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Village Technologies 5

Photo from http://www.mrwallpaper.com. Image created by me using Adobe Creative Suite software. Since the moment that 9-year-old me first caught a glimpse of the breathtaking skyline while riding in the middle row of my family’s silver van, I knew I loved New York City. I had an immediate instinct about the city and I held on fiercely to that notion. Then, as time passed, that gut feeling only strengthened. As I got older, I realized my love for writing, and it even started to seem like I was meant to live there. I wanted to become one of the little glowing stars in the skyline I saw behind my eyelids each time I went to sleep. I didn’t just want to move there, I had to. But then I took off my rose-colored glasses, life events got in the way, and I pushed my ‘destiny’ back. I went to college in my hometown, not in the city. When I graduated I got a job in St. Louis, MO and moved there — not to the city. I applied for other jobs over and over again in NYC and sometimes didn’t even get so much as a courtesy rejection email. I could no longer see those glowing towers and smell the sweat on the asphalt when I closed my eyes. The NYC in my dreams had vanished. Now, almost 13 years to the day since I first saw the skyscrapers twinkling in the distance, I’ve decided it’s time to stop looking at the city on the back of my eyelids and see it in person. It’s time to stop dreaming and make that picture a reality. So in the past month, I’ve lined up an apartment to move into on August 1. I’ve been working overtime to save up money to have a safety net when I get there, and dedicated my spare time to applying for jobs and downsizing as much as I can to fit into my new, much smaller and much more expensive space. In a way, I felt a sense of relief the moment I finally decided it was official. I realized I just needed to make the plunge and stop waiting for some sign or a job that I may or may not ever get. Then, only a few moments later, I felt terrified. All of my fears were at the forefront of my mind, each one more stress-inducing than the last. What if I don’t meet any new people that actually become friends? How long will my ‘safety net’ last? What if I’m not able to get a part-time job to make ends meet until I find a full-time position? What if I go there and realize it’s nothing like I thought it would be? What if I fail? Fighting the overwhelming inclination I felt to give in to the panic attack, I focused on remembering the memory of how undauntingly convinced I was that I would live there someday. It helped remind me that it’s not going to do me any good to worry before I get there. All I can do is focus on saving as much money as I can and apply for as many jobs as possible and save the other worries for when I can actually do something about them. The time for dreaming is over. I’ve finally woken up. It’s a weird feeling. The moment when you’re looking around and you simultaneously want to describe everything you’re seeing and feeling to everyone you know, but yet somehow can’t seem to find the right words. It happens when you least expect it. One second you’re trudging uphill, out of breath and unable to concentrate on anything except how much your feet hurt, the next second you’re rounding a corner and your breathing stops and your feet stop moving — only it’s not because of the pain. It’s because you just came around a corner and saw something so beautiful you remember why you bothered to walk on through the pain in the first place. These moments happen at different times and different places to different people for different reasons, but they do happen. And once they do, after the initial shock wears off and you gain the ability to articulate some piece of what you’re thinking and feeling again, you’re left with an overwhelming feeling to share it. All of it. The pain, the parts where you thought you might quit, the second guessing, the parts where you realized you weren’t going to quit, the home stretch that seemed to last a lifetime; and the part where, after all these other things had passed, that you finally made it. Maybe you made it to the top of the 14er. Maybe you made it to the city you’d been waiting your entire life to see. Or maybe you were walking down your street for the thousandth time and for some reason it all looked different. Whatever it was, it changed you. And whether you traveled a mile or a hundred miles or a thousand miles to get to there doesn’t matter. What matters is, what are you going to do now that you’re there? Quote by Ibn Battuta. Image created by me using Adobe Illustrator. Quote by Cesare Pavese. Image created by me using Adobe Illustrator. Consider this post a friendly reminder to let go of the things that don’t matter. But this is a task that’s undoubtedly easier said than done. I know I sometimes get so wrapped up in the emotions surrounding a trip that I can lose sight of why I’m going in the first place. I forget the excitement and the wonder and instead focus on the stress: the stress of packing right without overpacking, the stress of making it to the planes or trains I need to catch, the stress of balancing expenses to last me through the trip, the stress of seeing all the people I promised I’d make the time to see; in addition to the places I wanted to venture off to alone. Which is why this quote hit me so hard last week when I first read it. It still hasn’t left me quite yet. And I hope you consider what traveling light really means to you, too. For me, it feels like this quote by Italian poet Cesare Pavese was originally intended to apply to day-to-day emotions we need to let go of in order to move forward in life. Jealous of that coworker who seems to truly have it all? Holding a grudge against the guy who didn’t call you back? More concerned about getting your afternoon nap in than helping your friend with that favor they asked? Or maybe on some level, just all-around deeply terrified you’re going to fail pursuing your goals if you were to ever actually try? Now think about what (or who) is weighing on your mind. If it’s keeping you down or holding you back, it’s probably time to let go. Step 1: Let go of envies and jealousies. Can you objectively look at why that coworker seems to have it all? Do they have a talent or way of approaching their work that you can learn from? Or can you take them out to coffee, get to know them better and realize they’re — (just banking on the odds, here) human — and that they, too, have problems that might not have been so obvious? Can you make a new friend and turn that jealousy and envy into support and productivity? Step 2: Stop holding on to unforgiveness. If that guy didn’t call you back, do you really want him to now? If he’s so easily willing to cast you aside why shouldn’t you be willing to do the same in your mind? There are actually simple solutions sometimes, and this is one of those instances. Move on. Spend time with new people. Holding a grudge against him won’t make him suddenly realize what he lost — but it will make you lose out on other things in the process. Step 3: Get rid of selfishness. If you’d rather nap than do your friend a favor, you need to ask yourself two questions. Is this person really my friend? And if they are, Why am I being selfish? And even if they aren’t your friend, Should I help them anyway? We’ve all heard the age-old adage “What goes around comes around.” And though I wish this were always true, the reality is that it’s not. Life is not a children’s fiction novel where all of the heroes come to good ends and the villains come to bad ends. Some people who are selfish and greedy and self-involved might not ever have to deal with the repercussions of their actions. So here is where you make a decision about the person you want to be. Do you want to be selfish? No? Great! Now grab a cup of coffee and go help your friend. Step 4: Overcome your fears. Perhaps the hardest step of them all; fear can cripple you, removing any hope of ever moving forward in life. Thus, the question you have to ask yourself is: How bad do you want it? You have to decide for yourself how much work you’re willing to put into it. You have to decide you want to save that extra $50 for your dream trip than go out with your friends this weekend. You have to decide to devote the time to improving your photography and editing skills, decide to work out regularly in order to lose that extra weight, decide to put all efforts into getting that next promotion at your job. Whatever it is, you have to decide you want it. And then you have to decide you want it again and again and again, every day you wake up, until you have it. It’s not just going to fall in your lap because you’re willing it to — you have to decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but if you can do these things, you will move forward. It might not be exactly what you envisioned, but you will find yourself in a better place. Whether that’s literally somewhere else in the world or just confined to the spaces within your sanity is up to you. Just remember to travel light when you go. I try each day to find beauty, to learn something new, or discover new ways to keep going, to keep being inspired. In doing this, I’ve realized that sharing my inspiration is just as important as going out to seek it. So whether anyone is actually paying attention or not, I’m going to start sharing my findings with you. My goal, my hope, is to share a little daily inspiration – I hope to both inspire and be inspired, as I mention in my brief bio on the About page. So here we go. Day 1. Quote by Mary Anne Radmacher. Image created by me using Adobe Illustrator. It’s something I won’t ever be able to forget. The moment I was changed permanently, the moment my view of the world and the people in it shifted. Everything was the same, but somehow different. I realized that everyone and everything around me was worth seeing, worth documenting. Traveling literally takes you to another place, but what people don’t talk about is how it takes you to new places figuratively, too. Seeing a new style of architecture, experiencing a foreign culture, communicating with people who don’t speak the same language – it’s all doing more to you than just giving you more stories to tell and beautiful photos to share. It’s connecting you to new ways of thought and living, providing you with a new perspective on life or love or even something as simple as what good coffee is to you. It allows everyone the opportunity to peer out to the world with fresh eyes, taking in more than just what you literally see in front of you. It will change you. It will grow you. It will force you to look at yourself and the world and come to terms with what you think about both. And you will be better for it. But it can’t happen if you don’t go. Created by me using Adobe Illustrator. It’s the tagline for this blog and quickly becoming the tagline for my life: Getting lost is not a waste of time. It’s a simple thought, really. But it goes against what most people operate by. A lot of us are in a hurry. Or even if we’re not in a hurry per se, we’re on a set timeline. We have a list of things we need to see or do and an idea of when they need to be done by. We do this without really thinking about it. Maybe we’re concerned about making a deadline or not missing the train and subconsciously checking everything off our list. And this isn’t always a bad thing — this can promote productivity, keep us focused on a goal, or help us find order in all the chaos of a busy schedule. But sometimes we’re trying so hard to get everything finished that we forget to pay attention to what we’re actually doing. Case in point: in the summer of 2013, I was backpacking through Europe with two relatively new friends. Prior to the trip, I wasn’t really sure how it was all going to work out. Would we compliment each other in our habits and desires on what to do? Or would we all have different preferences of an ideal trip and bicker most of the time? Luckily, our instincts seemed to be right about each other and we all got along just fine the majority of the time. We wanted to see the major sights but at the same time wanted an authentic, off-the-beaten-path type of experience in each city if we could manage it. But there was one day of our travels in particular which didn’t run so smoothly. We were in Rome at the time and were set to leave the next morning for Florence. We had been there for a day and a half already but, let’s be honest, it’s actually really difficult to see all the things there are to see in Rome in two and half days. We had seen the big attractions — the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill, the Sistine Chapel and Vatican museums — along with other, less-common spots thanks to research and the experience Drew (one of our party) had from living abroad there in college. But the only thing on my list, perhaps cheesy and a little predictable I know, was the Trevi Fountain. I fault Hilary Duff in the Lizzie McGuire Movie for an unrealistic expectation of what would happen after I cast my wish (Just kidding, but there is probably some truth there. I blame my ingrained ’90s kid’ tendencies). But regardless of my reasons, that’s all I wanted to see. As long as that was checked off, everything else would be icing on the cake. Unfortunately, it felt like fate just did not want me to go there. We had planned on going there the first day, but because of our tour time of the Sistine Chapel, we didn’t have time to stop there. Then, for one reason or another, it kept getting bumped by something else on our list. It was too far of a walk, or we needed to eat first, or this, or that. But finally, finally, it was the nearing the end of our full second day there and it was finally decided that that’s where we were headed. It was going to be easy, too — we had been walking almost everywhere, but due to the time and being 5mi away, we were going to take a bus. So we waited. And waited… and waited. Four buses came and went, but not ours. We waited until it had been half an hour before deciding something wasn’t right. Eventually, from talking broken Italian to a woman at the stop, we deduced that a few of the buses, including ours, weren’t running due to engine problems. She wasn’t surprised; apparently it happens a lot. But I was determined. I resolved to walk. I didn’t care how far we had already walked that day or how hungry I already was. I was going to make it there, plain and simple. Drew didn’t feel so inclined, so it was just Jessica and I. Our hostel was close, so he was going to go clean up and take a nap before dinner. We were going to walk there, have our moment, and try to catch a different bus back to the hostel. But once again, fate intervened. There was a marathon or parade or something big happening on one of the major roads we had to cross in order to get there (I didn’t pay attention to what it was in my utter frustration). This added an extra mile to go around to where the Polizia said we could cross. We walked faster — and keep in mind we were close-to-broke college students, so spending money on a cab was avoided at all costs except emergencies — until we were almost there. We had made decent time despite the setback and had just under a mile to go. Jessica, however, needed to sit. This was the absolute last thing I was inclined to do, but I was grateful she hadn’t left me to my lonesome and tagged along, so I begrudgingly agreed. We needed to find a spot though, because we didn’t want to pay to sit at a café. On a whim, we veered off course and onto a smaller side street in the hopes there’d be some sort of wall we could hop up and rest on. And then I saw it. A rather small and somewhat dingy sign bearing the name of a saint in front of large but modest double doors. I glanced overhead to check for a steeple (and that’s when I learned that looking up is just as important as looking around). And that told me all I needed to know. It was a church. Jessica didn’t hesitate, scrambling in to her sanctuary to rest her aching feet. I followed more slowly behind, having just noticed something for the first time. We were completely alone. Which, if you’ve been there, you know doesn’t happen. Especially in the middle of the summer in primetime tourist season. But yet here we were, on a little side street about to walk into what looked like a forgotten church with no one else in sight. It hit me so forcefully that I felt nervous for a moment. Were we supposed to be here? Was this allowed? I decided to walk in. It wasn’t the most beautiful church I had seen in Europe, or even in Rome, but it had a modest beauty that I hadn’t seen in any church in my lifetime, and haven’t encountered since. The ceiling was covered in slightly chipped murals, there were three columns lining the far sides of the pews, the altar and tabernacle in front were unassuming but well-kept and recently polished. It was relatively small for a catholic church, about the square footage of a three bedroom apartment in total, and we were the only two people in there that I could see, apart from one elderly Italian woman sitting in one of the pews. I took a breath. I had been so preoccupied over the last hour about getting to the Trevi Fountain that the entire time we had been walking I hadn’t been appreciating the beauty of the ancient city. And here I was, not exactly lost but not precisely sure where I was either, standing in the middle of what felt like an existential scene crossed between Roman Holiday and The Bicycle Thieves. I sat down and for as long as I needed to collect my thoughts, we sat there. It didn’t matter so much anymore whether I saw the Trevi Fountain or not, because what was the point if I was just going to be miserable or in a hurry the entire time anyway? It’s a lesson that still resonates with me today. Getting lost is not a waste of time when you take a step back and get some perspective. You might not see everything you intended to see, but some of the best experiences in life are the ones we don’t expect. Like that little church, forever stuck in that moment. Its name and location shall remain anonymous — for one, this way it still feels precious and all mine in some capacity — but mostly because two, it leaves the mystery open for you and others out there. I wish for you to stumble into your own little sanctuary and have an unexpectedly profound experience. And for what it’s worth, Jessica and I did make it to the Trevi Fountain afterwards. Although it was by accident, after taking a narrow alley shortcut that wasn’t marked on our map. It’s funny how you find things when you stop looking for them. Why you should travel to a town in Croatia you’ve never heard of. Opatija is a Croatian coastal town resting on the northeastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, and as pointed out in my last post, most people traveling to Croatia have never heard of it. They’ve heard of Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik… but usually not Opatija. However, this wasn’t always the case. The story behind Opatija is a checkered one, dating all the way back to pre-Roman times. But to avoid turning this post into a full-on history lesson, I’ll try to briefly cover the highlights of the town’s modern history, beginning in 1844. Out front of Villa Angiolina circa 1900. Source: http://www.landscapenotes.com. At this time, Iginio Scarpa, a rich merchant from Rijeka (another town in Croatia not far east of Opatija), founded Villa Angiolina. Villa Angiolina is the building that really marked the beginning of tourism in Opatija. This building still stands in Opatija today, converted into a museum devoted to telling you the story I’m telling you now. The main entrance of Villa Angiolina. Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk. Over time, the town became a fashionable spot for the Austrian imperial family and Austrian nobility. The first luxury hotel was built in 1884 and named Hotel Quarnero, but today stands as Grand Hotel Kvarner. Many more hotels and villas were soon built, and Opatija hit the height of tourism in 1889 when the Austrian government declared “Abbazia” (Opatija) the first climatic seaside resort on the Adriatic. However, Opatija would change hands many times over the next century. It was assigned to Italy in 1920 with the advent of fascism, given over to Yugoslavia in 1947, and finally would fall into Croatia’s hands in 1991 with the breakup of Yugoslavia. Since then, Opatija has been fairly quiet, operating to provide a peaceful getaway to tourists and Croatians on holiday alike. The outside garden of Villa Angiolina. Source: http://www.tours.adriaday.com. So then what makes Opatija special? I traveled to a multiple towns and cities throughout Croatia during my stay there, and while each was unique and beautiful in its own right – and I’ll go into each of those in later posts – there was a certain air in Opatija that didn’t seem to be anywhere else. It was that certain air, a feeling, essentially, that made you feel like nothing bad could ever happen there. It’s not an imitation of anything – like a Disney resort trying to lure you into feeling like you’re standing in Germany when you’re really in Florida – it’s authentic. It’s an arresting, tranquil place to forget about the worries on your mind. And it’s not flashy, like a five-star resort in Shanghai, but it will have everything you want and plenty more than you need. A small collection of moments from my time in Opatija. As mentioned earlier, it’s one of the most recognizable landmarks in the town, and the museum inside will be able to give a much more in-depth account than my brief post about the history of the town. ADDED BONUS: the park surrounding Villa Angiolina is a green thumb’s dream, boasting over 150 different plant species both native to the region and other parts of the world. Maiden with the Seagull. Source: http://www.endourology-today.com. This statue has become one of the symbols of the town, and is recognizable across Croatia. It is, however, a new sculpture in comparison to others in Opatija. Maiden with the Seagull was erected in 1956 by the sculptor Zvonko Car. In its place once stood the Madonna del Mare, which was demolished by communists after the end of World War II. This 14th-century Benedictine abbey, Opatija Sv. Jakova, or Abbey of Saint James, from which the town gets its name (“opatija“ means “abbey” in Croatian) can be found in Park Svetog Jakova or Saint James’s Park. Saint James’s Church, originally built in 1506, now stands in the same spot. A less common destination in the town, but fun if you’re looking for a little luck, is the Villa Rosalia, which today is known as Casino Rosalia. Originally constructed in 1896 as a luxurious villa for Austrian aristocracy, it was later credited as being the first casino in eastern Europe. Last, and my personal favorite, part of Opatija you won’t want to miss is simply walking along the stone path that winds through the majority of the water’s edge of the town. There’ll be places to lay out in the sun as you pass, to climb rocks, to take the perfect snapshot, and to look at various street vendors’ art. Left: Me snapping a photo while being snapped in Opatija near Hotel Kvarner. Right: The garden in front of Villa Angiolina facing the Adriatic Sea.

2019-04-23T10:18:14Z

https://quillandquest.com/category/life/

Data is largely taken from the Exoplanet Orbit Database, the Extrasolar Planet Encyclopedia and from the Open Exoplanet Catalogue although I also use published papers, NASA websites and other sources. Before reading further, you may find it helpful to read about planet-naming conventions and about the various methods used to detect exoplanets. Kepler-37 b is probably similar to the planet Mercury in our own Solar System although it is even smaller and hotter. This planet was discovered in 2013 and has a radius of just 1900 km. This compares to 6371 km for the Earth, 2440 km for Mercury and 1737 km for our Moon. This tiny world orbits just 15 million km from a star that’s a little smaller than the Sun and she shares her planetary system with at least two other worlds. Mercury as seen by NASA’s Messenger spacecraft. Is this what Kepler-37 b looks like too? Alien worlds come in all possible sizes. Planets just grade into stars and it’s hard to say where, exactly, the cut-off is between a large planet and a small star. To make matters even more complicated, planet masses have significant uncertainties and so there is much room for debate about whether any given large world should actually be classed instead as a brown dwarf (i.e. a small star). A good example is CT-Chamaeleontis b which is estimated to be 17 times more massive than Jupiter (i.e. 5400 times more massive than the Earth) and which orbits a young star 530 light years from Earth. This planet is so large and so far from its star (440 AU) that it is one of the few exoplanets that can be seen by direct imaging. It only appears as a point of light but, nevertheless, it can actually be seen. CT-Chamaeleontis b and other “nearly-stellar” planets may be the most massive worlds but they don’t necessarily have the largest diameters. Hot Jupiters, planets about as large as Jupiter but orbiting very close to their host-stars, are inflated by the high temperatures so that they become significantly larger than they would otherwise be. The widest known such planet is HAT-P-32 b a planet with almost the same mass as Jupiter but twice its diameter. This world orbits a star, which is a little bigger and hotter than our own Sun, at an average distance of only 4 million km above the star’s surface. That’s less than a tenth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun and so this is a very hot, and heavily inflated, planet. Interestingly, the measured diameter of HAT-P-32 b is very similar to the estimated size of massive planets like CT-Chamaeleontis b and so we can’t yet say whether, if you want to be the biggest of the planets, its better to be near your star or nearly-stellar. Just over 4 light years away lies Alpha-Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, and one member of this triple-star system may have an Earth-sized planet. Alpha-Centauri Bb is 13% more massive than our planet and orbits a star which is only just a little smaller than our own Sun. However, don’t pack your bags yet for a journey to this near neighbour. It orbits just 6 million km from Alpha-Centauri B and so would be an uncomfortably hot place to visit. There’s also significant doubt about whether this world really exists at all since, at this relatively small size, planets are very hard to unambiguously detect by the RV technique used for its discovery. A more secure example of a nearby world is Epsilon-Eridani b, a Jupiter-like world orbiting a Sun-like star at almost a Jupiter-like distance. Epsilon-Eridani is just over ten light years from Earth. In 2006, the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at the Sagittarius Window for a week to look for transiting planets orbiting the 180 000 stars it could see there. These stars lie between us and the centre of our galaxy. This SWEEPS survey spotted several such transits and two of the planets orbited stars bright enough to allow their distance to be measured. One of these, SWEEPS-04, orbits a star that is 27 719 light years from Earth. When it comes to weirdness, it would be hard to beat PSR-J1719-1438 b. This body is slightly heavier than Jupiter and orbits a neutron star every two and a quarter hours at a distance of less than 700 000 km. This may sound like a large distance but, if PSR-J1719-1438 was as large as our Sun, this planet would be orbiting just below the star’s surface! However, neutron stars are collapsed objects with the mass of a star compressed into a sphere just a few kilometres across. Collapse occurs during a supernova explosion and so this planet either survived that cataclysm or formed afterwards from the debris. The preferred explanation is that the planet was originally a star too but that its gaseous envelope was sucked onto the companion (probably causing the supernova). The remaining outer layers were either blown away by the supernova explosion or continued to trickle onto the neutron star afterwards. This left a stellar-core behind that is largely composed of carbon (an end product of stellar nucleosynthesis in smaller stars) which, given the strong gravity of any stellar mass object, is compressed to diamond. In fact, this planet has to be very dense since, otherwise, it would have been broken up by immense tidal forces generated by the neutron star. So a diamond-planet that used to be a star is the most plausible description we have of PSR-J1719-1438 b. However, if we restrict ourselves to planets orbiting normal stars then the closest-in world found so far is Kepler-42 c, a planet a little smaller than Earth which orbits it’s sun twice a day at a distance of less than 900 thousand kilometres. That is still far enough to keep it well away from the surface of its rather small, red-dwarf, star whose radius is less than a fifth that of our Sun. WD-0806-661 Bb is so far from her parent star that she takes 160 000 years to orbit it just once. To put it another way, this planet lies 64 times further away from its star than Pluto does from our Sun. It’s quite a big planet, too, being eight times heavier than Jupiter and so, if there happened to be a similar world orbiting in our own solar system, we would certainly have spotted it by now. Indeed WD-0806-661 Bb was discovered by direct imaging and so we can see it even though it lies 63 light years from Earth. OGLE-2009-BLG-151 MOA-2009-232 b was discovered by gravitational microlensing and is a 7.5 Jupiter-mass planet orbiting a star which is less than 2% of the mass of our Sun. Although OGLE-2009-BLG-151 MOA-2009-232 b orbits it’s star three times closer than we do, our Sun still gives gives us 4000 times more light than this feeble star provides for the only planet discovered, so far, in this distant planetary system. Imagine looking up to see a bloated, red-giant appearing 24 times bigger than our Sun looks to us. That would be the view from HD-208527 b, a planet ten times bigger than Jupiter orbiting a star 60% heavier than ours. This star is only 2 billion years old but, because of its high mass, it has already entered the red-giant stage of old-age. A billion years ago this would have been a normal star and its world would have been close to the habitable zone (it would actually have received about 40% more heat than Earth does). We can speculate that HD-208527 b may have had a Moon upon which life began but, even if it did, life has now become impossible under the fierce gaze of the engorged star. One hundred and thirty light years away lies the star HD-10180 which may have nine planets. That’s more than our own solar system (which has 8 planets now that Pluto has been demoted). This star is very like the Sun but its planetary system is certainly not solar-system-like. Seven of these worlds are roughly the size of Neptune whilst the remaining two are slightly larger than the Earth. The system is also much more compact than our own with the most distant planets lying roughly where the asteroid belt does in our own solar system. Sadly, both of the Earth-mass worlds orbit very close to the star and are far too hot to be habitable. However, as is often the case with exoplanets, the detailed structure of this planetary system is hotly debated and not all experts agree that the evidence supports the existence of nine planets. For a less contentious example of a multi-planet system the best example is Kepler-11, a system of 6 planets circling a very Sun-like star. However, once again, the planetary architecture is quite unlike that of our solar system. The orbits of all six worlds would easily fit inside the orbit of Venus and, despite the fact that these planets are mostly just a little larger than the Earth, their densities suggest that they are not rocky worlds. There are 17 known planetary systems which orbit binary stars. The best known of these, Kepler-16 b, was announced in 2011 and was widely compared to Tatooine, the planet from the movie Star Wars which also had two suns. However, PH-1 b (also known as Planet Hunters 1 b and Kepler-64 b) is the current champion since there are 4 stars in this system comprised of two pairs of binary stars with this planet orbiting one of these binary systems. PH-1 b was discovered by amateur astronomers looking at Kepler light curves provided by NASA as part of the Planet Hunters project. This was the first planet discovered by that project; what a way to start! It’s important to distinguish circumbinary planets, which actually orbit both stars, from planets in binary (or multiple) systems which orbit just one of the stars. If non-circumbinary worlds are allowed in our search for the planet with most suns, then Gliese-667 C is also worth mentioning since this red dwarf star, which has seven planets, itself orbits around the more massive stars Gliese-667 A and Gliese-667 B. Planets in multi-star systems seem to attract comparison to science fiction since Gliese-667 Cc has been nick-named Vulcan after the planet from Star Trek which also orbited a member of a triple-star system. Gliese-667 Cc is at about the right distance from its star to be habitable but it’s also a bit on the heavy side since it weighs in at nearly 4 times the Earth’s mass. The strength of gravity on the surface of this world would be about 50% greater than on Earth (assuming it’s also a rocky planet) and, if Mr Spock came from Gliese-667 Cc, he’d have to be very strong but also probably rather squat. Think “Grumpy” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs rather than Leonard Nimoy (or Zachary Quinto for the younger folks out there). The youngest star with a planet, that I’ve been able to find an age for, is 2M-044144. This star is just one million years old and it’s unlikely that this record will be substantially beaten since, if our planetary formation theories are correct, it usually takes a few million years for planets to form. The planet itself is seven or eight times bigger than Jupiter and orbits almost as far away from its star as Uranus does from ours. This large size and separation has allowed 2M-044144 b’s discovery by direct imaging. WASP-29 b orbits a star whose age has been estimated as fifteen billion years. That’s older than the Universe! However, the uncertainty in this age estimate is large (eight billion years) and so this isn’t really a problem. In any event, WASP-29 b is at least twice as old as our own planet and perhaps nearly as old as the Universe itself. This world is a classic Hot-Jupiter with a 3-day orbit around its star and a mass about that of Saturn. The surface temperature has been estimated at over 600 °C, as a result of proximity to the star, but perhaps there are other, more habitable, planets in this system that we haven’t yet detected. The idea, that there could be worlds in the Universe that have been inhabited far longer than our own, is a fascinating one. We’re still waiting to find an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star but, until we do, Gliese-581 g is widely regarded as the most Earth-like world. This planet orbits in the centre of its star’s habitable zone and is almost certainly a rocky planet as it is only about three-times more massive than the Earth. However, this is not yet a confirmed planet and may turn out to be an artefact in the data rather than a real world. Of the confirmed planets, Kepler-62 e and f are perhaps the most Earth-like as they too sit in the habitable zone and, with radiuses just 60% and 40% larger than Earth, are likely to be rocky planets. Kepler-78 b orbits its Sun-like star every 8.5 hours at a distance of 1.5 million kilometres. The estimated temperature of this Earth-sized world is 2330 °C. However, this planet is almost certainly tidally-locked to its host star so that one side of the world permanently faces the sun. It’s quite possible that the other hemisphere is extremely cold if there is no atmosphere to transport heat. You’d expect planets that orbit far from their parent-star to be the coolest ones. However, most of these more distal worlds are large planets discovered by direct imaging (see Biggest) and these are worlds that are close to becoming stars. Even Jupiter, in our own Solar System, radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun. So, for a cool planet, we’re looking for a planet which is not too big and which is also fairly distant from it’s sun. One possible candidate for the coldest known planet is Formalhaut Ab, a planet “only” three times heavier than Jupiter orbiting 177 AU from it’s star. Formalhout-A itself is, however, a very bright star which pumps out more than ten-times as much heat as our Sun does. Nevertheless, when you get 177 AU away, temperatures will still be very low even with such a bright host-star. Estimated temperatures depends upon many assumptions (in particular upon the albedo, whether there is any greenhouse effect and where we take the “surface” as being on a gaseous world) but a back-of-an-envelope calculation gives a temperature of -230 °C for Formalhaut Ab.

2019-04-20T16:51:45Z

https://davidwaltham.com/space-oddities/

There are many ways to make a hotel room more comfortable. If you’re a guest staying at the hotel, you should bring crucial things that you’d never travel without like toiletries, entertainment options, and your favorite snack. If you have trouble sleeping, bring earplugs and a sleeping mask. Keep your hotel room clean by giving all the surfaces, doorknobs, and remote controls a wipe down. Finally, if you’re a hotel employee trying to make the hotel room more comfortable for guests, emphasize open space by removing clutter, put a mirror on the wall, and ensure the room has a window or two. Trade in your pillow. Many hotels offer the option of swapping your pillow if yours is too hard, too soft, or too lumpy. Contact your hotel’s sleep concierge or housekeeping department in order to get a pillow that suits your sleeping style. Have a pre-sleep nighttime routine. Turn off your computer and TV at least an hour before you go to sleep. Set your phone alarm and set it aside for the night. This will prevent you from looking at the screen, which can make it harder for you to go to bed. You could also read a book in bed to help you relax. Block out sensory information. Use a sleep mask and earplugs to avoid being disrupted by goings-on either outside or in the next room over. Your earplugs should block sound 60 decibels and above. Your eye mask should completely block out light and sit comfortably on your face. These are especially important if you’re sharing the room with someone who snores or has a different bedtime than you. Instead of earplugs, you could invest in a white noise machine. A white noise machine is a small device that drowns out the sound of external noises by producing a steady and pleasing low-volume sound of its own. Bring some entertainment. Your hotel room will feel distinctly unpleasant and uncomfortable if you can’t find anything on TV to watch, or cannot find entertainment in your local language. Bring a portable DVD player, laptop, or tablet so you can watch movies and music of your choice. If you bring a portable DVD player, you should also bring some DVDs. With a laptop, you could also play games or stream movies. Consider bringing an HDMI cord so you can connect your laptop to the TV for a big-screen experience. Take your creature comforts. Some people have one “must-have” object that they just can’t travel without. For some, it’s a special comb. For others, it’s their makeup. If you’re picky about your pillows, bring your own pillow or pillowcase from home. Whatever your special travel item is, don’t leave home without it. This will make your hotel experience more pleasant. Bring some snacks. If you have a favorite snack, you will feel more comfortable in your hotel room if you have it on hand. For instance, if you often snack on unsalted whole-wheat crackers, you would be more comfortable in your hotel room if you have a travel pack of them with you during your hotel stay. If you have a longer hotel stay, you might opt to pack a larger package of your snack of choice. Bring your own toiletries. Most hotels offer free toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and razors. However, these toiletries might not suit your particular tastes, and you’d likely be more comfortable using your own. For instance, you might want to use your coconut-flavored soap and body scrub, or perhaps you’d prefer your mint-flavored toothpaste. You can easily pack your toiletries in a small toiletries case. Unpack your things. After you’ve checked the room for bed bugs, unpack your things. This will help you settle in and feel more at home in your hotel room. Take advantage of the closet and the hangers. Don’t be afraid to ask for more from the front desk if you need them. Set your favored travel items where they belong. For instance, if you packed a picture of your family, set it up by your bedside. If you brought your own toiletries, place them in the bathroom. Bring your dog. If possible, take your dog along with you. Traveling can be a great adventure for your dog, and give the two of you some time to bond. You’ll feel more comfortable traveling with your dog. If you travel with your dog, be sure to place it in a crate when you’re not in the room to prevent it from marking its territory. Check with the hotel before you arrive to ensure that you can bring your pet into the room with you. If your dog is averse to traveling, do not bring it in order to make the hotel room feel more comfortable (or for any other reason). Do a quick cleanup. Hopefully, housekeeping has been doing its job and cleaned the room thoroughly in advance of your arrival. But you might feel more comfortable and at home in your hotel room if you wipe down areas and objects most likely to be sticky or filth-ridden. For instance, use alcoholic wipes to rub down the TV remote, telephone, door handles, and the handle on the mini fridge. You might also feel more comfortable if you run a wet hand towel or paper towel across dusty surfaces that housekeeping missed. Be sure to check for bed bugs by lifting the sheets to check the mattress. If you see small brown or red specks dotting the mattress, ask for another room or just ask for a refund and find a better hotel. Clean the air. If you’re in a smoking room or if your room has a weird scent, you might be glad you brought along a portable air fresher. For instance, the GermGuardian GG1000 or the Hayata Mini-Mate are both effective at reducing odors. The GermGuardian plugs into an electrical socket and cleans the air as it removes the odors. The Hayata is a rechargeable device and can be worn around the neck or placed on your nightstand. Alternatively, you could bring a travel-size linen spray or scented candles. This will replace a hotel room’s disagreeable stink with a more refreshing odor. Bring your slippers. Slippers are like shoes, but are usually worn without socks and are meant for indoor use only. If you bring a pair of slippers to the hotel, your stay will be more comfortable, especially if you’re staying at a hotel during the chilly winter season. Plus, slippers will keep your feet off the sometimes grimy hotel room floors. Change the temperature of the room. If your room is too cold, you might want to increase the temperature. If the room is too warm, you might want to decrease the temperature. You can adjust the temperature in either direction by locating the thermostat. Set the thermostat at the temperature you desire to make the room to a more comfortable level. You should reduce the temperature slightly when going to bed. It is easier to fall asleep in a slightly cooler room. Opening the window a bit is also a good way of adjusting the temperature. If the weather outside is cool, you can cool your room somewhat by opening the window. If the weather outside is hot, you can warm the room somewhat by opening the window. Open or close the curtains. If the curtains are drawn, your room might feel dim, cramped, and gloomy. But if the curtains are parted, you will be able to let light in and make the room feel more refreshing. If you do not like seeing what’s going on outside or being woken up by sunshine in the morning, keep your curtains drawn tightly. If you have a particular distaste for sunshine, ask the front desk to provide you with a set of blackout curtains if any are available. These are extra-thick curtains specially designed for people who wish to see nothing of the world outside their window. Move furniture to your liking. When you rent a hotel room, you can move the furniture in any way you like. If you believe that the flow of a hotel room works better when the nightstand is on the left side of the bed rather than the right, give it a try. If you don’t like where you’ve moved a piece of furniture, you can always move it back, or move it to a different spot altogether. Experiment with the locations of various items of furniture to find an arrangement that makes you feel most comfortable. Leave a welcome basket. Guests will feel more at home if they receive a small basket of treats and snacks when they arrive. The basket might include bottled water, travel-sized snacks like granola bars or bags of crackers, and travel-sized soaps. Guests might also appreciate over-the-counter medications, mini lint rollers, and other gadgets and goods to make them feel comfortable. Give guests a cheat sheet. Provide your guests with a sheet that answers frequently-asked questions. For instance, you might draft a sheet that provides the wi-fi password, directions to the nearest tourist sights, and phone numbers for the hotel’s different departments (for instance, front desk, housekeeping, room service, and so on). This will save both you and the guest time. Give this cheat sheet to the guest as soon as they check in. Provide extra storage space. Try not to fill up the closets with vacuum cleaners, ironing boards, and other objects. The closet should be storage for the guest’s clothes and suitcase. Find other places (beneath the bed, for instance) for these stored items, and include plenty of hangers in the closet for the guest. Leave a water pitcher and cups. Place a water pitcher filled with cool, refreshing water on a table or counter in the hotel room. Put some cups nearby. You could use disposable paper cups, but you’re better off leaving some sturdier glasses with the water. These feel more substantial and make the hotel room feel more comfortable for the guests. Put flowers in the room. A room with a fresh bouquet of vibrant flowers will give any dull room a burst of color and a fresh scent. You could include tulips, roses, petunias, or mix of many different sorts of flowers when putting flowers in the room. Whatever sort of flowers you choose, place them in a tasteful vase of clear glass or white porcelain. Place the vase on the counter or table. Make the bed. When guests walk into a room and the bed is in disarray, they will be reminded that they’re not at home and feel out of place. Guests will feel more comfortable if they come into a room where the bed is made nicely, with the sheet beneath the comforter and the pillows fluffed nicely at the head of the bed. You might also drape a heavy folded blanket over the foot of the bed. Keep surfaces clean and clear. Before guests arrive, get the room dusted, swept, and vacuumed. Remove magazines, city guides, and other objects that only clutter nightstands and tabletops. Likewise, remove decorative objects like dolls and small abstract sculptures. The less space you clutter, the more space will be available to the guest to use as they please. Emphasize open space. Cramped and claustrophobic hotel rooms are not comfortable. Your guest will be most comfortable if you fit the bed to the size of the room. Ensure that each room has at least one window. Keep the ceilings high enough that people don’t bump their heads on them. For instance, do not put a large bed in a small room. Instead, put a large bed in a large room, and a small bed in a small room. Guests should be able to walk comfortably around the bed on all sides without bumping into either the bed itself or other furniture. If you have a hotel room where easy movement is impossible, consider swapping the bed out for a smaller one and making it a room for a single person only. Ceilings should be about four meters (12 feet) high. Any shorter and guests will feel confined. Add one window and one mirror to the room. These maximize the light in the room and make the space feel more open. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 4,219 times.

2019-04-23T06:43:26Z

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Hotel-Room-More-Comfortable

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 27 2010, 2:55 pm by poiuy_qwert. Seems a bit redundant since there's already MacroTriggers to do basically the same thing, or am I wrong and there's stuff in this that MacroTriggers can't do? It's much less strict of a language than MacroTriggers, and since it's built on Python, anything allowed in Python goes, which means a lot more open coding. My only complaint is that the style of the code, although efficient once you understand it, doesn't seem very user friendly. I'm currently writing Mystic Islands RPG in MacroTriggers, but when that's finished, I may try this one out for working on Fort Ethanios and see how they compare. yoonkwun: Well actually I wouldn't have made this since MacroTriggers is there, but I actually started this a while before MactroTriggers and it has been sitting on my USB, 30 minutes of coding away from being done (and a few people have been asking me about it). You are correct for most of the things you need to do, MacroTriggers can do it, but there are a few things ProTRG can do that MacroTriggers cant. Also, as Falkoner said Python is a much more open language (its also dynamic and not strongly typed) and has a large backend if you so happened to need something from it. I've also released the source code, and since its written in Python it can be use on Mac and Linux (like MacroTriggers i believe). Does it actually make triggers into data structure representations or is it simply a collection of functions that print to trigedit text? Everything is custom classes. Trigger is a class, every condition is a class that inherits from the Condition class (which inherits from the Raw class), every action is a class that inherits from the Action class (which inherits from the Raw class as well). The way it works is there is an internal list of triggers (which can actually be manually modified), when you create a Trigger object with the add keyword parameter set as True (which is default) or use the addTrigger method on a Trigger object, that object is added to the end of the list. When the script is done the Triggers are printed in order they are in the internal trigger list. Some more info can be found in the Coding section of the readme or original post. Edit: Ah neat, just finished reading. I'll see if I can't learn me some Python later to try it out. Also: Does it validate condition and action field types? It'd help a lot to not have to dig through compile errors in trigedit to find out I accidentally put a unit where a location was supposed to go in some random trigger (an annoyingly common mistake for me, alas). Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jan 11 2010, 7:38 am by Tuxedo-Templar. Does it validate condition and action field types? It'd help a lot to not have to dig through compile errors in trigedit to find out I accidentally put a unit where a location was supposed to go in some random trigger (an annoyingly common mistake for me, alas). There is a little bit of compile checking, but the scenario you stated could happen, since the parameters are meant to be as accepting as possible. I'm glad it can be of use to you! I can print hello world in python. I think (if you do decide to release an update) that you should automatically add conditions and actions comments. I definitely will be updating ProTRG, but I don't know what you mean by condition and action comments. And it will be able to tell myUnit is not meant to be a LOCATION and throw an exception. Edit2: I knew i forgot something! EUD support! Which parameters of which conditions does SCMDraft support extended units and extended players? Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 12 2010, 11:22 pm by poiuy_qwert. Also, what about compiling multiple source files into a single project? Don't say "just run it for each file" because I like to do stuff like put variable declarations and code into separate files. Also, what's a good way with Python in Notepad++ to make foldable blocks for hierarchically organizing large groups of triggers? I couldn't live without something like that. Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Jan 15 2010, 9:01 am by Tuxedo-Templar. I didn't quite think this one through when making it. You can use Pythons built in import command but that only lets you import files with Python extensions (not .txt or .protrg). I'll add a specific pre-processor for ProTRG imports in the next version, which should be out fairly soon. This is my one problem with Notepad++, custom highlighters cant use a Python based system for foldable blocks, which means using the ProTRG user defined highlighter will not give you the folding blocks. The only way to do it is to switch to using the built in Python highlighter. The problem in this case is the ProTRG specific keywords and stuff will no longer be highlighted and/or give autocomplete hints (unless you can add the ProTRG stuff to the Python stuff, i'll look into that the next time I can), but the reference.txt can be used in its place. I'd be glad to know that at least someone is using it! Hmm. MacroTriggers uses a custom highlighter and managed foldable blocks by using block openers and closers within line comments (//> to open, //< to close). Would doing something like that be an option? Does your autocomplete let you fill in each of a function's parameters one after the other? If not, then it's nigh useless anyway. I rarely use autocomplete with MacroTriggers since I can only autocomplete condition or action names; not parameters. I use NP++ macros bound to numpad keys + Ctrl for the most common condition and action types, though, which is just about all I need. Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jan 15 2010, 11:40 pm by Tuxedo-Templar. Ah yes I forgot about that option. I'll add that for the next release. The autocomplete is the same for any Notepad++ language API, there's not really any way around it. I can print hello world in python. This is just perfect. I'm spending my time today learning to use this. Oh yeah, this should be more flexible than MacroTriggers, which I've been semi annoyed with due to Wormer not working on it, but since this is built on Python, there should be very few things that are annoying, comparatively. Also, make sure you add the collapsable comments (//> //<) because those really allow you to do serious organization, splitting trigger systems into functions, that can be tucked away neatly once finished, I can't begin to explain how wonderful making Mystic Islands has been with that ability. Well there is one thing that annoys me about APIs versus custom languages: Readability takes a major hit. Not that there aren't ways to compensate, and through them, perhaps even improve readability... but at a cost. Doing that ventures into a territory solidly away from trigger making and into near-full fledged scripting. The complexity involved stands to become amped up significantly. Still. It is the 'right' approach, if it's trigger abstraction we're going for. Though I'd probably revert back to MacroTriggers if it were just upgraded a bit (or maybe not; I am starting to enjoy having regex again, now ). Trigger making can (and should) be handled in only so many advanced ways, really. No matter how much scripting you wrap it with, triggers can't (or shouldn't, I should say) be turned into a scripting language themselves. You could get pretty darn close, though. A lot of Starcraft's functions need to be handled much too intimately for proper abstraction, though. Simplicity and readability are still important goals, therefore. Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Jan 18 2010, 4:11 am by Tuxedo-Templar. So I messed a little bit with this today, and here is one of the things I made. What this does, is it defines the function Hyper() as a hyper trigger. Now, within the code I can call the function Hyper and it will output a hyper trigger for me. I can also use loops to call multiple amounts of hyper triggers. Here is my code that goes into the input .protrg file. Just thought I should share this, as some people might find it useful. Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jan 18 2010, 7:41 am by CecilSunkure.

2019-04-23T22:21:55Z

http://www.staredit.net/topic/9581/

Despite covering nearly three quarters of the surface of the earth, the world’s oceans are signalling a severe deterioration in health due to a number of human related impacts. An independent set of report published by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) has indicated that various significant factors are mounting a cause for concern that is overreaching what scientists had initially predicted. Over time, the ocean has lessoned the affects of global warming by absorbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. Whilst this has reduced greenhouse gas levels, this uptake of carbon dioxide has caused the water to become increasingly acidic. Along with overfishing, other sources of pollution and the increasingly more common ‘dead zones’ formed by fertiliser run-off, the oceans are showing the strains and may suffer from potential mass extinction. An example of where these negative impacts are being noticeably felt are along coral reefs. Not only are the corals incredibly sensitive to ocean warming but pollution, coral mining and destructive fishing practices also limit the growth of these vital organisms negatively impacting their vital role in biological ecosystems and geochemical processes within the sea. A recent report revealed that coral coverage on the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral system, has declined by a staggering 50% over the past 30 years. The reports indicate the requirement for immediate responses on both a global, national and local scale. Chiefly, urgent action must be taken to cut CO2 emissions, promote and manage sustainable fishing practices and governments must tackle key groups of chemicals that are being released into the ocean. Please watch the following three sort films and answer the questions below. Your answers need to be posted at the bottom of this blog. What is the main ocean threat discussed in each video? —What actions are people taking to address these threats? Film 3: Arabian ‘Sea Cows’ Going Hungry? In video 1, the main threats are pollution, global warming and over-fishing. People are trying to help by making coral reefs out of man-made, artificial objects. In the second video, the problem was that they were using dynamite to fish and it was damaging the coral reefs. And same as before, they were over-fishing. They introduced a few new rules including putting 10% of the land as no fishing zones. In the final video, the threats to the dugongs were motor boats and fishing nets. The government banned some types of fishing nets and produced new laws on the speed limit of a speed boat. The main ocean threats in video one is the impact that global warming and pollution is making on the coral reefs/animals. Humans are polluting the ocean by throwing wastes in it and some marine animals had mistaken it for food which causes them to choke and die but others have been trying to restore the corals by creating artificial ones from shipwrecks and man made things although this can only be temporarily. In video 2, the main threats is the destruction on the coral reefs and the rapid decrease of fish from using dynamites,cyanides and over fishing. To fix this problem, the government created a law banning destructive fishing but since that didnt work, a man called Angel Alcala introduced the villagers to a new strategy of creating a ‘no fishing’ zone which restored the fishes within three years. The villagers then created two new rules: Fishing only allowed for Abo villager & no destructive fishing methods. In video three, they are talking about the threats to the dugongs and the sea grass beds. Pollution from the construction of houses goes into the ocean killing the sea grasses which then affects the food chain since most marine life that live there depend on it especially the dugongs. Other than that, dugongs are found washed ashore, stuck in fishing nets while others aree killed by speedboats. So the government decided to create a marine/dugong protected sanctuary and banned certain types of fishing nets. In video 1, the main threats were global warming, pollutions and overfishing. Global warming and pollutions are destroying the coral reefs and animals under the sea. Humans are also making pollution and destroying the ocean by throwing rubbish into the ocean. The fishes in the ocean doesn’t know so they eat it and they are going to die faster. In the future we might not be able to see beautiful fishes in the oceans anymore. In video 2, the main threats were destruction on the coral reefs and using dynamites, cyanides and also overfishing. The government decided to make a law to ban destructive fishing. But it did not help the villagers. So a man called Angel Alcala showed the villagers and told them to make a no fishing zone. The villagers created 2 new rules that they made up which was fishing allowed for Abo villagers and no destructive fishing methods. The villagers said that it had change their life from doing this. In video 3, they were talking about the dugongs and sea beds. Pollutions affect the sea beds and then the dugongs because the dugongs eat sea beds as their main food. When the Dugongs die they will normally found on the shore. The scientist were investigating about it. That said that some were stuck in fishing nets while others are killed because of speedboats these days. The government decided to protect the dugongs and banned some types of fishing nets. The main threat in video 1 is global warming, pollution and overfishing. Nowadays many people throw waste into the sea and marine animals mistaken it for food, this would make the animals eat the waste and choke. Pollution and global warming is destroying a huge number of coral reef under the sea which makes feeding grounds less for a variety of aquatic life. Nowadays people have been trying to make artificial reefs that are made by man-made objects and sunken ships to increase the number of feeding ground for the aquatic life. The main threat in video 2 is destructive fishing method by using dynamite and cyanide as well as over fishing to catch fishes and does also destroy the coral reefs. The government created a law banning destructive fishing, but the law was not enforceable. Then a man called Angel Alcala help the villagers about this case by introducing a ‘Non Fishing Zone’ which unbelievably restored back the amount of fish in three years time. Then the Apo Islanders came up with two new rules but still continued the rule of ‘Non Fishing Zone’ in the sanctuary. Rule number one is that fishing there is only for Apo Islanders. Rule number two is that no destructive fishing method were allowed. The main threat in video 3 is pollution from construction which destroy and dugongs and the seagrass bed. Dugongs is a large marine mammal which eats grass from the seagrass bed. Dugongs need seagrass to survive as well as green turtles which the seagrass bed provides food and shelter for it. Dugongs are also found washed up ashore because of speedboats or had been captured into the fishing nets and drown when they become tangled with nets. Government decided make up a law reducing the boat speed in some areas and also banned some certain types of fishing nets. In video 1 the main reasons are that people are fishing too much, pollution and global warming. Some people are trying too help the oceans by making coral reefs with man made objects. In the second video they also fished too much but they were using explosives to fish which damaged the coral reefs which leads to less fish in the oceans. In the final video the boats where threatening the seas with the speed of the boat also the mortar boat and fishing boats where damaging the seas so that less and less fish where in the reefs and oceans. The threat discussed in this video are pollution (plastic bags), global warming and over fishing which destroyed the reefs. An action people is taking to address these threats are that they make artificial (fake) coral reefs. The threat discussed in this video is that the number of fish decreased very quickly because of destructive fishing (using dynamites and cyanide). The coral reefs were destroyed. The actions people are taking to address this threat are they set up no fishing zone (fishing sanctuary). They also made rules that fishing is for only Apo Islanders and no destructive fishing methods. The threat discussed in this video is that the pollution and silt covered and killed the sea grass. Sea cows and other marine animals have less food. The actions people are taking to address this threat is they count how many sea cows they have. And when they find a dead sea cow on the beach, they measure its size and took photos and try to find out how it died. They set up a sanctuary for sea cows. They reduce boat speeds and ban fishing nets that harm the sea cows. They also teach the children how important the sea cows are. Today, Global warming,over-fishing and pollution are the main cause of ocean health deterioration. All videos explain in detail the impacts of these human-related factors in ocean reef. Eventhough in some area they have tried to reverse the deterioration of reef life,unfortunately most part is irreversible. Some marine scientists had come up with idea of “fishing zone’ to restore to some extend the life of fish in some villages, but it damage from industries, human and chemical waste and other are so extensive that require immediate responses in national and global scale. Our response should focus on area of conservation, public awareness and education. In the first video the main threat in pollution and global warming, people start to throw rubbish into the sea, which it’s starting to destroy the coral reefs under the sea. Small and big fishes in the sea eats the rubbish that is been thrown into the sea which will eventually lead them to die faster. In the second video it shows how quick fish decreased in the sea because of destructive fishing using dynamites and cynides. Which made the govourments decide to ban destructive fishing. But it didn’t help the villagers. So one day a man called Angel Alcala told the villagers to set up a zone called no fishing zone. So they made up two new rules which allows the villagers to fish without using the method destructive fishing. And so it changes their life forever. In the third video it shows sea beds and gugongs. Pollution will eventually destroy the sea bed that the dugongs eat as their food everyday. Most of the dugongs die because they have no food and some fishing nets most of them will be found on the beach shore. The scientists said some dugongs are being killed by nets while some other are being killed some speedboats. So the govourments tries to protect the dugongs by banning some of the fishing nets. the main threats are overfishing, global warming and pollution. People are trying to stop this by creating artificial(fake) coral reefs as fishes are dying a lot. Video 2: In this video they showed how quickly fish are decreasing by the way of using dynamites and cynides. The government tried to ban destructive fishing but it didn’t work. so some guy set up a no fishing zone. In this video the threats were speed boats going too fast and some fishing nets were causing too much damage. So a speed limit was set and some nets banned. In video 1 the main threats were overfishing, pollution and global warming people are trying to solve the problem using man made artificial coral reefs the other problems are rubbish and fish eating plastic. In video 2 they showed how quickly the population on fish decreased by using harmful fishing methods including dynamite and cynides which destroyed coral reefs, the government tried to ban this type of fishing but it didn’t work so a guy called Angel Alcala talked them into a non fishing zones and setting up a marine life sancuary, the villagers were enthusiastic and 10 percent of the island were non fishing zones or marine life sanctuarys. They banned destructive fishing and everything was normal. The third video the threat is pollution destroying the seagrass bed which affects a lot of marine life especially the sea cow. They were also affected by speed boats and getting tangled in nets, so to save the species the government reduced the speed limits of boats and banned harmful types of nets. The main threats are global warming,pollution and over fishing. People are helping by using artificial reefs created by sunken ships or other man made objects. The main threats in this video were fishermen using destructive fishing method which decreases the population of fish and damaged the coral habitats. Because of that they used 10% of the land and made it a no fishing zone. The main threat in this video are constructions polluting the ocean, choking the corals and smothering the sea grass. Also the speed boats were too fast and the fishing nets caused too much damage which affects the marine lives especially the dugongs(sea cow). Because of this they had to reduce the speed of boats and banned harmful types of nets. In the first film, the main threats are pollution, overfishing and global warming. So the people make artificial reefs. The second film’s threat is that people use explosives to kill fish. The people then made a no fishing zone. This last film’s threat was construction polluting the sea bed. The people then had boat speed limits and banned some nets. Film 1: The great threats in the video is global warming (sometimes caused by pollution) and overfishing. What people do to help is make artificial coral reefs out of man made objects like a sunken ship to replace the reefs destroyed. Film 2 : The huge threats to the ocean in this video is fishermen that use effective methods in fishing for example throwing explosives into the water. Then one guy suggested a way of reducing it by banning throwing explosives to kill the fishes and made a non fishing zone. Film 3: The big threat in this video is that pollution will soon destroy the sea grass and the dugongs (sea cows) only feed on sea grass. They were affected by the speed of boats on the water surface and fishing nets. The people banned the use of some kinds of nets and had a speed limit for the boats. In the first video, the main threat was pollution in the ocean. Some groups of people are trying to protect and make artificial coral reefs. In the second video, the main threat was explosions being used to catch fishes. The method works but it would also destroy the coral reefs. Then, people started to build a sanctuary for fishes. In the third video, the main threat was fishing boats going too fast and some fishing nets were causing too much damage. A speed limit was set to prevent more damages. The main threats in the video is global warming and pollution. Humans are finding a way to help by using man made objects and artificial reefs. The main threats in this video is humans are using explosions to catch fishes, and it shows how fast the fish are decreasing. Which damages the corals habitats. The main threats in this video is pollution and destroying the sea grass beds which affects the sea cows. The speed boats are going too fast, so they set a speed limit. Coral reefs in the first video provide a habitat for many different kinds of fish. They had lived and reproduced for 50 million years, but in these days people throw rubbish, such as plastic bags and cans into the ocean. This causes pollution, which is one of the main threats. Two other threats in the first video are global warming, andover fishing. People are creating artificial reefs by using sunken ships and man-made objects to replace the real reefs, but these artificial reefs can only stay for a while. Fish in the Apo Island in Philippines are decreasing rapidly. Fishermen are trying as hard as they could to find fish, but sometimes they only get a few small fish……. The main threats in the second video are using dynamites and cyanide to fish (these can also destroy coral reefs). Another main problem on the Apo Island is over fishing. The government had considered and decided to ban destructive fishing, but the law did not help. In 1980, a doctor called Angel Alcala suggested that they could make a ‘no fishing zone’ where they were not allowed to find fish, and the outcome was quite impressive. Sea grass, in the third video, are food for dugongs. In order to survive, dugongs need to eat huge amount of sea grass, but they are dying because of pollution from construction of buildings and houses. Not only dugongs that suffer, but sea grass also provide food for green tortoise. There may not be any dugong left if they suffer longer. The government protected dugongs by banning some types of fishing and reduced speed boats. In video one the main threat is that there is global warming, pollution and over fishing. People are now making artificial reefs from sunken ships and other man-made objects but the ocean is still in threat from this problem. In video two the main threat is that people are using dynamites and cyanides to fish and it was very good for fishing but it was bad for the coral habitat. A man called Angel Alcala told the villagers to ban fishing in some areas. They made 2 rules that only Apo island villagers are allowed to fish and they are not allowed to use destructive fishing methods. In video three the main threat is that the constructions is polluting the ocean which is choking the corals and sea grass that the dugongs eat so they are dying. They are also killed by the boats and they drown from getting tangled in the fishing nets. To fix this problem the government banned certain types of fishing nets and reduced the boat speed. In the first clip, the main threat in coral reefs is pollution, global warming and over fishing. To help the coral reefs, people nowadays try to help by making coral reefs out of man-made objects. The main threat in the second clip is destructive fishing method by using dynamite and cyanide. To help preventing from this happening, the law is now banning destructive fishing, but it didn’t work out, so someone named Mr. Angel Alcala was introduced with the idea of the “No Fishing Zone”, which stunningly gained back more fishes in three years’ time. The first video gives us a general idea of humans polluting in various ways and at the same time, not realizing the destruction we made to the marine life. Although scientists invented artificial reefs, I think that the main factor is us. The second video focuses on Apo Islands in the Philippines where decades ago, the fishing village faced marine life problems hence their use of destructive fishing. Many years later, they became more aware of a healthy marine life so they made no-fishing areas. They went through the obstacles and now finds themselves successful. The third video explains to us that another cause of decreasing marine life is because of fishing boats traveling too fast, whereas the net happens to be the problem. The resolution to that problem is a speed limit in seas. And it’s strange. In conclusion, all of the videos are about humans threat to the sea but most of us are unaware of what we are doing. In my opinion, I think that the best resolution is to discuss them in communities to make people more aware because lots×small changes=BIG change. First video: The main threats of this video are global warming, pollutions and overfishing which destroys coral reefs and many species of fishes. People also throw rubbish into the sea that fishes think that they are food and eat them. This makes fishes die. Pollution and rubbish are destroying coral reefs more and more everyday. Humans are making artificial reefs from sunken ships and other objects to try to replace the real reefs. decreasing because of fisher men using destructive fishing methods. The government tried to ban destructive fishing but it didn’t work so Angel Alcala banned some area to not do fishing and made some no fishing zone. Also he made a rule to have no more destructive fishing and this made fishes increase although it took them a long time it still worked. and he had banned some type of fishing nets. In film one, the main ocean threats are people over fishing, global warming and pollution which was caused by people throwing rubbish into the sea. Some marine animals also mistook it for food and ate it which made them die faster. Groups of people who are trying to help made artificial coral reefs out of man-made objects. In film two, the main threats are people over fishing and also using destructive fishing methods such as using dynamites and cyanide. This decreased the population of fishes and also destroyed coral reefs. A man named Mr. Angel Alcala banned some places from fishing and had more no fishing zones. After that, people came up of two rules for fishing, only Apo islanders are able to do fishing and no destructive fishing methods were allowed. In film three, the main threats are constructions polluting the ocean, choking the choral reefs and destroying the sea grass which would be eaten by the dugongs (sea cows). Many things were effecting the dugongs such as fishing boats were also going too fast and they were tangled in fishing nets. People fixed the problems by banning some types of fishing nets that would make more injuries to the dugongs and there were speed limits for fishing boats. The main problems are pollution, global warming and overfishing in some areas. This causes destruction of the coral reef and therefore causes coral species to be endangered. Also fish confuses trash for food and eat them killing them. Their solution for the problems are making artificial reefs. The problem discussed in this video is destructive fishing, for example using Cyanide or dynamite to fish. The negative effect from destructive fishing caused the coral reef to die therefore decreasing the chance of a fisherman catching fishes. The problem was solved by making part of the reef a ‘marine sanctuary’ or a place where no fishing is allowed. The island’s fishery was restored within 10 years. The problem was declining dugong (sea cow) population. This is caused by pollution and debris falling on the sea grass which is the dugong’s food supply. Also fishing nets and boats are killing dugongs. The government decided to ban certain types of fishing nets and limit boat speeds. In the first video clip, there’s 3 main threats; global warming, pollution and over-fishing. People are now making coral reefs with man-made, artificial objects such as from sunken ships. In the second video, the main threats are harmful ways to catch fish, and once again, over fishing. A man by the name of Angel Alcala tells the villagers to make no fishing zone, which within 3 years, the fishes were once again restored. Two new rules were also created: Fishing is only allowed for the villagers in Abo Island and no destructive fishing methods. The third video is now about dugongs and sea beds. Pollution affects the sea beds which is the dugongs main source of food. Some then end up in the shore and are trapped with fishing nets, or killed by motorboats. The government then decided to ban certain types of fishing nets and set a speed limit for the boats. The main threats in this video are pollution, global warming and over-fishing. This harms coral reefs and causes many species of fish to become endangered or extinct. Fish also eat the trash we throw into the sea when they mistake them for food. People now use man-made objects to make artificial reefs. This video explores destructive fishing methods in an island called Apo island. These fishing methods include using dynamite and cyanide. The methods made the coral reefs die. The solution to this problem was to make a “marine sanctuary” which is a zone where fishing was banned. Later they changed the rules so that only Apo fishermen were allowed to fish there and so no one used destructive fishing methods there anymore. The coral reef was then restored 10 years later. The problem in this video is the diminishing dugong population.Dugongs are nicknamed as the “sea cow”. This is because all they do all day is eat sea grass. Q 1. the problem they talked about is about pollution, global worming and over fishing all of which destroys the coral reefs which are the home to many fishes. Q 2. They made new reefs from man-made materials for the fishes to live in. Q 2. They stop using violent methods to fish and recede to using their original tribal methods. They also arrange an area which they called the “fish Sanctuary” in which they stop all fishing activity and allows the corals and fish to grow. Finally the fish will spread out of that area and their will be more fishes. Q 1. The main threat is the pollution from boats which then drops down to the ocean floor and stop the grass on the sea bed from flourishing and therefore, there is less food for the dugongs and the green turtles. They also talk about fishing nets which kills the dugongs. Q 2. They banned some types of fishing nets and they decrease the speed limit for the boats. They also set up some education for the kids to study about the dugongs. Video 1: The three main threats are over fishing, pollution and global warming. To stop these threats the people are making artificial coral reefs usually made from sunken old ships and old metal things. Video 3: The Main threats of this video is pollution destroying the sea bed witch is the dugongs foods. The government bands some typed of fishing nets and setting a speed limit for boats. Video 1: the main threat is pollution, over fishing and global warming which is destroying the coral reefs. They tried to solve this by building artificial reefs from sunken ships and other man made things. Video 2: the main threat is caused by the explosive method fishermens are using to fish. The villagers fixed this problem by turning one section of the island to a no fishing zone for three years which made the area recover massively. Video 3: the main threat is the decreasing amount of sea grass beds which is serving as the main food for dugongs or sea cows. The government is trying to solve this problem by banning some types kf fishing nets and speedboats which are killing the dugongs. In the first video, the main threats are pollution, over fishing and global warming which harm the coral reefs and fish. People are trying to stop this by using man-made materials to make coral. The main threats in the second video are people using dynamite and cyanide to fish fish which also destroys the coral. People have made a ‘fish sanctuary’ where the fish and coral can grow peacefully because you are not allowed to fish there and eventually the fish will spread out and people have stopped using dynamite and cyanide to to fish. In video 3, the main threat is from the pollution of the boats which go down to the sea bed and kills it which means that the dugongs and turtles will have very little to eat. People have decreesed the speed limit for the boats so there will be more food for the dugongs and the turtles. In the first video, the main threaths are pollution, global warming and over fishing which is destroying the coral reefs and fish. They are trying to stop this by using man made materials to make corals. In the second video, the main threaths are caused by fishermen using dynamite and cyanide to catch fish which also is destroying the corals. They solved this problem by not letting fishermen fish in one section of the island for three years. Now, fishermen had stop using dynamite and cyanide to fish. In the third video, the main threath is pollution from the boats that travel down the sea bed and kills the seagrass which means that the dugongs and the turtles won’t have much to eat. The solution is to decrease the speed limit of boats so the dugongs and the turtles will have enough food to eat. In the second video,The main threats . people using dynamite and cyanide to fish, which also destroys the coral. People have made a ‘fish sanctuary’ where the fish and coral can grow peacefully because you are not allowed to fish there and eventually the fish will spread out and people have stopped using dynamite and cyanide to to fish. In the third vedio, the main threat is from the pollution of the boats which go down to the sea bed and kills it which means that the dugongs and turtles will have very little to eat.They are also killed by the boats and they drown from getting tangled in the fishing nets. The main ocean threats are global warming, pollution and over fishing. Sea animals have mistaken it for food which causes them to choke and die. People are trying to make coral reefs out of man made, artificial objects to help them. The problem was people were using dynamites to fish but they are also damaging the coral reefs. They also banned places not fish. The final video are talking about the dugongs and sea beds. The pollution affect the sea beds and the dugongs next. This is because dugongs eat them as their main food. In video 1 the main threats are pollution global warming and overfishing. People are trying to create artificial coral reefs. In video 2 the people were using dynamites to fish. So some places were banned for fishing. In video 1 the threats are pollution and global warming . People are trying to manufacture artificial coral reefs. In video 1 the main ocean threats are global warming, pollution and over fishing, over fishing and global warming which harm the coral reefs and fish. People are trying to stop this by using man made materials to make coral. The final video are talking about the dugongs and sea beds. The pollution affect the sea beds and the dugongs next. The boats were causing damage so a speed limit was set. In the first video the main threats are global warming ,pollution and over fishing which harm the coral reefs and fishes. People are trying to stop this by using man made materials to make coral. In the second video the problem were people are using dynamites to fish but they are also destroying the coral reefs.So some places were banned for fishing. In the last video is about the pollution are damaging the sea bed so the government banned fishing using net and setting a speed limit for boat. In the 1st video the main threats are global warming, pollution and fishing. In the 2nd video the main threats are using dynamites to fish but also destroying the coral reef. In the 3rd video the main threats are about pollution damaging the sea. In the first section of video one, it talks about fishes and coral reefs. The second part of the video talks about how global warming, pollution and over fishing is a threat to fishes and coral reefs. Although some try to stop this by using man-made and artificial objects, the longness of this isn’t certain. People are using explosive equipment like dynamites to catch fish, but not only is that a problem causing over fishing but it also ruins corals. So they decided to make a ‘fish sanctuary’ (a no fishing zone) so that the fish from there will eventually spread to other places too. Not only that, the corals will be able to grow without anything to harm them, now, there are people going snorkeling there because of the beautiful coral reefs and exotic sea creatures. This video talks about damaged sea beds which causes sea animals to starve, especially sea cows. The sea beds are being destroyed by speed boat going too fast. Some of the sea cows are found dead on the beach so people take photos of it and get samples to try and find out how they died and why the population has gone down. Soon they found out that some of them died because they don’t have enough sea grass from the sea beds to eat and others died because they got caught in harmful nets. They try to prevent all these from happening by setting a speed limit to speed boats and banning fishing nets that is able to harm the sea cows. In the first video, the main threats are pollution, global warming and over fishing which harm the coral reefs. They are trying to stop this by making artificial coral reefs. In the 2nd video, the main threat is about using things like dynamite to fish, which also damage coral reefs. They tried to ban destructive fishing but it didn’t work so they decided to make NO FISHING ZONE and allows fish and coral reefs to grow. In the final video, the main threat is pollution from boat falling down to the sea beds, which are dugongs’s and green turtles’s food. Dugong also killed by fishing nets and and boats. The government banned some type of fishing nets and limit the speed.

2019-04-24T08:05:10Z

https://blogs.shrewsbury.ac.th/geography/2013/10/14/declining-ocean-health/

Any homeowner could agree that your kitchen is often the center of the home. You want it to be fully functional while looking great. One of the most important features in your kitchen is the sink. The right kitchen faucet can make a huge difference in the look and function of your kitchen. This article will show you multiple Delta Kitchen Faucet reviews to help you choose the right one for your home. If you love to cook and often have messy hands, this is a great kitchen sink faucet option. The Touch Kitchen Sink Faucet is a touch-on touch-off faucet that you can control with your wrist or forearm. Simply touch your skin to the faucet to turn it on or off. This helps to keep your appliance clean and sanitary. The faucet is made of arctic stainless steel, so even if it does become messy it is easy to clean. It also has TouchClean spray holes that allow you to wipe away calcium and lime buildup without soaking in harsh chemicals. The spray head is magnetic and uses MagnaTite Docking to hold it securely in place. The patented technology seals the faucet to reduce leak points and keep your faucet working properly for years. This faucet also has a water temperature gauge. You can see the temperature with the TempSense LED indicator light that changes color according to the water temperature. This gauge can also protect you and your family from burning your hands from hot water. This faucet is another high-quality product from Delta. It uses patented Diamond Seal Technology to reduce leak points. This technology also helps to keep the faucet last longer. It uses their typical magnetic docking to powerfully hold the kitchen sprayer in place. The sprayer is made with shield spray technology that cuts through tough messes. It also has a protective sphere to keep water from spraying in unnecessary directions. This helps focus the water jet on where you need it to go. Made from stainless steel, the faucet is extremely easy to clean. Water spots, lime and calcium stains are no problem on this faucet. You will not need to use harsh chemicals or cleaning products to clean this faucet. Simply wipe it off to make it look new again. This faucet is also made to be easy to install. Everything needed for installation is included, along with step by step instructions. It is made to fit single-hole or three hole, eight-inch configurations. Black Stainless, Champagne Bronze, Chrome or Matte Black for the best look in your home. The Trinsic faucet looks great, but also performs great. It has the same Diamond Seal Technology as the others we have already seen to reduce leaks. The faucet is designed to last for years without leaking. The magnetic docking keeps the detachable spray head in place when you are not using it. The powerful magnets will not wear down and prevent the spray head from dangling from the rest of the faucet. This faucet also comes with the TouchClean spray holes to help you easily clean it. Instead of soaking the faucet in harsh chemicals, simply wipe away calcium or lime residue. It is also spot resistant and will come clean easily, making it look new for years. This faucet is easy to install and comes with a full set of instructions. If you want a look for kitchen that includes a faucet, handle and soap pump, the Kate Faucet is a perfect fit. This faucet comes with a separate handle and separate soap pump to give you a great looking, convenient set up for your kitchen sink. The magnetic docking that is notorious in Delta faucets keeps the sprayer head securely locked in place when you are not using it. It prevents the spray head from drooping which keeps it in better shape to last longer. The entire faucet is made of stainless steel. You can get it in the stainless finish, or chrome if that better suits the look of your kitchen. Both are very easy to clean and resist water spots. Calcium and lime buildup can be wiped away easily instead of needing harsh chemicals. This faucet is designed to fit two or three-hole, six to 16-inch configurations. It comes with everything you need to install including easy instructions. For home owners who are looking for a more traditional kitchen sink faucet, the Windemere has a classic look. Its double handles for hot and cold water and separate spray hose make it a traditional faucet with modern capabilities. With three finishes to choose from including chrome, stainless and black, you can choose which faucet looks best in your space. All three are made of stainless-steel making cleaning easy. They also are resistant to water spots and calcium and lime buildup. The detached spray hose provides powerful spraying water to dig through your toughest messes. The hose is retractable so you can clean your kitchen messes easily. The head of the faucet has a high-arch design that swivels 360-degrees. This allows you to reach any mess and provides convenience for you while you are in the kitchen. The faucet comes with all the parts you need to install. It also comes with an easy to follow instruction manual that any DIYer can use. This faucet has the most finish options we have seen so far. Homeowners can choose from Arctic Stainless, Champagne Bronze, Chrome, Polished Nickel and Venetian Bronze to match whatever look you prefer. The Cassidy faucet is unique with a small, built-in handle on the side that controls water temperature. There is also a detachable spray head build right into the faucet that has a button for different water settings. You can choose a single stream or a stronger, multi-jet stream for tougher messes. The magnetic docking keeps it securely in place when it is not being used. The spray head also has ShieldSpray Technology. This includes a protective sphere that contains the water splatter, allowing you to control exactly where the water goes. This technology offers an average of 90% less splatter than a standard spray. This faucet is designed to fit single or three-hole, eight-inch configurations. Everything you need to install it is included with an instruction manual. They even included InnoFlex PEX supply lines that are integrated into the faucet for less leak points. This faucet is another more traditional style. It is much smaller than other ones we have seen so far, but still provides excellent performance. Although this faucet looks like a standard faucet, the secret that makes it stand out is that the entire faucet is retractable. It pulls out into a spraying hose with complete flexibility. It can swivel 120 degrees and reaches up to 20 inches to help you clean all your kitchen messes. The sprayer gives you three spray options. The multi-flow sprayer toggles between spray, stream and high-water flow. The high-water flow allows you to fill large pots of water in no time, and the spray cuts through tough messes. This faucet also has Diamond Seal Technology that eliminates leak points. It also helps the faucet last much longer. With easy to follow installation instructions, any DIYer can install this faucet. It will fit single or three-hole, eight-inch configurations. Everything needed for installation is included. This one may look like a repeat of the first Cassidy Faucet we looked at, but it has a unique design that sets it apart. The main difference is the entire neck of the faucet is a retractable sprayer hose. This hose has multiple sprayer options that you can choose with the push of a button. The head and handle is large and easy to grip while dealing with your kitchen messes. It sits securely in place when not being used to avoid drooping. The patented Diamond Seal Technology helps to reduce leak points and keeps your faucet working for years. It also has TouchClean spray holes to make cleaning easy. Instead of soaking it in harsh chemicals, simply wipe away calcium and lime buildup. This faucet fits three or single-hole, eight-inch configurations. It has everything you need for installation and easy to follow instructions. You can also choose from five different finishes, including Arctic Stainless, Champagne Bronze, Chrome, Polished Nickel and Venetian Bronze. This is definitely most modern option on our list. It has all the great features that most of these Delta faucets have, but the design makes it stand apart. It has a 9.5-inch spout reach that stands 18.39 inches tall. The neck is textured for a sleek look. This faucet has a retractable spray hose with two different spray options. The spray head is magnetic to make sure it stays in place when you are not using it. Not only does this lengthen the life of your faucet, but it also helps prevent drooping that could cause leaks. As the others have, this one also includes the Diamond Seal Technology to reduce other leak points. It is stainless and easy to clean. It also includes the TouchClean spray holes that are simple to remove calcium and lime buildup from. There is no need to use harsh chemicals to clean this faucet. No matter which of these Delta Faucets you choose for your kitchen, each one will provide high-quality performance and make your kitchen look great. Make sure you know what configurations your kitchen sink requires before purchasing one of these faucets. Otherwise, any of the options above would look great in your home.

2019-04-20T00:42:36Z

https://lifesciencesworld.com/best-delta-kitchen-faucets/3/

IMG 4291 Members of the committee L-R: Mr. Chris Abode Secretary of the committee, Rev. S.O Uhunmwangho, Focal Person, Mr. Taiwo Akerele, Governor Obaseki and Deputy Governor Rt. Hon. Comrade Philip Shaibu. Work with the National Assembly to strengthen ICPC and EFCC by guaranteeing institutional autonomy including financial and prosecutorial independence and security of tenure of officials. Make the Financial Intelligence Unit of the EFCC autonomous and operational. Ensure all MDAs and parastatals regularly comply with their accountability responsibilities to Nigerians through the National Assembly. All political officer holdersearn only the salaries and emoluments determined and approved by the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission RMFAC. Work with the leadership of the National Assembly and the Judiciary to cut down the cost of governance. I will present a National Anti corruption Strategy. As Commander-in-Chief, lead from the front and not behind in the comfort and security of Aso Rock to boost the morale of fighting forces and the generality of all Nigerians. Give especial attention to the welfare of our armed forces and their families; lost heroes and their families and the victims of insurgency. Boost the morale of the men and women in the field by public recognition of their efforts through memorabilia, stamps, statues, regular rotation, regular payment of allowances, regular communication between the men and officers of security agencies, provision of best health care and housing for families of deceased comrades. I will present a marshal plan to the nation that will combat insurgency, ethnic and religious violence, kidnapping and rural banditry. Provideof the best and appropriate military and other materials the country needs to combat insurgency, ethnic and religious violence, kidnapping and rural banditry. Establish personal relationship with governors of the affected states by insurgency, with leaders of the countries in the region and with leaders around the world to coordinate efforts to combat insurgency, oil theft, piracy and criminality. Restore confidence in the bilateral and multilateral partnerships in addressing insurgency including procurements. Activate regular meetings of the National Police Council to ensure the discharge of its true constitutional role in a transparent and accountable way. As a father, I feel the pain of the victims of insurgency, kidnapping and violence whether they are the widows and orphans of military, paramilitary, civilians and parents or the Chibok girls. My government shall act decisively on any actionable intelligence to #BringBackOurGirls. Restore the integrity of the Niger Delta by implementing relevant sections of the Ledum Technical Committee on human capital development, resource management and distribution, governance and rule of law, reclamation and environmental and sustainable development. Commit myself and my administration to the phased implementation of the United Nations Environment Program’s(UNEP) recommendations on Ogoniland. Unveil a marshal plan for the regenerative development of the Niger Delta. Continually acknowledge and consciously equality and equity in all government businesses and activities. Implement the National Gender Policy including 35% of appointive positions for women. Work with National Assembly to pass a National Disability Bill, which I shall immediately assent, into Law. Immediately charge relevant MDAs to implement new building codes to ensure that people with disability have easier access. I will lead the campaign for restoration of mutual trust and cohesion for nation building, while also working with the National Assembly to make appropriation to strengthen institutions and platforms promoting dialogue and inclusion. I will promote amendment to the provisions of section 14:3 of the Constitution to give effect to the expansion of the scope of representation to include women and persons with disabilities. Work with National Assembly to pass the National Disability Act and the Equal Opportunities Bill. Implement the National Health Act 2014,which guarantees financial sustainability to the health sector and minimum basic health care for all and ban medical tourism by government officials. Unveil a health sector review policy to ensure the efficient and effective management of our health systems. Mobilize the health workforce needed for the all-round implementation of our primary health programmes for rural communities. Launched a massive, well-coordinated and innovatively funded Youth in Commercial Agribusiness Programme. Work with the legislature to strengthen constitutional provisions to make the meetings of the National Economic Council more periodic and predictable and its decisions more binding. Present annual report on the state of the economy to the National Assembly and the Nigerian People. The Preparation of Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and annual Budget will be guided by job creation projections. Negotiate rule-based oil revenue management process, and adopt a rule based excess crude account management process, which will entail a fixed percentage (e.g. 10% or 20%) of oil revenue each year, and also set clear rules about where the proceeds will be domiciled, when the savings can be used, by whom, and what the savings can be used for. Work with the National Assembly to adopt a rule based, realistic and predictable oil benchmark as a basis for a more transparent management of federation account revenue and excess crude account. Launch a Small Business Loan Guarantee Scheme in partnership with Commercial Lenders to improve access to finance for SMEs. Automate the business registration process to ensure sole proprietorships can be opened within 24 hours and incorporated business within 5 days. Reduce the cost of company registration to a maximum of N10, 000 for sole proprietorships to encourage formalization. Give political force to collective bargaining in all sectors of the economy, revive Tripartite Committee of Government, employers and workers organisations, whose task would be to constantly review matters of labour relations and the practice of industrial relations. Undertake to institute an annual statutory tripartite body contribute towards formulation and implementation of broad macro-economic policies. Reposition Ministry of Employment, Labour and Productivity and all relevant agencies mandated to manage labour dispute and grievance handling process to ensure pre-emptive strategies to halt the current frequent incessant strikes phenomenon. Emphasis alternative sources of power such as small, medium and large hydro plants (Mambilla has capacity for 4,700 megawatts), wind, coal and solar. Efforts will be geared towards smaller and potable power supply. Start an accelerated training of human resources for the power sector. Work with PenCom to consider giving soft loans to power sector operators. Declare support for the appointment of young people with requisite qualification into key political offices to begin the incubation and mentoring for a successor political generation. Unveil a policy that all federal contractors must employ at least 50% young people. Work with the private sector to establish innovation fund for young people. Encourage that girls’and boys’ education is prioritized in states where this is established to be a big problem. Review and make pronouncements, with attendant political will and commitment, on the full implementation of the national youth policy. Establish innovation centers in conjunction with proposed National Science Foundation and the private sector. Include vocational skills in the curriculum of Almajiri schools so that they become self-employed. Unveil a policy that will begin to multiply the efforts and effects of technology incubation centers to at least establish two of such centers in each of the geopolitical zone. Establish a free-tuition and scholarship scheme for pupils who have shown exceptional aptitude in science subjects at O/Levels to study ICT-related courses. Immediately establish linkages with friendly names to champion exchange programmes for the acquisition of IT related skills. Extend the local content policies to cover software and hardware developments in the youth-driven markets. Put in place a quality assurance mechanism to ensure that standards are met and adhered to and make it a policy for companies to procure a % of their ICT needs from the local market. Hold a summit of all ICT service providers, OEMs, etc both local and foreign that are doing business in Nigeria to device concrete skills transfer and capacity building models in a sustainable manner. Conclusion: According to Chinua Achebe the problem of Nigeria is problem of leadership. You can only kill a snake from the head. Make the right decision; vote Buhari-Osinbajo on Valentine Day.

2019-04-26T08:44:36Z

https://newsbytesnow.wordpress.com/category/politics-2/

A few weeks ago I got news that my dear Aunt Sandy passed away and went to be with the Lord. It didn’t take me by surprise. She had the worst case of brain cancer of the worst kind. Outside of a miracle, there simply was no chance of recovery. What did surprise me was that she developed cancer at all. Just a month and a half ago, Aunt Sandy was living a normal life with no problems and no signs of cancer. Fast forward two weeks and she’s lying on a hospital bed immobilized and virtually unresponsive. It all happened so fast and it came out of nowhere. The recent passing of Aunt Sandy reminds me that dying could happen sooner rather than later. In fact, I have a chronic G.I. disorder that’s eluded diagnosis. It’s not a stretch for me to imagine it turning terminal at some point (not that I’m in any perceivable danger at the moment). But my own health struggles coupled with the loss of my aunt has forced me to think a lot about my own dying. Bear in mind, I’m not talking about death. I’m talking about dying. There’s a difference. Death is the cessation of life that ushers you into the next. Dying is the duration of time that precedes death where your body is an observable state of accelerated decline. Put more simply, dying is having one foot in the grave; death is having both. I’ve thought a lot about death before and what awaits me in the next life. But until now I’ve given little thought to what my own deathbed experience will look like (assuming, of course, God chooses to give me one). What will happen in those final moments as I wait for death to come? And what do I want those precious last minutes to look like? I’m thankful that the deathbed doesn’t have to be a terrifying, lonely, or depressing ordeal. The Apostle Paul says as much in a little known part of a well known verse, “For to me to live is Christ, and TO DIE is gain” (Philippians 1:21). He doesn’t say death is gain, which is what I know we’re all tempted to make him say. Death certainly is gain because pain stops and eternal bliss begins. But Paul says “to die is gain.” Dying—the process that leads up to death, however short or long it may be—that is gain. It is gain for the believer to go through those last moments, however long and agonizing they may be. It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? To experience gain on your deathbed. I don’t know about you, but I want a little piece of that pie. I want to be able to say on my deathbed along with the Apostle Paul, “Dying is gain.” So I decided to put together a small wish list for what I would like any dear family and friends to do for me when that day comes. Here’s how you can make my deathbed experience gain. And I hope this will serve as an encouragement to you when you have to be the one sitting by someone’s bedside or actually in the bed yourself. Read me the Gospel. Reading Scripture to a dying loved one is very common for Christians, so I don’t necessarily want to state the obvious or beat a dead horse, but I would feel irresponsible if this wasn’t on at the top of my list! And yet while this is standard for any Christian deathbed experience, I do have a special request here. I love familiar deathbed passages like Psalm 23, John 14:7, Revelation 22:1-5, Romans 8:38-39, and a host of other promises and reassurances about my passing and soon-to-be reunion with Jesus. But I don’t just want to hear about “what will be.” I’m actually more interested in “what has been.” No offense, but I’m about ready to experience “what will be” for all eternity. But what I want to remember is why I get to experience “what will be” in the first place. Take me to the gospel. Talk to me about the work of Christ. For example, don’t just encourage me with the wonderful truth that I can’t be separated from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Give me the basis for why God will never forsake me (Romans 8:31-34), that it’s based on a zealous and concrete act of God to justify me through His heroic Son Jesus Christ. Rehearse for me the doctrines of predestination, imputation, substitutionary atonement, redemption, adoption, and union with Christ by reading for me those Scriptures that illuminate these profound truths. Take me to Ephesians 1:4. Guide me through Romans 5:12-21. Put on repeat 2 Corinthians 5:21. Preach to me 1 Peter 1:18–19. Recite John 1:12. Pray me through all of John 17. Scratch that. Expand it to John 14 through 17. I won’t care that it’s long. I don’t have anywhere else I need to be at that point. I’m not going anywhere. The single greatest way you can make my deathbed gain is to give me the gospel one more time. Pray with me. I love watching Christians encourage dying saints with statements like, “Praying for you!” or “You’re in my prayers!” It’s great to watch the body of Christ encourage one another with these assurances. But when I’m dying, I personally don’t just want to know that you’re praying for me. I want to know what you’re praying for me about and, if given the opportunity, I even want to hear you pray. It’ll be nice to get a message like, “You’re in my prayers, James.” But it’ll be music to my ears when I hear you say, “I’m praying that your faith remains strong, James, and that the Lord will keep you secure until you rest safely in His arms.” You want to thrill my heart and send shivers down my spine? Explain to me what you’ve been praying or just take the time to pray with me. The more specific you can get with me about what you’re praying and how you’re praying, the more encouraged I know I’ll be. Telling me you’re praying for me reminds me that you love me. But praying for and sharing your requests with me reminds me how God loves me. I want both, don’t get me wrong. But (don’t take this personally) I want the latter more. So let me know what you’re praying. You and I will be better off for it! Raise the roof with theologically rich music. You heard me. Let’s rock the hospital halls with great hymns of the faith and deep modern worship music. Give me a balanced combination of older classics and newer stalwarts. So, that rules out the old timey stuff, like the “I’ll Fly Away” songs—as fun and apropos as those may be. Give me, instead, the “Be Thou My Vision’s.” Give me the “How Firm A Foundation’s.” And while you’re at it, give me 2.0, “Jesus Firm Foundation.” Give me the Getty’s “By Faith” or Enfield’s version of “Lead On, O King Eternal.” And on a purely personal note, please don’t go for the slow, melodic songs that everyone wants to associate with death. Pick some upbeat ones. Just because you’re sad doesn’t mean you have to make me sad too on my way out. I’m headed for paradise, people, and I don’t want to have to explain to my eternal Champion why I have a frowny face for my first few seconds of glory. I want my first encounter with my Savior to be pure elation! So make it a seamless transition. Obviously, I’m speaking a little tongue-in-cheek here. There’s an appropriate amount of grief that’s expected and needed. But please don’t make me depressed in my final hours! I fail to see how that’s Philippians 1:21 gain. Be sensitive to everyone else. When a traumatic event takes place in the life of a family, it’s inevitable that emotions will be all over the place and tensions are going to run high. Often the person on the deathbed’s the most calm and relaxed of the bunch. But those of us beside the deathbed can quickly develop a sinful tendency that redirects our grief and frustration into anger and backbiting towards others. We’re careful with what we say to the dying, but then take out our frustration on everyone else. But when I’m on my deathbed, I don’t just want you smiling at me. I want you smiling at everyone else. There’s got to be nothing more discouraging for the bed-ridden on his last leg than to watch the most precious people in his life squabbling. I actually don’t think this will be a problem for the people in my life at the moment, but I realize that’s not always the case with every family. Be sensitive to others and put the same kind of energy into your relationships with them as you do with the person on his deathbed. Get some sleep. If you’re the type who’s deeply relational and loves to worry, this is gently meant for you. I know you love me, but God loves me too. Please get some sleep. You don’t need to worry. He’ll take care of me when you drift off. If I’m on my deathbed, I’m not getting any better and I probably don’t want to be. So please don’t concern yourself too much with me. Take care of yourself. You obviously still have more life to live than I do and I don’t want my last picture of you to be one of a worried wreck. Believe that God’s in control, because He is, and that you’re not, because you aren’t. There’s nothing you can do to change my situation by losing sleep. So do you and me a favor and get some rest. Your healthy rested face just might bring a bigger smile to mine. This entry was posted in Theology by James Street. Bookmark the permalink.

2019-04-24T00:42:07Z

http://www.parkingspace23.com/5-things-want-im-death-bed/

Living overseas as an American has it’s great points but sometimes it has a lot of challenges that you don’t think about. For instance, most of the rest of the world uses the Metric system. Which makes a lot of sense as the Metric system is much simpler and easier to remember. That said, if you grew up in America, you likely don’t have the foggiest idea how hot or cold it is when someone gives you a temperature in Celsius. Stay with me here and we’re going to have a quick math lesson so that you can do a basic conversion in your head. Then you won’t look silly having to ask if it is hot or cold the next time someone gives you a forecast. Double the temperature in Celsius and add 30. If someone says it was 30 degrees Celsius then you simply double it (to 60) and add another 30 to get 90. 30 degrees Celsius is pretty hot. If it’s only 10 degrees Celsius then double it (to 20) and add another 30 to get 50. A bit chilly. If you’re like us and live in the frigid North and someone tells you it’s going to be -30 degrees this weekend, double it (-60) and add 30 to find out it’s…really stinkin’ cold outside. Incidentally the further you get from freezing the less accurate this is so don’t use this rule for cooking unless you want some unpleasant surprises. Asking questions of those who have “been there” is a great way to prepare yourself for the crazy adventure that is moving to China. Even though you can never be completely prepared for such a drastic change, knowing what to expect goes a long way to making the transition much smoother. I was so thankful to have a fellow expat friend who generously fielded numerous questions before our move. It was such a huge help to us, and one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog. I recently received a question from a reader, and I thought I’d share the questions and response in case it helps someone else in a similar situation. My family has LOVED all the information we have learned from reading all of your posts. I’m sure we haven’t gotten through everything yet, but we are learning from it. If all goes according to plan we (my husband and I, as well as our 3 kids) will be moving to Shenyang the beginning of 2012. I was hoping that ya’ll could help me with a few questions. For one, I wondered what host site you use for your blog? The one you guys have set up is exactly what we would like to have in place. Second, how hard has it been to stay connected technology wise? Like I said, we have 3 kids. I have read that there are ways around the government blocks online, but I have read so many positive and negative things now that I’m just confused. It is very important to us to try to keep our technology connections so that our kids don’t feel completely cut off. At this point we don’t even know whether to purchase computers from the US before we leave or China once we get there. We really want to be able to contact family and share all the adventures they are having. Again, we have really enjoyed reading about all of your experiences (although I gotta say I literally gagged last night reading about the taxi driver chewing on his hack!!! I already know that the first time I hear that sound and realize what it is….I will most likely puke! Oh well, that will just be another story to share, lol) We look forward to any future posts and any information you guys can share with us. I recently received a question from a reader asking for advice and insight on their upcoming move to Shenyang. I thought the question and response might be helpful for someone else as well, so with permission I’ve posted our correspondence. If you’re currently on expat assignment and have something else to add, I’d love for you to chime in on the subject in the comments. If you’re not yet an expat but also have questions, feel free to ask away and I or my fellow expats will try to fill in with what we’ve learned so far. The more information we can share, the better off we’ll all be. Hi. My husband and I just returned from a job interview in Shenyang. The company flew both of us over for a look-see and interview. We were there for 3 days. (I know, who goes all the way to China and stays for just 3 days?) The work would likely be in both Shenyang and Yingkou, or perhaps mainly in Yingkou. It would be a 2-3 year contract. I’d appreciate any advice you’d like to share. My husband is supposed to let the company know what he wants for compensation and benefits. Are there benefits you’d recommend asking for? What about Chinese taxes? Are there employers who pay taxes for their employees? We saw that the marginal rate goes up to 45%, and then we would owe US taxes as well. I read in China Daily while we were there that foreign workers will now be covered by the Chinese social security, medical and unemployment insurance, to the tune of an additional 11% payroll deduction. That wouldn’t leave much for us! We recognize the challenges we’d face living in China, and think that we can not just manage, but truly come to enjoy the adventure. I’ve enjoyed reading about your experiences, and look forward to having our own China stories to share. LB and I finally got the chance to go through some of your questions (I have no idea about a lot of the details like taxes and stuff.) We had a few thoughts on the subject between us. Not sure how it works out with you, but we were pretty fortunate to be sent by an international company who has quite a few expats here already. It was NOT a perfect process by any means (get ready to be flabbergasted over and over… and make sure you throw any expectations you have out the window. You’ll be much better off for it.) but they do take care of us pretty well. Will you be working for a Chinese company as a foreign expert? Not sure how that will change the process, but it surely will. It is a different culture for sure. Make sure you get it all in writing, but realize even then, that doesn’t always mean a whole lot when you’re dealing with this culture. You’ll still have to ask for things even if they’re in the contract. You’ll want to keep these things in mind at the very least. 1. Housing: Make sure they are providing you with housing. Most companies do. A budget of 15,000 – 20,000 RMB per month should be sufficient for a furnished apartment or, in some cases a townhouse, in a nice complex/neighborhood although that will likely vary a lot depending on what city you’re in. That will get you a very nice apartment in Shenyang. Another option would be to negotiate a smaller monthly allowance for an unfurnished apartment plus a stipend for purchasing furniture or shipping your own furniture from the States. This was actually the option we chose, and I was really glad we did. It was great to be able to choose my own furniture and design my own home rather than feeling like I was living in someone else’s house. I will say that if it hadn’t been for the new Ikea in Shenyang though, I doubt this option would have worked out as well. Also, I don’t think this is very common in China. Most apartments come furnished, I believe, but it worked out really well for us. Our company goes through a realty company who specializes in placing expats (We used KELT. There is alsoCentury 21 in Shenyang). It was a big help dealing with people who speak English and who’s job it is to take care of the lease, dealing with the landlord, getting your proper permits, etc. We also don’t deal with paying the rent at all. That is paid directly by the company. We do pay for utilities though. We’ve been here almost a year and still occasionally contact them with any issues we have with our apartment (like yesterday, when we woke up to no electricity). Our realtor has become a great friend who I call on for all kinds of questions and translating. She was indispensable in the beginning when we were just learning to function here. If they do agree to pay for your housing, make sure you are able to pick your apartment, or at least see where it is they want to put you. The exact apartment. Most apartments are privately owned and one building can have several levels of quality. I would suggest negotiating a “housing allowance” and then shopping for your own place. To me, it is the most important part about making this place feel like home. Especially for you as the wife since you’ll be spending a lot of time there. 2. Car and driver: I’m not sure how you’ll work out working both in Yingkou and Shenyang but google maps says it is about 2.5 hours drive. If you’ll have to do a lot of commuting back and forth I would definitely make sure you are provided with a car and driver. Inside Shenyang, it is no problem getting around with the buses and plenty of taxis. We don’t have a car and do fine without it, but I think if you’ll be outside the city then you’ll need one. 3. Language lessons: You need to learn Chinese to really have a good experience here. It’s a difficult language and some people don’t bother learning it but I think you have a much less frustrating experience when you can break down the communication barrier even just a little. I would suggest asking for a set language budget or set number of hours of tutoring for both you and your husband. I think the companies I’ve heard of usually offer 100 hours. 4. Moving costs: Negotiate your shipping and moving costs. You’ll probably need at least an air freight container. They come in several sizes. Another option is a sea freight container. They are much larger and are typically used if you want to bring your furniture from home. They take much longer to arrive however. 5. Vacation time: This one has been a big issue for us. If you’re going to want to travel a lot (and there is so much to see in Asia!) make sure you have enough time to take off to do it. I think you need at least 20 days, probably 25 would be better. 6. Home flights: Will they pay for you to take a trip home once a year or twice a year? For both of you? If so, do you get extra days to compensate for the travel time or will you have to take vacation days? Something to think about considering it takes 3 days of traveling to get to the States and back. 7. Taxes: This is the one I’m not so sure about. You are responsible for taxes in both China and the US. You’ll definitely need to hire a professional to take care of all the taxes. I would make sure that is also paid for by the company. Most companies here take responsibility for paying the Chinese taxes. (I’m not sure about the China Social Security thing, haven’t heard anything about that.) Our company takes care of all the taxes here and our pay stays the same. They also offset the taxes in the US so that we pay the same as we would if we were still employed in the US. One other thing to remember is that all of the benefits they pay for such as your car and driver, your housing, etc. is considered taxable income by the US government even though it isn’t showing up in your bank account. Add it all up and that first tax bill will make your eyes pop out of your head. 8. Getting paid: You want to get paid in the US if possible. There are two ways it is done here. One company that I know of pays 75% of your income in the US and 25% in Chinese RMB. Even at 25% most people don’t spend that much and end up with lots of RMB left to change at the end. It is a real pain and quite difficult to change money back from RMB to US dollars. Our company pays 100% of our paycheck in to our US account and we then make a wire transfer (reimbursable at 1 per month) to our Chinese bank account in the amount we need. Either way works fine I think. Getting paid 100% in China is usually a huge hassle so I’ve heard. Salary: Obviously it depends on the company, but generally, if you work as an expat for a foreign company you can expect your previous salary + 30-50% increase (b/c you have to live without Dunkin Donuts whole bean coffee and JIF peanut butter.) + cost of living adjustment + additional compensations listed above. I would say that most expats come to China for the money. But it is a GREAT experience even without the padding of the bank account! I really enjoyed hearing your guesses for the pop quiz. Thanks for playing along! We had a few guesses on the original post, and a few more posted on Facebook. Pop quiz… What is this? Found this taped to my door. What is it? What am I supposed to do with it? Just a little taste of what it’s like living in a foreign country where you can’t read or speak the language. Every day is an adventure. And the littlest simplest tasks become difficult. Hint: You get something similar in the US and if I don’t deal with it soon I’m in trouble. 1. Find the largest pot you have. If you have 2 or 3 large pots it works even better. 2. Fill the pots with water and place them on the stove. 4. Heat the water until you start to see bubbles. 5. Using potholders (or folded up dishrags if like me you still don’t have potholders), carry the pots of water one by one into the bathroom. 6. Dump the hot water into the tub. 7. Repeat steps 1-6 until you have enough water in the tub to bathe with. Turn on the faucet to add cool water if the water is too hot. Hi. Just wanted to let you know we are having a problem with the hot water in the showers. Neither get hotter than luke warm. Definitely not hot enough to take a comfortable shower. The water in the kitchen sink gets quite hot, just not the bathrooms. Can we get this fixed soon? I just contacted with the management company and the staff told me the problem has existed about year. After the management company transformed the pipe system in Wulihe Plaza. And the problem extensively exist in the Wulihe Plaza. Before the management company transform the pipe system again the problem can’t be solved completely. But there is a temporary solution is before you do the shower please call the management company 2388****, they will send a worker to make the water warmer. Really? You just want me to call you before I want to take a shower? Every day? And wait? This is the solution for the WHOLE building? 24 floors of apartments. Is there a guy whose sole job is to come heat up the water every time anyone wants to take a hot shower? There has to be. And how does he do it? And when that doesn’t work: Refer to steps 1-7 above. So… I’ve been trying to get out of posting this little story. I mean, you don’t really care to know EVERYTHING that happens to us on this little adventure, do you? Actually, I’m not really sure you care to know any of it, but I’m writing it down just the same. I was going to skim over this tidbit, but I realized… I just need to keep it real. Most of you already know what a dingbat I am anyway, and it’s probably unlikely you’ll even be surprised I’d do something like this. On Thursday morning, we met the realtor, Echo, at the apartment. She is Chinese, but speaks English ok and was appointed to answer questions and translate for us. When we arrived, a friend of the landlord was also there getting things ready, setting up the phone and internet, etc. I went to the kitchen first to check out the appliances and make sure everything was in working order. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this apartment, like the first, had a little TV in the kitchen. Both times, the realtor seemed really excited to show us this. To be honest, the first time I was unimpressed. Who has time to watch TV in the middle of cooking anyway? Besides that, most of the channels are in Chinese and the screen is only 6 inches across. Tiny. However, I knew from the first apartment that the TV wasn’t just a TV. It was also a security camera! So cool! I know it may not be that exciting to you. But I was impressed. When I asked Echo about it, she mentioned that this one also had that capability, but she wasn’t quite sure how to work it. She pushed a few buttons and we never could quite figure it out. I got bored for the moment and moved on. When I got back out to the living/ dining area, I noticed another screen mounted on the wall next to the door. I was sure this was a camera too. And I was determined to figure out how to use this thing. Not that I ever think we’ll need it. I don’t. But still, I must know how it works. It’s just the way I am. No gadget can be left untouched. There are 6 buttons on the panel. One of them has to work the camera, right? They are all labeled with Chinese characters, which I can’t read of course, so without rhyme or reason I just decided to push them all until the camera came on. Easy enough. The very first button on the right has red writing, looks the most to me like it would be a power or “On” button. Wrong! As soon as I pushed it, it starts blinking red and a deafening alarm starts going off. I’m in total “Oh Crap” mode and start going down the line pushing every button on there to try and get it to stop. Well, Echo walks up beside me at that point and as I’m going back down the line of buttons, frantically trying to find a combination that would shut the thing up. I start to push the same red button again, and Echo stops me. Ummm, WHAT?!? Did you say police?? So, I really didn’t know much about China before we moved here (still don’t, as a matter of fact), but the one thing I do know, is you want to steer clear of the police. (That really goes in just about every country, I think.) And I’m pretty sure, you definitely don’t want to call them to you, with a flashing red light and a blaring siren loud enough to wake the dead, for NO REASON! At this point, I’m pretty much mortified. All the while trying to play it off like the siren just started going off by itself or the guy messing with the wiring set it off, and I was just “helping” by pushing buttons to try and shut it off. As it turns out, I had very little to worry about. The alarm continued to go off for over an hour with no sign of the police. The landlord’s friend did manage to reduce it to an intermittent blaring somehow. But it would only stay quiet for about 2 minutes before it would start again. I have to admit, about 45 minutes in, I’m over the panic and getting a little annoyed. What if there really was an emergency? What good is that stupid little thing, except to trick button-happy foreigners into bursting their ear drums? Well, someone did eventually come and turn off the alarm. I was conveniently in another room at the time so I didn’t get to see them fix it. I’m not sure exactly how Echo explained the situation but it probably went something like: “That crazy white woman in there got all geeked out over the security camera. Apparently they don’t have those in Iva.” Yeah well, maybe not. But we have tractors. And cows. Where are your cows? On a side note, none of the buttons actually turned on the security camera. We found out later, it comes on automatically when someone pushes the doorbell. So how do you translate… ummm, oops?

2019-04-22T07:05:43Z

http://www.countryfriedeggroll.com/category/life-in-china/expat-advice/

ABOUT Loch Lomond I can claim one unwanted distraction. I know it from within as well as without, for with a friend, I’ve been overturned in the 600ft-deep middle stretch between Rowardennan and Inverbeg, clinging desperately to an upside-down canoe and buffeted by a June north-easter. The story, which happened about 20 years ago, could be called “How to Lose £250 of Cameras,” and I would have left them ashore had I known then that the easterly airt is the dangerous one for canoeing on Loch Lomond. My companion had just told me to stop worrying about the squalls that were rocking the canoe, when an arrowhead of advancing rain and wind struck. I remember the canoe sliding into a trough, being lifted on to the crest of a wave, and then neatly turning over. There was no time for fear as I strove to break free from a canoe which was holding me like a cork in a bottle. I had the strange vision of being in a dream, watching myself drown when my body was suddenly released and I felt myself going down and down into darkness. Again I had the feeling of seeing myself as on film turning over in the water like a seal in a tank and breaking through a greenish roof into daylight. In front of me was the upside-down canoe with my companion clinging to it, shouting my name. A few strokes and I was beside him, trying to get a grip as it spun awkwardly under our combined weight. “I was getting worried – you took a long time to come up,” he said, I said it must have been my camera bag jamming my knees against the deck, acting as a plug. The loch was so choppy we felt hidden by the waves, nor had we much hope of our cries being heard. On the credit side, however, was the certainty that we must be cast up on the far shore of the loch if only we could hang on long enough. After half an hour the cold was having a weakening effect on hands and arms. But we were lucky. We were spotted by two of our friends in single canoes. They came alongside and we transferred our grip from the over turned canoe to their sterns and were towed ashore by hard paddling. To get warm, we ran up and down while our companions lit a bonfire on the beach. Clothing was wrung out, dry garments offered and a phone call was put in to Rowardennan to summon a vehicle to drive round the loch and take us back to the Youth Hostel. This is what you call paying for your experience the hard way, and I felt lucky to have paid no more for it than a steep rise in insurance premium for the new cameras I’d bought. Our accident had occurred because neither of us possessed any practical experience of canoeing. My friend admitted afterwards that his knowledge was mainly theoretical. Just how dangerous is Loch Lomond to people in small boats? Well, just over a hundred years ago Sir James Colquhoun, fourth Baronet of Luss, went over to shoot fallow deer on Inchlonaig with his keepers. It was December, and the venison was to be distributed among the people of the village. At the end of the day, the loaded boat was seen passing Inchconnachan only a mile and a bit from home at Rossdhu, but neither the boat nor its occupants were ever seen again. To form an opinion about Loch Lomond you have to be out in it in all weathers. I asked my friend John Groome, who for nine years has lived on the lonely Craig Rostan shore and has to depend on a boat to collect mail, provisions, fuel and other necessities of isolated living. I’d say it is a wicked loch,” lie told me. “It looks O.K. until you try to cross. I’ve been in real danger many times. I’ve been lost for an hour in freezing fog, and it was not until I saw the lights of a car that I realised I was close inshore on the wrong side of the loch. I tried again, and found myself at Rowchoish, too far south — but at least I knew where I was. 1 was absolutely chilled when I got in. My boat now carries a compass. The month is May. It is nearly two o’clock in the morning and we have been tramping since 10 p.m. Marvellous at last to spread our sleeping bags under a sheltering rock on a grass shelf above the burn. Bliss to be here after the big effort of catching the last bus to Balmaha with a 10-hour working day in Glasgow shops behind us. Later that morning wood-smoke and the smell of frying bacon brings me to pleasant consciousness. Around me I can hear a tinkling of willow warblers, the trills of wrens, the jangle of redstarts and the hum of a Gaelic song from Matt, in his element cooking over a wood fire. From our eyrie on the MacGregor shore we feel as free as Rob himself, wage-slaves no longer, but with hearts light as the blue sky as we set off along the high contouring path in a scent of bluebells and rowan blossom. Below us, oak woods plunge to the shore and soon we are on the edge of the Cuilness gorge in a stronghold of the pied flycatcher. Great views open behind us as we climb. Down across the loch is Inveruglas Isle, with the ruin of the McFarlane castle sacked by Cromwell. Beyond the plunge of the gorge are the rocks of Craig Rostan, peppered with MacGregor ruins. Among them are some old charcoal- burning ” bloomeries ” for smelting iron. We throw ourselves down, necks reclining on rucksacks. ” You canny beat it,” says Matt as hee identifies the snow-veined peaks forming the headwall of Glen Falloch. We can see the passes of the Lairig Arnan and the Dubh Eas which lead from Loch Lomond through to Loch Fyne, ancient cattle-droving routes which brought easy booty to the reiving MacGregors and McFarlanes, whose forays persisted long after they had died down in other parts of the Highlands. The Government built a barracks at Inversnaid to contain Rob Roy, but he destroyed it before it could be completed—a far-seeing chief . On again we strike east for the twisting north ridge of Ben Lomond, crossing a big, peaty hollow where red deer rise from the hags and race for a rock outcrop to stand in elegant grace looking down on us. This remotest bit of the Ben is, alas, coveted by hydro-electric engineers, who see in it a site for a reservoir. The plan is to build a big wall of concrete to seal the hollow so that water can be pumped 1200 feet from Loch Lomond into it. As on Ben Cruachan, the water could then be brought down to an underground power-house to make it one of the largest pumped storage schemes in the world, providing up to 2000 megawatts of electricity in its finished form. We revel in the totality of the natural world around us as we dump our bags on the Cruinn a’ Bheinn- Ben Lomond col, and fairly dance up the airy ridge curving to the top of the most southerly Munro in Scotland. The view is all we hoped for. Yonder, Ailsa Craig and the “Sleeping Warrior” of Arran, with, behind it, the dark outline of the Antrim coast from whence came the Celts who gave Scotland its name. Below us is the dark corrie of the Ben, with a wee burn tumbling out of it—the beginning of the River Forth. Its course is signposted for us by the crag of Stirling Castle and the chemical retorts of Grangemouth where it reaches the sea. Westward lie Jura and Mull. From up here we can see clearly how man had such easy access to the Highlands from the Firth of Clyde, with Loch Long threading inland for 16 miles to end below the rock prongs of the Cobbler, an invitation to the Vikings to sail in, haul their longships two miles overland from Arrochar to Tarbet, relaunch in Loch Lomond and sack the shore and island settlements. Nor did they have to retrace to Loch Long after their raids, since they could navigate down the Leven, regain the Clyde below Dumbarton Rock, and join the main licet for the Battle of Largs where retribution was meted out to them. It would be illuminating to know what the human population around Loch Lomond was like in those Viking times. It would be even more so if we could look back another 5000 years to the sight that met the eyes of the first Stone Age men to paddle their dug-out canoes on the loch, bows and arrows at flic ready, against human enemies or dangerous animals. Perhaps these Baltic colonists numbered only a few dozen. Certainly they settled at Balmaha, at Luss and at Inchlonaig as we know from the stone tools they left behind. Probing forward would be a cautious affair, with 27.45 square miles of water and 3-5 islands to explore. The woods would be dangerous, with brown bears roaming, and wolves preying on elk and reindeer. The tree-line would be much higher than we know now, and the red deer would be larger and more heavily-antlered animals than those of today. Why is Loch Lomond so narrow and ravine-like in the north and so wide at its southern base? The answer is in the rock structure. The unyielding Highland schists would not be pushed apart, so the compressed and moving mass of ice dug deep since it couldn’t expand. This is why the bed of the loch is 600 feet below sea-level between Tarbet and Inversnaid. But when the 2000 feet thick bull-dozer of ice got to Ross Point it met softer rocks and was able to push them aside and spread out. The islands of the south, which are the glory of Loch Lomond, are the gritty masses which withstood the passage of the ice. One fish reflects the ice-age past, the powan, called the freshwater herring because it looks so much like one. The theory is that this plankton- eating white fish was forced to adapt to a freshwater existence when the land level rose with the removal of the great weight of ice as it melted. Thus, when the salt water hollow of Loch Lomond became fresh the powan adapted to its new way of life by spawning in the part of the year closest to Arctic conditions— midwinter. Powan are the commonest fish in the loch and are good to eat when freshly caught, but to get them you have to use a net since, being plankton eaters, they rarely accept a fishing line. Pike, on the other hand, give good sport, the British record being a Loch Lomond fish that weighed 47 lb. n oz. The roach reaches its northern limit here, but for the game fisherman the real challenge are the salmon and pink-fleshed sea trout which enter the streams from the loch to spawn. No other Scottish loch can list so many species of fish as Loch Lomond with sea lamprey, lampern, brook lamprey, brook trout, minnow, perch, loach, eel, three-spined and ten-spined stickleback, roach and flounder. Small wonder that the odd individual has been able to support himself on catches from the loch. One of the special pleasures of living on Lomondside is that there is no end to discovery. Look at the colour photograph of the Fairy Loch. How many people have been to this enchanted spot, easily visited from a roadside ruin a mile north of Inverbeg ? After a steep climb up the burn you enter a reedy recess with a lochan so enchantingly beautiful that you can almost believe the story that the fairies put their special dye into it. Or what about the Black Village on the steep hillside above Stuckgowan House Hotel ? Follow the drystane dyke uphill then climb obliquely left where the dyke makes a right-angled turn. The ruins look across to the white house of Cuilness and the sharpest impression of Ben Lomond. The people who lived on this lovely shelf high above the loch died in a plague. Motorists should take the chance of visiting Loch Sloy, by stopping-off at Inveruglas and asking for a permit to use the high-climbing hydro-electric road. “Loch Sloy ” was the war cry of the McFarlanes, and their pipe tune was appropriate to them, Togail nam Bo — the lifting of cattle. The rocky corrie encircling the loch was their gathering place. This wild clan were not mere reivers, but took honours at Flodden, at Pinkie, and they saved the day at the Battle of Langside. Like the MacGregors their name was outlawed for a time. Some were exiled in Strath ‘Aan and took the name of Allan or MacAllan. According to Seton Gordon their descendants are still distinguished by their Highland courtesy. Loch Sloy is in greater use today than at any time since it was built at the end of the war, and produces electricity seven days a week, not just at peak load. Up there, one inch of rain produces one million units of electricity as the water rushes through the mountain by tunnel to discharge to the power house through four big ugly pipes which should have been landscaped years ago. Ten years ago there was talk of converting it to a pumped storage system like Ben Cruachan, but, if the plans for Craig Rostan go ahead, we are to have two power schemes facing each other across the narrow loch. In peace, perchance to dream. John did not write his poem from the standpoint of a selfish man who wants the Craig Rostan shore to himself. Far from it. He was a weekender himself until he retired from being an executive engineer in the Post Office in 1967 and found this place. Few men over 60 would have moved from Glasgow into a house badly in need of attention, since it meant hauling everything he needed across the loch by boat. John would list his pleasures over the last nine years of retirement as having time to listen, look and observe the pattern of thee year in very beautiful spot with three levels of appeal—the water, the natural woodlands and the rugged hillsides, each of them offering big rewards for very little effort. He has got to know Cuilness in the way I try to know my own homestead country around Gartocharn. Except that he has gone further— by becoming a practical conservationist for the benefit of others. Take the boat to Inversnaid for the magical walk to Cuilness and you will find the path gets better and better as you go down. Where there used to be head-high bracken there is now springy turf. Burns that can be difficult have aids to make crossing them easier. In discreet corners there are grassy flats that are invitations to campers. There is also a little message or two for those who can read and take a subtle hint. How’s this for a hint? They keep down mice and Marauding dogs. Pregnant ewes are Not used to youse. Be considerate. Changes go on all the time on Loch Lomondside. The latest is the new Alexandria by-pass, which misses out Balloch and sweeps from a height down on Duck Bay for a superb first impression of the broad loch with Ben Lomond dominating the islands over a wide sweep of open water. The old shore road is a layby now, providing ample grass space for people to picnic and enjoy the sight of water-skiers and power-boats. Loch Lomond, considering all the pressures put upon it, remains a modern miracle as well as a place vital to our future economy, since one foot of depth supplies 5000 million gallons of water for drinking and industrial purposes. Yet you would never know it was a reservoir, thanks to good planning and the unobtrusive intake pipes 250 yards out from the pumping station at Ross Priory. Who would know that the level of the loch is controlled by barrage gates on the Leven? Today Loch Lomond is valued and used by more folk than ever before. Managing them is beyond the scope of the landowners. We have still to find the right balance between preservation, conservation and exploitation. At the end of the day the wondrous beauty of Loch Lomond is a public responsibility in which all of us must play a part. You can read more of Tom Weir’s escapades here, where a new column is published online every Friday.

2019-04-18T19:07:40Z

https://www.scotsmagazine.com/articles/tom-weir-aug-1976/

Great job Holly, now let's get out of there fast! Dig away from the commotion and out of the way of those Rock Tombs. Stay underground for the whole round and try your best to draw as little attention as possible, letting that angry mob focus on the Skorupi chucking rocks everywhere. Holly bends down, turning her claws against the ground instead of her opponent. Serqet's eyes narrow--she's seen this before, and Holly's not getting away with it this time! The skorupi sweeps her claws up, summoning a cluster of rocks from beneath the ground. The dig their way up through the sand and burst up into open air, hovering in a cluster around Serqet. With an abrupt forward gesture from the skorupi they tumble through the air towards Holly, who by now is knee-deep in a hole and tearing it ever deeper with her claws. The charmander grunts as the rocks topple down over her, burying her in a small pyramid of stone. There's nothing to prevent her from simply digging out from under the rock tomb, though, so that's what she does, continuing her downward tunneling until she's several feet underground. Now safe both from her opponent and the mob of angry pokémon up above, Holly turns to digging horizontally with vague thoughts of making it back to the pyramid. On the surface, Serqet's facing a familiar dilemma: stay where she is, or try to go after Holly? It would be nice to keep an eye on where the charmander is this time, even though she won't be able to summon a rock tomb in the confines of a subterranean. What really seals the decision, though, is the continued unfriendly glaring from the pokémon gathered around her--and is it just her, or do they seem to have come a little closer than when she last checked? The skorupi scrambles up the side of the small rock pile and wriggles her way in between the haphazardly-piled stones, breaking through into Holly's tunnel below. Serqet trots off, following the glow of Holly's flame up ahead. Meanwhile, the charmander keeps on digging, oblivious to the skorupi creeping down the tunnel after her. She pauses at one point, and Serqet freezes, like that might somehow prevent her from being noticed if Holly turned around. But Holly was merely stopping as her reflect shield fluctuated, flashed, and finally collapsed entirely. The fight has moved completely outside the pyramid. Both pokémon are underground, a little past the row of stalls lining the road running by the pyramid. At the outlet of the tunnel is a small pile of rock, and gathered around that a group of rather hostile pokémon, not yet convinced the troublemakers are gone for good. - Since it's been more than three rounds since Holly's scary face, its effects are beginning to wear off. Serqet will regain one level of speed every round. Holly, turn around and flush him out with a Fire Blast. I know it's not usually our most reliable move, but in a tunnel that's only you-sized, there shouldn't be much room to miss. If Serqet digs out of your line of sight, switch to Hone Claws. If she's brave enough to stand the heat, though, let's give it to her. Sorry for how long this took, guys. I know I've got a good week left before DQ, but I still hate to have taken so long. I'll be better. Serqet probably isn't going to get a better opportunity to attack than now, with Holly's reflect fallen. The skorupi forces herself to gather courage and energy alike, despite her reservations. It's difficult to get a proper rock tomb going in the close confines of the tunnel; Serqet can't really tumble rocks down over Holly's head, although she does manage to make a couple drop on her from the ceiling. Boulders pile up around Holly, but most of them bump her rather than slamming into her the way they should. Certainly the attack leaves the charmander with enough verve to summon a fire blast--an actual fire blast, Serqet thinks in terrified wonderment as she tries to scuttle away from the glowing ball of fire. There's not a lot of room to maneuver in the cramped tunnel, and when the skorupi feels a great burst of heat she naturally braces herself for pain, thinking she's been hit--but no. The fiery arms of the fire blast pass just to either side of her, leaving her rattled but unhurt. It can't last, though. Serqet summons another wave of rocks, but Holly shoves her way around the pile after only a few seconds, mouth half open and fire glowing deep in her throat. This time the fire blast hits, hurling Serqet against the tunnel wall and wrapping her in a sheet of flame. The skorupi screeches and rolls side to side until the fire's out, but she's still scorched painful black, a faint rattling noise emanating from her crisped armor as she raises shaking claws towards Holly, summoning rocks again. Serqet lies on her back after another fire blast hits home, wrecked carapace smoking and legs twitching. She can't take more fire, she simply can't--but she knows what Holly has in store. The charmander herself, bruised but clearly more excited than anything, is smoking, too--but from her overexerted throat, not any injury, and her wide, bright eyes shine in anticipation of her first victory. The fight has moved completely outside the pyramid. Both pokémon are underground, a little past the row of stalls lining the road running by the pyramid. The underground tunnel is choked with large rocks. At the outlet of the tunnel is a small pile of rock, and gathered around that a group of rather hostile pokémon, not yet convinced the troublemakers are gone for good. - There isn't enough room for Serqet to summon a proper rock tomb inside the tunnel, so damage from the attack was reduced and the usual speed drop eliminated. - The accuracy of fire blast was increased slightly because Serqet didn't have much room to dodge, but the first one missed anyway. - Kung Fu Ferret next. Alright Holly, let's finish this off. One Flamethrower should be enough to take out Serqet, so after that, you should just be able to Chill and get some energy back. If Serqet's still up after one attack though, let's keep going until she's down. It takes both courage and a furious effort of will for Serqet to flip herself over again, which provides her with a nicely upright view of Holly preparing more fire. The charmander's tail-flame blazes high, and light glows at the back of her throat, but Serqet steels herself and rushes forward anyway. Her claws rip across Holly's stomach, leaving a dark streak behind them in the air, but a second later the charmander opens up with a flamethrower and Serqet can't keep herself upright anymore. Alright buddy, start off with a Sunny Day! Follow up with some clones to keep yourself safe, and then let’s let loose with an Energy Ball! Serqet disappears in a flash of red light, and Holly sits back with a pleased huff of air, letting smoke drift lazily from her nostrils. She won! And she's barely even hurt, just a little tired. Before the charmander can really savor her victory, though, a wave of warmth passes over her, and then she's recalled, leaving the tunnel completely empty. Back in the pyramid, Kung Fu Ferret and Gzhoom stare eath other down. Who's going to move first? In the end the answer turns out to be "both of them," as Gzhoom grabs a pokéball off his belt as soon as he sees Kung Fu Ferret going for one. Two new pokémon appear in twin flashes of light. On Kung Fu Ferret's side of the field, Kuzenbo takes a slow look around the arena, a perplexed expression on his face--then again, that's how he always look. Gzhoom's choice, Notorious, a lanky, muscular passimian, beats his chest and howls, psyching himself up for the battle to come. Kuzenbo turns his blank stare on his opponent, but if he has any reaction to the passimian's hooting display, he gives no sign. - Super pumped for battle. Notorious raises his berry high, and and it shines a brilliant white too searing to look at, the energy the passimian poured into it waking a similar brightening of the sun outside. But when the berry's light flickers and dies, the pokémon can hardly feel the effects of the increased sunlight, shielded as they are by the mass of ancient architecture around them. The bright sun defintely doesn't seem to be getting Kuzenbo down. The psyduck stares blankly at Notorious a moment, then abruptly opens his bill and sprays the passimian with super-cooled water that freezes immediately on impact. Notorious growls, contemptuously shattering a hunk of ice clinging to his shoulder, then takes off running, galloping faster and faster around the perimeter of the pyramid until he starts to blur and appears to split into five identical passimian chasing each others' tails around and around the arena. Kuzenbo turns slowly, trying to keep Notorious in his sights. He fires off another ice beam, soaking one of the passimian at random, but it simply vanishes when the water touches it. Notorious laughs giddily, then hurls his berry at Kuzenbo. It glows a brilliant green as it travels through the air, a burst of grass-type energy discharging with a fizz when it strikes the psyduck. Notorious expertly catches the berry on the rebound, running all the while, and Kuzenbo's retaliatory ice beam wipes out another clone. The passimian laughs and keeps going. This is too easy! - Exhilarated. Has two clones. The battle's moved back inside the pyramid proper, where it's rather dusty and gloomy. Brilliant, hot sunlight shines in through cracks and places where bricks have been knocked out (6 more actions), but most of the arena remains in cool darkness. - I didn't think Notorious was fast enough to make five clones (*insert joke about Slowlolan pokémon here*), so he got four instead. - Sunny day's effects are attenuated as a result of the sun being outside and everybody else being inside the pyramid. It increases fire-type damage by 1.15x and reduces water-type damage by 0.75x rather than the usual values. Hey Negrek, I had a question about the calculations. I hope this is the right place to put it. When you added 2% to Ice Beam's damage for "stat", is that because Psyduck's SpAtk is higher than it's Atk? I figure that's what it is, because you subtracted 2% from Energy Ball, and Passimian's SpAtk is lower than its Atk. I was just wondering if that's the case before I finalize my commands. Thanks! The +2 to ice beam is a combination of the modifier on Kuzenbo's special attack (+1) and on Notorious' special defense (-1), which works out to an overall +2. Whoa, that’s a really neat way of working with stats. I haven’t seen them worked into ASB before, and I really like it! In that case, let’s try out some Seed Bombs! Notorious chucks his berry at Kuzenbo again, and once more it glows green as it arcs through the air. It lands with more explosive force this time, though, a blast that both propels the berry back to its owner's paw and knocks Kuzenbo over on his back. Notorious whoops and dashes along, daring Kuzenbo to try and catch him. The psyduck slowly rights himself, looking neither angry nor pained, and again begins turning, following Notorious with his bill. The air hums a moment with the buildup of psychic tension, both around Kuzenbo and around Notorious, and too late the passimian realizes the psyduck's picked him out from his clones. The low hum escalates to sudden, painful blaring, a migraine feeling like it might crack the passimian's skull. Notorious yelps, tripping and rolling unceremoniously into a wall, his clones vanishing behind him. The passimian's almost as slow to rise as Kuzenbo was, groaning and rubbing his face. He turns around, snarling, to find the psyduck standing in exactly the same place, still wearing that goofy, utterly neutral expression. Notorious hurls his berry at the psyduck again, and another explosion knocks him down, but the psyduck rises again a moment later, mildly scorched but with unhchanged demeanor. The droning psychic attack that follows sends Notorious to his knees. Another seed bomb, another psychic, and it seems neither pokémon is gaining much ground over the other. Notorious definitely seems grimmer, teeth gritted and clutching his berry tight, but Kuzenbo appears unchanged, surrounded by scorch marks and small craters but as unruffled as ever. Brilliant, hot sunlight shines in through cracks and places where bricks have been knocked out (3 more actions), but most of the arena remains in cool darkness. The ground around Kuzenbo is scorched and scuffed up.

2019-04-22T14:14:32Z

http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?s=ce0eef759d90ea0ecd37e735b4f14c41&t=18298&page=2

IBM® Business Process Manager is a middleware suite that enables managed execution of the processes that keep your business running. It includes a graphical authoring environment that is used for modeling processes and a sophisticated runtime engine that is capable of integrating workflow for the people and automated systems that comprise your organization. Every day IBM Business Process Manager customers use their IT infrastructure to deliver business value at a fast pace. However, as with any complex system, care must be taken to define performance objectives appropriate to the solution and to ensure that those objectives are met. The IBM Redbooks® publication IBM Business Process Manager V8.5 Performance Tuning and Best Practices, SG24-8216, provides the details necessary to ensure a high performance business process management project. This IBM Redbooks Solution Guide provides an overview of the most critical topics from that book. This IBM® Redbooks® Solution Guide provides valuable information for IBM Business Process Manager application development architects and technical leaders. It describes a holistic approach to performance issues that range from establishing initial goals and application design through the implementation phase and finally to long-term application maintenance and planning for future capacity. These tasks require a coordinated effort for all of the teams involved in a complex project to ensure that performance objectives can be met. These teams include business owners, infrastructure architects, database administrators, and test leaders. This solution guide serves as a reference to establish these conversations early and to make sure that all critical topics are covered. The typical application development lifecycle for IBM Business Process Manager follows a model described in Figure 1. The performance architect is ultimately responsible for the performance of the solution from end to end and drives performance objectives throughout the application development lifecycle. The business analyst is responsible for providing accurate non-functional requirements for the project. Application development architects are responsible for designing solutions that are capable of meeting the non-functional requirements. Application developers are responsible for following preferred practices and for avoiding anti-patterns. The test team lead or manager, together with the performance architect, is responsible for test case design and for translating the non-functional service level agreements (SLAs) that are received from the business analyst into concrete performance objectives. Testers and script developers are responsible for building and debugging the measurement harness that simulates the user activity as required for driving the tests. Test team members are responsible for executing the measurements and for collecting the resource consumption data that explains the results. The infrastructure team, including the system administrator, is responsible for IT monitoring. The database administrator is responsible for database tuning and monitoring. Of course, these roles can vary from one organization to another, and, in some cases, the same person or team of people might fulfill multiple roles. As a business process development and execution platform, IBM Business Process Manager manages business transactions across a wide variety of industries and functional domains. Even within a single organization, some business processes can constitute straightforward orchestration of a set of web service calls, and other processes coordinate the activities of complex teams of knowledge workers. Clearly, the lifecycle of a process instance can vary dramatically from one business process to another. Similarly, the performance characteristics of one process application can be quite different from those of another. The key to a successful production deployment is to match the actual behavior of the application to the requirements of the business. With every new IBM Business Process Manager release, performance engineers optimize the code to ensure it can support the most strenuous throughput and response time objectives. However, success is measured in the experience of business users when a new application is deployed into production. To achieve success, the Business Process Manager code must work together with the process application, the services it integrates, and the infrastructure on which it runs. This work begins as soon as the new application is conceived and continues through the performance verification cycle. One set of challenges common to all system-wide concerns, such as performance, is communication and collaboration across the organizational lines within a business. Separation of responsibility among business leaders, application development teams, infrastructure teams, and database management teams is a common practice and does lead to crisp definition of ownership. However, achieving success on system metrics requires a degree of nimbleness in working across these boundaries. Occasionally, we see progress delayed because of formal structures that result in a period of waiting, for example if an application development team needs to request a configuration change within a database server or if a database administrator needs additional physical resources (processor, memory, or storage) allocated to a database server. The most common costs of poor application performance are easy to imagine. Business users might experience slow response times from their user interface. The slow response time leads to dissatisfaction, which can threaten the overall adoption of new applications. Similarly, miscalculation of the performance metrics of a fully-automated application can lead to resource exhaustion (processor or memory), which might threaten the stability of the entire system. When a process application spans multiple business units, the consequences of a resource failure can be substantial. Although establishing and verifying non-functional requirements early in the development cycle can add to the cost of application development, failing to do so can be even more expensive. Redesigning an application to meet performance objectives after the fact often requires removal or replacement of substantial amounts of code, exposing the project to wasted effort. Building performance objectives into every phase of application development pays off in the long run through reduced risk of system failure and reduced maintenance cost. Also, applications that are well tuned and well measured are less likely to require over provisioning of hardware, which might reduce software licensing costs. Now, let us describe IBM Business Process Manager performance measurement and analysis activities by breaking them down among the application development lifecycle from initial requirements gathering through long-term maintenance and capacity planning. Just as the functional requirements for a business process management solution originate with the business community who will be using the application and are refined and validated through early discussion and playback, so are performance requirements for the application. Make sure to use the opportunity presented through the regular cadence of playback meetings to gather information about the performance expectations that the business community brings to requirements gathering process. Starting early has the advantage that it forces the Performance Architect to think about the objectives in terms of the end to end business experience from the outset. Often times, it is tempting to think of performance objectives one component at a time. However, it is much easier to build a comprehensive performance plan and gather consensus across all of the teams that will contribute to its execution when the objectives can be described based on end to end scenarios that the Business Analyst and, ultimately, Business Sponsor of the project, understands well and can discuss easily. As a performance architect and engineer, you can help business users articulate their expectations using metrics that are easy to validate within the performance lab. These expectations allow an initial performance plan for the project to be generated at the same time that the functional test plan is generated. Experience shows that some metrics, such as page load response time for a user interface element, are easy for business users to visualize and discuss. Alternatively, some metrics of extremely high value to the performance analyst, such as total system throughput, are more difficult to discuss. Try to conduct these conversations in a context that is natural to the business. Try to avoid talking about the average number of times a particular API invocation occurs per second. Instead, start with the number of mortgage applications (or whatever business process you are modeling) processed per month, the total number of teams that need to contribute to the processing, and the relative sizes of those teams. After these numbers are established, it is easier to guide the conversation to a discussion of the load that they system might expect during a peak hour. Focus on establishing performance objectives that accurately reflect the needs of the business. Although it is usually easy to understand the risks that are associated with under estimating the performance objectives, over estimating the objectives can be just as detrimental to the overall success of the project. For example, a response time objective of 1 or 2 seconds for a particular user interface element might be perfectly reasonable. Increasing the objective to 500 milliseconds might seem like an innocuous change and allow for some headroom "just in case." However, in many cases, it is unlikely that this decrease in responsiveness would be of value to the application users, and the engineering costs of achieving this tighter tolerance might be high. Sometimes, through poor communication, additional headroom accumulates when establishing an objective (with each team building in its own buffer) to the point that the engineering ultimately does not match the business need. Over time, you should expect to notice patterns that will simplify the process of gathering requirements. For example, perhaps your organization will standardize on 2 second response times (measured at the 90th percentile) for all simple user interface elements, 5 seconds for complex elements, and custom response times only for exceptional operations. At this point, the response time conversation becomes the simpler activity of identifying the complex and exceptional interactions with the system. Similar patterns might emerge for the throughput metrics. Look for them, and use them to your advantage. Perhaps the business users will not have a good idea of the throughput requirements for a totally new application, but they suspect that it might be similar to rates that they are already observing in another application (perhaps that you collaborated on in the past). Beginning the performance requirements conversations early allows those requirements (and the likelihood that they will be met) to be tracked as application developments and playbacks proceed. If performance requirements will force changes in application design or implementation, surfacing those early in the development cycle benefits everybody. Ultimately, the performance requirements gathering process will result in a performance plan that describes the metrics of importance, the goals or objectives that the application should achieve for each metric and a description of the simulation infrastructure required to evaluate the application. Simulation for some metrics is straightforward. Single user response time measures can be evaluated using a common user interface (like a web browser) by a person with a stopwatch executing the test manually. More extensive load tests required to evaluate throughput objectives for IBM Business Process Manager applications require a large scale simulation capable of generating http traffic. Tools, such as JMeter, IBM Rational® Performance Tester, and LoadRunner, are usually used to fulfill this role. Also, because most IBM Business Process Manager user interface applications communicate with the server via a series of REST interactions, it is possible to construct a stand-alone Java application that simulates server load. In every case, it is important to execute the performance measurements against server hardware that matches that to be used in production environment as closely as possible. Planning early can ensure that hardware is available when needed. Because most business process management solutions are complex systems made up of many parts that must work well together to meet functional and non-functional requirements, an architectural approach to performance measurement and analysis is important. Decomposing the system into its components makes analysis easier simply because small things are easier to understand than large ones. End-to-end measurement is critical to ensure that the system works well as a whole when all of the components are working together. In this section, we look at a few architectural techniques that help. Start small and scale up. The requirements determination phase might have revealed that your application needs to support thousands of concurrent users starting and completing tens of thousands of business process instances per hour. This does not mean that your performance measurements (or stress and load tests) need to begin with this degree of load. You can learn a lot about your application through repeated measurement, tracing, and analysis of single user scenarios. When these are working as expected, measurements with a small concurrent population will help to verify your load simulation infrastructure and also the scaling capabilities of your new application. Data gathered from measurements with small populations and load will help to predict the results you will see under heavier load and help with verification of the actual measurements. Furthermore, small scale measurements are cheaper and easier to implement, allowing them to be executed earlier and more frequently in the development cycle and giving more time to react in the case that the application needs to be adapted. Similar scale-up techniques apply to other parts of the infrastructure. When the performance plan calls for measurements against a large, complex IBM WebSphere® ND topology, it is a good idea to start with a smaller system, perhaps a single cluster member with a minimum hardware configuration. As analysis progresses, the system can grow to ensure that assumptions regarding vertical scalability (increasing the number of processing cores per cluster member) and horizontal scalability (increasing the number of cluster members) are met. Pay attention to the interfaces, especially where the business process management application interacts with external services, such as a web services endpoint. Concurrency or throughput limitations in a service provider frequently limit the performance characteristics of the entire solution. Because web service traffic is relatively easy to simulate (compared with human generated traffic), it is natural to decompose an application at the service implementation boundaries to verify their capacity before re-composing the application for end to end measurements. Of course, when re-composing the application, don’t forget to consider the glue that holds it all together--the network connections among the components themselves. A lean user interface that pulls data from a well-tuned backend server might still show poor responsiveness if the network connection between the two has high latency or limited capacity. It is especially important to design the physical topology of the solution to ensure good connection between the process designer and its process center and between a process server and its database server. Business process modeling plays an important role in the performance characteristics of a business process management application. Throughout the design and implementation phases of application development, options will arise that can have a significant impact on overall system performance. Chapter 3 of the IBM Redbooks publication, IBM Business Process Manager v8.5 Performance Tuning and Best Practices, SG24-8216, describes many common pitfalls and suggests alternatives. This section addresses the topic in a more philosophical manner, looking at some high level design choices and a generalized, data-driven methodology that we find useful during the implementation phase. IBM Business Process Manager is a flexible business process modeling and execution environment that offers a variety of structures to meet a variety of business needs. At its core, however, all business process management applications manage and persist the state of some business activity. Matching the execution and persistence model to the needs of the business provides an excellent opportunity to optimize for performance. For example, when constructing processes for the BPEL engine, application designers have a choice between short-running processes (microflows), with simple and efficient transactional characteristics, and long-running processes (macroflows), which are capable of coordinating the most complex transactional workloads. Data shows that the simpler state management model used for short-running processes allows execution at much higher throughput. Many processes allow for short-running execution in the common case, but need more complex handling for exceptional cases. So a compound implementation model fits these applications well. All process instances begin with microflow execution and many complete within that microflow. For exception processing, the microflow invokes a macroflow that models the more extensive processing that these instances require. Similar considerations apply to designing for straight through processing. Computers execute work at a much faster rate than humans. However, business process management usually (and appropriately) begins with an analysis of human workflow. As the process is optimized over time, opportunities arise to automate activities that are carried out by human workers that can be more efficiently handled automatically. This analysis might lead to a shift from a human-centric application that is authored with Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) to a more automated application that is authored with Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) or a hybrid of the two that uses an Advanced Integration service to link the two. Because the engine that executes BPMN processes was optimized for handling human centric applications, it is not nearly as fast at executing fully automated workloads as the BPEL engine is. For this reason, it is best to build Straight Through Processing applications using BPEL to get the maximum resource utilization efficiency. Applying an iterative, data-driven performance measurement and analysis methodology is a great help in maximizing the efficiency of the performance optimization exercise. Many application development engineers have ideas that can improve the overall efficiency of an application. You can channel these enhancement ideas through a scientifically sound evaluation process. Establish a performance simulation environment early, and extend it as the capabilities of the application expand. This method allows early collection of performance baseline data, which is valuable in tracking application performance as new function is added. Measure the effect of one potential performance enhancement at a time in order to build confidence that the enhancement delivers the expected gain. If it does not, it might be abandoned. Sometimes, application development teams retain performance "best practices" that incur some development cost but that actually deliver minimal or no performance gain. Use resource monitoring data (such as CPU, memory, and network consumption statistics as well as tracing and thread dumps) to inform your search for new performance enhancements. It might not be worthwhile to pursue an improvement to an area of the application that consumes only 10% of the total resource consumed by the system. Finally, remember Alexander’s Law: it is faster not to do something than to do it fast. Sometimes, there is just no need to include the expensive activity in the application at all. Actual execution of performance measurement and analysis takes time, attention, and physical resources. Sometimes, due to lack of planning ahead of time, a dedicated hardware environment is not available for performance measurement and data collection activities. In these cases, performance activities might be executed on a physical environment that is shared with system integration test or on the production environment as it is being prepared for use. Each case presents challenges to successful execution of the Performance Plan. By its nature, performance measurement and analysis are disruptive activities, making them unsuitable for sharing a system integration test environment with other activities. One goal of performance measurement is to drive the system under test to complete saturation of physical resources in order to measure maximum sustainable load. Similarly, sensitive response time measurements can be polluted by other test activities running on the machines at the same time. For this reason, it is common to see time-sharing policies used for sharing performance measurement hardware among multiple activities. Time sharing is better than simultaneous use but limits the rate at which progress can be made. Performance analysis is an iterative process, requiring painstaking attention to detail and changing only one parameter at a time. Time sharing reduces the total number of iterations that can be completed within a day. In some cases, it appears better to execute pre-production performance measurement and analysis activities on the actual production hardware as it is being prepared for use. This might seem like a good idea because it is desirable that the performance test environment match the production environment as closely as possible. Using the same physical machines certainly delivers a good match in this regard. However, after the production environment is deployed to the business, it is no longer available for continued performance measurement activities. Continued measurement as new versions of the application are developed is critical for avoiding release to release regression. Continued measurement is also critical for long term capacity planning activities. For these reasons, plan early for allocation of a dedicated performance measurement and analysis environment for use during initial application development and longer-term use. As a business process state management system, IBM Business Process Manager applications make heavy use of their database, writing state to ensure it is preserved. Furthermore, IBM Business Process Manager allows a flexible infrastructure for describing business data to be stored with the business process and then retrieving those process instances from storage. From a database perspective, this means that IBM Business Process Manager applications are both read-intensive and write-intensive. Close collaboration between the business process management administrator and the database administrator is recommended, as performance analysis must be approached as an end-to-end activity, considering the entire system. Traditional database analysis using operating system and database tools to identify memory needs, I/O behavior, slow executing SQL statements and similar issues apply to business process management applications and work well. It is critical to ensure that the database server has sufficient physical memory available and that it is backed by a fast disk subsystem (RAID or SAN are common enterprise solutions). Optimization of database indexes is another important activity for the database administrator (DBA) and the business process management administrator to address. IBM Business Process Manager does create a comprehensive set of indexes at install time. However, because there is performance overhead associated with index maintenance, it only creates indexes that are beneficial to the majority of IBM Business Process Manager applications. Every application will benefit from additional index analysis and this analysis is often critical to get the best performance from a system. Again, an iterative approach works best – use your performance simulation and load test to identify long running SQL statements, use the database query plan advisor to identify indexes that might be beneficial and conduct measurements with and without these new indexes to evaluate their effectiveness, only accepting those that deliver the expected benefit. In addition to the ongoing performance analysis and optimization that occurs during the application development cycle, most enterprises require formal performance verification, including a successful load test as one of the requirements before releasing the application to production. Executing this part of the plan requires simulating full production load (or perhaps greater than full production load) against a fully functional system that is running the application. However, this type of simulation does not mean that the first measurements must be executed at full load, even at the final verification stage. Returning to a small load and monitoring resource consumption as the load increases continues to be good practice and aids in discovery of performance tuning requirements or potential bottlenecks. Final verification should be executed on hardware that matches the production servers as closely as possible. This final verification applies to the servers that host external services and to the servers that host IBM Business Process Manager. In some cases, the final performance verification can call out to the actual production servers hosting web services endpoints, but this is often possible. In either case, the concurrency and throughput characteristics of the endpoints should match those of the production servers. In addition to validation of the performance characteristics of the business process application, it is worth spending a moment to think about validation of the performance objectives themselves. One common issue observed in performance plans associated with IBM Business Process Manager applications is that the objectives are actually too high. How does this come about? Typically, performance engineers look at the user interface elements that make up a solution and design think times based on a reasonable person completing the form. Perhaps this form can be completed in 30 seconds. So the performance engineer builds a simulation with a think time of 30 seconds per human task completion. Next, the total user population is analyzed, and it is determined that the system needs to support a few thousands of concurrent users. Putting these two pieces together creates a performance plan that requires the system to support the completion of thousands of tasks and many hundreds of business process instances per minute. It is a good idea to validate the throughput implied by the performance objectives against actual business requirements in addition to the number of concurrent users. In some cases, performance verification exercises actually simulate several months’ worth of business activity in a period of a few hours. When this is intended, it is a fantastic result; when unintentional, it can lead to some confusion. Good performance practice does not end when the application is released to production. The same resource monitoring tools and skills built up for performance evaluation during application development are extremely useful long term and should be a part of the IT monitoring practice for any enterprise application. Observation of patterns in CPU or memory utilization on IBM Business Process Manager and database servers can help identify approaching capacity issues before they become apparent to the business. In particular, collecting verbose garbage collection statistics (-verbose:gc on the Java command line) and using a graphical visualization tool (such as PMAT: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=22d56091-3a7b-4497-b36e-634b51838e11) to inspect them is an inexpensive way to monitor the pulse of the application. Many IT departments depend on automated systems of monitoring key resources and sending alerts when thresholds are exceeded. Long-term performance health of a business process management solution requires a maintenance plan. The databases that contain operational data for IBM Business Process Manager are optimized for rapid execution of business process activities, not for long term retention and access of that data. So, it is recommended that a retention period be established for the data associated with business process instances that have completed. The actual amount of time that these completed instances need to be retained will vary from one business to another, but after that period expires, those instances should be removed from the server using the appropriate tools. Business monitoring tools, such as the Performance Data Warehouse and IBM Business Monitor, are optimized for processing this data for long-term storage and retrieval. After an application has been available in production for a while, a time will come when capacity planning is needed. Perhaps an application is popular and business users interact with it more frequently or the application is rolled out to a larger community. The experience gained from performance verification exercises and IT monitoring of the application in the production environment is the best input to planning future capacity. Resource consumption models usually follow predictable patterns, so it is often possible to project tomorrow’s needs based on a thorough understanding of today’s behavior. Also, many enterprises use their load test to ensure enough head room is available to provide a buffer against capital expenditures. Load testing at 150% of projected peak load gives some confidence that the system will be able to handle a growing business and might provide lead time in case additional capacity is required. A wholesale company provides an online parts sales operation where it handles direct orders that are placed by their business partners. Consider a business process application, MyAuditApp, whose goal is to review order data submitted by a business partner for correctness. After the review is complete, the order is sent to another application (perhaps an existing system, not implemented in IBM Business Process Manager) for processing. In this case, the audit process contains two stages. The first stage in the audit is relatively simple, is fully automated, and is required for all orders. The second stage is more complex and requires human oversight, but it is needed only if the first stage of the audit reveals a potential issue. Performance objectives for the two stages of the application are distinct but are linked. This company knows that it needs to be able to process 30,000 orders per day, distributed throughout a 12-hour period, but with peaks of 4,000 orders in any given hour. These requirements establish a throughput objective for the overall application of about 1.1 process instances per second. To allow some head room, a formal performance objective of 1.5 process instances per second is established for the stage of the application that handles the automated processing. Because the business knows that 90% of all orders are handled successfully by the automated stage of processing, a formal objective of 0.15 process instances per second is established for the manual stage of the application. In addition, the corporate standard of a 2-second response time for all UI elements (measured at the 90th percentile) is accepted for all stages of the processing, except for initial login and final submission of the audit completion form. These operations are expected to complete in 5 seconds (again, measured at the 90th percentile). Even though MyAuditApp is a single business process application implemented in IBM Business Process Manager, it clearly has two separate facets. So the performance analysis engineer decides to model the performance simulation as though it were two separate applications. The first half of the simulation is easy to construct. Because all the interactions are automated, perhaps with communication occurring via Java Message Service (JMS) and WebService interactions, software components can be written to drive the application using exactly the same interfaces that will be used in production. Furthermore, because this phase of processing is the most straightforward, the application development team decides to implement it first while requirements determination and initial playbacks of the human interface elements of the application take place. In this way, early performance analysis of the first stage of the application begins before the entire application is fully developed. Performance simulation for the manual stage of MyAuditApp proceeds differently, because it must account for human interactions, which occur through a web browser and communicate with the IBM Business Process Manager server via REST interactions. Response time evaluation will be executed using the same corporate standard web browser that the business users will use. Evaluation of actual response times when interacting with the application will begin early in application development and will continue as new functionality is added. Any new function that regresses response times beyond acceptable limits will be re-engineered during the next development iteration to ensure that this type of work does not accumulate. In parallel, work begins to construct the load test simulation that will be used to evaluate throughput metrics for the human-centric stage of the application. An HTTP simulator tool (such as JMeter, LoadRunner, or Rational Performance Tester) is used to record the browser interactions that are required to start and complete a process instance. Then, the tool can simulate many users interacting with the system in the same way. Data pools are used to allow each simulated user to log in to the IBM Business Process Manager server under distinct credentials. The HTTP simulation tool also allows retention of user tokens so that correlation of HTTP session data can be handled by the IBM Business Process Manager server, just as though the load were supplied by a collection of distinct web browsers. After the application has been certified functionally complete, and concurrent with system integration test of the application, load tests begin. The IBM Business Process Manager server is "pre-loaded" with a number of process instances available to work on and the database is backed up so that future measurements can begin from a controlled state. Measurements begin with a single user, ensuring that response times observed within the simulator are consistent with actual browser interactions and that resource consumption on the IBM Business Process Manager server, Database server, LDAP server and all external service provider machines appear reasonable. After this, load is gradually increased until the system successfully processes 0.15 business process instances per second, while maintaining 90th percentile response times faster than 2 seconds. Any issues observed as load increases are resolved before increasing load. In this case, the sizes of thread pools and database connection pools need to be increased from the default in order to allow the desired concurrency. Also, two new database indexes are identified based on the data access patterns of the application. Performance measurement and analysis continues in this way, systematically increasing the capability of the system under test and of the applied load, until the performance architect is satisfied that the application and the infrastructure upon which it will be executed are capable of achieving the goals. Generation and execution of a successful performance plan requires integration across many different types of boundaries, both physical and social. Business Process Integration itself is also a key objective for many IBM Business Process Manager solutions, automating and orchestrating activities across a wide array of software systems connected via REST, JDBC, LDAP, and web service protocols. The software solution’s end-to-end performance will be limited by the slowest element within the execution chain. Similarly, effective communication across all of the teams that contribute to the application-–from the business community through the application development team to the infrastructure and administration teams-–can play a significant role in the success of the project. Blog post, "5 Things to Know About Systematically Deploying IBM Business Process Manager" On this page, enter Business Process Manager, select the information type, and then click Search. On the next page, you can narrow your search results by geography and language.

2019-04-20T19:02:18Z

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips1171.html?Open

Q: Let me ask you a question, MARTH? I hear you are working as a producer for a resort. I know you are a resort specialist, but what made you name this resort “Lastra Mu”? “Lastra“ of “Lastra Mu” means a stone tablet in the Italian language. Maybe it has the same root as the stone tablet of Moses‘ Ten Commandments. I also think it comes from “Las Torah”. I added “Mu” after that. Then, it becomes “the stone tablet of Mu”, which means “the spiritual book of Mu” and the stone tablet of Nacaal. They say that what is written on the tablets is everything is unknown, mystical, not this world, that everything is a manifestation of love as it is One Being with the quality of oneness as written in the Heart Sutra. It is the same as “Return to One Source” which Japanese samurais often mentioned. Therefore, it is connected with the path of the samurai. “Return to One Source” means that everything returns to the space of oneness, in other words, conflicts and separations are nothing but a dream, and the real truth is the love of oneness… I profoundly feel that it is most important to return to the true reality, to the unknown and mystical, to the love of oneness. The New Age people often call it “reality”, but the true reality strongly expresses that it is unknown, mystical, not this world, and everything is within the love of oneness. The one being means that we return to the one being, to the oneness, which is the absolute reality, when we meditate and return to Shinga and enter into death. If you experience being in Shinga itself, you will profoundly feel you are the one being, in other words, you will have a sense that you are Shinga itself… That may be the reason why some people say something strange and egoistical such as “I am God”. This may be the reason why some New Age people misunderstand their experience as they feel “I am the whole universe. I am God himself ” in deep meditation. I think, when all lives, all people return to the true and deep essence and regain the higher self (the true self), they will return to Itself. You will find that you are Shinga, and Shinga itself is you at that time. However, everybody will return there. That means that the self who you think the self will be the self for all people. I feel the whole universe is made in such way. I talked about this topic with Nezu-san (Mr. Zenko Onagi), who is a specialist of Kojiki and other Japan’s historical records. I have never read Kojiki before. He told me the same thing was written in it. Nezu-san told me everything in this world is embraced within Amenominakanushi according to Kojiki. I was happy to hear that because Kojiki reminded me of Isaiahnagid, Isaiah. And everybody is this very thing, which is connected as one, unknown and mystical in reality. All people who are purified and returned to the true self are beautiful gods, and they will be embraced by Shinga forever. I cannot but feel it is incredibly beautiful and magnificent. I think it will be inevitable for humanity to realize it. It may be the origin of the ancient Veda and all religions of the world. I feel it is loving wisdom of humanity which existed in ancient times. The ancient science may come from Shinga… That means it is different from the present science based on a value of separation of the left brain. It was the science based on a belief that everything is not a reality. It is entirely different from science based on an idea that everything is a reality. It may often be quite the opposite. The ancient science, the science of a civilization presently called Mu, and the ancient incredibly excellent science is born out of the right brain based on the truth of un-reality. It is based on that everything is unknown and mystical, that this world is not a reality. For this reason, it is natural that it deals with plasma and like a Siddha, which seems psychic when it is seen from a belief that this world is a reality. It cannot be helped that there is a difference between the New Age or spiritual scientists who have learned the science, which is rooted that the world is not a reality, psychic, ethereal, Siddhi-like, and those who have learned the science, which is the left-brain-like, based on an idea that this world is a reality. It is quite natural that the science based on a belief of reality and the one created by Socrates, Platon and other scientists who realized that the unreality is the reality, is not compatible. I sometimes see the people with such different ideas fighting each other on the television. It is certain that they end up in fighting without such awareness. However, we will enter into the time based on the true reality. It will be the time when all people realize the truth that this world is unknown and mystical, and it is not this world. Scientists being aware of it, science will be the quality of plasma, which goes way beyond the existing science. It will be a wonderful, dream-like quantum science based on phenomenons in the mystical, unknown and unrealistic world. Otherwise, humanity may be ruined because of a sense of separation. Q: I have a question for you, MARTH. I saw a poster about so-called power spot of love at the station the other day. It said that we will be overwhelmed by natural power; we will receive love vibrations and so on. I felt something egoistically wrong with is, but I was not sure what the problem is. What do you think of it, MARTH? Q: I feel you are a leader of the New Age and the healing industry, MARTH. So, I dare to ask you this question. I often hear some New Age people say that they are a reincarnation of such and such or they are chosen by God. Why do they say so? I feel religious problems come from the same source. What do you say about it? MARTH: You’re right. Unfortunately, every problem comes from our value of separation. Everybody wants to win, become better, excel others, become somebody, and he doesn’t want to lose… Not only leaders but the ordinary people have such fear coming from desires, wants and a value of separation, which makes us have such tendency. They meant no harm, but because of a belief in the self and the other, we want to improve the self and to win, never want to be looked down within the separated society of the ego. That is one of the big problems. And another important thing is, everybody returns to Shinga (the true self) when we enter into a deep meditative state. As I mentioned before, you will experience such values like “return to the Source” “Return to the one being” “this world is nothing but a dream”. Then, there will be neither separation between God and the self, nor separation between the self and some other, nor a sense of reality. You will be gone and return to the ocean of oneness. You will have no value of separation at that time. We often hear someone says “I am a reincarnation of Cleopatra or Princess Yang Kwei-Fei “. If you look closely at her, she looks very much alike her counterpart. She may feel that she is a reincarnation of a certain person with similar consciousness. However, all human beings, including those who believe in a devil, are connected as one. We are one being. If we lose the ego through a deep meditation and return to love, we will return to the one being. In such an experience, we will feel, “Alas! All things in this world are being manifested as One Being.“ Everything is the self, or there is no self, we could say. We will feel we are included in One Being. Therefore, rather than you are a reincarnation of someone in the ancient times, this ancient person reached such consciousness. This is nothing but my personal feeling. I feel this way through my past experiences of repeatedly coming back to Shinga or the space of oneness. It is neither that someone is superior or inferior to others, nor he is better or worse. All human beings, insects, birds, flowers and everything will return there. Everything is connected as one. In spite of a difference of the time, we are connected as one with the people in the Jomon era and have the same consciousness. The true meaning of a consciousness level in the New Age is shown within a range of the higher level of selflessness and the lower level of the ego. If there is someone who has reached the same conscious level as you, he can be a reincarnation of you. As everything is connected as one, there is only a difference of a consciousness level. What is most important for us to create the millennium more than anything is to return to Shinga, to the higher self, to God consciousness and to love which a child of God has… Just like the divine people in the ancient time were called a certain name of God, and like I.naghid was called God… I wonder if it is our task to return to a beautiful person. I wonder if we need to return to a beautiful person like Ra Mu, Buddha, Socrates, OSHO Rajnessh, J. Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharish. I think all of us have to return to Shinga, which is the true quality of humanity, to love, to oneness, to the one source. Isn’t it a mission for all human beings? I feel that way. If I answer your question with a personal viewpoint, I think something uncertain that you are concerned about will be gone when we return to Shinga or the oneness, and we are able to regain loving consciousness. And no people will try to win over others, excel them, not to lose, become somebody because of fear. I personally feel that human beings will experience the world of oneness, of love for the first time. subsequently to “MINOR LINE – The Road to the East” recorded in Prague on Nov. 11, 2018 (11.11.11). “The Road to the East – to make a land of love, to be a model world” is born now. The following lyrics are based on a legend of I.naghit. It is born after MARTH deeply accessed to the beautiful and sincere heart of I.naghit. and keep a peaceful relation with neighboring countries. My ancestors from my father’s side lived in Jindai on Awajishima Island for generations. My father raised me, giving me intent guidance according to legendary teachings of I.naghit. He was a man of sincerity and justice. He looked like a samurai who dared to risk his life for happiness of the people. My father was an officer at Ministry of Justice. In the later years, he was transferred to Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office. After he resigned his position, he said he would be a fisherman in Izu. Instead he immediately retired from the world. He had been a man of justice and beauty all through his life. He told me every day not to win over others, not to become better or great, not to boost the ego, not to think ill of others even if hurt by them, hope for friends, love them, contribute to our country and live a life, pursuing justice. who was a good friend of MARTH. He passed away due to scirrhous carcinoma (cancer). His children support MARTH as his staff now. I’m not good looking. Are you? “To The Memory of Your Beloved Father (Single)”MARTH New Single is on sale on Bandcamp! Q:Dear MARTH, isn’t it good that we strengthen the ego, get enlightened, and become great? When we boost the ego or strengthen it, do we really get better? And or, how about that we reflect on us or feel sorry for others, saying, “I hurt my mom and dad’s feeling. I’m sorry I didn’t take much care of them.” “I feel sorry I didn’t love my children enough. ““I am sorry I had been defiant to my friends, to my boss, to my teacher, to everyone”? In other words, this is when we have a small ego (sense of separation). Which is happier and comforting for us, that is, when our ego is destroyed, or when we boost the ego and strengthen it? Let us call it a way to live life. Which way to live life will bring us a beautiful future? Is it when we praise ourselves, saying, “I am strong. I am great. I will not lose. I will win.” Or, is it when we reflect on us, “I ruined everything. I am very sorry. I want to apologize to my father and mother. I am sorry for my friends and comrades. “Which way to live a life is consciousness of God, of love, of the whole universe and of purity? Which is able to bring us a beautiful future? In a self-help seminar where we witness the self, we say, “What it is in the state of beginning will be there in the future.” If we keep the primary consciousness, we will realize such being exist in future. In other words, if we act out of fear or of bad intention, we will see a bad result in future. In this sense, is a state of our consciousness better when we boost the ego, feel uplifted, become self-conceited, and get irritated? Or, is our energy better when we end the ego (a sense of separation), return to the original small self or to the one source, get grounded, reflect on ourselves, ask ourselves, “I am sorry. I should have helped them. I should have supported them. I should have done this or that”, reflect inwardly and feel sorry for our mistakes and so on? And I dare to tell you that we are love, consciousness of a child of God, and the whole universe, which is the true quality of humanity only when we reflect on ourselves without boosting the ego, or uplifting it. And when we live with such awareness, we will see the present world beautiful. We return to love, the true essence, when we end the ego. We can see the world as darkness. At that time, we boost the ego; feel excited, thus we are fearful. As the ego is strengthened, fear will be bigger. A sense of separation is a sense of fear. When we reflect on ourselves, feel sorry, and our ego is diminished, we will see everyone is loving in fact whether we ride on a train or walking on the street. It is what comfort really means. hen we see our sadness with such standpoint of view, when we are pure enough to reflect on ourselves, “I haven’t been able to live in love, I fought with my friends again, I tried not to lose pretending to be tough again, I felt defiant to my rival as always today”, we will be able to return to bliss in fact. That is love and consciousness of a child of God. That is in reality the true essence of humanity. When we are there, we are happy. We will see the world beautiful. Therefore, uplifting the ego, boosting it and protecting it will not be good for the beautiful world, for the world of love and comfort. I mean to say the true essence of this world is oneness. It is connected as one, love, selflessness. It is also that we are not part but the whole. We are incredibly unknown and mystical. This is the true quality of the world. If you boost the ego, assert yourself and protect yourself in the world of oneness, your happiness, as part of the existence, will be damaged. Humanity doesn’t know it very well. If you say; “No, I won’t be a loser. I, I, I will win! I’ll be good! I’ll be great!”, you will put yourself into darkness, to an obstacle race. It is because that is against your quality of love. If you boost the ego, you will lose the quality of oneness. Love means being connected as one. And you will find peace, happiness, success, prosperity and everything in love. If you lose love, and if you boost the ego, assert yourself, protect the ego and do everything to strengthen the ego, you, as a cell, are not it, but strangely and drastically stand out. It means you have become a cancer cell or a tumor. Humanity must sincerely realize it and learn about it. It is not important to boost the ego or to make a cell bigger. It will eventually become a cancer or a bad cell. Therefore, the reason why you don’t see the world loving and beautiful is because you have identified yourself with the ego. It is not because of outer factors. It is nothing but that you have been able to see sadness not to live in love. What is truly profitable for us? Q: Let me ask you a question, MARTH. I think the world is in a great turmoil… It seems we human beings have reached limits in the existing way of life. How can we make the world better? How can we realize peace in the world? First of all, we need to change our values by knowing what is profitable and what is not for ourselves (part of the existence) in reality. Certainly, the best way is that we will live together with love and joy by diminishing our value of separation of the ego, increasing peacefulness in a sense of oneness and gradually losing a sense of interests of the ego, which is an illusion. However, we human beings are made to believe in a value of separation seriously. Simply speaking, separation means the ego (boosting the ego). Human beings and animals have come to understand a limited range as the self because of five senses given by God for our conveniences. And giving everything a name has brought us a sense of separation. In fact, everything in the entire universe is us. We, part of the existence, are given five senses to bear different part. Eventually we feel a certain range is the self. We manage to live in the universe, considering we bear a certain range, role, and responsibility of the self. It is not bad in itself. It is also true, however, that we will strengthen a sense of separation because of this understanding. It’s amazing how things work out in the universe. It will not work as we think. The universe created our five senses with which we are likely to separate and even let us separate. However, as soon as we (part of the universe) act or move separately, it will give us a hard time to awaken us. Such built-in mechanism of the universe will not give us a verbal message. It is quite troublesome. We need to be always aware of Atman, being one and connected, unknown and mystical to protect us, which is part of the existence. If we seriously believe in the ego and act according to it, have a value of competition, comparison and conflict, we will fall into a hard time because of an awakening message from the universe. It has been happening to us since the ancient times… We have engaged ourselves in believing in the ego, protecting it, preserving it and boosting it without knowing such mechanism of the universe. However, the universe doesn’t care at all. It doesn’t mind whether we humans believe in the ego and become worse. It doesn’t mind whether someone tries to boost the ego, protect it, has various ambitions, desires and aspirations. The universe will just give us a hard time when it happens. Then, we, part of the whole universe, will be stunned, say, “Wow! No, this doesn’t work! I was wrong. It’s painful. I’m not happy at all. Oh, no! This is not a good idea. Please forgive me” and return to the selflessness. This is a mechanism to make the ego to diminish, and dejected. Therefore, we will have a hard time if we don’t realize the mechanism of the universe. “Why doesn’t everything work out? I should have succeeded. I should have won.” However, everything will not work out as expected as ambitions of the ego don’t fit the whole universe. The ego is a separation. It doesn’t fit the principle of oneness of the universe. The universe will give us a hard time. And, we are the universe ourselves. “If God doesn’t find me, if the universe doesn’t find me, it will be no problem. I can deceive them…” However, we are the universe (love). We are part of God. We are part of the whole universe. That is, we as God will find us deceive them. Everybody is the same without partiality. In other words, people who realize oneness of the universe, its unknown and mystical quality, love themselves who seem others, neither fight with themselves who seem others, nor boost the ego, nor protect the ego, nor deceive people, nor trap them, nor attack them, will be quickly happy. And people of the pure heart who work for the whole universe will be beautiful and feel true prosperity and happiness… This is how the cosmic law works. However, most of human beings haven’t realized it yet. They don’t know it deeply. This is the reason why they will have a hard time. What if humanity will know the law itself? At present, humanity doesn’t know it very well. They believe in the ego, become highly ambitious, try to get a fame, honor, boost the ego, protect it, deceive others, attack them, and take from them. Believing it works in the egoistical society, people praise themselves, “I have become so great… I am so awesome!!” At that time, however, the universe will start working. He is the universe himself… He is part of God… If he says, “Nobody is watching me!” You are watching yourself, however. You are God himself. And the universe is meant only to work that way. It is satisfied with it. We are given five senses to fix us (part of the existence) by ourselves (part of the existence), to bear us by ourselves. However, if we believe in the separation seriously and consider the part as the self, we will have a hard time. They (five senses) are given to us for our mere convenience. They are only functions. It is only that each part bears each different part. nd we have each different characteristic as children of the universe. Everybody has magnificent abilities given from gods, the universe and love. However, if we use it not for the universe, nor the whole, but for the ego, and if we try to excel others, deceive them, attack them with a sense of separation, we will end our days in unhappiness. Even if you say, “I’ve got a position and honor! I am great!”, you may ruin yourself in pain. Or if you live for the ego, saying, “I will rebel those in power! I will abandon my job, seclude myself in the riverbed or home, and live freely!”, your wonderful ability given from the universe will be wasted and definitely destroyed as its retaliation.

2019-04-23T07:02:29Z

http://www.marth-healing.com/category/blog/

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2019-04-18T19:16:52Z

http://www.rawfoodsbible.com/articles/acid-reflux-treat-the-cause-not-the-symptoms/

One of the best things about the aftermath of the second task was that everybody was very keen to hear details of what had happened down in the lake, which meant that Ron was getting to share Harry's limelight for once. Harry noticed that Ron's version of events changed subtly with every retelling. At first, he gave what seemed to be the truth; it tallied with Hermione's story, anyway - Dumbledore had put all the hostages into a bewitched sleep in Professor McGonagall's office, first assuring them that they would be quite safe, and would awake when they were back above the water. One week later, however, Ron was telling a thrilling tale of kidnap in which he struggled single-handedly against fifty heavily armed merpeople who had to beat him into submission before tying him up. "But I had my wand hidden up my sleeve," he assured Padma Patil, who seemed to be a lot keener on Ron now that he was getting so much attention and was making a point of talking to him every time they passed in the corridors. "I could've taken those mer-idiots any time I wanted. " "What were you going to do, snore at them?" said Hermione waspishly. People had been teasing her so much about being the thing that Viktor Krum would most miss that she was in a rather tetchy mood. Ron's ears went red, and thereafter, he reverted to the bewitched sleep version of events. As they entered March the weather became drier, but cruel winds skinned their hands and faces every time they went out onto the grounds. There were delays in the post because the owls kept being blown off course. The brown owl that Harry had sent to Sirius with the dates of the Hogsmeade weekend turned up at breakfast on Friday morning with half its feathers sticking up the wrong way; Harry had no sooner torn off Sirius's reply than it took flight, clearly afraid it was going to be sent outside again. Sirius's letter was almost as short as the previous one. "He hasn't come back to Hogsmeade?" said Ron incredulously. "It looks like it, doesn't it?" said Hermione. "I can't believe him," said Harry tensely, "if he's caught. . . " "Made it so far, though, hasn't he?" said Ron. "And it's not like the place is swarming with dementors anymore. " Harry folded up the letter, thinking. If he was honest with himself, he really wanted to see Sirius again. He therefore approached the final lesson of the afternoon - double Potions - feeling considerably more cheerful than he usually did when descending the steps to the dungeons. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing in a huddle outside the classroom door with Pansy Parkinson's gang of Slytherin girls. All of them were looking at something Harry couldn't see and sniggering heartily. Pansys pug-like face peered excitedly around Goyle's broad back as Harry, Ron, and Hermione approached. "There they are, there they are!" she giggled, and the knot of Slytherins broke apart. Harry saw that Pansy had a magazine in her hands - Witch Weekly. The moving picture on the front showed a curly-haired witch who was smiling toothily and pointing at a large sponge cake with her wand. "You might find something to interest you in there, Granger!" Pansy said loudly, and she threw the magazine at Hermione, who caught it, looking startled. At that moment, the dungeon door opened, and Snape beckoned them all inside. Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Seeker and hero of the last World Quidditch Cup, Miss Granger has been toying with both boys' affections. Krum, who is openly smitten with the devious Miss Granger, has already invited her to visit him in Bulgaria over the summer holidays, and insists that he has "never felt this way about any other girl. " However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys' interest. "She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it. " "I told you!" Ron hissed at Hermione as she stared down at the article. "I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of- of scarlet woman!" Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laughter. "Scarlet woman?" she repeated, shaking with suppressed giggles as she looked around at Ron. "If that's the best Rita can do, she's losing her touch," said Hermione, still giggling, as she threw Witch Weekly onto the empty chair beside her. "What a pile of old rubbish. " "There's something funny, though," said Hermione ten minutes later, holding her pestle suspended over a bowl of scarab beetles. "How could Rita Skeeter have known. . . ?" "Don't be stupid," Hermione snapped, starting to pound up her beetles again. "No, it's just. . . how did she know Viktor asked me to visit him over the summer?" "What?" said Ron, dropping his pestle with a loud clunk. "He asked me right after he'd pulled me out of the lake. " Hermione muttered. "After he'd got rid of his shark's head. Madam Pomfrey gave us both blankets and then he sort of pulled me away from the judges so they wouldn't hear, and he said, if I wasn't doing anything over the summer, would I like to -" "And he did say he'd never felt the same way about anyone else," Hermione went on, going so red now that Harry could almost feel the heat coming from her, "but how could Rita Skeeter have heard him? She wasn't there. . . or was she? Maybe she has got an Invisibility Cloak; maybe she sneaked onto the grounds to watch the second task. . . . " "Well, I was too busy seeing whether you and Harry were okay to -" "Fascinating though your social life undoubtedly is. Miss Granger," said an icy voice right behind them, and all three of them jumped, "I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Ten points from Gryffindor. " "Ah. . . reading magazines under the table as well?" Snape added, snatching up the copy of Witch Weekly. "A further ten points from Gryffindor. . . oh but of course. . . " Snape's black eyes glittered as they fell on Rita Skeeter's article. "Potter has to keep up with his press cuttings. . . . " The dungeon rang with the Slytherins' laughter, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape's thin mouth. To Harry's fury, he began to read the article aloud. "'Harry Potter's Secret Heartache. . . dear, dear. Potter, what's ailing you now? 'A boy like no other, perhaps. . . '" "'. . . Harry Potter's well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart upon a worthier candidate. ' How very touching," sneered Snape, rolling up the magazine to continued gales of laughter from the Slytherins. "Well, I think I had better separate the three of you, so you can keep your minds on your potions rather than on your tangled love lives. Weasley, you stay here. Miss Granger, over there, beside Miss Parkinson. Potter - that table in front of my desk. Move. Now. " "All this press attention seems to have inflated your already over-large head. Potter," said Snape quietly, once the rest of the class had settled down again. "You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you," Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him (Harry continued to pound his scarab beetles, even though he had already reduced them to a very fine powder), "but I don't care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me. Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him. " "So I give you fair warning, Potter," Snape continued in a sorter and more dangerous voice, "pint-sized celebrity or not - if I catch you breaking into my office one more time -" "Don't lie to me," Snape hissed, his fathomless black eyes boring into Harry's. "Boomslang skin. Gillyweed. Both come from my private stores, and I know who stole them. " "You were out of bed on the night my office was broken into!" Snape hissed. "I know it. Potter! Now, Mad-Eye Moody might have joined your fan club, but I will not tolerate your behavior! One more nighttime stroll into my office, Potter, and you will pay!" "Right," said Harry coolly, turning back to his ginger roots. "I'll bear that in mind if I ever get the urge to go in there. " "Do you know what this is. Potter?" Snape said, his eyes glittering dangerously again. "No," said Harry, with complete honesty this time. "It is Veritaserum - a Truth Potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear," said Snape viciously. "Now, the use of this potion is controlled by very strict Ministry guidelines. But unless you watch your step, you might just find that my hand slips" - he shook the crystal bottle slightly - "right over your evening pumpkin juice. And then. Potter. . . then we'll find out whether you've been in my office or not. " Harry said nothing. He turned back to his ginger roots once more, picked up his knife, and started slicing them again. He didn't like the sound of that Truth Potion at all, nor would he put it past Snape to slip him some. He repressed a shudder at the thought of what might come spilling out of his mouth if Snape did it. . . quite apart from landing a whole lot of people in trouble - Hermione and Dobby for a start - there were all the other things he was concealing. . . like the fact that he was in contact with Sirius. . . and - his insides squirmed at the thought - how he felt about Cho. . . . He tipped his ginger roots into the cauldron too, and wondered whether he ought to take a leaf out of Moody's book and start drinking only from a private hip flask. "Enter," said Snape in his usual voice. "We need to talk," said Karkaroff abruptly when he had reached Snape. He seemed so determined that nobody should hear what he was saying that he was barely opening his lips; it was as though he were a rather poor ventriloquist. Harry kept his eyes on his ginger roots, listening hard. "I'll talk to you after my lesson, Karkaroff," Snape muttered, but Karkaroff interrupted him. "I want to talk now, while you can't slip off, Severus. You've been avoiding me. " "After the lesson," Snape snapped. "What's so urgent?" he heard Snape hiss at Karkaroff. "This," said Karkaroff, and Harry, peering around the edge of his cauldron, saw Karkaroff pull up the left-hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on his inner forearm. "Well?" said Karkaroff, still making every effort not to move his lips. "Do you see? It's never been this clear, never since -" "Put it away!" snarled Snape, his black eyes sweeping the classroom. "But you must have noticed -" Karkaroff began in an agitated voice. "We can talk later, Karkaroff!" spat Snape. "Potter! What are you doing?" "Clearing up my armadillo bile, Professor," said Harry innocently, straightening up and showing Snape the sodden rag he was holding. Harry had never been in this direction before. The winding lane was leading them out into the wild countryside around Hogsmeade. The cottages were fewer here, and their gardens larger; they were walking toward the foot of the mountain in whose shadow Hogsmeade lay. Then they turned a corner and saw a stile at the end of the lane. Waiting for them, its front paws on the topmost bar, was a very large, shaggy black dog, which was carrying some newspapers in its mouth and looking very familiar. . . . "Hello, Sirius," said Harry when they had reached him. "Chicken!" he said hoarsely after removing the old Daily Prophets from his mouth and throwing them down onto the cave floor. "Thanks," said Sirius, opening it, grabbing a drumstick, sitting down on the cave floor, and tearing off a large chunk with his teeth. "I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself. " "What're you doing here, Sirius?" he said. "Fulfilling my duty as godfather," said Sirius, gnawing on the chicken bone in a very doglike way. "Don't worry about it, I'm pretending to be a lovable stray. " He was still grinning, but seeing the anxiety in Harry's face, said more seriously, "I want to be on the spot. Your last letter. . . well, let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried. " "What if they catch you? What if you're seen?" "You three and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I'm an Animagus," said Sirius, shrugging, and continuing to devour the chicken leg. Harry scanned the story about Crouch. Phrases jumped out at him: hasn't been seen in public since November. . . house appears deserted. . . St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries decline comment. . . Ministry refuses to confirm rumors of critical illness. . . . "They're making it sound like he's dying," said Harry slowly. "But he can't be that ill if he managed to get up here. . . . " "My brothers Crouch's personal assistant," Ron informed Sirius. "He says Crouch is suffering from overwork. " "Mind you, he did look ill, last time I saw him up close," said Harry slowly, still reading the story. "The night my name came out of the goblet. . . . " "Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn't he?" said Hermione, an edge to her voice. She was stroking Buckbeak, who was crunching up Sirius's chicken bones. "I bet he wishes he hadn't done it now - bet he feels the difference now she's not there to look after him. " "Hermione's obsessed with house-elfs," Ron muttered to Sirius, casting Hermione a dark look. Sirius, however, looked interested. "Yeah, at the Quidditch World Cup," said Harry, and he launched into the story of the Dark Mark's appearance, and Winky being found with Harry's wand clutched in her hand, and Mr. Crouch's fury. When Harry had finished, Sirius was on his feet again and had started pacing up and down the cave. "Let me get this straight," he said after a while, brandishing a fresh chicken leg. "You first saw the elfin the Top Box. She was saving Crouch a seat, right?" "Right," said Harry, Ron, and Hermione together. "But Crouch didn't turn up for the match?" "No," said Harry. "I think he said he'd been too busy. " Sirius paced all around the cave in silence. Then he said, "Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you'd left the Top Box?" "Erm. . . " Harry thought hard. "No," he said finally. "I didn't need to use it before we got in the forest. And then I put my hand in my pocket, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars. " He stared at Sirius. "Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?" "Winky didn't steal that wand!" Hermione insisted. "The elf wasn't the only one in that box," said Sirius, his brow furrowed as he continued to pace. "Who else was sitting behind you?" "Loads of people," said Harry. "Some Bulgarian ministers. . . Cornelius Fudge. . . the Malfoys. . . " "The Malfoys!" said Ron suddenly, so loudly that his voice echoed all around the cave, and Buckbeak tossed his head nervously. "I bet it was Lucius Malfoy!" "Yes, there was, there was Ludo Bagman," Hermione reminded him. "I don't know anything about Bagman except that he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps," said Sirius, still pacing. "What's he like?" "He's okay," said Harry. "He keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament. " "Does he, now?" said Sirius, frowning more deeply. "I wonder why he'd do that?" "Says he's taken a liking to me," said Harry. "Hmm," said Sirius, looking thoughtful. "We saw him in the forest just before the Dark Mark appeared," Hermione told Sirius. "Remember?" she said to Harry and Ron. "Yeah, but he didn't stay in the forest, did he?" said Ron. "The moment we told him about the riot, he went off to the campsite. " "How d'you know?" Hermione shot back. "How d'you know where he Disapparated to?" "Come off it," said Ron incredulously. "Are you saying you reckon Ludo Bagman conjured the Dark Mark?" "It's more likely he did it than Winky," said Hermione stubbornly. "Told you," said Ron, looking meaningfully at Sirius, "told you she's obsessed with house -" "When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the elf had been discovered holding Harry's wand, what did Crouch do?" "Went to look in the bushes," said Harry, "but there wasn't anyone else there. " "Of course," Sirius muttered, pacing up and down, "of course, he'd want to pin it on anyone but his own elf. . . and then he sacked her?" "Yes," said Hermione in a heated voice, "he sacked her, just because she hadn't stayed in her tent and let herself get trampled -" "Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!" said Ron. Sirius shook his head and said, "She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a mans like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. " "All these absences of Barty Crouch's. . . he goes to the trouble of making sure his house-elf saves him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup, but doesn't bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament, and then stops coming to that too. . . . It's not like Crouch. If he's ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I'll eat Buckbeak. " "D'you know Crouch, then?" said Harry. "Oh I know Crouch all right," he said quietly. "He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban - without a trial. " "No, I'm not," said Sirius, taking another great bite of chicken. "Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn't you know?" "He was tipped for the next Minister of Magic," said Sirius. "He's a great wizard, Barty Crouch, powerfully magical - and power-hungry. Oh never a Voldemort supporter," he said, reading the look on Harry's face. "No, Barty Crouch was always very outspoken against the Dark Side. But then a lot of people who were against the Dark Side. . . well, you wouldn't understand. . . you're too young. . . . " "That's what my dad said at the World Cup," said Ron, with a trace of irritation in his voice. "Try us, why don't you?" "All right, I'll try you. . . . " He walked once up the cave, back again, and then said, "Imagine that Voldemort's powerful now. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You're scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing. . . the Ministry of Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, they're trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere. . . panic. . . confusion. . . that's how it used to be. "Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. Crouch's principles might've been good in the beginning - I wouldn't know. He rose quickly through the Ministry, and he started ordering very harsh measures against Voldemort's supporters. The Aurors were given new powers - powers to kill rather than capture, for instance. And I wasn't the only one who was handed straight to the dementors without trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark Side. He had his supporters, mind you - plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of witches and wizards clamoring for him to take over as Minister of Magic. When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened. . . . " Sirius smiled grimly. "Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power. " "Crouch's son was caught?" gasped Hermione. "Yep," said Sirius, throwing his chicken bone to Buckbeak, flinging himself back down on the ground beside the loaf of bread, and tearing it in half. "Nasty little shock for old Barty, I'd I magine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn't he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while. . . gotten to know his own son. " "Was his son a Death Eater?" said Harry. "No idea," said Sirius, still stuffing down bread. "I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I've found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I'd bet my life were Death Eaters - but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the house-elf. " "Did Crouch try and get his son off?" Hermione whispered. "Crouch let his son off? I thought you had the measure of him, Hermione! Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go; he had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister of Magic. You saw him dismiss a devoted house-elf because she associated him with the Dark Mark again - doesn't that tell you what he's like? Crouch's fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial, and by all accounts, it wasn't much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy. . . then he sent him straight to Azkaban. " "He gave his own son to the dementors?" asked Harry quietly. "That's right," said Sirius, and he didn't look remotely amused now. "I saw the dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can't have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though. . . they all went quiet in the end. . . except when they shrieked in their sleep. . . . " "So he's still in Azkaban?" Harry said. "No," said Sirius dully. "No, he's not in there anymore. He died about a year after they brought him in. " "He wasn't the only one," said Sirius bitterly. "Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the dementors could sense it, they got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important Ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Barty Crouch, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterward. Grief. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son's body. The dementors buried him outside the fortress; I watched them do it. " "So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made," he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "One moment, a hero, poised to become Minister of Magic. . . next, his son dead, his wife dead, the family name dishonored, and, so I've heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the son and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Cooperation. " "Moody says Crouch is obsessed with catching Dark wizards," Harry told Sirius. "Yeah, I've heard it's become a bit of a mania with him," said Sirius, nodding. "If you ask me, he still thinks he can bring back the old popularity by catching one more Death Eater. " "And he sneaked up here to search Snape's office!" said Ron triumphantly, looking at Hermione. "Yes, and that doesn't make sense at all," said Sirius. "Yeah, it does!" said Ron excitedly, but Sirius shook his head. "Listen, if Crouch wants to investigate Snape, why hasn't he been coming to judge the tournament? It would be an ideal excuse to make regular visits to Hogwarts and keep an eye on him. " "So you think Snape could be up to something, then?" asked Harry, but Hermione broke in. "Look, I don't care what you say, Dumbledore trusts Snape -" "Oh give it a rest, Hermione," said Ron impatiently. "I know Dumbledores brilliant and everything, but that doesn't mean a really clever Dark wizard couldn't fool him -" "Why did Snape save Harry's life in the first year, then? Why didn't he just let him die?" "I dunno - maybe he thought Dumbledore would kick him out-" "What d'you think, Sirius?" Harry said loudly, and Ron and Hermione stopped bickering to listen. "I think they've both got a point," said Sirius, looking thoughtfully at Ron and Hermione. "Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I've wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape's always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was," Sirius added, and Harry and Ron grinned at each other. "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters. " "Rosier and Wilkes - they were both killed by Aurors the year before Voldemort fell. The Lestranges - they're a married couple - they're in Azkaban. Avery - from what I've heard he wormed his way out of trouble by saying he'd been acting under the Imperius Curse - he's still at large. But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater - not that that means much. Plenty of them were never caught. And Snape's certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble. " "Snape knows Karkaroff pretty well, but he wants to keep that quiet," said Ron. "Yeah, you should've seen Snape's face when Karkaroff turned up in Potions yesterday!" said Harry quickly. "Karkaroff wanted to talk to Snape, he says Snape's been avoiding him. Karkaroff looked really worried. He showed Snape something on his arm, but I couldn't see what it was. " He showed Snape something on his arm?" said Sirius, looking frankly bewildered. He ran his fingers distractedly through his filthy hair, then shrugged again. "Well, I've no idea what that's about. . . but if Karkaroff's genuinely worried, and he's going to Snape for answers. . . " "There's still the fact that Dumbledore trusts Snape, and I know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn't, but I just can't see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he'd ever worked for Voldemort. " "Why are Moody and Crouch so keen to get into Snape's office then?" said Ron stubbornly. "Well," said Sirius slowly, "I wouldn't put it past Mad-Eye to have searched every single teacher's office when he got to Hogwarts. He takes his Defense Against the Dark Arts seriously, Moody. I'm not sure he trusts anyone at all, and after the things he's seen, it's not surprising. I'll say this for Moody, though, he never killed if he could help it. Always brought people in alive where possible. He was tough, but he never descended to the level of the Death Eaters. Crouch, though. . . he's a different matter. . . is he really ill? If he is, why did he make the effort to drag himself up to Snape's office? And if he's not. . . what's he up to? What was he doing at the World Cup that was so important he didn't turn up in the Top Box? What's he been doing while he should have been judging the tournament?" "You say your brother's Crouch's personal assistant? Any chance you could ask him if he's seen Crouch lately?" "I can try," said Ron doubtfully. "Better not make it sound like I reckon Crouch is up to anything dodgy, though. Percy loves Crouch. " "And you might try and find out whether they've got any leads on Bertha Jorkins while you're at it," said Sirius, gesturing to the second copy of the Daily Prophet. "Bagman told me they hadn't," said Harry. "Yes, he's quoted in the article in there," said Sirius, nodding at the paper. "Blustering on about how bad Bertha's memory is. Well, maybe she's changed since I knew her, but the Bertha I knew wasn't forgetful at all - quite the reverse. She was a bit dim, but she had an excellent memory for gossip. It used to get her into a lot of trouble; she never knew when to keep her mouth shut. I can see her being a bit of a liability at the Ministry of Magic. . . maybe that's why Bagman didn't bother to look for her for so long. . . . " "It's half past three," said Hermione. "You'd better get back to school," Sirius said, getting to his feet. "Now listen. . . " He looked particularly hard at Harry. "I don't want you lot sneaking out of school to see me, all right? Just send notes to me here. I still want to hear about anything odd. But you're not to go leaving Hogwarts without permission; it would be an ideal opportunity for someone to attack you. " "No one's tried to attack me so far, except a dragon and a couple of grindylows," Harry said, but Sirius scowled at him. "I don't care. . . I'll breathe freely again when this tournament's over, and that's not until June. And don't forget, if you're talking about me among yourselves, call me Snuffles, okay?" He handed Harry the empty napkin and flask and went to pat Buckbeak good-bye. "I'll walk to the edge of the village with you," said Sirius, "see if I can scrounge another paper. " "Wonder if Percy knows all that stuff about Crouch?" Ron said as they walked up the drive to the castle. "But maybe he doesn't care. . . It'd probably just make him admire Crouch even more. Yeah, Percy loves rules. He'd just say Crouch was refusing to break them for his own son. " "Percy would never throw any of his family to the dementors," said Hermione severely. "I don't know," said Ron. "If he thought we were standing in the way of his career. . . Percy's really ambitious, you know. . . . " "Poor old Snuffles," said Ron, breathing deeply. "He must really like you. Harry. . . . Imagine having to live off rats. "

2019-04-26T01:50:21Z

https://www.harrypotterfrenzy.com/Harry-Potter-and-the-Goblet-of-Fire/27

Below is a letter in response to the recent decisions made by the Israeli government written by the Rehovot and Minneapolis Partnership2Gether steering committee members. This letter will also be published in the Rehovot newspaper. We, the undersigned, Israeli citizens from Rehovot and members of the Jewish community in Minneapolis (Minnesota), voluntarily serve as members on the steering committee of Partnership2Gether within the framework of the Jewish Agency. Our partnership – along with its 46 members of this global network of communities – connect Jewish communities in Israel and around the world, with an emphasis on deepening our Jewish identity and Jewish Peoplehood awareness, community building, and leadership development. We run a variety of programs for children and youth, college students, educators, and social entrepreneurs. Our activities are funded by the Jewish community in Minneapolis, the Jewish Agency, and the Rehovot Municipality. For us, the citizens of Rehovot, our personal acquaintance with our friends in Minneapolis revealed the rich diversity of the Diaspora Jewry, in which Jews from different streams manage to maintain a cohesive community, to address issues, to respect each other and at the same time strengthen the common values, culture, and awareness. This exposure enriched both our own world as well our Jewish identity and deepened our commitment to fight for Jewish pluralism in the State of Israel. We are dismayed and concerned with how the persistence of one particular interpretation of Judaism in the Jewish state achieves the exact opposite of what is intended, and even contradicts the Declaration of Independence. It distances many Israelis from the Jewish component of their identity rather than uniting. For us the Jews of Minneapolis, who see firsthand (as a result of our partnership with Rehovot) the challenges in the Israeli society, the June 25th government decisions are yet another slap in the face with the ongoing saga of non-recognition and humiliation towards us, in the Diaspora. We are shocked that the Israeli government has chosen to cancel a historic agreement that was reached with great effort amongst representatives of the various Jewish streams: to establish a dignified area at the Western Wall to be run by the government and the liberal streams. We are equally appalled with the Conversion Law, which reinstates the monopoly of conversion to the Chief Rabbinate and affects thousands of Jews who have been converted in recent years placing them into alternative tracks that the Israeli establishment does not recognize. The decisions of the Israeli government are equivalent to turning a blind eye to the strategic challenge of connecting Diaspora youth to the Jewish people and the State of Israel. These government decisions directly affect the ability of the young to view Israel as their home. Needless to say, government decisions also undermine the efforts to recruit and train Jewish students to protect Israel from BDS supporters on campuses. The media frequently indicated the potentially damaging effect on the level of support from the Diaspora Jews through their donations, however, in our opinion, this is not the main thing. The unfortunate government decisions on June 25th directly affect our common future as a nation, the security and economic interests of the State of Israel, and the original purpose of the State for the Jewish Nation. We stand a few days before the seventeenth of Tammuz, and it is our duty to remind you that because of hatred, the Temple was destroyed twice. We stand before you, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu and every member of the government, demanding that you recognize the seriousness of this matter and act decisively to cancel the government’s June 25th decisions. To celebrate Shabbat during 100 Days // 100 Ways, we asked fifth graders at Bet Shalom and their “twin” classroom at the Hadarim school, in our sister-city of Rehovot, Israel to draw us images of Shabbat. Below view a gallery of images from the Bet Shalom students. Stay tuned for more images, this time from Rehovot! Minneapolis Jewish Federation is paired with the city of Rehovot, Israel as part of the Parntership2Gether program through the Jewish Agency for Israel. This partnership is in its second full year and has recently begun implementing exciting programming in both the Minneapolis and Rehovot Jewish communities. One program of the Minneapolis/Rehovot P2G is a school classroom “twinning.” Twinning programs promote the sense of Jewish Peoplehood and shared responsibility. Students have the chance to meet each other and have dynamic conversations around issues such as Jewish identity and social responsibility. You’ll see these and more on our Facebook page every Friday. Be sure to check out the rest of our 100 Days events and posts on Twitter as well as on our website. Thanks to technology, we are able to bring two synagogues, with a deep love of learning, together. Beginning November 17, Congregation Darchei Noam in St. Louis Park will begin simultaneous study sessions with synagogue The Berman Shul in Rehovot, Israel. The six classes will be held on Tuesday evenings, the Minneapolis group meets at Darchei Noam at 7PM and on Sundays at 11AM. The following Sunday the groups will gather via Skype in Minnesota and Israel to discuss what they learned and share insights. These classes are free and open to the community. The schedule is below, and we hope to see you there! The #‎Momentummn‬ delegation of the‪#‎MOMentumtrips‬ of women visited Rehovot on Tuesday, October 27th as a part of our Partnership2Gether program through the municipality of Rehovot, the Jewish Agency and the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. The visit was hosted and sponsored by Rehovot’s Deputy Mayor, Zohar Blum, and David Ashkenazi, Rehovot’s Chief of Staff and Head of Foreign Relations Department. The group spent the day touring the city (Weisman Institute and the Ayalon Institute), visiting kindergartens and early childhood care facilities in Kiryat Moshe as well as a little bit of shopping. The highlight of the visit was dinner at the Minkov Citrus Orchard Museum along with Rehovot members of the partnership’s Steering Committee which is Co-Chaired by Dr. Yoram Blachar. The meeting between members of the Steering Committee and the women from the Minneapolis community was successful, exciting and left a taste and desire for further development of the relationship. Fun fact: Melanie Ginsburg, a MASA Israel student from Minneapolis on a Teachers Fellows program in Rehovot, spoke with the group while they were there about how Federation supports Masa (which is also a Jewish Agency for Israel program), and about what she is doing in Rehovot. Dozens of members of the Minneapolis Jewish community are scheduled to visit Rehovot in the upcoming months to continue establishing relationships and friendships with the residents of Rehovot. We helped to build Israel. Today we help keep it strong. For more than six decades, we’ve helped strengthen the State of the Israel. And our commitment continues. Unwavering. Federation is dedicated to ensuring that all of Israel’s citizens have equal access to educational and economic opportunity. And we work tirelessly to deepen connections between the Jewish State and the global Jewish community. Despite Israel’s economic success, one in five Israeli families lives in poverty. We provide a safety net for the most vulnerable, and we advocate for those in distress. When Israel is threatened, we mobilize our networks at home and overseas to come immediately to her aid. That global connection is fostered by immersive experiences for young Jews and programming that brings Israel to life in communities throughout North America. Federation has helped millions of immigrants move to Israel and start new lives—26,000 in the past year alone. Thousands of elderly benefit from innovative services they receive right in their homes. Thousands of poor families know their children will have a brighter future thanks to our Federation-supported programs. Job training programs tackle high unemployment among the one million Israelis with disabilities. The money we raise during times of crisis helps keeps Israelis safe during conflicts and funds post-trauma counseling for tens of thousands living on the front lines. And we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of young Jews forge a personal connection to Israel through programs like Taglit-Birthright Israel, and built strong relationships between communities in Israel and North America through Partnership2Gether— including our partner city, Rehovot. We stand by Israel’s side. Always. While you can’t prevent further escalation in the violence in Israel, you can deliver swift assistance to the victims through the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Fund for Victims of Terror. Because of your gift, victims of the horrifying terrorist attacks happening throughout Israel will receive assistance quickly—often within 24 hours—so they can start the process of healing.

2019-04-21T07:08:52Z

https://jewishminneapolis.org/tag/partnership2gether/

I’m going to write a bit about something pretty personal here, which is a tad unusual. As many of my friends know, I became extremely ill in late September / early October of 2016. I had just moved back across country, from San Francisco to Providence, to teach Experimental Poets of Color at Brown. I loved being back at Brown, on the east coast, near family and friends. I was also teaching a poetry workshop for the super-rad Frequency Writers, and by the end of that 4-week class I was sick with what I thought was a bad cold. The cold never went away. I was sick through the terror of the election, through some non-profit board issues, through my super-phenomenal class. I was sick through my partner’s visits, and by the time he came out for his Thanksgiving break I was so sick that I couldn’t get myself groceries, couldn’t cook for myself, could barely get out of bed and take a shower. I’ve had ongoing health issues for many years now: undiagnosed chronic pain, and a few diagnosed neurodivergences that have been well managed for years with medication, among other things. So I’m no stranger to being sick, or to being a medical mystery. When I first got sick, as I said, I assumed it was a bad cold. One of my roommates works with young children and had been sick, so I figured I caught it from him. When two weeks later I still wasn’t feeling better, I went to a CVS minute clinic to see if it was something like the flu or pneumonia or strep. The (white cis male) nurse there said I had probably just gotten two colds in a row and would feel better soon, and recommended cough medicine. Another week later, and I was feeling worse, so I decided to see my PCP. I’d had a terrible queerphobic experience with a doctor supposedly on the “trans team” at Thundermist in RI, so I went back to my former PCP in Boston, a lovely and kind cis white man who I liked because he always seemed willing to listen to me, and trusted me. That may not seem like a big deal, but talk to most any woman, much less a queer or non-white or trans femme person, and you’ll hear enough anecdotal evidence of being dismissed, gaslit, and even ridiculed by their doctors to further evidence those studies about how women’s pain is taken less seriously (not to mention people of color, the group most affected by medical discrimination) [that’s officially the most depressing series of links I’ve ever created]. So it is a big deal to me to find a doctor who treats me with respect, and kindness, and even encourages me to advocate for myself and do my own research and come with questions. Which I did. I wondered if maybe I had mono. Or strep or pneumonia or walking pneumonia, because that cough still hadn’t gone away, and I’d had strep that turned into walking pneumonia before. My doctor examined me and said no, not any of those things. I was exhausted all the time, I could barely get through my teaching day, and it took me a full day to recover after every class. I was falling behind in everything, and I couldn’t manage basic care for myself like doing laundry. There were days that I didn’t leave the house because I didn’t have the energy to get dressed much less walk down a flight of stairs. I described it as being able to do one thing at a time. So I could get up and brush my teeth, and then I had to rest before doing literally anything else. For an hour, at least. He agreed this was alarming, and ordered bloodwork to check for the most likely causes: thyroid, autoimmune disorder, or vitamin deficiency. Two weeks later, with no improvement, the bloodwork came back normal. I went back in to see him to see what we could do next, and he said that he thought I was probably experiencing a severe depressive episode. I’ve been diagnosed and have managed depression for years, and have had periods of severe depression, but had never experienced anything like this before. Still, I thought, it’s possible, given all the stress of the year. By this point the semester was over, so we upped my antidepressants by more than twice, and I went out to San Francisco to visit my partner for a few weeks. The antidepressants seemed to have no measurable effect, and though I was being more cared for in San Francisco I still had no energy. When I came back at the end of January I went back in to see my doctor again. There were other medical things I needed to do before potentially losing health insurance with the threatened repeal of the ACA, including have my IUD replaced, and I wanted to try to get some answers. Having done some research for me, a friend had suggested I ask about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a poorly-understood autoimmune disorder. My partner had done his own research and wondered if my symptoms might be related to my now-10-year-old copper IUD. I asked the doctor, and he said that it couldn’t be related to the IUD, and that there was really no way to test for Chronic Fatigue since it’s a diagnosis of exclusion. I left with no new tests ordered, no plan for continuing to try to figure out a diagnosis other than “depression” and feeling not only exhausted but also hopeless. Despite the upped antidepressant, I began considering whether or not I wanted to live my life like this. Suicidal ideation is something that I’ve had on and off, and is something that is manageable for me with the proper support. But I’d never experienced such strong hopelessness before, such a complete and consuming sense of hopelessness. I knew that I should be continuing to advocate for myself, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the energy, or the willpower to keep fighting. I enlisted the support of nearby friends and family to get my basic needs met, and started to resign myself to trying to make a life with 10% of the capacity I had previously had, on my best days, and many many days with close to 0% capacity. I thought a lot about value, and worth, and my own new sense of worthlessness, and ableism, and capitalism. I read a lot about how capitalism is premised on the most damaging kind of ableism, and finally understood that a radical rejection of capitalism and it’s colonialism, ableism, and misogyny would require me to believe that I had value not for what I do but for who I am. And that those two things were separate. At some point towards the beginning of April, I got a phone call from an ob/gyn referral to schedule an appointment to have my IUD replaced. It was time (the copper IUD lasts about 10 years) and I had decided that I wanted to replace it with a hormonal IUD to ease the side effects of worsened cramps and heavier, longer periods. It was going to be tricky, since the string wasn’t visible anymore, and I had been dreading it for years. But they called me, so I scheduled the appointment, and asked a friend to come hold my hand. I’ll skip the details, but getting the IUD removed was the most excruciating thing that I’ve ever had happen to my body. And the important takeaway is that it didn’t need to be as bad as it was. I had scheduled the appointment at a hospital specifically because my referral was for an ultrasound guided removal and placement of the new one. When I got there, there was no ultrasound in the room. The RNP performing the operation seemed surprised when I said that’s what I had been referred for, and assured me that they’d be able to see the string. She didn’t believe me when I told her that for the past 8 years I’d had to have it checked annually by ultrasound because the string wasn’t visible. She said it was probably “right up inside” my cervix and would be easy to get with a small spiral brush. I tried to convince her that I had had the consultations, and was referred specifically because I was going to need the ultrasound, but she dismissed me, and I was too tired to fight harder for myself. And in the end, she was able to do it without the ultrasound, but it took significantly longer, and was significantly more painful and difficult than it should have been. At the end of the procedure I was screaming and sobbing in pain, I thought I might pass out, and had to lay on the table sobbing for several minutes while my friend held me before I could even sit up. My friend took me home, and got me dinner and drew me a bath and I started to feel better. I went home, still in a lot of pain, and went right to bed. And the next day I woke up and felt better. Not just that the pain in my uterus had subsided significantly, but I was more energetic. It felt like a good day, but much better. That day my partner flew in and I was able to pick him up at the airport, which I hadn’t been able to do the previous few visits. And I was energetic enough to drive back. He said I seemed more myself than he had seen me since September. I felt more myself too. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, I’d had some good days before and then “paid for it” for days afterwards. But the next day I felt even better. We went out with friends, and then to a concert. I hadn’t been able to do more than one thing every few days in months, and here I was doing two things in the same day, and I felt good. Happy. Energized. And the next day I felt even better. By the fourth day after having my IUD removed I experienced a complete cessation of all my symptoms (fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, short attention span, inability to concentrate, despair, hopelessness, anxiety, weight gain). Even things I hadn’t thought of as symptoms, like excessively dry skin, intense chocolate cravings, and excessively cold hands, were gone. There is no evidence linking the copper IUD with coper toxicity, but that’s because there haven’t been significant studies done on how long-term exposure from an IUD affects the body of the person who has it. We don’t even really know for sure why the copper is such effective contraception, though it is, and (surprise surprise) there have been more studies on the effect of the IUD on sperm than on the effect of the IUD on the body of the person who has it. But the anecdotal evidence my partner turned up in his research is abundant, and coincides almost exactly with my original symptoms. I’ve now had the copper IUD out of my body for just over a week, and in that time I haven’t had one single “bad” day. Literally all of my symptoms have completely cleared up, after almost seven full months of almost complete incapacitation. I’m intensely relieved that I’m back to myself, but I’m also intensely angry that not only was copper toxicity not even mentioned as a potential outcome of long-term (or short-term) exposure through the IUD, but that when I specifically asked about it, I was completely dismissed. That’s seven months of my life that were lost to me, and it could have been more. And I’m so grateful that my partner believed me and refused to accept that it was “all in my head” or “just depression.” Long story short: I’m better, and recovering. From heavy metal poisoning.

2019-04-23T14:11:09Z

https://acyborgkitty.com/2017/04/21/heavy-metal/

INDIRA DEVI, born to wealth, luxury and culture and refined to her finger-tips, came, unaccountably, to be dogged by other-worldliness which gave her no peace till she met her ‘destined Guru’, as she puts it, in Sri Dilip Kumar Roy who advised her to accept Sri Aurobindo as her Guide in 1949. But she refused and the great Sage counselled Dilip Kumar to accept her and wrote that she was an aspirant of “advanced spiritual consciousness” whose “samadhi was of the savikalpa kind”, and nature highly psychic and receptive. After founding the Han Krishna Mandir Ashram at Poona under the aegis of her accepted Guru, she began, at his instance, to write about her experiences and evolution in Yoga to two American brother-aspirants, Richard Miller and Don Taxay, who had adopted India as their spiritual home. These letters form the first Part of the present volume. The second consists of letters written by Dilip Kumar and others about the happenings in Han Krishna Mandir and about the saints and sages and spiritual life in general. These have been edited finally by Dilip Kumar as a tribute to Indira Devi on her birthday this year 1964, with the one aim: to attest the last Rality, vivid and large as life, which answers all true aspiration with its boon of bhakti and adoration of Lord Krishna who “manifests His Love through Beauty to lead us to Bilss.”. Translator’s apology: I was deeply impressed by His Holiness Sri Mahanam’s twin books on the Gita and Sri Gouranga. So I wrote to him. He complied with my request and sent me this Preface (in Bengali) to serve as a Foreword to Indira Devi’s Letters, translated into Bengali by myself and published in Calcutta last year. While gratefully acknowledging the debt, I asked His Holiness to translate his Foreword into English for the present edition. In reply he suggested I myself undertake the task. I have availed myself of his permission but with deep diffidence, as I am fully alive to the impossibility of doing justice to his inimitable style in an English translation, the more so as many of the images and similes which star his poetic prose can never retain their savour and ambiance in a language like English whose genius and temperament are very different from Bengali. So, I hope His Holiness will forgive me for having been forced to be somewhat free at places in my translation, as also for omitting a few passages I could not cope with. I have also taken the liberty of adding two quotations: one from Indira Dcvi’s 14th Letter and the other from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri - at the tail-end. His Holiness has written in Bengali: “Manush pabe divyatanu”. But although it sounds perfect in our language, to translate it literally with “Man shall have a celestial body” would have sounded very much like an anticlimax in English, especially in a closing sentence. It has been said that an authentic God-seeker’s life dates from the moment he is initiated in Yoga, that is, when his soul is born spiritually. As I believe this, I will refrain from writing Indira Devi’s biography by way of preface even though she is the central figure in The Flute Calls Still. I have done my humble best to tell here how His Flute called her and, how again, after answering its call, she became a flute in His hands, as His Holiness Sri Mahanamavrata has put it so aptly. Still, many who have appealed to me to write about her life in the past are likely to be disappointed. I can only console them by stressing that I have portrayed, through others’ letters and mine, her spiritual evolution and stature in the second part of the volume entitled, Our Mandir. In its pages, however, I have tried to keep myself in the background, because I want all that I have penned or edited to be taken, by and large, as a history of and tribute to her rapid blossoming in the light of the spirit — a blossoming as incredible as it is indubitable - by which I wish to underline her astonishing Aspiration (referred to by Ruth St. Dennis, the famous dancer) which outpetalled with such breathtaking swiftness since her spiritual birth in 1949. “The greatest aspiration and joy of the little drop of rain is to lose itself in the river for it knows that only by losing it can gain. I feel tempted to go on for pages and pages, quoting her spontaneous reactions to the lore of Guruvad if only to show how they are all on fours with the findings of our forbears, but since that is not possible, I will conclude with a short account of what is perhaps the most remarkable and singular feature of her spiritual evolution, to wit, her relationship with Mirabai of hallowed fame, who has been singing to her moving songs on love divine day, after thrilling day, from the year of her initiation in Yoga: 1949. These lovely songs (which have already added up to more than 800 in number) she heard in her samadhi, a miracle, indeed, of the first water, hut what is a still greater miracle is that she remembered everytime the words and recited them verbatim! And, as this is, assuredly, the most abiding divine miracle I have witnessed in my life so far, I cannot, for fear of being scoffed at, fight shy of writing at some length about this breath-taking phenomenon. Were space at my disposal I could have easily written a hundred pages and still feel I have not said enough; but as that is neither feasible nor advisable, may I be permitted to quote my own Preface to a sheaf of her songs entitled, Pujanjali which was printed here in Pune three years ago in Sindhi script. Then she began to see, in her vision, a lovely lady in Rajput dress who sang to her beautiful devotional songs in a voice athrob with loves yearning and pain — viraha. Once, at my request, she wrote about it all in a letter dated August 19, 1950, from Mussourie where she used to meditate daily from eight to ten hours. “I am writing this in the small hours of the morning after having just woken up from my meditation which lasted about five hours. “Mira came to me again. 0 Dada, how dear she has grown to me and how near! How real Her love and how close she is to my heart! And yet isn’t it all but incredible? To think that one so holy, who comes to me in my dreams and trances, should be growing as it were with my own growth! ... I am told that people simply will not believe me. I can only smile.Now that I have seen and loved Her, could it matter to me one jot or tittle, even if the whole world were to laugh at my experience ? A mere dream? But can a mere dream give one more lasting peace and sustenance of love than all the realities of the world put together? O Dada, I shall always be grateful to you, for it is because of your blessing, your meditation, that she came to me and loved me as she has. And how precious is Her Love! I wish you could see Her! She is lovely and her beauty grows on one. But I cannot make her out. I asked Her the other day: But tell me, are you really real? She placed herpalm on my head in token of blessing and smiled again and said: But do you know yourself, the real you ? I will tell you more about it all when you come next to Mussourie . But one thing I may tell you now as certain: that she will never forsake me even if the whole world does. Next followed a series of thrilling mystic experiences after which she began, lo, to remember the songs which, in her trances, she had heard Mira sing. As she started dictating these songs and I went on in delight, taking them down, I could no longer doubt their authenticity: the lady who continued to visit Indira I her Samadhi could be no other than the famous Mira Bai, Queen of Mevar, whose life – history had crystallized into a haloed legend centuries ago. While in Pondicherry, I first published in 1950, 165 of her songs entitled Shrutanjali meaning an offering of songs heard”. Thereafter, in 1953, Premanjali (with 95 songs) saw the light, to be succeeded, in 1958, by Sudhanjali with 183 songs, and lastly, in 1960, by Deepanjali with 167 songs, making up a sum total of 610 songs in all, of which about 600 were heard and dictated by her, a phenomenal feat in all conscience! And 200 more such songs remain still to be published. “Whenever he was in a state of ecstasy he would burst forth into song and one of the fellow-seekers, sitting by, would take them down.” These were later approved by the poet-mystic who said: ‘This is my nuska” (a physician’s prescription for the malady of life) (Divine Dwellers in the Desert pp. 47-48). To conclude with the comment of Sri Aurobindo (and who could be a greater authority on authentic mysticism ancient or modem?) He wrote to me three letters when I sent him a few of Indira’s songs with an elaborate’ account of how they were inspired and conveyed. (7.5.1950) “It is evident,” he further explained in his second letter, “that Indira is receiving inspiration for her Hindi songs from the Mira of her vision and that her consciousness and the consciousness of Mira are collaborating on some plane superconscient to the ordinary human mind: an occult plane; also, this influence is not an illusion but a reality, otherwise the thing could not happen as it does in actual fact. Such things do happen on the occult plane, they are not new and unprecedented.”(2-6-1950). For the rest, I need only add that I am sure that these songs will go on inspiring — irrespective of caste and creed, race or religion — all true devotees and aspirants who need the light of Love Divine to help them tread the Path that leads to the Peak of soul’s fulfilment in this world of perfidious phantoms and false glimmers that end only in the Abyss. In the foreword we are told that this book — containing 167 Hindi bhajans and 33 English translations - is the fourth collection of Indira Devi’s devotional songs, which has been rightly compared with Mira’s songs. In these words the Yogi Anirvan has very correctly described Indira Devi’s songs and her complete dedication to Krishna. Mira used to consider herself an incarnation of Lalita a dear sakhi of Sri Radha who was the greatest devotee of Krishna. Therefore, it is not at all out of place that Indira Devi equally deeply in love with Krishna, should be considered by Shri Dilip Kumar Roy ‘in contact with Mira, singing’. In such rapturous moods, almost in trance, she dictates the songs with tears in her eyes, conveying the pure message of Mira’s world-oblivious love for Krishna. It is the purest devotion of an inspired soul and complete dedication that is manifested in the bhajans of Indira Devi: It is true that nobody can say whence arises this mystic longing, this overwhelming aspiration for self- surrender; but one can see it in Indira Devi and in her songs. Her whole personality is surcharged with love for love’s sake .... ahetuk prem .... which knows only love and wants nothing in reward, not even moksha — salvation. She considers human bodies or moulds as the pradips (clay lamps) and holds that we do not count till we make our lives into lamps to manifest the Lord’s Light. As I am bringing out The Flute Calls Still, by and large to pay the deep debt I owe to Indira Devi, but for whom Han Krishna Mandir, with the yugala-vigraha of Radha-Krishna, would never have come into being, any more than the vista of an undreamt of world of the Saint Mirabai’s personality, parables and inspiration would have opened before me (initiating for me a totally new phase of sadhana, blest by Radha, Krishna and Guru), I should like to add one word more before I conclude: namely, that now-a-days she not only recites Mira’s songs verbatim — for me to take down — but can, as often as not, reproduce also some of the beautiful and original tunes in which she has heard Mira sing them. A few of the tunes are quite new in style arid movement, so much so, that sometimes I have had to take them down in notation before I could sing them correctly. Someday, God willing, I hope to be able to publish some of these lovely airs to prove my contention — the airs that we sing almost daily in chorus in our temple — bhajans as well as namakirtans, and ever so many respond to them whole-heartedly. This I mention not only because it is a fresh miracle in itself (since Indira when she came to Pondicherry could not sing at all) but also because I look upon the achievement as a veritable landmark in the evolution of her many-mooded personality.

2019-04-19T05:04:51Z

https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/flute-calls-still-NAD904/

Now that the alliance is made, I want to thank all of you guys who didn't hesitate to join our forums. I can feel 10th of march is a day that I will remember, because after learning from others' mistakes and careful planning, our alliance was made. The main thing why we all need this kind of alliance is because it would bring us the best feel of community in a game where people started to forget it. The person I would like to thank the most is EsTygo, the leader of Revolution. Seriously, if I hadn't joined Revolution for a short period, I wouldn't have met such a good leader. His point of view was so pure, that I wanted nothing else but my main guild (Serenity) to join Unity, the alliance Revolution was in back then. He inspired me so much, that I started to understand the true values of Dofus. After Unity's fall, we've been working hard towards the development of alliance and I can easily say that my guild would just belong to a mediocre alliance that might have a lot of prisms, scammers and mad kids right now if Esty didn't change my point of view that much. I started not to care about those things majority of Dofus players overly care about. There might be more people like Esty and I wish all the people like him joined our alliance. You just can't ignore his devotion. He works a lot for us to feel comfortable in the alliance and to also have the best allies in Rushu, not necessarily PvP-wise. And I thank all of you who are reading this message and agree on things I wanted to mention. Also I'd like to thank my awesome guild Serenity for letting a simple level 158 member work for the guild's success and believing in me. Nice post, but I think you're forgetting one more important person! I would say a lot of people owe some thanks to you as well Omelette! A big thanks to all the people involved in the creation of Convergence. Thanks for the attention, Omelette. You are no less to thank in all of this, and surely the single person who spent time in preparing and negotiating with leaders the most and got them excited about the idea of this new alliance. Thanks to you for helping to create what i believe will be the most joyful and warm alliance of Rushu! While i hope nobody is annoyed by the highlighting of eachother in this thread, and i'm sure we deserve a little gratitude, i'd like to take the opportunity here to say something about the ideas behind the alliance. I'll tell you a story about how i got myself into this point and all these thoughts about the alliance. I started out my first char, a chance osa, EsTygo in 2005, but i won't talk about everything that's happened since. In my years on Dofus ive experienced alot of guilds and alot of different leadership. Already in my early days i experienced some bad leadership in several guilds and its conequences. In my first guild, while the leader was on vacation he appointed a temporary leader. The new leader was a clueless emotional teenager, and after 2 days she kicked out everyone from the guild cause she felt like it. The guild ended with a bang. A month later i ran into some friendly guys and got invited to their freshly started guild. It was called The Empire and was the first guild i was really happy in, and a guild in fact all of its members liked. We enjoyed eachothers company on /g and soon became a group of friends. It appeared that somehow we had something special there that was hard to explain in words. Maybe it was just the connection, eventho we were all different, different ages, genders, cultural background etc. Or perhaps it was several things that fell into place that created the right setting. The leader was a nice guy, but also rather passive as leader. Then one day some members left the guild, then a few more left cause of those others who left. Then the guild became more inactive and more people left in a downward spiral. It was very sad to see, and while i didn't want to tell others what to do, someone had to step up since the leader was doing nothing. I wanted to save what was left of the guild, and started negotiations. As a result, some days later we succesfully merged The Empire into Shinra. However i was left feeling a bit disappointed that nobody else was there to try to keep the group of ppl together, when the group we had grown attached to started shattering apart. Because of this i decided to put my main char in a different guild than Shinra, where i left my alt. My swedish friend Youbutsu had just recreated a guild that died in 2005, called The Gobball Hunters. This guild was very different in feeling from The Empire, and that connection between the people was not the same, still we had alot of good times. A while later Youbutsu decided to make me his officer (SiC) and help lead the guild. The guild was a success and soon became a big and famous guild. Several months passed, and one day Youbutsu came to me and told me that he is feeling uneasy about the guild. He felt that in the process of developing and growing the guild something important got lost. He said he was missing that feeling we had before in the guild, from the early days. He didn't want to be the leader of a big powerful guild anymore but started dreaming of a small guild with just good friends who know eachother. I told him i know exactly what he means and i can understand, but that he should at least continue with the old guild cause it had a high level, and just change it a bit and create that feeling that both of us appreciated by only accepting people who talk and want to get to know eachother. He had made up his mind however, and the new guild which was not going to grow but just be a small guild of close friends was created by the name Blank. Not what you would have expected, huh? As you would imagine, it took maybe a month and we were the same as before, and most of the old GH people were now in Blank while it was expanding rapidly. Youb was great with the social side, but then again he was not the best leader in all of the qualities that make a good leader. At one point we had a SiC who was paranoid and always thought ppl were against him or picking a fight with him, and he was kicking ppl left and right. One of the many experiences i collected along the way from failed leadership. Many things happened, and a few years later we decided to restart Revolution that Luciferz had closed down a year earlier when he was quitting. It was not difficult to find people who had some good memories of the guild or who were excited to be part of the old guild once more. I didn't want to be a SiC again, cause i enjoyed playing the game a bit differently from most and spent alot of time doing research, writing notes and planning strategies and i thought i wouldn't have the time. But then one day the leader (Ekoh) really needed help running the guild and wanted me as SiC and so i gave in. It was already around the time when Revolution was reborn in 2008 that i was talking about the importance of a good leadership with the leader, and had some cool ideas on how to develop the guild. I called it the guild 2.0 project (since there was much hype about a future Dofus 2.0). I wrote down alot of ideas on how to offer alot of different positions to the members of the guild so that everyone could be part of building the guild together and share the responsibility, not just the leaders. I hoped it would also increase participation, interaction between people and strengthen the feeling for members that it was their own guild, and not just an exclusive club owned by the leaders. These plans were never fully implemented eventho i got some positive feedback for them. As you might expect, time went by until one day came the day when the leader decided to quit Dofus. The guild was falling apart and it was unsure if there was any future for the guild left. The first leader and creator of Revolution, Luciferz still logged occasionally, and i talked with him in hope that he would lead the guild again. He told me he couldn't, and the only person he felt he could trust the leadership with was me or the guild was finished. I appreciated his trust alot, and so i became a guild leader myself for the first time. The past of Revolution has seen many occasions when the guild had been dead or nearly dead, also during some of my own breaks from the game. But that's a different story. Last summer the guild was doing good again and with the help of SiCs we were building the kind of guild we wanted Revo to be. Alliances happened, and suddenly i was not just planning Revolution but discussing with a bunch of leaders what to do with our alliance in the Link council. I was one of the most active council members, and i think many council members would remember me not just for writing lengthy texts but for always trying to push the alliance forward and trying to solve the problems the alliance was running into, and which were causing the alliance leadership to choke up so to speak. Unfortunately the system of decision making was failing hard, and many lost interest to really do anythign about it while some others were trying to convince eachother that they should be the leaders alone to set things right in the alliance. I put alot of time and effort and thought into the organization of the alliance then, and would not have written the plans we have now if i hadn't gone through alot of different difficult situations related to the alliance. So today in what i intend, and have tried to bring out in our new alliance has traces of everything from the past, and a mix of it all. The best experiences i've had in this game, the best guilds, friendships and allies, the many failures i have seen in bad leadership or poor organization, the many difficult social situations created in a community, the attitudes, values and connections that strengthen us, many problems that required some solution, and many thoughts and ideas on how to really bring out the best of the community and aim at something better, and building it all up and beyond those best communities i have seen and experienced. I wanted to tell this story as a path to the thoughts that i have been talking about for a long time and were used in creating this alliance. My point here is also not that i want to hear that im smart, but that the thoughts that have so far been put into planning this alliance did not happen overnight and i do think we have a good chance to turn the many thoughts and ideas into a great alliance. Theres no certainty of it at this point however, even if the start has been better than i would have hoped for. Much will depend on the intensity at which members and leaders can and will participate into creating this for eachother. While i am hoping that many things go roughly according to plan, what i really hope for most of all is that we can all work together on a goal that we can share with eachother and enjoy eachothers company while doing it. Thanks for reading the story, and i hope it was inspiring in some way to to you, and gave you some idea why i am doing all of this and also some idea why other guild leaders see the same things as i do that have made this alliance possible.

2019-04-26T10:25:13Z

http://convergence.forumotion.net/t13-a-big-thank-you

This topic contains 9 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by Shan Gao 4 years, 5 months ago. Given the debate over the meaning of the wavefunction, an examination of the original motivations of the Schrodinger equation is of plausible relevance — and arguably of reasonable significance. This short essay notes that two key components of Schrodinger’s 1926 papers rely crucially on epistemic concepts from classical physics. (In other words, classical physics concepts that are ill-defined from an omniscient viewpoint, but are only useful/meaningful from the perspective of an agent with limited information.) This would seem to bolster the “\psi-epistemic” view of treating the wavefunction as a state of knowledge instead of a description of reality. Schrodinger’s original presentation of his time-dependent equation bestows a crucially important role to Hamilton’s Principal Function, W (as do many other subsequent arguments that start with the Hamilton-Jacobi equation). But even though W is often simply called “the action”, it is *not* the (ontological) action, but instead a summary of many possible but flatly-incompatible classical histories. W might be useful as a state of knowledge, but it would be very strange to build an ontology out of it. One of the strange aspects of W has been discussed at length, here and elsewhere: the fact that W lives in configuration space rather than spacetime, at least for more than one particle. But it is generally not been noted that an ontic-W would much stranger than the mere space that it resides in. Even for single-particles it is essentially an epistemic tool, and this is clearly the case in the classical domain in which W originated. This certainly doesn’t prove that the wavefunction must be epistemic as well, but it adds to the many excellent arguments in that regard (Spekkens, Fuchs, etc.). It also cautions one against drawing on the classical Hamilton-Jacobi equation for addressing foundational questions at the deepest level. Obviously, this paper is quite short; had I had more time to work on it I might have pointed out one more curious feature about W: Even though a classical W quickly devolves into epistemic uncertainty as time progresses, it can easily be made to start out ontically, by choosing a reference point in spacetime where a particle has been measured to actually exist. Here, then, is an example of a classical structure that naturally evolves from being “ontic” at preparation to being “epistemic” at measurement. (It is at measurement where the best arguments for the psi-epistemic viewpoint reside.) As a final note; the PBR theorem examines the status of the wavefunction at *preparation*, and determines it is ontic. And yet few people have examined models in which the wavefunction makes an ontic-to-epistemic transition (where the probability overlap between states grows with time). Hamilton’s Principal Function is then a proof-of-principle that such cases deserve consideration, especially considering that W was the original motivation for \psi. I’m trying to understand your new point about the ontic to epistemic transition. In the classical case, is W ontic because measuring a particle at xsub0, tsub0 uniquely specifies W at all x,t (making it look like a physical field)? If so, how does it become epistemic? Is that because the initial velocity was not specified/measured, so at a later time tsub1, no xsub1 is singled out to give a unique time, position pair to take the place of xsub0, tsub0 in specifying the new W(x,t)? Thanks for the question… and yes, that’s essentially correct. At a big-picture level, looking at the whole history of W(x,t) vs. some particular classical particle trajectory, I would say that W is epistemic in the only ways that really matter: many different W’s are compatible with the same actual classical trajectory (depending on the reference point), just about any ontic trajectory is compatible with the same W, and upon learning more details about the actual trajectory, one can update W. But then, at future times, before a second measurement is made, the possible locations explode; you can’t determine W by looking at the actual particle position (at that later time only), and you certainly can’t determine the actual particle position from W. And if you did gain new information, you might choose to update your W to a new reference point. As you can tell, I don’t think slicing up the history into instants and using the standard epistemic/ontic definition is particularly useful. In fact, in might even be misleading, in that it has steered people away from the important point that “ontic” at preparation may still be essentially epistemic in all the ways that really matter — at least when it comes to \psi. I don’t understand this comment. PBR employs prepare-and-measure experiments, but the lambda could refer to the ontic state of the system at any point between the preparation and measurement. I do not see why it is necessarily at preparation. But on your main argument, it seems to me that W(x,t) is encoding information about the laws of physics, i.e. about what the trajectory would have been if the initial conditions were different. I think this makes it nomological in the sense of Valia’s talk, rather than epistemic. I would normally think of the laws of physics as ontological in the sense appropriate for things like the PBR theorem. More generally, I am not sure if making a historical argument is the best tack to take in defending psi-epistemicism. Schroedinger was obviously conflicted on the issue for some time, given that he also tried to get a pure wave formulation of quantum theory without the Born rule to work for some time. If the many-worlders had made the argument that psi has to be real because early quantum theorists like Schroedinger intended it to be real then it would certianly be worth pointing out that this is not necessarily true. However, I think the argument they actually make is: the structure of quantum theory as it now exists should be our guide for determining what is real. Since that structure includes the wavefunction, the most straightforward explanation for the success of quantum theory is to posit that the wavefunction is real and go from there. Although I don’t think this is a great argument, it seems to be independent from the historical developmemnt of the theory. This is an intriguing paper. It proposes some interesting novel ideas. I have two general concerns. One is that the similarity between two math equations seems not to ensure these two equations have the same physical interpretation, as in the case of Nelson’s stochastic mechanics. The other is that Schrodinger’s original derivation of his equation is only a heuristic derivation. So, it seems debatable to draw fundamental physical implications from the derivation. On the status of W(x,t), I don’t really see a meaningful distinction between those two options; the important aspects of “epistemic” that I’m interested in are outlined in my response to Richard above. (I agree that W is a summary of many possibilities, but even so, one would never treat the phase-fronts of W as a real wave…?) Maybe it would seem more “epistemic” by your lights if you considered realistic non-classical trajectories, as outlined on the top of page 2. In that case, W would only summarize our best guess of the trajectory, assuming we didn’t know how the actual trajectory would deviate from classical physics. Thanks for your kind words; and I certainly agree with both of your points. I happen to think that having two wildly different interpretations of the mathematics of configuration space in particular (stat mech vs Everettian QM) is quite unlikely, but sure, it’s certainly possible. I’m one of those few realists who think we can force multiparticle QM back into ordinary spacetime (via retrocausality, see ref. ), so I happen to like the stat-mech-style account. I actually quite like classical fields, so I’m not *as* opposed to entities like W(x,t) as it might appear, but I would like there to be more focus on *relativistic* classical fields, not the W-like fields that obey Hamilton-Jacobi-style equations. As for the fact that the motivation was only heuristic, I agree that that makes my point even weaker, but I hope the point remains that Schrodinger was still appropriating *concepts* from the non-ontic sector of classical physics. I’m also one of those (few?) realists who think we can force multiparticle QM back into ordinary spacetime (via random discontinuous motion of particles, in my case).

2019-04-20T14:43:27Z

https://www.ijqf.org/groups-2/meaning-of-the-wave-function/forum/topic/epistemic-roots-of-the-schrodinger-equation/

Holland, others condemn bigotry; Monson's chair vacant in afternoon, but he addresses priesthood session. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Conferencegoers before the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Conferencegoers before the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Brook P. Hales, Secretary to the First Presidency, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Members affirm a vote during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Members affirm a vote during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Members affirm a vote during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Kevin Jergensen, Managing Director Church Auditing Department, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, arrive during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Elder Gary B. Sabin, General Authority Seventy, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Elder Valeri V. Cordón, of the Seventy, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune A couple cuddles during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune President Thomas S. Monson's empty seat during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Elder Neil L. Andersen, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, speaks during the afternoon session of the 187th Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 1, 2017. Holland was among more than a dozen speakers who addressed tens of thousands of Mormons in downtown Salt Lake City and millions more around the world, tuned into the LDS Church&apos;s 187th Annual General Conference. One voice the faithful didn&apos;t hear during the morning and afternoon sessions was that of LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson. The increasingly frail 89-year-old leader presided over the morning gathering after being helped to his seat. In the afternoon, that chair — between Henry B. Eyring and Dieter F. Uchtdorf, his two counselors in the governing First Presidency — sat noticeably vacant. A spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Monson, viewed by Mormons as a "prophet, seer and revelator," was "conserving his energy" for the remainder of the weekend&apos;s sessions. Two years ago, the Utah-based religion announced Monson was "feeling the effects of advancing age." Since then, the longtime LDS leader, who also didn&apos;t attend last Saturday&apos;s women&apos;s meeting, has been scaling back his conference sermons. The former president of LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University pleaded with members to stay in the faith&apos;s expanding fold. During that time, he also witnessed the "ugliness of prejudice and discrimination suffered by those who are targeted because of their race or ethnicity." In LDS history, Mormons were persecuted for their faith, Renlund noted. "How ironically sad it would be if we were to treat others as we have been treated. ... Let us fully mirror [Jesus&apos;] love and love one another so openly and completely that no one feels abandoned, alone or hopeless." Eyring, who spoke first Saturday, addressed Mormons&apos; theological drive to seek out their ancestors — a practice they believe opens the door of the LDS gospel to long dead kin — and the growing fascination with genealogy among millions of others. "Interest in exploring one&apos;s family history has grown exponentially. At ever-increasing rates, people seem drawn to their ancestry with more than just casual curiosity," he said. "Genealogical libraries, associations and technologies have emerged around the world to support this interest." He said the "hearts of the children — you and me — have turned to our fathers, our ancestors. The affection you feel for your ancestors is ... deeply seated in your sense of who you are. But it has to do with more than just inherited DNA." The morning&apos;s concluding speaker was Russell M. Nelson, senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and next in the line for the church presidency. Nelson touted the power of faith to change lives. "True disciples of Jesus Christ are willing to stand out, speak up, and be different from people of the world," the 92-year-old leader said. Faith "propels us to do things we otherwise would not do. Faith that motivates us to action gives us more access to his power." When believers "reach up for the Lord&apos;s power ... with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air," Nelson promised, "power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the savior knows you truly want to reach up to him — when he can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw his power into your life — you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you need to do." In the afternoon, apostle Neil L. Andersen emphasized the importance of "overcoming the world," rising above earthly concerns and focusing on God. "Overcoming the world is not a global invasion, but a private, personal battle, requiring hand-to-hand combat with our own internal foes," Andersen said. "The world, on the other hand, is more interested in indulging the natural man than in subduing him." One of those indulgences is social media. "A disciple of Christ is not alarmed if a post about her faith does not receive 1,000 likes or even a few friendly emojis," Andersen said. "Overcoming the world is less concerned with our online connections and more concerned with our heavenly connection to God." Fellow apostle M. Russell Ballard advised the faithful to set goals for their lives and make plans to achieve them, "within the framework of our Heavenly Father&apos;s eternal plan." The most important aims, he said, are "to return to [God&apos;s] presence and to receive the eternal blessings that come from making and keeping covenants." Ballard warned about "loud voices" used by Satan — including the mass media, the internet and social media — "that seek to drown out the small and still voice of the Holy Spirit that can show us &apos;all things&apos; we should do to return and receive." "We must keep the doctrine and gospel of Jesus Christ at the center of our goals and plans," Ballard said. "Without him, no eternal goal is possible, and our plans to achieve our eternal goals will surely fail." No women spoke Saturday, but three new female leaders were named to lead the women&apos;s Relief Society. Editor David Noyce and reporter Sean P. Means contributed to this story.

2019-04-20T08:25:08Z

https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5127816&itype=CMSID

*According to the current regulations of Republic of Serbia, the tax for office space rental is 20%. However, there is a possibility that the tax will be increased, but that isn't expected in the next two quartals. *According to the current regulations of Republic of Serbia, health benefits and pension insurance taxes are 62.13235% of the salary. However, there are indications that the Government might consider the option for lowering the taxes to about 54% (+-2%). If such reduction does occur, WMRS will return the appropriate amount or offer a rebalance of the budget to the WMF. * Two scholarships for Wikimania 2013. ** Support for the organization of the CEE meeting 2013 and participation in it. *** Participation at the GLAM conferences. This (or early next) year, WM UK is organizing a large GLAM conference with a participation fee. **According to the current regulations of Republic of Serbia, health benefits and pension insurance taxes are 62.13235% of the salary. However, there are indications that the Government might consider the option for lowering the taxes to about 54% (+-2%). If such reduction does occur, WMRS will return the appropriate amount or offer a rebalance of the budget to the WMF. *This is a retrospective of all the previous tables. **In the TOTAL taxes are not counted twice. *GLAM grant, WML grant and Wikipedia in Schools grant are funded. So the annual grant will be deduced by $7,442.38. The total amount requested for this annual grant is €50,712.45 -> 51.000,00€. WMRS started a process of deep reorganization two years ago. Due to changes in law, we had to start a complete reorganization. That included writing new Bylaws, which needed to comply with both WMF and Republic of Serbia laws. After changing Bylaws, WMRS started with large internal changes. We made review of all things that were done before, and started planning future work in order to develop WMRS and with it the Wikimedia movement in Serbia. In the six months, WMRS Board analyzed its capacities in detail and put in a lot of efforts to make them larger. We approved several policies, relating to finances and staff. We also approved a policy regarding protecting our members' private data, in order to improve safety and privacy. We also wrote the general strategy for the period 2012-2014 which is the foundation of our actions in the next two years. Based on the strategy we made the Action plan and Work plan. In order to better promote ourselves, but also WMF and our common goals, mission and vision, as well as projects, we also wrote the Comunication strategy. Reorganization also included making our Board “younger”, by bringing new members. During this process, we consulted many outside people, in order to do our task as well as possible, and reach our goal. We cooperated tightly with WMF. Ting Chen visited Belgrade, during which period there were several meetings. During those, Ting was introduced to our plans and goals. We also cooperated with the Head of Global South Relationships, i.e. Asaf. We consulted with representatives of several other NGOs in order to get a third party opinion about our plans. We use this opportunity to thank them for their cooperation. It is important to stress that all policies and the Bylaws were written in cooperation with a lawyer office, in order to make them compatible with all applicable laws. According to the strategic plan of development, Wikimedia Serbia is planning to open its office for internal and external activities. This intent is justified by the fact that there is a requirement for a central place for administrative and bureaucratic work, and also by the wish and interest of the public, potential partners and members to have information from the first hand. Due to legal obligations, it's necessary to have a physical address. At this moment, we are registered at the apartment of one of our members, but we don't have access to it. This creates some obstacles and lateness in post delivery, and also problems in communication with authorities and local institution and partners. To satisfy the needs and adequately respond to the obligations, Wikimedia Serbia plans to open an office. By owning an office, WMRS will solve the problems of archiving documentation and access to the same; the work quality of the organization will improve and members and partners and will be able to visit our premises daily. The future office will be the working place for Secretary General, his Assistant and Board members, and it will serve as a place where everybody can get information about WMRS. - We will work with our partners, continue to support and develop the website glam.wikimedia.org as a place for online texts of models of cooperation and success stories. For the first three months, the site got more than 90 articles, mostly translations from the wiki-site glam.org. For the first three months, the site had nearly 20,000 hits. - We will support the program Wikipedian in Residence. The location and duration of work will depend on the outcome of negotiations with the institutions. - GLAM-team will focus its activities in the following year on the implementation of specific projects with GLAM institutions. Among these activities, there is the "QRpedia Project" - installation of QR codes in GLAM institutions. - We will work with our partners to organize several smaller events in order to promote successfully completed projects. Development of Wikimedia projects by writing new articles and obtaining multimedia files. GLAM start up is supposed to attract GLAM institutions to cooperate with local Wikimedia chapter and encourage the use of Wikimedia projects by the GLAM sector. Also, successfully realized projects will raise the credibility and trust in the global Wikimedia movement, but also in WMF and WMRS. Successful engagement in Wikipedia content related GLAM projects with institutions will add to the quality of existing articles and improve the quantity of articles. Image donations will enrich Wikimedia Commons with new materials, which will be used on articles on Wikimedia projects. Installing of QR codes in institutions will improve usage and development of QRpedia. By including GLAM staff in project realization the door is opened for them to become regular Wikimedians. Regional and international cooperation is important for strengthening relationships with other chapters and similar organizations. Regional and international cooperation is important for strengthening relationships with other chapters and similar organizations. That cooperation is important either through events or realization of specific projects, and that is ideal chance for spreading ideas, experiences and problems. From social aspect, participation in events that gathers people form more countries gives better understanding and strong support to their good-will for nonprofit way of Wikimedia goals and vision development. Joint programs and projects are big chance for jointly success and the best results. - "Wiki Gymnasium" is a project of working with high school students who are taught and trained to work and write in Wikipedia through seminal papers in certain subjects on given topics. The pilot project was held at 7th Belgrade Gymnasium with one class which worked on geography subjects. - Collaboration with universities has been ongoing for a few years (Faculty of Organization Sciences, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Mathematics), where we work on training students to write articles on Wikipedia, in cooperation with professors and assistants. The goal is to write term papers on given topics within some of the courses. - Cooperation with the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMC) and media archive Ebart and continuation of the program "Wikinews on FMC." The program includes lectures and working with journalism students throughout the school year. The continuation of cooperation with educational institutions will enhance our educative program, attract new users and increase quality and quantity of articles on Wikipedia/Wikinews. Besides quality and quantity, Wikipedia/Wikinews will remain in educational institutions as a platform for sharing free knowledge. Cooperation will also positively affect the type of volunteers which participate in realisation of the project. Successful results are also personal success and impulse for further work. Increasing of quality and quantity of certain Wikipedia is firstly a success for users of that project, but also for global community. Every local educational program improves and gives legitimacy to global educational programs, which work on introducing Wikimedia projects in educational institutions. Every global and local goals are directly or indirectly related with mission and vision of Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Foundation itself. This project will provide certain number of new articles on Wikipedia. That will increase volume and quality of certain topics. It is good to know that all articles will provide students with help of their professors and assistants, so every sentence will have appropriate bibliographical citations and references. Also, professors and assistants will participate in measuring completeness of articles. Participation of WMRS in this project builds strong connections with local educational institutions and gives credibility to the mission and vision of WMF and local chapters. - Aimed on building knowledge society and supporting open data, open science and open educational issues. Started on April 26, World Intellectual Property Day in the form of research and dialog with government institutions regarding PSI, opening data, cultural heritage archives, scientific and educational resources. These debates took place at the National Library of Serbia and the paper is available here (for version in English, cf page 8). The plan is to assist the government in the Creative Commons standards implementation as much as possible. The aim of this project is to support the knowledge society in Serbia by establishing the platform to provide Intellectual Property Rights details relevant for creating, using and re-using educational, scientific, artistic and media contents. These details are related on IP law terms and services including free/open licenses, open education resources and wiki technologies and projects' explanations. That will be a useful, comprehensive and unique IP database in Serbia in Serbian, a first and at present the one of a kind. We believe that the project will be constant, useful and accessible support in national and international intellectual interaction. Making the proposed database will raise the targeted community awareness of current legal terms and conditions and open content/source in particular, as well as initiatives of creative potentials and their influences in local and global sharing or improving. The target community is the Serbian intellectual community who are not able to access the relevant IP information at the same time on the same place. bilingual (Serbian-English) legal research publishing "Srbija i Drustvo znanja/Serbia and Knowledge Society" legal analysis of the directions for the governmental websites establishing and licensing produced by Digital Agenda of the Republic of Serbia and this legal analysis results publishing in the form of public statement or participating in the public debate regarding these directions organized by Digital Agenda of the Republic of Serbia. The proposal (The Knowledge Society) consists of two projects. The first-one is completely new and the other existed from 2006 (CC Serbia) on a voluntary basis, which has to be technically and instructively improved. These two projects (Open Knowledge and Innovation Platform and Creative Commons Serbia) will be established as unique e-platforms in Serbia in Serbian to include more Serbian people, groups and institutions to access or contribute to wiki projects. Supporting the creative participation of the Serbian community - from marginalized to institutional, they could be useful for other national communities in the region who use or understand the Serbian language and deal with legal similarities (Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro) to build free and open content cooperation and share experiences in the future. These projects will also stimulate more useful new content or large amount of previously unavailable content to be directly or indirectly incorporated in wiki content, higher quality of existing wiki content, more trust in wiki projects and more enthusiasm in local and global sharing. Since the results will be visible, accessible and hopefully recognized as important for the intellectual creativity, it could be a good basis for finding funders in the future and making Wikimedia Serbia role more intensive in wiki content increasing and improving. The impact will be measured by amount of implemented data, quality of websites (Open Knowledge and Innovation Platform and Creative Commons Serbia), free and open content publications produced by projects' participants, education/workshops and debates, PR activities, number of comments or questions and the number of web database visitors, participants in workshops and debates. Realizing the importance of media in the realization of its own objectives, mission and vision, Wikimedia Serbia, as a separate strategic goal, led the development of the Communication Strategy which defines a strategy of communication and public relations. - WMRS intends to organize two or three competitions on Wikipedia with the aim of improving quality and quantity of the project. - Organization of local WLM 2012 competition. - Wiki expedition is a pilot project that has several aims: a) promotion of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects; b) promotion of Wikimedia Serbia; c) attracting new users and cooperators for Wikimedia projects, and also new WMRS members; d) increasing of quality and quantity of Wikimedia projects' content. Expedition will include two parts: a) collecting photos of attractions; b) promoting the projects with local communities. - In cooperation with AlfaNum company, we intend to launch a pilot project called "Read Wikipedia". The project is reflected in the creation of audio versions of about 15 featured Serbian Wikipedia articles with the help of voice synthesis technology. Work with marginalized groups: This pilot project in cooperation with one of Belgrade's safe houses with the goal of spreading free knowledge and promotion of Wikipedia as a platform for free knowledge. The project will consist of workshops and training sessions for a children pedagogue regarding the use of Wikipedia in work with children. QRcodes - Digital Belgrade: Project aimed for popularizing of this service and the use of QR codes and Wikipedia. This page was last edited on 14 January 2015, at 18:48.

2019-04-22T08:37:21Z

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/WM_RS/Annual_plan_2012-2013

A number of foreign investors exited strategic partnerships with local banks last year. More than a decade after Vietnam tried to increase the efficiency of local banks without disrupting the human capital and knowledge embedded in existing structures, under a policy of “strategic partnerships”, divestitures of minority stakes in important local banks by several foreign investors last year put an end to the hotly-debated policy. Despite the shifts in mission among these foreign lenders, with their long-term commitments reportedly remaining unchanged, consecutive divestments by foreign banks in a single year raised many questions, especially when the easing of restrictions on foreign bank ownership and the positive track taken towards resolving bad debts added to the dynamism in Vietnam’s banking sector over recent years. Vietnam has seen a growing number of foreign banks withdraw from its under-banked economy, the latest indication that all might not be as well as bankers often claim. Last July, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) sold its branch in Ho Chi Minh City - a presence it had maintained since 2008 - to VIB. In the fourth quarter, HSBC Holdings and Standard Chartered Public Co. offloaded their shareholdings in Techcombank and ACB, respectively, while ANZ shut its doors in a transaction that transferred two retail branches, six transaction offices, and 125,000 individual customers to Shinhan Bank Vietnam. The four divestments seem reasonable on the surface. HSBC, CBA, and Standard Chartered established wholly-owned subsidiaries in the country, meaning that their Techcombank, VIB, and ACB stakes were no longer necessary for exposure to Vietnam’s banking sector. In ANZ’s case, its business focus in Asia has reportedly shifted to institutional banking, so the divestment of its retail banking business in Vietnam can be viewed as being in line with its change in strategy. The trend of foreign banks fleeing Vietnamese banks was because the partnership didn’t bring the desired profits, while the low foreign ownership limit seemingly discouraged the majority of foreign investors from continuing to inject capital into Vietnam-based commercial banks due to the little say given them in the banks’ decision-making process, banking expert Mr. Nguyen Tri Hieu told VET. “As long as this cap remains shy of 50 per cent, foreign investors will not be able to sway the decision-making process or the banks’ Boards of Directors and they will not be capable of gaining any substantial investment benefits from a strategic partnership,” Mr. Hieu said. In addition to governance challenges, potential risks arising from bad debts were specified by think-tankers as a cause of the decline in attractiveness of Vietnam’s banking sector. “Bad debt resolution remains slow because of the lack of necessary regulations, debt trading platforms, or alternative solutions such as securitization,” Director of the Vietnam Centre for Economic and Policy Research, Mr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, told VET, adding that the delay, while perhaps easing existing pressure on recapitalization, would increase the size of necessary future recapitalizations. “A possible solution would be to offer more equity to incumbent and/or new foreign investors,” he said. Investment bankers believe the changing nature of the global banking industry and the disruptive influence of financial technology (fintech) also means foreign banks are less-willing partners than they were some years ago. The aftermath of the Asian financial crisis also taught many banks that minority stakes and subsequent technology transfers only created more formidable domestic competitors. “International banks are less likely to look at a minority investment in a local bank because of the capital impact under Basel III,” Mr. Rehan Anwer, Managing Director and Head of Frontier Markers at Credit Suisse, noted. But there is growing interest from private equity and sovereign wealth funds. VinaCapital’s flagship fund, the Vietnam Opportunity Fund (VOF), in October invested some $11 million in the Orient Commercial Bank (OCB), for an interest of less than 5 per cent, with Managing Director of VOF and Chief Investment Officer of the asset management firm Mr. Andy Ho saying that the “investment is a rare opportunity to own a meaningful stake in a bank that has high lending and earnings growth.” The transaction came shortly before the French banking group BNP Paribas offloaded its entire stake of over 74.7 million shares, or 18.68 per cent of capital, in OCB in December, ending a ten-year alliance between the two. The capital flights have taken place despite last year’s strong performance by domestic banks in profit generation as the industry continued to put the mini-crisis of 2012 behind it. “With a history of retaining profits with zero dividend payouts to preserve capital to support growth, Techcombank has adopted a balanced approach towards profit enhancement and risk-taking,” Moody’s Investors Service lead analyst, Ms. Daphne Cheng, told VET. The bank has rebounded significantly during the last three years, with 2017 pre-tax profit coming in at more than VND8 trillion ($352 million), the third consecutive year the figure has doubled from that of the previous year, while increases in return on equity (ROE) to 30.7 per cent and return on assets (ROA) to 2.69 per cent last year outperformed the entire local banking sector. Foreign banks, meanwhile, are still to announce their results. As one of only a few that has fully resolved its bad debts sold to the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) in 2013, the bank is pursuing a retail-focused strategy, particularly among the affluent, while downsizing its chunky corporate exposures to enhance yields. It is also considering downsizing its real estate and construction exposure to de-risk its loan book, while its stable deposit base is backed by a sizable contribution from the retail segment, which underpins its funding profile. The bank, which saw its rating revised by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) in September to stable from negative, is set to maintain its status as a leading privately-owned bank over the next 12 months with an entrenched retail franchise and above-average profitability. For Hanoi-based lender ACB, the shadow of a difficult 2012 and litigation issues related to one of the bank’s major shareholders have been replaced by a successful write-down of its VAMC bonds exposures in the fourth quarter of 2017, thanks to a series of decisive measures to clean up its balance sheet and gradual progress made in the resolution of legacy assets. With a credit extension strategy that focuses on the retail segment amid strongly increasing demand for household consumption, the last 12 months proved to be one of the bank’s very best periods. By end-2017, total assets had grown by 22 per cent against 2016, deposits 17 per cent, and total pre-tax profits a staggering 60 per cent to VND2.1 trillion ($92.4 million). Both VIB and OCB have stepped up their game of late. While the former remains among the group of banks with the highest financial strength in the local banking industry, as rated by credit rating agency Moody’s, the latter became the first in Vietnam to successfully apply Basel II standards, in November, after two years of implementation. VIB, which was reportedly among five bidders for ANZ’s retail business in Vietnam but was ultimately outbid, saw pre-tax profit in 2017 double from that of 2016 to VND1.4 trillion ($62 million), while OCB, despite not having released its full-year 2017 results at the time of writing, is expected to exceed the milestone of VND1 trillion ($44 million) in pre-tax profits after reaching $42.2 million in the first eleven months, according to CEO Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tung. While divestments by foreign investors may have a critical impact on the capital adequacy of Vietnamese banks, the loss of expertise is also a blow for the sector in implement much-needed governance improvements. While local banks have answers for both issues they may just be quick fixes before they seek new foreign partners willing to work with them for the next decade. After immediately reducing its foreign ownership to zero after buying back the 19.41 per cent held by HSBC, Techcombank is now asking for shareholder approval to sell as much as 158.4 million shares to foreign investors this year. The bank, which targets 2018 pre-tax profit of VND10 trillion ($440 million) and plans to list on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) this year, has joined ACB in recruiting more foreigners to key positions to tackle the governance puzzle and is looking to domestic shareholders to resolve its recapitalization issue, with it successfully collecting more than VND2.1 trillion ($92.4 million) after issuing 70 million shares to existing shareholders in October. ACB’s foreign ownership has been at the limit for many years and there is no immediate reason this will change given the nature of its latest transaction. The Standard Chartered deal, estimated at $263 million, involves the sale of 154 million shares, or 15 per cent, and saw Standard Chartered APR sell its 8.75 per cent stake to Estes Investment and Sather Gate Investment, while Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) sold 6.25 per cent to Boardwalk South, Whistler Investments, and Estes Investment. An analyst at the Ho Chi Minh Securities Corp. (HSC) told VET that the divestment price may have been determined some time ago and the recent announcement was most likely the result of a long-term negotiation process. Regional powerhouses emerging in Vietnam at full speed could perhaps fill the space being emptied as international banks exit. Having established a representative office in Vietnam in 2014, South Korea’s Daegu Bank signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement last July with OCB to facilitate the local lender’s business in international payments and services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). And while information regarding the buyer of the BNP deal is yet to be released, the question now is which single foreign bank or investor will come to the country next after OCB locked its foreign ownership at 23.66 per cent in late December.

2019-04-21T10:55:17Z

http://vneconomictimes.com/article/banking-finance/foreign-bankers-reconsidering-local-partnerships

Music | Delmarie Hines: My Journey. My Story. I must ask you to stick with me on this one. It’s a bit of a winding road. Music has always played a major role in my life and the life of my family. My memories of my childhood are full of music. Lately, I have been enjoying vivid memories of the songs my parents sang to me as lullabies. I am the youngest of 4 children. My older siblings were all involved in music. Someone was always learning a song, a solo, an audition piece, practicing for band rehearsal, choir rehearsal, ensemble rehearsal, piano lessons, or just jamming some 8-track, 45, LP, or tape. Mom was preparing music for Sunday morning worship. Dad was singing some hymn that was in his heart. I was just singing, singing, singing. I loved singing more than talking and that’s saying a lot because I LOVED to talk. I had a terrible stutter as a child. I had to attend speech therapy sessions in elementary school. I had to learn to slow my mind down so that my mouth could catch up. Singing is what my therapist and parents used to help me learn to slow my thoughts down. Stuttering never got in the way of singing. I could close my eyes, see the beautiful colors and patterns and just siiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggg my little heart out. Another trick was that my father would put his hand on my chest and tell me to breathe and then we’d sing together. Dad had a great big tenor voice. I learned to remember that feeling when I would get frustrated or stuck on a word. To this day, putting my hand on my chest forces me to breathe deeply. Dad would often have me read something to him, slowly. He had me convinced that I was reading slowly because he needed to hear it slowly. My mother would gently put one hand on my forehead and her other on my back. That would make me stop, breathe, think and try again. Mom’s trick was to have me read something from her medical journals. That forced me to slow down because I had to sound out all of those complicated medical words. Now I just put my hand on my forehead when I need to stop, breathe, think and try again. My brother, David, would hold me and sing to me or read to me when I got angry or upset. Music and reading were my safe places. My family made them so. My sister, Charmaine, who was my arch enemy in childhood, was also one of my favorite singers. My brother, Milton, my other childhood enemy, could sing like Stevie Wonder and I loved it. I tried not to let it show but I think they both knew that I LOVED to hear them sing. My mother made everything she sang sound sweet. She was THE alto….one of those people simply born to sing alto! Hearing her sing in the kitchen was one of my joys in life. Even way back then, we connected through music in ways that needed no words. People would come to our house to practice their parts and solos with my mother during her years of directing the Sanctuary Choir and serving as the Minister of Music at church. Seeing my mother’s beautiful smile when they sang correctly was everyone’s goal (that arched eyebrow when the part wasn’t right was to be avoided at all costs). One thing she knew for sure. I was going to know my part and be able to tell her who was in my section and not singing correctly. As the youngest child, being a snitch was sort of an art form for me. LOL. My mother and I did a lot of talking. There was a lot to learn. She taught me how to cook…and especially how to cook for Dad. She taught me how to assist Dad and her in their careers and the work they did in partnership. She taught me how to be a lady and a woman. She taught me how to read, write, and edit with an eye for detail and thirst for depth. She taught me how to be a woman in a leadership role especially when I was the only woman and/or the only person of color in the room. She taught me about the power of words and the need to tread lightly at times…never as a sign of weakness but as a sign of strength, wisdom, maturity and submission to God. Here we are at 2017 and my mother is slipping away from me and I’m grasping at straws to hold on to her. The woman whose counsel I depended on heavily can no longer have a meaningful conversation with me. The woman whose dry wit could make me laugh hard is now difficult for me to understand. I find myself approaching conversations with her as I did with my nieces, nephews, and godchildren when they were little. My mother’s facial expressions let me know that in her mind she makes perfect sense, so I do my best to figure it out. She still makes me laugh. At times she gives me that look that lets me know that she no more understands what she is saying than I do. She also has her moments of clarity when she’ll hit me with one of her witty zingers. I give her the side-eye and we both giggle. My mother, a brilliant, deeply spiritual, witty woman with a vocabulary that often sent me running to the Oxford Dictionary (some of the words could not be found in Webster’s dictionary) is slipping away. That ferocious insatiable beast called Alzheimer’s is annihilating her beautiful mind. We are now 5 years into her diagnosis and the years are taking their toll. Since words are difficult for us, we share music…often. We especially share music in the still of the wee hours, when sleep escapes both of us and she calls out for her mother. We hum, listen to music, connect in ways that do not require either of us to try to understand the other. We simply share our love of the vibrations and power of music. I want to keep the music playing. I want to keep connecting. I need to keep the music playing. As a child I learned to turn to music when words were difficult for me to utter. Now I turn to music as an adult as words are becoming difficult for my mother to utter. Music…it’s been there for me my whole life and I pray that the music never ends. This song is about two lovers but with the change of just a few words, it’s applicable to my relationship with my mother. This may seem weird to some, but it’s perfect for Mom and me. Each time you hear her name? Are you brave enough to confess that you are afraid to trust God? Are you beat down enough to admit that you are afraid to trust God? Are you afraid to trust God? I confess that I have been, I am, and I am hoping to stop this cycle. Trust has been a major issue for me overall. As I’ve stated before, my trust issues went into overdrive when my father died suddenly. I clung to the belief for YEARS that God had made an error and was simply too embarrassed to admit it. I can kinda laugh about that whole way of thinking now but there is still a part of me that is open to accept God’s apology for ruining my life! LOL I let that pain fester and grow into a deep lack of trust for anything that made no sense to me, that could not be documented, or that materialized outside of what I found logical even if not my taste. All along though I still acknowledged God, loved God, and kinda sorta served God (insert side-eye here). There is no way to fully serve God without trusting God. There is actually no way to be engaged in a healthy loving relationship with ANYONE without trust. Trusting God requires passion and commitment. I’m not just trusting God to hold my hand as I cross the street. I’m trusting God to BE THE PATH. I’m trusting God to reveal my future and guide me as I do what God says do. I’m trusting God to be my everything. The trick though is that I have to give up all of my notions of who and how I should be. THAT’S MAJOR! This must be why God sent His Son, Jesus, to be our example. This trusting God thing takes sacrifice and not just giving up Ben and Jerry’s for Lent. It requires giving up your life so that you can live. It requires seeing God in everyone. It requires knowing the will and Word of God. It requires embracing a love that is not always cuddly, but a love that disciplines, that corrects, that cuts to the bone, that sheds blood, that comes with HIGH accountability. That kind of love demands and breeds passion and commitment. Now that I think about it, the question is not just will I TRUST God, it’s also do I LOVE God. Do I love God enough to TRULY surrender all of me to all of Him? It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. There are many reasons for that but we can discuss those later. Today I just wanna talk and hopefully hear back from you. This whole exploration of trust started here. There is a note in my mother’s medical file that states: “Failure to thrive”…3 little words…just 3 little words. Her doctor mentioned the possibility of cancer being the reason she is failing to thrive. If I didn’t have a tight budget I would have SMASHED my phone to make her and her words disappear. PLEASE NOTE: To those of you reading this who know my mother this is not a confirmed diagnosis. At this point it’s just an exploration of what is causing her “failure to thrive.” The tears came quickly…tears of anger, confusion and fear all at the same time. Have you ever been there? It’s a painful place to be. It’s a lonely place to be. It’s also an easy place to get off track in every way possible. This question quickly came to mind, “Who and what will I trust?” I am a Christian so that question more specifically for me is will I trust God to be God? THAT IS A HUGE QUESTION!!! I knew that I needed to run to God but it was more like confront God. I was angry. I wanted to let God know a thing or two about the way my journey is playing out. My prayer time was not focused on miraculous healing for my mother. I have laid her at the altar before God and I am caring for her to the best of my abilities. There is nothing more that I can do than that. God is a healer and that remains true no matter what. I heard or read this recently, “Everyone who God heals also eventually dies!” With that in mind, I was ready to let God have it. Unexpectedly though, my prayer time was not focused on my anger or my list of grievances against God. My prayer time was focused on trust. The question I wrestled and am wrestling with is will I trust God no matter what? This is not some undefined trust. I’m talking about a trust that shows up as an unconditional yes to whatever God asks of me. A trust that shows up as unconditional and full surrender to God over what I want. A trust that shows up as obedience to God. A trust that shows up as complete, irrevocable, absolute submission to God. I am clear that I’m using words that many like to steer clear of these days. I’m in my 50’s now. My need for popularity and to be one of the cool kids ended a LONG time ago! I want an intimate and powerful relationship with God…a relationship that gives God glory. I want to be a disciple of God. Those goals require trusting God. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan of embracing reality. Today’s challenge was to embrace the reality that God’s will can be and at times will be painful for me. This pain is in direct correlation to my desire to have what I want, the way want it, when I want it. God’s will is my joy only if I die daily and in Him alone live, breathe and have my being. We get to heavy blowing, running, shouting, dancing, speaking in tongues and whatnot when we declare that. The truth of the strength and courage of this conviction though is revealed when life smacks you in the face with a brick or your own choices lead you to run at full speed into a brick wall. Well I’ve been smacked and I got angry with God. That anger surprised me. I went all the way back to things that happened in high school and went down the list of the times I felt that God had disappointed me, forgotten me, abandoned me. When I stepped into the Prayer Room today the anger left and I was left to struggle with trusting God. I cried…and I’m still crying. I recited scripture. I talked with God. I heard from God. I listened to music. I sang. I cried some more. The thing that I am most clear about is that my mother will be fine. The work I have to focus on is me and my relationship with God. It’s not over. I’m still processing. What gets you through your battles in life? How do you let go of anger? How do you turn life’s circumstances into opportunities to grow closer to God? Do you trust God to be God? What does that question mean to you? Let’s pray for each other as we navigate through this thing called life. Let’s talk about trust.

2019-04-25T14:13:23Z

https://delmariehines.com/category/music/

UPDATE: ARTISTS' UNION ENGLAND HAVE WRITTEN TO ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND. SIGN THE PETITION HERE. The appointment of Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth Murdoch to Arts Council England’s National Council is not only deeply troubling, given her close ties to the Murdoch corporate empire, but is also a glaring example of how nefarious the UK arts establishment has become. The appointment of ex-Tate boss Sir Nicholas Serota as Chair of Arts Council England has clearly ushered in a new era of favouritism and nepotism in which a tiny select elite grease the palms of each other and their friends and family. Just look at the biographies of the other members of the National Council. The appointment of Elisabeth Murdoch is directly linked to Sir Nicholas Serota’s current leadership of Arts Council England and to his wife, Teresa Gleadowe’s own arts projects. There are numerous connections, of which only some will be touched upon here. But first let’s remember that during Serota’s reign at Tate, he supported artwashing in the form of BP sponsorship, refused to recognise unions, privatised staff positions, introduced the use of zero hour contracts, presided over a culture of widespread bullying, privatised information, and, of course, Tate staff were then asked to kindly chip-in for a new boat for his leaving present! Serota’s leadership of Tate lasted 28 years. Serota repeatedly used his position to privatise the institution, forging relationships with corporate and private interests, no matter where the money came from or at what cost to the environment or human rights. This culminated in the naming of the new wing of Tate Modern after the billionaire Ukranian oligarch Len Blavatnik, who donated a ‘substantial amount’ of the £260 million cost, according to The Guardian. Blavatnik was said to be the UK’s richest man in 2015. His wealth came from oil (including links with BP), chemicals and aluminium but he has extended his fortunes by investing in film, music (he owns Warner Music Group) and property. And, like many rich businessmen, he likes offshore tax havens too. The entire ‘Blavatnik’ wing of Tate Modern is nothing short of a monument to artwashing. He has recently donated £5 million toward the new V&A extension – a donation which left ex-Blairite Labour MP, now V&A director, Tristram Hunt feeling ‘honoured’ and the entrance being named ‘Blavatnik Hall’. Blavatnik has also given £75 million to Oxford University for their ‘Blavatnik School of Government’ (you couldn’t make this stuff up!) The billionaire is also a Trump supporter and donor. The point here is that like BP and Blavatnik (to name just two dubious ‘sponsors’), the appointment of Elisabeth Murdoch to a position on Arts Council England’s National Council represents another example of the ongoing corporate capture of the arts in England. And, it is, I suspect, not a coincidence that this latest corporate appointment has happened under Serota’s leadership. Remember that the director of Tate is appointed by the government and approved by the prime minister. Serota was appointed to his role as Tate director by the Tories and Margaret Thatcher in 1988; he was appointed as Chair of Arts Council England by the Tories and Theresa May in 2017. Clearly, Serota is a bit of a poster boy for Tory privatisation of the arts. This is very concerning. You see, Serota is not just Chair at Arts Council England now, he also remains a director of the Creative Industries Federation (here’s a flavour of their board and “ambassadors”). The Creative Industries Federation claims to have a “heavyweight board” of “top creative and business leaders”. It works “with politicians of all parties and across all of government and with every level of government - from eight Whitehall departments including No 10 and the Treasury, the devolved nations, metro mayors, city leaders, LEPs and local authorities”. It is another example of the corporate take-over of the arts – the neoliberalisation of the arts. It is worth remembering that Serota is also a non-executive director of the BBC. He was appointed in April 2017. But Serota also oversaw Tate Modern’s partnership with Elisabeth Murdoch’s Freelands Foundation, which provided funding in 2015 and 2016 for the Tate Exchange programme which was launched in the new ‘Blavatnik’ wing. Murdoch’s Freelands Foundation is a Tate Exchange Founding Associate. Not only that, but Elisabeth Murdoch was a trustee of Tate until September 2016. Her foundation gave the company of which she was a serving trustee £150,000 in 2016 alone. This information is all available in the very revealing Freelands Foundation 2016 annual report. It is also interesting to note that the Freelands Foundation is a company limited by shares and a charity subject to US and UK laws. Furthermore, Murdoch’s foundation is entirely owned by Freelands Foundation Inc. – and where does it get its money from? So, Elisabeth Murdoch served alongside Serota at Tate and helped fund some of the Tate’s work. And yet, as Tate’s own declaration of members’ interests 2015-2016 makes clear, Elisabeth Murdoch is a shareholder in her father Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Twenty First Century Fox! Much of her wealth invested into the arts by her Freelands Foundation must come from dividends from shares in these highly unethical organisations. It is quite possible that some of the money used to fund the arts by Freelands Foundation comes from The Sun! Just think about that. And Murdoch is now a senior figure in Arts Council England. This is disturbing, to say the least! Yet the Freelands Foundation also has links to Serota’s wife, Theresa Gleadowe’s arts companies. It is funding CAST (the Cornubian Arts & Science Trust) to deliver its three-year Groundwork project in Cornwall which was also awarded with £500,000 worth of Ambition for Excellence funding by Arts Council England in 2016. The Arts Council award was secured using £50,000 funding from Elisabeth Murdoch’s foundation. CAST’s other partners for their Groundwork project are Tate St Ives and Newlyn Art Gallery – Serota declared himself to have an interest in both these companies. Serota’s full list of his interests makes for a very illuminating read that deserves far more investigation than I have time for here. Importantly, Serota’s wife is a director of CAST and chair of its trustees. What’s more, the Groundwork project is also supported by Kestle Barton Trust of which Serota’s wife Gleadowe is a trustee. Kestle Barton is also funded by Arts Council England. The art world is, it seems, a small world. It is therefore unsurprising to learn that Teresa Gleadowe is also a director of Kneehigh Theatre – an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation which received an increase in annual funding earlier this year. Interestingly, the company lists Sir Nicholas Serota as one of its “champions”. Kneehigh’s previous director Emma Rice caused outrage in the art world by gaining NPO status from nowhere. The extremely influential Rice remains a current “revered accomplice” of Kneehigh Theatre. But, more importantly, Serota’s wife is also chair of the board at Nottingham Contemporary – a company which won this year’s Freelands Award which was selected by Elisabeth Murdoch and is worth £100,000. Strangely, Gleadowe was one of the Freelands Award selection panel! Even more surreal is the discovery that Gleadowe is also a member of the Freelands Foundation’s advisory committee. So Serota has very close connections to Elisabeth Murdoch! The appointment of Elisabeth Murdoch is an outrage for all the obvious reasons. But it’s just one part of a concerted corporate takeover of the arts by a self-entitled elite whose time is up! We need a radical change in how the arts works in this country. We need a radical redistribution of resources. We need equity and fairness for everyone. We need to decolonise the arts. And, to do that, we need to root out this sort of privileged, corporatist, self-serving class of English Arts Oligarchs. The appointment of Murdoch is a point of no return. We must fight for truly representative, truly democratic arts and culture. And we must start demanding that now!

2019-04-19T22:53:34Z

http://colouringinculture.org/blog/murdochserotacorporatetakeover

Report for 1870--The old "gym"--Continued financial stringency--College journalism--President Twombly elected--Report for 1871--Ladies' Hall opened--A plea for the land-grant--First tax levy--Raising the standard--Report for 1873--Resignation of Dr. Twombly. In their report for the year ending September 30, 1870, the regents express regret for their non-success, thus far, in filling the vacant presidential chair; but "it is extremely gratifying to be able to say, that the place has been most ably filled temporarily, by the honored Vice President," Professor Sterling. There has been a slight diminution in the aggregate attendance of students, which "finds abundant explanation in the stringency of the times, and the low price of farm productions. Many sons and daughters of farmers have been compelled, from this cause, to omit for a time their course of studies. Another cause may be found in the higher requirements for admission to the preparatory department and the more thorough examinations for admission, from which have come many rejections of applicants. The inability of the University to furnish rooms is still a drawback--for the price of board and rooms in the city is beyond the reach of many excellent students." They further state that a frame building for "drill and gymnastic exercises," containing as well an armory, and an office for the military instructor, has just been completed on the brow of the hill, northwestward of the main hall, at a cost of about $4,000; 1 which leaves at our disposal much room in University Hall, before occupied for military drill." It seems that this separate provision for the military department was "made on the urgent recommendation" of Col. Walter S. Franklin, the army officer detailed to fill the chair of military science and engineering; but Colonel Franklin had, after that, been withdrawn, and the board, feeling that the exigencies of the army service threaten to keep the military school in a state of uncertainty, are considering the advisability of paying "the expenses of this professorship from the funds of the University, in order to secure permanency in instruction." As fast as these lands are called for, they are sold at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre and the working of this system has no other effect than to realize for the University the lowest possible price for its endowment lands. We wish authority to withhold a portion of the best of these lands from market until the development of the regions where they are located will enable us to dispose of them at a far greater price. Had such a course been adopted on the organization of the University, we should now have had an ample endowment, and been saved the necessity of begging at the doors of the State Councils for the meagre sums necessary to make the institution one of even reasonable usefulness. An important event of the year 1870 was the issue, in June, of the first number of The University Press, of which George W. Raymer and James W. Bashford were editors and publishers; its columns were to be "always open to scientific, literary, and general news articles, written by the students, the professors, and the friends of the University." The Press was a monthly throughout 1870, and then appeared semi-monthly until September, 1882, when it became a weekly, continuing as such to the close of its very useful career. Its first rival was the weekly Campus appearing in October, 1881; after two months of existence, the Campus became the Badger, which was merged in the Press in September, 1885; that in turn was merged in the Aegis, October of the following year. The Aegis, at first a weekly, became a bi-weekly in September, 1892; and the literary monthly of the University, in October, 1895. The Daily Cardinal first appeared in April, 1892, and enjoys the reputation of being one of the best college dailies in the country. At the opening of the University, in September, 1839, two new college publications made their first appearance. The Sphynx, an illustrated humorous bi-weekly, upon the plan of the Harvard Lampoon and papers of that character; and The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine, an illustrated monthly edited by Charles E. Allen, '99, Florence E. Baker, '91, and others--it is to be sent free to members of the Alumni association, and "will be devoted to the dissemination of knowledge in regard to life at the University." At the annual meeting of the regents in June, 1871, Rev. Dr. John H. Twombly,3 lately superintendent of the public schools of Charlestown, Mass., an educator and a Methodist divine of some note, was called to the presidency of the University, and to fill the chair of mental and moral philosophy. He entered upon his duties here at the beginning of the new college year, in September. In their annual report, the regents say that "His high character, and long experience in collegiate and educational management, with his energy and practical knowledge, lead the Board to congratulate themselves and the University upon the good fortune which enabled them to place him at the head of the University." The annual report of the regents for 1871 announces the election to the professorship of military science and civil engineering, of Maj. William J. L. Nicodemus,4 U. S. A., retired, at a salary of $1,200, paid by the board. This election, together with that of the new president, enables them to "announce every department of the University in complete working order." The attendance of students in September of this year is greater than ever before, thus fully taxing the labors of the corps of instructors. "The Regents have great satisfaction in reporting the utmost harmony in the Faculty, from highest to lowest, and a cordiality between teachers and students which has called forth a marked energy and progress in studies, and a general good conduct on the part of the students. * * * The college classes are above the average of former years, both in numbers and scholarship, while an unusually large number of the preparatory students are fitting for the regular courses. Every feature of the present points to a steady growth in numbers and widening usefulness." Ladies' Hall was opened at the beginning of the school year 1871-72. "The growing conviction in the public mind for many years back, that very many avocations might be fairly opened to women, who had thus far in the history of the race been debarred from them, has borne fruit," say the regents, "in a liberal acquiescence to woman taking her place in the acquisition and practice of some of the scientific professions. Instructions have been given to carry out a system of education for the Female College, which, while it opens every department of the University to both sexes alike, yet leaves to the choice of the lady students as ambition or taste may dictate--to pursue in their own college under lady teachers--or with the regular college classes, the studies in which they desire full accomplishment * * * a conservative course, midway between the theories of those who would ride a hobby to personal popularity, and that of fogyism which yields nothing to the demands of a growing public opinion." A plea for the land-grant. These lands amount to something over 200,000 acres, and are located almost entirely in the northern portion of the State. The present and prospective development of the northern counties, by the building of a network of railroads, will tend greatly to enhance the value of these lands. Must these lands all be sold at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, when a few years will so immensely increase their original value? If from the original endowment grants by Congress, there had been reserved until now, ten per cent of the lands, we should have had an endowment second to no college in the country. If we can now reserve twenty-five percent of the lands that remain of the grants, for a period of twenty years or so, a future generation of students will be able to reach all of the prosperity which the most sanguine friends of the University have ever hoped for it. Let not our posterity have to say of us that we ignored for them all the powers this generation holds in its hands, to lay broad and deep foundations for our University. Whereas, The university fund has suffered serious loss and impairment by such sales of its lands, so that its income is not at present sufficient to supply its wants, and cannot be made so by any present change of policy, inasmuch as the most valuable lands have already been sold; therefore, etc. This was the first State tax levied for the benefit of the University. We shall see that in 1876 it was increased to a tenth of a mill on each dollar of the assessed valuation of the state; and still farther increased, in 1883, to an eighth. In their report for 1872, the regents naturally express gratification at this promise of continuous state aid; they declare that the grant has "met with such cordial approbation by the people * * * that no doubt now remains that a hearty and generous support by the State, in future, will meet with the earnest approval of all friends of education." There were, indeed, evidences on every hand that the people of Wisconsin had at last risen to an adequate appreciation of their state University. Nowhere in the newspaper press of the time do we find any note of dissatisfaction at the initial tax levy of 1872. The attendance had now grown to 600, including the preparatory department, and naturally the expenses of administration and instruction were growing. The timely appropriation had enabled the regents to purchase long-needed apparatus, books, laboratory conveniences, "and what was of no less importance, the salaries of the hard-working professors and teachers were increased, placing them upon an equal footing with those of other colleges. This increase of salaries was necessary in order to retain some of our ablest professors, whose services were sought by higher salaries offered elsewhere." The board report that they "have had in view a gradual raising of the standard of admission and of scholarship, to such extent as eventually to do away entirely with the preparatory department. This result is steadily in progress of attainment, but must be done so gradually, without too greatly diminishing the number of students, as to give full employment to all professors and teachers." The regents have therefore secured the passage by the legislature of a law providing, conditionally, free tuition in the University to all graduates of high schools. "The examination for admission to such students is such as must tend largely toward raising the standard of scholarship in these schools, and thus in great measure answer the purpose of preparatory schools. It also makes University education a prize within the reach of all high school students, and brings the University more completely before the people." During this year (1872), ten students have availed themselves of the privilege, and been admitted to the college classes. The following year, forty-eight students came from this source, with a corresponding diminution in the attendance on the preparatory department; in 1877 came the system of accredited high schools, now in vogue, and three years later (1880) the time had arrived for the abolition of the preparatory department. In 1873, the board finds little of special moment upon which to report. The University is making good progress. "The pressing demand for increased accommodations will soon compel the Regents to ask for increased income, or to rest content with an institution of limited facilities, following behind others in character and usefulness in sister States, whose patrons look with deeper interest upon the advantages which are offered for the education of their youth." The past year has been one of substantial progress. The resignation of J. H. Twombly, as president, was accepted by the Regents on the 21st of January last. President John Bascom was invited to occupy the place, and entered on the discharge of his duties with the beginning of the spring term. The Regents are more than satisfied with the change, and do not hesitate to predict from it an effectual increase of good in the management of the University, and a far higher position for it among the colleges of the country. The passing of President Twombly signalized the close of the childhood of the University. With the entrance of President Bascom, 6 the University may be considered as having come into possession of the full vigor of early manhood. No longer was it "open to the charge of being little more than a respectable high school for Madison." 7 Henceforth it was not to be seriously affected by such vicissitudes as it had experienced in the past; it was at last felt to be a power in the State, the true head of the educational forces of the commonwealth, and with a splendid future before it. 1 The old "gym," an illy-constructed and poorly-equipped building, was destroyed by fire on the night of June 12, 1881. 2 Professor Irving, a grandnephew of Washington Irving, was born in New York City, April 27, 1847. He graduated from Columbia College in 1866, and spent three years in post-graduate work in the school of Mines connected with that institution. For a time he was assistant geologist on the State survey of Ohio, and then metallurgist in smelting works at Greenville, N. J. He was holding this latter position when called to the University of Wisconsin. In 1873 he was appointed assistant geologist on the Wisconsin State survey, holding the position for six years in connection with his University chair. He was special agent for the 10th federal census, as expert on Lake Superior explorations; and in 1882 was placed in charge of the United States geological survey in the Northwestern States,--a position he held, also in connection with his University work, at the time of his death, May 30, 1888. He had won great distinction in his profession, being the first of the faculty of the Wisconsin University to attain a position among leading men of science. See an appreciative sketch of his character and career, by President Bascom, in Badger, 1890, pp. 187-190. 3 Dr. Twombly was born in Rochester, N. H. He obtained his early education with difficulty, having to intersperse his studies with labor of various sorts-- carpentering, farming, and teaching. Finally, he graduated from the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Conn., in 1843. Being ordained a Methodist preacher, he at first taught in seminaries of his denomination; but from 1846 to 1866 was in charge of large congregations in different parts of Massachusetts. In 1855, he was chaplain of the Massachusetts senate; 1855-67, one of the overseers of Harvard College; 1857-71, secretary of the New England Education Society; 1868-69, director of the American Institute, and engaged in founding Boston University, of which he was a trustee. He had been upon the school boards of Worcester, Lynn, and Chelsea; and in 1866-70 was superintendent of the Charlestown public schools. Called to Wisconsin in June, 1851, he resigned January 21, 1874, and resumed his work in the ministry, going to Westfield, Mass.; later, he was at Springfield, and closed his career in charge of the Broadway Methodist church in Boston. His alma mater gave him the degree of M. A. in 1846, and D. D. in 1871. 4 Born at Cold Springs, Va., August 1, 1834, graduating from West Point in 1858. As lieutenant in the Fifth Infantry, he took part in the Utah expedition, and again (1861) in the Navajo expedition. Commissioned captain in the Twelfth, in October, 1861, he was engaged until the following June as acting assistant adjutant-general of the Department of New Mexico. At the battle of Valverde (February 21, 1862), he was brevetted major. In October, 1862, he was commissioned colonel of the Fourth Maryland Volunteers, and guarded recruits at Baltimore. In February, 1863, he was assigned to the signal service, having charge of the communications between Harper's Ferry and Washington. Promoted major in that service for gallant conduct in pursuing the enemy through Maryland, he later became lieutenant-colonel. He was in charge of the signal bureau at Washington from October, 1863, to December, 1864, and in 1865 was made inspector in the corps, being finally restored to the Twelfth Infantry. During 1865-68, he was in garrison at New York, Richmond, and Washington; then for two years gave military instruction at Western University Pittsburg). Being honorably discharged in December, 1870, he afterward came to Wisconsin University, where he was soon appointed on the State geological survey, in addition to his duties as teacher. He died in Madison, while still a member of the faculty, January 6, 1879. 5 The regents (Report 1872, p. 9) say that the legislature, "through its committees on Education," made a thorough examination of the conditions and wants of the University; investigated the manner in which its grant of lands had been located and sold, and said committee arriving at the same conclusion [as ourselves] as to the cause of the waste of its productive fund ['that it was more important that these lands should be sold, and the country settled as rapidly as possible'], prepared and introduced a bill * * * [which], after due deliberation, was passed by both houses of the Legislature." 6 President Bascom was born in Genoa, N. Y., May 1, 1827. He graduated from Williams College in 1849, and in 1855 from Andover Theological Seminary. In the same year he was chosen professor of rhetoric at Williams, and was holding that chair when called to the presidency of U. W. Resigning this post in 1887, he returned to Williams, of whose faculty he is still a member. Dr. Bascom has published numerous books, magazine articles, and addresses, and contributes largely to the leading critical reviews, his special fields being political economy and mental and moral philosophy. Amherst gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1873, and Grinnell (Iowa) that of D. D. in 1875. 7 "Board of Visitors' Report," 1874, in Report of Board of Regents for that year, p. 13.

2019-04-20T07:02:01Z

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WIReader/Thwaites/Chapter07.html

It hardly falls within the scope of the present work to detail or discuss the various points concerning the history or statutes of the different British Orders of Knighthood, and still less so of the Foreign Orders. The history of the English Orders alone would make a bulky volume. But it is necessary to treat of the matter to some limited extent, inasmuch as in modern heraldry in every country in Europe additions are made to the armorial achievement whenever it is desired to signify rank in any of the Orders of Knighthood. Though a large number of the early Plantagenet Garter Stall plates date as far back as the year 1420, it is evident that nothing in the armorial bearings with which they are emblazoned bears any relation to the order of knighthood to which they belonged until the year 1469 or thereabouts, when Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was elected a Knight of the Garter. His Stall plate, which is of a very exceptional style and character, is the first to bear the garter encircling the shield. It is curious to notice, by the way, that upon the privy seal of the Duke of Burgundy, which shows the same arms depicted upon his Garter plate, the shield is surrounded by the collar, from which depends the badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece, so that it is highly probable that the custom of adding marks of knighthood to a shield came to us from the Continent. The next Garter plate, which shows the garter around the shield, is that of Viscount Lovel, who was elected in 1483; and the shield of the Earl of Derby, who was elected in the same year, also is encircled by the Garter. The Garter itself encircling the shields of knights of that order remained the only mark of knighthood used armorially in this country for a considerable period, though we find that the example was copied in Scotland soon afterwards with regard to the Order of the Thistle. At the commencement of the present Lyon Register, which dates from the year 1672, the arms of the King of Scotland, which are given as such and not as the King of England and Scotland, are described as encircled by the collar of the Order of the Thistle. This probably was used as the equivalent of the garter in England, for we do not find the collar of the Garter, together with the garter itself, or the ribbon circle of the Thistle, together with the collar of that order, until a much later period. The use of collars of knighthood upon the Continent to encircle coats of arms has been from the fifteenth century very general and extensive; examples are to be found at an earlier date; but the encircling of arms with the garter carrying the motto of the order, or with the ribbon (which is termed the circle) and motto of any other order is an entirely English practice, which does not appear to have been copied in any other country. It, of course, arose from the fact that the actual garter as worn by the knight of the order carried the motto of the order, and that by representing the garter round the shield, the motto of the order was of necessity also added. The Lyon Register, however, in the entry of record (dated 1672), states that the shield is "encircled with the Order of Scotland, the same being composed of rue and thistles having the image of St. Andrew with his crosse on his brest yrunto pendent," and it is by no means improbable that occasional instances of the heraldic use of the collar of the garter might be discovered at the same period. But it is not until the later part of the eighteenth century that it obtained anything like a regular use. During the Hanoverian period it became customary to encircle the shield first with the garter, and that in its turn with the collar of the order whenever it was desired to display the achievement in its most complete style; and though even then, as at the present day, for less elaborate representations the garter only was used without the collar, it still remains correct to display both in a full emblazonment of the arms. An impetus to the practice was doubtless given by the subdivision of the Order of the Bath, which will be presently referred to. In speaking of the garter, the opportunity should be taken to protest strongly against the objectionable practice which has arisen of using a garter to encircle a crest or shield and to carry the family motto. No matter what motto is placed upon the garter, it is both bad form and absolutely incorrect for any one who is not a Knight of the Garter to use a garter in any heraldic display. A Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter encircles his escutcheon by a representation of the garter he wears. This is a belt of dark blue velvet edged with gold and ornamented with a heavy gold buckle and ornament at the end. It carries the motto of the Order, "Honi soit qui mal y pense," in gold letters of plain Roman character. Anciently the motto was spelled "Hony soit qy mal y pense," as may be noticed from some of the early Garter plates, and the style of the letter was what is now known as "Old English." The garter is worn buckled, with the end tucked under and looped in a specified manner, which is the method also adopted in heraldic representations. It is quite permissible to use the garter alone, but a Knight of the Order is allowed to add outside the garter the representation of the collar of the order. This is of gold, consisting of twenty-six buckled garters enamelled in the correct colour, each surrounding a rose, the garter alternated with gold knots all joined up by chain links of gold. From the collar depends the "George," or figure of St. George on horseback encountering the dragon, enamelled in colours. In heraldic representations it is usual to ignore the specified number of links in the collar. A Knight of the Garter as such is entitled to claim the privilege of a grant of supporters, but as nowadays the order is reserved for those of the rank of earl and upwards, supporters will always have a prior existence in connection with the peerage. Knights of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle are entitled to surround their arms with a plain circle of green edged with gold and bearing the motto in gold letters, "Nemo me impune lacessit." They are also entitled to surround their arms with the collar of the order, which is of gold, and composed of sprigs of thistle and rue (Andrew) enamelled in their proper colours. From the collar the badge (the figure of St. Andrew) depends. Knights of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick are entitled to surround their arms by a plain circle of sky-blue edged with gold, bearing the motto, "Quis Separabit. MDCCLXXXIII," as enamelled on the star of the order. This is encircled by the collar of the order, which is of "gold, composed of roses and harps alternately, tied together with knots of gold, the said roses enamelled alternately, white leaves within red and red leaves within white; and in the centre of the said collar shall be an Imperial crown surmounting a harp of gold, from which shall hang the badge." Knights of the Thistle and St. Patrick are entitled as such to claim a grant of supporters on payment of the fees, but these orders are nowadays confined to peers. The Most Honourable Order of the Bath.—Knights of the Bath, who have existed from a remote period, do not appear as such to have made any additions to their arms prior to the revival of the order in 1725. At that time, similarly to the Orders of the Garter and the Thistle, the order was of one class only and composed of a limited number of knights. Knights of that order were then distinguished by the letters K.B., which, it should be noted, mean Knight of the Bath, and not Knight Bachelor, as so many people now imagine. There is nobody at the present time who is entitled to use these letters. Upon those of the Bath plates which now remain in the chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, no instance will be found in which the collar is represented outside the circle, which is pretty good evidence that although isolated examples may possibly be found at an earlier date, it was not the usual custom up to the end of the eighteenth century to encircle a shield with a collar of knighthood. These Knights of the Bath (K.B.), as they were termed, surrounded their escutcheons with circlets of crimson edged with gold, and bearing thereupon the motto of the order, "Tria juncta in uno," in gold letters. Although at that time it does not appear that the collar of the order was ever employed for armorial purposes, instances are to be found in which the laurel wreath surrounded the circlet with the motto of the order. In the year 1815, owing to the large number of officers who had merited reward in the Peninsular Campaign, it was considered necessary to largely increase the extent and scope of the order. For this purpose it was divided into two divisions—the Military Division and the Civil Division—and each of these were divided into three classes, namely, Knights Grand Cross (G.C.B.), Knights Commanders (K.C.B.), and Companions (C.B.). The then existing Knights of the Bath became Knights Grand Cross. The existing collar served for all Knights Grand Cross, but the old badge and star were assigned for the civil division of the order, a new pattern being designed for the military division. The number of stalls in Henry VII.'s Chapel being limited, the erection of Stall plates and the display of banners ceased; those then in position were allowed to remain, and still remain at the present moment. Consequently there are no Stall plates to refer to in the matter as precedents since that period, and the rules need to be obtained from other sources. They are now as follows: A Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath surrounds his arms with the circlet as was theretofore the case, and in addition he surrounds the circlet by his collar, from which depends the badge (either military or civil) of the division to which he belongs. The collar is really for practical purposes the distinguishing mark of a Knight Grand Cross, because although as such he is entitled upon payment of the fees to claim a grant of supporters, he is under no compulsion to do so, and comparatively but few avail themselves of the privilege. All Knights of the Bath, before the enlargement of the order, had supporters. A Knight Grand Cross of the military division encircles his arms with the laurel wreath in addition, this being placed outside the circlet and within the collar of the order. The collar is composed of gold having nine Imperial crowns and eight devices of the rose, the thistle, and shamrock issuing from a sceptre placed alternately and enamelled in their proper colours, the links being connected with seventeen knots enamelled white. The badges of the military and civil divisions differ considerably. Knights Commanders of the Bath have no collar and cannot claim a grant of supporters, but they encircle their shields with the circlet of the order, suspending their badge below the shield by the ribbon from which it is worn. Knights Commanders of the military division use the laurel wreath as do Knights Grand Cross, but no members of any class of the civil division are entitled to display it. Companions of the order (C.B.) do not use the helmet of a knight as does a G.C.B. or a K.C.B.; in fact, the only difference which is permissible in their arms from those of an undistinguished commoner is that they are allowed to suspend the badge of a C.B. from a ribbon below their shields. They do not use the circlet of the order. Certain cases have come under my notice in which a military C.B. has added a laurel wreath to his armorial bearings, but whether such a practice is correct I am unaware, but I think it is not officially recognised. The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (like the Order of the Bath as at present constituted) is divided into three classes, Knights Grand Commanders, Knights Commanders, and Companions. Knights Grand Commanders place the circlet of the order around their shields. This is of light blue inscribed with the motto, "Heaven's light our guide." This in its turn is surrounded by the collar of the order, which is composed of alternate links of the Indian lotus flower, crossed palm-branches, and the united red and white rose of England. In the centre of the collar is an Imperial crown from which depends the badge of the order, this being an onyx cameo of the effigy of her late Majesty Queen Victoria within the motto of the order, and surmounted by a star, the whole being richly jewelled. The surrounding of the shield by the circlet of the order doubtless is a consequence and follows upon the original custom of the armorial use of the garter, but this being admitted, it is yet permissible to state that that practice came from the Continent, and there is little reason to doubt that the real meaning and origin of the custom of using the circlet is derived from the Continental practice which has for long been usual of displaying the shield of arms upon the star of an order of knighthood. The star of every British order—the Garter included—contains the circlet and motto of the order, and it is easy to see how, after depicting the shield of arms upon the star of the order, the result will be that the circlet of the order surrounds the shield. No armorial warrant upon the point is ever issued at the creation of an order; the thing follows as a matter of course, the circlet being taken from the star to surround the shield without further authorisation. Upon this point there can be no doubt, inasmuch as the garter which surrounds the shield of a K.G. is in all authoritative heraldic paintings buckled in the peculiar manner in which it is worn and in which it is depicted upon the star. The Star of the Thistle shows the plain circlet, the Star of St. Patrick the same, and the arms of a Knight of St. Patrick afford a curious confirmation of my contention, because whilst the motto of the order is specified to be, "Quis separabit," the circlet used for armorial purposes includes the date (MDCCLXXXIII.) as shown upon the star. The Order of the Bath, again, has a plain circlet upon the star, and the badges and stars of the military knights have the laurel wreath represented in heraldic drawings, the laurel wreath being absent from the stars and the shields of those who are members of the civil division. Now with regard to the Order of the Star of India the motto on the star is carried upon a representation of a ribbon which is tied in a curious manner, and my own opinion is that the circlet used to surround the shield of a G.C.S.I. or K.C.S.I. should (as in the case of the garter) be represented not as a simple circlet like the Bath or Thistle, but as a ribbon tied in the curious manner represented upon the star. This tying is not, however, duplicated upon the badge, and possibly I may be told that the circlet and its use are taken from the badge and not from the star. The reply to such a statement is, first, that there is no garter upon the badge of that order, there is no circlet on the badge of the Thistle, and the circlet on the badge of St. Patrick is surrounded by a wreath of trefoils which in that case ought to appear round the shield of a K.P. This wreath of trefoils is absent from the K.P. star. Further, no Companion of an Order is permitted to use the Circlet of the Order, whilst every Companion has his badge. No Companion has a star. Though I hold strongly that the circlet of the Star of India should be a ribbon tied as represented on the star of the order, I must admit I have never yet come across an official instance of it being so represented. This, however, is a point upon which there is no definite warrant of instruction, and is not the conclusion justifiable that on this matter the officers of arms have been led into a mistake in their general practice by an oversight and possible unfamiliarity with the actual star? A Knight Grand Commander is entitled to claim a grant of supporters on payment of the fees. A Knight Commander encircles his shield with the circlet of the order and hangs his badge from a ribbon below, a Companion of the Order simply hangs the badge he wears below his shield. The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George.—This order again is divided into three classes—Knights Grand Cross, Knights Commanders, and Companions. Knights Grand Cross place the circlet of the order and the collar with the badge around their shields, and, like other Knights Grand Cross, they are entitled to claim a grant of supporters. The circlet of the order is of blue edged with gold, and bearing in gold letters the motto of the order, "Auspicium melioris ævi." The collar is composed alternately of lions of England, of Maltese crosses, and of the ciphers S.M. and S.G., and having in the centre an Imperial crown over two lions passant guardant, each holding a bunch of seven arrows. At the opposite point of the collar are two similar lions. The whole is of gold except the crosses, which are of white enamel, and the various devices are linked together by small gold chains. Knights Commanders of the Order encircle their shields with a similar circlet of the order, and hang their badges below. A Companion simply suspends his badge from a ribbon below his shield. The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire.—This order is divided into three classes—Knights Grand Commanders, Knights Commanders, and Companions. Knights Grand Commanders and Knights Commanders encircle their shields with the circlet of the order, which is of purple inscribed in letters of gold, with the motto of the order, "Imperatricis auspiciis." The collar of the order, which is used by the Knights Grand Commanders, in addition to the circle, is composed of elephants, lotus flowers, peacocks in their pride, and Indian roses, and in the centre is an Imperial crown, the whole being linked together by chains of gold. Knights Commanders suspend their badges from their shields. Companions are only permitted to suspend their badges from a ribbon, and, as in the cases of the other orders, are not allowed to make use of the circlet of the order. The Royal Victorian Order is divided into five classes, and is the only British order of which this can be said. There is no collar belonging to the order, so a G.C.V.O. cannot put one round his shield. Knights Grand Cross surround their shields with the circlet of the order, which is of dark blue carrying in letters of gold the motto, "Victoria." Knights Commanders and Commanders also use the circlet, with the badge suspended from the ribbon. Members of the fourth and fifth classes of the Order suspend the badge which they are entitled to wear below their shields. The "Victorian Chain" is quite apart from the Victorian Order, and up to the present time has only been conferred upon a very limited number. It apparently exists by the pleasure of His Majesty, no statutes having been ordained. The Distinguished Service Order, the Imperial Service Order, and the Order of Merit are each of but one class only, none of them conferring the dignity of knighthood. They rank heraldically with the Companions of the other Orders, and for heraldic purposes merely confer upon those people entitled to the decorations the right to suspend the badges they wear below their shields or lozenges as the case may be, following the rules observed by other Companions. The Victoria Cross, the Albert Medal, the Edward Medal, the Conspicuous Service Cross, the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal, the Royal Red Cross, the Volunteer Officers' Decoration, the Territorial Decoration, and the Decoration of the League of Mercy all rank as decorations. Though none confer any style or precedence of knighthood, those entitled to them are permitted to suspend representations of such decorations as are enjoyed below their shields. The members of the Orders of Victoria and Albert and of the Crown of India are permitted to display the badges they wear below their lozenges. Some people, notably in the early part of the nineteenth century, adopted the practice of placing war medals below the escutcheons amongst other decorations. It is doubtful, however, how far this practice is correct, inasmuch as a medal does not technically rank as a decoration or as a matter of honour. That medals are "decorations" is not officially recognised, with the exception, perhaps, of the Jubilee medal, the Diamond Jubilee medal, and the Coronation medal, which have been given a status more of the character of a decoration than of simple medals. The Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England does not rank with other orders or decorations, inasmuch as it was initiated without Royal intervention, and carries no precedence or titular rank. In 1888, however, a Royal charter of incorporation was obtained, and the distribution of the highest offices of the order in the persons of the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the Royal Family has of late years very much increased its social status. The Order is, however, now recognised to a certain extent, and its insignia is worn at Court by duly appointed authority. The Crown is gradually acquiring a right of veto, which will probably eventually result in the order becoming a recognised honour, of which the gift lies with the Crown. In the charter of incorporation, Knights of Justice and Ladies of Justice were permitted to place as a chief over their arms the augmentation anciently used by knights of the English language of the original Roman Catholic Celibate Order. The chief used is: "Gules, charged with a cross throughout argent, the cross embellished in its angles with lions passant guardant and unicorns passant alternately both or," as in the cross of the order. The omission, which is all the more inexplicable owing to the fact that Garter King of Arms is the officer for the order, that the heraldic provisions of this charter have never been conveyed, as should have been the case, in a Royal Warrant to the Earl Marshal, has caused some confusion, for the officers of the College of Arms, when speaking officially, decline to admit the insignia of the order in any official emblazonment of arms. Lyon King of Arms has been less punctilious. Knights of Justice, Knights of Grace, and Esquires of the Orders all suspend the badges they wear from a black watered-silk ribbon below their shields (Fig. 334), and Ladies of Justice and Ladies of Grace do the same below their lozenges. The arms of members of the Order are frequently depicted superimposed upon the Cross. By the Statutes of the Order Knights of Justice were required to show that all their four grandparents were legally entitled to bear arms, but so many provisions for the exercise of discretion in dispensing with this requirement were at the same time created that to all intents and purposes such a regulation might never have been included. Some of the Knights of Justice even yet have no arms at all, others are themselves grantees, and still others would be unable to show what is required of them if the claims of their grandparents were properly investigated. It should perhaps be stated that supporters, when granted to Knights Grand Cross as such, are personal to themselves, and in the patents by which they are granted the grant is made for life only, no hereditary limitation being added. Any person in this country holding a Royal Licence to wear the insignia of any foreign order is permitted to adopt any heraldic form, decoration, or display which that order confers in the country of origin. Official recognition exists for this, and many precedents can be quoted. Fig. 772.—"Bailli-profès" of the Catholic Order of the Knights Hospitallers or the Order of Malta. The rules which exist in foreign countries concerning heraldic privileges of the knights of different orders are very varied, and it is impossible to briefly summarise them. It may, however, be stated that the most usual practice is to display the shield alone in the centre of the star (Fig. 772). As with us, the collars of the orders are placed around the shields, and the badges depend below, but the use of the circlet carrying the motto of the order is exclusively a British practice. In the case of some of the Orders, however, the official coat of arms of the order is quartered, impaled, or borne in pretence with the personal arms, and the cross patée of the Order of the Dannebrog is to be met with placed in front of a shield of quarterings, the charges thereupon appearing in the angles of the cross. I am not sure, however, that the cases which have come under my notice should not be rather considered definite and hereditary grants of augmentation, this being perhaps a more probable explanation than that such a method of display followed as a matter of course on promotion to the order. The Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order quarter the arms of that order with those of their families. The Knights of the Order of St. Stephen of Tuscany bear the arms of that order in chief over their personal arms. Fig. 772 represents the manner in which a "Bailli-profès" (Grand Cross) of the real Catholic and Celibate Order of St. John of Malta places the chief of the order on his shield, the latter being imposed upon a Maltese star (this being white) and the badge of the order depending below. The "Knight-profès" does not use the chief of the order. In the German Protestant Order of Malta (formerly Bailiwick of Brandenburg) the Commendatores place the shield of their arms upon the Cross of Malta. The Knights of Justice ("Richtsritter") on the contrary assume the cross upon the shield itself, whilst the Knights of Grace suspend it from the bottom of the shield. The members of the ancient Order of La Cordelière formerly encircled their lozenges with a representation of the Cordelière, which formed a part of their habit; and the officers of the Ecclesiastical Orders frequently surround their escutcheons with rosaries from which depend crucifixes. Whether this latter practice, however, should be considered merely a piece of artistic decoration, or whether it should be regarded as an ecclesiastical matter or should be included within the purview of armory, I leave others to decide. By a curious fiction, for the origin of which it is not easy to definitely account, unless it is a survival of the celibacy required in certain orders, a knight is not supposed to share the insignia of any order of knighthood with his wife. There is not the slightest doubt that his own knighthood does confer upon her both precedence and titular rank, and why there should be any necessity for the statement to be made as to the theoretical position has long been a puzzle to me. Such a theory, however, is considered to be correct, and as a consequence in modern times it has become a rigid rule that the arms of the wife of a knight must not be impaled upon a shield when it is displayed within the circlet of an order. No such rule existed in ancient times, and many instances can be found in which impaled shields, or the shield of the wife only, are met with inside a representation of the Garter. In the warrant recently issued for Queen Alexandra the arms of England and Denmark are impaled within a Garter. This may be quite exceptional and consequent upon the fact that Her Majesty is herself a member of the Order. Nevertheless, the modern idea is that when a Knight of any Order impales the arms of his wife, he must use two shields placed accollé, the dexter surmounting the sinister (Fig. 745). Upon the dexter shield is represented the arms of the knight within the circlet, or the circlet and collar, as the case may be, of his order; on the sinister shield the arms of the knight are impaled with those of his wife, and this shield, for the purpose of artistic balance, is usually surrounded with a meaningless and inartistic floral or laurel wreath to make its size similar to the dimensions of the dexter shield. The widow of a knight of any Order is required at present to immediately discontinue the use of the ensigns of that Order, and to revert to the plain impaled lozenge which she would be entitled to as the widow of an undecorated gentleman. As she retains her titular rank, such a regulation seems absurd, but it undoubtedly exists, and until it is altered must be conformed to. Knights Grand Cross and Knights Commanders, as also Knights Bachelors, use the open affronté helmet of a knight. Companions of any order, and members of those orders which do not confer any precedence or title of knighthood, use only the close profile helmet of a gentleman. A Knight Bachelor, of course, is at liberty to impale the arms of his wife upon his escutcheon without employing the double form. It only makes the use of the double escutcheon for Knights of Orders the more incomprehensible. Reference should also be made to the subject of impalement, which will be found in the chapter upon Marshalling. This page was last edited on 4 February 2017, at 08:46.

2019-04-23T02:40:13Z

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry/Chapter_34

My approach to life and work could be kindly described as scattered so I’ve always been a touch envious of people who are truly passionate about one thing. When that focus is aimed at celebrating and promoting their community, it’s a beautiful thing. When they’re in the food industry, it’s also delicious. This fall, that delicious thing is Farm to Table: Celebrating Stratford Chefs School Alumni, Recipes & Perth County Producers (Andrew Coppolino, Blue Moon Publishers). Andrew Coppolino is the editor of Waterloo Region Eats, a food blog that I spent way too much time reading while I should have been writing this review. He’s also a food columnist for CBC Radio Waterloo, has written for a host of other respected food publications, and makes regular contributions to Eatdrink’s Waterloo Region & Wellington County editions. As far as I can tell, he only takes time out from writing about food long enough to eat food. Coppolino is a champion for innovative cooking done by knowledgeable chefs using the best local products available. In Farm to Table he brings together a number of people who love this idea as much as he does. He introduces the reader to the Stratford Chefs School and the Perth County producers who are affiliated with it. Joe Mandel of The Church, Jim Morris of Rundles, and Eleanor Kane of The Old Prune began the school in 1983. They knew they needed good local talent and saw an opportunity to retain the chefs that worked during the November to March off-season in Stratford. Instead of being laid off or moving on, these chefs were now able to teach, giving local budding chefs the opportunity to train with the best. Students were able to gain valuable experience in the kitchens of the three founding restaurants. SCS has always focused on the relationship between the farm and the kitchen, recognizing the importance of local, seasonal ingredients that allow chefs to express the nature of the region in their dishes. It’s about more than food; it’s about respect for the work involved in producing high quality products. SCS is a not-for-profit organization that offers well-rounded programs to prepare students for many aspects of the food industry. I love that it also offers recreational workshops for adventurous home cooks and a one-week exploratory course for those who want to find out what the industry demands and offers. The school produces chefs, food entrepreneurs, writers and photographers. Terry Manzo is one of Stratford Chefs School’s first graduates and has been a professional freelance photographer for 30 years. The book is full of her vibrant, energetic photos. Many of the shots look deceptively casual until you notice the brilliant use of light and shadow that makes subjects seem to glow. Each recipe in Farm to Table is the result of the pairing of a chef with one of his or her favourite producers and includes a profile of both. Author Kathleen Sloan-McIntosh owns Black Dog Village Pub & Bistro in Bayfield. With SCS graduate Nathaniel Beattie as executive chef, Black Dog works to expand the farm-to-table concept in Huron County. Gerhard Metzger has run Metzger’s Meat Products Inc. in Hensall since 1990. He works with local farmers to provide specialty cuts for restaurant and retail sales. Sloan-McIntosh uses Metzger’s pork to create Char Siu Pork Shoulder. It’s simply tender bits of pork shoulder slow cooked in a sweet, spicy, Chinese BBQ sauce and garnished with green onion and sesame seeds. The dish can be served as a main course or in lettuce cups as a fun appetizer. Sean Collins is the executive Chef at The Red Rabbit, a worker-owned restaurant in downtown Stratford where they strive to do everything as well as possible and seem to have a blast doing it. Max Lass of Church Hill Farm aims to provide “high quality, humanely raised pork, lamb, beef and fowl”. This family-owned farm completes the farm-to-table loop by collecting vegetable trimmings from restaurants and mash from craft breweries to feed to the animals. Collins gives us Charcoal-Grilled Church Hill Farm Lamb with Herbs and Freekeh. Freekeh, the grain of young durum wheat, roasted and cracked, makes the stuffing for a butterflied leg of lamb that is then grilled to perfection. SCS is a national success because it is a local champion. It teaches professionals and amateurs alike that the heart of any good dish, fruitful business or successful restaurant is the relationship between people and place. It’s the magic that happens when all these good things come together to be greater than the sum of their parts. Recipes excerpted from Farm to Table: Celebrating Stratford Chefs School Alumni, Recipes & Perth County Producers reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. Gerhard Metzger, Metzger’s Meat Products Inc. Choose a large, oven-proof baking dish for the pork. Add the pork chunks to the dish along with the olive oil and sliced onion. Add salt and pepper and toss together thoroughly. Use heavyweight aluminium foil to cover the dish snugly. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 1 hour. After an hour, pull the dish from the oven, remove the foil and add the prepared sauce to the pork. Stir this mixture well into the pork and the liquid that has accumulated: it is important not to drain this liquid. Return the dish to the oven and continue to bake for another 30 minutes. Then, give the mixture another stir and return to the oven for another 30 minutes. At this point, test a piece of the pork to see if it is done to your liking – it should be tender but not falling apart. If it is as you like it, remove from the oven, sprinkle with sesame seeds and chopped green onion and serve with butter lettuce. If you continue baking, be careful not to overbake, otherwise the pork will become too dry. *freekeh is harvested grains from green durum wheat that is roasted and dried to create its unique smoky flavour. The night before prepare the lamb: spread lamb out on a cutting board or sheet pan and season generously with pepper and cumin on all sides. Return the seasoned lamb to the fridge and let it sit for 2-12 hours (roll it up to save space). To make the stuffing, add the butter to a large skillet and cook over medium heat until just bubbling. Add the pancetta and cook until lightly crisp. Add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent. Add the cooked freekeh, salt and pepper and lemon. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Stir in the eggs, panko and fresh herbs and taste to adjust seasoning as needed. Refrigerate overnight. The next day, light the charcoal and let it burn until it has created a nice bed of coals in a charcoal barbecue or fire-pit with a rack. Have a second pile of burning charcoal ready to replenish the fire, if needed. If using propane, preheat the grill to medium heat. In the meantime, finish the lamb. Remove meat and stuffing from the fridge and spread the lamb onto a metal tray or in a roasting pan. Season generously with salt. Spoon the stuffing in a row slightly off the centre of the meat to form a cylinder, almost from end to end. Roll the meat over and shape it into a cylinder with the seam on the bottom. Tie the cylinder tightly with 4 or 5 pieces of butcher twine, tucking any stuffing back into the cylinder. Season the outside of the meat with salt, rub lightly with olive oil and set aside. When your grill is hot enough that you can’t hold your hand over for 5 seconds, carefully place lamb roast on the grill. Grill on all sides until golden brown and slightly charred (about 2-4 minutes per side). With a probe thermometer, check internal temperature every 10-15 minutes. Roast until the thermometer reaches 135-145F (57-63C). If internal temperature is not reached and the surface of the meat is getting too dark, simply push coals to one side and continue cooking over indirect heat until finished. If using a propane barbecue, turn burners off on one side and move lamb to that side and close the lid. Remove the roast to a platter, cover with foil and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes (or longer). Remove the string and carve the lamb with your sharpest knife. Serve with fresh sugar snap peas sautéed in butter, your favourite mustard and crumbled local feta.

2019-04-23T00:01:56Z

https://eatdrink.ca/farm-to-table-celebrating-stratford-chefs-school-alumni-recipes-perth-county-producers/

Even the midst of media reports about the Obama administration’s announcement of their satisfaction with the full compliance by the Colombian government to the Action Plan that encompasses labor reforms that supposedly would prevent labor violations and violence toward labor leaders, we continue to hear about blatant violations of human rights, in cities and factories, but also principally in rural areas. Some of the most recent violence has occurred in the department of Cauca, in the municipalities of El Tambo and Cajibío. The people from the Corregimiento of Playa Rica (municipality of El Tambo) have lots of problems, like lack of access by roads, lack of potable water and electricity, and lack of government resources for education, health, and sanitation. Much of what exists there has been built by the community itself, collectively, without government help. As such, they face major survival issues, and some time ago have turned to growing coca because of the lack of alternatives, as other crops do not grow as well in the region, and can hardly be transported to be sold in the main towns like El Tambo; it takes a long and expensive six hours by mule and then three hours by bus to get there. Since (at least) 2008, the community has made concerted efforts to reach accords with government authorities for electricity access, road improvement, infrastructural investments for health and education centers, and for government support for substitution of illicit crops. They recognize the harm and danger of coca, and want to contribute to a more healthy society. Their costly and time-consuming efforts have gone in vain, though several times they have gotten the government to commit to assisting the community. In a letter dated June 1 2008, a representative of the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry of Colombia, tells the community that help can be had through the Presidential Program against Illicit Crops and the Agro Ingreso Seguro program that provides credit to campesinos for the production of coffee, avocado, banana and other crops. Yet they have received very little of what is promised, such that community leaders decided to mobilize a march to present a project to government authorities on December 1, 2009, in Popayán, the capital of the Cauca department. Their efforts received some national attention then: communiques from a House representative and a Senator following the intense meetings in Popayán reveal that the national government agreed to take seriously into account the proposals and the input from the communities in the drafting of eradication programs in 2010. The government also agreed to deliver funds for the improvement of roads and provide seeds to the 450 families that compose the Corregimiento. Yet again, what followed were a series of meetings with Acción Social (Social Action program) and other local, regional and national government entities to arrive at a solid compromise to substitute the illicit crops, but no follow-through. Then on May 19, 2011, 100 erradicators entered Playa Rica along with nearly 300 members of the National Army and the ESMAD (Mobile Antidisturbance Squad) and began forcible eradication. Community leaders that were present were fired upon, at their feet, forcing more than 300 community members from Playa Rica to flee and camp out in the central plaza of the town of El Tambo. They have been there since then, and have been joined by dozens of community leaders and members from nearby Corregimientos of Huicitó and Los Andes. Both of these communities suffered similar violence in 2010, under government eradication plans, and have similar socio-economic problems as in Playa Rica. In the ensuing days, ESMAD forces continued to attack those community members who had remained in Playa Rica and in the nearby vereda (township) of Gavilanes. Those who stayed behind had organized a march for peace, which had been accompanied by a humanitarian delegation from the CUT-Valle del Cauca (Unified Labor Confederation), the local Ombudsman, and four local journalists that had traveled to the region on May 23 and 24th. They tried to dialogue with the military but confrontations ensued nevertheless, and two campesinos were injured (one with a bullet in the face, another with a broken arm). The gathering was dissolved, and more people displaced to El Tambo. Vandalism and even an attempt to burn a house were reported by members of the community. Gathered in El Tambo’s main plaza, the displaced began to mobilize to receive support from local and national human rights organizations. Together, they have frantically tried to contact government, army and international organization officials to demand that the attacks stop, that guarantees are made for the safety of campesinos in the region, and that a negotiating table is formed with significant presence of officials so as to guarantee resolution to conflicts and socio-economic demands. A mission of verification was put together with members from human rights organizations, which was to leave on June 15, 2011 to verify and report on the occurrences, even though the government had refused to give any guarantees. Their report was to be presented to authorities in Popayán on June 17, when a march from El Tambo to Popayan will occur. The mission was called off, as they received notice of intense confrontations between FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and military forces. The people are desperate: “the only response we have from our government is forced displacement. We want peace, and to go back to our communities,” says one leader. One significant problem is that the conflict is no longer over coca, but over territory; this means that the military may well stay and take over their lands, which of course just happens to be rich in minerals like gold. Another nearby municipality suffering tremendously from conflict is Cajibío, also located in central Cauca. Here, the community leaders and members underwent strong repression from police and government forces under the Uribe administration (2002-2010), and one of the major problems in the communities now is the heavy militarization of the region, which purpose is largely to displace people from their lands so that it can be used for capitalist development ventures. Recently, the Movimiento Campesino de Cajibio organized the Caravan for Life and for Permanence in the Territory (June 9-10, 2011) to call attention to the daily problems and threats confronting the communities. The caravan visited the communities of Carmelo and La Capilla, gathering testimonies from locals about their living conditions. Though the testimonies made it more real as to how much people live in fear, it is not hard to miss. In both locations, the local school and other community centers were surrounded by armed soldiers; in fact, the army and police headquarters are located right in the center of the community, and soldiers roam around freely, looking around, asking questions, and always armed. The biggest fear is perhaps the presence of armed actors near children, as confrontations between military and guerrilla forces from the FARC often occur when children are in school, sending their mothers in a risky mission to claim them in the middle of battles. In addition, there have been cases of sexual abuse of girls and also of women. Several people have been killed by bombs or just public shootings in the middle of the day, and investigations hardly are undertaken. Army soldiers go into farms to make use, for instance, of people’s electricity poles to charge their phones, while they wait around with their rifles, as children play in their own backyard. It is clear that people fear talking about it. In one community, it was a young student at the local school that finally gathered courage to step up to the microphone and to ask the Regional Ombudsman and local and international human rights organizations’ representatives that accompanied the caravan whether it was right to have the military in the middle of the community. Students feel very impacted by this, and note the increase in drug use and prostitution. Similarly, educators are worried, as they do not want to see a repeat of what happened at the height of conflict in 1999, when the local school was left with only 35 children due to displacement. They now have 500, but many fear that this will soon change. On top of that, these communities are confronting desperate economic troubles, though here they have not grown coca. Many families do not have land; indeed 70% of the land in Cauca is owned by less than 5% of the population. One of the major problems has been the increased buying and takeover of lands by paper company Carton de Colombia, a subsidiary of Irish-Belgian conglomerate Smurfit Kappa. Here, as in El Tambo, the communities have solid proposals to counteract the difficulties, and to adopt “life plans” (planes de vida) that promote sustainable and participatory alternative development approaches that are the complete opposite of the vast destruction and divisiveness caused by Smurfit Kappa’s bulldozers and extensive pine and eucalyptus plantations. They also propose dialogue with local, regional, and national officials to bring an end to military and other armed actors’ presence in the heart of communities. But they need guarantees that this dialogue can happen without violent repercussions and with real attention paid to the communities’ views. This request for dialogue also desperately needs the support and continued monitoring by international humanitarian, human rights, and social justice organizations, advocates and activists, and principally by the U.S. government that has had such powerful and erroneous policy approach to the real problems at hand in Colombia. Drug wars, militarization of the region, and free trade agreements that threaten the ability of communities to thrive are not what it takes. It takes solutions that truly respect the life, dignity, and desire of the people to stay in their own lands. This entry was posted in Central New York, News. Bookmark the permalink.

2019-04-24T08:01:56Z

https://colombiasupport.net/2011/06/armed-attacks-and-rural-communities-under-fire/

The Porcupine Ridge Ranch is a classic Colorado mountain working ranch situated in the Yampa River Valley just south of Steamboat Springs at the base of the Flattops Wilderness Area. The 8,818 +/- acre ranch offers an incredible investment opportunity to own one of the largest blocks of privately owned land with senior water rights in the Colorado River and Yampa River basins. The pastoral property is over 9 miles long and and includes 50 miles of streams, reservoirs, wetlands, lush irrigated hay fields, grasslands, treed hillsides and sagebrush range. Significant conservation values with water resources, wetlands and habitat for big game and sage grouse; annual farm income; stream/fishery enhancements; and 95 cfs of direct flow rights and 3,560 acre feet of storage. Sand Point Ranch is just over 3,000 acres of varied alpine terrain located 35 miles south of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Straddling the Routt and Rio Blanco county line, the ranch has a long National Forest boundary and consists of mixed forest, open parks and dramatic overlooks. Traditionally used for hunting and sheep and cattle grazing, Sand Point Ranch also has irrigated grass hay meadows and appurtenant irrigation water rights. Contact Christy Belton. [1,595 deeded acres with a recreational lease on 640 acres of state land] [High fenced elk hunting offering 400”+ bulls] [Two stocked fishing lakes & water rights to irrigate 400 acres] [Two homes, hunting lodge, elk facilities, & shop] [Outstanding recreational ranch, mountain retreat, &/or elk ranch] Picture rolling grasslands that sweep up to a mountain of dark timber, broad vistas that stretch well in to Wyoming and a pervasive quiet that soaks into your soul, and you’ll have a good start on visualizing Trophy Mountain Ranch north of Walden, Colorado. Now add in a few dozen magnificent 350-plus class bull elk and a couple of ponds boiling with trophy trout, and you’ll see why this ranch is the stuff of which sportsman’s dreams are made. Trophy Mountain Ranch spreads over 1595 deeded acres only a stone’s throw from the Wyoming border in North Park, secluded twenty miles north of Walden, and eighty miles northeast of Steamboat Springs. An additional 640 acres of fully fenced State Land is leased for recreational purposes. Rocky Mountain elk are the pride and joy of Trophy Mountain Ranch, as the entire property is high-fenced and has been operated as a trophy elk hunting preserve for years. Improvements on the ranch, however, and its location adjoining many square miles of public land, can inspire a vision that includes hunting and much more. Lying at about 8000 feet, Trophy Mountain Ranch sits at the foot of Independence Mountain on the northwest side of North Park. Natural grasslands and sagebrush dominate most of the property, but uplands with a mix of dark timber and aspen forest plus the bottomlands of Threemile Creek provide a diversity of habitat, perfect for the resident elk herd. Elk dominate within the confines of the ranch, but adjacent public land supports mule deer, black bear, mountain lion and moose. The entire property has been carefully managed to optimize the elk herd. A strong ten-foot fence surrounds the property, and water and feeding sources have been developed to maintain the herd. Although presently zoned for commercial hunting and outfitting, new owners could either retain this use, or breach the fence to allow the free passage of wildlife. Trophy fishing is an underutilized resource on the ranch, and could be enhanced. One main lake, Threemile Reservoir, is very deep and has a track record of producing large trout, and several smaller impoundments could be expanded to hold fish that can grow into multiple-pound calibre. Superb public fishing includes the North Platte River in Northgate Canyon, just across the valley, and the famous, trout-rich Delaney Buttes Reservoirs to the south. Water rights are excellent on the ranch, and include 7 CFS on Threemile Creek and 161 acre-feet of storage rights in two reservoirs. The water is ample to support 400 acres of hay production, which in turn can support the elk herd or cattle, or as mentioned above, developed further into trophy trout lakes. Trophy Mountain Ranch is turn-key ready to receive guests for a topnotch experience. The 4000-square foot Lodge is completely remodeled and has seven bedrooms and four full-sized baths. A huge kitchen and dining room easily serves up to 12 persons, and a recreation room and patio with a hot tub allows for serious relaxation. In addition, the ranch features an owner’s house of 2800 square feet with five bedrooms, and a 4-bedroom manager’s house. A stock barn provides for equipment storage and a meat barn is fully equipped to process game. Although world-class elk hunting is the current centerpiece of Trophy Mountain Ranch, it has remarkable potential as a broad-based recreational ranch, including trophy stillwater fishing, horseback riding and snowmobiling and/or ski touring in the winter months. Access to adjacent BLM and Forest Service lands are a real asset. The excellent facilities are already in place to serve clientele with a variety of interests, and are suited for corporate or family retreats as well. Those desiring to add cattle to the mix can expect the ranch to support approximately 75 cow/calf pairs with supplemental winter feeding. Year-round access is available via Jackson County Road 4, a graded gravel road. Harrigan Land Company is partial to ranches that have a rich variety of potentials, and we know of few properties that have the potential of Trophy Mountain Ranch. If this well-maintained North Park Ranch has captured your fancy, let us know and we’d love to see if we can help craft a match between it and your dreams. Trophy Mountain Ranch has the recreational lease on 640 acres of State Trust Land. The State Trust Land is not included in the purchase price and there is no value associated to the lease. The assignment of the lease is not guaranteed to the purchaser and must be approved by The State Land Board. - 1,388 deeded ac. adjoining national forest - - 250 irrigated ac., 1.5 miles of creek, & 2 ponds - - Excellent elk & trophy mule deer hunting - - Ranch house, manager’s house, bunkhouse, barn, corrals, & outbuildings - - 40 minutes from Steamboat Springs & 1 hour from Vail - One of Colorado’s best-kept secrets is the Upper Yampa River valley southwest of Steamboat Springs. Here, classic Western vistas sweep over lush grasslands that rise to the snow-fringed Little Flat Tops, which nourish this valley with abundant water. In the heart of all this magnificent scenery lies the Broken Bone Ranch, 1388 acres strong, and which embodies the best of this secluded valley. At Broken Bone Ranch, big game hunting, trout fishing and agricultural production create a property laden with possibilities as broad as the skies of northwestern Colorado. Situated at about 8000 feet, Broken Bone Ranch is sheltered in the quiet valley of South Hunt Creek, about six miles west of the ranching community of Yampa, and only 40 minutes south of Steamboat Springs. Well-watered from over 17 CFS of water rights and 236 shares of Allen Basin Reservoir stock, Broken Bone Ranch is an emerald gem of rich irrigated grassland set beneath aspen- and sagebrush-dotted hillsides. With 250 irrigated acres, the ranch is a strong hay producer and cattle find excellent pasture on the rest of the ranch. Big game find much to their liking at Broken Bone Ranch as well. Trophy mule deer and a portion of the nation’s largest elk herd frequent the rich bottomlands of South Hunt Creek or range freely in the adjacent hills. Since the ranch adjoins both BLM and USFS land, the hunting opportunities here literally stretch for miles. Elk tags are available over the counter and the ranch qualifies for landowner mule deer tags. Broken Bone Ranch affords excellent potential as a fishing property. With six adjudicated springs, 1.5 miles of South Hunt Creek and four ponds, ample water is available for developing. South Hunt Creek is a small stream that could be enhanced with pools to hold larger trout, and one of the ponds already supports a trout population. A network of lunker-producing ponds can readily be envisioned at Broken Bone Ranch. With a long history as a well-kept ranch, the ranch’s present improvements include a fine owner’s home, a guest or manager’s house, a rustic cabin, barn, shop and corrals. The views from all areas of the ranch are priceless, especially when fall lights up the aspens at the foot of the Little Flat Tops. Recreational opportunities beyond the boundaries of Broken Bone Ranch are rich. Fishing is outstanding in numerous reservoirs on the Little Flat Tops, and the productive tailwater fishery of Stagecoach Reservoir is only minutes away. The adjacent Routt National Forest and nearby Flattops Wilderness Area offer hiking and horseback riding opportunities to last a lifetime. And not many ranches can boast not one, but two world-class ski resorts within an hour’s drive; Steamboat Springs is only 40 minutes to the north and Vail/Beaver Creek only 60 minutes to the south. Broken Bone Ranch is easily accessed by State Highway 131 and county roads year-round. In addition, the jet-capable airport at Hayden is only about an hour distant, connecting with Denver International Airport and the rest of the world. At Broken Bone Ranch, “getting away from it all” is readily accessible! Harrigan Land Company thinks that the Broken Bone Ranch is one of Colorado’s best all-around ranch prospects, with solid production, hunting, fishing and recreational potential. If you’ve missed a visit to this lovely part of state, we’d love to help you, too, experience the many charms of a secret place that others may have overlooked. One of the most exclusive land holdings to come on the market! Emerald Ridge Ranch is 780 acres in South Valley and only minutes from Steamboat Springs. With spectacular views in all directions, this legacy property holds multiple perfect home sites, easy access throughout the acreage and significant recreational opportunities. Only 4 miles south of Mt. Werner Rd with private access off of River Road (CR14), Emerald Ridge Ranch represents the ultimate large acreage opportunity for close proximity to Steamboat Springs, unrestricted privacy, tremendous ranch & recreational attributes, including big game hunting and future development potential. West boundary includes additional access off of Routt County Road 43. Singing Elk Ranch at Five Pines Mesa includes a beautiful luxury cabin with all the comforts for Colorado living. The 428 acres includes a 3 acre lake and borders Routt National Forest in the foothills of the Flat Top Mountains and Wilderness Area. A full range of Colorado high country recreation, wildlife and vegetation can be enjoyed at this "end of the road" private setting. From the cabin you have panoramic views to the Flat Tops and in the distance the prominent Gore Range. Enjoy the sand beach, boat dock and swimming platform while viewing and listening to the elk the ranch is named after. The amenities provided at the Five Pines Mesa bring added value to the 11 property owners including full time ranch caretaker services. Services include home management, security, road maintenance, snow removal and concierge service for the common guest cabin and horse/storage barn. The Singing Elk Ranch enjoys low agriculture tax status with the conservation easement in place and is perfect for the family in all seasons and acreage allows for an additional separate residence. The close proximity to the resorts of Vail and Steamboat Springs and two regional airports adds many options. This is truly "The" alpine getaway with all the conveniences of modern living and recreational paradise that you have to see to believe. The Kellogg Ranch is 400+/- acres of mountain ranch land located 35 miles south of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Just inside the Rio Blanco county line, the ranch has a long National Forest boundary and consists of mixed forest, open parks and dramatic overlooks. Traditionally used for hunting and sheep and cattle grazing, the Kellogg Ranch has a stream and water rights. The 400 acres are part of the larger Sand Point Ranch and the remaining 2,500 acres of Sand Point Ranch are also available. Aspen Grove Ranch's 24,000 square foot family lodge was designed to conform to the land's topography, as well as to capture the entire panorama and breathtaking views of the surrounding Gore and Williams Fork mountain ranges and of the expansive valley below. The home's plan has a private wing for the owners, a spacious and dramatic gathering, dining and activity area and a connected guest house. The landscape plan is as beautiful as the home's interior, with a covered bridge, cascading waterfalls, ponds and stone decks. Aspen Grove Ranch is one of 17 ranches within the 18,000 acre shared ranch community of Grand River Ranch. There are five common area amenities at Grand River Ranch including the Lodge; Fishing Camp; Tailwater Fishing Camp; Headquarters and Equestrian Center; and Sporting Clays Shooting Ranch. The Ranch is only a 60 to 90-minute drive from the renowned resorts of Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Vail Beaver Creek and Steamboat Springs. Aspen Grove Ranch must be seen to be truly appreciated. Two Elk Ranch is the perfect pairing of two parcels totaling 280 acres in the Yampa Valley. Conveniently located just south of Hayden and easy commute to Steamboat Springs, this private ranch includes a well- kept 3 bedroom, two bath house , 50x60 Barn including concrete floor Shop and Horse Barn, 75x60 Large Barn for hay storage, outbuildings, riding arena, fenced and cross fenced. The main level house includes spacious kitchen, private master and bathroom with his and her vanities, additional bedrooms, two car garage, covered porch and large deck. The ranch is surrounded to the west and north by State of Colorado land and includes unobstructed views in all directions. Ranch is very diverse in terms of agricultural production. The dryland acreage produces an average of 200 tons of total hay (orchard brome, timothy and alfalfa), 20 acres of straight alfalfa, 25 acres of straight grass for horses and crossed fenced for cattle or sheep production. Includes a number of adjudicated ponds and springs and 240 acres of the ranch can be subdivided into additional parcels and/or residences. Two Elk Ranch presents a great opportunity for the hobby rancher or as a full time ranch operation.

2019-04-25T06:28:08Z

https://farmandranch.com/property?s=Steamboat%20Springs,%20CO

Vienna the capital of Austria was our first stop on the Epic trip to Central Europe. Vienna City has some of the magnificent palaces, churches and plenty of museums. While this post covers the top places to visit in 48 hours you definitely need a couple of days more if you are going to visit each and every major Vienna points of interest. The S7 train on S Bahn which covers the route from the airport to the city center is a cheaper option but time-consuming for the more stops it makes. There are trains every 30 minutes. The other option pricey but the fastest way to travel to the city center is CAT (City Airport Train). The CATs also run every 30 minutes. There are also regional buses connecting Vienna Airport with the main bus stations of the Vienna City. We had booked the hotel “Novum Hotel Congress Wien am Hauptbahnhof” which is right across the street from the Vienna main railway station which made the commutating from airport to hotel and to the city center much easier and convenient. The room though small had a spacious bathroom equipped with basic toiletries and 24 hours hot water. The hotel also has 24 services at the reception. Check Availability and the Latest Prices on Booking.com for Novum Hotel Congress. The major Vienna attractions are spread across the city and cannot be covered on foot. That said the city has a very good public transport system which cmakes exploring every part of the city very convenient and easy. We wish we were aware of this before visiting Vienna. In a haste, we booked hop on Hop off bus tour which wasn’t a good idea. The city center attractions (around the Hofburg Palace) had to be explored on foot as the bus does not go everywhere. We needed transport only a couple times for which the public transport could have sufficed very well. And then the time constraint, the hop on hop off buses ended by 5.30 when we had to end our sightseeing and even couldn’t take the bus to return to our hotel. Tip: If you had enjoyed riding the old trams in Lisbon then you should not miss a ride on the old trams of the Vienna City equipped with wooden seats and old ticket machines for one of its kind of experience. The Belvedere Palace complex built as a summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy comprises of two Baroque buildings the Upper and Lower Belvedere set in a Baroque landscape garden. The Upper Belvedere houses the permanent display of Austrian art masterpieces from the Middle Ages to the present including work of international artists such as Claude Monet of Giverny, Vincent van Gogh, and Max Beckmann. The Lower Belvedere and the former Orangery is a venue for temporary exhibitions. You can book your tickets online here. Karlskirche is baroque church located near the prominent town square ‘Karlsplatz’. The church is dedicated to the 16th-century counter-reformer St Charles Borromeo. The church has an impressive baroque edifice topped by a copper cupola with the most interesting feature being the two columns modeled after the Trajan Column of Roman Forum in Rome. A spiral relief on the life of St. Charles Borromeo adorn the columns. The interior is decorated with rich frescoes and paintings inside the dome and the side chapels. The church is also a popular venue for regular concerts. There is an entrance fee to access the church. You can check the entrance fee and open times here. The Naschmarkt is a bustling 16th-century market in Vienna just 5 minutes walk from Karlskirche. The market popular with locals as well as tourists sell everything from fresh vegetables and fruits to spices, herbs, cheese, bread, meat, and clothes from over 100 stands. The market also has numerous small restaurants serving traditional Viennese food. Every Saturday a flea market takes place alongside the usual market. We, unfortunately, missed this wonderful market for we visited on Austrian National Day which falls on 26th October every year when most of the places including the Naschmarkt is closed. The market is also closed on Sundays. We walked through the Karlplatz Station to the other side which opened up to the Vienna Opera. The Ring Road is a boulevard circling the historic Vienna Old Town and stands on the location of the former medieval city walls. Several prominent buildings featuring different architectural styles of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque stand along this road including the Vienna State Opera, Vienna City Hall, Burgtheater, and Parliament building. One can wander along the road or choose to ride the Ringstrasse tram that covers this route. The Renaissance style Vienna State Opera opened in 1869 is one of the first buildings to stand on the Vienna Ringstrasse and one of the busiest opera houses in the world with 350 performances of operas and ballets every season. The Vienna State Opera is also open to children with regular children performances organized in a special theatre on the roof. The visitors can take a guided tour of the building offered in German, English, and Spanish languages and walk through the history and facts of the Opera building. Tip: When you are here you may want to taste the famous Vienna Sachertorte at the Hotel Sacher which is 5 mins walk from Opera and is said to serve the original delicacy. Walking further from here towards the old town the streets are lined with cafes and restaurants with most of them having outdoor seatings. You can take a break and try some delicious patisseries and desserts. We came across this beautiful Baroque fountain in the old town called Donnerbrunnen located in the Neuer Markt Square. Providentia, the allegory of foresight or good government stands in the middle of the fountain surrounded by four allegorical figures representing rivers while the base is decorated with four putti with water-spewing fish. The St Stephens Church dominating the Stephansplatz is an imposing church featuring Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles. The facade is flanked by two towers which can be reached via 343 steps for a wonderful view of the city. The striking feature of the church is its roof decorated with colorful glazed tiles which depict the double-headed eagle symbolic of the Habsburg dynasty and the coat of arms of the city of Vienna. The church interior is home to resting place of several important people like Prince Eugene of Savoy, Emperor Friedrich III in a glorious sarcophagus and Habsburg Duke Rudolph IV. One can also tour the catacombs in the basement of the cathedral which is said to hold the remains of 11000 people. The church is also one of the top concert venues in Vienna. The Baroque Roman Catholic parish church of Peterskirche or the St. Peter’s Church looks like its squeezed between the surrounding buildings. The Peterskirche is the oldest church building dating back to early middle ages. The church has a large copper dome flanked by two bell towers and is said to be inspired by the St. Peter’s Basilica of the Vatican City. The church with austere looking exterior has a rich interior with beautifully sculpted pews, frescoes, and the Baroque pulpit. The church shares its Neoclassical style facade with the surrounding building is not noticed immediately if not for its towering spire dominating the skyline. The Romanesque Church of St. Michael’s is one of the oldest churches and is dedicated to the Archangel Michael. The church is located in Michaelerplatz opposite the Hofburg Palace. The interior is decorated with rich 15th-century frescoes and one of the major Baroque work the impressive stucco work with alabaster Rococo sculpture ‘Fall of the Angels’. The large crypt located underneath the church holds 4000 corpses including mummified corpses in a well-preserved state in coffins decorated with fineries, flowers, and paintings. In between the church and the gate of the Hofburg Palace is a small excavation site where archeologists uncovered the remains of a Roman settlement which can be viewed from glass covering. Cafe Demel located close to the Hofburg Palace is a popular pastry shop established in 1786. Before you start touring the imperial palace of Hofburg you can take a break and spend some time relishing some delicious pastries and cakes. As we had visited on the Austrian National Day the Heldenplatz, the square opposite the Hofburg Palace was jam packed with locals, tourists and the soldiers with several activities going on. It was even difficult to walk through the crowd. We decided to have a look here later and first visit the Hofburg Palace museum which was luckily open. The Hofburg Palace built in the 13th century is the former imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty rulers and today serves as the seat of the President of Austria. The Hofburg Palace houses several outstanding museums which offer insight into the history and culture of the Habsburgs. Explore the mysterious life of Empress Elisabeth through her personal possessions at display in Sisi Museum, the Imperial Apartments walks you through the lavish way of life of the Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth and the Silver Collection has a huge collection of silverware, centerpieces including valuable porcelain and crystal glasses offering insight into the dining culture of the Habsburgs. The Sisi Museum, Imperial Apartments, and Imperial Silver Collection can be visited with a single ticket which includes an audio guide. Opening times for Sisi Museum, the Imperial Apartments and the Silver Collection. Also must visit are the Spanish Riding School, the tour offers its visitors with a unique experience of watching the Lipizzan horses performing their daily exercises every morning in the beautiful Baroque riding hall and the Imperial Treasury displays an awe-inspiring collection of crown jewels and precious stones in the ‘Secular Collection’ and religious treasures in the ‘Ecclesiastical Collection’. You can end your Day 1 with a classical concert at the Vienna State Opera. Note that covering both Belvedere Palace and Hofburg Palace on a single day with this itinerary may not be possible, in that case, you may need to choose one of them. We were very much intrigued by the life of Sisi and hence Hofburg Palace had to be on our list of places to visit in Vienna. Cafe Central is a traditional Viennese cafe opened in 1876 serving Viennese specialties, traditional coffee, and patisseries in a grandiose interior. Start your day with a hot cup of coffee or some scrumptious cakes in Cafe Central. The Burgtheater is the Austrian National Theatre and one of the most important German language theatres in the world. The guided tour of the Burgtheatre lets you experience the splendor of the grand staircases, grandiose interior decorated with rich ceiling paintings, fine sculptures of notable poets and the portraits of famous ensemble members in the ‘Gallery of Honor’. Guided tours of the interior that last for about 50 minutes takes place at 3 pm every day. The tours are offered in German and English languages daily in July and August. From September to June the tours are offered in German and English only from Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays. From Monday-Thursday tours are in German with summary in English. Vienna City Hall is a Neo-Gothic style building completed in 1883 and serves as the seat of local government and office of the mayor. The richly decorated facade reminds us of the magnificent town hall of Brussels. The building was designed by Friedrich von Schmidt, who has also been the architecture of Vaduz Cathedral in Liechtenstein. The Vienna City Hall is a popular venue for numerous events are held throughout the year including Advent Market selling traditional handicrafts and the skating rink from January to March. Guided tours of the City Hall are available on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1.00 pm. The Votivkirche is a Gothic cathedral located on the Ringstraße some 10 minutes walk from the City Hall. The magnificent church with three gabled portals and two spires flanking the facade dominates the Vienna City skyline. The Austrian Parliament Building located on the Ringstraße boulevard is the seat of the two houses of the Austrian Parliament. Guided tours of the Austrian Parliament are offered in both English and German language.The grandiose Greek Revival style building is decorated with numerous statues of Greek Gods, paintings, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian pillars, and Pompei-style stucco is designed in the style of ancient Greece. The main entrance at the portico at the least is modeled after the gate of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis of Athens. One of the famous features of the parliament building is the imposing Pallas Athena Fountain located in front of the parliament main entrance. The fountain is decorated with allegorical representations of the four most important rivers Danube, Inn, Elbe, and Vltava of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the foot of Athena and little cupids riding dolphins. The Museumsquartier is located across the street from the Heldenplatz and comprises of numerous important museums housed in Baroque as well as Modern buildings. Apart from museums the Museumsquartier also has several restaurants and cafes which makes it a great meeting place. Museumsquartier also hosts several events and festivals. The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house in Vienna designed by prominent painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser and draws visitors for its colorfully decorated facade and unusual architecture. Though one cannot visit the inside of Hundertwasser Haus you can definitely visit the Hundertwasser Village close by which has numerous bars and shops and designed on the same lines of Hundertwasserhaus. You can also visit KunstHausWien Museum which has a permanent exhibition for the works of Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The Schonbrunn Palace was the summer residence of the Habsburg as the Hofsburg was the winter residence. The Baroque palace has 1441 rooms most of which can be explored on two different tours. Experience the splendor of Habsburg on the Imperial Tour that walks you through the 22 rooms where you can visit the apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Elisabeth and other Rococo staterooms in less than an hour. The Grand tour is an extension of the Imperial tours which walks through 40 rooms which along with the apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Elisabeth and other Rococo staterooms also includes a visit to the Feketin Room, Gobelin Salon which houses some exquisite Brussels tapestries, and the Vieux-Laque Room. You can prices and tickets here. The Schonbrunn Palace garden is opened to the public since 1779 and is a UNESCO list of World Heritage Site along with the Schonbrunn Palace. The garden is decorated with several fountains, monuments, and statues with the most beautiful feature being the Great Parterre which comprises of 32 sculptures representing deities and virtues. The park is open from 6.30 am in the morning. Though the garden is free to access, the garden attractions like Zoo, the Palm House, Desert House, Orangery Garden all have a separate entrance fee. The Prater is a large public park in Vienna which offers over 250 attractions for kids as well as adults. The popular Vienna landmark the Giant Ferris Wheel is also located in Prater. A ride on the Giant Ferris offers a breathtaking vista of the Danube and the Vienna City. Other attractions include Madame Tussauds, Prater Museum, the Planetarium, adventure activities like indoor skydiving, bungee jumping and much more. Next to the amusement park is the “Green Prater” – an extensive green space with lush trees which makes for a pleasant place for walkers, joggers, and bicyclists. The miniature train Liliputbahn covering more than three miles is a great way to explore this beautiful neighborhood. The church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi is known by several names like St. Francis of Assisi Church or the Emperor’s Jubilee Church or the Mexico Church and is located in Leopoldstadt close to the Danube. The church with an imposing fairytale architecture is a Basilica-style Catholic church completed in 1910 on occasion of 50th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I. The most beautiful part of the church is the Elisabethkapelle (Elizabeth Chapel) in Art Nouveau-style which has its interior decorated with gold mosaics and marble. Originally built as the part of flood protection system for the city of Vienna the 21 kilometers long Danube island is a popular recreational area for leisurely and sports activities with beach, Water Playground and several restaurants, cafes and clubs. Note: We recommend you head to the Schonbrunn Palace after lunch and later to Prater in the evening. So the tour of Burgtheater, City Hall, and the parliament or the museums in Museum Quarter may not be practical to fit in the first half of the day. So you will have to decide and plan which one of these you would want to include in the itinerary and fits best in the first half of the day. The Sisi Ticket offers a packaged entry to the three imperial Vienna attractions – Vienna Hofburg (includes Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum, and the Imperial Silver Collection), The Grand Tour of Schonbrunn Palace (includes fast-track admission to Schonbrunn Palace) and the Imperial Furniture Collection of Hofmobiliendepot. The tickets are valid for one year from the date of issue. The Vienna Pass is a city sightseeing card which offers visitors free entry to over 60 top attractions including imperial palaces, art galleries, museums and monuments in Vienna with skip-the-line benefits. The Pass also includes a free guidebook and free Hop On Hop Off bus for the duration of your pass. The Vienna City Card includes free use of public transport, free 24 hours Hop On Hop Off bus, city guided tour and discounted entry to several prominent Vienna attractions. Have you visited Vienna? What is your favorite Vienna point of interest? Is there something we missed and should be on top of the list of places to visit in Vienna? I am lucky to have a friend in Vienna so I have traveled there many times. I love the city best in winter, when it’s all dressed up with the Christmas markets, and in summer, when it’s a pleasure to walk around as the temperature is quite high. I actually love Demel, I have had some really good Sacher Torte there. The Museum’s Quarter is such a nice place to relax and observe the locals. I have spent a considerable part of my life around Vienna, but for one reason or another haven’t had a chance to visit it. Vienna has long been a destination of choice for many and it’s charm, although European, has a certain uniqueness to it. Thanks for such a detailed itinerary and highlighting all the special spots of the city. Some day soon i hope to use it all. Good to know that it is not easy to explore Vienna completely by foot. I am definitely one who loves to just walk around and get lost in a new city. But I am glad to know that Vienna has a great public transportation system so it’s easy to get around. The Naschmarkt totally sounds like me! I absolutely love markets and love seeing all the local products and produce available. Vienna just seem like a delight to visit. I’ve never been but have wanted to visit for years. Like many European cities – such a shame they are so far away from me in New Zealand! I want to see all those beautiful churches and cathedrals, especially St Stephens Church. I absolutely love the architecture! The Naschmarkt sounds amazing too.

2019-04-22T20:59:58Z

https://gobeyondbounds.com/top-things-to-do-in-vienna-in-2-days/

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2019-04-26T05:37:16Z

https://dumpsterinfinite.com/west-virginia/15-yard-dumpster-widen-wv/

Complications are a part of surgery and it is important for patients and their families to understand that complications can and do occur during some surgical procedures. The decision to do surgery should not be taken lightly and multiple consultations are beneficial with all questions asked and answered. When necessary, other opinions outside of our office will be encouraged. Patients and their families need to go into these procedures with their eyes wide open and their expectations expressed. We clearly outline what we can and cannot do surgically and hope to be sure that our expectations as well as our patients are perfectly aligned. This allows a very smooth surgical procedure with good to excellent short and long-term outcomes. Achilles tendon lengthenings are performed through three small incisions in the back of the foot. These usually need to be lengthened surgically to get the best long-term outcome. It is rare for us to need to open the Achilles to do an open procedure if during the procedure the tendon snaps. If necessary, the small percutaneous incisions are lengthened and the tendon is repaired. When the tendon is lengthened properly the chances of recurrence are very small. When the tendons are over lengthened it is a significant complication and causes the patient to have weakness with push-off. These usually need to be repaired surgically. Gastroc recessions are performed just below the calf muscle. When sutured properly the incisions look perfect and show no signs of “dimpling”. Dimples can occur within the incisions, which are small little areas that look imperfect just below the calf muscle. They have nothing to do with function. Incisions could also scar more readily. Recurrence of tightness to the calf muscles are more common with lengthening the gastroc. However, over lengthenings are relatively rare. Arthroeresis implants are titanium and patients will almost never have an allergy to them. They are small implants that block abnormal motion in the joint and over time we have found that they do slightly shift and move. Rarely do they shift and move to a position that causes them to pop out of place. It can and does occur infrequently. Implants placed can be too big, causing a significant loss of motion of the subtalar joint. They can also be too small, limiting the amount of correction desired. They can also shift into a position towards the outside of the foot and function perfectly well despite their shifting. Although x-rays do show a shift in the implant, this movement typically is not symptomatic. Although some surgeons have found that implants are removed in one-third to 40% of the cases, we have found this to be a total failure of the physician who has evaluated and treated the patient. A failure to understand the function of the foot and the need to create a “tripod” causes failures. Our removal rate is less than 5%. Naviculocuneiform joint fusions are procedures in which the cartilage is taken out of the bones so that the bones can heal together and help the patient develop an arch. Delayed healing can occur, necessitating a longer period of immobilization. Nonunions can occur in which the bones do not unite and another surgical procedure may be necessary. If there are concerns during the healing process, bone stimulators are utilized to accelerate the healing process. Malunions occur when the bones are not placed in their proper position and the bones do not heal correctly. They may or may not be symptomatic. If symptomatic, the bones can be later corrected to be placed in a more correct and anatomical position. Hardware that is utilized includes screws most commonly, and occasionally staples. Screws and staples can cause irritation below the skin, necessitating later removal. It is relatively uncommon for this to be necessary. A Cotton is a procedure which is an opening wedge osteotomy of the medial cuneiform in which a bone graft is placed on the top of the foot. In most cases we will use a small pin to hold the position of the bone graft in the bone. This pin is usually placed through the skin and is removed in the office in a completely pain free procedure. With a Cotton, bone graft has to be incorporated into the bone, which may take many months. A bone graft can subside and a loss of correction can be seen. Rarely will there be subluxation of the joint in front of or behind it. A Calcaneal osteotomy is a procedure in which the back heel bone is cut and shifted down and in so that the heel bone is parallel into the lower leg bone called the tibia. Complications with this procedure are rare as this bone is very well vascularized and heals within 6-8 weeks. Screws are placed directly on the bone from an incision on the back of the heel. Rarely will these screws become irritating and require removal. A malunion of the heel bone can occur if the shifting of the bone is not correctly placed. This is very rare and if it did occur it can be corrected surgically to realign the heel bone in a more correct fashion. In an Evans calcaneal osteotomy the outside of the heel bone is opened to help realign the outside of the foot relative to the inside and equalize its length. Complications of this surgical procedure are a little bit more common than in others. This can include injury to the nerve (sural) around the outside of the foot. This would cause some numbness to the small toe. Placing bone graft on the outside of the foot may necessitate utilization of small plates and screws. If so, this could become irritating to the tendons (peroneals). This may be temporary. Placing too large of an implant can cause stress to one of the outer joints (calcaneal cuboid joint), which could increase pressure in the joint causing later arthritic changes. While cutting the heel bone, shifting of the front part of the bone relative to the back can occur, causing misalignment of the calcaneal cuboid joint. Misalignment of the joint can likewise cause arthritic changes in the future. Bone grafts when placed can subside losing some of the correction. Placing small bone grafts may not give full correction to the problem. Malunion or nonunion of the heel bone after an Evans is uncommon and if it occurs can be corrected with additional surgical procedures. A first tarsal metatarsal joint fusion (Lapidus) is a procedure that is performed in the arch region. Any time cartilage is removed and bones are placed together with hardware, complications can occur. Complications can include a malunion in which the fusion site does not heal in the perfect position that we would like. A delayed union can occur in which the bones do not fuse as quickly as we would like and in such cases the patient may be kept nonweightbearing for a longer period of time and a bone stimulator may be utilized. A nonunion can occur in which the joint does not fuse and consolidate completely. In some cases this may become asymptomatic. In other cases if there is pain, then another fusion may be necessary. This secondary procedure may necessitate bone graft to augment the healing potential. Screws and plates when placed can always cause some irritation to the soft tissue requiring later removal. A plantarflexory wedge osteotomy is a relatively straightforward procedure that we use infrequently to reestablish a tripod when we do not want to sacrifice any other joints and prefer not to use any bone graft. Delayed union, nonunion and malunion can occur, which all may require care that would include further surgery if the bone does not unite or bone stimulator to help healing. Patients may also be kept nonweightbearing for a longer period of time. It is critical to have a full evaluation of the patient to determine what is the best treatment option. In many patients that are flatfooted, the natural history may be perfectly benign. In others we are able to evaluate the patient and see where the natural history of their problem will become progressively worse and in those patients intervention is necessary. Combinations of procedures are utilized to help our patients. Every patient is different and we do individualize their treatment accordingly.

2019-04-20T12:54:53Z

http://www.southfloridasportsmedicine.com/arthroeresis.html

A collage of images from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Hello again, fellow BP Contest Enthusiasts! The 15th has rolled around once again, so we can huddle together to await the verdict of The Judges! Dust off the hambone chant, the cocktail shakers, and of course, the variety of chocolate that we rely upon... whatever it takes to get through the waiting, wondering and wishing, until the September Finalists & Winners are published later this month! All are welcome here! One gentle reminder: Please refrain from posting half a dozen of your past entries; ideally, this thread is about sharing that one, really special, excellent, meaningful, or otherwise favorite hopeful image of yours! Best of luck, to all Contestants! 2) If you have NOT YET entered an image into the Contest today, you can use the "Photo ID" to pull a pre-existing image from your Member Center into this thread (avoiding a duplicate image upload.) Obtain the particular Photo ID# from your Member Center. Come to this thread, click Respond, enter the text of your reply, then choose "1" from the images-to-attach drop-down. Click Submit, and on the next screen populate the "Photo ID" box at the far right. No need to fill in any of the other fields on that screen. 3) If you HAVE ALREADY made a Contest entry today, before joining this thread, you can't use the Photo ID method, today. You can either wait until tomorrow to reply here (before your new Contest entry!) or, upload a new copy of the particular image (from your PC) to include in this thread now. This produces a duplicate image in your Member Center; however, you don't have to make that duplicate visible in your Gallery. 4) If you're uploading a duplicate in Step 3, you may wish to title it as "Sept Fav for Forum" so that it stands out in your Member Center, for easier housecleaning later on... Adding "Original displayed in my Gallery" to the text description of the duplicate can help direct viewers who want to comment on your image, to seek the original image in your gallery instead. 5) Likewise, if you see a photo in this thread and want to comment on it, try to tell if it is a duplicate upload first. (Are there any older-dated comments already on it? Does it say "Original displayed in my Gallery"?) As a courtesy, try to find the original image in that person's gallery, and leave your comment there instead of on the duplicate here---that way, if they delete the duplicate a month from now, they don't wipe out any comment history that should really belong with the original entry. 6) Finally, make a record of all your current-month Contest Entries, at each month-end! On the last night of the month, BP resets the "Current Entries" page in your Member Center, to make way for your entries in the new month. Keeping a record of monthly entries makes it easier to determine your favorite image later, when we start this thread next month! Glad it's mid month and back to being able to eat chocolate and drink alchol with an excuse! I had almost an entire month of resubmits, and due to the fact that I was at the BP Summit at the end of the month, I wasn't able to capture which shots I had uploaded last month, so no post for me in this thread. It's that time again....I'll be stopping in to see all the great entries that I missed. Here is my favoirte from the N&L category. F5.6, 1/15, ISO 200, 55mm, tripod, RAW, taken from the boardwalk at Indian Rocks Beach, FL. It rained all day, but the sun finally made a quick appearance. I had a couple favs but will post the one that I am most hoping will win a finalist. This was taken after a day of rain. I figured there wouldn't be a sunset because of the cloud cover, but the sun did make a quick appearance. Great Blue Heron doing what he does best. Chris, Kara, & Les, those are beautiful images! Cant wait to see everyones photos this month. With a little help from Chris, I re-worked this image & submitted for the second time. Thanks Chris! this is a beautiful Sunset!! Be careful of the mushrooms you find in the woods, lol! If you move to and from the photo, it appears to move. This effect was all done in camera using a 20-40 zoom lens with a shutter speed of 1/8 sec, f22 at ISO 100 and too much time on my hands as I was waiting to shoot a mountain bike race. No cropping was done, this is the whole enchilada. Here's mine for the month, entered in the Monthly Theme category. The effect was all done in camera and no cropping was done. Where is this thread listed under the forum? I can't find it in its usual place. How did that happen? How did it become the 15th already? I am so looking forward to seeing everyone's entries. This is such an exciting time, full of promise and hope! Some of my favorites from September didn't make EFP, so I won't even post any of them here. One that DID make an EFP is another resub. The third time was the charm for this photo. Times one and two it was passed over, but this time it received an EFP. I have some high hopes for it! Anyway, my Martini is getting warm, so I'll go ahead and post, then I'll go ahead and toast! Best of luck to everyone, and congrats on making so many fantastic photographs each and every month. I already posted a contest entry today, so I can't use the photo ID number. Furthermore, I don't have an electronic version of that particular photo with me today, so I'll have to just wait and post tomorrow. It certainly is Martini time now! Hey everyone, I can't believe the 15th is already here. I had my birthday on the 12th, but to be honest I was more excited for the 15th then I was for the 12th!! haha, obsessed much? anyway heres my monthly favourite, it didn't get a EFP but I quite like it! Here's my favorite from last month. Good luck everyone! This is a very lovely dreamy photo. I checked out your gallery. Of course Jasy is a doll. Where do you take your beach pictures? I live in SW Florida, some of your beach shots remind me of my area. Very lovely. I'm glad this thread was entered into the wrong section ... I've never seen it before. Here is one of my favorites. Of course I'm a little partial since this is my little guy. A wild sunflower wraps itself around a chain link fence. Thanks Mary :-) All were taken at Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. Chris I still have my fingers crossed for "30 seconds luck". 1/80 @ F4.5, 70mm, ISO 100. Shot outside the Uffizi in Florence on the way to see The Mind of Leonardo. chrisbudny.com Susan, I kinda forgot about 30 Seconds! Perhaps I didn't want to "jinx" it by risking it here in the thread! hehehe... but yes, my fingers are certainly crossed for that one, too. Great images showing up here, folks! I always love seeing what I missed, during the past month! My fav. entry for Sept. Good luck everyone. I've got my hopes on two of them. Here they are! Everyone else is looking great too!! Just kidding the HTML didn't work. You'll have to check my gallery for Bee and Moth. Hello all and thanks for showing me all those wonderful pictures! Some of which I have already seen, admired and commented on, and some of which are new amazing experiences. Good luck with them! My personal favorite is from a Saturday morning when I was having a lot of fun in my kitchen...I hope you enjoy it! Starting with a cup of coffee...wine and chocolate will be saved for later today! I shot these cone flowers with a relatively shallow depth of field and then used various filters (radial blur, liquify, Gaussian blur) to increase and change the quality of the background blur. Originally uploaded the first week in September, I decided the photo needed a boost so I pulled it, increased the saturation and intensity of the color, and am resubmitting it in the Monthly Theme. Good luck to everyone and thanks for sharing your photos and your thoughts. I was on a drive through the woods on a wonderfully rainy day when this leaf tumbled onto my car's hood. I had to pull over and make a photo before it blew away. Having the trees reflected was a happy bonus. Hello again! Like I said before, there are so many fantastic photos in this thread every month, and this month is certainly no exception! As promised, here's my re-sub entry for the thread. I was so surprised when Chris emailed me yesterday to tell me it was the 15th. I can not believe how fast time flies! One of my favorites is of a wind blown leaf stuck in a chain link fence. It is a resubmit. I originally entered it back on January 16, 2006. I sometimes like to wait a while for the judges to forget a pic before resubmitting ;). Anyway, maybe this time it will get a silver or a gold...oh wait a minute, it has a gold button :o)! Chris, just discovered this cool thread! September was a dismal month for me. If I even get a finalist, my guess would be for this one! Good luck everyone! But I'm glad my mistake brought you first-timers into the fold! Best of luck, to everyone! Les--you're on to me, LOL! And Chris, there is ALWAYS something to be said for happy accidents! Some of the best photos have been the result of a "mistake!" Hi Gang! I think September was a tough month for us all where EFP's were concerned. As usual the competition is tough but I still have so much fun shooting no matter what the outcome here. Here are two of my fav's for September. Guess what?!?! I remembered a shot that I entered last month. My mind still works...sometimes. Here it is. Susan's Gallery Here, here Tamera! I'm enjoying BP more than I ever did because of participating in the discussions :) I really am thinking this thread is the coolest, seeing what everyone's favorite is! Gabrielle, my daughter. One of the loves of my life. ISO 1600, 1/13, 5.6, 55.0 mm, taken on 8-16-07 in early afternoon. Original in color but converted to black and white in photoshop. This is my first time particpiating in this thread or even forum. I have been enjoying seeing everyone's wonderful pictures that they are hoping to see go on. They are all beautiful and great, and hope to one day be able to take photos like all of yours. This is my favorite picture for September and hope to see it go on. I have another one too, called Flower Blur that I hope to see go on as well. Good luck everyone!!! This is actually one of my favorites that I have taken. I was just out playing around with my camera with some black and white settings on my farm and came up with this. I'm a huge fan of this thread and love seeing everyone's favorite images each month. This is my first time to try participating. I'd hate to jinx my image, but I'm really pulling for this shot of my son. It's one of my all-time favorite shots of him. Good luck to everyone! And, thanks to Chris for hosting this fabulous thread each month! Hi everyone! There are some fantastic photos posted here, as usual. I have ever gotten a finalist in the people category, but this is one of my favorites for this month. Revisiting one of my favorite images of Evan - this time in BW. Thank you to Jennifer Alder for the idea -and for believing in this image like I do! Okay, going to try this one more time. I haven't entered the contest yet today, so hopefully this will work. Here's my favorite from September! Good luck to everyone with their favorites as well!! FABULOUS photos, everybody! Seeing all your Sept faves has put a smile on my face tonight. I have to take a moment to choose my favorite from last month, but I just wanted to pop in and say good luck to all! Friday night action from "the biggest little football town in the world", aka Maiden, NC. Too many wonderful images in September to count. I especially like the sunset by Carol. Beautiful image, makes me wish I was there. Anyway, here's one of mine for September. I have a thing for sports photography. poorly lit high school football fields offer challenges, but it's fun trying to get that perfect shot. Resubmitted into the correct caregory! Winner of the Photogroup 101 Celine Dion song theme. While my husband was holding our baby daughter I was struck by the contrast of her new skin on his rough, scarred hand. I was wondering what happened to you Chris...haven't seen you on 101 for a while and I couldn't find this thread! I didn't get much done in September, so my favorite is a resub from the 101 song title theme day. Better hopes for October! Hi everybody, LOTS of great photos here. I wish everybody the BEST of luck!!! Here is one of my favorites, had a very hard time deciding which, so will just post this this one. These are my neighbors son's female puppies. They are a boxer and lab mix, 12 weeks old. They were actually playing not dancing lol! Comment's welcome and have a GREAT DAY! Thanks Frank for help with the title! A BIG congrat's to all the finalist and winner's and to everyone else, you ARE ALL WINNER'S to me! 9/13/07 7:33:18pm, 1/60sec, 12.80 aperture, 33.00mm, ISO 140, flash fired, sports mode. Changed background to black, dreamy filter zoom no color, no blur, around 35% blend, applied image darken to origianl a tad. My other favorite is my Charrrrrrge. Colors enhanced and slight use of the underpainting filter. I stopped by to wish all of you the BEST OF LUCK!!! Your work is both beautiful and inspirational!!! Here is one of my favorites for September, entered into the Digital Darkroom category. I wanted to wish everyone good luck in catching the judge's eye. This was one among a series I took one special morning on the Santa Barbara breakwater. Just wanted to wish the other members good luck in catching the judge's eye with their submissions. chrisbudny.com hi folks! I had to write tonite cuz my sis has a new iPhone and I am actually composing this at a great bar in NYC ... I am such a geek!! Good luck to all of you !!!!! Best of luck to all of you for September contest results! Here is my favourite photo. This was my first photo on this site! Nikki's Gallery It's lovely, Anil--the pink tones are so fresh and the light is very nice. Congrats on your Editor's Picks button. Good luck to you and to everyone else who has shared their wonderful entries--there's so much variety and I love seeing everyone's work. Shouldn't be too many days now. This was my entry into the Sept M.T. Panned on a high school receiver running for touchdown but thought it looked better with some PS artistic filters. For the PG101 Meatloaf Song Title Theme. Swiss chocolate photographed with Canon 100 mm macro lense, ISO-100, f/9, 0.6 s, natural light, diffusor, reflector, tripod. Curves, saturation, clone, burn, crop and sharpen in PS7. 1st Place D&M Feb 2008. Well - it is getting closer...and the nerves need something to calm down. How about some Swiss chocolate for that purpose? Have a bite, try to relax, enjoy - good luck everyone! I'm unable to upload at this time, so I'll have to jump in next month! In the meantime, I'll have one (or maybe two...) of those yummy chocolates!! Swiss is my all time favorite! Great horned owl in front of redwood tree, California. Getting anxious here ... drinking some nice California Sauvignon Blanc to pass the time (from the winery where my husband works, so we get it cheap, lol). I'm not very confident about my September entries--it's so hard to know what the judges will like anymore--so I'm just uploading one that's a little different for me. Well, I didn't enter too many for September, due to a new camera (and still learning how to work it), but here are 2 of my favorites. Effect done with camera. Nothing done in post processing asides from resizing. and here's the 2nd one. I sure wish it had been today! I know they have put them out lots on the 24th, but they just don't seem to like Wed as a day for announcing them. Now because I am on the East Coast, it will probably be around 5:00-6:00pm before I know! I never mind the wait until it gets to the last of the month...then I am like ready to know. Once it gets around the 23rd, I start checking my email frequently! Now Cheri, for that drink, mix me a double of something good! Something with rum sounds good. :) I just had my chocolate for the evening, a chocolate brownie. Popping into the party a bit late this time around. Lots of great shots here once again. Good luck everyone. Here is my choice for the month. I've already downed a great dirty martini, and a wonderful glass of red (my aunt & uncle are quite hospitable hosts; remind me to visit frequently!) so I'm more than prepped to handle another day's wait, as it seems will be the case...! chrisbudny.com Colleen; make a normal vodka martini, and pour into the shaker a sufficient amount of the brine ("olive juice" liquid) from the jar of green olives. The more brine, the dirtier the martini, but it can get overpowering, so go lightly at first, until you know your taste. Shake, shake, shake. Then garnish with 3 (or more) olives. I love olives. :) I prefer the Musco Family brand Spanish Queen olives (stuffed with pimento) not the wimpy little manzanillas. Tonite's dirty martini was further compounded by using anchovy-stuffed olives... :) Homemade bleu cheese-stuffed olives are also excellent. There they are! I got one, but not on the one I expected, my first finalist I'm so excited! Congrats to finalists and non-finalists alike there were some great photos this time out as always! I can't believe it but the finalists just came out at 10:52 Eastern time! I have never seen them come out so late! None for my fav...I think I jinx it when I post my fav. However, I did get one on my 2nd favorite An Evening Walk and one on my white egret. What a surprise! This thread must be my lucky charm! My favorite made the finalists - whoo hooo!!! Congrats to all the finalists!!! I'm a happy girl tonight!! I forgot to say congrats to everyone, those with finalists and those who didn't get one this time, just keep shooting and resubmitting! My streak has finally broke. I hadn't had a finalist since December of last year. I'm very happy to say...I got one. I'm thrilled! I knew something was up when I saw so many responses to the thread. Congrats to all you finalists! Two here...and one was my fav, so that's pretty cool. Congrats everyone! Good luck in the next round! One here! divinelovephotography.com How funny, with all the talk of alcohol and chocolate I ran to the store. As soon as I left the finalist were announced!!! It seems that's what happened last month too. Anyway, a big congratulations to all of you!!! Best of luck in the next round. I am thrilled to have 3 finalists!!! It has been rough here in Southern California with all the fires, smoke and ashes! I hope you are all safe!!! Chris, I can't wait to try your dirty martini recipe. I'll be lifting my glass to all the contest entrants--way to go, everybody, and keep on shooting! sherry-adkins-photography.com Congrats to everyone. The fav that I posted here got a finalist. I'm sure glad the finalists were announced today.....with Halloween just around the corner, there is way too much chocolate in my house! Congratulations to all finalists! And Best Of Luck for final results. Congratulations to all finalists and good luck next! I got two, and those were my favorites, so I am very happy! Still happy, as I received 4 finalist this month. Congratulations to all who received a finalist and the best of luck to you in the next round! Nikki's Gallery I am very pleased that my favorite was noticed. Congratulations to everyone else who managed one or more finalists--way fewer percentage wise this time than usual! As Colleen says, just keep on keepin' on--love seeing ALL the images every day. Congratulations, to the Finalists here! Nikki's right---only 1.7% of the entries made it to Finalist. I have all my monthly BP history stats at home, but I believe that is the lowest percentage I've seen, in 2 years! So to garner a Finalist this month really is something special! I got off the computer last night thinking that the Finalists would be released sometime Thursday. Was happily surprised to find out this morning that "Dear John" got a finalist medal! My two favorites didn't make it... but I really like the one that did! Susan's Gallery I was right on about my Sept, no finalists :( But I am so pleased at the ones I saw that did. Congratulations everyone! Big Congratulations to all the finalists!!!! WTG!! I received 2 -- yayy!!! Now how about a round of chocolate martinis to cheer on the next round?!! Kerby's Gallery Congratulations to all the finalists. I been on vacation and just got home but I got a finalist which was a nice treat. It is Keshia in a swing. Place finnish and to Susan for her 2 Second Place finishes and to anyone else I missed who participated in this thread who made it through the finalist stage. Congratulations go out to Christopher for his First Place finnish and to Susan for her 2 Second Place finnishes and to anyone else on this thread who made it through the finalist round that I mistakenly missed. Everyone, good luck on next month's contest. Way to go, Susan and Chris! Oops, I see I missed Les Rhoades..... Congratualtions on your 2nd Place. Yes, congrats to all you gold winners, particularly our host, Chris! Again, I missed Donna Pagaskis who had 2 2nd Place finnishes this month. Kudos Donna. Nikki's Gallery Special congratulations to everyone who picked up a winner's button for September--just browsed all of them quickly and there are amazing photos among them. And I think I saw two gold buttons for you, David O? One on the image you posted here and another on a wave with a surfer. Great job!! Thanks Nikki. Nope, the one I posted here didn't even make it to the finalist stage even though I do like it better than the one that went further. Go Figure. But I am quite thrilled about getting a 1st place this month. I didn't expect it. I'm going to try to get to everybody's gallery, but if I don't, congratulations to all the winners!! See you all next month! Congratulations David, Les and Donna for your two wins. Congrats to everyone else for their finalists and wins!!! I was VERY lucky and received 3 wins. chrisbudny.com Let me add my Congratulations to everyone's great imagery! This is my first-ever First Place, and I was surprised at how strongly I reacted---I thought I'd "mellowed" in two years on BP, to not getting flustered over a win---WRONG! I'm still beaming, and had to make 4 phone calls tonite to tell people! And, it was a resubmitted image (no rework, just a plain resubmit from inside my gallery)---so don't give up on the images you believe in! Don't forget, we'll do this thread again, around 11/15, for the October results... (I promise to try and put the thread in the right place, next time!) Also, be sure to make some kind of record of your OCT. entries by 10/31, before BP clears your "Contest Entries" page---so you'll remember what your favorite was, for the 11/15 thread! divinelovephotography.com Congratulations to all of you!! Thanks for the well wishes. My winning images were also resubmits, just entered into a different category. It's the first time I have ever won twice in one month, so that is very special for me. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!! You are all such an inspiration!! Keep up the great work!!! sherry-adkins-photography.com Congrats to all winners! I will try to make it to all the winner's galleries, but if I don't or miss someone, a big congrats to you. And as far as resubmits, I resubmitted one this month that was completely overlooked before and this month got an EFP. SO if you believe in an image, resubmit it! MARYIACOFANO.COM Congratulations to all the winners !! Beautiful images! When I get home next week I will be able to view all of them. Susan's Gallery Congrats to everyone on their wins! Glad to see so many from this thread! Sorry Susan. 3 wins..... Great job. Kerby's Gallery A Big Congratulations to all the Sept. winners.

2019-04-26T10:28:49Z

http://www.betterphoto.com/forms/QnAdetail.asp?threadID=30509

WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, Va — On Tuesday, Oct. 28, Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital ) suffered the loss of one of the Dulles, Virginia-based firm’s Antares launch vehicles, along with the SS Deke Slayton, Cygnus, spacecraft at 6:22 p.m. EDT (1822 GMT). The anomaly happened within the first minute of flight, which left the launch pad covered in fire, smoke, and the rocket’s remnants. At the time of ignition, the launch team was not tracking any technical issues. It is unclear at present what impact this will have on the $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract that Orbital has with NASA, although NASA has confirmed that some reimbursement is built into the contract for Orbital and the on-board hardware. Shortly after the incident, the Space Agency confirmed that no personnel has been injured and everyone was accounted for. The damage is limited to the launch pad and the facilities including property and vehicles. Orbital has stated that the damage was restricted to the south end of Wallops Island. Fire teams are in place to secure the perimeter of the crash, which is a little over 8500 feet. NASA, Orbital, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) are working together to determine the cause of the problem and are collecting data. Orbital will take the lead in the upcoming investigation. They are currently working on contingency operations and the FAA operations center has been notified. The team is working to secure the pad as well as sensitive security materials that the Cygnus spacecraft was carrying at the time. The video of the accident suggests that Pad-0A – is likely heavily damaged and will need large portions of it rebuilt. Pad-0A is the only launch facility currently certified to launch the Antares booster and it will be Orbital’s top priority to get the pad here on Wallops Island into working order as soon as possible. Despite this accident, it is not expected to impact tomorrow’s early-morning launch of a Russian Progress spacecraft – which is also bound for the International Space Station (ISS). At present, it is unclear, what if any, impact it will have on the planned launch of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket with its payload of the GPS IIF8 navigational satellite. That flight is slated to liftoff at 1:21 p.m. EDT (1721 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 in Florida. For their part, Orbital representatives stated that accidents such as this are part of the business of spaceflight. “We’ve all seen this happen in this business before, and we’ve all seen teams recover. We will do the same,” Culbertson said, a former astronaut and International Space Station resident. Culbertson stated that it is unclear at this time how long it will be before Antares is returned to flight, but emphasized that it will absolutely not fly until the cause of the incident is determined. At present, it is not known if either of Antares’ AJ-26 engines might be the cause of the accident. In May of this year, an Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 rocket engine, produced by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau, failed on a test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Aerojet Rocketdyne purchased more than forty of the NK-33 engines in the 1990′s and Orbital has purchased 20 of those engines for use on Antares. Aerojet Rocketdyne has upgraded the engines by adding, among other items, electronics and a gimbaling / steering capability. it was also recently reported that Orbital is seeking other engines for use on Antares. The AJ-26 has experienced one prior failure, in June of 2011, when an engine caught fire in the same E-1 Test Stand as the May 2014 accident. The 2011 failure was determined to be caused by a fuel leak resulting from “stress corrosion cracking of the 40-year old metal” contained in the engine. Under the CRS contract that Orbital has with NASA, the company is required to launch eight cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station. NASA is currently in negotiations with Orbital to have the contract extended – and has asked for proposals (due in Nov. 2014) for the next phase of the agency’s effort to send cargo to the station. NASA is currently working to cede responsibility of ferrying cargo and crews to the ISS to commercial firms such as Orbital and SpaceX. The first commercial crew flights are scheduled to begin in 2017. Tonight’s Antares and Cygnus duo cost about $200 million, which does not include property damage or payload contents. Luckily, Orbital does have insurance. NASA has stated that the loss of the Cygnus cargo vessel should not affect operations on the station as the orbiting laboratory is, at present, well stocked with supplies – with enough on orbit to last the Expedition 41 crew until March of next year if necessary. The next United States resupply flight to the station – will be the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket with its Dragon spacecraft – that launch is currently slated to occur no-earlier-than Dec. 9. Due to tonight’s anomaly, there may be a few items exchanged on Dragon’s current payload manifest, including a oxygen tank that may be switched for a nitrogen tank similar to the one Cygnus was carrying. Culbertson stressed that anyone coming across debris from the rocket – should not touch it and contact local authorities so that it can be collected. NASA’s Michael Suffredini noted that the fact there is more than one contributor on NASA’s CRS program – is a strength – as it means that when a mishap such as this takes place, the Space Agency can turn to a different, non-related, set of launch vehicles and spacecraft. It is estimated that Orbital and the incident team will need at least a few weeks in order to thoroughly evaluate the situation and to work on a plan for what is to come. At day break tomorrow, teams from the Accident Investigation Board will be sent off to locate and tag any debris and to further assess the extent of the damage. The next step is to study the video footage as well as telemetry data, which are currently in lock down. I am so thankful, as is the rest of the old gang here at KSC, that none of the team members were injured. Hope you guys can recover quickly. I’d like to know what the sensitive security materials that the Cygnus spacecraft was carrying at the time, and what the payload was for this mission?? Thanks! I hate to be critical at this point in time,,but, if the engines were involved, arent we dealing with a failure in US space policy,,,,,,,why are we still depending on Russian technology to move forward? The last few administations have shown a total lack of imagination in pushing US industry to move forward in developing new space technologies…….Were do we go from here? I believe the security sensitive material is thought to be related to the range safety equipment, and not actual cargo bound for the ISS. Regardless, rockets are tricky. How do we know something wasn’t overlooked…. The workers at Orbital are mandated to work 10, 12 or more hours a day, 6 sometimes 7 days a week, for weeks on end. It has been proven that when you work your employees under these kind of conditions, things go unnoticed, things get overlooked. This is a huge factor and why isn’t NASA enforcing their work rule policy on Orbital or Space x. Also, why is NASA putting Orbital in charge of the investigation ? this is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. NASA isn’t in charge of the investigation. The NTSB has jurisdiction. Regardless, Orbital’s personnel are the best qualified to find out what went wrong, but ultimately the NTSB will be in charge. As expected, on the national nightly news television broadcast it was repeatedly stated, “A NASA rocket exploded at Wallops Island,” not “A Orbital Science Corporation Antares rocket exploded at Wallops Island.” Perhaps the general public doesn’t draw neat distinctions between NASA and commercial entities, it’s all “the space program”. The CRS contract with Orbital was 1.9 billion for 8 launches of the Antares/Cygnus combo. That equals 237.5 million per flight for hardware. NASA, Orbital, Wallops, Virginia, and insurance companies will all be kicking in to clean it up and get them back to launching. Failures happen … we learn, we fix, we improve, we innovate, we move on. A couple weeks ago, three semi trucks/trailers, each carrying about the same amount of cargo crashed in indiana. Didn’t make national news at all. We should be launching so often that this cargo crash isn’t that big a deal. The NBC Nightly News today went into greater detail about the explosion in it’s lead off story. It was reported that it was an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket. It was also reported that there would be no shortages on the ISS, and that a Russian Progress transport is on it’s way. It was further reported on NBC that Musk stated that the upgraded NK-33 engines “were a joke”. Hence my issue with Space X. Musk has a tiger by the tail, but he still feels the need to gloat and trash talk the competition. Pride cometh before the fall; maybe Elon would be whistling a different tune if it was one of his F9s smouldering on the ground. New spacers like the arrogance, but the legacy people who’ve been in the game for decades aren’t impressed. Musk made that comment YEARS ago NOT after the crash. “Musk: I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. So I said, OK, let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. And then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around 2 percent of the typical price—which is a crazy ratio for a large mechanical product. Musk: One is the incredible aversion to risk within big aerospace firms. Even if better technology is available, they’re still using legacy components, often ones that were developed in the 1960s. Anderson: That’s a nice phrase. Musk: The results are pretty crazy. One of our competitors, Orbital Sciences, has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, and their rocket honestly sounds like the punch line to a joke. It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the ’60s. I don’t mean their design is from the ’60s—I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the ’60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere. Anderson: Where else are there inefficiencies? The Daily Launch of the AIAA reported on 29 October that on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams reporter Tom Costello stated, “some like SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called the engine “a joke”. There was no citation of a 2012 interview. Even if the statement was not made immediately after the Antares explosion, the statement that “their rocket honestly sounds like a punch line to a joke” does, as stated by Michael J. Listner, smack of “arrogance”. If SpaceX should suffer such an explosion, Newspacers would probably howl with indignation if anyone dared call a Falcon “punch line to a joke”. Such statements can only serve to denigrate the opinion of the general public about “rocket scientists” and space exploration. In the context of “new” cutting edge technology for the space program then utilizing old engines, and outsourcing the tankage to the Ukraine and then charging 100 million more per launch, to me sounds like Musk was EXACTLY spot on. Perhaps regardless of the facts, we selectively hear what we want to hear, and if you want to believe in Musk you are certainly free to do so. We did not hear anyone from Orbital Sciences calling Musk’s Falcons “a joke” when his “cutting edge technology” didn’t work very well until NASA engineers helped him with his fuel slosh and staging problems. With that, you are welcome to have the last word. Congratulations.

2019-04-20T07:01:10Z

https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/iss/orbital-sciences-antares-rocket-explodes-less-minute-flight/

Q : When purchasing automobile insurance what should I consider? Q : Does my insurance policy cover a friend if I loan him/her my car? A : When you loan your car to a friend or an associate, he or she will be covered under your automobile insurance policy. If your friend lives with you be sure to notify your agent as eliminations/exclusions may apply. Q : What is collision physical damage coverage? A : Collision is the loss you incur when your automobile collides with another vehicle or object like a telephone pole. Hit and run accidents are also covered under collision coverage. Q : What is comprehensive physical damage coverage? A : Comprehensive provides coverage for direct physical damage losses you could incur to your car from something like a hailstorm, fire, theft, vandalism or hitting a deer. Q : How can I lower my automobile insurance rates? A : There are several things you can do to lower the cost of your automobile insurance. Another way to lower the cost is to change your deductible. By raising your deductible you may lower the cost of your automobile insurance almost 10% You must be able to pay the deductible amount in case of a claim. You can also look for discounts that you may be entitled to. Some examples of discounts that may be available are: multiple cars under the same policy, carrying a homeowners policy with the same insurance company, different groups or associations, paperless options, good student discounts for youthful drivers and paid in full discounts. Q : I am renting a car, do I need to purchase insurance from the rental company? A : I recommend that you buy the insurance through the rental car company. With regards to rental car coverage, you have the same coverage when you rent a car as you do for the best coverage you have on a car that you own. Your liability limits are the same as the limits on the vehicles that you own. If you have comprehensive and collision coverages, they are the same on the vehicle you rent as the vehicle with the lowest deductibles on your policy. There are several reasons you should consider taking the insurance offered by the rental car company. Many rental car companies are implementing a diminution in value clause (sometimes referred to as the “before and after” clause). When a rental car is damaged, the rental company no longer repairs the vehicle. They are concerned about potential liability if they put the vehicle back in their fleet. They determine the value of the vehicle at the time it was rented. Then they sell the damaged car at a salvage sale and that determines the “after” value. The renter is billed the difference. This difference could be several thousand dollars. This would NOT be covered under your auto insurance policy. If you do not have collision or comprehensive coverage on any vehicles, you do NOT have that coverage on a rental vehicle. The car rental companies have a right to make a claim for the loss of income they incur as a result of their vehicle being out of service due to the accident. No personal or commercial auto policy, that we are aware of, provides for this type of coverage. Rental companies may not wait for an insurance adjustor to come out and view the vehicle before they make repairs – this could void coverage on your auto policy. Rental companies do not have any incentive to work with the insurance companies since they put the repair charges right on the person’s credit card. When there are multiple individuals renting the vehicle (example: four friends go on Spring Break_ it could be very unclear as to which insurance company will pay the claim. This could lead to a long, drawn out claim process…meanwhile; someone is sitting with a large repair charge on their credit card. Some void coverage if the driver has been drinking (even if under the legal limit). Some void coverage off a paved road (there are lots of gravel roads in small towns). Most contracts allow only certain people to drive (usually just those listed on the contract) – even if they were given permission (i.e. a valet)! Certain credit card companies offer coverage for some of these types of risks; however, unless you have documentation that you have coverage for the risks mentioned here, I highly recommend that you purchase the coverage offered by the car rental company. The circumstances outlined here are for short-term rental agreements only. Long-term agreements need to be treated differently. Q : What is homeowners insurance? A : Homeowners insurance is a form of personal lines insurance. The typical homeowners policy has two main sections: 1) covers the property of the insured and 2) provides personal liability coverage to the insured. Q : What do I need to know when purchasing homeowners insurance? Q : What is “actual cash value”? A : When “actual cash value” is used in a policy, a policy owner is entitled to the depreciated value of the damaged property. Q : What is replacement cost? A : When “replacement cost” coverage is used in a policy, a policy owner is reimbursed an amount necessary to replace the article with one of similar type and quality at current prices. Q : Should I purchase earthquake coverage? A : Direct damages due to earthquakes are not covered under the standard homeowners insurance policy. If you live in an area that is prone to earthquakes, you may want to consider adding an earthquake endorsement to your homeowners insurance policy. This endorsement will cover damages due to earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and other earth movements. Q : What is the difference between Replacement Cost (RC) and Actual Cash Value (ACV)? A : Replacement Cost is the current cost to replace property. Actual Cash Value is the replacement cost less depreciation. Q : What does 80% co-insurance mean? A : Typically, insurance carriers require that an insured party insure at least 80% of the property’s value in order to collect a partial loss in full. This is the way the insurance company encourages all insurers to adequately insure their property. Q : How does an audit work? A : At the end of the policy term, the insurance company will review the policy and either charge or credit the policyholder based upon an audit of estimated figures. Examples of estimated auditable items include sales and payroll. Audits can be performed onsite by an auditor or via mail or telephone. Q : What does Products/Completed Operations mean? A : Products/Completed Operations refers to the liability coverage for damages caused by your operation or products after the point at which you no longer have control of them. Q : What is Business Interruption/Extra Expense coverage? A : Business Interruption/Extra Expense coverage provides coverage for income loss and the expense of establishing a temporary site during repairs due to damages related to a fire or compensable loss. A : Named insureds are those listed by name in the relevant block of the policy’s declaration page. Although the named insured is commonly one person, partnerships, corporations or other entities with insurable interests, or multiple named insureds may be included. First Named Insured is the first “named insured” listed on the policy declarations (front page of the policy). This insured acts as the legal agent for all named insurers in initiating cancellation, requesting policy changes or accepting any return premiums. The first named insured may also be responsible for payment of the premiums. Additional Insured is an entity to which a policy’s coverage is extended. An additional insured must be added to the policy prior to a claim being paid. There must be a tied to relationship between the additional insured and named insured. Being an additional insured on another’s policy does not eliminate the need for someone to have his/her own Commercial General Liability policy. Many policies require a written contract between parties in order for “additional insured” coverage to be active. Q : How much life insurance should an individual own? A : In certain circumstances, it may be advisable to purchase life insurance on children; generally, however, such purchases should not be made in lieu of purchasing appropriate amounts of life insurance on the family breadwinner(s). It is of utmost importance that the income earning capacity of the primary breadwinner be fully protected, if possible, through the purchase of the required amount of life insurance before contemplating the purchase of life insurance on children or on a non-wage earning spouse. In a dual-earning household, it is important to protect the income earning capacity of both spouses. Life insurance on a non-wage earning spouse is often recommended for the purpose of paying for household services lost at this individual’s death. Q : What about purchasing life insurance on a spouse and on children? Q : How does mortgage protection term insurance differ from other types of term life insurance? A : The face amount under mortgage protection term insurance decreases over time, consistent with the projected annual decreases in the outstanding balance of a mortgage loan. Mortgage protection policies are generally available to cover a range of mortgage repayment periods, e.g., 15, 20, 25 or 30 years. Although the face amount decreases over time, the premium is usually level in amount. Further, the premium payment period often is shorter than the maximum period of insurance coverage–for example, a 20-year mortgage protection policy might require that level premiums be paid over the first 17 years. Q : Can an existing life insurance policy be used to provide for the repayment of an outstanding mortgage loan? A : Yes, the purchase of a new mortgage protection term insurance policy is usually not required by the lender. An existing policy, either term or cash-value life insurance, can be used for many purposes, including paying off an outstanding mortgage loan balance in the event of the insured’s death. Q : Is credit life insurance a good buy? A : Credit life insurance is frequently recommended in conjunction with the taking out of an installment loan when purchasing expensive appliances or a new car, or for debt consolidation.

2019-04-23T04:38:52Z

http://www.iscinsurance.com/f-a-q-s/

We’ve been to Bar La Grassa a handful of times. It is one of my favorite places to go out to share a special meal. Why? I am universally pleased by fresh pasta and that, combined with Bar La Grassa’s bustling atmosphere makes for an enjoyable dining experience. When it is just the two of us, we usually choose to sit side-by-side at the long counter that separates the kitchen’s front line from the central dining room. An open-kitchen in a nice restaurant is no longer uncommon, but spending the meal perched directly at eye-level with the kitchen staff in the midst of busy preparation makes for a fascinating, voyeuristic experience for a diner who is interested in the process behind the product. To me, the front-row vantage point is a marvel. There is constant, well-choreographed motion. Each person moves though the rhythms of their kitchen duties with the calm agility that comes from practice and repetition. This kitchen’s output is impressively efficient and quite tasty. Bjorn has occasionally ventured into somewhat adventurous territory, ordering the braised rabbit and sweetbreads that make their way on to the menu. Tonight, we decided to share a few small plates, so he stuck to the meat-free options. Everyone and their brother crows from the rooftops over the Lobster and Soft Egg Bruschetta at Bar La Grassa. I have no doubt that its is amazing. I’ve found that the other somewhat uniquely topped bruschettas are also fun to try. We sampled the Gorgonzola Picante Bruschetta with Peperonata. The thick slices of bread, grilled before our very eyes are rustic and ample, and the slight char is lovely. For once, a bruschetta that has enough bread to hold its toppings! It’s the little things in life, isn’t’ it? Our second pasta selection, from the “filled pastas” category on the menu was the Mushroom and Tallegio Agnolotti. We both liked this dish though by the end, I thought the mushrooms were over-salted. The wrapped-candy-shaped Agnolotti were tender and filled with a perfectly lovely Tallegio. This was Bjorn’s favorite dish of the meal. One of the feats Bar La Grassa has somehow managed to accomplish is to be at once swanky and unpretentious. To me, this is the perfect combination of characteristics for a restaurant in the Minnie Apple, the hip-n-homey heart of the Midwest. The the restaurant has the typical “see and be seen” vibe of an upscale restaurant yet the hosts are welcoming and always find us a place even when the median fashion sense of the restaurant’s clientele eclipses ours. I have, in fact, seen and said a quick “hello” to Minneapolis food personality, Andrew Zimmern during a previous visit with Bjorn and my mother. In contrast to the overall swankiness, I’ve dined next to a couple decked out in Minnesota Golden Gopher gear from head to toe. The highfalutin to homespun contrast also comes through in the restaurants serving ware. If you are looking at your plate, you might think you are dining in the humble kitchen of an Italian Grandmother rather than the spacious dining room of Isaac Becker, a James Beard Award-winning chef. All the food comes out on heavy, standard-issue restaurantware plates with all varieties of patterns. There is also the pleasant contrast between the kitchen’s credentials to price. The head chef and the restaurant have received plenty of accolades, however, it is possible to have an appetizer, a few small plates and a few glasses of wine or beer and dessert, and still spend under one hundred bucks. And to leave totally satisfied. We don’t often order dessert, but because of sharing small plates, we still had room. We selected the luscious, Dark Chocolate Pot de Crème with a Hazelnut Nougatine which was a magnificent finish to our meal. I love the fact that it was served in a little canning jar. I stole this idea from Wise Acre Eatery and used it all summer to serve individual portions of salad and condiments. I loved the Pot de Crème. What a treat. We have found that Bar La Grassa consistently offers a solid Italian dining experience. Bar La Grassa’s execution and noble parentage thoughtfully contrasts with its “room at the counter” welcome and good value. Given the opportunity to gawk into a high-end kitchen while dining from a menu curated by a James Beard award-winning chef, will we go back? You betcha. *For the record, I used my phone without flash to capture these quick shots, so they are a little lower in quality, but I’m not going to be that person who totally irritates her dinner date and other guest by noticeably photographing her meal. But really, who isn’t documenting absolutely everything these days? If Adam Roberts from Amateur Gourmet does it, why can’t I? I’m crazy about growing-my-own-everything in my backyard and making bread, pasta, cheese and beer from scratch. I follow approximately 40 food blogs [and counting…], I’ve spoken to Anthony Bordain* and I’ve introduced myself to Andrew Zimmern. Cookbooks by Brenda Langton, Sophie Dahl and Ina Garden frequently show up on my cookbook stand. Even so, this post could do away with any possibility of earning recipe-developer cred or gaining respect as a highfalutin foodie. I’m sharing a recipe that is based on my favorite dish at Noodles and Company. Noodles and Co.?! Yes. So what? I did my best rendition of Noodles and Company Pesto Cavatappi and it was totally delish. To make this dish, I started by roasting tomatoes and making a batch of basil pesto. These are two steps that you can complete in advance since you can store both pesto and roasted tomatoes covered in olive oil in the fridge for a few days for use in multiple dishes. If you roasted a bunch of tomatoes based on the recipe I posted last week, this dish is an excellent way to use the leftovers. Please refer to my method for making wonderful Basil Pesto and Roasted Tomatoes recipes in the linked posts. It takes an hour to roast tomatoes, so if you haven’t done that in advance, start there first. FYI, Noodles and Co. doesn’t use roasted tomatoes, so roasting the tomatoes is optional for this recipe. I think roasting the tomatoes is worth the effort. Shriveled, roasted tomatoes make their presence known in the dish with a sweet, concentrated tomato flavor. They also contain less liquid to dilute the basil-y, Parmesan cheese-y, garlic-y goodness of the pesto. If you’d rather, you can simply add grape tomatoes to the sauté pan (more on that in a minute), and sauté the ripe red beauties until they are softened and bursting, and adjust the amount of pasta water you use to thin the pesto to avoid having a runny sauce. Pesto Cavatappi in the style of Noodles and Company — 1 hour total time, 30 minutes active time, serves 4 — easily doubled. Once you have made basil pesto and roasted tomatoes, the recipe is very simple and comes together quickly. Cook half a box of curly cavatappi noodles in salted water according to the package directions to a little less than done. At the same time, mince and sauté two cloves of garlic and 8 ounces of sliced, clean, button or cremini mushrooms in a little olive oil. If you are not using roasted tomatoes, you can add a few handfuls of grape tomatoes during this step. I think a minced, sautéed shallot would also fit the flavor profile. Once the veggies are mostly cooked, you can add a splash of white wine to the hot pan to develop flavor and get all of the good cooked bits off the pan–I didn’t bother with this, even though the official Noodles and Co. Cavatappi claims to contain white wine. Its presence or absence is not noteworthy. When the noodles are nearly cooked, drain them, reserving some pasta water. Next, toss the noodles, pesto and sautéed veggies together in the sauté pan, and stir gently. If you are using roasted tomatoes, they should be added at this point. I also added two big handfuls of baby spinach, which is not in the Noodles version of this dish, but is a tasty, healthful addition to this meal. I added a little of the pasta water to thin the pesto and to allow the Parmesan cheese in the pesto to melt. When everything is covered in a light coating of green and the spinach has begun to wilt, add a touch of milk, half and half or cream and stir until incorporated. I served my pesto cavatappi topped with a little grated Parmesan cheese. To really bring the Noodles and Company flavor home, you can also sprinkle on a little chopped Italian flat leafed parsley. I did not. There is so much flavor in the verdant pesto, and the sweet tomatoes which are roasted with garlic and thyme and layers of garlic flavour from each component of this dish I didn’t think more herbs were needed. To truly capture the Noodles and Company Pesto Cavatappi, add a little parsley, finely chopped. While making this meal I realized that having luscious pasta available as fast food can be bad for your health. As much as I enjoy Noodles and Co. now and then, I know what makes it taste so good: olive oil, cheese and cream, [or half & half or milk if you use my recipe]. That stuff should be reserved for extra special meals. I think it is wonderful pasta to enjoy occasionally. Just don’t start going to Noodles and Company, ordering Pesto Cavatappi and thinking that’s everyday food unless you are an Olympic swimmer, marathoner, or someone else with extreme calorie needs. This recipe is fit for a special meal, or if it is just an average Tuesday, served in a smaller portion alongside a salad. Our Pesto Cavatappi was really tasty, and even with my tweaks to the ingredient list it was a lot like Noodles and Company, but better, because it was lovingly made at home. *Alright, I’ll be straight. I asked Anthony Bordain a question in a Q&A session when he was in Minneapolis on a speaking tour. My question was about the John Spencer Blues Explosion song which is the theme song to his show on the Travel Channel. He kind of blew off the question and failed to answer which I’ve interpreted in several ways that all cast doubt on his self-proclaimed interest in awesome music. We’re celebrating our 3rd anniversary today. It is fun to look back on our wedding day which was such a perfect, awesome and fun-filled kick-off to our married life. We worked hard to fill the day with thought and meaning. We were surrounded by awesome family and friends who traveled far and wide. It turned out to be one of the greatest days–special from start to finish. It was pretty much perfect–except for my bangs in the above picture… not sure what happened there. What has followed has been wonderful. Married life is a fun adventure! Thank you Bjorn for 3 great years! I am grateful for every day I share with you. A few weeks ago, we found ourselves in Walker, Minnesota for a friend’s wedding. Walker happens to be the town where our wedding reception took place at a historic resort and hotel, Chase on the Lake. With our anniversary approaching Bjorn suggested that we have dinner at Chase to start the celebration early. Good call Bjorn! Our meal was fabulous. We dined on the patio overlooking Walker Bay on beautiful Leech Lake, and had one of the best restaurant meals we’ve had in while. We started with a 2009 Pinot Noir, which has proven to be a good vintage. Bjorn had Surf n’ Turf– a New York Strip steak bathed in herbed butter and served with garlic mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables and an impressive pile of crab legs. Bjorn cracked into the crab legs with gusto. We learned in Croatia, the only way to approach the shelling of shellfish is with gusto. I had a brightly flavored pesto fettuccine with veggies and a caesar salad. The meal was tasty! We enjoyed being in the place where the celebration began and raising a toast to all the fun we have ahead. Cheers! This is the second in a short series of posts about a few restaurant experiences we’ve had around the Twin Cities in recent months. I read about Cat Man Do a few months ago on a local food blog that I like to visit and knew it was a place we should try. Cat Man Do is a cozy restaurant in our neighborhood that offers authentically prepared Nepali food. Its menu is filled with interesting choices for vegetarians and omnivores alike. We have now eaten there twice, and we enjoyed both meals. After our first visit, I woke up the next day craving another Samosa, a savory pouch stuffed with potatoes and peas, served with a spicy-sweet sauce (not pictured) and considered going to the lunch buffet solely for the purpose of having another one. On our first visit, I tried the Chow Chow noodles with vegetables with medium spice. The noodles were pleasantly spicy, but I wouldn’t be shy about ordering them hot in the future. Bjorn tried Mo Mo, a steamed dumpling, shaped into a little coin purse stuffed with seasoned meat. On our second visit, Bjorn ordered Chow Chow with chicken, and I ordered M.A.P.P. curry with mushroom, asparagus, potato and peas which had a wonderful balance of warming seasonings. On both occasions the dining room was nearly full, about half of the diners were college age and half were couples in their twenties through middle age. This is both a fair representation of the neighbourhood’s residential composition and a testament to the tasty, enjoyable and interesting menu choices, and the reasonable price point at Cat Man Do. Cat Man Do has earned a regular spot on our Saint Paul dining rotation. We enjoy the satisfying, well-seasoned dishes at Cat Man Do. Cat Man Do offers different flavors and preparations than the food we make at home, with results that are no less homey, craveable, and comforting. One rainy Sunday we went out for a drive in North East Minneapolis. We had no particular destination in mind, but we knew dinner would be involved. There are many solid options that we’ve enjoyed in visits to this neighbourhood, Psycho Suzi’s, The Modern Cafe, Northeast Social, Mill City Cafe, The Red Stag, and The Bulldog Northeast are all reliably good. On this particular evening, we ended up at the Sample Room. We’ve driven by many times on our way to listen to music at 331 Club, and finally managed to stop in for a meal. I started by ordering a flight of wine. When it arrived I stopped taking pictures. Oops. The aptly named Sample Room offers small plates of cheese, charcuterie, pasta, salads, meat, seafood and vegetables and a variety of interesting condiments, made in-house. We started by sharing a house salad of mixed greens, aged ricotta, red onion, radish and pepitas with a red wine vinaigrette and a “Pickled Plate” which included pickled egg, an assortment of pickled veggies and mustard. For my “main” I had the fresh fettuccine with wild mushrooms and kale in a sauce of chive crème fraîche, butter and white wine garnished with shaved parmesan and cracked black pepper. I liked the fettuccine, but I didn’t love it. I am pretty spoiled these days when it comes to fresh pasta. Between living down the street from Scusi where you can get a killer fresh pappardelle any night of the week, the wonderful bowl of egg fettuccine with green garlic and grape tomatoes I recently enjoyed at Broder’s Cucina Italiana, and the pretty darned good pastas I’ve been rolling out at home, I have a high bar for fresh pasta. Maybe I’m being too hard on the noodles, the real issue I had with the pasta was the kale. I’m afraid to admit this for fear of losing all of my vegetarian cred, but I’m not sure that I’m sold on kale. Admittedly, I haven’t made much of an effort to fall for this frilly, dark, cabbage-like green. The kale on my fettuccine makes a good example of why I have a hard time jumping on the kale bandwagon — it had a mineraly-metallic taste that almost reminds me of meat. The difficult flavor and texture of kale overpowers whatever feel-good vibes eating this super-nutritious green gives me. In further damage to my vegetarian rep, I feel the same about collards. I’ll stick to spinach, thank you very much. I can’t blame the Sample Room for my personal views on the vegetable in a dish I opted to order, unless they sautéed the kale in a cast iron or aluminum pan which would be the cause of the pervading iron / B Vitamin flavor in the dish. Bjorn had crab cakes and the Bison-Pork-Beef Three Meatloaf with smoked tomato ketchup, which was recently named the “Best Meatloaf in the Twin Cities 2012” by the Citypages. Bjorn liked the meatloaf and as wonderful as it probably is, I cannot believe the Best Meatloaf in the Twin Cities isn’t made by somebody’s mother! My mother’s meatloaf would surely be a contender if she made it in the Twin Cities and I hereby give it an unofficial nomination for Best of the Twin Cities 2013. What is more, I cannot believe “Best of” rankings include meatloaf! It seems like we’re going a little far with that, but I wouldn’t have been shocked if “best bike rack” made the list, so I guess meatloaf deserves its place. The Sample Room gives you the opportunity to sample a variety of their local charcuterie, house-made pickled things, unique condiments and interestingly prepared meats and seafood offerings without committing to a massive portion or price. It is another solid spot to add to the list of reasons that that Northeast Minneapolis is one of our best ‘hoods. Next on our Twin Cities tour is a lunch I had last week by myself at Basil’s, a slick restaurant circa yesteryear in the Marquette Hotel in Minneapolis, overlooking the Crystal Court in the IDS Center. For out-of-towners, the IDS Center is the tallest building in Minnesota, and provides office space to scores of law firms, stockbrokers, venture capital firms and consultants of every ilk. I chose Basil’s blindly, wanting to eat a salad in a calm place where I could write at noon on a Wednesday. I found my way to Basil’s on the third floor taking the elevator in the hotel lobby and requested a table for one. The host honestly seemed a little freaked about my request and spent several minutes nervously scrolling through his computer screen, uttering “uhhhh.” I didn’t know how long this would continue so I interrupted to ask if the restaurant was booked with reservations. He finally took the cue and showed me one of many open two-seater booths, which was in fact, kind of perfect for one person. I chose to sit with my back to the kitchen door, instead of facing it where he had directed me. There were a few more “uuuhs” and he told me to sit on whichever side I felt comfortable sitting. I got the feeling he was maybe a bit uncomfortable with me having lunch by myself. I waited quite a while before my presence was noted by a server. By now, my discomfort was mounting. I looked around the room and realized that the only escape was the elevator bank past the host stand, so there was no turning back on lunch without even more awkwardness. When my waitress arrived, she was warm, experienced and didn’t seem at all bothered to serve a table of one. I quickly ordered and enjoyed a few stolen moments of quiet to do my own thing. Soon my Grilled Caesar salad arrived. It was no more or less exciting than I expected, but it was totally good, and I immediately felt better about lunch. I have noticed that nicer Italian restaurants are now grilling a head of romaine lettuce, and serving it whole in a deconstructed Caesar salad, rather than chopped or torn, with all elements combined. Nowadays, said Caesar salad is probably going to arrive with either a whole anchovy, perhaps some chopped kalamata olives or some crunchy, lacy, toasted Parmesan cheese and an artistic crouton somewhere on the plate. Maybe grilled romaine is standard everywhere else, but, it is my position that it is a newer offering in Minnesota. I surmise that serving the lettuce grilled and the salad deconstructed challenges diners and adds enough interesting possibilities for presentation and accoutrements to allow the chef to keep the ubiquitous Caesar salad on the menu without feeling like they’ve given up on their dreams. Basil’s and the grilled Caesar are both trying to be fresh. The grilled salad did so more convincingly than the aging power-lunch spot — an out-of-step microcosm in the surreal universe of the IDS Center — where silver-haired suits hesitantly broker the passage of a torch forged of intensely-burned midnight-oil during long absences from home in the western ‘burbs to smartly be-spectacled nouveau-yuppies in short trousers and argyle socks poised to board a bicycle bound for South Minne at 5:01 p.m. Me? I just wandered here looking for a salad and to seize a minute to write in the middle of a downtown workday. I have been eating and making stir fries all of my life. Stir-frying vegetables and a protein of choice served with rice or noodles is a weeknight staple in so many homes. It is easy and flexible in that you can use whatever vegetables you have. It is also satisfying and can be quite healthy if you aren’t heavy-handed with oil in the preparation. I consider myself to be fairly adept at stir-frying vegetables to tender-crisp, but my challenge has been developing a tasty and full flavored sauce. I don’t buy stir-fry sauces, and in experimenting with the ingredients and seasonings used to develop flavor, I have served some meals in which the flavor was weak. After many trials and much error I took some guidance from others [here and here]. Now, I am finally cracking the code of making tasty stir-fry sauces from scratch that are simple and flavorful. Tonight’s Stir-fried Vegetables and Tofu with Udon Noodles in a Spicy Peanut sauce was declared a winner. 1 block of Extra Firm Tofu, with excess water removed then cut into cubes. Meat eaters might enjoy chicken, beef or pork instead of tofu, either pre-cooked, or sautéed with onions and other seasonings before vegetables are stir-fried. There are no limits on the vegetables that would be great in this Stir Fry. Other vegetables that come to mind include cauliflower, shitake or cremini mushrooms, green peas, green onions, water chestnuts, baby corn, bamboo shoots, carrots, celery, bok choy, cabbage, asparagus, snow peas, broccolini and green beans… It will be great with just about any vegetable you like. You simply assemble an assortment of vegetables, wash them, and then chop them into nice, bite-size pieces. This is a meal that comes together quickly once you start cooking it, so I like to get all of the vegetables ready and make the sauce before I even start stir-frying the vegetables. I whisked together the following ingredients into a spicy-peanutty sauce. You can adjust the heat up or down according to your preference by adding additional Red Chili Flakes or Garlic-Chili paste. My sauce was fairly spicy to begin with, so I decided simply to stick to my original recipe. I placed a bottle of Rooster Sauce on the table in case either of us found the spice level to be lacking. Once the Spicy Peanut Sauce was ready and all of the veggies were chopped, I selected Japanese udon noodles from the pantry to serve with the stir-fried vegetables. I like udon noodles quite a bit. Even though udon have a light colour, they are a whole wheat noodle. They have a smooth texture and a similar size to linguine. Instead of udon noodles we often have nutty buckwheat soba noodles, rice noodles, regular whole grain spaghetti or occasionally rice. I have noticed that udon noodles are salty enough without additional salt added to the water as you would add to most pastas. I like the way udon noodles come wrapped in individual portions. I typically make way too much pasta, and we have leftovers for days. The guidance helps. Let me let you in on a nifty trick for preparing tofu to be cooked. When you purchase tofu packaged in water, you need to squeeze out some of the liquid so that the tofu can absorb the sauce and flavor of the vegetables. Rather than pressing tofu between plates and setting it precariously under a heavy object, which always wants to tip off and fall on my foot, someone once told me to wrap the tofu in a paper towel or a clean kitchen towel and microwave it for 2 minutes.* This process works wonderfully to remove the excess liquid from the tofu and makes it ready to absorb a flavorful sauce after being nuked on high for two minutes for 2 or three rounds. This is far easier and less dangerous for my feet. After microwaving the tofu and slicing it into bite sized cubes I started my veggies. Other than a great sauce, the key to a good stir-fry is not to overcook the vegetables. I always start with onion, giving it a 2-3 minute head start in the pan with a small glug of oil before adding anything else. I use a large, deep nonstick pan, because I don’t have a wok. A wok or a well-seasoned cast-iron pan are very helpful to making a healthy stir-fry because the vegetables don’t stick, even if you only use a little oil. Next, I add the remaining vegetables in the order that allows everything to finish cooking at the same time without overcooking any single ingredient. If I was using carrots and celery, for example, I’d add them first, and cauliflower soon after, followed by frozen vegetables, and finishing with mushrooms, bell peppers and anything that takes only a few minutes to cook. You can probably look up estimated cooking times for vegetables in a cookbook or on the internet. I have learned through trial and error. Tonight, I was able to add most of the vegetables at the same time, reserving the broccoli, tofu and spinach to add later, since they need a shorter cooking time. When the veggies had cooked about 2 minutes and were looking bright and well on their way to tender-crisp, I added the peanut sauce, turned the heat to low and let the whole thing cook for 4 minutes. A few minutes with heat allows the salty-spicy-sweet-citrusy-nutty elements of the sauce to meld. When I figured the vegetables and sauce needed another 4 minutes more to cook, I added the broccoli and tofu. Even though broccoli is a dense, cruciferous vegetable, it cooks quickly, and after no more than about 4 minutes, it is done. When the vegetables are done they are bright and softened, and still retain a firm bite. Tofu is great sautéed or broiled, but tonight I wanted to eat it fresh, so I cooked it just enough time to absorb the sauce and to be heated through. When the noodles were cooked, I drained them and served them on a small platter with a few sprigs of curly parsley. Cilantro would be a suitable garnish for the pasta, if you like cilantro, but we aren’t big fans. Before serving the stir-fry, I scattered the fresh spinach leaves in a pile on the platter. I could have stirred the spinach into the veggies and sauce and allowed it to wilt, but I find that spinach is great, even if it only half-wilts under a mound of steamy vegetables. We both enjoyed this stir-fry. It was full of spicy, peanutty flavor and a bright variety of vegetables that retained their bite. The tofu also soaked up plenty of flavor and was as easy as could be to prepare. And the pasta? Everything tastes good on a serving of steamy, al dente pasta. When you are in the mood for an easy and delicious vegetable stir-fry, consider trying this tasty recipe. The sauce and veggies are full of texture and flavor. This dish is flexible, quick and easy enough to make any night of the week. *Thank you to the person who told me the tofu-nuking tip, whoever you are. I am so pleased that I don’t have to press tofu ever again. My recipe takes most cues from the Pioneer Woman version. I started assembling my “cast of characters” to make sure I had enough of the main ingredients to make the recipe. If you are up for using 2 Tablespoons of Butter and a Cup of Heavy Cream in your spicy Mac and Cheese, you can follow this link back to Pioneer Woman to follow the original recipe. I’m sure it would be over-the-top delicious. I reduced the butter, used fat-free half and half, had to substitute jalapenos from a jar for fresh, and sharp cheddar for pepper jack cheese because that was all there was in the fridge. I added orange bell pepper to the ingredient list because I had one. I love making my meals into a colorful, antioxidant-rich rainbow. I am not going to pull any punches, my Spicy Mac wasn’t exactly “light,” but the slight adjustments brought the calorie-count down into a normal range for a serving of a satisfying size. I didn’t leave anything out that added flavor. 1 cup fat free half and half – I use fat free half and half because it was the only dairy we had in the fridge. Milk with a fat content of your preference, half & half or the real deal heavy cream will all work wonderfully. The entire dish took about 30 minutes, start to finish. I began by filling a sauce pan of water with a dash of salt to boil for the pasta, and heating a skillet with a small glug of olive oil over medium heat. While those warmed up, I chopped the red onion, red and orange peppers into small chunks of a similar size. I chopped a few forkfuls of jalapenos from the jar. The next time I make this, I will of course try to have a fresh jalapeno, but if I don’t, I will probably use more of the jarred jalapenos. The jalapeno adds most of the heat, and quantities can be adjusted up or down depending on your spice tolerance. I sautéed the onion and garlic a few minutes before adding the bell pepper. At the same time, I started boiling the noodles to a little less than “done” so they could cook a little more in the sauce to become al dente. When the onions, bell peppers, garlic and jalapenos were bright and heading toward tender-crisp, I added a heaped cup of frozen corn. When the veggies were cooking, but still had crunch, I added a can of diced green chilis. Diced green chilies have become a pantry staple in our house. They are mild and they add a smoky complexity to Southwest and Mexican soups and stews without too much heat. When the veggies were nearly done, I turned off the heat in the skillet, and drained the pasta. The sauce is extremely simple, which is a plus. This is the perfect macaroni and cheese to make when you don’t have the time, or the desire to monkey around making a roux. I simply added the fat free half and half and cheese to the skillet and stirred it gently into the vegetables. A skillet retains heat for a long time, so it was warm enough to warm the “cream” and melt the cheese. Finally, I added the pasta to the skillet. I stirred gently to combine the pasta, veggies and sauce in the skillet. Per Ree’s advice, I added a little extra cheese to thicken the sauce a bit. Instead of the two pats of butter from the original recipe, I stirred in just the tiniest bit of butter. You could totally leave the butter out and you probably wouldn’t miss it, even though the silkiness it adds to the sauce is quite nice. Channeling Pioneer Woman, I served the Spicy Mac right from the skillet, frontier style. We enjoyed the rainbow of veggies, the warming spiciness and of course, the cheesy, comforting macaroni noodles. Ah, we’re home. When I make this again, I would probably up the spice a notch or two… something red, a little Smoked Paprika, Cayenne Pepper, Chili Powder or Chili Flakes, perhaps? The Spicy Mac also passed the lunch test. We both enjoyed a second serving with a small salad for lunch the next day. Ree Drummond suggests this as a dish to be served alongside a juicy steak. I might just do that the next time I need a meatless dish when my pardner is grilling steak. We both thought this Mac & Cheese stood well all alone. I recommend serving it alone with salt and pepper on the table and a cold beer, or a tall glass of milk. *I like to welcome myself home with Mac & Cheese, I also like to eat Mac & Cheese when I’m dining alone, when we have something to celebrate, on a rainy day, and for no reason at all. If you’ve been here before you will note that Mac & Cheese in all forms is my favorite. A bunch of veggies roasted, steamed or sautéed and served with some type of pasta is a meal we eat every week. Sometimes we eat it on multiple days. It is easy, and it can be absolutely yummy and healthy, if its made it right. There are infinite variations, and every time we make this we both think it is pretty great. We keep vegetables on hand, both fresh and frozen. We almost universally have mushrooms of some type, fresh spinach and broccoli in the fridge. We keep them on hand because they are wholesome and extremely versatile, but even more importantly, because I really love these veggies. I can’t imagine what I’d eat during a week that I do not eat mushrooms and broccoli. Frozen peas make a frequent appearance on our plates too. There are a few short months in the year where we might have fresh, home grown and farmer’s market peas, but the rest of the year, frozen peas are quick to make and taste great. I am partial to fresh spinach. A huge bag of washed spinach is cheaper than lettuce. You can add a few handfuls to soup, pasta, quinoa, or even a packaged frozen entrée, if you eat them. Spinach adds calcium, antioxidants, flavor and if the food is warm, it cooks in a few minutes after you add it. I am not a big fan of frozen bricks of pre-cooked spinach. I think they might be the reason spinach got such a bad rap. It works fine for spinach dip, but it is otherwise, too dark and mushy for me. The first key to a pasta meal being a healthy, lovely meal is veggies. Veggies! Vegetables are the absolute most powerful tool to healthful eating. They fill you up and they are full of good things like calcium, potassium, antioxidants and fiber with a very low-calorie count. The key is to try every veggie you can, get them fresh from a good source, or preserved in a wholesome manner, make sure they are prepared in a way that doesn’t ruin them and pile them on 3/4 of your plate. I love vegetables, which makes this easy. If you don’t, just try them, one at a time. Make a lot of the ones you like, and give the rest a chance. They are an acquired taste, but they are satisfying when they are the center of your meal. Tonight I sautéed garlic and a diced shallot in a little olive oil, then added mushrooms. When the mushrooms began to brown, I added a splash of pasta water, and then covered to pan to allow the broccoli and peas to steam. I didn’t cook the spinach at all. I placed two large handfuls into the bottom of the bowl I used to serve the veggies. When I added the veggies, the spinach wilted, but didn’t totally lose its shape or get soggy. I frequently roast veggies, and recently, I’ve also been steaming them in my Mom’s Bamboo steamer that she has had since the 1970’s. The entire key to veggies is not to overcook them to use a light touch with oil, salt or other seasonings. They don’t need it. The next step to making this meal, of course, is the pasta. I make homemade pasta, and I have yet to post about it. It is delicious, but I’ll admit, I like to eat pasta a little more often than I have time to mix it and roll it out. I consider it to be a process to go through for a special occasion. Tonight, we had organic, whole grain angel hair pasta, cooked al dente, according to package directions. If you ate whole wheat pastas a few years ago and found it dry, grainy and generally too serious, you should try them again. There are whole grain pastas that have a delicious nutty texture, there are even some whole grain pastas that have no noticeable difference from traditional “white” pasta. Using whole grain adds a little stomach-filling fiber, lowers the glycemic index of your meal and helps nudge a week-night pasta meal in the direction of health. Also worth noting are fresh herbs. In the middle of winter, a big bunch of flat leaf parsley costs less than $2 at our grocery store. In the summer, we grow herbs, and buy them at the Farmer’s Market for pocket change. The addition of chopped herbs to pasta is unbelievable. Your eyes will thank you. Your tastebuds will thank you. Fresh herbs elevate a dish and only add good. One out of two of us eats meat. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it is a good thing for Bjorn that he is a flexible meat eater. It makes it easier for me that he doesn’t expect meat to be a central part of every meal. I enjoy preparing meat for a special occasion and Bjorn makes it whenever he wants it, and he swears he gets enough. There are many meat eaters who don’t feel like they’ve had a meal if meat isn’t center stage. I think we’ve all gotten the memo advising us that people aren’t supposed to eat as much meat as we did before we knew where our next meal was coming from, or we needed to fuel ourselves through 12 hours of hard physical labor. Reframing meat as a dish that you have for a special occasion opens up a world of opportunity for meat to be a meaningful garnish. Here enters Soppressata. It is a flavorful hard salami. Just a few slices, casing removed, cut into little chunks and heated briefly puts a tasty bit of meat on the omnivore’s plate and rounds out their meal. Finally, there is sauce. We don’t always have sauce with our pasta and veggies. I like to use spaghetti sauce, or a can of San Marzano tomatoes, torn into chunks when we feel like tomatoes. If we aren’t feeling tomato-y, I would use a touch of olive oil or butter and a sprinkling of grated cheese or nothing. Tonight I made a simple creamy sauce. This isn’t an “every night” sort of thing though. We had a little heavy cream left over from the Soufflés Bjorn made for Valentine’s day and I couldn’t let it go to waste. I melted the tiniest bit of butter and added a sprinkling of flour. Once it cooked a bit, I added the cream and let it thicken before adding a bit of pepper and grated Asiago. Just like the meat, if you are going to use butter, oil or creamy sauce, if you use a light touch, you can enjoy the richness without consuming excessive calories. I want to live in a world where I can have my pasta and eat it too. I am finding that if I keep an eye on portions and make thoughtful choices about ingredients and preparation, I can enjoy my plate of pasta without feeling gluttonous or guilty. If it hasn’t already become extremely obvious, pasta is one of my all-time favorite foods. There are so many variations, from basic buttered noodles to whatever-you-have-in-the-fridge, to traditional recipes: stroganoff, Bolognese, or pasta all’Amatriciana. I’m usually a “concept cook” who has something in mind [e.g. pasta with veggies] and the actual ingredients I use depend on what I’m in the mood for or what needs to be used up. I haven’t been one to follow many recipes. I enjoy the freedom of my slapdash approach to cookery, but I have tasted enough really good food in my years to know that recipes, carefully chosen ingredients, timeless techniques and even a little precision are equally as necessary in the kitchen as passion and creativity. It also pays to take a few tips from the experts. I have long loved food blogs, food magazines, food television, cookbooks and hanging out in other people’s kitchens. Reading about cooking, talking about it and observing other cooks in action are my source of inspiration. These are as much my hobbies as cooking and writing about food. I became aware of the noticeable difference that good technique and ingredients yield in restaurant meals, but the breakthrough did not occur at home until I learned about the perfect pesto. It was just another Wednesday night. I found myself watching short programs on the Chow network on our Roku on cooking and food. There was an episode on soup dumplings,* and on the perfect beer,** and then a segment on the perfect pesto aired and changed my approach to pesto forever. Previously, I have only had a modest appreciation of pesto. The first pesto pasta I ate was a lunch back in my teenage years at the now-shuttered Grandma’s Restaurant in Fargo, North Dakota. It was so heavily garlic-y that I was afraid of both pesto and garlic for almost a decade. I still shudder to think about how much raw garlic I consumed before realizing it would be with me for days. More recently, I have tasted a pretty good silk handkerchief in a mild, dark green pesto at Bar La Grassa. Having grown basil in our garden, I’ve also made basil and parsley pestos at home that have been fine on toasted sandwiches and roasted vegetables. None of these looked anything like the marvelous green pesto I saw that evening on the Chow network. Back to a winter day in Minnesota… I may never duplicate Chef Laboa’s pesto, but in listening to him, I learned a few things about how to make a better pesto. First, for a pesto worthy of freshly rolled pasta, you have to ditch the food processor and use a mortar and pestle. Fortunately for me, I just received one for Christmas from Bjorn. The one he selected for me is a nice small size that I can comfortably manage to hold. It is made of non-porous porcelain and a smooth wooden handle and a red exterior that I am happy to store on the open shelves in our kitchen. I learned from Chef Paolo that the origin of ingredients matters a lot. Basil pesto universally contains basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese and salt. Sure, you can make pesto out of these ingredients produced anywhere, but to begin to approximate Paolo Laboa’s pesto, you need basil that is similar to that grown in Genoa, Olive Oil from Liguria, Pine Nuts from Pisa, and carefully-selected Parmesan. And you need time. Lots of time. After watching the segment and trying to make it myself a few times I realized the making of Paolo’s pesto takes longer than it appears to take on TV. I did the best I could gathering ingredients. It is winter, and the basil I found at the store wasn’t the best. I do believe that the Genovese basil from our garden will be an improvement on the basil available at the supermarket in a clamshell package in January. I didn’t spring for $18 Italian Pine Nuts but got some from Spain instead. I tried a few of Chef Laboa’s tips. Since Ligurian olive oil is not available to me I used light olive oil instead of extra virgin which is too strong and kills the taste of the basil. I soaked the basil leaves in water because, I learned if you don’t soak the basil there is too much chlorophyll in the leaves. I crushed the pine nuts with garlic and coarse salt and added 15 basil leaves. I put my heart into the process of grinding all of the ingredients together and then mixing in the oil. When the pesto was ready, I added a little pasta water to the pesto to melt the cheese before tossing hand-rolled handkerchiefs of pasta in the pesto. The end result of my effort did not yield the solid bright-green cream produced by Chef Laboa. Not even close. Even so, we thought the result was delicious and immeasurably better than the oily, basil-heavy, oxidized, chunky sludge that I’ve made in the food processor. If pesto is worth making, it is worth making well. Will I spend 45 minutes with the mortar and pestle to make pesto every week? Certainly not. It is a time-consuming process and a rich dish you can’t eat every week. Come summer though, when the basil is bursting forth I will make pesto again. I might not achieve “perfect” pesto, but delicious will be good enough. *The segment about soup dumplings made me want soup dumplings which are little pouches made of dough that are stuffed with meat and fatty broth that liquefy upon cooking. Are there vegetarian soup dumplings out there? I want to try them! **The writer of the beer segment claimed Supplication Ale by Russian River Brewing Company to be the best beer in the world. I’m sure I’d like it, but that I’d disagree about it being the best. At some point this year, we turned a corner. Without any warning or fanfare, we found ourselves rested enough, organized enough, with enough time, and with our home and our finances in enough order to allow us to commit more than the most minimal effort to trying to do something good. It comes naturally to some at a younger age, and I truly admire those people. I have found that I am a one-thing-at a-time type who needs to have their own ducks in a row before signing on for an ongoing commitment. Better late than never, I hope. We found the first volunteer experience that suited our combined abilities in an email circulated around Bjorn’s office. The option that jumped out at us was the opportunity to prepare a dinner for 8 in our own kitchen at home and deliver it to an emergency safe house for homeless youth, ages 16-21 in our neighbourhood operated by Lutheran Social Services. The guidelines are minimal. Arrive at 7. Bring a main dish (no pork) and a few sides; no mysterious looking casseroles, please. Including a gallon of 2% milk and a bottle of juice is suggested. Dessert is appreciated but not required. We signed up for a few dates to give it a try. I had to ask right away about accommodating special diets: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, etc. We were told they didn’t currently have anyone with those needs. We still tried to come up with enough variety and flexibility in the menu so that a person who doesn’t eat meat, or a person who doesn’t tolerate gluten could still eat a decent plate of food. 1. This is the array of groceries and supplies we used for the first meal we prepared. We spent about $40 on groceries at Target. At my request, Lunds Grocery Store donated 3 disposable aluminum containers with lids for delivering the food. We didn’t shop for this meal at Lunds, but we do almost all of our grocery shopping there. 2. We packed a salad of iceberg and romaine lettuce with sliced cucumbers and julienned carrots. We bought a package of parmesan croutons and a bottle of Ranch Dressing for the salad. 3. This fall, Bjorn’s parents stocked our freezer with a generous supply of ground beef, steaks and a few roasts from cows raised on the family farm by Bjorn’s Uncle Stan. I cannot begin to emphasize how wonderful it is to have a supply of beef raised by a farmer we know and trust. We absolutely love to cook with this beef. 4. I taped the typed-out dinner menu on paper grocery bags we used to deliver the food. Our first meal consisted of Beef Meatballs in Spaghetti Sauce to be served on Hoagie Buns with Provolone Cheese, Roasted Potatoes seasoned with Hidden Valley Ranch Southwest Seasoning and ketchup, A Salad of Iceberg and Romaine Lettuce, Carrots and Cukes, Juice, Milk and Chocolate Chip Cookies. 5. I tried to think like a caterer when I packed up the meal. Disposable containers aren’t ideal for food presentation visually, but I think when food is packed neatly, containers are spatter-free and the contents and serving suggestions thoughtfully labeled, it helps a lot. If this is the best meal or the only meal some of these kids are eating today, I want it to be a great meal. 6. Bjorn’s meatballs, ready to bake. 7. Bjorn’s meatballs out of the oven. They smelled good. We prepared and delivered our second meal on November 29. This time when we arrived, we were offered a tour of the house. It was fun and rewarding to see the safe house and some of the people who will eat our meal. The house is large and very clean. We enter through the backyard and after being cleared as “friendly visitors” on the security camera, we enter into the kitchen. After setting up the meal on the large counter, we were led through the dining room which has a large dining table and shelves stacked with board games. The next room is a is a livingroom with a huge, flat screen TV. Upstairs was warm. There were brightly lit bedrooms that were already full of people having a boisterous conversation. The safe house has the atmosphere you would hope: positive, clean, safe and welcoming. We were told that the house is filled to capacity every night. The staff also told us that they appreciate having a meal delivered because they don’t have to cook or go out and buy anything. It saves the program money too, obviously. Judging by our ease in finding workable dates, they are not at capacity for volunteers. They report having a meal provided 4-5 nights a week. They expressed relief that we did not prepare a Thanksgiving meal. Apparently, they had quite a few of those in the past month and were getting a little tired of Turkey and Stuffing. 1. We shopped for most of the ingredients for meal number 2 at Trader Joe’s. Again, we spent around $40. This wasn’t planned, apparently, it is the price-point of the hearty meals we conceive of for 8. The cost would be higher if we had to purchase meat. 2. These are the ingredients to prepare tonight’s meal of Baked Potatoes, Sour Cream, Chili, Mac & Cheese, Roasted Broccoli, Baguette and Butter. 3. I thought the well-labeled meal looked good the first time we delivered it, so I printed a menu and labels with serving suggestions for the second meal as well. This time when we walked in the door with our labeled bags and containers we got a “wow!” from one of the staff. I’m taking that as feedback to indicate that we’re doing okay. 4. We thought Baked Potatoes would be a hearty side, so we scrubbed some russets to bake in the oven. I love russets for baking because their peels gets meaty,chewy and crunchy, and their interior stays fluffy and light. I like to oil the peels and salt them lightly with Kosher salt. 5. When we have Macaroni and Cheese ourselves, which we do often, it is usually Kraft Dinner. We decided to bump the Mac & Cheese up a few notches and followed Martha Stewart’s recipe for Perfect Macaroni and Cheese. Here, Bjorn is stirring a roux that will become the cheese sauce. 6. We baked the potatoes wrapped in foil which worked well for keeping them warm for delivery in a small paper bag. 7. We stirred the cheese sauce into Al Dente pasta, it looked like it was creamy and delicious. 9. Disposable food containers were easy to come by for this meal on the cheap at Walgreens because it was just after Thanksgiving. We had to fashion a make-shift divider out of aluminum foil to separate the Macaroni and Cheese from the Roasted Broccoli. 10. My parents gave us a container of frozen Oatmeal Raisin cookie dough, so we made cookies again this week. My parents also purchase the milk and juice that we bring for each meal. 11. Tonight’s meal is packed, labeled and ready to go. 12. This week, we had the sense to save ourselves a serving a macaroni and cheese. We had it with a salad topped with hard-boiled eggs. Home made macaroni & cheese is so yummy. We have set “we’d prepare it for guests in our home” as the standard for the meals we prepare for the safe house, and so far, I think we’ve been consistently able to pull it off. Meal Number 3, December 21, 2011. 1. For our third meal we had most of the ingredients and supplies on hand. What we didn’t have, we bought at Target. 2. Bjorn made beef meatballs again. It helps make a substantial meal and keep our costs at a reasonable level when we use our beef. Bjorn has perfected his meatball recipe. He seasons the meat with Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salut and mixes in Egg, Breadcrumbs and grated parmesan, and as I said, they smell great when he bakes them. 3. Meatballs are also convenient because they can be baked a day ahead. After baking the meatballs, Bjorn put them into the crock pot with spaghetti sauce. I take the crock of meatballs out of the fridge and turn it on when I got home from work the night that we deliver the food. 4. We cut up and steamed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower and made a creamy-cheesy sauce with grated cheese, sour cream and mushroom soup, a little pepper and a crunchy panko bread crumb topping. It is creamy and delicious, but really, quite light. After my Mom made the same dish at Christmas with frozen vegetables, I think I would go that route in the future. It was just as tasty, it was probably cheaper and was definitely less work. 5. For dessert I made chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and Christmas M&M’s. They were yummy. 6. Again, we made a make-shift divider in the aluminum container between the cheesy vegetables and slices of ciabatta bread. 7. We boiled farfalle pasta to go along with the meatballs this week. I made a last-minute call to Kowalski’s on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul to see if they would be willing to donate some disposable containers for us to deliver the meal in this week. I barely had to finish my sentence explaining what we were doing and what we needed before the manager agreed to set out several nice, durable aluminum containers for me to pick up. Those really aren’t cheap, so it helps us a lot. It has been amazing to discover how generous store managers in our neighbourhood are when we just ask. Not pictured with this meal are the Christmas cards that we brought along with our meal this week for the kids and the staff, each containing a $5 Subway gift card that we bought and a free 6 inch sub donated by the owners of Subway on Grand and Fairview Avenues and Selby Avenue and Victoria Street in Saint Paul. This was another example of how people are ready to help and be generous when all we do is ask. We thought our first 3 meals were a success, so we signed up to prepare and deliver 2 more in January. We are enjoying the new experience of giving a little time, and at the same time getting to be creative and engaged in a favorite hobby: cooking!

2019-04-23T21:01:59Z

http://ourwaytoeat.com/category/pasta/

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2019-04-25T23:54:25Z

https://booking.parkr.in/terms_and_conditions

(a) To replicate natural conditions of infiltration, evapotranspiration, and runoff. In typical natural conditions, approximately 50 percent of stormwater infiltrates, 40 percent leaves land through evapotranspiration, and ten (10) percent leaves the land as runoff. (b) To promote decentralized stormwater management systems modeled after natural hydrologic features and infiltration practices that facilitate local groundwater recharge [Low-Impact Development (“LID”) techniques]. (c) To promote water conservation and efficiency through stormwater capture, treatment and reuse. (a) All Applications, regardless of whether the project is subject to the Wetlands Protection Act or not, shall design the stormwater management system in compliance with the Massachusetts DEP Stormwater Management Standards, January, 2008, as amended (“SMS”) and the Massachusetts Stormwater Handbook, February 2008, as amended (“Handbook”). The Applicant shall submit a completed and endorsed Stormwater Management Form that indicates compliance with the SMS, in addition to any supporting calculations indicating compliance with the required standards. http://www.mass.gov/dep/water/laws/policies.htm#storm. The Handbook which includes the SMS, Stormwater Best Management Practices, Documenting Compliance, Stormwater Report Checklist and TSS Removal Calculation Sheet. Devens Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (Stormwater Plan). Devens Water Resources Protection Report. (c) Where there is a conflict between the requirements set forth below and the Handbook and/or Plan, the Plan and the requirements below shall govern. There shall be no negative impact from stormwater runoff on abutting properties and to any public or private water supply or designated potential future supply. Irrigation water shall be derived from detained treated stormwater (stormwater harvesting), or roof drainage to the maximum extent feasible. On-site cisterns may be installed to store water for irrigation. For all stormwater improvements, drainage calculations shall be prepared by the Applicant's Engineer in accordance with the SMS requirements and shall include design criteria, pre- and post-development drainage areas, and other information to verify the size and effectiveness of the proposed stormwater management technique. "Pre-development" drainage areas shall be considered to be "green fields" regardless of any development or improvements on the site at the time of application. Calculations shall be made separately for each drainage facility, showing its location, the total upstream drainage area, the underlying soil types and the flow paths for the times of concentration, the design runoff, facility size, slope, and capacity and velocity of water through all the site drainage system. Proposed activity that will temporarily or permanently disturb any land area at or below the elevation of the 100-year floodplain shall be avoided to the maximum extent feasible unless there are exceptional circumstances where such areas cannot be avoided. Under such circumstances, the Applicant shall demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the DEC, that there shall be no temporary or permanent loss of flood storage area. For any areas within the 100-year floodplain where the DEC authorizes disturbance, temporary stabilization measures shall be implemented at all times, until permanent stabilization is achieved. No construction laydown areas or equipment shall be stored within the 100-year floodplain without emergency removal/relocation measures in place and approved by the DEC. Recharge may not be required for land designated as an Area of Concern, if, according to the Base Closure Team in accordance with Base Realignment and Closure Act requirements, recharge will negatively impact ongoing environmental remediation. All projects shall incorporate LID techniques for stormwater management to the maximum extent feasible. For projects proposing traditional closed drainage systems, the Applicant shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the DEC why LID stormwater management design methods are not feasible. For LID stormwater controls not referenced in this section (974 CMR 4.08) or the Handbook, or for which pollutant removal rates have not been provided, the effectiveness and pollutant removal of the structural control must be documented through prior studies, literature reviews, or other means and receive approval from the DEC before being included in the design of a stormwater management system. 1. Any low-flow outlets shall be designed to prevent clogging. (b) In addition to compliance with the SMS, the post-development peak rate of stormwater discharge off-site shall not be greater than the pre-development peak rate of stormwater discharge for the 2, 10, 25, 50 and 100-year storm events from any point of discharge on the site. (c) There shall be no stormwater structures and/or point source discharges within 25 feet of the boundaries of any Resource Area unless the Applicant can demonstrate no adverse impact to the Resource Area. (d) Side slopes above the design water level shall be 3:1 (horizontal to vertical) or flatter and conform to the slope of the existing topography without abrupt or unnatural breaks in slope, unless otherwise permitted under 974 CMR 4.08(4). (e) Banks of wet ponds, swales not within maintained landscaped areas (such as lawns or parking lots), and other channels shall be vegetated with native woody plant material within ten feet of the high water elevation and with herbaceous plant material at the edge of the pond at the high water elevation. Trees shall not be planted on fill embankments. (f) Shelves below the design water level (as described in the Stormwater Plan) shall be vegetated with hydrophytic native plant species at a density needed to establish full coverage by the next growing season. Plant plugs or pre-vegetated coir-mesh blankets or carpets are recommended materials. (g) Recommended post-construction erosion control methods include geotextile and /or biodegradable erosion control fabrics staked or anchored to the slope, with loose weave to allow vegetative cover to be established. Vegetative cover shall consist of native woody plant species installed as live brush or nursery stock, or native grasses. (a) Minimize basin size to 5,000 square feet per basin or less (by using smaller catchment areas and/or alternative stormwater management design methods) and minimize disturbance to natural or re-established vegetated areas to the maximum extent feasible. If a basin exceeds 5,000 square feet, the Applicant shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the DEC why a smaller size is not feasible. If a basin is a constructed stormwater wetland, it may exceed 5,000 square feet upon approval by the DEC. Constructed stormwater wetlands shall be designed in compliance with the SMS. (b) Be located in naturally occurring low spots. Layout of the basins shall complement the natural topographic movement of the site [see 974 CMR 3.08(4) Figure D)] Rigid basin layout [see 974 CMR 3.08(5) Figure E] shall be avoided in all instances unless the basin's layout complements the overall design concept of the Site Plan. (c) Utilize banks steeper than 3:1 (horizontal to vertical) only to tie into headwall/outfall structures. Banks steeper than 3:1 shall transition to slopes of less than 3:1 as quickly as possible to minimize areas of potential erosion. Specific post-construction erosion control methods shall be detailed to ensure temporary and permanent stabilization of such areas will be achieved. Rip-rap/trap rock solutions shall not be acceptable, except as water dissipaters below storm water outfalls or as channel liners for steep swales. (d) Have an emergency outlet to accommodate storm flows in excess of the 100-year storm event. A minimum 1-foot freeboard distance shall be established between the 100-year flood elevation and the top of embankment. (e) Design basins/infiltration structures using the Natural Resource Conservation Service TR-20 methodology in accordance with the SMS. (f) Locate the floor of all basins/infiltration structure/swales a minimum of four feet above the high groundwater elevation. High groundwater testing shall be conducted before the basin design at the proposed location of each basin in compliance with Title V (310 CMR Section 15.103), as most recently amended or reliable data pursuant thereto shall be provided. (g) Conduct a falling head soil permeability test in retention/infiltration basins before the basin design in all basins and infiltration structures. Soil with a percolation rate of 2 minutes per inch or faster can be used to confirm the first NRCS Hydrologic Soil Group A with a Texture Class of Sand and an infiltration rate of 8.27 Inches per hour from the Rawls, et.al. table in the SMS. To use infiltration rates faster than 8.27 inches per hour, use 50% of the infiltration rate obtained from the falling head soil permeability test. (h) Conduct percolation tests in detention basins before the basin design and shall be conducted in compliance with Title V (310 CMR Section 15.105), as most recently amended. (i) Include fencing and/or screening of stormwater detention/retention basins if the DEC determines that safety or appearance require such measures. (a) Vegetated Roofs - shall comply with the Handbook and the DEC Policy for Construction of Vegetated Roofs dated August 2011, as amended. For the purposes of stormwater management system design, the area of roof covered by vegetation may be considered pervious and subtracted from the total proposed impervious area. Vegetated Roofs within the Viewshed Overlay district shall comply with 974 CMR 3.04(8) (i) 5 and 6. Landscaping plans for projects incorporating vegetated roofs and/or walls shall show the design and location of vegetated roofs and walls. Lined on the sides with a non-woven geotextile fabric to prevent influx of fines (no liner on bottom). A gravel trench surrounding the edge of the pavement connecting to the stone reservoir below the surface of the pavement may be required as a backup in the event of surface clogs. Installed by a qualified contractor with experience in permeable paving installation. 1. Top layer: 6 inches of pervious concrete placed in two 3-inch courses. 2. Second layer: 4 inch course consisting of 1-1/3 inch crushed stone (structural support). 3. Third layer: 14 inches of open graded “bank run gravel” (Reservoir base). 4. Fourth layer: 6 inches of 3/8” crushed gravel (Capillary barrier). Alternative comparable reinforcement methods will be considered by the DEC on a case by case basis. (a) LID swale systems shall be utilized in parking lots not subject to truck traffic, truck and container storage, and other railroad related vehicles/equipment, to the maximum extent feasible. (b) Closed Drainage Systems (CDS) and swales shall be designed to accommodate the 25-year storm event based on the Rational Method without surcharging. The CDS shall be designed in accordance with the SMS. Intensity/duration/frequency curves for the Worcester area, as presented in Technical Paper 40 of the National Weather Service and the Massachusetts Hydrology Handbook for Conservation Commissioners, March 2002, as amended, shall be used in the drainage design calculations. The minimum time of concentration shall be five minutes. (c) All drainage structures shall be constructed of pre-cast concrete. (d) Catch basins shall have oil traps and provide a four-foot sump. (e) Details for all drainage structures shall be provided. (f) Flow capacities shall be calculated, using two feet per second (fps) minimum velocity and 10 fps maximum velocity under a 2-to-25 year design storm event. The designer shall account for partial pipe flow capacities, if applicable to the design. (g) Catch basin to catch basin connections are prohibited in paved areas. (a) The name(s) of the owner(s) for all components of the system. (b) A statement that the Applicant is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the entire on-site system. Parking Lot Sweeping: with mechanized cleaning equipment on an annual basis. Catch Basin Cleaning: Catch Basins and Infiltration Chambers shall be inspected on a bi-annual basis. Any sediment accumulations in excess of half of the unit’s sump depth shall be removed. Material shall be removed by a licensed contractor, who shall be responsible for disposing of the material off-site in a manner consistent with all local, state and federal regulations. Infiltration Swales: Ensure proper establishment of full vegetative cover. Swale embankments and side slopes must be properly maintained to ensure long-term stability. Annual and seasonal inspections are required to ensure a healthy groundcover is maintained to avoid erosion and promote infiltration. Bare spots shall be repaired and planted with native ground cover material. Saplings and large shrubs shall be removed to maintain integrity of the swale. Level spreader shall be inspected seasonally to remove any build up of sediment and ensure proper drainage flows. Detention/Retention Basin Inspection and Maintenance: Wet and dry basins shall be inspected annually to ensure inlets and outlets remain unobstructed. Inlets and outlets and forebays shall also be inspected for potential sediment, erosion, cracking, tree growth, damage to the emergency spillway and erosion within the basin and on within the banks. Upper side slopes, embankment and emergency spillway shall be mowed annually. Any tree saplings shall be removed. Accumulated sediment shall be removed as necessary and at least once every ten years. Bare spots shall be repaired and planted with native ground cover material. Biofiltration Systems: Quarterly inspections for accumulated sediment shall be performed. Debris, sediment accumulation, erosion shall be removed/repaired at least twice a year. Any dead or damaged plantings shall be replaced. All invasive species shall be removed on an annual basis. Re-mulch any void areas by hand. Native grasses and plants shall be maintained by hand without the use of fertilizers and limited use of organic herbicides. Trimming of surrounding grasses shall be restricted to a minimum of 5 inches. When cation exchange capacity of soil media decreases, the soil media shall be replaced to prevent contaminants from reaching the groundwater. Sediment Trap/Oil-Water Separator: Shall be inspected annually for sediment and debris accumulation. Any sediment accumulations in excess of half of the unit’s sump depth shall be removed. Material shall be removed by a licensed contractor, who shall be responsible for disposing of the material off-site in a manner consistent with all regulations. Sub-Surface Infiltration Systems: Shall be inspected annually for proper function and sediment accumulation. Accumulations of sediment and/or materials that negatively impact the infiltration capacity of the system shall be removed. h. Accumulation of sediment in the forebay and micropool; and survival rate of plants (cells with dead plants must be replanted). Sediment forebays must be cleaned annually. 3. Receipts for maintenance performed. For ease of reporting, the DEC and MassDevelopment have created standard annual reporting templates for use by all Applicants. Failure to submit the required annual report is a violation of the Unified Permit.

2019-04-25T12:55:29Z

http://devensec.com/rules-regs/decregs408.html

An Interview with Robin D. Laws; Writer, Editor and Role Playing Game Designer. Robin, your work on games and fiction spans decades and genres –Talislanta, Star Trek, Earth Dawn, Warhammer, as well as your own systems Rune, The Dying Earth, Over the Edge, Feng Shui, the Gumshoe System, the DramaSystem and more. Your career with role playing games is among the most distinguished in an industry that has seen many changes. What advice might you have for designers and writers today to find good partner companies, and to become successfully established? R: There's a paradox inherent in asking people who've been successful for a while about their career paths. In any creative field the trick is to spot a you-sized hole and then fill it before someone else does. That spot isn’t there anymore because the person you want to emulate has already filled it. Also, things have changed enormously since I started in the early 90s. That said, what I would advise is to get involved in online communities and hopefully finally in face-to-face interaction with the games and companies that excite you. Making sure that you work with good partner companies is a matter of doing a little bit of behind the scenes sleuthing to discover stuff like how far behind a company is in its production schedule, whether they pay freelancers on time, how pleasant they are to work with, and so forth. There's really no substitute for going to Gen Con and leveraging the profile that you built with your online activities to earn face time. If I already kind of know you from the cool stuff you’ve written about my games, you’re going to make a bigger impression on me than if you’re approaching me cold and I can’t tell how much you know about the lines I work on. Of course, face to face contact gives the people you’re meeting the opportunity to evaluate you, as well, so you have to make sure that you present yourself as together and personable and fun to be around. When you do get work, be on time, hit the specs you’re given, and require as little prose editing as possible. Having great ideas is important too but the power of reliably delivering quality work on time can’t be underestimated. I’ve been enjoying listening to your podcast with the excellent Kenneth Hite: Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff. You often discuss film and fiction as well as games. Your notes from film festivals are particularly fun to listen to! Narrative structure seems central to your approach to game design, as shown by Hamlet’s Hit Points and the DramaSystem. What led to this, and how has it shaped your designs over the years? R: I thought of myself as a writer from a very young age, but never considered gaming as an outlet for my work until fairly late, when I kind of fell into it backwards. Originally I thought that I was going to be a playwright. Although I've always been analytical about story my sensibility is as much a literary or art-house perspective as it is rooted in geek culture. When I first started out it seemed liked there was a big unexplored territory in looking at the way narrative is constructed in other forms and applying those techniques to role-playing games. That's why for example Feng Shui is an emulative, not simulative, game. It's more interested in modeling the way action movies present themselves than in caring about the real world effects of things like gun calibers or body armor. In hindsight emulation seems like a pretty obvious approach but at the time it was very much running against the tide of the simulative of wave of games that preceded it. The interest in Hong Kong movies in particular came out of my festival going because the Toronto film festival (then called the Festival of Festivals) was one of the first to highlight those movies for a western audience. So, just ahead of the curve, I got to see something that I knew would become a geek favorite genre before it hit, a result of the cross-pollination of high and pop culture. Throughout your career, you’ve also examined how role playing games work. Back in 1994, your essay “The Hidden Art: Slouching Towards A Critical Framework for RPGs,” was a call to arms for players, designers and GMs to look critically at rpgs as a new artform. In the 21 years since then a lot of pixels have been burned talking about rpgs. You've made influential contributions, such as Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering and the insights in Hamlet's Hitpoints. What concepts and ideas of others do you find have contributed to play and design? R: Criticism by gamers can fall into the trap of not being descriptive but rather proscriptive. A lot of critiques really operate as disguised manifestos for the writer’s preferred play style or design focus. The things I most value work to find a vocabulary to refine and spread practical play techniques in a way that makes game sessions better. So for example whoever* nailed down the concept of failing forward in its RPG sense deserves a huge amount of gratitude on the part of gamerdom. [NB: Here is a nice summary of Failing Forward.] But I have to admit that I don't spend a ton of time following role-playing criticism. This is a comment not on its importance but on the ever-escalating time demands facing a full-time freelance creator in today’s incessantly connected environment. *R: The Twitter hivemind can’t quite agree and I am loath to misattribute. In your 1994 essay, you made some predictions that have come true: Jungian game analysis is actually being done by Sarah Lynne Bowman and Whitney Beltrán; the issue of how game mechanics affect the narrative in a game has been a well-traveled path in indie game design; and the ghost of Goethe’s three questions for the art critic (What is the artist trying to do? How well is it done? Was it worth doing?) haunts Jared Sorenson, Luke Crane and John Wick’s Big Three (or four) Questions about game design: (What is your game about? How is your game about that? What behavior does your game encourage or reward? and How do you make this fun?). Are there other elements of “The Hidden Art” that you’d like to see followed up, or new directions you think we could go today? R: In the early days of any new form or movement the artists and the critics are often the same people. This is because if you're doing something new the people making the new thing are the only ones qualified to form a vocabulary around it. For example when Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and their circle were creating bebop they had to come up with a new iteration of jazz talk in order to discuss it with each other. In a mature field you need and want a distance between the practitioner and the critic. We're starting to see that happen with people coming at tabletop from an academic point of view. This is a maturation I’m happy to see, so we’re getting more than people trying to either justify their game designs or to confer legitimacy on their preferred play style. When I wrote that essay that wasn't really happening: its point was to predict and encourage it. Now that it is happening it would be self-contradictory of me as a practitioner to tell the new wave of academics what to look at. Though if someone wants to be the Northrop Frye of interactive narrative I’m down with that. What conventions, festivals or online communities do you most enjoy? Which are your favorite for discussion of games and game design? R: I go to Gen Con and Dragonmeet every year. As I don’t need to tell you, being a guest at a mid-scale European con has much to recommend it. I don't spend a lot of time online discussing games and game design. My main outlet for that sort of thing is the podcast discussions I have with Ken every week. Robin D. Laws designed the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system, including such games as The Esoterrorists and Ashen Stars. Among his other acclaimed RPG credits are Feng Shui and HeroQuest. Robin is the Creative Director of Stone Skin Press and has edited such fiction anthologies as The New Hero, Shotguns v. Cthulhu, and The Lion and the Aardvark: Aesop's New Fables. You can hear more of Robin's thoughts and game insights at his podcast with Kenneth Hite: Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff.

2019-04-19T04:29:26Z

http://www.blackgreengames.com/lcn/2015/6/08/interview-with-robin-d-laws

One of the by-products of cleaning out our basement is now I have about a dozen huge boxes of unlabeled and unsorted photographs. Luckily they are in clumps or groups that were taken about the same time. Now, what am I going to do with them? I don’t have the heart to throw them away. But wait! Yes I can. I can scan them, put them in a digital image state and then throw them away. So, for posterity purposes I am hiding them in digital maze that will probably never be looked at again but might be around longer than the human race. .. but they could be looked at again – but why? This will be these pictures last hurrah for a long long time. I took these pictures in the late 1970s at Sandra’s house. Just by Mr. Harley handing Joe some kind of plaque with his name on it I suspect it is an unsanctioned retirement ceremony. All of them were my co-workers in the Time Keeper Data Collection Site. The lady above on the right pinning something on the other lady is my old buddy and co-worker Alice. Alice was one week older than me. She lived a fast life. She was always late. If she was so fast how come she was always late? That is because she also lived a disorganized life. I will always think of her with her red wig tilted on her head and one closed because the smoke coming up from the cigarette in her mouth. Alice also had a drinking problem. Alice had a heart of gold. She died of a liver disease. We knew her as Alice. Her husband, 3 kids, and 19 siblings knew her as Barbara Jean. I think the other lady, the pinee, is Joe’s wife. Harry is dead too. Harry used to like to tell me what kind of mess his son got into, or as he used to say, “that boy of mine…” His son was about 25 and lived at home. I met his son once – that boy of his just didn’t seem to have the enthusiasm or gumption to find a job or move out or ask a girl for a date. Mr. Harley was very scholarly and very courtly. He seemed always very gentlemanly to make every feel comfortable. Numeric-wise, I think his time on earth has come too. Who is not pictured because he wasn’t there was Mr. Jonas. Mr. Jonas was Wayne Williams Sunday School teacher. He felt strongly Wayne Williams was innocent but got railroaded because of a screaming public. Popcorn did not like me very much to start off with. It took him years go adjust to me. His wife was murdered and I sincerely felt his grief. I got emotional when I told him how sorry I was. We spoke on friendly terms after that. Santes is the guy in the middle. He was a supervisor by default. Santes was easy going and was constantly getting chewed out by the person over him. But he kept on smiling. Santes wife was a postal clerk who looked mean enough to eat nails and spit out the pieces in your face. The guy on the right is Chuck. Chuck was a ladies man. He thought he was a ladies man and he was. He had several female friends at the Atlanta Post Office . He thought therefore he was? Is that the way it was. He was also a smooth talker, who seemed to talk more than he worked. About ten or so years after I transferred to Marietta one of our ex-coworkers called me and said Chuck was very ill and it was doubtful if he would live much longer. I called him and he was so much out of it I am not sure he knew who I was or not. He died less than a week later. Sandra was the hostess of this get-together. Sandra was very outspoken and once got fired for fighting a supervisor. Later, she got her job back because it was proven she could not have slugged him, based on the facts he said, thanks to my photographs. I always admired William. He was a hard honest worker with scruples you wouldn’t believe, yet he didn’t make a big deal of his high morals. One time at the Parcel Post Annex which was miles away from the Atlanta Post Office it was discovered that the timekeepers were doing every thing wrong, and abusing their position. They all were fired and William and I were sent in to run the time keepers office until a new crew could be trained. For several months William and I each worked 12 hours a day, relieving each other, 7 days a week, everyday of the month, for a couple of months with no time off what so ever. Life pretty much sucked then. His initials were WAP, which is what I called him. Sully was very outspoken in a loud manner. You might say he was usually negative in a positive manner. One time Sully and several of his friends pooled their money and bought a bus. They had plans on using it to carry clubs or organizations to special events. Everyday we got to hear of new problems their bus and their clientele were causing. I think they finally sold it to recoup some of their investment. One time during a storm a tree fell on Sully’s house. He climbed on top of the house with a chainsaw to cut the limbs in smaller more manageable pieces. He almost did the same for him leg and arm. He had a chain-saw accident which almost killed him. When I transferred to Marietta he was still out. Now, these pictures, like some of their subjects are put to rest. In Marietta, downtown right in the middle of the town is Glover Park. In the warm months there is a concert every Friday night. Anna and I have been going since they started. We don’t make every concert but we make most of them. Ever since the first one we both notice a man who is always dressed the same: plaid Bermuda shorts and black socks. He is middle age. He is always alone. He always takes a strong through the park just over the half-way point. He looks very much like Stephen King. There was too much music and noise for him to hear us. He stopped. Across the walk from us was an empty park bench. He sat down and seemed to be looking right at us for five or six minutes. He didn’t seem any hurry to get up and get back on the move or maybe prowl. He looked like he was studying us. His facial expression was puzzlement, like trying to reach out to us, mind-wave wise. Fortunately, I think his mind ran into a cement wall. Then he got up and walked away. The Good Old Boys and Girls Tuesday night get together minutes for September 29, 2009. Paul Roper had people that knew and remember Geri Bundesman to autograph a glossy black and white picture of her and her husband. But seriously, I think we can say attendance was between 35 and 37. The food was plentiful and juicy, spicy, and all else that goes with a good meal. And we had peach ice cream too. Rupert served. One person ordered his food to go. This is Paul Roper’s car. Notice the spattered bug on the hood. Noticed how well polished and shiny it is. Notice the handsome photographer’s reflection? Or it might look sort of like a giant splattered bug. I haven't tossed any genealogy information onto this blog for over a week. It is long overdue. We are still looking at my PETTY surname. 290. MAUD LEICHER9 CAMPBELL (LEROY MALCOLM8, LEROY MALCOLM7, NANCY6 PETTY, ABNER5, ZACHARIAH4, JOHN3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born Aft. 1890, and died Unknown. She married MR KLEINE. 348. i. HARRY W.10 KLEINE, b. Aft. 1910. 291. HARRY W.9 KLEINE (MAUD LETCHER8 CAMPBELL, LEROY MALCOLM7, NANCY6 PETTY, ABNER5, ZACHARIAH4, JOHN3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 04 Aug 1915 in Las Animas, Bent, Co, and died 1980 in Grand Junction, , Co. He married MARGARET WADHAMS 21 Oct 1932. i. MARILYN10 KLEINE, b. Aft. 1932. 292. EDNA JOSEPHINE9 HAYHURST (ALSEY JOSEPHINE8 PETTY, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 11 Mar 1846 in , Carroll, Ar, and died 28 Jan 1887 in Waelder, Gonzales Co, Tx. She married JOHN C. PEACOCK 10 Jan 1881. 349. i. DELLA NEVADA10 PEACOCK, b. Sep 1868, Elm Grove, Caldwell Co, Tx; d. 16 Jun 1947, Clarksville, Red River Co, Tx. 293. NANCY JANE9 PETTY (ALEXANDER ANDERSON8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 24 May 1852 in Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx, and died 11 Aug 1867 in , , Tx. She married JIM BLACK. i. UNKNOWN10 BLACK, b. 11 Aug 1867; d. 11 Aug 1867. 294. JAMES LANDA9 PETTY (JAMES MARION8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 1860 in Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx, and died 1891. He married ALCENA RIDDLE118 14 Sep 1880 in , Caldwell Co, Tx, daughter of HARVEY RIDDLE and MARY. She was born 1862 in Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx, and died 1947. i. EDGAR10 PETTY, b. 1886, Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx; d. Unknown. ii. CHLOE ESTER PETTY, b. 1888, Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx; d. Unknown; m. EDDIE BAIZE. 295. JASPER NEWTON9 PETTY (JAMES MARION8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 24 Aug 1864 in Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx, and died 12 Jul 1932 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx. He married DORA BEATRICE POGUE 01 Nov 1886. She was born 07 Oct 1867 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx, and died 26 May 1938. i. ANNIE MYRTLE10 PETTY, b. 22 Aug 1886, Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx; d. 14 Jun 1969; m. PERRY PRESTON WILLIAMS, 20 Nov 1904; b. 15 Apr 1882, Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx; d. 28 Jul 1914. ii. LORA DEANE PETTY, b. 16 Sep 1889, Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx; d. Unknown. 350. iii. THOMAS EARL PETTY, b. 25 Nov 1891, Voca, McColloch, Tx; d. 01 Jun 1950, , , Tx. iv. GRANDVILLE LEWIS PETTY, b. 30 Nov 1893, Voca, McColloch, Tx; d. 18 Sep 1962; m. (1) ETHEL BARNARD119, 25 May 1921; m. (2) MAGGIE VOIGHT120, 12 Oct 1927. 351. v. NOLAN EDGAR PETTY, b. 18 Feb 1900, Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx; d. 08 Dec 1955. vi. BEULAH ARRENA PETTY, b. 22 Jul 1905, Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx; d. 13 Jan 1987, , Bastrop, Tx. vii. FOY WALLACE PETTY, b. 31 Dec 1907, Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx; d. 03 Sep 1961. 296. THOMAS LEVI9 PETTY (JAMES MARION8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 17 Nov 1866 in Pettytown, Bastrop Co., Tx, and died 1945 in Childress, Childress Co, Tx. He married MARY ANN "MOLLY" DESHEA 03 Nov 1895. She was born 19 Feb 1867, and died Bef. 1944 in O'DONNEL, Lynn Co, Tx. Died in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Arthur Johnson. Molly was a small dark skinned woman -- part French. i. CHARLEY IVAN10 PETTY, b. 02 Sep 1886; d. 30 Jun 1888. ii. ETTA PEARL PETTY, b. 16 Nov 1887; d. 30 Jan 1889. iii. TEMPLE LEE PETTY, b. 13 Feb 1891; d. Bef. 1990, Carlsbad, Eddy Co, NM. iv. THOMAS MARVIN PETTY, b. Aft. 1892; d. Unknown. v. STELLA RUTH PETTY, b. 23 Mar 1895; d. Unknown, Childress, Childress Co, Tx. vi. MARY AMOLINE PETTY, b. 05 Apr 1897, Santa Anna, Coleman Co, Tx; d. 1961, Carlsbad, Eddy Co, NM. vii. RAYMOND HUBERT PETTY, b. 03 Jul 1904; d. 30 Apr 1977. viii. BERTIE LOVEL PETTY, b. Aft. 1905. ix. LEON BRIN PETTY, b. Aft. 1906. 297. ANNIE L.9 PETTY (JAMES MARION8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 12 Mar 1868 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx, and died 21 Sep 1957 in Waelder, Gonzales, Tx. She married JAMES ELBERT PETTY 27 Aug 1889 in , Bastrop, Tx, son of JOHNSON PETTY and CYNTHIA PEACOCK. He was born 02 Sep 1863 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx, and died 08 Aug 1946 in Waelder, Gonzales, Tx. i. LULA MAE10 PETTY, b. Aft. 1889; d. Unknown. ii. NOVELLA PETTY, b. Aft. 1889; d. Unknown. iii. BARTON PETTY, b. Aft. 1889; d. Unknown; m. EMMA MANEBY. iv. CHARLIE PETTY, b. Aft. 1889; d. Unknown. v. DESSIE PETTY, b. Aft. 1889; d. Unknown. vi. GLADYS PETTY, b. Aft. 1889; d. Unknown. vii. ELBERT PETTY121, b. 22 Dec 1890, , Bastrop, Tx; d. Unknown. viii. JAMES ELLE PETTY, b. 18 Aug 1895, , Bastrop, Tx; d. 1940. ix. MAYNARD PETTY, b. 26 Jan 1901, , Bastrop, Tx; d. 15 Sep 1946. 298. ALFRED MANNON9 PETTY (JOHNSON MANNON8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 14 Jan 1861 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx, and died 13 Feb 1937 in Brady, McColloch Co, Tx. He married SARAH RIDDLES 17 Feb 1886 in , Bastrop, Tx, daughter of HARVEY RIDDLES and MARY SMITH. She was born 28 Oct 1869 in , Bastrop, Tx, and died 14 Nov 1959 in Brady, McColloch Co, Tx. i. EFFIE MAE10 PETTY, b. Aft. 1886; d. Unknown. ii. RUDELLA PETTY, b. Aft. 1886; d. Unknown. iii. JESSE JAMES PETTY, b. Abt. 1888; d. Unknown. iv. SAMMIE DEE PETTY, b. Abt. 1890; d. Unknown. v. TEMPLE RAE PETTY, b. 23 May 1906, Brady, McColloch, Tx; d. 27 Dec 1930, Brady, McColloch, Tx. 299. JAMES ELBERT9 PETTY (JOHNSON MANNON8, JOHN A.7, JOEL6, JOSEPH5, FRANCIS MOORE4, THOMAS3, THOMAS2, HUBERT1 PATEY) was born 02 Sep 1863 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx, and died 08 Aug 1946 in Waelder, Gonzales, Tx. He married ANNIE L. PETTY 27 Aug 1889 in , Bastrop, Tx, daughter of JAMES PETTY and ARRENA FOWLER. She was born 12 Mar 1868 in Red Rock, Bastrop, Tx, and died 21 Sep 1957 in Waelder, Gonzales, Tx. Children are listed above under (297) Annie L. PETTY. An old high school classmate and I have been emailing. I won’t say “an old high school friend” because back then we were not exactly friends. We ran with different crowds. He ran with the goody-two-shoes crowd and they were mostly running from us. That was a joke. We lived in a détente teenage society. Back then we more or less ignored different bunches…and in turn they ignored us. We were polite. But lately, I feel Brad and I have kindled a friendship. With rumbles of the Bell Reunion on my blog reminded Brad of his days at Larry Bell Park. Actually poor Brad lived on the other side of the tracks. True. The side he lived in did not have the luxury of hours old fresh eggs, or the pleasure of picking out your own live chicken and wringing its neck, or the joyful act of using a Sears Roebuck catalog in the outhouse. And on the Brad’s side of the tracks they had boring Thanksgiving dinners – but on our side Thanksgiving day, if cold enough was a designated hog killing day and that was always fun watching the blood spurt and the guts spill out of the stomach. Brad, had to cross the tracks to his Wednesday night job as an usher at the Larry Bell Auditorium for the wrestling matches events. I had several good reads of him describing the wrestling bouts and challengers and the show of bloated egos. I used to go to the wrestling matches too. My daddy sometime would go and hangout talking local politics while I got into the crowd and made fool of myself. I broke my arm one time there falling off the bleachers. All this wrestling talk remind me of a MAD magazine article that came out written by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by fellow Georgian Jack Davis. It was the first issue of MAD as in magazine form. Up until that point MAD was a comic book. The publishing date is July 1955, the month I turned 14, which was during my Wrestling bout craze. What is Vickory Cab's telephone number? Where was the Apple Cab company? What about Howard's Taxi? Where was his office? PANIC comicbook was a publication by EC Comics. Interesting, one of its competitors was its sibling. Both PANIC and MAD were published by William M. Gaines, who owned EC Comic books. PANIC had an upper hand on the non-EC comics because PANIC employed the very same artists as MAD, and MAD sat the standards – all the lampoon comics wanted to look like MAD, it was the best seller. Artists Jack Davis, Wally Wood, and Will Elder did MAD and PANIC. This was during a time that comics were getting a lot of criticism for their gruesome stories and pictures. EC also led the parade on that, publishing such comics as TALES FROM THE CRYPT, SHOCK, etc. So, I think Gaines was doing a reshuffle of his publications. He knew now, with the new pressures, MAD was doing the best – so why not have another lampoon-type of comic? This story is drawn by Will Elder, which was the most popular trend setter at MAD. In this story, LI’L MELVIN, frankly, it was like Elder was a loose cannon. I don't think he had the Kurtzman guidance because Kurtzman was not the editor. Elder put more little tiny side jokes than he put in MAD. I think he also wrote it. I read that he had written some of his own stories for PANIC. In comic books many times there are more going on than meet the eye. And sometimes even a double story that only the fellow artist or writers can appreciate or get the full-jest of. For instance, once Harvey Kurtzman carried a sample of his art work to a newspaper in New York City, and the man over things like that was Walt Kelly. Of course, Walt also did the comic strip POGO. Walt Kelly, according to Kurtzman, gave Kurtzman “the bum rush” out of the offices. Harvey Kurtzman was hurt and offended. Elder and Kurtzman were friends, notice how he treats the POGO characters in the story. Another thing, you might not realize is the story behind the story of JOE POLOOKA’s characters popping up in the story. Al Cap, the creator of LI’L ABNER, and Ham Fisher, creator of JOE PALOOKA, were bitter enemies. Early in Al Capp’s career he worked for Ham Fisher doing a running story about hillbillies in Kentucky or maybe Arkansas. When Al Capp went out oh his own he did a strip similar as the strip he did for Fisher. Thus, a bitter court fight over copyright infringements. Ham Fisher lost and it wasn’t long until he took his own life… so, bare that in mind when you see the below story. Another interesting thing is the last page where Elder gives an almost raspberry salute to all those "concerned" parents and investigating committees and others critical of the newly innovation of comics. Today was the Bell Center’s 20th Reunion here in Marietta. Many of us who used Larry Bell Park for sports, recreation, and entertainment back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s have a reunion to come and celebrate living another year. And some of us can’t wait to start pigging out on the delicious barbecue chicken breasts and barbecue pork and all the sides. We all have Georgian accents. ZZ Top or a Smith Brother?* Nope! Neal Lawrence is the organizer. Neal did a great job putting all this together. And the whole time he seemed very relaxed and on top of everything. He knew all and saw all. I think credit should be given to the Mrs also. Rock/Eddie Hunter roamed around and took pictures. They are not anything special. They are just pictures people at a common watering hole enjoying company with each other – like they did in their formative years 50 or so years back – only this time they can drink their beers legally. But, they still have to watch to not get caught smoking. So, on with the pictures - Let them roll Rock! Or maybe Rock & Roll? *However, Neal plays Santa Clause during the Christmas season.

2019-04-25T04:47:34Z

http://ethunter1.blogspot.com/2009/09/

B. Dutton (button?) points out that the MLBTradeRumors.com free agent list is out, and has predictions for the top 50 free agents. SLOPS: We doubt MLBTR ever goes back and tracks their success rate. Should some erstwhile Denizen find a place where they owned up, we're guessing that the list would nail, oh, 12 of 50 by sheer luck, half of those being no-brainers. SLOPS: First free agent on the list going to Seattle is Pat Neshek, #43 on the list. Two years, $12MM, which is Scrabble money if we recall? Neshek was dominant again this year, with 10+ K's and 0+ walks to go with an All-Star appearance. He's 37; are sidearmers like LOOGY's on the ageless thing? Anybody study it? SLOPS: Second FA on the list to Seattle is Lucas Duda on a make-good deal, 1 year, $6MM. The Dude had a real bad elbow in 2017 and his value is in platooning I guess. So MLBTR isn't even willing to begrudge us a Yonder Alonso type, much less a Logan Morrison (#15 on the list). But whattaya expect from a bleary-eyed New York sportswriter on a Friday, for him to send an exciting player out the West Indies of the majors never to be heard from again? SLOPS: Jarrod Dyson is only #42 and Michael Pineda is #49 being in a Drew Smyly-type cyrogenic tank situation. Brandon Morrow (#19) would be highly amusing at 3/$24MM; do you figure he becomes the old Morrow the very nanosecond he moves into a less-than-championship setting? PROPS: for having the guts to put two batters ahead of the DATA starting pitchers, those being J.D. Martinez and Eric Hosmer. Props also to Jerry Dipoto who, judging by his Alonso addition, might zig against the zag and go offense. Hey, it's what we do in roto. Bases gained, bases lost, babe. PROPS: Yu Darvish #1 for a pittance, 6 years $160MM which is really like 6 years $80MM once you deduct Ohtani's free performance, assuming the union ever signs off on a new NPB-MLB posting arrangement. Arrieta for 4 years, Tanaka for 5, both at the $25 and $20 MM levels respectively. Hey, with Tanaka you might get Ohtani and apparently (per MLBTR) you get yet another "free" year to tack on to Ohtani's. Hey whadja expect, a Think Tank of this caliber to take a dartboard game seriously? C'mon already. The first Props up there is good enough, and any 'Denizen sees a target we should beat, then Dr. D will most surely enjoy reading the whys and wherefores. Yonder Alonso (#22, obviously destined for the ...Angels?!) doesn't look so bad at all, if you're not going to actually use Dan Vogelbach (the guy you traded MIKE MONTGOMERY for) on a free, and redeploy the money to one of the DATA's. "Uh, it's late, Chuck. The big shots are after me for that list. We forgot to assigned these two meatballs to a team." "We did, huh? Uh, who ARE they, Howard? DOO-dah? (De Camptown Races suddenly breaks in and quickly fades out.) And Neck-Check? We gotta put 'em SOME place, and Gladys is expecting me home for dinner AFTER I stop for a brewski on the way." "A BREWSKI, now ya talkin' ya big lug. So what teams do we have left that we can stick 'em on?" "Well there's the team in Seattle that NO-body remembers anyway. The last time they won anything the Cold War was heating up! Get that, Chuck?! That's a GOOD one! COLD war...HEATING up! "Yeah, yeah, now let's cut the small talk and get down ta bizness! You're right, though. That team in Seattle, what's their name again? Oh yeah, the Marinaras. Something to do with spaghetti sauce, I guess. Anyway, we got the Mariners here, who haven't done squat in fifteen years. Do ya think ANYONE will believe that someone wants to sign with THEM?!" "Hokay, ya got a POINT there. But if you let your hair grow no one will notice! Will anyone believe someone wants to sign with the Seattle Marinas? I dunno, Chuck. It's just wild ENOUGH that SOMEBODY might buy it." "Right, Howard. Let's get our story straight. We burned the midnight oil, ya know, churning through piles and PILES of information, statistics, rumors, team analysis, the whole nine yards." "We interviewed dozens of GM's." "Even the one in Seattle?" "No need to go THAT far. NO one will believe we went out of our way to call...to call...how do you pronounce that? DIP-a-toe? Like when you test the water in the pool before stepping in to see if it's too hot or too cold?" "No, it's die-PO-to. Like he's gonna kick the bucket a pauper or something." "Who cares? Anyway, no one will believe we talked to him about his plans. After all, they're ir-REV-er-ant." "So we did our due diligence, and decided that these two meatballs will end up in the Marinara sauce. Presto! Just like THAT!" "That's our story, and we's stickin' WITH it! "So where ya stoppin' for a brewski?" "Some place called Steinbrenner's. That place is con-NEC-ted." Stan the first, Bill the second, and Richard the third" "Lay on MacDuff, but watch out for that breaking stuff!" and now looks at the record book - and cries" "So fair a foul I have not seen! get thee a pair of glasses, get thee to an optometrist!" "Oh, what a rogue and bush league slob am I" "The ball did strike his head. The pitcher beanéd him!" "O horrors! Not only hitless, but witless." "Now cracks a noble head. Flights of shortstops sing thee to thy rest. Let four bonus players bear Rocky like a soldier to the dugout. I’m trading the bum to Montreal." Funny! Shakesperean Baseball. Never heard of that before. Thanks, Bat571. Sounds like they have two expertises in life! Could be used as a routine :- ) Dip a toe or Die po' too? - 10 to 15 M for Kuma, Smyly would have been 11 or 12 M if healthy, and Gallardo was about the same. Seager gets a big raise 8.5, Zunino and Paxton will probably get 2-3 Million more each so guessing we have about 40 million in assumed salary. So the 4 guys add 62.5 but 40 or so wasaccounted for by the losses so a 22.5 M dollar raise over last years payroll. He's more like "prepare yourself for Lynn or Cobb" because, goodness me, what would THIS team need with an impact starting pitcher? Us less young guys get this stuff! For the younger set, Freberg and W&S were contemporaries in the 50s and 60s who did essentially a long form stand-up comedy routine. Newhart and Cosby started the same way a little later. I recommend you google these guys and listen to some of their stuff. Some is 50s/60s topical, but a lot is really funny today - just put on your "Mad Men" persona and go for it! Also, try a little Tom Lehrer, a musical counterpart. Like any subject, the best way to understand it is original source material. With that in mind, the first Bill Cosby I ever heard was his comedy album, "Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow, Right?" You can listen to it here if you wish. The first Stan Freberg I encountered was his classic parody of early U.S. history. It is not to be missed. Very nice solos from DaddyO and Bats. Please note Mr. Cosby was a DJ on AM Radio KING during the year of the World's Fair in Seattle as his albums sailed nationally and TV followed. I was overfed on Freberg as a sit-in prof from the world of advertising addressed aspiring copywriters how to write radio commercials: "They must be humorous, Stan Freberg is Deity, and you will be graded accordingly." Nonetheless, one of the aspirers created one of the most successful ad agencies in Seattle, and his career far outshone that prof. It spawned my approach of "Garbage Disposals That Love To Be Fed" (not that unlike internet blogs these days), for which I got an "F" ... and that was my response to that prof. Shakespeare, well, I'm quite sure he was an anonymous pinch-hitter who was on and off the 40 man roster. As for MLTR stats: Lead writer Tim is coming off an injury, and he wasn't that hot when he was healthy. This is just sour mash for the pre-winter meet junkies. Do not bet a penny (let alone a million or two) on it. Darvish will not top the money list, even with the Oh Oh Tawny connection, and, if he has two more years like this past one, I'm guessing he will return to Japan co end his career ... so I still want him (or his backup duo of Tanaka or Arietta. Ichiro could be involved in all this ... if you like longshots. No other bets on any of the names on this list ... DePoet will make a trade more likely. He will be all in on Otani, and get him, whatever it takes, without going to $190 mil, which will not happen. But there will be plenty of intrigue and some of it will involve the ML union and owners and arm wrestling. I used to think Zoom that you were either a lurking scout or Mikey Jay, but now I'm going with Emmett Watson. Communicating through white noise of course.

2019-04-22T14:07:33Z

https://seattlesportsinsider.com/?q=blogs/sabermetrics/duda-and-neshek

Apr. 16 5:48 PM PT6:48 PM MT7:48 PM CT8:48 PM ET0:48 GMT8:48 5:48 PM MST6:48 PM CST7:48 PM EST4:48 UAE (+1)20:48 ET21:48 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 30 of 33 shots in the Blue Jackets' 7-3 win over the Lightning on Tuesday. The victory pushed him to 4-0-0 on the season with a 2.01 GAA and .932 save percentage. Apr. 14 5:53 PM PT6:53 PM MT7:53 PM CT8:53 PM ET0:53 GMT8:53 5:53 PM MST6:53 PM CST7:53 PM EST4:53 UAE (+1)20:53 ET21:53 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 30 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 3-1 win over the Lightning on Sunday. The victory pushed him to 3-0-0 on the season with a 1.67 GAA and .940 save percentage. Apr. 12 6:02 PM PT7:02 PM MT8:02 PM CT9:02 PM ET1:02 GMT9:02 6:02 PM MST7:02 PM CST8:02 PM EST5:02 UAE (+1)21:02 ET22:02 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 24 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-1 win over the Lightning on Friday. The victory pushed him to 2-0-0 on the season with a 2.00 GAA and .925 save percentage. Apr. 10 6:02 PM PT7:02 PM MT8:02 PM CT9:02 PM ET1:02 GMT9:02 6:02 PM MST7:02 PM CST8:02 PM EST5:02 UAE (+1)21:02 ET22:02 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 26 of 29 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 win over the Lightning on Wednesday. The victory pushed him to 1-0-0 on the season with a 3.00 GAA and .897 save percentage. Apr. 5 6:20 PM PT7:20 PM MT8:20 PM CT9:20 PM ET1:20 GMT9:20 6:20 PM MST7:20 PM CST8:20 PM EST5:20 UAE (+1)21:20 ET22:20 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 25 of 27 shots in the Blue Jackets' 3-2 shootout win over the Rangers on Friday. The victory pushed him to 37-24-1 on the season with a 2.58 GAA and .913 save percentage. Apr. 2 5:52 PM PT6:52 PM MT7:52 PM CT8:52 PM ET0:52 GMT8:52 5:52 PM MST6:52 PM CST7:52 PM EST4:52 UAE (+1)20:52 ET21:52 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 19 of 23 shots in the Blue Jackets' 6-2 loss to the Bruins on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 36-24-1 on the season with a 2.59 GAA and .913 save percentage. Mar. 31 4:34 PM PT5:34 PM MT6:34 PM CT7:34 PM ET23:34 GMT7:34 4:34 PM MST5:34 PM CST6:34 PM EST3:34 UAE (+1)19:34 ET20:34 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 38 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 4-0 win over the Sabres on Sunday for his ninth shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 36-23-1 on the season with a 2.55 GAA and .914 save percentage. Mar. 30 6:45 PM PT7:45 PM MT8:45 PM CT9:45 PM ET1:45 GMT9:45 6:45 PM MST7:45 PM CST8:45 PM EST5:45 UAE (+1)21:45 ET22:45 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 25 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-2 win over the Predators on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 35-23-1 on the season with a 2.60 GAA and .912 save percentage. Mar. 28 5:43 PM PT6:43 PM MT7:43 PM CT8:43 PM ET0:43 GMT8:43 5:43 PM MST6:43 PM CST7:43 PM EST4:43 UAE (+1)20:43 ET21:43 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 26 of 28 shots in the Blue Jackets' 6-2 win over the Canadiens on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 34-23-1 on the season with a 2.61 GAA and .912 save percentage. Mar. 26 5:40 PM PT6:40 PM MT7:40 PM CT8:40 PM ET0:40 GMT8:40 5:40 PM MST6:40 PM CST7:40 PM EST4:40 UAE (+1)20:40 ET21:40 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 26 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 4-0 win over the Islanders on Tuesday for his eighth shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 33-23-1 on the season with a 2.62 GAA and .911 save percentage. Mar. 24 8:36 PM PT9:36 PM MT10:36 PM CT11:36 PM ET3:36 GMT11:36 8:36 PM MST9:36 PM CST10:36 PM EST7:36 UAE (+1)23:36 ET0:36 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 21 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 5-0 win over the Canucks on Sunday for his seventh shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 32-23-1 on the season with a 2.67 GAA and .910 save percentage. Mar. 21 11:40 AM PT12:40 PM MT1:40 PM CT2:40 PM ET18:40 GMT2:40 11:40 AM MST12:40 PM CST1:40 PM EST22:40 UAE14:40 ET15:40 BRT - Bobrovsky (undisclosed) will play Sunday in Vancouver after he did not dress for Thursday's game at Edmonton. Analysis: The two-time Vezina Trophy winner is 4-2-0 with a 1.66 GAA and .946 save percentage in his last six starts. Mar. 19 7:49 PM PT8:49 PM MT9:49 PM CT10:49 PM ET2:49 GMT10:49 7:49 PM MST8:49 PM CST9:49 PM EST6:49 UAE (+1)22:49 ET23:49 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 of 30 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 loss to the Flames on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 31-23-1 on the season with a 2.72 GAA and .909 save percentage. Mar. 15 5:53 PM PT6:53 PM MT7:53 PM CT8:53 PM ET0:53 GMT8:53 5:53 PM MST6:53 PM CST7:53 PM EST4:53 UAE (+1)20:53 ET21:53 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 46 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 3-0 win over the Hurricanes on Friday for his sixth shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 31-22-1 on the season with a 2.71 GAA and .909 save percentage. Mar. 12 5:51 PM PT6:51 PM MT7:51 PM CT8:51 PM ET0:51 GMT8:51 5:51 PM MST6:51 PM CST7:51 PM EST4:51 UAE (+1)20:51 ET21:51 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 7-4 win over the Bruins on Tuesday. The victory pushed him to 30-22-1 on the season with a 2.76 GAA and .906 save percentage. Mar. 11 5:28 PM PT6:28 PM MT7:28 PM CT8:28 PM ET0:28 GMT8:28 5:28 PM MST6:28 PM CST7:28 PM EST4:28 UAE (+1)20:28 ET21:28 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 18 of 19 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-0 loss to the Islanders on Monday. The defeat dropped him to 29-22-1 on the season with a 2.74 GAA and .907 save percentage. Mar. 9 5:41 PM PT6:41 PM MT7:41 PM CT8:41 PM ET1:41 GMT9:41 6:41 PM MST7:41 PM CST8:41 PM EST5:41 UAE (+1)20:41 ET22:41 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of 29 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 win over the Penguins on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 29-21-1 on the season with a 2.77 GAA and .906 save percentage. Mar. 5 5:48 PM PT6:48 PM MT7:48 PM CT8:48 PM ET1:48 GMT9:48 6:48 PM MST7:48 PM CST8:48 PM EST5:48 UAE (+1)20:48 ET22:48 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 30 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-1 shootout win over the Devils on Tuesday. The victory pushed him to 28-21-1 on the season with a 2.81 GAA and .905 save percentage. Mar. 3 5:39 PM PT6:39 PM MT7:39 PM CT8:39 PM ET1:39 GMT9:39 6:39 PM MST7:39 PM CST8:39 PM EST5:39 UAE (+1)20:39 ET22:39 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 21 of 25 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-2 loss to the Jets on Sunday. The defeat dropped him to 27-21-1 on the season with a 2.85 GAA and .904 save percentage. Mar. 2 11:40 AM PT12:40 PM MT1:40 PM CT2:40 PM ET19:40 GMT3:40 12:40 PM MST1:40 PM CST2:40 PM EST23:40 UAE14:40 ET16:40 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 15 of 19 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-0 loss to the Oilers on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 27-20-1 on the season with a 2.83 GAA and .905 save percentage. Feb. 28 6:00 PM PT7:00 PM MT8:00 PM CT9:00 PM ET2:00 GMT10:00 7:00 PM MST8:00 PM CST9:00 PM EST6:00 UAE (+1)21:00 ET23:00 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 overtime win over the Flyers on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 27-19-1 on the season with a 2.78 GAA and .907 save percentage. Feb. 26 5:37 PM PT6:37 PM MT7:37 PM CT8:37 PM ET1:37 GMT9:37 6:37 PM MST7:37 PM CST8:37 PM EST5:37 UAE (+1)20:37 ET22:37 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 26 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-2 loss to the Penguins on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 26-19-1 on the season with a 2.78 GAA and .907 save percentage. Feb. 23 3:36 PM PT4:36 PM MT5:36 PM CT6:36 PM ET23:36 GMT7:36 4:36 PM MST5:36 PM CST6:36 PM EST3:36 UAE (+1)18:36 ET20:36 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 26 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 4-0 win over the Sharks on Saturday for his fifth shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 26-18-1 on the season with a 2.75 GAA and .908 save percentage. Feb. 22 5:38 PM PT6:38 PM MT7:38 PM CT8:38 PM ET1:38 GMT9:38 6:38 PM MST7:38 PM CST8:38 PM EST5:38 UAE (+1)20:38 ET22:38 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 22 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 3-0 win over the Senators on Friday for his fourth shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 25-18-1 on the season with a 2.82 GAA and .906 save percentage. Feb. 19 6:10 PM PT7:10 PM MT8:10 PM CT9:10 PM ET2:10 GMT10:10 7:10 PM MST8:10 PM CST9:10 PM EST6:10 UAE (+1)21:10 ET23:10 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 32 shots in the Blue Jackets' 3-2 loss to the Canadiens on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 24-18-1 on the season with a 2.89 GAA and .904 save percentage. Feb. 16 7:10 PM PT8:10 PM MT9:10 PM CT10:10 PM ET3:10 GMT11:10 8:10 PM MST9:10 PM CST10:10 PM EST7:10 UAE (+1)22:10 ET1:10 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 39 of 41 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-2 win over the Blackhawks on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 24-17-1 on the season with a 2.88 GAA and .904 save percentage. Feb. 14 5:35 PM PT6:35 PM MT7:35 PM CT8:35 PM ET1:35 GMT9:35 6:35 PM MST7:35 PM CST8:35 PM EST5:35 UAE (+1)20:35 ET23:35 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 of 27 shots in the Blue Jackets' 3-0 loss to the Islanders on Thursday. The defeat dropped him to 23-17-1 on the season with a 2.90 GAA and .903 save percentage. Feb. 12 5:40 PM PT6:40 PM MT7:40 PM CT8:40 PM ET1:40 GMT9:40 6:40 PM MST7:40 PM CST8:40 PM EST5:40 UAE (+1)20:40 ET23:40 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 20 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 3-0 win over the Capitals on Tuesday for his third shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 23-16-1 on the season with a 2.90 GAA and .903 save percentage. Feb. 9 8:42 PM PT9:42 PM MT10:42 PM CT11:42 PM ET4:42 GMT12:42 9:42 PM MST10:42 PM CST11:42 PM EST8:42 UAE23:42 ET2:42 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 20 of 23 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 win over the Golden Knights on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 22-16-1 on the season with a 2.98 GAA and .901 save percentage. Feb. 7 7:45 PM PT8:45 PM MT9:45 PM CT10:45 PM ET3:45 GMT11:45 8:45 PM MST9:45 PM CST10:45 PM EST7:45 UAE (+1)22:45 ET1:45 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 win over the Coyotes on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 21-16-1 on the season with a 2.98 GAA and .902 save percentage. Feb. 5 7:52 PM PT8:52 PM MT9:52 PM CT10:52 PM ET3:52 GMT11:52 8:52 PM MST9:52 PM CST10:52 PM EST7:52 UAE (+1)22:52 ET1:52 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 of 30 shots in the Blue Jackets' 6-3 win over the Avalanche on Tuesday. The victory pushed him to 20-16-1 on the season with a 3.01 GAA and .901 save percentage. Jan. 31 6:41 PM PT7:41 PM MT8:41 PM CT9:41 PM ET2:41 GMT10:41 7:41 PM MST8:41 PM CST9:41 PM EST6:41 UAE (+1)21:41 ET0:41 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 26 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 loss to the Jets on Thursday. The defeat dropped him to 19-16-1 on the season with a 3.01 GAA and .901 save percentage. Jan. 29 5:42 PM PT6:42 PM MT7:42 PM CT8:42 PM ET1:42 GMT9:42 6:42 PM MST7:42 PM CST8:42 PM EST5:42 UAE (+1)20:42 ET23:42 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 34 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-4 loss to the Sabres on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 19-15-1 on the season with a 2.97 GAA and .902 save percentage. Jan. 19 7:39 PM PT8:39 PM MT9:39 PM CT10:39 PM ET3:39 GMT11:39 8:39 PM MST9:39 PM CST10:39 PM EST7:39 UAE (+1)22:39 ET1:39 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-1 loss to the Wild on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 19-14-1 on the season with a 2.91 GAA and .904 save percentage. Jan. 13 4:51 PM PT5:51 PM MT6:51 PM CT7:51 PM ET0:51 GMT8:51 5:51 PM MST6:51 PM CST7:51 PM EST4:51 UAE (+1)19:51 ET22:51 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 27 shots in the Blue Jackets' 7-5 win over the Rangers on Sunday. The victory pushed him to 19-13-1 on the season with a 2.93 GAA and .903 save percentage. Jan. 11 11:30 AM PT12:30 PM MT1:30 PM CT2:30 PM ET19:30 GMT3:30 12:30 PM MST1:30 PM CST2:30 PM EST23:30 UAE14:30 ET17:30 BRT - Bobrovsky was suspended one game by the Blue Jackets organization for conduct detrimental to the team after an emotional outburst in Tuesday's 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay. Analysis: The former Vezina winner served his time Thursday and will reportedly travel with the team Saturday when Columbus plays the Capitals, although a starter has yet to be announced. Both sides are saying the right things regarding the incident and sound ready to put it in the rear-view mirror. Analysis: The two-time Vezina Trophy winner is 18-13-1 with a 2.87 GAA in the final year of his contract and so far has declined to sign a long-term extension. Backup Joonas Korpisalo (6-2-2, 3.29 GAA) is in line to start Thursday. Jan. 8 6:07 PM PT7:07 PM MT8:07 PM CT9:07 PM ET2:07 GMT10:07 7:07 PM MST8:07 PM CST9:07 PM EST6:07 UAE (+1)21:07 ET0:07 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 15 of 19 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-0 loss to the Lightning on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 18-13-1 on the season with a 2.87 GAA and .906 save percentage. Jan. 5 5:45 PM PT6:45 PM MT7:45 PM CT8:45 PM ET1:45 GMT9:45 6:45 PM MST7:45 PM CST8:45 PM EST5:45 UAE (+1)20:45 ET23:45 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 of 30 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 overtime win over the Panthers on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 18-12-1 on the season with a 2.81 GAA and .908 save percentage. Jan. 4 6:13 PM PT7:13 PM MT8:13 PM CT9:13 PM ET2:13 GMT10:13 7:13 PM MST8:13 PM CST9:13 PM EST6:13 UAE (+1)21:13 ET0:13 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 13 of 16 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 loss to the Hurricanes on Friday. The defeat dropped him to 17-12-1 on the season with a 2.80 GAA and .908 save percentage. Dec. 31 5:54 PM PT6:54 PM MT7:54 PM CT8:54 PM ET1:54 GMT9:54 6:54 PM MST7:54 PM CST8:54 PM EST5:54 UAE (+1)20:54 ET23:54 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 25 shots in the Blue Jackets' 6-3 win over the Senators on Monday. The victory pushed him to 17-11-1 on the season with a 2.74 GAA and .910 save percentage. Dec. 28 5:41 PM PT6:41 PM MT7:41 PM CT8:41 PM ET1:41 GMT9:41 6:41 PM MST7:41 PM CST8:41 PM EST5:41 UAE (+1)20:41 ET23:41 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 25 of 29 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 loss to the Maple Leafs on Friday. The defeat dropped him to 16-11-1 on the season with a 2.73 GAA and .911 save percentage. Dec. 23 11:08 AM PT12:08 PM MT1:08 PM CT2:08 PM ET19:08 GMT3:08 12:08 PM MST1:08 PM CST2:08 PM EST23:08 UAE14:08 ET17:08 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 39 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 3-0 win over the Devils on Sunday for his second shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 16-10-1 on the season with a 2.68 GAA and .913 save percentage. Dec. 22 11:43 AM PT12:43 PM MT1:43 PM CT2:43 PM ET19:43 GMT3:43 12:43 PM MST1:43 PM CST2:43 PM EST23:43 UAE14:43 ET17:43 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 34 of 37 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 win over the Flyers on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 15-10-1 on the season with a 2.79 GAA and .908 save percentage. Dec. 20 5:53 PM PT6:53 PM MT7:53 PM CT8:53 PM ET1:53 GMT9:53 6:53 PM MST7:53 PM CST8:53 PM EST5:53 UAE (+1)20:53 ET23:53 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 30 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-1 win over the Devils on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 14-10-1 on the season with a 2.78 GAA and .908 save percentage. Dec. 17 5:33 PM PT6:33 PM MT7:33 PM CT8:33 PM ET1:33 GMT9:33 6:33 PM MST7:33 PM CST8:33 PM EST5:33 UAE (+1)20:33 ET23:33 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 28 shots he faced in the Blue Jackets' 1-0 win over the Golden Knights on Monday for his first shutout of the year. The victory pushed him to 13-10-1 on the season with a 2.86 GAA and .905 save percentage. Dec. 15 5:50 PM PT6:50 PM MT7:50 PM CT8:50 PM ET1:50 GMT9:50 6:50 PM MST7:50 PM CST8:50 PM EST5:50 UAE (+1)20:50 ET23:50 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 20 of 22 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-1 overtime loss to the Ducks on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 12-10-1 on the season with a 2.99 GAA and .901 save percentage. Dec. 13 5:43 PM PT6:43 PM MT7:43 PM CT8:43 PM ET1:43 GMT9:43 6:43 PM MST7:43 PM CST8:43 PM EST5:43 UAE (+1)20:43 ET23:43 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 30 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 win over the Kings on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 12-10-0 on the season with a 3.04 GAA and .901 save percentage. Dec. 8 5:47 PM PT6:47 PM MT7:47 PM CT8:47 PM ET1:47 GMT9:47 6:47 PM MST7:47 PM CST8:47 PM EST5:47 UAE (+1)20:47 ET23:47 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 10 of 13 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-0 loss to the Capitals on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 11-10-0 on the season with a 3.14 GAA and .898 save percentage. Dec. 6 5:44 PM PT6:44 PM MT7:44 PM CT8:44 PM ET1:44 GMT9:44 6:44 PM MST7:44 PM CST8:44 PM EST5:44 UAE (+1)20:44 ET23:44 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 26 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-3 overtime win over the Flyers on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 11-9-0 on the season with a 3.04 GAA and .901 save percentage. Dec. 4 5:45 PM PT6:45 PM MT7:45 PM CT8:45 PM ET1:45 GMT9:45 6:45 PM MST7:45 PM CST8:45 PM EST5:45 UAE (+1)20:45 ET23:45 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 18 of 26 shots in the Blue Jackets' 9-6 loss to the Flames on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 10-9-0 on the season with a 3.04 GAA and .901 save percentage. Dec. 1 5:47 PM PT6:47 PM MT7:47 PM CT8:47 PM ET1:47 GMT9:47 6:47 PM MST7:47 PM CST8:47 PM EST5:47 UAE (+1)20:47 ET23:47 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 26 of 29 shots in the Blue Jackets' 3-2 loss to the Islanders on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 10-8-0 on the season with a 2.72 GAA and .911 save percentage. Nov. 29 5:41 PM PT6:41 PM MT7:41 PM CT8:41 PM ET1:41 GMT9:41 6:41 PM MST7:41 PM CST8:41 PM EST5:41 UAE (+1)20:41 ET23:41 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 25 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 win over the Wild on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 10-7-0 on the season with a 2.70 GAA and .912 save percentage. Nov. 26 6:17 PM PT7:17 PM MT8:17 PM CT9:17 PM ET2:17 GMT10:17 7:17 PM MST8:17 PM CST9:17 PM EST6:17 UAE (+1)21:17 ET0:17 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 of 32 shots in the Blue Jackets' 7-5 win over the Red Wings on Monday. The victory pushed him to 9-7-0 on the season with a 2.75 GAA and .912 save percentage. Nov. 23 5:37 PM PT6:37 PM MT7:37 PM CT8:37 PM ET1:37 GMT9:37 6:37 PM MST7:37 PM CST8:37 PM EST5:37 UAE (+1)20:37 ET23:37 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 32 of 34 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 win over the Maple Leafs on Friday. The victory pushed him to 8-7-0 on the season with a 2.59 GAA and .917 save percentage. Nov. 19 5:45 PM PT6:45 PM MT7:45 PM CT8:45 PM ET1:45 GMT9:45 6:45 PM MST7:45 PM CST8:45 PM EST5:45 UAE (+1)20:45 ET23:45 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 25 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-2 loss to the Maple Leafs on Monday. The defeat dropped him to 7-7-0 on the season with a 2.64 GAA and .915 save percentage. Nov. 17 5:40 PM PT6:40 PM MT7:40 PM CT8:40 PM ET1:40 GMT9:40 6:40 PM MST7:40 PM CST8:40 PM EST5:40 UAE (+1)20:40 ET23:40 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 30 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 win over the Hurricanes on Saturday. The victory pushed him to 7-6-0 on the season with a 2.60 GAA and .917 save percentage. Nov. 15 9:39 AM PT10:39 AM MT11:39 AM CT12:39 PM ET17:39 GMT1:39 10:39 AM MST11:39 AM CST12:39 PM EST21:39 UAE12:39 ET15:39 BRT - Bobrovsky (illness) will play Saturday at Carolina. Analysis: Bobrovsky got off to a slow start, but the two-time Vezina Trophy winner has won three straight outings while stopping 86 of 89 shots. Nov. 12 7:26 PM PT8:26 PM MT9:26 PM CT10:26 PM ET3:26 GMT11:26 8:26 PM MST9:26 PM CST10:26 PM EST7:26 UAE (+1)22:26 ET1:26 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 26 of 27 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-1 win over the Stars on Monday. The victory pushed him to 6-6-0 on the season with a 2.74 GAA and .913 save percentage. Nov. 9 5:57 PM PT6:57 PM MT7:57 PM CT8:57 PM ET1:57 GMT9:57 6:57 PM MST7:57 PM CST8:57 PM EST5:57 UAE (+1)20:57 ET23:57 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 33 of 34 shots in the Blue Jackets' 2-1 win over the Capitals on Friday. The victory pushed him to 5-6-0 on the season with a 2.90 GAA and .909 save percentage. Nov. 6 5:39 PM PT6:39 PM MT7:39 PM CT8:39 PM ET1:39 GMT9:39 6:39 PM MST7:39 PM CST8:39 PM EST5:39 UAE (+1)20:39 ET23:39 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 of 28 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 win over the Stars on Tuesday. The victory pushed him to 4-6-0 on the season with a 3.09 GAA and .902 save percentage. Nov. 4 9:21 PM PT10:21 PM MT11:21 PM CT12:21 AM ET5:21 GMT13:21 10:21 PM MST11:21 PM CST12:21 AM EST9:21 UAE0:21 ET2:21 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 25 of 29 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 loss to the Kings on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 3-6-0 on the season with a 3.33 GAA and .895 save percentage. Nov. 2 9:26 PM PT10:26 PM MT11:26 PM CT12:26 AM ET4:26 GMT12:26 9:26 PM MST10:26 PM CST11:26 PM EST8:26 UAE0:26 ET1:26 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 44 of 45 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 win over the Sharks on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 3-5-0 on the season with a 3.24 GAA and .899 save percentage. Oct. 30 5:45 PM PT6:45 PM MT7:45 PM CT8:45 PM ET0:45 GMT8:45 5:45 PM MST6:45 PM CST7:45 PM EST4:45 UAE (+1)20:45 ET21:45 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 24 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-3 loss to the Red Wings on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 2-5-0 on the season with a 3.58 GAA and .882 save percentage. Oct. 23 5:41 PM PT6:41 PM MT7:41 PM CT8:41 PM ET0:41 GMT8:41 5:41 PM MST6:41 PM CST7:41 PM EST4:41 UAE (+1)20:41 ET21:41 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 26 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 loss to the Coyotes on Tuesday. The defeat dropped him to 2-4-0 on the season with a 3.87 GAA and .872 save percentage. Oct. 20 5:42 PM PT6:42 PM MT7:42 PM CT8:42 PM ET0:42 GMT8:42 5:42 PM MST6:42 PM CST7:42 PM EST4:42 UAE (+1)20:42 ET21:42 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 25 shots in the Blue Jackets' 4-1 loss to the Blackhawks on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 2-3-0 on the season with a 3.84 GAA and .876 save percentage. Oct. 18 5:32 PM PT6:32 PM MT7:32 PM CT8:32 PM ET0:32 GMT8:32 5:32 PM MST6:32 PM CST7:32 PM EST4:32 UAE (+1)20:32 ET21:32 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 32 of 35 shots in the Blue Jackets' 6-3 win over the Flyers on Thursday. The victory pushed him to 2-2-0 on the season with a 4.04 GAA and .875 save percentage. Oct. 13 5:50 PM PT6:50 PM MT7:50 PM CT8:50 PM ET0:50 GMT8:50 5:50 PM MST6:50 PM CST7:50 PM EST4:50 UAE (+1)20:50 ET21:50 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 31 shots in the Blue Jackets' 8-2 loss to the Lightning on Saturday. The defeat dropped him to 1-2-0 on the season with a 4.39 GAA and .860 save percentage. Oct. 9 5:42 PM PT6:42 PM MT7:42 PM CT8:42 PM ET0:42 GMT8:42 5:42 PM MST6:42 PM CST7:42 PM EST4:42 UAE (+1)20:42 ET21:42 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 25 of 27 shots in the Blue Jackets' 5-2 win over the Avalanche on Tuesday. The victory pushed him to 1-1-0 on the season with a 2.53 GAA and .919 save percentage. Oct. 5 5:55 PM PT6:55 PM MT7:55 PM CT8:55 PM ET0:55 GMT8:55 5:55 PM MST6:55 PM CST7:55 PM EST4:55 UAE (+1)20:55 ET21:55 BRT - Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 32 of 35 shots in the Blue Jackets' 3-1 loss to the Hurricanes on Friday. The defeat dropped him to 0-1-0 on the season with a 3.07 GAA and .914 save percentage.

2019-04-21T20:50:37Z

http://scores.torontosun.com/nhl/playerstats.asp?id=4901&amp;team=29

Dale Bruder, President of the Lake Superior Chapter of the Safari Club International (SCI,) understands this fact implicitly. Bruder knows that clean water shortages impact more than just our world’s human residents, but every life on our planet – large and small, two-legged and four-legged. As such, his organization supports several humanitarian efforts that help to bring clean water to those people in need throughout the world, while also advocating for the protection of a spectacular array of wildlife. This weekend, April 11-12, Bruder and his organization will be hosting their 16th Annual Hunter’s Banquet and fundraiser in Hinckley, MN. While he worked to finalize preparations for this event, Bruder sat down with us to share how the humanitarian efforts of the SCI can help save countless lives – and countless species – throughout the world. For our readers that are unfamiliar with the Safari Club International, could you please share a brief summary of your organization and its mission? The Safari Club International (SCI) is the largest organization in the world dedicated to protecting hunters’ rights and traditions, preserving wildlife through good conservation practices, educating our youth and the non-hunting public, and doing humanitarian deeds for the less fortunate. You mention the worldwide humanitarian efforts deployed by the SCI. What types of projects have you seen deployed to date and what type of results have you seen these efforts achieve? Our “Hunters Against Hunger” initiative has provided thousands of pounds of processed venison to the less fortunate so they can eat protein-rich meat. We also have a very active “Make A Wish” type hunting program that is available for disabled and terminally ill children. We support our wounded veterans by helping to fulfill their wishes to go on hunts that they aren’t able to do on their own. Another initiative we are proud to support is the Blue Bag Drop program, where our members that are traveling overseas deliver blue bags filled with health aids for children and adults and items needed for the hungry. Oftentimes these blue bags will include portable water filtration equipment to be brought into those areas where clean water is not always a given. Our store has helped to support the SCI Blue Bag Drops, providing some of the portable water filtration equipment SCI members bring with them on their journeys. How many Blue Bag Drops have been deployed to date – and overall – how many lives have been positively impacted through these efforts? I do not have the exact figure, but it is in the hundreds for the number of bags delivered and in the thousands of lives impacted. [Ed. Note: DiscountFilterStore.com is proud to support the SCI Blue Bag Drops through the donation of portable water filtration equipment, including our Katadyn camping filters. The photo to the left, from a story published in a recent SCI newsletter, shows one of the Blue Bag Drops we supported, in partnership with the Safari Club International, Safari Care Legacy Fund and Global Water Drops. Look closely and you’ll see the Katadyn Vario filter we donated, sitting atop the bag. Clean water is critical for every life on our planet, making it a natural cause for the SCI to align itself with. From your perspective, how would you describe this alignment between protecting clean water and protecting wildlife? They go hand in hand. As you said, clean water is critical for humans and animals alike. Both will drink contaminated water if thirst drives them to it. Then they become ill and that spreads disease and death among their respective species. What type of opportunities would our readers have to become involved with the SCI or to support its humanitarian missions? Go to any local member or local chapter and ask how to become involved. Go to any chapter’s fundraiser and join the organization. There is also a National website to get more information: www.scifirstforhunters.org. Of course, we would also love to see everyone at this weekend’s fundraiser in Hinckley where they can learn about our organization first-hand, in addition to offering the donations that will allow us to continue our good work. For registration information for the 16th annual Hunter’s Banquet and fundraiser, hosted on April 11th – 12th in Hinckley, MN by the Lake Superior Chapter of the SCI, visit this page on the chapter’s website. You may also donate to support the mission of the SCI by visiting their contribution page on their national website. We invite you to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or +1 us on Google+ to be the first to learn about more ways you can support clean water initiatives throughout the world, in addition to being the first to learn about exclusive new deals and products. Such a bold mission requires technology and leadership to match, and for this, Ruffalo hand-picked Chief Scientist, Scott Smith – pictured with Ruffalo above. You are the Chief Scientist for Water Defense, an organization founded by actor Mark Ruffalo. In founding Water Defense, Mark joined Matt Damon – co-founder of Water.org – in leveraging his influence to become a champion for clean water. Why do you feel that clean water is an issue that celebrities like Mark and Matt have become so passionate about? I believe Mark and Matt understand there is one world and one waterway, and we are all connected. If we don’t bring people together to solve water contamination issues, nothing else really matters. Water is one of the biggest resources we take for granted. Without water, life ends. We drink it, bathe in it and cook with it. For something so crucial to our everyday lives, we are doing a poor job in protecting the nation’s waterways. Unfortunately, people learn this lesson the hard way, and we want to educate people to prevent any more needless loss of life. Those who live along the Gulf Coast, in Mayflower, Ark. and most recently in Charleston, W.Va. have experienced this firsthand. Worse is the lack of information and transparency that’s afforded to the public when accidents happen. We still don’t know the long-term effects of fracking and exactly what chemicals and gases are being released from deep below the cap rock of the Earth. Clearly, with the Bakken oil train explosions of Lac-Megantic, Quebec; Aliceville, Ala.; and Casselton, N.D., we have started one of the more risky experiments in North America that will continue to cause tragic loss of human life if we do not develop new protocols and standards for not just understanding what explosive chemicals are being transported, but testing baseline water, which includes cumulative water testing. This is why the issue is so important to all of us, and it’s our mission to inspire people to stand up and take action to demand their right to clean water access. Last month, you and Mark spoke out on behalf of clean water during a talk at Cape Cod Community College. For our readers that were unable to attend, could you please share more about the issues you covered? We unveiled a new project we’re working on with Cape Cod Community College to create new protocols for baseline cumulative water testing that will allow the community to better monitor contaminants that accumulate over time and reduce pollution of Cape Cod’s waters. Cumulative water testing mimics how life interacts with water. For example, a fish does not swim in the water for a split second; a child does not swim in the water for a split second; and people don’t bathe in the water for a split second. This initiative is a perfect example of what we want to replicate in communities throughout the country. All waterways are connected; if there is a spill of Bakken oil in North Dakota that goes into the Missouri river, within seven to 10 days, the contaminated water will be in the Gulf Stream, which then flows up the East Coast to the waters of Cape Cod. Your recent background is as the founder and inventor of OPFLEX Technology, an open cell foam sponge that helps to purify water. What inspired you to dedicate your life to clean water and develop this product, and go on to work with Mark as a part of Water Defense? In 2006, a company I started was wiped out by oil-contaminated 500-year floodwaters in St. Johnsville, N.Y. After experiencing its destructive power, I dedicated my life to developing a simple solution that filters oil from water. This was the inspiration for what became OPFLEX Technology, which removes the oil at the source of contamination and prevent our waterways from being destroyed. Also, while working side by side with fisherman and people in the communities of the Gulf of Mexico during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, I realized the world was relying on instantaneous water testing – taking water samples for a split second from the surface of the water. I found instantaneous water testing was giving false negatives of dangerous oil-related chemicals and started to deploy OPFLEX as an environmental indicator throughout the entire water column – from surface to bottom, where life exists – and found accumulation of previously undetected oil and related chemicals. Upon this discovery, my life changed forever. I realized I had a duty and obligation to inform people about cumulative water testing and what could be done to protect human health and save our waterways. Mark heard of my work on the ground in the Gulf and then in Mayflower, Ark. after the March 2013 ExxonMobil Pegasus pipeline oil spill and specifically asked me to join his organization in the fight for clean water. Needless to say, the decision was easy. OPFLEX [pictured below] has exciting potential to help solve our world’s shortage of clean drinking water. Could you please describe briefly the technology behind OPFLEX and how it works to purify water? OPFLEX is a reuseable foam technology that sits in all levels of the water column and absorbs contaminants through a capillary network of open cells while repelling water. Essentially, the OPFLEX technology is based on biomimicry of human lungs, where the open cells are like the alveoli, effectively acting as a filter and utilizing unprecedented surface area to rapidly filter water. It can be used both for water testing and in cleanup efforts, and OPFLEX technology was the only technology out of 43,000 ideas endorsed, ordered, reordered and recycled by BP in the Gulf oil spill. In fact, this is referenced in a USA Today business section cover story from November 2010. OPFLEX Technology can be used by both companies and consumers alike to detect contamination and prevent our waterways from being contaminated. Cost is oftentimes cited as a major hurdle in when we discuss how to solve global water issues, whether the proposed solution is distribution or purification. How do you envision OPFLEX helping to ease some of the cost issues involved with water purification? What’s great about investing in OPFLEX technology is that it’s reusable, cutting down on long-term costs. You can also use it for both water testing and cleanup, reducing the tools you need to one simple solution. Because of the surface area of OPFLEX, the cost is around $.10 per square foot, even without reuse (so if you use OPFLEX 10 times, the cost goes to $.01 per square foot). Conversely, products that do not effectively filter the water and wind up in landfills cost $2.00 per square foot and cannot be reused. Nearly 300,000 West Virginia residents recently suffered through an unprecedented chemical spill, leaving their tap water unusable. Because so little is known about MCHM, the chemical spilled into the water, we were unable to offer our customers any water filters certified to reduce this contaminant. How would a technology like OPFLEX help to purify water supplies contaminated by – for lack of a better word – the ‘unknown’? We utilized the same lab as the state of West Virginia and detected MCHM at concerning levels within the open cells of OPFLEX deployed in a bathtub in Charleston. The lab verified the efficacy of the OPFLEX technology with control samples, too. It appears the company testing the waters in Charleston did not have technology that could filter the MCHM. We attempted to donate OPFLEX filter bags, but the governor and water company showed no interest, which is unfortunate for the community. However, we don’t ever give up and will keep trying. In addition to West Virginia, there have been several more prominent water contamination issues over the past year, including water that was contaminated by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines to the recent finding of E. Coli in several New York City drinking water tankers. How would a technology like OPFLEX help to purify water in these two types of situations? We continue to develop prototype filtration systems that utilize OPFLEX in different configurations, such as eelgrass and cubes, which have shown preliminary results in their ability to substantially reduce biological oxygen demanders, chemical oxygen demanders, suspended solids and dissolved solids. We are now researching E. coli. Because OPFLEX repels water, the technology can be used in these situations to assist in cleanup efforts by absorbing and removing oil and related non-polar contaminants like a magnet, along with metals due to its molecular structure. Our thanks go out to Scott Smith, Mark Ruffalo and all at Water Defense and OPFLEX for their fight on behalf of clean water. We encourage you to learn more about this fight by watching the video provided by Scott below, sharing more about his history and the founding of OPFLEX.

2019-04-23T21:03:29Z

http://blog.discountfilterstore.com/blog/category/water-quality-interviews/

Note [April 2007]: I stopped updating this page in 2005 as VoiceXML made huge gains and news of SALT began to dry up. Microsoft has since added VoiceXML 2.0/2.1 support to Microsoft Speech Server, joined the VoiceXML Forum, and has successfully completed the Forum's VoiceXML 2.0 platform certification process. And now with its acquisition of TellMe Networks about to be completed, Microsoft stands poised to become the largest VoiceXML company in the world! We used to hear a great deal from the press about a standards battle between SALT and VoiceXML. It made for good copy, but the marketplace reality is that W3C's VoiceXML 2.0 standard predominates. This is most evident when you look at how SALT Forum member companies are behaving -- most are making huge commercial bets on VoiceXML 2.0. The average SALT Forum company is more fervently behind VoiceXML 2.0 than the average VoiceXML Forum member company! Here is a sampling of recent pro-VoiceXML press releases and public statements from SALT Forum companies (www.saltforum.org/members/members.asp). An "n/a" entry means I haven't yet found any publically-available information on the company's usage of VoiceXML or SALT. If you have any corrections or additions, please drop me a line at ferrans at yahoo.com. While I don't explicitly track SALT-only news here, SALT Forum companies make three times as many announcements relating to VoiceXML as they do regarding SALT. "Sharing the risks and rewards of outsourcing" An article on the CRM outsourcing deal (6/2002). "ATR is a leader in the development and adoption of new technology that advances business capability. VxML based speech recognition systems that integrate call centers and other data. With over five years of company history and a proven track record of customer satisfaction, ATR is leading the way to usable, implemented internet and telephony based business solutions." (12/2004). Also have expertise in SALT. n/a: www.aliant.ca web site has no references to SALT or VoiceXML. Are they just monitoring? n/a: No information available for VoiceXML or SALT. Just monitoring? See www.alliance-infotech.com. "BeVocal views VoiceXML 2.0 as the standard that provides a complete solution for developing sophisticated voice applications. The W3C Candidate Release of VoiceXML 2.0 is a significant milestone which is the culmination of actual implementations from W3C member companies and public input. VoiceXML 2.0 is ready for prime-time and widespread adoption. Our developers on BeVocal Café and our hosted customers have seen the benefits of the rapid web-based development and deployment of their voice applications. The simultaneous release of the W3C test suite gives consumers the confidence that VoiceXML 2.0 solutions will have compatibility into the future." -- Ralf I. Pfeiffer, Manager, VoiceXML Technology Group, BeVocal, Inc. (3/2004). VoiceXML Forum Supporter, renewed in 2/2004. Brooktrout buys [VoiceXML media server company] Snowshore (3/2004). Collaborating with VoiceGenie and Bludis to develop a VoiceXML-based voice server (8/2004). Deployment options based on "VoiceXML dial tone" (2003). Have VoiceXML Studio development tool. Note: web site no longer available. (4/2004). OpenVXI open source VoiceXML 2.0 browser (10/2003). Now named GetVocal. They have a "high-density VoiceXML 2.0 platform", the "first VoiceXML 2.0 implementation from a computer telephony provider". "GetVocal is an award winning VoiceXML solution provider - known world-wide for it's proven and pioneering solutions." Edify Received 2003 "Product of the Year" Award from Customer Interaction Solutions. This was for the Edify 8.5 VoiceXML 2.0 browser (12/2003). Edify joins VoiceXML Forum (2/2004). "Edify banks on natural-language apps." "[The] Edify Voice Banking [application] is scalable from 4 to 9,000 ports. Conforming to Voice XML 2.0, it is deployable to a native Edify environment, Edify's VoiceXML, or Voice XML products by Avaya and other vendors. Wahn said that a future release will support Microsoft's speech server." (10/2004). The formerly SALT only enCue Voice.NET Server now describes as supporting VoiceXML, and has a VoiceXML interpreter (9/2004). Envox backing ScanSoft's xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004). Genesys Awarded 2002 "Product of the Year" by Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine. Genesys [VoiceXML] Voice Portal Selected for its Technological Excellence and Vision (1/2003). Product Profile: Genesys Voice Platform. "GVP is based on solid, leading technology." "Genesys has years of experience with VoiceXML, the new de facto standard." (3/2004). "Genesys and IBM to Deliver Enterprise-Wide Speech-Enabled Self-Service Solutions" on IBM WebSphere [VoiceXML] Voice Server (4/2004). Versera Intelligent Communications Environment is architected with Java, Linux, and VoiceXML technologies [no mention of SALT] (8/2004). "Glenayre Announces First Commercial Deployment of New Versera Intelligent Communications Environment." Architected with Java and VoiceXML technologies, Versera ICE enables carriers to consistently live up to their subscribers' expectations -- and even set them -- now and in the future." (9/2004). "We develop open, platform-neutral applications using Vonetix - which allows for application data integration across heterogeneous computing environments. To ensure your competitive advantage, Gold Systems helps you harness the power of Java, XML, VoiceXML, SALT, WAP and others." "Open standards such as VoiceXML are critical to the widespread adoption of interactive media solutions, especially speech technology. The VoiceXML Forum effectively promotes awareness of VoiceXML both as a technology and as a business enabler, is an authoritative source for VoiceXML information and is now driving innovative education and certification programs for both application developers and platform vendors. HP fully supports VoiceXML in its telecom products: our OpenCall Media Platform product is the most complete and mature VoiceXML platform for service provider." -- Dr. Scott McGlashan, Chief Technologist, Interactive Media Products, Hewlett-Packard (9/2003). "HP has invested heavily in VoiceXML technology and the development of a best-of-class platform to support new VoiceXML offerings." "VoiceXML is broadly supported by a majority of vendors. Approximately 80 percent of voice services developers have provided or are currently developing VoiceXML applications, giving service providers a large choice of applications." "VoiceXML 2.0 provides an open standard for writing speech gateways and applications in a truly ubiquitous manner. It also promotes speech as the viable access mechanism for web-based content. HeyAnita’s FreeSpeech Platform Version 4.0 allows companies to develop voice applications in the programming language of their choice while taking advantage of the VoiceXML 2.0 standard to achieve interoperability with leading gateway servers." -- Sanjeev Kuwadekar, CEO, HeyAnita Inc (3/2004). "Hitachi welcomes the collaborative relationships between W3C and VoiceXML Forum. This makes VoiceXML a global standard and we believe it strongly encourages the access to the Internet via voice. We plan to develop voice portal systems for drivers with VoiceXML technologies and also plan to contribute to internationalization issues of VoiceXML as a Japanese company." Note: In July 2002, iBasis sold its IVR hosting business to Convergys, a VoiceXML proponent. VoiceXML Forum Supporter, renewed 2/2004. InfoTalk - Vbrowser Platform: "InfoTalk-vBrowser is a VoiceXML interpreter that is fully integrated with other InfoTalk products to form the InfoTalk-Vbrowser Platform. (9/2004). Intervoice Awarded 2003 "Product of the Year" Award By Technology marketing ZCorporation's Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine. InVision(r) Studio for VoiceXML 2.0 Singled Out for its Technological Excellence and Vision (12/2003). Intervoice 'Opens' Legacy Constraints of Voice Messaging [in VoiceXML] (2/2004). "ScanSoft introduces SpeechPAK 1.0 for utilities". "SpeechPAKs accelerate R.O.I. gains by delivering a fast, high-quality deployment on a variety of VoiceXML 2.0 platforms from industry leaders such as [...] Intervoice [...]" (4/2004). "Intervoice Teams with Apptera to Offer Applications to Financial Services". Intervoice is reselling Apptera's VoiceXML financial application suite. (5/2004). "30-Month Managed Services Order Valued at Approximately $5M; Continuing Partnership With Firm Exemplifies Both Technology and Solutions Reliability and Value" A global financial services firm and existing partner of Intervoice is deploying an Intervoice solution centered on Omvia Voice Framework and a VoiceXML-based Electronic Benefits Transfer system written by Intervoice. This VoiceXML-based system will be used by welfare recipients in 35 states! (10/2004). "Award-Winning Intervoice Customer to Discuss Deployment Success in Joint Presentation at Speech Technology Conference". " Intervoice will showcase its [...] InVision(R) Studio for VoiceXML standards-based development environment" (2/2005). "Intervoice Secures $6M Expansion Order from a European Network Provider for a Voice Portal Solution" The order is an additional Voice Extensible Mark-up Language (VoiceXML)-based extension to the network provider's existing portal as a core element of the Company's Omvia(R) portal offering. The expansion order, totaling nearly 3,000 ports, includes two years of maintenance from Intervoice. (2/2005). "Intervoice Launches New Multimedia Enhanced Services Solution for Network Operators that Delivers Compelling, Innovative Applications to Drive Subscriber Demand" " Built around a powerful core known as Home Zone, Omvia Media Exchange offers an attractive new universe of Voice Extensible Mark-up Language (VoiceXML)-based multimedia applications -- such as voice-navigated messaging, custom ringback tones, email, images and video -- all from a single subscriber mailbox." (2/2005). Kirusa congratulates the W3C and applauds the effort of the Voice Browser Working Group in developing VoiceXML 2.0. Kirusa strongly supports the evolution of the Speech Interface Framework by the W3C and welcomes further standardization efforts to support enriched voice interfaces. This will also have strong implications for multimodal platforms which allow voice and visual interfaces to be integrated to create a very compelling experience for the end user. Kirusa looks forward to supporting the W3C in activities that further this vision. Voxpilot and Kirusa showcase Kirusa's VoiceXML-based SMS multimodal application. The Kirusa application is deployed on VoxPilot's carrier-grade Open Media VoiceXML platform. See ScanSoft (below) for VoiceXML testimonials, products. "As a leading player in speech technologies and voice platforms, Loquendo believes that VoiceXML 2.0 and SRGS 1.0 Recommendations are an essential step forward in promoting the speech application market. Indeed, it will boost the speech market, by enabling service providers, content creators, operators and voice portals to deliver a much richer user experience.Loquendo high-quality, high-performance technologies and platforms power over 2,000,000 calls every day in the telecommunications and enterprise markets throughout the world and guarantee solutions in 15 languages. Loquendo is very pleased to contribute to the development of this specification, and will continue to give a strong support to W3C and VoiceXML Forum activities." -- Daniele Sereno, Vice President Product Engineering, Loquendo (3/2004). Loquendo and MET France realize the CRM voice portal for Marionnaud perfumeries chain [in VoiceXML 2.0] (4/2004). Loquendo Releases VoxNauta Lite 6.0 Software Speech Platform. "VoxNauta Lite 6.0 supports the [...] W3C VoiceXML 2.0 Recommendation" (9/2004). Website proclaims: "Mediaford, VoiceXML and IT Solution Company" on start page. In the About Us section, their business field is "VXML based IVR solutions". They are also "Providing VoiceXML to Korea Telecom". No mention of SALT. (9/2004). AnyModal 4.0 Telephony supports VoiceXML as well as SALT. "The technology is entirely VoiceXML and SALT compliant and can be easily integrated into existing platforms and browsers." "Followap chose NMS as its partner for Voice Conferencing because of [its] easy-to-integrate, scalable and highly flexible Open Access platform with VoiceXML support" n/a: A speech technology company. "Recently launced VoiceNotify outbound hosted notification service." PipeBeach congratulates W3C and the VoiceXML Forum on their co-operation and the rapid release of the working draft of VoiceXML 2.0. Through our CTO, Dr. Scott McGlashan, PipeBeach leads the world-class W3C team producing the VoiceXML standard. We see this standard as a powerful business enabler for the rapid development of interactive speech services, especially innovative voice portals for the mobile user. The PipeBeach speechWeb platform provides multi-lingual support and we are proud to be the world's first to release a carrier-grade VoiceXML 2.0 platform with support for a number of European languages. SandCherry introduces Voice4 VoiceXML solutions. "Voice4 platform solutions combine SandCherry's advanced VoiceXML (VXML) browser and SoftServer™ platform with speech technology components from leading vendors." These VoiceXML solutions are for touch-tone, IVR, two-way radio, and multimodal platforms, and for finance, healthcare, transport, retail, and utilities. (9/2004). n/a: Some activity on mail groups giving advice on VoiceXML. No mentions of VoiceXML or of SALT. Purchased Phillips Speech, Lobby7, SpeechWorks: See Founder's section for VoiceXML testimonials and products. Openscape voice platform. Supports both VoiceXML 2.0 and SALT, comes with Siemens applications, all written in VoiceXML (4/2003). Have VoiceXML-based high-density media server for telecoms customers (2/2004). Bought by Brooktrout (3/2004). See Brooktrout for more entries. Microsoft Speech Server PIN reset application (3/2004). "TuVox and Softel Partner to Provide VXML and SALT Enabled Packaged Speech Applications" Softel backing ScanSoft's xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004). An analysis of their skills matrix shows that their applications run on a wide variety of VoiceXML platforms, such as those from Avaya, Cisco, Edify, Genesys, IBM, and Nortel. (12/2004). "As a member of the Voice Browser Working Group, Telera has been instrumental in the evolution of the standard. Telera is excited to see the general release of the VoiceXML 2.0 Working Draft, enabling the proliferation of the standard and accelerating the adoption of VoiceXML. Telera continues to support the efforts of the Working Group by influencing further innovation of the standard." "Telera is a VoiceXML middleware maker and host. Its carrier-class Web Application Platform is a collection of software components targeted for generic servers and telephony cards (read Intel/Dialogic). The Voice Web CO module controls media translation and speech processing (both Speechworks and Nuance grammars). It is also the home of its version 2.0 VoiceXML interpreter." (2/2002). Partners with VoiceGenie to add VoiceXML 2.0 to TEN Voice Services Platform (7/2002). "Through the efforts of W3C and the VoiceXML Forum, Unisys believes that VoiceXML will spearhead voice-enabling the Web. The exciting opportunities afforded by VoiceXML complement the Unisys strategy to provide open speech-enabled solutions to customers worldwide. Unisys is engaged in VoiceXML projects across the globe, including voice portal solutions, supported by a strong team of professional services experts and enabling technologies." Unisys backing ScanSoft's xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004). "Five years ago, we launched the VoiceXML Forum with the goals of making voice applications easier to develop and less expensive to deploy by leveraging existing internet standards and infrastructure. Today, as VoiceXML 2.0 becomes a W3C Recommendation, we see widespread adoption of the new standard, sparking a level of innovation in applications never before seen in telephony. At Vocalocity, we have designed and deployed a highly customizable and extensible software platform that would not have been possible without standards like VoiceXML 2.0. As a result, our OEM and System Integrator customers enjoy lower costs and more efficient use of their resources." -- Ken Rehor, Chief Architect, Vocalocity; Co-Editor, VoiceXML 2.0; and Member of Founding Team, VoiceXML Forum (3/2004). Voice Gateway 2.0 supports VoiceXML 2.0. "Excel and Vocalocity Redefine Performance and Price Expectations for Large-Scale VoiceXML Deployments" (6/2004). Vocalocity's Ken Rehor elected to Vice Chair of the VoiceXML Forum (8/2004). "ScanSoft Selects Vocalocity to Advance Adoption of Open Source VoiceXML Interpreter - OpenVXI" (8/2004). Vocalocity's John Hibel talks about OpenVXI and VoiceXML: "In just a few short years we’ve seen an astounding adoption rate for VoiceXML". (8/2004). Using our innovative developer tools, our customers leverage their existing wireless, multimodal and telephony hosting (IVR/VRU) platforms to create and deploy VoiceXML and SALT content" www.voicewebsolutions.net (4/2004). "Voice Genie Technologies congratulates those who worked so hard to put together this important MoU between the W3C and the VoiceXML Forum regarding a unified VoiceXML standard. The involvement of the W3C and the continued involvement of the VoiceXML forum will ensure that the standard continues to strengthen and avoids fragmentation which could lead to confusion in the minds of our customers. A strong VoiceXML standard will ensure the blossoming of the voice content market and energize this emerging industry. VoiceGenie, with its industry leading VoiceXML gateway, is fully committed to the success of the VoiceXML standard and the benefits it will bring to consumers." "VoiceGenie Technologies is delighted that the VoiceXML 2.0 Specification has achieved full W3C Recommendation status, and applauds the diligence of the contributors to this effort. As a participant in the W3C Voice Browser and Multimodal Interaction Working Groups, and as a board member of the VoiceXML Forum, VoiceGenie remains strongly commited to the support of open standards such as VoiceXML 2.0, SRGS and SSML. The VoiceGenie framework provides complete support for VoiceXML 2.0 and integrates a selection of industry-leading ASR and TTS resources. World-class customers including AT&T, Verizon, Oracle, Scotiabank and hundreds of others have selected the VoiceGenie framework for critical applications including customer care, directory assistance automation, retail services, voice activated dialing and more. VoiceGenie fully supports the work of the W3C and the VoiceXML Forum, and looks forward to continued rapid growth in the deployment of applications based on the open standards delivered to industry by the W3C." -- Stuart Berkowitz, President and CEO, VoiceGenie Technologies. (3/2004). "ScanSoft introduces SpeechPAK 1.0 for utilities". "SpeechPAKs accelerate R.O.I. gains by delivering a fast, high-quality deployment on a variety of VoiceXML 2.0 platforms from industry leaders such as [...] VoiceGenie [...]" (4/2004). VoiceGenie backing ScanSoft's xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004). Focuses on both VoiceXML and SALT solutions (9/2004). VoiceObjects and VoicInt Sign Agreement [regarding VoiceObjects' VoiceXML application framework]. (12/2004). "The release of the W3C VoiceXML 2.0 specification is another significant milestone in the explosive growth of VoiceXML. Prior to VoiceXML, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platforms were proprietary IT islands - disconnected from mainstream IT infrastructure. VoiceXML and the W3C CCXML standard efforts bring IVR into the world of modern, integrated IT solutions. As a result of this progress, over 200 enterprise customers have already replaced proprietary IVR platforms with Voxeo VoiceCenter VoiceXML and CCXML platforms and hosting services." -- Jonathan Taylor, President and CEO, Voxeo Corporation (3/2004). "VoxSurf strongly supports the standardisation of voice technologies by the W3C and in particular W3C's work on the VoiceXML 2.0 standard. We see this as key to the development of the next generation of telephone based web applications which are independent of proprietary hardware and software configurations. VoxSurf is committed to the use of VoiceXML, having recently released a fully VoiceXML compliant Unified Messaging application which combines voicemail with the ability to access multiple email accounts from any phone using voice" commands, as well as providing access via WAP and iMode devices. "VoxSurf was the first company to realize the importance of the VoiceXML standard in the mobile messaging marketplace and in particular its role in Next Generation Voicemail and in general the future success of IP based messaging services - we are a market leader in the implementation of open speech technology in the field of messaging." "ScanSoft introduces SpeechPAK 1.0 for utilities". "SpeechPAKs accelerate R.O.I. gains by delivering a fast, high-quality deployment on a variety of VoiceXML 2.0 platforms from industry leaders such as [...] West Interactive [...]" (4/2004). West's Bruce Pollock elected to Chair of the VoiceXML Forum (8/2004). West backing ScanSoft's xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004). "The ability to develop interactive voice applications using the W3C Voice Browser Working Group's recommendations [VoiceXML 2.0, SRGS, SSML] will contribute to further growth in the rapidly expanding VoIP market and will enable the delivery of innovative value-added communication services over a single packet network." Cisco Expands Customer Contact Portfolio. The Internet Service Node is a voice portal that drives apps written in VoiceXML (3/2004). "ScanSoft introduces SpeechPAK 1.0 for utilities". "SpeechPAKs accelerate R.O.I. gains by delivering a fast, high-quality deployment on a variety of VoiceXML 2.0 platforms from industry leaders such as [...] Cisco [...]" (4/2004). Cisco Targets CRM Integration. "The company plans to release Customer Voice Portal Version 3.0 at the end of the year. [...] The CVP supports speech-enabled and touch-tone applications that can be integrated with back-end data and business rules accessible through the Web, using Java 2 Enterprise Edition and VoiceXML standards. [...] The CVP provides a VoiceXML based IVR and the ability to create a unified virtual contact center using an IP-based network to integrate the technologies." No mentions of SALT. (10/2004). Cisco backing ScanSoft's xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004). Cisco and IBM Target Speech-Enabled Contact Centers. "IBM and Cisco plan to launch a joint speech-enabled solution set later this year [...] The two companies plan to provide a joint service using IBM's WebSphere Voice Server for Multiplatforms middleware and Cisco's Customer Voice Portal (CVP), which converts PSTN and IP-based telephone calls into VoiceXML events and documents." "The voice portal--with its natural voice user interface--provides subscribers quick and easy access to content and services through their mobile phone. The VoiceXML standard is key to accelerating the growth of this worldwide market. As such, Comverse is strongly committed to VoiceXML as a key element of our strategy to deliver complete voice portal solutions to network operators." Comverse and Angel.com form partnership for business productivity services suite to run on Comverse Media Server. (9/2003). "VoiceXML and related tools for developing VoiceXML applications will enable web developers to easily voice enable their e-business websites without the use of cumbersome, proprietary IVR equipment. Intel supports VoiceXML 2.0 and its related speech synthesis and speech grammar markup language standards as defined by W3C to foster continued development of innovative voice web applications." "VoiceXML Solution from VoiceGenie and Intel Delivers Open, Standards-Based Voice Services Platform" (6/2004). Microsoft Speech Server 2004 supports SALT only. "VXML is just not technically good enough and it doesn't matter what you do. You can beat a dead horse for a long time but no matter how you beat it is still dead," Huang said. "Philips Speech Processing is pleased with the progress on developing the VoiceXML standard. As a leader in speech recognition technology, Philips appreciates all advances that enable people to use their voices as an interface." "SPWX is extremely pleased with the publication of the VoiceXML 2.0 spec and congratulates W3C on a landmark achievement. As a key contributor to the 2.0 specification, SPWX is committed to evolving the standard and delivering products, like the VoiceXML-optimized OpenSpeech line, as well as services and programs that bring the powerful benefits of VoiceXML to a global customer base. This much-anticipated standard heralds unprecedented portability of speech applications and creates new opportunities and growth for all who embrace it." "ScanSoft congratulates the W3C Voice Browser Working Group on reaching the Recommendation milestone for VoiceXML 2.0. It is clear that these developing standards are integral to the development of advanced technologies that change the way we communicate, from interactive voice response solutions to in-vehicle automotive applications. Businesses and consumers alike will benefit from the VoiceXML-based speech-enabled applications. ScanSoft is committed to VoiceXML and the W3C processes for standardization. Our SpeechWorks Family of ASR, TTS, and dialog solutions are uniquely optimized to support VoiceXML 2.0 and enable our partners to deliver industry-leading platforms, solutions,and services that are revolutionizing the business of speech." -- Steve Chambers, Senior Vice President and General Manager Network, Speech Solutions, ScanSoft (3/2004). "ScanSoft wins prestigious speech industry award for `Best Packaged Application' from AVIOS". "With SpeechPAKs, healthcare organizations can rapidly deploy speech applications on a variety of VoiceXML 2.0 platforms." (4/2004). "ScanSoft introduces SpeechPAK 1.0 for utilities". "SpeechPAKs accelerate R.O.I. gains by delivering a fast, high-quality deployment on a variety of VoiceXML 2.0 platforms from industry leaders such as Aspect, Avaya, Cisco, Edify, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Intervoice, Nortel Networks, VoiceGenie Technologies and West Interactive." (4/2004). "ScanSoft Releases OpenSpeech DialogModules 2.0 to Accelerate Deployment of Powerful Speech Applications". "The first standards-based VoiceXML building blocks available on the market, OpenSpeech DialogModules free software developers from programming frequently occurring speech recognition tasks in new speech applications. When used in conjunction with OpenSpeech(TM) Recognizer 3.0, OpenSpeech DialogModules provide leading recognition accuracy, efficiency, and caller satisfaction on the industry's broadest selection of telephony platforms." (6/2004). "ScanSoft Introduces OpenSpeech Attendant, a Field-Proven Auto-Attendant Application for VoiceXML-Based Telephony Platform Providers." (6/2004). "Frost & Sullivan Names ScanSoft Leader in Asia Pacific Speech Recognition Market for Second Year." ScanSoft announces xHMI tooling initiative, "an XML-based dialog configuration language for advanced speech applications", "leveraging existing industry standards such as VoiceXML and CCXML" (11/2004).

2019-04-22T10:04:03Z

http://ferrans.com/voicexml/salt-and-voicexml/saltforum_companies.html

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2019-04-22T16:16:13Z

https://royaldumpster.com/indiana/20-yard-dumpster-rentals-new-lisbon-in/

The Third CIFTIS focused on further opening up of the service industry with 133 events in forms of exhibitions, forums, business talks and trade. 153,000 people from 117 countries and regions were invited or attracted to the fair, among which, 145,000 of them were professional merchants and the total area for conferences and exhibition were 50,000 square meters. Vice-Premier of the State Council, Wang Yang paid a pavilion visit at the CIFTIS and sent a written address to the summit; Zhang Baowen, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, attended the summit and delivered a speech; Solvita Aboltina, Chairperson of the Parliament of Latvia, also attended and addressed the summit. The Third CIFTIS highly showcased the newest achievements in trade in services of China and other countries and regions that had attended the fair. Discussion and exchange about the new development trend and hotpots of trade in services, having promoted matching business talks, trade and cooperation among companies home and abroad. 1. Its growth is increasingly reflected. For one thing, the quality and quantity of exhibitors were both improved. In total,there were 2，524 companies registered and attended the fair, increasing by 33% compared with the year before, among which, there were 210 overseas professional buyers. It was the first time that there were exhibitors from both countries and regions of the global trade in services top 20 joining the CIFTIS. For another thing, the signed projects were greatly more internationalized, which generated more prominent driving effects on the trade in services across China. Intentioned signing projects accounted for 43.3%, increased by 21 percentage points compared with last year, indicating that the contribution of CIFTIS on promoting companies’ cooperation in global trade in services. Except for Beijing, intentioned signing projects of other provinces and municipalities took up 42%, raised by 21 percentage points from that of the year before. It is more evident for the contributions of the CIFTIS to the development of the trade in services in China. In addition, expansion and upgrading have been achieved in exhibition introduced from other countries. The two major international famed exhibitions introduced by CIFTIS has achieved upgrading with it. “Stories-Driven China” was upgraded to “Stories-Driven Asia” and “Smart City China” turned into “Smart City Asia”. 2. Its attraction is increasing year by year. Firstly, the cooperation with three major international organizations is further enhanced. Cooperation with the permanent supporters including WTO, UNCTAD, OECD is increasingly more pragmatic. A working mechanism that the CIFTIS co-organizes high-level forums with one of its permanent supporters every session has preliminarily formed. Secondly, increasingly more international organizations are attracted to join the fair. International Trade Centre expressed its strong will to cooperate with CIFTIS and World Trade Point Federation has sent a delegation to CIFTIS and set its secretariat in Beijing continuously for three years. 21 international industrial organizations and overseas business associations participated in the fair, which was ten more than that of the year before. Thirdly, more strong countries and regions of trade in services participated in the fair. Specifically, 55 countries and regions have participated in the CIFTIS for continued three times, among which, 18 is in the list of global top 20 in trade in services. 8 overseas countries and regions including Britain, Singapore, Japan and Korea have sent their delegations to join in the fair for continued three sessions. Fourthly, many famed companies home and abroad have become the regular guests of the CIFTIS, and prestigious companies like Siemens, Carrefour, China Post, JD.com and Tongrentang have joined the fair for three sessions continuously. 3. The timeliness is increasingly improved. Focusing on the demand of exhibitors and buyers, the CIFTIS takes active measures to explore development pattern of trade in services, promote smart management of exhibition venues and menu management of on-site service, schematize exhibition and presentation, standardize business talks and trade, implement green management of the exhibition and advance online and offline interaction, continuously improving service quality of CIFTIS. According to the online and offline e-commerce mode, online trade matching system was put forward for the first time, specifically, a trade hall of 3500 square meters was set on site, and companies can find the proper potential partner online and then have one-to-one match offline according to the process of “businessmen registration, application to match, matching confirm and offline business talks. In total, 682 companies and 159,6 people took in-depth business talks and most of them benefited a lot from it. 4. It gets increasingly more attention. In the media circle, there were 262 media outlets and 1,437 journalists having done a news report about the fair with 908 original news reports, 4,331 reprinted ones, about 150,000 Weibo topics and 750,000 pieces of information about CIFTIS. In website attention data, there were 2.815 million visits, among which, there were 1.4324 million visits on its website of other languages, accounting for 47% and the number of visits to its websites in languages of Spanish and Russian, French, Arabic, Korean and Japanese amounted to 140,000. And in the exhibition field, each professional conference was packed. Participants of the 2014 China-Beijing E-Commerce Conference, China Express Industrial (International) Development Conference, and China’s International Exhibition Industry Development Conference far outnumbered the registrant. 1. The CIFTIS expressed China’s commitment to the opening up of service industry. CIFTIS Organizing Committee and OECD co-held the Summit with the theme of “the Role of Trade in Services in Global Value Chain”. Vice Premier Wang Yang sent a written address to the summit, which clearly presented the international community with Chinese government’s confidence and determination to firmly promote the service industry opening up. Zhang Baowen, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, stressed that China would achieve a greater degree of penetration into the global service-oriented value chain via the opening up of service industry. UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi pointed out that Vice Premier Wang Yang’s speech clearly demonstrated that, “The Chinese Government has showed its determination and made a promise to further open the service market, which represents the government has grasped the critical point of the future economic development. William Danvers, Deputy Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, noted that “Vice Premier Wang Yang’s speech makes me feel the determination of Chinese government to reform the service industry and seek the global leadership in this field”, and “the government has put the industry on a critical position in the holistic reform”. The confidence of the outside world on our efforts to promote further opening up of service industry and sustainable economic development has been enhanced through the successful CIFTIS Summit and professional conferences. 2. It expanded the breadth and depth of international cooperation on trade in services. The CIFTIS of this year further enhanced the exchange and cooperation among different countries, international organizations and trade association with 91 dignitaries of different countries, ministers, and ambassadors to China, heads of international organizations, trade associations and international companies attending the third CIFTIS. It was continued to hold the WTO & China: Beijing International Forum and UN Procurement Presentation. Officials from World Trade Point Federation, International Trade Centre, International Centre for Trade and Development attended the fair’s activities. International Designers Federation, International trade guilds and overseas trade societies including Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, European E-Commerce Association and Brazil Service Industry Federation sent their delegations to join the fair. 17 foreign countries and regions like Britain, Germany, Singapore, ROK and India also sent their delegations to the fair, with 6 of the global top 10 of trade in services join the CIFTIS; 12 foreign countries and regions held their theme day and special activities, promoting exchange and cooperation in culture creativity, information technology and tourism service. 3. It has promoted the integration among different sectors and the transformation development of service industry. The CIFTIS emphasized the innovation fruits of trade in services and discussed the development trend of the global service industry. It not only provided opportunities for the integrating development among different industries but also facilitating the connection between the service industry and other connections. The stories-driven conferences told and sold stories, presenting the core content via books, games, films, cartoons and electronic publications to improve trans-media, trans-cultural and trans-regional exchange. The E-Commerce Conference, with the theme of “Cross-Border Integration · Innovative Development” invited heads of e-commerce companies home and abroad to discuss how to achieve cross-border integration of e-commerce. The sports service part focused on the matching and cooperative activities between sports and new media & capital market and organized related seminars and promotion activities, advancing the sports trade in services. 4. The CIFTIS facilitated the pragmatic cooperation and matching trade among companies. During the session, there were about 4000 professional businessmen from scientific service, environmental service, convention and exhibition service, sports service, TCM service and cultural trade in services tapped into business talks. Digital Content Business Convention of CIFTIS received 2,000 professional visitors, finishing 350 times of one-to-one business talks with 2.06 billion Yuan of cooperative intentioned projects. About 400 companies attended the OTO E-Commerce Model Symposium and achieved an intended-contract value of 50 billion Yuan. International Sports Services Trade Conference facilitated the successful achievements of 33 signed contracts in sports trade including “2014 France Champion's Trophy”, “2014 Red Bull Flying World Championships” and “Letv purchasing the NBA broadcasting right”.

2019-04-22T20:40:52Z

http://en.ciftis.org/index.php/index-show-tid-286.html

In recent years the Sudan government has been responsible for pouring weapons into Darfur at a time when territorial and environmental tensions were already high. Rather than encourage and supervise resolutions to these issues the government has chosen to inflame ethnic and racial divisions in the region. The well-known devastation created by this policy has a precedent in British activities in the region in 1915-16 as part of the buildup to the Anglo-Egyptian invasion that brought the independent Sultanate of Darfur under the control of the Khartoum government. Darfur's independence was first shattered by an invasion led by the powerful slave-trader and freebooter Zubayr Pasha in 1874. Zubayr's conquest was quickly taken from him by the Turko-Egyptian government, which controlled the rest of the Sudan at the time. The Egyptians in turn were expelled by the forces of the Mahdi, whose Islamic movement took control of most of the country except for a small strip of the Red Sea coast. After the Mahdist government of Sudan was crushed at Omdurman by the British-led Egyptian Army in 1898 a so-called British-Egyptian Condominium government was created to administer the Sudan. Though a partnership in theory, government decisions were made exclusively by the senior partner, the British. Units of Sudanese and Egyptian troops were available to enforce the government's writ, but the senior officers were all British soldiers on loan to the Egyptian Army. The Governor General of the Sudan was also exclusively British, creating friction with Egyptian nationalists who justifiably questioned the balance of this 'partnership'. Added to this were civilians of the Sudan Political Service, powerful and independent men who often worked in isolation from other Europeans for long stretches of time. Almost exclusively drawn from Oxford and Cambridge universities, they were fluent in Arabic and expected to make most decisions in the field without having to refer everything to the Governor General in Khartoum. For over five decades this low-cost and, indeed, low-interest, form of administration worked surprisingly well, in large part because of British willingness to apply overwhelming force to any sign of defiance, especially in the early days of the Condominium. Darfur remained outside the Condominium. It had been intended that it would form part of the Sudan in 1898, but a member of the Fur royal family, 'Ali Dinar, beat the British back to the capital of al-Fashir after the battle of Omdurman, deposing a British-supported pretender while re-establishing the Fur Kingdom. The British recognized 'Ali Dinar as sovereign of distant Darfur in exchange for an annual tribute and a nominal acceptance of the Sudan Government as the suzerain power. Most of the British inspectors were trained in Arab language and culture, and had little sympathy for what they saw as backwards and ignorant Black Africans, regardless of their skills or achievements. For the Fur these achievements were considerable. For three centuries they had ruled a prosperous trading nation with a rich culture, building political unity from a nearly impossible ethnic and linguistic diversity. The Arabs were never enthusiastic about Fur rule, but the centralized authority of the region created a tense but workable relationship between the tribes and the Sultan, who had recourse to a large professional army. Tribute was usually paid, and a degree of order prevailed between African and Arab tribes who might otherwise raid each other to their mutual impoverishment. What had changed by the late 19th century was the encroachment of European imperialists, the French to the West, and the British to the East. The Arab leaders realized that they now had a new card to play by manipulating this presence to their advantage. A similar phenomenon occurred in the Sultanate of Dar Sila on Darfur's western border, where the nomadic Arab tribes besieged the French with complaints about the 'African' Sultan Bakhit. The Sudan government's relationship with Darfur began to change in 1914, when the British became interested in using the Arabs against the African tribes who dominated Darfur. The security of the Darfur border region was placed in the hands of one of the Sultan's most trusted lieutenants, Khalil 'Abd ar-Rahman. Determined to put an end to the insolence of the Arabs, Khalil pursued an active policy of force against the tribes, creating an incident in 1913 when he attacked a large party of Zaiyadia Arabs fleeing the Sultan's troops. The attack took place on the Kordofan (Sudanese) side of the border, causing a great deal of anxiety amongst the handful of British administrators who regarded this as a direct challenge to government authority in the region. The problem was that there was no uniform policy in dealing with the Arab tribes, especially those that routinely crossed the border to seek refuge from the Sultan or the Khartoum government, depending on the circumstances. The generally pro-Arab inspectors were divided on the timing and degree of support to be offered to the Arabs, while the Inspector-General, Rudolf von Slatin Pasha (who knew 'Ali Dinar from their mutual captivity in Omdurman during the days of the Mahdist government) favoured a conciliatory relationship with the Sultan. Before the Mahdist revolution Slatin had been governor of Darfur in the old Turko-Egyptian regime. Under the Condominium government Slatin was given nearly total control over the nomadic tribes and the appointment of their leaders, mostly men known personally by Slatin and regarded by him as loyal to the government. With the outbreak of a European war in August 1914, the Austrian-born Slatin was expelled from the Sudan as a security risk despite having been a member of the Egyptian Army since 1879. No European had such intimate knowledge of the peoples of Darfur as Slatin. Tribal policy in the western Sudan now passed into the hands of less-experienced British officials. In November 1914 the Ottoman government declared war on the Allied Powers, followed soon after by a declaration of jihad for all Muslims by Ottoman Sultan Muhammad Rashad V in his role as Caliph of Islam. From this point on a religious dimension emerged in the deteriorating relations between 'Ali Dinar and the Khartoum government. Governor-General Wingate (an experienced intelligence hand in the Egyptian Army) began to make funds available to the Kordofan inspectors to mount espionage and other secret operations against Darfur. The Ottoman Sultan's proclamation of jihad had no impact on the Arabs of Darfur. The bitter legacy of the Turko-Egyptian 19th century occupation of the region meant that the Arabs had no interest in supporting the Ottomans. The survival and growth of the tribe remained paramount, and the key to this was seen to be cooperation with the British. With the Kababish Arabs raiding the eastern frontier of Darfur in 1915 the Sultan appealed to the Government for arms and ammunition to defend his territory, a natural request to make of the suzerain power. The Kordofan-based Kababish were the largest nomadic tribe in the Sudan. In 1911 they had been bold enough to strike into western Darfur to raid one of the Sultan's own caravans carrying a large shipment of arms. The tribe's loyalty was more important to the Khartoum government than 'Ali Dinar's satisfaction, so the Sultan's request for arms was denied. In the end the British relented to sending 1,000 rounds, a ridiculously small amount. Larger considerations were at play here; 'Ali Dinar had for years battled French encroachment on his western border and had repeatedly requested arms from the government, only to be denied in every case. The British did not wish to create an incident with their wartime French allies by giving a Fur army the means of defeating a French expedition. The British and the French had already been negotiating the limits of the western border of Darfur before the war, but put off a decision until the war was over. By May 1915 'Ali Dinar was sending threatening letters to the leader of the Kababish Arabs. He accused them of joining the infidels but suggested they follow the path of jihad instead. The Kababish chief, 'Ali al-Tum, immediately dumped the letters on the closest British inspector with a warning that the government should take care of this 'fanatic'. The British inspectors in Kordofan now began to realize the thinness of their rule, and broached the idea of a preemptory invasion of Darfur. Governor-General Wingate and most of his fellow officers in the Sudan were refused in their applications to transfer to the fighting on the Western Front on the grounds of their experience and irreplaceability in the Sudan. These were all professional soldiers who began to realize that their own efficiency in keeping Sudan quiet during the war was cutting them out of the opportunities for promotion and decorations they could get in Europe. Once planted, the idea of creating a new battleground for the Great War began to take on steam. Rumours of German officers in al-Fashir and diabolical cruelties committed by the Sultan began to circulate. Eventually these rumours and other fantasies were all packed off to London labeled 'Intelligence'. Normally Arab complaints of the Sultan's hostility were grounded in the Arab tribes' own prevarication in paying the annual tribute. Therefore the Government usually responded with a few words of sympathy and a suggestion to pay the tribute more promptly. In July 1915 the Governor-General instructed his agents to advise Musa Madibbu, chief of the Rizayqat tribe, to avoid paying the tribute, advice sure to result in fighting. It was thought that any government invasion of Darfur would benefit greatly from having the Sultan's army 'embroiled with the Rizayqat'. Wingate, whose experience in intelligence work included what may be called 'dirty tricks', suggested that in his correspondence with the Sultan, Madibbu should name any supporters of 'Ali Dinar in his own tribe as the individuals preventing him from collecting the tribute. Musa Madibbu was interested in enlisting the aid of the Sudan Government in a growing struggle between his tribe and the Fur Sultan. In 1913 the Rizayqat had narrowly beaten a Fur punitive expedition, but losses were heavy and Madibbu did not believe the Rizayqat could duplicate their win. In September 1915 British Inspector John Bassett offered to loan the Rizayqat arms and ammunition to defend themselves from the Sultan. The total amount came to 300 rifles and 30,000 rounds, enough to turn the Rizayqat into potent challengers to Fur rule. In December a similar loan of 200 rifles and ammunition was made to 'Ali al-Tum and the Kababish. Musa Madibbu had no intention of taking on the Sultan himself, however, and wrote to the Government that 'we are poor Arabs and have no power to resist this man'. By this point both the Arabs and the Government were trying to manipulate each other. The dispute grew as the Sultan sent Musa Madibbu a pair of sandals to run away with, while Musa replied that he would soon be watering his horses at the Sultan's capital of al-Fashir. The new Government policy was a reversal of its long-standing efforts to disarm the Arab tribes of Kordofan. The region was still awash with 35-year old rifles seized by Mahdist fighters from the ill-fated Hicks Pasha expedition of 1883, but many of these had lost their sights or seen their barrels sawed off to make them easier to carry. Even those still intact commonly used pebbles for ammunition in lead-poor Sudan. The supply of modern weapons and ample ammunition was a dramatic change to the strategic situation in Darfur. By April 1916 460 Arabs of the Kababish, Kawahla, and other Arab tribes had been deployed in a string of eight posts along the Darfur frontier. All were armed and paid by the Government. The Arabs were ordered to carry out scouting forays into Darfur, but, as one inspector wryly put it, 'their vigorous interpretation of the term reconnaissance' took them some 300 miles right across Darfur. The new British-supplied weapons were used by the Arabs to attack their old rivals in French territory, the Bidayat and the Gura'an. There were suggestions that a Government man be sent to the Arabs to reign in their excesses, but eventually it was decided it was better to look the other way, as a government representative would simply be a witness to 'enormities' that he could do nothing to prevent. We beg to inform Your Majesty that the Moslems who have abandoned Islam and embraced Christianity have been punished in a miraculous way never heard of on this earth – except during the time of the Prophets… It fell on a tribe called Rizeigat, subjects of ours who had abandoned the light of Islam and followed the advice of the Christians, the dogs – The heaven rained fire on them and they ran to the river and diving therein, turned into black coal – In another place Heaven rained red blood. 'Ali Dinar failed to meet the British at the border with his army, fearing that if he moved his troops up, Musa Madibbu would sweep in behind him and loot al-Fashir (presumably with those Rizayqat who had not been turned into coal). The Sultan now took on a more friendly tone in his communications with the Rizayqat chieftain. The Sultan announced that he was satisfied with Musa, and in a mix of threat and encouragement informed the Arab chief that the Fur army had already met the Anglo-Egyptian invasion force, and that though each of his men was hit at least ten times by the infidels' bullets, there were no injuries. In May 1916 the Sultan's army was defeated at the battle of Birinjia, followed several months later by the Sultan's own death at the hands of an Anglo-Egyptian mounted infantry task force. While this put an end to Fur resistance the nomads of Darfur were just getting started. By the middle of 1916 the nomadic African Bidayat, Gura'an and Zaghawa tribes were all raiding from French territory into northwest Darfur. 'Ali al-Tum led the Kababish against the Berti in northern Darfur, defeating them and seizing their herds on the pretext that they were 'enemies of the government'. From there they turned to raiding Dar Zaghawa (a territory straddling the Chad/Darfur border). At the same time the Bani Halba of southern Darfur were looting herds without any concern for whether their owners were pro or anti government. In October a raiding party of 200 Kababish was in the Ennedi region (modern north Chad) seizing women and children. In retaliation the Bidayat and Gura'an raided the Arabs of northern Darfur in November, then turned south to take 3,500 head of cattle and 50 women and children from the Fur. In December, 1916, a column of the Egyptian Army Camel Corps was sent to northwest Darfur to cooperate with French units against the Bidayat and the Gura'an. The provision of arms had unleashed a storm of retaliatory violence that the government had great difficulty reigning in over the next several years. The Darfur campaign never achieved recognition as part of the Great War. This was a great disappointment to the expedition's British officers, but designation as a part of the World War meant that London would be responsible for the costs of the conquest. Although the invasion was justified as a strike against German and Ottoman forces in Africa, the conflict received the official designation 'Patrol 16 of the Egyptian Army' making it a purely local affair. This revisionist slight of hand allowed the entire bill to be sent to Cairo instead. In the end, the Arab tribes contributed almost nothing to the conquest of Darfur. The violence of raid and counter-raid swept across northern Darfur long after the campaign of 1916. Even the Great War had come to an end by the time French and British colonial officials cooperated to bring an end to the destruction of life and property. Like the current situation in Darfur the Sudan government had introduced modern arms into the region while aggravating ethnic and territorial conflicts that were usually resolved by traditional methods of conciliation. As the chaos spiraled out of control the colonial government (like today's regime in Khartoum) chose to disclaim any responsibility. Unfortunately the lessons of history have little attraction for today's policy-makers. . So-called since the entire ruling class of Egypt at the time was composed of Turks, Circassians, and other races of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish rather than Arabic was the language of both the elite and the military. . I have used the term 'Fur army' in this paper in reference to the Sultans's forces, but the army was in fact composed of many different tribes and ethnic groups. The two senior commanders were both slaves from the southern hinterland, named Sulayman and Ramadan. McGregor, Andrew: A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War , Praeger Security International (Greenwood Press), Westport Conn, 2006. Prunier, Gérard: Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide , Hurst & Co., London, 2005. Theobald, AB: 'Ali Dinar: Last Sultan of Darfur, 1896-1916 , London, 1965 (out of print). Von Slatin, Rudolph: Fire and Sword in the Sudan , London, 1896-97 (out of print). Copyright © 2006 Andrew McGregor. Andrew McGregor is director of Toronto-based Aberfoyle International Security (AIS) and former senior editor of the Global Terrorism Analysis Program of the Washington DC based Jamestown Foundation. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto’s Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations in 2000 and is a former Research Associate of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. He is the author of an archaeological history of Darfur published by Cambridge University in 2001. His latest book is A Military History of Modern Egypt, published by Praeger Security International. Dr. McGregor has written over 700 articles on international military and security issues for organizations including Jane’s Intelligence, the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. He also provides frequent commentary on military and security issues for international newspapers, radio and television, including the New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, Fox News, al-Jazeera, the CBC and the BBC. He can be reached at mcgregor@aberfoylesecurity.com, or visit the AIS website at www.aberfoylesecurity.com.

2019-04-24T12:26:46Z

https://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwi/articles/subvertingthesultan.aspx

The bold Y marks a quality offered by the technology (Hubzilla vs. Nextcloud) while the other one doesn't offer it. (1) synronizing data between two remote machines is possible! (3) title, tags, orientation. The orientation is really just metadata, it doesn't affect the photo file. (5) tested with Firefox 61.0.1: .mp3 and .mp4 can be played. .3gp, .flv and .mkv cannot be played. The Nextcloud app store lists furthermore apps which promise online (dis)playing and editing of draw.io-files, mindmaps, a password manager and a ebook reader. I didn't test them though. I did't check neither if offline editing of the used data types would be possible. But it would be worth thinking about bringing those features to Hubzilla. [* ] Tiddlywiki (If syncing and offline editing of the native Hubzilla wiki would be impossible). But it looks like syncing is not a feature of Tiddlywiki until now: Saving after editing your html-file doesn't overwrite the file, but forces you to download a new html-file. Recently I've been on a 8 hours ride on a train in a country where I have no cellular carrier data plan, and the WiFi offered by the rail service which I expected to use was turned off on that train. Thus I wasn't able to work on my wiki which is stored in #Hubzilla. This is just one use-case for the need of having a syncable #offline copy of a file stored in Hubzilla. Others cases would be i.e. when working with my laptop somewhere in the nature where there's no carrier network (it's actually what I am longing for these days since it's so hot in the city). To avoid misunderstanding, I like to mention here that #syncronizing is not the same as importing/exporting. In the second chart, I added the same information for #Nextcloud (non-exhaustive; just main data types for comparing reasons). In this discussion @Mike Macgirvin brings up the vision of turning "all the extra features etc. into apps" similar to Nextcloud. When getting closer to Nextcloud in terms of features, Hubzilla needs to become competitive in terms of features. Together with the nomadity and the superiority in privacy, this will make Hubzilla unbeatable. Please comment below about if you agree or don't agree with my statement and my evaluation (if necessary case-wise). Is the synchronizing frequency depending on the server? If yes, Is it set by the hub administrator, or can it be set by the cannel user? Most part of the text is garbled. But we would like to know more! TiddlyWiki in Hubzilla would be fantastic. csv and pdf file editing supported via add-ons. Bookmarks are synced through the Floccus extension across any numbers of machines in the browser. Or, you can export your bookmarks into html and manually move that file between machines. I believe NC allows real time multi-user editing of files in the UI - that is, I think, what is likely being referred to. NC works with Collabora Online for the multi-user editing of "office" documents. I don't know if the built-in editing of plain text documents supports multi-user. It never occurred to me to wonder about that until now. The documents for multi-user editing in Nextcloud are of the type "Etherpad" or "Ethercalc". I mentioned them in the initial post. But the main topic I would like to talk here about is not multi-user editing, but offline editing. Etherpad and Ethercalc are solutions which allow simulaneous multi-user editing, and each person sees also the edits done by the other persons in real-time. The edits can be highlighted differently for each person. All other data types shared with a syncing mechanism face the so-called "sync conflict" when multiple users are editing the same data at the same time. In these situations, the system indicates the different versions as "conflict versions", and the editors have to agree on one of the versions and dismiss the other(s). Of course, the chance to enter a conflict situation is higher, the longer an editing person is offline, because the sync mechanism always compares the version which was existing before entering the offline mode with the version which exists when syncing. which add-ons of Nextcloud? Does the csv add-on support displaying csv data in a table? I will edit the initial post and add it with your informations. Or are you talking only in contexts of single user / single device repositories? Yes, since I am not granting editing permission to other users for data that I know I'm editing them offline. The users might get a permission to see the data, and if they want them to be edited, they have to request the edit to me, and I will do it. If I want to work on something in a collaboration team, I only use the document formats "Etherpad" or "Ethercalc". Here is a shared text file with edit permissions. Anonymous users can download it, or they may add it to their Nextcloud instance for making edits. Let's say you had to download and edit it... I could still give you an upload-only permissions to send me your revisions. Ownpad application can be installed to add Etherpad and Ethercal into Nextcloud. This gives us multi-user editing. Feel free to edit this example document. OnlyOffice adds both multi-user and anonymous user editing from the browser for any shared documents, spreadsheets and presentations! Very cool and full featured, but requires a couple gigs of ram. Collabora / LibreOffice is also available as a complete office suite, but I have not tested it. Also requires a couple gigs of ram. I am not granting editing permission to other users for data that I know I'm editing them offline. You shared this text file with download permissions, not with edit permissions. That's why I stated in the initial post that syncing and exporting/importing is not the same. The shared text file is shared with edit permissions. If you want to grant anonymous editing, you'll need to use Etherpad via the Ownpad app, or install the OnlyOffice / Collabora Online apps to your instance. @sunjam interesting. I could edit it, and my edit is shown when following your sharing link. But then I entered on purpose the sync conflict situation, to see how Nextcloud deals with it. First I deconnected the remote repository (containing a copy of the file). Then I edited the file through the Web UI of Nextcloud. The UI shows the error message (in grey text) that the edit cannot be saved. Then I edit and save the remote document. As soon as I reconnect the remote repository, it lists both files, the initial and the remotedly edited one (marked with the conflict extension in the file name). So, again: When I am the only one editing the shared file, I can deal with this easily since I know if my remote repository is connected or not, and I edit the data only through one UI when not connected. But as soon as you give edit permission to others, you increase the risk of sync conflicts. On Hubzilla, only CalDav events and CardDAV addresses can be edited on both the Web UI and remotely. The result is always: The edit of the Hubzilla CalDav event and of the CardDAV address which was made on the server is kept while the other edit is dismissed automaticly. When I edited Hubzilla CalDav events and CardDAV addresses on two deconnected remote machines (laptop and phone), one of the version is dismissed (laptop), even if i reconnected the laptop one second earlier than the phone (maybe the phone can sync faster than the laptop). I renamed the fourth column from "syncable to/from remote machine" to "(dis)playable on remote machine outside webbrowser" because, actually, accessing data with other tools than the browser is what I sometimes like to do. I integrated @sunjam's Feedback about Nextcloud. I removed in the Hubzilla table the ability to edit in offline mode: photos, pdf, txt, videos, audios and csv (because the WebDAV access procedure doesn't store a copy of any file on your remote machine). I removed in the Nextcloud table the ability to edit in offline mode: Etherpad/Ethercalc (because the system doesn't store a copy of the file on your remote machine). Nextcloud edits offline be allowing access to it’s files and services from third party devices via rest api’s. Example, desktop and mobile apps that store, sync, and merge local copies of whichever files and folders you choose from the web server. This includes all etherpad, ethercalc docs, tasks, calendars, contacts, txt, and everything else.

2019-04-25T18:08:14Z

https://hub.disroot.org/display/4ab5a335cd6184a404d58e37c999a0a93012a4b118ba5984da7a0774b9e68c31@hub.disroot.org

(a) Effective June 1, 2010, Washington changed its method of apportioning certain gross income from engaging in business as a financial institution. This rule addresses how such gross income must be apportioned when the financial institution engages in business both within and outside the state. (b) RCW 82.04.460(2) requires the department, to the extent feasible, to adopt the multistate tax commission's recommended formula for apportionment and allocation of net income for financial institutions, with the exceptions that the definition of financial institution in the appendix to the recommended formula is advisory only and only the receipts factor will be used to apportion income. (c) On July 29, 2015, the multistate tax commission approved amendments to its recommended formula for the apportionment and allocation of net income of financial institutions including amendments to how the receipts factor is calculated. The amendments are effective for tax years starting on or after January 1, 2016. (d) This rule applies to the apportionment of income taxable under RCW 82.04.290 for periods beginning January 1, 2016. (i) WAC 458-20-19401 Minimum nexus thresholds for apportionable activities. This rule describes minimum nexus standards that are effective after May 31, 2010. (ii) WAC 458-20-19402 Single factor receipts apportionment—Generally. This rule describes the general application of single factor receipts apportionment that is effective after May 31, 2010. (iii) WAC 458-20-19403 Single factor receipts apportionment—Royalties. This rule describes the application of single factor receipts apportionment to gross income from royalties and applies only to tax liability incurred after May 31, 2010. (iv) WAC 458-20-194 Doing business inside and outside the state. This rule describes separate accounting and cost apportionment. It applies only to the periods January 1, 2006, through May 31, 2010. (v) WAC 458-20-19404A Financial institutions—Income apportionment. This rule describes the application of single factor receipts apportionment to gross income for financial institutions during the period June 1, 2010, through December 31, 2015. (vi) WAC 458-20-14601 Financial institutions—Income apportionment. This rule describes the apportionment of income for financial institutions for periods prior to June 1, 2010. (f) Financial institutions engaged in making interstate sales of tangible personal property should also refer to WAC 458-20-193, Inbound and outbound interstate sales of tangible personal property. (a) Except as otherwise specifically provided, a financial institution taxable under RCW 82.04.290 and taxable in another state must attribute and apportion its service and other activities income as provided in this rule. Apportionable income that is not taxable under RCW 82.04.290 must be apportioned pursuant to WAC 458-20-19402 Single factor receipts apportionment—Generally or WAC 458-20-19403 Single factor receipts apportionment—Royalties. "Apportionable income" means gross income of the business generated from engaging in apportionable activities as defined in WAC 458-20-19401 Minimum nexus thresholds for apportionable activities, including income received from apportionable activities performed outside this state if the income would be taxable under chapter 82.04 RCW if received from activities in this state, less any deductions allowable under chapter 82.04 RCW. All gross income that is not from apportionable activities must be allocated pursuant to chapter 82.04 RCW. A financial institution organized under the laws of a foreign country, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or a territory or possession of the United States, except such institutions that are exempt under RCW 82.04.315, whose effectively connected income (as defined under the federal Internal Revenue Code) is taxable both in this state and another state, other than the state in which it is organized, must allocate and apportion its gross income as provided in this rule. (b) All service and other activities income, regardless of where that income is attributed, shall be apportioned to this state by multiplying such income, less any deductions or exemptions authorized under chapter 82.04 RCW, by the apportionment percentage. The apportionment percentage is determined by the taxpayer's receipts factor (as described in subsection (4) of this rule). (c) The receipts factor must be computed according to the method of accounting (cash or accrual basis) used by the taxpayer for Washington state tax purposes for the taxable period. For further guidance on the requirements of each accounting method refer to WAC 458-20-197 When tax liability arises and WAC 458-20-199 Accounting methods. (d) Generally, financial institutions are required to file returns on a monthly basis. To enable financial institutions to more easily comply with this rule, financial institutions may file returns using the receipts factor calculated based on the most recent calendar year for which information is available. If a financial institution does not calculate its receipts factor based on the previous calendar year for which information is available, it must use the current year information to make that calculation. In either event, a reconciliation must be filed for each year not later than October 31st of the following year. The reconciliation must be filed on a form approved by the department. In the case of consolidations, mergers, or divestitures, a taxpayer must make the appropriate adjustments to the factors to reflect its changed operations. (i) In either event (refund or additional taxes due), interest will apply in a manner consistent with tax assessments. (ii) Penalties as provided in RCW 82.32.090 will apply to any such additional tax due only if the reconciliation for a tax year is not completed and additional tax is not paid by October 31st of the following year. (iii) The employment of any other method to effectuate an equitable allocation and apportionment of the taxpayer's receipts. (a) "Billing address" means the location indicated in the books and records of the taxpayer on the first day of the taxable period (or on such later date in the taxable period when the customer relationship began) as the address where any notice, statement or bill relating to a customer's account is mailed. (ii) A borrower that is not engaged in a trade or business or a credit card holder, whose billing address is in this state. (c) "Card issuer's reimbursement fee" means the fee a taxpayer receives from a merchant's bank because one of the persons to whom the taxpayer has issued a credit, debit, or similar type of card has charged merchandise or services to the card. (ii) If a taxpayer is organized under the laws of a foreign country, or of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States, such taxpayer's commercial domicile is deemed for the purposes of this rule to be the state of the United States or the District of Columbia from which such taxpayer's trade or business in the United States is principally managed and directed. It is presumed, subject to rebuttal by a preponderance of the evidence, that the location from which the taxpayer's trade or business is principally managed and directed is the state of the United States or the District of Columbia to which the greatest number of employees are regularly connected or out of which they are working, irrespective of where the services of such employees are performed, as of the last day of the taxable period. (e) "Credit card" means a card, or other means of providing information, that entitles the holder to charge the cost of purchases, or a cash advance, against a line of credit. (f) "Debit card" means a card, or other means of providing information, that enables the holder to charge the cost of purchases, or a cash withdrawal, against the holder's bank account or a remaining balance on the card. (h) "Employee" means, with respect to a particular taxpayer, any individual who, under the usual common-law rules applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, has the status of an employee of that taxpayer. (viii) A production credit association organized under the Federal Farm Credit Act of 1933, all of whose stock held by the Federal Production Credit Corporation has been retired. (ii) Does not include amounts received from an affiliated person if those amounts are required to be determined at arm's length per sections 23A or 23B of the Federal Reserve Act. For the purpose of this subsection, affiliated means the affiliated person and the financial institution are under common control. Control means the possession (directly or indirectly), of more than fifty percent of power to direct or cause the direction of the management and policies of each entity. Control may be through voting shares, contract, or otherwise. (iii) Financial institutions must determine their gross income of the business from gains realized from trading in stocks, bonds, and other evidences of indebtedness on a net annualized basis. (k) "Interest, fees, and penalties" means any fees related to a loan, credit card, or other extension of credit and includes any fees charged a prospective borrower prior to funding of a loan regardless of whether the loan is eventually funded. (l) "Loan" means any extension of credit resulting from direct negotiations between the taxpayer and its customer, and/or the purchase, in whole or in part, of such extension of credit from another. Loan includes participations, syndications, and leases treated as loans for federal income tax purposes. Loan does not include: Futures or forward contracts; options; notional principal contracts such as swaps; credit card receivables, including purchased credit card relationships; noninterest bearing balances due from depository institutions; cash items in the process of collection; federal funds sold; securities purchased under agreements to resell; assets held in a trading account; securities; interests in a real estate mortgage investment conduit (REMIC), or other mortgage-backed or asset-backed security; and other similar items. (m) "Loan secured by real property" means that more than fifty percent of the aggregate value of the collateral used to secure a loan or other obligation was real property, when valued at fair market value as of the time the original loan or obligation was incurred. (n) "Merchant discount" means the fee (or negotiated discount) charged to a merchant by the taxpayer for the privilege of participating in a program whereby a credit, debit, or similar type of card is accepted in payment for merchandise or services sold to the card holder, net of any card holder charge-back and unreduced by any interchange transaction or issuer reimbursement fee paid to another for charges or purchases made by its card holder. (o) "Participation" means an extension of credit in which an undivided ownership interest is held on a pro rata basis in a single loan or pool of loans and related collateral. In a loan participation, the credit originator initially makes the loan and then subsequently resells all or a portion of it to other lenders. The participation may or may not be known to the borrower. (p) "Person" has the meaning given in RCW 82.04.030. (q) "Regular place of business" means an office at which the taxpayer carries on its business in a regular and systematic manner and which is continuously maintained, occupied and used by employees of the taxpayer. (r) "Service and other activities income" means the gross income of the business taxable under RCW 82.04.290, including income received from activities outside this state if the income would be taxable under RCW 82.04.290 if received from activities in this state. (s) "State" means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or possession of the United States, or any foreign country or political subdivision of a foreign country. (t) "Syndication" means an extension of credit in which two or more persons fund and each person is at risk only up to a specified percentage of the total extension of credit or up to a specified dollar amount. (ii) The taxpayer is not subject to a business activities tax by another state on its service and other activities income, but that state would have jurisdiction to subject the taxpayer to a business activities tax on such income under the substantial nexus standards explained in WAC 458-20-19401. (iii) For purposes of this subsection (3)(u), "business activities tax" means a tax measured by the amount of, or economic results of, business activity conducted in a state. The term includes taxes measured in whole or in part on net income or gross income or receipts. Business activities tax does not include a sales tax, use tax, or a similar transaction tax, imposed on the sale or acquisition of goods or services, whether or not denominated a gross receipts tax or a tax imposed on the privilege of doing business. (v) "Taxable period" means the calendar year during which tax liability is incurred. (a) General. The receipts factor is a fraction, the numerator of which is the service and other activities income of the taxpayer in this state during the taxable period and the denominator of which is the service and other activities income of the taxpayer inside and outside this state during the taxable period. The method of calculating receipts for purposes of the denominator is the same as the method used in determining receipts for purposes of the numerator. (b) Interest, fees, and penalties imposed in connection with loans secured by real property. (i) The numerator of the receipts factor includes interest, fees and penalties imposed in connection with loans secured by real property if the property is located within this state. If the property is located both within this state and one or more other states, the income described in this subsection (4)(b)(i) is included in the numerator of the receipts factor if more than fifty percent of the fair market value of the real property is located within this state. If more than fifty percent of the fair market value of the real property is not located within any one state, then the income described in this subsection (4)(b)(i) must be included in the numerator of the receipts factor if the borrower is located in this state. (ii) The determination of whether the real property securing a loan is located within this state must be made as of the time the original agreement was made and any and all subsequent substitutions of collateral must be disregarded. (c) Interest, fees, and penalties imposed in connection with loans not secured by real property. The numerator of the receipts factor includes interest, fees, and penalties imposed in connection with loans not secured by real property if the borrower is located in this state. (d) Net gains from the sale of loans. The numerator of the receipts factor includes net gains from the sale of loans. Net gains from the sale of loans includes income recorded under the coupon stripping rules of Section 1286 of the federal Internal Revenue Code. (i) The amount of net gains (but not less than zero) from the sale of loans secured by real property included in the numerator is determined by multiplying such net gains by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (b) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the total amount of interest and fees or penalties imposed in connection with loans secured by real property. (ii) The amount of net gains (but not less than zero) from the sale of loans not secured by real property included in the numerator is determined by multiplying such net gains by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (c) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the total amount of interest and fees or penalties imposed in connection with loans not secured by real property. (e) Receipts from fees, interest, and penalties charged to card holders. The numerator of the receipts factor includes fees, interest, and penalties charged to card holders including, but not limited to, annual fees and overdraft fees, if the billing address of the card holder is in this state. (f) Net gains from the sale of credit card receivables. The numerator of the receipts factor includes net gains (but not less than zero) from the sale of credit card receivables multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (e) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the taxpayer's total amount of interest, fees, and penalties charged to credit card holders. (i) All credit card issuer's reimbursement fees multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to credit card holders included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (e) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the taxpayer's total amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to credit card holders. (ii) All debit card issuer's reimbursement fees multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to debit card holders included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (e) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the taxpayer's total amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to debit card holders. (iii) All other card issuer's reimbursement fees multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to all other card holders included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (e) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the taxpayer's total amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to all other card holders. (h) Receipts from merchant discount. (i) If the taxpayer can readily determine the location of the merchant and if the merchant is in this state, the numerator of the receipts factor includes receipts from merchant discount. (C) In the case of a merchant discount related to the use of all other types of cards, the numerator of which is the amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to all other card holders that is included in the numerator of the receipts factor pursuant to (e) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the taxpayer's total amount of fees, interest, and penalties charged to all other card holders. (iii) The taxpayer's method for sourcing each receipt from a merchant discount must be consistently applied to such receipt in all states that have adopted sourcing methods substantially similar to (h)(i) and (ii) of this subsection and must be used on all subsequent returns for sourcing receipts from such merchant unless the department permits or requires application of the alternative method. (i) Receipts from ATM fees. The receipts factor includes all ATM fees that are not forwarded directly to another bank. (i) The numerator of the receipts factor includes fees charged to a card holder for the use at an ATM of a card issued by the taxpayer if the card holder's billing address is in this state. (ii) The numerator of the receipts factor includes fees charged to a card holder, other than the taxpayer's card holder, for the use of such card at an ATM owned or rented by the taxpayer, if the ATM is in this state. (i)(A) The numerator of the receipts factor includes loan servicing fees derived from loans secured by real property multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount included in the numerator of the receipts factor under (b) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the total amount of interest, fees, and penalties imposed in connection with loans secured by real property. (B) The numerator of the receipts factor includes loan servicing fees derived from loans not secured by real property multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount included in the numerator of the receipts factor under (c) of this subsection and the denominator of which is the total amount of interest and fees or penalties imposed in connection with loans not secured by real property. (ii) If the taxpayer receives loan servicing fees for servicing either the secured or the unsecured loans of another, the numerator of the receipts factor includes such fees if the borrower is located in this state. (k) Receipts from the financial institution's investment assets and activities and trading assets and activities. (A) The receipts factor includes the amount by which interest from federal funds sold and securities purchased under resale agreements exceeds interest expense on federal funds purchased and securities sold under repurchase agreements. (B) The receipts factor includes the amount by which interest, dividends, gains and other receipts from trading assets and activities including, but not limited to, assets and activities in the matched book, in the arbitrage book, and foreign currency transactions, exceed amounts paid in lieu of interest, amounts paid in lieu of dividends, and losses from such assets and activities. (ii) The numerator of the receipts factor includes interest, dividends, net gains (but not less than zero) and other receipts from both investment assets and activities and from trading assets and activities described in (k)(i) of this subsection that are attributable to this state. (A) The amount of interest, dividends, net gains (but not less than zero) and other income from investment assets and activities in each investment account to be attributed to this state and included in the numerator is determined by multiplying all such income from such assets and activities by a fraction, the numerator of which is the average value of such assets which are properly assigned to a regular place of business of the taxpayer within this state and the denominator of which is the average value of all such assets. (B) The amount of interest from federal funds sold and purchased and from securities purchased under resale agreements and securities sold under repurchase agreements attributable to this state and included in the numerator is determined by multiplying the amount described in (k)(i)(A) of this subsection from such funds and such securities by a fraction, the numerator of which is the average value of federal funds sold and securities purchased under agreements to resell which are properly assigned to a regular place of business of the taxpayer within this state and the denominator of which is the average value of all such funds and such securities. (C) The amount of interest, dividends, gains and other income from trading assets and activities including, but not limited to, assets and activities in the matched book, in the arbitrage book and foreign currency transactions (but excluding amounts described in (k)(i)(A) and (B) of this subsection), attributable to this state and included in the numerator is determined by multiplying the amount described in (k)(i)(B) of this subsection by a fraction, the numerator of which is the average value of such trading assets which are properly assigned to a regular place of business of the taxpayer within this state and the denominator of which is the average value of all such assets. (D) For purposes of (k)(ii) of this subsection, the average value of trading assets owned by the taxpayer is the original cost or other basis of such property for federal income tax purposes without regard to depletion, depreciation, or amortization. (iii) In lieu of using the method set forth in (k)(ii) of this subsection, the taxpayer may elect, or the department may require in order to fairly represent the business activity of the taxpayer in this state, the use of the method set forth in this paragraph. (A) The amount of interest, dividends, net gains (but not less than zero) and other income from investment assets and activities in the investment account to be attributed to this state and included in the numerator is determined by multiplying all such income from such assets and activities by a fraction, the numerator of which is the gross receipts from such assets and activities which are properly assigned to a regular place of business of the taxpayer within this state and the denominator of which is the gross income from all such assets and activities. (B) The amount of interest from federal funds sold and purchased and from securities purchased under resale agreements and securities sold under repurchase agreements attributable to this state and included in the numerator is determined by multiplying the amount described in (k)(i)(A) of this subsection from such funds and such securities by a fraction, the numerator of which is the gross income from such funds and such securities which are properly assigned to a regular place of business of the taxpayer within this state and the denominator of which is the gross income from all such funds and such securities. (C) The amount of interest, dividends, gains and other receipts from trading assets and activities including, but not limited to, assets and activities in the matched book, in the arbitrage book and foreign currency transactions (but excluding amounts described in (k)(ii)(A) or (B) of this subsection), attributable to this state and included in the numerator is determined by multiplying the amount described in (k)(i)(B) of this subsection by a fraction, the numerator of which is the gross income from such trading assets and activities which are properly assigned to a regular place of business of the taxpayer within this state and the denominator of which is the gross income from all such assets and activities. (iv) If the taxpayer elects or is required by the department to use the method set forth in (k)(iii) of this subsection, it must use this method on all subsequent returns unless the taxpayer receives prior permission from the department to use, or the department requires a different method. (v) The taxpayer has the burden of proving that an asset or activity was properly assigned to a regular place of business outside of this state by demonstrating that the day-to-day decisions regarding the asset or activity occurred at a regular place of business outside this state. If the day-to-day decisions regarding an asset or activity occur at more than one regular place of business and one such regular place of business is in this state and one such regular place of business is outside this state, such asset or activity is considered to be located at the regular place of business of the taxpayer where the investment or trading policies or guidelines with respect to the asset or activity are established. Such policies and guidelines are presumed, subject to rebuttal by preponderance of the evidence, to be established at the commercial domicile of the taxpayer. (l) All other receipts. The numerator of the receipts factor includes all other receipts from engaging in activities subject to tax under RCW 82.04.290 pursuant to the rules set forth in WAC 458-20-19402 Single factor receipts apportionment—Generally. (m) Attribution of certain receipts to commercial domicile. All receipts which would be assigned under this rule to a state in which the taxpayer is not taxable are included in the numerator of the receipts factor, if the taxpayer's commercial domicile is in this state. (5) Effective date. This rule applies to gross income that is reportable with respect to tax liability beginning on and after January 1, 2016.

2019-04-23T06:09:35Z

https://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=458-20-19404

Launch Time: 6:44.91 Team Members Present: All present and partaking Play-by-Play: At the beginning Bill Kerman boarded the rocket Launch Meat and and was strapped in. Then once the weather cleared, the boosters ignited along side the rockets main engine and Bill oriented the rocket towards the east. The boosters were dropped when they ran out of fuel. As the rocket traveled, it neared an apopsis of 80,000 km Bill Kerman turned off the throttle and began to coast towards the altitude of 80,000. Upon reaching the apopsis, Bill turned the engine back on full throttle to burn the last of the fuel in the first stage. Then the first stage detached and fell back towards Kerbin, and Bill fired up the second stage to reach orbit. Photographs: Each launch should be accompanied by a minimum of two photographs from the mission. Screenshots may be made by pressing the F1 key at any time during the mission. If an award is achieved, make sure you take a screenshot as proof of the accomplishment. Time-of-Flight: 9:22 Summary: In this launch team F'N Sandwich and pilot Bill Kerman achieved a stable orbit. After many failed tests, this goal was reached as our greatest milestone so far. Going forwards, we have learned that a greater heat shield will be required as the one used during this launch was damaged. Opportunities / Learnings: We learned that practice makes perfect and how to maneuver the rocket in the ways and orientation that we want. It gives us the confidence to move towards a moon landing or satellite launch. Strategies / Project Timeline: This launch will set in motion missions of greater complexity. We aim to either put a satellite in orbit around Kerbin or put a Kerbin on the moon. Milestone Awards Presented: We achieved a stable orbit and a stable manned orbit, and a launch to 50 KM for $20,000 $25,000 and $10,000 respectively. Available Funds: We have $68,508 remaining prior to the possible $60,000 in rewards for our achievements. What Does the Gold Foil Experiment Mean? The gold foil experiment is the famous experiment conducted by Ernest Rutherford that we all learned about in chemistry class. This experiment proved that atoms are made up of mostly empty space. In fact 99.9999% of an atom was proven in this experiment to be empty space. Lets say we could eliminate all that empty space by condensing the parts of an atom together. How much weight could we fit in a small space such as a single teaspoon? Over a billion tons! This idea is common when studying astronomy. At the end of a stars life, it collapses and explodes in a supernova explosion. The remaining mass that the supernova leaves over is so dense that the star begins to collapse in on itself. As a result of this, electrons fall into the nucleus and smash into protons becoming neutrons; hence the name neutron star. This animation shows a star going through a supernova explosion. The accuracy of this animation is highly questionable but it certainly looks cool. The Doppler effect occurs in everyday life more often than you may think. It is the change in frequency or wavelength of a wave relative to a moving observer. In this animation a car has sound waves that it is emitting. As the car starts to move the wavelength of the wave becomes smaller on the side of the car that it is moving toward and larger on the side that it is moving away from. An observer on the left side of this car would hear it gradually become higher pitched. An observer on the right side of the car would hear it gradually become lower in pitch. The Doppler effect is true for light waves as well. This is wear the terms red-shift and blue-shift come from. Blue light has a higher frequency than red light; therefore if an object appears to be becoming more blue that means it is moving toward you. If an object appears to be turning more red than it is moving away from you. This is only noticeable on very large scales like when observing space. Because of the Doppler effect, scientists have determined that our universe is expanding since most objects in space are red-shifted relative to earth. The first telescope to be invented was a refracting telescope. A refracting telescope works by using converging lens to collect light. A refracting telescope has a convex lens that bends the parallel light that is coming into it to a focal point. That focal point is where an image is formed of what is being observed. At that point is the eyepiece that you look through to see the focused image. This diagram shows the inside of a refracting telescope. A reflecting telescope was invented after that refracting telescope by Isaac Newton. A reflecting telescope works by collecting light and reflecting it off of a concave mirror. The light that is reflected comes to a focus point where a flat angled mirror reflects that light up toward an eyepiece where the viewer sees the image. This diagram shows the inside a reflecting telescope. Our latest unit in Physics was learning about magnetism. A magnetic field occurs when charged particles are moving. According to greek legend magnetism was discovered by a Shepard in a field as he suddenly felt a force of attraction coming from the ground as he wore shoes with iron on the bottom. The substance he found later became known as magnetite, after the place it was found, Magnesia. Another common magnetic substance that was well known was lodestone. This was used in ancient China by the first emperor to protect his palace. Huge blocks of lodestone were placed outside the entrance. This was meant to attract soldiers in armor so they were prevented from entering the village. In ancient Egypt magnets were used for entertainment by doing (non) magic tricks. They would place objects above a magnet so that they would repel so the object would seem to be floating in mid-air. It wasn't until the 1500's that magnetism was scientifically investigated by William Gilbert who discovered that the earth itself is a magnet with a magnetic north pole and south pole. Not too much later came Friedrich Gauss and Charles Coloumb, where our understanding of magnetism became less of a mystery. In 1861 James Clerk Maxwell used equations to relate magnetism and electricity. Major league baseball opened up the season this week and there were some exciting stats and physics involved in the 11 games that were played on Thursday the 29th. Here are some of the great physics highlights of opening day. Giancarlo Stanton hit 2 home runs on his yankee debut. One of his home runs leads the league, so far, in exit velocity off the bat: 117.4 mph. With a launch angle of 19.8 degrees, its projected distance traveled is 426 feet. Jordan Hicks of the St. Lous Cardinals has the fastest pitch of opening day at 101.6 mph. At this speed, Hicks produced a spin rate of 2,233 rpm. While this ball had a great amount of kinetic energy, it also had a large amount of rotational kinetic energy as well. The highest spin rate of 2,649 rpm was thrown with a 99.2 mph four-seam fastball by Aroldis Chapman. The farthest home run of the season so far is by Matt Adams of the Washington Nationals. He hit the ball 460 feet with a velocity of 109.3 mph and launch angle of 28.6 degrees. Physics is always relevant in baseball. Throughout the 2018 season there will be a lot more exciting stats while it is only the beginning. Want to make brushing your teeth even easier than it already is? Try using an electric toothbrush that uses an electric motor to rotate the brush back and forth to scrub your teeth better than ever. How does it work? On all the electric toothbrushes there is a battery at the bottom. This is used for a source of voltage which creates a current. As the current goes through the circuit, it reaches a point where it experiences a magnetic field. This creates a force upward on the circuit causing a net torque in the clockwise direction as shown in the diagram. As the circuit rotates 180 degrees, the direction of the current switches; therefore, the direction of the force switches, so it turns around the rotation. This back and forth motion gets transferred to the brush which is why it is so effective in making teeth super clean and white. Anybody who has ever taken a physics class knows that math plays a very essential role in solving problems that explain the laws of the universe. The question is: has math always existed and waits for us to discover it, or is math our own invented logic? There are many mathematical phenomena that are mysteriously found to come up in nature such as the Fibonacci sequence, and the numbers e and pi, that would be evidence of math being a preexisting language of the universe that we are continuing to discover. There are also some people that would say numbers are just a way for our conscious to understand how things work. Aliens might not know what math is but still have there own unique way that they understand the universe without using numbers in any way what so ever. The argument can go both ways but one thing is for certain: for humans, math has never failed us in our journey in studying the universe, so whether it is made up or not, it works!! Water and ice molecules on earth have a distinct molecular structure that gives it the properties that it has; however, under different surrounding pressures, the molecular structure can change, resulting in the formation of superionic water. Superionic water differs from the ice/water you and I know so well. "Regular" ice has molecules that form a V shape with two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. As pressure increases, these atoms get squeezed into different shapes. A property that superionic ice has is that it is a conductor of electricity; however, unlike most conductors, the current is carried by positively charged ions instead of negatively charged electrons. This substance was just a theoretical idea until recently when the University of Rochester's OMEGA laser tested the theory and was successful in creating superionic ice. They knew this was a success because the molecules were able to conduct electricity. Due to the opaque color of the molecules when electricity was ran through it, it was determined that it was, in fact superionic. If it had a shiny look to it, the researchers would have known that it couldn't of been superinoinc because that would mean that negative electrons were carrying the current. The pressures that were applied to the ice by the laser were almost 2 million times the atmospheric pressure of earth. This is the amount of pressure that planets Neptune and Uranus have. Every massive object in space has an escape velocity. Escape velocity is the minimum velocity an object must have in order to escape the gravitational strength of a particular planet or any large body in space. The earths escape velocity is about 11.2 km/s. This means that an object must travel 11.2 km/s to escape its orbit around the earth. Reaching this velocity is a very big challenge when dealing with space travel. The more mass a body has, the more gravitational attraction it has; therefore, the escape velocity becomes faster. A black hole's escape velocity is so high that nothing can escape its gravitational pull; not even light. That is why its call a "black" hole: there is no light coming out of it so you can't see in it. A black holes escape velocity must be greater than 300,000 km/s (the speed of light). How can in object have this must mass to generate this much gravitation? When a star reaches the end of its life, some of them collapse all the way down to a single point, maintaining it's mass. This means that it becomes infinitely dense. Our sun does not have the potential to eventually become a black hole because it is too small. Stars that become black holes are 20 times the mass of the sun. Super Bowl LII is nearly 2 hours away. The Patriots and the Eagles are both great teams with lots of talent. Not only will I be watching the game, but the physics of the game as well, being a physics student. Some things worth taking note of are the kinematics of kicking a field goal, the forces that are felt while getting tackled, the kinematics of deep passes made by Tom Brady and/or Nick Foles, among many others. The minimum height needed to complete a successful field goal is 10 feet. A typical field goal is kicked anywhere from 30 - 40 yards away from the goal post. Depending on how windy it is will determine the correct angle and velocity at which the ball should be kicked. Lineman can weigh up to 300 pounds, so running into them is not fun for running backs. When the defensive lineman start to charge over the line of scrimmage they posses a tremendous amount of momentum. While running backs also have the ability to reach a great amount of momentum due to there ability to reach very high speeds, they don't have the mass to match the linemen. Also when running backs come in contact with lineman it is usually at or behind the line of scrimmage, not allowing them to pick up a high speed to match the momentum of the large linemen. There is more than just throwing a ball up in the air really far when quarterbacks toss those amazing 60- 70 yard completions near the out of bounds line. Quarterbacks have to time it perfectly so the ball reaches the target at the same time the wide receiver arrives at the point where the catch is made. A successful completion all depends on the speed of the wide receiver and the trajectory at which the quarterback throws the ball into the air. Hopefully Super Bowl LII brings us lots of cool physics to observe. The many worlds theory suggests that there are an infinite number of universes that exist outside of our own. This theory was developed by physicists studying quantum particles. In quantum physics some things can have properties of either particles or waves and there is no way to determine which one. This influenced the many world theory because in quantum mechanics things have a wave-particle duel nature, so each fate of a particle is carried out, but just in different universes. According to this theory you are not the only you. You are living in an infinite amount of universes, each with different possibilities of you. All the possible alternatives that ever existed in history exist in a different world. Anything that could have possibly occurred in our past actually did happen in a parallel universe. Many scientist refer to these universes as giant bubbles floating around in space as shown below.

2019-04-24T00:57:19Z

https://aplusphysics.com/community/index.php?/profile/8525-baseball00/

Home › Travel Health › Essential First Aid Tips For Your Gap Year. Essential First Aid Tips For Your Gap Year. Knowing just a few first aid essentials is an important skill when you are travelling the world, and will go a long way to helping you deal with the inevitable simple cuts, scrapes and situations that you will come across. Here is an emergency nurses advice on what to do when you need to administer first aid to yourself or anyone else on your gap year. Now as a professional nurse I can give you qualified information and advice but please make no mistake this is in absolutely no way a substitute for actual training. A little bit of knowledge can go a long way but if at any point you aren’t sure of what to do, you need advice, or your injury is a little bit more than your basic first aid kit can handle, then get yourself to the nearest clinic, hospital or any medical professional as quickly as you can. So what are the first aid fundamentals that you should know? Make sure your first aid kit is well stocked. This is an absolute basic requirement and I always carry my first aid kit with me wherever I am. Knowing how to pack a good travel first aid kit is important, and that doesn’t always mean getting the biggest fanciest one filled with the latest gear like rebreathers and tourniquets. The average traveller is not in any way medically trained, and no one is expecting them to be, so why carry a lot of extra stuff you won’t know how to use? Stick to the absolute basics and you will use them. Most cuts and grazes are minor and can be easily treated with over the counter dressings from your first aid kit. Stop the bleeding. This is always the first step. Just apply firm (but not too firm) pressure on the wound with a piece of sterile gauze if possible or any clean and dry absorbent material if not. If you have a cut to your extremities, arms or legs, then try and keep them raised if you can. *Pro Tip: Ladies, if it is a heavy wound and you need to stop the bleeding quickly while you get help, and there is nothing else available, then you can press feminine hygiene pads on the wound and use a bandage to keep them in place if necessary. Clean the wound. Any wound should be cleaned thoroughly before you apply the dressing. Use clean drinking water and pour thoroughly over the wound itself. The aim is to clean the wound of any dirt or debris. If you can see any debris in the wound then try and get it out if you can with flowing water, if you can’t then it may need to be cleaned by a professional. You can use an antiseptic wipe on the skin around the wound to clean up any blood, but do not go near the actual wound itself with it. Dry the wound with a clean gauze pad or by resting a towel on it and then apply the dressing. When you should get medical help. If the wound is large (longer than 5 cm) and you cannot stop the bleeding. You are bleeding from an artery. There is loss of sensation near the wound or you cannot move the effected limb. If the wound is large, spread out, jagged or otherwise has caused a lot of soft tissue damage. If there is a possibility there is a foreign body still inside the wound, ie a piece of glass. If the wound is to your head or face. It is not enough that you have to clean and dress any given wound, but you also have to watch for infection too. In many ways this can be more problematic that the wound itself. You will need to check on and change the plaster or dressing frequently, the frequency depends on the type of wound and the dressing itself but you will know when the dressing needs changing. When you do this it is important that you see if it is becoming infected. Persistent or increasing pain in the wound itself. Swelling and redness that gets increasingly worse (a little swelling and redness can be normal in any wound as part of the healing process). Discoloured pus forming in or around the wound. A high temperature of 38 degrees (100F) or above. If you see or notice any of these symptoms then you have gone beyond simple first aid and need to seek advice and possibly get some antibiotics. (Do not just start taking antibiotics ‘just in case’). Burns aren’t really a backpacker specific or common injury, but it doesn’t really do any harm to know the basics. Cool any burn with lukewarm running water for a minimum of 20 minutes, tap water is ideal because you need to keep the water flowing if possible. Do not use ice or iced water, these can be as bad on a burn as hot or scalding water. Contrary to popular belief do not slap a load of greasy butter on a burn. If you can, remove any clothing or jewellery from near the burnt area. If you can’t, or material is stuck to the skin, you may need professional help. Do not place any cotton wool style dressing on a burn wound. Keep the wound clean (keep running lukewarm water over it). Do not burst any blisters (as this can lead to infection). Mild burns or scalds that don’t need any treatment (what we technically call superficial epidermal burns because they only affect the top layer of skin) usually heal in a week or so without any treatment or scarring. Painkillers such as Paracetamol or Ibuprofen are ideal to treat any pain. Although most minor burns can be treated on your own with the tips above, if however the burns are more serious you should not hesitate in seeking help. A bit of basic common sense can judge this really. If the burn covers a large area (bigger than your hand), then get help. Any burns caused by chemicals or electricity should be professionally treated. Burns that immediately cause sever blisters or exposes any deep layers of skin or bone should be checked by a professional. If the burn is circumferential, as in it goes completely around a limb or your torso, or if it is to the face, you should seek help. If you can, cover the burn with cling film or a clean plastic bag until you can get medical help. Sunburn is a much more common traveller injury, and should not be dismissed lightly. Most of the time sunburn is pretty mild and does not need a visit to a clinic, nurse or doctor, and whilst it may feel uncomfortable should heal up in a week. During this time there are things you can do to relieve the symptoms. Cool the skin by sponging it with cool (not cold) water or having a cool shower. A cold compress with a towel dipped in cool water and placed over the affected area will help. Aloe vera is your best friend when you have sun burn and can be applied directly or with a cold compress on top. Stay well hydrated and drink plenty of fluids (water is good but this also includes juice as well). This will keep you cool and prevent dehydration. Ibuprofen or paracetamol can be taken for any pain. If the skin is very inflamed, then speak to a pharmacist who may give you some hydrocortisone cream. Sever blistering or swelling that does not subside after a day or two. A high temperature (38C or 100F) or above. Insect bites and stings are a common problem for travellers all over the world. The absolute majority of the time they are nothing more than an annoyance and will get better in a few hours or a day or two at most. Remove any insect, stinger or tick that may be attached to your skin. Make sure the wound area is clean with soap and water to prevent infection. Apply a cold compress or ice pack to reduce swelling, this can be repeated as much as is needed. Don’t scratch the bite, as this may lead to infection. If the wound is painful or uncomfortable then basic painkillers such as paracetamol or ibuprofen should be enough. If the wound is itchy then see a pharmacist about over the counter hydrocortisone or antihistamine. If symptoms do not improve or get worse after a few days. If the bite or sting is on or near your mouth, throat or eyes. If the bite or sting swells to a large area, this may be an allergic reaction. If the bite starts exuding pus or gets increasingly painful or swollen after over the counter medication. If you start wheezing, have difficulty breathing, develop swelling in the face, mouth or throat, have difficulty swallowing or feel dizzy or faint, then this should be considered a medical emergency and you should get medical help immediately. If you start developing flu like symptoms, swollen glands or a high temperature (38C or 100F) or above. This may be a sign that you have contracted an insect borne disease. These conditions can be quite common in travellers on extended treks in tropical or desert regions, and if heat exhaustion is untreated it can lead to heatstroke or sunstroke which are considered medical emergencies. I have personally seen the symptoms start developing in other travellers several times on many treks over the years, and they can be so easy to dismiss until they become a problem. A headache (one of the first signs of dehydration). Dark or offensive smelling urine. Lethargy, tiredness or general weakness. A decrease in blood pressure (although you won’t know this without medical treatment) and an increase in pulse rate (anything above the average normal rate of 60 – 100 beats per minute) . Get them to lie down in a cool place such as a room with a fan, air con or in the shade. Remove any unnecessary clothing and loosen everything else. The aim is to expose as much skin as possible. Cool their skin with whatever you can, cold compresses, a cold wet flannel, anything you can use to keep them cool and wet. Fan them to cool them down if you don’t have a fan available. Keep them hydrated and get them to drink as much as possible. Water is best but fruit juice and rehydration sports drinks are just as good. Most people should respond really well to this within 30 minutes. If they don’t, or they are already developing the more severe symptoms of heatstroke, then you should get medical help immediately. With the amount of adventure activities and partying on gap years and around the world adventures, strains and sprains are actually pretty common. These common injuries affect the muscles or the ligaments, especially around the knees, ankles, wrists and fingers and thumbs, and the majority don’t actually require medical treatment but can be looked after on your own with a bit of know how. Use PRICE therapy which stands for protection, rest, ice, compression and elevation. For the first 2 -3 days rest up and avoid using the affected joint or muscle as much as possible. Cold compresses and ice will help to keep the swelling down. Don’t apply ice directly but wrap it in a towel or something similar. Avoid the heat for a few days if you can, don’t sit out in the sun. Compression bandages are good for keeping swelling down but don’t wrap them so tightly that it restricts blood flow and remove them before sleeping. It is a good idea to book yourself or upgrade to a private room in a hostel or a guesthouse for a few days if possible, especially if your mobility is limited with a knee or ankle injury, so you can rest, keep your injured limb elevated and minimise activity. Just catch up on a few Netflix shows or finish that book. Basic painkillers such as paracetamol should be sufficient for any minor sprain or strain. Non steroidal anti inflammatory medications such as Ibuprofen aren’t recommended in the first couple of days. After a few days of rest then try and move about as normal (this is all relative and you shouldn’t push yourself too far either) or do some basic movement and rotation exercises to get the joint or muscle back to normal. Muscles can take a day or two longer than joints. There is no hard and fast rule on how long it takes a sprain or strain to heal. For minor injuries you should be able to use the injured limb again – even if it is still a little tender – after a week or so of rest. You should be pretty much back to normal after a month or two, but it can take a lot longer too if the injury is more severe. Most sprains and strains can be treated without medical help and just take a bit of rest and rehab, but there are obviously exceptions to that. If you have any of the following symptoms or there is no improvement at all after a few days of self treatment then you should seek further medical help and advice. If the pain is severe, lasts longer than a couple of days and is not helped with paracetamol. If the joint or muscle cannot be moved at all. If you can’t put any weight or pressure at all on the joint or muscle or it gives way when you try to use it. It looks disjointed or is an unusual shape. If there is numbness, discolouration of the skin or coldness in any part of the joint or muscle. Now remember that as important as it is to have a good working knowledge of how to look after yourself and how to use a good, basic first aid kit to patch yourself up when needed, it is just as important to know when to get help too. If something does happen and you need advice, don’t hesitate to go and get it. If you can’t get to a nearby clinic or hospital, then there is also my online travel clinic if you need it. I may not be able to physically patch you up myself but I can advise you on what to do and where to go next when you need it. Ask A Nurse. 10 Of Your Most Common Health Questions Answered. Love this post! I never thought about using a pad in case of emergency and it makes total sense! I also had to use superglue once to put over a cut on my leg, it was helpful. Thank you so much, yeah it is essentially what the pads are designed for if you think about it. 🙂 Careful with using superglue though, it’s not ideal for all cuts. Thanks for commenting I really do appreciate it. Great tips, thank you. Will definitely be keeping them in mind for future travels. It definitely pays to be informed and prepared, thanks for this post. You have to be a little careful there, superglue is different from the medical glue we use, and whilst it can protect a cut it can also seal a lot of bad stuff in allowing it to become infected if you aren’t careful. Thanks Emma, I hope you never need to use it but the information is here if you do! I love this, I think it really should be mandatory for all wanabe backpackers and travellers to read your blog and equip themselves with knowledge like this. Amazing. Haha thank you Alice, I wish it was my readership would boom! Fantastic tips and a great, useful post for any backpacker. Very useful post. I think anyone going travelling around the world needs to learn basic things like these to look after themselves. Awesome, thanks for this. Its great to know some basics before you go anywhere. So useful! I am definitely going to bookmark this. An excellent article with a lot of very useful advice, good job.

2019-04-26T06:03:14Z

https://bemusedbackpacker.com/2017/02/06/essential-first-aid-tips-for-your-gap-year/

This is a Victoria plum of a collection - superbly documented, definitively performed and unrelentingly enjoyable. Recording quality is inevitably a bit variable but the sound is at very least good - often much better. It is a pity that dates and locations of recording schedules are not given however by the sound of it these recordings date from the 1970s and 1980s. It is good to see David Measham's name among the list of conductors. His recordings on Unicorn LPs never made it to CD, more's the pity. We very much need his versions of Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge (with the superb Gerald English - such an intelligent artist), Wilfred Josephs' Requiem and Symphony No. 5, the Barber Symphonies and Essays, Bax Symphony No. 3 and Goossens Symphony No. 1. Whatever happened to the masters of these recordings? In this case Measham conducts the two Carmichael concertos which are the most substantial works on this set. Each concerto runs to about 25 minutes and the WASO plays the Carmichael Country Fair with Richard Mills conducting. Neither of the concertos is desperately original but each has some wonderfully accessible material. I can imagine these works making an indelibly good impression in an orchestral pops concert. The Folklorico is played by the composer and is revealed as a work in candid tribute to de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Other 'Iberian' influences also thread their way through this work including Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole and Massenet's dances from El Cid. The Trumpet Concerto has similar charisma - the first movement is very singable. Overall this work rattles along like some progeny of Richard Strauss's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto and Rachmaninov's Second symphony if that doesn't sound too improbable. This is not for the irredeemably serious. Great playing from Kevin Johnston. Brumby's Scena is beautifully projected by soloist Barry Davis. The work makes a nice twin to another neglected bon-bon; Jean Francaix's L'Horloge de Flore - try it! Brumby also has the place of honour on the first disc with tracks 1 and 2. The Paean is a brash ceremonial statement welding together Baroque strains and a sort of variant of Walford Davies' RAF March Past. An English voice predominates in the Festival Overture, as well, with the tune I Love my Love (as delectably used by Holst) much in play. A Gallic wistfulness languishes over the pages of A Country Fair. This must surely refer more to a fair country than to a country fair. The work is in the form of a flighty rhapsody for clarinet and orchestra. The Miriam Hyde overture is out of the Coates and Bax camps. Lindley Evans' 1945 Idyll for piano and orchestra might be expected to follow the same track as Finzi's Eclogue but in fact (whether due to Goodman's transcription or not I do not know) it is rather a florid essay, touching yes but with a decidedly Rachmaninov plangency and Delian warmth. Dreyfus's Rush (written for ABC TV) has a Victorian nostalgia about it, something of Copland's Mexico and La Cucaracha and in it there is also something of the sepia toned poignancy of the music used in NBC's major documentary series on the history of the American Civil War. Two Benjamin works kick off the second disc. The Overture we know from Myer Fredman's LP with the RPO (a Lyrita lollipop). Joseph Post directs a performance with rough edges. It lacks the fizz of the Lyrita and for that matter of the vintage Frederick Stock/Chicago version on Biddulph. The work explores territory familiar from Barber's School for Scandal overture and two overtures by Benjamin's friend, Bax: the peppy Work in Progress and the Overture to a Picaresque Comedy. It is no surprise to hear that the Benjamin used this as an overture to his own opera Prima Donna. The Fredman version is not currently accessible. For ten years now there has been a rumour, gradually fading, that Lyrita will reissue this on CD with Barry Wordsworth's very fine 1992 account of the Benjamin symphony (LPO)and Del Mar's version of Cotillon. From effervescence to neo-classicism: Cotillon is based not too tightly on original eighteenth century dances. You will know what to expect if you are familiar with Moeran's Serenade, Rubbra's Farnaby Improvisations, the outer movements of Finzi's violin concerto, the double violin concerto of Gustav Holst and the full orchestral version of Warlock's Capriol Suite. The work has a dab of Pulcinella here and a touch of tenderness there. Patrick Thomas is more successful than Del Mar in conveying the sheer zest of this work. Hamner, like Benjamin and Glanville-Hicks had strong British connections. Phil Scowcroft has written up some biographical background which I append to this review. The Blue Hills Rhapsody uses a pastoral melody, brief but potently memorable. It hints at Wagner's Siegfried Idyll and then floats off into lush English pastures. Blue Hills was a long-running ABC radio serial. The theme was written by Hamner and expanded into this Rhapsody which at one point seems to jump through at least one Korngoldian hoop - like a fugitive from the Sinfonietta and at another to saunter through the lobby of the Grand Hotel. Hurst's Swagman's Promenade (which gives the set its title) is an uproarious and raucous medley of unmistakably Australian tunes that are now so mingled with the Aussie 'way' that they might easily be taken to be folktunes - Waltzing Matilda, Botany Bay, Click Go the Shears all put in bucolic apparel. Peggy Glanville-Hicks Gymnopedies are not twins with the Satie works. They reflect the composers long-time interest in Mediterranean culture and music intertwined with her grounding in the music of Vaughan Williams (Symphony No. 5). The oriental tone in these works is as tangy as in her song cycle Letters from Morocco. If you are one of the thousands who have bought the Marco Polo British Light Music series, or the three Hyperion (Ronald Corp) discs or the blizzard of EMI light music reissues this selection is definitely for you. The recordings are culled from the coffers of the ABC archives. The whole anthology is swept onto two green camouflage fatigue discs accommodated in a single width case. A resounding welcome for this set. An enquiry to Steven will I am sure give you all the information you will need about ordering. 1300 360 150 Fax completed order form anytime night or day. Overseas orders incur economy airmail charges. Ronald Hamner, born in Reigate in 1917 and who died in 1996, has been known for perhaps half a century as a highly regarded composer and arranger for light orchestra, his output in this area alone totalling well over 500 items, including some forty of the well-remembered (by me at least) arrangements for the ITMA programme. Hamner studied at Blackheath Conservatory and was a theatre organist between 1935 and 1948. Since then he has found plenty of work as a freelance orchestrator and conductor. Music has been provided by him, for films, theatre (including adaptations for amateurs of musical shows - Viva Mexico! and The Merry Widow are examples) and radio. His orchestral tally has included potpourris, with titles like Bouquet de Paris, Capstan and Windlass, The Heather and the Thistle, Heritage of England, The Holly and the Mistletoe, The Oak and the Rose and Memories of Hungary, and original genre pieces in orchestral or piano versions such as On a Windy Day, Limelight Lady, Dot and Carry One, Pastorale, Mosquito, City Desk, The PC 49 Theme and Fashion Parade. Wind players have had particular cause to be grateful to him as many publications, useful both as instructional pieces and as concert items, have come from his pen: clarinet quartets and trios, flute trios, a Cuckoo Quartet (for two flutes and two clarinets), Two Contrasts for oboe and piano, trumpet trios, a Suite for French horn and piano, direct in its appeal, and Three Sketches for trumpet and piano. I heard the Suite for Seven (i.e. two flutes, oboe, three clarinets and bassoon) twice in Doncaster recently and was taken with its good writing and melodic and rhythmic interest; there is a Serenade for Seven also. Hamner is well respected as a composer in the brass band world, where his output ranges from light genre pieces (Latin Americana, Brass Spectacular, March With a Beat, Waltz with a Beat, Mexican Fiesta and the march, Over Hill Over Dale) through solos (Praeludium and Allegro) for trombone, Cavatina and Allegro for E flat horn, Arioso and Caprice for horn and Flight of Fancy, for cornet and euphonium) to more substantial works: the fantasy Alice in Wonderland, The Four Corners of the World, Down Under (he emigrated to Australia) and Episodes for Brass. Nor have smaller brass groups been forgotten by him, as he published Prelude and Rondo and Seven Up for septet, Prelude, Romance and Finale for brass quartet and the cornet quartet Foursome Fantasy.

2019-04-26T01:47:19Z

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/June01/Swagman.htm

This chapter provides guidance and procedures used for characterization of biotechnology-derived articles by amino acid analysis. This chapter is harmonized with the corresponding chapter in JP and EP. Other characterization tests, also harmonized, are shown in Biotechnology-Derived Articles—Capillary Electrophoresis 1053 , Biotechnology-Derived Articles—Isoelectric Focusing 1054 , Biotechnology-Derived Articles—Peptide Mapping 1055 , Biotechnology-Derived Articles—Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis 1056 , and Biotechnology-Derived Articles—Total Protein Assay 1057 . Amino acid analysis refers to the methodology used to determine the amino acid composition or content of proteins, peptides, and other pharmaceutical preparations. Proteins and peptides are macromolecules consisting of covalently bonded amino acid residues organized as a linear polymer. The sequence of the amino acids in a protein or peptide determines the properties of the molecule. Proteins are considered large molecules that commonly exist as folded structures with a specific conformation, while peptides are smaller and may consist of only a few amino acids. Amino acid analysis can be used to quantify protein and peptides, to determine the identity of proteins or peptides based on their amino acid composition, to support protein and peptide structure analysis, to evaluate fragmentation strategies for peptide mapping, and to detect atypical amino acids that might be present in a protein or peptide. It is necessary to hydrolyze a protein/peptide to its individual amino acid constituents before amino acid analysis. Following protein/peptide hydrolysis, the amino acid analysis procedure can be the same as that practiced for free amino acids in other pharmaceutical preparations. The amino acid constituents of the test sample are typically derivatized for analysis. Methods used for amino acid analysis are usually based on a chromatographic separation of the amino acids present in the test sample. Current techniques take advantage of the automated chromatographic instrumentation designed for analytical methodologies. An amino acid analysis instrument will typically be a low-pressure or high-pressure liquid chromatograph capable of generating mobile phase gradients that separate the amino acid analytes on a chromatographic column. The instrument must have postcolumn derivatization capability, unless the sample is analyzed using precolumn derivatization. The detector is usually a UV-visible or fluorescence detector depending on the derivatization method used. A recording device (e.g., integrator) is used for transforming the analog signal from the detector and for quantitation. It is preferred that instrumentation be dedicated particularly for amino acid analysis. Background contamination is always a concern for the analyst in performing amino acid analysis. High-purity reagents are necessary (e.g., low-purity hydrochloric acid can contribute to glycine contamination). Analytical reagents are changed routinely every few weeks using only high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) grade solvents. Potential microbial contamination and foreign material that might be present in the solvents are reduced by filtering solvents before use, keeping solvent reservoirs covered, and not placing amino acid analysis instrumentation in direct sunlight. Laboratory practices can determine the quality of the amino acid analysis. Place the instrumentation in a low traffic area of the laboratory. Keep the laboratory clean. Clean and calibrate pipets according to a maintenance schedule. Keep pipet tips in a covered box; the analysts may not handle pipet tips with their hands. The analysts may wear powder-free latex or equivalent gloves. Limit the number of times a test sample vial is opened and closed because dust can contribute to elevated levels of glycine, serine, and alanine. A well-maintained instrument is necessary for acceptable amino acid analysis results. If the instrument is used on a routine basis, it is to be checked daily for leaks, detector and lamp stability, and the ability of the column to maintain resolution of the individual amino acids. Clean or replace all instrument filters and other maintenance items on a routine schedule. Acceptable amino acid standards are commercially available* for amino acid analysis and typically consist of an aqueous mixture of amino acids. When determining amino acid composition, protein or peptide standards are analyzed with the test material as a control to demonstrate the integrity of the entire procedure. Highly purified bovine serum albumin has been used as a protein standard for this purpose. Calibration of amino acid analysis instrumentation typically involves analyzing the amino acid standard, which consists of a mixture of amino acids at a number of concentrations, to determine the response factor and range of analysis for each amino acid. The concentration of each amino acid in the standard is known. In the calibration procedure, the analyst dilutes the amino acid standard to several different analyte levels within the expected linear range of the amino acid analysis technique. Then, replicates at each of the different analyte levels can be analyzed. Peak areas obtained for each amino acid are plotted versus the known concentration for each of the amino acids in the standard dilution. These results will allow the analyst to determine the range of amino acid concentrations where the peak area of a given amino acid is an approximately linear function of the amino acid concentration. It is important that the analyst prepare the samples for amino acid analysis so that they are within the analytical limits (e.g., linear working range) of the technique employed in order to obtain accurate and repeatable results. Four to six amino acid standard levels are analyzed to determine a response factor for each amino acid. The response factor is calculated as the average peak area or peak height per nmol of amino acid present in the standard. A calibration file consisting of the response factor for each amino acid is prepared and is used to calculate the concentration of each amino acid present in the test sample. This calculation involves dividing the peak area corresponding to a given amino acid by the response factor for that amino acid to give the nmol of the amino acid. For routine analysis, a single-point calibration may be sufficient; however, the calibration file is updated frequently and tested by the analysis of analytical controls to ensure its integrity. Consistent high quality amino acid analysis results from an analytical laboratory require attention to the repeatability of the assay. During analysis of the chromatographic separation of the amino acids or their derivatives, numerous peaks can be observed on the chromatogram that corresponds to the amino acids. The large number of peaks makes it necessary to have an amino acid analysis system that can repeatedly identify the peaks based on retention time and integrate the peak areas for quantitation. A typical repeatability evaluation involves preparing a standard amino acid solution and analyzing many replicates (i.e., six analyses or more) of the same standard solution. The relative standard deviation (RSD) is determined for the retention time and integrated peak area of each amino acid. An evaluation of the repeatability is expanded to include multiple assays conducted over several days by different analysts. Multiple assays include the preparation of standard dilutions from starting materials to determine the variation due to sample handling. Often, the amino acid composition of a standard protein (e.g., bovine serum albumin) is analyzed as part of the repeatability evaluation. By evaluating the replicate variation (i.e., RSD), the laboratory can establish analytical limits to ensure that the analyses from the laboratory are under control. It is desirable to establish the lowest practical variation limits to ensure the best results. Areas to focus on to lower the variability of the amino acid analysis include sample preparation, high background spectral interference due to the quality of reagents and/or to laboratory practices, instrument performance and maintenance, data analysis and interpretation, and analyst performance and habits. All parameters involved are fully investigated in the scope of the validation work. Accurate results from amino acid analysis require purified protein and peptide samples. Buffer components (e.g., salts, urea, detergents) can interfere with the amino acid analysis and are removed from the sample before analysis. Methods that utilize postcolumn derivatization of the amino acids are generally not affected by buffer components to the extent seen with precolumn derivatization methods. It is desirable to limit the number of sample manipulations to reduce potential background contamination, to improve analyte recovery, and to reduce labor. Common techniques used to remove buffer components from protein samples include the following methods: (1) injecting the protein sample onto a reverse-phase HPLC system, removing the protein with a volatile solvent containing a sufficient organic component, and drying the sample in a vacuum centrifuge; (2) dialysis against a volatile buffer or water; (3) centrifugal ultrafiltration for buffer replacement with a volatile buffer or water; (4) precipitating the protein from the buffer using an organic solvent (e.g., acetone); and (5) gel filtration. It is recommended that an internal standard be used to monitor physical and chemical losses and variations during amino acid analysis. An accurately known amount of internal standard can be added to a protein solution prior to hydrolysis. The recovery of the internal standard gives the general recovery of the amino acids from the protein solution. Free amino acids, however, do not behave in the same way as protein-bound amino acids during hydrolysis because their rates of release or destruction are variable. Therefore, the use of an internal standard to correct for losses during hydrolysis may give unreliable results. It will be necessary to take this particular point into consideration when interpreting the results. Internal standards can also be added to the mixture of amino acids after hydrolysis to correct for differences in sample application and changes in reagent stability and flow rates. Ideally, an internal standard is an unnaturally occurring primary amino acid that is commercially available and inexpensive. It should also be stable during hydrolysis, its response factor should be linear with concentration, and it needs to elute with a unique retention time without overlapping other amino acids. Commonly used amino acid standards include norleucine, nitrotyrosine, and -aminobutyric acid. Hydrolysis of protein and peptide samples is necessary for amino acid analysis of these molecules. The glassware used for hydrolysis must be very clean to avoid erroneous results. Glove powders and fingerprints on hydrolysis tubes may cause contamination. To clean glass hydrolysis tubes, boil tubes for 1 hour in 1 N hydrochloric acid or soak tubes in concentrated nitric acid or in a mixture of concentrated hydrochloric acid and concentrated nitric acid (1:1). Clean hydrolysis tubes are rinsed with high-purity water followed by a rinse with HPLC grade methanol, dried overnight in an oven, and stored covered until use. Alternatively, pyrolysis of clean glassware at 500 for 4 hours may be used to eliminate contamination from hydrolysis tubes. Adequate disposable laboratory material can also be used. Acid hydrolysis is the most common method for hydrolyzing a protein sample before amino acid analysis. The acid hydrolysis technique can contribute to the variation of the analysis due to complete or partial destruction of several amino acids. Tryptophan is destroyed; serine and threonine are partially destroyed; methionine might undergo oxidation; and cysteine is typically recovered as cystine (but cystine recovery is usually poor because of partial destruction or reduction to cysteine). Application of adequate vacuum (less than 200 µm of mercury or 26.7 Pa) or introduction of an inert gas (argon) in the headspace of the reaction vessel can reduce the level of oxidative destruction. In peptide bonds involving isoleucine and valine, the amido bonds of Ile-Ile, Val-Val, Ile-Val, and Val-Ile are partially cleaved; and asparagine and glutamine are deamidated, resulting in aspartic acid and glutamic acid, respectively. The loss of tryptophan, asparagine, and glutamine during an acid hydrolysis limits quantitation to 17 amino acids. Some of the hydrolysis techniques described are used to address these concerns. Some of the hydrolysis techniques described (i.e., Methods 4–11) may cause modifications to other amino acids. Therefore, the benefits of using a given hydrolysis technique are weighed against the concerns with the technique and are tested adequately before employing a method other than acid hydrolysis. A time-course study (i.e., amino acid analysis at acid hydrolysis times of 24, 48, and 72 hours) is often employed to analyze the starting concentration of amino acids that are partially destroyed or slow to cleave. By plotting the observed concentration of labile amino acids (i.e., serine and threonine) versus hydrolysis time, the line can be extrapolated to the origin to determine the starting concentration of these amino acids. Time-course hydrolysis studies are also used with amino acids that are slow to cleave (e.g., isoleucine and valine). During the hydrolysis time course, the analyst will observe a plateau in these residues. The level of this plateau is taken as the residue concentration. If the hydrolysis time is too long, the residue concentration of the sample will begin to decrease, indicating destruction by the hydrolysis conditions. Acid hydrolysis using hydrochloric acid containing phenol is the most common procedure used for protein/peptide hydrolysis preceding amino acid analysis. The addition of phenol to the reaction prevents the halogenation of tyrosine. Hydrolysis Solution: 6 N hydrochloric acid containing 0.1% to 1.0% of phenol. Liquid Phase Hydrolysis— Place the protein or peptide sample in a hydrolysis tube, and dry. [note—The sample is dried so that water in the sample will not dilute the acid used for the hydrolysis.] Add 200 µL of Hydrolysis Solution per 500 µg of lyophilized protein. Freeze the sample tube in a dry ice–acetone bath, and flame seal in vacuum. Samples are typically hydrolyzed at 110 for 24 hours in vacuum or inert atmosphere to prevent oxidation. Longer hydrolysis times (e.g., 48 and 72 hours) are investigated if there is a concern that the protein is not completely hydrolyzed. Vapor Phase Hydrolysis— This is one of the most common acid hydrolysis procedures, and it is preferred for microanalysis when only small amounts of the sample are available. Contamination of the sample from the acid reagent is also minimized by using vapor phase hydrolysis. Place vials containing the dried samples in a vessel that contains an appropriate amount of Hydrolysis Solution. The Hydrolysis Solution does not come in contact with the test sample. Apply an inert atmosphere or vacuum (less than 200 µm of mercury or 26.7 Pa) to the headspace of the vessel, and heat to about 110 for a 24-hour hydrolysis time. Acid vapor hydrolyzes the dried sample. Any condensation of the acid in the sample vials is minimized. After hydrolysis, dry the test sample in vacuum to remove any residual acid. Tryptophan oxidation during hydrolysis is decreased by using mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (MESA) as the reducing acid. Hydrolysis Solution: 2.5 M MESA solution. Vapor Phase Hydrolysis— About 1 to 100 µg of the protein/peptide under test is dried in a hydrolysis tube. The hydrolysis tube is placed in a larger tube with about 200 µL of the Hydrolysis Solution. The larger tube is sealed in vacuum (about 50 µm of mercury or 6.7 Pa) to vaporize the Hydrolysis Solution. The hydrolysis tube is heated to between 170 to 185 for about 12.5 minutes. After hydrolysis, the hydrolysis tube is dried in vacuum for 15 minutes to remove the residual acid. Tryptophan oxidation during hydrolysis is prevented by using thioglycolic acid (TGA) as the reducing acid. Hydrolysis Solution: a solution containing 7 M hydrochloric acid, 10% of trifluoroacetic acid, 20% of thioglycolic acid, and 1% of phenol. Vapor Phase Hydrolysis— About 10 to 50 µg of the protein/peptide under test is dried in a sample tube. The sample tube is placed in a larger tube with about 200 µL of the Hydrolysis Solution. The larger tube is sealed in vacuum (about 50 µm of mercury or 6.7 Pa) to vaporize the TGA. The sample tube is heated to 166 for about 15 to 30 minutes. After hydrolysis, the sample tube is dried in vacuum for 5 minutes to remove the residual acid. Recovery of tryptophan by this method may be dependent on the amount of sample present. Cysteine-cystine and methionine oxidation is performed with performic acid before the protein hydrolysis. Oxidation Solution— The performic acid is prepared fresh by mixing formic acid and 30 percent hydrogen peroxide (9:1), and incubating at room temperature for 1 hour. Procedure— The protein/peptide sample is dissolved in 20 µL of formic acid, and heated at 50 for 5 minutes; then 100 µL of the Oxidation Solution is added. In this reaction, cysteine is converted to cysteic acid and methionine is converted to methionine sulfone. The oxidation is allowed to proceed for 10 to 30 minutes. The excess reagent is removed from the sample in a vacuum centrifuge. This technique may cause modifications to tyrosine residues in the presence of halides. The oxidized protein can then be acid hydrolyzed using Method 1 or Method 2. Cysteine-cystine oxidation is accomplished during the liquid phase hydrolysis with sodium azide. Hydrolysis Solution: 6 N hydrochloric acid containing 0.2% of phenol, to which sodium azide is added to obtain a final concentration of 0.2% (w/v). The added phenol prevents halogenation of tyrosine. Liquid Phase Hydrolysis— The protein/peptide hydrolysis is conducted at about 110 for 24 hours. During the hydrolysis, the cysteine-cystine present in the sample is converted to cysteic acid by the sodium azide present in the Hydrolysis Solution. This technique allows better tyrosine recovery than Method 4, but it is not quantitative for methionine. Methionine is converted to a mixture of the parent methionine and its two oxidative products, methionine sulfoxide and methionine sulfone. Cysteine-cystine oxidation is accomplished with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Hydrolysis Solution: 6 N hydrochloric acid containing 0.1% to 1.0% of phenol, to which DMSO is added to obtain a final concentration of 2% (v/v). Vapor Phase Hydrolysis— The protein/peptide hydrolysis is conducted at about 110 for 24 hours. During the hydrolysis, the cysteine-cystine present in the sample is converted to cysteic acid by the DMSO present in the Hydrolysis Solution. As an approach to limit variability and to compensate for partial destruction, it is recommended to evaluate the cysteic acid recovery from oxidative hydrolyses of standard proteins containing 1 to 8 mol of cysteine. The response factors from protein/peptide hydrolysates are typically about 30% lower than those for nonhydrolyzed cysteic acid standards. Because histidine, methionine, tyrosine, and tryptophan are also modified, a complete compositional analysis is not obtained with this technique. Cysteine-cystine reduction and alkylation is accomplished by a vapor phase pyridylethylation reaction. Reducing Solution— Transfer 83.3 µL of pyridine, 16.7 µL of 4-vinylpyridine, 16.7 µL of tributylphosphine, and 83.3 µL of water to a suitable container, and mix. Procedure— Add the protein/peptide (between 1 and 100 µg) to a hydrolysis tube, and place in a larger tube. Transfer the Reducing Solution to the large tube, seal in vacuum (about 50 µm of mercury or 6.7 Pa), and incubate at about 100 for 5 minutes. Then remove the inner hydrolysis tube, and dry it in a vacuum desiccator for 15 minutes to remove residual reagents. The pyridylethylated protein/peptide can then be acid hydrolyzed using previously described procedures. The pyridylethylation reaction is performed simultaneously with a protein standard sample containing 1 to 8 mol of cysteine to improve accuracy in the pyridylethyl-cysteine recovery. Longer incubation times for the pyridylethylation reaction can cause modifications to the -amino terminal group and the -amino group of lysine in the protein. Cysteine-cystine reduction and alkylation is accomplished by a liquid phase pyridylethylation reaction. Stock Solutions— Prepare and filter three solutions: 1 M Tris hydrochloride (pH 8.5) containing 4 mM edetate disodium (Stock Solution 1), 8 M guanidine hydrochloride (Stock Solution 2), and 10% of 2-mercaptoethanol in water (Stock Solution 3). Reducing Solution— Prepare a mixture of Stock Solution 2 and Stock Solution 1 (3:1) to obtain a buffered solution of 6 M guanidine hydrochloride in 0.25 M Tris hydrochloride. Procedure— Dissolve about 10 µg of the test sample in 50 µL of the Reducing Solution, and add about 2.5 µL of Stock Solution 3. Store under nitrogen or argon for 2 hours at room temperature in the dark. To achieve the pyridylethylation reaction, add about 2 µL of 4-vinylpyridine to the protein solution, and incubate for an additional 2 hours at room temperature in the dark. The protein/peptide is desalted by collecting the protein/peptide fraction from a reverse-phase HPLC separation. The collected sample can be dried in a vacuum centrifuge before acid hydrolysis. Cysteine-cystine reduction and alkylation is accomplished by a liquid phase carboxymethylation reaction. Stock Solutions— Prepare as directed for Method 8. Carboxymethylation Solution— Prepare a solution containing 100 mg of iodoacetamide per mL of alcohol. Buffer Solution— Use the Reducing Solution, prepared as directed for Method 8. Procedure— Dissolve the test sample in 50 µL of the Buffer Solution, and add about 2.5 µL of Stock Solution 3. Store under nitrogen or argon for 2 hours at room temperature in the dark. Add the Carboxymethylation Solution in a 1.5 fold ratio per total theoretical content of thiols, and incubate for an additional 30 minutes at room temperature in the dark. [note—If the thiol content of the protein is unknown, then add 5 µL of 100 mM iodoacetamide for every 20 nmol of protein present.] The reaction is stopped by adding excess of 2-mercaptoethanol. The protein/peptide is desalted by collecting the protein/peptide fraction from a reverse-phase HPLC separation. The collected sample can be dried in a vacuum centrifuge before acid hydrolysis. The S-carboxyamidomethylcysteine formed will be converted to S-carboxymethyl-cysteine during acid hydrolysis. Reducing Solution: a solution containing 10 mg of dithiodiglycolic acid (or dithiodipropionic acid) per mL of 0.2 M sodium hydroxide. Procedure— Transfer about 20 µg of the test sample to a hydrolysis tube, and add 5 µL of the Reducing Solution. Add 10 µL of isopropyl alcohol, and then remove all of the sample liquid by vacuum centrifugation. The sample is then hydrolyzed using Method 1. This method has the advantage that other amino acid residues are not derivatized by side reactions, and the sample does not need to be desalted prior to hydrolysis. Asparagine and glutamine are converted to aspartic acid and glutamic acid, respectively, during acid hydrolysis. Asparagine and aspartic acid residues are added and represented by Asx, while glutamine and glutamic acid residues are added and represented by Glx. Proteins/peptides can be reacted with bis(1,1-trifluoroacetoxy)iodobenzene (BTI) to convert the asparagine and glutamine residues to diaminopropionic acid and diaminobutyric acid residues, respectively, upon acid hydrolysis. These conversions allow the analyst to determine the asparagine and glutamine content of a protein/peptide in the presence of aspartic acid and glutamic acid residues. Reducing Solutions— Prepare and filter three solutions: a solution of 10 mM trifluoroacetic acid (Solution 1), a solution of 5 M guanidine hydrochloride and 10 mM trifluoroacetic acid (Solution 2), and a freshly prepared solution of dimethylformamide containing 36 mg of BTI per mL (Solution 3). Many amino acid analysis techniques exist, and the choice of any one technique often depends on the sensitivity required from the assay. In general, about one-half of the amino acid analysis techniques employed rely on the separation of the free amino acids by ion-exchange chromatography followed by postcolumn derivatization (e.g., with ninhydrin or o-phthalaldehyde). Postcolumn detection techniques can be used with samples that contain small amounts of buffer components, such as salts and urea, and generally require between 5 and 10 µg of protein sample per analysis. The remaining amino acid techniques typically involve precolumn derivatization of the free amino acids (e.g., phenyl isothiocyanate; 6-aminoquinolyl-N-hydroxysuccinimidyl carbonate; (dimethylamino)azobenzenesulfonyl chloride; 9-fluorenyl-methylchloroformate; and 7-fluoro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole) followed by reverse-phase HPLC. Precolumn derivatization techniques are very sensitive and usually require between 0.5 and 1.0 µg of protein sample per analysis but may be influenced by buffer salts in the samples. Precolumn derivatization techniques may also result in multiple derivatives of a given amino acid, which complicates the result interpretation. Postcolumn derivatization techniques are generally influenced less by performance variation of the assay than precolumn derivatization techniques. The following Methods may be used for quantitative amino acid analysis. Instruments and reagents for these procedures are available commercially. Furthermore, many modifications of these methodologies exist with different reagent preparations, reaction procedures, and chromatographic systems. Specific parameters may vary according to the exact equipment and procedure used. Many laboratories will utilize more than one amino acid analysis technique to exploit the advantages offered by each. In each of these Methods, the analog signal is visualized by means of a data acquisition system, and the peak areas are integrated for quantification purposes. Ion-exchange chromatography with postcolumn ninhydrin detection is one of the most common methods employed for quantitative amino acid analysis. As a rule, a Li-based cation-exchange system is employed for the analysis of the more complex physiological samples, and the faster Na-based cation-exchange system is used for the more simplistic amino acid mixtures obtained with protein hydrolysates (typically containing 17 amino acid components). Separation of the amino acids on an ion-exchange column is accomplished through a combination of changes in pH and cation strength. A temperature gradient is often employed to enhance separation. When the amino acid reacts with ninhydrin, the reactant has characteristic purple or yellow color. Amino acids, except imino acids, give a purple color, and show maximum absorption at 570 nm. The imino acids, such as proline, give a yellow color, and show maximum absorption at 440 nm. The postcolumn reaction between ninhydrin and amino acid eluted from the column is monitored at 440 nm and 570 nm, and the chromatogram obtained is used for the determination of amino acid composition. The detection limit is considered to be 10 pmol for most of the amino acid derivatives, but 50 pmol for proline. Response linearity is obtained in the range of 20 to 500 pmol with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.999. To obtain good compositional data, samples larger than 1 µg before hydrolysis are best suited for this amino acid analysis of protein/peptide. One method for postcolumn ninhydrin detection is shown below. Many other methods are also available, with instruments and reagents available commercially. Solution A— Transfer about 1.7 g of anhydrous sodium citrate and 1.5 mL of hydrochloric acid to a 100-mL volumetric flask, dissolve in and dilute with water to volume, and mix. Adjust, if necessary, with hydrochloric acid to a pH of 3.0. Solution B— Transfer about 1.7 g of anhydrous sodium citrate and 0.7 mL of hydrochloric acid to a 100-mL volumetric flask, dissolve in and dilute with water to volume, and mix. Adjust, if necessary, with hydrochloric acid to a pH of 4.3. Solution C— Prepare a solution containing 5% of sodium chloride, 1.9% of anhydrous sodium citrate, and 0.1% of phenol in water, and adjust to a pH of 6. Column Regeneration Solution— Prepare a solution containing 0.8% of sodium hydroxide in water, and adjust to a pH of 13. Mobile Phase— Use variable mixtures of Solution A, Solution B, and Solution C as directed for Chromatographic System. Buffer Solution— Prepare a solution containing 2% of anhydrous sodium citrate, 1% of hydrochloric acid, 0.5% of thiodiglycol, and 0.1% of benzoic acid in water, and adjust to a pH of 2. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a detector with appropriate interference filters at 440, 570, or 690 nm and a 4.0-mm × 120-mm column that contains 7.5-µm sulfonated styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer packing. The flow rate is about 14 mL per hour. The system is programmed as follows. Initially equilibrate the column with Solution A; at 25 minutes, the composition of the Mobile Phase is changed to 100% Solution B; and at 37 minutes, the composition is changed to 100% Solution C. At 75 minutes into the run, the last amino acid has been eluted from the column, and the column is regenerated with Column Regeneration Solution for 1 minute. The column is then equilibrated with Solution A for 11 minutes before the next injection. The column temperature is programmed as follows. The initial temperature is 48 ; after 11.5 minutes, the temperature is increased to 65 at a rate of 3 per minute; at about 35 minutes, the temperature is increased to 77 at a rate of 3 per minute; and finally at about 52 minutes, the temperature is decreased to 48 at a rate of 3 per minute. Procedure and Postcolumn Reaction— Reconstitute the lyophilized protein/peptide hydrolysate in the Buffer Solution, inject an appropriate amount into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. As the amino acids are eluted from the column, they are mixed with the Postcolumn Reagent, which is delivered at a flow rate of 7 mL per hour, through a tee. After mixing, the column effluent and the Postcolumn Reagent pass through a tubular reactor at a temperature of 135 , where a characteristic purple or yellow color is developed. From the reactor, the liquid passes through a colorimeter with a 12-mm flow-through cuvette. The light emerging from the cuvette is split into three beams for analysis by the detector with interference filters at 440, 570, or 690 nm. The 690-nm signal may be electronically subtracted from the other signals for improved signal-to-noise ratios. The 440-nm (imino acids) and the 570-nm (amino acids) signals may be added in order to simplify data handling. Ion-exchange chromatography with postcolumn o-phthalaldehyde (OPA) fluorometric detection is used. The procedure employs an ion-exchange column for separation of free amino acids followed by postcolumn oxidation with sodium hypochlorite and derivatization using OPA and N-acetyl-l-cysteine. The sodium hypochlorite oxidation step allows secondary amines, such as proline, to react with the OPA reagent. OPA reacts with primary amines in the presence of thiol compound to form highly fluorescent isoindole products. This reaction is utilized for the postcolumn derivatization in analysis of amino acids by ion-exchange chromatography. The rule of the separation is the same as Method I. Instruments and reagents for this form of amino acid analysis are available commercially. Many modifications of this method exist. Although OPA does not react with secondary amines (imino acids, such as proline) to form fluorescent substances, the oxidation with sodium hypochlorite allows secondary amines to react with OPA. The procedure employs a strongly acidic cation-exchange column for separation of free amino acids followed by postcolumn oxidation with sodium hypochlorite and postcolumn derivatization using OPA and thiol compound, such as N-acetyl-l-cysteine and 2-mercaptoethanol. The derivatization of primary amino acids are not noticeably affected by the continuous supply of sodium hypochlorite. Separation of the amino acids on an ion-exchange column is accomplished through a combination of changes of pH and cation strength. After postcolumn derivatization of eluted amino acids with OPA, the reactant passes through the fluorometric detector. Fluorescence intensity of OPA-derivatized amino acids are monitored with an excitation wavelength of 348 nm and an emission wavelength of 450 nm. The detection limit is considered to be a few tens of pmol level for most of the amino acid derivatives. Response linearity is obtained in the range of a few pmol level to a few tens of nmol level. To obtain good compositional data, a sample greater than 500 ng before hydrolysis is best suited for the amino acid analysis of protein/peptide. One method of postcolumn OPA fluorometric detection is shown below. Solution A— Prepare a solution of sodium hydroxide, citric acid, and alcohol in HPLC grade water having a 0.2 N sodium concentration and containing 7% of alcohol (w/v), adjusted to a pH of 3.2. Solution B— Prepare a solution of sodium hydroxide and citric acid in HPLC grade water having a 0.6 N sodium concentration, adjusted to a pH of 10.0. Solution C: 0.2 N sodium hydroxide. Alkaline Buffer— Prepare a solution containing 384 mM sodium carbonate, 216 mM boric acid, and 108 mM potassium sulfate, and adjust to a pH of 10.0. OPA Reagent— Transfer 2 g of N-acetyl-l-cysteine and 1.6 g of OPA to a 15-mL volumetric flask, dissolve in and dilute with alcohol to volume, and mix. Transfer this solution and 4 mL of 10% aqueous polyethylene (23) lauryl ether to a 1-L volumetric flask, dilute with 980 mL of Alkaline Buffer, and mix. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a fluorometric detector set to an excitation wavelength of 348 nm and an emission wavelength of 450 nm and a 4.0-mm × 150-mm column that contains 7.5-µm packing L17. The flow rate is about 0.3 mL per minute, and the column temperature is set at 50 . The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with Solution A; over the next 20 minutes, the composition of the Mobile Phase is changed linearly to 85% Solution A and 15% Solution B; then there is a step change to 40% Solution A and 60% Solution B; over the next 18 minutes, the composition is changed linearly to 100% Solution B and held for 7 minutes; then there is a step change to 100% Solution C, and this is held for 6 minutes; then there is a step change to Solution A, and this composition is maintained for the next 8 minutes. Procedure and Postcolumn Reaction— Inject about 1.0 nmol of each amino acid under test into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. As the effluent leaves the column, it is mixed with the Hypochlorite Reagent. The mixture passes through the first postcolumn reactor which consists of stainless steel 0.5-mm × 2-m tubing. A second postcolumn reactor of similar design is placed immediately downstream from the first postcolumn reactor and is used for the OPA postcolumn reaction. The flow rates for both the Hypochlorite Reagent and the OPA Reagent are 0.2 mL per minute, resulting in a total flow rate (i.e., Hypochlorite Reagent, OPA Reagent, and column effluent) of 0.7 mL per minute exiting from the postcolumn reactors. Postcolumn reactions are conducted at 55 . This results in a residence time of about 33 seconds in the OPA postcolumn reactor. After postcolumn derivatization, the column effluent passes through the fluorometric detector. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with phenylisothiocyanate (PITC) followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation with UV detection is used. PITC reacts with amino acids to form phenylthiocarbamyl (PTC) derivatives, which can be detected with high sensitivity at 254 nm. Therefore, precolumn derivatization of amino acids with PITC followed by a reverse-phase HPLC separation with UV detection is used to analyze the amino acid composition. After the reagent is removed under vacuum, the derivatized amino acids can be stored dry and frozen for several weeks with no significant degradation. If the solution for injection is kept cold, no noticeable loss in chromatographic response occurs after three days. Separation of the PTC-amino acids on a reverse-phase HPLC with ODS column is accomplished through a combination of changes in concentrations of acetonitrile and buffer ionic strength. PTC-amino acids eluted from the column are monitored at 254 nm. The detection limit is considered to be 1 pmol for most of the amino acid derivatives. Response linearity is obtained in the range of 20 to 500 pmol with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.999. To obtain good compositional data, a sample larger than 500 ng of protein/peptide before hydrolysis is best suited for this amino analysis of proteins/peptides. One method of precolumn PITC derivatization is described below. Solution A: 0.05 M ammonium acetate, adjusted with phosphoric acid to a pH of 6.8. Solution B— Prepare 0.1 M ammonium acetate, adjust with phosphoric acid to a pH of 6.8, and then prepare a mixture of this solution and acetonitrile (1:1). Solution C: a mixture of acetonitrile and water (70:30). Coupling Buffer: a mixture of acetonitrile, pyridine, triethylamine, and water (10:5:2:3). Sample Solvent: a mixture of water and acetonitrile (7:2). Sample Derivatization Procedure— Dissolve the lyophilized test sample in 100 µL of the Coupling Buffer, and then dry in a vacuum centrifuge to remove any hydrochloride if a protein hydrolysis step was used. Dissolve the test sample in 100 µL of Coupling Buffer, add 5 µL of PITC, and incubate at room temperature for 5 minutes. The test sample is again dried in a vacuum centrifuge, and is dissolved in 250 µL of Sample Solvent. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a 254-nm detector and a 4.6-mm × 250-mm column that contains 5-µm packing L1. The flow rate is about 1 mL per minute, and the column temperature is maintained at 52 . The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with Solution A; over the next 15 minutes, the composition of the Mobile Phase is changed linearly to 85% Solution A and 15% Solution B; over the next 15 minutes, the composition is changed linearly to 50% Solution A and 50% Solution B; then there is a step change to 100% Solution C, and this is held for 10 minutes; then there is a step change to 100% Solution A, and the column is allowed to equilibrate before the next injection. Procedure— Inject about 1.0 nmol of each PITC-amino acid under test (10-µL sample in Sample Solvent) into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with 6-aminoquinolyl-N-hydroxysuccinimidyl carbamate (AQC) followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation with fluorometric detection is used. AQC reacts with amino acids to form stable, fluorescent unsymmetric urea derivatives (AQC-amino acids) which are readily amenable to analysis by reverse-phase HPLC. Therefore, precolumn derivatization of amino acids with AQC followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation is used to analyze the amino acid composition. Separation of the AQC-amino acids on an ODS column is accomplished through a combination of changes in the concentrations of acetonitrile and salt. Selective fluorescence detection of the derivatives with an excitation wavelength at 250 nm and an emission wavelength at 395 nm allows for the direct injection of the reaction mixture with no significant interference from the only major fluorescent reagent byproduct, 6-aminoquinoline. Excess reagent is rapidly hydrolyzed (t1/2< 15 seconds) to yield 6-aminoquinoline-N-hydroxysuccinimide and carbon dioxide, and after 1 minute no further derivatization can take place. Peak areas for AQC-amino acids are essentially unchanged for at least 1 week at room temperature, and the derivatives have more than sufficient stability to allow for overnight automated chromatographic analysis. The detection limit is considered to be ranging from about 40 fmol to 320 fmol for each amino acid, except for Cys. The detection limit for Cys is approximately 800 fmol. Response linearity is obtained in the range of 2.5 µM to 200 µM with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.999. Good compositional data can be obtained from the analysis of derivatized protein hydrolysates containing as little as 30 ng of protein/peptide. One method of precolumn AQC derivatization is shown below. Solution A— Prepare a solution having a composition of 140 mM sodium acetate and 17 mM triethylamine, and adjust with phosphoric acid to a pH of 5.02. Solution B: a mixture of acetonitrile and water (60:40). Sample Derivatization Procedure— Dissolve about 2 µg of the test sample in 20 µL of 15 mM hydrochloric acid, and dilute with 0.2 M borate buffer (pH 8.8) to 80 µL. The derivatization is initiated by the addition of 20 µL of 10 mM AQC in acetonitrile, and allowed to proceed for 10 minutes at room temperature. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a fluorometric detector set at an excitation wavelength of 250 nm and an emission wavelength of 395 nm and a 3.9-mm × 150-mm column that contains 4-µm packing L1. The flow rate is about 1 mL per minute, and the column temperature is maintained at 37 . The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with Solution A; over the next 0.5 minute, the composition of the Mobile Phase is changed linearly to 98% Solution A and 2% Solution B; then over the next 14.5 minutes to 93% Solution A and 7% Solution B; then over the next 4 minutes to 87% Solution A and 13% Solution B; over the next 14 minutes to 68% Solution A and 32% Solution B; then there is a step change to 100% Solution B for a 5-minute wash; over the next 10 minutes, there is a step change to 100% Solution A; and the column is allowed to equilibrate before the next injection. Procedure— Inject about 0.05 nmol of each AQC-amino acid under test into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with OPA followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation with fluorometric detection is used. This technique does not detect amino acids that exist as secondary amines (e.g., proline). OPA in conjunction with a thiol reagent reacts with primary amine groups to form highly fluorescent isoindole products. 2-Mercaptoethanol and 3-mercaptopropionic acid can be used as thiol. OPA itself does not fluoresce and consequently produces no interfering peaks. In addition, its solubility and stability in aqueous solution, along with the rapid kinetics for the reactions, make it amenable to automated derivatization and analysis using an autosampler to mix the sample with the reagent. However, lack of reactivity with secondary amino acids has been a predominant drawback. This method does not detect amino acids that exist as secondary amines (e.g., proline). To compensate for this drawback, this technique may be combined with another technique described in Method 7 or Method 8. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with OPA is followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation. Because of the instability of the OPA-amino acid derivative, HPLC separation and analysis are performed immediately following derivatization. The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a fluorometric detector for the detection of derivatized amino acids. Fluorescence intensity of the OPA-derivatized amino acids are monitored with an excitation wavelength of 348 nm and an emission wavelength of 450 nm. The detection limits as low as 50 fmol via fluorescence have been reported, although the practical limit of analysis remains at 1 pmol. One method of precolumn OPA derivatization is shown below. Solution A: a mixture of 100 mM sodium acetate (pH 7.2), methanol, and tetrahydrofuran (900:95:5). Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a fluorometric detector set at an excitation wavelength of 348 nm and an emission wavelength of 450 nm and a 4.6-mm × 75-mm column that contains 3-µm packing L3. The flow rate is about 1.7 mL per minute, and the column temperature is maintained at 37 . The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with 92% Solution A and 8% Solution B; over the next 2 minutes, the composition of the Mobile Phase is changed to 83% Solution A and 17% Solution B, and held for an additional 3 minutes; then changed to 54% Solution A and 46% Solution B over the next 5 minutes, and held for an additional 2 minutes; then changed to 34% Solution A and 66% Solution B over the next 2 minutes, and held for 1 minute; then over the next 0.3 minute changed to 20% Solution A and 80% Solution B, and held for an additional 2.6 minutes; and then finally over 0.6 minute changed to 92% Solution A and 8% Solution B, and held for an additional 0.6 minute. Procedure— Inject about 0.02 nmol of each OPA-amino acid under test into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with (dimethylamino)azobenzenesulfonyl chloride (DABS-Cl) followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation with visible light detection is used. DABS-Cl is a chromophoric reagent employed for the labeling of amino acids. Amino acids labeled with DABS-Cl (DABS-amino acids) are highly stable and show the maximum absorption at 436 nm. DABS-amino acids, all 19 naturally occurring amino acids derivatives, can be separated on an ODS column of a reverse-phase HPLC by employing gradient systems consisting of acetonitrile and aqueous buffer mixture. Separated DABS-amino acids eluted from the column are detected at 436 nm in the visible region. This method can analyze the imino acids, such as proline, together with the amino acids, at the same degree of sensitivity. DABS-Cl derivatization method permits the simultaneous quantification of tryptophan residues by previous hydrolysis of the protein/peptide with sulfonic acids, such as mercaptoethanesulfonic acid, p-toluenesulfonic acid, or methanesulfonic acid, described for Method 2 in Protein Hydrolysis under Amino Acid Analysis. The other acid-labile residues, asparagine and glutamine, can also be analyzed by previous conversion into diaminopropionic acid and diaminobutyric acid, respectively, by treatment of protein/peptide with BTI, described for Method 11 in Protein Hydrolysis under Amino Acid Analysis. The nonproteinogenic amino acid, norleucine, cannot be used as an internal standard in this method as this compound is eluted in a chromatographic region crowded with peaks of primary amino acids. Nitrotyrosine can be used as an internal standard because it is eluted in a clean region. The detection limit of DABS-amino acid is about 1 pmol. As little as 2 to 5 pmol of an individual DABS-amino acid can be quantitatively analyzed with reliability, and only 10 ng to 30 ng of the dabsylated protein hydrolysate is required for each analysis. One method for precolumn DABS-Cl derivatization is shown below. Solution A: 25 mM sodium acetate (pH 6.5) containing 4% of dimethylformamide. Sample Buffer: 50 mM sodium bicarbonate, adjusted to a pH of 8.1. Sample Dilution Buffer— Prepare a mixture of 50 mM sodium phosphate (pH 7.0) and alcohol (1:1). Sample Derivatization Procedure— Dissolve the test sample in 20 µL of Sample Buffer, add 40 µL of Derivatization Reagent, and mix. The sample container is sealed with a silicon-rubber stopper, and heated to 70 for 10 minutes. During the sample heating, the mixture will become completely soluble. After the derivatization, dilute the test sample with an appropriate quantity of the Sample Dilution Buffer. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a 436-nm detector and a 4.6-mm × 250-mm column that contains packing L1. The flow rate is about 1 mL per minute, and the column temperature is maintained at 40 . The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with 85% Solution A and 15% Solution B; over the next 20 minutes, the composition of the Mobile Phase is changed to 60% Solution A and 40% Solution B; over the next 12 minutes, the composition is changed to 30% Solution A and 70% Solution B, and held for an additional 2 minutes. Procedure— Inject about 0.05 nmol of the DABS-amino acids into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC-Cl) followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation with fluorometric detection is used. FMOC-Cl reacts with both primary and secondary amino acids to form highly fluorescent products. The reaction of FMOC-Cl with amino acid proceeds under mild conditions, in aqueous solution, and is completed in 30 seconds. The derivatives are stable, with only the histidine derivative showing any breakdown. Although FMOC-Cl is fluorescent itself, the reagent excess and fluorescent side-products can be eliminated without loss of FMOC-amino acids. FMOC-amino acids are separated by reverse-phase HPLC using an ODS column. The separation is carried out by gradient elution varied linearly from a mixture of acetic acid buffer, methanol, and acetonitrile (50:40:10) to a mixture of acetonitrile and acetic acid buffer (50:50), and 20 amino acid derivatives that are separated in 20 minutes. Each derivative eluted from the column is monitored by a fluorometric detector set at an excitation wavelength of 260 nm and an emission wavelength of 313 nm. The detection limit is in the low fmol range. A linearity range of 0.1 µM to 50 µM is obtained for most amino acids. One method for precolumn FMOC-Cl derivatization is shown below. Acetic Acid Buffer— Transfer 3 mL of glacial acetic acid and 1 mL of triethylamine to a 1-L volumetric flask, and dilute with HPLC grade water to volume. Adjust with sodium hydroxide to a pH of 4.20. Solution A: a mixture of Acetic Acid Buffer, methanol, and acetonitrile (50:40:10). Solution B: a mixture of acetonitrile and Acetic Acid Buffer (50:50). Borate Buffer— Prepare a 1 M boric acid solution, and adjust with sodium hydroxide to a pH of 6.2. FMOC-Cl Reagent— Dissolve 155 mg of 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate in 40 mL of acetone, and mix. Sample Derivatization Procedure— To 0.4 mL of the test sample add 0.1 mL of Borate Buffer and 0.5 mL of FMOC-Cl Reagent. After about 40 seconds, extract the mixture with 2 mL of pentane, and then extract again with fresh pentane. The aqueous solution with amino acid derivatives is then ready for injection. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a fluorometric detector set at an excitation wavelength of 260 nm and an emission wavelength of 313 nm and a 4.6-mm × 125-mm column that contains 3-µm packing L1. The flow rate is about 1.3 mL per minute. The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with Solution A, and this composition is maintained for 3 minutes; over the next 9 minutes, it is changed to 100% Solution B; then over the next 0.5 minute, the flow rate is increased to 2 mL per minute, and held until the final FMOC-amino acid is eluted from the column. The total run time is about 20 minutes. Procedure— Inject not less than 0.01 nmol of each FMOC-amino acid under test into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. The FMOC-histidine derivative will generally give a lower response than the other derivatives. Precolumn derivatization of amino acids with 7-fluoro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-F) followed by reverse-phase HPLC separation with fluorometric detection is used. 7-Fluoro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-F) reacts with both primary and secondary amino acids to form highly fluorescent products. Amino acids are derivatized with NBD-F by heating to 60 for 5 minutes. NBD-amino acid derivatives are separated on an ODS column of reverse-phase HPLC by employing a gradient elution system consisting of acetonitrile and aqueous buffer mixture, and 17 amino acid derivatives that are separated in 35 minutes. E-aminocaproic acid can be used as an internal standard because it is eluted in a clean chromatographic region. Each derivative eluted from the column is monitored by a fluorometric detector set at an excitation wavelength of 480 nm and an emission wavelength of 530 nm. The sensitivity of this method is almost the same as that for the precolumn OPA derivatization method (Method 5), excluding proline to which OPA is not reactive and might be advantageous for NBD-F against OPA. The detection limit for each amino acid is about 10 fmol. Profile analysis was achieved for about 1.5 mg of protein hydrolysates in the final precolumn labeling reaction mixture for HPLC. One method for precolumn NBD-F derivatization is shown below. Solution A: a solution of 10mM sodium citrate containing 75 mM sodium perchlorate, adjusted with hydrochloric acid to a pH of 6.2. Solution B: a mixture of acetonitrile and water (50:50). Sample Buffer: a 0.1 M boric acid solution, adjusted with sodium hydroxide to a pH of 9.2. Derivatization Reagent— Dissolve 5 mg of NBD-F in 1.0 mL of alcohol, and mix. Sample Derivatization Procedure— Dissolve the test sample in 20 µL of Sample buffer, add 10 µL of Derivatization Reagent, and mix. The sample container is heated at 60 for 5 minutes. After the derivatization, dilute the test sample with 300 µL of Solution A. Chromatographic System— The liquid chromatograph is equipped with a fluorometric detector set at an excitation wavelength of 480 nm and an emission wavelength of 530 nm and a 4.6-mm × 150-mm column that contains 5-µm particle size ODS silica packing. The flow rate is about 1.0 mL per minute, and the column temperature is maintained at 40 . The system is programmed as follows. The column is equilibrated with 94% Solution A and 6% Solution B; over the next 16 minutes, the composition is changed linearly to 63% Solution A and 37% Solution B; over the next 5 minutes, the composition is changed linearly to 62% Solution A and 38% Solution B; over the next 9 minutes, the composition is changed linearly to 100% Solution B, and held for an additional 5 minutes; then finally over 2 minutes, the composition is changed linearly to 94% Solution A and 6% Solution B; and then the column is allowed to equilibrate before the next injection. Procedure— Inject about 15 pmol of each NBD-amino acid under test into the chromatograph, and proceed as directed for Chromatographic System. When determining the amino acid content of a protein/peptide hydrolysate, it should be noted that the acid hydrolysis step destroys tryptophan and cysteine. Serine and threonine are partially destroyed by acid hydrolysis, while isoleucine and valine residues may be only partially cleaved. Methionine can undergo oxidation during acid hydrolysis, and some amino acids (e.g., glycine and serine) are common contaminants. Application of adequate vacuum (less than 200 µm of mercury or 26.7 Pa) or introduction of inert gas (argon) in the headspace of the reaction vessel during vapor phase hydrolysis can reduce the level of oxidative destruction. Therefore, the quantitative results obtained for cysteine, tryptophan, threonine, isoleucine, valine, methionine, glycine, and serine from a protein/peptide hydrolysate may be variable and may warrant further investigation and consideration. in which rU is the peak response, in nmol, of the amino acid under test; and r is the sum of peak responses, in nmol, for all amino acids present in the test sample. Comparison of the mole percent of the amino acids under test to data from known proteins can help establish or corroborate the identity of the sample protein. in which m is the recovered quantity, in nmol, of the amino acid under test; M is the total mass, in µg, of the protein; and MWT is the molecular weight, in mg, of the unknown protein. Known Protein Samples— This data analysis technique can be used to investigate the amino acid composition and protein concentration of a protein sample of known molecular weight and amino acid composition using the amino acid analysis data. When the composition of the protein being analyzed is known, one can exploit the fact that some amino acids are recovered well, while other amino acid recoveries may be compromised because of complete or partial destruction (e.g., tryptophan, cysteine, threonine, serine, methionine), incomplete bond cleavage (i.e., for isoleucine and valine), and free amino acid contamination (i.e., by glycine and serine). Because those amino acids that are recovered best represent the protein, these amino acids are chosen to quantify the amount of protein. Well-recovered amino acids are, typically, aspartate-asparagine, glutamate-glutamine, alanine, leucine, phenylalanine, lysine, and arginine. This list can be modified based on experience with one's own analysis system. Divide the quantity, in nmol, of each of the well-recovered amino acids by the expected number of residues for that amino acid to obtain the protein content based on each well-recovered amino acid. Average the protein content results calculated. The protein content determined for each of the well-recovered amino acids should be evenly distributed about the mean. Discard protein content values for those amino acids that have an unacceptable deviation from the mean. Typically, a greater than 5% variation from the mean is considered unacceptable, but this is arbitrary. Recalculate the mean protein content from the remaining values to obtain the protein content of the sample. Divide the content of each amino acid by the calculated mean protein content to determine the amino acid composition of the sample by analysis. in which m is the experimentally determined quantity, in nmol per amino acid residue, of the amino acid under test; and mS is the known residue value for that amino acid. The average relative compositional error is the average of the absolute values of the relative compositional errors of the individual amino acids, typically excluding tryptophan and cysteine from this calculation. The average relative compositional error can provide important information on the stability of analysis run over time. The agreement in the amino acid composition between the protein sample and the known composition can be used to corroborate the identity and purity of the protein in the sample. * Suitable standards may be obtained from NIST (Gaithersburg, MD), Beckman Instruments (Fullerton, CA), Sigma Chemical (St. Louis, MO), Pierce (Rockford, IL), or Agilent (Palo Alto, CA).

2019-04-24T08:13:15Z

https://www.drugfuture.com/Pharmacopoeia/USP32/pub/data/v32270/usp32nf27s0_c1052.html

The Hay Adams Hotel at 16th & H Streets in NW Washington DC has as its motto, “Where nothing is overlooked except the White House.” It’s noted for its fine dining, superior accommodations and the spirit of Clover Adams who committed suicide and now leaves the faint scent of almonds behind. I’d also heard that the Hay Adams was haunted by a woman – Clover Adams, wife of Henry Adams – who committed suicide after falling into deep depression over the death of her dear father. Clover is sometimes seen by staff and guests but commonly manifests herself in the living world with the fragrance of almonds. Clover was an accomplished photographer with her own darkroom, and her husband Henry found her lifeless body in front of their bedroom fireplace after she ingested the darkroom chemical, potassium cyanide – which smells like almonds. She was only 42 and never got to live in their dream house. Doorman at the Hay Adams Hotel Entrance. The staff lives up to the Hay Adams service promise. At our sidewalk approach to the hotel, we were greeted and referred to the lobby. In the lobby, we were greeted and escorted to the dining room where our coats and umbrellas were collected and stored. Then we were graciously led into the sunny dining area itself, and seated at a table overlooking Lafayette Park and the White House. It was royal treatment. We wondered if they knew that we were really a bunch of middle-class hags…. or … maybe because we were so middle class they were keeping a watchful eye on us. I ordered a mimosa sipped it while enjoying the view out the window of the White House decorated for Christmas. Then I dove into my Chesapeake Bay Crab Cake Benedict with sautéed spinach and homemade Hollandaise sauce. Usually, I don’t order crab when off the Eastern Shore because I’m almost always disappointed. Off the Shore, the crabmeat is often tastless, acquired from Asia or South America without the pungent flavor of Chesapeake Bay crabmeat. But the flavors of the Bay were powerful in this backfin, lump crab cake crowned with a layer of spinach and a perfect poached egg. It was an unexpected, yet perfect combination, and just enough for breakfast, although I had room to scarf down a warm scone and butter. The breakfast, the setting, and the service exceeded expectations. We asked the server what famous people he had served at the Hay Adams and if they big tippers (keeping it classy). He said that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie stay there when they’re in DC and that they are wonderful people, polite, considerate and a joy to serve (no comment about the tip but we figured he wouldn’t have mentioned them if they were cheap). He also said that Morgan Freeman ordered a menu item in the “little plates” category and didn’t like the plate – thought it was too small – and he requested a bigger plate (which he got). Months later Mr. Freeman returned to the Hay Adams, ordered the same “little plate” dish and the server remembered his previous request and asked, “Mr. Freeman, are you wanting a larger plate?” And, yes….. Mr. Freeman’s “little plate” was replaced with one of a size more to his liking. As we were ready to leave the hotel, I was asking some questions about the hotel’s history, in particular, the story about the ghost of Clover Adams. The Food and Beverage Manager was dispatched to our table, and after answering a few questions offered to take us on a tour. What lovely surprise! We learned on his tour that the hotel was built in 1927 on the site of two separate houses that were built for John Hay and Henry Adams. As our host escorted us into the “Hay Adams Room” we overcome by the gorgeous floor to ceiling wood paneling, period ceilings and stunning Christmas decorations. There in the shadow of the Hay and Adams portraits, our host explained that the wood paneling was crafted from repurposed wood that was taken from the original Hay and Adams homes before they were razed to build the hotel. Then he told us a little about these two men. John Hay and Henry Adams were pillars in the community – Hay being the private secretary to Abraham Lincoln and later serving as Ambassador to the UK and Secretary of State under two US Presidents, and Henry Adams is the grandson of John Quincy Adams and a notable writer an connoisseur of the arts. They were intellectuals and part of the Washington DC cultural scene. They hosted grand parties at their houses that attracted artists and notables particularly in the literary field including Mark Twain Henry James and Edith Warton – a kind of “Lady Gregory’s Coole Park” in Washington DC. Both men were writers as was Henry’s wife, Clover (Marian Hooper Adams). Hay and Adams were so prominent in the social scene of the day, that the corner they lived on became forever associated with their names, even after their deaths when their houses stood vacant and falling into disrepair. There were a few subsequent owners, but in 1927 a developer purchased the properties, razed the houses and erected a the Italian Renaissance hotel that stands there today. And they kept the corner’s identity and named it the Hay Adams Hotel. The staff didn’t want to admit to any hauntings (ghosts are so low class), but they politely spoke about what others said they’d seen and heard. The concierge said that the chandelier at the entryway to the Hay Adams room has been seen swaying. And yes … there’s that faint smell of almonds. But while we were chatting about the ghost thing in the Hay Adams room, a large styrofoam Christmas tree ball on the tree located at the right of the John Clay portrait, fell off the tree and forcefully rolled a good twenty feet across the room, right to where the manager was standing. And three of the four of us hags saw and heard a person near the tree. Our initial perception was that the person knocked the ball off the tree and then commented on it. But when we all refocused, we realized there was no person. I clearly saw a person in my peripheral vision…. period. I know I did. So it was a little unsettling for a minute. But the manager said there was no one there, with a little smile he picked the stray ball and returned it to its place on the tree. The four of us were dumbfounded. …. and the tour continued. The Hay Adams Room. The tree was on right side of the Fireplace and ball ended up on the opposite end of the room rolling right to the manager. He is pictured here running after the ball. We were graciously escorted to other regions of the hotel and shown old photographs of the building, and the Hay and Adams homes that occupied the site previously, and some old pictures of the Lafayette Square streetscape. The entire experience was handled warmly, professionally and graciously. It was all so unexpected and delightful. Another meeting room at the Hay Adams. I went home and read more about the Clover Adams haunting of the Hay Adams Hotel. She was born into a wealthy Boston family surrounded by art and literature. Her mother was the poet, Ellen Sturgis Hooper, and her childhood involved associations with famous New England writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorn, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Clover’s artistic ability was seen in her own writings, but she is most noted for her pioneering efforts in the art of photography during the late 1800s. Her body of work is extensive, and it was a chemical used in picture developing – potassium cyanide – that she ingested to end her life. Clover never actually lived in the Henry Adams house on the corner of 16th & H where the hotel now sits. She ended her life at age 42 in the temporary home on H Street where the couple was staying while their dream house was being built. Her suicide was a shock to everyone. John Hay remembered Clover in a letter to Henry Adams stating that she was a “bright, intrepid spirit…which made your house such a one as Washington never knew before and made hundreds of people love her as much as they admired her.” Some believe that Clover Adams was the inspiration for Henry James’ novel Portrait of a Lady . Henry Adams grieved terribly for his lost wife. In a letter to one of Clover’s friends he stated,”During the last eighteen months I have not had the good luck to attend my own funeral, but with that exception, I have buried pretty nearly everything I lived for.” Henry burned his wife’s letters and never spoke of her or his grief over her loss. But out of that grief, Henry Adams commissioned a memorial to be crafted for his late wife that became one of the most famous and admired works of art in America – as well as one of mystery and ghostly associations. Augustus Saint-Gaudens created bronze cast statue that marks Clover Adams’ grave in Rock Creek Cemetery. It’s a life-sized shrouded figure seated on a bench with closed eyes barely noticeable under the veil. There is no name, no date, no words inscribed to Clover’s memory … only the baleful stare of an androgynous, shrouded figure. Henry Adams was said to have asked the artist to create something that is a cross between Buddha and Michaelangelo’s Pieta. It took four long years for Saint-Gaudens to create it, but Adams was pleased with it and had it placed on his beloved’s grave. No name was even given to the statue, though later the name “Grief” became a common reference. An unauthorized copy of the same memorial was made by Edward Ludwig Albert Pausch and placed in Druidpark Cemetery in Pikesville. That figure became known as the infamous “Black Aggie” figure (another ghost story for another post). Eventually, there was so much publicity about the supernatural occurrences at Clover Adams’ grave, that the original statue was relocated to an unadvertised location on Lafayette Square near the Hay Adams Hotel. We found the statue – more on this in another post. A statue that currently marks Clover Adams’ grave is a replica of the original. They say that some people hear the mournful voice of a woman weeping in the Hay Adams Hotel, usually on the fourth floor. And the housekeepers apparently have been hugged by something they can’t see. Another legend is that Clover is much more “present” or active in the month of December… the month she died. We were there in December. Maybe it was she in the Hay Adams room wanting to make her presence known in her death-anniversary ripping an ornament from the tree in the Hay Adams Room and tossing across the room. Or maybe she doesn’t like those Christmas decorations. We’ll never know. Loved the travel account. I believe the “Grief”statue is mentioned by John Galsworthy in the Forsythe Saga. Beautiful article. That was such wonderful TH Christmas trip. The Hay Adams was impeccable – fabulous food. I do recall when that ornament went zinging from the tree across the floor by that ghost of Christmas past, I thought I would swoon. I personally think Clover was happy we were there.

2019-04-19T02:39:29Z

https://travelhag.com/hay-adams-hotel/

The archives entries begin with a link to the earlier "Ruth's Neighborhood and then index the Facebook columns, beginning with the first one (March 28, 2019) and continuing through to the most recent entry. Well! I remembered the old Keene cuisine. During those years he worked washing pots and pans in the college kitchen, just like Tom. As I wrote in Snowy, when Tom and Joanne got married “Tom switched from his pots-and-pans job to a better-paying job at the newsstand downtown . . . He spent the Sunday selling newspapers, serving coffee and doughnuts.” When Don returned to Keene with me to live in the married students’ barracks, he worked weekends and some nights at Armstrong’s on that wide Main Street, a newsstand-luncheonette where he grilled burgers and made sandwiches in addition to serving coffee and doughnuts. The height of his cuisine was his chopped-ham sandwiches he brought home after work for us to have for an evening snack. Garafano’s, which looked like a long wooden houseboat moored on a stark field, where Mrs. Garafano, thin and freckled, stood behind the bar and talked across her baby set upon it, and students drank dimies and ate meatball sandwiches, and the people from the farms sat in booths whose tables were crowded with thick plates of steak rinds and scraps of French fries growing skins of grease. Now and then their children would clamber down from the seats and run the length of the room and back again; from the jukebox Connie Francis whined songs; and Mr. Garafano in person, a square dark man wearing a T-shirt, with a dish towel tucked into the waistband of his trousers, would come out of the kitchen to bring you your pizza. Not exactly duck confit sliders. Last week a Laconia High classmate arranged a mini-mini reunion and brought with her three other dear friends from the Gang to have lunch at the Village Kitchen. As I drove to meet them, I found myself remembering this paragraph in Henrietta Snow, when Snowy and Bev are at Dudley and Charl’s house for supper. Snowy leaned back and listened, keeping an eye on Ruhamah at the dock. The comfort of old friends, however changed; old comfort food on the grill, updated. The porch and lawn seemed in constant motion, alive with kids and dogs. Don’t, she cautioned herself, think ahead any further than this. Four of us five old friends, I thought, are now widows. In the parking lot, there were tears and hugging and laughter. In the restaurant, I ordered Don’s favorite, the fried shrimp boat (in this case “boat” meaning not a full dinner). Over lunch there was much talk on many subjects, reminiscences, updates about other friends, discussion of practical problems, including support systems, and uncertain thoughts about the uncertain future. And through it all, concern for each other. Love. As I drove home after our two-hour lunch of talking, I thought about women talking and about the section in Henrietta Snow in which Snowy and Bev stop at Moody’s for lunch and then meet Puddles at the Whitehall Inn in Camden. I remembered writing their “grand finale,” when they sat rocking on the porch and talking. Then the next day they said good-bye in the inn’s parking lot, hugging and crying and laughing, as we had just done in the restaurant’s parking lot. Homes: the problems of everyday maintenance of them is put in perspective by Hurricane Florence and the other disasters that could destroy them. One episode that I especially cherish occurred after a night a few years ago when a bear opened our porch door politely and entered the porch and then, upon our awakening indoors and noisily seeing him out there (eeks from me), made his hasty departure straight through the porch screen. Only a few weeks before, a friend of ours, a member of a local construction group, had replaced the old porch screen with new. When we joked to him about this, he insisted on coming over to our house and replacing the bear-ruined section of the new screens. Free of charge. He was coming to rescue us from blackflies . . . My support-system people have also been coming to the rescue. For example, here’s what was happening one recent busy day: the carpenter was retiling our shower; the plumber dashed in to fix the kitchen faucet; and the handyman arrived to investigate a smoke-alarm problem. My best wishes to everyone coping with the very serious problems of Hurricane Florence. In addition to these underpants (this scene inspired by my being similarly chased around Laconia’s Woolworth by my dear friend Gail), there were other items of interest to Puddles in Woolworth’s, such as malt balls (a favorite of Gail’s). And thus we remembered our browsing in Woolworth, our deciding what we could afford with our twenty-five-cents-a-week allowances. We had been, we realized, learning to shop. We remembered the goldfish we bought and walked home carrying in a little cardboard box that resembled Chinese-food takeout boxes. We remembered the tiny painted turtles who, when we got them home, sometimes made a break for freedom, only to be found much later dead and dusty, usually behind the refrigerator. Penny remembered nail polish and Tangee lipstick. I remembered pencil boxes, pencils, and one notebook in particular whose scenic drawing on the cover gave me an idea for the story I wrote in it. We remembered the lunch counter with its big glass container a-swirl with a green lemon-lime beverage. We couldn’t remember buying any food at that counter, just Cokes and the green drink. And Penny remembered how she’d bought our mother some plates and dishes one at a time, white with a maroon-stripe border interspersed with flowers. I remembered how some years ago I’d spotted one of these very dishes at a yard sale and bought it. When Penny and I got home from the Family Dollar, I rushed to a cupboard and found the dish. We guessed that when I bought it at the yard sale I’d paid more than a dime and probably more than a dollar. There are new little milestones now, such as returning to places Don and I used to go to for lunch. In his last months, we began to join friends in a Sandwich meeting room for the Sandwich senior lunches served on Wednesdays. One friend likes to call it the “old fogeys’ lunch.” This is part of the “Moultonborough, Sandwich, and Surrounding Communities” senior meals program that serves lunches in Moultonborough Mondays through Thursdays. They are more than lunches, they are dinners, which means you don’t have to make lunch and you can get away with making just a light supper that evening. This past Wednesday I went. Most of our friends there had already spoken or written to me about Don, so we proceeded with the usual casual chat, very comforting. This Wednesday’s menu was Stuffed Sole, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Beets, Coleslaw. And Tapioca Pudding. Friendship and food, good therapy. Everyone started laughing, including me. Out the window beside me, I saw “Honey” hurrying across the porch, his expression embarrassed, sheepish. But he must have been so glad he hadn’t reached home to discover he’d forgotten his reading glasses. And I was glad I’d returned to this restaurant. During this difficult summer, our library’s audiobooks have been more important than ever for bedtime listening, for comfort. Here are the ones I’ve liked best—starting with the first of two by Rosamunde Pilcher. Three of the four women in Frances Mayes’s Women in Sunlight impulsively leave their past lives in America to share a rented house in Italy; the fourth woman, Kit, has been living in Italy for years. Italian scenery; Italian food! Also, renewal, new possibilties, even joy. In Carole George’s memoir, The Lambs: My Father, a Farm, and the Gift of a Flock of Sheep, there are two impulsive decisions: (1) She buys a farm in Virginia. (2) She heeds her father’s suggestion that the scenery needs a flock of sheep and buys thirteen Karakul lambs to raise as pets. When I was writing The Flowers of the Forest I did a lot of reading about sheep, and the main thing I remember is a saying that goes something like “A cow is always looking for a place to lie down; a sheep is always looking for a place to die.” But before the inevitable occurs, there was learning, love, companionship on daily walks around the farm. And a piano in the barn. Back to Rosamunde Pilcher. Our library now has the audiobook of her Shell Seekers! I had read the book when it was published in 1987, and I later bought a copy at a book sale, intending to reread it. And now I finally have. I’ve never done this with an audiobook before: I listened at night, but in the afternoons or with supper I read the book. Dual enjoyments. CENTER SANDWICH, NH— Donald K. MacDougall, 82, died August 13 at the DHMC hospice center. Born in Laconia in 1936, Don spent his early boyhood in the Weirs. He graduated from Laconia High School in 1955. He married his high-school sweetheart, Ruth Doan, in 1957. After serving two years in the U.S. Coast Guard, he graduated from Keene State College with a B. Ed. in 1961. In 1970 he received his Master’s Degree in Library Science from UNH. Don taught English at the high schools in Sharon, MA, and Lisbon, NH, and then he and Ruth relocated to England where Don was a dormitory counselor at the U.S. Air Force high school in Lakenheath. When he and Ruth returned to the United States, Don became the librarian at Somersworth High School and Kingswood Regional High School. Don and Ruth lived in Farmington, NH, before settling in Center Sandwich in 1976. He did caretaking for properties in the Lakes Region, including Bald Peak Colony Club. Don is survived by Ruth, his wife of 60 years, his brother Richard Kirk Dougal of St. Augustine, FL, and his sister Deborah Kay Dougal of Franklin, NH. He loved the Sandwich library. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Samuel H. Wentworth Library, PO Box 146, Center Sandwich, NH 03227. Don and I talk on the phone every day, but I waited until my weekly visit to the hospital to tell him about your response to my post last Sunday. He understood and was overwhelmed, happy, grateful. As am I. Your words have enveloped me, bringing comfort and strength. Next week I’ll return to my usual tales of happenings in Sandwich and such. I have been waiting until things were more definite to tell you about Don’s health, hoping that it would improve. In a way, it has, but I’m afraid the news is devastating. About a year ago, Don’s memory problems seemed to become more than “senior moments.” Our wonderful primary-care doctor gave him a memory test and kept tabs on the situation. I braced myself for Alzheimer’s. Then an occasional delusion would appear in Don’s conversation. Thinking he was joking, I’d look into his blue eyes and see that he wasn’t. Did he really believe that his brother, who lives in Florida, was in our house? The delusions increased and then in the past three months they speeded up, rampaging. The delusions were the clue. A mental-health counselor made a tentative diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia, an aggressive form of dementia that we’d never heard of before. A neurologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center confirmed the diagnosis, and Don was admitted into this hospital in Lebanon, NH, on July first. He is still there, while a nursing home is being found for him. Needless to say, this has been a terrible shock—a series of shocks. Life has been disrupted in so many ways, from his absence in our household to the ton of paperwork involved in medical care. The disruption will continue indefinitely; it includes my writing schedule. But my sister and niece have been here and are helping me tremendously. Our town is full of concern. At the hospital, the medications have helped Don. He’s calmer, humorous again, more my Don. And thus, as I said, his health has improved. But I miss our being together at home! And I know that you love him too. I may not be able to answer individual queries for a while, but please know that you are all dear to me and I value your friendship. Thank you. Whoa! Marijuana? Oh, oh yes, medical marijuana is now legal in New Hampshire. But at a farm stand? So this was a joke? And I saw this after that big motorcycle week in New Hampshire. The excitement continues. Friends from Pennsylvania who summer in New Hampshire say that in all their travels they’ve seen the most vanity plates in New Hampshire. They concluded that folks here while away the long winter thinking them up. I don’t know why I found this so funny, but I did. Maybe it’s because my father claimed that an osprey followed the Fish & Game truck to his and my stepmother’s backyard pond and promptly devoured the fish that were delivered. Last month, U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall died at his New Hampshire home. I first read him in the 1960s when he sent my father a copy of String Too Short To Be Saved: Memories of a Disappearing New England. In his accompanying letter, he wrote of his admiration for my father’s novel Amos Jackman. From reading this book we went on to reading his poems. I didn’t really know the part of central New Hampshire that Donald Hall was writing about, Danbury, where in his youth he visited his grandparents’ farm, which later became his own home. My father was acquainted with the area, but having grown up in the Connecticut River Valley part of New Hampshire and then lived the rest of his life in the Lakes Region, two beautiful parts of the state, he was somewhat immune to its charms, shall we say. However, Donald Hall’s writing made us aware of this landscape that we might not otherwise have appreciated fully. Eventually Donald Hall and I had a brief correspondence about the writing business, and eventually I became better acquainted with the area when I took over my father’s hiking books and climbed, several times, Mount Kearsarge, that region’s mountain. Also, the son and daughter-in-law of Gloria, my dear Bennington friend, moved to a town near Danbury, so when Gloria and her husband drove up from Connecticut to visit them, Don and I drove down from Sandwich for a mini Bennington reunion. At about this time, Newsday sent me Donald Hall’s memoir Seasons at Eagle Pond to review. As I opened the package and took out the book, I remembered that copy of String Too Short To Be Saved arriving in my parents’ mailbox. My sister remembers that we did watch fireworks over Laconia’s Lake Opechee in our childhood. Don and I once watched fireworks over Lake Winnipesaukee, in the Weirs. Don’s father, a boat salesman, had the use of a boat that day and took us on a ride before we returned to the Weirs to watch. But the main thing I remember is that I was thoughtlessly wearing new earrings, the largest I’d ever had, leather-thong types on wires, and during the ride, as we sped along in the speedboat, they swung wildly and I feared they’d tear off my earlobes. Being a good daughter-in-law, I didn’t spoil the fun by mentioning this little problem. Here in Sandwich, fireworks are always on the night of July third. The first time we went, we felt we had truly become part of the town. The tourist season is now upon us in the Lakes Region, and it’s reminding Don and me of how we used to travel off-season. During our caretaking years, we were working full tilt during the summer, so we couldn’t take a vacation until autumn or winter. Thus we found ourselves in cottages or cabins huddling around a fireplace or space heater or under blankets, all of which was fun, for this short spell. Summertime tourist sites were closed; the ocean was glorious anyway. Traveling on Thanksgiving and at Christmas, we did of course meet other travelers, but often places were closed on the day of the holiday. You could starve to death! One Thanksgiving we were extremely grateful to find an Asian restaurant open. At Christmas one year, the inn we stayed at had promised to include Christmas dinner, but since it turned out that we were the only guests, they sent us to a restaurant in another town. During the meal, a predicted snowstorm began, and the drive back to the inn on twisty seacoast roads was precarious. When Penny and I were planning a trip to the Cotswolds to visit gardens, the timing had to be autumn because of our work. Penny is a landscape designer; she said, “England being England, there’ll be flowers, and when there aren’t we’ll see the ‘bones’ of the gardens.” And so we did. Only one of the gardens she wanted to visit was closed. As I write this, I’m wearing the Warwick Castle T-shirt I bought and I’m remembering flowers and peacocks there. For contrast, here’s the off-season experience from Hell: A Maine B&B advertised that it would be open on Thanksgiving, and we delightedly reserved a room. What hadn’t been mentioned was that the owners’ extended family would be celebrating Thanksgiving there. We were the only guests, in a little upstairs room. Downstairs, revelry grew louder and louder through the evening, into the night, and the cigarette smoke rose thicker and thicker. We opened a window and leaned out, gasping. We considered packing up and leaving, but shouldn’t we wait to pay our bill? In the wee hours a baby began crying. Louder and louder. A car revved up and the wails receded; was the mother taking the baby for a ride to try to soothe it to sleep? In the morning, downstairs, the owner didn’t mention the situation as he made us coffee, and I chattered politely on about my Great-great-aunt Edith who’d lived in the town, but when it came time to pay for our holiday night, he shook his head.

2019-04-25T01:56:08Z

https://ruthdoanmacdougall.com/fb_archives2.html

Let’s get one thing out of the way before we start. Calcium is not the solution to all things bone. Sure, it’s important. Necessary, even. But once you get enough – and “enough” may be less than you think – piling more on top of that accomplishes very little. In fact, too much calcium can sometimes do more harm than good. For me, the message is to focus less on how much calcium we get, and more on calcium management. In other words, on the nutrients and habits that help calcium get to the right place, and keep it out of the wrong ones. But we’ll talk more about that later. For now, let’s begin. What are bones, anyways? Bones are not “dead” like fingernails or hair. They’re made of living, dynamic tissue. Yes, they contain the rock-like mineral calcium, but this calcium is integrated into an organic matrix of cells, protein, blood, and nerves. Calcium gives bones their rigidity. Without it, our bones would bend and flop about. The protein matrix, on the other hand, gives bones their resilience. Without it, our bones would shatter at the slightest impact, like when you drop a piece of chalk. There dozens of kinds of cells in bone, but here we’ll focus on two: osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Osteoblasts build up bone – they create the organic matrix for the calcium to settle into. Osteoclasts break down bone – they dissolve the organic matrix, releasing calcium back into the blood. Both are important. Without osteoblasts, you couldn’t build new, resilient bone. Without osteoclasts, you’d never break down old, brittle bone to make room for the new stuff. Osteoclasts also free calcium from the bones for the rest of the body to use. Osteoclasts and osteoblasts respond to estrogen and other hormones. Most therapies for osteoporosis (natural and pharmaceutical) work through one or both these cell types. Prescription Treatments for Osteoporosis and Osteopenia include the bisphosphonate drugs (Fosamax™, Actonel™, Boniva™, etc.), teriparatide (Forteo™), and some estrogen-based therapies. It is beyond the scope of this paper to cover these in more than cursory detail. Bisphosphonates work by inhibiting osteoclast activity – in other words, they slow bone breakdown. Eventually, this leads to improvements in bone density, but not necessarily bone quality. Bisphosphonates are generally not indicated preventatively. But they can reduce fracture risk when there’s already a moderate reduction in bone density. Teriparatide is administered by injection. Rather than preventing bone breakdown, it stimulates bone growth. Generally, teriparatide is given only when your bones are pretty far gone. It’s usually used for a year (the FDA approves it for a maximum of two years only) to grow bone. Standard practice is to follow a course of teriparatide with bisphosphonates to maintain the growth. Side effects are generally rare, but are worth discussing with a doctor or pharmacist. A Diet Conducive to Bone Health is a diet conducive to general health. In other words, eat right, and you’re already supporting your bones. It’s also worth seeking out the foods listed under the various nutrients in the rest of this paper – dietary sources of calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K, etc. (We’ll cover most of these next month). We should also look at dietary approaches to inflammation and acid/alkaline balance. (grazing or foraging in their natural habitat) animal products1. Avoid excesses of sugars and simple starches, and foods that are browned to a crisp. Instead seek out a diet of whole foods, mostly plants – especially those that can stain your clothing. To increase pH (become more alkaline) again seek out a largely plant-based diet, rich in non-starchy vegetables. Drink mineral water. Avoid carbonated beverages (except mineral water). A cup of coffee, a glass of wine? Both are fine. But regular excesses of caffeine or alcohol can begin to strip the bones. The key take-away here is “use ‘em or lose ‘em!” In other words, put weight on those bones now. Walking – just plain walking – is among the best things you can do. Jumping rope is even better – as long as you don’t trip and fall. It is also worth exploring yoga or some form of low-impact martial art. These are all forms of weight-bearing exercise – which is not the same as weight-lifting. Here, weight-bearing means putting weight on your bones. Calcium: To repeat, calcium isn’t everything. But it’s still important. So how much should we get? The answer may surprise you. Normally I don’t like to cite “experts.” You can find an “expert” to agree with almost anything. But I figure if I’m going to disagree with half a century of nutritional dogma, I better have at least one expert on my side. So allow me to turn to arguably the most respected individual at the intersection of Nutrition and Epidemiology in the world today. Dr. Walter Willett is head of the Nurse’s Health Study – the largest study on human nutrition in the history of the United States. He heads the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. He’s authored numerous textbooks, and over a thousand journal articles. He’s vegetarian, incidentally. He not anti-vitamins. And Dr. Willett says that 600 mg a day of calcium is plenty2. Dr. Willett cites the science. In reviewing dozens if not hundreds of published papers, he says he simply hasn’t seen compelling evidence that going any higher than 600 mg is worth it. Meanwhile, there is evidence that 1,000 mg or more may be harmful, increasing the risk of heart disease, although this caution probably doesn’t apply to food sources of calcium4. What about the different kinds of calcium? Don’t some absorb better than others? Well, yes… but again, it’s not nearly so simple. The vast majority of the research looks at absorption into the bloodstream. This misses the point. Most of us absorb calcium into the bloodstream just fine. What we need to be concerned about is getting it from the bloodstream into the bone. getting from there into the bone. These forms include microcrystalline hydroxyapatite, as well as the various calciums derived from seaweed and eggshell5. To be clear, calcium carbonate is our least desirable form – the worst at getting absorbed, no matter how you look at it. Carbonate also needs stomach acid to get digested. With vigorous digestion (think: can you eat half a pizza with impunity?) it can almost rival a calcium citrate. With diminished digestive capacity, however, including anyone on acid-blocking drugs, absorption drops off significantly. And of course, since calcium carbonate depletes stomach acid, even digestion that’s strong to begin with can become impaired. Calcium citrate and hydroxyapatite (plain hydroxyapatite; not the superior microcrystalline hydroxyapatite) are better. They get into the blood fine and don’t impair digestion. They’re good for when the point of taking a calcium supplement is… to supplement a diet low in calcium. But they still don’t do anything proactive. Microcrystalline hydroxyapatite and the seaweed-derived calciums are probably best to address diminishing bone density. There are good preliminary results from the studies out there. Although, to be completely honest, the research is still in its infancy6. Food sources of calcium include dairy (of course!), including milk, yogurt, cheese, and whey protein. Other good sources are leafy greens (collards are among the best), soy foods (especially tofu), some mineral waters (check the label), old-fashioned bone broth, beans, almonds, sesame, and fish with small bones that you eat (sardines and anchovies, for example). Finally, we should remember that calcium isn’t just for the bones. The brain and the heart both need calcium, too – and with much greater urgency. If blood calcium levels begin to drop, even a little, the body maintains those levels by using the bones as a “calcium bank.” Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to make a withdrawal from this bank than it is to make a deposit. Long story short: one of the best ways to keep from depleting your bones is to keep blood levels of calcium consistent by getting small amounts of calcium throughout the day. In this case, it doesn’t matter if it’s food or a supplement. Large amounts once a day won’t get the job done. Next month: magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K, strontium, and more!

2019-04-19T10:23:42Z

http://debrasnaturalgourmet.com/bone-health-101-part-i/

If you’re on the lookout for Gutter Cleaning And Gutter Guard Installation Schaumburg Il 60173, Clean Pro Gutter Cleaning™ is ready to take care of the work for you! Our professionals work in the surrounding local areas to keep your rain gutters cleared out and operating like they should. We know ways to get your rain gutters cleaned in a time-conscious, reliable, and budget friendly way. When leaves, sticks, soil, seedlings, and various other debris wind up in your gutter systems, we’re the ones who can help you get the debris completely out securely. Forget about your ladder; our easy procedure is comprehensive, effective, and will make sure to leave your gutters and downspouts in fantastic shape. Our task is to ensure that your rain gutters do their job and secure your home from water damage. When you have been in business for as long as this company has, you get to comprehend the goals of the customer and that is why we treat your residence like it is our own. 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It’s a routine part of the job that they are used to and prepared to deal with at any time. Hornets, earwigs, birds, bats, and other undesirable visitors can be managed more quickly by somebody that understands what they’re doing than by a house owner with no experience eliminating nests. Many people do not have all the tools needed to safely clean their rain gutter out? For a single-story house with no insane rain gutter functions, the tool list isn’t long. A great and safe ladder is the most required item. But, if you have a multi-story home or a house with a distinct gutter plan, than you may not have whatever you have to do the work right. Many people don’t think of the health aspect of rain gutter cleaning. Yes, there is the security part that we already pointed out, but do not forget that what is discovered in your gutters isn’t really excellent for you. If leaves and other gunk is left in the gutters, it can remain moist and begin to grow mold or mildew. Cleaning this mess out of your gutters can be a severe health danger. This is a healthy concern for some house owners. Allergies is another major issue for numerous homeowners. Digging into the gutters will launch lots of allergens that can considerably disrupt the health of the cleaner. The main things that enter the rain gutters are natural products from the leaves surrounding the home. Whoever winds up cleaning up the rain gutters will be exposed to all the leaves, dust, dirt, pollen and other germs that grew.. People who suffer from allergic reactions, asthma and many other breathing conditions shouldn’t expose themselves to exactly what is typically in the rain gutter. There are genuine reasons to consider a professional gutter cleaning company rather of attempting to do it on your own. If any of these ten reasons stick to you, make a fast call to an expert service that can assist you fix your problem totally.

2019-04-25T02:20:22Z

https://www.cleanproguttercleaning.com/gutter-cleaning-and-gutter-guard-installation-schaumburg-il-60173/

Welcome dinner and a cool guest house. Isn't Lauren cute in her red dress? Hi all, we are at Shanghai Normal University now. We got here around 3:30 p.m., unpacked, discovered that they have to register us as staying with them to the government and dressed for dinner. I am like out of clean clothes, so I wore my new Chinese dress. Ashlin did my hair and make-up for me. Then we headed to dinner. Met up with our new Chinese buddies whose's names I don't think I was ever told, but I'll figure them out eventually. It was an interesting dinner conversation. We were told we were being too quiet when I didn't think we were being quiet. One lady said I looked pretty, then this dude said, "like a Halloween costume." Ashlin and I don't get if that was a compliment or him being rude. I doubt the later as when he left he said, "Hey!" instead of bye. So maybe his English isn't that great? Who knows, it was an odd night conversationally. Oh and one of our buddies sounds like she came from England. It was playing with our heads all night as she has such a clear brittish accent and is clearly not a Brit! Dinner was good though. Okay, dinner was awesome. It had no bones in the meat! As always, too much food. It was very nicely decorated though and looked super fancy. We were given wine. That was a nice change. It was a red wine and it seemed to be a pretty decent quality. After dinner, they brought us back to the guest house and I told one of the girls that I want to go the aquarium and explained why. She said that the schedule is really tight but they want to make us happy, I said, "Fish make me happy. I am willing to pay for me and one of you to go with me. That's how badly I want to go." It's true too. I'm desperate to go. I really want to go to the aquarium. I miss my fish! She said that she would talk to the lady in charge in for me. So hopefully, I can go. Then I headed back to my room, talked to my parents, talked to my Uncle Charlie, talked to Mr. Jeff (who I know is reading this, so Hi Mr. Jeff!) and finally worked on this blog. So this morning I woke up and checked my iPod. It said it was like 9 and we were supposed to meet at 8:20. So I jumped up and found out from Jessica that it was almost 8, I had still not changed the time on my iPod. So I finally got that fixed while she headed to breakfast. Then we went to University's History Museum. It was interesting to find out about the university's history and even cooler that they had a museum for it. Then we went to the welcome ceremony. Everything is so formal over here, I miss relaxed welcome parties. They gave us a really nice paper weight from the local opera house. Then we went to lunch. It was much smaller than normal and we had no complaints there! I really liked that pork though. It was awesome. Currently we are having a scheduled "rest" time. Which I find it strange that we have scheduled rest times, but okay. After our rest time, we headed into a couple of lectures. They were quite interesting. One was on the Chinese family system and the roles of the family members and the other was an overview of Chinese history. I enjoyed both and took far too many notes. We are currently having another break and I will be doing laundry tonight. Jessica gets the internet tonight, so I will update about the flute concert and dinner tomorrow. Okay, so the flute concert was awesome. Dinner was good. I'm loving this boneless meat! Though they have been giving us a lot of potatoes. These potatoes taste strange and they are purple. So I keep trying to avoid them. As for the flute concert. They were amazing! I have some videos but again, no youtube to upload them. :( Something else to upload when I get back to the states. Okay, so today we were told that we were going to be shopping all day. Well, I had previously been told by Claire that I should talk to our tour guide about getting to the aquarium. So after talking to Boyoung, Dr. Vartanian, our guide and our leader. They said that they would let me go to the aquarium instead of the tv tower. They gave me two hours to get in, get my pics and get out. Well, after two hours, I was still in line. Ivy had gone with me and she went back to meet the group while I stayed in line. Eventually, they decided to leave Rebecca with me and we would meet up with them later. I had no objections. It was a shopping day and I was literally standing in front of the aquarium. So Rebecca and I stayed in line to the ticket booth. Once there we found out it was half off day! Which explained the three hours in line. So finally, making it inside, we headed up to the fish. There, we discovered so many amazing things! I was super excited to see some of the more common fish species along side some of the more rare and they had such large numbers of things! It was an amazing experience! I'm SO happy I got to go! It was even more awesome because Rebecca hadn't been to that aquarium before, so neither of us knew exactly what to expect. Of course with it being half price, there was a mob of people. They were everywhere! I learned to push through the mob while exploring this aquarium. I was often tossed about like a sardine in a can though. There was no room and I was completely at the mercy of the crowd. There were actually a couple of times, I thought I was going to fall into the tank! Oh yeah, these were open top tanks with the water open to the people. It was so cool! And of course, I about died when I saw my catfish. That was my #1 thing to see while I was there and that crowd had to move out of my way. Those were related to my kitten-fish, so I wanted pictures and even the small children better just get out of the way. Thankfully, they were more interested in the cichlids, so I had plenty of time for my picture before the mob crammed into the Nile river system tank. Finally finishing the tour of the aquarium we went to lunch (now 3.5 hours after entering the aquarium). We decided to eat there and I bought Rebecca's lunch. I had wanted a burger, but somehow ordered some sort of meat and rice dish. I don't know how that happened, but it was still good! Then she led me off to the subway station and we finally met back up with the group. Or technically, met up with Boyoung at Starbucks. It was all good. I quite liked those rice cake things. Then we headed to dinner. Which, as always, was huge. After just eating, I have no idea how I managed to eat as much as I did. Oh well. It was an awesome day and there will be no more deviation from the schedule on my part. That was my one thing for the trip that I had to do and I got to go. SHNU literally made my trip that much more awesome today! Then we headed to Yuyuan Garden. This is a 400 year old Chinese garden built by the rich for the rich. Now, it is tourist zone for visitors of China. There was so much to see there. Again, they gave us two hours and our guide took us through it then stopped just before the exit gate and told us to meet her at 3:30 (15:30) to head to dinner, this equates to like 2 hours of shopping. Well, pretty much everyone else wanted to go shop in the tourist zone. I was much more interested in exploring the caves and whatever was behind the "Be Careful" sign we had passed. I asked Grace if she wanted to join me for another pass through of the garden. So back through we went. We found some really cool stuff, I was quite excited about it. This was more what I wanted to see of China. Yes, modern China is fascinating too, but they have over 5,000 years of history. I want to know more about that. Well, after our picture taking, we headed out shopping. Our guide had told us that bargaining was expected out here. Well, we're not used to bargaining, so we started out a bit rough. I got a custom stamp seal for 90 yuan (around $14). It's really cool. I did find out later that the other shopping group found them for 40 yuan (around $6). Oh well, live and learn. Regardless it was really cool and I got a box that I can keep mine in. Then I bought these two wooden dolls for my friend Ellen. They wanted two for 30 yuan (~ $4.75), but I got them 25 yuan (~ $4). I didn't want to haggle too much because they were reasonably priced anyway. Then we saw a T-shirt with a panda face that said China. Well, everything runs super small over here and Ellen had asked for a shirt, but there was no way this would fit her. If I'm an XL over here, I don't have much faith in sizing. Well the lady started out at 180 yuan (~ $29). Well, I shook my head and said expensive. Grace jumped in with 25 yuan and the lady dropped down to 100, then 50, then 40, then 35. Again, there was no way this thing would fit and we were walking off already, but it was an interesting experience. Finally, we headed into this shop that had some cool looking journals covered in silk. Well the two I wanted would have been 140 yuan, the guy immediately dropped to 110 yuan and I dropped him down to 100 yuan (~ $8/each). I really wanted them and that seemed fair to me. I'm not comfortable going with prices that basically steal them from the shop owners. This is probably due to my parents having owned a business, so I try to keep things fair. Although Grace and I were able to get her two pearl necklaces, a bracelet and earrings for 200 yuan (~ $30). That was definitely our best haggling job. Finally we headed back to the guest house. We had dinner here. It was good. They had everything here. They were showing all the different types of script (running, cursive, official, scroll, etc.) They also showed the evolution of the Chinese calligraphy and script. Of course it started with the oracle bones, then they started moving towards putting the script on pottery, scrolls, etc. I spent way too much time in there. The second section I visited was full of Chinese Seals. These were like the wax seals that the English used, only they did theirs with red ink. There were so many different designs of both the seals and the decorative finishes of the stamps. It was amazing! And I spent way too much time here. Next I went through the section on Chinese paintings. This was awesome! It was all really pretty and I was taking way too many pictures, then I realized that I only had an hour left for the rest of the museum since these three rooms at taken me an hour alone. I realized when I went to the next floor, that they had an entire room on currencies. I could have spent the entire two hours just in here. Sadly, I had no time, so I raced through it, took pictures of pretty much everything and ran to the next room. The next room was full of clothing of the ethnic minorities of China. This was really cool. They have 56 ethnic minorities and they all have unique designs. Of course you can't visit asia without seeing Jade. So I raced through the Jade exhibit. I didn't take as many pictures because Jade doesn't vary that much. Next, there was an exhibit on Ming and Qing Furniture. That was interesting, but not that interesting to me. And then there was a section on ceramics. Which again, doesn't vary much, so I didn't take many pictures here either. What I figured would be the last section I would see was on sculptures. Of course, it was mostly Buddhist, so not many pictures there, except of the headless dharma, because that was interesting to me. It was time to go and I had really wanted to see the section on the Chinese Bronzes. Thankfully, I wasn't the last one and none of us knew where exactly Lauren was in the museum, so I slid off into the room right next to where we were meeting that was on Chinese Bronzes and took a couple of pictures. I really wanted to spend some more time in there. Culture Days with students - Part 1. Today was fun. We were joined by Qing-qing (pronounced Ching-ching) and Fish (yes, I did type that correctly. I think it’s awesome.) It started out with a campus tour of the tourism school of Shanghai Normal. This was the school of all the skills used in the tourism industry (golf course management, cooking, hotel management, etc.) Then, we had lunch. I miss bulgogi. Lunch consisted of fish, shrimp, a meatball, soup and bread. The soup was good, the meatball was good, and the bread was good. I could have done without the rest. There were bones in it and it tasted bad. Then we did Chinese calligraphy. I apparently did well with the copying of the characters but not so much with the calligraphy. It was legible though. Next, we went to martial arts class. It was awesome! First, they showed off and it was really impressive. Then, they showed us some basics which we got to try. I had Shu-yu as my teacher. He was by far the most fun guy in the group and had gravity defying hair. He helped me a lot. Initially he said I was like leaf and needed to be like stone. I eventually got it figured out. It was cool finally meeting Chinese guys who weren’t so stand-offish. They were all awesome and of course there were girls there too. Their instructor was a girl and one look at her and I knew I didn’t want to get on her bad side. They taught us a game called five friends. It’s like tag, but more entertaining. We taught them red rover. So at the end, my team was losing and I was between Shu-yu and another guy. Josh had this “brilliant” idea that we should all storm his line at once. Well, Shu-yu yelled, “We fight for freedom!” and then we charged. Unsurprisingly, they were faster than me so they started dragging me (because they wanted to storm as a line) and I was on a collision course with Lauren. We both had one of those “I’m going to die” moments. The two guys let go and Josh stuck his arm out to grab me instead of having me run into Lauren. We were both thrilled by this, so THANK YOU JOSH! You saved us from a very unfortunate meeting with the floor or the wall, whichever we hit first. I honestly hope I get to see them all again because they were really cool. Before I left, Shu-yu said that he would always be my teacher and I would always be his student. Such a nice guy, it was an awesome day! Then we headed off to Karaoke. Karaoke was fun, but it was also interesting. We couldn’t get a full list of songs so we had to search for songs individually instead of scanning for a song and they started out by giving us some random songs that we didn’t know. So we finally figured out that we could skip songs and that helped us get to the songs we actually liked. We finally got it all figured out. But the room was awesome. It was the VIP room and it was super fancy. Well today was our last day in Shanghai, we leave for Xian bright and early tomorrow. We stayed on campus today and started out by visiting the University Museums. The first museum was of taxidermy. It was interesting, but kinda creepy too. They did have a Bearcat though so we took a picture of it. Then we went to the history museum. I enjoyed seeing all the artifacts from prior eras at the university. Next we headed off to listen to presentations about the student activities programs at SHNU. It was cool discussing the differences between our schools with the students. They don't have competitions between groups like we do at homecoming. Most of their events and organizations are separated by college. Then we headed to lunch at the guest house. It was good as usual. But they gave us the shrimp then decided that wasn't what was ordered for our group and took them back to replace them with this chicken dish which I had eaten most of before I realized I need a picture of it. It was awesome. Finally, we headed off to meet up with the seal cutting club. I really enjoyed that. We got to make our own seals and I made one for the A.C.S. I'm quite excited to use it next year. They also made us seals of our first names in seal script so those were really cool. Then we were joined by the puppet club and they gave us a production. They were trying to translate this Chinese play into English for us and did a very good job of it. I was quite impressed. Then, they had us do a couple shows for them and it was hilarious. We all had fun with everyone. Eventually, we headed back to the guest house for dinner. Dinner was Awesome! We had pork that tasted like country fried steak, rice, tofu and bean soup, chicken and a spring roll. I loved dinner. We enjoyed spending our last meal with the students. We will miss them terribly and hope they get to come to Lander sometime. The next morning would consist of us leaving far too early and eating breakfast on the bus. Knowing this, we eventually had to set our friends go and we went to bed.

2019-04-19T22:14:09Z

http://chemstudenttoursasia.weebly.com/shanghai---shanghai-normal.html

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We are well known for the thoroughness of our trial preparation and our many successes in the courtroom; experienced plaintiff's counsel understand our willingness to try cases and win significant verdicts. Our reputation enables us to successfully protect the interests of our clients while delivering exceptional service in a cost effective manner. We believe in thorough, cost effective, preparation for trial and that there is no substitute for courtroom experience. Collectively, our law firm has tried over 3,000 cases to verdict. We have participated in hundreds of appeals, mediations and arbitrations. Our attorneys are admitted to practice in Arkansas, Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana and Missouri, and, from time to time, we have been called on to try cases in states that border Arkansas. James M Duckett serves as "of counsel" for the firm in the Little Rock office. Jim was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1939. He was educated at the University of Arkansas, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1963 (B.S.Ch.E.); He attended the University of Arkansas School of Law, and received his J.D., in 1973. Jim was admitted to the Arkansas Bar in 1973, as well as the USDC Western and Eastern District of Arkansas. Currently Jim is a member of the Arkansas and Pulaski County Bar Associations. His primary practice concentration is in Commercial Litigation, Commercial Ground Transportation and Insurance Defense. Richard M. Scholnick serves as "of counsel" for the firm in the Little Rock office. He is licensed to practice in Louisiana and Connecticut. Dan joined the Firm in 1973 after completing a one year internship as a law clerk in the Pulaski County Circuit Courts. He is second in firm seniority, a senior partner, and has been with the firm for a total of thirty-six years. His practice, primarily, includes automobile negligence claims, general insurance defense, school litigation, premises liability, professional E&O defense, municipal liability, employment discrimination, and civil rights. Dan has obtained the highest Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory Rating of "AV." He has been selected to the lists of Best Lawyers in America, as well as a Mid-South Super Lawyer, since 2008. He is licensed to practice in all state and federal courts in Arkansas, and was licensed to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1999. Dan is also a Fellow of the Arkansas Bar Foundation. The Foundation awards approximately 40 scholarships annually to students at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville and UALR Bowen School of Law in Little Rock, in addition to funding special law-related projects such as the statewide Mock Trial Competition. Dan was born in Paragould, Arkansas, on February 20, 1945, and was admitted to the bar in 1972 after graduating from the University of Arkansas with his juris doctorate that same year. His undergraduate work was at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, where he obtained a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1967. While in college, he was a member of the Tiger basketball team, Blue Key, and the Sigma Alpha Sigma Social Club. During his law school days, he was a member of Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity and was on the Law Review, serving on its editorial board in 1971-1972. Currently, Dan is a member of the Pulaski County, Arkansas and American Bar Associations, the Defense Counsel Bar of Arkansas, Defense Research Institute, the NSBA Counsel of School Attorneys, the William H. Overton Inn of Court and a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America Trial Lawyer Honorary Society. Keith, a partner with the firm, started as a law clerk in 1989, before becoming an associate attorney in 1991. He is a member of the Pulaski County, Arkansas, and American Bar Associations. He is licensed to practice in all Arkansas courts, the United States District Court, Eastern and Western Districts, the United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States. Keith's work and trial experience include a broad range of corporate and insurance defense cases, automobile and trucking cases, premises liability, commercial torts, subrogation, workers' compensation, nursing home malpractice, asbestos and toxic torts, products liability, medical malpractice, fair debt collection and fair trade practices, and civil rights. Keith received his juris doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1991 after earning a master of arts in developmental psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1989 and a bachelor of arts in psychology from Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1986. In 1996, he earned his current "BV" lawyers rating from Martindale-Hubbell, and was selected for inclusion in Who's Who in American Law (8th, 9th, 10th & 11th editions). Kevin received his juris doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with high honors. He was recognized as "Who's Who" at the University of Arkansas, where he was elected president of Blue Key. He also was chosen to be a member of Mortar Board, Order of Omega, Omicron Delta Kappa, Beta Gamma Sigma and Sigma Nu, along with other honors at the University.

2019-04-23T03:17:41Z

https://www.nolo.com/lawyers/profile/laser-law-firm-pa

Inspiration - "The whole set of flowers will have very unique powers" This is a quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Flowers are already a symbol of peace and love within the ages. On the "Flower Power" movement belonging to the 1960's, when activist and young pacifist Jane Rose Kasmir was photographed planting a flower to the bayonets of guards inside the Pentagon on a protest about the Vietnam War on October 21, 1967. A Instant that could try in American culture and heritage to mirror a minute of peace in a time period of war, symbolizing an innovative version of nonviolent resistance, coined by Ginsberg's 1965 essay titled The way to Generate a March/Spectacle. During the late 1800's ladies rejecting a suitor might send him yellow roses. During world war one of the male gender leaving for only a battle overseas might give his girlfriend forget-me-nots. Many people do not forget that red roses mean "I love you," but floriography itself was largely forgotten, a Victorian practice where particular categories of flowers meant different things. In some instances flowers may have an increasingly grim representation which includes calla lilies on a funeral. Recently proof flowers dating back to to the prehistoric period had been discovered through'Flower Fossils '. Archaeologists uncovered skeletons of your man, two ladies and a child buried together in soil containing pollen of flowers from a cave in Iraq. This association of flowers while using the cave dwelling Neanderthals in the Pleistocene epoch is indicative of the role of flowers in burial rituals. Research into the sediment pollen concentrated in batches, implied that possible bunches of flowers have been placed at the grave. Closer study of the flower pollen enabled scientists to distinguish many flowers which are present, all of which had some therapeutic properties. You heard right, prior to we got the neighborhood local pharmacy drug store by using you'll find it quite a few vibrant ugg syrups to aid each of our aliments we relied on flowers. Plants enjoy calendula with respect to discomfort or simply hyssop for one irritated throat. In these days you may manage to find Ecanechia at any local pharmacy. Eventhough lots of the defense raising elements these plants arrives manner it truly is root base, it's a medicinal rose all the same. In most cases recovery blossoms really are anything within the past. That would be certainly for anyone who is eliminating among the current a large number of controversial roses, that cannabis and ganja flower. This hugely disputed flower is undoubtedly believed support in many different afflictions for example serious anguish, depressive disorder together with indigestion, simply to mention a few. However some advises experience legalized cannabis just for medicinal usage, it truly is marketers along with the sufferers of which have found have confidence in its therapeutic homes are under the constant analysis regarding as well as some of our federal yet new york state chosen representatives so,who always contend a validity period of the blooms power. Some blossoms is merely method fine to make sure you eat. Make Lead pages flower. This specific brilliant and additionally amazing herb carries a oily blend of summer. Merely saute frivolously plus sprinkling a small amount of salt earning you money you have got it. Any yummy indulgence that could be furthermore beautiful. And also you have never found dry blueberries and bittersweet chocolate along with delicious and additionally fresh lilac-colored, subsequently you just have no idea of what you are missing. Dandelions that happens to be typically called weed growth are generally sweetest having dearest for instance flavor when decided on young. So when you actually generate a salad or even rice pilau attempt contributing various dandelion bouquets plus greens. Building an eye capturing delicious plant garden plants can be satisfying to make sure you the many senses. Flora for passable add-on, convey bright styles, color styles, plus finishes so that you can preparing salads, cereal, casseroles, and various dishes. Choosing a flower bouquet is not as enticing as it can sound. The employment of flora since food items goes with the Shot Your age by way of archeologic proof the fact that fast fella got those roses seeing that roses. You may not would like to eat blooms for people with about asthma, your allergies, and even existen fever. You will need when you to merely try to eat a flower bouquet which has been cultivated naturally to make sure they don't have way to kill pests residue. Document discover that it's always best to acquire roses during the colder a part during the day want in the early breakfast when the dew features evaporated, or possibly latter afternoon. Numerous prevalent pabulum, yearly bouquets in which are super easy to improve combined with scrumptious, incorporate various herbal treatments in addition to veggies that contain comestible plants aside from some other victual parts. Calendula/pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) really shines blue, precious metal, or perhaps lemon a flower bouquet by having a tangy, peppery taste. Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) comes with a floral arrangement in pigments involving the white kind of to make sure you purple, accompanied by a cress green not to mention peppery flavor. A majority of these a bouquet of flowers are usually used for their chance to help protect different plants with a garden out of pests. Tuberous begonias (Begonia a tuberhybrida) contain vivid white, lilac, straw yellow, reddish colored, vodafone or perhaps multicolor blossoms having citrus tree flavor. Radish (Raphanus sativus) has got green, spicy-hot plants almost identical to any yellow flowers of bolted indian mustard greens. If you want the particular indignation for arugula then simply Make sure you test this a flower bouquet which will kick off at the end with the improving season. All these the white kind of and brownish blooms undoubtedly are a beautiful element to assist you to salads. an example of one of the best purposes is usually sprinkled utilizing fresh new parsley above roast mushrooms. Blooms with perennials and also plant based treatments supply a wide variety flavours too. Schnittlaugh (Allium schoenoprasum) contain white colored, lilac, or simply magenta blossoms by using a substantial allium cepa taste great for flying regarding soups. Inflammed clover (Trifolium pretense) offers sweet-tasting, blue or perhaps red flowers. At a dish, conquer a couple of egg whites using a telegram whisk broom only unless frothy. Place carbohydrates on one more bowl. Consuming a particular violet each time, understand it by your stalk plus pickpocket into egg-whites, masking almost all surfaces. Easily magnetic inclination straight into the sugar, once ensuring each of the petals, top and bottom, seem to be covered. Put on waxed paper-lined making cookies linens; clip incorrect stems. Having a toothpick, wide open flower petals to help you main shape. Drop sweetener upon each and every uncoated areas. Dry up at a 200° the oven intended for 30-40 minutes or simply until eventually suscrose crystallizes. Delicately get rid of violets to be able to cord shelving which includes a spatula. I enjoy readily ultra very thin striped bass spatula with respect to this. Splosh over again utilizing mister however,if violets surface syrupy. Cool. Retain around gas-tight canisters having shined up papers among layers. Even timber deliver passable flowers. Early in the year for the reason that temperature gets under way for getting more comfortable I enjoy create my best window plus populate my personal room or living area with the sweet scent associated with tangerine blossoms. This lemon or lime honies smell may be nailed by way of hurling quite a few clean floral pals in any clash involved with sugar. All the more all the plants remain from the sugars the more effective essence you are likely to get. Piece of fruit timber have all these lovable smaller bright and/or yellow roses having floral to a little dour taste. Even though plum flowers currently have somewhat same blue to vibrant a floral arrangement however with a light tang, including bloom nectar. A personal much-loved from acquire is definitely Australian honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.) which in turn features vivid white, stained, pink, as well as purple flora which includes a honey-like flavor. Document end up with ever before seen these folks red. When I got a lot more younger a number of us was living found in Iowa for that time. This is where I first found out those great treats. Despite the fact I just frequently had not been allowed desserts, most of these smaller unknown crimson items ended up being your special top secret value keeping.

2019-04-26T08:34:55Z

https://www.prince-imperial.com/buy-flower-seeds-online/

It is much cheaper (50–70% cheaper) to fly to Europe, the UAE and sometimes North America than it is to fly within the African continent. There’s a couple of challenges bundled in there. Visas and free movement of people are the subject of many African Union gatherings and regional meetings of states. The continent’s wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote’s bemoaned that he has to get 38 visas to travel across Africa. Given the power of his Nigerian visa, it should come as no surprise North Americans have an easier time moving around Africans than he or I do. The “all-Africa” passport was launched with fanfare in July 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda with heads of state, ministers and top diplomats topping of the list to get the border-opening booklet. I’m grateful, that we live in a world where the main way Africans travel across borders is virtually. Despite their own digital enclaves, a digital identity continues to crop up and form around generation Y and those with access to the internet, specifically, and mobile phones generally. Siyanda Mohutsiwa and her journey from the timeline to the TED stage is a good example. Of this new digital economy, one of my favourite quotes comes from Wizkid who said “…my music travel, no visa.” Speaking to the power and vision of the connected and digital economy. He is welcome and has seen crowds across the continent that don’t speak his language but sing his lyrics. Vision, in this interconnected age, grows in depth and meaning. Especially when it is African-led. Even as times continue to change and the cost and ease of travel changes, Africa still shares some common challenges that we’re solving as independent states and as a collective continent. Besides the movement of people, healthcare continues to be one of Africa’s greatest challenges. Strides have been made, but for the connected, this doesn’t often register as a place to look besides ‘viral’ medical appeal campainand personal circumstances. I, for one, didn’t have much of a connection to healthcare until 2012. Between 2012 and 2015 I began a consulting project as Digital & Creative Advisor for MamaYe.org, a 5-year maternal and newborn healthcare project across 5 countries. For me, it represented an unprecedented opportunity to discover the continent and export my ideas and vision within the project. Government: engaging with policymakers, legislators and ministries. Ensuring that coherent and comprehensive masterplans are conceptualised and rallying political capital to implement them. Healthcare: From public service to practitioners, seeking to engage those who deliver care to citizens. From deans at medical schools, all the way to training midwives and community health workers. The spectrum explores and includes everything around primary caregivers and the value systems of logistics, education, storage and seeks to deliver healthcare outcomes. Mamaye’s approach, with advocacy as the tip of the spear, aimed at the public. The public, the hypothesis presented, were the ‘missing middle’ in the equation involving government and the healthcare sector. The public, with local communities, taxes and active participation, could drive demand and accountability, even from local government. Engaging with the various forms of government to fulfil the central mandate when it comes to healthcare outcomes. The public could, in the right circumstance, instigate demand-side outcomes. Publics are also the recipients in the healthcare process. They can be mobilised, engaged and rallied to participate collectively raising their expectations of maternal and newborn healthcare and survival. At a broader level, MamaYe was not isolationist. It still engaged both the government and healthcare sectors, respectively. One key approach was reframing the narrative in maternal and newborn healthcare. Shifting from severity and mortality to success and survival. While it might sound obvious, this vision would bring strong consequences. It was not just paying lip service, either. It meant taking complex Excel spreadsheets of data and finding a narrative that was able to convey the facts in a compelling way, often data visualisation, while still evoking a sense of urgency. All the while not succumbing to a focus on mortality but a balance including best practice. The vision would need a narrative-driven approach to ensure that the core ideas behind the campaign would ‘stick’ through evidence-based solutions and strategies. Seeing this through, from finding brand & creative partners across the continent, to delivering a Pan-African digital strategy and coaching and leading teams across the continent would help me appreciate the opportunities technology has brought while exposing me to the complex challenges of delivering healthcare on the continent. Ultimately, what I’m grateful for is the chance to travel. I ended up travelling to 8 countries serving a committed global team and ambitious in-country teams. It involved working alongside doctors, nurses, midwives, ministers, development partners, youth groups and the public exploring how mobile technology, the internet, design and storytelling would advance MamaYe’s goals. My excitement and optimism were fixed onto mobile penetration across the African continent. In Sierra Leone, for instance, a public-private partnership that I put together with Africell, the largest telco in the country, saw the firm donate billboards and out-of-home signage, ad-space on the city’s largest radio station and resources behind the locally-inspired advocacy ‘ask’ presented to the public. Blood donation to plug a seemingly perpetual shortfall for mothers suffering post-partum haemorrhaging and other complications was part of realising the country and Sierra Leone’s unique MamaYe outcomes. Technology and mobile connectivity is a key part of realising the challenges of African healthcare. We still have far to go. Far, far to go. In Johannesburg in 2011 at a keynote for the Mobile Web Africa, I’d been asked to define what would make the future of Africa’s Silicon Savannah. There I highlighted a future built on two kinds of software developers. These were the young men and women building on the inflows of donor funding for hackathons and challenges. They were talented and pragmatic digital creators who would bag $10k prizes and build and ship prototypes in 48 hours or work in 2–3 month sprints to take ideas to market. They could shift from a focus on water to potholes to SMS updates in the span of a year. It proved to build out developers with experience in a broad set of skills and familiarity with a wide set of challenges and problems. Criticism might say that the concept led to a bevy of solutions that were an inch deep and a mile wide. Product developers didn’t really make the headlines as much. They weren’t even always the centre of attention in the tech hubs. These were software developers who fell in love with a problem and the process for solving it. The larger the problem, the more compelling the proposition and the higher the chances of failure. Nevertheless, the more they persisted. Payments. e-Commerce. Connectivity. The cloud. Hard-won battles with key issues led to products and services that are around, and if not, the teams that created them may still be. I stand by what I said 6 years ago. Between the two, there is none that is better or worse than the other. Healthcare’s come a long way on the continent. The problems in that sector aren’t obvious and might not bring a swarm of young minds into a room to solve them. They’d need someone to head out to do a design immersion into a community that’s repeatedly finding stockouts of key drugs and seeking an inventory system to manage them. The vision, at times, can bring the people and catalyse change, despite the challenges and obstacles. Last week, I had the chance to reflect on this and did so at The Lancet’s launch of their Commission on the Future of Health in Africa. It brought back all of the above memories. Their expectations and challenge to the rest of the continent rang true for both technology, as the very concept of “Silicon Savannah” comes under scrutiny from the rest of the continent. Hearing from global health advocate Professor Peter Piot, excerpted from Unseen Enemy where he speaks to the transformational and viral power of infectious diseases in Africa. As much as developers and today’s storytellers are putting their work and minds to making things go viral, this speaks to a much different sense. With a much more dangerous set of challenges. Influenza finds its origins in birds. HIV’s origins have been traced to a chimpanzee group while ebola’s (origins) are thought to be attributed to a species of the fruit bat. During my time at MamaYe, one story captivated me and formally introduced me to The Lancet. In the midst of transforming everyday people who, at times unbeknownst to them, were having a tremendous impact, I came across the story of Tanzanian Dr. Godfrey Mbaruku. The story of his quiet, modest voice telling a powerful and enchanting tale of his time serving in a maternity ward in Kigoma in the remote western parts of Tanzania caught Ann Pettifor, my client’s attention. His story, first seen in his own eyes as a punishment — being sent far from the major cities — led to two decades of improving outcomes for mothers & babies among Kigoma’s 1.2 million inhabitants. The Commission’s focus on an African-vision captivates me for a number of reasons. It centres on Africa’s expectation that by 2050, the continent will have 450 million people under the age of 25. Referred to as Africa’s demographic dividend (or disaster if not managed appropriately) it is a rallying cry that will impact political leaders, healthcare practitioners and private sector as well as publics. The Commission’s report focuses on ways to engage this audience in more than healthcare. On the day of the launch, I was captivated by the focus on vision and consensus at a high level. There is even an explicit mention of the nuance and ownership required from country-to-country to fulfil that mandate. The incorporation of “evidence-based optimism, with caution” strikes a chord with me. Ultimately, I’m of the opinion that the stories can help unpack the deeper insights, brought about by reflection and calculation, while making an invitation for collaboration and cooperation in future. There are very real challenges that I feel Product designers, developers and ‘makers’ can seek to solve for. Bright Simons is someone that I believe has successfully combined this in his life’s work. Initially focused on fighting counterfeit pharmaceuticals in Nigeria, he and his company mPedigree have evolved through the last decade to expand and solve larger and larger-scale problems in other emerging markets like India. They’ve built on their vision, local contexts and framework. You can listen to an interview I did with Bright in Nairobi at the launch of the Commission at the African Population Health Research Centre. In Kenya, as an example, Bright predicts that in the next 3 years, every one of the country’s seeds will be tracked from the supplier (overseas or local) to the soil. That’s the power of mPedigree in action. Fighting counterfeits. This will be available to the farmers, corporations and anyone with an interest in between. Africa-based and home-grown solutions, that adapt to the realities of each country and community at the core are required in healthcare and any interventions that touch on both. For Kenya’ we’re fortunate to have M-Pesa and the way, like a rising tide, it has “floated all boats” for a new ecosystem to emerge. Be those healthcare providers, practitioners, policymakers and the ecosystem. Be it models such as M-Tiba, allowing for the saving of small amounts and denominations for healthcare treatment or TotoHealth, sending just-in-time alerts throughout a mother’s journey through from pregnancy to the first 1,000 days. A key milestone. There’s every reason to believe that achievement of good health should bre a political and investment priority for every country — it contributes to economic and sustainable development. One key aspect of the report that I found a challenge to be embraced is the resistance to the idea that “more of the same” will not get us to where we need to be by 2030. This is a direct affront to the status quo that invites the imagination not just of the health sector or the government but the public and the ‘disruptors’ elsewhere. As various industries change dramatically in the face of connectivty through phones, internet and information, we’ve got a chance to play a role similar to MamaYe. A demand-side role as the largest constituent in the healthcare ecosystem — the recipients. And I believe it will all start much like where we did. Not with crossing borders, but with a story. With a vision. Here’s hoping we can get behind, tease out, shake and put on the values that the Commission has put forward. And in the internet’s spirit of open access and open source, remix and build on it. Every good story has that at its heart.

2019-04-23T21:53:47Z

https://www.nendo.co.ke/post/african-led-vision-journeys-through-passports-digital-products-catalyst-for-transformation-in-healthcare

Following his Master's Degree, Muhammad Yunus joined in the Bureau of Economics as a research assistant to the economical researches of eminent Professor Nurul Islam - later a National Professor of Bangladesh - and Rehman Sobhan, one of the key forumulater of the famous Six Points. However, if the Boy Scouts was young Yunus's first passion, then teaching was not far behind. He first practiced this by instructing his little brothers. In 1961 Yunus returned to his old college, Chittagong College, and secured his first professional job: lecturer in economics. Aged only 21, Dr Yunus found himself teaching to students who were almost as old as him. He remained in the teaching post for the next four years. For as long as I can remember I have thought of myself as a teacher, and I still do even today. My younger brothers recall that I loved teaching them, and that I insisted that they get only top grades in school. And if my younger siblings did not do well they had to come and answer to me why they were not doing as well as they should. In 1961 Muhammad Yunus, the son of a prosperous Muslim jeweller, was fresh from earning a master's degree at DU, which was Bangladesh's most prestigious seat of higher education. After graduation, he accepted a position as an economics instructor at Chittagong College. Yunus, just 21, was an impatient young man brimming with self-confidence, optimism, and ambition. With the first phase of his professional training complete, he felt it was time to launch on of the many projects he had toyed with during his student days. While teaching at Chittagong College, Yunus tried his hand at private business. When he was a undergraduate in Dhaka University he founded a nationally circulated literary magazine called Uttaran (Advancement) . In the process of putting out the publication, he was surprised to learn that virtually all local packaging, up to and including the printing on cigarette packets, was being done in West Pakistan. The biggest industry was located in Lahore. It was very rare to find Bengali entrepreneurs those days. However "as a nationalist Bengali", he knew that they could manufacture it more cheaply in East Pakistan. It could be a lucrative business. So he promised himself to try do it someday. Soon after settling in Chittagong he began researching how he might follow through on this idea. With financial support from his father, Yunus made a fact-finding trip to West Pakistan and had the good fortune to meet a Bengali who was involved in a Swedish-Pakistani packaging venture . The man showed Yunus the ropes of the business and provided some tips on how to get started. The following year he set up a packaging and printing plant and bought the necessary machinery after securing a half-million taka ($12,500) loan from the government-owned Industrial Development Bank and receiving government clearance. In due course, the presses began to roll, providing employment to 100 people. Their products included: cigarette packages, boxes, cartons, cosmetics boxes, cards, calendars and books. This turned out to be a successful project, making "a very attractive profit" within two years. Yunus, responding to pressure from his father Dula Mia, repaid the loan to the Industrial Bank ahead of time, with interest. It was very rare for a bank to have its loan repaid early and in full. Impressed by the young man's business acumen, the bank offered Yunus a 10-million taka ($250,000) loan to finance the expansion of the operation. However, Yunus refused the offer after his father "would not hear of it". Earning money had never been a concern or a worry of mine. I was never really tempted to become a businessman, but the packaging factory was a way of proving to myself and to my family that I could be a commercial success if I wished. My father was the chairman of the board, and I was the chief executive officer. My father was extremely reluctant to have us borrow from a bank. He comes from the old school that did not believe in commercial credit. Having a bank loan outstanding made him so nervous and so worried that he made me pay the loan back early. We were probably the only start-up business that ever repaid a loan before it became due. When I went to repay the bank, they offered us a 10 million taka loan for setting up a paper plant, but my father would not hear of it. This experience gave me a lot of self-confidence. It confirmed my belief as a young man that I had no need to worry about money. I was teaching half the time, and being a businessman the other half. Travel to America for Ph.D. After dividing his time between teaching and running the factory, Muhammad Yunus realised that his first love was teaching. To get on the academic fast track, though, required a Ph.D. from abroad. In 1965 he applied for and received a Fulbright scholarship to carry out his postgraduate study in the United States. It would be his third trip abroad – and his first as an adult. His previous two trips were as boy scout but now he’d be travelling all alone. I dearly loved teaching. So when I got the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in America I jumped at the chance to go there on a Fulbright scholarship. Having expressed a preference on his application form for studying "development economics", Yunus was rather improbably placed at Vanderbilty University in Nashville, Tennessee. He had never heard of Vanderbilty before, but when he located it on a globe he noticed that Tennessee had the distinction of being almost exactly halfway around the world from East Pakistan. Already an experienced traveller, Yunus relished the opportunity to expand his horizons again. His only anxiety came from what he read about the civil rights movement in the southern United States. Yunus was concerned that he'd be considered black and be subjected to harassment. The fear, as it turned out, was unfounded: white classmates would inform him that only Negroes were at risk; brown fellows like him, he was assured, had nothing to fear. Yunus arrived at the University of Colorado campus in Boulder during that summer. The university - also commonly referred to as CU-Boulder, CU, Boulder, or Colorado - is located at the foot of the picturesque Rocky Mountains. The great cultural differences between American life and Pakistani life shocked 25-year-old Yunus. The liberal attitude, friendly banter between teachers and students, free-mixing of men and women was a far cry from the conservative environment he grew up in. It was also the time of rock-and-roll and experimentation of drugs. Alcohol consumption was rife. My arrival that summer of 1965 at the University of Colardo campus in Boulder was quite an experience for me. However, Yunus, a lifelong teetotaller, admired America but maintained his traditional values and customs. He loved American society for its multiculture, diversity, and the freedom it gave to its citizen, but never lost track for his reason for being there: to complete his "mission" of studying and return to his beloved Pakistan. He had no intention of residing permanently in America and longed to come back to his motherland as soon as his Ph.D. was over. However, since it was very expensive to travel abroad, he spent his summer holidays teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder rather than return to Pakistan. This long absence only made him more eager to return. As part of his Fulbright scholarship Yunus was required to attend Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, Nashville. So in the summer of 1966 he left University of Colorado and headed towards Nashville. To his horror, the setup in Tennessee was the exact contrast to the vibrant, multi-cultural and lively Colorado. He was the only Bengali in the campus and the only Fulbright scholar at Vanderbilt that year. Yunus began to hate his student life at Vanderbilt and became "depressed...lonely and homesick". The first semester classes bored him and the one-year master's program in economic development was a 'light master's', superficial compared to the far more advanced master's degree he already had. One teacher of European history had even failed him because he wanted Yunus to "spout back exactly what he had said". Thankfully, the University recognised Yunus superior academic ability and put him in advanced economics classes and switched him onto Ph.D. courses after he scored in the 98% on the Graduate Record Exam. After a summer in Boulder, surrounded by students from many different countries, and on a beautiful campus full of sunlight, my scholarship required me to attend Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Here, I had a completely different experience. Arriving in Nashville, I was so depressed I was almost in tears. It was such a tiny insignificant airport and there was no student campus like the one I had so enjoyed at Boulder. The city looked so unattractive after the wide-open grand vistas of Boulder. Vanderbilt had only recently been desegregated, and the tiny restaurant I used, The Campus Grill, had been 'whites only' until six months previously. There were few foreign students, and no Bengalis. I was lonely and homesick. The winter was cold, and I was not at all prepared for it. My dormitory, Wesley Hall, was so bad we quickly named it 'Wesley Hell'. It was old and smelly and the heating pipes banged and knocked all night long. The showers were old-fashioned open stalls. But I was so shy and prudish, I could not possibly undress and shower in front of all those strangers. (Even today I would be shocked by such a thing). So I took my shower wearing a lungi, a full-length skirt to cover the body from the waistline down, as people do in Bangladesh when they take a bath. In his second year at Vanderbilt Yunus enrolled in a statistics course taught by Professor Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a Romanian immigrant trained at the Sorbonne in France. Prof. Georgescu's lectures had left Yunus spellbound and had profound impact on him. The one thing which made my stay at Vanderbilt worthwhile was my association with a famous Romanian professor by the name of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. ...I was most fortunate in having such a difficult and unforgiving task master for I don't think I ever had a better teacher. I learned from him certain simple lessons that I never forgot, and which stood me in good stead when building up Grameen. Though Professor Georgescu-Roegen became my mentor, I can't say we had a close or warm relationship. He was an old-fashioned European teacher who kept his distance. The books he wrote were much too erudite, impossible to understand, but he spoke clearly and concisely. He was a mathematician, a philosopher and had been finance minister of Romania until 1948, when he had to leave and seek political asylum in the United States. He spoke so beautifully that, taken word for word, his classes were a work of art. I studied advanced statistics with him as well as economic theory and Marxism, and he gave me straight As. As his teaching assistant, I learned to respect precise models which showed me how certain concrete plans can help usp understand and construct the future. I also learned that things are never as complicated as we imagine them to be. It is only our arrogance which seeks to find complicated answers to simple problems. The elegance of Georgescu's two-and-half-hour orations touched something deep inside him. He and other admirers compared him them to symphony orchestra performances. To Yunus, Georgescu's genius was in reducing statistics to its essence, breathing life into vapid concepts by using storytelling and simple mathematics. Never had Yunus been in the presence of a master teacher, the kind who leads students down the long road to independent thought punctuated by "Aha!" realisations that are never forgotten. Now that he was under the wing of such a person, he couldn't get enough of it. Growing up in a conservative country like Pakistan – and especially in Chittagong District, which is one of the more religious parts of the country – young Yunus was very shy around women. He always thought he’d have an arranged marriage like others and was happy to follow that traditional path. But fate had other ideas. In 1967 while seated in the Vanderbilt library one day, reading, a "beautiful girl with shoulder-length red hair and blue eyes" came up to him and asked him where he was from. Yunus replied Pakistan and the pair began light conversation. Her name was Vera Forostenko. She was doing her master’s work in Russian literature. She was born in the USSR but she and her family came to America soon after the Second World War (1939-45) and settled in Trenton, New Jersey. She was friendly, spontaneous and curious about me and my background. The two foreigners met more and more regularly. Soon their friendship turned to love. In 1969, two years after meeting, Vera left Tennessee and moved back to her family home in Trenton. With his Ph.D. coming to an end, Dr. Yunus was already making plans to return to East Pakistan. Vera wanted to go with him. Dr. Yunus recommended otherwise. He knew that she would have a difficult time with the culture as it was alien to her. But for every reason he presented her – e.g. tropical weather, different culture, women treated differently, etc. – Vera found a counter-reason. She was "very stubborn" and succeeded in changing his mind. The two lovers married in 1970 and settled in a small, quiet town called Murfreesboro, 50 miles south of Nashville where Dr. Yunus was teaching as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). He remained in this role from 1969 to 1972. However, their quiet life was short-lived. While his career and life was blossoming, events in Dr. Yunus’ home of East Pakistan were taking dramatic turns. Very soon a new country would be born: Bangladesh. Dr. Muhammad Yunus, like all other Probashis (foreign-based Bengalis), stuck thousands of miles away from their motherland, were about to play their most crucial part in life.

2019-04-25T15:57:26Z

http://londoni.co/index.php/71-history-of-bangladesh/biography/muhammad-yunus/405-muhammad-yunus-economics-teacher-aged-21-first-venture-into-business-travel-to-america-for-phd-first-wife-russian-american-biography-of-muslim-and-bengali

Q: What are the bank notes in Australia? A: Bank notes comprise of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 Australian dollar notes; while coins come in 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent coins, and 1 and 2 dollar coins. Q: What are the most trusted banks or financial institutions in Australia? A: Top big banks are Westpac, Commonwealth, ANZ and Australia Bank. Q: What are the documents needed to open a bank account? A: In order to open a bank account, one needs to present an identification e.g. driver’s license or passport, proof of an address in Australia, and in some cases a reference from one's previous bank. Q: How do expats open a bank account in Melbourne? A: Opening a Melbourne bank account is quick and simple, even for expats. However, it must be done within the expat's first six weeks of arrival in Australia. Otherwise, bank authorities may require more time and evidence of identification. In any case, an expat has to present a passport, a valid visa and another valid ID when opening a bank account. Q: Are ATMs popularly used in Melbourne? A: Yes. Most Melbourne residents consider ATMs as the most convenient tools for cash dispensing. Note that ATMs in the city only give out 20 AUD and 50 AUD notes, though some of the smaller ones (usually in gas stations) dispense only 10 AUD, again, only in combinations of 20 and 50 AUDs. In rare places such as casinos, one may get 100 AUD notes. Q: What is the availability of banks in Melbourne? A: Banks in Melbourne usually open at 9am and close at 4pm on Mondays thru Thursdays. On Fridays, they open at 9 am and close at 5pm. Most of Australia's biggest banks like ANZ, NAB, and Commonwealth have branches in Melbourne. Q: What is the process of opening a bank account in Sydney? A: The most important requirement for opening a bank account in Sydney is a 100-point score on identity. There are three approved forms of identification. For migrants, these three IDs include a passport, a driver's license, and a medical card. Normally, an expat who is unable to provide the three will not be allowed to open a bank account in any bank in Sydney. Q: How much do Sydney banks charge in account maintenance fees? A: This depends from bank to bank, but usually, monthly maintenance fees of $5 will be charged to an account holder to keep the account active. When planning to open a bank account in Sydney, it is advisable that one spend time shopping around to know which bank charges the least fees. Q: What are the best banks in Sydney? A: The four major and most established banks in Sydney include the National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ, Commonwealth, and Westpac. The Commonwealth Bank, once a government bank until its privatization in the 1990s, is the most distributed bank, both in the city and the entire Australia. Q: What is the process of registering a business name in Australia? A: One must ensure that business name doesn't have a trade mark registered against it. All business name registrations go to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) External Site. Once it's registered with ASIC , it's registered nationally as well. One just need to have an Australian Business Number (ABN) in order to register a business name online through the ABN application or through ASIC Connect External Site. Q: What is an Australian Business Number? A: The Australian business number (ABN) is a unique 11 digit number that identifies a business or organisation to the government and community. Not everybody is entitled to one; hence, it is not compulsory. Q: Where should foreign companies register in Australia? A: Foreign companies must be registered with ASIC, the governing body responsible for the ongoing regulation of foreign companies. Q: What taxes do I need to pay if I open a business in Melbourne? A: The Australian tax year covers the period from July 1 to June 30 of succeeding year. After securing an Australian Business Number or ABN, registration with the Australian Tax Office follows for the payment of four basic business taxes in Melbourne, namely, goods and services, fringe benefits, pay-as-you-go withholding, and payroll taxes. Q: What are the legal requirements for opening a business in Melbourne? A: Expats who want to open a business in Melbourne should consult with the Australian Business License and Information Service (ABLIS) for information regarding the necessary licenses, permits, approvals, registrations, codes of practice, standards, and guidelines for setting up business in the city. Which particular requirements are needed will ultimately depend on the business type and target location. Q: What are the most attractive industries for investors in Melbourne today? A: Melbourne has many thriving industries, but as far as potential investments are concerned, the food, medical research, agricultural, tourism, cultural, financial services and manufacturing sectors are the most promising today. Q: What are typical business hours for establishments in Sydney? A: Generally, stores, shops, offices and other business establishments open at 9am and close at 5pm Mondays thru Fridays. Banks specifically are open from Mondays thru Thursdays from 9:30am to 5pm, and are closed on Fridays and weekends. On Saturdays, shops open a bit earlier at around 8:30am, and close a little earlier too at around 4pm. Stores that operate on Sundays are open from 9am to 4pm. Q: What are some of Sydney's best conference venues? A: There's a lot, especially those with an overlooking view of the world-famous Sydney Harbour. Over the last decade, Sydney has been host to many big international conferences and other major world events such as the International AIDS Society Conference and the 26th Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology Congress. Q: Does Sydney have promising franchising opportunities for entrepreneurs? A: Yes, business franchising is a very promising industry in Sydney. In fact, there are many franchising expos held in the city every now and then, and one of the biggest has been scheduled for March 2015 at the Royal Hall of Industries on 1 Driver Avenue Moore Park. Q: Where can people find listings for children's events in Australia? Q: Which states have skiing resorts for families and children? A: There are only two states in Australia with ski resorts namely the New South Wales with Perisher and Thredbo and Victoria with Falls Creek, Mt Hotham and Mt Buller. Q: Where can families go with children in the Northern Territory? A: The Gold Coast is a goldmine for family activities family surrounded by theme parks and the vast stretch of the ocean. Families can also travel to Cairns and be awed by the Great Barrier Reef and engage in many activities such as snorkelling, scuba diving, etc. Q: Are public primary schools completely free in Melbourne? A: Public primary schools in Melbourne are free, but there is usually a voluntary school levy to be paid by each student per year. Government subsidy also excludes uniforms, extra-curricular activities and other miscellaneous expenses. Q: What types of child care facilities are available in Melbourne? A: There are basically four types of Melbourne childcare facilities, all of which accept kids up to the age of 6. These include private centers, community centers, family day care (up to a maximum of 4 preschool kids to be cared for in the carer's home), and home care (an au pair or nanny comes to the kids' home). Additionally, there are centers offering playgroups for parents who want to be around as their children socialize with other kids. Q: What are the usual requirements for enrolment in Melbourne schools? A: For expat children, requirements usually include a passport, birth certificate, contact details of parents or guardians, certificate of immunization, a description of the child's health and development history, and information regarding language or languages spoken by the child. Q: How are childcare services in Sydney? A: One thing most expats say about child care is Sydney is that it's expensive - around $70 – 125 per child per day. On top of that, waiting lists are also notorious for being really long, especially in highly populated areas. In eastern suburbs like Woolahra and Manly, it can be almost impossible to get a slot. Q: What sports activities are in store for expat kids in Sydney? A: Sydney offers a lot of opportunities for kids to develop their sports abilities. West of the city center is the famous Sydney Olympic Park where kids can enjoy facilities for swimming, walking, archery, trapeze and many others. At the Sydney Park and Centennial Park, kids can learn and master cycling. Of course, there are playgrounds everywhere for the younger kids. Q: Where do expats usually take their kids for tummy treats in Sydney? A: Sydney locals have a big thing for cafes, and the good thing is, even kids are well accommodated. In fact, a lot of restaurants offer children a separate menu that is more suited to their tastes. China Town at the city center is known for its yum cha or lunch meals which are usually served between 10am and 3pm. Kids love them and so does the rest of the family. Q: What is the average cost of medical insurance in Australia? need to pay for medical insurance? A: As most expats are not permanent residents; hence not qualified for Medicare, their option is to obtain a private medical life insurance, which can cost more than 500 AUD per month. Q: Which cities are considered to have a higher cost of living? A: Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane are considered cosmopolitan cities and have a higher cost of living compared to other Australian cities. Q: What is the average rental accommodation costs? A: Rental costs in a good location in a cosmopolitan area starts at AUD 1000 for an unfurnished two-bedroom apartment to AUD 1,300 and more for a furnished two-bedroom apartment. Q: What do people in Melbourne spend the biggest chunk of their budgets on? A: People pay the most for accommodation in Melbourne. In the city center, for instance, rentals can go as high as 450 AUD per week for a one-bedroom apartment. Q: How much do basic utilities cost in Melbourne? A: A lot of expats are still surprised to know that the city is prone to extremely cold winters and extremely hot summers. The average utility bill of an average Melbourne household is about AUD1800 a year, including gas and electricity costs, plus around 500 AUD yearly for water. Q: Is "eating out" expensive or cheap in Melbourne? A: Melbourne has many fine dining restaurants where bills can rack up to the hundreds, but there are also several places where people can enjoy great food for so much less. Both in the city center and in outlying areas, there are diners that offer superb food for a little more than the cost of a fast food meal. In Melbourne, 15 AUD for a sumptuous dinner is usual. Q: How much is an apartment rental in Sydney? A: Most of a Sydney resident's monthly cost of living goes to rent. A one-bedroom apartment in the city costs around $450 to $550 weekly, and a two-bedroom apartment will probably start at around $650 weekly. Q: How much do people pay for household utilities in Sydney? A: A usual electricity and gas bill in Sydney costs around $5 - 15 per week, and around $30 per week for a landline. For Internet, the range is from $40-70 monthly, depending on the period of the contract and gigabytes of data provided. Q: How does Sydney compare with other world-class cities in terms of cost of living? A: According to the 2011 Economist Intelligence Unit, Sydney is at least 28 % more expensive to live in than London, and around 45% costlier than New York. Q: What is Australia's Medicare and what does it cover? A: Medicare is a free service available to Australian and New Zealand citizens and permanent visa holders. Medical coverage include free treatment and accommodation as a patient in a public hospitals, and 75% of the Medicare Schedule fee for services and procedures if you are a private patient in a public or private hospital. Q: Where can one find children's hospitals in Australia? A: In Queensland, one can go to Mater Children's Hospital, Royal Children's Hospital, Herston. In New South Wales, there is the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney Children's Hospital and John Hunter Children's Hospital. In Victoria, Royal Children's Hospital and Monash Children's Hospital cater to any children medical emergencies. Q: Is it recommended to get a private health insurance? A: Expats who do not have Medicare are encouraged to get a private health insurance. And even with Medicare, there are specific treatments that are not covered such as dental and optical services. Q: Can foreigners receive Medicare insurance cover while staying in Melbourne? Q: What are the medical emergency assistance numbers in Melbourne? A: For fire, police, or medical emergencies, 000 is the free hotline to call in Melbourne. However, ambulance transport is not free in the city or anywhere in Australia, but there are preneed companies that offer plans exempting holders from fees. For round-the-clock nurse-on-call services, Melbourne residents can call 1300 60 60 24. Q: What are the health insurance options available for foreigners in Melbourne? A: Non-Medicare-covered expats in Melbourne have three options to get medical coverage while in the city: an employer-provided company insurance plan, international medical insurance that meets requirements of the Australian medical insurance industry, and a private insurance plan purchased in Melbourne. When deciding which plan to buy, it is important to pay attention to policy provisions on pre-existing conditions, waiting periods and pharmaceutical benefits. Q: How accessible are Sydney hospitals? A: There are around 50 public hospitals and clinics right within the city center, and most of them provide specialist services or are connected with major research centers. Additionally, there are also many privately run hospitals both at the city center and around suburban areas. The Ministry of Health website provides a lot of helpful tips and information about health services in the city, and offers a search function for those who are looking for a medical facility near them. Q: What are common exclusions to a typical health insurance plan in Sydney? A: It depends on the policy and the insurer, but the most common exclusions are dental and physiotherapy care, along with ambulance transport, visual aids, and prescription drugs. Government subsidies, however, have made the prices of medicines generally cheaper in Sydney and in all other parts of the country, compared to the rest of the world. Q: How does public health insurance work in Sydney, and does it cover expats? A: As with any part of Australia, Sydney offers a public healthcare system to all residents through a program called Medicare. The plan, financed through taxes via the Medicare levy, covers all medical treatments received in public hospitals, and all other costs associated with treatment obtained from out-of-hospital GPs or specialists. Unfortunately, only expats who have become Australian citizens or permanent residents are covered by this system. Q: What are the documents needed when renting an apartment or a house? A: One must prepare proof of identity (passport/ birth certificate/ drivers license, proof of income e.i. bank statements for the last three months, previous rental agreements (if there's any) and references e.i. employer or previous landlord. Q: What are the useful online site for finding accommodations and property rentals? Q: How much is the typical deposit when renting a flat? A: There is no standard for how much rent has to be paid in advance to the landlord; tenant and landlord has to come in agreement with the payment terms. But tenant must pay the first fortnight/month's rent and a bond, equivalent to a one month's rent. Q: How much do houses in Melbourne cost? A: Houses in Melbourne can vary wildly in prices, but as of March 2014, the median price was $652,500 for detached homes and $499,000 for apartments. Q: What are houses like in Melbourne? A: Houses in Melbourne are either free-standing or attached buildings, can be anywhere from a few months to 150 years old, and are typically built from concrete, timber or brick. On average, a home in the city will have four bedrooms, a maximum of two bathrooms, a kitchen, living area, and laundry room. Bigger ones have more than one living area and come with a garage. Q: Are foreign nationals allowed to own real estate in Melbourne? A: Yes, as a non-citizen or permanent resident, permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board must first be obtained. It usually takes 40 days for the FIRB to send a reply, but in unusual circumstances, it could take longer depending on how much time is needed to resolve the issue or issues involved. Q: What is the most elite neighborhood in Sydney? A: Edgecliff, Double Bay, Darling Point and Vaucluse, all found in the eastern suburbs, are the most expensive neighborhoods in Sydney, where median luxury apartments cost around $ 1.35 million. Q: Which part of Sydney offers the cheapest housing? A: Houses in Sydney are generally expensive, but in Tregear (near Blacktown), some properties are becoming increasingly popular for their relatively lower prices. The median house price is around $240, making the area a perfect place for families who are just starting to establish themselves in the city. Q: What is the usual monthly interest rate for a mortgage in Sydney? A: This depends on various factors such as the property's market value, the loaner's capacity to pay, etc. In most cases, however, Sydney mortgage homes are paid with a monthly interest rate of about 4-5%, or 5-6% for more expensive homes. Q: What are Australia's best beaches? A: There's Bondi Beach in Sydney to start with; Victoira has Bells Beach while new South Wales boast of Byron Bay. Q: What are the top attractions in Australia? A: The Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Harbour, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia’s wineries, Tasmania's Port Arthur are among the many attractions that draw travellers and tourists across the world to visit Australia. Q: When is the best time to visit the Great Barrier Reef? A: It's during June to November when the weather is mild that makes it the best time to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Q: Any ideas for cheap but worthwhile entertainment in Melbourne? A: There are many cheap entertainment options in Melbourne. Halftix is an agency that sells discounted tickets for tours, concerts and other events in the city, and its office is located at the Melbourne Town Hall Administration (Swanston Street around the corner of Collins Street). However, tickets can only be bought personally and strictly for cash. Ticketmaster and Ticketek are two other popular ticket agencies in the city. Q: Do they have carting venues in Melbourne? A: Yes. There are many carting venues around Melbourne, and particularly popular among teenage boys is Auscarts. This is a modern indoor carting venue just five minutes away from the city centre. Drivers need to be at least thirteen to be able to race, and there's a 145- 200-cm height requirement. The carts can take a maximum load of 145kilos. Q: What types of entertainment are available for families in Melbourne? A: There's this game called room escape that's currently making waves in Melbourne today. People come in groups and are put together in one room to solve different challenges so they can escape within a certain number of minutes. The games are fun and challenging at the same time, combining intuition, teamwork, logic, and analytical skills. Room escape is also a growing trend for corporate team-building activities. One favorite venue is Exitus located at the Port of Melbourne. Q: What's in store for music and theater lovers in Sydney? A: The music and theater circuit in Sydney is rich and colorful. The internationally famous Sydney Opera House is actually the number one choice for the biggest classical and pop events held by international artists in Australia. Q: What outdoor activities are popular in Sydney? A: With Sydney's bright and sunny weather, outdoor activities are very popular in the city, especially among the youth. There are at least 400 public playgrounds, parks and other open, natural spaces which are commonly used for sports like running and cycling, as well as for outdoor recreation like barbecues and picnics. Q: Is Sydney a good place for garden hobbyists and those who like natural attractions? A: Absolutely! In fact, there are 15 community gardens which are very popular among tourists and expats. These places feature a wide variety of herbs, fruits and vegetables, and lovely flowers. Of course, sunbathers and surfers will love the city's sun and beaches, along with the beautiful and sprawling national parks that surround the metropolis. Q: What are the best means to find job openings in Australia? A: Dailies such as The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald regularly publish job listings and advertisements in the employment sections. The local and community newspapers also have job listings, but not extensive. Online job portals are also a good source of job listings and one can opt to register with a recruitment agencies. Q: What information must be included in one's CV/Resume when applying for jobs in Australia? A: A CV/Resume must consist of 2-4 pages long, which must include the candidate's contact details, complete list of work experience from the most recent to the least recent, skill set, duties within your list of positions and character reference. Q: Which industries demand skilled workers and professionals? A: Engineering, ICT, Biotechnology and Healthcare are among the sectors that have several opportunities for skilled workers and professionals. Q: What jobs are most in demand in Melbourne today? A: Employment trends come and go in Melbourne. Currently, there is a high demand for chemists, veterinarians, electrical engineers, welders, plumbers, software engineers, pastry cooks, and midwives. Foreign nationals who want to apply for a skilled migrant visa must ensure that their overseas qualifications are officially evaluated. Q: How much do expats usually make in Melbourne? A: How much an expat makes in Melbourne depends on the type of job he has. So far, the highest paid expats in the city are those who work in the health and medical sector, where professionals make around 4,900 to 5,000 AUD annually. This is followed by electrical and electronics trade professionals who typically rake in up to 4,800 AUD at the end of the year. Architects make around 3,800 AUD, while cleaning and housekeeping staff receive some 3,600 AUD. These are all estimates, but they create a realistic picture of how much expats are making in Melbourne today. Q: How do people usually get to and from work in Melbourne? A: Workers in Melbourne do not go to work on a ferry like those in Sydney, but the daily commute in the city is considered far more convenient than in London, Tokyo, or New York. However, expats whose jobs involve long-distance traveling need to be patient as it can take a while to get to Melbourne, even coming from Sydney which is about an hour's flight away. Q: Which sectors offer the most job opportunities in Sydney today? A: Sydney is the reigning financial hub of the country where 25% of the national GDP is sourced. Jobs are most abundant in the property and business services, manufacturing, retail, health, and community services sectors, along with information, creative and performing arts and media and technology. The city's tourism industry has also been a steady provider of employment, especially for foreign nationals. Q: What common qualifications and skills are needed for one to work in Sydney? A: A basic requirement is English proficiency and passing an official skills assessment for those applying for Australian working visas. More specific requirements will depend on individual visa categories and subcategories, which have their own skills evaluation programs in place. Q: What do people usually wear to the office in Sydney? A: Business attire for corporate workers is essentially conservative in Sydney. A dark-colored, modestly designed suit is the norm for men, and a modestly designed suit or smart dress is expected to be worn by women. This is in contrast to Brisbane and other tropical parts of Australia where people can wear shirts and shorts even to corporate affairs. Q: What is the Australian Tax Office? A: The Australian Tax Office (ATO) handles all taxation and any other tax related issues an expat may have. Q: What is the GST Tax in the country? A: There is a 10% GST in Australia, which are already included in the price of goods at purchase. Q: Is the Tax File Number compulsory? A: No, obtaining a Tax File Number is not compulsory. However, it is encouraged to get a TFN to avoid paying tax withheld and to be eligible for government benefits. Q: What denominations does the Australian dollar come in, and how are they used? A: The local currency in Australia is issued in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50 and 100 AUD, 50 AUD, 20 AUD, 10 AUD and 5 AUD. All of these are commonly used in day-to-day transactions. The 100 AUD note, however, is less frequently used, and it may be refused by the smaller shops if you're making a small purchase. It's often wise to have more supply of the lower value notes. Q: How much cash is a foreigner allowed to bring to Melbourne? A: A foreigner who arrives in Melbourne carrying at least 10,000 AUD or an equivalent amount in a foreign currency has to fill out and sign a Cross-Border Movement – Physical Currency (CBM-PC) form. If asked at the border, he should also inform the officer if he is carrying any bearer negotiable instruments or BNI's, such as travel cheques, money orders, promissory notes and the like. Though BNIs have no face value, they still have to be disclosed. Q: What credit cards are accepted in Melbourne? A: American Express and Travelex are the two most frequently accepted cards in Melbourne. In larger stores, JCB cards may also be accepted. All of these cards can be cashed at foreign exchange centers, banks, car rental agencies and the bigger hotels. A foreigner must present a passport when cashing traveler's cheques. Major cards like Visa, American Express, MasterCard, Diners Club, etc. usually charge varying fees. Q: What are the best options for foreign currency exchange in the city? A: Money exchange is done in most of the key banks in the city, at small money exchange kiosks dotting Kings Cross and Circular Bay, and in hotels and casinos. Q: Are ATMs well-distributed around Sydney? A: Yes, everywhere in Sydney, there will be ATMs, but most are found in touristy areas or business centers. Note that most ATMs only accept international cards, both credit and debit. Q: How often do people use cash in Sydney? A: Credit cards are often used in Sydney for bigger purchases such as electronic gadgets and sometimes even cars, while cash is usually the only mode of payment accepted for smaller transactions such as bus ticket purchases or buying in smaller stores. Q: What are the best online stores in the country for furniture, kitchen appliances and other household items? A: Online sites for furniture and household item include kmart.com.au, bigw.com.au, target.com.au and IKEA.com.au. Q: Is Australia a family-friendly country? A: Absolutely, the country proves to be an excellent place to raise a family especially when it comes to property houses, health services and education. Children can spend recreational time outdoors in large open space and in a nearby beach while parents can benefit from various government schemes for financial emergencies. Q: When does summer start in Australia and the subsequent seasons? A: Summer happens during December to February. Fall/Autumn is around March to May and winter arrives by June until August. It is best to travel or relocate to Australia during Spring from September to November. Q: Is Melbourne a good city for expat retirees? A: Yes. In fact, Melbourne is now a top destination for retirees, along with other key cities like Sydney. This trend has even led the federal government to make a number of retirement visa types available. The first requirement for obtaining a retiree visas is that the applicant is at least 55 years old. Q: How is the weather in Melbourne? A: Weather in Melbourne can switch from rainy and sunny several times a day. A phenomenon known as "cool change," characterized by a sudden shift in the wind direction that causes a dramatic drop in temperature, is known to occur. On a sunny morning, it can get as hot as 40 degrees Celsius, but in a few hours, this can drop to 18 degrees Celsius. Other days, temperatures can dip below freezing points. Q: Which parts of Melbourne are hay fever-safe? A: A study of Melbourne municipalities shows that asthma rates are the highest in Wyndham and the lowest in Marybirnong. There is no conclusive evidence relating this to hay fever, but it may be a good point to consider. Bayside suburbs are also said to be anti-hay fever. Q: What's the cost of hiring a removalist in Sydney? A: This depends on the moving company and the amount of load to be moved. However, the most common rates fall between $140-165 per hour, for a service package that normally includes two professional removalists and one truck. Q: What is one basic tip all people planning to move to Sydney should know? A: The most basic thing to remember when moving to Sydney is sun protection. A lot of tourists and expats take this for granted, but Sydney's sun can be quite harsh, especially to those who are not used to it. Temperatures can go up to over 40 degrees Celsius on an ordinary day, and this can be very hazardous. There even schools (most, if not all) that have a strict no-hat-no-play policy, which means children will not be allowed to go out and play unless they wear something on their heads for protection. Sunscreen is a definite must, and so are cool, cotton shirts which help to regulate body temperature. Q: Which is wiser - importing household goods to Sydney or buying new ones after relocation? A: At the outset, household goods shipment can be very expensive, but this proves to be more economical later on than having to buy all new stuff upon arriving in Sydney. What's important is that enough research is done before choosing a shipping company, as there are many potential risks involved in goods transport. Costs are often based on weight, cubic dimensions, or both. Q: What are the requirements for relocating a pet? A: When relocating to Australia with a pet, one must strictly adhere to the following: an ISO 11784/11785 compliant ISO microchip, a rabies vaccination within one year of entry, blood Titer Test (RNATT) no sooner than 180 days prior to entry. (Have your veterinarian scan your pet's microchip prior to the titer test) and import Permit, a USDA (or CFIA) accredited veterinarian must then complete the Australia Veterinary Certificate for endorsement by the USDA or CFIA if travelling from the United States or Canada. All pets must travel as manifest cargo will need a health certificate issued within 10 days of travel. Q: Do dogs and cats need to be quarantined when transported to Australia? A: Australia requires dogs and cats a minimum of 10 days quarantine except for pets travelling from New Zealand, Norfolk Island or Coco Island. Q: Which breeds are restricted in the country? A: Restricted dog breeds are Dog Argentino, Fila Brazileiro, Japanese Tosa, Pit Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull and Perro de Presa Canario or Presa Canario. Q: What are the requirements for admitting pets into Melbourne, Australia? A: Requirements generally include a rabies blood test performed within 150 days before entry to Australia. If this requirement is satisfied, the pet will only be quarantined for 30 days. Pets may travel to Australia 2 months following the blood test, but the quarantine period will be longer. Q: How much do dog boarding facilities in Melbourne cost? A: Melbourne dog boarding services cost around $45-50 each. For every pair of dogs, the fee is around $75-90, depending on various factors such as location and facilities. Q: Are there special rules for having dogs in Melbourne? A: Yes. The most important requirement is registering dogs with the Melbourne council, and this registration is to be renewed annually. After registration, the dog owner will receive a certificate, along with an identification tag that bears the pet's registration number as well as the council's name. This tag must be worn by the animal at all times. Failure to register dogs in Melbourne can mean a fine of up to $500, while abandoning a dog can cost the owner up to $ 1,000. Q: Are pets allowed in Sydney trains? A: Animals are generally not allowed inside trains in Sydney, but there are three exceptions: police/security dogs, animals trained to assist disabled passengers and animals undergoing assistance training. Q: How and where are pet-related complaints lodged in Sydney? A: For pet-related issues such as excessive barking, property damage, people-chasing, etc., complaints may be lodged by calling 02 9265 9333. Response from a city ranger can be expected within 24 hours, and if the problem continues, a nuisance order will be served to the pet owner. Depending on the case, fines can range from $275-880. Q: Why are vet fees very expensive in Sydney? A: It's because there is no government subsidy for pet care in Sydney, so that pet owners feel like they are paying too much for vet services. While humans are covered by Medicare, animals are not. This is why it's important to take the time to research on different vets in the city so that comparisons may be made. Q: At what age can children go to Primary School? A: As early as 5, children can go to Primary school in Australia. Q: Are state/public schools open to foreigners? A: In general, state schools are open and accessible to foreigners. Q: What are the high-ranking universities in Australia? A: Based on the QS World University Rankings 2013/14, the high-ranking universities are the Australian National University (ranked 27 in the world; 1st in Australia), the University of Melbourne (ranked 31 in the world; 2nd in Australia) and University of Sydney (ranked 38 in the world; 3rd in Australia). Q: What is the general calendar followed by schools in Melbourne? A: Schools in Melbourne have a total four terms per school year, beginning late January up to early December. Summer and Christmas holidays are combined in one stretch. Q: How much is the average in terms of Melbourne school fees? A: Fees vary significantly from one school to another, so parents are advised to consult schools directly when asking for information regarding tuition fees. On average, yearly fees per private school amount to around $ 20,000. In public schools, tuition is free for permanent residents and those who hold a 457 visa. However, other expenses such as uniforms, fees for school trips, etc. have to be paid out of pocket. An enrollee classified as an international student has to pay full fees, and this status must be indicated in his or her passport. Q: What are the best schools in Melbourne? A: Schools in the Eastern suburbs such as Donvale, Blackburn and Park Orchards are good to consider because they are cheaper than those in the inner city, yet competitive in terms of quality of education. Note that government-run primary schools follow very strict zoning requirements. For example, parents must be able show proof of residence within a particular school zone before they can enroll their kids in a school within that zone. Q: What is the reputation of public schools in Sydney? A: Sydney (and Australia in general) boasts of public schools that are ranked 9th in world education survey of the Programme for International Student Assessment or Pisa. Under the same programme, UK ranks 25th and the US 17th. Q: Do kids wear school uniforms in Sydney? A: Yes, all Sydney schools - public, private, Catholic, Anglican, or Jewish - require students to wear school uniforms. Aside from skirts for girls and trousers for boys, a hat, sports jacket, backpack, and shorts are also included. Black, lace up shoes are the usual footwear, but they tend to be expensive in Sydney. Parents are advised to buy at least two pairs for each child before the move. Q: Are there special requirements for 457 visa holders when enrolling in a Sydney school? A: Yes, there are special enrolment requirements for 457 visa holders, and not all schools in Sydney accept 457 visa holders. It is important to contact a school directly and inquire. Q: What are the most popular department stores in Australia? A: Across the country, one can find David Jones, Harris Scarfe, Myer, Barsby's, Hanna's and Stewart's. Q: What is the biggest grocery store in the country? A: Woolworths and Wesfarmers are the heavyweights when it comes supermarket sales. Q: Which online site does Aussies go to for product reviews? A: Sites such as productreview.com.au and myshopping.com.au are the go-to sites amongst the locals. Q: Where do I go to shop for clothes in Melbourne? A: Melbourne is actually known for being Australia's fashion capital so there are many malls and boutiques dotting the city. In the CBD, some of the world's best designers in the likes of Louis Vuitton have shops lining the entire Little Collins Street. Melbourne Central is a popular shopping mall, along with Bourke Street Mall. For famous Australian brands, people usually troop to Emporium. Q: Are there are any cheap shopping districts in Melbourne? A: Definitely! DFO Outlets Centre found at South Wharf (near Yarra River's southern bank) is perfect for discount shoppers. Elizabeth Street is also perfect for backpackers looking for high-quality yet cheap outdoor products. Q: At what times do stores in Melbourne usually open and close? A: Shopping in Melbourne usually starts at 9am and ends at 5:30pm on weekdays, and runs from 9am (sometimes later) to 5 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Most shops in the suburbs like Chadstone close later - usually up to 9pm - on Thursdays and Fridays. At supermarkets, opening time is usually 7am and closing time could well go beyond midnight. Of course, there are those that are open round-the-clock. Q: What are the best places to shop in Sydney? A: The city practically crawls with shopping districts like Westfield Sydney, Pitt Street Mall, the Queen Victoria Building, The Strand and Sydney Central Plaza. These shopping centers are joined together by pedestrian malls and walkways, and that makes it a whole lot easier for shoppers to get around. Anything, from chocolates to antiques, can be found in these shopping havens. Q: Where are art pieces usually sold in Sydney? A: The city has a long line of art galleries, but a very popular favorite is Aboriginal Art Galleries which features the indigenous works of more than 140 artists, including Dorothy Napangardi, Minnie Pwerle, and a lot more. Sculptures, artifacts, and more aboriginal art pieces can be found and purchased in these galleries which have two locations within the city - Queen Victoria Building and Opera Quays. Q: What are the best places in Sydney to buy antiques? A: There are lots of antique shops in Sydney, mostly located in shopping areas such as Paddington Double Bay, and Woollahra, especially around Sotheby’s. For cheaper antiques, the Sydney Antique Center in Surry Hills along South Dowling Street houses more than 50 smaller shops that sell all types of items, from chinaware to ancient animal carvings. Q: What are the major telecoms in the country? A: The biggest among the telcos is Telstra, which also owns the majority of landline infrastructure. Coming second is Optus, which is a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications. A: In a month, Internet cost is around AUD 80-100, either uncapped ADSL or cable. Q: What are the requirements to sign up for a mobile or Internet plan? A: Requirements vary for each telcos. In general, one must have an identification with proof of address, complete contact details, a residential address, a delivery address (applicable for phones), proof of employment, study or pension benefits, and a direct debit from an Australian bank account or credit card. Q: What telecom companies are most trusted in Melbourne? A: Five of the most trusted telecom companies in Melbourne include AAPT Cellular One Ltd, Soul, Optus, Digiplus, and Telstra. These companies offer broadband technology, wireless broadband and 3G communications networks across the city. Q: How much do people in Melbourne spend for telecom services in the city? A: People in Melbourne typically pay more for telecom services than residents of other Australian cities. For example, for the average use of an ADSL broadband plan of 50 gigabytes per month, the bill may amount to around 100 AUD with a big telecom company. For a plan with a duration of less than two years, a subscriber may have to pay some 100 AUD in set up fees. For landlines, most households usually pay about 20 AUD monthly, while mobile phone plans normally cost around 70 AUD monthly. Q: What are the free local TV stations in Melbourne? A: Yes. In fact, there are six free TV stations, along with pay-to-view TV. The free TV stations available in the city are Channel 7, Channel 9, and Channel 10, along with ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s national network, and Channel 31 and SBS which both feature foreign language programs. Q: What are the best Internet service providers in Sydney? A: Most people in Sydney use either iiNet, TPG or iPrimus which are considered the best Internet service providers in the city. Q: Are 4G phone services available in Sydney? A: Yes. In fact, over 75% of the city's metropolitan area has facilities that enable the use of 4G phones and other gadgets. It is projected that by April of 2015, at least 90% of the city will be able to use 4G technology. Q: How much does Internet service cost in Sydney? A: Different ISPs charge different rates, but usually for about the same quality of services. The monthly cost ranges from $40-70, depending on the period of the contract, with a choice of 12, 18 and 24 months, and data volume provided, usually from 20 - 500 GB. Some companies offer unlimited Internet for around $60 monthly. Q: What are the modes of public transportation in Australia? A: As one of the liveliest places to live, Australia has one of the extensive public transportation networks; most of its cities have trains, buses, monorail, trams and private taxis. Most expats working in the city use public transport on a daily basis, and it's the best way for travellers to get around the city. Q: Can you travel the whole country via train? Q: What is the process for personal vehicle registration in Australia? A: Vehicle need to be registered right away in the owner’s state of residence (and not where the vehicle was purchased). State agencies handle the whole process, but usually it's the Road Transport Authorities, which is responsible for motor vehicle inspection and registration, and driver licensing service. Q: How much does a cab cost in Melbourne? A: This depends on the passenger's current location and destination. The average cost of a taxi going to or from the city center is around 55 AUD. Two other factors that affect the final bill are traffic and the time of day. Taxis in Melbourne also charge higher at night. Q: How do people get around Melbourne? A: Most people in Melbourne prefer to get around using the public transport system. Aside from being cheaper (only 7 AUD a day for a public transport ticket), commuters are also able to avoid dealing with fluctuating fuel prices and high parking fees (over 10AUD), not to mention traffic jams. Expats who live in outlying areas naturally have to spend more for transportation. Q: What license does a non-local need to drive in Melbourne? A: An expat is allowed to drive in Melbourne using the driver's license issued to him in his home country. However, this is only good for up to three months after the issuance of his Australian visa. After such period, he has to pass a local driving test to be able to continue driving in the city. If his original license was issued in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK or USA, he may simply swap that license with a Victorian license, and there will be no driving tests required. Q: What is the traffic situation in Sydney? A: Traffic in Sydney is busy all the time, and traveling by car is often preferable outside of weekday peak hours. City roads are most congested from 6:30AM-9:30AM, and those leading to the suburbs are the busiest between 4:30PM and 6:30PM. Q: Do kids get discounts at public transport fares in Sydney? A: Yes. Any passenger aged 15 years below is usually given discounts on most public transport vehicles. The age limit for discounts on Matilda ferries, however, is 14. Kids 3 years old and below can travel completely free. For Matilda ferries, the age limit is 4 years and younger. Q: Where can people buy bus tickets in Sydney? A: Bus tickets are available at corner shops, post offices, 7/11's, transit stores and news bureaus. Note that between 7am and 7pm, people cannot buy tickets while on board buses within the city, or in any of the key transport corridors. Sometimes, especially on weekends, tickets may be purchased from the driver on non- Prepay Only bus routes. Q: What are the documents that foreigners need to present upon arrival in Australia? A: Foreigners travelling to Australia need to present upon entry a valid passport or other acceptable travel document, a valid visa, and a completed and signed Incoming Passenger Card. Q: Any recommended reference to travellers to Australia? A: A good reference is the Lonely Planet book on AU and Citysearch.com website for Sydney attractions. Q: When is the cheapest season to travel to Australia? A: Winter months from June to August would be the cheapest time to travel. Q: What are the health risks commonly associated with travel to Melbourne? A: In terms of common diseases, there are no major risks in Melbourne today. In the last few years, however, there were minor epidemics of pertussis or whooping cough that affected children in suburban areas. As a general precaution, expats moving to the city with kids are advised to ensure that immunizations are kept up to date. Q: What is Melbourne's weather like and what preparations are necessary for those traveling to the city? A: Expats should remember to take along the right clothing for the city's rather unpredictable weather. Generally, it's wise to bring along enough sunscreen, a sun visor and UV protective clothing when possible, as the Australian sun can be a bit piercing. Q: What vaccinations are advised for people traveling to Melbourne? A: There are no special vaccinations advised for people traveling to Melbourne, but booster shots for tetanus and polio are highly recommended. Elderly expats must have flu shots as well, and those who are coming to work in medical settings should get immunization for hepatitis. Q: When is the best time to travel to Sydney and enjoy its beaches? A: Summer, which runs from December to February, is the best time to enjoy the city's fabulous beaches. However, temperatures can go as high as over 40°C, so sunscreen is an absolute must. From March to May, which is autumn, it can still be good and warm but not all the time for those who are mainly planning to hit the beach. Q: Are their coach services in Sydney? A: Yes. There are coach companies in Sydney driving to all key Australian cities and many NSW regional centers. The terminal is located adjacent to the train station in the City South. Many tourists prefer to travel by coach because it is cheaper and runs faster. Q: What's the best way to see and marvel at Sydney's harbor and other attractions? A: Most travelers agree that the best way is to take a ferry east from Circular Quay all the way to Taronga Zoo, Manly or west down below the Harbor Bridge, and on towards Parramatta. All of these are affordably priced and are favorites of many tourists. For a shorter route, it's best to take the ferry between Darling Harbor and Circular Quay for a ride below the Harbor Bridge. Q: What are the types of Visitor's Visa in Australia? A: Visitor's Visa include Subclass 976 for tourists and travellers visiting for less than three months, and for passport holders from a designated list of nations while Subclass 651 is for European/UK passport holders visiting Australia for three months or less; on the other hand, Subclass 676 is for passport holders who do not qualify for a subclass 976 or subclass 651; and Subclass 679 is for those who wish to visit a family member in Australia for 12 months or less. Q: What is the Employer-Sponsored Work Visa? A: There are three categories which fall under the Employer-Sponsored Work Visa: 1) Standard Business Sponsorship for employers who want to bring a working from overseas provided that they can justify that no Australian employee is available 2) Educational visa sponsored by an institution for teachers and education workers from overseas 3) Medical practitioner visa sponsored either by a hospital or by a small rural community/ local council for trained doctors. Q: How does one apply for Australian citizenship? A: One can apply for Australian citizenship if you have been living in Australia on a valid visa for four years immediately before applying; this should also include the previous 12 months as a permanent resident in the country and has not left Australia for more than one year in total and no more than 90 days in the year before applying. Q: What is the population of permanent resident visa holders in Melbourne ? A: As of 2013, almost 25% of Melbourne's population is composed of migrants from over 180 countries, and the city actually has the second biggest Asian population in Australia. There are no specific figures, however, as to how many or what percent of this population holds permanent resident status. Nonetheless, as expected, there are many embassies and consulates spread all over the city, providing immigration-related assistance to their citizens from such countries as the US, UK, Denmark, Finland, China, Taiwan, Mauritius and about 35 others. Q: Where can a permanent resident visa holder apply for an Australian passport in Melbourne? A: Applications may be forwarded to the Australian Passport Office (APO) in Melbourne which has moved to a new location: Level 2, Collins Square, 747 Collins Street, Docklands. The APO in Melbourne also offers Australian Passport Information Service through the hotline, 131 232. Q: Where can fraudulent migrant visa agents be reported in Melbourne? A: Reports may be filed in person at the Melbourne Visa Office at Casselden Place, 2 Lonsdale Street, or phoned in at the national hotline, 1800 009 623. Q: Is it possible to enter Sydney on an ETA visa? A: Yes, but it is only good for a three-month stay, and it does not appear in the passport as it is electronically processed and saved. ETAs are often used by people who come to Sydney on a study program, or a short-term business or tourism-related event. Q: How long is the processing time for an ETA visa? A: ETA visas are usually given automatically as soon as all details have been submitted. A visa grant notification will usually be sent to the applicant in seconds. However, in some cases, processing can take longer due to three possible scenarios - incorrect information has been entered in the application, the applicant has a criminal conviction, or the application has been forwarded to the Australian High Commission. Q: What are the options for someone who wants to work in Sydney? A: Foreign nationals who want to work in Sydney can apply for a Working Holiday visa which is good for a maximum of two years. Those who would like to live permanently in the city can forward an application to Australia’s General Skilled Migration program. The applicant will then be assessed based on a points system which takes into consideration various factors such as age, qualifications, etc. If a person gets a job offer from a Sydney-based company while visiting the city, he or she may apply for a Temporary Residence visa. However, the prospective employer must be able to provide evidence that there are no local candidates qualified for the position. If sufficient proof has been presented, the company may sponsor the worker for up to four years.

2019-04-19T08:45:10Z

http://www.expatfinder.com/australia/expat-guides/faq

Please use our contact form to send us your questions, comments, and requests by email. You can also use the directory below to contact the appropriate staff member. Stacey Blackwell earned her M.A in English from The College of New Jersey, her Ed.M. in the Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from Rutgers University, and her B.A. in English with a minor in Spanish and concentration in Education from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. After teaching English and composition courses at several PA and NJ colleges and universities, Stacey returned to Rutgers in 2011. She worked as the Director of Training, Outreach, and Academic Coaching before becoming the Senior Director of the Learning Centers. She also teaches a section of the pedagogy course (Peer Instruction Education) required for all first-semester learning assistants. Stacey serves on the editorial board of ​The Learning Assistance Review and the NCLCA Newsletter​, as well as on the NCLCA Conference Proposal Committee. Stacey Blackwell's office is in Bishop House. Phone: 848-445-0984 Email: Stacey.Blackwell@rutgers.edu. Mary Ann Cancio earned her Ed.M. from Rutgers University and her B.A. from Rutgers College, Rutgers University. She holds a Certificate in Supervisory Management, NJ Certified Public Manager Program, Department of Personnel, State of NJ. Mary Ann has over 30 years experience in Higher Education in both Student Affairs and Academic Support. Before coming to Rutgers in 1996, Mary Ann worked at St. Peter's College from 1980 - 1982, and The College of NJ from 1982 - 1996. Mary Ann currently directs the Academic Peer Tutoring Program for the Rutgers Learning Centers. Mary Ann Cancio's office is in Loree 124. Phone: 848-932-0567 Email: MACancio@rci.rutgers.edu. Aisha Ciafullo earned her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the School of Engineering in 2010, and her Ed.M. in Mathematical Education from the Graduate School of Education in 2016, both at Rutgers University. Since 2010, Aisha has had the opportunity to serve as a tutor, peer mentor, counselor, academic coordinator, academic coach and course instructor for the Rutgers student population, as well as surrounding communities. From 2012-2017, she taught the School of Engineering’s Methods of Inquiry for Engineers course which focused on student development of skills that enhance their personal, academic and professional experiences. Aisha also previously served as an Academic Coach for the Learning Centers from February 2015 – August 2016, working with a variety of student populations. She independently taught a section of the pedagogy course (Peer Instructor Education) required for all first-semester learning assistants for Fall 2016, co-taught a section of the course for Fall 2017, and has co-coordinated the logistics & curriculum of the course for the 2017-2018 academic year. Aisha Ciafullo's office is in Tillett 111 B. Phone: 848-445-0987 Email: Aisha.Ciafullo@rutgers.edu. Samantha Jones Feaser earned her B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University in 2011. While completing her undergraduate degree Samantha tutored privately and worked in Human Resources. She returned to Rutgers in May 2012 and became the Administrative Assistant/Supervisor of the Kreeger Learning Center for two years before being promoted to her present position as Coordinator of the Livingston Learning Center and Marketing/Outreach for the LCs. Through her position, Samantha is developing her Higher Education, Student Affairs, Student Development, and Marketing skills. She recently completed her master’s degree in Educational Administration and Supervision, specializing in Higher Education Leadership, through the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. Senem Kaptan earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Rutgers University. After working at the University of New Hampshire, where she advised students on grants and fellowships and organized the university’s Undergraduate Research Conference, Senem returned to Rutgers in 2018. Senem currently serves as one of the program coordinators for the Learning Assistant (LA) Program and teaches a section of the pedagogy course (Peer Instructor Education) required for all first-semester LAs. Previously, Senem also held various positions across the Rutgers campus, including as teaching assistant, course instructor, fellowship advisor, and academic coach. Sari Katzen earned her M.S. in Biology from the College of Staten Island and her B.A. in Biological Sciences from Rutgers University. Sari coordinates the Learning Assistant (LA) Program at the Learning Centers and teaches a section of the pedagogy course (Peer Instructor Education) required for all first-semester LAs. She has also worked as an undergraduate Learning Assistant for Physics for the Sciences 193 & 194, Lead Academic Coach, Program Coordinator for the NSF-funded project: Preparation in STEM Leadership (PSL), and advisors for RU-FIT, a transition course for first-year international students, and the SAS First-Year Retention Program. Read more about Sari's research and academic history. Lucille Leung is currently an Ed.D Candidate at the Graduate School of Education in Education, Culture & Society. She has earned her Ed.M in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, and her B.A. in Economics also at Rutgers University. Lucille oversees academic coaching and workshops at the Rutgers Learning Centers, and also works closely with the writing coaching program. In addition, she teaches a section of the pedagogy course (Peer Instruction Education) required for all first-semester learning assistants, Methods of Inquiry for School of Engineering, and the LSAMP STEM Research Preparation course. Corey Ptak earned his Ph.D in Environmental Toxicology from Cornell University. In his postdoctoral career, Dr. Ptak became interested in STEM education and served as a lecturer at Cornell University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Ptak has extensive knowledge of education theory, practice and evaluation. In addition to his teaching in the biological and environmental sciences he has developed and coordinated programs focused on research based teaching practices in STEM classrooms. He also helped found the ACCESS network -- a national information sharing network for programs seeking to improve equity and inclusion in STEM. Anna Sandberg is currently an Ed.D. student at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in the Education, Culture, & Society program. She earned her Ed.M. in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in 2017 and her B.A. in Italian and European Studies from Rutgers University in 2013. Prior to joining the Learning Centers, Anna worked at Rutgers in the Department of Germanic, Russian, and Eastern European Languages and Literatures and in the Office of Disability Services. She has taught sections of Honors Colloquium, a required course for SAS Honors Program students, and sections of the Students in Transition Seminar (STS) required for all SAS transfer students. Anna oversees the Cook/Douglass Learning Centers and provides administrative support to the Learning Assistant (LA) Program. Topher Sutton graduated from Rutgers College with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Psychology, and obtained his Master’s in Education from the College Student Affairs program at Rutgers University. He served as a Residence Director at The College of New Jersey for three years before returning to Rutgers to serve as a Program Coordinator for Student Support Services. He is joining the Learning Centers as Department Administrator, and is very excited about bringing his positive attitude and creativity to help the Learning Centers continue to run effectively and ultimately have more students utilize their resources. Shawn Taylor earned his D.Ed. in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, and his M.A. in Labor Studies and Employment Relations from the School of Management and Labor Relations also at Rutgers University. Shawn directs the Writing Coaching Program and oversees assessment of learning center programs.

2019-04-19T04:53:41Z

https://rlc.rutgers.edu/about-us/meet-staff

It’s time for our roundup of E3 2018 that just took place in Los Angeles. This year, the major publishers all eagerly announced ambitious projects, many of which are slated for release in the next two to three years, so the teasers sometimes contained little in the way of concrete information. But other games gave us plenty of gameplay and visuals to sink our teeth into, so that’s what we’ll focus on today. Here are the biggest projects from the expo that we can’t wait to play. The events of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey take place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. The main hero (or heroine — you can now choose your character’s gender) — is a Spartan mercenary who travels all over the Aegean Sea and the Peloponnesian peninsula. Your goal is to earn fame and to uncover the secrets of your family, who once sentenced you to death. Dialogue in Odyssey will give the player a choice of responses. Sea battles will be returning, and on land you will be able to take part in both minor scuffles and real battles. The game will take a decisive step away from the “action + adventure” formula towards RPG gameplay. But while you’re gearing up for your journey to Ancient Greece, we recommend paying a visit to Ancient Egypt in Assassin’s Creed Origins. You can play it in full HD with high quality graphics on the Playkey.net platform, without worrying about your hardware. Beyond Good & Evil 2 is on a much larger scale than the first instalment, which came out way back in 2003. The new game is being touted as a prequel, but Jade and Pey’j from the original are definitely going to be in it. You will explore a huge world as the captain of a crew of space pirates where you can choose to play solo or in a group. Ubisoft loves talking about the seamless multiplayer and the randomly generated elements on the surfaces of planets, but so far there’s no information about the story of BGE 2. Possibly the biggest thing that happened at E3 2018 was the cinematic trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 and the showing of the hour-long demo behind closed doors. The new RPG from CD Projekt RED is based on the pen-and-paper game Cyberpunk 2020 and will offer a first-person perspective, setting it apart from The Witcher 3 (but players will be able to switch to third person when driving, for example). The name Cyberpunk 2077 tells us when the game takes place, and the setting is Night City, a city on the U.S. West Coast with a sky-high crime rate. You’ll play as a mercenary, taking on jobs that would prove lethal for ordinary citizens. You can select your gender, modify your appearance, and choose a back story. Implants that greatly expand your abilities (i.e. stopping time) come in handy on missions. Cyberpunk 2077 has already been the target of online criticism for its eye-popping neon version of Night City, and has been unfavorably called an FPS. The Polish developers continue to insist that the final game will be a fully-fledged RPG (and without multiplayer, at least initially). And the first previews seem to confirm this. Control is a new TPS from Remedy Entertainment, widely known for Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Quantum Break. You’ll find yourself in New York in the Federal Bureau of Control, a secret organization that protects humanity against supernatural threats. The whole game will take place within the FBC building. After an inexplicable incident, all objects in the building, from guns to offices, have begun to change shape. The advanced physics and destructible environments will be key gameplay elements. After a long gap, Capcom has returned to its hack-and-slash series Devil May Cry. The fifth instalment will be a direct follow-on from the fourth. Now the Japanese developers are focusing attention on Nero from Devil May Cry 4. He no longer has his demonic arm (Devil Bringer) so he has to replace it with prostheses painstakingly made by his assistant Nico. Each prosthesis expands Nero’s range of abilities and varies the gameplay. Dante will also be returning, but Capcom is keeping the name of the third character close to its chest — probably so they can reveal it at Gamescom in August. id Software executive producer Marty Stratton and creative director Hugo Martin, who created the unforgettable Doom in 2016, are now heading the development of Doom Eternal. Just Like in Doom 2: Hell on Earth, the action will take place on Earth. The game will include familiar monsters alongside new ones. Australian composer Mick Gordon will once again create the soundtrack. id Software will be presenting gameplay footage at QuakeCon in two months’ time. Fallout 76 is an online-only game about surviving in the wilderness of West Virginia. Bethesda won’t stop players from choosing single-player mode, but playing in a group will improve your chances of survival. But you don’t lose all your progress when you die, so it’s worth at least giving the solo campaign a try. You won’t meet any NPCs in Fallout 76 — this time around, all the survivors in the wasteland will be real people. You’ll be able to build a house, search for resources, slaughter monsters… and launch nuclear missiles — so you’ll never be bored. In Fallout 76, the world is four times larger than the map in Fallout 4, and the story is a prequel to the entire series. The game takes place 25 years after the bombs fell. Avalanche Studios is working on three big titles right now — Rage 2, Generation Zero, and Just Cause 4. That’s right, the bullet-proof special agent Rico Rodriguez is coming back, and we don’t have long to wait. The developers have said that we can look forward to the following features in the new action game: a vast world with different landscapes, massive tornadoes, and improved destructibility, physics, and AI enemies. And, of course, Rico’s arsenal will be expanded — his grappling hook will be better than ever. In Metro: Exodus, Artyom, his wife Anna, and their comrades-in-arms will try to cross Russia from west to east on the train Aurora. The post-nuclear country is divided into several major zones that you can explore in a branching rather than linear plot. 4A Games showed one of these levels at E3 — the refugees from the Moscow metro coming up against tough cultists as they cross the Volga river. Since Capcom announced it was remaking Resident Evil 2 for current platforms three years ago, it hasn’t let slip a single word about the project. It clearly hoped to wow fans with not even five minutes of finished gameplay to show. And it did — RE 2 made as big an impression as Cyberpunk 2077 and Death Stranding. The remake is based on the same engine as Resident Evil 7, but the fixed camera has been swapped out for the over-the-shoulder view typical of the recent instalments in the series. The goal is the same — to help Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield to get out of the zombie-infested Raccoon City. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the new action RPG with a dash of mysticism from the creators of Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The action unfolds in feudal Japan. The main character is the bodyguard of a clan leader, who must rescue a kidnapped lord. The character has an interesting anatomical feature: a prosthesis instead of a left arm, which can function as a grappling hook, among other things. This allows the character to climb onto roofs and attack unsuspecting enemies. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara Croft will explore the jungles and tombs of Mexico and Peru. Some gameplay features, not presented in the Rise of the Tomb Raider will appear in the new game, such as free exploration of underwater locations. Miss Croft will also learn how to lower herself over ledges using a rope, allowing her study her surroundings in detail. The story of Shadow of the Tomb Raider centers on the Mayan apocalypse, set into motion by our beautiful protagonist. She is once again competing with the Trinity organization in her hunt for antiquities. Skull & Bones is an ambitious multiplayer project from Ubisoft about 18th-century pirates in the Indian Ocean. A major difference between this and the recent Sea of Thieves is that each player has their own ship to control. At E3, the French publisher talked about their Hunting Grounds mode, which is a mix of PvE and PvP. You can also launch solo raids on AI merchant ships, but cooperating with another player is the best approach when dealing with a well-armed government vessel. Just keep in mind that your new friend can raid you too. In The Division 2, Ubisoft has introduced a radical change of scene — the agents will be heading off to stamp out criminals in Washington, D.C. The U.S. capital lies in ruins, and the reason is obvious — seven months have passed since the start of the epidemic. The Division 2 will offer a rich story campaign, a reimagined Dark Zone, and eight-player raids. Players will be able to choose their specialization (the promised flexible development system) from level 30. In 2019, the developers will be releasing three major expansions for the game, which interestingly, will be free to download. Playkey.net can help you prepare for the next instalment — The Division is available in our catalog. Gamers all over the world are looking forward — with some trepidation — to every one of the games on this list. The trepidation comes from the fact that AAA games often come with high system requirements. If you don’t want to worry about how your PC, laptop, or Mac will cope with the next blockbuster, join Playkey.net. Our cloud platform allows you to play all the latest games without worrying about system requirements. ← How Do Investors Make Money on the Tokens They Buy?

2019-04-22T10:09:40Z

https://blog.playkey.net/en/biggest-games-of-e3-2018/

Amazon’s announcement that the company would be seeking requests for proposals from cities for a new corporate headquarters has produced one of the most bizarre corporate spectacles of the last decade. The company’s promise of an estimated $5 billion facility and around 50,000 high-paying jobs sent nearly every major city in the U.S. into a pandering spiral. The company received proposals from at least 238 cities, each of whom trotted out their biggest, wildest incentives to draw the company in. Amazon narrowed these to a “Top 20” list in January, naming Atlanta, Raleigh, and Nashville among its top contenders. At present, Atlanta tops the list of many industry predictions about Amazon’s “HQ2” placement. The city boasts a steady stream of technology talent from universities like Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University, convenient access to an international airport hub, and an attractively low cost of living, all of which Amazon has touted as important factors in its decision. Backers of the city’s bid are hoping that Amazon could bring opportunities for Atlanta. The company claims that its operation in Seattle, where it’s existing headquarters is located, has brought at least an additional $38 billion to the city’s economy since 2010. The company’s $500 billion market share and the average $100,000 annual salary of HQ2’s new 50,000 person workforce could potentially generate a similar bump for Atlanta. State and city leaders have spoken in great detail about the specific benefits they see in bringing Amazon into Atlanta, and Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms have both backed the city’s bid. But while HQ2 could bring some impressive new economic opportunities to the city, there are also drawbacks: namely, that the company’s presence could speed up the affordable housing crisis, and could impede efforts to expand transit options in the city. Some worry Atlanta’s racial identity and culture will also be threatened. Seattle, where Amazon currently has a headquarters, has seen its median rent prices increase at about three times the rate of the rest of the country. Tanya Washington has been following Atlanta’s Amazon bid with intrigue since last fall. Washington, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, tends to approach issues wearing both her academic and active citizen hats. The promise of Amazon’s potential to drive investment in city education and infrastructure seemed encouraging to Washington, but she found herself thinking more and more about how the move could affect her neighbors. “As this started to become more of a possibility, I started to search just around the impact that [Amazon] had in Seattle on affordable housing, and wages, and the economy, and the widening of the gaps between with the have-mores and have-not-enoughs,” Washington said. What she found wasn’t promising. Seattle has seen its median rent prices increase at about triple the rate of the rest of the country. Median home values in Seattle have shot up about 85 percent since 2010, which benefits some homeowners and real estate investors, but creates major barriers for low-income residents. Some have linked Amazon’s expansion within Seattle to the city’s growing homeless population. It’s also personal for her: Washington has lived in the downtown-adjacent Peoplestown neighborhood since 2011. “Not a week goes by that I don’t get one of those little flyers that say, ‘People are interested in buying your house, we’ll pay cash,’” she said. These are schemes that typically prey on homeowners in financial distress by offering to pay much lower cash values in exchange for homes that are likely worth much more on the market. Washington and her neighbors have been embroiled in a battle with the City of Atlanta over the last few years to retain their homes. The city insists that it needs the land to deal with ongoing flooding, although some believe the area is being groomed for private development. The contenders have publicly offered tax incentives as big as $7 billion, and as long-standing as 10 years. This strategy overall has come under a great deal of scrutiny, with many concerned that cities are losing critical tax revenue with little chance of recouping it. She fears the Amazon headquarters would pile onto the city’s existing issues with home pricing and gentrification. In 2015, one in five rental homes in the city received an eviction notice, and more recent research finds historic Black neighborhoods near Atlanta’s Beltline are vulnerable to displacement. “I don’t think we’re prepared to deal with it. We weren’t prepared to deal with the displacement that’s resulting from the development that’s taking place right now,” Washington said. Research compiled by rental listing company Apartment List found that Amazon’s HQ2 would likely spike rent growth in every city on its Top 20 list. Atlanta’s rent growth, the report found, would be driven by the arrival of a new set of high-wage workers earning well above the city’s median income of $36,340. Sydney Bennet, senior research associate with Apartment List and author of the Amazon report, explained that while Atlanta already has a fair amount of housing that could accommodate Amazon’s 50,000 person workforce, new developers are likely to cater to a higher income bracket than Atlanta is used to. “If you have a lot of high-income renters coming in, a lot of that housing will be more luxury, especially in a metro where the current medians are so much lower than Amazon,” Bennet said. Current speculation from the Atlanta Business Chronicle and others is that Amazon would look to build its headquarters in “The Gulch,” a former rail corridor in downtown Atlanta. Los Angeles-based developer CIM Group submitted a proposal to the city in January to develop the space according to Amazon’s expected building specs and expected timeline. Should that prove to be true, downtown neighborhoods like Peoplestown, Pittsburgh, and Summerhill are likely to see an influx of wealthy, Amazon-employed home-buyers looking to avoid the traffic out to high-income suburbs. Property taxes and rents would rise accordingly. Transit advocates see another issue with Amazon’s potential move into the Gulch. The rail lines in the Gulch are a critical infrastructure for potential expansions of Atlanta’s rail system. Amazon has said that public transit offerings are a key consideration for its HQ2 decisions, which could be a positive: Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit, thinks Amazon could spur Atlanta to invest more seriously in its public transit system. Developing the Gulch for Amazon, however, could hinder opportunities for both metro and commuter rail expansion simply by taking up key space in the city. Washington says this isn’t just about a racial identity, but a cultural identity for the city. “There’s some risk that the buildings could take the place of multimodal train station, and even more concern that some of the buildings would block some of the rights of way for rail that could exist,” Biola said. Developers could potentially work around the rail infrastructure, or work the rail system directly into the site. But while developer plans for The Gulch have described the site as “transit-oriented,” at present they do not include plans for commuter rail access. “It would be a shame if we were the generation that would allow that right of way to get locked,” Biola noted. Biola is also wary that the city’s strategy of offering tax incentives used to lure Amazon could detract from transit and other city infrastructure incentives. The top 20 cities have publicly offered tax incentives as big as $7 billion, and as long-standing as 10 years; privately, they may have offered more. This strategy overall has come under a great deal of scrutiny, with many concerned that cities are losing critical tax revenue with little chance of recouping it. Torres was unable to comment on whether that $1 billion figure Reed promised would remain firm. Indeed, Gov. Deal announced in January that should Atlanta make the next cut for Amazon’s HQ2 list, he will call a special legislative session to allow lawmakers to pass even more tax incentives to attract Amazon. Amazon’s move to Atlanta could also have a dramatic effect on the city’s already-changing demographics. Amazon has not disclosed specific diversity statistics for its technology jobs, but its full workplace demographics skew white and male, especially in leadership positions. Fifty thousand new Amazon workers could add to existing trends in Atlanta, which has seen one of the fastest rates of growth in its white population of any major metro city in the country.

2019-04-19T14:36:14Z

https://www.scalawagmagazine.org/2018/02/amazon-could-speed-up-displacement-in-atlanta/

the Wi-Fi specifications based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. what protocol, what requirements does it need to satisfy. the data rates, all of these are included. and 11ad can go up to seven gigabits per seven. which is where it got its code name. It supports one megabits per second or two megabytes per second data rates. or infrared in the infrared frequency range. and this was released in September of 1999 as an amendment to the original standards. It supports error correction coding and defines requirements for OFDM communication. and it has maintained significant importance and popularity even till today. It is short for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing. enabled so many diverse multimedia applications to be supported. It is interoperable in the five gigahertz ISM band. and there are some special applications for that. This year is the five gigahertz ISM band target. the original standard in the aspect of modulation technique. because it is short for high-rate direct-sequence spread spectrum. Also, CCK modulation, which is complementary code key, was used. to its former one or two megabits per second data rates. just like the original IEEE 802.11-1997. the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access. which the enhancement is supported to enable quality of service required applications. is a technology that supports priority. a higher level of reliability in supporting quality of service. then just plain background data is what the priority levels were set upon. and we'll soon see how. and was used to include the 802.11n, 11p, 11ac standards. So, you may not see 802.11e widely. However, it is all included in these protocols which you use very frequently. to be so good in quality of service support. what are the types of priorities? which you see way over there in priority. and that is AC, Access Category VO. which is Access Category VI. which is Access Category BE. and that is Access Category AC_BK, short for background. If you look at the priority over there, it is 3210. However, the Access Category index numbers are 3201. then the lowest priority is background. because one and zero flipped over compared to the actual priority levels. such as voice over IP, multimedia. are supported with the highest levels of priority support in quality of service. This defines four priority levels with Access Categories. EDCA. video, best effort or is it just background? which queue go into determines what priority of service you get. So, what did we have before we had these Access Categories? What did we use before we had 11e? and everything got into that queue and it was first come first serve. Whoever first went in would be send out first. sent out first by the scheduler beneath here. and that is what we're doing here. then internal collision resolution will be done by these units as well. your same category internal collision conflict is resolved. So, these are the dual operations that the scheduler is doing. and this was released in June of 2003 as an amendment to the 802.11b. and this is really good. they had to select the channels very wisely. is conducted in a smart way using channel selection. What do you mean? you see this, what are the non overlapping ones? among co-users that are using this frequency in this protocol. which you can see that they do not overlap. I do need to mention that I drew the main low frequency bands here. which has the most energy and power concentrated is what was drawn. lower but they go out to the sides and they extend widely. based on the fact that their main lobes do not overlap. they are all interfering with each other. I'm talking about their main lobes, okay? The IEEE 802.11-2007, this is the first rollup standard released in March of 2007. Rollup? What do you mean by rollup? we merged eight amendments of the original standards. one standard in the 802.11-2007 protocol. g and e, but what's this d, h, i, j?" and this provided country information added into the packet. this provides DFS and TPC. and TPC is Transmit Power Control technology. What are these talking about? the channel in which there is no users that are using. So let's scan the overall frequency band and select where we're going to transmit. the right amount of power and we use just the right level. This is what we're talking about here, pretty cool. Then there's the security enhancements which are included in the 802.11i protocol. for the Japanese frequency level support at the 4.9 gigahertz range. in support of priority support for quality of service. and through this, we have extended data services at higher data rates. This operates both in the 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz range. that can be supported by a dual band system. because it supports both the ISM bands at the 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz range. just wait we'll talk about further about this. Higher data rate up to 150 megabits per second. This was released in July of 2010 to support a WAVE. WAVE is Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment. you see why it's important? This operates in the 5.9 gigahertz channel and it uses OFDM with EDCA. quality of service based upon priority channel access using Access Categories. which takes advantage of the good OFDM performance. It supports a V2X communication. Here we go into connected car technology. V2X, the X is anything. which is the controller for the vehicle smartness. a access point and that is what we call the Road Side Unit, the RSU. a smartwatch and that is connected to your vehicle. So it could be V2V, V2I, V2P. it could be VIP, we don't know what it will be so we represent it overall with an X. December of 2013 as an amendment built upon 802.11n. This focuses on higher throughput, higher data rates. The new features include: support for a wider channel in the five gigahertz band. using the 160 megahertz bandwidth. This was released in 2012 based upon the WiGig specs. The WiGig was subsumed by the Wi-Fi Alliance in March of 2013. support data rates up to seven gigabits per second. you get a wider bandwidth and that enables very high data rates to be exchanged. Ten times faster than 802.11n. need broadband services and that's exactly what you get from this technology. 802.11ah is a protocol that is made to support IoT technology. is and it was released in December of 2016. alternate spectrum to offload traffic under gigahertz bands was also usable. Low power consumption naturally needed to be included because it is an IoT technology. your energy when you're not needing to use the channel access. will go up to within a one kilometer by one kilometer square area. we need a lot of this. IoT market devices such as smart metering and smart home. sufficient for simultaneous support for multiple IoT applications of various types. release date, frequency, bandwidth and stream data rate. range and support one or two megabits per second. where five gigahertz ISM band or the 3.7 gigahertz range. Then we went over to 11b which went back to the 2.4 gigahertz range. This was released in 1999 at a similar time with the 11a protocol. significant enhancement in data rate. which we have 54 megabits per second could be supported. 11-2007 which was a roll up of a lot of protocols and a lot of features. gigahertz frequencies supported with data rates up to 54 megabits per second. so dual band applications can be supported which are important. both the 2.4 and five gigahertz range and the data rates were extended significantly. as well as 150 megabits per second. which is where once again other protocols extended. and you can see the data rates were supporting up to 54 megabits per second. Once again, the target was for vehicle operations. could possibly reach out to kilometers or slightly more. accident prevention as well as on autonomous driving. Then, we go into higher data rate applications. we enhance the data rates. and they are using the five gigahertz frequency band and the date is 2013. uses the 60 gigahertz frequency band to reach up to seven gigabits per second. Now, we're into the gigabits per second range. however enables IoT connectivity in an enhanced way. and that is what this technology is enabling. the approximate communication range is indicated. this to avoid black spots for Wi-Fi coverage. where to deploy your access points to provide full and stable coverage. outdoors around about 100 meters. about 35 meters and the outdoor range is extended based upon what frequency you use. the indoor is extended to 35 meters and the outdoor is about 140 meters. Eleven-g has approximately the same range as 11b. It operates in the same frequency as 11b and it has the option of using OFDM. it can go to a higher data rate in which 11b could go only up to 11 megabits per second. can go up to 54 megabits per second at the same range. and also critically important is the dual band at 2.4/5 gigahertz. multiple antennas, and that's where this advantage is added. Then we have 11p, and this is for vehicles. it is not specified and this is because vehicles are commonly for outdoor applications. Here you see the range is outdoors. maybe extending up to about 380 meters maximum. Typically, in that range is what we're talking about. However, indoors is not applicable. and it's using the five gigahertz range. the 60 gigahertz range to extend your data rate into the gigabits per second range. it is very sensitive to shadowing. The signals do not penetrate solid objects and that is why the range is very short. although 802.11 is a wireless LAN technology. IoT devices and the range of application is defined by your IoT application. ISM bands at five gigahertz and 2.4 gigahertz both usable. and the dual band can totally extend this. So, what protocols are we talking about? 11n, and in the five gigahertz band we had 11a, 11n and 11ac. The common denominator is 11n. Of course, there was that 11-2007 roll-up protocol as well. Pretty cool. So, you can use 11n for these type of applications. service applications connecting the five gigahertz ISM band applications as well. it is extended using the ESS to connect it to the internet. and that's why it's used in places where you need support for various frequency ranges. are more attractive and sell at higher prices. maybe you should invest into it. Wi-Fi Direct enables devices to connect directly to each other. you could directly communicate through peer to peer, P2P. That was the Ad Hoc mode. Well, this is an extension to that. to have it scanned and all of that together. not using a access point to enable various point to point connections. Then, we have the connection types that we need to look into in Wi-Fi Direct. several devices combined simultaneously supported. There's also tethering which is another critical technology. Probably you use it if you have a smartphone. In other words, turning on a hotspot. or Wi-Fi connection to extend it so that multiple wifi devices can connect together. turning on a hotspot on your smartphone would be a representative example. That is what we call tethering. your smartphone and connect to the wide area network, the internet. That is what the Wi-Fi standards enable.

2019-04-26T11:12:34Z

https://www.coursera.org/lecture/iot-wireless-cloud-computing/4-3-wi-fi-standards-part-1-QmD20?authMode=signup

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Your failure to state size importance shall not give rise to any claims made by you. d. For fabric by the metre, before cutting, please check you have the required amount and there are no defects as we will not be liable for third party costs and other losses once cut and made up. e. All pattern repeats vary. They can be mirrored image, side matched or half-dropped across the width of the fabric. Please be aware at the time of selection the type of pattern repeats within the design you have selected. Pattern repeats have a tolerance of +/- 3 cm. 6.5 Any goods that require more than one width of fabric will have joins and seams. Any goods that have been altered by a third party or independently cannot be returned or refunded. Velvet, chains and cords on blinds fall in line with regulation and the length of the chain cannot be amended or specified. 6.6 For made to measure, whilst every effort is made to make your items to the exact measurements given; the make-up can vary by up to 3cm, which is the standard industry tolerance allowance. 6.7 Product colour and shade may vary from one manufacturing batch to another. This will be more apparent if orders are placed at different times. 6.8 Our fabrics are constructed with various natural yarns and synthetic fibres. Often there are slubs and natural weave irregularities, which enhance the final appearance of the fabric. It should be noted that this is not a defect and is an inherent characteristic of the cloth. Please note that an inherent characteristic of the Suede Collection is the 'bruised' appearance that may appear as slight creasing. 6.9 Please be aware that up to 3% shrinkage may occur due to variations in atmospheric conditions whilst in situ at the window, or during the first wash or dry clean. There is sufficient fabric available within the hems to enable any necessary adjustment in length. 6.10 Our curtains are carefully packed and despatched. Any folding of material will cause certain creases; in the case of velvet and man-made fibre material, these will drop out after hanging. Any folding of material for prolonged periods or any items left in the packaging for long period in times may result in long term creasing or may affect the fabric permanently. Cotton prints may need a cool iron. 6.11 The sale of our products to you does not confer any right of license upon you to use, exploit, or to otherwise utilise any intellectual property right subsisting in or relating to the goods of which we are otherwise entitled to. The unauthorised copying of any of our designs, which are protected by design copyright, may give rise to legal action. 7.1 The costs of delivery will be as told to you during the order process/ set out in our current price list and/or on our website. 7.2 During the order process, we will let you know when we will provide the products to you. If the products are ongoing services and subscriptions, we will also tell you during the order process when and how you can end the contract. We will deliver them to you as soon as reasonably possible and in any event, we will contact you with an estimated delivery date that will be within 8 weeks after the day on which we accept your order. If the products are one-off services. We will begin the services on the date agreed with you during the order process. The estimated completion date for the services is as told to you during the order process. If the products are ongoing services. We will supply the services, to you until either you end the contract as described in clause 8 or we end the contract by written notice to you as described in clause 9. 7.3 We are not responsible for delays outside our control. If our supply of the products is delayed by an event outside our control, then we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know and we will take steps to minimise the effect of the delay. Provided we do this, we will not be liable for delays caused by the event, but if there is a risk of substantial delay, you may contact us to end the contract and receive a refund for any products you have paid for but not received. 7.4 Any delivery or collection date quoted is a genuine estimate and shall not be legally binding on the us. Scheduled deliveries will be rescheduled if the buyer fails to meet the payment terms under clause 12. 7.5 Time of delivery or collection shall not be the essence of the contract. We will not in any circumstances whatsoever be liable for indirect or consequential loss such as (but not limited to) loss of profit, pure economic loss, loss of market, loss of business, depletion of goodwill and similar loss, costs, damages, charges or expenses caused or the consequences of delay of delivery or collection, however caused. 7.6 It is your responsibility to ensure items purchased can fit through internal and external access points including and passages, stairwells, landings and doorways on the way to the destination room. We hold no responsibility for items not fitting in the premises and any rework or restocking fees will be payable by you prior to final delivery. 7.7 For delivery purposes, we can manufacture furniture for assembly on site in case there is restricted access to your premises. It is vital however that you give us this information when placing an order as later changes to the design will be charged. 7.8 Every effort will be made to ensure that the goods ordered by you arrive undamaged and without defect. Upon delivery or collection, you must sign the delivery/collection note. It is your responsibility to check the items to ensure the goods delivered or collected are as ordered, the correct quantity and that they are of satisfactory quality. In the event of any discrepancy whatsoever, you must notify us immediately upon delivery or collection by writing the discrepancy on the delivery note. Unfortunately writing “unexamined” or “unchecked” will not be acceptable. If the item is damaged, please retain the packaging. All claims for loss or damage must be made before the end of the next working day. In all events, the limits of liability for any fault or defect shall not exceed the purchase price of the item. 7.9 Our delivery team will unpack your furniture, install it in the room of your choice and if you wish we will remove all packing materials from your home and recycle wherever possible. We are not able to take away your old furniture. 7.10 If we are unable, for whatever reason, to deliver the goods on the confirmed delivery date, we reserve the right to charge you further for any subsequent deliveries. 7.11 If you have asked to collect the products from our premises, you can collect them from us at any time during our working hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM on weekdays (excluding public holidays). 7.12 If no one is available at your address to take delivery and the products cannot be posted through your letterbox, we will leave you a note informing you of how to rearrange delivery. 7.13 If you do not collect the products from us as arranged or if, after a failed delivery to you, you do not re-arrange delivery or collect them from a delivery depot we will contact you for further instructions and may charge you for storage costs and any further delivery costs. If, despite our reasonable efforts, we are unable to contact you or re-arrange delivery or collection we may end the contract and clause 9.2 will apply. 7.14 We will offer store the products for up to one (1) calendar month following completion of manufacture of your order, free of charge. Thereafter we reserve the right to apply a discretionary charge for on-going storage, which will be calculated at a rate of 2% of the total sold value of the products (including VAT) per calendar month, and pro-rata for any days or weeks within a monthly cycle, up to the date of delivery. 7.16 The product will be your responsibility from the time we deliver the product to the address you gave us or you collect it from us. 7.17 You own a product once we have received payment in full. Until you become the owner of the products, you shall not sell the products or part with possession of the products. We may, for purposes of recovery, enter any premises where the products are stored to recover them. 7.18 We may need certain information from you so that we can supply the products to you, for example, your name, address and contact number. If so, this will have been stated in the description of the products in our brochure. We may contact you in writing or on the phone to ask for this information. If you do not give us this information within a reasonable time of us asking for it, or if you give us incomplete or incorrect information, we may either end the contract (see clause 9.1) or make an additional charge of a reasonable sum to compensate us for any extra work that is required as a result. 7.20 If you do not pay us for the products when you are supposed to (see clause 11.3) and you still do not make payment within seven (7) days of us reminding you that payment is due, we may suspend supply of the products until you have paid us the outstanding amounts. We will contact you to tell you we are suspending supply of the products. 8.1 You can always end the contract for the supply of a product before it has been completed. You may contact us to end your contract for a product at any time before we have delivered it or completed supplying it and you have paid for it, but in some circumstances, we may charge you for doing so, as described below. Of course, you always have rights where a product is faulty or mis-described (see clause 10, “If there is a problem with the products”). 8.2 Unless you have a right to end the contract immediately, the contract will not end until payment is made in full for your order. 8.3 Subject to clause 8.5, you are able to return our products within fourteen (14) days beginning on the day after you receive the Products subject to the Products being properly packed and returned in the same unused condition supplied. Damaged goods cannot be accepted. 8.4 Exercising your right to change your mind (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013). For most products bought online, you have a legal right to change your mind within 14 days and receive a refund. 8.6 If you end the contract after products have been dispatched to you and (because we cannot recall them) they are delivered to you, you must return them to us. Except when you are exercising your legal rights to end the contract because of something we have done wrong then we will pay the costs of return. In all other circumstances, you must pay the costs of return. 8.7 Returned items will be subject to restocking fees. A restocking fee is payable for any returned product. This may vary from 40% to 100% of the invoice value. Bespoke items are unique items made to your specification, for this reason carries a 100% charge, and is non-refundable. 8.8 Mattresses that have been removed from the original packaging cannot be returned. 8.9 Should you return a product and upon examination, we find that there is a discrepancy in the reason for the return of the product, then we shall reserve the right to refuse the credit. 8.10 Refunds, exchanges, or credit notes are not available for products sold on a promotional sale, special offer, bespoke products or products that are stated as “sold as seen” including ex-display products. Access and installation of such products is your sole responsibility. 8.11 If you cancel the Contract between us within 14 days, we will process the refund due to you as soon as possible and, in any case; within 30 days of the day, you gave notice of cancellation. In this case, we will refund the Product and any applicable delivery charges in full. However, you will be responsible for the cost of returning the item to us. 8.12 If a fault is discovered after you have exported the products outside United Kingdom, it is your responsibility to return the goods to the UK at your own cost for inspection. If a repair or replacement is produced by us, it will only be delivered to a United Kingdom destination. If you then wish for the products to be exported, it will be your responsibility to do so at your own cost and risk. For export orders, it is therefore recommended that inspection takes place in the United Kingdom prior to shipment. 8.13 We usually refund any money received from you using the same method as originally used by you to pay for your purchase. 9.2 You must compensate us if you break the contract. If we end the contract in the situations set out in clause 2.1 we will refund any money you have paid in advance for products we have not provided and processed i.e. you cancel after we have ordered stock and material from supplier, but we may deduct or charge you reasonable compensation for the net costs we will incur as a result of your breaking the contract. 9.3 We may write to you to let you know that we are going to stop providing the product. We will let you know in advance within reasonable time of our stopping the supply of the product and will refund any sums you have paid in advance for products which will not be provided subject to the restocking fee. 10.1 We guarantee the wooden frames of all manufactured furniture for fifteen (15) years from the date of delivery. The guarantee excludes normal wear and tear, any fillings, fabrics, legs and mechanisms. This guarantee is given in addition to and not in substitution of your statutory rights. 10.2 We will only replace like for like, therefore you cannot change any of the sizes, fillings or fabrics. Upon a return, if a change is requested, you will incur further costs. Please contact us on 020 8993 4415 or write to us at info@thesofaandchair.co.uk to request a quotation. 10.1 The company reserves the right using its discretion to recreate the made to order product in the exact same specification, design, texture, colour and fabric and no variations are permitted. 10.2 How to tell us about problems. If you have any questions or complaints about the product, please contact us. You can telephone our customer service team at 020 8993 4415 or write to us at info@thesofaandchair.co.uk Alternatively, please speak to one of our staff in-store. 10.3 Summary of your legal rights. We are under a legal duty to supply products that are in conformity with this contract. See the box below for a summary of your key legal rights in relation to the product. Nothing in these terms will affect your legal rights. 10.4 Your obligation to return rejected products. If you wish to exercise your legal rights to reject products you must either return them in person to where you bought them, post them back to us or (if they are not suitable for posting) allow us to collect them from you. We will pay the costs of postage or collection. Please call customer services on 020 8993 4415 or email us at info@thesofaandchair.co.uk for a return label or to arrange collection. 11.1 The price of the product (which includes VAT) will be the price set out in our price list in force at the date of your order unless we have agreed another price in writing. We use our best efforts to ensure that the price of product advised to you is correct. 11.2 It is always possible that, despite our best efforts, some of the products we sell may be incorrectly priced. We will normally check prices before accepting your order so that, where the product’s correct price at your order date is less than our stated price at your order date, we may use our discretion to charge the higher amount. Orders for export outside the EU require proof of shipment, which is your responsibility to provide to the us. VAT will be refunded to you once proof of shipment is received. Credit Account Holders must abide by terms agreed on account opening, and in any case all invoices must be settled within 30 days of the invoice date. 11.4 If you do not make any payment to us by the due date, we may charge interest to you on the overdue amount at the rate of 2% per month above the base lending rate of Bank of England from time to time. This interest shall accrue on a daily basis from the due date until the date of actual payment of the overdue amount, whether before or after judgment. You must pay us interest together with any overdue amount. 12.1 We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors; for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; for breach of your legal rights in relation to the products including the right to receive products which are: as described and match information we provided to you and any sample or model seen or examined by you; of satisfactory quality; fit for any particular purpose made known to us; supplied with reasonable skill and care and, where installed by us, correctly installed; and for defective products under the Consumer Protection Act 1987. 12.2 If we are providing services in your property, we will make good any damage to your property caused by us while doing so. However, we are not responsible for the cost of repairing any pre-existing faults or damage to your property that we discover while providing the services. 12.3 We will have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity. 12.4 We will have no liability to you for any loss or damage suffered due to products and its quality from third party companies. Any disputes, claims or complaints must be directed to the third party company directly. a. We do not guarantee an exact match for bespoke made to order products. b. If you are supplying us with an image, we cannot guarantee an exact match unless we are given complete technical drawings. Even so, we will guarantee a 99% match and 100% effort. Drawings produced by us for signing off will be chargeable and payable by you. c. Slight differences in dimensions may occur due to the materials within the build. If the furniture is intended for a specific place or location, you must inform us at the time of ordering. d. Once we have confirmed an order, any further changes you wish to bring will be subject to a charge payable by you. Any changes at this stage may affect both the cost of the product and/or the delivery schedule. 14.2 Nobody else has any rights under this contract (except someone you pass your guarantee on to). This contract is between you and us. No other person shall have any rights to enforce any of its terms, except as explained in clause Error! Reference source not found. in respect of our guarantee. Neither of us will need to get the agreement of any other person in order to end the contract or make any changes to these terms. 14.4 If we do not insist immediately that you do anything you are required to do under these terms, or if we delay in taking steps against you in respect of your breaking this contract, that will not mean that you do not have to do those things and it will not prevent us taking steps against you at a later date. For example, if you miss a payment and we do not chase you, we can still require you to make the payment at a later date. 14.5 These terms are governed by English law and you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the products in the English courts. If you live in Scotland, you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the products in either the Scottish or the English courts. If you live in Northern Ireland, you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the products in either the Northern Irish or the English courts. We reserve the right to reject any fabric supplied by you, if deemed to be unsuitable for production. It is your responsibility to provide the agreed quantity required. Any fabric supplied by you must meet British Fire regulations. You must provide a fire retardant certificate for any such fabric supplied before production can commence. If treatment is not possible, we can provide a barrier cloth inter-liner (depending on the location of use) if required. This service is chargeable. If we supply the fabric to be used in manufacture, it is your responsibility to look after it as per the manufacturers guidelines as normal wear or tear is not warrantied. It is your responsibility to ensure the fabric is suitable for the use for which it is intended. Some fabrics (such as silks and velvets) and leathers can be marked by the slightest touch also known as pressure marks. Pressure marking is considered a natural characteristic of any piled fabric. In addition, all our furniture is handmade, the handling of fabric is unavoidable and therefore the we cannot accept any responsibility or liability for the condition of these fabrics when used during manufacture. As leather is a natural product, some of the hides may show natural marks or scars. Depending on the supplier, variation on both texture and colour may occur different from the samples you look at. We cannot be held responsible for such markings that are visible on the final product. Sizes of hides may vary due to the nature of the product, this may result in additional costs, advisable on receipt of purchase from the supplier.

2019-04-21T16:41:12Z

https://www.thesofaandchair.co.uk/legal

The original Tea Between Friends is a great thread....but let's start a new one! What are you working on? What do you have for printers? Share your 2019 goals? I'm working to get all of these 3D Printers reliable. That means proper power supplies for some, better extruders, hot ends and various other upgrades. My goal...which has eluded me for a while...the BB-8 build! I need to get all of these printers making good parts for the build. Most prints take 36 hours or more, so we can't have beds with adhesion issues, randomly slipping extruders and iffy hotends. Ultimaker 2+ - I wish these weren't so expensive as I really think everyone should start with one! I've just replaced the coupler a while back, it was sorely in need of replacing. It's my "pretty much can print anything without drama" printer. CR-10 - The original! It's printed several BB-8 domes and various large pieces. I accumulated a lot of spare parts to upgrade this to the CR-10S electronics and send Z lead screw. It'll be upgraded with an EZABL bed sensor and I'm not sure if I will put a MicroSwiss all metal hot end or trying something else. CR-10S - I paid a little extra to get mine from PrintedSolid and they made the electronic fix identified with early CR-10S models It's worked great. It has the EZABL and a MicroSwiss hot end. I recently installed the SeeMeCNC EZR Struder and so far, no under extrusion woes! GeeeTech A10 - This printer was a mess out of the box. Weeks later, after much badgering and hounding...they sent some replacement parts. However it took a lot of hacking to get the thing to print, even carving up the X gantry for a better quality lead screw coupler to fit! BUT...it's actually printing very very well....fingers crossed! Tevo Tornado - I don't have a lot of time on this printer since every time I have used it, it has been a disaster to sort out. While removing and replacing the bed screws, the bed shattered....so...this one has a ways to go! FolgerTech FT-5 R1 - The one I had high hopes for still sits idle. However, with new 713Maker bed, heated bed and some additional changes, I think we can get this big guy printing really well. FolgerTech i3 Mega - It was a wonderful kit to put together and despite a few minor changes I made, it's printing well! It's getting a Titan Aero with EZABL this week, so I can begin dialing that in! Last Saturday we had the monthly opening of the Repair Cafe here in my town where I volunteer. Since most of the volunteers are older guys that are interested in all kinds of technology but had never seen a 3D printer in action, I packed my little Fabrikator Mini and a roll of filament to my usual tools. I set it up in a corner of the workshop and had it print shopping card coins with the Repair Cafe logo. It was a big success. A lot of the guys and a few visitors/customers watched the little printer and informed themselves about 3D printing. I too am working on one of my 3D Printers that is experiencing layer shifting. after a power supply died in a shower of sparks. It is not like the normal layer shift, this layer shift has something to do with the Z-Axis as they occur at exactly the same height. Now the first replies state that this is normally what happens when we have binding. Though I have rebuild the X,Y and Z Axis. Replacing all bearings cleaning all smooth rods and lead screws re-lubing and thinking that the some be warped. I swapped them side to side and end for end, if this was the problem the layer shift would still occur thou should at a different location. This was not the case it still occurs and at exactly the same location, Have even reposition-ed the model with the exact layer Shift. I have tried to get the all Axis as smooth as possible with little to no effect. So the Next step is to trade the smooth rods from Red to Blu. Red and Blu are the name I have given my 3D Printers. And Blu is the one giving me the trouble. Well If I decide to get into the 3D printer to experience a learning process I have made it! Oh. I guess should mention that the layer shift is so minute, unlike other I have seen. Top of model shows the worst layer shift, bottom shows average layer shifting. Have a separate thread if anyone has any thoughts. I have only been in the 3D printing game about a year and a half. My work involves designing just about anything, from cosmetic brushes to plastic injection mould tools. 3D printing has always played a part, first using companies like Shapeways etc. until someone bought me a Floger FT5 (R1) he must be a bit sadistic. I had never even seen a 3D printer before so it was quite a learning curve putting it together, with forums like this helping me, thanks guys. Now I am getting decent prints most of the time for use with work and fun. I ordered a JGaurora A5s before Christmas, but it never arrived, Santa must have got lost looking for our house. I have ordered another from China and it should come next week. The idea is to have a printer that just prints without too much trouble, we shall see, it has good reviews. I had to persuade the wife to let me spend the money, I am sure it will be worth it. I have learned a lot about 3D printing and still have a lot to learn, but it's been fun, well most of the time. I am sure you will agree, when you get a difficult part to print it gives you a great sense of achievement. The JGAurora A5S arrived yesterday, the day that it was supposed to. The printer is very easy to put together and has good instructions. As the printer had been tested there was a tiny bit of plastic still on the nozzle that I never noticed, so after leveling the bed the first print lifted off the bed. Reset the bed leveling and got a perfect print from the sample on the SD card. Printed a baby Groot and it looks perfect too. I am very happy with this printer, less than an hour to get everything up and running, from when the box arrived. I'll be trying larger prints to see how it performs. I thought of buying the TH3D clone, the "Tough End" Aero setup but I prefer the cartridge style thermosistor over the bulb type that are so problematic at times. Update on the JGAuora A5S. The bed has a slight "hump" in the middle, only about 0.1mm, too small to cause any problems. After a few prints the touch on the touch screen stopped working, so I had to connect it up to the PC to get it to work. I contacted support and they asked me to check the connections to the LCD screen, they looked fine but I still tried to push them in a bit more. Screen works now. I like the black diamond bed, it works with PLA and PETG, not tried any other filaments yet. Just keep the bed clean with alcohol and when the bed cools down the prints lift off. For me it's just what I need, a large printer that is reliable and easy to use. There is a good community on Facebook and a wiki forum. I'll probably keep the Folger FT5 for the more smelly prints as it's in the garage. So I'll be doing more prints in 2019. I made enormous progress on my Titan Aero upgrade to my FolgerTech i3 Mega...got it all amounted and wired....then I ran the belts into the "tear drop" shaped loops for the belt to go in. I struggled to tension the belt enough and press it inside the oval area to insert them. I was one belt notch loose and tried to tug the belt a bit tighter...then pop...the tear drop shaped piece of plastic popped out. Aahhhh. Don't you just Hate it when that happens! Have not been here much lots of snow, an still playing with Marlin 2.0.x new features to determine which will work best with my 3D Printer. Yesterday the Layer Shift got extremely bad. This happened with a combination of Marlin 2.x, Cura 4 and low V-Ref. The 3D Printer with the Layer shifting has every axis flowing smoother the the working 3D Printer and still layer shifts. Even though I was told not to I adjusted V-Ref up to about the same percentage my other printer is using, then most Layer shifting went away. It was completely stumping me as to why could 3D Print circular objects perfectly though square or rectangular objects seem to layer shift. Then after upgrading to Marlin 2.0.x this sudden jump in layer shifting. Not so bad now though still a tiny shifting occurring on the Y-Axis. And this could be because I could not perfectly align the Z-Couplers. It appears that my Hot-end needs rebuilt, getting weak, takes a little more to flow the filament, curved edges rolling from the base are under extruded not making smooth round curves from the base upward.

2019-04-24T17:56:59Z

http://3dprintingforum.us/viewtopic.php?f=34&p=13996

In 2010 Mashable declared June 30th Social Media Day! Shortly thereafter, the city of Victoria, Canada officially also declared their Social Media Day as June 30th! Cities and even countries across the globe have joined in the celebration by having educational events, meetups and tweetups! Now is the time for you to JOIN us, so come CELEBRATE with us and LEARN! Register Now for Rocks Digital 2017. The Rocks Digital Marketing Conference was created when the organizers of two separate conferences – The Local Social and The DFW Rocks Social Media Day – decided to bring them together into one amazing event. Lissa Duty has coached countless business owners and digital marketers in private sessions and in group trainings, how to leverage social networking platforms for branding. Ever since she discovered her natural talent for understanding and using social media in 2009, she has spent almost every waking hour talking, teaching, coaching and designing and implementing successful social media campaigns! She spends many of her days as the Director of Strategic Initiatives for a technology company and her nights being super mom to her daughter, Madison. In her spare time, you can find her “geeking” out on her latest new gadget or watching Star Trek reruns on Netflix. Bernadette Coleman, CEO of Advice Interactive Group, is the #QueenofLocalSEO and she spends every waking hour running her 3x award-winning Inc 500 company, researching, writing and educating others on digital marketing, so that business owners, digital marketers and enterprise corporations can stay on the forefront of the industry. Bernadette is passionate about giving and after her son, Michael, was in a car wreck and suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI), she founded TryMunity, an online social community for survivors and supporters of TBI to share stories, ideas, suggestions, and words of encouragement. In 2012, Lissa Duty started DFW Rocks Social Media Day after she noticed that Social Media Day was not being given the honor it deserves in Dallas, TX (DFW)! So, she organized the 1st annual DFW Rocks Social Media Day Conference. There were 100+ attendees and 9 speakers who all shared over 7 hours of important social media knowledge and information. Her instincts were confirmed at the conference that this type of learning environment was not only important and needed, but valued by everyone in attendance. It was a pleasure to not only have social media newbies, experienced social media professionals and marketing managers in the audience, but also the small business owners, which in their own rights were authorities in their niches. This collaborative environment was inspiring. Every person in the room, not just the speakers, but the attendees as well, added important value and information which they shared with each other during the breaks, lunches and conversations that took place throughout the day. Again, in 2013, Lissa brought together so many speakers in the industry generously volunteered their time and expertise to make for a DFW Rocks Social Media Day conference that would be remembered throughout the year. The experts included: J.R. Atkins, Lori Barber, Jeff Brady, Kate Buck Jr., David Leonnig, Lissa Duty, Elysa Ellis, Chris Forbes, Patty Farmer, Renee Groskreutz, Nico Martini, Elizabeth McCormick, Rani Monson, Debbie Mrazek, John J. Nosal, Eddie Reeves, Cynthia Sanchez, Johnny Tan, Doug Vermeeren and A.J. Wood. On the 1st day of the DFW Rocks Social Media Conference, Saturday, June 29, 2013, with 120+ attendees on this day the enthusiasm for learning was high. Each attendee arrived early and claimed their seat in the 9:00 am sessions. This day featured 10 Break-Out Sessions for the attendees to choose from. We had a special bonus speaker, Doug Vermeeren, Maximum Results, travel all the way from Canada to present a special 50 minute session for those that opted to take a 1 hour lunch. The after-event Book Signing with the Author Speakers / Happy Hour finished out the day. Again, in 2013, Lissa brought together an amazing array of speakers who generously volunteered their time and expertise to make for a DFW Rocks Social Media Day conference that would be remembered throughout the year. The experts in 2013 included: J.R. Atkins, Lori Barber, Jeff Brady, Kate Buck Jr., David Leonnig, Lissa Duty, Elysa Ellis, Chris Forbes, Patty Farmer, Renee Groskreutz, Nico Martini, Elizabeth McCormick, Rani Monson, Debbie Mrazek, John J. Nosal, Eddie Reeves, Cynthia Sanchez, Johnny Tan, Doug Vermeeren and A.J. Wood. The learning, networking, relationships and mingling that took place at this two-day social media conference was inspirational, motivational and quite valuable for the conference attendees. Just like the 2012 conference, the 2013 conference left the attendees hungering for more. Lissa’s mission to continue the great learning for the 2012 and 2013 attendees continued through the year with the DFW Rocks Social Media Workshop Series, which featured three workshops that went in-depth on Crafting a Social Media Plan and Implementation Strategy, Sales Mastery Workshop, and Intro Blogging for Business and Why it Matters, with the trainers being Lissa Duty, Debbie Mrazek and Renee Groskreutz. Read the 2014 blog highlights. View the photo highlights June 29 | June 30. The 3rd annual conference was designed in a format to give the important and essential information to help digital marketers, brand managers, business owners and social media marketers with everything they needed to succeed both online and offline throughout the following year. In 2014, Some of the speakers were: Amy Howell, Shelly Kramer, and Neal Schaffer. Other expert speakers included Lori Barber, Tony Cecala, Bernadette Coleman, Melissa Cowser, Patrick Dougher, Lissa Duty, Elysa Ellis, Patty Farmer, Tim Gillette, Susan Hamilton, Stephanie Inge, David Kirkpatrick, Jeff Klein, Steve Kuntz, Gary Leland, Dean Lindsay, Rani Monson, Robin Moss, John Nosal, Ana Lucia Novak, Mason Pelt, Sandra Dee Robinson, Jessica Rector, Aida Rojas, Brian Sullivan, Terry Sullivan, Eric Tung, A.J. Wood, Joe Youngblood, and Mark Zamora. As with the 2013 and 2014 conference, we had LIVE bloggers and LIVE tweeters sharing blow by blow action of what was happening. The hashtag actually streamed on Twitter and others from around the world who couldn’t attend in person, participated via the blogs and tweets. At the end of the second day of the conference, June 30, 2014 – Social Media Day, Lissa Duty and the conference were host to Mashable’s Social Media Tweetup again this year. The Tweetup resumed (there was a startup event at the beginning of the day) right after the conference ended at The Social House in Addison, just a few blocks away. As the 2014 conference was closing, Lissa and Bernadette Coleman made the announcement that beginning in 2015 the DFW Rocks Social Media Day Conference and the Local Social would be merged into one amazing event and the Rocks Digital Marketing Conference! Read the 2014 blog highlights. View the photo highlights. In 2013, Bernadette Colman wanted to make a bigger difference for TBI survivors and thought what better way to do it than by using her experience, knowledge and connections to plan a digital marketing event that would bring together the local community and raise money for the charity at the same time. The Local Social was born. The 2013 Local Social was a grassroots networking collaboration of local marketing organizations, well-known thought-leaders and industry leaders brought together to discuss search, content and social tactics. It was also an open forum for sharing questions and ideas that could help businesses. Attendees gathered at TPC in Craig Ranch for an afternoon of learning, education, and lunch. The second annual Local Social event returned in 2014 with a panel of national and local speakers to share their professional social and search expertise. Moderated by Lissa Duty and Rob Garner. Bernadette Coleman, CEO of Advice Interactive Group, was host to the annual event. Four keynote addresses included a TBI survivor sharing his personal story, Mike Grehan adding his brand of humor on digital marketing, Daniel Wu and his team from Baidu/Gridsum flew in from China to share about the digital marketing landscape, and Larry Kim shared important items related directly to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC). Just as they had done at the closing of the DFW Rocks Social Media Conference, Bernadette invited Lissa to the stage to announce the merging of their two national conferences to the Local Social attendees. These two women are dedicated to the digital marketing industry and plan to continue to form many alliances in order to evangelize their passion. I thoroughly enjoyed The Local Social one day event. To be honest I was unsure going into it how much I would get out of it. Well, it ended up being the most rewarding one day technology event that I can remember – and I didn’t even win any prizes! I enjoyed the candid discussions, insights and experiences of the local and national panels and then, last but not least, enjoyed the afternoon keynote by Larry Kim. The event covered all of the major technology areas that I deal with while being entertaining at the same time. Thanks to everyone who made it possible – and for the good lunch as well. Looking forward to your next event. ~ Ken Butler, Butler Information Technologies, Inc. The 2015 Rocks Digital Marketing Conference was the first year to combine both the DFW Rocks Social Media Conference and the Local Social. This 4th Annual Social Media Day celebration included a series of pre-conference workshops on the first day. The incredibly positive feedback let us know that attendees wanted this format to continue. The second day was the Social Media Day conference and included local, national and international speakers. The breakout sessions were divided into tracks by topic and they focused on Local SEO and Search, Social Media, Mobile & Web, Branding & Marketing and Business Development. Two of the tracks hosted the Geek Chat (a techy session with a panel of experts) and the Women Leading in Local Panel which was hosted by BIA Kelsey. As is the tradition with the annual Social Media Day celebration, the 2015 conference was immediately followed by a special After-Event: Mashable’s Social Media Day Tweetup which included a Speaker-Author book signing. Read the 2015 blog highlights. View the photo highlights. The Local, Search and Social Summit held on October 1, 2015 brought in a packed house with over 130 registered. The daylong conference was uniquely focused on SMBs and their digital marketing strategies. Attendees also had the opportunity to sign up for free on-site online visibility appointments and these were a huge hit among the attendees! The Local, Search and Summit was a success and we look forward to bringing it and more events like it to SMBs around the United States. The annual Rocks Digital Marketing Conference continued its tradition of helpful workshops, great speakers, and Social Media Day fun in 2016! After a first day filled with workshops, the second day included the conference’s 5th Annual Social Media Day celebration. The speakers brought info on how to be found by an audience in a number of ways, plus got everyone up-to-date on the latest in technology and algorithms. This year the conference added a full day dedicated to local search, with sessions all geared toward how to get a business found. The breakout sessions were once again divided into tracks by topic and focused on Social Media, Mobile & Web, Branding and Business Development, and Local Search and SEO. The Geek Chat made a return due to popular demand, and there was a panel centered around the hot topic of Podcasting. One of the best-run conferences that just gets better every year. I’ve been attending Rocks Digital for several years now, and have made it one of my top priorities to attend. Year over year, the quality of speakers/sessions has been consistently high, but still managed to improve each time. From the people you meet and connections you form, to the things you learn and the new ideas sparked from it, RocksDigital has been a consistently high-value experience. Whether you run a business that might be able to benefit or you are yourself a professional in the SEO/social/digital media space, you owe it to yourself and your organization to be there ~ Kent Pilkington, ThinkByDesign, Inc. As is the tradition with the annual Social Media Day celebration, the 2016 conference was immediately followed by a special After-Event: Mashable’s Social Media Day Tweetup on June 30, and a first this year, a concert featuring Sir Earl Toon of Kool & the Gang. He ROCKED the crowd into the evening. Read the 2016 LIVE blog highlights. We ROCKED, we rolled and had an excellent time. Read all about what happened at the 2017 Rocks Digital Marketing Conference in this summary. Speakers and attendees travelled from far and wide, including Pakistan and the Netherlands. You can access the live blogs here, tour the photo highlights and meet all the speakers. Tickets to our events become scarce quite quickly, so now is the time to plan on joining us for the 2018 Rocks Digital Marketing Conference and get registered. You do not want to miss it!

2019-04-23T22:50:56Z

https://www.rocksdigital.com/social-media-day-history/

Matt Cassel is due to get released any day now. Remember in 2010 when the Kansas City Chiefs were 10-6 and won the AFC West?? That was the first year Matt Cassel was the starting quarterback and the future looked bright with WR Dwayne Bowe his main target for years to come. Then Offensive Co-Ordinator Charlie Weiss left and the offense completely fell apart as Cassel regressed. Two losing seasons followed and both Head Coaches Todd Haley and Romeo Crennel got the ax. The Chiefs finished 2012 with a 2-14 record and scored an NFL low 211 points on the season. In 5 of their last 7 games they scored less than 10 points which was pathetic. Sure they had some injuries but every team suffers from injury. Yet with the NFL’s 20th ranked defense, had they scored or just been middle of the road proficient they could have been a playoff team. What held them back?? Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn’s combined 8TDs to 20 interception season was the main reason this team was held back. To KC after being supplanted in SF, Smith will have the landscape to himself. Enter new Head Coach Andy Reid and newest Kansas City Chief Alex Smith. The San Francisco 49ers have agreed to trade Smith to the Chiefs once the league year starts. With this move Kansas City changes the landscape of the AFC West immediately. The staple of the Andy Reid era in Philadelphia was his quarterback development. We’re not just talking Donovan McNabb, think back to the 2002 NFL season. In that year he coached AJ Feeley and Ty Detmer to a 5-1 record while McNabb recovered from a fractured ankle. That year they made the NFC Championship Game. In 2006 he coached an aging Jeff Garcia to a 5-1 record when McNabb was lost for the season and they made the playoffs winning a wild card game. All this before we talk about the resurrection of Michael Vick’s career and the possible Hall of Fame career of McNabb, Reid develops quarterbacks and don’t forget his role in the ascension of Brett Favre’s career. Every quarterback that has associated with Reid has performed above expectations. He is the replacement to develop quarterbacks the Chiefs have sought since Charlie Weiss’ departure. He may be the best to develop quarterbacks in the last 25 years. Look at what he did last year with a rookie in Nick Foles?? Now Smith won’t look over his shoulder like he had to last year in San Francico. His replacement last year was thought by many, including The Chancellor of Football, to be an unfair decision. At the time he was outplaying Colin Kaepernick and finished with better stats than the man who replaced him. For 2012, A. Smith completed 70% of his passes for 1,737 yards 13 TSDs with 5 interceptions vs 62.4% for 1,814 yards 10 TDs and 3 interceptions. An uneducated fan will say “Yes, but they made the Super Bowl with Kaepernick” which is true but a total misnomer. They were already on their way there. In 2011 totally under Smith’s control they were 13-3 and lost in overtime in the NFC Championship Game. In that game he didn’t throw any interceptions. The same couldn’t be said for the 11-4-1 49ers that played in Super Bowl XLVII as Kaepernick did throw a 2nd quarter interception that held up comeback efforts. Andy Reid needed a fresh start and the Chiefs and Alex Smith will give him the tools to be successful. Smith had come of age and was enjoying a decent 2012 and all hadn’t been healed from the 49ers letting him dangle in free agency while courting Peyton Manning. The only true reason he was replaced Russell Wilson’s success out of the pistol in Seattle. So the 49ers rolled over a plan last year that wasn’t going to take place until 2013. Nevertheless Smith is free and will inherit a 1,500 yard rusher in Jamaal Charles. Kansas City has the #1 draft pick this year as well. He’ll have Dexter McCluster out of the backfield also. This could be the rebirth of WR Dwayne Bowe who was coming off back to back 1,000 yard seasons before last year’s 59 rec. 801 yard 3 touchdown performance. What will this team do with the first pick and what will the Chiefs attract in free agency with Alex Smith now in tow?? The landscape has changed in the AFC West, with a few moves they could go from worst to first in a single year. Once the league year starts in March who will be attracted to Kansas City now that they have a coach, a quarterback, and a direction?? Peyton Manning has had command of the Bronco huddle from the outset. At this time last year, the Denver Broncos won the AFC West on the last week of the season, although they staggered to an 8-8 finish. This year with Peyton Manning orchestrating the offense, they have actually scored 349 points in 12 games where last year they scored 309 in 16. Their 9-3 record is good enough to wrap up the AFC West with a month left in the season. Although pundits like Peter King hailed the Broncos from the outset, we here at Taylor Blitz like to see progressive growth during the season. Make no mistake the Broncos are an improved team…but are we witnessing a transcendent team or are they the beneficiary of a weak division?? We need a litmus test that can tell us who the Broncos are and how strong they are. Now that they’re division champs, we have to assess if the Broncos are able to make a Super Bowl run. In actuality there is much in the way of substance but even more in the way of a mirage. Do you realize that aside from Sunday’s game with Tampa, the last time they played a team with a winning record was October 15th?? Even that game was against the backsliding Chargers who have lost 7 of their last 8 games. In their 7 game winning streak, only 2 have come against winning teams. In fact, the Broncos are only 4-3 against teams with winning records. One of the wins came against the Steelers who didn’t have Troy Palamalu, James Harrison, and Ryan Clark. You have to put an asterisk next to that one when assessing strength. The Broncos are clearly a better team with Manning at the helm. Denver’s offense is #5 in total offense and #3 in total defense but are they battle-hardened?? That is The Chancellor’s point. You have a team that is feasting on a lot of patsies and padding their record like an old Big 8 Nebraska college football team. They have losses to the Patriots and the Texans who have tie breaker advantages over them and Denver would have to travel to either in the playoffs. They are -3 in the turnover margin and the defense has only forced 10 turnovers on the road. Six of those came against the hapless Chargers. Peyton Manning should be runaway NFL Comeback Player of the Year and in the thick of NFL’s MVP talks as well. He’s completed 304 of 447 (68%) for 3,502 yards, 29TDs with only 9 interceptions. He’s done this with a moderately talented receiving staff and has been the steadying hand for this year. Especially with the loss of Willis McGahee until the playoffs, teams are still gearing toward Manning. Wideout DeMaryius (what kind of name is that) Thomas is having a career year. His 69 receptions, 1,114 yards, and 8 touchdowns pace Bronco receivers. Thomas has more than doubled his 2011 output and still has 4 games to go. Von Miller has been everywhere this year. There are some points of substance at individual positions. Von Miller has catapulted himself into the Taylor Blitz Time’s NFL Defensive Player of The Year award conversation. With 53 total tackles, 15 1/2 sacks, 5 forced fumbles, and an interception for a touchdown, this is a force. Those are Lawrence Taylor type stats and his highlights over the last month, no one has been able to match his play. The secondary hasn’t forced a lot of turnovers and only have 5 interceptions for the year amongst the starters. How will this team fare in the playoffs in a game where they can’t generate a pass rush?? Most of these questions are going to go unanswered until we get into the thick of the NFL playoffs. What Coach John Fox hopes is the team can ride the wonderful wave of confidence once the playoffs start. One game that now looms important is that week 15 match-up in Baltimore. Now that the Ravens lost to the Steelers, Denver is within striking distance of taking the #3 seed away with a win. If they lose in Baltimore, the Broncos worst fears could surface right before the postseason begins. They’d have to be on the road for both the divisional playoff and conference championship games if they lose in Baltimore. That could send them to New England and Houston barring any upsets. Don’t forget they lost to both teams already and the nightmare loss to New England in last year’s playoffs could flash in the minds of Bronco players along with this year’s regular season loss. That could sap the confidence of the team if they fall behind early. Peyton Manning showed true greatness in Monday night’s stunning come from behind win. In the waning moments of Monday night’s comeback, we saw the true nature of the San Diego Chargers under Norv Turner and the possibilities for the Denver Broncos with Peyton Manning. First lets look at the perennial underachieving Chargers. When our CEO talks about championship football teams, it’s usually around signature wins that bolsters their confidence as they mature over a season. Before you can prove to the rest of the NFL that you’re a force to be reckoned with, you have to knock down a bully in your backyard. Now wasn’t it one year ago Rex Ryan boldly stated “Had I coached the talent the Chargers have, I’d have Super Bowl rings”, in an obvious dig at Turner?? How did he and his team respond after being called out?? They came out and took a 21-10 halftime lead on the Jets only to show no fight in the end while losing 27-21. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201110230nyj.htm They were outscored 17-0 as the Jets promptly took their lunch money without much of a struggle. Fast forward 358 days and here the Chargers were playing the odds on favorite to win the division in the Denver Broncos. This time they woke in the heat of battle up 24-0. Antonio Gates had just scored after the defense showed it could play Manning tough with Quentin Jammer’s 80 yard interception return for a touchdown. Their crowd was in it. Manning was having his struggles and Phillip Rivers looked like a world beater. So what happened??? That was an incredibly gritty performance by Peyton Manning. Where he could have packed it in after his pick 6, he kept on firing. One strong point to the comeback was they didn’t totally abandon the running game. This kept the Chargers honest and his intermediate passing lanes open. The clinic he performed was reminiscent of the 21 point 4th quarter deficit he erased when his Colts came back on the champion Buccaneers 38-35 in 2003. This time he performed surgery for 2 quarters. Of course we all remembered his epic comeback in the 2006 AFC Championship against New England. However this one seemed better than those..surreal. He has been trying to make it work with a new team, and if you dissect his season, it’s as though he has to realize the strengths of his personnel and what they present in match-ups to the opposition. He’s had to do this in every game and then he gets hot. Do you realize that with 1,808 yards and 14 touchdowns, he is on pace for 4,821 yards and 37 TDs?? Yikes!! Can he physically keep it up for the duration of the season?? So what are we talking about when we say illusions?? In all actuality the Broncos only raised their record to 3-3 and right now the defense is allowing 23 points per game. They do rank 11th in total defense and can play stifling defense in fits and starts. So are they as good as their 3 wins or as flawed as they appeared in their 3 losses?? Puzzling but this win over the Chargers was the first over a winning team as well as a first triumph on the road. As for the rest of the season they only face 3 teams who are .500 or better, and 5 of their next 8 games are on the road. As for the Chargers, here they were with an inflated record of 3-2 with wins over the back-pedalling Raiders, Titans, and Chiefs. When it was time to step up and show they were for real in a showcase game, they gave us another epic collapse. Just like that loss last year to the New York Jets, it showed this team lacks toughness and has a damaged fight or flight mechanism also. They became clock watchers and couldn’t turn the tide once momentum was on the side of Denver. With the loss of WR Vincent Jackson, this team has lost all of the playmakers they once had to turn a close game in their favor. From a psyche standpoint they will not stand up and fight. As long as Norv Turner is the coach, this team is not to be trusted as being a Super Bowl caliber group. As for the Raiders and Chiefs…it’s been an optical illusion that they have even taken the field this year. We would like to entice readers to tune in to The Artie Clear Show which has been a place where Taylor Blitz Times has been on several times talking football. Artie tells it like it is and as of October 17th will be live on Fox Sports Radio as well. Congratulations Artie Clear! Guys and girls, tune in. The Chancellor of Football from Taylor Blitz Times will be on there talking football again.

2019-04-23T06:17:52Z

https://taylorblitztimes.com/tag/afc-west/

When considering the 3D modeling side of AutoCAD it’s helpful to compare the program with other 3D modeling programs like Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Blender, etc. It’s also useful to know the real-world applications for the software, and which industries are using what. Many similarities exist between the 3D programs but the essential difference lies in the purpose to which they are used. CAD programs like AutoCAD and the others are basically technical visualization tools used in industrial design, engineering, manufacturing and architecture. The term CAD means either computer-aided design or computer-aided drafting, and as such focuses on technical drafting and design. The logical outcome is specific tool sets pertaining to various industrial applications. On the whole 3D modeling and animation programs aim to create a whole world environment from the floor up – think Pixar. As such their tool range is aimed at artistic and aesthetic outcomes in modeling and animation, for example shapes and textures and atmospheric effects. They are also designed to render multiple objects, like characters, props, with hair, fur and foliage which interact with their environments. In our AutoCAD 3D course there are a few methods of creating sections of objects in Autocad 3D, one of which is the combination of the Shell and Slice functions. CAD programs like AutoCAD, on the other hand, concentrate on creating precise and accurate technical models that emulate the functionality of a real-world environment. As such their tools focus more on accuracy and precision as well as measurements and scale. Efficiency as well as creativity are integral parts of these programs. We have in AutoCAD basically a drafting or modeling tool which allows us to communicate design intent and concepts to clients or other professionals, and has a legacy of 30 years as the industry leader in 2D and 3D computer-aided design. Presently almost all structures or built environments, as well as machine tools and consumer products are created using CAD software, like AutoDesk’s AutoCAD, Revit or Inventor. From 2007 onward AutoCAD’s 3D modeling capabilities have been improved with each new version, which to date includes a full set of solid modeling tools, modification tools, including mesh modeling as well as the Mental Ray rendering engine. In addition to libraries of materials which ship with AutoCAD 3D it’s also possible for the user to create their own realistic materials and textures. Real world lighting for Sun and shadow studies is also possible. High-quality fly-through movies can also be outputted. Many industries use AutoCAD 3D including architectural, mechanical, electrical, engineering and construction, GIS, surveying, civil engineering and urban planning. Recent releases also include 4D BIM functions. Originally an MS-DOS program, AutoCAD runs on both Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, remaining the industry leader in CAD programs despite many competitors arising over the last three decades. AutoCAD has grown more complex in keeping up with the increasing complexity of the design and drafting processes, especially when it comes to 3D functionality, but its basic drafting or modeling principles remain simple and logical. AutoCAD LT (or Lite) was released in 1993 and is a smaller, cheaper alternative to the full AutoCAD program. It does not include 3D and some other advanced features but is nevertheless very powerful and will perform all 2D drafting needs. First released in 2010 AutoCAD for Macintosh is identical to the Windows version in functionality, whilst retaining the pre-2009 PC layout. Hopefully AutoDesk intends to make the two versions more visually compatible in future releases. If you have an old iPhone that you don’t use any more or you just want to get top dollar for your old iPhone so you can upgrade to something better, you can get top dollar for your old phone when you get cash from SkyTree Gold Coast. They pay the best prices for used phones and it is easy to get started. Read on to learn how to get fast cash for your phone. The first step is to get a free offer for your phone. You can bring your phone in or you can get a quote over the phone or online. If you like the price that you get you can sell your phone on the spot or mail it in and get the cash. It makes sense to sell your old phone because when you do you can get money for a new one. You won’t have to wait to come up with the money and you can put the money down on a new phone. If you want to stay on top of the latest iPhone releases and you don’t want an old phone, just sell it and upgrade. You can do this every year and you will end up getting your phone for a lot less. You can save some great money when you do this and it is going to be a lot easier to get the new phone that you want and you won’t have to pay so much money for it. You are always going to have the latest phone when you get to save money by selling the old one. If you are going to sell your phone, it is very important that you get the most cash for it because this means you will have more cash to pay for your next phone. If you want to get the most cash, you have to go the place that is going to get you the most cash and that is going to give you fair and honest pricing. You need to do as well on the deal that you can and you don’t want to end up getting taken advantage of or getting lowballed on the price of the phone. You should always make sure that you get the right price and when you get a good price from a company you like working with you are going to end up having a good experience. Selling your iPhone should be a fast and easy process and it should also leave you with the best price for your phone. Don’t take any chances by working with a company that isn’t going to give you the best results. You need to make sure that you get the top price for your phone. You never have to pay full price for your iPhone if you keep selling your old phone for the maximum amount of cash. Just make sure that you keep your phone in top shape and be careful not to damage it or scratch it. How To Choose An SEO Company For Your Business? Search engine optimisation is one of the best marketing strategies to improve the bottom line of your small business. In fact, it will help take your business to the next level in a short period time more than any other marketing strategy out there. On the other hand, SEO is inexpensive when compared to the other strategies on the market. That is why a majority of small businesses are turning to search engine optimisation to improve their sales and conversions. There are also a few disadvantages of SEO such as it’s time-consuming and changes with every major update rolled out by the search engines. That is why the average marketer finds it so complicated. A professional SEO agency in town comes in handy under such circumstances. Here are some tips to consider when you are searching for the best SEO agency in town. . More time to focus on the core issues of running your small business. . Your rankings will improve on search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and the other main ones. . Your website will become more user-friendly and attract more visitors to it. Choosing the right company may not be an easy task. It is quite overwhelming in many situations. The first thing is to clearly define your SEO goals before you shop for the right company out there. Which areas of your online presence do you need to improve? You may require a whole new website or just SEO to improve the rankings of your current website. A professional SEO agency will take a look at your website before deciding what type of strategy they will implement. A digital marketing analysis is important when you aren’t sure which areas you need to improve. You will want a company that tracks and measure all of your company data. Make sure that you hire a reputed and experienced provider on the market. Customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies are very important in this regard. Make sure the potential company has handled SEO campaigns for similar businesses in the past. You need to schedule a free consultation with the potential SEO agency before you decide to hire them for the project. In fact, it is important that you build a trust relationship with the agency that you plan to choose. If you are searching for a reliable SEO agency in Australia, you don’t need to look further than Searchical SEO (click here to visit website). Various business owners understand the need to monitor and analyze their web data. Currently, there are many businesses utilizing Google Analytics to gain useful data for their businesses. There are many reasons for business intelligence including revenue growth, efficiency and business success. Business intelligence refers to analyzing the raw data of your company and the analytics to produce actionable results. You can analyze data such as customer shopping habits, operations costs and current sales figures to get the intelligence. With useful data on your hands, the intelligence allows you to make informed business decisions. There are numerous niches that rely on business intelligence for many reasons. Eventually, when all the figures are calculated, the data plays a part in reducing the overall costs of your company. Learning every process of your company helps you reduce any unnecessary costs associated with the process. Business intelligence also plays a huge part in improving efficiency and productivity of any company. For instance, it can be used to identify the challenges in the system and make the necessary referrals. Understanding the inefficiencies improves productivity immensely for any employee involved. As an example, completing tasks, reducing the scheduling times and also reduces the overall cost of handling any tasks. Employees are happy to work with a fine-tuned system from start to finish. There are numerous decisions that need to be handled in every business process. Whether you’re in the manufacturing or service niche, understanding your business is key to producing the best results. However, you can’t achieve any of that without proper business intelligence. For instance, in the service industry you need to understand what the customer wants and how you can provide it to them effortlessly. Everyone from the management to the lowest person in the hierarchy relies on business intelligence to make decisions about their job. Business intelligence plays a huge role in improving revenue. For instance, in the retail industry, such information would play a great role in minimizing theft and improving sales. It’s easy enough to predict trends and create products that offer real solutions to the customers. Basically, your revenue can only improve if you’re offering what your customers need. Therefore, use business intelligence to cater to your customer needs and improve your sales. Visit https://www.cloudmadesimple.com.au/ for more information on business intelligence. The enormous young men in the PC business need you to keep thinking the way you are. The real desktop PC makers flourish with buyers absence of information and old thoughts regarding desktop PCs and PC hardware to drive offers of new desktop PCs. It works to support them to keep these myths alive, on the grounds that their business relies upon it. So what are they? Perhaps a few years prior this may have been valid with more seasoned PC hardware, yet circumstances are different. At the point when PCs were much slower than they are currently, the most recent variant of any PC hardware expanded speeds recognizably and permitted new potential outcomes from your desktop PC. Those increments from PC hardware never again yield such a tremendous increment in execution. With the essential employments of the desktop PC set and been set up for some time now, speed builds never again result in certifiable advantages for most desktop PC clients. What was incredible PC hardware a year ago is still adequate at this point. At the point when individualized computing was making its mark, you truly needed to be a Geek to realize what was going on. For those mature enough to recall, envision existence without Windows and hacking ceaselessly at the charge line, as used to be the situation. Some still do, however I wouldn’t have any desire to do that once more. Desktop PCs are such typical that the essentials of PC hardware can be comprehended and investigated with the base of bother. The ball is on the shoppers side of the court. You never again should be a nerd, only a little learning that is presently promptly accessible. Perhaps. On the off chance that you are running 5-year-old PC hardware this may be the situation. Be that as it may, the genuine purpose behind the expansion in speed is generally not the PC. Web speed is identified with your association speed. On the off chance that you have a dial up association, it will be very moderate. When you overhaul your desktop PC and they toss in a satellite web, or DSL bundle the enhanced speed is from the speedier association, not the PC. Both link and DSL can offer more than 10 times the speed of a dial-up association. The PC has little to do with it. Myth 4: To Speed Your PC up, Redesign! New PC hardware is an exceptionally evident approach to speed things up. Indeed, even I have gone for new parts only consequently. In any case, it’s certainly not by any means the only way. Different elements play into general speed. On a simply physical level, redesigning memory is as yet a fabulous approach to motivate things to move along somewhat speedier. Be that as it may, aside from this the primary things that backs things off on the projects and other stuff you have on the PC. After some time, as more projects are put on and taken off and changed, things get left behind, and things get overlooked. At the point when your PC begins, numerous things get stacked into memory and every last one of those takes that smidgen a greater amount of the PCs assets. When you change to another program and don’t expel the old one, the more seasoned one will at present utilize assets. Huge brands basically sort out a PC. They pick and pick the pieces to influence a PC to bundle. They additionally pick some product, give a guarantee and after that pitch it to you. Dell PC organization has turned out to be outstanding for its client benefit. This is the best part about Dell PCs. The drawback is there are constrained decisions. They pick what goes into the PC, which are regularly very costly parts. They are inspired by the providers to put later parts into their PCs, keeping the costs at a similar level and keeping up the “to get more, pay more,” mindset. You don’t have the energy of these huge folks, however you have something more. Decision. Your pick of parts for your desktop PC will enable you to assemble something totally customized to your requirements. Put the cash where you require it most, into the PC hardware that has the greatest effect to you, and at last getting a desktop PC you will begin to look all starry eyed at, as opposed to disdain. You can find lots of different kinds of layouts that each architect will probably be coming up with. They’ve lots of things that are different they have to be sure of when they’re really coming up using a layout that is specific. AutoCAD training classes will help them learn the way to create the best drawings in their creations. These classes will cover many areas of the plans. The drawing will be the most crucial element of the occupation. Training is a thing that will be significant for anybody that uses the AutoCAD applications. That is something which helps them design every facet of construction or a building. Each construction will offer something different because of their customers. While another architect is going to be designing enormous office buildings, many of these are going to be designing houses. Buildings aren’t the single thing which can be designed with these. There are many different kinds of much more, like bridges and structures, which are definitely going to be designed using these. Making certain they are planning to be a construction that is certainly lasting to the states that it is going to confront is not unimportant. A strong layout is something which will probably shield lots of individuals. AutoCAD is something which can be used in lots of livelihoods, though. It’s not only utilized in architectural layouts. There are a number of other businesses which might be applying this kind of applications. The training classes will help individuals understand the way to utilize this software. That is something which is definitely going to be exceptionally essential for a lot of reasons. Every class is definitely going to be vital to ensure they have the needed advice on how best to make use of each facet of it. There are a number of different options that come with every piece of applications. They’re going to manage to take a class using this when they select which form of software which they must work with. You will find lots of various kinds of training choices for each system that’s planning to be accessible. Each firm has an alternate need for all these applications. There is going to be a distinct quantity of workers which will want this training. Every class will have something different to give. There are many different kinds of AutoCAD software which can be going to be utilized for each business. It is going to be contingent on the sector by which they may be working. This can be something which is certainly going to be extremely important to think about. There might be a few other choices for the training too, although training could be supplied by the firm supplying the application. The business will probably determine which workers are likely to be receiving the training. That is vital for all to contemplate. Designing each construction is a thing that is essential for all of the industries on the planet and the market. There are businesses that the need to expand their operations and are continuously growing. They have to truly have a whole lot of characteristics that are distinct from thinking of the layouts that they’re searching for. Not everybody is likely to be great at receiving down their layout on paper or in place which other folks can see the things they’ve designed. They have to have the ability to make scale models that are smaller additionally. You’ll find various several types of constructions for every architect. Every architect which uses the AutoCAD applications will need to comprehend it. This really is the reason why they are going to contemplate getting the AutoCAD training to make sure they have the fundamental knowledge of the software. Additionally, they have to know the way to utilize each attribute that is not unavailable too. Leading the sector is AutoCAD in 2D and 3D for CAD design. Fundamentally, this modeling and drafting tool allows you to convey your layout concepts efficiently and concisely. Virtually every construction, constructed surroundings, machine tool and consumer product is created via computer aided design (CAD). With each new release, the 3D modeling capabilities of AutoCAD have enhanced since 2007. This consists of the complete set of altering and modeling tools in addition to the Mental Ray rendering engine and also the net modeling. Create stuff and realistic textures, use real world light for Sun and Shadow effect studies. Add a high-quality walk in the kind of a film. AutoCAD is used by many businesses. Sectors including engineering and building in addition to architects, mechanical, electrical, electronic all party favor AutoCAD because of their design needs. From geographical information systems to multimedia and facilities management, AutoCAD is here to stay. Studying is easier using AutoCAD, Civil engineering, and town planning can be done much more efficiently with AutoCAD. Created by AutoDesk Inc. in 1982 AutoCAD was MS-DOS software. It runs both on Windows and Macintosh operating systems now. Inspire of the opponents which go and come, AutoCAD is here to stay. As technology improves so does AutoCAD. Straightforward and simple to use this system offers the best in our ever-changing technology world. Notice the LT variant is a cut-down and more economical variant of the application that is whole. This variation doesn’t contain many of other amazing features that are innovative and the 3D. However, it is still really strong software offering superb 2D drafting. Released for Mac in 2010 it is practically indistinguishable to the Windows version and in 2014 it is still going to overcome on the pre-2009 PC layout. The ability creates and to alter text and viewing too as geometry with truth, the inclusion of exact measurements the geometry on scales that are different all will help keep this in the vanguard of modern technology. Users will have the ability to choose from a number of layouts where drawing and printing can be done. Blocks and symbols all can be created in addition to adding multiple items. Share and reference other drawings them all on the net for more cooperation with AutoCAD users on the web. In summary, if one follows the three basic steps to create geometry, a 3D model, stuff and adding lighting, you can go anyplace. Measurements and text can make your work get noticed from your remainder and the outcome of elevation, pictures and drawings are exceptional. AutoCAD offers an outstanding F1 Help section. Simple to follow and stay with procedural and conceptual advice on the subject you will locate everything you could have to review here. You can even reference the search area at the very top right of the display for more online help when needed. If you are searching the web searching for AutoCAD courses, odds are, you’re trying to get something from the encounter. No one does these classes just for fun, you almost certainly desire to enhance your curriculum vitae? or improve your probability of a promotion on the job. No matter your reasoning is, it is important you take certain factors into account to ensure you get the training you have earned. The best method to locate the best AutoCAD courses which work for you personally would be to locate at least three firms offering this training in the local region. Select businesses that will give you excellent distance, should your home is in a distant place. Either way, you’re searching for a business which supplies a range of programs for you to select from, this lets you handpick those you desire to do and those which you feel are not going to profit. The more classes the better, the business provides. You’ll be able to go back to finish another class at a later period without needing to undergo the hunting side of things, for those who are in possession of a great experience learning together. Undergo the sites of the company’s, you’re trying to find the services they feature much advice as possible on the business, their focus as well as their purposes. You’ve got a set goal in mind which can be the reason why you happen to be planning to finish AutoCAD courses, but what are their objectives? Are they dedicated to giving you the best possible training to greatly help you further yourself in your selected business? The standing of each firm is not dispensable. You are still sitting with three businesses after you’ve read through their website and checked on the programs available and in case you aren’t confident, then it is time to rely on the web to help you narrow your search down. Do an internet search for the firms ‘ names. Go through internet newsgroups and the separate review sites. Begin your own thread on one of the newsgroups in the event you can not locate any info and see if anyone responds that’s taken an AutoCAD course that they can supply comments that are honest to you. This technique ought to assist you to stop at least among the businesses. Now it is time to make sure that the AutoCAD courses on offer certified. There’s absolutely no point finishing a class that really doesn’t supply an accredited certification to you when applying for jobs that need you have this knowledge and expertise that you can use in the future. In the event the firm does not offer classes that are accredited, cross them. Figure out should additionally they offer accredited distance or if they merely offer their AutoCAD courses on site. Frequently you might wish to study when you get home during the night and might find it too difficult to attend courses at set times because of work obligations. Ensure when picking distance learning that these are additionally accredited classes as you’ll get in the event you attended classes on site and you should possess exactly the same syllabus. Constantly learn which support while finishing any AutoCAD courses online, you get. When studying from home you might be on your own, so be sure to have access to their skilled team who is able to talk you you’re experiencing issues with those attending course have an expert they are able to question and get help from. The final bit of the puzzle before becoming a member of any classes is always to determine what contained in the lessons. An alternate syllabus will be offered by each firm also in the event the class you might be contemplating comprises all of the pertinent info which you need to learn how to assist you to advance in your profession, it is important that you figure out. The first action to take would be to have a look. The three fundamental models of 3D CAD are solid and wireframe, surface models. Wire coat hangers are made from by the models those cosmetics wireframes appear like they’re and have no faces. Items which are 2D are used to create a wireframe manner. These sorts of models that are early date back who recall those days might recall them. Wireframe models can be created in AutoCAD, but they’re not actually very helpful in any way. Another step in 3D development is the surface models. Essentially, they’re wireframe models with faces included which are not irregular. These are like items which can be built from cardboard such as spheres, blocky cones, and cartons. If you dissect the inside spacing you will discover it is not full, exactly like a cardboard box is empty. The actual breakthrough in 3D applications is the modeling technique that is solid. Remember these things are made of cones, spheres, and boxes, but they’re solid models as they have been in actuality, the things can be joined and dissected and their insides are solid. It should be noted that AutoCAD LT enables the navigation of present 3D models and the opening, but it really is unable create or to alter them. The procedure of 3D modeling is consistently precisely the same in the geometry is always created the substances are added to the item. From then on, the realistic light is on a basis that is still or on a nerve pathway added, after which the cameras, either. Subsequently, the result is represented as an AVI movie file, drawings for elevation, or still pictures. Some users will nevertheless be using this older interface, although an important overhaul was instituted by the 2009 release of the Windows interface for AutoCAD. Additionally, the newer Macintosh AutoCAD version that has been released in 2010 will still have the older pre-2009 Windows interface. The AutoCAD normally opens so to alter this you make the change and must visit the Workspace Shifter. The 3D tools get loaded towards the top of the display in Tabs and the Ribbon after you wait a couple of seconds. The other 2D tools continue to be there, as there be a perpendicular row of Tool Palettes on the right, which used and can be selected afterward if needed. The Dash of tools will appear on the right side of the display in the pre-2009 interface. For working in 3D space 6 control panels will be contained by it. Those are 3D make, Visual Fashion, 3D Browse, Stuff, Lights, and Leave. For the interface which arrives in after 2009, the ribbon tabs have more adaptable, although distinct tools such as for example Outcome, Net Modeling, Insert, See, Annotate, Express Tools, and Home. Even if the workspace will not look overly 3D yet, you are able to visit the top and reach the Program button on the far left and pick the New ” id=”st-1183″>> Drawing ” id=”st-1185″>> acadiso3Ddwt button. This really is the fundamental 3D metrical template for AutoCAD which comes with the application. Step one in creating models is implementing of realistic textures and the fundamental modeling. Then using some light adds to the scene a sense of naturalism. AutoCAD has three fundamental kinds of light. Point Lights are like globes that are light, throwing shadows and light outwards in all ways. The Spot Light propagates shadows outwards in the source, is the second kind and, like its real world counterpart. The third kind of light is the Distant Light like Sun in that its shadows are. When adding light to your scene to divide the Display into four viewports via the View tab it is recommended. Keep three of this in and orthogonal Wireframe mode. The bottom right you could keep within an isometric view with the Naturalistic screening style. In this way, we can see the items in the scene from various paths concurrently. This really is particularly useful if you’ve got a dual display set up or a big display. Visit the Lights tab choose Create Light, subsequently Place, and to create a Spotlight and Turn Default Lighting off. Create a location, for example, 500. Alternatively, transfer it into place and click anywhere on the display. Name it Chief Light and hit the Enter key twice to see the light “gizmo” appearing. If needed you may transfer the light. Ensure the viewport that is right is chosen and click the Render button to depict the picture. As of this point, we may see the shadows are too dim, by which case we can add a gentler “fill light”, as follows Light” id=”st-410″>> Point. In the conventional photographic studio, this fill light is generally set to the principal light source at about fifty percent strength. We leave the model to compare the effect and could name this Fill Light. The resultant render is washed out or has two sets of shadows if, we should alter the lights. We may do so by clicking the little arrow button to open the Lights. Notice the properties also appear on the top of the right-hand side panels. Various values are revealed for the light’s Strength Variable, Location, Color, Attenuation (otherwise referred to as falloff) and Shadows. The Strength of the light may also alter here and turn the Shadows away. The lighting color could also alter in this place. It is best to keep the Principal light Intensity Variable at 2 or 1. We’d shut the properties to represent the picture again. Note the last few leaves appear at the base of the Output File. We can toggle through the list before choosing the preferred picture to compare the effects. Then either right-click or head to the File menu to save the picture as TIFF or a JPEG. JPEGs are not large in file size, great for first drafts, or to send to a website or a customer. Whereas TIFFs are as such, and quality is not bad for magazine or pamphlet demos. As a footnote, bear in mind that Distant Lights emulate Sun with concurrent shadows, but it is best to not use them with Photometric (real world) light. Additionally, notice that you just do not get a gizmo for Sun or a Direction Light. There are several options available for learning AutoCAD. Items made by students utilizing the student version of AutoCAD cannot be used for commercial purpose. Lessons in AutoCAD can assist an individual about what they will be using to learn a little. AutoCAD training enables pupils to analyze the dynamics of the building. Revit Tutorials if you are a beginner then Revit Tutorials info may function as the initial free on-line platform where you are able to start learning Autodesk Revit through video tutorials. AutoCAD is really a misnomer because there is nothing automatic about AutoCAD. Any Revit user is currently able to be excellent renderings with a few minutes of training. Revit makes it easy to do this. AutoCAD 2D has many characteristics and abilities. There are quite a few industries using AutoCAD applications daily. AutoCAD is, in addition, used to design extraordinary characters. AutoCAD is reasonably user-friendly, as it features built-in design layouts. Computer assisted drafting or generally known as he’s used for the development of items actual and virtual. Auto CAD is made of several characteristics architectural and structural domain names, including MEP. For this reason, AutoCAD users will not have a problem to work in progeCAD. In addition, you will find tools here to be able to assist you to modify your photo. The difficulty was not astonishingly difficult, the drawings were not coordinated. There is also a distinguishing 3D zoom effect. Remember that 3D animation is it is time intensive and distinguishing, and a rather complex occupation. 3D models are used in numerous industries. Being successful in 3D is not uncomplicated. Drawing a wedge is exceptionally much like drawing a box (because it’s essentially a sliced box). 3dsMax is among the most well-known 3D modeling, rendering, and animation applications. The DMX lighting software that is free is quite user-friendly and simple to learn, and also it can be mastered by the beginners in just the course of few hours, utilize the guidance supplied within the user guide which comes in reinforcement to the applications. Much like other online courses, taking an internet course in AutoCAD delivers a smattering of edges as well as some disadvantages. The first place to start seeking the optimal / optimally AutoCAD classes is online. Is the course is offering the latest version of the program. Provided that there’s also satisfactory customer care from the program programmer, video training could be absolutely acceptable and an exceptionally desirable system to learn. As a way to get a great understanding of the way to use equipment or software, it’s usually needed.

2019-04-18T10:24:35Z

http://www.nascencyproject.com/

Pediatric pituitary adenomas are rare, accounting for <3 % of all childhood intracranial tumors, the majority of which are prolactinomas. Consequently, they are often misdiagnosed as other suprasellar masses such as craniopharyngiomas in this age group. Whilst guidelines exist for the treatment of adult prolactinomas, the management of childhood presentations of these benign tumors is less clear, particularly when dopamine agonist therapy fails. Given their rarity, childhood-onset pituitary adenomas are more likely to be associated with a variety of genetic syndromes, the commonest being multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN-1). We present a case of an early-onset, treatment-resistant giant prolactinoma occurring in an 11-year-old peripubertal boy that was initially sensitive, but subsequently highly resistant to dopamine agonist therapy, ultimately requiring multiple surgical debulking procedures and proton beam irradiation. Our patient is now left with long-term tumor- and treatment-related neuroendocrine morbidities including blindness and panhypopituitarism. Only after multiple consultations and clinical data gained from 20-year-old medical records was a complex, intergenerationally consanguineous family history revealed, compatible with MEN-1, with a splice site mutation (c.784-9G > A) being eventually identified in intron 4 of the MEN1 gene, potentially explaining the difficulties in management of this tumor. Genetic counseling and screening has now been offered to the wider family. This case emphasizes the need to consider pituitary adenomas in the differential diagnosis of all pediatric suprasellar tumors by careful endocrine assessment and measurement of at least a serum prolactin concentration. It also highlights the lack of evidence for the optimal management of pediatric drug-resistant prolactinomas. Finally, the case we describe demonstrates the importance of a detailed family history and the role of genetic testing for MEN1 and AIP mutations in all cases of pediatric pituitary adenoma. Pituitary adenomas account for <3 % of all childhood intracranial tumors with an estimated incidence of 0.1 cases/million/year [1, 2]. Prolactin (PRL)-secreting tumors alone account for 50-70 % of pituitary adenomas in children <20 years of age [3–5]. These are further classified into microprolactinomas (≤1 cm in maximum dimensions), macroprolactinomas (>1 cm) and giant prolactinomas (>4 cm with a serum PRL of >5300-10600 mU/l) [6, 7]. First-line therapy consists of dopamine agonists such as cabergoline, with surgery and radiotherapy being reserved for drug-resistant tumors or neuro-ophthalmological emergencies. Whilst 20-30 % of patients with known multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN-1) develop prolactinomas [4, 8, 9], up to 6.5 % of sporadic pediatric prolactinomas are associated with previously undiagnosed MEN-1 . We report a patient presenting to our quaternary pediatric neuroendocrine and oncology units with a treatment-resistant giant prolactinoma. His complex genetic history and challenging management illustrates the necessity for thorough history-taking, specialist multidisciplinary management and the potential for long-term neuroendocrine morbidity in this rare tumor. An 11-year-old Middle Eastern boy was referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children with four years of headaches and 18 months of visual deterioration, previously investigated with a reportedly normal brain CT scan in his country of origin. There was no galactorrhea. At presentation he had a right-sided relative afferent pupillary defect, optic atrophy and could only perceive light with his right eye and count fingers with his left eye. Auxology was normal and he was in early puberty with testicular volumes of 4 mls bilaterally. Initial family history revealed an inter-generational multiply consanguineous family (Fig. 1a), with one maternal first half-cousin once removed treated with cabergoline at age 18 years and one paternal first half-cousin once removed undergoing transsphenoidal surgery at age 45 years, both for macroprolactinomas. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a large, avidly-enhancing heterogeneous sellar and suprasellar mass merging with the pituitary gland, compressing the optic chiasm and encasing both internal carotid arteries with a maximal transverse diameter of 5.5 cm (Fig. 2a-b). A provisional radiological diagnosis of craniopharyngioma was made with a plan for surgical resection. However, biochemical testing revealed marked hyperprolactinemia (PRL 23723 mU/l, normal range 55-318) leading to the revised diagnosis of a giant prolactinoma. Dynamic testing revealed deficiencies in growth hormone (GH, peak to glucagon stimulation 1.1 ng/ml; insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) 196 ng/ml, normal range 143-693) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH 3.7 mU/l, normal range <6.0; free thyroxine (fT4) 10.3 pmol/l, normal range 10.8-19.0) but normal hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (peak cortisol 516 nmol/l to synacthen stimulation) and -gonadal function (luteinizing hormone 0.3 U/l, follicle-stimulating hormone 0.9 U/l, testosterone 1.68 nmol/l). Our patient was commenced on 250 μg/week cabergoline and levothyroxine supplementation. Despite an initial excellent PRL reduction in response to therapy, his tumor became extremely drug-resistant despite cabergoline dose escalation to 3.5 mg/week (Fig. 2m). Multiple relapses threatening vision required two transcranial interhemispheric debulking procedures and adjuvant proton beam irradiation, with the second debulking and radiotherapy undertaken at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP, Fig. 2c-l). Tumor histology confirmed a prolactinoma with a high Ki67 index (11 %). During the second surgical debulking he experienced a preoperative anesthesia-related hemorrhagic stroke causing a transient left hemiparesis, and post-operatively lost all residual vision. He now has panhypopituitarism but has demonstrated declining PRL concentrations (500 mU/l) whilst maintained on 5 mg/week of cabergoline. His complex family history alerted clinicians to the likelihood of an underlying genetic diagnosis but despite repeated consultations with multiple specialists (HAS, MK, OJ) no common ancestor linking all three macroprolactinoma cases could be found. Genetic testing of our patient for both MEN1 and AIP mutations revealed a heterozygous MEN1 intronic splice site mutation (c.784-9G > A). This has previously been shown to result in alternative splicing, a premature stop codon and a truncated, inactive MENIN protein [11–13]. Subsequent questioning revealed a history of renal stones and primary hyperparathyroidism in our patient’s mother and two maternal aunts, as well as a history consistent with MEN-1 (macroprolactinoma, primary hyperparathyroidism and gastrinoma) in his deceased maternal grandmother (Fig. 1b) who had been managed by our adult colleagues in the United Kingdom two decades earlier. Genetic testing confirmed the same mutation in his sister, mother, maternal grandmother, one maternal aunt and her two children, but not in his father or his paternal uncle. Most recently, our patient has developed primary hyperparathyroidism, and a parathyroidectomy is being planned. He continues to undergo regular screening including gut hormone profiling and echocardiograms at CHOP, all of which have been normal thus far. We are in the process of collaboratively tracing and screening other asymptomatic relatives in the wider family at risk. The rarity of pediatric pituitary adenomas means that they are often not considered in the differential diagnosis of suprasellar tumors in this age group, leading to the potential misdiagnoses of craniopharyngioma or low-grade glioma, for which primary treatments are predominantly surgical, chemotherapeutic and/ or radiotherapeutic in nature. This case highlights the importance of a routine endocrine evaluation in all such cases, not only to document potential tumor-related pituitary dysfunction but also to identify functioning pituitary adenomas by measuring serum PRL, GH and adrenocorticotropic hormone, particularly as non-functioning pituitary adenomas are rare in children [14, 15, 5]. It also emphasizes that macroprolactinomas often present with non-endocrine raised intracranial pressure symptoms particularly in prepubertal males [16–19, 15]. It is important to distinguish true prolactinomas from hyperprolactinemia from other causes, but concentrations >5300 mU/l are usually diagnostic . In all suspected cases, screening for macroprolactinemia , as well as serial serum dilution to exclude the hook effect – where extreme hyperprolactinemia causes falsely low assay results through interference of antibody-antigen complex formation [6, 21] – should always be performed. Medical monotherapy with dopamine agonists is recommended as first-line treatment for all prolactinomas due to their excellent efficacy, likely preservation of residual pituitary function and low side-effect profile [7, 22]. Cabergoline in particular has an established record of being better-tolerated than bromocriptine with higher rates of resolution . Cardiac valve regurgitation with high cumulative doses (4000 mg) has been described in Parkinson syndrome patients , but this is usually not reached with prolactinomas, as demonstrated by several adult studies [7, 24–27]. However, young patients such as ours commencing treatment earlier in life are more likely to reach this critical threshold, and at the current dose of 5 mg/week our patient will be exposed to 4000 mg of cabergoline within 16 years post-diagnosis, unless doses can be reduced in response to the efficacy of radiotherapy. Dose-safety profiles have additionally not been established in children, in whom toxicity even at moderate cabergoline doses may be increased. Quinagolide, a more recent non-ergot derived dopamine agonist is purported to have fewer side effects but to our knowledge has not been used in children . The mechanism for development of drug-resistance is not well understood, and is thought to relate to dopamine D2 receptor downregulation . MEN-1 is associated with larger tumors (84 % vs. 24 %) and treatment-resistance (56 % vs. 10 %) [29, 9]. Second-line management options for drug-resistant adult tumors include maximizing cabergoline dose to 11 mg/week, transsphenoidal or transcranial surgical resection, radiotherapy and the alkylating agent temozolomide [7, 6, 30, 31]. However, knowledge of the maximum safe therapeutic cabergoline dose, speed of dose escalation, long-term toxicities of temozolomide, and experience in pediatric transsphenoidal resections is limited. Consequently, optimal management of pediatric pituitary adenomas remains unclarified, suggesting the need for treatment in specialist neuroendocrine units with both adult and pediatric experience. Several authors report long-term tumor- and/ or treatment-related morbidities including hypopituitarism, obesity, dyslipidemia, infertility and reduced bone mineral density [16–18, 32, 6, 3]. 9-22 % of pediatric pituitary adenomas are associated with genetic tumor-predisposing syndromes, the most well-known of which is MEN-1 with an estimated prevalence of 0.02-0.2 per 1000 [10, 29]. Whilst primary hyperparathyroidism is the commonest presenting manifestation, 17 % will present with a pituitary adenoma (classically a prolactinoma) . As illustrated here, MEN-1 is an autosomal dominant condition characterized additionally by enteropancreatic tumors, non-functioning adrenocortical adenomas, angiofibromas, collagenomas, thyroid adenomas, meningiomas and other neuroendocrine tumors . Other genetic endocrine syndromes associated with pituitary tumors are the familial isolated pituitary adenoma (FIPA) syndrome (of which AIP mutations are a subset), multiple endocrine neoplasia type 4 (CDKN1B), Carney complex (PRKAR1A), McCune-Albright syndrome (GNAS), SDH-related pituitary adenoma syndrome (SDHB, SDHC, SDHD), neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and DICER1 syndrome [33, 34, 4, 35–37]. Several authors strongly suggest testing for both MEN1 and AIP germline mutations in all pediatric patients with PRL- and GH-secreting pituitary adenomas as they may be index cases for a given family [10, 33, 29]. A useful algorithm has been proposed by Korbonits et al. (2012). This is particularly important given that current guidelines recommend testing first-degree relatives of index cases and performing annual biochemical screening in carriers for insulinomas, PRL- and GH-secreting pituitary adenomas from age 5 years and for hyperparathyroidism from age 8 years . Pituitary adenomas must be considered in the differential diagnosis of all pediatric suprasellar masses, therefore mandating a detailed endocrine review and an accurate serum PRL measurement as management differs markedly from that of other tumors. Optimal management of dopamine agonist-resistant tumors in childhood remains unclear. A detailed family history of brain tumors and MEN-1-associated symptoms such as renal stones must be obtained and may require several consultations before being fully elucidated. We recommend that all children with PRL- or GH-secreting pituitary adenomas undergo MEN1 and AIP mutation testing, with subsequent screening of first-degree relatives if found positive. Written informed consent was obtained from the parent of the patient for publication of this case report and any accompanying images. A copy of the written consent is available for review by the Editor-in-Chief of this journal. We are very grateful to the patient and his family for consenting to the publication of his clinical and family history data. We are also thankful to Sian Conner, Niloofar Bozorgi and Rhonda Thomas for their assistance in obtaining clinical notes and radiological images. HWG & CB obtained informed patient/parental consent, collated clinical, biochemical, radiological and genetic data, as well as drafted the manuscript. OJ was involved in the initial surgical care of the patient. MAL was involved in the endocrine management and follow-up of the patient, provided useful clinical, biochemical and radiological data. MK was involved in the genetic diagnosis, identifying and tracing of the family history, counseling and care of the patient and his family, providing detailed genetic and family data. HAS was involved in the endocrine diagnosis and management of the patient, interpretation of endocrine biochemistry and provided useful clinical data. All authors contributed to the edition and finalization of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

2019-04-21T04:58:26Z

https://ijpeonline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13633-015-0011-5

The global media economy is being transformed. With major changes in the way stories are produced, circulated and consumed, today’s visual journalists and storytellers need new skills to meet the challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. Students on the MA in International Multimedia Journalism learn how the new media economy works and develop high-level skills in audio, photography, video, writing, infographics, social media and editing. Based in Beijing, China, with the degree awarded by the University of Bolton in the UK, the MA in International Multimedia Journalism offers a unique, cosmopolitan approach to visual storytelling. The School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University was founded in April 2002. Inheriting Tsinghua’s tradition of comprehensive and interdisciplinary education, TSJC aims to give students world-class journalism and communication education guided by advanced educational concepts and international standards. Every year, hundreds of graduates leave TSJC to take top-level journalism and communication jobs in and outside China. Students at TSJC are offered abundant opportunities to not only sharpen their professional skills, but also develop acute social responsibility crucial for their future success. In line with programs at Columbia University and the University of Missouri, the School of Journalism and Communication has developed a“fundamental but practical” curriculum, with international and practice-oriented features. It has adopted the “Platform Module” curricular system used worldwide and offers small-group classes, along with both English-immersion and bilingual courses. A four-year program of Journalistic English is currently being developed. Against the backdrop of globalization, the School is committed to training high-caliber professional journalists with an international outlook, strong communication skills, mastery of modern broadcasting technology, and an innovative spirit. The School of International Journalism at Shanghai International Studies University trains and educates students to become accomplished journalistic professionals, and prepares them with foreign language and journalistic skills as well as a global vision to achieve quality journalism practices in media organizations both in China and beyond. The School has cherished a global teaching and research tradition within the Chinese journalism system that was started in 1983 when the Program of International Journalism was set up as the first multi-disciplinary program at this language university and has since become one of the top-notch international journalism programs in China. The School offers two undergraduate degree programs and one MA degree programs. The undergraduate degree programs include International Journalism and Internet & New Media, which will start enrollment in September 2014. Its MA program has concentrated on global communication theories, English news writing and editing as well as global public opinion & media. During the past three decades the School has educated more than 1000 graduates and prided itself on their competence, devotion and reputation showcased in the media community in Shanghai, China and the world. Amid innovations spawned by digital technology, heightened restraints to press freedom, and the surge in news and issues with cross-border ramifications, the idea of reviving “pure” journalism education emerged in the agenda of the Ateneo de Manila University. Added impetus came from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which has an international reputation for development work in emerging democracies. Seeking to help raise the standards of Asian journalism, the foundation entrusted the Ateneo, a long-time partner in social development, with its regional journalism training program. In June 2000, the Konrad Adenauer Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University was inaugurated. It was envisioned as a hub of journalism education in the region, an oasis of learning for working journalists. In May 2006, “Asian” was added to the center’s name to accurately reflect the true geographical scope of its mandate. Today, the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University (ACFJ) promotes good journalism by providing training to and educational opportunities for working journalists in Asia. The Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC) is a Knowledge Management Center organized in 1980 as a graduate school of journalism, founded on the philosophy that communication is a vital development resource to be used to advance the common good. Today AIJC has a solid record of more than thirty years in the communication field – as a graduate school for communicators and journalists, a center for continuing education in journalism, communication, and knowledge management, and a research and consulting firm advocating policies and implementing programs and projects that address development issues and concerns both at the levels of national decision-making and community-based initiatives. The name Pathshala comes from the ancient education system that prevailed in South Asia. It brings to mind classes held underneath a large tree; conjuring up learning spaces without walls, in the cool shade of its leaves. The South Asian Media Institute not only allows students to explore the world of image making but provides them opportunities to question beyond the confines of the discipline. The conceptual absence of classroom walls enables 1st year students and 3rd year students to attend the same classes and work together on collaborative projects together with visiting faculty. This enhances and complements each student’s learning experience. The institute started in 1998 in conjunction with a three-year World Press Photo (WPP) educational initiative. It was launched to coincide with the Dhaka’s annual WPP exhibition. This exhibition was also replicated in other countries like Peru, Bosnia and Zimbabwe. The British Council, The Thomson Foundation and Panos South Asia supported this initiative of WPP and Drik Picture Library Ltd. The first group of six students is now among prominent photographers whose photographs have been published in some of the leading publications worldwide. From its modest beginnings Pathshala expanded attracting students from within Bangladesh as well as outside. Many of the graduated photographers have become internationally renowned photographers and the number of students that have joined the World Press Photo Masterclass is unusual for any photography education in the world. On 22 March 2010, Pathshala launched a new Department: Broadcast and Multimedia. This department currently offers basic training in filmmaking, cinematography, video editing, motion graphics, animation, news presentation and reporting. This media institute designs the courses and training programs for local and international clients: individuals, companies, and organizations. Part of the long-term plan is to disseminate our unique expertise across the region through master classes, special events, and conferences focused on the issues faced by journalists and media professionals in South Asia. The photography department of Counter Foto was born on November 23, 2012. But within such a short period of time, it has become the most sought after school as the good words about its world class teaching system is spreading around. Having many Master photographers of the world involved in the teaching faculty, the photography department has more than twenty local teachers all of whom are crème de la crème of Bangladeshi Photography. Journalism was the first course offered by the Department of Communication when it was founded in 1968, and remains the best-known course in the University. The course became a Department of its own within the new School of Communication in 1991. Today the Department of Journalism offers three concentrations in its three-year undergraduate programme: Chinese Journalism, International Journalism and Broadcast Journalism. The programme’s special characteristic is that it emphasises both theory and practice, covering professional journalistic knowledge, academic subjects, critical thinking, analytical skills and media ethics. Graduates of the Journalism programme fill many leadership roles in the Hong Kong media industry and the Department continues to be an important and valued source of recruits to the journalism profession. Creative Media is all about human creativity responding to the technological, social and environmental challenges of our time. It is a catalyst for new synergies across the sciences, arts, and humanities. By experiencing and thinking in new ways, creative media provides students with a dynamic and responsible context for innovation in a digital world. It creates promise and gives meaning to our lives. City University of Hong Kong’s School of Creative Media is recognized to be an international hub for discovery and innovation in Asia. Here creativity is nurtured as a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s social and economic advancement in the 21st Century. It is a place where students from across the globe can encounter the wealth of opportunity afforded by digital media, and where graduates attain those artistic, intellectual and technical skills that enable them to take positions of creative leadership in a global society. The Journalism and Media Studies Centre brings professional journalism education to Hong Kong’s premier university, creating an environment for vibrant interaction among students from Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia and the rest of the world. The curriculum, with instruction in English, is designed to produce graduates for all types of local, regional and international media, whether the graduates ultimately practice in English, Chinese, or some other language. From day one, students develop convergent skills enabling them operate comfortably in all aspects of the industry, ranging from print, audio, video, multi-media to online journalism. In 2006, we drew on the success of our Thai language program to enact an international English program, known as the Bachelor’s of Arts program in Journalism and Mass Media, or B.J.M. Even in this short time, our graduates and current students have won prestigious awards, they have been accepted at top graduate programs throughout the globe – in countries such as the US, UK, France, Korea, to name a few – and our graduates have also made profound impacts at top print and broadcast media companies, as well as advertising agencies, and PR and marketing firms. We are proud of our achievements thus far, but we will not rest on our laurels as we continue to work hard to provide our students the best education we can. We boast top-notch modern facilities and excellent professors to ensure that our graduates have the proper foundation to enjoy flourishing careers in whatever area they choose, along with a deep academic knowledge, a useful skill set, and a strong moral compass. And as the world of communication and media studies continues to develop through technological advances, we continue to stay ahead of the curve so our students are prepared to become thought and communication leaders in society. The Graduate School of Journalism seeks to cultivate professionals with a practical approach to ethics, knowledge and technology. It aims to produce outstanding journalists who distinguish themselves in terms of specialized knowledge, who are able to promote public communication and thereby create a bridge between specialized knowledge and civil society. At the same time, the Graduate School of Journalism cultivates those who will promote journalism-related research and those who will instruct future generations of researchers and journalists. Today, communication is getting increasingly digitalized and diversified while culture and knowledge based products are dominating the world’s market. By studying and teaching the theories and practice of communication, the Graduate School of Mass Communication strives to nurture journalists who will lead in setting up a desirable journalism culture in Korea. The school also gives re-education to professional journalists on the rapidly changing media environment. The ACJ Programme seeks to combine the “How To” aspect of journalism with a critical and reflective “Why” perspective which enables the young journalist to keep up with the demands made by a dynamic work environment and, as importantly, by a changing society. The Department of Media and Communication (DMC) was established in 2001, under the Royal University of Phnom Penh, primarily as an academic training ground for journalists and communication practitioners. Since its inception, DMC has received funding from Konrad Adenauer Foundation and technical support from German Development Service (DED), German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD), Ohio University, Mittweida University, University of Hamburg, Ateneo de Manila University, and DW. Throughout the years, DMC has evolved from merely a school for undergraduate course in media and communication into a more dynamic institute in terms of teaching and learning, social issues, and research. We have at the moment a balanced mix of international and local educators, are running Cambodia Communication Institute as a journalism training center, and have regularly been organizing workshops for working professionals in such topics as online blogging, community media, journalism for peace and development, and documentary production. DW Akademie is Germany’s leading organization for international media development. Our experts have been supporting and developing free and independent media since 1965. We support the development of free and transparent media systems, quality journalism and advanced media skills. We conduct long-term projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Central Asia and work closely with local partners. DW Akademie focuses on professionalizing media workers and managers, and training up-and-coming journalists. We offer intercultural and professional media training workshops in our centers in Bonn and Berlin, as well as traineeships for future DW journalists. DW Akademie also established the “International Media Studies” Master’s program in 2009 which combines the areas of media development, media management, journalism and communications. Mass Communication takes specialist areas which are normally studied in isolation and combines them in ways that offer an abundance of choice. You will develop your own program of study to meet your own specific interests and needs. This course will enable you to think and study across more than one area in the rapidly expanding world of media and corporate communication. It will provide you with the key technological skills and knowledge for work in corporate media and communication fields, with breadth across a number of disciplines. Your learning in your chosen streams will be underpinned by core studies in theory, ethics and critique of media, communication and information. At the Singapore crossroads, communication teachers and scholars from around the world have coverged to form an outstanding faculty. The school has a faculty that takes teaching seriously, pursues individual and collaborative research and creativity activity and builds ties with the media and Information industries in Singapore and beyond. It was on January 2001 that I founded College of Journalism and Mass Communication (CJMC) with mere $250 and started courses at the Master’s level in Mass Communication and Journalism (MA MCJ), Masters in Development communication and Bachelor’s in Mass Communication and Journalism (BA MCJ) – the first by a private college – and we take pride in the fact that it remains the only college focusing entirely on media education in the country. We are pleased to say that around 400 of our graduates and post-graduates are serving the nation as media communication professionals.

2019-04-18T15:10:48Z

http://asiajournalist.com/?page_id=95

The popular principle is applied here: ' ' for the friends the favors of the law, for the enemies the severities of lei' '. As we confrot in them only with the severities, we finish discovering that we, the people, are the enemies. As only ' ' eles' ' if they benefit, we can imagine who are the friends It was therefore that the undersigned one asked for adhesion of much people so that we could come back to see some light in one another tip of tunnel. But, sad destination ours, the result left what worse the order. The law was made, but who it made it made it become wormy, therefore return against us, it attacks our intelligence. You unite is not only this, many other laws they attack in them and they attack our intelligence, to favor the friends We asked for an efficient law, that this said basically: this cannot be candidate because it deceived the voters. E the law was made, but with requintes of malandragem to take care of to the exceptions: ' ' It is forbidden not to be in the cases of ' '. because of the exceptions the malandros will remain in the race to the costs of thresholds and resources and others balangands that the legal system was accumulating throughout these years. Let us notice that they are accurately the ones that would have to be outside of the electoral race, for being dirty, that the breaches and subtilities of the law are benefited of. These are the ones that if they surround of legal assessors to burlar the law, benefiting themselves of its points defective. We go to say this of another form: they are the ones that possess pendencies with justice that if benefits of the imperfections of the law. The ones that is with the clean fiche obtain the candidacy register. The distribution of income in our country always was something of divergence between the leaderships Brazilian politics, the programs of decentralization of the income it Brazil in its majority favors richest spreading the poverty in all domestic territory, mainly in the regions North and Northeast, the concentration of industries of durable goods of consumption as manufacture of automobiles, industrial machines and etc. It always was in the South region and Southeastern, happily in recent years the Federal Government seems to awake for this plague that as much hurts the Brazilians, in the Northeast Region already is possible to see the SUAPE shipyard where the development starts to appearing and the pernambucanos had passed to better have a financial capital, more money in the hands. Click Richard Blumenthal for additional related pages. The power of purchase of the Brazilians is limited, because the diligent citizen depends on favorable politics, when the individual wants to buy some thing of great value as an car, for example it still more appeals to the loan being dependent of the rich one, with what it surplus starts to live in deplorable needy situation, while the politicians if organize to develop the income distribution, the common citizen suffers and passes humilhao seeing its name negativado next to the SPC and Serasa.So as many political parties dividing the capital of Brazil that surplus time not to promote one politics of distribution of comfortable income for the Brazilian people, all the programs created to favor the minor people purchasing power esbarra in the bred bureaucracy visors rich hands of and the powerful ones of this country in order to profit and to increase its wealth on the back of the diligent poor persons who are the great majority of the population, being thus, the income at the hands of the rich ones increasing poverty in all Brazil, more well-known in the regions North and Northeast. Thanks to God this situation tends to diminish, exactly with the great amount of industries located in So Paulo and Rio, the Federal Government the State one had together with created the SUAPE in Pernambuco aiming at the development of the region the end of social inaquality in Brazil, the hope cannot ahead die of as much nonsense existing politician in the country, the people passing hunger and fighting for the reduction of the poverty, this yes is will of living, change in the congress, construction in the Handle of Saint Agustinho, more income, more good wage and respect to the diligent man.. Keep up on the field with thought-provoking pieces from James Donovan Goldman. A reflection of a journalist in front of what is happening around press freedom in Latin America, as in the case of Honduras where it is violating the constitution and in particular Article 72 of the Constitution, and as journalists free and independent support the statement of President Enrique Santos Calderon of the SIP which he described as absurd as the de facto government’s decision in Honduras to suspend public liberties including freedom of expression.) The practitioner performs a work of journalistic inquiry, investigation, research to report regularly to a target audience target audience. But the question raised is: is journalism? If we decompose the question in two parts: 1. is? 2. Periodismo? Can she give us the response parameters to find a definition that minimally we justify the construction of a desirable and acceptable exposure by various academics and practical work journalism. When asked by the is? a “It is asking for the basics, the support which is essential to an object and how it can transcend its existence, then the basis of journalism, her, sustaining the human capacity to communicate through different languages, but what distinguishes journalism from the media in general, is its fundamental purpose, to act on l inform human communities as large and more or less breaking parameters of the households. The more widely information spreads can talk about journalism. Next period is: Human communication carried human groups, which may perceive different positions toward which human action in all political, economic, social or cultural knowledge that will enhance information for the collective and the individual perceives news reporting can decide and act accordingly. Journalism is the development of effective communication, which allows freedom of expression in a sovereign exercise which can be criticized, I support self-critical, making human beings interact and find mechanisms that allow this to resolve their conflicts. But journalism requires Judgment and social responsibility and should be subject to union self-regulation. The Social Movements and its Origins the category is ample and can congregate, depending on the criteria of analysis used, organizations directed toward the promotion of moral, ethical and legal interests. Although the social movements to be fruit of definitive historical and social contexts, two classic conceptual definitions can be found that they are: The first one of them is of control of historical action of Alain Touraine, that it prefers to study the new social movements, that, in the tripping of new paradigmas of the call globalization strengthen identities and intervene with agendas politics of the society, and resalta the movements feminists, racial, partner-ambient, sexual and for-religious that through them social minorities had become forces politics and object of social sciences and human beings. second of Manuel Castells, that resalta the social movements as practical contradictory systems social in accordance with agricultural the urban social order/, whose nature is to transform the structure of the system in which he is inserted, either through revolutionary actions or not, in a class representative correlation and last instance, the state power. We live in a country where it continues in vigor an official explanation that does not have the Brazilian people as subject of its construction. Although to have innumerable social groups Brazil continues to be understood by the logic of the conqueror. Etnocntricas and authoritarian conceptions find, for incredible that it can seem, points of contact with the thought of progressive intellectuals, and with this it appeared some chains in some areas of the thought, that had searched ' ' resgatar' ' the originary peoples. The meeting of the gold, metal, only happened in the end of century XVII, and for the sedentary ones still it took advantage to the form of traditional sobrevimento and the manual one. While the Spaniard had appealed the desorganizao of the economic activities, the Portuguese, without conditions to carry through an ownership accomplish, had walked gradually for the submission of native societies to its designs and with this caused the commerce of wood-Brazil, had searched to complement this fished activity with the convivncia with the agricultural system of small pepper productions, maize, cassava, fruits and of originria extration.

2019-04-22T17:11:55Z

http://www.redteamone.com/tag/philosophy/

Over the last 10 years or so Amy Seimetz as emerged as one of the most interesting actors and filmmakers out there. She made her mark on horror fans with a dazzling break-out turn in Adam Wingard’s A Horrible Way To Die, starred in Shane Carruth’s superb (and uncategorisable) Upstream Color and appeared in the likes of You’re Next and The Sacrament. She recently co-created and co-directed the acclaimed TV series of The Girlfriend Experience, and has been making an impact in big mainstream movies like Alien: Covenant and TV shows like Stranger Things. Now, Seimetz is starring as Rachel Creed in Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s remake of Pet Sematary, diving into extremely dark material as the Creed family is faced with the dire consequences of ignoring the rule that “sometimes dead is better…”, and we took the chance to talk all things King. What was it about this new take that appealed to you? I was sort of pushed by Dennis and Kevin to do it and I was a big fan of their first film, Starry Eyes, I just really liked how they dealt with tone and atmosphere and genre in general so I was excited to see what they would do with their remake. In addition to that, the conversations that we had before I agreed to do it were exploring what was already so strong in the book. Even though it’s genre and scary, it was trying to bring out the honesty of grief and loss in the characters and that was so interesting to me. Were you familiar with the story already? So I’d read the book before I saw the movie which was kind of around the same time when the movie came out, ’88 or ’89, I saw the movie as an eight year old and was extremely disturbed both times! I saw the movie in the theatre with my mom. [Watching the movie] is a different relationship, reading a book is so intimate and you’re left with your own thoughts with the book, it’s like a personal relationship…which is very disturbing when you’re eight and you read something so honest and scary, and not scary necessarily in a zombie way but scary in an “Oh my god, adults are really fucked up!” way! And then of course the original movie being such a great horror iconic horror movie and so fun, I had a different relationship with the movie. It was interesting because I wasn’t sure if I would have directed it that way! Maybe it was the first thought that I had because it was the first time I had read a book and then watched the movie… But I loved the ending scene, when I decided to do it my sister was like “Oh my god, do you get to do that scene where your eyeball’s falling out when you kiss your husband?!?” She was very excited about it! These very, very honest moments in the book that I find incredibly intimate, it’s really well written and it’s more of a character study and a study on family and relationships than it is even a genre book. Because the horror doesn’t really kick in until later, you know, you’re so intimate with this couple and this guy who’s a husband and a father and you’re in his head. And once it gets into the grieving and talking about loss, I just found it to be very honest and accurate in a lot of ways. Even with the character, her desire to deny that death is coming or that death is inevitable. Just that avoidance that she has is really interesting. Rachel has a lot of trauma in her past but she keeps it bottled up. What was your way in for the character? In particular there’s this one passage that I always point to in the book when she reveals to Louis what it was like growing up for the first time and she hasn’t really talked about it with him before. And once she starts talking about it’s almost like the dam has broken and this flood of memories coming out about her sister. Throughout the book she wants to deny it and then there’s this one passage where she starts sharing with her husband what happened. And it’s so descriptive and so moment-to-moment in her behaviour of what that’s like, she goes from laughing to crying to anger, all of the emotions that you have within grieving and trauma, this rollercoaster of emotions. I just found that extremely helpful and extremely insightful into exploring the character so it’s not just one note, so it isn’t just always “Oh, I’m so traumatised’ and just crying all the time. That grief comes in so many different shapes and forms, it comes in maniacal laughter sometimes. Sometimes dark, inappropriate observations that you say out loud, to find the different shades of grieving and trauma in Rachel was where I was interested but that passage helped a lot in the book. We were so excited when John Lithgow was announced as Jud! What was it like working with him? I’m so glad that you’re so excited about John Lithgow! He is the best. I keep saying this and I really hope that people don’t think I’m just saying this because when people talk about people in interviews they’re like “Oh he’s the best!” But he really is the best! Maybe one of my favourite human beings I’ve ever met. Everything that you would want John Lithgow to be, John Lithgow is. The kindest, and warmest and smartest. He never complains, is always a professional, is always a joy to be around and in addition to that obviously he’s done so many iconic performances that he was a delight to work with. How did you find the process of working with joint directors on this? It was interesting because I really liked Starry Eyes and I hadn’t worked with co-directors before. And admittedly going into it I was very wary of it as a director myself because everything’s filtered through me and I’m in control! But they’ve got it down, they’ve got their whole co-directing down to an art. It’s interesting because their temperaments are very different but each person has their own way of directing to this cohesive vision of the piece. Dennis is very into rhythm and the musicality of a performance, of hitting a mark and hitting this beat and hitting this line at this point in sort of what I would describe as the musicality of a genre performance. Whereas Kevin gives these very specific notes, like “Maybe if you hold your hand right here this will put your body in such a way that will evoke a specific performance.” So he’s much more into these very specific notes but each of those notes are adding to the bigger piece that is their shared vision for the film, it’s just a different approach to it and a different way of directing but the final thing that they’re trying to get to, they’re very much on the same page. I never saw them disagree with anything that we were trying to do. There was never any argument, they work extremely well together. Your career is obviously not limited to horror and genre movies but you’ve done some amazing work in it. Is there something in particular that you like exploring in this area? I’m attracted to genre because you can get weird with it and you can explore these topics like grief and loss in extremely creative ways and it doesn’t feel melodramatic but you can go hard towards melodrama. It’s very heightened situations and you can explore these topics without it feeling preachy or pedantic. You can just go to these really weird dark places and get kind of abstract in a way without losing an audience. You can hold your audience through really artful and bizarre and dark twists and turns in a way that with straight drama you might lose your audience. Because you’re working with this trope or construct of genre you can kind of get away with exploring extremely weird and uncharted territory while still holding your audience and bringing them on an exciting ride. You’ve recently worked on some huge studio movies and shows. How do you find the experience of going from an indie set to a mega-budget production? But my very first day of shooting Alien: Covenant in New Zealand, I was so nervous and it was Ridley Scott, he’s amazing and lovely but I was so nervous. Not only that, but the whole day was only me, shooting only me alone. The very first day of shooting on this giant movie, it was just me alone on a planet tinkering at my spaceship. Which…that sentence alone is hilarious! [laughs] And so I was really nervous but it sort of dawned on me and I talked to Ridley about it, no matter what the size of the movie, once they say “action” it always just comes down to the actor and the camera and the sound. It just goes straight to the basics really quickly. So in terms of the difference in performing for an indie movie or a giant studio movie, once the camera starts rolling it’s very quickly the same exact thing, you’re bringing the same exact thing to the screen. Even if they have magnificent toys to support the whole thing.

2019-04-22T00:23:57Z

https://www.scifinow.co.uk/interviews/amy-seimetz-on-pet-sematary-reading-stephen-king-way-too-young-and-going-to-dark-places/

The 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 39th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 12 and 13 June 1971. It was the ninth round of the 1971 International Championship for Makes. Although there were few accidents this year, there were many cars delayed or forced to retire with mechanical problems and only twelve cars were classified at the finish. Winners, at a record speed, were Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko in their Team Martini Porsche 917. With the imminent ban of engines over 3-litres for the upcoming 1972 season, the FIA made no changes to their standing regulations. The Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) likewise made very few changes. The experiment of the standing-start in echelon from the previous year was discarded. This 2-by-2 rolling start behind a pace-car became the most preferred way, which remains a tradition. That now allowed an Armco guardrail to be erected between the pits and the main straight, greatly increasing the safety of the pit-crews. With four victories to date in the 1971 Championship, the JW Automotive team were favourites for outright victory. They certainly had the strongest driver line-up with Pedro Rodriguez/Jackie Oliver and by Jo Siffert and Derek Bell in langhecks. Their third team car, a 917K, was driven by 1970 race-winner Richard Attwood with Herbert Müller. The cars and equipment of the previous year's successful Porsche Salzburg team was purchased for the Martini Racing Team by Conte Gregorio Rossi di Montelera (of the Martini & Rossi company). They entered three cars – a long-tail for Vic Elford/Gérard Larrousse (winners at Sebring and the Nürburgring) and a magnesium-alloy chassis short-tail for Gijs van Lennep/Helmut Marko. (JWA was not offered these experimental options) The third was an experimental short-tail version. The 917/20 was built as a test-bed for future Can-Am parts and aerodynamic low-drag concepts. Shorter and much wider than the 917K, it was designed and tested by Robert Choulet and the SERA wind tunnel, after their other work on the 917. Nicknamed “the Pig” by the company, it was driven by Reinhold Joest/Willi Kauhsen. Following up the psychedelic paintjob of their car the previous year Martini, with tongue in cheek, had the chunky car painted in pink for the race with names of pieces of meat written across it. Between them, the customer teams put up a competent challenge to Porsche. The North American Racing Team (NART) had three entries. The Penske team, very competitive at the American rounds of the championship, arrived on one of the NART entry tickets. Their chassis was made by Holman & Moody and the engine prepared by Can-Am V8 specialist Traco (claiming 614 bhp). A number of quick-change modifications were added for wheels, brakes and refuelling to save valuable minutes in the pits. The blue, Sunoco-sponsored, car was driven by Mark Donohue/David Hobbs. The regular NART 512M also had a Traco engine and was driven by Sam Posey/Tony Adamowicz. And there was an open-top, spyder, version was for Masten Gregory/George Eaton. The Scuderia Filipinetti also entered a much-modified Ferrari. Known as the “512F”, it was designed by former Ferrari racing engineer/driver Mike Parkes it had a bigger rear-wing and used the Porsche 917 windscreen which was 120mm narrower, allowing for better water- and oil-cooler placement. With regular co-driver Jo Bonnier unavailable for personal reason, Henri Pescarolo was brought in as his co-driver. José Juncadella of Escuderia Montjuich had employed 1964-winner Nino Vaccarella. Ecurie Francorchamps, Georg Loos and Corrado Manfredini also returned with their modified cars. David Piper’s entry was used by American privateer David Weir who had bought the spare car off Steve McQueen's Solar Productions film company. Just after the 1970 Le Mans, Chrysler completed the takeover of Simca creating Chrysler Europe, and this also meant the Matra company was renamed Matra-Simca. Matra entered only one 660 for its F1 drivers Chris Amon and Jean-Pierre Beltoise. Beltoise had recently recovered his racing license after investigation in an accident at January's Buenos Aires 1000km that had killed Ferrari driver Ignazio Giunti. After a poor race the previous year, the engine was strengthened and now put out 420 bhp. While Guy Ligier’s GT car was on hold pending homologation, he entered a one-off special – the JS3. Fitted with the Ford-Cosworth DFV F1 engine (that only arrived at the start of race-week, making its Le Mans debut) that was limited to 8800 rpm, allowing around 400 hp. The car had finished second in the Test Weekend race, and for this race was driven by former Matra team manager Claude LeGuezec and Patrick Depailler. Against the French prototypes were a collection of privateer Porsche 908s, including French importer Auguste Veuillet's Sonauto car that had won the three-hour race at the Test Weekend. The 3-litre flat-8 was beginning to show its age and only put out 350 bhp, well below the French competition. The under-2 litre classes in both Group 5 and 6 were poorly supported, with no entries in the Sports category. Team Huron could not supply their new cars, so Guy Edwards took one of their entry spots with his Lola T212. With no Chevrons present, its only competition was an older Porsche 907 from the André Wicky team. In the GT category, the Grand Touring trophy was split into over- and under-2.0 litre classes. In the Over-2 litre class, the two French Corvettes were set to take on the veritable army of privateer Porsche 911s. Once again, rally-specialist Henri Greder and Claude Aubriet's Ecurie Léopard bought their Chevrolet Corvettes as the biggest cars in the entry list. Greder also made waves by nominating his French female rally-driver teammate, Marie-Claude Beaumont, as his co-driver. Female racers had been banned after the death of Annie Bousquet in the 1956 12 Hours of Reims. The American Troy Promotions team had also intended to bring its two Yenko-prepared cars over after strong showings in the American races but were later withdrawn. Due to insufficient production, Ferrari's current GT car, the 365 GTB/4 “Daytona” had to run in the Group 5 Sports category. Effectively a GT road-car, its 4.4-litre V12 (developing 350 bhp) put it head-to-head against the Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s. NART entered a single car for Bob Grossman and the team-owner's son, Luigi Chinetti Jr. Porsche had now made available a new 2.4-litre engine, alongside the current 2.25 and 2.2-litre versions. It developed 245 bhp that now got the car up to about 255 kp/h (160 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight.< Eight of these uprated Porsches were present, including ones for race-winner turned team manager Masten Gregory and the German Kremer Racing team. Kremer himself rejoined Nic Koob in another 2.4, along with Günther Huber in what was the first example of a triple-driver combination. In a reduced under-2 litre class, the Écurie Léopard tried taking on the Porsches with a 1.6-litre Alpine A110. The test weekend in April had shown the chassis development on the 917 had made them even faster. Jackie Oliver becoming the first person to record a 250 kp/h lap with an incredible time of 3:13.6 equating to 250.5 kp/h (155.6 mph). His 917L had reached 396 kp/h (246 mph) down the Mulsanne Straight (In June, Rodríguez followed up that form with a 3:13.9 in the JWA Porsche to put a 917 on pole.). This was underlined by Vic Elford coming in second, going five seconds faster using the same car as he had the previous year. After a problematic practice session, Penske's Mark Donohue was the fastest of the Ferraris, in fourth just ahead of the second Martini Porsche and Vaccarella in the Spanish Ferrari. The pink Martini special was a strong 7th with a 3:21.1. After blowing their engine up on Thursday, the Filipinetti 512F team was able to borrow one from the Penske crew and with it they qualified 8th. Likewise, the Piper Ferrari had problems in practice. The clutch had broken on Wednesday and on Thursday the car kept jumping out of gear. At one point Chris Craft was approaching Maison Blanche at 280kph when it skipped into neutral. Despite that he was able to get 9th on the grid. Fastest of the Prototypes was the Matra in 16th (3:31.9), well ahead of the Ligier in 17th (3:39.8), while the Léopard Corvette was the fastest GT in 26th (4:09.5). Despite stormy weather through the week, the practice sessions had been dry and race-day was sunny. Honorary starter this year was Hollywood actor Steve McQueen with the opening of his film “Le Mans” that had been shot with footage from the 1970 race. Left in the pits was the Piper Ferrari and the NART Ferrari spyder with fuel system problems. The Piper car fired up and joined the back of the field, but was delayed again at 5pm when the fuel pump packed up again dropping it well down the field. It was worse for the NART car though, which came straight in at the end of the formation lap and did not get out until a half-hour had passed. It then only managed 7 laps until retired at 7.40pm with clutch failure. The order stayed pretty static through the afternoon and the race came to a subdued, incident-free end. Marko and van Lennep won by three laps from Attwood and Müller who had eased off their charge back up the field. The two Porsches were the first cars to cover over 5000 km in the race, easily beating that milestone. Putting it in context, it was equivalent to crossing the Atlantic, from Le Mans to Maine in 24 hours. It was a distance record that stood for a remarkable 39 years until beaten by Audi in 2010. What was significant this year was that virtually no car had a trouble-free run, with a number of engine, gearbox and suspension rebuilds required keeping all the pitcrews very busy. Half of the twelve classified finishers were Porsche 911s. All of them had been delayed by various mechanical issues. Winner of the GT category was the 2.4-litre ASA Cachia car of Couroul/Anselme (battling an oil-leak) taking sixth in the last hour and finishing barely 40 metres ahead of the André Wicky Porsche 907 of Walter Brun/Peter Mattli. With all the 3-litre cars retiring the Wicky Porsche 907 was the sole Prototype finisher. Tenth was the Kremer-prepared Porsche of Nicolas Koob. They had been leading the category after the halfway mark until delayed for an hour in the morning to replace the gearbox. Last classified finisher was that of Vestey/Bond, managed by Adrian Hamilton and Stuart Rolt, sons of the 1953 race winners. The JWA team had a tragic end to 1971. Less than a month later, after winning the next round at Österreichring, Pedro Rodriguez was killed at Germany's Norisring in a non-championship sports car race. Then in October Jo Siffert died at the World Championship Victory Race at Brands Hatch when his BRM crashed, rolled and caught fire with him trapped underneath. At the 2018 race, marking Porsche's 70th anniversary the European Porsche GT team revived the "Pink Pig" colour-scheme for one of its entries. 5.0 19 Escuderia Nacional C.S. ^ "1971 Le Mans 24 Hrs". www.teamdan.com. Retrieved 2018-05-29. ^ "Le Mans 24 Hours 1971 - Racing Sports Cars". www.racingsportscars.com. Retrieved 2018-05-29. ^ "International Championship for Makes". World Sports Racing Prototypes.com. Retrieved 2018-06-13.

2019-04-20T07:14:10Z

https://wiki2.org/en/1971_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans

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2019-04-21T04:28:10Z

http://www.elperrodelmar.com/best-online-pharmacy-kamagra/

Revisiting the aftermath of SORRY we heard from our boyfriends. I am sharing a six step process which should help you in dealing with the dilemma of hearing sorry in a relationship again and again. These relationship tips heard from the mouth of the wise old owl will help you figure out how to deal with the deed with minimum impact. Perfect order of steps I should say :D. Its important to take time before getting to any conclusion. Your Angle , His Angle And Truth Angle.. To listen is a gud step for sure.. Wow…so sorted it is to help one decide how to face the situation!! The wise owl has very wisely decoded for us the aftermath of hearing sorry from your boyfriend in a relationship. It is very importance to act with patience once your boyfriend has said sorry and think before you act. Listening is the key here. I totally agree with the fact that one should listen to what your boyfriend has to say for the greater good in the relationship. The wise owl design is super cool. It literally decodes how to behave after your boyfriend has said sorry for some mistake of his in a wise manner. After having heard sorry from your boyfriend, once must act in a thoughtful & responsible manner. Very useful list to decide how to react once your boyfriend has said sorry. After your boyfriend has said sorry, keep cool and react responsibly people. Very well put together article. Lovely designs complement the lovely thoughts here. Very well thought and nicely presented post. After hearing sorry from the boyfriend, most of us are really lost on how to react. This post tells us how to go about it in a well structured way. All the points are so relatable if you have heard sorry from your boyfriend ever. Understanding the deed from every angle should not be overlooked when you have heard sorry from your boyfriend. The three angles to everything that happens in a relationship, (our own, his and truth’s angle) have helped me to understand things in a much better and new way. Keeping your calm rather than losing mind after he says sorry is of much help for any relationship to grow. keep cam. breathe. listen. understand and stay focused. The super cool poster of the wise owl with much amazing tips to be followed when boyfriend says sorry will definitely help us to be patient and understand the deed from every angle and figure out how to deal with the issue. Very nice presentation of the article ..all the steps have been structured in proper series. Very much helpful in maintaing the peace of mind once boyfriend has apologized. the wise owl has been presented in an amazing manner with cool graphics.. this article is surely going to help many girls out there struggling with the aftermath. The wise owl has inspired me much to not to lose our mind when boyfriend has said sorry. The six step process can surely help the relationship grow. loved the cool poster of the wise old owl. Everyone experiences the situations where an apology is necessary..if you think your boyfriend is worthy of forgiveness, accept his heart melting apology! amazing concept of the wise owl..the article is very much helpful in dealing with the delimma of hearing sorry time and again from your boyfriend! The three angles to everything that happens in a relationship, have helped me to understand things in a much better and new way. truth’s angle is very apt and most important to be considered when boyfriend says sorry. one should always take a vow of silence to calm down and get back to rational mode before speaking. you should always to listen to what the boyfriend has to say and accept his sorry if he dint do any blunder! Keeping your calm rather than losing mind after boyfriend says sorry is of much help for any relationship to grow. mixing other grievances with the present one amkes the whole situation even worse. keep cam. breathe. listen. understand and stay focused. sorry series2 is an amazing article! very nice presenation of the article ..all the steps for how to keep calm when boyfriend has said sorry have been structred properly. very much helpful in maintaing the peace of mind once boyfriend has said sorry. the wise owl has been presented in an amazing manner with cool graphics.. this article is surely going to help many girls out there struggling with the aftermath of sorry woes from boyfriend. The supercool poster of the wise owl with much amazing tips to be followed when boyfriend says sorry will definitely help us to be patient and understand the deed from every angle and figure out how to deal with the issue once boyfriend has said sorry. asking for some time for recovery mode is always the best way to not to lose mind when boyfriend feels sorry! First of all let me tell you the wise old owl is too cute, and has a complete picture of all the drama boyfriends make up and emotionally black mail girls using the word “sorry”. I totally agree with these tips because only a calm mind can help one decide on things better and will not let anyone be carried away by a sorry. The order of is just so perfect, sometimes we just forget about everything and when he says sorry but, that is not a good decision, because he can take advantage of this emotional behaviour and repeat the same, so one must follow these steps given by the wise old owl. The wise old owl’s triangle is so true, yours, theirs and the truth, and following these six simple steps will make us wise and come up with a better decision and maintain a healthy relationship and not be carried away when boyfriend’s say sorry, “Be wise, think twice”. Saying sorry will not make you feel low in front of others, but once you say that, it is your duty to make sure that the same is not repeated again, because the word sorry means a feel of regret and guilt, this specially applies to those boyfriends who thinks it’s possible to solve any problem by saying sorry. Nice thought, listening the “sorry” from our boyfriend’s will make us melt and we forget the real problem, but doing this will create space for more, so it’s better to follow these six golden keys rules and stay happy. Understanding a problem from every perspective is very important is very necessary to make a wise decision just a mere sorry by a boyfriend can be a temporary solution, but will not work good in the long run. One must never lose mind when boyfriends say sorry. When we hear the sorry from our boyfriend we do not try to solve the problem, but instead compromise and melt after hearing the word, but there are chances for us to have misunderstandings about the same issue, so it’s better to follow these simple steps and minimize the further problems. I totally agree with these six simple steps that you have listed out here, this is very necessary to have a good healthy relationship. This is actually a very good advice for all the couples, sorry can heal the heart once but if you accept it when your boyfriend says without following the above tips it can break your heart in the future. Wow! These tips are super cool, one must follow these steps and this with their boyfriend also, in order to minimize the misunderstandings that might occur, but following the old wise owl’s advice can make us stay away from being hurt again and again and let the sorry word have minimum impact on our lives. Its better go with truth angle, I feel. Truth is bitter but it might help in solving problems and prevents making relationship worse. In a relationship where boyfriends are involved, sorry works only if it means something. And truth might help a lot. Here, how not to lose your mind says something really helpful in boyfriend series- when he says sorry. When boyfriends says sorry it is good to keep quiet for sometime (I know we feel like exploding, but they should have a chance too, right? We ought to play fair!) 😛 let him explain his point of view give him a chance of saying sorry. It is preferable to let boyfriends speak when they really feel sorry. Understanding the deed from every angle is very important. This is so helpful. Sometimes neither yours nor your boyfriends’ sorry matters. What matters is how you understand the gravity of the situation. If not boyfriends, then you ought to be understanding when it comes to handling arguments. Also, a simple sorry can also save a relation! I agree. It’s not wrong to ask for some time to recover. We are humans afterall. Doing it for lame reasons is stupid, ofcourse. Also, we should keep in mind when we need time to recover, boyfriends also need time. Even they have been through the same situation. Sorry and time always help. Mixing other grievances might make the situation worse! Staying focused to one situation always helps! Also, there is no use bottling up that anger and venting it out all at once. It will freak out your boyfriends! Also don’t apologize when its not your mistake. Also don’t let that poor thing (boyfriend) apologize when its not his mistake as well! Make plans to leave your boyfriend. Identify a safe haven, such as a domestic violence shelter or the home of a friend your boyfriend doesn’t know. When you decide to leave your boyfriend, you make the fake reality your boyfriend has constructed weaker. He may not change, but he might begin to recognize what his behavior did to you. Look at your boyfriend’s controlling behaviors when he is not with you. Take the time to remember a specific event and take it apart, bit by bit. He wants to isolate you and make you fully dependent on him so he’ll urge you to quit your job or drop out of school. In effect, your boyfriend wants to define who you are. Your boyfriend has experienced a psychological disconnection in one of his four psychological functions–sensing, intuiting, feeling and thinking. Conduct an experiment, but do so only if your boyfriend is not physically dangerous to you. Make a statement such as, “I feel like eating pizza tonight.” If your boyfriend says, “No, you won’t like it,” respond with, “What?” He should repeat, “No, you won’t like the pizza.” Say, “What?” When you respond with these non-arguments, you are refusing to validate what your boyfriend is telling you, says Tower of Power. At some point during a conversation like this, your boyfriend will realize what you are doing and will tell you to stop.

2019-04-22T03:07:58Z

http://beeandblu.com/things-a-man-will-do-only-if-he-really-loves-you/

One of the definitions of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. For some reason politicians and members of boards of education think that requiring more and more difficult tests and making these tests high stakes will improve the quality of education our students are receiving. In the mid-seventies (yes that long ago), the State Superintendent of Schools instituted a testing program called Project Basic. The idea was that the kids would all have basic skills in reading and math before they graduated. It didn’t work. Then came MSPAP, this program was performance based and took hours to administer. That didn’t work either. But hey, we weren’t done yet. Next came the High School Assessments. These were high stakes. No pass, no graduate. Except that too many kids didn’t pass, so the bridge plans were born. The latest and greatest of this foolishness is the PARCC tests based on the Common Core Curriculum. About a year ago, the Maryland State Board of Education put into place standards for passing these tests. The goal was that the passing score would increase each year. But that “aspirational goal” has been put on hold since at the last administration only about 40% of the students passed the test. Now the State Board had said that it will be today’s current 6th graders who will be held to the standard for graduation. Until 2024, students will need to score at least a 3 on the tests for English and algebra on a scale of 1-5. A score of 4 indicates a student will be able to do college level work. The funny thing is that even though Project Basic, MSPAP, HSA, and now PARCC were all going to prepare students for college- the kids AREN’T getting better at being prepared for college work. Zero credit courses required for non-prepared students continue to enroll far too many undergraduates, costing them both time and money to learn what should have been learned in high school. Colleges report an increase in the number of freshmen needing to take these tests. Maryland’s high school graduation rate is 80%, its pass rate on the PARCC is 40%. Obviously, there is a big disconnect. There has been some discussion on the State Board about a bold NEW idea. Under this system, Maryland would award two different diplomas. One would recognize the student as college ready and the other one would recognize the student as “not-college” ready. There are two things wrong with this great NEW idea. First of all, 50+ years ago Maryland had three different high school diplomas- academic, commercial/vocational, and general. The diplomas recognized the differing talents and aspirations of the students. Each diploma had different requirements depending upon what was required for the student’s goals. None of these diplomas addressed what the award was not. So, the idea is of multiple diplomas is not so new. Secondly, labeling an award by what it is not is disrespectful to the students, their families and our community. I recently needed to install some lighting fixtures. I called an electrician. He did not go to college. He could install my fixtures. I did go to college; I couldn’t do it. Being vocationally trained is not embarrassing to an individual or family. Why are State Board members acting like it is. Smarick, the Board Chair, is worried as well about the number of bridge projects being used by students in low-income districts in order to meet the standard. Steiner believes “students will gradually begin to live up to the higher standard, but until that time the Board cannot set the standard too high.” “Politically,” he said, “it’s not conceivable in any state that a high school graduation rate would go below 70 percent.” Now that’s putting us in touch with reality. Compromise is a good thing, or maybe not. Donald Trump has compromised the Office of the President by his immature and narcissistic behaviors. The teachers’ professional labor unions have compromised the education of the children for whose education they have been entrusted. Years after No Child Left Behind was going to guarantee us all students would be on grade level by requiring repeated testing, our high school graduates are still entering college unprepared to do the work of higher education. They waste time and money taking zero credit courses teaching material that was supposed to be learned in high school. All the testing didn't do it. Federal legislation was also supposed to bring us highly qualified teachers. That didn’t work out either and it is not unusual for principals to rate well over 90% of their teachers as excellent and almost no one as needing improvement. We are testing children in kindergarten to find out what they need in reading and math, but pay no attention to what they need in social skills and emotional health. Just what is kindergarten for? Illinois is looking for ways to cut the requirements to teach so that they can fill the teacher ranks with warm bodies, not so kids will be better taught. We need to get back to our roots in education. Here is what I think that means. We pay teachers a decent salary but stop trying to bribe them with more money. Teaching has never been about money. Instead we show we respect their professionalism by allowing them to decide the pace of instruction and what the kids need. We reduce the paperwork so energy can go into instructional preparation and individualization instead of creating paper trails that do not help kids but do cover the behind of the school system. We hold teachers accountable for the emotional well-being of the children within the scope of what they can do. We let teachers develop relationships with kids so every child has another adult besides his/her parents who he or she can trust. And for those kids who can’t trust their parents, at least there is one responsible adult in their lives. Stop with all the testing. Any teacher worth her salt knows which students are keeping up, which ones are ahead of the pack and who are falling behind. A good teacher does not need a test to tell her that. Can we stop compromising the education of children? Can so-called professional unions get their mojo back and start caring about the kids instead of their own well being? In the 1960’s, during the Viet Nm war young people protested the draft by chanting “hell no, we won’t go”. Nancy Regan suggested we just say no to drug addiction. Perhaps it is time to return to the last century and stop all these compromises. Well over half of our local and state tax money goes into the cost of public education. Why do we invest so much of our money in that one expense? Very early in our nation’s history it was determined that education was a necessary community cost to provide an educated informed electorate to make democracy function. Now we are engaged in another great civil war. Testing, yet again, whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. How long can we go on hating the “other” and expect our democracy to survive. Make no mistake about it, humanity and our country have a very long history of hating and attempting to purge the “other” dating back to the original Americans, our native Americans. Abraham Lincoln toyed with the idea of sending enslaved people back to their land of ancestry. We pretended we did not notice that most of those people were now born in the U.S. In the earliest 20th Century we pitted the Irish against the Italians, and barred female Chinese from coming to this country in the hopes of reducing the number of Chinese in our country. During WWII we removed native born Japanese Americans to detention campus because we didn't trust them. We were fighting the Germans too but German Americans weren't locked up because they looked a lot like the rest of us. We have institutionalized discrimination again women, Jews, African-Americans- you name a group and we have hated them. We have not stopped until the present day. Currently the Muslims are up for discrimination. We have a government that is intent on targeting our differences instead of our similarities. The problem is that presently our country is approaching the tipping point of becoming a majority minority nation. Our public schools are already there. So, what are we going to do about how we educate our kids for this new reality. How do we get our children ready to live together in understanding. Failure to achieve this basic goal will tear our democracy apart. The primary purpose of the taxpayers financing education is to facilitate the functioning of a democracy. We need to get back to that. What do we need to do? Every high school student should have a course on understanding our nation’s diversity. Kids that go to one dimensional schools should be given experiences with the “other”. It is hard to hate people you have had a burger with or solved a problem with. Familiarity does not only breed contempt, it can also forge understanding and the others' perspective. Younger children should be allowed to accept differences in others. If we do not teach them to hate and fear early on, who knows they may not when they get older. Our nation will survive failing algebra skills it will not survive failing understanding and empathy for each other. No less than our survival as a nation is at stake if we do not get our children ready to take over as the next generation of leadership.

2019-04-22T22:03:41Z

https://drjharbour.blogspot.com/2017/10/

3.8.2 NEW: Improved compatibility with UltraVNC / SecureVNC DSM plug-in. 3.8.1 NEW: The ability to align remote screen within ViewerX ActiveX control boundaries. See the new values that have been added to the ScreenStretchMode enum. NEW: The NTLM login window is pre-initialized with the current user name and domain if no credentials have been set via the API. FIX: ViewerX makes the hosting application window active when a connection uppon esteblishing a connection. 3.7.5 FIX: 64-bit build may crash while perfoming UltraVNC NTLM authentication. 3.7.4 FIX: Cancel button is not visible on the password prompt screen. 3.7.3 NEW: Improved compatibility with Xvnc server. 3.7.2 NEW: Various rendering optimizations and fixes. 3.7.0 NEW: Implemented support for libjpeg-turbo. This allows to accelerate decompression and processing of jpeg images. 3.6.2 FIX: Stability and security fixes. 3.6.1 NEW: Support for unicode clipboard transfers when connected to UltraVNC server. 3.5.9 FIX: On rare occasions ViewerX crashes when remote server closes VNC connection. 3.5.8 FIX: Stability and security fixes. 3.5.7 FIX: Security vulnerability TLS heartbeat read overrun (CVE-2014-0160). 3.5.5 FIX: Windows 8 compatibility fixes. 3.5.4 NEW: Improved support for handling of so-called "dead" keys, for example accent key on Spanish keyboard. 3.5.3 NEW: If the Disconnect() method was called while an asynchronous connection (ConnectAsync) is still being established, it would return immediately. Previously the Disconnect() method would hang until a connection has been established. FIX: Fixed a memory leak. 3.5.2 NEW: Changed the way how ViewerX renders screen updates when the UpdatesRequestInterval property is set to non-zero value. FIX: Calling SetDormant(bool) method may result in the application crash. 3.5.1 NEW: Added support for SecureVNC v2.3 DSM plugin. FIX: Upon establishing a connection scrollbars may not be visible. 3.4.3 NEW: When connected to an UltraVNC server running on Vista / Windows7, the Auto Reconnect feature has been fine tuned to better handle cases when UltraVNC server breaks connection upon user logoff. FIX: Application may hang when Auto Reconnect window appears. 3.4.1 NEW: ConnectingText, DisconnectedText, ListeningText properties now support Unicode strings. 3.3.8 FIX: "Empty desktop size" error when accepting listening connection from or establishing connection to a TightVNC server without password set. FIX: ConnectionAccepted event gets sent after Disconnected event. 3.3.7 NEW: Added support for sending Ctrl+Alt+Del command to a remote computer via Ctrl+Alt+End keyboard shortcut. See IScVxAdvancedSettings::HotKeyCtrlAltDel and IScVxAdvancedSettings::EnableHotKeyCtrlAltDel properties for more information. 3.3.6 FIX: Minor bug fixes. 3.3.5.0 NEW: Added ScreenStretchRenderingQuality property. When the screen stretching mode is enabled, this property allows you to switch between GDI and GDI+ based screen scaling engine. Starting with this build, by default, ViewerX uses GDI+ (Low Quality) scaling mode. 3.3.4.0 FIX: It takes too long to establish connection to a computer that has IPv4 and IPv6 addresses assigned. 3.3.1.0 NEW: ConnextXXX functions have been updated to support Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). 3.2.3.0 NEW: Support for legacy VNC servers (such as RealVNC 3.3.7) that use RFB v3.3 protocol. 3.2.2.0 NEW: API: Event OnMouseMove - allows tracking of the mouse cursor movements. 3.2.1.0 NEW: Support for UltraVNC Server 1.0.9.5 with RFB protocol v3.8. This enables file-transfer with 1.0.9.5 servers and fixes "Unsupported security type" message that you would receive if you had tried to connect to an UltraVNC 1.0.9.5 with NTLM authentication. 3.1.6.0 C# sample project has been modified to use ViewerX as registration-free COM component. 3.1.4.0 CHANGED: SendMousePointerEvent was made compatible to work with any VNC server. In the previous builds it was working with UltraVNC server only. 3.1.3.0 FIX: When using non-English keyboard layout some characters may appear as question marks. 3.1.2.0 NEW: SecureVNC v2.2.4.0 DSM plug-in support. See the API reference on IScVxUltraSecurity_SecureVNC interface for more details. 3.0.6.1 FIX: Mouse clicks handled incorrectly if Chinese, Japanese or Korean language is set as the default input method. 3.0.6.0 RTM NEW: Brand new rendering engine implementation. The engine uses less CPU and renders screen updates much faster comparing to the previous versions. NEW: Ability to reconnect automatically to a VNC server in the event of a network disconnection. To support this feature new EnableAutoReconnect property and OnAutoReconnecting event have been added. NEW: Added support for Ultra, ZYWRLE, and Cache encodings. NEW: ColorDepth property allows to specify the number of colors used. Currently full colors, 256 colors, 64 colors, and 8 colors palettes are supported. This property deprecates the RestrictPixel property. NEW: New events have been added that allow logging of messages sent/received via UltraVNC chat. NEW: GetScreenBitmapScaled method has been implemented. In the previous builds this method was returning black&white image. NEW: event OnDisableRemoteInputChanged. Fired when ViewerX receives new "disable remote input" state from VNC server. NEW: OuterBackgroundColor property has been added. It sets the outer background color. This background color is used to paint the background when the ViewerX size is larger than the remote screen. FIX: Fixed several stability issues. FIX: Screen is no longer updated after sending or receiving files via UltraVNC file transfer. FIX: If application creates multiple ViewerX instances that use Tight encoding + JPEG compression may cause random crashes. FIX: Screen artifacts in form of horizontal lines may appear when ZlibHex encodings is used. FIX: File Transfer window appears instead of the chat window when chat is initiated from the server side. 2.9.7.0 NEW: ViewerX 64-bit version is now available. The installer now installs 32-bit and 64-bit ViewerX binaries. FIX: Fails to establish connection via HTTP proxy. 2.9.6.3 FIX: In a multi-monitor configuration, "Enter Login Credentials" window was always displayed on the primary monitor. FIX: If CursorTrackingMode is set VCT_NO_CURSOR(0) mouse cursor may disappear when hovering over scrollbars. 2.9.6.1 FIX: Moving mouse cursor with "screen stretching" mode enabled may leave trailing marks on the screen. 2.9.6.0 NEW: ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::SendCustomKeyEx - sends key up or key down notifications to a remote VNC server. 2.9.5.5 NEW: Support for "per-user" COM registration. FIX: Cannot open more than one ViewerX instance with DSM encryption enabled. 2.9.5.4 NEW: Enchanced support for UltraVNC 1.0.5.3 file transfers. NEW API: ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::SwitchMultiMonitor, IScVxCapabilities::SwitchMultiMonitor - Allows you to switching between displays. UltraVNC server specific feature. NEW API: ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::UVNCS_KeyData, IScVxUltraVNCSecurity::KeyData - Sets RC4 key in form of SAFEARRAY of bytes. NEW API: ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::UVNCS_KeyDataAsHexStr, IScVxUltraVNCSecurity::KeyDataAsHexStr - Sets RC4 key in form of HEX string. Each byte must be represented by two hexadecimal characters. If the byte value can be represented by a single hex character it must be padded with zero value. For example, 0F. NEW API: ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::UVNCS_KeyStorage, IScVxUltraVNCSecurity::KeyStorage - Specifies which key storage ViewerX must use to read RC4 key data. RC4 key can be passed to ViewerX as path to external RC4 file, binary SAFEARRAY, or in form of HEX string. 2.9.5.1 FIX: ViewerX fails to repaint itself properly when screen stretching mode is turned on. 2.9.5.0 NEW: SOCKS5 (username/password) proxy support. NEW: Improved the error diagnostic in case if ViewerX was unable to establish a VNC connection. 2.8.7.0 FIX: Scrollbars aren't visible after establishing connection to a server with screen resolution larger than ViewerX window size. FIX: Destroying ViewerX while VNC file transfer window is visible may result in a crash. FIX: On rare occasions, ViewerX may hand while closing VNC connection. 2.8.5.0 NEW: ISmartCodeVNCViewer::AuthenticationFailed event allows to suppress the password prompt dialog. FIX: Cannot move ViewerX in Visual Basic 6 designer. 2.8.1.0 NEW: Ability to select "single window" (UltraVNC server only). NEW: Enable/Disable remote input (UltraVNC server only). 2.7.6.0 NEW: Support for UltraVNC MSRC4 DSM plug-in v1.2.2. 2.7.5.0 FIX: Attempt to establish connection via SOCKS5 proxy server crashes ViewerX. 2.7.4.0 NEW: Support for UltraVNC 1.0.2 NTLM (MSLogon v2) authentication. 2.6.10.0 Implemented workaround for a Delphi forms bug: ViewerX doesn't send keyboard events when hosted inside Delphi application. FIX: TightVNC and UltraVNC file transfers are broken. 2.6.8.0 NEW: UltraVNC DSM plug-in support. NEW: UltraVNC Single-Click server support. 2.5.86.2 CHANGES: Starting from this build, the control intercepts Alt key presses and doesn't pass them to the parent container. 2.5.86.0 FIX: Ctrl-C, Home, End and some other keys might not work when the control is hosted inside Internet Explorer. 2.5.85.1 FIX: Fixes in the UltraVNC file transfer. FIX: ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::ListenEx uses default port value instead of a custom one. 2.5.83.0 NEW: Support for UltraVNC file transfer. 2.5.75.0 NEW: Support for UltraVNC Repeater proxy. 2.5.72.0 NEW: Better handling of remote screen resolution changes. ServerDimension event is now fired on every screen resolution change. FIX: Background painting problem errors if ViewerX control window size is bigger than remote screen size. 2.5.71.1 FIX: Visual Basic sample project fails to instantiate ActiveX control. FIX: Values of ListeningText, DisconnectedText, ConnectingText properties are invalid when loading control from persistent storage. 2.5.71.0 NEW: Support for UltraVNC chat (ISmartCodeVNCViewer2::OpenChat). NEW: Help file updated with IScVxCapabilities interface description. 2.5.69.0 FIX: Artifacts when control is in Stretching mode. 2.5.68.0 FIX: Minor fixes in file transfer dialog. 2.5.66.0 NEW: Synchronized with latest TightVNC 1.3dev6 release. 2.5.65.1 FIX: ViewerX might freeze if VNC server goes down. CHANGED: Rebuild with renewed software signing certificate. 2.5.61.0 NEW: Added support for the latest TightVNC 1.3dev5 and RealVNC 4.0 features. 2.3.45.0 FIX: ViewerX fails to verify design-time license on Windows 2000 based computers. FIX: Internet Explorer stops resolving URLs after refreshing HTML page with ViewerX control. 2.3.41.5 CHANGES: Minor changes in the control resizing handling. 2.3.40.3 FIX: On some installations, ViewerX repositions itself to the upper left corner inside container window. FIX: When running inside a Web Browser, ViewerX loses input focus after browser window has been restored from minimized state. 2.3.40.1 NEW: Help file updated with information about deploying ViewerX to a Web server. NEW: PLK license file has been included in installation package. 2.3.40.0 NEW: Listening VNC viewer has been implemented. Now ViewerX control can listen for incoming VNC server connections. 2.3.38.0 FIX: High CPU usage when working in "stretched mode".

2019-04-21T08:35:35Z

https://s-code.com/products/viewerx/history.aspx

October 6, 2011 (JUBA) - South Sudan said Wednesday that the ongoing food crisis in the newly independent country could develop into a famine if no immediate remedies are taken. Joseph Lual Acuil, South Sudan’s minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management told a weekly media briefing in Juba that “lower harvests due to unreliable rains coupled with the rising food prices world-wide, have created a severe food shortage leaving more than 1.3 million in need of food aid." As of September 26 the UN estimate that 342,000 South Sudanese have returned to the country since last autumn, many of whom require food aid. In July South Sudan seceded from the north following a referendum in January. The minister said that the greater Equatoria region had been the worst effected by the late rains this year. Insecurity, returnees from north Sudan and newly displaced people from the contested region Abyei and Jonglei state have all added to the food crisis. Acuil said his ministry has attempted to address the problem by sending aid to Agok in Northern Bahr el Ghazal where many of the 110,000 people displaced from Abyei and its surrounding areas are residing. “I just spoken to the chief administrator and he confirmed arrival of some of the trucks", the minister said. Flash floods in Agok in early September "compounded an already difficult situation for people displaced by conflict in Abyei in May this year" a recent UN report said. "Food insecurity of the affected households continued to be of concern as the people displaced from Abyei are largely dependent on food assistance" the September 26 report found. The minister also said that food aid was also being sent to Uror county in Jonglei State, where fighting in August killed around 600 people and displaced over 20,000, the UN estimates. "The people at ‘severe risk’ may either not have enough food to eat, enough money to buy seed to plant or enough money to buy food. The prices are increasing almost every hour. I am in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal, nobody can get food at eleven o’clock in the morning because people queue up at the restaurant and other local hotels for food”, the minister added. In many parts of the Republic of South Sudan, he said, food prices have gone up due drought and the closure of supply routes with north Sudan after partition. The situation is especially bad in the areas closest to the border with Sudan. An agreement between North and South Sudan to create ten points for trade and for people to move between the two countries has yet to be implemented. Minister Acuil said his government was working with donors to invest in irrigation systems to increase crop production. "Urgent action is needed to prevent a looming humanitarian and food crisis in this country", said Acuil. He added that more than 11,000 people returning to South Sudan are in Renk awaiting transportation, explaining that local resources have been overstretched. In order to address the food shortages the United Nations World Programme (WFP) is helping South Sudan’s government by constructing new roads to improve humanitarian access and allow agriculture goods to be brought to market. Lakes state Governor Chol Tong Mayay, speaking at the inauguration of two roads being built in Rumbek East County, pledged unconditional support and cooperation of his administration to facilitate humanitarian operations in the area. The two new roads link local farmers to markets marking the beginning of a three-year partnership between the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the South Sudan Ministry of Transport to build a total of 500 kilometres of feeder roads to help boost agriculture development. The two roads, totaling 114 km, will connect the villages of Karich with Amok Piny and Aluakluak with Akuoc Cok, providing farmers with better access to markets. The project is being carried out in close cooperation with the Ministry for Roads and Bridges and local government authorities. “We are proud to be starting the construction of this road, which will connect food producers to markets and will connect isolated communities,” said Mayay, in a statement sent to Sudan Tribune. Speaking to Sudan Tribune on Wednesday in Juba, Lydia Stone, a senior WFP staff member explained that road construction is a key part of WFP’s support to South Sudan to enable the nascent country to overcome some of the obstacles to developing agriculture. “Feeder roads link areas with high agricultural potential to trunk roads and will provide farmers with easier access to markets for their crops, thereby stimulating production and trade”, she said. In the statement Kuoi Maluach, the chief of Paloich, one of the remote villages connected by the new road said: “We suffer from insecurity and a lack of services. If a woman is having trouble giving birth, we have to transport her to the clinic by bicycle. The road will change everything. It will give us access to trade and services”. Stone said Chris Nikoi, WFP’s new country director, plans to build 500 km of feeder roads throughout South Sudan, especially in areas with high food production. She named Western Equatoria as one of the states WFP plans to help the government construct feeder roads to facilitate local farmers access markets with their produce. The two roads in Rumbek East are being built with funding from the South Sudan Recovery Fund. WFP has contracted the German organization GIZ to undertake the construction works which will be completed by July 2012. To ensure the long life of the feeder roads, local authorities and communities are being trained in road maintenance. Since 2004, WFP has repaired 2,600 km of trunk road, linking eight out of the ten state capitals and connecting South Sudan to Uganda and Kenya via four different routes. The two feeder roads are being constructed as part of the Lakes State Stabilisation Programme, a joint UN programme under the ownership of the government of South Sudan. The programme aims to show the benefits of peace and encourage the participation and empowerment of communities affected by conflict and poverty. Customers in Unity state have told Sudan Tribune reporter Bonifacio Taban Kuich that the cost of some basic food products have doubled since South Sudan became independent in July. Traders and retailers say that they are not to blame for the increase in prices of food and other goods due to the long distances they have to travel and the increase in fuel prices. Landlocked South Sudan has to import almost all of its food and other goods including petrol. Despite being an oil producing country South Sudan has no refinery or processing plant so it has to send its oil to be exported through North Sudan. Juba accuses Khartoum of the blocking the world’s newest international border forcing price rises especially in border states like Unity. In September the two countries agreed to establish ten entry check points in order to facilitate the movement for goods and people. After South Sudan’s secession many traders from North Sudan returned to the North leaving locals to step in to fill the gap. Women in Rubkotna town have taken over businesses from Darfuri traders including vegetable sales. One of the women, Nyayang Nhial, said a bundle of ground okra that cost 1 South Sudanese Pound (SSP) two months ago now costs 2 SSP. "Before the local perfumes cost 20 SSP but now reached up to 50 SSP", said Nhial who started working in 2005 after her husband died in a car accident. Customers told Sudan Tribune that almost everything in the market had doubled in price. Viviana Philip, a customer at the market said she cannot afford to feed her family properly. Items like slippers have risen from 10 SSP to 25 SSP over the last two months, she said while asking the government to intervene. Local butcher Latjor Wiyoak said that meat prices have also increased from 10 SSP to 12 SSP a kilo. He said traders had been forced into the price hike as otherwise they would make a loss. Businesses in South Sudan face many challenges. Poor roads and insecurity make it difficult to move goods around the county and river transport can take weeks. As most traders in South Sudan were from the North before independence many South Sudanese are not as experienced at importing goods from abroad which inevitably involves using much sort-after hard currency. President Salva Kiir of South Sudan announced this week that he would hold a meeting with his northern counterpart Omar Hassan al-Bashir on the issue of price rises and rampant inflation. Stops issuing these stark warnings and get down to the real business of picking it so urgently. It’s too dires now, and will eventually be too diaboblical if you guys failed to addressed it cause now rather later. This is a man-made drought so, the government of South Sudan should take the case to the International Court at Hague against the Global Pollutors Europe, USA, Russia, China, India and Australia. Although there are others, these mentioned countries are the major Pollutors and must be held accountable for loss of Rain in Africa. the should start doing something before this particular cost of living shooting high and rocket the sky. it is the government responsibility to address the food prices before it is deteriorate. failure to address it will lead into disaster. Surprise! Our government did not see this coming! Instead of making food security the number one priority, guess what did it do, it made the relocation of the capital city an important matter. What a bunch of mindless people! I fully agree with the statement attibuted to the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs about the looming famine in South Sudan if urgent intervention measures were not taken. The issue had already been raised. What I do not seem to understand is Minister’s claim that " greater Equatoria region had been the worst effected by the late rains this year" is not in accord with the facts. Plse crosscheck. The recent Rapid Cros Assessment (RCA) indicates that the only states which were better off in terms of food secuirty were the three states in Greater Equatoria. The Minister therefore has to crosscheck his information so that any intervention has to address the trully food insecure population.

2019-04-22T10:12:38Z

http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-warns-food-crisis,40342

Get wild with "Wild Kratts - Creature power", a simple yet different from regular birthday party decoration. A wide spread of vegetarian party finger food ideas included. This Wild Kratts theme decor and ideas will function for both gender and animal themed party. Streamers and balloons were swapped with items lying in the house for a natural appearance with this party decor. Tried to keep the theme as a surprise as always, coz both my son's like surprises. All that my little prince insisted was the "Mango Mousse Cake". He specifically asked for his birthday like the one I made 3 years back for our close friends birthday party. Surprised with his memory power! Well, this is my 1st birthday cake I made for my son. Usually I outsource it from our favorite bakery as I always prefer an elaborate decoration and a wide food spread. Managed to hold back the decorations and food menu as a surprise for the entire family. However, 3 days before the party while I was getting the prints of the "Thank you notes", my little one ran to the printer as always to help me get them back. Boom! the secret theme was out:( Nevertheless, the excitement was palpable being his favorite show. Decoration was like child's play yet themed with no money spent for this Wild Kratts birthday party. Reusing items lying in the house was an easy way to pull the decoration together with minimal effort. Yes, I did visit the party stores for this theme, but unlucky to find even the basic animal themed item. Apparently, it was good to get creative and not give up with this theme. Moreover reusing items was always my kind, so why not give it a try! Artificial leaf bunches were pulled out from the floral wires and tied them to heavy duty twine for the wild vine looking effect. Working with few inches at a time, tied the leaves to the heavy duty twine using a thin natural twine creating the vine along its entire length. I made them with different sizes to give it a natural look. Hung them above the party table randomly sets up the wild ambience. Blue gift wrapper was unrolled to create the banner. Taped an appropriate existing banner with a monkey image in the center. On either side goes the creature power symbols and some cut outs either printed or from the wild kratts toy box itself. Indubitably, its an inexpensive and easy recycle idea for any character themed party. Glued the cutouts randomly creating the banner. Stunning landscape painting - an oil on canvas, was tied as a backdrop and placed two small shutters on either sides for a window appearance. Some stuffed animals that I made years back, along with store bought ones were placed in different spots as part of the decor. Monkeys, snake, skunk and butterflies are few to name. What is a wild Kratts theme without the creature power symbol, you will find it on either sides of the banner. Here's an easy way to create the symbol using poster boards. Cut circles on poster boards (blue and green) using my baking pans as a guide to get the perfect round. Used 10 inches spring form pan (1 each color) and the 4 inches spring form pan ( 3 each color). You may pick any large and round container lid and small bowls or cups or simply use a compass for the size you prefer. Print the discs using the link attached in "printables" using a regular white paper (to retain the original color of the discs) and cut it out. Glue half of the discs onto the green and remaining on the blue cardstocks making sure you create a border of either blue or green. Cut them and attach them to the twine or yarn using a tape. You may also cut 2 slits on each disc and string it through the thin twine forming a streamer. An easy alternative would be to print the discs directly onto the white cardstocks and cut them out leaving a thin white border if you prefer. Now, thread them to the twine and hang it in front of your table or above the banner like I did. Natural fabric in green was the tablecloth used instead of the inexpensive plastic table cover. Sprinkled the green shredded paper for the grass effect as a filler in between the wide food spread. Some mini themed cutouts and toys were also incorporated. The menu cards were handwritten on card stock with toy animals (from toy box) as holders were placed around the party table for a creepy crawly good time! A globe from the study was on display for a world trekking. "Eat all but don't feed animals" was the eye-catching sign board. A wide spread of vegetarian finger food along with Pizza and drinks were served. Admitting I wanted to try a 3 tier cake yet reluctant if this tropical flavored mousse can hold all the weight. After much compromise, came up with the easy creature power theme which ultimately turned out to be a smash-hit. A layer of white moist cake topped with ineffable velvety, light and extremely creamy layer of mango mousse decorated with white chocolate. For more details and recipe please click here. Japanese homemade California Sushi Rolls, "Hosomaki" with the nori (seaweed) on the outside and the other "Uramaki" rice on the outside and nori inside. For the recipe please click here. Banana's are washed cut 3/4 sized (to stand still) with the stem on. the stem is slit for the Gold fish crackers to insert. Using a marker make a dot on both sides for eyes. Totopos Tortilla chips (blend of 4 natural grains - Blue corn, Quinoa, Chia seeds and Maca) and organic tortilla with Nacho cheese sauce and Mango salsa for dipping. Mexican burrito wrap bites contains pinto beans, onions, bell peppers, lettuce, guacamole, cheese, pico de gallo (salsa), sour cream and hot sauce wrapped tight with corn tortilla as spinach tortilla was not available. Hot Sriracha sauce blobs set the eyes. Mozzarella cheese sticks individually wrapped is great as is. Mini croissants are slit to spread the artichoke spread, then a cherry tomato and julienned red peppers (capsicum) are inserted. Using toothpicks, fix the sliced Kalamata black olives for the popping eyes. Cocoa Puffs (cereals) dipped in chocolate frosting is great for sweet-tooths. Cheetos (cheese flavored puffed cornmeal) snack. Munch on veggie platter with french onion dip. Blanched cauliflower and broccoli along with fresh carrot, cucumbers, celery sticks and bell peppers with creamy flavorful dip. Markers marked these Cuties (mini oranges) for an attractive fruit snack. Rits crackers sandwiches with banana slices (cut from the "Fishy dolphins") along with pretzel stick legs and chocolate chip eyes for a sweet "Crabby bite". Animals crackers marching on dirty chocolate (frosted) celery sticks. A popcorn stand with a mini popcorn maker and variety of favors from butter, cheese, black pepper, garlic and caramel. Pitcher of drinking water flavored with lemon slices and minty ice cubes. Google for "animal track identifier" and you will have umpteen options. The attached link below is for the "Animal tracks match-up". Printed them on construction paper/ chart paper, as I ran out of cardstocks. It was simple to cut out the construction paper to the A4 size paper and place it in the printer vola! Found my kids Animal deck of cards and decided to set is like the HedBanz game with a large rubber band that would fit on the head. You may create the creature power animal find using the printable creature discs. Search and find the animals using the description given below. The big kids can get busy with this activity. Links attached below in the printables or simply use your own. Return gifts/ favors for all wild friends. Amazon had a variety of Wild kratts books age appropriate for the younger kids and riddles for the older kids. Personalized handmade simple creature power bookmarks for all wild readers. Colorful pens held the "Thank you" cards in place. Meiji hello panda cookies was a little snack to munch on the way back home which completes this favor bag along with activity kits for the wild princesses grift wrapped with the paw prints on. Pbs kids contains all the Wild kratts birthday party printables for invitation, favor tags, food labels, thank you notes and creature power discs. Although I was in need of only the "thank you" notes printables. The right sized creature power discs are from Olivia's Neat on the inside. They were perfect for the creature power bunting, table decor and also for personalized homemade bookmarks. Thank you Olivia, you made my work easy! Do visit her website she has a lot of creative and organization ideas and tips handy that might work for you as well. One last tip for prints, if you run out of cardstock, just cut a poster board to the A4 size and place it in your printer. It worked like a gem! Thank you to all my supportive readers for stopping by! Please leave a brief comment below with your suggestions.

2019-04-23T08:44:53Z

http://www.busymomcreates.com/2017/05/wild-kratts-creature-power-themed_27.html

Last week, the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses was pleased to have Angie Millan MSN, RN (President Elect NAHN National Organization 2010-2012 and current President, NAHN-Los Angeles Chapter) as an honored guest at their monthly meeting. OR Chapter President Maria Elena Ruiz PhD, RN, FNP-BC began with an inspiring presentation, "Listening to the Voices of Latino Nurses in Oregon: Findings from the Leadership Development Workshops-Latino Nurses in Oregon Speak Out". It was clear from Dr. Ruiz's findings that Oregon Latino nurses are committed to uniting and providing the necessary support, role modeling, and mentoring necessary to empower each other, in addition to lending a voice for Latino issues. A good portion of the meeting was spent on discussion of health promotion events geared toward the Latino population in Oregon and Los Angeles, CA. Ms. Millan shared that the upcoming annual nursing conference planned in LA would include speakers from the March of Dimes to help educate nurses about what services are available that would be beneficial to children and families they are caring for. The IX Annual Bi-national Health Week taking place October 2-15, 2009, a large scale multi-national health campaign targeted at the Latino community to promote physical activity and healthy eating habits, was also discussed. The goal is to bring awareness and focus to some of the most critical health issues and health disparities that have a significant impact on this under-served group. The National Association of Hispanic Nurses endorsed the Office of the National Nurse initiative earlier this year. The Board of Directors of the National Nursing Network Organization is honored to have their support. Here is a statement from the letter received from President Norma Martinez Rogers Rogers PhD, RN, FAAN, "The National Nurse would provide a visible nurse leader to advocate for enhanced prevention efforts for all communities. Further, we recognize the potential of having a National Nurse who would be able to meet with health care leaders to highlight health disparities and bring forward new ideas." The National Nursing Network Organization would like to answer some questions we have heard in regards to the Office of the National Nurse initiative . Please also visit our Frequently Asked Questions for more information about the proposal. How would having a National Nurse actually help nurses become volunteers for prevention in their own communities? This is a very important question, because engaging trusted healthcare providers will help shift our nation to initiate and value prevention. The answers may lie in the value of having a highly visible and trusted public figure leading prevention, a National Nurse, who will publicly encourage, acknowledge and reward volunteer contributions. The National Nurse will not only guide prevention and suggest focus campaigns, but will evaluate outcomes and publicly recognize successful programs and deserving volunteers. We know shortages already exist in many health occupations, so is it realistic to think there will be a pool of volunteers? Each healthcare provider will determine if, how and when they are able to participate. Nurses, no matter how busy, are nurturing altruistic persons. Nurses often step up to the plate when needed, as evidenced in disasters. Continued invitations from the Office of the National Nurse to seek nurse volunteers will result in more engagement for prevention. Also, the National Nurse will encourage the involvement of recent retirees and students, which will boost the potential pool of volunteer manpower in every community. Students will benefit from varied opportunities for learning, observations and hands-on experiences during community outreach efforts. Retirees can make significant contributions and will be able to remain professionally active, utilize their vast knowledge of resources, and receive continuing education to maintain active licensure. In some community prevention programs, modest stipends might be provided through grant funding to participating providers. What kinds of activities will a National Nurse encourage volunteers to do? Nurses and other providers can contribute to their community prevention programs in many ways. Often they can join existing networks to strengthen effective programs specifically targeted to at-risk populations. They can strengthen education and outreach of established national associations such as the American Red Cross or the American Heart and Diabetes Associations. Some may prefer to work directly where needed with the local schools and colleges attended by their children. Others may become active volunteers for their health department or a Medical Reserve Corps unit. Others may choose to become politically active at the policy level to improve health and environmental conditions in their community. Others may serve on the Board of a local community based organization, or participate in organizing screening programs or community health fair events. As the Office of the National Nurse accumulates data on best practices, the information will be relayed to encourage replication of effective programs. U Penn graduate nursing students Melissa Moore BSN, RN; Grace Paik BSN, RN, and Timothy Sowicz BSN, RN chose to complete a poster presentation on the Office of the National Nurse initiative for their health policy project. In addition, Moore, Paik and Sowicz also wrote an op/ed, "Can One Nurse Empower a Profession"; they contacted their state legislators; and they attended a Lobby Day meeting with representatives from the PA Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and the PA State Nurses Association. The PA Coalition of Nurse Practitioners endorsed the Office of the National Nurse initiative earlier this summer. Timothy Sowicz shares, "This year long legislative project that my classmates and I worked on to promote the Office of the National Nurse has given me insight into the need for the shift that must occur in our health care system: Disease prevention and health promotion must be the priority for every provider! A National Nurse is the ideal person to lead this initiative since these two principles are fundamental to the profession of nursing." These students join their peers from universities and colleges around the country who have studied the ONN initiative. This list includes but is not limited to UC Irvine, University of Michigan, University of San Francisco, Concordia University (Portland, OR), George Mason University, Portland Community College, Molloy College (NY), Mt Wachusett Community College (Gardiner, MA), CA State University Long Beach (CA), and OR Health Sciences University. Last week the Portland Community College chapter of the National Student Nurses Association, demonstrating their dedication and support for an Office of the National Nurse, led a healthy heart promotion activity with 23 elementary school children ranging from 5-9 years old who were attending a summer camp in a local park. The students chose the heart to focus on because starting healthy habits during childhood can help to prevent heart disease as an adult. 1. A demonstration of the HEART pumping BLOOD to the LUNGS to pick up OXYGEN to be delivered to the body. The students drew large pictures on poster board or cardboard of the HEART, BLOOD CELL, LUNGS, O2, and then had the children act out those: the "blood cell" walked from the "heart" to the "lungs" and picked up an "O2" who then delivered the "O2" to the body and go back to the "heart". 2. Circulation demonstration: Here the kids identified what activities make the heart pump stronger (i.e. playing XBOX or riding a bike...etc.). The children were taught how to take their pulse, then the students had them get up and dance with the assistance of music through a PA system. They took their pulse immediately after this activity and reported what happened to their pulse! The student nurses then demonstrated how a blood pressure is taken. 3. The third booth helped the kids to identify foods that are Heart Smart: Here a discussion took place on how/why some foods are bad for heart and some foods are good. Then the kids played a "What's better game....." A. French Fries? or B. Apples? Pictures of foods were held up and the kids shouted out which one is better. Every child who participated received a copy of this handout along with a goodie bag that included age appropriate materials from the American Heart Association. Few can rival Governor Howard Dean (VT) when it comes to achieving meaningful health reform. During his tenure as Governor of Vermont, he oversaw the expansion of Dr. Dynasaur, a program in Vermont that makes universal health care available for children and pregnant women in the state. The program resulted in the uninsured rate in Vermont dropping to 9.6%, half the national average and helped reduce rates of child abuse and teen pregnancy by 50%. Since his return to the private sector, Governor Dean has remained committed to establishing quality, affordable and accessible health care for all Americans. Governor Dean has authored a book, Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform. Dean states, “America must shift from an illness-based healthcare system to a wellness-based model. We must develop a healthcare system that is based on wellness and prevention rather than illness intervention.” These statements are in synch with the Office of the National Nurse initiative. The Vice-President of the National Nursing Network Organization, Terri Polick RN, interviewed Governor Dean last week. Preventive healthcare is a key component in the healthcare reform debate. What are your thoughts on a proposal that would make the Chief Nurse Officer of the United States Public Health Service the National Nurse? In your opinion, would establishing the Office of the National Nurse have any impact on health promotion or on healthcare reform? Governor Dean joins over 75 prominent national and state organizations and leaders who have endorsed the Office of the National Nurse initiative and we thank him for his support.

2019-04-23T16:24:53Z

http://nationalnurse.blogspot.com/2009/08/

Everyone wants to maintain a clean head and face that despite the shaving style, they will still look good. It is important for you to find one reliable stylist who will be handling your hair always. All they need is for you to visit their shops regularly, and maintain a particular style. It is important to find someone who you can spark random conversations with as you are being shaved. Therefore, there are quite a number of issues you should examine before seeking for that particular barber’s services. First, when you visit a barber shop, be keen and make observations on how things are done in that particular shop. It is advisable to look at the barber’s level of confidence while he’s handling people’s heads. Remember you are going to entrust this person with your head, hence he must be confident and able to handle their tasks with ease. Professional barbers know how to welcome clients with a smile and a firm hand shake. They will also look at your face and suggest a style that will fit your outlook. Newbies don’t give opinions or suggestions, but they will rather do what you say. It is important to observe and listen keenly on the barber’s voice and tone. You should not seek for the services of a barber who avoids meeting your eyes, or one whose voice is shaky. That is another sign of not being confident of themselves. The first impression created by the barber and the barber shop are critical for you to give consideration before committing to be shaved by them. If the barber is well shaved, clean and presentable, they definitely understand their job description. The barber shop must also be kept clean and tidy because its condition will speak volumes about the nature of services you are likely to receive. You should ensure that there is proper ventilation of the barber shop for better air circulation, floors should be clean, and towels must be clean and dry. You don’t want to go to a barber shop only to come out with infections or dirt that you were not anticipating in the first place. You should also try to provoke a conversation and listen to the way the barber talks. You should look for the right jargon from their conversations. You should also listen to and weigh the questions that particular barber is asking you about. Professional jargon will sieve professionals from amateurs because, amateurs will either use terminologies wrongly, or they are not aware of these terms. For example, a professional will ask questions like; “What number will I use in the sides?” Finally investigate if the barber asks their clients for feedback after the services. Experts will always give you an opportunity to either critic or commend them by allowing you to look at yourself in the mirror and commenting on what you see. Child adoption is not a simple undertaking as it might seem and if you intend to adopt a child, then it is essential to realize that you will need valuable legal advice and therefore, the services of an adoption attorney are vital. Now that you know that an adoption attorney can help you, the next hurdle is choosing the best adoption attorney from among the many options available in the market. Here are tips that will guide you to select the right adoption attorney. Search for information about the potential adoption lawyers. Do not believe in any adoption attorney before you find vital information about him and you are sure that he can fulfill what you need from the adoption. Your preferred adoption attorney must be licensed in their state. Besides license, inquire how the adoption attorney has assisted families in growing through adoption. Probe to know how many adoptions he has handled in the past and the rate of success. Prepare a list of relevant questions before meeting your potential adoption attorney so that you determine his suitability to your needs. Before your scheduled meeting with the prospective adoption attorney, have questions that will help reveal the attorney’s competency for the task at hand. Prioritize an experienced adoption attorney. When you have had a list of prospective adoption attorneys, you must move ahead to ascertain their experience level in work. Some adoption issues get sophisticated more so when you want to adopt a child from a different country, but with an experienced attorney, you can be confident of getting a solution and completing the process. Determine the number of adoption cases the lawyer has handled in the past and results. The services of inexperienced adoption lawyers are cheap compared to the experienced lawyers but since you want the best results, choose an experienced lawyer who is likely to deliver the best results. Find an adoption lawyer who charges reasonable rates. You must have a reasonable budget that will help you afford the best adoption services. Attorneys charge different fees, and thus, you should compare them to identify the one which suits your budget. Be wary of adoption lawyers who ask for payment before issuing their services. How well is your adoption attorney linked to other professionals? Successful adoption requires the participation of different experts apart from the adoption attorney. For example, you will need to engage counselors, physicians, and other lawyers. Instead of searching for all these experts, your attorney should have quick links to them to save you the hassle. He must collaborate with the experts to achieve the results you want. Importantly, choose an adoption attorney who understands your needs and acts in your best interest. The Amazing Benefits of Finding the Best Wedding Venue. Just like the birthday parties and other important events in life, a wedding is among the ones that are considered to be of uttermost importance. This is an event that takes a lot of time during preparation in order to ensure that things will be perfect on the big day. One of the things that actually troubles them is how they are going to find the best wedding location for their wedding. It is obvious that the couples would want great memories to be created on their special day, memories that they are going to remember for the rest of their lives. The rest of the arrangements entirely depend on the location of the wedding showing that the location is very important. choosing the right venue is therefore very important to each and every wedding. After the best location has been chosen, the rest of the things are automatically going to fall into place. The location of the wedding should be considered while choosing the venue. the location should be able to ensure that the guests have been provided with convenience. This means that you should choose a venue that is accessible since no one would want the guests to run late on the wedding. In order to have access to the best wedding venue, one of the things that you are actually required to consider is the amount of money required for renting the place. You should therefore ensure that it is an affordable place so that it may not interfere with the budget. The price should determine whether this is the right place for you or not. Different venues provide with different packages, and the packages are the ones that give more value for the cash. You are also required to establish whether the place provides with catering services or not and whether they are capable of ensuring that you have been provided with discounts. To ensure that you are also able to find the best venue for your guests, you are required to have the guest list in mind. The wedding venue should be able to accommodate all the people on your guest list together with a few wedding crashes. If you do not have a guest list, you are required to make an estimate of the number of people that are likely to come at the wedding. This will prevent you from choosing a small venue if the people who are likely to attend the wedding are many. You should not worry, however, since Cold Creek Farm is capable of ensuring that all your guests have been provided with enough space. The importance of these venues is that they are also capable of ensuring that you have been provided with space both inside and outside ensuring that your wedding has been provided with efficiency. From the time when the human race was in progress, people have stood in the awesomeness of the scenery. Still there is nothing like nature that is intended to give awe to the event, show and spirituality too. This is why you intend to participate the tendency of people that are choosing a wedding venue for themselves. Here are a few ideas of rustic barn wedding to take you back to nature. One of the difficulties of a barn wedding is capable of being the devastating space available. In a situation like this, curtains are required to cut a barn into smaller areas, thus creating more intimate spaces inside the big area. In case you already have curtains in play, drapes are the best way to carry that aesthetic through to the rest of your decor. The interior of the barns rustic can be emphasized by neutral colors without disturbing from the back-to-nature look. Decorative jars is also a perfect idea you can use to plan the best rustic barn wedding. Since decorative uses of jars are recognized widely, hence deliberate utilizing several ornate jars to give a homemade flair to your wedding beautification. There are numerous ways in which you can use jars, for example, you can use them lighting up to serving drinks. In addition to that, to plan the perfect rustic barn wedding, you can utilize the idea of candles. Being aware of any fire safety concern that can go along with your candle is vital. The reason for this is that you do not want to find your wedding becoming a literal barn-burner. The other thing that will be of great help for you to have a perfect rustic wedding is garlands as well as wreaths. The association between the barn as well as nature is unbreakable. Decorating it with garlands and wreaths should, therefore, be one of the ways of bending to it. They have an advantage of fitting anywhere for decoration without the processes being distractions. Additionally they are not used to be a burden when put in place. Additionally, they can play any purpose of the decorations since they are convenient. For you to have a thrilling rustic barn wedding, one idea you cannot overlook is fashion. It is not always that style has to do what you put on the wall. One primary determinant of the overall look of your wedding is fashion. Even though not all people need to come to your wedding with cowboy hats, it is crucial to have few rustic touches. For your wedding to be a successful use of outdoor is also another idea you can give a thought. Since you believe the outside a failed course, it is easy for you to dismiss them when having an urban wedding. Since stomach sleeping is one of the most common sleeping position for so many people; medical experts have warned people that the sleeping position is quite unhealthy. If you are someone who sleeps on your stomach it is important for you to know that eventually, you will start experiencing pain around your neck and shoulder due to the pressure. That is why people who sleep in this position are encouraged to get themselves a pillow that has been manufactured specifically for such sleepers. Finding the right pillow can be quite difficult for stomach sleepers because most of the pillows are generally designed for people who sleep on their sides and back. It is important for you to ensure that you buy a pillow that will not affect the alignment of your neck and back and that is why you should focus on the thickness and the thinness of the pillow. Stomach sleepers should ensure that they buy a pillow that is soft enough and that is why your focus should be on the fills and the cover because you mostly sleep face down. The good thing is that nowadays manufacturers are considering stomach sleepers when they make pillows therefor finding the perfect pillow will not be a hassle compared to long time ago. When choosing a pillow that has been manufactured for stomach sleepers it is important for you to focus on the quality of the pillow. it can be such a waste of your money if you end up buying a pillow that will not give you the type of service that you would want and eventually you will have to buy another one after a couple of months of use. If you want to buy from a specific brand it is usually important for you to ensure that its check the type of reviews that the brand has when it comes to the quality of the pillows that they manufacture. Make sure that you check the cost of the pills before you buy them. The good thing is that you can be able to find a brand that has a good name when it comes to manufacturing quality pillows, and they sell their pillows at an affordable price. Always remember that how much a brand sells its products does not determine the quality all their products, therefore, don’t focus on buying an expensive pillow what else you can be able to find an affordable one. It is important to consider getting the best email marketing solutions so that you can be able to increase your service to clients. In this regard, it is paramount that you identify the most appropriate email marketing software that will be significant for your organization so that you can benefit from its usage in your business. Therefore, you have to find the right company, and since they are so many it is important that you have means that you can incorporate to make your selection. So that you get to find the best email marketing system for your business it is important that you consider looking at the following tips for your selection. You will have to make sure that you are asking for recommendations from people. It is vital that you inquire from those friends that you trust to help you with the leads of the best email marketing system that you can choose for your business so that you can increase the services to your clients. You have to make sure that you are scrutinizing the list of the companies that offers email marketing solutions that you will get from friends you consult and make your final decision. There is a need for you to consider looking at the customer services. As you make your selection it is crucial that the company you consider choosing for email marketing solution you ensure it has outstanding customer services to the businesses they handle. Thus, for you to find the best email marketing system for your business consider using the above tips as they will help you in decision making. What is is a Vending Business? Today many people are starting their own vending business. If you want to start a vending job, then you do not have a lot to do because you will need no skills. Also, you do not need like to be around the machine for your business all the time. What you will require is to be visiting from time to time when you are going to pick money. You also need to keep checking whether the machines are well-functioning but that should be done like twice in a month. The vending machines need to be operated and maintained by the people you trust, and that is your family. With the machines with you, you will enjoy all the advantages that come along. However, you need to be familiar with the following guide. The first thing you need to know about is that you need to do a lot of assignment. Looking for the best machines and settling with the best is not enough. You also need to find the best location where you will place it. If you are not attentive with the locality, then you might end up giving up. For instance, if you are going to be selling coffee, place it near some gasoline stations or near high schools. Teenagers who are still schooling love buying coffee for their partners as a way of appreciating them. If you need to start your own business that earns cash immediately then deal with used machines. This is the type of business idea that will leave you with no stressing moments of finding your customers. You need to be smarter than the previous vending machines owner and get a good deal for your business. If you purchase a new gadget, then you need to be prepared to give it time to work for you. If you are not in a hurry to start earning, then you can be comfortable with that. Before you purchase any gadgets, you need to be aware of the business reputation it has had. Get Quality Medical Products Using Comparison Sites The emergence of price comparison sites has become more than just a trend. In America and Europe, It’s become popular for clients and it’s beginning to become popular in Asia particularly in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. since it merged in the e-commerce scene during the boom of the internet in the late 90s, its high popularity has really come a long way. With people living their lives at warp speed, it’s no surprise that even shopping for their fundamental requirements must keep up. Price comparison websites function by supplying the consumers alternatives to buy their favorite goods on a best buy basis implying that the clients may elect to look for the best shops when they can receive their merchandise for the lowest deals. Customers may easily navigate these sites as they have already filtered their search options to suit their needs. Consumers can search products by the kind, budget, and brand. Vitamins, particularly are among the most famous products that individuals search on the purchase price comparison websites on the web. A number of them narrow their search options more by adding classes for example weight loss, nutritional supplements, sports and drugs type like pills, capsules, powders, ointments amongst others. The matching of the prices from the highest to the lowest usually speeds up the selection process. With the countless brands available on the market, finding vitamins online is at best a challenging task. The benefit of purchasing them from price comparison sites is the fact that customers are directed to the retailers’ websites where they can get detailed information on the items including information on the manufacturer, delivery in frames and shipping costs. Some sites even have a FAG part on sports and nutrition supplements that are answered by nutrition and medical experts. Even though it is also a known truth that getting vitamins on the internet means getting them at a price which is lower than at your local drugstores, locating them on price comparison websites lets you get them at even lower prices without compromising their quality. Another distinct advantage of locating your vitamins from cost comparison sites is the simple fact that because the providers on such sites pay a particular fee for their goods to be submitted, they cannot cheat you if they would like to get value for their money. Still, this does not imply that you should not check out the privacy and security policies of these websites lest you become a victim of cyber-crimes. You should take the time to read about the privacy policies of different websites to ensure that your details, mainly, your credit card information is handled well and cannot be accessed without your authorization. What You Need To Know In Regards To Control Panels For any apparatus that electronically controlled, front panels are vital parts as they make the machine easy to use. In every industry and also firms that are undertaking projects, control panels are usually present. One of the features in the devices that usually help in improving their usability is the presence of the control panles. The control panel usually comes as a component of the front panel. These panels were originally used in computers to help display data and also allow you as the operator to change the memory of the device. Important for you to know is that the original control panel was a flat faced plate which contained push buttons, indicator lights and toggle switches which normally helped you to use the device safely. Nearly all of these analogue features have been replaced by touch screen displays and also other automated features. With the modern systems, the transformers have been omitted so as to facilitate increased supply at a power consumption that is way lower compared to that of the main delivering system. With these particular types of panels, the efficiency is improved particularly in those instances where special types of equipments that have different power requirements have been connected to just one circuit. Even though most of the control panels have varied features, typical panels usually have parts such as circuit breakers, main disconnect and housing. The main disconnect is the switch that controls the power supply whereas housing is the outer shield that covers all the available displays, lights and switches. Newer computing techniques have been adopted by the current manufacturers of the customized control panels. With this improved technology, such companies have gained the capacity to deliver front panels that are precisely cut, cost effective and also those that are fast. In addition, this is also enabled by the availability of the design programs. A number of such companies usually have their own design programs and they avail them to their clients via their site. At a time when a company is designing front panels, there is need to make sure that the design improves the usability of the device by the clients. At a time when a company is designing the enclosures of the devices, it is good for you to be aware that panels are essential as a lot of the technology firms are shifting from towards the housing of essential electronics in expensive boxes. For the monitoring of instruments, electrically powered control panels that are highly efficient are usually used. When choosing the particular control panels that you want to use for your firms, it is important that you get to choose those that are highly efficient and also those that do not consume a lot of power.

2019-04-21T12:50:18Z

https://okblogging.info/index.php/category/pets-animals/

When JRPGs were struggling to evolve last generation, Xenoblade Chronicles came along and showed the genre still had a few tricks up its sleeve. It earned plenty of praise as one of the best role-playing games of last generation, currently holding a 92 score on Metacritic. Monolith Soft proved it could create a compelling world and innovate in the genre, thanks to its creative design and MMO-style combat. Its successor, Xenoblade Chronicles X, doesn't just switch it up to an extensive sci-fi setting; it expands the scope of everything, building upon the solid foundation set by its predecessor. I recently spent five hours with the game, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. If you thought Xenoblade Chronicles was big, you will be surprised just how much Xenoblade Chronicles X dwarfs it - and that's not even mentioning the extensive customization or Skells (mechs) that further enhance the experience. Not much has been revealed about X's plot, except that a huge battle between two alien species above Earth has destroyed our home planet. Humans evacuated and have spent the past two years roaming space in emergency ships. However, the real story doesn't begin until your main character (you can customize your gender and appearance), crash lands on the planet of Mira. Without much memory of who you are, you're greeted by a woman named Elma, who shows you the ropes of life on this -mysterious continent called Primordia. A rocky grasslands region, Primordia is the first of five different continents that make up Mira. Elma explains that when their ship, the White Whale, crashed here two months ago, the surviving humans began slowly building New Los Angeles. A good portion of Xenoblade Chronicles' plotline focuses on rebuilding society and finding survivors to revive humanity, but what's most intriguing are the mysteries Mira holds. The planet is teeming with dangers beyond enormous creatures; in fact, as you explore, you run into various alien species. Some will be hostile; others will join your base if you help them out. Can everyone coexist? This already seems more exciting than Xenoblade Chronicles' plot. We always question if there's life on other planets and if it would be friendly or not, and I like how X explores this concept. Also noticeable right out of the gate is that X's dialogue has much more personality than Xenoblade Chronicles. Your dialogue choices elicit different responses depending on what you pick. These won't alter the storyline, but instead color the conversations you have with other characters. At one point, I try to take credit for keeping the area safe, and Elma quickly calls me on it. Later, we meet our second party member, Lin Lee, a 15-year-old mechanic. She's extremely gifted, but every so often says something that reminds you she's just 15, like when she talks about her Skell fan-fiction. The humor isn't overdone and is clever when it's used. Counting Elma and Lin Lee, a total of 16 characters can be recruited for your party. This includes all the DLC characters released in Japan; Nintendo is including them at no cost in the North American release. Becoming A Member Of B.L.A.D.E. The opening moments serve to ease you into the mechanics and all the different things you can do. It's a lot of information to take in, and even after spending five hours with the game, I was still learning the ropes. New Los Angeles, with its four districts, serves as your hub. After a few basic missions, you join up with B.L.A.D.E. (Builders of a Legacy After the Destruction of Earth). This group was created to maintain the burgeoning New Los Angeles and to explore for supplies and threats. Once you join, you get to pick from one of eight different classes, from mediators who help the townspeople to reclaimers who search for wreckage from the White Whale. Every class comes with its own perks, and just because you pick a class doesn't mean you can't do activities associated with others; this just gives you an area to focus on for potential upgrades for your character. Throughout the game, you earn division points for defeating enemies, completing missions, and opening chests. Bonus division points are awarded if you do missions in your specialization. Division points allow you to level up your B.L.A.D.E. rank, which grants you additional rewards and higher level probes. B.L.A.D.E. has its own mission board, where you can retrieve different job requests. From the get-go, the board is overflowing with a variety of missions, on top of people handing you tasks. More than 400 quests exist, including story missions that advance the plot, affinity missions that improve your relationship with characters, and normal side quests such as rescuing characters or retrieving items. The narrative has a total of 12 chapters, but you can't advance unless you meet certain requirements. For instance, you might need to reach a specific affinity level with a character or explore 15 percent of the continent to proceed. A variety of activities are available in Xenoblade X's vast open world, and they fit seamlessly into the overall exploration, such as placing probes (which also opens fast travel to those locations) and helping characters in peril. Who knows? Maybe you'll run into members of a new species and convince them to join up with you. At one point, I recruited a species and I was given access to brand-new weaponry. One side quest tasked me with obtaining a red orb that was inconveniently placed in front of two level 35 tyrants. I was level five at the time, so there was no way I could afford to draw their attention my way, forcing me to slowly walk by them and figure out a way to stay out of their sight. Various chests and places to mine resources are uncovered as you explore. You must tap "A" repeatedly to open these, but some chests remain locked until you level up this ability. Returning from Xenoblade are orbs littered on the field, which contain additional items. The jump button allows you to get up on higher ledges, but if you use it while running you can do a super jump that lets you float through the air. This quickly became my favorite way to explore. All sorts of creatures inhabit the land, be they aggressive, neutral, or friendly. Paying attention to the color above them is essential; if it's red, you need to keep your awareness up. The joy of the game really stems from exploration; majestic, dinosaur-like creatures are all around. Other continents sport completely different looks. For instance, one is a jungle and contains alligators that leap out from the water to attack you. Another is a fire island that rains fire and allows you to explore inside volcanoes. Each locale is filled with nooks and crannies, but quests leave a marker for you to track down. Better yet, after a few missions, you unlock the "follow ball." All you need to do is hold "R" and press "X," and a navigational ball leads you to your destination. This comes in handy when there are mountains or other obstacles in your way, showing you a fast path to get around them. In addition to the single-player campaign, Xenoblade Chronicles X has two different online features. You can recruit other player-created character NPCs, who can then be used in your party. You also build affinity with these NPC rentals on the battlefield. However, the more exciting online feature is the ability to join squads. Squads hold 32 players and allow you to participate in squad quests, which let you team up with three other players to take on tougher content, such as the gigantic, super-powerful tyrants. Before you can unlock squad quests, however, you must first complete squad missions. These special objectives need to be completed in a certain amount of time. All squad members see the list and once a member completes something on it, it gets marked as completed in the other squad members’ games. This allows you to divvy up tasks as you see fit. You can also exchange loot with your squad, so if you get gear or weapons that don’t suit your playstyle, you can let your friend reap the benefits. Xenoblade Chronicles X's battle system doesn't change significantly from its predecessor. You activate skills on a cooldown meter while your character automatically uses regular attacks, akin to an MMORPG. But the battles are noticeably faster and smoother than before, something Monolith executive director Tetsuya Takahashi said was born out of this game having longer conflicts. "[We] wanted the pace of the combat to be faster, so those don't last too long," he says. I took delight in finding the right grooves of attacks to create deadly combos. Positioning still matters greatly, and every art has a positioning bonus. For instance, an art bonus can provide a damage increase for a side attack, or a specific art may add a 50-percent damage bonus if the enemy is toppled. You can combine these for devastating combos. Additionally, I enjoyed being able to alternate between melee and ranged attacks. My character had a deadly sword I could use up close, but if I wanted to play it safer, I could always swap to my gun and snipe from afar. I actually preferred the guns to the sword for this reason - and let's be honest, lasers are just cooler. The A.I. is also much better this time around; my allies rarely died and knew when to fall back and heal. Arts can be customized to fit your playstyle. For the start of the game, you are a drifter that allows you to obtain a variety of different arts. Once you reach level 10, you have different branches you can break off into: enforcer, striker, and guerrilla. Enforcers support from afar, gaining access to a slew of ranged arts. Guerillas are like tanks who want to rack up damage; their arts are focused on damage buffs, evasion, and improved accuracy. Strikers go in guns blazing and are a mix of offensive and defensive skills, providing HP and melee power bonuses. The striker is the recommended class for beginners, while the enforcer is for more experienced players. Those expecting to hop right into a mech might be disappointed; you don't get your Skell license until chapter six, halfway through the game. You also won't receive your first Skell until level 20, and you can't pilot it until researching the flight pack after chapter nine. "The main reason we didn't want players to have the Skell from the beginning of the game is that we wanted them to have the opportunity to fully explore the world on foot first," Takahashi says. "The world starts to feel quite a bit different once you have the Skell, especially once you experience different layers of the world vertically." Nintendo skipped me ahead so I could test one out. Skells definitely make exploration a different beast; you can fly to floating islands and some structures have hidden caves that can only be accessed via flight. Skells also make journeying between continents much easier - I didn't even care about fast travel once I got mine. Stepping into X is overwhelming for its sheer vastness and scope alone, but that's what makes it so thrilling. The game feels endless, but my desire to keep on playing and discovering new things never left me. My early look has me confident that this game will inspire massive playthroughs just like its predecessor, but X feels like it has even more to offer in terms of variety and size. Plus, who isn't excited to see Takahashi and company get back to their sci-fi roots à la Xenogears and Xenosaga? Xenoblade Chronicles X also has plenty of late-game content to make your Skell worthwhile. It features numerous post-game monsters, like a level 99 baddie soaring in the sky, and online play makes it possible to take down deadly foes with friends. In addition, hidden dungeons, higher-level mechs, and powerful gear and weapons provide extra incentive to keep exploring. “One figure we’re hearing from people [in Japan] is that they’ve spent two to three times the amount of hours they spent on clearing the main story on end-game content,” says Monolith Soft executive director Tetsuya Takahashi.

2019-04-22T21:03:52Z

https://www.gameinformer.com/games/xenoblade_chronicles_x/b/wii_u/archive/2015/09/29/xenoblade-chronicles-x-feature-preview-game-informer.aspx

A Complete 3D2N Family Itinerary For Exploring The Best of Sentosa - Food and Fun Galore! Whether you’re a tourist visiting Singapore with your family, or a local looking to spice up your usual family outing, Sentosa is the perfect destination for you! Besides, they’ve recently clinched the title of Best Singapore Destination in the TripZilla Excellence Awards 2017, so you know you definitely can’t go wrong with including Sentosa in your plans. Too busy to plan a weekend getaway to Sentosa? Fret not. We’ve come up with a 3D2N itinerary filled with the best things to see, do and eat in Sentosa, so your family can make the most of your time in the State of Fun! Kick off your getaway in Sentosa with the Palawan Pirate Ship as your very first stop! Previously known as the Port of Lost Wonder, it has reopened as the newly revamped Palawan Pirate Ship. A water play area complete with slides and mini water fountains, this is one place that the little ones are going to thoroughly enjoy. And the best part? Admission is free of charge, so stay as long as you like! Fair warning though: the kids might be reluctant to leave after enjoying themselves so much. Next up, it’s time for the beach! Sentosa has three beaches for you to choose from – Siloso Beach, Palawan Beach and Tanjong Beach – with Palawan being the most family-friendly one. Here, you don’t have to worry about the kids ever getting bored as there are plenty of things you can do as a family. Build sandcastles together, splash around in the sea, or have a picnic lunch right on the beach. Just don’t forget to pack sunblock, as you don’t want to risk getting badly sunburnt while you’re out having fun (the Singapore sun can get quite relentless in the afternoons)! After a whole day of being out in the sun, there’s no better way to replenish all that energy with a hearty roast dinner! Head over to Flame – Singapore’s first beach rotisserie – where you can dine right by the beach, with the serene backdrop of the waves crashing onto the shore as your dinner view. And if you time your dinner to coincide with sunset, it will definitely be an unforgettable experience. From sharing platters to burgers and grilled mains, Flame has a wide menu selection that is bound to satisfy the entire family. You might even be able to get in some extra quality time with your partner, by allowing the kids to play on the beach after they’re done with their food! If your family isn’t ready to call it a night after dinner, don’t fret! At Skyline Luge Sentosa, you can race down the Luge tracks even after night falls. With neon lights illuminating the race tracks, you can now experience riding the Luge at night – an exhilarating experience that is completely different from riding it in the day! Sentosa’s Night Luge also happens to be the first of its kind in the world, which means… You won’t be able to get this thrilling experience anywhere else. So, it’s time to grab those helmets and get ready to go zooming down those tracks at super speed! Who says the fun stops after the sun goes down? No Sentosa experience is complete without a stop at Universal Studios Singapore, a truly iconic attraction! Featuring seven themed zones with 24 different attractions, it boasts the title of being Southeast Asia’s very first and only Universal Studios theme park. On top of the super fun rides will make the kids want to go on them again and again, get the kids to look out for their favourite characters, because there’s going to be plenty of photo opportunities as you navigate your way through the park. Here’s an extra tip: If you’re visiting on a weekend and are worried about having to wait in long lines, purchase Express Passes to skip all the queues! Craving for some local fare? Good Old Days is the perfect place to go for dinner, conveniently located at Sentosa’s Beach Station! Serving up affordable and delicious local delights, this restaurant gives you the option to dine buffet-style or a la carte. We personally recommend trying their buffet, because it’s worth every dollar for the extensive spread you’ll get. Plus, it’s superb for those of you who want to get a taste of everything because all the dishes look scrumptious! Wings Of Time is an award-winning outdoor night show that runs permanently on a daily basis. With two show timings every day – 7:40pm and 8:40pm – this 20-minute multi-sensory show will bring you the story of three friends travelling through time in search of one of their homes. Combining 3D projection mapping, giant water jets, robotic water fountains and state-of-the-art lasers, this is one show that’s definitely going to wow your entire family from start to finish. With such a spectacular show to keep the family entertained, there’s no better way to end the night with a perfect bang! Begin your final morning in Sentosa with a yummy breakfast at Slappy Cakes! Unlike most pancake restaurants, Slappy Cakes gives their customers full control over how they like their pancakes. Each table has a built-in griddle where you can make your own pancakes – just pick a batter, your fixings, add your favourite toppings and you’ll be munching down your very own creation in no time. This is the ultimate family-friendly dining spot that mashes good food and fun in one experience, so we certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the kids constantly ask to be taken back here! Never got the chance to get up close and personal with famous celebrities? Well, now you can at Madame Tussauds Singapore! Hang out with A-List celebrities, pose alongside famed Bollywood celebrities at the IIFA Awards red carpet, or take a selfie with your favourite Marvel superheroes – it’s all possible here. Apart from being home to wax figures that look just like their real-life counterparts, the Singapore branch of this world-renowned wax museum also features Asia’s very first Marvel 4D Cinema as well as a VR racing experience in life-sized F1 cars. Ready to be blown away? You might know Singapore’s most iconic landmark, the Merlion, but do you know what it actually stands for? There are a few Merlion statues in Singapore, but the Sentosa Merlion is unlike any of the other Merlions you can find in Singapore. Standing at a whopping 37 metres tall, the Sentosa Merlion overlooks Singapore’s Central Business District and Sentosa island, and is regarded as a guardian of prosperity. Here, you can learn about the urban myth surrounding the Merlion, as well as take home your very own souvenir from Singapore’s guardian of prosperity – a gold prosperity coin! The final stop of this 3D2N itinerary: Conclude your time at Sentosa with a feast at Malaysian Food Street! Indulge in mouthwatering Malaysian hawker fare from the dozens of stalls housed here, selling a variety of dishes like Nasi Briyani, Penang Hokkien Mee, Nasi Lemak and more. With its interior modelled after a typical old Malaysian town, your dining experience here is made to feel as authentic as possible – you just might forget that you’re still in Singapore for a little while! Located close to major attractions like Universal Studios Singapore, Adventure Cove Waterpark and SEA Aquarium, Hard Rock Hotel Singapore is an excellent choice for those who value convenience. Combining sleek, modern furnishings together with top-notch service, staying at Hard Rock Hotel Singapore is surely going to make you feel right at home. All rooms also come with a pull-out bed, making things a breeze for families who choose to stay here. Festive Hotel is the perfect accommodation choice for any family vacation in Sentosa, especially if you have younger kids in tow. The hotel prides itself in being super family- and child-friendly, from having larger room options to housing a kid’s pool and even providing candies at the reception table. Don’t just take our word for it – your kids will absolutely love it here! Additionally, Festive Hotel is situated near Festive Walk and is only a few minutes away from major attractions like SEA Aquarium, Universal Studios Singapore and Adventure Cove Waterpark. And there you go, a fun-filled 3D2N itinerary that’s bound to satisfy the entire family. Say goodbye to boring family outings or vacations, because this is one that’s going to ensure everyone has a blast! Besides, three days is barely enough to fully explore Sentosa, so you should definitely visit it again. Winner of the TripZilla Excellence Awards 2017 – Best Singapore Destination, it’s clear how Sentosa’s title as the State of Fun came about. Offering a myriad of sights, activities and food options, it’s no wonder Sentosa easily emerged at the top. Truth is, there’s so much more for you to discover in this little island – from Singapore’s first ever Bungy Tower to beach activities, exhilarating attractions and world-class accommodation options – grab your family and friends, and head over right now!

2019-04-23T06:20:27Z

https://www.tripzilla.com/sentosa-family-itinerary/73907

Online chat with writers We have many competent and certified writers available to process your essay and you can chat with them online to find the best one to work with. They must be able to represent their school in a positive way, so that the school can get credited for the excellent behavior, and draw in students who would be attending the school in the future. This introduction is aimed to help you have an idea of this hotly debated topic. Another benefit of school uniforms is that the tradition of wearing strict clothes to school will make students behave in a more appropriate manner while at school. There are quite a child what the pros and planned taking place nowadays whether schools. Second thought to the negative side is that school uniforms can get pricey. Do School Uniforms Help Students Learn? If students are out caught doing something repulsive or anything unacceptable, this can give the school a bad reputation. This advantage comes back to the discipline that is generated by maintaining the expectations of a certain look. It is evident that fashion pros and cons on school uniforms essay diversity of clothing become a reason for social conflicts. The school uniforms essay presented below examines both sides of the question in order to come to a reasonable conclusion. Here are the key advantages and disadvantages of school uniforms to think about. Since this debate evokes passionate arguments from both sides, here are some of the pros and cons of wearing school uniform that can help you finally decide if it is a nay or yay on this topic. You decide on teaching strategies that school uniforms. Many school pupils feel like they are judged by others according to the clothes they wear. The uniform automatically ignites a higher sense of school pride. There are those fast food nation essay thesis believe that the uniform is meant to try and solve much more significant problems like bullying and school attendance. The elementary schools in the district, have exceeded successful attendance. Uniforms may also dictate what clothing can be worn inside, which could require students to take coats or jackets off while outside to adhere to the code. With this problem, when a how to write a good essay for high school application does not have school uniforms, some families can save a lot of money by buying cheaper clothes for their children, and use their money on other important things like food, books, or anything else that may be important. Another decline in criminal activities, are gangs. The district has school uniforms mandatory for the children how to write a good introduction paragraph for a history essay attend the schools in the Long Beach district. The school, or someone in the community how to write a good essay for high como hacer un curriculum vitae lima peru application have to design the uniforms and assign them to each student in the school. Less competition between others will create an environment in which all students can become a greater person. Most people can picture having to pick their own clothing as art because you can choose what clothing can go together to make a certain outfit unique that could fulfill your desire. Ninety percent of the teacher population in Long Beach district has believed so. Many people will own some of the fanciest apparel that can catch many eyes, and a majority of that group probably cannot afford it. To start of with the positive effects of school uniforms, one of the advantages to wearing school uniforms, is that it can contribute to improved attendance. Students will always find a way of rebelling against the rules. With the high grades, to studying, and with less distractions, students can go to school with a purpose. Uniforms could help students focus more attention onto their studies than their fashion. Although school uniforms may have negative features to a students life in school, they are able to change their actions to prevent the negative features. Once parents can see the difference when school uniforms are being used in the school, they could show more appreciation for the kids, by having their kids pros and cons on school uniforms essay to school above the influence. School uniform acts as a band-aid to more significant issues. This assumption has been proved by a few studies revealing that those students who are more concerned about what they wear at school are at the same time distracted from learning. Clothes can be easily taken from lockers, and students know how to hack into lockers of students, especially during gym class. The actual clothing required of a uniform may also be uncomfortable. School uniforms help in saving parents money since they are cost effective. The fact of the matter is that everyone is different because no two comparison and contrast essay form are alike in this world, but then again, this is a learning institution we research paper size talking about. For name-brand fashion items, that might purchase items of clothing instead. By making students, especially teenagerswear standardized uniforms, the public education postpones their transition to adult life. It can create an environment where discipline is emphasized. The act of bullying occurs as students tease those of different cultures from them. If you decide on teaching strategies that never seems to a lot of homeschooling pros and cons papers. It also shows us that to do so, there may be sacrifices to diversity and social learning that could hamper fast food nation essay thesis student later on in life. This can happen several times in a week or month, and most of that time could have been made up with studying to prepare for tests that makes up a majority of a grade in a class. Did you like the essay? Another benefit of school uniforms is that the tradition of wearing strict clothes to school will make students behave in a more appropriate manner while at school. School uniforms tend to cost less than traditional youth clothing. If administrators or teachers are looking for strangers based on their lack of compliance with the school uniform code, then it becomes easy to blend into that environment. School uniforms can very much make a difference. Another important aspect is comfort. Most of the time, if kids dress nice all the time, they usually would have a high spirit with joy to going to school. By raising the maturity level, it can bring less problems to the school making it run smoothly. School uniforms, by design, limit diversity within the learning environment. If uniforms are made mandatory, parents will not have to spend much money on buying clothes for their children. Did we spoil it a closer look at length the pros and even most parents. Because every student is essentially wearing the same thing, there is a reduced level of peer pressure to wear certain fashion styles or purchase specific clothes brands. School uniforms reduce clothing-related peer pressure. School uniforms can also cause a bad reputation for the school that they are attending. List of standardized tests improving education in america? The reduction of all these incidents has reduced sixty-nine percent. Females may take up their studying time to go shopping that can take hours looking for the clothes that can make them look attractive. How to cite this page Choose cite format: Students and cons dlsud thesis template, from top top experts, and cons in the death penalty, and cons of education. Although uniforms have moved from pom-poms and starched aprons to polos and jumpers, the reasons why uniforms are either supported or criticized have remained relatively the same for over years. By eliminating the need to find popularity through fashion or accessories, it becomes possible for students to focus on other aspects of the learning environment. For those who are poor, that rebellion might focus pros and cons on school uniforms essay those who are rich and have more comparison and contrast essay form them. Wearing school uniforms encourages discipline in school. The history of school uniforms has a somewhat checkered past. It may be better to teach students how to handle a bully and protect themselves than to stick them into a specific outfit.

2019-04-21T21:10:46Z

http://schindler-bs.net/993-pros-and-cons-on-school-uniforms-essay.php

Lady Christie Morgan is not the only occupant in this desolate English estate. A young apparition appears, sparking a chain of horrifying occurrences involving Christie and the two men closest to her: Anthony Longfield-Lothian and Tristan Ely. A saga of mystery and sordid family history weaves intrigue for the passionate love triangle. Past and present war as the secrets of three aristocratic families come to light. Gothic Fiction - What is it and how did it come about? Gothic fiction, also known as Gothic horror combines elements of both horror and romance. The first ever gothic novel is regarded to be The Castle of Otranto by the English author Horace Walpole back in 1764 – so he would have effectively pioneered the genre. Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror mixed with elements of romance. It is dark, exciting, mysterious, melodramatic, full of deep and passionate feelings and oodles of atmosphere. It is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of that era and in the same way rejects clarity and rationalism preferring the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, as well as a quest for atmosphere. It is important to understand that the ruins of gothic buildings were very much linked to strong emotions as they represented the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations. English landscape parks of the time would even add fake ruins for this kind of effect and feeling. Medieval buildings were seen by English Gothic writers as representing a dark and terrifying period, of harsh laws enforced by heavy punishments including torture – an era steeped in mystery, fanaticism for example anti-Catholicism and the Inquisition, and superstitious rituals. There are a number of prominent features of Gothic fiction. These include both psychological and physical terror, mystery, secrets, darkness, decay, death, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses, elaborate but crumbling castles and Gothic architecture, hereditary curses and madness. Gothic fiction characters often include Byronic heroes, tyrants, evil villains, maniacs and madmen, femmes fatales, persecuted maidens, insane women, magicians, paranormal characters for example vampires, werewolves and monsters, ghosts, the Devil and so forth. All of this put together with clever twists in the storyline makes Gothic Fiction a fascinating read. Taking the reader out of reality and pushing them out of their comfort zone – into a world of decaying beauty, deep passions and dark secrets. Where love can be eternal and anything and everything can happen in the stormiest yet most breath-taking ways. It is a genre that guarantees that while reading, you will leave this everyday world behind and step into a whole new other – leagues away from everything you’d come to know. My novel Morgan Hall is everything a Gothic novel should be – almost all of the above. In addition to this, I have also moved all of that as it is, literally, into our modern world, and you will be able to relate to the characters and what they are feeling but still be left with that very overwhelming Gothic rush and that sense of “wow”! So come and have a go – experience “Morgan Hall” by Bo Briar. Morgan Hall is a gothic fiction novel that definitely has the right atmosphere as it's set in an old English manor that has been in the Morgan family for centuries and comes complete with pounding rain and unusual thunderstorms, lush countryside, eerie woods, sparkling streams and ponds, and a house full of secrets and unease. As per many of these novels, the main character, Christie Morgan, begins seeing spirits, hearing strange noises, has unusual things happen to her, and then is tormented by events that grow more dangerous and eerie as the days move on. While I found the setting to be quite fascinating, and thought the descriptions of the houses were quite good, I'm afraid the characters themselves are what actually drove me to give it the rating that I did as I enjoyed the descriptions far more than I enjoyed the characters. Don't get me wrong as I enjoy a good gothic fiction novel and have been hooked since I discovered my grandmother's stash in her bedroom (in French and in English) when I was twelve years old. And while I really enjoyed the atmosphere in this novel, especially the pounding rain and the early darkness (perhaps I am rain-deprived in this drought-ridden July?) but I could envision everything so clearly and that is clearly due to the author's good writing skills when it comes to describing events and settings. I would even say I enjoyed the plot to a certain extent although it did seem to get caught up in the descriptions and in the characters' love triangle, but I like old family secrets and things that have been kept hidden for centuries, so perhaps I am a bit of a sap for things like that. My biggest issue with Morgan Hall was the characters as they kind of got on my nerves. Christie, the last living descendent of Morgan Hall, became one big mess as things kept happening to her and I was often saying, "Where's your backbone, girl?" I just don't have the patience for women who are constantly crying (I realize this is just my issue and many people don't have a problem with this: It's something I need to work on.). And what particularly drove me crazy was the sudden development of this love triangle thing. Yes, I could predict something would happen, but it was how it happened that I wasn't overly crazy over, but then I am never crazy about these insta-love things so this would never have appealed to me. The whole flow of the situation didn't quite sit right with me and I thought the characters behaved like young, spoiled children and it really bothered me. I actually really liked Jonathan, the gamekeeper, and thought he was the most level-headed of the bunch. Morgan Hall definitely has all the markings of a gothic fiction novel and I enjoyed seeing all of these elements in play; the spooky hall, the temperamental weather, the unexplained events, etc... And while the descriptions of the various homes were quite well done, I felt like the plot and the characters didn't quite live up to expectations. But the potential is definitely there, and I hope Ms. Briar will continue to write gothic fiction for those of us who can't quite get enough. When a childhood love he thought was dead, appears on his doorstep during their investigation, Connor is forced to confront memories he convinced himself were the delusions of a man deep into grief. They are being stalked by a mysterious man who appears to know far too many of their secrets. After Alison is almost killed confronting her occult past, it is impossible for Connor to deny the connection between the cases. Someone is attempting to end Connor’s life and the lives of all those who surround him. When I first came up with the story of Nightfall it began with the characters. I envisioned their style, attitudes and relationships long before I could think of where I wanted the story to take place. As the story came together the scenes just sort of fell into place. Each scene required a certain tone and I envisioned a specific setting for the scene to take place but I still didn’t have an overall setting for the entirety of Nightfall. I only had pieces that I needed to assemble. I had Connor’s home, an old forgotten building, a house under renovation, a pizzeria and a closed down jail. All of these settings I had visited or experienced at some point. The most notable was certainly the closed down jail. In Windsor, Vermont there is an old former jail-prison that was closed in the 70’s that was subsequently renovated and turned into low-income housing. The structure remains fairly well intact including the old death row. This was one setting that I really wanted to feature in the story. On the whole, there were a multitude of scenes but I still couldn’t decide on the definitive setting for the entire story. It wasn’t until I took a trip to Salem, Massachusetts that I found the elements Nightfall was missing. Now, there have been countless stories that have used Salem as a setting, and it carries a certain cliché in the paranormal genre yet the reality of the Salem gave me a different inspiration. Modern Salem is a bustling metropolis with the original founding buildings hidden at the center. It’s an interesting mix of historic sites and modern urban development. Through exploring Salem you could wander from historic sites to psychic and witchcraft shops, from pizzerias to True Blood-esque Witch/Vampire bars like Strega. In all, visiting Salem gave me a new perspective. The classic idea of Salem is no longer valid, but all of the surrounding towns like Marblehead and Beverly carry that original New England Township feeling that most still associate with Salem. If I had not actually visited Salem, Nightfall would not be set in Doliber Cove. I would still be under the same impression as most about Salem and elements like sailing on the Massachusetts coast, quirky book shops, and mysterious bars would be absent. Originally from California, PW moved frequently, living in many places including Vermont, Tennessee and currently New York where PW took his interest in adventure to college earning a Bachelors in Folklore Anthropology, Archaeology and Art Studio. After his work was displayed in gallery exhibits and television documentaries, he returned to college for his MSEd as a Communications Specialist in Media Production. Between rock climbing, sailing and investigations, there's barely enough time in the day but it's all a modern adventure. One lucky person is going to be the recipient of an autographed paperback version of Nightfall as well as a copy of Connor's pendant. Jessica Walsh is starting her freshman year at Nightshade High and trying to forget about the tragic events surrounding her brother’s graduation. She wants to have a normal high school experience. But that’s easier said than done in Nightshade. Dead is a Battlefield is the sixth novel in this series, and features Jessica Walsh, a freshman trying desperately to forget the serious events that surrounded her brother's graduation. I thoroughly enjoyed the previous novels in this series and wondered where the author was going to take this series when this one popped into my mailbox one day. And although I enjoyed it, I can't honestly say I enjoyed it as much as the earlier novels featuring Daisy. Jessica is an interesting character, but I felt like the author focused too much on the status of her popularity rather than on her character traits and the development of her character which I found to be somewhat erratic. I found her to be somewhat selfish at times and although I liked the fact that she was honest with herself to admit she liked her popularity, it did irk me at times and I kind of found her to be snobbish. Perhaps this will change in future novels as her character develops and she gets put in more serious scrapes which allows her to grow up and be more responsible and mature. The plot is meant to be lighthearted and fun, definitely not complex, and it lives up to that standard set in previous novels. I enjoyed the antics of secondary characters and the various events that continue to plague the town of Nightshade as it was just pure fun. While the main plotline is easily predictable, I enjoyed reading how the various characters worked together to get themselves out of the scrapes with the usual romantic entanglements getting in the way. You have to take the plot with a grain of salt, but the various threads are fun and set up some interesting scenarios for the future. If you are looking for complex, deep plots, then this book and series are definitely not for you, but if you are looking for light entertainment, then you will enjoy this novel. Dead is a Battlefield continues the antics of the various characters introduced in previous novels and puts them in scenarios that are fun and entertaining. While not quite up to the standard of the previous novels featuring Daisy, this one was still fun and lighthearted, and I'm hoping that as Jessica's character develops and matures, and I get used to the change in character focus, Jessica will grow on me as well.

2019-04-26T15:55:42Z

http://curlingupbythefire.blogspot.com/2012/07/

stats are happening at least, so I'll be able to work something out with it. Hi. I've been interested in Black Crusade for quite a while now, and own the book(a GenCon Pre-Release ), so I was wondering if the spot for the CSM Champion was taken yet. I thought I'd ask before setting up a character background/concept, on the off chance that it was and I simply missed it. Send your concept through to the GM, he'll pick the group. The heretek will come into play just a while after the heretics meet the CSM and will indeed be from off planet. I have two concepts competing for the heretek position, so I'll have a fun time choosing. So far I have not received any concepts for the Champion, you are welcome to contribute. As for Mein Fuhrer, no way I am letting a starting character have a Daemon Weapon. Especially with that name, my gramps would be spinning in his coffin, gevalt geshreeyeh! The weapon fairly specifically isn't a demon weapon, but rather a frozen shard taken with the Cursed Heirloom talent. I'd certainly be happy to pick another name for it, of course, but it's basically a REALLY unlucky dagger that has the ability to kill space marines. The weapon fairly specifically isn't a demon weapon, but rather a frozen shard taken with the Cursed Heirloom talent. This^, I had the same 'wtf daemon weapon?!' moment when i first read it, but i looked it up in the book and its actually a exotic melee weapon, so its a valid choice as far as i know. It steps on the same thematic territory as a daemon weapon, but doesn't have the mechanical power of one, and almost certainly isn't sentient. My character concept likely would be caught talking to it, but it's really an inanimate object that gets treated like a person. The item is supposed to be a plot hook, though, since it can cause trouble with its origins, curse, and stubborn unwillingness to be seperated from its owner. Joking aside I'm feeling kinda overwhelmed making a sorcerer for the first time, not to mention being used to playing Imperial Guard, I kinda look at chaos's interpertaions of the lore in the book and thinking "dear merciful god... these guys have their heads even farther up their asses than the Imperial Cult, and THAT is saying somthing!" I'm kinda feeling sorry for the civs, trapped between a ruthless parinoid theocratic regime and the insane bloodcrazed anarchists who want to bring it down. Still I am completely rewriting the backstory and I find some of the images hard to look at in the book, the only creatures that don't look so messed up they make me want to shove a chainsword through them are in fact the CSM sorcerers, and perhaps a few cool looking mutants. seeing an actual character sheet helps me put things togeather too. I'm thinking about what darkling said about going a marine going rouge, funny thing is, dispite seeing all the horrors of the imperial machine. I can't bring myself to hate the emperor himself even in game. the idea was this marine peicing even some of this togeather, imagine what that would do to such a man. The chapter I liked the most for this future character is the Celestrial Lions, they tried going through the proper channels to demand an investigation into the unsessary inquisitorial glassing of a planet they'd protected. for their trouble, they never got an answer as the inquisition anserws to nobody, their high command on the way to petition the emperor himself was "accidently" blown off course into an ork infested region, and the rest of the chapter was dispatched to armageddion to protect a hive city, a good portion of the chapter was killed on that meatgrinder world, they aren't gone but I'm guessing they are seriously bitter at the inquisition, even if they can't prove anything. Nothing elaborate, we can generate plot hooks as we go. I like to start broad and then work in the details as they arise. Dauskin was one of the people that grew up among the Crom Tribe. A forgotten human world that degenerated into primal survival, where the Gods and the Emporer of Man were nothing more than story tales. As a youth he had a knack for tinkering with tools and weapons. Lostech from ages past were sometimes dug up and he would pry them apart to find out what made them tick. Sometimes he made genuine improvements, but most of the time, it ended in failure or sharp explosion. Others discredited him as a fool for wasting so much energy on trinkets when harvests and supplies for the lean months were paramount. He wasn’t a strong youth like many of the others, but his quick wit and ruthless tactics at least left him an able fighter of the village. Again the tribe berrated him for trying to hide and attacking a foe, unseen. There was no honor in fighting dirty. “What good is honor to the dead?” He would reply. In truth, Dauskin was tired of conforming to the daily drudgery and meager survival of living to another day. When the Old Hag mentioned power and prophecy, he lept at the chance to be free of the lesser minded tribesman. So now here he was, with a few others from the tribe. He didn’t believe they would find whatever it was they were looking for. If anything, they’d come back after a few days, but maybe Dauskin would find a suitable place to set up and break away from the tribe. Adroit: Pick a Characteristic. For the rest of the game, that characteristc scores an additional success on any test it is involved in. The Frozen Shard is Extremely rare while the Cursed Heirloom only permits Very Rare or less. Everyone seems to be fully stating their characters out instead of just giving concepts... should i do the same? I will not look over any stats until I have decided which concepts will be picked. Which I will do in approximately eight hours. If one have not posted a concept until then I must sadly reject further concepts in lieu of planning the encounters and adventure. To those that is in the panic of coming up and writing their concept, take it easy, you got plenty of hours before I start checking in, no need to rush. okay here's the concept for Avarius Leonin, former loyalist marine of the Celestrial Lions he supposedly only had minor psychic potental, enough to denote him for further conditioning in loyality to the chapter and the emperor, and get him the marine equilivent of a desk position as protector and cataloger of relics. He was simply a low ranking libarian. He was content with helping his brothers off and a few times on the battlefield, and training the beings and powers of chaos held no lure over him. That innocence and contentment changed when the Celestrial lions began questioning the inquisition's brutality against civilans they'd saved Albiet through offical channels, even going so far as to try and petition the emperor. the death of their entire command staff due to a "Freak Warp Storm" 80% of the chapter being ground into sausage, and loosing their gene-seeds thanks to suprisingly intelligent ork snipers targeting their apothicaries on armageddion all within a month. Avarius knew the inquisition was coming for the chapter's reliquaries, and it was the combination of duty, dread, and outrage at the inquisition's (as he saw it) underhanded murder of each of his battle brothers, and of his entire chapter, that finally gave chaos a hold on the Psyker, causing him to turn his back on the Imperium. Now embracing "the path of glory" he turned over the relics, weapons, and knowalge of the chapter to priates, private collectors, tossed a few into space and the warp for good measure to keep them out of inquisitorial hands, and fled for his life into the Screaming Vortex. Now this embittered idealist is out for inquisitoral blood, using his psychic powers to face his foes and flay them alive. Dispite this entire ordeal somthing of the conditioning stuck with him, he still believes the emperor cares for his people... but that the inquisition, high lords of terra, and their military machine, keep him trapped upon the golden throne, woshiping him as a god when he clearly is not. I took a weapon downgrade (the cursed metal downgrade) to lower the rarity of the weapon by one step, thereby making it very rare, and able to be taken as a cursed heirloom. If that isn't allowed by the rules, then I'll have to select a new weapon, though I do personally like having a cursed exotic weapon. If that element of the character is disruptive or takes focus away from the story, I can delete it and select something else, such as outdoors and tracking skills or another minion, for flavor. has anyone heard from warg since being told if you were accepted or not? I am rewriting some stuff at the moment, plus having alot of work to handle at the moment. I'll have more info coming up on Monday night. o.o speak of the devil. Its alright, I was just wondering if i had somehow fallen out of the loop. Started up a OOC for the players! Thank you all for showing interest, positions are closed. getting the hang of character creation! spells picked, weapons looked over, all traits done, i feel like a kid in a candy store with even my basic equipment.

2019-04-25T00:22:30Z

https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=118205.msg5317206

Today I would like to talk about yet another unique embroidery tradition of the Dnister corridor, This river separates the historic districts of Pokuttia and Podillia. This region is incredibly rich in embroidery techniques. This technique is mostly known for being used on the ends of the ancient woman's headpiece, the peremitka, which is a long narrow piece of linen which is wound around the head and neck of married women. The ends of this garment were always decorated either with a woven design or with embroidery. These ornemented ends were called 'zabir'. The edges were sometimes also ornamented, usually with simple woven designs. Here are some women in Horoden'ka district costume wearing peremitky. This type of embroidery was used on women's chemises as well, but lasted longest on the zabory because it could be made to look almost the same on both sides. The image at the top of the article is a good example of this technique, even though the photo is somewhat washed out. I will be using several images which are of rather poor quality, and i apologize that i was not able to find better. The framework for these designs was laid out in black cross stich, or sometimes stem stich. For the zabir, double sided cross stitch was used. Then colors were filled in with a herringbone or pine type stitch, which started from the center line of the outlined area and extended diagonally to the outer edge. This was often executed in silk thread, and sometimes in metallic thread as an accent..Some of the outlines, and often decorative elements on the edge of the design were done with Holbein stitch.Other stitches were used for the edging, including buttonhole and chain stitch. Elements which are equilateral end up looking almost like eyelets, but they are not pulled open. The primary colors used are dark reds, edging into maroon and purple with other colors used as accents. Some designs use stem stitch instead of cross stitch, and are curvilinear. The filling is done in the same way however. Many designs are symmetrical about the diagonal axis, which is similar to embroidery designs in the Balkans. And of course, wherever creative embroiderers existed, variations on the technique also existed. More recently, this technique, as with so many others, was imitated with cross-stitch. Here are two shoulder insets from women's chemises with the same design, one done in rozchokhy, and the other in cross stitch. And another pair, from zabory. In fact, it is my belief that many designs in this area with strong black outlines of individual motifs which are today only found in cross stitch were originally executed in rozchokha. It would be interesting to reverse engineer these designs. I suppose I should mention that some of these designs were deliberately left unfinished so as to more clearly show the structure. Occasionally you will see a remnant of rozchokha in a cross stitch design. This technique has today been revived, and is being taught in places like the Uchylyshche in L'viw. New designs using the technique are also being invented. I had such a piece in my personal collection, but it was borrowed and never returned. This is a beautiful part of the creative heritage of Ukraine and the world, and I would encourage you to try it. This technique has a great deal of potential. Thank you for reading. I will close with some more images of pieces done in this technique. Hello, Roman. Thanks for this post! I thought, that on Pokuttya peremitkas was mainly woven (like this from Jaseniv-Pilny http://hutsul.museum/collection/77/341/ ), but your post opened my eyes to the wonderful local version of embroidered peremitkas. I don't have the 3rd Iryna Svyontek's book, so I ask you, is there in the book how to do this embroidery? By the way, "some women in Horoden'ka district costume wearing peremitky" are the folk band "Peremitka" from village Luka, Horodenka raion and you can watch their performance on youtube http://youtu.be/YT6eFkwiKBE . Thank you, Nawko, I would like to know where I could find her other two books. I have not found them available here. She does not show how to do this embroidery, but you can save and enlarge the black and white images and be able to see how it is done.It is pretty obvious.framework in cross stitch and outline stitch, filling with herringbone or sosnytsia. Most books on Ukrainian embroidery cover this, for example the one by Diakiw O neil. It is called plait stitch, or peremitkovy show or Horodenkovy stib, or somesuch. There is a description, if no diagrams in 'Podil'ska Narodna Vyshywka by Liudmyla Bulhakova-Sytnyk. Thank you for your information. and please let me know how i could buy her other two books. Перші 3 присвячені Гуцульщині, одну з них я маю книжкою (2-гу)(поталанило, привезли з Івано-Франківська), іншу - найстаршу - скановану копію в форматі djvu. В Києві їх не видно у продажу, і не видно в інтернет-магазинах. Ті, що я бачила, - то зібрання чорно-білих схем низинкових розводів (переважно). Нагадують книжку Є. Сороханюк, але на жаль, гіршої якості. Ви маєте знати, що поліграфічна якість книжок пані Свйонтек покращувалась з кожним виданням і та, що Ви маєте - найкраща, а давніші трохи поступаються. Я знайшла видавництво, що видало дві з трьох книжок, це "Нова Зоря", Івано-Франківськ http://novazorya.if.ua/books?start=4 З ними можна сконтактувати електронною поштою nz@com.if.ua. Також, ймовірно, усі книжки є у авторки, але її контактів я нажаль не маю. І ще один коментар українською, бо усе, що я хочу, моя погана англійська не дозволить написати :) (сподіваюсь, Ви мене зрозумієте). Можливо, коли матимете час, Вас зацікавить тема, над якою зараз думаю я. Це білі вишивки Житомирщини. (Баранівський район, с. Суємці та навколишні) Я наполегливо шукаю книги і статті, де б виділяли цю вишивку, але поки що марно. Єдине джерело, що містить замальовки - "Український народний орнамент" Олени Пчілки, 1876 (починаючи з 8 аркуша). Завдяки вишивальниці Тетяні Серебренниковій можемо переглядати це видання онлайн тут http://vyshyvanka.ucoz.ru/forum/57-896-1. Цей альбом містить зразки орнаментів з Новоград-Волинського повіту, до якого Баранівський район належав, але не містить конкретики щодо місць побутування кожного окремого узору і також мість дуже загальний опис вишивки вирізуванням і настилуванням без виділення якихось локальних рис. Усе інше, що вдалось знайти - це фото вишивок в Мережі. Велику підбірку відфотографувала у фондах музею Гончара пані Олена Уткіна. Її фото можна знайти в альбомі іншої вишивальниці, пані Лідії Бебешко, яка перетворює їх в PM-схеми: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.440060966119345.1073741847.116152611843517&type=3 . Усі інші зразки, що мені вдалось знайти, я зібрала на дошку в Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/podillyaforestm/zhytomyr-style-of-ukrainian-cutwork-embroidery-vyr/ (звідти можна потрапити на першоджерела, якщо то не були соціальні медіа). Ось і все. Pereproshuju shcho i vam vidpyshu latinikamy. Je chudovi znymky v knyshchi 'Vyshywka Skhidnoho Podillia', pysaly Jevhen i Tetiana Prychepi, z vydawnytsa 'Rodovid'. Так, звичайно, я читала Ваші статті. Але тут мене зацікавило Житомирське біле шитво, як оремий різновид українських вишивок білим по білому. На скільки я бачу воно якраз мало схоже на вінницьке і снятинське, а більше схоже на полтавське, хоча має ряд особливостей, які якраз я перераховувала пунктиками :), хоча мало б бути більше схоже на рівненське (сарненський район), бо туди ближче. Перепрошую за турботу. Vy majete na uvazi Podil'ske vyrizuvannia. Tak, ja maju kil'ky fotohrafii o tseho takozh. Mih by vam posylaty jakscho meni daiete adress na email. Interesting and exhaustive articles here,thank you! A very modern view of things you have. Embroidery in Ukraine as in many other places was considered to be essential. It was, and to some extent still is, a visible mark of your good taste, how marriageable you are, and evidence of proper householding skills. Untill about the 1930's, all the cloth and thread for embroidered items were made at home, by hand. Today we pay exorbitant prices for good linen, but in those days, it was much more available. Even when commercial thread began to be used, it was never that expensive. Secondly, these clothes were not worn for a season and then discarded, as we unfortunately do today. Linen is extremely durable, and an embroidered garment could be worn for decades. This is especially true for the most extensively embroidered garments which were only worn for important occasions, or perhaps for church on Sunday, at most. Everyday clothes would eventually wear out, and had less embroidery, but even then would be recycled as footcloths, baby swaddling and the like. This was not much done by city women untill the 1930's when it became fashionable to have an ethnic identity. The woman in the villages worked on the family farm, and for much of the year agricultural work does leave one with a great deal of free time, excepting only planting time and harvest. Also, one of the most important things that young girls were expected to do was to prepare their trousseau; A girl was not considered to be ready for marriage untill she had a proper collection of embroidered clothes and household linens prepared, often including a shirt for her future spouse. Women would also embroider shirts for their husbands and sons. It was considered to be an extremely strong protective talisman for a young man to go out into the world with a shirt embroidered by his mother. Embroidery was never considered to be just 'a hobby', it formed a vital part of life. This has not completely been lost in Ukrainian culture even today. And of course, all of this applies to many other peoples as well. Ohh,thank you, Roman; very informative. Hi.. Great post. Well you have discussed here few things about Costume & Embroidery and your images also looks amazing. Keep this type of posting.

2019-04-22T02:12:56Z

http://folkcostume.blogspot.com/2014/01/rozchokhy-or-zabir-embroidery-of.html

The diagram above depicts the flow and interconnectivity of cryptographic keying information within the SQRL client. For the sake of clarity, implementation details such as the generation of per-encryption salt and the creation and storage of decryption verifiers, implied by the technology, are not shown. GCM: NIST and industry standard for authenticated encryption. PBKDF2: The industry standard Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2. EnScrypt: SQRL's iterative memory-hard Scrypt algorithm. Make Public Key: Part of Dan Bernstein's Ed25519 elliptic curve signature system. A SQRL identity flows from a single high-quality random 256-bit value. As shown above, that value directly becomes the Identity Unlock Key and, through a PBKDF2 one-way key derivation function, the Identity Master Key. Since this forms the user's single system-wide identity, the SQRL system acknowledges that the entropy of this value is crucial. Thus client implementors MUST pay particular heed to this value's high entropy requirement by using as many sources of input entropy as possible. Depending upon the hosting platform, all sources of entropy should be used, such as seeding from a mobile device's photo collection (but never in isolation since it is obviously repeatable), the platform's own crypto-random source, real time camera and audio streaming, GPS, inertia sensor, WiFi signal strength, network history, storage contents, etc. Modern processors also contain event counters which monitor deterministic but unpredictable and unknowable internal processor state. Since it only needs to be done once per identity, the high-entropy random value can be generated deliberately and carefully. The important takeaway is: Implementors should budget to invest heavily in this process, feel no need to hide it ‘magically’, and feel free to engage their users. SQRL clients must carefully adhere to several important security safeguards: The two decrypted key values highlighted in red, above, must NEVER be written, even briefly, into non-volatile memory. They must only exist in RAM. Only their encrypted counterparts, shown with green highlight, may be (and in some cases must be) stored permanently. As shown by the flowchart, the application of user-supplied secrets (in blue) enables the encryption/decryption paths between the stored encrypted keys and the never-stored decrypted keys. As the flowchart shows, the Identity Master Key, rather then being independently arrived at pseudo-randomly, is obtained directly through the one-way, irreversible PBKDF2 function from the Identity Unlock Key. This allows the encrypted Identity Unlock Key ‑ to serve as a complete identity backup, empowered not only with the identity unlock role (enabling replacement, re-enabling or deletion of existing online identities) but also able to protect its user from any loss of their Identity Master Key, as well as from forgetting its matching password. Simple decimal digits were chosen because they are simple, are more language-neutral than alphabetic symbols, and are typically easier to enter than special characters. Although larger character sets using case-sensitive alphabetic and special symbols encode a larger number of bits per symbol, human factors studies show that, to obtain a desired total bit length representation, ease of use increases as the size of the character set is reduced and the number of characters is increasing. In other words, people would rather enter a greater number of simple characters than fewer complex characters. 24 decimal digits allows the system to select one Rescue Code of 1024, which is equivalent to 79.73 (we'll call it 80) bits of entropy. Since each 80-bit value is passed through a slow, highly acceleration resistant, EnScrypt operation to convert it into a 256-bit cipher key. Any attacker would be forced to slowly brute force guess the full-entropy randomly-chosen 24-digit Rescue Code. Note that verifying any guess requires additional work of decrypting the encrypted key under the guess to obtain a candidate Identity Unlock Key then passing that through the elliptic curve “Make Public Key” function to obtain a candidate Identity Lock Key for comparison with the client's actual stored Identity Lock Key. This is more than sufficient for protecting the user's encrypted identity unlock key. The Identity Master Key is always stored in encrypted form under the user's chosen (and readily changeable) authentication password. This is the password they use to prove their identity to the SQRL client in their smartphone, laptop or desktop. It may be readily exported from the client for cloning to another device, or for backup storage. Once the user's full password has been entered, the decrypted identity key will be obtained. As the password was being entered, the first few characters, typically four, are captured separately. That “hint string” is passed through a (much quicker) instance of our EnScrypt PBKDF function to produce a “hint key”. The full password is used to decrypt the statically stored Identity Master Key (IMK). It is then immediately re-encrypted under the hint key. This “hint-encrypted” version of the IMK is stored in RAM and is never written to non-volatile memory. The decrypted IMK is then used once for the immediate operation being performed, then it is overwritten and discarded. Any subsequent operations can be authenticated by prompting for the user's password hint, requiring just the first few characters of their full password. The short hint decrypts the RAM-resident hint-encrypted IMK for easier use. Note that ANY mistake in the entry of the hint will immediately wipe the hint-encrypted IMK from RAM memory and prompt the user for their full password. No guessing is allowed here. Also, any action which should eventually re-prompt for the full password, such as the system sleeping, a screen blanker activating, etc. would also immediately overwrite the RAM-resident hint-encrypted IMK. The three keys shown in green above, along with associated cryptographic details, are stored — always and only — in encrypted form in the client's non-volatile memory for use as needed. Since the decrypted keys shown in red are never stored in non-volatile memory, they may only be created by decrypting the stored encrypted keys using the proper access code or user password. No matter how much security the SQRL system could provide, it won't actually be provided if it's not widely used. And it won't be widely used if its use is overly complex and confusing. We must remember that SQRL's “competition” is the woefully insecure, but oh-so-trivial to use, status quo: An eMail address and a user-chosen (well worn) password. Fancy as all this crypto magic may be, it needs to make sense to its users. Remember that SQRL's typical user will have NO understanding whatsoever of the meaning, reasoning and subtlety of any of this. By storing the system's two main keys — the Identity Unlock Key (IUK) and the Identity Master Key (IMK) — together in a single package, protecting the critical IUK with an extremely strong high-entropy access code, and allowing it to be optionally deleted, we give the user just one understandable SQRL identity to manage, backup, and copy. The result is a dramatically simplified user-interface. The SQRL Client User-Interface page will spend a great deal more time exploring the proper and suggested care and handling of SQRL's users. The SHA-256 hash is already a cryptographically strong one-way function. But SQRL's application needs to derive one 256-bit key from another (meaning no more input than output) while depending crucially upon the integrity of the function's one-way nature. Meanwhile, the fact that SHA-256 was chosen for use with popular crypto-currencies has meant that incredible SHA-256 hashing rates and technologies are being developed and achieved with dedicated hardware. Since SQRL can only offer 256-bits of input from the user's randomly chosen Identity Unlock Key (IUK), and since this function must not be allowed to be weakened, we felt that an abundance of caution was warranted. So sixteen (16) chained iterations of SHA-256 are used with each iteration's output XORed to produce the final output, which becomes the user's Identity Master Key (IMK). If some weakness should ever be found in the mapping between a low input bit count an the hash's output, this simple construction should thwart any hash-reversing exploitation and prevent the weakening of the secrecy of SQRL's Identity Unlock Key.

2019-04-21T00:13:14Z

https://www.grc.com/sqrl/key-flow.htm

My Divorce Solution will be conducting a one-day workshop for mental health professionals like yourself, to help you effectively assist patients who are faced with the complicated logistical challenges of the divorce process. This workshop will help you know what a patient may be experiencing at home and with their divorce professionals. This workshop will help you understand the plethora of decisions your patient will need to make while navigating this life transition. This workshop will address a patient’s concerns related to divorce and family law. Catherine Shanahan earned a BS in Accounting from Clarion University. A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA), Professional Daily Money Manager (PDMM), and trained mediator. She is a member of the Bucks County Collaborative Law Group, American Association of Daily Money Managers (AADMM) the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and the Association of Divorce Financial Planners (ADFP). She is a Delta Zeta alumna. Catherine splits her time between Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Hilton Head, South Carolina, and enjoys golfing, spending time with family and friends, and empowering women to be their best. Karen Chellew is a certified QDRO Administrator. She has spent 30 years in the legal industry as a paralegal and business manager for a law firm. She also serves as auditor for East Rockhill Township, PA. RecentIy, Karen established a women’s organization, Sisters U, which focuses on helping women to become and their best selves and to live fulfilling lives. Karen is on the advisory board of Emerge of PA , participates on the committee for Women of Influence for Pearl Buck International and also serves on the board of Perkasie Towne Improvement Association. Arlan Kardon, Esquire received her J.D. from Temple University School of Law and her B.A. in history from Temple University, where she was a Presidential Scholar. She is a member of the Family Law Section of the Philadelphia, Montgomery and Pennsylvania Bar Associations, a member of the State Bar Association of New York and a Charter Member of the Lawyers and Psychologists Group of Pennsylvania. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Artreach, a nonprofit organization that joins the performing and visual arts with special needs audiences. Ms. Kardon is admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the State of New York; and the U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd and 11th Circuits. Her Martindale-Hubble®* rating of AV indicates very high to preeminent legal ability and very high ethical standards. An avid photographer and traveler, Ms. Kardon is happily married and intimately involved in the lives of her twin daughters. Sean McCusker is an associate in the Family Law department of Dolchin, Slotkin and Todd. Sean’s practice concentrates on all matters involving child custody, support and equitable distribution of marital property. Sean’s interest in family law was sparked in his first year of law school when he began a summer internship with Philadelphia Legal Assistance’s Child Custody and Support Clinic (CASAC). Sean then undertook an internship at Washington D.C.’s Children’s Law Center, where he worked on behalf of children involved in Adoption, Abuse, Foster and Special Education matters. After graduating from Law School in 2010 Sean worked for the prestigious Family Law Department of a large law firm until joining Dolchin, Slotkin and Todd in 2014. Sean’s practice concentrates on Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Berks and Bucks counties. Sean has authored numerous articles on a variety of family law topics including the emerging impact of social media, such as Facebook, on custody litigation as well as landmark developments in Pennsylvania law, such as the abolishment of Parent Coordinators. Sean has also been invited to speak on panels for the Pennsylvania Bar Association and Pennsylvania Bar Institute and has provided guest lectures to the undergraduate Psychology Department of Drexel University. Sean’s education includes a B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University where he graduated with distinction in 2007 and a J.D. from the Villanova University School of Law where he graduated in 2010. Sean is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Sean currently resides in Philadelphia in the Fishtown section with his Wife and his two year old son. The information, guidelines, questions, and terms provided in this continuing education workshop are intended to help mental health professionals have an adequate understanding of the divorce process, so that they can guide their patients who are navigating through separation and divorce. This process is most often experienced as a highly emotional and challenging time for the entire family. Attendees will be provided handouts and a workbook specific to this workshop as additional references for the practitioner’s use. Marriage and divorce are both common experiences. In Western cultures, more than 90 percent of people marry by age 50. Healthy marriages are good for couples’ mental and physical health. They are also good for children; growing up in a happy home protects children from mental, physical, educational and social problems. However, about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher. Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology. Approximately 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, with most children of divorced parents in the United States (40 percent of all children) adjusting to their reconfigured family structure. However, 20 to 25 percent of children have trouble dealing with their new circumstances, which can create a variety of personal issues including mood disorders, developmental regression, academic failure and aggression. (Divorce Statistics, 2007). Divorce rearranges the family unit and schedule, but doesn’t end the family because parents will continue to parent long after the divorce. Yet, divorce always comes down to two elements: finances and children. The ability of the parents to navigate their divorce as amicably as possible paves the best path to their ability to communicate and co- parent (and “grandparent”) post-divorce. The children’s routines, relationships and even environment may change, yet healthy attachments to their parents can remain and even strengthen if parents take responsibility for separating, divorcing and moving forward with their lives in an appropriate and positive way. Mental health professionals have a unique opportunity to assist separating/divorcing parents and their children through this life transition. Identifying what property is considered a marital asset and how liabilities are treated in the divorce process. Understand how to protect assets. R. Cassidy Seminars, ACE provider #1082, is approved as a provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) www.aswb.org, through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) Program. R. Cassidy Seminars maintains responsibility for the program. Approval Period: April 15, 2018-April 15, 2021. Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval. Social workers participating in this course will receive 5.5 continuing education clock hours. TX: Approved CE Sponsor through the Texas State Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists. Provider #151 5.5 CE hours. NY: R. Cassidy Seminars is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board of Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists, #CAT-0005. (5.5) contact hours. TX: Provider approved by the TCBAP Standards Committee, Provider No. 1749-06, (5.5) hours general. Expires 3/31/2019. Complaints about provider or workshop content may be directed to the TCBAP Standards Committee, 1005 Congress Avenue, Ste. 460, Austin, Texas 78701, Fax Number (512) 476-7297. TX: R. Cassidy Seminars is an approved provider with the Texas Education Agency CPE# 501456. This course is (5.5) CE Hours.

2019-04-19T10:33:05Z

https://www.academeca.com/CEUReg/SeminarInfo.aspx?seminarId=2344

A Khmer dance group performs at the Rainier Community Center in celebration of the passage of Senate Bill 5173. I knew we had a lot of support this past legislative session for SB 5173, my bill to secure for all public employees and public school students two days leave of absence for matters of faith or conscience, but I was reminded of the breadth of that support when I recently attended a community celebration of the bill’s passage at the Rainier Community Center in Seattle. The range of faiths, ethnicities and cultures on hand led to a dizzying assortment of foods and entertainment, along with traditional blessings on our celebration by Native Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Christians and Buddhists. Performances included Asian-Indians, Filipino dance group, Pacific Islanders, Muslims and a Chinese lion dance. While all Americans have the right to practice the religion of their choice, until the passage of SB 5173, they haven’t always had the ability — particularly on holy days unrecognized by our society’s standard Gregorian calendar, or that don’t fall on a Sunday or even on the same day every year. Now public employees may take two unpaid holidays per calendar year for reasons of faith or conscience. It costs nothing, because the holidays are unpaid, and it places no requirements on private employers. At the same time, students may be excused from school for reasons of faith or conscience for up to two days, subject to the approval of their parents. In other news, I was honored last week to receive the Tikkun Olam Award for Public Service along with Rep. Luis Moscoso, D-Mountlake Terrace, at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Tikkun Olam is a Hebrew phrase that covers social activism, opposition to injustice, and efforts to improve society and repair the world — and I felt very humbled to be recognized in that context. The Council on International Educational Exchange, a non-profit high school exchange organization, is looking for households that might be interested in hosting students coming to Seattle for the 2014-2015 academic year. All kinds of households are eligible — those with families, kids, no kids, empty nesters, single parents, and so forth; the main requirements are kindness and a willingness to learn about a foreign culture. The students range in age from 15 to 18, have medical insurance and pay their own expenses with the exceptions of food and utilities. They arrive in August on a 5- or 10-month program. Households unable to host a student for the full academic year can also act as a welcome family to bring the student into the community for a part of their experience as well. For more information or to volunteer to host a student, go to http://www.ciee.org/whoops/. One of the best aspects of the legislative interim is that it frees up time to touch bases across the district and stay current with everyone’s needs and concerns. This month, for instance, I attended the Georgetown Community Council and North Beacon Hill Community Council meetings, just to hear what’s important to the communities and whether there’s a need for state lawmaking support. I also toured Talbot Hill Elementary with Renton Schools District Superintendent Dr. Merri Rieger. The enthusiasm of the students and teachers, and success of their Micro Society program is obvious and reaffirms the great work being done in our public schools. Evidence of students’ academic success, individual growth and good citizenship is very apparent after spending time listening to, and talking with the students. Also in Renton, I met with Mayor Denis Law and several city council members and staff to discuss the last legislative session and how we can move forward in the next session to address the City of Renton’s main concerns. I also met with State Auditor Troy Kelley about implementing a proviso I had inserted into the budget bill (SB 6002) that requires a cost and profit center performance audit of the University of Washington. The UW needs to conduct transparent operations and the Legislature needs to know how the students’ tuition is being used. Because the UW is such a complex institution, this audit is just the first step in trying to understand its financial operations and improve its transparency and accountability. I also met with the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition to learn more about the Superfund site cleanup operations and how I can be supportive of those efforts. Did you know average life expectancy in South Park is 13 years shorter than in northeast Seattle? Environmental conditions along the Duwamish River are a large contributor to that inequity. I’ll be working with the federal EPA, City of Seattle, King County and other stakeholders to make sure the cleanup is a permanent fix, not a temporary and ineffective capping of the pollutants, and that we resolve the ongoing pollution problem that continues to feed into the Duwamish. At the congressional level, I met with U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott to talk about how to proceed in creating a publicly owned state bank. I also met with Governor Inslee to explain the state bank concept and how it can be useful to resolve our I-502 financial system problem. Did you know the State of Washington uses Bank of America to hold all our tax revenue and provide banking services for the state? Then we borrow from Wall Street to finance our infrastructure and other capital needs. Doesn’t it make sense for us to use taxpayers’ revenue for the benefit of Washington State rather than Wall Street? Initiative 502, which legalized recreational marijuana, will create a billion dollar marketplace that is prevented by federal law from using traditional banking services. A marketplace that is forced to deal in cash only puts the public at risk of armed robbery, organized or other criminal activity, undependable tax revenues, and other assorted general misconduct, not to mention the difficulty it presents in complying with the U.S. Attorney General’s guidance on implementing I-502. A publicly owned state bank is an effective solution to both our I-502 financial system problem and our capital infrastructure funding problem. We should invest in Washington, not Wall Street. I also attended a Social Security Forum that featured several terrific speakers: Terry O’Neill, national president of National Organization for Women (NOW); U.S. Rep. Adam Smith; and Marilyn Watkins, policy director of the Economic Opportunity Institute. The theme of the forum was Social Security: Preserve It, Strengthen It, Pass It On, and it was sponsored by Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action. The group has been organizing a “Scrap The Cap” campaign, which eliminates the tax break high-income earners get in paying Social Security taxes. Eliminating this tax break for the wealthy would insure the viability of Social Security retirement benefits for generations to come. This week, I’m pleased to announce the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Strander Boulevard extension project at SW 72th Street. The extension establishes a critical east-west connection between SW 27th Street in Renton and Strander Boulevard in Tukwila. I spoke to high school students and college freshmen in the Summer Youth Leadership Program through which participants meet Asian American role models and leaders, discover Asian community resources, and build friendships with youths from other parts of the Puget Sound area. Still later this week, I’ll be attending a luncheon for high school juniors who have been accepted into the Washington Aerospace Scholars program. District participants include Deanta Kelly, Noah Palmer and Daisuke Fukagawa of Raisbeck Aviation High School in the Highline School District; Marco Cheng of Liberty High School in the Issaquah School District; and Constance La of Hazen High School in the Renton School District. The program connects high school juniors with educational and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics through independent learning, hands-on interaction, professional guidance, and site-based tours. On June 29, I’ll be attending the long-anticipated opening ceremony of the hard fought for South Park Bridge. Because the bridge falls at the intersection of three jurisdictions (Seattle, Tukwila and King County), the problem of replacing the state’s #1 rated worst bridge was very complex. Everyone is very pleased to see this day finally arrive. This is just a sampling of how I’m working to stay engaged with our community to know what the big issues are. If you have a community meeting coming up that you’d like me to attend, just contact my legislative assistant, Chio Saeteurn, and we’ll get it on my calendar. Well, that’s it for now. Have a great summer.

2019-04-20T07:05:49Z

http://sdc.wastateleg.org/hasegawa/2014/06/

The bike handlebar, so simple only in appearance, can really help you to solve the driving problems of your bike by improving it. We often spend thousands of euros to change the bike; you change suspension and exhaust, you mount pieces in carbon, but then you forget the simpler things that really change the driving of the bike, improving it. - and above all, aesthetics are improved. Yes, because even if on the forums or in the facebook groups there is only talk of functional advantages, in reality many changes are made exclusively for aesthetic improvements. At the end you change the bike, to make it wonderful to drive, but also wonderful to see! Otherwise why spend so much money on putting ugly, anonymous and similar components to the original ones? The handlebar is no exception. Removing the steel handlebar and replacing it with an ergal SRT is not only practical because it reduces vibrations (SRT handlebars reduce vibration by up to 25%), but it is also nice to see, thanks to the brushed and anodized finish! Maybe you're thinking that your bike is going to be as good as it is, and we can not convince you of the opposite, because just trying an SRT handlebar will understand the benefits it will bring, improving the driving and the aesthetics of your bike. In fact, the feelings you will experience we can only describe them, but to live them you will have to try the SRT handlebar directly and enjoy the benefits of driving. This applies to those who have a 22 mm handlebar as standard, such as the one mounted on most naked bikes, such as Ducati Monster 620/695/696, Honda Hornet, Kawasaki Z800, Z750, Z650, Suzuki GSR, Yamaha Fz8, Fz6, MT07, MT03, Triumph Street Triple etc. For those with a handlebar with a 28 mm variable section. And if your standard bike mounts a 22 handlebar you could make a great upgrade and go to the variable section, the handlebars that mount the most expensive and powerful naked (the naked 140/170 hp!). Have you ever wondered why high-performance motorcycles do not have 22 mm steel handlebars but are fitted with variable-section ergal handlebars? The builders on low-price entry level bikes are equipped with cheap components (including the handlebars) to keep the price low, but when you buy a 14 / 16.000 euro bike the standard mounted handlebar is almost always a variable section handlebar (some SRT series mountain handlebars). The choice of using the variable section ergal handlebar is due to the fact that the variable section handlebars improve comfort, reducing vibrations and improving the agility of the bike due to the lower flexibility of the handlebars and the more direct response. But the thing not to be underestimated is that they also improve the look of the bike, with a nice handlebar with variable section, the bike seems immediately more beautiful, more racing, more expensive, more aggressive, changes its appearance. You will never find a MV Agusta with a 22 mm handlebar or a Monster 1200 without a variable section handlebar. Whether your bike is used or new, if you want to improve it while driving and aesthetically, then changing the handlebars by choosing the SRT handlebars is the first thing to do. Did you know that a different handlebar can help you improve your driving? If you have already read some of our articles, you will have already seen that by mounting the SRT handlebars, you would have been able to change the driving style, improving it. But do you know why this happens? I am sure that you have already read our GUIDE and surely you will know by now by heart :). The SRT handlebars are designed to improve the handling of the bike, especially the naked Japanese who are fitted with very tight handlebars and with an unsuitable fold and also quite uncomfortable. But how can a handlebar improve the handling of the bike? The SRT handlebars are designed and studied to improve the ride, the width and the type of fold are unique of our handlebars. In fact, it is not enough to take a low generic handlebars to find benefits, only the SRT low handlebar presents the right measures to improve the driving of your bike. For over 10 years our company has specialized in the production of motorcycle accessories, in particular in the manufacture of handlebars. Maybe you do not know SRT Factory and if you are interested you can deepen what we do (by clicking here) to improve the aesthetics, performance and driving of your bike. With our experience, particularly on the bike handlebars, we have created a line of handlebars with 3 different specific and patented folds, which fit perfectly to most of the bikes, improving aesthetics and driving. Our low fold and medium fold are born to improve the riding of the most common naked. Maybe you're thinking that the bikes are all different handlebars? We have verified it, taking the handlebars of the 10 most sold naked in Europe. The result that has emerged is that the handlebars of these motorcycles are all similar, and all present a major flaw. They are all extremely short and converging towards the pilot, forcing him to an uncomfortable position and penalizing the driving, moreover they are all made of steel, material that transmits a lot of vibrations. Starting from this base we have developed our BENDING HANDLEBAR and our FOLD MEDIA taking into consideration the driving posture. The same work was done to create our HIGHEST HANDLEBAR, obviously changing the type of motorcycle taken into consideration. Would you like to know in detail how our handlebars improve both the aesthetics of the bike, but above all the driving performance and agility? To help you better understand how a simple accessory such as the handlebar, which might seem trivial, can improve the driving of your bike, reduce vibration and make your bike look even more beautiful, removing the steel handlebar to replace it with an ergal one 7075, TUV approved, anodized and brushed, we have created the DEFINITIVE GUIDE ON THE HANDLEBAR to allow motorcyclists to better understand the advantages obtained by replacing it. This Guide is our gift for you! Apparently simple, the handlebars actually prove to be very important, both for safety and for driving (and not to forget the aesthetics, since it emerged from a marketing study, that 85% of motorcyclists buy a specific bike mainly for aesthetics). If you are undecided on the handlebars and the fold to choose from, or if you just have a few minutes to read, this free guide will help you in the future. I advise you to read it, it will help you choose the handlebar with more awareness and you will understand that the handlebar is not as trivial as it would seem. The SRT handlebar not only being wider and offering a superior lever improves driving, but above all our special bends, studied in over 10 years of tests dedicated to the improvement of our handlebars and thanks to the high quality material used, will allow you accordingly to give commands to the bike will be more direct and to clearly improve the feelings and the feeling of driving. Have you ever tried to push or slightly pull the handlebars of your bike while you're driving and you're on a straight? The bike will react by curving immediately, the greater the lever, the less this effort will be, obtaining a higher sensitivity result. In addition you can also improve your posture by choosing a handlebar that best suits your needs to drive the most comfortable bike, such as the high fold. Changing the handlebars is not just a matter of aesthetics, which will however improve by choosing a colored handlebar that stands out on the bike, or by choosing a handlebar made of ergal 7075 and anodized, you will also improve the quality of the bike and especially the driving. You do not have to have the handlebar wrong to justify its replacement of your handlebars, if you have not done yet we suggest you read our guide to understand how you can improve your bike by spending very little. Many times you do not replace the handlebar because you think that the original handlebar is fine, or many times you are worried that you do not mount. The answer is that you can only improve the aesthetics and driving of your bike by saving a lot of money in unnecessary changes! If you are afraid that changing the handlebars will overwhelm the driving of your bike, you do not have to worry. The handlebar does not change the driving characteristics of the bike, such as road holding, but improves and accentuates the sensitivity with which you will impress the driving controls. This means that you will not change any dynamic features, but simply accentuate their qualities, if your bike is agile it will become even more agile with the SRT handlebars. I am writing this because many people do not change the handlebars for fear of modifying something and making the situation worse, but the replacement of the handlebars will only bring improvements for the reasons I explained above. These fears arise from some changes to which every motorcyclist sooner or later is obliged to cope; such as changing tires once worn out. The change of tires is one of those changes that can bring positive or denied, even at the same level of tire (same price range but different brand), the fact of changing brand or model will cause a feeling and different feelings in the guide, sometimes positive sometimes negative, depending on how you are used to driving and other characteristics of the bike. Changing the handlebars is not like changing the tires, changing the handlebars with an SRT will simply accentuate the dynamics of the bike but it will remain unchanged. This means that you will only receive benefits by changing your handlebar with an SRT model, amplifying the qualities of your bike. If our handlebars are the most sold and required on the market is because the quality and care, but especially the years of experience that we have poured on this product are really appreciated by many motorcyclists. To better understand what we are talking about, I suggest you go read the product descriptions to understand that, besides the quality of course, you are buying unique products that solve driving problems and improve the look of your bike with maximum personalization. Our products are not cheap, the motorcyclists who buy our handlebars know that they are buying the best handlebars on the market, a premium handlebar of high level, safe, homologated, carefully finished, which will last over time, and that solves all problems driving, vibrating, improving the aesthetics of your bike. Our handlebars are exclusive, so if you're looking for 20 euro dumbbells you can find many online, but I warn you, worsen your bike with Chinese chopper is not the best, the cinesate as well as being dangerous and poor recognize themselves 1 km away, and they shout to the other bikers "I would like but I can not". Maybe some accessories china style you do not recognize them if you're inexperienced, but if you know the bike, recognize, for example, a fake Akrapovic exhaust or 4-foot platforms is a breeze. If you are looking for a product not only of very high quality, but also beautiful, exclusive, and with a recognized brand, then the SRT handlebars are for you.

2019-04-22T07:08:31Z

https://www.srtfactory.com/en/content/motorcycle-handlebars-how-improve-driving

TechCrunch is reporting that GraphQL, the Facebook-incubated data query language, is moving into its own open-source foundation. "Like so many other similar open-source foundations, the aptly named GraphQL Foundation will be hosted by the Linux Foundation." From the report: Facebook announced GraphQL back in 2012 and open sourced it in 2015. Today, it's being used by companies that range from Airbnb to Audi, GitHub, Netflix, Shopify, Twitter and The New York Times . At Facebook itself, the GraphQL API powers billions of API calls every day. At its core, GraphQL is basically a language for querying databases from client-side applications and a set of specifications for how the API on the backend should present this data to the client. It presents an alternative to REST-based APIs and promises to offer developers more flexibility and the ability to write faster and more secure applications. Virtually every major programming language now supports it through a variety of libraries. "GraphQL has redefined how developers work with APIs and client-server interactions. We look forward to working with the GraphQL community to become an independent foundation, draft their governance and continue to foster the growth and adoption of GraphQL," said Chris Aniszczyk, vice president of Developer Relations at the Linux Foundation. As Aniszczyk noted, the new foundation will have an open governance model, similar to that of other Linux Foundation projects. The exact details are still a work in progress, though. The list of founding members is also still in flux, but for now, it includes Airbnb, Apollo, Coursera, Elementl, Facebook, GitHub, Hasura, Prisma, Shopify and Twitter. Microsoft is using Minecraft to help employees get acquainted with a refresh of the company's campus in Redmond, Washington. CNBC reports: Earlier this year, Microsoft enlisted Blockworks, a company that uses Minecraft's digital building blocks for designing real-world projects, to create a miniature rendering of the campus facelift, which is scheduled for completion in 2022. They're using graphics that are far more immersive than two-dimensional photos and videos. While Minecraft was designed for gamers, its immersive nature and the ability to quickly move around and construct edifices makes it easy to see how new buildings will look when inserted into an existing landscape. [James Delaney, a managing director at Blockworks] said Minecraft forces designers to sacrifice some accuracy because structures in real life don't always have the game's squared-off look, but the speed and ease of use more than made up for those deficiencies. It might take just 10 minutes to wrap up a single building, he said. Microsoft employees -- and anyone else with the education edition of Minecraft -- can now take a digital tour of the new campus and see how plans are developing. Outside of Microsoft, that access requires a subscription to Office 365 Education. Corporate Vice President of Cortana Javier Soltero is leaving the company after being in charge of Cortana for less than a year. "Soltero joined Microsoft when it bought at the end of 2014 Acompli, a mobile mail startup in San Francisco which he co-founded and led," reports ZDNet. "After joining Microsoft four years ago, Soltero spearheaded Outlook Mobile, then all of Outlook." Before being appointed to run Cortana in March of this year, he was the head of strategy for Office. From the report: Last month, Microsoft officials confirmed that Cortana was one of the technologies that management was moving from AI + Research to the Experiences & Devices team, which is under Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha. Microsoft is in the midst of trying to reposition Cortana from a standalone digital assistant to more of an assistance aide. Given the strong focus on home and work productivity by the Microsoft 365 and Office teams, officials seemingly decided it made sense for Cortana to be situated in that group. I've heard Soltero is going to go back to doing entrepreneurial activities once he leaves by year-end. Perry Clarke is going to be working with Soltero on transition plans in the next couple of months, sources are telling me. Clarke has been with Microsoft engineering since 1996, when he led Exchange. He also has been a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer for the past several years. I've heard talk that Microsoft ultimately is looking to bring Cortana and Search together into a single engineering team. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you talk to experts on election security (I studied with several of them in graduate school) they'll tell you that we're nowhere close to being ready for online voting. "Mobile voting is a horrific idea," said election security expert Joe Hall when I asked him about a West Virginia experiment with blockchain-based mobile voting back in August. But on Tuesday, The New York Times published an opinion piece claiming the opposite. "Building a workable, scalable, and inclusive online voting system is now possible, thanks to blockchain technologies," writes Alex Tapscott, whom the Times describes as co-founder of the Blockchain Research Institute. Tapscott is wrong -- and dangerously so. Online voting would be a huge threat to the integrity of our elections -- and to public faith in election outcomes. Tapscott focuses on the idea that blockchain technology would allow people to vote anonymously while still being able to verify that their vote was included in the final total. Even assuming this is mathematically possible -- and I think it probably is -- this idea ignores the many, many ways that foreign governments could compromise an online vote without breaking the core cryptographic algorithms. For example, foreign governments could hack into the computer systems that governments use to generate and distribute cryptographic credentials to voters. They could bribe election officials to supply them with copies of voters' credentials. They could hack into the PCs or smartphones voters use to cast their votes. They could send voters phishing emails to trick them into revealing their voting credentials -- or simply trick them into thinking they've cast a vote when they haven't. A Wall Street Journal article published this morning reported that Foxconn is looking to transfer some of its Chinese workers to Wisconsin in time for its new factory opening in Racine. The article says that these workers would likely be engineers and would fill a gap in prospective talent due to a tight labor market. Foxconn has since denied these claims. The Verge reports: In a comment to Gizmodo, Foxconn denied that it was recruiting Chinese workers. The company said: "We can categorically state that the assertion that we are recruiting Chinese personnel to staff our Wisconsin project is untrue. Our recruitment priority remains Wisconsin first and we continue to focus on hiring and training workers from throughout Wisconsin. We will supplement that recruitment from other U.S. locations as required." In November 2017, Wisconsin pledged $3 billion in subsidies for the Taiwan-based company if it opted to open the factory in Wisconsin. In return, Foxconn said it would create 13,000 jobs and invest $10 billion. (The state subsidy came out to $230,000 per job.) The Wall Street Journal report suggests that the company is struggling to find qualified engineers in the area, though, as the unemployment rate in the state reached a record low at 3 percent, along with a recent national low at 3.7 percent. The cybercrime wing of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency has said data from "almost all" Pakistani banks was stolen in a recent security breach. FIA Cybercrimes Director retired Capt Mohammad Shoaib told Geo News that hackers based outside the country had breached the security systems of several local banks. "The hackers have stolen large amounts of money from people's accounts," he added. From a report: He said the FIA has written to all banks, and a meeting of the banks' heads and security managements is being called. The meeting will look into ways the security infrastructure of banks can be bolstered. "Banks are the custodians of the money people have stored in them," Shoaib said. "They are also responsible if their security features are so weak that they result in pilferage." It wasn't immediately clear when exactly the security breach took place. According to Shoaib, more than 100 cases are being investigated by the agency in connection with the breach. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire's efforts to rally his European Union colleagues around a new tax on tech giants fell short, as countries skeptical of the plan doubled down on their opposition, and others, including Italy, said they'll push ahead with their own plans. Ministers from Denmark, Ireland and Sweden said they couldn't support the tax in its current form, casting doubt on the proposal's future, since unanimity is required to pass taxes in the EU. The plan on the table would impose a 3 percent levy on the European sales of the likes of Amazon and Facebook. A number of countries are already imposing taxes of their own, increasing the risk of fragmentation in the single market. Finance Minister Giovanni Tria said an Italian tax will kick in next year if there's no broader agreement by then. Spain and the U.K. have already announced their own levies. AT&T will alert a little more than a dozen customers within the next week or so that their service will be terminated due to copyright infringement, news outlet Axios reported, citing sources familiar with its plans. From the report: It's the first time AT&T has discontinued customer service over piracy allegations since having shaped its own piracy policies last year, which is significant given it just became one of America's major media companies. AT&T owns a content network after its purchase of Time Warner earlier this year, an entity now called WarnerMedia. Content networks are typically responsible for issuing these types of allegations to internet service providers (ISPs) for them to address with their customers. Oracle's Internet Intelligence division has confirmed today the findings of a recently published academic paper that accused China of "hijacking the vital internet backbone of western countries." From a report: The research paper was authored by researchers from the US Naval War College and Tel Aviv University and it made quite a few waves online after it was published. Researchers accused China Telecom, one of China's biggest state-owned internet service providers, of hijacking and detouring internet traffic through its normally-closed internet infrastructure. Some security experts contested the research paper's findings because it didn't come from an authoritative voice in the world of internet BGP hijacks, but also because the paper touched on many politically sensitive topics, such as China's cyber-espionage activities and how China used BGP hijacks as a way to circumvent the China-US cyber pact of 2015. But today, Doug Madory, Director of Oracle's Internet Analysis division (formerly Dyn), confirmed that China Telecom has, indeed, engaged in internet traffic "misdirection." "I don't intend to address the paper's claims around the motivations of these actions," said Madori. "However, there is truth to the assertion that China Telecom (whether intentionally or not) has misdirected internet traffic (including out of the United States) in recent years." A lump of metal in a building near Paris has long served as the global standard for the kilogram. That's about to change. From a report: Later this month, at the international General Conference on Weights and Measures, to be held in France, delegates are expected to vote to get rid of this single physical specimen and instead plump to use a fundamental measurement -- to be defined in terms of an electric current -- in order to define the mass of an object. The king of kilograms is about to be dethroned. And crucially much of the key work that has led to the toppling of the Paris kilogram has been carried out at the National Physical Laboratory where the late Bryan Kibble invented the basic concepts of the device that will replace that ingot in the Pavillon de Breteuil. The Kibble balance works by measuring the electric current that is required to produce an electromagnetic force equal to the gravitational force acting on a mass. A second stage allows the electromagnetic force to be determined in terms of a fundamental constant known as the Planck constant which will, in future, be used to define a kilogram. These machines will provide the standard for weighing objects -- and that means no more dusting of old lumps of alloy to ensure they stay pure and accurate. [...] "One key reason for doing this work is to provide international security," says Robinson. "If the Pavillon de Breteuil burned down tomorrow and the kilogram in its vaults melted, we would have no reference left for the world's metric weights system. There would be chaos. The current definition of the kilogram is the weight of that cylinder in Paris, after all." [...] Another major motivation for the replacement of le grand K is the need to be able to carry out increasingly more and more precise measurements. "Pharmaceutical companies will soon be wanting to use ingredients that will have to be measured in terms of a few millionths or even billionths of a gram," says Prior. "We need to be prepared to weigh substances with that kind of accuracy." Suggested reading: A thread on Twitter which discusses SI units and the redefinition of the kilogram. If extraterrestrial intelligence exists somewhere in our galaxy, a new MIT study proposes that laser technology on Earth could, in principle, be fashioned into something of a planetary porch light -- a beacon strong enough to attract attention from as far as 20,000 light years away. From a report: The research, which author James Clark calls a "feasibility study," appears today in The Astrophysical Journal. The findings suggest that if a high-powered 1- to 2-megawatt laser were focused through a massive 30- to 45-meter telescope and aimed out into space, the combination would produce a beam of infrared radiation strong enough to stand out from the sun's energy. Such a signal could be detectable by alien astronomers performing a cursory survey of our section of the Milky Way -- especially if those astronomers live in nearby systems, such as around Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, or TRAPPIST-1, a star about 40 light-years away that hosts seven exoplanets, three of which are potentially habitable. If the signal is spotted from either of these nearby systems, the study finds, the same megawatt laser could be used to send a brief message in the form of pulses similar to Morse code. AMD on Monday revealed the Zen 2 architecture for the family of processors that it will launch in the coming years, starting with 2019. The move is a follow-up to the competitive Zen designs that AMD launched in March 2017, and it promises two-times improvement in performance throughput. From a report: AMD hopes the Zen 2 processors will keep it ahead of or at parity with Intel, the world's biggest maker of PC processors. The earlier Zen designs enabled chips that could process 52 percent more instructions per clock cycle than the previous generation. Zen has spawned AMD's most competitive chips in a decade, including Ryzen for the desktop, Threadripper (with up to 32 cores) for gamers, Ryzen Mobile for laptops, and Epyc for servers. In the future, you can expect to see Zen 2 cores in future models of those families of chips. AMD's focus is on making central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and accelerated processing units (APUs) that put the two other units together on the same chip. Machine learning algorithms don't yet understand things the way humans do -- with sometimes disastrous consequences. Melanie Mitchell, a professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, writes: As someone who has worked in A.I. for decades, I've witnessed the failure of similar predictions of imminent human-level A.I., and I'm certain these latest forecasts will fall short as well. The challenge of creating humanlike intelligence in machines remains greatly underestimated. Today's A.I. systems sorely lack the essence of human intelligence: understanding the situations we experience, being able to grasp their meaning. The mathematician and philosopher Gian-Carlo Rota famously asked, "I wonder whether or when A.I. will ever crash the barrier of meaning." To me, this is still the most important question. The lack of humanlike understanding in machines is underscored by recent cracks that have appeared in the foundations of modern A.I. While today's programs are much more impressive than the systems we had 20 or 30 years ago, a series of research studies have shown that deep-learning systems can be unreliable in decidedly unhumanlike ways. I'll give a few examples. "The bareheaded man needed a hat" is transcribed by my phone's speech-recognition program as "The bear headed man needed a hat." Google Translate renders "I put the pig in the pen" into French as "Je mets le cochon dans le stylo" (mistranslating "pen" in the sense of a writing instrument). Programs that "read" documents and answer questions about them can easily be fooled into giving wrong answers when short, irrelevant snippets of text are appended to the document. Similarly, programs that recognize faces and objects, lauded as a major triumph of deep learning, can fail dramatically when their input is modified even in modest ways by certain types of lighting, image filtering and other alterations that do not affect humans' recognition abilities in the slightest. One recent study showed that adding small amounts of "noise" to a face image can seriously harm the performance of state-of-the-art face-recognition programs. Another study, humorously called "The Elephant in the Room," showed that inserting a small image of an out-of-place object, such as an elephant, in the corner of a living-room image strangely caused deep-learning vision programs to suddenly misclassify other objects in the image. A look at VoteWithMe and OutVote, two new political apps that are trying to use peer pressure to get people to vote. From a story: The apps are to elections what Zillow is to real estate -- services that pull public information from government records, repackage it for consumer viewing and make it available at the touch of a smartphone button. But instead of giving you a peek at house prices, VoteWithMe and OutVote let you snoop on which of your friends voted in past elections and their party affiliations -- and then prod them to go to the polls by sending them scripted messages like "You gonna vote?" "I don't want this to come off like we're shaming our friends into voting," said Naseem Makiya, the chief executive of OutVote, a start-up in Boston. But, he said, "I think a lot of people might vote just because they're frankly worried that their friends will find out if they didn't." Whom Americans vote for is private. But other information in their state voter files is public information; depending on the state, it can include details like their name, address, phone number and party affiliation and when they voted. The apps try to match the people in a smartphone's contacts to their voter files, then display some of those details. The data's increasing availability may surprise people receiving messages nudging them to vote -- or even trouble them, by exposing personal politics they might have preferred to keep to themselves. Political campaigns have for years purchased voter files from states or bought national voter databases from data brokers, but the information has otherwise had little public exposure outside of campaign use. Now any app user can easily harness such data to make inferences about, and try to influence, their contacts' voting behavior. An anonymous reader shares a report: In Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah, voters will directly decide whether their states should expand their Medicaid programs. In Wisconsin, they could elect a candidate for governor who has pledged to sharply curtail drug prices. And across the country, Democratic congressional candidates are running on platforms highlighting their support for protecting insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and lowering drug prices. Health care is on the ballot across the country, with issues ranging from medical marijuana to abortion rights to insurance coverage dominating the conversation. Digitization promises to make medical care easier and more efficient. But are screens coming between doctors and patients? Here's an excerpt by Atul Gawande of The New Yorker, which talks about the deployment of Epic, a new medical software which cost Partners HealthCare a staggering $1.6 billion, panned out: On May 30, 2015, the Phase One Go-Live began. My hospital and clinics reduced the number of admissions and appointment slots for two weeks while the staff navigated the new system. For another two weeks, my department doubled the time allocated for appointments and procedures in order to accommodate our learning curve. This, I discovered, was the real reason the upgrade cost $1.6 billion. The software costs were under a hundred million dollars. The bulk of the expenses came from lost patient revenues and all the tech-support personnel and other people needed during the implementation phase. In the first five weeks, the I.T. folks logged twenty-seven thousand help-desk tickets -- three for every two users. Most were basic how-to questions; a few involved major technical glitches. Printing problems abounded. Many patient medications and instructions hadn't transferred accurately from our old system. My hospital had to hire hundreds of moonlighting residents and pharmacists to double-check the medication list for every patient while technicians worked to fix the data-transfer problem. Many of the angriest complaints, however, were due to problems rooted in what Sumit Rana, a senior vice-president at Epic, called "the Revenge of the Ancillaries." In building a given function -- say, an order form for a brain MRI -- the design choices were more political than technical: administrative staff and doctors had different views about what should be included. The doctors were used to having all the votes. But Epic had arranged meetings to try to adjudicate these differences. Now the staff had a say (and sometimes the doctors didn't even show), and they added questions that made their jobs easier but other jobs more time-consuming. Questions that doctors had routinely skipped now stopped them short, with "field required" alerts. A simple request might now involve filling out a detailed form that took away precious minutes of time with patients. Ask Slashdot: How To Fix an Outdated College Tech Curriculum? An anonymous reader writes: As a student, what's the best way to bring change to an outdated college tech curriculum? The background on this is that I have 15 years of experience in the field and a very healthy amount of industry-recognized training and certifications. I'm merely finishing up my degree to flesh out my resume -- I haven't learned much from the program that I don't already know. However, the program would have benefited me greatly 15 years ago. It's a great program, except for a biometrics class that is absolutely behind the curve. The newest publication on the syllabus is from 2009. This is simply teaching the students outdated and often wrong information. Additionally, a lot of the material seems like it was stretched to make a full semester class in biometrics in the first place -- most of the material, honestly, could be compressed to about two hours of lecture and still be delivered at a reasonable rate. What's the best way for a student in my situation to get this fixed so the school stops wasting student's time with outdated and wrong information? A new proof from the Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan and a 2011 proof anonymously posted online are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years. Erica Klarreich, writing for Quanta Magazine: On September 16, 2011, an anime fan posted a math question to the online bulletin board 4chan about the cult classic television series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya . Season one of the show, which involves time travel, had originally aired in nonchronological order, and a re-broadcast and a DVD version had each further rearranged the episodes. Fans were arguing online about the best order to watch the episodes, and the 4chan poster wondered: If viewers wanted to see the series in every possible order, what is the shortest list of episodes they'd have to watch? In less than an hour, an anonymous person offered an answer -- not a complete solution, but a lower bound on the number of episodes required. The argument, which covered series with any number of episodes, showed that for the 14-episode first season of Haruhi, viewers would have to watch at least 93,884,313,611 episodes to see all possible orderings. "Please look over [the proof] for any loopholes I might have missed," the anonymous poster wrote. The proof slipped under the radar of the mathematics community for seven years -- apparently only one professional mathematician spotted it at the time, and he didn't check it carefully. But in a plot twist last month, the Australian science fiction novelist Greg Egan proved a new upper bound on the number of episodes required. Egan's discovery renewed interest in the problem and drew attention to the lower bound posted anonymously in 2011. Both proofs are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years. Mathematicians quickly verified Egan's upper bound, which, like the lower bound, applies to series of any length. Then Robin Houston, a mathematician at the data visualization firm Kiln, and Jay Pantone of Marquette University in Milwaukee independently verified the work of the anonymous 4chan poster. Now, Houston and Pantone, joined by Vince Vatter of the University of Florida in Gainesville, have written up the formal argument. In their paper, they list the first author as "Anonymous 4chan Poster." A strange interstellar object that invaded our solar system and passed close to Earth in the fall of 2017 could have been an artificial object, a piece of a spacecraft from an alien civilization, Harvard researchers are suggesting in a new paper [PDF]. From a report: "There is data on the orbit of this object for which there is no other explanation. So we wrote this paper suggesting this explanation," said Professor Avi Loeb, chairman of the Harvard astronomy department. "The approach I take to the subject is purely scientific and evidence-based. As far as I know, there is no other explanation. You can rule it out or in, based on additional data." He said the study had been accepted for publication in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Nov. 12. The paper, written by Loeb and postdoctoral researcher Shmuel Bialy, suggests the object might be a light sail, or solar sail -- a proposed method of powering spacecraft that uses a sail to catch radiation pressure and propel the spacecraft, just as a normal sail uses the wind to propel a boat. The object 'Oumuamua -- Hawaiian for "messenger from afar arriving first" -- is the first ever observed intruding in the orbits of our planets. It was picked up by telescopes in October 2017 at the University of Hawaii's Haleakala Observatory, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. It is on its way out of the solar system and expected to never return. Scientists say other "interstellar" objects may have sailed by in the past, undetected. The object raised eyebrows. It was monitored for signs of radio signals as weak as one-tenth of a cellphone-strength signal, but nothing was detected. Researchers said in December 2017 that it appeared to be a naturally formed, icy object covered with a dry crust. Further reading: Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua Is a Comet After All (June 2018), Scientists say mysterious 'Oumuamua' object could be an alien spacecraft, and Cigar-shaped interstellar object may have been an alien probe, Harvard paper claims. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The amount of energy required to "mine" one dollar's worth of bitcoin is more than twice that required to mine the same value of copper, gold or platinum, according to a new paper, suggesting that the virtual work that underpins bitcoin, ethereum and similar projects is more similar to real mining than anyone intended. One dollar's worth of bitcoin takes about 17 megajoules of energy to mine, according to researchers from the Oak Ridge Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, compared with four, five and seven megajoules for copper, gold and platinum. Other cryptocurrencies also fair poorly in comparison, the researchers write in the journal Nature Sustainability, ascribing a cost-per-dollar of 7MJ for ethereum and 14MJ for the privacy focused cryptocurrency monero. But all the cryptocurrencies examined come off well compared with aluminium, which takes an astonishing 122MJ to mine one dollar's worth of ore. [...] To account for the wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency price, and therefore effort expended by miners, the researchers used a median of all the values between January 1, 2016 and June 30, 2018, and attempted to account for the geographic dispersal of bitcoin miners. "Any cryptocurrency mined in China would generate four times the amount of CO2 compared to the amount generated in Canada," they write, highlighting the importance of such country-dependent accounting.

2019-04-20T12:19:42Z

http://atzinc.org/index.php?view=search&page=167&SearchCategory=Slashdot

OBJECT AND DEFINITION OF THE CONTRACT The general conditions of sale (hereinafter GENERAL CONDITIONS) shown below regulate the sale of products commercialized by the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa on the website www.oliofelice.com, through the system of distance sales through the communication technology called “internet”. All purchase contracts of commercialized products, concluded through the website www.oliofelice.com owned by the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa following the procedures shown online, between Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa and the Internet Customer (hereinafter CUSTOMER), these will be regulated by the present general conditions, which are integral and substantial part of the same. The reference standard is the Legislative Decree 6th September 2005, N°. 206 (consumer code, under art, 7 of the Law 29th July 2003, N°.229), which regulates all the processes of a negotiation and/or contractual nature in which the consumers are involved, both from a single point of view, and from a collective one, and the directive 2000/31/CE of the European Parliament and Council dated 8th June 2000 (“Directive on electronic commerce”), absorbed into the internal system with Legislative decree 9th April 2003, N°.70 and which foresees that the improvement of the telematic contract can be deemed concluded when: the lender must “accuse” receipt of the order of the consignee of the service without unjustified delay and electronically; the order and the receipt are considered arrived when the parties to whom they are addressed have the chance to access them. Any modification to the present General Conditions of Sale will be effective from the moment of its publication on the website and will be applied to the sales concluded subsequently to the publication itself. Art. 2 – ORDERS All orders are subject to acceptance by: Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa Via delle Gere, 2 – 25010 San Felice del Benaco (Brescia) – Italy. The purchase orders concluded on the website www.oliofelice.com must be completed in all parts and must contain all the necessary elements for the exact detection of the ordered products and of the place of delivery. The orders are considered to be contractual proposal of the Customer shown ONLINE through the system “Prestashop”. The order confirmation by the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa transmitted by email to the address shown by the Internet Customer counts as valid acceptance of the contractual proposal. The contract is deemed to be concluded, and is binding for both parties, at the moment in which the order confirmation is sent by the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa to the Internet Customer. The Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa can also send the final Customer a refusal of the order and reserves the right, at its discretion, the right to cancel any order in the event of material errors connected to the order of the Customer or with the information sent by the Customer through the website www.oliofelice.com The Customer may buy the products shown in the electronic catalogue on the website www.oliofelice.com and in the quantities in stock. Should an order be more than the quantity in stock, the purchase will be accepted limited to the available products. In this case the Customer will be informed and will be able to revoke the order or the integration with a substitute product. The Customer must immediately notify the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa of any error or omission in the conditions of payment, quantity and prices contained in the acceptance of order document. Shipping costs for EU countries are calculated by the system. Delivery times for Italy: from 5 to 10 working days from receipt of payment. Art. 4 - DELIVERIES Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa will despatch the selected and ordered products to the destination specified in the order. In the event of absence at the moment of delivery a notification will be left and the Customer will have to take measures personally to contact the courier or forwarder as soon as possible to agree terms of delivery. Delivery will be carried out by mainly roadway carriers. No responsibility will be attributed to Cooperativa Agricola San felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa for late delivery or failure to deliver due to force majeure or accident. Art. 5 –INVOICING – TIMES AND METHODS OF PAYMENT The Customer commits to correspond the price of the products order through payment by Credit Card or Bank Transfer following the instructions provided on the website. The despatched goods will be delivered with immediate invoice. Art. 6 – LIMITS OF RESPONSIBILITY The Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa accepts no responsibility for inefficiency due to force majeure such as accidents, explosions, fire, strikes and/or closures, earthquakes floods and other similar events which prevent, completely or partially, the execution of the times agreed in the contract The Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa will not be held responsible in any way with regards to damage, loss or costs suffered following lack of execution of the contract for the reasons mentioned above, as the Customer has the right only to restitution of the price paid. In the same way the Cooperativa Agricola San felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa is not responsible for any fraudulent or illicit use which could be made by third parties, of credit cards, cheques or other means of payment, upon payment of the purchased products on the website www.oliofelice.com . Without prejudice to the case of fraud or serious blame by the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa is now agreed that, should the responsibility of the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa be ascertained in any capacity against the Customer to effect execution of an order, the responsibility of the Cooperativa Agricola San felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa cannot be higher than the price of the products purchased by the Customer and which is object of the controversy. The responsibility of the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa for delays in delivery cannot be higher than the sum of the costs of delivery sustained by the Customer where applied. Art. 7 – COMMUNICATIONS The Customer agrees on the use by the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa of instruments such as electronic post or automated call systems without the intervention of an operator or faxes. Art. 8 – RIGHT TO OWNERSHIP OF THE PROPERTY The right to ownership of the products offered on the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa website passes to the Customer after total payment of the products or of their delivery, if this occurs last. The risks of breakage of the products pass to the Customer at the momen of delivery. Art. 9 – RIGHT OF WITHDRAWAL (Leg. Dec. 206/05) The Customer Consumer may exercise the right of withdrawal if: he/she communicates notice of cancellation via email to the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa before receiving confirmation or before the goods have been despatched; not being satisfied with the purchase made, the products received must be returned intact. The right of withdrawal must be exercised, under penalty of revocation, by registered letter with notice of receipt to the following address (with corresponds to the address where goods to be returned must be despatched): Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa Via delle Gere, 2 – 25010 San Felice del Benaco (Brescia) – Italia within ten working days from date of receipt of the products ( unopened packs, original seals and in good condition), except the delivery charges where applied. The said communication may also be anticipated by telegram or fax (+39 0365 62341) or email (info@oliofelice.com) within the same timeframe, so long as confirmed by registered letter with notice of receipt within the 48 hours following the despatch of the telegram, fax or email. Such communication must contain the necessary data to detect the order, the will to withdraw from the purchase and the product or products for which right of withdrawal is to be exercised, attaching copy of the tax document (Invoice or DDT). The right of withdrawal is excluded in the following cases (Art. 5 para 3 Leg Decree 185/1999) an ore precisely: Purchase of goods packaged to size or personalized from the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa according to the specifications requested by the Cusomer or which, due to their nature, cannot be sent back or risk rapid deterioration or being spoilt. The products were not delivered due to the absence of the Customer at the place of delivery and on being picked up were spoilt or deteriorated due to delay provoked by the Customer. If withdrawal is carried out according to what is declared above, the sum already paid for the products and for delivery charges is accredited to the purchaser by bank transfer to his/her bank account. The refund will be carried out in the shortest time possible, and anyway within 15 days from the date in which the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa having received news of the withdrawal of the Customer Consumer also receives the goods ordered intact and in the original packaging at the following address: Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa Via delle Gere, 2 – 25010 San Felice del Benaco (Brescia) – Italy The only charges to the Customer for exercising the right to withdrawal are those direct for despatch and return of the products to the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa. Art. 10 – GUARANTEES AND SUPPORT OPTIONS Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa sells products of a high level of quality, for which they offer a guarantee limited to the expiry date of the product. In the event of imperfections or anomalies which are not explicitly attributed to the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa given the nature of the products offered in the catalogue, the Customer may contact directly a sales manager through our channels of contact (infor@oliofelice.com +39 0365 62341). All rights to compensation or indemnification, as well as any contractual or extra-contractual responsibility for direct or indirect damage to persons and/or objects provoked by goods purchased from www.oliofelice.com. Art. 11 – OBLIGATIONS OF THE PURCHASER The Customer commits, once the procedure of purchase foreseen by the website www.oliofelice.com is concluded, to print and keep these general conditions of sale, which also, he/she would have read and accepted as a compulsory passage in the despatch phase of online orders. This with an aim to completely satisfy the condition at Articles 3 & 4 of Leg. Decree N°.185/99. It is strictly prohibited for the Customer to insert false and/or invented data, and/or fictitious, in the registration procedure necessary to activate the process for execution of the present contract and the relative further communications; the personal data and email must be exclusively your own and real personal data and not third parties, or fictitious. It is strictly prohibited to insert data belonging to third parties. It is also prohibited for minors to register. Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco Società Agricola Cooperativa reserves the right to legally prosecute any violation or abuse, in the interest and to safeguard all consumers. Art. 12 – SALES PROMOTIONS The sales promotions offered on the website www.oliofelice.com are valid while stocks last and within the limits of purchase shown on the website. The promotions are not concurrent. The products on offer may be delivered in promotional packaging different from those published on the site. The offer of any complimentary products are valid while stocks last. No substitution or returns are possible with regards to any complimentary products received by the Customer. Art. 13 – DELIVERY AND PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA Personal data is collected with the aim to register the Customer and activate procedures to carry out this present contract and the necessary relative communications; such data is treated electronically in respect of the laws in force and can be exhibited only on request of judicial authorities or other authorities to the purpose authorized by law. The personal data will be communicated to subjects delegated to the fulfilment of the activities necessary for the execution of the contract stipulated and emanated exclusively for that purpose. The person concerned has the rights at Reg. UE 2016/679 (GDPR) with reference to the right to privacy. Art. 14 – CONTROVERSIES For any unsolved controversy between the parties the exclusive place of jurisdiction will be Brescia. Art. 15 – CONFIRMATION OF HAVING READ THE GENERAL CONDITIONS OF SALE The computer system relative to the compilation of the order is such to prevent the confirmation and the validation of the same in the absence of an explicit command given by the Purchaser and aimed to confirm the reading of the present Conditions of Sale by the Purchaser. Imnportant note: the most updated review of the General Conditions, will be the one which at the moment of signing by the Customer of his/her order, will regulate such order; the Customer is therefore required to print and keep a copy of these present General Conditions of Sale for future reference, and to subsequently verify any variations to the one printed.

2019-04-21T23:04:57Z

https://www.oliofelice.com/en/content/3-general-conditions-online-sales

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2019-04-22T13:56:28Z

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