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Deficit levy on the cards as government talks of need for an 'immediate special effort' on debt
By Judith Ireland, Lisa Cox
7 May 2014 — 2:33pm
The federal government appears poised to push ahead with a new tax on high earners, despite a backlash from Coalition backbenchers and senior Liberal figures.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann emerged from the last full cabinet meeting before the budget is decided talking of the need for "an immediate special effort" and for all Australians to "chip in" to address Australia's debt levels.
On Wednesday afternoon, when asked if a decision had been made on a deficit levy, Mr Abbott responded by saying that "no one ever said it was going to be easy to tackle Labor's debt and deficit disaster".
He told reporters in Canberra that the Coalition was elected to "get the budget under control".
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"It is important that we are all in this together because ... if we're all chipping in something, we can chip away at the disastrous inheritance that the former government left our country."
Mr Abbott added that next Tuesday evening when the budget is handed down, "I'm going to be able to look people in the eye ... and say we are all in this together."
While the Prime Minister addressed reporters in the committee area of Parliament House, Senator Cormann also held a press conference.
In a clear indication that a debt tax will be imposed on high earners, the Finance Minster said there was a "need for an immediate special effort in order to put ourselves into a stronger starting position as we repair the budget".
“That special effort needs to be spread fairly and equitably,” Senator Cormann said.
“The only way you can ensure you do that is by also considering appropriately targeted measures through the tax system so that higher income earners participate in the additional effort.”
There has been a range of speculation about the cut-in point for any deficit tax, however, while it was initially suggested that Australians earning more than $80,000 a year would face a 1% levy, it is now expected to be imposed on incomes above $140,000.
Cabinet met on Wednesday morning in Canberra to discuss the budget, which Treasurer Joe Hockey will release next Tuesday. Cabinet has reported to have been split on the issue of introducing the tax.
Mr Abbott and Senator Cormann's comments come after another Coalition MP spoke out against the possible tax, with Teresa Gambaro describing the proposed tax as a "breach of promise".
In the lead up to the 2013 federal election, Mr Abbott pledged there would be no new taxes under his government.
On Wednesday, Ms Gambaro argued a debt levy would hurt the economy and public trust in the government.
"We went to the Australian people with a promise of being a government of no surprises," the member for Brisbane told Fairfax Media.
"We didn't go to the Australian people with a deficit levy."
Ms Gambaro, who has an economics and business background, said she did not think a deficit levy would deliver any economic benefits.
"I think what it will do is reduce business confidence," she said. "This isn't the way to go."
Ms Gambaro joins a group of Coalition MPs who have already publicly criticised or questioned the idea of a deficit levy. | {
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Archives / tag / seen and heard
Columnist Victoria Marchiony discusses the ever-popular trend of womens weather-inappropriate party clothes.
At this point in the flu-season, I figure everyone has popped into Student Health Services at least once, and has seen those charming anti-smoking posters that read “It’s 30 below, your teeth are chattering and you’re thinking ‘I’m not addicted, I’m not addicted, I’m not addicted.’” As the temperature drops and the winter winds pick up, it’s increasingly evident – at least to me – that we’re in need of a new version of this poster that applies to seasonally inappropriate dressers.…
In her introductory column, Victoria Marchiony recommends shedding the monotonous routine in favor of something new.
I’m one of those people who has spent her entire life causing awkward silences at dinner parties by making obscene and or scathing comments regardless of company.…
Popular This Week
The Temple News has been the paper of record for the Temple University community since it first printed as Temple University Weekly on Sept. 19, 1921. The award-winning student publication, editorially independent of Temple, now publishes every Tuesday and daily online. The Temple News distributes 5,000 printed copies, free of charge, to the university’s primary locations in the Delaware Valley. | {
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We aim to create and test computational methods capable of refining comparative protein structure models to an accuracy comparable to that of moderate to high resolution experimental structures. Our overall strategy is to dramatically improve the efficiency of sampling, which has limited the success of prior efforts at comparative model refinement, by a combination of (a) identifying which degrees of freedom are critical to sample, (b) developing new algorithms for making large moves along these degrees of freedom, and (c) using experimental data, if available, to help constrain the search space. We will
Implementamethodforrefininghomologymodelsbasedonmethodsfromkinematics.The approach combines two powerful strategies for improving the efficiency of sampling. The first strategy is to replace the small, femtosecond motions of molecular dynamics sampling with large, concerted motions of critical structural elements, such as loops. These Monte Carlo (MC) moves occur in dihedral angle space, and are guided by kinematics, which has been used to solve similar problems in the field of robotics. The second strategy is to adopt the powerful multiple temperature sampling schemes (replica exchange), which dramatically increase sampling efficiency and are simple to implement with inexpensive Linux clusters.
Implementamethodforrefiningcomparativemodelsbasedonremotehomologsbycombiningthe “zippers” strategyforsamplingproteinbackboneswithrestraintsderivedfrombioinformatics. The zippers method was originally developed to increase the sampling efficiency for all-atom protein folding by preferentially sampling local contacts. Here, the method will be adapted to refine comparative models by focusing the sampling on those portions of the structure that are poorly constrained by the sequence alignment. Two key features of this approach are that it will be (i) tolerant of modest sequence alignment errors, and (ii) capable of providing models for large insertions, which are not aligned to template residues.
Integrateinformationintemplatestructures,amolecularmechanicsforcefield,andcrystallographicdatatomaximizethenumberandaccuracyofproteinstructuresdeterminedbymolecularreplacement. Crystallographic structure determination by molecular replacement is limited in two model building aspects: (i) it is sensitive to the inaccuracy of the starting models and (ii) the ensuing refinement of the molecular replacement solution has a relatively small radius of convergence. We will address the first problem by an iterative process of target-template alignment, model building, and model assessment based partly on crystallographic data; and the second problem by several algorithms that refine a given model based on crystallographic data, a molecular mechanics force field, and information in the template structures. This work will involve close collaborations with scientists participating in the Protein Structure Initiative.
EvaluatethemethodsdevelopedinAims1–3,includingtheutilityofthemodelsforcomputer-aidedinhibitordiscovery. We will subject the methods in Aims 1–3 to blind predictions in CASP and CAFASP, and on an on-going basis using EVA-CM. In addition, we will directly assess the utility of the models generated for structure-based inhibitor design, an important but challenging application. The ability to create comparative models with accuracy comparable to experimental structures would open up a vast new set of protein targets to structure-based drug design methods. Common methods of assessing comparative models focus on geometrical accuracy, and do not directly assess the aspects of binding sites required for inhibitor design applications. We will directly assess the quality of the models for this purpose by performing docking enrichment studies on comparative models generated by Aims 1–3 for proteins with known inhibitors. This work will involve close collaborations with experimental groups who will test our methods in inhibitor discovery projects.
Aims 1–3 address both Comparative Modeling Goals identified by RFA-GM-05-008, “High Accuracy Protein Structure Modeling”. Our approach integrates methods grounded in bioinformatics (Sali), physics (Jacobson and Dill), and applied mathematics (Coutsias). Close collaborations among these researchers, as well as Dr. Shoichet (Aim 4), is facilitated by most of the researchers being located together at UCSF; our budget also allocates funds for Dr. Coutsias (U. New Mexico, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics) to spend several months a year at UCSF. The tangible outcome of this research will be a set of freely available modular source codes and executable programs that implement the methods in Aims 1–3.
B. Background and Significance
Comparative structure prediction, in conjunction with the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), has the potential to bridge the gap between the number of available protein sequences (>1 million) and structures (>20,000). The experience of the Sali group in constructing ModBase, a database currently containing over one million protein comparative models, highlights this potential. The fraction of sequences with comparative models for at least one domain is currently 57%.1 This number will continue to grow as the PSI enters its production phase. The New York Structural Genomix Research Consortium documented the number and quality of the comparative models that could be built based on their new structures. On average, about 100 protein sequences without any prior structural characterization could be modeled for each new structure.1 The accuracy of these models, however, varies significantly, with many accurately representing the overall tertiary structure, but relatively few (<10%, i.e., those with >50% sequence identity) expected to be as accurate as moderate resolution experimental structures (1–2 Å RMSD). While the CASP and CAFASP competitions have shown some measurable progress over time in the accuracy of comparative models2,3, they indicated little ability to refine comparative models to an accuracy better than the template protein. The research we propose addresses this critical bottleneck to high accuracy protein comparative modeling.
The three major sources of inaccuracy in comparative protein models are 1) incorrect choice of template protein, 2) inaccuracy in aligning the target sequence to the template, and 3) inability to routinely refine comparative models, i.e., to predict conformations of residues that do not align to the template, structural differences between the target and template proteins in aligned regions, and critical details such as side chain conformations. Improved methods of sequence alignment, fueled by the ever-growing databases of protein sequences4 and structures as well as algorithmic improvements, will contribute to the first two of these challenges. The research we propose focuses on the third of these challenges, model refinement, but will also contribute to identifying correct templates and alignments. Specifically, we propose methods for conformationalsampling and scoring of comparative protein models, generated by any alignment and model building protocols. The new algorithms we develop will be capable of refining individual models to improve the accuracy, and choosing the most accurate model among several generated from different templates and/or different alignments.
In short, we aim to improve the accuracy of comparative models by identifying the global free energy minimum of the protein sequence. This is a very challenging undertaking, despite the fact that the initial model(s) should be “close” to the global minimum, in the sense that at least the tertiary fold is correct, as long as the correct template is chosen. Success requires both adequate sampling and accurate scoring, and these two imperatives work against each other: more accurate scoring functions generally entail greater computational expense, reducing the amount of sampling that can be accomplished with fixed computer time. Our strategy is to develop methods that dramatically improve the efficiency of sampling, by a combination of 1) identifying which degrees of freedom are critical to sample, 2) developing new algorithms for making large moves along these degrees of freedom, and 3) using experimental data, if available, to help constrain the search space.
In Section B.1, we argue that existing energy models, particularly those that treat the protein at an atomic level of detail, are accurate enough to be useful in refining comparative models. Then in Section B.2, we review available methods for protein sampling, and outline our approach to improving sampling efficiency for comparative model refinement. In Section B.3 we discuss the role that experimental data can play in aiding comparative model refinement, and identify low-resolution data from xray crystallography as a neglected but potentially very useful source of data for this purpose. Finally, in Section B.4, we return to the potential impact of new methods for high-accuracy comparative modeling, highlighting the role that comparative models can play in structure-based inhibitor discovery, and the challenges that confront this goal.
B.1RefinementofComparativeModels:Scoring
Several lines of evidence suggest that currently available all-atom energy functions, although they have limitations5, are capable of the accuracy required to achieve our goal (i.e., refining comparative models to 1–2 Å RMSD). We focus attention on scoring functions composed of all-atom force fields and implicit solvent models. These are used as the primary scoring functions in Aims 1 and 2 due to the attractive balance they provide between accuracy and computational efficiency. However, the sampling methods that we develop can be used with virtually any all-atom scoring function, whether physics- or knowledge-based. Studies that provide grounds for optimism that all-atom energy functions can provide the necessary accuracy include:
Decoy studies, where energy functions are evaluated by their ability to distinguish native from non-native protein structures6,7, including studies that have focused on force fields such as CHARMM8, OPLS9, and Amber10 in combination with Generalized Born solvent models. Feig and Brooks also demonstrated that the CHARMM force field with GB or PB implicit solvent performed well in identifying the most accurate models among those submitted to CASP411.
All-atom protein folding simulations. Although these results are limited to relatively small systems (<60 residues), they nonetheless represent a stringent test of energy functions, since they involve sampling huge number of diverse protein conformations. For example, Dill etal. have used the AMBER/GB energy function to successfully fold 3 small proteins. In extensive replica exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) sampling of the conformational space of GB1, a 56-mer protein, the state of lowest free energy throughout that space is within 1.5 Å RMSD from the native structure. Other successful folding simulations with similar energy functions include several studies by Pande12-14.
Side chain and loop prediction. Numerous papers have tested sampling and scoring schemes for placing side chains on a native protein backbone, or reconstructing protein loops in a native protein. These tests provide an upper limit on the accuracy that could be expected for side chains and loops in more realistic homology modeling applications. Jacobson and co-workers, using the all-atom OPLS force field15-17 and a Generalized Born implicit solvent model18,19, demonstrated the highest accuracy yet reported for predicting the conformations of loops with 4–12 residues20; other high-accuracy results in the literature have used similar molecular mechanics energy functions21. In these tests, thousands of loop conformations are generated, and the energy function shows a robust ability to identify native-like conformations, as shown in Figure 1. In an extension of this work, Li etal. combined rigid sampling of helices with prediction of the adjacent loops, to permit partial refinement of tertiary packing22. In tests analogous to those employed to validate loop prediction, i.e., predicting the loop-helix-loop region keeping the rest of the protein fixed at the native conformation, the average RMSD for the helix regions was 0.9 Å over test 36 cases.
Given that it is possible to identify accurate structures among decoys and reconstruct portions of proteins with high accuracy with currently available energy functions, why is it not possible to routinely refine homology models to comparable levels of accuracy? One critical bottleneck is sampling. A typical homology model requires refinement of several loops simultaneously, and may also exhibit distortions or incorrect lengths of secondary structure elements. Sampling of all of these degrees of freedom simultaneously represents a major challenge, but we argue in the next section that this challenge is not insurmountable. | {
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Inspired by these wonderful animals, we decided to create Lava Lake Lamb pet treats. These treats are made from 100% grass-fed all-natural or certified organic lamb, along with all-natural potatoes and vegetables.
After passing out a few treats to some lucky pets, we’ve already heard that even the pickiest dogs go crazy for these Lava Lake Lamb pet treats. Our resident barn cats also love them.
What makes them so popular? We use only the finest natural ingredients; these treats are made without the use of hormones or antibiotics, and contain no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. Learn more about these treats on the site, and try them out with your pet. We’re sure they will love them!
I love when food finds its way into film. I leave films about food feeling as though I tasted every morsel depicted, when of course all I can do is watch the way an actor reacts to that first bite. My favorite example of this is in Ratatouille, when Anton Ego takes his first bite of Remy’s creation and is sent back to his childhood. What a marvelous scene!
Pixar
This year’s Oscars features two great films about food, one inspiring and one, frankly frightening.
Sony Pictures
Meryl Streep is wonderful as Julia Child; her fabulous portrayal of Julia’s quirks made me smile throughout the film, and when I returned home, I couldn’t help but gather friends and cook up a French feast. To see the real Julia in action, check out this fabulous episode of Julia Child cooking Renaissance Inspired Leg of Lamb with Lynn Rosetta Casper.
Food, Inc on the other hand, tells the disturbing story of the evolution of our food system into one completely dominated by industrial agriculture. After watching this film, one realizes how important it is to support SOLE (sustainable, organic, local and ethical) food, and to talk to your farmer/rancher. Check out the preview here, and be sure to see both of these great films.
The Lava Lake staff is comprised entirely of enthusiastic winter athletes, and at the start of everyday we find ourselves discussing the highlights and dramas presented by Bob Costas the previous night. We are all training hard over our lunch breaks to make the 2014 team (Mike, Mike and Jen in nordic, Annie in hockey, and Cheryl and Tim are probably going for ice dancing).
In honor of the amazing feats being accomplished by the winter athletes, here are some ideas for internationally themed lamb recipes:
Last night on CBS, Katie Couric took an in depth look at the practice of feeding antibiotics to livestock. Factory farmers who want to keep their herds healthy and growing quickly have found that the easiest and most cost-efficient way to do so is to include small doses of antibiotics in the livestock feed.
What’s wrong with keeping your hogs healthy? Well, as Couric points out, “some people say giving animals antibiotics to prevent illness or promote growth is like putting antibiotics in a child’s cereal.” Overuse of antibiotics leads to the creation of super-bugs, or antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. At one poultry plant in Arkansas, 37 workers developed MSRA, or methicillin resistant staph, an infection very difficult to treat due to its resistance to most antibiotics. More than one person developed an MSRA infection 12 times. The report also mentions a study carried out by the University of Iowa, which found that 70% of hogs and 64% of workers on several farms in the midwest contained a strain of MSRA. At farms that don’t use antibiotics, not a single strain of the infection was found. These are scary numbers.
So what’s the bottom line? You need to know that your meat is antibiotic free. And the best way to be sure is to talk to your farmer. You can feel confident eating Lava Lake Lamb, because we never feed our animals antibiotics.
To learn more, watch the clip here, or read the accompanying article. You can check out the second half of Couric’s two-part series, tonight on CBS.
This week on Oprah: Rosie O’Donnell, Denise Richards and tomorrow, Michael Pollan. What a lineup! I know that we’ve been talking about Oprah more than you might expect of a sustainable grass fed lamb ranch, but we’re still so excited about our mention in the O Magazine article on online food shopping, and we can’t wait to hear what Michael Pollan suggests to Oprah’s millions of viewers.
We were honored to host Michael Pollan at Lava Lake Ranch in the fall of 2008. Mr. Pollan was in town to give a lecture at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, and spent the afternoon touring Lava Lake Ranch on horseback and learning about our efforts to raise lamb in an environmentally sound, sustainable manner.
Michael Pollan’s investigations into our food systems and the culture and economics of eating have helped fuel a food revolution in America, with more and more people considering the impact their food choices have on their local economies, the environment, and the planet. Pollan is the author, most recently, of Food Rules and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post.
We got ours and found ourselves featured! Writer Celia Barbour takes a look at ordering food on the internet. She describes the art of being a foodie without getting out of bed, taking quizzes from a virtual cheesemonger set up by Murray’s and the patron saint of food delivery, Queen Isabella. Barbour also looks into the sustainability of buying food online and learns some interesting things from Christopher Weber, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Here’s what the article has to say about us:
Another benefit of buying online from places like…Lava Lake Lamb…is that you experience the culture and backstory of a product: where it comes from, who makes it, and how it’s made. Add in recipes and evocative pictures—Lava Lake Lamb’s sausage sizzling on a skillet over a campfire in the Pioneer Mountains…—and you quickly find yourself in a kind of closed loop of craving and buying.
Here’s the full article, plus a list of links that accompanies the article. We’re really excited to get the Oprah stamp of approval!
Bar Gernika, one of the most popular Basque eateries in Boise will begin serving Lava Lake Lamb today!
The restaurant is famous for its traditional Basque dishes, like the lamb dip sandwich, lamb grinder and lamb stew. The popular spot even made it onto Guy Fieri’s Food Network show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
We love stopping into this great restaurant whenever we’re in Boise and are so excited that their delicious dishes will become even tastier now that they feature grass fed and finished Lava Lake Lamb. Be sure to check it out next time you’re in Boise! | {
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Pecans can be found at local produce stands and groceries, but of course, they also are grown here in the beautiful weather of Northern California. Tree farms can be found surrounding Davis with pecans aplenty. So crack a shell, crunch some tasty nut meat and enjoy the natural bounty of the Sacramento Valley! Pecan trees grow fast — 5' a year or more. They need careful training for good limb spacing and to avoid bad branch angles, and the trees get very large: 40 - 50' or more. Most varieties need a pollenizer (a second type nearby) for good nut production. Without a pollenizer, you tend to get a lot of "blank" nuts. 'Western Schley' is self-fertile. Pecan trees tend to bear heavily in alternate years, which is why they aren't commonly grown as a commercial crop locally. | {
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I have created an account on CreateSpace and I have ordered 10 International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) from the National Library of Sweden. I will order a small print-on-demand batch from a local printer in Gothenburg. When I have a copy of the hardcover book in my hand, I will take some time and celebrate. I got very inspired by the episode, Taking Breaks, of Creative Minds podcast.
This has been a long journey from tinkering on the topic, writing, and self-publishing the book. And now it is time to think about the launch and marketing of the book. After I had published the latest blog post, Remembering the Copper Pot, I watched a webinar with Tim Grahl. I had bought his first book, Your First 1000 Copies, around the same time (2013) I got the idea to write a book on tea. I am now going through Tim’s course, Launch a Bestseller.
With that said, and to show that I have a Message, I am planning a new podcast together with an individual, working in an industry that could be interesting for my fellow podcasters and other content creators. I will never stop learning, so I will also start another podcast on tea.
Audible is offering a free audiobook of your choice and a free 30-day trial membership. Just go to audibletrial.com/egonetcast and choose from over 180,000 audio programs – download a title free and start listening. | {
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hic&nunc is a publishing project imagined by Etienne Dodet et Yann Perol. This project is part of the Guilty by Association publishing. It is a database of artists files materialized ad infinitum on 3D printers. | {
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Introduction
This article helps the beginner of an AI course to learn the objective and implementation of Uninformed Search Strategies (Blind Search) which use only information available in the problem definition.
Uninformed Search includes the following algorithms:
Breadth First Search (BFS)
Uniform Cost Search (UCS)
Depth First Search (DFS)
Depth Limited Search (DLS)
Iterative Deepening Search (IDS)
Bidirectional Search (BS)
Background
This article covers several Search strategies that come under the heading of Uninformed Search. The term means that the strategies have no additional information about States beyond that provided in the problem definition. All they can do is generate successors and distinguish a goal state from a non-goal state. All Search strategies are distinguished by the order in which nodes are expanded.
To go ahead in these series, I will use some AI terminologies such as the following:
A problem can be defined by four components:
Initial State that the problem starts in
Goal State that the problem ends in
Finding sequences of actions that lead to Goal State
A path Cost to solve problem
Together, the initial state, goal state, actions and path cost define the state space of the problem (the set of all states reachable from the initial state by any sequence of actions). The path in the state space is a sequence of states connected by a sequence of actions. A solution to the problem is an action sequence that leads from the initial state to the goal state.
The process of looking at a sequence of actions that reaches the goal is called search. A search algorithm takes a problem as input and returns a solution in the form of an action sequences. The search starts from the initial state which represents the root node in the problem search space. The branches are actions and the nodes corresponding to the states in the problem state space.
Example
A small part of the 8-puzzle problem state space:
Note: Depth=number of steps from initial state to this state.
A collection of nodes that are generated but not yet expanded is called the fringe; each element of fringe is a leaf node (i.e. with no successors in tree).
Let's start to explain the first two algorithms of blind search:
Breadth First Search (BFS): is a simple strategy in which the root node is expanded first, then all the successors of the root node are expanded next, then their successors, and so on. Fringe is a FIFO queue.
Uniform Cost Search (UCS): modifies BFS by always expanding the lowest cost node on the fringe using path cost function g(n) (i.e. the cost of the path from the initial state to the node n). Nodes maintained on queue in order of increasing path cost.
Depth First Search (DFS): always expands the deepest node in the current fringe of the search tree. Fringe is a LIFO queue (Stack).
Depth Limited Search (DLS): The embarrassing failure of DFS in infinite state spaces can be alleviated by supplying DFS with a predetermined depth limit l, that is nodes at depth l are treated as if they have no successors.
Iterative Deepening Depth First Search (IDS): is a general strategy often used in combination with depth first tree search that finds the best depth limit. It does this by gradually increasing limit first 0, then 1, then 2, and so on until the goal is found.
Bidirectional Search (BS): The idea behind bidirectional search is to simultaneously search both forward from the initial state and backward from the goal state, and stop when the two searches meet in the middle. Here there are two fringes, one that maintains nodes forward and other that maintains nodes backward. Each fringe is implemented as LIFO or FIFO depends on the search strategy used in the search (i.e. Forward=BFS, Backward=DFS).
Using the Code
The first class in my code is Node.cs which represents the node as a data structure in the state space. Each node has some attributes such as depth, cost, state, and parent node. The state attribute is defined according to a physical configuration within the problem state space. My code is simply searching for a number in the state space of positive numbers so the state here is defined simply as an integer number.
My code search is for a number in the range from 0, 1, 2, .N. so, the initial state is 0 and the goal state is the number specified
by the user. Each step of number generation costs random number or 1. Class GetSucc.cs defines GetSussessor() function
which includes the possible set of actions that are required for positive number generation in order. The input of GetSussessor() is the current state of the problem (i.e. initial State 0) and the output is the ArrayList of next states that are reached from current state(i.e. from 0 the next states 1,2 assuming that our tree is the binary tree). | {
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Price Patrol Wins Best Product and Best Logo Awards
Price Patrol is excited to be recognized for Best Logo and Best Product at the 2013 San Diego Entrepreneur Day. The day celebrates the concept of corporate giving and social responsibility to benefit entrepreneurs and small businesses. Take a look at these videos of founder, Vince Marconi, giving his acceptance speeches. | {
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The Adilette debuted in 1972 as a poolside slide, and it's been a style mainstay of adidas ever since. These men's slides stay true to the authentic sporty look with a contoured footbed and 3-Stripes across the bandage upper.
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Mother Nature
Mother Nature thought it best for us to not have power for a day and a half. I’m one of the lucky ones as there are still thousands upon thousands of people with out power. Unfortunately, I lost all the food in my frdige and freezer and can’t restock yet as the local grocers around me were also without power and most are not getting shipments in till Monday. So if you don’t see something new for awhile…that would be why. In the meantime, head on over to Running with Tweezers and be jealous of the fabulous cookbook and chocolate that I won for winning the souper challenge. While your there offer her your congratulations as she herself just won HHDD #*…the risotto challenge.
Sorry to hear about the power outage and your spoiled food. On the brighter side, congrats on winning the souper challenge and the DMBLGiT for the third month in a row! Pretty good for what you call a cheapie camera. =)
Congratulations on winning! Your soup certainly looked delicious and put my Borscht to shame (poor photography on my part, but it tasted great!)!
It’s very annoying when things go wrong in the kitchen that you have zero control over!
Freya
Hi, congratulations on winning the challenge.Loved the soup,will try it.
We lost power last year for 6 days!Couldn’t even get hotel room.froze almost to death and survived.Sorry about your’s and all that food:(
Atleast Christmas is still a week away.Enjoy the festivities!:)
Congrats on the win! Somehow, when she was describing the winning entry, I knew it was you! Sorry about losing power; but I’m glad that it’s back. We’ve been having really warm weather here. It’s currently about 75 degrees. Not my idea of Christmas weather.
Welcome
Hi I’m Peabody (yep, that’s my first name) and welcome to my site! Here you will find a whole lot of yummy recipes (mostly baking and dessert), positive body image promotion, telling it like it is, and the random things that make up my life. Thanks for stopping by! {More…} | {
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Everytime I read about the 51% attack the answer was something like:
is really expensive to get 51% of power on BTC and nobody will invest so much so to destroy the bitcoin.
But I found this site where you can rent hash power it seems to cost only $500K to get 51% for BTC (and much less for the altcoins):https://www.crypto51.app/
Does that mean everybody with just a few dollars can destroy almost any altcoin right now?
EDIT
That site was posted by Charlie Lee (creator of LTC): https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1001341159405273088 but maybe I'm reading it wrong, becuse the last column says NiceHash-able and for BTC is 2%, LTC 7% and bytecoin 211%, maybe those numbers are the clue but I don't know what it means.
Is that table showing that BTC is hard to attack but other coins like bytecoin are really easy and cheap to attack? maybe someone can clarify this?
1 Answer
1
Online mining is that grey area where you don't invest until you're 100% sure. The aforementioned website is likely to scam you if they are providing such a service in the first place.
To address the question, how much will it take to launch a 51% attack;
Firstly you can check the current compute power (hash rate) and it's $ equivalent.
http://rindex.io/attack-cost gives you the exact cost for a 51% attack at any given point of time.
If you compare the calculated hashrate against one of the more popular ASICs on the market, the figure stands at about 2.2 billion. However, this assumes that suddenly half of the network right now goes rogue and decides to attack it. If not, you would need more than 2.2 billion dollars since the hashrate needed has to be 51% of the total hashrate (after the attack starts).
Its rather resource consuming and it isn't that big of a problem since none of the government really cares that much to spend their budget on attacking a cryptocurrency. You probably wouldn't profit all that much when you attack; doubt exchanges credits more than 2 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin automatically without raising a red flag.
Also, If you don't have 51% of the whole network (ie. more hashrate than the others), you don't have a 100% chance of executing an attack. The honest/longest chain still has a chance of overtaking you and you have to acknowledge their blocks. The probability of success decreases with the number of blocks.
Assuming the attacker decides to do 51% attack by purchase lots of ASIC/GPU, but it's not a really accurate number because:
There's no way you could get thousands (maybe millions in the coming future) of ASIC/GPU units easily
Even if they could, it's obvious that the price of ASIC/GPU will be more expensive due to high demand and low supply (this is already the case with graphics cards, poor gamers!)
Unless you have a connection, it's highly unlikely you could use lots of electricity and big mining location without ringing any alarms
Now, what if the attacker wants to hire a pool instead of investing in purchasing the equipment. In the current state where almost all mining power is concentrated within less than ten pools, that's enough to 'buy' a pool admin(s).
Why would even mining pools agree to "rent" their hashpower? If they actually did that, they would quickly lose their users. I don't really think if there would be many farms interested in this form of attack. Long-term earning is much wiser than trying to cheat and sell as much as possible. The rest of the network would quickly realize that the 51% attack was performed. Just look what is going on with Verge which is/was being attacked. The 51% attack is the reason why there are people who think that banning ASICs and mining only with GPUs is a good way to prevent it from happening.
I think I don't know how to read the tables, because the site I've mentioned was posted by Charlie Lee (creator of LTC) so I guess he knows what is talking about: twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1001341159405273088 the last column says NiceHash-able and for BTC is 2%, LTC 7% and bytecoin 211%, maybe those numbers are the clue but I don't know what it means. Do you understand it? is that table showing that BTC is hard to attack but other coins like bytecoin are really easy and cheap to attack?
– EnriqueMay 29 '18 at 20:36
1
Your question is misleading as it states that this is a website where you can rent hash power to do an attack. As far as reading the tables is concerned, the longer the chain (more users/ blocks/ overall block time/ block-difficulty) the higher is the security, as the requirement for an attack will require as much resource to attack the network. In simple words, an established network will require a hell lot of computing power in comparison to newly formed/ nascent network. Hope this solves your queries.
– Junaid ShaikhMay 29 '18 at 20:41
1
@Enrique I believe the last column represents the amount of hashpower nicehash has available to rent, compared to the total hashpower that is mining that coin. So in the case of bytecoin, nicehash's rental capacity has over double the current bytecoin hashrate. For bitcoin, they have 2% (so you could not use Nicehash rentals alone to mount a 51% attack against bitcoin). I suspect Nicehash rentals are a very expensive way to mount an attack in any case.
– chytrikMay 29 '18 at 23:22
@chytrik that makes sense, so that means is possible to destry, BitcoinPrivate for example with only $800?? that does not seem to be expensive at all. Even ETC and BitcoinGold will cost less than $5K
– EnriqueMay 30 '18 at 0:50
@Enrique I would not say it is the cost to ‘destroy’ them, it is just an estimate of the cost of a 51% attack on the network. These numbers are probably more useful as a relative measure of each network’s security than anything else.
– chytrikJun 2 '18 at 17:32 | {
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After seeing this stuff, I have some theories about the bottom markings:
The first letter denotes the fab, the second letter I am not too sure about, while the next two numbers are the week the dice were made. the remaining 4 letters are a wafer lot code most likely. Some chips have a number after this which appears to be the die revision, but only from late 84 on appears to have it. The 4684 and 2285 date coded chips have a 2 and 3, respectively which appears to be the die revision.
Later chips were actually marked R3 (at the tail end of production) and all R4 and on chips were marked. The only exception I can find is my 6582 chip which has to be an R5 no matter what. | {
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www.irishtimes.com
Jim Carroll
Music, Life and everything else
Etc
You can use the weekly Etc post to plug and recommend gigs, new releases, TV shows, headache remedies and ways to get from A to B. Please be polite and declare an interest where relevant (or I’ll do it for …
Jim Carroll
jimcarroll
Fri, Aug 22, 2008, 03:42
You can use the weekly Etc post to plug and recommend gigs, new releases, TV shows, headache remedies and ways to get from A to B. Please be polite and declare an interest where relevant (or I’ll do it for you) | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Watchmaker ribbed failed transfer of De GEA
Partner of Manchester United, the Bulova company, which is engaged in manufacture of hours, noted the failure of the transfer of David De GEA a new batch of products.
American company Bulova, which has been producing watches and is a partner of Manchester United, released a limited batch of products with the symbols of the English club.
As reported by the Mirror, on the new watch applied the coat of arms of Manchester United, as well as markers marked with the numbers “18” and “78” in honor of the date of the founding of the club.
The publication notes that the watch went on sale too late (1st September) and didn’t manage to save the transfer of Manchester United goalkeeper David De GEA to real Madrid.
It is possible that the exclusive release party was planned in advance, however, in light of the recent transfer events is very reminiscent of a joke MJ partners.
Earlier, SPORTS bigmir)net reported that the transfer of goalkeeper Manchester United David De GEA failed at the last moment. Later real refused to appeal on the transition.
Let us add that both clubs have already commented on the failed transition of De GEA. Manchester United were accused of disrupting the transfer of real Madrid, and Madrid to 10 points painted details of the talks. | {
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The President issued an Executive Order on August 6, 2018, “Reimposing Certain Sanctions With Respect to Iran” (the New Iran EO), which re-imposes relevant provisions of five Iran sanctions EOs (EOs 13574, 13590, 13622, and 13645). Additionally, the New Iran EO implements provisions in two former EOs (EOs 13716 and 13628) and revokes those EOs.
Additionally, the New Iran EO implements provisions in two former EOs (EOs 13716 and 13628) and revokes those EOs.
August 6, 2018 marked the end of the 90-day wind-down period following the President’s decision to end the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Effective August 7, 2018, the US government can re-impose secondary sanctions that had been suspended under the Iran nuclear deal on persons who engage in specified transactions involving any of the following sectors/activities:
The purchase or acquisition of US dollar banknotes by the Government of Iran;
Iran’s trade in gold or precious metals;
The direct or indirect sale, supply, or transfer to or from Iran of graphite, raw, or semi-finished metals such as aluminum and steel, coal, and software for integrating industrial processes;
Significant transactions related to the purchase or sale of Iranian rials, or the maintenance of significant funds or accounts outside the territory of Iran denominated in the Iranian rial;
The purchase, subscription to, or facilitation of the issuance of Iranian sovereign debt; and
Iran’s automotive sector.
Following the end of the 90-day wind-down period on August 6, 2018, the US government is also revoking the below JCPOA-related authorizations under US primary sanctions regarding Iran:
The importation into the United States of Iranian-origin carpets and foodstuffs and certain related financial transactions pursuant to general licenses under the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations;
Activities undertaken pursuant to specific licenses issued in connection with the Statement of Licensing Policy for Activities Related to the Export or Re-export to Iran of Commercial Passenger Aircraft and Related Parts and Services (JCPOA SLP); and
Activities undertaken pursuant to General License I relating to contingent contracts for activities eligible for authorization under the JCPOA SLP.
The remaining secondary sanctions can be re-imposed on November 5, 2018, following the end of the 180-day wind down period on November 4, 2018, on persons who engage in specified transactions involving any of the following sectors/activities:
Iran’s port operators, and shipping and shipbuilding sectors, including on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, South Shipping Line Iran, or their affiliates;
Petroleum-related transactions with, among others, the National Iranian Oil Company, Naftiran Intertrade Company, and National Iranian Tanker Company, including the purchase of petroleum, petroleum products, or petrochemical products from Iran;
Transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran and designated Iranian financial institutions under Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012;
The provision of specialized financial messaging services to the Central Bank of Iran and Iranian financial institutions described in Section 104(c)(2)(E)(ii) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions and Divestment Act of 2010;
The provision of underwriting services, insurance, or reinsurance; and
Iran’s energy sector, including a variety of separate specific activities related to the petroleum and petrochemical industries under the Iran Sanctions Act as amended.
Additionally, on or by November 5, 2018:
The US government will revoke the General License H wind-down authorization that had allowed US-owned or-controlled foreign entities to wind down certain activities with the Government of Iran or persons subject to the jurisdiction of the Government of Iran that were previously authorized by General License H; and
The US government can re-impose, as appropriate, the sanctions that applied to persons removed from the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List) and/or other lists maintained by the U.S. government on January 16, 2016.
OFAC’s FAQs about the re-imposition of Iran sanctions can be found on OFAC’s website.
One question that OFAC answers in its updated FAQs (FAQ 601) is whether the New Iran EO expands the scope of sanctions that were in effect prior to January 16, 2016 (Implementation Day of the JCPOA), and the answer is:
Yes. The New Iran EO broadens the scope of the sanctions that were in effect prior to January 16, 2016 and provides for greater consistency in the administration of Iran-related sanctions provisions.
OFAC provides a list of added measures, but they are largely in the nature of tweaking the authorities for providing new blocking sanctions and slightly expanding the sanctions that can be imposed for activities involving petroleum and petrochemical sectors in Iran. More specifically, according to OFAC, the new Iran EO:
Provides new authority for: (i) blocking sanctions on persons who provide material support for, or goods and services in support of, persons blocked for various already existing sanction activities, such as being part of the energy, shipping, or shipbuilding sectors of Iran; (ii) correspondent and payable-through account sanctions on foreign financial institutions determined to have knowingly conducted or facilitated any significant financial transaction on behalf of the persons blocked under the new authorities;
Expands the menu of sanctions available to impose on persons determined to have engaged in certain significant transactions relating to petroleum, petroleum products, or petrochemicals from Iran by authorizing the imposition of:
Visa restrictions on corporate officers, principals, or controlling shareholders of a sanctioned person;
Additional sanctions on principal executive officers of a sanctioned person; and
Prohibitions on US persons investing in or purchasing significant amounts of equity or debt instruments of a sanctioned person.
Expands the prohibition on US-owned or -controlled foreign entities by prohibiting transactions with persons blocked for:
Providing material support for, or goods and services in support of, Iranian persons on the SDN List and certain other designated persons; or
Being part of the energy, shipping, or shipbuilding sectors of Iran or a port operator in Iran or knowingly providing significant support to certain other persons blocked or on the SDN List.
Since these last activities were already prohibited under Section 218 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 and OFAC’s implementing regulations, it is unclear whether in fact this last is a true expansion or an adjustment of authority.
EU Reaction – Amendment of Blocking Regulation
As anticipated, the EU reacted by publishing, and thereby bringing into effect, an amendment to the Annex to Council Regulation No 2271/96 protecting against the effects of extra-territorial application of legislation adopted by a third country, and actions based thereon or resulting therefrom.
The revised Annex increases the number of laws subject to the blocking regulations, including, notably:
The energy sanctions contained in the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 as amended;
Prohibits EU operators from complying with the listed extra-territorial legislation, or any decision, ruling or award based thereon, given that the EU does not recognize its applicability to/effects towards EU operators (Article 5, paragraph 1);
Requires EU operators to inform the European Commission within 30 days of any events arising from listed extra-territorial legislation or actions based thereon or resulting thereof, that affect, directly or indirectly, their economic or financial interests;
Nullifies the effect in the EU of any foreign decision, including court rulings or arbitration awards, based on the listed extra-territorial legislation or the acts and provisions adopted pursuant to them (Article 4);
Allows EU operators to recover damages arising from the application of the listed extra-territorial legislation from the natural or legal persons or entities causing them (Article 6). Damages are defined as ‘any damages, including legal costs, caused by the application of the laws specified in its Annex or by actions based thereon or resulting therefrom’; and
Allows EU operators to request an authorization to comply with the listed extra-territorial legislation, if not doing so would cause serious harm to their interests or the interests of the EU (Article 5, paragraph 2).
The Blocking Regulation applies to the EU subsidiaries of US companies, thereby placing them in a potentially difficult position. Moreover, the EU Guidance specifically states that EU operators cannot, consistent with the EU Blocking Regulations, request licenses from the United States unless they request the European Commission to authorize them to apply for such a license. At the same time, the EU Guidance specifically notes that EU companies remain free to do or not to do business with Cuba and Iran, provided such business decisions are not forced on the EU companies by the listed US legislation.
President Trump posted an executive order on May 21, 2018 with the purpose of taking further steps in regard to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692 of March 8, 2015 and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13808 of August 24, 2017 and Executive Order 13827 of March 19, 2018. This order is, Trump said, “particularly in light of the recent activities of the Maduro regime, including endemic economic mismanagement and public corruption at the expense of the Venezuelan people and their prosperity, and ongoing repression of the political opposition; attempts to undermine democratic order by holding snap elections that are neither free nor fair; and the regime’s responsibility for the deepening humanitarian and public health crisis in Venezuela…” The order is as follows:
Section 1.
(a) All transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in the following by a United States person or within the United States are prohibited:
(i) the purchase of any debt owed to the Government of Venezuela, including accounts receivable;
(ii) any debt owed to the Government of Venezuela that is pledged as collateral after the effective date of this order, including accounts receivable; and
(iii) the sale, transfer, assignment, or pledging as collateral by the Government of Venezuela of any equity interest in any entity in which the Government of Venezuela has a 50 percent or greater ownership interest.
(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted before the effective date of this order.
Sec. 2.
(a) Any transaction that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited
(c) the term “United States person” means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches of such entities), or any person within the United States; and
(d) the term “Government of Venezuela” means the Government of Venezuela, any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including the Central Bank of Venezuela and Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA), and any person owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, the Government of Venezuela.
Sec. 4. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including promulgating rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to implement this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may, consistent with applicable law, re-delegate any of these functions to other officers and executive departments and agencies of the United States Government. All agencies of the United States Government shall take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order.
Sec. 5. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 6. This order is effective at 12:30 p.m. eastern daylight time on May 21, 2018.
Effective October 17, 2016 OFAC has made the following changes to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations.
Health: Joint medical research
OFAC is amending section 515.547 to authorize persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to engage in joint medical research projects with Cuban nationals. This general license expands the scope of joint research projects that are authorized to include both non-commercial and commercial medical research. Cuban-origin pharmaceuticals.
OFAC is also amending section 515.547 to add new authorizations related to Cuban- origin pharmaceuticals. Specifically, section 515.547 now authorizes transactions incident to obtaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of Cuban-origin pharmaceuticals. The general license includes discovery and development, pre-clinical research, clinical research, regulatory review, regulatory approval and licensing, regulatory post-market activities, and the importation into the United States of Cuban-origin pharmaceuticals.
Section 515.547 also now authorizes the importation into the United States, and the marketing, sale, or other distribution in the United States, of FDA-approved Cuban-origin pharmaceuticals.
In addition, revised section 515.547 authorizes persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction who are engaging in such authorized activities to open, maintain, and close bank accounts at Cuban financial institutions as long as such accounts are used solely for the authorized activities.
The statement of licensing policy previously contained in section 515.547 for the importation of Cuban-origin commodities for bona-fide research purposes in sample quantities remains in effect for items that would not be authorized by the new general license in section 515.547(b).
Trade and Commerce: Transactions incident to exports and reexports to Cuba
Section 515.533(a) of the Regulations authorizes transactions ordinarily incident to certain exportations of items from the United States, as well as certain reexportations of items from a third country, to Cuba, provided that the exportations or reexportations are authorized by the Department of Commerce.
OFAC is removing references to ‘‘100% U.S.- origin items’’ in this section for clarity and to minimize the circumstances under which persons authorized by Commerce to export or reexport items to Cuba are required to obtain a specific license from OFAC.
Consistent with Section 1706 of the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (22 U.S.C. 6005) (CDA), this general license does not authorize any transaction between a U.S.-owned or -controlled firm in a third country and Cuba for the exportation to Cuba of commodities produced in a country other than the United States or Cuba. Such transactions must be specifically licensed pursuant to section 515.559 in addition to any required authorization from the Department of Commerce. There are also restrictions imposed by the CDA on the types of transactions that may be licensed pursuant to that section.
OFAC is also making a technical correction to section 515.533(a) to remove references to ‘‘agricultural items’’ so that only ‘‘agricultural commodities,’’ as defined in 15 CFR part 772, are subject to the limitations on payment and financing terms required by the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, 22 U.S.C. 7207(b)(1). OFAC is making a conforming edit with respect to section 515.584(f) and also expanding that authorization to apply to any banking institution.
Finally, OFAC is adding a note to section 515.533(a) to clarify that this paragraph authorizes the importation into the United States of items from a third country for exportation to Cuba pursuant to a license or other authorization by the Department of Commerce.
OFAC is making additional technical and conforming changes to remove certain obsolete language and consolidate all of the conditions applicable to this general license in a single paragraph. Importation of certain items previously exported or reexported to Cuba and servicing and repair of such items.
OFAC is further amending section 515.533 to add a new general license authorizing the importation into the United States or a third country of items previously exported or reexported to Cuba pursuant to section 515.533 or 515.559. This authorization will allow recipients of authorized exports or reexports to Cuba to return the items to the United States or a third country, including for service and repair. Irrespective of involvement in the importation of these items, persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are authorized to service and repair such items. The exportation or reexportation of serviced, repaired, or replacement items to Cuba, however, must be separately authorized pursuant to section 515.533(a) or 515.559, in addition to any Department of Commerce authorization that may be required.
Certain vessel transactions:
Section 515.207(a) prohibits foreign vessels that call on Cuban ports for trade purposes from entering U.S. ports for the purpose of loading or unloading freight for 180 days from the date they depart Cuba, absent OFAC authorization.
OFAC is amending section 515.550 to add an additional exception to the prohibition in section 515.207(a) for foreign vessels that have carried from a third country to Cuba only items that, were they subject to the Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR parts 730 through 774) (EAR), would be designated as EAR99 or would be controlled on the Commerce Control List only for anti- terrorism reasons.
Contingent contracts.
OFAC is adding a new general license in section 515.534 authorizing persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to enter into certain contingent contracts for transactions prohibited by the Regulations and to engage in transactions ordinarily incident to negotiating and entering into such contracts. The performance of such contracts—making deposits, receiving payments, providing certain services or goods, etc.—must be made contingent on OFAC authorizing the underlying transactions or authorization no longer being required. Furthermore, if the transaction implicates another Federal agency’s licensing requirements, then the contract must make obtaining the necessary license(s) from such agency or the removal of that licensing requirement an additional precondition of performance.
OFAC is making a conforming change to section 515.533 to remove a provision in that section authorizing certain contingent contracts that are now authorized by this new general license.
Civil Aviation Safety: Civil aviation safety-related services.
OFAC is amending section 515.572 to add a new general license authorizing persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to provide Cuba and Cuban nationals, wherever located, with services aimed at ensuring safety in civil aviation and the safe operation of commercial aircraft.
Travel and Related Transactions: OFAC is making several changes to rules related to the importation of Cuban-origin merchandise as accompanied baggage and certain travel- related authorizations.
Importation of Cuban Merchandise
Section 515.560 previously authorized persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction engaging in authorized travel to Cuba to acquire merchandise in Cuba and import it into the United States as accompanied baggage, provided that the merchandise was for personal use only and had a value of $400 or less (with no more than $100 of such merchandise consisting of alcohol or tobacco products).
OFAC is now removing these monetary value limits, which means that the normal limits on duty and tax exemptions for merchandise imported as accompanied baggage and for personal use will apply. OFAC will continue to require that such merchandise be imported as accompanied baggage and for personal use. Certain transactions in third countries.
Previously, section 515.585 authorized persons who are subject to U.S. jurisdiction but located in countries other than the United States or Cuba to, among other things, purchase or acquire merchandise subject to the prohibitions in section 515.204 provided that the merchandise was for personal consumption while in a third country.
OFAC is amending section 515.585 to remove the limitation that the merchandise be consumed while abroad, to authorize the importation of such merchandise into the United States as accompanied baggage provided that the merchandise is for personal use only, and to clarify that this authorization is applicable to persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction who are present in a third country, such as when traveling in or through the third country. Foreign passengers’ baggage.
Previously, section 515.569 authorized foreign passengers to import Cuban- origin goods, excluding Cuban-origin alcohol and tobacco products, as accompanied baggage, provided that the goods were not in commercial quantities and not imported for resale.
OFAC is now removing the exclusion for alcohol and tobacco products while retaining the conditions that the goods not be in commercial quantities and not be imported for resale.
Professional research and professional meetings in Cuba: Section 515.564 includes a general license authorizing persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to travel to Cuba for purposes of attending or organizing professional meetings or conferences in Cuba.
OFAC is removing the restriction in section 515.564(a)(2)(i) that the purpose of such meeting or conference not be for the promotion of tourism in Cuba, and making additional conforming edits.
OFAC is also taking this opportunity to clarify section 515.564 by removing paragraphs (a)(1)(ii) and (a)(2)(iii), which included language inconsistent with adjacent paragraphs. Remittances for third-country national travel.
OFAC is amending section 515.570 to authorize persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to make remittances to third- country nationals for travel by third- country nationals to, from, and within Cuba, provided that such travel would be authorized by a general license if the traveler were a person subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
OFAC is also making a clarifying change in section 515.420 to make clear that the interpretation in that section relates only to persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
Recordkeeping requirements for providers of travel and carrier services: In the case of customers traveling pursuant to a specific license, in order to ease the burden on persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction that provide authorized travel or carrier services pursuant to section 515.572.
OFAC is amending section 515.572(b)(1) to make clear that such service providers may collect and retain either a copy of the traveler’s specific license or the traveler’s specific license number.
Sections 515.565 and 515.575 previously authorized the provision of grants, scholarships, and awards in which Cuba or Cuban nationals have an interest (including as recipients) with respect to educational and humanitarian activities, respectively.
OFAC is now expanding that authorization to authorize the provision of grants, scholarships, and awards in two additional categories of activities: scientific research and religious activities. OFAC is consolidating these authorizations in new section 515.590 and making conforming edits to sections 515.565 and 515.575.
Services related to developing Cuban infrastructure. OFAC is adding section 515.591 to authorize persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to provide Cuba or Cuban nationals with services related to developing, repairing, maintaining, and enhancing Cuban infrastructure, consistent with the export or reexport licensing policy of the Department of Commerce. ‘‘Infrastructure’’ in this case means systems and assets used to provide the Cuban people with goods and services produced by the public transportation, water management, waste management, non-nuclear electricity generation, and electricity distribution sectors, as well as hospitals, public housing, and primary and secondary schools.
Other Amendments
Definition of prohibited officials of the Government of Cuba and prohibited members of the Cuban Communist Party.
OFAC is amending sections 515.337 and 515.338 to narrow the definitions in these sections.
Additional technical and conforming edits.
OFAC is also making several technical and conforming edits, including adjusting a cross-reference in the note to section 515.421(a)(4) to reflect that the payment and financing terms for agricultural commodities are now located in section 515.533(a)(4);
Removing sections 515.531 and 515.803 as obsolete; adding the word ‘‘repair’’ to the general licenses for certain travel- related transactions in sections 515.533 and 515.559 to clarify that travel for such purposes has been within the scope of the existing authorizations;
Removing paragraphs (a) and (b) of section 515.536, as all activities described in such paragraphs are authorized by the general license in section 515.562 relating to official business of the U.S. government;
Correcting the cross-reference in section 515.560(c)(6)(ii) to the definition of depository institution to be section 515.333; adding the words ‘‘paragraphs (a)(1) through (a)(4)’’ in the first sentence of section 515.572(b)(1) to clarify that records pertaining to passengers do not need to be maintained for transactions authorized pursuant to paragraph (a)(5) of section 515.572;
Removing a duplicative ‘‘subject’’ from Note 1 to section 515.578(a); and adding the word ‘‘authorized’’ to complete the sentence in section 515.584(c).
Tecnoline SAL (Tecnoline )of Sin El Fil, Beirut, Lebanon pled guilty to 7 charges of Causing, Aiding, or Abetting a Violation of the Regulations and will pay a civil penalty of $450,000. Tecnoline reexported US-origin mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs and consumables, liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer systems, and liquid chromatograph modules (ECCN 3A999), controlled for anti-terrorism reasons, to Syria. There is a long standing US Embargo against Syria which makes a BIS license required for all exports/reexports subject to the EAR with the only exception being food and certain medicines).
The items were manufactured by Agilent Technologies (Agilent), a US company, and Technoline was an authorized distributor and reseller of Agilent’s products. In 2004, Technoline signed an agreement with Agilent that acknowledged their awareness of US export control laws and regulations and agreed to comply with them as a reseller and distributor of controlled products. Between August 2009 and October 2010, Technoline negotiated price discounts on the items with Agilent and eventually ordered the items for the Syrian Government ministries or entities. Technoline falsely identified the ultimate destination of the items as being Iraq or Lebanon (BIS license not required) and on one or more occasions they failed to disclose the ultimate destination of the items. Agilent shipped the items to TEchnoline in Beirut, Lebanon via Agilent’s German subsidiary. Once Technoline received the items they transferred them to Syria, there they were installed at Syrian Government ministries within a month or so. There were never any authorizations from BIS to export the items from the US to Syria, or to reexport them from Germany to Syria.
In November 2012, three individuals and one company were indicted with charges of criminal conspiracy, wire fraud, illegal export of goods, money laundering, and false statements. Until now the indictment remained under seal pending the arrest of the defendants.
Between 2003 and 2012, d-Deri Contracting & Trading (owned by Ahmad Feras Diri of London) was exporting goods originally from the US from Global Parts Supply (owned by Harold Rinko of Hallstead, PA) to his brother and business partner Moawea Deri who was located in Syria. The goods purchased from Rinko’s US company were done so based on false invoices, undervalued and mislabeled goods. Then the purchased goods were exported by falsely listing their identity and final geographic location on all documentation. The items would be shipped from the US to Jordan, the UAE, and the UK, and finally transshipped to Syria.
The items exported allegedly included:
a portable gas scanner used for detection of chemical warfare agents by civil defense, military, police and border control agencies;
a handheld instrument for field detection and classification of chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals;
a laboratory source for detection of chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals in research, public safety and industrial environments;
a rubber mask for civil defense against chemicals and gases;
a meter used to measure chemicals and their composition;
flowmeters for measuring gas streams;
a stirrer for mixing and testing liquid chemical compounds;
industrial engines for use in oil and gas field operations and a device used to accurately locate buried pipelines
Note: Nearly all exports to Syria will be denied, other than a few items categorized under humanitarian food and medicine. The goal of the embargo on Syria is to shut down the supply chain used by the Syrian state to support terrorism and create proliferate weapons of mass destruction, and in this specific case, chemical weapons.
Fast forward to this month, Ahmad Feras Diri (age 43) of London has plead guilty to conspiracy to illegally export items used to detect chemical warfare agents to Syria. He lost his extradition fight in the UK in November 2015 at which point he was brought to the US to face the charges. Diri admitted that he conspired to export items from the US through third party countries to customers in Syria without obtaining the required US Commerce Department licenses.
Harold Rinko (age 73 of Hallstead, PA) was indicted by a grand jury in November 2012 and admitted in court that he conspired to export the items from the US through third party countries to customers in Syria without an export license.
Moawea Deri remains at large and is considered a fugitive but will likely remain in Syria as extradition is unlikely to occur.
“This extradition demonstrates HSI’s commitment to use all its resources to prevent sensitive and restricted technology from being exported to Syria through the black market,” said HSI Philadelphia Special Agent in Charge John Kelleghan. “No good comes of illegal exports to Syria, especially during this time of gross misgovernment and civil strife. As the principal enforcer of export controls, HSI will continue to do everything in its power to ensure that sensitive technology doesn’t fall into the wrong hands in Syria. I applaud our colleagues at the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, along with our law enforcement counterparts in the United Kingdom. This coordinated effort helped us make this complex investigation a success.”
During his visit to Vietnam, President Obama announced that the US was lifting its long standing arms embargo on Vietnam. While this may not result in an immediate flood of US weapons to Vietnam, it paves the way for US exporters and foreign companies who sell US military items to seek new, yet perhaps relatively modest, business opportunities in Vietnam.
On May 23, 2016, the Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls announced is it ending its policy prohibiting the sale or transfer of lethal weapons to Vietnam. DDTC said it will review on case-by-case basis applications for licenses to export or temporarily import defense articles and defense services to or from Vietnam under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). DDTC will soon publish a rule in the Federal Register to implement a conforming change to ITAR §126.1.
While the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has not yet officially announced it will make corresponding changes to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to remove the EAR/ ITAR-lite arms embargo on Vietnam, it is reasonable to assume that BIS will do so in approximately the same “soon” timeframe as DDTC’s ITAR change.
“The decision to lift the ban was not based on China… but on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process moving towards normalization with Vietnam,” Obama said at a joint press conference alongside his Vietnamese counterpart President Tran Dai Quang. A casual observer like me, however, cannot help but think that to a certain extent this US action is intended to send a clear symbolic, and perhaps tangible, signal to China in response to China’s recent empire expanding actions in the South China Sea including, for example, building a military air base on the Spratly Islands, which most of the world do not recognize to be Chinese territory.
Vietnam’s economy has been growing at an impressive rate compared to other countries in the region in recent years as it has begun to be a low cost manufacturing source that is taking some manufacturing opportunities away from China as Chinese manufacturing costs increase. According to the latest CIA statistics, Vietnam has the 36th highest GDP in the world and its industrial production growth rate of 7.5% is the 15th highest in the world. This is not to say that Vietnam soon will be cranking out a high volume of low cost ITAR and EAR controlled military parts as it becomes a regional military manufacturing powerhouse. It is unlikely that the US Government is prepared to approve the transfer of technology for the production of sophisticated military items to Vietnam anytime soon and equally unlikely that Vietnam has the capability to do so. Nonetheless, this shift in US-Vietnam economic relations removes the US arms embargo as a cloud hanging over trade between the two countries and is another step in improving US-Vietnam relations. Certainly too, some extent this enhances Vietnams status in the region.
On May 29, 2015, the Department of State revised the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to withdraw the previous policy of denying the export of defense articles and services to Fiji. Fiji’s acting government honored its longstanding pledge to hold democratic elections and the United States as well as 14 other countries have characterized these elections as being credible.
The Department of State has determined that it is in the best interest of US foreign policy, national security, and human rights concerns to lift the denial of exports of defense articles and services to Fiji.
In the January 29, 2015 Federal Register the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations to impose a comprehensive embargo on exports and reexports to, and transfers inside, “the Crimea region of Ukraine (CRU”). The EAR now requires a license for all items destined to or moving inside CRU, except for medicine and food classified as EAR99.
In an unprecedented assault on a famous stereotypical hobby of Russians in Crimea and around the world, the EAR requires a license for exports and reexports to, and transfers inside, CRU of alcoholic beverages. The EAR definition of food that does not require a license explicitly excludes alcoholic beverages from the definition of food, thus extending the US embargo to apply to any kind of booze, in addition to machine tools, military aircraft parts, and teflon-lined valves.
The EAR defines CRU to include “the land territory in that region as well as any maritime area over which sovereignty, sovereign rights, or jurisdiction is claimed based on purported sovereignty over that land territory.”
In addition to the new license requirement, the EAR prohibits the use of license exceptions except when the new 746.6 specifically authorizes license exceptions. EAR 746.6(c) authorizes these license exceptions:
TMP for items for use by news media (including booze)
GOV for the US Government (but not to the other national governments typically GOV-eligible) , the International Atomic Energy Agency, or the European Atomic Energy Community (including booze)
GFT for gift parcels and humanitarian donations (not including booze)
TSU for operation technology and software (not including booze, but including instructions on how to open and consume booze previously lawfully exported or reexported to, or transferred within, CRU)
BAG for exports by people leaving the United States (including booze, but BAG requires the items be for use by the traveler, so don’t get any ideas)
AVS for civil aircraft and vessels (not including booze)
While generally speaking the EAR has imposed a comprehensive embargo on CRU, there are important differences between the long-standing EAR embargoes on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria and the new embargo on CRU. For example, for CRU, there is a 25% US controlled content de minimis rule for foreign items with US content, compared to the 10% level for the long standing embargoed countries.
This new regulation partially implements the December 19, 2014 executive order in which President Obama targeted the Russian-occupied region of Ukraine, Crimea. In the first section of this order, Obama effectively shut down any trade or business relationship between the United States and Crimea, stating that imports, exports, new investments—any kind of business transaction—between the U.S. and Crimea is strictly prohibited. Likewise, the president froze all U.S. assets of entities operating in the Crimea region or associated with individuals or entities in that region. As an extra measure of precaution, Obama also prohibits these entities from entering the United States.
Red Bull might give you wings, but that doesn’t mean you should fly (without a license). The energy drink company Red Bull North America, Inc. has agreed to settle with OFAC for $89,775 over its alleged seven violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations. Specifically, the company violated 31 C.F.R. part 515 of the CACR when it authorized seven Red Bull representatives to travel to Cuba in order to film a documentary between the dates of June 8 and June 18, 2009.
While the maximum penalty in this instance is $455,000, the base penalty is $105,000, and OFAC chose even to significantly reduce that fine despite the facts that:
Red Bull did not disclose its violations
Red Bull had prior knowledge of U.S. sanctions on Cuba and took steps to conceal the transactions
Red Bull is a U.S. subsidiary of a sophisticated multinational company with extensive experience in international trade (in other words, “you should have known better!”)
And considering the facts that:
The case was deemed non-egregious
Red Bull had not committed a violation in the five years prior to the incident
Red Bull immediately took remedial action in implementing an OFAC compliance program
Red Bull’s mishap acts as a forceful reminder that “export” applies to many more situations than a clear cut shipment of an item and that companywide training is essential for your protection. Marketing, in this case, and many other seemingly unrelated departments often perform or are involved in some form of exporting. Be sure to arm them with at least a high level awareness of the compliance risks they face.
The French bank BNP Paribas SA has agreed to pay $8.97 billion for its (get ready for this number) 3,897 apparent violations of the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations, Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, Cuban Assets Control Regulations and Burmese Sanction Regulations, a record breaking penalty for American sanctions violations. The enormity and global nature of the case prompted collaboration between OFAC, the U.S. Department of Justice, the New York County District Attorney’s Office, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Department of Financial Services of the State of New York in the process of investigating BNPP’s violations and arriving at an appropriate consequence.
For a number of years prior to and including 2012, BNPP processed—and concealed—thousands of transactions to or through U.S. financial institutions involving parties subject to the aforementioned sanctions programs. In executing these illegal transactions, BNPP concealed, removed, omitted or obscured references to the sanctioned parties in related paperwork.
Specifically, between the dates of September 6, 2005 and July 24, 2009, BNPP processed 2,663 wire transfers totaling approximately $8,370,372,624 involving Sudanese entities, 318 wire transfers with a total value of $1,182,075,543 involving Iranian entities between July 15, 2005 and November 27, 2012, seven wire transfers for Burmese parties (totaling $1,478,371) between November 3, 2005 and sometime in May 2009 and 909 Cuba-related wire transfers between July 18, 2005 and September 10, 2012 with a total value of $689,237,183. The severity of the fine and year-long ban from conducting certain U.S. dollar transactions is a clear message to other financial institutions that might not take U.S. sanctions seriously.
OFAC claims that the settlement amount reflects the following factors:
BNPP had knowledge that its conduct might have violated U.S. law
At least one member of BNPP senior management and multiple supervisors were aware of the company’s illegal conduct
The violations are numerous and span many years
The illegal transactions were large monetary transfers
BNPP had not received a violation notice in the five years leading up to the settlement
BNPP cooperated with OFAC’s investigation
BNPP has taken remedial action to prevent further U.S. sanctions violations | {
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Search form
Wall of Separation
The Catholic bishops are very clear about one thing: They want your tax money for their schools with no strings attached.
Supporters of private school “choice” – by which they mean their right to choose to pass the bill for private religious education to the taxpayer – believe they are on a roll. To some extent, they’re right.
In March, Indiana’s Supreme Court ruled that the state’s voucher plan doesn’t violate a provision in the Indiana Constitution that bars tax aid to religion. In the wake of that ruling, legislators promptly approved an expansion of the program.
Several states are considering voucher programs and some are experimenting with so-called “neo-vouchers” – convoluted schemes whereby corporations donate money to non-profits that grant “scholarships” (vouchers) to students and then receive most of that money back in the form of a tax credit. (Americans United is challenging a plan like that in the New Hampshire courts.) Various other schemes to divert tax funds to religious schools have been proposed in other states.
“We’ve never had so much wind at our back,” John Schoenig, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Program for Educational Access, told Catholic News Service recently.
A couple of things struck me about this story. Number one, Schoenig notes that there are “400,000 empty seats in Catholic schools nationwide and approximately 36 percent (of them) are in states that have a school-choice program.” He adds that a number of Catholic schools have had to close recently, and this has spurred some people to look for creative ways to keep them open.
So, just to be clear here: In some states that have choice plans, some Catholic schools still suffer from under-enrollment. Why is this so? Perhaps because even some Catholic parents don’t want to send their children to those schools. It seems that what the church wants here is not “choice” but a taxpayer-funded bailout of a school system that even many of its members no longer wish to patronize.
Why aren’t parents knocking down the doors of Catholic schools? Some may not want to expose their children to an education infused with dogma, and often, a hefty dose of right-wing politics on issues such as birth control, abortion and LGBT rights.
But more to the point, many parents are waking up to the fact that private school tuition is often a waste of money. As Time magazine noted a few years ago, a rigorous study by the Center on Education Policy concluded that socio-economic factors are more important than where a young person goes to school.
Center President Jack Jennings observed, “Contrary to popular belief, we can find no evidence that private schools actually increase student performance. Instead, it appears that private schools simply have higher percentages of students who would perform well in any environment based on their previous performance and background.”
Even with a voucher in hand, most families have to pay something to cover the costs of private institutions. With the cost of higher education skyrocketing, many parents would rather save those dollars and plow them into a college fund.
Secondly, the Catholic News Service story is quite frank in noting how the Catholic hierarchy used euphemisms like “parental choice” and other warm and fuzzy terms to change the debate. Sister John Mary Fleming, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Catholic Education, said that church leaders also framed the matter in terms of social justice.
Church officials almost never say the word “vouchers.” They know that concept does not poll well, and they are aware that every time Americans get the opportunity to vote directly on vouchers through a ballot initiative, they reject the idea. The bishops’ use of less-threatening terms is an important part of their strategy.
Finally, the bishops are very clear about one thing: They want your money with no strings attached. Sister John Mary told Catholic News Service that the bishops often lobby for vouchers but do so with “their eyes open” and are careful to make certain that legislation does not result in government “reaching into Catholic education.”
So, in the perfect world of the Catholic hierarchy, they get to saturate their schools with religion, they get to decide who teaches there, they get the “choice” about who gets in, they get to force all of us to prop up their flagging network of private schools – and they don’t have to worry about the bill.
It’s a sweet deal for them. Will it last? Maybe not. Education Week reported recently that the U.S. Justice Department has warned several private schools taking part in Milwaukee’s long-running voucher plan that they may not discriminate against students with disabilities. The department took action after advocates for the disabled noted that only 1.6 percent of voucher students have disabilities, while 20 percent of public school students are classified as having disabilities.
According to Education Week, the advocacy groups in Wisconsin charged that students with even minor disabilities were refused admission to voucher schools or, if they were admitted, were later expelled.
The Milwaukee voucher program is 22 years old, and this is the first serious attempt at regulation I’ve seen from federal officials. It’s a small step, but let’s hope it won’t be the last.
The fact that religious schools are getting our tax money to teach sectarian doctrines (and often controversial political views as well) is bad enough. That they’ve been able to do it without submitting to even the barest forms of oversight from the public that they demand pay their bills is nothing short of a disgrace. | {
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Christopher VanKirk
Police in Ellwood City have stopped what they believe may have been a plot to put explosives in Lincoln High School. Students at the school found the alleged threats on a 16-year-old sophomore’s Facebook page. | {
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Header$type=social_icons
Porto - Casa dos Loios
During our stay in Porto, we ensconced ourselves in a room at Casa dos Loios, a centrally located boutique guesthouse.
We were shown to a sizable room with hardwood floors and colorful bedding.
Colorful and modern artwork adorned the walls.
The building maintained many original features like this hard wood ceiling.
Stern looking family photos hung in the hallways.
The breakfast buffet was ample and offered plenty of options to fuel our day. Homemade apple cake was a favorite of the guests.
We ate our breakfast in a sunny courtyard.
Flowering cacti added a touch of color to the scene.
Fresh squeezed orange juice accompanied the meal.
I felt like calling everyone I know on this antique telephone to tell them how nice Casa dos Lois is. We did have one funny 'accident' though which I thought I'd share. The water pressure in the shower is incredibly strong and I learned this the hard way. I was laying on the bed in the room reading a book when all of a sudden I was doused with water! Turns out that my husband accidentally bumped up the water pressure to it's highest setting which caused the shower head to move and send water spraying in an arc clear across the room. We were able to turn the water down again quickly so not too much damage was done - just a watermark that faded over time emblazoned on the ceiling and the far wall of the room. So unexpected! | {
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Tag Archives: reading
Summer is coming up and for many people that is the prime season for binge watching TV series they missed during the year. But television isn’t the only media that is ripe for binging. Binge reading is a perennial favorite especially during rainy summer weekends when the beach is sodden and hiking trails are muddy.
Some people define binge reading as reading a book obsessively and not putting it down until you’ve finished it, whether that is 2 a.m. or sunrise. But equally satisfying is the binge reading done in bits and pieces but covering a whole series of books, usually genre books like mysteries, romances or science fiction. I remember one stressful holiday season when I gulped down one Ruth Galloway mystery after another, relishing the excuse to leave my crowded household for the north shore of England filled with mysteries about archeology and with patient sleuths. (In case you’ve never read them, the Ruth Galloway mysteries are by Elly Griffiths).
Binge reading can be by subject too. I remember spending a snowy Christmas week, stuck in the house with small children, reading one book after another about Renaissance Italy. It was almost like having a vacation.
Binge reading could be difficult in the old days when ending one book and feeling the urgent need for another meant a trip to the library or possibly even a bookstore if one was available. Now with ebooks, it takes only a few clicks to have the next book in the series delivered electronically from your public library or ebook supplier.
Most readers don’t think about the people who supply the books for us to read, but the enthusiasm for series books to read has put a lot of strain on writers. In the days before the indie publishing revolution—five years ago or more—there was usually a wait of two or three years between books. Traditional publishing is a time-consuming business. Now, if you look at writing blogs, you will see writers complaining that their publishers want at least two books a year from their series of mysteries or romances. It’s not easy for a writer to come up with several new ideas for books every year. As a result, a sparkling series may dwindle away as old plot twists are reused and irrelevant padding dragged into the story. It can be as sad to see a good, lively book series die away as it is to watch a TV series wither in its final season. It is much better for writers and publishers to aim for “limited series” as the TV shows are now doing. A quartet of lively books using the same characters and setting is better than a dozen books of repetitious stories.
On the other hand, some writers could be called binge writers. They keep turning out books and finding an audience year after year after year. One of these was Barbara
Barbara Cartland
Cartland, who wrote more than 700 books in her 80-year-long career before her death in 2000. And her fans kept on loving them. Another was Isaac Asimov, who wrote more than 500 books both science fiction and non-fiction. He contributed so much to our culture that he deserves a separate post.
There should be a special award for binge writers whose energy and ideas feed our need for more stories to feed our passion.
This year has been a disappointment for so many people and a disaster for some. Almost all the notes written on holiday cards from friends include some reference to being shocked and depressed by the election results last month. We are all wondering what the spring and summer will bring.
At a time like this it is a relief to take refuge in some of the books I have loved since childhood. I remember a poem by Oliver Herford that I read many years ago:
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
“We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,”
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
That poem was in a book called More Silver Pennies that my mother bought in a second-hand bookstore. It has echoed in my head every January for years.
When I was growing up, my friends and I had access to many poems that we read and reread. As a preteen I remember finding a book of Dorothy Parker’s poems at the home of one of my Girl Scout leaders. My best friend and I used to giggle over Parker’s verses when the scout meetings seemed long. We especially liked this one:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
That struck us as the most sophisticated and witty language we had ever heard. Parker gave us a glimpse of the glittering world of Manhattan just across the river from the quiet streets of Queens. We both decided that someday we would live in that world.
I know that school children today are encouraged to write their own poetry and express their feelings, but I hope they are also reading other people’s poetry. Poems, especially the old-fashioned kind that have rhythm and rhyme, linger in the mind and can be a lifelong pleasure.
Another favorite poet of my childhood was, of course, Emily Dickinson. Her works were everywhere—in schools and libraries . Teachers read them to us and we recited them back in class during Friday afternoon poetry sessions. Some of them are still with me.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
At the end of this long and trying year, I am grateful I grew up with poetry. I hope children today are doing the same. Hope remains. Let’s all keep it in our hearts during the year ahead. | {
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Torrent Files
Crrow777 Radio - Episode 010 - Windows 10 the operating system that is a virus loaded on you without permission June 3, 2016 (Size: 55.6 MB)
Crrow777 Radio - Episode 010 - Windows 10 the operating system that is a virus loaded on you without permission June 3, 2016
55.6 MB
Torrent Description
Crrow777 Radio - Episode 010 - Windows 10 the operating system that is a virus loaded on you without permission June 3, 2016.mp3 - 2h 1min 30s 64.0 kb/s
The Windows 10 operation system is openly collecting more data than ever before and is modeled on what is already being done to Mac users. The Windows 10 downloader was hidden in critical updates and followed by the operating system which is now downloading into computers without consent or permission from many users. This operating system skips OS #9 – there is a reason and OS 10 is a milestone in the complete decimation of our privacy and rights.
Crrow777 Radio - Episode 010 - Windows 10 the operating system that is a virus loaded on you without permission June 3, 2016 2018-12-14 23:48:02 in Other. Verified. 1.75 GBdde876e177a3e0ee84a0eae5097e37b8b6a5550e | {
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Gin Blossoms have been synonymous with catchy melodies and jangle pop ever since they broke into the mainstream with their 1992 sophomore album, New Miserable Experience.
The record went on to sell more than four million copies and made the band a mainstay of radio in the Nineties with singles like “Hey Jealousy,” “Allison Road,” “Until I Fall Away” and “Found Out About You.”
Gin Blossoms (their name was taken from a comical description of the rosacea eruptions on comedian W.C. Fields’ nose) continued their climb with 1996’s Congratulations…I’m Sorry but abruptly broke up in 1997, just as their brand of pop rock was falling out of fashion. In 2002, band members Robin Wilson (lead vocals/guitar), Jesse Valenzuela (vocals and guitar), Scott Johnson (guitar) and Bill Leen (bass) regrouped and continued to record and tour with a variety of drummers, performing as many as 120 shows a year.
Proving that their early success was no fluke, Gin Blossoms have enjoyed chart hits since reuniting. Their latest album, 2010’s No Chocolate Cake, shot straight to Number One on Amazon and reached Number 14 on Billboard’s Indie chart. It also landed them back on the singles chart with the album track “Miss Disarray.”
For 2013, Gin Blossoms will tour more than 100 cities around the globe, perform a five-artist rock cruise and possibly even record another new album. They are also partnering with Fretlight Guitars to give fans a chance to win an autographed Fretlight FG-421 guitar at several stops during their northeastern winter tour.
We caught up with Jesse Valenzuela to get his thoughts on the origin, music and future plans of Gin Blossoms.
GUITAR WORLD: How did Gin Blossoms get started?
It wasn’t something that happened overnight or that was done in any sort of dramatic fashion. It took some starts and stops before it actually became a band. We all grew up in the same college town and had been in different bands. We all knew each other and eventually just started playing together. Early on, it was me, Doug [Hopkins] and Bill [Leen], along with Richard Taylor and Chris McCann. [Hopkins, the band’s original lead guitarist and principal songwriter, committed suicide in 1993.] Rob [Wilson] came in about eight months later, after Richard left. Then Chris left the band and we got another drummer. So it was a busy first year.
When you think about the New Miserable Experience era, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
It was a pretty busy time, with a lot of TV and shows. We knew we had something special with the album and did a lot of traveling. But it also went by very quickly. You’re a pop star for about 11 months or so, and then it turns into regular musician work.
Your latest album, No Chocolate Cake, has an interesting cover [an image of a woman holding a piece of chocolate cake behind her back]. What’s the story behind it?
That was a record company decision. We were hoping it was going to be just a big chocolate cake [the album’s title essentially means “you don’t get desert”], but they ignored what we wanted and did the whole Loverboy Get Lucky artwork themselves. I remember the first time we saw it, we were all just aghast! [laughs]. But at the same time, it doesn’t really bother me because there’s very little interest in record covers right now.
One of the strongest tracks from the record is “I Don’t Want to Lose You Now.” How did that song come about?
I wrote that song in Nashville with the Warren Brothers and my friend Danny. I travel down there a few times a year to write. The changes on the song are pretty classic, so it invites those traditional, tight harmonies.
Even 20 years on, Gin Blossoms haven’t lost the distinctive sound and infectious groove that made New Miserable Experience such a hit.
That sometimes can be a double-edged sword because some may say that it’s not in vogue anymore. But it’s the music we make. We’ve found a way to create a very recognizable sound and try to respect it. It’s as simple as that.
What are you most looking forward to for 2013?
We’re starting a three-week tour to coincide with some more shows throughout the rest of the year. I’m looking forward to it. We’ll be playing some smaller theaters, where we can be a little more intimate with the crowd. In March, we’re also looking to book some studio time to cut a few things, and we’ll see what goes from there.
James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood. | {
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Republicans turn up heat on Whitewater
March 07, 1994
WASHINGTON -- Republicans are turning up the heat on the Whitewater affair by raising the specter of another Watergate. Top administration officials stressed today that they are cooperating with investigators.
"We could have done things a lot better here at the White House," senior presidential adviser George Stephanopoulos acknowledged today. But, he said, "I would point out as well that we have been fully cooperating with the special counsel in every way."
The White House, facing heightened scrutiny from Congress, a special prosecutor and the press, tried to put the best face on the matter.
"The best we can do is push ahead," Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said.
She said the administration will "continue to do whatever we can to cooperate with the inquiries."
Ms. Myers said the White House counsel's office was issuing a memorandum today instructing the staff how to provide a special prosecutor with subpoenaed paperwork regarding three briefings White House officials received on a confidential government inquiry into the Whitewater affair. News of the briefings stoked the most recent controversy and led to the resignation of Bernard Nussbaum as White House general counsel.
The staff was told Friday not to destroy any paperwork or computer tapes, leaving garbage overflowing in trash cans today.
"The first run of the instructions were to destroy nothing, remove nothing -- don't take out your trash. Now that everybody's back . . . people will be instructed today to start collecting their documents and hand them over," Ms. Myers said.
She said Mr. Clinton will move quickly to replace Mr. Nussbaum, who resigned Saturday under fire, but will remain on the job until next month.
Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the House Banking Committee, appearing with Mr. Stephanopoulos on NBC, warned that "unless this White House operates with a greater sense of the law . . . it is going to find itself in far worse shape than it has any reason to be."
"There is still no credible allegation of wrongdoing by anyone in the administration," Vice President Al Gore said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
He said mistakes have been made in White House responses to the investigation into a failed Arkansas savings and loan tied to the Clintons and their Whitewater land venture. But "the handling of it from this moment forward is going to be absolutely dead on in following the absolute highest ethical standards."
In another Whitewater report today, the Washington Times said that during the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton summoned couriers from the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock to the Arkansas executive mansion, where she gave them records to be shredded.
The Times quoted three current or former Rose employees as saying the shredding began after the New York Times reported on the involvement of the Clintons in the Whitewater Development Corp. The Washington Times quoted one source as saying more than a dozen boxes of documents were destroyed, but the newspaper said the nature of the records was not clear.
Ms. Myers declined comment on the report.
Yesterday, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., said more recent alleged attempts to conceal information were "the acts of a desperate White House." He said White House actions "went well beyond what [then-President] Nixon did in terms of a cover-up" in the Watergate break-in.
JTC Ms. Myers bristled at the comparison, "I think it's unseemly that Republicans are trying to use this to their political advantage."
Mr. Leach, appearing on NBC today, downplayed any idea of impeachment, saying, "I think it would be very inappropriate to put forth the notion that the presidency is in jeopardy." | {
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Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Puppet Tutorial
I'm very proud today to introduce a super talented guest blogger, Alexandra from Kinderpendent. Alex is always inspiring me with her creative masterpieces and flare for imaginative design. It should come as no surprise that when I mentioned this weeks The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme to Alexandra that she quickly crafted together this amazing tutorial. I LOVE IT!! Thanks so much Alex!!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Puppet Tutorial
Materials:
yarn (greens, blues, yellow) & crochet hook (or you can use a long sock to bypass this part)
felt pieces (red and brown)
needle + thread
*crochet tutorial for the base (if you're using a sock, skip the crochet tutorials)
1. chain 4, join the ring with a slip stitch
2. chain 3, 3 double chains in each stitch around (12 DC), end round with a slip stitch
3. chain 3, 2 double chains in each stitch around (24 DC), end round with a slip stitch
4. chain 3, double chain in each stitch around (24 DC), end round with a slip stitch | {
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BioShock: The Collection Review – Rapture & Columbia Never Looked So Good
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BioShock: The Collection Review
Within a seven year period, the BioShock franchise expanded into three games with additional story-driven DLCs. The franchise portrays numerous themes, but if there’s one thing that’s uniform throughout is the underlying backdrop of a dark, creepy, and corrupted approach to human society. Mix in a bit of the psychotic mess related to power, dominance, and control and you get the gist of what BioShock leaves you dealing with (and feeling). During the experience, you’ll form bonds with characters you meet and marvel at the mysterious and beautiful cities of Rapture and Columbia. Thankfully, everything you need to venture through them is all in one package and remastered for modern consoles.
Given that this package includes three full games, I’ll be covering each game in their own respective section and discussing their features, improvements, and any changes present. Let’s get started shall we?
BioShock
The first BioShock game is where it all began back in 2007. Playing as Jack, your plane crashes into the ocean near a lighthouse that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Once you arrive at Rapture, you learn about the city’s once utopian construction, its progressive corruption, and eventual dystopian setting. Guided by a mere radio, you’ll slowly unravel the mysteries behind Rapture and your personal role in it.
First thing you’ll notice in this collection is that the first BioShock game had the most work done to it. The lighting, textures, shadowing, and overall clarity are noticeably improved. In addition, the framerate is stable making the game run as smooth as butter. It’s like seeing Rapture with new eyes. However, character models standout from the environment due to their last-gen makeup and less attention to remaster. Regardless, the first BioShock game’s remaster job is definitely appreciated and fits well on modern consoles. It’s beautiful without a doubt.
Gameplay stayed the same with the dated clunky controls still present, but it adds to the difficulty and sort-of realism to the game. Let’s just say, juggling between a plasmid and a weapon has never felt so intense or terrifying. Nevertheless, dated gameplay with modern visuals somehow goes hand-in-hand here and does oh so well.
For the DLC, Museum of Orphaned Concepts as well as the Challenge Rooms is included. The highlight and new addition for the collection is the Director’s Commentary: Imagining BioShock segment. It’s not unlocked for you right from the get-go though; you’ll have to venture through Rapture to find the Golden Reels scattered around to unlock each episode. It’s a fun new addition for returning players and an interactive way to understand how BioShock came to be from Creative Director Ken Levine and Lead Animator Shawn Robertson.
BioShock 2
In BioShock 2, you play as a Big Daddy 10 years after the events of the first BioShock game. Originally released in 2010, it allows players to experience Rapture from a different perspective – through the eyes of the beings you feared for as Jack in the first BioShock game. It’s an extremely neat approach for the second game in the franchise that allows you to understand the city of Rapture as a whole.
Unfortunately, you’ll see a remaster decline here as it’s not as well attended to as the first Bioshock game. Nonetheless, it’s still noticeably better than its original release. Just like the first game, the lighting, textures, and shadowing are improved making the game visually sharper and polished.
___________________________
“Unfortunately, you’ll see a remaster decline here as it’s not as well attended to as the first Bioshock game.”
Gameplay stays the same from the original release, but isn’t as clunky as the first BioShock game. Now being able to dual-wield, using a plasmid or weapon is easier and ultimately more efficient. However, being a chunky Big Daddy versus nimble Jack is pretty different in terms of movement and actions. But that’s part of the whole “different perspective” approach to the franchise that either did wonders for some or the opposite for others.
In terms of content outside of the main game, it’s important to note that the multiplayer portion of the game, BioShock 2: Fall of Rapture, is not included in this remaster collection. While it was a fun little mode to play a couple of years ago, it’s understandable that it didn’t make it into the collection. The work and effort needed to be put into it may not be worth the time as other modern multiplayer games would be favoured over this one. DLC that is included are Minerva’s Den and Protector Trials that shines light on yet another aspect of Rapture as you take control of a different Big Daddy.
BioShock Infinite
Lastly, we have 2013’s BioShock Infinite. Having Columbia, the completely new city to venture through, it’s nearly the complete opposite of Rapture. Being in the Sky instead of underwater as well as bright and colourful instead of dark and worn-down, it’s yet another side of the world of BioShock. Playing as Booker Dewitt, you’re left at a lighthouse (yes, the same one the Jack used to go to Rapture) and told by a man & woman to “bring us the girl and wipe away the debt”. From there, Booker is rocketed into the sky to the floating city of Columbia. While BioShock Infinite is the latest iteration in the BioShock franchise, story-wise the events actually occur before the first and second BioShock games in 1912 as opposed to after 1960. However, you’ll get the most out of the franchise by playing them through their order of release (trust me on this).
The remaster for Infinite mirrors the PC version of the game (which did not get a remaster for BioShock: The Collection on PC). Thus, the game on consoles is much like a PC port of the game. Regardless, in comparison to last gen, Infinite still looks much better. Improved textures make it look visually crisper, smoother, and collected. While I’ve encountered some framerate stutters, it doesn’t severely ruin the experience.
Given that Infinite is the most recent installment in the franchise, gameplay is much more modern and easier to get accustomed to. It’s taken the best of the last two games’ mechanics with dual-wielding and all, but also added the new Sky-Hook. Ultimately, the Sky-Hook allowed a new way to jump from place to place allowing players to traverse the skies through Freight Hooks and Sky-Lines. In addition, the Sky-Hook also granted players a new melee weapon to execute enemies with.
DLC included for the game are Clash in the Clouds, Columbia’s Finest Pack, and Burial at Sea episodes 1 & 2. The real treat here is the Burial at Sea segment that transports players to Rapture with Booker and Elizabeth. For players who have played BioShock and BioShock 2, Burial at Sea wraps the franchise in a fairly nice package and pays homage to its roots. It also may invoke players who haven’t played the first two BioShock games to do so due to the beautiful depiction of Rapture.
BioShock: The Collection does a superb job making the three BioShock games and their respective DLC shine and appreciated on modern consoles. It’s an exceptional all-in-one package for those who have been considering jumping into the franchise. While it’s unfortunate that there’s a noticeable decline in the remaster job after the first Bioshock game, it’s still greatly improved from their original releases. For returning fans, BioShock: The Collection only really offers the Director’s Commentary as new content, but if you’re in the mood to relive your moments in Rapture or Columbia, this is without a doubt the definitive versions of the games and best way to do so. | {
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Asian Food Etiquette — Eating, Drinking and Dining Etiquette
Asian food etiquette isn’t rocket science. So why do so many travellers in Asia get it so wrong? So you don’t become one of them, here’s our guide to Asian food etiquette, whether you’re eating on the street, drinking with local friends, or dining out.
We all want to be welcomed when we travel — especially around the dinner table. Nobody wants to make social blunders when it comes to eating. Should we accept another glass of tea? Is it impolite to leave food on our plate? What should I do with these chopsticks when I’m done?
We definitely see travellers behaving less offensively when it comes to eating than they do with how they dress, but we cover so much food here that we thought we’d share some advice from the experts when it comes to Asian food etiquette and how to conduct yourself when eating, drinking and dining in the region.
Asian Food Etiquette — Eating, Drinking and Dining Etiquette
I consulted food experts from across Asia — from chefs to food tour guides — on how travellers should behave when it comes to eating in Asia, from visiting an Asian home to dining out in Asian restaurants. You can read advice from some of the same experts on greetings, gestures, and good manners here in my previous post.
Asian Food Etiquette — Receiving an Invitation
For many travellers, an invitation to dine at a local’s home can be the highlight of a trip, especially in South East Asia where the cuisines are so diverse and delicious. Often invitations to eat with locals don’t come in advance but happen by chance. Glance at a family eating together on the ground floor of their shop-house and they might call out to you to join them. A friendly conversation in the street can often lead to a spontaneous invitation to dine.
“Cambodians will always offer people drinks such as water, tea or juice, and sometimes food,” Sambo Pat, chief concierge at Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor, Siem Reap told me. “To honor the host, the offer should always be accepted, even if the guest just takes a sip or small bite.”
“Never turn down food or a drink offered when visiting someone’s home in Bhutan,” advised Choden Dorjee, an executive at Amankora resort in Bhutan. “Even if you don’t eat or drink, simply accept the gesture and say thank you.”
“If you visit a Vietnamese family when they are having a meal, they will invite you to join them,” warned Tran Hoang Viet, guest relations manager at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay. “One of the family members will stand up and get a bowl and chopsticks for you, before you have even accepted. To be polite, you shouldn’t refuse.”
Asian Food Etiquette — Visiting an Asian Home
If travellers receive a meal invitation in advance and have some warning, how should you prepare, what should they wear, and should they take a gift, I asked the experts.
“Firstly, when visiting a Vietnamese family for a meal, be prepared to sit on the floor. Women guests should bear this in mind when dressing for the occasion. Shoes are generally taken off at the door,” explained Tu Van Cong, a food writer, guide, and owner of Street Food Tours Hanoi. “A small gift of fruit, flowers or a bottle of wine for the host would be appreciated but a big fuss won’t be made.”
Pauline Lee, who runs Simply Enak food tours in Kuala Lumpur, said that in Malaysia it’s also considered good manners to take a gift. “If you’re not sure what to bring the safe choice is always a basket of fruit,” she suggested.
“In Bhutan, bringing along a gift, even something small, some food or a textile, is always appreciated,” said Choden Dorjee. “And removing one’s shoes is respectful and a necessity.”
Keep in mind that there are some things that aren’t welcome. “If you’re thinking about taking a gift, don’t give handkerchiefs, a mirror or a comb, as they signify a funeral and separation,” warned Nguyen Huong Thuy, a manager at Evason Ana Mandara Nha Trang resort, Vietnam.
“And if you wear shorts, they’ll think you don’t respect them. Don’t wear black clothes, which are thought to bring bad luck. Red or yellow, on the other hand, signify happiness and luck.”
“If you’re invited into the home of a Malaysian, you’ll be expected to remove your shoes. Malaysians remove shoes to keep the house free from dirt,” explained Bhaskaran Kessavan, concierge of the Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur. “A tip: look to see if there are shoes outside the front door to know what to do!”
Asian Food Etiquette — Greeting and Seating
Once you’re at someone’s home, what next, I asked?
“In formal or semi-formal situations, it’s better to wait for the hosts to make the introductions,” advised Pitak Srisawat, chief concierge at the Four Seasons Bangkok. “Self-introductions are rare in Thailand.”
In Malaysia, it’s important to make an effort to show courtesy to more mature hosts, according to Pauline Lee. “If your hosts are older men and women, addressing them as ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’ is considered polite,” she said.
Showing respect for older hosts is essential in Vietnam too, although Tran Hoang Viet warned travellers not to get too familiar. “In Vietnam culture, young people cannot hug elderly people, even in a family. Young people greet elders by folding their arms in front of their chest (and clasping their hands as if in prayer), and stooping down respectfully. Also, if an elderly person gives you something, you must receive it with two hands and stoop down. Saying thank you is a must.”
Similar customs exist in Cambodia. “When invited to the dining table wait to be told where to sit as you would not want to upset any hierarchical arrangements,” advised Sambo Pat. “The oldest person is usually seated first and should start eating before others. Do not begin eating until the eldest diner does.”
What if travellers are taking a photo to remember the occasion? “When standing or posing for a picture with an older person, a younger person should never put his or her hand on or arm around an elder’s shoulder,” Pat warned. “It’s considered very rude.”
Asian Food Etiquette — Eating and Drinking Etiquette
Once seated around the Asian dinner table — which may be the floor in some situations — respect for elders continues although guests are also valued.
“In Vietnam, eating generally wouldn’t start until all guests have arrived. Usually younger people will wait for older people or guests of honour to start eating or the host will invite guests to start,” said Tu Van Cong. “It’s typical for younger folks to put food into the bowls of guests and older people.”
“You shouldn’t reach for the meat first,” advised long-term Hanoi resident and cookbook writer Daniel Hoyer, who runs Eating Vietnam food tours. “It’s more polite to take vegetables first and don’t take too much of the nicest things. If your hosts want you to eat more, they’ll offer you more.”
“A host will usually continue to offer you food as a show of hospitality in Malaysia,” explained Pauline Lee. “It’s okay to decline when you’ve had enough, but try to stay polite — a smile always does wonders.”
“Meals for occasions will start with a toast before people start eating. Toasts are very common during Vietnamese meals so expect to say cheers many times for many reasons,” warned Tu Van Cong. “The meals are generally lively with banter and can involve lots of drinking, particularly amongst males. Be aware that rice wine is strong, so be assured that when you empty your glass it will continue to be filled. The same goes for food.”
Tran Hoang Viet offered advice on how to drink rice wine: “The traditional way is that everyone at the same table shares one small cup of wine, then one by one (the eldest first), drinks the cup and then refills it for the next person. Asking for a personal cup when everyone is sharing is very impolite.”
Asian Food Etiquette — The Art of Drinking Tea
Tea is often offered in Asian homes instead of alcohol, before, during, or after a meal. Grant Thatcher, the publishing editor of Luxe Guides, who has lived in Hong Kong for 16 years, said that because tea drinking is such an important part of the local culture it’s essential for visitors to understand the etiquette.
“When visiting a Chinese home, the host will pour the tea for you and present you with your cup in both hands. Receive the cup with both your hands and sip the tea before putting it down,” Thatcher explained.
“If you’re at a restaurant with a large table of people and the tea pot is near you, always serve those who you can reach comfortably before helping yourself, and hold your hand over the lid to prevent it falling off,” he suggested. “Never place the lid on the table as this is considered rude and unclean.”
“If someone else is serving you tea, tap the table two or three times as a gesture of thanks. It’s polite to tap the table with two fingers to thank someone for pouring tea, as two fingers symbolise your two knees so it’s a gesture of deference,” Thatcher explained.
Asian Food Etiquette — Chopsticks, Forks or Spoons?
Determining when it’s appropriate to use chopsticks, forks or spoons can be challenging for some travellers, even other Asians, as each country has different customs.
“In Thailand, chopsticks aren’t used everywhere or for all dishes. We typically use a fork and spoon to eat most dishes and the spoon is the primary utensil where the food is pushed onto the spoon by the fork,” explained Thai chef Ian Kittichai. “Traditionally, we only use chopsticks to eat noodle dishes, as noodles were brought to Thailand by the Chinese — as were chopsticks. Nowadays, we also use chopsticks to eat Japanese food, as that’s how the Japanese eat.”
“All dining in Vietnamese homes is communal so dishes are placed in the centre and people generally serve themselves with their own chopsticks,” said Tu Van Cong. “Sometimes hosts will use the handle end of the chopsticks to put food in a guest’s bowl.”
“Vietnamese will eat a meal using their own bowl and chopsticks, yet the spoon will be shared,” Tran Hoang Viet elaborated. “When you finish, don’t put the chopsticks on the table, but on the bowl. In a home, the wife or first child will be in charge of serving rice and you should accept at least two bowls of rice before saying “I’m full”.”
“In Malay culture, the traditional way of eating food is with your hands — an enjoyable way to eat a meal but do make sure you wash your hands before eating,” advised Pauline Lee. “And only scoop food with your right hand, as the left hand is considered dirty.”
“Usually chopsticks or other utensils are provided to scoop the food into your bowl to prevent your own chopsticks from touching the food that remains on the table,” Lee elaborated. “A tip: never leave your chopsticks standing upright in a bowl of rice, as this resembles sticks of incense used as offerings to the deceased. Playing with chopsticks is also considered bad manners.”
Asian Food Etiquette — Who Pays the Bill
What’s acceptable behaviour when you can’t eat anymore or need to be on your way? What next?
“To indicate that you’re full, it’s best to leave something in your bowl so as to show it, otherwise food will continue to be offered or put in your bowl,” explained Tu Van Cong. “Leaving food on the plate is not considered rude.”
Who picks up the bill if you’ve shared a meal on the streets or in a restaurant?
“The person who invites will pay,” advised Tu Van Cong. “Splitting the bill is not common, especially not when an occasion is being celebrated.”
Daniel Hoyer elaborated: “You can offer to pay, but your offer may be rejected. A reciprocal invitation is a polite way to return the favor when the host pays for you.”
“In Thailand, it’s not uncommon for wealthier friends to pay the bill for drinks or dinner,” said Pitak Srisawat, adding: “While Thai customs may seem conservative to Westerners, Thai people are generally relaxed and easygoing and will rarely take offense if a foreigner fails to follow Thai etiquette.”
Tun Van Cong agreed. “Dining in Vietnam is fairly casual with not too many rules. Usually visitors to Vietnamese houses are treated as guests of honour and if they’re foreigners they’re not expected to know any of the etiquette involved.”
Vietnam Visa on Arrival
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A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, The Guardian, National Geographic Traveller, Wanderlust, Get Lost, Travel+Leisure Asia, DestinAsian, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored some 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.
16 Comments
An excellent guide to Asian etiquette, Lara. Having grown up in Malaysia, I can relate to it. May I add that when dining out in a restaurant, the issue of who pays is huge. In Malaysia, it’s considered impolite not to fight for the bill. At the very least, you need to put up a good show of pretending to want to pay.
Asian culture is so vastly different to that of the west and I’ve been finding that out in Korea. Many customs exist that are so different such as you can never pour your own drink it has to be poured (usually by the youngest member) by someone else.
Also when pouring the drink you must hold the container with two hands and the person whose cup you’re pouring into must hold the cup with two hands.
Of course there are many other rules but this I find the most different.
I’ve always liked the custom of using two hands in Asian countries, when presenting business cards for instance. It signifies seriousness and respect, that you’re giving that person the attention they deserve during that moment. Nice.
Thanks for these additional observations – they’ll be helpful to readers. And thanks for dropping by 🙂
Hi Andy – exactly. Fortunately, with the abundance of information out there, it doesn’t take much research to find out what those cultural norms and local customs are. But sadly most young backpackers either don’t care to find out or simply don’t care to respect them.
Great tips… We’ve found there’s more emphasis in Hong Kong, in particular, on eating out. Families, groups of friends: everyone has fun as a large party over dinner in a restaurant. Partly that’s because people live in smaller apartments (and it’s nice to get out). Here in North America, we spend our money more on paying down the mortgage :-). We like that Thai custom of the wealthiest in the group picking up the tab!
Thanks! Yes, the Chinese are great for going out with big groups of family and friends, aren’t they? In Australia we have them to thank for our weekend yum cha culture, which is popular no matter what your cultural heritage. Aussies have big mortgages too, but they have become a country of foodies, so they somehow still find ways to continue to pay for meals out.
I do like that Thai custom too! Need to find more rich Thai friends! 😉
Thanks! You’re going to love Vietnam! When are you going? We have some stories on HCMC/Saigon here on GT but we will have a lot more stories going up soon from Hanoi, Sapa/Bac Ha, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, and Saigon again, so drop back or sign up to our feed. Or do simply leave any questions if you have any. We spent 7 months in Vietnam in 2013. Happy New Year!
Hi, Lara,
we might be there around Feb or March, still need to decide when exactly and where to go.
Anyway, thank you for an offer to get more info from you. We will follow you up and definitely contact you in case for more details of Vietnam.
Thanks 🙂
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It is a common misperception that scientists are not interested in UFOs or claims of alien contact. Scientists have actually been leading proponents of research into these areas, and three will be presenting their findings later this month at the International UFO Congress, the Guinness World Record holding largest UFO convention. | {
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Stitch up of Euro-crisis agreement
Culling public services, national democracy and independence is the bottom line of the stitch-up at the Brussels euro-zone summit. The transfers of huge sums of monies involved are to prop up the banks once again – especially those of Germany and France – and will not get Greece, Ireland, Portugal or Italy out of the financial quagmire. The money transferred will come out of pockets and purses into bank vaults, even though it is apparently laundered via national government books.
Re-applying what are supposed to be the strict rules of the Stability Pact – a limit on the deficit of 3% of GDP - even if impractical is designed to provide a reason for further attacks on wages, the public sector and social protection across all EU Member States including Britain. Another aspect of the 16 clause euro-zone agreement is to push further towards an economic union in addition to a monetary union which would take away all controls from national governments, parliaments and electorates over their economies. This has in effect happened already to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Whichever way the EU political elite try, whether to apply the Stability Pact rules and 16 clauses or not, the problems will persist and worsen. This will be especially so for the working and middle classes. It is clear that if further austerity policies are imposed there will be at some point a revolt. No doubt this is a factor behind the lower interest rates to be paid for by Greece on the second lump of money compared to the first lump.
It is just as well that Britain did not join the euro-zone where it has been proved once again that 17 national economies and currencies cannot be darned together. Note that Chancellor Osborne has called for more EU integration and applies to Britain. This must be exposed and opposed for all the implications now bare for all to see. | {
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“Queen of the Dark” model proves that beauty is not always based on the skin color
In this world full of criticisms, complexion usually do matters. There are people who would judge you according to your color, but there are still a lot of people who won’t mind whatever color you may have. Typically, if you’re black colored complexion, you are a victim and a subject of bullying.
Just recently, another kind of unique beauty has caught the attention of netizens for her stunning look and color complexion. A woman named Nyakim Gatwech, a South Sudanese model in Minnesota, is now taking the world into her world of unique and flawless skin type complexion, strong and powerful gaze, and steadfast message of empowerment.
The 24-year-old model is on a mission to promote skin positivity and self-acceptance among women with darker hues or skin color. Her photos on Instagram are shared with her nearly 100,o00 followers. Along with her stunning and breathtaking photos are her inspirational messages targeting women who are struggling to be comfortable in their own skin.
Accompanying one of her most popular photos on Instagram, Gatwech shared a Marcus Garvey quote that embodies her own views: “The black skin is not a badge of shame but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.”
Gatwech tells Yahoo Beauty that she’s serious about seeing her dark skin as a blessing. “I love every part of it. I love the fact my skin is unique and that my whole skin is one tone, and finally how soft my skin is.”
Although she encountered a lot of discrimination from different designers, makeup artists, and fellow models, she empowered herself and felt confident about her skin color. And that she is inspiring all women and younger black girls who may feel similarly with her.
As quoted, Gatwech said:
“All women are equal, and we should stand together rather than be against each other.”
“You are beautiful, you are unique, and there are people who love you just the way you are. They say the darker the cherry, the sweeter the juice. Embrace your darkness!”
Gatwech is one of a kind inspiration for everyone who has encountered bullying because of skin color. She is a very good example to be thankful and contented in everything that God has given. | {
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The Hindu articles
Ashwani Rana, Head of Connectivity Policy (India and South Asia) at Facebook, offered to extend cooperation to the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) in providing Internet services to its people through the fiber grid.
Aircel customers across Tamil Nadu have expressed concern that they are not able to port out of the telecom service provider. Some of them said that connectivity has also been an issue for the last few days and calls are getting dropped randomly.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) would be in a position to improve its mobile coverage in the State to a great extent once the expected five MHz spectrum allocation is made and the new machinery becomes operational, likely by March 15, said chief general manager V. Sunder on Monday.
Reliance Industries (RIL), along with global firms, is planning to invest more than ₹60,000 crore in Maharashtra in the next 10 years for establishing an integrated digital industrial area for the ‘fourth industrial revolution.’
Telecom firm Bharti Airtel is in discussions with consultants and intermediaries for listing shares of its Netherlands-based unit, BAIN BV, that controls the firm’s Africa operations, on a global stock exchange. | {
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Little fanfare and less candour at the Foreign Office
The preference in Washington is to do these things noisily,
writes Ewen MacAskill. When the
state department embarked on a
major change in foreign policy priorities earlier this year, diplomats were reposted within weeks from relatively comfortable posts in Europe to the Middle East and Asia. The
Foreign Office prefers a quieter approach.
The preference in Washington is to do these things noisily, writes diplomatic editor Ewen MacAskill. When the state department embarked on a major change in foreign policy priorities earlier this year, diplomats were reposted within weeks from relatively comfortable posts in Europe to the Middle East and Asia.
The Foreign Office prefers a quieter approach. Although a similar shift in priorities is also under way in Britain, the repositioning of diplomatic staff is more gradual. The Foreign Office does not do fanfare. This is partly because the Foreign Office has always been averse to being in the public eye, and partly because the Foreign Office does not matter anywhere near as much as the state department. And even within the British government, the Foreign Office, once one of the three great offices of state, does not matter as much as it once did, with Tony Blair's Downing Street having commandeered much of the foreign policy.
It is against this background that Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, made a speech today to Britain's ambassadors, brought back to London to discuss a strategy for future foreign policy. This is accompanied by a 60-page white paper, Active Diplomacy for a Changing World, stressing the need for the Foreign Office to pay more attention to climate change, immigration, consular affairs, the fight for dwindling energy resources - in Britain's case, gas - and the emerging powers of China and India.
It is to be welcomed that the Foreign Office should publish its strategy and that ambassadors, who know the detail, are given an opportunity to meet en masse to question Mr Straw and his ministers. But much of the white paper is extremely vague, full of platitudes and vacuous statements. It would have benefited from even a few paragraphs of reality, such as an admission that there is not much Britain can do to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions other than trying to delay it acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, and that eventually Britain and the US will pull out of Iraq, leaving behind not the beacon for democracy in the MIddle East that Washington had touted but something fragile and messy.
Such honest assessments are kept for behind the doors of the Foreign Office., not for inclusion in a speech by the foreign secretary or a white paper. | {
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20 Crazy Facts About Dreams
There is a reason behind everything and that is exactly what’s worth sharing here. Dreams leave us confused sometimes and sometimes we have no idea about what we dreamt about. We can live a lavish life in our dream but when it comes to reality, that lavish life is hard to achieve. Ever wondered how would our life be without dreams? Well, the answer is life cannot exist without dreams and yes that’s a fact!
Here are some more crazy facts about dreams which probably you did not know. So check them out.
1) You cannot snore and dream at the same time.
Source: whisper.sh
2) Most of us dream every 90 minutes and the longest dreams occur in the morning which last up to 30-45 minutes.
Source: pinterest.com
3) Dreams of dirty water may signal that the unconscious mind is telling the dreamer that he or she is unhealthy.
Source: whereblog.com
4) Finding oneself in cemetery during a dream may indicate sadness or unresolved grief. It may also indicate the person’s “dead” past.
Source: globe-views.com
5) Toddlers don’t star in their dreams until they are about three or four years old.
Source: pbs.org
6) It’s not only human who dream, animals dream too. The best example is a dog; you will often see them twitching their paws if they are running in their dreams.
Source: pinterest.com
7) Vitamin B complex (B6) and John’s Wort have been showed to produce more vivid dreams.
Source: dailyburn.com
8) Human beings spend roughly around 6 years of their life dreaming.
Source: fineartamerica.com
9) 90% of the dream is lost the first minute we wake up.
Source: taltopia.com
10) The colder your house is the worst your dreams are.
Source: sidowson.org
11) More women than men experience Déjà-vu in their dreams.
Source: sciencealert.com
12) People who experience Sleep Paralysis hear voices and see strangers in their room.
Source: creepypasta.wikia.com
13) Men tend to dream about men more often than women whereas women dream about both the genders.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
14) An average person has about 1,460 dreams per year. That’s about 4 per night.
Source: thirdeyeactivation.com
15) When deprived of dreams, people become irritable and disoriented. They also start hallucinating and show the signs of psychosis.
Source: depressivedisorder.blogspot.com
16) Chronic smokers, who suddenly quit, report more vivid dreams than they had when they smoked.
Source: healthcare-smoker.org
17) Nightmares happen more to kids than elders.
Source: kidshealthcare.org
18) Blind people also dream, their dream is based on what they smell, touch and hear. People who become blind at early age still dream of the things which they have seen earlier.
Source: darkside.com
19) You can control your dreams. Yes, you can manipulate, twist and turn the beginning and the climax of your dream! | {
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Lawsuit: Mich. Teen Kicked Out of Class for Religious Views on Homosexuality
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A Michigan woman filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a public high school district and a teacher who allegedly kicked the woman’s son out of class for his religious beliefs regarding homosexuality.
The lawsuit, based on an Oct. 20, 2010, incident at a high school in the Howell Public School District, alleges that teacher Johnson McDowell asked student Daniel Glowacki, then 16, to leave his economics class when the Catholic teen shared that he did not support gays due to the teachings of his faith.
It was anti-bullying Spirit Day in the school district, and students were allowed to express their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth who are negatively targeted due to their sexuality.
The lawsuit reads that McDowell was wearing a purple t-shirt in honor of deceased Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide in September 2010 after his college roommate filmed him having a sexual encounter with another male student.
McDowell, according to the lawsuit, told a female student to remove a belt with the image of the confederate flag on it because it signified lynchings. Glowacki then asked the teacher why he was allowed to display a gay pride rainbow flag while telling others they could not display the confederate flag.
McDowell said the two flags represented different things, and asked Glowacki if he supported gay rights. When Glowacki said his Catholic faith forbade him to do so, McDowell allegedly told him and another female student to leave the room.
McDowell was suspended for a day without pay, but was able to return to class on a settlement with the school district.
Some students, parents and fellow teachers have expressed support for McDowell's decision to ask Glowacki to leave the classroom. While some argue McDowell was violating Glowacki's religious freedom, others argue he was protecting homosexual students from further bullying. On the Facebook page "Support Jay McDowell," Christian Hendren wrote: "As a gay educator, I am so happy to see others standing up for bullying in the schools. The truth is, bullying in schools will always occur, but it is part of our jobs as educators to keep our students safe. That is what you are doing. Thank you."
In his own statement last year, McDowell defended himself, saying, "I did not suspend the student from class that day due to his religious beliefs. I suspended him for his intolerant speech (“I don’t accept gays”) and class disruption ... I believe any symbol or speech that can cause a student to sit in fear in the classroom whether or not there is an outward show of that fear is by its very nature a disruption to the educational process."
Superintendent Ron Wilson, meanwhile, said in October that all the student was doing was voicing an opinion.
“The same thing would have been done had the student been on the other side,” Wilson added. “As superintendent, it’s my responsibility to foster fair, respectful treatment of all staff and students, and the teacher didn’t do that."
The lawsuit was filed by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Sandra Glowacki, mother of Daniel. The mother argues that the school district and McDowell violated her son's First Amendment rights by favoring homosexuality over religious freedom.
In addition to the classroom incident, the suit alleges that the teacher went on “a public campaign” to defend his actions and to portray the student as a “homophobe.”
The lawsuit further cites a mandatory assembly that was held by the school district earlier this year where school officials addressed the issue of bullying. The school district, the suit claims, “promoted the propaganda that ‘homophobia’ was causing teenagers to commit suicide” and “supported its ‘harassment speech’ policy to end homophobia.”
The assembly also allegedly referenced the incident between McDowell and Glowacki “to support the claim that hate speech was masquerading as religious speech.”
“The School District … has created a school environment that favorably promotes the agenda of gay rights activists while creating an environment that is hostile toward and disfavors students and families that oppose homosexuality on moral and religious grounds,” the suit states. | {
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Enhance Gaming with the Best Gaming Mouse
Gaming has always been a somewhat popular hobby, but recently games have deeply drawn the attraction of people all over the world, no matter what age group, culture, or country someone belongs to.
Since gaming has become so relentlessly popular, now gamers have access to numerous computer gaming mice instead of the one or two standard mice that were available years ago.
Select games have become increasingly popular and have drawn traditional gamers towards PC gaming lately. Games are becoming addictively fun and have recently turned the gaming industry into one of the biggest and fastest growing forms of entertainment across the whole world.
As games have expanded, so have the necessary tools that are used to play them, like gaming mice.
Having a computer mouse is necessary in order to play PC games, but we’ve come so far with technology that now you can actually purchase a mouse made specifically for gaming instead of having to use a standard computer mouse.
Gaming mice are available in a variety of designs, one of the most basic choices being wireless or corded.
Because there are so many options available as far as gaming mice go, gamers are free to choose the best mouse for their individual needs which is something that wasn’t possible before.
More about the gaming mice
Games are certainly ruling the world in a way nobody ever imagined.
If you’re a gamer, it’s important you find the gaming mouse that will allow you to have a mesmerizing gaming experience or you’ll easily fall behind other gamers who are already using a mouse that fits their needs.
There’s been a tremendous positive change towards gaming that has impacted the lives of people of all sorts of backgrounds who previously hadn’t thought much of gaming before.
Computer mice are available that have added, enhanced features which leave gamers speechless while playing a vital role in making gaming an exceptional experience in every way possible.
In addition to corded and wireless mice being available, there are other design options on the market that cater to different types of gamers.
For example, you might need two trackballs or several buttons on your mouse if you like to play role playing games.
Since that’s the case, it’s important to do your research to determine which mouse is the right mouse for you. | {
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Since Bytecoin hardforks at this version, because of the new block size, all existing Forknote blockchains (Dashcoin, Magnatoj, Ethanolium, …) hardforked or will hardfork as well.
We urge everyone to update since old wallets won’t be able to support new block sizes. | {
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Today’s comic was partly inspired by a fruit thief I know. In this part of the state, it’s common to have grapefruit or orange trees on your property. Those that don’t either look at their neighbors with envy or take matters into their own hands like my fruit thief pal who will tiptoe around the neighborhood late at night on a fruit raid. I’m an enabler as I’ll happily accept part of the loot when it’s offered. Anyway, that was where the idea for the haiku started but it took some other directions in the process.
There technically is no such fruit as a ‘bloodfruit’ as far as my googling research shows. There are blood oranges though which are kinda spooky looking.
I hope you enjoy. Spread some love and tag me if you use stumbleupon.com or digg or any of that stuff. Have a good week and I’ll see you next Wednesday.
<3 calan
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on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 am and is filed under Comics.
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I used to eat blood oranges, but their unusual taste is a little too strong to eat on a daily basis.
What is good is a hybrid between normal oranges and blood orange (I can’t recall the name of the hybrid). Ciao Bella also makes a blood orange sorbet that I am quite fond of, second only to their pear.
For something truly strange, and possibly revolting, buy a bottle of blood orange juice. It can run you about $6 for a bottle. | {
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Conbruv T33 Mini Spy Camera Review
*This post may have affiliate links. For example As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which means if you purchase something after clicking a link I may receive commission (don't worry, there's no extra cost to you). This helps support the work I put into the site.
The Conbruv T33 Mini Spy Camera is exactly what you’d expect, a mini camera for spying.
It’s a tiny little gadget that has very little to it. It’s got the camera on the front, microSD card slot, MicroUSB charging port and indication lights around the back and a couple of buttons on top…and that’s it!
In the box you get a charging cable, manual and magnetic holder with swivel head.
The manual is well worth a read as it’s not entirely obvious how to use the camera out of the box. A quick skim of the included guide had the camera setup and running very quickly. One thing to be aware of is the camera has date/time information added to the footage and this needs to be set via a file the camera places on the microSD card.
This isn’t designed to be a security camera like the Canary, instead it’s compact form makes it easy to position discretely in a number of locations, moving it around so the 110 degree lens can take everything in. There is also a microphone on board but the audio quality isn’t brilliant, it can be hard to make out what people are saying on playback.
To prevent the battery being quickly drained the T33 can be triggered to record when it detects motion. This works well, but be aware it’s sensitive enough to be triggered by pets, you’ll see a cat triggers a recording in the video review below.
Footage looks fine, it’s a security camera so it doesn’t need to be TV broadcast quality, you can clearly see what’s going on and who (or what) has triggered the recording.
Impressively the T33 also has night vision built in, however the camera can have a few issues when it’s not sure if it should switch to night vision or not. You end up with it turning night vision on/off/on/off/etc giving a strobe like video. When it does switch over to night vision the image is very good considering this is a tiny camera.
However, while the Conbruv T33 isn’t perfect it does do the job it’s designed for well. It’s a mini camera that records when it detects motion and is compact enough to be discreetly placed so it’ll go unnoticed.
Conbruv T33 Mini Spy Camera Video Review
Mark J Draper is a self-confessed gadget lover who forged a career in the telecommunication and utility industry while maintaining a hobby of writing and filming reviews that are published on YouTube and Reviewify.co.uk. | {
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I would like to announce the release of Windows Media Player Plus!, a free plug-in that offers the following enhancements/improvements for WMP:
Tag Editor Plus: an alternative for WMP's Advanced Tag Editor. Tag Editor Plus works on WMP 12 too, where the Advanced Tag Editor has been removed.
Global hotkeys, allowing you to control WMP from within any running application.
Party Shuffle: a dynamic playlist, that automatically gets filled up with randomly picked songs. Of course, you can still add songs yourself, and reorder/remove songs, just like with a normal playlist.
Real 'find as you type' in the library: you can simply start typing to search, without having to click on the Search field first.
Access the standard Explorer right-click menu of a media file directly from within WMP.
Restore last active playlist, media item, and playback position at WMP startup.
Show currently playing media in WMP's title bar.
Advanced playback options: Stop after current and Close after current, to automatically stop playback or close WMP when the current media has ended.
Let WMP play/pause when you press the space bar.
Disable group headers in the Library Pane.
Enhanced and configurable replacement of the Windows Live Messenger Music plug-in (What I'm Listening To).
Show currently playing media in Skype's mood message.
Access the properties (settings) of any WMP plug-in from within the main menu (Tools - Plug-in properties), without having to go to Options first.
"Play next" option when right-clicking a media item in WMP 11's library (WMP 12 already has this by default).
Quickly re-enable all plug-ins after a WMP crash.
Windows Media Player Plus! is written for Windows Media Player 11 and 12. | {
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Tuesday, October 07, 2008
I was at a card shop tonight and found this in the two-for-a-dollar bin. The multiple card shops near the home of my youth probably didn't carry these, because I don't have any (except for Robin Yount, of course). I'm a little dubious about each of these cards being actual league leaders, but I realize that making it to the top ten in a stat is still a pretty big deal, so I'll include each player's best stat here.
Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom:31 Mike Moore: #3 in ERA (2.61) and victories (19).15 "The Girl Who Loved" Tom Gordon: #2 in batting average against (.210).80 Tony Gwynn: #1 in batting average (.336) and hits (203). That's a monster season.5 Nick Esasky: #3 in RBI (108)45 Checklist: Led in no major categories in 1989, but landed just outside the top 10 in balks and hit batsmen.17 Bret Saberhagen: #1 in victories (23), ERA (2.16), and mullet curliness (9.75 on the Jagr scale).68 Juan Samuel: #2 in stoled bases (42, tie).65 David Cone: #4 in strikeouts (190).
Grade: BThe Nick Esasky card surprised me the most. Getting the Saberhagen makes me hope the Royals can get into the playoffs soon. Their streak is now the longest absence from the playoffs (not counting the Expos/Nationals drought, which is only really suffered by Montreal natives who had to relocate because their corporations moved their jobs to D.C.) Royals fans have been suffering since 1985, plus I met some nice Royals fans when KC came to Milwaukee back in 2007. They've really had little to cheer for recently, aside from a baseball card with a huge hole punched in it.
Also, way to go Topps on the single color scheme and white-backed card stock, a nice break from the monstrosity that was its 1990 base set. | {
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Tag: natural pain killers
Natural pain killers in pain fighting foods and the the suggestion that certain foods may help us manage pain may surprise some people, but it is nothing new. We, as humans have long been seeking relief from pain for centuries, long before we had pharmaceuticals and pharmacies. These foods are still around today, and they … | {
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Hurricane Matthew
Hurricane Matthew strikes Haiti
According to the United Nations an estimated 1.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Haiti in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew and at least 1,000 people have lost their lives. Operation Unisson has been collaborating with a local organization for almost two years in Port Salut, a coastline town in Western Haiti that has been severely affected by Hurricane Matthew. The people of Port Salut make a livelihood on their farmland, all of which was destroyed by Matthew. Additionally, thousands of homes have been damaged, road access is limited, and drinking water sources have been contaminated. Cholera cases are being reported. We need your help. Your donation will help purchase medical supplies, clean water, food and shelter for the thousands of people affected. Follow the link below to see more images of the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti. | {
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Employer Concerns: 3. Insurance and Pension Issues.
Sometimes myths about extra insurance in the workplace and problems with pensions or other related issues prevent employers from taking on people with epilepsy. There should be no problems with these issues, provided that everyone concerned is made aware of the facts:
Insurance:
It is often assumed that employing someone with epilepsy is ultimately going to result in an increased premium. This is not the case. No special insurance is required for a worker with epilepsy. At a basic level, employers should ensure that they are covered by Public Liability Insurance and Employers' Liability. Premiums are only affected by claims, and there is no evidence to suggest claims increase by employing someone with epilepsy.
Pensions:
In relation to pensions, it is a general policy that if someone is fit enough to be an employee, they are acceptable for the pension scheme, if one exists.
Adaptations to Machinery:
Machinery must be adequately guarded in order to comply with safety regulations covering all workers. If this policy is implemented, it should prevent injury in the unlikely event of a seizure happening in the vicinity. However, if special guards are required, grants for workplace equipment adaptation are available. | {
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As the week wore on, critics stepped up their efforts to convince State Education Commissioner David Steiner to deny Black the waiver she needs (because she lacks experience in education) to head up the nation's largest schools system.
Regardless of who the next chancellor is, she or he will come to Tweed courthouse at a critical time for city schools. Budgets have been cut back -- and almost certainly will need to be chopped further. The contract between the city and the teacher's union has expired -- while an increasingly restive union leadership challenges some of the city's education policies in court. Up to 47 schools face closing -- a move sure to produce rancor and controversy. Tougher high school graduation requirements threaten to create a huge obstacle for many city students. At the same time, critics claim the city's test score surge has been increasingly indicative of dumber tests and lenient scoring than of better educated students.
As the new chancellor confronts these tasks, Bloomberg will undoubtedly continue to be the real educational power in the city. In light of that fact, few expect policies to change very much. "I doubt that she will take any initiative that will really revolutionize or change. She doesn't have the freedom to do that," said the Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern. "Bloomberg didn't put her in there to conclude that something that happened on his watch was wrong."
Nonetheless, the departure of Joel Klein after eight years -- the most served by a New York City schools chancellor in more than 50 years -- presents a good opportunity for New York's top education experts and advocates to propose what Cathleen Black should do.
What would you like the new chancellor to do in her first days on the job? Please send us your ideas to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or use the comment space below.
Show Some Respect
I would love to see Cathie Black take on four assignments, all within the realm of the possible:
First, to reach out to parent groups and really listen to them, acknowledging that every parent or guardian cares more about their own child than any public official, and show them the respect they deserve.
Second, to give teachers the recognition they richly deserve for their daily work in our city's classrooms.
Third, to lead a campaign to expand the arts into every grade in every school in the city, so that every child has full opportunity to participate in music, arts, visual arts, and other art forms.
Fourth, to stop the school closings and to apply her best efforts to helping and supporting the schools that need help so as to better serve their students.
Closing the Achievement Chasm
Educational attainment of black and Latino males should be a priority for the new administration. The 2010 Schott Foundation 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males found that New York City is among the 10 worst large districts for black males when measured by graduation rates.
Some 28 percent of black males in New York graduate on time with Regents diplomas, compared to 50 percent for white males, resulting in a 22 percent achievement gap. The graduation rates are probably inflated since they are based on students starting ninth grade, when an untold number have already dropped out. The state Education Department reports that the Latino male graduation rate -- including students who receive either a Regents or less demanding Local diploma -- in New York City is 50 percent (including August grads). Even if not inflated, this is a devastating picture of educational inequity and systemic failure. It implicates not only graduation rates but over-referrals to special education, empty efforts at credit accumulation and other perversions of real educational attainment.
My fear is that the new chancellor will fit the problem into the former administration's formula of school closures, small schools, charters and extra points in progress reports. But eight years of such "solutions" have resulted in the data above. I am not against such strategies when rationally targeted but they are clearly not enough.
An unfulfilled promise of mayoral control of schools, hardly mentioned anymore, was that we could undertake a concerted citywide effort to deal with educational problems beyond the scope of the Department of Education. Early intervention; provision of a range of social services including housing, health and employment assistance; diversions from punitive criminal justice strategies; after-school, GED and adult education programs; and other inter-agency contributions to student and family well-being are necessary ingredients to combating this scourge. If the new chancellor is serious about eliminating the achievement gap, she will undertake creative, constructive, comprehensive efforts to address this issue rather than revert to current nostrums.
Reaching Out in a Crisis
1. In order to build public trust, explain to the public how it is that you are prepared to lead the nation's largest school district despite having no professional background in education.
2. Conduct meetings across the city with parents, and youth and community organizations. As a result of these meetings identify four priorities to make the Department of Education more responsive to parents, students and communities.
3. Acknowledge that the racial achievement gap in New York City schools remains a chasm.
4. Declare a state of emergency due to the fact that new state standards revealed that in one out of every four schools two thirds of students are reading below grade level. Form an Emergency Task Force chaired by yourself and comprised of parents, teachers, school leaders, academics and business leaders to come up with a comprehensive plan to address this educational crisis.
Talking to Teachers
If there is a suspicion she was brought in because she will present a more human face [than Joel Klein did] … she should go out and talk with rank and file teachers to ask them, "what are your complaints?" She could go and sit in classrooms -- talk to the veteran teachers, those 25-year teachers, some of who are great teachers. She would have to find teachers who are really independent and in a position to speak honestly." Ask them, 'What do you need? What do you think?"
Making Accountability Make Sense
If there is one thing thicker than the September issue, it is the portfolio of advice that Cathie Black will get. Here’s my addition to the pile.
In terms of charter schools, Chancellor Joel Klein recognized their potential and championed charters both inside and outside the system. I expect that Black will advocate just as vigorously for high-quality charter schools. That means giving the great ones space to open and grow and showing a willingness to fight locally and in Albany for equitable funding. You can't support charters on the one hand and starve them on the other. At the same time, she has to adopt a zero tolerance policy for those charters that are under performing. If charters are to be a model for accountability-based results, then Tweed has to be tougher about closing charters that aren’t raising achievement. These aren't easy decisions, but they are necessary.
On a larger scale, I'd like to see a continued commitment to results-based accountability across the system. But Black should explore refining the measures. For instance, instead of issuing single letter grades to schools, she should look at the Colorado model, which separately measures absolute performance and progress (without trying to meld them together). This system, while not perfect, is one that parents understand and that corresponds to the day-to-day reality of the schools their children attend. At the same time it preserves an important aspect of the present system, namely demonstrating to all that even good schools can get much better.
By making accountability more intuitive, more parents will embrace it as a valuable tool. This in turn will strengthen the ability of the Department of Education to make high-stakes decisions around school closure and turnaround -- and draw support for those decisions.
Finally, Black should work hard to articulate where the reforms are taking us and why -- and listen carefully to those who are affected by those reforms. For parents, some account of history must be taken; the simple fact is that parents in poor parts of this city have seen reforms come and go along with the people who instituted them. They have good reason to be profoundly suspicious. The department owes it to them to spend time quietly talking with (and listening to) them to win their trust and faith -- and equally, to be brutally candid with parents when things the department tries don't work. And of course she should spend time speaking and listening to teachers and leaders who must excel if we are to see improved results for students.
Being chancellor of the school system, former Chancellor Frank Macchiarola once said, was like listening to Frank Sinatra: incredibly enjoyable, the best. The catch was, however, you had to listen to him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The fact is that the job is an excruciatingly tough one. I wish her the very best.
Take 16 Steps, then Relax
What the next chancellor should do:
1. Obey the law, follow the research, listen to parents, and start reducing class size immediately. It is a scandal and a crime that city students are still suffering with the largest classes in the state, and with class sizes still increasing, despite the state law passed in 2007 and a written agreement of the chancellor to reduce them in exchange for more than $2 billion in additional state funds.
Start by assigning the thousand or more teachers on Absent Teacher Reserve to regular classes, especially in the highest-need schools. For example, start with the schools that the education department says it wants to close. At Jamaica High School, whose budget has been slashed to the bone, there were over 80 classes this fall that exceeded the contractual limits of 34 students per class, and yet the department "quality reviewers" had the nerve to blame this on the school!
As a second step, start redeploying some of the 10,000 out-of-classroom positions that have been created since 2002 -- while the system has lost more than 1, 600 classroom teachers.
2. Call an immediate moratorium to any more school closings or co-locations, which merely make the overcrowding problem worse, lead to higher class sizes and concentrate high needs students elsewhere. Put together a taskforce of parents, teachers, administrators and educational experts to come with a real plan to improve the schools that are currently threatened with closure. Enough of the top-down and useless education department proposals of more "merit pay," more testing, more "coaches" and more "data analysis."
3. Assemble another taskforce of stakeholders to redesign the school utilization formula and the "instructional footprint," which seems to see space in schools where there is none, forces students into rooms that violate the building code, and leads to special education students receiving their services in hallways and closets.
4. Put a halt to the creation of more new, small schools, which have multiplied throughout the system like rabbits, with little or no quality control, and which are very space-intensive and expensive to fund. Instead invest maximum resources and energy in improving the 1,500 schools that we already have.
5. Restore the district structure, offices and supervisory functions, which allow parents to have a place to go with their concerns by eliminating the sprawling "Children First" networks that have mushroomed to almost a thousand people, without any geographical base or reason, and whose members waste much of their time traveling from one end of the city to another.
6.Put a stop to all no-bid contracts and expensive consultants; and cancel the hugely expensive contract for "interim assessments," which most teachers find useless and a waste of time.
7. Revamp the school progress reports, which are unreliable and confusing to parents; and instead, in consultation with parents and other stakeholders, devise a new system that provides several grades for every school based on various attributes and more holistic factors. Put more attention into the results of the parent, student and teacher surveys, so that any school that receives poor survey results for more than one year would receive immediate intervention from the district to see if the principal needs to be removed or given more training or help.
8. Deep-six the unreliable and unfair teacher data reports, and convene a working group composed of parents and other stakeholders, which will design a more accurate evaluation system, in which peer, student and parent views are taken into account with test scores only one factor.
9. Tell charter schools in Department of Education buildings that are run by the scions of billionaires or who have deep-pocketed hedge-fund supporters to find leased space elsewhere -- as soon as possible -- because district students should not be squeezed out of their own school buildings.
10. Ask for the city comptroller to perform a top to bottom performance audit of every discretionary expense, consultant, contract and spending item, and release the results to the public.
11. Inform high schools that they must end the scandalous practice of substandard, online credit recovery programs immediately, and put in place strong oversight mechanisms to make sure that these abuses end.
12.Restore Project Arts, which existed for years before Joel Klein canceled it, and provided dedicated funding for arts programs in our schools, to better ensure that our children receive a well-rounded education.
13.Commission an independent assessment of Collaborative Team Teaching classes (special education inclusion classes) and online learning programs, which have expanded rapidly over the last few years, to see if they are working and whether they need to be rethought or reformed, before expanding these programs any more.
14.Re-establish a true Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, in which parent leaders from throughout the city actually advise the chancellor, without just having to listen to the chancellor or one of his minions tell them what they intend to do. Involve the members of Community Education Councils as well, and embark on a new era of mutual respect and collaboration with parents, sadly missing over the last nine years of this administration.
15. Release transparent enrollment projections based on numerous sources of data, including birth rates, census data regarding family in-migration and out-migration rates, day care and pre-k enrollments, building starts, and analyze and report on this data on the school zone, district, and citywide levels. In short, start being honest with parents and other New Yorkers about the real need for more seats throughout the city to relieve the overcrowding crisis, before it gets even worse.
16. Build more schools, and take advantage of the many parochial schools that are closing throughout the city by leasing them. Re-allocate nearly $1 billion toward this critical goal, by canceling the expansion and construction of new jails in Brooklyn and the Bronx that community members don’t want and the city doesn’t need. While our jail population has been falling, our student population is rapidly expanding; and if these funds were invested in schools, they would yield $2 billion , because the state puts up matching funds for school construction.
Tough Support for Charters
The new chancellor needs to show some tough love to charter schools authorized by the Department of Education. When they receive complaints from parents, they need to step in. They should not wait five years for a charter school to fail [before revoking the authorization]. I think they know that after two years. The charter school office needs to be more receptive to the concerns of parents and to communicate with parents. She needs to do a complete overhaul of the charter school office. I hope she won't wait like she did with shutting down Talk magazine.
Figuring Out What Works
Campaign for Fiscal Equity recently published a study on Regents diplomas. In grouping schools together, we tried to find out whether there schools who have students who are highly challenged and are helping them to get Regents diplomas. It should be a priority to find out why this list of schools is succeeding -- why this list of schools is getting it done.
This is going to be one of the most wretched budget years for schools in 20 years. We always care about the students who are not receiving their constitutionally required sound basic education, and we would want to make sure that those students are a priority.
For schools, there's no accountability other than the letter grade to help them get better. Schools need to have strong support and accountability -- not just a letter grade but someone who has resources to help them change.
We lure good teachers with higher salaries, but we continue to lose them. Why are we not retaining these people so we can get the kind of quality schools we want?
Working Together to Help Students
Chancellor Joel Klein had some accomplishments running our schools but he is also leaving behind 239,000 students who are not reading or doing math on grade level. After the recent test score debacle, 27 percent more of the city's students were not reading on grade level than they were in 2008, and 28 percent more of our students weren’t doing math on grade level. For immigrant students, the trauma of the department's failure is devastating: 14 percent of English Language Learners are on grade level for English language arts, compared to 35 percent in 2008.
Cathie Black is stepping into an incredibly hard role. Parents and students with our organization and others throughout the city have been working for years to secure the resources and support that our schools need. We look forward to building a strong relationship with the new chancellor, but one that is based on mutual respect. It is essential that Black immediately begin meeting with organizations like ours in order to establish a respectful and productive working relationship. She will not be able to do a good job without parents and students at her side.
For those students who did not fare well on their recent tests, Black needs to provide Academic Intervention Services. We need all of our students reading on grade levels.
She needs to work with communities to ensure that any reforms that the department puts into place, such as restructuring or closing schools, will be likely to work. Our communities are tired of seeing schools closed and re-opened, our students shuffled around, or shoved out of school into the streets, with no clear accountability for making sure these reforms really work. We need schools that provide all of our students a path to college and careers. We also need to make sure that students with limited proficiency in English are not forgotten off but real support is provided to them and their families for them to strive.
What Your Children Learned
I would like to see the new chancellor put an end to excessive and high stakes tests. In other words, I think that she should think about enriching the curriculum with the kinds of subjects her children had in private boarding school. Replacing test prep with real learning and allowing teachers to teach would be a welcome beginning, as would putting the word public back into public education. This means giving parents a major voice in their child's education and investing in the existing public schools rather than putting our much-needed resources into charter schools.
Preparing Students for Life
For school districts across the nation, including New York City's, there is a watershed moment rapidly emerging as federal funding that has kept education jobs afloat will be coming to an end next year. This is further compounded by cuts in state funding for education, and a growing appetite to cut government spending.
Cathie Black will be at the helm of a system that will face this profound financial reality. Should this reset moment combine with what has been an over-reliance on test scores in English language arts and math, we will witness a reshaping of public K-12 education in the narrowest form imaginable, one that establishes a meager education devoid of the rich and well-rounded instruction and experiences our students ultimately need to be college and career ready, and perhaps most important, to be prepared to be active members of our democratic society.
Black can choose the road of more of the same, one that narrows the curriculum even further, or another path, that will seek a balance even during severe financial constraints. We hope that she will seek real solutions for how a well-rounded education can be ensured, so that all of our students will be prepared to be successful in life and work.
Listen to Students
As chancellors and mayors come and go, it is students and parents -- the communities of people who live in New York City and attend its public schools -- who remain. That is why all stakeholders -- students especially -- need to be consulted on education policy and involved in decisions about how to improve schools.
The Urban Youth Collaborative, a coalition of high school students of color from some of New York's poorest neighborhoods, has a broad vision for fixing our city's schools: engaging, rigorous and well-rounded curriculum; a respectful and supportive school culture that treats us like the students we are, instead of criminals; counseling and academic support that puts us on the path to college; real student and parent voice and role in decision-making; and equitable funding.
The collaborative hopes to work with the new chancellor on implementing some of our ideas to fix schools, like offering more AP classes at low-income schools; giving more high school students the opportunity to take college classes while in high school; and implementing creative and positive approaches to school safety instead of continuing the de facto zero tolerance safety policies that exist now.
We hope that instead of closing schools without first trying to fix them, or without a clear plan about how what comes next will offer students a different and better education, Chancellor Cathleen Black will take the important step of meeting with students and parents to listen to our experiences, the challenges we face and our ideas for improving -- not abandoning -- public schools.
Editor's Choice
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The Place for New York Policy and politics
Gotham Gazette is published by Citizens Union Foundation and is made possible by support from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Altman Foundation,the Fund for the City of New York and donors to Citizens Union Foundation. Please consider supporting Citizens Union Foundation's public education programs. Critical early support to Gotham Gazette was provided by the Charles H. Revson Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. | {
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OnePlus 6T 'officially' revealed in these two colours ahead of launch
OnePlus 6T has now been spotted in Midnight Black and Mirror Black colour variants.
The images don't show a fingerprint sensor anywhere, which is in line with OnePlus' announcement that the 6T will have an in-display sensor. "Prepare for the #OnePlus6T" the new OnePlus 6T teaser notes. With the OnePlus 6 running on a 3,700 mAh battery, it is expected that OnePlus will offer a bigger battery for the upcoming device. Not a lot of OnePlus enthusiasts are going to be happy about the change, of course.
The OnePlus 6T will be an essential smartphone for OnePlus, as the phone will be made available in the worldwide market like North America with carrier billing support.
The leakedrenders reveal that the OnePlus 6T will come with a water drop like notch which already exists on various Oppo smartphones.
The OnePlus 6T might also see a hike in price from the current-generation. The OnePlus 6T will be more water resistant than its predecessor, but OnePlus doesn't want to pay the price to get the official rating.
The battery on the OnePlus 6T has also been upgraded to 3700mAh which will be promising better battery life.
Though there is no sign of the in-screen fingerprint sensor, we are sure it is hidden beneath the display and will light up at the base only when the user picks the phone to use it similar to how Vivo V11 Pro works [image below]. While still retaining some features that were initially featured on the OnePlus 6. In fact, thanks to invites to a OnePlus event which made the rounds over the internet reveal that the OnePlus 6T may launch on the 17th of October. As per news reports, the official marketing images of the upcoming OnePlus 6T smartphone has been leaked in two colour options. Another major change in the OnePlus 6T is that there is no 3.5mm headphone jack in the device and there is only one USB Type-C port for both charging and connecting wired headphones (with Type-C connector). Also, on the software front, the OnePlus 6T is expected to boot Android 9 Pie out of the box.
Black Mirror Season 5 Will Have an Interactive Episode
I'd rather the writer and director provide a definitive ending for what I'm watching instead of picking it myself. The Black Mirror won't be 2018's first choose-your-own-adventure-style story geared towards adults. 10/02/2018
Brewers, Cubs meet in one-game playoff for NL Central title
Colorado does own the fourth-best road record in the National League, however trips to Chavez Ravine are no easy task. The Rockies offense went off for double digits several times this week but those games were against subpar pitching. 10/02/2018
Bell to report to Steelers for Week 7
Bell is doing the right thing for him and if the Earl Thomas injury showed you anything is that tomorrow isn't guaranteed. The club is seeking at least a second-round draft pick plus a "good" player in return, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network said. 10/02/2018
Quake-hit Indonesia buries dead in mass grave
President Joko Widodo visited a housing complex flattened when the quake liquefied the soil it stood on, and called for patience. Hundreds descended yesterday on Palu airport, hoping to be evacuated by military transport over fears of aftershocks . 10/02/2018
CDC investigating 'brain eating amoeba' at surf resort in Waco
If water containing the amoeba goes up the nose, the amoeba can invade and cause a rare and devastating infection of the brain. "Our hearts and prayers are with his family, friends and the New Jersey surf community during this hard time", Parsons said. 10/01/2018
Cristiano Ronaldo Accused of Rape in Las Vegas Lawsuit
The allegations form the basis of Mayorga's claims of coercion and fraud, racketeering and civil conspiracy, and abuse of process. His lawyers are set to sue German news magazine Der Spiegel , which published the allegations. 10/01/2018 | {
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6/12/2017
6/07/2017
Tomorrow is voting day and I don't mind telling you I am just a wincy
bit excited because t's my first time to vote (I'm eternally young you
know) and I am feeling hopefully optimistic. I don't mind telling you
that I'm planning on voting Labour - hence my red dress (Valentino
darling) I know everyone says Jeremy looks like a geography teacher but
really that was one of my favourite subject's at school (I do love to
travel darlings) and anyway I like what he stands for. I guess you might
be surprised? Me being a rich kid n'all you'd expect me to vote Tory
but come on I have a heart and I know what's right and what's most
definitely not. Anyone else voting for the first time?
5/24/2017
It's a furturistic rappa bunny kind of a look. Trust me, lingerie and sideways caps will be BIG this summer. Available here
The show was pretty amazing as we come to expect from Chanel; Cyber
models wearing elegant bling walking the super computer catwalk. After
recent events all I want to do is look towards a bright future and I'll
certainly be wearing Chanel when I get there...
5/02/2017
I recently did a little Instagram takeover for those purveyors of cute and colourful makeup Sephora. It was a real joy to play with all the lovely freebies and I went a bit wild with the lipstick as you can see!
3/01/2017
...and today I'm wearing the pink Cam Jacket as a dress. How versatile - two outfits in one! I know, I know I'm not usually great at wearing the same thing twice but how could I not it's so gorgeous. And beside what with the whole Brexit debarcle and the terrible weather we've been having affecting crop yields Daddy's carrot shares are falling. We all have to make some sacrifices around here!
2/27/2017
...in fact all week I'm wearing Sideline. I'm such a lucky bunny (must be my feet!) because I have been gifted the whole collection! Oh but that does make it rather difficult for a bun to decide what to wear in the morning. There's so much to choose from! Today I think my favourite is the pink Cam duster coat; that colour is so on trend. Anyway it's all perfect for a few days away with my beau Sonny. I've sent one of my minions ahem assistants to finish the Milan show schedule for me. She's pinging me over pictures of the Marni show as we speak - all delightful as usual!
2/21/2017
Is it ok to be a little bit in love with a pair of sneakers? Not only are my new Josefinas super stylish but they must also be the comfiest shoes I own, in fact my paws are literally sighing with relief! (I'm looking at you Louboutin!) They are just the perfect shade of peachy pink leather which I'm sure you already know is my favourite colour and the fur (it's fake in case you were wondering) well that just adds to the fun. London Fashion week here I come!
2/01/2017
1/12/2017
I'm not even going to mention the words 'bare legs' as I have mentioned how bloomin cold it is my last two posts... but seriously I probably won't leave the house today. *cranks heating up*
Anyway, today I'm wearing Moncler Gamme Rouge, I do love anything touched by the hand of Giambattista Valli and can you believe he is responsible for four collections this season! What a busy man. In the words of Vogue's Suzy Menkes this one has a 'French Foreign Legion crossing the desert' vibe. Sadly I am nowhere near a desert but if anyone wants rescuing today I'm your bunny.
1/09/2017
Yes yes I know I'm underdressed for this time of year but really IT'S TOWELLLING! I don't know what draws me to this fabric, maybe it's the nostalgia factor - memories of my mother wrapping me in her 70's Pucci beach wrap on Miami beach, or maybe it's the fact it's Miu Miu (by the way that's the noise I make when I get my paws on some) but you all need to get some for your summer hols - swimming cap optional.
1/05/2017
Hooray I finally have my paws on the summer collections - not that it feels that way today in London - Brrrrrrrrr being THE buzz word of the day. Today I am wearing Jil Sander. This season she seems to be channeling Issey Miyake circa 1988. It's rather perfect actually, I'm all ready for my VIPM (very important power meeting) with Daddy. I need to persuade him to up my monthly allowance. Judging by my Net a Porter wish list this season is going to be very expensive indeed! | {
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Sample Loadout for Teams
In Team Game Modes, it is important to communicate with your teammate to know what role you will be playing in your squad. This loadout leans towards more of a support role for the team.
Weapons
This loadout features weapons that draw the enemy's focus away from your teammate, and onto you. Provide cover for your teammates while they sneakily eliminate enemies!
Weapon Order
Just like the Solo Game Mode sample loadout, weapons are ordered in the same way for easy access.
Other Items
Since this loadout is more of a support role, healing and utility items have been prioritized. Throw a Port-A-Fort to quickly build cover and gain high ground, have healing items such as bandages, or have a Jump Pad for a quick escape! | {
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Photoshop Classes in Kennesaw, GA
Attend Photoshop training in Kennesaw. Our Kennesaw classroom is configured to allow you to get the most out of your Photoshop class.
Learn Adobe Photoshop in our Kennesaw, Georgia facility to create, enhance and modify amazing images. Photoshop is used by professional and amateur
photographers plus graphic and web designers to manipulate images.
ONLC offers instructor-led training classes in Kennesaw, Georgia for Photoshop at an intro level and
an advanced level class for those with more experience. You may also use this training to help prepare for Adobe Certifed Expert (ACE) certification. | {
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Abstract
CONSPECTUS: Recently, metal halide perovskite materials have become an exciting topic of research for scientists of a wide variety of backgrounds. Perovskites have found application in many fields, starting from photovoltaics and now also making an impact in light-emitting applications. This new class of materials has proven so interesting since it can be easily solution processed while exhibiting materials properties approaching the best inorganic optoelectronic materials such as GaAs and Si. In photovoltaics, in only 3 years, efficiencies have rapidly increased from an initial value of 3.8% to over 20% in recent reports for the commonly employed methylammonium lead iodide (MAPI) perovskite. The first light emitting diodes and light-emitting electrochemical cells have been developed already exhibiting internal quantum efficiencies exceeding 15% for the former and tunable light emission spectra. Despite their processing advantages, perovskite optoelectronic materials suffer from several drawbacks that need to be overcome before the technology becomes industrially relevant and hence achieve long-term application. Chief among these are the sensitivity of the structure toward moisture and crystal phase transitions in the device operation regime, unreliable device performance dictated by the operation history of the device, that is, hysteresis, the inherent toxicity of the structure, and the high cost of the employed charge selective contacts. In this Account, we highlight recent advances toward the long-term viability of perovskite photovoltaics. We identify material decomposition routes and suggest strategies to prevent damage to the structure. In particular, we focus on the effect of moisture upon the structure and stabilization of the material to avoid phase transitions in the solar cell operating range. Furthermore, we show strategies to achieve low-cost chemistries for the development of hole transporters for perovskite solar cells, necessary to be able to compete with other established technologies. Additionally, we explore the application of perovskite materials in optoelectronic applications. We show that perovskite materials can function efficiently both as a film in light -emitting diodes and also in the form of nanoparticles in light -emitting electrochemical cells. Perovskite materials have indeed a very bright future. | {
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Barack Obama's Hillary Clinton Appointment Violates The Constitution
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.
In other words, if a Senator or Representative was serving in Congress at a time when the salary of a civil office was increased, they cannot be appointed to that civil office during the time for which they were elected, because it would create a conflict of interests. That Senator or Representative would be benefiting directly, personally, and financially from legislation that passed through their house and became policy.
Because the President's Cabinet has had pay increases during Clinton's tenure as Senator, by Bush's executive order and with the authorization of Congress, Hillary Clinton is not presently eligible under the rules clearly defined in the Constitution to be appointed to the office of Secretary of State. By appointing her, President Obama has ignored the Constitution, by accepting his appointment, Hillary Clinton shares in his ignorance (or willful defiance), and the 94 Senators who voted to confirm his nomination also show that they are unfamiliar with the Constitution or just don't care what it has to say.
Just one more of disgustingly-too-many instances which confirm that Obama's feigned caution over the Constitution was just a big, fat exception to a record of being very comfortable with violating it. Is anyone else starting to get disturbed at how easy it is for me to find and point out examples of our leaders' gross negligence of the Constitution and rule-of-law? I've been busting these out every other day for the past two weeks like it's a cakewalk. They just keep violating the Constitution, and I just keep telling you about it.
Hey Adam. Thanks for you comment. I know it may seem like I'm splitting hairs, and I can definitely see where you're coming from if you're as fed up with partisan sniping over stupid stuff as I am. It's sickening to see two groups hammering one another over things that both are guilty of.
But I insist that this is not just more partisan garbage. I criticize both parties equally for their violations of the Constitution and rule of law. You can see two of my articles with such criticisms of Bush here and here.
I hope it's evident now that I'm not splitting hairs or "pissing in the wind" just to gripe at Obama. I am arguing from a principled position, the position that the Constitution matters and that it is disconcerting to live at a time when it is so widely disregarded by some of our greatest leaders and legal minds. Either they just aren't aware or they just don't care, and I'm disturbed by either alternative.
Do you disagree with that principle itself? In other words, would you say that Clinton's appointment isn't really a big deal, even if it does violate the Constitution? If so, I'd love to hear why and- naturally- to explain why I think it does matter and why even though it isn't really a big deal, it is really a big deal.
I was once told by a man much wiser than I, that continuing to do something over and over again that doesn't work, and expecting at some point to get a different result is the definition of insanity. While this may not be Webster's definition, it certainly fits.
We continue year after frustrating year to make ourselves heard to our representatives and members of congress, but always with the same result. No matter how shrill our screams for reigning in government insanity (and promises made us regarding same) we continue down the same path, stuck in the same ruts, administration after administration.
What logical sense then, does it make to continue to try to reform government with "government approved" methods (political means)? Permitted protests, writing your congressman, attending "town hall" meetings, proper use of the "initiative process", even VOTING, serve only to placate the masses. You feel involved, but you are merely playing in a "sand box" while "Mommy and Daddy" (congress, the executive branch) take care of the "important" stuff.
I think the fact that Obama was going to forget about his campaign promises was a foregone conclusion, long before the election was over. Thinking otherwise is like really believing that internet chain letter will make you rich. You HOPE it will, but in your heart you know it's all hype.
I guess all I'm saying is, what logical sense does it make to continue on this path? What we need to do, (since it's painfully obvious at this point that our "leaders" are just a bunch of spoiled brats who insist on having their way, regardless of the consequences to society) is start by boycotting any corporation, bank, insurance company, car wash, or whatever that took one single dime of "stimulus money". Expand the flourishing free market system we already have in place, (liberals and neo-cons call it the black market) to include everything from soup to nuts, eventually starving the regulated market to death.
This will not by any means be easy, but it is incumbent upon each one of us as freedom loving individuals to do everything in our power to thwart socialism, as it kills and impoverishes wherever it's cancerous malignancy is allowed to grow.
Obama's a liar? No big surprise there for anyone with a brain stem, but the real question is: What will we do in response?
Thank you for posting this. Even if the salary change somehow does not change the violation, it least draws into serious question the notion that this was some sort of deliberate ignoring of the Constitution. So we were wrong. Thanks for keeping us accountable!
I disagree- Constitutional scholars say that this still does not satisfy the text of the Constitution. Also- people who can read can see that lowering Hillary's salary does not satisfy the text of the Constitution. I'm kind of "splitting hairs" but I'm kind of not. We either abide by the law, or conveniently ignore it when we feel like it. The latter alternative is just poor statesmanship and a symptom of the lawlessness of our present era in American history.
I agree with Dave, if only we could get enough people to come and listen though. I'd do it if i was old enough, but what needs to be done is someone needs to get the people together and organized and make a march to Washingtion (again, there has already been one, and for the same reason: Obama) and make a speech. The silent majority of the people should be represented and heard, and a boycott should be made. The government should not tell what the people to do, the people should be telling what the government to do! We cannot wait until November, the time is too long, and we need to buy more time until then. Btw, i predict there will be a civil war in the near future. 2012 maybe?
Hey James. I don't know about a civil war, but I do think some of the Russian political scientists and historians who predict a fracture in the union could be on to something. I think it would happen rather peacefully though. I just don't see American soldiers firing on other Americans today. I just don't see it.
Well, as far as you being lonely out there in your comments..... you most certainly have a friend here!!!
You see, I am one of those LIbertarians who happened to get fooled by my Sotoro. I believed him when he said he would follow the Constitution and not raise taxes. And not use signing statements...... and get us out of the WAR immediately!! I think he should be impeached for lying like that...... either that or I DO want my vote back. There is no accountability in Washington. The bailout proved that to me resoundingly, once and for all. Now is the time when I truly will never again believe any politician. I welcome a third party but, at the same time, am so afraid that it will prove that the power elite can take control of that also. I watched the Debra Medina campaign with first delight (donating $100) then with horror as the Mainstream media strung her up then made her dance like a Marionnette. I took it personally. So I am in despair about a Constitutionalist taking back control of anything.... even a state office. But always that despair turns to anger and that makes me stronger to see that, somehow, this must be made right.... Our children, rightly, will never forgive us for not standing against this corruption and tyranny.
Oh, also for the record.... the Constitution was suspended under the Continuity of Government plan put in place under the Emergency War Powers declaration of Sept. 12, 2001. Since renewed each year including this year by President Obama. Now, tell me, do we not live under a shadow government run behind the scenes? I tell you, our government has been taken over. We are under martial law already!
Just came across this from a link in Yahoo Answers. It's clever, but fails in the details.
Clinton was Senator when the salary for Secretary of State was increased so she wasn't eligible to be Secretary for the rest of the term she was serving when that happened. Read the quoted section carefully, that's what it says.
The link shows pay was increased in 2004, when Clinton was in her first term. So she was ineligible to be Secretary until that term ended in January 2007. After that she became eligible again, so her appointment in 2009 was constitutional.
My mistake for trusting someone else's research. This blog post missed another pay increase affecting Secretary of State, this one during Clinton's 2nd term in the Senate. Under the Ineligibility Clause she would be ineligible until January 2013.
The workaround is the Saxbe Fix, named for a trick during the Nixon administration. Clinton accepted the appointment at the salary that was current before her second term in the Senate. That fix has been used a few times and hasn't been tested in court because no one has standing to challenge an appointment under the Ineligibility Clause.
And that's the real answer to the question. The appointment with Saxbe fix isn't unconstitutional until the court says it is, and the court says no one has standing to bring the case to court.
I can't help but notice you're a bit selective in your advocacy of adherence to the letter of the Constitution. Since when is granting money to charities that happen to be religious an establishment of a state church or state religion?
Thank you Messamore for your voice and input, especially the article on; “The 100 ways BO is just like Bush.”
Doesn’t anybody get it? The two parties are the same-in-one beast, going in the direction of globalism; they just take different paths to get there! The conservatives may have a bad idea, but the liberals do it.
When are (we) as the people of, for, and by the government of the US of AA (formerly AAA) or as Rev Wright says (KKK), going to lay down our indulgencies, i.e. (the video games, the night club scenes, turn off the porn, throw away the crack pipe, shut off the Gaga, and Winehouse idol worship, etc.) and realize we are in government purgatory of sheeple-ism, and climb out of our delusion, and realize that the government is on our shoulders and not on the shoulders of the government socialites?
Whatever happened to the (Checks and Balances)? Where’s the Legislative Branch, where’s the Judicial Branch, where’s the Executive Branch? When one part of government is out of balance, or performs acts unconstitutionally, the other branches are suppose to step in and correct, prosecute, etc. But the whole system is corrupt, from with-in. Just as Al-Gore said; “There is no controlling legal authority.” Wow, are we screwed or what? When the controlling legal authority is no longer (legally) controlling (balancing) morally, constitutionally, or qualitatively, what are we to do?
The bridge Clinton paved into 21st Century is the same old path that allowed the controlling illegal hoard to advance the global system. We need to find the beast (the source of control) behind the shadows and attack and destroy the beast that dictates the puppet spawns, and then we can start taking back our government.
Splitting hairs?? Okay, so then it's okay to over look laws when we want to? No! The law is the law. You go out and rob a bank but it's okay because you donate money to charity. No! It doesn't matter who's side it is.
Keep putting it all out there! The more that read and get educated the better. | {
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Individual Giving
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When you click the button above, you’ll be forwarded to PayPal where you may enter any donation amount and pay securely with a credit card. In addition, you will have the option to make a reccuring monthly donation. You will receive an PayPal e-receipt upon completion. Thank you! | {
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SPRINGFIELD – Hampden Superior Court Judge Tina S. Page on Thursday gave probation as punishment to a father and son who admitted having more than $30,000 in stolen goods, about 2200 pirated DVDs and 300 cartons of untaxed cigarettes when police raided their Hancock Street fish market.
Page did not accept the agreed upon recommendation by prosecution and defense which would have given Jorge Severino, 54, and Luis Severino, 24, a year in the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow followed by two years probation.
Instead Page sentenced the younger Severino to five years probation and his father to four years probation.
Assistant District Attorney Richard B. Morse said the Severinos, who owned Hancock Seafood Market at 262 Hancock St., were known by thieves as the people they could go to and sell stolen goods.
Police had called it an elaborate fencing operation.
City police, after an investigation of more than a year, entered the market and the family residence upstairs with a warrant Feb. 3, 2010. They found stolen goods and later representatives from seven stores identified merchandise stolen from the stores.
The largest amounts of goods were $27,847 worth from CVS, $902 worth from Family Dollar and $809 worth from Stop and Shop.
Police used a confidential informant five times over more than half a year to sell purported stolen goods from CVS, such as Claritan, Prilosec, Rogaine, Infamil, and White Strips, Morse said.
Morse said the Severinos even gave the informant names of products that they wanted him to steal.
Police found in a bedroom of the second floor apartment 2,197 pirated DVDs, newly printed DVD labels, blank DVDs and empty cases. Morse said eight of the movies had not yet been released commercially to DVD.
The Severinos each pleaded guilty to three counts of receiving stolen property, and one count each of illegally recording merchandise (the DVDs) and selling unstamped cigarettes.
Morse, who said the Severino’s had no prior record, said Springfield police “did an enormous amount of work” on the investigation.
He said there was “no flesh and blood victim” but the actions came at a cost to the community, to the corporations and to the willingness of stores to locate in particular neighborhoods.
Defense lawyers George M. Nassar for Jorge Severino and Bruce Green for Luis Severino had urged Page to accept the agreed upon sentence of one year in jail plus two years probation.
It is normal, when a sentence is agreed upon, both sides ask that a judge accept the agreement.
The judge took a break from the bench and then came back and said she was not going to send the men to jail.
Nassar and Green said their clients main business at the store was legal, although they are “essentially out of business now.” The stolen goods found on site were returned to the stores.
Page said so many cases that come into Hampden Superior Court involve “human misery,” where victims are sometimes children or the elderly and where there are people from gang-affected or drug addicted families.
Page said she was not minimizing what the Severinos did but believed the probation sentence is a fair one. | {
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Harry Lewis has a terrific post about a $300 do-it-yourself book scanner he saw at the D is for Digitize conference on the Google Book settlement. The plans are available at DIYBookScanner.org, from Daniel Reetz, the inventor.
There are lots of personal uses for home-digitized books, so — I am definitely not a lawyer — I assume it’s legal to scan in your own books. But doesn’t that just seem silly if your friend or classmate has gone to the trouble of scanning in a book that you already own? Shouldn’t there be a site where we can note which books we’ve scanned in? Then, if we can prove that we’ve bought a book, why shouldn’t we be able to scarf up a copy another legitimate book owner has scanned in, instead of wasting all the time and pixels scanning in our own copy?
Isn’t Amazon among the places that: (a) knows for sure that we’ve bought a book, (b) has the facility to let users upload material such as scans, and (c) could let users get an as-is scan from a DIY-er if there is one available for the books they just bought?
About David WeinbergerDavid is the author of JOHO the blog (www.hyperorg.com/blogger). He is an independent marketing consultant and a frequent speaker at various conferences. "All I can promise is that I will be honest with you and never write something I don't believe in because someone is paying me as part of a relationship you don't know about. Put differently: All I'll hide are the irrelevancies."
Predicting the future has never been more challenging - not because of the lack of data but because of the flood of ungoverned and risk laden information. Microsoft states that 2.5 exabytes of data are created every day. Expectations and reliance on data are being pushed to the l...
Poor data quality and analytics drive down business value. In fact, Gartner estimated that the average financial impact of poor data quality on organizations is $9.7 million per year. But bad data is much more than a cost center. By eroding trust in information, analytics and the...
Business professionals no longer wonder if they'll migrate to the cloud; it's now a matter of when. The cloud environment has proved to be a major force in transitioning to an agile business model that enables quick decisions and fast implementation that solidify customer relatio...
"NetApp is known as a data management leader but we do a lot more than just data management on-prem with the data centers of our customers. We're also big in the hybrid cloud," explained Wes Talbert, Principal Architect at NetApp, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 21st Cloud Expo, ... | {
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Main menu
Speed Consulting
2:45 PM - 4:00 PM: Session 3
The premise is simple. We have 14 experts in a wide range of fields to answer any questions you have. Some of these folks would charge $300 an hour. You’ll get to bend their ear for free. Over the hour and a half (1:45 to 3:15pm), you can sign up for three 15-minute sessions. There is no agenda other than the questions you bring to the table. They are there to help you!
Here are our experts:
Accounting - Kate Barr - Nonprofit Assistance Fund
Advocacy - Irene Quarshie - Target
Board Development - Diane Herman - Cincinnatus
Career - Lars Leafblad - Ballinger/Leafblad
Change Management & Strategy - Kristin Pardue - Reve Consulting.com
Fundraising - Stephen Devereux - Devereux Development Consulting
HR - Paul DeBettignies - MNHeadhunter.com
Law - Hetal Dalal - PopularDemocracy.org
Life/Work Balance - Amanda Dustan
Marketing - Kolina Cicero - Cicero Media
Operations - Dara Rudick - Management HQ
Startups - Deepinder Singh - 75f
Tell Your Story Better - Neil Chudgar
Web Development - Toby Cryns - Themightymo.com
You’re already signed up to attend, but how do you sign up for a specific session? Two ways. You can sign up ahead of time online by going to http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a48a9a622a0fa7-speed. (You don’t need to establish an account). You can also sign up on the day of the event the during the lunch hour or just before the session. We’ll be in the 5th floor café towards the back. Drop by 10-15 minutes early (around 1:30pm) so you get your pick of sessions. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Reagan came into office proposing to cut personal income and business taxes. The Economic Recovery Act was supposed to reduce revenues by $749 billion over five years. But this was quickly reversed with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. TEFRAthe largest tax increase in American historywas designed to raise $214.1 billion over five years, and took back many of the business tax savings enacted the year before. It also imposed withholding on interest and dividends, a provision later repealed over the president's objection.
Reagan came into office proposing to cut personal income and business taxes. The Economic Recovery Act was supposed to reduce revenues by $749 billion over five years. But this was quickly reversed with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. TEFRAthe largest tax increase in American historywas designed to raise $214.1 billion over five years, and took back many of the business tax savings enacted the year before. It also imposed withholding on interest and dividends, a provision later repealed over the president's objection.
Click to expand...
9/11 Reagan's second tax increase was the Social Security Reform Act of 1983, which followed the recommendations of a commission led by Alan Greenspan. Its key provision was an increase in the payroll tax that pays for Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance.
For many middle- and low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from St Ronnie's income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent, but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up from 17.7% to 18.4%, not down.
The greatest economic stimulus comes directly from the people, hard working americans, government never creates a thing, Reagen understood this, Reagen preached this, despite the government, American people survive. We always have and always will.
All your charts and debates dont mean a damn thing, Obama's simply dividing the nation, everything he does is meant to divide the nation.
Look at his speech in Latin America, he just apologized yet again, stating we have ignored our southern nieghbors too long, you think Obama forgets we gave mexico over 12 million dollars, nope, Obama is spending to destroy, lies to decieve.
Socailism creates nothing. Communism has failed all nations, killed millions in Russia, if it takes hold here, it will kill millions more, if not billions.
Hail the messiah
Click to expand...
And capitalism has been such a winner, right? The two biggest ecominic tragedies in the past 100 years were a direct result of rampant capitalism....
Click to expand...
Actually, unregulated free-market capitalism is what did it. Unregulated capital markets led to the Great Depression. Strong government spending and regulation of capital markets helped end it.
Similarly, when the Graham-Leach-Blighly Act was singed into law, gutting the Glass-Steagall Act, the foundation for our current economic woes was laid.
The free marketeers forget or, more likely conveniently ignore, the fact that unregulated free markets presuppose a fully rational society. Something which has not been seen in human history, nor is likely to be seen anytime soon.
The greatest economic stimulus comes directly from the people, hard working americans, government never creates a thing, Reagen understood this, Reagen preached this, despite the government, American people survive. We always have and always will.
All your charts and debates dont mean a damn thing, Obama's simply dividing the nation, everything he does is meant to divide the nation.
Look at his speech in Latin America, he just apologized yet again, stating we have ignored our southern nieghbors too long, you think Obama forgets we gave mexico over 12 million dollars, nope, Obama is spending to destroy, lies to decieve.
Socailism creates nothing. Communism has failed all nations, killed millions in Russia, if it takes hold here, it will kill millions more, if not billions.
Hail the messiah
Click to expand...
And capitalism has been such a winner, right? The two biggest ecominic tragedies in the past 100 years were a direct result of rampant capitalism....
Click to expand...
To have economic tragedies you have to first have economies...Communism and socialism don't even produce that, they are subsistence societies that have just enough production to give the government Nuclear Weapons.
How can a Communist economy fail when people don't have anything to begin with?
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Westbrook rules himself out of U.S. World Cup
Russell Westbrook won't play for Team USA. Plus the Thunder, OSU Cowboys, and ORU Golden Eagles were all represented in the NBA's Summer League, and it's U.S. Senior Open week at Oak Tree National in Edmond.
Russell Westbrook won't play for Team USA. Plus the Thunder, OSU Cowboys, and ORU Golden Eagles were all represented in the NBA's Summer League, and it's U.S. Senior Open week at Oak Tree National in Edmond.
Westbrook, 25, who won gold medals on the U.S. team at the 2010 World Championship and 2012 Olympics Games, missed almost half of last season with the Thunder because of knee injuries.
“I have received confirmation from Russell that he will not be participating in this summer's USA Basketball Men's National Team training and the World Cup due to his need to rest,” USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said in a statement Tuesday.
“We've been communicating with Russell since the Thunder's season ended and we've known this was a possibility.
"As much as we would love to have him this summer and as much as he'd like to play for the United States this summer, this is the right decision."
Westbrook, who has long been favored by U.S. national coach Mike Krzyzewski, has opted out of a July training camp, an August exhibition tour and the Aug. 30-Sept. 14 World Cup. | {
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shared office
Short Business Description:A baby and kid friendly office space designed with the needs of moms in mind.
Long Business Description:
Mommy Works is a new concept to Orange County.
We are a baby and kid friendly office for busy and working moms, including moms that work from home, students, or moms that just need some time out of the house and to access free Wi-fi.
Our facilities can be utilized by our customers to work or study in an environment where they can get work done efficiently and still have their children in the same office, but supervised by someone else.
Office includes kitchen with high chairs and toddler table for feeding, free coffee, and tea, small and large conference rooms, bathroom facilities, changing tables, quiet room, and breastfeeding/pump area in addition to the supervised playroom. | {
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We’ve reported a lot on Walmart over the last year (mostly because they’ve done a lot of sexist shit). Here’s a little cherry on that cake for you:
Womens E-News ran a great story yesterday about Walmart’s struggle to break out of its rural, Christian mold and expand into urban areas. Turns out, their discriminatory history is catching up to them, and might actually end up hindering their success in more populated areas of the country. As the article states:Political battles over proposed Wal-Mart stores in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago have demonstrated that what’s acceptable in Arkansas isn’t necessarily embraced everywhere. While the objections focused on the retailer’s low wages, hostility to unions and damage to small businesses, the discount giant’s antagonists also pointed to its [refusal to stock Plan B] as an issue.
Maybe, in an attempt to conquer more of the American terrain, Walmart will ease up on its anti-contraception stance.
Why is life always a tradeoff?
Nearly five hundred women and children were released from family detention centers in Texas this week after a judge ruled these facilities were unsuitable for children. While the decision is a victory for advocates, the unexpected release has left families and aid organizations scrambling.
Nearly five hundred women and children were released from family detention centers in Texas this week after a judge ruled these facilities were unsuitable for children. While the decision is a victory for advocates, the unexpected release has left families and aid ...
I sat in my aunt’s house after Thanksgiving dinner, hanging out with my family. My uncle had made his way out of his study to watch the news and it was only a matter of moments before the focus was brought to President-elect Trump.
I sat in my aunt’s house after Thanksgiving dinner, hanging out with my family. My uncle had made his way out of his study to watch the news and it was only a matter of moments before ...
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Pololu Mini Metal EXTENDED Gearmotor Bracket
51070
The Pololu Micro Metal gearmotor bracket (the motors are metal, the bracket is plastic!) is a really nice way to make a tidy installation of our GM11a-14a style gear motors. It also seals the gearbox against contamination, and locks the gearhead in place with grooves, for a nice, clean, secure fit!
This version has the extended base, which lets you push the gearhead further out for deeper reach, which is useful with the 42x19mm type wheels.
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Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Dynamic HTML and special effects
Dynamic HTML (DHTML) combines the capabilities of multimedia
and scripting to create visual and 3D effects. The effects you insert
perform an action or move in response to user input (such as a mouse
click). Keep in mind the following details when working with DHTML: | {
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} |
Inflammation worsens danger due to atherosclerosis
Jan 22, 2009
Current research suggests that inflammation increases the risk of plaque rupture in atherosclerosis. The related report by Ovchinnikova et al, "T cell activation leads to reduced collagen maturation in atherosclerotic plaques of ApoE-deficient- mice," appears in the February 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.
Atherosclerosis is a disease of arterial blood vessels where fats, cholesterol, blood cells, and fibers form hardened plaques on the artery wall. These plaques restrict blood flow to tissues such as the heart and brain by narrowing the artery. Atherosclerosis can be caused by high blood pressure, high fat and high cholesterol diets, smoking, and diabetes. People with atherosclerotic plaques often show no symptoms for decades.
Atherosclerotic plaques consist of lipid cores covered by collagen fiber caps. These plaques can suddenly rupture, resulting in blood clots that completely block blood flow and lead to heart attack or stroke in otherwise healthy individuals. One potential cause of plaque rupture is the thinning of the collagen fiber cap covering the plaque.
Inflammatory cells are often observed at the site of plaque rupture. Researchers led by Dr. Göran K Hansson at the Karolinska Institute explored the role of inflammatory cells in atherosclerotic plaque rupture using an animal model of atherosclerosis with hyper-activated immune cells. They found that inflammation leads to a reduction of mature collagen in atherosclerotic plaques, leading to thinner caps that are more likely to rupture. They then identified a collagen-maturing enzyme, lysyl-oxidase (LOX), which represents a novel target in inflammation-induced plaque rupture.
The data from Ovchinnikova et al suggest "a novel mechanism by which adaptive immunity can modulate plaque stability - impairment of collagen maturation by T cell-dependent inflammation." These studies help unraveling the cause of myocardial infarction and stroke, and provide "interesting new targets for plaque stabilization therapy." In future studies, Dr. Hansson's group will explore the role of insufficient collagen maturation in human atherosclerosis. They hope that components of collagen and the LOX enzyme will become useful both to identify patients at risk for plaque rupture and to develop new therapy to prevent plaque rupture and thrombosis.
(AP)—Spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station on Sunday, routing several-hundred feet of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned ...
A study of how climate change has affected emperor penguins over the last 30,000 years found that only three populations may have survived during the last ice age, and that the Ross Sea in Antarctica was ...
Ecological protests on Saturday dogged the final day of an International Olympic Committee executive board meeting in Rio as green campaigners slated the choice of a nature reserve to hold the golf event ...
ZMapp, the experimental Ebola drug that won notoriety when it was given to a handful of infected aid workers at the height of the epidemic, will now begin clinical testing in Liberian treatment centers, U.S. health authorities ...
Public health experts can identify nations that are vulnerable to the occurrence and impact of future outbreaks of Ebola or other emergencies by using a screening tool that evaluates a nation's strengths across a wide range ...
Vienna's public lavatories were at the focus of a study by the Global Food Safety research group at the Vetmeduni Vienna. The researchers studied 224 public restrooms in Vienna, which are about 91 percent ...
Known for years as the "career woman's disease" based on the idea that women without children develop disease in their reproductive organs, endometriosis is a painful condition thought to affect one in ten wome ...
User comments : 1
The title is certainly correct but there is deceptive information within;"Atherosclerosis can be caused by high blood pressure, high fat and high cholesterol diets, smoking, and diabetes."
no, NO! Atherosclerosis is initiated by viral and/or microbial infections, the above contribute after the fact, and here's why; http://www.scienc...1053/DC1The report is over 5 yr old and few researchers have taken notice,... yet.
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The 40-year-old "Came Here to Forget" singer will perform live at the Microsoft Theater L.A. Live on CBS Jan. 18. Shelton, who won his first People's Choice Award in 2016 for Favorite Male Country Artist, is nominated for Favorite Male Artist, Favorite Male Country Artist and Favorite Album (If I'm Honest) this year. He joins previously announced performers Fifth Harmony. | {
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San Jose Holiday Parade, Santa Run, Dining, Shopping & Events
Celebrate the holidays in style this year, and discover a thrilling array of festivities that your entire family will enjoy. Don't miss the spectacular San Jose Holiday Parade, and spend an evening strolling through Christmas in the Park. Shop for treats and savor special holiday dining at Santana Row and San Pedro Square. From holiday concerts to trolley rides, San Jose provides everything you need for an unforgettable holiday celebration.
San Jose sparkles during the holiday season, with a dynamic selection of activities. Visit the Winter Wonderland, take a free historic trolley ride, see a production of A Christmas Carol, attend a holiday concert and of course - watch the San Jose Holiday Parade.
Slip on your Santa suit for this popular holiday-theme fun run. Taking place on December 14, this family-friendly race raises money for Downtown Ice and Christmas in the Park. Register now to participate!
Discover an indulgent array of the finest restaurants along this elegant shopping and dining avenue. Make your reservations at restaurants like Consuelo Mexican Bistro, Citrus, Blowfish Sushi, Cocola, Yard House and Thea Mediterranean.
Still not finished with your holiday shopping? This high-end retail center has everything you need. Stores include Nordstrom, Prada, Louis Vuitton, True Religion, Lego, Club Monaco and of course - photos with Santa Claus. | {
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Joe Cornish has given an update on the much-anticipated Ant-Man script that he and Edgar Wright have been working on for Marvel. He and Wright are currently working on the 3rd draft of the script. Here is what he had to say in a recent interview with Hitfix.
Cornish would not go on the record, but did share the following:
-Edgar Wright isn't the official director of the movie. It's a strong possibility but not set in stone.
-He and Edgar are still hard at work on the film, meaning that a 3rd draft is apparently in the works.
-Cornish went on to say that Ant-Man is Edgar's project and that he will leave all the big announcements to him.
It has been reported that the story could have more than one person as Ant-Man (including Hany Pym and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Eric O'Grady) because the story may cover a lengthy timeline. This would likely mean that there will be different actors playing the part. Not much is known at this time about what Cornish and Wright are working on specifically. We will keep you posted as more news develops on this story.
In the meantime let us know who you would like to see star in the film. | {
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} |
Creating environments that stimulate learning is a great
privilege.
We’ve created spaces for children, adolescents and adults,
helping them to engage in activities from study to sport. With
considerable experience in both secondary and tertiary education,
we understand how all the elements of these environments work
together, not just for the students, but for the people who work
there too. And while we’re transforming the property, we keep the
environment as stimulating as possible. That’s because we believe a
learning environment should never be taken over by a building
site. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Old Age and Survivor's Insurance
Held, where no other formality or solemnization surrounded a
purported marriage, the mere act of acquiring a marriage license cannot
constitute a "marriage ceremony" within the meaning of section
216(h)(1)(B) of the Social Security Act even though the parties in good
faith believed that this act gave rise to a valid marriage
relationship.
R, the worker, and W, his alleged spouse, obtained a marriage license in
the State of Washington on July 5, 1960. Both parties had little knowledge
of the English language and almost no formal education. Although both had
been married and divorced while living in Mexico before coming to the
United States, they were unfamiliar with Washington marriage law and in
good faith believed that when they obtained the marriage license, a
marriage resulted without further ceremony or solemnization. After
acquiring the marriage license, R and W lived together at all times in the
State of Washington until R's death on January 21, 1968. However, a
marriage ceremony between R and W did not take place until January 2,
1968, when they learned that failure to solemnize a marriage prevented
creation of a marriage relationship in that State.
W's application for widow's insurance benefits was denied on the grounds
that she was not married to the deceased worker "for a period of not less
than nine months immediately prior to the day on which he died" as
required by section 216(c) of the Social Security Act. This action was
affirmed upon judicial review in Perez v. finch, 320 F.Supp. 787
(E.D. Wash., 1970).
The question now in issue is whether the obtaining of a marriage license,
where the parties in good faith believed that such act, by itself, was
sufficient for a valid marriage, constitutes a "marriage ceremony" within
the meaning of section 216(h)(1)(B) of the Act.
Washington Rev. Code Ann. § 260.04.140 (1970) states that before any
persons can be joined in marriage, they shall procure a license from a
county auditor authorizing any person or religious organization to join
together the persons as husband and wife. The State of Washington does not
recognize common-law marriage if contracted and consummated in Washington.
See In re Gallagher's Estate, 213 P.2d 621 (Wash. 1950).
In any case where under subparagraph (A) an applicant is not (and is not
deemed to be) the . . . widow . . . of a fully or currently insured
individual, or where under subsection . . . (c) . . . such applicant is
not the . . . widow . . . of such individual, but it is established to the
satisfaction of the Secretary that such applicant in good faith went
through a marriage ceremony with such individual resulting in a
purported marriage between them which, but for a legal impediment not
known to the applicant at the time of such ceremony, would have been a
valid marriage, and such applicant and the insured individual were living
in the same household at the time of the death of such insured individual
. . . then, for purposes of subparagraph (A) and subsection . . . (c) . .
. such purported marriage shall be deemed to be a valid marriage. . . .
For purposes of this subparagraph, a legal impediment to the validity of a
purported marriage includes only an impediment (i) resulting from the lack
of dissolution of a previous marriage or otherwise arising out of such
previous marriage or its dissolution, or (ii) resulting from a defect in
the procedure followed in connection with such purported marriage."
(Emphasis added.)
Section 216(h)(1)(B) may apply only in cases where there has been a
marriage ceremony which, but for a legal impediment unknown to the
applicant at the time of the ceremony, would have been a valid marriage.
The section defines a "legal impediment" as an impediment (i) resulting
from the lack of dissolution of a previous marriage or otherwise arising
out of such previous marriage or its dissolution, or (ii) resulting from a
defect in the procedure followed in connection with such purported
marriage. In discussing an impediment resulting from a defect in the
procedure followed in connection with a purported marriage, both the
Senate and House Reports cite, as an example of a defect in the procedure,
failure to comply in one or more respects with any provision of State law
relating to the performance of a marriage ceremony or to the kind of
ceremony required. See House Rep. No. 1799, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. 91 (1960)
and Sen. Rep. No. 1856, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. 78 (1960). Thus, the statute
quite clearly envisages and requires a marriage ceremony, and without some
form of solemnization, the act of acquiring a marriage license cannot be
considered a marriage ceremony.
The instant case differs from a situation in which some further action
may have been taken by the parties. For example, where there has been an
observance by the parties of what they believed to be the legal
formalities necessary for a ceremonial marriage, the Social Security
Administration would not be precluded from a conclusion that the good
faith securing of a marriage license in the presence of two witnesses
constituted a "marriage ceremony" with the meaning of section 216(h)(1)(B)
of the Act. The fact that such parties intend to have a marriage ceremony
and, pursuant to that intent, secure a marriage license in the presence of
two witnesses adds an element of formality to an otherwise preliminary and
wholly ministerial event. With witnesses present, there is something more
than the mere acquisition of a marriage license and the purported marriage
under such circumstances may be surrounded by sufficient formality to
constitute a "marriage ceremony."
Although the Social Security Act is a remedial statute and as such should
be liberally construed to allow benefit payments, there are outer limits
of liberality of interpretation in favor of the claimant. Therefore,
unless other formalities or solemnization surround a purported marriage,
the mere act of acquiring a marriage license may not be considered a
"marriage ceremony" within the meaning of section 216(h)(1)(B) of the Act
even though the parties in good faith believe that acquiring such license
is all that is necessary to create a valid marriage. To hold otherwise
would interpret the requirement of a ceremonial marriage out of the
statute.
Accordingly, it is held that in the absence of a "marriage
ceremony," no valid marriage relationship arose and W does not qualify as
R's widow under section 216(h)(1)(B) of the Act.
Important Information:
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The Social Security Administration (SSA) website contains links to websites not affiliated with the United States government. These may include State and Local governmental agencies, international agencies, and private entities.
SSA cannot attest to the accuracy of information provided by such websites. If we provide a link to such a website, this does not constitute an endorsement by SSA or any of its employees of the information or products presented on the non-SSA website.
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Tag Archives: Humphrey Bogart
The Enforcer (1951)
Directed by Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh
United States Pictures / Warner Bros.
I wasn’t expecting much from this fictionalized account of the exploits of Murder, Inc., but I ended up being completely blown away. Although the director listed in the credits is the lavishly named Bretaigne Windust, the bulk of the film was actually directed by Raoul Walsh after Windust was hospitalized with a serious illness.
Walsh is a director I love. He made lean, tough movies that are also incredibly entertaining. He did some of his best work with Humphrey Bogart, like The Roaring Twenties (1939), They Drive by Night (1940), and High Sierra (1941).
The Enforcer was the last time Bogart and Walsh worked together, and while it’s basically a low-budget B movie with an A-list star, Walsh’s crisp, fast-paced direction and facility with hard-boiled conventions elevate the picture.
Even though Bogart is the only big name in the credits, this movie has an outstanding line-up of male character actors. The sheer number of ugly mugs in this movie is overwhelming. Ted de Corsia, Zero Mostel, Everett Sloane, and Bob Steele were never going to win any beauty contests, but they are all incredibly convincing as vicious killers.
Also, the black & white cinematography by Robert Burks is an object lesson in how to make simple sets look like works of art. A lot of people will tell you that The Enforcer is not really a film noir because it’s a straightforward D.A. & cops vs. gangsters story, but for me, noir is primarily a style, and this is a movie that oozes style.
SPOILER ALERT. This review will discuss plot points of this film — and the novel it is based on — that you may not want to know if you haven’t already seen the film and read the novel.
This might come as a surprise to people used to films that slavishly adhere to the smallest details of the novels and comic books they’re adapted from (lest the filmmakers incur the wrath of throngs of nerds on the internet), but movies based on books used to be wildly different from their source material.
The phrase “the book was better” became a cliché for a lot of reasons, but one reason is that during the era of the Hays Code, novels could be much more explicit about sexuality, violence, race, gender, and other “grown-up” issues than Hollywood films could be.
There was probably no way Dorothy B. Hughes’s 1947 novel In a Lonely Place — which is about a man who stalks, rapes, and murders a series of women in postwar Los Angeles — was ever going to make it to the screen with its original plot intact. What’s interesting about Nicholas Ray’s film adaptation, however, is that it fundamentally changes the story while retaining the novel’s exploration of toxic masculinity.
Hughes’s novel is a third-person narrative that never leaves the perspective of Dixon Steele, a World War II veteran who is pretending to write a novel while receiving financial support from a rich uncle.
Dixon — “Dix” to his friends — sponges off a wealthy friend from college, Mel Terriss, who never appears in the novel and is supposedly out of the country. Dix lives in Mel’s apartment, wears his clothes, and charges purchases to his expense account.
One of Dix’s friends from his days in the service, Brub Nicolai, is now an LAPD detective investigating the murders that Dix is committing. Under the guise of “research,” Dix insinuates himself into Brub’s life and into Brub’s investigation. Dix was a pilot in the war, and he became addicted to the thrill of danger when flying missions. When he rides along with the police and returns to the scenes of his crimes, he learns what they know and what they don’t know, and he experiences rushes of adrenaline by pushing his luck.
Andrew Solt’s screenplay, from an adaptation by Edmund H. North, retains most of the characters’ original names, but nearly everything else is different in some way. Instead of pretending to write a mystery novel as a cover, in the film version Dixon Steele is a successful screenwriter; or at least he used to be. Instead of being outwardly “normal” and utterly average-looking, the film’s Dix is distinctive-looking, well-known around Los Angeles, and has a police record for violence. Instead of a string of murders, Dixon is suspected of only one; the murder of a checkroom girl he took home one night to help him with a screenplay.
If the producers had been casting for a straight adaptation of the book, I think the perfect choice for Dixon Steele would have been Robert Montgomery, who starred in another adaptation of a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, Ride the Pink Horse (1947). Montgomery was the kind of guy who would be hard to pick out of a police line-up, but he had intense and haunted eyes. He also served in combat in World War II, just like Dixon Steele.
Bogart, on the other hand, is always “Bogie” no matter who he is playing. I don’t mean that he was ever typecast, just that his unique image and his star power were always bigger than the character, at least in the post-Casablanca era. This works for the film version of In a Lonely Place, since Dix is recognized all over Hollywood, mostly by people who dislike him.
In a Lonely Place is a masterful film from Nicholas Ray, a director who had already made a handful of impressive films in a relatively short career. The changes made to Hughes’s novel all work in the context of the film, since it’s not a film about a murderer, it’s a film about an angry and deeply unhappy man who is unable to control his rage.
In a Lonely Place works on two levels. If you go into it without knowing the ending, you’ll probably spend most of the film trying to guess whether or not Dix is guilty of murder. Bogart’s performance is perfect in this regard. His line “I’ve killed dozens of people … in pictures” rivals Bela Lugosi’s famous line from Dracula (1931), “I never drink … wine.”
Solt’s screenplay originally ended with Dixon — who is innocent of the murder he’s suspected of — strangling his girlfriend, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame). This is a trite conclusion that implies that police railroading “made him do it,” and it’s good that Ray shot a different ending.
What we’re left with is something much more profound. Unlike most Hollywood films, the love of a good woman doesn’t reform Dixon Steele. His rage and his refusal to confront his own propensity for violence drives her away. He is unwilling to confront his own demons, and it damns him to a lifetime alone.
SPOILER ALERT. This review will discuss plot points of this film that you may not want to know if you haven’t already seen it.
Knock on Any Door was the third film Nicholas Ray directed, but it was the first of his films to have a wide theatrical release.
Ray directed his first film, They Live by Night, in 1947, but RKO didn’t know how to market it, and it premiered in the United Kingdom in a single theater on August 5, 1948.
They didn’t know how to market his second film, either — A Woman’s Secret — which he directed in 1948.
However, They Live by Night had been screened privately for many actors and producers in Hollywood. Humphrey Bogart was impressed by it, and he enlisted Ray to direct Knock on Any Door, the first film made by Bogart’s independent production company, Santana Pictures.
Knock on Any Door was an enormous success, and Ray’s earlier films soon found their way into theaters; A Woman’s Secret in March 1949, and They Live by Night in November 1949.
The screenplay for Knock on Any Door, by Daniel Taradash and John Monks Jr., was based on the best-selling 1947 novel by Willard Motley, an African-American writer from Chicago.
Motley’s novel is the story of a young Italian-American named Nick Romano who went from being an altar boy to a career criminal after growing up in a crime-ridden neighborhood and being cycled through the juvenile justice system.
In the film, “Pretty Boy” Nick Romano is played by John Derek. It was Derek’s first credit for a motion picture, although he’d had small roles in a few films before it. The 22-year-old actor was pretty much the perfect choice to play a young hood called “Pretty Boy.”
Much is made of Derek’s good looks. When he’s put on trial for murdering a police officer, his lawyer, Andrew Morton (Humphrey Bogart), makes sure to get as many women on the jury as he can.
Morton feels responsible for the man Romano has become, since his lackadaisical legal work for the Romano family when Nick was a young man doomed Nick’s father to prison. He wants to stack the jury with as many women as possible, since he believes they’ll be swayed by his cherubic face.
Morton’s argument in court is that while Nick Romano has a criminal past, he is innocent of the crime of murder. And because Morton feels partially responsible for Nick’s criminal career, he fights for him with everything he’s got.
Knock on Any Door superficially resembles Call Northside 777 (1948), another movie set in Chicago about a man on a crusade to prove that a second-generation American accused of murdering a police officer has been railroaded. But there’s a major difference between Knock on Any Door and Call Northside 777, and it’s why I put a spoiler alert at the beginning of this review. “Pretty Boy” Nick Romano is guilty.
I don’t know if this is obvious to some viewers. It wasn’t obvious to me. In fact, I felt so completely hoodwinked by Knock on Any Door that I couldn’t stop thinking about its climax after I watched it. Humphrey Bogart is such a likable protagonist, and his adversary — District Attorney Kerman (George Macready) — is so unlikable that I never once stopped to consider that Romano might actually be guilty. The film even sets up Romano as a handsome foil for the D.A., whose face is scarred. It’s strongly implied during all of the cross-examination scenes that Kerman is jealous of the young man’s good looks.
But then the film pulls the rug out from under the viewer. Not only does Romano finally break down on the stand and admit his guilt, but the last shot of the film is of Romano with the back of his head shaved, walking down a long corridor to the electric chair. I couldn’t believe it.
After Romano’s confession and before his walk to the death chamber, Bogart has a chance to speechify as only Bogart could. It’s a well-delivered speech about how crime is everyone’s fault when it’s grown in the Petri dish of the slums, but in the decades since Knock on Any Door was made, “Don’t blame me, blame society” has become a cliché.
The shouted message of the film didn’t have the same impact as the simple fact that I had grown to like Romano and was looking forward to seeing him found not guilty. When the film ended I felt betrayed and devastated.
John Huston’s Key Largo was the fourth and final film Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart made together.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Bogie and Bacall are one of the most famous couples — perhaps the most famous couple — in Hollywood history. And yet, their onscreen work together boils down to just four films made over the course of five years: To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo.
Key Largo is very loosely based on the 1939 play by Maxwell Anderson. I often don’t like films adapted from plays. The dialogue and the way the characters enter and re-enter the action usually feels very strange. But Key Largo never feels “stagey,” and confining the action to a single location only heightens the tension between the characters.
The film opens with beautiful footage of the Florida Keys. By opening with establishing shots of the steamy, summertime Keys, by the time the action is confined to a hotel while a hurricane rages outside, nothing about Key Largo feels stagey or stilted. The viewer is right in the middle of the action, and the suspense grows as the film goes on.
Summertime is the off season in the Florida Keys, when the mercury never dips below 100 degrees, and all the hotels are closed. Bogart plays Frank McCloud, a veteran of World War II who is in Key Largo to visit James Temple (Lionel Barrymore), a wheelchair-bound man whose son George was killed in the war. (McCloud was George Temple’s commanding officer.) Temple runs a hotel in Key Largo with George’s widow, Nora (Lauren Bacall).
When Bogart sits down at the bar in the Largo Hotel, he laconically introduces himself to the boozy moll Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor) as “McCloud. Frank. By John, out of Ellen.”
Gaye is not the only oddball occupant of the Largo Hotel. There are also a trio of men — Curly (Thomas Gomez), Angel (Dan Seymour), and Toots (Harry Lewis) — and with names like those, it’s clear that their story about coming down to the Keys from Milwaukee to do a little fishing isn’t on the up-and-up.
The full terror of the situation becomes apparent when we catch our first glimpse of gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), sitting in a bathtub in one of the upstairs rooms of the hotel, chewing a cigar and exuding menace.
Robinson is a great actor, and Johnny Rocco is one of his most memorable creations. Rocco craves power and money, and there will never be enough power and money to satisfy him. He delights in toying with his hostages, taunting them with their helplessness. He even goes so far as to give one of them a pistol, daring them to kill him. But his bullying takes all forms. One of the most harrowing scenes in the film is when he humiliates Gaye by forcing her to sing for everyone before he’ll give her another drink. And like most bullies, Johnny Rocco is a coward at heart. As the hurricane builds in ferocity outside the hotel, so does his fear.
Key Largo was John Huston’s second film to be released in 1948. (The first was another collaboration with Bogart, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.) Key Largo is a masterfully directed film. The actors are all at the top of their game (Claire Trevor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role). The film’s music, by Max Steiner, is perfect; full of tension and menace, and — when the scene calls for it — a crushing sense of inevitability. Rudi Fehr’s editing accentuates the tension, and Karl Freund’s cinematography is beautiful.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Directed by John Huston
Warner Bros.
In his review of Elmore Leonard’s 1995 novel Riding the Rap, Martin Amis wrote that “Mr. Leonard has only one plot. All his thrillers are Pardoner’s Tales, in which Death roams the land — usually Miami or Detroit — disguised as money.”
The same could be said of John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but instead of the duffel bags full of cash found in Leonard’s hard-boiled crime novels, money in this film takes the form of gold.
The gold in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre isn’t just a disguise for death, either; it’s the impetus for all manner of human striving and weakness, and brings out the best and the worst in the men who seek it.
As for the film itself, it mostly brings out the best in all of its actors. Neither Humphrey Bogart nor Tim Holt are completely able to shed their well-worn personas, but the same cannot be said of Walter Huston, the director’s father, who is pitch-perfect in his role. (Also, it’s likely that many people who watch The Treasure of the Sierra Madre today will have never seen Tim Holt in any of his countless B westerns and therefore have little trouble accepting him in his role.)
Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, a man who finds himself penniless in Tampico, Mexico. He meets fellow American drifter Bob Curtin (Holt) and together they get jobs working in the oilfields, but their unscrupulous employer runs off without paying them, leaving them back where they started. However, luck smiles on them, and after winning a little money they hook up with an old prospector named Howard (Walter Huston) and head for the Sierra Madre mountains to mine their fortune. Howard warns Dobbs and Curtin of the dangers of “gold fever,” but they both claim they’ll deal with their windfalls sensibly if they strike it rich.
No points will be awarded first-time viewers who correctly predict that the protagonists will both strike it rich and succumb to greed and paranoia.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is based on the 1927 novel by the mysterious author “B. Traven.” Little is known about the possibly German-born novelist who probably lived most of his life in Mexico, which is where most of his fiction is set. According to the February 2, 1948, issue of Time, Traven was paid $5,000 for the screen rights to his novel. Traven was such a mysterious figure that although director Huston frequently corresponded with him, when it came time to meet Traven, a nervous translator named “Hal Croves” showed up in his place, claiming to be a close friend of Traven’s. Huston hired Croves as a technical adviser on the film, paying him $150 a week. Huston strongly suspected (but could never conclusively determine) that “Croves” was really Traven.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was nominated for four Oscars — best picture, best director, best supporting actor for Walter Huston, and best screenplay. It won every Academy Award for which it was nominated except for best picture.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a great film. It’s also one of those rare movies — like Casablanca — that even people who “don’t like old movies” will usually enjoy. It has excellent pacing, an involving story, and believable characters, but most importantly, it has authenticity. It was filmed mostly on location in Mexico, and the Mexican characters actually speak Spanish. It’s ironic that this is the movie that gave us the most enduringly stereotypical “Mexican” line — “I don’t have to show you any steenking batches!” — because it’s one of the few films from the ’40s in which Mexican characters actually speak Spanish, and without even subtitles to make things easier on a gringo audience.
Delmer Daves’s Dark Passage is the red-headed stepchild of the Bogie-Bacall movies.
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married in 1945, and stayed married until Bogart’s death in 1957. They made four movies together — To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage, and Key Largo (1948). Of these four, Dark Passage is the strangest and the least widely acclaimed.
It was a bit of a critical and box office disappointment at the time of its release, possibly because Bogart’s face doesn’t actually appear on-screen until the picture is more than half over, and possibly because of Bogart’s involvement with the Committee for the First Amendment.
The Committee for the First Amendment was an organization that was formed to protest the treatment of Hollywood figures by the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Bogart later recanted his involvement with the organization in a letter published in the March 1948 issue of Photoplay entitled “I’m No Communist.”)
Dark Passage is based on a book by oddball crime novelist David Goodis. The film does a good job of bringing Goodis’s strong characterizations and nightmarish, occasionally surreal demimonde to the big screen.
For better or for worse, it also does a good job of bringing to life some of Goodis’s less powerful aspects, like his convoluted plots and his reliance on coincidence.
But just like the best of Goodis’s novels, the film version of Dark Passage doesn’t need to be plausible to work. It plays by its own rules, and when it works, boy does it work.
In Dark Passage, Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a man convicted of killing his wife who breaks out of San Quentin by hiding in a 55-gallon drum on the back of a flatbed truck. He manages to roll himself off the truck and into a ditch somewhere in Marin County. He strips down to his undershirt, buries his prison-issue shirt, and takes to the highway to thumb a ride. He’s picked up, first by a guy named Baker (Clifton Young), and then — when that little ride goes sour — by a beautiful artist named Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall).
She hides him under her canvases and wet paint so they can make it through a roadblock at the entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge, then she takes him to her luxurious bachelorette pad in North Beach. Why is she helping him? Because her own father was unjustly imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit, and because she followed Parry’s trial, even writing letters to the editor protesting his treatment by the press.
For the first 37 minutes of Dark Passage, Bogart’s face is never shown, for reasons we’ll get to in a moment. This P.O.V. style of filmmaking was pioneered by Robert Montgomery in his film Lady in the Lake (1947), but the technique works much better in Dark Passage, for a variety of reasons. First, the editing is more aggressive than in Lady in the Lake, which was essentially one long tracking shot designed to put the viewer in the shoes of the protagonist but that never quite worked. Second, there are third-person shots of Bogart in which his back is turned or his face is in shadows, which helps to break things up and make them more visually palatable.
Once Parry makes it to San Francisco, Dark Passage gets really weird. Irene gives him $1,000, new clothes and a hat, and a place to stay, but if you thought that qualified Parry as the luckiest escaped convict in history, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
He’s picked up one night by a cabbie named Sam (Tom D’Andrea), who not only recognizes him but believes Parry got a raw deal from the court system, and hooks him up with his buddy, Dr. Walter Coley, a plastic surgeon who can change his face.
Nervous about staying with Irene, Parry goes to see his friend George Fellsinger (Rory Mallinson), a trumpet player who gives Parry a key to his place. Incidentally, we get our first shot of Parry’s “real” face on the front of a newspaper laid across his friend George’s chest as he lies in bed. The real Parry has a mustache, and doesn’t look much like Bogart.
But he looks exactly like Bogart after his trip to see Dr. Coley, who’s played by 67-year-old actor Houseley Stevenson. Dr. Coley is the most ghoulishly fun character in Dark Passage. Wrinkled, liver-spotted, and chain-smoking, Dr. Coley asks Vincent if he’s ever seen a botched plastic surgery job right before he puts him under, and the kaleidoscopic nightmare Parry has while undergoing plastic surgery is a real standout.
Even after the surgery, we don’t fully see Bogart’s face until more than an hour into the picture.
Until then, he’s covered with bandages, smoking cigarettes with long filters and communicating with Irene using pencil and paper. (Throw a pair of shades on him and he’d look like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man).
While the plot may be contrived and coincidence-laden, the characterizations are sharp, and the actors are all really good. Lauren Bacall has to carry the film for much of the first hour, and she delivers a really good performance. She’s much better at interacting with the camera than any of the actors in Lady in the Lake were. Consequently, the P.O.V. technique draws less attention to itself, and works fairly well.
When the bandages finally come off, Parry looks at himself in the mirror and remarks, “Same eyes, same nose, same hair. Huh. Everything else seems to be in a different place. I sure look older. That’s all right, I’m not. And if it’s all right with me it oughtta be all right with you.”
The fact that Bogart and Bacall were married in real life gives this line a little humorous subtext.
Hidden behind his new face, Parry is faced with another murder to solve, cops on his tail, a chiseler who hopes to blackmail Irene after he finds out she’s been shielding Parry, the presence of Irene’s old beau Bob (Bruce Bennett), and her shrill friend Madge Rapf (Agnes Moorehead), who keeps dropping by and nosing around.
That Parry goes about solving his problems in a haphazard, roundabout way should come as a surprise to no one who’s familiar with the fiction of David Goodis.
Dark Passage may not be a perfect film, but it’s an intriguing and involving one. Sid Hickox’s cinematography is gorgeous, and the location shooting in San Francisco is really effective. It’s worth seeing at least once, and if you’re like me, you’ll probably want to see it again.
Lizabeth Scott looks a lot like Lauren Bacall. It’s hard not to compare her to Bacall even when she’s not acting opposite Humphrey Bogart.
There’s a lot of that going around in John Cromwell’s Dead Reckoning, a film that isn’t as well known as some of Bogie’s other noirs, like The Maltese Falcon (1941) or The Big Sleep (1946), and which suffers in direct comparison with them. But taken purely on its own merits, it’s a tense, well-made picture, full of post-war desperation, but with little of the silliness of a lot of returning-vet noirs, like Somewhere in the Night (1946).
Bogart plays a paratrooper, Capt. “Rip” Murdock, who was ordered to Washington, D.C., to receive the Distinguished Service Cross along with his buddy, Sgt. Johnny Drake, who was to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Before they could get there, Johnny hopped off the train and went on the lam before any newspaper reporters could snap his picture.
Rip finds a Yale pin from the class of ’40 that reveals that Johnny’s real name was John Joseph Preston. Rip follows the clues to Johnny’s hometown of Gulf City. (It’s unclear where Gulf City is supposed to be, but it has to be somewhere along the Gulf Coast. There are palm trees, and Bogie refers at one point to “Southern hospitality.” There is a real Gulf City in Florida, but it’s an unincorporated little town that had a population of zero by the 1920s.)
Rip rolls through the microfiche in the Gulf City public library until he finds a newspaper article dated September 3, 1943, with the headline “Rich realtor slain.” The motive was jealousy — both men loved a woman named Coral Chandler — and Johnny confessed to the murder, but disappeared before he could be sentenced, and enlisted in the army under a false name.
Rip finds a scrap of paper in his hotel room with a single word, “Geronimo,” scrawled on it. It’s from Johnny (it was what they always yelled before jumping out of planes), but the next time Rip sees Johnny, he’s a burnt-up corpse in a twisted car wreck.
Rip tracks down the woman in the case, the beautiful and statuesque Coral “Dusty” Chandler (Lizabeth Scott), a singer in a Gulf City nightclub. The scene in which she sings “Either It’s Love or It Isn’t” under a spotlight to Rip at his table is memorable, though Scott’s lip synching is pretty awful. Rip calls her “Cinderella with a husky voice,” and they embark on a whirlwind love-hate romance.
Most of the film is told in flashback. Rip sits in a pew in a church, his face hidden in the shadows, confessing his sins to Father Logan (James Bell), whom he sought out because he’s a former paratrooper. Logan was known as “the jumping padre, always the first one out of the plane.”
If you’re starting to think that Dead Reckoning might have an overabundance of references to parachuting, you’d be right, and we haven’t even scratched the surface. (The title of the film refers to flying a plane without the aid of electronic instruments — which is a metaphor for Rip’s dangerous, seat-of-the-pants investigation — and the final image of the film is a woman’s face metamorphosing into a billowing white parachute floating to earth along with the whispered word “Geronimo.”)
In many ways, Dead Reckoning feels like a pastiche of earlier Bogart film noirs. The loyalty to a dead man is straight out of The Maltese Falcon (“When a guy’s pal is killed he oughtta do something about it,” Rip says). A villain who rushes to open a door at the climax, only to be shot down, is straight out of The Big Sleep. And the film’s chief antagonists, the effete, cultured Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky) and his brutish, mildly brain-damaged henchman, Krause (Marvin Miller), are straight out of too many noirs to count.
Dead Reckoning carves out its own misanthropic place in the noir pantheon with its doses of brutal violence, fiery finale, and Rip’s distrust of dames, which is nothing new for a noir, but which Dead Reckoning takes to new heights. Rip says things like “I don’t trust anybody, especially women” and “Didn’t I tell you all females are the same with their faces washed?” And his diatribe about how women should all be shrunk down to pocket size has to be heard to be believed.
Dead Reckoning is full of memorable hard-boiled dialogue. Unfortunately, Scott can’t always pull it off the way Bogart can. The dialogue in film noir is often artificial, but it’s artificial in the same way as Shakespearean drama — it can express something more real than “naturalistic” dialogue can, but it takes a very talented actor to make it work.
Bogart had his limitations as an actor, but he perfectly delivered every single line of dialogue in every single film noir in which he appeared. Dead Reckoning is no exception, and while it’s not the greatest film I’ve ever seen, it’s damned good, and I look forward to seeing it again some day. | {
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Airline introduces iconic London taxis within Heathrow
Airline introduces iconic London taxis within Heathrow
British Airways has introduced a brand new and environmentally-friendly electric cab service at its Heathrow home, giving customers the opportunity to experience travelling in a legendary London taxi without leaving the airport.
The London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) taxi features WiFi, phone, laptop and USB charging and a panoramic roof – great for plane spotting.
In addition, customers can expect a smooth ride, air-conditioning and a spacious cabin with room for all of customers’ hand luggage.
Premium connections
The taxis will join British Airways’ fleet of chauffeur-driven executive vehicles, to drive premium customers at risk of missing their connecting flight to meet their next aircraft. Customers are met by the driver at the aircraft side and are driven directly to the aircraft side of their onward flight. With every ride completely free of charge, there’s no need for customers to reach for their wallets.
Daljit Hayre, British Airways’ Senior Manager, Heathrow Customer Experience said: “It’s great to see the reaction of customers when they’re met by a London taxi at the side of the aircraft, waiting to take them on to their next flight. They’ve told us how much they appreciate this gesture, plus they love the space in the vehicle for their hand baggage. We’re also really pleased that using new generation electric taxi reduces our carbon footprint.”
Andy Kershaw, British Airways’ Environment Manager added: “British Airways takes its environment responsibilities seriously and this initiative is part of our overall ambition to reduce carbon emissions and those emissions that impact air quality and our local communities.”
The initiative is part of British Airways’ long-term plan to reduce emissions from all vehicles at Heathrow and follows the introduction of electric aircraft pushback vehicles.
Chris Gubbey, CEO of LEVC, said: “We’re delighted that British Airways has chosen our electric vehicles to support this innovative new service. We designed the TX eCity with the aim of delighting customers with a more premium experience, and thanks to British Airways even those with the shortest of stays in London can now travel in comfort and style in the world’s most advanced electric taxi.”
2019 is British Airways’ Centenary year. The airline is investing £6.5 billion for customers over the next five years, including new aircraft, new cabins, new catering, new lounges, WiFi, and new routes.
Mr eTraveller
Ice See You: The Best Of Greenland With Iceland Pro Cruises One of the world’s most pristine destinations, Greenland attracts interest from adventurous travellers looking to experience a place where billboards, highways, crowds, and pollution are tales of the cities somewhere else. A huge landmass covered almost completely by a huge icemass, the world’s largest... | {
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p>What’s New: Intel in September unveiled its new highly efficient development center in Petach Tikva, Israel. The 800,000-square-foot, 11-story building named PTK1 unites 2,000 employees, who had been scattered in eight buildings across five campuses. Intel’s new development center is the smartest one around: PTK1 independently runs its various systems and functions, accumulating data, processing …... | {
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When used as a noun or a name odious signifies a person who has achieved the highest level of obnoxious and is generally a super try hard. When given the choice to eat a normal meal or a meal consisting of all organic foods odious will pick the later due to their extreme try hard nature.
***eating a protein bar before, during, and after practice***
"Hold on I need to finish my energy bar"
"Odious"
"I'm almost d-"
"Odious" | {
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A Northampton man's
denial of his guilt to psychologists cost him his plea deal.
Northampton County Judge Michael Koury yanked away the
negotiated plea and reinstated the dismissed charges after reading in reports
that Jeffrey Douglas Kephart, 43, of the 2300 block of Washington
Avenue, would not admit to psychologists that he
molested his 14-year-old victim after saying as much in court Nov. 4.
Kephart, who wore an orange prison jumpsuit, his long gray
hair tied in a ponytail, came to court this morning with the intent of being
sentenced on a single count of indecent assault for a maximum sentence of about
two years.
Instead, he spent the time trying to convince Koury that his
original plea was truthful and that he lied to doctors because he was ashamed
of what he'd done. In the presentencing reports, Kephart says he only massaged
the girl's neck and that accounts of her being molested were coerced out of the
victim by the girl's mother.
Today, Kephart said that was all a lie.
"I did touch her inappropriately," Kephart said of the victim.
"I have no excuse for what I've done."
But Koury said Kephart's explanation for lying — that he was embarrassed by the facts— made no sense. In court Nov. 4, Kephart admitted to
reaching into the victim's pants while she played video games, filming the
victim naked in the shower and broadcasting those videos online. All of that,
Koury said, was admitted in open court before the public and newspaper
reporters.
"To say he was ashamed ... is not credible to me," Koury said. "This
wasn't an inconsistency. This was outright denial in two separate reports. He
has clearly denied the factual basis" of the guilty plea.
Mark Minotti, Kephart's attorney, told Koury he understood the
court's issue with the guilty plea because of his client's statements.
"I apologize that this came off the tracks and I explained to
Mr. Kephart that the court won't take kindly to this," Minotti said before
turning directly to his client and adding, "It wasn't right for him to do what
he did."
But Kephart's statements at the beginning of today's
procedure should hold some weight, Minotti argued.
"I think the record today speaks for itself. He wants to go
forward with this and he takes full responsibility," Minotti said.
Kephart reiterated his guilt again and apologized.
"I violated (her) body and I'm truly sorry," he said.
Koury said he could not go through with the sentencing after
viewing the reports. Koury also reinstated the previously dismissed charges of criminal
attempted aggravated indecent assault without consent, criminal attempted
aggravated indecent assault on a person less than 16, endangering the welfare
of children, corruption of minors, indecent assault without consent and
indecent assault on a person less than 16.
Koury said Kephart's case will be relisted for trial.
***
FEDERAL CASE
In a separate case, Jeffrey Douglas Kephart pleaded guilty in October to federal child
pornography charges but the details of that plea were sealed, according court
records. He's slated for an April 24 sentencing in the case and faces a potential 15-year prison sentence. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Chris Jones
Chris studied at Birmingham City University for his LLB, and then at the University of Law in Birmingham for his LPC and Law Masters. Before joining Talbots, Chris gained valuable customer service experience working in retail.
Away from the office, Chris is an avid Wolves fan, and you'll find him at every home game, and most of the away games too! However, it's not all about football - he also enjoys holidays, sightseeing, socialising, and spending time with friends and family. How he finds time to play sports and go to the gym too is beyond us . . . but he does.
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At Talbots, we like to keep things simple but there are times when even we have to observe certain legal niceties. For your information, we’re authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (no. 596234). And our trading name is Talbots Law Limited, company number 8058015, registered office 25/27 Hagley Road, Stourbridge DY8 1QH. A list of directors is available from any office, and finally, we do not accept service by email. If we contracted online, and fall into dispute, you can use the EU Online Dispute Resolution Platform. Our email address is [email protected]. Legal niceties over.
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Los Angeles, CA – Today Jennifer Lawrence, Sia, Ed Helms and others shared a powerful video showing the personal cost of corruption and a plea to their follower to tell similar stories, and it’s working. Represent.Us is collecting stories about the personal cost of corruption at www.represent.us/wedemandbetter.
This video has already reached almost 1 million people. It tells the story, originally reported by CNN, of baby Amelia who was only 10 months old when she underwent the surgery that killed her. The surgery should never have been allowed to take place, but due to a series of pay-to-play political decisions that prioritized profit over the health and safety of babies, it was.
“Corruption affects all of us, but so many people don’t recognize it. We need to tell each other our stories. We need to show that everyone – our neighbors, our families, our community leaders– everyone we know is touched by corruption.” Said Jennifer Lawrence in a Facebook post. She asked people to share their stories, and already people are answering her call to action and speaking out about what our corrupt political system has cost them. Facebook post here.
Represent.Us, the group behind the video, is the nation’s largest grassroots anti-corruption campaign, bringing together conservatives, progressives and everyone in between to fight our corrupt political system and pass anti-corruption laws in cities and states around the country.
“This tragic story proves that corruption is not some abstract political issue. Corruption is a problem that hurts real Americans every day.” Said Josh Silver, Represent.Us Executive Director. “These stories expose our broken political system for what it really is, and present an opportunity for us work across the aisle to build a better future.”
About the Author
Represent.Us
Represent.Us is the nation's largest grassroots anti-corruption campaign. We're uniting conservatives, progressives and everyone in between to pass local anti-corruption laws around the country. We're passing laws that stop political bribery, end secret money and give every voter a voice. Already we've passed Anti-Corruption Acts in cities and states that protect our communities from corruption and build momentum for national reform. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Lilium Jet’s First Test Flight Is Proof We Live in the Future
Flying cars might just take the cake as the most overused symbol of an idealized future — one that always seems vague and far off. Well, flying cars might have just come one step closer to becoming reality.
Today, Germany’s Lilium Aviation announced the maiden voyage of its very own all-electric, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The Munich-based company released a video of its VTOL aircraft, dubbed the Lilium Jet, taking its very first test flight. The flight lasted but a few minutes, and was unmanned and piloted from the ground, but it’s still an important milestone for Lilium Aviation: it proved that their aircraft can fly.
See the Lilium Jet in Action Below
The Lilium Jet is, ironically, not actually a jet. It’s powered by 36 electric engines and maneuvers through the air using 12 flaps on its wings. Currently, the jet has a range of about 183 miles on a single charge, and can reach maximum cruising speeds around 183 miles per hour, the company said. The VTOL aspect of the aircraft allows it to take off and land anywhere — negating the need for a landing strip, and making it ideal for use in congested urban areas. The prototype seen in the video is a two-seater, but Lilium Aviation also has plans for a 5-passenger model.
While the Jet’s first flight was operated remotely, the company said that a manned test flight is close-at-hand. And while it may seem like such an aircraft could carry a high price tag, Lilium Aviation’s Patrick Nathen said the ultimate goal is to keep the cost low enough for widespread use. The aforementioned five-seater version could be used for a flying ride-share service (which echoes Uber’s similar plans) — as an example, an hour-long, $55 taxi ride could become a 5-minute, $6 flight in a Lilium Jet, Nathen told The Verge.
“The basic challenges are solved,” Lilium CEO Daniel Wiegand told Wired Magazine. The company can now focus on thoroughly testing the aircraft before moving into serial production. But while the test flight was an important first step, the company still has a long way to go before the Lilium Jet helps us achieve our dream of flying over traffic. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
How Design Impacts E-Commerce: Trends for 2018 – Infographic
E-commerce isn’t an optional strategy anymore. Nor is it limited to giant multi-national conglomerates. The figures speak for themselves: from $1.3 trillion sales in 2014, it has grown exponentially, and is slated to hit $4.5 trillion by 2021, a cumulative leap of 246%! And, the number of marketers runs into millions!
So, how will you stand out? What’s your competitive advantage? How will design work to draw in the casual visitor, and then convert them into satisfied, loyal customers? This infographic presents 7 of the latest design trends, and their impact on each element of your site. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Sofa Beds
Sofa beds have come a long way. These days, they’re stylish and comfortable whether you use them as a sofa, a sofa bed or both! Our range of sofa beds includes leather sofa beds too, not to mention space-saving corner sofa beds.
‘Was’ is the price at which these goods have been offered from 1 June - 28 June 2015 in all Furniture Village stores and online. Products compared against an ‘After Sale Price’ will be offered at the higher price for a minimum of 28 consecutive days in the period immediately following the end of the sale. Read our Pricing Policy for more information.
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*Your £25 voucher is redeemable at any Furniture Village store or at furniturevillage.co.uk for six weeks from the date of receipt. £250 minimum spend required. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer.
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Whilst you wait, why not check out some of our top offers
If by chance you cannot reach us, use our online form to let us know how we can help and a member of the Online Team will contact you as soon as they are available. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Phone Conversation With Married Man
For over a year I have been seeing a married guy. He and I get along very well, but he only travels here for business; so sometimes it is a month or more before we get to see one another again. A few months back we were on the phone while he was driving to his sister's place and I had been very horny all that week. I really wanted to do something about it right then while we were on the phone. So I told him I was going to get my vibe out and use it while we talked. He was very pleased to hear this...
Since he wasn't there to see I had to be very detailed with what was going on at my end of the phone. I started by telling him how wet I was already by just talking to him. Then I was telling him how I was taking off my shirt and pants, just leaving me in my black bra and thong. Which it wasn't hard for him to imagine me like this...he had many times before seen me sitting over him on the bed, with my long dark layered brown hair touching my soft tanned toned body. He told me how horny he was getting by just listening to me tell him about taking my clothes off. Then I told him how I hand on hand teasing my clit from the outside of my thong. I then took off my bra so I could caress my breast; softly and slowly at first then a little faster. Slowly I stood up to take off my thong and went to lie down on my bed.
I told him how I was rubbing my clit in a circlular motion and that soon I wanted to use my vibe. I then started to get even wetter then I was before. He also was very excited and told me how he had stopped at the tennis court by his sister's house so he could talk with me longer and rub his hard cock. I then picked up my vibe, turned it on and started to rub my clit with it. I used my other free hand so slowly stick my finger inside to feel how wet I was lying there. Soon, I stopped using the vibe on my clit and very slowly started to push it into the wetness. Feeling the vibes inside made me even wetter. After a few minutes of using the vibe, I really wanted to cum...and I made sure of telling him I was ready. He also said that he was ready to cum when I was, so after a few more minutes of using my vibe I told him I was cumming as all my juices came squirting out. He then too came as well. I made sure to thank him for making extra time to talk to me while I came talking to him. Since then we have had more phone conversations like this and even webcam sessions together. I'll share more later!! | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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Attn: Havoc_online
Do you know if there is a postive or negative trigger for the ebalde? I am getting a warp and would like to run it off of the trigger instead of the recoil. I have heard the sensor is tricky to set on Autocockers. Is this true?
Well, I bought a used warp/revvy combo. it was advertised as having 12v mod and added a extra connector, so you can run the revvy off of the same switch. (the revvy was nothing more than servo motor and casing)
Well, whoever put it together was an idiot and did not know how to solder, etc. It did not work when I got it. I basically unhooked everything and resoldered/heatshrink wrapped everything and replace the reg with brand new 7812C voltage reg. (It had 7812a, but lead broke on it when I took it off) After rewire, I first turn it on, it will turn on continuously, but when I turn the sensitivity down, it was working fine.(bit marginal, but usable)
Now, I hooked up the revvy to the warp, and once warp starts on, it would not stop stop. When I minimize the sensitivity, it almost works until it turns on again. I added .1uf cap to the output(I actually soldered the .1uf cap across the vcc/gnd of the warp control board). This fix the problem. .1uf is recommended for transient voltage conditioning of regulator output.(also recommended in the datasheet)
So, I have a warp that also runs the revvy. It works really well. probably eat through battery though, so I will probably use NiMH rechargeable.
yeah its fine/ u only need the 2 screws for the bottom of the grip, which u have. to attach, put the plate inbetween the drop and your grip, with the plate angles towards the front of the gun. then screw in everything, the plate and the drop.also for custom adjusting you can losen the screws a little and teh plate can be slid a little foward and back in angle. then after that take the two small screws for the top of the warp that came with it, align the slots for the screw on the warp with the holes in the plate, then put the screws through the top side of the plate and tighten them into the warp. by losening them a little the warps angle can also be adjusted. also make sure you know how to adjust sensitivity unless you are using intellifeed. HAVE FUN with your new warp!
also if u would like instructional pics just ask and ill wip something together 4 u
No extra screws laying around. I have the warp to emag wire, and the roller-switch thing intellifeed wire if I go warp on my PTP Micro. Punkerx1 hooked me up!
I have a Reloader, so I see no reason to wire it, the sound of the warp spinning and the gun firing will keep that puppy spinning!
OK, so I just got a used warped Retro Mag with LX and an Inteliframe. (I'm really stoked!) It came with the I-Frame wired to the 12v revy that sits on top of the Warp. Is that good or do I want the I-Frame going to the Warp itself? I'm fairly new to Mags so I really appreciate any help guys. Thanks.
havoc will need to elaborate on this since i dont know if its possible, but if it is, maybey you should try to also hook up another wire so that the rev and teh warp are intelli. if that s not possible, then you should take the intelli off teh rev and make a intellifeed wire for the warp. its a lot harder to get a vibe sensor on a warp to work well than it is to get a 12v rev to work on its own
Ok, I figured out one of the reasons my mag has become sir-chops-alot... the warp on it doesnt spin enough when the vibration sensor is activated...
When I don't touch the warp, I get 3-4 shots off then break a ball... so what I was doing today was before firing long strings, I would just hold the white button until I stopped shooting, and I know that isn't good for it, but hey, I didn't get chops ...
So what do I have to get this puppy humming?
Hey Zero, how much did that Chipley cost ya?
Originally said by BoggermanWhen I got married I thought it would go down too... The insurance, not the wife.
well first, youve got a mag, and i used to have one too, before you spend any more money, go and buy yourself a lvl 10 bolt. it is the greatest thing ever to come to AGD since the emag. it is the most important/ greatest upgrade available for a mag. so before anything make sure you get one of those. then you can send your warp to havoc and have him hook u up with a on/ off switch and either the bigcell mod or the 12v mod. oh yeah, and after lvl 10, save up for an intelliframe, why? because a warp with intellifeed never fails you.
well first, youve got a mag, and i used to have one too, before you spend any more money, go and buy yourself a lvl 10 bolt. it is the greatest thing ever to come to AGD since the emag. it is the most important/ greatest upgrade available for a mag. so before anything make sure you get one of those. then you can send your warp to havoc and have him hook u up with a on/ off switch and either the bigcell mod or the 12v mod. oh yeah, and after lvl 10, save up for an intelliframe, why? because a warp with intellifeed never fails you.
Ok, done, done and done....
Havoc already installed a bigcell and on/off switch... I'm saving up for level 10... I just didn't send him the gun with the warp for the fine tuning... and playing today, and noticed why it was chopping for the first time.
Adjusting the dwell isn't explained in the manual, so I figured might as well hear it from the pros before I go about screwing it up even more then it is now
I'm happy with my current frame... in isn't intellifeed, but the Auto-response trigger will work well enough.
at least get the lvl 10 and u will be happy. also how pleased are you with havocs work? im gonna send him my warp soon, lol havoc. but moneys a lil tight with stuff so when i get it to him i get it there
Ok, so the solution of my problem is in the manual, just must have glossed over it! Got it all fixed, no problem.
Oh, and Havoc is a GREAT guy! He even tossed in a few detents, stickers, and a spare PF plug! the work itself was very neat, and I really liked the new battery clips he installed... alot tougher then the cheapo vinyl ones there.
instead of big cell, go with 12v, if you are chopping. I set it up to run my revvy and warp from same 12v (Iknow it eats batteries) so that revvy and warp runs together, and I can intelli it as well, if I want it. (don't need it so far) nice and clean setup. I like it. fast loading. fast as you can shoot. seems to keep up at 12-14 bps continuously for a while until hopper gets low without problem. (I can't shoot faster than that )
Havoc, I installed a PTP 12v harness with an on/off switch. I think maybe I've got the toggle switch wired in wrong cuz my batteries are draining down when it's not in use with the switch in the off position. Do you have a wiring diagram for this set-up? Also, I'm not sure what happened, but with a fresh set of batteries my warp ran for a few seconds then slowed down and one of the batteries was freakin' hot! I un-hooked the battery harness right away and then tried it again later on in the day with no trouble? I'm wondering if I messed up and got my wiring harness backwards...as in long connector to one 9v and the other two short ones to the other battery and warp connection...does this make sense? uggh | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Football: Blind completes United move
Manchester United have completed the signing of Daley Blind from Ajax for £14million.
The 24-year-old Netherlands international, who can play as a defensive midfielder or on the left side of a back three, has put pen to paper on a four-year contract at Old Trafford after agreeing personal terms and passing a medical over the weekend after the clubs agreed the fee on Friday.
Blind, whose deal also includes the option of a further year, will link up once again with former Netherlands boss Louis van Gaal at Old Trafford.
He told United’s official website: “It is a real honour to sign for Manchester United.
“I have been at Ajax since I was seven years old and I will always have very fond memories of the club and of my time there.
“Louis van Gaal is a tremendously talented coach, I have worked with him at Ajax and also for the Netherlands national team and I cannot wait to work with him at the biggest club in the world.”
United manager Van Gaal said: “I am delighted Daley has signed for the club. He is a very intelligent and versatile footballer that can play in many positions.
“Daley is a great reader of the game, he has played under my philosophy over a number of years and he will be a great addition to the team.”
Blind came through the youth ranks at hometown club Ajax and made his senior debut for the Amsterdam-based club in 2008.
He has made 19 appearances for the Netherlands and was voted Dutch Player of the Year for the 2013/14 season. | {
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Lego Marvel Super Heroes
Marvel Vehicles Take The Spotlight In The Latest Collection Of Lego Marvel Super Heroes Screens
They may not be people (or super-people), but the vehicles of the Marvel Universe still serve an important iconic role, and many will be making an appearance in Lego Marvel Super Heroes.
Above, you can see Hulk posing with the X-Men's X-jet. He's leaning near the X-jet without actually touching it so that he can impress people by convincing them that it's his vehicle with the photo. In the gallery below, you can see more of the recognizable vehicles that will be appearing in the game. So far, TT Games has confirmed that the Cloud Rider (which was designed by 14-year old fan, Thomas), the Deadpool Scooter, the Fantasticar, the Magneto Mobile, the Pumpkin Chopper, and the Spider Copter will all show up.
Lego Marvel Super Heroes is coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, and PC on October 22. The game will also be a launch title for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
For more on Lego Marvel Super Heroes, check out our coverage from when the game appeared on our cover.
Meh. In these superhero open world games, the vehicles are totally the lamest way to travel. In LEGO Batman 2, flight was the preferred method, whether with Superman or other characters once you unlocked 'em. And zipping around as the Flash was also awesome. I suspect that LEGO Marvel Heroes will make moving around with Spider-Man or Iron Man way cooler than jumping in any vehicle. Oh, and of course, LEGO Stan Lee :) | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Cinema | 'Flowers of Evil': Love and Violence in the Kaleidoscope
by ARTS CORRESPONDENT in New York
[ review ] New Yorkers recently celebrated the tenth Tribeca Film Festival. Established in 2001, soon after the attacks of September 11, the festival promotes New York as a major filmmaking center. Features and shorts, documentaries and experimental films from around the world reach large festival audiences in the city each spring.
Among the films that competed in this year's festival was the French production Flowers of Evil (Fleurs du mal), directed by Hungarian-born David Dusa, 31, who now resides in Paris. The film's title derives from the renowned volume of poetry by Charles Baudelaire, who drew on social decadence, moral failure, physical pain, and spiritual suffering for inspiration. Through the alchemic art of poetry, he transformed this base material into gold, his vision reflecting the paradoxical beauty of evil.
Dusa's project was parallel: both fascinated and horrified by the online videos of the protests that took place in Iran during June and July 2009, following the presidential elections, he conceived a movie that would not only incorporate those images but also extract their beauty, their power to move all of us, whether Iranian or not.
Those videos, shot by civilians in the streets with cameras or cellphones, bear lasting witness to the scenes of violence in Tehran and other Iranian cities, the result of the government's unexpectedly savage reaction to the protests. They depict confrontations between students and security forces, the destruction of dormitories at the University of Tehran, police brutality, injured demonstrators.
The origin of my movie comes from Iranian videos online. These have inspired my film. Once we decided, I and my collaborators, that we would write a fiction in which we would integrate these videos, we decide that the fiction's goal, once finished, was to make these videos intimates to the spectator, in particular if one knew nothing about Iran's politics.
Dusa was born in 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution. He left Hungary when he was a child and has spent the rest of his life in other countries, giving him a deep understanding of what Iranians in exile go through. He always felt a strong connection with Iranians in the diaspora whom he encountered in the various places he lived -- South Africa, Sweden, France.
Flowers of Evil depicts a romance between two young adults who come from different countries, cultures, and social classes. Anahita is an Iranian student sent by her family to Paris to avoid the postelection violence. There she meets Rachid, a French man of North African descent. Passionate about parkour and breakdancing, he works in a hotel.
These young characters share a mutually obsessive connection to the web. Much of their life experience involves online surfing, video streaming, and instant messaging. While Rachid posts his dance moves on YouTube and watches them repeatedly, Anahita follows the events in Iran. As she walks in the street, she carries her laptop and scrolls through the latest videos. She chats online with her friends, and the words of her virtual conversations appear in the foreground, as if the movie itself has become a computer screen.
The film incorporates a wide variety of video material, variously sourced from YouTube, shot on iPhone, and artfully composed to create almost abstract visual sequences. This heterogeneity engenders a fragmented cinematic vision that mirrors our perception of the world now, formed by our vast array of new media tools.
With my cinematographer, we started thinking of another cinematographic language, a visual language that would incorporate these videos into the fiction. And we reached the conclusion that the best thing to do was to create a multiple language. Actually, the online videos I chose have been shot by 40 different persons, which means that the Iranian demonstrations have been perceived from multiple points of views. Since my story happens in Paris, we decided to create a narrative that would also base itself on such multiple points of view. In addition, this option is also an artistic choice. It corresponds to my vision of contemporary urban life.
Rachid lives just outside of Paris, and the view from his window is of a highway that is constantly choked. One morning, he types the word "traffic" in Google Image. Looking at the pictures that appear, he discovers Tehran's traffic jams. And so, from the Porte de Bagnolet, he travels to an unknown metropolis where the traffic is even worse. The sequence may sound insignificant but, located at the beginning of the film, it in fact announces the movie's true subject, which is how our new modes of experience impact on our lives.
Rachid meets Anahita a few days after her arrival. Continuing to wear both sunglasses and veil, she seems traumatized. Discovering that she is Iranian, Rachid indicates his familiarity with the traffic jams of Tehran. He also gives her his online pseudonym: Gecko. Nothing physical transpires between them during this first encounter, and the few words they exchange are all linked to the online universe.
Anahita is haunted by the events in Iran and worries for her friends Marjane and Arash. However, she remembers Rachid's pseudonym and finally contacts him on Facebook. The nature of their online chat, the familiarity of the language they use, differs strongly and surprisingly from the manner of both their first and second meetings in the real world.
I wanted to create a contrast between the audacity of a Facebook chat and the absolute shyness that emerges in reality. Just before they meet, spectators follow their Facebook chat as it is printed on screen; both characters are very frank and direct, and we have the feeling that they will keep this conversation going once they meet for real. In fact, nothing of the sort happens when they meet the second time -- they hesitate like two absolute beginners. There is also something that I find very moving in Muslim culture, in the North African one in particular, which I know much better than the Iranian one, which is this huge sense of modesty. So I wanted to add this cultural decency to this meeting, and the whole situation became extremely tender and touching.
The characters barely reference their histories -- whatever happens to them occurs in the present. As for the events in Iran, whether they are depicted online, described by Anahita's family over the phone, or imagined by her or Rachid, they can not be taken for granted. Dusa offers a kaleidoscopic present in which all these perspectives cohabitate simultaneously. The narrative is structured around multiple ruptures of space and time. In one sequence, while Rachid quickly eats his lunch during a short work break, he reads the Wikipedia article on Iran. Then there is a cut to Anahita talking to her mother in Iran. The mother, offscreen, tells her that everything is fine and that she shouldn't worry about her friends. Cut again, and we see videos of violence and repression on Tehran's streets. The Wikipedia article, the mother's lies, the daughter's perception, the YouTube videos -- their combination in one sequence evokes how our perception of reality has become a patchwork of different narrations, while our own inner voices are overwhelmed by countless, unceasing streams of data.
There is something amazing about our current reality: an event that happens in the world can be found in the media five minutes later. And people talk about it and make comments without taking the time to analyze it. This was unthinkable 20 years ago. Not only do we have a simultaneous vision of an event all around the globe, but we can be in different places at the same time. As I am talking to you now, I can also follow events in Egypt, Syria, or Libya with my iPhone. Of course, this matter deeply impacts on our relation to time. This is what gave me the idea of simultaneity, or a free association between different situations in this film.
Flowers of Evil is one of the most intelligent films about Iran that has been made by a foreign director. Dusa's deep understanding of Iranians' pain and their complex relationships with their homeland is evident throughout. For Iranians living abroad, following the demonstrations and the violent crackdown on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube was an agonizing experience. Far from home, their video-driven sense of what was happening there took on another dimension. They had the feeling that the entire country was at war. Anahita is hardly an exception: Iranians around the world were haunted night and day. Some of them couldn't focus on their own lives anymore, even as the situation in Iran, real and virtual, became too much to bear.
I witnessed their desperation firsthand. They were being asked to live in their present reality, but how could they? Spending countless hours watching images of the violence at least gave them something to do, some measure of involvement. And I guess this was what was most difficult for many Iranians living abroad: deep feelings of impotence and guilt inspired by a rebellion that they wanted to share in but could not.
Anahita cannot forget Iran either. Whatever she does in Paris, her memories, now refracted through online videos, keep pulling her back to events at home. Her and Rachid's failure to understand each other stems from this very point: One is obsessed with rebellion against dictatorship and dreams of freedom; the other is absolutely free, without roots or obligations. While one wishes for a better future, the other thinks only of an eternal present. Divided at the level of perception itself, they are at the same time united via the omnipresent web, which allows them to create a realm without boundaries, lies, and violence.
In order to foster a civil and literate discussion that respects all participants, FRONTLINE has the following guidelines for commentary. By submitting comments here, you are consenting to these rules:
Readers' comments that include profanity, obscenity, personal attacks, harassment, or are defamatory, sexist, racist, violate a third party's right to privacy, or are otherwise inappropriate, will be removed. Entries that are unsigned or are "signed" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. We reserve the right to not post comments that are more than 400 words. We will take steps to block users who repeatedly violate our commenting rules, terms of use, or privacy policies. You are fully responsible for your comments. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
The Hand and the Glove... ramblings about making.
Monday was spent reading about perception and starting to put down some words towards that section of the thesis. I remember coming across the writings of Richard L Gregory FRS, the Emeritus Professor in the Department of Neuropsychology at Bristol University last year and was interested in his work on illusion, which he uses to further his investigations into how sensations are interpreted as perceptions. In looking for online definitions of perception I came across his website. It’s a valuable resource that allows readers to download all his research papers. What is particularly useful about Richard Gregory is that he is at the forefront of current research. Philosophers since the Ancient Greeks have studied perception. Since that time the dominant theory has been ‘passive perception’ – whereby perception came predominantly from the interpretation of sensations, in a linear way. However, the theory of ‘active perception’, is gaining momentum. Richard Gregory states that perceptions are 90% or more stored knowledge governed by rules generated through experience as we grow up. In other words, when I look at a container, my brain doesn’t have to rely on very much visual information, as it knows what to expect from the countless times it has previously encountered a container. It will contain something or have the ability to. As a potter who has made many thousands of ceramic containers my brain is taken up with the aesthetics and function of the object, rather than identifying it. But I suppose that is what most of us do to a greater or lesser extent.
On Friday some tests came through that are part of my attempt to disrupt this process. I have thrown a series of cylinders; one without a base, one with a cone instead of a flat base etc. each was decorated with one matt black surface and one black metallic shiny glazed surface. I am interested to see if the glazed surface appears to float or loose definition due to the reflections.
The other big project this week was the making of the mould of the torus 03 CNC milled model. When I arrived on Tuesday Stephan was already at work, so I helped him by mixing plaster. Later on he left me to make the top half, which seemed to go smoothly. The following day we separated the two halves but it wasn’t until the evening that I finally removed the model. The mould is a success, but now we have to work out how to slip cast from it. Before catching the train home on Friday I went to speak to Robin Levien who is involved with Ideal Standard, makers of sanitary ware. He was very welcoming, showing me around the workshop below the studio where the team makes highly skilled models from blue Styrofoam. Robin will contact the manager of the Middlewich factory to arrange for me to visit and discuss the casting of the piece. Ideally I need to make the visit before my French trip. | {
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Now, let’s assume that Marcus is telling the truth and what that would mean.
If someone was pranking him, that means the prankster picks out random porn star and implies there was a “round 1″ and to reply to a DM. If I was a prankster just playing around, the Tweet makes no sense, it is way too personal and in detailed.
Secondly, the prankster would have had access to Marcus Jordan Twitter and then Marcus miraculous got control of the Twitter literally seconds after the prankster Tweeted and deleted the Tweet.
Thirdly, Marcus defense is the “you know me”. Considering what we do know about Marcus this fits him perfectly, if anything the “you know me” defense actually strengthens the case he was tricking off a porn star.
Here is a piece of advice young man, when you get caught in a scandal the cover up is way more harmful in the crime, if you would have just kept your mouth closed it would have blown over, because no one really cares what you do with Daddy’s money, but by lying errrr denying it, you gave the story life.
LOL…dude needs to keep his mouth shut…..now he exposed himself & the porn chick…..(a porn chick who from what I understand will not bang black dudes on film but is more than willing to bang the son of an NBA legend for money…on the low)….probably the last time he’ll taste those goodies | {
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Breaking News
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Hey Bay Area, Wednesday, April 4th was the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Please join us in celebrating the life of Dr. King on Saturday, April 21st at Universtiy Circle in Palo Alto. See flyer for more info about the festivities taking place! | {
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Hydroelectric Energy
Generating clean energy for vital services
The Hetch Hetchy Power system is composed of three hydroelectric powerhouses: Moccasin Powerhouse, which includes a small, in-line hydroelectric unit, Kirkwood Powerhouse and Holm Powerhouse. The combined total hydroelectric output for these facilities is over 400 megawatts. Hydroelectric generation at Moccasin and Kirkwood Powerhouses rely on gravity-driven water flowing downhill from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Holm Powerhouse generates energy from gravity-driven water flowing downhill from Cherry Lake. On average, the Hetch Hetchy Power System generates 1.6 billion kilowatt hours of clean, hydroelectric energy each year.
This process starts at the source. Gravity gently coaxes water from the reservoirs in the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System. At our hydroelectric powerhouses, large turbines harness the kinetic energy of gravity-driven water, transforming it into hydroelectric power. This clean energy is then transmitted to San Francisco along City-owned transmission lines that transverse the State of California from east to west. Once in the City, the energy is distributed to the City’s municipal facilities and retail customers; SFO, SFGH, MUNI, Police, Fire, retail City tenants, residences and businesses in the San Francisco Shipyard and Treasure Island. In normal-to-high precipitations years, we sell energy on the California energy markets.
Moccasin Power House
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir- O'Shaughnessy Dam
Moccasin Power House, featured above, is the powerhouse furthest downstream. The control room at Moccasin Powerhouse not only operates all three powerhouses, but also remotely starts and stops generating units, adjusts generator speeds and takes all necessary readings. Holm Powerhouse is the largest of the three powerhouses.
San Francisco benefits immensely from owning and operating the Hetchy Power System. Hetch Hetchy hydroelectric energy is cost-effective and 100% greenhouse gas-free. It does not produce any harmful radioactive byproducts or leave behind any waste. Its cost-effective, clean electricity keeps our environment clean and helps the City’s fiscal bottom-line. | {
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Meta
A large indoor bulb that’s forced to flower in time for the holidays is often what gardeners think of when we say “Amaryllis.” Those large, almost dinner plate-sized flowers are actually the genus Hippeastrum. The true Amaryllis, depicted here, is a fall-blooming plant. Though its growth habit is similar to Hippeastrum, it can be grown outdoors in the Pacific Northwest
Native to South Africa, they thrive in Mediterranean type climates with full sun and well drained soil and are best left undisturbed once planted as they can take several years to flower from bulbs that are regularly available for planting in the spring.
After a tremendous autumn display, the show continues in the landscape with wonderful fall and winter blooming plants that take center stage. This lovely selection of the fall/winter blooming Camellia sasanqua is highly coveted by garden designers for its glossy, dark green, evergreen foliage and simple flowers that do not leave a horrible mess once they’re through flowering.
‘Setsugekka’ has lovely pure white flowers with stunning yellow stamens that begin blooming in late October. It has a soft, earthy scent to its flowers and it has somewhat of a free and open habit that lends itself to being trained up against a wall as an espalier that provides a dark green background to others plants during the spring and summer months when its not blooming. | {
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Accommodation summary
说明
Wimdu Verified
Translated by Google Translate
Show original version.
Welcome to Canary Islands!!
We are offering a comfortable environment in our lovely apartment in Arona, with a cozy bedroom, a bathroom and kitchen. Our bedroom is cozy and will provide you all the comfort that you need.
The Kitchen is equipped with all the appliances that you will need to cook in your vacation.
The house also has a bright bathroom and a balcony.
Located in Los Cristianos, very well connected to visit tourist sites such as the cliffs of Los Gigantes, El Teide, other beaches, theme parks, shopping center. Very close to the TF-1 motorway and 20 minutes from the airport of the souther. | {
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Enhancing the passenger satisfaction levels of individual processes at the Airport
The Central Board of Excise & Customs has recently released a multi-lingual mobile Apps "Indian Customs - Guide to Travellers" to facilitate international passengers about Baggage Rules. While the English version of the app was launched early this year, the contents of the app are now available in Hindi and in three other regional languages.
The app, a first-of-its-kind mobile application, contains a ready reckoner of the customs baggage rules and entitlement of passengers coming from various countries. It contains 24X7 contact details of customs officers of major Airports. The application provides information to users as per their need. After installation of app on smart phones, it works in offline mode. The said app is available on all the three platforms-Android Play Store, Windows & Apple Store and serves as a Ready Reckoner of Customs Baggage Rules and Passenger Entitlements. Users can use the following links to download the updated version of the mobile app which is available across the three platforms. These details are also available on our official website http://www.cbec.gov.in/
According to CBEC, the multi-lingual capability of the app will be of immense use to the international passengers, especially those travelling from the Gulf countries, since all the customs is available in vernacular languages.
Enhancing the passenger satisfaction levels of individual processes at the Airport | {
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I like all the parts of the build except the MOE stock. One reason only; it doesn't have a QD socket for my VTac slings. I just don't like a rifle without a quality sling. It's like boots with no socks. | {
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Browse:
Age 17 – Grades up, new interests and job, better social skills
I’m currently seventeen years old and I’ve been practising NoFap for over a little more than a year now. Like most of you I decided to start NoFap because I wanted to change something about myself. During my journey all the positive posts from others helped a lot at tough times, so I hope that my post is able to help some of you.
Here in this post I will be trying to tell you everything that has changed in my life, I hope you are able to use this information as inspiration or as something positive to help you continue your journey.
Gaining weight- When I started NoFap I was 185 centimeters long and weighed 62 kilograms, in the past year I’ve been able to gain 12 kilograms of muscle.
I became a lifeguard- To step out of my comfort zone and meet new people I joined a corporation of lifeguards. To become a lifeguard I had to train for several weeks and pass the toughest medical aid exam in the Netherlands (from the Orange Cross).
Diet changes- I changed my diet, now I try to eat as much as possible to avoid losing weight. I also stopped eating and drinking things with a lot of sugar.
Took up an extra sport- I started doing calisthenics, a form of weight training and also started swimming. I already played football/soccer, so excersizing and sports now take up 7 days of the week.
My first job- I started working evening shifts at a local supermarket to save money for the near and far future.
Started focussing on school again- During primary school all the subjects were so easy that I never payed attention and neglected my homework. I continued to do so in high school, but my grades kept slowly dropping from nines to fives and sometimes even to three’s, in the third grade this almost caused me to fail my year and forced me to forfeit my gymnasium education. After this I began pursuing sufficient grades (a six) again. Finally in my fifth year I decided I would leave my school striving for a seven as average. I managed to already get a seven as average grade for: Dutch, English, both mathsB and MathsD, IB, religion and Physics.
Started playing an instrument- I started playing the guitar as a hobby and now do this whenever I have the chance.
Got into fashion- I started paying attention to what I wear and the different clothing pieces that I own and now try to look as good as possible every single day. I Also became interested in fragrances and now own a few of them.
Staying positive- During my first few months of NoFap and a little bit before that, there was a time when I had a crush on a girl who I first only saw as a friend, but who gave me the signs that meant she was attracted to me. But off course I was oblivious to all of them and slowly she pulled back because I was afraid to show her that I had feelings for her. After a while I summoned the courage to tell her how I feel and go for the kiss, but she had already found a new boyfriend and I was rejected. This all made me feel really depressed and for the longest time I wasn’t able to feel happy or even attracted to another woman. But this all changed when I took a long hard look at myself, who I was in the past and who I had become. I believed that my mindset had changed from positive to negative and I decided that I wanted to go back to the time when I felt like I could take on the entire world. Looking back on everything I don’t know if I was in a flatline or depressed or both, but I do know that at the moment I feel the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Cold showers- I started taking cold showers to discipline myself and because of the health benefits for your body. If you excersize you should really try it after your workout is finished.
Better people skills- It may just be because I’ve matured a bit throughout the year, but I feel like I’m more social and more around other people than before. I also learned how to read people’s emotions, when someone says something I now notice how they are feeling at that moment through body language. I must admit that I don’t have this skill in every conversation.
Well it seems like I can’t think of any other changes, but I do have some final advice. Don’t forget to look back at the progress you have made, if you are only looking towards the future and don’t stop to think about how far you have come then you will never be able to enjoy the pride that comes after completing your goal. If you need some extra motivation go to bed early and you will be able to survive the coming day, it has worked for me during my school year so I’m sure you will be able to benefit too.
Believe in yourself and challenge yourself from time to time, I completed a year of abstention, so that means that all the other Fapstronauts can too. I wish you all the best of luck on your journey! | {
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He'd be an experienced, successful businessman who understands how to heal Michigan's economy. He'd have innovative, common-sense ideas.
He would have integrity. He'd be uninterested in status or salary, just motivated to serve his lifelong home state. He'd push for lower salaries for the Legislature. He'd favor fewer taxes and regulations, and more efficiency.
I've found my ideal candidate Leland Prebble, for 64th District state representative. I've known Leland for years as a person with practical wisdom, kindness and generosity. Please support Leland Prebble. He can do the job we need. | {
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Lester Kielsmeier
obituaries are appearing in the following:
Published in DenverPost.com on December 14, 2012
95 years old, passed away December 11, 2012. Served in the Army Air Corps in WWII and worked up until his death at Leprino Foods Co., where he rose to a position of prominence in the Cheese...
Read Obituary
Published in www.DenverPost.com on December 11, 2013
In Loving Memory of Lester Kielsmeier who passed away on December 11, 2012.
Read Obituary
Published online on December 13, 2012 courtesy of Dignity Memorial.
95 years old, passed away December 11, 2012. Served in the Army Air Corps in WWII and worked up until his death at Leprino Foods Co, where he rose to a position of prominence in the Cheese Industry....
Read Obituary | {
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Disney Traditions Love Endures Beauty & The Beast Figurine
Description
An inspired Disney Traditions ornament depicting the classic Disney fairytale of Beauty & The Beast. A colourful open book reading Once Upon A Time forms the backdrop to a beautiful Bell in her buttercup yellow ball gown and the gentlemanly Beast.
Specification
Reviews
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Anonymous from
Exactly as describedWas a gift for my mom for Christmas and it’s great
Date published: 2018-12-15
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Anonymous from
Love this!I bought this Beauty and the Beast ornament for my Mum, and I'm astonished with how good the quality is. The colours are vibrant, the product is made from a weighty material (meaning it doesn't feel cheap and tacky), and it stands out on the mantlepiece.
I fell in love with this the minute I saw it, and my Mum loves it too! I bought it in the sale, but I would have been more than happy to pay full price for this as it's completely worth it. | {
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Scaramucci Reveals Plan To Take Down 'Night King' Trump With 'The Small Hands’
And the ex-White House communications director ― who infamously
lasted just 10 days
in the role in 2017 ― claims he can eat into the president’s support by more than enough to cost him the 2020 presidential election.
“It’s going to be The Committee to Dismantle Trump, but I’ll come up with a much cleverer thing than that,” he said of his PAC on the “Hacks on Tap” podcast. “I’m going to throw my own dough in there, ask others to put their dough in there and we’re going to explain to people what he’s doing.”
He claims he can reach a small but not insignificant portion of Trump’s supporters.
“At the end of the day, you know, I can grab ahold of 5, 6, 8 percent of the people that know he’s nuts and possibly move them,” he said.
In a caption with the image, he called the anti-Trump movement “Jon Snow and the Stark family” and labeled Trump the Night King... albeit one “with the small hands.”
Not bad a doctoring of Mr McNaughton painting. The mistake: I have already met my demise. Our movement in Jon Snow and the Stark Family. The anti protagonist with the small hands is the Night King. He will be defeated of course as this is America. A bully won’t separate us.
pic.twitter.com/R9czWk8tUh | {
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Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Teacher evaluation – with a cake of soap.
My school is in an unpleasant situation – due to a
combination of falling enrolments and budget cuts we have to lose some
staff. Which leads to the unfortunate
scenario of how to decide who is to leave the school. Judging a teacher by the
results of their students is not as sound as it seems – given our socio-economic
index some great teachers have results that might be considered mediocre in other
contexts. (After all, do we judge the
quality of a dentist by the number of cavities in the teeth of his or her patients
– or by the quality of the intervention he or she provides?) And then, we have
those teachers who have pleasing results, but given the calibre of the students
in their class, they should have. So
student results alone are not a reliable indicator of effective teaching. How then do we evaluate a teacher? What are the reliable indicators? In short, there probably isn’t one single
indicator that can be used in isolation reliably.
It reminded me of a conversation I had earlier in my career.
Bernard, one of the school cleaners, sat down beside me. “I
reckon you’ll be a good teacher,” he said.
“Why,” I asked, flattered but a little bemused as I had only
been in the school for a little while.
“Soap,” he said.
“Soap?” I echoed.
“Soap,” he said again.
He stared at my blank expression and explained.
“Since you’ve come to the school I’ve had to replace the
soap in the men’s toilet. You’re the only new male teacher this year. That tells me that you wash your hands when
you go to the toilet.”
“Well, yes of course I do.”
“Well, not everyone does – otherwise I’d have been replacing
the soap more often before this."
“So how does that make me a good teacher?”
“Well, it shows me that you take care of yourself. It also
tells me you do the right thing even without someone watching over your
shoulder … so to speak.”
He smiled at me again, as if I was being admitted into some
conspiracy. Leaning forwards he continued.
“And I’ve been talking to the cleaner who does your area.
She tells me you always leave your desk tidy. Tidy – not spotless, but tidy,
like a workspace. And the classroom tidy. No mess on the floor. Shelves tidy.
Resources away. Books on the shelves before the kids leave. That tells me you
are organised, that you have structure.
So you put those things together – a person who uses soap and has a tidy
desk – well, it makes you a well organised person who does the right thing
without someone checking up on you.
Tells me you have pride – pride in yourself and pride in what you
do. Seems like a recipe for a good
teacher to me,” he said and moved away.
Was he right? That’s not for me to say – but I was promoted
twice within that school.
Our profession is now so dominated by data, controlled by
protocols, and prejudiced by procedures that we sometimes forget one of the
quotations often attributed to Albert Einstein.
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not
everything that can be counted counts.”
(The attribution is likely to be wrong – researchers believe that the phrase may have originated
with William Bruce Cameron in his 1963 text “Informal Sociology: A Casual
Introduction to Sociological Thinking”. But who wants to sacrifice star power
for historical accuracy?)
Regardless of the origins of
the quote there is no doubting the perception of its originator.
So what then makes a good
teacher? There is no end of research…perhaps
none more user friendly than this list
of effective teacher characteristics from Stanford. But ultimately, even
this type of informed research does not necessarily capture the essence of a
good teacher. It is a bit like deconstructing
the word count of a good book and saying that good books use the letters a, t,
and e more than x, y and z – it misses the point.
A good teacher certainly has
all the usual organisational and behavioural traits usually attributed to them.
They certainly have the skills itemised above. But more than that - they care.
They care about their
students. They take responsibility for their learning and work tirelessly to
address their learning needs. Everything else is a bonus.
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Sociable
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About Me
I've been involved with education for around three decades - I've taught all grades from Prep to final year University. Particular interest in mathematics, literacy and ICT education.
Twitter id = @Nevbar1 | {
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Planned Parenthood launches anti-Romney TV ad
Planned Parenthood is launching a TV ad campaign in three battleground states suggesting that women's rights would suffer if Republican Mitt Romney is elected president. The political arm of the women's health care organization has endorsed Democratic President Barack Obama for re-election.
The group announced Wednesday, a day after Romney claimed the GOP presidential nomination, that it would spend $1.4 million to air its ad in Florida, Iowa and Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.
The ad quotes Romney saying he would "get rid" of Planned Parenthood. When he made the comment earlier this year, aides said he was talking about eliminating federal funding for the organization.
The spot also includes a clip of Romney saying the Supreme Court should overturn its Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. | {
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Details
The MT-201 pedal trailer lets your child tag along on rides and practice balancing while pedaling. It fits any conventional bike and features a 20-inch wheel with a fully adjustable saddle, a safety flag for extra visibility, and a foldable arm for storage. It's a great fit for kids 45-52-inches tall.
It's right for you if...
You want to take your young ones on longer, hillier rides, but they don't quite have the stamina to keep up with mom and dad. Or maybe they're not fully stable on a two-wheeler yet, and you want to use this as a training tool for balance and a chance to teach your kids about the rules of the road.
The tech you get
This pedal trailer has a 20-inch wheel, a durable steel frame, a fully adjustable saddle bar, a safety flag for visibility, and a foldable arm for storage. There are no brakes, and the pedals on this trailer don't always have to be in use, so your little ones can take a break, focus solely on balancing, and cruise without affecting efficiency.
The final word
MT-201 is a great way to enjoy time riding with kids who aren't quite ready to ride alongside you. It's also a great teaching tool for balance and the rules of the road. If you want to bring your kid along on longer rides and are worried about them keeping up or staying stable on their two-wheeler, this pedal trailer is the ideal solution.
Why you'll love it
1 - MT-201 keeps families riding together, regardless of age or experience level2 - This is a great teaching tool, and an awesome way to introduce your young ones to the joys of cycling3 - The importance of cycling safety cannot be understated, and this trailer offers the perfect opportunity to teach your kids the rules of the road | {
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The boys varsity football team dominated the Reavis Rams, shutting them out 49-0.
To kick off their playoff debut, the varsity football team played at home against their first competitors of the playoff season, Reavis High School. Due to it being playoffs, this game would determine which team would continue their season for another week and who would be sent home and forced to end their season. While both teams made the playoffs, the Sequoits were projected to win due to their undefeated record of 9-0. However, expecting to win the game easily was not the mindset the Sequoits had going into the game. Despite the rankings that came out earlier in the week, they knew their season was at stake if too many mistakes were made throughout the game.
The game did not occur under its typical Friday night lights but instead occurred on the afternoon of Saturday, October 27. To start the game off, senior Benjamin Nauman made an early run to the end zone and scored the first touchdown of the game for the Sequoits. Creating a domino effect, more touchdowns came from teammates Treshawn Watson and Athan Kaliakmanis in the first quarter. Kaliakmanis was able to push through the defense of the Reavis Rams and make the second touchdown for the Sequoits while Watson was able to make a run using his speed which moved the Sequoits to 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.
“That was really impressive for the team to get such a big lead in the first quarter,” manager and senior Avery Malicki said. “I know that our team is really good but I wasn’t expecting such a big lead during a playoff game.”
In the second quarter the game began to slow down a bit with the defense from Reavis beginning to pick themselves up. However, a quick pass from Kaliakmanis to junior Brandon Reynolds was able to break through the defense and create another touchdown for the Sequoits with five minutes left until halftime. A last minute play made by Kaliakmanis to senior Zach Grindley gave the Sequoits another touchdown and a lead of 35-0 going into halftime.
“The success from the first half just motivated us to continue that into the second half,” Grindley said. “We weren’t going to let our foot off the gas that early in the game.”
In the third quarter, the Rams began to create opportunities for themselves by slowly moving up the field but it wasn’t enough to make a touchdown. Grindley was able to come back to make another play for the Sequoits and score a touchdown in the final minutes of the third quarter which moved the score to 42-0 with a quarter still left in the game.
In the final quarter, the Sequoits changed the lineup a bit giving other players time on the field. Using the opportunity to his advantage, sophomore Gavin Calabrese scored the final touchdown of the game for the Sequoits making the score 49-0.
The Sequoits will now be taking on their cross-town rivals, the Lakes Community High School Eagles, for the second time this season in the second round of playoffs.
“Lakes creates a different type of competition for us to compete against,” senior Kevin Tebbe said. “It’s more than just a normal game, it is a whole season and rivalry game all in one.”
Make sure to come watch the Eagles try to take revenge against the Sequoits from their earlier defeat this season on Saturday, November 23, at 1:00 p.m. on the Sequoits’ home turf. | {
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Beautiful 3/2 single family home on waterfront property. Perfect for a getaway from work or a relaxing vacation with the family. You'll never have to worry about space with this large 1,957 square foot house. The waterfront access includes a dock and there is a pool in a screened lanai! Also includes a garage and a beautiful lawn up front.
If you have another property in mind call us and we may be able to get you a better deal!
Nikolai De Leo
Area Information
This home is located close to shopping, the famous Marco Island beaches, and golf! | {
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A report on the future of the rechargeable battery market is suggesting that there will be only a handful of relevant brands by 2017. Read how fewer rechargeable battery brands could affect you, the consumer.
For quite a long while now, NiMH rechargeable batteries have been mass produced and marketed by a wide range of companies, leading to a rise in accessibility for rechargeables that never existed in the past. Decades ago, when NiCD rechargeable batteries tried to penetrate the marketplace, the issues with the battery design itself, together with the top manufacturers’ unwillingness to commit to a sustainable battery design, kept NiCDs on the periphery. But with NiMH and LiON becoming so universally used, even big brands have gotten into the game, expanding the market considerably.
Leave it to Volvo to do something new, innovative, and challenging to any other car maker. Or, to anyone within the electronics industry for that matter. It seems that Volvo recently unveiled a potentially game-obliterating technology for electric and hybrid cars. The multi-year project, funded by the EU and conducted in coordination with the Imperial College London, has created rechargeable batteries that can be embedded into a car’s outer paneling.
This new technology relies on something called “structural supercapacitors”. In working with this new technology for their batteries, Volvo claims that they are not only lighter and less voluminous than a traditional car battery, but can charge and store energy faster.
The real draw to the battery is not just the power and faster charging, but in the way that it can be integrated within the body of the car itself. The new material that the rechargeable battery is made of utilizes reinforced carbon fibers and pliant nanostructured batteries. This means that the manufacturer now has the ability to mold the battery into the various parts of a car’s exterior including doors panels and trunk lids.
Don’t be fooled by what the battery is made out of. It still works just like any other rechargeable battery found within electric or hybrid cars. Like current rechargeable batteries, the moldable batteries can be juiced up by using brake energy or by plugging into the grid.
How Does it Work?
Of course, whenever there is a new battery powered car on the market people inevitably want to know how well it works, how much does a car get in distance on full battery and if there is any type of power associated with it. In the course of the study, the research engineers tested a Volvo S80 in which the boot lid (or for our American friends, “trunk”) and plenum cover were replaced with the new batteries. These batteries were powerful enough to supply energy to the car’s 12-Volt system and delivered plenty of mileage and speed.
This means that there may be a new horizon within the hybrid, or completely electric car, that is here today. There has been some conversations that this new type of battery could essentially replace the entire electric car as we know it today.
However, that is not the only good outcome of this new battery, and material, technology. Whit the new battery, Volvo is now able to bring this new material into different aspects of their vehicles and actually lighten the car by 15%. This would mean a lot in areas where there is heavy traffic on older roads and bridges.
The environmental benefits of rechargeable batteries is undeniable. But recent reports on how “vampire electronics” — devices and cables that are left plugged in on a regular basis — can waste much more energy and money than what rechargeable batteries can save.
Once consumers get past the initial “sticker shock” of rechargeable batteries’ price tag, it becomes apparent that a quality set of rechargeables can save you a lot of money. 3 AA rechargeable batteries, which might run you AUD$21.99, pay for themselves after just a few recharges. Battery chargers can be a bit expensive at the outset, but it doesn’t take long before your battery charger becomes a money- and environment-saving machine.
Anyone who has worked with Lithium-ion batteries knows that, as convenient as they are for recharging, they do not last that long. Which, requires the need for recharging them. However, with new technologies, being introduced all the time, batteries last longer and charge faster.
For example, one of the answers to this problem has been to replace the graphite with silicon. However, the expanding and contracting that occurred as the lithium ions transported in and out of silicon electrodes quickly cracks it. As researchers went back to the drawing board, the next solution was to create “nanostructured silicon” electrodes, sometimes with the help of graphene or good old carbon nanotubes.
Today, the advancements in battery technology, especially that within Lithium-ion batteries, comes from University of California San Diego. Researchers as UCSD have begun taking what is happening with band-gap engineering, in which heterostructures are used to create energy barriers between electrons and holes, and applied the concept to creating barriers to the ions as they enter into an electrode so they diffuse in a very specific way.
This new research has been published in what is called the Nano Letters. The article describes the process of band-gap engineering as a typical surface diffusion of lithium ions into a nanowire electrode is blocked and instead the ions are diffused layer-by-layer along the length of the nanowire.
This sounds much different than any other method, but researchers are very optimistic over the long term affects it will have on rechargeable batteries. To follow up on this inforamation, Shadi Dayeh, a professor at UCSD, explains in a press release that this control of how the ions diffuse could result in “an effective way to tailor volume expansion of lithium ion battery electrodes, which could potentially minimize their cracking, improve their durability, and perhaps influence how one could think about different electrode architectures.”
According to Dayeh, the new electrodes would allow for battery designs in which the expansion of the electrodes would not cause any shorting between the cathode and the anode.
With all of the new ways that researchers are discovering how to create batteries, prolong their lives, add more power, and create faster recharging times, it may be possible to have incredible powerhouses within the palm of your hand, or smartphone, or car.
The big news last week was the release of the newest generation of Apple smartphones; the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. One is the standard offering from Apple, although with three different back cover colors – black, gray, and gold. The other is a budget version with five different colors, but the actual phone housing is made of plastic rather than the aluminum we all know. But, a week out from the release of the iPhone 5S and 5C – which sold 9 million units in its opening weekend – is not the biggest news.
It seems from many reports that the other new offering from Apple, the revamped, redesigned, and rethought, iOS7 is stealing the limelight from the new handsets. The reason? It is draining the newly boosted battery faster than the previous OS.
Many people have suddenly experienced a rapid battery drain on their iPhone 5 phones after the iOS 7 update. Not only is this limited to older generations, but the same thing has been found to happen to the iPhone 5c (which has virtually the same internals as the iPhone 5). The iPhone 5s has not developed such a problem though.
The routine is mostly the same. The iPhone 5 would be at 70+ percent charge in the evening and the battery will be completely flat in the morning. This is for iPhone 5 units bought at different times from different places and the iPhone 5c review unit (in the middle of our battery test too, so we have to repeat it now). The worst case has to be when an iPhone 5 battery was getting drained while the phone was hooked up to a charger.
There have been many instances of then the phone would be caught at around 10% of battery life left, but felt very hot to the touch as if the CPU was working very hard, or for a prolonged period. One of the things that many people wish for when it comes to the new iOS 7 is that it would include Android’s extensive battery info – when an Android phone pulls the flat battery in the morning trick, it’s easy to see which app held the wakelock for hours, keeping the chipset from going to sleep.
While this does not seem to be a battery issue at all, it does seem rather strange that many who are on an iPhone 5 or iPhone 5C – which are practically identical – experience the same issue. It has not been reported that anyone running iOS7 on an older iPhone 4 or 4S have experienced any of the “battery drain” issues.
The soon to be released iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C are going to be sporting more than just an updated OS and shiny new colors. The newest offering from Apple will be sporting a new “boosted” battery to give users longer usage.
The point of a long lasting battery has always been one of the gripes from Apple enthusiasts. While the devices themselves are very strong and robust, the battery life was always something to be desired. After prolonged use, it just seems like you could watch the battery meter go down. However, at the event held on Sept. 10th, Apple did mention something to do with the battery. But, they did not go that much into detail.
With some snooping through recent FCC filings we can see that perhaps there is going to be a little more juice under the iPhone hood. The last iPhone, the iPhone 5, included a 5.45 Whr, or 1440 mAh, battery. According to the FCC documents, the iPhone 5S will jump up to 5.96 Whr (or around 1570 mAh), while the iPhone 5C will increase to 5.73 Whr (around 1507 mAh). Of course, an FCC filing document could also be off–these aren’t publicly announced battery capacities from Apple–but the increase looks believable.
With these ratings, and what Apple did reveal at their media event, the newest iPhones yield up to 10 hours of 3G talk time (two more hours than iPhone 5), and 250 hours of standby. If this is true, then the iPhone 5S will definitely be king of the line.
In the above picture, (courtesy of MacRumors) we can see what the reported battery may look like. There is only way to be sure, and that is to wait until Friday to pick one up ourselves.
To be sure, there’s a lot of continued debate over the use of nuclear power in generating electricity. Whilst some people say that it is by far the “cleanest” form of power available — in that nuclear reactions don’t belch smoke — others say that the nuclear waste is a major problem in disposing of, and the possibility of a core meltdown is just too risky.
Sanyo Eneloop continues to be the clear quality and performance leader in NiMH rechargeable batteries. But with Panasonic continuing to push its industrial line of LiON rechargeable batteries, will the company eventually add LiON into the mix?
When you think LiON rechargeable batteries, what comes to mind are proprietary battery packs for electronic devices, such as laptop computers and mobile phones. However, LiON rechargeables are not relegated to being mere battery packs — the technology can also be developed into cylindrical battery forms that could fit just about any device.
Sanyo, and its parent company Panasonic, were recently fined over $56 million dollars by the U.S. Justice Department, along with a smaller company called LG Chem Limited, which will pay $1.06 million. Both companies were involved in a battery price fixing scheme that was considered so serious that the U.S. DoJ’s fines and charges are criminal.
The battery cells in question were part of a larger issue of the companies price rigging a wide range of auto parts for Hondas, Nissans, Toyotas, and Mazdas between July of 1998 and 2010. Because the conspiracy was so deep-rooted and dominated the market for these components for so long, the charges brought forth were among the most serious ever seen levied in the battery sector. And it isn’t over: Panasonic/Sanyo executives could go to jail over the scandal.
Here on the Electronics Warehouse blog, we’ve talked more than once about the dangers of cheap, unauthorized, or otherwise dodgy rechargeable battery products made in mainland China. Usually, we’ve reported on rechargeable battery brands that are known to catch fire, explore, or at best, underperform, such as BTY rechargeable batteries, or Ultrafire rechargeable batteries, which actually catch fire!
The biggest story to hit the news about dangerous battery products, however, came late last week, and this time, the story involved battery chargers. | {
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Subsets and Splits