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On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 08:00:10PM +1100, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>
> On 28/10/2010, at 6:23 PM, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> >
> > I'd pose the question the other way around : how could we replace existing
> > long-polling mechanisms that already work over HTTP and benefit from all
> > features that have been built around HTTP, on a different port. Right now,
> > virtual hosting
>
> WebSockets on a separate port can easily identify the intended host, just as HTTP does...
>
> > , ability to be proxied any number of times
>
> ... but as proposed, it's not, because it's so extremely brittle...
>
> > , including through URL filters (think about schools)
>
> ... which will either block WS as a policy decision, or just block by host/port combination anyway...
>
> > , session state management
>
> ... which can already span multiple hosts and ports...
>
> > and server stickiness
>
> ... which would also be available on a separate port...
Are you suggesting to be HTTP compliant but to just use a different port ?
If so, then I agree that we can easily reuse existing infrastructure without
implying risks on existing shared hosting environments. But it's not clear
to me that it is what you're talking about. My understanding is that you
want to get rid of the HTTP compatibility which at the same time would
require to reinvent all the components to offer the features above.
I think that it is a solution which has never been suggested on the hybi WG
to use HTTP over a different port. Either it was HTTP on same port with
horrible tricks, or something very different and incompatible on a dedicated
port. The more I think about it, the more I like the principle of HTTP over
another port !
> > are essential to web applications nowadays. If we're going to
> > use a distinct port, we're losing most of these existing features, which
> > will considerably lower adoption.
>
> As you can probably tell, I don't buy it.
I've noticed, but your wording does not make it clear to me what you're
proposing.
> > Pure reverse proxies will probably not work, just as they currently don't
> > work with 101 either. Firewalls and load balancers do support explicit
> > proxies (those were the first users of load balancers)
>
> They support *being* a proxy, or being a proxy behind a firewall. The question here is whether they support connections *through* them using CONNECT to another proxy. E.g., Checkpoint's URL filtering and web protection stuff, and lots of other products besides.
I was not talking about them being a proxy but clearly being installed in front
of a proxy. I know for sure that haproxy works. Alteon used to work last time I
tested (years ago). I'm pretty sure that Cisco ACE works. I don't know for them
all, but what I mean is that it's common to install a load balancer before a
proxy, which is transparent to both sides.
BTW, I'm suspecting we're getting off-topic for this WG and that this discussion
should move to hybi.
Regards,
Willy
| 2,957 |
With two failed marriages under her belt, Anna Faris ain’t so sure she gets the fuss with marriage. Gurl, you better take that back of the ghost of Elizabeth Taylor is gonna haunt your ass!
Page Six says Anna was on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, and it wasn’t just so Dax and wife Kristen Bell could gloat about being America’s last standing annoying “it” couple. Anna opened up about how she doesn’t quite get the point of marriage anymore:
“I need to figure out what the purpose is. Is it safety for your children? Is it convention? Is it so other people respect your relationship more? For me, I’m just not quite sure where it fits, especially when it feels so easy to get married, and then the untangling — when the state gets involved.”
It’s none of the above! It’s for a tax write-off.
Anna was married to actor Ben Indra from 2004 to 2007. They split, and Anna boot, scoot, and boogied over to Chris’s trailer while doing a movie together. They got hitched in 2009 and were together until last year when they broke up. It was hard to miss their breakup since every basic posted about how love was dead if those two couldn’t make it work. I guess Chris and Anna took note of the posts and realized they only have themselves to blame:
“Chris and I did talk about [it]. We got, like on the Twitter feed, ‘Love is dead’ and ‘relationship goals.’ I think what we were also guilty of — we obviously cultivated something and it was rewarding for a while. It was like ‘People seem to think we got all this s—t right.’… I had a little bit of a childish feeling of ‘Oh come on, f——king grow up!’ Like, [there was] a little bit of anger. But that’s not fair either, because I cultivated it.”
Damn, Anna. That’s some social media woke-ness! I wish some of these Insta “models” would take the same humility when they get brought down a peg for eating Popeyes! Anna is currently dating cinematographerMichael Barrett, and I guess from the sound of this interview, we’ll see the two of them in public at about the same frequency as Big Foot sightings. Thank. GAWD.
Our commenting rules are pretty simple: If you make any overly offensive comment (racist, bigoted, etc..) or go way off topic when not in an Open Post, your comments will be deleted and you will be banned. If you see an offensive or spammy comment you think should be deleted, flag it for the mods and they'll be forever grateful and give you their first born (although, you probably don't want that).
| 2,550 |
How to Convert Your SQL to Laravel Query Builder
You think of something and someone out there will already be workig on it. Well not always but yes most of the time.
If you are someone learning Laravel a great help is provided by Orator an online tool which converts the legacy SQL queries into Laravel database query builder version. As a learner if you can get SQL queries translated into query builder objects it is a boon as learning a new ORM is generally a challenge for most of the new developers.
What you need to do is simply enter your SQL query, and the generator returns a database query builder.
For example, take this SQL query: select posts.id, posts.title, posts.body from posts where posts.author_id = 1 order by posts.published_at DESC limit 10;
| 767 |
PICHAI PUTS KIBOSH ON GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE FOR CHINA
Google is not working on a bespoke search engine that caters to China’s totalitarian tastes, and it has no plans to develop one, CEO Sundar Pichai told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
“Right now, we have no plans to launch in China,” he told members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee at a public hearing on Google’s data collection, use and filtering practices.
“We don’t have a search product there,” he said. “Our core mission is to provide users access to information, and getting access to information is an important human right.”
Pichai acknowledged that the company had assigned some 100 workers to develop a search engine for totalitarian countries, however.
“We explored what search would look like if it were to be launched in a country like China,” he revealed.
A report about a Google search engine for China appeared in The Intercept this summer.
The project, code-named “Dragonfly,” had been under way since the spring of 2017, according to the report, but development picked up after Pichai met with Chinese government officials about a year ago.
Special Android apps also had been developed for the Chinese market, The Intercept stated, and had been demonstrated to the Chinese government for a possible rollout this year.
“We certainly hope they abandoned those plans,” said Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy for the Center for Democracy & Technology, an individual rights advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
“We didn’t think it was a good idea to build a search engine that would censor speech in order to go into the Chinese market,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
Google may have been testing the waters with its Chinese browser, maintained Russell Newman, assistant professor for the Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College in Boston.
“It’s an example of a firm seeing how far down the road it can go before it receives pushback,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “It discovers a limit, then pushes that limit a little more. I’d be surprised if they wholly gave up on the search engine for China.”
Mission: Protecting Privacy
In his opening remarks to the committee, Pichai declared that protecting the privacy and security of its users was an essential part of Google’s mission.
“We have invested an enormous amount of work over the years to bring choice, transparency and control to our users. These values are built into every product we make,” he said.
“We recognize the important role of governments, including this committee, in setting rules for the development and use of technology,” Pichai added. “To that end, we support federal privacy legislation and proposed a legislative framework for privacy earlier this year.”
Pichai also addressed a burning issue for Republican members of the panel.
“I lead this company without political bias and work to ensure that our products continue to operate that way,” he said. “To do otherwise would go against our core principles and our business interests.”
‘Bias Running Amok’
Among the Republicans on the committee who raised the issue of unfairness with respect to the way Google’s search algorithm treats conservative views was Mike Johnson, R-La.
“My conservative colleagues and I are fierce advocates of limited government, and we’re also committed guardians of free speech and the free marketplace of ideas,” he told Pichai.
“We do not want to impose burdensome government regulations on your industry,” Johnson continued. “However, we do believe we have an affirmative duty to ensure that the engine that processes as much as … 90 percent of all Internet searches, is never unfairly used to unfairly censor conservative viewpoints or suppress political views.”
Political bias is running amok at Google, charged committee member Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.
“You’re so surrounded by liberality that hates conservatism, hates people that really love our Constitution and the freedoms that it’s afforded people like you, that you don’t even recognize it,” he told Pichai, who was born in India.
“It’s like a blind man not even knowing what light looks like because you’re surrounded by darkness,” Gohmert added.
Despite Republican claims of liberal bias in Google’s algorithm, “there isn’t any evidence to back that up empirically,” Calabrese said.
Market Dominance
Committee members also were concerned about Google’s market dominance.
“I’m deeply concerned by reports of Google’s discriminatory conduct in the market for Internet search,” said David Cicilline, D-R.I.
Google has harmed competition in Europe by favoring its own products and services over rivals, and by deprioritizing or delisting its competitors’ content, he noted citing European Commission findings.
“It is important for the U.S. government to follow the lead of other countries and closely examine the market dominance of Google and Facebook, including their impact on industries such as news media,” observed David Chavern, CEO of the News Media Alliance in Arlington, Va., a trade association representing some 2,000 newspapers in the United States and Canada.
“We will continue to urge for more hearings to examine ways in which the duopoly impacts the business of journalism, which is essential to democracy and civic society,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
Prelude to Privacy Law
House and Senate hearings in recent months are just the prelude to data privacy legislation that could be introduced next year.
“We’re certainly going to see a wide variety of comprehensive privacy bills filed, and I think we’ll make some progress,” Calabrese said.
“Advocates have seen the need for privacy legislation for a long time,” he said, “and now that we have privacy legislation set to kick in in California in 2020, there’s a lot of companies who would rather be governed by a federal law than they would a bunch of different state laws.”
If a general privacy law is enacted, it shouldn’t use Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation as a model, maintained Alan McQuinn, senior policy analyst for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a public policy and technology innovation organization in Washington, D.C.
“We don’t want to see the GDPR enacted here in the states,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
“It is highly likely to create a drag on the European economy and hurt innovation and businesses,” McQuinn explained.
Privacy rules should be styled to fit industries, such as healthcare, finance and commerce, he suggested.
“The sector-specific approach that the U.S. has taken toward privacy has allowed for more innovation,” McQuinn noted, “and created the powerhouse of the digital economy that we have here.”
AT&T PLANS BUYING GUIDE: WHICH ONE IS THE BEST FOR YOUR NEEDS?
So, you’ve been thinking about biting the gun and becoming an AT&T customer?
Good thinking, but which plan to choose? Clearly, the abundance of options in AT&T’s roster don’t make the choice any easy, but we are here to help.
A couple of weeks ago, we walked you through all the different plans in Verizon’s lobby, but now it’s time to subject AT&T to the same treatment.
Unlimited plans
AT&T Unlimited Plus Enhanced and AT&T Unlimited Choice Enhanced
Ever since AT&T caved in and finally offered truly unlimited plans last year, its Unlimited Plus Enhanced plan has positioned itself as the most-loaded out plan. This plan is perfect for families due to the flexibility of the included line options and the loadout of features, compromise with speed, streaming quality, or the ability to use a mobile hotspot.
Meanwhile, AT&T Unlimited Choice Enhanced is mostly the same unlimited data/text/voice calls ordeal, but it comes with less features and is a bit more affordable. Both plans are perfect for family usage scenarios, and choosing one over the other would highly depend on your stance towards video streaming quality, mobile hotspot, and speed throttling.
Here’s a rundown of the pricing of the different lines, and after that we’d rundown other notable features of the plan. Note that the prices below have AutoPay and Paperless billing discounts applied to them.
Plan
1 line
2 lines
3 lines
4 lines
Any additional line
AT&T Unlimited & More Premium
$80*
$75 per line
$57 per line
$48 per line
–
$80/mo
$150/mo
$170/mo
$190/mo
+$30/mo
AT&T Unlimited & More
$70
$63
$49
$40
$70/mo
$125/mo
$145/mo
$160/mo
+$30/mo
* – Prices after discount with AutoPay and Paperless billing.
It’s obvious that the more, the merrier.
As you can see, once you start adding new lines to the AT&T Unlimited Plus Enhanced plan, prices become more and more affordable, making them more and more palatable for the regular family of up to four out there, and overall, a better deal.
With prices out of the way, let’s see what the two unlimited data plans offer as far as data allotments, features, and speeds are concerned.
Plan
LTE Data
Speed throttling
Video streaming
Hotspot
TV
AT&T Unlimited & More Premium
Unlimited
Yes, temporarily at busy times after using >22/GB per line/mo
HD, up to 1080p (may be limited to SD after using >22GB/line/mo)
Yes, up to 15GB
$15/mo discount on DIRECTV or DIRECTV NOW
AT&T Unlimited & More
Unlimited
Yes, at busy times
SD, up to 480p
No
$15/mo discount on DIRECTV NOW
Common strengths of both plans:
Free HBO for life: Both plans give you HBO for life. That’s undoubtedly a boon for all fans of A+ TV shows from the likes of Game of Thrones, Westworld, The Wire and many others as HBO has one of the most loaded-out subscription services out there. Have in mind that the actual promotion will start within 2 monthly billing cycles. Of course, if you drop your Unlimited Choice or Plus plan, you automatically forfeit the HBO benefit.
Unlimited roaming in Mexico & Canada: Pretty self-explanatory, but with either Unlimited Plus or Choice you get unlimited roaming in both neighboring countries.
Unlimited texting from USA to 120+ countries: With either Unlimited Plus or Choice you can text, send pictures and video messages via MMS to more than 120 countries around the globe at no extra cost.
AT&T THANKS: AT&T’s benefit program allows you to get insider access to special events, various forms of entertainment like movies and music, as well as get expert help, and many others at no extra cost. The majority of these benefits can be explored and used from the dedicated AT&T THANKS app on the app stores.
Military discounts: If you’re qualified military personnel or a veteran you get 15% discount at every monthly bill.
Our verdict: If you want the absolute best unlimited plan on AT&T, you should certainly go for Unlimited Plus Enhanced. It has the most bells and whistles and you shouldn’t worry about throttling that much. Well, at least until you don’t go over 22GB of LTE data per line per month as you’re likely to experience temporary throttling at busier times. Additionally, the 15GB mobile hotspot allotments is well worth it, especially if you use your device to cast Internet in your immediate vicinity. Conversely, if you’re perfectly fine with a bit more throttling in busier time windows and don’t use your device as a mobile hotspot, you will also be fine with AT&T Unlimited Choice Enhanced.
Limited & Prepaid Data plans
If you’re looking for something else than an unlimited data plan, AT&T’s prepaid ones are here to help. But which one to choose – the eponymous AT&T Prepaid plans or the Mobile Share Flex ones? Let’s highlight all the features and intricate differences and help you make up your mind.
AT&T Prepaid
The good ol’ Prepaid plans are a perfect match for people that value flexibility over anything else. With no annual plan, credit check, or even an activation fee in sight, it’s as close as you can get to freedom when dealing with large corporations. You can have AT&T Prepaid in a variety of flavors, ranging from $30 to $85 per month, depending on your loadout and discounts. Here’s a rundown of the prices and features:
No matter which plan you choose, we highly recommend enrolling into the AutoPay program, which will automatically charge your eligible credit or debit card every billing period. With AutoPay, you eliminate the possibility of having your service terminated after not paying on time. That’s a great thing to have on its own, but the discount on the prepaid plans is another boon to consumers’ wallets.
You can save even more if you bundle multiple prepaid plans together. For a second and a third additional lines, you get $10 off on your total monthly bill, while for a fourth and fifth additional line you get $20 off. This means that you can save up to $110 per month if you combine five Prepaid Unlimited Plus plans, or $1,320 per annum. You can check out the interactive AT&T configurator right here.
Our verdict: From the get-go, we wouldn’t recommend the $65/mo plan as it’s pretty hampered when compared to the others. Sure, it comes with unlimited data in tow, but we don’t like the lack of mobile tethering functionality as well as its inability to stream 1080p video. Albeit pricier, the top unlimited data plan is definitely better value on all fronts. When it comes to the ‘cheaplings’, it all comes to whether you can live with as low as a gigabyte of fast-speed data per month and whether you travel to Mexico and Canada often – if no, you should probably go for the $40/mo plan, but if you are okay with less data and no free-of-charge roaming allotment.
LOCATION DATA SELLING THREATENS CONSUMER PRIVACY
Selling location data collected by mobile phones has become a lucrative business, The New York Times reported Monday.
Location advertising sales are expected to reach US$21 billion this year, according to the article. At least 75 companies receive anonymous, precise location data from applications with the location services feature activated.
Several of those outfits claim to track 200 million mobile devices in the United States — about half of all devices in the country, the Times reported.
The data is very accurate, coming within a few yards of a person’s whereabouts at a point in time, and is updated often — as frequently as 14,000 times a day, the paper noted.
With that kind of accuracy and frequency, calling the data “anonymous” is a bit misleading.
“If you are collecting a person’s location over time, and it’s tied to a unique identifier, it’s disingenuous to call that anonymous,” said Natasha Duarte, a policy analyst with the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C.
“If you have information about where people are going and where people live, you can build the story of who that location data belongs to,” she told TechNewsWorld.
Someone can learn a lot about you from your location, said French Caldwell, CFO of The Analyst Syndicate, an IT research and analysis group.
“They can tell what your interests are and who you’re meeting with,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Your location data tells more about you than your Social Security number.”
Businesses that collect consumer data typically say they’re not interested in individuals but in patterns. Data collected on individuals is “anonymized” by attaching it to an ID number. However, that ID doesn’t even have the cover of a fig leaf for anyone with access to raw location data.
Those people, who include employees or customers of the data collector, still could identify individuals without their consent, as the Times did in compiling its report.
Not surprisingly, the leaders in location-based advertising are Google and Facebook. Both companies offer mobile apps that they use to collect location data. They say they don’t sell it but use it only internally, to personalize services, sell targeted ads online, and determine if the ads lead to sales in the physical world.
Google did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Facebook, through spokesperson Jay Nancarrow, declined to comment.
Some large companies have started to get in front of the location data issue before it becomes a problem for them. For example, Verizon and AT&T announced during the summer that they would stop selling their customers’ location data to data brokers.
Deceptive Omissions
Most mobile apps request permission to use a device’s location services before accessing them, but the Times found that process could be misleading. An app might ask for location services access for one purpose but use the information for multiple purposes.
“Not all app notices are perfectly clear as to what location data is being used for,” CDT’s Duarte said.
“Often the app will ask, ‘Do you want us to use your location to provide you with local weather information, or personalize your experience, or improve the accuracy of the maps that you’re using?’ They don’t list all the other purposes the data will be used for — like advertising and sales to third parties,” she pointed out.
Some 1,400 popular applications contain code to share location information, the Times reported. About 1,200 were written for Android phones and 200 for Apple models.
In a sample of 17 apps sending precise location data, three Apple iOS programs and one Android offering mentioned that location data could be used for advertising while seeking permission to access the service, the Times found.
Creepiness Factor
Understanding what’s done with location data can be an onerous task for a consumer. It requires reading user agreements and privacy policies, and changing settings for all the apps on a phone.
“That can be incredibly time-consuming,” Duarte said. “No individual has the capacity to do that properly, and it’s not a burden we should be placing on individuals to depend on location-based services.”
How concerned are consumers about possible abuse of their location information?
“Most consumers don’t care, but there’s a creepiness factor that bothers them a little bit,” said The Analyst Syndicate’s Caldwell.
“We’ve all been on the Web and looked at a new pair of shoes or something, and all of sudden all you see in your browser for hours are ads for those things,” he continued.
“The same kind of thing is happening with your physical location,” Caldwell pointed out. “Stores are tracking your location and will start pushing suggestions to you based on where you went in that store. There’s a creepiness factor there.”
Legislation Needed
Consumers are very concerned about what’s being done with their location data, maintained Duarte.
“The problem isn’t that consumers are not concerned,” she said.
“It’s that even if you’re very concerned, it’s impossible for anyone to have the capacity and time to understand all the things companies are doing with your data, and then go into your settings and make the choices that align perfectly with your personal privacy interests,” Duarte explained.
“What really needs to happen is for our laws to recognize that location privacy in a commercial context has to be built into any service,” she suggested.
Congress should pass a commercial privacy law, “which would include limits on how companies can collect and use location information,” Duarte said.
Such a law might include provisions already adopted in Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which allow people to access information companies have collected about them, correct information if it’s used to make important decisions about them, and delete information.
One area where U.S. lawmakers may want to depart from the GDPR is in consent. The European rule allows data to be collected if consent is given by the owner of the data.
“Some uses of information shouldn’t be allowed even with consent,” Duarte said. “One of those uses might be repurposing of location information — collecting the information for a location-based service, then reusing it for something completely unrelated — like location-based advertising — or selling it to a data broker.”
| 20,314 |
Langlois, 23, grew up playing roller hockey in Arizona before getting on the ice. He scored at least 20 points in all four years at Quinnipiac.
He hoped to get to a Bobcats game and would've loved to see this weekend's playoff series against Yale. But the Sound Tigers have games every night, too, Friday at Manchester, then home games Saturday with Worcester and Sunday with Adirondack.
"I'll definitely be able to see some friends with Quinnipiac so close here," Langlois said.
He steps into a lineup that has now lost its top four forwards to the NHL. Sundstrom, recalled to replace the injured Michael Grabner, could make his NHL debut Friday.
Of Bridgeport's top eight scorers, five are in the NHL and two have been traded, leaving Alan Quine to lead the team with 24 points.
Langlois could contribute to fill the void, but that's not all Pellerin wants from him.
"We're looking for him to be responsible on both sides of the puck," Pellerin said, "to make a play when it's time to make a play and defend when it's time to defend."
| 1,042 |
News Feature
| April 24, 2017
Amazon Gains Patent For Textile Printing That Could Alter Order Fulfillment
The landscape of retail fulfillment is radically changing, and the industry must keep up or fail. Part of that change includes the adoption of new technologies that can improve the efficiency and speed of order fulfillment. To that end, Amazon recently was awarded a patent for “a system of on demand apparel manufacturing [that] includes a textile printer, textile cutter, and a computing device” that could be used to make apparel or textile home goods, as Recode reported.
According to the patent, the system is able to batch orders according to a variety of categories, like type or delivery address, in order to improve efficiency of manufacture and order fulfillment. The patent lists inventors Rouzbeh Safavi Aminpour, Aaron Takayanagi Barnet, Nancy Yi Liang, Adam N. Alexander, James Richard Wilson, and Javier Govea Mata. Barnet and Liang co-founded the 3-D printing startup Mixee Labs and later went to work at Amazon, Recode notes.
Amazon has aggressively moved into the apparel sector, launching its own fashion line last year. It has engaged in a concerted initiative to boost apparel sales, growing its list of available items by 91 percent in 2016. It also recently added the “Outfit Compare feature” to the Amazon shopping app, providing consumers with access to fashion advice online, as Innovative Retail Technologies reported.
The new patent covers a computerized system that includes textile printers, cutters, and an assembly line, with cameras to capture images of garments to provide feedback for future alterations, according to Recode.
“Once various textile products are printed, cut and assembled according to the orders, they can be processed through a quality check, photographed for placement in an electronic commerce system, shipped to customers and/or stored in a materials handling facility for order fulfillment,” the patent reads. “By aggregating orders from various geographic locations and coordinating apparel assembly processes on a large scale, the embodiments provide new ways to increase efficiency in apparel manufacturing.”
While the current patent specifically mentions “fashion” design, the inventors also see its possible use in other categories as well, including footwear, bedding, curtains, or towels, made of materials including paper, plastic, leather, rubber, or other substances.
| 2,466 |
the G41 chipset-based motherboards from MSI are designed for the gamers, engineering and multimedia professionals. They feature Intel's integrated GMA X4500 graphics processing unit, which is not only faster compared to its predecessor but is also DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0 compatible.
Additionally, the G41 chipset also supports faster hardware decoding, which decreases the loading on the CPU while rendering a movie or a scene. The chipset supports dual video and audio output as well as HDMI for easy connectivity with other multimedia devices. DirectX 10 support provides a better gaming and graphics experience with Windows Vista or Windows 7 as the operating system.
The motherboards also feature APS intelligent power management, USB safeguard protection and M-Flash BIOS recovery. These boards feature a solid capacitor design which enhances the product's life span and stability. These boards can be easily overclocked via the BIOS-located 'Switch'.
A team of scientists have developed a robotic rat that could eventually help rescue people from man-made and natural disasters.
Researchers from the Bristol Robotics Lab and the University of Sheffield have developed the SCRATCHbot, which can find objects using its sensory whiskers in dark or smoky rooms. And unlike previous rodent-like machines, SCRATCHbot adapts the way it moves its whiskers when it makes contact with an obstacle.
The project was inspired by the use of touch in the animal kingdom – specifically how rats explore their environments using whiskers in poorly-lit places.
| 1,558 |
HOH's One-Minute Recess: A Night on the Town
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was spotted getting his Indian food fix Saturday night. The Nevada Democrat dined with his wife, Landra, and several unidentified friends at the downtown restaurant Bombay Club.
The diners were all dressed in blazers while feasting on mulligatawny soup, butternut squash samosa and crispy spinach, among other appetizers. Reid chose chicken biryani for his main course but managed to save room for dessert. The table shared rice pudding, gulab jamun and sorbet.
| 542 |
American journalist angered Seoul by exposing huge payment to North Korea for ‘Sunshine’ summit
Following is an excerpt from a book by WorldTribune and Geostrategy-Direct columnist Donald Kirk and the Korean author Kim Ki-Sam, “How South Korea’s Kim Dae-Jung bought his Peace Prize and financed Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear program”.
While the governments of South Korea and the United States helped suppress publication of this book in both countries, it has been published to acclaim in Norway, the home of the Nobel Peace Prize.
______________
South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung with North Korea’s Kimg-Jong-Il in Pyongyang in June 2000.
Clearly, South Korean officials, while Kim Dae-Jung (DJ) was president, wanted to go after the person who had done the most to expose the dark side of his sunshine policy of reconciliation. They appeared to have had no trouble enlisting the support of their friends in the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and the State Department. …
[In view of the information and insights from that person, former South Korea National Intelligence Services officer Kim Ki-Sam, Don Kirk was glad to testify as an “expert witness” at his immigration hearing before Judge Honeyman.]
Judge Honeyman wrapped up his summary of Kirk’s remarks by saying that Kirk had “testified” that he was “not being paid to testify.” Nor did Kirk pay Kim Ki-Sam for the wealth of information he supplied for Kirk’s book or articles. Kirk was glad to have done all that was possible to support his case. Kim’s material, the judge quoted from Kirk’s testimony, “gave a whole point” to the book.
“Surprisingly,” as retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and Vietnam veteran James G. Zumwalt noted, the decision “received little attention.” Zumwalt, younger son of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, former chief of naval operations, who had commanded U.S. naval forces in Vietnam, believed “the decision is big for two reasons.”
Not only was the asylum seeker from South Korea, but also, he wrote, “the underlying facts as to why he sought asylum puts the lie to what supporters of South Korea’s decade- long appeasement policy toward North Korea hail as its greatest moment.”
Zumwalt summarized Ki-Sam’s dilemma: “The concern for his safety stemmed not from persecution at the hands of a vengeful North Korea but a vengeful South.
For a citizen of an ally to be granted asylum by the U.S. is highly unusual in its own right. But Kim had reason to fear for his life — for he had gone public with evidence of major fraud perpetrated by Seoul upon the international community. It was done solely in the interests of furthering the legacy and wealth of one man — at great cost to his fellow countrymen.”
In fact, Kirk was the first to have exposed the payoffs over the Summit. In an article published by the International Herald Tribune (IHT) on Jan. 31, 2001, Kirk revealed the transfer of several hundred million dollars to persuade Kim Jong- Il to agree to receive DJ in Pyongyang in June 2000.
The article, which Kirk wrote at the request of IHT editor David Ignatius, focused on Lim Dong- Won as the central operative in forming DJ’s sunshine policy of reconciliation.
“The South Korean Spy Chief Who Paved the Way for Thaw with North,” ran the headline across the top of page two of the IHT. The spy chief in question was Lim Dong-Won, whom DJ had appointed as director of the NIS in order to bring about the Summit and also to promote his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Although the payoff remains unconfirmed,” Kirk wrote, “it was believed that it was necessary in a society where bribery, often in the guise of gift giving, is a longstanding tradition in both Koreas.”
The mere mention of a huge financial transfer to North Korea was deeply upsetting to Korean officials. A Blue House spokesman said menacingly, “We take extra care when dealing with inaccurate and misleading articles appearing [in] foreign mass media because they are guests,” but the IHT article “went too far” and “we are considering all options.”
The local media saw the case as a test of “how far the government is willing to go in order to correct what it thinks are wrong reports in foreign press,”
In the end, Kim Myong- Sik, assistant minister in charge of the Korean Overseas Information Service (KOIS), called Kirk into his office and told him, politely, that he was “making a lot of trouble.” Kirk officially was viewed as “distinctly skeptical” and “hard to persuade,” but Kim said he did not believe in the old system of expelling or denying visas for correspondents.
Instead, he wrote a lengthy letter to the IHT, which published it without apology or retraction, denying any such deal. (Kim Myong-Sik, saving face, would later say that the publication of the letter was “tantamount to a retraction.”)
The mystery, though, was what the South Koreans were telling their American friends about Kim Ki-Sam. Had the NIS gone to contacts at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asking them to block Kim’s asylum application? Or was the State Department, in the interest of preserving relations with a military ally, responding to a request by the South Korean foreign ministry?
Who among the Americans had pressed to have the case heard in an immigration court, where the U.S. government rarely loses? The answers to those questions were as elusive as the exact amount that South Korea gave the North to get Kim Jong-Il to invite Kim Dae-Jung to Pyongyang. No South Korean government has commented on the significance of the asylum granted to Kim Ki-Sam.
For more than a decade, South Korean authorities have avoided saying a thing about Kim Ki-Sam’s struggle for asylum. One powerful politician and tycoon, however, expressed his concerns in a column published by Dong A Ilbo, a leading newspaper.
Chung Mong- Joon, former chairman of the Grand National Party (since renamed Sae-nu-ri or New Frontier Party) ranks as one of Korea’s wealthiest men thanks to his ownership of a controlling stake in Hyundai Heavy Industries, the shipbuilder founded by his legendary father Chung Ju-Yung. He was characteristically blunt in his remarks about the case.
“The U.S. court decision makes us face an ‘inconvenient truth’ on our North Korean policy, which we had kept undiscovered,” he wrote. “I cannot help but ask how our government behaved in the court process and why this disgraceful ruling came out.”
Chung was dumfounded. “Political asylum,” he noted, “is in itself a big problem between strong allies such as South Korea and the U.S.”
Chung Mong-Joon’s indignation mounted as he considered the implications of the ruling. “The problem is that we are avoiding discussing these issues,” he wrote, “Our reality is that the person who raises these issues has to go abroad for asylum. Mr. Kim said he would come back any time if the government investigates correctly. However, our government denied his passport renewal two times, and the charge of violation of the NIS personnel law is still pending for many years.”
Considering the circumstances, said Chung, “further testimony and investigation might be inevitable.” Chung saw the entire case as a lesson for further study. “We have not made any in- depth and objective discussion or assessment on the effect or influence of the Sunshine policy,” he went on. “Mr. Kim’s case urges us to adopt a more responsible posture on North Korean policy, on which our national fate is at stake.”
He concluded in an emotional tone, quoting “Mr. Kim Ki-Sam’s voice” as having said, “We have to pay any sacrifice in confronting the cruel North Korean regime, while embracing our wretched North Korean brethren at any cost.” Those words, Chung wrote, “still echo in my ears.”
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^ hey! haha I take it you don't want Sissel as the protagonist either? Not that I have anything against him.
Well, I would like Sissel as the protagonist, but if he's not, I won't be bothered.What I meant was: "Finaly someone who also wants to see a sequel be made, and isn't afraid that the original's ending will be ruined by it somehow!"
Oh I see. Well Ghost Trick was so crazy good that I have faith the makers would be able to set up a plausible sequel in that implausible world Mostly I just wanna play another GT game!
^ hey! haha I take it you don't want Sissel as the protagonist either? Not that I have anything against him.
Well, I would like Sissel as the protagonist, but if he's not, I won't be bothered.What I meant was: "Finaly someone who also wants to see a sequel be made, and isn't afraid that the original's ending will be ruined by it somehow!"
Oh I see. Well Ghost Trick was so crazy good that I have faith the makers would be able to set up a plausible sequel in that implausible world Mostly I just wanna play another GT game!
Same!
EDIT: I found this in another thread. It's something I wrote some time ago about a potential GT sequel, and what we can do about it; I want to share it here, too:
beterbomen wrote:
Takumi said in an interview that he'd work on more Ghost Trick if the fans demanded it, and really, I think we should, for reasons I already outlined earlier. You're right about it being a shame to let this thing die or fade away, and we shouldn't let it happen.I think the main reason fans haven't really voiced their demand for more Ghost Trick is because of the same reasons you displayed: they feel the game is good as it is, and they're afraid that a sequel will somehow deminish the original.Let me be clear here: It won't. Any sequel, no matter how crap, is not going to re-write the original. It's not going to make the story any worse, because of how nicely contained it is. Even if it's crap, we can just ignore it and enjoy the original for what it is.It's common when dealing with situations like this, where a great new IP comes out with no clear plans or ideas about it's future, for it's fans to adopt a "We should just be happy with what we got" stance, but I think that's the wrong idea here. We should make it clear to Capcom and Takumi how much we enjoyed Ghost Trick if we want them to do anything new with it.
Personaly, I think Ghost Trick is the future for Takumi's work, more than Ace Attorney. AA is a great series, but after all this time it's starting to age a bit. It's still great, but the constant demand of it's fans for more has boiled it down a bit, leading to stupid fan-service games like AAI. (nothing against AAI, by the way, but... yeah, it was mostly there to give the fans what they wanted. Ema, anyone?)I think that what its fans are really asking for every time they demand a sequel is not really a return of the characters and stories of the old games, but rather another great combination of story and gameplay that the series provideded when it introduced those. Ghost Trick is still young, and can provide that kind of experience with a greater ease than Ace Attorney can.We shouldn't be afraid to demand more. In fact, we would be stupid not to. A sequel isn't going to kill Ghost Trick, I'm sure of that.Letting it go, leaving it at this to slip away into obscurity and fade from memory is what's going to kill it. We can't, and shouldn't, let that happen.Takumi is going to work on other things at some point, and Capcom is going to give up on Ghost Trick at some point. If we want this to happen, we have to make it clear to Capcom what we think of Ghost Trick fast.So let it be heard: We want more!
Serve the Story - that's one of my rules.--------------That wasn't an objection, honest! I was just pointing someone to the bus stop!
^ so true! the fact that GT had a true ending means that a sequel can be ignored by fans who have problems with it, or it could add more awesomeness to the series. I feel it would be the latter for me
I don't see why people wouldn't be more encouraging about a sequel. Ghost Trick design wise is so fresh and unique that I'd love to see more games like it. I saw a funny thing the other day of Ace Attorney characters made into the GT design. I'm not saying I want an ace attorney/ghost tricks crossover (I definitely don't), but I think it just shows how unique and cool the design is.
Spoiler:
I wouldn't want GT to be a one-off trick. Though I don't agree the Ace Attorney series should be put to rest (GS5 and many more please!)
I wouldn't want GT to be a one-off trick. Though I don't agree the Ace Attorney series should be put to rest (GS5 and many more please!)
Oh, me neither. I'm looking foward to GS5 as much as you, I think. What I meant was just that Ghost Trick can deliver that "wow" feeling we get from AA more easily because it's not so weighed down by things introduced in earlier games (yet). The world of AA is a familiar place, with characters and rule which we've gotten to know so well, we instincively know how they "tick", and would be able to tell right away about if they started acting in "off" ways. That limits innovation. Ghost Trick's world, on the other hand, is still mostly a mystery (and may stay that way for longer because of the way the storytelling is build - assuming they stay close to the precedent the original set). There are many questions left unanswered, and we haven't even seen that much of it yet(even with everything that happened in the game, we still only get to see a handfull of locations, and only get to meet a handfull of people).
Serve the Story - that's one of my rules.--------------That wasn't an objection, honest! I was just pointing someone to the bus stop!
^ so true! the fact that GT had a true ending means that a sequel can be ignored by fans who have problems with it, or it could add more awesomeness to the series. I feel it would be the latter for me
I don't see why people wouldn't be more encouraging about a sequel. Ghost Trick design wise is so fresh and unique that I'd love to see more games like it. I saw a funny thing the other day of Ace Attorney characters made into the GT design. I'm not saying I want an ace attorney/ghost tricks crossover (I definitely don't), but I think it just shows how unique and cool the design is.
Spoiler:
I wouldn't want GT to be a one-off trick. Though I don't agree the Ace Attorney series should be put to rest (GS5 and many more please!)
They all look so good drawn in the GT way, it suits them especially, Mia, Maya and Edgey :D
^ so true! the fact that GT had a true ending means that a sequel can be ignored by fans who have problems with it, or it could add more awesomeness to the series. I feel it would be the latter for me
I don't see why people wouldn't be more encouraging about a sequel. Ghost Trick design wise is so fresh and unique that I'd love to see more games like it. I saw a funny thing the other day of Ace Attorney characters made into the GT design. I'm not saying I want an ace attorney/ghost tricks crossover (I definitely don't), but I think it just shows how unique and cool the design is.
Spoiler:
I wouldn't want GT to be a one-off trick. Though I don't agree the Ace Attorney series should be put to rest (GS5 and many more please!)
They all look so good drawn in the GT way, it suits them especially, Mia, Maya and Edgey :D
Yeah they look fantastic, but I dunno...I think Edgeworth should look more...handsome, his nose don't seem quite right even if it looks dead on with the style.
Made by Chesu+Zombee
You thought you could be safe in your courts, with your laws and attorneys to protect you. In this world only I am law, my word is fact, my power is absolute.
I'm also in the camp that a sequel would be great, but I also find it difficult to do. It's not that I think that the ending would be ruined, but more the reverse: that the ending ruined most chances of a sequel. (I feel sort of silly adding a spoiler tag here, as most people probably already played the game but I'll do it just to be safe.)
Spoiler:
Time was rewritten, so that most of the motivation for the first game is gone. Sissel still has the meteorite inside him, though, which the ending made a point of showing without a doubt. So, as people have said, having someone die near Sissel could give them Ghost Tricks. Or die near another meteor shard, whether it be the park one or another that landed elsewhere. Having Sissel be the hero again would be pointless. His motivation was thinking he was human, an wanting to know why he died. Keeping it secret that he's a cat was a big part of the plot, although in replaying it, there are plenty of clues to that effect. Someone suggested Sissel's kittens? I doubt that's possible, as Sissel is dead and doesn't age, not even to maturity (unless that already happened). Pretty sure a dead person cannot have kittens, though, even with this magic.
I have another theory which would also make it hard to make a sequel.
Spoiler:
The way the game was written, it almost implies that each species gets its own style of Ghost Trick. Cats get the manipulate trick, dogs get the swap trick (although with age it turns into manipulation tricks, it seems), and humans can manipulate living creatures. It'd be hard to pull off the same trick as the first game, as we're already prepared for it. Unless this is not the rule, I don't imagine a convincing sequel could be made.
I don't like the idea of going to another planet, though. I think the blue skin was just a case of making them color coded for our convenience, and such a minor feature that it doesn't make them less human. The game is more fantastical than sci-fi, and I'd rather not have the two cross. Magic space rocks? It's been done before, and I'm fine with it staying a mystery, since they didn't ever reveal the city or countries involved.
gems_01 wrote:
I wouldn't want GT to be a one-off trick. Though I don't agree the Ace Attorney series should be put to rest (GS5 and many more please!)
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Not surprisingly, the filmmakers on the about.me platform extend their storytelling prowess to their profiles. Headliner Matthew Talbot-Kelly has not only directed two films, but also produced the “bestselling, innovative, genre-busting, trilingual, 3d animated, storytelling pretty-damn-cool app: The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross“. Pretty cool, indeed.
Like Sarah Pierpont, a lot of producers choose to self-fund their projects. Her most recent, “Forgotten Detroit” sourced its funding via Kickstarter.
The community extends beyond filmmakers and producers. Susana Rodrigues programs the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival and Green Film Festival. And DJ Valentine does it all – writing, editing, directing and more. We assume his background image is from on set.
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Keep track of your habits and goals with this printable habit tracker. It's part of the Inspired Life Planner - a printable planner with 60 pages designed to get you organised. Different categories are included: from goals, planning, and to-do lists to f
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Cambridgeshire's Wildlife Rescue Centre
How To Help
Collect and donate items
We get through lots of newspapers, cat/dog food, kitchen roll, bin bags and bird seed, amongst other things! Perhaps you could encourage friends and family to save their papers and/or buy a little something extra on their weekly shop.
Organise a fundraising event
Could you consider running a fundraising event for us? You could hold a bake sale at work or get sponsored to do something crazy or daring! Please contact us and we'd be happy to send you a fundraising pack with ideas and information.
Leave a lasting gift
After taking care of your loved ones, please consider the many lives you could save by remembering us in your will and helping us to help them.
Raise free funds as you shop
Sign up for free and shop online at all your normal retailers via Give As You Live and they send us donations - it's as easy as that!
Donations in lieu
If you're unable to donate yourself, you could consider asking friends and family to make a donation in lieu of a birthday/Christmas gift. Or, if they'd prefer, they could purchase something from our Amazon Wish List.
Help your local wildlife
There are lots of ways you can help wildlife in your local area, from just putting out a dish of water in warm months, to creating hedgehog highways and feeding stations. Find out more here.
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First Egyptian fair held in Iraqi Kurdistan
09 Oct 2013
First Egyptian fair in Iraqi Kurdistan region was opened yesterday. Kurdish Industry and Trade Minister Sinan al-Chalabi and Egyptian Trade and Industry Minister Muneer Fakhri Abdulnour had attended the ceremony. The fair will last for ten days in fields of tourism, culture, training, education, aviation, construction, medical industries, electric industries and handcrafts.
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Can We Play? Featuring: Brooklyn Fox
Your horny girlfriend begs you to lick her pussy. She’s so horny she can’t help herself. Your tongue feels so good forcing wave after wave of pleasure to rush through her body. She is completely at your mercy as you go down on her.Download
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TacStar AR-15 Folding Grip #1081127
Sold Out
$37.99
Now, AR-15 owners can enjoy the advantages of Pachmayr’s decades of grip design expertise combined with premium Decelerator recoil absorbing material. Used individually or as a set, these grips deliver a new level of comfort and control.
Finger groove design of the rear grip provides secure handling.
Rear grip easily replaces factory grip with no gunsmithing.
Folding design and Picatinney rail mounting make the front grip unique and ultra-versatile.
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Marvin Gaye — Stand By Me lyrics
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we see
No I won't be afraid
Oh I won't be afraid
Just as long
As you stand, stand by me
So darling darling stand by me
Oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me
If the sky
That we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains
Should crumble
To the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No I won't shed A tear
Just as long
As you stand, stand by me
And darling darling stand by me
Oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
Whenever you're in trouble
Won't you stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
And darling darling stand by me
Oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsty.com/marvin-gaye-stand-by-me-lyrics.html ]
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A roundtable discussion with Laird Barron, John Langan, and SP Miskowski. It was a fantastic time. Our thanks to Laird for the suggestion. Look to the future for further interviews with Laird and John at The Great Lakes Horror Company Podcast, which is where this idea manifested (Unsure of when those interviews will be released.).
In this episode, we discuss weird fiction's origins, the present, and possible future for the genre. We also discuss the writers working today who make our guests excited.
We lost a legend on July 16, 2017. George Romero not only made awesome zombie films, he also helped create the zombie subgenre as we know it today. Jason and Michael, both big fans of his work, say goodbye the only way they know how or can, by discussing his movies.
Jason and Michael discuss Ouija (2014) and Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) among other things, such as the new trend to adapt books into a television series rather than a movie, some Alien: Covenant news, Insidious: Chapter 4 news, and some interesting updates on former guest Johnny Daggers' upcoming film, Noctambulist.
Music Brought To You By The Yellow Kings
We're back!!! This week Jason and Michael discuss news, movies to look forward to in 2017 (from an article written by DeAnna Janes for the-line-up.com - http://www.the-line-up.com/upcoming-horror-movies-2017/), and then review favorites and not so favorites of 2016 in movies, books, and all the great authors we talked to last year. And just like 2016, this episode is a giant. So grab a soda pop or a tea, sit down, and dig in.
To help celebrate Christmas, Jason and Michael talk with director Grant Harvey and screenwriter Pascal Trottier regarding a movie they worked on, A Christmas Horror Story. It's a fantastic film, and both Grant and Pascal were fantastic guests.
Mark returns to discuss his new releases, CURTAIN CALL and WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE. They also discuss writing short stories, what it's like to have a collection out with Cemetery Dance, collaborating, and so much more. Jason then reviews Halloween House of Horrors by Mark.
Music Heard:
Riverhead by Prick
Came Back Haunted by Nine Inch Nails
Deformography by Marilyn Manson
Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay tuned for our Christmas episode coming to you very shortly.
Jay Michael Wright II (AKA Mikey Bookout) joins Jason and Michael. We discuss the blindness he suffered for over ten years and how he managed to beat it and sell two books within a year afterward. We also discuss the horror genre itself along with the future of horror with bold predictions of what we think is in store for the future of the genre.
Music Heard:
This week, Jason and Michael are joined by Johnny Daggers to discuss his movies, his book NEVERLASTING, life and death, the macabre, Leonard Cohen, and much more. There was some technical difficulties involving Jason's microphone at the very beginning of the interview, and he apologizes for the choppy quality while Johnny discusses his childhood. From there on, though, the quality is great.
Quiet Please was perhaps one of the best horror themed Old Time Radio shows. Or, that's what we've been told. The Thing on the Fourble Board is thought to be their scariest as well. Come one and come all and see for yourselves!
Music heard:
Apple of Sodom by Marilyn Manson
Linger, which you can find on the motion picture soundtrack for It Follows.
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Jesus our Savior
Below is the poem entitled Jesus our Savior which was written by poet
John
Loving III. Please feel free to comment on this poem. However, please remember, PoetrySoup is a place of encouragement and growth.
Jesus our Savior
Jesus our savior
son of God
Jesus the messiah
Gods only begoten son
perfect in his ways
fitting every discription
defeated every law
with a single perscription
born of a woman
so He could be a brother
and yes he had sisters
but for all He is our Father
Adoni, Lord, Elohim, God
Jehovah-jireh, my provider
Jehovah-nissi, my banner
Jehovah-shalom, my peace
Jehovah He that is
He is Elohim
our Hokhmah, planner of the universe
our Binah, His intelegence and wisdom
our Gevurah, His divine judgment
our Shekinah, His presence
for Netsah, forever and ever
El Shaddai, Almighty God
the enemy of sin and death
who would one day
sacrifice Himself
one final offering to end it all
and sentence satan to his final fall
hollowed be His name that day
the day His son came out the grave
hollowed be His name that day
He keeps the promise that He had made
to come again and raise us from our graves
but untill then we remember
with bread and wine
and two days of the year
kids think of all the time
toy day and candy day
Although different religions have different names for God, there is only One. Thank you for sharing this memorable poem, John. I like the layout and the style as much as the message. My Escape Plan was fiction. Thanks for reading! Love, Carolyn
Smile ~ HIS first begotten Son * When i think of bread and wine i think of, The Holy Spirit * And yes, children surely do think highly and joyfully of Christmas and Halloween yet, in regards unto humanity, the most important day for they, shall be recognized this Sunday * Whatta you got in Your wallet ~ Praise, The GOD Of Gods ~ "OUR BEAUTIFUL HEAVENLY 'FATHER.'" * Love Always, John!:) ~
Aside from all the festivities a man was crucified and brought back to life. He reigns in heaven and up close and personal in our hearts, if we remember this everything else is just icing on the cake,Happy Easter John, hugs vie
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Google Search
Watch as Nantes custodian Erwin Zelazny attempts to play sweeper, loses control of the ball, gain control of the ball, get tackled, get control of the ball before finally laying on the assist for the opposition to score. Highly amusing. Worth noting that half a dozen Nantes defenders just watch the whole thing take place.
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Are you on the hunt for the best Playa del Carmen wedding photographer to capture your destination wedding?
Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the huge pool of talented artists you have found online or through social media?
As you narrow down your search for the best wedding photographers in the Riviera Maya and start making contact with them, what questions should you ask to make sure they are a good fit for your wedding?
And more importantly, how do you avoid running into unhappy surprises down the line?
We are destination wedding photographers in Playa del Carmen and have watched many companies come and go over the years. We know what makes some companies here a great choice for wedding photography and why you should steer clear of others.
So read on…
Here are 7 questions you should ask a Playa del Carmen wedding photographer before booking them.
1. Have you shot at my wedding venue before?
In a regular job interview, you would expect to be asked about your specific, relevant job experience before being hired, wouldn’t you?
Booking a wedding photographer shouldn’t be any different.
A wedding photographer who is familiar with a property is one who will be able to suggest interesting locations for photos besides just the beach.
Why is this important?
Because beach weddings in Mexico have their own unique set of challenges. You might find it unbearably hot in the sand wrapped up in your beach wedding dress, needing another location to shoot. You might get a rainy wedding day, sending you searching for cover and enough light for photos.
Weddings are dynamic events, with loads of uncontrollable elements. Trust that you are in good hands with a wedding photographer who won’t be scrambling in an unfamiliar environment if things go south.
2. Can I see real weddings you have photographed?
In keeping with our interview example from above, would you expect that an employer would scan your resume and decide they had all the information needed?
Not likely.
You would expect that employer to do their due diligence with some fact-checking, to make sure you are who you seem to be, wouldn’t you?
Again, hiring a wedding photographer shouldn’t be any different.
Surprise, surprise, as wedding photographers we ALL post our best photos across countless weddings on our website. Our portfolios are our resumes, and how you get a quick idea of whether or not you like our style.
But if you want reality, you need to ask for more.
Why is this important?
Even an average photographer will get one winning shot from a wedding, but how are you going to know what your wedding package will actually look like unless you dig deeper?
We are not suggesting that you ask a wedding photographer to see a full wedding gallery, because in most cases that involve hundreds of images, but a sneak peek of images (30-40) from a few weddings should tell you what you need to know about their style and quality.
Download Our FREE Ultimate Guide To Getting Married In The Riviera Maya!
4. Will you help with my resort vendor fee?
I have strong opinions about resort vendor fees but will leave those to my other articles on the subject.
You might notice some photography companies offer you a discount up front to help offset your vendor fee. They scream it from the rooftops, adding banners to their website or telling from your first communication that they will lower their price for you.
In my opinion, this is just bad business. Whatever happened to the art of negotiation?
Why is this important?
Newsflash: The best wedding photographers in Playa del Carmen are not the cheapest ones.
Ask yourself why anybody would reduce their prices before even speaking to you.
As you shop around for Playa del Carmen wedding photographers, just know that ALL of us despise resort vendor fees and many will help if we feel like you are a good fit. Start by making a connection first, and then you just need to ask!
Of course, not everyone will negotiate, as there is a cost of doing business. But if you could save even a few bucks on a wedding photographer you love, it really wouldn’t hurt to ask if they can help with your vendor fee, right?
5. What if I want to change my wedding photography package?
Do you already have all of your wedding details sorted?
Of course not. You’re still trying to find your photographer!
So many things are bound to change in the coming months of your wedding adventure. It’s good to know ahead of time how flexible your wedding photographer will be if you need to make adjustments to your package.
Why is this important?
Pricing structures differ between wedding photographers, and you may find that some will incentivize bigger bookings from the beginning, and frown upon downgrading later on. While some make it easy and practical to increase your hours or added details as needed – like us!
7. Are you legally allowed to work in Mexico?
Do you assume that all of the wedding photographers in Playa del Carmen you are considering actually hold a legal status to work in the country?
Believe it or not, unless they are Mexican, the chances are pretty slim.
Securing a Permiso a Trabajar is a gigantic, expensive, confusing, time-consuming, frustrating pain in the butt! So it’s understandable why most photographers don’t bother and just roll the dice.
Why is this important?
Well, worst-case scenario, what happens if your photographer doesn’t show up for your wedding because they have been deported?
Along the booming tourist coastline of the Mayan Riviera, new photography companies are popping up daily. People in search of the dream. Officials are forced to pay attention now more than they ever were before.
Why risk it?
Stick with the established photography companies who have taken the time to jump through the legal hoops.
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About Us
Fun In The Sun Weddings is a destination wedding photography company shooting on the sunny shores of Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We specialize in professional wedding photography on the tropical beaches of Cancun to Tulum, and all points in between along the beautiful Riviera Maya.
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Archived Discussion
Seth The story centres around a treasure horde with one item that controls it, a gold ring with an evil curse that brings misfortune on its owner. Possession of the ring means you are the rightful owner of the horde (Ie. One ring of power). There was also a sword that signified you were the king of Xanten that was shattered when the kingdom fell. It was reforged by Sigurd when he needed to kill the dragon and thus regained the throne. There were other things as well, the ring wraiths were based loosely on the guardians of the horde, who were incidentally a race of ghostly warriors (Oath breakers anyone).
He took a lot of inspiration from it, its acknowledged in a few sources and if you know the story in its entirety its pretty obvious. (Edit: What’s happened to my typing today)
Robert: Tolkien denied any connection, and there's no evidence of one in his copious notes. Tolkien's sources and the sources of Sigurd probably have a common origin, but that's not the same as Tolkien being directly inspired by the German myth - Sigurd and Lo TR are literary cousins, not parent and child.
Also, I'm pretty sure there's no solid evidence dating any of the German myths back before the 1st century BC, when they first came into contact with Rome, if only because the proto-Germans didn't have writing. While the myths are doubtless older, any statement of how much older would seem to be pure guesswork, so we shouldn't confidently say this particular myth is older than Moses.
Seth: If he wasn't inspired directly by them id say it was Cryptomnesia (Subconsious plagiarism) the similarities are too great. My language professor was certain that Tolken who had studied Norse mythology would have been aware of this and everything ive seen since has backed him up. The similarities are too great to say LOTR is completely original.(JRR was a professor of Anglo-Saxon history and language, if anyone would know these myths and well it would be him)
You can deny Ronald duck is based on Donald all you like but who are you kidding?
As for aging i'll throw that to the air, no-one knows how old these myths are or how many are simply made up in the last few centuries.
Edit: The concept of the "ring of power" itself is also present in Plato's Republic and in the story of Gyges' ring (a story often compared to the Book of Job). Many, however, believe Tolkien's most likely source was the Norse tale of Sigurd the Volsung. Some locations and characters were inspired by Tolkien's childhood in Sarehole (then a Worcestershire village, now part of Birmingham) and Birmingham.
From Wikipedia LOTR article
{Robert: Norse<>German. JRRT was inspired by Anglo-Saxon and Norse sources, which in turn derive from earlier myths at a time when Proto-Germanic was one language. Sigurd derives from the same myths, making it a cousin of Lo TR, not a source.
If Tolkien had been inspired by Sigurd directly, that connection would be plain in his drafts of Lo TR. Since he never expected them to be published, he had no reason to hide the connection there, yet there is no sign of direct inspiration.
Wikipedia may say there is, but it isn't exactly authoritative. that passage was probably contributed by someone who had read the same old rumours as you, rumours Tolkien explicitly denied. In the absence of firm evidence that he lied, we should believe him, not accuse him of plagiarism.
Note that the Silmarillion is partly inspired by Finnish mythology, just as Quenya is by the Finnish language, but the people pushing a Sigurd connection rarely mention this, suggesting an agenda other than an unbiased search for Tolkien's sources.
Seth That edit works since its likly to cause less drama. Incidentaly i didnt accuse him of plagiarism i said Cryptomnesia which means something very different.
Looney Toons: Not if you used the word "plagiarism" to help define it. Which you did.
Looney Toons: "(even older than the story of Moses)" -- Um, no. Moses and the events surrounding his life are believed to have been somewhere between the 13th to the 16th centuries BCE (see this Wikipedia page). On the other hand, the Norse myths came about somewhere around 2500 years later. The Eddas were written down in the 13th century CE, but are generally accepted to have been formalized several centuries before that -- approximately 800 to 1000 CE. Unless you're running your clocks and calendars backwards, that's nowhere near before Moses. Hell, the Germanic/Norse tribes didn't even exist during the time of Moses.
Robert: The first written accounts of Moses date to somewhere between 1000BC and 800BC, well after his lifespan. The story of the Bullrushes could therefore have originated anywhere between 1600 BC and 800 BC. We can't be more precise than that.
The Eddas were formalised when you say, but there are stories, clearly closely related, in other Germanic cultures. We can't be certain, but it seems likely that the proto-Germans had earlier versions of the Eddas, with the same basic plot, arguably pushing its age back another few centuries, which still leaves it several centuries short of Moses.
Accurately dating the origin of oral traditions is difficult, even for experts. For our purposes, it's probably enough to say when the first written use of the trope was, citing a minimum age but not a maximum.
Looney Toons: The point is, we're still talking about centuries of difference here. There's no way you can push even proto-Germanics back far enough to argue that their myths predate the Mosaic stories.
Etherjammer: Is there a similar trope relating to the story of Oedipus, who was cast away by his parents because they thought (correctly, as it happens) that he would be their ruin?
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PRISTINA, Apr 6, 2000 -- (AFP) An ethnic Albanian has been shot dead in the Serbian village of Dobrosin close to the border with Kosovo, a spokesman for NATO's peace-keeping force in the province announced Thursday.
The man was apparently shot in the head by a sniper on Tuesday, spokesman Russell Berg declared.
"Four Albanians came across the check-point in a white Mitsubishi," said Berg, adding that one of the four had been shot in the head and was rushed to the Gnjilane hospital in eastern Kosovo, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
| 547 |
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Angel and Thompson both 10th at state meet
Thursday, June 4, 2009
By Lee Stubblefield
Cassville track contingent
Photo by Pate Shumaker
Members of the Cassville Wildcat boys' track team who qualified for the sectional tournament are pictured above. In the front row, from left, are: the 4x100 relay team of Brent Elkins, Joseph Gouvion, Josh Lewright and Trevor Shumaker. Back row: Mathew Angel, high jump; Devin Linenbrink, long jump; Seth Thompson, shot put; and Dylan Gibson, discus. All but Linenbrink, who just missed the chance to compete in fifth place, qualified for the state track tournament, which was held Friday and Saturday. Cassville's top finishers were Angel and Thompson who both finished 10th in their events.
Cassville's Mathew Angel and Seth Thompson both recorded 10th place finishes on Friday, May 29, the first day of the MSHSAA Class 3 Track and Field Championships at Jefferson City.
Angel cleared 6' 2" for 10th in the high jump, and Thompson threw the shot 47'11.5 inches for his 10th position. They were the highest placing area boys on Friday.
Mt. Vernon's Zack Kleine placed 12th in the 100-meter dash preliminariess in 11.32. Teammate Corey Phillips was 13th in the long jump and 15th in the high jump.
Cassville placed 14th in the boys' 4x100 meter relay preliminaries. The team of Brent Elkins, Joseph Gouvion, Josh Lewright and Trevor Shumaker recorded a time of 44.58.
Lindsey Bragg, of East Newton, was the top finisher of area girls on Friday. She took 12th in the triple jump with a leap of 33'7.5". Mt. Vernon's Hayley Brown was 14th in the 100-meter prelims with a time of 12.88.
On Saturday, Phillips, of Mt. Vernon, placed fifth in the triple jump, soaring 45'7.5" to earn an All-State medal. Kenzie Williams also snagged a medal for the Mountaineers, placing eighth in the girls' long jump with a 17' leap.
East Newton's Bragg was 13th with a disappointing 15'10" after jumping 16'10.75" at sectionals.
In the Class 3 girls division, McClure South-Berkeley won the championship with 75 points. Villa Duchesne was second with 59, followed by Festus and Maryville.
The Class 3 boys championship witnessed the tightest team competition imaginable. Sikeston and St. Clair tied for the title with 44 points each. Ruskin was third with 41 points, and West Plains was fourth with 39.
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Rachel Cooks®https://www.rachelcooks.com
Food, Family, FunTue, 19 Feb 2019 15:31:44 +0000en-UShourly1Maple Whiskey Milkshake with Espressohttps://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/18/whiskey-milkshake/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/18/whiskey-milkshake/#commentsMon, 18 Feb 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=26223If you’re ready to take your St. Patrick’s Day (or any other day) up a notch, you have to make these maple whiskey milkshakes! The flavors of whiskey, maple, vanilla, and espresso work together in a dreamy way to make this the perfect milkshake. Maple whiskey milkshake with espresso…aka the best milkshake ever. I originally […]
]]>If you’re ready to take your St. Patrick’s Day (or any other day) up a notch, you have to make these maple whiskey milkshakes! The flavors of whiskey, maple, vanilla, and espresso work together in a dreamy way to make this the perfect milkshake.
Maple whiskey milkshake with espresso…aka the best milkshake ever. I originally developed this recipe with St. Patrick’s Day in mind, because why should minty green shamrock shakes get all the love? The combo of creamy, smooth ice cream with the sweet, boozy whiskey is pretty irresistible.
And let me tell you, after the last three weeks we’ve had…I could use a boozy milkshake in my life. First…a week of frigid sub-zero temps where you pretty much couldn’t leave the house. Part way through that week, my daughter E somehow came down with a fever without even leaving the house. Fever was 103-105 and after three days, we took her in to her pediatrician. They called it viral (and it may have been), and sent her home. A few days later, the fever persisted so we brought her in again.
They sent her in for chest x-rays and we discovered she had pneumonia.
Then Michigan got an ice storm and our power went out. FOR FIVE DAYS. So we were at a hotel for five days. With a kid with a fever and pneumonia, so we couldn’t really leave and do anything. LOTS of family bonding time happening. I’m super thankful that we had the option available to stay in a hotel, and I realize things could be 100% worse, so we tried to have a good attitude about it.
Once we got back home, the fever clung on to my dear sweet daughter. She just couldn’t shake it, and we also discovered she was allergic to penicillins. Thankfully it wasn’t an anaphylactic reaction, but she knows all about those and how dangerous allergies can be from their food allergies, so she was just terrified.
We got her on her third antibiotic, and she’s finally been fever-free for a few days and on the mend. She was crushed to miss Valentine’s Day at school, but I went out of my way to spoil her a little bit (okay, maybe a lot) that day, and she got a visit from her grandma. I tucked her into bed that night, as I always do, and she looked at me and said, “This was the best Valentine’s Day ever, Mommy!” Mission accomplished.
I am so very ready to get back to some sort of routine…but I think maybe I should incorporate maple whiskey milkshakes into my routine? Ben dubbed these the “best milkshakes he’s ever had,” so I most certainly think they are worthy of being added to some sort of regular rotation. Maybe not every day…but I’m gonna have to say at least every St. Patrick’s Day.
I’ll take these any day over a minty green concoction. I have nothing against those, but this milkshake is definitely the classier, more grown-up St. Patrick’s Day milkshake, and not just for the obvious boozy reason.
The subtle flavors of the maple, vanilla, and espresso are there, but they are all back-up singers to the whiskey. You can taste them all if you’re really looking for them, but really it’s just the perfect joint effort to perfectly marry all the flavors into the most dreamy milkshake. I’m willing to bet that even if you don’t like whiskey, you’re gonna love this milkshake.
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/18/whiskey-milkshake/feed/4whiskey-maple-vanilla-milkshake-web (6 of 8)whiskey-maple-vanilla-milkshake-web (2 of 8)whiskey-maple-vanilla-milkshake-web (7 of 8)whiskey-maple-vanilla-milkshake-web (4 of 8)whiskey-maple-vanilla-milkshake-web (5 of 8)Maple Whiskey MilkshakeMedaglia D'Oro Espresso Instant Coffee, 2 OzNatural Maple Flavor - 4 fl ozVitamix 5200 Blender, Professional-Grade, 64 oz. Container, BlackOne Pan Lemon Pasta with Sausage, Asparagus, and Dillhttps://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/11/lemon-pasta/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/11/lemon-pasta/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=26102This one pan lemon pasta has some bright spring flavors in a cozy, one pan pasta that’s easy to make and even easier to eat. It’s the best of both worlds! I’m writing this post on a Sunday morning from a hotel room. We lost power early Wednesday morning after an ice storm in Michigan. […]
]]>This one pan lemon pasta has some bright spring flavors in a cozy, one pan pasta that’s easy to make and even easier to eat. It’s the best of both worlds!
I’m writing this post on a Sunday morning from a hotel room. We lost power early Wednesday morning after an ice storm in Michigan. We’re in the company of more than 100,000 other people and we’re expecting to be without power until Sunday or Monday. On top of that, my 8-year-old daughter has pneumonia and has been fighting a fever for over a week. It’s been getting up to 104 or 105 degrees on a daily basis.
I just want to take the pneumonia out of her little body, put it in mine, and tuck her into a nice warm bed in her own room. She’s exhausted from fighting a fever for so long, coughing non-stop, and not getting enough sleep. It’s hard to see and even harder that I can’t do much to help her besides give her lots of love, which of course we’re all doing.
Between snow days and sick days, she hasn’t been to school in two weeks. It’s insane. I think we’re all a little ready for spring, so I’m throwing this pasta into the mix and just pretending it’s spring with all these flavors.
It’s bright and fresh and tastes like spring, but it’s just hearty enough to warm us on these cold days. It’s easy to make too, which is necessary because I feel like all of Michigan is just kinda OVER IT. Take-out might be the first choice, but easy one pan meals are a close runner-up.
I originally made a version of this when I bought beet and dill bratwurst at a local market. It was a huge gamble, considering Ben doesn’t even like beets. The bratwurst was bright pink before I cooked it, but I hodgepodged a meal together with the crumbled sausage and finished it off with fresh lemon, dill, and red pepper flakes. I loved the combinations of the flavors and I knew I had to make a version to share with you guys as soon as I could.
I didn’t want to use beet and dill sausage in this lemon pasta because I figured that was pretty unique and probably difficult to find. If you can find it though, it will be super tasty in this! But otherwise, you can just use turkey sausage like I did in this recipe. I used a breakfast sausage, actually, because I like the mild flavor of it for this rather than the bolder flavors of Italian sausage.
This lemon pasta is another one of our favorites. The first time I made it, aside from the beet brats, I was really nervous Ben might not like it. It’s far from a traditional meaty red sauce, but the bright flavors have my heart over a traditional tomato sauce any day of the week.
If you don’t have asparagus or it’s not in season, this is also great with mushrooms, fresh green beans, or even Brussels sprouts.
It would be so delicious served with this homemade french bread from I Heart Naptime….there isn’t much that’s better than freshly baked bread.
If you’re using mushrooms or Brussels sprouts, I’d recommend sautéing them with the sausage and then removing them from the pan (you can take the sausage out too) and keeping them covered with foil in a bowl. When the pasta finishes cooking, stir them back in. This will prevent them from completely overcooking.
The green beans should cook in a similar amount of time as the asparagus if you like green beans crisp (I do!) but if you like them softer, add them in right away when you add the pasta so they have more cooking time.
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/11/lemon-pasta/feed/8one-pan-sausage-lemon-dill-pasta-web (4 of 6)one-pan-sausage-lemon-dill-pasta-web (1 of 6)one-pan-sausage-lemon-dill-pasta-web (6 of 6)one-pan-sausage-lemon-dill-pasta-web (2 of 6)one-pan-sausage-lemon-dill-pasta-web (3 of 6)One Pan Lemon Pasta with Sausage, Asparagus, and DillFrench Toast Recipe – How to Make THE BEST French Toasthttps://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/04/french-toast-recipe/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/04/french-toast-recipe/#commentsMon, 04 Feb 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=26073This French toast recipe is everything you want in a classic piece of French toast. Read all my tips and you’ll be making the best French toast you’ve ever had! Sometimes Ben makes quick French toast for the kids for breakfast on the weekends. He makes it with the whole wheat bread we always have […]
]]>This French toast recipe is everything you want in a classic piece of French toast. Read all my tips and you’ll be making the best French toast you’ve ever had!
Sometimes Ben makes quick French toast for the kids for breakfast on the weekends. He makes it with the whole wheat bread we always have on hand. I love that he does this for this for them, but I always decline to eat it myself.
Why? Well, because I’m a French toast snob, of course. Honestly, I usually eat a pretty healthy breakfast. It typically goes downhill from there, in terms of healthy eating, but that’s a different issue altogether. Not that French toast made with whole wheat bread is unhealthy, I just typically go gluten-free at breakfast. Except when I don’t. I’m very consistent like that.
But if I’m gonna eat French toast for breakfast, it’s gotta be the real thing. Soft, fluffy white bread, lots of cinnamon and vanilla. Bonus points for fresh fruit and good grass-fed butter.
My go-to bread of choice for this French toast recipe is Texas toast. Perfectly soft, and the classic square French toast shape. It’s unmistakable in appearance, and perfect in taste. It soaks up the eggs and milk perfectly and cooks in just the right amount of time.
Tip: Want to get a little fancier? Try sliced Italian bread, French bread, or even better, challah or brioche! Yum. Just keep in mind that cooking time might vary slightly based on the thickness of the bread.
So here’s the thing about French toast. I have a few pet peeves. I’m pretty easy going in general (maybe Ben would disagree), but when it comes to French toast, things just have to be a certain way. We already talked about the bread, but let’s talk about some other must-haves for the best French toast ever.
Components of the best French Toast Recipe:
BREAD
I know we already talked about this, but it’s so important. Get yourself some fluffy, soft, tender white bread. It matters. Texas toast, Italian bread, French bread, challah or brioche are all decent options. If you can get some really amazing, thick-sliced cinnamon-swirl bread, that’s also an amazing option.
EGGS + MILK
Don’t slack here, you guys. I don’t want you to see any components of the egg white or the egg yolks in this mixture. You must beat this together until it’s perfectly combined and uniform. Does it take an extra minute? Yes. Might your wrist or elbow get a little tired? Yes. You can deal. Otherwise you’re gonna end up with something that looks like a mini fried egg on the outside of your French toast, and no one wants that situation.
Vanilla
Put vanilla in your egg and milk mixture. The more the better, in my opinion, but this recipe outlines my recommended amount. Don’t use fake or imitation stuff – this is the time for pure vanilla extract. (For the record…there isn’t ever a time for the imitation vanilla extract.)
Cinnamon
Okay, time to get serious. Have you all made French toast where you mix the cinnamon into the egg mixture? And then you end up with little clumps of cinnamon, most of which end up getting stuck to the edges of your bowl instead of even going on the bread? This is not good and not what we want for the perfect French toast.
So this recipe does it a little differently. We’re not going to put cinnamon or sugar into the egg mixture. Instead, we’re going to dust the outside of the bread with it before we dip it in the eggs. It’s a genius tip that I can’t take credit for, unfortunately. I learned it from Lauren when I made her Chai French Toast Skewers. This dusting of cinnamon and sugar not only adds just the right amount of sweetness and spice to every single bite of French toast (no clumpy cinnamon here!) but it also creates an amazing caramelization on the outside of the French toast. It’s completely irresistible and a total game-changer.
French Toast Toppings
Now, I know this is a very personal matter. I recently tried Trader Joe’s vanilla bean maple syrup so lately I’m loving a drizzle of that plus a handful of fresh berries on my French toast. I grew up eating a mixture of butter and brown sugar on my French toast, and you really can’t go wrong with that, either. Maybe you like a strawberry sauce, or whipped cream, or just a light dusting of powdered sugar. I might have strong opinions about cinnamon and bread…but when it comes to toppings…make it your own! Go crazy or keep it simple, you’re the boss!
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/02/04/french-toast-recipe/feed/5how-to-make-french-toast-web (6 of 7)how-to-make-french-toast-web (5 of 7)how-to-make-french-toast-web (2 of 7)how-to-make-french-toast-web (7 of 7)how-to-make-french-toast-web (1 of 7)how-to-make-french-toast-web (3 of 7)French Toast RecipeSuper Bowl Recipes – 21 of the Best Ideas for Game Day!https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/30/super-bowl-recipes/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/30/super-bowl-recipes/#commentsWed, 30 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=2613021 of the best Super Bowl Recipes for the perfect game day – or for just any ol’ Sunday night. Every night deserves good food! Someone recently asked if I was going to have people over for the Super Bowl. Answer: Nope, not this year. I was then asked if I was going to watch […]
]]>21 of the best Super Bowl Recipes for the perfect game day – or for just any ol’ Sunday night. Every night deserves good food!
Someone recently asked if I was going to have people over for the Super Bowl. Answer: Nope, not this year.
I was then asked if I was going to watch the Super Bowl, and the truth of the matter is that I probably won’t. Maybe I’ll watch the first hour of the football game, but a girl needs her sleep, you know? They replay all the best commercials on social media anyways, so I’m not missing anything.
Howevvvvvver, I did make you guys a list of 21 of the best Super Bowl recipes. And whether you watch the big game or not, these Super Bowl appetizers are sure to make your Sunday night quite a bit more delicious.
I have a wide variety for you on this list. Many are of the indulgent variety, but there are a few lighter and healthy bites on the list as well. Something for everyone! We have dip recipes, finger food ideas, recipes with BACON, crockpot recipes, recipes with guacamole (of course), some recipes that are a little heartier and more filling, and some that you’ll be able to munch on all evening long.
My favorites include the 7 layer dip (my videographer, who is mainly a vegan but made an exception for this recipe, said it was the best 7 layer dip that she has ever had). So clearly, you should be trying that one. I also loooove the bacon wrapped dates, which are a newer recipe and the homemade french onion dip is another favorite — and a lighter choice! I mean…if you disregard the chips you’re dipping in it, that is. Minor details, you know?
I’m excited to hear about your plans for the Super Bowl — are you hosting a party or laying low and going to bed early? If you make one of these recipes, make sure to tag it on social media with #RachelCooks so I can see it and reshare it!
Super Bowl Recipes
Looking for the perfect game day appetizer? Here are all the ideas you'll need. There are healthy recipes, and more indulgent recipes. Something for everyone
Total Time15 minutesYield 15 servings
7 Layer Dip Recipe
This isn't your ordinary 7 layer dip recipe - it has a couple unique layers that make it really stand out from the crowd. Make it for your next party and everyone will be asking for the recipe!
Zucchini Pizza Bites
Shrimp Tacos with Avocado, Mango and Pineapple Salsa
These Shrimp Tacos are a refreshing taste of the tropics thanks to the zesty avocado, mango and pineapple salsa. They're easy to make and are a hit for any party. The extra salsa is amazing on chips or sprinkled on a salad!
]]>These bacon wrapped dates are stuffed with fontina cheese and sprinkled with an insanely delicious brown sugar spice rub. They’re going to be the hit of your next party!
I’m going to be upfront with you guys. I just Googled “Super Bowl 2019″ to find out when it was, so I could share these bacon wrapped dates before the big game instead of after. I’m almost always a little behind the curve when it comes to trends (and apparently also sports), and I didn’t want to miss the boat this time.
Okay no really, if I’m reallllly being honest, I Googled Superbowl 2019” because this girl didn’t even know it was two words. Just keeping it real. Turns out the big day is February 3rd, which is right around the corner! So, not to state the obvious, but you need these bacon wrapped dates in your life.
This is another recipe that I squeezed in a quick photoshoot for on the day when I was trying to do way more than I had time for (that seems like most days though, doesn’t it?). It was the day of the infamous crispy chickpeas spill. I served this as an appetizer at a belated family Christmas party that finally happened in January (Christmas break colds and fevers are the worst!). These were a huge hit, and I have to say, the leftovers aren’t bad reheated for breakfast, either.
You can also prep these ahead and bake them immediately before serving, which is immensely helpful when hosting a party. I stuffed them with fontina because I loooove fontina. Also, if we’re keeping up the honesty, I wanted to use a firm cheese (as opposed to cream cheese or goat cheese) because I thought it would be easier, faster, and less messy to stuff these with a harder cheese.
Actually, I had my daughter help me make these (she’s 8 now…can you believe that?!). She had a blast doing this and it made less work for me…win-win.
About these bacon wrapped dates
If you haven’t had bacon wrapped dates before, you are missing out. The sweet, salty, and chewy situation is completely irresistible, and they pair so well with an ice cold beer. Like I mentioned, I stuff these with fontina, but you could use any number of cheeses. Goat, manchego, cream cheese, ricotta, cheddar, havarti…you really can’t go wrong. I’ve also seen them with an almond on the inside, too. Almonds will add great added crunch and will be really terrific with any of the cheese.
In my opinion, the brown sugar spice rub is what really makes these stand out. It drives that salty-sweet combination home and adds that extra something. The spices are pretty mild, so if you want something a little bolder, double all the spice measurements, keeping the brown sugar the same.
PS: This also happens to be a gluten-free recipe if you’re serving any gluten-free individuals!
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/28/bacon-wrapped-dates/feed/3bacon-wrapped-dates-web (1 of 5)bacon-wrapped-dates-web (3 of 5)bacon-wrapped-dates-web (4 of 5)bacon-wrapped-dates-web (2 of 5)Bacon Wrapped Dates RecipeWhole30 Chicken Thighs Sheet Pan Dinner with Smashed Potatoes (30 minute meal)https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/21/whole30-chicken-thighs/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/21/whole30-chicken-thighs/#commentsMon, 21 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=26062This Whole30 Chicken Thighs sheet pan dinner is an entire flavorful, healthy, and easy to make meal on one single sheet pan! Whole30 or not, make it tonight! I’m so excited to share this recipe with you guys! I didn’t intentionally set out to create this as a Whole30 compliant recipe, but as I was […]
]]>This Whole30 Chicken Thighs sheet pan dinner is an entire flavorful, healthy, and easy to make meal on one single sheet pan! Whole30 or not, make it tonight!
I’m so excited to share this recipe with you guys! I didn’t intentionally set out to create this as a Whole30 compliant recipe, but as I was developing the flavors and ingredients, I realized…hey, this is Whole30 compliant! I know January is a big month for Whole30, so I decided to get it out to you guys ASAP! Regardless of if you’re doing a Whole30 or not (I’m not!), this recipe is a total winner.
And….it’s all made on one pan. That’s what I do best, you know? Avoiding extra dishes at all costs.
About this Whole30 Chicken Thighs Sheet Pan Meal
The evolution of this recipe began with chicken thighs with a little fresh chimichurri on the top, but as much as I love a good chimichurri, sometimes it can be bold and overpowering. It also can appear intimidating at first glance for people that maybe aren’t as comfortable in the kitchen (although, it really isn’t).
I decided to take some of the flavors of a classic parsley and lemon chimichurri and make them into a little rub for the chicken. I added Dijon and garlic powder to kick the flavors up a notch, too. Putting the good stuff on as a rub and not as a sauce when it’s done cook allows the flavors to soak into the chicken as it cooks. To brighten it up and add freshness at the end, I finish this recipe with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.
Tip: Love garlic? Ben doesn’t, so I often opt for garlic powder over fresh garlic, but 1-2 cloves of minced garlic would be great in this recipe in place of the garlic powder.
Not that it’s uncommon for me to do this, but I was definitely eating this for lunch on the day I photographed it. I’m not sure it was even noon. Sometimes I even sit on the floor of my studio and eat, but I think I waited to start eating until I was back downstairs and had put the stuff I wasn’t going to eat into the fridge.
I’m a bit of a crazy person about food safety, and by the time I finish photographing something, it’s about time for it to chill out in the fridge, you know?
This is a great meal for the meat and potato lovers in the crowd. The smashed potatoes get perfectly crispy on the outside, but are soft and silky on the inside. Based on the popularity of my Parmesan roasted green beans, I thought they’d be a great vegetable to round this out and make it a complete meal.
You’ll see this in the recipe directions, but they get added part way through the cooking time. They don’t take long to cook at all and you don’t want to overcook them.
Tip: While the potatoes are cooking in the microwave, prep the parsley mixture/rub for the chicken and put the chicken on the sheet pan (don’t forget to also preheat your oven!). While the potatoes and chicken cook in the oven, you’ll have plenty of time to prep the green beans. I know the recipe looks long and complicated at first glance, but it really is quite simple and quick.
If you love sheet pan dinners as much as we do, make sure to also check out these:
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/21/whole30-chicken-thighs/feed/3sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-crispy-smashed-potatoes-web (2 of 6)sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-crispy-smashed-potatoes-web (3 of 6)sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-crispy-smashed-potatoes-web (4 of 6)sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-crispy-smashed-potatoes-web (6 of 6)sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-crispy-smashed-potatoes-web (1 of 6)sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-crispy-smashed-potatoes-web (5 of 6)Whole30 Chicken Thighs Sheet Pan Dinner with Smashed PotatoesBrussels Sprouts Salad Recipe with Crispy Chickpeashttps://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/16/brussels-sprouts-salad-recipe/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/16/brussels-sprouts-salad-recipe/#commentsWed, 16 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=25978This Brussels Sprouts Salad Recipe with Crispy Chickpeas is simple perfection. It’s a fresh and flavorful side dish that’s easy to prepare and goes great with fish or chicken. As promised Monday, this is the Brussels sprouts salad with the ill-fated crispy chickpeas from Monday. It’s one of those recipes that is simple and elegant […]
]]>This Brussels Sprouts Salad Recipe with Crispy Chickpeas is simple perfection. It’s a fresh and flavorful side dish that’s easy to prepare and goes great with fish or chicken.
As promised Monday, this is the Brussels sprouts salad with the ill-fated crispy chickpeas from Monday. It’s one of those recipes that is simple and elegant without being fussy or containing 50 different ingredients. The Brussels sprouts hold up well to the dressing, making it great for easy meal prepping and planning ahead.
I’m still trying to get my life organized after Christmas (umm…our decorations may or may not still be up…can someone please come take them down for me?). Healthy eating is hit-or-miss as usual, but I’m all about balance and moderation, so we’ll just pretend it’s on purpose.
Salads like this make it a little easier, though. It’s easy to make and it keeps well in the fridge for at least a few days, so it’s great to have on hand. It’s also easy to dress up with other ingredients I have in the fridge (chicken, avocado, cheese, etc), so it is helpful when I’m trying to be a little more “hit” and a little less “miss” when it comes to staying on track with nutritious, healthy meals.
As a bonus, if you need it to be for any reason, this Brussels sprouts salad recipe is dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, AND nut-free. And you could make it Whole30 compliant and paleo, too, if you want.
Tip: If you’re unsure how to slice the Brussels sprouts, this is a helpful guide. You can also do it in your food processor with the slicer blade.
Make this Brussels Sprouts Salad Recipe your own:
Dairy-Free: Follow the recipe as written.
Gluten-Free: Follow the recipe as written. It would also be great with some shredded or chunked Parmesan cheese, or toasted pine nuts.
Vegan: As written!
Nut-Free: As written! You’ll love those crispy chickpeas to give you that great crunch that you get with nuts.
Whole30: Skip the chickpeas, use toasted pine nuts. Make sure to choose a compliant Dijon mustard for the dressing.
Paleo: Again, skip the chickpeas, use toasted pine nuts.
Make it a hearty meal: Add turkey, chicken, or add more chickpeas. This salad would also be fantastic with diced avocado for a touch of decadent creaminess.
I don’t have a whole lot more to say about this one, guys. It’s a great salad…and you should try it!
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/16/brussels-sprouts-salad-recipe/feed/2Brussels-Sprouts-Salad-Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (4 of 5)Brussels-Sprouts-Salad-Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (2 of 5)Brussels-Sprouts-Salad-Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (5 of 5)Brussels-Sprouts-Salad-Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (3 of 5)Brussels-Sprouts-Salad-Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (1 of 5)Brussels Sprouts Salad Recipe with Crispy ChickpeasCrispy Chickpeashttps://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/14/crispy-chickpeas/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/14/crispy-chickpeas/#commentsMon, 14 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=25979Crispy Chickpeas are the perfect salty snack that’s packed with protein! They’re also great on salads and sprinkled on top of soup. Remember that time I dropped an entire bright red cocktail on my white carpet in my studio? And then dropped it again in the kitchen? Well, here’s another fun story… I was making […]
]]>Crispy Chickpeas are the perfect salty snack that’s packed with protein! They’re also great on salads and sprinkled on top of soup.
Remember that time I dropped an entire bright red cocktail on my white carpet in my studio? And then dropped it again in the kitchen?
Well, here’s another fun story…
I was making these crispy chickpeas. It was an afternoon when I was trying to get far too much done. My parents and my sister and her family were coming over for a belated Christmas celebration. They had been sick, and then we were sick, and we were celebrating Christmas over a week later than we had originally planned.
I had made my banana chocolate chip cake for dessert and decided to reshoot the photos since they were old and needed to be redone. I was also making bacon wrapped dates which I decided that I had to share with you guys because they’re so dang good (that recipe will be coming soon), so I squeezed in a shoot for those too.
And then there was this Brussels sprouts salad I wanted to get done. I had bought the Brussels sprouts almoooost too long ago and I had kept putting off the task because I had a cold that had kicked my butt and just getting the basics done was difficult enough. So I thought, why not squeeze that into the two hours before they get to our house? The salad is topped with these yummy crispy chickpeas, but they’re also great on their own…so sure, why not shoot photos of these separately too?
And peeling chickpeas…that’s an easy task that’s not at all monotonous and time consuming (please sense my sarcasm) so it totally makes sense to do this all, right? There was a glass of wine waiting for me at the end of the tunnel!
I got the chickpeas peeled and then scooted them into the oven while I began to prep the salad. As you’ll see in this recipe, you’ll want to give the pan of chickpeas a little shake every ten minutes or so while they bake, so that they crisp up evenly. So here’s the thing. Make sure you have a good grip on that pan, k? Don’t be like me.
I was shaking the pan, lost my grip on it, and dropped it. Of course I wasn’t doing this on the countertop…I was doing it with the oven door three-quarters of the way open, in the oven. Again…don’t be like me.
The chickpeas fell into the crack where the oven door meets the oven. So instead of falling into the oven (actually really glad about that) or falling onto the floor, they fell into this crack, and then subsequently into the drawer under my oven. The “warming drawer.” Does anyone use this drawer for its intended job? Or do you all store your grilling tools in it like I do?
So into the drawer go all my chickpeas…the chickpeas that I peeled one-by-one. At this point, I’m faced with a dilemma. Do I restart completely? Or do I scoop these out of the not-so-clean under the oven drawer, and continue roasting?
Clearly I went with the second option, because I didn’t have time to spare! So, I’ve made these before (also made cinnamon roasted chickpeas), and I took the chance and ate one for quality control, but other than that, these starred in their photoshoot (photoshoots, actually, because I still used them for the salad photos, too) and then went in the trash. And for the record, I picked them off the salad and ate the salad, but I didn’t serve it to my family.
That turned into a pretty long story! Anyone still with me want to talk about this tasty crispy chickpeas?
How to Make Crispy Chickpeas:
This is a pretty basic recipe that uses olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. You can obviously have fun with flavors with these, but I kept them fairly simple since they were intended as a salad topping.
Roasted chickpeas get delightfully crispy and are a great snack for when you’re craving something crunchy and salty.
After having made these quite a few times, I have a couple tips for the best success and highest levels of crispiness.
Tips for the crispiest chickpeas:
Peel them. I know, it’s a pain. It’s worth it though. Rub them between two paper towels — that will get a lot of the peels off, and then just tackle the rest one by one. It’s monotonous but it’s also oddly satisfying popping those little buggers out of their peels.
Dry them. Dry them well with a paper towel or a non-linty (and clean) kitchen towel (tea towels work well). You can also spread them on a towel and let them air dry for 30 minutes or an hour.
Roast, shake, roast, shake, etc. The longer you cook these, the crispier they will get. Carefully shake the pan every 10 minutes to ensure they roast evenly.
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/14/crispy-chickpeas/feed/4Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (3 of 5)Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (1 of 5)Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (4 of 5)Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (2 of 5)Crispy-Chickpeas-Web (5 of 5)Crispy ChickpeasPizza Chicken – One pan, 5 ingredients!https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/09/pizza-chicken/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/09/pizza-chicken/#commentsWed, 09 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=25892This easy five ingredient, one-pan pizza chicken is a weeknight lifesaver. It’s an easy crowd-pleaser of a dinner! I know pizza and January healthy eating aren’t exaaaaactly synonymous but I’ve never been one to follow the trends. Well, sometimes I follow trends but I’m usually at the very least six months behind the curve. I […]
]]>This easy five ingredient, one-pan pizza chicken is a weeknight lifesaver. It’s an easy crowd-pleaser of a dinner!
I know pizza and January healthy eating aren’t exaaaaactly synonymous but I’ve never been one to follow the trends. Well, sometimes I follow trends but I’m usually at the very least six months behind the curve. I do, however, believe in balance and today that balance appears in the form of dressing up a chicken breast and making it taste like pizza.
I also believe in easy recipes and eating them in January. And February…and March…and April…you get the point. Not only is this pizza baked chicken a five ingredient recipe, but it’s also made in only one pan. It’s ridiculously easy and it has become a quick go-to recipe in my home, and I know you’re going to feel the same way about it.
About this Pizza Chicken:
The sauce that the chicken bakes in is a mixture of pizza sauce and diced tomatoes. You’ll mix those together right in the baking dish, add the chicken and bake. Right before it’s finished, the cheese and pepperoni goes on. We love to eat this with some cheese ravioli or pasta, but if you’re more into the January healthy eating mindset (go you!), it would be amazing with zucchini noodles, or just on its own served with a side salad. I recommend some great roasted broccoli to serve alongside of this.
The sauce keeps the chicken nice and moist (sorry to use that word, but there’s no way around it). The cheese and pepperoni make this feel like a serious treat, but in reality it’s still pretty balanced, healthy eating.
Make this Pizza Chicken your own:
Make it dairy-free: Umm…just leave the cheese off, k?
Make it low-carb or keto: You’re in luck, if you pick a low-carb pizza sauce, it already is.
Make it Whole30: Leave the cheese off and choose compliant pizza sauce and pepperoni.
Add more vegetables: ALWAYS! Chop some spinach and stir it into the sauce. Or you could top the chicken breasts with a vegetable instead of pepperoni. Try sauteing some mushrooms and adding those! There are always good ways to add vegetables. I also love this served with zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash.
Make it faster: I haven’t tested it, but if you used chicken tenders or butterflied your chicken and put it in a slightly larger pan, you could probably cut down on the cooking time.
Can’t wait to hear what you guys think of this one! I might just make it again tonight…
]]>https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/09/pizza-chicken/feed/5baked-pizza-chicken-5-ingredient-600 (2 of 6)baked-pizza-chicken-5-ingredient-600 (3 of 6)baked-pizza-chicken-5-ingredient-600 (4 of 6)baked-pizza-chicken-5-ingredient-600 (1 of 6)baked-pizza-chicken-5-ingredient-600 (6 of 6)Pizza Baked ChickenLe Creuset Stoneware Rectangular Dish, 10.5 by 7-Inch, CaribbeanThermapen Mk4Instant Pot Beef Stew Recipehttps://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/02/instant-pot-beef-stew/
https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/01/02/instant-pot-beef-stew/#commentsWed, 02 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000https://www.rachelcooks.com/?p=25891Cozy, comforting, and made so quickly and easily under pressure, this Instant Pot Beef Stew is going to become an instant favorite. Happy 2019, friends! I can’t believe another year has passed, but here we are. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your friends and families. I hope it was restful, […]
]]>Cozy, comforting, and made so quickly and easily under pressure, this Instant Pot Beef Stew is going to become an instant favorite.
Happy 2019, friends! I can’t believe another year has passed, but here we are. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your friends and families. I hope it was restful, relaxing, and full of joy. And full of fantastic food, of course!
I’m also curious if you’re making any resolutions this year! I’m not typically a resolution person. As cliché as it sounds, I prefer to improve myself all year rather than waiting for January 1st. It’s obviously not always successful, but if I see room for improvement, I do my best to take action immediately. I also know my personality and can be realistic enough to know that if I make a resolution and don’t keep it (and let’s be real…how often are they kept?), I’ll be hard on myself and I don’t need an unnecessary reason to do that.
With all that said, I’d love to hear if you make resolutions…and even better, how do you keep them?
If I was going to make a resolution, I think I’d resolve to meal prep and meal plan more. I feel like if I could master that, it would carry into other areas of my life. If I had meals planned and prepped, I think I’d eat healthier, maybe be less stressed….etc.
If I was meal planning, I’d definitely be adding this Instant Pot beef stew into my rotation. Well, I will anyways, because it’s delicious. And so easy to make. You get that tender, cooked all day, fall-apart beef in a fraction of the time, thanks to the pressure cooking method.
About this Instant Pot Beef Stew Recipe:
Like many of my recipes, this one is completely adaptable to your diets and tastes. It’s great as written, but you can definitely tweak it to make it yours. I start by tossing the meat with my homemade beef stew seasoning, give it a quick brown using the saute function of the Instant Pot (this adds so much flavor!), and then you basically just dump everything else in. It’s so easy!
How to make this a Whole30 Instant Pot Beef Stew Recipe:
This is easy! You’ll leave the flour out of the seasoning mix, and only use 1 tablespoon of the seasoning mix instead of 1/4 cup. Brown the meat as directed in the recipe. When it’s all done cooking, thicken as desired with arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch.
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So this is obviously not a word for word transcript- I’ve omitted some utterances that occurred during the call, and self-corrections made by Corey- Anyone is welcome to use this as a reference, however if you want word for word- you must listen to the call. I think you will find that if you were to listen to the call, and read along in my document, you’d find 99.9% accuracy. Enjoy.
KP
Welcome everybody to our Affinity Gold Corp. monthly shareholder call, my name is Matthew Winn and I am your moderator today. First of all I'd like to say welcome and thank everyone for joining us on the call today, I'm really excited about our call and I know we have a lot of great information to share with you. But before we get started I just have a couple of administrative items I need to cover, the structure of our call today will last about 20 minutes, and our goal is to update you on the status of our projects, current progress on the 180 day plan that Corey shared with you five months ago, as well as answer some questions that have been submitted prior to today's call from our shareholders. And one last note to cover, due to technical difficulty with our conferencing software we are recording our shareholder call, so this is not the live call, this is a pre-recorded call, but we are covering the exact same items. So with that said, I'd like to welcome our President/CEO of Affinity Gold Corp. Corey, Corey how are you doing today?
I'm doing well Matthew thank you very much, so what I wanted to just go through is to give an update, exactly what Matthew listed there. So we'll start with some of the accomplishments of the last month. As you all know, we closed on the Cambalache project, which is the currently producing project, since then we've been working that diligently. David Heyl has been up there addressing the operational inefficiencies there, and we'll get into that a little bit more later on, but that is going well, we are producing today and we have ore being shipped and processed. So that is great, we've also started our... Last month in February, sorry this month in February, we began a soft launch of our social media marketing plan, to increase awareness and begin sharing the story of Affinity, as far as where we came from, what we're doing today, and where we're going. So as you will probably see we are going to have more activity on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Facebook, so please when you get an opportunity like us on Facebook, follow us and if you get a chance share it with others. So let's see here, with regards to the 180 day plan we are diligently working against our goals there, with our regulatory filings as you have probably seen from the news released the other day, we've engaged LL Bradford and Company, and we engaged them earlier in the month and we have been working with them since early February, so I am very pleased about that. One thing I want to say is that what's been important to me, from what I have learned in the past is that especially with Affinity, is that it was absolutely critical for us to find the right CPA firm that was PCAOB registered, but also had experience dealing with public companies, that had operations in foreign jurisdictions.
Right now that's something that the SEC is looking at closely, and we needed to make sure that we had a CPA firm that was familiar with auditing of public companies with operations in foreign jurisdictions. The other thing, the other requirement that we had was that they were bilingual. And so LL Bradford, they are Spanish/English speaking and PCAOB registered, and the other nice thing about this that helps Affinity quite a bit is that instead of having two auditing firms, one for the US, and one for Peru. We are now just dealing with one auditing firm. So LL Bradford will be finishing up the US side as well as they will be in Peru shortly conducting the on-site visit and verification of our books and ledgers in Peru. So if you have any questions regarding that please feel free to email me and I will do the best that I can to answer the questions. We have had some unforeseen issues and delays regarding the audits in the recent past, so we've worked through most of those, but right now we are just trying to manage the impact to the timeline so that we can try our best to hit our deadline. There is the possibility that we don't, however I will be keeping our shareholders apprised of any changes in our timelines, but I just want to really emphasize that this is the first and foremost priority of Affinity at this point in time, now that we are currently producing. The next thing is before we can further implement some of our other objectives and plans beyond the 180 day plan, we must be current in our filings, and we have some really exciting things that we are looking to do, and that we have in the works- but they are dependent on us being current. So by all means please understand, please know we will be getting current in our filings, and we are going to do it as quickly as we possibly can.
With regards to the strategic advisory committee, I shared with you previously last month, regarding some of the people that are going to be on that. I just want you to know that there is no delay and no issue in that regard, and I am extremely excited to be able to announce the strategic advisory committee very shortly, and who will be on there and I think that once we announce the members of the strategic advisory committee, that people, our shareholders, and other potential investors will realize that Affinity must have something going in order for the caliber of people on the committee signing up with us, and getting behind this. I'm very excited about that.
With regards to Cambalache and production, when we closed on the Cambalache project the production had dropped below the 12 1/2 to 13 tons per day, which makes sense coming out of the holidays, production dropped quite a bit. When we took over production was around 3 1/2 tons per day, nothing to write home about, but nonetheless it was producing. Now once we got on site, David Heyl was able to begin addressing the operational inefficiencies, begin increasing production, and we immediately increase production to 12 to 13 tons per day, as we begin addressing the operational inefficiencies and getting more supplies and equipment on-site, we were able to reach a high of 37.4 tons per day as of February 11. So currently as of today we have about 310 tons of ore that has been shipped, and is being processed, actually as of now it has been processed. So I am extremely excited to be able to announce shortly the results of that, I can't really go into anymore detail other than that's what's been shipped. That's extremely exciting. The sale of the concentrate from the ore, that should occur very soon, and we will be announcing the results of that, along with the grades and we will make sure that we provide the necessary documentation in our news release or on our website to show that is real. We will also be filing the 8K along with that information shortly after the news release.
The other thing I wanted to mention with regards to Cambalache is, like I said David Heyl is doing a phenomenal job, Corizona is doing a great job, addressing the operational items up in Cambalache to increase production, improve efficiencies, and increase recovery rates, and begin to lay out the plan for growing the operations beyond what our production rate is today. We currently have two geologists on-site helping David, we also have six security personnel alternating shifts, security are on-site at all times, 24/7 days a week, current production is running two shifts per day one dayshift and one night shift. Things are going extremely well we are very very pleased. We think that production is only going to increase from here on out. So our goal is still to reach the 100 tons per day, as soon as possible but within reason. We feel very comfortable in being able to hit the goal within the first 6 to 9 months.
A couple of other things I also wanted to mention, actually the last thing from the prior call I touched on the share structure, I wanted to reiterate there's been no changes to the share structure. Currently still have 250 million authorized, 137 million issued and out, the restricted is about 100.3 million, and the free trading is about 37 million, the float is just under 26.5 million shares, and has been no change.
Okay great, good information and we're really excited about the things that are developing there. The next section of our call we are going to field a couple of the questions that were sent in from our shareholders, and so will get started on those that here:
Question-Re: Cambalache can you tell us what the daily production numbers are currently? And how do they compare in relation to where they were a month ago?
Answer- okay so like I was saying, with Cambalache that January time frame, production had dropped to about 3 1/2 tons per day, however once we got on site we closed the deal with the Allago partners, we were able to get on site, we were able to, David and his team was able to get the production to 12 to 13 tons per day, and then addressing the operational inefficiencies, and increasing and having access to more supplies, and working with the related vendors that are there who we have relationships with on the project, we were able to reach a high of 37.4 tons per day so far and that was as of February 11. So we are doing very well, we are very much on track and I think that our shareholders are going to be very pleased. But the most important thing I want to say about this, the most important thing about this is we have reached a point where when we announce the production results, it will be proof that the model works, we are doing the right thing, and we are currently producing, and generating income and hitting the bottom line with that income. It's fantastic.
Question-If there was one thing that stood out to you and your strategic partners as being the hump you need to get over right now at Cambalache what would it be? Factors such as labor, equipment, or production process is there a key change that you can think of that is being worked on currently?
Answer-That's a great question, I can't think of any one particular thing that we are working on that would make all the difference. There's a whole variety of things that are being managed and addressed in order to improve recovery rates and increase production, and Corizona is doing a phenomenal job at doing that, David Heyl has been on-site around-the-clock working with the previous, existing employees up there, and and working with the vendors and suppliers, really there's a lot of relationship management taking place there in transitioning, and so if I were to say if there was any one thing, it might be capital but the reality is you can't throw too much capital at something too soon because we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, the key right now is really to take what we have there, address the operational inefficiencies, get it fine-tuned to where it needs to be, and begin increasing production-but do our best to not get ahead of ourselves so we don't get trouble there. But there really isn't one thing in particular, just kind of a bunch of different factors they are in play that are being managed. So hopefully that helps address that question
Question-focusing more on Affinity and their focus, is Affinity currently doing anything to diversify its risk and increase its long-term potential by looking at other jurisdictions besides Peru or other projects besides gold and silver?
Answer-that's another great question, the simple answer is yes-we have in the past pretty much been solely focused on gold and silver, we still are very much focused on gold and silver, simply because we believe that with the way the market is going that gold and silver will give us the best multiple for our shareholders in the market, however to also mitigate risks with gold and silver as well as just operational risk, what we are doing is we are diversifying a bit, we are looking at other opportunities to diversify both geographically as well as across different minerals. However the business model is not changing, what we don't want to do is veer away from the business model that we know works. And that is sticking to small to medium-size properties that have potential for near-term production or are already in production, that have historical data of production, where we can also go on-site and see visible evidence of production and in order to get into and establish small-scale production and grow the company, the capital requirement has to be less than 2 million. So we are really sticking to that model so anything else we look at, whether it be a copper deal or other type a deal, it has to fit that model. We are also looking at other jurisdictions Columbia in particular, we have worked with Corizona to make a trip to Columbia last year, to kind of get a sense of the opportunity, and begin establishing some key relationships so we feel pretty comfortable with how that's going. I will say that yes absolutely we are looking at ways to, not just diversify our risks or mitigate our risks, but also to increase and maximize the potential for Affinity and longevity for Affinity gold but still focused on production. That's the key, we want to be focused on production. The other requirement that we have other projects that I mentioned before is that these projects also have to have substantial upside in terms of exploration, so all the projects are not just simply small projects, but they might be small in the sense that production in the near term would be relatively small, but the potential to grow production and prove the resource could be quite substantial. So that's what we are doing but we are very very excited about that so we really like Columbia, we really like Peru quite a bit they are both great jurisdictions. Both have tremendous potential, and we think over the last year, year and a half, the relationships that we've been able to establish in other jurisdictions are really going to start materializing, and will begin to be factored into our business going forward.
Well folks as we wrap up our call today, I want to thank you for joining us and special thank you to you Corey for updating our shareholders on current status and operations of Affinity. Folks we hold our Affinity investors calls the last Friday of every month at 2 PM E.S.T., and as always we encourage you to email your shareholder questions to us prior to the call so that we can address them on the next investor call. Again thank you Corey and thank you folks for joining us and have a great day.
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mix | match | make
Category: collaborative works
November means NaNoWriMo is here at last! Christa Kinde and myself will be working hard to write our first (and hopefully not the last) collaborative book together. Here’s hoping all goes according to plan!
We also have a special NaNoWriMo Pintrest Board! It’s red vs. blue, which color will you be cheering for?
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"Gaelic football is a field-based sport characterized by irregular changes of pace and anaerobic effort interspersed with periods of light to moderate aerobic activity. Mean sprint distance ranges from 10-30 m and a high-level of aerobic conditioning is required to generate and maintain power output during repeated high intensity activities. High-volume endurance training has traditionally been used to improve aerobic capacity in club-level Gaelic football players. While ideal for developing aerobic capacity, this type of training is extremely time consuming. In contrast, two to four weeks of low-volume high-intensity interval training has been shown to improve VO2max to a similar extent as high-volume endurance training in college-age students."
This study compared the effects of two weeks of high-volume endurance training and low-volume high-intensity interval training on VO2max, running economy, blood lactate levels, and time-trial performance in club-level Gaelic football players. Ss were randomly assigned to a low-volume high-intensity interval training (N = 7) or a high-volume endurance training (N = 8) group. Ss trained three days per week for two weeks. Factors were measured at baseline and after two weeks.
VO2max and time-trial performance increased significantly in both training groups in response to the two-week training programs. There was no change in running economy or lactate threshold in either group. Running velocity at 4 mmol/l increased in the endurance training group and decreased in the high-intensity interval training group. Blood lactate levels were higher after each training session in the high-intensity interval training group. Total training time was 8% (18 minutes vs. 300 minutes) and total exercise-only time was 34% (102 minutes vs. 300 minutes) in the high-intensity interval training group when compared to the values for the endurance training group. Despite the large difference in total training time and total exercise time, high-intensity interval training still resulted in similar VO2max and time-trial performance factors.
Implication. Low-volume high-intensity interval training is a time efficient training method for improving aerobic capacity and time-trial performance, and maintaining indices of running economy and lactate threshold in Gaelic football players. High-intensity interval training would seem to be most appropriate for rehabilitation training after injury and for maintaining high fitness levels throughout a season of competitions.
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Tag Archives: book review
My new story, “Time’s Deformèd Hand,” is starting to garner some interesting praise from reviewers. Here’s just a sample:
“I laughed, I cried, I winced, I snorted my milk in my cereal.”
Houston Chronometer
“If you read only one book set in 16th Century Switzerland…well, if you read only five, this should be one of them.”
New York Timer
“In ‘Time’s Deformèd Hand,’ Steven R. Southard manages to take Shakespeare’s ‘A Comedy of Errors’ and update it all the way from 1594 to 1600.”
Baltimore Sundial
“Your book, ‘Time’s Deformèd Hand,’ is a completely inaccurate portrayal of Switzerland. There is no such town as Spätbourg and never has been. The Swiss people are not as obsessed with clocks as you describe. You will be hearing from our lawyers.”
Swiss Ministry of Tourism
[Note to self: Not a book review. Remember to delete before publishing post.]
“It’s like Shakespeare meets the Marx Brothers, in a clock factory, and they’re all on a caffeine high.”
Greensborough Watchman
“One character in the story uses da Vinci wings to fly. Really cool! I want those wings. Second, I’ve got to have one of the eight foot tall clockwork automatons. I really want both of ‘em, but I’m not gonna be greedy.”
Allthingsclockpunk.com
Remember, the book is scheduled for launch in two days, on November 15th. With reviews like those, nothing more need be said by—
As you and the story you’re writing go through time together, do you find yourself on the same type of emotional roller-coaster as with a personal relationship? Do you feel elated by positive events and dejected by negative ones? I’ve been through the process enough to detect a repeatable pattern. Maybe it will be the same for you.
Let’s follow through as I experience the highs and lows of writing a story and getting it published. This is my relationship with a single story, so the line will overlap with other stories in various stages.
Getting a story idea is enjoyable, having it mature in my mind while I imagine the possibilities, the characters, the plotline, the settings, and some of the dramatic scenes. It’s a good feeling to go through that, because that imaginary, unwritten story is as good as it’s ever going to be. Once the reality starts and I put words down, the story never reaches the exalted heights of perfection that it achieved when just a dream.
Until I get stuck with writer’s block. Here I mean the minor writer’s block I’ve described before, where I can’t get out of a plot hole, or I need a character to act contrary to his or her motivations, etc. Although temporary, this is a real downer. I don’t always experience this, (as shown by the reddish line) but there’s usually some drop-off in enthusiasm as the glow of the original idea fades a bit.
Reaching THE END of the first draft is a definite up-tic in satisfaction for me. The mad rush of getting words down is over. It’s good to know I can start the reviewing-editing-improving phase.
For simplicity, my graph only shows two drafts, but there may be more, with minor wave crests for completing each one. I get to the highest emotional state so far when I consider the story done and submit it for publication. “Here, Dear Editor, this is my newborn! Don’t you love it as much as I do?”
That emotional high fades, as they all do, while waiting for a response. Usually I’ve begun another story by then, so I get an overlap with a similar-looking graph displaced in time.
My graph depicts two paths here, one showing a rejection. Despite my earlier advice to look at rejections positively, I still find that hard to do. Rejections stink. Maybe not as much now as my first one, but still…
An acceptance of a story is a very high emotional state, especially the first time. It’s time to celebrate, indulge, and surrender to the grandeur and magnificence of me.
No one can maintain a very high or very low state forever, so I do descend from the grand summit as I get through the rewrites and signing of the contract, though these are not unpleasant.
The launch of a story is another sublime pinnacle of emotional ecstasy, and that’s no hyperbole. “For all human history, readers have awaited a story like this, and today, I, yes I, grant your wish and launch this masterpiece, this seminal work of ultimate prose, so you may purchase and read it. You’re quite welcome.”
After the story is launched, you’ll get occasional uplifting moments, such as favorable reviews, or book signings, etc. These are never quite as exciting as acceptance or launching, but they’re gratifying anyway.
I’ve not gotten through all these stages with a novel yet, but I suppose a novel’s graph is longer in time, and has many more ups and downs than that of a short story.
Also, your mileage may vary such that your graph looks quite different from mine. Leave me a comment and let me know about the emotional stages of your writing experience.
Remember, when on a roller-coaster (emotional or state fair-type), it sometimes helps to raise your hands in the air and scream. Whee! Here goes—
How should you, as an author, deal with negative reviews? You’re going to get them, so you might as well prepare now.
Nobody calls actual babies ugly, not to the Mom’s face anyway, but people will describe your novel or short story with some pretty ugly words. Those words sure can sting, too. After all, just as with real babies, writing is an act of creating something new from almost nothing, something that takes considerable effort and time, and you’re putting your creation out there for the world to see, unsure of what people will think.
Well, you soon find out that some people think your ‘baby’ is ugly. What to do? Options include:
1. Giving up this writing thing, and slink away to a hole where no one can see you or hurt you ever again.
2. Lashing out at the reviewer, and maybe starting an online flame war to prove to the world your novel was prose perfection while the reviewer was an ignorant, unsophisticated numbskull.
3. Ignoring the reviewer so you can keep on writing as you have been, since the reviewer obviously didn’t ‘get it’ and you can’t waste your time on idiots.
I’m not going to recommend you do any of those things, however much you will want to. My advice is to move as quickly as you can through the first four of Kübler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief—denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Get to the last stage, acceptance, as soon as possible.
No matter how poorly written the review, no matter how uninformed the reviewer seems, it’s just possible there’s a kernel of truth in the review. No matter how you try to deny it, that reviewer has a point.
But it’s a point you can use to improve future stories. Whatever flaw the reviewer noted, you should strive to avoid repeating that problem again. In the long run, you might even find that reviewer did you a favor.
Authors Joanna Penn and Rainy Kaye have posted some excellent advice on contending with unfavorable reviews.
The writer’s version of having your baby called ugly isn’t nearly as bad as having an ugly real baby. Then again, sometimes ugly babies grow into good looking adults, whereas stories always stay the same. Unless you revise your story. Who picked this stupid ‘baby’ analogy anyway? Oh, yeah, it was—
Ray Bradbury died June 5th of this year, a day this universe lost a literary giant. I just finished reading Something Wicked This Way Comes for the first time. I have read some other Bradbury works, including Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, Now and Forever, and TheMartian Chronicles. His short story “The Flying Machine,” in part, inspired my story “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai.”
The novel takes place in a Midwest town in the month of October sometime in the early to mid-1900s. A traveling carnival comes to the town and strange things happen, including the disappearance or alteration of some townspeople. Two boys and one of their fathers start to believe the carnival is evil and try to find a way to deal with the problem.
That synopsis sounds inexcusably bland, and doesn’t at all convey the magical experience of reading the book. Bradbury’s works are always poetic, alliterative, and metaphorical, and this novel is no exception. You find yourself swept along with the cadence of the words, caught up in whatever web Bradbury chooses to weave, and you’re glad of it.
The work deals with eternal themes of good and evil, as well as old and young. With the first, he examines the weapons wielded by forces evil and good. With the second, he explores the absurdity of the old wanting to be young and the young yearning to be old.
No one better expresses that delight, playfulness, curiosity, and sense of wonder of being a young boy in a Midwest town, than Ray Bradbury. I was once such a boy and can relate. The details he recalls and sensations he can–with lyrical prose–rekindle, resonate within me.
I’m not sure whether to classify the novel as horror or fantasy. Perhaps it’s a horror…poem? In any case, I loved it and give it my highest rating of 5 seahorses, the first work I’ve reviewed to have earned that rating. Do you disagree with my review? Leave a negative comment and you may find out “by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,” and that something is–
For some time scientists have known Yellowstone National Park is the site of a volcanic caldera, and if it suffered another major eruption, world-wide and centuries-long effects would ensue. What a great potential disaster for an author to write about!
This book follows the life of California Police Lieutenant Colin Ferguson and his extended family and a few acquaintances as they deal with the consequences of the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. It appears from Turtledove’s website it’s supposed to be the first of an intended series.
The novel is populated with intriguing characters all of whom have depth and quirks. It’s easy to identify with them and to care about them when bad things happen. Most of the characters whose point of view the author alternates us through are part of Colin Ferguson’s extended family. They become widely separated geographically which gives Turtledove a chance to show the effects of the eruption on various parts of the country. The author has done his research, and a reader who pays attention will come away with a much better understanding of the Yellowstone volcano. Jim Frangione provides a fine narrative voice as he reads the tale.
The book suffers from some significant deficiencies. In any disaster novel, there must be some introduction to the characters before the catastrophic event; however, Turtledove’s book goes on for a very long time before the volcano does its thing. I wondered if it would ever get around to blowing up. The entire book is too long, having extended stretches with no real advancement of the plot. Indeed, there is little real action in the entire novel. Worse, none of the characters experience any internal change, despite the self-reflection they go through on a continual basis.
Moreover, the author takes nearly every character’s action, follows it with an adage or rhetorical question thought by that character, and then relates what they think about the adage or question. This is fine every so often but not all the time. This is not a quote from the book, but it could have been: ‘He tied his shoe. You were supposed to tie your shoes. Everybody said so. And he wasn’t about to argue with Everybody. What was the point in that? No point at all, that’s what.’ This sort of thing happens far too often in the novel.
It seems to me Supervolcano: Eruption is a great idea, poorly executed. I can’t rate it any higher than 2 seahorses. Fans of Harry Turtledove’s works might enjoy this departure from alternate history, but I did not. As always, if my review has gotten you angry enough to erupt, leave a comment and spew your (metaphorical) molten lava on–
The novel takes place in 1935 in the Pacific Northwest. It is mainly about the character Park Hardesty, who hails from Pennsylvania, but joins the Civilian Conservation Corps, partly to escape the guilt over some events of his past. He falls in love with a girl who lives in town near the CCC camp, but there is a rival for her affection and Park’s past eventually catches up to him.
The book seems to be well researched, and gives a vivid picture of life at a CCC camp in the state of Washington during the Depression. It seems a realistic portrayal of the interactions of a quasi-military camp of young men from various parts of the country living in close quarters, and their interactions with each other and with the “locals.” We see their rough behavior, rough language, jealousies, and developing interests in some detail. It’s clear the protagonist is trying to make a new life and put his past behind him. The romance between Park and Kate seemed realistic and blossomed with the right mixes of thoughtful tentativeness and emotion on both parts. The ending is exciting and well-paced.
Before I review the novel’s weaknesses, I should note I read the book in brief snatches over a period of months. It’s possible a more concentrated reading of more than a few pages at a time would have yielded a better impression.
Although the beginning and ending are both thrilling and action-packed, the rest of the book is very slow. It’s as if the author wanted to include all her research in the book to give it credibility, but much of it ends up slowing down the plot. Also the work suffers from poor editing, with word errors, missing quotation marks, a name spelling change, and anachronisms (people didn’t say “no way” in 1935).
For me the most maddening part involves what happens following the commission of a vicious crime. The entire town seems to leap to a conclusion about who did it; that’s just human nature. However, the victim comes out of her recuperation to announce a fact about the prime suspect. Not a peep about who might have done the crime, and no one seems interested in asking her. The authorities launch into an investigation of footprints and combing the territory with search parties, etc. All the while I’m wondering why no one is asking the victim any questions. Perhaps she has some clue about the perp, or even knows who did it. No mention of any of that until the scumbag is caught and locked up. Then we learn the victim remembered the smell of his breath and one facial feature. The only part important to Oakley’s plot is that announced fact about the prime suspect. After that, there’s no point in concealing the victim’s knowledge from the reader. In fact this reader began to suspect the town of being populated by idiots.
Tree Soldier is getting excellent reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and has won some awards, but I’ll have to dissent from that majority. If you have an interest in that historical period, or setting, or the CCC, you might enjoy it. It is a nice romance between two strong and well-drawn characters. But the weaknesses lead me to give it a rating of 2 on my seahorse rating scale.
Whether you agree or disagree I’d like to know your comments about the book. Leave a comment for–
In brief, an earthquake collapses a cave containing a clan of Cro-Magnon people and the only survivor is a five-year-old girl named Ayla. She is taken in by a clan of Neanderthals and her differences from them complicate all their lives.
The novel seemed, to this listener, to be authoritative and well-researched. I liked how the author didn’t paint the lives of these prehistoric people as being simple; these characters had complex lives and traditions, as well as sophisticated knowledge of their environment. I found the characters to be distinct, memorable, and intriguing. Descriptions of the settings and characters were vivid, making the events of the book easy to imagine.
I thought the conflicts in the novel were clear and challenging, both the inter-character conflicts and the conflicts with the environment. The conflicts posed bedeviling problems for the characters, especially Ayla. I thought the book contained profound lessons about leadership, with both positive and negative examples. Anyone aspiring to lead a team would do well to emulate Brun, the clan leader through much of the novel. Moreover, Jean M. Auel wrote in an easy-to-read style that flowed well. Sandra Burr did commendable job of narration.
However, I found the novel repetitive, as if the author felt she had to remind the forgetful reader of previous events and who the characters were, on a frequent basis. In addition, for every big decision made by any character, the entire deliberative thought process was described. The author presents detailed pros and cons for every choice. Once the reader understands the motives driving a character, it’s no longer necessary to drag the reader through the careful weighing of pluses and minuses.
I found the point-of-view changes distracting at times. Auel did a fair job of signaling which character’s POV we were in, but it’s not necessary to describe how each major character feels about significant events; the reader can discern a good deal of that from expressions and actions. In fairness to Auel, it’s possible she also signaled POV changes using breaks in the text, something I couldn’t tell from listening to an audiobook.
A few events in the book strained credibility, though these events were necessary, perhaps, to make the novel relevant to our present and to help readers identify with Ayla. They included (1) Ayla becoming a huntress despite strict clan tradition against that; (2) Ayla learning, with apparent ease, every Neanderthal skill including cooking, medicine, weapon-making, tool-making, as well as hunting; (3) Ayla reasoning out the connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy as well as the fact that people are products of a father as well as a mother; and (4) the holy man Creb foreseeing the end of the Neanderthal people.
Taking strengths with weaknesses, I’ll give the book a rating of four seahorses using my much-coveted book review rating method. The novel deserved its good reputation and popularity. I don’t need to recommend you read it, since the only remaining person who hadn’t read it was —
Writers should be versed in the classics of literature to some extent, and I had never read The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. So I read it. I just completed listening to all 19 CDs of the Recorded Books version narrated by the incomparable George Guidall.
It would be easy to do a straight review and give this monumental novel a rating of 5 seahorses. Hunchback well deserves my highest rating for its universal themes and timeless characters.
However, you can find those sorts of reviews anywhere in print and online. I propose to do something different here. Since the purpose of my blog entries is to tell you things I wish someone had told me when I was beginning to write fiction, I’ll do a different sort of review. I’ll analyze the book as if it had been written today for English-speaking readers. If an author tried to market this book today, what would editors say? I know this is very unfair to Victor Hugo, and I apologize, but I believe this sort of review might be more useful to you, a prospective writer.
So here goes, and I’ll start with a few positives. Hugo has crafted a work with well-drawn, tragic characters, and then proceeded to put each of them through hell. Quasimodo is a deaf and grotesque cripple who (1) feels an understandable but undeserved loyalty to the Archdeacon who saved him, (2) loves a woman who could never love him back, and (3) is forced to defend a church alone against an irate mob. Esmeralda is a beautiful young girl raised by gypsies who searches for her parents and loves a soldier who does not return her love; moreover, she is accused of witchcraft and is both tortured and condemned to die. Archdeacon Claude Frollo is tormented by his love for Esmeralda to the point of insanity. In addition to these vivid characters, Hugo’s language–his style and use of metaphors and similes–survives even the translation from French to English.
On the other hand (and again I’m reviewing the book as if it were a submitted work in English today), the novel has an unsatisfying hook. It gets off to a slow start and it’s not clear near the beginning what the central conflict of the story is. Moreover, the pace is slow throughout; much of the text could be tightened up. The long section on architecture, where Hugo compares books to buildings, could be either eliminated or cut way back. In general his descriptions of things are two long. There is no need for the narrator to periodically address the reader (“With the reader’s consent,…” “Let the reader picture to himself…” “Our readers have been able to observe…”).
If Mr. Hugo would hope to get this manuscript published today, he would have considerable editing left to do. As it stands, I would have to give it a rating of three seahorses.
All right, quiet down out there, Victor Hugo fans. You’re asking (in loud tones) how I dare to give this colossal work of literature a mediocre rating. I believe I explained that. My aim, as always, is to help beginning writers–those who hope to get published early in the 21st Century. I reluctantly had to downgrade Hunchback, but I only did so to aid budding authors. Even so, I’ll take legitimate comments from anyone about this review. So go ahead and (figuratively) heave down your timbers and your stones, pour down your molten lead upon–
I’ve enjoyed other books by Robert Silverberg (Roma Eterna, Letters from Atlantis, and Gilgamesh the King) and so had high hopes for A Time of Changes, published in 1971. After all, it won the Nebula Award in 1972 for best science fiction novel. I listened to the Recorded Books version, their Sci-Fi imprint, read by Pete Bradbury.
The blurb for the book stated it takes place on another planet where the use of “I” and “me” or any self-referring pronouns is blasphemy. For me, that brought to mind Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, both novels about civilizations that forced people to think of themselves only as part of a collective, not as individuals.
But that’s not exactly the case with the planet Borthan, where the protagonist, Kinnall Darival, lives. It’s a bit more complicated. In most areas of the planet, people live under a centuries-old Covenant which forbids people from sharing personal thoughts with anyone, with two exceptions. People may share any thought with a “drainer,” a religious authority who is paid to listen; such unburdenings of personal feelings is meant to be cathartic and bring a person closer to the gods. Citizens may also share thoughts with “bond-kin;” these are a pair of unrelated people of the same age assigned to each person at birth. People can share intimate thoughts with bond-kin but never become sexually intimate with them.
If this seems complicated, I agree. But it seems Silverberg has created a world where love itself is cut in two. People share sexual love with their marriage partners, but not emotional love. The only outlets for emotional love are forbidden as sexual partners.
Silverberg fleshes out the world of Borthan in a thorough way, complete with geography, history, myths, and socio-governmental structures. The tale follows the life of Darival as he finds a drug that can allow people to read each other’s minds, and how he falls from being a wealthy prince to a fugitive outlaw. I found the Darival character well-drawn, as were all the others. Despite the complicated premise, the novel is easy to read. Silverberg has a wonderful writing style–flowing and lyrical and yet precise in meaning. Pete Bradbury does a fine job with narration.
However, I did find the premise difficult to believe. The colonists from Earth who’d settled the planet centuries before set up the Covenant for religious reasons, apparently. But their aim in separating emotional from sexual love is not clear. Nor is it apparent how the Covenant remains in force even when there are occasional visitors from Earth, so that Borthan citizens become exposed to alternative ideas. The mind-reading drug is available on a neighboring continent, so (despite the population’s strange disinclination to travel) it stretches credibility how Darival is the first person to try to spread new ideas about love. Also, it made little sense why the technology of Borthan was at the early-20th Century stage (cars and telephones), despite the story taking place about a millennium in the future. Lastly, I couldn’t understand the taboo against self-referencing pronouns. Original architects of the Covenant clearly wanted people to think of themselves as individuals–it’s considered virtue to solve your own problems without burdening others. So why forbid the use of “I” and “me?”
With regret, I’ll give this novel a rating of 3 seahorses. See the basis for my rating system here. I do recommend A Time of Changes, but it is not my favorite book by this author. If you feel I’ve been unfair, please enter a comment for–
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Content Tools
The Pecan (University of Texas Press, 2013) is lively look at the history of a true American nut, from the primordial Southern groves to the contemporary Chinese marketplace. James McWilliams begins by describing how important the pecan was for Native Americans—to whom an average harvest carried as food value as 150,000 bison. After centuries of harvesting in the wild, the “improvement” process began, and it took less than a hundred years for the pecan to be fully domesticated. In this excerpt from the introduction, McWilliams writes of the pecan’s genesis and how the nut’s natural attributes led to its prominence and popularity.
An American Nut
Here is an intriguing hypothesis: nuts may have made our prehuman ancestors smarter. Smarter because the nut forms in a shell and our hominid forebears had to think a bit about how to extract it. Thought led to innovation. Innovation to nutrition. Nutrition to greater intelligence. That's the idea, anyway. Granted, finding a stone flat enough to shatter a nut doesn't really qualify as unique cognition—apes do it all the time. But not unlike the way a seagull, after multiple attempts, finally figures out how high to soar before dropping the clam, it required trial and error. Smash the nut too fiercely, whack it in the wrong spot with the wrong rock, and shell shards splinter into the meat. Get it just right, though, with the right rock on the right seam with the right pressure, and you've just opened a new chapter in culinary history. When the first nut was cracked, the history of eating, it seems fair to say, changed significantly.
We have no idea when or where it happened. No idea whatsoever who the first opposable-thumbed hominid was who successfully liberated a nut from its shell. However, it stands to reason that whenever it took place, life changed for the better. Prehuman and human history is marked by major transformations: the harnessing of fire, the domestication of wheat, irrigation, animal breeding, refrigeration, genetic modification, the advent of the Twinkie. Rarely included among these prehistoric and historic milestones is the simple act of cracking open a nut. This fundamental historical act, I submit, deserves its due. The cracked nut may not have profoundly altered the course of human events, but it played an important role in shaping material and economic life for hundreds of millions of people for hundreds and thousands of years.
Of course, nuts didn't evolve shells to improve the minds of our prehistoric ancestry. On the contrary, a nut is a fruit with a single seed that's indehiscent—it does not open upon reaching maturity. Its hard exterior protects the seed (which is technically a one-seeded dry fruit) from the elements. The fact that we managed to break the nut's barrier and, over thousands of years, enjoy its fruit and, over the last hundred years, dictate the genetic course of its development doesn't mean that nuts lost and humans won. Nature, which is defined by unintended consequences, really doesn't follow that kind of logic. Plus, nature is ultimately too elusive and too powerful to assume a subservient role to a recent arrival such as the human, no matter how impressive his brain or how advanced his technologies.
When humans and plants enter into a relationship, a level of humility is forced upon us as we become integrated into unfamiliar natural processes. A mutually beneficial balance, never perfect, is the only way to ensure that the relationship—much less the plant itself—enjoys some semblance of longevity. For most of history, humans have responsibly propagated nuts. Nuts, in return, have generously, if more passively, improved the health of humans. They have thrived. We have thrived. How long this balance will persist into the future is, as we will see in the last chapter of this story, very much an open question, one we should probably be thinking about more seriously than we do.
Pecan trees (Carya illinoinensis) have lent themselves especially well to a delicate symbiosis with humans. Pecans belong to the family Juglandaceae, the pollen of which first appeared in the late Cretaceous period, about 135 million years ago. About 80 million years later the phylum Hicoreae sprouted across loosely connected landscapes that would eventually cleave into North America, Asia, and Europe. Sixteen million years later the genus Carya, which encompasses all hickories (including the pecan), came into being. This genus died out in Europe by the Pleistocene period (2 million years ago) but took deep root in limited geographical ranges across Asia and North America. The pecan has become, according to one authority, "the largest, fastest-growing, best-known, most valuable, and one of the longest-lived of all the hickories."
It was in North America alone, however, that the pecan found a climate amicable enough to inspire permanence. Wet, loamy, alluvial soil that reached from northern Illinois (hence its scientific name) to the Gulf Coast, and from central Texas to (possibly) a small patch of central Alabama, nurtured the pecan's exclusive development in North America. As the Stuart Pecan Company would brag in 1893, "We [Americans] have rightfully a monopoly upon the nut." This was exactly the case. The pecan thrives especially well along the turgid Mississippi and its arterial network of toffee-colored tributaries. As a botanical specimen, the pecan tree is supremely hardy—"a seasoned, professional athlete in a room of earnest but average sportsmen," as one team of botanists put it. It evolved a remarkable set of adaptive qualities that served it immensely well before the cooperative support of human cultivation. As a "climax tree species"—that is, as a species that does not care much for shade—this American nut successfully elbowed out potential competitors for the privilege of darting skyward and basking in direct sunlight. "The Pecan," declares a modern guide to American trees, "is intolerant of competition."
The tree's robust root system is equally aggressive. It plunges to the water table and fans out far enough horizontally to absorb a consistent supply of surface moisture. These roots develop well before the tree shoots upward. "It is nothing unusual," wrote the famous plant breeder Luther Burbank, "to find pecan seedlings an inch high with roots from four to six feet in length." In this sense, its strength remains hidden from view. Nutrient uptake in the pecan root network happens most efficiently at the humus-surface layer, a critical sliver of soil where nutrients are especially dense. The pecan's evolution in regions that experience both the occasional ice storm and static heat waves has led the tree to select genes for modest drought and freeze tolerance. All things considered, the pecan possesses an enviable set of genetic and physical attributes. Significantly, these attributes work best in a narrow locality—namely, but not exclusively, the American South. It is the state tree of not only Texas but Mississippi and Arkansas as well.
The pecan tree's promiscuity has helped its cause immeasurably. Wild pecans are social. They cluster densely in groves and pollinate from tree to tree, rather than within a single specimen. This happens because an individual tree's male and female flowers tend to bloom weeks apart. It lacks, according to one geographer, "self-pollinating mechanisms." This mismatch enhances the genetic diversity that provides the basis for the tree's dominant presence throughout riverine forests. No modern plant geneticist equipped with the most sophisticated tools could have designed a better complement to the tree's native, if relatively confined, habitat. Much of this adaptability, oddly enough, has to do with the tree's inability to mate with itself.
If the native pecan covers a continuous swath from Mexico to Illinois, the densest pecan groves took shape in the alluvial ridges (just beyond the normal flood range) along the rich tributaries of Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. It was here that they were able to best compete for light and space in precisely the right soil among other native plants—a competition that made the wild pecan one of the tallest indigenous trees west of the Mississippi River, sometimes growing to 180 feet. It was also here that the soil drained but remained moist—a finicky prerequisite for extensive pecan roots. River bottom locations experienced less-dramatic temperature fluctuations, another favorable quality for pecan growth. Once the trees took root, a number of animal species that thrived along rivers began to consume and disperse seeds in all directions. Such species included wood ducks, wild turkeys, quail, crows, foxes, and squirrels. As these animals chose nuts that were easier to crack into, they became the first passive breeders, selecting for thinner-shelled pecans.
For all these reasons, pecan trees were thriving in southern North America when Native Americans crossed the Bering Strait, or perhaps entered by boat farther down the Pacific coast, from Asia into North America. These intrepid nomads—America's first immigrants—spanned the hemisphere in search of woolly beasts, eventually fracturing into thousands of distinct cultures of hunter-gatherers. In time, several groups reached the Mississippi River Valley, where they created cultures under grove after grove of towering pecan trees—trees that should have been nowhere else but exactly where they were. Understanding precisely how Native Americans worked the pecan tree into their myriad cultural expressions constitutes the first episode in the larger story of humanity's ongoing relationship with America's most economically significant indigenous tree.
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Brain and Computer Background As we know the first computer machine abacus was built to reduce human brain efforts and it can quickly calculate mathematical operation than the human brain. But it was an analog machine that takes input manually. Later on, the machines were built which use the human command from some input device […]
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S Korea’s next leader will need to fix issues Park left untouched
By Yoon Young-kwan
The impeachment, and removal from office, of ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye on charges of corruption and abuse of power has rocked the country’s political establishment and divided the electorate.
Not since the Asian financial crisis of 1997, rooted partly in the flawed economic policies of Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, have South Koreans faced such an impasse.
It is still too early to know who will succeed her in the Blue House; a special election has been called for May 9. However, this much is clear: With Park’s unceremonious departure, a change in South Korea’s ruling party is all but assured. And with new blood must come renewed vigor to tackle governance problems — from dirty money in politics to incoherent foreign policy — that have plagued South Korea for far too long.
South Korea’s current political crisis began in October last year, when allegations emerged that Park had pressured the chaebols — the country’s giant family-owned conglomerates — to funnel huge sums of money into two foundations controlled by her close personal friend Choi Soon-sil. Word of Park’s cronyism left many South Koreans feeling betrayed by a president who had vowed to lead differently.
Park, whose authoritarian style resembled that of her father, routinely disregarded basic norms of liberal democracy. She scoffed at the rule of law and separation of government powers. After being accused of corruption, she simply ignored calls to appear before the South Korean Constitutional Court to testify. Prosecutors have issued another summons for her to appear in court tomorrow; it is still unclear if she will, even though she has lost her immunity from prosecution.
Park’s removal from office almost certainly means that political power will shift from the formerly Saenuri, or “New Frontier” (now the Liberty Korea) Party to opposition forces. At the moment, candidates from the center-left Democratic Party of Korea are leading in an effort to end nine years of conservative rule. Moon Jae-in, a former Democratic Party of Korea leader and the runner-up to Park in 2012, is the opposition’s front-runner by a wide margin.
Whoever becomes South Korea’s next president will be greeted by profound political, economic and foreign policy challenges.
On the domestic front, the South Korean president will inherit a political system in need of significant reform. Aside from calls to solidify the separation of powers by establishing a more robust system of legal checks and balances, there is near-consensus on the need to overhaul the five-year, single-term presidency. Established in 1987 during South Korea’s transition to democracy, the short timeframe hampers the incumbent’s ability to devise, implement and sustain long-term policies. Park, like many of her predecessors, pushed to change the term limits, but her efforts were stymied by bad timing.
These and other changes will require democratic leadership, based on active communication with various segments of society. South Koreans are hopeful in this regard, believing that anyone will be better than Park. According to one opinion poll, her approval rating before leaving office was a dismal 4 percent.
The next president’s biggest economic challenge will be to untangle the ties between politicians and chaebol owners. At the moment, the chaebols’ proximity to political power reduces the transparency of corporate governance, discourages competition, and weakens the innovative potential of small and medium-size enterprises.
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Introduction to Japanese Candlestick Charting
Japanese Candlestick charting has really been with us for a while and that’s part of the technical analysis that, even if it’s some professional don’t use it, so far I have only heard and read good things about it. And I suppose this is due to the fact that it really is a really useful tool in technical analysis.
In order to give you a more detailed analysis of Japanese Candlestick charting, how to use it and how to identify patterns on the charts, etc, I will be making my next few posts here about the book „Candlestick Chartings explained” by Greg Morris as the bases plus I will try to give you a lot more information in addition as well. I will also do my best to provide you chart examples as much as possible, will be doing the drawing myself.
Something that needs to be said before going on – there have been rumours that Japanese candlesticks are related to some kind of thousands of years old mysteries....don’t fall into that. Candlesticks are good and have been around for hundreds of years, but no mysteries are involved.
What makes candlesticks different from the usual high low charts? Allegedly it makes it easier to see patterns and data relationships. We’ll see if we agree with that soon. See the image here to see how candlesticks look like.
The box is the candlestick body and this is also the difference between open and close price. If the box/body is filled then it means the close price was lower than the open price.When the body is empty then this means the close price is higher than open price (thus it was an up-day). The thin lines on top and in the bottom of the candlestick represent the high and low prices during that period. These thin lines are called shadows.
Now, lets get aquainted with couple of single-candle lines used in candlestick charts.
Long Day – day when the open and close prices are quite far from each other ( thus the candlestick is a long one ). To determine whether it’s a long day or not, just see what the usual length has been during the past 5-10 days and if it’s considerably longer than usually then we’ve got ourselves a long day.
Short day – just the opposite to long day.
Maribozu – this means that there’s no shadows (thin lines) visible on the candlestick. Filled maribozy is considered an extremely weak line meaning that it’s often part of a bearish continuation or bullish reversal pattern. Empty maribozu is pretty much the opposite. Closing maribozu – if the body is white then there’s no upper shadow (considered strong), if filled there’s no bottom shadow (considered weak). Opening Marobozu – if the body is empty there’s no lower shadow (considered strong), if filled there’s no upper shadow (considered weak). Note that Closing Marubozu is considered stronger.
Spinning tops – candlesticks with small bodies and shadows that are both longer than the body.
Doji – it means that the open and close prices are pretty much the same, thus there is no real visible body except for a thin horizontal line. Often can indicate a change of trend. Gravestone Doji is a doji that has no lower shadow. This is often a bearish indication. Dragonfly dodgy is the opposite again. Four price doji is something that pretty much never happens – it’s when all prices – open close high low are equal.
Stars – if there’s a long body and then the next day there’s a rather small body and the small body starts a bit above or a bit below from the previous day’s body ( so that there’s a gap between ).
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I Am Still The Same
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
We have limited stock of this CD and once it is sold out it probably will not be re-pressed... so grab it while you still can! Also includes download of album plus 2 bonus tracks, PDF album cover, sleeve notes and lyrics & chords to all songs! DC will even sign the CD for you on request - just select the "autographed" option when you order! (If there's a particular name or message you would like, include a note with the order by clicking where it says "Include a message to Madcar Records".)Prices are in US dollars but you can pay in any currency by credit card or Paypal. We ship worldwide and you are buying directly from us - Bandcamp only takes 15% for admin.Includes IMMEDIATE download of 18-track album in your choice of MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
DC's 'Some Hope' CD and download (with 2 bonus tracks, PDF of booklet with lyrics and chords) ALONG WITH Marjorie Cardwell's 2012 'In Another World' CD (Produced by DC & Marjorie).DC & Marjorie will even sign the CD for you on request - just select the "autographed" option when you order! (If there's a particular name or message you would like, include a note with the order by clicking where it says "Include a message to Madcar Records".)
Includes unlimited streaming of Some Hope
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Customers eyeing to buy cars are now heading towards the public sector banks to get them financed. Earlier the private lenders use to lead in disbursing the auto loans but now the situation has reversed. PSU banks are clearing loans in just 2 to 3 days alike the private lenders.
The public sector banks have reported a hike in the sanction of auto loans as compared to their previous level and have even outpaced the private sector banks. The major reason for this jump is attributed to the lower interest rate offered by the public banks against the private lenders.
Following the global meltdown, private sector banks have become strict in extending the auto loans and the public lenders have taken this to be a great opportunity for scaling up their business. Above these lenders are also clearing the loan as fast as they can.
Mr Wilfred Minz, a supervisor at Life Insurance Corporation was exploring the market to get his Alto financed and he finalized on State Bank of Patiala to make the deal as it was offering him the loan at 12.25%. On the other hand the private lenders were charging from 13% to as high as 18% to 19%. Above all the loan was sanctioned without any delay. "My experience has been that despite the extensive documentation they need (public sector banks), I did not have to run around and my loan got sanctioned in just two days," said Mr Minz.
Mr Ramesh Khanna, a marketing manager, who got his Ford Ikon financed through State Bank of India, is impressed with the bank's speedy service. "It was hassle-free. I could not believe that a SBI official would come even at 9 p.m. to verify my documents," he said.
"Earlier public sector banks were taking a week or longer to grant auto loans and private banks were doing it in two-three days. Now it is the other way around. In the earlier days private sector banks were not so stringent in lending. Even without Form 16, if the customers had two years in a stable job, the loan got sanctioned. Public sector banks have more checks. Despite this, they are now at par, or even quicker in lending," said a dealer with Maruti Suzuki, a leading automaker.
As the private lenders are slowing down on their business, even the car makers in the country are holding tie- ups with the public sector banks to get their vehicles financed. Mr Mayank Pareek, Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd said, "Public sector banks are lending in such difficult times. Though this can help sustain business, for growth to happen there has to be more lending."
Banking sources claim that ICICI Bank's share in financing Maruti cars has declined to about 1,100 cars a month in this time of slowdown from the 11,000 cars earlier. Conversely SBI has started financing 14,000 units of Maruti cars a month as compared to around 8,000 earlier.
State Bank of India has also become the second largest financier of Hyundai cars. Senior Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Hyundai India, Mr Arvind Saxena says, "The share of public sector banks in financing Hyundai cars has been growing despite their stringent lending norms. But there is scope for more aggression."
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I love the smell of gingerbread baking, as the sweet aroma fills the house. Yum! These gingerbread people don't have the same scent, but they sure are cute!
I cut out some simple gingerbread shapes, gathered materials, and set everything out. That's it. The great thing is, you can use whatever you have on hand to decorate the little guys (or girls, as I was constantly corrected while we made them!). If you aren't in the mood for a mess, crayons are fine; if you're feeling a bit more daring, bring on the glitter! (My secret with glitter - add it to glue. It's still messy but not as much as keeping it loose.)
Kay made one gingerbread girl a creepy, many-eyed one, mostly because when she added 3 googly eyes I noted, "Wow! 3 eyes, huh?" and that seemed to inspire her to add even more! She's also proud of her ability to make faces (which is a relatively recent development) so she made an adorable one too. (I'm biased and I know it!)
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Chattanooga shooting
Shootings in Chattanooga
Five people were killed at the scene -- four U.S. Marines and the gunman -- and three injured in an attack on a military recruiting center and another U.S. military site in Chattanooga, Tennessee on July 16, 2015. A fifth victim, a Navy Petty Officer died of his wounds on July 18.
Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, who authorities say killed the servicemen, was a 24-year-old, Kuwait-born engineer who had not been on the radar of federal authorities until the bloodshed.
Here, U.S. Navy sailor Evan Montgomery and his wife, Ashley Montgomery, pay their respects July 18, 2015 at a makeshift memorial in front of the Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard Recruitment Office which had been shot up on July 16.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
A photograph of four of the victims, U.S. Marines, killed at the scene on July 16, 2015 is seen at the memorial setup in front of the Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard Recruitment Office in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 18.
A fifth victim, a Navy Petty Officer died of his wounds on July 18.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
Chattanooga Police Sgt. Daniel Jones (R) leads a prayer on July 17, 2015 during an Interfaith Prayer Vigil at Olivet Baptist Church to honor four Marines killed in a shooting attack July 16 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
A fifth victim, a Navy Petty Officer died of his wounds on July 18.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
A message is seen at a memorial in front of the Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard Recruitment Office in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 18, 2015.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
Laurie Norman is overcome with emotion as she pays her respects to those killed while visiting a memorial placed in front of the Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard Recruitment Office which had been shot up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 17, 2015.
According to reports, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, opened fire on the military recruiting station on July 16th at the strip mall and then drove to an operational support center operated by the U.S. Navy and killed four Marines there, more than seven miles away. A fifth victim, a Navy Petty Officer died of his wounds on July 18.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
On July 18, 2015, people mourn the servicemen killed at a memorial in front of the Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard Recruitment Office which had been shot up on July 16 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
People attend a vigil for the servicemen killed organized by the University of Tennessee Chattanooga - Student Veteran's Organization in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 17, 2015.
Credit: Jason Davis/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team continue to investigate the shooting at the Armed Forces Career Center/National Guard Recruitment Office in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 18, 2015.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Shootings in Chattanooga
Glenna and Steve Mooneyham place flags and flowers beside a sign leading to the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 16, 2015.
Credit: Tami Chappell/Reuters
Shootings in Chattanooga
Mourners places flags at a growing memorial in front of the Armed Forces Career Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 16, 2015.
Credit: Tami Chappell/Reuters
Shootings in Chattanooga
In this image made from video and released by WRCB-TV, a person lies on the grass near a makeshift memorial at the scene of a shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 2015.
Credit: Josh Rhoden/WRCB-TV via AP
Shootings in Chattanooga
In this aerial image taken from video, law enforcement personnel work the scene of a shooting at the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga in Chattanooga, Tennessee on July 16, 2015.
Credit: WTVF via AP
Shootings in Chattanooga
Authorities work an active shooting scene on Amincola Highway near the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 2015.
Credit: WDEF
President Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks about the shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 16, 2015.
Obama described the shootings as "heartbreaking" and said that they appeared to be the work of a lone gunman.
Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Shooting in Chattanooga
Bullet holes can be seen in the glass doors at a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 16, 2015.
Credit: April Grimmett
Injured police officer dennispedigo
Police Officer Dennis Pedigo was shot in the ankle during the attacks in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but is in stable condition, July 16, 2015.
Credit: CBS
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez
This April 2015 booking photo released by the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office shows a man identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez after he was detained for a driving offense.
Authorities identified the gunman in shootings at two Chattanooga military facilities as Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez.
Credit: Hamilton County Sheriffs Office via AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
Police officers enter the Armed Forces Career Center through a bullet-riddled door after a gunman opened fire on the building in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 2015.
Credit: John Bazemore/AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
Members of a SWAT team sit on the back of a vehicle in Hixson, Tenn. after a man unleashed a barrage of gunfire at two military sites a few miles apart in Chattanooga, killing at four Marines, July 16, 2015..
Credit: John Bazemore/AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
Plastic cups mark evidence outside the Armed Forces Career Center after a gunman open fire on the building in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 2015,.
Credit: John Bazemore/AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
A police officer investigates outside the Armed Forces Career Center after a gunman opened fire on the building in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 2015.
Credit: John Bazemore/AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
The glass window of the Armed Forces Career Center is riddled with bullet holes after a gunman opened fire on the building in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 16, 2015.
Credit: John Bazemore/AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
In this image made from video and released by WRCB-TV, authorities work an active shooting scene on Amincola Highway near the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga, Tenn. on July 16, 2015.
The surrounding area was placed on lockdown, including Chattanooga State Community College. The Amnicola Highway was also closed as police searched for the gunman.
Credit: WRCB-TV via AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
In this image made from video and released by WRCB-TV, authorities work an active shooting scene on Amincola Highway near the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga, Tenn. on July 16, 2015.
Credit: WRCB-TV via AP
Shooting in Chattanooga
In this image made from video and released by WRCB-TV, authorities work an active shooting scene on Amincola Highway near the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga, Tenn. on July 16, 2015.
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Statement:Maglin Site Furniture is a leading designer and manufacturer of public site furniture. With locations across North America – we continue to service our clients to a level that exceeds their expectations.
The durability of our furniture originates with the selection of quality materials and a system of rust proofing that sets the industry standard. State-of-the-art technology is combined with time-honored production methods to create stunning product built to stand the test of time and people.
Green Statement/Products:By using many high quality recycled materials, wood from managed forests, lead free e-coating and solvent-free powdercoating, we produce distinctive public site furniture - many recyclable themselves - that meet and exceed sustainability goals.
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Dante rails Lukas
Description:This was Dantes first time barebacking ever. And what better person to do it with than pretty, blue-eyed Lukas? On top of being pretty easy to look at, Lukas has a really big dick, which makes watching him get fucked even hotter. Lukas was excited to get fucked by Dante, and it showed. The two sucked on each others cocks before fucking all over the bed. It took Dante a lot of control not to cum way early, but when he did, he pulled out and blew a huge load all over Lukas hole before sticking it back in and continuing to fuck him. So hot!
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Clauses in the U.S. Constitution that guarantee religious freedom are among the most prolific sources of litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court, former U.S. Solicitor General Rex E. Lee said Tuesday.
Lee spoke at Brigham Young University to several hundred students and faculty members. He said that in years past religious issues were not prominent among constitutional cases, but that has changed."The religion clauses have definitely made up for lost ground over the last 40 years," he said. "The safest prediction of all is that the religion clauses will continue to be a fruitful and fascinating source of litigation."
The clauses are contained in the First Amendment to the Constitution. They guarantee free exercise of religion and prohibit the government from establishing a state religion.
As cases involving these rights come before the Supreme Court, justices have had to interpret constitutional rights. Lee said the wall separating church and state is not strictly upheld, and if it were, Americans might lose some of the traditions they take for granted, like having Christmas designated a national holiday and using references to deity in the Pledge of Allegiance and on coins.
"These kinds of references are the kinds of things that would probably not be permitted if the wall (eparating church and state) were high and impenetrable," he said.
The two central religion clauses have come into conflict with one another in some recent cases, and when that happens, free exercise usually wins over establishment, he said. For instance, in a recent case, a college had prohibited religious groups from using its facilities to avoid violating separation between church and state. A religious group sued on grounds of discrimination, and the court found in its favor.
Lee, founding dean of the BYU law school, was solicitor general from 1981 to 1985 and was assistant attorney general in the civil division of the Department of Justice from 1975 to 1977. He was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White in 1963 and became an associate in the law firm Jennings, Strouss, Salmon and Trask in Phoenix in 1964. He joined the firm as a partner in 1967.
He now practices with Sidley and Austin, arguing almost exclusively before the Supreme Court. He combines his private practice with teaching constitutional law at BYU as the George Sutherland professor of law.
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Social
Tesla gets the greenlight from the city for its massive factory expansion in Fremont — Electrek
Last night, the city of Fremont approved important expansion plans submitted by Tesla, which the automaker refers to as ‘Tesla Master Plan’, back in October. The plan includes the addition of several new buildings that will almost double the size of the already giant electric vehicle factory – 5.3 million square feet to 9.9 million square…
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VENUE UPDATE: Due to a fire at the First Congregational Church we have moved this performance to the First Presbyterian Church located at 2407 Dana Street. The date and time remain that same. If you have purchased tickets, City Box Office will be sending replacements with comparable seating. Email [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.
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Just over a week ago the Tupunis Slow Food Festival on Tanna island, Vanuatu concluded. It was the first festival of its kind held in Melanesia – bringing together people from Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, New Caledonia (Kanaky); the Solomon islands and Fiji to celebrate traditional ways of producing and preparing food as part of a redefinition of “development”; rejecting the simple monetary definitions (dollars per day) and exploitative, extractive industries that characterise what global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF define as development in favour of alternative criteria that recognise the value of sustainable land and sea tenure, the qualities of organic grown food and traditional methods of preparation, and the richness of lives not governed by the need for money. The festival was organised by a coalition of local organisations (including Vanuatu Slow Food Network, Vanuatu Land Defence Desk, Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Tafea Cultural Centre) and supported by The Christensen Fund as well as the Vanuatu Government.
As part of our TK Reite Notebooks project, James Leach and I travelled to participate in the festival along with three people from Reite village in Papua New Guinea – Porer Nombo, Pinbin Sisau and Urufaf Anip – with whom we have been co-designing the TKRN toolkit since 2012. Our trip was intended to bring the TKRN project and toolkit to a wider audience of Melanesians interested in documenting and preserving traditional culture – with the focus on presentation being led by Reite people themselves (rather than James and myself). Our role was to facilitate and support, with the key exchange of ideas, tools and processes taking place between people indigenous to Melanesia themselves.
This is a key aspect of the project for us – having our co-design collaborators from Reite village be identified and engaged with as cultural leaders in their own right who are actively taking steps to document and transmit their living culture and knowledge traditions to future generations in the face of extreme pressure from “development”. For most of our time we were also accompanied by Yat Paol, a PNG man of the Gildipasi community with whom we worked in Tokain village earlier this year (and a representative of The Christensen Fund in PNG). Yat’s insight and gentle wisdom concerning the importance of self-documentation of traditional knowledge as a means for indigenous people to empower themselves has been a source of inspiration and a great sounding board for us.
Porer and Pinbin represented Reite on a panel bringing perspectives from various Melanesian communities and spoke about the project and the importance of kastom, land and bush. For many people at the festival the emphasis was on a return to traditional ways of life – having two people who come from a community that maintains its traditional way of life speak about what it means to them and their families truly caught the mood of the audience and their response was fantastic, giving rousing applause.
Porer Nombo introducing TKRN & Reite traditional knowledge
Pinbin Sisau giving a rousing talk on preserving kastom culture
The festival ran over 5 days and had speakers from across the region, as well as performances by cultural groups, traditional crafts, music and demonstrations of new ideas for food preservation and health initiatives. Moreover, each day traditional foods were prepared and cooked by people from all the provinces and islands of Vanuatu (and New Caledonia) for attendees to sample. Thus we were feasted on a daily basis on everything from (and often in locally specific combinations of) taro, yam, manioc, tapioca, cassava, banana to fish, coconut crab, goat and beef.
The Vanuatu Daily Post’s Life & Style section has an article on the festival here, and Sista.com has an article with excellent photos from the festival here.
At the festival we connected with Canadian anthropologist, Jean Mitchell, who is running a project (Tanna Ecologies Gardens & Youth Project) with young people on Tanna documenting and recording kastom gardens and traditional foods. James, Urufaf and I ran a TKRN workshop with a group of them, teaching them to fold and make notebooks, as well as co-designing a new custom notebook for their project. A couple of days later we demonstrated scanning in the first few completed books and printed out copies for the young people who had made them. Our simple bush publishing set up of laptop, scanner and printer meant that we were able to do this quickly and simply – working in basic conditions on site and being able to carry all the equipment we needed in a couple of backpacks. Jean’s project is an extension of one she originally developed in 1997, the Vanuatu Young People’s Project, with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. Over the next two years the young people on Tanna will be documenting as much knowledge about traditional kastom gardens as they can, using the TKRN toolkit as their primary tool. Jean has worked with them this summer to develop a questionnaire template which has been adapted for the notebooks:
Once back in Port Vila, Jean also arranged for us to train a couple of young people who will be sharing their skills with the men fieldworkers of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre at the annual fieldworkers’ meeting at the end of September. This will complement the work we did in March with the women fieldworkers and hopefully bring the TKRN toolkit to many different communities across Vanuatu.
At the festival we also met and had great conversations with Dr Ruth Spriggs and Theonila Roka-Matbob from Bougainville (a semi-autonomous part of PNG), who are setting up an Indigenous Research Centre on the island, and Professor John Waiko of Oro Province PNG and his son, filmmaker and slow food activist Bao Waiko, from Markham Valley PNG (where he lives with his wife, Jennifer Baing-Waiko, also co-director of Save PNG). We’re hoping to share the TKRN toolkit with their initiatives as part of our next steps.
A highlight of our trip was a visit to Tanna’s famous Mount Yasur volcano, truly awe inspiring:
Before attending the Tupunis festival, we took the opportunity to build on a relationship we had initiated with Wan Smolbag Theatre during our previous trip to Vanuatu earlier this year. Through co-founder Jo Dorras we were introduced to researcher Ben Kaurua and digital trainer Cobi Smith with whom we ran a TKRN workshop introducing the books and documentation process to a group of young volunteers who work with various island communities living in and around Port Vila, the capital on Efate island. (I had designed a very simple custom notebook for WSB in advance of travelling). We were also introduced to some local Chiefs from the nearby Lali community and were invited to attend a ceremony that was part of a boys’ initiation ritual. We left WSB with some new equipment to assist them in using the TKRN toolkit (a Polaroid Snap camera/printer & Zink sheet packs, as well as a low cost Canon combined inkjet scanner and printer) and are hoping to see some results in the future.
Porer speaking at IUCN
Porer & james at IUCN
Porer speaking at IUCN
After the festival, while I returned to the UK and Pinbin and Uru returned to Madang, James and Porer continued on their travels to participate in the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii. There they took part in a session on indigenous documentation to demonstrate the TKRN process and toolkit, and to discuss the complex issues facing traditional communities who wish to preserve their culture and values and to transmit them to future generations.
This trip was the final activity of our recent TKRN programme – we are now preparing a new programme of activities that aim to build a lasting legacy for the project and enable the establishment of a network of indigenous groups and local organisations in Melanesia to adopt and adapt the TKRN toolkit for themselves. Huge thanks are owed to Catherine Sparks of The Christensen Fund who made so much of this possible; funding many of the projects, organisations and the festival itself, as well as being the consummate connector introducing people and taking care so that everyone had the most productive time possible. Thanks also go out to Paula Aruhuri, Joel Simo and Jacob Kapere who were instrumental in inviting us, arranging travel and accommodation and making time and space for us on the programme.
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I didn't see her tonight. There was one Mourning Dove hanging around though. If I see her again, I will try to take a picture and I certainly wouldn't have any problem at all if anyone wants to come out to see her. Cathi Luytjes, St. Charles, MO, [log in to unmask]
Charlene and Jim Malone <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Cathi,
Not a normal thing at all!...... particularly at this time of year.
Hope you can get a picture of this bird because it needs to be documented
(go to www.mobirds.org for documentation form)
Take good (!) field notes with that picture.
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Fire under investigation
A fire at a vacant house in north Leavenworth remains under investigation, a Fire Department official said.
Comment
The Leavenworth Times - Leavenworth, KS
Writer
Posted Feb. 8, 2013 at 6:54 PM
Updated Feb 8, 2013 at 7:00 PM
Posted Feb. 8, 2013 at 6:54 PM
Updated Feb 8, 2013 at 7:00 PM
A fire at a vacant house in north Leavenworth remains under investigation, a Fire Department official said.
Acting Fire Chief Mark Nietzke said investigators are pretty sure they know what caused Thursday’s fire at 607 N. 12th St. But he said Friday that he was waiting for more information before releasing details about the suspected cause.
The fire was reported at 1:39 p.m. Thursday. No injuries were reported.
While firefighters were en route, they were told dispatchers had received a report of an explosion at the scene. Nietzke said it looks like heat that built up in the house and caused at least one window to blow out. And he believes this explains the report of an explosion.
Fire Capt. Shawn Kell said there was smoke coming from the house when firefighters arrived.
He said a fire was discovered in the living room area. And small fires were found in two other rooms.
“We got them under control, I would say, within 20 to 30 minutes,” Kell said.
He said firefighters searched the residence for occupants, but no one was found.
Kell said electrical service to the house and natural gas were shut off. There were some contents in the house.
He said the estimated loss was $50,000 to the structure and $4,000 to contents.
“We’re still doing the investigation and interviewing some witnesses today,” Kell said Friday.
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The greatest minds are simple, -- and deep: little minds may also be
simple, -- and shallow. Well thought out, this remark of St Thomas
will explain the riddle how it comes to pass that, while the highest
being is simple and one, nevertheless in biological and political
science differentiation of organs marks the higher animal and the
more highly developed state. There is a poverty-stricken
simplicity: there is a clumsy multiplicity, a sort of boorish
wealth: there is also an artistic multiplicity, where every detail
is subordinate to one design. A cosmos is a matter of unity:
a chaos is 'a manifold.' The grandest and highest of beings
is a formal unity, actually one, virtually many and all.
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“Back in November, The Daily initially uncovered the existence of an iPad version of the Microsoft Office Suite. Sources now say that the app will soon be submitted to Apple for approval,” Matt Hickey reports for The Daily.
“A brief hands-on with a working prototype of the software revealed a number of new things,” Hickey reports. “The app’s user interface is similar to the current OneNote app, but it has hints of Metro… Word, Excel and PowerPoint files can be created and edited locally and online. But it’s unclear if Microsoft will support other Office apps at launch or at all.”
Hickey reports, “Sources close to the matter also commented that an Android version of Office is not in the works.”
MacDailyNews Take: For those who consider Office a necessity (most businesses, government, etc.), this will be yet another strike against Google’s Android and another positive for Windows Phone and Windows 8 which will surely have its own version of Office, too. Along with increasing royalty payments and legal losses that decrease functionality and usability, Office availability will be a big reason why Microsoft will likely soon begin to eat into Google’s Android market share.
Nice Kimber ;^) CloudOn is definitely good to go – as are the Apple offerings. The key thing I wonder about is how “feature rich” iPad Office will be in comparison to available apps. And the pricing better be very competitive, to. Otherwise it’s good that MS recognizes the importance of having an iPad presence.
I’m surprised how well CloudOn works really. I’m not a big excel user but both my mom and uncle are, they both said it works great. My mom has an iPad 2 and my uncle will be buying one this week or so. (for his new business an iPad is going to replace his current setup)
I tolerate Office on my Mac only because I can’t be bothered to work out the minor incompatibilities that exist when clients send me documents formatted in Word. I don’t think I’ll be springing for Office for iPad as it”ll be a bloated piece of trash.
I’ll stick with Documenta to Go for now. I don’t do much editing on the iPad as incompatibilities invariably arise because the simplified interface on the iPad messes with deep level formatting on the document. For review and editing of Office documents I turn to my Mac.
Microsoft will be forced to remove most of the bloat in order to make Office run on iPad. I would use the iPad version of Excel—but that’s it. Word is a piece of filth, and PowerPoint causes brain damage.
i hope they have separate apps for Word, Excel, & ppt. I have so many excel files that Numbers doesn’t like that it would make my life easier.
That said, Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. I work in a mixed Windows/OSX environment and .pptx files and files made with the Windows version of Powerpoint are better opened with Keynote than my old version of MS Office for Mac (it’s at least two versions old, so I can’t blame MS for the fact I haven’t upgraded…well, I can, since I hated the last two versions after a test upgrade). Fonts look nicer, too. Jebus I hate Helvetica in MS applications. It looks like shizzle.
Okay, I’ll admit – when I got my MBP, I got MS Office, not iWork. The main reason was it had more online compatibility features. But then iWork introduced compatibility with iOS, and then iCloud. Now it’s still a tough call. Yes, I prefer MacOS a million times to Windows. But between MS Office and iWork? That’s still a tough call.
Count me in as one of the people who hates going over their Pages export because others are entrenched in MicroHell. That said, I don’t know if it warrants a separate contribution to the Borg in order to make this easier on my iPad. I think it’ll depend on pricing.
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Flame Realm
The Flame Realm is the first secret level in Circle of Blood. It can be accessed by destroying the cracked pillar in the Main Hall. The prize is the Red Key, useful later. The theme is Holy Cross Obsessed By the Moon.
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Josh Hamilton and the Milwaukee Brewers have been linked together since the beginning of free agency (via CBS Sports). Rumors have been swirling that the Brewers are a major player in the pursuit of Hamilton and it would come as no surprise if they landed him, despite Milwaukee denying interest in the slugger.
Because Hamilton's asking price is through the roof at $175 million over seven years, Brewers general manager Doug Melvin has denied pursuit, stating Milwaukee does not have the money to sign a player like Hamilton.
Phew.
Signing Hamilton would be a monumental mistake. Hamilton is worth the money, but he simply has too much baggage and the risk greatly outweighs the reward. Let another team take the Hamilton leap of faith. Milwaukee should spend their dollars elsewhere.
Hamilton is one of the top 10 best players in Major League Baseball, but his troublesome past will scare teams away, and hopefully the Brewers are already hiding.
Here are four reasons why the Milwaukee Brewers should stay clear of Josh Hamilton.
4. Carlos Gomez
Carlos Gomez was once thought to be a 5-star prospect, but after years of mediocrity, Gomez has turned into serviceable outfielder. He's no Josh Hamilton but he is anything but worthless.
Last season, Gomez hit .260 with 19 home runs and 51 RBI. Those are modest numbers for a guy getting paid $1.9 million. While Hamilton is far and away the better hitter, Gomez has the upper hand on the defensive side and on the basepaths. His speed is superior to Hamilton's, as Gomez swiped 37 bases in 2012 to Hamilton's seven.
If the Brewers had transparent issues in the outfield, going after Hamilton would be understandable, but with Gomez, Ryan Braun and Norichika Aoki, their outfield corps is set.
Gomez will overachieve in the field and will be guaranteed to steal 25 bases next season. He will also cost Milwaukee nothing compared to Hamilton.
Gomez is improving each year. Replacing him for a player that will bankrupt the organization doesn't make sense.
3. The Offense Is Just Fine
Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Milwaukee's offense doesn't need Josh Hamilton. It is just fine without him.
With Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez leading the charge, the Brewers led the National League in home runs, runs batted in, extra base hits, runs and slugging percentage. And that was without Prince Fielder.
Adding Hamilton to the lineup would strengthen Milwaukee's offense, but that's not where they need improvement. Pitching is the most glaring issue, and unless Hamilton can throw a fastball 95 MPH he won't make a significant impact on the team.
Doug Melvin should not be attempting to improve his offense. His hitters are among the best, and improving on what already is phenomenal doesn't make much sense.
2. Money
Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
The Brewers do not have the means to give Hamilton what he is seeking. If he wants to get paid $175 million, he should be having discussions with the New York Yankees or the Los Angeles Dodgers. A small-market team like Milwaukee has no shot to sign someone seeking that kind of money.
Milwaukee is capable of offering a deal somewhere around the $100 million to $110 million mark. They presented Zack Greinke with a $100 million-plus deal last season and offered CC Sabathia close to $100 million as well. Both players declined to sign, so why would Hamilton do any different?
Even if they could afford him, signing Hamilton would be economically stupid for Milwaukee. They would have no remaining money to sign a veteran pitcher that they desperately need. Plus, with Aramis Ramirez' backloaded contract, money will be tight for years.
Owner Mark Attanasio is not one to bend over backward for a player. If the deal isn't right, he won't execute it.
His baseball comeback has been truly remarkable. Winning the AL MVP after everything he went through is unheard of. But baseball is a business. Throwing money at a former drug addict who has relapsed in the past seems foolish.
Hamilton is too big of a risk for Milwaukee to take. Even though Johnny Narron, Hamilton's former life coach on the Texas Rangers, is now the hitting coach for the Brewers, Hamilton can't be trusted.
Without his addictions, Hamilton would receive every cent he's seeking. However, life doesn't work that way. He will not be paid as much as he deserves, but at the same time, he will be overpaid.
The Brewers are better off spending their money on a more reliable player. The last thing they want is to see millions of dollars go down the tube because of a failed investment. Signing Hamilton will ultimately result in chaos.
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FloWorks is not a singular entity but rather a family of award-winning companies that have come together to provide their customers with superior service and a wide selection of high-quality inventory.
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To remove C-shares from the available to consumers limits a registered person's ability to work with a client with short-term goals, or those who seek to rebalance a portfolio on an annual basis. This will either force clients to be moved to a "fee-based" model (swapping a 1% service fee from the fund company) for a 1% (or higher) fee to be charged by the advisor to manage the account.
This decision will have a significantly detrimental impact on smaller investors, who may not need nor meet the financial threshold where a fee-based advisory relationship makes sense. Many of these smaller customers, which make up the mainstream of many smaller broker/dealers, will be forced to move to an advisory-model (and most likely pay more in fees) or simply move their account elsewhere.
My other concern, as a compliance officer, is that the reduction in fees may encourage less scrupulous registered persons to engage in churning activities within a client's account in onder to generate new commissions to replace the loss of 12b1 fees.
Clients today are much more sophisticated than in the past, and understand there is a cost to doing business and prefer to work within a transaction-based model (rather than an advisory one). They understand there is a cost associated with doing business, and do not appear to be the ones objecting to 12b1 fees.
The proposed actions by the SEC do little to protect the consumer, but rather create an environment that has the potential to harm small consumers in the process and should not be enacted.
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Relationship Partners
Counsellors
Monica Magnetti is a certified professional Life and Wellness Coach who supports people in living BIG. She coaches individuals in the art of constructing relationships based on self-fulfillment and understanding. Her coaching style helps individuals to step up to their full potential in both their personal and business life. Monica will help you discover the divine within.
Count on Monica to bi-pass the stories and excuses and go straight to the core of what is holding you back. With her support, you will map out a strategy to reach goals with balance, fun and fulfillment.
All sessions are offered in person or over the telephone to save you time and get the most out of life.
Nicklas Ehrlich specializes in helping clients change the subconscious programming that is preventing them from achieving success in their love life, family relationships, mental and physical health, and career. Nicklas uses techniques based on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, cellular biology, quantum physics, energy psychology, and kinesiology.
Nicklas is a licensed Registered Clinical Counsellor with an MSW from the University of British Columbia. She has over 31 years experience as a psychotherapist, life coach, and corporate seminar facilitator. She is also a member of the Hypnotherapy Association of BC. Her clients are diverse ranging from professional athletes, artists, and actors, to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and students. In a comfortable and supportive atmosphere, clients achieve the personal growth they are striving for.
Sessions are offered in-person at the North Vancouver office, or over the telephone.
With relationship coach and author Olga Sheean, discover how your subconscious programming gets in the way of your love life, happiness and fulfillment. Using applied kinesiology (also known as muscle-testing), Olga will tap into the subconscious to quickly assess relationship issues, negative programming and other barriers. With this information, she can provide tailor-made practical solutions to help you create positive, lasting change in your relationships and break free of destructive relationship patterns. With Olga, you will acquire the tools to generate and deepen intimacy while maintaining your personal integrity.
Author of Fit for Love—find your self and your perfect mate, Olga has published some 200 articles on health, relationships, personal development and the environment. Olga has trained in several branches of applied kinesiology, Body Alignment Technique, interpersonal dynamics, intuitive healing and conflict resolution. In her 10 years of private practice, she has developed powerful techniques for tapping into the body’s inner wisdom and for rapidly identifying and overcoming dysfunction, thereby eliminating the need for lengthy therapy or counseling. Her goal is to get you back on track with your love and your life as quickly as possible.
Image Consultants
After 15 years of working in a corporate job and losing herself in the process, Leslie has discovered through her own journey that clothing is more than superficial “window dressing”. It can be an expression which stirs and awakens the soul.
Leslie Davies, is a Stylist who has a passion for fashion – and more than that – is fueled by seeing the women she works with EXPRESS, UNLEASH and RECLAIM a whole new side of themselves they didn’t know existed…
Leslie is a certified Image Consultant (that’s right, there are actually credentials in the profession; FLC AICI), and has appeared on TV, radio and in print, most notably the Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette and Calgary Herald…and was selected as a TV Show Host finalist for the WNetwork.
If you want to ditch the façade and express who you really are, get REAL and contact Leslie today. She will help you create a functional wardrobe which saves you time, money and the stress of getting dressed in the morning AND attract the right people in your life!
Personal Trainers
Trust Jesse as he doesn’t look for a quick fix, but will transform your lifestyle into one that is healthy. Jesse will help you by understanding your starting point and your goals.
Every time you workout with Jesse, you will be motivated, laugh and learn something new. When you begin each workout, he will ask how your day was, so that he knows just how hard to push without overdoing it.
You will be rewarded at the end of each workout with an amazing stretch that will leave you relaxed and stress free. You will look and feel better after these workouts. That’s a guarantee!
Mary Fulber is a certified professional Co-Active coach. She specializes in getting to the heart of the matter with issues like weight and fitness goals, your relationship with yourself and feeling balanced. Mary successfully operated a personal training business for 10 years. She holds a BA in Dance/Kinesiology and a coaching certification from The Coaches Training Institute – the largest in-person coach training school in the world. These professional qualifications and experiences, combined with Mary’s personal transformations, qualify her to help clients achieve their goals from the inside out.
Mary’s nature is a compliment of fierce and light-hearted. She excels at creating sustainable results. You will take action, achieve your goals and discover how to live now, in a way that works for you and your whole life.
Ted is a personal fitness trainer working with people of all levels and backgrounds. With his team of trainers he helps his clients achieve their health and fitness goals. For example, one fifty year old client could only run on the treadmill for one and a half minutes at a time when he first started with Ted. After working together for exactly one year, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
Ted chose the fitness industry out of pure passion. He brings 19 years of in the trenches, hands on experience to his clients. He is able to connect, nurture and hold them accountable because he has been in their shoes, instinctively knowing what they are going through.
Certified by one of the pioneering organizations, I.S.S.A, Ted scored in the top ten percentile of students. Applying tested and proven strategies while using a laid back but motivating and results oriented approach; Ted teaches others how to integrate healthy habits and mindset into their daily lives while improving the quality of their lifestyle.
Feng Shui
Contemporary Feng Shui Consultant Mark Ainley has been active with Feng Shui since 1996, when he first encountered the system upon moving to London from Tokyo. He took some basic training with an internationally known expert while in London, and in 2001 shifted from the traditional approach to a more contemporary style as he trained in Vancouver with Rhea Peake of ‘Enviromancy’.
He has since consulted and taught in Australia, Japan, Europe, and North America, with web clients in diverse locations ranging from Bali and Mexico to Qatar. In 2006 he curated an exhibit of Feng Shui-friendly contemporary art at Tokyo’s Galerie LeLe, and in 2008 was quoted in Hong Kong’s Elite Homes magazine. Mark’s clear explanations, practical approach, and friendly demeanour help his clients make powerful shifts in their home and work spaces and in their lives. He is currently based in Vancouver, BC.
Astrologers
Georgia Nicols M.A. is Canada’s most popular astrologer. A Buddhist, this Vancouver-based astrologer was born in Winnipeg and is now one of the biggest names in stargazing, with international clients and a Web horoscope that is one of the hottest items online.
Born in Quebec (Canada), Marielle Croft has explored the world of Astrology since March 1973. She began her research in the field of metaphysics (kabala, esoterism, mysticism, psychology, divinatory arts, spirituality), and it naturally lead her toward Astrology which became her vocation, and a great passion.
Over the years, Marielle has developed a practice with a clientele from around the world. She gives lectures and is a frequent guest speaker at public events or group gatherings. She is an Astrology teacher, and she has received her accreditation as a certified advanced astrologer by the CAAE (Canadian Association for Astrological Education). She has had columns in newspapers and magazines, and appeared frequently on TV and radio shows.
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About Adam Clayton Powell
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was an American politician and pastor who represented Harlem, New York City, in the United States House of Representatives. He was the first person from New York of African American descent to be elected to Congress, and became a powerful national politician.
In 1961, after sixteen years in the House, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the most powerful position held by an African American in Congress. As Chairman, he supported the passage of important social legislation under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Following allegations of corruption, in 1967 Powell was excluded from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th Congress but he was re-elected; and he regained the seat in a 1969 United States Supreme Court ruling.
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WHY ARE McCAIN'S RALLIES BECOMING LURID?
Just look at the videotapes of the angry, hateful hordes attending these rallies — screaming that Obama is a socialist; that he’s both a Muslim and a terrorist as proven by his “bloodline” and his name; that his supporters are “commie faggots”; that he’s guilty of treason; underscored by increasing racial invective and even punctuated in one case by a call from an audience member for someone to be killed. These aren’t just isolated individuals; these sentiments are common at these rallies and becoming increasingly virulent and enraged — at the rallies and otherwise:
but he appears unable to admonish his mob to calm down and act reasonable. Maybe McCain is using this behavior to distract the crowd from some closet motivations?
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Modern Alcanada Golf is a Luxury 2 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom Villa in Alcanada Mallorca with Sea View and a Private Swimming Pool , Walking Distance to the Beach and Shops, Air Conditioning, WiFi, Satellite TV near Golf
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The signing a few days ago of young Jake Gardiner would seem (though it’s not a certainty, of course) to put to rest the speculation that h...
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A loss takes us into the break: Is the culture really better now in Leafland? If so, better than when?
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
When I was a young Leaf fan back in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, and Toronto went on the road to play a team (Boston, for example) my buddies and I figured they had no shot against, we’d joke about them simply “mailing” the other team the two points, as in:they shouldn’t evenbother to show up.
Well, to the Leafs’ credit, even though they knew their nemesis, Roloson, was in net for the vastly improved Lightning Tuesday night, they showed up anyway.Despite an uneven start, they came on to play hard and they certainly didn’t mail it in.
Reimer did his job—clearly (for now) the guy Leaf fans (and maybe players) are most comfortable with when they see him in the net.
Still, it was yet another night when the puck just didn’t want to go in.Kessel alone had six shots on goal, but took several other attempts.It was part Roloson, part, well, the puck just not going in.
You can’t play much more than Phaneuf played (more than 30 minutes) with Beauchemin not far behind.
The Leafs have 43 points in 49 games. We head to the break.
**
When Ron Wilson became coach of the Leafs the summer prior to the 2008-’09 season, and after Brian Burke came aboard as GM a few months later, there was much talk of ridding the team of the supposed ‘blue and white disease’ and the sense of ‘entitlement’ that players had.
It sounded as though rot had set in going back several generations.
To be honest, as frustrating as being a Leaf fans has been for good chunks of the past 40+ years (and I've lived through those years), I’m not sure there was any ‘disease’ that needed being rid of.A culture of ‘entitlement’?Well, unfortunately, that sense of entitlement exists in many sports from very young ages, when athletes are first streamed into “rep” and “all-star” teams. These young players hear how great they are, and that is exacerbated when we later pay them millions of dollars a year to do something they used to do for fun.
So whether being a Toronto Maple Leaf is somehow unique in that regard, I don’t really know.
The thing that I’ve never fully understood is what was so wrong with the organization (Peddie aside) in the first place? When, for example, the team was within a whisker of going to the Cup finals in 2002, or before that in 1998, 1994 and 1993, was there a problem?Those teams played their guts out, were very well coached, and provided us with entertaining hockey.Even in 2003 and 2004, the Leafs were involved in spirited playoff series.They were tough, proud teams who, in the end, just didn’t have quite enough to advance.We can argue that, with their pre-lockout payroll, they should have achieved more, and perhaps that’s fair.(Then again, New York Ranger fans, who have been frustrated since 1994, could make a case that their team spent even more back then and was far less successful…)
I don't think many fans felt there was "rot" in the organization, or that the team needed a change in culture.
So when Wilson came aboard, was he being critical of his predecessors as coach? Of the players he inherited? What exactly were he and Burke getting rid of?(Clearly they weren’t happy with what they had, and a review of Burke’s player moves demonstrates that he has created virtually an entirely new roster.And Leaf fans largely applaud him for that, though they are still a team in progress.)
Now, if a fan wants to criticize the John Ferguson Jr. era, well, that’s fair game.I am among those who believe that he was not equipped to be a GM at that point in his career, and that he did not lean on the knowledgeable people around him, possibly because he was insecure in his new, very powerful, role.
This is not to unfairly criticize Ferguson.He worked to try and improve the team.It simply didn’t work.History shows the team went quickly backwards under his watch (it’s useful to go back and look at the player movements after the end of the 2003-’04 season, the last year they were a good team), beginning with the post-lockout 2005-’06 season, which was really the first year that it was “his” team, the squad he built.
So after Paul Maurice, like Pat Quinn before him, saw little success when handed the talent at his disposal, he was gone after two seasons and in came Wilson.But it’s not as though the organization had been wandering around in the dark for 20 years.Far from it.As I mentioned above, on four separate occasions in the previous 15 years the team made it to the “final four”.So any “rot” (if it’s even fair to go back to that term) existed at all in terms of player attitudes, it had set in only very recently.
But my question for fellow Leaf enthusiasts is this:For all the changes in the front office and on the ice, is the culture really much better now under Burke and Wilson?Is this team any prouder of being Maple Leafs than the good squads I noted earlier?
It’s a different era and a different league now, I well realize, but after Cliff Fletcher took over and brought in Pat Burns shortly thereafter and when Dryden/Mike Smith brought in Quinn, they turned the team around in very short order.
If an “attitude shift” was required during both earlier regimes, it happened very quickly. The teams in those eras were tough, hard to play against most nights and generally well constructed and proud units.Strong leadership was in place (Gilmour/Clark in the mid-‘90s, Sundin/Roberts etc. years later) on those teams.
I’d be interested to hear if you believe things are so different now.Are the the Maple Leafs “better” attitude-wise than they were back then, or just better than they were between 2005-2007?
3 comments:
Enjoyed your piece on Rick Vaive. As for your question, do I think that the culture is better now than before? My answer is somewhat. Compared to period from 79-90 most certainly, but before then and the year following—not on your life, Mr. Burke! I can still hear the chilling words of Ron Wilson commenting to a reporter about Mats, “How many Stanley Cups did he win?” Moreover, on another occasion with an episode, he had with a fan in the super market, when this fan said to Mr. Wilson, “To bad you don’t have a Wendell Clark on your team,” and he shot back, “I rather have George Armstrong, at least he won Stanley Cups.” True Mr. Wilson, nobody can debate what George Armstrong did for the Leafs as captain throughout the sixties, but as I also recalled he had a stellar team to lead! I think you need to remember that you are not nor Mr. Burke is a Punch Imlach either. Mr. Imlach would not put up with the repeated costly mistake that the veterans on this team do, on a nightly base, and continue to get their ice time. At his press conference when he was name coach of the Leafs, Mr. Wilson said he would make this team better on the penalty kill, they will block shots, better defensively, and even though, they may not be the most talented team on the ice, they will play hard for “sixty minutes.” Well, after 3 years, there has been little result! The Leafs are still wheeling at the bottom of the league defensively and on the P.K, and they block very few shots. Mr. Wilson, as for your comments concerning what you said about the two former Leafs captains-at least they did lead their respective teams to two conference finals! How many times have you been there? As for Mr. Burke, sorry I am one of the few who has not been drinking your kool aid. The so-call entitlement that you adamantly said you would rid this team off, still lives on. Case in point, because he is a veteran, your goalie Giguere gets to pick which team he will plays against: the coddling that Dion Phaneuf and Phil Kessel receive is sickened. It is time that someone gives these two, (along with some others), an honest to goodness kick in the pants! Sorry, I forgot, only real fans of the Leafs know where you are going with this team. After being a Leaf fan for 43 years of my life, thanks for letting me know, I am not a fan! Well at least I know when the Leafs were building a real team. Everybody would agree that Mr. Gregory teams of the early 70’S were true Stanley Cup contenders. Moreover, his teams of the late 70’S, with a player or two could at least compete for a cup. As I recall, I think you were on those teams Mr. Wilson, right. Mr. McNamara as G.M had his faults, but it is safe to say, that his teams never been shut out 8 times in one season like your team has this year Mr. Burke. Must be a record? I do not remember a Leaf team ever shut out this often in the past. Well, Mike, now you truly know how I feel about Mr. Burke so call claims, better quit, before I get myself into more trouble. Keep up the good work, a true fan of your site.
Great post, Long suffering...Valid comments. I know that both you and I realize this is a different era in the NHL, and a different time to lead or play for the Maple Leaf organization. But I think people often place far too much empahsis on who won Stanley Cups. Was Sundin not an elite player because he could not "lead" the Maple Leafs to the Cup, against stanuch opposition? To me he was not perfect, but a wonderful player who helped bring the Leafs awfully close on a few occasions. With a slightly different supporting cast, would he have been a "winner"?
I believe your comments on Burke and Kessel/Phaneuf strike home for many as well. You may remember that I've posted in the past, wondering where the Kessel/Wilson relationship will eventually end up once the required honeymoon period is over. It may well be the same with Phaneuf. Those are both major Burke moves, and Wilson obviously has to be supportive of what Burke is doing, especially with "big names".
We both well remember the teams Gregory built- not quite enough raw talent but plenty of grit and character. No "rot" there.
The culture of the current Leafs' squad is certainly no better than that in the 1990s or early 2000s. Those teams not only achieved decent results in terms of making it to the final four (and perhaps a robbed Habs-Leafs showdown if not for Gretzky and Kerri Fraser in 1993), but had solid leadership that demanded a consistent effort on most nights. Gilmour/Clark and Sundin/Roberts impressed many with their work ethic both off and on the ice, and through leading by example, fielded teams that were difficult to play against both during the season and in the playoffs. Just ask the Ottawa Senators.
However, the current Leafs' squad is certainly better than that of the JFJ era. By giving out no-trade clauses paired with hefty contracts like they were loot bags at a 5-year old's birthday party, he sucked the will to work out of the team. Players like Tucker, Kubina, and McCabe would consistently underperform, and never seemed to demonstrate the leadership and effort that Leaf fans expected of them.
Could this team work harder on most nights? Absolutely, but they are far from the doldrums of effort we saw during Ferguson's tenure.
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Welcome,
Vintage Leaf Memories has evolved since its launch in September of 2009. VLM began as a site almost exclusively about my memories as a Maple Leaf fan growing up in Ontario in the 1950s and into the ‘60s and ‘70s. I was born in 1953, and it was a golden era to grow up a Leaf fan, given their tremendous success under Punch Imlach in the 1960s.
I hope that the site will continue to grow! Thanks to everyone for their feedback.
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Did the INCREDIBLES 2 Trailer Secretly Reveal Its True Villain?
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It only took fourteen years to get a glimpse at what happened to the Parr family after The Incredibles, but the first real trailer for Incredibles 2 hit this week and it’s going for a full superhero Mr. Mom riff! Yes, it’s true. Mr. Incredible is staying at home to take care of the kids while Elastigirl is taking on a bigger role as she helps the superhero population make a comeback. And while we know that the Underminer will be menacing the Parr family in the sequel, the trailer may have given us a glimpse of the story’s true villain. Today’s Nerdist News is hitting the trouble alarm and pointing fingers at the new big bad!
Join host and the only babysitter that Jack-Jack can’t intimidate, Jessica Chobot, as she identifies the sequel’s villain as Bob Odenkirk‘s Winston Deavor. Winston’s the seemingly nice guy who is behind Elastigirl’s PR blitz and supposedly a big fan of superheroes. But if you recall the first Incredibles, Mr. Incredible thought that he was working for the good guys too before it was revealed to be a lie.
While speaking to Cinemablend, Odenkirk made a point of saying that he couldn’t answer a question about whether Winston was a villain. He may have been kidding, but the pieces seem to fit. Mr. Mom had the boss of Teri Garr’s character try to woo her away from her husband, and it just so happens that one of Elastigirl’s jealous ex-boyfriends played a big part in earlier drafts of the first film. That would be Xerek, a character who went on to make his debut in The Incredibles comic book series.
Much like the Expanded Universe, those Incredibles comics have been rendered non-canon. But we think there’s a strong possibility that Xerek’s motivations could be transferred to Winston. Plus, Winston’s sister is Evelyn Deavor. As in “evil endeavor.” Not very subtle, Pixar! This may be speculation for now, but we’re fairly certain that the Deavor siblings are ultimately up to no good.
Who do you think is the real enemy in Incredibles 2? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!
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Stress Vaccine? Don't Worry, Shot is on the Way, Says Dr. Robert Sapolsky
Dr. Robert Sapolsky spent years studying stress in baboons. (Presonal Photo/Dr. Robert Sapolsky)
(CBS) Stressed out? There's no app for that, but soon enough there might be a vaccine.
Dr Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscience professor at Stanford, says after 30 years of studying stress, his team might be on the verge of a novel cure.
"To be honest, I'm still amazed that it works," Sapolsky told Wired in an August profile.
Sapolsky has long theorized that, unlike some animals, humans are unable to turn off stress chemicals used for the fight-or-flight mechanism. A class of hormone called glucocorticoids are one of the chief offenders, according to Sapolsky.
So his team has pioneered a way to bootstrap a "herpes virus to carry engineered 'neuroprotective' genes deep into the brain to neutralize the rogue hormones before they can cause damage," according to the Daily Mail.
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It’s no secret that small business owners typically don’t have pockets deep enough to effectively advertise their products or services, but Facebook recently announced new efforts to help them extend their reach. These owners typically don’t have Facebook account representatives and are left to figure out the efforts by themselves, so the social network is stepping in to help.
“All the traditional things people think about – like a sales channel through YP or a call center – they’re all good, but we’re dealing with a scale that’s really unprecedented,” said Dan Levy, Facebook’s director of small business, according to AdAge. “And trying to figure out how you unlock that is intellectually fun, but really hard.”
Small businesses long have complained that their posts on the website go unseen and are buried by the 1,500 posts that average users get per day. Typically, the only way around companies’ ads being buried is for them to pay up to the social media giant to ensure the posts are seen by fans who “liked” the pages on their own to begin with.
Social@Ogilvy recently conducted an analysis of 106 brands it has administrator access to and found that the average reach of their Facebook posts declined from 12.05 percent in October to 6.15 percent in February. Facebook has even begun telling people that eventually, organic reach will plummet to zero because “content that is eligible to be shown in news feed is increasing at a faster rate than people’s ability to consume it,” Marshall Manson, the paper’s author, said to AdAge for a March report.
Augmenting ads
To improve ad performance, Facebook representatives used to simply respond to businesses that flagged an issue, but its new approach will help its outreach efforts for customers whose ads aren’t performing well, AdAge reported.
“The challenge is how to get businesses to understand the value that’s there, since they weren’t paying for it at all and now they’re going to have to,” said Jim Donio, president of a New Jersey theater, according to the source.
Whether or not small business owners are focusing on Facebook advertisements to increase business, they could benefit from earning more working capital from alternative lenders such as National Funding. Greater ease of access and more flexible payment terms can help owners boost their advertising efforts whether online or in more traditional media.
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“Prune de cythère” jam
After the introduction to the “Prune de cythère” let’s find out what kind of recipe we can make from this tasty tropical fruit. In Guadeloupe Archipelagothe “Prune de cythère” juice and “Prune de cythère” sorbet are quite famous and have lots of fans. But here we are going to see how to make some homemade “Prune de cythère” jam. Let’s get started!
Ingredients for 2 jars
– 1kg of “Prunes de cythère” (Make sure to choose them ripe)
– 500g of brown sugar
– A tablespoon of vanilla extract
– A teaspoon of bitter almond extract
– The zest of a lime
– Half of a vanilla pod
– 2 pinches of cinnamon
– 1 pinch of nutmeg
Instructions
– Wash, peel and cut your “Prunes de cythère” in half
– Put them in a saucepan with the other ingredients and let everything macerate for about 1 hour
– Allow to simmer-low for about 2 hours
– After 2 hours the jam is done!
– Put it straight away in the jars to sterilise them
– Let cool down before putting in the fridge
You can keep the jam a couple of months in the fridge.
The “Prune de cythère” jam is so yummy and unique due to the combination of the sour, vanilla and sugary taste.
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John Gillespie
Carrick boss Gary Haveron says he’s ‘grateful’ to the Irish FA over its decision not to sanction the club over his recent touchline ban.
Haveron was sidelined for three games after being ordered from the dugout in the win over Crusaders in March. However, a week after the final game of the season when his side dramatically preserved its top-flight status with a last-gasp win over Ballinamallard, it transpired that Haveron had served one match of his ban on the wrong date.
The club was charged and faced a fine and a three-points deduction which would have meant relegation to the second tier of the Irish League.
But after a hearing on Wednesday evening, the Association’s Discipline Committee found ‘that the interests of justice were best served by not imposing a sanction in all the circumstances’.
Haveron, a Larne native, told the Times: “I’m obviously delighted that it has gone our way and I’m grateful that we’re going to get the opportunity to continue doing what we’ve done.
“Anybody within the football world who I had spoken two over the past week or so have all been very supportive in terms of it being an honest mistake. And I think we’ve held our hands up to making an honest mistake. The IFA have seen that and I’m grateful for the decision they arrived at.
“Mostly, I’m delighted for the players and the fans. The boys did everything that was asked of them on the park to survive in the Premier League, regardless of the fact that we left it to injury-time in the last game of the season. They did what they had to do.
“Ultimately, they have got their rewards and the fans have as well because at the end of the day they have been through the mill too, and I’m glad that we are out the other side of this situation.”
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In the category better late than never, here comes the 2nd part of my summary from Formex! You can see the 1st part here.Globally, nature seemed to have invaded the fair, with lots of greenery everywhere. I saw vintage colored glass in green and amber, lots of ceramics as well as marble and other stones. A bit less copper than at the last fair, but quite a lot of brass. The graphic patterns are still there, but also more ethnic and floral ones. I saw more colour than the last time, maybe a sign of a certain general optimisme? Besides the greens, there was also blue, yellow and coral, and still quite a lot of pastels.
One of my faves from the last fair, Katarina Stark's collection Botan, won the Jury's choice of the Formex Formidable award. And I took the opportunity to order this beautiful collection of two vases and a watering can for the shop.
The students from the Crafts and design program at Linköping university came to present their work, and I really liked these wooden cupboards by Ludwig Zackrisson...
... et la carte du monde rouillée de Elise Elwin...
... and the rusty world map by Elise Elwin...
... et aussi cette version moderne du tapis ours blanc, faite à partir de tissus de récupération par Josefin Tingvall.... and also this modern version of the icebear rug, made out of fabric waste by Josefin Tingvall.Dans la section Young Designers, beaucoup avait choisi de développer des motifs pour textiles et papiers peints...In the Young Designers section, many had chosen to develop patterns for textile and wallpaper...
In between two posts about Formex, I just wanted to show you this stunning Danish home that I stumbled upon earlier. Simple, raw and minimalist, with chairs, stools, tables and lighting from &tradition, one of my favourite Danish brands.
I've finally found the time to sort my photos from Formex after my quick trip there last week!When I visit fairs in Scandinavia, I constantly switch between the blogger's hat and the buyer's hat. This time, I was quite satisfied as a buyer (I'll show you in the next post), but a little less as a blogger. Obviously I saw many beautiful things, but generally speaking I found the fair a bit predictible and without any big surprises... But maybe I'm expecting too much?
The trend theme for this edition of Formex was Day Dream, which encourages us to "have a more contemplative outlook on reality, noticing the beauty around us and open ourselves to creativity and commitment". Jan Rundgren interpreted Day dream in the trend zone, and had divided it into the 4 major trends presented below. I think you get the general idea without further comments...
Today I'm off to Stockholm again for an express visit to the Formex fair! You can follow me on Instagram (anna_g) or by following this link if you want to see what I'm up to.I'll leave you with this picture that I saved some time ago just because I liked the atmosphere in it... Have a great week everyone!PS. The sale continues in the shop... 30% to 50% off a selection of products!
There are a lot of press releases with new spring-summer collections arriving in my mailbox right now... Among the most inspiring ones there are House Doctor and Ferm living, whose photos I'm sure you've already spotted around the blogosphere, for exemple here or here.Today I received some pictures from IKEA with their February news, and I realised I will definately need a few of those display boxes with integrated LED lighting..!
I'm finally back in Paris again after nearly two weeks in Sweden... And as always after the Christmas season, I feel like cleaning everything out, I crave white, fresh and clean... A bit like in this flat in Stockholm!Happy weekend everyone!
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Syrian conflict enters 22nd month
AFP, BEIRUT and DAMASCUS
Sun, Dec 16, 2012 - Page 6
Syrian troops shelled a besieged town near Damascus and clashed with rebels on the outskirts of the capital yesterday as the country’s conflict entered its 22nd month, a watchdog and activists said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce battles as the army sent in reinforcements and tried to storm the town of Daraya on different fronts.
Army artillery gunners were pounding the town, southwest of Damascus, the monitoring group said, after activists reported that troops had used rocket launchers and heavy artillery on Friday.
“This is the 28th day the criminal [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad forces have attempted to break into the town,” a statement from activists in Daraya read.
Troops tried to storm the town from several directions, but the Daraya Martyrs battalion, a unit of the rebel Free Syrian Army, has kept them at bay, the activists said.
Air and artillery bombardments have focused on Daraya and the nearby town of Mudamiyeh in recent weeks, raising fears of a major ground assault.
Daraya “remains isolated from the outside world due to a communications and power cut for the past 37 days. With ongoing fuel cuts, there is an urgent need for supplies to be restored as winter sets in,” the activists said.
Clashes also erupted in the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk in the south of the capital yesterday between rebels and troops backed by pro-regime Palestinian fighters, the Observatory reported.
The outskirts of Damascus have been at the heart of fighting this month as the regime launches operations to reclaim territory within 8km of the city.
Overnight, the watchdog said, two explosions were heard in the southern Qadam neighborhood, several mortar rounds hit the Barzeh district in the northeast and army artillery targeted northeastern suburbs.
In northern Syria, fighting broke out around the air force intelligence branch in the Zahraa district of Aleppo, according to the Observatory, which relies on a nationwide network of activists and medics.
In the southern province of Daraa, where the anti-regime revolt was born 21 months ago, rebels and troops clashed in the towns of Sheikh Maskin and Izraa, as villages and towns came under army shelling.
The Observatory said 92 people were killed in violence across Syria on Friday, a third of them in and around Damascus.
A total of more than 43,000 people have been killed since the uprising against al-Assad’s rule erupted in March last year, according to the Observatory’s figures.
Meanwhile, Washington and Berlin are preparing to deploy Patriot missiles and troops near Turkey’s border with the Syria.
Washington on Friday announced the deployment of two Patriot missile batteries and 400 support troops to fellow NATO member Turkey.
Germany and The Netherlands also have agreed to provide advanced “hit-to-kill” Patriot weapons, which are designed to knock out cruise and ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.
On Friday, the German parliament approved sending the missiles along with up to 400 US soldiers. Last week, the Dutch Cabinet also gave a go-ahead for Patriots, along with a maximum 360 soldiers to operate them.
A joint statement by EU leaders on Friday said they were “appalled by the increasingly deteriorating situation in Syria” and looking at “all options” to help the opposition and protect civilians.
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As an award-winning author and editor, since 1993, 50 + of my authors’ books have sold to Traditional publishers. Many have won awards, been made into films, been featured in Publishers Weekly, and become bestsellers. I also love English Labradors, red wine, and write literary fiction and co-authored nonfiction, found here.
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Press release: FCO Minister to visit Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam
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FCO Minister for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field has arrived in Singapore today (7 November), to take part in a SIIA-Chatham House Dialogue on the UK’s future relations with ASEAN. He will also attend a roundtable with business leaders and meet Foreign Minister Balakrishnan.
The Minister will then travel to Hong Kong where he will meet ministers to discuss a range of issues including trade and security, and meet with members of the British business community. In Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, Mr Field will attend the ‘Inspire Me’ festival, celebrating 45 years of diplomatic relations between the UK and Vietnam, and showcasing British business, education, science and culture. The Minister will also attend a Remembrance service in Vietnam.
On Sunday 11 November, Minister Field will join staff from the British Consulate-General Hong Kong to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Hong Kong for Armistice Day, which this year also marks the centenary of the end of the First World War.
Speaking on arrival in Singapore Minister for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field said:
The UK has a strong and enduring relationship with South East Asia, with many shared interests, such as advancing our prosperity, security and mutual values. I am looking forward to my meetings with ministers, business leaders and young people to strengthen our partnership even further.
As my visit coincides with Armistice Day, it will be an honour to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Hong Kong as we remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice on the anniversary of the end of the First World War.
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4-H, 4-You! 4-America! 4-H!
Picture this. July, 1985. The height of the Reagan Era. “Like A Virgin” and “Careless Whisper” topped the pop music charts. The Marion County Fair was in its prime. And, it was the end of farming for yours truly.
I must say that as a gay kid growing up in rural Iowa, I did the best that I could. While I would have rather been in the house baking cookies and reorganizing my bedroom, I was out feeding the calves and “walking” the electric fence. (farming 101–the electric fence surrounded the pasture where the cattle grazed–we had to make sure no weeds were touching the fence…) I spent most of my chore time talking and singing to myself, unaware that anyone could possibly hear me. My point is, I would have rather been indoors.
Each summer me, my three siblings, and our “prize” heifers (farming 101a–heifers are young, female cows) would make the trip to the Marion County Fair. What a nightmare. I hated this time of year more than anything. It meant hours upon hours of washing, combing, training, feeding our “prize” heifers for the competition. And, I usually approached it with the excitement one usually reserves for root canals. That is, until the 1985 Marion County Fair.
I decided that for this year, I was done taking last place. I was a winner and the judges somehow continually misjudged me. Ok. I’m not fooling anybody. I was the least interested of my siblings in this bullshit (pun intended); and so, I always got the runt of the heifers. One year, I actually was given a deformed calf. Her name was Martha, and she was born with her head on sideways (seriously). Needless to say, Martha didn’t live long enough to even make it to the fair, but my point is clear.
However, there was one prize I could take: The Marion County Fair, Dairy Division, Livestock Showmanship Award. The title alone made me twirl and giggle with glee. And, the thought of that trophy in my bedroom simply made me gitty. I was already redecorating my bedroom around it. This award was given to the one individual who took the best care of their heifer during the week of the fair. I just had to do the best job of shoveling poop. It was as good as mine.
So, during the fair, when I would have normally been spending every waking moment on the carnival rides, allowing my heifer to starve; I went crazy shoveling poop. If my heifer even looked like she was going to poop, I was there waiting to catch it in my shovel. I was a farming rockstar.
It was no surprise that I took last place in the actual competition. But, my showmanship trophy would be given to me on Friday at the end of the fair. When I wasn’t hovering behind my heifer, waiting for her to defecate; I was practicing my surprised reactions for when I was announced as the winner. I also was taking note of my competition. There wasn’t any. Simply no one was spending nearly the amount of time with their heifer that I was. No one.
The moment finally arrived for me to accept my award. The 4-H Superintendant of the Dairy Barn gathered everyone together to make the big announcement. After making the standard announcements, she finally got to the point. “The Marion County Fair, Dairy Division, Livestock Showmanship Award” goes to… I could feel myself get light-headed. And, I think that I actually blacked-out for a few moments, because I didn’t hear her say my name. I didn’t hear her say anyone’s name. I just saw some dumb-ass loser kid walking up to take my trophy.
What happened next will go down in the Marion County 4-H program history books. It was also when I learned how to make a dramatic exit. I couldn’t control what happened next. It just happened. I wailed. Literally. This shriek of horror escaped my lungs as I turned and ran. Straight to our fold-down camper. I cried so hard and for so long that my parents actually had to get the Dairy Superintendant to come to the camper and console me. She gave me some lame reason why we are all winners…but, it didn’t matter, though, it was just confirmation of what I already knew…I was not a farmer.
I don’t know if it was from embarassment or pity, but, my parents never really pushed me to do anything 4-H-related again. And, when my parents sold our dairy operation several years later, I knew it was because I was secretly willing all of those cows to break out through the electric fence and never return.
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Synopsis:
Digital transformation is the predominant trend impacting today’s global business. Broadly speaking, digital transformation speaks to the changes produced by the application of digital technology to society at large—just walk down a street or go into a coffee shop and look at the eyes focused on the ubiquitous smartphone.
But for business, digital transformation goes beyond the tactical application of technology—something that has been happening in enterprises for years—to the strategic incorporation of digital technology as the very basis for competition. It is transforming business models by speeding innovation and making ongoing practical gains in operational efficiencies, product design, development and delivery, and customer relationships. It’s changing the way companies think about coming to market.
In this age of digital transformation, the old methods of service simply don’t apply anymore. World-class organisations must now anticipate service needs before they manifest as problems by taking a proactive approach to service delivery. To be sure, the technologies driving the digital transformation are both ratcheting up the pressure on service while providing new opportunities. Those companies looking to what’s next as service continues to evolve will benefit greatly as the digital transformation continues.
Overview
The white paper focusses on three core elements of digital transformation in a field service context:
Impact of Digital Transformation on Field Service
For service providers, the digital transformation will mean increasing competitive pressure in terms of time to response. At IFS, we believe there will be a rapid escalation in response time competition across the service provider industry. Response times are shortening because of customer expectations, technology capabilities, and competitive pressure .
Because of the disruptive nature of technologies such as IoT, the change will not be incremental. I
f your current response time is a week, it’s not enough to reduce it to six days. It will have to be a more dramatic reduction, and those that move first will have an advantage. Expectations are changing from days to hours or minutes, and those that are left behind will lose business.
Supporting the Digital Transformation in Service
A company pursuing digital transformation must have tools that allow executives and managers to review and orchestrate processes that align with their business strategy to ensure process execution delivers that strategy.
A company pursuing digital transformation must have tools that allow executives and managers to review and orchestrate processes that align with their business strategy
This means bringing data to the desktop, visually, to provide decision makers a complete understanding of which functions deliver real customer value, which are less effective, and which waste both time and resources in terms of meeting organisational goals. Ultimately, this enables businesses to accelerate the realisation of their business strategy—in this case, by moving to become a digitally transformed business—by making better decisions, faster.
This can happen by assessing real-time business performance in the context of how it affects key business processes and goals, giving managers real-time operational intelligence and actionable controls to solve issues before they become problems. The solution is about strategy acceleration and execution.
What’s next?
A recent report on the state of digital transformation had some interesting results: 88 percent of companies surveyed said they were undergoing digital transformation efforts, but only a quarter had an understanding of what it is.
The challenge creating this gap, according to Forbes, was not investment in technology but rather the realignment of business models to reflect the transformation being sought. This underscores the point made by IDC: digital transformation is not just a technology trend, but rather a core business approach at the center of enterprise strategies across all industry segments and markets.
Kris Oldland has been working in Business to Business Publishing for almost a decade. As a journalist he has covered a diverse range of industries from Fire Juggling through to Terrorism Insurance. Prior to this he was a Quality Services Manager with a globally recognised hospitality brand. An intimate understanding of what is important when it comes to Service and a passion for emerging technology means that in Field Service he has found an industry that excites him everyday.
From the archives
Field Service News is the only dedicated business journal dedicated to the Field Service industry within the UK and beyond. Updated daily with key news, insight and analysis Field Service News is the key resource for anyone operating a mobile workforce.
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd.
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Seth Bott (current counselor), Wes Ballentine (former camper and current counselor) and Matt Poiesz (former camper and current counselor) are taking the ride of their life this offseason cycling nearly 14,000 miles from Banff, Canada to the southernmost point in South America. No doubt this journey is an extension of their Tecumseh Warrior spirit and they will be […]
Camp Tecumseh was named #3 Camp in the Top 10 Summer Camps review by Worth Magazine. Tecumseh upholds its reputation as a premiere athletics camp for boys ages 8-16. With annual enrollment consistently sold-out, the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee are the summer destination for both campers and alumni that maintain friendships lasting a lifetime.
https://www.camptecumseh.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/scholarship-featured.jpg6671000camp_adminhttps://www.camptecumseh.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/blue_logo-3.pngcamp_admin2015-08-04 10:51:072015-10-02 10:49:04#3 Camp in the World
An introduction letter from new Camp Director Douglas Knight – It is with equal parts respect and relief that I accept the challenge to be the next Director of Camp Tecumseh. The respect is for the thousands of campers and counselors that have come before me, and the relief is for the values and traditions that have endured at camp for the last 111 years.
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Available Case Documents
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT S.K. LABORATORIES, INC.'S MOTION TO DISMISS OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE, FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT re 16 Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction. Signed by JUDGE LESLIE E. KOBAYASHI on 04/30/2015. S.K.'s Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment, filed December 30, 2014, is HEREBY GRANTED. Insofar as this Court has granted summary judgment in favor of S.K. based upon the Court's conclusion that it lacks p ersonal jurisdiction over S.K., this Court DIRECTS the Clerk's Office to terminate S.K. as a party in this case on May 21, 2015, unless Plaintiffs file a motion for reconsideration of this order by May 18, 2015. (eps )CERTIFICATE OF SERVICEParticipants registered to receive electronic notifications received this document electronically at the e-mail address listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF). Participants not registered to receive electronic notifications were served by first class mail on the date of this docket entry
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Rebecca Thomas’s debut feature Electrick Children is a crackling, captivating film that’s equal parts allegory and acid trip. At the center of the story is Rachel (Julia Garner), an inquisitive and rebellious teenager living in the mid-nineties. Julia has been raised by a fundamentalist Mormon family, living on a compound in Utah. On the occasion of her fifteenth birthday, Rachel is asked by her father and church leader (Billy Zane) to begin recording religious testimonies using an old-school cassette tape player. Read More
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Our university's past lives: facts from a university's history
In this article, I step away from exploring the innovations at our university for a moment to look at the university's history, and share some interesting facts about the place that everyone ought to know! The 61 Charles Street building for example, which is of course now part of Ontario Tech, wasn’t just built back in 2011 when the school started using the building. Don’t you want to know what it was used for before?!?
“Prepare to be amazed!”
(Which also happens to be the City of Oshawa’s slogan…)
Windfields Farm
As some of you may have already heard, Ontario Tech will be expanding on a portion of the former Windfields Farm lands which they acquired in April 2013 as part of the Campus Master Plan.
Windfields Farm was originally owned by Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin under the name Parkwood Stables in 1927. McLaughlin was the founder and former President of General Motors Canada, owner of the Parkwood Estate in downtown Oshawa, and much more. Parkwood Stables became well-known in the 1930's for the racehorses and show horses that Mr. McLaughlin and his daughters Eleanor and Eileen showed at several of the largest shows in North America.
Col. McLaughlin later sold the property to fellow Canadian businessman Edward Plunkett Taylor in 1950, who brought further fame to the farm for having the best thoroughbred horses in North America! ‘Northern Dancer’ was their most famous horse, winning several races and awards including the 1964 Kentucky Derby.
Pictured below is Edward Plunkett Taylor on the left with Northern Dancer and on the right, the horse’s trainer, Huratio Luro.
E.P Taylor's
“Edward Plunkett Taylor you say? That name sounds familiar…”
Yes, we have a pub named after him: E.P. Taylor’s Pub & Restaurant! E.P. Taylor was an avid supporter of Durham College, and donated the land that Durham College and Ontario Tech’s main buildings sit on! The picture below shows Durham College in 1970.
When the pub opened in 1995, the Student Association held a contest to name the building, and the winning name was E.P. Taylor’s. Back in the day E. P. Taylor started his business in beer brewing, and although he died in 1989, his grandson Jefferson Mappin said he would have been honoured to know the pub was named after him.
61 Charles Street
Ontario Tech’s 61 Charles Street building was built by the T. Eaton Company in 1903, and was first used as a textile factory. It produced undergarments which were sold to Eaton’s stores in Toronto and Winnipeg, and also sold through their mail-order catalogue.
Ontario Tech renovated this building and re-opened it in March 2011.
Regent Theatre
The building was constructed in 1919 by Norman McLeod Limited. It was said that in 1927, the theatre was one of the finest moving picture theatres in Canada, with attendance within the previous fiscal year amounting to over half a million people! Below is a picture of the theatre circa 1920.
The Regent Theatre’s worst point in time was around 2001, when it was run-down and looked like this. The future of the Regent Theatre did not look at all promising.
Thankfully Ontario Tech made the save and re-opened the building in September 2010!
Ontario Tech University is the brand name used to refer to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
The university is proud to acknowledge the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation which is covered under the Williams Treaties. We are situated on the Traditional Territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation which includes Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi.
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Britney and Sam's Fight Night!
Britney and Sam's Fight Night!
1/29/2008 12:29 AM PST BY TMZ STAFF
TMZ was there as Britney and constant companion Sam Lutfi got into what we're told was a huge, "really ugly" blowout.
Britney and Sam drove up to the gate of her house when she suddenly jumped out of the car crying -- why, we're not sure. Britney's paparazzo boyfriend Adnan Ghalib tells TMZ he got a frantic call from a hysterical Brit at that moment, pleading with him, "Baby, can you come pick me up??" Adnan told us he told her to go into her house and he would be right over. When he arrived, however, he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to enter the gate -- the guards were under strict orders from Sam not to let him in. He tried calling each of her six cell phones and the house phone, but she didn't answer.
The LAPD were called to the scene for what they tell us was a person trying to get access to the grounds without permission. We've learned, however, that they were called to contain the paparazzi crush that was trying to shoot the fight, not for one specific person.
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The Aladdin Auto Repair Gallery, behind the multiplex in the Fresh Pond Shopping Plaza, is as much a place to contemplate philosophy and faith as it is a garage and art gallery. Rezaei-Kamalabad, known in his circle simply as Mahmood, seizes any opportunity to turn a situation into a spiritual lesson.
He will have a lot to impart when he opens his gallery and garage to the public as part of North Cambridge Open Studios Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.
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The evening will include refreshments with the artist and viewing of the art. Mahmood crafts big, symbol-laden sculptures from steel as well as more conceptual pieces, such as a book that combines elements of the New Testament, Old Testament, and the Koran. He also plans to demonstrate his “Sense of Unity Healing Machine,” a large gyroscope that mimics the earth’s rotation, equipped with car seatbelts with which he will strap himself in for a spin.
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Artist, philosopher, and auto mechanic Mahmood Rezaei-Kamalabad set up shop near Fresh Pond in Cambridge.
It is hard to classify Mahmood. Sure, he is a sculptor; his works are as packed with mystical emblems as a tarot card. The healing machine can be seen as performance art. So can a plan to travel the world with a handmade flag emblazoned with a Sumerian symbol for unity.
But he does not talk about his art the way an artist does, with a passion for technique or with an overlay of metaphors. For instance, the “Sense of Unity Healing Machine” is not a metaphor for healing; Mahmood believes it really can heal you.
Although he has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Massachusetts College of Art, Mahmood is an outsider artist in another way: He says that he has not sold any work.
“If you can change something for the better, that’s the meaning of art,” he declares over a cup of tea, always available at the garage. “Not selling something.”
The message is more important than the medium, he adds. “If my philosophy has no meaning, then the work is really not worth anything.”
His philosophy involves bridging differences, loving one another, and looking up, specifically to the North Star. “It’s stationary, connected to the Earth’s axis,” Mahmood says. “That is the healing point.”
Mahmood wears a mechanic’s blue slacks and shirt and heavy boots. Although his hands are blackened with grease, he enthusiastically shakes a visitor’s hand, and often, in conversation, lifts his palm in the air for a high five. Expressing his ideas, he is earnest, but
warm and humble.
“God is the number one artist,” he says. “Artists are very close to God. They receive information and pass it on. I’m trying.”
When you visit his website, you may find a photo of him in work clothes, with the motto: “God is in the detailing.”
Karen Boutet — co-owner of Zeitgeist Gallery, an alternative art space in Lowell — says she tried to exhibit one of Mahmood’s sculptures, but it was too heavy to move. “We would have needed a flatbed truck,” she says. The sculptures are large and abstract, oddly flat, and packed with symbols from Sumerian cuneiform, an early system of writing, as well as from Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
“They’re monolithic, timeless, kind of spooky, like something you’d come across amid the pyramids,” says Boutet. But she has more to say about the man than the art. “Having him as a mechanic is like a spiritual experience,” she says. “He’s an antidote to our go-go-go capitalistic mindset: Wait, stop, rearrange for a minute.”
Although he does not pursue many options to show his work outside his garage, a few years ago Mahmood hauled one of his sculptures down to Manhattan and displayed it in Times Square. He put a sign on the trailer, wishing peace for Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
Mahmood grew up in Iran, as a Shia Muslim. He immigrated to the United States as a young man in February 1978, and arrived to find the Northeast buried by a great blizzard.
“My brother came and converted to Christianity,” says Mahmood. “My cousin told my father, and he started to cry. He was disappointed. That was the beginning of my thinking, was to take this kind of pain away. To heal my father, my brother, my community, and to bring them together.”
He is keen to heal divisiveness. He considers the bombing suspects with a sigh. “Those kids were in pain, too. If only they had guidance,” he says.
Mahmood no longer sees himself as a Muslim but has developed his own faith, for which his compound holy book is the guide. He calls himself “a Lighter.” His prayer posture is standing, raising his arms exultantly upward.
“The way we as humans can prevent a lot of difficulties is to love each other, and the way to do that is to love yourself,” he says. “And to do that, you must look up.”
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Pages
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
The Cobblestone Corridor (now available on Vimeo on Demand)
Review by Bob Ignizio
While watching Erik C. Bloomquist’s short film “The
Cobblestone Corridor”, it’s nearly impossible not to draw comparisons to Rian
Johnson’s BRICK. Although the plots
are considerably different, both films transplant the archetype of the
hardboiled private eye, along with dialogue right out of a forties Bogart film,
into a modern day school setting.
The plot is that a teacher at a prep school has been fired
for selling drugs to students. Editor of the school paper Alan Archer
(writer/director Bloomquist) is convinced to dig deeper by the obligatory femme
fatale, Elizabeth Merriweather (Madeleine Dauer). The actors play it straight,
but there’s an undercurrent of light humor that flavors the proceedings, not
necessarily to the film’s benefit.
Making old-school slang and genre tropes work in a
contemporary setting is no easy task, and even good actors can have trouble
selling their lines without coming across as awkward, or even tipping into
unintentional parody. Given that it’s a low budget short, “Cobblestone” has a reasonably
solid cast, but try as they might they never really sell us on the film’s
conceit.
On the plus side, the film is polished and well paced, and
even if they can’t quite make us buy that their characters are spouting these
retro lines, the cast is clearly above average for the world of ultra low
budget indie film. Even Bloomquist, who feels badly miscast as his own lead,
comes across in such a way that I believe he’d be just fine in other roles. I
couldn’t really recommend this to the casual viewer, but it’s a respectable
effort, not completely devoid of entertainment value, that shows Bloomquist has
promise both in front of and behind the camera. 2 out of 4 stars.
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Legendary Bruce Willis is an unofficial fan site and has no affiliation with Bruce, his management, family or friends in anyway. All trademarks and copyrighted materials on this site are the property of their respective owners. The intent of this site is not to infringe on any copyrights, but rather to serve as a resource for fans of Bruce Willis. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
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Website of the Year
HIGHLIGHTS
Instagram Gaffes
What’s the worst thing you can do on Instagram when there’s nowhere to hide. Here, we take a look at the most ghastly gaffes of them all.
You may yearn for simpler times before Instagram had us in its clutches. But yearn all you like, because – with its 800 million users – Instagram really does have us in its clutches. It’s up to you to make sure that you use the app in the least irritating way possible, however many followers you’ve amassed. To protect yourself, avoid the peccadilloes below.
PLONKERS WHO PLANK
One of the worst facets of social media is the narcissism it engenders. Since when did it give anybody any pleasure at all to watch you work out? That shot is for you, not for us. All it does is make us feel cross, envious and fat.
TOO MUCH INFORMATION
Sure, we all want our posts to be viewed and liked. That’s the whole point, right? But please never, ever put a note in Stories telling us you’ve a “new post up” on your feed. Tragic. And hectic.
IT’S SHOWTIME
People who post shaky-handed, muffled and indiscernible videos of the concert they’re at should be banned. We get it: you’re cool because you’re at a gig. It’s just that the vibe doesn’t translate to Instagram, OK?
FILTER FIBS
Holidays are a thorny area on Instagram in any case. Whatever you do, though, don’t pretend you haven’t used a filter (#nofilter) when true obsessives can see at a glance that you have.
DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
The worst of all Instagram crimes has to be thanking a brand for, say, the shoes you’re wearing in the shot (for example: thanks @louboutin), as if you were some kind of hot influencer representing the brand, when in fact you’ve just blown your month’s food budget on the shoes, like normal people.
It’s a brutal world, the social-media one. Even people who “like” your posts will be rolling their eyes, screen-grabbing your posts and fuming about them on WhatsApp if they’re annoying enough. You’ve been warned.
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I just said what I said and it was wrong
Or was taken wrong
In the weeks since the election, three separate but related stories have emerged. Unless you work hard to keep your life politics-free, you’ve seen at least one version of each.
Nate
The first story is that the polls were basically right, and that predictions based on perceived momentum, gut feelings, and the horse sense of old pros were basically wrong. Nate Silver’s work at the New York Times got the most publicity, but similar analyses by Sam Wang at Princeton and Andrew Tannenbaum (yes, the Minix guy) were also quite accurate. And why wouldn’t they be?
Well, as Silver said in a post shortly before the election, the poll-based predictions could be off if the polls had some sort of systematic bias in them. Because, apart from a bit of poll weighting and regional correlation, the fundamental assumption of all of the Silver-like analyses is that the poll results come from a random, unbiased sample of voters. They treat the polls like those textbook problems in which someone draws a blind sample from a well-mixed urn of blue and red marbles. Had their numbers been way off, it would’ve meant that the urn wasn’t mixed well or that the draws weren’t blind.
Actually, I thought the results were too close to the predictions. Obama’s 332 electoral votes was Silver’s most probable outcome, but he assigned a probability of only 20% to that result. Had number been 303, which was the next most likely Obama total in Silver’s analysis, would that have been considered a failure? It shouldn’t have been.
In fact, Democratic crowing about Silver’s accuracy after the election (“math works!”) was just as misguided—well, OK not quite as misguided—as Republican dismissal of his work before the election. Silver wasn’t really saying “this is who will win,” he was saying “these are the likelihoods of various outcomes.” It just so happened that the most likely outcomes were all in Obama’s favor. That said, when Florida finally went Obama’s way and pushed his electoral count to 332, it must have done wonders for the sales of Silver’s book.
Now, you have to believe that there are Republican-leaning analysts who can read the polls as well as Silver, Wang, and Tannenbaum. Where were they, and why did the Republicans who did make predictions end up looking so stupid? That leads us into the second post-election story.
Karl
I happened1 to be watching Fox News when it called Ohio for Obama, and Karl Rove brought the network to a stop by claiming it was premature. He was, he said, in contact with Romney’s people and they had numbers that suggested that Ohio was still in play.
Let’s put aside the fact that Rove’s Crossroads Super PACs are supposed to be independent of the campaigns themselves. Only five members of the Supreme Court even pretend to believe that tissue of lies. Instead, let’s focus on why Rove thought it worthwhile to keep hope alive.
This wasn’t like 2006, when, on the verge of his party getting pummeled in the midterms, Rove famously put on a confident look in the face of terrible polls and said he had “the real numbers.” In that case, the election was still upcoming, and he had to keep up appearances; no one expected him to say the Republicans were in for a shellacking. This time the voting was over. There wasn’t even a theoretical downside to accepting the truth.
Which raises a topic I’ve always wondered about: How much of what educated Republicans say is what they really believe and how much is just sop for “the base”? In some cases, it’s clearly sop. George H.W. Bush didn’t believe in supply-side economics, but he knew that pretending to believe it got votes. And just this past week, we saw Marco Rubio deathly afraid to admit that the Earth is more than several thousand years old.
But those are obvious cases. Two decades after Bush I, Republicans who know the difference between real economics and campaign strategies may well be extinct. And as the GOP center of gravity moves ever closer to the center of the Bible Belt, it becomes more reasonable to believe that the party’s rejection of biology and geology is sincere.
Still, denying certain facts of economics and science is one thing, denying fundamental political realities like polls and demographics is something else. One makes you bad at government, which can be seen as a feature rather than a bug; the other makes you bad at winning elections, which is suicidal. This leads to the third story of the election: the Romney campaign’s apparent belief that they were going to win and that their Orca computer/network/GOTV system was going to overwhelm the Obama campaign.
Orca
The failure of Orca and the success of Narwhal have become the established truth of the past few weeks. The tech press, in particular, has been tripping over itself to heap praise on Obama’s cadre of nerdy recruits from internet startups and scorn on the buttoned-down consultants retained by Romney from companies owned by his campaign staff.
It does appear that a lot of both the praise and the scorn are deserved. The extensive pre-election testing by Obama’s team kept Narwhal rolling, while Orca—somehow never put through a dry run before Election Day—ground to a halt. But I’m skeptical of the stark black-and-white differences in how the teams have been portrayed. It serves the popular narrative, but it’s unlikely to be the full truth.
And the full truth is important, at least to the 2016 campaigns. Among the interesting questions raised by Orca and Narwhal are: Can Obama’s success be transferred to the next Democratic candidate? Will Republicans accept that their system was flawed and make the necessary changes? Will the electorate feel as comfortable being data-mined by candidates as it is by grocery stores and Amazon? After all, presidents don’t offer 50¢ off your next purchase.
That’ll be in 2020.
“Happened” hell. I was in full-on schadenfreude mode, hoping to see them crushed and hear the lamentations of their women. ↩
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NOT JUST FOR THE KITCHEN: While we pride ourselves in making a high-quality kitchen food prep table, this product can be used for a variety of things. It can double as a garage workbench, a tool bench, a garden or outdoor work bench and table, or design table for blueprints or architectural planning. It's great for home projects like sewing, laundry, or crafts and can even be utilized in cafeterias, janitorial rooms, hotels, office buildings, hospitals, veterinarian clinics and more.
WORK SAFETY: Constructed from 18-gauge stainless steel, this restaurant prep and serve table is durable with a galvanized under-shelf for storage and adjustable legs for convenience. This island table is specifically designed and finished for use in a commercial or industrial setting, but is just as reliable in the home. Designed with high-quality as our standard, this professional kitchen prep station can handle anything you throw at it and will last for years to come.
FOOD SAFETY: The stainless steel prep and work tables are ideal for meal preparation, in both commercial spaces like restaurants and personal use in homes. Easy to clean and sterilize, metal prep station tables are superior to wood or glass. Food and liquid won't get stuck or ruin the integrity of the surface. Easily wipe away excess food with no fuss, mess, or contamination. Our tables are NSF approved so it meets strict public health standards and regulations.
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One Table For All Your Needs The home and commercial work table, constructed from 18-gauge stainless steel, is the perfect wash, prep, and cooking table for multiple purposes and settings. Our product is NSF certified, meeting strict standards for public health protection and safety. Built for quality, sturdiness, and durability, it can handle high-volume and has an extra heavy-duty top. This indoor and outdoor work table is premium quality so it should last a lifetime. No matter what messy projects or hobbies you love to invest time in, this table can handle any wear-and-tear. Because it's industrial-made, surface imperfections such as scratches, scuffs and dents may be found. This is normal and to be expected on products of this nature.
The fact that Uncle Bill's Sliver Grippers are listed by the FDA as a surgical instrument says something about the quality of the tweezers. As always, though, the proof is in the pudding, or in this case the pulling. These tweezerswon't leave you stuck. With their finely ground, hand-sharpened stainless steel tips, the Sliver Grippers are unrivaled at rooting out the tiniest of slivers, thorns, ticks and stingers. They're also an excellent tackle box tool for untangling fishing lines, or for any other task requiring pin point precision. With their compact sizeand convenient tip clip, they're easy to clip onto your keychain, or you can buy several pairs for your medicine chest, first aid kit and glove box. Features: Uncle Bill's Sliver Grippers are made from high-quality American-made polished stainless steel. Single-piece spring tempered steel tweezers - no welds to fail. Wide hinge area ensures the tips will stay perfectly aligned. Tweezer points are hand dressed to precise specifications. Includes tip guard, which doubles as a holder for attachment to your keychain. Crafted with pride in the USA.
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New Report: Beyond the Birds and the Bees
New Report: Beyond the Birds and the Bees
The Effects of Neonicotinoid Insecticides on Agriculturally Important Beneficial Invertebrates
Portland, Ore. — A report released today by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation moves the spotlight from the risks neonicotinoids pose to bees to the impacts of neonicotinoids to invertebrates such as earthworms or lady beetles.
Beyond the Birds and the Bees provides a comprehensive review of published articles and pulls together the growing body of research that demonstrates risks from neonicotinoids to these beneficial insects. These risks occur particularly in agricultural systems, but are also found in urban and suburban ornamental landscapes.
The following are the findings from this review:
Although neonicotinoids have been promoted as safer for beneficial insects than older insecticides, the balance of evidence suggests that neonicotinoids are generally harmful to a variety of beneficial insects.
Widespread preemptive application of neonicotinoids (or any pesticide) represents a fundamental shift away from Integrated Pest Management, since chemicals are frequently applied before pest damage has occurred, and often in the absence of any current pest abundance data.
Use of neonicotinoid seed treatments on annual field crops has increased dramatically in the last decade yet these treatments may not consistently result in yield benefits and can be less cost effective than other control measures.
Though neonicotinoid seed treatments may be unnecessary or more expensive than other treatments in some circumstances, it is very challenging for farmers to obtain non-organic field crop seed that is not treated with neonicotinoids.
Neonicotinoid resistance has been documented in a number of pests, including green peach aphid, whitefly, and Colorado potato beetle. The environmental persistence of neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid and clothianidin, coupled with their widespread use, can facilitate pest resistance.
Although there has been less research on the impact of neonicotinoids to soil organisms, most studies to date have found that neonicotinoids may have negative effects on earthworms and other soil invertebrates.
Although less charismatic than bees, beneficial insects such as beetles and wasps play critical roles in healthy, functioning ecosystems. For example, predatory and parasitic insects and other arthropods provide natural pest suppression to farms—an ecosystem service conservatively valued at more than $4.5 billion annually—as well as to natural areas and developed landscapes.
Neonicotinoids are now the most widely used group of insecticides in the world, and their use in the United States has been steadily increasing since their initial registration in the mid-1990s. Neonicotinoids have been promoted as low-risk chemicals: low impact on human health, low toxicity to nontarget organisms, lower application rates, and compatibility with Integrated Pest Management. Unfortunately, the many studies completed since these compounds began being used have not born out the validity of these assumptions.
Based on the findings in the report, the Xerces Society makes the following recommendations:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should re-assess the ecological safety of currently approved neonicotinoids and immediately suspend registration of imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam and dinotefuran for all applications where there is a risk to nontarget organisms.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should significantly speed up the registration review process for neonicotinoids. The risk from exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides needs to be scientifically evaluated against the risk posed to beneficial species by alternative control measures.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should expand the number of nontarget terrestrial insect species used in the risk assessment process.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should adopt risk assessment protocols for exposure to nontarget insects that account for cumulative and synergistic effects, effects of long-term exposure to low concentrations, and exposure to pesticides through pollen and nectar.
The USDA Risk Management Agency’s Federal Crop Insurance Corporation should approve reductions in crop insurance premiums for producers who avoid prophylactic use of neonicotinoids where the pest pressure does not warrant use.
The prophylactic use of neonicotinoids on crops should be halted. Neonicotinoids should only be used as part of an Integrated Pest Management plan.
The use of neonicotinoids for cosmetic reasons (such as against aphids in parks and gardens) rather than economic reasons should be banned on city- and county-owned lands.
About the Xerces Society
The Xerces Society is a nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. Since 1971, the Society has been at the forefront of invertebrate protection worldwide, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programs. To learn more about our work or to donate to the Society, please visit www.xerces.org.
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Soft Spot for Squirrels? Look away…
Soft Spot for Squirrels? Look away…
WARNING:If you have a soft spot for squirrels, weasels or similar mammals please use cautionary discretion over both the written and visual content of this post.
Beverage koozies went out of style back in 1981, the same year they were invented, or wait…that’s right, they were never in style (just like your neon fanny pack). But now the Scottish brewery, BrewDog, has reinvented the former promotional gimmick into a soon to be PETA uproar.
BrewDog has released not only the world’s most expensive beer but also one with a seriously impressive alcohol content. Yep–get ready for a shocking 55% ABV (alcohol by volume) brew that costs $765.00 per 12oz. bottle. While expensive, you can justify the steep price for the beer because it comes with its own…wait for it…taxidermied small mammal beer koozie.
Appropriately named “The End of History” (more like the end of your history after consummation!), these limited edition bottles come in their own taxidermied squirrel or stoat (similar to a weasel). Before you drink up, be sure to thank the inventors for the high alcohol content; with any luck, it’ll help you forget the fact that you’re drinking out of a squirrel cadaver.
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In this class we listen to two great student performances of Colin Thompson and Crossing the Minch. Colin Thompson is a great 2/4 march suitable for moderate to upper level competions and great to learn for fun! Crossing the Minch is a great tune that every piper must learn!
New to Dojo U?
Today's Live Sessions
Monday, January 21st
8:00pm EST: Beginner's Hour! (with Andy Fusco)
Tune in to today's beginner hour (late night edition!), and get some great feedback and insight regarding the beginner material you've been working on. Stay tuned day to day, and watch your ability skyrocket!
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The lives of George and Amarilla Barclay
John Barclay’s Two Families
John Barclay, my great great grandfather, was introduced to me by my Aunt Miriam in her family history notes, so I knew about him. I also had a copy of the book by the city of Pine River, celebrating their first 100 years, and he is mentioned in that book:
“…not far from Shakopee where George’s father chose to live “because it reminded him of his native Scotland.” Apparently the father, John, remarried and had other children…”
John Barclay had two families. He was first married to Margaret. When he married Margaret is not known and where she is buried is also unknown. She probably died in Connecticut but so far a search of records reveal only one possibility of a Margaret Barclay dying in Enfield in 1848 of about the right age.
continuing the quote above…” because at the time of Alexander’s death in 1906, there was quite a bit of difficulty in locating all the Barclay heirs from “both families.”” pg. 105
In my Aunt Miriam’s notes she mentions Alexander’s probate:
Alex's Probate
My great-uncle Alexander Barclay has been very good to me. I secured his probate file at some expense from the Dakota County Courthouse in Minnesota and it opened up a very big genealogical door!
From this first marriage came seven (7) siblings that were listed in Alexander’s estate file. There wasn’t a will so some of the information is carefully taken from the probate file. Other information such as census searches and indexes were also used. I am slowly gathering the facts together on the siblings and will present more at a later time.
1. John Avery Barclay born abt 1836, died – unknown. According to Alex’s estate file he disappeared and was presumed dead as stated in an affidavit of his sister Sarah Agnes. He appears in deeds, land records, and court documents in Silbey Co., Minnesota till about 1880. He may have gone to California. John Avery Barclay was probably born in Scotland per census information and other sources but that is not yet proven. John married Minerva Parks on 3 July 1865 in Henderson, Sibley Co., Minnesota. Since John Avery Barclay was considered dead his two children where his heirs and they are mentioned in the estate file. The couple actually had four children:
1. John Avery Barclay II born 23 July 1867 in Sibley Co., Minnesota and died 8 March 1951 in Seattle, King Co., Washington.
2. Sarah Ellen born 29 March 1869 in Sibley Co., Minnesota.
3 and 4. There were two other children twins: Albert and Alice born 1870 Silbey Co., Minnesota but it is looking like they didn’t survive. Some of this information was supplied by another cousin.
2. James A. Barclay born about 1838 in Connecticut, he died about 1906 in Bridgeport, Fairfield Co., Connecticut during the probate process of Alexander’s estate. He married a Maryanne Stewart and had children.
3. Sarah Agnes Barclay born about 1840 in Connecticut. She married Porter Blinn about 1860 in Connecticut. He was born about 1842 in Connecticut. They had 6 children and it looks like they stayed in Newington, Hartford Co. , Connecticut.
Update: May 26, 2010 – I was at the Family History Library researching when I discovered that the Sarah that I thought was Sarah Agnes Barclay in the census married to Porter Blinn was the Sarah I should be studying for the Barclay’s. Turns out she is a Griswold and her father is Henry Griswold. So back to the drawing board on #3. This is why it is so important to check other sources like marriages and birth records and not totally trust the census.
4. Mary J. Barclay born about 1841 in Connecticut and died 28 March 1917 in Bristol, Hartford Co., Connecticut. I have her estate file. She married a Jerome B. Ford and had 3 daughters. Jerome was born about 1846 in Connecticut.
5. Alexander A. Barclay was born September 1842 in Hartford, Connecticut and died on 9 December 1905 at the Rochester Hospital for the Insane in Olmsted Co., Minnesota. He apparently suffered in the end with dementia. He was only in the hospital about 6 days before he died. He was buried 17 December 1905 in the Corinithian Cemetery in Farmington, Dakota Co., Minnesota.
6. Martha M. Barclay born about 1843 in Connecticut and died around 1920 or later in California. She married a Jeremiah Ford in about 1859 in Connecticut. I do not know if Jeremiah and Jerome were brothers. Martha and Jeremiah had two daughters.
7. George Angus Barclay was born 18 August 1844 probably in Connecticut and died on the 28th of October 1898 in Pine River, Cass Co., Minnesota. George is the subject of our blog and more information will be forthcoming on his life. He married Amarilla Spracklin in 1878 and they had 2 children.
The second marriage of John Barclay was to Helen in Scott Co., Minnesota. I have not been able to find their marriage in Minnesota records but it happened prior to 1860 per the census and from this marriage their were four (4) children born.
8. Charles Barclay was born about January 1860 in Eagle Creek (Shakopee), Scott Co., Minnesota. After the death of his mother in 1907 he seems to have moved from Shakopee and might have gone to Minneapolis and died about 1938. Charles didn’t marry as far as I can determine from census and other documents.
9. William Barclay was born about 1863 in Eagle Creek (Shakopee), Scott Co., Minnesota and died 7 Dec 1937 in Gallatin Co., Montana. He married a Clara E, probably in Minnesota. She was born about 1859 in Wisconsin and died about 21 March 1919 in Madison Co., Montana. They had one child name Foster born 1891 and probably died by 1907.
10. Mary E. Barclay was born about 1864 in Eagle Creek (Shakopee), Scott Co., Minnesota and died 19 February 1930 in Cascade Co., Montana. She married Charles B. Clark probably in Minnesota for he was born there about 1856. He died 28 February 1932 in Deer Lodge Co., Montana. They had at least one child named Ruth Clark who was born about 1895. It is interesting that there are two Mary’s named in John’s family a good 20+ years apart.
11. Anna Elizabeth Barclay was born 15 April 1870 in Shakopee, Scott Co., Minnesota and died 4 August 1955 in Menominee, Menominee Co., Michigan. She married David Maurice Carter on 9 July 1885 in Eagle Creek (Shakopee), Scott Co., Minnesota. David was born 9 January 1860, Marinette, Marinette Co., Wisconsin. The information for this family was supplied by a cousin and has not been verified. Anna had 4 children.
The person that initiated the probate process for Alexander was his niece, my grandmother Grace A. Barclay McDonald. She was pregnant at the time and lived in International Falls. She was unable to attend the court sessions because she had the baby and was “indisposed.” The baby was my Aunt Miriam.
Book: Logsleds to Snowmobile’s, Pine River Centennial Celebration, 1873-1973, Written by the Citizens of Pine River and edited by Norman F. Clarke, Pine River Centennial Committee, 1979. A copy is available at the Family History Library.
Things to Ponder
The Header Photo is of the sign post in Eagle Creek near Shakopee, Minnesota. I could not resist. I did get a chance to visit the area where John Barclay and Ellen had their land and the nice lady was very welcoming and let us come onto the property. Always be kind when you try to visit the former land or your ancestor. Treat the current owners with care.
KELLER DESCENDANTS of John and Mary (Delano) Keller. Over the past year of 2014 and currently in 2015 I have been posting about the descendants of John and Mary on my Solomon Goss of Fearing Twp., In Ohio blog (see the link below). The Surnames are: Keller, Delano, Spracklin, Evertts, Helt, Pearl, WIntermute, Barr, Van Houten, Carson, Shaffer, Kees, Lacy, Riblet and much more. Cousins are sharing on that Solomon Goss Blog. More information has come to light about these families.
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This blog was started on March 10, 2010.
Going to take the Scottish Class.
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Warning: assert(): Assertion failed in /home4/markerh/public_html/wp-load.php on line 1Early English Christmas at Kecoughtan WY-108 | Marker History
Early English Christmas at Kecoughtan Marker, WY-108
From 30 Dec. 1608 to 5 Jan. 1609, Capt. John Smith and his party of 27 men, their journey from Jamestown to Werowocomoco temporarily halted by “extreme wind, rain, frost, and snow,” lodged with the Kecoughtan Indians at their town near here. The group celebrated Christmas with the natives with “plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wildfowl, and good bread.” Smith later wrote that the English were “were never more merry” and “never had better fires in England than in the dry, warm, smoky houses of Kecoughtan.”
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This is a covert spy camera which is very tiny in size and hidden inside a Skoda Remote Key. It simply starts to capture by pressing a button and can take picture at 2560 x 1920 and video at 720×480 resolutions.Video format: AVI
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Bahrain-based Investcorp has reached an agreement with US-based Alpine Investors to acquire The Wrench Group, a leading provider of essential home maintenance and repair services.
A leading provider and manager of alternative investment products, Investcorp said the move is in line with the group’s strategy to expand into attractive markets.
Formerly controlled by Alpine Investors, Skylight Capital, and Wrench management, the US group operates in a large and fragmented multi-billion-dollar market and has demonstrated consistent growth through all economic cycles.
It is a major provider of essential home maintenance and repair services, including heating, ventilation and air conditioning, plumbing and electrical services.
On the acquisition, Mohammed Al Shroogi, the co-chief executive officer at Investcorp, said: “Investcorp is excited to partner with Wrench Group’s outstanding management team. The team has distinguished itself by achieving substantial growth in each of the company’s markets while providing superior customer service.”
The Wrench Group currently serves over 140,000 customers throughout the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix markets, four of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the US.
It is marketed regionally through four prominent brands: Coolray, Berkeys, Abacus and Parker & Sons.
With approximately $150 million in revenue for 2015, the Wrench Group is positioned as a leading provider of home services in each of its markets due to high brand recognition and commitment to exceptional customer service.
The company is poised for continued growth in existing and new markets, he stated.
“We plan to support the company in continuing to build upon its current successes by capitalising on best practices across the enterprise, continuing the strong organic growth in its current regions, and strategically expanding into attractive markets,” remarked Al Shoorgi.
Fahad Murad, the managing director at Investcorp for Bahrain, said: “We believe The Wrench Group is a great addition to the Investcorp portfolio. There is a strong management team in place and we are looking forward to working with them through the next phase of their development.”
As part of the transaction, management will continue in their current roles with the company and retain a meaningful interest in Wrench.
“THRILLED”
Collin Hathaway, the managing partner of Skylight Capital and chairman of Wrench, said: “We spent the past five years identifying and partnering with the best regional companies, leaders, and cultures in the non-discretionary home service space.
“Investcorp shares our commitment to our team, our customers and our industry, and we are thrilled to have them as a partner and resource.”
Gulf Industry, published by Al Hilal Group has now established itself as a "must-read" publication for anyone with an involvement in the region's industrial sector whether as manufacturers, distributors or related service organisations.The publication represents a "window" into the Gulf's manufacturing trading and export sectors providing news, views analysis and information across virtually every industry related sector.
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New Perfume Review Naomi Goodsir Nuit de Bakelite- Artistry Rewarded
There are moments when I just feel that a creative project is going to be magnificent. I’ve recently received the proof that one of those has come to fruition. When I first met the creative team behind the Naomi Goodsir fragrance brand, Naomi Goodsir and Renaud Coutaudier, I felt like they were artists who had a real vision. Not only the vision but the determination with which to keep working at something until that vision was achieved. The other thing happened at that first meeting was they were telling me what they were working on. From the moment, I heard the name and the perfumer I knew this was something I could not wait for, but I would wait for over three years. The name was Nuit de Bakelite and the perfumer was Isabelle Doyen.
Just the name was going to draw me in because we had a whole stack of old Bakelite cooking dishes. The smell of those dishes all stacked up was fascinating to me in the way other industrial smells were. Bakelite was also used as costume jewelry from the Art Deco period until the mid 1970’s. It was in those later years that a group of free spirited women I was spending time with wore each wore a set of matching Bakelite bracelets which I associated with a certain type of experimental thinking. The sound of the bracelets coming together fell in between plastic and metallic. It was another unusual sound in which I found beauty.
Isabelle Doyen
Mme Doyen has been a pillar of the artistic niche perfumery sector since its beginning. She has been known mostly for her work with one brand, Annick Goutal. It is a body of work which shows what niche perfume can be. What has always set Mme Doyen apart for me is the more artistic experimental work she has done. Nowhere was that more evident in the three vetiver variations she produced for The Turtle Project. Those three perfumes are some of my favorite for the complete creative freedom they showed.
I also must mention Ms. Goodsir and M. Coutaudier. There are only a few creative teams in the niche perfume world who do not bow to the pressure of making perfume on a timetable. In many discussions with them they stress to me that they won’t release a perfume until they feel it is what they both want it to be. As a result, the entire Naomi Goodsir collection stands out for this dedication. Heaven knows I bugged them enough times about when Nuit de Bakelite was going to be released.
When I finally received my sample in the mail I was a bit afraid to tear in to the package and try it. There was so much that could be wrong. It sat on my desk for a full day before I finally did. What greeted me was a green tuberose. Once I sprayed it on I understood what Mme Doyen when she said, “Nuit de Bakélite evokes to me, a tuberose sap, peeled tuberose, tuberose in a cage made of green and leather, a focus on the small peduncle that connects the flower to the stem, the sound of plastic when several stalks of tuberose tangle, the wild majesty of the Persian tuberose.” I have always found there to be a strong plastic undercurrent beneath tuberose. That is captured here, it is the Bakelite part of Nuit de Bakelite. The tuberose here is not the flower, per se, it is the stem and sap primarily. You can’t really keep a note like tuberose down but you can find a way to display it differently which is what the creative team has done here.
Nuit de Bakelite opens with a strong green pairing of angelica and galbanum. It leads to an accord which evokes the green camphoraceous nature of tuberose along with the Bakelite plastic note. Bakelite is made from a reaction including aldehydes. There is an almost faux-aldehydic lift happening in this transition from the sharp green of the top to the more floral heart. Here Mme Doyen chooses a source of tuberose essentially scrubbed clean of the indoles. That has the effect of enhancing the buttery aspects of tuberose a skillful use of orris provides depth in place of the indoles. Over time a base of leather and tobacco provide the final brushstrokes. Most often these can be afterthoughts, not here. The tobacco softens the floral accord while doubling down on the natural narcotic quality of tuberose. The leather is a playful reminder of the vintage tuberoses which finished with a swaggering version. This is a hipster version hanging on the sidelines only interacting intermittently; when it seems right.
Nuit de Tuberose has 12-14 hour longevity and above average sillage.
Although I’ve just spent a lot of words writing about Nuit de Bakelite I could go on and on. This is a concept which has been brilliantly realized using a focal point in a modern retelling of a vintage era. There are a few brands I point to when I want to exemplify all that artistic perfume can be; Naomi Goodsir continues to hold that place as Nuit de Bakelite is artistry rewarded.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Naomi Goodsir.
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Tag: pomegranate apple ginger vodka cocktail
Ring in the New Year with this festive Pomegranate Apple Ginger Vodka Cocktail! I love making mouth-watering cocktails, especially when they look so pretty and taste great. This Pomegranate Apple Ginger Cocktail is no exception. It's tart from the pomegranate, sweet from the apple, and a bit fizzy from the ginger ale. And, it's simple… Continue reading Pomegranate Apple Ginger Vodka Cocktail
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by Topher Ryals
On parting with gaming hardware
I used to trade in and sell my video game hardware on a regular basis. Who needs old consoles and handhelds when they have the shiny new thing, right? I got a PlayStation for Christmas in the late ’90s, which of course made young Topher say “goodbye, SNES.” That was a mistake. Maybe.
The SNES wasn’t alone. Many other consoles I’ve owned met similar fates: my N64, GameCube (on two occasions), GameBoy Advance SP, and the aforementioned PlayStation all found new homes through yard sales and trade ins. As you can tell, it’s been a while since this has come up.
That might be changing.
Systems currently hooked up to my TV: PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U. Also in my apartment: Wii, N64 (my wife’s), PSVita, 3DS, DS, and PSP. Not all of these are functional (looking at you, dangerously expanded PSP battery), but I could be playing games on the majority of these systems within minutes if I wanted to.
But only the PS4 has seen significant play time in the past I don’t even know how long. It’s not the only console getting used, to be fair—but it’s close. My wife has been playing Pikmin 3 on the Wii U lately, and we’ve been slowly working our way through Yoshi’s Woolly World since last weekend. I’ve powered on the Xbox One on the first and fifteenth of every month to download the latest Games with Gold games. Other than that, everything’s been happening on the PS4. Gaming. Netflix. Hulu. WWE Network. It all goes through my PlayStation.
Am I keeping the other systems because I’m a gamer and I need to have as much gaming hardware as possible? Is this out of some misguided sense of obligation? I’ve had these systems for years now, so why shouldn’t I keep having them? The PS3’s case for continued presence is simple: I have a fairly large backlog that I’m still pretending I’ll get around to playing eventually. The others are a little more complicated.
I’d get next to nothing for the Wii and Xbox 360, so I might as well hang on to them, right? The same goes for the PSP and DS, not to mention they’re small enough that having them around isn’t really a big deal. There’s a problem with that thinking, though: I haven’t touched any of them since moving into my current apartment. It’s been even longer since I played games on any of them.
Preparing to move across the country has made me rethink every item I own regardless of size or perceived value added to my life. I haven’t been using these systems and I have no plans to use them. They’re just collecting dust, so why wouldn’t I want to get a few dollars for them and hopefully get them into another home where they’ll actually serve a purpose? I said goodbye to my childhood systems, the ones with real nostalgia attached to them, a long time ago. I said goodbye again years after I bought those consoles and a bunch of games on eBay—all of which got used for maybe a month before they sat on shelves and in boxes like these other systems are doing now.
There’s a part of me that says not to get rid of gaming hardware again. That I’ll regret it and wish I still had these systems and their games at some point down the road. But the world we live in has video games increasingly detached from the hardware we initially played them on. Virtual Console aside, I’ll still be able to play my Wii games on my Wii U. If things go well over at Nintendo, they’ll all be available on Switch in one form or another. I’ll be able to play most of my DS games on my 3DS. I’d have to buy digital versions of my PSP games, but I could play them on Vita with relative ease. The point is, nostalgia, attachment, or even a little bit of a hoarding mentality are not valid reasons to keep this old hardware around.
Even my Xbox One is a question mark at best. I really want to play Quantum Break. I’d like to play State of Decay. But my ability to play those games, and all Xbox games at this point, is not dependent on having an Xbox One. Unlike PlayStation and Nintendo, Xbox is moving away from the idea of console exclusives. Sure, I don’t have a gaming PC right now. I don’t have a PC at all. I plan on having one, though, and those games (and any future Xbox “exclusives” I want to play) will be there waiting for me when I do.
The solution seems clear: get rid of the gaming hardware I’m not using and take a deeper dive into the minimalist lifestyle I’d love to embrace. Having less gaming hardware won’t make me less of a gamer, whatever that even means. It will make moving easier, though. And it’ll clear up my crowded TV stand. There’s another major benefit, too: selling all those systems might cover the cost of a certain other system.
Do you keep your old gaming hardware? Do you get rid of it as you as you have something new? Let me know in the comments.
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For Fueled by Ramen news that is customized to you and your hometown such as local concerts and appearances, please fill out the form. At Fueled by Ramen, we are very concerned about our fans' privacy and do not share or sell your information to
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News - Cobra Starship
The Cobra Starship Night Shades album is available to preorder in The Fueled By Ramen Webstore now! Check out the Limited Bundle which features the brand new album, the 'Broken Sunglasses' shirt, the 'Vintage Patch' zip-up hoodie and white sunglasses! Plus when you order you will get an instant download of 'You Make Me Feel...' featuring Sabi.
There are only 300 of the Limited Bundles available so order now before these items are gone forever!
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL...
The first 500 orders will come with a signed band member photo still from the music video
Five randomly selected customers will receive a full set of all 5 band member photos
One randomly selected customer will win the pair of broken sunglasses from the album cover
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Cobra Starship's new video for 'You Make Me Feel...' featuring Sabi. They shot the video in NYC with Kai Regan and had a ton of friends stop by including Guy Ripley, Robin Williams, Just Jared, James Montgomery and Nicky Digital!
We were doing some cleaning last month and found a box of the Cobra Starship 'Guilty Pleasure' bracelets. We only have a few left but they are available now in The Fueled By Ramen Webstore! Each order comes with the black and the white bracelet.
There have been some amazing Cobra Starship Photobooth submissions over the weekend. Here is one of our favorites! Check it out and then step in to The Cobra Starship Photobooth for yourself. Share your best shots on the band's Facebook Wall and you could win some great prizes!
Have you stepped in to The Cobra Starship Photobooth yet? Take your best photo and post it on Cobra Starship's Facebook Wall and you could win some awesome prizes. We'll be picking our favorites over the next few weeks to win some awesome stuff from the band!
If you've seen Cobra Starship's new video for 'You Make Me Feel...' and want to step into the photobooth yourself, now is your chance! Click HERE to check out The Cobra Starship Photobooth and find out how you really feel. All you need is a webcam on your computer.
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W17 – Redesign for UX: Website Usability
Website design is about more than choosing pretty colors. This interactive workshop takes you through the steps of a website redesign process, including the very important step of usability testing. Usability testing ensures your users experience (UX) is positive and successful. After this workshop, participants will be able to identify the aspects of their websites that are worth saving, the parts that need to change, and how to make it happen. The focus is on the desired end results and user needs, not coding!
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Quisqualis indica "Rangoon Double" (gal)
$22.99$17.99
1 Gallon - 6 Inch Pot
Quisqualis indica Double Flower - Rangoon Creeper
This vine, suitable for arches and arbors, produces arching branches bearing clusters of star-like, sweetly fragrant flowers. Blooms appear periodically during the warm months and are intensely fragrant. Flower petals are white when they open the first day and then gradually change color to pink, and then red. Flowers, although fragrant during the day, become more fragrant at night.
Fragrant double flowers grace this rambunctious vine. They open white early in the day and turn deep red over the course of the day.
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The NBA 2K20 Tournament is bound to make waves during a relatively silent sports season. Some of the best real-life NBA players, including Kevin Durant, Andre Drummond, and Donovan Mitchell will participate in the video game tournament, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.
The league is still finalizing some of the details of this tournament, hoping to launch it on Friday and expecting for it to last 10 days.
Other players like Los Angeles Lakers injured center DeMarcus Cousins will get the chance to get back on the court, virtually, to show off their skills on the sticks — now that the 2019-20 season has been brought to a halt.
ESPN’s The Boardroom revealed the 16 participants, which will be seeded by players’ 2K ratings. Other players like Trae Young, Hassan Whiteside, Devin Booker, Zach LaVine, and others will participate in the tournament.
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ZOMBY Announces New EP, Shares Track
GASP! follows last year's Ultra album and was recorded on an all-analog setup, as he explains: “I was tired of too much digitisation and over-saturation; this is a work that represents a shift forward for me.”
The EP's title track is available on a range of streaming services today, with the full EP available for pre-order here.
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China: New testimonies reinforce call to investigate Xinjiang riot
Press Release
July 2, 2010
China: New testimonies reinforce call to investigate Xinjiang riot
Amnesty International Says New Testimonies Reinforce Call for China to Investigate Xinjiang Riot
July 2, 2010
Amnesty International is urging the Chinese government to launch an independent investigation into last year's riots in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, after new testimony obtained by the organization has cast further doubt on the official version of events.
A new report released today, entitled "Justice, justice": The July 2009 Protests in Xinjiang, China includes newly gathered testimonies from Uighurs who fled China after the unrest, which centered on Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi. Interviewees described unnecessary or excessive use of force, mass arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture and ill-treatment in detention that occurred on July 5, 2009 and during the ensuing government crackdown.
"The official account leaves too many questions unanswered. How many people really died, who killed them, how did it happen, and why?" said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Deputy Director.
Ahead of the July 5 anniversary, security in Xinjiang has been tightened, with reports of restrictions on freedom of movement and expression, and on Uighur community organizations.
"Instead of stifling inquiry, blaming outside agitators and generating fear, the Chinese government should use the anniversary to launch a proper investigation, including into the Uighur community’s long-simmering grievances that contributed to the unrest," said Baber.
Eyewitnesses to the July 5 events confirmed that the protest against government inaction in the face of killings of Uighur factory workers in southern China started peacefully, but was met with violence by security forces. One 29-year-old woman from Urumqi said:
"…some 20 military vehicles arrived. The security forces carried automatic rifles and started to push the demonstrators. The woman walked towards them. A policeman shot her. She died. It was shocking, and I was very frightened. Everything then became chaotic.
Rioting erupted later in the evening, particularly in the southern, Uighur, part of the city, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries. Chinese officials said that 197 people died in the violence on July 5. Of the killed, 156 were described as "innocent people" who included 134 ethnic Han Chinese, 11 Hui, 10 Uighurs and one Manchurian.
A 22 year-old male eyewitness described the chaos and violence in Urumqi:
"At about 8pm [on July 5], a group of Uighurs went past our house towards the south, smashing cars and other property. Then, about 30 minutes later there was another group of Uighurs. They were running, the army was behind them. The army shot at them as they fled, in the back. I think maybe three of them died, they were shot in the back."
"It's unclear whether authorities were adequately prepared to protect all citizens, and whether they had the right training and equipment to control the situation without resorting to lethal force," said Baber.
Violent attacks were reported in the city throughout the week, with eyewitnesses reporting to Amnesty International that in some cases police failed to protect Uighurs attacked by Han Chinese on July 7.
China has recently approved a development package for Xinjiang to promote social stability, but Amnesty International is urging the government to deliver both equity and justice in Xinjiang, and ensure broad community consultation in all future planning and implementation.
"The Chinese government hopes to stabilize Xinjiang by directing money at the problem, but without a credible independent investigation of the Urumqi riots and underlying grievances, resentment and mistrust will continue," said Baber.
Over a thousand people were detained in the aftermath of the unrest and possibly hundreds subjected to enforced disappearances. According to official statistics, at least 198 people have been sentenced, following trials that Amnesty International considers to have fallen short of international fair trial standards. Nine people are known to have been executed and at least 26 more sentenced to death.
Amnesty International is calling on China to set up an independent and impartial inquiry into the human rights abuses committed by all participants in the Urumqi unrest, and to ensure a transparent judicial process for all those facing charges linked to the unrest, including fair trials in accordance with international standards.
Background
On July 5, 2009, violence erupted in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China, following a police crackdown on a peaceful demonstration over government inaction following killings of migrant Uighur factory workers in Guangdong, southern China. The protests took place against a back-drop of Uighur resentment, built-up over years of official repression and discrimination.
Several U.N. Special Rapporteurs, including the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Independent Expert on Minority Rights, have asked to visit the XUAR. To date, the Chinese authorities have not granted their request.
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Monday, 11 January 2010
So its a monday was back at work, was actually quite busy today, although i did find time to have a random look on the net for things. I found these really cool but yeh i guess quite geeky starwars troopers heels. I so want a pair but i dont think u can actually get them. I think its gonna have to be a project for me to make my own hehe!
About Me
Hey, my names Jen. Im 21 and i go to Bournemouth Uni where i study Product Design.
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