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Archives
The Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association presents the third annual Taste of the Mountains Wine Walk on Saturday, June 3rd, in Downtown Menlo Park. All ticket proceeds from the event will benefit the Menlo Park Atherton Education Foundation. Enjoy wines from small, local boutique wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains poured in various designated tasting locations …
A benefit wine and food festival, offered in cooperation with the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association, in support of the healthcare mission of the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust on Friday, November 4th, from 6 to 9p.m. at Crosetti Hall, Santa Cruz County Fair Grounds. Enjoy our area’s best wines, hors d’oeuvres and locally grown … | {
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Sunday, November 13, 2011
The Small Press Comic Convention, Genghis Con, returns to Cleveland on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 26th, 2011, from noon to 6 pm at the Beachland Ballroom at 15711 Waterloo Road Cleveland, OH 44110. This is the third year for the convention, which will draw artists, writers, cartoonists, and many other independent comics champions from all over the Mid-West and beyond.
So you think you know all there is to know about comics? From Alan Moore to Warren Ellis? From Archie to Xenia? Prove it! We are going to have a trivia game where you can get to use that nerdy knowledge to win prizes provided by the ever popular comic book store on High Str...eet: Laughing Ogre.
Is that not enough? We are also going to have a projector in the back room for another game in which we will have comic book panels with blank word bubbles where we let people make up their own witty captions. Show off that rapier wit in head to head competition!
A huge community poster jam will be going on so that anyone can add in their own little drawings and jam with the indie artists who are at the show. Come out, have a cup of coffee or some brewskies and mingle with local creators and see their artwork featured on the walls and on the shelves.
If you want in the artshow, please contact Molly Durst at [email protected] | {
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Aspiration
The nurse is small, chubby and folded over the desk like laundry folded then forgotten. She’s wearing worn pink scrubs and frameless glasses under a bowl-cut of thinning brown curls. She likes me. I hand her my HIV questionnaire, the one the receptionist asked me to print out and complete before my visit, and she barely glances at it. She trusts me.
I say no, look at the charts on the walls, and think about Leah, a friend from undergrad. Her autopsy confirmed what we all suspected, that it was the birth control that had killed her, hardened her blood and sent it to stick inside her heart. She died two and a half years ago, a week before her 21st birthday, almost two years to the day after I lost my gallbladder to that same stupid pill.
I take my time getting these words out, laugh a little when I stumble over the name of the procedure—to further disarm her, to keep her on my side. When she’s done scribbling on the form, she looks up at me—like all the others, unaware of how fragile our exchange is. She asks if there’s anything else.
I nod.
“I had an…aspiration…an aspirational abortion. In December, 2007. And I had my wisdom teeth removed. February of 2006.”
I hurry through to the last procedure, although I know the doctors aren’t concerned about minor dental surgery. At least it gives them something to address. It doesn’t leave as much room for that awful silence.
“We don’t include wisdom teeth,” the nurse says, without making eye contact.
I tell myself that I’m just being paranoid, that she hadn’t just glanced at my HIV questionnaire, that the last 30 seconds hadn’t changed the opinion of a trained gynecological nurse in the Student Health Center at a state university. That I must not be the only girl who’s come in here with that specific sort of scarlet letter on her medical transcript.
But maybe no one else admits it. Maybe that’s my mistake.
*
Harry had been so sweet about it, let me decide what I wanted, paid for everything, spent the week between my diagnosis and my appointment taking me on hikes around the Craft Center and bringing me snacks in the Fibers studio.
I’d come to the Craft Center after three unsuccessful attempts at an undergraduate degree. The small cluster of cabins and lodges sat on a treed hill that dropped into Center Hill Lake; the campus was dotted with discarded attempts by its students—a crumbling clay bust nestled in a disintegrating pile of poorly-woven yardage, a rusted iron bird, the multicolored shards of a misshapen hash pipe. Perhaps the setting spoke to me, because although I no longer lived on the hill, I’d managed to stick it out at the school. After my first year, I’d moved off-campus and into an apartment in Cookeville, Tennessee, 15 miles away. But I still made the drive to the Craft Center four or five times a week, for class and for parties.
There was no clinic where we lived on the Cumberland Plateau, in a county whose only interstate exits were announced by twin 200-foot aluminum crosses. I had made an appointment at a clinic in Antioch, just outside of Nashville, my hometown.
The day I left, Harry showed up at my door.
“I’m sorry,” he told me, holding out a stack of 20-dollar bills. “They didn’t have any hundreds at the bank.”
I looked at the man standing in my doorway—his stubbornly rosy cheeks, blue eyes and blonde ringlets that fell just short of his shoulders. He would have looked like a child, but his skin was weathered from entire days spent in front of the glass furnace, and his body—like the bodies of all the other glassblowers—possessed a fundamental masculinity in its breadth. The strong forearms, the wide, muscular back. His large hand thrusting that absurd amount of money at me had all the earnestness of a toddler handing a toy to his mother. He was giving me what he could. I invited him in.
“I’ve got something else for you in the car,” he told me.
Harry came back from the car holding the gift behind his back. “It’s not much,” he warned. His voice was Colorado dusty, and subdued. “But I wanted to make you something. To say thank you.”
He pulled his hands forward, revealing a clear glass swan that was etched mid-crest over a crystalline wave. It was about eight inches tall, rendered with very little abstraction. It reminded me of something from the center case of a jewelry store. Something dusty from my childhood. A trinket for the elderly. But I took it from him, felt its weight in my hands, and thought of him working in the hot shop, blowing into his gather, pulling at molten glass, sanding and etching its lines in the cold shop. It was unlike the vases he normally made, that were shaped so organically, so textured and layered in sheets of earth-colored glass that they looked like scar tissue. Someone in the studio must have noticed that delicate bird. I wondered how he had explained it.
*
The day after my abortion, I drove back to school for my final critique in Fibers. I’d indigo-dyed different types of silk—noil, organza, jersey, charmeuse, velvet—and sewn them together into a large, uneven canvas. Around the perimeter of the silk, I’d attached a border of cotton, stuffed stiff with foam. I printed the silhouettes of birds in various stages of flight, at different sizes and tints of atmospheric interference, all across the patchwork silk.
The piece wasn’t finished. A week before it was due, I’d gone home to Nashville for my annual gynecological exam and found out, by accident, that I was pregnant. Urine tests were protocol for any woman who was late—even if only a week or two, even if an irregular cycle was par for the course for that particular woman. I’d sat on the exam table, cradling the little plastic test, crying, until some animal sense of self-preservation washed over me. When it did, I stopped crying and asked the nurse for the number of the nearest clinic. I made my appointment, left the office, the parking garage, Nashville. I remember nothing of the 80 miles between there and Cookeville.
Even through the blessed stillness of shock, I could recognize that I’d known the truth earlier that morning, when I’d woken up. I’d turned away from light streaming in through the window and felt my stomach lurch in a new way. Until that moment, I hadn’t considered the possibility that I was pregnant, that I could ever be pregnant. And as the alarm clock sounded and the possibility pushed at me, so did a solution—abortion. It felt as inherent as a heartbeat.
*
Having proof changed everything—nausea wasn’t just nausea, exhaustion was more than exhaustion, smoking a cigarette or having a drink felt like a fat, black period on the end of a declarative sentence.
Even Harry had transformed into a sweet, distorted sort of father figure, not just a guy I’d gone home with after a pair of parties. Our first time together was after the Welcome Back Drag party in August. He was wearing a buttery yellow sundress and lipstick on his cheeks. Newly single, I was wearing five-inch heels and a sock tucked into my tights. Drunk and brave, we admitted our longstanding mutual attraction through clouds of hot breath and headed back to his dorm—a cabin on the hill—where we ripped off each other’s dresses. We didn’t have a condom but decided we didn’t care. We’d waited too long to postpone it any further.
A month later, at the Halloween party, Harry was dressed as nigiri sushi: white sweat suit, a large piece of orange foam strapped to his back by a dark green sash. I was a tongue in pink and red, with labels that pronounced different parts of my body as Salty, Sweet, Bitter, Sour. That night, I waited for him to fish a condom from his nightstand. He didn’t. So I waited for him to pull out, come clumsy into the crevice between my torso and my thigh, like he had before. He didn’t. And when, after more than an hour, he slumped against me, noiseless, I figured it was late, we were drunk, I hadn’t felt anything, and he must have given up. He hadn’t.
After the doctor told me that I was pregnant, I was too tired to tell my friends, too tired not to tell Harry, too tired to force any other option—adoption, something more acceptable, something that didn’t so aggressively clash with seven years of Catholic school and a lifetime of dreaming about motherhood. I was too tired to do anything other than notice the thumping addition to every space, to every action.
*
During that week in December, it took everything I had to stay awake in the studio, to finish the panels of silk that I’d been planning for months. That Sunday, at my final critique, I stood in front of the slipshod tapestry while my professor talked about the importance of craftsmanship when executing a design. My head lolled under the influence of the Lortabs I’d been sent home with.
“I’m sorry,” I told the group, almost giggling, “I had a medical procedure yesterday. I’m a little doped up.”
My old roommate—that weekend, the only other person on campus who knew about the abortion—said she was certain that no one had suspected anything.
“Everyone thought you got your wisdom teeth removed,” she said.
An insignificant extraction. Something not even worth listing.
*
The Student Health Center nurse who had at one point liked me leads me into an exam room. She sets my chart on the doctor’s rolling stool and instructs me to remove all of my clothes, put on the strange, square, paper vest, and cover my lap with the sheet.
“There’s information there,” she says, still not looking at me, looking instead at the wall of pamphlets. “Lots of good information.”
“The Truth About HPV.” “Waterproof At-Home Breast Exam.” “Herpes.” “Rape.” The titles of the pamphlets are accompanied by Clip Art illustrations or photos of concerned youth in brightly colored sweatshirts. There is nothing here about abortion. There is no pamphlet that provides step-by-step instructions for handling the mood swings that accompany two hormonal spikes in quick succession, or suggests how I should have responded a few weeks after, before Christmas, when my mother, standing in her kitchen, finally snapped and asked, “Why are you being so awful?” There’s nothing that explains why, six weeks after my abortion, when I decided to sleep with a guy who’d been after me for months, it felt good. Why I came. Why I wasn’t scared and didn’t cry, even though I worried that I should have. “There’s information there,” the nurse had said, but not the information I needed.
The door clicks closed behind the nurse, and I undress. The exam room is uncomfortably large and sparsely furnished and I feel—for a moment—with the half-drawn curtain between my exposed body and the door, the lights from the high ceiling reflecting across the expanse of linoleum floor, the furrowed brows of all those concerned youth in their primary colors—that I am on display. The pink mouths of my cholecystectomy scars smile back at the pamphlets, unashamed.
When the gynecologist comes in, her heels click against the linoleum. She looks like every OBGYN I’ve ever visited—fit, middle-aged, with sharp features, sandy curls and black, square-framed glasses. She hums as she skims my chart, then starts singing: “You’re twenty-six years old! You’re a graaaduate student! You had a cho-le-cyst-ech-tomy! And a…” She stops singing.
*
The doctor tells me to get dressed, that they’ll call if my pap comes back abnormal. Then she sends me to the lab to get my blood drawn. Before she leaves the room, she offers me birth control once more, and I shake my head, “No, thank you. Really, no.”
I wonder if it’s just my imagination, or if all of the women who work here heard about my medical history, if they’ve all decided at once to avoid eye contact. Or am I just ascribing significance to a group of people going through the motions?
The phlebotomist smells like stale smoke and is angry with me, frustrated that she can’t pin down a vein.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She ignores my apology. “Make a fist.”
I hear the whispered click of the needle penetrating my vein, the low hum of blood pouring into the vial. I stare at the far corner of the ceiling. The phlebotomist asks me if I’m going to faint, and I shake my head. “As long as I don’t see anything, I’m fine,” I say. She removes the vial and snaps another in place. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, feel my helium stomach push against my throat.
*
At the Women’s Clinic in Antioch, the first room they took me to was the lab. It was just on the other side of the waiting room door, next to the bulletproof glass that encased the registration desk; the chubby blonde nurse in cat scrubs; the security guard in black sunglasses, black turtleneck, black braided ponytail, black holster, black gun. He stood behind the glass; we sat exposed on the other side.
A nurse named Jacquie asked me if I knew my blood type, and I shook my head. “Nobody ever does,” she said, then said something about Rh factor, that they’d have to give me an extra shot, that it would be another 50 dollars.
I nodded and signed a paper. Jacquie led me to the ultrasound room. A new woman—a tech—told me to pull down my waistband and lay back. She rubbed cold jelly on my stomach and moved the handset across my abdomen.
As the machine dragged across my belly, I thought of every movie I’d ever seen that featured a woman who was pregnant and wasn’t sure what she was going to do—whether she was going to keep the baby she’d conceived accidentally with the handsome but immature coworker, or her brutish ex-boyfriend, or her married lover. This was the time—when a baby’s beating existence appeared on the screen—that she’d begin to cry and know that she was ready to be a mother, that she could do it on her own. I braced myself.
“Can’t really even see anything,” the tech said. “You must not be very far along, maybe seven weeks or so.”
“Five weeks,” I said. “To the day.”
She wiped the jelly off my stomach and told me I could pull my pants up. I returned to the waiting room and peeked out of the narrow tinted windows. A line of two-dozen religious protestors stood nearby, at the closest legal distance they could get to the clinic. That morning, as I’d walked across the parking lot, their leader, a middle-aged white man with neat blonde hair, had called to me. “It’s not too late,” he said.
I turned away from the windows and looked around the room—with the exception of myself and a teenage girl who’d been brought by her mother, every woman there was sitting with her partner.
*
Harry had asked if I wanted him to go with me.
“No,” I’d said, and meant it. “We barely know each other. I don’t feel like making small talk at an abortion clinic.”
He’d been relieved, said he’d thought the same thing.
“This may be weird to say,” he told me, “but if this had to happen, I’m glad it happened with you.”
We were sitting on my sofa. I had set the swan between my feet but was still clutching the thick stack of twenties. I thought of adding the line on my resume: a good girl to get pregnant—quick and discreet, totally chill.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Me, too.” He was quiet for a while, then, “Will you come by my cabin on Sunday, after your critique, and tell me about it?”
I nodded.
I’d only been in Harry’s room three times. Once, after the drag party. Once, after Halloween. And once, a few days earlier, when I’d told him that I was pregnant but not to worry because I’d already made an appointment. And he had told me that it was strange, that people had always warned him not to get a girl in trouble, but that he thought it was a trope. He was surprised it had actually happened.
It was hard to believe. Harry was almost 30—handsome, popular, and a fixture on a small campus of artist types, all grasping at some modern form of bohemian hedonism.
I felt like a succubus, like a wayward Eve who’d seduced an innocent man, who’d gotten him cast out of the Garden. Despite the fact that he was almost 10 years older, I was the one who should have known better. I remembered the sex talk I’d received from a nun in the eighth grade, how she’d separated the girls from the boys and told us two different stories. On the playground that day, the boys had filled us in—they couldn’t control themselves, but they had to try. The girls had been told that even French kissing would send them straight to Hell, because what was a man supposed to do when a woman made her sexual intentions so clear?
When he asked me how many times I’d had sex, I answered, “More than ten.”
*
As I leave the Student Health Center, the questions on the HIV form run through my head. A list of confessions—what I’ve done, how I’ve risked my health, the health of others. At the bottom of the form, there’s a question that, like penance, wipes the slate clean.
“If you can answer yes to the following, you significantly decrease the risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Are you in a long-term, monogamous relationship?”
An easy out. Get out of jail free. If someone could love me, then all my sins—the drunken hookups, the forgotten condoms, the jokes I’d made with another woman in the recovery room after we’d each been drugged and dilated and vacuumed clean—they would lift off me like pollen in the wind.
The ink that filled the little box next to “No” had never been so black, so permanent.
*
That evening, when I recount the events at the Student Health Center to my friends, they all agree that it sounds horrible, that the nurse and the gynecologist are both heinous, that Student Health is set up to make us all feel like terrible harlots. They sympathize, share their own experiences.
But they still flinch when I refer to my abortion, particularly when I use the word itself. Almost always, with the exception of the women who’ve been through it, people flinch. A little less so if I use suggestive terms, like procedure, or something dark, like the big suck. Or when I talk about it with a hushed, shaking voice—appropriately scarred.
*
For five months, the only people who knew were me, Harry, my old roommate, my sister and my mother. And the three people to whom I’d accidentally confessed at my high school five year reunion, drunk and spinning, 30 minutes and five whiskeys into an event that I hadn’t wanted to attend, a week after my abortion, an hour before I took a cab to my mother’s house and passed out on the floor of the guest room.
And maybe someone that Harry told, if he’d told anyone. I never thought to ask. Self-preservation is, after all, a solitary act.
After the abortion, he and I barely saw each other and didn’t talk on the phone because we’d never talked on the phone. In April, at the campus craft fair, I watched him demo in the glass studio. I watched the muscles in his forearms expand and contract, control the five-foot-long steel gather, the hot-orange liquid glass. That night, a few of us took a handle of vodka on a hike to the lake, and afterwards, he offered to let me crash in his bed. We used a condom. Joked about using two.
The next day, we ran into each other at an outdoor concert at a friend’s family farm. When he saw an opportunity to pull me aside, Harry walked me past the fire pits, to a large oak tree around which cars had been parked, packed together like puzzle pieces—we’d all be spending the night, no driver would complain about being locked in.
“Look,” he said. The rest of the conversation was as trite as its beginning. He was a single guy, wanted to remain a single guy, didn’t want me to get the wrong idea. I brought up the pregnancy. We yelled at each other. I wasn’t the laidback chick anymore; he wasn’t kind. After we walked away from each other, he disappeared into the crowd, and I drank a magnum of cheap red wine, alone in my car, and stomped back to the show. That night, I told every person I saw about the abortion.
A few weeks later, Harry graduated and moved West.
*
When the receptionist at the Women’s Clinic called me back the second time, she called me in a group. A half-dozen women were led past the lab, past the ultrasound room, down a set of stairs into a basement, a room with musty carpet and a row of plastic chairs all facing a teacher’s desk.
An older woman handed us a packet of papers, then sat behind the desk and began to detail the process.
“If you choose to have a medical abortion,” she said, “we will give you the pill while you are still at the clinic. If you choose to have aspiration, you will be given anesthetic, dilated, aspirated, and then the doctor will perform D&C to make sure no additional pregnancy remains in your uterus.”
She walked us through the list of risks: Failed abortion. Birth defects. Infection. Sterilization. Death. We signed our papers and were led back up the stairs to a second waiting room.
A woman in a NASCAR shirt was already in there with a different group. She was telling the room that her ultrasound had revealed twins, further proof that she was doing the right thing. “We’ve already got three kids, you know. Barely making it, as it is.” A younger girl said that if it had been twins, she would have kept them. “I’ve always wanted two little girls.” She had been disappointed to see a single heartbeat on her ultrasound.
The TV in this second waiting room was playing Saturday morning cartoons. A nurse brought most of us our meds, fat doses of Demerol and Valium. Underage girls were taken to other rooms to receive twilight anesthesia.
We were called, one by one, alphabetically. I was the last to be summoned. A nurse walked me to the bathroom to pee. She stood just outside the stall, in case I fainted from the drugs, or the gravity of the situation pulled me down the pipe with the rest of my waste. I stared at the closed door, her shellacked nails curling over the top, and considered that the only male employee was the security guard.
We walked to the operating room. The doctor was already inside. She was friendly, that same sort of woman—blonde curls, square-framed glasses. An OR nurse’s hands were soft on my shoulders as she guided me onto the table. A large machine in the corner looked more than a little like Rosie the Robot wearing a bright orange bio-waste sticker instead of her frilly maid’s apron.
She spread my legs and injected a local anesthetic into my cervix. My muscles contracted in one long, sharp cramp. I tried to distract myself. There was an ornament hanging above my head, a purple angel carved out of wood. They were piping oldies through a speaker in the ceiling.
“That hurt, I know,” she said. “One more injection, but you won’t feel this one. Misopostrol.”
My cervix dilated. The nurse reached under my head and hit a switch that raised the operating table. Just as they were unraveling Rosie’s long arm, the music changed to an old Drifters classic.
There goes my baby, moving on down the line…
I couldn’t help it.
I started to laugh.
The doctor stopped, mouth of the hose extended toward my open legs. I pointed to the speaker and continued laughing and apologizing until they recognized the song.
“No one will believe you,” the doctor said, smiling. She inserted Rosie’s hose and turned it on.
She was right. It didn’t hurt. I felt it, but it didn’t feel painful, not like something being torn out of me. It felt like I was filling up, swelling and stretching, thinning like the skin of a balloon. Like I was full of warm beer and floating on Center Hill Lake. It was over just after the song ended. Then the doctor performed a D&C, something akin to a pap, and told me to lie still for a few minutes.
After that, the nurse, who had kept her soft hand on my shoulder during most of the procedure, helped me into a surgical diaper. I climbed down into a wheelchair and was rolled into the recovery room. It looked just like the counselor’s office in the basement, windowless with the same moist gray carpet, but the plastic chairs had been replaced with plush leather recliners. I wondered if they were donated, or if someone had gone to the La-Z-Boy store to make the purchase. The woman in the NASCAR shirt was reclining in one of the chairs. I was lifted into the seat next to her. She and I made a few jokes about the good drugs. What else were we supposed to do?
By that time, the only other woman in recovery was on the opposite side of the room, her face pressed into the side of her chair. She was crying.
A nurse came by and administered a Heparin shot. When I was ready, I walked to the bathroom and changed out of the surgical diaper and into my own underwear and a pad. I was surprised to see that the bleeding had already stopped.
Outside, it had begun to lightly snow. The protesters were gone.
*
I don’t regret having an abortion. Regret is dangerous, violent. Can I regret being young and drunk and foolish and fertile? How should I repent? What can I do?
Sometimes, I catch myself thinking about how strange it would be to have a little human—a combination of me and Harry, all chubby cheeks and round eyes. But it isn’t this idea that haunts me.
What haunts me is the look on that Student Health nurse’s face when I told her what I’d done. The way my friends deflect and redirect the conversation when I bring it up over boxed wine. The thousands of tiny white crosses that are planted on the lawn of my grade school every year.
*
After my Fibers critique ended, I excused myself from the reception and walked across the campus enclave to Harry’s cabin. We lay in bed for a few hours, his arm cradling my back, my head resting against his chest. He asked about the surgery, asked if it had hurt, if I was bleeding. I assured him that I was fine and made a joke about the painkillers—offered to sell them to make back his 500 dollars. We talked about nothing important, little anecdotes from the week, something more intimate than small talk. He told me that after he was done with school, he wanted to walk out into Death Valley, disappear with a few supplies, just him and a tent and the sun.
When that morning’s dose wore off, I drove myself back to my apartment. The semester was over. I’d get a C on my final project. Over the holidays, I’d have to answer my mother’s question about what was wrong with me. As the years passed, I’d tell dozens of doctors, nurses, most of my friends. I’d write a hundred poems obsessing over every small detail of the experience.
I’d hold tight to these things—the swollen suction of the vacuum, the soft twirl of the wooden angel that dangled above me, the smell of the cold medical jelly, the lack of blood, the lack of scars.
Anna Sutton’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Third Coast, Quarterly West, Superstition Review, Barrow Street, DIAGRAM, and Weave Magazine, among other journals. In 2013, she received her MFA from UNC Wilmington and a James Merrill fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Her manuscript, Playing House on the Bones, was selected as a finalist for the 2013 Crab Orchard Poetry Series First Book Prize and the 2014 Crab Orchard Poetry Series Open Competition. She is a co-founder of the Porch Writers’ Collective in Nashville, TN, Web Master at One Pause Poetry, and on staff at Gigantic Sequins and Dialogist.
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} |
(a) An amateur station may transmit the following types of two-way communications:
(1) Transmissions necessary to exchange messages with other stations in the amateur service, except those in any country whose administration has notified the ITU that it objects to such communications. The FCC will issue public notices of current arrangements for international communications.
(3) Transmissions necessary to exchange messages with a station in another FCC-regulated service while providing emergency communications;
(4) Transmissions necessary to exchange messages with a United States government station, necessary to providing communications in RACES; and
(5) Transmissions necessary to exchange messages with a station in a service not regulated by the FCC, but authorized by the FCC to communicate with amateur stations. An amateur station may exchange messages with a participating United States military station during an Armed Forces Day Communications Test.
(b) In addition to one-way transmissions specifically authorized elsewhere in this part, an amateur station may transmit the following types of one-way communications: | {
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Some of the designers who made it happen
Simple and bold- perfect for a logo! Barnia was the first to post a design and made the requested changes promptly. Great to work with...
- Brandedbarn
Finalist
- jimvalenti
Very easy to work with. Gave me many samples and a great final design. Will definitely work with him again!!!!
- Jeff Hockings
Finalist
- dzaldian
I recommend working with him. He is really expert and fast in converting your pencil sketches into nice designs.
- Anonymous
Finalist
- Ge'Vielle
After all is said and done Ge'Vielle was always available and made quick changes to come up with a desirable finished product. All in all a great experience.
- Quatzencrew
Finalist
- lpavel
We're very happy with lpavel's design. We had a lot in our design brief and lpavel gave us a design that was simple, attractive, memorable, professional, and displays our companies long term vision. We highly recommend working with lpavel!
- Anonymous
Finalist
- aleano™
Always the best.
- Anonymous
How Brandedbarn started their logo design journey
Who are you known as?
The Branded Barn
Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach
I sell gift and fun items to livestock producers in the US.
What industry do you think your business is most related to?
Agriculture
Logo types to explore
Pictorial mark
Letter mark
Emblem
To give us an idea of the overall feeling of your brand, let us know which styles you lean towards
Classic
Modern
Mature
Youthful
Feminine
Masculine
Playful
Sophisticated
Economical
Luxurious
Loud
Quiet
Simple
Complex
Subtle
Obvious
Design inspiration
Other notes
Target audience: farm families, livestock producers, conservative tendencies, all ages, very down to earth
You are welcome to visit my website to get a better feel for what I am trying to sell. http://www.thebrandedbarn.com | {
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Description
The STC Central Iowa Community, chartered in 1986 as the STC Des Moines Chapter, today includes over 70 technical communicators throughout Iowa. STC-Central Iowa meets September through May, offering programs in tools and technology, team communications, project management, and other topics that help our members acquire and develop the skills to stay marketable in the workplace. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
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Aiwel
In African mythology, Aiwel was the founder of a
hereditary
priesthood known as the spear masters among the Dinka people of the
Sudan. He was the son of a human mother and a water spirit. While still a
child, Aiwel lost his mother and went to live with his water-spirit father
in a river. When he grew up, he returned to his village with a
multicolored ox named Longar. From then on, the man was known as Aiwel
Longar.
hereditary
passed on from parent to child
There was a drought and many cattle died. Aiwel told the people of the
village to follow him to a promised land where they would find plentiful
water and grass. The people did not believe him at first and refused to
leave the village. Later they changed their minds and tried to follow.
Angry, Aiwel killed some of them with his spear as they crossed a river to
join him. Eventually, he allowed the people to come across. He gave
fishing spears to the first group to cross, and these people became
founding members of the spear-master clans. To others who came later,
Aiwel gave war spears, and they founded the warrior clans. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Rates of dementia and depression higher
"We've known the rates of dementia are very high but our more recent research suggests that the rates of falls, bladder problems, pain, pervasive pain and depression are also a fair bit higher than in the non-Indigenous communities in the rest of Australia," he said.
"And, the other thing that's very concerning is [it is happening] at an earlier age.
"Dementia is very, very common in the Kimberley.
"Some people might need help having a wash, they might need help getting to the shop to buy their groceries."
Ruth Crawford
"We're looking at [Aboriginal] people over the age of 45 years versus non-Indigenous people in the rest of Australia, over say the age of 70, and they're having similar percentage proportion of problems."
Professor Flicker says depending on the condition, the symptom rates occurred 30 to 50 per cent more often in remote communities than non-Indigenous people experienced in metropolitan areas.
The findings reflect Ms Crawford's experience.
"Things like having a stroke, having bad heart problems, having dementia," she said.
"Dementia is very, very common in the Kimberley, especially in younger age groups.
"Those types of conditions you wouldn't normally see until people are much older if you worked in say Sydney or Melbourne."
Ms Crawford says there is an extreme difference between the remote clients she treats and what might be experienced working in the city.
"We have a very high amount of people over the age of 45 to 60, which would be very, very unusual if you work somewhere else in Australia," she said.
"You would have very few people in that category; they would only be people perhaps who were disabled, or who'd been disabled since they were born.
"You rarely see people with aged care conditions in that age group.
"So often people often think aged care clients as being 65-70 and so to change the thinking that, no, well in fact it's these 45-year-olds."
Being overweight and diabetic an issue
"Many of the syndromes often result from other conditions, or pre-morbid conditions as we say, in younger age groups," she said.
"So, we know that people who have diabetes, or who are overweight or who have high blood pressure, they're more prone to getting these conditions."
Professor Flicker says a solution now needs to be found.
"It's also some common health problems that need better management in remote communities - things like diabetes, renal disease, heart disease," he said.
"I think as a whole, both the communities and the service providers are really receptive.
"They can see the problem and hopefully will be trying to work out some solutions."
He says prevention is key.
"Prevention is a whole of life approach so we have to start young and make sure that people know about healthier lifestyles and what's important and if you do develop diabetes, how important it is to manage that condition," he said.
Prevention and correct treatment are key
Dr Flicker says they are not forgetting about older people with the conditions.
He and the team have begun developing a booklet targeting these areas.
"A lot of these resources have been developed for people in urban areas in Australia and they're not necessarily applicable to people who live in these remote communities," he said.
"For example, we've know for a while that people who have memory problems, which is more often experienced by older people in remote Indigenous communities, that we didn't have a good way of testing that.
"Some years ago we developed a cognitive assessment tool to measure memory problems in older people in Aboriginal communities, and that's been rolled out and we've talked about ways to use that and develop it.
"We're now in the same process of doing the same things for depression, trying to work out the issues about falls, how to do some simple questions and work out who are most at risk of falls and what we can do to intervene that's appropriate for remote communities." | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Very nice! I have this pattern, but was never really sure how I felt about it. Now that I can see it made up and fitted properly I really like it a lot (and I'm always one to go for an over the top poofy crinoline). Well done!
Oh yey! So pretty! I have this pattern, but I just forgot about it when I never saw any finished versions that pleased me… But you just gave me new hope! I'm so going to make that dress now. And the bolero is really cute.
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Welcome to WeSewRetro!
We Sew Retro is a community of ladies and gents who adore vintage patterns, vintage fabric, and vintage style. Since 2006 we've been sharing our vintage and retro sewing projects for inspiration and encouragement with vintage sewing fanatics worldwide.
We Sew Retro has over a thousand contributing sewing bloggers, so no matter what your favorite decade or style of vintage, you’ll find masses of inspiration, advice, and drool-worthy projects to sew!
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We post quite frequently so when you subscribe you'll receive just one big glorious email, every Friday, containing all the posts made that week for you to scroll through at your leisure. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
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Hog Hearth® Single Mats are designed to service crates with an un elevated divider.
Hog Hearth® Doube Mats are designed to service split crates with an elevated divider. All double mat wattage has been pre divided /2
All Heat lamps project heat down. Only a fraction of the heat reaches the target zone and transfers to the piglets. Hog Hearth® Heat mats are insulated from below and project heat upward. All heat produced by the Hog Hearth® mat is transferred to the target heat zone and dissipates above the piglets. Hog Hearth® heat mats will not only reduce the watts required to heat a crate but will run more efficiently translating into BIG SAVINGS on your monthly service bill.
All proposed savings are based on figures taken from mats and lamps operating at full draw capacity (100%). When coupled with the HMC (Heat Mat Controller) the Hog Hearth® mat will provide even greater electrical savings!IHT provides no guarantees or takes any responsibility regarding actual monetary or energy savings illustrated above. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
DC Comics has begun releasing their March 2015 solicitations by family, up to the official full release of them all at 5pm ET. They started this month with their DC Collectibles and DC Collections, followed by Vertigo and DC Comics: Beyond the New 52 as seen here. Then they released first group of their New 52 titles, including the cancellation of seven ongoing series, including Green Lantern Corps, and then a second group , including Superman family and the final The Multiversity titles.
Look for the New 52 groups later Monday.
Credit: DC Entertainment
BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT #1
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art by VIKTOR BOGDANOVIC and ART THIBERT
Cover by DAN PANOSIAN
1:10 Game art variant cover
1:25 Variant cover by GARY FRANK
On sale MARCH 11 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
The Joker is dead. Arkham City is closed. As a new day begins, Bruce Wayne finds himself in devastating pain, recovering from his injuries and questioning whether his role as Batman is still necessary to the city’s survival. But as the sun rises in Gotham City, dangerous new threats emerge from the shadows…and the Arkham Knight is just beginning. Don’t miss this in-continuity prequel comic set prior to the events of the brand-new video game Batman: Arkham Knight!
Credit: DC Entertainment
BATMAN ’66 #21
Written by JEFF PARKER
Art by SANDY JARRELL
Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED
On sale MARCH 25 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E • DIGITAL FIRST
There’s a new villain in town and even Batman’s rogues gallery trembles at his name: Lord Death Man! Soon, the Dynamic Duo are jetting off to Japan to track him down. The classic villain from the 1960s Batman comics and manga gets the BATMAN ’66 treatment. Don’t miss this landmark moment in Bat-history!
Credit: DC Entertainment
MORTAL KOMBAT X #4
Written by SHAWN KITTELSEN
Art by DEXTER SOY and DANIEL SAMPERE
Cover by IVAN REIS
On sale MARCH 11 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US
RATED M • DIGITAL FIRST
MATURE READERS
Scorpion vs. Raiden! Red Dragon vs. Black Dragon! And a powerful new threat emerges! You do not want to miss the blood-soaked finale of our first story arc! The Mortal Kombat X comic series is the prequel story to the upcoming Mortal Kombat X game, NetherRealm Studios’ next highly anticipated installment in its legendary, critically acclaimed fighting game franchise. The game will available April 14, 2015.
Credit: DC Entertainment
ARROW SEASON 2.5 #6
Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM and KETO SHIMIZU
Art by SZYMON KUDRANSKI
Photo cover
On sale MARCH 11 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
Task Force X (a.k.a. Suicide Squad) goes up against Onslaught, a deadly network of religious extremist militants led by a mysterious figure calling himself Khem-Adam. As the terrorist leader threatens to make an example of a group of captive schoolgirls, John Diggle leads his team of Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, and newcomer Ravan into an explosive confrontation, determined to save the girls – and the nation of Kahndaq – from the terrorists’ grip. Don’t miss this special Suicide Squad tale drawn by guest artist Szymon Kudranski!
Credit: DC Entertainment
THE FLASH SEASON ZERO #6
Written by ANDREW KREISBERG
Art by PHIL HESTER and ERIC GAPSTUR
Photo cover
On sale MARCH 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
A new story arc begins here! When peculiar homicides start to occur in Central City, Barry and Joe recruit the S.T.A.R. Labs team to help with the investigation. It isn’t long before the gang discovers something even more shocking when reports indicate that the wounds on the deceased appear to have been caused by…a great white shark!
Credit: DC Entertainment
INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US YEAR THREE #11
Written by BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art by BRUNO REDONDO, MIKE S. MILLER and others
Cover by MIKE S. MILLER
On sale MARCH 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
It’s magic versus magic and hero versus hero as events race to their tragic conclusion! As powerful deities clash on the mystic plane, the tide turns for the Earthbound adversaries and the fury of Wonder Woman is unleashed. Allies will reunite and lives will be lost.
Credit: DC Entertainment
INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US YEAR THREE #12
Written by BRIAN BUCCELLATO
Art by BRUNO REDONDO, MIKE S. MILLER and others
Cover by AARON LOPRESTI
On sale MARCH 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST • FINAL ISSUE
The “Year of Magic” comes to its stunning conclusion as John Constantine must make a fateful decision. But where will this leave Batman and his allies? Have they sufficiently crippled Superman, or will they find themselves in a situation that’s worse than ever?
Credit: DC Entertainment
HE-MAN: ETERNITY WAR #4
Written by DAN ABNETT
Art by POP MHAN
Cover by STJEPAN SEJIC
On sale MARCH 25 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
This is it: The battle you’ve been waiting for! She-Ra vs. Hordak! In order to retrieve the Eye of Chrono, She-Ra must defeat her adoptive father. Her only hope for success lies in the power of the Sword of Protection! And maybe a little luck!
Credit: DC Entertainment
SENSATION COMICS FEATURING WONDER WOMAN #8
Written by JAMES TYNION IV and HEATHER NUHFER
Art by NOELLE STEVENSON and RYAN BENJAMIN
Cover by JAE LEE
On sale MARCH 18 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
Teenaged Diana comes to Man’s World and discovers a “Wonder World” where she makes new friends. That part’s great, but her Amazon bodyguards are busy tracking her down and scaring everyone she meets! Then, in “Sabotage Is in the Stars,” Wonder Woman aids India’s space program, making it safe for them to launch their new SpaceCrops platform. But when Diana discovers that LexCorp caused the problem, she takes matters into her own hands!
Credit: DC Entertainment
INFINITE CRISIS: FIGHT FOR THE MULTIVERSE #9
Written by DAN ABNETT
Art by EDUARDO FRANCISCO and CHRISTIAN DUCE
Cover by PHILIP TAN
On sale MARCH 18 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
A new adventure begins for Prime Batman and his band of heroes from across the multiverse. Atomic Wonder Woman battles Killer Croc and discovers he’s been guarding a secret – a massive, ominous device buried under the surface that is not from her world.
Credit: DC Entertainment
SMALLVILLE SEASON 11: CONTINUITY #4
Written by BRYAN Q. MILLER
Art by IG GUARA, MARCELO DI CHIARA, JULIO FERREIRA and RUY JOSE
Cover by CAT STAGGS
On sale MARCH 11 • 40 pg, FC, 4 of 4, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
Superman has defeated the Monitors, but what can he possibly do to
keep the Universe safe from them in the future? The people of Earth pick up their lives as best they can, and our heroes make some hard decisions about their own futures. As Season Eleven ends, new lives begin.
Credit: DC Entertainment
SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? #55
Written by SHOLLY FISCH
Art and cover by DARIO BRIZUELA
On sale MARCH 11 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E
Faster than a cheap watch! Stronger than the smell of old gym socks! It’s…Hyperman! The Mystery Inc. gang is invited to an advance movie screening of Shaggy and Scooby’s favorite super hero, Hyperman – but when the movie’s super-villain comes to life and terrorizes the theater, the movie reel goes missing. Now, it’s up to Shaggy and sidekick Scooby to save the day!
Credit: DC Entertainment
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP #9
Written by SHOLLY FISCH
Art and cover by DARIO BRIZUELA
On sale MARCH 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E
Superman needs help from Scooby and the gang – so they speed to Metropolis and the horribly haunted Daily Planet offices. But then Superman is turned into a super-powered monster! Even with help from Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Krypto the Superdog, how can these meddling kids stop the transformed Man-Monster of Steel before he wrecks the city?
The Cold War is heating up! It’s red buttons, nuclear silos and a race against destruction. Meanwhile, it’s launch time for Skinner and Calvin as these American Vampires venture to the deadliest of frontiers: space! The most epic arc of AMERICAN VAMPIRE: SECOND CYCLE continues!
Credit: DC Entertainment
COFFIN HILL #16
Written by CAITLIN KITTREDGE
Art by INAKI MIRANDA
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
On sale MARCH 11 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS
In a town like Coffin Hill, everyone has secrets – but when Wilcox and Eve investigate a cold case of child murder, they’re about to uncover the worst ones of all. As Coffin Hill’s ghosts continue to torment Eve, she gets help from the person she least suspected: her dead friend Mel. But is Mel really looking out for Eve – or looking for revenge against Nate?
Rumors of a certain prince’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Well...slightly exaggerated. But just as Bigby and Snow get to the heart of his story, they’re interrupted by a Fable we’ve never met before...one who looks an awful lot like another Fable we’ve never met before. Add a hot pursuit, some true detective work at Toad’s place, and a cheap shocker at a seedy hotel, and you’ve got the third issue of FABLES: THE WOLF AMONG US!
In an epic from FABLES #77-82, JACK OF FABLES #33-35, and THE LITERALS #1-3, the existence of the Fables is threatened by The Literals, who just don’t like their messy, mythical lives. And in the original graphic novel FABLES: WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND, Bigby Wolf goes on a quest to find a new location for Fabletown, only to find a village populated by werewolves!
Credit: DC Entertainment
FABLES VOL. 21: HAPPILY EVER AFTER TP
Written by BILL WILLINGHAM
Art by MARK BUCKINGHAM, STEVE LEIALOHA and others
Cover by NIMIT MALAVIA
On sale APRIL 29 • 200 pg, FC, $16.99 US • MATURE READERS
In this penultimate volume of Bill Willingham’s FABLES, the residents of Fabletown look to live “happily ever after,” but there is a steep price to pay for happiness as Rose Red clashes with Snow White! Collects issues #141-149 of this Eisner-Award-winning series.
Credit: DC Entertainment
ASTRO CITY #21
Written by KURT BUSIEK
Art by BRENT ANDERSON
Cover by ALEX ROSS
On sale MARCH 11 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
The shattering conclusion of the 4-part “Quarrel” story. With Crackerjack in the clutches of the Black Lab, Quarrel and Honor Guard face difficult choices – and at least one hero’s career will have seen its final adventure. A very human perspective on a super human tragedy.
Credit: DC Entertainment
ASTRO CITY: FAMILY ALBUM TP NEW EDITION
Written by KURT BUSIEK
Art by BRENT ANDERSON and WILL BLYBERT
Cover by ALEX ROSS
Resolicit • On sale APRIL 8 • 224 pg, FC, $16.99 US
The classic ASTRO CITY title is back in print with new trade dress and brand-new cover art by Alex Ross! Every family has treasured memories... and isn’t that what a family album is for? You’re invited to share in some of Astro City’s greatest memories – from the wonder and terror experienced by a family new in town, to a world-famous super-hero’s first day at school, to a crimefighter and his wife facing momentous decisions about the future. Don’t miss these stories from KURT BUSIEK’S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2 #1-3 and 10-13!
Credit: DC Entertainment
ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE 1 – BROTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS TP NEW PRINTING
Written by KURT BUSIEK
Art by BRENT ANDERSON
Cover by ALEX ROSS
On sale APRIL 8 • 256 pg, FC, $19.99 US
The classic ASTRO CITY title is back in print with new trade dress! Set in the early 1970s, this title follows two brothers as one becomes a hero and another takes a different path. Along the way, the long-standing secret tale of the Silver Agent and his fate is told as the story shifts back to the 1950s and what made the Williams brothers turn out so differently. Collects a story from ASTRO CITY/ARROWSMITH #1, plus ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE BOOK ONE #1-4 and ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE BOOK TWO #1-4.
Credit: DC Entertainment
FBP: FEDERAL BUREAU OF PHYSICS #19
Written by SIMON OLIVER
Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI
Cover by NATHAN FOX
On sale MARCH 11 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS
Adam and Rosa are forced to make impossible decisions at the end of the universe. This is not an understatement! This is not hyperbole! Physics continues to go mad and everything is changing forever.
Credit: DC Entertainment
FBP: FEDERAL BUREAU OF PHYSICS VOL. 3: STANDING ON SHOULDERS TP
Written by SIMON OLIVER
Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI
Cover by NATHAN FOX
On sale APRIL 29 • 144 pg, FC, $14.99 US • MATURE READERS
Every journey starts with a single step. Cicero’s started when he crashed into a TV repair shop and eventually landed in the FBP Academy. This new trade paperback collects FBP #14-19.
Credit: DC Entertainment
EFFIGY #3
Written by TIM SEELEY
Art by MARLEY ZARCONE
Cover by W. SCOTT FORBES
On sale MARCH 25 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS
Officer Chondra Jackson is teamed with a television-hating homicide detective and an obsessed fan to search for a killer at the “Star Cop Fan Corps Con.” Plus, Chondra reunites with a former co-star to get a glimpse of the life she left behind.
Credit: DC Entertainment
HINTERKIND #16
Written by IAN EDGINTON
Art by FRANCESCO TRIFOGLI
Cover by MARGUERITE SAUVAGE
On sale MARCH 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS
All his Machiavellian maneuvering has been for naught as Severin’s reign is cut painfully short, while Psamira, the Skinling matriarch, moves forward with her plan to seize the throne. With the enemy at the gate, Queen Telesche sends her son, Prince Parsifal, and Prosper Monday on a last-ditch mission that could save them all or reduce her kingdom to a burning ruin: awaken Tiamat, the last dragon!
Credit: DC Entertainment
THE KITCHEN #5
Written by OLLIE MASTERS
Art by MING DOYLE
Cover by BECKY CLOONAN
On sale MARCH 18 • 32 pg, FC, 5 of 8, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS
As their husbands make their presence known back on the streets of New York City, Kath, Raven and Angie solidify their relationship with Gargano. But is it enough to guarantee his loyalty? Or will the streets of Hell’s Kitchen run red with their blood?
Credit: DC Entertainment
THE NAMES #7
Written by PETER MILLIGAN
Art by LEANDRO FERNANDEZ
Cover by CELIA CALLE
On sale MARCH 4 • 32 pg, FC, 7 of 9, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS
The Names’ kingpin, Stoker, reveals what might have compelled Katya’s husband to throw himself out a high window. Meanwhile, Katya continues her quest and gets tantalizingly closer to knowing who made her a widow. Secret love, violence, insanity, and intrigue…Katya’s problems are only beginning…
Credit: DC Entertainment
SUICIDERS #2
Written by LEE BERMEJO
Art and cover by LEE BERMEJO
On sale MARCH 25 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS
More of the mystery behind The Saint is revealed as a new challenger rises in Lost Angeles – the near-future dystopian hell created by fan-favorite Lee Bermejo (JOKER, BATMAN: NOEL).
Credit: DC Entertainment
WOLF MOON #4
Written by CULLEN BUNN
Art by JEREMY HAUN
Cover by LEANDRO FERNANDEZ
On sale MARCH 4 • 32 pg, FC, 4 of 6, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS
The brawl continues, and it appears Dillon has met his match…not in the Wolf, but in a tough-as-nails hunter who will stop at nothing to reach his goal. As fur and .50 caliber rounds fly, Dillon must think fast and keep moving if he hopes to survive. If the Wolf doesn’t kill him, this other hunter surely will! Is the Wolf powerful enough to escape two hunters? Or does the creature have a mysterious guardian angel? The identity of the fiendish murderer who has been slaughtering the Wolf’s hosts is revealed.
Credit: DC Entertainment
100 BULLETS BOOK TWO TP
Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO
Art by EDUARDO RISSO and others
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
On sale APRIL 15 • 416 pg, FC, $24.99 US • MATURE READERS
In these stories from issues #20-36, Agent Graves presents an attaché case with a gun and 100 untraceable bullets to Milo Garret, a small-time private dick who’s just out of the hospital after losing an argument with his car’s windshield. | {
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Russian computer security vendor Kaspersky has a novel way of protecting its users from internet malware, its latest update cuts them off from the internet completely.
Millions of Kaspersky customers were left without internet access after a faulty anti-virus update was pushed out on Monday.
Users that figured out the cause of the problem jumped onto the company's online forum and expressed frustration at the lack of communication from the company.
Some were eventually told to disable web anti-virus or roll back updates to get back online. But some found that complicated. One forum poster moaned that he had spent 24 hours trying to fix it and that involved two online chats with Kaspersky.
The company said it rolled out an update early on Tuesday morning that fixed the problem but on Wednesday there were still reports from users that the problem remained. We guess the problem with an update cutting off your internet access is that you can't really use the web to fix the update.
Some claimed that the update was taking hours to download before stalling.
In a statement, Kaspersky said that if a machine updates directly from its servers, then the initial workaround should be applied first which means disabling the web anti-virus component. Internet connectivity will then be restored and the customer will be able to download the most recent database update, the outfit said.
The company said it apologised for any inconvenience caused by the database updates error and actions had been taken to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future. | {
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} |
United Kingdom UK Constitution MCQs Political Science CSS, PMS Exams
United Kingdom UK Constitution MCQs Political Science CSS, PMS Exams
Here is the list of United Kingdom UK Constitution MCQs for the preparation of CSS, PMS, Kppsc, Fpsc, Ppsc, Spsc and other Competitive Exams. You can also prepare these United Kingdom UK Constitution MCQs for Political Science Subject Exams. | {
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} |
News
Galantas Closes Ross Beaty Placement
GALANTAS GOLD CORPORATION
TSXV and AIM: Stock Symbol – ’GAL’
GALANTAS ANNOUNCES CLOSING OF PRIVATE PLACEMENT
Date : 27th July 2015. Galantas Gold Corporation (“Galantas” or the ”Company”), the AIM and TSXV quoted gold miner and explorer, is pleased to announce the closing of an investment of C$2,400,000 (approximately UK£1,189,000) into Galantas by means of a non-brokered private placement (the "Placement”).
As announced on 6 July 2015, the Placement comprised the issue of 20 million units, each unit of one common share of no par value ("Common Share") and one share purchase warrant (together the “Units”). The price of each Unit was C$0.12 (approximately UK£0.06). Each warrant is exercisable into one common share of the Company for a period of 12 months from closing at an exercise price of C$0.16 (approximately UK£0.08). A four month hold period from closing will apply, which expires on 25 November 2015.
The majority of the Placement was taken up by Mr. Ross Beaty, who acquired 16,000,000 Units resulting in an interest, before the exercise of warrants, of 14.9% of Galantas issued and outstanding Common Shares. If all warrants issued under the Placement were to be exercised, Mr. Beaty would have an interest in 32,000,000 Common Shares, representing up to 25.1% of the outstanding Common Shares, which meets the definition of a “Control Person” by the TSXV.
The Placement shares will rank pari passu with the existing issued shares.
Shareholder consent was received for the transaction by means of a written resolution, with the majority of shareholder votes consenting.
The Company has applied for the admission of the common shares issuable in connection with the Private Placement on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange ("Admission") with Admission expected to occur on or around 28th July 2015.
Roland Phelps, President & CEO Galantas Gold Corporation said, “Ross Beaty has an impressive and well known investment record. I’m delighted that he has chosen to invest in our operation. It is a vote of confidence.”
The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Placement for exploration, for initiating development of the underground Omagh gold-mine and for working capital purposes. The Omagh gold-mine, situated in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland was until recently worked by open-pit methods and received planning consent for underground mining on 11 June 2015.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Galantas Gold Corporation’s Issued and Outstanding Shares, on closing of the Placement, total 107,297,155. | {
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We are getting to know Destonians from all around the world and getting to know their story of discovering Desteni and how walking this process of self-honesty, self-forgiveness, and self-change has impacted their lives. | {
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To wrap up a successful tour in dramatically delightful style, you’re wearing these tan wedges from Irregular Choice to your troupe’s cast party! With the release of their new “Gold Label” line, which is available only to hand-chosen retailers such as ModCloth, Brighton-based Irregular Choice inspires the imagination in delightful new ways. Reminiscent of the bouquets you receive after each performance, this bow-topped pair showcases a floral trim of vibrant emerald and rose hues. A translucent, ombre heel makes for an eye-catching curtsy, which you perform one last time with your much-loved castmates! | {
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Rodrick Miller will begin work Monday as executive director of the NOLA Business Alliance.
"With all due respect to the business advocates featured in the article, everytime I hear the phrase "public private partnership" -- I reach down in my pants to see if I have been pick-pocketed. Were any business development scheme worth its salt, it would not need to utilize government resources nor financial incentives." | {
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Publications
Transfers and Gender - A mixed methods study of the effect of cash, vouchers and food transfers on intra-household relations and intimate partner violence
In 2011, the World Food Programme (WFP) implemented the “Food, Cash, and Voucher Program” in Ecuador to improve food security and also to determine which modality of food assistance was the most cost effective, for the local context, cash, vouchers, or food rations. To promote the role of women in household decision-making on food consumption and nutrition, the program prioritized women in the targeting of the transfers.
Studies in Latin America reveal that cash transfers directed at women can have an impact on intra-household dynamics, reducing physical and psychological violence, but may also increase instances of threats and verbal abuse. However, economic models and empirical studies have not come to a clear conclusion on the linkages between women’s income and intimate partner violence (IPV). Given the program’s focus on women’s empowerment and existing evidence on the impact of cash transfers on IPV, IFPRI and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine conducted a study on the impact of transfers on intra-household relationships during the WFP program, with a focus on IPV.
Among the conclusions, the study states the high prevalence of IPV in the sample. Participation in the program decreased different types of IPV, including controlling behavior, moderate physical violence, and severe physical or sexual violence by 38 to 43 percent, regardless of transfer modality (cash, vouchers, or food).
The transfers appeared to improve women's capacity to make decisions about food consumption and household nutrition, which in turn affected women's self-perception as heads of their households. Finally, framing the transfers as a program to improve nutrition might have reduced the possibility of violent reactions by men to increases in women's empowerment. | {
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Soft and smooth in a single shade 70% combed cotton rich blend of fibres, these men’s Burlington Lord Plain Cotton Socks are reliable, capable and comfortable all-rounders to wear for most occasions, whether at the office or for casual use.
The socks are light and fine in a half calf length, and with flat, hand linked toes for smooth seams and greater foot comfort. This pair of classic gent’s socks is finished with the Burlington label's signature metal stud.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, we are unable to ship Burlington products to the United States. Any Burlington items ordered for delivery to the U.S. will therefore not be included in your order, but will be immediately refunded. We apologise for this.
FABRIC:
82% Cotton, 16% Polyamide, 2% Elastane
NUMBER IN PACK:
1 Pair Pack
Features
Hand linked toes for smooth seams
Standard cuffs
Machine washable at 40°
No Product Reviews Available
BurlingtonMen's Socks Size Guide
UK
EU
US
5.5-8
39-42
6.5-9
6.5-11
40-46
7.5-12
8.5-11
43-46
9.5-12
11-14
46-50
12-15
Product Information
Soft and smooth in a single shade 70% combed cotton rich blend of fibres, these men’s Burlington Lord Plain Cotton Socks are reliable, capable and comfortable all-rounders to wear for most occasions, whether at the office or for casual use.
The socks are light and fine in a half calf length, and with flat, hand linked toes for smooth seams and greater foot comfort. This pair of classic gent’s socks is finished with the Burlington label's signature metal stud.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, we are unable to ship Burlington products to the United States. Any Burlington items ordered for delivery to the U.S. will therefore not be included in your order, but will be immediately refunded. We apologise for this. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Here are 30 of the best models you’ll find in running stores from late winter to early summer!
Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about running shoes, things have continued to evolve. While minimalist shoes are still progressing, it’s the maximalist models and the wide range of enhanced, everyday neutral and light stability trainers that are creating the buzz in 2014. New, more resilient midsole foams; flexible, dynamic uppers; and lighter models in all categories are among the many highlights. While these advancements may compel you to expand your quiver of shoes, the good news is that there are more quality options for every runner. Here’s an overview of 30 of the best models you’ll find in running stores right now. | {
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} |
Syria bombards rebel area near Turkish border
CEYLANPINAR, Turkey (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad bombarded the Ras al-Ain area on the border with Turkey on Sunday, days after the town fell to rebels during an advance that has sent thousands of refugees fleeing for safety.
Helicopters circled above the town and opposition activists said they had strafed targets near the village of Tal Halaf.
The Arab and Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain fell to the Free Syrian Army on Thursday in fighting that sent 9,000 fleeing in a 24-hour period, one of a largest refugee influxes into Turkey of the 19-month civil war.
Tank rounds slammed into the western part of the town on Sunday and a Reuters reporter on the Turkish side of the border saw black smoke rising over the area.
Rebels and forces loyal to Assad exchanged artillery fire and some rounds appeared to land just inside Turkey.
"It's a disaster over there," a man shouted to reporters as he crossed into the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar. Ambulances with sirens wailing ferried wounded people from the Turkish side of the border for treatment at a local clinic.
With winter setting in, over 120,000 Syrians are now sheltering in Turkish camps, deepening alarm in Ankara.
Turkey has already beefed up security on its southeastern border with Syria, in an area of the country where it is also fighting an emboldened insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Continued... | {
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Menu
Brie Larson
I’ve long had a soft spot for King Kong. I saw the original movie – on TV – when I was very young and instantly fell for Willis O Brian’s famous stop-motion creation; and I’m one of those people who adored Peter Jackson’s affectionate and brilliantly crafted reboot of the story. So the news that Kong: Skull Island was on the cinematic horizon, as a taster to his grudge match with Godzilla, some time next year, was greeted with a certain amount of cautious anticipation.
This standalone creature feature is a bit of an oddity, a curious mash-up of classic Kong and, of all things, Apocalypse Now. Set in 1973, just after America’s hasty departure from the Vietnam War, we learn of a proposed expedition to an uncharted island in the South Pacific, led by Bill Randa (John Goodman). Randa claims he’s looking for rare minerals but it’s clear from the outset that he has a hidden agenda. He enlists the help of Vietnam veteran Preston Packard (Samuel L Jackson) and his helicopter platoon to ferry the necessary equipment through the perpetual electrical storm that cloaks the island and, he also ropes in survival expert, James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston as the poshest mercenary in history) plus photo journalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) to record everything that happens on the trip. The helicopters go in, not to the strains of Wagner, but to the 70s rock soundtrack of Creedence Clearwater Revival and they drop a series of explosive charges on the island in order to scare up anything that might be hiding in the undergrowth. Whereupon, the titular 100 ft tall ape appears out of the smoke and gives the platoon a right royal kicking.
Kong, as imagined by Industrial Light & magic, is a truly magnificent specimen; and as the survivors of the initial assault soon discover, he’s only one of the gigantic creatures that inhabit Skull Island. Worst of all are the Skull Crawlers, hideous two legged lizards that occasionally emerge from underground intent on eating anything they can find. (They ate Kong’s parents so naturally, he bears the a lot of ill will).
OK, so this isn’t exactly a perfect film. The large human cast are inevitably dwarfed by the gigantic creatures pursuing them and any attempts at characterisation can only be sketched in with the broadest of brush strokes. (It’s interesting to note that Jackson’s film spent the best part of an hour with the human characters before they even reached Skull Island, but then he had three hours to play with). And really there are a lot of humans to consider here , though best of the bunch is undoubtedly John C Riley as Hank Marlow, a World War 2 pilot who has been marooned on the island for twenty eight years and who has gone slightly loopy waiting for rescue. (Marlow bears more than a passing resemblance to Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now, and this cannot be a coincidence – nor the fact that Hiddleston’s character is called Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness on which Apocalypse Now is based).
At any rate, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts does a decent job of stitching it all together. There’s enough references to the original to keep fan boys like me happy and enough major characters being offed to keep me on the edge of my seat. I also loved the audacious twist on the ‘soldier sacrificing himself in a blaze of glory’ trope towards the film’s conclusion, which seemed to spell out how futile such gestures are.
This won’t please everyone, but I have to say I was entertained enough and occasionally thrilled by a concept which dared to throw so many new ideas at a classic storyline, that some of them had to stick. Skull Island is a fun place to visit and Kong is still my favourite movie monster.
In a relatively short career, director Ben Wheatley has created some exciting and groundbreaking films. His most consistent piece, Sightseers, is a delightful comedy with a dark and twisted heart – and his last outing, an adaptation of JG Ballard’s High Rise, though not perfect, was one of the most challenging pieces of dystopian cinema in a long time.
So it gives me absolutely no pleasure at all to report that Free Fire is an unmitigated dud. I came out of this advance screening asking myself just exactly what Wheatley thought he was trying to do here. This is the kind of film that forged Tarantino’s early reputation – indeed, if Free Fire resembles any other movie, it’s Reservoir Dogs. Now, I’ve been quite cutting about Tarantino over the years, suggesting that the man’s slender talent has been repeatedly overpraised but, seriously, Free Fire makes him look like a genius film-maker. It really is that bad.
It’s Boston in 1978. Actually, it’s a warehouse in Brighton, but it hardly matters since the action never bothers to step outside of that single location. IRA men Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) are attempting to buy rifles for their cause; the deal has been arranged by South African popinjay, Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and his American friend Ord (Armie Hammer). Brie Larson plays Justine, a thankless token female role and, just in case that’s not enough, there’s also a token black man, Martin (Babou Ceesay, dressed like an extra from Shaft). In the opening stages of the film, there are admittedly a few witty lines thrown around. Enjoy them while you can, because this early promise is soon squandered.
Midway through the deal, an argument ensues between twitchy junkie, Stevo (Sam Riley) and one of Vernon’s goons, Bernie (Enzo Cilenti). It rapidly escalates and, inevitably, a gunfight ensues. You’d better like gunfights, by the way, because this one lasts for the rest of the movie, around eighty minutes of characters you don’t really know or care about hurling a mixture of bullets and F words at each other without pause or reason.
Perhaps Wheatley is trying to show the absurdity of violence. Perhaps he’s simply pushing the envelope of the genre, stripping it back to its basics. Whatever he is trying to do, it fails miserably. This is simply deadly boring. It also tests credulity to the limit as characters are shot again and again, but don’t have the decency to fall down and die. Quite how Wheatley convinced a troop of A list actors to appear in this nonsense remains the biggest mystery of all. (Christ, what did the screenplay look like?) Inevitably, there will be those who hail Free Fire as a work of genius, but that would be a re-run of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Unless the idea of an endless gunfight appeals to you – and I’ll admit that, in the right hands, it could conceivably have worked – this is one to file under D for disaster.
The screening is followed by a Q & A with Wheatley and actor Sam Riley – and it speaks volumes when I admit that I bail out and head to a local bar for what feels like a well-earned drink. The only question I could have mustered would have been, ‘Why?’
It was an interesting year for film. Here, in order of release, rather than stature – and with the benefit of hindsight – are our favourite movies of 2016.
Room
This superb adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel got 2016 off to a cracking start. There were powerful performances from Brie Larson and young Jacob Tremblay as the central characters in a tragic yet oddly inspirational story.
The Revenant
Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu delivered another dazzling movie, this one as savage and untamed as the grizzly bear that mauled Leonardo Di Caprio half to death – but made up for it by helping him win his first Oscar.
Anomalisa
Writer/director Charlie Kaufman gave us a quirky (and deeply disturbing) animation that was a Kafkaesque meditation on identity and the bleak nature of the human condition.
Dheepan
Jacques Audiard’s fascinating study of the lives of refugees never fell into cliche. There was violence here, but it felt horribly real and totally devastating. There were affecting performances from a cast of newcomers.
Victoria
Sebastian Schipper’s film really shouldn’t have worked. Delivered in one continuous take, the fact that it hooked us in so brilliantly was just the icing on the cake – a real ensemble piece but plaudits must go to Laia Costa as the eponymous heroine.
Sing Street
John Carney may have only one plot but when it was delivered as beautifully as it was in Sing Street, we were happy to indulge him. This was a beautiful, heartwarming film with appeal to anybody who has ever dreamed about pop stardom.
The Neon Demon
The fashion industry as seen by Nicolas Winding Refn is a hell hole and here, Elle Fanning as Jesse, was the latest recruit. A weird mash-up of sex, violence and extreme voyeurism, this was the director’s most assured effort yet.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
New Zealand director Taika Waititi offered up this delightfully quirky story about a troubled teenager (Julian Dennison) and his friendship with crusty curmudgeon, Hec (Sam Neill). This film reeled us in and kept us hooked to the end credits.
The Girl with all the Gifts
Just when we thought the zombie movie had stumbled as far as it could go, Colm McCarthy’s film gave the genre a hefty kick up the backside – and there was a star-making performance from young Senna Nanua in the lead role.
Under the Shadow
Babek Abvari’s film had all the tropes of the contemporary horror movie and a powerful political message as well. Set in post war Tehran, young mother Shideh (Narges Rashidi) struggled to keep her daughter safe from the forces of darkness.
I, Daniel Blake
Ken Loach’s return to the screen resulted in one of the most powerful and affecting films of the year – a searing look at ‘benefits Britain’ that would have the most stony-hearted viewer in floods of tears. Should be required viewing for Tory politicians.
Train to Busan
Another day, another zombie movie – but what a zombie movie! Korean director Sang ho Yeon gave us a galloping ‘zombies on a train’ thriller that nearly left us breathless. There were some incredible set pieces here and a nerve-shredding conclusion.
Paterson
Jim Jarmusch presented a charming and quirky tale about a would-be poet living in a town that had the same name as him. Not very much happened, but it didn’t happen in an entirely watchable way. A delightful celebration of the creative spirit.
Life, Animated
This compelling documentary squeaked in right at the end of the year – the true life tale of Owen Suskind, an autistic boy, initially unable to speak a word, but rescued by his love of Disney movies. It was funny, uplifting and educational – and our final pick of 2016.
Emma Donoghue’s Room is one of my favourite books of recent times: a terrifying tale of kidnap and abuse, rendered somehow hopeful and life-affirming by its young narrator, Jack. The boy has no idea that the tiny, locked room he lives in is a prison; he thinks it is the world. And the world, as he knows it, is small but full of love. After all, Ma is with him all the time, and she is always good to him.
But it’s a worry – isn’t it ? – when a favourite novel is adapted for the screen. There’s no way a director can ever realise every reader’s vision and, when you’ve constructed clear and absolute impressions of the characters and their environs, disappointment seems almost inevitable.
Almost. But not quite. Because Emma Donoghue is a bona fide artiste, and she did not merely sell the rights to Room to the highest bidder. Instead, she waited for an offer that allowed her to write the screenplay herself and, oh, am I glad she did. Because Room the movie is just as heartbreaking and affecting as its source material and, although there are of course changes made to suit the form, it seems that very little is compromised. ‘Room’ is just as weirdly claustrophobic, joyous, repellant and homely on film as it is on the page.
Jacob Tremblay, as Jack, is a revelation. He’s expressive and appealing and extremely natural; hats off to director Lenny Abrahamson for eliciting this performance from such a young actor. And Brie Larson is marvellous too, delivering a subtle but curiously intense and credible portrayal of Joy, a young woman who has, against such overwhelming odds, managed to create a happy childhood for her beloved little boy.
OK, so maybe there are a couple of scenes that could have teased out some more tension (when Old Nick drops Jack, for example), and it would have been nice to have seen William H. Macy’s part developed into something more, but these are minor quibbles in the face of an affecting and engaging film. | {
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February 26, 2010
Katie: Laptops and Webcams and SMART Boards – Oh My!
I remember being in grade school and getting that coveted computer time. Twenty minutes to sit in front of a big, bulky, black-and-white screened machine that was noisy and slow. We would play Oregon Trail, using the keyboard to move our digitized covered wagon (or at least that’s what it was supposed to look like) across the screen. I was enthralled by this technology and loved when I earned the time to use it.
My, how times have changed! Young children are now surrounded by technology, and they know how to use it. Gaming systems, MP3 Players, CD players, computers—and how many kids do you see walking around with cell phones?! Meanwhile, I fondly remember my own cassette tape player and thought I was so cool in eighth grade with my pager.
My preschoolers are able to manage this technology with ease, even upon their first introduction to it. This was evident last week when we brought in a digital camera and laptop with a webcam for the kiddos to use (I know, what were we thinking?). The children did remarkably well—right away they picked up on how to aim the camera while looking at the screen and push the button to snap a shot of a friend. (I wouldn’t say they will be having a gallery showing anytime soon, but some people might see free expression in the heads chopped off of every picture.)
Needless to say, the laptop and webcam were a huge success! We first had a student teacher read a story via Skype while the kids ate snacks. Their attention spans were remarkable; they watched attentively and commented on the story as she read. We then allowed the kids to play with the laptop and webcam features. They loved watching themselves make funny faces on the computer screen and using the mouse to select a variety of special settings that warped their faces or put silly wigs on their heads. Their use of these technologies was nothing less than impressive. I’m always taken aback by the way such young kids can manipulate a mouse—they can’t cut with scissors, but they can eye-hand coordinate and fine/gross motor plan to make the exact move that they want with a computer.
I shouldn’t be so surprised by these children and their technology abilities. We use a SMART Board with them a few times a week, and it’s not only one of their favorite activities, but they also pick up on the tasks very quickly. The resulting behaviors we see in our students with ASD are, for lack of a better word, awesome! They are more engaged, they respond to our questions, and they genuinely seem to enjoy what they are learning.
For one of my grad school classes, I created an online presentation to show how and why we use the SMART Board in our preschool classroom. At the end are some great videos of one of our children with ASD participating in SMART Board lessons. This child has limited language and a short attention span and often gives us minimal eye contact, but you wouldn’t know that from the videos.
Please watch, enjoy, and think of how you may be able to use technology in your classroom, even with students you never thought would “get it.”
Comments
Katie: Laptops and Webcams and SMART Boards – Oh My!
I remember being in grade school and getting that coveted computer time. Twenty minutes to sit in front of a big, bulky, black-and-white screened machine that was noisy and slow. We would play Oregon Trail, using the keyboard to move our digitized covered wagon (or at least that’s what it was supposed to look like) across the screen. I was enthralled by this technology and loved when I earned the time to use it.
My, how times have changed! Young children are now surrounded by technology, and they know how to use it. Gaming systems, MP3 Players, CD players, computers—and how many kids do you see walking around with cell phones?! Meanwhile, I fondly remember my own cassette tape player and thought I was so cool in eighth grade with my pager.
My preschoolers are able to manage this technology with ease, even upon their first introduction to it. This was evident last week when we brought in a digital camera and laptop with a webcam for the kiddos to use (I know, what were we thinking?). The children did remarkably well—right away they picked up on how to aim the camera while looking at the screen and push the button to snap a shot of a friend. (I wouldn’t say they will be having a gallery showing anytime soon, but some people might see free expression in the heads chopped off of every picture.) | {
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.. highlightlang:: sh
.. ATTENTION: You probably should update Misc/python.man, too, if you modify
this file.
.. _using-on-general:
Command line and environment
============================
The CPython interpreter scans the command line and the environment for various
settings.
.. impl-detail::
Other implementations' command line schemes may differ. See
:ref:`implementations` for further resources.
.. _using-on-cmdline:
Command line
------------
When invoking Python, you may specify any of these options::
python [-BdEiOQsRStuUvVWxX3?] [-c command | -m module-name | script | - ] [args]
The most common use case is, of course, a simple invocation of a script::
python myscript.py
.. _using-on-interface-options:
Interface options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The interpreter interface resembles that of the UNIX shell, but provides some
additional methods of invocation:
* When called with standard input connected to a tty device, it prompts for
commands and executes them until an EOF (an end-of-file character, you can
produce that with *Ctrl-D* on UNIX or *Ctrl-Z, Enter* on Windows) is read.
* When called with a file name argument or with a file as standard input, it
reads and executes a script from that file.
* When called with a directory name argument, it reads and executes an
appropriately named script from that directory.
* When called with ``-c command``, it executes the Python statement(s) given as
*command*. Here *command* may contain multiple statements separated by
newlines. Leading whitespace is significant in Python statements!
* When called with ``-m module-name``, the given module is located on the
Python module path and executed as a script.
In non-interactive mode, the entire input is parsed before it is executed.
An interface option terminates the list of options consumed by the interpreter,
all consecutive arguments will end up in :data:`sys.argv` -- note that the first
element, subscript zero (``sys.argv[0]``), is a string reflecting the program's
source.
.. cmdoption:: -c
Execute the Python code in *command*. *command* can be one or more
statements separated by newlines, with significant leading whitespace as in
normal module code.
If this option is given, the first element of :data:`sys.argv` will be
``"-c"`` and the current directory will be added to the start of
:data:`sys.path` (allowing modules in that directory to be imported as top
level modules).
.. cmdoption:: -m
Search :data:`sys.path` for the named module and execute its contents as
the :mod:`__main__` module.
Since the argument is a *module* name, you must not give a file extension
(``.py``). The ``module-name`` should be a valid Python module name, but
the implementation may not always enforce this (e.g. it may allow you to
use a name that includes a hyphen).
Package names are also permitted. When a package name is supplied instead
of a normal module, the interpreter will execute ``.__main__`` as
the main module. This behaviour is deliberately similar to the handling
of directories and zipfiles that are passed to the interpreter as the
script argument.
.. note::
This option cannot be used with built-in modules and extension modules
written in C, since they do not have Python module files. However, it
can still be used for precompiled modules, even if the original source
file is not available.
If this option is given, the first element of :data:`sys.argv` will be the
full path to the module file. As with the :option:`-c` option, the current
directory will be added to the start of :data:`sys.path`.
Many standard library modules contain code that is invoked on their execution
as a script. An example is the :mod:`timeit` module::
python -mtimeit -s 'setup here' 'benchmarked code here'
python -mtimeit -h # for details
.. seealso::
:func:`runpy.run_module`
Equivalent functionality directly available to Python code
:pep:`338` -- Executing modules as scripts
.. versionadded:: 2.4
.. versionchanged:: 2.5
The named module can now be located inside a package.
.. versionchanged:: 2.7
Supply the package name to run a ``__main__`` submodule.
sys.argv[0] is now set to ``"-m"`` while searching for the module
(it was previously incorrectly set to ``"-c"``)
.. describe:: -
Read commands from standard input (:data:`sys.stdin`). If standard input is
a terminal, :option:`-i` is implied.
If this option is given, the first element of :data:`sys.argv` will be
``"-"`` and the current directory will be added to the start of
:data:`sys.path`.
.. seealso::
:func:`runpy.run_path`
Equivalent functionality directly available to Python code
.. describe:: | {
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} |
You can view petitions currently under consideration using the interactive map below. Each icon represents a petition. You can view the details of the petition by clicking the icon and then clicking the name of the petition when the pop-up box appears. When staff reports are available, they will be posted here.
No facilities found.
Understanding the Petitioning Process
When proposed development in Sandy Springs falls outside of approved land uses, developers petition the City. There are two petitioning processes in Sandy Springs:
Petitioning Process for Variances and Zoning Ordinance ModificationsOnce a developer submits a variance, or zoning ordinance modification application, their petition is heard by the Board of Appeals during the next regularly scheduled meeting. If the variance is part of a rezoning, zoning modification or use permit, it will instead follow that petitioning process. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
For years Adobe hasn’t had much competition in the photo editing, vector drawing and desktop publishing application space. Adobe software has been the pinnacle of desktop publishing software for as long as I can remember. A few years ago they switched their software model to subscription-based which upset a lot of their core customers. Now a company named Serif has come out with a new product called Affinity Designer to try to change all that. Serif Ltd. is an independent developer founded in 1990 and a publisher of design software. Serif was founded with the aim to develop low-cost alternatives to high-end desktop publishing and graphic design packages for the PC. Despite developing exclusively for PC and Windows for over 25 years, their new product, Affinity Designer, is turning that all on its head. Built for the Mac, Affinity Designer is the first of a new line of products by Serif aimed at anyone who’s not a fan of Adobe subscription model. Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher will be coming out over the next 12 months to complete the new suite of design applications. Affinity Designer is available now in beta and you can grab your copy for Mac at https://affinity.serif.com/.
Affinity Designer’s site says that “Affinity Designer is the fastest, smoothest, most precise vector graphic design software available.” Whether you’re working on graphics for marketing materials, websites, icons, UI design or just like creating cool concept art, Affinity Designer will revolutionize how you work.” and “Working in Affinity Designer is always live – pan and zoom at 60fps, transform objects in correct z-order, make adjustments or apply effects in realtime and always see live previews of brushes or tools. Whether it’s a 100 megapixel image or the most complex vector drawing with thousands of curves, it’s still the same and never runs out of memory.” When Affinity Designer is out of beta it will be available exclusively on the Mac App store for $49.99.
We are still a long ways from seeing if Serif can knock off Adobe’s crown but it’s nice to see that some alternatives are starting to pop up. If you’ve tried Serif’s new vector drawing application, please let us know what you think about it in the comments. I will be trying it out soon myself and giving a report on OUaS.
About the author
Having grown up on the shores of Maui, Hawaii, Norm has always had a love for drawing. Since leaving the Islands’ beautiful beaches and landing in Oregon he went to college and received a degree in graphic design. Now living in Beaverton, Oregon, Norm has been working as a full-time graphic designer and illustrator for the last 12 years. He has spent countless hours perfecting his craft as a freelance illustrator working on several children’s books, a few video games and creating numerous educational products. His ability to draw has given him the chance to do the thing he truly loves — Create.
Last year Adobe did away with their popular Creative Suite traditional software sales model and change there model to a subscription service. Well it’s been about a year and now Adobe is updating their Creative Cloud offerings for 2014. When Creative Cloud was first released Adobe promised a trickle of releases to their software throughout the year. Well on June 18 2014 Adobe open the floodgates and dropped a ton of new releases on the creative community. On Monday (July 14 2014) we discussed all of Adobe’s new mobile offerings. Well, today we are going to be taking a look at their updates to their Desktop software for 2014. We are only going to focus on software that relates to illustrators, so sorry all of you After Effects, Dreamweaver, and Muse fans. Let’s get into it.
The first update is to their naming structure. Instead of just calling the entire service Creative Cloud they are now adding a year to each update. This year’s update is Adobe Creative Cloud 2014. While we’re talking about small incremental additions to the CC service Adobe has also announced the Creative Cloud Market. Think stock image library. On the Creative Cloud blog they called it “a collection of high-quality, curated assets for creatives by creatives. Now you can access a remarkable selection of vector graphics, icons, patterns, UI Kits, for-placement images, and more from your Creative Cloud Desktop app—all part of your subscription to Creative Cloud.” In my opinion it’s an interesting idea but we’ll have to see how the library grows with time but if you’re already paying for the CC service it can’t hurt to check it out.
Now on to the design software. All of the revisions to Adobe software lineup have added improvements to the design work flow and a performance boosts. All the new updates to Adobe Creative Cloud are available to existing CC subscribers for free and individual Creative Cloud memberships start at $49.99 per month for new customers, $29.99 per month if you own a previous version of the Adobe creative suite CS3 or higher (for the first year), and $19.99 for students. Your subscription profile has also been improved with better syncing between desktop apps and mobile apps as well as including stored files, photos, fonts, and preferences allowing your files to be seamlessly shared between applications. Adobe says of these new features “The new CC desktop apps, mobile apps, and hardware are tightly integrated through Creative Cloud services. This integration helps liberate the creative process by enabling users to access and manage everything that makes up their creative profile — their files, photos, fonts, colors, community and more — from wherever they work.” So what updates have been made to the software?
Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 – This new version of Photoshop seems to be more of an incremental update as opposed to the big release of last year. Photoshop is now on it’s 15th iteration so it’s more feature polish less innovation but altogether it seems like a welcome update. Whats new for 2014? Most of these additions will help out photographers not as much illustrators but let’s go through them anyway because some of them are pretty cool.
The stand out to me is a new feature called Focus Mask. Photoshop will now help you start a mask by automatically selecting the in-focus areas of your image. Focus Mask works great with portraits and other images that have shallow depth of field. Next Adobe adds to their filters with 2 new Blur motion effects. Use Path Blur to add blur along any path and Spin Blur to create circular or elliptical blurs that will help add a sense of motion to your images. Photoshop has also added improvements to content aware fill. They’ve also added a feature to Photoshop that InDesign has had for a while called Smart Guides. Smart Guides is a handy tool that shows you the positioning between elements in relationship to each other.
Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 – What does Illustrator CC 2014 have to offer for your monthly subscription Fee? Like Photoshop the additions to the new illustrator seem to be just more refinement. Adobe has cleaned up how the Pen Tool works so now as you draw your a line it will give you a preview of how the final shape will look before you commit. Another welcome addition is how Typekit helps your workflow with missing fonts. Now when you open a file that doesn’t have a font installed Illustrator will reach out to Typekit, download the font and install it on your computer making it available for all other applications. Lastly and maybe most importantly, they’ve added Live Shapes to Illustrator. You can now quickly modify rectangle corners, with independent control over each corner’s radius. You can scale and rotate rectangles, and Illustrator remembers your work— so you can quickly return to your original shape.
Adobe InDesign CC 2014 – What’s new? Honestly it doesn’t seem like very much over its predecessor but what they have done is improved the EPUB export features and honestly this one might be the most exciting for children’s book illustrators. Adobe’s site says about this new feature “Make interactive EPUB books with live text—such as children’s books, cookbooks, travel books, and textbooks—that are rich with illustrations, photos, audio, or animations. Layout and design remain fixed no matter the screen size.” They’ve added a few other minor additions like better tabs, and color groups but the EPUB of enhancements are, by far, the standout for me.
There you have it all the new additions to Creative Cloud 2014. If you didn’t read our first article about their new mobile offerings you can check it out here. If there’s anything you saw from Adobe that you thought stood out and we didn’t cover it please let us know about it in the comments.
About the author
Having grown up on the shores of Maui, Hawaii, Norm has always had a love for drawing. Since leaving the Islands’ beautiful beaches and landing in Oregon he went to college and received a degree in graphic design. Now living in Beaverton, Oregon, Norm has been working as a full-time graphic designer and illustrator for the last 12 years. He has spent countless hours perfecting his craft as a freelance illustrator working on several children’s books, a few video games and creating numerous educational products. His ability to draw has given him the chance to do the thing he truly loves — Create.
In 2013 Adobe released their Creative Cloud service switching from a traditional software sales model to a subscription based service. This switch did away with the much beloved Creative Suite software bundle which included Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and many more applications. At first consumers were unsure of this change to their favorite creative products but Adobe has stuck to their guns and on June 18th 2014 released a large update to their software-as-a-service offerings as well as a few surprises. On Wednesday (July 16, 2014) we will be going over the desktop software revisions but today we have a quick rundown of all the Mobile software updates Adobe has released.
First off and most interestingly Adobe has released hardware. The company that’s most known for their software has just released a new line of products to help your creative endeavors. Adobe Ink is a new digital pen that connects to Creative Cloud. Adobe’s fine-tipped, pressure sensitive pen is a three-sided hydro-formed aluminum stylus for iPad version 4+ or better running iOS 7. They described it as “lightweight and balanced for a comfortable grip.” The second piece of hardware is a digital ruler that works in tandem with Ink. Adobe Slide was created to enable precision sketches and lines. Again to use Slide you’ll need an iPad version 4+ that’s running the latest version of Apples mobile software, iOS7. Slide works by setting the digital ruler down on the iPad then the ruler marks will appear on screen. As you draw with Ink your digital lines will snap to guides giving you a perfect line. Ink and Slide come as a pair for $199.99. It’s seems like a steep price for something that is not integral to the creative process at this point but Michael Gough, Adobe’s experience design lead, disagrees saying “Sooner or later, the mouse and keyboard aren’t going to be enough,” and ”We’re trying to prepare ourselves.” It seems like with these new products Adobe is making a future play for when artists no longer use laptops and desktop computers and only do their work on tablets. Only time will tell. What makes this pair better then other styluses? It pairs with Creative Cloud so all your settings will be saved allowing you to start working on one iPad and switch to another and continue seamlessly between the two. The nice part is you don’t need to pay for a creative cloud subscription to use the pairing options. As of now Adobe Ink and slide only work with two Adobe iPad apps (Adobe Sketch and Adobe Line) but I’m sure more support is coming. If you’d like to read someone’s thoughts that have had hands on with these products check out this article from The Verge.
Speaking of software that these products work with, lets switch gears to the five new mobile applications. On a blog post on Adobe site they say “These are incredibly powerful apps that start to bring the functionality you get from desktop apps, to mobile.” How is Adobe going to accomplish this? Well, these new apps will have the ability to upload some of the more processor intensive functions to Adobe servers and do the hard work there. Let’s take a look at these five new free apps from Adobe (these descriptions all come directly from Apple’s app store.)
Adobe Sketch – Adobe Sketch brings inspiration, drawing, and your creative community together in one place. Capture your ideas as sketches and share them on Behance for instant feedback. Sketch gives you the freedom to find inspiration, explore ideas, and get feedback from trusted peers—wherever you are.Grab Adobe Sketch from the app store here
Adobe Line – A modern approach to drawing and drafting, Line lets you draw straight lines, geometric shapes, perspective views, and more. Adobe Line reimagines traditional drawing tools like rulers, T-squares and shape templates for the mobile world.Grab Adobe Line from the app store here
Adobe Photoshop Mix – Combine the power of Adobe Photoshop software with the convenience of mobile for a creative, easy-to-use photo editing experience on your iPad (see recommended devices below). Non-destructive photo enhancements, selections, the ability to cut out and mix images, and more; plus a Creative Cloud connected workflow for even more creative possibilities.Grab Adobe Photoshop Mix from the app store here
Adobe Creative Cloud – Adobe Creative Cloud for iPhone and iPad: Your work, your inspiration, your creativity, with you wherever you go. Part of your free membership, this app connects your mobile devices to the Creative Cloud and unlocks new tools in your favorite apps. It also allows you to browse and preview your PSD, AI and other design files stored in the cloud.Grab Adobe Creative Cloud from the app store here
Adobe Kuler – Adobe Kuler is a fun and simple way to capture inspiring color combinations wherever you see them. Simply point the iPhone camera at something colorful and Kuler will instantly extract a series of colors.You can share your themes with friends through Facebook, Twitter or email. You can also share the image that inspired the theme. And Adobe Creative Cloud members will find their Kuler themes instantly available in the Kuler panel in Adobe Illustrator CC or Adobe Ideas. You can also sync your color themes to the Kuler website where you can download the swatches for use in other Adobe products.Grab Adobe Kuler from the app store here
There you have it, the rundown of Adobes 2014 products and mobile offerings. Check back for part 2 on Wednesday (July 16, 2014) where we look at the updates to their desktop software.
About the author
Having grown up on the shores of Maui, Hawaii, Norm has always had a love for drawing. Since leaving the Islands’ beautiful beaches and landing in Oregon he went to college and received a degree in graphic design. Now living in Beaverton, Oregon, Norm has been working as a full-time graphic designer and illustrator for the last 12 years. He has spent countless hours perfecting his craft as a freelance illustrator working on several children’s books, a few video games and creating numerous educational products. His ability to draw has given him the chance to do the thing he truly loves — Create.
Did you know Adobe makes a program that lets you make your own custom panels/palettes for Photoshop and in design? Well not many people do, so lets talk a little bit about Adobe Configurator. Adobe Labs offers the free utility for Mac or PC and give it a try, but if you’d like to learn more continue reading.
If you want to make a panel with all your favorite drawing tools like the brush tool, gradient tool, smudge tool, eyedropper tool and, a few of your favorite actions you totally can with absolutely no knowledge of coding. The above image was created in about five minutes and has all the Photoshop tools and commands I frequently use. It was super easy to create a custom panel and export to Photoshop CS6 or Creative Cloud (InDesign only supports CS6). Configurator made it easy to drag and drop tools, menu items, scripts, actions and other objects you might want quick access to in your own panel design.
How do you make your own panels/palettes? Honestly I’m still learning the software myself so I thought I would share a YouTube video from people with a bit more knowledge then I. The video below is from the previous version of Configurator but I think the fundamentals are the same.
About the author
Having grown up on the shores of Maui, Hawaii, Norm has always had a love for drawing. Since leaving the Islands’ beautiful beaches and landing in Oregon he went to college and received a degree in graphic design. Now living in Beaverton, Oregon, Norm has been working as a full-time graphic designer and illustrator for the last 12 years. He has spent countless hours perfecting his craft as a freelance illustrator working on several children’s books, a few video games and creating numerous educational products. His ability to draw has given him the chance to do the thing he truly loves — Create.
Last week Adobe announced new features to its Creative Cloud subscription service. In mid 2012 Adobe launched Creative Cloud and has been releasing new features for it since it’s inception. In 2013 they released 50 new enhancements for the service and 2014 is looking like it is going to be no different. They’re kicking the year off with new additions to Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC and Indesign CC. The notable additions include Perspective Warp to Photoshop, Illustrator receives Live corners and Indesign gets some E-pub enhancements. Let’s talk about these and a few more features a little bit more in-depth.
Photoshop CC
When talking about Adobe products you always need to start with Photoshop. It’s the product that pretty much everyone uses and everyone knows about. For 2014 they’ve added three key features to this program. The first one that jumps out to me and looks to be the most important to illustrators is Perspective Warp. Adobe’s description of this tool is: Fluidly adjust the perspective of a specific part of your image without affecting the surrounding area. Change the viewpoint from which an object is seen.
Another feature that they added is support for 3-D printers. Photoshop already has 3-D tools but now they’ve added the ability to easily create, refine, and preview your design, and then print models directly to a connected 3D printer or other online service. Also new to Photoshop is Linked Smart Objects. This could be a big deal to you depending on what kind of work you do in Photoshop. Photoshop already had smart objects but now it’s even smarter. When you link an image into your PSD, Photoshop can now tell if you’ve made a modification to it and automatically update that file inside your document. For example, if you’re working on a poster with the company logo on it and the company decides to change the color of the logo at the last minute you will just need to add the updated file to your workflow and it will update in your document. Sounds pretty nice. Read more about all of PhotoShop’s new features here.
In this edition of the Once Upon a Sketch Quick Cast we discuss projects we’ve been working on, Wilson’s recent computer crash and our thoughts on the conversation we had with Terry Hemphill from Adobe. We also have a contest we’re doing on the Once Upon a Sketch website. For more information check out the link below.
Show Notes:
Once Upon a Sketch Fan Contest
http://onceuponasketch.com/2013/07/once-upon-a-sketch-fan-love-contest/
Submit a Guest Post to Once Upon a Sketch
http://onceuponasketch.com/2013/03/submit-a-guest-post-to-once-upon-a-sketch/
Once Upon a Sketch Podcast Episode 5 – Conversation with Adobe about Creative Cloud
http://onceuponasketch.com/2013/07/once-upon-a-sketch-podcast-episode-5-conversation-with-ad/
First off I’d like to start off with a quote from one of my instructors in college about working in Adobe PhotoShop. He said “There are a thousand ways to solve the same problem in PhotoShop”. This statement is 100% true. I know there are so many other ways to accomplish a nice clean line drawing but here is the way I’ve found that works best for my work flow.
When starting its best to understand how you work. For me, I do my pencil sketches with a blue non-photo reproducing colored pencil. It helps me get the gesture of the drawing down before going in with a pencil to tighten up my lines. Knowing that I scan my sketches in color (RGB) at 300 DPI or PPI. I know some artists also use red colored pencils for their under drawings and this process can also be done with a red colored pencil but for this tutorial I’m going to just concentrate on removing the blue line. Now that the sketch is scanned and saved to my computer, I open it in PhotoShop.
Having started with a blue line I need to now remove it. I start by adjusting the hue/saturation (Image > Adjustments > hue/saturation) With the hue/saturation dialog panel up you will see a drop down menu set to “Master”. On the “Master” setting drop the saturation all the way down to -100. Then go to both the “Cyan” setting and “Blue” setting and adjust the brightness all the way up to +100. Now to adjust the levels of the drawing (Image > Adjustment > Levels) until the image looks right. One of the goals of this is to get a nice crisp white background.
To get the gray lines on their own layer there are many ways to do this. For instance, you could create a duplicate layer of your sketch and change the layer blend mode to “Multiply” and paint on a layer underneath. This way works fine but when I’m coloring I like to have control of all my lines and its hard when the drawing is surrounded by white. You will see why in a few steps. Continue reading
Last month on our podcast we had a roundtable conversation about Adobes new subscription model and it turns out that Adobe was listening. We got the chance to speak with Terry Hemphill a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Adobe. He heard our Conversation and approached us with the intent to speak with us about some of the confusion and concern regarding Creative Cloud. At first we were a little skeptical about speaking with a representative from Adobe. We were afraid that it might just be a long pitch for their products but we found Terry to be very open and honest with his answers. Before we spoke with Terry we put out a request for questions that, if you had the chance, would want to ask Adobe about creative cloud and we got a lot of great responses. Here are a few of the questions we asked him. Thanks for your input;
Why ONLY the subscription model rather than allowing for a perpetual license?
Why is the cloud subscription model better for me as a customer and as an illustrator?
What would you suggest young freelance artists or students do if they cannot afford to pay a monthly fee?
If you sign a one-year contract with Adobe and have to end it early what is the penalty?
If your customers are paying you month to month what incentive is there for you to upgrade your products competitively?
Has the outcry from the community at all affected Adobe’s plans for Creative Cloud?
We certainly got to ask him a lot more but those are just a handful of the questions we asked. Give a listen to the whole conversation to hear everything we talked about.
Well, we were contacted by Adobe and it looks like we’ll be getting the opportunity to interview one of their reps. We’ll be asking the questions you’ve wanted answers to. So we are soliciting that our readers send us the questions they would like us to ask during this interview. We’ll choose a selection of questions to use from your submissions. All questions submitted are not guaranteed to be asked during the interview.
Feel free to post your questions in the comments or send us an email. Also let us know if it’s ok for us to use your name when we ask the question.
The interview will hopefully be the next podcast we post. The deadline for question submission is this coming Wednesday, June 26. 2013.
Thanks so much and we look forward to reviewing your submitted questions!
-Norm and Wilson
PLEASE NOTE: Please check the Adobe FAQ page for answers to your questions that may already be answered.
We don’t want to ask too many questions that the answers to which are already available online.
Thanks!
This month on the Once Upon a Sketch podcast we welcome around table of children’s book artists to discuss Adobe switching their software model. Donald Wu, Chris Jones and Mary Reaves Uhles join Wilson and I to give our thoughts and reactions to the Creative Cloud announcement. From how it affects small one person companies to is it worth it to make the move to the cloud. We try to figure out these questions.
Donald Wu –
Born in Hong Kong, Donald grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area after moving there as a child. Years of drawing doodles in school along with a love of comic books led him to study illustration at the California College of the Arts. While at school, Donald was introduced to many different mediums ranging from watercolors to acrylics. Although Donald started his career using traditional mediums, Donald has since made the transition to digital medium. Donald continues to reside and “doodle” in the San Francisco Bay Area.WebsiteAgents website
Chris Jones –
I’m an illustrator with an expressive and humorous style that is fun and engaging. I’m equally comfortable working on picture books, or sequentially in comics/cartoons.Born near Toronto, Canada, and raised on comic books, red licorice, and Saturday morning cartoons, I’ve been drawing with a passion ever since I could hold a crayon!I’m a Graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, and a member of: the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Picture Book Artists Association.WebsiteTwitter
Mary Reaves Uhles –
Mary Reaves Uhles has worked for over a decade creating art for children. Her pieces have been included in books and magazines around the world. Prior to beginning her career as a freelance illustrator, Mary worked as an animator on projects for Warner Brothers and Fisher-Price Interactive. To this day her work features a cinematic quality essential to bringing characters to life.WebsiteTwitter
Norm Grock –
Norm Grock has been drawing since before he even learned to swim which is saying a lot considering he grew up in Hawaii. Since leaving the Islands’ beautiful beaches and landing in Oregon he went to college and received a degree in graphic design. Now living in Portland, Oregon, Norm spends countless hours perfecting his craft as a freelance illustrator working on several children’s books. With over 15 years in the children’s entertainment industry Norm would like to start working on his passions and create his own intellectual properties.WebsiteTwitter
Wilson Williams, Jr –
I have been a professional commercial artist and designer for over thirteen years. My pens, pencils and wacom pen have been drawing and painting images from my imagination my entire life. My work is whimsical, fun and captures the measure of my spirit.WebsiteTwitter
About
Once upon a sketch was founded to give insight, education and news about the many facets of the Children’s Illustration Market. From Children’s Books to Character Design, Game Art, Storyboarding, Toys and licensed Products you’ll find articles, interviews and resources to help fuel your education and growth. Jump in and learn more about the various industries from working professionals and find out what it takes to become successful in this field. | {
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As the light touches the horizon of our world
appearing and disappearing
a play of sunbeams..coloring dreams
streaming and dazzling …..our grateful eyes
sunrise….butterflies…….silver grey shadows casting blue
I seem to thrive on being alive
and feel an aching love….and a profusion
of tears for the weeping earth….sweet sighs
to be so touched by beauty …. | {
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About
Shardbound
$151,421
pledged of $50,000 goal
3,731
backers
[Update 3/14] Thanks to everyone for helping us reach our second stretch goal! Mori and Juro greatly appreciate it,and can't wait to join the story! Further support will help with our ongoing development and unlock the next stretch goal:
Shardbound is a Tactical CCG for PC that combines board-based tactical gameplay with the depth of content found in collectible card games.
The core of the game is a competitive 1v1 PvP experience which we've wrapped in an innovative social metagame that not only allows players to have fun with their friends, but also provides streamers and their viewers exciting new ways to interact and play together on Twitch.
We have been hard at work on Shardbound for over 2 years now, and the game is currently in private pre-alpha testing. We've built an awesome community of players and streamers who are passionate about the game, and are helping us make it better with every new weekly release.
We're here on Kickstarter asking for your help to push the game into a true public alpha phase on Steam Early Access!
The survivors of an ancient catastrophe have rebuilt their civilizations upon large islands floating above a gaseous planet core. Far above these islands, at the edge of the sky, stretches a ring of small shards of the ancient world.
Recently, these shards have begun to fall. As a Ranger, you will take to the sky and stake your claim, establishing yourself as a noble of the world's great new frontier.
We set out to build a game that took the strategic positioning mechanics of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, and combined it with the breadth of content that you find in a collectible card game like Hearthstone. Shardbound takes the best of both genres to create something entirely new.
The core rules of play are simple. Armed with a deck of minions and spells, your goal is to defeat your opponent's hero. Like in other card games, you'll take turns with your opponent figuring out how to best utilize your hand. However, in Shardbound, playing a card summons a 3D character onto the map.
Once your units are deployed to the battlefield, they have the ability to move, attack, and use their abilities each turn. Tactical considerations like line of sight, cover, high ground, and map layout all contribute to a layer of depth you won't find in other games.
Here at Spiritwalk we're all members of the Twitch community. We knew from day one that we wanted to make a game specifically designed for the unique social landscape of streaming. We wanted to give streamers and viewers a new way to experience a game together.
We also knew that we wanted Shardbound to be a competitive game, and that streamer-viewer interactions couldn't compromise the integrity of the PvP experience. Instead of having the Twitch integration impact the match itself, we designed a social metagame around it that would support everything we wanted to accomplish. We call it the Shardfall System.
In the Overworld view of Shardbound, you’ll find floating islands falling out of the upper atmosphere. These Shardfalls contain objectives for you to complete while you’re playing your PvP matches. You will form a Noble House with your friends, and venture out to Shardfalls to earn loot and rewards.
If you’re watching somebody streaming Shardbound on Twitch, we literally drop their Shardfall directly into your overworld. The streamer’s Shardfall has special Twitch objectives and content generated specifically for their viewers to complete.
In addition to seeing the Shardfalls of people you might already be watching on Twitch, we also populate the overworld with the Shardfalls of other streamers you may have never seen before! This provides you opportunities to discover new personalities on Twitch, while delivering a steady stream of new objectives to keep you challenged and earning rewards.
The Shardfall system is incredibly versatile, and we're just beginning to explore the potential of the viewer/streamer interactions we can support. Some of the type of objectives you might encounter on a streamer's shard include:
Play a match with one of the streamer's armies, allowing you to use units or spells you may not have unlocked.
Queue up for the chance at a showmatch with your favorite streamer.
Submit a deck for the streamer to review and take into battle.
Enter a tournament hosted by the streamer for their community.
Help your favorite streamer conquer other streamers' Shardfalls.
The possibilities are endless and we've just begun to scratch the surface.
In Shardbound there are 6 unique factions, each with their own distinct units and strategies. To go into battle, you'll select a hero and build an army utilizing their faction's units and spells, along with a vast selection of neutral minions that can join any army.
Director Petra leads the Steelsingers who can create the world’s most powerful technology and control it with their magic. Their versatile mechs and supporting exosuits units allow them to win in a straight up battle of minions.
General Vardan commands the Landshapers, who can sculpt the natural world around them to crush their enemies with overwhelming strength. They transform the terrain, control the map with deadly seedlings, and awaken stone tempests from the earth.
Professor Mori and the Fatekeepers have mastered the ability to manipulate time and space. They can control the flow of battle with tricks and debuffs, and are able to look into the future to secure the tools they need for victory.
Oathkeeper Juro is a Packrunner, one with the ability to resonate with intelligent magical beasts known as Primals. They can summon an army of them to their side in battle, and can buff them with bonus stats and abilities.
Baroness Sabine and the Bloodbinders are able to transmute flesh into energy and vice versa, allowing them to sap others to heal themselves, sacrifice themselves to enhance their allies, or summon mindless thrall to overwhelm their enemies.
Venerator Wynn and the Wayfinders can fabricate the energy of the Lifeweave into searing beams of energy, shields, and radiant golden wings. Their aggressive spells and minions can make it hard for opponents to keep pace.
By raiding Shardfalls, you’ll collect the resources you need to recruit units for your armies. Players who'd like to unlock cards more quickly will be able to purchases Boxes which contain a random Unit or Spell. Each of our factions have been designed to be played in a variety of ways, such that every new unit might bring you back to the deckbuilder to make different armies and employ new strategies.
Every unit in Shardbound has unique gameplay, lore, and a beautiful 3D model. Whether you’re more interested in their use on the battlefield or their unique look and personality, we want our players to love collecting each and every unit with the pride you might feel getting a new tabletop miniature.
Spiritwalk is a team of 16 industry veterans from the San Francisco Bay area. Together we've worked on some of the biggest franchises in gaming. Before starting Spiritwalk, the core of the team created the MOBA Dawngate at Electronic Arts.
We’ve been hard at work on Shardbound for over two years now. We left our lives at big game studios so we could make something a bit different, and go into uncharted territory with Twitch integration like only a small studio can.
We chose to build Shardbound using Epic's Unreal 4 technology because it allows us to rapidly iterate, deliver stunning visuals, and maintain an optimized game across different system capabilities.
We’re here on Kickstarter to connect with people who want to go on this journey with us, and support a game that’s trying to do something outside of the box.
For the past 6 months we’ve been testing and iterating on the core gameplay with a small community of players. Now, we're building features that require a larger group of players to test and validate. It takes developers and players truly working together to make a great game.
The money we’re raising will fund development of the features required to get Shardbound onto Steam Early Access, which we believe is the perfect platform on which to build and expand the community.
There’s a lot of Shardbound left to build! Any money that we raise beyond our target will help us to continue to develop the game towards an open beta. Items on our roadmap for future development currently include:
Completing the visual development of units and spells.
Competitive features, including Ranked Play and a polished spectator mode.
Other ways to play Shardbound, including Draft Formats.
Vanity Loot to collect from Shardfalls.
An episodic PvE campaign framework.
We can't make a game like Shardbound on our own! Please support us, and join our awesome community in making Shardbound the best game it can be.
Risks and challenges
We’ve built these kinds of games before. Online games offer a host of design and service challenges. We know how to run this uniquely complicated business.
Drawing from our many years of experience, we’re confident in our path to success. Over the course of the development of Shardbound, we’ve kept some of the following risks in mind and have been working hard to keep them in check:
RISK: Shardbound can’t find a large enough audience.
MITIGATION:
-- Get it into players’ hands early.
-- Engage in transparent and reactive development with the community.
-- Design for a large market by focusing on usability and early player experience.
-- Be generous with our monetization model. Provide great value to players.
-- Show demand for the game quickly through early playable alphas & Early Access.
-- Remain open to multiple avenues of funding Shardbound.
-- Use a well proven engine (UE4) instead of building our own.
-- Self-fund the studio when necessary.
RISK: The innovative stream-integrated features may not realize their full potential.
-- Meet with Streamers early and often, getting their validation of our design.
-- Buffer time in development for sufficient iteration of the Shardfall system.
-- Allow the game to be streamed earlier than we’d normally feel comfortable with.
-- Hire a community manager that deeply understands the streamer’s perspective.
Your trust means everything to us. We strive to be transparent and honest with our players and investors, and are always happy to answer your questions about Spiritwalk and Shardbound.
Support
Select this reward
Pledge US$ 10 or more
About US$ 10
Pebbleborn Bundle
Get started playing Shardbound ASAP with a key to our Pre-alpha! We'll also send you some sweet HD wallpapers to dress up your desktop, and you'll get a nice bundle of Boxes for when we launch on Steam.
Kickstarter is not a store.
Pledge $250 or more
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Bloodguard Bundle
This is an exciting package for anyone who loves art, and wants to be a part of the visual development of Shardbound. We'll keep you updated with the latest works in progress and give you some special insight into the visual design process. We'll also send you a limited edition Shardbound poster signed by the whole team as a big thanks for your contribution!
Kickstarter is not a store.
Pledge $1,500 or more
About $1,500
Primal Bundle
Help make your unit idea come to life. Work with our design, concept, art and audio teams to craft a new unit for Shardbound. We can only offer a limited number of these, so don't let your dreams be dreams. | {
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Achenbach gives part credit to Pique columnist G.D. Maxwell for his decision to run for council. Achenbach wrote a letter to the editor suggesting the Whistler Golf Course driving range be converted into a surfing park. Maxwell asked why Achenbach wasnt running for office. Since then his friends have suggested that its not a bad idea.
Achenbach runs the Camp of Champions ski and snowboard summer camps and is, with Doug Lundgren, the co-owner of Powder Mountain Catskiing and Catboarding. Lundgren is also running for council this year.
"Its basically a coincidence that were both running, both of us had different people urging us to throw our hats in the ring for a while now, but in the end it did come down to dude, Ill run if you run," said Achenbach. "People I respect said that I had to run. Ive got good ideas, some fresh perspectives, and Im not in it for any ulterior motives.
"Doug is made for council. He reads everything that comes out of the municipality, and knows everything there is to know about every issue. I think we could work well together on council and Id look forward to working with a lot of the other candidates as well. There are a lot of people who have this communitys best interests at heart in this."
Achenbach has three specific issues he would pursue on council. The first is to get rid of all the pay parking in town. "People come from a long way away to spend money here, and the first thing they find when they get to town and go shopping is the parking meters," he said. "Id like people to feel more welcome than that."
Another issue he would like to see resolved is affordable housing. He likes Norbert Doebelins proposal for the Paralympic arena that would include staff housing, but thinks if we can have 10-storey hotels in the village we can have eight- or 10-storey apartments for staff. He would also like to see more infill housing, and to give residents the ability to divide their lots to build additional housing. | {
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We’re ready to roll
Sen. Josh McKoon and Rep. Sam Teasley don’t like the ads we published in their hometown newspapers on Monday.
Apparently, these two Georgia lawmakers stopped working on their bill after they came up with the clever title: “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
These bills do nothing to restore religious freedom, which is protected by the U.S. and Georgia constitutions. Instead, these bills would open the door to people who would use their religion as an excuse to ignore child welfare, domestic violence and discrimination laws.
We’ve put our ads on a billboard and will circle the State Capitol for eight hours today.
Sen. McKoon and Rep. Teasley have both stood on the floor of their chambers and accused Better Georgia of lying about the damaging consequences of their bills.
“We only have to look to the last century to see what happens when you have countries, when you have nation-states that don’t value people of every faith and that don’t give people of every faith a seat on the table. So I simply say to Better Georgia shame on you. I hope that they’ll retract these ridiculous, unsupported, unsubstantiated accusations and try to responsibly participate in this debate.” | {
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Check out a funny mashup that features scenes from Cinderella and Fifty Shades of Grey, which aired on The Ellen DeGeneres Show!
“Whenever anything is popular, everyone tries to make a different version of it,” Ellen DeGeneres shared to the audience before showing the clip. “Look at what Disney is doing. It’s a classic Disney movie and this is what they’re doing.” | {
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Entrepreneur – Meaning, Types And The Rest Story
A very simple question for all my readers – Who is an Entrepreneur? How many of you can list down the precise meaning of the term? I might be wrong in my assumptions, but I believe Very few. It’s because one cannot define and explain it in a particular manner. Every individual defines the word as per his/her understanding and nobody can judge them on the mere basis of it.
However, the word originates from a French word ‘enterprendre’ which means to undertake a task. You can also refer to the Oxford definition for a better understanding of the word.
The journey of becoming an entrepreneur isn’t easy as people believe. Other than hard work and a lot of patience, you require other virtues too. Having these virtues do not make you successful at one go, but does ensure you are on the right pathway. A quick overview of all major virtues:
Faith in Yourself
Care and Respect for Others
Balance in Work and Life
Not to Lose Hope
You might think its easy, but remember the saying Practice leads to Perfection. Keeping the same fact in mind, refer to this article by Inc.com highlighting 7 entrepreneurial virtues to live a successful life.
Every organization follows a different principle while embarking on the journey of entrepreneurship. Check out my other article on Every Startup Beholds an Interesting Tale. It helps you understand what inspired the founders to establish their respective startups and what made them successful despite the odds. If you plan to become an entrepreneur, it is important for you to understand what makes these firms tick.
Every human being comes with a different thought process and its evident from the humongous ideas flowing around. The overall thought process and the personality of the founder contributes a lot to determine the success or the downfall of any startup. The next segment highlights different types of Entrepreneurs we observe around us.
Types of Entrepreneurs
Various surveys help us understand that there are majorly six types of entrepreneurs which gives the word SUCCESS a different meaning. The below infographic gives a detailed description of all the six types and will also help you identify as to which category suits your personality the best:
entrepreneur-types-infographic
You must have heard the saying Success doesn’t Come Cheap. You got to work hard to achieve your goals. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea to keep the perseverance and strive on a consistent basis to gain perfection. At times you would lose your concentration, peace of mind while you are on the pathway to becoming an entrepreneur. However, the freedom one gets from Entrepreneurship makes the wait worthwhile. You just need to work on the following three important factors:
How You Define Your Goals
What You Seek from your Startup
Balancing both Your Business and Personal Lifestyle
CONCLUSION
Being self-employed requires guts and a lot of patience. You just exercise caution in your decision-making. Every decision taken by you impacts your organization and determines its growth or downfall in the coming future. Check out this article by Entrepreneur.com to understand 7 Aspects No One Tells You about Being an Entrepreneur.
If you have any queries or simply want to share your Entrepreneurship story with us feel free to comment below. | {
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Blood Knot
"if you don't find this revival enthralling, you're not thrillable!"
Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal
Between patchwork walls in a one-room shack, two biracial South African brothers grapple with crippling poverty and lonely isolation. Morris, the punctilious force that keeps their room tidy, is light-skinned enough to pass for white, but dark-skinned Zach feels imprisoned by his job at a whites-only park. When they find themselves on some dangerous new ground, the brothers must come face to face with the blood knot between them.
Athol Fugard’s revolutionary breakthrough play is a searing indictment of apartheid and one of his most celebrated works. | {
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Terry Peak Season Spiced By Best Snowpack In Decade
The Black Hills in South Dakota saw a great winter. The first strong snowpack in nearly a decade brought plenty of skiers and snowboarders to the slopes of Terry Peak, and the ski hill's Area 76 terrain park attracted lots of local kids.
Consistent winter snows catapulted the resort well past its average snowfall - a mark that snows didn't even touch at Terry Peak during the past 10 years.
"We were able to open everything before Christmas for the first year in a long time," added Derosier. The ski season also carried strong into spring, and Terry Peak ran a full slate of March events every weekend-rail jams, races, and a winter rodeo-due to the snowpack.
The ski hill had put plans for building a village at the resort on the back burner, due to poor winters. But this winter may bring the plans up for re-evaluation. "With another good season, we might be able to revisit the village concept," said Derosier.
Meanwhile, Terry Peak looks to run its lifts this season through closing day April 5. Season passes for next winter will go on sale for half price in October. | {
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Worker Injured While Remodeling a Restaurant Not “Employee,” Not in “Construction Business”
A threshold issue in a Pennsylvania workers’ compensation case is whether the person who was injured was actually an “employee.” This is an area we have addressed on this blog in the past. Recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania decided a case regarding this issue.
After hearing the evidence, however, the Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ), denied the Claim Petition, finding that Mr. Lin was not an employee of the restaurant, that his work was not in the regular business of the restaurant, and that his employment was casual in nature. Determining that the restaurant was not in the “construction industry,” the WCJ found that the Construction Workplace Misclassification Act (CWMA) did not apply.
On appeal, the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (WCAB) reversed, finding that Mr. Lin was, in fact, an employee, and that his work was not casual in nature. Procedurally, the matter was then “remanded” (sent back) to the WCJ, and the Claim Petition was granted. The order of the WCAB was then finalized, allowing the decision of the WCAB to be appealed further.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania reversed the decision of the WCJ, finding that the WCJ was correct and the Claim Petition was properly denied. In evaluating the evidence, the Court agreed with the WCJ that Mr. Lin had more experience in the construction industry than anyone else on the site; indeed, the restaurant owner had none. Though the restaurant owner provided some tools and materials, Mr. Lin used his own tools and van for the renovation. The fact Mr. Lin did not operate a construction business is only a factor, not the deciding factor. Since he had no construction experience, the restaurant owner did not “control” Mr. Lin, said the Court. Specifically, the Court noted:
“Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party and giving it the benefit of all inferences reasonably deduced therefrom, as we are required to do, a reasonable person could conclude that Wang ‘was in charge of what needed to be done’ in a manner similar to that of property owners and specialists, such as painters, plumbers, etc., as explained by the WCJ.”
Noting this lack of “supervision” responsibility, the fact that the restaurant is not in the “construction business,” and that Mr. Lin did not expect to work in the restaurant once the remodeling was completed, the Court had no problem finding that Mr. Lin was not an “employee” of the restaurant. As the WCJ had properly found, explained the Court, the CWMA did not apply because “Eastern Taste is a restaurant in the restaurant business and not in the construction business.” | {
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Two University of Miami football players have admitted to getting a 17-year-old classmate drunk and then repeatedly raping her in their dorm room, police have said.
JaWand Blue and Alex Figueroa, both 20-year-old linebackers, turned themselves into authorities on Tuesday and were arrested on sexual battery charges following the attack on July 5.
The men allegedly confessed to buying several alcoholic beverages for the victim and administered - or knew that someone else had administered - a drug that made her 'physically helpless to resist'.
As she was incapacitated, they allegedly performed sexual acts without her consent, an affidavit said, the Miami Herald reported.
Arrests: JaWand Blue, left, and Alexander Figueroa, right, are pictured in their mug shots after turning themselves in to police for allegedly raping a 17-year-old girl on campus over the Fourth of July weekend
After the alleged attack in Figueroa's dorm room in Pearson Hall, the girl went to university police and the Coral Gables police department investigated.
Both men have been kicked off the football team and barred from campus, Miami athletic director Blake James said in a statement. | {
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Friends of Maryhill Park and the Maryhill Park Residents Association
New sparrow habitat to be created in Maryhill Park
As part of the RSPB’s “Giving Nature a Home” project, they will be creating a sparrow habitat in Maryhill Park. This is in partnership with the Friends of Maryhill Park, Glasgow City Council’s Land and Environmental Services (L.E.S.), and the community.
by around 60% in rural areas. It has been shown that in urban areas, young sparrow chicks often suffer from a lack of insects and other invertebrates in their diet. This leads to their poor development and survival, boosting local numbers of invertebrates can alleviate this.
In response to this, the RSPB ran the “Bringing House Sparrows Back to London’s Parks and Green Spaces” project, to identify the best habitat type for invertebrates, and by extension, house sparrows.
Wildlife seed plot in Maryhill Park
Wildlife Seed Plot
The research established that wildlife seed plots were an excellent habitat for invertebrates and the RSPB has been identifying sites within Glasgow suitable for wildlife seed plots. One of these sites is in Maryhill Park. The area identified is near to the playpark, and it will be seeded with a mix that will provide a fantastic display of flowers. This should all happen before the end of April 2015. The site will be maintained by the Friends of Maryhill Park, with guidance from the RSPB and L.E.S.
One thought on “New sparrow habitat to be created in Maryhill Park”
My older brother Ronnie and myself visited Maryhill Park on 30 March 2015 – we came to scatter our dad’s ashes – John Joseph Burns born 1921 – he lived in Cumlodden Drive, Maryhill, with his parents Maggie and James until the outbreak of World War II, afterwhich, he married a girl from Gateshead, Tyne & Wear and brought up a family of Scots-Geordies!!
Our Grandfather, James Burns was Park-keeper in the 1930’s-1950’s, having formerly owned a local grocery shop which failed to prosper, Grandfather James and his wife (our Grandmother “Ma”) Maggie were devout Catholics and brought up children James, Pat (Patricia), May (Mary), John, Tom (Thomas), Harry, Jo (Josephine) and Ronnie (Ronald) – these 2015 days, Harry survives – a handsome, proud, Glasgow laddie in his 80’s.
The volunteers at Maryhill Park were so kind and helpful to my brother and myself in March this year when we brought our dad home – so when you see daffodils at the top of the walk – think of John Joseph Burns of Cumlodden Drive and smile …… all the Burns’ family had that smile – that Glasgow Smile. | {
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The Best HDTV Reviews and Guides
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The sparseness of this piece allows the imagination to work, and yet there is a strong underlying narrative. Fascinating, makes me feel slightly uneasy with its undertone. I particularly like the dialogue, its well handled, brief and to the point. I also like the use of language – there is some nice texture here, just try reading this out loud and it has a pleasing richness. | {
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The gameplay is fairly open-ended and suits many different playing styles. Maybe what you saw just isn't your thing. Watching a few videos can't explain this game too well. I can't explain it too well either, there's just too much to talk about. For $5 it's definitely worth a try. It's from 2001 so keep that in mind.
I play it on Realistic and have all the passwords and codes memorized and know all the dialogue and I will still play through it every year or so.
Deus Ex is really fun. It is actually the best PC game. Before say, The Witcher and Mass Effect really brought epic (I don't mean like, WoW or MW2 'woah, epic bro' but like, Homer epic) storytelling to the public radar, Deus Ex had a masterfully written story with compelling characters, twists aplenty and awesome gameplay.
I play it on Realistic and have all the passwords and codes memorized and know all the dialogue and I will still play through it every year or so.
Deus Ex is really fun. It is actually the best PC game. Before say, The Witcher and Mass Effect really brought epic (I don't mean like, WoW or MW2 'woah, epic bro' but like, Homer epic) storytelling to the public radar, Deus Ex had a masterfully written story with compelling characters, twists aplenty and awesome gameplay.
Click to expand...
Agree. Might have to fire up Steam and give it a shot. Wish they'd continue this series, it was pretty ahead of it's time. I used to budget time between Deus Ex, Half-Life, Shogun, and Tribes back in the day of this shit
Agree. Might have to fire up Steam and give it a shot. Wish they'd continue this series, it was pretty ahead of it's time. I used to budget time between Deus Ex, Half-Life, Shogun, and Tribes back in the day of this shit | {
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£2 million Crawley town centre regeneration work contractor is revealed
The second phase of Crawley’s Town Centre Regeneration Programme is set to start soon after the appointment of the main contractor. Blakedown Landscapes has been chosen to revamp Queensway and The Pavement. The £2.2m scheme is part of the Crawley Growth Programme, funded by Crawley Borough Council, West Sussex County Council, and the Local Growth Fund through the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership. The project includes extending the new paving in Queens Square along Queensway and The Pavement, creating space for a market, larger disabled parking bays and new planting along the edge of Memorial Gardens. A council spokesman said: “It is hoped these improvements will encourage neighbouring landowners and businesses to invest more in the area, acting as a catalyst for wider regeneration that has already been seen in Queens Square. “With more than 50 years’ experience, Blakedown Landscapes is a multi-award-winning landscaping and civil engineering company operating throughout the UK, having previously worked on projects in Canary Wharf, Poplar, Basingstoke, Dover and our own Queens Square, which was completed last September.” See also: Find out about ‘exciting’ homes plan for Crawley car park site New business in Crawley town centre will ‘breathe new life into prominent building’ Crawley Town Hall demolition and regeneration work is delayed A schedule of works will be agreed over the coming weeks and shared with town centre businesses. Councillor Peter Smith, Cabinet member for Planning and Economic Development, said: “The council welcomes the opportunity to work with Blakedown once again. They completed… [Read full story] | {
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Open Dialogues
In a tiny sound studio on the third floor in the Chapman Learning Commons, students Selina Boan and Kenny Park are rushing to get the latest edition of their podcast series, in[Tuition], produced. The final exam period is creeping up and their topic of discussion is apt for a UBC student audience: procrastination.
For David Gaertner, an instructor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies, it is important that his students have the opportunity to create work with a broader impact, that can live beyond the classroom walls.
For a long time engineering instructors have had homework problems for students in UBC’s Learning Management System (LMS). That is, until recently, when they found that students preferred the WeBWorK problems they were getting in their math courses. | {
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Complete Web dedicates a set number of hours each week to help Charleston area non-profits with their web design, development, and business consultation needs. If you are an area non-profit and you would like us to assist with your website needs, click request hours.
Being a smaller agency, we are able to price lower and provide the same quality product that you would see at some of the larger firms. Our pricing is reflective of your budget and we work with companies and individuals of any size.
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Telling the story of your business through clean, organized, and easy to understand content organization. We approach our web design projects with your content in mind so that we can better visually represent you online. Careful thought and effort one content first will save you time and money and will allow more time to be spend on the design of your website.
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We are up to date on all the latest and best coding standards. Our development starts with performance in mind and how your website or app can best serve your client. Web Development is not just about writing code. It is about providing answers to common problems. We take what you have and we make it better. We develop all our projects as if we are going to hand the project off to another developer (Even though we are in this for the long haul…).
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Ecommerce can be complex with many moving parts such as shipping rates, product configuration, payment gateways, and APIs. Hire us to become your long-term team to create and manage your online storefront. | {
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Wednesday
The preacher at the morning Eucharist was a Nigerian bishop, Dapu Asaju. Preaching from Romans 12 (even though it was not read in the liturgy—a rather lamentable, though once commonplace, artifact of Anglican custom), his main point was that Christians are “life savers” in a cosmic battle, a present crisis, pitting the kingdom of heaven against the kingdom of hell. This is war, and one gets the impression that the preacher thinks the troops are way too flabby.
One of the things I’ve become more keenly aware of in this conference is the importance of context. As a westerner still trying to unlearn the mental habits of Christendom, and as one who tries to be a bridge builder rather than a bridge burner in a very diverse and conflicted church, I would have wished for more winsomeness, more gentleness, and maybe even a touch of humor. There was none of that. Yet, the Nigerian church is on the front lines of the encounter with militant Islam. Many Christians there are, at any moment, in danger of losing life or property. So they cannot afford flabby troops. Neither can we, actually, but we haven’t completely figured that out yet.
The morning’s keynote address was by Hwa Jung, a Methodist bishop from Malaysia. It was rich and stimulating. He flew over four important properties of the missional environment in the “Majority World” (aka Global South): 1) the north-to-south demographic shift in Christianity’s center of gravity, 2) the increasing challenge of nominalism and shallow discipleship, 3) global political alignment along civilizational (rather than merely nation-state) fault lines, 4) rising persecution of Christians.
He then offered six proposals for moving forward: 1) empower the indigenous churches, 2) pay more attention to discipleship and character formation, 3) deepen efforts to place gospel proclamation in authentic cultural context, 4) foster more sustainable socio-political transformation and nation building, 5) develop genuine North-South and South-South partnerships, and 6) attend to the crucial role of prayer, holiness, and unity.
I have to say, I’m about “up to here” with Thai food. It’s not that I particularly dislike it—quite the opposite—but I like it as a choice, not a compulsion. I miss my accustomed variety.
In the afternoon, it was back to the “track discussion groups” we began yesterday. I was very much an observer rather than a participant. The others there (except for the Canadian and two Australians) aren’t merely interested in resourcing theological formation, it is critical to their life and work. So they were highly motivated toward moving beyond general conversation to developing an action plan. It was the Nigerians who had the most energy for becoming very concrete.
Still struggling with jet lag, I was grateful when four o’clock arrived and when we were on break. It was all I could do not to nod off during the session, so I went straight to my room and hit the sack. By the time I could rouse myself, I had missed Evensong. I arrived in time for the final hymn, then followed the group over to dinner.
I had nothing resembling an appetite, for any sort of food. Nonetheless, I sat at the table and drank water and tried to make conversation, even though I was still feeling very foggy. By the end of dinner, my head had cleared, and I was able to enter into some lively discussion.
Then the four TEC Americans walked down the street about a quarter mile to a sort of mall—partly open air and partly covered, where we shopped for the sort of things one wants to bring home to family and friends. I let one of my colleagues do the hard bargaining, then just came in behind and took advantage of the price he had negotiated. I’m crafty that way. On our way out, we spotted, of all things, a KFC. By that time, I was beginning to get a little hungry, so I ordered three drumsticks, “hot and spicy” of course. It was comfort food.
About The Author
Bishop Daniel Martins is the 11th Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in the Episcopal Church. The diocese includes 60 of the 102 counties in Illinois, and stretches from Rantoul in the northeast to the St Louis suburbs in the southwest and the old river town of Cairo in the extreme south. | {
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Music festival attendees won’t be admitted until they’ve giggled at anti-drug video
Responding to a recent rash of drug-related deaths and occasional dismemberments at music festivals, New York’s Electric Zoo—where two attendees died last year after an overdose of MDMA—will force this year’s attendees to watch an anti-drug PSA, which should briefly fuck with their high. All ticket buyers to the Aug. 29 to Aug. 31 event will be given wristbands that can only be activated using a code embedded in the video. Concertgoers won’t be admitted until they’ve seen and dimly registered it, as with every drug warning they’ve ever been issued.
The two-minute video on the dangers of “molly” or “ecstasy” seen below finds a dude rubbing MDMA on his gums, “vibing,” and becoming increasingly out of control—at one point grabbing his female friend’s hair and insisting he wants to “wrap it around my face, like golden waterfalls.” It is expected to prove hilarious to viewers doing the same, who hopefully will be careful not to die from it. | {
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Samantha Bee Discovers Many Iraqi Kurds Love Donald Trump
The 'Full Frontal' host went to Iraqi Kurdistan and found a family who calls their baby son "Trump."
Samantha Bee traveled to the Kurdistan region of Iraq and unexpectedly stumbled upon a slew of Trump fans.
"They love Trump," Bee said in surprise, after speaking to multiple Kurds about the current president. “Are we in the middle of making Samantha Bee’s first, and probably last ever, Trump-positive field piece?” she asked.
Bee said many of the people she interviewed appreciated Trump because he directly armed the Kurds to fight against ISIS. She was still doubtful, wondering aloud if the Kurds "are aware that President Four Loko is just using them as mercenaries in the war against ISIS."
The Full Frontal host asked for opinions on Trump. One man said, "He is a competent leader, not just for America. The whole world needs a Trump."
Bee said she wasn't confident Trump is aware of "what the Kurds are all about."
But one of the men she was speaking with responded, "We are very, very sure that Trump understands the Kurdish nation."
Bee added, "If the one good thing that comes out of the Trump presidency is that he makes the Kurds feel hopeful about their state, that’s one more good thing than I anticipated."
She found one father who has been calling his son "Trump" since the day he was born. Why? "Well, he is angry, very angry, just like him," explained the father with a smile. Baby Trump's mother said, "He beats us with his fists."
While in Iraq, Bee also met a "Bernie bro" whom she enjoyed speaking with so much, she sang a song for him.
"I had to come across the world to meet a Bernie bro who would talk to me without calling me a bitch or a shrill c—, so thank you so much sir," she crooned.
Bee sang another number on Full Frontal on Wednesday. She and her colleagues performed a parody musical about Kris Kobach as a "racist Music Man," after a segment focusing on his time as a lawyer fighting against illegal immigration. | {
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Carol Bontekoe
This blog has been keeping track of my adventures since 2004. The stories and the adventures have come from my college dorm room to Uganda, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, learning Dutch in the Netherlands to living in the wilds of Homer, Alaska. I went back to school in Amsterdam to study Theaterwetenschap (Theatre Science) at University of Amsterdam. And now my adventures as a Fruit Fly, a Sexy Unicorn, and creating a movement with Team Sparkle in Chicago.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
One of the main reasons I keep this blog is to keep track of my adventures. The other other reason is to hopefully inspire the reader to travel. It worked with Shawn... She came all the way to Friesland... So, I'll keep doing this. However, not that long ago I introduced photos into the mix. Now I'm hopefully introducing video. This is just a short little video of why I travel. Hope it works and I hope you enjoy.
1
comments
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caitlin
said...
i just now saw this with sound since my work computer doesn't have speakers...awesome, i love how you used 'here comes the sun' in honor of the closest you'll ever see me to being drunk i suppose?.....good choice, carol. good choice. :-) | {
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... to spread the cement of brotherly love and affection, that cement
which unites us into one sacred band or society of brothers, among whom no
contention should ever exist, but that noble emulation of who can best
work or best agree ...
Masonic quotes by Brothers
WELCOME TO THE MASONIC TROWEL --
Built for those seeking information about Freemasonry or those seeking further light within the craft --
I hope you will find it informative and worthy --
If you have any suggestions on how to improve it, please email me. --
If you have any documents that you would like to have posted here, please let me know and email it to me. --
Lastly, please remember this is a Masonic Site in-progress. Check What Is New for latest updates.
WELCOME ONCE AGAIN!!!!! | {
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} |
Letters to the editor
Conditional love is disguised control, and therefore not love at all: whereas unconditional love is the real deal.
David Cameron and his cross-border ‘No’ to Scottish independence campaign is very much of the former stock. They claim to love Scotland, whilst threatening all sorts of non-cooperation in the event of the people of Scotland expressing their will for independence – even to the degree that such spiteful un-neighbourliness would damage their own interests.
Take, for example, the issue of our retaining our traditional currency to facilitate inter-state trade etc., with our nearest neighbour. The advantages could hardly be more blatantly obvious, or more mutually agreeable. And besides, the matter of what currency we use in Scotland is ours to decide, not anyone else’s.
Conditional love and spitefulness aside, the one area in which the ‘No’ campaign has excelled, has to be comedy. Reliant on the delusion that no template exists where gaining independence is concerned, their own enthusiasm for confusing independence with being ‘all alone’, and the hope that their would-be audience has no knowledge of the world; their projected fantasies know no limit.
In such an atmosphere, even the tiniest issue can be distorted into an insurmountable problem. On TV recently I saw an otherwise, apparently, intelligent ‘No’ supporter, seriously propose that finding a place for officer training for our new Armed Forces would be a huge obstacle. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry; the former because of the feebleness of effort at insulting our abilities, or the latter at how cheaply some people will sell their souls.
Back to the comedy front, some recognition should be given to the creator of the ‘We’ll need border controls’ farce. Whether this is to stop people fleeing north to escape Tory-Lib austerity measures, or food-aid heading south, no one has yet said.
Either way, even the least educated will know there’s a wide-open border around Northern Ireland and acquisition of even a rowing boat closer to home can get you a long way.
And there’s no need to worry about colliding with the thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians due last Christmas, it looks like they finally translated the word; ‘austerity’ and it stinks of the same cruelty and injustice in their language as it does in ours.
Oh! Congratulations, by the way, to the Westminster government for giving themselves an 11% pay rise. You must be so proud!
Lawrence McDonald,
Coldingham.
Presidential position
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso’s message to BBC presenter Andrew Marr last week that it would be “difficult, if not impossible” for an independent Scotland to join the EU merely confirms what he has been saying for years.
That is, as an accession state, Scotland’s membership in the European club would have to be accepted by all its members, including those, like Spain, that have an interest in keeping us out to send a message to their own nationalist movements.
Once again the SNP’s claim that Scotland would enter seamlessly into the EU upon a Yes vote has been shown to be pure fantasy.
Barroso’s comments underline the fact that a newly independent Scotland would face a tortuously long process to regain its European membership.
In the meantime, what would happen to our farmers’ single-farm payments? What would be the position of the 160,000 people who work in our financial services sector? Exactly what conditions of membership would be foisted upon the Scottish people?
There’s no reason for Scotland to embark upon this uncertain path. We already enjoy the fruits of EU membership as part of the UK and we mustn’t throw away our seat at Europe’s top table in pursuit of Alex Salmond’s pipe dream.
Struan Stevenson MEP,
The European Parliament, Brussels.
Many grey areas remain
I was born in the Netherlands, came to England in 1961, to Scotland in 1962 and applied for and was granted British Citizenship in 1989.
That was for me a major decision. After an absence of over 15 years my wife and I have returned recently to Scotland and live a short distance from the Scottish/English border. Though we have followed the pros and cons of independence there remain for us many grey areas and below are a few.
If Scotland votes for independence I will have to make another important decision: do I stay British or will I become Scottish? And if I become Scottish what will happen to my state pension and how will its future value change in relation to the British state pension? And if I decide to remain British - if that is allowed - what happens to my National Health status; which country will pay for my medical expenses? And will I be allowed to vote?
The answers to these questions are of course not only of interest to me but also to the many citizens born in England and who live in Scotland.
And what about the people born in Scotland - like my children - but who live outside Scotland can they elect to be Scottish or British and what are the implications if they decide one or the other?
At present when I land at Edinburgh airport from Amsterdam, Paris etc. I need to show my passport. If Scotland becomes independent and joins the EU it will have to accept the Schengen agreement, ie no borders between (most) EU countries. That means if I fly from Amsterdam or Paris into Edinburgh I will not need to show my passport. When I come from Amsterdam or Paris etc into London I will have to show my passport at the UK border, just as at present. These checks at the UK border are made, I assume, for very good reasons.
Is it therefore not likely that when I want to do my weekly shopping across the border in England I will be asked on the English side for my passport?
Pieter van Dijk MBE,
Woodlands Park, Foulden.
Holyrood v Westminster
The present Scottish government has given us the following: free bus pass, free prescriptions, free university education, council tax frozen and an end to bridge tolls.
London gives us: food banks, fuel and energy poverty, dying people told they are fit to work. to date Trident has cost us £100 billion. Interest rates on Britain’s debt. Are the Scottish public aware Mrs Thatcher moved the fishing boundary between Scotland and England from Eyemouth to Carnoustie. Six thousand square miles. London wants out of Europe. Who will then subsidise the British farmer. I am surrounded by people who love England but they will not live in England.
Mrs William Mitchell
Home Farm Cottage, Coldstream.
Benighted dullards
Alex Orr (letters, February 20) informs us that for the rest of the UK (gdp somewhere in excess of US$2 trillion, population a smidgeon short of 60 million) to try and prevent Scotland (gdp US$240 billion, population a tad over 5 million) from continuing to use sterling would be tantamount to economic suicide. Lacking the intelligence of the Scots that Mr Orr rates so highly, the benighted dullards who live south of the border may fail to understand that the dog should do as the tail says and persist in perversely organising their affairs in ways contrary to the diktats of the SNP. Since, by then, Mr Orr hopes that Scotland will have granted them independence, what precisely does he think Salmond, Sturgeon et al will be able to do about it?
Neil Stratton,
Heiton Mains, Heiton.
Westminster is shaking
When the independence debate started, I warned you that eventually Westminster would deploy its dirty tricks brigade.
Up to now the Project Fear/No campaign has been issuing Alice-in-Wonderland warnings about the dire consequences for Scotland should we have the audacity to vote for self- determination. All their threats have proved empty.
Now London is wheeling out its big guns to frighten Scottish people into voting against a better, fairer and brighter future. Why? I think there are two main reasons. Until recently there has been a complacent belief in the Westminster village that Scots would vote NO. But, as has been reflected in opinion polls, more and more Scots are realising the benefits of being in control of our own finances and budgets, and this has shaken the Westminster establishment.
The other reason is this. For decades, if not centuries, London based politicians and media have tried to brainwash Scots that our country is too poor and too small to be independent; we were the subsidy junkies of the UK. But what most Scots know, and what all three unionist parties have had to admit, is that Scotland most definitely CAN be a financially independent country. What they have not yet admitted is that Scotland contributes more taxes to the London Treasury annually, than it ever receives back via the block grant. For these two reasons the unionist parties, faced with the vision of losing the golden goose, will say anything to avoid an independent Scotland.
If any Scots ever believed that the Union was a partnership of equals, then Chancellor Osborne has just exploded the myth (though Mrs Thatcher did it years ago with her Poll-Tax experiment). Ignoring the fact that the pound sterling is the legal currency of all four countries of the UK, he dictates that we cannot use it after a YES vote. People will have noticed that when Mr Osborne delivered his lecture, he took no questions from reporters or the audience, and gave no interviews to any radio or TV stations. Had he done so he would have exposed the paucity of his intimidatory remarks – for neither he nor any future chancellor can stop us using the pound, and he knew it.
There is something else people should know about this vindictive nature of the London establishment. When foreign ambassadors present their credentials to the Queen, it is done with much ceremony and in the public gaze. When newly independent Eire sent its ambassador to the palace, he was demeaned by being forced to use a back entrance. I believe Scots will see through Mr Osborne’s bluff.
Richard Walthew,
Whitsome Crofts, Duns.
candidate
MSP dreaming of London
Conservative MSP, John Lamont, has obviously not lost sight of his long held dream to flee the Borders for London, with much fanfare in recent days confirming his intention to stand for Westminster.
Undeniably, his constituents will be left feeling very short changed that for the second time during his MSP tenure, Mr Lamont is happy to abandon the very communities he should be serving right across Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire at Holyrood. If Mr Lamont is elected to Westminster, constituents will be forgiven for pondering how “Two Jobs John” will be able to represent them in Westminster and Edinburgh. After all, it’s a physical impossibility to be able to vote at the same time in two places so far apart.
John Lamont is using his well paid, publicly funded position as an MSP to promote his own personal agenda of becoming a London MP. It is shocking that he spent his first three years as an MSP without taking any responsibilities on Holyrood Committees in order to concentrate on Westminster electioneering, and now we will have him campaigning around the doors in Galashiels (which of course is outwith his MSP constituency boundry), when he should be representing Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire in Edinburgh.
It will be interesting to see what commitment he will now give to Holyrood in the run up to the Westminster election next year. Perhaps “two Jobs John” should concentrate on the one job he was elected for and is paid to do.
John Paton Day,
Darlingfield Farm Cottages.
garden waste
Dangerous trend
The withdrawal of the garden waste service is the latest manifestation of a dangerous trend.
Our councillors now look up not down, responding to government diktats rather than to the needs of their constituents. They are more concerned with saving the planet than emptying green bins, more concerned with ‘sustainable transport’, than straightening out Borders roads and mending potholes. This is what happens when Central Government finances local councils. It is bad for democracy, bad for our councillors, and bad for everyone except a little clique of government ministers at Holyrood who are being allowed to dictate to the rest of us. It is time our councillors stood up to them.
Bryan Webster,
Houndlaw Park, Eyemouth.
Birthday gifts
Charitable donations
I would like to thank family and friends who donated money for my 80th birthday. The sum of £200 was donated to Breast Cancer Breakthrough. I would also like to thank Diana Baxter for the beautiful buffet, my granddaughter and Joan for lovely cakes, and the girls from the British Legion, Jackie and Sonya.
Florence Richards,
Parkside, Coldstream.
70th ANNIVERSARY
Wynsome Maydes sought
May I again ask for all past Wynsome Maydes to make contact with me, we wish to invite them all to our 70th anniversary Crowning Ceremony this year. If you know of an Ex-Wynsome Mayde who is no longer in the area, we would much appreciate it if you could pass the message on to them. I would also like to ask anyone if they have past photographs of Wynsome Mayde Crowning ceremonies, it is my aim to put together a display in honour of the 70th anniversary.
Finally, could I ask anyone interested in participating in the 2014 Wynsome Mayde Court to pop along to the Volunteer Hall, Duns on Saturday, March 1, from 10am-2pm, where Duns Summer Festival are holding a table top sale, to ask any questions they may have regarding participation. | {
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BUX is a tech company that is rocking the world of finance. Our mobile app makes stock trading easy, exciting and affordable for everyone. Founded in 2014, BUX now has 1 million users across 8 countries in Europe.
BUX is a tech company that is rocking the world of finance. Our mobile app makes stock trading easy, exciting and affordable for everyone. Founded in 2014, BUX now has 1 million users across 8 countries in Europe.
BUX is a tech company that is rocking the world of finance. Our mobile app makes stock trading easy, exciting and affordable for everyone. Founded in 2014, BUX now has 1 million users across 8 countries in Europe.
Can you imagine that system operates 120 TB with 86 billion events daily and 160 K events per second? The near real time processing is around 1.5 mins. We can! But maybe you can bring ideas how to make it even better?
Can you imagine that a system operates 120 TB with 86 billion events daily and 160 K events per second? The near real time processing is around 1.5 mins. We surely can! We welcome you to bring ideas on how to make this system even better.
Itera is looking for Senior QA Engineer to join project for company developing prosthetic products in testing of one of its solutions (mobile client). It’s a new project to start, aimed to provide on-going testing. Customer is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Semalt is the world’s leader of web marketing and SEO industry recommended by Forbes. Thanks to the technical innovation and unique algorithm that forms the basis of Semalt we have increased profits and helped to expand more than 20 000 businesses.
We build event-based reporting application on python and AWS lambdas, it uses all advanced technologies. You have a chance to get good experience to working with big data and the trending data processing stack.
Why join SPS? We’re large cloud technology company HQ’d in Minnesota.
BETLAB is Ukrainian product company in Sportsbook sphere and we are looking for Recruiter to help us to be a winner in the war for the best talents!
We started in 2014, and now we are 200+ team members all together working on achieving our shared a goal and we...
Zone3000 works with Namecheap project (www.namecheap.com). Now Namecheap is looking for Senior Node.js Developers who will work as a part of a Scrum cross functional Agile team which includes developers, QAs, UX/UI designer, markup developer & Product Owner.
We are building an actor focused cyber threat intelligence SaaS product. From the customer perspective, it’s an online portal and API that allows them to consume, query, analyse and visualize multiple sources of cyber threat intelligence information.
Are you passionate about technology? Would you like to join a company that makes its own software products? Do you want to work together with developers from over a dozen different nationalities to make those products? | {
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Blogs - Comment(s)
COBRA and Health Insurance–Do you have to pay through the nose, or is there a way to save?
03-06-2009 by Colleen King
COBRA–good news or bad news? These days people are either losing their jobs, their health insurance or both. What do you do? I know people aren’t always thrilled with their group health insurance plans but it’s scarier to think of being uninsured if you’ve ever heard the costs one can incur. But then you find out how much your COBRA coverage will be and wow–you need it at least long enough to get out of the CCU from your heart attack.
When COBRA, the option to be able to continue your health coverage when leaving a job first started years ago, people generally thought it was great. This applies to companies with more than 20 employees. But the cost of many group plans is extremely high; most didn’t realize how much their employer was paying to cover them. With COBRA, you pay the entire amount of the premium plus 2-4% administrative costs. In California, we have CalCOBRA which functions similarly but with administrative costs of about 10%.
So now, what’s the big deal? Why is COBRA so great? Well if you are insurable on an individual plan you don’t need to stick with the COBRA offering. But if you aren’t insurable, all of a sudden it’s usually the best deal in town. You need to decide within 63 days of when your coverage ended whether or not to take it. What I’ve done with several families is help them select individual health insurance plans for the members of the family that are insurable and leave the ones that aren’t on the COBRA plan. And it doesn’t always have to be the former employee that stays on the plan, you need to find that out from your former employer.
So check out your options. You might be surprised at the possibilities. Contact an independent agent, like me, before you throw in the towel. | {
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Home > Sports > CrossFit Games Live Stream 2016: How to Watch the Crossfit Games Online
CrossFit Games Live Stream 2016: How to Watch the Crossfit Games Online
Written by Mr. Cable Cutter
July 18, 2016
Title:
Crossfit Games
Genre:
Extreme sports
The 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games will take place from July 19th through the 24th, and feature some of the best athletes in the world competing for CrossFit glory. Want to watch the Crossfit Games online?
We Recommend:
United States Only
International Only (Canada, UK, Australia, etc.)
The Reebok CrossFit Games is one of the fastest growing sporting events in the world and has rapidly transformed from a niche event into one with a mainstream audience with people around the world watching the CrossFit Games live stream. They have taken the sports world by storm, gathering some of the best athletes from across the globe to push their skills to the limit. It’s a must-watch event that is sure to leave you stunned at the incredible things the men and women competitors are able to do. If you’d like to watch a Crossfit Games live stream, we’ll show you how below.
The 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games take place from July 19 to July 24, and while all of the action will be aired live on the ESPN family of networks, you don’t need to have cable to enjoy every moment. This year, there are plenty of legal ways you can watch a CrossFit Games live stream online. Below, I detail all of the legal options for you to watch the CrossFit Games online over the internet on your TV, phone, tablet, or computer.
Sling TV Lets You Watch the CrossFit Games Live Stream
Sling TV offers perhaps the best way to watch the CrossFit Games online. Sling TV is a live streaming service from Dish Network that delivers a number of popular channels without an expensive cable contract. For just $20 a month, you can stream live channels like ESPN, ESPN2, AMC, TBS, TNT, HGTV, CNN, and more to your TV, phone, tablet, or computer using your internet connection.
You pay month-to-month and you can cancel any time, just like you would with Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, or any other streaming service. And did I mention that Sling TV (review here) is the only way you can legally watch ESPN online without a cable subscription?
The ESPN channels will offer extensive coverage of the CrossFit Games. All of the Masters, Team, and Individual events will be covered on the ESPN family of networks. That’s every heat of every event for every division. To watch ESPN3, you’ll need to download the WatchESPN app. You’ll need to verify your Sling TV subscription (or participating high-speed internet service) on the WatchESPN app to access ESPN3 and other exclusive content on the app. So, with ESPN3 alone, you could watch the entire CrossFit games online.
Additionally, ESPN and ESPN2 will offer many hours of premier coverage of the event. That’s more coverage on these channels than ever before.
So, Sling TV will let you watch the CrossFit games live stream every single day. And here’s the best part — you can sign up for a free 7-day trial of Sling TV right now and watch the CrossFit Games online in their entirety without spending a cent.
Watch the CrossFit Games Online with PlayStation Vue
PlayStation Vue provides another alternative way to stream the CrossFit Games online. It, too, offers ESPN and ESPN2 in its basic streaming package. This means that you’ll be able to use it to access CrossFit Games streaming.
Vue has several plans available, with the cost starting at $30 a month for 55+ channels. So, it’s a bit more expensive than Sling TV, but it does offer more channels.
As for devices, currently only Amazon Fire TV, Roku, PS3/PS4, Chromecast and iPad are compatible with Vue. Also, you won’t be able to watch from outside your home as mobile viewing is restricted (even on iPad). Read our PS Vue review to learn more.
YouTube Offers Its Own CrossFit Games Live Stream
YouTube will do its own streaming of the CrossFit Games, but there are some restrictions. For those outside of the United States, YouTube will stream the entire event live, including Masters, Teenagers, Teams, and Individuals events. This coverage will be the exact same as that shown on ESPN3. However, for audiences within the United States, the CrossFit Games stream on YouTube will be limited to the Masters, Teenagers, and Teams events. You will still have to go to ESPN3 for Individuals events. | {
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Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil women wait to cast their votes at a polling station during the northern provincial council election in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013. The voters in Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged north went to the polls Saturday to form their first functioning provincial government, hoping it is the first step toward wider regional autonomy after decades of peaceful struggle and a bloody civil war. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka – A former political proxy for Sri Lanka’s defeated Tamil Tiger rebels swept the country’s northern provincial election, according to results released Sunday, in what is seen as a resounding call for wider regional autonomy in areas ravaged by a quarter century of civil war.
The country’s elections commission announced that the Tamil National Alliance will form the first functioning provincial government in the northern Tamil heartland after securing 30 seats out of 38 in Saturday’s election. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s coalition won eight seats.
The win provides a platform for the party to campaign for an autonomous federal state, although the provincial council is a largely toothless body.
The Tamils have fought unsuccessfully for six decades — through a peaceful struggle and then the bloody civil war — for self-rule.
The elections are seen by the United Nations and the world community as a crucial test of reconciliation between the Tamils and the majority ethnic Sinhalese, who control Sri Lanka’s government and military.
The result also suggests that a vast majority of voters prefer self-rule over Rajapaksa’s effort to win them over through infrastructure development.
However, the provincial council is largely powerless and the new government led by former Supreme Court Justice C.V. Wigneswaran will have to contend with a center-appointed governor who will control most of the council’s affairs.
Wigneswaran said before the vote that winning the election would give his administration the public backing to lobby for wider powers based on federalism.
But the central government is against devolving any substantial power and says even existing powers in provincial hands, such as those over land and policing, are a threat to the country.
The country’s ethnic divisions widened with the quarter-century civil war that ended in 2009 when government troops crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, who were fighting to create an independent state. At least 80,000 people were killed in the war, and northern cities, including many on Jaffna peninsula, were reduced to rubble.
Tamils have been demanding regional autonomy to the country’s north and east, where they are the majority, since Sri Lanka became independent from Britain in 1948. The campaign took the form of nonviolent protests for many years, but in 1983 civil war broke out between government forces and armed Tamil groups calling for full independence.
The provincial council was created in 1987 as an alternative to separation. But the Tigers — the strongest of the rebel groups, and eventually the de facto government across much of the north and east — rejected it as inadequate. The fighting that followed prevented the council from functioning.
The military defeat of the Tigers meant Tamils were back to where they had started 60 years earlier, with no tangible achievement, tens of thousands of deaths and losing another million people who fled the country as refugees.
Complete stories on our Digital Edition newsstand for tablets, netbooks and mobile phones; 14-issue free trial. About to step out? Get breaking alerts on your mobile.phone. Text ON INQ BREAKING to 4467, for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers in the Philippines.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of INQUIRER.net. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards. | {
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In an exclusive interview with CBS Local, Las Vegas breakout band Imagine Dragons were excited to discuss the just-announced 55TH Annual GRAMMY nominations, especially in light of the deluge of rock artists in the major categories.
“I think that all of us were pretty excited seeing that fun. was up for quite a few things,” enthused the band’s lead singer, Dan Reynolds. “I think that album is really great. Also Frank Ocean. I’m a big Frank Ocean fan, so I was happy to see that he got the nods,” he continued, also shouting out Jack White’sBlunderbuss for being nominated for Album of the Year.
“I think it was cool overall to see how many alternative artists are getting the head nod from the GRAMMYS,” added guitarist Wayne Sermon. “It’s a cool time to be an alternative artist. It’s nice that we’re getting more and more recognition from the Academy, not that it matters, I guess.”
“It’s good to see that rock is being revived,” Reynolds surmised. “The days of Nirvana are coming about again, I think.”
Imagine Dragons, who are looking ahead to a very busy 2013, are set to rock the house at the extremely sold out KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas on Night 2 alongside the likes of fun., Jack White, Passion Pit, M83 and the Killers. The shows will be webcast Monday, December 10 (Night 1) and Tuesday, December 11 (Night 2), starting at 10am PT/1 pm ET. | {
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Now, producers of the recently opened Priscilla Queen of the Desert have actually begun implementing the unthinkable—the producers of Broadway’s Priscilla Queen of the Desert have drastically cut the theatre’s live orchestra, and instead are forcing the remaining musicians to play along with a recording. Needless to say, theatre critics who reviewed the show have been appalled, calling it “synthetic to the core” (Time Out New York); “mechanical and monotonous” and “karaoke-inspired” (The New York Times); “a glossy costume party masquerading as a musical” (New York Daily News); “the songs… blend together into an undifferentiated morass” (everythingmusicals.com); and “an oversized karaoke party” (AM New York). This show deprives the audience of the robust, live musical experience they have every reason to expect.
The orchestrations were created more than five years ago and have been performed in productions in Sydney, Aukland, London and Toronto for thousands of performances prior to Broadway. There are elements in the sound of the ‘Priscilla’ score that cannot be recreated by live performance. These are the recorded manipulated sounds that accompany the live musicians who play every performance of the show.
I still haven’t forgotten the experience of seeing the celebrated revival of “South Pacific” at Lincoln Center, where the audience burst into rapturous applause partway through the overture simply because a cover over the pit opened to reveal the sight of an honest-to-goodness, Broadway-sized orchestra — an experience as rare for most of us as obtaining a $500,000 revolving charge account at Tiffany’s. | {
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Kneed eye same oar? (literary fiction explained)
Litter airy fick shin is some of that stuff where you half to go to the dicshinery and look up stuff and stuff. Theyre’s like, no good guys and bad guys like there is on tv or at the car repair place so it’s hard to tell who the proctologist is sometimes and some of the people arnt nessa Sarah Lee so good looking. You don’t get a lotta vampires or detectives or car chases too, so what’s the big deal? It’s hard to figure out why anybody’s doing that. I mean, if there doing any thing, which mainly their knot. Your subosta be smart when you read it but I usually fall asleep after the first visit to the dicshinery and then I wack off. I read one oncte ware a guy was like all depressed. whats that about? Anyways? I still whacked off though.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Wheres the story if you don’t have banshees? And stuff.
Oh yeah, pllus if Steven King don’t write any why should I half too? Right? Or does he?
Oh yeah, plus which if I waz rich I’d maybe write some, but I guess I’ll get famous first off and then maybe write stupid stuff thats hard to fig your out. Right?
Oh yeah, and what about ill iterate personages? I aks you, what’re they subosta read if every body s being all litter airy and we have to, like, fig your stuff out? And stuff? Plus did I say theirs no inner plan it Terry wars? Why is that I wunder.!
One Response to “Kneed eye same oar? (literary fiction explained)”
So, I did ink etch the fursline until i furnished. Button ow!, eye onion stained itz. You should mach an other shorts stoary about sense in says that began with so. So, eyed rite moore butt I afta jackoff.
Ways of Leaving
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Grant Jarrett
Chase Stoller is a beautifully mangled all-American mess. Jarrett’s ability to paint a picture of the tedium of small town America, and then to drop a character into this (Hannah) that’s right out of a Wyeth painting, well that sealed the deal for me. With pitch perfect dialogue and writing that felt like a perfect Indian summer day, "Ways Of Leaving" was that rare book that when I read the last word on the last page…I went back to page 1 and read it all over again.
Paul Hoppe, author of "The Curse of Van Gogh"
Grant Jarrett
Chase Stoller is a beautifully mangled all-American mess. Jarrett’s ability to paint a picture of the tedium of small town America, and then to drop a character into this (Hannah) that’s right out of a Wyeth painting, well that sealed the deal for me. With pitch perfect dialogue and writing that felt like a perfect Indian summer day, "Ways Of Leaving" was that rare book that when I read the last word on the last page…I went back to page 1 and read it all over again.
Paul Hoppe, author of "The Curse of Van Gogh"
Grant Jarrett
It’s official: Grant Jarrett has created the most entertaining, existential anti-hero since Tony Soprano. Whether you’re laughing out loud or wincing in recognition, "Ways of Leaving" will impress you with its raw honesty, keen writing, and ultimately, its big heart.
Grant Jarrett's vividly-drawn characters, dark humor and empathetic voice build bridges that transport the reader through this inter-generational story of parents and siblings in which the desire for salvation is challenged by the equally powerful impulse for destruction. "Ways of Leaving" depicts a seemingly familiar world that becomes freshly discovered and understood in Jarrett's intricate telling. | {
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A few weeks ago many thousands of people marched on Washington D.C. to protest the American escalation in Iraq and the looming attack on Iran. It makes little difference whether it was one-hundred thousand people or five-hundred thousand, in any case we were but a small sampling of the vast and growing number of Americans concerned with social justice and appalled by American aggression. Unfortunately I have seen very little written about the group with whom I marched, which seemed far more significant and inspiring than the star-studded rally and slow-going stroll put on by more mainstream demonstrators. I am referring to the Radical Youth Contingent, a varied bunch of young men and women who got together on January 27th and took to the streets.
We were largely organized by the Students for a Democratic Society, and we assembled under their flags as well as the red-and-black flags others brought. It would be impossible to say how many of us there were because at every stage some were joining in and others opting out, but as before less turns on this than would seem. The most important thing was not that we broke through police lines, smashed the windows of a Fox ‘News’ van and a recruitment center, or left graffiti on the steps of the Capitol building. The most important thing was that we ran free, and got away with it. We succeeded in leaving messages where they are hardest to wash away, in the memories of everyone involved. Of course everyone who participated will remember the day with great fondness. For young students and wage-earners accustomed to meaningless rote labor, actively participating in anything makes for an event not soon forgot.
Many were excited to see us and stared or snapped pictures along with other interested spectators, as we chanted, "Off the sidewalks_Into the streets!," among other things. No protestors, that I saw, seemed put off by us, even as we broke away from the main march onto roads not permitted for it. A great many, however, seemed perplexed. The source of this confusion is hardly obscure. In the news coverage these bourgeois liberals read, watch, and hear, police brutality is played down or ignored completely, while property destruction is presented as the horrific violence of crazed ideologues. Likewise state violence overseas is generally defended or ignored, and often truths are omitted and lies repeated. So I am not shocked if, when they see a black bloc, some wonder, "Why are these kids so angry?"
Well, take this as one answer to that question. When I turn on the news, it turns my stomach. What disgusts me most is not the transparent jingoism of Fox, nor even the celebrity gossip so prevalent on CNN and elsewhere, but the docility and uniformity of America’s media in general. Then, of course, there is the news itself. I was only in ninth grade the day planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but like many young people it is how my government responded that would have the greater effect on me. I witnessed the society I grew up in descend into madness. Now more than half-a-decade later it hardly surprises us to hear that America is secretly torturing uncharged suspects, or gearing up for another war. In every recent conversation I have had about these things everyone I have talked to has expressed a deeply-rooted feeling of futility, as though they profoundly wished that something could be done to change course but are sure, unhappily, that nothing can be done. If hysteria prevailed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks it is a crushing cynicism that has replaced it. It should go without saying that both responses are completely irrational, we certainly weren’t all in harm’s way then and we certainly aren’t all powerless now.
The results of the news business are apparent. My favorite example is that polls show that Americans think that too much of their tax-money goes to humanitarian-aid, but when asked how much would be appropriate the figure they give tends to be higher than the actual one! UNICEF has reported that over 30,000 children die every day from easily preventable causes, but Americans are conditioned to be concerned about Britney Spears or other stars through whom they are to live vicariously. Even at protests, we are presented with "stars of consumption" and "stars of decision-making" (in Guy Debord’s words), such as Jane Fonda and Dennis Kucinich. But we want no stars. I for one don’t want to live in a country in which one person, like Jane Fonda, can spend millions of dollars on whatever she wants, while thousands of others cannot even afford rent, and millions more cannot afford healthcare. That these conditions exist in the richest country in the world should shame us all. That we allow much worse to go on overseas is just unspeakable.
In short, thousands of people are dying needlessly every day, and, as the situationists poetically put it, "most won’t die because they’re already dead." So why am I angry? Why aren’t you angry? | {
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Facts.
March 21, 2011
Starting Out
I just started this blog. Don't know how many people will actually read this, and I'll bet even fewer will actually like it. Doesn't matter to me, not like I'm doing this for views. Just stress relief.
Nothing much to say about who I am. Like I've said I only started this blog to relieve boredom and stress. I'm 17 years old, medium brown hair, average height, a little bit overweight but it's barely noticable if you're not right next to me. I'm a third year in highschool. I frequent forums, youtube and the like. And have read a few of the blogs on here.
Ran out to the store to pick up some groceries. Bought too much soda, Dr. Pepper for life. :)
Noticed this guy staring at me on my way in, but he was gone on my way out. He didn't seem homeless. He was well dressed. Could have been because I haven't had time to shower today. I must have looked like a mess.
Met a friend I haven't seen in a while, he seemed kind of nervous. It's understandable though, he is going to college next year. I get nervous just thinking about it.
I think that's enough for now. Kind of short compared to others, but that might just be because I'm tired. This is fun, talking about my day to people I'll never meet. I think I'll do this more often. | {
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Coach JB Dixon talks about leadership to campers at Camp Trinity on Tuesday.
Photos courtesy of Ruth RethemeyerBy Kyle Quick:
West Plains High School’s Cross-Country Coach, Joe Bill (JB) Dixon, is considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of cross-country. The Dixon dynasty began in 1978 when he was hired as the Physical Education teacher.
Union, Mo. – Friday evening, prior to the start of the Truck and Tractor Pull at the Franklin County Fair, farm tractors began parading onto the track, lining up side-by-side, while fair board members gathered together at the center of the track.
By: Kyle QuickNew Haven, Mo – Staff Sergeant J.D Gilbert said, “I served in the Air Force for the sake of freedom. I never thought about going to work [Service in the Air Force] just to go. I thought about going to work so that maybe today, we could get 500 people back doing something to make a living for their families.”
New Haven, Mo – Eugene Scheer’s grandfather purchased a dairy farm in 1897. The Scheer's Dairy Farm has gone through many changes during the past 115 years from milking cows by hand, to milker units, and now fully automated “robots”…yes, robots!
New Haven, Mo - This past Nov. the documentary, Tradition of Excellence – 100 Years of New Haven Basketball was unveiled. After the premier on Fri., Nov. 11, 2011 it was announced that New Haven’s Basketball program would be inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, only the second high school to ever receive such an honor.
Pictured from left to right: Viola Van Leer and Marvin Van LeerIn 1905, the average worker made only 12 dollars a week, a gallon of milk cost less than 30 cents, and a 12 day cruise was just 60 dollars. It was not until the 1920’s before most people had electricity, particularly those who lived in rural areas. | {
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Harts Fabric is a family owned, independent fabric store established in 1969. We strive to bring you the highest quality fabrics anywhere. We offer a unique assortment of modern quilting cottons, organic fabrics, fashion fabrics, home decor fabrics, and sewing machines. We stand by every fabric we sell. | {
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Terms and Conditions
This page should set out the Terms and Conditions for people using your portal. This should cover such things as your intended use for the data that people provide, the licences by which you want to operate under, and if you will be providing the data to other parties, such as the Atlas of Living Australia.
This text is the default text on the Terms and Conditions page. In order to change it, your Administrator can log into the system and change it by going to the Admin> Edit Content menu. | {
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Concept
COLOR FIELDS, the textile-covered panel system by acousticpearls, combines excellence in acoustic properties with inspiration for design options – with simple, appealing efficiency.
COLOR FIELDS stands for an unparalleled range of possibilities when designing interior spaces thanks to the different formats and a unique variety of colors available in traditional designs.
The timeless combination system offers extraordinary latitude for professionally composed combinations of panels. They can stand on their own or be mixed and matched with others from the collection to create an entirely different effect. The acousticpearls palette of 107 different hues available with the textiles enables you to create a harmonious, finely-tuned statement of color.
COLOR FIELDS features a class-A sound absorption coefficient that provides excellent broadband absorption and has been certified and decorated with various awards. The panels are effective over a particularly broad range of frequencies and can significantly contribute to greater improvement of a room's acoustics.
The sophisticated installation concept rounds off the modular design system. Concealed installation solutions for nearly all wall and furniture surfaces as well as flexibility in suspending elements freely in the room provide a guarantee, in particular, for great simplicity in use, while offering precision in (re)arranging individual elements.
COLOR FIELDS blends in with the interior design both functionally and aesthetically, becoming an inherent part of the room.
Awarded by the German Design Council as a product that focuses on the actual task of designing, genuinely creating solutions that keep people in mind. acousticpearls merges timeless, traditional design and excellent features into one product. The company presents itself as an established brand with a "Made in Germany" design.
acousticpearls products bear the internationally recognized GREENGUARD seal of approval, which means they also stand for an environmentally-friendly belief of interior design for sustainable design in architecture. | {
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"One of the big issues are here, unfortunately, is that there's not decent paying jobs," said Bonnar. "So anybody working at a minimum wage job around here is living in poverty."
Bonnar said the cost of living is increasing, food stamp funding is decreasing, and food banks are in desperate need for donations. He said many people living in poverty also struggle with obesity because the food they can afford is low in nutrients, but high in unhealthy fats and sugars.
So when it comes to donating, protein-rich foods like canned meats and peanut butter are the most valuable, as is toilet paper because it's an expensive necessity that buy through programs like USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. | {
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Keep Your Christmas Spirit Alive During a Holiday Move
Posted: Thu, Dec 8, 2016
The holidays are hectic. Moving is chaotic. Put those two important events together and you may find yourself huddled in a corner wondering how to make it through the next few weeks. The Christmas season might not be the ideal time to move, but when that is the only time to get your family settled into a new home, then you have to find a way to make it work.
Just because you find yourself surrounded by packing boxes doesn’t mean that you have to give up on the holidays altogether. You can salvage your Christmas spirit and create a peaceful and enjoyable experience for the entire family. Where should you start?
Put a Moratorium on Work
Yes, there is a lot to get done when moving from one home to another, but the holidays are not the time to try and remodel, renovate or even paint. Concentrate on the basics:
Move and organize only what you absolutely must. You don’t have to set up every piece of furniture, unpack every box and hang every picture to make a place feel like home. Think must-have living until the holidays are over. In the meantime, let Zippy Shell of Columbus take away and store all of those other boxes cluttering your hallways. Our portable storage containers are a wonderful way to get all of that clutter and mess out of your house — and off your mind — until you have the time to deal with it after the holiday rush.
Leave projects for later. Anytime you move into a new place you want to change something. Don't begin any projects until after holiday season. Trust us.
Keep holiday decorations simple. Life is busy right now, so don’t add to your stress by trying to decorate. Sure, put up that Christmas tree or hang a few lights on the porch, but leave all of that extra decorating fuss for another year.
Don't volunteer for anything. This is not the year to volunteer to help at the local church bazaar, school party or hospital caroling. Sometimes saying no is just what you need to give yourself the chance to take a breath and enjoy the holiday with your family.
Choose One Special Tradition
If there is one thing most people can say about Christmas, it's that it is a time of overindulgence. Avoid overload by choosing just one (or maybe two) of your favorite activities or traditions and enjoying them. Maybe you couldn’t imagine the holiday season without attending a certain concert or allowing your children to participate in the community Christmas play. That’s OK. Some traditions make the season extra special. The goal here is to choose only one or two things that will give your family joyous memories without overloading everyone trying to do it all.
Let Others Do It for You
Are you one of those people who thinks it's a must to bake every cookie from scratch, make DIY gifts or write out every Christmas card by hand? Let this be the year that you let others do the work for you. Here are some tips to help you enjoy this holiday season more:
Have pre-printed Christmas cards made at your local print shop. Include a family photo in your new home!
Hit the local holiday bazaars in your area to stock up on special treats like cookies, fudge, and those yummy pies. Remember, homemade doesn’t have to mean made in your home.
Shop online. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’s efficient. When possible, opt for gift wrapping too to save time and trouble once those special gifts arrive.
Hire someone to come in and clean or even decorate for you.
Take the family out for your holiday dinner. Don’t try and cook a fabulous feast this year. Instead, accept an invitation from friends and family, head to your favorite restaurant, or even have your Christmas meal delivered right to your doorstep.
Simplicity is the Key to Peace
When it comes to enjoying the holiday rush in the midst of a chaotic move, the key is to think simple. Simplify every aspect of your life as much as possible. This may mean cutting back on a lot of activities your family is used to participating in this time of year, but you may be surprised at how smoothly the holidays go when you take the time to relish each special moment.
One of the easiest ways to simplify your holiday move is to store away all of the stuff that can wait to be unpacked later in a Zippy Shell storage unit. These portable storage containers allow users to get all of those boxes out of their way while enjoying the holidays. Then, when life calms down a bit, you simply call Zippy Shell and have them bring the container back to your new home where you can take your time unloading it and unpacking your belongings.
To find out more about the ways in which Zippy Shell can help make moving during the holidays easier, call the Columbus customer care center for a free consultation and list of current specials. Right now you can save up to $170 with our 12-month winter special! | {
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Get Ready: Victoria Beckham x Reebok May Be the Best Collab of 2018
Who's ready for 2017 to be over? From a fashion perspective, we have something major to look forward to next year: Victoria Beckham's upcoming collaboration with Reebok, which will be launching in late 2018.
"I am incredibly excited to embark on this partnership built on shared values," Beckham said in a press release. "I have always championed instilling confidence in women and Reebok is a brand that has been at the forefront of this same message for decades. To have the opportunity to challenge the traditional notions of fitness wear within a fashion context is something I have always wanted to do. I have long incorporated sportswear into my wardrobe and daily life and I am thrilled to be coming together with Reebok on such a dynamic proposition."
Of course, the feeling is mutual for the Reebok team. "As a brand, we look to partner with not just influential women, but women who want to truly change the world,” Reebok's senior vice president of women's initiatives, Corinna Werkle, said in a statement. "There's no better embodiment of this than Victoria."
We don't have details on specific pieces yet, but you can bet Beckham's designs will be impossibly chic. Stay tuned as we learn more about the highly anticipated collab. | {
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NAIM ND5 XS 2, NDX 2, ND 555 STREAMERS REVIEW
“We then moved from the NDX 2 to the ND 555 in the same system, this time moving over to Lyle Lovett. Once more, there was a greater sense of physical presence of singer and musicians, with at once more separation and – not as paradoxically as it sounds – more cohesion between the players in the band. After this we played a number of tracks (not just alt-country) through the ND 555, and it retained a sense of richness and organic depth to the sound, but not at the expense of the pace of the music (understandably, given the company it hails from). This was just a slice of how these players perform and the sound of the system wasn’t giving the kind of stereophony or bottom end definition I would necessarily seek on any of the tracks, but it did show up the good-better-best differences well. One for more investigation, I suspect.” | {
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This thread is depressing me :( No vacation booked, just busy as hell and no end in sight. band is taking a gigging break during August though, but plenty happening in July.
Sorry Andy. Well, if you're not busy in August, I'm heading into Las Vegas for five days. A friend of mine said there's a huge Star Trek convention going on at one of the hotels. I thought I'd bring the cameras and shoot some of the geeks - talk about stepping outside the box - never went to one of these things before and it actually sounds like a good 'people watching' event. You should fly over and we'll hang with the Trekkies ;)
I guess we could cruise the town and watch alot of the working musicians too. If we must. | {
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+0.00(+0.10%)
Macy's request for restraining order denied
NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York Appellate judge has rejected Macy's request to slap rival J.C. Penney Co. with a temporary restraining order barring it from selling non-branded goods designed by Martha Stewart while an appeal is pending.
On Monday, rival Macy's Inc. filed an appeal to overturn a decision made by New York State Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey Oing on Friday. That decision had allowed Penney to sell home products under the label JCP Everyday until a lawsuit that Macy's is waging against Penney and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. is decided.
Macy's, based in Cincinnati, had argued that the JCP Everyday products violate its long-standing exclusive agreement with Martha Stewart in certain products like bedding and cookware.
Thursday's decision made by New York Appeals Judge Richard Andrias offers Penney a short-term reprieve until an appellate panel of five judges makes the decision on that issue. The ruling is expected late next week.
A temporary order made last summer by Oing still bars Penney of Plano, Texas, from selling Martha Stewart-branded goods in the exclusive categories.
The development is the latest in a heated court battle that started late February over the two department stores' partnership with Martha Stewart.
Macy's, which had a merchandising contract with the home maven since 2006, sued Martha Stewart and Penney after they signed a deal in December 2011 to develop mini Martha Stewart shops, planned for spring. | {
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The Routty Math Teacher is a web-based company created to support K-8 mathematics instruction through blogging, collaboration, and instructional materials.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Math Picture Books to Love: The Fly on the Ceiling
The Fly on the Ceilingby Dr. Julie Glass
Target Skill(s): Coordinate Graphing in Quadrant I
Book Synopsis: Rene' Descartes, a French philosopher and mathematician, struggles to keep his home neat and organized. Consequently, he has trouble locating the things that he needs. While sick in bed, he watches a fly moving to different spots on the ceiling and wonders whether the fly ever lands in the same place twice. He begins to imagine a organized grid system that could help him record the places where the fly lands. After successfully recording the landing spots of the fly, Rene decides that his grid could easily be used to help him keep track of the things in his home. Rene' decides to create a grid on the floor and places objects at different coordinates. He then makes a record of his placements so that he can use his "index" to find what he needs.
Math Involved: This book emphasizes how to plot/ locate points in Quadrant I on the Cartesian coordinate plane.
Questions to Ponder:
What organized system did Rene Descartes create?
How can you use his system to locate/ plot points?
What is the term for the starting point on the coordinate plane?
Activity Ideas:
Create a human graph in a large open area. Give each student a coordinate and have him/her walk to the location of the coordinate.
Using the human coordinate plane idea above,give each student a starting point and set of directions, such as "Go 5 spaces to the right, or east. Challenge students to land in the correct place.
Create a large coordinate plane for your classroom. Print pictures of toys, school supplies, or other set of objects and post them in various places on the coordinate plane. Have students locate each object and record the location correctly to create an "index." | {
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Karen Sands and I have a lot in common; in fact, as I’ve gotten to know her and her work over the past months, I’ve had the sense of encountering a kindred spirit. We both share the conviction that we are living at an important moment in history. We have both experienced the ways in which people—our clients, our friends, and ourselves included—are changing the ways we live, work, and grow older. Finally, we both understand that this is the perfect time to reinvent yourself by launching your own business—especially (NOT “even”) if you are part of the huge (and growing) group of Americans identifying as Boomers, Matures, or older adults.
You see, I’m an encore entrepreneur myself. Encores are business owners who are 50+ years old and launching their “next acts”…not slowing down. We are taking the expertise we have gained after decades in the workplace and using that expertise to identify our deep and narrow niche—that place where our passions and skills intersect, allowing us to make a living by doing the work we love.
I’ve worked with small businesses for over 30 years, so I’ve had some time to think about all this. As a CPA and, later, an adviser at Portland Community College’s Small Business Development Center, I was working a lot with solopreneurs. These were artists, counselors, bookkeepers, speakers, graphic designers, consultants—you name it—who needed to be the business and do the work they loved…not hire other people who do it for them. There are a lot more solo business owners than people think, but I discovered a huge problem: there was no business advice out there tailored specifically for them. Finally, I decided I needed to provide that advice myself. I wrote my book, Better, Smarter, Richer, and started my business so I could help this population succeed.
As I dove deeper and deeper into the world of solopreneurship, I discovered something else: it is the perfect business model for encores. Why? Well, for starters, there’s a relatively low cost of entry for most solo businesses—the “investment capital” is usually your intellectual capital (what you already know). Also, the growth of your business depends on how much time you want to spend on it; because you won’t have a huge overhead to support, expansion and contraction are relatively easy. Finally, the internet has made solo businesses scalable: geography no longer matters. You can sell your product or service anywhere, anytime.
There is tremendous power in the path of encore entrepreneurship, particularly when you decide to “go it alone” and work as a solo. I love what Karen says about redefining aging, retirement, and how you see yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. That’s what Ageless Futures is all about…and it’s what Better, Smarter, Richer is all about too. It’s about taking charge of your future—into retirement and beyond—and deciding that it will be fulfilling, joyful, and financially stable. It’s about owning your power and reshaping “your life, your work, and the world,” in Karen’s lovely phrasing.
Jackie B. Peterson is a coach, consultant, and speaker based in Portland, Ore. She is an adviser at the Portland Community College Small Business Development Center and is the author of Better, Smarter, Richer: 7 Business Principles for Encore, Creative, and Solo Entrepreneurs. She specializes in helping people make a living by doing what they love. You can visit her online at www.BetterSmarterRicher.com or email her at [email protected].
Karen Sands, MCC, BCC
Leading GeroFuturist and thought leader on the Longevity Economy and Ageless Aging. An advocate for The New Story of Our Age, she is a “visionary with wrinkles” who empowers people to rock their Age. High-impact Certified Master & Mentor Coach for visionary world shakers, conscious entrepreneurs and change makers who are ready to shape the world and their role in it. A Trusted Advisor and expert authority on midlife, Boomers and women 40+ for go-getters who want to stay in sync with the people who keep them in business. #1 Amazon Best Selling Author, Firecracker Speaker and All-Around Game Changer. | {
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WNBA
IndieWidget
Shelf Awareness Book Giveaway For New Subscribers!
Thursday, June 15, 2017
I rarely pay attention to the narrator for an audiobook unless they are really wrong for the book, and I didn't know who narrated this one, however, I recognized his voice and a few hours in (I was on a very long car ride) I finally put a face to the voice and Dylan Baker was perfect for this book. He has the right amount of practicality and everymanness that you imagine Michael Lewis to have.
Because, as in all of Mr. Lewis's books, he is not an insider (yes, he very briefly in his twenties did work in a trading company but really, he's not one of them) and instead is someone just like you and me, but who can explain really, really complicated financial transactions in a way that is clear and understandable, and even at times fun.
Here he explains the flash crash that happened in 2010, how flash trading became so important, how flash trading works, and why it really isn't a good thing for the market at all—it's just a small group of traders who are siphoning money off the top and contributing nothing. They make trading more expensive for everyone, so they can get rich. He also follows a group of men from the Royal Bank of Canada (initially) who figure this out, decide it's unethical, and set out to create a fair trading market that the flash traders can't scam. Boy, I hope they win. This is a battle still continuing to this day.
Riveting as usual, with insights and perspectives that only an outsider with insider knowledge can have, like with all of Mr. Lewis's financial books, we all ought to read them, as the less we know about financial markets, the more those in the know can scam them, making trading costs higher for our 401(k)s and pension plans, even if you don't consider yourself someone who is in the market.I downloaded this eaudiobook from Overdrive via my library. | {
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Hi this stock is something LaurenDavidson used in [link] . I am hoping to host the image he made using this stock on my website, but I need your permission as well. It is not a commercial product or anything to try to make money, just a small photo gallery to feature some work. WWW.ZELILAA.WEBS.COM Please tell me if thats ok with you! | {
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RateSetter CEO talks to AltFi about his firm’s decision to “lance the boil”, the ensuing fallout, and how the platform was able to deliver for its customers.
To begin, a reminder of how interest rates are set, both for lenders and borrowers, on the pioneering P2P platform RateSetter:
“It’s supply and demand, and supply is made up of two things: new money and reinvesting money. And demand is two things: it’s new borrowers and it’s also lenders looking to sell out. Our system groups those two together in a way that is not the case with other peer-to-peer lenders,” explained Rhydian Lewis (pictured), co-founder and CEO of RateSetter. Bear this in mind as we delve deeper into how the company was able to deliver on £35m of sell orders within just one crucial month.
The background to this has been well-documented, but as a refresher: RateSetter offered its investors a free sell-out option between 18 July and 17 August, following the publication of new information about certain of its former wholesale lending partners. Perhaps most significant was the revelation that Adpod Limited, which had taken a £12m loan from Vehicle Trading Group (itself funded by RateSetter), had got into trouble – and that RateSetter would be absorbing any losses incurred from the loan using its balance sheet.
“The mistake was monitoring,” said Lewis. “We had a partner that we were not monitoring sufficiently.”
Mistake made, RateSetter then took the decision to offer fee-free sell-outs to its investors. But it was not, contrary to speculation, obliged to do so.
“We felt that we had made a mistake, and rather than spending the rest of our lives apologising and feeling that we had to explain ourselves again and again and again, the right thing to do was to give everyone all the information and the ability to act on that information there and then,” said Lewis. “To lance the boil, the best thing to do was to make a very open offer.”
The offer was made, and RateSetter’s investors responded. At one stage during the window, the platform was faced with £41m in sell orders. RateSetter was able, via its communications with investors, to bring that number down to £35m by the time the window closed.
“We delivered, to the penny, the full £35m, within the month,” said Lewis. “There was no outside funding.” He rightly sees this as a success for the business – not least because it represents, in his words, “a good customer outcome”.
But how was RateSetter able to achieve this? It looked like the platform might be overwhelmed by sell orders, particularly at a time when (bearing in mind the revelations about its former wholesale partners) one might imagine its investors’ feet were cooling. Quite the opposite turned out to be true. The £35m was absorbed by two things; the first was an increase in the inflow of money.
“Our rates went up by a full percentage point and more, and we saw money go from about £4-5 million of inflows a week to about £8-9 million,” said Lewis. At the same time RateSetter was busy winding up its wholesale lending activities (because these were deemed to constitute deposit-taking), and so the loanbook was repaying “in an accelerated fashion”.
Why did inflows increase? It’s simple enough. “It’s a lot to do with psychology… Generally, one has to believe that people are going to be more attracted to a higher rate if they feel that it’s deliverable,” said Lewis.
The sudden rush to exit the platform – equating to £35m of sell orders – served to boost the returns available to new investors. Those shifted from around 2.9 per cent to around 4.5 per cent during the month-long window.
At the same time, RateSetter moved to reduce origination volumes. Suddenly, the business went from lending £12m a week in July down to a low point of £6.3m in mid-August. Recall Lewis’s explanation of how the RateSetter marketplace balances supply and demand: new loans and lenders looking to sell out are, in essence, the same thing.
“Rather than a borrower borrowing £5k, a lender is able to get their money out, because our system sees demand as a lender withdrawing or a borrower borrowing.”
Rates were going up, with “demand” for new money soaring, despite the fact that originations were being reduced.
(As something of an aside, Lewis says that he learnt valuable lessons during this period about how best to dial down, and subsequently re-energise, borrower demand. “Dialling things down needed to be handled very carefully, because we’ve built up origination in different lending classes, and some of them are more easily dialled up and dialled down,” he said. “Some, if you dial down, you probably lose that origination channel forever.”)
“The rates went up sufficiently for some people with eyes wide open to say: ‘that’s attractive enough for me to go back in’. What I think is interesting about that is if we had controlled our rate, in the way that a bank does (or other peer-to-peer lenders do), one: I think we would have been too slow to react. It would have taken us a week to decide and perhaps that wouldn’t have been quick enough. And two, the fact that we are seen to be raising the rate would have sent an alarm to our customers that we are short on money, whereas in actual fact, they could see that supply and demand in the market was out of whack. The psychology changed, and I think that that small thing mattered for us in that period.”
It was mission accomplished, as far as the fee-free window was concerned. But are things now returning to normal?
“Last week was a best week since March,” said Lewis, referring to lending volumes. “Lender inflows are about £9m a week. The business is growing again and it’s back at the level it was at before this. It’s bounced back quickly.”
In other respects, however, RateSetter (now fully authorised) seems largely back on track – and Lewis thinks the outcome of the episode is, in fact, one for the P2P lending industry to be proud of.
“All of this has forced us to face up to a lot of challenges in an accelerated period of time, completely self-imposed in some respects… One can either look upon this as some terribly embarrassing mistake, or you can think of it as the kind of thing that is the making of it [peer-to-peer lending],” he said.
“It was an outcome that was so clearly a good customer outcome. Peer-to-peer lending should be shouting from the rooftops about that.”
While reticent to come across as “worthy” (his own word), Lewis closed the interview by imparting a key lesson from RateSetter’s summer of struggle.
“Don’t be scared about admitting to a mistake and put the customer first,” he said.
7th December 2017Ryan Weeks
11th December 2017Karen G. Mills
8th December 2017Ryan Weeks
About AltFi
Altfi provides market-leading news, insights and data on the rapidly growing alternative finance and fintech world. Our core focus is on alternative lenders, including both peer-to-peer/marketplace lenders and direct lenders as well as investment in alternative credit, equity crowdfunding, challenger banks and robo-advice. In addition, AltFi runs major industry conferences and seminars globally, and our sister company AltFi Data is widely regarded as the premier source of institution-grade analytics for alternative finance. | {
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betagame
my walk
i decided since it was a sunday afternoon i decided to get diapered put on my pants and jacket and take a walk through the neighborhood
there was nice weather. sunny and breezy. it was easy to get out considering my dad was asleep and my mom was out. so i slipped through the garage door and out. i walked around the block (it was windy and no1 heard the crinkle. i went back home and went to the backyard where i pulled down my pants, squatted, and wet right there.
i went to the grass and played around with my pants on my ankles (diaper showing) checked if my mom was coming home three times. i then went inside where i went to my room. it was a great time. | {
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RYGY
The city of Rio de Janeiro was always this brand’s greatest inspiration.
The RYGY brand was launched in 1980, which means they have plenty of experience in knowing what women like in a swimsuit! Their swimsuits are light, sophisticated creations; unique and high-quality products. They offer bikinis - and also sleek sporty one pieces and monokinis, which serve as multi-functional for gym & swim. They come in a variety of colors and all types of exclusive prints made only for the brand.
Explore
About Us
We’re one of the largest online retailers of swimwear and bikinis.
Founded in Brazil, the bikini capital of the world, we’re a start up e-commerce and Wholesale Company. We know that style and support go hand-in-hand when it comes to purchasing a new bathing suit, and in our effort to become the biggest market place for swimwear in the industry, we’re proud to bring our beautiful Brazilian bikinis to women around the world. | {
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Tag Archives: contraception
Yesterday I joined a crowd of other people headed to the Berkeley Rep theater to see the play Roe, an account of the forty-year-old Supreme Court case Roe v Wade, which made abortion legal in the United States. Written by Lisa Loomer and performed by a group of
gifted actors, the play makes the twists and turns of an old legal drama completely absorbing.
The drama focuses on the effects of the trial and its aftermath on the two central figures—Norma McCorvey the plaintiff, and Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who took her case to court. Most of us in the audience already knew the story—how Norma wanted an abortion to end her third pregnancy, and how Sarah wanted a case that would force changes in the restrictive Texas abortion law. Perhaps we didn’t all remember that Norma never did get that abortion because the case dragged on so long. The baby was born and given up for adoption before the court reached a decision. Sarah, however, did set in motion the legal changes that would change the landscape of women’s rights in America.
Over the centuries from the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome and India up until the present, women have tried to control their own fertility. Without effective contraception,
Aphrodite freed from her chains
abortion often offered the only release from an endless series of pregnancies and births for married women, many of them from families that were ill-equipped to support another child. And most women who sought abortions were married. Even today, when contraception is much more available, cheap and foolproof, the majority of women who seek abortions, according to figures from the Guttmacher Institute, are married women who already have at least one child.
Those of us who lived through the 1970s and were aware of the Roe v Wade case assumed that it would put an end to all the arguments and restrictions on abortion. Most countries in the developed world have accepted the fact that many women will want to abort a pregnancy that occurs at a time when they cannot bear and take care of another child. People who are strongly opposed to abortion usually claim that a “soul” enters a fetus’s cells sometime soon after conception. They therefore claim that the fetus is a person whose life must be preserved. Many other people dispute this claim. For centuries people believed that a human being becomes human when it is born and most people believe that now.
The dispute about when human life begins cannot be solved by science because it is a religious argument. Why is it that the United States is one of the very few countries where large numbers of people insist that their religious views become the law of the land? Perhaps if more people could see the play Roe they might develop a greater understanding of the arguments on both sides of the question. And perhaps more people would be content to let women control their own bodies. Medical science has given women the means to have safe and effective abortions; the decision about whether or not to have one should be left in the hands of the individual, not determined by the votes of outsiders.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case has started a lot of people thinking about how access to contraception has changed women’s lives. The Hobby Lobby decision allows some companies to refuse to pay for all forms of contraceptive care for their employees. If all of the owners of a “closely held corporation” declare that they do not approve of some forms of contraception on religious grounds, then they don’t have to pay for insurance coverage for contraception. The talk about this decision and how it may affect healthcare for all Americans has started a lot of people thinking about the struggle to get any form of contraception approved.
When Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) started working as a nurse in New York City, she saw a number of women who were suffering from their inability to keep from becoming pregnant over and over again. Doctors were not allowed to tell women how to avoid unwanted pregnancies; so many families were doomed to poverty and poor health because they could not afford large families. With contraceptives declared illegal and therefore unavailable to any except the wealthy, many poorer women resorted to abortionists or tried to abort a fetus themselves. When Margaret Sanger, who had seen her own mother die at 48 worn out by twelve pregnancies and weakened by tuberculosis, realized how many women were sacrificed because of their inability to control births, she determined to devote her life to changing the law.
By starting a newsletter, lecturing, and then opening the first birth control clinic in America, Sanger tried to introduce contraception to women. Both she and her sister were arrested at their Brooklyn clinic and charged with distributing obscene literature—information about birth control. Margaret Sanger served a short jail term for the crime, but she received a great deal of publicity and the issue was brought before the public.
It is hard today to remember how the lack of birth control affected women’s lives during the years when it was forbidden. Employers discriminated against married women, refusing to hire them because they might become pregnant at any time. Graduate schools refused to admit married women students with the excuse that their education was wasted because an unplanned pregnancy could derail a degree at any time.
Margaret Sanger fought for many years to make contraception available in the United States. It was a long struggle. By 1965 when the Supreme Court finally decided in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut that contraception should be available, Sanger was 85 years old. A year later she died.
Some of Margaret Sanger’s legacy was unfortunate. She believed in eugenics and favored larger families for well-educated, middle class families. The poor and especially nonwhite people, she believed, should strictly limit their family size. Many of the statements she made during her later years were repugnant, and they have been seized upon by conservative politicians to blacken her reputation. But the major battle she fought—to enable women to have some control over their bodies and the size of their families—was an important one. Much of the freedom enjoyed by women today has come about because of the struggle of Margaret Sanger and her associates.
Today, on the Fourth of July, when we celebrate the legacy of our Founding Fathers—a legacy deeply tarnished by the racism and prejudices of their ideas—is surely a good time to assert again that we can celebrate the achievements of many individuals despite their flaws and mistakes. None of our heroes or heroines were perfect, but we can accept the good that they did at the same time that we cast aside the bad.
The Supreme Court is much like our individual heroes. Some of their decisions have contributed decisively to Americans’ welfare and freedom; others have needed to be modified as time revealed their flaws. As for the Hobby Lobby decision, it seems quite likely that the best that can come from it may be the movement toward having single payer healthcare in the United States so that the health and happiness of Americans depend on themselves, through their elected government, and they are freed from the idiosyncratic and sometimes irrational beliefs of their employers. | {
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People
Dr. Reinhard D. Beise
(Executive Partner)
• Degree in human medicine
• Fellowship of the German research community
• Doctorate in the field of neurophysiology (summa cum laude, award winner of the Städtler Foundation)
• Several years of university research in the field of physiology
• Further education in physiology, clinical pharmacology and neurology | {
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MD Anderson relocating Smithville research park to Houston
1of4The design of the TMC3 from Boston-based Elkus Manfredi Architects takes a previous idea to create a double-helix-shaped building and creates park space shaped like a DNA strand.Photo: Courtesy of TMC
2of4The Texas Medical Center along with the Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, the University of Texas and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center announced plans to build a research and innovation campus on land just south of S. Braeswood Boulevard and north of Old Spanish Trail, on Monday, April 23, 2018, in Houston. This view of the site, which is currently a parking lot, is from M.D. Anderson’s south campus.Photo: Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Houston Chronicle
MD Anderson Cancer Center will relocate its nearly 50-year-old research facility near Austin to Houston, a decision that’s upset business and political leaders in the central Texas area.
Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape has gone so far as to try to enlist Gov. Greg Abbott’s influence to convince MD Anderson to keep its Science Park in Smithville, site of Jim Allison’s earliest immune system research that last year culminated in the Nobel Prize.
“We need your help in saving an institution that is vital to Bastrop County,” Pape wrote Abbott in a letter, dated May 14. “Considerations are pending that might move this department to Houston. Please don’t let that happen.”
MD Anderson officials Friday met with employees to provide more specifics on the plan, which calls for the park to be shut down in two years. They said the decision is already final.
The officials said the Science Park will be integrated into MD Anderson’s south campus, where the system has built six new research buildings in the last 15 years and will build another as part of the touted TMC3 initiative, which will unite the cancer center, Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Texas A&M University Health Science Center on 30 acres of Texas Medical Center land.
In an email, MD Anderson President Dr. Peter Pisters said the decision was made now because the Smithville facilities “are at the end of their lifespan” and necessary renovations would cost more than $100 million. MD Anderson’s investment in TMC3 is expected to cost at least that much.
Abbott’s office did not respond to Chronicle inquiries about Pape’s letter. The governor has been a vocal supporter of the TMC3 campus, the linchpin of a plan to make Houston more of an international hub of biomedical innovation. The 3 in TMC3 is to identify Houston as the “Third Coast” for life sciences.
In the letter, Pape emphasized “the huge loss for our local economy should the center be moved to Houston” — with 175 employees, it is one of Bastrop County’s largest employers. In an interview, Pape added that the scientists’ salaries are higher than average in the area, “expendable income that benefits the community.”
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Pape said that many of the scientists there say they will retire before moving to Houston, a testament to its bucolic, serene setting that he compared to “a resort where scientists can do their work and live a few minutes away.” Allison has spoken often about that appeal, which he loved so much that he hesitated in the 1980s before accepting a new job at the University of California at Berkeley.
Allison could not be reached for comment about the decision to close the park.
The park, established by the Texas Legislature in 1972, opened in 1977 on land acquired from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Formally dedicated as a research center for the study of cancer’s causes and prevention, it has an annual operating budget of $13 million. Its scientists last year brought in nearly $15 million in federal and state grants.
Allison’s research at Smithville defined the basic structure of immune cells, work that informed his ultimate identification of a brake that reins in the immune system and development of a drug to unleash it to attack cancer. The breakthrough breathed new life into immunotherapy, now the fourth pillar of cancer treatment.
Scientists there also discovered that cells treated with a specific chemical carcinogen from cigarettes caused DNA damage at specific sites commonly mutated in lung cancer, a key finding into the critical link between smoking and the disease.
Moving the Smithville park to the medical center has been under consideration for some time, Pisters said in the email. He said the decision followed “an in-depth analysis of our mission, how modern science is conducted, the facilities and financial considerations.” He called it a mission-based, strategic decision “designed to accelerate research synergies.”
The Bastrop County Chamber of Commerce and the county’s office of tourism and economic development are also working with Pape to persuade MD Anderson to reverse its decision.
“I’m still optimistic,” said Pape. “I think the governor is a reasonable person and astute enough to know you don’t put the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers in the same stadium. Strengthen any part of Texas and you strengthen all of Texas. Weaken any part of Texas and you weaken all of Texas.”
But Pisters said in the email he doesn’t believe that any political influence could affect MD Anderson’s plans at this point. He said the institution is “working with stakeholders on both campuses as well as donors, community leaders and government officials.”
“In science, we are always mindful of history,” Pisters emailed in response to a question about any sentimentality in closing a center where key discoveries were made. “Our Science Park campus will be remembered as an important chapter in MD Anderson’s long and impressive story.”
Officials said there are no plans to relocate MD Anderson’s other research facility in Bastrop County, the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research. Scientists there do research with primates and other large animals.
Todd Ackerman is a veteran reporter who has covered medicine for the Houston Chronicle since 2001. A graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, he previously worked for the Raleigh News & Observer, the National Catholic Register, the Los Angeles Downtown News and the San Clemente Sun-Post. | {
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Humor Abuse Theatre Review - The Epitome of Great Comedy
Humor Abuse successfully features the loving and celebratory life of the son of a clown. When Co-creator/Performer Lorenzo Pisoni was six years old, he was already a contracted member of the Pickle Family Circus—a diverse group of jugglers, acrobats, Musicians and of course clowns.
The intimate staged performances of the Pickle Family Circus was uncommon, due to their passionate choice to embrace the spirit of the neighborhood circus and function in a single ring and without circus animals.
Such if the case of the one-man show Humor Abuse; using the original Pickle Family backdrop and props built by his parents, Lorenzo never thinks twice when he tells the audience that he was “abused in the name of humor.” Seriously.
Lorenzo comes out of the gate running, decked out in clown gear and music fit for Vaudeville, as he chases the wondering spotlight and ushers in the evening with a little Italian, sprinkled with some good natured humor and a dollop of charming black and white family pictures.
The word circus is brand name within itself—especially when you’re a little boy trying to establish yourself in this complex, yet entertaining world. With his dry humor and quick wit, Lorenzo the ringmaster savors every detail and gimmick that kept the Pickle Circus running for so many years—tumbling, clowning and juggling, he shows the audience that the circus is in his blood to stay. Lorenzo demonstrates how the circus community, are visual creatures as he sets up one amusing act after another to showcase how he spent his childhood on the road in “tent cities.”
Giving the audience a backstage tour to the classified workings of this special kind of world, Humor Abuse is very serious about its comedy and one man’s pursuit to try and understand his father and the humor that came with him. It is a delightful celebration of how one kid learned to appreciate to tricks of trade and embrace the circus quirks that made his father and his entire family standout among the rest.
Smart and playful, Humor Abuse has two great things going for it, Lorenzo and the writing. Lorenzo devours the script and manages to steal every scene-all in the name of comedy. Lorenzo and the writing are a winning combination, as he takes us through each step of his life as he struggled to learn how to juggle and fall down a flight of stairs; his temporary defiance to break loose from the cosmos of the circus and take-on high school full time and finally reprising his role on and off later in life.
Humor Abuse is the epitome of great comedy as Lorenzo’s dazzling performance is not only a tribute to his father and the circus, but his sincerity on what brought him back and keeps him united with the Pickle Family. It’s not difficult to figure out; his father was not masquerading as clown-that is who he was and will always be. Once your in this world, it begins to make sense. | {
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A couple of years ago tech executives at FICO wanted to update their infrastructure. “OpenStack seems to be the wave of the future, so we gave it a run,” says Donald Talton, senior manager of platform operations and cloud engineering at the credit rating agency.
SolidFire
Donald Talton
FICO considered using VMware, but felt that the “momentum” of OpenStack was stronger, Talton says. And so began FICO’s use of OpenStack’s IaaS open source private cloud software. Talton says it’s been great, though that doesn’t mean it’s been easy.
OpenStack officials will be the first to admit that the open source cloud project is still maturing. “We’ve done a good job delivering a robust set of infrastructure services, now we need to make sure it’s a really great experience, not only for the cloud operators, but for the end users, too,” says OpenStack Foundation Executive Director Jonathan Bryce. A survey of OpenStack users found that complexity of deploying and managing OpenStack clouds continues to be a pain point. | {
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Guinea
People, Spaces, Deliberation bloggers present exceptional campaign art from all over the world. These examples are meant to inspire.
Ebola virus is experiencing a break out summer. The latest outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is the worst ever, resulting in the death of almost 900 lives and infecting more than 1603 people across West Africa. The virus is also experiencing unexpected popularity on the dance floor.
A new song, "Ebola in Town," recorded by a trio of West African rappers, warns of the dangers of Ebola over a catchy electronic beat. Residents of Monrovia and Conakry, the capitals of Liberia and Guinea, and have created a dance to go along with the song. The lyrics warn "don't touch your friend" and "no eating something, it's dangerous," and the dance, fittingly, does not include any touching.
"Everyone seems to agree that most, if not all, policy problems have their roots in politics. That is why you often hear that a particular policy will not be implemented because there is no “political will.” Seemingly anti-poor policies and outcomes—untargeted and costly fertilizer vouchers in Tanzania, 99 percent leakage of public health funds in Chad, 20 percent teacher absenteeism in Uganda, 25 percent unemployment in South Africa—persist. Yet these are countries where the median voter is poor. A majority doesn’t vote in favor of policies that will benefit the majority. Why?" READ MORE
"It always seemed as if Arab countries were ‘on the brink.’ It turns out that they were. And those who assured us that Arab autocracies would last for decades, if not longer, were wrong. In the wake of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, academics, analysts and certainly Western policymakers must reassess their understanding of a region entering its democratic moment. What has happened since January disproves longstanding assumptions about how democracies can—and should—emerge in the Arab world. Even the neoconservatives, who seemed passionately attached to the notion of democratic revolution, told us this would be a generational struggle. Arabs were asked to be patient, and to wait. In order to move toward democracy, they would first have to build a secular middle class, reach a certain level of economic growth, and, somehow, foster a democratic culture. It was never quite explained how a democratic culture could emerge under dictatorship." READ MORE
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Haven't used the Biologic stuff but have used Austrian winter peas. In the past we used them in plots that were just too small and deer had them grazed off before they had a chance to grow. This year we have them mixed in pretty heavy with a two acre milo plot - hoping the milo will grow fast enough to protect the peas.
They are a great attractant, but getting them to any height has always been our problem. With the larger plot, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll let you know how things go as the season progresses.
“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” Aldo Leopold
I used Antler Kings Fall Winter Spring mix which has winter peas in it. Was the best thing we planted the amount of deer we saw was great and the deer were nonstop eating on that plot.. Pick up the winter peas and plant them the deer will love it. | {
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Alien Covenant review
Halfway through Alien Covenant Mrs L dug her finger nails into my right arm. Was this due to the visceral, splatter-fest gore of exploding spinal columns? Actually, despite the high offal content of the film, it was not – Mrs L being built of much sterner stuff than your brave nightmare prone reviewer… Mrs L’s arm attack was based on her literary ire at one of David’s (the oh so loveable android, so menacingly presented by Michael Fassbinder) mis-step attribution of a piece of poetry. If in space no-one can hear you scream, then, in a Burton multi-plex, the director cannot hear you tut at what becomes a vital plot point. Anyway, before I get into this Alien Covenant review, have a look at the trailer.
There are 2 schools of love when it comes to the Alien franchise. There are those who preach to slow build horror of the original and those weaned on the high-octane action of the shoot-em up second installment. Let’s just gloss over the various bits and drabs and franchise crossing destruction orgies. Scott’s last offering, Prometheus, split the crowd. It fell somewhere between “pretentious disappointment” and “engaging world-building” but seemed to piss off an awfully large section of his fanbase. Alien Covenant seeks to redress this – in the way that Ridley Scott tends to address things – by making some vague concession whilst simultaneously pointing out that the critic is probably wrong. Here we are given a compromise of building the legend of the xenomorph, and its steady march towards the Nostromo, whilst delivering the crowd pleasing sex and splat that Cameron brought to Aliens. The inclusion of the brutal slaying of naked characters during an unnecessary shower scene only really serves to make me think, who the f*** are those characters, what have they actually done, and why should I care about them.
Daniels Admires Paradise (credit: 20th Century Fox)
Watching Alien Covenant, and during the car ride home, we came to the conclusion that Scott is probably bored with his Xenomorph child and is doing whatever he can to avoid it. Certainly it is not the horror monster of this film. That honour is reserved for Fassbinder, with his performance as both Walter and David. Where one is the acquiescent Roomba of space, the other is the hideous off-spring of Dr Moreau. Fassbinder is swiftly becoming one of those actors that actually make me want to make the effort to sit down and watch things – an actor who follows the less is more approach of the younger Michael Caine.
Where Alien Covenant disappoints is the lack of developed characters to build any investment in. Billy Crudup’s Oram is captain by default and displays the level of naivety usually reserved for anyone in a red shirt. He plays hopeless and ineffectual well – maybe too well – as he feels believably disposable. Katherine Waterston’s Daniels plays towards Ripley-lite and is as tacit a character as Dr Shaw (Noomi Rapace) in Prometheus. It’s a shame that there are too many, and too under-developed characters here. Less would be more – in the same way that one Alien always seemed scarier than multiple Aliens.
Alien Covenant was always going to have a lot to live up to, especially given the amount of internet love and anticipation that the now cancelled Neill Blomkamp option was attracting. It is not a bad movie. There are moments of genuine thought-provoking horror but these don’t come from the creatures themselves but rather that undercurrent of mad science that David brings. Whether the franchise can stomach another burst of Scott involvement is open to debate right now but based on where Covenant ends then the fan could probably fill in the empty space themselves – albeit with a silent scream.
You can still catch Alien Covenant on the big screen. Should you? We also saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean and avoided Baywatch – all 3 might have you hiding your eyes. | {
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Ben-Hur (movie)
MONOCACY, Md. — Baltimore and Ohio Railroad agents knew they had a serious problem brewing when a sizable Confederate force appeared unexpectedly near Frederick, Md., in early July 1864, during the American Civil War.
These rebels could reap serious havoc in Maryland, and more importantly, threaten Washington, D.C.
Local Union units available to counter the Confederate threat were in short supply, however, as the bulk of the Army of the Potomac under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was committed to a siege of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, more than 200 miles away at Petersburg, Va.
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MONOCACY, Md. — Baltimore and Ohio Railroad agents knew they had a serious problem brewing when a sizable Confederate force appeared unexpectedly near Frederick, Md., in early July 1864, during the American Civil War.These rebels could reap serious...
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad agents knew they had a serious problem brewing when a sizable Confederate force appeared unexpectedly near Frederick, Md., in early July 1864, during the American Civil War. These rebels could reap serious havoc in Maryland,...
It’s been 55 years since Charlton Heston's “Ben-Hur” hit theaters. Now Mark Burnett and Roma Downey--and the current faith-based multiplex moment--will give us another one.
“The Bible” producers said Friday that they will produce the new “Ben-Hur”...
Warner Bros. caused a seismic sensation Oct. 6, 1927, when the studio premiered "The Jazz Singer," the first feature that included sound using synchronized dialogue sequences. But while the Al Jolson drama proved to be the death knell of silent movies,...
HUTCHINSON, Kan. - We descended into the belly of the Earth.
"It's going to take us just a couple of minutes to go underground. Does anybody have a problem going down in the dark?" our cheerful guide asked.
"Yes!" I screamed in my head. But I said... | {
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AAP leader Ashutosh to meet NCW tomorrow over blog comments
Aam Admi Party leader Ashutosh will meet NCW chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam tomorrow after he was summoned for his controversial blog defending sacked party minister Sandeep Kumar over an "objectionable CD".
New Delhi, Sep 7: Aam Admi Party leader Ashutosh will meet NCW chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam tomorrow after he was summoned for his controversial blog defending sacked party minister Sandeep Kumar over an “objectionable CD”. Ashutosh tweeted today, “I have decided to appear before NCW tomorrow as I have been asked by the panel, to present my views (sic).” He will visit the National Commission for Women office at 11:30 am tomorrow. NCW summoned Ashutosh for his blog on NDTV website titled, “The Sex Was Consensual, Private Act. Why AAP Punished Its Man.” In the blog Ashutosh, referring to Sandeep Kumar, asked, “What wrong has the man done?” He wrote, “This video encompasses pictures of a man and woman indulging in a sexual act.(ALSO READ: Protest against AAP leader Ashutosh by Delhi Youth Congress)
The video clearly establishes that both individuals knew each other and consented to sex in a private space away from the public glare.” “…The question then is that if two consenting adults are physically involved with each other,is it a crime?” While issuing summons Kumaramangalam said, “The summons are in response to what we feel is a very reprehensible and demeaning blog Ashutosh wrote, where he defended a man accused of rape.” She also said that Ashutosh was wrong to jump the gun and pronounce Sandeep Kumar innocent when a police investigation was on. The NCW chairperson said it did not behove a party spokesperson to defend a party MLA accused of a sexual crime.
She had said, “The Commission has taken a note in the larger interest because we feel that as a spokesperson of a party that governs Delhi and a party whose members have been accused of many incidents of violence against women he should not be writing a blog like this which reeks of patriarchy and misogyny.” Ashutosh had on Monday taken to Twitter to attack NCW chairperson for issuing him summons. He had tweeted, “I hope Lalitha Kumarmangalam, member of BJP Nat Ex/chairman NCW is summoning every writer who wrote about consensual sex. NO pick and choose (sic).” | {
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Higher temperatures make Zika mosquito spread disease more
WASHINGTON (AP) — In its brief lifespan, the mosquito that carries the Zika virus is caught in a race: Will it pass the disease to humans before it dies?
Weather might make the difference. Scientists say the hotter it gets, the more likely the insect can spread disease.
As the temperature rises, nearly everything about the biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito — the one that carries Zika, dengue fever and other diseases — speeds up when it comes to spreading disease, said entomologist Bill Reisen of the University of California Davis.
"With higher temperatures you have more mosquitoes feeding more frequently and having a greater chance of acquiring infection. And then the virus replicates faster because it's hotter, therefore the mosquitoes can transmit earlier in their life," Reisen said. The thermodynamics of mosquitoes are "driven by temperature."
The hotspots for this Zika outbreak also have been temperature and drought hotspots recently. Recife, Brazil, the largest city in the Zika-struck region, saw its hottest September-October-November on record, about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, according to NASA data. The state of Pernambuco had its hottest and driest year since 1998, according to the state weather agency. And globally, last year was the hottest on record.
Although it is too early to say for this outbreak, past outbreaks of similar diseases involved more than just biology. In the past, weather has played a key role, as have economics, human travel, air conditioning and mosquito control. Even El Nino sneaks into the game. Scientists say you can't just blame one thing for an outbreak and caution it is too early to link this one to climate change or any single weather event.
Scientists have studied Zika far less than other mosquito-borne diseases, so for guidance they often look at dengue fever or chikungunya, which are transmitted by the same species of mosquito. Dengue infects as many as 400 million people a year, with a quarter of them sick enough to be hospitalized.
Zika was just declared a global public health emergency after being linked to brain deformities in babies in South America. Several thousand cases of microcephaly have been reported in Brazil since October, although researchers have so far not proven a definitive link to the virus. No vaccine exists for Zika.
In general, mosquitoes don't live long, maybe 10 to 12 days on average, said Tom Scott, a University of California Davis professor of both entomology and epidemiology. That's also about how long it takes a virus to grow in the mosquito gut, making the bug infectious and able to spread the disease. Often the insect will die before it can get a chance to spread the disease.
Warmer air incubates the virus faster in the cold-blooded mosquito. So the insect has more time to be infectious and alive to spread the disease, Scott said.
Warmer temperatures also make the mosquito hungrier, so it takes more "blood meals" and can spread the disease to more people, Scott, Reisen and others said. And warmer temperatures generally increase the mosquito population.
Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington, calls it "a temperature-driven eruption."
That's not the only role of weather.
El Nino, a natural warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide, usually puts northeastern Brazil into a drought, as it did last year. Aedes aegypti does well in less-developed regions in droughts, because it lives in areas where poorer people store water in outdoor containers, said Jonathan Patz, director of the global health institute at the University of Wisconsin.
"As with all mosquito-borne viruses, climate is one of many factors that influence Zika transmission," said Andy Monaghan, a scientist who works on public health impacts of climate change at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "I think it is too early to say anything about the role of climate change in the ongoing Zika outbreak."
However, Monaghan earlier this year presented a paper to the American Meteorological Society's annual convention that predicts that eventually Aedes aegypti "will move northward in the U.S. due to future warming, which would expose people to the mosquito on a regular seasonal basis in states like Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and D.C."
___
Mauricio Savarese in Recife, Brazil, contributed to this report.
___
Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears and his work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein | {
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A TAX INCENTIVE FIRM
CONSTRUCTION
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TAX INCENTIVES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Many construction companies are unaware that the government offers generous research and development (R&D) incentive programs. Other companies are aware of the R&D Tax Credit, but fail to take full advantage due to misconceptions about the types of research and development activities that qualify. The fact is that a broad range of common construction industry practices will qualify for the credit under the Internal Revenue Code’s definition of R&D. Research and development is not limited to the work of dedicated scientists. Construction industry engineers, technologists, designers, and machinists often spend a substantial portion of their time developing superior designs and manufacturing practices in an effort to remain competitive. This continuous evolution of technologies provides ample opportunities for companies to take advantage of these tax incentive programs.
If your company operates in the construction industry, there is a strong chance that you would benefit from an R&D Tax Credit study. Let incentAdvise's construction experts help you claim the credits that you deserve.
Examples of activities and innovations eligible for R&D tax incentives include the following:
additional construction industries:
ELECTRICAL
GENERAL
MECHANICAL
incentAdvise CONSTRUCTION Specialization Team-
In order to better serve construction corporations, incentAdvise has developed an Industry Specialization Program that focuses on the qualification and quantification of R&D tax benefits for companies operating in the diverse areas that comprise construction. incentAdvise's Construction Specialization Group employs individuals who have educational backgrounds and hands-on experience within the disciplines of manufacturing, engineering, electronics, material sciences, lean manufacturing, and chemistry. alliantgroup has qualified and quantified credits for corporations ranging from small private companies to large-scale defense contractors. | {
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Photography, Travel, Literature, Nonsense
Penny
I need to preface this post by saying that if you hadn’t set out to read something sad today, you’ll probably want to stop reading. I would hate to make anyone sad and honestly, this post is more of a selfish one. It’s one I needed to write to help me heal; it’s just my way of dealing with things.
I’ll backtrack to approximately 10 years ago. I was living in Moose Jaw and met this incredible guy. I fell for him immediately, and hard. We discussed moving in together mere weeks after we started dating and less than three months into our relationship we were sharing a home and two dogs. Penny, was one of those dogs. We adopted Penny a few weeks before we moved in together, so I really haven’t known this home, or mine and Aaron’s relationship for that matter, without Penny being part of the equation.
I always told Aaron I wanted a dog who would protect me. It often brought me to tears even thinking about it, but she made it quite clear she would lay down her life if it meant she would be keeping her people safe.
From the very beginning she loved us, almost to a fault. She had one of the biggest hearts I have ever had the privilege of witnessing in a living being. She hugged with a fierceness that ensured you knew she meant it with everything she had. If Penny loved you, you felt it, and she made sure you felt it as often as possible.
Fast forward to a few months ago… As we do every year, we took the girls in for their annual checkups. The vet and tech both commented how healthy Penny was for her age and how well she was doing. She was a big dog and at 11 years old, she was hardly showing her age. Which, for me, was always a relief. Penny was SO full of life that I often admitted how much it was going to break my heart to see her slow down with age. I joked that she would be the one who would die running because that was just the type of personality she had. I always knew she would hate the process of getting old and would have been frustrated and unable to understand why she couldn’t keep up anymore. There’s a part of me that’s grateful she never had to experience that.
Just two and a half short weeks ago, we had a big BBQ at the house with my family. They all came out to enjoy our renovated yard and one of the last warm evenings of the summer. Aaron and I watched Penny as she wandered between everyone who was there, coming in for belly rubs, hugs, and cuddles. She had the biggest smile on her face the entire night. We hadn’t seen her that happy in ages and it brought me to tears seeing her so in love with everyone being there in her yard, giving her love. I am SO happy she had that night. It’s almost as though she knew she was saying goodbye to everyone.
On the morning of Sunday August 19th Aaron and I packed up and headed out to Edmonton. We had planned a little trip to spend some time together before I started back to school and just get away for a few days. My Dad arrived at our house shortly after we left to fulfilling his duties as Grandpaw and house sitter. When he arrived, Penny was running around the backyard with her sister, acting like her normal goofy self. By supper time though, it was evident something was wrong and she wouldn’t eat her supper. We were concerned but figured she would be ok by the morning. Early the next morning she still refused to eat and after my Dad Facetimed us, I knew we needed to go back home immediately because there was something very wrong.
While on the road, we frantically called our local vet to try to get her in. They assured us she was probably just sad we weren’t home and not to worry about it. I know my dog though and insisted that she needed an appointment that day. After a cancellation (THANKFREAKINGGOODNESS!) they called us back and my Dad rushed her in. After x-rays and an exam we were told she would need to be rushed from Lumsden to Saskatoon for emergency services. We were racing toward my Dad who had Penny, while he raced toward us. We met in a small town, quickly traded vehicles and were heading back in the direction of a team of doctors in Saskatoon.
She could barely breath, her heart was racing, but every time I said her name she gave me a little tail wag. I could tell she was in pain but I couldn’t help her and that left me hollow. We were sure we were doing everything we could for her and if she was just able to stay with us until Saskatoon, we knew she would make it. Neither of us even considered that we might be driving home with an empty back seat.
We ran through the doors of the emergency animal hospital at the University of Saskatchewan. They checked her vitals in the waiting room and after reading how fast her heart was racing, they ran away with her. We were shuffled into a small office. The ones with diagrams of internal organs displayed on the walls; the ones where bad news is shared, and hearts are broken.
We were told Penny’s body had gone into shock and after three and a half hours of fighting, the team of doctors were unable to stabilize her. They took us in to see her and again, as soon as I cried her name, she wagged her tail. They assured me she wasn’t feeling pain, but watching her pant and struggle to breathe was more than my heart could handle. We were told that her chances of making it through the night, even with a team of doctors working on her was extremely slim and even if she did, that she would need to spend weeks, if not months in recovery at the hospital and likely on a ventilator too.
My body was numb. I just couldn’t understand how a dog who was so full of life, less than 24 hours earlier was now struggling to breathe. It didn’t make sense. In that moment though, we knew we needed to do what was right for Penny and honor what we thought her last wishes would have been.
She has always hated going to the vet. There is nothing in life she hated more than going to the vet. And if nothing else, we knew we couldn’t let her die in a hospital as that would have been that last thing she would have ever wanted. It was midnight, but we asked them if we could take her outside to say goodbye. The staff there was so amazing and kind to all of us during this awful night. They unhooked her from all the machines, wrapped her up in a blanket and wheeled her hospital bed outside. When we met up with her outside, I called her name, and again, she gave me a tail wag. It’s that tail wag that just crushes me. This sweet dog, who was fighting to live, and clearly in a world of pain, still put all of that aside to show me that sign of love. I’ll never forget that tail wag and I don’t think there will ever be time in my life that I’ll be able to talk about it without sobbing.
We had brought along her favorite blanket so we laid it in the grass and cuddled outside with her under the moonlight. We told her how much we loved her and how good she was. We told her to say ‘hi’ to Scotia, Gert, Rokx, and Sam for us and give everyone a hug. We told her she was the best dog in the world and that we were going to miss her more she would ever know. She closed her eyes and with both of us, hugging her this time, we all said our last goodbye.
Because this entire experience was completely unexpected, sudden, and traumatic, we opted to have an autopsy done. A few days ago the amazing doctor who was treating Penny called to discuss the results. She was diagnosed with chronic heart disease but did not exhibit any telling symptoms until mere hours before she died. They discovered that her mitral valve failed causing the right side of her heart to stop working. We were informed this can be extremely hard to diagnose in dogs, especially when the damage happens on the right side. While we’re still waiting for a bit more information, it doesn’t sound like there’s anything we could have done to prevent it, unfortunately. I just hope she’s continuing to live her best life, wherever she is, and that there are creatures around who love hugs, because loving is what she’s best at.
*Images in this post were taken by Stick Productions one week before we lost Penny*
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3 thoughts on “Penny”
Well written Ali, I think Penny will be happy knowing that you got that all straight. Really, her poor sick heart only kept her from running one day, and that would be acceptable for her, but definitely no more. I don’t understand why these things happen, maybe some day we’ll know. Penny is definitely in peace now and we’re all going to miss her sweet cuddly self. That sweet really heavy hug that leans hard on your leg and those bring brown eyes and her curled up lips in a smile! No pup could do it better.
Just love her, Mom
I have to wait for my eyes to clear before reading the last paragraph. I think about how important the things we leave behind are. I don’t know how many times I laughed out loud as I leaned around the massive tan monster on my lap so I could watch tv. Or pulling her to one side of the bed so I had room to lay down. I think of the times I scolded her for barking at other dogs or deer outside and she would just turn and look at me tail wagging as if to say you should see this grandpaw. She has left a million smiles and warm memories. | {
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A football pundit recently offered the view that José Mourinho press
conferences make for “the best theatre around”. He needs to get out more.
Shakespeare is on at the Globe and Terence Rattigan at the Old Vic. The
ramblings of an egomaniac, at a press conference or anywhere else, are not
good theatre. They are banal and increasingly tedious.
Mourinho is apparently on his way back to Chelsea and, speaking for myself, I
am already bored stiff. A man with a tendency to narcissism when he arrived
at Stamford Bridge in 2004 has morphed into a parody of the modern-day | {
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In a mirror dimly
For all that is wrong with the Trump candidacy (xenophobic neo-fascist tendencies) the silver lining is that it is forcing us to face the ugly truth about democracy: mob rule is a frightful thing to behold. Trump is one of “us” and his popularity is a reflection of what the “mob” wants. Everyone loves democracy when it is their ideas that are popular but when the mob turns stupid it doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Trump may be the first true “people’s candidate” for president that has an actual chance of winning. His financial independence all but guarantees he is not beholden to any individual, special interest, or political party elite. To the extent any candidate receives some measure of public or private funding, their words and deeds are held to account by the one doling out the money. Trump is accountable to no one but himself and the voters.
Since the advent of political parties we have been led to believe elections are about a democratic process, that we are making a choice and a difference – but – that is a lie, or rather, an illusion. A very apt line from the Matrix movies provides some context, “Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.” Those who already have power: the party bosses, the monolithic media outlets, the oligarchical dynasties (Roosevelt’s, Kennedy’s, Bush’s, Clinton’s) – they all understand and work the system to their advantage. That is, they present the illusion of choice so as to keep the masses pacified into believing they are in control of their destinies. But like choosing a white paint chip from an ocean of slightly variable gradations of white, the final choice is still just that: white. But Trump, Trump is lime green. He is a starkly different choice. He, unlike any of us, has the money to buy a seat at the table where they are doling out cards in the high stakes game of poker that is a run for the presidency. Perhaps Trump has touched a populist nerve because deep down we all know there is no choice. His candidacy is not so much support for Trump the man but rather support for NOTA (none of the above).
Trump may be spouting idiotic things, but Trump is no idiot. He is a masterful salesman and knows how to work a room. He, like any good conman or salesman, understands his audience/mark. Give them what they want and they’ll return the favor. Trump reflects America, but dimly. (1 Corinthians 13:12) Is his persona the true man, or merely a reflection of his environment? If elected we shall know fully. Most candidates appeal to the voter’s intellect, Trump appeals to their emotions (and not the good ones, i.e. fear, anxiety). This visceral appeal is a dim reflection of the American psyche. It is also a dangerous one. Emotion acts mindlessly without consideration of the consequences. History repeatedly tells a dark tale about leaders that preyed on the emotions of their subjects.
But Trump is not a solution to the moneyed concentration of power, he is merely a symptom, an immune response if you will – that cough you just can’t get rid of. Although the leftist progressives bleat incessantly on the need for government to hold the evil capitalists at bay lest they gain control of society, they miss the central irony here that their greatest fear (control of society by moneyed interests) has already come to pass not in spite of, but because of, government. Government is not a divine institution that has been corrupted by man. It is a human institution that exudes the very human nature from whence it is derived.
Think of it like this: government is simply another business. The key difference, though, is that what it sells is the ability to legally exert aggression against those that do not do its bidding. Its competitive advantage is that it is a self-declared monopoly within its arbitrarily defined geographical region. So what person, group, or other business would NOT want to tap into exerting some influence over how such a business operates? Is it really such a mystery as to why so many work so hard for so long to access that power and divert it to their advantage?
Some say the answer is to remove money from politics, but given that politics is just another economic transaction, that option is about as doable as converting to a barter economy. No, the solution is not more government, but less. That is, it is time to break up the monopoly and decentralize power to the point where our choices are not constrained but manifold. Power is kept in check when the individual is not compelled as a matter of law to acquiesce to the demands of others but may choose with whom they shall associate by voting with their wallet or, if necessary, with their feet. | {
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West Virginia police chief on leave after domestic dispute
West Virginia News
Aug 17, 2018
HINTON, W.Va. (AP) — A police chief in West Virginia accused of domestic violence is on paid leave for the next month.
The Register-Herald reported Thursday that the Hinton City Council voted to allow Hinton Police Chief Derek Snavely to use 28 vacation days for the leave. He may return to his role Sept. 3 pending a psychiatric evaluation.
City Council members Larry Meador and Cris Meadows say police responded to a report of domestic violence at Snavely’s home on July 30. A report says the victim told police Snavely left the home with a gun and she feared for her life. It says Snavely then arrived and officers took a 9mm handgun from him.
Meadows says the victim refused to sign a domestic violence information sheet, meaning no charges were filed against Snavely.
___
Information from: The Register-Herald, http://www.register-herald.com | {
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Black Bear Dance, first horns, then clarinets
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for horn ensemble and community drumming group called Black Bear Dance. The notes about the piece say:
“In Black Bear Dance, I indulge my love of drumming, which really energizes the horn sound. The title comes from a line in the text for my choral piece Weaving the World: “and black bears roam the woods unseen”. The choral director rehearsed it a lot, and the image of a secret dance of bears stuck in my mind. Then on the Internet I found the Bear Dance painting of William Holbrook Beard. Aside from the fact that he was mocking stock-market bears, the image was just right.” [Update in 2015: try searching for the painting. I can’t find a stable URL]
Charlie, a friend who plays in a clarinet ensemble, suggested I arrange it for his group. At first, I wasn’t inspired to make the adaptation. The mapping of parts doesn’t easily match, and the piece is low-pitched – what would I do with the high Eb clarinet? And what about the drums?
Well, after a long wait, I revisited the music and was more in the mood to see the possibilities. Since there are five instruments in his group, I put the drumming rhythms into the clarinets, moving it around the ensemble so one player doesn’t get bored being the drone. I took advantage of the wide clarinet range and added a few extra bits where the drums had played alone. I think the result is energetic and fun, like the original but different.
Charlie’s group has the parts and they’re trying it out. In the meantime, I made a virtual-instrument mockup with Quantum Leap Gold and Kontakt’s Vienna Library. Have a listen (Black Bear Dance at SoundClick) and let me know whether you like it and whether it’s a good simulation of clarinets.
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About Me – Pamela J. Marshall
I write music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus; play the French horn; and teach freestyle improv. My blog is named after a piece I wrote for cello and piano called Elusive Sleep. Check out my sheet music and recordings at spindrift.com.
I offer web design services at ProsperOnTheWeb. Let me know if you need a website, blog, or social media campaign! | {
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Traveling along the NEW WAY with Rev. Johan Vilhelm Eltvik to show the great impact of the worldwide YMCA movement. Join me for visits to local realities and read about stunning people and courageous actions.
EMPOWERING YOUNG PEOPLE IN SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco is a wonderful city. From Twin Peaks you have a glamorous view of the City at the Bay, and you can see Market Street divide the city centre in two. I had great pleasure of visiting San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the building itself a beautiful piece of modern architecture, and the collection inside breathtakingly interesting, exciting, provocative and beautiful. A few hours in a museum like that fills you with energy and inspiration.
(50 dollars to the first to identify SFMOMA in this photo!)
The YMCA programmes in San Francisco can be equally breathtaking. I spent half a day together with some very brave women in the Corner Stone programme from Silicon Valley. It is about youth Empowerment, but equally focused on the empowerment of insecure immigrant mothers and their families. Some of the women cried when they told us their stories, refugees from Vietnam, immigrants from China, painful stories of suffering and suppression. And then the inspiring witnesses about how the YMCA had liberated them, created a safe place, a place to grow and develop and to find self esteem and a language to connect with. Fabulous!
A part of that half day meant us going to the streets of San Francisco and interviewing people about teenagers and their view on teenagers. We got many interesting answers, some even positive! Then we met anti war demonstrants, they called themselves Grandmothers against War. Their view on teenagers? – Do not like them! What should we as adults do about teenagers? – Spank them!
On Saturday morning I gave a keynote speech on Youth Empowerment. When the World Alliance present a message, it needs to be so clear, easy to understand and so relevant that most people will nod their heads and say, yes, this is a good way of expressing what it is we do at the YMCA, in all what we do.
The Youth Empowerment change model is very easy to understand. It is in three parts. 1. the Space. We want to give young people not on ly a safe place, but a challenging place, a place where they can grow and develop and find their own voice. We want the YMCA to be a creative space, a self determined space for young people. 2. Capacity building, equipping young people with what they need, whatever starting point they come from. We want the YMCA to offer values, knowledge, skills, tools, self esteem, safety as well as challenges. So that these young people can grow and become free and independent, not adults yet, but free young people with influence over their own lives and the societies where they live. Even with influence in the YMCA where they are members. 3. Impact. With new mindsets and developed leadership skills young people will express themselves with their own voices and they will impact on their communities individually as well as collectively.
We want to introduce this Youth Empowerment Change Model, not to create new programmes, not to say that this is new at all. We want to use it as the flag we are sailing under, as the signal that will mobilize young people all around the world wide movement of YMCA and we will see the March of the 5 Million young people, not military march, not an agressiv march, but a march for justice and peace, for dignity and freedom for young people. We shall tell all the young people in all the empowering YMCA programmes that they belong to the largest youth movement in the world, and that key elements in the programmes they participate in, already are Youth Empowerment par excellence. And we shall tell them that when we walk together under the same flagg we will all be proud and we will all be strong and we will slowly change the world to a better place, stronger than ever before.
That is the vision inside NEW WAY. That is the vision I presented in San Francisco on Saturday morning for 400 participants at the International Conference of the YMCAs in Mexico, USA and Canada. And people are joining us on the NEW WAY. I would love to hear your comments, friends, you can write it just here! | {
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Saber 2 is a 3D-printed gear-and-cam saber-toothed tiger that can be motorized to show an excellent loping movement. It’s 14” long and 10” tall and consists of 108 components of which 34 are unique parts, and it all moves with the help of a 6 VDC 60 RPM gearmotor. With threaded PLA rods to keep it all together, and tapped holes to secure the rods, one imagines the printer would have to be pretty finely tuned and leveled for the parts to move as elegantly as you see in the video.
We’ve had a love affair with the Monoprice Select Mini since it came out. The cheap printer has its flaws, though. One of them is that the controller is a bit opaque. On the one hand, it is impressive that it is a 32-bit board with an LCD. On the other hand, we have no way to modify it easily other than loading the ready-built binaries. Want to add bed leveling? Multiple fans? A second extruder and mixing head? Good luck, since the board doesn’t support any of those things. [mfink70] decided the controller had to go, so he upgraded his Mini with a Smoothie board.
On the plus side, the Smoothie board is also a 32-bit board with plenty of power and expansion capability. On the downside, it costs about half as much as the printer does. Just replacing the board was only part of the battle. [mfink70] had to worry about the steppers, the end stops, and a few other odds and ends.
[Scott] is building a DIY yeast reactor for his aquarium. What’s a yeast reactor? [Scott] wants to pump carbon dioxide into his aquarium so his aquatic plants grow more. He’s doing this with a gallon of sugary, yeasty water bubbling into a tank of plants and fish. In other words, [Scott] is doing this whole thing completely backward and utilizing the wrong waste product of the yeast metabolism.
However, along the way to pumping carbon dioxide into his aquarium, [Scott] created a very high precision pressure sensor. It’s based on a breakout board featuring the MS5611 air pressure sensor. This has a 24-bit ADC on board, which translates into one ten-thousandths of a pound per square inch of pressure.
To integrate this pressure sensor into the aquarium/unbrewery setup, [Scott] created a pressure meter out of a syringe. With the plunger end of this syringe encased in epoxy and the pointy end still able to accept needles, [Scott] is able to easily plug this sensor into his yeast reactor. The data from the sensor is accessible over I2C, and a simple circuit with an ATmega328 and a character LCD displays the current pressure in the syringe.
We’ve seen these high-resolution pressure sensors used in drones and rockets as altimeters before, but never as a pressure gauge. This, though, is a cheap and novel solution for measuring pressures between a vacuum and a bit over one atmosphere.
Ten years ago, we never imagined we would be able to ward off burglars with Pi. However, that is exactly what [Nick] is doing with his Raspberry Pi home security system.
We like how, instead of using a standard siren, [Nick] utilized his existing stereo system to play a custom audio file that he created. (Oh the possibilities!) How many off the shelf alarm systems can you do that with?
The Pi is the brains of the operation, running an open source software program called Home Assistant. If any of the Z-Wave sensors in his house are triggered while the alarm system is armed, the system begins taking several actions. The stereo system is turned on via IR so that the digital alarm audio file can be played. Lights flash on and off. An IP camera takes several snapshots and emails them to [Nick].
Home Assistant didn’t actually have the ability to send images in an email inline at the time that [Nick] was putting together his system. What did [Nick] do about that? He wrote some code to give it that ability, and submitted it through GitHub. That new code was put into a later version of the program. Ah, the beauty of open source software.
Perhaps the most important part of this project is that there were steps taken to help keep the wife-approval factor of the system on the positive side. For example, he configured one of the scripts so that even if the alarm is tripped multiple times in succession, the alarm won’t play over itself repeatedly.
[Glytch] has been building drones since before they were called drones. Instead of submitting his time machine into the Hackaday Prize, he’s throwing his pocket sized, 3D printable coaxial drone into the ring.
His focus is on designing small and very portable drones, preferably one that has folding arms and can fit into a backpack. His portfolio even includes a clone of the DJI Mavic, the gimbaled camera-carrying consumer drone known for its small volume when folded.
Navi — [Glitch]’s entry for the Hackaday Prize — is a complete departure from quadcopters with folding arms. It’s simple to use, and all he needs to do to launch it is hold it in the air and press a button. It does this by being a coaxial drone, or a cylinder with a pair of folding props sticking out the side. The chassis and mechanics for this drone are 3D printable, making this an awesome entry for the Hackaday Prize.
I am a crappy software coder when it comes down to it. I didn’t pay attention when everything went object oriented and my roots were always assembly language and Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) anyways.
So it only natural that I would reach for a true In-Circuit-Emulator (ICE) to finish of my little OBDII bus to speed pulse generator widget. ICE is a hardware device used to debug embedded systems. It communicates with the microcontroller on your board, allowing you to view what is going on by pausing execution and inspecting or changing values in the hardware registers. If you want to be great at embedded development you need to be great at using in-circuit emulation.
Not only do I get to watch my mistakes in near real time, I get to make a video about it.
Getting Data Out of a Vehicle
I’ve been working on a small board which will plug into my car and give direct access to speed reported on the Controller Area Network (CAN bus).
To back up a bit, my last video post was about my inane desire to make a small assembly that could plug into the OBDII port on my truck and create a series of pulses representing the speed of the vehicle for my GPS to function much more accurately. While there was a wire buried deep in the multiple bundles of wires connected to the vehicle’s Engine Control Module, I have decided for numerous reasons to create my own signal source.
At the heart of my project is the need to convert the OBDII port and the underlying CAN protocol to a simple variable representing the speed, and to then covert that value to a pulse stream where the frequency varied based on speed. The OBDII/CAN Protocol is handled by the STN1110 chip and converted to ASCII, and I am using an ATmega328 like found on a multitude of Arduino’ish boards for the ASCII to pulse conversion. I’m using hardware interrupts to control the signal output for rock-solid, jitter-free timing.
Walk through the process of using an In-Circuit Emulator in the video below, and join me after the break for a few more details on the process.
The usual way of adding GPS capabilities to a project is grabbing an off-the-shelf GPS module, plugging it into a UART, and reading the stream of NMEA sentences coming out of a serial port. Depending on how much you spend on a GPS module, this is fine: the best modules out there start up quickly, and a lot of them recognize the logical AND in ITAR regulations.
For [Mike], grabbing an off-the-shelf module is out of the question. He’s building his own GPS receiver from the ground up using a bit of hardware and FPGA hacking. Already he’s getting good results, and he doesn’t have to futz around with those messy, ‘don’t build ballistic missiles’ laws.
The hardware for this build includes a Kiwi SDR ‘cape’ for the BeagleBone and a Digilent Nexus-2 FPGA board. The SDR board captures raw 1-bit samples taken at 16.268 MHz, and requires a full minute’s worth of data to be captured. That’s at least 120 Megabytes of data for the FPGA to sort through.
The software for this project first acquires the GPS signal by finding the approximate frequency and phase. The software then locks on to the carrier, figures out the phase, and receives the 50bps ‘NAV’ message that’s required to find a position solution for the antenna’s location. The first version of this software was exceptionally slow, taking over 6 hours to process 200 seconds of data. Now, [Mike] has improved the channel tracking code and made it 300 times faster. That’s real-time processing of GPS data, using commodity off-the-shelf hardware. All the software is available on the Gits, making this a project that can very easily be replicated by anyone. We would expect the US State Department or DOD to pay [Mike] a visit shortly. | {
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Monday, April 23, 2007
I haven't posted on the Virginia Tech shootings; not only have I been busy with more personal matters, but I've been sorting out my feelings about the terrible crime and tragedy of that day a week ago. Here's what I've concluded.
My son has a little (all right, not so little) problem with negativity. I keep hoping it's just a phase - but he may in fact be one of those poor souls who goes through life under a cloud, all my husband's and my best efforts to change this pattern notwithstanding. When he starts in with the "I can't do it," "It's too hard," "I'll never be able to's," what do we tell him most often? We tell him that thoughts like these, negative thoughts, are first of all not the only way to look at whatever situation he's in, and second not helpful in changing the situation he's in. Try this, we say. Instead of saying, "I'll never be a good pitcher! I've been practicing all afternoon and I still throw more balls than strikes," try saying, instead, "Wow, this pitching thing is a real challenge. I've been spending a lot of time practicing, and look how much I've improved since I started!"
Sappy, right? But positive self-talk is a way to shape your attitude, to predispose you to positive outcomes.
I'm a sometime Weight Watchers member (the only program I've ever found that, if you choose to learn it this way, teaches you how to eat normal foods wisely). One of their tools is positive self-talk. Like this: "I can't believe I ate all those chips. What was I thinking? I have no willpower. I might as well give up now." Versus, "Those chips were really good; I really enjoyed them. I'll just make some really good choices at the next meal and be right back on track to meet my goal this week." Acknowledge your action, put it in the most positive light you can, and get back on the horse: it's the next thing you do that counts.
Columbine. Not the first school shooting, but the most notorious. A terrible waste that day was that police policy was to secure the perimeter but not to engage while shooting was going on. And after Columbine, police policy changed, and lives have been saved elsewhere on that account.
I remember after 9/11, I used to think a lot about Flight 93. My dad and I talked about it on one occasion I remember well. I told him, "I just hope that if I were ever in a situation like that (God forbid), I could be brave enough to try something. But I don't know... after all, my kids would probably be with me..."
He glanced up at me from whatever computer he was tinkering with. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I think when something like that happens, people just... do what they have to do."
That's a fairly unambitious and undemanding statement. But consider the source: while sitting on a flak jacket, he flew helicopters into combat zones in Vietnam, as a newly married 23-year-old with a pregnant wife. Perhaps because he found himself in terrifying straits so soon after both intensive training and (let's face it) the onset of adulthood, my father's own personal pattern was set: "what he had to do" would forever include the possibility of barricading a door with his body while his charges escaped, as Prof. Librescu did last week (I find myself wondering whether one reason God brought this man through the Holocaust was to save the lives he saved last Monday, may he live forever in the loving presence of his Creator). It would include facing a crazy man with a shotgun in a playground, as my mother had to do one afternoon at the Catholic school in East St. Louis where she taught when I was fourteen. It would include - it did include - dropping into a clearing in a jungle where the gunfire could come from any direction. I feel sure that it would have included rushing the cockpit with a drinks tray.
And after that conversation with my dad, I started scoping out airplane cabins. I'd been counting seat backs between my seat and the exit for quite a while; I'd been mentally lining up the friendly-looking people between my row and the exit row to whom I'd physically pass my kids if the need should arise. But now I started also assessing what I had that could either distract or disable, and how I'd go about using it if I had to. A positive response, an internal dry run to help shape my reaction if the real world ever presented a scenario where such planning was necessary.
I'm just now getting to this point about the VA Tech shootings. I don't know what the classrooms looked like (I've avoided all television coverage, and apparently I should be very happy that I have), so I don't know, for instance, whether the desks were fixed to the floor. But I'm thinking about books, laptops, calculators - what could be thrown? If the desks were free-standing, wow, what a great tool they could be for someone in the front row. Could I have been the one - even if from under my desk - to chuck something from my purse at the door and try to get the shooter to turn? Would that have been enough to get someone on his blind side moving, to clock him with a textbook? Enough to start a rush for his knees?
My first reaction to these thoughts is guilt: I feel as if I'm judging the students facing a stone killer in a Keanu-Reeves stance with two very scary guns and obviously no compunctions about using them. Shouldn't I be saying to myself, "I don't know what I would have done. I can't possibly tell what I would have done"?
Just now, after a week, I'm giving myself permission to have these thoughts - because, after all, if I don't "know" what I would have done (and indeed, how could I know?), why must I assume that I would have done nothing? Why not let those thirty-two deaths teach me something, as the deaths of those on Flight 93 taught me something? Just as we all realized that 9/11 was separated from 9/10 by a chasm of unbelievable proportions, just as we all realized sometime in the latter half of September 2001 that we were living in a post-9/11 world, we now live in a post-VA-Tech-shooting world: it's a world where no one, armed with gun, bomb, gas can, or anything else will ever again be so damnably successful in his designs on the lives of other students. I hope we can generalize still further and no one will ever again be so damnably successful in holding anyone in any public space hostage.
But, you see, it's the attitude, not the weaponry, that makes the difference: while I wish we could turn back the clock and arm an ROTC student in one of those classrooms, I wonder whether a conventionally unarmed but determined few students could have turned the tide against that poor, deranged, and now dead man.
I'm utterly ignorant of any personal stories from the scene; there may have been an attempt, or more than one, to stop him. I'm not actually second-guessing what any person did on that day; I'm only preparing myself for an exigency I hope will never arise. The only reason I'm blogging on the subject at all is because the "vibe" I'm getting from listening to the radio and reading some other blogs is that we have no right to consider alternative responses - to judge, in a sense. There but for the grace of God sat I. I'm blogging to say that it's not only my right to consider alternatives, but my duty and a smart course of action, and indeed an homage to those who died - that their cruelly curtailed lives can make a difference even now.
Friday, April 13, 2007
I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.
What a poignant beginning. My Anglophiliac soul weeps. I remember a scene from Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys, in which she's advising her nephew Emil about how to behave as an officer at sea. She tells him that every bit of rope used by the British Navy contains, at its core, a single red thread - that anywhere in the world, anyone can tell that that piece of rope is British because it contains that strand of red. She urges him to take that rope as his model: to let his character be known to and seen by all, no matter the circumstances, no matter his companions. He's later shipwrecked, and when he's rescued, he recounts that in some of his darkest moments on the lifeboat, he remembered the story and her admonition - and that it was out of fear that his loved ones would have to discover that he had behaved dishonorably that he did his best to behave honorably.
Somehow I doubt that a red thread is at the core of British rope today. Moving on...
Fellow Democrats like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid would add [to Pelosi's stern opposition to the actions of leaders of Syria and Iran] that, as defenders of the liberal tradition of the West, they were not about to call a retreat before extremist killers who behead and kidnap, who blow up children and threaten female reformers and religious minorities, and who have begun using poison gas, all in an effort to annihilate voices of tolerance in Iraq.
These Democrats would reiterate that they had not authorized a war to remove the psychopathic Saddam Hussein only to allow the hopeful country to be hijacked by equally vicious killers. And they would warn the world that their differences with the Bush administration, whatever they might be, pale in comparison to the shared American opposition to the efforts of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Syria, and Iran to kill any who would advocate freedom of the individual.
Et cetera, et cetera. In brief, his dream is that the West has definable character, a recognition of its roots, its fundamental aims, and the price paid over hundreds of years to achieve a good measure of those aims. What do we have instead? An essentially two-party system in the United States such that the undisputed enemies of this country actively root for just one of those two parties to take power. What message should the Democrats be getting, loud and clear, from that fact? And why aren't they? Or, if they are, why don't they care?
He ends this way:
And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.
Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it.
I heard a tarot reader on the radio this morning. She did a passable cold reading for a caller; if you were inclined to believe she had "powers," she didn't shake your belief. (If you were disinclined to believe in those "powers," well, her probing questions were kinda obvious.) She told this woman that the hardships in her life were just "tests," that there's no negative outcome in life - just exercises from God to help her move to the "next level." The funny thing is, I tend to see my faith in this light: the stumbles I've had, the obstacles in my way, have each contained some lesson or some hidden good that was eventually revealed, so I've had a pretty easy time believing that God sends these trials at the same time that God sends the means to cope with them, with a purpose known only to God.
But what about the family whose child is abducted and killed? Where's the "hidden good" in that for them? There may indeed be a hidden good for someone there; John Walsh's personal tragedy has brought about good for others, but I doubt that he misses his murdered son any less as a result. God's plan may not include my happiness, is what I'm saying. The thought that they might move to the "next level," for victims of Nazi inhumanity during WWII, would probably have been small recompense for the horrors they endured and from which so many millions escaped only through death. (I could have circumvented Godwin's Law there, but with a Holocaust denier at the top of the list of enemies of the United States, I felt the need to underscore the reality of the Holocaust.) How many enslaved people died as chattel, in the US and elsewhere, so that their disregarded remains could scream out the injustice of considering a human life "ownable" by anyone but its holder?
There is, like it or not, evil that can't be overcome by good thoughts. Likewise, there are threats to our most passionately held and vitally important societal beliefs that fail to respond to linking arms and singing about buying the world a Coke. That project to get as many people to have (shall we say) very, very happy thoughts simultaneously, and thereby bring about an end to the war in Iraq? Somehow I doubt that my refusal to participate was the deal-breaker there.
We went to Williamsburg for spring break this year. We didn't spend enough time in colonial Williamsburg - much more at Busch Gardens, to be honest - but while we were among the colonials we did at least have a chance to hear the Declaration of Independence declaimed. I hope, oh, I hope that kids are still stirred by these words as much as I am now and was as an idealistic teen:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
I hope that there are as many Americans (and others! This document should be known to everyone who values freedom) today as ever who realize that those words were not empty. Those men, and the women in their lives who supported their dangerous act, undoubtedly knew that they faced hanging and permanent familial disgrace if they failed - and that some of them might (probably would) die in the attempt even if they succeeded. Their lives. Their fortunes. Their sacred Honor. That's the price they were willing to pay for the inalienable rights in which they believed. Hanson believes that the West is no longer willing to pay that price for those goods - that the highest price we are now willing to pay, we pay for craven comfort instead.
What do I believe? I believe, or perhaps I only hope, that he's wrong.
About Me
I'm no one of importance, but I do like to talk. Classically liberal, fiscally conservative, Episcopalian, somewhat techie, wife of one and mom of three, I'm a happy fish out of water in my neighborhood, church, and social circle. You? | {
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All required safety equipment must be worn when driving. All long hair must be tucked in. Helmets must be full face type and designed for competitive motorsports and must comply with one of the following: Snell 2005 SA and M or better helmets are now required for the 2011 racing season. Any helmets found to be older than what is stated below will not be acceptable for the race: Snell 2005 SA and M, 2005 K, CMS2007 (youth helmet), CMR 2007 (youth helmet), M 2010,SA 2010 and SFI 24.1 (youth Helmet), 31.2a, 41.2a, 24.1/2005 (youth Helmet),31.1/2005,41.1/2005, 24.1/2010(youth helmet), 31.1/2010, 41.1/2010. A proper fit is essential especially for young drivers. Neck collars are mandatory and no modification is allowed to Neck collars. ALL Cadet Drivers must wear a chest protector per IKF rules. More helmet regulation apply per IKF rule #105.1.6
Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:04 pm
Steve Buckner
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 5:57 pmPosts: 28
I got mine.
Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:35 pm
Joe Stalker
Moderator
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:38 pmPosts: 163Location: Lakewood,Ca
Re: helmets
chris latorre wrote:
All required safety equipment must be worn when driving. All long hair must be tucked in. Helmets must be full face type and designed for competitive motorsports and must comply with one of the following: Snell 2005 SA and M or better helmets are now required for the 2011 racing season. Any helmets found to be older than what is stated below will not be acceptable for the race: Snell 2005 SA and M, 2005 K, CMS2007 (youth helmet), CMR 2007 (youth helmet), M 2010,SA 2010 and SFI 24.1 (youth Helmet), 31.2a, 41.2a, 24.1/2005 (youth Helmet),31.1/2005,41.1/2005, 24.1/2010(youth helmet), 31.1/2010, 41.1/2010. A proper fit is essential especially for young drivers. Neck collars are mandatory and no modification is allowed to Neck collars. ALL Cadet Drivers must wear a chest protector per IKF rules. More helmet regulation apply per IKF rule #105.1.6
Just a reminder to everyone racing LAKC. Please check the specs on your current helmet(s) to make sure they meet or exceed the above regulations. All helmets will be inspected and tagged with a sticker during pre tech. You MUST have this sticker before being allowed onto the track.
Some of you may have purchase a "NEW" helmet that was on sale or clearance only to find out the Snell dates are expired. This helmet may be OK for D.O.T. but is not legal for racing karts. So please check and confirm. If you have any questions or doubts about ANY of your safety equipment feel free to contact any one of the BOD's. There will be NO grace period for the helmets. If you have a non-legal helmet you will not be allowed to take to the track. | {
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CrimeStoppers and the Honolulu Police Department are seeking the public's assistance in locating Hyung Woo Lee who was last heard from on January 30, 2013, at 1:56 p.m. Lee is emotionally distraught and may be driving a 2013 grey Ford F-150 pickup truck license number RYW422.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300, or *CRIME on your cellular phone. Free cellular calls are provided by AT&T, Nextel Hawaii, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless Hawaii, Mobi PCS, and Hawaiian Telcom. The public may now send anonymous text and web tips. Text "CS808" plus your message to 274637 or CRIMES. | {
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The outer grey circle is the Earth's penumbra, and the inner black circle is the umbra. Any part of the Moon which
passes within the black circle will be unilluminated, while any part within the grey circle will appear less bright
than usual.
Animated simulation Still image of key moments Diagram of Moon's path
Zenith up North up
There will be a penumbral eclipse of the Moon, visible from Ashburn in the south-eastern sky. The Moon will lie 5° above the horizon at the moment of greatest eclipse.
The eclipse will last from 19:05 until 22:14, and maximum eclipse will occur at 20:40 (all times given in Ashburn time).
A penumbral eclipse
Like other lunar eclipses, penumbral eclipses occur whenever the Earth passes
between the Moon and Sun, such that it obscures the Sun's light and casts a
shadow onto the Moon's surface. But unlike other kinds of eclipses, they are
extremely subtle events to observe.
In a penumbral eclipse the Moon passes through an outer region of the Earth's
shadow called the penumbra. This is the outer part of the Earth's shadow, in
which the Earth appears to cover part of the Sun's disk, but not all of it (see
diagram below). As a result, the Moon's brightness will begin to dim, as it is
less strongly illuminated by the Sun, but the whole of the Sun's disk will
remain illuminated to some degree.
Although the Moon's light dims considerably during a penumbral eclipse, this is
only perceptible to those with very astute vision, or in carefully controlled
photographs.
Moreover, on this occasion no more than 40% of the Moon's
face will pass within the Earth's penumbra, even at the moment of greatest
eclipse, making it especially difficult to notice any reduction in the Moon's
brightness.
The geometry of a lunar eclipse. Within the penumbra, the Earth covers some fraction of the Sun's disk, but not all of
it. In the umbra, the Earth covers the entirity of the Sun's disk. Any parts of the Moon's surface that lie within
the Earth's umbra will appear unilluminated.
Image courtesy of F. Sogumo.
Visibility of the eclipse
Eclipses of the Moon are visible anywhere where the Moon is above the horizon
at the time. Since the geometry of lunar eclipses requires that the Moon is
directly opposite the Sun in the sky, the Moon can be seen above the horizon
anywhere where the Sun is beneath the horizon. The map below shows where the
eclipse of August 5 will be visible.
Source
You may embed the map above in your own website. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, which allows you to copy and/or modify it, so long as you credit In-The-Sky.org. | {
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