in it nearly as powerful as that in the C64 (a 6502 rather than a 6510, so all it lacked was bank-switching) and some RAM (IIRC, 8K). You could run distributed systems across the serial link, and with not very much work you could rewrite the astonishingly dire serial protocol into something that was actually relatively nippy: I managed 1.5Kb/s once, I think.
That RAM expansion pack is amazing. I started with a ZX81: we bought a wobbly RAMpack, but a short in the RAMpack stopped it from working (it drew too much power and the machine shut down in sympathy). After dithering in worry for a year or two my dad fixed it. It’s surprising how much you can write in 1K… as long as you avoided BASIC. (The ZX81 BASIC’s only numeric representation was a six-byte float. Perhaps a bad choice given the tiny RAM). Its assembler was awesome, alternate banks and everything (the 6510’s was of course awesome in pretty much the diametrically opposite fashion, RISCy before RISC was cool). I can still remember Z80 opcodes the way you can remember 6502 ones (C9 for unadorned RET is the first that springs to mind 27-odd years later).
That printer was horrific in hindsight. It was so noisy that more than once the neighbours knocked on the door to ask me to stop printing something so they could hear their TV, and the print quality was dire.
oh, also, you typed in meteors games on store computers? I’m afraid I was much more evil. I tended to type in programs on store computers that would display an imitation of the normal boot prompt and then act bizarrely when the users tried to ‘use’ it, insulting them, boasting about how amazing this specific computer was and how it was so much better than the primitive carbon-based users… every time I rewrote it it got more surreal.
In hindsight I’m surprised I never turned into some sort of systems cracker ;) I mean, fake login screens would have been easy in comparison!
you’ve used my image of the 1702, which is cool (I’m glad you liked it! :-) ), but it’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. if you could link ‘er back to the page it comes from (http://www.flickr.com/photos/shaniber/3027892522), I’d muchly appreciate it.
I really enjoyed the article… brought back a lot of memories of how I cut my teeth on the Vic-20 and C64. beautiful machines, they were…
I was born in 1968 – I remember being 13 years old. Saving all the money I could from my paper-round so I could buy a VIC-20. The day came to collect the computer, it was pure magic – I whish every day could be like that :)
Does anybody remember a model of the PET 2001 without the tape drive? I fully remember the typing on the chicklets, but I’m pretty sure the ones in our lab had the keyboard centered, and some 3rd-party hack with an external tape drive. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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Recent Reviews
“Great freelancer as always, sadly communication issues left me being without a finished product and a full freelancer request fee. Will ensure brief is detailed more in future, but no major issues. Just cross communication.” | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Hump Day Humor: Cheap Admission
04.16.08 | 1 Comment
Having money is great. Saving money to have more when you need it is always a good idea and it always pays off. But there is a conspiracy out there to separate me from my money. Whenever I want to use some service or to obtain some type of good, may it be in the form of some type of edible treat or skin warming fabric, people want to charge me money for it. I can’t stand being charged for things that I need to survive, so when I stumbled upon a nice little scheme to get me 50% off the price of admission to various places of necessity I was shocked and awed by its subtle elegance. You see, with a little guile, a small amount of assembly skills, and an extremely flexible (or smallish) companion, you will never have to pay the full price for admission ever again.
Here is how it works:
You and a buddy (spouse, teenage child, friend, grandparent, total stranger, or pooka) decided what you want to pay half price to go see – it could be a movie, sporting event, or fair
Since this obviously works, let us to turn our attention towards where we might be able to go in order to take full advantage of the massive money saving potential that these kind hearted individuals opened our eyes to. In San Diego and its environs this scheme could pay off big at:
*All genders welcome. You don’t even have to be the “child’s” parent. Score!
Now that is a lot of savings! If you are a truly ambitious individual you could forgo the friend and just try and get some random stranger to claim you as their child as they wheel you into a movie theater for free – for free! All they would have to do is park you inside the restroom of your choice and you could enjoy an unlimited number of free admissions to all sorts of destinations. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
At Trade, Olmert helped lawyer's clients make millions
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is suspected of furthering interests worth millions for associates of his close friend, attorney Uri Messer, while serving as minister of of industry and trade, according to a Haaretz investigation. In all the cases examined, then trade minister Olmert participated in meetings that involved entrepreneurs and attorney Messer, on the one hand, and officials of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on the other.
Notwithstanding the regulations regarding possible conflict of interests, Olmert did not recuse himself from discussions on requests to further business interests of associates of his close friend, Messer, who is also the prime minister's personal attorney. Below are some examples:
1. In 2003 Olmert was presented with a request from businessman Ephraim Feinblum to grant preferred status to a factory he planned to set up in Dimona. The relevant officials at the Ministry of Industry and Trade - the heads of the chemical and environment sections, as well as the director of the Investment Center - expressed their opposition to the request. In practice, preferred status involves a grant of NIS 15 million in state funds. Feinblum hired attorney Messer.
In response to a Haaretz inquiry, Feinblum said that Messer "is doing a job for me. Expediting a meeting and coming with me to that meeting." Indeed, at the meeting held in Olmert's office in July 2003, attorney Messer presented those in attendance, including his friend the minister, with the arguments of the entrepreneurs. Olmert instructed the ministry officials to expedite the handling of the case, and at a later date declared in the Knesset that he was "fighting" to set up the factory.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade under Olmert undertook to pay for 75 percent of the costs of developing the land for the building of the factory. At that time Messer worked on a volunteer basis in managing Olmert's campaign organization, which backed his candidacy in the Jerusalem mayoral election in 1998, and which had still not been dissolved.
2. Another client of attorney Messer was Shemen Industries, which opposed reducing tariffs on cooking imported oils. After the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced a 3-4.5 percent drop in the tariffs, on the basis of recommendations made by ministry experts, a special meeting was held in Olmert's office later that month. Messer attended the meeting as the representative of the oil producer. As a result of that meeting, Olmert overturned the original decision and ordered the imposition of a 4 percent tariff on imported oil. Boaz Tzafrir, at the time CEO of Shemen said: "Olmert took matters into his own hands... and we succeeded in keeping the situation more or less unchanged."
3. The technology firm Asicom paid attorney Messer an advance of NIS 80,000 to bypass the decision of Shmuel Mordechai, who at the time served as director of the Investment Center at the Ministry of Industry and Trade. A senior Asicom executive said: "During the meeting we pointed out that Shmuel Mordechai did not like the approval we received... and did everything in his power to nullify it. Messer said that 'he will get his from above.' How many people are there who are above the director of the Investment Center?" The same executive noted that ultimately the company managed to solve its problems on its own, and Messer did not receive any more money.
In response Messer said that "this never happened. The managers of Asicom and I have a financial dispute, and their claims are biased and baseless."
In all the cases mentioned in the Haaretz investigation report, a bonus was promised to attorney Messer should his lobbying activities at the Ministry of Industry and Trade prove successful. In all instances, Olmert did not inform the State Comptroller's Office or the attorney general of a possible conflict of interest, as is required by the regulations of the committee for the prevention of conflicts of interest for ministers and deputy ministers. Furthermore, in none of the cases did Olmert opt to disqualify himself because of conflict of interest.
In response Messer said: "I do not recall that I asked any of the people in Olmert's office to further projects related to me."
A statement issued by Olmert's office notes that "members of the Prime Minister's Office never handled nor intervened in cases represented by Messer. We are not aware of any matter that Messer promoted at the Ministry of Industry and Trade."
To get the latest from HaaretzFollow @HaaretzomLike us on Facebook and get articles directly in your news feed
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, and analysis from Israel and the Middle East.
Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict,
the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Starbuck is
what is referred to as a "Fluffy" Cardigan. Most breeders will
occasionally produce Fluffy puppies in otherwise quality-packed
litters. Since an overly long coat is considered an "extremely
serious fault" in the show ring, Fluffies are typically offered as pets
only. They make beautiful companions, and require only slightly
more frequent brushings (to prevent matting behind the ears, tail and
pants area). | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Castro knew mother's value from beginning
Updated 8:16 pm, Friday, October 5, 2012
I'm not saying Julián Castro nurtured his ambitions early, but he first called me about 17 or 18 years ago when he was an undergraduate at Stanford and I was an Express-News columnist.
He was home on a break and wanted to have breakfast to talk about what was going on in San Antonio. It became a regular event on his visits home from Stanford and, later, from Harvard Law School.
We usually met at Pico de Gallo, the bustling restaurant on the west end of downtown. It was a good place to watch City Council members being wooed by City Hall lobbyists.
I enjoyed the sessions. Julián was a bright young man and a good conversationalist. I'm sure he impressed others he similarly sought out.
In late 2000 or early 2001, after he graduated and was working with the San Antonio office of the giant Akin Gump law firm, he set up another breakfast. This time his twin brother Joaquin was with him. He also was working at Akin Gump.
Julián quickly got to the point. He was planning to run for City Council and wanted to know my opinion of his chances. It was an audacious move. At 26, Julián was seeking to become the youngest San Antonio city councilman ever elected at that time.
When Rosie Castro came of age, all the state legislators in Bexar County were elected countywide. The scheme was quite transparent, but it wasn't until 1973 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this system in Bexar County (and Dallas County) was an unconstitutional method of effectively excluding blacks and Mexican-Americans from the political process.
San Antonio's entire City Council was also elected citywide. During the 20-year reign of the Good Government League, which ended in the mid-1970s, the council regularly included a couple of Hispanics and a black, but with few exceptions they were hand-picked by the League's leaders in closed sessions — and they knew who put them there.
It's hardly a surprise that Rosie Castro became disaffected from the Democratic Party, and active in the fledgling Raza Unida Party that grew out of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In 1971, she ran for City Council under the Raza Unida banner, and lost. Although Raza Unida gained traction by winning city and county posts in a couple of rural areas, it faded by the late 1970s. But Rosie continued to pursue politics and community activism.
She became an ombudsman for the San Antonio Housing Authority, and was a major organizer for longtime City Councilwoman Maria Berriozábal. By the time Julian ran for City Council, there weren't many politically aware citizens on the West Side of San Antonio who didn't know and respect Rosie.
It was good to see Julian give his mother recognition at the Democratic National Convention. But given the tenor of national politics it is not surprising that her son's prominence and promise made her a target for some in the Republican Party. More on that in another column. | {
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NHL
NHL Power Rankings (week of Feb. 17-24)
After a couple of weeks with dealing with food poisoning, and other various matters, which I deem more important than breathing, I am back with the post-all star edition of the NHL power rankings. Before I begin, let me say this, as someone who is a family member of a victim of domestic abuse, please, if you think anything is going on, or you know anything is going on, please call the police, get them involved. Especially if there are young children around.
Going back to the fun and games department, it seems that all is not well in the land of the Coyote, and their playoff hopes are going downhill. The main question in the west is, who are the legit contenders, besides San Jose? Detroit’s defense is horrible, the Wild cannot score, the Blackhawks are owned by the Wings, and everyone else is mediocre at best.
Over in the east, it looks like the Devils are putting the curse to the the East, as they skyrocket to the two seed. The Flyers are trying to catch them, while the Bruins are starting to slide a little. Where did your team end up?
Rank (Pv)
Team
Record
Comments
1 (2)
37-8-9
Wise man say, “It is better to slump in January then in April”
Injuries: None.
2 (1)
39-10-8
They are hitting a small rough patch right now, but the B’s are ready to roll over everyone.
Injuries: RW Michael Ryder (face)
3 (4)
30-16-9
Jeff Carter could make a huge run at the Norris. He’s a darkhorse pick right now, but with his recent play, you cannot over look him.
Injuries: RW Danny Briere (groin)
4 (6)
37-17-3
If Zach Parise doesn’t at least end up as a finalist as MVP, I will go on a hunger strike. He’s the main reason the Devils are not just part of the playoff conversation, but the main reason why they could be a serious East contender. Oh, and the fact that Brodeur guy is about to come back.
Injuries: G Martin Brodeur (elbow)
5 (3)
31-15-8
Johnathan Toews is another MVP finalist. Somehow, the Hawks are going to edge out the Wings for the division title, all they need is to figure out how to beat them.
Injuries: None.
6 (8)
36-16-5
Alexander the GR-8, enough said. Honestly, this guy is the face of the NHL. Oh, and if you aren’t down with that, I got two words for you…Mike Green. Could they be a legit threat to come out of the East as well?
Injuries: RW Viktor Kozlov (groin)
7 (5)
37-12-8
The main question everyone has with the Wings is their defense. If they want to be a serious West contender, they are going to have to shore up that defense. They let the Avalanche score six goals on them.
They are the opposite of the Red Wings, if they want to be taken seriously, they need to add more offense.
Injuries: RW Marian Gaborik (hip)
9 (7)
33-18-5
Seven out of eight points this week means that the Flames are trying to make this just a two team race in the Northwest.
Injuries: None.
10 (11)
29-22-6
The power play is starting to go to sleep. Things are fading for the Sabers, but judging the teams under them, they’ll still make the playoffs. However, they should be in better shape once their injury problems are fixed.
Injuries: D Andrej Sekera (lower body), D Henrik Tallinder (shoulder), LW Thomas Vanek (jaw).
11 (13)
28-25-5
How they rose in the rankings, while all logic says they are falling off the face of the Earth? I have no clue.
Injuries: None.
12 (15)
28-20-8
Everything says they are a middle of the pack team. Yet, they just know how to win. This is the best young team in the NHL, they could go deep in the playoffs, look for them to cause some havoc with predictions.
Injuries: D Bryan Allen (knee)
13 (16)
24-22-9
The Kings are making a run to sneak into the playoffs. The only question is, can Jonathan Quick keep up his hot play?
Here is a simple solution for the Dinner Jackets, just schedule the Colorado Avalanche 82 times a season, you will break all kinds of NHL records.
Injuries: G Steve Mason (mononucleosis), RW Jakub Voracek (upper body).
19 (22)
22-25-8
It’s too little, way too late, but the good ship Senator is starting to turn around. Next season, they could be back in the playoffs. Injuries: None.
20 (27)
22-20-5
Getting hot at the right time. Injuries: None.
21 (24)
27-27-3
This team is a huge mess, nothing is going right for them. Injuries: None
About the Author
matt Jordan
Matt is an in-studio producer for three radio stations in a six station cluster. He has produced and co-hosted three sports talk shows, with one of them becoming number one in the market. He also is a play by play announcer for the Florence Redwolves, who play in the Coastal Plain League, the nation's hottest College Summer League. He is in his fourth season. He also was the PA Announcer for the Florence Phantoms indoor football team.
In his spare time Matt enjoys reading, writing, playing RTS video games, debating on religion, and good music. He is currently writing a play, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. Matt also writes for Medusa's Kiss magazine. | {
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Creamy Spinach and Cheese Ravioli
Creamy Spinach and Cheese Ravioli with homemade garlic parmesan Alfredo sauce is a quick, easy, and totally tasty way to jazz up store-bought ravioli!
Fresh, refrigerated ravioli are a kitchen staple for us this time of year. Temps are dropping and hot, quick and easy dinners are calling our names!
This creamy spinach and cheese ravioli dish is a total breeze to throw together and features my go-to alfredo sauce and a whoooole lot of spinach! You can even go for gold and add some extra veggies beyond my basic garlic-onion-spinach shenanigans.
Veg it up!
Here’s a list of extra veggies you can add to this easy peasy dish. Everything from sliced mushrooms to tender sautéed asparagus would be a great addition to this tasty pasta skillet.
asparagus
sweet peas
zucchini
mushrooms
kale
shallots
Cook veggies via your favorite method and then mix it all up together or serve them steamed/roasted on the side.
Looking to add some protein?
You can totally go the T-Rex route with this dish if you’d like! You can choose chicken and cheese stuffed ravioli or simply add some shredded rotisserie chicken to the pot. Browned Italian sausage (sliced or crumbled) works great and so would grilled or sautéed shrimp!
Creamy Spinach and Cheese Ravioli
Serve this scrumptious spinach and cheese ravioli dish with a leafy green salad with Italian or Balsamic dressing and/or some crusty garlic bread!
Instructions
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Cook the ravioli according to package directions until al dente. Drain ravioli in a colander and set aside.
While the pasta cooks, chop your onion and spinach and mince your garlic.
Heat the oil in a large stainless pan/skillet over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and cook until tender and translucent, approx. 5 minutes. Add garlic towards the end to prevent burning.
Add butter and garlic to the pan. Once butter has melted, add flour and whisk constantly with a metal whisk until the butter and flour are well combined and the mixture darkens in color a bit.
Pour in milk and whisk vigorously to combine. Whisk often until mixture thickens (this will happen faster for room temperature or warmed milk and a little slower if using cold milk) then add parmesan, pesto salt, and pepper.
Once your sauce has reached desired thickness, fold in your chopped spinach and cooked ravioli. Thin sauce if desired with additional milk and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat, top with grated mozzarella and cover with the pot's lid to melt the cheese. Dive in while it's hot!
Recipe Notes
2 oz pasta is a typical serving, but often this dish serves just my husband and I, as we split the pan and each devour 2 servings. Feel free to portion out as desired! Pair with a leafy green salad and/or some crusty garlic bread.
If you get a chance to try this creamy spinach and cheese ravioli dish, let me know! You can leave me a comment here (LOVE checking those daily!) or tag @PEASandCRAYONS on Instagram so I can happy dance over your creations. I can’t wait to see what you whip up!
Consider me your guide to all things veggie! It'll be fun, painless, and pretty darn delicious as I teach you to plan your meals around fresh, seasonal produce with a little
help from healthy freezer and pantry staples.
What's For Dinner?
PeasandCrayons.com participates in select affiliate advertising programs. If you click and/or make a purchase through certain links on the site (or any related social media platforms), PeasandCrayons.com may make a commission from that click and/or purchase. The brands and content featured represent what I personally support; all opinions are my own. Find my complete terms and privacy policy here. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Instant "flower" dessert
With the chocolate leaves on sale now before Purim, I purchased some boxes of these to have in the house "in case". Well, they sure came in handy this shabbos when I needed an emergency instant dessert to wow my guest.
SERVING/YIELD6
PREP TIME
2
min
COOK TIME
0
min
LEVEL
Easy
BLESSINGUnknown
RECIPE#12183
smartcookie
INGREDIENTS
1 container icecream
1 box chocolate leaves (Gross)
Place 5 leaves on a desser plate laid out as a daisy.
Place scoop of icecream over the center of leaves, creating a flower look. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Brierfield death 'not suspicious' and man released
Will Cook
A man who was initially arrested on suspicion of murder by the police after the discovery of a woman's body in Brierfield has been released without charge.
Officers were called out to a property in Every Street at approximately 8-30pm on Monday night by the ambulance service and found the body of a woman, believed to be in her 50s, dead inside the address.
However, her death is now not being treated as suspicious and police confirmed the man arrested for murder has been released without charge.
A post mortem examination on the woman has not fully ascertained the cause of death, police said, but there are no suspicious circumstances.
Trending
Brierfield family business set for national TV bout on Salvage Hunters | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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Following up 2008's Funhouse, 2012's The Truth About Love is vocalist P!nk's sixth studio album. Featuring work by a bevy of name producers including Greg Kurstin, Butch Walker, Max Martin, Dan Wilson, and others, the album once again showcases P!nk's passionate vocal style and catchy hip-hop-meets-rock sound. Also appearing on the album are guest artists such as rapper Eminem, Fun.'s Nate Ruess, and Brit-popper Lily Rose Cooper (formerly Lilly Allen). Included on The Truth About Love are such singles as "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and "Try." | {
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Friday, November 30, 2012
"Media naturally gravitate toward dramatic and highly visual stories. Reports of 5.5 million Israelis gathered nightly in bomb shelters scarcely compete with the Palestinian father interviewed after losing his son. Both are, of course, newsworthy, but the first tells a more complete story while the second stirs emotions.This is precisely what Hamas wants. It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression."
"The terrorists thought that hiding in a civilian building and using international journalists as human shields would ensure their safety. Once IDF Intelligence learned of their location, the IDF surgically targeted their hiding place. A direct hit was confirmed."
"The real question raised by Mr. Carr’s column is whether a station that is ideologically motivated and subsidized by a terrorist organization deserves the same treatment as CNN or The New York Times. Moreover, should a Hamas commander who painted the words “TV” on his car be considered a journalist?
Mr. Carr is quick to incriminate the Israel Defense Forces for targeting journalists, but he does not mention that terrorists are actively exploiting journalists as shields.Mr. Carr is worried about freedom of the press and rightly so. However, when terrorist organizations exploit reporters, either by posing as them or by hiding behind them, they are the immediate threat to freedom of the press.Such terrorists, who hold cameras and notebooks in their hands, are no different from their colleagues who fire rockets aimed at Israeli cities and cannot enjoy the rights and protection afforded to legitimate journalists."
"Prior to discovering the footage posted below, which shows the funeral of Ahmed, BBC Watch says they contacted the IDF who confirmed that he was a known terrorist. The blog also writes that the al-Qassam Brigades wrote of his death on their English-language website. Additionally, as you can see in the picture above, he is wrapped in a green Hamas flag at the funeral."
There's no reason for surprise that TA bus bomb suspect is Palestinian given citizenship under "family reunion."
"There was no reason for the shocked reactions in Israel following the disclosure that the suspected perpetrator of the bus bombing in Tel Aviv last week was a Palestinian Arab who had been granted Israeli citizenship to facilitate a “family reunion.”
The latest anti-terror arrest in the Hevron region unveiled a weapons storehouse in a private home.
"The IDF has been stepping up its fight against Hamas in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) in wake of the recent open battle with Hamas in Gaza. Earlier this week troops went to arrest a terror suspect in Hevron and ended up finding a weapons warehouse in a private home."
Well, it seems that they failed to mention one quite significant element of the UN resolution (which passed with 33 votes in favor, 13 against, 10 abstentions and one absent). Res. 181 not only called for the creation of a Jewish state, but the creation of an Arab one as well.
"CST’s 2011 Report on Antisemitic Discourse clearly demonstrates the Guardian’s continuing antisemitic sins of ‘commission and, just as dangerous, ‘omission’: their silence in the face of clear evidence of antisemitism when covering a story. "
"Such journalist activists – whether they’re at the Guardian or the BBC – are risking more than their own reputations. If Guardian and BBC editors continually allow their journalists to make such egregious errors with impunity, and report the news in a manner resembling political advocacy rather than professional journalism, whatever remaining credibility they may have will continue to erode."
"When you hear Arab accounts of so-called Israeli “massacres” and “bestiality,” remember that the Arab foes of Israel have perfected a modern literary motif known as “the Arab atrocity story” which usually turns out to be a contrived work of fiction."
"The Syrian government has shut down the internet across the country and cut mobile phone services in select areas as rebels and government troops waged fierce battles near the capital's airport. International airlines were forced to suspend flights."
Let’s stop demonizing Israel. The new analogy I invite Arabs to use can be rendered: “Israel Is a Sister.”
"As a researcher in cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis, I can say that the reason bad analogies are so dangerous is that they can constrain and direct our policies. The above analogy, for example, highlights that Israel is a killer of innocence, suppressing the fact that Hamas fires rockets at innocent Israeli civilians. Importantly, depicting Israel as a demon implies that there can be no peace with it. If this were the case, how can Egypt play the role of peace broker between Israel and Palestine?"
"Here's Councillor Richard Humphreys (Labour) speaking on 25 November at a pro-Israel rally in Dublin. While by no means unsympatheti to the Palestinians, he calls for a more balanced approach in Ireland to the Middle East situation, and pays tribute not only to Israel but to the Jewish presence in Ireland."
Hasbys!
Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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The opinions expressed by those providing comments on this website are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Elder of Ziyon. EoZ is not responsible for the content of the comments.
You are legally liable for the content of your comments that you submit to this site.
By submitting a comment to this website, you warrant that we are not responsible, or liable of any of the content posted by you and you agree to indemnify us from any and all claims and liabilities (including legal fees) which could arise from your comments submitted to the site. | {
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Among the earliest levels in AmericaGeorge Gilpin of Alexandria, VA, probably used this level when he surveyed the Potowmack Canal in the mid-1780s. One of the earliest levels made in America, it was manufactured by Benjamin Rittenhouse of Pennsylvania, who specialized in surveyor's compasses. The instrument is evidence of the spirit of industrialization that began to attract Americans towards the end of the 1700s and the enthusiasm for canals that would facilitate communication and expedite transportation between communities.
Notes
Benjamin Rittenhouse (1740-1825)
Web display only
What do you think?Would you like to see more objects like this on the site? Tell others by casting your vote. | {
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The American band Awolnation, led by singer Aaron Brun, is about to release the third studio album, which features the released single Passion. After three years, the band will return to Prague, to Roxy, where they will play on April 15th. | {
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Why all hospitals and GP surgeries should be using this
Discover how you can instantly cut the guessing out of appointment ‘no-shows’, fit in more patients and significantly reduce costs.
I often come across many hospital trusts and local GP surgeries across the country who say they are already using text messaging to send out reminders the day before an appointment.
Which isn’t surprising when over 50% of patients stated that they like to be contacted via SMS and 64% of them find appointment reminders the most useful form of communication.
Yet despite the positive uptake on text messaging, it still begs the question: how do you know whether a patient will actually turn up?
Répondez, s’il vous plait
I recently turned 21 *cough cough*, so I decided to throw a little soiree to celebrate. As a nod to my youth, I designed and printed some invitations to send to my guests.
By including R.S.V.P (or répondez, s’il vous plait for our French readers), my guests instantly knew they were respectfully required to reply. Sure, I could have set up a Facebook group, but the chances are they’d simply forget to reply or would give me a tentative answer.
As a result of sending out the invitations, 100% of my guests responded and my party was a roaring success. And it’s the same principle with text messaging in the health sector.
When it comes to sending out an appointment reminder, it’s essential to find out whether your patient is going to attend. Especially when you consider the fact that every appointment ‘no-show’ costs the NHS around £160.
Improving the patient experience with SMS
After sending out a SMS appointment reminder, you can take the patient experience to the next level.
Using simple automation makes your communications focussed to drive further commitment or get another booking in the diary. Using ‘inboxes’ on our platform will allow you to receive a message indicating a patient’s acceptance or not.
For the patients that respond with ‘yes’, this is your chance to increase commitment by sending a ‘thank you’ and an attachment of a map of the destination.
The ‘not coming’ respondents should be directed to rebook by speaking to the department again or by automated means.
Each day, you can run an automated report and find out how many patients are coming and how many are not – the latter are the ones that need more SMS communication.
When it comes to sending the SMS alert, it’s worth including the cost of a missed appointment in your SMS. For example: “Every missed visit costs the NHS £160, please help us conserve our funds by letting us know you are coming”. This kind of content has previously helped improve attendance rates.
The automated way is great for reducing interaction where the user can manage their own booking. Access to an online appointment system will also reduce the time spent on the telephone and allow you to focus on the patients that struggle using mobile phones.
It’s simple: add more elements to your automated SMS campaigns and see the difference.
Go the extra mile today
Here at Textlocal, we see our platform as an ‘enabler’ to your outcomes and can configure the system to deliver for you. Before rolling this out to your patients, we will give you 500 free credits to test the ‘cash conservation’ scheme. So, if you want to reduce losses and cut the guessing out of patient attendance, set up an automated SMS process with our award-winning platform today. | {
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Oudh is the traditional Arabic name of the incense which is derived from Agarwood. Agarwood is known as Aloes wood in English and by several other names across the regions in which it is naturally found. Agarwood is among the most distinctive and revered forms of natural wood in the world, which has a significant historic and traditional value in several cultures.
Ever since the ancient times, the resin extract of the Agarwood, which is known as Oudh Oil has been held with prestige. The Agarwood incense has not only been used for several ritualistic practices by civilizations for thousands of years, but has also grown popular in the Middle East.
Raihaan the Oudh Shop has been established by individuals who are Oudh enthusiasts. We have studied and researched Oudh and know what makes it so special. We are here to help you choose the best Oudh and Oudh products online.
How is Natural Oudh Formed?
It is true that the best things in this world are natural; Oudh is a magnificent example that supports this very belief. The Agarwood or Aloes wood which is biologically known as Aquilaria, has thrived in the dense forests all over South East Asia for thousands of years. While the Aquilaria appears as ordinary as any other tree, it is their natural structure that makes them so unique.
The wondrous trees secrete a form of resin inside their bark, which attracts parasites and causes an infestation. These parasites bring the secretions of the Oudh tree outwards, causing it entwine with the wood, creating the dark and aromatic Agarwood. The natural Oudh had been a secret for thousands of years, used only by the local civilizations. However, with globalization and trading, the secrets of this heavenly natural incense are being revealed to the entire world.
What are the Benefits of Oudh?
Agarwood is among the few natural therapeutic elements which has been associated with a certain kind of soothing feeling. The positive effect of Oudh oil includes calming the nervous system of the body, while making its wearer more focused and alert. Regular use of Agarwood is a kind of aromatherapy, which is not restricted to a particular gender. While men tend to enjoy the strong and potent smell of pure Oudh oil, women find pleasure in a more balanced fragrance.
From a spiritual and psychological, to medicinal and therapeutic, the long lasting benefits of Oudh have made it popular throughout the world.
Agarwood contains natural elements which are known to drive the toxins out of the system, which directly affects a person’s mental state. By expelling the negative energy out of your mind and body, Oudh helps in boosting your mental functionality and enhancing your awareness
The natural aroma of Oudh has a welcoming effect on the body and soul. Whether you wear the Oudh oil or use Oudh chips to fumigate your home, it will carry a sense of harmony in your mind as well as among those who are around you.
Oudh is said to have several medicinal benefits, which include anti-microbial, anti-asthmatic and diuretic properties. Oudh has been medicinally regarded as an aphrodisiac and has been associated with enhanced libido.
Oudh has been held in high esteem among the Islamic civilization for its majestic properties which help connect with the transcendent. It is believed that the heavenly aroma of burning Agarwood attracts the angels, and the serene smoke of burning Oudh carries the prayers of the mortals to the Creator.
Why is Oudh so Precious?
Unlike several chemical fragrances which can be developed in a laboratory, Oudh is a natural incense which is essentially priceless. There may be tropical rainforests in several parts of the world, but the native Agarwood tree grows naturally is only the South East regions of Asia.
Sourcing native and the purest form of Agarwood is not a simple task, as it requires geographical knowledge of the dense rainforests. These rainforests cannot be penetrated with machinery and the Agarwood cannot be transported directly. All of the natural Oudh is not only extracted from the Aloe wood trees by manual labor, but carried back to the market through treacherous landscapes.
Locating the Agarwod trees is the most crucial part, since identifying the Oudh trees from among thousands of others is the job for an expert. All of these tasks are not only tedious, but certainly expensive, which adds up to the price of pure Agarwood. With a limited number Agarwood trees in the tropical forests, Oudh has become a commodity which is almost as precious as gold.
The attributes that make Agarwood and Oudh products so precious also make them very rare. In order to satiate the demands of the consumers, commercial brands and retailers of Oudh oil and chips tend to compromise the natural essence of Oudh. Raihaan the Oudh Shop understands that quality should never be a matter of compromise when it comes to buying Oudh products. We assure to source and recreate Oudh and Oudh products with 100% authentic practices, while keeping the price factor as reasonable as it can be.
Where is Oudh Naturally Sourced From?
Over the centuries, Oudh has been known by several names across several civilizations. Today the Agarwood used to create the most exquisite Oudh oil and Oudh chips is sourced from several regions of South East Asia. The Aquilaria and Gyrinops trees are the natural source of Oudh, and are native to the South Asian regions of India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Laos.
Although the Agarwood is sourced from all of the above regions in South East Asia, the Indian Agarwood (better known as Oudh Hind) is considered the native source of Agarwood. Ancient civilizations of China and the Royal Japanese Dynasty prized the natural Agarwood from these regions, and was considered a luxurious amenity, just as it is considered today across the world. Many historic travelers and explorers have written about Agarwood and Oudh oil in centuries-old transcripts.
It is believed that the most natural form of Agarwood and Oudh products are sourced directly from the distilleries that create pure Oudh oil and Oudh Chips. Raihaan the Oudh Shop has developed a strong network across South Asia and the Pacific to source the most natural Oudh products directly from the source. By eliminating the middleman, we bring you not only the most authentic form of Oudh oil and Oudh chips, but dramatically reduce the cost of the peachycleanaustin.com products to the end-buyer as well.
What Determines the Oudh Quality?
It is a commonly considered that Oudh of any form is among the most extravagant natural incenses known to man. However, the natural source, the region it is grown and the amount of natural resin present in the Oudh oil and Oudh chips play a significant role in determining the Oudh quality. While Oudh from all parts of the South East Asian region are highly acclaimed by enthusiasts, the Indian Agarwood (Oudh Hind) is regarded as the most pristine.
The highest quality of Agarwood is known to have the same intensity of resin color on the exterior in comparison to its interior. Oudh oil is known for its lingering aroma, so the longer amount of time you can sense the smell of Oudh oil on your skin, the most potent and premium quality it is.
Raihaan the Oudh Shop does not put up false promises, but backs out assurance with visible quality. All of the Agarwood and Oudh oil and Oudh chips offered by Raihaan the Oudh Shop are of the same consistency as the resin, making it more smoky and aromatic. In comparison to the fragrance-like smell of most commercial Oudh oils, Raihaan the Oudh Shop offers a potent Oudh oil. Our Oudh oil offers a strong smell, followed by a pleasant aroma. The strong smell of the Oudh oil is what makes it long-lasting, a quality that very few commercial Oudh oil products possess. | {
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I highly recommend checking Heavy Links‘ debut LP Step Up To Get Your Rep Up. Here’s the second single of the UK boom bap project, Still The Same Crew. Support independent music and grab a copy via Bandcamp. | {
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By role
By subject area
Varadhan SKM
Summary
I am currently an Assistant Professor in Dept of Applied Mechanics at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India. I work on Neural control of movements, Movement Neuroscience, Mechanics of hand and finger function. | {
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Clubhouse open for final Six Nations weekend
David Wilson, Dave Attwood and George Ford have all retained their places in the squad for England's final match of the RBS 6 Nations Championship against Italy, this Saturday 15th March.
The match kicks off at 12.30 and you can come and support the boys in the familiar surroundings of the Clubhouse.
Doors open at 12.00 and pints of Thatchers and Wadworth 6X will be just £3.00 each!
Once affairs are concluded in Rome, be sure to stick around to watch our very own Paul James take on Scotland with his Wales teammates (14.45), followed by the concluding match of the tournament at 17.00 - France v Ireland. With England, France and Ireland all contenders for this year's title, you can be sure it will go down to the wire. | {
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Archive
Finished creating the new tables to store the RSS and User data. Still need to test the set up though, I plan to do that tomorrow.
Created the Class that will handle most of the capabilities of the RSS Reader application, such as fetching feeds, formating data correctly for use with the UI application, etc. | {
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The quest to test quantum entanglement
Over 12 billion years ago, speeding particles of light left an extremely luminous celestial object called a quasar and began a long journey toward a planet that did not yet exist. More than 4 billion years later, more photons left another quasar for a similar trek. As Earth and its solar system formed, life evolved, and humans began to study physics, the particles continued on their way. Ultimately, they landed in the Canary Island of La Palma in a pair of telescopes set up for an experiment testing the very nature of reality.
The experiment was designed to study quantum entanglement, a phenomenon that connects quantum systems in ways that are impossible in our macro-sized, classical world. When two particles, like a pair of electrons, are entangled, it’s impossible to measure one without learning something about the other. Their properties, like momentum and position, are inextricably linked.
“Quantum entanglement means that you can’t describe your joint quantum system in terms of just local descriptions, one for each system,” says Michael Hall, a theoretical physicist at the Australian National University.
Entanglement first arose in a thought experiment worked out by none other than Albert Einstein. In a 1935 paper, Einstein and two colleagues showed that if quantum mechanics fully described reality, then conducting a measurement on one part of an entangled system would instantaneously affect our knowledge about future measurements on the other part, seemingly sending information faster than the speed of light, which is impossible according to all known physics. Einstein called this effect “spooky action at a distance,” implying something fundamentally wrong with the budding science of quantum mechanics.
Decades later, quantum entanglement has been experimentally confirmed time and again. While physicists have learned to control and study quantum entanglement, they’ve yet to find a mechanism to explain it or to reach consensus on what it means about the nature of reality.
“Entanglement itself has been verified over many, many decades,” says Andrew Friedman, an astrophysicist at University of California, San Diego, who worked on the quasar experiment, also known as a “cosmic Bell test.” “The real challenge is that even though we know it’s an experimental reality, we don’t have a compelling story of how it actually works.”
Bell’s assumptions
The world of quantum mechanics—the physics that governs the behavior of the universe at the very smallest scales—is often described as exceedingly weird. According to its laws, nature’s building blocks are simultaneously waves and particles, with no definite location in space. It takes an outside system observing or measuring them to push them to “choose” a definitive state. And entangled particles seem to affect one another’s “choices” instantaneously, no matter how far apart they are.
Einstein was so dissatisfied with these ideas that he postulated classical “hidden variables,” outside our understanding of quantum mechanics, that, if we understood them, would make entanglement not so spooky. In the 1960s, physicist John Bell devised a test for models with such hidden variables, known as “Bell’s inequality.”
Bell outlined three assumptions about the world, each with a corresponding mathematical statement: realism, which says objects have properties they maintain whether they are being observed or not; locality, which says nothing can influence something far enough away that a signal between them would need to travel faster than light; and freedom of choice, which says physicists can make measurements freely and without influence from hidden variables. Probing entanglement is the key to testing these assumptions. If experiments show that nature obeys these assumptions, then we live in a world we can understand classically, and hidden variables are only creating the illusion of quantum entanglement. If experiments show that the world does not follow them, then quantum entanglement is real and the subatomic world is truly as strange as it seems.
“What Bell showed is that if the world obeys these assumptions, there’s an upper limit to how correlated entangled particle measurements can be,” Friedman says.
Physicists can measure properties of particles, such as their spin, momentum or polarization. Experiments have shown that when particles are entangled, the outcome of these measurements are more statistically correlated than would be expected in a classical system, violating Bell’s inequalities.
In one type of Bell test, scientists send two entangled photons to detectors far apart from one another. Whether the photons reach the detectors depends on their polarization; if they are perfectly aligned, they will pass through, but otherwise, there is some probability they will be blocked, depending on the angle of alignment. Scientists look to see whether the entangled particles wind up with the same polarization more often than could be explained by classical statistics. If they do, at least one of Bell’s assumptions can’t be true in nature. If the world does not obey realism, then properties of particles aren’t well defined before measurements. If the particles could influence one another instantaneously, then they would somehow be communicating to one another faster than the speed of light, violating locality and Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
Scientists have long speculated that previous experimental results can be explained best if the world does not obey one or both of the first two of Bell’s assumptions—realism and locality. But recent work has shown that the culprit could be his third assumption—the freedom of choice. Perhaps the scientists’ decision about the angle at which to let the photons in is not as free and random as they thought.
The quasar experiment was the latest to test the freedom of choice assumption. The scientists determined the angle at which they would allow photons into their detectors based on the wavelength of the light they detected from the two distant quasars, something determined 7.8 and 12.2 billion years ago, respectively. The long-traveling photons took the place of physicists or conventional random number generators in the decision, eliminating earthbound influences on the experiment, human or otherwise.
That means that, if some hidden classical variable were actually determining the outcomes of the experiment, in the most extreme scenario, the choice of measurement would have to have been laid out long before human existence—implying that quantum “weirdness” is really the result of a universe where everything is predetermined.
“That’s unsatisfactory to a lot of people,” Hall says. “They’re really saying, if it was set up that long ago, you would have to try and explain quantum correlations with predetermined choices. Life would lose all meaning, and we’d stop doing physics.”
Of course, physics marches on, and entanglement retains many mysteries to be probed. In addition to lacking a causal explanation for entanglement, physicists don’t understand how measuring an entangled system suddenly reverts it to a classical, unentangled state, or whether entangled particles are actually communicating in some way, mysteries that they continue to explore with new experiments.
“No information can go from here to there instantaneously, but different interpretations of quantum mechanics will agree or disagree that there’s some hidden influence,” says Gabriela Barreto Lemos, a postdoctoral researcher at the International Institute of Physics in Brazil. “But something we all agree upon is this definition in terms of correlation and statistics.”
Looking for something strange
Developing a deeper understanding of entanglement can help solve problems both practical and fundamental. Quantum computers rely on entanglement. Quantum encryption, a theoretical security measure that is predicted to be impossible to break, also requires a full understanding of quantum entanglement. If hidden variables are valid, quantum encryption might actually be hackable.
And entanglement may hold the key to some of the most fundamental questions in physics. Some researchers have been studying materials with large numbers of particles entangled, rather than simply pairs. When this many-body entanglement happens, physicists observe new states of matter beyond the familiar solid, liquid and gas, as well as new patterns of entanglement not seen anywhere else.
“One thing it tells you is that the universe is richer than you previously suspected,” says Brian Swingle, a University of Maryland physicist researching such materials. “Just because you have a collection of electrons does not mean that the resulting state of matter has to be electron-like.”
Such interesting properties are emerging from these materials that physicists are starting to realize that entanglement may actually stitch together space-time itself—a somewhat ironic twist, as Einstein, who first connected space and time in his relativity theory, disliked quantum mechanics so much. But if the theory proves correct, entanglement could help physicists finally reach one of their ultimate goals: achieving a theory of quantum gravity that unites Einstein’s relativistic world with the enigmatic and seemingly contradictory quantum world.
“It’s important to do these experiments even if we don’t believe we’re going to find anything strange,” Lemos says. “In physics, the revolution comes when we think we’re not going to find something strange, and then we do. So you have to do it.” | {
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Break a leg
January 5th, 2010 by admin
Putting the “duck” in “deductibile.”
Dear Word Detective: This one has been bothering me for years, but I keep forgetting to write and ask you. Why do actors say “break a leg” to each other right before they go on stage? What’s wrong with “good luck”? Is it true that this “break a leg” tradition dates back to when John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln? — Cindy S.
How odd. Yours is the second question about “break a leg” I’ve received this week. What makes that odd is that, seven or eight years ago, I used to get this question at least once a month, but there’s been not a peep from the “break a leg” brigade since then. I guess these things travel in waves. Maybe certain questions are like comets orbiting the sun. Anyway, I just hope I don’t wake up tomorrow to find my email program clogged with another tsunami of impassioned pleas to reveal “the third word that ends in ‘gry’.” (Let me save us both the trouble. There isn’t one. It’s all a very old, and very lame, joke.)
Onward. “Break a leg” is, of course, a saying traditionally employed by actors to wish each other success before going on stage. To call “break a leg” a funny way to wish someone good luck is an understatement. We don’t shout “Hit a tree!” as our friends drive away, or “Have fun with the iceberg!” when they embark on a cruise. For an actor, especially one in a stage role, breaking a leg would be a major disaster.
The story about John Wilkes Booth and Lincoln is certainly the most popular legend purporting to explain “break a leg.” It’s true that Booth was a famous actor in 1865, and it’s also true that after shooting President Lincoln in Ford’s Theater, Booth leaped from the President’s box to the stage below, breaking his leg. But there are two enormous problems with tracing “break a leg” to this event. First is the fact that “break a leg” is not found in print before 1957, and the phrase almost certainly wasn’t used before the early 20th century. Secondly, the events at Ford’s Theater that night would strike most sane people as the polar opposite of good luck for all concerned.
There are other theories of varying plausibility about the phrase, but the most likely explanation tackles the “wish someone ill as a way to wish them well” puzzle of “break a leg” head on. Popular folklore down through the ages is full of warnings against wishing someone good luck. Doing so, say the sages, will tempt evil spirits or demons to do your friend harm. So the trick is to outwit the demons (who are apparently not very bright) by wishing your friend bad fortune.
As for the specific form of “break a leg,” we seem to have imported it from Europe. In the German theater, actors use the equivalent phrase “Hals- und Bienbruch,” to wish their colleagues “a broken neck and a broken leg.” The German phrase seems to have begun life among aviators, possibly during World War I, and gradually spread to the German theater and from there to the British and American stages. | {
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BP#12: Ethics in Sales
A whistle-blower for Wyndham Vacation Ownership, Patricia Williams, recently won a lawsuit against the company for improper practices. Because she created a problem for the company, they fired her and it became hard for her to find employment elsewhere. She is receiving $20 million for her lost earnings, emotional distress, and other coverages.
Among the complaints Williams raised was the routine deception about selling back unwanted ownership. Usually, employees would target older customers and tell them different false information that was different from that contained in the contracts signed for purchase.
Here is a pretty obvious example of a violation of one of Carson’s duties of salespersons not to lie or deceive. A major factor that contributed to the frequent lies was that the managers who oversaw sales representatives were compensated depending on the sales they made, which is an issue all management ___ have run into. Additionally, the sales department claimed the sales goals were set much too high for them to reasonably meet without deception. There is even a term for the practice: TAFT, and acronym for “tell them any frigging thing.”
Although the main issue is that the Wyndham company is seemingly fine with the practices of its sales departments, I would like to make one other point. After being fired, Williams found it hard to find work in the same career afterward. I think that this implies an issue with other companies as well. If she was labeled a trouble maker for raising complaints about ethical issues she saw and no other companies wanted her, it makes you wonder what similar practices may be going on within these companies. Instead they look for valuable employees who will help increase their profits, not a risky employee who airs its dirty laundry and cause its stock value to decrease. | {
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Category : Techcrunch
& The TechCrunch Summer Party is a thing of tradition and we hope you can make it out this year. As in years past we’ll gather on the spacious grounds of August Capital in Menlo Park and enjoy an evening of cocktails and the spirit of entrepren...
& Apple first launched the “Reminiscences” tab in iOS 10. This function routinely scans your photograph library and creates sensible albums relying on the date, location and content material of the pictures in your gadget. As an example,...
& In its quest to reduce persistent skills gaps, Udacity has been designing condensed courses to get students up to speed on trendy topics to improve employment outcomes. The startup’s “Nanodegrees,” as they call them, span VR, robo...
& The law firm Cooley is putting out a new package of seed investment documents for public viewing on its “GO” microsite, the firm said today. It’s a way for entrepreneurs and early-stage investors and business owners to access what...
& Instagram Tales is widening its lead over Snapchat and rolling out new options to maintain everybody capturing video. Instagram Tales now has 250 million every day lively customers. That compares to Snapchat’s complete 166 million day by day...
& Animated GIF seize device and social community Phhhoto is shutting down its app on account of server prices turning into unsustainable after getting slammed with competitors by Instagram’s copycat Boomerang. Phhhoto will pivot to concentrate...
& Tumblr this morning is rolling out a big replace to its content material filtering system with the launch of a brand new “Protected Mode” for shopping content material on its website. Whereas the corporate already provided the power to...
& Microsoft’s just lately up to date communications app Skype has been struggling connectivity points which started on Monday, June 19th, and are persevering with right now. After hours of downtime on Monday, the corporate confirmed the difficu...
& Actual property is a type of industries that has been relatively sluggish on the uptake of know-how, which makes numerous sense. Shopping for and promoting a house is likely one of the largest, most private selections in an individual’s life,...
& Amazon’s newest perk for Prime members might make us extra trendy by letting us purchase every little thing that catches our eye and return what doesn’t match. As we speak Amazon revealed Amazon Prime Wardrobe, which is at present in be...
& One of many first occasions Ross Hoffman met Headspace CEO Wealthy Pierson when speaking a few position operating the corporate’s enterprise, Pierson was not speaking lots about enterprise. As an alternative, he was peppering Hoffman with que...
& Hardware startup Misty Robotics has a daunting task ahead of it. The Boulder-based company is working on a robot aimed at mainstream consumers for employment in the home and office. But Misty certainly has a solid foundation, as a spinoff of roboti...
& Nextdoor, the social community that connects you with individuals in your neighborhood, is taking one other step up in its international progress, after launching within the Netherlands and the UK final yr. In the present day, the corporate is open...
& Shenzhen has been called China’s Silicon Valley (or at least one of its Silicon Valleys). A panel on hardware startups at TechCrunch Shenzhen took a stab at explaining why.
“There’s a new startup model coming out of Shenzhen,̶...
& Fritz Demopoulos, who co-founded Chinese travel portal Qunar and now makes early-stage startup investments through Queen’s Road Capital, said that if he had a single piece of advice for founders looking to pursue their “China dream,R... | {
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Chameleon MMA (Gym)
Chameleon MMA (Chameleon Sport Jujitsu Academy) is a new generation martial arts studio located in Jacksonville, Florida, that incorporates the fundamentals of multiple different styles of mixed martial arts – judo, ju jitsu, grappling, and kickboxing. Our mission is to deliver the best quality training in mixed martial arts while instilling the values of HONOR, RESPECT, ADAPTATION and the ability to OVERCOME. | {
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} |
QRL Intrust Super Cup - Round 5 Previews
The importance of this weekend's ABC TV game for the Wynnum Manly Seagulls cannot be overstated, with the Bayside club going into the match with a 0-4 record. It is difficult to see a team making a dint in the final half of the year if they were to start the season with five straight losses. Their opponents in the battle of the Seagulls will be Tweed Heads, who have impressed so far in their outings and are yet to drop a game. However, Wynnum Manly coach Paul Green was happier with his team's improved showing last weekend against the Norths Devils, with the Seagulls dominating much of the play, without being able to hold on for a result. Green has reshuffled his line-up from last week to make room for forward Tim Natusch (returning from suspension). Tweed has a new-look back-row due to the unavailability of Selasi Berdie, with Cody Nelson moving from the bench to lock. Tweed fullback Ryan Milligan plays his 50th Cup match for the Seagulls.
After grabbing their first win of the year in the dying minutes of their last match, the Easts Tigers will be looking to build on that momentum this weekend against the Norths Devils. Five-eighth Luke Kelly and fullback Dane Chisholm - the Tigers' match-winners against Souths Logan - are again expected to figure prominently for the Langlands Park club. Troy McCarthy has named an unchanged line-up with Kelly, a former Storm NYC captain, partnering Matt Minto in the halves. After a slow start, Norths have shown their class in recent weeks and have hit their stride with two strong wins, including a 34-0 shut-out of Central Comets. The same 17 have been named to take to the park for the Devils and in a huge boost, Bronco Josh McGuire was last night cleared of a grade 1 striking charge at the judiciary. In the head to head stakes, the Devils hold the aces with 18 wins to the Tigers' eight. Key Devils forward Troyden Watene makes his 50th appearance in the Queensland Cup.
The Northern Pride have never beaten the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles - but this weekend will provide the home side with the perfect opportunity to change that statistic. The Pride will be aiming for a record-breaking 17 straight Intrust Super Cup wins in front of their home crowd and given the way they have been performing recently, it seems inevitable that the Cairns club will continue its stunning run of success. The Sea Eagles are in a rebuilding stage and while the young side showed good intensity in the early stages of their last game against Redcliffe, inexperience proved to be the difference. Simple errors and poor reads in defence saw them outperformed by the well-drilled Dolphins side. The Sea Eagles have named explosive winger Tyrone Coppedge for his first match of the year, while the Northern boys are set to be without North Queensland Cowboys contracted forwards Blake Leary and Ricky Thorby.
This game is building up as one of the highlights of the weekend, with both sides undefeated so far in the competition. The Dolphins have won all four of their past outings, while the Jets started their season with two straight draws before notching two wins, including last weekend's strong 32-12 victory over the Mackay Cutters. The Dolphins inflicted the Sunshine Coasts worst-ever defeat last weekend, with star halfback Ryan Carr pulling the strings on the field and lightning-quick fullback Justin Hunt providing the polish. However, the Dolphins are predicted to face a sterner contest against the Jets, whose style of play so far this season has seen them impress many. While Ipswich have been without the spark of attacking weapon Donald Malone (shoulder injury) for the past few weeks, they don't seem to have missed him as much as would have been expected, with the Jets backs, including Joseph Tomane and Brendon Marshall, filling the void. Redcliffe dominates the head to head record, winning 22 of the 31 games. Ipswich forward Trevor Exton plays his 50th Queensland Cup match for the Jets and his 140th overall.
The Central Comets will be desperate to notch their first win of the season in front of their home fans in Rockhampton. After leading against the high-flying Tweed Heads Seagulls last week, the Comets let them off the hook with too many errors, an area of their game coach Wayne Barnett is looking to tighten up. The Comets will also be boosted this week with the inclusion of utility Ian Webster, who has missed the past few games with a rib complaint. Webster is a versatile player who is equally home in the halves or at hooker. After starting strongly, with good wins over the Norths Devils and the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles, the Cutters have suffered two big losses and could face an uphill battle to avoid the same fate against a desperate Central Comets outfit. Making their task all the more difficult is the absence of skipper and experienced five-eighth Grant Rovelli, who fractured his ribs in last weekend's loss to the Ipswich Jets. Ben Jones has been named as his replacement for the Cutters, who are also likely to be without the Ah Mau brothers - Leeson and Isaak. Local Mackay product Kailem Perkins will make his Intrust Super Cup debut for the Cutters in a tremendous boost to the area. Head coach Anthony Seibold has been impressed with the development of Perkins, a member of Mackay's Under 18 team last year.
The only Sunday game of the round, Davies Park will play host to two desperate footy sides. Burleigh have been uncharacteristically slow out of the blocks, and will be searching for only their second win so far. The Magpies will have a point to prove to their home fans, after the Tigers snatched a last minute 32-26 victory from their nest last weekend. However, both teams are fairly evenly-matched and it would not surprise if this game develops into a real arm-wrestle. The Bears have made a few positional changes from the team that took the field at Pizzey Park last week, with Riley Brown named at hooker and Nick Parfitt to start the game at centre. Souths Logan have made minimal changes to their team, with rookie Wesley Forsyth coming in for Mark Ioane. Paul Bramley, a former premiership-winning coach with Souths Logan, will travel to Davies Park for the first time in his new role as Burleigh's head coach. | {
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News
Dave's Legislative Summary (weeks of 3/23 and 3/30)
The Building Sensible Communities bill, (SF 549 (Dibble)/ HF 898(Hornstein) continues steady progress to a floor vote. The bill, which would direct Mn/DOT and the Met Council to establish a goal of reduced car travel and expanded use of transit, bicycle, walking and shorter trips (through more efficient land use), has majority approval in numerous policy committees. Next up is the Senate Transportation Finance Committee, and then hopefully on to the Finance, Tax and other committees with funding discretion.
Building Sensible Bridges SF 1484(Sieben)/ HF1484(Hornstein) Legislation to build bridges that are designed to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians has passed out of both the Senate and House Transportation Committees. This bill is a prelude to a more ambitious “Complete Streets” TLC legislative agenda (coming in 2010) following Mn/DOT’s completion of a study of “Complete Streets.”
Keep the Transit System Whole. Transit for Livable Communities continues to advocate for a long-term solution to the metro area transit operating deficit ($62 million over the next biennial). Two competing bills moved forward last week.
Legislation going through both the House and the Senate--SF 1276(Murphy)/HF1309 (Lieder)--would tap the sales tax on leased vehicles to address the operating deficit. Different legislation--SF 1610(Rest)/HF 1955(Holberg)--would allow the Met Council to temporarily transfer funding from its Livable Communities, brownfields cleanup, and affordable housing programs as a short-term fix to address the transit operating shortfall. I testified in opposition to this bill in the Senate Transportation Committee, noting that there are several other viable revenue sources (federal stimulus, regional property tax, MVST on Leased, etc) that should take precedence over de-funding important transit-related programs of the Met Council. In other words, we can do better than another accounting gimmick (and a looming fare increase and service reduction in 2010), when long-term solutions are needed. | {
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Way Out West
A public art exhibition celebrating the idea of California and its history as fertile ground for dreamers, pioneers, and counterculture. Way Out West features new art from more than 15 contemporary artists presented on billboards, transit shelters, and bus takeovers. | {
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Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.
Rape, robbery case a reminder that anyone can be a victim
The 76-year-old woman said she wants everyone to forget about what happened to her June 7 at her Wichita home.
“Though I’m not sure I’ll ever forget," she said.
The woman, who was recently widowed, told police that two teenagers kicked in the door to her home in southeast Wichita and that one raped her.
Contacted by The Eagle, she explained why she didn’t want to be interviewed.
“I’m afraid of making myself more of a target,” she said.
So far this year, the Wichita Police Department has investigated four other sex crimes against people older than 65, records show. One was a rape, another an attempted rape. One woman said a man exposed himself to her. Another woman said someone sent her obscene material in the mail.
Last year, police looked into seven sex crimes in which people older than 65 were the victims, and in 2011, six. Five years ago, they handled 10 sex crimes against seniors.
“A lot of people assume that it’s a young woman’s issue, but we do see it across the lifespan,” said Mary Stolz-Newton, assistant director of the Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center.
“We find the community, if they hear about a very young child or an elderly person, their compassion and sympathy is a little bit more there. I sure wish it were that way for all survivors.”
The center handled 126 cases involving people 60 and older between 2009 and 2012, Stolz-Newton said.
A study by the U.S. Department of Justice says the rate of rape and sexual assault per 1,000 women is 0.1 for those 65 or older. Data from the report was from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects information on non-fatal crimes reported and not reported to police. The survey seeks information from a nationally representative sample of people age 12 or older.
Sexual abuse was one of the “most understudied” types of mistreatment of seniors, the National Institute of Justice said. Its study showed that elderly sexual assault victims were not routinely evaluated to access the psychological effects of an attack.
“For people of my mother’s generation, for instance, it’s difficult to talk about sex, so talking about sexual violence is even more removed,” said Kathy Williams, executive director of the Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center. “They put it aside and you go forward. I think that’s another huge disservice. We do not clearly understand always the culture that people come from.
“As a society, we have a very narrow perception of sexual assault and rape. We assume in a lot of ways that it’s going to be a stranger jumping out of a bush at a young woman. It goes the full range from children to the elderly to men.”
One of the 76-year-old woman’s sons said the case has been a nightmare for his mother and family. He said prosecutors and police advised the family to not talk to the media.
Two teens, ex-parole officer face charges
The woman in the June case told police that the door to her home near Lincoln and George Washington was kicked in about 5 a.m. that day.
Two teenagers face charges in the case. A 22-year-old woman accused of hiding them at her home also faces charges.
Prosecutors from the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office charged John Edward Thompson Jr., 18, with rape, aggravated robbery while armed with a dangerous weapon and two counts of aggravated burglary. Thompson has requested a court-appointed lawyer, saying he is unemployed.
Thompson’s mother, Lisa Brown, said she did not want to talk about the case.
“I prefer not to,” she said when contacted by The Eagle.
They also charged a 17-year-old with one count each of rape, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary. They are seeking to prosecute him as an adult.
Police have said that at least one of the men had a gun.
The men are accused of stealing the woman’s wedding ring, a gold-colored cross on a gold chain, a Seiko watch and other jewelry. Records say they also stole two flat-screen televisions, a red Kansas City Chiefs coat, $20 in cash, car keys, a Kohl’s credit card and a Sam’s Club membership card.
Police found the suspects at a house a couple of blocks away from the victim’s house. Jessica Dawn Ward, who owns the house, is thought to be Thompson’s girlfriend, officials said.
No one answered the door Thursday at the tidy white house with a red front door and yellow artificial flowers in a window box.
Ward, who faces two charges of aiding a felon, is a former parole officer for the Kansas Department of Corrections. She also had worked as a corrections officer for Sedgwick County, records show.
She has hired a private attorney, J. Matthew Leavitt, to defend her. He did not return a phone call from The Eagle.
Corrections spokesman Jeremy Barclay said Ward was a parole officer I from Feb. 4 to April 15. He would not say why her employment ended. He said Ward supervised parolees in Wichita.
Barclay said a college degree typically is required for people in that job. Work experience can be substituted for a degree, he said.
The Corrections Department did a background check on Ward, Barclay said, and found no criminal record.
Barclay said records do not indicate that Ward had encountered Thompson in her work for the state. She would not have supervised the juvenile in any way in her work as a parole officer.
Kristi Zukovich, a spokeswoman for Sedgwick County, said Ward worked for the county as a corrections officer from May 14, 2012, to Jan. 31.
People with that job title, Zukovich said, do “routine work involving the observation, security and treatment of juvenile or adult offenders in a 24-hour correctional or residential treatment facility.”
Corrections officers also monitor “resident activities within the facility or, as approved, outside the facility, with emphasis on security or treatment in behavior modification and control,” according to the job description.
Neighbors who live on Ward’s street said she and others at the house kept to themselves.
Neighbors said police surrounded the home June 7 and waited for the suspects to come out. Police explained to neighbors what was going on.
The neighborhood association called a meeting the next day. With one or two hours’ notice, about 50 to 60 families showed up at a nearby park to find out what happened.
Criminal histories
Both Thompson and the 17-year-old have criminal histories as juveniles.
In April 2012, the 17-year-old was convicted of attempted robbery and aggravated assault, both felonies. In two 2010 cases, he had been charged with misdemeanor battery and theft.
Efforts to reach his family have been unsuccessful.
He “has a previous history of antisocial behavior or patterns of physical violence,” according to a document filed June 11 by prosecutors requesting that he be prosecuted as an adult in the rape and robbery of the 76-year-old. A hearing on that matter has been set for July 19.
Earlier this year, on March 27, at the request of the Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority, a judge discharged the 17-year-old from the authority’s custody.
Juvenile court records show that on April 9, 2012, he pleaded no contest to attempted robbery, attempted theft and aggravated assault. At his June 11, 2012, sentencing, he was ordered to be detained in the Sedgwick County Juvenile Detention Facility pending a placement by the justice authority.
The robbery/theft/aggravated assault case stemmed from an incident the night of Feb. 4, 2012, at a Wal-Mart on West Kellogg, when he was 16. According to the criminal complaint, he grabbed a purse on a 67-year-old woman’s shoulder and tried to pull it out of her hands, and stuck his hand in the pants pocket of the woman’s 71-year-old husband and tried to remove his wallet. He threatened another man with a handgun, according to the complaint.
The 71-year-old male victim said he and his wife were putting groceries in the trunk of their car, parked in a handicapped space, when the incident happened. He said he thought more than one suspect was involved. He said the suspects backed away when he said something to them.
“They caught us by surprise,” he said. For security reasons, he asked that his name not be used.
In December 2011, when the teen was 15, he was charged with misdemeanor theft – a pair of socks from a Gordmans store – but the charge was later dismissed, court records indicate.
Earlier in 2011, he had been discharged from the court’s jurisdiction because he had fulfilled conditions of his probation, apparently from an earlier case. Those conditions included being enrolled in school and attending classes, following a curfew, being subject to random urinalysis and breathalyzer and getting counseling.
According to court records, his first trouble as a juvenile resulted from a November 2009 incident involving a fellow student at Hamilton Middle School, when he was 13. He was accused of punching a 14-year-old boy in the face multiple times in their classroom. He was put on diversion, meaning the prosecution would be deferred as long as he stayed out of trouble and fulfilled certain conditions, but that the diversion was revoked in July 2010 after he was arrested in a June 2010 theft.
Prosecutors charged Thompson in June 2011 with misdemeanor theft – of an air gun, CO2 cartridges and BBs – from a Wal-Mart on North Rock Road. According to a police investigation, a Wal-Mart employee saw Thompson conceal the items, leave the store without paying for them, load the gun and shoot it into the air. He admitted taking the items, valued at $38.41, according to police.
In October 2011, he was put on diversion, with prosecution being deferred. But in April 2012, prosecutors filed a motion to revoke his diversion after he was arrested in another theft case and had failed to make passing grades, both violations of his diversion agreement. The new case against him involved the theft of three polo shirts from J.C. Penney on Feb. 20, 2012.
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The Wichita Eagle is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts. | {
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Supporting revalidation for healthcare providers
The cost of lapsed registrations
Each year approximately 15,500 nurse and midwive registrations with the NMC lapse as a result of failure to submit the
appropriate documentation or fee (NMC FOI Request FOI/2015/348). From November 2015 any nurse
or midwife who fails to submit suitable documentation and payment before their renewal is due
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formal process of readmission,
taking up to six weeks.
The implication for an NHS Trust or other healthcare provider employing 1,000 nurses and midwives
is that each year approximately 10 of their staff will fail to provide the required documentation in time for NMC renewal
and that agency cover will be required during that readmission period. The cost to the Trust of these lapses
will be between £50,000 and £150,000 each year, based on a 2-6 week readmission process covered by an agency nurse
at a cost of £500 per shift.
is an online, cloud-hosted, revalidation portfolio management solution, designed specifically to meet the
needs of NHS Trusts and others who employ NMC registered nurses and midwives in
the UK. In addition to providing the means for individual nurses to record their
NMC revalidation portfolio, it enables team leaders and NHS Trust managers to track the
progress of their teams, allowing them to be proactive in ensuring the successful
revalidation of their team members.
Team hierarchies
allows employers to create flexible, multi-tier team hierarchies. Each team is assigned
one or more team leaders with oversight of the team's NMC revalidation goals. Once built-up,
these structures allow a nursing manager to not only see a live overview of the current
NMC revalidation progress of the whole organisation, but also to drill-down into departments
and further into individual teams.
Team leader & Manager dashboards
All users have a dashboard specific to the roles they undertake: nurse, midwife,
team leader, manager. Managers, including nursing directors, are more often than
not also NMC registered, so their dashboard enables them to see the progress they
are making towards their own revalidation, as well highlighting 'at risk' teams
and departments. | {
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You Are Here
Cyber Labels
In 1952, John Cage released 4’33”, a musical composition of complete silence performed first by pianist David Tutor, who played not a single note of music for the four and a half minutes of the piece. In 2014, funk band Vulfpeck released Sleepify, an album of 10 silent songs, onto music streaming site Spotify.
These musical works, set 60 years apart, use the same shock-factor concept but for very different motives. Cage’s piece turns the audience into the joke, showing that people pay for good music because someone told them to pay for that good music. The ambient stirring, coughing, and whispering coming from the audience become the music of Cage’s composition. For Vulfpeck, it was less the commentary and more the extra royalties they would receive from Spotify.
In a promo video for Vulfpeck’s Sleepify, bandleader Jack Stratton explained that Spotify gives the band half a cent per listen in royalties. He urged his fans to stream the album on repeat while they sleep, generating an estimated four dollars each night’s sleep in royalties. He goes on to say he would be using all the funds raised to go on a tour, free of charge, in cities that generated the most revenue.
“Never in the history of music has it been so easy to support a band’s tour,” Stratton says in the video. Jokes on capitalist corporations aside, Vulfpeck’s album serves as an important symbol of the power struggle that comes with new forms of digital music. Streaming platforms like Spotify—which has been criticized even by big names like Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke on its unfair artist royalties—put artists and their producers in the position of distributing their music to a wider audience at the expense of profit.
However, like Vulfpeck, artists are finding ways to game the system. In 2012, Amanda Palmer of the self-described “punk Cabaret” band Dresden Dolls opened up a Kickstarter asking fans to give her money for her next record, tour, and accompanying art book. She asked for $100,000 and got $1,200,000.
Later, during her tour, she called for local artists to come play for free and said that, in exchange, “We will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily for adding to the big noise we are planning to make.” Many took to the Internet to ask where her funds, 12 times as many as she had asked for, had gone to if she could not even compensate and support local musicians.
This form of direct funding, which Palmer opted for in 2010 when she dropped her record label contract, creates issues in the accountability and legal details. By asking fans for financial investment in their art rather than a relying on a record label to make a profit, artists like Palmer become responsible for being able to use those funds wisely so that the audience can reap the returns.
On Palmer’s website, she has a pay-what-you-can model for users to buy all the music she was able to put up on the site. The songs are also registered under creative commons.
Radiohead did something similar a few years earlier when they released their album In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis on their website, record company-free. Radiohead’s guitarist Ed O’Brien advocates for artists’ representation and compensation rights. The band made more profit on its pre-release alone of In Rainbows than it did on their last album in total. Frontman Thom Yorke’s advice to aspiring artists is to release music without the help of a major record label, reports Rolling Stone. Yet, two months after their online release of In Rainbows, Radiohead signed with TBD Records to sell the album in stores, showing that perhaps the system is not ready to take record labels out just yet.
“You can’t replace record labels. You can’t replace having a marketing team that has a direct interest in the success of your music. You can’t replace having a 50k budget to make a record,” said lead guitarist Greg Warns of Tufts-born band Shark Shaddle.
This kind of musical communism is trying to dismantle the corporate structure yet it also might be ruining the quality. Most credit this new wave of music sharing to the infamous Napster. The P2P file-sharing website opened in 1999 and had to close in 2001, with millions of dollars owned due to copyright infringements.
“The service was a major boon for new artists, most of whom had no access to the sort of international promotion in which the gatekeeping major labels specialized; now they could build a career on the enthusiasm of music fans worldwide, freed from the business calculations of the music industry,” says former MTV News Anchor to the Daily Beast.
Now there are plenty of sites similar to Napster. It is easy for any band to put their music up on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Last.fm, or any other of the music platforms available.
In its business model, Bandcamp (a leading site on music streaming and purchasing) aims to put the power back into the hands of the musicians, allowing them to name their price (or let users name their price) as well as to interact with fans. But there is so much music on Bandcamp, recorded via iPhone and professionally alike, that it’s hard for listeners to sift through. That’s where music blogs come in, explains co-founder of local music blog Sound of Boston Knar Bedian (A ’14). Music blogs look through the countless albums, EPs, and homemade music videos on the Internet to provide listeners a more selective music collection.
This virtual system works to provide general exposure to bands, rather than more funds or even more fans. “I would say sites like Bandcamp are more likely to provide artists the power to increase the breadth of their fan base, rather than actually grow the size of their fan base,” said Bedian.
We are arriving at a new era in which views and listens—although less financially profitable than hard purchases—are the new quantifiers of success. Vicente Epsi, half of the Boston-found duo ANIMA!, says Internet streaming and downloading have created a kind of “currency of attention”. The band has their first EP on streaming site SoundCloud.
In the end, these new forms, whether in the innovative styles of Vulfpeck and Radiohead or in the self-releasing ways of bands still trying to “make it,” are all thanks to the Internet. Whether they help musicians get more money, more fans, or even just more geographic range, cyberspace has helped to empower the musician. | {
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PlayStation App
The official PlayStation 4 app
PlayStation App is an official application developed by Sony that allows you to bring the PlayStation experience (whatever that means) everywhere on your Android device.
Thanks to this PlayStation App, you can see what your friends are playing at any given moment, compare their achievements with your own, and check your profile and recent PlayStation Network activity.
You can also, naturally, chat with all your friends, receive notifications, game alerts, and invitations, and use your mobile device like a keyboard when you're using your PlayStation 4 (it's much more comfortable than using the controller).
Even better, you can use the app to navigate the PlayStation Store, choosing games and popular add-ons, which are then ready to play on your console once you get back home. Basically, you can use your smartphone to start downloading an update or game to your console.
PlayStation App is an intriguing application for any PlayStation 4 owner, since it gives you access to a good amount of interesting features. | {
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Margaret
Back in the late sixties, I use to cut frozen sections on whole human hearts (cross sections for nerve studies) using a large sliding microtome with a CO2 freezing plate, and a large 220 mm knife. They were not difficult to section, once you got the tissue to the correct temperature. The sections were stained by free floating them in large dishes, then I mounted them on eight inch square sheets of 3/16th plexyglass, and coversliped them with unsilvered Xray film. These large microtomes were comon at that time, but where you would find one now I have no idea. About the largest section that you could cut with our puny little modern microtomes is about one inch in width, because the forces on the blade as it move through the tissue distorts the various parts of these microtomes, causing chatter, thick and thin sections, and other problems. Freezing a 3cm piece of tissue in LN2 is difficult if you can not cut the fresh tissue to a thinness of about 2mm befor freezing. This is not as critical with the CO2 freezing plate. Food for thought.
Kerry Beebe
Kelowna General Hospital
B.C. Canada | {
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Here we have another image Best Hairstyles With How To Have An Emo Hairstyle featured under Make Your Beauty With How To Have An Emo Hairstyle For Inspire. We hope you enjoyed it and if you want to download the pictures in high quality, simply right click the image and choose "Save As". Thanks for reading Make Your Beauty With How To Have An Emo Hairstyle For Inspire. | {
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} |
Treatment options for pressure ulcers (sores) typically include regularly changing your position, using special mattresses to reduce or relieve pressure, and dressings to help heal the ulcer. In some cases, surgery may be needed.
Changing position
Moving and regularly changing your position helps to relieve the pressure on ulcers that have already developed. It also helps prevent pressure ulcers developing.
After your care team has carried out an assessment of your risk of developing pressure ulcers, they will draw up a repositioning timetable. This states how often you need to move, or be moved if you're unable to do so yourself.
For some people, this may be as often as once every 15 minutes. Others may need to be moved only once every two to four hours.
You may also be given training and advice about:
correct sitting and lying positions
how you can adjust your sitting and lying positions
how best to support your feet to relieve pressure on your heels
any special equipment you need and how to use it
Mattresses and cushions
If you're at risk of getting pressure ulcers or have a minor ulcer, your care team will recommend a specially designed static foam or dynamic mattress.
If you have a more serious ulcer, you will require a more sophisticated mattress or bed system, such as a mattress connected to a pump that delivers a constant flow of air into the mattress itself.
There are also a range of foam or pressure-redistributing cushions available. Ask your carer about the types most suitable for you.
But according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), there's limited evidence on what kinds of pressure-redistributing devices are best for the relief and prevention of pressure ulcers in different places, such as heels or hips.
Dressings
Specially designed dressings can be used to protect pressure ulcers and speed up the healing process.
These dressings include:
alginate dressings – these are made from seaweed and contain sodium and calcium, which are known to speed up the healing process
hydrocolloid dressings – contain a special gel that encourages the growth of new skin cells in the ulcer, while keeping the surrounding healthy skin dry
other dressing types – such as foams, films, hydrofibres/gelling fibres, gels and antimicrobial (antibiotic) dressings may also be used
Ask your carer about which type of dressing they're using for the management of your pressure ulcer.
Gauze dressings aren't recommended for either the prevention or treatment of pressure ulcers. | {
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Residential
This 2 bed/1 bath home needs some finishing, but has had support and sub flooring redone throughout. It could be sold with an income producing duplex and additional house, which are adjoining property, at 620-622-624 W Forest for an even greater investment opportunity! See MLS #117762 for these other additional options covering the corner of W Forest & S Georgia Streets. | {
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MBR OPEX − the theory of running costs
With the coming of age of MBR technology, the next thing on the agenda seems to be the subject of MBR costs. Simon Judd explains the fundamentals of working it out. In theory. Simon can be contacted at [email protected].
1. The operating expenditure (OPEX) of an MBR
One of the concerns of MBRs is their operational costs, which even the most optimistic (but nonetheless realistic) of cost analyses reveals to be marginally higher than those of conventional activated sludge (CAS). The reasons behind this are fairly obvious. Firstly, permeating water through a membrane demands energy. In the case of the immersed technologies (iMBRs) this means that the overall specific aeration demand (SAD) is higher, since air is needed both for maintaining the process biology in the aeration tank and scouring the immersed membrane. For a sidestream MBR (sMBR) energy is used for pumping the sludge through the membrane channels. Secondly, membranes have a limited life. Although the ceramic membranes presumably last a lot longer, it is normal to assume a life of 8−12 years for a polymeric membrane.
To calculate the actual costs requires key information concerning the plant design and operation. For the process biology these are the same as for CAS modelling:
the feed and treated water quality, and specifically the COD, BOD and ammoniacal/amino nitrogen (or total Kjeldahl nitrogen, TKN)
If CAD packages like Biowin or West are to be used for the biological process design then the above is probably sufficient, since estimates of the key fundamental biokinetic and biochemical parameters are provided in the package. However, if starting from scratch, and if only the actual running cost is required, then the estimated sludge yield in kgMLSS generated per kgCOD feed is needed. To complete the calculation demands an estimate of the amount of COD and TKN required to sustain the biomass in kgCOD and TKN per kg MLSS. Finally, the efficiency of oxygen transfer from the air bubble into the biomass, the standard oxygen transfer efficiency (SOTE) per unit depth has to be estimated.
On the membrane side the key parameters influencing OPEX are:
the cost and life of the membrane
the permeate flux
the specific aeration demand for membrane scouring (SADm) for an immersed membrane, or
the pressure and crossflow rate of a sidestream (pumped) membrane in an sMBR
the energy demand of membrane permeation (for an immersed membrane: for sMBRs it is accounted for by (4) above.
Finally, for any MBR technology there are additional costs associated with:
energy for pumping the sludge between tanks (aeration to membrane tank, membrane tank to anoxic zone for denitrification and also to an anaerobic tank for P removal)
process control energy demand and maintenance
chemicals for membrane cleaning
labour
other miscellaneous site services.
Apart from labour and site services, which are location and site-specific, a reasonable estimate of all other costs can be made. OPEX is ultimately determined in units of cost per m3 of treated water. The example below refers to a simple Modified Ludzack−Ettinger (MLE) process for nitrification-denitrification.
3. Membrane separation OPEX
3.1 iMBR
The base data provided for the cost determination are listed below. E’A,m is assumed to be the same as EA,bio, which is justifiable if the aerator is at the same depth. EA,bio in units of kWh/m3 is 80,000/(3,600 x 1,000) = 0.0222.
3.2 sMBR
In the case of a pumped sidestream technology fitted with horizontal modules there is no air scouring of the membrane, the shear being created by the crossflow. The energy demand is therefore determined from Bernoulli’s equation:
The conversion refers to the proportion of the retentate passing through the permeate channels which is converted into permeate. This in turn can be determined from the membrane module characteristics (specifically the membrane area and the available cross-sectional area) and the net flux. Appropriate values for a food and beverage application might be:
This figure (EL,m for the sidestream MBR) displaces the terms for energy demand relating to membrane air scour, permeate pumping and sludge transfer in the corresponding equation for the immersed technology:
4. Cost curves
This simplistic approach implies that OPEX is independent of flow, which is not actually the case. However, a number of published cost analyses suggest that there is only a shallow decline of OPEX with flow. According to the study of Lo et al (2015), who considered three different flows ranging from 100 to 2500 m3/d, the OPEX cost curve (in 2015 USD) from entirely heuristic data is given by:
\begin{equation}
OPEX=-0.0509\ lnQ+0.664
\label{eq:5} \end{equation}
This curve seems to be in reasonable agreement with other published studies (DeCarolis et al, 2007; Brepols et al, 2010; Young et al, 2013), generally based on much larger MBR installations.
Figure 2. MBR OPEX according to various reported studies
Since OPEX is most sensitive to design flux and membrane life it is of some interest to correlate the cost against these two parameters based on the assumptions given in Section 3.1. Accordingly, it can be seen that doubling the membrane life from five to ten years decreases the overall OPEX by 24%. However, this is based on a membrane replacement cost of $80 per m2 membrane area, which is perhaps overly conservative. If the membrane cost is reduced to $20 per m2 membrane area then this figure comes down to 9%.
Figure 3. OPEX vs flux at various membrane life periods
Clearly, OPEX is only part of the cost calculation. For a complete analysis the capital cost (CAPEX) is needed, which then demands information on the price of equipment, installation services − largely comprising mechanical and electrical (M&E) and civil engineering, legal and contracting costs, land and other sundry items. These vary considerably between technologies, locations and overall approaches to costing per se (i.e. which items are included, which is a rather vexed issue). However, given that OPEX generally contributes more to the overall total cost (TOTEX) over the life of the plant, and can be estimated reasonably easily it’s perhaps worth at least doing this much before reaching for the cheque book. | {
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Nav Bar
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
New York is a swell place for a single person, but it’s an even sweller place for a single food. When a food on its own wants a restaurant of its own, its best shot is here. In fact, the single-food restaurants in this city could fill a book — and I know, because it’s the book I just wrote.
The destinations include places like Egg Shop, Luke’s Lobster, and Caracas Arepa Bar. Their foods range from peanut butter to caviar. They are as unlikely as Rice to Riches, which sells rice pudding, and as old as Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, which is 105.
They serve common delicacies in uncommon ways, like the hot dog with bacon, egg, and cheese at Crif Dogs. They serve uncommon delicacies in common ways, like the goat-milk ice cream at Victory Garden. They serve delicacies they invented themselves, like the stuffed bagel balls at Bantam Bagels.
The book, of course, tells you all about the places, but it also tells you all about the people behind the places. They include families, friends, couples, and, naturally, singles — all consumed by a food, and all determined to share their vision of it with New York.
This book is my follow-up to “Discovering Vintage New York: A Guide to the City’s Timeless Shops, Bars, Delis & More.” That book tells of the classic spots that have survived for over 50 years. The Wonders constitute an alternate classic. I call them the Other Vintage.
They are vintage in that they keep some independence in the city; they are one last chance for dreamers to live out their dreams. And they are vintage in that they keep some adventure in the city; developers rarely generate places like Sticky’s Finger Joint.
Since there is more to life than food, though not much more, I’ve included a bonus section that features the city’s one-thing wonders. It takes you on an improbable journey from Alex & Bell Accordions to Yunhong Chopsticks. (I’ll let you know as soon as I find a Z.)
And as another bonus, I’ve created the New York Singular Hall of Fame, celebrating both kinds of wonders from the past. Among the one-thing wonders here is Seashells Unlimited; among the one-food wonders is the lamented Hero’s Sweet Potatoes.
That said, this remains mostly a book about available food. But as I write in the book’s introduction, it is also a book about passion. It’s about passion for creativity, which is what brings these places to life — and about passion for something surprising to eat, which is what keeps these places alive.
“Wonders” (like “Vintage”) has appendixes that group its places by category and by neighborhood. With these you can craft a customized trip to debauchery. I hope you do. Many of us overlook the wonders nearest to us. I’d like to help everyone to get over that.
Find what's wonderful in New York in “New York’s One-Food Wonders,” published today by Globe Pequot.
New York Chronicles
About Me
For twenty years, I wrote about New York for the nation's largest newspaper chain. Now I write about New York for the nation's largest Internet. I do this because I love to explore the city and to share what I've found, except when I'm greedy about it and decide to keep it to myself.
"Vintage," of course, means old, but it also means timeless. It's my defense for covering new things that evoke old New York spirit. But I mostly cover the best places that take you back in time, whether you are revisiting a time or just now discovering it.
On the street I still feel like a tourist, and I tend to look like one, too. These are perhaps my greatest qualifications. Among my others are some of the top prizes in New York City journalism, which nobody really cares about because they're not a Pulitzer. | {
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FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2017 file photo, Patrick Stewart arrives at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Grants Banquet at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Stewart was so moved by the inventors and inventions being honored by the motion picture academy Saturday night, Feb. 10, 2018, that he offered a spontaneous recitation of a scene from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The venerable actor hosted the academy’s annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony, an untelevised dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and he closed the evening by going off-script with Puck’s plea in defense of art. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Patrick Stewart recites Shakespeare at Sci-Tech Awards
Patrick Stewart recites Shakespeare at Sci-Tech Awards
By SANDY COHEN
Feb. 11, 2018
https://www.apnews.com/a9ebd523620f4945beba70913e36c45b
Link copied!
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Patrick Stewart was so inspired by the inventors and inventions being honored by the motion picture academy Saturday night that he offered a spontaneous recitation of a scene from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
The venerable actor hosted the academy's annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony, an untelevised dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and he closed the evening by going off-script with Puck's plea in defense of art.
Stewart was a gamely host throughout the more than three-hour program, calling the honorees "film magicians" and poking fun at his own lack of high-tech understanding.
"I have to tell you, I wouldn't know the difference between a warp-core breach and a space-time continuum if they got into bed with me!" the 77-year-old actor said to raucous applause.
Stewart presented nine awards for hardware and software innovations, along with three Oscar statuettes.
Two of the Oscars went to the creator and developer of the Houdini visual effects and animation system, a collection of tools for computer-generated effects that has been used in more than 600 feature films. Mark Elendt and Side Effects Software each accepted an Oscar for their 25 years of work on the program. Four other Houdini collaborators received an academy plaque.
The third Oscar was the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, which recognizes extraordinary technological contributions to the film industry. Jonathan Erland became the 26th recipient to date for his decades of study, innovation and advocacy for the science of movies. Erland was a founder of the academy's visual effects branch, co-founder of the Visual Effects Society and counts the original "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" among his film credits.
"I intend to work until I drop," he said as he accepted his award.
He referred to film as an art-science, adding, "the ultimate goal and purpose of art is enlightenment."
Other inventions honored Saturday included a rotating, helicopter-mounted camera that was recently used on "The Revenant" and "Dunkirk" and a waterproof, telescopic camera crane used on "Logan" and "Wonder Woman."
Digital developments accounted for the rest of the prizes. Short videos illuminated the practical side of the various innovations; how these software programs help artists design and animate characters and move them in space.
Such advances "allow animators to work as the speed of their imaginations," said an engineer on the Premo character animation system used in "The Boss Baby" and other DreamWorks Animation features.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has singled out scientific contributions for awards since 1931. The Sci-Tech Awards have had their own dedicated evening since 1977.
"In cinema," Erland said, "art and science are bonded together."
Stewart said that as Erland accepted his award, "it occurred to me that another Englishman wrote something once which is perhaps appropriate for this event."
"He didn't know it would be, of course, because he lived 400 years ago," Stewart said as he introduced the passage he recited from memory.
"If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended — That you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear." | {
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Deer Head Inn
Interactive Map
Overview
Jazz enthusiasts and history buffs alike won't want to miss a stop at the Deer Head Inn! Though Pennsylvania may not be known as a hotbed for producing jazz musicians, during the 1920's the music style was catching on all across the nation, including the metropolitan areas of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
While the Poconos couldn't boast the cosmopolitan feel of the bigger cities, the area still had plenty of seasonal visitors hailing from those locations. As a way to keep guests entertained during extended stays, local business owners recognized the popularity of the jazz movement. As a result, Deer Head Inn began to offer live jazz music and became one of the most popular jazz clubs in the area, and the Deer Head is now the longest-running jazz club in the United States.
Today, the Inn continues to host live jazz musicians while serving locally inspired fare. Visitors can also extend their stay by booking a room and staying overnight. If you appreciate jazz, you won't want to miss this historical landmark.
On the Road: The Deer Head Inn is easy to access and is centrally located in the town of Delaware Water Gap, PA. | {
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Full of romantic undertones, this three-dimensional sterling silver charm from the PANDORA Summer 2018 collection spells out the word "love." Multicolored cubic zirconias and crystals, carefully set by hand, decorate each letter to create a rainbow effect. Make yours the centerpiece of your style. Style # 797189NRPMX.
It is a decorative item that can be added to a necklace, bracelet or earring. Often a charm will signify a important event or a meaningful relationship in the wearer's life.
How are charms used?
Decorative charms are used in bracelets, necklaces and sometimes earrings.
Why do some charms have center holes and others have rings or clips?
The patented jewelry designs from Pandora® make use of a threaded hole in the center of the charm to allow the user to secure the charm in any place along a special bracelet or necklace. Pandora also has unique pendant charms for crafting personalized earrings that attach to posts and hoops.Traditional charm bracelets use either a ring that must be soldered to the links of the bracelet or have a lobster clip to attach the charm. | {
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Police in tears as two young sisters' bodies found
HOMICIDE detectives have charged a 35-year-old Watsonia man with two counts of murder following the death of two children yesterday afternoon.
Police were called to a property in Longmuir Rd, Watsonia around 2.40pm after the discovery of the children's bodies at an Easter family gathering.
Paramedics were called to the scene and tried to resuscitate the two girl for about 30 minutes, without success.
Charles Mihayo has been remanded in custody to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday 22 April, 2014.
Mihayo is known to the children but his relationship to them is not clear.
Police officers at the scene were reported to be distraught over the tragedy, with an audibly distressed Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Andrew Crisp telling the media several police officers were in tears at the scene.
Mr Crisp said there were several family members inside the home at the time of the deaths.
"This is a tragic set of circumstances that has impacted on the family," he said.
"There were a number of family members there at the time.
"It's naturally also impacted on friends, neighbours and the members of the fire brigade, emergency services and Victoria Police who attended the scene.
"I've heard here today a number of our police members have been in tears.
"There are some very upset people at the moment."
Mr Crisp did not give any details of the incident. "The important thing at this stage is we have two young girls under the age of 10 who are deceased," he said. | {
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Special fare treat from Jet
OUR CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, July 24: In an attempt to reclaim marketshare from newbies such as Air Asia India and Tata-SIA, Jet Airways and its 24 per cent equity partner Etihad today announced a 20-50 per cent limited period discount on fares across 135 international destinations of the two carriers.
“The special introductory offer is a celebration to mark the formalisation of the strategic alliance between Etihad and Jet Airways,” said Gaurang Shetty, senior vice-president (commercial), Jet Airways.
According to aviation experts, the decision highlights how the alliance plans to operate and its strategies to deal not only with Air India and soon-to-be-launched Tata-SIA but also low-cost carriers that have eaten into its profits.
The introductory joint special fare will be available from July 25 to July 27 for travel between September 1 and June 15, 2015 for flights within India. For international flights, the discount will be for travel between September 1 and November 30.
So, tickets bought under the discount will be valid for nine months for flying on domestic routes and for two months for international flights.
The offer, however, will be limited for tickets purchased in India and for travel in business and economy classes of both the airlines.
Travel agents said under the scheme, a Delhi-Frankfurt economy class return ticket, which is available for around Rs 50,000-65,000, will cost around Rs 41,000.
Both the airlines did not specify the number of seats offered.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad bought a 24 per cent stake, worth about Rs 2,060 crore, in Jet Airways last year, marking the first FDI by a foreign carrier.
Jet Airways is suffering massive operational losses as its domestic arm, which accounts for 55 per cent of its business, has not been able to cope with the fare wars unleashed by rivals. | {
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My name is LaVina. I am here to learn all i can about helping animals and the environment. I have four pets. A white siberian husky named tokala, a zebra finch named zeke, a society finch named zoro and a dutch bunny named crazy eddy. I hope to meet many people here who are as interested in going green and helping animals as i am.
I am an animal lover and also appreciate the planet i live on. I do all I can to stay green. I eat organic foods, buy organic and recycled products. I have a rabbit,two finches,and a dog. I love them all very much. I love 50's things and pinup art. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Jake Emlyn - The Wonka Hath Landed
I directed and produced this video for artist Jake Emlyn.The concept depicts Jake's transformation from his former form into his current persona, the flamboyant Wonka. It draws influence from the iconic tunnel scene from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Filmed on location at Music Bank. | {
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} |
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BB#49: Money is the Root of all Ebil
What is "rich" in EVE? Is it simply having more ISK than most everyone else, is it measured in raw numbers of some other ethereal quality? Can you actually be poor? Have you ever lost nearly everything and had to claw your way back? If you are rich, how do you know and how did you get rich? --------------------------------Somewhere in the archives exists the log of a convo in which Mr. Javix is overcome with joy when he discovers that he has recently made more than ONE MILLION ISK!Once long ago, back when rigs came in one size fits all "LARGE", Mr Javix managed to accumulate - thru hard work and daily trips to Empire - the rather hefty sum of nearly 20 BILLION ISK.Mr. Javix lost it all due to wars, travel, re-location, loss of assets and other bad luck drama over the years. Mr. Javix now lives a comfortable life of leisure and contemplation in his retirement penthouse in Hevrice.NOT!!!ISK IS THE DEVIL!!!!!Too much money is in the hands of too few capsuleers! We must forcibly re-allocate hoarded assets and re-distribute the collected wealth that has gone un-checked in New Eden. We will only achieve this universal leveling thru violence, aggression and the seizure of all assets that perpetuate the unbalanced, money-grubbing, and hoarding that is endemic of so-called Industrial, Military, Faction and Empire-centric concerns.Wake up people of New Eden. While you labor for pennies a day in the factory sweat shops and booster fields on your dirt-ball worlds, the rich get richer above you. The immortal Capsuleer Cabal rules with an Iron Fist and must be denied solace and sanctuary.We, the unjustly labelled "criminals" and "pirates" of New Eden are the front line of this effort on your behalf. We will scourge the skies of the wealthy and pod the immortal evils of greed, corruption and entitlement. The 1% must never be allowed to dictate to the 99%. We are the mass, we are justice, we are the sword of righteousness.That is kinda, sorta what I do.Every dime I make goes to ships, mods and support. I maintain a base-line for security and operational expenses, the rest goes into the hanger. I am not wealthy. But I am the richest man in all of New Eden. Because I have what money cannot buy. I have my Corp, my Ships and my Family. And yes, they are listed in that order on purpose.And while some of that above nonsense is fun role-playing, the kernel of truth springs forth. I strongly believe there is far to much wealth in our game and that the accumulation of that wealth has harmed and hampered the very nature of what makes Eve special. I fervently believe that to be fact.I've been playing for just shy of five years now and I've seen it. You have also, if you'd only allow yourself to admit it. When I first started playing Null Sec was a vibrant, energetic and chaotic place full of new alliances, large and small. Wars, arguments, chaos all around. Where has that gone and why? Oh right.You might have snickered a bit at the proclamation that ISK IS THE DEVIL, but the truth is as plain as the nose on your face. While the pursuit of wealth is as natural as life, the accumulation of wealth corrupts.I'm no Saint. And I'm not Robin Hood. I'm just playing a game.But I'm on the right side. When my final chapter in Eve is finally written it will be full of awesome, amazing adventures and tales of wonder, inspiration and daring-do. Because I play to hoard memories, to accumulate adventure, and to count my blessings in the form of good fights. Things I store in my heart and not in my hanger. That is what makes me wealthy.Can you say the same?For more thoughts on this subject, please visit this here thing.
12 comments:
Aren't you guys a bunch of low-sec griefers that prey mostly on the noob and the clueless?Criminals? Pirates? "boohoo, don't despise me, I have an honour code that unfortunately makes sense only to myself and truly add to the game play. If only you could see that as your pod explodes".
"We are the sword of righteousness"? What a joke!More like "We are two-faced hypocrites" if you ask me.
When was the last time you actually took the war to that 1% in a meaningful way?Not that I blame you, the meta-game makes that endeavour suicidal and absurd.
But for f*'s sake, don't try to pretend you're part of the solution when, at best, you're just loud-mouthed bystanders, and at worst, you're part of the problem.
A game I'm having fun playing. If you aren't having fun I suggest you go talk to someone about where the bad man touched you. Lighten up and walk outside, see the sky? It's there every day. Pretty awesome stuff happens outside. It's called life. Go live yours.
In the meantime? I really don't care what you think. I don't play for you, write for you, or otherwise worry the width of an ant's ass hair what you think. You obviously know nothing about me, my history, or anything else of any importance.
It's a damn game, why so much crap about e-honor and doing what is right or whatever. It's a game and it's only meant to be fun. If you're wasting you entire time mining because you need isk for that 10billion pinata but you're bored to death. Then you're not playing it as it should. Besides once you get your magic pinata it will be probably blown by us. While we laugh our ass off and waste your hard earn isk in rum and brothel hehe.
This hit home for me very strongly tonight, thanks to my current situation.Wallet balance across 3 characters on one account after liquidating most of my assets: 80mil isk.My goal is living in low-sec, but every time I get an industrial almost hooked up to ship what I have in I hesitate."What if I lose what ships I have?""Is my balance going to keep me afloat?""What if I get trapped forever in lowsec without the isk to get back on my feet?!"
But then you come along talking about how isk is the devil. I believe you've mentioned previously you feel pirates should sit on the edge of poverty. But what do -you- define as rich or poor in your profession? Did you used to have a threshold where you would become nervous?
I guess as long as you have a ship of some kind you have a shot.Now if only I would quit getting them blowed up, I might prosper. ;)
Finally, on an old account I used to follow the politics of Null a lot more. I remember there were a lot more interesting powerplays. But maybe that's nostalgia and broken memories. Maybe it was always like that. It would explain my constant hatred of null.
I've been broke in Eve before, a couple of times actually. It isn't the end of the world. For one thing I had a good corp of people around me that helped me get back on my feet, that is very important. And being broke taught me some valuable lessons that I rely on even today. What is ISK anyway? What do you use it for? And how does it enhance or hinder your own gameplay? These are important questions.
For me, ISK is only a means to an end. I spend as much as I bring in, mostly on ships/mods. Because that is all I want out of Eve. BUt everyone is different. The "evil" comes from the same place it does in real life, greed, hoarding, accumulation and fear. Once you free your mind of such concepts, you are truly free.
Yaknow, that's something I keep forgetting. I think FW and bad gatecamp experiences broke me a little - I catch myself obsessing over a long term T3 goal that I'll probably lose in a day and a half, knowing how I fly.
I think you've raised an excellent point to me, something I need to think about. Well, not really. Something I just need to hurry up and -do-.
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Film Review
star-0
Zookeeper is essentially a surreally awful Happy Madison Productions version of Mad Libs. It takes all the clichés and hackneyed truisms about doing what you love and being yourself that characterize the Adam Sandler company's films and throws in lots and lots of insipid jokes about talking zoo animals. There's nothing necessarily unfunny about talking zoo animals, mind you—but in this case, there's nothing that Click director Frank Coraci and Zookeeper's team of five screenwriters, including star Kevin James, get right. Coraci and the gang are betting that it's been a while since you've seen anything approaching Zookeeper's level of mind-melting vapidity. After all, when was the last time you saw James pee on a wolf, a gorilla with Nick Nolte's voice operate a kayak, or that same gorilla wonder aloud just how good the food at T.G.I. Friday's really is? Not only is there no good answer to that question, there's also no good reason for bothering with the film.
There's a formula to creating something as terrible as Zookeeper. Take two attractive actresses—Leslie Bibb and Rosario Dawson—and have them represent arbitrary polar-opposite personality traits (Bibb's vapid love of art vs. Dawson's soulful love of animal husbandry!). Add James, doing his fat-guy-that-crashes-into-the-concrete-every-fourth-scene routine, while trying to pick one of those two hot women. Finally, throw in some quirky talking animals, like Nolte's chain-food restaurant-obsessed gorilla and a capuchin monkey voiced by Sandler, who sounds like George Burns if George Burns were a stroke victim.
The result is one of the most grating things that will be excreted onto the screen this year. Hyperbolic rage is too good for Zookeeper. It really has no redeeming qualities to it—unless you think seeing something new and perplexing is necessarily exciting. Because if so, Zookeeper has got it all. You will see former Fear Factor host Joe Rogan, as James's character's rival for Bibb's hand, bike race James through street traffic. You will see Nolte's gorilla sing along with James to Flo Rida's "Low." You will even see Cher and Sylvester Stallone voicing a pair of lions that bicker all the time. And you won't believe any of it could be as unfunny or obliviously ludicrous as it is. But try as you might to convince yourself otherwise: Yes, Virginia, there is a Zookeeper. It absolutely exists and it's monumentally terrible. Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son now has competition for worst picture of the year. | {
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Rabbits/nipping
QuestionI recently adopted a 2 yr old french lop. The previous owner told us how sweet and friendly she is. Though she is friendly with us she climbs on us and will lock and nip at us constant. She'll lock our skin but she nip us through our clothes. Does she not like us? Also the previous owner said they could always pick her up. She barley ever let's us pick her up
AnswerAleshia,
Nipping could be a sign of a few things.
You mention that she licks your skin - she may like the taste of the salt that naturally excretes in the oils in our skin. Does she have a salt lick?
She could also be trying to get your attention - what's happening in the context of the nip? Is she climbing on you? Is it feeding time?
When she nips you, what do you do? Occasionally mine will nip me, especially when he gets excited. He's not purposely trying to hurt me, he's just excited. I make a loud noise and make a motion - a jerk or jump - to let him know he hurt me, and he'll back off. Do you do something similar?
As for picking up your bun, you mention that this is a recent adoption. First things first, don't force picking her up. She's getting used to you just like you're getting used to her. Prey animals (sadly bunnies are a prey animal in the wild) typically like to keep all four feet on the ground. Instead of picking her up, get on her level and let her check you out. Let her climb on you... smell you... nose bump you... get used to you. She may just be nervous and need time to familiarize herself with the fact that you are not going to hurt her.
Expertise
I am not an expert on wild rabbits, only domesticated rabbits. I can answer questions regarding habitats, behavior, diet, health, pairing/bonding - pretty much anything having to do with owning a rabbit.
Experience
I've owned indoor rabbits for the last 10 years. During that time I've gained experience in areas like bonding exercises, understanding behavior, warning signs of sick bunnies, how to handle more serious illnesses (GI stasis, abscesses, eye problems, etc.) and more. It's rare that I come across an inquiry that I do not already know the answer to.
OrganizationsHouse Rabbit Society, supporter of local rabbit rescues
Publicationshttp://ilovemyhouserabbit.com/
Education/CredentialsPersonal experience beats the pants off of a degree, in my opinion. | {
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Categories
Blog
How to support local businesses right now
April 17, 2020
Calgarians are coming together in a real way right now (while we are apart), and the need for supporting local businesses is now more important than ever before. Even though shopping at our favourite local shops, restaurants and markets looks a little different for the time being, there are still meaningful ways to support local and the City of Calgary is calling on us all to do so.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has hit businesses in Calgary hard, and we know many were already challenged from a tough economy,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “Our City taskforces are uniting with our partner organizations and community members to support citizens and businesses through the pandemic. We’re all in this together, and we will get through this together.” [City of Calgary]
While our city is recognizing social distancing measures, it’s still really important that we find ways to support the local businesses that keep this city alive. It’s important to our local economy, but it also keeps us connected at a time when we really need to come together.
Here are some ways you can support local businesses right now:
Shop online and opt for delivery (if available) or curbside pick-up
Purchase a gift card online that you can use in future
Order delivery or takeout from your favourite local restaurant (or a place you haven’t tried yet)
Leave a review for a local business on social media platforms or their website
Share the business with your friends by telling people why you love them and encourage others to follow them and engage on social media
Under #SupportLocalYYC, The City of Calgary together with our partners Calgary Economic Development, the Calgary Chamber, Tourism Calgary and Calgary Arts Development, are supporting the business community by creating connections, sharing resources and tools, and highlighting positive stories to inspire the community and spark further innovations that can benefit those in need. [City of Calgary]
However you are choosing to support local business during this time, be sure to spread the word on social media using #SupportLocalYYC. | {
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Latest Top Picks
(A Top Pick Oct 16/18, Down 56%) He bought it because they had a great copper project in northwest BC, but drilling yielded declining potential. Lost 10% when he sold. Brent Cook: Get out fast when you find a fatal flaw in a mining company.
(A Top Pick Oct 16/18, Up 38%) A royalty company that's growing. They've been acquiring royalties wich assets that come into production in 6-12 months, so they'll hit their cash flow quickly. Brent Cook: They also own a hot deposit in Turkey that will come into play.
Brent Cook: Knows management with a good track record. They have a gold-copper project in Peru. Hasn't bought it till now, because of metallurgical issues. They're getting to one of their targets, which looks promising. It depends what those holds deliver; he'll sell or buy more.
They're focused in Serbia. They have a good land package; major joint ventures wtih a copper producer; and they're drilling. Their market cap is reasonable and they have working capital. Just waiting for drill results now. (Analysts’ price target is $0.20)
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Stock Opinions by Joe Mazumdar - Stockchase Experts
PDAC, Toronto's major minerals conference happening now, is less busy this year because the show is charging investors to walk to the trade show floor and hitting booth traffic. The Barrick/Newmont/Goldcorp hostile takeover: there's a drive in this space to be bigger and relevant. Newmont would take on a lot of debt from Goldcorp, so there will be divestitures. The mid-tiers will watch the fall-out from the Newmont-Goldcorp deal if it happens. Brent Cook: It's musical chairs now with all the M&As, but this will slow down exploration in this sector and not add any new ounces to production profiles--that's a problem. Discoveries have been decreasing steadily since 2000. He's not sure what the mid-tiers will do in M&A this year.
PDAC, Toronto's major minerals conference happening now, is less busy this year because the show is charging investors to walk to the trade show floor and hitting booth traffic. The Barrick/Newmont/Goldcorp hostile takeover: there's a drive in this space to be bigger and relevant. Newmont would take on a lot of debt from Goldcorp, so there will be divestitures. The mid-tiers will watch the fall-out from the Newmont-Goldcorp deal if it happens. Brent Cook: It's musical chairs now with all the M&As, but this will slow down exploration in this sector and not add any new ounces to production profiles--that's a problem. Discoveries have been decreasing steadily since 2000. He's not sure what the mid-tiers will do in M&A this year.
They've been around for a while and own a lot of the Ring of Fire's nickel deposits. Ontario was supposed to open infrastructure so these deposits would get mined. It's a government and infrastructure play. But NOT has a lot of debt, with no cash flow. Government involvement can work out long-term.
They've been around for a while and own a lot of the Ring of Fire's nickel deposits. Ontario was supposed to open infrastructure so these deposits would get mined. It's a government and infrastructure play. But NOT has a lot of debt, with no cash flow. Government involvement can work out long-term.
Brent Cook: They have a virgin discovery in Finland. Smart guys running it. Good share structure with plenty of cash. They're finding lots of high-grade vertical structures. He's watching to see if they can execute to get the number of ounces they need.
Brent Cook: They have a virgin discovery in Finland. Smart guys running it. Good share structure with plenty of cash. They're finding lots of high-grade vertical structures. He's watching to see if they can execute to get the number of ounces they need.
They're in Idaho which takes time to permit, though it's good geopolitcally. Has a good grade for an open pit, 1.7 grams. The metallurgy, though, is a slight issue--can they find enough capital? Barrick has made a major investment under the old CEO in early-2018, so where does it fit under the new CEO? Their annual production could top 300,000 ounces a year. Brent Cook: The permit process is moving ahead slowly. It's one of the few better deposits in the US not owned by a major.
They're in Idaho which takes time to permit, though it's good geopolitcally. Has a good grade for an open pit, 1.7 grams. The metallurgy, though, is a slight issue--can they find enough capital? Barrick has made a major investment under the old CEO in early-2018, so where does it fit under the new CEO? Their annual production could top 300,000 ounces a year. Brent Cook: The permit process is moving ahead slowly. It's one of the few better deposits in the US not owned by a major.
They have quality zinc deposits in Peru, but the zinc price is the issue, so is it a good time to sell it now? They will drill another 10,000 meters so find more high-grade. He escapes a scoping study by end-June. Has a flat chart though, reflecting the low zinc price. Zinc companies aren't making money these days. Hold until the price rises. Brent Cook: Zinc has been his most frustrating play.
They have quality zinc deposits in Peru, but the zinc price is the issue, so is it a good time to sell it now? They will drill another 10,000 meters so find more high-grade. He escapes a scoping study by end-June. Has a flat chart though, reflecting the low zinc price. Zinc companies aren't making money these days. Hold until the price rises. Brent Cook: Zinc has been his most frustrating play.
Good managers in Newfoundland. But the issue is the continuity of the gold, so he's never bought it. An interesting play and geopolitcally good though infrastructure is slightly challenged. There's a potential for a big strike.
Good managers in Newfoundland. But the issue is the continuity of the gold, so he's never bought it. An interesting play and geopolitcally good though infrastructure is slightly challenged. There's a potential for a big strike.
They're trying to get rid of lots of assets in Brazil--that's their big problem. Look at their long-term debt and if they have enough working capital or need to raise money from the market. If gold prices stay low, it will be an issue for Yamana. Brent Cook: The are marginal assets--leveraged to the gold price--which aren't economical unless the gold price rises. Not economical because input prices rise. He avoids them.
They're trying to get rid of lots of assets in Brazil--that's their big problem. Look at their long-term debt and if they have enough working capital or need to raise money from the market. If gold prices stay low, it will be an issue for Yamana. Brent Cook: The are marginal assets--leveraged to the gold price--which aren't economical unless the gold price rises. Not economical because input prices rise. He avoids them.
$45 million market cap. It has a gold project in western Quebec and hitting some high-grade at less than a meter, 600+grams/tonne. Their issue is continuity: will this grade continue? Now, it is an interesting play. Brent Cook: It's a narrow, high-grade vein but could be diluted which is a concern.
$45 million market cap. It has a gold project in western Quebec and hitting some high-grade at less than a meter, 600+grams/tonne. Their issue is continuity: will this grade continue? Now, it is an interesting play. Brent Cook: It's a narrow, high-grade vein but could be diluted which is a concern.
(A Top Pick Oct 16/18, Down 56%) He bought it because they had a great copper project in northwest BC, but drilling yielded declining potential. Lost 10% when he sold. Brent Cook: Get out fast when you find a fatal flaw in a mining company.
(A Top Pick Oct 16/18, Down 56%) He bought it because they had a great copper project in northwest BC, but drilling yielded declining potential. Lost 10% when he sold. Brent Cook: Get out fast when you find a fatal flaw in a mining company.
(A Top Pick Oct 16/18, Up 38%) A royalty company that's growing. They've been acquiring royalties wich assets that come into production in 6-12 months, so they'll hit their cash flow quickly. Brent Cook: They also own a hot deposit in Turkey that will come into play.
(A Top Pick Oct 16/18, Up 38%) A royalty company that's growing. They've been acquiring royalties wich assets that come into production in 6-12 months, so they'll hit their cash flow quickly. Brent Cook: They also own a hot deposit in Turkey that will come into play.
A pure play in zinc, which is why it's suffering. Zinc prices are low. See if TV is generating free cash flow--or else they have to go to market. Cash flow is more important than earnings. Can they sustain their balance sheet? They've changed CEOs so there's some uncertain around it.
A pure play in zinc, which is why it's suffering. Zinc prices are low. See if TV is generating free cash flow--or else they have to go to market. Cash flow is more important than earnings. Can they sustain their balance sheet? They've changed CEOs so there's some uncertain around it.
An excellent team. They operaete in the Red Lake district. If Newmont and Barrick get together, they might divest in Red Lake. Brent Cook: He knows the Red Lake District well, but he didn't buy this because of continuity issues. He doesn't see a fatal flaw with them, but can they find mineralization then grow the resource? He's watching it.
An excellent team. They operaete in the Red Lake district. If Newmont and Barrick get together, they might divest in Red Lake. Brent Cook: He knows the Red Lake District well, but he didn't buy this because of continuity issues. He doesn't see a fatal flaw with them, but can they find mineralization then grow the resource? He's watching it.
Used to own it, a past pick and he took good profits. Geologically, the potential of this area is ridiculous, but the geopolitic risks are worrysome--the DRC (Congo). Brent Cook: This is the best undeveloped copper deposit in the world.
Used to own it, a past pick and he took good profits. Geologically, the potential of this area is ridiculous, but the geopolitic risks are worrysome--the DRC (Congo). Brent Cook: This is the best undeveloped copper deposit in the world.
Comments
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As unflattering as this dress comes across, it’s amazingly comfortable. I wore it all day and was so pleased with it. I didn’t feel conscious. It’s easy and relaxed not to mention warm as the cotton material is quite thick which is perfect for the autumn/ winter months. I was tempted though to put a waist belt on it just to nip it in a little but my jacket done the trick, besides i wanted to wear it as it should be worn- like a tent!!
This will be a piece i wear again and again i think it’s a great as a go to winter dress as hides a multitude of sins as well as being bang on the baggy trend this season.
Are you guy’s feeling the bagginess or are you all still in your body con’s i’d love to know! | {
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FreakScore
Reviews and Problems with Asus Xonar DG
Showing 1-10 of 488
Overall 2
Poor quality control-
guitarshopper2, Ebay
8 October 2014
Summary: defective out of the box- What else is there to say? I sent it back and decided to spend a little bit more, and get some quality and maybe a little bit more dependability. I went with the Traktor audio 2 usb sound card and couldn't be happier.
It is capable of 5.1 output for optical audio...
Caredhel, Amazon
6 July 2014
Summary: Originally I would rate this 2 stars because I bought it to use the toslink connection and like everyone else all I could get it to do was play 2 channels. Finally after spending about 2 hours messing around with it, I tried installing the bundled software + driver, then uninstalled the audio control panel. I then went into Windows audio to configure the optical audio out and was able to get 5.1 surround working!! It sounds great too.
Summary: I mostly got this for the OPTICAL output. I have used 5.1 and 7.1 with very high-end amps and found no diff. So, seriously, unless you have a REALLY big living room, those 2 extra channels are not going to add anything. IMHO, Xonar beats Creative Labs (Sound Blaster) for sound quality. If you can't afford a high end discrete DAC, the Xonar line is a good option. I had the Xonar Essence and then moved up to a discrete DAC.
Great Card on a Budget
Bob, Amazon
20 April 2014
Summary: This card does all of what you would expect, but with a few other key features often reserved for much more expensive cards. The headphone amp is great. It can easily drive a pair of studio monitors (MDR-V6) without any distortion, even when turned to 100%. It also has the option to boost the signal depending on the impedance of the headphones (or speakers) you're using. It has three settings: <32 ohms, 32-64 ohms, and 64 ohms.
Excellent
Andres Castillo, Amazon
12 February 2014
Summary: I paired this card with my Creative Fatal1ty gaming headset and it is awesome! My friends can hear me very clearly with this. It also makes it so easy to switch between my headset and speakers. Just in case you were wondering, it does have the plug to allow you to plug the front panel audio jacks to the card (internal). This means you don't have to plug your headset to the bank of the card. Price is perfect, I mean... what else can I ask for?
User Review
Fluxflashor, NCIX.com
31 January 2014
Summary: This card was supposed to be an easy replacement for my onboard sound, which was causing some issues with my microphone. Upon putting it in my rig and installing the drivers, nothing worked. I decided to go ahead and reinstall windows 7 since I was long overdue for a format, and the drivers still would not work.
Pros: Headphone and microphone jacks work., Great price
Cons: The drivers included didn't install properly on a fresh windows 7 install., Asus' drivers website is hell to get through. It gave me drivers for different cards in the series several times which *surprise* didn't work. (This was slightly improved very recently), My front panel audio doesn't work properly with the card, but it does with others.
Great Value
Sam Spade, B&H Photo
7 January 2014
Excerpt: 105dB SNR for $ (plus an Asus rebate of $)A few hiccups when installing the drivers on XP, but everything eventually installed nicely after reseating the card and uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers once or twice. | {
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Valutazione del rischio
Endocrine disruptors
Biocides
Event
Italiano
English
Public Hearing on the Preliminary Opinion 'Environmental risks and indirect health effects of mercury from dental amalgam (update)'
6 November 2013, Luxembourg 14:00
On 6 November 2013, the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) of the European Commission will organise a hearing in Luxembourg on the preliminary opinion on 'Environmental risks and indirect health effects of mercury from dental amalgam (update)'.
The public consultation on this preliminary opinion has been published on the internet and is available here.
The deadline for submission of comments is 20 November 2013.
The planned hearing aims to complement the public consultation to gather specific comments, suggestions and explanations or contributions on the scientific basis of the opinion.
According to of the Rules of Procedure of the Scientific Committees (Annex IV, page 44), when registering, potential participants will be asked to provide full professional details, to specify the subject they wish to address in the hearing and to submit a 1-2 page technical justification for their request. Approval for participation to the hearing will be decided by the Commission on the basis of the following criteria:
interested participants should be scientists or technical experts with appropriate expertise in the field who are able to present and understand the scientific arguments;
interested participants have clearly identified the subject matter they would wish to contribute to and have provided sufficient technical justification;
All registered participants will be informed at least two weeks before the hearing;
DG Health and Consumers will publish the final programme of the hearing together with the participants' names.
Should you be interested in attending the hearing, please register using the link below by the deadline of 25 October 2013. A response confirming your participation will be sent to you as soon as possible and no later than the registration deadline (25 October 2013)
Please note that as space to this meeting is limited, potential participants are strongly advised not to make any travel or accommodation arrangements until they receive a positive registration reply.
The entrance to the hearing is free of charge, however, the European Commission will not reimburse any costs made for travel or accommodation. | {
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Putin Pontificates On Syria
President Vladimir Putin is a man of action. If you need someone to bring supplies to the surrounded fort, just make a phone call to the man who not only bares his chest in defiance of the world, but also makes clear that his mind is always focued on the issue of peace and love. When asked if he would help the beleagured nation of Syria, he did not hesitate for a moment when replying: “We will. We are helping them right now. We supply weapons, we cooperate in the economic sphere, and I hope will cooperate in the humanitarian sphere..to provide for those civilians who are in a difficult situation.”
Vladimir is a caring man. After all, he spent early youth in the KGB, among the organizations in this world whose only concern is for the welfare of people. Heck, they send folk to an insane asylum to help get them insane. Need a beating today in order to feel happy and content, just give Vladimir a call. He just wants to help in a sort of humanitarian way– want help in building a new home, he will handle destruction of the old one. If only Barack understood the only way to work with a Republilcan Congess is turning over the problem to your local KGB agents. | {
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Funky Asian street food restaurant with a menu well marked for Gluten Free options. I'm obsessed with Green Curry so I always get the veggy version though have also had the Pad Thai. Before 5pm any main course, a soft drink and a whipped cone that you pour yourself for €10 - serious value. They have little tubs for the ice cream for coeliacs. Perfect quick & tasty grub in Dublin's awesome indie quarter 😋. | {
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To speed up your Japanese learning course, we decide to leave out some of the Japanese language elements. We don't think they are necessary to be able to understand and speak Japanese.
Learning them will improve your Japanese language knowledge and will definitely help you, It will also increase the time you will spend learning!
What stuff did we leave out and why?
Radicals
Kanji is made up from all kinds of Radicals.
Why? Radicals are often drawn differently and may confuse you. They also haven't got a meaning of themselves and giving them a made-up meaning would also be confusing. We have multiple tools to learn to recognize kanji as 1 character and ways to tell them apart from other similar kanji.
Kanji Readings
A kanji itself can be pronounced too (on multiple ways).
Why? In Japanese you'll use the vocab and not Kanji readings to say a word. Some vocab follow the Kanji readings, Some vocab have exceptions and some kanji have exceptions. It is confusing and slows you down. We don't think the pro's of this (Being able to pronounce a vocab without knowing it, sometimes) is worth the cons at the beginning of your Japanese learning course.
Welcome on Miageru
Use this site to look up Kanji, Vocab, Grammar points or even example sentences. We aim to be the main information source for beginner and intermediate Japanese-language learners. We focus on offering the most common japanese vocab, kanji and grammar.
Miageru also brings practicing and information together. Using over 10 different practices and a course-based system you can master any content you want on Miageru for free. This makes Miageru a great tool for self-learners. Read more and start today | {
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Hot Topics:
Biker comes through San Juan County on global warming awareness journey
By Greg Yee [email protected]
Updated:
11/24/2012 07:45:27 PM MST
FARMINGTON — Two and a half years ago, Jeff Conly rode his bicycle across 29 states. Now he's looking to conquer the rest of the lower 48.
Conly, 58, rode through Bloomfield, Farmington and Shiprock on Nov. 20 and 21 on the second leg of his solo bike journey across the Continental U.S. to raise awareness on global warming.
"I'm a retired math teacher and I just love riding bikes," Conly said.
He began the second leg on Nov. 2 in Fort Worth, Texas, sleeping in a tent in clearings by the highways and other out of the way locations.
Crossing through New Mexico has been physically challenging, but he says the state's people are some of the friendliest he's met.
"In New Mexico, I've run across so many nice people," he said. "Especially on the reservations."
Conly was searching for a spot to pitch his tent on the outskirts of Shiprock at dusk on Nov. 21 when he was offered a night in a hogan by a stranger. It was the second time he slept in a bed during this leg of the journey.
"It was just a wonderful time," he said.
But Conly's journey has not been without its physical challenges.
"It's been uphill pretty much all the way from Fort Worth," he said. "I'm trying to do 30 miles a day, but the cold gets to me. I'm sleeping in two sleeping bags and I'm using this one wheeled trailer on the back of my bike. The years are catching up to me. I lost 37 pounds on that first leg."
Conly was inspired to begin his bike trip after the death of his best friend, Gary Anello in January 2012 from testicular cancer.
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"I took his loss hard," he said.
While helping the family wrap up their affairs he read "Storms of My Grandchildren," by James Hansen and was inspired to take a stance on fossil fuel consumption and global warming.
The first leg of his journey lasted from April 13 to July 17 2010. He biked across the eastern seaboard and into the Ohio River valley visiting 29 states.
"Alternatives to carbon fuels are important to me," Conly said. "You're sunk into the culture even if you don't want to be ... I know the coffee I'm drinking had to be transported using carbon fuels. There's no way to live a completely pure life."
But there are ways to reduce the carbon footprint.
"I know it can be done, but the job is monumental," he said.
While riding through San Juan County, Conly was impressed by the economic force of the local oil and gas industry.
"As soon as I left the Jicarilla Apache reservation you begin to see the gas fields," he said. "Everywhere you turn you see them. I've never seen so much economic activity for such a sparsely populated area."
Conly, however, says he is simply trying to raise awareness and wants people to educate themselves rather than force a message across.
"I'm trying not to be too heavy handed about it," he said.
Although he is not officially affiliated with the organization, Conly is encouraging those he meets to support and donate to 350.org a climate change advocacy group that is working to build global grassroots movements to solve climate change issues. The organization operates through a network of volunteer organizers in more than 188 countries.
350.org was founded by author Bill McKibben, an American environmentalist and writer, in 2007 in Berkeley, Calif.
The organization gets its name from climate scientist James Hansen's estimation at any atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide above 350 parts per million is unsafe.
350.org organizes a number of rallies and grassroots demonstrations around the world. | {
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OBEAH SIMPLIFIED, THE TRUE WANGA
In copies numbered 1 - 129n as well as the printed endpapers shown above, there are also additional embossed endpapers chosen to harmonise with the lush text decorations and illuminated capitals used in the original (and reproduced here). This copy #110/193. Mint. New.
This work was first published in 1895 in Trinidad and achieved instant obscurity, However, it seems that a bell was rung somewhere as 9 years later, on 8th April 1904 Aiwass instructed Crowley that, as well as the mantras and spells and the work of the wand and the sword, he should learn and teach “the obeah and the wanga” (Liber Al vel Legis / The Book of the Law, Chapter 1 verse 37)
At that time, and for a very long time afterwards, the only sympathetic text by a self identified practitioner of Obeah was this work. It was the only book with the more obscure term “Wanga” in the title. It almost as if Aiwass was referring Crowley to this publication!
There is good reason to believe that Crowley was aware of the publication. There is an annotated copy of Obeah Simplified in the Yorke Collection at the Warburg Institute. The annotations, appear to emphasise parts of the text which particularly resonates with Crowley’s writings. The Afterword and appendices reproduce or describe all the annotations and underlining, and presents expert judgement as to whether they are in Crowley’s hand. The matter remains an enigma. Readers are given all the information so that they can judge the issue for themselves.
The True Wanga – Marginalia, Underlinings and Other Markings in the Warburg Copy
***
Whilst, for the sake of clarity, the text has been entirely reset, all the format, decorations, and typesetting quirks of the original have been retained. This includes continental style layout with the contents page at the back, and artefact of the cosmopolitan nature of Caribbean culture.
The original booklet carried adverts that are a surprising accompaniment for a book on obeah as they feature some very expensive items. These are reproduced here because they are so unexpected. A reminder that there was a lot of wealth in the Caribbean colonies which were also technically advanced with electronic communications and motor vehicles (mentioned in the adverts), more so than many regions of the British Isles. No doubt this contrasted acutely with the lives of Obeah practitioners. This juxtaposition of great wealth and immense poverty is, very much, the context for the development of obeah. So better to reproduce these original adverts, than contrive some modern book design.
The supporting texts in the appendices are also reproduced with the original visual context of the journals that carried them - the art nouveau masthead of the Theosophist and the striking blue illustrated cover of Lucifer. | {
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Production: Forage Analysis Basics
Does your forage testing lab make the grade?
Forage testing is essential if you want to manage for higher production and efficiency. But what should you expect from your forage testing lab? Ralph Ward, president of Cumberland Valley Analytical Services, one of the largest forage testing labs in the U.S., offers these insights.
What should you expect from a forage testing lab?
Bonus Content
"Laboratories are expected to accurately evaluate diverse feeds for nutrients and characteristics that can be difficult to execute," Ward says. "Choose a lab that will work with you to meet your expectations and those of your nutritionist. A dairy producer should look for a forage testing lab that can provide solutions, not just numbers. You want someone who’ll work for you."
Good labs offer responsiveness, transparency, a staff that understands ruminant nutrition and agronomic concepts, and full service. They should also be innovative and connected with industry.
What are the most common mistakes in forage and feedstuff testing?
While producers perceive that forage laboratories often get it wrong, the greatest source of error in forage testing relates to obtaining a representative sample for submission to the lab, Ward says.
Beyond that, the greatest source of error in the lab is connected to sample preparation. "Subsampling, dry-down and reduction of particle size in a manner that maintains sample homogeneity are areas of potential error," he says.
Another common error is when a specific sample procedure is not valid for the feed matrix. Labs get a lot of unusual samples, such as food byproducts. Applying the correct procedure is critical. The first step in that process is to have the sample properly identified.
How often should you test your forages?
There are no hard and fast rules here, but "you need to test frequently enough to capture and define variation in a feed or forage source," Ward says.
For example, a bunker of corn silage that’s very consistent may not need to be tested as frequently as a bunker of hay silage where there’s a lot of variation and rapid use.
"In a large herd of 2,000 or more cows, where you’re rapidly going through forage material, you may need to test several times per week to capture variation," he says. "In smaller herds with consistent forages, two times per month may be adequate."
Where’s forage testing headed?
"We’ve seen tremendous change in the level of information requested," Ward says. "Technology requirements have been ramped up, and we need more sophisticated approaches."
In the future, he projects that additional nutrients will be considered in forage testing. Among them is likely to be aNDFom (Neutral Detergent Fiber [NDF], on an organic matter or ash-free basis) and indigestible NDF.
There will also be more use of Near Infrared Reflectance (NIR) technology as a qualitative tool, especially for nitrate and toxin identification.
"NIR testing in recent years has seen widespread acceptance with improvements in calibrations and application," Ward explains.
"However, there are applications for forage characterization and quality control processes that have not even been considered," he adds. | {
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Adding the drug bevacizumab (Avastin) to the standard chemotherapy regimen for non-small cell lung cancer – an approach approved by the FDA in 2006 – did not lead to significantly increase survival rates for patients over the age of 65 enrolled in Medicare, a new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers has found.
The study is being published in the April 18 Journal of the American Medical Association, a theme issue on comparative effectiveness research.
"Effectiveness research examines the impact of treatments when they are used in day-to-day practice in ordinary circumstances," says the study’s senior author, Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber.
"First, we found that bevacizumab was not universally adopted after its FDA approval. Second, the addition of bevacizumab did not provide any substantial survival advantage when added to standard chemotherapy."
Schrag presented the findings at a JAMA media briefing at the National Press Club in Washington on Tuesday, Apr. 17.
A previous trial found that adding bevacizumab to the standard two-drug treatment for non-small cell lung cancer – the chemotherapy agents carboplatin and paclitaxel – improved survival in many patients with advanced cases of the disease, but not those aged 65 years or older, the study authors write.
Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH
In the new study, Schrag and her colleagues measured survival rates in patients who received bevacizumab-carboplatin-paclitaxel therapy and in two groups of patients who received carboplatin-paclitaxel therapy – one group receiving it in 2006-2007, the other in 2002-2005.
They found that the median overall survival was 9.7 months for patients receiving the three-drug combination compared with 8.9 months for the 2006-2007 standard-therapy group, and 8.0 months for the 2002-2005 standard-therapy group. The probability of surviving for one year was 39.6 percent for those who received the three drugs vs. 40.1 percent for the 2006-2007 standard-therapy group, and 35.6 percent for the 2002-2005 standard-therapy group.
Controlling for factors that can skew the results, the authors did not find a significant difference in overall survival between patients treated with bevacizumab and those treated only with standard chemotherapy.
Based on these results, the authors recommend that bevacizumab should not automatically be administered together with carboplatin-paclitaxel for older patients with non-small cell lung cancer. They continue that clinicians should exercise caution in making treatment recommendations and use bevacizumab judiciously for their patients.
The authors also advise that for cancers like non-small cell lung cancer that tend to arise in elderly patients, clinical trials of potential new therapies should include an adequate number of older patients and ensure that data for these patients is analyzed. | {
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A scripted biopic about TLC is being created, to air on VH1. I often get my hopes up about these things and then remember that it’s not fantasy land, and the film’s probably going to be awful. Speculations about who’s going to play who have begun.
If you’re like me, you’re not sick of “Losing You” yet, but either way, the EP will be released tomorrow, and until then, listen to this new one that just started circulating, “Lovers in the Parking Lot” | {
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Let's Collaborate
We are looking to partner with designers and entrepreneurs that produce unique, high quality products that can be used and enjoyed at any dinner table. If you're interested in submitting your work please email [email protected] and include: business name, location, how long have you been making the products, photos of your product or a link to a website, and price information. | {
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Star Trek: Discovery—The Light of Kahless
$7.99
7.99
$9.99
Star Trek: Discovery—The Light of Kahless
Journey back in time to a decade before Captain Kirk and the Enterprise set out on their five-year mission, when the United Federation of Planets is locked in conflict with the mysterious Klingon Empire. But just who are these formidable foes? Delve into the shocking world of the Klingons in a story you can only find in this miniseries, which ties directly into the show. | {
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Leonardo DiCaprio has never had much trouble in the love department, dating one Victoria’s Secret model after another. But could it be that the actor was praying on magical padlocks for some true love?
In town for the French Open, the Great Gatsby star spent yesterday touring Paris with his mom, Irmelin, and friends, including fellow actor Lukas Haas.
The super-hunky Leo was spotted taking in the sites as he headed to the famous Love Locks in Pont des Arts. He looking effortlessly cool as he snapped some shots of the view from the bridge and took a couple photos of his lovely mama.
A new Bill Cosby accuser's story of how he allegedly sexually assaulted her after drugging her drink is horrifying.
According to Patricia, -- who decided to keep her last name anonymous -- Bill invited her to a dinner party in 1978 after they met at a conference... a dinner party that ended up just being the two of them: | {
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Added to your basket
Susan Murphy's (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) wedding day is rudely interrupted when from out of nowhere, she's hit by a falling meteor! Amazingly, she survives the collision and proceeds to walk down the aisle looking every inch the glowing bride... glowing green, that is. Things only get stranger once inside the church, as Susan suddenly grows to a colossal 49 feet 11 inches tall. Because of her new stature, she's branded a 'monster' and carted off to a secret government facility for genetic anomalies. There, she meets fellow outcasts; a brilliant cockroach with a PhD, a bizarre ape-fish hybrid, a gelatinous and indestructible blob, and a 350 foot grub.
When an alien robot with an appetite for destruction lands on Earth, a desperate President calls for the monsters to be released in the hope that they will defend the very people who imprisoned them. Of course, the monsters oblige as they are basically good, despite their outward appearance. In their clumsy effort to save mankind from the alien threat, they prove that they each have something valuable to offer and that together they can really make a difference.
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Susan Murphy's (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) wedding day is rudely interrupted when from out of nowhere, she's hit by a falling meteor! Amazingly, she survives the collision and proceeds to walk down the aisle looking every inch the glowing bride... glowing green, that is. Things only get stranger once inside the church, as Susan suddenly grows to a colossal 49 feet 11 inches tall. Because of her new stature, she's branded a 'monster' and carted off to a secret government facility for genetic anomalies. There, she meets fellow outcasts; a brilliant cockroach with a PhD, a bizarre ape-fish hybrid, a gelatinous and indestructible blob, and a 350 foot grub.
When an alien robot with an appetite for destruction lands on Earth, a desperate President calls for the monsters to be released in the hope that they will defend the very people who imprisoned them. Of course, the monsters oblige as they are basically good, despite their outward appearance. In their clumsy effort to save mankind from the alien threat, they prove that they each have something valuable to offer and that together they can really make a difference.
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Another Dreamworks gem!
Great for kids and adults alike. As usual, Dreamworks have outdone themselves on both animation and story. The 3D really adds to the experience, and there's plenty of special features to delve into as well. Recommended purchase! | {
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"In the late 1980s, scientists discovered a massive underground electromagnetic anomaly known as the Southern Washington Cascades Conductor. But the two-year study published Sunday is the first to suggest that it may be the source of magma for Mounts St. Helens, Rainier and Adams." says an article from this news story here today: http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/ar ... magma_pool.
The reason I am always talking about pop culture is because it can contain the naive "unwatched" and innocent and unvarnished intuition of the culture. In the hippie lore or pop culture, Seattle is often seen as the "center of the world" or the "beginning of the world" again. In any case, the eruption of these three volcanos should be taken seriously from that perspective even though science is at odds. In the most overt manifestation of pop culture which is politics, the region can also be seen as "the center of the world" - the center of rising economics in the East and the West including North America and all of Europe and Russia on to the Urals. Notice some of you all - Gregory and Kristin - live there in the general region. The hippie TV show "Lost" is based on an electronic anomaly further off in the Pacific - near Lemuria, the hippie Unconscious - which is likewise between Eastern world and Western world. I can't understand the science but from the hippie point of view, "True North" and "magnetic north" discussed in the article above are interesting as the goddess always has two faces; one the echo of the other and this seems to work (the article says that in an anomaly the compass no longer points to magnetic north but to True North) - which is why I appreciate listen to the scientists here - I don't understand what you are saying in the intricate details but it generally runs a parallel path with the way I look at things.
Quote:
A vast pool of molten rock in the continental crust that underlies southwestern Washington state could supply magma to three active volcanoes in the Cascade Mountains, Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, according to a new study that’s causing a stir among scientists.
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Mornington Snorkel
First weekend in Feb was a scorcher. While we would have loved to have gone camping for the weekend along the coast, my new arm inversion program is on Saturdays at 2.30pm, so it kind of ruins any plans. Although I am not complaining as I do love it ALOT!
On the Sunday however, we headed down to the coast again. I forget how beautiful Victoria and Melbourne are at times and how lucky we really are to be here and have all these beautiful hidden beaches on our doorstep to explore. I really want to make the most of ‘staycations’ this year and get out exploring more.
Mornington Pier was on our hit list, mainly because we heard that there was some good (by Melbourne standards) snorkeling off the pier. I didn’t expect much. But I was plesently surprised. The waters were warm, the visibility was about 15m, we saw a few shoals of fish, a flounder, and two big black rays (this was by far my favorite thing to see ever. Such a majestic animal).
I also managed to capture a few pics below this time, vs ripping of Google. | {
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FANETTA DRESS
DETAILSA highly dressed up mini-dress in a wild foliage print, we've toned everything down in classic black and white. Fitted through the waist with a subtly romantic neckline (yes, collarbones are sexy), add a statement heel and your night is all set.
Model Is Wearing A Size 4
Model Measurements: Height: 5'10" Bust: 32" Waist: 24”
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Travel to Europe
A post for my international audience especially. I hope to travel to Europe this summer. Which places would you recommend? Which countries? Let's assume I'll be within striking distance of anywhere on the continent.
1 comment:
My friend went backpacking in Europe a few years back with his sister. Switzerland was their last stop, and they ended up adding two extra weeks to their trip to spend more time there. I'm not sure where exactly they visited, but they definitely found something they liked.
Eastern Europe doesn't usually get included as part of your standard European tour, but given your opportunity, I'd definitely be at least considering places like Greece, Turkey, or Romania. | {
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From whom to purchase
This may seem as an interested advice…I think however that purchasing a house from a reputed company such as ours, long time active in our region, with its own structure for production and customer assistance, a staff always at your disposal including the Directors, is an outstanding competitive advantage, not to undermine.
In the construction industry competition is harsh particularly from companies that are not directly involved and are merely involved in the construction domain as a diversification of their investments.
Moreover this is the only domain where no specific professional requirements are expected unlike all other activities where the legislation requires specific diplomas and continuous training and authorizations. No such requirements are requested or expected in construction and real estate.
There is a plethora of real estate transactions managed by unclassified personnel that attempt to provide a quality service but will never be able to transfer the experience acquired throughout the construction of hundreds of properties.
Therefore I suggest you carry out an in depth research on who are the construction companies and request a list of projects that have been completed in the last 10 years. This list allows you to verify with the owners, the quality of the construction and the efficiency of the construction company.
Location
One often undermines the importance of location; I often see new home owners prioritize vicinity to their job forgetting other aspects such as:
The location not only has to be in an area free of the hustle and bustle of the city but at the same time close to main roads, near transport facilities as well as close to shops , amenities and fun activities
It must include future family requirements such as schools and future working options
Locations free from industrial pollution and traffic
Potential re-appraisal of the building
Careful evaluation of future construction projects in the area; to that respect you may request the town council planning in nearby areas and allotments
Investing in what type of home
A continuous and constant evolution of the preferences of home typology is an aspect of the current market.
What was a distinction between single homes and residential units determined by the financial availability, today is no longer the case.
Today more importance is given to technical and practical aspects that were not important in the past. More and more home owners find having a home on one floor a plus a compared to having various floors, often three if not even four that were inconvenient and inefficient energy consumption.
This is not the case today. The awareness of the existence of modern construction techniques that manage sound proofing and therefore the privacy aspect to excellent levels, is enhancing the success of projects such as our Agorà, Althea, Vivo. These real estate successes englobe prestige along with a fenced residential building with its private green as well as the top quality aesthetics and technical characteristics of each residential units, besides the economies of scale in the running costs.
A lookout on future changes in the aesthetics and technical aspects in construction is fundamental when investing in a new home as these are evolving very rapidly unlike the past and one risks finding himself with a home that has already been overturned by new technologies. | {
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Monday, June 7, 2010
Volunteer of the Month: Alicia
This month, we have chosen Alicia as our Volunteer of the Month. Alicia has been a familiar face around the shelter these past few months, coming by nearly every day to walk, dote upon, socialize and basically give lots of t-l-c to the shelter dogs.
Alicia's creativity can be seen in her prolific blog posts, her handmade kerchiefs for her favorite dogs, her flattering photographs of dogs in action, and her sweet signs for dogs who need a little extra minding when out on a walk with them.
Unfortunately, we will be losing Alicia to New York soon, so it seemed appropriate to honor this devoted volunteer for all the time, energy and love she has given to help our shelter dogs feel a little more comfortable in their new environment, and ultimately, to make them become more adoptable. Here's to you and all you have done, Alicia!
Q.: Did you grow up with animals, and if so, what kind?
A.: I grew up with several really sweet cats, three hamsters, fish, and a whole gaggle of chickens (which was pretty eccentric since we lived in the suburbs). Even though my family didn't have a dog until I was 16, when I was younger my grandmother had an amazing rescue-dog-turned-service-dog named Bobo who I adored. I've always really loved dogs, and the more time I spend with them the more I realize they are such amazing, wonderful animals.
Q.: How did you hear about the volunteer program at the shelter?
A.: I was driving down University and saw a big poster calling for BACS volunteers at the bus stop at the corner of University and Shattuck, to be extremely specific! It took me a year and a half to call, but I'm so glad I finally did.
Q.: What do you like best about volunteering?
A.: There are so many things I love about volunteering that it's really hard to narrow it down to just one. I guess my favorite thing is just working with the dogs. It's amazing to be able to get to know them and their individual personalities, to be able to help them learn basic commands or practice what they already know so they'll be more adoptable, and to see them come out of their shell while they are at the shelter in the care of such dedicated staff members and volunteers. It's been so inspirational to be part of such a great community of animal lovers, who are all so dedicated to the welfare and well-being of these animals. That is another thing I've really loved about volunteering at BACS. And, lastly, I've discovered I really like writing blog entries!
Q.: How did Clementine help change your mind about pit bulls?
A.: Clementine is an amazing dog who will always hold a special place in my heart, and she was also the very first pit bull I ever interacted with for any length of time. Before volunteering here, I had heard plenty of crazy rumors about pit bulls and had based my opinion of them entirely on that. I had come to believe that pit bulls were extremely dangerous and unpredictable animals who could snap at any moment and maul someone. I had never come into contact with a pit bull at all, despite loving all types of other dogs, and I would literally cross the street or hug the curb whenever I saw a pit bull and their owner coming my way. (Which in hindsight was probably extremely rude behavior. Oops.)
So when I started volunteering, I was really excited to work with all the dogs except pit bulls, and it was my plan to just avoid all the pitties like the plague. But as we all know, when you're walking by a dog's kennel and they look up at you with the sweetest expression on their face, it really tugs at your heart and it's hard to just walk on by. And that's exactly what happened with Clementine.Go to http://bacs-doggies.blogspot.com/2010/04/oh-my-darling-clementine.html for Alicia's blog entry about this special dog.
I had just started volunteering and I walked by her kennel and she looked up at me with these enormous, terrified eyes. She seemed sweet and gentle but paralyzed by fear, and it really touched my heart. I wanted to at least interact with her a little bit to see if I could ease her fear at all. The first time I went into her kennel was extremely awkward, for both of us I think. She was terrified of everything and everyone (probably based on a really hard life before BACS) and cowered in front of me and seemed to believe I would attack her at any moment. And I kept thinking that at any moment this shy, gentle dog would morph into a rabid lunatic and attack me.
So. . . really awkward. But it quickly became apparent that Clementine was one of the sweetest dogs I had ever known and she really needed some encouragement to come out of her shell. So I just kept visiting her and taking her for walks. It was one of the most rewarding things to see her gradually begin to overcome her fear and to enjoy her walks, to see her completely happy and relaxed when she was frolicking in the grass like a big goof, and to help her learn some commands like "sit" and "down," which she picked up so quickly it was kind of astounding. She was even eventually able to rise to the occasion and do pretty darn well at her first BAD RAP class.
I think it would be impossible to work with such a sweet dog like that and still harbor prejudices against pit bulls. And after Clementine got adopted, as I've gotten a chance to interact with more great pitties - Miss Tulip, Mikey/Buster, Sam, Boots, sweet little Clementine, and pitties I now pet on the street (like Soldier, a completely gentle giant who was out for a walk with his owner on Hearst St. yesterday) - it's just continued to show me that pit bulls are really loving, goofy, loyal, smart dogs. They seem to be their own best good-will ambassadors, and I think it's hard to actually spend any time with them and hang on to negative stereotypes. Or at least that has been my experience.
A.: Well, right now my husband and I have an awesome cat, Madame Lucha (aka The Madame!!), who we adopted six years ago. She is like our child, albeit a pretty surly, insane child, and I can't imagine our household without her. She brightens every day with her weird, wonderful personality. I also definitely see us having a dog in the future, but we'll wait for a few years until we're both done with grad school and our lives are more stable. At that point I'd love to adopt a shelter dog, probably a smallish dog as we'll be living in a tiny NYC apartment. And if the dog has the personality to enjoy it, I would really love to take him/her through the therapy dog certification process so we could do volunteer work together, maybe at a hospital, nursing home, or school. At some point I would also love to adopt a pit bull or some kind of pittie mix, but that probably won't be for a long time as I'd want to wait until we were living somewhere with a fair amount of space so the dog would have enough room to roam around. But who knows what the future holds? I feel like sometimes animals just find us, so I will keep my mind open and see what happens. :)We wish you the best, Alicia as you make the transition to your new city. Thank you for all your hard, heart-filled work on behalf of the homeless dogs of Berkeley. The homeless dogs of New York will soon have a new guardian angel in their midst!
Thanks for all your contributions Alicia. Hopefully you can continue your good work at a lucky shelter in NYC, and we will all work harder to make up for your loss at our shelter. Do we have any other kerchief makers?!?!
Welcome
This blog is brought to you by the devoted volunteers of Berkeley Animal Care Services, also known as BACS. BACS is a municipal shelter servicing the cities of Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany and Piedmont in the San Francisco East Bay. | {
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John Key says that with only a limited amount of money being available, trade-offs have to be made. Photo / Mark Mitchell
John Key laid down a challenge to teachers yesterday - sacrifice part of a pay rise so school support staff can have one.
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' conference, the Prime Minister was challenged by Frances Guy from the teachers' and support staff union, the NZ Educational Institute, over the nil pay increase offered to support staff.
The staff - including teacher aides, administration workers, librarians, nurses and therapists - are negotiating for a new collective contract.
Mr Key said the staff were in a difficult position in their negotiations because of the fiscally restrained environment.
"Maybe one option is you guys ought to go and talk to your fellow unions and say, 'Let's have teachers taking less of a pay rise so it can be put toward education support staff'. See if they support you."
CTU president Helen Kelly said the union had discussed similar ideas with the Minister of Finance, as the lowest-paid state workers were a priority for the CTU.
Although the union was open to discussing the idea, she did not believe higher earners should have to forgo any chance of a pay increase so the less-well-paid could benefit.
Mr Key later said only a limited amount of money was available and trade-offs had to be made, including in wage negotiations.
"If wage rounds are high, ultimately it means the government can employ fewer people, or some people are going to miss out. And I think that's something that's worthy of consideration."
Labour's education spokesman, Trevor Mallard, said it was "outrageous" to propose setting the education groups against each other.
"You don't take money off one group of people in a workforce to pay another. This is a priority area and in the end the Government has to find the cash for it."
Mr Key had warned those at the CTU conference that public sector pay rounds would be affected.
Labour had $2.6 billion increases in each of its last five budgets, but from next year the National Government would have only $1.1 billion extra. | {
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Post-game notes
NEW YORK RANGERS POST-GAME NOTES AND QUOTES
October 1, 2010 – New York Rangers 5, Ottawa Senators 4 SO (Pre-Season: Game No. 5, Home No. 3)
• The Rangers defeated the Senators, 5-4, in a shootout tonight at Madison Square Garden, to improve to 4-1-0 in pre-season action, including a 3-0-0 mark at home. Erik Christensen tallied the game-deciding goal in the third round of the shootout, as New York out-scored Ottawa, 2-1.
• After a scoreless first period, Brian Boyle opened the game’s scoring at 10:36 of the first period, added an assist in the third period and registered four hits in the contest. Boyle has now recorded three points (two goals and one assist) in three pre-season games.
• Rookie forward Derek Stepan extended the Rangers’ lead to 2-0 with a shorthanded goal at 15:55, and won a team-high, seven face-offs in 14 attempts. Stepan, who led all forwards with 21:58 of ice time, also converted his shootout attempt in the second round of the shootout.
• After falling behind, 3-2, early in the third period, New York forward Derek Boogaard tallied a goal at 6:31 of the final frame to tie the score at three, and registered a plus-two rating. Boogaard notched his last goal on January 7, 2006, in a 4-1 win vs. Anaheim as a member of the Minnesota Wild.
• Brandon Prust led the Rangers with two assists in the contest, and registered three hits in 9:54 of ice time.
• Rangers’ defenseman Marc Staal notched his first goal of the pre-season with 3:59 remaining in regulation to send the game into overtime. Staal also tied for the game-high with five hits, and logged 21:16 of ice time.
• Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist made 28 saves through regulation and overtime, and turned aside two of three shootout attempts to improve to 3-0-0 in pre-season action.
• Dan Girardi registered an assist on Boyle’s second period goal, and led the team with 24:21 of ice time. Girardi, who led the team and ranked sixth in the league last season with 180 blocked shots, also led all skaters with four blocked shots in the contest.
• Brandon Dubinsky tallied the primary assist on Staal’s game-tying goal at 16:01 of the third period, and tied for the game-high with five hits in 17:47 of ice time.
• Forward Ruslan Fedotenko recorded an assist on Stepan’s shorthanded goal and registered a plus-two rating. Fedotenko now leads the team with five assists and six points in four pre-season games. Defenseman Steve Eminger also registered an assist on Staal’s game-tying goal and logged 21:26 of ice time.
• The Rangers will return to action tomorrow, October 2, when they will face-off against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Place (7:00 p.m.), to conclude their 2010-2011 pre-season schedule. The contest will be televised live on MSG.
POST-GAME QUOTES
John Tortorella on Brian Boyle…
“Brian Boyle was much better with face-offs tonight. He’s had a pretty good Camp here and no one tends to talk about it but he’s been a hell of a guy through Camp. A guy who knew where he stood in terms of numbers coming in – he’s handled himself pretty well.”
Derek Stepan on how he has played during the pre-season…
“I am happy with what I have done. I have put my best foot forward. Whatever happens, happens. I know I gave it everything I had. We will see from there.”
Brian Boyle on the team…
“We have a great team with a lot more depth this year. That is just from guys trying to get better. We have some new faces obviously but we have guys that just want to get better. We all want to move to the top and get better.” | {
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Party invitations that once came to mailboxes now arrive via email or Facebook, and calendar apps are stiff competition for physical datebooks. Smartphones give us more ways to keep in touch than ever.
Some consumers are opting out of an annual ritual they say is time-consuming and redundant when we share photos and status updates daily on social media. But for others, the idea of taking the time to exchange tangible tokens of holiday cheer is more appealing than ever at a time when buzzing and pinging digital devices never seem to cease demanding our attention. That’s true even if finding the perfect card now involves sitting at a laptop, editing digital photos and clicking through dozens of template designs.
Sales of greeting cards have been fairly stable in the U.S. over the past five or six years, with consumers buying around 6.5 billion greeting cards and 1.6 billion holiday cards per year, said Peter Doherty, executive director of the Greeting Card Association. Those figures don’t include custom photo cards, the kind many families order from places like Shutterfly or Walgreens.
But that stability is an improvement after several years of declining sales, Doherty said.
“People were starting to use email as a replacement, but over time they found they weren’t making the same meaningful connection,” he said.
Not everyone has returned to paper. Susan Wojcik, 43, of Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, estimates she only receives about a 10th of the cards she used to, though she doesn’t particularly miss them and stopped sending them herself about five years ago.
“I keep in touch so many other ways,” Wojcik said.
But those who continue to send holiday greetings on paper tend to be particularly drawn to the idea of a physical object with a personal sentiment, according to makers and sellers of greeting cards.
Carolina Ojeda, 27, of Little Village, who was shopping for cards for close family and friends Tuesday at Paper Source in the Lincoln Park area, said she enjoys picking out cards and wouldn’t want to break the tradition by going digital.
“I’m very old-school,” said Ojeda, who looks forward to receiving holiday cards in the mail too.
Even a wave of enthusiasm for e-cards a few years ago subsided as consumers found them “too fleeting,” said Patrick Priore, chief merchant at Chicago-based Paper Source.
The biggest fans of e-cards tend to be people who also send lots of paper cards and want one more way to keep in touch, said Lindsey Roy, chief marketing officer at Hallmark Greetings. The company still offers them but doesn’t see them driving growth, she said.
Lydia Fields, 31, of Lincoln Park, said she’s starting to receive more holiday cards as her friends have started having kids but few, if any, arrive by email.
“I think we all like a good old-fashioned card,” Fields said.
That doesn’t mean consumers are buying the same cards they always have. Greeting card publishers are trying to innovate with cards consumers can customize or fancier cards that don’t feel generic, said Marisa Lifschutz, an analyst at industry research firm IBISWorld. Those items tend to be more profitable for card-makers, though they don’t appear to be leading to growth in the overall industry, which also includes makers of products like calendars and postcards that are facing similar digital competition, she said.
Fields, for instance, used online design service Minted to create a card featuring her 13-month-old daughter, Lottie. The photo and handwritten notes she added felt personal, but pre-printing envelopes saved time, she said.
Custom photo cards appear to be gaining popularity, said Doherty, of the Greeting Card Association, though his organization doesn’t track those sales. Shutterfly, which sells custom cards through its namesake and Tinyprints brands, doesn’t disclose figures for individual business segments like custom cards. But the company said half the revenue from its consumer businesses comes in the fourth quarter.
The personalized cards have been “a consistent business,” said Mickey Mericle, chief marketing officer at Shutterfly, who declined to comment further on sales. During the busiest days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the company prints more than 8 million cards per day.
Designing a card can be more time-consuming than picking a box off a shelf. Shutterfly tries to balance giving customers creative control with features that save time, like using artificial intelligence to recommend promising photos or automatically crop them, Mericle said. Online design service Minted, meanwhile, has stylists who can send users five suggested card designs if they text a photo and answer a couple of questions about their preferred greeting and aesthetic.
Deerfield-based Walgreens, meanwhile, added new design options over the past two years. It used to print only on photo paper but now offers cardstock and some designs embossed with foil and a choice of square or rounded edges.
Even when people start with a digital photo and design their cards online, they’re still choosing to create something that will end up on paper, Paper Source’s Priore said.
Custom printed cards are the fastest-growing slice of the holiday cards business at Paper Source, though sales of individual and box-set holiday cards also have been growing, he said.
Millennials now account for the largest share of greeting card buyers, and they prefer cards that make a personal statement, Doherty said.
They seem particularly drawn to the idea of customizing a card, Shutterfly’s Mericle said. They “don’t want a canned saying from a box of cards” to represent them, she said. “Millennials want to make it their own.”
Mericle said millennials are comfortable with more informal designs and photos and don’t feel obligated to wait for traditional milestones like starting a family to send holiday cards. Pet-focused cards have been popular, she said.
But a desire for cards that feel personal doesn’t always mean designing something from scratch.
Consumers who take the trouble to pick out a card at a store still want it to feel like it was chosen specifically for the recipient, said Shayna Norwood, owner of Steel Petal Press.
Norwood designs and sells greeting cards at her store in Logan Square and through other retailers, including Paper Source.
“It’s a reaction to the digital world we live in,” she said. “People take it really far the other way and want a card that says exactly what they think.”
She knows that’s not for everyone and stocks some cards by other designers, but they still have to fit her audience. A line of particularly sentimental cards didn’t do well, said Norwood, who said she aims to offer items that are “funny or beautiful or both.”
But even the biggest name in the greeting card business says it’s working on designing cards that don’t feel generic.
Hallmark sees growth coming from higher-end cards like its Signature line, designed to feel like keepsakes, with embellishments like beads, ribbons or charm necklaces, and a new line of “mantle-worthy” pop-up cards introduced this holiday season, Roy said.
The pop-up cards, called Paper Wonder, are exceeding expectations, and Hallmark plans to release them for other holidays, including Valentine’s Day, she said.
In addition to focusing on specialty cards, Hallmark also has updated some messages for younger buyers, Roy said. There are cards that don’t assume everyone has a traditional family structure and some with messages alluding to spending the holidays apart, since more young adults live far from family.
The goal, she said, is a card that “feels like it was written totally for me and my relationship” — even if it was plucked from a chain store’s shelf.
Roy thinks the lasting appeal of paper cards comes from being “an antidote to too much digital.”
When a card arrives in the mail, it shows someone put time and effort into choosing the design and sending it, said Cindy Magder, 46, of Lincoln Park, who sends friends and relatives custom-printed cards with a family photo each year.
“It’s not a gift, but it feels like it is,” Magder said. “I feel like I’m special if someone thought to send it.” | {
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我愛伊斯坦堡 I Love Istanbul
About 我愛伊斯坦堡 I Love Istanbul
I Love Istanbul embraces everything Turkish cuisine and culture has become famous for. Of course that means lashings of succulent kebab meat, grilled to perfection by this small but enthusiastic Turkish team, and all the sweet stuffed and roasted vegetables you can handle. Here inside the Pakpolee Commercial Centre in Mong Kok, though, that also means authentically sandy, sweet Turkish coffee, aromatic teas and delicate or sugary sweets (pick your poison), so it’s a great spot for afternoon tea, unique dessert or a casual mid-morning coffee. The range of Turkish treats on offer extends far beyond most Turkish restaurants in Hong Kong, but be aware that several dishes at this popular spot on Sai Yeung Choi Street, since everything is made in-house and by hand by a small team, need to be ordered in advance, so it’s necessary to reserve well ahead of time for the best experience. | {
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The best things come in small packages, and indeed this is true for these false lashes from Georgie Beauty! I've tried several types of fake lashes before from different brands and could never quite get them to work the way I wanted them to. Either they felt heavy, weighing down my natural ... View Post | {
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by Firedroid
The game Kings Can Fly originally was a graduation project with the working title Balloon Brothers. The prototype was successful and was graded 9/10 points.
After graduating Firedroid became more than just an idea and we started our own company and since September we’ve been working on the game two days a week. Due to some changes in the story and the fact that there actually is a game called Balloon Brothers, we changed the name to Kings Can Fly. | {
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This is #c0c463
#c0c463 color hex - RGB (192,196,99)
The color hexa c0c463 is equivalent in RGB decimal 192, 196, 99 is 192 of red, 196 of green and 99 of blue. It can also be represented by the HSL (hue, saturation and lightness) parameters, which are 0.174 of hue (17), 0.451 of saturation (45) and 0.578 of lightness (57). | {
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Contents
History
The man now known as Mr. Elixir, as a boy in 1790, was stranded on a tropical island, and lived there for 150 years, due to his diet of special indigenous herbs. Upon returning to America, Elixir took a room in a boarding house, struggled with his rent, and worked night and day to replicate the vitalizing properties of his tropical diet, until one day he discovered a fluid which, when poured over ordinary leaves or plants, caused them to shrink and turn brown, and to synthesize the unknown super-vitamin which accounted for his longevity, plus made him strong enough to lift a piano. He resolved to secretly fight organized crime, and studied the arts of hypnotism, ventriloquism, and sleight of hand, all to develop a mysterious persona he called The Voice.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Abilities
Weaknesses
Power Loss: Mr. Elixer is dependent on the herbs to sustain his strength.
Notes
(Mister) Elixir is not The Voice's birth name -- he forgot his birth name after spending over 150 years alone on a desert island. However, it is the legal name he adopted when he returned to America. There is probably a first name to go with it, but it has not been revealed.
Elixir did not use a costume to disguise himself as the Voice. Instead, he used ventriloquism and misdirection to remain unseen. Some of the criminals who have fought the Voice believe he is a disembodied spirit. | {
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In recent months, News Journal accounts have reported on concerns over jobs, coming and going, being preserved or pursued by international actions and more. Such stories are news, thus what occurred on Pensacola's waterfront beginning Nov. 21, 1959 was historically typical, especially as the community examines the before and after events which altered a part of the city's economy.
That story's beginning related to the fire which devastated the docks and warehouses, which until recently had been operated by the L&N Railroad. The facilities, transferred in May of 1957 to the Pensacola Port Authority, were leveled by fire by the November nighttime blaze. Port Authority members, city officials and the Chamber of Commerce all quickly assumed positions of hope that the lost buildings and equipment could be replaced in months. Things turned out quite differently.
Through the late 1950s, port traffic had enjoyed a strong improvement as the Authority's 12 members exercised influence which brought new companies and new cargoes into play. The region's recently established manufacturers were becoming larger port users.
Industrial papers, nylon, chemical were all passing across the docks regularly. The port itself, with more than 100 longshoremen, and community officers like the harbor master, custodian of timbers, pilots and the manager, was an employer of reasonable size. There also were modest-sized enterprises which supported cargo product storage and loading.
To make the point, these were among those businesses active in November 1958: four stevedore companies; six freight forwarders; two ship chandlers; two towing companies (operating tug-barge operations); four steamship line agents; two ship repair concerns; a marine surveyor; and a half-dozen firms whose work was, generally, in supplying incoming vessels.
It is not possible to identify the total of the supply items which several companies provided by order from the ships. Each of those firms had significant staffing, many of whose members would be seen regularly on the docks or on board the visiting ships. As a group, members of these firms had a certain solidarity, for they had seen and participated in the surge of shipping (and profits) that had come with the Port Authority's management. Into 1958, the port was becoming a worthy economic engine.
John Appleyard(Photo: News Journal file photo)
The fire generated a huge (and immediate) change. The docks-warehouses had been a total loss. To sustain cargo movements, all of these had to be scheduled through the western (Frisco Railroad) docks, which also had come under Authority ownership-management in 1957. Day to day there were optimistic statements from the Authority members, and from some of the ancillary agencies. However, within just days it was obvious that the destroyed facilities had rested on a forest of support pilings, some of the poles half a century old and deeply embedded in the port soil. Just removing them would be a long, difficult task.
Then came reality that to design a modern version of the lost docks — and to pay for the construction — would be time consuming and expensive. The Authority had little money, and no bonding credibility. It would be months before the Authority and city formed a unit to seek bond issuance. This did come, but its pace was discouragingly slow.
It came to appear that activities through the port were sure to slow — significantly. One by one the firms which had been the backup muscles to shipping reduced force or shut down entirely. It would be February 1962 before the first elements of a new port terminal were dedicated. By then a large portion of the high-cargo traffic of the 50s had sought shipping services elsewhere. That February, it was not difficult to determine how many of the smaller support firms were still functioning. Fewer than 20 percent of their number attended the dedication ceremonies. And, as years passed and a new port and shipping profile developed, the loss of those businesses proved permanent.
Thus as history had shown many times, loss of a significant economic factor can — and often will — generate much allied loss. If one searched local 2017 business information, he would find very few remains of what had served the port when the fire broke out. Their loss was part of the economic ashes. | {
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It definitely aids when if you have green thumbs and also after that you’ll likewise need to find an ideal stress. There are so many cannabis stress.
Indoor Expanding Outdoor tents Marijuana Seeds
Indoor Expanding Camping tent Marijuana Seeds
Certainly this concern is hard to address, numerous individuals, so lots of dreams. By clarifying one of the most grown cannabis strains, we intend to make the selection from the ideal strains somewhat much easier.
Which type rates?
To select the ideal marijuana strains, you need to choose several attributes you are looking for in a strain. Also think about preference as well as the Full Report result of the marijuana, things you have to think about before you make an option.
Examples as well as information
Obviously you can likewise decide to expand a widely known cannabis stress. An easy-to-grow indoor pressure concerning which you can locate excellent details on cultivation on the Internet. But sometimes you like to take the obstacle because ‘one unique type’ that can not be located in any cafe. Certainly, it’s wonderful to state regarding a Joint that you circulate that you decided to expand ‘this pressure’ yourself.
Indica vs Sativa marijuana plant
Indica vs Sativa cannabis plant
Indica is compact
The different pressures of cannabis to expand inside can be separated into Indica, Sativa and crossbreeds. Indica stress are often compact plants with hefty buds. The fallen leaves of the plant have thick fingers. The result of the weed is primarily stoned, unwinding and ideal for medicinal use. The flowering duration is brief, about 8 weeks as well as the harvest could be large.
Sativa requires more space
Numerous characteristics of a Sativa are the opposite of an Indica. The plant could expand large, the leaves have long, tiny fingers. The effect of the marijuana is energetic, much more high. The blooming period is long, concerning 10 to 12 weeks. Haze stress are generally Sativa.
Crossbreed is a concession
To combine the finest attributes if Indica and also Sativa numerous crossbreed pressures were developed. The Hybrid marijuana seeds are interbred as though the good residential properties of both kinds are combined.
Sprouting Cannabis Seeds
Sprouting Cannabis Seeds
Germinating marijuana seeds
The majority of cannabis plants that are cultivated indoors, have a growing duration as well as a flowering duration. The germination of a marijuana seed is a protected process.
The marijuana plant currently needs to expand
After the germination of the seed, planted in the soil as well as arised, the plant will get 18 hours of synthetic light per day. Depending on exactly how huge the pressure can and is permitted to grow, you establish the flowering duration.
Light Indoor Growing Cannabis Plant
Light Indoor Expanding
Marijuana Plant
The flowering stage for interior farming
In the flowering stage, the plant obtains 12 hrs of light as well as 12 hrs of total darkness. By doing this, we allowed the plant ‘believe’ that it is autumn so he will certainly start blooming. The flowering period is various each plant, and also differs between 8 as well as 14 weeks.
Buy feminized seeds
The majority of cannabis seeds are feminized nowadays. This boosts the come across female plants to more compared to 99%. Female blossoms give buds at the end of the flowering stage where male plants could really only be utilized for ropes as well as garments.
Indica
Many recognized cannabis pressures at house as well as abroad come initially from Dutch seed dog breeders. Genetically these strains are Indica crossbreeds.
To choose the finest cannabis pressures, you need to pick a number of attributes you are looking for in a strain. Of training course you could likewise pick to expand a widely known cannabis stress. The different pressures of cannabis to expand inside could be divided into Indica, Sativa and also hybrids. Indica pressures are often compact plants with heavy buds. Many recognized marijuana strains at home and also abroad come originally from Dutch seed dog breeders.
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About Adsskrill
Adsskrill is the reliable and easier source of posting ads. Our goal at Adsskrill is to make it as easy as possible to buy or sell anything. Find what you are looking for or create your own ad for free. | {
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Minnesota business leaders tout legislative agenda at their Capitol day
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Minnesota’s business leaders took to the Capitol on Wednesday, tapping traditional Republican support for a number of priorities that are currently moving through the Legislature.
Minnesota Business Day at the Capitol brought hundreds of members of local Chambers of Commerce and other groups together in front of lawmakers to advance the state coalition’s tax, education, insurance and permitting agenda.
“It does have a big impact when we can put a bunch of us in front of the Legislature in a short period of time,” Minnesota Chamber Board Chairman Jon Campbell, a Wells Fargo executive, told a crowd of about 500 in a St. Paul hotel. “I think this notion of coming together and having a big impact with business speaking really with a single voice … does make a difference.”
And so far, it appears their voice is being heard.
The Chamber’s economic priorities, outlined Wednesday in a session designed to turn regular members into effective lobbyists, have been the hallmarks of the Republican agenda for the past two years: teacher evaluation and tenure reform, a streamlined permitting process, tort reform and business property tax relief.
These proposals, such as “Last in, First Out,” which would strike a blow against teacher tenure, are frequently controversial. Gov. Mark Dayton is likely to veto LIFO after it comes out of conference committee, and he nixed the entire Republican tort reform package earlier this session.
Each week, Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem and House Speaker Kurt Zellers address reporters describing how these solutions are necessary for Minnesota’s economic recovery. Wednesday was a day for everyday entrepreneurs to flood the Capitol and bring that message to their individual lawmakers.
Each Business Day attendee received a booklet that outlined the Chamber’s priorities and provided talking points for members when they spoke to their representatives.
In a question-and-answer session before one group of attendees left for the Capitol, Chamber President David Olson and Senior Vice President for Advocacy Laura Bordeloncoached a room of nearly 100 people about the issues most critical to businesses in the state.
Much in the House Republicans’ “Reform 2.0” agenda is a staple of the Chamber’s policy priorities. Senjem, who spoke to the friendly conference, was deeply supportive of the initiatives.
“As we have gone out to talk to business leaders, it is just like, ‘Get out of our way, let us work, let us do our job, stay out of our lives. We love government in some respects, but there are limits and there are lines, and know where those lines are, Zellers and Senjem, and just stay on the other side,’ ” he said. “And we need to do that.”
Whether you come to MinnPost to understand a specific issue or you like reading posts on numerous topics, we’re here for you, the reader. Our goal is to keep you informed on the people, policies, and culture shaping our state. This means pulling back the curtain on some of the biggest issues facing Minnesota to show you what’s going on behind the scenes. | {
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Tag: Recycle Bin
You’ve finally got rid of those Windows Server 2003, you’re ready to upgrade your AD DS Functional Levels to either 2008 or 2012. Now you finally can and want to activate the recycle bin feature in AD (it wasn’t possible while you still had 2003 R2 DC’s running). The recycle bin feature is stored in the Configuration Partition of your Forest:
This is presumably a location for storing any new features to come. Ok, first it’s nice to check to see if the AD Recycle Bin is already enabled or not, type in:
Get-ADOptionalFeature-filter *
Get-ADOptionalFeature
Note how there is nothing between the {} for ‘Enabled Scopes’ – this means it is NOT enabled. IF it was you would have an entry in here just as it shows in the 2nd screenshot below. To enable it, is is simply this command:
Click Y to confirm and the change is made. Now check the Optional Features setting again, type in:
Get-ADOptionalFeature -filter *
AD Recycle Bin enabled
Test it out. Go on, you know you want to. Delete some objects & recover them (not in Production of course, cause that would be plain silly!). See what attributes are recovered and report back if you wish.
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About
Zulfs blog where you'll find bits of random info on tech, cars, trading and religion. All mashed up MongoDB style! Just to be very CLEAR all opinions are my own personal viewpoints and should not be taken as gospel without verification. Happy Kindling.
Blogroll
About
Zulfs blog where you'll find bits of random info on tech, cars, trading and religion. All mashed up MongoDB style! Just to be very CLEAR all opinions are my own personal viewpoints and should not be taken as gospel without verification. Happy Kindling. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
2 bedroom Apartment at North Legon
For rent by Onedrop VERIFIED24 Nov 11:13 amNorth Legon, Accra
GH₵ 1,300 /month
Newly built apartments for rent at North Legon just a minute drive from the main road. The apartment is fully tiled with spacious rooms, hall and kitchen area. The apartment units come with a master bedroom whiles the other room shares the washroom with visitors. The compound is spacious with security fence walls and wiring. There are independent meters for each apartment unit, flowing water and 24/7 security service. | {
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In a time where everyone is attempting to be all ‘love n light’...it may be worth mentioning the dark. The dark is everything. There is no light without there first being the dark in which it is born from.
Check out this giant pineapple. I’ve been sitting beside her for the past 10 minutes and she hasn’t asked me a single question. She’s just sitting there, being her, all majestic. She doesn’t need to ask anybody anything. She is in direct communication with source. Source is what she values. Source is what she trusts. After all, source is what put her here.
When you have questions for everybody except yourself - when you rely on everyone outside of yourself, you will always be massively unplugged from intelligence.
She, the “giant-pineapple-tree-thing”, is connected to cosmic intelligence. She is endlessly available to life. She is fed by it. She is rooted in it.
I can almost guarantee she hasn’t read The Power Of Now, and she is doing better than fine in her relationship with life. I don’t know much about anything other than myself, as it’s all I can truly know....But what I certainly do know is that once you drop back into self, all of what you were searching for is sitting there....Waiting for you.(except for beer and cigarettes. You gotta buy those)
In a time where everyone is attempting to be all ‘love n light’...it may be worth mentioning the dark. Everyone avoids dark. They bypass the dark, because the dark is nowhere near as trendy and palatable as the light. We live in a light culture where the refusal to engage with the dark is causing huge problems.
The light is easy to play with. It’s in fashion.
Whereas the dark? The dark is everything. There is no light without there first being the dark in which it is born from. Everything is born from the dark. Including you. Including all the things you are avoiding and hiding behind with your addiction to the light. Too much light will blind you. Too much light will disconnect you from reality. Too much dark...there’s no such thing! The dark, she will expose you, to all which is real. You can never have too much dark, because as soon as she leaves, so do you!
I’m not a light-worker. I’m a dark-worker. The light arrives on its own.
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Chris's Blog
Bringing realness, clarity and deep truth to our mishandled human condition. Here to assist you in a REAL way, without the fluff. Pointing you to your magnificence. Relentlessly committed to being here, embodied. | {
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There's a reason the San Joaquin River has been labeled one of the hardest-working streams in the country.
Most of its flow is diverted to cities and farms before it ever reaches Stockton.
State officials are poised to address that for the first time in almost two decades, but their proposal to increase flows from less than 30 percent to 35 percent is under attack from two fronts - from water users who warn that farmland will be fallowed and jobs lost, and from environmentalists who say the increase doesn't go nearly far enough.
The State Water Resources Control Board will hear their concerns at a meeting Wednesday. The board says 35 percent strikes a balance between the needs of fish and water users.
The amount of flow is not the only issue up for discussion, though. The board also has proposed relaxing rules determining how much salt can accumulate in south Delta waterways, to the concern of farmers there.
"They're giving up on the Delta," said John Herrick, a Stockton-based attorney for the South Delta Water Agency.
These proceedings are just a first step. The water board also plans to examine flows on the Sacramento River and to determine how much water should ultimately be allowed to flow through the Delta - key determinations as Gov. Jerry Brown pursues construction of twin tunnels to divert freshwater away from the estuary.
For now, the plan is to send more water down three tributaries of the San Joaquin: the Stanislaus, the Tuolumne and the Merced rivers. Those streams were historically flush with Sierra snowmelt in the spring and early summer, and were significant breeding grounds for salmon.
Now most of the water is held back in reservoirs or diverted to cities like Stockton. The Stanislaus River alone is blocked by 28 dams.
The new proposal would allow 35 percent of the flow to pass through from February through June, when fish need help getting downstream.
But that's not enough, environmentalists say. A previous report found that if economic factors were not considered, 60 percent of the natural flow would be needed to truly sustain the ecosystem.
"The San Joaquin is the poster child for how not to manage a river," said Gary Bobker, program director for The Bay Institute in San Francisco.
A modest increase to barely more than one-third of its natural flow will not save the stream, he said. He called the proposal a "marked failure" in the first test of the board's commitment to protect the environment.
Stockton environmentalist Bill Jennings blamed the board for limiting the increased flows to the lower San Joaquin, below the Merced.
"Basically they're insisting the three tributaries of senior water rights holders have to bear the burden, and it's absurd," he said.
The water board says it didn't include the upper San Joaquin because there aren't fish there now. It might consider mandating flows on that part of the river in the future if an ambitious restoration effort currently underway proves successful.
For the lower streams, the 35 percent figure is bigger than it sounds, the board argues, and it's a flexible target that could go up or down based on how fish respond.
"Thirty-five percent really is a significant increase in flows," said Diane Riddle, an environmental program manager for the state board. She noted that the Tuolumne is as low as 19 percent of its natural flow.
"Considering other agricultural uses and groundwater impacts, we thought 35 percent is an appropriate place to start, and work from there," Riddle said.
Just as angry as the environmentalists are the water districts tapping the three rivers. A group of them called the San Joaquin Tributaries Authority has mobilized to fight the plan, warning it would have a "devastating" impact on the economy by fallowing 128,000 acres of farmland and eliminating 460 jobs. It also could force remaining growers to draw more upon precious groundwater, they say.
For perspective, the board's report says that releasing more water would reduce the region's agricultural output by about 1 percent.
Nevertheless, the water districts argue that it's unclear whether more water will equal more fish. Flows aren't the only problem for salmon; invasive fish species like striped bass are known to gobble them up.
"The 35 percent number seems, at least to us, to have no rationale and no scientific basis behind it," said Allen Short, formerly the general manager at Modesto Irrigation District, and now the director of the tributaries group. "We've made investments in water releases down tributaries over the years and we have not seen a significant improvement in salmon."
Jeff Shields, manager of Manteca-based South San Joaquin Irrigation District, warned that shooting more water down the Stanislaus would drain New Melones Lake roughly once every five years.
"Empty," he said.
Stockton could be harmed because it now receives a portion of its water supply from that reservoir. So do farmers on the east and south sides of the county.
According to state board documents, however, the impact will be far greater on the Tuolumne and Merced streams whose flows today are typically lower than the Stanislaus.
In the big picture, like other observers, Shields fears releasing extra San Joaquin water is an attempt to make up for sending more Delta water south through the proposed twin tunnels.
If the Delta's Sacramento River water is siphoned away, some other stream will have to make up for it.
"That's exactly the intention here: To be able to flush the toilet and use our water to do it," Shields said.
Riddle, with the water board, said that's not the case.
"We do intend to look at (state and federal) project impacts," she said.
And she acknowledged that simply sending more water downstream won't solve all the Delta's problems.
"There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that need to be brought together," Riddle said.
Lumped in with the debate over river flows is a plan to ease up on salt restrictions in the channels of the south Delta.
Salt is a plague for farmers, since it can stunt the growth of their crops. Salt comes from many sources - drainage from farms, discharge from city wastewater treatment plants, and the sheer lack of water in the San Joaquin, for starters.
A standard for salt in the south Delta was set in 1978, but enforcement was delayed for many years and today the standard is routinely violated.
Critics blame the mass export of water from the Delta into the state and federal aqueducts, and say the move to weaken the standards is an attempt to make those violations less prevalent on paper while maintaining the status quo on water quality.
"Since they're not going to enforce the rules, they thought they'd change them," said Herrick, the south Delta attorney. "But this must be the only instance in the United States of America where a regulatory body is trying to relax water quality standards. That's just insane to me."
The water board argues that the amount of salt in the Delta right now is "suitable for all crops," based on a study which Herrick says does not reflect real conditions on the ground.
"A couple of years ago one guy had to replant tomatoes because the salt ruined him," Herrick said. "We have continuing salt impacts and the notion that we can deal with this quality of water, or worse, is simply false."
Salt in the south Delta is not just the farmers' concern. Everyone in Stockton would have to pay if the city is someday ordered to improve its treatment plant to reduce the amount of salt in the treated wastewater it releases into the estuary.
The state board's plan says that even with the weaker proposed standard, Stockton and its ratepayers could still be on the hook.
Nothing is certain, said Jeff Willett, assistant director for Stockton's Municipal Utilities Department. The city is due for a new discharge permit next fall, but the amount of salt it releases has been declining because the city is relying less on saltier groundwater.
Stockton may, in fact, be close to meeting the board's proposed new limit, except for the fact that the new standard is based on 30-day rolling averages as opposed to an annual average, he said. | {
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Why
“BECAUSE THREE FAMILIES LOSE A LOVED ONE TO SUICIDE EVERY TWO DAYS IN OUR COUNTRY!”
The current “harden up, stay staunch and let’s not talk about it” attitude towards anyone with a mental illness or who is having thoughts of suicide is a major part of the problem. We also believe that without positive attitudinal societal change that the 547 New Zealanders who completed suicide in 2012 will be joined by a similar number this year. These figures can no longer be ignored or swept under the carpet by those who champion the ‘stay silent on suicide’ mantra currently in effect in Aotearoa.
The fact that 3 families lose someone to suicide every 2 days in a country described by many as ‘gods own’ proves how ineffective this strategy has become. Our response to this insidious silent epidemic comes from the real experts on suicide. These are the people who have lost someone to suicide or who have attempted suicide themselves and they are all saying the same thing
We say their pleas can no longer be ignored!
Most of us know from personal experience that the worst part about being depressed (and in some cases having thoughts of suicide) is the absolute loneliness and helplessness of it all. We also know through our experience with The Nutters Club that sharing life stories helps to counteract these negative emotions of fear, loneliness, shame, isolation and abandonment by providing hope.
The Key to Life Charitable Trust believes it is time to stop throwing negatives at the problem of suicide and to start throwing positives at the solution! We need to start talking about suicide. Not about “how” (which can sometimes lead to suicide contagion), but definitely about “why” people become so desperate that they feel they can’t go on. When you ask questions, you find answers.
Empowering communities through trust and education encourages them to become an integral part of the solution and will drive inter-generational attitudinal social change needed to reverse the incidence of suicide and depression.
Help us by donating
As we are not government funded, we rely on you to help us bring our services to those who need it. | {
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BFGoodrich has taken their sporty Ultra High Performance All-Season g-Force Super Sport A/S tire line and expanded it to also include a number of High Performance All-Season H- and V-speed rated sizes, targeting coupes and sedans with select 14" - 18" sizes.
Find out how much of the g-Force Super Sport A/S H&V's "sport" has trickled down to the High Performance All-Season category -- watch as we compare the H-speed rated version with three other H-speed rated tires from the category. | {
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Infographic
Where do you fit in among America's skiers? This infographic includes statistics and information on the people who participate in the most popular winter sport in the U.S. Can anyone dethrone Colorado as the snow king?
There are over 80 Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans, but the 3 largest are called Super Krewes: Bacchus, Endymion, and (the newest) Orpheus. Learn more about what sets these parades apart from the others with this helpful infographic. | {
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Angela Merkel has been Chancellor of Germany for twelve years. Of all the leading politicians in Europe, only Vladimir Putin has been in power longer. The next German federal election is on Sept. 24. If she wins that and completes her next term, she will have ruled as long as Helmut Kohl, and longer than Konrad Adenauer. Merkel is now campaigning with this slogan: You Know Me.
What do we and the German people really know about Angela Merkel? Her visions, agenda, and background? It is not easy to grasp. Do we really know?
Two recent books try to give a clearer picture of the person now called “The World’s Most Powerful Woman”: Merkel’s Maske by Hinrich Rohbohm and Merkel—Eine Kritische Bilanz (A Critical Analysis). The latter is a collection of 22 articles by German intellectuals. They paint a picture different from the one served up by the German mainstream media. Rohbohm’s tome goes through the information about Merkel’s time in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), which she reported on to various journalists and biographers over the years. Of some twenty books about Angela Merkel, the author of this article has read thirteen of them.
Her father, Horst Kasner, was a young, left-wing Lutheran priest living in Hamburg, West Germany, in 1954. A few months after his daughter Angela was born, the family moved to Templin, north of Berlin, in the former GDR. This was perhaps not the most obvious choice of settlement for a young West German priest, less than a year after the brutal Soviet military crackdown on the revolt against the GDR regime in Berlin on July 17, 1953. Normally people fled in the other direction if they could. Hundreds of thousands left the GDR in 1954.
Soon Mr. Kasner became known as “The Red Pastor.” In the early 1960s he became leader of a priest seminar; its mission was to train a new generation of socialist church leaders. In the GDR, the Lutheran church was dominant. Mr. Kasner worked closely with the ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party, to build the new socialist church, Kirche im Sozialismus (the Church in Socialism), completely separated from the church in West Germany. Unlike many of the children of priests who were often denied access to higher education, Kasner’s daughter Angela was given the opportunity to study physics at Leipzig University, and later at the GDR’s foremost scientific institution, the Academy of Science in Berlin.
Angela had a traditional party career, starting with membership of the Thälmann Pioneers (motto: Be ready), followed in 1969 by the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ), the communist youth organization. No doubt Angela was gifted, diligent, and smart. She was the best in school. She won the Russian Olympiade national award in the Russian language in 1970 at the age of 16. It gave her the opportunity to travel to Moscow on the Zug Der Freundschaft (the Train for Friendship). Her excellent knowledge of Russian opened many doors.
“What do we and the German people really know about Angela Merkel?”
At Leipzig University she became one of the leaders in the FDJ. Merkel distinguished herself by devoting a year to study of Marxism-Leninism’s foundations for students, according to the weekly Junge Welt. Thus, the road was open to becoming head of the FDJ’s local department for Agitation and Propaganda at the Academy of Science, the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin, Adlershof. It coincided with the intensification of propaganda activities by the GDR regime in order to counteract the influence of Solidarity in Poland and to campaign against NATO’s Double Track Decision on medium-range nuclear missiles in West Germany. GDR propagandists studied techniques from the 1930s to improve their ability to fanaticize the GDR population in favor of the socialist system.
Merkel’s father had many privileges as part of the nomenklatura. The family had two cars! According to Merkel her father had a large library, with books usually not available to ordinary GDR citizens. Merkel eagerly read books by Marcuse and left-wing critics of the GDR like Robert Havemann and Rudolf Bahro. She befriended Havemann’s son, Florian, who later fled to West Germany.
Merkel also visited the home of Robert Havemann, who endured a glorified house arrest, constantly monitored by the Stasi. Havemann had ideas about ecology and zero growth that go back to the German nature-romantic tradition that characterized the Artaman movement at the beginning of the century. They were not far from the ideas of the Greens of West Germany though not popular in the GDR communist party. On the face of it, it is hard to understand why a careerist/opportunist like Merkel was staying in contact with the likes of Havemann and his son. But here she found her ideological base.
Merkel’s surname comes from her marriage to a fellow student, Ulrich Merkel, when she studied physics in Leningrad in 1977. Their marriage ended in 1982. According to Merkel, the GDR system needed a socialist renewal. When Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, she belonged to those who saw opportunities in a renewal of the communist system through perestroika. This was actually an old idea of Lenin’s, who conducted the New Economy Policy in the early 1920s. The goal was to get access to foreign capital and technology and thus strengthen the Soviet Union. Merkel became a perestroikaist with an ecological leaning.
Gorbachev gave a speech to the top leaders of the Warsaw Pact in Budapest in June 1986 after the Chernobyl accident. He spoke of the need to reform the economy, using competition and market forces to become more effective, and also to care better for the environment. The communist leadership in the GDR was not particularly interested in these new ideas.
The head of the Stasi foreign intelligence division, Markus Wolf, was officially told to retire in 1986. This was a cover so that General (three stars) Wolf could build a new political structure in the GDR that could implement Gorbachev’s visions even against the will of the ruling party. Wolf was considered by others in the intelligence community as a master of deception. His memoirs have been published in English and German. The content and message, for each language, is different because he had two different audiences to manipulate and influence.
Outwardly, Merkel held a low profile and devoted herself to research in physics with her new husband, Professor Joachim Sauer. He was a leading light in the field of quantum physics. With Sauer’s prominence, the pair of Sauer and Merkel were allowed to travel to the West for conferences from 1986 and at one point stayed in the West and did research for six months. Merkel also met her grandmother in Hamburg on a private trip. For a childless couple active in important scientific research, this opportunity to travel was very rare.
For a long time Merkel denied that she had ever been to the West before the fall of the Berlin Wall of 1989. It was only when confronted with hard evidence of her and her husband’s Western voyages by biographers and journalists that she recovered these memories. For someone hailed by admirers as having a mind like a computer, this indicates that she has not always been honest and told the truth. Travel to the West was a favor only offered to particularly reliable Reisekader (literally Travel Squad). This was a privileged minority required to provide written reports of where they had been, who they met, and what they discussed. No reports of Merkel’s Western voyages have been found in the Stasi archives since the fall of the wall.
And there is at least one more document missing. A Ph.D. student in the GDR was not judged only by her specialist knowledge; political reliability was also important in order to be approved. Therefore, before the dissertation, they would write a fifty-page essay, Sozialistische Lebensweise (The Socialist Way of Life). The Ph.D. student would describe her own attitude toward socialism and the system. Merkel’s essay has never been found, despite the fact that many journalists have tried to obtain it.
When the Berlin Wall broke open on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, it was the beginning of the end of the Communist Party in its then form. New “reform-friendly” forces that followed Gorbachev’s direction took over. There would be free elections in the spring of 1990. Merkel joined the Democratic Party Revival Party, led by a good friend of her father, Wolfgang Schnoor, a lawyer. The party motto was Aufbruch—Sozial—Ökologisch (Renewal—Social—Ecological). Merkel became Schnoor’s press officer. The party was part of an election alliance with the East CDU (Christian Democratic Union) led by the lawyer Lothar de Maizière.
A couple of weeks before the election, the weekly Der Spiegel revealed that Schnoor had been a secret informer for the Stasi for many years. So the party received only 0.9% of the votes in the elections of 1990. Merkel then transferred quickly to East CDU, becoming deputy press secretary to de Maizière. East CDU had received 40% of the vote. Lothar de Maizière was active in the church and a friend of the Kasner family.
De Maizière became prime minister in the last GDR government, leading a coalition. On Oct. 3, 1990, the two halves of Germany were reunited and the East CDU was merged with the West CDU. Mr. de Maizière became a minister without portfolio in Helmut Kohl’s government and vice chairman of the CDU Party. Der Spiegel soon revealed that even Lothar de Maizière was a long-standing informant for the Stasi under the cover name “Czerni.” Almost all leading people from the East CDU party were revealed as having been informers for the Stasi, leaving Merkel as the only one untainted. Merkel had become a member of the Bundestag on Dec. 2, 1990. She succeeded Lothar de Maizière as vice chairman of CDU, without ever having applied for membership of the party. Helmut Kohl appreciated Merkel’s fast intellect, industry, and ambition. So she was soon appointed to the position of minister for families, despite being childless and living with her partner, Professor Joachim Sauer, without being married.
In 1994, Merkel was appointed federal minister of the environment. Her overall ambition was to combat anticipated climate change. She organized the first U.N. conference on climate, COP 1 in Berlin in April 1995. Both Merkel and Helmut Kohl spoke in their introductory statements about carbon dioxide as “climate poison carbon dioxide.” As a Ph.D. in physics, she should have known that carbon dioxide at levels of 400ppm is not a poison. Only at concentrations of greater than 5% (50,000ppm) is it toxic.
The climate issue perfectly suited Merkel, if her aspirations were to change Germany and the world according to ideas developed by Hermann Flohn and Green Socialist ideologists like Bahro, Harich, and Havemann. With her position as a minister in the governing CDU party, she could have much more influence on policy in Germany than as an activist in the Green Party.
Merkel fully committed herself to negotiating the Treaty of Kyoto to combat global warming. It implied binding emission limits for Western industrialized countries with no requirements at all for developing countries, such as China and India. She collaborated with Vice President Al Gore about Kyoto, but soon realized that Mr. Gore was mostly out to enrich himself. He lacked ideological conviction. The United States did not, in the end, ratify the Kyoto agreement.
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CDU and Kohl lost the election in 1998. Merkel was appointed as the new CDU Secretary General. Kohl remained as the party’s chairman. In one of her sparse interviews, Merkel said she saw herself more as a general than a secretary.
It was well-known in the party’s inner circles that the CDU was partially financed by black money. For example, some had come from the French government through the oil company ELF before the election in 1998. For many years the Stasi had been monitoring Kohl’s telephones. This was common knowledge in government circles. During the new Social Democratic government led by Gerhard Schröder, information about this black-money financing began to leak to the press. Former junior Minister for Defense in the CDU government and then head of the Constitutional Protection Agency (German secret service) Ludwig-Holger Pfahls fled the country after being investigated for bribes from Saudi Arabia in relation to arms sales. The pressure against Kohl increased.
On Dec. 22, 1999, Merkel contacted the editorial board of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and offered an interview and a debate article. She proclaimed that the CDU needed to be renewed, that they had to deal with the “old men” who sometimes stepped over the law and lacked any new ideas. This overture was made without Merkel informing Kohl and his deputy, Wolfgang Scheüble, in advance—a Machiavellian stroke, just before the Christmas weekend, which had maximum impact in the media. Kohl was forced to resign. Scheüble succeeded him as chairman of the CDU.
It took only a few months for the next shoe to drop: It was revealed that Mr. Scheüble also received a suitcase with money, from the arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. So Mr. Scheüble had to leave. The road was now open to Merkel to become the new party chairman.
Prior to the 2002 elections, Gerhard Schröder’s Red/Green coalition was well ahead in the polls. Merkel thought it was best to let the ambitious chairman of the Bavarian sister party CSU, Edmund Stoiber, become the chancellor candidate. Schröder easily won the election. So the conservative CSU’s position weakened. Merkel worked deliberately to eliminate competitors within the CDU party, so she became a more obvious chancellor candidate for the next election. After the SPD defeated Kohl in the 1998 elections, the Germany economy had stagnated. In the U.K., Tony Blair had started a new reformed social democracy he branded New Labor. The labor market in Germany needed to be reformed. Gerhard Schröder had an ambitious agenda to implement the necessary liberalization in the labor market combined with tax cuts. This created great resistance in the SPD. Finally, Mr. Schröder asked for a vote of confidence and lost, then called for new elections in 2005.
Merkel seemed to have a very good chance to win this time. She then ran a market-liberal agenda before the election, which had not been seen since Ludwig Erhard’s campaigns in the 1960s. She was compared by The Wall Street Journal to Margaret Thatcher. The elections became a much narrower victory for the CDU than expected. Merkel needed to form a coalition with the Social Democrats in order to form a government. Promised tax cuts were forgotten. Instead, the VAT increased by three percentage points, the largest tax increase ever. So the new “big coalition” actually returned to a typical, traditional social-democratic policy.
Merkel was committed to building an international position for herself, which we would call globalist today. Among the like-minded politicians, she found Tony Blair and the Democratic Party junior senator from Chicago, Barack Obama, who soon would gain a prominent profile in U.S. and world affairs. When Obama proclaimed his presidential candidacy, he was supported by Merkel. On June 24, 2008, Obama addressed 200,000 enthusiastic Germans in the Tiergarten, Berlin. The speech was held at the Siegessaule, a monument to German militarism and revanchism, moved to its present location by Albert Speer. Obama’s speech was broadcast in all the German state media, such as ZDF and ARD. German TV and newspapers cheered over Obama as the “Anti–George Bush.” One paper called him the “New Messiah.” No German politician had used the Siegessaule after the war for a public event. The monument was toxic, intended to celebrate Hitler once he had won the war.
In Barack Obama, Merkel had found a younger partner sharing her basic views about climate and social values, a man of mostly talk and little substance. Merkel increased the resources for a government-funded network, WBGU (Scientific Council to the Government, for Global Environmental Policy). The goal was set of a global transformation of the capitalist system in the ecological direction. The Germans on the board included Joachim Schellnhuber, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Ottmar Edenhofer, and Claus Leggewie, all well-known for being left-wing.
In 2009, a conference was held in Essen, “The Great Transformation.” In addition to German ministers, Obama’s chief counselor John Podesta and William Antholis from the Brookings Institution were in attendance. Lord Giddens, one of Tony Blair’s closest ideologists, was a speaker. The conference was about values and lifestyles in a globalized interdependent world—how governments, through “nudging,” could reprogram their people’s brains to make them choose a “sustainable lifestyle.” The conference was summarized thus:
(1) Decarbonization of the whole society, through use of renewable energy.
(2) Implementation of the Öko-Soziale Markwirtschaft (a euphemism for a planned economy)
(3) People should avoid using private cars, travel as little as possible.
(4) A vegetarian lifestyle was proposed, proteins from insects are more sustainable than eating meat. Eat bugs.
(5) Organize society more like ant heaps—it’s resilient.
(6) It is doubtful if this vision of the future would be possible to implement in a democratic society. It would be necessary to consider appointing a global expert council who can make important long-term decisions without risking disturbances of short-term populist ideas.
The conference had 500 participants, including four ministers, but had almost no impact at all in the media. Only four journalists attended.
In the 2009 elections, the FPD (Free Democrat Liberal Party) won more than 15%, becoming the natural coalition partner for CDU, instead of the Social Democrats. The FDP had promised significant tax cuts and a reassessment of the former nuclear-decommissioning policy by 2022. They also wanted to limit wind and solar development because of the exorbitant cost of subsidies (EEG). In 2000 it was claimed that the EEG would cost the typical household the equivalent of one scoop of ice cream per month, or 3.5 cents per kWh. Merkel promised not only that the EEG would not rise any further, it would be capped and subsequently lowered. That promise was false. Today, in 2017, the EEG is expected to cost about 6.88 cents per kWh. The total cost of Energiewende in Germany until 2030 is estimated to be at least EUR 1 trillion. It seems to be an economic apocalypse. German households now, next to Denmark, have the world’s highest electricity costs. At the same time, carbon dioxide emissions have not decreased at all over the past three years. Fossil fuel power is always needed as backup.
But renewable energy has created a new class of financial investors, the so-called “Wind Junkers,” who earn amazing amounts from subsidies. This is possibly the largest transfer of money from households to a group of privileged investors in modern times. Merkel was for a long time in favor of using nuclear power to save the climate, as Minister for the Environment and later Chancellor. So the government decided in 2010 to extend the use of nuclear power until the reactors were technically and economically depreciated. The nuclear industry was allowed to continue using the facilities against a significant charge on nuclear fuel, which would counteract supposedly unfair “super profits.”
In spring 2011, however, Japan was hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the country, followed by a tsunami that surged ashore and claimed 25,000 lives. Then came the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and the world held its breath. As it happened, only two people died as a consequence of the accident, and some radioactivity was released. Merkel realized that the dramatic TV images would influence the German popular opinion about nuclear power. On state television in Germany, Fukushima was presented as if the thousands of casualties were killed by the reactor accident rather than by the tsunami. The government quickly convened an “ethics council,” consisting of church leaders and community scientists but no technicians, charging the panel with assessing if Germany should continue with nuclear power.
The outcome in the prevailing state of opinion was a given. Merkel quickly announced that all reactors would be closed, the last to remain in operation no later than 2022, exactly as the red-green government had announced would happen way back in 2000. The vote was taken unanimously by all six parties in the Bundestag. The nuclear industry would have to continue to pay the new tax on nuclear fuel. The decision was popular among the Greens and Left, but hardly within the CDU Party. The German power industry initiated court proceedings, which the government lost in 2017. The Constitutional Court ruled that the charge was illegal, so the government was ordered to return €6 billion to the power companies.
In connection with the urgent euro crisis of 2010, Merkel took the lead to save the single currency. Her famous statement was “If the euro collapses, then the E.U. collapses.” The politicians conducted a number of rescue operations for Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Merkel swore there was no alternative. She became known for the term Alternativlos. All commitments were guaranteed by the European Central Bank, where Germany’s share is 27%. This means that other central banks in Europe now owe Germany an amount of EUR 850 billion under the so-called TARGET 2 mechanism. This is money that returns zero interest and has no fixed amortization plan. Normally, this kind of nonperforming debt would be considered worthless and be written off, according to Professor H.W. Sinn at the IFO Institute in Munich. He is one of Merkel’s sharpest critics on the euro and the Energiewende.
The rescue of the weak E.U. countries by the ECB is completely contrary to what Helmut Kohl promised the German electorate before the introduction of the euro in 1998. It would never, ever be a debt union, he said, and the euro would be as strong as the D-mark. This was guaranteed by the European Treaties and ECB charter. Several politicians in the Union parties complained to the Constitutional Court. It was also what triggered the political movement that became the new party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), attracting some CDU members to join the new party.
The ECB also introduced a policy of negative interest rates, which was a hard hit to German savers and pensioners, whose savings are mostly in bank accounts and in bonds. Now the German government can borrow money and is paid interest by the capital market for the bonds. The ECB’s policy is based on an idea that has its roots in the radical political ideas prevailing in Germany after the end of the First World War. The Schwundgeld theory (“disappearing money”) is now applied by the ECB and Swiss National Bank. It was invented by Silvio Gesell, a fruit farmer without a formal education. He was appointed as minister of finance and confiscation in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet republic of 1919. Another German economist, Gottfried Feder, one of the founders of the Nazi Party, had similar ideas about the ban of interest on money.
German savers and retirees have lost around €300 billion in returns on their savings since 2012. During the twelve years of Merkel’s three coalitions, the government take of GPD has increased from 40% to 45%. The taxes and fees from households have been steeper, with only Belgium and Denmark having imposed higher tax burdens on their citizens.
Three decades ago, in 1986, the GDR organized a refugee intake of Tamils from Sri Lanka. About 50,000 flew to East Berlin, where they could pass the Friedrichstrasse border control into West Berlin without any problem. This was a way to exert political pressure on the Kohl government, while at the same time getting hard currency.
In the winter of 2014, the E.U. Commission and the Obama regime decided to halve the contribution to UNHCR (UN Refugee Commission) operations in Iraq and Syria. The number of calories per refugee was reduced from 2,800 to 1,600 per day. A famine catastrophe threatened millions of people. They left refugee camps and began moving toward Europe. It created opportunities for windfall profits for human traffickers in Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
A rational solution would have been to increase the appropriations for refugees in their home countries to the old level while strengthening the border guards in Italy and Greece to keep the Schengen border tight. Instead, Merkel opted for what is now known as “Welcome culture”—a new term that captures what the Green Party had always wanted: open borders and unlimited immigration. Germany has so far received 1.5 million migrants over 2015–16, with at least 100,000 arriving with no papers or dubious ones. According to a judgment in the Strasbourg European Court of Justice, the refugees are entitled to family reunification. Merkel’s spin doctors claimed many refugees were “qualified” immigrants—physicians, engineers, and professionals—who would contribute to the German economy. The reality is otherwise, “unskilled shepherds” in the words of one critic, with many illiterate even in their native tongues.
It will be hard putting these “New Germans” in meaningful work, but that is far from the only problem. The Constitutional Protection Agency (Secret Service) has reported there might be as many as 10,000 potential terrorists hidden among those immigrants. A retired judge of the Constitutional Court, Udo Di Fabio, has stated in a legal analysis prepared for the Bavarian authorities that the federal government violated the law as the new arrivals’ identities had not been verified.
Yet none of this has diminished Angela Merkel’s standing, with the polls saying she is favored by some 50% of the population. How could this be? Merkel’s predecessor Dr. Helmut Kohl was constantly under siege from the media. He was demoted and declared incompetent until the 1990 reunification. After that, Kohl’s popularity began to drop again. To understand this, look no further than the media, very much Merkel’s ally.
In the GDR, journalists were regarded as soldiers of the revolution. The Leipzig Journalist College was known as “The Red Monastery,” and that mindset would appear not to have changed very much after unification. According to Manfred Güllner from the Forsa Institute, about 36% of German journalists sympathize with the Green Party, Social Democrats have 26%, the Free Democratic Party 10%, and the CDU 9%. The balance of their sympathies is distributed among different extremist left-wing parties. In radio and television, state media ADR and ZDF dominate the ether with a clear left-wing agenda. Here we can really talk about journalists as ideological soldiers in the ether. As with journalists throughout the West, they are groupthinkers and exponents of political correctness, meaning Merkel has largely escaped consistent critical journalism. In addition, traditional newspapers are shrinking, their business plans are failing, and they must increasingly depend on government assistance. Obviously, this does not encourage dispassionate analysis and commentary. This makes “old media” increasingly dependent on the state.
Merkel has been the great beneficiary. It is not an edifying thought, but when Germans vote on Sept. 24, it looks very much as if Merkel will win at a canter. The Great Transformation will go on! | {
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Smartphone Makers Need To Put An End To Distracted Driving
0
I’m cruising down the road at 45 mph when – ka-ching! – the sound of a cash register blares out from my iPhone. It’s one of now several deal-finding apps I have installed that alert me to nearby sales at local stores. I love the functionality they provide, but I’m not thrilled with the timing. The phone buzzes some more as the alerts roll in as I coast past the mall – it’s set back from the road, and I’m passing it, not driving to it. Why is my phone bothering me with alerts when I’m just trying to focus on the traffic?
Everyone talks about the dangers of texting and driving, and our Pavlovian need to respond to incoming messages while behind the wheel. But scare campaigns focused on changing user behavior can only go so far – it’s time for some OS-level intervention.
I’m not ignoring the fact there are today dozensofthird-partyapplications that can either disable texting, alert to and monitor the number of times someone is texting at the wheel, or help you avoid texting through voice features or narration. But they are not full solutions, especially on iOS which limits apps’ ability to control OS features. And they only deal with on one of many problems with behind-the-wheel use of smartphones: texting.
A real solution would also eliminate all the other many distractions that smartphones bring, including the noise of apps, constantly clamoring for users’ attention.
Don’t Blame The Apps, Blame The OS
Modern-day smartphones are equipped with a range of sensors that can detect things like your location, elevation, orientation, and whether you’re walking or driving. Some apps, like the social driving app Waze, later acquired by Google, tap into smartphone sensors in an attempt to make using its app safer for drivers. For example, Waze disabled text input when it detected a car that’s in motion.
But what about the rest of the apps? Shouldn’t they, too, start thinking more responsibility about whether or not users should be able to input text at 60 mph? Couldn’t that Facebook post wait, for example? Do you really need to tweet that?
However, leaving the choice up to app publishers may not be the best solution.
If app makers all of a sudden block app usage for drivers, they could see declining engagement and user frustrations. After all, just because you’re speeding down the road in a vehicle of some sort, that doesn’t mean you’re driving it. And that means app makers would have to do what Waze did – have an “opt out” mechanism where you tell the app that you’re riding in a passenger seat. (As a passenger, that’s an annoying feature to face every time you launch an app while in the car. And for drivers “cheating” the system, it could make matters worse.)
Instead of asking app developers to reconfigure their apps for safer use, a better solution would be a system-level change: a “car mode” setting, activated when your phone is connected to the car via Bluetooth or physically plugged in.
For Younger Drivers Especially, Infotainment Systems Are Not An Ideal Solution
Unfortunately, the industry solution to combat the problem of distracted driving has been to redesign mobile operating systems for big-screen, hands-free usage in the car, via platforms like Apple’s CarPlay or Google’s Android Auto, for example.
These systems offer voice-controlled functionality, letting drivers make and respond to phone calls, pull up navigation, access playlists, and even read out your messages and let you dictate responses. Arguably, they are a bit safer than tap-typing on your phone, but they’re hardly distraction-free. (And really, they’re not that much safer, studies have shown.)
For older, or more capable drivers, systems like those from Apple, Google or other infotainment makers from auto manufacturers are a somewhat reasonable alternative to texting and driving. But for younger drivers, or those of us already dealing with other in-vehicle distractions – like wailing kids, backseat video players, chatty passengers, wiggling dogs, etc. – tapping screens, and chatting with Siri, however safer, should not be a focus.
We Need A System-Wide “Car Mode”
At the very least, the OS makers themselves have a responsibility to allow consumers without access to infotainment systems, including not just parents but also the rest of us struggling with self-control issues when it comes to our mobile devices in the car, to automate a switching over to “car mode” when we’re behind the wheel.
For parents, it could be a choice within the phone’s parental controls. For others, it could be an optional setting.
In addition to disabling texting and driving (hopefully auto-responding with a helpful “I’m driving right now” text back to the sender), these systems should also optionally silence phone calls (hopefully with a helpful custom voicemail greeting: “I’m driving right now, I’ll call you back!”), and disable the ability for apps to push you notifications.
No more buzzing and beeping, no more ka-ching’s.
When the car has been stopped for some period of time longer than a traffic light, a stream of catch-up messages could then pour in.
OverviewFacebook is an online social networking service that allows its users to connect with friends and family as well as make new connections. It provides its users with the ability to create a profile, update information, add images, send friend requests, and accept requests from other users. Its features include status update, photo tagging and sharing, and more.
Facebook’s profile structure includes …
OverviewTwitter is a global social networking platform that allows its users to send and read 140-character messages known as “tweets”. It enables registered users to read and post their tweets through the web, short message service (SMS), and mobile applications.
As a global real-time communications platform, Twitter has more than 400 million monthly visitors and 255 million monthly active users around …
OverviewWaze is a social traffic & navigation app based on the world's largest community of drivers sharing real time road info and contributing to the “common good” out there on the road. By simply driving around with Waze open users passively contribute traffic and other road data. Users can take a more active role by sharing road reports on accidents, police traps, or any other hazards along the way, …
OverviewShutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), is a leading global provider of high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations, videos and music to businesses, marketing agencies and media organizations around the world. Working with its growing community of over 60,000 contributors, Shutterstock adds tens of thousands of images each week, and currently has more than 40 million images and 2 million video … | {
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