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Choosing the right CPU, GPU, or even SSD could be considered difficult – but so could simple peripherals, such as an HDD enclosure. These seem to be a dime a dozen, and while many consumer purchases may boil down to aesthetic value, we’ve discovered with Zalman’s ZM-HE350 U3 that not all external enclosures perform alike.
“The golden age of home computing” is a phrase that I use quite frequently to describe the current state of the computer hardware market. Those keeping tabs on the hardware scene over even the last five years have watched as the price of systems and components have dropped to record lows, while technology has streaked forward at break-neck speed.
Powerful systems can be built for under $1,000, while solid-state drives are finally becoming affordable. Hard drives now have densities that were unimaginable and new interfaces, such as USB 3.0, can transfer large files faster than ever before.
To help prove this last point, I am taking a look at Zalman’s ZM-HE350 U3 external hard drive enclosure. Until USB 3.0 enclosures came to the market, I had no interest in owning an external drive. To me, they were slow and the benefit of a larger capacity over flash drives was offset by the speed limitations of the interface. But after finally breaking down and picking up a USB 3.0 model a few months ago, I am a believer! Will Zalman’s offering help keep the faith, or break it? Let’s check it out.
The enclosure will accept any standard 3.5″ SATA 1.5Gbps, 3Gbps or 6Gbps drive with the latter being scaled back to SATA II speeds. Being USB 3.0 capable, it is also backwards compatible with USB 1.1 and 2.0 interfaces. This means those who do not have the latest and greatest USB technology are still covered. With USB 3.0 providing a theoretical maximum throughput of 5Gbps, there should be no restrictions on transfer speed.
The main body, which makes up the top, bottoms and sides, is painted aluminum while the ends are capped in with plastic. Each side features the Zalman name and slogan. Down the left side of the front cover are three, blue LEDs that indicate power, hard drive activity and USB connectivity.
Around the back, from top to bottom, are the USB connection, rocker power switch and the AC power adapter connection. Between the USB port and power switch there looks to be an area for an additional connection, evident by a rectangular outline. This is for the e-SATA connector available on Zalman’s other model, the ZM-HE350 U3E. Rounding out the back are the screws, one in each corner, which need to be removed before the internals can be accessed.
The bottom is very simple with two rubber strips to protect the surface where the enclosure sits, at the same time stopping any slipping or sliding should the unit be bumped or the cables pulled.
As the saying goes, it is what is on the inside that counts. Removing the four screws from the back and pulling out on the plastic reveals the PCB, which the hard drive is mounted on. The main item to focus on is the JMicron JMS539 bridge controller on the left side of the PCB. This chip acts as the go between for SATA and SuperSpeed USB commands. I won’t go into specifics but if any readers would like to satisfy their inner geek, all of the data can be found on JMicron’s website.
The included hardware is sparse, but nothing else is really needed. A welcome inclusion is a small screwdriver for those who may not have the necessary tools on hand, four mounting screws used to secure the hard drive, a USB 3.0 data cable and the AC power adapter. Instructions are also included for a brief but thorough walkthrough on how to install a drive and use the enclosure.
There’s no use buying a product if it isn’t easy to use and doesn’t perform well so it’s time to get our hands dirty, so to speak. | <urn:uuid:40ca49eb-5fef-43f8-9177-fb7eafef0c2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techgage.com/article/zalman_zm-he350_u3_hard_drive_enclosure_review/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944053 | 878 | 1.625 | 2 |
Most Viewed Stories
Hispanics want a voice in Williams
About 30 people gathered at the Williams Farmers Market and Bazaar last Friday evening to discuss, among other things, the need to organize and gain Hispanic representation on the Williams City Council.
Councilman John Troughton Jr. attended the meeting and addressed the crowd after leaders spoke about the need for people to come together.
"We started off with the main objective to start a committee. Our main goal would be to have a more united community, not just representing Hispanics on the City Council, but to get people involved in the community to help with what the city needs," Eloy Torres said through translator Santo Jauregui. Both men have become spokesmen for effort.
"Our goal is not to separate the communities, but to unify," Torres said.
The group organized the meeting after a Williams City Council public hearing about raising water rates. Most intended to protest the increase and to get clarifying information, but the language barrier led to frustrations and misunderstandings in the crowd.
"It's nothing against the City Council. We just want to be more united and represented. Since the Hispanic community is so large, we want to help them. We want the council to know our needs. There is a lack of communication between the community and City Hall," said Jauregui.
Troughton addressed the issue as Jauregui translated his message.
"I was concerned that they didn't understand what was going on because of the language barrier and I wanted to clarify what we were trying to do and why we were trying to do it," said Troughton.
"I'm interested in what they have to say. They're a large population in this town."
He explained the tax structure, finances and the reason for the high cost of the base sewer service.
"I wanted to explain to them ... the need for the water and the fact that most of their bill was from the five-year raises for the sewer. The state, they mandate these things, but they don't furnish any money," Troughton said.
Williams is paying off an $11 million debt for a new wastewater treatment plant, upgrades for which were required by the state because it was not meeting certain standards.
For the last five years, ratepayers have seen an increasing base rate to pay off the debt.
"We have to take care of the existing system along with building a new water supply," said Troughton.
"The reason I got involved in this was because of the sewer five or six years ago. That's why I ran for City Council. Frankly, in my opinion, we haven't been keeping up with the maintenance and the system is getting old," he said.
Troughton said he thought his message was understood.
"I saw some heads going in the yes motion. I think they understood. They understood that we need this water," he said.
At one point, a member of the crowd asked the councilman if he thought having someone on the City Council would help Hispanic community.
"Do you think we'd have more power there if we had a representative?" the man asked.
"Well, yeah," said Troughton.
He explained there will be three positions available in 2014 on the council.
Troughton could only recall one Hispanic individual ever sitting on the City Council: Virginia Frias.
Frias was appointed to the City Council and served from 2004 to 2006, and was then elected to a full term of her own.
Frias stepped down "for personal reasons" in January 2007, the first month of her elected term.
"She is the only one that has been on and that is something we need to work on," said Jauregui. "I don't have the time and maybe that's the reason why someone from the Hispanic community doesn't run."
"A big percentage of people, we come here to work. We are one of the poorest counties. We have to work seven days a week in the summer," said Torres.
"That's why rich people get involved, because they have the time. Poor people can't do it," added Alberto Valasquez, another organizer.
Leaders in the community say that the Hispanic community needs to take a more active role in the city.
"It's our fault, too," said Valasquez.
The organizers who led the meeting are developing a committee and are hoping to find leaders to run for City Council in 2014. They are also planning to engage the Hispanic community in other civic activities, such as volunteering at the schools.
"We want the community to get involved," said Valasquez.
"We know that the more time we put in, the more good things will come. Monthly meetings is one of our first priorities," said Torres.
The next community meeting will be March 29 at 7 p.m. at the Williams Farmers Market and Bazaar. | <urn:uuid:2df1a060-8dc2-4024-bb58-d1ca9a94aca8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colusa-sun-herald.com/news/city-10229-community-council.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984305 | 1,019 | 1.796875 | 2 |
- What We Do
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Welcome to K9IU, the Indiana University amateur radio club. We invite everyone to participate in the club activities. If you are not a licensed amateur radio operator,
we are more than happy to introduce you to this wonderful hobby and help you become a licensed operator. K9IU has a room full of radio resources at the Indiana Memorial Union
that are available for members to use at any time. There are many club activities that members and non-members alike can participate in as well. Take a look through this site
for more information, and keep an eye on our news section for updates on upcoming events.
We have RSS feeds available of the front page news and of all site content (which includes the news).
73 de K9IU
Dick Repasky (KC9JLU) and Bob Poortinga (K9SQL) will present some postmortem analysis of the Hilly Hundred APRS usage. This analysis will show where the APRS infrastructure was strong, where it was weak, and how we can improve our coverage and usage in the coming year's Hilly Hundred.
Come learn about APRS propagation and how this digital network can help in a special event scenario. Currently we are scheduled to meet at the IMU in the Poplar room, but this may change to meet at the Wrubel Computing Center. Keep an eye on this posting.
Corey Shields will be presenting High Altitude Ballooning with Amateur Radio at 6pm on Wed, February 4th in the poplar room.
High Altitude Ballooning with Amateur Radio
This presentation will talk about the hobby of high altitude
ballooning - sending unmanned balloons to the edge of space at an
altitude 100,000 feet. Amateur radio is used to track the flight of
these balloons and locate them for retrieval. In addition, many
amateur radio experiments are flown on these balloons including
broadcast TV from the flight, sending a voice repeater to high
altitude, and others.
In the presentation, Corey Shields (KB9JHU) will present on his
experience of flying and retrieving high altitude balloons in Oregon.
He will discuss how the balloons are flown, tracked, and retrieved
using Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS), a 1200 baud data
protocol used in amateur radio frequencies for the purpose of
communicating short data streams and distributing real time
situational data (such as the GPS location of a balloon). Join us to
see the flight paths of these balloon flights along with pictures of
the events themselves.
Contest results from the 2008 Indiana QSO Party (INQP) have been released today. K9IU did really well for our debut run (or at least the first entry that I am aware of). We had 2 entries: a Multi-op station run from our shack (K9IU) and the club competition where INQP operators can denote which club they belong to, and the aggregate points count toward the club competition. For our club competition we only had the combined points of our multi-op station and the mobile rover operated that day by N9VKU and NE7I.
And without further hesitation, our results:
K9IU Multi-op station - 8910 points, 2nd place out of 5 in the category
K9IU Club Competition - 9070 points, 6th place out of 10
Full results can be found at http://www.hdxcc.org/inqp/scores.php
The 2009 INQP is tentatively scheduled for May 2nd so keep that date open. I will start a forum topic for this so we can discuss further.
Yesterday, Dwight (WB9TLH) and myself (KB9JHU) did a little bit of work on the K9IU 440 repeater. Specifically we added a UPS to the computer that acts as both the IRLP node and the repeater controller itself to help it ride out any brief power outages, and we added some ferrites to the audio cables going between the PC and the radios. We have had a bit of interference in the past from nearby radio systems and hope that those ferrites will help choke any EMI coming across those lines.
Please speak up if you notice anymore interference coming through this repeater.
The repeater is at 442.825 with an input of 447.825, and a pl of 136.5. It is connected full-time to the University Linked Repeater System which is another project we are working on. Look for more universities to join up in the spring, along with regular nets held there.
Due to popular demand (and a very good idea at that), we have an RSS feed for all new content generated by the site. A lot of club members use an RSS reader on a daily basis so this will help notify them when any of the following happen:
New news posting
New forum topic
New comments on any of the above
So this means there is no need to check in on the website on a regular basis if you use an RSS reader, just let it do the work for you.
The URL is http://www.indiana.edu/~k9iu/?q=aggregator/rss/1.
Additionally, if you want only the front-page news content, that feed is available at http://www.indiana.edu/~k9iu/?q=rss.xml.
The next K9IU meeting will be at 7pm in the Bryan Room... If you have any agenda items to add please send them to [email protected].
On Sunday the 21st of September we will be having our first meeting of the school year. This will be a call-out meeting with free Pizza and drinks, with some presentations and a few demos. If you are interested in the club, please stop by the State Room West at 7pm to join us.
Come and see the IU Booth at the IU Student Involvement Fair September 9th 11am to 2pm at the IMU. You can sign up to join the club, find out about how to get your Amateur Radio License, and probably even talk to someone via the radio!!!
K9IU Will start to have Morse Code Lessons on the K9IU Repeater, net control will ask for checkins to get an idea of how many people actually use this as a learning method. Net control will then send via morse code this weeks lesson, and then read what was sent over the air. Finally they will start a script that plays the ARRL W1AW's Practice Code session for the week. All of this will be done at 15wpm with 5wpm spacing. Check it out on Sundays at 7:30pm on 146.940- pl 136.5 | <urn:uuid:23d44cee-c848-4b7d-b2c6-f0f340725534> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indiana.edu/~k9iu/?q=node&page=3&mini=calendar/2013/01/all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933581 | 1,455 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Enjoying Redeeming Live Horse Racing Suspense and Thrill
The thrill and excitement as they can in a Live horse racing is just unimaginable. The conditions prevailing in particular racing venue decides the outcome of Live Horse Racing. The Live Horse racing is crucial for the planned horse racing. But behind that need a lot of preparation. The horses are trained in advance so that they fit and prefect on the day of live horse racing.
The factors that are completed in advance before the live horse racing are as follows:
> The racing horses is different from the ordinary ones. They are specifically addressed in the same style to make them most suitable for horse racing. They are offered special training and breeding. Some horses are trained later after the age of five years. Such horses are thus best suited for live horse racing.
> The jockeys sitting on their horses to ride them is also specially trained. They should also be in good shape. They conduct exercises with their horses. Thus, they do very well at the time of Live Horse Racing.
> The courts are also ready for live horse racing. Such horses can run nicely on dirt or hard racetracks. Thus, depending on it, the jockeys accepted to participate in the competition with their horses on specific racecourses.
But it's not just the case. They focus on the tracks is the most important task for many alive racing. They put their bets on the horses, and look at the shape off the tracks. Some in the running game is done at some racetracks. At the time everyone gathered Wager The location and see it live horse racing to put their games. But it is considered as the very risky thing to go "in time".
Therefore, before live racing the bettors make their assessments in advance. Lots of analysis and thinking is done before it. The story of the horses have been studied, and on that basis they decided to pick games. The final live horse racing is very important for them to check whether their efforts are going to get back in the odds given or not.
The Live Horse racing is broadcast on big screens and electronic media to provide clear picture of the racing. There are many race tracks all over the world where daily live horse racing is organized.
About the Author | <urn:uuid:79e1dc5a-65b8-4ce2-8e68-b288ca59a586> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hoofwizard.com/tag/live-horse-racing-results/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97587 | 464 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Links to ATV safety-related information...
COHV / CVHR (Canadian Off-Highway Distributors' Council) has several interactive safety displays, including this one:
Don't Blame Jake Good information on suitable sizes of vehicles for kids (Hint: Once the Flash animation loads, point your mouse at various objects in the picture. If an object moves or makes a noise, click on it.)
And, the COHV has also allowed us to present:
Adventure Trail Interactive animations and games, stressing safety clothing as well as other smart trail habits
Tips for trail riding with children (also courtesy of the COHV) | <urn:uuid:de94055e-44ef-44a8-b034-ca1e5dee20ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huronshoresatvclub.org/safety.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935569 | 133 | 1.546875 | 2 |
A look at the costs, benefits and disadvantages of an online college education, versus conventional practices.
One of the questions many prospective students ask themselves is whether or not they should attend college on a campus or take advantage of an online degree program. The answer is a definite “It depends.”
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Essentially, your answer is contingent on your educational needs, your current living/job situation, and your learning style because both online and traditional degree programs have advantages and disadvantages.
Cost Comparison of Online Degrees vs. Traditional Degree Programs
The cost involved in each type of program varies, depending on the college of your choice as well as your choice of degree. For instance, if the nearest college is far away from home, you may need to relocate or live in a dorm to attend full time. In this case, it may be worth your while to investigate online degree programs because you may be able to save a substantial amount of money.
You will not have to pay for room, board, and some of the other miscellaneous fees if you pursue an online degree. You won’t have the hassle of fighting traffic. Parking fees or the cost of filling your gas tank won’t be an issue, either. One of the biggest frustrations that students face is trying to find a parking space minutes before the start of class without success.
On the other hand, some online programs are very expensive, so it’s best to check out programs that are in-state so you won’t have to pay out-of-state rates to get a college degree. Keep in mind that you’ll want to keep your focus on your return on investment (ROI). Do the math to compare the cost of your program with the earnings you can expect to make over the life of your career. There’s no reason to pay double or triple to get a degree when you can economize and get more bang for your buck. If you get a grant or scholarship, you’ll save even more money.
If you decide to get a traditional degree, it could cost you as little as $10,000 a year at a four-year institution of higher learning and much less if you attend a two-year community or technical college. In essence, the cost of attending college varies greatly. If you attend an in-state college you could pay as much as $50,000 a year, depending upon whether you pursue your degree at a state, public, or private university.
Books, Supplies, and Necessary Equipment
If you’re an online student, you may be given the option to purchase e-books. Using online books will dramatically reduce the amount of money you’ll have to spend. Some online colleges offer their students the option of buying either traditional textbooks or e-books. You can usually order your books through the college bookstore’s website. Of course, there are die-hard fans of paper textbooks, while others are satisfied with reading their books online.
Regardless of where you attend college, you’ll need a computer and an Internet connection. If you’re an online student, your best bet is to invest in a computer so you can have access to it day or night. If you’re on a budget, you can go to your local library. Of course, if the campus is within driving distance, you’ll have access to a computer lab during college business hours.
Method of Delivery
There are a variety of delivery methods in online degree programs. For instance, some colleges upload all of their materials online, and you’ll never have direct contact with your instructor. You’ll need to download and print materials. You may or may not be required to participate in discussion questions in the online community.
Other online programs offer innovative learning options. You may be able to participate in live, synchronous class sessions via the Internet or view the recorded class sessions at a later date. The professor may use a web cam or microphone to talk directly to the students. In many instances, the students can respond to the professor if they have web cams or microphones. If they have neither, they can participate via live chat and type their responses.
One of the obvious disadvantages of online learning is that when a student “attends” classes any time during the day, there is always the threat of distractions. The phone rings, the baby’s diaper needs to be changed, or friends stop by your home without notice. Some students need to have a teacher with them side-by-side in a structured learning environment to help them learn more effectively.
Online colleges also offer a variety of options. Some colleges require that you attend during the regularly scheduled semesters while others have an open-entry/open-exit format.
Traditional colleges usually have locked-in schedules; however, many colleges are adapting to the changing needs of non-traditional students by offering classes that run until midnight. Others offer weekend college courses and semesters that start a few weeks after the traditional semester has begun.
Acceptance by Employers
As online college degree programs take hold in our society, they are gaining more acceptance by employers; however, online degree programs may not be adequate in certain fields. For instance, you may not be able to become a practicing psychologist in some states if you earn your degree entirely online. It’s best to contact potential employers to see if they hire employees with degrees from online colleges.
Do Your Homework
Your best bet is to do a lot of research before you begin. Weigh the pros and cons of going to college online versus earning a degree the traditional way. Many people put more research into buying a car than potential college degree programs. Keep in mind that a car is a disposable resource, but the impact of a college degree—good or bad—lasts forever. | <urn:uuid:40ac58d1-b764-4c1a-87da-73e0a04e094e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realonlinedegrees.com/online-vs-traditional-degrees/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953997 | 1,220 | 1.828125 | 2 |
In my most recent column I wrote about ways of improving family relationships, and raising children who have derech eretz and respect for their parents. I will continue on that same theme here.
If the Jewish home is to survive as it did throughout the centuries, if it is to remain immune to the degeneracy and immorality of the outside world, it must become a bastion of Torah, where mothers and fathers stand guard day and night and do not allow messengers of evil to enter – messengers who have the capacity to bring down the walls and set the entire house aflame.
But here comes the tricky part. As in all things, we cannot make generalizations. There are always exceptions to the rule, and, sadly, in these types of situations the anomalies are even more striking. We see homes that, outwardly at least, house families committed to Torah and yet are torn by strife and acrimony. Despite the glow of the Shabbos lights, despite family members’ adherence to the laws of kashrut and shmiras Shabbos, if you are close enough you can hear loud, angry voices spewing vile words – words that build walls of hatred and shut the gates of the heart.
How can that be? you ask. Where is the Torah? Where is the protective wall that should have shielded the house from the evils of the street?
My husband, Rabbi Meshulem HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, would explain it all through a story:
A soap manufacturer came to a rabbi and said, “Rabbi, your Torah teachings are of no avail. I see so many out there who claim to be observant, but they are mean and miserable.”
The rabbi invited him to take a stroll in the park. He took him to the children’s playground and said, “Your soap is useless. It is of no avail. Look at those children – they are all dirty, covered with sand and mud!”
“What are you talking about?” the soap manufacturer retorted indignantly. “My soap is perfect, but these kids have been playing in the dirt and have yet to use it.”
“That’s exactly right.” the rabbi responded. “Our Torah is perfect, but there are many out there playing in the dirt and they have yet to use the powerful, cleansing force of our Torah!”
This story perfectly illustrates the fact that there are people who go through the motions of observance but it is something else again for them to allow the Torah to mold their lives and, yes, cleanse them.
The great sage of Mussar, Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, taught that for some people it is easier to learn an entire tractate of Talmud than to change even one character trait. Bad middos that are allowed to fester soon become ingrained and almost impossible to extricate. Too often, despite intense therapy and admonishment, these traits remain unchanged. For example, if someone is a ba’al ka’as – has an uncontrollable temper – he will succumb to that negative character trait despite all his promises to change. His words are empty, without substance. Perhaps for a few days he will appear to be different, but it is only an appearance, and in no time at all he will be back to his old ways. So it is that an angry secular person may become a shomer Shabbos angry person, and this holds true for all other character aberrations.
There is a well-known story of a cat that is trained to walk on its hind legs holding a tray with its front paws. One day, it sees some mice – and in no time at all it is chasing the mice on all fours. The lesson is obvious. Parents who wish to build solid families and enjoy loving relationships with their children must become living role models of the Torah and mitzvot that they preach.
The Shabbos candles are symbols of peace, but if those symbols are to have meaning they must be reflected in the words and actions of those who are living in that house. To make this change in our homes, to turn ourselves over and become real Torah people, is not an option but a life and death priority. The very lives of our families are at stake.
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You must log in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:04342b56-a7d4-4d17-a2c3-17d71a0bae3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishpress.com/judaism/rebbetzins-viewpointrebbetzin-jungreis/mothers-fathers-and-the-curse-of-family-breakdowns/2012/09/25/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972525 | 930 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Did anyone show up an hour late for church on Sunday? There seems to be a correlation between the beginning of Daylight Saving Time and the number of excuses people conjure up for being an hour late.
Possibly the only person on the planet who feels this way, I like DST — for as long as it lasts. It represents a half year of an extra hour of daylight at a time when the days are getting longer anyway. My oldest son, Stan, who lives way in the northern European climes, laments — with some justification — about winter days when the sun rises around 10 a.m., stops and thinks about it for a few hours, and goes back into hiding at 3:30.
And in the summer, just the opposite happens.
Well now, Martha Johnsen, whose daily morning talk-and-music program includes a mixture of folk wisdom and humor, lamented losing that precious hour of sleep when she needed to report for work an hour earlier than accustomed.
Well OK, Martha, but it’s not as if the hour’s gone forever and suddenly we’re living through 23-hour days. We get the hour back in the evening, when we’re able to ride our bikes and fire up our grills. We don’t lengthen a blanket by cutting a foot off the bottom and sewing it to the top.
My son’s dogs, Hera and Zeus, must really be informed, as they began their vespertine barking right on time, around 8 p.m., just as it was getting dark.
And talk about smart: During last summer’s dog days, Hera and Zeus simply collapsed on our front porch, next to a large analog thermometer that showed 97 degrees, way too hot for Las Vegas, the place that used to be called “The city of blanket nights.”
The dogs’ smartness should be obvious. We never explained to them that 97 degrees is brutally uncomfortable for man and beast, but yet just by looking at the thermometer, the dogs realized they’d best try to get some sleep in the shade of the porch.
• • •
We Trujillos must never be allowed to hide Easter eggs. Why? Because we do too good a job: nobody can ever find them. The same goes for important papers, like car titles and warranty deeds. We take them out of their file folders and put the documents in a safe place so we can have them handy when we need them.
The result is that we hide them even from ourselves. Such was the case just recently when we simply had to have important documents for our visit with Social Security. The papers were nowhere to be found.
We called the County Clerk’s office, where one of the office workers, deputy clerk Michelle Padilla, located the official documents and had copies waiting for us.
County Clerk Melanie Rivera certainly knows how to pick her office crew. Wouldn’t it be great if every public servant were as helpful and competent as Michelle Padilla?
• • •
Each week, the Optic inserts a soft-news, Parade-like supplement, American Profile.
Las Vegas gets a regional edition that highlights things of interest to this area.
The latest issue of American Profile mentions Carla Gomez’s Tapetes de Lana, in Mora.
The clipping says, “Tapetes de Lana, a nonprofit organization started in 1998 by Carla Gomez, is reviving northern New Mexico’s weaving industry. Inside the group’s spinning mill in Mora County (pop. 5,180), artisans craft locally produced raw wool into shawls, scarves, rugs, blankets and other textiles.”
Gomez also began Tapetes de Lana in Las Vegas, now the Travelers Cafe, on the Plaza. Many locals, of course, know about this laid-back coffee-and-snack location next to the Plaza Park, but somehow it’s even nicer when an enterprise that started here and has spread to the Mora Valley receives a citation in a national publication.
Art Trujillo is a copy editor at the Optic and a contributing member of the newspaper’s Editorial Board. He may be reached by calling 425-6796 or by e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:1d58f01f-e222-4c10-9a4e-8f6bd252ef6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lasvegasoptic.com/content/work-art-can-we-recover-lost-hour | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950555 | 921 | 1.5 | 2 |
|VideoIQ's surveillance system acts as a digital guard and provides instant alerts and security protection
Apart from arson creating a constant source of concern, one of the biggest problems in Malmö was vandals breaking windows and glass panes. At one point over 600 glass panes were smashed at one school which cost 1.2 million SEK. Some students contributed to the chaotic atmosphere at the schools by regularly pulling fire alarms, causing everyone in the school to immediately evacuate while the fire department surveyed the scene, only to determine there wasn’t a threat. With each incident, feelings of anxiety and worries grew as learning time in the classroom was negatively impacted.
Without a security system or other mechanism, the school had to move forward and find a way to protect the staff and students and identify the culprits. To meet that need, Malmö municipality contacted a number of different integrators to discuss the purchase and installation of a state-of-the-art surveillance system. Responsible persons, working for the city of Malmö believed that the amount of money being spent to repair property damage caused by arson and vandalism could be far better spent on things like new computers and technology for the students, or on field trips. They sought something that would help prevent crime while allowing them to save considerable money.
"VideoIQ's self-learning technology is a great asset because the system recognises viable threats immediately and accurately"
The right solution for the schools came in the form of video surveillance cameras mounted at strategic, highly trafficked places across five schools. It was critical, however, that the solution didn’t just consist of “dumb” cameras that passively record events while acts of crime go undetected. Said Johan Eklund, “While recording events could help provide forensic evidence after an incident had taken place, Malmo wanted to be proactive and address potential security issues before they happened. We looked for an intelligent analytics system that would serve as the ‘front line’ for the schools since they did not have any security guards on-site.”
After testing and comparing different analytics, Malmö city along with the chosen integrator decided to use VideoIQ’s HD Intelligent Video Analytics Engine along with other VCA products. It acts as a digital guard, providing instant alerts and security protection across nearly any environment or condition, including bad weather and at night. The technology is in use at thousands of customer sites around the world and is recognised for its ability to transform passive video surveillance into a dynamic, real-time and proactive system for early warning and security protection.
CCTV-Systems AB is the Scandinavian distributor for VideoIQ. Daniel Venhammar at CCTV-Systems said, “The VideoIQ HD system continuously watches for security threats across all of the cameras at all of the schools. When an intruder comes onto the property, the system instantly alerts the staff at Malmö City PSAP which then can contact police, firefighters or other emergency responders.
“The combination of VideoIQ’s next-generation analytics and remote guards is the ideal approach to minimise costs while maximising security protection,” said Scott Schnell, president and CEO of VideoIQ. “Our technology works properly and reliably in any weather, is simple to install and has been in use for years at schools, chemical sites, water facilities, border crossings, and many other companies that want to keep their most prized assets safe.”
The city of Malmö also chose VideoIQ for its self-learning capabilities which enable it to learn and get smarter with each incident detected. The analytics watches and learns its environment, as well as movement patterns of motion, so that it immediately can distinguish between a person, automobile, cat, tree, or any other object. Additionally, the system responds to rules established by the user, enabling a high level of customization and specificity to minimise false alarms and improve accuracy.
“VideoIQ’s self-learning technology is a great asset because the system recognises viable threats immediately and accurately, which reduces the number of false alarms generated. This allows security personnel to respond only when needed, saving the city of Malmö much time, energy and money,” said Venhammar.
The self-learning capabilities were not the only user-friendly feature that VideoIQ offers. VideoIQ is the only video analytics technology without required calibration at installation and when there are changes to the seasons. The integrator found the system to be extremely easy and fast to install, without any lengthy testing or set-up time required. VideoIQ’s plug-and-play approach saves the integrator considerable effort, while ensuring very reliable protection, says Venhammar.
Another reason to choose VideoIQ’s Analytics is that their Encoder can work with any type of stationary analog PTZ or other video camera — whether color, black and white, thermal or ones that use infrared illumination. The ability to support a heterogeneous camera environment was essential since the cameras used by the Malmö schools come from a variety of camera manufacturers and vendors.
After just one year of having the security system in place, the municipality of Malmö reduced costs by an astounding 90 percent and the city saved 3 million SEK on a reduction in smashed panes and broken glass alone. Venhammar said, “Malmö’s expenses were improved within a very short space of time. They now have more money which can be used to make other needed improvements at the schools. The security system is seen as an investment and one that will help reduce crime for years to come.”
Additionally, the number of false alarms has been reduced dramatically and both school personnel and students feel safer. Several teachers have reported an improved school environment and the children find it easier to concentrate on their studies.
“CCTV-Systems goal is to offer effective solutions that improve security while increasing profitability. VideoIQ’s intelligent security products are an important part of this equation and we are proud to provide the city of Malmö with a reliable, effective and easy-to-manage security system,” said Venhammar.
The system currently consist of more than 300 cameras spread over 20 schools in the city of Malmö and is one of Europe’s biggest VideoIQ systems. | <urn:uuid:890e5445-f745-4d7e-b2d3-90d620e3b445> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sourcesecurity.com/markets/education/application/co-3802-ga.2014.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956443 | 1,299 | 1.734375 | 2 |
COLOMBO: In the strongest reaction yet to India's contentious support to a US sponsored resolution at the UNHRC against Sri Lanka earlier this year, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has broken his silence by calling upon the Indian government to have a relook at its dealings with its neighbours.
In a freewheeling interaction with TOI at his Temple Trees residence in Colombo, his first full-length interview since India's vote for the resolution in March, Rajapaksa suggested that India could be abdicating its leadership role in the region.
Rajapaksa, in fact, did not fully agree with India's contention that it had helped tone down the resolution against alleged human rights abuses, saying that if India had continued with its support to Sri Lanka, there may not have been any resolution against his country at all.
"Any good intentions and actions are always appreciated. But I must add that if India stood by us and supported Sri Lanka's request for more time and space, who knows, there may not have been a resolution at all," the president said when told how PM Manmohan Singh had himself intervened to make the resolution "non-intrusive".
"The region looks up to India but India must examine itself whether or not it is doing the right thing in dealing with its neighbours... what they are doing is the best thing or not," Rajapaksa said. This was in reply to a question about India's vote and how it seemed to have fuelled an anti-India sentiment in the island nation. "All I can say is that we are not a nation and people without feelings. India and Sri Lanka share common cultural and historic values and so we can feel deeply about such moves," he elaborated.
However, he stressed that the two countries needed to move on, saying that he didn't see the vote as changing the dynamics of ties between the two countries. "Past is past, let's look at the future now," he said, reiterating his comment in the past that Indians will remain like "relations" and that the two countries remain "much more than good neighbours''.
The president also brushed aside the issue of growing Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka, one of New Delhi's pressing concerns, describing it as paranoia. In fact, taking a swipe at India for its own burgeoning trade ties with China, the president said, "The way India is doing business with China, Sri Lanka is not."
"Whether it is Sri Lanka's exports or imports, wholesale business or investment in land and hotels, it is India which is the main power involved. It is only India which is involved in the telecom sector too," he said, adding that Sri Lanka will not hurt India's interests in the region and that any such fear was unfounded.
Rajapaksa, however, did not give any assurance on whether or not the Chinese will be given operational control of projects like Hambantota port and airport which they are building. It is well known that Hambantota was first offered to India but the president confirmed that even in the case of Colombo port, the contract for which went to a Hong Kong-based company, it was India which did not show any interest.
"India could have participated in the tender but it did not. These are commercial interests and not a sign of any Sri Lankan strategic drift," he said.
However, he acknowledged the help from the Chinese in decisively ending the conflict in 2009. "When we had to fight the most brutal terrorist outfit in the world, we had to buy arms and ammunition from legal entities that were ready to sell them to us at the best terms," he said.
"It is important to look at things in the right perspective and not rush to conclusions. India has undertaken to build the northern Kankesanturai harbour as China builds at Hambantota in the south. India is also rebuilding Palaly airport in the north," he said. He described India's decision to allow the sacred Kapilavastu relics to travel to Sri Lanka for the first time since 1978 as a gesture that will be regarded with highest esteem and gratitude.
Following is the full interview:
The end of the conflict in May 2009 was described by both countries as a historic opportunity to work towards genuine national reconciliation. After 18 rounds of dialogue with the TNA, the negotiations have ended abruptly. Could you please tell us who, according to you, is responsible for the current stalemate?
The fact that we have had so many rounds of dialogue shows our commitment to reach a suitable consensus. We are always ready to continue the dialogue with the TNA and any others who may have views that could be expressed and shared. We have categorically stated that all these discussions could be had at the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and the TNA must make every effort to come to the PSC.
As late as May 2011, when your foreign minister came to India, a joint statement issued by the 2 countries said that a devolution package, building upon the 13th amendment, would create conditions for genuine reconciliation. But the insistence on PSC is being seen by India as another flip-flop by your government over the issue.
You have given the answer in your question, when you referred to the reference in the joint statement of May 2011 that "building upon the 13th Amendment, would create conditions for genuine reconciliation." That is what we are seeking to achieve through the Parliamentary Select Committee. One must not forget that we are in a functioning democracy, and that Parliament is the supreme legislature. Whatever discussions we have with the TNA or any others, the final decision will have to be taken by Parliament. That is why we consider it best to arrive at a solution through a Parliamentary Select Committee, which will make it a more genuine and workable consensus.
You said on Sri Lanka's Independence Day this year that all parties should participate in PSC and not rely on "imported solutions'' and "foreign influences''. Is India not justified in believing that your commitment to the 13th amendment is wavering despite TNA leaders having declared they want a solution only within the framework of a united Sri Lanka.
There is no justification for any consideration that our commitment to the 13 Amendment is wavering. I am glad that the TNA now speaks of wanting a solution within the framework of a united Sri Lanka. But their thinking and strategy as shown at their most recent conference at Batticaloa was a call for its old agenda, when the LTTE was dictating terms to them. These matters must be clarified. That I believe is the democratic approach.
LLRC, which was set up by your own government to look into allegations of war crime from 2002 to 2009, made some very positive recommendations for national reconciliation but again your government has done little to move forward. Why are these recommendations not been implemented?
This shows a wrong understanding of the actual situation. We appointed the LLRC in May 2010, just one year after the armed conflict ended. Few other countries, if any, have acted so fast in on such an issue. The LLRC submitted its report last November and in December, just a month later, the same was submitted to Parliament. We have also made it available to the whole world by placing it on the web. A Task Force headed by the Secretary to the President was appointed by the Cabinet in May this year to prepare an action plan to monitor the implementation of the 285 recommendations contained in Chapter 9 of the LLRC report. The Task Force presented their action plan to the Cabinet on 19th July 2012 and the Cabinet has approved this plan. It has also been made available to the media, the diplomatic missions and also placed on our websites. We are giving priority to those that can be implemented soonest. Surely, how can it be said that the recommendations are not being implemented? Are we not entitled to due process in this matter? Does any country implement such a wide ranging report the moment it is presented, without proper study as to how best it has to be and can be done? The LLRC was appointed on the basis of restorative justice, instead of retributive Justice. We must ensure that this restorative process does take place.
Why are you not doing enough for the demilitarization of northern Sri Lanka? Almost 70 per cent of your forces are still stationed there. What are you doing about sensitive issues like high security zones, list of missing people and election in the Northern Province?
To say that almost 70 percent of our forces are still deployed in northern Sri Lanka is what the LTTE rump disseminates in their malicious propaganda against the Govt of Sri Lanka. It certainly is not true. Also, I think this is not a well thought out use of the word "demilitarization". We are recovering from a ruthless armed conflict, carried out by terrorists that lasted three decades. We have steadily reduced the number of troops in the North. In December 2009, the troop strength in Jaffna was 27,000. The current figure, as at June this year is 15,000.This could hardly be the sign of continuing militarization. This is in fact a studied lowering of military presence as conditions and circumstances permit. I believe you are not aware of the numbers still engaged in de-mining activities? Why do you not look at the role they play in development work in the North, to keep up with our massive investment in infra-structure in that region? Are you not aware of the large amounts of hidden arms still being found in the North? Also, are you not aware of the incitement to violence that is being done by the pro-LTTE groups who are living abroad, especially in the West? Are we not entitled to be cautious of what these well-funded groups may do, looking at the experience of the past three decades?I must add that if not for the Armed Forces personnel, the massive post conflict development would not have taken place.
India's leader of opposition in the lower House, Sushma Swaraj, who led a parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka this year, said the opposition and government in India, as indeed the people of India, are together over the issue of political settlement. She also expressed concern over the lack of development on the issue of reconciliation. Does your government realize that what is happening in your country is no longer an emotive issue only for a particular state in India?
I had a good exchange of views with Hon. Sushma Swaraj. If you say that the people of India, with the many regional and other problems they have, are together over the issue of a political settlement here, I must say that the people of Sri Lanka are also together on the same issue. The observations she made to the media here were most encouraging. We are moving towards reconciliation. I have already told you about the LLRC. It would be good to know the progress we are making in the area of bringing the Tamil language to the administration. There is a marked increase in numbers of Tamils and Tamil speaking Muslims in the Police Service, especially in the North & East. This is so in the Civil Defence Force too, and many Tamils are also showing eagerness to join the armed forces. These are all aspects of reconciliation. Our governmentis fully aware of the feelings in India and we are most aware that it is an emotive issue that is strongly manipulated by the political forces in a particular state thatyou did not, or preferred not to mention.
Did it hurt when India voted for the US backed resolution at the UN Human Rights Council and why do you think India did it?
All I can say is that we are not a nation and people without feelings. India and Sri Lanka share common cultural and historic values, so we can feel deeply about such moves. But it does not alter our friendship and good relations. I trust there is no change in the dynamic of the relations between our two countries. The visit of Indian Ministers and key officials including the National Security Advisor did not show that in any way. Our position was that Sri Lanka needed time and space to resolve issues that have accumulated due to a long drawn conflict that became the hurdle for our development.
While India voted in favour of the resolution, truth is that PM Manmohan Singh himself took interest in ensuring that the language of UNHRC the resolution was diluted making it ``non intrusive'' and that it wasn't a monitoring mechanism. Also, do you think India is being influenced heavily by the US in conducting its foreign policy?
I think it is best to move away from this resolution, which is done and over. What is necessary is to go beyond that. Any good intentions and actions are always appreciated. But I must add that if India stood by us and supported Sri Lanka's request for more time and space, who knows, there may not have been a resolution at all. The region looks up to India and India must examine itself whether or not it is doing the right thing in dealing with its neighbours...what they are doing is the best thing or not.
There is a concern within the Indian establishment that Colombo, whose growing proximity to China is no secret, may now decide to have what it believes is a more realist policy orientation rather than non-aligned.
I think it is necessary to state very clearly that Sri Lanka remains fully committed to being a non-aligned state. Non-alignment is a policy that we shall follow, even in the absence of the old power blocs, and also taking the new geo-political realities into consideration. We recognize that India is a land of considerable importance to Sri Lanka. But I think the many fears that the Indian establishment may be having, as you state, about Sri Lanka's growing relations with China are unfounded. Yes, there is increased Chinese investment in Sri Lanka. These are all commercial transactions. We need to catch up with our lost development opportunities of a three decade period and we need to explore funding sources that make low cost funds available to us.
China is building not just Hambantota port but also Colombo terminal, roads, railways and power plants. Many in India believe that this is aimed at undermining India's natural influence in the region and that it can be a long-term economic and security threat for India. What assurances can you give to India, if at all, about not hurting India's interests in the region with this strategic drift towards Beijing?
China's recent investments in Sri Lanka far preceded the UNHRC vote. It is necessary to look at these matters in the correct perspective and not rush to conclusions. India has undertaken to build the northern Kankesanturai Harbour, while China builds at Hambantota in the Southern extreme. India will be rebuilding and expanding the Palaly Airport in the North. India is investing in the Sampur Coal Fired Power Plant in the East. India is also building the railways in the North and South. Who undertakes development in the Colombo Port that is much needed, has been decided on a global tender, and it is a Hong Kong based company that won the contract. It is wrong to say that Sri Lanka offered these contracts to China. India too could have participated in this tender. But they did not. Let me tell you that these are commercial interests and not in any way related to a "strategic drift" that you mention. When we had to fight the most brutal terrorist outfit in the world, yes, we had to buy arms and ammunition from legal entities that were ready to sell them to us at the best terms. Sri Lanka has no reason to do anything that would hurt India's interests in this region. There is no rationale for us to do such things, and we also believe that India also would not do anything that would harm Sri Lanka. Our best neighbourly relations will remain, and there are many more areas for investment that India could be interested in.
What is your response to concerns in India about your allowing other countries to explore oil and gas in the region? China already has many oil survey ships operating in the region.
Our energy requirements keep increasing and to find oil within in our own ocean region will be a great boon. I see no reasons whatever for concern by India at our allowing other countries to explore for oil in this region. The company that is doing the initial work now is one that has a large presence in India, too. One must not forget that we did make the first offer of oil exploration sites in the Mannar Basin to India. So what is the need for any concern?
India and Sri Lanka were the first to sign a free trade agreement in South Asia in the late 90s and so it is strange that the proposal for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) has not yet come into effect. India, in fact, continues to wait for you to make up your mind. What are the constraints which are preventing you from going ahead?
I do not think that is a correct assessment. Discussions at the official level have been going on for quite some time. There are areas which are very complex and such matters take time to be resolved. I think anything hurried will not yield desired results. There must be in depth analysis of all possible issues that may not surface now, but many years later. Then only any agreement becomes meaningful to both stakeholders.
There have been some talks recently in Sri Lanka about lowering of imports from India.
There is no official policy on these lines, specific to India. There is always talk of lowering imports, this is inevitable. Like any other country Sri Lanka will look at the possibilities of import substitution. This will not apply to India alone. We must narrow our trade gap. We must produce in our country what we can best produce. In fact India may be able to help us in this, to mutual benefit. There is nothing in our thinking of lowering imports from India alone.
India's line of credit to Sri Lanka is close to a billion dollars. It has also given about $ 350 million in grants and aids apart from making massive reconstruction and development efforts in the north and east. As a goodwill gesture, it has decided to allow the sacred Kapilavastu relics to travel to Sri Lanka later this year. It has rarely made an exception like that for any other country. Do you think India has done enough to fulfil Sri Lanka's expectations from its, geographically at least, most significant neighbour?
India has done a great deal in this regard. Its contributions in fulfilling Sri Lanka's expectations are many. Allowing the sacred Kapilavastu relics to be brought to Sri Lanka is a gesture that will always be regarded with the highest esteem and gratitude. I am glad that my request to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during my last visit to India bore fruit. This underscores our close relations through the centuries, especially the links through Buddhism. India's grants and aid for construction and development especially in the conflict affected areas is most encouraging and helpful in our efforts to move on the path of development in peace and reconciliation. All of this emphasises India's role as our closest and most significant neighbour, to use your own words. | <urn:uuid:29ed1ea9-8f71-4494-87e5-cb566dd158cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.timesofindia.com/PDATOI/articleshow/15439847.cms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977076 | 3,899 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Don't let tax help overtax your budget
Millions of people will overpay to file their taxes this year. Don't be one of them.
This post comes from Stacy Johnson at partner site Money Talks News.
Imagine owning a business where you charge people $50 to $200 to do something they could just as easily get totally free.
You would think such a business would be bankrupt in minutes, but you'd be wrong. Tax preparation and software services rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every year for tax help that could be had for nothing.
The simple fact is that if you made less than $49,000 last year, you can have your taxes prepared and electronically filed by a trained volunteer without cost. If you made up to $57,000, you can have your taxes prepared online and filed electronically for free. And no matter how much you made, if you're willing to fill out online forms, you can also file free.
Which means millions of Americans are potentially shelling out millions of dollars needlessly every tax season.
Watch the following 90-second news story I did on this subject, then meet me on the other side for details.
Let's recap those options and provide you some links:
Inncome less than $49,000 in 2009: Free in-person help. Check with Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. There are thousands of VITA sites in places like churches, community centers, libraries, schools, malls and military bases, as well as in some IRS offices. To find one near you, just go to a search engine and type "VITA sites" along with your city or state. In my state (Florida) there are 79 pages of VITA sites. So finding one isn't tough. There are a few limitations, however, so check out this list of criteria for free preparation to make sure you qualify.
- Bing:VITA sites
Over 60: Free in-person help. If you're over 60 with low to middle income, AARP also has thousands of places you can go for free preparation and filing. You do not have to belong to AARP. To find a site, just go to this AARP Web page and put in your ZIP code.
Income less than $57,000: Free online preparation and electronic filing. If you make too much for VITA and/or aren't old enough for AARP, you can still have your taxes prepared and filed for free online. According to the IRS, 70% of American taxpayers -- 98 million people -- qualify. If you made $57,000 or less, head to this page on the IRS Web site. When you get there, you'll be asked to provide some basic information, then you can select from any number of companies that participate in the program.
Most companies will charge you to prepare your state tax return, however, and prices are all over the place. Some charge $15 and some $40. So shop around.
Special note for those who made more than $57,000 last year: While the companies you find at the free preparation and filing site won't file your taxes free, this list is a good place to comparison shop online preparation options. For example, I found several sites that claim to prepare and file your federal income taxes for less than 10 bucks. That's a lot better deal than the heavily advertised tax software you find at retailers this time of year.
Any income: Free filing with online forms. If all you need to do is fill in online forms -- in other words, you don't need any advice from either a person or an electronic preparation program -- you can prepare and electronically file your taxes absolutely free. Here's the IRS Free File Fillable Forms site. While no advice is available with this option, the forms will check your math. So is your situation hasn't changed all that much from last year, you could just pull out last year's return, input this year's numbers and be done. But be aware that there's a slew of tax changes this year.Here's a link to a recent story I did that lists them. And this option doesn't offer state tax returns.
Any income: Free help. You can always get free help from the IRS by visiting an office or calling (800) 829-1040. And while it's not the easiest reading in the world, you can also find a lot of answers by doing a search at irs.gov.
I've been doing tax stories on TV for nearly 20 years. And I've asked employees of our nation's largest tax preparation services if they feel any guilt over charging their customers for services they could be getting free elsewhere. Their response? Nope: It's the responsibility of customers to explore their options.
Now you know your options. Don't waste your money. And share this story with your friends. Let's all save some cash, use it to pay down debt and make our lives less taxing.
Related reading at Money Talks News:
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Separation of mosque and state
|Azrul Mohd Khalib works on HIV/AIDS, sex and human rights issues. He is becoming cynical and is in danger of losing his sense of humour and mind. He also runs and is battling an addiction to the "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series. Azrul can be contacted at [email protected]|
APRIL 12 — I was at first saddened and then began to be really angry (unfortunately, this is becoming more and more frequent as of late) at news of a seminar originally titled “Pemantapan Aqidah, Bahaya Liberalisme dan Pluralism Serta Ancaman Kristianisasi Terhadap Umat Islam. Apa Peranan Guru? (Strengthening the Faith, the Dangers of Liberalism and Pluralism and the Threat of Christianity towards Muslims. What is the Role of Teachers?)”, the seminar involved 300 teachers in Johor being indoctrinated on their role in strengthening the Islamic faith.
Once again, we and those who we entrust are held hostage by people who see a phantom menace in the shadows of their own inadequacies, fear and bigotry.
Explain to me how it is acceptable for a religious body to collaborate with a government agency dealing with the educating of children and young people, to organise a seminar for educators with the intent to cultivate fear, distrust and suspicion of another faith.
How can we tolerate people educating our children to point their fingers at a group of people of a different faith and say that, because of who they are and based on unsubstantiated accusations of proselytisation, they are a threat to us and our way of life?
Unless I am wrong, Muslim and non-Muslim taxpayers pay for the salaries of the officials of the Johor Mufti Department, the Jabatan Agama Islam Johor and the Johor Education Department. How is this sort of seminar acceptable or even tolerated? This seminar was allowed to continue, with no censure or rebuke uttered by the government. Many have therefore concluded that this was a government sanctioned event.
Not too long ago, I wrote about religious fascism in Malaysia. The fact that this seminar targeted educators suggests an insidious motive and agenda on the part of the organisers. By targeting the teachers of our national schools, they are aiming to inculcate their prejudicial and bigoted values into the students of these schools. These students are our children. Why are we allowing this to happen?
Make no mistake. Islam in Malaysia is not under attack by the Christians or any other faith. It has nothing to do with Islam and being a Muslim. But what was done that Saturday and other similar activities have everything to do with bigotry and the need to dominate and subdue others.
Being conservative is not a bad thing. But these people give conservatives and Muslims a bad name.
Religious leaders are expected to behave in a way as befits the position entrusted to him by his congregation and community. By fanning the flames of paranoia and distrust, they betray this trust. They undermine the spirit of harmony, co-existence and social contract in which Malaysia was and continues to be built upon.
The unrepentant behaviour and sentiments of the Johor Mufti Datuk M. Tahrir Kiai Samsudin and his department are extremely regrettable and does not reflect in the majority of Muslims in this country. We need to denounce their dogma, reject their hate and let them know that they do not speak for us.
The administration of religion may have been a state affair but the federal government was entirely within its right to instruct the 300 teachers to not attend such a seminar. Yet, the Ministry of Education did not do so.
The deafening silence from both the prime minister and the education minister is unacceptable.
It was also disappointing that the best that the head of the Special Committee to Promote Inter-Religious Understanding and Harmony, Datuk Azman Amin Hassan, could manage was a change in the title of the seminar. The seminar should have been cancelled. The issue was also not resolved as he believed.
The title may have changed but the “niat” or intent as well as the content remained in the spirit of the original. This clearly suggests that when a group wields the bludgeon of the Islamic faith, we are helpless, impotent and must comply. They feel no need for apology. They believe that they have done no wrong.
Maybe this is exactly why the founding fathers of the United States of America found it necessary to ensure the separation of church and state. It was to protect and prevent individual faiths such as Islam from being abused and misused by persons and entities intent of using one’s religious beliefs to dominate, impose, bludgeon, intimidate, subdue and threaten others.
In our country, we find that a small minority of unelected individuals who bestow upon themselves as champions of the faith and feel that they are unaccountable to anyone, are basically attempting to hijack relations and sow distrusts and fear between communities particularly between Muslims and Christians. They have intruded into public policy making far beyond their scope and mandate of religious affairs. Where and when does it stop? Where is the separation of mosque and state?
The paranoia that exists is one of our own making. We have allowed a group of ill-informed, ignorant and bigoted individuals to lead us down the yellow brick road towards their vision of a future where one ethnic group and one faith dominates above all.
The original seminar title clearly indicates that the organisers saw pluralism as a threat to Muslims in this country. They don’t believe in pluralism and diversity. They don’t believe in a modern Malaysia. So why are we allowing them to be in the driver’s seat?
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. | <urn:uuid:502dc068-5d44-4b11-b039-9761b2866864> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/opinion/article/separation-of-mosque-and-state/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966606 | 1,216 | 1.710938 | 2 |
With weak employment reports in the U.S ., lackluster growth numbers in China and the seemingly endless euro-zone crisis, the global economic outlook is decidedly gloomy.
For investors trying to protect themselves from the gathering storm, currency investing — especially through exchange traded funds, — can play an important role, says Laurence Wormald, head of research at SunGardAPT.
“They are good hedges for investors who aren’t able to play directly in the currency markets ,” through futures or other instruments, he says.
There are more opportunities to express bullish economic views than bearish ones through currency ETFs, but investors looking for protection from a downturn still have reasonable options.
The key is to focus on currencies that are behaving like safe havens — strengthening when the news is bad, and vice versa. These days, given the debt turmoil in the E.U., that would be the dollar and the Japanese yen.
Gary Gordon, president of Pacific Park Financial, an investment advisory firm, says he is “not buying anything at the moment until the world rights its ship." But for investors who do want to trade on a bearish view of the global economy, he suggests the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund, which tracks a widely used dollar index, and CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust, a pure play on the yen.
Michael Rawson, an ETF analyst at Morningstar, also points to the Powershares dollar ETFs — there is a Bearish Fund as well as the Bullish Fund — as options for taking a position on the global economy. But he has mixed feelings on their structure.
Both track the U.S. dollar index, which is based on a trade-weighted basket developed in the 1970s by the Federal Reserve . Rawson points out that those weightings don’t really reflect current trade balances: for example, there is no emerging-market component, and “the dollar bullish version has a 57 percent weight toward the euro.”
With all that's going wrong in the euro zone , that may not be what investors want in a currency safe haven.
Until last year, the Swiss franc also tended to perform like a safe haven when economic times got tough. But as the European debt crisis festered, and the Swiss franc grew more appealing by contrast, Swiss authorities tired of trying to curb their currency’s strength announced in September that they would set a floor under the currency’s relationship to the euro.
They have solved their strong-currency problem — and then some. The Swiss franc has dropped significantly as the euro has weakened, and at the moment, it is not offering a safe port in a storm.
Still, both the Swiss franc and the yen have netted gains for bearish portfolios in the past. Guggenheim’s Anthony Davidow notes that “last year at this time, there was a flight from the euro, and buying of the Swiss franc or the yen.”
Tom Lydon, chief executive of Global Trends Investments, an investment advisory firm, recommends including the CurrencyShares Swiss Franc Trust, a single-currency ETF based on the Swiss franc, in a bearish portfolio.
“With more problems popping up out of the euro-zone peripheral states, the depressed franc will again attract greater interest from safe-haven investors, especially from euro-currency holders.
"If the Swiss National Bank doesn’t step up to reign in the currency, there is a high probability that we will see another round of franc appreciation," he says. Lydon also likes the PowerShares dollar bullish fund as the best ETF play on the dollar.
However you decide to express a bearish view, it’s a good idea to include currencies — probably in the form of ETFs — in your plan.
“Many investors are going into the summer and they don’t have the stomach for the stock market any more,” says Lydon. “A way to possibly take some of that cash that you have on the side is to look at those currencies that are safe and stable.”
Disclosure: Tom Lydon is an independent director on the board that oversees some Guggenheim Investments mutual funds and non-currency ETFs. | <urn:uuid:949ab1cb-ecfb-4646-abe7-89f5587e0032> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.cnbc.com/special_reports/4/content/47619577 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954909 | 885 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Thriving, compassionate, self-motivated individuals: are you looking for a nearby school which can nurture each child to his or her potential?
BTB Advertiser Three Tree Montessori School invites you to visit its upcoming Open House on Sunday, Jan. 27th from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. View the beautiful classrooms, meet the inspiring teachers, and learn about Montessori programs for children ages one through twelve.
What makes Three Tree Montessori School a stand out? This local school was recently documented by the Department of Early Learning for use in early educator training, and is profiled in the Harvard University video shown here:
Montessori is a holistic method of education with a rich history of over 100 years. . Three Tree Montessori School is notably one of only two fully accredited Association Montessori Internationale (http://www.amiusa.org/) schools in Washington State. AMI was formed in 1929 by Dr. Maria Montessori to insure that her philosophy and approach to education would be carried on as she intended. A school that carries the AMI name is continuing the tradition of quality first established by Dr. Montessori, a tradition that incorporates standards based directly on Dr. Montessori’s work.
Imagine a school where education is viewed not just as a means to an end, but as an aid to life; where the method for learning comes not from a curriculum, but from the natural development of your child; a place where creativity, innovation, and individuality are valued as much as concentration, motivation, and persistence; where your child is not just a student, but also a teacher.
To give you an idea of what Three Tree Montessori School is like, here’s a slideshow:
Three Tree Montessori School is located at 220 SW 160th Street (206-242-5100); for more info visit www.threetree.org. | <urn:uuid:ad3d4b09-70f2-4364-9e86-a5bbeaac66ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://b-townblog.com/event/advertiser-three-tree-montessori-school-holding-open-house-sunday-jan-27/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967892 | 402 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Think in ways you've never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.
Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying in his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.
When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.
There are so many poems that I don't write. They just sit and hum the hymn of the ignored in my broad heart. I pet them like a cat. I whisper them down to sleep. Someday they will be yours.
And somewhere inside of my mind is a map. A cartographer's pretty daydream. You would grow dizzy if you tried to follow your finger across the zig zag witchcraft of the haphazard travels of my heart.
It's like a hot pinch.
A summer myth.
It's the middle of the year.
The summit of everything.
Your hair smells like the sun.
There is heat and there is light.
I live in the midsummer skeleton of the year.
let's just put on the Rolling Stones
you can't always get what you want
and hope that we look
back and forth
and around the corner
with a Jagger smirk
with a pirate smile
let's shake our fist at the future
the sun was an assault rifle at our
I told you useless facts
like Kiefer Sutherland has one blue eye and one green eye
like the king of hearts is the only king without a moustache
like children grow faster in the springtime
and I knew you wanted to pull over and throw me down on the green grass
on the berm
and kiss me until I fell to pieces
we laughed and the air around us was warm
I put on lip gloss and your arm looked tan
I want her to give me more direction. A map. A silver compass. But she doesn't. She gives me food and we listen to elastic beats from her stereo while the sun drops like a penny into the hillside behind her house. I whisper to myself while I walk home. I make up a song that distracts me from myself. I sing it to the moon.
sun hot drained pools
skaters with bleach tip bangs
tan legs for miles
& I didn't know nostalgia yet
just the feeling of missing you
when you were gone
the way you held me like Ohio
home like a lost soul
the way you pulled my hair
and showed me what I liked
I've memorized it.
I give myself gold stars when I can recite it without sighs.
I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.
there are no coincidences
I know things happen
(for a reason)
the word spins
like an old drunk on a barstool
meaningful connections are just walking around out in the sun
and you are a shiny universally understood symbol
The Ohio River calls me home as summer lifts her dress to us all.
There are old men on the side of the highway with berries and red, fat tomatoes.
Arms hang out of car windows.
Motorcycles speed past.
There is so much green.
I turn towards you and ask you to walk with me.
I show you my Appalachian heart. | <urn:uuid:9cc7a4c8-20e5-4f42-a828-e56a3db2cb11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://amyturnsharp.com/blog/?currentPage=233 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954093 | 779 | 1.648438 | 2 |
This type of rhetoric is simply outlandish crap:
"For many people, even for me, it was a kind of flashback to what happened to us," said Patricio Bascunan, president of the Casa Salvador Allende Cultural Society of Toronto.
He was referring to the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile with an iron first from 1973 to 1990. Many of Toronto's 10,000-plus Chileans, Bascunan said, came to Canada as exiles during Pinochet's regime.
"There are so many people here for political reasons. And we remember the repression of the police and the army," he said.
"The disappointment of the people is unbelievable. People say, `That reminds me what happened to me with the police in Chile. And I never thought it would happen here.'"
Yes, Pinochet returns, on the streets of Toronto. Good grief.
Apparently, several Chilean players will be unable to participate in the match Sunday, due to injuries sustained during the brawl. If I can make my own diagnosis, "strained" political relations seems to be the common injury:
Chile's consul general, Ricardo Plaza, says several of the Chilean soccer players who were injured in Thursday night's post-match brawl with Toronto police, will not be able to play in Sunday's bronze medal soccer match against Austria because of injuries sustained in the clash.
Plaza said he did not know how many players were severely injured.
Severly injured? On Friday, the Chilean soccer official said all players could play on Sunday. I wonder why there no is evidence of any medical attention required, in the aftermath of the Pinochet-like brutality? I actually saw two Chilean players showing their injuries(during the game?) to the cameras- one had a horrific, slightly inflamed lip, the other a bruise the size of a loonie, akin to one my four year olds incurs daily. Apparently, loved ones are being rushed to the player's bed sides. God's speed.
What is happening here, the Chileans have decided that not fielding a full side on Sunday will solidify the perception that they are victims. After watching the dreadful display of football, is it really surprising that we see reaction that is less than honorable?
What we have here is a bunch of punkish, prima donna players, notorious sore losers, that don't seem willing to accept any responsiblity for their voluntary actions. The only "victim" here, that I can find, is Canada's reputation. | <urn:uuid:4a801d65-1ad1-45f0-a138-9677460a69e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://farnwide.blogspot.com/2007/07/victim-card.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97519 | 526 | 1.546875 | 2 |
March 17, 2010
The Experience of the Dark
When the sun set in the Old World, people were in the dark.
They perforce “went to bed with the chickens”, in a phrase still used in rural communities. Most could afford no candle or oil lamp; for a few there might be at best a faint glow from the expertly banked embers of a hearth fire. Practically nobody in our modern world is in the dark they way that everybody then was in the dark. I mean really in the dark—no circuit breaker, no flashlight, no matches, no blue cell-phone glow, no vaguely lucid penumbra of distant city’s lights. The electrification of rural America was still in progress in my youngest days, spent on an Ozark farm where the only nocturnal illumination came from kerosene lamps. And that was in the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt! There was electricity in the little town six miles away, and among my earliest memories was the awe of first seeing a Christmas tree decorated with lights. The social revolution that came with electricity is enshrined in one of the obiter dicta of the last century’s most famous revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” -- Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche: The Dark
Posted by Vanderleun at March 17, 2010 12:24 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out. | <urn:uuid:f44b05e6-2bd0-440d-8ef5-57bf642fa033> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americandigest.org/sidelines/2010/03/the_experience.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955418 | 312 | 1.632813 | 2 |
One of my favourite social media/bookmarking sites is digg.com and I have been asked many times over the past couple of years “what is the benefit of using digg”. Here I will endeavor to answer that very question.
What Is Digg?
Digg is an extremely popular social media bookmarking/news site where all of the content is submitted by the very people that make digg as huge as it is today…it’s users.
According to Alexa, Digg is one of the most popular websites on the internet and is viewed by almost 1% of all internet users worldwide on a daily basis.
Members of Digg are able to submit articles, videos and images from almost any website they choose (subject to the digg terms and conditions). Once a story has been submitted to digg, it will be shown in the “upcoming” section and is then able to be either “dugg” or “buried” by other digg users. Members can also comment on digg articles and some of these comments make for very entertaining reading indeed!
How Can Digg Benefit You?
If you are lucky enough for one of your articles to get enough diggs, there is a chance that your story will then make it onto the Digg Front Page where it will be seen by literally millions of viewers.
If the article in question happens to be one of your own blog/website articles, get ready for some action and be prepared for the possibility that your server may crash due to high volumes of traffic! This is where the benefit of digg can be huge to bloggers and website owners as online traffic is one of the main aims of any successful site.
The other benefit of gaining a lot of diggs on an article is the fact that each digg is actually a link back to your site.
An Example Of The Power Of A Digg Front Page
I have been a member of Digg for well over 2 years now and at the time of writing I am proud to say that I have achieved 50 front page articles on the social media giant (which takes a lot of time and effort by the way!)
Recently I submitted a very basic video to digg that I found to be quite entertaining and thought it may stand a good chance of achieving the front page….I was right, the video went on to become the most viewed article on the entire site for that particular day. You can view the video that was submitted to digg by clicking on the image below.
The article I am referring to is titled “Ladies First…And Don’t You Forget It”. Here is the front page of Digg on the day of this particular article. You will notice the article in the right sidebar under “top in all topics”.
And an exploded view of “Top In All Topics” on the Digg Front Page:
It is now 6 days after submitting that particular article and it has received approximately 1000 more diggs (backlinks) since the above screenshot, which you can see below:
How Much Traffic Can A Digg Front Page Deliver?
Traffic generated by a Digg Front Page can vary, but you could expect somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 – 60000+ unique visitors from a single front page story.
If we work on the video that I mention in this post, I have just checked the traffic that shows on the diggbar, which states that the video has received 45,160 views (this is diggbar traffic only). From experience, I know that diggbar traffic stats shows around 25% of total traffic, which means that this particular video has possibly been visited by up to 180,000 unique viewers…pretty impressive stuff to say the least!
Hopefully you will now understand why social media sites like digg can be highly beneficial to anyone who is trying to build a following to their sites. I will also mention that digg is a great way to keep up with the latest news from around the world. Have fun, happy digging and I wish you all the best in achieving your very own digg front page.
You can find me on digg as: Bullhunter | <urn:uuid:bb4fe844-d766-425a-8ec5-0a92f06c804e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seanseo.com/social-media/digg-front-page/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961417 | 871 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The splendid website ThinkinGardens hosted a discussion a while ago on sculpture in the garden. One commenter argued that a garden setting can enhance a sculpture, but that she had never seen sculpture enhance a garden. Instead ”as you drop a sculpture into a garden setting, it takes centre stage shouting ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ … The garden becomes a backdrop.”
It’s an interesting notion, and I decided to test it by an entirely unscientific trawl through my photo archives, looking for images of sculptures in gardens. These are not sculptures designed and installed at the same time as the garden, where you might expect a thoughtful balance between the two; they are pieces added subsequently, most of them as temporary exhibitions in established gardens.
First, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 16-day display The Gates in New York’s Central Park in 2005 (OK, it’s not a garden, but it’s a good match in other ways). I was lucky enough to discuss the project with its creators shortly before installation (see photo of the duo with their plans). They intended the 7,500 saffron-coloured structures weaving through the park to encourage people to look at this iconic landscape in a new way. Sadly it seemed to me not really to work. The boxy shape of the gates did offer an interesting mirror of the rectangular skyscrapers around the park, but the thousands of structures somehow seemed like they had just been plonked in the park, shouting “Look at me!” without adding any new perspectives. Here’s a more successful example from summer 2011: woven willow and chestnut structures by the American Patrick Dougherty at the chateau of Trévarez in Brittany, northwest France. Some of Dougherty’s works do undoubtedly overwhelm their surroundings, but at Trévarez it seemed to me the organic structures helped you look afresh at the garden.The shape of this temporary shelter offered a sinuous modern version of the adjacent stone building, and the windows framed surprising and pleasing views of the sumptuous planting.
Another set of willow structures, this time by Tom Hare, was installed at Kew Gardens as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations. They represent seeds – some of them more interesting than this one of a devil’s claw – and they have a nice sinuous quality. But for me they don’t really enhance our appreciation of the surrounding garden, especially with that rather naff little barrier to keep the sculpture decidedly separate from its setting.
Another temporary display in a botanical garden, with another intrusive barrier, is this 2012 example of dancing figures by Zadok Ben-David, in Singapore. The figures are smaller than you might think, much smaller than actual size, and seem somehow fiddly, and disengaged from their surroundings by that distracting chain barrier.
Here’s another figurative set of sculptures, but I think these work much more cohesively in their surroundings. These are some fine Rodin figures, installed as a temporary display in the square outside the CaixaForum art gallery in Madrid. The building is a striking mix of oxidised cast iron and brick, set off by a large Patrick Blanc vertical garden to one side. The traditional figures provided a lovely counterpoint to their contemporary setting and make us admire both the building and the green wall all the more.
A very simple example next, from Le Nôtre’s vast gardens at Sceaux, south of Paris. The sculpture by René Letourneur is not temporary, but it is a late addition – being installed around 1950 in this seventeenth century landscape. Called L’Aurore (dawn), it is positioned carefully to catch the morning light in a shady corner, and makes us notice and admire a quiet space that otherwise would get lost among the grandeur and dazzle of the rest of Sceaux.
Here’s a very different use of sculpture in a Le Nôtre garden, this one by Takashi Murakami at Versailles in 2010. I wrote at the time how much I loved the juxtaposition between the obscene extravagance of the Sun King’s palace and the mad plastic manga creations displayed incongruously in its midst. The snarling Oval Buddha in the gardens offered wonderful visual links with the gilded fountains and gates of Le Nôtre’s great design, and a thought-provoking contrast with its many baroque statues. Not many places could stand up to that vast gleaming sculpture, but it makes us admire Versailles anew that these gardens definitely could.
Here’s my final example: it’s a temporary exhibition in a traditional display space, not a garden at all. But for me it illustrates perfectly how even the most enormous, preposterous installation that shrieks “Look at me!” can still profoundly enhance its surroundings. This is Anish Kapoor’s bonkers Leviathan sculpture that filled the Grand Palais in Paris for five weeks in 2011. It was a vast purple rubber cathedral swelling up into the belle époque exhibition hall, making the visitor gasp at its size and audacity. But it did not overwhelm the setting; instead its mad shape and size drew equal attention to the beautiful ironwork and glass of this most majestic of spaces. | <urn:uuid:09602009-fd70-4408-863b-9295ffad899c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://landscapelover.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950438 | 1,121 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Largo Library Goes to the Dogs
Photos/text by Sandi Fahy
The Tricky Dog Show at the Largo Public Library on August 2 attracted an estimated 400 persons. Above, Rick Martin commands one of his six dogs to leap through three "flaming" hoops. Another dog delighted the audience by climbing up an 8-ft. ladder while others demonstrated their jump roping and barrel-rolling skills. One of the canines performed an "Evel Knieval" stunt by jumping off a platform over three youngsters selected from the audience.
Rick Martin jumps rope with one of the performing dogs in his Tricky Dog Show at the Largo Public Library on August 2.
Return to Current Edition | <urn:uuid:417019a7-d71a-4476-9c47-5fe0aa03c72d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clearwatergazette.com/20080807/largof.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93949 | 144 | 1.546875 | 2 |
NEARLY half the British think that religion is harmful, according to a poll carried out by YouGov. Yet more than half also believe in God “or something”.
The YouGov poll commissioned by John Humphrys, the broadcaster and writer, found that 42% of the 2,200 people taking part considered religion had a harmful effect.
“One reason might be the publicity attracted by a handful of mad mullahs and their hate-filled rhetoric,” writes Humphrys in his new book, In God We Doubt, an extract of which appears in today’s Sunday Times News Review....
NO! The Lord told the servants, NO!!! This is what the scripture says but you say, yes.
The reason is not that they would "disturb" the wheat but rather they would root them up with the "DARNELL". Literally it means "root out". Sullegontes is "gather together".
This Biblical parable states that the enemy resowed "darnel" (zizania is not tares). This false wheat common in Palestine in its earlier stages is not distinguishable from wheat and has to wait until near HARVEST time to weed it out. At harvest the reapers will gather the darnel.
Meaning of: justified by faith in Christ Jesus? Meaning of: Christ is my righteousness?
Your post "Cheryl has so many monikers on this forum that she has conversations with herself and validates her own comments with her other moniker. Love rejoices in the truth....not deceit. You won't find truth in deception, only lies.' ________
I don't think what you are saying is true. If you think she and I are the same person, you are mistaken.
Abigail Now your getting all hurt and emotional. What happened to calm sensible debate, or is this one of your ploys from feminine traits? _______________________________
Obvious Truth Cheryl
Your description of "tares"
How about throwing in a bit of common sense.
False teachers/preachers Get a job in pulpits because they seem to some as almost legitimate and genuine.
False religions and doctrines for the same reason, are able to find acceptance in society.
"Tares" as false believers in the church, also gain admission into congregations because they sound almost genuine.
As for your definition of tares in "YOUR" church, - if you have got a bunch of raging nutters like that in your pews, then are you sure it's a church you attend on Sunday? Or is it the local conspiracy theorists convention?
PS Well done on identifying the "servants." It would seem some people can't see this.
Your Post "Do you just promote yourself to judge? Or is your heart, prayers and hope Christlike enough to reach out to them and help.? If all you can do now is quote. How about... "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" John 7:24 How "righteous" are you?" ______
I cannot tell whether you are attempting to help me along the Christian path or if you are condemning (judging) me for my stand for Jesus Christ and His Words.
If I talk about myself, I am accused of promoting and keeping my own salvation and not acknowledging that Jesus Christ is the source of all things— salvation by works.
I have been born of the Spirit, washed in the blood, and justified by faith in Christ Jesus and His Words of truth and righteousness.
How righteous am I? Christ is my righteousness. I have not attained perfection, I fall short of the glory of God—but I strive to live the life that is laid down by our pattern, Jesus Christ the righteous. I am not promoting myself—but promoting the words of truth spoken by our precious Lord. If we can't speak truth until we have attained perfection—everyone needs to be silent.
"Ye shall know them by their fruits" are the Words of Jesus Christ himself. Is He a liar?
Your Post "A tare doesn't care, has no love, has no mercy, no sense of justice or fairness, no love of the truth, loves and makes a lie. They are fakers and phonies, full of pride and looking down their noses all the time. They are greedy and destructive, and they usually claw their way to the front of the church, and you can usually find them up on the dais sitting in the red velvet chair next to the pastor, and/or oftentimes in the pulpit itself." ________
"Who are the servants? Are they wheat? If so why do they have a separate different task/role?"
The pastors and deacons and elders have the job of overseeing the church with authority to kick people out or discipline them. Their instructions are not to discipline or kick people out except for blatant sins such as fornication. Cowardly, selfish, lying, pompous, greedy, bootlicking people can remain in the church as long as they don't commit blatant sin. The tares do somewhat resemble the wheat, but it's only somewhat.
Abigail, et al. No answer then I take it? The quote is all very well and yes it comes from the word of God. But the heart of the Christian can also demonstrate more than just parrot like quotes. Judging people by their fruit implies knowledge on the part of the judge. But judgmentalism is of itself a sin. The heart is an evil place in all of us it retains the iniquity of the old man and proves to be a source of struggle in the Christian. Humility is a high mountain to climb for the True Christian. Many do not attempt the climb in churches across the land. Beware promoting yourself to judge.
Wheat, tares and servants? Who are the servants? Are they wheat? If so why do they have a separate different task/role?
The question was basically can you discern the wheat from the tares?
If you can, what are you doing about the tares? Do you just promote yourself to judge? Or is your heart, prayers and hope Christlike enough to reach out to them and help.?
If all you can do now is quote. How about... "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" John 7:24
savedbygrace --No, the servants recognized the tares immediately among the wheat. Read your Bible.
The reason the master told them not to pull up the tares was not because he was afraid they couldn't tell the difference, but because in the process of pulling them up it would disturb the wheat. But when the day comes, Scripture says the tares WILL be gathered, first. The angels will gather them.
Here's a hint how to tell a tare.
A tare doesn't care, has no love, has no mercy, no sense of justice or fairness, no love of the truth, loves and makes a lie. They are fakers and phonies, full of pride and looking down their noses all the time. They are greedy and destructive, and they usually claw their way to the front of the church, and you can usually find them up on the dais sitting in the red velvet chair next to the pastor, and/or oftentimes in the pulpit itself.
The servants probably thought they could distinguish perfectly every Christian from non-Christian, however only Almighty God is able to accomplish that. The servants guessed just as some today would guess imperfectly and gather the wheat with the tares. Even Michael the Archangel did not give a railing accusation against the devil in the battle for Moses body but said "the Lord rebuke thee." Come harvest time the Lord will rebuke and send reapers to discriminate perfectly.
It might not come as a surprise but there is a truth that (false)christianity is indeed harmful, in the UK it is liberal ecumenical churchianity or the toronto blessing type blasphemy or usually the Pope of rome that the media will spotlight to our public. Even amongst apparent evangelical witness there is much danger. I was encouraged to see an elderly gentleman plastered in bible texts waving a scripture text banner in the city. I went over to encourage his witness and ask for some of his tracts we had a conversation and I mentioned why I had once left a local FIEC as the pastor confided to me that he was 'fellowshipping' with a local RC priest and he intended leading his FIEC down the charismatic road to rome. This gentleman who professed to be walking in the spirit then proceeded to angrily defend evangelical charismatic RC's as born again brethren and telling me to get lost in as many (spirit filled?) words. The irony is that amongst his deceptive charismatic tracts was one solid bible tract whose author has written a strong testimony on the need for separation from those very errors that this gentleman was promoting,this I later pointed out.
Thank God his scripture texts are truth, but how many are deceived to join a false church or stay a RC even despite such?
Your Post "Can YOU discern the "true" believer in your own congregation, from the nominal one?" _____
Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Luk 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. _______
Your Reply "Abigail Thats a quote not an answer." _______
I don't know a better answer than the Word of God.
Jesus said where a person's treasure is, there will his heart be also. It is not hard for one that has been born of the Spirit to discern where people's treasure is. If you love the world and the things of the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Don't you think you can tell by one's actions and words where their treasure is and what they love the most?
Your Post "Can YOU discern the "true" believer in your own congregation, from the nominal one?" _____
"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." (Matt 7:20)
"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." (Luke 6:45)
Clear proof that multitudes in our day have been religiously brainwashed and deceived is revealed by how people commonly understand the teaching known as the wheat and tares (KJV). Please know the tares (or weeds) do not look like wheat, according to Jesus’ teaching. Because this clashes with, and even negates, the teaching of eternal security, few have been taught this fact. Eternal security teachers want us to believe that one’s behavior has nothing to do with identifying who is saved and who isn’t. Calvinism teaches that election is secret and some have been given only an evanescent grace (or counterfeit) by God! The Southern Baptists would say the carnal Christian acts just like the lost man but is not lost at all. Instead he is saved. Hence, Jesus’ teaching in Mt. 13:24-30 is destructive to both fallacious versions, but has been twisted by false teachers to mean the very opposite
Matthew 13:27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him,Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?..The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. | <urn:uuid:0dfa4557-9250-490a-a5a2-8e25e22374e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermonaudio.com/new_details.asp?currPage=1&ID=24261&sortby=newfirst | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967994 | 2,493 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Using this wonderful thread I helped get my parents setup with 2 Actiontec's to provide internet access to their living room for their new Roku box. I actually had the boxes shipped to me where I made the setting changes and forwarded the routers to them as they are in a different state.
They got it setup (as shown in the attached diagram) and everything seemed to work fine. Lately though they have complained that the internet speeds on their computers (both wired via Ethernet directly to their Dell router and via wireless) have slowed to a crawl - but that the Roku box which is connected to the secondary Actiontec is operating fine.
I read through the thread and see that my problem has occurred for others before but there didn't seem to be a common solution.
As a test I had my father remove the coaxial line connecting the Actiontec at the cable modem/Dell router to the coaxial splitter. When this was disconnected their internet speeds went right back up to normal, so obviously something is happening with the Actiontec.
All splitters are rated 5-2400 mhz, I don't not believe there are any coaxial amps involved (though if there is that might explain the problem).
As I am trying to instruction/guide from afar I am tying to come up with different possibilities for my father to check.
What I am thinking so far:
1) Check and make sure the Actiontec's aren't serving their own DNS values out (I am pretty sure I disabled this in the settings).
All of the routers/computers, etc share 192.168.1.x ip addresses, so there hopefully shouldn't be any issues there and I don't believe there are any ip conflicts going on.
2) Verify the internet connection from the Actiontec in the living room with a laptop (to make sure it's actually working, which they claim it is with the Roku box).
3) Take the secondary Actiontec to the first Actiontec and connect them using a short coaxial cable and then verify that the Actiontec's are sending an internet signal over the short coax and also verify that the rest of the house which is hard wired via cat5e (or 6), unsure which, is working properly while the two are connected.
If #3 works for the entire house then we can surmise that there is an issue created when the ethernet signal is sent into the coaxial line by the Actiontec.
Any other thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated. | <urn:uuid:ecd69e51-3ce8-4987-a2ea-a23e515f1859> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.avsforum.com/t/1145636/actiontec-mi424wr-a-cheap-moca-bridge-for-all/660 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969319 | 512 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Your dog's good looks start from the inside out
(BPT) - Let's face it - when it comes to a dog's looks, people often think that theirs is the most gorgeous they've ever seen. They hold their head high on walks around the block, and think no dog at the park stands a chance against their pooch's appearance.
But constant grooming and doggie outfits can only go so far - real beauty lies in a dog's overall health. After all, inner health equates to real outer beauty.
Following are a few tips to help your dog look and feel his best to help bring out his inner beauty:
1. Stay active - When you're on-the-go, it's easy to neglect your dog's exercise regimen. On days when you're dashing out to make it to the office in time for a 9 a.m. meeting, oftentimes your morning walk leads you to the closest tree and back again. It's no surprise that when you have guests over, they comment about Fido's rounder belly. Set your alarm a few minutes early so your dog can get the activity he needs to keep the weight off and keep his healthy figure.
2. Clean your canine's canines - Like you, your pooch may not love getting his teeth cleaned, but it's certainly not a step you want to overlook. It's important to keep an eye on your dog's teeth, as oral health issues can be both a symptom and cause for other health problems, including heart disease. Not only do your dog's pearly whites enhance its smile, good oral care can help prevent health issues too.
3. Give 'em some lovin' - Although you think your dog may be the best, does he know that? Giving your dog extra cuddle time and pats on the back can help enhance your dog's mood. How you act toward him will only help boost his confidence in your relationship, as well as his connections with other humans and dogs around him.
4. Eat right, look great - You may realize that selecting foods with natural, nutritious ingredients can make all the difference for your dog's health. However, for a difference you can see, choose a dog food with high-quality natural ingredients, fortified with vitamins, minerals and trace nutrients, like Nutro Natural Choice dog food, that target specific needs of your pet. Benefits include a healthier skin and coat, healthy joints to help enable range of motion (especially important when your dog shows off his tricks at the park), great digestibility (for easy clean-up) and keeping your dog lean.
Although it may be fun to keep up with the latest fashions and looks for your pet, don't forget to keep an eye on his health. When all is said and done, you'll be happy you focused on the benefits that keep your dog looking great and feeling great as well. For more information on the visible difference provided by Nutro Natural Choice dog food visit www.nutro.com | <urn:uuid:c3c9f420-73d0-4361-88be-66332efc4eea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carmitimes.com/section/?template=araArchiveDetails&CategoryID=453&article=8053490707&archive=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973276 | 616 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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OpenStack, the open-source platform used by many companies to build cloud services, took a significant step forward Thursday, adding IBM, Red Hat and Dell as backers and becoming a full-fledged foundation.
Started in July 2010 as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing project by Rackspace Cloud and NASA, it has grown at the rapid pace of the cloud computing model itself, with more than 150 companies participating in the project.
On Thursday, Rackspace transferred control of the project to the OpenStack Foundation, which will use a formal process to continue development of the platform with bylaws, committees, and community review. The foundation will include Platinum members who will pay $500,000 to participate, Gold members who will pay $200,000, as well as other companies that will be participating for free.
The participation of IBM, Red Hat and Dell continues momentum for the OpenStack cloud platform, which has rivals in Amazon Web Services and the open-source Apache Software Foundation.
Action in the cloud space has been fast-paced. On Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard announced its Converged Cloud Services of public, private and hybrid cloud services, which uses OpenStack reference architecture.
Last week, enterprise software vendor Citrix shook up the cloud world by splitting with OpenStack and joining with Apache Software Foundation, which gives Citrix and its customers greater access to Amazon Web Services.
One analyst said OpenStack has taken a step that will encourage others to join.
“These moves clearly demonstrate that OpenStack is gaining industry acceptance and momentum as a viable option for businesses of all sizes, but especially midsize and large-scale enterprises,” Jeff Kaplan, managing director of research and analysis firm, Thinkstrategies, said in an interview. "Growing vendor support for OpenStack will also accelerate the evolution of its functional capabilities."
Next: IBM, Red Hat Outline OpenStack Strategy
1 | 2 | Next >> | <urn:uuid:935ccf66-71e0-4a05-b638-36d24919f054> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/232900248/in-cloud-jockeying-ibm-red-hat-dell-join-openstack-foundation.htm?pgno=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935759 | 406 | 1.664063 | 2 |
If you're talking elite sprinter such as Ben Johnson, adding 50lbs to his squat or deadlift may not make as much of a difference as adding 50lbs to that of a high school sprinter. Strength is an obvious benefit, but power if of foremost importance (after good sprint mechanics of course). In the less experienced sprinter, plyometrics are probably necessary (more so than in the elite) to condition the tendons for the stress that sprinting puts on the body.
Lots of good information on the Charlie Francis board. Charlie's "Train for Speed" is an excellent (albeit long and sometimes boring) read. I'm planning to run in the 100, 200, and possibly 400m in next July's Bluegrass State Games and am using some of Charlie's stuff to setup my SPP training. Hopefully I can bring home the gold (I think there are only about 4 entries in the 25-29 division). | <urn:uuid:278c10cb-9234-4f28-adbf-a92c29abc2eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catalystathletics.com/forum/showpost.php?p=578&postcount=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952628 | 190 | 1.828125 | 2 |
We in product management are often accused of jumping the gun and announcing products too fast. Users are looking at press releases and are wondering "sounds great, but does it really work?" Cadence announced earlier this week new in-circuit acceleration capabilities to our System Development Suite, for which my team owns the product management. We are happy to report that we are actually announcing those capabilities late - they are in customer hands and well into adoption! Our customers will also talk about their use-models at the upcoming Design Automation Conference in San Francisco during a special breakfast for which you can sign up here.
So what is in-circuit acceleration?
In-circuit acceleration offers the best of simulation-acceleration and in-circuit emulation. Simulation acceleration is traditionally used earlier in the design flow, at a time when the test bench is available, RTL is synthesizable and can be mapped and executed in hardware like our Palladium XP Verification Computing Platform (PXP). We have seen acceleration speeds ranging from 10X to a maximum of 1,000X for such an accelerated design. Despite dedicated simulation acceleration channels between PXP and the hosts, the test bench and communication back and forth really determines the overall speed. Later in the design cycle, in-circuit emulation finds its application. The chip under development is mapped into PXP and connected with rate adapters to external mother boards, USB and PCI interfaces. It is stimulated either by synthesizable test benches or by executing real application loads, like booting an Android or Linux operating system.
Traditionally, both environments had to be maintained separately. Design teams were forced to create and maintain both environments, spend unnecessary time and effort to reproduce bugs, or remodel all system components targeted for one environment - tasks which are not time effective and make sub-optimal use of the existing IP assets. In-circuit acceleration resolves those issues and enables teams for simulation acceleration and emulation to deploy a common unified verification environment. The technology under the hood enables both environments to live in parallel in PXP and allows users to assign the different components of their design to the two environments. In addition - and that's the crucial piece - users can establish connections between the two environments to move data back and forth.
With both environments living in parallel and being constrained by their own worlds, interesting new possibilities emerge, ranging from just combining different IP assets to building the design under development to allowing advanced instrumentation at full in-circuit emulation speeds.
The latter use model of instrumentation enabled by in-circuit acceleration has already been reported on by Alex Starr from AMD during the March 2012 CDNLive! in San Jose. The presentation was called "Enabling a new paradigm of system-level debug productivity while maintaining full in-circuit emulation performance." Alex reported that emulation has been used to reduce time to market for their products for more than six years. It improves design health and post silicon infrastructure readiness, and enables software development.
The problem Alex then described is related to debug capabilities and complexity of designs. He mentioned that debugging designs on hardware emulators today is a challenge when compared with software simulation capabilities, and it becomes more and more challenging as design complexity increases. Large workloads, such as OS boots, driver testing, and application code make the problem even harder. The problem for debug now becomes like a needle in a haystack! Where and when does the user create waves? The faster the emulation technology becomes, the worse the problem becomes as the haystack only becomes bigger, and as a result users are demanding more debug visibility.
To emphasize the problem he is facing, Alex described the traditional emulation debug cycle in his world at AMD. During the debug of large workloads, users initially might have collected a set of data to analyze, but may have missed the failure point. Now they have to schedule their multi-hour job again and collect a new set of data, of course once they figured out how to trigger at the right time and place. The next available time on the emulator may be some time away, and with a wrong trigger point the next round would potentially not be more successful in getting the right data.
From here Alex essentially defined the requirements of a solution for which in-circuit acceleration fits well. The solution needs to be able to abstract data to be relevant for end user debug, and needs to function with dynamic targets the hardware is interfacing to - and the design clock cannot stop. The solution needs to maintain existing in-circuit emulation speeds, and allow capture of the relevant design nodes of significance needed for system-level debug.
Alex then described how his team built based on in-circuit acceleration a synthesizable transaction streamer connecting the data which are collected at full speed in the in-circuit emulation domain to the simulation acceleration environment. From there a dedicated simulation-acceleration channel presents data to the host for lossless monitoring and visualization. He referred to the capability AMD built using in-circuit acceleration as Virtual Logic Analyzer, effectively increasing debug visibility to the capabilities provided in classic simulation acceleration, while maintaining the speed of classic in-circuit emulation. The principle of the configuration is shown in this picture here:
So where does this take Cadence and the System Development Suite? Introduced last year as a set of connected platforms, the System Development Suite is evolving. We eventually want it to become a fully heterogeneous open, connected and scalable system-level development environment. With in-circuit acceleration we have taken a significant step to get closer to that vision. We have effectively made the Incisive Functional Verification Platform and the Verification Computing Platform Palladium XP a heterogeneous set of engines in which users can choose where to map instrumentation, high-level models, RTL, silicon targets and rate adapters which connect to the outside world.
The resulting new use models based on in-circuit acceleration are much broader than the debug centric example above. And best of all - we already have users using our technology successfully at the time as we are announcing it.
The presentation for the CDNLive! AMD paper is available to Cadence Community members here. In addition, customers will also talk about their use-models for in-circuit acceleration at the upcoming Design Automation Conference in San Francisco during a special breakfast for which you can sign up here. | <urn:uuid:6341f0a6-49a8-4960-97f1-9381852eadbf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cadence.com/Community/blogs/sd/archive/2012/05/16/debug-breakthroughs-enabled-by-in-circuit-acceleration.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949332 | 1,290 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Greenpeace has a beef with Apple
As soon as a company achieves a certain amount of success it often begins attracting the attention of bureaucratic government regulators and special-interest groups. President Ronald Reagan understood this all too well when he said, "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
We've already denounced the U.S. Department of Justice for its lawsuit against the world's most successful and valuable company, Apple Inc., for allegedly colluding with publishers to fix the price of e-books. Now the environmental special interests – namely Greenpeace – have taken a shot at Apple, claiming its data centers, which host things like the company's popular cloud services, are not green enough.
When you visit the Greenpeace website, here is what it says: "Giant data centres, which store and send the terabytes of pictures, emails, songs and streaming videos we enjoy every day are now one of the fastest growing sources of new electricity demand in the world.
"Every day, tons of asthma-inducing, climate-destroying coal pollution is thrown in the air to keep the Internet humming."
That's a nice way to treat a veritable geyser of job creation and tax-revenue generation. Robert McMillan, writing for Wired.com, detailed the criticism made by the environmental group: "Greenpeace released a report calling Apple's data center a power-hungry threat to the environment" claiming the company's Maiden, North Carolina-based center is burning too many megawatts of power.
Apple isn't the only target. Microsoft and Amazon are on the hit-list, too. Greenpeace's environmental activism soared to new heights (literally) on Wednesday morning when two activists "rappelled from the roof of a still-under-construction Amazon building," in Seattle, as reported by the Seattle Times. The banner read "Amazon Microsoft how clean is your cloud?"
In California, we know all too well how powerful the environmental special interests have become. They hamstring development and hinder job creation because of their zealotry. In Orange County, projects like the Huntington Beach Seawater Desalination Project and the completion of the 241 Toll Road have been delayed in part due to radical environmental activists.
While care and stewardship for the environment are laudable social values, Greenpeace takes matters to an unproductive extreme putting their ideology before people. Their assaults against Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are just the latest example.
The Orange County Register | <urn:uuid:0b9527db-7033-4d89-bd78-3154eaf1ed69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/apple-12845-beef-greenpeace.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941044 | 531 | 1.640625 | 2 |
When Tempe resident Katie O’Neill decided to take up tennis, choosing the allwomen’s tennis clinic at Kiwanis Park Recreation Center was a no-brainer.
"I’d never played tennis before," said O’Neill, who has spent more time on the sidelines watching her children’s tennis matches than on the court. "(In this class) I feel more confident and equal with the other players."
Despite the high profiles of female athletes like tennis player Serena Williams and soccer star Mia Hamm, there are still some women who prefer to make their first mistakes in a sports class in front of a female audience.
"Women feel more comfortable in this environment," said clinic instructor Toni Logan. "It’s the same reason why women would go to a women’s-only fitness gym. They are less self-conscious, less inhibited and that probably adds to their ability to focus."
Women tend to be more prone to suffer from social physique anxiety — the dislike or fear of having your body seen in public, said Pamela Swan, a professor with the exercise and wellness department at Arizona State University East.
"There’s an understanding that women have different experiences coming into any kind of exercise setting because of cultural reasons," Swan said. "In a tennis class it would make perfect sense for you to limit it to camaraderie and a level playing field."
Tim Barnes, tennis coordinator for Kiwanis Park Recreation Center, created the class almost two years ago at the request of a patron who "suggested that some women prefer sharing the learning process together and feel more comfortable learning tennis around players who are less prone to be aggressive and/or powerful."
That’s the reason Jennifer Brooking, 30, enrolled in the clinic.
"Men have that natural predilection to hit hard when they swing," she said.
Most women stick with the class until they feel comfortable with their skill level and then move on to co-ed classes.
For information on upcoming sessions, call Barnes at (480) 350-5721. | <urn:uuid:b94b3110-a60c-489d-afd1-47595f516636> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/get_out/article_107ce78e-5cf2-5966-acbf-168976c172d1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960714 | 431 | 1.695313 | 2 |
"It will be just have to be a work day off for the teachers or they could easily rotate the classes that will be taking the test through out the week"
Again, our juniors spent NINE DAYS this year taking tests. Are you going to extend the school year by nine days? We should, but who's paying for that? And how are parents and students going to feel about it?
"Much like they way they did it at my HS for the ASVAB test."
Everyone at your school took the ASVAB? That's F'd up.
"It is the best way to prove if the students are really learning everything they need to."
In your opinion.
"The way its done now is like having a person who damaged your car in a accident be the one you pay to fix your car."
Here you assume that all teachers/schools are interested in cheating the results. I don't see it.
"Why not just spend more money on education?"
Why say that in response to me? I don't hold that belief.
"What can a teacher or a school do, for example, about students from broken homes, living in poverty, and swallowed up by the anti-intellectualism displayed in the media and by their peers?"
I would add, How does testing them more improve their learning?
"How can you raise the achievement levels of people who may well lack the basic intelligence to succeed in class?"
Oh, please. That's crap. The vast (VAST) majority of kids who aren't learning certainly can learn to the level spelled out in state standards and CCSS. Very few humans simply can't learn.
"What can be done with those who would rather work off campus than study?"
Would they really rather work? Or would they rather be playing elsewhere (parenting issue)? The German model is relevant here.
"Increase teacher pay?"
Yes, but that won't improve learning by itself. It might attract better candidates, though. Especially if you increase accountability (reasonably) at the same time.
"Build larger, technologically sophisticated schools?"
Larger? Why? Tech? Sometimes valuable.
"Offer smaller classes?"
Yes. 12-16 kids per class.
"Inflate grades and lower academic standards to build student self-esteem?"
Hell, no. And the movement in Common Core is in the other direction.
"Harass or fire teachers who are not popular or whose students are not passing tests?"
That's just crazy.
"Set state and national achievement goals?"
See: Common Core.
"It has all been tried, and the results are abysmal."
It has? How widespread, and with what serious attention to detail. All that rhetoric has been tried, but that does not mean that the models have been truly implemented and been given time to work (or fail). | <urn:uuid:b1cbcd64-6f53-4d07-95b5-6101ebeb0e94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drudge.com/news/166289/80-ny-high-school-grads-unready | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971315 | 602 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Phones, tablets, laptops banned in Cook Co. criminal courts
Dec 11, 2012 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Cell phones and other electronic devices will be banned in all Cook County courthouses that hear criminal cases starting next month, the court system's chief judge announced today.
Judges told Chief Judge Timothy Evans that people in court were using their cell phones to take pictures of witnesses, judges, jurors and prospective jurors. Some also were sending text messages to witnesses outside court and others were trying to livestream remarks by judges on the bench, according to a release from Evans' office.
An order regarding the ban was entered today, and takes effect Jan. 14.
The order does not affect attornies, government employees, police officers or members of the news media. The use of electronic devices will be restricted to outside courtrooms until their use by media is allowed in Cook County under recent statewide changes regarding broadcast of court proceedings, according to the release.
Jurors are also exempt from the ban, though jurors are banned from using the devices while a trial is underway.
Judges may enter orders for their individual courtrooms to allow the use of electronic devices. The ban does not include the Richard J. Daley Center, which handles civil cases in Chicago.
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[ Back To gadgets.tmcnet.com's Homepage ] | <urn:uuid:a4d89183-bb12-42b0-8894-97fa0ee761ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gadgets.tmcnet.com/news/2012/12/11/6787258.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943287 | 317 | 1.5 | 2 |
Famous Writers As Children
William Gibson, age 12
The sky over the playground was the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel. "It's not like I'm using," Case heard someone say as he shouldered his way past the line around the ladder of the slide. "It's just that my body has developed this massive candy deficiency." It was a 6th grader voice and a 6th grader joke.
Case was 12. At 11 he had been a kickball cowboy, one of the best in the school. He'd been trained by the best, by McCoy Bally and Bobby Kicks, the best in the biz. Diving in and out of the kickball court, wining kickball games for trading cards. But then he'd made the classic mistake, something he'd sworn he'd never do. He threw a game.
They had found him, of course, and made sure he'd never play again. For 12 hours he had hallucinated in a darkened classroom while his body developed shinsplints.
The damage was minute, subtle, and ruthlessly effective. He'd never play kickball again.
He glanced down at the action figure he had been hired to fence. It smelled of long-chain polymers.
The utility of pocket knives
By Douglas Adams, age 9
A pocket knife is about the most massively useful thing any young man can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can hunt with it as you bound across the cold taigas of Jaglan Cappa; you can open beverages and sip them on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Renthar VII, inhaling the intoxicating sea vapours; pry loose the seven breasted whore of Babel; battle the Beast of Trafalgar IX (a sincerely reluctant opponent, it hesitates to attack as it is daftly afraid of occurring social faux pas - but very ravenous); remove splinters and thorns incurred from rummaging through boreal forests, and of course peel an apple with it.
More importantly, a pocket knife has immense psychological value. For some reason, if one discovers a young man with a pocket knife, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a sash, merit badges, regulation brown short pants, short sleeved khaki shirt, toothbrush, flask, compass, map, ball of string, mosquito repellent, poncho, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, they will happily offer to buy original buttery flavoured kettle corn from said young man. What this person will think is that any boy who can handle a pocket knife can rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and can light a fire with two twigs and a rock is clearly a boy to be reckoned with.
Edgar Allan Poe - Age 14
Once done work to be considered no more,
for five page limits delimit my core.
Perhaps ideas unwind from distant mem'ries entwined,
yet naught was written on paper the kind.
Instead, naught. Naught but white and bore.
Caregivers entreat on workmanship poor
To remind me tasks completed before!
Not ideas could I pull from simple lessons misheard.
The work made harder than pages and word.
They interrupt me with these tasks called "chore."
Break the spirit, and so shall I deplore.
Work's coming faster and certain I swore
That I could never have written pages so many
In time so little, yet pagecount agrees
I am approaching the page numbered "four."
But, ah! Soon the last page will be in store
For print and staple and signature lore.
The story of a paper completed with the wrong...
THE WRONG CHAPTER OF READING ALL ALONG?
And so shall I work on this nevermore! | <urn:uuid:65177792-2375-4d79-9cc8-dd7de29ca2af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/writers-authors-kids.php?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951678 | 807 | 1.59375 | 2 |
CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, recently released a special Tax Briefing following the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care reform law. Supreme Court Upholds Healthcare Law; All Tax Measures Preserved focuses on the tax impact of the Court’s decision and provides related advice and tips.
In a historic 5-to-4 ruling, the Court found the law to be constitutional and concluded that it is within Congress’ authority to require individuals to pay a penalty for failure to carry the minimum essential health insurance. The Court decided that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act should move forward. Additionally, it was decided that the methods used to impose expansion of state Medicaid benefits was unconstitutional.
“Many were surprised with what Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion, stating that imposing a penalty on individuals without health insurance is within the authority of Congress to levy taxes,” said Mark Luscombe, JD, LLM, CPA, and CCH Principal Federal Tax Analyst. “But it’s still not certain how the IRS will interpret parts of the law and, even with pledges by opponents to repeal the law, taxpayers have to assume key provisions will begin going into effect next year.” | <urn:uuid:b6a14367-c5b9-4ce9-8401-b1141837716a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/news/10737343/cch-analyzes-supreme-court-health-care-ruling-in-new-tax-briefing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958871 | 270 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Nobody Writing About the 1,000 Shooting Victims Saved by CFD This Year
Lost in the clamor over the city’s rising homicide rate is that the city’s Fire Department is saving lives from gunshot wounds at a stunning pace.
Chicago Fire Fighters Union spokesman Tim O’Brien said the untold story of the city’s violence this year was not the homicides, which had already topped the total for last year and were on pace to close in on 500, but the lives saved by paramedics and emergency medical technicians in shootings.
“Nobody’s talking about the 1,000 shooting victims who survived because of the work Chicago firefighters did and Chicago Fire Department paramedics,” O’Brien said. “What an incredible job by our members.
“We have 1,000 rescues under our belt this year,” he said, “and nobody’s talking about it.” | <urn:uuid:8b875958-9877-4181-8f79-e82342d1c681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/nobody-writing-about-the-1000-shooting-victims-saved-by-cfd-this-year/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953452 | 194 | 1.59375 | 2 |
In the first test of a new political climate on immigration reform, the lame-duck House of Representatives is renewing a push to eliminate America's random visa lottery and replace it with a bill favored by thousands of Silicon Valley immigrant workers: one that would give green cards to foreigners with advanced U.S. degrees in science, engineering and math.
House Republicans say they are wasting no time putting the bill up for a Friday vote after a similar measure failed in September. The maneuver follows a vigorous debate in the conservative movement over how to warm up to a growing Latino and Asian-American electorate that was pivotal in re-electing President Barack Obama.
Republicans are even adding a provision they once opposed to allow the spouses and minor children of legal immigrants to join their family members in the United States instead of waiting for years in their home countries.
The election "put a spotlight on immigration issues," said Brian Berg, head of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, which supports the GOP approach. "While this is not a comprehensive immigration bill, it's certainly a very important one."
Some Democrats, however, are deriding the new push as a deceptively limited measure that will pass the GOP-led House but fail in the Senate, where majority Democrats would be reluctant to give the GOP what it wants now because it needs conservative votes to
Republicans are "trying to pretend they're pro-immigrant by this bill, knowing that it goes nowhere," said U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, the top Democrat on the House immigration subcommittee.
Passage of the visa swap would fulfill a goal of reigning House Republicans to gut the annual "diversity visa lottery," which randomly awards 50,000 green cards for permanent residency to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States as long as they have a high school degree.
Those green cards would instead go to immigrants with much higher education credentials -- a master's or doctorate in the so-called STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math.
The high-skill STEM visas have bipartisan consensus in Congress, but most Democrats have been unwilling to sacrifice the two-decade-old visa lottery to get them. One problem, said Lofgren, is that the Republicans' swap would actually cut immigration, since there are not enough foreigners with advanced degrees who want to emigrate to fill all the high-tech slots once a backlog is taken care of.
For many people in Africa who are not already in the upper classes, cutting off the diversity visa takes away "one of the few options that individuals have to legally enter the United States," said Joe Sciarrillo of the San Francisco-based African Advocacy Network.
"The diversity visa is more open and egalitarian in terms of who qualifies for it," Sciarrillo said. "A single mother with a high school degree in Eritrea has as good a shot as an elite businessman."
Technology worker lobbyists in Silicon Valley and elsewhere have been pushing for a compromise, hoping to persuade lawmakers that the visa lottery has achieved its original purpose of diversifying the immigration pool.
"The visa lottery has done its job," says a report being released Monday by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, or IEEE. "It is
The group's report concludes that the lottery over the past 20 years helped open the doors to Africans and Eastern Europeans who had been excluded from America's family-focused immigration, but now the program is outdated. For instance, 2,800 Nigerians won a diversity visa last year by the luck of the draw; but there were also more than 3,000 highly educated Nigerian foreign students in the United States who would have benefited from a STEM green card.
It is better policy to give the green cards to those with the highest skills whom American universities have already invested in, said IEEE's Berg, a Saratoga resident. The chapter counts nearly 12,000 members.
"There are so many who are in college who, once they get their advanced degree, they're stuck," Berg said. "They have to leave."
The House voted 257 to 158 in favor of a similar bill on Sept. 20, but the vote was structured in a way that required a two-thirds majority, allowing Republicans to blame Democrats for its defeat just weeks before the presidential election.
This Friday, however, the vote will need only a majority and is likely to coast through the House, facing its bigger obstacles in the Senate.
"It's really just an effort to try to divide people once again," Lofgren said. | <urn:uuid:226c2da3-1638-4adb-822e-89282ee2f8fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailybulletin.com/ucla/ci_22054338/high-skill-green-cards-get-lame-duck-push | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975625 | 938 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Useful NCLEX Tips When Preparing For The Exam
Passing NCLEX may be stressful for you, especially if you are an examinee. There has been hundreds of review centers offering reviews and almost all of them are saying that they are the best. But actually, passing this examination only depends on you --on how well are you prepared. Moreover, you still need some NCLEX tips to guide you all the way.
But before anything else, let us have a brief background of what this exam is. Mainly, this is a licensure examination in the United States for newly graduated nurses and nurses who want to work in the country. This is designed for you to use your critical thinking and decision making skills. Also, this test is outlined to test your knowledge and skills to ensure a safe and effective nursing care in your practice.
Preparation is not that easy. Here are some NCLEX tips that we find useful for you. First you need to attend review classes. These classes will give you the most relevant information in a summarized way. Next, you need to acquire review books. These books contains questions and rationales for the answers. With this, you will be able to hone your decision making skills as well as your critical thinking skills. Other that that, you also need to practice answering computerized exams. In this way, you will be able to familiarize yourself what to do during the actual examination.
In preparation for your upcoming exam, you also need to refresh your knowledge at least every often. You may plan a schedule when you will be going to review different topics. Be sure that your schedule is feasible enough for you to accomplish. For those topics you have missed, be sure to find a time to review them. If you think you have done well, give yourself a reward.
The night before the examination, there is no need to panic. It will just ruin all your preparation. Just put away all the paperwork then relax and rest. During the exam, you can bring with you chocolates or nuts. It will give you enough energy to stay long. Also, in taking the test, you need to relax. Do not overanalyze the situations. Just think - critically.
After the exams, you can celebrate for the efforts you have done. For all you have gone through, you need wind up and enjoy. This would be like a pat in the back for your hard work.
Preparation for this exam is not as easy as 1-2-3. NCLEX tips only act as your guide. We already gave you the guide, now everything lies in your hands. Good luck. | <urn:uuid:6077a780-4b15-49ec-8577-e4dc125603b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.test-guide.com/useful-nclex-tips-when-preparing-for-the-exam.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968857 | 542 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Many of us do not have the luxury of going to a store to purchase a helmet. Either the stores are too far away, or shopping for a specific brand can take a lot of store visits. But on the other hand, fitting a helmet is easier and you know immediately if you have got the right one. However, shopping on the internet has many other advantages; it saves money (just for the travel alone) and a lot of time, plus you have much more choice.
But you’ll need to get the right size helmet. You do not want the hassle to have to return the helmet because the size is wrong, so let’s get it right.
The process is quite easy, but there are a few hints that will make this go smoother:
- Use a piece of string long enough, or if you have one, a measure tape (the soft kind tailors use)
- Roll the string (or tape) around your head, some ½ inch (10 mm) above your eye brows, and keep the string at the widest part of your head. If at all possible, ask someone to do this for you.
- If you are using a measure tape, write down the length, if not use a ruler to measure the length of string.
- For a best possible result, repeat the process once or twice to get a good average.
- Next wait a day or two, and repeat the process. This is because a head expands and contracts slightly depending on heat or cold.
- Look at the results, and take the largest measure.
- A good and responsible web site will be featuring the size charts of that manufacturer (manufacturers have different charts). Take your measure and take the one that is the closest to your, always making sure you round off the result upwards,
- Order your helmet
Once you have gotten your new helmet just make sure it fits snugly, that there is some movement, but that it is not tight. You should be able to move the helmet with your hand, but only slightly. Too tight is not good, and too loose neither. That’s why it is important to follow the steps above. | <urn:uuid:33b06ffb-8fdf-4077-9433-0c9c58aa284c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.jafrum.com/2011/10/18/fitting-your-helmet-for-on-line-purchase/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=744caefc44 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943888 | 448 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Hampton Library, in the heart of Bridgehampton, serves Bridgehampton and Sagaponack. Anyone with a Suffolk County library card may borrow materials or use the computers, but Bridgehampton patrons have preference when it comes to computer use. There are six computers for adults, two for teens and six for children. In addition to books for youth and adults, and large-print book, the library's collection includes DVDs, VHS tapes and audiobooks on CD. It also carries local, state and national periodicals. There is a literacy room named for library supporters Arlene and Alan Alda. The Hampton Library was founded in 1876 and underwent a major renovation in 2009, reopening in January 2010. The upstairs, which was once only accessible to the staff, was opened to patrons, and excavation was done to expand the lowest level of the library. There is also a landscaped backyard with benches for enjoying a book or newspaper outside. | <urn:uuid:fa013621-8feb-4076-97ca-39f35aa0d746> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southampton.patch.com/listings/hampton-library | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963859 | 193 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Txakoli: Spain's Refreshing, Effervescent, Hard-to-Pronounce Wine
When you visit the Spanish Basque Country, walk into any pintxo bar in San Sebastián or Bilbao and you'll see an entire wall of green bottles. You could get a glass of Basque-made Rioja Alavesa to accompany your red pepper or bacalao-topped pintxos, but when you order from the green bottles, you'll get a pour of a bright, slightly fizzy wine called txakoli.
Txakoli, (pronounced chock-oh-lee) or txakolina, as it's called at various wineries, or chacoli, as you'll occasionally see it spelled, was traditionally made and consumed at home, and only recently became a wine that you see regularly in the U.S. I've seen it on wine lists at Spanish and Mediterranean restaurants and found bottles at wine shops, but it's still not nearly as popular as other Spanish wines. Yet.
In general Txakoli is clean, high in acid, and has a great deal of minerality and salinity, making it perfectly refreshing to sip with seafood, cured meats, and hard cheeses like the Basque-made sheep's milk cheese idiazabal. It's a knockout with fried snacks as well, and since it's low in alcohol, this wine is ideal for sipping all afternoon (and all night) over plate after plate of tapas.
Txakoli is typically a white wine made with hondarrabi zuri grapes—zuri means "white" in Basque—which are the predominant grape grown in the Basque Country. You'll occasionally see red txakoli, which is made with zuri's dark counterpart, hondarrabi beltza (which means "black" in Basque) and rosé txakoli (which is half zuri, half beltza).
There are three regions in the Basque Country that make txakoli—Getariako, Bizkaiko, and Alava—and I recently visited vineyards in each region to learn about the differences in the wines they produce.
Getariako Txakoli is the oldest and largest Denominación de Origen (D.O.), and if you've had txakoli in the U.S., this is probably the kind you've had. The wine is traditionally poured from a height above the glass to keep the tiny bubbles intact. It's also served in fairly small portions in order to retain the carbonation. Sometimes you'll also see it poured from a porrón, a wine pitcher that resembles a watering can, but I've only experienced this in the U.S.
I visited the Txomin Etxaniz winery, which is located on 35 sloping hectares of land overlooking the cerulean Bay of Biscay. Txomin Etxaniz harvests grapes in the third and fourth week of September, then the grapes are pressed and fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks for 15 to 30 days. The wine then rests for several months, is bottled, and consumed young.
The vineyard's location on the water means that the soil tends to be damp and humid. The grapes are grown in a parral system, which means they're raised up from the ground with the aid of stakes and grow into a canopy to create ventilation. Ninety percent of Txomin Etxaniz's grapes are hondarrabi zuri and the other 10 percent are hondarrabi beltza, which is used to make a rosé txakoli. Compared to the winery's white txakoli, the rosé is softer, richer in mouthfeel, and floral, with a hint of rosehips.
The smallest txakoli D.O. is Txakoli de Alava, which is produced in the Ayala Valley. It's 40 kilometers from the sea, the Ebro River begins there, and winds in the summer keep the grape healthy. The hondarrabi zuri grown here soak up more sun than in the other regions, so the txakoli can be higher in alcohol, and the wines are often rounder and a bit less acidic.
Bizkaiko vineyards produce a wine with a bit more structure than the others—and a lot of nice minerality. At Bodegas Itsas Mendi, located near Bilbao, the loam and clay soil grows grapes beyond hondarrabi zuri and beltza. They've tried growing 17 different grapes and currently grow riesling and pinot noir, which combine with hondarrabi zuri and beltza to create some truly memorable txakolis.
5 Tasty Txakolis to Try
You can find a handful of different txakolis at wine shops in the United States. Make sure to chill the wine before drinking it. Want to see more snapshots of the land were Txakoli comes from? Check out my photos in the slideshow above.
Txomin Etxaniz Getariako Txakolina 2011: This is my favorite of all the txakolis I tried. The fizz, fresh citrus and melon flavors, and a salty minerality get your mouth watering. (around $17)
Ulacia Txakolina Getaria 2011: This wine is bone dry with a very gentle fizz and sharp-but-balanced acidity. It has flavors of grapefruit and pineapple, and smells like a fresh spring rose. (around $18)
Berroia Bizkaiko Txakolina 2011: Crisp and dry, this wine is 90% hondarrabi zuri and the rest is folle blanche and riesling. It has hints of citrus and tastes like you might have sprinkled sea salt into your glass. (around $20)
Itsas Mendi No. 7: Bodegas Itsas Mendi No. 7 is a Bizkaiko txakoli, and the 2010 and 2011 bottles are both worth seeking out. The No. 7 includes a small percentage of riesling along with the hondarrabi zuri. The 2011 vintage is very refreshing, with notes of grapefruit up front, a fresh grassiness toward the end, and a smooth minerality. The 2010 is softer than the 2011, with bursting clementines on the tongue and the scent of spring flowers. (around $25)
Uixar Bizkaiko Txakolina 2010: This wine, made with made with 100% hondarrabi zerratie, another indigenous Basque grape, is a departure from the other txakolis. It smells like a freshly sliced Granny Smith apple, and there are warm flavors of golden raisins and anise. (around $24)
About the Author: Amy Cavanaugh writes about food, drink, and travel from her home base of Chicago.
Note: Amy traveled to Spain on a press trip hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment, Fisheries, and Planning of the Basque Country of Spain. Wines were selected from samples provided for review consideration. | <urn:uuid:a5d3efc6-e213-4d44-aafa-273a11f6b3a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/01/where-txakoli-is-made-spain-basque-country-vineyards-wine.html?ref=columns | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934967 | 1,494 | 1.78125 | 2 |
And he causeth me to turn back unto the opening of the house; and lo, water is coming forth from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the front of the house [is] eastward, and the water is coming down from beneath, from the right side of the house, from the south of the altar.
And he causeth me to go out the way of the gate northward, and causeth me to turn round the way without, unto the gate that [is] without, the way that is looking eastward, and lo, water is coming forth from the right side.
In the going out of the man eastward, and a line in his hand, then he measureth a thousand by the cubit, and he causeth me to pass over into water -- water to the ankles.
And he measureth a thousand, and causeth me to pass over into water -- water to the knees. And he measureth a thousand, and causeth me to pass over -- water to the loins.
And he measureth a thousand -- a stream that I am not able to pass over; for risen have the waters -- waters to swim in -- a stream that is not passed over.
And he saith unto me, `Hast thou seen, son of man?' and he leadeth me, and bringeth me back unto the edge of the stream.
In my turning back, then, lo, at the edge of the stream [are] very many trees, on this side and on that side.
And he saith unto me, `These waters are going forth unto the east circuit, and have gone down unto the desert, and have entered the sea; unto the sea they are brought forth, and the waters have been healed.
And it hath come to pass, every living creature that teemeth, whithersoever the streams come, doth live: and there hath been great abundance of fish, for these waters have come thither, and they are healed; and every thing whither the stream cometh hath lived.
And it hath come to pass, fishers do stand by it, from En-Gedi even unto En-Eglaim; a spreading place of nets they are; according to their own kind is their fish, as the fish of the great sea, very many.
Its miry and its marshy places -- they are not healed; to salt they have been given up.
And by the stream there cometh up on its edge, on this side and on that side, every [kind of] fruit-tree whose leaf fadeth not, and not consumed is its fruit, according to its months it yieldeth first-fruits, because its waters from the sanctuary are coming forth; and its fruits hath been for food, and its leaf for medicine.
`Thus said the Lord Jehovah: This [is] the border whereby ye inherit the land, according to the twelve tribes of Israel; Joseph [hath] portions.
And ye have inherited it, one as well as another, in that I have lifted up My hand to give it to your fathers; and this land hath fallen to you in inheritance.
`And this [is] the border of the land at the north quarter; from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, at the coming in to Zedad:
Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, that [is] between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazar-Hatticon, that [is] at the coast of Havran.
And the border from the sea hath been Hazar-Enan, the border of Damascus, and Zaphon at the north, and the border of Hamath: and [this is] the north quarter.
`And the east quarter [is] from between Havran, and Damascus, and Gilead, and the land of Israel, [to] the Jordan; from the border over-against the eastern sea ye measure: and [this is] the east quarter.
`And the south quarter southward [is] from Tamar unto the waters of Meriboth-Kadesh, the stream unto the great sea: and [this is] the south quarter southward.
`And the west quarter [is] the great sea, from the border till over-against the coming in to Hamath: this [is] the west quarter.
`And ye have divided this land to you, according to the tribes of Israel;
and it hath come to pass, ye separate it for an inheritance to yourselves, and to the sojourners who are sojourning in your midst, who have begotten sons in your midst, and they have been to you as native, with the sons of Israel, with you they are separated for an inheritance in the midst of the tribes of Israel.
And it hath come to pass, in the tribe with which the sojourner sojourneth, there ye give his inheritance -- an affirmation of the Lord Jehovah. | <urn:uuid:d208ab3e-038c-447e-86bd-9f748fa4d294> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biblestudytools.com/ylt/ezekiel/47.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940971 | 1,048 | 1.71875 | 2 |
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) – Without offering up too many hints, Senator Barack Obama told reporters that his much-anticipated public address here later today will not be "a wonkish policy speech."
Obama sought to "tamp down" expectations of crowd size and did concede he was seeking out a larger audience beyond the one that will gather in Tiergarten Park.
"No doubt that part of what I want to communicate on both sides of the Atlantic is the enormous potential of us restoring a sense of coming together," he said. "The people in the crowd aren't voters so in that sense it's not designed to get them to the polls, it's not a political rally. Hopefully it will be viewed as a substantive articulation of the relationship I'd like to see between the United States and Europe."
Obama said speech writing started about two weeks ago and demurred when asked if he had looked to the Berlin speeches given by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan for inspiration. "They were presidents, I am a citizen," he said.
The Democratic presidential candidate chatted with reporters aboard his campaign plane shortly before takeoff for Berlin, the first European stop of Obama's overseas tour.
In Jordan and Israel, the media attention and public interest in Obama's visit was intense and Europe will likely be no different.
"I think the world is keenly interested in this election and I think they're hungry for a sense of where America is going, certainly there's a curiosity factor involved,” Obama responded when asked if he was surprised at the attention he has received. | <urn:uuid:fea86d68-96a7-4bc7-b11f-e7d76444a78a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/24/obama-prepares-to-deliver-much-anticipated-speech-in-berlin/comment-page-9/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984923 | 318 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The North Museum is located at the south end of the F&M campus and houses the largest planetarium in central Pennsylvania. The planetarium is regularly used in F&M astronomy classes, and there are a variety of shows given to the public throughout the year. The museum also has a number of other astronomy exhibits for all ages. Admission to the museum and planetarium is free with F&M ID.
More information (including a schedule of planetarium shows) can be found at the North Museum Planetarium web site, which is linked from the main North Museum page. | <urn:uuid:bf76e21f-db93-4193-8280-6f81bb3ad78d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fandm.edu/physics/north-museum-planetarium | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948038 | 116 | 1.5 | 2 |
I have a box full of clementines. Can I make orange juice in a blender?
Sure, you can juice with a blender, as long as (a) the blender is of reasonably good quality and (b) you're not expecting the same kind of yield or quality you'd get with a juicer (electric or manual). You'll also need a very fine strainer, or cheesecloth if you're like me and hate any amount of pulp.
You'll have to peel them first, and try to remove the pips as well (clementines shouldn't have very many, and might even be totally seedless). The pith is less of an issue - some people remove it, some people don't, it's a matter of personal preference. Once the oranges have been "cleaned", start blending them on the lowest speed and gradually bring it up to high. Oranges should have enough juice to blend on their own, but regardless of what fruit you use, be prepared to add water if the blender doesn't seem to be doing much.
Once you've got a fairly consistent purée, pass it through the strainer and mash the pulp against it with the back of a spoon or the bottom of a glass jar. There's your juice. You can throw some pulp (purée) back in if you like that texture.
Fruit purée from a blender doesn't really have the best flavour - it tends to turn out somewhat bitter - so you'll probably want to add a small amount of sugar and/or citric acid to compensate.
I would avoid that. Orange juice is normally simply squeezed. I would simply halve them and squeeze them. If you were to blend it and if you happened to get seeds in there then when you turn on the blender it will puree it which would add a funny taste to the juice.
Was your intent to get extra pulp or to just speed up the process? | <urn:uuid:2726632b-1b4f-40fa-b93b-37857d2e5ee6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/16800/can-you-make-orange-juice-with-a-blender | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970523 | 397 | 1.71875 | 2 |
16 years ago, but seems like just yesterday. Nolan Ryan, one of the most incredible athletes that Texas has ever produced, was on the mound for the Texas Rangers. Robin Ventura of the Chicago White Sox was up to bat. Nolan fired a pitch at Robin that nicked him in the ribs. Robin initially started for first base, then changed directions and sprinted toward the pitcher’s mound and a man many thought past his prime at age 46.
At this point in his career, Nolan Ryan was already a pitching legend. 7 no-hitters and more strike-outs than any other pitcher in baseball history was paving the way to Cooperstown for the native of Refugio, Texas. But on this day, he became a Texas hero!
As Ventura arrived at the pitcher’s mound, Nolan grabbed him in a headlock and began pummeling him mercilessly until the two were separated by Texas catcher Pudge Rodriguez. Ventura was ejected from the game for charging the mound, but Nolan remained in the game and pitched hitless ball for the rest of his appearance on the mound.
Don’t mess with Big Tex! | <urn:uuid:9213541e-16cf-4049-aef1-8eadf2d48291> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ruthsgenealogy.com/2009/08/04/on-this-day-in-texas-history-4-aug-1993-nolan-ryan-gives-robin-ventura-a-texas-whuppin/?like=1&_wpnonce=84af3d0b4c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987712 | 234 | 1.6875 | 2 |
French President Francois Hollande speaks during a press conference on May 16, 2013 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, one day after his first anniversary in office was marred by news that France had fallen back into recession amid plummeting economic indicators. The Socialist leader, who is the most unpopular post-War president according to opinion polls, had pledged to turn back double-digit unemployment in Europe's second-largest economy this year, but that now seems highly unlikely. AFP PHOTO / PATRICK KOVARIKPATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments. | <urn:uuid:17b037ff-70f2-43d0-9e14-2b1180d7f883> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topics.wsj.com/subject/r/Recession/3695/photos/b41bd923650c417ca041901efbc36e67 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956092 | 162 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The Understanding of Threat
Germany needs a debate over a new security strategy. However, it seems as though a debate over strategy precludes discussion over the understanding of threat itself. What becomes clear is that a heightened interest in and the sheer diversity of opinions on security issues at the national as well as international level, challenge accepted notions of society and how we secure it. Can Europe live up to its ideals? By Christian Miess
Strategies are generally legitimized through the presentation of some ‘greater good’ that they serve. After World War II, the project of building a new, political Europe, as the centerpiece of the prevention of further wars served as just such a ‘greater good’. So, what is the ‘greater good’ today? Spreading Democracy? Protecting economic interests, as Horst Köhler put it? Or are Germans and others merely caught up in entangling alliances?
As in many European countries the commitment in Afghanistan is at the heart of the debate in Germany. Amidst the confusion, one point of clarity stands out: Calling Germany’s most controversial military engagement a ‘development’ effort in public debate does not help. Rather, in order to understand what our mission is, we first have to clarify the common understanding of security. This is in turn reliant on fundamentally challenging our understanding of threat in a simultaneously fragmenting and globalizing world.
Have Germans lost sight of what security really means?
Security is and has always been at the core of European integration. It was against the backdrop of the unspeakable terror and destruction of World War II that Western Europe united. A particular notion of “security” was achieved over years via regular communication and the opening of domestic affairs to what had previously been seen as domestic issues. Strengthening cross-border democratic processes was a key pillar of this strategy. Admittedly, the pre-conditions, the theoretical underpinnings, or simply the basis on which we discuss this topic today, are not the same as 60 years ago. But losing the European perspective by focusing on the debate over a specific “German” strategy, as other authors in this collection of essays suggest, is short sighted.
Looking back at the end of World War II and the period of ‘stability’ that followed, albeit under the specter of MAD in the Cold War, it is clear that such conditions – even if they were not so secure for people everywhere – did not simply arrive overnight. Europeans had to learn how to come to terms with the new situation, and opinions at the time were volatile and fragile as findings by Italian political scientists show: “Changes, particularly abrupt changes, were much more frequent at the beginning of a new cycle of world politics when the distribution of power was still unclear, the rules of the post-World War II system were not well comprehended, and uncertainty about the intentions of allies and adversaries was high. We could talk of a ‘learning process’ for public opinion.”
New learning processes
These learning processes were founded on the fundamental belief that Western Europeans did “the right thing” so that old foes could re-approach. The process of rebuilding Western Europe and of preventing further wars also resulted in a common perception of threats and indeed of security itself. Today, these events are merely a well remembered shadow of themselves, eclipsed by the current problems of disintegrating and evolving political systems in a global crisis. Even though most European nations found peace within Europe, today many governments find themselves at a critical juncture in history yet again.
It is actually the lack of common long-term goals for Europe and Europeans in world politics, which poses the crucial problem that silently manifested itself in the debate over the Afghanistan war in Germany. However, I argue that the discussion over security policy has the ability to once again become the core of European integration once again. A driving force for such a debate can be found in EU-citizens who left their home country to live in another member state. By definition these citizens have more perspectives on Europe at their disposal. The EU invested a lot of money in cross-border mobility. To cash in on these positive developments, we must refrain from walking on the trodden paths of national debates and integrate all citizens’ views on issues such as security. Considering that, limiting the discussion of a new security strategy to Germany makes no sense at all.
What’s next in security policy?
As professor Masala pointed out, in the case of Afghanistan, people in Germany (and certainly also in Europe) do not feel directly threatened by war anymore. But do we want to leave the debate about ‘new threats’ to the Sarkozys, Wilders and Sarrazins in Europe? Certainly not! To this end, I can only support the idea of Roderich Kiesewetter to open and live up the debate and I applaud him for engaging in this debate via online media. However, I strongly reject his elitist views and solutions to the missing debate on security within the general public. His Christian conservative view on how to build up a better understanding of security and build up a National Security Council fails to secure a wider discussion of the topic in all respects.
To make it clear once again, public discussion over what society defines as a threat does not take place behind closed doors. We do not need a PR-strategy for policy advisers, as Kiesewetter suggests. For defining a strategy that is something different and this should be left to experts. They should deal with the ‘how’, once the ‘what for’ has already been determined. Indeed, this means that we simply cannot afford the luxury of oversimplification in national debates, anymore. Heightened interest in the issue should therefore be a catalyst for politicians to engage in further discussion with their constituents – and this is only the beginning!
Put the “I” back in ISAF
Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are on the agenda of many European countries. Experts demand more discussion in these issues due to a lacking long-time perspective as well as support for the mission. Admittedly, the European political perspective is complex, as many reports on the radio or in newspapers suggest.
One way of entering European public debate opens up with new media. Some sites seem promising, such as globaleurope.com or ideasoneurope.com. Interest in the issue is growing – transnationally. A purely German debate deprives us of important thoughts of solutions for political and military problems alike. Thus, such a debate would eventually alienate Germany from its international partners. Whoever enters the discussion over a new security strategy for Afghanistan needs to put the “I” back into ISAF.
Let me close this call for argument by referring to Gabriel Almond who, back in 1956, spoke of this problem in a way that from today’s perspective can only be described as remarkably farsighted: “The model of the future toward which we ought to strive is one in which basic military and security issues can be thrashed out in a lively public discussion, with alternative points of view presented before an interested and informed audience. It is only in this way that the strengths of a democratic political process – the interplay of free minds – can be introduced into the making of security policy. Without it, we are as vulnerable in the policy-making sphere, as the lack of an essential weapons system might make us in the military sphere.”
More articles from the dossier Deutsche Strategiefähigkeit im 21. Jahrhundert at /e-politik.de/.
Isernia, Pierangelo/Juhász, Zoltán/Rattinger, Hans (2002): Foreign Policy and the Rational Public in Comparative Perspective. In Journal of Conflict Resolution. Vol.46, No. 2, pp. 201-224.
Almond, Gabriel A. (1956): Public Opinion and National Security Policy. In The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 371-378.
The pictures are subject to the copyright of William M. Connolly/Creative Commons (London protests), European Parliament/Creative Commons (European Parliament) and isafmedia/Creative Commons (soldiers in tank).
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50 Women Game Changers in Food: #17, Dorothy Hamilton
If you're interested in a career in the food industry, then you might consider buying a book called Love What You Do. After all, our game changer of the week, Dorothy Cann Hamilton, wrote the book and parlayed her wanderlust and love of food into a successful career.
When Ms. Hamilton was in high school, she dreamed about going to Europe. Being a determined woman, she got a student loan and went to college in England. While there, she befriended some French girls and during their visits to France, she got hooked on French food.Then came the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1972 to 1974 where she was introduced to Asian cuisine. When she finally returned to the US, without job skills or opportunities, her father gave her a job at his trade school. Dorothy worked her way up and eventually became an expert in student financial aid. She was invited to see the top trade schools in Europe and France, where she saw the top professional cooking school, run by the French government.
Inspired by these premier vocational schools, Ms. Hamilton convinced her father they should create a culinary trade school in NYC. They actually paid the French government for the curriculum, brought over the teachers and the French maintained the quality control. So The French Culinary Institute was born in 1984. Quite a success story!
Hamilton was the creator and host of Chef’s Story, a 26-part television series, which debuted on PBS in April 2007, and the author of the companion book, Chef’s Story. Her book on culinary careers, Love What You Do: Building a Career in the Culinary Industry was published in the fall of 2009.
Most recently, she was inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America by the James Beard Foundation and was nominated for the Entrepreneur Award of Excellence by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She has been knighted by the Association Internationale de Maîtres Conseil dans la Gastronomie Française, inducted into the James Beard Foundation Hall of Fame and awarded the Silver Spoon by Food Arts magazine in recognition of her leadership in the American restaurant community.
Because Dorothy Hamilton is not a chef, finding a recipe today was difficult. However, I ran across an interesting article in Food and Wine where she discussed a problem we all have: watching our weight while still enjoying food. She turned to the staff at FCI to help her.
André Soltner, the dean of classic studies at the FCI (and the former chef and owner of Lutèce) offered the following recipe.
While preparing the artichokes is a bit time consuming (To see how I prepare my artichokes, click HERE; I don't clean them the way the recipe suggests.) keep in mind you can refrigerate the leftovers. I halved the recipe and ate it for two dinners and a lunch. With certainty this is not the most colorful or enticing dish to photograph, but I'll definitely make it again. The flavor of the broth was sensational.
(One serving is 193 cal, 8 gm fat, 1.1 gm saturated fat, 23 gm carb, 5 gm fiber)
Artichoke, Cauliflower and Mushroom Barigoule
Recipe courtesy André Soltner, the dean of classic studies at the FCI
1 lemon, halved, plus 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
8 large artichokes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
3 small carrots, thinly sliced
5 small garlic cloves, halved
2 bay leaves
2 thyme sprigs
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 pound cauliflower, cut into 1-inch florets (4 cups)
3/4 pound white mushrooms, quartered if large
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze the lemon halves into it. Using a sharp knife, halve the artichokes crosswise. Discard the tops. Working with 1 artichoke at a time, pull off the outer green leaves until you reach the tender yellow leaves. Scrape out the hairy choke with a melon baller or spoon. Trim and peel the base and stem, then quarter the heart and add the artichoke quarters to the bowl of water. Repeat with the remaining artichokes.
In a large deep skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the onion and carrots and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened but not browned, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic, bay leaves, thyme and coriander seeds and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine, water and the 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the carrots are barely tender, about 3 minutes.
Drain the artichokes and add them to the skillet along with the cauliflower and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and cook over low heat until tender, about 20 minutes. Uncover and let cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. Transfer the vegetables and broth to shallow bowls and serve.
Make Ahead. The barigoule can be refrigerated overnight. Warm before serving.
Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.
Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo | <urn:uuid:1701a9e3-39a8-4065-abd4-204805df1f59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://moveablefeastscookbook.blogspot.com/2011/09/50-women-game-changers-in-food-17.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938965 | 1,280 | 1.75 | 2 |
It's generally a bad sign when a column begins by suggesting Newt Gingrich is the voice of reason, and Cal Thomas's offering today is no exception:
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich may be the most notable public figure in some time to state the obvious: radical Islam is a clear and present danger to America.
In a speech last week at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Gingrich said, "this is not a war on terrorism ... this is a struggle with radical Islamists." The problem, he said, is that too many leaders are "sleepwalking" and won't face the threat.
Ask yourself: if you wanted to infiltrate a country, wouldn't a grand strategy be to rapidly build mosques from Ground Zero in New York, to Temecula, Calif., and establish beachheads so fanatics could plan and advance their strategies under the cover of religious freedom and that great American virtue known as "tolerance," which is being used against us?
Thomas has been pushing the crackpot theory that the proposed community center in lower Manhattan is a terrorist front for weeks. Here he is on July 21:
A mosque near Ground Zero is not about tolerance, but triumphalism. It isn't about honoring the dead, but celebrating their deaths.
Don't we know why our enemies desire a beachhead in America? They wish to launch new terror attacks and forcibly convert Americans to their way of thinking and believing. What will we gain by allowing this to happen?
That's just plain nutty, as Jeffrey Goldberg has made clear in response to Sarah Palin's expert analysis of the situation:
Sarah Palin has called on "peace-seeking Muslims" to "refudiate" plans by the The Cordoba Initiative, a Muslim organization, to build a mosque and community center near the site of Ground Zero. …
[T]he larger issue here is the intent of the Cordoba Initiative, which is trying to build the mosque. I know the people who run the initiative; they are, for lack of a better term, "peace-seeking Muslims." I spoke at a program co-sponsored by Cordoba last year, and I came to understand that the organization is interested mainly in battling extremism within Islam, and in building bridges to non-Muslim faiths. It seems to me that its mission makes Cordoba an appropriate fit for Ground Zero. One of the ways to prevent future Ground Zeroes is to encourage moderation within Islam, and to treat Muslim moderates differently than we treat Muslim extremists. The campaign against this mosque treats all Muslims as perpetrators. This is a terrible mistake, for moral and strategic reasons. I'm afraid that Sarah Palin, if she were ever to become President, would help create what Muslim extremists have so far unsuccesssfully sought to provoke: an all-out clash of civilizations.
In a follow-up post, Goldberg wrote:
We must fight the terrorists with alacrity, but at the same time we must understand that what the terrorists seek is a clash of civilizations. We must do everything possible to avoid giving them propaganda victories in their attempt to create a cosmic war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Muslim civilization. The fight is not between the West and Islam; it is between modernists of all monotheist faiths, on the one hand, and the advocates of a specific strain of medievalist Islam, on the other. If we as a society punish Muslims of good faith, Muslims of good faith will join the other side. It's not that hard to understand. | <urn:uuid:4fe459ac-2ee8-4dd3-a1cc-7786f5022e0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/08/03/cal-thomas-again-suggests-proposed-community-ce/168656 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963461 | 708 | 1.617188 | 2 |
So my trial was not so hard as I had expected, and father was just as wise as mother, and I alone rebellious concerning his departure. I cried night and day whenever I could get a moment to cry in, and I could not help it. How perverse I felt, although doing all I could to forward his departure, which was daily coming nearer, and when the 4th of July came and with it the gala day which the entire country about us enjoyed, I could not and did not go to the pic-nic, or the speech ground, and I succeeded in making all at home nearly as unhappy as myself.
Some people believe in predestination (or “fore-ordering,” as Aunt Ruth used to call it), and some do not. I never knew what I believed about events and their happening, but it was certainly true I learned to know that my efforts to hurry or retard anything were in one sense entirely futile—that is, when I did not work in unison with my surroundings, and made haste only when impelled. If I could have felt thus concerning Hal’s departure, I should have been of more service to him, and saved myself from hearing “Oh, Emily, don’t,” falling as an entreaty from his lips, at sight of my swelled eyes and woeful countenance. I think he was heartily glad of the innovation made in our family circle, which, of itself, was as wonderful to me as the story of Aladdin’s Lamp to the mind of a child. It happened so strangely too. Before I tell you of this event I must explain that our family circle consisted of father, mother, Halbert, Ben and myself. It was half past six in the evening of July 8, 18—, and we had just finished supper, when a loud knock was heard at the back door, and opening it we received a letter from the hands of a neighbor, who came over from the post-office and kindly brought our mail with him. We received a good many letters for farming people, and I had kept up a perfect fire of correspondence with Mary Snow ever since she went to the home of her uncle, who lived some twenty miles distant, but this appeared to be a double letter, and mother broke the seal, while we all listened to her as she read it. It is not necessary to quote the whole of it, but the gist of the matter was this: A distant cousin of father’s who had never seen any of us, nor any member of the family to which her mother and my father belonged, had settled in the city of ——, about thirty miles from our little village. Her husband dying shortly afterward, she was left a widow with one child, a son. In some unaccountable way she had heard of father, and she now wrote telling us that she proposed to come to see us the very next day, only two days before Hal was to leave us. She went on to say that she hoped her visit would not be an intrusion, but she wanted to see us, and if we could only accommodate her during the summer she would be so glad to stay, and would be willing to remunerate us doubly. Mother said simply, “Well, she must come.” Father looked at her and said nothing, while I flew at the supper dishes attacking them so ferociously that I should have broken them all, I guess, had not mother said gently, | <urn:uuid:bcf4b10b-4230-45e3-b038-cba32cd5bb71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/18332/6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.994353 | 717 | 1.570313 | 2 |
I mentioned the other day that not much sawdust has been made downstairs while we’ve been awaiting input from an expert. David now explains why the short delay is going to pay off…
Although our house is a simple shape on the exterior, the construction details make modifying it on the interior rather difficult. We’ve needed planning help along the way from architects, structural engineers, plumbers, electricians and now an energy expert.
So Paul Eldrenkamp, our ‘house scientist’, came by Monday morning and we got down to the nitty gritty of what goes on top of what, how do we keep energy where we want it and how do we keep water out of where we don’t. Paul is the owner of Byggmeister, a Newton, MA-based firm that specializes in designing and building sustainable, environmentally responsible homes.
Paul is what you’d call wicked smaht in our neck of the woods. He’s one of only 14 passive house consultants in the country — and the only one in New England. He brings 28 years of experience to our project, so we were lucky to find him and convince him to help us.
Paul has come up with a plan to heat and cool our house comfortably but economically — even integrating the wood stove we want. He’s figured out how to insulate the house to a reasonably high level, seal the house against air leaks and maintain healthy air quality.
As in many endeavours, doing a 95% job on insulation can result in only a 30% increase in effectiveness. A couple of loose or missing pieces of the puzzle can negate some or all of the benefits achieved elsewhere. This is also true of air-sealing a house. The details that we came up with on Monday and Paul’s continuing support will get us where we’d like to end up.
Yesterday I ordered the insulating foam board that will be the first step in putting the downstairs back together. I’ll post the details as I go. | <urn:uuid:a4291f71-f5ea-4de0-8dec-7f65ec3efbea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mymodremod.com/?tag=passive-house | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950239 | 422 | 1.507813 | 2 |
December 1, 2006
Lipshaw on Rationalization, Business Ethics, and the Art of Empathy and Dialog
Posted by Alan Childress
Just out on SSRN's Law & Society: The Legal Prof. journal edited by Bill Henderson is an article by Jeffrey M. Lipshaw (Tulane Law, and also LPB and MoneyLaw), entitled: "Law as Rationalization: Getting Beyond Reason to Business Ethics." It is published at 37 University of Toledo Law Review 959-1020 (2006). Its abstract:
Embedded in the way we use the law is the tendency of human reason to justification; in the words of one philosopher, a thirst for rationality [that] is a major source of lies. I contend that this tendency is exacerbated by the conflation of what is knowable as a matter of science, and that which we might believe is normative. I rely on Kant's critique of theoretical and practical reason to assess claims to objectivity in social science approaches to law, and to suggest it is not surprising that the operation of theoretical and practical reason would tend to the conflation of the descriptive and the normative. When we understand the illusions of which reason is capable, we may be more circumspect about claims of objective knowledge and more willing to challenge assertions of a single right answer on normative issues (the modus operandi of most legal argumentation).
Nevertheless, we have a sense that there are objective standards of right and wrong, bespeaking right answers, if not single right answers, on difficult issues, and these are the basis for ethics, if not law. How does one bring broad universalisms down to practical application, and have the confidence one's judgments are right, and not someone else's view of dogmatism? I discuss the mystery that lies behind the process of judgment, and conclude that the best check against the illusions of reason is our ability to have a relation with, and understand the viewpoints of, others. In particular, I consider Buber's concept of dialogue, and how it might affect common types of ethical decisions in business.
December 1, 2006 in Abstracts Highlights - Academic Articles on the Legal Profession, Economics, Ethics, Lipshaw | Permalink
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I tried to post an even smaller photo of Jeff but it did not take. I was going for the look in the Harvard Lampoon's "Yearbook" in which, after pages of glamour shots of students sophomore and better, follows one page of about 200 freshmen in tiny little pics.
Posted by: Childress | Dec 1, 2006 7:11:15 PM | <urn:uuid:85983cd8-9cb0-457e-81c4-cc825858a11c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2006/12/lipshaw_on_rati.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942296 | 564 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Lent Day 1: Henri Nouwen
Each day of Lent (minus Sundays) we'll bring you words of wisdom from spiritual guides.
1. Henri J. M. Nouwen: An Ash Wednesday prayer
How often have I lived through these weeks without paying much attention to penance, fasting, and prayer? How often have I missed the spiritual fruits of the season without even being aware of it? But how can I ever really celebrate Easter without observing Lent? How can I rejoice fully in your Resurrection when I have avoided participating in your death?
Yes, Lord, I have to die--with you, through you, and in you--and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your Resurrection. There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess.... I see clearly now how little I have died with you, really gone your way and been faithful to it. O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen. (A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee, Orbis)
Nouwen (1932--96) was a Dutch priest, writer, lecturer, spiritual guide, and leader at the L'Arche Daybreak Community for people with mental and physical disabilities.
Find spiritual advice for Lent from other guides in 40 days to a new you. | <urn:uuid:dd1e2121-0834-4fa2-b403-849104c6a67b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2010/02/lent-day-1-henri-nouwen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957906 | 291 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Gaza Plan: Hamas, PA, EU to Circumvent Israel on Seaport
A Gaza lawmaker plans to involve Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Greece, and the European Union in a plan to rebuild an international seaport and open Gaza's shores. Israel, which has imposed a naval blockade on Hamas, has not been included in planning the project.
Jamal al-Khoudary, who sits in Gaza's Hamas-run parliament, spoke to the Bethlehem-based Maan news about his plan. Besides being a Gaza politician, Khoudary is also active in organizations that seek to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Under Khoudary's plan, a rundown Gaza seaport would be rebuilt and opened to international shipping and traffic. Greece and the PA would sign an agreement for Greece to collect goods to be shipped to Gaza.
EU monitors would be responsible for checking ships' cargo and ensuring that no new items are taken on board prior to each ship's arrival at the Gaza port.
While he touted his plan as a way of linking Gaza to the outside world, Khoudary also openly stated that he hopes to leave Israel unable to enforce naval security – a violation of past agreements between Israel and the PA. Khoudary plans to “bring about the goal of ships breaking the siege... The intifada of ships will continue,” he stated.
The plan has already been presented to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas head in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he said.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week that the EU would be willing to check cargo on Gaza-bound ships. EU monitors used to be responsible for monitoring the Rafiah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, but fled during the 2007 Hamas takeover, and have not taken an active role in monitoring crossings since. | <urn:uuid:38bb44e0-bd39-4176-a451-ef8ab31c7b22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138036 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955293 | 378 | 1.742188 | 2 |
What you’ll see and do on an Alaskan cruise.
While many people equate cruises with warm-weather destinations like the Bahamas, Alaskan cruises have become a popular staple for sea-going vacationers. Unique wildlife and amazing scenery combine to make Alaska an unforgettable cruise experience.
Soak in the sights
Alaska is rife with natural beauty, including scenic mountains and breathtaking glaciers. If your cruise tour heads into Denali National Park, you may catch a glimpse of Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. Many cruises include excursions to see the glaciers and partake in deep-sea fishing.
Because Mt. McKinley is so large, it creates its own weather patterns. Although unpredictable cloud coverage may prevent a full view of the mountain, catching a glimpse of McKinley in all its glory is a highly memorable moment.
Watch for whales
Wildlife abounds in Alaska. On any given cruise, you might catch sight of moose, caribou and dall sheep, black bears and grizzly bears, seals, puffins, eagles, and many more. But the biggest draw for an Alaskan cruise is the whales.
Whales start migrating north in February, arriving in Alaska by May or so. Depending on when you take your cruise, you may spot a pretty big variety of whales. From June to early September, common sightings include humpback and minke whales, orcas (also known as “killer whales”), Pacific white-sided dolphins, and harbour and Dall’s porpoises. If you’re looking for bubble-netting humpbacks, your best chances are in June and July.
The shipboard scene
Activities on an Alaskan cruise ship vary according to the cruise line and the size of the ship. Smaller ships, while providing a handful of amenities and activities, often focus more on nature and sightseeing than shipboard happenings. Their size allows them to get closer to the shore and enter fjords that bigger ships can’t.
The larger ships that travel to Alaska offer an on-board experience that’s a vacation in and of itself. Some of the available activities may include:
- Gym and spa facilities
- Broadway-style shows
- Swimming pools
- Golf or basketball
- Ice skating and rock climbing (for Royal Caribbean’s ‘Voyager of the Seas’ line)
As you may expect, the weather in Alaska is not always agreeable. Chilly temperatures and rain mix with the sunshine in summer months. The best strategy for dressing on an Alaskan cruise is a layered approach, as temperatures can range across the board on any given day.
Most Alaskan cruises set sail in the peak season of July, August, and September. There are currently around 30 ships from 13 cruise lines offering Alaskan cruises. Here are a few links to kick-start your planning:
Have you had the opportunity to experience an Alaskan cruise? We’d love to hear your story! | <urn:uuid:f993f8b8-673d-4c2f-b8a1-8e9aa35c3487> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trilogylifeblog.com/cruising-alaska/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930404 | 637 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Mommy's New Face
I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone brought out a book like My Beautiful Mommy (Michael Salzhauer, MD, Big Tent Books, $24.95), a picture book that tries to help young children make sense of the physical changes associated with their mother's plastic surgery.
After all, with cosmetic surgery becoming increasingly popular with women of child-bearing and child-rearing age (the peak age for cosmetic surgery in North America is 35 to 50 and the majority of people opting for elective cosmetic surgery are women), there's an obvious need for this type of book. And with cosmetic surgery increasingly being marketed as something you treat yourself to because you're worth it (the same type of pitch that was once used to sell cigarettes to women of generations past), that market is likely to continue to grow.
If the goal of My Beautiful Mommy is to create future consumers for the cosmetic surgery industry, then the book can be considered a roaring success. After all, countless studies have demonstrated the powerful link between a mother's poor body image and her children's negative feelings about their own bodies. Those powerful lessons in body image are learned by the little girl in the story when her already beautiful Mommy explains why she needs to go to the doctor to get "fixed" in order to feel better about herself:
"My nose may look a little different after the operation," said Mommy.
"...Not just different...prettier!"
"But you're already the prettiest Mommy in the whole wide world."
"That's sweet of you to say, my love, but Mommy is also having her tummy made smaller. As I got older, my body stretched out and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better."
The book's author—Florida plastic surgeon Michael Salzhauer, MD—reinforces these messages with a powerful metaphor that explains the before-and-after transformation that the mother will undergo pre-and-post surgery. The little girl comes to understand that the mother's post-surgical bandages are like a cocoon. When the mother finally emerges from her cocoon, she becomes "the most beautiful butterfly in the world."
In the final lines of the book, the author takes us inside the little girl's head, showing us how profoundly the little girl has been affected by her mother's transformation:
Mommy took out two big lollipops shaped like butterflies. Mommy gave me the pink, which is my favorite color. We snuggled on the sofa and Mommy hugged me tight. I fell asleep dreaming of butterflies.
My Beautiful Mommy will be released on Mother's Day. | <urn:uuid:218e8300-d43b-457c-b968-421eac196bfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thestar.blogs.com/anndouglas/2008/04/mommys-new-face.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960083 | 564 | 1.65625 | 2 |
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Commentary & Opinion
Tue July 17, 2012
Barbara Traynor : Common Sense is Really Simple... Really?
It’s a given that most of us, even those benefiting financially, agree our current election process is tedious and costly. In less than 200 years, it has evolved from small, exclusive meetings to a Henry VIII orgy, gulping down hundreds of millions of dollars. What our forefathers suggested be a simple process, simply isn’t anymore.
Our Constitution depends on our common sense. It says nothing about how political candidates should be nominated, merely provides guidelines to allow the development of political parties.
Suggestion: Common sense says projected election campaigns begin on Jan. 1 of an election year. Ten months is long enough to advertise, vocalize, and dramatize. Halfway through our present foray, candidates are expended and the public feels stampeded. Voting becomes a spectator sport.
This is really sad . . . because you and I have been known to possess the ability to distinguish between façade and reality! Internet with apps like Twitter enable instant communication, transmitting data with lightning speed, ensuring immediate exposure of person, place – and skeleton. We are constantly bombarded with miniscule details and disclosures of candidates’ lives.
Give us voter education, not verbal assault and battery. Give us straightforward, realistic objectives on which to base choices since individual leadership can and has transformed history. Allow us the opportunity within a specific period of time to listen beyond promises made – to do more than be a bobble-head.
Actually, the job of politician is no different from any other. Get past the period of adjustment and it becomes cyclical BUT due to passive term limit policies, our politicians plus our Commander-in-Chief become gerbils on an exercise wheel. Year one: acclimate to 24/7 fishbowl. Year two: State of the Union - a quasi apology counteracting criticism. Year three: look to re-election. Forget the fourth! For most, this leaves one year of actual focused leadership.
Suggestion: presidential term of five or six years, sans re-election. Common sense says this will allow focus on issues, not campaigning.
Our forefathers served with commitment, dedication – and at times a certain amount of flair – departing at the completion of duties. They worked together to build our nation, trusting the growth of that nation to future generations. They were not career politicians. They got elected, served, and got out before they burned out.
Our democratic process works. It is filled with those who willingly guard world peace and resolve constituent woes. It’s up to us to elect the most qualified individual in a timely and prudent manner.
Suggestion: How about some common sense?
Barbara Traynor is a Second Career Volunteer, and an author and workshop facilitator at BT Books LLC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors, and do not reflect the views of this station or its management. | <urn:uuid:31abf24c-dafe-400b-9de9-40a4a57e3db7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wamc.org/post/barbara-traynor-common-sense-really-simple-really | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943265 | 702 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Will de Cleene correctly slams this, as raising the drinking age makes alcohol MORE of a forbidden fruit than it is, and all the measures combined just raise the black market opportunities, including increased theft of alcohol.
Yes, some people commit crimes when they are drunk - that is a matter for the criminal justice system. Yes there is legitimate concern about people who drink so much they barely function or act in ways dangerous to themselves and others. However, that isn't because alcohol is available, it is cultural and particular to certain individuals.
You might ask yourself why so many people want to escape reality. Could it be because far too many people talk as if something isn't what it is? Could it be because so many live lives of quiet desperation and intoxication is an escape from them loathing reality?
UPDATE: Blair Mulholland puts it rather succinctly "Why should the government stop restricting alcohol sales? Because alcohol is fun. Because people enjoy it, most of the time responsibly. Because I like it and want to buy it. That should really be all the argument anybody ever needs." | <urn:uuid:57c7d761-7849-4ea3-9ef8-166764b80ce0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://libertyscott.blogspot.com/2009/04/bad-boys-and-girls.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967115 | 221 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Pakistan should consider establishing ties with Israel, said exiled former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, remarks likely to anger many in the Muslim-majority country where he hopes to make a political comeback.
Musharraf, who resigned in 2008 in disgrace, has said he plans to return to Pakistan this month, despite possible arrest, in order to participate in a parliamentary election due by 2013.
On Sunday, he is scheduled to address a rally via video in Pakistan’s biggest city and commercial hub, Karachi, sources in his recently formed All Pakistan Muslim League said.
Speaking in favor of relations with Israel could make Musharraf more unpopular, especially among militants who made several attempts on his life with bombings because of his support for the U.S. “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks.
Those same groups want the destruction of Israel.
“There is nothing to lose by trying to get on Israel’s good side,” Musharraf, a former army chief, told the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz in an interview carried on its website.
“Pakistan also needs to keep readjusting its diplomatic stand toward Israel based on the mere fact that it exists and is not going away.”
That kind of talk could comfort Israel, which is increasingly nervous because Islamist groups opposed to the Jewish state have been making political gains in Arab states following revolts that brought down autocrats in the region.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on Musharraf’s remarks.
Conspiracy theories abound
Pakistan has been a staunch supporter of demands for a Palestinian state. Pakistan and Israel, however, have maintained covert contacts for decades, officials have said.
According to an October 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, the head of Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said he had contacted Israel officials to head off potential attacks on Israeli targets in India.
A senior ISI official said the agency has never established any contacts not authorized by the government and which were not in the interests of Pakistan.
Many Pakistanis think Israel and the United States are constantly plotting against Pakistan ─ a belief that inspires abundant conspiracy theories. Pakistani media routinely rail against Jews and Israeli plots.
Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 coup, said Israel’s influence in the United States and its relations with Pakistan’s main rival, India, can help Pakistan gain influence abroad.
The first public talks between Israel and Pakistan were held in 2005.
They were described as a “huge breakthrough” by then Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, but sparked fury in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed South Asian nation that is home to some of the world’s most feared militant groups.
“I felt I needed to test the waters in Pakistan when it comes to Israel,” Musharraf said.
“We have been anti-Israel in Pakistan because of Palestine ... But I believe in realism and in assessing ground realities.”
Musharraf left office, and Pakistan, after his allies lost a 2008 general election and he faced an impeachment motion by the new coalition government for invoking emergency rule and suspending the constitution.
A Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf in February 2011 over accusations that he failed to provide adequate security to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December 2007.
Musharraf was declared a fugitive of law after he failed to respond to a court summons.
He has denied suggestions that he, his security agencies, or the military were involved in Bhutto’s murder. | <urn:uuid:807a8f7a-fe22-4a47-b113-275b1d9549df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/07/186909.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974919 | 759 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Legal ruckus over Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature
Buzz up!on Yahoo!It was hardly the most interesting or earth-shaking part of Jeff Bezos's introduction of the Kindle 2 on Monday, but one small, experimental feature in the device is already causing a minor uproar. Specifically: The Kindle 2's text-to-speech function, which will use a computerized voice to read aloud anything displayed on the device's screen. The problem? The Authors Guild says that that's against the law.
The challenge revolves around audiobooks, which are treated separately from printed material from a copyright standpoint. A retailer can't record a copy of a book on a CD and sell it or bundle it along with a novel without paying a separate fee, just as buying a copy of an audiobook doesn't entitle you to a free copy of the printed version.
Amazon -- and many legal observers -- vehemently question this stance, noting that an automated text-to-speech system isn't the same as a pre-recorded audio book. Some have even compared computerized speech systems like these to reading a children's storybook aloud at bedtime. Since the Kindle doesn't store a copy of the book on the device in an audio format, but rather converts from text on the fly, it seems likely that Amazon is on the right side of the law on this one.
Still, we're in a legal gray area that hasn't really been tested in court, and if our legal history has taught us anything, it's that judges can sway either way on these issues. If the Kindle 2's audio quality is good enough, it could eat substantially into the sales of audiobooks, and that alone tends to be a persuasive argument in the courtroom.
The Authors Guild doesn't seem ready to go to court yet, however. In a memo the organization sent to its membership this morning it said publishers and authors should "consider asking Amazon to disable the audio function on e-books it licenses." Get ready for a long road ahead on this one. | <urn:uuid:d03e25be-f78c-42c2-803b-1f1ff83da1ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?11359-Voter-Voice-and-alternatives&goto=nextoldest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960672 | 417 | 1.703125 | 2 |
By Will Smale
Business reporter, BBC News
Citroen's 2CV is easily fast enough for central London
Weaving through rush hour traffic in central London in a Citroen 2CV, it is immediately obvious that you don't need a high powered car to put a grin on your face.
As its tiny 0.6 litre engine roars like an abused lawnmower, the iconic little car has so much personality you couldn't care less when the traffic then inevitably grinds to a halt.
You just sit there still smiling, while all around you commuters in their big modern saloons bear expressions of at best weary defeat, at worst repressed rage.
Their cars might be faster, but they really aren't going to get there any quicker.
The 25-year-old 2CV has been kindly provided by enthusiast Adrian Chapman from the 2CV Club of Great Britain.
It is one half of Citroen's representation at an event designed to show how far motor manufacturers have improved safety and performance over the years, while at the same time increasing fuel economy and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
BMW strives for both more power and less emission
Eight manufacturers are in attendance - Citroen, Toyota, Ford, Mercedes, Jaguar, BMW, Vauxhall and VW.
Each has provided two cars for comparison test drives, one from many years ago, the other from their current model range.
As Mr Chapman, 36, explains, car safety has come on a bit since the days of the feather-weight 2CV, which Citroen stopped making in 1990.
"If you are going to get hit by a lorry in a 2CV, then yes, it is going to hurt," he says. "Just not as bad as being on a bike.
"But as a result, you just drive more safely in a 2CV, you don't get any of the false security you can get in a big modern car."
And as Mr Chapman has driven a "deux chevaux" coast to coast across both the US and Australia without injury, he is more than qualified to comment.
The modern Citroen in attendance, a C3 Pluriel, is unsurprisingly a world apart.
Citroen probably won't appreciate the comparison, but unlike the 2CV, this is a car you'd be happy to crash in.
As solidly built as any modern small car, its 1.4 litre diesel engine produces 70 brake horsepower compared with the 2CV's minuscule 29, making it more than twice as fast.
Yet at the same time it is 60% more economical. Exact CO2 comparisons are not available, as they were not calculated for the 2CV before it ceased production.
It is the increase in fuel efficiency and resulting decline in emissions which all the car manufacturers were most keen to stress at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) organised event.
Arranged to coincide with the release of an SMMT report entitled The Evolution of the Car, the industry is ever keen to highlight just how much they have increased fuel economy and reduced carbon dioxide emissions in the past decades.
The public relations fight-back from the car firms comes as CO2 emissions has become ever more of a political issue.
While the European Commission continues to propose forcing carmakers to make an 18% cut in CO2 emissions to an average 130g from new cars by 2012, London Mayor Ken Livingstone wants low efficiency cars to be hit with a congestion charge of £25 a day.
This compares with the current blanket £8 charge, for all non-hybrid or alternative fuel cars.
Mr Livingstone's proposal - which would affect cars that produce 225g of CO2 per kilometre, and vehicles with engines larger than 3 litres that were registered before March 2001 - is now out for public consultation.
As the car firms face such increasing legislation, they are keen to stress that they are already making vast improvements on emissions.
BMW's two cars in attendance at the SMMT test drive were its brand new 635D and a M635i from 1986.
The petrol M635i did an average 18 miles per gallon (mpg) when first released, while the 635D, a diesel, does 40 mpg.
As for the 2CV, no C02 emissions data are available for the M635i, but the old BMW's fuel consumption more than suggests it would be rather high indeed.
Duncan Forrester, media relations manager at BMW UK, says the car industry has been wrongly singled out for criticism by the environmental lobby.
"We get kicked from all sides over emissions, as we are an easy target," he says.
"But if you actually look at how we are responding to the challenge, we are leaps and bounds ahead of other industries."
Mr Forrester points to BMW's "efficient dynamics" programme, by which its newest cars have both increased performance and reduced emissions over the previous model.
He points out that recent new BMWs have had 17% less emissions and 23% better fuel economy than their immediate predecessors.
'Far to go'
Yet despite the carmakers undoubted advances, environmental groups say they are still not doing enough.
The Energy Saving Trust points to the fact that carmakers are still struggling to meet voluntary C02 reduction targets agreed with the European Union (EU).
While the EU wants new cars sold in 2008/09 to emit, on average, no more than 140g of C02 per kilometre, such EU-wide emissions in 2005 totalled 162g, while those in the UK in 2006 were 167g.
"We welcome industry achievements in reducing overall energy use, as well as the steady reduction in CO2 emissions per vehicle," says Caroline Watson, transport policy manager at the Energy Saving Trust.
"However, the UK industry still has far to go.
"We will fail to meet the EU Voluntary Agreement for average new car emissions by 2008/09, and on the current path it will take more than 10 years to meet the proposed 2012 target of 130g per km." | <urn:uuid:cea0ef56-ca09-479c-9d30-b9712f19bf7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7035779.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963973 | 1,270 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Halloween isn't just about candy and haunted houses—it's about creating lifelong memories with your kids. You can take them to a pumpkin patch and carve a pumpkin, you can pick out a design together and then build the best costume ever. There are so many wholesome activities to share with your darling children.
Or ... you could traumatize them. Let's not forget, Halloween is also about playing magnificent pranks against your naturally unsuspecting kids. Here are 10 ways to traumatize them this Halloween: | <urn:uuid:37982415-22aa-4c69-b8be-080a3cf6aa3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://banana1015.com/category/halloween/page/5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966082 | 102 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Le Lyon de Belfort
I know you've been asking me for a snowy photo of the Eiffel Tower but last time I passed by it (two days ago) I swear I did not see a single flake of snow on it!! To make up for it, here is Le lion de Belfort, a famous sculpture located at Place Denfert-Rocherau, by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi whose workshop was located not far from there. Bartholdi is also the one who made La Statue de la Liberté... This lion is called the "Lion de Belfort" because it's a replica of the original one, located in the city of Belfort in the east of France. If you don't see the snow on it very well it's because of the particular light that we have at the moment in Paris (it's about 20 degrees Fahrenheit here, which is unusually cold). For a broader view, click here. | <urn:uuid:af17eca7-46c7-429b-980b-35c055a6207b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parisdailyphoto.com/2009/01/le-lyon-de-belfort.html?showComment=1231302780000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972912 | 207 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A personal branding strategy is built around success. Knowing what you're good at, articulating the value you can deliver, and getting recognized for that value are the three key elements in creating a brand. But we all fail from time to time. The project is delivered late, the client selects a different supplier, the product launch flops. How do you, and your personal brand, recover? Here are some suggestions:
1. Focus on the positive. Most efforts are not complete failures. The project was delivered late, but it delivered some creative solutions. You didn't win the proposal, but the client liked some aspects of what you suggested and promised to give you opportunities to bid in the future. The product launch flopped, but it's still a good product and you have lots of ideas on how to build on the small customer base you achieved. Practice your 30-second elevator speech describing the positive outcomes. Enthusiasm, self-confidence and a focus on the future will make people forget the flops.
2. Ask yourself if the failure, which looms large in your eyes, was really such a big deal. Often, we keep going back to what went wrong, even though everyone else has long forgotten about it. Unless you are sure that people are still thinking about it (in which case, follow suggestion #1 above), don't bring up the lousy presentation you did last month. Why remind people? Authors write bad books, Olympic champions lose races, and we all have off days.
3. Look for the learning opportunity. It really is true that without failure, you can't have great success. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. He founded Next, which was another dead end, but he also bought what became Pixar. And he found out that content matters! I firmly believe that if he had stayed at Apple, the company would have stuck with computers and would not have gone on to develop the iPod and the iPhone. Talk about the important lessons you learned and how you will apply them in the future.
4. Apply what you learned. If you make a poor presentation, figure out what you need to do to improve, and then quickly identify an opportunity to show people that you can do better. It's easy to shy away from doing what you failed at before -- you'll need to put yourself back in the game.
5. Remember that success is often a matter of luck and timing. And so is failure. You launched your dotcom company in 1998 -- success. You launched it in 2001 -- failure. You focused on your technical skills, rather than your sales skills, when the economy was booming and technical skills were in short supply -- success. You tried the same strategy when the economy was weak and people with technical skills were everywhere -- failure. It's not about you, but about the right approach at the right time. Look around you and see what you need to change.
6. Don't blame others. Even if your team let you down, playing the blame game just makes you sound like a sore loser. You may decide that you won't include George in your future project teams, but keep that to yourself (and discuss it with George, so he can learn too). But for public consumption, take your lumps and move on. If someone is deliberately undermining the team, you do need to escalate the matter, but usually there is plenty of blame to go around.
7. If you really did screw up and impact others, apologize and make amends. Offer to work overtime or do something for free. Explain how you'll do better next time -- and then demonstrate that.
8. Make learning from failure a part of your brand. Pick a failure in your past (nothing too recent of course!) that makes a good story and let people know. It will make you appear more human, will underline the how successful you are today in comparison and will give you the opportunity to talk about what you learned. | <urn:uuid:40f1cfde-0278-4f29-a4d2-36e1235f85dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/karen-wensley/repairing-your-personal-brand_b_1914507.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976072 | 802 | 1.523438 | 2 |
FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES VIA WORLD NET DAILY
Sara A. Carter
Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America's tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S.
Hezbollah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun, who just retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
"They work together," said Mr. Braun. "They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.
"They'll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling]."
His comments were confirmed by six U.S. officials, including law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism specialists. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.
While Hezbollah appears to view the U.S. primarily as a source of cash - and there have been no confirmed Hezbollah attacks within the U.S. - the group's growing ties with Mexican drug cartels are particularly worrisome at a time when a war against and among Mexican narco-traffickers has killed 7,000 people in the past year and is destabilizing Mexico along the U.S. border.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Mexico on Thursday to discuss U.S. aid. Other U.S. Cabinet officials and President Obama are slated to visit in the coming weeks.
Hezbollah is based in Lebanon. Since its inception after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it has grown into a major political, military and social welfare organization serving Lebanon's large Shi'ite Muslim community. | <urn:uuid:f440eda3-0680-4a30-b9e9-a13a6f4e228b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservativeteapartycaliforniastyle.com/2009/03/hezbollah-use4s-drug-routes-into-united.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965065 | 456 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A while ago I wondered how long MySpace could hang on to its visitors. The demographics of those visitors aren’t particularly clear – it may be that a larger proportion of MySpace visitors are adults who really should get out more – but we know at least that many are kids, and as I wrote then, kids are notoriously fickle. This is not a news flash, or at least, by now it shouldn’t be.
Now WaPo suggests that some teens are so over MySpace:
Teen Web sensation MySpace became so big so fast, News Corp. spent $580 million last year to buy it. Then Google Inc. struck a $900 million deal, primarily to advertise with it. But now Jackie Birnbaum and her fellow English classmates at Falls Church High School say they’re over MySpace.
“I think it’s definitely going down — a lot of my friends have deleted their MySpaces and are more into Facebook now,” said Birnbaum, a junior who spends more time on her Facebook profile, where she messages and shares photos with other students in her network.
and in a perhaps more compelling comment:
From the other side of the classroom, E.J. Kim chimes in that in the past three months, she’s gone from slaving over her MySpace profile up to four hours a day — decorating it, posting notes and pictures to her friends’ pages — to deleting the whole thing.
“I’ve grown out of it,” Kim said. “I thought it was kind of pointless.”
From the mouths of babes. (Adult MySpace fans, take note). This is good news for the Facebooks of the world; for the next big thing – for a while, anyway (and hopefully – for the sellers anyway – until the liquidity event). One classroom does not a trend make, of course, and one should be wary about drawing any conclusions, but still – isn’t this exactly the kind of behaviour we expect from kids? It also occurs to me that the recent hubbub over MySpace’s demographics – research, questioned at the time, suggested an older demographic than one might have supposed – might have been an early indication that young visitors to the site are starting to get their kicks elsewhere.
If this is in fact what’s happening, it should not come as a surprise – we learned all of these lessons in Web 1.0, when the adjective of the day was “stickiness”. And of course, we should have expected this kind of teen mob behaviour even then – the sudden wild popularity of a trend, followed soon after by its disappearance into oblivion, is one of Web 1.0′s lingering memories, to the chagrin of many. I haven’t heard the word “stickiness” for years now – maybe it merits a return to the Web 2.0 vocabulary. For the life of me, I can’t think of a single site in that class – feel free to chime in if I’m missing the obvious – that is still around from Web 1.0, or that even survived more than 2 or 3 years (even 1 year?) after the high-water mark of Web 1.0.
But in the modern mythology of Web 2.0, News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace for $580 million last year is still being touted by many as an exemplar of genius, and as a financial benchmark for the next big deal (and the bar will no doubt remain at least there until that next big deal – Google and YouTube, perhaps – ratchets it upward). Perhaps that will turn out to be the sane way to look at it; perhaps MySpace will be successful, and its acquisition will be seen as an act of genius. Or perhaps it should already be seen that way; Google’s $900 million deal with News Corp. over MySpace was seen by many as validation of the acquisition.
But of course that $900 million (which is only a “guaranteed minimum”) is “based on Fox achieving certain traffic and other commitments” and the money isn’t in the bank yet – it’s “expected to be made over the period beginning in the first quarter of 2007 and ending in the second quarter of 2010″. And as this WaPo piece suggests, it’s still early days – if kids are becoming less interested in MySpace, I have to think the demographic they leave behind – 35-55 year old shut-ins – will be much less appealing to Google and to advertisers.
Update: Cynthia Brumfield looks at the issue and asks whether hot web sites are like TV shows. The point she’s making seems to be two-fold. First, even temporary hot-ness can be profitable; in TV for example, it can produce scads of ad revenue (though not necessarily initially for the producer). (Obviously, ditto in fashion, and in just about everything else that is subject to mass market taste and preference). So, to paraphrase, be assured that even if MySpace is a passing fad there is still money to be made. I suspect that you won’t find too many people who would disagree with that, but for myself the issue is how much money, and at what price it ought to be bought and sold when BigWhatever gets interested. And I suspect that valuations – from Skype through to YouTube, and inevitably onto Facebook – have been and will be predicated on a vision of the audience being much more durable than it may well turn out to be (But on the bright side, at least no one has to worry about predicting and discounting far in the future cash flows.)
Second, like TV producers do, the trick for the News Corps of the world “is figuring out where they go from here. They can’t just sit back and expect to rake in the dough, hoping that their hit sites stay hot. They have to move forward and leverage their hits to create the next big thing.” That’s an interesting idea, although I suspect that the process of ‘innovating’ (if that’s what it is) from a “Cheers” to a “Frasier” is considerably easier than innovating from a Web 1.0 hit to a 2.0 hit, or from a Web 2.0 hit to a 2.1 hit. After all, the notion of taking a popular actor (to use the Kelsey Grammar example) or story line (to use the Dick Wolf example), from one hit show to create another seems pretty darned obvious (very TV 1.0), and is more akin to merely knowing that if people dig peach-scented shampoo, they might also dig apple-scented shampoo. It’s not that hard to do if you already know how to make shampoo. And with the exception of a few serial entrepreneurs (who often move serially through quite unrelated ventures) I can’t think of one successful effort by anyone to parlay one hit web phenom into another – at least not on a notable scale. I may be wrong here, but if I’m not, I think it’s because the second kind of innovation (the web) is much harder than the first (related TV shows), and also because fundamentally the web audience – or at least this web audience – is just not portable in that way. For example, when Flickr breathes its last breath, where will its successor come from – the bowels of Yahoo!, or the basement of a 20-something who has very creatively – perhaps even Darwinianly from among the 50 other people who have also been trying to improve upon Flickr since it was released – happened upon ‘the next great thing’? As my friend Mathew notes, at least with social networking sites, success is very difficult to manufacture.
And of course, that’s presumably why the News Corps of the world don’t generally innovate or even create on the web – they buy others who do. | <urn:uuid:403a10de-dc20-4cb6-a7f2-add2509f78a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.robhyndman.com/2006/10/29/more-questions-about-myspaces-prospects/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965453 | 1,700 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Chinese students are coming to USA for reasons of mutual benefit of two nations on both sides of the Pacific.
Washington Post, May 1, 2009 on page A1 with Photo,A8:
China's increasing prosperity fuels interest in US colleges. It is a matter of human resource to be trained in USA for investment in human capital.
"Folks believe the education offered in the US is undoubtedly the best in the world." said Betty Xiong from Shanghai. In the past three years, the number of Chinese applicants to Georgetown University rose from 95 to 208. Georgetown is famous for the location in Washington with easy access to the US government and the renowned alumnus such as President Bill Clinton.
I had arrived in the United States from Shanghai in 1947 to USF and came to Washington to earn my graduate degree from Georgetown University in 1950.
China's growing middle class provides an expanding pool of people able to afford overseas travel and parents often are willing to pay a considerable sum to educate an only child for a promising career with degree from the United States.
"In China, because so much of the growth is tied to international trade and multinational corporations with investment in China, the value of US higher education is clearly understood and worth the investment of cash on the other side." said Peggy Blumenthal,chief operating officer of the Institute of International Education.
Here is the meeting ground of Sino-American Economics in the global context.
Francis Shieh aka Xie Shihao on Friday, May 1, 2009 at 9.56 a.m. May is the month to honor Asian American Heritage. | <urn:uuid:f6114547-b8f3-407e-b95f-957505bdfda5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sinoamerica2000.blogspot.com/2009/05/chinese-students-are-coming-to-usa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950999 | 326 | 1.71875 | 2 |
I was wondering whether there are any phone scams around. Today, we received a call that our caller ID identified as "Dom Republ Call" with a phone number of 849-963-4863. We did not answer the phone, as we didn't know anyone in that area. The caller hung up before the answering machine could kick in.
— Leslie, Eagle Point
Are there phone scams in the Rogue Valley? Law enforcement officials say only on days that end in "Y," Leslie.
"There are constant phone scams," said Jackson County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Andrea Carlson. "It's something our deputies deal with on a fairly regular basis."
Carlson added that most phone-scam perpetrators target senior citizens, taking on the persona of a grandchild who is out of the country and needs money wired to them. It's apparently successful enough to be an ongoing problem.
"Once that money is sent, and that transaction has ended, it's most likely gone."
And the scams don't just come via phone. There are the ever-popular emails promising wealth from foreign royalty. Text scams also are on the rise, in which scammers take on a bank's identity to nab social security numbers and bank account information.
"Think first," Carlson said. "If anything sounds out of the ordinary, (if) it's not normal, it probably is."
So it sounds like you made the right call in not picking up. Nicely done. We'd only add that if you feel compelled to call the police about your experience, do it. They'll pursue it as far as they can.
"Really, it falls on individuals to protect themselves," Carlson said. | <urn:uuid:5567bf5d-66b4-4cee-9bab-8d2ee2886527> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130224/NEWS/302240341/-1/NEWS0201 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97361 | 348 | 1.617188 | 2 |
NEWINGTON — The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services has announced a third PainCare clinic in the state received a contaminated steroid medication currently at the center of a widespread fungal meningitis outbreak.
On Tuesday, PainCare's Newington location was linked to a Massachusetts pharmacy that shipped the tainted medication to 23 states — thus far resulting in a total of 119 cases and 11 deaths across 10 states. Last week, New Hampshire's Public Health Director Jose Montero announced PainCare's Somersworth and Merrimack locations had also received shipments of the contaminated medication.
In a press release issued Tuesday, the DHHS stated 742 patients have currently been identified as having been possibly exposed to the recalled product in New Hampshire. The Department of Public Health Services was working to ensure all patients were notified by the end of the day Tuesday.
“We continue to work very closely with PainCare, and are assisting with outreach to their patients who may have been exposed to the steroid medication,” Montero said. “Initially, based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, patients who received epidural injections were being contacted. But as the investigation has evolved, patients who received non-epidural site injections are now also being contacted.”
Although 119 cases had been reported throughout 10 states as of Tuesday night, there have been no confirmed cases in New Hampshire. Thirty-nine of the fungal meningitis cases — six of them lethal — have been in Tennessee. Cases have also been reported in Michigan, Virginia, Indiana, Maryland, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and, most recently, New Jersey.
The New England Compounding Center, a Framingham, Mass., pharmacy responsible for shipping the contaminated injectable steroid known as methylprednisolone acetate, has since recalled all products and shut down operations.
However, health officials estimate up to 13,000 people may have been exposed to the steroid since May.
There are many different types of meningitis, a general term for an infection or inflammatory process involving the lining of the brain and central nervous system. The cases under investigation have no relation to the much more common forms of bacterial or viral meningitis. Although this particular form of meningitis cannot be passed from person to person, it can be very dangerous, even fatal.
PainCare unknowingly administered the tainted medication to patients. The company quickly pulled the product from shelves after learning of possible health risks.
“We are doing absolutely everything at the moment to comply with the Centers for Disease Control's tight guidelines, “Michael O'Connell, owner and CEO of PainCare LLC said last week. “As of yet, all our diligence has been precautionary only.”
A call to O'Connell's assistant Tuesday night seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
Symptoms of meningitis include headache, fever, nausea, neck stiffness, and sensitivity to light. The CDC is recommending that patients who feel ill with these symptoms or have either weakness or numbness in any body part or slurred speech contact their healthcare provider immediately.
Also, patients who received injections of the medication to joints should report to their provider if they have symptoms including increased pain, redness, or warmth at the site of the injection. | <urn:uuid:982600ae-42c4-4461-9956-2b65f87669b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121010/GJNEWS_01/121019909/-1/NEWS26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971654 | 672 | 1.570313 | 2 |
On Climate Change
The Department of Chemistry invited 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Mario J. Molina to deliver a lecture on “Chemistry and Climate Change” as part of special ceremonies at which he also received the honorary degree, Doctor of Science. During the ceremonies celebrating the International Year of Chemistry, Professor Anne Marteel-Parrish was installed as the first holder of the Frank J. Creegan Chair in Green Chemistry, established in honor of the man who taught at the College for 40 years. During the post-ceremony reception in the Underwood Lobby, the public viewed a collection of heirlooms from the estate of William O. Baker ‘35, the College’s most distinguished Chemistry alumnus. The collection, which includes the Joseph Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society’s highest honor and letters of commendation from Presidents Nixon and Reagan, was donated to the College by Joseph Baker, the son of William O. Baker. | <urn:uuid:9b55e5e1-c164-4ba6-9053-c68c7b37f0bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washcoll.edu/live/galleries/164-on-climate-change?id=164&p=28 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935544 | 200 | 1.632813 | 2 |
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department today announced that it has entered into a comprehensive agreement with the state of Delaware that will transform Delaware’s mental health system and resolve violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA and the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Olmstead v. L.C. afford individuals with disabilities the right to receive services in the most integrated settings appropriate to their needs, and today’s agreement will ensure individuals in Delaware can exercise that right.
The Justice Department in 2008 began its investigation of Delaware’s state hospital, and modified the scope of the investigation in 2010 to focus on violations of the ADA throughout the mental health system. The state worked cooperatively with the Justice Department to negotiate an agreement resolving alleged violations of the ADA.
“Across the country we are enforcing the rights of people with disabilities, affirmed by the Supreme Court more than a decade ago, to live and receive services in their communities,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. “The services that the state of Delaware has agreed to provide under this agreement will enable people with mental illnesses living in Delaware to reside successfully in their homes and communities, rather than entering costly segregated facilities. As states around the country work to breathe life into the rights promised by the ADA and Olmstead, this agreement demonstrates Governor Markell and Attorney General Biden’s vision and leadership.”
The agreement expands community mental health services so that Delaware can serve people with severe and persistent mental illness in the most integrated settings appropriate to those individuals’ needs. Over the next five years, Delaware will prevent unnecessary hospitalization by expanding and deepening its crisis services, including a hotline, crisis walk-in centers, mobile crisis teams, crisis apartments and short term crisis stabilization programs. Delaware will also provide assertive community treatment teams, intensive case management, and targeted case management to individuals living in the community who need support to remain stable. In addition, the state will offer scattered-site supported housing to everyone in the agreement’s target population who needs that housing support. Finally, Delaware will offer supports for daily life, including supported employment, rehabilitation services and peer and family supports.
The Civil Rights Division enforces the ADA, which authorizes the attorney general to investigate whether a state is serving individuals in the most integrated settings appropriate to their needs. Visit www.justice.gov/crt to learn more about the Olmstead decision, the ADA and other laws enforced by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The agreement in this case protecting the rights of individuals with mental illness in Delaware are due to the efforts of the following Special Litigation Section attorneys: Jonathan Smith, Chief; Judy Preston, Deputy Chief; Alison Barkoff, Special Counsel for Olmstead Enforcement; David Deutsch and Deena Fox, Trial Attorneys. In addition, the division received support and assistance from Shannon Hanson, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware. | <urn:uuid:9dfa0131-200a-4402-a5f6-d07eb32e56e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/July/11-crt-881.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949786 | 607 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Bush's speech was a sad, demoralizing spectacle.
President Bush's speech this morning, billed as a major statement about Iraq and the war on terror, was a sad spectacle—so ripe with lofty principles, so bereft of ideas on what to do with them. He approached the podium amid growing disapproval of his performance as a war president, ratcheting chaos and violence in Iraq, continuing terrorist attacks worldwide—and pleaded for nothing more than staying the course, with no turns or shifts, for a long, long time to come.
He crisply outlined the stakes of the larger struggle against Islamofascism: fear vs. freedom, oppression vs. tolerance, the dark ages vs. modern civilization. "The defense of freedom," he declared, "is worth our sacrifice." And he's right. Which is why his failure to articulate a strategy—his evasion of the difficulties and dilemmas that his own aides and commanders are grappling with—is so distressing.
Early on in the speech, he observed that this new terrorism is "not centrally directed," that it's "more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command." This is a crucial, though long-obvious, insight; it implies that this war cannot be fought—and progress cannot be measured—in traditional ways. Maybe, I thought at this point in the address, Bush would finally lay out a new strategy for this new kind of conflict.
Alas, no. He instantly retreated to the same old, irrelevant formulas. He likened the struggle against terrorism to the Cold War struggle against Communism—ignoring that Communism's strength derived less from its ideology than from its embodiment in the massive, heavily armed, centrally controlled Soviet state. He boasted that we had killed or captured "nearly all" of those responsible for the 9/11 attacks—not just finessing his failure to find Osama Bin Laden, the man most responsible, but also ignoring that such head counts might not matter in fighting a "loose network."
President Bush chided those who despair over the state of affairs in Iraq. Pessimism, he said, "is not justified. With every random bombing and with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots or resistance fighters. They are murderers at war with the Iraqi people themselves."
Maybe so, but what about the Iraqis killed by American bullets or bombs? I am not asserting the slightest "moral equivalence" between U.S. soldiers and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's suicide bombers. However, Bush's own top military advisers have ruefully acknowledged that the dynamics of escalation work both ways.
It was almost exactly two years ago, on Oct. 16, 2003, that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent his aides a searching memo (soon after leaked to USA Today), in which he noted:
Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?
The shocking thing is not so much that it took two years, following 9/11, for Rumsfeld to formulate the right question; it's that two more years have passed, and the administration is only now seeking an answer. Military analyst William Arkin reports in his Washington Post blog, Early Warning, that just last month the Defense Department issued a solicitation for outside contractors to devise "a system of metrics to accurately assess US progress in the War on Terrorism, identify critical issues hindering progress, and develop and track action plans to resolve the issues identified."
I suspect this is why support for the war is waning on the home front—not because Americans doubt that the stakes are high, but because they wonder if the commander in chief knows what he's doing. We were supposed to be in and out of there in a matter of months; Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz all said so. Now it's stretching out for years, with no end in sight—and dubious prospects of meaningful victory.
Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" columnist and author of the book, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
Photograph of President Bush by Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images. | <urn:uuid:4cf2762a-1f36-4004-a206-2623bc05252d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2005/10/say_what.html?nav=tap3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964661 | 927 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Last week’s research release event for “The Search for Skills: Demand for H-1B Immigrant Workers in U.S. Metropolitan Areas” was a spirited and intelligent debate about national policy combined with some thoughtful analysis by regional actors. The conversation highlighted differing opinions about the need for high-skilled foreign labor, important areas of agreement, as well as the need for further research. Based on this discussion, we’ve identified five keys for future productive, pragmatic debate on the H-1B program. They include:
- There are things we can agree on. Despite extreme polarization over the H-1B visa program and the need for high-skilled foreign labor, there is plenty that both sides can agree upon. Experts with opinions as diametrically opposed as Vivek Wadhwa and Jared Bernstein agreed that high-skilled foreign workers can be a positive economic force and that the current mechanisms for H-1B workers to obtain green cards need to be improved to maximize this potential. Capitalizing on these areas of agreement is critical to making progress toward reform.
- Market-based solutions are necessary, but not sufficient. Reform to the H-1B program needs to balance market-based solutions with legislative protections for both foreign and native workers. The right balance of regulation and economic freedom would champion the interests of workers without sacrificing innovation, global competition, and economic growth. A standing commission with stakeholder representation would be an ideal forum to identify and make recommendations toward achieving this balance.
- State and local issues should not be lost in the debate. Business happens at the metropolitan level. While Congress is gridlocked over immigration reform, metropolitan actors are building businesses. One of the most important contributions of this report is an understanding of how diverse metropolitan economies utilize high-skilled foreign labor. State level policy on immigration is just one example of sub-national innovation on this front—the varying skills needs across regions must be addressed with flexible and responsive federal policy.
- Public-private partnerships are the most effective way to match labor supply with employer demand. Experts on all sides have called upon employers to get involved in workforce training. Employer engagement in education and training is the best way to ensure that these programs meet the needs of companies. Workforce investment boards, community colleges, and local companies must team together to target training for skills that are valuable in the market. H-1B visa fee funded grants distributed by the ETA have sparked this kind of activity; and the kind of data made available through this report will empower public-private partnerships to be more effective in filling metro-level skill needs.
- STEM is here to stay. Projected job growth in science, technology, engineering, and math industries indicates that STEM skills will only become more important in the future. The education pipeline needs support and reform in order to meet this need so the United States remains competitive in the global economy. The National Science Foundation works to attract students to pursue high-level STEM degrees, but any higher education efforts depend on middle and high schools to provide the early training and enthusiasm required to succeed in these fields. | <urn:uuid:d94d967c-c698-4739-b531-7a4e6c8a5145> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2012/07/26-h1b-debate-keys-ruiz-choudhurys?rssid=jobs&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrookingsRSS%2Ftopics%2Fjobs+%28Brookings+Topics+-+Job+Creation%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947755 | 629 | 1.765625 | 2 |
August 08 2011 09:35AM
Why do people get so angry about advanced statistics?
Kent Wilson posted an excellent article titled The Theory and Nature of Current Advanced Hockey Analysis. He eloquently describes the ultimate utility of advanced statistics as "aimed at teasing apart the variables that moderate possession at both the individual and team level". The variables include "quality of line mates, quality of opposition and starting position." With the overarching goal being "to isolate individual contributions to possession, be it from the players themselves, or coaching systems, face-off zones, playing-to-score effect, the nature of different positions, etc." If he only knew how wrong he is.
This behavior is a result of Cognitive Dissonance, a theory developed by Leon Festringer. It states that when a person holds two conflicting thoughts, or cognitions, that are incompatible or inconsistent, feelings of discomfort, or dissonance, are produced. Essentially, we do not like to hear or think things contrary to established beliefs, attitudes, or knowledge. When something we see or read conflicts with a firmly held belief it makes us uncomfortable. People attempt to silence the discomfort created by the dissonance in different ways depending on the magnitude of the established belief being challenged. Generally, we attempt to seek information that will decrease the dissonance as well as avoid information that would increase it. I'll deal with selective exposure later.
First I want to share a story that illustrates the ends to which people will resort to silence cognitive dissonance. Festringer believed that information that is incompatible with a closely held belief or attitude will produce higher levels of dissonance. In such instances people often refuse to acknowledge the dissonance and engage in behavior that actually exacerbates it while remaining ignorant to it. It is important to note that people are usually not consciously aware of the dissonance created by conflicting information. Most of the time people believe they are acting in a perfectly rational way.
What Do Fans And Cult Members Have In Common?
Every so often there is an individual or group who believes the world is going to end for some reason or another. In the summer of 1954 it was a Chicago Housewife named Marian Keech (Her real name was Dorothy Martin). According to a newspaper article she had been receiving communications from the plante Clarion. The communication had been ongoing for several years but had recently become more tantalizing. According to Sananda, the alien from Clarion who was communicating with Mrs. Martin, humanity would be destroyed by a flood of biblical proportions at midnight on December 20, 1954.
Leon Festinger read the article and learned that Keech had gained a small group of apocalyptic devotees. As those who believe the world is coming to an end are wont to do, they quit their jobs and sold their homes in preparation for the impending apocalypse. Seeking to demonstrate the influence of cognitive dissonance Festinger joined the group posing as a true believer in Sanada's prophesy.2 He wanted to see what would happen when the end of the world did not come. Jonah Lehrer describes what happened next.
"On the night of December 20, Keech's followers gathered in her home and waited for instructions from the aliens. Midnight approached. When the clock read 12:01 and there were still no aliens, the cultists began to worry. A few began to cry. The aliens had let them down. But then Keech received a new telegram from outer space, which she quickly transcribed on her notepad. "This little group sitting all night long had spread so much light," the aliens told her, "that god saved the world from destruction. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room." In other words, it was their stubborn faith that had prevented the apocalypse. Although Keech's predictions had been falsified, the group was now more convinced than ever that the aliens were real. They began proselytizing to others, sending out press releases and recruiting new believers. This is how they reacted to the dissonance of being wrong: by becoming even more certain that they were right."3
The more invested we are in a belief the more difficult it is to deal with any cognitive dissonance created by conflicting information. Keech's followers show that if you can find enough people who share your belief it will be validated, even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.
Hockey fans can be a little like cult members waiting for the apocalypse. In October we all believe that our team is destined to succeed. Come April they will reach the promised land of the playoffs. When the deadline passes and your team is not in the playoffs a dissonance is created. Fans congregate on message boards and in bars. In an attempt to reduce the dissonance they place blame with the coaching staff or make an individual a scapegoat. Their fandom is further cemented in the belief that once they fix those issues everything will be better. It is much easier to accept that the team was terrible because of a bad coach or specific player than because they are merely a terrible team. The fan can therefore maintain the belief that Team A is good while simultaneously acknowledging that Team A finished 28th overall in a 30 team league. A large group sharing the same belief validates said belief and the dissonance is reduced.
We often resort to rationalizing when confronted with information that contradicts our established beliefs. This is why people say things like "You rely too much on math", "Phil Kessel sucks because he doesn't cross-check enough" or the ubiquitous "Do you even watch the games?" When we see or read evidence that conflicts with an established belief we seek to rationalize it as opposed to modifying our belief. Dissonance can also be reduced by resorting to selective exposure.
Twitter As Selective Exposure
In his book How We Decide Jonah Lehrer describes a 1967 study by two cognitive psychologists named Timothy Brock and Joe Balloun. "Half of the subjects involved in the experiment were regular churchgoers, and half were committed atheists. Brock and Balloun played a tape-recorded message attacking Christianity, and, to make it more interesting, they added an annoying amount of static- a crackle of white noise- to the recording. However, the listener could reduce the static by pressing a button, at which point the message suddenly became easier to understand." Unsurprisingly, "the nonbelievers always tried to remove the static, while the religious subjects actually preferred the message that was harder to hear." People will go to great lengths to silence cognitive dissonance.
One of the best things about the Barilkosphere is that it allows me to filter the content I engage with. Twitter and the daily FTB at Pension Plan Puppets limit my exposure to mittenstringery. Unfortunately, this is a method of selective exposure. This is not to suggest that anyone offering an opposing view is inherently correct, simply that we should be aware of our tendency to filter out conflicting information. We can effectively respond to cognitive dissonance by being willing to alter our beliefs in the face of conflicting information. The best way to do that is to seek out information that challenges our beliefs and opinions as much as possible. Since dissonance is amplified by the magnitude of the challenged belief we should try and remain as objective as possible. On the other hand, no Senator has ever done anything impressive ever.
2. Festinger's experiences with the cult are detailed in the book When Prophecy Fails | <urn:uuid:bbfa6e63-36ef-4da2-91e7-e1294295bdfc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theleafsnation.com/2011/8/8/better-know-a-bias-cognitive-dissonance/score | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965773 | 1,522 | 1.835938 | 2 |
A Land Tax in Bulgaria from 2007?
Capital Land Tax in Bulgaria after 2007? reported recently on the introduction of a ownership-based tax on Bulgarian properties.
Currently, property ownership where the property is agricultural land does not imply the payment of a tax during the course of ownership (but does imply payment on acquisition which may or may not be split with the former owner and potentially on disposal a contribution to which may be extracted by the future buyer). The position is of course different in relation to 'land' (in the sense of buildings) which are subject to local taxation, usually of a minimum nature.
Proposals of this type have been mooted by several previous governments, mainly with view to increasing the marketability of land but these have appeared politically too unappetising to gain sufficient buy-in from government. The current spur of interest seems connected to the likely difficulty of absorbing some of the € 2.8 billion which Bulgaria has been promised in EU agricultural funds over the next five years - and which require co-funding by the government. This has emboldened the cabinet in feeling that landowners will accept the small inconvenience of a tax against the mouth-watering goodness of the expected windfall.
The suggested justification for the tax however, is any dynamising effect on the domestic market in agricultural land it may bring. It appears that possibly as little as 15% of the country's 57,000 square kilometres of arable land (1.4 million acres) are currently under any form of cultivation. Agri-land is cheap compared to equally productive intra-EU land (several-fold cheaper), but it appears that most land-owners find the current costs of doing anything with their land higher than the opportunity cost of doing nothing. Imposing on them a minimal tax (with an accompanying cost of administration not just for the government but also for each passive landowner) is hoped to energise them sufficiently into action - renting or selling their otherwise idle farms, ideally. Rental or sale in turn is expected to move the land from the hands of non-users into those of potential users who value it highly. In a sense, the annoyance value which the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry (whose plan this currently is) is hoping to create to make wanton owners move may be offset by the annoyance and cost in administering the system added to the tax authorities (not to mention any dampening effect on the economy by virtue of the sapping of capital itself).
The impact of the tax on the purse of the individual owner is likely to be insignificant (mooted rates are € 0.05 - €0.25 per hectare (€0.13 - €0.65 per acre). It may mean the difference between hiring an accountant or not however for prospective small inward-investing landowners in Bulgaria who would not have otherwise had to consider such a cost.
Its constitutionality may however be subject to a challenge. Given that urban or industrial is not taxed in this way, questions of fairness (and, possibly conversely, questions of proportionality in comparison to other effective rates of taxation on properties in Bulgaria) may be brought up to challenge a law on this point. European acquis places no demand on Bulgaria to act in this way. In fact there is sufficient diversity in the choices of the current member states of the Union, and globally. | <urn:uuid:4379f706-c8a0-4b6e-be92-d5d8ae6266fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newbalkans.com/lawoffice/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968344 | 679 | 1.757813 | 2 |
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Community Education Council 31 voted overwhelmingly Monday night to put armed, retired police officers in city schools -- but its recommendation has no force in law and community opinion remains decidedly mixed.
Amid concerns from some parents, vocal support from others and requests to table the vote from education groups that opined they needed more time to consult with educators and parents, the council passed the resolution, by eight votes to one, asking the Department of Education to outfit schools with locked doors, video buzzer systems, panic buttons and, most controversially, armed, retired NYPD officers.
"I feel that the time is now for this conversation. We lose the momentum if we wait any longer," CEC President Sam Pirozzolo told the meeting at the Petrides Education Complex in Sunnyside. "When I go to bed tonight, I want to know that I've gone to bed as a parent who is trying to prevent something from happening in the future."
The CEC has no power to make laws or education policy; it can only make recommendations to the Department of Education. Chancellor Dennis Walcott has said he will not consider the idea, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who controls city schools, called it "terrible."
"We know that what we're doing here is a symbolic vote, that if we send this to the DOE, they've already said they're not going to consider it," Pirozzolo said.
And though the proposal will likely never be enacted, the very idea prompted strong feelings from parents on both sides of the issue in the wake of last month's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.
"If we get caught up in the bureaucratic bull, like we always do, something could happen in that time frame," said Stephanie Locricchio, parent of two children at PS 42 in Eltingville.
She said she always believed her children would be safe in school, but the Newtown shootings shattered her assumptions. Ms. Locricchio said she never imagined a day when she would have to consider how close her child's classroom is to the front door, in the event of a shooter's entering the building.
"My son's classroom is the first door to the left," she said.
But many parents -- and one CEC member -- supported stronger security measures, like buzzer systems and locked doors, but didn't support the presence of guns in schools.
"I'd let you put guns in our school after we have community and parent involvement first. I need to have that first," Laura Cavalleri, a parent of a student at Dreyfus Intermediate in Stapleton, said. "My neighborhood has enough guns."
Denise Wright of Stapleton, also a Dreyfus parent, said there are many reasons she doesn't want to see guns in schools. Police officers are trained to see certain movements and consider them suspicious, she said, and teenagers "do a lot of crazy things."
"I do not want to see or hear about kids getting shot 51 times because they were acting dizzy or making wrong movements," she said.
But others deemed that in the hands of trained NYPD officers, the weapons could be an asset to keep children safe.
"People say we're putting guns in the schools," Mark D'Avino said. "[But] we're putting trained professionals in the school."
And while some objected to the cost, or questioned if the officers were necessary, D'Avino said parents should know their children are as safe as they are at home while at school.
"If in my lifetime nothing ever happens, it's my tax money well-spent," he said.
Nancy Rooney, parent of children in Island schools and a child at Virginia Tech -- the setting of America's worst mass shooting -- called for immediate action.
"I'm appalled that it's taken this long after Virginia Tech for us to be even discussing security," she said. "We need to act on it. We're not talking about having guns in the school -- we're talking about having security for our children."
But others questioned whether the CEC had gotten enough input from the people they represent. Sue Dietrich, whose child attends Staten Island Technical High School, pointed out that the CEC posted the resolution on Facebook just four days after the Newtown shootings.
"I'm actually curious how the discussion took place this quickly, for you to assess the feelings of parents on Staten Island," she said. "Those are the people you represent."
She was among plenty of parents in support only of the buzzers, cameras and panic buttons called for in the resolution.
"I do not want armed guards in my child's school," she said. "I think that you would realize putting this controversial stand in the resolution would make the DOE ignore the entire resolution -- even the good parts."
Cathy Carlson, president of the Staten Island Federation of PTAs, asked Pirozzolo to table the vote until she could give PTAs around the borough time to weigh in on it. So, too, did Emil Pietromonaco, Staten Island borough representative for the United Federation of Teachers.
"I think that what we need to have here tonight is not that we talk to 10, 15, 20, people, but we need to make this a conversation on Staten Island," Pietromonaco said.
At the close of the meeting, when it was clear the vote wouldn't be tabled, Pietromonaco told Pirozzolo he was being unfair to the teachers and other educators whose lives it would directly affect, and left his seat in the auditorium.
All council members present except for one, John Harkins, voted to pass the measure. Harkins said that had the two-pronged resolution been split in half, he would have voted for the buzzer and other security measures -- but not for the armed officers.
CEC member Mike Reilly, a retired police lieutenant, said the measure was necessary since an "active shooter" can kill one person every 15 seconds -- and it would take minutes for NYPD officers to arrive.
Parents and the CEC also heard a presentation by Cathleen Perez, a retired NYPD sergeant who presented her ideas for safer schools -- including constructing vestibules at the entrance of every one, with two sets of locked doors, where visitors could be screened, potentially by armed security officers.
Currently, front doors at schools are unlocked, and visitors sign in with unarmed school safety agents.
"I don't know about you, but at home I lock my door. My children are inside, safe," she said. "I don't open my doors until I know who is on the other side." | <urn:uuid:58ff6cfc-2a27-4bef-9f8b-e727ee96b5ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/01/staten_islands_community_educa_2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9805 | 1,383 | 1.632813 | 2 |
MOSCOW - A new Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty should include naval vessels as well as ground forces, the Russian ambassador to NATO said Thursday.
Dmitry Rogozin, speaking at a news conference in Moscow, said that other nations that were signatories to the treaty have much stronger naval forces that Russia does, and the treaty should take that into account.
Rogozin, a nationalist newly appointed as ambassador, called the 1990 treaty "completely outdated" and said many of its limits are Cold War anachronisms.
The treaty is one of the many areas where growing tensions between Russia, the United States and Western European countries are being played out.
© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:01aaa00a-3558-408f-a0ba-12eae9fa87f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bendweekly.com/Worldwide-News/12480.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98153 | 148 | 1.625 | 2 |
The thrill of verbally abusing Siri had pretty much petered out, and we were really ready to roll up our sleeves and whip some actual robot booty.
Now, thanks to "Shiri" -- and the University of Electro-Comunications in Tokyo -- we can. Shiri, you see, is -- to put it bluntly -- a robutt. Or, perhaps, a robo-butt. The university itself calls it "a buttocks humanoid robot that expresses various emotions with organic movements of the artificial muscles."
And, according to the embedded video, the project's purpose is twofold: to advance the "innovative use of robotics technology and its purpose," and "to raise the argument as to what perceptions will be manifested in the minds of people who communicate with Shiri." … Read more | <urn:uuid:178cb05b-9a78-4f12-a020-ebaef1c93c7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnet.com/8300-5_1-0.html?keyword=university+of+electro-comunications | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946319 | 164 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
A captivating tale, involving a young woman biographer contacted by a famous aging writer to write the story of her life. The dying author is notorious for fabricating multiple versions of her life, and the young biographer must delve into the secrets of this woman’s past to find out the truth.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
This is a suspenseful, dark story about a group of elite college students who study ancient Greek, and the outsider who wants to become one of them. A terrible event occurs one night, and we see what lengths the students will go to keep their secret safe.
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
This riveting book tells the story of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn--the lovely wife of King Henry VIII. The story reveals the plotting by their father and uncle to gain power to the Boleyn family at the expense of the girls, who are pawns in a deadly game. Young Mary becomes the King's mistress, but is cast aside as the King loses interest and becomes entranced with her beautiful sister, Anne. We all know what becomes of Anne, but it's a fascinating journey until her end.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
This is an amazing story about 2 young boys, friends who grow up flying kites together in Afghanistan, like brothers. Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman. Hassan is the son of their servant. A terrible thing happens to Hassan at the hands of some bullies, and Amir cannot overcome his guilt in the matter. He eventually flees to the US with his father, but later returns to Afghanistan and confronts the past.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
This book tells the absorbing tale of Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, who grows up in Biblical times and enters the red tent when she comes of age, to be introduced to the society of women. The story follows her life, falling in love with Shalem, and being betrayed by her brothers, before finally finding her calling in life. A very interesting look into the world of the women of those times.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
What a quirky little book--and really fun to read. It's a mystery involving the death of a neighbor's dog, which a 15-year-old autistic boy is trying to figure out. The story is written in his unique perspective. During his investigation, he uncovers the secrets of his parents' unhappy marriage and the identity of the killer.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
My all-time favorite book. John Steinbeck writes with an amazing attention to detail. His descriptions of the characters make them so real, you can truly visualize them, understand them, and feel like you know them. There is the jealous rivalry between 2 twin brothers over a cold-hearted, evil woman, and then the story follows the lives of her 2 twin sons and their struggles with good vs. evil. Fabulous read!
What are your favorite novels?
*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. | <urn:uuid:3e788dc0-4e74-449e-b51c-108ea1bb465e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asianmommy.com/book-shelf?page=16 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963483 | 653 | 1.78125 | 2 |
It's been 140 days since the terrorist attacks in New York City, but Tony Farthing still doesn't know what the mood in his office will be when he arrives at work each morning. Farthing is director of the Census Bureau's New York Region, whose offices are on the 37th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, one of four buildings that houses more than 25,000 federal employees in lower Manhattan. "I walk into the office some days and folks are all teary. You're moving on, then you get a reminder and boom!," Farthing said about how his office is coping since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Federal Plaza is just a few blocks away from what is now ground zero--the site where the World Trade Center's twin towers stood before two hijacked planes crashed into them on Sept. 11. Two of Farthing's employees, Marion Britton and Waleska Martinez, were killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, the last of four terrorist attacks that day. Since then, the New York Census staff has struggled to absorb that loss while managing the stress of returning to a building some employees fear is a prime terrorist target. Two federal buildings in Manhattan were destroyed or rendered inaccessible by the attacks, causing federal managers to scatter their employees among other nearby agency offices. Census Bureau employees worked out of another regional facility for days before returning to their Manhattan offices, but their homecoming effort was riddled with problems, according to Farthing. Following the attacks, Census moved all of its computers to its regional offices so employees could continue to work. But on the day the computers were moved back to Federal Plaza, the Census Bureau offices had an anthrax scare. "HAZMAT came in and they closed my office for three weeks. My staff had to move back to the regional office," Farthing recalled. "For three weeks I couldn't give my employees any kind of idea about whether they had been exposed [to the anthrax virus] and the city wasn't doing anthrax testing of people unless you were able to confirm through the Centers for Disease Control that you were exposed." The anthrax threat increased an already heightened level of panic among Farthing's employees. A Census Bureau employee finally verified that the sample taken from the offices did not contain anthrax spores and the move back to Federal Plaza resumed. However, the building was soon riddled with a series of evacuations caused by false alarms. Farthing said he wondered when the chaos would end. "A day without an incident, a day without the speaker coming on, was a good day for us," he said, adding that it was almost Thanksgiving before a semblance of normalcy returned to the Census Bureau offices. In addition to the Census Bureau, the World Trade Center complex was home to the Customs Service, which shifted operations to the agency's Newark, N.J., and John F. Kennedy Airport offices following the attacks. It took a week for Customs headquarters and GSA to secure new offices at One Penn Plaza, but the new location accommodates little more than one-quarter of the 800-member agency staff. Some agency units have become permanent residents of the Newark and Kennedy airport offices. Customs learned a hard lesson from the attacks. Agency employees are still trying to recreate records that were obliterated when their old building collapsed. "Some items were backed up on our headquarters computers, but we have had to rebuild most of them almost from scratch," said John Martuge, field office director of the New York Customs Management Center. "It's been difficult. We still have not reconstructed all of our files and some of those files are lost forever." Since Sept. 11, Customs has changed its focus from catching drug smugglers at the nation's borders to homeland security. Martuge, a 39-year Customs veteran, said his employees easily made the adjustment. "We were there, we saw the effects and when the focus of the agency changed, we were ready to make that adjustment real quick, not that it doesn't mean much to people in other places of the country, but we understood the reason for it," he said, adding that this new focus may have helped some of his employees cope with the attacks. Both Farthing and Martuge marveled at the resilience of their employees, who continued working, meeting deadlines and providing support to their co-workers after the attacks. "Despite all the tragedies, we have these surveys that have to get done and we have to keep working," Farthing said. "It was just very, very tough to do that and try to stay focused on what we had to do. I'm not only grateful, but I am proud of my office and staff here, these folks have such a work ethic that they weren't going to let things fall apart." Though the months have reduced the stress in these offices, both Farthing and Martuge admit that the psychological trauma remains. Some Customs employees weren't able to return to work until earlier this month. One Census Bureau employee has yet to return to 26 Federal Plaza. "It's almost like a time bomb," Martuge said. "You never know when it's going to hit, a sudden loud noise or a plane flying low overhead can work some people up, but essentially we're back on track." | <urn:uuid:474af621-60f4-43b7-adde-958628f00c52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.govexec.com/defense/2002/01/feds-in-new-york-slowly-recover-from-attacks/10942/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984419 | 1,058 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Robert Shrum: Obama’s gay-marriage endorsement is a moral and political win – Pundits are eager to pontificate on how supporting same-sex marriage will cost Obama in November. They couldn’t be more wrong
Forty-nine years ago this spring, as he proposed the landmark civil rights reforms of the 1960s, John F. Kennedy became the first president to declare that ending racial discrimination was a moral issue …. Now Barack Obama has taken the next step in the unfinished journey toward that ideal: He cut through a cacophony of political advice, the calculus of pre-election caution, to become the first president to endorse marriage equality – and thus to affirm that gay rights are fundamental human rights.
It was fitting that this historic moment came, as JFK’s did, from a president who himself had to overcome generations of prejudice to be in the White House in the first place.
…..this president, who has repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, pushed through a hate crimes law, and refused to defend the shameful Defense of Marriage Act has now sealed his legacy as the champion of a 21st century birth of freedom in America.
That should be rewarded, not punished, in November – and I think it will be. Americans are a decent people; sometimes it just takes time.
Robert Shrum: As he finally claims the nomination that was his all along, but which was so reluctantly yielded to him, Mitt Romney enters his Etch A Sketch period. He may twist the knobs to try and shift his professed beliefs as easily as the aluminum granules on the screen of one of the last century’s most famous toys. But it’s hard for the epic flip-flopper to reframe himself again – or it should be.
Romney is only doing what comes naturally to a man who once said he was “better” on gay rights than Ted Kennedy, but then later donated $25,000 to the homophobic National Organization For Marriage – through a conduit that was designed to hide his contribution. Romney’s public life across two decades has been a ceaselessly revised Etch A Sketch.
Quarterback Phillip Sims takes a picture of President Barack Obama as he poses for a photo with members of the BCS National Champion University of Alabama Crimson Tide football team following a ceremony to honor their 14th national championship and their 2011-2012 season, on the South Lawn of the White House, April 19, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Washington Post: LORAIN, Ohio — Just a day after President Obama visited this crucial swing state, Mitt Romney spoke at a shuttered drywall company visited four years ago by then-candidate Obama to make the argument that Obama’s record has yet to live up to his lofty rhetoric.
On an empty warehouse floor, Romney laid the blame for the company’s fate squarely on Obama.
…. The company actually shut down in June 2008, months before Obama took office and his economic policies took effect.
…. Romney campaign aides said that Obama hasn’t delivered on the promise to jump-start the economy.
… But in Ohio, the economy is improving.
With an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent in February, Ohio’s jobless stats are lower than the national average of 8.2 percent. The unemployment rate, which peaked at 10.6 percent in December 2009, has steadily fallen since then — it was at 8.6 percent when Obama took office in January 2009.
ThinkProgress: If It’s Sunday, It’s Meet The Republican White Men
ThinkProgress: Yum! Brands, the owner of fast food brands KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut told Color of Change that they will no longer support the American Legislative Exchange Council, the right-wing front group that, until recently, was a driving force behind state voter suppression and “stand your ground” gun laws. Yum!’s decision means a dozen corporations (plus the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) have now dropped the conservative group.
Robert Shrum: Will a Tea Party Supreme Court guarantee Obama a second term? The court’s conservative wing appears ready to engage in some despicable judicial activism on ObamaCare….
Recall the scorn toward health reform dripping from the lips of Injustice Antonin Scalia. Or think of the tight-lipped Clarence Thomas, who could send a mannequin to sit in his place at the court’s oral arguments for all the difference his brooding presence makes… Some observers, and administration officials, hold out hope that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy will decide to save health reform from the revanchist claims of right-wing constitutionalism. I’m pessimistic because I lived through Bush v. Gore, when the court acted like a political ward committee…
…. Largely missing from the coverage of the health reform case are the most important consequences of nullifying the law: The tragedy of tens of millions who would again be left without insurance… It took a hundred years to remedy all of this by passing health reform; it could take decades to pass it again….
…. The president certainly doesn’t want to see his landmark achievement, unequaled since the New Deal and the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, left in the judicial dust. But ironically, such a result could rebound to his benefit…. So far, Republicans have been able to demagogue health reform without providing any real plan of their own …. Romney and his party would have to say something more, but they have nothing coherent to offer….
…. I hope my pessimism about a right-wing revolution dressed in judicial robes will be proved wrong …I hope that John Roberts, who at President Obama’s swearing-in couldn’t remember the Oath of Office, at least remembers his own….. I hope for this, but I fear the alternative, a decision that would live in infamy….
…. Perhaps the GOP presidential candidates are right about the boilerplate echoing off the walls at their rallies — that this is “the most important election of our lifetime.” And unless they draw back from the brink, a slim Republican majority on a debased Supreme Court will help Obama win it. | <urn:uuid:9ebc38c6-8936-4f1d-80e4-5d910bc07561> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theobamadiary.com/tag/shrum/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962362 | 1,296 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Welcome to MedLibrary.org. For best results, we recommend beginning with the navigation links at the top of the page, which can guide you through our collection of over 14,000 medication labels and package inserts. For additional information on other topics which are not covered by our database of medications, just enter your topic in the search box below:
Medkila is part of the town of Harstad in the municipality of Harstad in Troms county, Norway. It's located south of Kanebogen and north of Holtet, about 6 km (3.7 mi) south of the city center. The name of the area was previously spelled Midkila and Mekile. | <urn:uuid:dc7d5a6b-ca21-4e74-bd70-0143eedd7cfc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Medkila | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936619 | 139 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Google Halloween or Bing Halloween? The future of civilization may rest on it.
No, it's probably not
Google and Bing are in a battle for Halloween supremacy today as both search engines tweaked their respective home pages to commemorate the holiday.
Bing offers a new image every day. So, the Halloween photo today? Expected.
In terms of search volume, of course, there's no competition. Google clobbers all comers -- although Bing is trying mightily to take a bite of that pie.
But in terms of commemorating a holiday, it's a more even playing field. It's a creativity contest.
Google goes for the more traditional approach by replacing their logo with pieces of Halloween candy. Pieces, you say? Do you only see one offering of candy? Well, click the logo again. And again. They present four different home page displays. | <urn:uuid:7c513435-f476-4b48-bc66-df7b948a5a11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2009/1031/google-halloween-versus-bing-halloween-who-wins | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952558 | 179 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Carousel of Progress has undergone an interesting transformation over the years. When it premiered it was a celebration of technological progress and left you wondering what was in store for us in the years ahead. Over time, though, it became a historical artifact, something we watch to see what used to wow people. Still, there is plenty of entertainment value in this seasonal attraction. Six small theaters rotates arounder four scenes (plus the entry and exit areas) populated by an animatronic family in four different period of the 20th century. The first scenes are pre-electric around the turn of the century, then the 1920s with radio and household electricty, then 1940s with the growth of the suburban lifestyle and additional improvements. The final scene is near the end of the century and suggests technology that might be in the near future.
You can help us keep these guides current. If you see anything incorrect on this page, or if you have additional information that should be added, please fill out our form. | <urn:uuid:150f73d7-cbe6-451a-9263-48bc31730171> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mouseplanet.com/guide/539/Walt-Disney-World/Magic-Kingdom/Tomorrowland/Walt-Disneys-Carousel-of-Progress | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963729 | 204 | 1.71875 | 2 |
In Salt Lake City UT hair transplants are is a relatively simple, outpatient surgery in which your own hair is removed from the back and/or sides of your head and is redistributed to the areas of hair loss. It is virtually painless and performed under local anesthesia.
Hair transplantation is a relatively simple, outpatient surgery in which your own hair is removed from the back and/or sides of your head and is redistributed to the areas of hair loss. It is virtually painless and performed under local anesthesia.
The back and sides are called the “donor area” which is known to generate permanent living hair. This living and growing hair is placed in the thinning and balding areas of the head called the “recipient area,” identified in consultation with your physician. The amount of hair used and the number of visits required is determined by an individual’s degree of hair loss.
The hair to be transplanted is contained in clusters called grafts. Each graft may contain from one to three or more hairs, depending on what is required to fulfill your personal outlined program for hair restoration.Transplanted hair will grow! But a successful outcome also depends on the artistic ability of your doctor—his experience will influence what will look most natural.
The procedure begins with the hairline. Whether re-establishing a hairline or re-affirming one is critical at the outset. It’s what people notice first. Extra care must be taken to make it natural-looking. This is discussed and planned by you with your physician. Appropriate experience, such as Dr. Peterson has, will assure confidence in its outcome.
Once the hairline and other areas of hair replacement are defined, the procedure begins.
Under the care of a professionally trained staff of assistants the doctor will remove a pre-determined amount of hair from the back and/or sides of the head. Following the removal of this donor hair a suture is left in place for about 10 days. This will be invisible to others.
While the donor hair is being prepared for placement, the doctor makes the recipient sites. The texture and natural direction of transplanted hair varies. The doctor’s experience and skill at recognizing these differences is important for appropriate placement. Throughout this time you will be resting comfortably.
Patients are usually able to perform their normal daily activities the following day and may begin their exercise routine within a few days. Salt Lake City UT hair transplants usually begins to grow in approximately three months and will continue to grow over the course of a lifetime. And, during this time, you can take part in any activity desired without worry. After all, you’ve got your own natural hair growing again. | <urn:uuid:f378819d-4749-4048-a8c0-00aca8d3952c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aspenhairrestoration.com/Hair_Restoration_Procedures.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962067 | 558 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Famed mixologist Jackson Cannon recently invited me on a trip to Louisville Kentucky to photograph and experience the process of selecting whiskey barrels from the esteemed Four Roses Distillery. Jackson is Bar Director for Eastern Standard Kitchen and Drinks, Island Creek Oyster Bar, and Owner of The Hawthorne in Boston, Massachusetts.
The lobby of the renowned Brown Hotel.
Happy hour at the bar across the street Van Winkle 13 year rye only $5.95 a glass!
The modest entrance to the Four Roses bottling facility.
Straight from the barrel by whiskey thief.
Similar in look to a wine tasting, but far more intense and not for the faint of heart. That being said, I am now a whiskey drinker and truly appreciate the breadth of variety that each barrel can present.
Taking a breather the Four Roses Distillery
On the way out of town we stop at the “liquor mart”. The whiskey, bourbon and rye selection is expansively different in Kentucky than in the rest of the world.
THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN WHISKEY
The origins of whiskey can be traced back to the Medieval monks of both Ireland and Scotland, but now, those two countries make their own distinctive styles of their native spirit. So it is with American whiskey–the original concept may have been imported from far away lands, but some 300 years later, American whiskey, a spirit that can’t be made without corn, an indigenous American grain, is a product unto itself.
American whiskey started its life as a raw, unaged spirit that had, as its main attribute, the power to spur the courage of the first colonists. And through the years, whiskey has developed into the complex, big-bodied, distinctively American bourbons, ryes, and Tennessee whiskeys that today, are savored by connoisseurs, sipped by grandmothers, tossed back by barflies, and “discovered” by almost every American as he or she reaches that magical age of twenty-one. American whiskey, itself, has reached maturity in relatively recent years, after spending a 300-year adolescence being molded by every major event that has affected its native country. And at times, the reverse is true–whiskey has affected the nation itself.
Whiskey-making was one of the first cottage industries in the land; it was responsible for George Washington mustering federal troops for the first time, and whiskey went with the early pioneers as they traveled westward to explore new territories. Whiskey was a spirit of contention during the Civil War, and was, in part, the reason that Grant never served a third term in the White House. Whiskey spurred the women of America to lead a crusade that led to Prohibition, and has played a part in every major war this nation has seen. In short, where America has been, so has American whiskey–and where whiskey has traveled, so have Americans been influenced by its presence.
Bourbon, in fact, is so darned American, that, in 1964, Congress itself recognized it as “a distinctive product of the U.S.A.” And although straight rye, and Tennessee whiskeys haven’t attained such a prestigious honor, they too have traveled the same dusty trails that led to today’s superhighways and are as distinctively American as any bourbon whiskey.
When the first immigrants arrived on this continent, their love for alcohol in almost any shape or form led to a chain of events that would culminate in the creation of distinctive American whiskeys. By tracing the thirst the settlers wanted to slake we can plot the development of American whiskey from the early days of the settlers in Virginia and New England all the way through time to today. Furthermore, we can track the creation of bourbon and Tennessee whiskey back to their very roots–a rare opportunity when the subject is food or drink. | <urn:uuid:407129d8-a180-472a-a876-6ccd339d26ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stephensheffield.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9593 | 800 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Second-Order Effects of Research Funding Sources: Is the U.S. Innovation Pipeline Headed for a Hiccup?
Back in the good old days we academic-lab or research directors used to worry that the sources of research funding for our faculty and their research groups might bias their research in ways that were not scientifically pure. Nowadays we have something new to worry about. Today we need to worry about whether the research going on in our laboratories will find its way into vibrant startups and thence to American companies which themselves were startups only a few years ago.
First, a little history. Back in 1980 the Bayh-Dole act was passed which lets U.S. universities keep the IP rights to technology generated via federally funded research and license those inventions as they see fit. The government retained rights for its own purposes but really that had little effect in practice. A big result of Bayh-Dole’s passage was that Universities started to license out the IP developed on their campuses. But more important was the fact that the people they often licensed it to were the people who knew the IP best; the faculty and students who had developed new ideas within universities began spinning out companies to develop those ideas commercially.
This led to the explosion of spinoff companies that has occurred over the last two decades. [Editor's note: for a round-up of the latest crop of such companies, click here.] In many cases, the founders of those spinoffs negotiated exclusive licenses with the universities—after all the technology often seemed to be obscure and still early in its practicality, and existing companies were unlikely to want to license it directly. This exclusivity gave the VCs something to hang on to as real value, and so the small companies would be able to get going right next door to the university where the original work had been done.
Now a little bit about accounting rules in the U.S. When a company pays for basic research—either in-house or via a contract with a university—it comes directly off the firm’s bottom line, negatively affecting its earnings per share (EPS). The market values EPS above almost all else, and so therefore does the board, especially when it sets the CEO’s compensation package. In contrast, an acquisition of another entity is off the balance sheet—it has no impact on EPS. CEOs of publicly traded U.S. companies would much prefer to make an acquisition than to pay for research. That tradeoff has a tangible immediate effect on their own pockets.
So a lot of large U.S. companies (some who were small startups just a little while ago) get new technology more by buying early stage companies that have developed their technology to the level where it is just hitting the market place, rather than by paying university researchers (or even internal research groups) to do the basic research.
So now we have the confluence of Bayh-Dole and U.S. accounting rules. The system that has developed in the last 25 years in the U.S. is that federal government pays for basic research. The VCs take the risk in trolling that research for the pieces that are relevant to U.S. industry, then help academics groom those, develop them, and get them read for market. Some of the small companies formed along the way decide to go for broke and do IPOs, but the majority of successful ones get bought by larger U.S. companies. Those companies (perhaps products of IPOs only a few years before) pay a premium for new technology, but they avoid most of the early stage risk. The VCs get handsomely rewarded for their successful bets, but are successful because they are prepared to take on a risk profile where they will have many failures as well.
Everything works fine for U.S. industry as long as the federal government pays for university research.
But over the last few years that has changed. For instance at MIT CSAIL, where I was lab director until a couple of months ago, the portion of research funded by DARPA dropped over the last 12 years from more than 90% to less than 25%. The National Science Foundation has stepped up its research funding but has not come anywhere close in closing the gap. U.S. companies give small gifts (and in fairness some companies are real champs on this front, but most of the big high tech household names are pretty miserly) but overall there has been a short fall. In to this fray have come foreign companies. Many of them are willing to make sizable research investments in U.S. universities. They are what is keeping the IT research endeavor afloat in the U.S.
But they want IP results in return for their investment. That means no more IP exclusivity for companies spun off by faculty, and tough decisions for VCs when a big international player already has rights to the IP on which the Series A they are looking at is basing its business.
Are we in danger of the innovation pipeline from universities to U.S. businesses having a real hiccup?
Rod Brooks is Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT and Chief Technical Officer of iRobot. For a full bio and an archive of Rod’s previous posts and comments, click here. | <urn:uuid:386175a5-bcb8-4667-be79-db80fd65d4cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2007/09/10/second-order-effects-of-research-funding-sources-is-the-us-innovation-pipeline-headed-for-a-hiccup/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974826 | 1,073 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A Debate with Donald Trump
About a year ago I had the pleasure of attending a conference where Donald Trump gave us his wisdom and advice on how to become successful. As you would expect, the discussion was mostly about all the great things that he accomplished and what a wonderful life he lived.
Trump did talk about his failures in the 80′s and his rise from bankruptcy to wealth, which was an inspiring story, and he had some great advice for people at all levels in their entrepreneurial endeavors.
One thing he said really stuck with me. Particularly because I didn’t agree with him and was quite shocked to hear someone with his level of experience give this advice.
Here’s what he said . . . paraphrasing of course. “Do not hire people smarter than you.”
When I heard Trump utter these words, I was certain I misunderstood him. Everything I’ve ever been taught was completely the opposite. I was always taught that your job as a business owner or manager is to delegate and produce results. The way to do that effectively is to get the right people in the right positions. If you are a control freak and try to do everything yourself, you will never succeed.
If you ever read Jim Collins’, Good to Great, I believe he referred to this as getting the right people on the bus.
But I did not misunderstand Trump. He repeated it and went on to explain how people who are smarter than you will steal from you and take advantage of you.
That’s when I started to realize that this is a man that must have really been messed with a number of times in his life. It’s amazing that anyone would try to try to take advantage of Trump knowing his reputation of coming after enemies, but that must be a pattern he’s developed after being taken advantage of multiple times. Unfortunately, it’s probably something that comes with being a celebrity billionaire.
I see his point to an extent, and maybe this is what he meant. You want to know a little bit about all facets of your business, but it is impossible to be an expert at everything. You can’t be an engineer, an accountant, a security expert, and a software developer. But as an entrepreneur you need to know how each piece of your business runs, what it takes to get things done, and how much it will cost, or you can get taken advantage of.
Let’s say, for example, you are in the wholesales business. You may need to know the approximate cost of shipping, how much it costs to source items, what the typical markups are, how your items are distributed, where they come from, and so on. Otherwise you can get taken advantage of by someone who does and knows you don’t.
At some point your small enterprise will expand and you will want to hire employees or outsource some of the tasks. Do you really need to hire someone that is smarter than you to handle customer service? Probably not, but it would be best if you knew the typical customer service issues and how to respond to them so you can train your part-time, minimum wage employee.
When it comes to higher level procedures, such as working with your lawyer or accountant, I do agree with Trump that you want to have some level of competence. By understanding complex parts of the business, you have the ability to tell others what you need as opposed to having long meetings discussing what you want and getting what they believe to be the best decision. Things will get done faster, it will save you time, and yes, it could save you from getting ripped off.
I don’t think you need to be smarter, but at the minimum act like you have a clear understanding of how things work and, therefore, will not let things slide by you unnoticed.
Most importantly though, I believe the success comes with assembling the right team. Not just people that are smarter than you, but those that work well together, have similar goals, and that you can trust.
Millionaire Money Habit: As an entrepreneur, your job at times may require you to hire people to quickly become experts at their job. This poses a challenge as you need to know what “the best” consists of and what their job actually entails. That means you are required to have a general understanding of what this process is, how long it takes, how much it costs, and how valuable it is to your business. | <urn:uuid:61b58736-8f89-4054-8af0-7b6da14c91e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mmhabits.com/a-debate-with-donald-trump/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983794 | 924 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Legoman, see John 6:51. Note that througought the chapter, aion/aionios is contrasted with that which comes to an end. The implication is clear: Aeonian life is immortal life.
I'll get to the rest of your post later.
Joh 6:51-63 I am the living Bread which descends out of heaven. If anyone should be eating of this Bread, he shall be living for the eon
. Now the Bread also, which I shall be giving for the sake of the life of the world, is My flesh." (52) The Jews, then, fought with one another, saying, "How then can this one give us his flesh to eat? (53) Jesus, then, said to them, "Verily, verily, I am saying to you, If you should not be eating the flesh of the Son of Mankind and drinking His blood, you have no eonian life in yourselves
." (54) He who is masticating My flesh and drinking My blood has life eonian
, and I shall be raising him in the last day
, (55) for My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink." (56) He who is masticating My flesh and drinking My blood is remaining in Me, and I in him." (57) According as the living Father commissions Me, I, also, am living because of the Father. And he who is masticating Me, he also will be living because of Me." (58) This is the Bread which descends out of heaven. Not according as the fathers ate and died; he who is masticating this Bread shall be living for the eon
." (59) These things He said, teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum." (60) Many of His disciples, then, hearing it, said, "Hard is this saying! Who can hear it? (61) Now Jesus, being aware in Himself that His disciples are murmuring concerning this, said to them, "This is snaring you? (62) If, then, you should be beholding the Son of Mankind ascending where He was formerly - ? (63) The Spirit is that which is vivifying. The flesh is not benefiting anything. The declarations which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
"Living for the eon" and "eonian life" refer to the same thing. The eonian life is the life pertaining to the eon in which they shall be living for.
The contrast is not between death and immortality. The contrast is between death and living for the eon to come which is 1000 years duration.
Immortality is a subject never taught by Jesus.
One might suppose by this verse that Jesus taught immortality:
Joh 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
But upon closer inspection of the Greek the translators left out a couple of key words. I'll bold them:
Joh 11:26 And everyone who is living and believing in Me, should by no means be dying for the eon
. Are you believing this?
"They live and reign with Christ a thousand years" (Rev.20:4).
No one would try to make "a thousand years" be "eternal" just so they can keep Christ and His followers alive if the thousand years should end. Neither should one change "eon" to "eternity" just so one can keep His followers alive. | <urn:uuid:2c115456-4864-45b6-8288-c4d2e5e9c009> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tentmaker.org/forum/discussions-on-universal-salvation/aionios-let's-clear-the-water/msg49133/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957004 | 738 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Omega3 Innovations Company History
Twelve years ago, Omega3 Innovations founders MDs' Bo Martinsen and Anne-Marie Chalmers were on a mission. The couple had recently moved to the United States from Norway, the homeland of fish oil. They wanted to bring their knowledge of the medicinal power of omega-3 to the American public. But they quickly ran into a problem: namely that in the United States, people had a bad association to fish oil. The two doctors realized that to help people take their omega-3s, they would first have to cure their fear of the oil.
The Creative Process
Dr. Martinsen and Dr. Chalmers decided to make omega-3 so appealing that people would want to take it - not just for the health benefits, but also for the great taste. They started by creating Omega Cure®, an omega-3 fish oil so fresh that it has no taste or smell and can easily be added to juices and yogurts. The doctors have gone further, creating the Omega Cookie and Omega Passion™ chocolate truffle - both healthy treats that can be integrated as part of the daily diet.
Commitment to Quality and Science
To this day, Omega3 Innovations is still inventing, still creating innovative omega-3 products that work for different health needs, schedules, and tastebuds. Every product goes through an extensive development process and scrupulous taste tests to make sure it both tastes good and provides measurable health benefits. Furthermore, Omega3 Innovations remains dedicated to the values of its two physician-founders; following the latest medical research, and performing our own pilot studies to determine that every product we make really does make a difference. | <urn:uuid:b605971f-902f-4762-98d5-e7b8c017c855> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.omega3innovations.com/index.php/company-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966712 | 348 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Andrew Gleason is Idealware's newest Research Intern, and recently graduated from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. with a B.A. in Spanish and Peace and Global Studies with aspirations to work in the international development sector. At Idealware he assists many projects, and is working on research regarding the use of mobile technology among global development organizations.
Recently I did some high level research on the use of mobile technology in the global development sector and found some interesting mobile tools that are currently being used across the globe. Not only do these tools assist staff in the field, but also improve health, education, government and economic services to people living in developing countries. The research is for a report you'll hear more about down the road, but for now, I wanted to share some preliminary findings.
Mobile healthcare initiatives are a rising trend. A noteworthy article from Mashable
explores four mobile campaigns that have aided the work of healthcare professionals in Africa: Praekelt Foundation
, Health eVillages
, mHealth Alliance
and Medic Mobile
. These campaigns have introduced mobile tools that allow healthcare workers to provide important services to developing communities. TxtAlert, a tool used to send SMS reminders for patients to take their medication, and Please Call Me, a tool allowing patients to connect with their doctors even if they are out of airtime minutes on their mobile device, have had a tremendous impact on patient-doctor communication within the developing world.
Some of these tools are able to collect medical data, provide virtual healthcare and aid in diagnosis. This mobile technology not only increases the number of patients healthcare workers are able to treat, but also increases doctors’ efficiency in the field. There are numerous small and large-scale pilot projects being implemented in developing countries (SatelLife
), but what are global development organizations doing here in the U.S.?
In the coming weeks Idealware will be exploring how U.S. based global development organizations are using mobile tools, specifically for fundraising and marketing. We will be taking a case-study approach and interviewing various organizations. We are excited to start this project and share valuable information with the nonprofit sector!
Trackback URL for this post: | <urn:uuid:d0cac004-4f8b-40fd-86d5-bdde5ef5a06e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://[email protected]/blog/rise-mobile-technology-global-development-sector | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941119 | 446 | 1.828125 | 2 |
gives him an endurance of about
three hours, with reserve. Dave’s Starduster has a total fuel capacity of 46
gallons, burns 10 gph, and has an
endurance of four and a half hours.
So they flight planned to cover 200
nm every two hours or so. They
logged a total of 20. 5 hours by the
time they landed at Wittman Field.
Dave, reflecting on their journey,
shares that the flight “felt like a personal sense of accomplishment—the
proud father, having my son solo one
of these airplanes, for God’s sake, let
alone fly it 1,700 miles over some pretty interesting country. In Rock Springs,
Wyoming, the density altitude was
like 9,900 feet. And 40 miles east of Le
Mars, Iowa, we had to turn around and
land at the closest airport for weather.
We flew together pretty much; he
asked me to go a little faster because
he was hanging on the prop, and I was
running as hard as I could run it.”
Dan is equally proud of his father
as his father is of him. He says his
dad “is probably the highest time
Starduster Too pilot right now, and
he probably has more time at night
[about 100 hours] in this kind of airplane than anyone else. He’s been a
major advocate and has mentored a
lot of people who have Stardusters—
he wants them to be safe and enjoy
Together, Dave and Dan are enjoying the fruits of their labor—
including the award-winning recognition
they received at several fly-ins during
2008. Dan’s Starduster took the following awards: Reserve Grand Champion Plans Built at Arlington, Outstanding Workmanship—Homebuilt
Plaque at AirVenture, and Best of
Type at the Starduster Homecoming
at Flabob Airport.
This unusual father-son duo plans
to continue flying their Stardusters
well into the future. Brandishing a
broad smile, Dan says, “I’m going to
fly the wings off of it! I’ve already got a
little over 160 hours in the first year, so
I’m well on my way!” Indeed.
Sparky Barnes Sargent holds a
commercial glider certificate with a
private single engine land rating, and
she personally restored her 1948 Piper
Vagabond. She was the first female
recipient of the Bax Seat Trophy (2006).
Her first book, a collection of women
pilot biographies entitled A Hunger for
the Sky, was published in 2008. | <urn:uuid:4a4cbdc5-d746-4584-977e-655dab4a7bda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportaviationonline.org/sportaviation/200909?pg=46 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958176 | 575 | 1.5 | 2 |
Has suborbital’s time finally arrived?
by Jeff Foust
|“Hopefully, by the end of the year, [we’ll] have a little air under the wheels in Mojave,” Nelson said of XCOR’s Lynx development plans.|
Arguably he biggest development announced at the meeting by those companies had to do with money, not technology. XCOR Aerospace announced that it closed a $5-million round of funding, giving the company sufficient resources to complete the Mark 1 prototype of its Lynx suborbital vehicle. The company raised the money from a number of individual investors, including Esther Dyson, former Ameritrade COO Pete Ricketts (now a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team), and “several top Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and former venture capitalists,” according to a statement released by the company.
“It’s been long in the making,” XCOR COO Andrew Nelson said of the new financing round at a press conference at NSRC. “We closed it a little while ago, but we are pleased to announce it here because a lot of the promise of that equity investment is right here in the research community.”
The company has been making progress on the Lynx, a winged vehicle that takes off from a runway under its own rocket power, ascending to altitudes of about 60 kilometers (for the Mark 1; the Mark 2 will go to 100 kilometers or higher) before gliding back to a runway landing. Nelson said the company recently took possession of components of the vehicle’s fuselage while working on other aspects of the vehicle. “We’re very much looking forward to getting all of these pieces put together and hopefully, by the end of the year, have a little air under the wheels in Mojave,” Nelson said, referring to the timing for the first flight tests of the Lynx.
While XCOR raises the money it needs to finish the Lynx, other companies have been building and flying their own test vehicles. In January, Armadillo Aerospace flew its STIG (Suborbital Transport with Inertial Guidance) A rocket from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The STIG-A3 rocket lifted off well, but a ballute designed to stabilize the rocket for reentry broke off, causing the rocket to reenter nose-first and crash on spaceport property. “Everything on the rocket was destroyed, except the fins and engine, which were last to hit the ground and were quite overbuilt,” the company said in a summary of the flight.
Despite the reentry failure, the company hailed the flight of the rocket, which reached a peak altitude of at least 82 kilometers, Armadillo vice president Neil Milburn said at NSRC (the flight summary says the best fit to the available data is an altitude of nearly 95 kilometers). “We could have made STIG-A space-capable,” that is, have it reach altitudes of over 100 kilometers, Milburn said, but instead Armadillo is pressing ahead with a larger rocket, STIG-B. The rocket features a larger diameter and other upgrades, giving it a “substantial payload capacity,” he said: capable of carrying up to 10 kilograms as high as 140 kilometers, and providing four minutes of microgravity.
Armadillo has an ambitious schedule for STIG-B: a first flight of the vehicle is planned for as soon as May from Spaceport America. “That’s a hell of a push," Milburn admitted. “That’s the kind of operational pace we have at Armadillo.” Armadillo is using the technology it’s developing for the STIG rockets for a two-person vehicle, code-named Hyperion, it’s developing in partnership with space tourism company Space Adventures. “We should be making some announcements later this year about just when we should see the first boilerplate flights of Hyperion,” he said.
|“That is something that I can’t give you an exact date on, but should be some time later this year,” Pomerantz said of plans for the first powered SS2 flight.|
Masten Space Systems has recently performed test flights of its Xaero vehicle, a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing vehicle based on earlier designs that won over $1 million in NASA’s Lunar Lander Challenge competition in 2009. Masten CEO Joel Scotkin said the company had been stymied for a long time with an issue it found after putting an aeroshell over the vehicle. “Every time we got 18 inches off the ground our IMU [inertial measurement unit] would get confused and think we were sinking, and we would take off again,” he said. They company decided “to clobber it over the head with software,” which resolved the problem, he said.
Xaero made a test flight to an altitude of 61 meters last month, and higher tests flights—to thee to five kilometers—are planned “in really the very near future,” Scotkin said. The company is also working on upgraded vehicles, including the Xaero B and Xaero 20, which will fly by the third quarter of this year to altitudes of 20–30 kilometers. A separate vehicle, Xogdor, will be ready by the end of the year for flights to 100 kilometers.
“Our goal is to build one of these [vehicles] every quarter at this point,” Scotkin said of Masten’s development schedule. “We think we have pretty much all the components in place to do that.”
The most prominent suborbital company, Virgin Galactic, had little new to say at NSRC last week. Its biggest announcement was a deal with NanoRacks, a company that develops payload accommodations for the ISS, to provide similar experiment racks for SpaceShipTwo (SS2). Virgin Galactic vice president Will Pomerantz said dedicated research flights of SS2 could carry up to 600 kilograms of experiments, as well as a Virgin mission specialist to monitor the experiments during the flight.
Company officials, though, offered few new details about testing of SS2. Pomerantz and chief test pilot David Mackay, in separate presentations, would only say that powered test flights of SS2 would begin “later this year”, without being more specific about a date. “That is something that I can’t give you an exact date on, but should be some time later this year,” Pomerantz said at the NSRC press conference. “We’re already in the process of preparing the vehicle for that right now.” According to the flight logs maintained by vehicle developer Scaled Composites, SS2 hasn’t flown since a glide flight in late September.
Even relatively secretive Blue Origin, the company created by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, provided an update on its suborbital vehicle efforts. The company generated some rare headlines last September when it confirmed reports that one of its vehicles, designated PM 2 in the company’s permit from the FAA, was lost in a test flight at its west Texas facility. Brett Alexander, the director of business development and strategy for Blue Origin, said the loss, while unfortunate, was not unexpected. “It was not meant to be the operational vehicle,” he said. “We are building the next vehicle now.”
PM 2, lost at an altitude of 13,700 meters and a speed of Mach 1.2, was designed to go to 100 kilometers altitude, Alexander said. The next major milestone for the company—at least, one it is willing to announce—is this summer, when it will conduct a pad abort test of the pusher escape system for the vehicle’s crew capsule. That test is being performed as part of its second-round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) award from NASA for orbital vehicles, but the same system would also be used for suborbital vehicles.
Alexander, though, wouldn’t provide any information on when the next suborbital test flights will take place. “We are constructing the next test vehicle now, but we’re not discussing when that’s going to be flying.”
Neil Armstrong talks about the X-15 program and suborbital spaceflight at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference no February 27. (credit: J. Foust)
Perhaps the biggest endorsement of the progress the commercial suborbital industry is making was the presence of someone else at NSRC, a former X-15 test pilot better known for his time as a NASA astronaut, including one historic mission: Neil Armstrong.
|“This has been an area that has been essentially absent for about four decades, after the X-15 finished its job. There’s a lot of work to be done there, and there’s a lot of opportunity,” said Armstrong.|
Armstrong’s keynote at the conference focused almost exclusively on the development of X-planes after World War Two, and in particular the X-15, which he noted was built for speed, not altitude. “Burt [Rutan] occasionally ribs the government for spending hundreds of millions in attaining an altitude that was achieved by SpaceShipOne for a small fraction of that amount,” Armstrong said. “The X-15’s purpose was to fast and hot; the faster and hotter, the better. It was not designed to fly high.”
At time of the X-15 program, Armstrong said, he and others involved weren’t thinking about potential research or commercial suborbital applications. “We’ll get the data that is necessary for people to practically go into suborbital space and do things,” he recalled. “And whether they do or not, that was not our business, because at that time we were off doing something else.”
He didn’t directly discuss the emerging commercial suborbital vehicle developers in his talk, but expressed hope they would find success. “Certainly in the suborbital area there are a lot of things to be done,” he said. “This has been an area that has been essentially absent for about four decades, after the X-15 finished its job. There’s a lot of work to be done there, and there’s a lot of opportunity. So I certainly hope that some of the approaches that you all are providing now will prove to be profitable and useful.”
Armstrong’s presence alone at the conference was taken as an endorsement of the field by some participants. “I think it was extremely important that Mr. Armstrong was here,” said XCOR’s Nelson. “It shows that a gentleman of his stature is, number one, aware of what we’re doing. He recognizes the importance of it enough to show up here.”
“I think that this shows that commercial suborbital, while being leading edge, is also becoming mainstream,” said Alan Stern, associate vice president of the Southwest Research Institute and conference organizer. “I think Neil’s being here is a pretty certain demonstration of that.”
Of course, those vehicle developers need to deliver on their plans and promises. History has shown those schedules have slipped: for example, at the first NSRC, held two years ago in Boulder, Colorado, both Virgin Galactic and XCOR said they would be doing powered flight tests of their vehicles in 2011; neither did (see “Suborbital research gets ready for liftoff”, The Space Review, March 1, 2010). They or other companies could still see delays in the coming year. But as multiple companies, with differing technical approaches, each demonstrate progress towards suborbital spaceflight, the era of routine, reliable, low-cost suborbital space access may finally soon really be within reach. | <urn:uuid:c610a047-a795-46b1-9b6b-5c21192cb6f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2039/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967681 | 2,532 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Amsterdam gets a taste of Southern spice
Not many in this part of the country are aware that a Tamil-Malayalam Film Festival took place in Amsterdam, Holland. It began on March 10 and continued till the end of April. It is surprising that the Indian media has taken no notice of this interesting event.
In the West, Indian cinema is equated with Hindi movies and those in regional languages such as Tamil and Telugu are virtually ignored.
The Royal Tropical Foundation (RTF), a happy exception, and an association based in Amsterdam, Holland, has been conducting several festivals on Indian culture (for nearly 20 years) in its various aspects such as music, dance and cinema.
However, this is the first time a festival exclusively devoted to only Tamil and Malayalam Cinema was held this year.
Attending the festival as special guests were Mani Ratnam and his wife Suhasini, who were the representatives of Tamil Cinema, and from the Malayalam movie world, it was Mohanlal and Rajiv Vijaya Raghavan
Here is the list of films that were screened in the two South Indian languages...
TAMIL : Adimai Penn, Thanneer Thanneer, Muthal Mariyathai, Veedu, Iruvar, Virumandi, Autograph andPithamagan.
Malayalam : Neelakuyil, Chemmeen, Olavum Theeravum, Thampu, Amma AriyanVaanaprastham and Maargam.
The Dutch connection
It all began when the Dutch were a colonial power during the 19th century holding sway over what was then known as `Dutch East Indies,' comprising the Indonesia of today.
KIT began as `Vereeniging Kolonial Insutuut' (Association of the Colonial Institute) to create a museum by collecting works of art from the Dutch East Indies. Over the years, it became necessary to have a building for the institute. A museum set in picturesque surroundings was opened on October 9, 1926, by Queen Wilhelmina.In November 1945, Indonesia got freedom and the name of the institute was changed to Indisch Institute but the board of directors felt that the name still had a colonial flavour! Reflecting the spirit of modern times and the changes the Museum had undergone over the years and its widening range of activities, it came to be known as Royal Tropical Institute (RTF, or KIT in Dutch). Among the many activities of RTF are the presentation of the life and culture in developing countries through exhibitions, theatre, musical and dance performances and lectures.
RTF has conducted several Indian film festivals in the past and except for a sprinkling of movies such as ``Chandralekha," ``Kannathil Mutthamittaal" and ``Malli," Tamil cinema has not received much attention until the Festival happened.
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Shots - Health News
Fri November 16, 2012
Global Fund Moves To Discontinue Project Subsidizing Malaria Drugs
Originally published on Fri November 16, 2012 5:23 pm
One of the world's largest health funding agencies — the Global Fund — made two big decisions Thursday.
The fund appointed Dr. Mark Dybul as its new executive director. Dybul is best known for leading the international fight against HIV during the Bush's administration through the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS.
The fund's board also decided the fate of a controversial $225 million project that subsidizes the cost of the most effective malaria drugs in Africa.
The fund says it will discontinue financial support for the Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria program, or AMFm, after a one-year transition period. Countries that wish to continue using subsidies will have to divert money from their regular malaria work to pay for them.
There has been a vigorous debate in the global health community about AMFm.
Advocates, such as Barry Bloom of Harvard School of Public Health, say the pilot project has reached its major goal. It's gotten the best malaria drugs to more people by reducing their cost through collective bargaining and payments to manufacturers.
Critics, on the other hand, claim that AMFm is wasteful. They say the program has put the drugs in the hands of the untrained people, such as shopkeepers and private pharmacists who've given the drugs to people even when they don't have malaria. One study even reported a gross overtreatment of malaria in many countries participating in the AMFm.
Here's how the Global Fund describes plans for the project:
During a transition period in 2013, the lessons learned from the operations and resourcing of Phase 1 of the AMFm, such as manufacturer negotiations and the co-payment mechanism, will be integrated into core Global Fund processes.... Under the new, integrated model, eligible countries will be able to allocate funding from their core Global Fund grants and determine how the money should be spent.
"This raises an awful lot of worries," Bloom tells Shots. "I'm concerned that its decision is more determined by politics and ideology than a focus on how to deal with kids and adults with fevers in poor countries."
Bloom says it's unclear if each country now has to bargain with drug manufacturers on its own, and thus will lose their collective bargaining power to keep the price of malaria drugs low.
He also says the Global Fund didn't address a major problem with malaria in Africa — diagnosing it properly before beginning treatment. "I had hoped that the Global Fund would create a pilot project for linking diagnosis to treatments," he says. "They could have done a lot better."
Earlier this week, Stanford University economist and Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, also voiced his support for AMFm in The New York Times. "This initiative is an interim measure to ensure that fewer children die for lack of effective anti-malarials," he wrote. "The risk is that efforts to develop and implement "the perfect" will end up killing 'the good' in the process."
Update on Friday afternoon. A representative from the Global Fund sent us this statement:
Following a transition period, co-payments for anti-malarial drugs will no longer be available through a separate funding mechanism hosted by the Global Fund. Instead, through the integrated model approved by the Global Fund Board, all eligible countries that wish to expand access to ACTs and malaria diagnostic testing will be able to allocate funding from their core Global Fund grants to a private sector subsidy. Under this integrated model, the Global Fund Secretariat will continue to centrally negotiate prices and make direct payments to manufacturers on behalf of buyers in those countries. | <urn:uuid:6601df9b-fd98-4756-a30f-fccad238a6e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ripr.org/post/global-fund-moves-discontinue-project-subsidizing-malaria-drugs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962305 | 763 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Click on the triangular “play” button above.
How do we understand Paul’s doctrine of matrimony and marital roles when he writes:
- Saint Paul: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church” (Eph 5:23)
- Saint Paul: “Let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands (Eph 5:24).
Listen and find out! It’s actually very beautiful and encouraging for both husbands and wives. | <urn:uuid:e6db79c2-9781-41d1-875c-4cd4452dd311> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pauliscatholic.com/2009/08/episode-11-paul-on-matromony-and-marital-roles/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931904 | 111 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Aug. 28, 2008 A double murder investigation that has remained unsolved for almost a decade could be provided new impetus following a forensic breakthrough at the University of Leicester.
A leading detective from America is visiting forensic scientists at the University of Leicester and Northamptonshire Police in a bid to shed new light on the investigation.
He will meet with Dr John Bond a forensic research scientist at the University of Leicester and scientific support manager at Northamptonshire Police. Dr Bond and colleagues from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leicester are investigating a new technique to identify fingerprints on metal casing- including bullets and bombs.
The breakthrough in crime detection could lead to hundreds of cold cases being reopened. The method enables scientists to 'visualise fingerprints' even after the print itself has been removed. They conducted a study into the way fingerprints can corrode metal surfaces. The technique can enhance – after firing– a fingerprint that has been deposited on a small calibre metal cartridge case before it is fired.
Detective Christopher King, of Kingsland Police Department, Georgia, is the lead investigator working on a 'cold case' - a double homicide - which has gone unsolved for a number of years. Detective King is a veteran officer with over 20 years' experience as a sworn law enforcement officer in both California and Georgia.
Detective King was given the task of reviewing the previous investigators file to bring a " fresh " prospective and new ideas to the case.
Detective King said: "In December 2007 I was offered the position of Investigator to focus on an unsolved double homicide from 1999. The suspect(s) in this case entered a downtown business in the early afternoon on 12/01/1999, shot and killed the two employees and stole a small amount of cash. Four fired shell casings ejected from the suspect's pistol were recovered at the scene and have been processed for latent fingerprints using traditional methods of dusting and fuming with negative results.
"Our Chief of Police, Darryl Griffis, read an internet article about Dr Bond's work at the University of Leicester and Northamptonshire Police in developing latent prints on fired casings and it was decided that we should attempt to have our casings tested. We checked with several of the larger crime labs and learned that everyone was interested in the process, but none were ready to try it out.
"We contacted Dr Bond and were invited to bring the evidence to Northampton for processing in the hope that that, with the Leicester process, a latent fingerprint might be located on the actual casing(s) itself which would help to bring more evidence against a possible suspect. While we understand that there is no guarantee of positive results, every possibility must be explored to bring the suspects to justice and closure to the victims' families.
"This will be my first visit to the U.K. and I look forward to meeting with Dr Bond, his staff and the members of the Northamptonshire Police."
Spokesperson for the Kingsland Police Department, Lieutenant Todd C. Tetterton, said: "Your process was one of many avenues located on the internet which showed promise towards assisting us on this case."
Dr Bond said: "We are hopeful that we may be able to assist colleagues in the Kingsland Police Department, Georgia with the techniques we have developed recently. We have already had some success at enhancing partial fingerprints on shell casings for other police forces where the cases were some years old and conventional fingerprinting techniques had been tried and failed".
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:a6f7221c-0482-4fb3-8468-0c6fb6d3571f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080827102738.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960751 | 761 | 1.765625 | 2 |
— The 84-year-old woman who struck Reese Witherspoon with her car while the actress was jogging across the street reportedly said her view was obstructed by a large tree in the intersection.
Reese, who won an Oscar in 2006 for her role as June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line,” suffered minor injuries and is resting at home. While many wished Reese a speedy recovery, some expressed sympathy for the elderly driver.
“One of the hardest things in the world is for an elderly person to give up their independence,” Kathie Lee Gifford said on TODAY Thursday. “I remember one of the hardest days for my dad is when we had to take the keys away.”
Los Angeles police cited the driver for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
An incident like this can happen to any driver, experts say, but when it happens to an older driver, it prompts questions about whether it’s time to give up the car keys or at least have a conversation about it.
A person younger than 22 tends to have more accidents, and that number increases again starting at ages 65 to 75, says David Melton, managing director of Global Transportation Safety at Liberty Mutual Insurance. He adds there are indicators that it may be time to stop driving.
“Everybody ages differently, and I include myself in this because I just celebrated my 65th birthday, and I’ve already had this conversation with my wife and son and told them if I start to show reluctance to drive at busy times, in bad weather, if I don’t want to drive on freeways or if there are more dings in my car than there used to be, those are indicators.”
In a study released in January, scientists from the University of Rochester suggested older people have trouble driving because they have a heightened awareness of people and cars moving around rather than what’s right in front of them. In particular, drivers
over 80 have an elevated crash risk when trying to deal with more complex road situations, such as intersections, left turns and reacting to an imminent crash, according to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The American Automobile Association estimates 37 million drivers will be 65 and older by 2020, and 90 percent of them will be licensed. Drivers 85 and older has surpassed 3 million.
Jodie Olshezki, a veteran gerontologist with The Hartford insurance company who has researched the issue with the Massachusetts Institute for Technology’s AgeLab, says “There’s no magic age when people become unsafe on the road. Older drivers are relatively safe. Usually, it’s an underlying health issue that causes people to have accidents.” | <urn:uuid:f2021d3b-3ebf-4323-b619-e9902bbca7c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/09/08/7675926-elderly-driver-hits-reese-witherspoon-unsafe-seniors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969156 | 568 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Adventure in the Council of Enemies by Arwen Salvo
Price: Free! 860 words.
Language: English. Published on May 18, 2013. Fiction » Children’s books » Action & Adventure / Survival Stories.
Arwen wrote this book when she was 9. She loves adventures.
Wara ran, and fell into time. She gets a new name, Tirzah. She was captured. How will she get out the council of enemies? And how will she get home, trapped in time? | <urn:uuid:8d065287-1720-4d39-b8a6-6b509b2732b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smashwords.com/books/category/61/newest/0/free/any | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9483 | 107 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Posts Tagged ‘mock trial’
From my past posts, you know that I occasionally post on the subject of our local mock trial competition. I have blogged about this mock trial here. I have posted my tips for students competing in the mock trial competition in a new mock trial blog. If you or someone you know is doing a competition, check it out. It contains tips for student witnesses, student lawyers, and coaches.
Let’s face it, I live in a pretty small town. To have Justice Korsmo drive up three hours from the court of appeals to judge our Mock Trial Competition is a pretty big deal. I wondered how it would be to have an appellate judge sitting in a trial court, but Kevin Korsmo is a natural. He is also pretty good working with kids, and the teachers agreed.
Justice Korsmo presided over the battle between the senior classes of Republic High School and Curlew High School. Each side had the chance to present the prosecution case, and the defense case in a hypothetical case of People v. Terry Bell. Terry Bell was charged with arson and incitement, but was acquitted each time by a jury of grade schoolers. I coached the Republic High School team, and our elected prosecutor Mike Sandona coached the Curlew High School team.
Coaching a mock trial team is just about the only volunteer activity I do, and I have done it since 1997. In a good year you can get the kids as competitively charged as they would be in a basketball game against their rival. This year, both schools had their fair share of over-achievers, and I am always impressed at the number of local graduates who go off to top schools, many with scholarships. But in addition sometimes the competition makes stars of kids who are not academically inclined. In the end, what often prevails is a combative spirit. I usually end up getting to know some of these mock trial champs pretty well. Every so often there will be a kid who already wants to be a lawyer. Occasionally there will be a kid of such precocity, that I will already imagine them kicking my butt in court in seven short years.
(Note: I will be posting some pictures of a couple of the student lawyers as soon as I can get their permission.) | <urn:uuid:729d6ab6-e5f3-4c5d-bb6e-6ef9043b50f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grahamlawyerblog.com/tag/mock-trial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981967 | 474 | 1.59375 | 2 |
It's a matter of preserving marine resources for the people of Fiji and Tristan Simpson is proud to be part of the lifeline for our environment.
Born and bred in Wollongong, Australia, Tristan is one of the research directors in Fiji for marine conservation non-government organisation, Blue Ventures.
Tristan's life growing up in the outback sparked an interest in wildlife and the natural environment.
Wrestling crocs, studying about turtle conservation, Tristan spoke passionately about his love for the environment and the opportunity of a lifetime to help conserve Fiji's marine life and species.
Tristan is number two in a family of four.
"My family used to come to Fiji on holidays and so far, this is my third trip here," said the 27-year old.
"The wildlife has been part of my life when I was growing up, dealing with snakes and spiders in the backyard." He attended a boarding school in Sydney where he spent the past two years of high school.
With a tactful mind and a determined heart to keep our environment safe, Tristan studied marine science and graduated from the University of Sydney.
Thereafter, his journey to experience life outside Australia became his aspiration.
"While at university, I was managing a bar full time while studying full time also," he said.
"I also ran a pub in London for a while. I've also been to Scotland and helped out studying and monitoring salmon migration.
"I helped out in hotels in the Czech Republic and spent a year in Mexico monitoring the Meso-American barrier reef," said the curly-haired blonde.
"I came back to Australia and worked for the department of environment and conservation.
"In Western Australia, I studied and worked on turtle conservation. I also spent two years working for the department before moving onto community based management working with communities and the tourism industry on marine conservation.
He also coordinated the Ningaloo turtle conservation program and study on the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.
In 2007, he joined Blue Ventures as a partner where he met project director Fiji, Howard Foster in March that year.
Together, the marine conservationists have spent the past 18 months trying to set up the project in Fiji.
Tristan studied the marine ecosystem in Fiji and was amazed at the rich marine biodiversity.
"The reef is in a good state and the idea is to make sure it stays that way," he said.
"My role is to help other researchers coordinate the project on marine conservation in Fiji with the help of other staff members.
"There are many challenges of this profession and a lot of trials. The rewards are what push you forward."
He recently returned from Madagascar with other volunteers of Blue Venture studying the Velondriake reserve and creating the largest community-run protected area.
His experiences travelling the world have made him appreciate the environment around him.
For Tristan, coming to Fiji to help nurture the environment and to educate locals on how to best preserve their marine resources is something he will always remember.
"I'm very excited about working on the project here in Fiji," Tristan said as he bade us farewell under the towering rain tree next to the meeting house on the chiefly island of Bau. | <urn:uuid:9d6a8c7c-a8f1-4271-a119-d5bcca468657> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=115336 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971569 | 670 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Wouldn't it be great if you could push a button at night, and all of your doors would lock, your lights would turn off and your alarm would set automatically?
That kind of "smart home" feature may sound futuristic or simply beyond reach for those without a lot of money or technical expertise. But the technology is already available and new products and services are making it and similar home automation features increasingly accessible to the average homeowner.
"It appears that we may be at a turning point," said Chet Geschickter, an analyst with Gartner, a market research group. "We may have all the raw materials for this interoperable home automation world."
In recent months, some major corporations
The promise of widely available home automation has been around since "The Jetsons" aired 50 years ago. But until recently, smart home systems have been pricey and complex, typically requiring professional installation. And few consumers have been aware of the availability of such services or haven't been convinced that they needed them.
But in recent years, major consumer service providers -- including ADT, Comcast and Vivint -- have entered the market, helping promote the concept of home automation and make it more accessible to average consumers. Companies such as Comcast and Vivint now offer basic home automation systems for less than $500 installed. And Lowe's Iris, which is available for about $300 for a full system, is designed for self-installation.
"We definitely see that (home automation) is moving increasingly into the mainstream," said Jonathan Collins, an analyst with ABI Research.
Helping drive the decline in price and ease of use are standardized wireless technologies such as ZigBee and Z-Wave that allow users to install light controllers and automated door locks without needing to rewire their house. Such technologies have allowed electronics manufacturers to design more modular and expandable systems, letting users and service providers customize systems for individual needs and budgets.
The spread of broadband, cloud computing and smartphones have also provided new and compelling ways for consumers to interact with home automation systems, say analysts. For example, smart home services can take the smartphone's location information and use it as a trigger for doing things like turning on lights or sending alerts.
"Without a smartphone, (the smart home) wasn't really an exciting value proposition," said Lisa Arrowsmith, a research manager at IHS Electronics and Media.
And new features are making such systems more attractive to consumers, analysts and industry insiders say. Video monitoring, for example, has proved particularly popular among ADT's customers. And the growing awareness around energy conservation is driving the adoption of smart thermostats that can adjust temperatures when consumers are away or in response to signals from utility companies seeking to reduce peak demand.
To be sure, home automation still isn't for everyone. While less expensive and easier to install than before, they still aren't cheap, and many consumers may still need help configuring them.
The smart home services offered by the ADT and Comcast and other providers typically are sold only with other services, such as security protection or broadband access. And they generally require users to sign long-term contracts that can include pricey monthly subscription fees.
Also, many smart home technologies and devices are incompatible with one another. So consumers who want to add on to their systems or change their service providers may find they have limited options -- unless they want to start from scratch.
"There still are some questions that need be to be answered around this market," said Arrowsmith. "I don't think we're going to wake up tomorrow and everyone's got one, but we are seeing decent growth rates."
Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285. Follow him at Twitter.com/troywolv.
Home automation technology and services have been in development for years, but they're just now starting to make their way into the mainstream. Some key numbers:
More than 40 percent: The portion of Vivint's 700,000 customers who have signed up for its smart home services.
Less than 20 million: The number of home automation devices shipped worldwide in 2012, according to IHS Electronics and Media
More than 90 million: The number of smart home devices IHS expects will ship globally in 2017.
1.5 million: The number of home automation systems installed in the United States in 2012, according to ABI Research. That was nearly double the number installed in 2011.
8 million: The number of home automation systems ABI expects will be installed in the United States in 2017.
6 percent: The portion of American households that have a smart or connected thermostat, according to Parks Associates. Also, the portion of American households that have connected security cameras.
4 percent: The portion of ADT's 6.4 million customers who have signed up for its Pulse home automation service.
Mercury News research | <urn:uuid:3c90958c-7741-4963-8654-be72bd46e016> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sbsun.com/business/ci_22594157/is-smart-home-your-future | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956602 | 995 | 1.757813 | 2 |
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