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Dieburger Straße 241
Lichtenberg-Haus der TU Darmstadt
Since its founding in 1877, the TU Darmstadt has contributed to the solution of urgent questions of the future with pioneering achievements and outstanding research and teaching. The TU Darmstadt concentrates on selected, highly relevant problem areas. Technology is the focus of all disciplines at the TU Darmstadt. The natural sciences as well as social sciences and humanities work closely together with the engineering sciences.
Built in 1898 and restored in Art Nouveau style in 1910, the Georg Christoph Lichtenberg-Haus is an example of that architectural style that has become Darmstadt’s trademark and has given the city worldwide renown. In the Georg Christoph Lichtenberg-Haus there are two rooms to be used during the conference: The large hall is bright and modern. It can accommodate around 100 guests. The small hall offers a cozy, dignified atmosphere for 50 people.
Conference venue: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg-Haus, Dieburger Straße 241, 64287 Darmstadt
The closest airport is Frankfurt Rhein-Main international airport, located 25 km (15.5 miles) north of Darmstadt. At the airport, regional bus lines depart from arrival area B at Terminal 1 and arrival areas D+E at Terminal 2. We recommend the express bus AirLiner (Terminals 1 and 2), which offers a convenient and fast 30-minute connection from the airport to the city center, e.g. Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) or Luisenplatz.
Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) is well connected to the German distance railway network through ICE, IC and EC trains. For long-distance travel you can find more information on the Deutsche Bahn website. There are also regional connections with Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Aschaffenburg, Mannheim, and Heidelberg. For more information on regional trains please check the regional transport operator RMV.
By Public Transport in Darmstadt
From Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) or Luisenplatz Platform Nr. 1 (city center), you can take bus lines F/U (towards Darmstadt Oberwaldhaus or Rödermark-Uberach Bahnhof). Beware: The Bus stop for the line F/U is located at the back side of the train station. Get off at stop “Fasanerie”, which is directly in front of the conference venue.
The F/U bus line runs every 15 minutes, after 9 pm every 30 minutes. For information about the departure times check the operator RMV.
You will most likely approach Darmstadt from highways A5 (from Frankfurt/Main) or A67 (from Köln/Wiesbaden) and then follow the “Rheinstrasse” in direction of signs to “TU Stadtmitte Mitte”.
Drive straight into the Cityring tunnel. After turning right in the tunnel, at the end of the tunnel, turn left into Hügelstrasse.
Afterwards, turn left at the next large traffic light into the Kirchstraße. At the next major intersection straight ahead, the Darmstädter Schloss is then left. At the next traffic light, turn right into Alexanderstraße, which later becomes Dieburger Straße. The Georg Christoph Lichtenberg-Haus is located in Dieburger Straße, on the right side in direction of travel right, house number 241.
There is very limited parking.
Darmstadt offers several well-kept hotels in a central location with a good connection to the conference venue by public transport.
Here are some recommendations for you. There should be rooms available at the InterCity Hotel (right next to the railway station), at the Welcome Hotel (close to the city center) and at the IBIS Hotel (within walking distance to the city center). All hotels offer good public transport connections; busses or trams are departing almost right in front of the hotels.
The InterCity Hotel Darmstadt is a modern 4-star hotel located right next to Darmstadt Central Station (HBF) with good public transport connections.
Contact InterCity Hotel: 0049 6151 90691-0
The Welcome Hotel Darmstadt is a comfortable 4-star hotel in the heart of the city. It is close to TU Darmstadt with good public transport connections. A parking garage is located right next to it.
Contact Welcome Hotel: 0049 6151 3914-0
The 2-star IBIS Hotel Darmstadt is located in close proximity to the city center; Darmstadt Central Station is just a 10-minute walk away. We have made room allocations for fifty room entities, either for single or double use.
Contact IBIS Hotel: 0049 6151 39700 | <urn:uuid:bb5780aa-e4fd-44ec-ad0d-7b31ab24e7ff> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sps.peasec.de/location/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.864278 | 1,102 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Fusion attire — a mash-up of Indian and Western clothing — embraces the best of both cultures The introduction of fusion wear has transformed the Indian fashion industry to such a degree that top-notch companies now include an aspect of it in their collection, even though we still have a long way to go when it comes to the potential for fusion wear in India. Western fashion was well established in Indian fashion, with some people preferring western clothing to traditional clothing. There has always been a positive attitude towards blending traditional clothing with a western flair. The merging of these cultures is natural, as the Indian subcontinent becomes more exposed to the Western world. Indo-western wear is perfect for any occasion. Because of their simplistic designs, these outfits are suitable both for festive and formal occasions. When in the mood for something traditional yet simplistic, fusion wear is the way to go. | <urn:uuid:8da1c1bf-ca6e-420c-b7f0-5f74cb3c2a48> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.indiesouk.com/collections/clothing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.973725 | 178 | 1.65625 | 2 |
World authority on astrophysics, Sir Martin Rees, takes us on a journey through all the things which could wipe out mankind in the near future.
From asteroids to disease to scientific discoveries gone wrong (from nanobots to the large Hadron collider) these are scenarios from disaster movies, analysed with a serious scientific eye.
Some of these things definitely won't happen, some genuinely might - this is one book you won't be able to put down and which you'll never forget.
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 240 pages
- Publisher: Cornerstone
- Publication Date: 02/09/2004
- Category: Social impact of disasters
- ISBN: 9780099436867 | <urn:uuid:39363eee-7c41-470b-afbd-65e4c5cef381> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.speedyhen.com/Product/Martin-Rees/Our-Final-Century--The-5050-Threat-to-Humanitys-Survival/143516 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280899.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00575-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915626 | 145 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Explore the basic principles of flight to see how animals become airborne in the first place. From leapers to gliders and those that effortlessly fly for hours, each creature has special techniques. But all must overcome a powerful force - gravity.
Arizona Public Media is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. | <urn:uuid:341b7110-3fa0-4475-acfb-8e5921864e23> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://azpm.org/schedules/episode/155255/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817032054-20220817062054-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.92466 | 101 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Find out more about Little Leaguer's shoulder and how it can be treated.
Dr. Keith Meister, Medical Director of Sports Medicine at Medical Center Arlington and Team Physician for the Texas Rangers, continues to share important tips for parents and athletes here on our blog. Today Dr. Meister discusses a shoulder injury that is common in Little League baseball players.
Appropriately, in addition to the condition that results in discomfort in the elbow in the youth pitcher / throwing athlete, the “little league elbow,” there is a similarly noted condition in the shoulder.
“Little leaguers shoulder,” aptly termed, refers to pain that occurs in the throwing shoulder in the growing athlete. The pain begins as a consequence of a stress fracture that occurs in the growth plate in the upper arm bone, the humerus. Stress fractures occur as a result of repetitive use that outweighs the body’s ability to repair damage that can occur in bone as a consequence of even normal use. The upper arm growth plate, or humeral epiphysis, is often times the weak link in the chain of the throwing shoulder. The growth plate, or epiphysis, is made up of cartilage cells that are softer than normal bone and thus more susceptible to injury. Repetitive throwing can result in a fracture of this cartilage plate.
The young thrower, most commonly ages 13-14, will often complain of dull aching pain in the upper arm / shoulder region either with throwing alone or at rest. It usually begins gradually and slowly worsens, affecting initially only the ability to throw but eventually all baseball activities. It is commonly misdiagnosed initially as “tendonitis.” However, in the interpretation of pain in the upper arm of a young thrower, a stress fracture must always be considered. The shoulder is usually tender over the upper outer aspect of the deltoid muscle. Routine shoulder x-rays will often show widening of the growth plate (see slide A). Opposite shoulder x-rays can be very useful in helping to make the proper diagnosis.
Treatment is first rest and avoidance of the aggravating activity. Oral anti-inflammatory medication (Tylenol, ibuprofen) can help with management of painful symptoms. Immediately upon diagnosis, an evaluation of the athlete’s throwing habits should be made. A good rehabilitation program should also be started that focuses on an overall body baseball conditioning program as well as specific exercises for the throwing arm.
If the athlete is pain free hitting, he/she may continue the season as a DH. When pain is absent and examination is normal, a throwing program may be begun with a gradual progression of increasing throwing distance and intensity. At this time, evaluation of throwing mechanics should be made by a qualified individual to assist in the avoidance of recurrent injury.
Most little leaguer’s shoulders will resolve over an 8- to 10-week period. Complete recovery can take even longer. Symptoms occurring for up to a year are possible. In these cases, repeat x-ray examination can be helpful.
Are you concerned that your child's shoulder may have a sports injury? Medical Center Arlington can help diagnose the injury and treat it before it worsens. Please call 1-855-868-6262 for a physician referral.
Injury Prevention in the Youth Pitcher | <urn:uuid:7fe7a114-5a17-42db-aad1-bb99c0aae30d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://blog.medicalcenterarlington.com/2012/08/13/what-is-little-leaguers-shoulder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720962.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00385-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944631 | 691 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Authorities Displayed Concern.
BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 4 (AP). -- President Uriburu's Provisional Government appeared tonight to have strengthened the probabilities of an orderly transfer of office to President-elect Augustin Justo by its decisive subjugation of yesterday's revolt in Entre Rios Province.
January 05, 1932
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Already a subscriber? Log in to view this article » | <urn:uuid:0b6a8221-7fc6-488a-96fa-72503858677d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D0DE1DB103EE333A25756C0A9679C946394D6CF&legacy=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721355.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00013-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.864439 | 160 | 2 | 2 |
Munich, 18 June 1998 (RFE/RL) -- A debate is underway in Germany on how to stem the flood of illegal migrants entering the country despite stricter controls on the borders.
The debate in parliamentary committees in Bonn is directed largely at migrants who destroy their passports and other papers to prevent identification and even nationality. That makes it more difficult for Germany to return them to their home countries.
German Interior Minister Manfred Kanther and other members of the government parties have proposed refusing all financial support and limiting assistance to food, water and medical treatment to those who destroy their identification papers. It is hoped that after a few months of such treatment, the illegal migrants will give up hope of settlement in Germany and return home.
Some of the opposition social democrat party support these measures but others argue they are an affront to human rights and dignity.
Political analysts in Germany expect a heated debate when the proposed legislation is presented to parliament in the next two or three weeks. Government officials in Bonn stress that Germany is not hostile to those fleeing from genuine persecution in their home countries. Figures released earlier this month show that last year it granted asylum to 104,000 people. Among them were about 14,000 Kurds from Iraq. In 1996 the total figure of those granted asylum was 116,000.
But illegal immigration is a problem for Germany. In the first half of last year, around 15,400 illegal migrants were caught on the borders thanks to increased patrols and the use of new technical equipment. Border authorities believe that thousands more evaded capture.
Some come from Kosova, Albania, Romania and parts of the former Soviet empire. Others come from Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran and North Africa. A Bonn government spokesman said today many paid high sums of money to professional gangs of smugglers. Most cross into Germany from Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria, although some illegal immigrants have also been caught on the French and Swiss borders.
An international meeting of police chiefs in Rome earlier this year that while Germany is the most favored country for would-be asylum seekers and illegal migrants it is followed by France, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries.
A European Union report earlier this year identified Moscow as a collecting center for prospective illegal migrants coming from Asia, including Bangladesh and Pakistan. Other collecting centers included Kyiv, Warsaw, Bucharest, Sofia, and Prague. Istanbul and Athens were also identified as major points of departure for would-be illegal migrants. | <urn:uuid:f667bb51-7807-4fa8-8e1c-cd713cc83ff8> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.rferl.org/a/1088911.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721027.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00549-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970734 | 498 | 1.914063 | 2 |
You may have dropped $20 or $50, even $500 bucks at the poker tables in a Vegas casino or piddled away your pennies online. But even though you can lose fistsful of dollars playing poker, it's not just a game of luck.
Freakonomics co-author and economist Steven Levitt is a poker fanatic.
"Poker is so obviously a game of skill," Levitt says. To test his gut reaction, Levitt has conducted two studies to examine whether luck or randomness accounts for players who consistently win. The first compared the performance of ranked players at the World Series of Poker with casual fans who showed up to rub elbows with the pros.
"The good players did very well and earned postive returns," Levitt said. "And the bad players, the guys like me who show up and think it will be fun to play with the good players, end up losing a lot of money."
In the second study, Levitt and his colleagues looked at 12 million hands of poker played online. The site also shared the cards each player held and kept hidden throughout the games.
"We can analyze the skill of the play in a way that others never have been able to do," Levitt said. "We show on every test we can think of doing that skill predominates over luck in no-limit hold 'em poker." | <urn:uuid:5f5f144a-41a0-4b9b-b3d2-9d01ad0b700b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.marketplace.org/2012/09/19/business/freakonomics-radio/hidden-side-poker | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281226.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00378-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982152 | 281 | 1.90625 | 2 |
The Portland Press Herald reports that Maine Gov. Janet Mills and two top advisers will participate in a trip to Scotland in early March designed to showcase that country’s expertise in developing and hosting offshore wind energy projects, including one that once was planned for Maine.
The trip is aimed at sharing knowledge and contacts in a region that boasts the greatest amount of installed offshore wind capacity in the world, the first commercial-scale floating wind turbines and an even larger floating wind project under construction, the newspaper reports.
Mills, along with Governor’s Energy Office Director Dan Burgess and Office of Policy Innovation and the Future Director Hannah Pingree, will travel with officials from North Carolina, Virginia and other states on the United Kingdom-sponsored tour, based largely in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh and around the port city of Aberdeen.
In a recent statement to the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Mills said she wanted to see the industry firsthand and learn about how the U.K. is handling issues including port facilities and supply chain support, stakeholder engagement and regulatory policies. Those lessons will be useful as offshore wind interest in the United States expands into the Gulf of Maine.
“But perhaps most importantly, I want to convey to them that our state is deeply interested in embracing offshore wind as part of our effort to create jobs, diversify and strengthen our economy, create a sustainable source of clean energy, and fight climate change,” she said.
Since Mills took office last year, she has made clear her intentions to restore Maine’s position as a leader on renewable energy and climate issues. That aspiration was put on hold during the administration of former Gov. Paul LePage, who opposed above-market costs for renewable power, the publication reports.
LePage was instrumental in prompting the Norwegian energy conglomerate formerly called Statoil to abandon plans in 2013 for a floating wind demonstration project off the Maine coast. The 30-megawatt, five-turbine project, called Hywind, eventually was built off Scotland in 2017.
Mills and the entourage won’t be able to visit Hywind Scotland, however, due to its distance 15 miles offshore and winter sea conditions, according to officials at the British Embassy who are coordinating the trip. But they will meet with representatives from the former Statoil, now called Equinor, as well as the private developer of the Kincardine Wind project, a 50-megawatt floating wind farm that will be the world’s largest when it’s due to begin operation later this year.
They also are expected to tour the Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine, a large, offshore wind research and testing facility in Fife, a coastal area of Scotland. | <urn:uuid:1da6fb84-991a-48f8-bade-178b1f86f24e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.tradeandindustrydev.com/industry/alternative-energy-fuels/us-team-headed-scotland-learn-about-offshore-wind-16440 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.958722 | 560 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Wheat Germ Pancakes
These Wheat Germ Pancakes are secretly healthy and no one will know it – not even you!
What the heck is wheat germ and why is it in my pancakes? I’ll get to that in a minute.
This recipe is actually a copycat recipe, one I’ve been dying to make forever. There’s a breakfast place in my hometown called Stacks. I have no idea if it’s a chain, but their food is sooooo good! It’s right by my old high school, so on Wednesday mornings, when we had late start, we’d all go to Stacks for breakfast.
When we were 16 and “kidnapping” for birthdays was popular, (did y’all do that? I think it was the worst birthday idea ever, BTW) we’d drag our friends out of bed and force them to Stacks in their PJs. Then they’d have to go to school like that. It happened to me once but, in true Gilmore Girls fashion, my mom warned me.
Anyway, Stacks has these amazing Wheat Germ pancakes on their menu. They’re huge pancakes, as big as plates, and one side is all crunchy from the wheat germ. I doubt those are at all healthy, because they’re made on a griddle, I’m sure with clarified butter or some other really fattening thing. When I made my copycat, I made them healthy.
These are the perfect pancake to eat for breakfast, because even you won’t know they’re not bad for you! And your kids will eat them too. Just don’t tell them the crunchy part is wheat germ…or they might go all Jordan on you.
Okay, so what is wheat germ? According to Dr. Oz, wheat germ is the most vitamin- and mineral-rich part of the wheat kernel. It’s packed with nutrients that are good for you, like Vitamin B, fiber, healthy fatty acids, and more. In my effort to show you some recipes that are a teeny bit healthier to help you with your resolutions, I thought these pancakes would be perfect.
Here are a few reasons why these pancakes are healthier than a traditional pancake:
- They are made with a combination of all-purpose and whole wheat flour.
- While they have oil and sugar, there are only 3 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of oil. Feel free to cut down on the sugar, if you like.
- Instead of non-fat milk, I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk. That saves about 60 calories per cup, BTW. You can use non-fat milk if you prefer, or use soy or coconut.
- Instead of using all milk, I cut some of the milk with a mashed banana. These are not overly banana-tasting, but it cuts down on the amount of milk you use, and the banana adds some vitamins and natural sweetness.
And then there’s the wheat germ. You add it to the pancakes while they’re on the griddle, so when you flip them the wheat germ gets toasty as the pancake cooks. It gives a nice nutty crunch to the pancake.
There is also 1 tablespoon of baking powder in these pancakes, so they get super fluffy. I love a fluffy pancake! And I add a little vanilla to them, for a depth of flavor. Plus, vanilla is good in pretty much everything!
I love these with syrup, but you can use a reduced calorie or sugar-free one if you prefer. Measure it out, you don’t need much!
These are the perfect pancakes for a healthier start to your day. And now I can have my Stacks at home! 🙂
Wheat Germ Pancakes
Yield: 12 pancakes
- 1 cups all-purpose flour*
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour*
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 banana, mashed + enough milk to make 1 1/4 cups (non-fat milk or unsweetened vanilla almond milk; I’ve used both with success)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- About 6 teaspoons Wheat Germ
- If you’re using a griddle, begin to preheat. I use an electric one and I set it for about 350 degrees.
- Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Mash banana in a large measuring cup. Add a little milk and stir them together, then add more milk until the measuring cup reads 1 1/4 cups. (You will use about 3/4 cup of milk). Whisk in oil, eggs, and vanilla. Then whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.
- Spray your griddle with nonstick cooking spray. Ladle the pancakes one by one onto the griddle. Add 1/2 teaspoon of wheat germ to the top of each pancake and cook until the bottoms are brown. Flip and cook until golden on the bottom. Serve with syrup.
- Pancakes can be placed between paper towels and frozen for up to one month. Simply heat in the microwave to unfreeze for a quick breakfast.
*You can use 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and omit the whole wheat flour if you wish.
In between batches (I can only fit 6 pancakes on my griddle at once) clean off the wheat germ that spills onto the griddle when flipping, so it doesn’t burn. | <urn:uuid:03f71935-e3f7-4acf-a1b2-c3f70827aec6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.crazyforcrust.com/2014/01/wheat-germ-pancakes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00518-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937142 | 1,187 | 1.851563 | 2 |
by Kevin Alexander | 4th August 2015
The TBOX Tank is a weatherproof protective camera case for action and rough weather shooting conditions housing anything from a DSLR to a cinema camera. Imagine putting your DSLR in a Pelican case as your camera’s housing unit. That’s the basic concept behind the TBOX TANK, which is currently in the crowdfunding stage on IndieGoGo. The team behind the TBOX TANK began with a Pelican IM2075 case to create a prototype unit that is shock proof, splash proof, and watertight (up to a depth of 3.3 feet). It can then be mounted similar to action cameras, or you could even shoot with it near water without worrying about damaging the camera. Granted, it’s not a full underwater housing unit. But it sounds like it could be just what you need for a quick shot near a pool or while standing in the rain. There are a couple of features worth mentioning. It has two removable stoppers for cables and accessories. For example, if you’re shooting with a DSLR you could still have it connected to your computer’s USB port. It has tempered UV glass in the front lens housing area. There are two cheese plates, one on top and bottom, for attaching various accessories. On the inside, it has a Manfrotto quick release plate so you can easily switch from shooting on the tripod to the case. While it’s designed for DSLR’s it is adjustable in height and length for various size cameras, including the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. And it has a large viewing window in the back so you can see the camera’s LCD screen. TBOX has designed other models that extend the system beyond simply DSLR’s. The TANK Pro is designed specifically for time-lapse work, and includes a solar panel, power accessories, and a Canon-compatible solar powered intervalometer. The TANK Lite is compatible with mirrorless cameras such as the Sony A7S while the TANK Mini is designed for the GoPro Hero 4 (includes extended power for up to 20 hours of time-lapse shooting). The eventual price at launch will be around US $900. The IndieGoGo campaign was just launched, and early backers could get a discount and receive their cases by October. SPECIFICATIONS Exterior Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.8 x 7.7 inches Interior Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.5 x 7.3 inches Weight: 8.8 lbs Internal Diameter: 100mm Case: Pelican IM2075 Check out the TBOX crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo. More information on www.tboxsystems.comRead more
MyCaseBuilder is a fantastic website-based service that enables you to design your own foam inserts, for any case. Our friends over at NewsShooter caught up with the team at PhotoPlus Expo to learn more. I’m yet to find another service that is this easy to use. Whether you’re looking for a specific case & foam combo, or just a custom foam insert for your current case, MyCaseBuilder can supply either. The website uses your required case size as a base point, and using their shape library you add products to design your custom foam cut out. If you’re piece of kit is not in the shape library, simply add an image of your kit on a clean background, and trace it using the pen tool. Once you’ve tweaked the trace and added some measurements, MyCaseBuilder will instantly convert this into a 3D render and add this to your custom insert. I’ve slaved over many an insert in the past, faffing around with pick and pluck foam to try and get that perfect custom cut out; it’s time consuming, doesn’t last and doesn’t look professional. This service tackles all of these; with the finger notch feature, and use of polyethylene foam (denser than your standard pick and pluck) the foam will last much longer. I can see this being fantastic for awkward shaped bits of kit, drones and motorised stabilizers immediately spring to mind. The company are US based offering a flat rate shipping anywhere within the US, plus international shipping. Orders take 7-9 working days to process.Read more
Think Tank Photo is known for their quality camera bags and cases mainly targeted at photographers. But here’s a new giant camera case we found quite interesting that might be useful to the more eager videographers out there. With interior measurements of a meter by 35 centimeters this “camera case” is really huge. Of course it can be used for large items like lighting kits or similar, but it also comes with many small separators so it can be used to store a truckload of small gear. Why not? As a video shooter I often find myself carrying 3-4 bags to a shoot and if you are familiar with that situation you might find that the Think Tank Production Manager 40 could be a valid alternative. It certainly isn’t on the budget side in terms of pricing, but comes with Think Tank durability and many features as described in the video above. The Production Manager 40 is $549 and available here. More information on www.thinktankphoto.comRead more
We only send updates about our most relevant articles. No spam, guaranteed! And if you don't like our newsletter, you can unsubscribe with a single click. Read our full opt-out policy here. | <urn:uuid:2df3ffd9-02a8-465b-9c15-7b6df7ea5252> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.cinema5d.com/tag/camera-case/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719468.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00530-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935662 | 1,137 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Sandoval Census Designated Place had a population of 33 as of July 1, 2016. Sandoval CDP ranks in the lower quartile for Diversity Index when compared to the other cities, towns and Census Designated Places (CDPs) in Texas. See peer rankings below.
The primary coordinate point for Sandoval CDP is located at latitude 26.4182 and longitude -99.0794 in Starr County. The formal boundaries for the Sandoval Census Designated Place (see map below) encompass a land area of 0.04 sq. miles and a water area of 0 sq. miles.
The Sandoval Census Designated Place (GNIS ID: 2584733) has a U2 Census Class Code which indicates a census designated place without an official federally recognized name. It also has a Functional Status Code of "S" which identifies a statistical entity.
Texas is one of 20 states where Census County Divisions (CCDs) are used for statistical tracking of subdivisions within each county. The Sandoval Census Designated Place is located within Roma-Los Saenz Division of Starr County.
Beneath the boundary map are tables with Sandoval CDP population, income and housing data, five-year growth projections and peer comparisons for key demographic data. The estimates are for July 1, 2016.
|Population in Households||33|
|Population in Familes||31|
|Population in Group Qrtrs||0|
|Average Household Size||3.0|
|Average Family Size||3|
|Total Housing Units||11 (100%)|
|Owner Occupied HU||9 (81.8%)|
|Renter Occupied HU||2 (18.2%)|
|Vacant Housing Units||0|
|Median Home Value||$65,000|
|Average Home Value||$63,889|
|Median Household Income||$30,000|
|Average Household Income||$41,262|
|Per Capita Income||$12,891|
|(Compound Annual Growth Rates)|
|Median Household Income||-3.58%|
|Per Capita Income||1.21%|
The table below compares Sandoval CDP to the other 1,749 incorporated cities, towns and CDPs in Texas by rank and percentile using July 1, 2016 data. The location Ranked # 1 has the highest value. A location that ranks higher than 75% of its peers would be in the 75th percentile of the peer group.
|Total Population||# 1717||2nd|
|Population Density1||# 896||49th|
|Diversity Index2||# 1447||17th|
|Median Household Income||# 1542||12th|
|Per Capita Income||# 1548||12th|
Additional comparisons and rankings can be made with a VERY EASY TO USE Texas Census Data Comparison Tool. | <urn:uuid:e8e64b4a-c030-45b8-8f4d-53ed548cf59b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://texas.hometownlocator.com/tx/starr/sandoval-cdp.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00441-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.830886 | 622 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The Basics of Distance Measuring Wheel
A measuring wheel has plenty of names. Some people call it the trundle wheel, surveyor's wheel, and a few others, like a hodometer and perambulator, that can cause confusion to people who aren't knowledgeable of how this instrument was invented. Today, however, most people just call it a distance measuring wheel and a surveyor's wheel because of its common use in the land surveying industry.
Distance measuring wheels are estimators, which means that they aren't ideal for accurate or precise measurements. Rather, they are good for getting approximates of a wide piece of land or even an indoor space.
Digital Distance Measuring Wheel
Origin & History
The very first distance measuring wheels date back to the 17th century. Their design is linked to the mechanical design of odometers, except that odometers were initially made for ships while measuring wheels have to be manually rolled on a flat surface with the use of a handle.
Traditional measuring wheels look very similar to the modern ones that are available today. The only differences are some innovative components that improve the convenience and safety of the instruments. The materials used have also changed. While older designs were made with wood, modern designs are mostly constructed with metal, aluminum, and stainless steel.
In 1827, scientist and inventor Francis Ronalds improved the design of measuring wheels by inventing a device that recorded distances graphically. This device features several components, including a worm drive, a slider, a pencil, and a drawing board on which the distance travelled can be recorded. Today, modern measuring wheels have built-in counters or digital displays that quickly reveal the estimated measurement of the distance covered.
Original & Current Purpose
Measuring wheels were traditionally used to estimate the distances between territories, such as cities and towns. As for the present time, these tools are usually used to measure properties, like private lands, buildings, and government-owned premises, and to mark their boundaries. They may even be used by homeowners if they would like to survey their land or a portion of it.
Distance measuring wheels are staple tools for some professionals, especially for land surveyors, realtors, engineers, architects, remodelers, and construction workers.
How They Work
The basic parts of a distance measuring wheel consist of a wheel and a handle attached to it. This tool is fairly simple to use because of its simple design. A person simply has to place the instrument on the designated starting point, ensure that the counter is at zero, hold the handle, then begin walking with the rolling tool until the designated end point is reached.
One full turn or revolution of a measuring wheel represents the circumference of that wheel. Thus, the distance covered is equal to the wheel circumference multiplied by how many times the wheel turned. Thankfully, users wouldn't have to calculate this manually as measuring wheel counters do it automatically.
To roll a wheel over a given distance, users can push or pull the device while they walk. Measuring wheels can also be used to measure perimeters. To do that, a user must simply change the position of the tool as needed, without resetting the counter.
However, despite this simplicity, users must remember and pay attention to certain things. First is the fact that measuring wheels are estimators. Thus, if a specific job needs highly accurate measurements, it would be better to use a tool that guarantees better accuracy.
Secondly, these instruments are designed for flat and smooth surfaces. If the wheel is rolled over a bumpy, elevated, or even a muddy surface, the resulting estimate becomes less reliable. The same thing happens when the user keeps changing their pace while walking. Ideally, a user should maintain an even pace throughout the rolling and estimating process.
Third, distance measuring wheels come in different sizes. The general rule is that larger wheels are for outdoor terrains while smaller wheels are good for indoor spaces. It's also important to know that different measuring wheel models use varying units of measurement. Thus, users can choose a particular model that can work with a unit they are comfortable with or something that suits their specific needs.
Keeping these things in mind can lessen the risks of having an estimate that seems too far off the exact measurement of the covered distance. This is especially important when measuring or marking boundaries, as mistakes could have serious legal implications. We are a digital distance measuring wheel supplier. If you are interested in our products, please contact us now! | <urn:uuid:2b463f8e-020e-4408-b6d4-55654a4ee286> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.articleted.com/article/522000/150968/The-Basics-of-Distance-Measuring-Wheel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.96458 | 907 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Information from the large-scale National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of the 1980s found a strong link between the amount of sleep a person gets and that person's risk of becoming obese. Among those people who got less than 4 hours of sleep each night, 73% were more likely to become obese than those people who got the recommended 7 to 9 hours of rest. Those people who got 5 hours of sleep had a 50% greater risk of obesity, while those who got 6 hours of sleep had a 23% greater risk. Specialists suggest that the difference in obesity risks exists because people eat when they are awake and the effect of chronic sleep loss may trigger a person's foodseeking behavior. Dr. Steven Heymsfield of Columbia University added, "There's growing scientific evidence that there's a link between sleep and the various neural pathways that regulate food intake."Sleep deprivation does, in fact, lower the blood protein leptin, which is responsible for suppressing appetite, while at the same time raising the level of ghrelin, the substance that makes people want to eat.
Ms. Farley is a freelance medical writer based in Wakefield, RI.
While many states across our nation are engaged in political battles over the recreational use of marijuana, researchers have been busy studying the medical benefits of cannabidiol.
News from the year's biggest meetings
Clinical features with downloadable PDFs | <urn:uuid:0fb0d22e-dab2-4dda-8bb0-089b7f492fdb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2005/2005-01/2005-01-9195 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00151-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965339 | 285 | 3.078125 | 3 |
he 2003 calendar year will ring in a reorganization of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Online Training Program classes. In order to cover the varied features
and nuances for each database/system adequately and at a comfortable pace, we are adjusting our class offerings.
For 2003, we will offer a one-day class devoted entirely to PubMed® as well as
a new half-day class concentrating on the NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov; TOXNET® is still offered as
a one-day class. See the class descriptions below for details. Previously, discussion of the
NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov was somewhat limited, occurring at the end of an already full instruction period.
We also found that it was increasingly difficult to cover PubMed features and enhancements when all three systems
were included in a single class offering. This reorganization will provide classes that are more focused and efficient.
- NLM Training: PubMed
This full-day class is designed to teach students how to use PubMed.
It also includes an overview of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®)
and its importance as a tool to both searchers and indexers. PubMed provides access to over 12 million
MEDLINE® citations back to the mid-1960's.
Attendees of this free class earn Medical Library Association (MLA) continuing education credits
(number of credits yet to be determined).
- NLM Training: NLM Gateway & ClinicalTrials.gov
This half-day class is designed to teach students how to use the NLM Gateway.
The NLM Gateway is a Web-based system that allows users to search simultaneously in multiple NLM retrieval systems.
This class also includes a discussion and demonstration of ClinicalTrials.gov.
Attendees of this free class earn MLA continuing education credits
(number of credits yet to be determined).
- NLM Training: TOXNET
This full-day class is designed to convey the basics of searching the NLM's TOXNET, a web-based system of
databases in the areas of toxicology, environmental health, and related subjects. Students learn the content and structure of files covering toxicology
data, toxicology literature, toxic releases, and chemical searching and nomenclature. Among the databases highlighted are TOXLINE®, the Hazardous
Substances Data Bank, the Integrated Risk Information System, the Toxic Release Inventory, and ChemIDplus. Attendees of this
free class earn 7 MLA continuing education credits.
NLM Staff will also be teaching classes in Bethesda, MD on the Unified Medical
Language System (UMLS®)
and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Molecular Biology
Information Resources. Please watch the NLM Technical Bulletin for announcements of
2003 class offerings.
How to Apply
You may view the training class schedule and register online for classes at the National Training Center & Clearinghouse (NTCC) Web
site at http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/. Not all the 2003 classes have been scheduled yet so
please check the NTCC Web site periodically for announcements of additional 2003 classes.
Every attempt will be made to place training applicants in the class requested. If a class is filled, applicants will be registered for their
second choice, and also automatically placed on the waiting list for their first choice. Please note that all classes are considered "tentative" pending the
required minimum enrollment being met one month before the class.
Approximately one month prior to the class, registrants will receive a packet with information on hotels, local site arrangements and the class agenda. Information on location of training sites and
links to many of the sites' Web pages are available from the NTCC Web site.
Each Person Makes a Difference
Our classes are in demand and usually fill rapidly, often creating a waiting list. In order to help us provide training opportunities to as
many people as possible, please notify the NTCC office if you have registered for a class and your plans change. The more advance notice
you give us, the more likely it is that someone else can take the available space. It is very disappointing to begin a class with empty chairs
that could have been occupied. We are asking for your cooperation to help allow as many people as possible to benefit from this free
Distance Education via the Web
A Web-based, PubMed tutorial is also available. Just click on Tutorial
on the PubMed sidebar. The self-paced, interactive tutorial is useful to the casual, first-time, PubMed searcher as well as to the more
experienced PubMed searcher.
If you have questions or need additional information, please contact:
The National Training Center & Clearinghouse
Web site: http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/
800-338-7657 (press 2) or
NLM Customer Service
By Janet Zipser
MEDLARS Management Section
Zipser J. NLM Online Training Program: 2003. NLM Tech Bull. 2002 Sep-Oct;(328):e8. | <urn:uuid:76d73a04-55cd-4482-8e73-37ba8e53797f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so02/so02_2003_training.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00072-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900936 | 1,052 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Biosecuirty Queensland says that their swift response to a Hendra outbreak earlier this week has likely contained the disease and they’re confident there’s no immediate danger of it having spread.
The first warnings signs sprang up on Saturday when a horse became seriously ill in the region of Kerry.
Shortly after being sent back home to Biddaddaba the horse died of what at the time was an unknown illness.
Up to eight people were in direct contact with the horse at some stage as well as 30 horses spread across the two towns.
Both properties still remain under quarantine and horses will remain stationary, however people are under the same restrictions.
Blood samples have been taken of eight people as well as the five horses which were in the paddock with the infected horse, those results are still yet to be released.
The other 25 horses have had samples taken today with those results still up to a week away.
Biosecurity Queensland chief veterinary officer Rick Symons said levels of exposure were only considered to be in the low to moderate range of seriousness and that to date there are no signs of any problems.
“At the moment we are happy that we have contained the disease,” Dr Symons said.
“The horses in the area, the other properties, we are aware that this is a big horse area, can feel confident the disease is under control.”
There is an experimental treatment still being tested to be used as a vaccine for Hendra virus however it will not be used in this case because it’s highly unlikely any people have been affected.
Despite this they still won’t be fully cleared until after a second blood test in 21 days and one final check up in six weeks time.
While surrounding properties have been warned of the issue they’ve been told that they shouldn’t be too concerned about it spreading.
“It is not likely to spread from property to property without the movement of horses,” Mr Symons said.
The Hendra virus of course became a national headline just a few years ago when it crippled the racing industry and cancelled meetings right around the country.
It’s a disease transferred from bats to horses and horses to humans however the debate it still raging on whether it can be transferred directly from bats to humans.
Trainers and owners with properties plagued by bat colonies have fought to have the pests removed however they’ve met strong resistance from animal rights groups.
A colony of flying foxes has been found surrounding a fig tree at Kerry.
“That’s the possible cause of transmission,” Mr Symons said. | <urn:uuid:4595b54d-1d5f-4ed2-bd76-a9b383a76208> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.horseracing.com.au/news/fears-ease-as-hendra-outbreak-contained/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00070-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978136 | 547 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Full profile →'">
The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak traveled to Tehran on March 14 on a trade mission where he met with Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh and Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian. On the agenda were discussions about the proposed “production freeze”, which Iran has consistently and unequivocally stated it will not consider joining until after its oil production reaches the pre-sanctions level of 4 million barrels per day.
Setting the stage for bilateral talks the day before Novak’s scheduled arrival, Iran’s Petroleum Minister reiterated Tehran’s resolute position that the country aims to recover its shut-in production and lost market share. Following the meeting, Novak expressed acceptance and support for Iran’s position, raising the possibility of a special carve-out for Iranian crude production.
Despite the impasse, Moscow will likely work to keep talk of the initiative afloat with a constructive appearance, at least until the next OPEC meeting scheduled for June. The overt collapse of talks would add bearish sentiment to the market, further erode recent gains and weaken support for a new price floor.
Since February 16, market sentiment has been partially shaped by reports of the proposal by Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Qatar to “freeze production" at January levels. The proposal has been interpreted optimistically as a sign of growing cooperation among major producers and generated expectations that with Russia’s help, OPEC could stabilize the oil market.
Saudi Arabia’s Petroleum Minister Ali Ibrahim al-Naimi declared at the annual CERAWeek conference in Houston on February 23, that the proposed freeze was “the beginning of a process” and that further discussion were expected to take place in March. This framing helped shape market expectations that, with time and effort, other major producers such as Iraq and Iran could be brought on board. Talk of the "production freeze" added tenuous support to claims of a new price floor, with Brent crude oil hitting the $40 mark after a 12-year low reached in mid-January.
Disagreements and confusion have emerged on when and where the meeting would take place, raising doubts about whether the meeting would be postponed or scuttled altogether. On March 4, Russia’s Energy Minister clarified that the planned meeting would occur sometime between March 20 and April 1 in Russia, Doha, or Vienna. Now, in the aftermath of the meeting in Tehran, the meeting may not take place until sometime in April.
As a result, the proposed production freeze remains more highly tentative than ever and still conditioned on the buy-in from other major producers such as Iraq and Iran. Simply locking-in relatively high production levels will do little to balance the physical market by reducing oversupply and drawing down record level crude inventories.
Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia had planned significant production increases in 2016. Russia’s January production of 10.88 million barrels per day was already at a post-Soviet record high. Russia could freeze production but still increase exports of crude oil relative to oil products by manipulating its tax regime. Saudi Arabia’s output was relatively stable in January at near record levels of 10.23 million barrels per day. | <urn:uuid:ff4c9315-fbe2-40f9-b17a-ff110635e68e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremymaxie/2016/03/15/oil-freeze-talks-hit-impasse-as-iran-seeks-production-carve-out/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00025-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966173 | 676 | 1.65625 | 2 |
You can open files as a slideshow directly by selecting the files you want to see and then taking advantage of the Option key. Command-Option-Y will open the slideshow directly, or you can Option-click the Quick Look toolbar button, or activate the contextual menu (Control-click), hold down Option, and then choose Slideshow nn Items, where nn is the number of objects you selected.
Pressing the space bar while a file is selected in the Finder will open a Quick Look for that file. Press the Space Bar a second time to close the Quick Look window.
[robg adds: Although Steve Jobs demoed using the Space Bar with Quick Look, I'd forgotten about it -- and OS X's help doesn't say anything about using the Space Bar, just Command-Y. It's also not listed in the Keyboard Shortcuts panel in System Preferences. The only spot that this seems to be documented at all is on Apple's Quick Look page.]
I don't know if this known by all Mac users, but you can move a window from a space to another by just dragging the window to the limit of the screen. If you wait a few seconds, the window slides (and the screen also!) from the original space to the other one.
Just try this: starting from the main space (I assume you have 2x2 spaces) drag a window to the right. Wait a few seconds and you go to space two. Then move the window down and wait, and you go to space three. Now move the window to the left, you are on space four. To finish, push the window up to the menu bar, and you are back to space one.
[robg adds: There's a key in the Dock named workspaces-edge-delay with a value of 0.75. I had guessed this was the delay before the window slid into the next space, but changing it and restarting the Dock (and Spaces) didn't seem to make any difference. There's another interesting key there named workspaces-wrap-arrows, which I thought might remove the 'wall' when you try to go, for instance, left from the leftmost space, but no luck. If anyone manages to figure these out, please post in the comments.]
I managed to "break" the desktop folder on our macbook. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I'd started to copy an application to the desktop using Terminal, and then thought it wasn't working so quit the copy. Every time I clicked on the Desktop in the Finder, the Finder would thrash and other applications became uncooperative. Clicking on Desktop in the home folder or in the sidebar led to the message that 'there is no default application to open the document "Desktop"...,' which was rather worrying. I managed to copy the folders on the desktop to the home folder, so it was empty but still broken, and anything saved to it would go who-knows-where.
I was thinking I might have to do an archive-and-install, which would have been a pain, but then I remembered seeing Apple's article on how to change a user's short name, which involves copying the files from one home folder to another. So I created a new user 'test' and got to work.
Here's how I solved it, while logged in to the troublesome account. In Terminal, I ran these two commands (where myuser is the short username for the troublesome account):
This would, of course, delete anything left on the desktop if it wasn't empty, so use with care (have you backed up lately?). I could probably have used cp in Terminal to copy things out of the desktop first, if it wasn't empty already. I'm not sure what caused this problem, but this has solved it. Possibly it was some sort of permissions problem, or the Finder was seeing the desktop as a package from the failed copy command.
I hate the name that the Finder gives duplicate files, as it adds copy at the end of the name but before the extension. This makes renaming files a bit more of a pain. Rather than creating a name like my file copy.ext, I'd like it to be copy of my file.ext, so I can easily select the beginning and have copied files all sorted together.
The way to fix this is easy. Go to /System » Library » CoreServices » Finder.app, control-click on Finder.app, and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. This will open up a new window with all the files inside the Finder. Be aware that you can mess up the Finder up by modifying these files.
Go to Contents » Resources » English.lproj » Localizable.strings, and edit it in your favorite editor (I used Smultron). Search for N4, and you'll find a line that looks like this:
"N4" = "^0 copy";
I changed mine to:
"N4" = "copy of ^0";
Save the file, restart the Finder (using Activity Monitor or Terminal), and you should find duplicated files are now named according to your preferred string.
Many will find that when selecting a number of images greater than 99, control-clicking and choosing Slideshow will result in a slideshow that only contains 99 photos. The remaining photos will not be present in the index sheet, nor will they be shown at any time. So instead of using the Finder for large slideshows, use Preview instead:
Select a range of photos by using a shift-multi select or Command-A.
Instead of using control-click » Slideshow, double-click on your selection to open the files in Preview. (Drag and drop them to Preview's icon or use the contextual Open With menu if they're not normally opened by Preview.) All of your files should be shown in the drawer (this may take awhile to load for a few hundred photos. The load time can be can be optimized by reducing the size of the preview drawer thumbnails.)
Select View » Slideshow, and enjoy your massive slideshow!
Important note: For any number of photos greater than 499, the Index Sheet will no longer be available in the full-screen slideshow, although in my testing, the photos above 499 are still seen in the slideshow itself. It appears the authors decided the thumbnails would be too small after 20 rows and 25 columns of entries in the index sheet; probably a reasonable choice.
Many of us have found a profiles.bin file in our home folders. Many think it is created by MS Office for some reason, but nobody knows for sure. Everybody hates it and tries to remove it, to no avail: the file will respawn the next time you open MS Office. The file is completely useless, as far as anybody can tell.
I don't suggest a solution to the issue, nor an explanation; just a cool workaround to have that file delete itself every time you open its containing folder. It does so by means of a Folder Action. Folder Actions are pieces of AppleScript code to be executed automatically every time you open or close a folder, or add/remove items to/from it.
Here's how to create the one we need. Open Script Editor (in Applications » AppleScript) and type the following script and then click Compile to test for (most) spelling mistakes:
on opening folder
tell application "Finder" to delete file "profiles.bin" of home
end opening folder
Save the script as Delete profiles_bin somewhere appropriate, such as in Home » Library » Scripts » Folder Action Scripts (this is where Automator saves its folder actions), then open a Finder window. Control-clik on your home folder in the sidebar and select Enable Folder Actions. From the same menu, choose "Attach a Folder Action" and point it to the file you just saved
Done! Now every time you open your home folder in Finder, if a "profiles.bin" file is there, it will be deleted! Obviously, you could easily modify the above script to work on any other unwanted files that are automatically generated.
[robg adds: From what I can find on Google, it seems this issue only affects non-English versions of Office. I checked my machines, and none of them had the file. There are other solutions to this problem, of course. For instance, you could use Terminal and a cron job set to run once a day (or whenever) to check for and delete the file if found.]
I have had this same problem occur quite a bit in the last couple of months at my work, where I support many Mac labs and Mac laptops. I have seen this on several machines where you log in and the Finder just crashes and you get the spinning beach ball of death. If you log into a new user account (we have hidden accounts for diagnosis and administrative use), the OS runs absolutely fine. So you immediately think it is a problem with the user account. You do all the standard troubleshooting of clearing out .plist files, caches, application data, temp files, etc. However the problem persists.
While troubleshooting this issue, I decided to enable fast user switching (FUS) so I could log back into my admin account to make system changes in a timely manner. I noticed once I enabled fast user switching and switched from my working account to the account in question, all was suddenly well again. I have duplicated this method on several other machines at work, too. These range from intel iMacs, G4 to G5 desktops, G4 iBooks, G4 powerbooks, Macbooks, and Macbook Pros.
So if anyone runs into this issue where all the standard troubleshooting methods do not work, log into a different user account, enable FUS, and then switch from a good known user, then switch to the user in question and then it works. I have no idea why this works, but it works and saved me from having to target mode and back up data and reimage because the user forgot to back up their data on the network drive.
[robg adds: I can't test this one, but it seems there must still be a user-related issue at work if the Finder is crashing on login. As a temporary fix, FUS may get the job done, but the bigger issue will still need to be resolved.]
As noted here in previoushints, you can't find Mail messages in a normal Finder search -- you either have to search in Mail, or use the Spotlight window. However, I wanted to run a search in the Finder, so I could easily see the size of all my saved Mail messages, regardless of which folder they lived in.
The answer is simple, and is alluded to in the previous hints (which show how to modify some files to make Mail messages always show up). However, I though it worth posting directly, in case someone is looking for a simpler solution that doesn't require modifying files.
In the Finder, navigate to your user's Library » Mail folder then press Command-F. Make sure the Folder "Mail" button is highlighted in the search bar, and then click the Kind pop-up menu. Select Other, and then scroll down the monstrous list that appears and find Raw Query. For the query string, enter kMDItemContentType = "com.apple.mail.emlx", and that's it. If you want to save the query for future use, click the Save button.
Once the query has run, you can press Command-A then Command-I to open the Get Info window and view the size of all the messages. I'm sure there are other ways to do this, but it was the easiest one I could come up with that accounted for all the various subfolders. You can easily build a Smart Mailbox in Mail to show all your stored email (I use Date Received - is after the date - 01/01/93), but I don't see any way to then display the total size of all the collected messages.
As I found out in some forums (i.e. this ancient Mac OS X Hint), the common way to change the login window's background picture is to replace the Aqua Blue.jpg in /Library » Desktop Pictures with your own image. However, there's a more elegant way to do this: by adding a value to the appropriate plist file, namely /Library » Preferences » com.apple.loginwindow.plist. You can do this in two ways, either with a Terminal command or by directly editing the plist file using Property List Editor from the Xcode package.
Open Terminal and type these two commands (the $ is the command prompt; don't type that):
Replace the /path/to... bit with the full path and filename of the image you'd like to use.
Property List Editor solution:
Launch Property List Editor (in /Developer » Applications » Utilities), and then open the com.apple.loginwindow.plist file from /Library » Preferences. Add a New Sibling of class String with the name DesktopPicture. In the Value column, enter the complete path to the new image you want to set as the login window backgroung image. For example, you'd use this...
...to use the Apple-supplied agave plant picture. Please keep in mind that you need the correct user permissions to edit the plist file; save the changes and quit the editor when done. After using either method, log out and you should see your new login window background picture.
I found out that this was possible by exploring the /System » Library » CoreServices » SecurityAgentPlugins » loginwindow.bundle » Contents » MacOS » loginwindow executable in detail. | <urn:uuid:64a702c4-ed28-4b89-8ebb-ba4642c7e80d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://hints.macworld.com/index.php?topic=desktop&page=17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00017-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930996 | 2,857 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Kawakami S.,Cancer Net Japan |
Yanagisawa A.,Cancer Net Japan |
Konishi T.,Cancer Net Japan |
Konishi T.,University of Tokyo |
And 2 more authors.
Japanese Journal of Cancer and Chemotherapy | Year: 2014
The 2012 revision of the Basic Plan to Promote Cancer Control Programs explicitly recommends the enhancement of peer support. As of October 2013, only 20% of all designated regional and prefectural core hospitals and centers for cancer care formally promote peer support. Accordingly, the national government has been organizing training courses on peer support. Even so, peer support is not readily available. CancerNet Japan, a non-profit organization, has organized a peer support system at four designated cancer care hospitals in the Kanagawa prefecture, in association with the government. Peer supporters are breast cancer survivors who have completed the "Breast Cancer Survivor Coordinator Training Program," a course organized by CancerNet Japan since 2007, and have been officially certified as coordinators after course completion. These peer supporters have not only learned from their own experience but have also studied scientific medical information on cancer. The manner in which supportive activities are conducted in these four hospitals varies according to environment; for example, a dedicated booth may be set up or a standby coordinator may be stationed in a dedicated support room. The most common issue dealt with was the fear expressed by patients or their families, and supporter responses were primarily to attentively listen to them. In this paper, we review our activities with regard to the following three areas of interest: Circled digit one intra-institutional coordination within each hospital, Circled digit two supporter-related issues, and Circled digit three financial resources for efforts involved in the proposed structured peer support system to be adopted at a large number of hospitals nationwide. Source
Miyashita M.,University of Tokyo |
Miyashita M.,Tohoku University |
Kawakami S.,Cancer Net Japan |
Kawakami S.,University of Tokyo |
And 6 more authors.
Supportive Care in Cancer | Year: 2015
Background: The objectives of this study were to compare the importance of components of a good death among cancer patients, the general population, oncologists, and oncology nurses, and explore which patients preferred “fighting against cancer”.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional anonymous self-reported survey of cancer patients who visited a radiation oncology outpatient clinic, oncologists, and oncology nurses at the Tokyo University Hospital and a random sample of the general population in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The outcomes were 18 previously developed components of a good death in Japanese cancer care consisting of 57 attributes.Results: Three hundred ten patients, 353 subjects from the general population, 109 oncologists, and 366 oncology nurses participated. The desire to “fight against cancer” was highly significantly different between patients and oncologists (effect size [ES] = −1.40; P = 0.001) and patients and oncology nurses (ES = −1.12; P = 0.001). “Physical and cognitive control” was, similarly, highly significantly different between patients and oncologists (ES = −1.30; P = 0.001) and patients and oncology nurses (ES = −1.06; P = 0.001). Patients who emphasized “maintaining hope and pleasure” (P = 0.0001), “unawareness of death” (P = 0.0001), and “good relationship with family” (P = 0.004) favored “fighting against cancer.” The patients, however, who emphasized “physical and psychological comfort” did not significantly favor “fighting against cancer” (P = 0.004).Conclusion: The importance of good death components differed between groups. Medical professionals should be aware of the diversity of values surrounding death and assess the patient’s values and discuss them to support his or her quality of life. In addition, the development of care and a medical/social system to maintain hope and pleasure after failure of anticancer treatment is necessary. © 2014, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Source | <urn:uuid:3072f56f-0e3b-4438-9991-0dbe937e9bb4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/cancer-net-japan-1011373/all/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00236-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942629 | 876 | 1.851563 | 2 |
On a balmy May night at Yankee Stadium, nearly 50,000 fans rush from their seats almost immediately after Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner grounds to first for the final out in the game, a 5–3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. They stream out to the concrete concourse, down the ramps and into the industrial-size elevators that take them from the upper decks all the way down to the street level
In just a few minutes, they are all gone, but they leave plenty behind. Their cupholders are stuffed with high-priced “souvenir” cups half-filled with soda and beer, and on seats are soggy wrappers, cardboard boxes and tubs holding the greasy dregs of a ballpark dinner. All this trickles down onto the seatbacks and floors to join pooling piles of peanut shells, spilled drinks and hot dog detritus: All-American waste.
That mess is tough to clean, and, worse, it traps bacteria and other unhealthy organic matter, creating a veritable “mold bowl” that can last all season long.
One company may have a solution. Pureti, a “distributed” organization (it has a lab in Connecticut, a factory in Michigan, a president in Ohio and a vice president of sales in California), has designed, tested and is now marketing a suite of spray-on products made with titanium dioxide (TiO2, aka titania) it says can transform any surface into a self-cleaning dynamo that not only kills grime but lowers air pollution in the vicinity.
Glen Finkel, Pureti’s co-founder and CEO, insists that it is first and foremost a health care company; he believes widespread use of its products would vastly improve public health by lowering pollution levels outside and making air healthier to breathe. But as a veteran businessman (Finkel helped run U.S. Shoe until it was bought out by Nine West), he knows health doesn’t sell. So he’s offered companies something much closer to their hearts (and bottom lines): the “hard ROI”—business lingo for “return on investment”—of cost savings on weekly cleaning bills.
Pureti wants to start by making clients of some of the modern world’s most hallowed grounds: the stadiums and arenas that host the globe’s professional baseball, football (both kinds), hockey and basketball leagues. So far, Pureti has hooked one major U.S. sports venue: Sun Life Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League. Sun Life (formerly and more famously known as Joe Robbie Stadium) is a 25-year-old coliseum that holds 75,000 fans per game—and the detritus they create.
“Between the heat, and the humidity, and the beer, the people maintaining the stadium had to power-wash after every football game,” says Finkel. According to John Kennedy, DTZ’s vice president of operations support, cleaning a football stadium costs between $60,000 and $90,000 per game, and it wastes a whole lot of water.
So Finkel took some Pureti products down to Florida last season, and gave DTZ, the stadium’s facilities management company, a test drive: They chose a small section of the stadium floor and covered half of it with Pureti and left half untreated, as a control.
They tested it through an entire football season. Within weeks, “it was clearly evident” which rows of seats were in the control group and which had been treated with Pureti, says Kennedy. “All it would take is one day of sunshine, and one aisle would snap back to being clear and clean, and the other would discolor, and you’d see evidence of mold accumulation. We’d have to pressure-wash the untreated row more aggressively and more often than the treated row.”
In March 2014, DTZ had Pureti coat the entire stadium with its spray, which Finkel says will last for at least five years.
Globally, other stadium managers are starting to hear about the company. Pureti was asked to bring its product to the Nou Camp, the home of Futbol Club Barcelona (aka Barca) and the largest stadium in Europe. They haven’t yet coated that centerpiece of Catalonian athletics, but Finkel expects it to happen sometime in the coming year. He says there are rumblings that they’ll be asked to work on the 2018 World Cup.
The truth, though, is that the whole notion of “self-cleaning” is really just a Trojan horse to get the pollution-lowering technology into and onto as many buildings as possible.
This could be the game-changing technology we’ve all been waiting for. It’s got all the right buzzwords: nanotechnology, air-purifying, antimicrobial, green, sustainable. And best of all, you can save the planet without spending hundreds of dollars on “locally sourced” organic food, feeling bad about buying a new iPhone every two years or having to give up driving your car.
Just spray Pureti’s proprietary titanium dioxide-based liquid all over your windows and walls, and pat yourself on the back: You’ve turned your home into a self-cleaning, pollution-eating machine.
Sporting facilities are just one of many structures and products being slathered in Pureti’s liquid gold: The caretakers of La Pedrera, a Gaudi-designed building and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Barcelona, Spain, are using it to keep mold from growing in the structure's complex crevices. Hotels from the Bahamas to Venice use it in their luxury suites to manage odor and improve air quality. London is considering a citywide program to apply it to roads and public buildings to get levels of NOx (mono-nitrogen oxides that cause ozone) down to acceptable levels (the U.K. was recently fined by the European Union in an effort to force it to reduce its pollution levels). NASA plans to test it for use on solar panels: If the panels stay cleaner longer, they stay at their highest level of energy efficiency—and it’s much harder to clean surfaces floating in space than those down on Earth. HOK, the global architecture and interior design titan, and Johnson Controls, the building efficiency giant, are both beginning to include Pureti’s product in the specification processes for the buildings they manage.
Finkel’s pet project, though, is with the Asthma and Allergy Prevention Co., which is applying Pureti as part of a new protocol for transforming regular homes into hospital-grade environments so that children with serious respiratory issues can stay out of the emergency room. It is currently in the Food and Drug Administration approval process; if the federal regulator gives the thumbs-up, Pureti could soon be considered a health product.
If you want to know how it works, start by taking your eyes off the page and looking around you. If you’re anywhere inside, chances are, your glance passed over at least one painted surface. Mayan gold, eggshell or Tuscan teal—it doesn’t matter much, because every single color starts with the exact same thing: titanium dioxide. That’s because titania pigment is the whitest of whites, with a brightness and ability to refract light that is unmatched in the world of material sciences.
The stuff shows up in products as wide-ranging as ink, toothpaste, cosmetic products, sunblock and plastics, and there’s a whopping pound and half of titania in every gallon of paint. It’s common and it’s cheap. The core mineral involved, titanium, is the ninth-most abundant element in the Earth’s crust.
It does have its flaws. If you slap a coat of a regular old titania pigment–based house paint on your wooden fence out in the yard, it’ll eventually start to crack and peel. For years people didn’t know why the paint seemed to disintegrate when exposed to the sun, until two Japanese researchers at the University of Tokyo, Kenichi Honda and Akira Fukishima, discovered that the white pigment—the titania—was doing something called photocatalysis.
Simply put, titania uses light to speed up chemical reactions around it: Ultraviolet rays (from the sun or from artificial light sources) hit the surface of an object that has been covered in titania, and that triggers a chemical reaction in which water molecules (which it gets from moisture in the air) are momentarily split into hydroxyl radicals (aka “free radicals,” for those playing buzzword bingo). Then these hydroxyl radicals quickly seek out any organic matter touching that surface and break it down into smaller molecules.
That’s a bad thing for your white picket fence, but it’s a good thing for planet Earth, because, for the most part, the organic molecules in the air tend to be dangerous for humans, the environment or both. The air is loaded up with matter like volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which cause all sorts of terrible health effects, NOx and grime (which makes things dirty and attracts disease-carrying bacteria).
When you hear scientists, legislators and pundits warning that our air is killing us, this is what they are talking about. Photocatalytic titania cuts the stuff down. “The idea is that you convert VOCs into carbon dioxide and water, and you convert NOx in the air into something like nitrate that would just wash away,” says Jonathan Raff, a professor of environmental science and chemistry at Indiana University. “All these things would just go away, and you wouldn’t have a smog problem.”
Honda and Fukishima discovered that titania’s one flaw as a pigment made it a tremendous chemical superpower: It ate up paint, but it also chewed up dangerous molecules and spit them out as innocuous compounds. “It’s polymorphously perverse,” says Finkel. “It doesn’t care whether the organic molecules are Jell-O, or a piece of gum, or a germ, or a virus, or hazmat.… It’s lunch.”
The discovery was truly groundbreaking—the two men are by some accounts currently on the short list to receive a Nobel Prize any year now. And they made that astonishing discovery over 40 years ago, in 1967.
So where has it been? If the stuff is so miraculous, why don’t we all know about it? Pureti and a few other companies have figured out ways to make crystal-clear titania coatings; why isn’t every building we work and live in, and every material good we own, covered in titania? What are we waiting for?
The Long-Delayed Miracle
“TiO2 has been studied to death,” says Alexander Orlov, a materials science and engineering professor at Stony Brook University. “There are still some scientific issues to address, but the fact that it works has been confirmed by many research groups.”
Orlov and Raff have both published papers showing that as part of the chemical process that occurs during photocatalysis, dangerous molecules can be temporarily created. “[VOCs] get partially oxidized,” says Raff, “which means they might form aldehydes or oxidized versions of the molecules.” Both of those are pretty bad for the human body, if they stick around. But Orlov, who spent seven years advising the British government on the safety of nanotechnology and hazardous substances, argues that overall, the process is a net positive—it’s getting rid of lots more bad stuff than it creates.
“These papers just show one of the elements, and one of the possible reaction pathways,” he says. Taken in the bigger context, this is just small potatoes. Orlov points out that the same issues are in chlorinated water—the chlorination process creates dangerous intermediaries along the way to generating healthy drinking water.
According to Orlov, the biggest problem with photocatalytic titania is actually the marketing. The first attempts to bring titania to the market were in 1998, when the four largest glass manufacturing companies in the world all simultaneously launched “self-cleaning” photocatalytic glass. U.K.-based Pilkington, for example, created and heavily marketed a product called Activ. Neil McSporran, a civil engineer by training and the current manager of business development at Pilkington North America, says Activ has sold well enough in the U.K. and Canada, but in the U.S. sales have been disappointing. That’s why they are abandoning the “self-cleaning” rhetoric for the branding du jour: They’re going green.
“One thing we’ve been revisiting is how we can change our message,” says McSporran. “What’s become more important than the easy-clean element is the degradation of harmful pollutants.” According to McSporran, over the past few months, internal company discussions have centered around ways to make the science their key marketing message.
Finkel says Pureti had been working on this product for years without getting any traction, in part because potential clients thought it was too good to be true. “That was a big albatross around our neck,” he says.
In Japan, by luck of historical confluence, the marketing problem solved itself. In 1998, a Japanese ceramics company took titania nanopowders and melted them into a glaze for tiles. The tiles were used in schools and hospitals throughout the country.
A few years later, a previously unknown viral respiratory illness spread rapidly through Eastern Asia. The disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome, which became widely known as SARS coronavirus, eventually infected 8,096 people worldwide, killing 774. Most of the stricken were in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the virus reached Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines—not to mention Canada and the United States. Twenty-nine nations saw at least one of their citizens fall ill.
But not Japan. Even though the country was close to the epicenter of the disease, SARS never made it to its shores. And when the tiles were found to inhibit the spread of SARS (and other viral and bacterial diseases), Honda and Fukishima became hometown heroes.
Nowadays, if you’re launching a new product in Japan, you better include titania. Companies including Toyota, Panasonic, Fujitsu and Bridgestone all maintain significant brand currency from the aura titania provides, and windows, walls and even roads are coated in the stuff. Titania in Japan is quite literally a billion-dollar market. There’s even a museum dedicated to photocatalysis in Kanagawa.
Be the Best, Second
There’s nothing nearly as impressive going on in the United States. Pureti’s R&D lab is a small outfit, not much more than a garage in a business park in suburban Connecticut. There, two scientists, co-founder and senior chemist John Andrews and director of technical operations Bikash Rajkarnikar, mix new product batches in equipment a good high school chem lab would have. They run tests on sample materials sent in by potential clients, try to figure out what other great things their product can do (they just found out it can prevent spot rotting when used on greenhouse glass) and watch the geese walk across their parking lot.
They’re also trying to figure out how much photocatalytic titania really clears the air. They have a small metal chamber the size of an office cubicle that they fill with VOCs. Then they stick some Pureti-coated glass inside, along with an $8,000 VOC sensor, and see what happens. The results are signs pointing in the right direction—the air is cleaner post-Pureti.
These experiments, though, have been done before. Finkel and his team regretfully admit they have a problem: There’s really no way to test titania in the real world. It’s just too complicated, and too big. “When it’s cleaning up air, it’s cleaning up air for the entire globe,” says Orlov.
“All of the studies have been in laboratories,” adds Raff. “The real verdict has to come from real, in-the-field, outdoor studies.” It’s easy enough to figure out what happens in a small, controlled space, but cities are complex beasts. Orlov says that atmospheric science has only a “rudimentary knowledge of the impact of building materials on urban air quality. It’s the next frontier.”
An hour and a half south of the lab is Finkel’s office, a modest space in a narrow building crammed into a lively block in Manhattan’s financial district. Finkel, in a former life, was a practicing psychologist (“He reads people very well,” says Orlov), and he knows how to guide the conversation. He’s there to convince you that his product can save the planet. If only you’d agree, you could help him save the planet, too.
“I don’t want to get on my soapbox, but it’s become conventional wisdom that the way to make money in America is to be the best, second,” says Finkel wistfully. “No one wants to try anything. Everyone talks about innovation—it’s as American as apple pie—but get someone to go first? Forget about it.” | <urn:uuid:8608932d-b45f-456f-a0c8-3ff1a5bb09f2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/04/deodorant-spray-will-clean-your-stadium-and-save-world-256134.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00231-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958207 | 3,774 | 1.601563 | 2 |
In reinforcement learning, the state-action value function seems to be used more than the state value function. Why is it so?
We are ultimately interested in getting an optimal policy, that is the optimal sequence of actions to reach the final goal. State values on its own don't provide that, they tell you expected return from specific state onward but they don't tell you which action to take. In order to derive an optimal action in a specific state you would have to simulate all possible actions one step ahead and then pick the action that leads you to the state with highest state value. That is often inconvenient or impossible. State action values connect the expected return with actions, not states, so you don't need to simulate all actions one step ahead and see where you end up, you only need to pick an action that has the highest value because you know that is the best action to take in that state. | <urn:uuid:3a6b047e-1d08-411e-8792-e3ff84b85d96> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ai.stackexchange.com/questions/18017/why-is-the-state-action-value-function-used-more-than-the-state-value-function | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.958858 | 186 | 1.914063 | 2 |
After building a USB magnetic stripe reader, [David Cranor] has found a way to fool a magnetic stripe reader using a hand-wound electromagnet and an iPod. The data on a card is read and stored on a computer, then encoded as a WAV file using a C++ program. The iPod plays the WAV file with the data through a single-stage opamp amplifier connected to the headphone jack. The amplifier is used to drive the electromagnet. Video embedded after the jump.
By no means is this a new idea. There have been a lot of mangetic stripe projects and software. This project in particular references the 1992 Phrack article “A Day in the Life of a Flux reversal” by [Count Zero].
Don’t get your hopes up just yet on strolling through high security installations using this little device. It can only replay the data from a card that has been recorded. If you don’t have a known working card, it won’t get you very far.
Continue reading “Magnetic stripe card spoofer”
Researchers at NGS Software have come up with a method to embed malicious code into a picture. When viewed, the picture could send the attacker the credentials of the viewer. Social sites like Facebook and Myspace are particularly at risk, but the researchers say that any site which includes log ins and user uploaded pictures could be vulnerable. This even includes some bank sites.
The attack is simply a mashup of a GIF picture and a JAR (Java applet). The malicious JAR is compiled and then combined with information from a GIF. The GIF part fools the browser into opening it as a picture and trusting the content. The reality is, the Java VM recognizes the JAR part and automatically runs it.
The researchers claim that there are multiple ways to deal with this vulnerability. Sun could restrict their Virtual Machine or web applications could continually check and filter these hybrid files, but they say it really needs to be addressed as an issue of browser security. They think that it is not only pictures at risk, but nearly all browser content.
More details on how to create these GIFARs will be presented at this week’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.
[Tony Messina] had been fascinated with bat’s echolocation since he was a kid. After he retired, he decided to act on this fascination and built a simple bat detector.
The simple bat detector uses frequency division to lower the bat’s chirping to a frequency we can hear. For example, if a bat is calling at 91kHz the system will divide it by 16 and put out 5.7kHz. The system is digital, so all amplitude is lost. You’ll just hear clicks like a Geiger counter. Being digital has its advantages though. Unlike similar analog devices that have to be tuned to a small frequency range, the simple bat detector can detect a much wider window.
Continue reading “Build a simple bat detector” | <urn:uuid:8dc55b8c-0b8b-49d7-94f8-2c043471c55f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://hackaday.com/2008/08/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00478-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941519 | 626 | 2.1875 | 2 |
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Mastering the blocks is critical to success in the 100 meters.
The 100-meter dash has long been track and field's signature race. The Olympic champion in the 100 meters earns the unofficial title of "fastest man on earth" or "fastest woman on earth." As of August 2013, the men's and women's world records stood at 9.58 seconds and 10.49 seconds respectively. While you may be unlikely to approach these marks yourself, doing tried-and-true workouts will help you maximize your innate talent.
What you need to accomplish in training to maximize your speed in a 100-meter race depends on your age, goals, strengths, weakness, access to training facilities and other individual factors. UK Athletics track and field coach Brian MacKenzie notes that a sound training program breaks into cycles of about four weeks, the first three of which are dedicated to developing fitness and the last one serving as a time to test your training's effectiveness. You need a full range of speed sessions to reach your potential in the 100 meters, encompassing what MacKenzie terms speed, speed endurance and special endurance workouts.
Superior top-end speed is a must but by itself isn't enough to turn you into a superior sprinter. If you don't work on getting off the starting line as quickly as possible and accelerating to your fastest speed as early in the race as you can, you'll give up too much ground in the early going to run down a better-trained sprinter with similar top velocity.
University of Florida head track coach Mike Holloway has his athletes do workouts such as five times 20 meters, four times 30 meters and three times 40 meters out of the blocks to allow them to work on both their starts and their early-race acceleration. Countless variations exist -- for example, two sets of five times 30 meters; no reps should exceed 60 meters.
In the preseason and early part of the competitive season, you emphasize the development of specific aspects of speed in preparation for using these in an integrated way during the late competitive season. MacKenzie says you need to work on your strength, mobility, endurance and technical skills; Holloway concurs and says that the preseason is a good time for doing a plethora of form drills and improving your flexibility. For example, do a workout consisting of fast runs of 500, 400 and 300 meters to boost your endurance, or do drills including single-leg hops and box jumps to better your agility and explosive quickness.
As you transition to the part of your season in which the most important meets take place, Holloway advises reducing overall training so that you'll be more rested and stressing the technical aspects of the 100 meters -- your start, form and ability to accelerate in particular. He notes that it's easier to hone these skills when you're on increasingly fresher legs. Sprint workouts can include four times 40 meters, three times 70 meters and two times 80 meters out of the blocks. And if you participate in relays, you should spend extra time working on baton exchanges with your teammates. | <urn:uuid:7eec6117-d783-4fda-b3c6-9f946bf9f1c8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sz.quelebris.com/47-100-meter-speed-workouts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.954719 | 675 | 2.109375 | 2 |
SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) -- The annual number of passengers using Incheon International Airport, the gateway to Seoul, topped 70 million for the first time last year, its operator said Thursday.
According to Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC), a record 71.17 million passengers used Incheon International Airport in 2019, marking an increase of 4.3 percent from the previous year.
It is the first time for the airport, which opened in Incheon, west of Seoul, in 2001, to handle more than 70 million passengers a year.
Notably, the feat was achieved despite unfavorable external factors, including many South Koreans' reluctance to travel to Japan due to diplomatic conflict and a fall in passengers bound to protest-battered Hong Kong, corporation officials said.
The number of flights from and to the Incheon airport also increased 4.3 percent to 404,000 last year, while its transfer passengers jumped 4.6 percent to 8.38 million.
The number of international passengers expanded 4.3 percent to an all-time high of 70.58 million, IIAC said, expecting the airport to rank among the world's top five in international traffic for two consecutive years.
Passengers increased on all international routes, except Japanese ones, which saw a decrease of 11.7 percent from the previous year, it noted.
Passengers on Chinese, Southeast Asian and European routes jumped 11.9 percent, 11.7 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.
Passengers using low-cost carriers (LCCs) in Incheon increased 5.1 percent to 21.83 million, while the number of flights run by LCCs expanded 9.7 percent to 126,000. As a result, the passenger share of LCCs rose to 31 percent.
Meanwhile, the annual sales of IIAC increased 4.4 percent to 2.77 trillion won last year, though its net profit shrank 20.4 percent to 890.5 billion won.
BTS' J-Hope closes Chicago's Lollapalooza festival
(2nd LD) Kim, Pelosi agree to support efforts for denuclearization of N. Korea
(LEAD) Assembly speaker meets with Pelosi amid heightened Sino-U.S. tensions
Assembly Speaker Kim to meet with U.S. House Speaker Pelosi this week
(LEAD) Yoon's approval rating falls to 28.9 pct
Court recognizes death after drinking with boss as workplace accident
150 front-line Army commandoes to conduct joint training at U.S. Army's National Training Center
Whereabouts of 55 Thai tourists on Jeju unknown
(2nd LD) S. Korea's new COVID-19 cases above 100,000 for 6th day
Deputy national security adviser resigns due to health reasons | <urn:uuid:d48622cc-0098-4a3e-bf29-1a59a9df0a83> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200109006100315 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.926183 | 615 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The first trial of a vaccine passport health app has taken place on a Qantas flight, QF116 from Frankfurt to Darwin on Friday 12/03.
Qantas intends that the digitised medical records accessed from the app will be used, by the airlines to see whether people have been vaccinated, and whether they have returned negative COVID results.
It has been trialling its two apps known as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Travel Pass and CommonPass apps. Qantas trialled CommonPass with its crew in February before extending it to passengers.
Qantas has said it will make it quicker and easier for passengers to go on flights, and suggested that in the future a positive vaccination status will become mandatory in order to take international flights.
Qantas Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully said “COVID test results and proof of vaccine will be required in many countries for quarantine-free travel.”
Qantas has started out using it for passengers to show their negative COVID test result, however in future it plans to use it for Australians flying home to show their vaccination status.
Internationally, health passports are being discussed in a number of countries.
A similar proposal has just been banned in Israel, on the grounds that it violates personal freedoms.
The Israeli Supreme Court on 17/03/2021 overruled the Israeli Government’s vaccination certificate requirements for airlines and limits on numbers of passengers entering the country per day. The ruling stated such limits are “an assault on the very heart of the legal right to enter Israel and to leave it, and other rights that are at the heart of the fabric of life in democratic societies.”
Such medical passes constitute the compelling of citizens to take a medical procedure, by withholding freedoms they would otherwise have and restricting their freedom of movement. Compelling citizens to take medical procedures goes against the Nuremberg Code, one of a number of concerns raised by civil liberties advocates. | <urn:uuid:57249e5d-63fb-4ea0-80de-3de22acbaf3f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.theresemariko.com/uncategorized/qantas-vaccine-pass-radio-story-script/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.952785 | 403 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Environmental vandals sought
If you’ve seen a truck around West Kelowna with a box that’s dripping with used engine oil, conservation officers would like to hear from you.
CO Ed Seitz says about 50 gallons of dirty, black, used engine oil was dumped over the bank up Smith Creek Road in West Kelowna either Monday night or in the early hours of Tuesday morning, along with plastic totes, barrels and used engine oil filters.
The grasses and wild plants are coated with the oil, the ground is saturated with it, and there’s a trail of the black oil leading from the site down to Elliott Road, along Reece Road toward Old Okanagan Highway and along there towards Shannon Lake Road, said Seitz.
“It looks like the guy just backed up to the ravine and let the whole pallet full of stuff fly out of the back of his truck,” commented Seitz.
However, he believes the lids on the plastic totes must have popped off on the way up, allowing the dirty oil to slop out and drip off the back of the truck.
A similar incident occurred in the Smith Creek Road area in March when someone dumped a variety of auto parts and oily waste alongside the road, noted Seitz.
Although that suspect was never found, it was reported by some businesses that a fellow was collecting the junk for disposal.
He was described as in his early 40s and he drove a light blue, beat-up, late 1980s or early 1990s Ford F150 pickup with a regular single cab, a short box and an exhaust leak.
It’s possible this may be the same person, said Seitz.
If any business has had someone haul away used oil or filters, the CO service would like to talk to them. Call the tips line toll-free at: 1-877-952-7277 if you have any information that could be helpful.
Some of the oil filters were very large such as might fit a large diesel engine and as well there were two or three 15-gallon black rubber tubs, a blue tote, a blue bucket, a couple of five-gallon pails, two large yellow fuel filters and a white one, some four-litre jugs and a blue wooden pallet.
Used engine oil can be recycled without charge at many local automotive shops, Seitz said.
Dumping such waste in the bush is an offence under the provincial environmental management act and is liable to fines of $575 by ticket, or up to $1 million and/or six months in jail if a court appearance is required.
The Central Okanagan Regional District has cleaned up similar dumps in that area, reports park warden Blaise Laveay.
The last was July 11, when a dump of used engine oil and buckets was cleaned up by the regional district in the Smith Creek area, but it's not known who will conduct this clean-up. | <urn:uuid:3adc5672-d367-4b0e-80a4-521c0da622f1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kelownacapnews.com/news/166286556.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00308-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973737 | 620 | 1.789063 | 2 |
These 10 Gambling addiction signs and symptoms are not always easy to spot. Gambling can be an addiction as poisonous as any other kind of addiction out there. Gambling addicts are also known as compulsive gamblers because they can’t stop once they have started. Below are 10 signs and symptoms to help in recognizing a gambling addiction.
- Secrecy. Problem gamblers tend to become very secretive about things like where they are going or how much they gamble. But, one of the biggest signs of gambling addiction is secrecy about the finances.
- Denial. A huge sign of a gambling addiction is denial of the problem. As with any addiction the addict is not going to simply admit to having a problem. They will deny having a gambling addiction, deny having gambled at all, and deny the gambling is affecting anyone around them.
- Being Defensive. Normally, a sign or symptom of a gambling addiction is becoming defensive about the gambling. This can occur in many ways, but one of the most common is claiming that they are gambling to help the family.
- Borrowing Money. It isn’t uncommon at all for a person who has a gambling addiction to borrow money from their friends or family.
- Creating Debt. Gambling is one of those addictions where sometimes the signs and symptoms aren’t right on the surface. Creating debt by running up credit cards and overdrawing bank accounts are a couple of examples of creating debt.
- Becoming a Criminal. Not everyone addicted to gambling goes this way, but some begin to commit crimes like stealing from people they know and pawning the items for money. Sometimes it stays within the circle of people they know, but sometimes it becomes bigger and they may begin to steal from larger businesses and people they don’t know. An addiction is an addiction because an addict will do anything they can to get a fix. It is a vicious cycle.
- Losing Relationships. Regardless if it is a lover, a friend, or a family member, the loss of a relationship because of gambling is something which cannot be easily remedied after a gambler recovers. Gambling addicts tend to borrow money, steal, and lie to friends and family before strangers and this can result in the loss of relationships over gambling.
- Withdrawal. When a gambling addict is not gambling, the signs and symptoms of withdrawal may become noticeable. Being irritable and moody, feeling restless, and daydreaming about gambling are signs of withdrawal. Sometimes actual pain, like headaches, can occur from this withdrawal.
- Raising the Bets. Another sign and symptom of a gambling addiction is betting more to try and win back lost money. It is very common for a gambling addict to try and raise the amount of the bet for a quick and big win.
- Blaming. As with any addiction, the addict may start to blame others for their excessive habits and gambling is no different. The gambler may start to blame his spouse or others in the family for his addiction.
Remember, not all ten gambling addiction signs and symptoms will always be present.
National Council on Problem Gambling
Problem Gambling Services
What Others Are Reading Right Now.
10 Kung Fu Movies Every Man Should See
From the absolute classics to the so-bad-they're-amazing.
How to Turn (Almost) Every Lady’s Head
Top female stylists share their favorite men’s looks.
Acting, comedy and strong spirits converge in Speakeasy. When host Russell Peters interviews entertainers about all sorts of topics, neither the drinks nor the conversation is wate … | <urn:uuid:e7c098ca-80a3-4475-a396-5cdd2e46db17> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.mademan.com/mm/10-gambling-addiction-signs-and-symptons.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00291-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941684 | 747 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Judicial system of Albania
The Judicial system of Albania is composed of:
- District courts
- Courts of appeal
- Supreme Court of Albania
- Constitutional Court of Albania
The district courts are trial level courts from which appeal can be taken to the court of appeals and then to the Court of Cassation. At each of the three levels, the courts are divided into civil, criminal and military chambers. Justices of the Supreme Court serve for 7 years.
There is also a Constitutional Court (also known as the High Court) with jurisdiction to resolve questions of constitutional interpretation that arise during the course of any case on appeal. In a 1993 decision, the Constitutional Court invalidated a law that would have disbarred lawyers who were active during the communist era, and ordered the lawyers reinstated. Justices of the Constitutional Court serve a maximum of 9 years.
Parliament appoints the seven members of the Court of Cassation and five of the nine judges on the Constitutional Court, with the rest appointed by the president. A Supreme Judicial Council appoints all other judges. In 1992, the Supreme Judicial Council began to remove judges who had served under the former Communist regime. | <urn:uuid:94b7ea8c-6d9c-422a-8b8e-da5f76f7c0fb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://juridiksi.e-monsite.com/blog/news-in-english/judicial-system-of-albania.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00287-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976567 | 237 | 3.28125 | 3 |
What is hummus used for? Everyone has probably heard about hummus before, even if they haven’t seen or tried it personally. The easy answer that most people could probably give is that hummus can be used to make some sort of spicy hummus dip. What not everyone knows, however, is that it isn’t exclusively used for dip and that there are a lot of different recipes with hummus. Here are three easy hummus recipes that you can make at home:
1. Hummus Beef
Contrary to popular belief, hummus is not a natural antithesis to meat. The hummus nutritional value does make it a healthy companion to meat, however. Mixing a pound of beef with half a pound of hummus, half a pound of chopped red onions in olive oil, and two tablespoons of parsley makes for a delicious and nutritious patty that can be cooked as you like!
With enough olive oil and rice wine vinegar, hummus also suits most types of pasta just fine, whether it’s a broth-filled pasta or a more dry one. The olive oil and vinegar are meant to thin the hummus into a sort of sauce so that it can mix more finely with the pasta and make a more delicious meal. Apart from that, just make the pasta as normal!
3. Salad Dressing
As one of the more renowned recipes with hummus, this use as salad dressing deserved a mention. Two tablespoons of olive oil, a third of a cup of orange juice, and two tablespoons of hummus can be whisked together into a serviceable dressing that can be tossed into or drizzled over the remainder of the salad. What seems like the most mouth-watering hummus recipe to you? Read more blogs like this: sabra.com | <urn:uuid:2bac93ed-a692-4629-95fe-888aff384bbf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://foodtalkonline.net/top-three-recipes-that-use-hummus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573104.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817183340-20220817213340-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.946963 | 373 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Even people who are not professing Christians think they are familiar with the story of the Nativity. Every Christmas displays of Jesus resting in a manger populate lawns and churchyards, and songs about shepherds and angels fill the air. Yet despite the abundance of these Christian references in popular culture, how many of us have examined the hard edges of this biblical story?
In his new book Timothy Keller takes readers on an illuminating journey into the surprising background of the Nativity. By understanding the message of hope and salvation within the Bible’s account of Jesus’s birth, readers will understand the redeeming power of God’s grace in a meaningful and deeper way.
Keller shares, "If you’re my age and you’ve been preaching for 40 years, you’ve talked about Christmas a lot. Every time I get to the Christmas season I realize this is such an important message, and people don’t hear it, they just tune out what the Christian idea of Christmas claims to be… this is a bit of a wake-up call, and a non-sentimental book on Christmas."
Publication Date: October 25, 2016.
Published by Viking Books. | <urn:uuid:05437e1a-d70e-4a28-9431-bd0848b44ab0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.timothykeller.com/books/hidden-christmas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00469-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916233 | 250 | 1.9375 | 2 |
"It would be interesting to watch on TV, but this trial reminds me of the World Cup Finals qualifiers. Whenever we are close, we lose," is how Ahmed Fouad, a taxi driver, sees the trial of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, due to commence in a few days.
Fouad, speaking on a hot summer crowded noon, insists that he speaks for many, or not most Egyptians, when he says he believes the ousted president will not be put on trial.
On 3 August, Hosni Mubarak his sons, Alaa and Gamal, along with his former minister of interior, Habib El-Adly, and six of his assistants are due to face charges that could lead to a death sentence if the court finds them guilty. Killing peaceful protesters in the first days of the revolution is not the only accusation against the ousted president, but it is the one being followed most by the man in the street.
"I really don't care about seeing him in cage, but I think it is the right of the families of the martyrs," says Fouad.
Why does he feel that this will not happen?
Since Mubarak was toppled nearly six months ago he has been held in detention, but never inside a prison. Meanwhile, reports on his deteriorating health are everywhere in the media. After a week of calming people down and setting the stage for Mubarak’s trial, conflicting reports are bringing hopelessness again to Egyptians.
One of these reports was the announcement of the head of Mubarak’s medical team, Assem Azam, on Saturday that Mubarak’s health won’t allow him to go to court. This came after last week’s announcement by Health Minister Amr Hilmy that Mubarak is fit enough to be transferred to Cairo from his hospital bed in the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Also, the trial’s venue was changed Saturday. It has been moved from the Cairo International Convention Centre to the city’s Police Academy, for reasons of security, informed sources said. Last week, Deputy Justice Minister Mohammed Munie declared that the trial would happen in Cairo at the Cairo International Convention Centre according to schedule.
Unsurprised, if disillusioned, most Egyptians harbour extreme doubts about the trial because of official statements like this by Ahmed Refaat, head of the Criminal Court, who will preside over the case of the killing of protesters during the revolution: "Egyptians should calm down and stop asking about the location of Mubarak’s upcoming trial scheduled for 3 August.” Refaat made the comment during a phone call with Masr El-Gedida talk show on the independently owned El-Hayat 2 channel Tuesday.
Earlier this week, the lawyer of Mubarak told the media that his client's health was deteriorating and that he had went into a coma. Then Mubarak raised the stakes further by embarking on a hunger strike for almost a week, worsening his health condition, his medical team reports. Mubarak takes liquids but no solid food.
The reportedly fragile state of Mubarak’s health kept him from attending his first scheduled trial hearing in April. It was said that he was suffering from heart problems; accordingly the trial was postponed for four months. Till when could the trial be legally postponed?
“There is no maximum period for postponement, it all depends on the judge’s decision,” leading lawyer and expert in criminal law, Bahaa Eddin Abu Shoqa, told Ahram Online. In addition, the defendant's lawyer can gain a postponement by asking for additional documents or the calling up of new witnesses.
A very real concern is whether the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is ready to see their former head sent for trial at the age of 83. Indeed, many judge that SCAF has only continued to take action on the Mubarak trial issue because of people pressuring it to.
Hundreds of revolutionaries have been staging a sit-in at Tahrir Square since 8 July. Among their demands is the swift trial of the toppled president along with corrupt figures of his regime. In the face of inaction on this front some revolutionaries have been calling for dissolving the SCAF, headed by Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, as they believe that it is protecting Mubarak.
The latest decision will see the trial broadcast live on state TV — the third live broadcast of the trial of a figure of the former regime since the Egyptian Revolution, during which approximately 900 were killed.
Regarding El-Adly, he has already been convicted on separate corruption charges and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He has yet to be tried over the deaths of protesters.
When Mubarak was toppled on 11 February 2011, he had been in power for 30 years. | <urn:uuid:cdf64a54-1e44-4ca4-9792-73760664a141> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/17672/Egypt/Politics-/Mubaraks-date-in-court-looms-over-Egypt.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717963.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00374-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981415 | 976 | 1.632813 | 2 |
CHILDREN from Westacre Middle School in Droitwich were trying on toppings, by making pizzas in the lead up to the Droitwich Food Festival.
140 pupils from year five, designed and made their own pizzas, concentrating on the nutritional value of the toppings, as well as their appearance and taste.
Each class selected its best three pizzas, and they were judged by the food festival organiser Patrick Davis, who is an experienced food taster.
He said: ““I thought it was fabulous. The kids were really enthusiastic and really creative with different flavours to go in pizzas. They really worked hard and they got really into it. There was even a pizza made to look like a face.
“To do something like this with kids using food, and them wanting to eat it as well is wonderful.”
The event was organised by head of year five Mrs Felicity Crooks, and also saw youngsters designing boxes to go with their pizzas.
The overall winners across the year will now be treated to a pizza making demonstration by a local chef.
Droitwich food and Drink Festival is taking place this Saturday, June 21 in the town centre. | <urn:uuid:65c0a86b-866c-4f60-b3b0-22adf3215d04> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.droitwichadvertiser.co.uk/news/local/11280738.Competing_to_produce_the_best_pizza/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00121-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989461 | 250 | 1.960938 | 2 |
WHITEN, Jan (text) Sinéad Hanley (illus.) Chooky-doodle-doo Walker, 2014 unpaged A$24.95 NZ$27.99 ISBN 9781921977879 SCIS 1664257
Six vivid red, yellow and orange geometrically-depicted chickens run around on bold viridian grass as they struggle to pull up an especially tough worm, until the rooster adds his weight and the surprising ‘worm’ is revealed.
Combining counting with entertaining verse and lots of visual humour, this short and funny story should entertain little kids for many repeat readings.
reviewed by Chlöe Mauger | <urn:uuid:e36e0002-f85c-40a0-9592-044be07b131e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://readingtime.com.au/chooky-doodle-doo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.821193 | 138 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Google Video has an easier way to upload videos: using a simple form. Google Video accepts video in AVI, ASF, QuickTime, Windows Media and MPEG formats. The codecs allowed include H.264, H.263, MPEG 1/2/4 and motion JPEG.
The form can be used only for videos under 100MB. The other videos can be uploaded using Video Upload program, like before.
This is a great move from Google. Paul Botin wrote in Slate that "Google has failed to take off for the simple reason that it’s more annoying to use than YouTube. To begin with, you have to install Google’s special uploading application." Now you don't need to install the software. And Google Video doesn't have limitations regarding video duration, like YouTube (10 minutes maximum). | <urn:uuid:518576c3-11c2-4e3e-9b4b-9a7a2874b9d3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/05/upload-videos-to-google-video-faster.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00199-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885208 | 168 | 1.710938 | 2 |
(or, why take lessons with Donald?)
English is a language to be used. All language learning happens as a result of using it, so to improve your English you should use it as much as possible! Spoken conversations are useful but they are only one part of the language. To increase language proficiency, you should also read, write, and listen to the language as much as possible.
Becoming a student at Donald's English Corner also connects you to a variety of material to use between our scheduled lessons. These materials will help you to grow vocabulary, increase proficiency, as well as the most important goal: to build confidence.
Students can record their lessons. Google Meets allows for participants to record their session, meaning that students can save their locally in order to review it later. This option gives the students a powerful resource for practicing what happens during our live lessons.
Every student receives their own Google Document, in which I add our notes taken during each lesson: pronunciation, new expressions, and vocabulary exercises. The student has access to that Google Document 24/7, so that they can refer back to it whenever they need.
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE PDFs
Students taking lessons with me also get access to a growing library of PDFs that contain explanations of common American expressions, phrasal verbs, and relevant cultural observations. These PDFs are easily viewable on mobile devices, so make getting additional practice on the go pretty easy! You can see an example PDF here: Talking about COVID-19. | <urn:uuid:46ab6a20-0215-4a98-bbe4-44358a34ab33> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.donaldinchicago.com/content | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.948981 | 329 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Sons of Stuxnet
Hackers are learning new lessons from the most sophisticated virus code ever written
Steven Cherry: Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum’s “Techwise Conversations.”
Last year, we did a show about the Stuxnet worm that was one of the most listened to of the year. In fact, it’s one of the most listened-to shows of this year as well.
Last week, we did a show about cybersecurity with the FBI’s cyber division’s deputy assistant director, who said things seem to be getting both better and worse. He said, in particular, “The awareness of users of critical infrastructure and of the designers of critical infrastructure is heightened....Unfortunately, the awareness on the terrorist side has also increased.” Terrorist organizations, he went on to say, are focused on how to attack the West in nontraditional ways, not just through kinetic bombs but through the Internet, critical infrastructure, banking, and finance. In other words, the echoes of Stuxnet are reverberating through our real world and cyberspace, and I thought we’d continue to explore them but in a somewhat nontraditional way.
My guest today is Larry Constantine. He’s a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s taught at the Wharton School of Business, the IBM Systems Research Institute, the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and he’s currently a professor in the mathematics and engineering department at the University of Madeira, Portugal. He’s also led a double life as a family therapist and has been an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, and has also taught human development and family studies at the University of Connecticut.
More to the point for our purposes today, he’s also an accomplished writer with three published novels to his name—or actually, to his pen name of Lior Samson. The third novel, published in 2010, just as the world was waking up to the complexity and sophistication of the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear program, imagined a complex and sophisticated attack on critical infrastructure, specifically U.S. power plants. He’s also the coauthor, with Ed Yourdon, of one of the most influential books in computer science, Structured Design. Larry, welcome to the podcast.
Larry Constantine: Thank you very much, Steven.
Steven Cherry: Larry, to start off maybe you can just remind our listeners about what was uniquely innovative and sophisticated about the Stuxnet worm.
Larry Constantine: Well, there were a number of things that made it a game changer in terms of malicious software. One was that it was specifically targeted. It essentially had a kind of homing mechanism that looked for particular signatures of other software and, in that software, the embedded impression of specific industrial equipment in order to take out a very special target. It was interesting in some other ways, too. It actually included three zero-day exploits, which marks it as probably not the work of malicious hackers, because they usually value zero-day exploits too much to waste multiple ones on a single piece of malware. And it included some very sophisticated code; in fact, portions of it were programmed in C and C++, which are not so commonly used by your random hackers out there. The other thing that made it interesting was that it contained a “poison pill routine,” a piece of software code that looked for a specific date and on that date would delete all parts of the Stuxnet worm. This again is more a sign that somebody was really trying to accomplish a very specific end and didn’t want to have any side effects or collateral damage, as the military likes to call it.
Steven Cherry: Just remind us what a zero-day exploit is.
Larry Constantine: A zero-day exploit is something that hasn’t been previously discovered. So it’s first discovered in the wild rather than a defect that Microsoft or Apple already knows about.
Steven Cherry: And these were specifically weaknesses in Microsoft Windows.
Larry Constantine: These were weaknesses in Microsoft Windows, yes, that gave them immediate access to some computers. From there the Stuxnet worm looked for removable media and land connections in order to spread itself to whatever computers it could find, always looking for specific software—in this case instances of Siemens Step 7 series of programming tools and Win CC interface tools.
Steven Cherry: Very good. So let’s fast forward to 2011. Tell us about Duqu.
Larry Constantine: Well, if Stuxnet could be thought of as a smart bomb with a specific target in mind, Duqu is essentially a reconnaissance drone. It contains sections of code that were clearly lifted from Stuxnet, and it looks for information that could potentially be useful in attacking other industrial control systems. So it’s not a destructive package so much as it is a Trojan that is trying to gather intelligence.
Steven Cherry: I guess one of the scary things about Duqu is that in the case of Stuxnet, it was pretty clear that the level of sophistication and effort indicated a sort of major set of resources that might not be easily available to the sort of regular hacker community, if you will. And you mention that it was written in C and C++, so that’s just not the language of “script kiddies,” as they’re sometimes called. But Stuxnet seems to have delivered a whole bunch of resources to the script kiddies. Is that fair to say?
Larry Constantine: Absolutely. In fact, in my view it essentially represented a reusable code library as well as a set of templates and concepts that could be used in many different ways. And in fact, the core that made Stuxnet so effective against Iran’s facility at Natanz was a so-called man-in-the-middle attack, in which the code inserted itself into the actual industrial control system, the PLC or Programmable Logic Controller, in such a way that it was presenting a false picture to the operators of the equipment and hiding the built-in software from actual inputs coming in from the control system, and that’s a concept that can be reused in many different ways. And you don’t have to be targeting specifically high-speed centrifuges that are used for purifying uranium; you could be targeting a generator plant or a water treatment facility or a petroleum refinery. So basically, Stuxnet provided a bunch of tools that could be reused; some of those were reused in Duqu. And Duqu itself is interesting. The forensics aren’t really completed there yet, but although some sources attribute it to the same group that produced Stuxnet, I have my doubts, partly because there’s good reason to believe that Stuxnet was produced by people who had insider access to information about industrial control systems, whereas Duqu seems like a scattershot approach that is looking for more information, and that doesn’t make sense if it’s a team of people from Homeland Security and Israel’s Mossad, which are the prime suspects in the case of Stuxnet.
Steven Cherry: Larry, last month there was quite a little scare in the Midwest. A report by the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center was leaked to reporters that said that hackers had entered the network of a water plant there and burned out a pump in much the same way that Stuxnet ruined those Iranian centrifuges.
Larry Constantine: Yes. Well, in fact one of the rules of cyberterrorism, laws of cyberterrorism that I’ve been formulating is that anything with a rotating shaft that operates under computer control can also be destroyed under computer control. Because once you know that the system is operating a pump or a centrifuge or a generator set or something like that, then you can start to do things like throw it out of sync; you can speed it up and slow it down in irregular patterns, you can cause it to overspeed or simply stop it too fast. There are literally dozens of ways that you can use that against any rotating piece of equipment. So essentially, Stuxnet proved that you can do this remotely and by targeting an attack, and the Illinois case essentially shows that anything is vulnerable in this way.
Steven Cherry: Now the report is believed to have been false, but the idea of the attack was all too believable, and the former chief counsel of the National Security Agency recently was quoted as saying that “water companies tended to leave default user names and passwords in place because they’re afraid to get locked out of their own systems.”
Larry Constantine: Well, there are many different paths into these systems, and in fact I often follow the postings online, and technically savvy but naive posters will comment, “Why are things like industrial control systems and nuclear plants and so forth connected to the Internet in the first place?” Well, the truth is, they’re not. There’s a so-called air gap that separates them from the general network of the companies and from the Internet. But the air gap is an illusion, because by definition there always is another way around. The reason is that the engineering systems that are being used to maintain and update the control software have to themselves be updated and maintained current, so they have to at least at times be connected to the Internet. And the industrial control systems have to connect to the engineering work stations in order to update their software and maintain it. So there’s always another path that can get malicious software into these supposedly secure systems. I mean, that’s exactly what happened to Iran—I mean, this was a military level of security and yet the Stuxnet virus was able to penetrate it.
Steven Cherry: Larry, in your most recent novel, which was published last year—it has the title Web Games—you envision malicious code that travels through an ad hoc game network. And lo and behold, last year Nintendo came out with a portable game player that looks for other game machines and sort of automatically networks with them. It seems that in the race for convenience we’re just leaving ourselves open wider and wider than ever.
Larry Constantine: This is absolutely true. The game networks represent another path, because in turn those systems will connect to local area networks. Increasingly, office devices are networked in a way that they can phone home and check in with their manufacturers to get new software, which then opens up new possibilities for exploits. And the number of holes in the digital dike, as it were, just seems to keep multiplying.
Steven Cherry: Yeah, I mean, there’s a million possible ways to get into a network, and a hacker has to only find one of them. You know, we call terrorist attacks “asymmetrical,” because a single person or a handful of people with maybe only thousands of dollars at their command can kill thousands and cause damage in the billions. But it seems cyberattacks are even more asymmetrical than that. In your novel, a sort of million-dollar attack by a handful of people—and a million dollars is like half the estimate of what people think Stuxnet cost—but that million-dollar attack threatened to take down pretty much a third or more of the power plants in the United States.
Larry Constantine: Yeah, it’s very asymmetric, and in fact, actually the more the malicious intent, the more unsymmetrical it becomes. Because if you’re trying to take out the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant, you have to have very sophisticated inside knowledge and target your software very carefully. But if you’re just trying to wreak widespread damage to the electrical infrastructure of the United States, you don’t have to be so careful. It doesn’t matter if you inadvertently cause a water plant to spin out of control, you don’t care; all you’re doing is looking for ways to cause damage, and this is a problem that is extremely difficult to find fixes for. It’s not like providing better antivirus software looking for signatures, although some of that is being attempted in the so-called SCADA networks, the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition networks that interconnect all these industrial control systems. But ultimately, what you have is lots of different highly specialized systems, each of which represents different kinds of security issues and different kinds of vulnerabilities, and there aren’t simple generic solutions that will protect these systems.
Steven Cherry: Your novel was published in 2010, but in your preface you wrote that you started it in 2003. I’m just curious: What made you start to worry about cyberattacks on critical infrastructure back in 2003?
Larry Constantine: Well, I was working in the field. A lot of my work has been in industrial automation, power systems management and distribution, and I was aware of these wide-open doors and windows into these highly critical infrastructure systems. And so as an exercise I sketched out a-back-of-the-napkin kind of design for a piece of malicious software that could take down power plants. And my intent all along was to use it as the basis of a novel. I just happened to miss the window of opportunity by a matter of months, because I was just finally finishing the final version of the novel when the Stuxnet story broke. So, yeah, I think there have been people who have been really calling for a closer examination of these vulnerabilities for a very long time. We build security fences around our power plants, we hire guards, we have dogs, we’re using robots now. But you know, anyone with a basic knowledge of how these systems work and the will to get into them can probably find a way to launch a malicious software attack.
Steven Cherry: Well, Larry, it’s a scary world, and I think it’s great to have somebody using fiction as well as nonfiction to call attention to these problems.
Larry Constantine: Well, that was really my intention in writing Web Games.
Steven Cherry: Very good. Well, thanks for talking to us today.
Larry Constantine: You’re most welcome.
Steven Cherry: We’ve been speaking with Larry Constantine, author of the recent cyberterrorism novel Web Games, about the increasing real-world threats that got a big push from last year’s Stuxnet attack. For IEEE Spectrum’s “Techwise Conversations,” I’m Steven Cherry.
Announcer: “Techwise Conversations” is sponsored by National Instruments.
This interview was recorded 13 December 2011.
Audio engineer: Francesco Ferorelli
Follow us on Twitter @TechwisePodcast
NOTE: Constantine’s fourth novel, The Rosen Singularity, was published just this week.
NOTE: Transcripts are created for the convenience of our readers and listeners and may not perfectly match their associated interviews and narratives. The authoritative record of IEEE Spectrum’s audio programming is the audio version. | <urn:uuid:e8a35230-e94f-4dc1-9b82-6a408ce39c00> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/security/sons-of-stuxnet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00464-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965755 | 3,142 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Microwave map of entire moon revealed
The first complete microwave image of the Moon taken by Chinese lunar satellite Chang'E-1 has been revealed. Chang’E-1 is China’s first scientific mission to explore planetary bodies beyond Earth and the on-board Lunar Microwave Radiometer has made it possible for the first time to globally map the Moon in microwave frequencies. Radar observations of the Moon are unable to provide thermal information, and microwave observations taken from Earth cannot reach the far side of the moon. So Chang'E-1's (CE-1) orbit was conducted at an altitude of 200km (124 miles) and allowed it to observe every location of the moon with a nadir view and at high spatial resolution.
The Lunar Microwave Radiometer (MRM) was able to obtain brightness temperature data globally eight times from the surface and deeper layers of the Moon, revealing radiation and its variation during both lunar daytime and night-time periods. This allowed a valuable opportunity to study the lunar regolith – ‘dust’ and impact debris that covers almost the entire surface of the Moon.
The MRM measured microwaves in four frequency channels measuring layers a few centimeters below the surface to depths beyond a few meters. This allowed scientists to infer the thermo-physical properties of the lunar regolith as well as variation of its thickness. They hope this information will help them to estimate distribution and amount of helium 3 which has been suggested as a nuclear fuel for in-situ fusion energy production in possible future human settlements on the Moon. Furthermore a state-of the-art image with unprecedented image quality and positioning precision was produced by the stereo camera, and the Solar Wind Ion Detector (SWID) discovered acceleration of scattered solar wind protons close to the lunar polar terminator.
The results of the mission will be presented by Dr. Yong-Chun Zheng and Dr. Kwing L. Chan from the Hong Kong University of Science &Technology; at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome from Monday 20th to Wednesday 22nd September. “No future mission, from any country, has been planned with a comparable program in microwave measurement”, says Dr. Zheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A sister orbital probe to CE-1, Chang'E-2, is scheduled to be launched in October 2010. | <urn:uuid:fdac2eda-604c-46a1-b49a-f2d72ee4671e> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://newatlas.com/first-microwave-image-of-moon/16419/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721278.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00149-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932937 | 483 | 3.515625 | 4 |
The Institute of Nuclear & Radiological Sciences and Technology, Energy & Safety (INRASTES) is the largest Institute of the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos” (NCSR “D”) in terms of infrastructure and the second largest in terms of number of personnel. INRASTES is a multidisciplinary research Institution pursuing basic, translational and applied research to address challenges of great scientific and socioeconomic impact in a broad spectrum of scientific and technological fields. With its highly qualified staff and large scale, unique nationwide facilities, INRASTES satisfies the necessary conditions and possesses the potential to achieve critical masses and direct synergies among the various labs and research groups under wide thematic areas creating significant growth prospects and bringing clear socio-economic benefits.
The Environmental Research Laboratory (EREL) of INRASTES is an established RTO combining complementary expertise in atmospheric research and environmental decision support systems with important research potential (awarded the largest FP7-REGPOT ENTEC for climate research and coordinating the H2020 project EU-CIRCLE). EREL follows an integrated R&D approach to environment and climate, contributing to environmental protection and sustainable development in regional and global terms. R&D in climate change and regional models, dynamical downscaling, prognostic – diagnostic meteorology and data assimilation, CFD modelling, decision support systems, dispersion of air pollutants, air quality, atmospheric aerosol and heavy metal pollution, integrated with advanced risk analysis and impact assessments are subjects of major research focus.
EREL has developed unparalleled in Greece expertise on the provision of climate services for the infrastructures, maritime sectors and disaster management through numerous RTD projects and participations in international fora. Additionally, the in-house seasonal forecasting models with a spatial resolution of 5km, generated on a biweekly basis, and the dynamic downscaling of climate projections on 5km are unique products of the lab. EREL has documented expertise in impact assessment models and tools for infrastructures. The team is actively involved in publishing economic and societal impacts of climate change.
Indicative R&D activities related to Climate Modelling studies:
• Global-Regional Climate Air Pollution Modeling System
• Regional Climate Model
• Short term Climatology Prediction Model (3-6 months)
• Statistical & dynamical Downscaling
• Environmental Impact Assessment of Extreme Events and Climate Change on:
– Society & Economy (tourism, agriculture)
– Energy Sector
– Assessment of extreme events (fires, floods, etc)
– Mitigation / Adaptation and Disaster Reduction
– Risk and Safety Analysis of Complex Systems
Coordination and participation in EU and national projects relative to XENIOS.
• H2020 EU-CIRCLE: Pan-European framework for strengthening Critical Infrastructure resilience to climate change (H2020 – 653824 http://www.eu-circle.eu/), 2015-2018
• ERANET-Cofund action: ERA4CS- ERANET for Climate Services, Grant Agreement: N° 690462, Appointed Member in the In-Kind Management Board Committee, 2016-2020
• BigDataEurope “Integrating Big Data, Software and Communities for Addressing Europe’s Societal Challenges” ICT-15-2014. Grant Agreement no: 644564, 2014-2016
• IMAGES: Implementation of an RN emergency system in Eastern Mediterranean (HOME/2011/ISEC/AG/CBRN/4000002163), 2012-2015
• REGPOT ENTEC- Enhancing the Capacity for Environmental Technology and Climate Research, FP7- Coordination and support actions (Supporting), Grant Agreement nu: 316173, 2013-2015
• ARGOS: Advanced pRotection of critical buidinGs by Overall anticipating System (FP7 313217) 1/1/2014-31/12/2015
• ACRITAS: Advanced Coordination CenteR Information Technologies & Applications for Border Surveillance (GSRT Cooperation 11SYN_9_121) – 1/1/2014-30/10/2015
• Climate Change Impact Study of climate change and atmospheric pollution in Greece: evaluation of their impact on environmental and socio-economic future changes at local scale (GSRT, 09-SYN31-667, 2011-2014)
• CONOPS: Development & Demonstration of management plans against the climate change enhanced-invasive mosquitoes in S. Europe (EUROPEAN COMMISSION ENVIRONMENT/LIFE), 2013-2017
• COST Action “Earth System Science and Environmental Management; COST Action ES1102, 2011-2015.
• PERL – Enhancing the Research Potential of the NCSR “Demokritos” Environmental Research Laboratory in the European, National and Regional Research Areas, FP7 Coordination and support action, Grand Agreement no 229773 (2009-2012)
• AEOLOS Assessment of Impact of SF6 and PFCs Reservoir Tracers On Global Warming (EC ENK6-CT-2001-00501) (1/11/2001-31/10/2004)
• BOND Biogenic Aerosols and Air Quality in the Mediterranean Area (EC EVK2-CT-2001-00107) (1/11/2001-31/10/2004)
• OSCAR – Optimised Expert System for Conducting Environmental Assessment of Urban Road Traffic (EVK4-CT-2002-00083), 2002-2005
• ΕΠΑΝ-Μ4.3 Improving Urban Air Quality Through Traffic Interventions (Greek-Romanian S+T cooperation), GSRT, 2000-2002
• IMPRESAREO- Improving the spatial resolution of air emission inventories using earth observation data (EC ENV4-CT98-0752) (1/11/98- 31/7/2001)
• ΓΓΕΤ 97ΕΛ-77 Representation of advanced prediction methods for atmospheric quality in areas with complex topography and geometry of buildings and traffic roads (Grant for Expatriated Greek Researchers) (2/1/1999-31/12/2001)
High Performace Computer Cluster with 96 nodes equipped with 32GB of RAM each (total of 3TB of RAM) and intel XEON E3 CPUs with 45.5 TFlops theoretical performance in single precision calculations. | <urn:uuid:3e652030-7a67-43f7-a976-c1b67361b8ed> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://xenios-project.eu/en/demokritos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.786316 | 1,362 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Dispersion of metal coagulant should be completed in a fraction of a second before the metal hydroxide precipitate has formed. For this reason, so-called pump diffusion flash mixing (PDFM) has been proposed, and PDFM is one reasonable method to quickly disperse the hydrolyzing metal salts. In this study, we attempt to understand the difference of removal characteristics of natural organic matter (NOM) between PDFM and conventional rapid mixing (CRM) in a water treatment system, and to enhance the removal of NOM through the improved mixing process. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and turbidity removal by PDFM was higher than those by CRM, while specific ultraviolet absorbance (SUVA) of treated water by PDFM was higher than that by CRM. NOM was more effectively removed by PDFM compared to CRM due to quick and uniform dispersion of coagulants. Though the hydrophilic fraction found as major faction in bulk NOM from Han River water is enriched in haloacetic acid precursor sites as compared to hydrophobic fraction, the hydrophilic fraction was more effectively removed by PDFM rather than CRM. Therefore, PDFM is effective and innovative process in reduction of DOC and DBPFPs as well as turbidity, and requires lower coagulant dosage compared to CRM.
- disinfection by-product formation potentials (DBPFPs)
- natural organic matter (NOM)
- pump diffusion flash mixing (PDFM)
- © IWA Publishing 2006 | <urn:uuid:19bcc787-0702-4762-ab35-5860021a914d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ws.iwaponline.com/content/6/1/49 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00473-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958107 | 320 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The Power of Honey
In this era of trending skincare ingredients, it’s nice to go back to basics sometimes with something that’s guaranteed to work. Honey is such a simple but potent ingredient. It easily hydrates dry skin while addressing a number of skin concerns since it has powerful antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. If you are experiencing eczema or psoriasis, honey can help alleviate redness and inflammation while adding moisture back into the skin.
This delicate sweetener has been used both internally and externally for centuries. At one-point honey was even used to heal serious wounds and burns. This works because of it’s low pH which eliminates bacteria. It’s high sugar content also inhibits microbial growth making honey a natural healer.
Honey is also great for youthful rejuvenation. It's very gentle and non-irritating to the skin.
What’s the difference between regular honey and Manuka honey?
Manuka honey is honey in Australia and New Zealand derived from bees that feed on the Manuka plants. It’s also referred to as medicinal honey because of its high antibacterial activity. Manuka honey provides an additional healing property which is non peroxide antibacterial activity. Methylglyoxal (MG) is an enzyme unique to Manuka honey and does not exist in any other honey in such a high concentration.
Products with honey as a skincare ingredient:
Although honey is a natural bacteria killer, using it on it's own isn't enough to soothe flare ups. Look for skincare products that can find honey as an ingredient as well as other ingredients geared towards acne prone skin.
You can find Manuka honey in our Putty. In the wintertime, our skin has a tendency to become more dry or develop dry patches. Some people even experience redness and inflammation or develop conditions like eczema and psoriasis. To treat irritated skin, apply our Putty as your daily moisturizer. It can also be used as a leave on mask for especially troublesome skin. Safe for face and body.
If your skin is feeling dry, check out this skincare collection for dry skin to help you get through the winter.
Staying in this weekend? Try putting the Putty on as a leave in mask to soothe your skin. Apply a thick layer and leave on for 10-15 minutes before patting off the excess.
Looking to nourish yourself from the inside out with a bit of honey? Here's my recipe for an Apple Hemp Pie that's perfect for fall.
Face Food Mineral Mist is the perfect addition to any skincare routine thanks to its blend of skin-loving minerals. Keep reading to learn how magnesium, copper, silver, zinc and malachite benefit the skin.Read now
Despite our best efforts, sometimes sunburns happen. Keep reading to learn how to soothe sun damage and get glowing skin without UV rays.Read now | <urn:uuid:d279500b-bf61-4e15-b7bd-9080d80414bc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://graydonskincare.com/blogs/mindfulbeauty/the-power-of-honey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.937837 | 623 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In this easy-to-follow tutorial, we show how to remove the background from any image using Adobe Photoshop.
Before you start, take a look at Trace, our new background remover tool. It erases backgrounds from photos instantly, and could save you a lot of time.
For best results:
- Find a high resolution image; the more pixels, the more accurate you can be.
- Make sure the subject stands out from the background and they do not share too many similar colors or textures.
Open your photo in Photoshop and create a new background layer.
On this new background layer go to edit, fill, and then select white for the contents.
Place this layer below your photo so that as we remove the original background the white one is revealed underneath.
If your photo is a locked background layer you won't be able to drag another layer below it. All you need to do is double click on it, give it a name, and press enter to convert it to a normal layer so that you can move things below it.
Grab the quick selection tool and start dragging over the part that you want to keep.
The size of your brush determines how much is grabbed with each click or each drag of the mouse. To change it, use the open and closed square brackets to make the brush larger or smaller depending on how accurate you need to be.
It's likely that as you're making your selection you're gonna highlight areas that you don't wish to. When this happens simply hold alt while using the tool and it will subtract from the selection instead of adding to it.
The magic wand tool as well as the object selection tool can also come in handy here. Check those out if needed.
Once you've done a fairly good job of selecting your subject from the background we're gonna refine it by going to select and then select and mask.
Make sure that transparency is set to 100%. This will show you how your current selection is going to look once masked out from the original background.
Also make sure that the high quality preview is on.
Now you can see the temporary white background you made showing through behind.
If you see a slight gray outline, this is some background elements you picked up when using the quick selection tool.
To remove this, use ‘shift edge’. This will expand your selection or pull it in. Negative numbers shift edge in, and positive shift it out.
Do not shift edge too much. For places with intricate details like hair or fur, use the ‘refine edge’ brush tool.
Drag along the edges where the details are present. You will lose a bit of that background and it will look more like a correct crop. Just as with the quick selection tool, you can change the size of this brush with the square bracket keys.
Lastly if you're finding that overall your selection is looking a bit jagged or there's too many sharp edges, you can use smooth or feather to fix that.
Just be careful not to add too much as you still want your selection to look crisp rather than blurry around the edges.
At any point while you're in select and mask mode you can press P to toggle between what you started with and where you're now at.
Rather than actually delete the background around your subject, mask it out.
With your selection still active, go into your layers menu and press add layer mask.
Layer masks work in black and white: black means hide this part, white means show this part. Right now we want to show the subject (white) and hide the background (black).
At any point, if you want to make the same selection just do Cmd + click or Alt + click on the layer mask.
You should now be able to move this layer around. Your subject is now separate from their original background.
Step 6 (optional)
If you think there are a couple problem areas you want to clean up, you can click on the layer mask in your layer panel and add or remove some of the original background. Use the paintbrush tool in black or white to remove or add details.
That is the end of the tutorial!
If you want an easier and faster way to remove backgrounds check out our new tool Trace. Trace is free to use and works instantly. | <urn:uuid:fa1f19c4-71a8-45e0-b928-9bea8340ebdc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.stickermule.com/uk/blog/how-to-remove-backgrounds-in-photoshop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00277.warc.gz | en | 0.904699 | 906 | 2.09375 | 2 |
VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Pope Francis used the word "genocide" on Sunday to describe the mass murder of Armenians in a move likely to severely strain diplomatic ties with Turkey.
"In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies," he said during a solemn mass in Saint Peter's Basilica to mark the centenary of the Ottoman Turk killings of Armenians.
"The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the 20th century', struck your own Armenian people," he said, citing a statement signed by John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch in 2000.
The 78-year old head of the Roman Catholic Church had been under pressure to use the term publicly to describe the murders despite the risk of alienating an important ally in the fight against radical Islam.
While many historians describe the cull as the 20th century's first genocide, Turkey hotly denies the accusation.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
But Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
Francis said the other two genocides of the 20th century were "perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism."
"And more recently there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood," he added. | <urn:uuid:6514efaf-188e-4660-9726-4fcab57a7128> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/pope-francis-uses-word-genocide-to-describe-armenian-killings-in-move-likely-to-irk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00410-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970976 | 345 | 2.53125 | 3 |
First off we’d like to say thank you for stopping by and having a look at our new website. What you’ll find here is a children’s book series created, written, illustrated and designed by partners Caroline Harris and Douglas Pledger.
Our stories are about Miles, a globetrotting kitten who travels the world, meeting new friends, seeing new places and learning new things. The picture books are aimed at 4-7 year old children and are educational in covering buildings, places, history and languages. The books also feature lots of games and activities such as old favourites like spot the difference and mazes to many new ones. We’ve worked very hard to make sure everything ties nicely together and children will want to revisit these books time and time again.
The idea came about and was inspired by the travelling cat stories we often see popping up in newpapers. A few examples below…
Our first story ‘Miles around London’ starts when Miles, who one morning whilst speaking to his neighbour Bernie, learns that there’s more to the world than just his back garden. Miles lets curiosity get the better of him and sets off to explore his neighbourhood. One thing leads to another and before you know it Miles finds himself in Trafalgar square. It is here whereupon he meets Cabbie, a local streetwise pigeon who takes Miles under his wing on a guided tour of our wonderful capital. You can visit our Miles around London page by clicking here.
Our second story ‘Miles around Paris’ sees Miles wondering where his dad always rushes off to in the morning after breakfast. When deciding to sneak into his dad’s bike bag and follow him into work Miles ends up getting lost at St Pancras station. Next thing he knows he’s accidentally boarded the Eurostar and on his way to France. All is well though when he meets Collette, a friendly Poodle who decides to take Miles on a tour of Paris before his train is ready to depart back to London later that afternoon. This book can be bought by clicking here Amazon both in hardback and paperback.
Our third story ‘Miles around New York’ begins with Miles on board an airplane with his family, travelling to meet family in New York. Miles meets his cousin Dusty who takes him out to explore the city. This can be bought on Amazon too in both hardback and paperback.
We also intend to do some other titles. Sending Miles not only to big cities, but different places. The bottom of the sea, way up in the sky, in space, back through time and even inside the human body. But our imagination tend to work faster than our hands so these might have to wait a little while or until we are able to do this full time. Some examples below though to give you an idea…
We’d love to hear from you so if you do wish to say hello you can contact us on firstname.lastname@example.org Many thanks. Caroline, Douglas & Miles.
Caroline, 28, works at Enfield Town library in the children’s section, singing to babies in ‘Baby Rhyme Time’ and organising ‘Wonderbooks’, a club for young readers. Outside of work Caroline spends a lot of time drawing and painting. She studied at Central St Martins and Middlesex university. She has had her artwork exhibited at The Old Truman Brewery, Everyman Cinema & Tokarska Gallery. She has done many commissions for Oxfam , Hiitgirl, various private collectors and sells prints of her cityscape drawings at the Frameworks Gallery, Crouch End.
Douglas, 34, also a librarian but at post production film studio Framestore. Douglas has illustrated work for many clients worldwide including The Simpsons, The National Fire Brigade, BBC, Channel 4, Nestle and TalkSport to name a few. Douglas has also taught cartooning to many infant and junior schools up and down the country and continues to follow on in the footsteps of his father, wildlife artist and children’s book author Maurice Pledger. | <urn:uuid:814b427b-c3c3-4b83-a9af-cdb376756454> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://milesaroundourworld.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00066-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966927 | 852 | 1.65625 | 2 |
|Children's Video Game for
Our Recommended Age: Ages 4-11
Our Rating: A
|All reviews at Edutaining
Kids are independent and impartial. Our children's
reviews are designed to help parents and caregivers find
the right games for their kids. Evaluations and
ratings are based on educational and entertainment value,
age appropriate content, and innovativeness.
In Animal Crossing: Wild World, kids play as a young boy or
girl who just moved into a new village, inhabited by colorful
neighbors who love to chit chat and give players errands to run. Tom Nook, the
local shopkeeper, will give players a small house to help them get
their life in this playful world started. For the rest of the
experience, kids get to decide what to
do in the game.
Concerning the controls, kids can use the touch screen to do all the
important things in the game-- moving their player, selecting items,
writing letters, and doing other activities. The DS touch controls
will be appealing for new players to Animal Crossing, but in the
long run, the convenient way to play is by using the D-pad and
buttons. The traditional controls respond better and are ultimately less
strenuous on little hands.
Kids' neighbors in the game are cute animals that walk and talk just like humans.
The hippos, monkeys, cats, dogs, and other animals they meet would
like to be friends with them. If they decide to be a good neighbor,
then kids can listen to their needs, exchange letters, and give each
Animal Crossing: Wild World has numerous games and events for
enjoy. At the same time, there are more than enough characters to spend time with.
Kids can go shopping for new shirts, pants, hats, and other
accessories. Nook frequently updates his store with new carpets, chairs,
refrigerators, beds, and other items to decorate a player's house with.
Cool items that kids can put into their homes include an aquarium,
wrestling ring, mermaid statue, and arcade machine. If players want to
impress their friends when they swing by for a visit, then they can build a stylish
wardrobe and house.
The village also has its own special holidays for players, online
players, and kids' animal friends to enjoy together, such as the
Fireworks Show, Flea Market, and New Year's Day.
The game features a robust online community where up to three
players can visit a player's village, so that kids can go catch bugs, grow
flowers, play dress up, relax at home, create fishing tournaments,
and cut down trees together. When they need money, kids can call on
their buddies to come over and help out by giving them some of their
items and cash. When kids' friends need some companionship, players can
visit their villages as well.
Money plays a big role in this game since house upgrades and items
are expensive. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to
fill up the wallet. The many playful activities in the village can
either be enjoyed for pleasure or used as means to earn cash. If
enjoy working outside, then they might consider growing fruit trees so
sell them to Tom Nook. If they like treasure hunting, then they can
always dig up
holes for artifacts and fossils; they can either donate them to the
museum or trade them in for money. If children particularly enjoy spending time at the
beach, they can find shells and catch fish and sell them to Nook.
The game has no ending or important mission for children to accomplish.
Players are technically given the choice to do what they want, but it's
wise to pay off mortgages to Tom Nook if they want to fully
experience what the game offers.
The days spent in the world of Animal
Crossing should be refreshing since children have the opportunity to be
an artist, naturalist, therapist, home designer, and anthropologist.
As long as they invite friends over, this game should be appealing
for a long time.
- Good longevity with virtually unlimited activities as long as
kids keep an interest in the game.
- Not as appealing to children who prefer assigned missions.
For more information, user reviews, or to buy:
Animal Crossing: Wild World
for the Nintendo DS
Reviewed: July 2009 | <urn:uuid:b64048b6-8d52-4f4b-89c3-96d8e1cad4df> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.edutainingkids.com/videogamereviews/ds_animal_crossing_wild_world.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00332-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946695 | 936 | 1.742188 | 2 |
in this episode of Inside the Asperger Studio: Stories. I talk with Patty .
This is a very interesting episode of stories because we learn about Patty Laushman and her struggle she had with getting her son diagnosed with ASD and we find out that she may have ADHD as well. We talk a bit about how she tried all methods to help her son thrive in the world and how she finally went with of the the most controversial methods which is ABA Therapy.
This is one of the most controversial because in the ASD community because of the ways the therapist goes about helping the client but like Patty said, it depends on the therapist you get. Patty swears by the therapist she got and he has helped her son in a way that he is able to succeeded in ways no other way could.
Now you are probably wonder why it is so controversial. Well as a friend told me there was a video going around the net with a therapist holding down the child’s arms and retraining him from flapping. Flapping is one of the ways those of us on the spectrum stimulate to comfort ourselves.
Patty also talks how she had a few businesses and how she came to start her Life Coaching service. If you listen to end she is offering a free 30 minute session with her, but you have to listen to end of podcast for the website to go to. | <urn:uuid:f26d51f5-d963-42c3-87d5-3cb2e30df4b1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://aspergersstudio.com/podcast/thrive-lifecoaching-with-patty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570868.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808152744-20220808182744-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.984059 | 284 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The workshop and wood sales team of volunteers have recently completed a new bird viewing and feeding area that is accessible to visitors seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. The previous bird viewing area had always been in the education centre, which couldn’t be accessible to visitors without staff there to open and close the building.
The new bird viewing area, located in the Old Arboretum just off Circular Drive and near to Holly Gate, is now open to the public. The RSPB have been hosting activities and working with Westonbirt Arboretum’s visitors (and wildlife) to make the most of this fantastic new facility.
The workshop and wood sales volunteer team are a highly skilled group of volunteers who, once a brief had been agreed, began the construction of the new bird viewing area earlier this year. Here’s a closer look at how it all came together:
Initial design proposals were prepared which fitted in with other constructed elements of Westonbirt Arboretum. The design reflects the oak frame structures of the den building play in the Old Arboretum, the Great Oak Hall and the Silk Wood Barn.
The frame was made from 125mm by 125mm oak beams and 25mm larch boards to side elevations. The roof would be made from oak shingles of random widths, hanging on oak A-frames and larch purlins and battens. The design also had to let the building team manually move and lift the frame into position, and this determined the maximum length of the beams to be around 3.5m in length.
The basic design and budget was approved in early 2011, and initial milling of the oak butts was arranged with Alistair Williams for the first weekend in February.
With the timber relocated to the workshop area, material was selected for the initial components of floor and roof plates. These required an overall length of 6.6m, so three beams were scarf together using traditional framing joints to achieve the overall length. The scarf would normally use wooden pegs, but needed steel bolts to meet health and safety regulations.
The vertical posts were positioned in the floor plate and the roof plate was then located on the top of the posts. For this we used the standard mortice and tenon joint at each end of the post. All the joints were cut by hand using 50mm chisels and mallets, as through or blind joints depending on location.
Having determined the location of the new bird viewing area, the kit was assembled in early June. The assembly of the basic frame and the raising of the roof A-frame was completed in a weekend, with all volunteers working hard over the two days.
At this stage of the build a delay occurred due to a requirement for planning approval. This slowed things a bit and we were only able to fit wind braces over the next eight weeks.
Given planning approval, all volunteers were keen to complete the project within the September target date. The boarding of the side elevations and fitting of the window frames were completed and the roofing battens, shingles and ridge were fitted over the next few weeks. During this time we were joined by a number of new recruits to the team.
With the one way windows fitted, the facility was opened for public use from 1st October. Benches were installed, leaving access for mobility scooters to enter and exit.
Some photographers have commented on the problems of taking pictures of feeding birds through the glass. This is a problem with automatic focusing cameras which has been experienced previously. It is to be noted that access for cameras have been left in the side hurdles for the serious photographers.
We hope that visitors will see this project as one which enhances their Westonbirt experience, and that birds will appreciate the new source of food when winter arrives and insects, fruits and berries are in short supply.
My thanks go to all of the volunteers who have supported this project with their time and effort. We are now engaged on new projects, including additional play equipment for Silk Wood and some smaller projects for the Learning Centre and Family Events. In the New Year we hope that we will undertake some additional oak framing which will take the form of shelters in the arboretum.
You could help us by donating any carpenters hand tools (chisels, planes, hand saws etc) If you have any power tools please let me have details by email to email@example.com | <urn:uuid:0f64da27-25e3-4e0a-af96-d2fd20ca1dca> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.fowa.org.uk/your_westonbirt/blog/?tag=wood-sales | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719079.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00034-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975821 | 917 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Wednesday's iPad 3 launch had a wider purpose than introducing an upgraded tablet. It was Apple's most coherent effort yet to bind its family of screens closer together, in a way that prepares the ground for the world's largest technology company to disrupt the world's most important entertainment medium – broadcasting.
Tim Cook introduced his concept of the "post PC era". With growing numbers of tablet computers and smartphones, the humble desktop computer is no longer the centre of our digital world. All our screens have become computers, and that revolution is coming to the television set.
A quarter of TV sets being sold today have an internet connection. Apple has yet to reveal a TV set of its own, contenting itself with an upgrade to its set top box, known as Apple TV, which has been on sale for some years now but hooks up to your existing screen rather than an Apple made display.
Some of the improvements to Apple TV and the iPad3 are about preparing for that event.
First of these is high definition. Real HD sets have 1080 lines of vertical resolution. Apple TV's resolution has been improved, from 720p to 1080p. The iPad 3 will be able to take 1080p video and photos.
The second is an expansion of the iCloud media storage service. This holds any content purchased from iTunes, or uploaded from your PC, in Apple's servers. The advantage is that your library of photos, videos and music are available on any Apple device, from phones to the television set.
The service already stores photos, TV shows and music. From today it will also store movies bought on the iTunes store.
Another binding technology we already know about is AirPlay, included in Apple's latest operating systems. This streams images from a phone, PC or a tablet onto a TV set.
The Apple devices are increasingly able to produce and share high definition content, the kind of material that looks good on the biggest screen in the living room.
Apple TV is a rare misfire: it came to market in 2007 and has sold just over 4m units. Paltry compared with 55m iPads in two years. After its latest upgrade, Apple TV can now be seen as a sleeper device, a hint of its maker's vision for the reinvention of broadcasting, and a test bed for bigger things to come. | <urn:uuid:8fd39f99-1b0f-462b-91f7-d7a779c98ec0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/07/ipad-3-apple-launch-tv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00061-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968362 | 469 | 1.515625 | 2 |
128 pages, 250 colour images, one full-colour map
Please note, this is a reissue of A Photographic Guide to Mammals of North...
This is the first photographic field guide to the larger mammals of one of the most fascinating regions in the world. Stunning colour photography depicts more than 100 species found in a region spanning from Morocco in the west to Iran and the Arabian Peninsula in the east. All major families are represented, with mammals from the diminutive Least Weasel to the impressive Asiatic Black Bear and including iconic species such as the Arabian Oryx and Arabian Leopard.
Information for each species includes a detailed description with key ID features, distribution, habitat and status, behaviour, diet and reproduction. An introduction provides useful background on regional geography and vegetation.
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Chris and Mathilde Stuart are postgraduates in medicine and zoology respectively. They founded and now run the African-Arabian Wildlife Research Centre, and are the authors of 12 books, including several best-selling field guides (notably the Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa (Struik, 1997), as well as numerous scientific papers and popular articles. They serve on a number of specialist groups for the conservation organisation IUCN – Chris is the Chairman of the North Africa and Middle East Group. | <urn:uuid:0a96a290-16d2-436b-af4d-07c031caf7bd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nhbs.com/title/158876?title=a-photographic-guide-to-mammals-of-north-africa-and-the-middle-east | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00404-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907187 | 284 | 2.65625 | 3 |
100% off a Dollars
How to calculate 100 % off $a. How to figure out percentages off a price. Using this calculator you will find that the amount after the discount is $0.
Using this calculator you can find the discount value and the discounted price of an item. It is helpfull to answer questions like:
- 1) What is 100 percent (%) off $a?
- 2) How much will you pay for an item where the original price before discount is $ a when discounted 100 percent (%)? What is the final or sale price?
- 3) $1 is what percent off $1?
- See how to solve these questions just after the Percent-off Calculator (or Discount) below.
how to work out discounts - Step by Step
To calculate discount it is ease by using the following equations:
- Amount Saved = Orig. Price x Discount % / 100 (a)
- Sale Price = Orig. Price - Amount Saved (b)
Now, let's solve the questions stated above:
1) What is 100 percent off $1? Find the amount of discount.
Suppose you have a Kohls coupon of $1 and you want to know how much you will save for an item if the discount is 100.
Replacing the given values in formula (a) we have:
Amount Saved = Original Price x Discount in Percent / 100. So,
Amount Saved = 1 x 100 / 100
Amount Saved = 100 / 100
Amount Saved = $1 (answer).
In other words, a 100% discount for a item with original price of $1 is equal to $1 (Amount Saved).
Note that to find the amount saved, just multiply it by the percentage and divide by 100.
2) How much to pay for an item of $1 when discounted 100 percent (%)? What is item's sale price?
Suppose you have a L.L. Bean coupon of $1 and you want to know the final or sale price if the discount is 100 percent.
Using the formula (b) and replacing the given values:
Sale Price = Original Price - Amount Saved. So,
Sale Price = 1 - 1
Sale Price = $0 (answer).
This means the cost of the item to you is $0.
You will pay $0 for a item with original price of $1 when discounted 100%.
In this example, if you buy an item at $1 with 100% discount, you will pay 1 - 1 = $0.
3) 1 is what percent off $1?
Using the formula (b) and replacing given values:
Amount Saved = Original Price x Discount in Percent /100. So,
1 = 1 x Discount in Percent / 100
1 / 1 = Discount in Percent /100
100 x 1 / 1 = Discount in Percent
100 / 1 = Discount in Percent, or
Discount in Percent = 100 (answer).
To find more examples, just choose one at the bottom of this page.
Sample Percent Calculations
- Thirteen percent off 390
- Seventeen percent off eighteen
- 100 percent off 256.63
- 40 percent off 147.69
- Ninety percent off 1400
- 9 percent off nineteen
- 25 percent off two thousand
- 10 percent off 486.68
- 6 percent off 452
- 1 percent off 46000
- 45 percent off 76000
- Sixty percent off 6000
- Ten percent off 11.57
- Three percent off 0.40
- 80 percent off 49.92
- Thirteen percent off 90000
- 30 percent off eighteen
- Three percent off fifteen
- Fourteen percent off 356.59
- 7 percent off nine
- Fourteen percent off 23000
- Seven percent off 350000
- Three percent off 900000
- 3 percent off 339
- 50 percent off
- Eighteen percent off 30000
- 8 percent off 297
- 75 percent off seven
- Eleven percent off 0.64
- Twenty percent off two thousand
- Five percent off
- 80 percent off 0.23
- Nineteen percent off 363.96
- Sixty percent off 218.54
- 20 percent off
- Sixty percent off 314.13
- Sixteen percent off 19.3
- Nineteen percent off 38000
- 45 percent off 0.50
- 4 percent off 381.51
- 3 percent off 15000
- 90 percent off 250000
- Twenty percent off 288
- 55 percent off 43000
- 4 percent off one thousand
- Eleven percent off 75000
- 40 percent off twenty seven
- 3 percent off 100000
- 20 percent off two
- Eight percent off 11
- Ten percent off
- Three percent off sixty
- 60 percent off 20000
- 4 percent off five
- Twelve percent off 62000
- One percent off 0.6
- Seventy percent off seventy
- 20 percent off 280
- Three percent off twenty five
- 2 percent off 180.6 | <urn:uuid:4c640d5c-12d0-430a-842b-cb31c1503723> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.percent-off.com/_100__a_Dollars | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00566-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.835438 | 1,070 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Lesson 20 - Review Module 2 - Main
In this podcast, listen to a three-minute dialogue and review all the key grammar points in module 2.
Posted on 2017-05-26 02:12:42
In this episode:
- review all the key grammar points from module 2;
- learn to use the replication of verbs to convey the casualness of actions;
- learn to use 什么时候(shénme shíhòu);
- learn to use the adverb 就(jiù) in various situations; and
- learn new useful vocabulary and phrases. | <urn:uuid:066c43c5-81e0-4e51-a545-5b2aa4e5c5db> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://languagedomus.com/media/view/220/Lesson-20-Review-Module-2-Main | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.741568 | 137 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Understanding the link between ecosystem respiration (Reco) and its influential factors is necessary to evaluate the sources of gaseous carbon loss in coastal wetlands. Seablite (Suaeda salsa Pall.) is the main vegetation type pioneering temperate coastal wetlands in northeast China, and is generally an understudied wetland type. To evaluate the influence of environmental factors on Reco, a multi-year in-situ experiment was carried out during the growing seasons of 2012 to 2014. Total CO2 efflux was measured and separated further into soil microbial and belowground root respiration (Rs + r) and plant respiration (Rplant). Reco displayed strong seasonal variation, with effluxes as high as 845 to 1150 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 during summer months and as low as 32 to 111 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 during spring (when new shoots are sprouting) and fall (when plants are senescing) months. Aboveground plant structures contributed on average 79% to total plant biomass, and accounted for most of the Reco measured; i.e., 62–96% was associated as Rplant. Plant activity was strongly seasonal, accordingly driving Reco, with 1 g of soil-emergent S. salsa biomass (dry weight) producing approximately 1.58 mg CO2 per hour toward Reco during mid-summer. When water level was below the soil surface, Rs + r was exponentially correlated to air temperature. Because Reco for S. salsa marsh in the Liaohe Delta is controlled by plant growth cycles, inundation regime, and air temperature, this finding may be applied for national carbon budget estimation purposes from S. salsa wetlands throughout Northeast China and potentially close a key gap in understanding the role of this large wetland area in contributing to respiratory CO2 emissions globally. | <urn:uuid:38b8bf6b-3dc6-48b3-a001-36d13cecff00> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70204443 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.951619 | 375 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Latest Information Update: 28 Aug 2007
At a glance
- Originator DOR BioPharma
- Class Antineoplastics; Phosphatidylcholines
- Mechanism of Action Immunostimulants
Orphan Drug Status
Orphan designation is assigned by a regulatory body to encourage companies to develop drugs for rare diseases.
On Fast track
Fast track status is assigned by the US FDA so therapies with the potential to address unmet needs can move faster through development.
Highest Development Phases
- Discontinued Bone cancer; Colorectal cancer; Malignant melanoma; Prostate cancer
Most Recent Events
- 17 Sep 1998 Endorex received a Japanese patent for ImmTher
- 30 Jun 1998 ImmTher has Orphan Drug status for the treatment of Ewing's sarcoma in the US
- 18 Mar 1998 Phase-II clinical trials for Bone cancer in USA (Unknown route) | <urn:uuid:1d56c492-403f-4138-a111-826d0d208e35> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://adisinsight.springer.com/drugs/800006002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00432-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.857165 | 195 | 1.898438 | 2 |
English, PDF, 512kb
This country note provides an environmental tax and carbon pricing profile for Belgium. It shows environmentally related tax revenues, taxes on energy use and effective carbon rates.
English, PDF, 437kb
Belgium has the highest tax wedge among the 34 OECD member countries in 2015. The country occupied the same position in 2014. The average single worker in Belgium faced a tax wedge of 55.3% in 2015 compared with the OECD average of 35.9%.
Furthering efforts to fight against international tax evasion and bank secrecy, members of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes have issued 12 new peer review reports. | <urn:uuid:036a3e86-eb40-4e32-b7fc-c0f04fcea163> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.oecd.org/fr/belgique/bytopic/fiscalite/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00190-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899789 | 136 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Louisville was founded in 1778 by Colonel George Rogers Clark, on a plain adjacent to the Falls of the Ohio River. The city was named in honor of King Louis XVI of France in appreciation for his assistance during the Revolutionary War. The arrival of the steamboat in the early 1800s ignited industrial development, making Louisville the largest city in Kentucky.
The city remains today as the second largest collection of cast iron buildings in America. Main Street is home to many business, galleries, and museums, including the Louisville Slugger Museum, Muhammad Ali Center, Frazier Kentucky History Museum, Louisville Science Center, Actors Theatre, and the Kentucky Center for the Arts.
For over 130 years, the Kentucky Derby has captured the world’s attention. Louisville hosts a two week long Kentucky Derby Festival, which includes one of the world’s largest fireworks displays and a steamboat race with the Belle of Louisville, the oldest working steamboat in existence. | <urn:uuid:a1c97772-cd13-4197-b50c-bf91fe75efea> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wadianewmandesigns.com/Louisville-Skyline_p_145.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.952512 | 196 | 2.125 | 2 |
How much power can a small water wheel produce?
Microhydropower systems usually generate up to 100 kilowatts of electricity. Most of the hydropower systems used by homeowners and small business owners, including farmers and ranchers, would qualify as microhydropower systems.
How much does a micro hydro system cost?
Micro-Hydro Power System Cost A complete micro-hydro power system with hydro generator, charge control, batteries and inverter costs about $4,000 – $15,000 plus the pipeline and installation.
Can a water turbine power a house?
If you have water flowing through your property, you might consider building a small hydropower system to generate electricity. But a 10-kilowatt microhydropower system generally can provide enough power for a large home, a small resort, or a hobby farm.
What type of water wheel is most efficient?
Overshot (and particularly backshot) wheels are the most efficient type; a backshot steel wheel can be more efficient (about 60%) than all but the most advanced and well-constructed turbines.
Is micro hydro worth it?
Small-scale micro hydro power is both an efficient and reliable form of energy, most of the time. With the right research and skills, micro hydro can be an excellent method of harnessing renewable energy from small streams.
Why is hydropower so cheap?
Hydropower is the cheapest way to generate electricity today. Producing electricity from hydropower is cheap because, once a dam has been built and the equipment installed, the energy source-flowing water-is free. Another reason hydro plants produce power cheaply is due to their sturdy structures and simple equipment.
How many watts does it take to run a house?
How many watts does it take to power basic items in an average size house? In a typical home, essential items will average 5000 – 7500 watts of power to run.
How can I get free electricity for my home?
Generating Electricity at Home
- Residential Solar Panels. Every ray of sunshine that lands on your roof is free electricity for the taking.
- Wind Turbines.
- Solar and Wind Hybrid Systems.
- Microhydropower Systems.
- Solar Water Heaters.
- Geothermal Heat Pumps.
How many kilowatts does a house use?
According to the EIA, in 2017, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential home customer was 10,399 kilowatt hours (kWh), an average of 867 kWh per month. That means the average household electricity consumption kWh per day is 28.9 kWh (867 kWh / 30 days).
What is the cheapest way to generate electricity?
Natural gas, solar and wind are the cheapest ways to generate electric power, according to a new study released by the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute on Thursday. | <urn:uuid:b6a86333-0fca-4e7f-9917-1c70b95bba86> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://brainwritings.com/how-much-power-can-a-small-water-wheel-produce/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.922681 | 608 | 2.578125 | 3 |
|dc.description.abstract||Vacuum fans are a critical component of planters used to draw seeds to a rotating perforated disc for precision sowing. As seeds adhere to the disc it is possible for the coatings to become dislodged, pass through the vacuum fan, and be exhausted into the surroundings. To minimize the possible environmental effects from the fan exhaust, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) passed the ISO 17962 standard. It sets limits on the air velocity measured at a 2 m radius from the fan, and specifies that the exhaust from the fan must be directed groundward. In partnership with CNH Industrial, research was performed to assess the ability of the CNH Industrial vacuum fan to meet this standard. The research had two main goals: to determine if the vacuum fan could meet the standard, and to show that computational fluid dynamics (CFD) could be an effective tool for measuring compliance with the standard.
The first part of the project was to experimentally determine the ability of the fan to meet the standard. This was accomplished by building and testing three fan configurations using the parameters specified in the ISO standard. The first configuration was inverting the fan to direct its exhaust groundward. The second was attaching a two-dimensional (2D) square diffuser to the fan, which reduced the exhaust velocity and redirected it to the ground. The third was attaching a manifold diffuser to the fan, which divided the exhaust into multiple slower exhaust jets, directed towards the ground. Results from all three configurations indicated exhaust velocities that were measured to be below the ISO standard thresholds (less than 2 m/s or 4 m/s, depending on measurement elevation, with the higher velocity limit imposed closer to the ground).
The second part of the project was to create CFD simulations of the inverted fan and 2D square diffuser configurations, and compare them to the experimental results. The models were able to predict the locations and magnitudes of peak velocities around both configurations. This showed that CFD could be an effective tool for measuring standard compliance.
Finally, the CFD models were used to compare the inverted fan to the 2D square diffuser, in terms of impact on the surroundings. It was found that by reducing the fan exhaust velocity, less air would become entrained by the exhaust jet, indicating a reduced likelihood of spreading fugitive seed coatings. Also, the slow exhaust jet would create less of a disturbance when impinging upon the ground.|| | <urn:uuid:1a389424-70bb-4475-85b4-a06e444fa7d6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://harvest.usask.ca/handle/10388/10728?show=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.956368 | 509 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Brain and Central nervous system: Impaired thinking, mood, memory and coordination. Marijuana (THC) is an extremely powerful and pleasurable intoxicant. It affects, alters, and damages brain cells controlling thinking, emotion, pleasure, coordination, mood and memory. The pituitary gland is also damaged which regulates hunger, thirst, blood pressure, sexual behavior, and release of sex hormones. Clogged synapses, brain damage, and addiction. Marijuana accumulates in the microscopic spaces between nerve cells in the brain called “synapses”. this clogging interfers by slowing and impairing transfer of critical information. Long term use causes the brain to stop production of brain chemicals necessry to “feel good”, a negative feedback condition. And, the user becomes chemically addicted to marijuana.
Hear: Speeds up heartbeat as much as 50%, increases blood pressure and poses great risk to those with hypertension and heart disease.
Endocrine system: Marijuana damages the network of glands, organs, and hormones involved in growth and development , energy levels and reproduction. Organs and glands affecter: Pituitary Gland, thyroid gland, stomach, duodenum, pancreas, adrenal glands, testis.
Reproductive systems (males and females): Marijuana use can decrease and degenerate sperm, sperm count, movement, and cause lowered sex drive. Females can have suppression of ovulation, disturbed menstrual cycles, and alteration of hormone levels.
Pregnancy & unborn babies: Regular use during pregnancy can lower birth weight and cause abnormalities similar to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, small head, irritability, poor growth and development.
Chromosome damage: Can destroy the number of chromosomes, resulting in cell abnormalities and impaired function.
Other affects on Central Nervous System: Distortions of perception, thinking, and reality; difficulty in forming concepts and thoughts; poor concentration; mental confusion; loss of motivation; wide mood swings; agression and hostility; depression, anxiety and paranoia. Eyes: Sleepy looking, blood-shot eyes with dilated pupils.
Throat: Irritates membranes of the esophagus; increases chance of developing cancer of larynx and esophagus. | <urn:uuid:5326f6b3-505b-485c-90a4-8ea94740eaee> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://inspiredlife.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/the-harmful-effects-of-marijuana/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00306-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.874245 | 457 | 2.34375 | 2 |
[BEIJING] The spread of genes from genetically modified (GM) crops to neighbouring wild plants, although inevitable, may not happen as quickly as feared, according to a study conducted in Chinese rice fields.
GM crop genes, such as those designed for insect resistance, can spread through cross-pollination with wild plants surrounding farmers' fields — an issue considered to be of major environmental concern, as little is known of the ecological consequences of such gene spread.
But a study by Chinese scientists has found that gene flow of this type is unlikely to occur rapidly, as the transferred genes — or 'transgenes' — do not actually enhance the survival of wild plants. This is because the number of insect pests would have already been reduced in the local area due to the GM crops' insect-resistant genes.
The researchers from Fudan University and the Fuijan Academy of Agricultural Sciences crossed a rice strain that had been genetically modified to carry an insect-resistant gene with a wild, 'weedy rice' strain, and then tested the survival of their progeny four generations later in an experimental field setting in Fuzhou, in Fujian Province, China.
The scientists compared survival rates of progeny containing the insect-resistant transgene with those not containing it, and with survival rates of the original wild rice plant, under conditions of low and high insect pest numbers.
The results showed that when pressure from pests was high, the transgene gave the hybrid varieties a fitness advantage in all tested fitness traits, such as number of seeds produced. However, when the number of insect pests was lower — as is the case in areas surrounding GM fields — hybrids containing the transgene did no better than unmodified wild rice in most fitness traits.
Bao-Rong Lu, chairman of the ecology and evolutionary biology department at Fudan University in China, and a lead author of the study, said that by tracing the fitness of the first four generations of hybrids the researchers had shown that "GM rice will not cause serious environmental problems".
Wei Wei, an ecologist from the Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, welcomed the study, but said further evidence was needed to confirm the findings.
Xue Dayuan, chief biodiversity scientist at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the Minzu University of China, told SciDev.Net the field tests were limited in what they can show.
"It's totally different with the open field. Under the different climate and ecological environments, the risk from the potential transgene flow or transgene pollution may be more likely to happen," Xue said.
And Bruce Tabashnik, a professor of zoology from the University of Michigan, United States, told SciDev.Net that the paper was correct in saying that it "is less likely that the transgenes will spread rapidly" when the pest population is slow.
But he added that some key questions remain, including the extent to which GM rice will reduce the number of pest insects.
The study was published in PLoS ONE last month (17 July).
Link to full article in PLoS ONE [174kB]
PLoS ONE doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041220 (2012) | <urn:uuid:fa42c7f2-a123-4135-8449-145f245dd36b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.scidev.net/global/biotechnology/news/spread-of-genes-from-gm-rice-unavoidable-but-slow-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00220-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957326 | 665 | 3.46875 | 3 |
K-pop Re-learning your basic moves, in the K-pop way. About K-pop major agencies: how they are different in dance tone/manner. K-pop audition prep: what the judges look for and the secrets of passing them. What really happens after you get into a K-pop agency, how to climb up and début. K-pop camera walk: how to look great on camera while performing.
Learn ED KPOP Online Training offers online dance, vocal, fitness classes by the world's best KPOP trainers live and on-demand. Try out FREE for 14 days. Learn how to …
Included KDA Academy hosts anything related to korean culture. K-pop Dance Classes Included. Take online classes with the best South Korean choreographers.
Groups New Classes Every Week. Immerse yourself in the world of K-Pop, starting with Ellen and Brian’s first set of 10 iconic routines from the industry’s biggest groups and artists. Then, continue elevating your performance with a new beginner-friendly class, every single week. YouTube.
School You can now do all that by applying for the K-POP School Program at The Asia Hope Camp Organization! During the KPOP School Program at ACOPIA, singing, dancing and Korean language classes are offered for a period of time, varying from one month to one year. In between the trainee program, there are several opportunities to audition for big
K-pop K-pop Dance is an abbreviation for Korean pop. It is a genre of popular music originating in South Korea. K-pop dance choreography is mainly influenced by hip hop and urban dance choreography. Did you know, they actually fly in tons of different choreographers all around the world to choreograph their music videos!
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K-Pop K-Pop Covers. With K-Pop Covers, students can expect to learn the special moments of the music video choreography from your favorite K-Pop idols. This class offers a different experience with a focus on stage performance. K-Pop Dance Covers emerged in the early 2010s as part of the cultural storm of Korean pop culture.
K-Pop RKD dance class is experiential — a guaranteed memorable time at the birth place of K-Pop! Real K-Pop back dancers lead the class - you will learn choreography step-by-step from the experts, and soon you will be dancing together like K-Pop stars. BBC, ESPN, KBS, Arirang TV, KTV and many more global broadcast networks have highlighted the RKD
Groups kpop dancing. 2,626. members. 15. groups. Find out what's happening in kpop dancing Meetup groups around the world and start meeting up with the ones near you. Join kpop dancing groups. Related topics: Kpop dance.
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DANCE LOVE K-POP DANCE LONDON offers weekly open KPOP DANCE CLASSES at the renowned Base Dance Studios. Join our kpop dance company & follow us on Instagram! @lovekpopdancelondon
Dance Kpop dance studio in Orange County, California, offering aerobics, KPOP dance, Korean traditional dance, martial arts Kumdo, line dance, ballet, yoga and ballroom classes. Studio space is also available as event and party venues.
Semester 2021 Fall Semester Korean School Fin.. <2021 FallSemester>Carrying over from 2021 Spring Semester : $14.49Gross Income: $8,040.00Gross Expenditure: $8,05.. 2021
Class STEEZY’s tools make your online learning experience just like a class at a physical studio – but better. Watch the class from the front or back. Play any section of the class on repeat while you practice. No need to remember right from left in your head – just copy the instructor.
We have 3 locations: Flushing, Manhattan, and Fort Lee. Select the location you want to attend. You can attend classes at more than one location. Download the ILD APP. You can view your account information, class schedule, and purchase classes right on your mobile device. How Do K-POP Dance Classes Work?
With apps on iOS and Android, the world’s best K-Pop tutorials are always in your pocket. It’s more than just one style. When you join STEEZY Studio, you get access to 750+ classes ranging from Hip Hop to Heels.
You will not only learn grammar classes but also how to converse in Korean. In the KPOP course, you can freely learn the latest KPOP dance from your instructor up to 10 times a month by selecting a class.
- Love K-Pop Dance london Love K-Pop Dance London Ltd is a K-Pop Dance Company offering fun weekly open K-Pop (Korean Pop) dance cover classes (and a monthly Saturday workshop!) as well as our "K-Style Commercial" class, featuring original choreography to (mostly) non-K-Pop music. | <urn:uuid:d58b64fa-9c8a-432a-9bdf-9a1f80d39620> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://education-online-courses.com/k-pop-classes-near-me/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00064.warc.gz | en | 0.903935 | 1,346 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Officials of the cash-strapped Brantley County School District insist the new policy is the best way to recoup losses and prove to auditors that the debt would not simply be foisted on taxpayers.
"We got to try all ways of trying to recover the debt," said Van Herrin, vice chairman of the Brantley County Board of Education.
The district's school lunch debt runs about $20,000, only a fraction of the district's approximately $20 million budget. But federal law requires that school nutrition programs be self-sufficient and end each fiscal year with balanced budgets.
"At the end of the day, the taxpayers are going to be picking up the bill for whatever's left," Herrin said. "But we've got to show to the auditors that we've tried every other way."
Indebted parents will be charged 40 percent interest on their childrens' school lunch tab, which the district will use to pay the collection agency.
Brantley County's school lunch troubles reflect a nationwide picture of hunger and economic woes in America. According to the School Nutrition Association, districts across the country have reported upticks in school lunch debts. For the 2008-2009 school year, the most recent figures available from the association, 46 percent of school districts reported an increase in unpaid meals and 15 percent reported a "strong increase."
Kimberly Stone, PTO president of the Brantley County's Hoboken Elementary School, hadn't heard of the district's new plan, but thought a collection agency might be going too far, especially by imposing such a high interest rate.
People should pay for their children's lunches, she said, but "40 percent interest rate -- that's ridiculous for anything. Especially for that. The kids have to eat."
Cindy Ham, Brantley County School District's director of nutrition, said individual debts range from a few dollars to about $150.
Ham declined further comment, saying she had been advised by the school board attorney not to speak about the new policy.
"It's not that we've got anything to hide because we don't," she said. "We're not so different from any other school system."
Low-Income Families Could Face Collection Agents Over School Lunch Debts
Brantley County is not alone in hiring a collection agency to go after parents who don't pay their children's school lunch bills. School districts in Pennsylvania, Iowa and West Virginia have also used collection agencies.
But Amy Kalafa, the Connecticut filmmaker behind the non-profit project to improve school lunch programs, calledTwo Angry Moms, criticized not only Brantley County's decision to turn over parents to debt collectors, but also the system that put them in debt in the first place.
She advocated for providing all school children with free lunch, noting that bigger cities with higher poverty levels receive money from the federal government for such programs.
"It's a travesty to be going after families," she said. "That's so sad."
According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the median income in Bradley County is below the state average and the poverty level is above the state average. Little more than 6 percent of the population has a college degree.
"Unforunately some of our children, when they leave our school system, they don't get another good meal until they come to our breakfast," Herrin said.
School officials said they will neither deny food to students whose parents have delinquent lunch bills nor substitute a cold menu alternative, a move adopted by other districts as a way to both force parents to pay their bills and to lower school lunch program costs.
"It's not that we're going to refuse anybody any food," Herrin said. "That's not how it goes."
The school district already offers free breakfast for all 3,500 students. A free and reduced price lunch program is also heavily advertised, but Herrin said pride prevents many parents from signing up.
Kalafa said singling out children who can't afford lunch stigmatizes both the child and the parents. She noted that some districts around the country have separate lines for students who qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Unpaid School Meals a Growing Problem Across the Country
Susan Bennett, manager at Medical & Business Bureau in Waycross, Ga., the collection agency chosen by Brantley schools, declined to discuss the agreement, but said agents do take into account the area's socio-economic standing when collecting unpaid bills.
"We really operate a lot different than most collections agencies," she said. "A lot of these people we see on the street. We know them."
Bennett said her agents start with phone calls to negotiate a payment plan. They follow up with letters.
"Some are firm," she said of the letters. "If we have a good number, we might call them a couple of times a week."
Herrin said that while the district could pursue legal action against parents who fail to respond to the collection agency, "we're not going to have people locked up over this."
Medical & Business Bureau also collects debts owed to a school district in neighboring Ware County, but that district's nutrition director said the collection agency was used only twice in the last five years because district officials prefer to work with the families themselves. | <urn:uuid:8e276337-999b-41bc-ad23-8388ca98dcef> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://abcnews.go.com/Business/schools-hire-collections-agency-recoup-parents-lunch-debt/story?id=10501102&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719215.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00200-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969358 | 1,094 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Blue Orange Game | Dr Microbe
Dr. Microbe by Blue Orange
Help Dr. Microbe complete her research with your tweezers, a petri dish, and the colourful microbes.
Using logic, race your fellow scientists to figure out which microbes are missing from the incomplete challenge card and snatch them up fast!
Find the answer using this key: the super-bug must always be a different shape and colour than the other three microbes in your dish.
Be the fastest scientist in the lab to impress Dr. Microbe and win!
Ages 8 and UP
- Visual Perception
- Focus & Attention
- Problem Solving
- Fine Motor
- Processing Speed | <urn:uuid:42bef7cc-9f9c-46c9-8bdc-3d9bef686d2d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://delightfulrainglow.com.au/products/blue-orange-game-dr-microbe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571090.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809215803-20220810005803-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.866635 | 145 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Treated Residual Aromatic Extract (TRAE) Definition
TRAE aromatic rubber oil (treated residual aromatic extract, abbreviated as TRAE) is environmental friendly fully aromatic extract oil from solvent extracting process of the residual vacuum distillation which contains polycyclic components (pac).
Rubber Process Oils (RPO) are used to improve the process ability of rubber compounds or to increase the bulk of rubber in order to lower cost. They can be broadly classified into three basic groups namely, paraffinic, naphthenic and aromatics. They are used in a large variety of finished products in the chemical and manufacturing industries.
We supply a wide range of high quality RPO as we recognize the crucial role that RPO plays in your products and operations.
This environment friendly process oil has wide applications in tier, tape & rubber industries. It is used as carrier oils, plasticiser, diluents & filling agent that remain in the final product contributing to both ease of processing and improved product performance in rubber industry.
• Good abrasion resistance
• Good low temperature flexibility
• Low amounts of waste tires in the process
• Good resistance to reversion
• According to with international standards (EU 2005/69/EC)
• Save fuel and energy consumption
Treated Residual Aromatic Extract (TRAE) Applications
- Tires & tubes
- Belting & houses
- Battery containers
- Carrier oils
- Extruded products, & others
TRAE rubber process oil is packed in new or used 180 kg drums, iso tank, flexi tanks and bulk shipments. Each 20-foot container takes 80 drum. | <urn:uuid:88e8692d-6864-480a-baa5-7125e45f8793> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hjoil.com.tw/products_show.php?getId=6&getId1=15&getId2=83 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.918478 | 369 | 1.5 | 2 |
filegive: Easy sending of files, point-to-point
How to send a file from my computer to my friend's computer, secure, simple and without a third-party in the link? Many people ask this question: xkcd 949. filegive will work, or can be made to work, in many situations.
The receiving side only needs a browser (or anything that can browse using http or https). The sender only needs to call filegive, and give the resulting URL to the receiver by chat, for example.
In fact there is even a 'receiving' mode (-R), so the receiver runs filegive getting a URL that can send to the sender. The sender visiting the URL with a browser is offered an upload html form.
The connection goes point-to-point, and not through a third party server, like fipelines.org, or services like dropbox. Additionally, https provides easy end-to-end security, and extra options like rate limit makes it an improvement over other usual point-to-point methods like dcc send (irc, jabber, ...).
How to use it
In its basic usage, if you want to send a file to your colleague in your network, you simply have to:
$ filegive myfile.webm Certificate SHA1 (s: filegive auulftfq): CD:44:9E:17:1D:99:9D:6A:F3:F9:03:F0:61:A5:FD:CB:D9:5C:2D:6A ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ █ ▄▄▄▄▄ █ ▄█ ▀ ▄ █▄▀▄█ ▄▄▄▄▄ █ █ █ █ █▄█▄ ▄▄█▀▄▀██▄█ █ █ █ █ █▄▄▄█ █ ▀█▄█ █ ▄▀ █ █▄▄▄█ █ █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ █ █ ▀▄▀▄█▄▀ █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ ██▀▄▀▀█▄▄▄▀█▀▄█▄▀ ▄███ ▀▄▄ █ █▄█▀██ ▄▀█▀ ▄ █ █▄▄▄█▄ █▄▄▄▄█ █▀▀█▄ ▄▀ ██ ▄▄▀ █ ▄▀ ▀█ █ ▀▄▀▀▄▄▀█████▄ ████▀██ ▄██▀▀█ █▀▄██▄▄▄▀ ▀▀ █▀ ▀ ▄█ ▀▄▀▀▀█ █▀▀▄▀▀▀▄ ▄▄█▀▄▄▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄██▄██ █▄██▄▄▄▄▄▀█████ ▄█▄▀ ▄▄▄ ▀▄▄▄█ █ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▄ ▄█▄ ▄ ▀▀ █▄█ ██▄██ █ █ █ ██▀█▄▀▀▀▀▀▀▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▀ █ █ █▄▄▄█ █▄█ ▀▀█▀▀▀▄▀▀█ ▀█▀ █▀▀█ █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄██▄▄█▄▄▄█▄▄▄██▄▄▄█▄▄█▄█ https://192.168.10.154:36139/yuoack/myfile.webm
You then only have to send the https url to your friend, and the sending will start. To traverse the Internet, you may need to add some parameters, and maybe configure your network access point. Learn more at Examples of usage.
The SHA1 long lines in the previous example are to be used to achieve security, so noone can see what do you transfer. Filegive uses widely spread cryptography (SSL/TLS) to achieve secrecy end to end, and as it is available in most browsers, it is easier to use and only one side needs filegive installed.
To learn more about the security in filegive, please read the Security page.
I wrote this program because I was ashamed not being able to answer how to send a file through the Internet. I have principles, so I couldn't advertise 'dropbox', or 'skype'. At the end, I came up with filegive.
I find it very comfortable in these situations:
- Sending files through the Internet (I use UPnP all around)
- Sending files to someone in the same LAN as I do, maybe at a hacker's party or a university campus, without giving him any credentials to access my system or using the Internet
- Provide pastebin kind of URLs through IRC, without using 3rd party servers that store that for long
- In my
.mailcapin my server, where I check email with mutt through ssh. A simple ssh tunnel allows me to see attachments in my local browser, just going to a filegive URL.
All that, without the other side having to be a computer geek to make the transmission effective.
filegive v0.8.0 - Copyright 2020 Lluis Batlle i Rossell - AGPLv3+ usage: ./filegive [options] <file|dir|-> options: -A use NAT-PMP -D <str> directory in URL (X means random char, XXXXXX default) -d make the browser download to a file -G manual gateway IP address (for NAT-PMP) -N don't exit at end of downloads -P <port> port to bind to (local, UPnP, NAT-PMP, ...) -R receive a file, not send (http upload, in browser side) -ca use the CA certificate instead of generating one -e <h:p> known external address (ip:port) -g regenerate CA certificate -i interactive mode, you acknowledge download attempts -n <n> number of destination users (default 1) -p disable https serving files -r rate limit to these KiB/S (0=unlimited, default) -s <host> use ssh tunnel (requires non-default sshd_config) -ss <host> use ssh tunnel, with socat at the remote side -sn <host> use ssh tunnel, with GNU netcat at the remote side -t UPnP/NAT-PMP forwarding timeout in secs (0, unlimited) -u use UPnP Env vars: FILEGIVE_START_PORT Serve at this port or next if busy
Last release source: filegive-0.8.0.tar.gz (82 KB, signature, key 0x7CBD1DA5, sorry for the wrong mimetype; try to get the signature with curl or wget). Changelog. It should work on GNU/Linux, BSD, MacOSX and Windows. Tested on GNU/Linux and Windows
Trunk source: filegive-trunk.tar.gz
Windows prebuilt binaries
You can Drag&Drop files to the filegive.exe, and it will give you a url. The URL is put on the clipboard automatically, so you can just Drag&Drop the file over it, and paste the clipboard contents into your messaging system.
You can also make a shortcut to filegive.exe adding the "-u" parameter; then Drag&Drop over it will provide a public URL if you have a UPnP-enabled router. Similar for any other configuration required.
Attention: On Windows, using UPnP, you should exit the program typing 'q', instead of ctrl-c or closing the cmd window. Otherwise the UPnP temporary forwarding won't be removed. You'll have a reminder about that running filegive.
To get UPnP working, you may need to tweak your Windows Firewall to let filegive talk with your router.
Third party contributions
Matthias Albrecht (biosmanager) wrote a GUI for Windows, written in .NET, and released also under AGPLv3+.
Download and install the go toolkit.
In the directory of the code, run:
# set up GOPATH if you don't have it mkdir ~/go export GOPATH=$HOME/go go get code.google.com/p/go-nat-pmp go build
nix-env -iA filegive -f .
If you like this software, you can donate a bit to it with flattr. Look for the button at the very top-left of tihs page.
Author: Lluís Batlle i Rossell <firstname.lastname@example.org> (remove all 'xa'! It's an antispam trick!) | <urn:uuid:f8b7f6bc-6a99-49c4-bbd5-2b0b9f282ad8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://vicerveza.homeunix.net/~viric/cgi-bin/filegive/doc/trunk/doc/home.wiki | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570741.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808001418-20220808031418-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.792308 | 1,910 | 2.1875 | 2 |
By James Copnall
BBC News, Abidjan
Ivorians believe their main city Abidjan is one of the reggae capitals of the world.
Alpha Blondy is frank about Ivory Coast's problems
The music genre, more commonly thought of as Caribbean, is extremely popular in Ivory Coast, as the number of reggae bars can confirm.
At bars like Parkers Place, Kingston and Jamaica City, reggae groups play covers of Jamaican legend Bob Marley but also of Ivorian artists like Alpha Blondy.
"Ivory Coast is one of the first countries in Africa known for its reggae," explains the singer Kajim.
"In other parts of the world, when the military take power, you hear other sorts of music on the radio."
"But here when the military took power they played reggae, because in our country reggae is known as the music of change, the music of combat!"
"Here our music is a weapon, and it is not the same thing in other countries."
So how did reggae become the cutting edge in Abidjan, and indeed throughout the country?
Bob Marley brought it to the world, but it took Alpha Blondy to make it Ivorian - as the producer and music specialist Francois Konian explains.
"In the 1980s Alpha Blondy turns up, who is a sort of Bob Marley, but ours!" he says.
"He sings our problems, but in a language we understand."
"He sings in French, in the language of the street, Nouchi, he sings in local languages like Dioula and Baoule, and he sings in English, which makes him even more authentic."
"And he sings things which are so very true - but which are said very rarely."
As soon as Alpha Blondy started to express himself in this way, others rushed to follow his path, and the reggae movement had got under way."
After Alpha Blondy's success - and he achieved popularity and record sales around the world - a number of Ivorians turned to reggae.
In the reggae bar Parker Place, there is an evident sense of harmony - "peace and love" the tribute singer croons, in English, and the multi-racial and very relaxed crowd shouts its approval.
But this spirit has not been shared by Ivorian reggae as a whole in recent times.
In fact, there has been a minor reggae war - a pale imitation of the civil conflict that has devastated Ivory Coast these last five years.
Serges Kassy sings in praise of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo
One reggaeman, Serges Kassi, is a fervent supporter of President Laurent Gbagbo - in fact he is one of the leaders of his militant supporters, the Young Patriots, who in the past have been accused of being a militia.
Another musician, Tiken Jah Fakoly, who is perhaps Ivory Coast's biggest reggae star after Alpha Blondy, is firmly in the other camp.
He has created songs that criticize President Gbagbo heavily, calling him "badly elected" and a "thug President".
His songs have been broadly favourable to the New Forces rebels who control the north of the country.
Tiken Jah lives in exile in Mali, saying it would be too dangerous for him to return to Abidjan.
"You are thinking more about your career than your people - that is my reproach to Tiken Jah," says Kassi.
The division has not been good for Ivorian reggae, believes the reggae fanatic Des Parker, who is the owner of Parkers Place.
"I think they are both wrong, they are both totally wrong!"
"I do not consider them leaders of reggae in Ivory Coast, I think they should work for the people, and not for the President or the others."
Pipes of Peace
Perhaps mirroring the improvements in the political situation in Ivory Coast, Tiken Jah at least seems to have mellowed.
Tiken Jah's anti-Gbagbo lyrics made it safer for him to live in Mali
He recently released a new album, L'Africain.
In it he sings a duet with a singer, Beta Simon, called Ma Cote d'Ivoire - my Ivory Coast.
The song expresses the hope that no-one will take up arms in Ivory Coast again.
Beta Simon was chosen, according to Tiken Jah, because he comes from President Gbagbo's ethnic group, to show that everyone in the country can be friends.
In the same spirit, Serges Kassi says he is trying to persuade Tiken Jah to return to Abidjan for a concert.
Perhaps the reggae war is coming to an end. | <urn:uuid:1dc8084a-a6b1-441f-b657-2c64f657e59a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7041652.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00269-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967604 | 1,001 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The National Hockey League, responding to what it says is a possible increased use of cocaine among its players, has kick-started talks with the NHL Players Association to add the drug and others like it to the list of banned substances for which the league regularly monitors.
"The number of [cocaine] positives are more than they were in previous years and they're going up," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told TSN in an interview. "I wouldn't say it's a crisis in any sense. What I'd say is drugs like cocaine are cyclical and you've hit a cycle where it's an 'in' drug again.
"I'd be shocked if we're talking about a couple dozen guys. I don't want to be naïve here … but if we're talking more than 20 guys I'd be shocked. Because we don't test in a comprehensive way, I can't say."
Under the current terms of the NHL's drug-testing program, players are tested at least two times per season for performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids.
Every team is subject to team-wide testing once during training camp and once during the regular season. Individual players can also be selected for random testing during the regular season and playoffs. "If a player's name spits out eight times, he's subject to eight tests," Daly said.
During the off-season, the NHL drug-tests 60 players, the most the league is allowed to under its labour agreement.
One-third of the 2,400 player urine samples collected each year are screened more closely for drugs of abuse, such as cocaine. Those more comprehensive tests have shown cocaine use by NHL players is on the rise. Drugs, Daly said, will be a focus this season as the NHL tries to educate its players on the dangers of celebrity life.
"One major point of emphasis is party drugs like coke, ecstasy, molly, those types of drugs," Daly said. "When bad things happen, we try to address the bad things."
Effects associated with use of certain drugs
|Marijuana||Marijuana is generally associated with a reduced desire to use violence.|
|Heroin||Like marijuana, heroin generally has the effect of lowering the desire to use violence. In some cases, however, it appears that disturbed or impulsive behaviours may occur during a period of withdrawal.|
|Cocaine||Cocaine’s main property is that it stimulates the central nervous system. Cocaine abuse can cause paranoia, although that reaction appears to be infrequent among cocaine users as a whole. Some report that cocaine use can also cause irritability and anxiety in users, especially at the end of a period of intoxication.|
|PCP||PCP is recognized for its many properties (hallucinogenic, analgesic and anesthetic). Like cocaine, it stimulates the central nervous system. Empirical studies are particularly incomplete for this drug; however, PCP is second to alcohol as the drug most often associated with violence.|
|LSD||Like PCP, LSD is known for its hallucinogenic properties. It can therefore cause strange and violent behaviour.|
|Amphetamines||The main property of amphetamines is that, like cocaine, they stimulate the central nervous system. Amphetamine abuse can thus cause paranoia, irritability, anxiety and even toxic psychosis.|
According to an NHLPA source, union executive director Donald Fehr last season raised the issue of cocaine use in closed-door meetings with numerous NHL clubs, canvassing players to ask why the drug is becoming more popular, and warning them about the health dangers and the consequences of being caught.
Over the next two months, as Fehr meets this year's crop of NHL players, he will again address the subject of cocaine, according to an NHLPA source.
Fehr said his discussions with players are confidential and noted that players would have to agree to alter their collective bargaining agreement with the NHL before the league could begin testing all urine samples for cocaine or other recreational drugs.
"We have a substance abuse and behavioural health (SABH) program which is designed to provide treatment opportunities for individuals who may have issues," Fehr said in an interview. "The nature of that program and how it operates is always subject to review, including at the present time. I discuss all potential changes to the SABH with the membership before we consider any changes to the CBA."
As matters in the NHL now stand, if "dangerously high" levels of cocaine are detected in a player's urine, the doctors who administer the league's drug program can "pierce the veil" of anonymity and directly contact a player to ask if they need help, Daly said.
Players convicted of a drug-related offense are automatically enrolled in the league's SABH program.
"The doctors decide how long you are in the program," Daly said. "It could be forever."
Doctors also decide how often players in the SABH program are drug tested.
"You can play while you are in the program if you are doing outpatient treatment," Daly said. "Your club might not even know you are in the program. But if you violate the terms of your treatment contract, the league and the NHLPA are notified because discipline becomes warranted."
The NHL and NHLPA aren't the only ones worried about a resurgence in cocaine use.
Last season, a senior Maple Leafs team executive met with Toronto Police Service officers to address concerns that Leafs players were purportedly using cocaine or were associating with those who were, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A Maple Leafs spokesperson declined to comment.
The NHL and the NHLPA have been dogged recently by a number of player arrests for drug-related offences. In April 2014, Tampa Bay Lightning player Ryan Malone was arrested and charged with cocaine possession and driving under the influence. Former Los Angeles Kings forward Jarret Stoll was charged this summer in Las Vegas with possessing cocaine, although he pleaded guilty to a lesser non-drug-related charge of breaching the peace.
Daly defended the NHL's handling of the Malone and Stoll arrests.
"Jarret pleaded to breach of the peace," Daly said. "In fairness, we met with Jarret. If we weren't satisfied with the answers he was giving us, we would have potentially disciplined him. We chose not to."
Malone, on the other hand, was not convicted and did not plead guilty to a drug-related offense while he was an NHL player, Daly said. In August 2014, Malone pleaded no contest to the DUI charge and received 12 months' probation, according to the Tampa Tribune. Pleading no contest is when a defendant neither admits to a charge nor disputes it. It's an alternative to pleading guilty.
Malone agreed to enter a diversion program on the drug charge. He played six games with the New York Rangers before being placed on waivers on Feb. 3, 2015.
Cocaine has been on the radar of NHL league and team executives for at least several years.
Two years ago, league officials asked Rich Clune, who this fall tried out with the Maple Leafs and who is an admitted former drug user, to speak to first-year league players about the dangers of party drugs.
"I am certainly not unique," Clune wrote in a July 1, 2015, story published on The Players Tribune website. "There are players in the NHL right now who are suffering and you would never know it from looking at their stat sheet or how hard they compete in practice. … Plenty of teammates and coaches had suspicions about me over the years, but nobody knew how bad it was. I was just the wild man. Every hockey team has one. Or 10."
Quentin Holmes, who worked as a security representative with the Columbus Blue Jackets after a 24-year career as an agent with the FBI, said most NHL teams have a good idea which players are most likely to dabble with or become regular users of cocaine.
"(Teams) know who the partiers are, it gets around," said Holmes, who worked for the Blue Jackets formally from 2011 to 2013 and said he had a decade-long relationship with the franchise.
"It's a different breed of people [players] who are coming in now," he said. "Drugs are more prevalent, that's true. ... These guys were driving old Honda Accords. … Twenty years old, and now they're driving a Maserati. They play hard and in the off-season they party hard. And they can afford [cocaine]."
Security staff at NHL head office meets each year with team-assigned security officials to brief them on which performance-enhancing and recreational drugs are becoming trendy, Holmes said.
"Every year it's a different spiel," he said. "[NHL security staff] go around and say, 'What's the most prevalent thing we're seeing this year right now?' ... They try proactively to get the guys to stop."
As tempted as young players might be by the fast, party-hard lifestyle, Holmes said veteran players are more likely to fall prey to cocaine and other recreational drugs.
"Other issues like gambling and betting are probably a lot more prevalent [in the NHL] than the drugs," he said. "You can't test for gambling. It's so hard for them to get [to the NHL]; they are pretty good about it. The young guys are like, 'It took me forever to get here. I can't jeopardize that for a drug test.' "
The increased use of cocaine by NHL players comes as the drug regains popularity throughout North American society.
In 2012, the most recent year for which statistics are available, an estimated 1.1 per cent of Canadians used cocaine, up from 0.7 per cent in 2010, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.
In the U.S., there were 1.5 million current cocaine users age 12 or older in 2013, or 0.6 per cent of the population, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.
For the NHL, and other sports leagues, detecting the use of cocaine by players and employees is a challenge.
Dr. Bhushan Kapur, an associate scientist and toxicologist at Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, said in an interview that cocaine's metabolite is only detectible in the urine for a day or two after it is consumed.
"People who want to beat drug tests know that the more water you drink after using cocaine, the faster it flushes through and out of your system," Kapur said. "It's not an easy drug to catch."
Even so, the NHL and NHLPA should find a common ground to add cocaine to the list of substances checked during every doping analysis, said Charles Yesalis, a professor emeritus of health policy and administration at Penn State University who is an expert on performance-enhancing drugs.
"Cocaine is a stimulant, like amphetamines, and is used to increase bravado, aggressiveness," Yesalis said. "Hockey is a game where that would be a benefit. Am I surprised? Absolutely not. It's not a cream puff sport. You need highly aggressive men out there."
Richard Peddie, who was chief executive of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment for 14 years before retiring in 2011, said the NHL needs to update its team security policies, which he said are not as sophisticated as those in the NBA.
"There's just a lot more of a security focus for the 15 [NBA players on a team] than for the 20-plus [NHL] hockey guys," Peddie said in an interview. "Hockey didn't seem to have the same focus. We had an ex-cop working with the Raptors, very plugged in with what the players are doing. … The NBA is a more controlling league with more rules."
Approximate Wholesale Prices for Cocaine in Toronto - 2015
|9 pack (1/4 kilo)||$9,500-$11,500|
Source: Toronto Police
The NBA, for instance, mandates that security officials assigned to clubs travel with those clubs on road trips, a regulation that does not exist in the NHL, Peddie said.
Peddie said it would be a mistake for the NHL to argue that the number of players who might be using cocaine only represents a fraction of the league.
"Even one positive test you have to think about," Peddie said. "These are professional athletes and they have reputations to uphold. They represent your brand, your company, in the community. I wouldn't want to pooh-pooh it."
The NHL is hardly the only league that has struggled to determine how to deal with players who use cocaine. The NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball have all navigated cocaine scandals.
Yesalis, from Penn State, said the major professional sports leagues have been conflicted over boosting both monitoring for drugs and the penalties when players are caught.
"Some of these drugs increase the quality of the product if they are selling aggressive players," Yesalis said, "and it's not good for your product to have it made public that your players are using illegal substances. It takes away the mom, apple pie, Chevrolet image. You want to portray your game as it's all hard work, and you'd want your sister to marry one of these guys. You don't want to market your employees as dirt bags." | <urn:uuid:9c293d7d-efe6-40c4-8e9b-ca2c4d5b5609> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.tsn.ca/nhl-acknowledges-more-players-using-cocaine-1.372075 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00499-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974518 | 2,786 | 1.578125 | 2 |
It's an odd quirk of nature that birds - even chickens - typically lay just one egg a day, and many species rely on all the eggs in the clutch hatching on the same day.
Parent birds control incubation by modifying the temperature that triggers embryo development, which is one way that species ensure roughly synchronous hatching.
However, climate change - particularly the increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves - will take some of that control away from birds, causing some eggs to hatch earlier than others, according to new research published in the Royal Society Open Science journal on Wednesday.
The team, led by Simon Griffith from Macquarie University, studied zebra finches, a common and hardy species found across central Australia that typically lays five eggs per clutch, all of which hatch on the same day.
Hotter conditions can cause the eggs to hatch a day or two apart, giving the first chick a monopoly on the food provided by the parent, potentially reducing the survival rate of the remaining brood, the paper found.
"If all chicks hatch at the same time, the competition is much more equal," Professor Griffith said.
"If global temperatures were to increase, it could play havoc with the family dynamic of these birds, creating situations where a single nest contains chicks of different ages, and even causing some embryos to die if temperatures remain too hot for a long period," he said.
While there were some benefits from warmer conditions - such as less time and energy spent by parent birds on incubation - these were countered by the prospect of a reduced family size and development rates of the chicks.
Prolonged exposure to temperatures above 40.5 degrees was also apparently lethal for developing chicks, the paper found.
That risk is made more likely by the increase in heatwaves against a background warming that has lifted Australia's temperatures by an average of about 1 degree over the past century, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Current projections of greenhouse gas emissions indicate the world is on a path to at least 2.7 degrees of warming compared with pre-industrial times.
Most research into how climate change will affect birds has focused on species found in temperate regions of North America and Europe, rather than tropical and sub-tropical species such as zebra finches, Professor Griffith said.
Stephen Garnett, a professor at Charles Darwin University, described the paper "as fascinating", adding that it confirmed what had been predicted by theory.
Altered hatching patterns "will certainly be among the many new selective pressures brought to bear on birds, and all other animals and plants, as the climate changes", Professor Garnett said.
"The species under real pressure will be those with small populations as they will have the least genetic variability," he said, noting that zebra finches might do better than most species, given they already survive huge variations in temperature and rainfall.
"It may not make a difference in the next century or so - all our species have been through both colder and hotter times in the past as ice ages and warm periods have fluctuated - but it won't be so long before we go into climates that the world has not experienced since before most birds evolved," Professor Garnett said. "That will be a real test."
Professor Griffith said future research would need to look at whether birds such as zebra finches could adapt to the rising temperatures - such as building cooler nests in more shaded places - given that the warming conditions are likely to continue. | <urn:uuid:2f830b7a-8b7f-40e4-9c27-889609b7bcc5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-early-bird-catches-the-worm-gets-a-new-twist-with-climate-change-study-20160202-gmjjiy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00428-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964777 | 710 | 3.546875 | 4 |
This paper will explore the writer’s personal beliefs, theories of racism and explore the ACA codes of ethics and treatment modalities for various cultures and also will introduce you took some of the writers experiences. I grew up in the deep south were racism was still alive and thriving. My time was in the sixties when the Klux Klux Klan was causing trouble and nothing was being done about it. My parents would tell my sisters and me to always be home before the sun went down because they were afraid that we might be taken or worst killed. When I attended school schools were segregated, but all the students in my class were people of color.
White students had their class and we had ours all at the same school. When we went out to play the white students would call us names and the teachers would just laugh and tell them not to call us names. Where we lived it was all people of color in my community. The white people lived in another area. I remember that in order to get to the store we had to go through the white community and they would throw rocks at us and chase us back to be we lived. When I got to Jr. High School and had two white friends. We played and talked together all the time.
The cultural difference between us made it hard for other students to understand what we were during. Students of color would be upset with me for talking with the white students and the white students would also be upset with them for associating with me. Just like half-century ago black people had problems when the right to vote in the South was the almost exclusive domain of white people (Kornacki, 2011). Black people would be intimidated by white people if they attempted to cast votes. I remember when my parents were determined to vote and they would get with other people of color and form a mob and go down there to vote.
They all got to vote, but after that they would have to fight their way back home. I remember those days just if they were yesterday and today racism still lives on in the Deep South. The Deep South is not so much as where it is located, but it is a distinct culture (racism, racial 2013). Racism started in the south when the slaves were brought over here from Africa and the slave owners saw that African slaves were better at taking the heat and working all day long. They were looked at as property and nothing else.
As the years went by and slavery was abolished they could not get over the fact they black were nothing more than slaves and because of that blacks could never be equal to whites(racism, racial 2013). When I associate with white people I have trust issues because of the things I saw when I was a child. Being an adult now I always watch what white people do around me and listen closely to every word that they say to me. Because of the way we were treated, I find myself always trying to be better than anyone else during any task. Whenever white people tell me anything I have trust issues being that they are trying to help me.
Sometimes I have to examine myself because being biased in the field that I have chosen will not work. I have problems when groups of people of a certain culture get together in a group and are talking. The first thing that enters my mind is the wonder if they are talking about me. These are biases issues that how have learned to live with and also have learn not to let them effect the way that I treat other people (Diller, 2011). Racism is a bias of mine that I work on every day. Learning how to deal with a race and also how not to hold the way they act against them.
People who openly express that they believe the white race to be superior to any other race are people I have a problem with, but when it comes to helping them in a therapeutic manner I have learned to put my personal feeling on the Back burner. Everyone has the right to feel any way that they want and human rights belongs to everybody. Humans Rights are a guarantee and cannot be discriminated against (Shenker, 1995). According to Diana Ayton-Shenker “Every human being has the right to culture, including the right to enjoy and develop cultural life and identity.
Cultural rights, however, are not unlimited. The right to culture is limited at the point at which it infringes on another human right. No right can be used at the expense or destruction of another, in accordance with international law” (Shenker, 1995). Subtle Racism is defined as, “Subtle, commonplace forms of discrimination, such as being ignored, ridiculed or treated differently”(Subtle racism, 2013). Subtle racism is something that happens on a daily basis. I have experience it myself and when I do I just ignore the ones who are perpetrating it.
I believe that there are people who are unaware that they are racist. I believe that because they have acted the way they do towards people of color since their childhood they believe that they are displaying normal behavior. Subtle racism can be displayed by all races. Every culture displays some type of subtle racism when confronted with a person from outside their culture. The reason there would be significant differences in perceptions and values of members within the same ethnic group is because even people of the same ethnic group have differences with people within their own Group.
It can be as simple as believing that a person is not acting the way they believe that they should be coming from that ethnic group. Some people of color may believe that someone in Their ethnic group is not acting like they are from their group or may believe that they are trying to act like they belong to another ethnic group. The mixing of different social backgrounds is influenced by social interaction (Wesker, 2011). Working today as a counselor you must be culturally competent. Being culturally competent means understanding every culture, their language, social and economic nuances of people (diversity and cultural competence, 2013). | <urn:uuid:0e749d07-045d-440f-bedf-7f9461a24c95> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://studymoose.com/social-and-cultural-diversity-paper-essay | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718426.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00137-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987964 | 1,211 | 3.015625 | 3 |
12. September 2013–
Lars Hinrichs, the founder of LinkedIn’s European equivalent, Xing, is shutting down his startup incubator and pre-seed investment fund HackFwd. The incubator will not accept any new startups for its next programme. Instead, Hinrichs will focus on his later-stage investment company Cinco Capital and a real estate project in Hamburg.
It’s the end for a unique incubator in Europe. Geeks are the “artists of the 21st century”, Hinrichs once said – for him, coding is an extremely creative process. Reflecting this belief, HackFwd aimed to attract programmers and geeks, rather than business people, and help them grow their companies. Shareholdings could be found on the HackFwd website and deals were standardised, with every startup giving 27 per cent to the incubator and three per cent to mentors of their choice. Some of the prominent startups in the incubator include Infogr.am, Yieldkit and Cobook.
Today, after three years of programmes, over 3,000 applications and around €8m worth of investments in its 16 portfolio companies, Hinrichs published a blog post giving five reasons the Hamburg-based incubator didn’t succeed:
An incubator boom – “literally thousands of accelerators”
When HackFwd launched three years ago, incubators were few and far between. Today, the landscape is very different. Hinrichs wrote there are now “literally thousands of accelerators; so many that I often wonder if there are more accelerators than angels and more angels than there are entrepreneurs”. The new funding environment made it hard for HackFwd to compete – why would entrepreneurs give up 30 per cent of their shares when incubators like You Is Now provide €25,000 capital and ask for none?
No exits in sight
Hinrichs also admitted he’d expected exits to come faster: “Within the first couple of years, we realised that, on average, any exit required between five and seven years to be worthwhile, longer than the average time we’d hoped and planned for. This stands in sharp contrast to the US, where exits commonly happen within a year due to talent acquisition hires. Even when we had a US company eager to buy one of our star HackBoxes, the deal ultimately fell through because of US visa restrictions.”
Too slow to pull the plug on certain startups
HackFwd was too slow to pull the plug on businesses that didn’t work so well, Hinrichs admitted. The incubator had a policy of supporting each team for at least a year – a mistake when companies were not getting enough traction. He also found it difficult to balance nurturing new, young startups, and continuing to help established startups scale.
Building pan-European startups proved difficult. “Each European country has its own (unnecessarily complex) rules and regulations for setting up a company.” He’s now pushing for a European standard for establishing limited companies.
Spreading focus too thin
After founding a company himself, Hinrichs said he found it hard to jump from startup to startup without getting too involved. “It was difficult to constantly switch focus between challenges without feeling like I was short-changing people… Investing is like taking a shower but not truly getting wet – I must confess that I missed the days of diving headfirst into a challenge, all the way.” | <urn:uuid:78ce7c46-5fe6-43a0-8111-8c83c1639b35> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://theheureka.com/lars-hinrichs-shuts-down-hackfwd | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00034-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960169 | 730 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Are These Rising Dividends Really a Bad Sign?
The following video is part of our "Motley Fool Conversations" series, in which analyst John Reeves and advisor David Meier discuss topics across the investing world.
A recent Bloomberg piece said rising dividends for technology stocks was a bear sign. Is that the case? John and David think the answer is: it depends. Let's take the four big technology companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, and Intel. All of their dividends have been growing -- fast! But that's what we should expect from these large, mature companies. There are fewer investment opportunities, so management has been returning capital to shareholders.
Investors shouldn't be looking at those technology companies, or very mature companies in general, from a growth perspective. They should be looking at them on a total return basis -- a combination of dividend yield, dividend growth, and share repurchases. That's a big reason that Altria has done so well over the years. Despite its recent stumble, McDonald's looks attractive from a total return perspective. It has a 3.1% yield, and its dividend is averaging about 12% growth per year, while the company is repurchasing a few percent of its stock. McDonald's may not generate returns like a growth stock, but it has a winning combination over the long haul.
If you're interested in learning more about some attractive dividend stocks,The Motley Fool has compiled a special free report outlining our nine top dependable dividend-payers. It's called "Secure Your Future With 9 Rock-Solid Dividend Stocks." You can access your complimentary copy today at no cost! Just click here to discover the winners we've picked.
The article Are These Rising Dividends Really a Bad Sign? originally appeared on Fool.com.David Meier has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. John Reeves has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool owns shares of McDonald's. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend McDonald's. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | <urn:uuid:ff53a78f-c168-47df-b8f8-8841a9ebd8d9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.aol.com/article/2012/09/14/are-these-rising-dividends-really-a-bad-sign/20324235/?gen=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00545-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939822 | 493 | 1.5 | 2 |
NZ condemns Bali bombings
Prime Minister Helen Clark has condemned last night’s bombings at restaurants in Bali, Indonesia, which occurred just
days before the third anniversary of the October 2002 terrorist attacks on the same island.
Helen Clark has today written to Indonesian President Suslio Bambang Yudhoyono, saying the New Zealand Government is
appalled at such cowardly and indiscriminate acts of violence.
No New Zealand casualties have been reported at this stage. Latest news reports put the death toll at 25, and say that
more than 100 people have been wounded.
“Our thoughts are first and foremost with the families and friends of those who have borne the brunt of what is another
callous and cold-blooded attack,” Helen Clark said.
“A Jakarta-based New Zealand diplomat who happened to be in Bali at the time of the attacks has visited the morgue and
hospitals to try and ascertain whether any New Zealanders are among the casualties.
“A consular staff member and New Zealand Police liaison officer from the Jakarta embassy are travelling to Bali today to
In her letter to President Yudhoyono, Helen Clark has offered whatever assistance Indonesia requires in the aftermath of
last night’s bombings.
“Such cowardly and indiscriminate acts of violence, which are deliberately aimed at innocent people, are an affront to
humanity,” the letter says.
Helen Clark said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is setting up a toll-free line to take calls from New
Zealanders wanting to check on family members and friends who might be in the area. The number is 0800 432 111. | <urn:uuid:02d28bbd-68e5-48c4-981f-44a2bb0662c2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0510/S00004.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.947064 | 360 | 1.5625 | 2 |
High-Quality Sands for Precision Investment Casting, Foundry, and Ceramic Applications
Zircon (zirconium silicate) sands are naturally occurring, rounded sands used in foundry, ceramic, refractory, and precision investment casting applications. They are critical components in the production of glazes, ladle brick, wall tiles, coatings, shell molds and cores, and metal chills.
The Chemours Company maintains a sustainable and continuous supply of high-quality zircon sands that are clean, pure, and uniform to ensure optimal performance.
Among a broad range of other benefits, Chemours zircon sands offer:
- High thermal conductivity
- Low thermal expansion
- High bulk density
- Low reactivity with most alloys
- Nonwetting surface to molten metals
- Excellent refractory properties
Zircon sands from Chemours are insoluble in water, dilute acids, and hot concentrated sulfuric acid. They have very slight solubility in hydrofluoric acid. Zircon sands react with hot concentrated alkali solutions, but do not react with cold dilute alkali solutions.
Chemours offers five grades of zircon sands that vary in the level of zircon and other heavy material content. They are:
- Premium zircon
- Low alumina zircon
- Standard zircon
- Zircon T
- Zircon M
Chemours mines zircon sands from mineral sands deposits in the southeastern United States, then chemically scrubs the sands to produce clean products that are free of dirt and ultrafines that could damage substrates. They are then calcined to reduce water and other volatile content. The sands are separated from other minerals by physical processes to produce uniform high-quality products.
Zircon sand is available in:
- 22.7-kg (50-lb) multiwall paper bags
- Semi-bulk (2 ton or 4 ton) bags
- Bulk hopper cars or trucks
View the Zircon Sands Product Information Sheet to learn more about our zircon sands solutions. | <urn:uuid:f0365244-f58f-43fe-8cfe-3f1469490fc5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.chemours.com/en/brands-and-products/chemours-minerals/products/zircon-sands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.84605 | 439 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Artist Statement :
He being an institute on his own, had a dream :
“ I have been working out an idea to setup an establishment where all the schools of traditional handlooms can join hands especially for their technical expertise as well as to express classical, aesthetics and artistic richness of heritage of India. The aim here, is to explore the skills. Artist will not only work for themselves to continue the dyeing forms of art, but they will also pass on their skills and vision by training the new generation of dedicated students. Further the project aims at providing a common platform to the artists, art lovers and art collectors not only from India but from across the world.
Not financial but moral support from any where and from any one, will give tremdouens encouragement to the establishment.”
- 1968-71 : Post Graduation in Textile Design from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
- 1964-68 : Studied painting (diploma) from Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Vadodara
From Feb. 1975 : Worked (hold the post of Deputy Director-Design) with Weavers Service Centre for more then 20 years at many places in India. Explored the possibility and developed the traditional handloom products of India. Worked on the concept of “tree of Life”, the hand painted (kalamkari) textiles for the exhibitions arranged by Govt. of India, under the program called “Festivals of India” at England, France, Germany, Japan and Russia.
He had set up a weaving, dyeing and painting/printing in Ahmedabad where he conducted workshops. He also was a visiting faculty to teach textile design and drawing at NID, NIFT, CEPT and other institutions. He also took many projects for developing designs in handloom and allied crafts in India and abroad.
His studio is now being taken care of by his daughter Praveena Mahicha Soni. The studio undertakes workshops in dyeing and painting/printing in Ahmedabad ..
- 2016 : Indiaart Gallery, Pune
- 2013 : Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 2012 : LalitKala Gallery, Delhi
- 2007 : Chitrakala Parishad, Benglore
- 2002 : Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 1988 : Contemporary Art Gallery, Ahmedabad
- 1999 : Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 1997 : Alliance Franchise, Ahmedabad
- 1996 : Gujarat State L.K.A. Art gallery, Ahmedabad
- 1995 : Galleria Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 1993 : Taj Art Gallery, Indore
- 1989 : Bajaj Art Gallery, Mumbai
- 1992 : Painting on cotton (natural dyes) from Ahmedabad Municipal Corp.
- 1989 : watercolors painting from A.I.F.A.C.S. Delhi
- 1968 : Watercolors landscape from Mysore
- 1966 : lithography print, from Gujarat state L.K.A.
Paintings in collection :
- Shri A. B. Vajpayee former Prime Minister of India
- Mr. Bill Clinton former President of U.S.A.
- Textile Minister’s office, Govt. of India
- Chief Minister’s office, Govt. of Gujarat
- Rajyapal Bhavan, Gujarat State
- Saeta Museum, New Mexico, U.S.A.
- Karanavati Museum, Ahmedabad
- Taj Hotel, Mumbai
- Hotel GRT Grand, Chennai
- Air India, Mumbai
- Tata Tea, Munnar
- Ambuja Cement, Mumbai
- Ms. Smita Godrej
- Mrs. Elisabeth Kerkar – Mumbai
- Reliance Industries, Mumbai
- NIFT, Gandhinagar
- Athi River Mining Ltd. Nairobi, (Kenya)
- Maharaja Express -Indian Railway Govt. of India
More about his projects :
- Under the Tamilnadu State Govt. Handloom Design Development Programme through National Institute Of Design, Ahmedabad, successfully implemented, new 100 designs for weaving sari on jacquard loom at Coimbature (Tamilnadu).
- A project to make 100 hand painted silk sari was completed for “Grjari” the Gujarat State H/H Development Corporation.
- The Development Commissioner For Handicraft appointed me to make new designs for Shri Vinayakbhai Salvi under the Shilp Guru Award for weaving of PATOLA double ikat of Patan Gujarat. New but in continuation of patola tradition. 10 designs were made and given.
- Under Decentralized training cum workshop for design development were held at Coimbature, Salem and Paramkudi. In Tamilnadu, through NID.
- At NID, NIFT, CEPT workshops were held to show the technique of vegetable dyeing and printing to the students and designers.
- Through SEWA- TFC Ahmedabad a 25 days workshop of traddle weaving was under taken for the participants from SABAH - Nepal.
- On the proposal by SABAH – Nepal, visited Kathamandu, Nepal to guide in the setting up of weaving and vegetable dyeing work shed for SABAH at Kathmandu, Nepal.
- Worked as a Textile Designer with Shri Sundriyal Khemraj, an expert weaver of Panipat (Haryana) to make tapestry (wall hanging) for his “SANT KABIR” award.
- Developed silk stole, scarf designs in vegetable dyes for SEWA-TFC, Ahmedabad. | <urn:uuid:33c4bb55-d18a-4889-9a88-c2f734dd094f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.indiaart.com/artists/t-mahicha/profile-of-t-mahicha.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572408.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816151008-20220816181008-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.920646 | 1,232 | 1.5 | 2 |
Workshopping poetry can be particularly sensitive due to the inherently emotional nature of poetry. Because it doesn’t necessarily fit into the rules or norms of many types of literature, it can also expose its author to unnaturally critical responses. The critique rules outlined two blogs ago should definitely be followed. But I warn you poets to be prepared to have your work dissected, to emotionally detach from the words you wrote despite that being nearly impossible and to trust that your partner has the best interest of your piece in mind.
And while providing feedback to your partner, be careful to dissect the WAY they say things rather than what they’re saying. Be careful to respect their boundaries and emotions. And if you give a critique that makes them emotional, leave it alone. | <urn:uuid:d9b222cd-7795-44c8-9666-dc166e7cce06> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.schulealpin.org/%EF%BB%BFchildhood-home-workshop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.961052 | 155 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1924 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more
Austin’s Hawaiian Weekly (Honolulu, Hawai‘i)
On June 17, 1899, Franklin H. Austin introduced Austin’s Hawaiian Weekly: “I believe that Honolulu and the islands are able and willing to support a high class illustrated weekly journal. Furthermore, I want a dunghill of my own to crow from and do not want anyone to have a string tied to the rooster’s tail.” Published in Honolulu, Austin’s eight-to-sixteen page “dunghill” lasted only 11 months. The paper was published weekly on Saturdays except from August 5 to September 17, 1899.
Austin believed important developments of the 20th century would be “concentrated in the Pacific Ocean,” and as such his paper was “Devoted to the Progress of the Pacific.” He frequently ran articles and essays on Asia and, in particular, America’s possessions in the Pacific. Austin hoped wide circulation of his paper would help bring recognition to Hawai‘i as a tourist destination and the Pacific’s “strategic center.” The Hawaiian Weekly presented Honolulu as the “most beautiful tropical city in the world” and made extensive use of new technologies including glossy print and photographs to appeal to a general audience and to showcase landmarks and points of interest: Hawai‘i’s people, scenery, and flora; unique local activities such as surfing and canoe paddling; architectural highlights such as Central Union Church and Honolulu’s Central Fire Station; and the “first authentic picture published of the eruption on Mauna Loa.”
On September 23, 1899, Austin announced the new Austin Publishing Company would manage both the Hawaiian Weekly and the monthly Paradise of the Pacific. The Weekly would continue its coverage of “happenings in and around the Pacific Ocean” and transfer “non-political” coverage to the Paradise of the Pacific. Austin pledged that the Hawaiian Weekly would remain devoted to home rule and Hawai‘i’s local business interests: “It will be conservative in tone, but will fearlessly fight the battle against the inevitable influx of American ward politicians and Federal official carpet-baggers whose only object is boodle.”
However, Austin had overextended himself and his company. By November, he realized that neither the Hawaiian Weekly nor the Paradise of the Pacific had a large enough readership and offered new and current subscribers a discounted yearly rate of $4 for both. On December 9, Austin reduced the price for a single issue of the weekly from 10 cents to 5 cents and cut the cost of a yearly subscription from $4 to $3. The new subscription rate included a quarterly edition “devoted principally to the history and development of the agricultural resources of the Hawaiian Islands,” but the special 1899 Christmas edition was the only one ever published. The Hawaiian Weekly’s last known issue appeared on May 12, 1900. Soon afterward, Austin resigned as editor after being hospitalized due to “severe mental strain” and deteriorating health.
Provided by: University of Hawaii at Manoa; Honolulu, HI | <urn:uuid:07c83f6a-6735-4bf9-aed3-138c4fd51795> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/essays/165/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00138-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962326 | 713 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Companies in this industry are engaged in structural framing and sheathing of buildings. No major companies dominate the industry.
Wood-framed single-family housing, the primary source of business for framing contractors, is more prevalent in the US than in many other parts of the world. Urban density, timber availability, historical building patterns, and income levels limit residential wood framing activity.
The US framing contractor industry includes about 11,500 establishments (single-location companies or branches of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $20 billion.
Contractors in the industry use steel as well as wood to frame buildings. Installation of structural steel and precast concrete framing is not included in the industry, however.
Demand is driven heavily by new home construction. The profitability of individual companies depends on a steady volume of contracted work, accurate work estimation, and cost controls. Large companies have advantages in working in multiple geographies and may have relationships with high-volume production homebuilders. Small companies compete based on quality service and local reputation. The industry is fragmented, and small companies are prevalent. Three-fourths of US framing contractors have fewer than five employees.
Products, Operations & Technology
Major services of framing contractors include construction of single detached residential buildings, which accounts for about 60% of the industry revenue.
Sales & Marketing
Finance & Regulation
Regional & International Issues
Also includes the following chapters:
Quarterly Industry Update
Trends and Opportunities
Call Preparation Questions
Glossary of Acronyms | <urn:uuid:f519eaf6-7653-4b90-aa80-bc9e1334c9b1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://data.bvresources.com/FRProfilesExcerptIndustry.asp?id=243&name=Framing%20Contractors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572581.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816211628-20220817001628-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.927457 | 373 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Last Updated on February 4, 2019 by admin
Windows 10 provides us with the flexibility to pin an item to the taskbar for quicker access. However, pinning an external drive to your taskbar is not as simple as it sounds. You cannot just right click on the external drive icon and pin it to your taskbar. Therefore, in this article, we will explain to you the method through which you can pin an external drive to your taskbar in Windows 10.
Pinning an External Drive to your Taskbar in Windows 10
In order to pin an external drive to your taskbar in Windows 10, you will need to perform the following steps:
Right click on any empty area of your desktop in order to launch a cascading menu as shown in the following image:
Click on the New option from the cascading menu and then select Text Document option from the sub-cascading menu as highlighted in the image shown above.
As soon as you will do this, a new text file will be created on your desktop.
You can name this text file according to your choice but it will be more appropriate to name with the same drive letter that you want to pin to your taskbar. In this example, I have named the text file as EDrive. Moreover, you also need to change the extension of that file from .txt to .exe. For doing this, type the name of your file followed by .exe extension as shown in the image below:
Once you have renamed the text file and changed its extension, right click on its icon to launch a menu as shown in the following image:
Click on the Pin to Taskbar option from this menu as highlighted in the image shown above.
After this step, the icon of your .exe file will start appearing on your taskbar as highlighted in the image shown below:
Right click on the icon of your .exe file in order to launch a pop-up menu as shown in the following image:
Now right click on the name of your .exe file from the pop-up menu and then select the Properties option from the other pop-up menu as highlighted in the image shown above.
As soon as you will click on it, the EDrive Properties window will appear on your screen as shown in the image below:
Now you need to modify the Target and the Start in fields.
Type the drive letter of your external drive followed by a colon and a backward slash in both the Target and Start in fields as highlighted in the following image:
Now you need to make the external drive icon look more appropriate. For doing this, click on the Change Icon button as highlighted in the image shown below:
Choose any icon of your choice from the given icons list as shown in the following image:
After selecting the desired icon, click on the OK button in order to close the Change Icon dialogue box.
Finally, click on the Apply button and then click on the OK button in order to save your settings.
Once you manage to perform all these steps, you can easily connect your external drive with your computer system. Whenever you will click on the external drive icon present on your taskbar, you will be redirected to your actual external drive.
By following the method discussed in this article, you can easily pin any external drive to your taskbar in Windows 10. However, if at any instance, you do not feel the need of that drive icon on your taskbar anymore then you can simply right click on it and then select Unpin from Taskbar option from the pop-up menu. | <urn:uuid:3cd731de-8c6e-422d-a149-a6dedd5c79f9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://archive.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/how-to-pin-an-external-drive-to-your-taskbar-in-windows-10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.921004 | 730 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Mobility Lab of the University of Tartu is an interdisciplinary research group that studies human mobility and its associations with society and the environment using mobile (big) data.
By understanding human mobility at a range of spatial and temporal scales, we aim to develop better knowledge of many socio-spatial phenomena occurring within and across our cities, regions, and countries. With open data, methods, tools, and research results, we aim to better understand our society while supporting evidence-based decision-making and smart governance towards a sustainable future.
Topics. Our research interests include diverse topics related to human mobility such as human presence and spatial mobility, social networks and socio-spatial inequalities in activity space, environmental exposure and urban sustainability, tourism and transnational lifestyles, as well as dynamic populations and crisis management. Since the 2000s, we have been the pioneers of mobile phone data based research and methodological development for governance and official statistics.
Data. We use both passive (i.e., CDR/DDR) and active mobile phone data from network operators. We have developed a smartphone application called MobilityLog for collecting GPS, call activities, and phone use data enriched with survey and sensor data. Our rich data sets are stored in the Infotechnological Mobility Observatory, which is an innovative and comprehensive data bank that supports diverse mobility research in collaboration with our partners.
Action. We carry out our mission through cutting-edge research and applied science projects, teaching on all study levels, and via individual supervision of students and early career researchers. We leverage our knowledge and expertise to society through public presentations and open courses, open data and methods, and the popularisation of science. Since 2008, we have been organising the Mobile Tartu biennial conference, which brings together leading scholars, researchers, and professionals to discuss the latest research and applications in human mobility and mobile big data.
History. The Mobility Lab was founded in 2004 by the late Professor Rein Ahas. He envisioned how mobile phone data—reflecting social flows in time and place—could be used for organising and planning public life (see more from the Social Positioning Method from Ahas, Mark 2005). Since inception, the Mobility Lab has been an inspiring academic environment for a whole generation of young people who use mobile big data for socially influential research. The academic legacy of Professor Ahas continues to grow and develop dynamically through research, education, outreach, and application. The biennial Mobile Tartu conference features a Rein Ahas Lecture Series, which is dedicated to the memory of Rein, a visionary and extraordinary scholar.
Photo: Janika Raun
Photo: Janika Raun
Photo: Tiit Grihin | <urn:uuid:a7f57d4c-4c79-466e-9797-12b516694ba6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mobilitylab.ut.ee/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.917093 | 550 | 2.1875 | 2 |
In the old days at the start of this century, the Chief Executive of the NHS was the man in charge, clearly accountable for NHS success or failure at national and local level.
True, politicians occasionally ‘interfered’, as well they might given their direct accountability to Parliament and the electorate. Some did so more than others. Alan Milburn famously filled all the executive positions from CEO to HR Director. His writ ran to the operation of a hospital morgue in Bedford.
This may not have been the best way to run the service – it certainly had its limitations and faults – but one knew who was accountable.
Now power has been divided. Six national organisations have responsibility for my health and health care – NHS England, Care Quality Commission (CQC), Monitor, The Trust Development Authority, Public Health England (do they count as an agency of the Department of Health?) and the Department itself. Perhaps I should also now include the Competition Commission.
Reasonable questions any tax payer should ask are who is in charge and who is accountable for what is provided for me in return
Each will rightly say they are statutorily accountable for what they do. But quite where their responsibilities begin and end isn’t so clear and is shifting.
But two or three years down the line, after Francis inspired regulation, more vigorous inspection and star ratings, poor care in a hospital might be seen to be just as much their responsibility as that of any other national organisation, probably more so than NHS England which might commission few if any services from it.
But, perhaps surprisingly, NHS England was commissioned by the East Anglian Quality Surveillance Group to undertake a rapid review, following a CQC inspection into Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn. They also chaired the risk summit involving nine statutory organisations.
It seems a very complicated way of doing things: a ‘commissioning’ remit from a non-statutory body without any formal status, and a ‘summit’ chaired by an organisation with no formal accountability for its operation or responsibility for what followed. Maybe this is a sign of how difficult it will be to get a grip on major reconfiguration proposals.
And then there is the Department of Health and Secretary of State, intended to take a step back under the Lansley reforms. But Jeremy Hunt’s proposals for refreshing the Mandate and the seeming competing policy activity make this look less rather than more likely. A different Secretary of State would see yet a further change, whatever the law originally intended.
I draw two conclusions from this. First, we have no choice over the taxes we pay to fund the NHS. Reasonable questions any tax payer should ask are who is in charge and who is accountable for what is provided for me in return. The answers are currently opaque and changing under the fog.
Second, the job of NHS Chief Executive has changed significantly over the past decade. Some think it has become smaller, being one of several at the top table. But, we will continue to demand the Chief Executive to be visibly accountable for the NHS and on that score the role is in danger of having responsibility without power.
Simon Stevens has a tougher prospect than past Chief Executives if only because of that.
McKeon A (2013) ‘Who shall we hold to account?’. Nuffield Trust comment, 30 October 2013. https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/who-shall-we-hold-to-account | <urn:uuid:00f47b1f-5e8f-45fb-9e41-7ae10fade846> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/who-shall-we-hold-to-account | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571909.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813051311-20220813081311-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.967766 | 729 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The World Cup is now over and the vast majority of the country’s workforce is now back to the normal routine. However, for a handful of workers, there will still be the hangover of potential criminal proceedings, usually following incidents involving too much drink and boisterous celebrations.
Q Will employers be able to take disciplinary action against these employees?
A This situation highlights a difficult issue for the employer. Where a criminal offence is committed in the workplace, the option of dismissal is a relatively easy-to-reach conclusion. However, being drunk and disorderly, committing assault and hooliganism, while unpleasant, are not usually connected to an employee’s day-to-day duties, so disciplinary action may often not be appropriate.
Q Are there circumstances where being drunk outside the workplace would be grounds for a fair dismissal?
A An employer will rarely have fair grounds to dismiss an employee just because they have drunk too much alcohol outside the workplace. It would be likely to infringe human rights to restrict the conduct of the employee to that extent. However, there may be exceptions where the nature of the business and the employee’s position would make such behaviour unacceptable. For example, there may be health and safety issues, and the employer may have a policy that restricts the right of the employee to drink alcohol even out of hours. This sort of rule may apply to bus drivers or aeroplane pilots. In such a situation, any human rights issue would be counter-balanced by the right of the employer to take steps to ensure safety.
In areas where safety is not critical, tribunals are increasingly suggesting that employees who have a drink problem should be treated as being unwell and that, rather than invoking the disciplinary process, employers should follow the capability procedure instead.
Q Would there be grounds for dismissal if a manager was charged with a drink-related offence, such as being drunk and disorderly or assault?
A Even in circumstances where a manager has been charged with a criminal offence connected to drinking, it may not be grounds for dismissal. Again, it will depend upon the particular facts. Before deciding on what action to take, you should take into account their duties and assess whether the conviction will have any impact on their ability to do the job. Clearly, higher standards will be expected of a senior employee.
Q What if there is a report in the press about the charges and the organisation is mentioned in the report?
A It would be unusual for the employer to be mentioned in a press report where the allegations are completely unconnected to the workplace. However, if the report has caused bad publicity for your organisation and there is a potential impact on the business, there may be grounds for dismissing the employee. For the purposes of defending a claim in the tribunal, the dismissal would be for ‘some other substantial reason’ since the employee’s conduct has brought the business into disrepute, even though it may not have breached any company rules.
Q Would it make any difference if the employee was charged with using or being in possession of drugs?
A In dealing with claims of unfair dismissal, tribunals appear to be less sympathetic to claimants who have been under the influence of drugs rather than alcohol. This is probably due to the fact that taking drugs is against the law, whereas the employee who has been drinking alcohol has not committed a crime.
You would need to take into account all the circumstances, including the type of drugs, the amount involved, the charges and, most importantly, the duties of the employee. Whether a drug conviction would prevent an employee from continuing their work could depend on the nature of the job – for example, if it involved having access to drugs in a hospital or care home.
Q What if the employee is given a custodial sentence?
A If the employee has been sent to prison, then you should consider the length of the sentence and make enquiries as to when they would be available for work. An employee may be able to return to work much quicker than the period to which they have been sentenced due to early release arrangements. You will need to take into consideration the firm’s resources and the impact of the employee’s absence. If the employee has a key role and the sentence is for a long period of time, then it may be reasonable for you to dismiss them. If the sentence is short and there are sufficient resources to cover their role on a temporary basis, it may be wiser to wait. | <urn:uuid:5af06e02-1049-46f1-9207-eab955be826d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/legal-qa-world-cup-offences/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.970285 | 912 | 1.65625 | 2 |
As is common during this time of the year, a few pumpkins are sacrificed for the name of science. :)
This activity at Chico State University demonstrated that, lo and behold, gravity still works, and not because the earth really sucks. The fun part of the whole thing is that they had people dressed up as famous scientists - Albert Einstein, Aristotle, Galileo Gallilei and Isaac Newton - to explain the physics of gravity to the audience.
The thing we go to to get students and the public understand basic physics. And those poor pumpkins! | <urn:uuid:96a72bc1-e131-4052-83ef-94daf968939b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://physicsandphysicists.blogspot.com/2008/10/pumpkins-prove-that-gravity-still-works.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00401-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959304 | 113 | 2.0625 | 2 |
We are amid one of the largest wealth transfers in generations. It is important to have your estate planning documents in place and to make sure those documents stay current. This helps your family understand your wishes and direct them to be good stewards of the family wealth. At AEGIS Financial, we work with our client to prepare the next generation for an upcoming inheritance. Each of the following are important steps to consider when creating a wealth transfer plan.
Conduct Family Meetings
It is never too early or too late to begin a dialogue with your family regarding death and inheritance. While some may believe this conversation to be uncomfortable, these meetings can create a bonding experience between generations, providing financial education, life skills and the understanding of a parent’s or grandparent’s morals, values and wishes. We help our clients, their families and beneficiaries to cover topics such as financial planning, college funding, taxes, retirement planning, charitable giving, wealth transfer, and many others.
Teach Basic Financial Literacy Skills
It is important for families to instill financial values prior to receiving an inheritance. As professionals, we assist our clients with helping those heirs understand the significance of financial literacy. The life skills we discuss include:
At AEGIS Financial, we have financial programs for every investor. We have many four generation families that we serve.
Connect With Your Tax Professional and Wealth Management Team to Protect Your Wealth
We encourage clients to bring their heirs and/or other beneficiaries along to meetings to understand that they have trusted professionals to assist with financial decisions. Some benefits from including additional family members include:
Our team will walk you and your heirs through the entire financial process to ensure we address asset protection from a tax and financial standpoint.
Sharing the Different Wealth Transfer Strategies
Bringing heirs to meetings with the wealth management team assists clients with communicating how they may receive their inheritance. Some of these conversations include:
A Quick Note on Charitable Giving
If giving is important to you and your family, share these goals with your heirs, so they can continue to use your family’s wealth to help others. By communicating these wishes and having them participate with your giving, you will continue to keep your legacy alive for many years to come. Some families have created a family foundation with mission statements to communicate their wishes for future charitable giving.
These tools and strategies have proven to be very successful for our clients and allows future generations to be great stewards of their loved one’s wealth, as well as educating the next generation on the value of money and how to use it wisely. If you have not considered a family meeting, we encourage you seriously consider. Please be sure to alert your AEGIS Relationship Manager if you have someone who will be attending a future meeting, so your management team is prepared.
We can help regardless of the value of your accounts or the complexity of your estate. If you are interested in having our team assist you and your loved ones with any or all the above concepts, please let us know and we would be happy to meet with you and your family’s next generation.
If you are struggling to figure out what to do now that your Oshkosh Corporation Pension is terminating, please read on. The team at AEGIS […] | <urn:uuid:bbf78421-6ff7-4b26-b730-220616f39277> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.aegisfinancialplanners.com/blog/wealth-transfer-is-your-family-ready/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.949647 | 664 | 1.5 | 2 |
In the wake of President Obama's economic policy speech, conservative media have refocused their attention to an outlandish comparison of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and job creation during the Obama administration, ignoring the fact that most SNAP participants are either children or are employed and that the program is considered an effective form of economic stimulus that can help create jobs and alleviate poverty.
Conservative Media Misleadingly Compare Job Creation And Nutrition Assistance
Fox's Kilmeade: Two Americans Added To Food Stamp Program For Every Job Created Under Obama Administration. On the July 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade compared job creation during the Obama administration to increased participation in nutrition assistance, claiming that two people were enrolled in SNAP for every job the Obama administration created. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/25/13]
Breitbart: Two Americans Added To Food Stamp Rolls For Every New Job. Linking to a CNSNews.com article, Breitbart.com's Warner Todd Huston compared jobs created to the growing enrollment in the nutrition assistance program as proof of Obama's failed economic agenda:
The White House has been touting the success of its economic agenda recently, claiming to have created 7.3 million jobs. But a look at the growing rolls of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) shows that for every job the administration says it created, two Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls. [Breitbart.com, 7/24/13]
Washington Times: Ratio Of Food Stamp Recipients To Job Creation Is 2-To-1. Citing Breitbart.com, The Washington Times claimed 16 million more recipients were added to SNAP registries since 2008:
In January of 2009, more than 32 million Americans received help from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which doles out food stamps. In April 2013, that number grew to almost 48 million. That means almost 16 million more American have jumped on the food stamp bandwagon since President Obama took office in 2008, Breitbart reported.
Meanwhile, the White House most recently claimed the creation of 7.2 million jobs, Breitbart reported.
Do the math: The ratio of food stamp recipients to job creation under Mr. Obama since 2008 is 2-to-1. [The Washington Times, 7/25/13]
Comparison Of SNAP Enrollment To Job Growth Ignores That Millions Of Participants Have Jobs, Are Children, Elderly
More Than Half Of SNAP Participants Are Children, Elderly. According to a 2012 Department of Agriculture report on characteristics of households that receive SNAP, 45 percent of participants were under age 18 and nearly 9 percent were age 60 or older. [Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, November 2012]
Many SNAP Participants Have Jobs. According to the USDA report summary, more than 30 percent of SNAP households had income in 2011, and 41 percent of total participants lived in a household with earnings. [Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, November 2012]
Growing Number Of SNAP Participants Predates Obama Administration. According to the 2012 report from the USDA, the number of SNAP participants grew substantially during the early 1990s. The number of eligible SNAP participants also began to rise in 2001, and the number of eligible households has increased almost every fiscal year through 2011:
SNAP participants declined steadily through 2000 but began to rise in 2001 and increased each year through 2011, except for a slight dip in 2007. The increase was substantial from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2011. Average monthly participation increased from 17.2 million individuals in fiscal year 2000 to 40.3 million in fiscal year 2010, and to 44.7 million in fiscal year 2011. [Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, November 2012]
And Spending On SNAP Can Spur Economic Growth, Creating Jobs
CBPP: "Economists Consider SNAP One Of The Most Effective Forms Of Economic Stimulus." According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), "Economists consider SNAP one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus. Moody's Analytics estimates that in a weak economy, every dollar increase in SNAP benefits generates $1.70 in economic activity." CBPP also noted: "Similarly, CBO rated an increase in SNAP benefits as one of the two most cost-effective of all spending and tax options it examined for boosting growth and jobs in a weak economy." [CBPP, 7/9/12]
Economist Mark Zandi: "Extending Food Stamps Is The Most Effective Way To Prime The Economy's Pump." In his July 24, 2008, testimony before the House Committee on Small Business, Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com, stated:
An effective stimulus package could include a gas tax holiday, expansion of the food stamp program, a payroll tax holiday, aid to state governments, extension of the investment tax incentives, and increased infrastructure spending. The biggest lift from this stimulus would go to lower-income households struggling to pay soaring gasoline and food prices and to small businesses getting hit hardest in the current downturn.
Extending food stamps is the most effective way to prime the economy's pump. A $1 increase in food stamp payments boosts GDP by $1.73. People who receive these benefits are very hard-pressed and will spend any financial aid they receive within a few weeks. Because these programs are already operating, increased benefits can be quickly delivered to recipients. [Economy.com, 7/24/08]
Conservative Attacks Undermine Importance of Nutrition Assistance
Majority Of Nutrition Assistance Goes To Individuals In Poverty. According to the 2012 report from the USDA, the majority of SNAP expansion since 2009 has gone to individuals living in poverty. In fiscal year 2011, the most recent data available, 83 percent of recipients lived in households at or below the federal poverty guideline. [Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, November 2012]
CBPP: SNAP Kept Nearly 5 Million Out Of Poverty In 2011. CBPP's Off the Charts blog stated that SNAP kept 4.7 million people, including 2.1 million children, out of poverty in 2011. The CBPP also noted that the program also "helped almost 47 million low-income Americans to afford a nutritionally adequate diet in a typical month."
SNAP Has Extremely Low Rates Of Fraud And Abuse. According to the USDA, SNAP fraud has fallen from 4 cents on the dollar in 1993 to roughly 1 cent on the dollar from 2006 to 2008, the most recent data available. More than 99 percent of recipients are SNAP eligible, with a payment accuracy of 96.2 percent in 2011, an all-time high. [Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, accessed 7/25/2013 and 7/25/2013] | <urn:uuid:d55cbef5-1be6-4ac7-afcc-3b8643fb486a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.mediamatters.org/research/2013/07/25/right-wing-media-forward-bogus-food-stamp-compa/195061 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00337-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938343 | 1,371 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Explore the Design Museum On Your iPad
The Design Museum Collection for iPad is a collection of 59 featured objects from London’s Design Museum. The collection includes items that changed the way we work, items that changed the way entire categories of products are designed, and some items that are notable just for being different. As you browse through the collection you can read about the items, watch videos about them, and listen to museum curators talk about what makes the items notable.
The Design Museum Collection for iPad is a free app. To use this app in your classroom have your students browse through the items in a category then suggest other items that they think deserve recognition for their significant design features. Or ask your students to pick a favorite item from a category and design improvements to it. | <urn:uuid:e558637c-a50a-4c22-836a-49f53fcd7a52> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ipadapps4school.com/2013/02/28/explore-the-design-museum-on-your-ipad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00111-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947454 | 157 | 2.328125 | 2 |
I love learning random things. If I had to describe my intelligence I would use the phrase “an inch deep and a mile wide,” meaning I know a little bit, about a lot of stuff. I’m obviously not the smartest PF blogger out there, but as long as I know enough, hopefully I can trick you people in to coming back (and maybe even subscribing too).
I thought I’d mix things up a bit today and post up a handful of random “Did you know facts” that relate to personal finance (along with some that don’t). Most of you probably already know these things, but hopefully at least one of these facts will be new to you…
Did you know… That you can withdraw your contributions to your Roth IRA at any point, tax/penalty free. If you want to take out any gains, you can also do so tax/penalty free if the money is used for education or your first home (some limitations apply).
Did you know… As of 2010 it costs the U.S. Mint 1.79 cents to make a penny. Time to get rid of the penny?
Did you know… I have a fear of falling asleep in public.
Did you know… That if you take out a 401K loan and are fired or laid-off you HAVE to pay the loan back really quick (usually in less than 60 days), otherwise you will suffer some major tax and penalty issues. Think twice before borrowing that money for a new kitchen.
Did you know… The stock market has always given the best return on investment over a long time horizon.
Did you know… I’m still not convinced dinosaurs ever existed. Conspiracy theory?
Did you know… Every time you use your debit or credit card, the merchant has to pay a fee (usually 1% to 3%) to Visa, MasterCard, etc. If you donate on your credit card that means the charity is in effect getting 3% less than what you intended to give (this adds up over time).
Did you know… That the national personal savings rate hovers between 0 and 5 percent each year. That’s pathetic.
Did you know… If you make minimum payments on a $5,000 credit card bill (at 19% interest) it will take you over 30 years to pay the card off, and cost you more than $14,000 in interest.
Did you know… I use to have a pet iguana I named Ziggy after a character in my favorite show, Quantum Leap.
Did you know… If you make over $20,000/year you are in the top 12% of income earners in the world. Perspective?
Did you know… That on top of your down payment you need to be prepared to pay up to another 3% of the homes value on closing costs. If you put 20% down on a $300,000 and have to pay closing costs, you need $69,000 in the bank.
Did you know… That I played in a flag football tournament this weekend and our team-name was “The Frolicking Flamingos.” And in case you are wondering, we won!
Alright, that’s where I’ll end my “Did you know facts” but hopefully you will add a few more to the list. What are some of your favorite “financial facts”? Was there anything on the list you didn’t know about? | <urn:uuid:a78e459a-d2b9-4d3f-9783-f94f0c2ef262> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.punchdebtintheface.com/did-you-know-fact/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280899.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00575-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951719 | 725 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Vermonters beware: Unemployment scams on the rise. How to avoid falling victim.
The Vermont Department of Labor is warning residents who filed for unemployment to be careful of scams that have recently emerged online.
These phishing attempts are happening nationally through social media, according to alerts from the National Unemployment Insurance Fraud Task Force. Fraudulent social media pages are attempting to communicate directly with people who have claimed unemployment insurance.
Vermont labor officials are warning residents to only contact the department's office through official or verified means.
How to detect unemployment scams
Vermont's Labor Department issued a series of tips to ensure Vermonters avoid falling victim to the scam attempts.
- Vermont's Department of Labor will never charge a fee to file unemployment claims. Any call in which the person claims to be from the Labor Department and asks for payment is a scam. Department officials say they will never ask for payment over the phone to establish or review an unemployment claim.
- Websites that state that, for a fee, they can assist people in filing for unemployment benefits or finding a job are fraudulent. Often, these sites ask for personal identifying information, such as a person's Social Security number. People filing for unemployment in Vermont should only use the official Department of Labor website when filing an unemployment claim: labor.vermont.gov.
- Claimants who want to contact the Labor Department through social media should do so only through the department's official accounts. These interactions are typically limited, and representatives most often provide suggestions to contact Claimant Assistance, answers to simple inquiries and links back to the department's official website. In some instances, limited account info may be requested to assist people with their requests.
- Do not send photos of personal documents (driver's license, birth certificate or social security card) to anyone without a "vermont.gov" email address. Scammers will often ask for copies of these documents to be uploaded or mailed to them.
- Vermont's Department of Labor will never contact a person through a third-party agency or outside agent to solicit applications for unemployment insurance.
- Vermont labor officials will never require unemployment claimants to mail personal information to an out-of-state address. Any correspondence will be associated with the department's official mailing address inside the state.
How to report suspected fraud
Suspected fraudulent activity can be reported to the Vermont Attorney General's Office's Consumer Protection Unit at 800-649-2424.
Vermonters who want to contact the labor department should first visit labor.vermont.gov for the most up-to date information or contact the Claimant Assistance Center directly at 1-877-214-3332.
Contact Elizabeth Murray at 802-651-4835 or firstname.lastname@example.org. Follow her on Twitter at @LizMurrayBFP. | <urn:uuid:bbc78c4d-fd2f-4d77-84f3-0fd5a44d6f76> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2021/03/15/vermont-labor-dept-unemployment-scams-increasing-how-spot-fraud-vt/4698894001/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.910416 | 576 | 1.984375 | 2 |
In 1974, hundreds of thousands of Australians with a bank account in good standing received a piece of plastic in the mail: a credit card, known as a Bankcard, launched and operated by a consortium of Australian banks. In one swoop, a payment instrument that had been previously available to only the wealthy in Australia (through Diner’s Club and American Express) was now widely available with an unprecedented A$300 credit limit. It was a bold move and the flow of credit quickly got the attention of retailers who moved to wide credit card acceptance.
I thought of this bit of history when I read Kevin Kelly’s piecepredicting that Amazon.com’s Kindle would be free by the end of 2011. To be sure, if you extrapolate from the currently falling price of the Kindle, Amazon will be paying us to take them off its hands by next year. But gadget prices fall, especially in the face of competition. Is it really the case that eReaders, like credit cards, will be free to consumers?
Like credit cards, the profit stream from a Kindle is more than just the Kindle sales. While credit card associations make money off retailers who pay them fees to accept card transactions, Amazon makes money by selling electronic books. Handing someone a Kindle seems like a ticket to future book sales and profits for Amazon.
Amazon could just mail everyone a Kindle. But that would be an expensive proposition because, unlike credit cards, each Kindle costs Amazon money. According to iSuppli, about $185 a pop, oraround the same price that Amazon charges for the Kindle today. To be sure, Amazon doesn’t look like it is earning profits from Kindle sales themselves, but this is a far cry from having $185 walk out the door to millions of customers. Amazon would have to expect to make $185 from each of them (that’s $185 in profit, not just in sales). If Amazon makes around $3 per book, it would break even with 62 books per device. While that might be of great comfort to U.S. school teachers, it just seems implausible.
But even if the value proposition were more sensible, there is another reason a widespread Kindle giveaway isn’t likely to happen. Amazon doesn’t know whether any single person is going to be a high volume purchaser of books or not. One way it can ferret out this information is by charging for the device. By selling Kindles at cost, Amazon forces its consumers to reveal how they feel about their future state. If a consumer doesn’t expect to read much, it isn’t worth it. But someone who reads a lot stands to make their money bank on the relatively cheaper ebooks. The price selects for the right kind of consumer.
Amazon also has Apple and others to help them out. The Kindle app is available free for the iPad. The fact that iPads aren’t cheap performs the same kind of self-selection function, especially for consumers choosing between that and Amazon’s own device.
The banks in Australia didn’t quite face this problem. They knew their customers and particularly who they could trust with a credit card and who would likely be a heavy user. In some cases, Amazon has similar information. Recently, a two-year-old Kindle in my household developed screen problems. Worse, it was out of warranty. Suffice it to say, because I had purchased lots of books, I wanted to replace it. I rang Amazon in a vague hope they would give me a discount on a new one.
I was in for a surprise. Amazon immediately offered to replace it — free. And with free next day shipping! We buy ebooks regularly and so I guess we were considered sufficiently desirable customers that Amazon didn’t want us to be without our device for much more than 24 hours.
So Kindles can be free when Amazon can pre-identify you as a strong customer. But for anyone holding out for a lower price — especially lower than unit cost — I wouldn’t hold your breath.
If you’re wondering what became of Bankcard, it held on for more than 30 years until it was eventually replaced by the same banks that operate Visa and MasterCard in Australia, cards that could travel overseas. The broader network eventually won the day. | <urn:uuid:8068f17a-ee95-4228-b413-3085a9ba2c75> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://digitopoly.org/2011/04/07/the-kindle-does-not-want-to-be-free/?replytocom=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00679.warc.gz | en | 0.972845 | 890 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Its parent company, Big Food Group, said last week that the chain's 750 stores had suffered a modest decline of 0.2% in underlying sales in the 14 weeks to April 2.
But confidential information obtained by Financial Mail reveals that the position has since taken a sharp turn for the worse. In the week to Easter Saturday, Iceland's overall sales were down by 2.6% on Easter week in 2003.
Chief executive Bill Grimsey insisted last week that Big Food Group, which includes the Booker cash-and-carry operation and Woodwards Foodservice as well as Iceland, has improved its margins.
So profits for the financial year should be in line with analysts' expectations of £50 million.
This is despite some aggressive price-cutting. Iceland's latest deal offers eight items for £5 compared with more than £12 if they were sold at the normal price.
Grimsey is pinning his hopes for Iceland's revival on shifting the emphasis of the outlets away from frozen food and towards a convenience-store format. The company is aiming to convert six stores a week.
In last week's statement, Grimsey warned that 'the market place itself continues to experience greater competitiveness together with pressures on selling prices and costs. These factors are expected to intensify in the year ahead'.Reuse content | <urn:uuid:2afd24a7-86c9-4113-8b5c-01327f57a63b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.standard.co.uk/news/iceland-stores-rocked-by-sales-slump-6961957.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00128-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972168 | 265 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The syntax of HTTP URIs is defined in RFC1738 section 3.3.
Note that the Ruby URI library allows HTTP URLs containing usernames and passwords. This is not legal as per the RFC, but used to be supported in Internet Explorer 5 and 6, before the MS04-004 security update. See <URL:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834489>.
DEFAULT_PORT = 80
COMPONENT = [ :scheme, :userinfo, :host, :port, :path, :query, :fragment ].freeze | <urn:uuid:4230cc27-1711-4402-9a68-4cee9cf8a2fa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://apidock.com/ruby/URI/HTTP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00272-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.711217 | 123 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Plato was Socrates' pupil, and most of his best-known work is devoted to
recounting the philosophy of his master. Walking the streets of Athens,
Socrates dedicated his life to convincing people who thought they were
wise that they were in fact ignorant. At the same time, he sought to use
this very tactic as a means to encourage people to discover the truth for
themselves rather than trusting received wisdom. Socrates pursued these
aims through dialogues, in which he asked questions meant to deconstruct
apparent truths. Especially in earlier dialogues like the Meno,
this process of interrogation (the elenchus
) leads only to a
state of uncertainty about what originally seemed to be most clear. This
is what happens in the Meno,
in which the concept of virtue
(which people like Meno and Anytus assume to be clear to everyone)
is revealed to be a nearly total mystery.
Meno is Socrates' primary companion in the dialogue that bears his
name. Meno was a prominent Thessalian visiting Athens at the time of
the dialogue (about 402 BCE). He also makes an appearance in Xenophon's
where he is described as treacherous and greedy.
The definition of virtue is the central project in the Meno,
is never completed. The Greek word for virtue is arete,
refer both to individual virtues like courage or generosity or to the
general virtue of a given person. In the Meno,
the word is
sometimes used interchangeably with "the good"--this is where it gains its
most general sense.
Meno's home city-state. At the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates
notes Thessaly's recent reputation for wisdom, based largely on the
successful careers of Sophists like the famous Gorgias. In light
of the dialogue's illustration of the difficulty of knowing what
virtue is, this compliment comes to look more like a veiled accusation
Gorgias was one of the most well-known of the Sophists, and Plato devotes
a later dialogue to him. Here he serves primarily as the foremost example
of someone who claims to know what virtue is, and will give expansive,
grand answers to questions that Socrates wants to claim are actually
extremely difficult. Nonetheless, Gorgias gets off somewhat lighter than
the other Sophists, due mainly to his refusal to claim that he can
teach virtue (though he would apparently claim to know what it is). Meno
is a casual follower of Gorgias.
The Sophists were a class of rhetoricians and philosophers who were widely
hired as teachers in ancient Greece. The claims of the Sophists cover a
wide range, but they come under fire in the Meno
their claims to understand virtue (and to be able to teach it for a
fee). Socrates brings up the Sophists twice in the dialogue, both
times to suggest that they are the most likely candidates if one is
looking for a teacher of virtue. This suggestion is always somewhat
facetious, since Socrates presumably knows what he eventually
demonstrates--that no one can teach virtue because no one yet knows the
nature of it. Socrates dislikes the Sophists because they give grand,
expansive answers embellished with literary references rather than the
clear and concise definitions preferred by Socrates. In short, they
practice rhetoric rather than true philosophy. The Sophists also came
under fire from many prominent members of society (including Anytus,
who scorns them in the Meno
), who accused them of corrupting the
youth by destroying traditional ideals with specious wordplay. Gorgias
is the only Sophist named in the Meno
(apart from a passing
reference to Protagoras), and Socrates accords him less derision than the
others due to his relative modesty (Meno says that Gorgias never
claims to be able to teach virtue, only rhetoric).
is the primary method of Socratic philosophy.
Essentially a cross-examination, it proceeds by an intensive series of
questions and aims to lead the interviewee to conclude for himself that he
or she does not know what he or she thought (a state of uncertainty, or
, with regard to the topic at hand). The Meno
contains a compact model of the Socratic elenchus
examination of Meno's slave on questions of geometry.
In common speech, eidos
means "stature" or "appearance." Plato
uses it in a much broader sense in his dialogues, where it eventually
comes to denote the set of ideal forms of which all worldly things are
imperfect examples. These forms can be thought of as abstract models on
which things in the world are built. Forms are what all things of a given
kind (all chairs, all virtue, all health, etc.) have in common, and
the term is used in the Meno
primarily in this context.
Eventually, Plato will link the idea of forms with the idea of the eternal
soul, suggesting that the human soul comes to know the forms in its time
out of the human body (see his Phaedrus
). Here, however, he seems to be
using the term only to denote that which defines all instances of a given
thing (namely virtue).
A famous ancient philosopher of the physical world. He is cited in the
in the context of Socrates' definition of color, which
Socrates bases on Empedocles' concept of effluvia (the elements that enter
through our sense organs). The definition is an example for Meno to
follow in defining virtue, and Empedocles' name is dropped so that
Plato can draw a contrast between the Sophist style of definition (which
includes such eminent references) and the simple style of definition
encouraged by Socrates.
The state of uncertainty reached when one realizes one is ignorant of what
one thought one knew. This is the goal of most early Platonic dialogues,
and it is the state in which the Meno
closes. Socrates makes a
strong argument in the Meno
that one is better off knowing one's
own ignorance than falsely believing one knows the answer.
Anytus is a prominent Athenian statesman who enters the dialogue toward
the end. He has relatively few lines and contributes to the discussion
mainly by lending authority to Socrates' point that even the most
well-known and upstanding of men are clueless about virtue and the
possibility of teaching it. Anytus also makes a short, nasty speech
against the Sophists.
Theognis was a poet in the sixth century BCE, and Socrates quotes him
to show that even the most gifted and wisest of men are confused about
whether virtue can be taught (the lines Socrates quotes contradict
each other on this issue). | <urn:uuid:20adfb68-eb01-461d-b708-5616c0725f66> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/meno/terms.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00248-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95627 | 1,453 | 3.453125 | 3 |
3D modeling is the development of mathematical representations of the surfaces of inanimate or living objects in three dimensions using dedicated software. 3D modeling services manage the process of creating 3D content for clients and delivering a final product.
Outsourcing deliverables can usually be viewed as 2D renderings or images, or they can be explored as full 3D simulations. 3D modeling from 3D design company is an essential component of space planning, architecture, product design, animation, and more.
“Companies may lack the internal expertise to create 3D content. Or they may find that outsourcing 3D modeling is more cost-effective than building an internal team,” says Shawn Rothery, Director of 3D Content for Marxent.
“Software packages and file types supply varied requirements for realism, resolution, speed, and interactivity,” says Rothery. “Creating 3D content can be challenging to master since requirements can range from the creation of a technical CAD model to 3D game content.”
The Process of Working with a 3D Modeling Service
When working with a 3D modeling service, you can expect a process that usually encompasses the following:
Definition, to set project parameters
Design, for content generation
Test, for quality assurance
Delivery, when the product launches
One of the signs of a reputable firm is a transparent methodology that ensures quality and timeliness, including sharing information about progress over the life of the project. | <urn:uuid:593bd976-3cc0-46dd-9372-7dbd22bc6a4d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hosteriadelfrayle.com/understanding-what-are-3d-modeling-services/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.899032 | 312 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The good news is you can take quite a few liberties with your grip and stance. Understanding how to control distance, however, is the key component for your success on the greens.
After a short discussion on putters, I discuss what should be your main focus in putting.
Putting: Grip and Posture
One Hand Drill
This is a great exercise to train each hand individually, find a cause of distance issues or path problems.
3 Foot Putts and Aiming
Nobody likes to miss short putts. The more you rely on a routine the more putts you hole. This is really important when you get close to the cup as we tend to move our head (peak) or aim poorly. This video gives you a solid routine for your short putts.
High Handicappers start at Level 1 and work your way up. Here is your challenge for Putting
Level 1: Distance Control. Pick a putt about 15-20 feet in length. Hit 10 putts. Challenge is 7 within 3 feet for high handicappers. (9 within 3 feet for lower handicaps)
Level 2: Distance Control. Pick a putt about 20-30 feet in length. Hit 10 putts. Challenge is 6 within 3 feet for high handicappers. (8 within 3 feet for lower handicaps)
Level 3: Distance Control: Staying at one spot hit 3 different length long putts with 3 balls (1 ball to each hole). You get 1 try to get the distance correct. Challenge is 2 out of 3 within 3 feet.
Level 4: For everyone, Practice two putting. Pick a target and with one ball try to two putt. Set-up your own Challenge depending on the green. 9 holes and all two putts = 18. High Handicappers goal is 21. Low Handicapper is 18.
Challenge Level 5
The Circle Drill
The Circle Drill is amazing for practicing 3 foot putts from all different angles. The more confidence you have on these short putts the less pressure there is on your chipping and longer putts. This really helps decrease 3 and 4 putts.
Level 5: 3 Footers: Practice the Circle Drill from 3 feet. High Handicapper make 70% of the putts and low handicappers 80% (if you have ten tees from 3 feet make 7 or 8). SUPER CHALLENGE: You don’t get to leave until you make all the putts around the circle (in one try).
Challenge Level 6
The Ladder Drill is a putting drill that helps builds confidence on the green. It also is a great way to put a bit of pressure on yourself which makes you focus.
Level 6: Ladder Drill: High Handicapper do the drill. Low Handicapper, anytime you miss you have to start the Ladder over again. 🙂 | <urn:uuid:321f561e-15d7-48dd-b3f5-b1f3ea94180f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://masteryourgolfbrain.com/courses/7shot/putting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.918913 | 616 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Remember those days when you were a kid, and you had just been released from your class at the end of May to enjoy your summer. The anticipation for vacation, the joy of hanging out with friends, swimming at your grandparent’ house, those things filled your heart with such eagerness that you couldn’t possibly imagine doing anything of importance until that final bell rang and you were on your way. Then what happened? Summer actually came, you’ve already gone on vacation, you’ve hung out with your friends countless times, you’ve been to your grandparents’ house almost every night to swim, and now you found yourself telling your parents, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do.”
You probably laughed at how you would say that on more than one occasion, and then your parents would gripe at you, saying something like how they’d wish they could be bored like you. “Go play outside.” Or, “Read a book.” My mom’s favorite thing to say was, “If you’re bored, then clean the house.” She liked it when we were bored. But the thing is is that even as adults, we get incredibly bored. For me, that has come especially true over the past couple of weeks.
I have said, “I’m so bored,” more than ever in my young adult life. This is my first year teaching in public education (right, I picked the perfect year to start teaching, I know). We started off great, adapting to the situation, and learning how education works within a pandemic. However, it has been a month since we have gone entirely online. For some, that may not seem that bad. It’s definitely much safer. However, since teachers can work individually in their classrooms without students, our school decided that for the rest of the semester, that is what teachers will do. So I have been in my classroom without students, eight hours a day, five days a week for the past three weeks, and I have been so incredibly bored. Honestly, I don’t think I have ever been so bored.
I tried to keep myself preoccupied with different projects and assignments, hoping it would keep me distracted from being bored. And that is when it hit me: I am so bored that I am trying to distract myself from how bored I am. My gosh, such an ironic scenario!
Bored or Boring
A couple months ago, I came across someone who asked this question: would you rather be bored or boring? At first, it doesn’t seem like that significant of a question. Even for me, it didn’t seem like a drastic question. What I didn’t realize then was how I would ironically feel now. I answered that I would rather be bored. The reason then was that I was afraid to be boring because I wanted people to think that I was interesting and exciting. If I was bored, it would only be for a moment. How crazy is it now that I would kill to be boring just so I wouldn’t be bored!
The funnier thing about this is this: however you answer the question, it says the same thing about who you are. What do you mean? I mean that whether you say that you’d rather be bored or boring doesn’t matter. Either way, it says how much you rely on interesting things. Let me explain.
I Would Rather Be Bored
For me, I would rather be bored because I was afraid of being boring. When asked why I would rather be bored, I just said that I hated being boring. However, it’s deeper than just that. I did not want to be boring in front of other people. This has to do with a few things, but mainly two. The first is obvious, which is we live in a world that is idolized by interesting people. I meet people who constantly amaze me with how interesting they are. Anything from athleticism to musical talent to cool-colored hair and tattoos causes others to think that we are interesting. Our world basically requires us to be interesting to survive. Even those who say that they aren’t exciting and don’t want to be trendy actually stick out in an interesting, authentic (and just pure hipster) way. I read how a woman lives on her own, lives off the land, and just wants to live life with pure happiness and peace. That, to me, is so interesting and it makes me want to just drop everything and live off the grid just because I thought that she was so fascinating. We see how fascinating others are and our immediate reaction is one of two things: we immediately want to be like them, or we immediately hate who we are. We either think that they are super cool or that we are super boring.
The other thing that caused me to fear being boring is how exciting and interesting my close friends are. There is this strange idolization in my life, which is also almost some strange fear of mine, that I am the most boring person in my friend group. I fear that when I stand together with my friends, we laugh and cry and goof around, and while we’re doing so, other people look at us and think that we’re so interesting… except me. I think that I am the one that sticks out as the boring friend. So, to combat that, I try to outdo what other people are doing. I try to keep interesting things happening in my life. I listen to the most unique music or watch the most unique movies. I even try to change my perspective on life uniquely just so others think that even my thoughts aren’t boring.
I Would Now Rather Be Boring
It’s a problem, I know. However, there’s another issue with that. You see, I thought that the little moments of boredom would not compare to the dread of being boring. But what happens when those little moments of boredom stack on top of one another? You don’t think much of it at first, but then that stack gets bigger and bigger. It towers over you and you can no longer distract yourself. You feel tired with how bored you are, you’re exhausted, and now you just can’t seem to find any interest in doing anything. The thing about boredom is that it slowly sucks away your interest in things. When you lose interest, you lose feeling. And when you lose feeling… you become numb. For me, there is nothing more I fear than being numb. I fear being numb more than being bored or boring. Being numb to me means that I have lost that special feeling of feeling things, people, moments. I’ve just grown numb. Being numb is terrifying and being bored can lead you and me to that.
Now, being bored isn’t just being lazy. In more reality, being bored is more so the lack of interest in what you are doing. Sometimes it’s even the lack of interest in finding things to do. This can be caused by tiredness, stress, depression, or even too much busyness. So sometimes being bored isn’t cause by nor can it always cause laziness. Instead, it can be a lack of interest in what is happening in your life.
The Problem with Both Answers
The problem with both of those responses is that they are rooted in the same thing: the lack of interest. You’re boring because you have a lack of interest in your personality or in your character. You’re bored because you have a lack of interest in what you are doing in your life. The difference is that one is based on your identity and the other is based on your actions. When you fear being boring, you’re afraid that your identity, your personality, will lack interest. When you fear being bored, you’re afraid that your actions will lack interest. This does look different in everyone’s life. However, it tends to reveal the same thing: we idolize either being interesting or doing interesting things. Some idolize one or the other. I idolize both!
The problem is that as a Christian, I don’t need nor should I have any reason to idolize either one of those things. But I do! Why? Why do I idolize those things? Well, because I forget that I am supposed to be idolizing the image of Christ. I shouldn’t idolize interest in my character because God has excitedly created me in his image. I shouldn’t idolize my interest in my actions because God excitedly does his will through me, whether I realize it or not. My life is always interesting with God. Through the ups and downs and upside downs, there is never a dull moment. Now, this is way harder to actually come to the realization of. It’s so easy for us in our culture to be so sucked into the excitement of the world, to look for things to do or people to be just so we aren’t bored. But continuously, I am amazed by God, whether it’s in Scripture, in my life, in other people’s lives. I am stunned by the fact I am made in the image of God and that the image of God, Jesus, is the Spirit that lives within me. It’s a message that is told in Scripture time and time again. The image of God is Christ and that image lives within us. It’s an astonishing picture that should astound us each and every day. Even in the most random times can I be amazed by God and how he wants me to be so interested in who He is.
Just the other day, I began to think about how bored I was. I was driving around and was honestly quite irritated by how bored I was. Like… I was furious with how bored I was. I was furious because I realized that being so bored and disinterested in the things going on was actually taking me away from my joy for God. I was growing bitter, cold and even began to see how boredom caused me to sin in other areas of my life. Boredom was truly making me disinterested in who I was, what I was doing, who God was, and what God was doing. While driving, I could deeply feel this conviction, but I was trying to ignore it. I didn’t want to think about how bored I was, I just wanted to distract myself from that. I feared being bored. As I was heading home, I missed my turn just because I kept telling God, “No. No, I don’t want to talk about it. No, I don’t want to think about it. No. No. No. No. No.” I was so focused on not addressing how my boredom has changed my spiritual life that I missed my turn. For some reason, probably because I was already irritated about my day but also irritated about myself that I basically just yelled out, “Okay, fine! I’m bored. You win, God. So what? What do I do about it?” I then realized that God had been trying to get my attention in those moments that I was bored. In those moments when I seemed disinterested or I just wasn’t doing anything, God was trying to help me. He was trying to address my problems just so he could help. But I was so bored and was afraid of being bored that I tried to distract myself from being bored. Again, I know, incredibly ironic.
But that is the major problem with many people, including Christians. There are going to be moments in life when we are bored or even boring. We can’t be afraid of those moments. Better yet, we can’t be so engulfed in a culture that tells us we can’t be those things or have those moments that we begin to fear it. That fear then can turn into idolization. We have to be careful and continuously remember that we, as image-bearers of God, have no reason to be bored. We have the source of complete and eternal interest. Let us then be challenged to change our lack of interest in who we are or in what we are doing and turn it over to God to be then used in advantageous and life-changing ways. | <urn:uuid:fe151b55-bbb2-49fd-8732-8af9e8fdeff2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://imaspoon.blog/2020/12/15/would-you-rather-be-bored-or-boring/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.984366 | 2,587 | 2.03125 | 2 |
He adds the 19-page handbook brings together existing policies, agency directives and Office of Management and Budget policy in one place.
By putting privacy issues together in one place, Teufel says training becomes easier and more consistent as well.
“This document is far more concise and readable and more accessible to the average employee,” he says. “You get a better sense of what you are supposed to do and can more easily understand what needs to be safeguarded.”
The handbook addresses what sensitive data is, how to protect it, what should an employee do if they suspect an incident.
It also addresses 16 frequently asked questions (FAQs), including how employees can minimize the use of sensitive data and how should an employee dispose of sensitive data.
The handbook also shows employees how to encrypt data through pictures of drop down menus and step-by-step directions.
Teufel says the ability to encrypt data is important because many employees use e-mail or take data that may be sensitive out of the building because DHS is split up among several locations around Washington.
“The most significant to me on the list of FAQs is the discussion of securing data on portable devices,” he says. “It is not common for someone at DHS to walk down the hallway to discuss a matter. Mostly we use electronic means of communications.”
Additionally, the handbook addresses paper documents and how to ensure they are kept private and secure.
“People need to be cognizant of the danger of not locking paper documents up in a safe when they are not in use,” he says. “If you can’t encrypt it, put it under lock and key.”
Teufel says DHS is just now issuing this handbook for two main reasons: the first is they are complying with a 2007 OMB memo on safeguarding personal identifiable information; and second the maturity of the department’s privacy processes.
Teufel points to his office’s progress in updating almost 300 legacy system of records notices (SORNs) as an example of that maturity. When Congress put DHS together, the privacy office inherited a significant number of SORNs that needed to be updated.
Agencies must update their SORNs every three years or anytime there is a major change to a system. Agencies must write a SORN for any system that contains public records, what the agency is using the information for and how long it will it retain it.
Over the last two years, Teufel says his office has made it a priority to get them done.
He says his office in the final stages of sending all of its legacy SORNs to OMB for approval.
Teufel says the handbook is the latest in a number of guidances that his office has issues around privacy.
“We really have advanced the agenda of the department,” he says. “We’ve done a good job with training. We haven’t done everything we’ve wanted to do. I think training will be one of those areas that will see significant growth in the coming year.” | <urn:uuid:0b817a3b-ee90-4657-ba37-631ecd47e7e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://federalnewsradio.com/budget/2008/12/new-privacy-handbook-brings-consistency-to-dhs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719027.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00301-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947997 | 658 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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Clinical microbiology of coryneform bacteria
- G. Funke, A. von Graevenitz, J. Clarridge, K. Bernard
- Biology, EngineeringClinical microbiology reviews
- 1 January 1997
This review provides comprehensive information on the identification of c Coryneform bacteria and outlines recent changes in taxonomy and case reports claiming disease associations of coryneformacteria are critically reviewed.
Corynebacterium mucifaciens sp. nov., an unusual species from human clinical material.
- G. Funke, P. Lawson, M. Collins
- Biology, EngineeringInternational journal of systematic bacteriology
- 1 October 1997
Biochemical and chemotaxonomic characterization and comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that the unknown coryneform bacterium represented a new subline within the genus Corynebacterium, for which the name CoryneBacterium mucifaciens sp.
Coryneform Gram-Positive Rods
The 16S rRNA gene sequencing data demonstrate that the genera Corynebacterium and Turicella are more closely related to the partially acid-fast bacteria and to the genus Mycobacterium than to the other coryneform organisms covered in the chapter.
Evaluation of the VITEK 2 System for Rapid Identification of Medically Relevant Gram-Negative Rods
- G. Funke, D. Monnet, Chiara deBernardis, A. von Graevenitz, J. Freney
- Biology, MedicineJournal of Clinical Microbiology
- 1 July 1998
It is predicted that the VITEK 2 system in conjunction with the ID-GNB card would perform well under conditions of a routine clinical laboratory in identifying members of the family Enterobacteriaceae and selected species of nonenteric bacteria.
Comprehensive Study of Strains Previously Designated Streptococcus bovis Consecutively Isolated from Human Blood Cultures and Emended Description of Streptococcus gallolyticus and Streptococcus…
Emended species descriptions are given and it is recommended that both clinical microbiologists and infectious disease specialists avoid the designation S. bovis for true S. gallolyticus and S. infantarius strains in the future in order to get a clearer picture of the possible disease associations of these species.
Turicella otitidis gen. nov., sp. nov., a coryneform bacterium isolated from patients with otitis media.
- G. Funke, S. Stubbs, M. Altwegg, A. Carlotti, M. Collins
- Biology, MedicineInternational journal of systematic bacteriology
- 1 April 1994
It is proposed that the strains isolated from middle-ear infections should be classified in a new genus,Turicella, as Turicella otitidis gen. nov., sp.Nov, on the basis of the results of the phylogenetic analysis.
Multicenter evaluation of the updated and extended API (RAPID) Coryne database 2.0
It is concluded that the new API (RAPID) Coryne system 2.0 is a useful tool for identifying the diverse group of coryneform bacteria encountered in the routine clinical laboratory.
Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 11th Edition
There are some minor inaccuracies in a number of the subchapters throughout the book, but the impact of these and other inaccuracies on the reading experience as a whole, is minor.
Natural antibiotic susceptibility of Listeria species: L. grayi, L. innocua, L. ivanovii, L. monocytogenes, L. seeligeri and L. welshimeri strains.
- R. Troxler, A. von Graevenitz, G. Funke, B. Wiedemann, I. Stock
- Biology, MedicineClinical microbiology and infection : the…
- 1 October 2000
OBJECTIVE To investigate the natural susceptibility to 71 antimicrobial agents of 103 Listeria strains belonging to all known Listeria species (L. monocytogenes (N = 21), L. innocua (N = 21), L.…
Utility of PCR in diagnosing pulmonary tuberculosis
Compared a standardized PCR system (Amplicor; Roche) against conventional culture methods, it is shown that disease in more than 60% of the patients with tuberculosis with smear-negative, culture-positive specimens can be diagnosed at the time of admission, and potentially all patients with smear and culture positive specimens can immediately be confirmed as being infected with M. tuberculosis, leading to improved clinical management. | <urn:uuid:56621cb4-2476-4bb8-ad17-976b6e5a7499> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/G.-Funke/3212979 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.829406 | 1,015 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Erika and Jem Hunstad's son, Daeton, 6, is appearing in the Northern State University production of "Miss Saigon" today through Saturday. The play centers around the fall of Saigon, which essentially signaled the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. Erika, who now lives in Aberdeen, was living in Laos during the fall of Saigon and, even though she was only 10 years old, has vivid memories of fleeing the only home she'd ever known. Erika Hunstad was called Thuy Tran in 1975 when her father, May Tran, got word that the Viet Cong army was overtaking South Vietnam and Laos. As the mayor of Vientian, the capital city of Laos, May was privy to inside information and knew that staying in Vientian would be a certain death sentence. “When an army takes over a country they always conquer the capital city first,” said Thuy, who chose the name Erika when she became a U.S. citizen. May secretly sold their home with all the furnishings left in it. The new owner had to promise not to take over possession for two weeks after the sale. That night the family packed up their clothes and May had them shipped ahead to Thailand. Canoes waiting The next morning, the children packed their backpacks and headed off to school. But inside their backpacks were clothes rather than school books. They maintained the subterfuge of going to school like any normal day so as not to arouse suspicion. Instead of going in the school doors, they proceeded on to the Mekong River where their father had canoes waiting. He'd also called ahead and had vehicles ready on the other side of the river to drive them to Bangkok. “He (her father) knew exactly what time the guards would be going by,” said Erika, now 42. “When we left there were 32 of us, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. In my family alone there were eight children,” she said. “My aunt's side went shopping and lost track of time. They were late getting to the river and we were all on the other side waiting for them when we heard the army shooting at them. But they made it safely.” Erika, who describes the Mekong as being, at that point, about as wide as Mina Lake, saw the whole thing. During the dangerous journey, May Tran would have to hand out bribes at all points along the way. Military quarters In Bangkok, they contacted the U.S. embassy, and flew to the Philippines in a cargo plane that had no seats. The family stayed in the Philippines for four months, living in American embassy military quarters. Then they lived in Guam for 30 days, finally moving to a refugee camp in Camp Pendleton, Calif. “We lived in tents and all we had were what we were wearing and carrying. The clothes my father shipped to Thailand were all stolen.” Finally sponsorships were found for the family. “Fifteen went to Rapid City in September,” said Erika. “The rest of us were sponsored by the Zion Lutheran Church in Aberdeen. Everyone said, 'Don't go there, they don't have any rice.' When we got here, everyone seemed so white and so tall. We lived in a house with 17 people and only three or four bedrooms. Anytime anyone came to the door we'd all run and hide because we didn't know the language.” Scary Halloween The family arrived in Aberdeen about a week before Halloween. Eight confused children were only further terrified by the sight of all the monsters outside. Daeton plays the son of Kim, played by Angela Nguyen, in “Miss Saigon.” Erika and Jem's other children are Derek, 8, Jayda, 5 and Janae, 3. Erika returned to her homeland last April to find - nothing. “Vientian is no longer Vientian. My old neighborhood is flat. It's all gone,” she said. The bombs left no memories for Thuy Tran. | <urn:uuid:415dcba9-6e06-488a-b9e2-39d752cf0bfa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://articles.aberdeennews.com/2007-10-18/news/26398706_1_laos-miss-saigon-refugee-camp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00443-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988793 | 850 | 1.632813 | 2 |
UPDATE: A few people have asked, so we’ve released the source code for the tool in the download links below. We’re unable to make any modifications to it, as we’re no longer developing the tool internally, but feel free to modify it for your own needs, and contact us if you need any help with it. Unfortunately, the code isn’t the tidiest code around. Please note that all source and binary code is provided “as is”, without any warranty of any kind. Please see the website usage terms, at the bottom of the page, for more information.
A texture atlas, or sprite sheet, is a single image containing a number of smaller textures or sprites. This is useful as it is more efficient for the graphics card to process (it doesn’t have to keep switching textures when drawing different textures, as it can just use the single texture and sample from different parts of it). It is also faster to load into RAM, as you are only loading in one image, as opposed to several smaller ones, so the loading can be done in one stage.
NOTE: The documentation for the TXA file format states that the first value in the file is the number of sprites. In fact, the tool was updated to store the dimensions of the generated image as the first two ints in the file, followed by the format as described in the documentation. The documentation hasn’t been updated to reflect this, so be careful! 🙂
It is useful to be able to quickly and easily generate texture atlases from a number of source sprites to speed up development. A useful tool when developing using the XNA framework is the SpriteSheet Sample available on the XNA Creators Club website. One downside of this, however, is that you must still manually generate the XML file list by hand, which can be a pain if you have a lot of textures to place on the sprite sheet. Another is that it is XNA only 🙂
Because we also do development on the iPhone, it was useful to have a similar generator for that platform, as well as for the XNA framework, so we created a tool to easily generate the texture atlases for us. The packing code is based on the SpriteSheet Sample code, though the tool is written in plain .NET, so does not require the XNA framework to be installed (though it does require the .NET framework). The tool can produce a PNG file with the combined textures, as well as an accompanying binary file, called a TXA file, with the information on each of the packed textures. It also supports removing transparent borders from textures to produce a more compact output. It can also optionally produce a C style header with enums in, so you don’t have to look up the textures by their names.
The help files for the texture atlas generator tool contain information on the format of the TXA files, so you can write your own loaders if you wish.
As well as the PNG + TXA combination, the tool can produce an XNA XML file (and optionally a C# file with enums in) which can be imported into your Content project to build the sprite sheet during compile time. You do need to include the XNA projects in yours to access the Content Processor and runtime types. The runtime library also includes extensions to the SpriteBatch class, to make it easier to draw using the textures.
Finally, there is a runtime library to load the texture atlas on an iPhone. The iPhone code uses the PVRTexture class from Apple’s sample code, so you can convert the PNG to a PVR if you wish using Apple’s texturetool (though this can be problematic as the textures may ‘bleed’ into each other). The iPhone runtime library also requires zlib and libpng
Each zip contains a Readme.txt file containing license information and other tips. You’re pretty much free to do what you want with these things, use them however you see fit (commercial or non-commercial), but remember they are provided as-is, and we accept no responsibility for anything 🙂 We’ve tried to tidy them up to make them usable by other people, but if you’ve got any problems or questions, post in the comments and we’ll try and help. There may be bugs in these, so let us know if you find any! | <urn:uuid:23190561-3393-4928-87b1-c5147bd1ba1d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.gogo-robot.com/2010/03/20/texture-atlas-sprite-sheet-generator/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00217-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934324 | 916 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Our two cars are getting long in the tooth. I’d like to say I’ve been thinking about the next car I want to buy. However, I’ve been wondering whether I will get a next car at all. With the price of gas stuck in the stratosphere and the threat of global warming, perhaps it would better to forego a new car and just buy a horse instead.
According to the First Time Horse Buyers web page, a horse runs about five thousand dollars. The cheapest new car I could find was a base model Nissan Versa that ran almost three times as much. This is not a true comparison. New horses are actually much more expensive than grown “used horses”. One website puts the break even cost of a foal at almost thirty thousand dollars. Whether mechanical or organic, the initial purchase is just the beginning of the cost of ownership. Edmunds has a “True Cost to Own” calculator for cars. This includes estimated costs for fuel, maintenance, repairs, insurance, taxes and depreciation. I couldn’t find an equivalent equine calculator, but I tried to figure out the costs as close as possible.
The average new car lasts about eight years. The average horse has a life expectancy of twenty five years. Results vary; race horses may only live ten years. While I couldn’t find hard data, I assume sports cars don’t last as long as minivans. Cars run on gas, horses run on hay. The average horse eats about half a bale of hay every day, roughly twenty pounds. Horses eat every day, whether or not they are used. The price of horse fuel goes up and down like automobile fuel, actually for the same reason. Tractors are used to harvest hay and tractors run on oil based fuel. The higher the price of oil, the higher the price of hay.
Cars require regular maintenance. Horses do too. Expect to change the oil in a car and deworm a horse every few months. The hourly rate for an equine veterinarian is comparable to a mechanic at a Nissan dealer. However, vets make house calls. Nissan doesn’t. Horses require annual vaccinations and periodic checkups. A Versa has a similar maintenance schedule. One advantage of a car is tires. Car tires can last a few years whereas a farrier will be required for horseshoes about every six weeks.
Horses need a place to live. Stall size is based on how tall the horse is at the shoulder. This is measured in “hands”. A small pony can be squeezed into a stall eight feet square. I have a two-car garage or a one-Clydesdale garage. If I lived in the city, a horse would need to be boarded somewhere. This runs about five hundred dollars a month. However, a parking spot in Chicago can cost twenty thousand dollars. Advantage: horse.
The deal breaker for me is performance. While the Versa is not the fastest car in the world, horse acceleration is unacceptable. A horse goes zero to sixty in… never. I don’t do much off road riding where a horse might have the advantage. It’s illegal to ride a horse on the tollway in Illinois, probably because they charge based on the number of axles. The base engine in a Nissan Versa generates 109 horsepower. The average horse generates – well – one horsepower. | <urn:uuid:fb5542df-1455-4e1d-84f4-25fe41c4b6ed> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://radioflyer1980.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/of-hooves-and-horsepower/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00131-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952865 | 709 | 1.992188 | 2 |
There are lots of different bits of software that Windows 10 users can install. Take Rufus, for example, which is a small utility that can be used to format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as memory sticks. Download Rufus from Kubadownload if this sounds like something that could be useful to you. Then there is also WordPress.
WordPress is the most popular blogging or CMS platform. Some claim it to be the no.1 content management system out there powering almost 25% of the entire web. That’s quite incredible. Isn’t it?
WordPress is the most popular blogging or CMS platform. However, there are various platforms such as social media channels and YouTube (you can find out which is the best niche for youtube here if interested) that people typically use to achieve success for their businesses or brands. In fact, they do gain popularity from these mediums also. Sometimes more than WordPress at times! Nevertheless, there are some people that claim it to be the no.1 content management system out there powering almost 25% of the entire web. That’s quite incredible. Isn’t it?
One of the reasons is that you can test different features locally first before actually applying on your “live” website. Some people like having a web hosting server along with downloading WordPress. M247.com is just one example of a web hosting service you could install with WordPress.
Having WordPress locally installed on your machine can also prove to be useful when you want to play around with its features and learn new things. Check out new themes, templates, and plugins etc. Of course, you’d never want your live website to be your lab rat.
So in this article, we will discuss how to install WordPress locally on a Windows 10 machine.
Before doing that, there’s one prerequisite that you need to take care of. And that’s installing a server.
Usually, how it goes is that you install a server and then install the WordPress on top of it. WordPress cannot run without having any server installed on your computer. Additionally, in this article, I’ll be assuming that you’re going to use the WAMP server and have Windows 10 (64-Bit) installed on your PC.
Fortunately, in the last article, we discussed how to install the WAMP server on Windows 10 (64-Bit) machine. I’d suggest that you read this article before going any further, come back and then continue from below.
How to Install WordPress Locally on Windows 10
#1. Download the Latest WordPress Files
WordPress is an open source platform so you can get it free from their website (note that open-source does not necessarily mean “Free”).
#2. Unzip the Compressed WordPress Files
Once you have the WordPress downloaded, unzip the WordPress files in the “root” folder of the WAMP server. They usually have a folder with the name of “WordPress”. This folder contains all the files that need to run WordPress effectively.
The root server is where your WAMP server is installed.
#3. Start the WAMP Server
Start your WAMP server. Make sure that the icon is green, indicating that all the services are up and running. Read my article to gain an idea about installing the WAMP server and how to start it.
#4. Log on to WordPress Using your Browser
Once the WAMP server starts running, open up your internet browser and type the following in it
This will initiate the WordPress installation wizard a.k.a “WordPress five-minutes installation process”. Select the language that you want to use and then click, “Continue”
#5. WordPress Database Configuration
You may need to configure the database for your WordPress website. Remember, we started the WAMP server above?
Although, there are around 3-4 databases already in the WAMP server but we will create a new one for the WordPress. So you will need to provide the following information of your database.
- Database Name
- Database Username
- Database Password
- Database Host
- Table Prefix
Here’s an image:
Click “Let’s Go” to start entering your information. Read below how you can generate/create this information using the WAMP server.
To generate the information, you first need to create a Database in the WAMP server
- From your icon tray, click the WAMP icon.
- Select “PHPMyAdmin” from the list
- Log in to your PHPMyAdmin by entering your username and password
Note: By default, the PHPMyAdmin username is root and the password is nothing. So you can leave the password field blank and log in.
- Click the “Databases” tab.
- In the “Database Name” field (within the Create Database section), enter the name of your database.
- Select “utf8_general_ci” in the “Collation” drop-down list and then click the “Create” button.
- Now, to fetch the information required to complete the WordPress installation, click, “Check Privileges” link of the database.
- Now you have the Username and the Hostname of your database.
Go back to your WordPress installation screen and enter the information that you just generated. Since we have not assigned any password, keep the password field blank. In the future, you may find you have a lot of passwords to keep track of, for this reason, these reviews of password managers may be of some use.
Upon clicking the “Submit” button, the following screen will appear
Note: The Table Prefix field adds a prefix before every table created within the database. So the comments table will become wp_comments and so on. If you’re planning to run multiple WordPress installations using the same database, for effective management, it’s advised to use a different prefix for different installations. This will not impact the performance of the WordPress itself but will help you in managing different tables effectively. You will have a much better idea of messing with which table will affect the data of which WordPress installation.
Upon submitting the data, you should see the following screen:
If this is the case then that’s the good news. This means that the WordPress is able to communicate with your database. Click, “Run the Installation” button.
#6. Enter your WordPress Site Information
Enter the basic information for your site such as the site title, username, password and the email address etc. and click, “Install WordPress” button.
That’s it. You’ve just installed WordPress and created a new WordPress website locally.
If you want to log on to your website, the URL for it will be:
Remember, this is the same URL that initiated the WordPress installation, however, since the WordPress is already installed on your computer, this URL will take you to your website.
#7. Log In to the Admin Panel of Your WordPress Website
In order to log in to the admin panel of your WordPress website, you need to use this URL:
This will take you to the login screen.
One basic point that you need to always remember is that you can log on to your website locally only when your WAMP server is on.
If that’s not the case then you will encounter the same error that you do when you enter the wrong website URL on your browser and the browser is not able to find it. | <urn:uuid:38ddb28e-4485-42cf-a9fd-732b4ae8d2e1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://theusualstuff.com/install-wordpress-locally-windows-10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571536.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811224716-20220812014716-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.887656 | 1,622 | 2.015625 | 2 |
How to break up a logarithm of a large number.
How to derive the equation for a circle using the distance formula.
How to use the change of base formula for logs to evaluate a logarithmic statement.
How to infer the derivative of the natural log function using a calculator investigation.
How to solve equations with the same variable on both sides.
How to graph a quadratic equation by hand.
How to solve quadratic equations by factoring.
How to solve equations with absolute values.
How to write the equation of a graphed line.
How to solve a simple rational equation.
How to solve for a parameter in a simple linear equation.
How to approach word problems that involve quadratic equations.
How to connect linear equations, tables of values, and their graphs.
Solving two step equations that involve fractions
Review of operations with decimals in order to solve equations with decimals
How to solve a complicated looking quadratic equation by substitution. | <urn:uuid:ed8979e5-0884-43d3-a66d-65bcabbc9fc2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.brightstorm.com/tag/logarithmic-equation/page/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00408-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889409 | 212 | 3.921875 | 4 |
THE ROLE OF INTEGRATED FOREST COMPANIES
IN WESTERN CANADA
W. GERALD BURCH Forest Industry Lecturer
Forestry Program The University of Alberta 15. March 1978 "
FOREST INDUSTRY LECTURE SERIES NO. 2
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 1
THE FOREST INDUSTRY LECTURES
Forest industry in north-western Canada has cooperated with Alberta Energy and Natural Resources
in providing funds to assist the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry through sponsorship of outside
During the 1976-77 term a seminar course was developed, taught by Desmond I. Crossley and
Maxwell T. Maclaggan. The contribution of these two noted Canadian foresters was much appreciated.
In the fall of 1977 C. Ross Silversides was brought in for a week to visit with students and staff. During
this visit he gave several talks to students, and made one major address. Copies of this major talk are
available on request.
W. Gerald Burch visited for a week in March 1978, also holding many discussions with students and
staff. We are pleased to be able to make his major address widely available through this printing.
We would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks again to the sponsors of this program—
we appreciate very much their support:
— North Western Pulp and Power Ltd.—Hinton
— Procter and Gamble Cellulose Ltd.—Grande Prairie —Simpson Timber Co.
(Alberta) Ltd.—Whitecourt —Alberta Forest Products Association—Edmonton
— Prince George Pulp and Paper Ltd.—Prince George —Northwood Pulp and
Timber Ltd.—Prince George
— Takla Logging Co. Ltd.—Prince George
—Alberta Energy and Natural Resources
Copies of this talk and others in this series are available from:
Department of Forest Science
The University of Alberta
714 Chemical-Mineral Engineering Building Edmonton, Alberta
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 2
W. GERALD BURCH
W. G. (Gerald) Burch, RPF, is Vice-President, Timberlands and Forestry, British Columbia Forest
Products Limited, Vancouver, B.C.
Gerry was born and educated in British Columbia. He attended Trail High School and the University
of British Columbia, graduating in 1948 with a B.A.Sc. in Forest Engineering. His degree was completed
after four years of war-time service with the Royal Canadian Navy.
Gerry has worked since graduation with British Columbia Forest Products, moving up through the
organization from his first position as cruiser. He was appointed Assistant Chief Forester in 1955,
Supervisor of Forestry in 1959, was appointed Chief Forester in 1964 and General Manager of
Timberlands in 1972. He was promoted to his present position in 1976.
He is active in professional and community organizations. He is a member of the Board of Directors
Forestry and Logging Committee, and the Forest Management Committee of the Council of Forest
Industries of British Columbia; a trustee of the Western Forestry and Conservation Association; past
president (1970) of the Association of B.C. Registered Foresters; and past National President (1972) of
the Canadian Institute of Forestry.
His contributions were recognized by the Association of B.C. Registered Foresters in 1972 when he
was presented with the. Distinguished Forester Award. In 1978 he was appointed to the Senate of the
University of British Columbia.
W. Gerald Burch is a forestry graduate who has reached the corporate executive level in Forest
Industry and is highly regarded in the national and international forestry community. He draws upon his
background and insights in this presentation.
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 3
THE ROLE OF INTEGRATED FOREST COMPANIES IN WESTERN
W. G. Burch, R.P.F.'1
It was a special honour for me to be invited to the University of Alberta to be one of your first Forest
Industry Lecturers. I must commend the forest industry in northern British Columbia and Alberta, and
the Alberta Government, for sponsoring this new Lectureship. Two such Lectureships are held at the
University of British Columbia—one of which is sponsored by my Company, and so I have seen the
value of visiting Lecturers, primarily for the students. I hope I can provide similar encouragement,
enlightenment, and knowledge while I am here.
The topic of my speech today is, "The Role of Integrated Forest Companies in Western Canada". I
hope to convince you that the integrated forest companies in Western Canada play a very beneficial and
important part in the stability of the entire forest industry.
I am not qualified to speak on behalf of each major company in our industry. No one can be that well
informed. However, I have had some experience and insight into the operation of a large, integrated
forest products company over the past thirty years—a Company with two pulp mills, a newsprint mill, a
coated paper mill, ten sawmills, two plywood plants, a waferboard plant, a shingle mill, and with
supporting woodlands and logging operations.
There are many degrees of integration in our industry, and all integrated companies do not earn the
same level of profits each year. The sustained profitability of a company depends, to a large extent, on
its mix of product lines, its efficiency in producing those products, and the location and health of the
markets which it serves. I believe the remarks I will make today will probably apply to almost any
integrated forest products company in Western Canada and, for that matter, should apply to the whole
In looking at the subject of this talk, I decided to develop it by examining where we are today, the
problems we are facing, the strengths of the industry, and the direction that I feel we should go in the
future in order to solve some of the challenges facing us. I do not wish to review the past except to
ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes again.
I don't have to tell this audience the value of the forest industry to Canada, either in terms of employment,
revenue, or balance of trade payments. This industry has an export value to Canada one and one half times
as big as agriculture, half as big again as oil, natural gas and coal combined, and fifteen times more than
fisheries. It is obvious that forestry should be first in economic importance to Canada and, as well, should be
first in Provincial and Federal priorities. Unfortunately, it is not, and I plan to comment on that later.
But where are we today? Well, when you consider all of the odds against the industry, it.is rather
amazing that we continue to have this fairly successful multi-billion dollar forest business operating in Western
Canada. Remember that most of our markets are far to the south or east of us, as well as off of the continent.
You don't have to look very hard to see that we have no !'corner" on the forest resources of the world and,
since fibre is a world-wide commodity, we therefore have very little control on the price of our products. I find it
interesting that Western Canada has only 9 percent of the total volume of conifers in the world yet one-third of
the world's lumber trade comes from this region.
How do we remain competitive under such circumstances? Well, it's difficult, particularly when our
customers are not really interested in our problems. They are interested only in "PDQ", and by that I mean
that our product price, our. ability to deliver, and the quality of our product, all of which are suspect from time
Vice-President, Timberlands & Forestry. British Columbia forest Products Limited, Vancouver. B.C.
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 4
to time by our customers.
Western Canada is considered to be a marginal producer of forest products, located as we are at the
edge of the boreal forest, and this will have to be considered most seriously when we look into the future.
While the forests are huge, they are of relatively low quality, and the growth cycle is long—particularly when
compared to some of our competitors. It is significant that out of the S00 million acres forested in Canada,
only 20 percent is so far allocated to wood production. The rest is considered too remote for economic use
based on present price levels for our products.
To all of this, we add other challenges. Let's review some of them. Wages, the highest of any forest
industry in the world; productivity, lower than in many countries; and log sizes, which require an expensive
variety of handling and converting systems. These all add to the difficulty of obtaining reasonable returns on our
A further challenge to the industry is the one of "change", a fact with which all industries must frequently
cope. This has been well illustrated during the last few decades when the tremendous development of the
industry, especially in the 50's and 60's, was accompanied and sustained by low cost energy sources. But it
could not persist. The war in the Middle East, the oil embargo by the Arab Nations, and a huge boost in world
oil prices in 1973 and 1974, marked the end of an era. In addition, our industry had to adjust to fluctuations in
market volumes, prices, product mix, foreign exchange, tariff changes, costly and sometimes questionable
environmental protection requirements, and an unprecedented increase of government red tape.
At the same time, in order to remain competitive, the industry was obliged to seek and implement vast
technological changes in forest management, harvesting, and manufacturing processes to meet and deal with
new competition in the world market place.
It is significant that Canada's share of world markets for forest products has declined from 31 percent to 19
percent in the last twenty years. It may appear that we have lost ground but this decrease does not relate to a
drop in our production, but to a world-wide increase in demand. At the present time, it appears that the
industry is in for an extended period of low economic growth and a more modest increase in demand for our
products—particularly pulp and paper. These are changes and facts to which we must adjust.
Obviously, in light of all these problems, our industry must have some "strengths". We must, as they say in
show business, "be doing something right". Well, you bet we are—let's not talk ourselves and our industry into a
recession. Our competitors don't believe we are "on the skids". They believe, and rightly so, that we have the
finest and one of the most competitive forest industries in the world. They also realize that many of our
problems relating to allowable cuts, regeneration failures, environmental conflicts, etc., are very similar to their
own, and they admire our favourable resolution of many of these issues. And, particularly, I believe the forest
industry in Western Canada is leading the Eastern companies—profit-wise and forestry-wise. So, let's not be
too downhearted by our problems and challenges.
Let me enlarge on some of these strengths. Canada has many—such as an abundant supply of energy,
water, food, and natural resources. The world is short of these commodities, and, therefore, we in Canada,
and particularly in Western Provinces, can capitalize on this demand if only we can attract sufficient capital to
develop our resources and remain relatively efficient.
I believe that the forest industry in the West has a most desirable mix of large and small companies. Both are
needed for an industry to survive. Remember that the dependence on foreign markets and other competitive
factors make the forest industry highly cyclical. As some will recall, until the larger, integrated companies were
developed in Western Canda and helped to moderate the effect of these cycles, the economy of most of our
communities that were dependent on wood production was disastrous. Even today, the size of our integrated
companies is still relatively small compared to many companies competing in the world markets alongside us.
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 5
There has been concern expressed that the big "integrateds" will "gobble up" the little companies, and
then each other. I don't think this will be the case. For each amalgamation that occurs, another company
seems to come along and take its place. Many uncommitted fields remain in the forest industry where the "little
guy" can become established, grow, and become quite profitable. As a case in point, I know of two up-and-
coming manufacturing companies in British Columbia at the present time, which are as big today as my
Company was 25 years ago, and they continue to grow and do well.
I believe that it is the larger companies today who are supplying the strong base in our industry upon
which the smaller operators depend, our customers depend, and the level of forest management depends. I
am sure that the Government depends on this group to supply the higher stumpage and income revenues to
the Crown and, provide benefits to the citizens of Western Canada through relatively stable employment and
social programs. The comparatively small number of larger, integrated companies in Western Canada does
not concern me too greatly—no more so than I am concerned with the relatively small number of automobile
manufacturers in the world. I am sure that government controls on large industry, either by major policies,
day-to-day administration, or in controlling transfers of cutting rights, can change the structure of the industry
in the future if it is felt that these large companies are not responding to the desires of the public.
In forest management planning, the forest sector in Western Canada also does as good a job, in my
experience, as anywhere else in the world. I refer not only to the economic and industrial planning carried on
at the government levels but the operational forestry planning that is carried out in the field by qualified
professionals in the larger companies.
Financing is another area where the integrated companies in the West have shown some relative strength.
The ability to attract capital for new , projects, or for the improvement of existing facilities, has rarely been a
serious problem for the major forest products companies in Western Canada. I think that in no small measure
this is due to their high reputation in world markets, despite the cyclical nature of their business
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 6
. We must not forget the PDQ principle mentioned earlier. If we lose our credibility in world markets, financing
could be a major obstacle in the future.
In the area of research, we have made some real advances, particularly in the development of equipment
for both harvesting and manufacturing. In the past, the most significant changes were the introduction of the
powersaw, wheel skidders, feller bunchers, and grapple yarders, but most of these were some time ago.
Ironically, in recent years, there have been only a few major improvements in logging equipment, despite the
formation of the F.E.R.I.C. group and its efforts to produce a "better mousetrap", skidder, or whatever. In the
coastal regions particularly, I don't foresee any great changes in logging equipment or practices in the near
future with one exception—that being helicopter logging. In B.C. this year, this concept has been given a
boost by the Forest Service and it is conceivable that over 100,000 cunits could be logged by this method in
1978. Some new log transportation ideas are being investigated as well but their full scale practical
implementation is some time off.
Regarding silviculture research, I must say that I am concerned. Unfortunately, we have a long way to go
before research completely solves many of our stand management problems. The emphasis on ways and
means of increasing cuts is slowly swinging away from our old growth stands towards second growth. But
research in this field is weak and results are not available to the field forester to enable him to determine
proper management programs, involving ecosystem dassifications, stocking levels, site preparation
techniques, genetic programs, fertilization projects, etc.
In the field of land management, where full consideration is now being given to all the
resources of the forest, the record of the forest industry is showing some large improvements
and change. One way that industry is showing its concern is by hiring resource specialists, either as
consultants, or on staff. My own Company established a Resource Planning Group during the
last few years, consisting of a Fish & Wildlife Biologist, a Soils Specialist, a Forest Hydrologist, and an
Ecologist, headed by a Silviculturist, all of whom are concerned with the problem of harvesting our lands in a
manner that will provide the minimum impact on the other resources of the forest, and also to
recommend procedures to improve future productivity of our forests. Their primary responsibility at the
present time is to be a member of the Planning Team in each Logging Division working on the determination
of the harvest pattern and sequence for each 5-year cutting plan.
So much for our strengths. They are important, but only if put in the proper context. If we are to survive
and grow, the industry also has a number of "needs", the largest of which is to obtain better understanding.
I am talking about the need to be understood not only by politicians, but by a broad segment of the public
and particularly by our first "public", those who work in this business and depend on it for their livelihood.
Obviously, if we can't tell our story credibly to the tens of thousands already involved and committed to the
business, then we are going to have difficulty in convincing the general public that we are harvesting "their"
resource in a responsible manner. I guess one of the problems we have in gaining such understanding is that
most forest companies do not retail their products in local communities or for that matter, in Canada. There
has been apathy on the part of much of the forest industry in the past to "tell their story" to the local public,
little realizing that these people are the true owners of the resource, and need, and want, to be informed.
Industry too often has assumed that people in the Western Provinces know what is going on, and haven't
gone out of their way to educate them.
A 1977 study by the Canadian Pulp & Paper Association polled people in each province across Canada on
their knowledge of the forest industry. They found that Canadians pretty well take this business for granted,
and have numerous misconceptions about the industry and its economic and problems. We need to do a
better job in "telling our story".
However. capital is becoming a scarce commodity to companies contemplating the huge investment ( >
$300 million) necessary for the construction of a modern pulp-mill.
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 7
In the political and governmental area, we need to be better understood by Federal, Provincial, and local
Governments—they need to know what we are doing, where we are going, and where governments should
and can help. One important area where governments can help is in encouraging and creating a favourable
economic growth climate; that is, legislative and governmental action which encourages private sector
investment and expansion.
We also need a good work climate and responsible labour-management relations, and here is where
some progress is being made. The International Woodworkers of America, the biggest forest union in North
America, have continually shown concern for improved worker safety and more recently have taken a very
positive step in encouraging better forest management. The I.W.A. deserves a real pat on the back for its
recent decision to hire a full-time professional forester. This labour group is becoming more and more
dedicated to proper forest management, including progressive reforestation and intensive forestry policies.
Their efforts should also provide an additional balance to the demands.of environmental extremists in the
This forest industry, the largest industry in Canada, is anxious to modernize and expand. But do we have
the fibre base to support that growth? Remember that much of Canada's undeveloped forest land is
marginally economic at the present time. It is a poorer quality than we are used to logging, its growing period is
long, access to these forests is generally not developed, and the market place is a long way from the woods.
Here is where I see the integrated companies taking a leading role in supporting the future of the industry in
Western Canada. As the recent F.LC. Reed Report to the Canadian Forestry Service indicated, we have
three alternatives to turn to in order to sustain or expand our industry:
(a) Develop these remote and marginally economic stands, (or)
(b) Practice doser utilization of the forests presently being harvested, (or)
(c) Practice more intensive forestry.
Reed concludes by indicating that the most economical decision is in favour of intensive forestry. I tend to
agree with him, although I would advise that all of the three alternatives would be followed to some degree.
There is no doubt that some remote areas can be economically viable with higher values for our products,
better access, new technology, and the proper incentive policies from governments. After all, 60 percent
of'the potential allowable cut in Canada is in the West, and only 65 percent of that volume is presently being
utilized. The Reed Report for instance tells us that although three-quarters of British Columbia's timber
reserves are in the interior, only 50 percent are presently profitable to harvest.
Regarding doser utilization, I appreciate that we have come a long way in the last 20 years, sometimes
with the prodding of Provincial Forest Services. Forest companies are leaving less fibre behind in the woods
than ever before. We are cutting smaller diameter stands and have certainly improved our sawmill technology
for converting smaller logs. But even if we improve our technology further, I don't believe we will get the kind
of volume increase needed to meet future demands—particularly for sawlogs.
So the obvious solution is to concentrate on intensive forestry. Related to intensive forestry is the
topic of allowable cuts, which has been talked about much in Western Canada recently. Although these
cuts are under continual analysis, there have been very few reductions of the magnitude that are
expected to come about in the next few years, in my opinion. A recent review of allowable cuts by the
Provincial Forest Services involves allowances for reserves of forest land for parks, agriculture,
recreation, and wildlife; also, reduced rates of cut on marginal, high elevation, or sensitive soil type
areas; and further reductions to allow for areas which have proven difficult to reforest after harvesting.
Unfortunately, and most significant, is that these reductions do not take into consideration the large
reductions in yields that might occur as a result of fire, disease, insect, or blowdown catastrophies.
Thus, in B.C., and all over Canada, there are reduced cuts on the horizon. If all of the constraints
identified by other resource agencies are taken into consideration, reductions will apply to every
managed unit in Canada. The answer to offset these shortages must be intensive forestry projects,
together with a strong and more communicative relationship with those who will decide the fate of our
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 8
In short, forestry may be in serious trouble in Western Canada. It is evident that the forest industry,
particularly the larger companies, must take the lead in adopting intensive forestry measures, and in
improving its communicative role, to at least stay even or expand in the West.
Who knows, there may also be hidden benefits, such as lower logging and handling costs, or at the
very least, a means may be found to hold down the spiralling costs of logging and forest management that
are now being experienced. For instance, I believe that although immediate increases in allowable cut
will be the same size and grade as the wood presently harvested, intensive management could result in a
hidden benefit in future stands by producing better quality trees, as a result of genetically superior
seedlings, better species mix, and stand improvement activities.
So let me discuss in some detail what I believe to be the key to the future of our industry in Western
Canada, and the dependence on the integrated companies to respond to this challenge. Even though general
agreement is reached that we must move in the direction of intensive forestry, we must have commitments on
the part of Governments (Federal and Provincial) and the forest industry to develop the three necessary
ingredients to make it happen—policies (incentives), money. (budgets), and people (staff). At present, these
commitments are not being made. The jurisdictional rivalry between the Federal and Provincial Governments
has been a major delaying factor in obtaining the proper commitments; that is, the additional funding and firm
policies for intensive forest management. And this lack of policies has delayed any commitment from industry.
At the present time, 70 million acres or 12 percent of Canada's productive forests are reported to be
insufficiently regenerated, and 500,000 acres are being added to this backlog annually. This is not good
enough, and intensive pressure must be brought to bear by industry (particularly the larger, integrated
companies), the unions, the professional forestry bodies, and the public, on the governments (who own the
forests), to provide sufficient funds to correct this "national disgrace". It is reported, that at the present time,
approximately $100 million is being spent annually in Canada on intensive forestry—mainly on reforestation. I
believe that another $100 million annually is required immediately not only to keep current with the present
denuded acreage, but also to pick up the backlog, particularly on the higher growing sites. This large outlay of
money would be offset by increased allowable cuts, and by the corporate and individual tax revenue that
would accrue by the restocking of these valuable lands. However, the total of-$200 million for an intensive
forestry program would only be 8 percent of the total revenue at present going to the Federal and Provincial
Governments from the forest industry.
An interesting study was carried out in Ontario about ten years ago by that province's Department of Lands
and Forests which indicated that each additional cunit of wood that could have been produced from their
Crown lands would have resulted in an additonal $30/cunit of tax revenue—$10 to the Provincial Government
and $20 to the Federal Government. This is the kind of incremental revenue that is theoretically available,
provided that policies are formulated to encourage the producer to grow and harvest more wood from his
Naturally, much more than the extra $100 million could be spent on Crown lands in Canada if we were to
involve ourselves in a whole range of intensive forestry measures. But who should be carrying out these
expanded projects? I believe that this is not a problem which can be solved through government action alone.
It is my strong belief that free enterprise will always be able to demonstrate better ability to operate its
woodlands than any bureaucracy. I believe that the integrated companies in Western Canada are willing,
under the proper incentive programs of increased allowable cuts and proper cost allowances, to provide the
capital funds required for a dynamic program that would increase the yields from our forest lands by 50
percent to 100 percent.
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 9
It is time that the industry gave real and distinct leadership to this cause. The integrated companies and
the unions should be pointing out in strong terms what the consequences of inadequate forest renewal will
have on existing conversion plants and the associated labour force, and what it means to the communities
within those affected areas, and to the economy in general.
Someone once said that war was too important to be left to generals. Well, forestry is too important to be
left to politicians. The "captains" of our industry must recognize the need to assume a new leadership role in
intensive forestry development. However, to date, and with only a few exceptions in Western Canada, the
statesmen of our industry are reluctant to give leadership in providing proper stewardship of forest lands under
their responsibility. The reason usually given is a lack of dear cut Government policies or capital funds. No
doubt, there will be a scarcity of funds, but forest management must be accepted as one of the necessary
costs of staying in business, and of ensuring opportunities for expansion.
For a moment, I would like to discuss what's happening in forestry elsewhere in the world to give you
some comparisons. I have touched briefly on international competition as one of the challenges facing our
industry, and while much of that challenge comes from the United States, and will in the future come
additionally from South America, one of our key competitors for world markets is the Scandinavian countries. It
is interesting to note that much of Canada's western forests closely resemble those of Finland and Sweden in
terms of growth potential and commercial opportunity, but that is where the similarly ends. Sweden and
Finland, with 70 percent private ownership of their forest lands, spend over three times more per acre and
derive three times greater yields per acre than in Canada where there is only about 5 percent private
In Canada, we are reforesting only 20 percent of the acres logged, whereas in Sweden, 75 percent of the
clear cut acres are planted. In 1974, the Scandinavian forest industry spent nearly $70 million for juvenile
spacing and fertilization projects in their forests. These spacing programs covered an area of 1.4 million
acres, an area equivalent to 70 percent of the total area logged in Canada each year. During the same
period, they fertilized an area of nearly 900,000 acres. As a comparison, in 1974, the forest companies in the
western provinces only spent a total of $9 million on silvicultural projects. Part of the reason for the above
differences is the higher percentage of privately held lands in these other countries. But I am not advocating
a "swing" to private ownership of forest lands in Canada. Rather, I feel that we should consider a minimum
expenditure of $1 for every cunit logged as an initial investment and reaching the eventual goal of $5 per
cunit or so, being spent by our counterparts in other parts of the world.
Finally, a few thoughts for the owners of the resource, the Provincial Governments. In their efforts
to push companies into doing a better job of reforestation, the Provincial Governments are not only
going to be faced with providing a better example themselves, but they must also take steps to
encourage the forest products companies to adopt a greater “sense of proprietorship” over the forest
lands within long term tenures.
It is a pretty well known fact that the best forest management practices in B.C. are carried out on lands
which are either owned by a company, or on which a company holds a long term lease. The Tree Farm
License form of tenure is a case in point. We can point with pride to the way most TFL's and FMA's are
managed and it is in no small measure due to the fact that these companies act as if, and feel as if, they
own the land even though it is the property of the Crown.
The legislation in the new Forest Act which will be announced by the B.C. Government in the weeks
ahead should make some steps in this direction. But even further steps will be necessary, not only in
the way timber rights are granted, but also in the tax structure, so that companies will have the
financial wherewithall to practice the kind of forest management needed to assure a long term supply
To summarize, where does this leave the integrated forest products companies at the beginning of
the 1980's? Are we strong enough, and flexible enough, to face the challenges of the decades ahead?
Forest Industry Lecture No. 2 - Page 10
The answer is a qualified, "yes".
We can make it. But we will need help. We need a public which is understanding and supportive of
our needs and problems. We need governments to set reasonable and proper tax levels, and provide
the kind of incentives necessary so that the companies can respond to the challenges. And especially,
we need governmental bodies which communicate with each other, and with business, so that the left
hand knows what the right hand is doing, and so that both hands work towards the same objectives.
We need a continuing commitment to research, both in silviculture and in manufacturing. And we need
dedicated employees who understand our needs, and want to personally contribute to their company's
profitability and productivity.
Although distant fields often appear greener, I think Canada's forest industry, and particularly the
integrated companies in Western Canada, are in a good position to determine their future destiny. Basically, if
we commit ourselves to staying competitive, we really have only one major problem: keeping our basic
resource renewed and healthy. That means a commitment to regeneration of all logged lands, followed by
intensive forestry activity, which will then place us in a position of leading the world in production, utilization,
and marketing of fibre. The major question left in my mind is, "Have we the statesmen in our governments
and industry who can recognize and meet this challenge?"
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