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I wanted to make a strong mother character. The portrayal women in epic fantasy have been problematical for a long time. These books are largely written by men but women also read them in great, great numbers. And the women in fantasy tend to be very atypical women… They tend to be the woman warrior or the spunky princess who wouldn’t accept what her father lays down, and I have those archetypes in my books as well.
However, with Catelyn there is something reset for the Eleanor of Aquitaine, the figure of the woman who accepted her role and functions with a narrow society and, nonetheless, achieves considerable influence and power and authority despite accepting the risks and limitations of this society.
She is also a mother… Then, a tendency you can see in a lot of other fantasies is to kill the mother or to get her off the stage. She’s usually dead before the story opens… Nobody wants to hear about King Arthur’s mother and what she thought or what she was doing, so they get her off the stage and I wanted it too. And that’s Catelyn.
- George RR Martin on Catelyn Stark (via jaimelannister)
Indeed, the idea of ‘winning the girl’ – of overcoming female objections or resistance through repeated and frequently escalating efforts – is central to most of our modern romantic narratives. (Female persistence, by contrast, is viewed as pathetic.) And the more I think about instances of creepiness, harassment and stalking that culminate in either the threat or actuality of sexual assault, the more I’m convinced that a massive part of the problem is this socially sanctioned idea that men are fundamentally entitled to persist. Because if men are meant to persist, then women who say no must only be rejecting the attempt, not the man himself, so that every separate attempt becomes one of a potentially infinite number of keys which might just fit the lock of the woman’s approval. She’s not the one who’s allowed to say no, not really; she should be silent and passive as a locked door, waiting patiently while the man runs through however many keys he can be bothered trying. And if he gets sick of this lengthy process and just breaks in? Well, frustration under those circumstances is only natural. Either the door shouldn’t have been there to impede him, or it shouldn’t have been locked.The Creepiness Question (via alchemy)
Sorry this isn’t a read more cause my laptop isn’t here but wow nothing ever feels like home and that’s cause I’ve moved 7 times no joke with both parents and their houses so damn do I hate leaving places that are comfortable
Men and women are misogynistic for different reasons: men to marginalize women, and women to ingratiate themselves with the men trying to marginalize them. Neither one is justifiable, but one is oppressive and the other is a (bad) strategy to deal with that oppression. One thus sees that if the men who are misogynists weren’t, the women who are misogynists wouldn’t have any reason to be. Ergo, exhorting women to stop being misogynists so that men will stop gets it precisely backwards.http://www.shakesville.com/2010/01/feminism-101.html (via pomegranateblood)
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Winter has officially been here since December 21, a little over 3 weeks ago.
The winter solstice is the day with the shortest amount of sunlight.
Why do I never really notice the days getting shorter until that point?
Now, every day I go to work in the dark and I come home in the dark - at 6:30am and 6pm.
Every day seems longer and longer in the dark, even though I know that every day there are a few less minutes of darkness and a few more minutes of daylight. Maybe I feel like it is always dark because I don't see the daylight.
I don't have a window in my office and I rarely get out of the office during the day. Lately it is because it is just too dangerous to walk around with all the ice, snow, and snowbanks that are in downtown.
So I get to complain about it, and have people say "It's winter, get used to it." Not that complaining really helps the situation, but it makes me feel better, which in some way maybe does help the situation.
Don't forget to vote for Shannon and her son Wylder to help raise Niemann-Pick awareness!
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but "iron fist" to be honest, some things when they are wrong, you dont have any other choice than to repeat and repeat and repeat again and again and again and next 20 years, because there is no other way to fight against stupidity. Example: You see something and you say thats wrong, no one give a damn, and you stop, you say "its fine". What kind of mentality is that? To change something you must fight. Or at least try. Without that mentality, world would be much worse place. We all should fight for something good. When we all see something is wrong and there is no reaction than we must repeat again, again and again... Thats fight for right thing. If you dont agree, fine, we have than different opinions, but you can't stop me from fighting when Im 100 % shore Im right. Thats democracy.
Lemmy: "We are Motorhead and we play rock 'n' roll!"
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Loc: Brazil - SP - Praia Grande
Awesome bike and really cool plate light awesome pics too... the second one... the one that Lemmy is using Deutschland tee... I used to have a poster hung on my wall... torn apart after long time there... Where can I find a high resolution pic??
Here are some pictures from very old dutch music magazines (NON metal magazines btw) Maybe some of these are uploaded already on this board, so you may have seen some of these pictures before, but I thought .... scan it and share it
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Washington, DC. Public libraries have become essential points of access to the Internet and computers in local communities, with nearly every library in the country offering public internet access. Yet, individual library practices can have significant affect on the quality and character of this public service. Opportunity for All: How Library Policies and Practices Impact Public Internet Access, offers an analysis of the service in four public library systems and makes recommendations for strategies that help to sustain and improve public access service. The report was funded through a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and was produced by the University of Washington Information School. [Read more]
Access to the Internet has become a central part of American society, helping all of us in many areas of our daily lives. Over the past twenty years, libraries and community technology centers have taken on the role of public access centers for those who are unable to reach the Internet at home or work, for reasons ranging from lack of financial resources to personal preference. The U.S. Impact Study is examining the users and use of these public services to better understand the impact of free access to computers and the Internet on the individuals, families and communities served by these public and private resources.
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IMP Awards > tv Movie Poster Gallery > From the Earth to the Moon Poster
Poster design by Intralink Film Graphic Design
From the Earth to the Moon (tv)
TRAILERS | IMDB | AMAZON | added: Apr 14th, 2007
WANT TO BUY THE POSTER? Try these links:
Internet Movie Poster Awards - Featuring one of the largest collections of movie poster images on the web.
Site Design by Face3media
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Godrej Nature’s Basket launched a new health section, ‘Healthy Alternatives’ earlier this week at their flagship store in Bandra. Offering a range of health foods that are heart-healthy, diabetic-friendly and immunity-boosting, Nature’s Basket teamed up with renowned nutritionist, Dr. Anjali Mukerjee for the launch. Speaking on the theme of ‘You are what you eat,’ Dr. Mukherjee shared her insights into maintaining a healthy lifestyle in today’s zippy daily routines. We seized the opportunity to chat with her and share some of her earthy good sense and wisdom with our readers.
“We at Health Total, in partnership with GNB, are very proud of the people who make concerted efforts to be healthy in a degenerating urban environment. GNB is bringing them a range of health foods that help fight disease, foods to detox, plan weight management, and much more. This range of functional foods (that is, foods with healthy properties) will be available at the Healthy Alternatives section at Nature’s Basket.”
The Heart Healthy range includes silken tofu, wheatgrass powder and red salmon. Dr. Mukherjee recommends the wheatgrass for its cleansing properties that help detox the system. Its high mineral content has healing properties that are used to treat patients fighting cancer, to boost their immunity levels. Salmon, with its high Omega 3 content, provides essential healthy fats to the body, and is an anti-inflammatory that helps control BP and cholesterol.
The Diabetic Friendly range offers fenugreek powder and instant oatmeal, among others. Fenugreek (or methi) is beneficial for diabetics in that it helps lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Its high fibre content helps stabilize the blood sugar levels of diabetic patients, as does oatmeal. She recommends a bowl of oatmeal porridge for breakfast, or consumed in roti form.
Aren’t diabetic diets rather boring and dry? How can we spice it up for them? Dr Mukherjee clarifies that diabetics just have to watch their grain intake. While maida is a strict no-no, rotis made from jawar, bajra or raagi are ideal. Meanwhile, sabzis and dals can offer the same masalas as served to the rest of the family. Her advice is no more than 3 teaspoons of oil per day, per person – in every household. “Switch over to healthier oils like rice bran oil, til oil or olive oil which have high MUFA (mono-unsaturated fatty-acids) content and a high smoke point.”
And her personal health mantras for 2013? “That would be to eat right for my body type. If you eat according to your constitution, match the food you consume to your body type, it’s the one critical step to staying healthy.”
Also present at the launch was Bollywood celebrity Karishma Kapoor, who chatted with the guests about her fitness regime, diet mantra and the need to practice healthy living with children. “Being healthy is an aspect of life that almost everyone has realized requires most importance. With the availability of a wide range of health foods now at Godrej Nature’s Basket it becomes much easier for us to keep ourselves fit and practice the same with our kids as well. I am sure to drop in here more often now”
Mr. Mohit Khattar, MD of Godrej Nature’s Basket added, “The launch of this section is part of our continuous focus on renovation and Innovation for the brand. We believe in providing our customers the best the gournmet industry has on offer and the ‘Healthy Alternatives’ section is a perfect way to ensure that our customers are not just happier but healthier.”
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Bollywood stars at SFL launch
We spotted Shilpa and Raj along with Manyata and Sanjay Dutt at the launch of Super Fight League. Who else were there?
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When it comes to being in the limelight, Aaradhya Bachchan is no stranger, especially given who her parents are. We spotted the tiny tot all gussied up heading to Cannes with her mom Aishwarya and grandmother Vrinda Rai. More » Aaradhya heads to Cannes
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As 100 years of Indian cinema is celebrated at the Cannes Film Festival, we bring you some candid moments from the French Riviera. More » Candid moments from Cannes
They're normally all about facing the camera, but these days, Bollywood's lovely ladies seem to have a lot more to show off on the red carpet. Here's a look at the film industry's backless brigade! More » From a different view point
In India, Bollywood is a way of life, and cricket a religion. So, when both come together, there is no one who is not interested. If you think we're talking about the IPL, then think again. The connection we are referring to goes deeper and is of the ‘direct dil se' type. A look at the most dashing cricketers who have courted Bollywood stars. More » Clean bowled by Bollywood divas!
After waiting with bated breath, here's a look at some of the big names of Bollywood who hit the red carpet in the French Riviera. Unfortunately, fashionable was out and faux pas were in. More » Canned in Cannes: The red carpet report
Actress Manisha Koirala announced on her Facebook page, that she is officially cancer free. More » Manisha Koirala is smiling again
Sanjay Dutt isn't the only Bollywood star to have had a brush with the law. Here's a look at some of the other famous faces who have ended up on the wrong side of the law. More » In the news for the wrong reasons
There's no need to introduce Sunny Leone. Everyone knows the adult film star after her appearance in Bollywood. Her stint in India has been anything but uneventful. After Ms. Leone decided to stick a nail in her coffin with her last brand endorsement, her reaffirmation of her chosen career path, as a porn star has us wondering how long she will be here. More » Sunny Leone's XXX moves
She's had a troubled and dark past, involving drugs, bad relationships and the death of her mother. Angelina's latest news has the world in shock. More » Angelina Jolie loses both breasts
Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra's young son showed off his new look! More » Viaan's new tonsured look!
It is not all work for these celebs, there is always time for family. Here's a look at some pictures of celebrities and their families, that you may not have seen before. More » Rare yet cute family photos
They never get a day off and weekends are anything but sacred. Here's what your favourite celebrities were spotted doing. More » Spotted: Celebrities out and about
Though she was criticised for her weight gain post motherhood, Aishwarya managed to look gorgeous on the red carpet this year at Cannes, thanks to her sartorial choice. A glimpse at her many looks. (Images: Getty) More » Aishwarya Rai: The Cannes Kaleidoscope
She's a reality star whose made her name by being loud and angry on the sets of Bigg Boss and her fashion sense is decibels higher and louder. Scary blue eye alert! More » Repeat offender: Dolly Bindra
Aamir Khan spends the day with his entire family relaxing and playing some football. Let's just say this is one Bollywood celebrity who knows how to really cool his heels. What's not to love? More » Aamir's family day of fun
Covering it up is almost always not an option when it comes to being on the cover of a magazine. Find out who the sexiest cover girls around, are... More » Who is the hottest cover girl?
Hrithik Roshan wasn't always blessed with a fit, sculpted body. In fact, the star worked hard at it. Here's a look at how Hrithik and other celebrities battled their way out of the bulge. More » Celebrity weight loss: Before and after
Pink socks, fishnet stockings, spiked belts and many more shocking accessories made their debut this week on the red carpet. With the annual Met Gala in the air, the theme was punk beyond redemption. Here's a look at how punk became the global fashion faux pas for the week. More » The Ugly side: Dunking into punk
When red carpet ruin comes a-calling, that's when these celebrities step out in their most horrific avatars. This week, we bring you fashion faux pas that you never saw coming. More » The Ugly side: Style stunted stars!
As long as the paparazzi have their way, these celebrities will do their best to shy away from the cameras, especially when they're not dressed to the nines! Here's a look at Bollywood's great escape! More » Celebrities who love hiding their faces
Sanjay Dutt, along with his sisters Priya and Namrata, recently inaugurated and handed over a mobile mammography unit to a leading oncologist Dr. Advani's Helping Hand Foundation on behalf of the Nargis Dutt Memorial Charitable Trust in Mumbai. More » Sanjay Dutt's humanitarian side
There's always fuel for the fire when it comes to celebrities and their antics. We bring you a round up of the rumours topping the gossip charts these days... More » Rumour monger
After Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor tied the knot on 16th October 2012, there were several speculations wherein people were wondering whether Kareena Kapoor would be converting to Islam and change her last name or not. More » Kareena Kapoor to retain her maiden surname
Celebrities don't always have their game faces on for the camera. Here's a look at what happens when they let their guard down. More » Candid celebrity moments
It's the biggest secret that everyone near the King of Pop tried hard to squash: that Michael Jackson was not the real father of his three children. A shocking new story emerges. (Agencies) More » MJ's kids are not biologically his own
There's nothing like flaunting your personal choice in automobiles and these Bollywood stars love their cars! Star power equals some good old sexy and serious horsepower! More » Celebs and their cars
Pakistani-American actress Nargis Fakhri rubbished rumours of a romantic link-up with Shahid Kapoor and said she was single. And upon being linked to YRF scion Uday Chopra, the denials began again. But with the pair's Twitter conversations in the full light of day, it's obvious, something's afoot! More » Uday and Nargis' Twitter romance
Each week we bring you celebrities and their massive style snafus. This time is no different than before, if not worse with some classic cases of repeat offenders. More » The Ugly side: Fashion hall of shame
Will they or won't they? They've been married off several times already, but John, who says he met his current girlfriend at a party and not at the gym, as was previously reported, is all set to marry her this year. Either ways its clear that John is definitely serious, given that we spotted him chauffeuring girlfriend Priya Runchal's parents around. More » John Abraham plays the good son-in-law
The mercury is soaring and the ladies are shedding their layers in a fashionable way. Find out how these babes are giving fashion the short shrift. More » When short is hot
They are the stalwarts of makeup in Bollywood and when they hosted an event honouring makeup achievements in Indian cinema, the stars came in droves. More » Bharat and Doris Godambe's makeup awards
In B-Town, acting is something that runs in the blood. Almost all star kids are bitten by the 'acting bug' - Ranbir, Sonakshi, Sonam...but there are lesser known ones too. Take a look More » Less famous star kids
They don't always have their pancakes handy to doll up and look good. And some days, just being a plain Jane is the way it goes. Here's a look at Bollywood's leading ladies when their makeup artists take the day off. More » Celebs : With and Without makeup
Bipasha Basu was spotted leaving a cinema with rumoured flame Harman Baweja close by. The couple didn't want to be photographed anywhere near each other, but if the rumour mills are to be believed, there's a whole lotta love going around these two! More » Bipasha and Harman's secret romance
Between shoots, appearances and vacations, they live life in the fast lane and airports are like their second home. We give you Bollywood's best known, caught in a jet-setting moment... More » Celebrity jet-setters
It's been a few months since this happy couple finally took the marital plunge and their resounding happiness seems to be showing in Mr. Kapur's waist line. But then again, what's not to love about a 'lil meat on the bones, eh? More » Sidharth Roy Kapur's marital prosperity
Sherlyn considers herself the liberated Indian woman, who is not shy to flaunt her body, thoughts and sexuality. She is back in limelight again and this time its with her shocking announcement that married life is on the cards for her, sometime soon! More » What next for Sherlyn Chopra?
They've been in and out of each other's lives professionally, but since they parted ways, the pair can't seem to see eye to eye personally. Priyanka and Shahid who were spotted shooting together looked anything but comfy being around each other. More » Priyanka and Shahid cold shoulder each other
The Iron Man star is a die hard fitness freak and it shows too! Always spotted comfortably flaunting her almost pencil thin body, Gwyneth also seems to also be getting comfy with co-star Robert Downey Jr.
Iron Man 3 arrives! More » Gwyneth Paltrow's dangerous liason
Anushka Sharma is easily the hottest young thing on the block and Bollywood loves keeping an eye on her, as do we! If rumours are to be believed, then Anushka's latest run-in with romance is with Ranbir Kapoor. Find out more here... More » Anushka Sharma's interesting world
This week we bring you the big, bad and the ugly from the world of celebrity appearances. Given how most of them have an army of assistants at their disposal, some of these stars could use some help firing their stylists for letting them show up looking like left overs from a recycle bin. More » The Ugly side: Mayhem on the red carpet
She's been married a little over two months, but nothing has changed for Vidya Balan. Well, not much. Except for a change in address, a line of vermilion in the parting of her hair and a new label, Mrs. SRK (Siddharth Roy Kapur), she remains Vidya Balan. "I thought I'd be miserable without my parents, but thank God, they are just five minutes away from where I live," she says.
Vidya is now Mrs Sidharth Roy Kapur
Vidya shows off her 'mehendi More » We haven't had our first fight after marriage
A happy married life, success of their movies...or just being another publicity stunt here's a look at many celebs at various places of worship More » What do they pray for?
Designer wear and couture gowns are all the rage when it comes to red carpet appearances, but do they always get it right? With cutout clothes being all the rage, some of these stars look like they've been torn to shreds by a pair of scissors and some just purely fashionable. Who are they? More » Cutout queens of the red carpet
She may not have any real claim to fame, but there's no denying that when Kim Kardashian is in the news, it's hard to ignore. The reality star and entrepreneur is expecting her first baby with rapper Kanye West. We go on bump watch... More » Kim Kardashian bump watch
Rihanna is rumoured to be expecting a child with boyfriend Chris Brown.
More » Is Rihanna pregnant?
Noticed for her first film Gangs of Wasseypur, Huma Quereshi cuts an unmissable figure. But somehow the young lady misses out each time in the style department and the fashion police are left having a field day. More » Repeat offender: Huma Quereshi
Ayushmann Khuranna is the latest celebrity to be targeted by Internet pranksters in an internet death hoax. More » Ayushmann is the latest celeb to fall prey to death hoax
He's just been given some extra time with his family and the burly Bollywood star made sure he spent the afternoon getting some quality time with his wife Manyata and young twins Shahraan and Iqra. More » Spotted: Sanjay Dutt and family
Each week we bring you the worst dressed celebrities from around the world. Here's a look at who made this week's designer debacle list... More » The ugly side: Fashionably disastrous
SRK tweeted that he could not really help his son with his math lessons, this got us thinking…just how educated are our favourite Bollywood celebs? Here’s a look at how educated they are. More » How educated are our Bollywood celebrities?
Katrina Kaif sporting a bindi on her forehead made the rumour mills go over board. Katrina has since then denied being married. She is not the only one. A list of celebs who were rumored to have tied the knot. More » These celebs are not married - as yet!
It's official. Sushmita Sen is getting married soon. While the actor doesn't tell us the name of the mystery man, she confirms the wedding next year. (Text Hindustantimes.com/Agencies) More » I'm getting married: Sushmita Sen
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan says his longstanding "disagreements" with Salman Khan will not come to an end courtesy a film, a filmmaker or an actress. And neither would it be on a public platform. But now that the pair might be living close to each other, we wonder how that's going to pan out... More » Differences with Salman won't be resolved publicly: SRK
What we wouldn't give to know what these celebrities are talking about. Since we really have no clue, we've made up our own lines for your reading amusement. It's all in good fun, folks! More » What are they talking about?
Halle Berry hits the red carpet flaunting her second baby bump at the ripe age of 46 with her new partner Oliver Martinez. Here's a look at other moms who are heading down mommydom... More » Celebrities who are spending 2013 pregnant!
If you thought these celebrities are perfect, you are wrong! Megan Fox would die at the thought of using public toilets and David Beckam throws every third item out of his fridge because he wants things to be in pairs! Read more about interesting celebrity disorders. More » Celebrities with Obsessive Complulsive Disorder
Here's where the mass exodus of Bollywood led to this weekend...Vancouver! The location for the Times of India Film Awards, the stars poured out in droves to ensure their diaspora audience got a glimpse of their favourite faces! More » The TOIFA red carpet in Vancouver
Though not many know that he has dogs, SRK stated that when it comes to trust, he trusts his dogs the most. For these celebs, pets are like members of their family. The names of Salman Khan's pet give you a hint- 'Myson' and 'Myjaan'! No matter how busy they are, these stars love their pets dearly! More » Celebrity pet peeves
Virginity is an extremely private affair, but some celebrities are candid about the matter. Athlete Lori 'Lolo' Jones once claimed that keeping her vow of not having sex before marriage made it harder than ever when it came to training. Here's a look at other famous celebs who vowed to stay virgins till they get married. More » Celebs who swore to stay virgins
Imagine bumping into another person wearing the same dress as you at an event? You may live with it, but now imagine the same scene with two celebrities. Awkward! More » Fashion face-off
Here's a look at the day in the life of a celebrity. When Sanjay Kapoor threw a mere dinner party, the stars turned up in droves. Find out who attended the shindig. More » Sanjay Kapoor's star studded party
The Times of India Film Awards being held in Toronto had Bollywood on a mass exodus. Here's who we spotted with their bags packed and tickets in hand. Stay tuned for a weekend of exciting moments! More » Bollywood stars leave for TOIFA
Like wine, most of our B-Town stars get better with age, though not all of them. Ash and Shilpa keep getting gorgeous; but it's the other way around with actors like SRK and Salman. If you think we're wrong, take a peek for yourself... More » Bollywood Stars: Then & Now
Imagine living under the shadow of a famous sibling? From Aishwarya Rai's brother Aditya to Katrina's sister Isabella Kaif, here's a look at less famous celeb siblings. More » Lesser known celebrity siblings
"Knowing someone for such a long period of time makes you believe that we are an integral part of each other’s day-to-day, and year-to-year being. One doesn’t know it any other way. It’s now like a given but still never taken for granted." Read excerpts of a candid chat between SRK and Gauri here. Oh, you need to buy your copy of HELLO! (India) for the full interview. (Text, images: HELLO! (India) More » SRK, Gauri and some secrets
Sources claim that even while talks of her comeback are continuing, Aishwarya has started working out to shed the added kilos. But Ash's recent pictures tell a different story. More » Is Aishwarya pregnant again?
While some may have been bestowed with natural beauty, not all are so blessed and have gone under the knife to 'earn' the good looks. But most of the time, cosmetic surgeries go horribly wrong! Take a look. More » Cosmetic surgery disasters
For a world that is always colourful, Holi means that the stars get to come out, let their hair down and play away. More » Bollywood celebrates Holi
After six kids, and seven years of being together, and dozens of rumours of their impending nuptials, have Brangelina finally done the deed? More » Have Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie tied the knot?
While you'd expect a Fashion Week to bring out the best dressed, the sad truth is quite the opposite and borderline bizarre. We give you this week's ugly side of fashion. More » The ugly side: Fashion Week's disasters
If you thought these celebs are perfect when it comes to looks, you are mistaken. From Hrithik Roshan's extra finger to Paris Hilton's size 11 feet, a look at celebs with deformities. Photos More » Imperfectly Perfect
Our love affair with Aishwarya has stood the test of time. Here is a pictorial tribute to one of the prettiest women in the world. More » Aishwarya: Through the years
They're not just pretty faces on the red carpet. These lovely ladies are celebrities in their own right and mothers too. JLo, Karisma, Sushmita and many more are among those who make our famous yummy mummy list. More » Yummy celebrity mothers
Last year Poonam was all for getting drenched during Holi. This year she is singing a new tune. More » Poonam Pandey and her Holi campaign
They're not just famous faces, some of the biggest names in Bollywood believe in doing good, straight from the heart. One of the biggest avenues of celebrity philanthropy is supporting PETA. Whether its posing in the buff or just plain showing face, here's what these famous faces like to do for their furry friends. More » Hot celebs pose for PETA
It was a star studded event as some of the biggest faces hit the red carpet for the night. Here's a look at who attended. More » Femina Miss India red carpet
A look at who wore what to the L'Oreal Femina Women Awards 2013. More » Who wore what
Bollywood stars are known for their liking towards tattoos. Stars like Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Deepika Padukone, Prateik, Amy Jackson and the likes, sport body art. There is a story behind every celebrity tattoo; let's explore... More » Celebrity tattoo stories
We know that most of the celebrities live life king size. And when it comes to gifting a loved one – they go all out to make those gifts extra special More » Extravagant and outrageous celeb gifts
Here's our weekly round up of all the things from the world of fashion faux pas. From animal print overkill to pink bedsheets, to fishnet tanks and blue beards, there's no limit to the things some celebrities will go to! More » The Ugly side: Trolling with the droll
She may be the queen of television but when it comes to fashion, Ekta Kapoor is the uncrowned queen of disaster. From her sloppy rubber platforms to multiple talismans and of course some unforgivable clothes, we give you the TV czarina's trail of fashion trashin' More » Repeat offender: Ekta Kapoor
After filmmaker Aditya Chopra gifted his lady love a a luxury Audi A8 W12 worth Rs 1.25 crore, we hear she may have got something more. Will they make it official soon?
Read: When Shatrughan Sinha called her Rani Chopra More » Has Aditya given Rani an important gift?
Some days being a celebrity means you can wear what you want, some days you're even allowed to forget your pants at home, wear bedsheets, show off underwear and then some. Here's our weekly look at the ugly side of celebrity fashion. More » The Ugly side: The bottomless pit of fashion faux pas
Bollywood celebrities party with Hollywood great Steven Spielberg
Spotted : Steven Spielberg
Photos: In Spielberg's classroom
Photos: Spielberg comes to Bollywood More » Bollywood parties with Spielberg
Steven Spielberg, who is in India to celebrate the success of his Oscar-winning film "Lincoln", interacted with various Bollywood celebrities. Spotted
Spotted: Steven Spielberg
Spielberg holds a class for B'wood directors
More » Bollywood welcomes Steven Spielberg
The man behind E.T, Jurassic Park, Jaws and many other box office blockbusters is in India. Find out why Steven Spielberg is here... More » Spotted: Steven Spielberg!
With everyone saying they're tired of the same old look on Katrina Kaif, here's one that's a game changer. Kat ditches her regular good girl look for something more risque. More » Katrina's sexy cover
Cricket and celebrities - there is no doubt that these are two passions that most of us in this country share. The Celebrity Cricket League brings both these passions together. A look at the celebs from the sidelines rooting for their teams. More » Glitz, glamour and a bit of cricket
It was a starry night at the Teacher's Achievement Awards as several Bollywood faces were spotted. Find out who attended... More » Teacher's Achievement Awards
The Roshans are a close knit family and we weren’t surprised when our photographer caught the whole family together celebrating Mahashivrati at their Panvel farmhouse. More » Hrithik celebrates Mahashivratri with family
New parents Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra are living proof that a little downtime as a couple is the secret to a happy marriage. We spotted the normally busy duo, taking some time out to watch a movie. More » Shilpa and Raj's date night
Yes, we mean it; here are some intricate ties that make Bollywood a huge big family. A look More » Bollywood is a huge big family
Young and old, curvy or lean, there has never been a debate that a sari brings out the best in an Indian woman More » Sexying up the sari
Celebrities who don sheer apparel leaving no room for imagination. (Images: Getty) More » When sheer is sexy
She's doing her best to be in the limelight and we've got to admit Sonal Chauhan is getting it right. The Jannat star shows us how she got her body bikini ready, by hitting the gym. More » Sonal Chauhan's fab bikini bod
Ghajini girl Asin Thottumkal is reportedly thinking of tying the knot with a US citizen. (ANI) More » Is Asin getting married?
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Ratings agency Standard & Poor's affirmed India's sovereign rating at "BBB-minus" with a "negative" outlook, reiterating there was a one-in-three chance of a ratings downgrade over the next 12 months, a statement said on Friday. Full Article
China president takes charge of sweeping economic reform plans - sources. Full Article
Confused while buying stocks? Get buy, sell or hold recommendations from VantageTrade. Full Coverage
Andrew Flintoff survives knock down to win debut fight
REUTERS - Former England cricketer Andrew Flintoff beat American Richard Dawson on points after surviving a knockdown in his first professional fight at the MEN Arena in Manchester on Friday.
The 34-year-old got a rousing reception from the 5,000 fans and won the first of four two-minute rounds before being caught by a left hook early in the second that sent him to the canvas.
However, Flintoff got up to receive a standing eight count and battled back with a more composed performance against a flagging opponent for a 39-38 win on the referee's scorecard.
"You talk about the Ashes and things but as a personal achievement, this is the best," Flintoff, part of England's Ashes-winning teams in 2005 and 2009, told BoxNation.
Despite his successful start the former all-rounder was cautious about his future in the sport, saying "we'll see how we go. It's not natural to me, I've had to work so hard.
"The feeling of being in there and winning at the end, I can't believe it but I'm not pretending to be something I'm not," he added.
Flintoff, coached by former world champion Barry McGuigan, had weighed in at 216lbs (97.98kg), 25lbs (11.34kg) lighter than Dawson, 23, who had won his previous two professional fights.
Flintoff, who played 79 tests before retiring from cricket in September 2010 through injury, became a national treasure by leading England to their famous Ashes victory in 2005 - their first test series win over Australia in almost two decades.
(Writing by Ken Ferris; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)
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From the Wires
Rob Macpherson Rutland VT: Microchipping Is a Great Holiday Gift for Pets and Owners
As Many Americans Prepare for the Holiday Season by Rushing to the Stores to Find Presents for Others, Many Are Wondering About Great Gift Ideas for Pets; Rob Macpherson, Rutland, VT Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Explains That Microchipping Is a Practica
By: Marketwire .
Dec. 24, 2012 06:00 AM
RUTLAND, VT -- (Marketwire) -- 12/24/12 -- As most Americans are making their last efforts to seek out great holiday presents for their friends and family members, others are concerned about what gifts to get for the beloved animals in their lives. Just as holiday gifts are becoming more technologically complex for the human population, gifts for pets -- and pet owners -- are also following this trend. A recent article from Yahoo! highlights how many of these tech-related pet gifts are not only fun for animals, but sometimes beneficial to their health. Although some of the article's listed items -- such as the electric dog treat maker -- are fun, Rob Macpherson, Rutland VT veterinarian, notes that those searching for holiday pet gifts should focus on ones that can improve an animal's health.
While some holiday shoppers may prove quick to pick up a bone or a squeeze toy for a pet's stocking stuffers, the article highlights that there are a vast array of products available for animals. For instance, it notes that pet-loving consumers could purchase goods such as dog barking controls, electronic self-cleaning cat litter boxes, exercise equipment, air conditioners for doghouses, and even pet air purifiers for human houses.
Although Rob Macpherson, Rutland, VT dog owner and resident, believes that it is always fun to have presents for pets to "unwrap" under the tree, there are some health-oriented gifts that may prove more considerate. For instance, those who have yet to have their pet microchipped may find that this easy procedure is a great gift to both the animal and the owner.
Rob Macpherson of Rutland, VT explains, "What better gift to give than one that can help ensure the safe return of a loved one, should the animal become lost. Microchips are safe with no long-term health consequences to the pet. Once they are implanted, these devices last a lifetime. In addition, all humane societies, animal control organizations and veterinary clinics have the ability to scan for a chip. This allows lost cats and dogs to be returned to their homes as quickly as possible. Microchips are simply a great gift idea for our awesome companions."
Rob Macpherson, Rutland VT Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, owns and practices veterinary medicine at Rutland Veterinary Clinic and Surgical Center. For two decades, he has thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to heal animals and support pet owners. Before taking ownership of the clinic in Rutland, he worked there as a staff veterinarian for 10 years. As a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Rob Macpherson, Rutland, VT resident, has a great deal of experience under his belt and has become a very active member of his community, especially in regards to animal protection rights and health.
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From the Wires
IEHP Launches Health Home Model in 10 Community Clinics
By: PR Newswire
Jan. 17, 2013 12:00 PM
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif., Jan. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- To strengthen the partnership between patients and their healthcare team, Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) has kicked off a pilot program utilizing the proven health home model in ten Riverside family care center clinics.
As a joint effort between IEHP and Riverside County Health System (RCHS), the pilot helps enhance care for approximately 12,500 patients in the following clinics:
Each clinic applies health home components in the care setting focusing on team-based care, data exchange and access to care.
IEHP enlisted Colorado-based Health Team Works to assist in the development of a robust implementation plan, starting with a comprehensive assessment of each clinic. Assessments included on-site visits to evaluate workflows, processes, average length of time for scheduled visits and interviews with physicians and clinic staff.
Clinics were shown how to design a multi-disciplinary team that collectively shares the responsibility of managing patient care, specifically preventive care and chronic disease management. According to their role in the clinic, team members, including physicians, nurses and office coordinators received customized training on teaching patients how to effectively manage their healthcare, how to conduct action planning and how to conduct motivational interviewing.
Between the clinics and IEHP, a framework for data exchange was built to support the medical teams, providing essential real-time patient data, such as preventive care and lab results. The second phase of data exchange, expected this winter, includes implementing a new system, enabling clinics to more efficiently improve patient health outcomes in areas such as chronic disease management.
Developing best practices will help IEHP plan for the design and expansion of the health home model across the IEHP provider network.
"Our partnership with RCHS is vital in helping IEHP create a road map to assist our community clinics and providers in achieving health home status," said Dr. Bradley Gilbert, IEHP chief executive officer.
To improve access and maximize the number of patients seen per day, a centralized scheduling department was created whereby patients can call one number to make an appointment at any of the ten clinics, allowing clinics to offer more same day appointments.
"Health homes will help us better integrate systems of care for our members," said Dr. William Henning, IEHP chief medical officer. "Using a team-based approach to care and providing clinics more data from the member's medical history will help us to deliver even better care."
The pilot is supported by a $500,000 grant from Community Clinics Initiative (a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment).
IEHP, Inland Empire Health Plan, a Knox-Keene licensed health plan located in San Bernardino, California, is a not-for-profit public agency. IEHP services San Bernardino and Riverside counties and has over 575,000 members in the following programs: Medi-Cal (including seniors and people with disabilities), Healthy Families, Healthy Kids, and a Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plan. Through a dynamic partnership with providers, award-winning service and innovative products, IEHP is fully committed to providing members with quality, accessible and wellness based healthcare services. www.iehp.org.
Health TeamWorks is a non-profit multi-stakeholder collaborative, working to redesign the healthcare delivery system and promote integrated communities of care, using evidence-based medicine and innovative systems. Our goals are to optimize health, improve quality and safety, reduce costs, and improve the care experience for patients and their healthcare teams.
SOURCE Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP)
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There will be plenty of time to position yourself for the long term once the S&P investment grade upgrade starts to make a real impact on the Brazilian economy. However the chances of hot money sloshing in today are pretty high, with articles such as this one linked here predicting 25% index gains for 2008 fuelling the sheep money fire (remember the ADRs traded in New York yesterday but the Brazilian markets were closed for May Day).
ERJ: the Embraer ADR. This one has lagged the market somewhat this year, despite being a great Brazilian success story and an order book stacked up in the billions of dollars.
VIV: Mobile phone play Vivo jumped 6.2% yesterday, but there's plenty more where that came from.
CIG: Cemig is a Brazilian cement play that popped 2% yesterday, but it still under its 52 wk highs. At $21 now, if this breaks $23 it'll be off to the races. Cement stocks become much less boring when they make you a heap of profit.
ITU: Banco Itau got a big pop on strong volume yesterday on the investment grade news, and will be one of the first in line to receive hot money when Sao Paolo opens tomorrow.
GGB: Gerdau Steel has resisted all downgrades on its climb to its current all time high. With a PE of 11.5X right now, there's more in the tank now that Brazil is "officially a serious country"*.
Again, don't be afraid to take a short term profit on GGB, but be thinking about a longer term position afterwards.
So there are six ways to play the investment grade party. You'll notice that PBR and RIO aren't on the list. This because they're already 'world class' investment risks and won't be first in line to get "the pop" from this news. Another way to play Brazil is the useful ETF play, EWZ.
I hope this little overview helps in its own small way. However I'm sure you'll need to do more DD on any or all of these before making a good investment decision.
UPDATE: It's been pointed out to me that CIG (Cemig) is not a cement play, in fact it's a Brazil energy play. Quite right too, and thank you "chinstrap" for point that out. A mistake on my part, and I'll blame writing late at night for it. Any way around, a basic error. Sorry dudes...will try harder next time. And as a little autoflagellation I won't correct the original text (which was corrected on seeking alpha, by the way).
*Charles de Gaulle will be turning in his grave
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Immediate download of 5-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
Comes in limited edition hand-painted, plastic-sealed sleeve with business card.
Includes immediate download of 5-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
ships out within 3 days
edition of 50
released 11 October 2011
Produced by Incan Abraham
Recorded by Clinton Welander and Giuliano Pizzulo at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, CA and Salami Studios in N Hollywood respectively
Mixed by Clinton Welander at The Sound Factory in Hollywood, CA
Mastered by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering in Boston, MA
Assistant Mastering Engineer: Maria Rice
Thank you, first and foremost, to our parents.
And also, a big thanks to all those who contributed to our Kickstarter, most specifically: Murray Lappe, Beth McCauley, Amalia Anastasopoulou, Angla Lippillo, Lesley Maki, Lauren Matthews, Salami Studios, Noah Kraft, Alex Stone, Gideon Arom, Elizabeth Henry, Terry Putterman, Michael McCarthy, David Hauser, Carol Weitz, Chuck Scholer, Shane Tilton, Marcia Strean, Owen Rosenblum and Better Days Productions, Elliot Jacoby, Tony Pizzulo, Jamie Ansorge, Aaron Folb, Janice Weitz, Bob Rosen, Adam Peterson, Frank Pizzulo, Richard & Marcia Hurwitz, and Abby Melamed
Special thanks to Mike Clinco at The Stem Cell for equipment usage and additional vocal recording
all rights reserved
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This week, The Choice published our monthly Counselor’s Calendar, intended to keep students on track during the college admissions process.
What follows are excerpts that are most relevant for international students. — Tanya Abrams
Juniors: College Checklist for March
This is the part of your college search that does not have a lot of specific deadlines. It does, however, have a lot of things you need to do to stay on track and set yourself up for the best experience.
Set the Tone
It is in your power to foster a positive dynamic with your parents early in this process. This is a bittersweet time for them, trust me. You grew up much faster than they were expecting. Establishing expectations now will help when things (inevitably) get a little touchy between you and your parents.
I am a big fan of the once-a-week policy, in which you and your parents set a weekly time to talk about your college search and application process. During this time, your parents are allowed to bring up anything that is on their minds and ask as many questions as they want. The rest of the week, college talk is off limits, unless you raise the subject. This is particularly helpful if your parents — armed with college questions galore — already seem to pounce the second you walk through the front door.
Your parents want to help and they deserve to be included in your thinking. Still, you are the one who is getting ready to go off to college, so you need to take the lead.
Think Ahead About Letters of Recommendation
It may seem early but now is a good time to start thinking about which teachers you might ask for a letter of recommendation. Don’t worry. You do not need to ask anyone for a letter just yet but planning ahead can make asking a little easier.
Many colleges will ask for two letters from faculty members who have had you in their classrooms in 11th or 12th grade. Who should you ask? One recommendation letter should come from a class that requires you to do a fair amount of writing. The other should showcase another aspect of your learning — like science, math or a foreign language.
Ask the teachers who saw you perform at your best. Which teachers have sparked your curiosity? Which ones make you reconsider your own opinions? Those are the people you want writing for you.
Keep an Open Mind
Allow yourself to change your mind, even if you already have a set idea of where you plan to apply next fall.
If, in the course of researching colleges, you stumble upon a school that seems pretty much perfect but you have never heard of it, that’s O.K. It hasn’t heard of you, either.
You may find schools that resonate with who you are but do not match your plan. It is O.K. to change the plan.
In this phase, changing your mind and adjusting your criteria are not signs that you do not know what you want. Actually, they are indications that you are a flexible thinker with the confidence to trust your judgment.
Remember what Emerson said: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Don’t Rush This Part
I think the anxiety and pressure students feel about college makes them want to skip ahead to the concrete stuff, to be done with all the reflection and research.
Here’s the thing: Visiting schools, thinking about what kind of undergraduate experience you want, and starting to create a list? That is the really fun part of applying to college.
I am sorry to tell you that there are very few times in your life when you get to choose where you want to live, the kind of people you want to spend time with, and the way you want to learn. You might as well make the most of the opportunity.
With all the hype and uncertainty surrounding applying to college, it is easy to approach the process from a place of fear. Fight that impulse. This process is about possibility. Enjoy this time and try to savor what a gift it is to be able to make choices like these. Have fun!
— Heather Keddie
Seniors: College Checklist for March
This is the month you’ve been waiting for. Most admission decisions will be released by the end of March, leaving all of April for you to make your choice.
Take a few deep breaths and contemplate what it will be like to receive your decision notices. Make a plan for how, when and where you want to get and share the news, and think about how you will evaluate your offers.
Check Your Online Decisions Off Campus
If you are able to check your decisions online, consider getting the news outside of school, even though it’s hard to wait. At school you’re surrounded by other people who could be inadvertently just as affected by your admission decisions as you are. This is especially true if many of your classmates applied to the same colleges.
Choose to be in a private space with family or friends who will show you their support, no matter what the decision turns out to be.
Share Your Decisions (but Not With Everyone)
Your decisions are your own business. How much you want to share and with whom is up to you. Just be prepared with a snappy comeback to the inevitable question.
Do share your decisions with your counselor and all of those nice people who wrote recommendation letters for you. Feel free to remind them that you would like to keep the information private, if that’s the case.
If you are open with your decisions, please keep in mind that a little modesty goes a long way.
Take a Close Look at Your Financial Aid Letter
Not sure how to read your financial aid award? Call the financial aid office at each college and ask a few questions. The goal is to determine just how much you are being offered in grants and loans, and how much more you will have to cover as a family — not just for next year, but for the next four years.
Ask if the grants are guaranteed for all four years. Calculate how much of a loan burden you will have to carry, how much your parents will be responsible for, and when you must start paying it off. Compare these awards very carefully and talk openly about your findings as a family.
If you have any questions after speaking to the financial aid offices, talk to your counselor. Remember that if your financial situation has changed significantly since you filed your paperwork, you may request a re-evaluation.
There is a lot to gain from ending the year with good grades, as you’ll be well prepared for final exams. Now is not the time to cheat, plagiarize or break the rules.
Remember that colleges have the right to pull their admission letters, and they do this regularly. Use your best judgment at all times.
Don’t Take It Personally
When I was an admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania, we had to make the very tough decision to deny the child of an alumnus. The decision so angered the alumnus that he sent my boss, the dean of admissions, a well-worn Penn cap he had owned since he was an undergraduate. He also enclosed a note instructing the dean to “stick it” in a very inconvenient place.
Don’t be this guy. And I’m not just discouraging sending special packages to deans. Try not to take admissions decisions too personally.
My students sometimes receive disappointing news from colleges, and once in a while they come to me and ask, “What else could I have done? Why didn’t they like me? Wasn’t I good enough?” My heart breaks when I hear these words.
Allow me to speak for all admissions officers when I say: Of course you’re good enough. You are unique and talented and tremendously deserving. We just have to make really tough decisions, knowing all the time that very accomplished, worthy, likable students like you will not get in.
Please don’t take our decisions personally. Enjoy exploring the colleges that accepted you. They are so lucky to have you. Focus on your next steps and don’t look back.
And with that, I wish all of you a lot of great news in the coming months. Don’t forget to stay focused, follow your plan, and ask for help along the way. Good luck!
— Christine L. Pluta
This post was prepared in consultation with the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools, a membership organization.
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The Javan rhinoceros is one of the most rare animals in the world and it was just spotted on video tape.
Seamen have long reported miraculous sightings of luminous, glowing seawater.
You know how animals are supposed to be able sense disasters before they happen? Well some believe it’s a myth, though there are lots of reports of animals behaving strangely days before the tsunamis hit in Indonesia. Hundreds of thousands of ants were seen scurrying away from the beach. Elephants, dogs, and zoo animals were all reported to have been acting strangely. What can explain it? Learn more on this Moment of Science.
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General Vijay Kumar Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC is a third generation officer of the RAJPUT Regiment. An alumnus of Birla Public School, Pilani and National Defence Academy, the General was commissioned in 2 RAJPUT (KALI CHINDI) in 1970 and commanded the same battalion with distinction from June 1991 to May 1994.
General Singh has seen action in the liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 and Op. Pawan in Sri Lanka in 1987 where he was awarded Yudh Seva Medal. He has vast operational experience in Counter Insurgency Operations, LC, LAC and HAA environment. He has had an illustrious career with outstanding performance on all the courses that he has attended. He is a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington with a competitive vacancy. He is also a graduate of US Army Rangers Course at Fort Benning, USA and US Army War College, Carlisle.
The General has wide-ranging experience of various high profile commands, staff and instructional appointments. He commanded his battalion in an active LC environment and brigade in an operationally sensitive area. While in command of a Counter Insurgency Force in J&K, he was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal for his distinguished service as General Officer Commanding. On staff, he has served in MO Dte at Army HQ, Col GS of an Infantry Division and BGS of a Corps during OP PARAKRAM. The General Officer has also commanded the Prestigious Strike Corps in Western Sector, before taking over the command of the Eastern Army in March 2008. He has been an instructor at Inf. School, Mhow and Chief Instructor at JLW (Commando Wing) at Belgaum. He has also served as an Instructor at HQ IMTRAT. The General Officer has also been awarded with the Param Vishisht Seva Medal by the President of India in recognition of his exceptional and distinguished services on the eve of Republic Day 2009.
The General is also a keen sportsman and plays almost all troop games as well as Tennis, Badminton and Golf. His hobbies include Trekking and Photography.
The General Officer has taken over as the Chief of the Army Staff on 31 Mar 2010.
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This is the Portal of Indian Railways, developed with an objective to enable a
single window access to information and services being provided by the
various Indian Railways entities. The content in this Portal is the result of a
collaborative effort of various Indian Railways Entities and Departments Maintained by CRIS, Ministry of Railways, Government of India.
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Two of the Indians' prospects have earned weekly honors in their respective minor leagues. Several players were shifted throughout the organization, too. Buffalo right-hander Sean Smith made both lists. He earned pitcher of the week honors in the Triple-A International League, then was sent to short-season Mahoning Valley. Kinston catcher Chris Gimenez was named Carolina League player of the week.
Smith was sent to Mahoning Valley so that catcher Yamid Haad could be called up to replace injured Mike Rose. Smith, who pitched Sunday, will be back for his next start for the Bisons in all likelihood.
The right-hander is 4-1 with a 1.77 ERA in eight games, including five starts for Buffalo. He earned pitcher of the week honors by going 2-0 in the period of May 14-20. In 11 1/3 innings, he allowed nine hits and only one run (0.79 ERA), walking three and striking out 11.
Gimenez hit .400 (6-for-15) with four homers, 10 RBI and six runs during the week. He hit three of those homers in one game last Wednesday. His other homer came in the 10th inning Saturday to give Kinston a win.
INF Andy Lytle decided to retire.
INF Cristo Arnal transferred from Gulf Coast Indians to Lake County.
RHP Brian Sikorski's contract sold to the Yakult Swallows of Japan’s Central League.
LHP Aaron Laffey transferred from Akron to Buffalo.
OF Ramon Hernandez placed on Lake County DL with left hamstring strain, retroactive to May 15.
OF Cirilo Cumberbatch transferred from Mahoning Valley to Lake County.
LHP Matt Meyer transferred from Lake County to Kinston.
RHP Austin Creps transferred from Gulf Coast Indians to Lake County.
INF Felipe Garcia decided to retire.
INF Andy Marte reinstated from Cleveland DL.
OF Franklin Gutierrez optioned from Cleveland to Buffalo.
C Mike Rose placed on Buffalo DL with right hamstring strain.
RHP Nick Pesco transferred from Mahoning Valley to Akron.
C Argenis Tavarez transferred from Gulf Coast Indians to Lake County.
C Yamid Haad transferred from Mahoning Valley to Buffalo.
RHP Sean Smith transferred from Buffalo to Mahoning Valley.
1B Michael Aubrey reinstated from Akron DL and transferred to Kinston.
C Chao-Kuan Wu placed on Kinston DL with right calf strain, retroactive to May 17.
RHP Joanniel Montero transferred from Mahoning Valley to Lake County.
RHP Michael Eisenberg transferred from Lake County to Mahoning Valley.
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Blog Entry# 411426
Posted: Apr 29 2012 (6:29PM)
Last Response: May 28 2012 (12:10PM)
Apr 29 2012 (6:29PM) Trivandrum-Chennai SF Express/12696 ⇑ ↓⇓ ←→
Nazeer** 6817 blog posts 10812 correct pred (65% accurate)
Now traveling on this train. I just want know whether it is possible for an manual upgradation in a CNF e ticket?
Apr 29 2012 (6:49PM) ↑⇑ ↓⇓ ←→
Gopalakrishnan P*^ 2105 blog posts 240 correct pred (76% accurate)
Good evening and Thank you for the information Dr. Nazeer. Earlier I used to get it done for my journey's from mas to cbe. Now I have to plan differently.
17 posts - Sun Apr 29, 2012 - are hidden. Click to open.
8 posts - Mon Apr 30, 2012 - are hidden. Click to open.
May 28 2012 (12:10PM) ↑⇑ ↓⇓ ←→
jaihari 391 blog posts 23 correct pred (74% accurate) Ph:+919894056705
You have show your prs ticket to the upper class TTE for upgradation, if it is already marked/signed by lower class TTE, the ticket may not be upgraded or the TTE might ask the passenger to go back and get it counter signed by the lower class TTE.
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Post-poll, UPA gears up for turbulent Budget session of Parliament
The Congress is set to feel the first reverberations of its resounding defeat in the just-concluded assembly elections.
The Union government led by it will be virtually under siege during the three-month-long Budget session of Parliament that gets underway on Monday. Joining forces with the Opposition, the UPA's testy constituents and other supporting parties would also be gunning for it on a host of issues including federal autonomy and the price spiral.
While the passage of the Budget is unlikely to prove a headache for the government, other key policy measures and legislations will, in all likelihood, hit a hurdle. Among these are the proposed Food Security Bill, FDI in multi-brand retail, Land Acquisition Bill, goods and services tax (GST), Pension Bill, Prevention of Communal Violence Bill, National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and Lokayuktas in states.
As a result of the UPA being unable to push big- ticket reforms in the face of a severe number crunch in both the Houses of Parliament, the Congress could be staring at the prospect of another drubbing at the hustings - this time in the 2014 general elections.
So, on Sunday, a much-mellowed Congress reached out to its detractors to seek their cooperation for a smooth Budget session and pass as many Bills as possible. While Congress president Sonia Gandhi dispatched CWC member Shakeel Ahmed - who is in charge of West Bengal - to placate grumpy ally Trinamool Congress's (TMC) supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and MoS Rajeev Shukla were in touch with other non-UPA leaders.
The Congress game plan involved restricting the proceedings to the passage of the Budget in the first part of the session, which will conclude on March 30. The contentious Bills would be taken up only in the second phase of the session that starts on April 24 after a three-week recess during which parliamentary standing committees deliberate on proposals of different ministries.
But the government is likely to face stiff opposition on several issues. The TMC specified that was against a cut in fertiliser subsidy and rise petroleum prices. Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee has also joined non-Congress chief ministers in opposing the proposed NCTC.
BJP leader S. S. Ahluwalia said:"We will also oppose the government move to ban cotton export and demand a reversal of the decision." It another matter that buckling under pressure, government has already decided to lift the on cotton exports.
The House proceedings will start with disruptions," Ahluwalia said on an ominous note."We raise the issue of how NCTC impinges on the federal structure." The BJP will also rake up its issue of illegal money stashed in tax havens abroad and may demand a white paper on the matter.
Basudev Acharya, CPM floor leader in the Lok Sabha, said: "We will raise the prevailing agrarian crisis in the country as thousands of farmers have committed suicide, especially in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra."
He added:"The nationwide workers' strike on March 28 would also be taken up. The government has not implemented the promises made to trade unions. We will raise the issue of assault on federalism as well. A demand will be made for a structured and focused discussion on all these issues."
Shukla, who is among the Congress managers trying to ensure productive session, said: "I don't believe in the talk of Third or Fourth Front (alluding to the CMs of several states aligning forces federal autonomy). We have interacted with all leaders and they have promised cooperation. Passing the Budget and financial bills is, in any case, a part of their constitutional obligation."
Outlining the Samajwadi Party's agenda, its leader Mohan Singh said: "We will raise the issue of the Supreme Court verdict on the 2G spectrum allocation and question the government on why it is delaying action in the matter.
We will also bring up the NCTC issue because it curbs the powers of states. In addition to this, we will demand the implementation of the food security scheme."
The CPI leader in the Lok Sabha, Gurudas Dasgupta, said: "We will raise the issue of price rise. The government is callous and has not taken any concrete step to contain inflation. We will highlight the demands of workers who are going on a countrywide stir and also raise the matter of the attack on federalism."
Sources revealed that senior Congress leader Ahmed carried a placatory message for Mamata from Sonia. The Congress brass is understood to have offered a huge financial package for Bengal as a quid pro quo for her cooperation during the session.
The move appeared to have paid some dividends because on Sunday, Mamata decided not to attend the swearing-in ceremonies of SP scion Akhilesh Yadav as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and that of Shiromani Akali Dal veteran Parkash Singh Badal as the Punjab CM.
Asked about her earlier decision to be present at the functions, the Congress said any interaction with NDA constituents beyond the normal boundaries of social courtesy, will become immoral and one should not cross the "Laxman rekha" of "coalition dharma".
Mamata may have relented on this front but her MPs will reportedly stage a symbolic dharna near Mahatma Gandhi's statue outside Parliament when the session begins. The sit-in will be against the "neglect of West Bengal by the Centre". Trinamool members may also disrupt Mukherjee's Budget speech to demand a huge financial package for the debt-ridden state.
The finance minister, who is also the Congress's troubleshooter, held parleys with senior BJP leader L. K. Advani as well as the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, on Sunday. Mukherjee is also expected to talk to SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav. On Saturday, the finance minister had called on Sonia and discussed the party's strategy in Parliament.
The sticky issues
Most parties are planning to oppose the move to set up the NCTC and will talk about the"assault on federalism" BJP plans to oppose the government's move to ban cotton exports; will rake up its pet issue of illegal money stashed in tax havens abroad CPM will discuss agrarian crisis as thousands of farmers committed suicide in the Vidarbha region; will corner govt on nationwide workers' strike on March 28 An SP leader said the party will bring up the SC's verdict on 2G spectrum scam
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In late July 2012 the University of Melbourne student magazine Farrago published its July issue in print. It was also published on a flash driven third party website (probably produced by the printer from the PDF file used to print the magazine). At the time of writing this article (mid August), only some of the articles from the July edition have been published on the Farrago website.
‘The Hun Mole: Notes from a Tabloid Newsroom‘ by ‘anonymous’ is not on the Farrago site. It describes the experience of an undergraduate student who completed a brief internship at the Melbourne News Ltd tabloid paper the Herald Sun. Anonymous was outed as Sasha Burden, who describes the Hun newsroom as a culturally anachronistic environment fundamentally at odds with her progressive feminist and LGBT-positive values.
The article can be read as consistent with many narratives that frame a clash of cultures between a gender and sexually diverse, inner urban intellectual elite and a heteronormative, suburban anti-intellectual mainstream. The two tribes distrust and despise each other and increasingly have little to do with each other. We coexist with indifference.
The article became controversial and the subject of intense discussion via Twitter in the second week of August 2012. This clash of cultures framed much of the discussion, which also touched on pertinent industry issues like the future of media corporations in the online age and the ethics of writing anonymous exposés. Despite some flaws, the article is a fair example of investigative journalism that legitimately exposes information in the public interest.
Throughout the discussion, Burden, Farrago and its individual editors were conspicuously silent. It was insinuated by some commentators that they had been politically silenced. There has been little discussion of why this might be the case.
This article aims to examine the broader issue of Burden’s article in the context of the efficacy of student journalism in the online age. My purpose is to examine this article as a rare example of student journalism that has reached a greater audience, and an influential one: many prominent professional journalists and academics participated in the Twitter conversation.
Before I begin though, some disclaimers. First, I’m a member of the intellectual elite, so you can consider what follows in that context. No one in my social network reads the Hun for anything but momentary ironic amusement. Its primary school reading age, obsession with celebrity trash culture and anti-intellectual bogan worldview is anathema to us. I am also a former editor of a university student newspaper.
Second, I briefly worked for the corporate, university side of the student union at the University of Melbourne in early 2012. MU Student Union Ltd (MUSUL) is a subsidiary company of the university that effectively functions as an administrative department of the university. Student representation occurs through the University of Melbourne Student Union Inc (UMSU). MUSUL and UMSU collectively form what is commonly known as the ‘student union’.
My perception of MUSUL/UMSU is of an organisation that is a monumental clusterfuck of incompetence, mismanagement and dysfunction. It appears to have not recovered from the corruption and insolvency crisis of the previous decade. The internal politics are toxic and an entrenched, resentful culture of stagnation and opposition to innovation makes it unlikely that things will ever improve.
Comment was sought from the Farrago editors several days prior to the publication of this article. No response was received.
The Farrago website
Farrago and the student population have been poorly served by the union website for years. In publishing terms, the union is obsessed with print and has never embraced the potential of the internet. Despite printed artefacts being slow and expensive to produce, difficult to distribute and generally inefficient in meeting the information needs of their target audience (students), union staff have for years insisted on producing printed information and have neglected their website.
Developed and built c2008, the current union website is not great but the CMS is adequate and functional in providing union staff and student representatives, including the Farrago editors, with a platform that they can use to effectively publish articles. Farrago has its own section of the site with its own distinctive layout and design.
In March 2009, co-editor Zoe Sanders was quoted as saying that ‘The new editors have big things planned for Farrago for this year – namely, a far more developed web presence, with an online edition of the magazine, podcasts, vodcasts and blogs‘. The current website platform must have been live by this time, but little content from 2009 is now available and these plans must not have been achieved. Since then, use of the Farrago website has been inconsistent.
The failure of successive editors to make the most of their website is due to a lack of technical skill (and a lack of initiative in acquiring it), a lack of online publishing insight, a lack of technical and management support and the enduring and pervasive vanity of seeing your name in print.
I spent considerable time working on the union website in early 2012, including consulting with the Farrago editors to conduct a needs analysis with the aim of improving their section of the site. I altered page templates and made new categories and sections to mirror the sections in the magazine and to allow for additional web-only content, including several blogs.
I created sample articles in each of the sections and taught the editors how to use the taxonomy to assign articles to the correct categories so they would be displayed in the correct sections of the site. I provided hands on one to one training and reference documentation.
In two months I completed more customisation than had been achieved in the years since the site was originally published, including expanding the taxonomy and information architecture to create archives (a major omission that had apparently never featured in the original design brief).
As a result, the union website now has a comprehensive archive system, including 2010 and 2011 Farrago back issues and student council and committee meeting minutes going back to 2008. While this content had been live all along, it previously did not feature in the navigation and had been very difficult to find.
From previous experience working with young people, I know that the so-called digital natives are not necessarily or even commonly competent in the use of digital publishing and online communications tools. They may have grown up with computers and the internet, but they can be surprisingly indifferent about their inadequate skills and disinterested in expanding their expertise. In this regard, the 2012 editors seem typical of their generation.
In addition to possessing little or no skill in publishing websites, the 2012 Farrago editors had little overall strategy for their website. They were initially reluctant to put many articles online and have done this only haphazardly since I left. I advised the editors to use the time between sending the magazine to print and distributing the printed copies (about a week) to put the articles on the website, but this has not happened on a consistent basis.
They suggested using a flash based tool like the one the July issue is published with. I gave them several reasons why this was a very bad idea that would undermine their online efforts. First, because it uses flash, the content cannot be viewed on iPhones and iPads. If you want to reach a student audience that primarily uses these devices, don’t publish content they can’t see. The Farrago editors failed to heed that advice. I’m not the only person giving such advice. It’s common knowledge in the industry.
If you wander around campus for a few minutes you’ll notice that almost every student has a smartphone in their hand, often an Apple iPhone. Work there for a while and you’ll hear them repeatedly complain about the crapness of the union website and the inadequate coverage of the supposedly campus-wide wifi provided by the university. They expect to access information online at their convenience. The university and the union are failing to meet that need.
Second, because the content is locked in a flash file, it is not in the Farrago site under the union domain but under a meaningless domain, ‘printgraphics.net.au’, and is not indexed by Google for findability in search results. Farrago is also using another flash magazine publisher, issuu, for back issues. However, they don’t link to this from the Farrago site, which is another incomprehensible oversight.
Third, by not publishing the article on their site, where commenting can occur and a conversation can be hosted, Farrago failed to capture the audience that developed around the article. If you want to capture an audience and moderate their conversation, you have to make some effort. Farrago will have no idea how many people have read Burden’s article and, by allowing the conversation to happen elsewhere, basically gave away all that traffic and attention to other sites. This represents a significant wasted opportunity to engage with a wider audience and to interact with the experienced media professionals who participated in the conversation.
UMSU publishes and funds Farrago (from revenue generated by advertising in the magazine and federal government funding obtained via the university from the Student Services and Amenities Fee). It is presumably higher now thanks to SSAF than during the lean, VSU affected years of the 1990s and 2000s. The most recent publicly available information about Farrago’s budget is from 2009, when $55,000 of the $58,000 budget was spent on printing. What a waste of money. That could fund a full time online publishing coordinator position to focus entirely on making the Farrago website awesome.
Having not worked at a university for some time prior to 2012, I was amazed to discover that student newspapers still exist in print. I had vaguely imagined that the VSU decimation of union funding would have forced them online as a cost saving measure (if not a desire to embrace the future). I have underestimated how backwards student unions are.
Farrago is a form of vanity publishing that provides social status for a small minority at considerable expense to the majority. Unfortunately, today’s editors seem more interested in perpetuating the inefficiencies of the past than in adapting to the times and innovating to meet the needs of present and future students, who primarily want to access information online.
Print is simply a means of distributing content. It used to be the only way, but now there’s a fundamentally better way that is faster, cheaper and more desired by audiences. You only have to look at the Twitter conversation to see that. Ignoring this is willful stupidity.
Farrago’s silence throughout is puzzling, and I have many questions that I would like answered. Did Burden violate the terms of her enrollment by writing critically about her internship? Is she facing disciplinary action within the university?
Has Farrago aggrieved university leaders by publishing the article? Did the editors fail to get a legal opinion before publishing it? Has the magazine offended the university by facilitating Burden to do the same?
Has Farrago been politically silenced by university management? Or has pressure come from within the union, from the university owned MUSUL side or the student run UMSU side?
Are any News Ltd or associated companies advertisers in Farrago? Have they threatened to withdraw their advertising or their sponsorship of orientation day? Is the Farrago silence politically or commercially motivated?
I doubt that Burden’s behaviour is a serious problem for the university. The accusation that she has damaged the internship system or undermined the chances of future students to experience an internship is weak. This case will soon be forgotten.
The greatest naivety of the case would be if Burden genuinely believed she had a future in mainstream corporate commercial media. This industry is in terminal decline. Thousands of journalists are losing their jobs. The advertising business model is broken and there is no replacement. Share prices are crashing. There’s no future there for young entrants to the industry. Open your eyes and move on.
Farrago’s failure to publish its articles on its own website is a significant issue, and fault lies with the editors and MUSUL/UMSU management in equal measure. To take on the task of editing a student newspaper, the editors should make it their business to better understand the internet, and management should provide training, support and appropriate staffing to facilitate this.
The spontaneous conversation that emerged in relation to Burden’s article is the kind of fortuitous event that publishers dream of, but Farrago was fundamentally incapable of capitalising on this or even coping with it. It failed to host the conversation and, even worse, it didn’t even participate in it. This incompetence could only be excused if the editors were barred from participating.
Farrago is failing to make the most of its Facebook and Twitter profiles, which are used in an insipid and indifferent manner that displays little evidence of effort or imagination. Consequently, Farrago appears to be a quaint, harmless anachronism that lucked into temporary relevance and immediately slipped back into slumber. This lack of relevance may be typical of the genre. Are student newspapers and magazines still relevant now there’s social media and a blog to cover every niche interest?
Farrago’s paying audience (students are effectively paying for Farrago via their compulsory SSAF contributions) deserve better, and so do contributors like Burden. They contribute their time and creative effort to the magazine in exchange for exposure for their writing, but Farrago is not maximising its distribution and exposure. It is failing to effectively manage its content and disseminate it efficiently to its audience.
I suspect that, if asked, many students would say that Farrago is not worth paying for in its current form. To be locked out from reading it online due to your personal preference for mobile devices is ridiculous.
A brief history of desktop and online publishing for digital natives
When I edited a student newspaper, photocopiers and gluesticks were as important as computers in creating content and designing page layouts. I’ve written previously about my history of computer use. Creating a student newspaper c1994 involved writing and editing on computer, printing it out and using scissors and glue to manually paste together a page layout.
Photos had to be developed and printed, and other illustrations had to be photocopied to use. The low quality reproduction made everything dark, and the printing process exacerbated it. It seems laughably amateurish now. Some zines still use this method.
The technology we take for granted today was then in the process of coalescing. Postscript, the technology that makes fonts and images print as they appear on screen, was released in 1984 but took some years to gain widespread practical application. One of the first desktop publishing applications, Pagemaker, was released in 1985 and relied on Postscript. It was acquired by Adobe in 1994.
The Adobe Acrobat PDF file format, used to export page layouts from applications like Pagemaker and lock them into a single file to deliver to printers, was released in 1993. It is an extension of Postscript. When I first used it, c1995, it was a revelation and I told anyone who would listen that it would change everything. Few believed me then but I have been proved right. Around this time I also got access to MS Word v6 (released in 1993), which was the first version that allowed you to add images to documents.
The combination of Word or Pagemaker and Acrobat was a fundamental breakthrough. From about 1995 anyone could create professional page layouts and output them so that they printed as designed whether on an office laser printer or a commercial printer. I used Pagemaker throughout the later 1990s to typeset academic journals and monographs. Pagemaker was replaced by InDesign, which remains the industry standard tool for layout.
Digital scanners began to produce high resolution colour images suitable for print reproduction from the mid 1990s. Digital cameras began to be common from the late 1990s, but at first they did not produce images of sufficient resolution for print reproduction.
The (text only) internet had existed for some time when I started university in 1990, and got my first email address. The world wide web, or layer of content distributed over the internet, became more accessible with the release of the Mosaic browser in 1993. I first saw it in use (in other words, I first saw the the internet with pictures) in 1994. Web authoring software like Dreamweaver (released in 1997) made online publishing much easier.
The entire suite of tools used to digitally create and produce print and online publications came into being c2000, and has been in use for more little more than a decade. If you grew up being able to take all this technology for granted, you’re incredibly fortunate.
When I was on the editorial board of a postgraduate student research journal in the mid-late 1990s, I urged them to ditch print and to go online only, as a few academic journals were already doing. The biggest obstacle to the journal’s longevity was the difficulty of raising a pitiful few thousand dollars to print it. We also wasted far too much time processing subscriptions payments and mailouts.
Eliminating print means eliminating the biggest expenditure a publication has. It’s easy then to abandon sales and give it away, which is far less expensive than paying for print runs. You also save considerable time administering subscriptions. My proposal was rejected and I quit in disgust. The journal limped on and then went online only a couple of years later when funding was withdrawn. I smirked a victory smirk. Right again.
Farrago already owns the domain farragomagazine.com (it currently points to union.unimelb.edu.au/farrago). For a few hundred dollars a year it could buy some web hosting and install the free WordPress CMS and build a new website. They could then point their domain name to the new site and be independent of the union’s site.
They could abandon print altogether and stop wasting time soliciting for the advertising that partially pays for printing. They could divert most of their budget to employing someone suitably skilled to maintain their site. The editors could focus more on developing the content. The result would be a far superior online newspaper or magazine to what Farrago currently provides.
Students expect access to online academic journals and other digital resources. Why are their own publications still printed on dead trees? Unfortunately, I doubt this will change in the next decade. They simply don’t have the vision or the initiative.
What are the student papers at the other Group of Eight universities doing with their online presences?
Honi Soit (University of Sydney) uses the Drupal CMS for its website, and has PDF archives going back to 2007. Impressive. It has some full text articles online but does not appear to allow commenting on them and it also uses issuu for back issues, which is bad. Pass.
Pelican (University of Western Australia) appears to have no online content and uses issuu for back issues. Fail.
Semper (University of Queensland) appears to have no content online and uses PDFs for back issues. Fail.
Tharunka (University of New South Wales) uses WordPress CMS. I couldn’t find archives of past issues but the site suggests that all articles are online. It is well designed and easy to navigate. Commenting does not seem to be enabled on articles, which is a shame. Pass.
Woroni (Australian National University) uses WordPress CMS. It uses issuu for back issues, which is bad, but has implemented Facebook commenting on articles, which is impressive. Credit.
Lot’s Wife (Monash University) uses WordPress CMS. There are few back issues and these are in PDF. Commenting is enabled using default WordPress functionality but I couldn’t see any on current articles. The lack of archives and comment suggests the site is very new. It’s the most functional of the lot. Distinction.
On Dit (University of Adelaide) uses the Expression Engine CMS and issuu for back issues. It doesn’t seem to post many articles online and the site looks static and lifeless. Fail.
I rank Farrago fifth out of the eight student papers compared here in terms of their web presence. Prospective 2013 Farrago editors would do well to analyse the functionality of Woroni and Lot’s Wife, and the clean aesthetics of Tharunka, and try to improve on them. Use WordPress. Don’t use issuu or other forms of flash. Simple.
If you want to be even more relevant and contemporary, abandon the antiquated static print model of issues or volumes and publish articles as they are written. Develop and maintain a constant stream of content, and initiate and curate a conversation around it using your social media accounts as promotional channels. Radical.
The future of student journalism is online, where the audience is. The failure to understand and adapt to this is becoming a public embarrassment for Farrago and other stragglers. They’re even more backwards than the Hun.
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Since the first century AD, the Banda islands have been the sole producers of the fragrant nutmeg and mace for which Chinese, Indian, and Arab ships traveled across the seas. These precious spices could be sold at enormous profit in foreign markets.
The people of Banda thrived on their natural resources, but in later years suffered at the hands of Dutch colonizers who wanted to dominate the world’s spice trade.
Despite such a big reputation, the fabled Banda islands are only a tiny cluster of islands, composed of three large islands and seven smaller ones. The islands are perched on the rim of Indonesia's deepest underwater gorge, the Banda Sea, where waters can reach depths of over 6,500 meters.
Two of the biggest islands, Banda Besar and Naira, are covered with nutmeg trees. The third island, Gunung Api or ‘peak of fire’, is an active volcano that emerges from the deep in a perfect cone, and is entirely rugged and highly volcanic. In the waters surrounding these islands you’ll find some of the world’s most spectacular marine gardens, with bright corals and colorful fish, bustling through the crystal-clear waters, making it suitable for diving, snorkeling or even simply sightseeing.
Lying about 132 kilometers southeast of Ambon, the islands are a remote and exquisitely beautiful part of Indonesia. With multi-colored reefs, warm seas and exotic marine life, the Banda’s are a haven for divers who come from around the world to explore some of the most remote and unspoiled dive sites in the world.
Today, Banda attracts divers, sailors and cruise ships from around the world by its sheer natural beauty, both above as below the sea, which can only be matched by Raja Ampat, Papua; another location for ultimate underwater adventures.
The Banda Islands are one of the Indonesia’s most popular destinations for divers. Both experts and beginner divers will enjoy themselves here, as the diving spots vary from the shallow lagoon between Bandaneira and Gunung Api, to the vertical walls of Hatta Island. Wherever you go here, you’ll discover stunning tropical scenery, a remarkable history, friendly locals, and some of the globe's most pristine, biologically diverse coral reefs.
Scuba diving is still relatively new here, but pioneering divers didn't have to work hard to find a thrill. The undersea world around Ambon and the nearby island of Saparua have top-rate dive sites. As you explore beneath the surface you’ll see everything from sharks, enormous turtles, schools of Napoleon Wrasse, giant groupers, dogtooth tuna, mobula rays, redtooth triggerfish, various species of whales, spinner dolphins, and huge lobsters - neighbors to generous schools of reef fish and endemic Ambon scorpionfish.
Come to Banda islands and visit the best kept secret in Eastern Indonesia. While flights here are not frequent, it’s worth the wait. For this ideal tropical paradise won’t remain deserted for long.
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Every Love Story is a Ghost Story
Over the weekend, I read D.T. Max’s biography of David Foster Wallace entitled Every Love Story is a Ghost Story. If you’re reading this, it seems vanishingly unlikely that you haven’t first heard about the biography elsewhere. So in a way, I feel silly even mentioning it because my doing so seems a little bit like cheering for a game that’s already over. All the people whose opinions people want to hear have already spoken up. But it’s a book about stuff that’s important to me, so I also feel weird just not saying anything at all.
I had written a long rambly thing connecting my affinity with Wallace’s work when I first encountered it in the form of Infinite Jest 15 years ago to an affinity that Holden Caulfield expresses for Thomas Hardy and Ring Lardner. It was self-indulgent and stupid and all a round-about way of saying that Wallace’s work has been a major influence on the way I read, write, think (and think about thinking), and live.
Unsatisfied with the long preface I had written for what would be a very brief review of Max’s book, I put it aside and thought about abandoning it. But then a few comments about the book landed on the wallace-l email list, one of which curtly described the book as “thin.” A follow-up comment expanded by saying that the biography gave us little that we didn’t already pretty much know from Wallace’s own words in his books and interviews.
Well, this is partially true. But I think it also misses the point. You can’t exactly pry secrets from a ghost, and there’s something grave-robberish about digging for too much grit from family and friends for whom Wallace’s death is still no doubt a bit of a wound. Although Max does give a fair amount of background about Wallace’s early struggles both personal and authorial, it tapers off substantially as we move to Wallace’s years post-Infinite Jest. If you’re hoping to read Wallace’s suicide note or to learn lots of new information about the circumstances of his last decline and death, you’ll be disappointed; there’s very little substantially new information here about his last days beyond what came out in a couple of long articles shortly after Wallace’s death.
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is a book more about drawing broad lines between things that happened in Wallace’s life and things that appeared in his writing than about divulging every nasty or saintly thing he ever did. Although the author of the “thin” comment seems to have wanted the latter, I’m grateful that Max gave us the former. I feel like it helped me to better understand Wallace’s Gately-ish transformation as both he and his work matured, which made me feel good about where Wallace had been headed, if also really sad about where he wound up.
I think a book divulging many more details of Wallace’s life would have been simply sordid. And a book doing much more in the way of line-drawing and analysis would have been tiresome and speculative. What Max gives us instead is a book that provides a comfortable balance of detail and analysis. It’s a sympathetic and gentle book in the way that David Lipsky’s Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself was, and like Lipsky’s book, I think Max’s is a sort of gift.
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|Home > Life in Japan > Features|
Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011
HAVE YOUR SAY
World needs lessons in dealing with difference; Japan needs an education in attracting students
Following are three more readers' mails in response to both Gerry McLellan's May 24 Hotline to Nagatacho column "Japanese adults need an education in dealing with difference" and other letters published on the subject on June 28.
Education also needed elsewhere
In response to Gerry McLellan's letter, I would concur that yes, Japanese people do need more education in dealing with foreigners. But so do Americans, British, Australians and just about everyone else.
How many waiters, hairdressers and store clerks in your country can carry on a perfectly politically correct conversation with a foreigner without ever asking about their country of origin or what foods they like? I know a lot of "regular Joe"-type people in my country who unapologetically confuse Japan, China and Korea, not to mention South American countries, Middle Eastern countries, European countries and pretty much everywhere else.
In my university days, I would take Japanese exchange students to the local shopping mall; despite their earnest attempts to speak English with store employees, they would be told to their face, "Sorry, I can't understand anything you are saying." My Japanese friends who travel abroad tell me they regularly get jeers from people on the street. One friend even had raw eggs thrown at her, in a developed European country no less. Even my American friends who studied abroad throughout Europe told me they were surprised at how openly racist people were in those countries.
So in actuality, Mr. McLellan is demanding of Japan a standard that simply does not exist in other countries. I presume he had just never been on the receiving end of any cultural insensitivity until he came to Japan.
When studying abroad in Osaka, I had an American teacher who told us, "I love seeing these rich white kids coming to Japan and getting flabbergasted at the things Japanese people say to them. I think it's a great experience for them to be a minority for once." He had a good point.
Growing up as a half-Filipino in America, I was called "Chinese" by classmates, and even my teachers would jokingly call me a "dog eater." I have never had such rude things said to me here in Japan.
While I do agree that Japanese — and people everywhere else — need lessons on cultural differences, I have a feeling that Mr. McLellan and his son will somehow find a way to endure the horrible burden of being told they are good at Japanese.
Ignorance is widespread
If you have traveled extensively, Mr. McLellan, you might have noticed that Japan is not the only country where adults say such things. If fact, you're likely to encounter the same in other ethnically homogenous countries in the rest of Asia.
And even in Western countries like Australia — where I was born and currently live — as an Asian person I constantly get, "Your English is very good!" or "You seem kind of Australian, not like the other foreigners" from probably well-meaning people of all demographics. After telling them I was born and bred and educated in a private school, they seem to be able to find a justification for my out-of-place, unexpected English proficiency. Then they will pursue some other questioning of Asian stereotypes, e.g. why we like to gamble so much.
I am not the only Asian person who experiences this. It's as widespread as our cane toad plague.
So if you think Japan is culturally challenged, look again and you'll find that so is the rest of the world — that is, if you cared to look.
It can't be helped, for now
I, of course, like any non-Japanese person in Japan, have felt discriminated against.
A recent example was when I was on a business trip to Tokyo with a Japanese co-worker, and our hotel staff asked him to ask me for my passport. My co-worker doesn't speak English, so I answered by saying that I didn't have my passport with me as I did not come from overseas. Then they asked for my foreign registration card for them to copy.
I complied, but of course my Japanese co-worker did not have to show any identification. I got pretty upset that apparently a non-Japanese person is more of a risk than a Japanese person even though they are paying with the same credit card and work for the same company.
Totally unnecessary if you ask me, but then again, there are those non-Japanese people that take this discrimination and lash out. When that happens, hotels might be happy that they took these steps. But did they take steps to help a problem, or did they create the problem?
In either case, these types of situations — and even just saying that someone's Japanese is good — are cultural. Reading the other comments, it looks like most people who have not experienced racism are the most upset. Racism is everywhere. I almost guarantee that the people writing upset comments have also said racist comments about Japanese people themselves. I have, even though I am married to one.
Living in another culture is frustrating, especially one as unique as Japan's. This education will not come quickly, but as the number of foreigners and interracial kids increases in Japan, Japanese people will learn from experience.
As there is still racism in all countries, though perhaps not as much as before, discrimination will not go away in my lifetime. I choose to feel shōganai about this problem, as that will bring the least amount of frustration.
World should learn Japanese?
Re: " 'English interface' could be key to Japan's revival" by Glenn Newman (Zeit Gist, July 5):
It would seem that the writer has failed to recognize that the English-speaking countries were the primary facilitators of the recent global financial collapse. Maybe if the Japanese had a better command of English, the criminal activities of those Western bankers would have been more easily noticed; but numbers are numbers in any language, and one can be lied to in many languages.
The world seems unable to grasp the concept that Japan would like to remain Japanese. The Western ideal of cultureless societies that only embrace consumerism continues to destroy all cultures in its path.
The wheel of time changes many things, and the overreaction to the Japanese way of doing things is based on the "I want it now" attitude that prevails in the West.
Corruption in Japan is a major issue, but it is also an issue in many other countries. The financial crisis was a result of political corruption in the U.S. and the U.K.
I hardly think that learning English will be the healer of all that is wrong in the economic system. Culture maintains things of importance to a society and binds people when problems arise. Consumerism divides people by objects owned and is based on acquisitions and greed.
Maybe the English-speaking world would do better to understand Japanese?
What's anime got to do with it?
Re: " 'English interface' could be key to Japan's revival" by Glenn Newman (Zeit Gist, July 5):
The proposal at the end of the column to send companies to set up recruitment booths at anime events is a terrible idea.
Those who attend such expos are all otaku-like fanatics who probably wouldn't fit very well into a Japanese company.
The last thing we want is more "weeabos" (wannabe Japanese) morons to come to Japan and make Westerners look even more idiotic.
It's people like this that end up giving foreigners a bad name. I am so tired of hearing Westerners, scholars and others like you talk about anime as if it's the only thing Japan has to offer.
Going to Japan or being interested in Japan just because of video games, manga and/or anime is incredibly shallow.
Make colleges more accessible
Re: " 'Foreign students back but numbers look likely to fall" by James McCrostie (Zeit Gist, July 12):
I read the article with great interest as it concerns me personally. It seems I am one of the few who applied in May for a one-year precollege visa via a language school. If successful, this would be my second time in Japan, which I visited first as an MBA exchange student in 2006.
I truly believe that while the tsunami, Fukushima disaster and the obvious ineptitude and arrogance of TEPCO and the government won't help to restore trust, there are also structural problems Japan faces that were only partly addressed in the article.
I for one found the application procedure highly inflexible and strict. I was particularly worried that I had to send the original, not the certified copies, of my last diploma. Also, I was told (perhaps wrongly) that people who graduated more than five years ago weren't eligible at all. Language schools are missing out again on a big target group. Why not accept the 50-year-old Japanophile on a sabbatical? Visa regulations need to become more flexible and less of an administrative burden.
I know from personal experience that the quality of university courses is often so-so ("difficult to get in but a ride in the park afterwards," to quote a Japanese friend). If I were a parent paying for something extremely expensive like sending my kids to university abroad, I would want to make sure they are safe and would end up with an internationally appreciated degree. So some reforms are definitely needed as well as a rational PR effort directed at the parents as the paying party.
A big eye-opener for me was when I started to check out the possibilities of studying Korean in Seoul or Mandarin in Taiwan a few weeks ago as a backup plan; I got the feeling that these countries actually want me to come and study their language. The application procedures seem faster (two months versus five), less old-fashioned (Fax? Really, Japan?) and easier (two forms versus I-lost-count-of-the-number). The cost of living seems a little lower, and these countries have good universities and pretty funky entertainment, too. If I were to do it all over again, I'd perhaps select Taiwan or South Korea over Japan.
Don't misunderstand me. I loved living in Japan, and am looking forward to coming back for a year, but Japan still has a long way to go if it wants to reach ambitious goals, Fukushima or not. For some people like myself, anime, Arashi and tea ceremonies alone don't do the trick, and there are more dynamic countries out there that come to mind when investing in one's future, such as Australia, the U.S. and Singapore.
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In a countless number of movies and novels set in the British Regency and Victorian Era women are plagued by headaches; oftentimes as a way to show them as fragile, or as a joke. It is not a trope used with male characters, but if it were would they be taken seriously? Probably not. What if it was all viewed from a different angle and headaches were considered as something that legitimately affected their well-being? Maybe they were getting out of a carriage earlier in the week and bumped their head on the door frame causing a very mild head injury. What if in present day your head bumped against the driver’s side window in a small accident with no other injury? Could that genuinely affect anyone’s overall health?
A new study by Dr. Sylvia Lucas, coming out of the American Headache Society‘s Annual Meeting, states that those who experience milder head injuries tend to have more post-traumatic headaches as time progresses than those with severe injuries.
Out of the 598 participants in the study “about 70% [were] more likely than … their counterparts with moderate or severe injury to develop new headache or have a worsening of preexisting headache over the next year,” Dr Lucas was quoted as saying. The majority of headaches were classified as migraines, though a large chunk was unclassifiable using the International Classification of Headache Disorders, second edition.
They do not know why this occurs, but Dr. Lucas thinks it is related to the specific mechanics of the accident that caused the head injury.
Breaking down the participants: 220 had mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and began the study the same week of their accident; the other 378 had moderate to severe traumatic brain injury and were admitted to rehabilitation facilities. They found that migraines and tension headaches were most common, and that cervicogenic headaches were less common. This was unexpected considering most of the incidents that led to the TBI stemmed from motor vehicle accidents.
“Study results showed that the mild TBI group and the moderate or severe TBI group had an identical prevalence of headache before injury (17%). But the former had a higher incidence of new or worsened headache at baseline (56% vs. 40%), at 3 months (63% vs. 37%), at 6 months (69% vs. 33%), and at 12 months (58% vs. 34%).”
If you are wondering how this might severely affect somebody’s life, about a year ago a story came out that soldiers were sidelined more from headaches than from other types of wounds. Headaches. For the study Dr. Steven P. Cohen and his colleagues “reviewed the records of 985 soldiers who had been evacuated from the wars during 2004-2009 with a primary diagnosis of headache.” The causes of the headaches ranged from physical trauma, psychological or emotional, to environmental.
Only about a third of the patients in the study were able to return to duty.
So maybe headaches can cause a bigger imposition in life than originally thought. And the next time someone tells you “it’s just a headache” this will give them something to think about.
Check back again next week when we see what else is new on MD Consult.blog comments powered by Disqus
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Hospitals across the country are diligently working to reduce infection rates. According to the World Health Organization, hospital-acquired infections affect as many as 1.7 million patients in the United States each year. These infections come at an annual cost of $6.5 billion and contribute to more than 90,000 deaths.
Proper hand hygiene is essential in helping to prevent hospital-acquired infections. A recent study performed by French researchers examined three types of healthcare workers. The first type spent a large amount of time with a discreet group of patients like a nurse would. The second group saw more patients but spent less time with each one - similar to doctors. Group three consisted of healthcare workers who interacted with every patient every day like therapists. The study found that if a healthcare worker in group three failed to wash their hands, the spread of disease was three times worse than if someone from group one or two didn't. The study was published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To read more about the study, continue here.
To read another take on hand hygiene and about the Joint Commission's national hand hygiene project, click here.
Photo Credit: Jessica Flavin
Almost two million patients hospitalized in the U.S. each year develop an infection. These infections occur in as many as one in every 10 patients, result in close to 100,000 deaths and cost upwards of $6 billion. The Wall Street Journal created a top 10 list of infection prevention strategies based on interviews with medical professionals, administrators a non profit company and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.
- Undercover Operations - Dr. Philip Carling, an epidemiologist at Caritas Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Mass. developed a solution to uncover how well patient rooms are cleaned. His invisible solution contains fluorescent markers which glow in black light. After spraying patient rooms with the solution, cleaning crews were brought in to perform their normal routine. Later, rooms were examined with a black light and areas missed by the cleaners glowed fluorescent. Sharing results with cleaners helped boost compliance with proper cleaning techniques.
- High-Tech Cleaning Systems - When hospital equipment is disinfected by hand, bacteria often remains. For more thorough disinfecting hospitals are utilizing machines such as Bioquell which sprays a disinfecting hydrogen-peroxide vapor.
- Data Mining - Many hospitals are tracking data to determine how to prevent infections. Lee Memorial Health System in Florida tracks infection rates by surgeon and reports on the results. Low ranking surgeons can then make adjustments to lower their infection rates and improve their ranking.
- Patient Hygiene - Research suggests a daily wash with mild antibacterial soap can dramatically reduce the rate of bloodstream infections. The recommended cleanser is chlorohexidine glutonate.
- Reporting Crackdown - Numerous states have passed laws which require hospitals to report on infection rates. In many cases the reports are publicly available. In addition, Medicare is limiting reimbursement for treatment of hospital-acquired infections.
- Clean hands - Hospitals that utilize strategically-placed dispensers of hand sanitizer have noticed an increase in hand hygiene compliance from less than 50% to more than 80%.
- Embracing the Checklist - Incorporating checklists into bedside medical charts can help reduce rates of infection by requiring shift nurses to answer questions such as: Does this patient have a catheter? If so, is it still necessary?
- Portable Kits - Utilizing all-inclusive kits for common procedures such as intravenous line insertions or dressing changes can limit the possibility for infection. Kits contain all the items needed for procedures and prevent the nurse from running in and out of the patient room during a procedure to find a forgotten item.
- Mouth Maintenance - Regularly cleaning patients' mouths, gums and teeth can help prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia, a common infection found in intensive care units.
- Infection ID - Quick diagnostic tests can identify infected patients in a matter of hours rather than days. This allows for a quick response when patients show symptoms, are tested and found to be infected.
To read the complete article with expanded descriptions of the top 10, click here.
Photo Credit: Presta
Hospitals in Michigan lowered the rate of bloodstream infections in their patients by following a five-step checklist. The study published in the New England Journal of Medicine
found that implementing the checklist reduced the rate of bloodstream infections related to catheter use by 66%. Despite this success, utilization of the checklist remains limited. The checklist itself isn't complicated:
- Wash hands
- Clean patient's skin with chlorohexidine
- Wear protective cap and gown and use a surgical drape during the procedure
- Avoid catheter insertion through the groin if possible
- Remove unnecessary catheters
Peter Pronovost, the patient-safety expert who led the study, spoke with The Wall Street Journal to share insights on why more hospitals haven't benefited from using the checklist. To read excerpts from his interview, click here.
Photo Credit: Adesigna
A recent study published in the American Journal of Infection Control examined the levels of bacteria on healthcare workers' lab coats. The study involved a cross section of medical and surgical grand rounds attendees at a large teaching hospital. Participants completed a survey and cultured their lab coat using a moistened swab on the lapels, pocket and cuffs. Of the 149 white coats in the study, 34 (23%) were contaminated with S aureus, of which 6 (18%) were methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA). Providers working with patients had higher contamination levels and the study suggests that white coats may contribute to patient-to-patient transmission of S aureus. Read the entire study in the March 2009 issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
Photo Credit: Estherase
Central venous catheters (CVC) are essential for treating children with cancer. They reduce the need for multiple needlesticks and the associated pain and anxiety. In addition, they can be used to deliver chemotherapy, parenteral fluids, blood products and analgesics. Despite the positives, children with CVCs are at increased risk for bloodstream infections. Complications associated with CVCs include pneumothorax, air embolism, nerve injury, catheter malposition, infection and occlusion.
A recent study had four objectives:
1. To decrease CVC-related bloodstream infection rates in children with cancer through a comprehensive educational intervention.
2. To determine if the frequency of catheter hub colonization of CVCs in children with cancer would decrease following the educational intervention.
3. To evaluate nurses' knowledge of CVC care.
4. To determine risk factors influencing CVC-related bloodstream infections in children with cancer.
The study was conducted in the cancer center of a large children's hospital and included patients ranging in age from infancy to 18 years. A 45 minute educational program on CDC guidelines, most frequent guideline violations and information on catheter-related infections was presented to all caregivers. Following the educational presentation, catheter-related bloodstream infections were tracked for six months in order to determine the rate of infection. Study findings showed that the educational program increased nurses' knowledge and instances of catheter-related bloodstream infections decreased. You can read the full article in the March 2009 issue of Oncology Nursing Forum or purchase it online here.
Photo Credit: Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center
According to a 2009 study, approximately 5 million central venous catheters are placed each year. Implantable ports provide reliable venous, arterial, epidural and peritoneal access and can be used to administer IV fluids, medications and to obtain blood samples. However complications including occlusion, infection, catheter migration and catheter separation from portal body can frequently occur.
A recent study conducted in a rural hematology-oncology clinic focused on infection. A port infection can present as local tenderness, pain, erythema, induration or edema at the insertion or exit site or over the port pocket. Patients may also have purulent or serous drainage, fever and chills. To prevent infection, aseptic technique should be utilized for dressing changes. In addition, clinicians should follow accessing and deaccessing procedures and keep the exit clear of potential sources of infection. The 62 patients included in the study were receiving a minimum of two complete cycles of chemotherapy after port insertion. Ports were accessed and deaccessed following outlined protocol.
*Steps for Accessing Ports:
- Wash hands. Assess the port site for erythema, warmth or drainage.
- Palpate the outline of the portal body.
- Wash hands.
- Apply nonsterile gloves. Cleanse port site with chlorohexidine swab in a circular motion for 30 seconds. Allow to dry for 30 seconds.
- Spray ethyl chloride.
- Stabilize portal body with one hand. Insert Huber needle (link to EZ Huber product page) into septum with other hand. Ensure patency by blood return. If no blood return, use interventions to assess port's patency.
- Stabilize port with gauze and tape or apply transparent dressing.
*Steps for Deaccessing Ports:
- Wash hands. Apply nonsterile gloves.
- Inspect exit site.
- Flush device with 20 ml normal saline followed by 5 ml heparin flush (100 units/ml). During final flush, clamp tubing to port.
- Stabilize port and remove needle.
- Apply bandage.
Six of the 62 patients in the study experienced a port infection, with four of the six ports requiring removal. The total number of catheter days for the implanted ports was 7,277. Patient catheter days ranged from 32-288. The study concluded that consistent, routine care is the best preventative measure against port complications. The entire study can be found in the October 2009 issue of the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing.
*The port access and de-access protocols are those that were used by the authors for this study. Please follow institutional policies and procedures regarding port access and de-access.
Although many infection headlines are related to hospitals, individual doctor's offices are facing similar challenges. Almost 30 cases of hepatitis B were recently tied to one doctor's office in New Jersey. When health inspectors visited the office they found blood on the floor of a room where chemotherapy was administered, blood in a bin where blood vials were stored, unsterile saline and gauze as well as open medication vials. Inspectors also noticed cross-contamination of pens, refrigerators and countertops, use of contaminated gloves and misuse of antiseptics.
Patients were sent a letter from state epidemiologist Dr. Christina Chan urging testing for hepatitis B. "Evidence gathered at this time suggests that since 2002, some clinic staff provided care in a manner that puts patients at risk for infection caused by bloodborne viruses, including hepatitis B," the letter told patients. "The investigation to date suggests that hepatitis B infections identified may be associated with the method by which medications were administered and procedures performed at the practice."
Numerous checklists and recommendations have been published around infection control. The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases and Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine offers these infection control musts:
- Hand washing
- Barrier precautions to prevent skin and mucous membrane exposure
- Proper handling of sharps and contaminated waste
- Appropriate cleaning and disinfecting of surfaces and equipment
- Aseptic technique for invasive procedures
For the full recommendation on infection control in physician's offices, click here.
To read more about the hepatitis B outbreak in New Jersey, continue reading here.
Photo Credit: Hollywood Pimp
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare is working on its first improvement venture: The Hand Hygiene Project. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 2 million patients get a hospital-related infection every year and 90,000 die from their infection.
Causes of Failure to Clean Hands
- Ineffective placement of dispensers or sinks
- Hand hygiene compliance data are not collected or reported accurately or frequently
- Lack of accountability and just-in-time coaching
- Safety culture does not stress hand hygiene at all levels
- Ineffective or insufficient education
- Hands full
- Wearing gloves interferes with process
- Perception that hand hygiene is not needed if wearing gloves
- Healthcare workers forget
Early results of the program found on average that caregivers washed their hands less than 50 percent of the time. "Demanding that healthcare workers try harder is not the answer. These healthcare organizations have the courage to step forward to tackle the problem of hand washing by digging deep to find out where the breakdowns take place so we can create targeted solutions that will work now and keep working in the future," said Mark R. Chassin, M.D., M.P.P, M.P.H., president, The Joint Commission.
By January, 2010, the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare plans to have data to demonstrate whether the proposed hand hygiene solutions can be sustained to achieve a 90+ percent compliance rate.
Eight hospitals are participating in this project:
- Cedars-Sinai Health System, Los Angeles, California
- Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, Wheat Ridge, Colorado
- Froedtert Hospital, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, Baltimore, Maryland
- Memorial Hermann Health Care System, Houston, Texas
- Trinity Health, Novi, Michigan
- Virtua, Marlton, New Jersey
- Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
To read the full release from the Joint Commission for Transforming Healthcare, click here.
Photo Credit: Mag3737
Healthcare providers are on alert due to an increase in a new strain of hospital-acquired infections. A recent study released by Arlington Medical Resources (AMR) and Decision Resources, found that recurrent Clostridium difficile
is difficult to treat in a hospital setting.
Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that can cause symptoms as minor as diarrhea and as life threatening as severe inflammation of the colon. The elderly are most at risk and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services is considering adding Clostridium difficile to its list of "never events" or preventable hospital-acquired infections. Hospitals will receive reduced or no Medicare payments for infections on the "never events" list.
Read more about how the study was conducted as well as more information on Clostridium difficile here.
Photo Credit: Big Grey Mare
Jeanne Hahne was working as a nurse in a burn ward when inspiration struck. Because the patients were so vulnerable to infection, Hahne and other healthcare providers had to wear full protective gear including a cap to cover her hair and a mask that covered the majority of her face. Even though she worked with many of the burn patients every day, most couldn't recognize her.
Flash forward almost 30 years and Hahne has designed a face mask made of clear plastic so patients can see her smile. Hahne believes she can reassure patients with a smile and help decrease their anxiety. The masks also have utility for patients and healthcare providers with hearing loss since they allow for lip reading. In addition, the masks have helped improve communication between healthcare workers which can help decrease the chance for mistakes or misunderstanding. To read more and see pictures of the face mask, click here.
Photo Credit: Christiana Care
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1963 was the year that the Beatles released their first and second albums in Britain, the year Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, and the year that JFK was assassinated. In the frenzy of a changing world, arts and sciences still persevered. That fact was evident in the wonderful cars of '63 that we'll take a look at today.
...and P.S. we left a big one out on purpose to do a future newsletter, can you guess what it was?
Every year, the talk of the office on the day following the big game revolves around either the game, the halftime shows or which was the best commercial. The game ended up being a bit more interesting than the first half would indicate, and the halftime show was a massive production, but how did the car companies do with their commercials? Just before the game, I threw out the question on our Facebook of which car brand would have the best commercial. According to the USA TODAY Ad Meter®, we have the answers.
Can good things come from in-company-rivalries? In the 1960s, the Pontiac division of General Motors had released the GTO, which became a cultural icon as we have covered in our story All Rise for the Judge. In response, Oldsmobile, a fellow division of GM released the 442 option for it's Cutlass models. In 1968, the 442 became it's own separate model.
So why the name 442? Well first, remember it is pronounced 4-4-2, not four hundred and forty-two. This is in reference to the combination of a 4-barrel carburetor, 4-speed manual transmission and 2 exhausts. The engines inside of the early 442s were 400 cu in. V8s, painted bronze-copper.
Oldsmobile partnered with Hurst, to develop the Hurst/Olds, an enhanced version of the 442. The 1968 model featured a Peruvian Silver paint scheme with black striping and white pinstripes. While this was a pretty conservative paint scheme compared to it's successor, the black trunk lid added an unforgettable distinction. We also can't forget the 455 cu in. engines that were dropped in, along with a force air system, 3-speed turbo hydra-matics and a console mounted Hurst® Dual-Gate shifter.
The following year the Hurst/Olds got even more ambitious, adding a unique and more efficient dual-snout scoop system on the hood. The trademark paint scheme now featured a white body, with a more daring firefrost gold striping. On the deck lid Hurst added an air foil that not only looked awesome, but allegedly provided 15 lbs. of down force at 60 mph.
Hurst wouldn't put out another of their H/O 442s for a few years, but Oldsmobile stepped up after General Motors loosened the leash a little, dropping their cap on engine sizes. The 1970 Oldsmobile 442 now came standard with a 455 V8 that was rated at 365 hp and 500 lbs/ft of torque. In addition to the engine size, they adopted the dual-snout scoops on a fiberglass hood. Things also got a bit more psychedelic, with the introduction of Dr. Oldsmobile, and his "Performance Committee" of cartoonish personifications of the car's attributes. Their marketing also pointed out that if you were sick of being in a super groovy band surrounded by attractive females, you could escape from the ordinary in their 1970 442.
So can the car go? Well, see for yourself. I was browsing YouTube looking for old Oldsmobile commercials and came across this shaky, but cool drag strip video.
Millions entered, but only 1 could be chosen. OK, around 500 entered, but it was still a tough task to think of the best caption for this photo. Kevin Bowen came up with the winner and we sent him our caption contest prize pack. His caption "This is not what we meant by winterizing your car" was selected by a process, which involved 4 rounds of different unbiased judges. If you didn't win this time, don't worry, we're going to be doing this more throughout 2013. So keep looking out for our next caption contest.
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There are many aspects to learning the creation of interactive fiction. Here we mostly undertake to explain approaches to using Inform, and leave the larger questions of craft and design for elsewhere.
The two manuals
There are two interlinked manuals built into every copy of the Inform application: if you've downloaded Inform, you already have them. But they are also available to read or download separately from this website.
Writing with Inform is an overview of the language, beginning with the simplest kinds of construction (such as building a map of rooms, objects, and doors) and working its way up to more advanced tasks. It is meant to be read more or less sequentially, since later chapters build on the ideas in earlier ones; though some of the late chapters (such as those covering numbers, activities, or advanced text) might reasonably be read out of order.
The Recipe Book approaches the problem of authorship from a different perspective. Instead of trying to teach the language from start to finish, it is organized for the author who wants to accomplish something specific, such as asking the player's name at the start of play or implementing a system of measured liquids. It shares the same set of examples that are keyed to Writing with Inform, but organizes them into a new order and accompanies them with text about design problems in creating interactive fiction, rather than explanation of language features.
Following requests from partially sighted Inform users, we've also made two plain vanilla versions of the manual available - they have as little decoration or web design as possible, which means less clutter for screen-reading software to cope with. We offer a choice of:
Minimally tagged HTML provides an archive containing the pages of the manuals and examples as vanilla-flavoured HTML files.
Writing with Inform in plain text format is just what it claims to be - one single file containing only text, with no marking-up of any kind. This contains all of the examples, following the text in numerical order, but not the Recipe Book. (The whole idea of two interleaved manuals can't really be achieved in one flat text file.)
We receive occasional questions about publishing a printed form of the manuals. The answer is that we intend to do exactly that, in due course, but that we expect the current text will be revised wholesale once the system is more mature. (The same thing happened with Inform 6, with the appearance of the printed Designer's Manual in 2001 essentially marking the end of its design cycle.)
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Whenever wannabe posts I always think it’s whoreshack because whatever weird sh*t whoreshack has for has avatar apparently looks like Foghorn Leghorn to me out of the corner of my eye.
Edit: Just looked at whoreshack's avatar. Has it changed recently or am I that stupid?
He did change it to butterflies. He likes butterflies.
Whoreshack reminds me of Foghorn leghorn- not in appearance, I don't think I've ever seen the man- but in a southern drawl, swagger, lazy sunning on a porch kinda way. That is totally a compliment, whoreshack.
heyethan has 44 posts, 27 of them were this week. I think this should qualify for some sort of exception. He was on an unknown indie before, but he just got signed to a major and should be eligible for best new artist.
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Flickr as a Paintbrush [cartogrammar.com] reveals the recorded colors of our surrounding landscape, both in a physical and cultural sense. In short, Andy Woodruff created a set of geographic heatmaps that represent the average colors of images taken on locations surrounding a specific landmark. In other words, the resulting maps reveal the colors that people on the ground should be looking at.
Technically, these maps are based on the most recent 2,000 photos uploaded to Flickr that were geotagged within a specified bounding box. These were then averaged by hue. As an emergent result, the color red reveals the dominance of brick, while green/yellow colors naturally denote grass and trees. However, some unexpected patterns appear as well, such as blue/purple in the map of Boston.
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Revolving Door of Leadership
At Hanford, top-level managers have a short shelf-life. They are usually in their positions for a couple of years and then a new manager is sent in. Sometimes it works out when the new manager comes from within, knows Hanford well, has the relationships and connections with the larger stakeholder network. But a lot of the time managers are sent in from another site and everyone has to wait as they master the complex world of Hanford which takes most people a few years to really get a handle on. Then they get the boot and another manager comes in. For most of us who work on Hanford full time, the revolving door of leadership is a huge frustration. We spend a lot of time building trust and understanding and start seeing progress with the existing management, both feds and contractors, and then poof, out they go, and in comes another to start the whole process over again. This is the kind of scenario that would benefit from some systemic change. But what change would work in this situation?
There is some benefit to switching out managers and infusing an organization with new leadership and direction. It is great when it works, but it is REALLY bad when it doesn’t work. It can delay work, send projects spiraling back and erase years of progress on important issues like safety culture and worker health and safety. So what can be done about it? A few factors that seem to increase the chances of success in my opinion are to select someone who:
- has put in their time at Hanford and knows the system well
- is known and respected within the contractor, regulator, DOE, and stakeholder worlds
- takes the time to listen to all players in the Hanford universe, especially voices that raise concerns and the broader community of regional stakeholders
- asks tough questions and has a critical perspective
- meets directly with people when significant issues arise instead of relying on the chain of command to relay the whole story through Hanford’s many layers of management
- thinks and acts in a transparent manner
We are in a management switch right now. Scott Samuelson, manager for DOE’s Office of River Protection is on his way out, and Kevin Smith is on his way in. Unfortunately, Kevin Smith is not a hire from within the Hanford world, and as far as I know is not well known. It is not clear that he has cleanup experience, having worked in the military side of DOE for many years, and in the actual military before that. Time will tell what kind of leader he will be. Hopefully he will take the time to learn about safety culture at Hanford from multiple perspectives, and do what it takes to make Hanford a place where cleanup decisions reflect input from a wide range of voices and perspectives.
By: Liz Mattson
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What difference does proper punctuation make? If you want your work published more often, then it does matter. This is no guarantee of publication but using correct punctuation is a big step in the right direction.
I've been taking a course called Punctuation Review from Creative Writing Institute since the end of September. For the first time in my life, I'm grasping rules which remained impenetrable throughout my junior high and high school years.
Additionally, I'm now beginning to understand all those English terms that my Language Arts teacher fired at me forty-plus years ago. Why? My adult perspective, my desire to master these writing tools, the fact that I'm able to learn at my own speed - these factors are what assist me in understanding the details of writing well.
I cringe whenever I re-read articles that I submitted in the past, even as recently as last spring. This is because I used to base my understanding of punctuation rules on conjecture and half-remembered lessons. No wonder most of my articles were rejected.
Editors may seem like cruel ogres when they reject our labours of love but these folks usually have good reasons for their decisions. Because of the steady avalanche of submissions, they need a literary smelting method to divide the gold from the slag. Proper punctuation, especially if it conforms to the publication's style manual, shows that the writer is serious about easing the editor's workload. This also shows that considerable effort went into the piece.
Though this course is tough enough to make my brain whimper, I persist in beating these punctuation and sentence structure concepts through my skull. The glamour of story or poetry writing is missing from this course but I know it will improve whatever work I tackle in the future.
In addition to being a member of InScribe, I've self-published When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies) and Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School). I hope to have How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity in print some time in 2012.
Read more about them here. You're also welcome to contact me directly for more information.
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I actually think this was pretty responsible. Rather than banning it outright, which would result in kids wanting to rebel even more, she offers it in her home where she can control the amount people drink. Good on ya, Mrs George. You’re a cool mom.
oh my god please shut up
If your phone gets wet, try putting it in a bag of dry rice. At night, the rice will attract Asians who will fix your electronics for you.
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Monday, January 14, 2013
Alex Norton to fly with the Falcons
Air Force added another offensive lineman to its 2013 class with the pickup of Alex Norton (Rockingham, N.C./Richmond), multiple sources report.
Charlotte, Furman, Navy and Wofford also extended scholarship offers to the 6-foot-3, 279-pound senior. Programs such as Duke, North Carolina State and Wake Forest expressed interest.
This spring, Norton posted an electronically-timed 5.67 40-yard dash, 4.75 20-yard shuttle, 23.1-inch vertical and 65.52 SPARQ at a Nike Combine.
According to ESPN, Air Force has 26 commitments for this recruiting cycle.
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With Auto Insurance, Mayhem May or May Not be Covered
Details on mayhem coverage
Overview of Top Insurance Designations
Information on the industry's top insurance designations in life, health and property and casualty and the coursework involved and how to attain them
Auto Insurers Suing Toyota
Auto insurance lawsuit against Toyota sudden acceleration difficulty in Toyota and Lexus models
What You Need to Know About Deer- Vehicle Collisions
Article detailing data on Deer versus vehicle collission increases as fall and winter seasons approach. These collisions are increasing year-to-yewar as well as the deer population grows andd ther American population increases its mileage traveled annually.
American Family Tops with Auto Insurance Customers
Article on American Family's rating as top auto insurer in customer satisfaction according to J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey.
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WASHINGTON — A frenzied crowd waved signs from the November election and chanted, “Si, se puede,” when President Obama took the stage at a Las Vegas high school. Someone yelled, “I love you,” and the president gave a finger-point and his standard: “Love you back.”
Reelected and re-inaugurated, Obama is going back to one place he knows he can succeed: the campaign trail.
Last week, it was Nevada for immigration reform. On Monday, he’s off to Minneapolis to talk about gun control. The next week, he’ll make his State of the Union address, followed by yet another trip out of Washington.
After the audience cheered Obama’s immigration plan in the Del Sol High School gym, a top political advisor explained the thinking on his return to the stump. “Show me the Republican who could do that right now,” said the official, who asked not to be identified when talking about White House discussions. “The president’s voice is one of the best tools we have.”
During a second term, presidents often head off on a tour of the country after their State of the Union assessment, seizing the high mark of their political capital to press their agenda. The clock is ticking with less than two years, maybe only months, before lame-duck status sidelines the chief executive.
Obama isn’t waiting. He’s running opinion leaders through the White House at a daily clip to build support for immigration reform and gun control, as well as his economic vision. And, more than any other president, he’s using his campaign’s grass-roots network to amplify his message in social media and email inboxes.
All of this is instead of wading into the weeds with Congress. Although White House aides are monitoring lawmakers who are crafting legislation, Obama was surprisingly blunt last week about his role. “What I’m going to do is allow the Senate to work on these details,” he told Univision when asked about an aspect not addressed in his immigration blueprint.
That outside posture has Republicans repeating their 4-year-old refrain about the president: He’s good at talk, but stumbles when it comes to turning it into action.
“He’s always been very comfortable in the campaign-mode part of this — the speeches making direct appeals to the American public where he wants to see the policy go,” said GOP strategist Kevin Madden, a former advisor to Mitt Romney. “I think he’s always been much more comfortable with the pageantry of politics than the practice of building legislative coalitions.”
It’s unclear whether any president could build a coalition in such a sharply split Congress. But as Obama reads his first term, the best way to get anything done on Capitol Hill is to win over the crowds first.
Fresh off his first inauguration, Obama spent his political capital diving into healthcare reform, a bruising effort that took more than a year. His efforts to negotiate a far-reaching budget deal with the House speaker yielded nothing. But when he took to the road, he was able to win an extension of the payroll tax break and lower interest rates on federal student loans.
“They’re making up for a major error of the first term, that he didn’t use the bully pulpit as effectively to set the national debate,” said Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. “He let a lot of the healthcare debate take place in Congress, so you had Congress setting the terms.”
“In the second term, if he’s going to get anything done, he has to get the public behind him,” Lichtman continued. “Congress operates on fear and greed. The only way you get Congress to work with him is if they believe he has a big public movement behind him.”
The president’s approval ratings have risen in the four months since his reelection, but it’s too soon to see whether he’s boosted support for his signature issues. Obama has seized on issues that already have solid public support.
Whether a president has the power to generate a tide of public sentiment remains a matter of debate among political scientists and historNEWS.GNOM.ES. HistorNEWS.GNOM.ES periodically examine whether President Reagan brought about a revolution in American politics or was the beneficiary of one already underway.
George C. Edwards III, a presidential scholar and political scientist at Texas A&M University, studied hundreds of polls on presidents and concluded that even the most accomplished orators usually failed to win public support for their top initiatives.
Despite Reagan’s opposition to spending on social programs, for instance, public support for them rose during his tenure. Still, Reagan persuaded Democrats to pass his bills to cut taxes in 1981 and 1986, which some see as clear evidence that his skillful public diplomacy had an effect on his negotiations with Congress.
“Ronald Reagan was the great communicator because he was very powerful in selling ideas that people thought were crazy,” Lichtman said. “Who would have thought an across-the-board tax cut would be adopted when it was? It was the persuasiveness of Ronald Reagan, talking about getting the government off your back.”
With Obama, though, his opponents do not seem worried about the effect of his words, however eloquently delivered.
“I think that his biggest problem is that every time he speaks it doesn’t have any real impact on Republicans,” said John Feehery, a GOP strategist and former legislative aide. “They almost ignore him. He speaks in such a way it actually revs up the Republican base to be more opposed to him, especially in red districts and red states.”
Still, some influential Republicans want to cut a deal on immigration policy, swayed not by Obama’s rhetoric but by the realization that the party’s return to the White House would require more Latino support.
In the battle to win public opinion, Obama has an enormous advantage, beyond the bully pulpit of the White House. He is the main spokesman for his causes. Republicans have no such single voice, but a multitude of prominent, and in some cases divisive, figures, such as Wayne LaPierre, the fiery executive vice president of the National Rifle Assn.
But Obama’s primacy comes at a price. Selling three major agenda items at once is no small task. Advisors to the president are trying to keep the messages from muddling together.
As they try to fire up campaign supporters, for instance, they are aiming messages on different issues at the people likely to care the most.
They also think the president’s broader message — that Americans want the two political parties to work together to solve the nation’s problems — has wide appeal.
Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, tried to explain recently how this approach will work: “I think they would welcome a circumstance in which Washington was more collaborative and cooperative and productive, where we were able to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, even as we deal with our fiscal challenges, where we were able to address the horrible scourge of gun violence in this country by moving on proposals that are very common-sense and not one of which would take away a gun from a single law-abiding American.”
That’s a lot to say in one sentence.
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Bison Grass a unique grass with powerful actions
There's nothing bison like more than this little grass known for its hardiness, which is found on the vast plains of eastern Poland. The Polish use « bison grass » in their vodka to give it a delicious flavour. Its other virtues? Bison grass stimulates the blood circulation and has a powerful fortifying effect on the body.
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This is an old lecture by linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky (professor at MIT) given at UC Berkeley in 2003. For that evening in the Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lecture series, Chomsky examined biolinguistics - the study of relations between physiology and speech.
A second video of Chomsky is featured below, which is the second half of this talk. Fair warning - this is not easy material - Chomsky is speaking to people who are well-versed in this field.
Chomsky has been one the most influential scholars over the last three or four decades - between 1980 and 1992, he was cited as a source more than any other living scholar, and ranked eighth overall.
As background for this lecture, Wikipedia offers a good summary of his influence in linguistics (below the video).
Chomskyan LinguisticsChomskyan linguistics, beginning with his Syntactic Structures, a distillation of his Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introduces transformational grammar. This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar extended with transformational rules.
Perhaps his most influential and time-tested contribution to the field, is the claim that modeling knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts for the "productivity" or "creativity" of language. In other words, a formal grammar of a language can explain the ability of a hearer-speaker to produce and interpret an infinite number of utterances, including novel ones, with a limited set of grammatical rules and a finite set of terms. He has always acknowledged his debt to Pāṇini for his modern notion of an explicit generative grammar although it is also related to rationalist ideas of a priori knowledge.
It is a popular misconception that Chomsky proved that language is entirely innate and discovered a "universal grammar" (UG). In fact, Chomsky simply observed that while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human child will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky labeled whatever the relevant capacity the human has which the cat lacks the "language acquisition device" (LAD) and suggested that one of the tasks for linguistics should be to figure out what the LAD is and what constraints it puts on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that would result from these constraints are often termed "universal grammar" or UG.
The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later published as Lectures on Government and Binding (LGB)—makes strong claims regarding universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying languages are innate and fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.
Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably rapid, unless children have an innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to as motivation for innateness.
More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core concept of "principles and parameters," Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery involved in the LGB model, stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human language faculty that emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to generation, in contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.
Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers of the language acquisition in children, though many researchers in this area such as Elizabeth Bates and Michael Tomasello argue very strongly against Chomsky's theories, and instead advocate emergentist or connectionist theories, explaining language with a number of general processing mechanisms in the brain that interact with the extensive and complex social environment in which language is used and learned.
His best-known work in phonology is The Sound Pattern of English (1968), written with Morris Halle (and often known as simply SPE). This work has had a great significance for the development in the field. While phonological theory has since moved beyond "SPE phonology" in many important respects, the SPE system is considered the precursor of some of the most influential phonological theories today, including autosegmental phonology, lexical phonology and optimality theory. Chomsky no longer publishes on phonology.
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During the excavation, everyday life is quite tough. We get up early in the morning and ascend Psiloritis; a bit sleepy, to be honest, but ready to conquer the world for one more day. We are all eager to start working on our trenches, which are going to reveal more traces of the past—a past that, without a shadow of a doubt, was glorious 3,600 years before present, as indicated by the number and wealth of finds already unearthed at this site.
Cameraman Giorgos Christodoulou documents every single step of the Zominthos excavations. Here he films area 2, while the archaeologists take detailed field notes and the architects produce ground plans of the excavated areas. Left to right: Giorgos Charitos, Ioanna Konsolaki, Leuteris Kavousanakis, and Babis Markomichelakis
Excavating, however, is far more than digging for artifacts. It is a carefully planned destruction of a site—because once the site is dug, it no longer exists. We record as many details as possible, preserving not only the artifacts but many, many other types of information, by using our knowledge of various disciplines, along with sophisticated technologies. In this way, the site is not lost forever, but can be reexamined through the notes, maps, samples, drawings, photographs, videos, and other data collected during the excavation. Meanwhile, we impart our knowledge to the hundreds of visitors that are guided through the site each summer.
Archaeology offers the opportunity to learn new things every single day, whether in the field or the lab, by analyzing the results of investigations. We are a combination of Indiana Jones and Agatha Christie’s detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. With lots of luck and archaeological instinct, we reveal the mysteries of the Cretan mountains, travel back in time, and transport ourselves to some unusual and enchanting places.
Zominthos is a charming place where all the features of Minoan archaeology are amalgamated, which is why we need to be careful as we excavate, not to miss any piece that could be added to the puzzle of the archaeology of the mountains. Using toothbrushes, paintbrushes, knives, pickaxes, and scoops, depending on the way we want to excavate, we try to gradually discover traces of highlanders’ real life and merge the elements that lead to a better understanding of the Minoan tranquillity.
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The UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women present Jenny Kuper, London School of Economics and Political Science.
This talk will discuss the process of bridging the gap between legal theory and practice, using law creatively to implement policy change. In this case the body of law that will be examined is international human rights law, especially as it applies to women and children--and the practical context is the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Uganda up to about 2004. Among other things, this topic explores the tension between international legal norms and local realities, and the intense debate within Uganda on this issue.
Jenny Kuper has worked for many years as a lawyer concerned with issues involving young people. Initially qualified as a UK solicitor/advocate, she worked primarily for the Children’s Legal Centre, a national UK child advocacy organisation. She then moved into international law, obtaining a PhD (King’s College, London, 1996) for her work on children in armed conflict, which was later published as International Law Concerning Child Civilians in Armed Conflict (OUP, 1997). A second book, Military Training and Children in Armed Conflict: Law, Policy and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden, 2005), was published by Martinus Nijhoff in March 2005. She has also written numerous shorter articles and book chapters on law and young people. Since 1999 Jenny Kuper has been a Research Fellow at LSE. In that capacity she has completed a major research project on the role of law in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as well as doing other writing and teaching. More recently she worked on law reform for UNICEF in Nepal, and is currently part of a European Union Study Group on Human Security, among other projects.
Co-sponsored by Women's Studies Program and School of Law Program in Public Interest Law and Policy
Cost: Free and open to the public; parking is available for $8.
© 2013. The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
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As you read previously this week, I have several rules of thumb regarding whether or not I will accept a book for review. On that list you might notice that the cover doesn't come into the process anywhere. That's because I rarely look at eBook covers before I read the book. And THAT is because I like to judge books by their synopses rather than their covers. However, and I have greatly lamented from time to time, readers tend to be pretty persnickety about reading books if they aren't attracted to the cover. Which can happen even with big-pub books (because believe me, if I wasn't already hooked on the Chemical Garden series by Lauren DeStefano, the cover of Fever would certainly have put me off reading it if the cover was my biggest source of attraction).
That I don't judge a book by its cover does not I am immune to ugly cover dislike, though! I feel that the cover of your book should at least show you took the effort to create something that speaks to the nature of your story and characters in a professional way. I get that cover creation can be expensive if you are an indie publisher but there are a lot of clever ways of getting around the cost. More about that later.
Anyhow, here is the meat and potatoes of my post. My 2 lists of indie book covers. The Best & The Worst. Note, I have chosen not to include the covers of books I have read so as to be as unbiased as possible.
The Best Indie Covers
What struck me about all of these is that they could pass as big-pub books. The first and last are very simple & cleanly designed. The second and third are simply a nice photograph with a few color enhancements (and well, obviously the addition of a leopard too). Number four is pretty indicative of what the big-pubbers are putting out for covers of dystopian/sci-fi books.
What I Think Happened? The authors took a peek at what big-pub is doing & designed accordingly. Imitation of style is never a bad idea. Now, completely ripping off, that's another story... Read on.
The Worst Indie Covers
Number one and two are blatant attempts to look like the Fallen series by Lauren Kate. Especially number two which is the same image with some alterations(which causes me to wonder how the author obtained the rights to the image). Not to mention the fact that apparently the girl's chest in number two is actually on her back... Number one suffers from PIF syndrome -- that's pre-installed fonts. A big no-no for ANY design project. Never EVER use the fonts pre-installed on your computer ESPECIALLY when there are free font outlets like dafont.com and fontsquirrel.com out there! Numbers three and five seem to have been designed in MS Paint. The colors look like standard MS Paint colors and number five has a lot of bizarre line shapes that look straight out of MS Paint too. Number four has been purposely tinted a strange green-beige and the font is hard to read because of its own odd color.
What I Think Happened? Two things. One, blatant copying of covers of popular books in the hope of a subconscious connection between them resulting in readers snapping up the book immediately. And two, the authors of the MS Paint & oddly colored covers seem to have either little care about marketing their books or are just churning out so many books that they can't even begin to afford even cheap design help like the $20 Adobe Photoshop-comparable software that I use.
Honorable Mention Bad Indie Covers
Because I just had to point out that they have been DONE TO DEATH.
This guy in the hoodie gets WAY too much face time on covers. I've found two more since the last time I wrote about it. And well, you can tell the bottom three are pretty darn similar & pretty darn representative of another trend in indie covers that has been done ad nauseum.
What I Think Happened? I don't know...
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It seems like many of our vices are turning out to have healthy side effects. We already know that chocolate is helpful for circulation, reduces the risk of heart disease, is a cough suppressant, and can keep your brain working as you age (and may be a treatment for HPV). Red wine is one of the most potent antioxidants available, beating out many commercial drugs, and may even prevent blindness.
Now, new research has shown that coffee may join chocolate and wine to form a perfect trinity of healthy deliciousness. In a Swedish study published in Breast Cancer Research, heavy coffee drinkers were found to have statistically significant lower rates of breast cancer.
The study included 6,000 women, comparing non-coffee drinkers to those who downed more than five cups a day. Once they adjusted for other influencing factors (like age at menopause, exercise, weight, education, and a family history of breast cancer) there was a statistically significant drop in breast cancer rates for the coffee swillers.
Unfortunately, this doesn't work for all forms of breast cancer. The results showed that the women who downed five or more cups were 57% less likely get estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer and 33% the progesterone-receptor-negative variant type — types which generally have a worse prognosis than the positive versions.
Chocolate, wine and coffee. Could be worse.
Illustration via Shutterstock
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Chinese researchers have turned to the light absorbing properties of butterfly wings to significantly increase the efficiency of solar hydrogen cells, using biomimetics to copy the nanostructure that allows for incredible light and heat absorption.
Butterflies are known to use heat from the sun to warm themselves beyond what their bodies can provide, and this new research takes a page from their evolution to improve hydrogen fuel generation. Analyzing the wings of Papilio helenus, the researchers found scales that are described as having:
[...] Ridges running the length of the scale with very small holes on either side that opened up onto an underlying layer. The steep walls of the ridges help funnel light into the holes. The walls absorb longer wavelengths of light while allowing shorter wavelengths to reach a membrane below the scales. Using the images of the scales, the researchers created computer models to confirm this filtering effect. The nano-hole arrays change from wave guides for short wavelengths to barriers and absorbers for longer wavelengths, which act just like a high-pass filtering layer.
So, what does this have to do with fuel cells? Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen takes energy, and is a drain on the amount you can get out of a cell. To split the water, the process uses a catalyst, and certain catalysts — say, titanium dioxide — function by exposure to light. The researchers synthesized a titanium dioxide catalyst using the pattern from the butterfly's wings, and paired it with platinum nanoparticles to make it more efficient at splitting water. The result? A 230% uptick in the amount of hydrogen produced. The structure of the butterfly's wing means that it's better at absorbing light — so who knows, you might also see the same technique on solar panels, too.
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October 5, 2011
Conference notes: Houston tops outside big six
The Houston Cougars have already assembled an impressive class that includes five-star Danuel House. We take a look at recruiting outside of the big six conferences.
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4 Dice Helps Students Learn to Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide Fractions
4 Dice is an iPad app designed to help students learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. The app was developed by the same people that built the popular 5 Dice app that helps students learn the order of operations.
In 4 Dice students are shown a fraction and they have to drag four dice into position to complete the arithmetic that will result in the fraction that they were shown. It’s kind of like the Jeopardy concept applied to fractions mathematics. There are five modes in 4 Dice. There are the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division modes as well as a challenge mode that randomized the problems. At any point in a series of problems students can pause and use the whiteboard to work out possible solutions to a problem.
4 Dice does ask for an email address, but doesn’t ask users to confirm that email address. If your students don’t have email addresses you can use the Gmail+1 trick to create dummy addresses for them that you can monitor.
4 Dice costs $0.99. This app is appropriate for elementary and middle school students.
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"Is the EPO changing Its stance on personalised medicine inventions?
Case law is an important means by which we know what is patentable at the European Patent Office (EPO). However, sometimes the EPO’s view of what is patentable in an area changes before the case law does. This can sometimes be detected when Examiners start raising objections they would not have previously done. Clearly, applicants need to know about such changes as soon as possible so that they can revise their filing strategies and re-evaluate their expectations of the claims they are likely obtain. Meetings between the EPO and the epi (the professional institute for EPO attorneys) are very useful forums for obtaining ‘inside information’ about the EPO’s thinking which is not yet apparent from the case law. The June 2012 issue of epi Information provides a report of such a meeting held on 10 November 2011 between the EPO and the biotech committee of the epi. Discussion item 8 is reported as follows:
‘8. Inventions in the area of pharmacogenomics
Thanks, Suleman, for this most instructive piece, says the IPKat. Merpel is fascinated by this for quite another reason, though. It reflects a growing trend towards what might be termed "mass personalisation". We have it in branding and marketing, where the use of sophisticated software in reading your emails and online purchases enables a personalised dose of advertising to be specifically targeted at the individual. It also exists in the design and fashion sector, where a combination of interactive software and manufacturing improvements produces the result that a purchaser of, say, sports shoes, can determine the style, size, colour and bolt-on features that characterise it, rather than going into some random shop and putting a tentative foot into a sample shoe that might previously have been tried by someone with sweaty socks and fungal growths between the toes ...This concerns cases which are based on a genetic marker to treat a disease, for example methylation profiles. It can involve a new patient group defined by an SNP. The EPO said that often the claims can lack novelty, as one patient will have inevitably been treated with the SNP, even if the art does not explicitly say so.’The EPO’s comments seem to indicate that it is about to change the way it assesses novelty when looking at medical use claims that refer to treatment of a specific patient group.
To give a little technical background to the EPO’s comments, an SNP is a form of genetic marker which varies between individuals. The idea behind the relatively new field of pharmacogenomics is that, if you know which SNP variants a patient possesses, you can personalise the drugs given to a patient in accordance with his genetic makeup. It is now recognised that the genetic makeup of an individual can be very influential as to whether he responds to a drug, and so one application of pharmacogenomics is to only give those drugs to patients who will respond to them.
Personalised medicines can also be based on non-genetic biomarkers, such as the level of virus the individual has.
Personalised medicines offer the potential to use drugs much more effectively. That is clearly of benefit to patients, but should also help to reduce costs in times when many governments feel increasingly dismayed at the yearly increases needed to health budgets. The sector most likely to benefit in the short time is cancer therapy where most of the work in identifying biomarkers is focussed. However, biomarkers are increasingly being sought for many other diseases.
Presently, suitable biomarkers for personalised medicine are proving difficult to find. So it seems that the sector is going to require a lot of investment -- but in investors in biotech do like to see that strong patent protection is available in the relevant sector.
Personalised medicines, and in fact diagnostics in general, has been thrown into uncertainty in the US after the Supreme Court’s decision in Mayo v Prometheus [on which see earlier Katposts here and here] which found that a claim referring to steps that determined the level of a drug in a patient was directed to a law of nature and was thus not patentable. It would be unfortunate for personalised medicines to be dealt a further blow by the EPO, making the test for novelty stricter in this area.
Claims for personalised medicine inventions can have many different forms, but typically they are along the following lines:
Substance X for use in a method of treating condition Y in an individual with biomarker Z’.There is an argument here that perhaps applicants only deserve claims to the method of selecting the individual (by detection of the biomarker), and not to treatment of the individual. However there is a lot more money in therapy, with figures being quoted of 6% versus 94% for the money to be made in selection versus therapy. Since personalised medicine results in therapy being more effective, there is an argument that the applicant deserves claims to the therapy step.
The crux of the present issue is whether limiting a medical use claim by specifying that the individual has biomarker Z will confer novelty where the prior art is silent about patients having biomarker Z, but where patients with biomarker Z will inevitably have been treated, i.e. does limiting a medical use claim to a patient group that overlaps with, or is within, the prior art patient group, make the claim novel?
The earliest case to tackle the issue seems to have been T233/96 which gave a strict two-part test for novelty requiring the patient groups to be non-overlapping and for there to be a functional relationship between the biomarker and the therapy, i.e. the patient group could not be an arbitrary group. However, subsequent case law has not followed the test. In T1399/04 the Board cited T233/96, but took a different view, generously allowing claims which covered more than 50% of a prior art patient group. Decisions T836/01 and T1642/06 also allowed claims where patient groups overlapped with the prior art.
Based on the comments at the EPO/epi meeting and from the experiences of attorneys I know who are handling European patent applications in this area, it seems that EPO is taking a stricter view of the issue, and is probably looking for a test case to change the case law. If the EPO decides on a test which is based on the concept of a patient with the relevant biomarker ‘inevitably’ having been treated, presumably this is a prior use test, in which case it would be burdensome for applicants to locate evidence on what actually happened. However if the test is similar to that used in T233/96, i.e. requiring that patient groups do not overlap, then it will have the effect of severely curtailing patent protection for personalised medicines because most drugs are initially given to everyone with the condition.
I hope that the EPO will be wise enough to recognise that making the test for novelty stricter for medical use claims limited by patient group will have a substantial impact on the patent protection that can be obtained in the area of personalised medicines, at a time when this very promising sector needs all the support it can get".
Your own personalised medicine here and here [not for the squeamish]
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Ajinomoto is the manufacturer of the artificial sweetener, aspartame. The supermarket, Asda, commenced a campaign which was designed to ensure that, by the end of 2007, none of its 9,000 own-label food and soft-drinks products would contain any artificial colours or flavours or any hydrogenated fat or flavour enhancers. The catch-phrase used was 'NO HIDDEN NASTIES'. One of the statements used in conjunction with the catch-phrase was "No artificial colours or flavours and no aspartame" and "We promise that all good for you products are always low or lower in fat and won't ever contain any hydrogenated fat, artificial flavours, artificial colours or aspartame."
Ajinomoto alleged that the natural and ordinary meaning of the words on the packaging is that aspartame is an especially harmful or unhealthy, or potentially harmful or unhealthy, sweetener and is one which consumers concerned for their own health and that of their families would do well to avoid, either altogether or in the quantities likely to be found in soft drinks and other food products.
In the recent decision, Sir Charles Gray had to decide whether to grant Ajimoto's request for a trial of the preliminary issue "as to the statement(s) of fact contained in or conveyed by the words complained of in paragraphs 4 and 8 of the Particulars of Claim". The alternative would be to hold a single trial incorporating (i) the meaning of the statement; (ii) whether the statement was false and (iii) whether the statement was malicious.
The judge held that in the interests of saving costs, it was right for the preliminary issue to be tried first. If Ajimoto's contention that the meaning of Asda's statements were that aspartame was harmful was rejected then there would be no issue as to falsity, and malice would not be relevant. The judge accepted that the issue of meaning was essentially a "slam dunk" point. Separating the issue of meaning out into a preliminary trial was commonly used in defamation actions and would work here. However, the judge did suggest that the approach might be considered an abuse if it was used as a tactic to 'slice up' the action into three separate trials of meaning, falsity and malice.
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IPL desk in Mumbai 07 May 2012 - 12:58am IST
Media Advisory - May 07
Training and media schedule for IPl teams
Pune Warriors India
The Pune Warriors India team will practice from 1300 hrs to 1600 hrs at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium . The press conference will be held after the practice session.
The Rajasthan Royals will practice from 1600 hrs to1830 hrs at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium. The Press conference will be held at 1800 hrs, with Siddharth Trivedi addressing members of the press.
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Utility for making a doctest file out of Python or IPython input.
%prog [options] input_file [output_file]
This script is a convenient generator of doctest files that uses IPython’s irunner script to execute valid Python or IPython input in a separate process, capture all of the output, and write it to an output file.
It can be used in one of two ways:
With a plain Python or IPython input file (denoted by extensions ‘.py’ or ‘.ipy’. In this case, the output is an auto-generated reST file with a basic header, and the captured Python input and output contained in an indented code block.
If no output filename is given, the input name is used, with the extension replaced by ‘.txt’.
With an input template file. Template files are simply plain text files with special directives of the form
to include the named file at that point.
If no output filename is given and the input filename is of the form ‘base.tpl.txt’, the output will be automatically named ‘base.txt’.
A simple output stream that indents all output by a fixed amount.
Instances of this class trap output to a given stream and first reformat it to indent every input line.
Create an indented writer.
Write a string to the output stream.
Code runner factory.
This class provides an IPython code runner, but enforces that only one runner is every instantiated. The runner is created based on the extension of the first file to run, and it raises an exception if a runner is later requested for a different extension type.
This ensures that we don’t generate example files for doctest with a mix of python and ipython syntax.
Instantiate a code runner.
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|Health Management Announces 1st Quarter 2012 Results|
Overall diluted earnings per share are $0.15
NAPLES, Fla., Apr 23, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) --Health Management Associates, Inc. (NYSE: HMA) today announced its consolidated financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012.
Key metrics from continuing operations for the first quarter (all percentage changes compare the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2011) include:
The tables accompanying this press release include reconciliations of consolidated net income to all presentations of Adjusted EBITDA (which is not a GAAP measure) contained in this press release. Those tables also reconcile earnings per share on a GAAP basis to those amounts presented in this press release and contain disclaimers and other important information regarding how Health Management defines and uses Adjusted EBITDA.
For continuing operations at hospitals operated by Health Management for one year or more, referred to as same hospital operations, net revenue in the first quarter increased $71.2 million or 5.7%, to $1.326 billion compared to the same quarter in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA from same hospital operations grew 6.6% to $264.0 million, representing 19.9% of net revenue, as compared to $247.7 million and 19.7%, respectively, for the same quarter a year ago. Same hospital Adjusted EBITDA includes $4.6 million of Medicare and Medicaid HCIT incentive payments, offsetting government program payment reductions. Declines in both uninsured admissions and flu-related volume contributed to a 4.2% and 0.2% decline in first quarter same hospital admissions and adjusted admissions, respectively. Had uninsured and flu-related volumes been the same as last year, first quarter same hospital admissions would have declined 1.6% and same hospital adjusted admissions would have increased 2.4%.
"Health Management had another great quarter and a great start to 2012, with revenue up 18.4% year over year," said Gary D. Newsome, Health Management's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Our operating strategy continued to generate strong results in the first quarter as we managed our resources relative to the volume and acuity of our patients. We believe that there are further improvement opportunities in our hospitals as we continue to affect change in our processes and systems in emergency room operations, physician recruitment and market service development. In addition, our partnership development pipeline continues to be extremely active."
Health Management's provision for doubtful accounts, or bad debt expense, was $201.3 million, or 11.9% of net revenue before the provision for doubtful accounts, for the first quarter compared to $172.1 million, or 12.1% of net revenue before the provision of doubtful accounts, for the same quarter a year ago.
Uninsured self-pay patient discounts for the first quarter were $299.7 million, compared to $225.7 million for the same quarter a year ago. Charity/indigent care write-offs were $22.7 million for the first quarter, compared to $21.4 million for the same quarter a year ago.
The sum of uninsured discounts, charity/indigent write-offs and bad debt expense, as a percent of the sum of net revenue before the provision for doubtful accounts, uninsured discounts and charity/indigent write-offs (which Health Management refers to as its Uncompensated Patient Care Percentage) was 26.1% for the first quarter, compared to 25.0% for the first quarter a year ago, and 25.4% for the quarter ended December 31, 2011. Health Management believes that its Uncompensated Patient Care Percentage provides key information regarding the aggregate level of patient care for which it does not receive payment.
Cash flow from continuing operating activities for the first quarter was $62.1 million, after cash interest and cash tax payments aggregating $52.8 million. Our cash flows in the first quarter do not reflect the benefit of our Tennova acquisition as we had not received our Medicare tie-in notices as of March 31, 2012. Health Management received the tie-in notices in early April 2012, and we expect to bill and collect the backlog of Tennova Health accounts receivable by the end of the second quarter. Health Management's total leverage ratio was 4.1 and interest coverage ratio was 4.0 at March 31, 2012, well within its debt requirements.
Health Management hospitals recognized approximately $4.6 million of Medicare and Medicaid HCIT incentive payments in the first quarter ended March 31, 2012. As previously announced, Health Management expects to recognize approximately $90 to $120 million of Medicare and Medicaid HCIT incentive payments during the year ending December 31, 2012. The bulk of these payments are expected to be recorded in the third and fourth quarters of 2012.
Health Management is also affirming its diluted EPS from continuing operations objective range for the year ending December 31, 2012 to be between $0.80 and $0.90. This diluted EPS range for 2012 does not include approximately $96 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, of impact expected from interest rate swap accounting and mark-to-market adjustments nor does it include approximately $90 to $120 million of anticipated Medicare and Medicaid HCIT incentive payments.
As previously announced on April 2, 2012, subsidiaries of Health Management completed a joint venture transaction with respect to five INTEGRIS Health Oklahoma hospitals. Under the joint venture, which was effective April 1, 2012, Health Management now owns an 80% controlling interest in the five hospitals and manages their day-to-day operations. The INTEGRIS Health hospital partners include: 53-bed Integris Blackwell Regional Hospital, located in Blackwell; 64-bed Integris Clinton Regional Hospital, located in Clinton; 25-bed Integris Marshall County Medical Center, located in Madill; 52-bed Integris Mayes County Medical Center, located in Pryor; and 32-bed Integris Seminole Medical Center, located in Seminole. Combined, these five hospitals have an aggregate of 226 licensed beds and generated approximately $95 million of net revenue, before the provision for doubtful accounts, over the last twelve months.
Health Management's executive team will hold a conference call and webcast to discuss the contents of this press release and Health Management's consolidated financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2012 on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. EDT. Investors are invited to access the webcast via Health Management's website at www.HMA.com or via www.streetevents.com. Alternatively, investors may join the conference call by dialing 877-476-3476.
Health Management will archive a copy of the audio webcast of the conference call, along with any related information that Health Management may be required to provide pursuant to Securities and Exchange Commission rules, on its website under the heading "Investor Relations" for a period of 60 days following the conference call.
Health Management enables America's best local health care by providing the people, processes, capital and expertise necessary for its hospital and physician partners to fulfill their local missions of delivering superior health care services. Health Management, through its subsidiaries operates 71 hospitals, with approximately 10,600 licensed beds, in non-urban communities located throughout the United States.
All references to "Health Management," "HMA" or the "Company" used in this release refer to Health Management Associates, Inc. and its affiliates.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are identified by words such as "expects," "estimates," "projects," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "plans," "may," "continues," "should," "could" and other similar words. All statements addressing operating performance, events or developments that Health Management Associates, Inc. expects or anticipates will occur in the future, including but not limited to incurrence of indebtedness, projections of revenue, income or loss, capital expenditures, earnings per share, debt structure, bad debt expense, capital structure, repayment of indebtedness, the amount and timing of funds under the meaningful use measurement standard of various Healthcare Information Technology ("HCIT") incentive programs, other financial items and operating statistics, statements regarding the plans and objectives of management for future operations, innovations, or market service development, statements regarding acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures and other proposed or contemplated transactions (including but not limited to statements regarding the potential for future acquisitions and perceived benefits of acquisitions), statements of future economic performance, statements regarding legal proceedings and other loss contingencies, statements regarding market risk exposures, statements regarding the effects and/or interpretations of recently enacted or future health care laws and regulations, statements of the assumptions underlying or relating to any of the foregoing statements, and other statements which are other than statements of historical fact, are considered to be "forward-looking statements."
Because they are forward-looking, such statements should be evaluated in light of important risk factors and uncertainties. These risk factors and uncertainties are more fully described in Health Management Associates, Inc.'s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, including under the heading entitled "Risk Factors." Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of Health Management Associates, Inc.'s underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those currently anticipated. In addition, undue reliance should not be placed on Health Management Associates, Inc.'s forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, Health Management Associates, Inc. disclaims any obligation to update its risk factors or to publicly announce updates to the forward-looking statements contained in this press release to reflect new information, future events or other developments.
HEALTH MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES, INC.
SUPPLEMENTAL CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME INFORMATION
(unaudited, in thousands, except per share amounts)
The following table provides information regarding income from continuing operations attributable to Health Management, excluding the impact of the interest rate swap amortization and mark-to-market adjustments. This table is a non-GAAP presentation; nonetheless, Health Management believes that providing this detail is beneficial to investors and other readers of Health Management's financial statements due to the significant impact these items had on income from continuing operations attributable to Health Management.
SOURCE: Health Management Associates, Inc.
Health Management Associates, Inc.
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Salivary Cortisol Responsivity to an Intravenous Catheter Insertion in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Journal of pediatric psychology
NLM Title Abbreviation
J Pediatr Psychol
OBJECTIVE: To compare salivary cortisol baseline levels and responsivity as well as behavioral distress to intravenous (IV) catheter insertions in 4- to 10-year-old children with (n = 29) and without (n = 339) attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHODS: This is a secondary data analysis from a sample of 542 children who participated in a multisite study on distraction. Data included were demographic variables, Pediatric Behavior Scale-30, Observational Scale of Behavioral Distress-Revised, and four salivary cortisol samples. RESULTS: Home samples from the ADHD group revealed nonsignificant but higher cortisol levels than the non-ADHD group. However, on the clinic day, the ADHD group had significantly lower cortisol levels before (0.184 vs. 0.261, p = .040) and 20-30 min after IV insertion (0.186 vs. 0.299, p = .014) compared with the non-ADHD group. CONCLUSIONS: Cortisol levels in children with and without ADHD differ in response to the stress of an IV insertion.
This document is currently not available here.
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- Posted March 22, 2013 by
Village of Lombard, Illinois
HOW I BECAME A COMMUNITY INTERPRETER?
In September 1977, when I was a freshman at Northeastern Illinois University, in Chicago, Illinois, I used to work as a student aide at the Financial Aid Office, for the Veterans Administration Scholarship department and the UNI Scholarship department, when I was not in class, and I also helped the front desk accepting student financial aid forms and advising students about registration procedures. Since Northeastern Illinois is an urban university, the majority of the students enrolled and attending were urban minorities who commuted to school and work to get a college education in Chicago. Many of the students were Spanish-speaking people who had just arrived from Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean or Spain and needed to enroll in college courses to learn English and get a college degree or validate their college transcripts from their former countries in the United States. Since these students spoke Spanish only at the beginning at UNI, whenever they went to the Financial Aid Office, they required an explanation in Spanish of all the financial aid requirements to apply for the Pell Basic Grant, the Illinois State Scholarship and/or student loans. When I was not completing Veterans’ Scholarship forms, totaling veterans’ points for scholarship after military service, typing award letters and post cards for the veterans, filing, and/or managing awards letters or denials for other scholarship funds, I would be asked to work at the front desk informing students and answering the telephone in English and Spanish. If a Spanish-speaking student was interviewed by a financial aid counselor who only spoke English, sometimes I would be called to interpret from English into Spanish. In so doing, I enjoyed the rapport and the language interaction with my fellow students and fulfilled my responsibility to the community by helping Spanish speakers become mainstreamed into the English-speaking community at Northeastern Illinois University and in Chicago, as I had been during my high school years where I only spoke English and French, in a Catholic parochial school, Madonna High School on the Northwest side of Chicago. After completing my core curriculum for my Bachelor’s Degree, I decided to focus on double majors in Education to teach languages like English, French, and Spanish, Writing, and minor in Linguistics and Athletics. Having had four years of English and French in high school, I was accelerated into more advanced courses in these two disciplines, so I completed my major requirements early enough that I could regain my usage of the Spanish language through specialized coursework for bilingual Spanish speakers. As I became more proficient in my colloquial use of the Spanish language for bilingual speakers in the Chicago area of the Midwest, I interacted between English and French easily, thus I became multilingual. I graduated from Northeastern Illinois University after five years of study with a B.A. in Secondary Education, Type (09) Illinois State Teaching Certificate, English, French, Spanish, and minors in Linguistics, Writing, and Athletics. It was through one of my friends, Maureen, that I started doing translation work and language instruction at Translingual International. I also taught at Berlitz Language Schools in Downtown Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Later on, I began to interpret at the Illinois Industrial Commission and through Accurate Translations for workers’ compensation arbitration hearings for Spanish-speaking employees who had been injured by work-related accidents. The last two years of college, I was referred and recommended by my French teacher and her physician friend, for a summer job working for an European travel insurance company, GESA Assistance, S.A., based in Barcelona, Spain, with branches in the U.S., Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Japan, Australia, Mexico, the Caribbean.
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We All Fall Down - Broadcast on 31-Dec-2009 →
Dream Journal #002
Last night I had a dream that my friend, Svenja, who lives in Germany, came here to visit me. I picked her up from the train station, where she was sitting on the platform, dangling her feet above the tracks. She had 2 microdermal piercings on either side of her nose, and asked me if any of my tattoos or piercings got infected. I told her about the one time that one of my ears got infected, but...
Dream Journal #001
Last night I had a dream that Jordan was a flight attendant. Except that he was a bit taller than usual and was pretty buff. His hair was darker than usual, and he also had a silly moustache. He was wearing a male flight attendant’s uniform, but it really looked like a sailor’s outfit; it was pretty gay, actually. He then gave me a $10 bill to buy mineral water, and I ran off with it,...
We All Fall Down, Christmas Spectacular -... →
The Descendents - Sick-O-Me New love new fun new...
The fear is legitimate, but it is manipulated.
heeeraldo: lucas: Log Driver’s Waltz (via the National Film Board) Any Canadian following along will immediately feel memories flooding back at this juncture. For those from lands apart: lyrics below so you can sing along too. If you should ask any girl from the parish around What pleases her most from her head to her toes, She’ll say - I’m not sure that it’s business of yours, But I do like...
Our friendship is like Lego. If it breaks you pick it up and build it into a...– Jordan, on the structural integrity of our friendship.
heeeraldo: aw man remember that night we went to the lantern festival and it was all humid and rainy and all points between so when we got back we were just drenched and your lantern went out a couple times but we didn’t give a fuck cause it was summer and we were awesome? let’s do that again, some time. ironswan: It wasn’t that long ago, and it’s coming again soon, but do you remember...
We All Fall Down - Broadcast on 17-Dec-2009 →
It wasn’t that long ago, and it’s coming again soon, but do you remember summer sunsets? I remember long days, and staying out until the sun went down. It was still warm outside, even after sunset. Summer had a certain smell, as well. I remember how it was too warm to sleep sometimes. I’m usually a winter person, but for some reason, I’m really missing summer evenings...
Left 4 Dead 2 Game Add-on #1 Announced! →
Dubbed “The Passing,” the first game add-on for L4D2 brings the original Left 4 Dead (L4D1) Survivors down south for a meeting with the L4D2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay for the PC and Xbox 360.
i couldn't resist.
heeeraldo: (actual photo of actual ironswan from zombiewalk; I am an ass.) ironswan: I just rage quit on my boyfriend and one of my best friends. I guess it wouldn’t be that bad if we weren’t all at the same table, and still in the same room.
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September 22, 2011
Fall is about to start and I have not shared much of my Summer with you…
These past weeks have just flown by ! No real stress but various activities that kept me away from the PC. Let’s have a look at some of my Summer windows that will tell you a little more.
There were several friends who stayed at home for a while. Together we visited the old town of Fribourg and some of the small workshops. Behind the bars, an old low-ceilinged room or rather a real Aladdin’s cave with antique furnitures, lamps, dishes, jewels, coins, precious fabrics, and so much more. Having decided a while ago to do some serious clearing up, I resisted buying anything. Do not think though that I have not thought of it !In the same area of the old town, behind St-Nicholas’ Cathedral, there is a small art gallery I visit now and then. I went there with other friends on a rainy Sunday morning. A very colourful and joyful exhibition welcomed us. A painter/textile artist and a ceramist had created special artworks that I will show you in more details later. The gallery window showed a big white canvas where the Italian artist had sewn or stuck all kinds of fabrics and other materials. Fascinating ! And so inspiring. This is part of the view from our car window as we drove to the mountains with the family. Italy is right behind those mountains on the right but on that particular day we turned left to the Alps and the village where we took part in a family celebration.
Another view from our car window. We were driving on a highway along the Lake of Geneva. Switzerland is on your right, the French shore on the left. The city of Geneva lies on the far end of the lake. On a clear day, at any hour but especially at sunset this landscape is just breathtaking. Can you spot the first autumnal mist on the French side ? Just in case you wonder about these two pictures … I was not the driver.
Up in the mountains and strolling through an almost abandonned hamlet. A young couple whose great-grandparents had lived there earlier had decided to restore their chalet. They started with the roof and the windows. I must say it was a happy and encouraging sight for this tiny village is a precious memory of past times although modern additions (road, electricity…) make life easier up there.
A daily hike to high mountain pastures (about 7000ft). Two energetic dogs were so happy to meet and run together : a tourist Beagle (my Ninio) and a resident Jack Russel. A young French lady lives in the small stone house for the Summer Season while the cows graze up there. Her window opens on a bare landscape but for a few “arolle” trees. There are a special kind of pines (Pinus Cembra) which resist the low temperatures in Winter. Her window also opens on a vast corrie of mountains. The lady is the cheese maker of this particular pasture. The large round pieces of cheese she produces are very sought-after for their particular taste. If cows could speak, they would tell you how good the grass tastes up there with all the wild flowers covering the pastures from June till end of August.This is my kitchen window at home. One I never tire to look through at any Season. At this time of the year the greenness is dazzling. The rowan-tree attracts lots of birds who take their turn more or less patiently to eat its berries. It is noisy, happily so. The wheat field is blazing under the sun. In the evening I love to stand there and watch the sun disappearing slowly behind the forest. I am so lucky – and grateful – to live so close to nature !
Now, this is a window I could honestly have done without… Its unfathomable darkness saddens me so much. After camera and printer let me down, my laptop refused to respond and start. Yes ! Three devices I took for granted for years just went blank at a few months interval. I must add they all had almost the same age and probably were tired of working. Or of me, who knows ? This black window is also a reason why I did not post much lately. I had to rely on other computers not always available. Now I am back to the family’s old PC. I cross my fingers – and toes - for the good old computer to last until I can offer myself a new computer !
Not being able to post much had also advantages : I read and sewed more
More about it later. So I hope !
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Early Childhood Education
- The American Academy of Pediatrics is dedicated to the health of all children and committed to
the attainment of optimal physical, mental, and social health
and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and
- The Center for Early Childhood
Leadership is dedicated to enhancing the management skills,
professional orientation and leadership capacity of early
- The Child & Family
WebGuide describes and evaluates web sites that contain
research-based information about child development.
- An organization of regional Child
Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies serving
communities throughout the state of Illinois.
- The Children's Book Council is dedicated to encouraging literacy and the use and enjoyment
of children's books.
- Children's Literature offers information on authors and illustrators, recommended
books by theme, book award winners, etc.
- The Circle of Inclusion web site is for early childhood service providers and families
of young children. This web site offers demonstrations
of and information about the effective practices of inclusive
educational programs for children from birth through age eight.
- Civitas is a national
not-for-profit communication group that works to provide educational
tools to all adults who live and work with young children.
- The CLAS Early Childhood Research
Institute collects and describes early childhood/early
intervention resources that have been developed across the
United States for children with disabilities and their families
and the service providers who work with them. The materials
and resources available on this site reflect the intersection
of culture and language, disabilities and child development.
- The Division of Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is a nonprofit
organization advocating for individuals who work with or on
behalf of children with special needs, birth through age eight,
and their families. There is also an Illinois
Subdivision for the Division of Early Childhood (IDEC).
- The Early Childhood
Educators' and Family Web Corner contains articles, teacher
pages, family pages, etc.
- EdWorld.Resources covers a variety of areas of Early Childhood.
- ERIC provides research-based
information and articles in the field of early childhood.
- I Am Your Child is a national public awareness and engagement campaign to
make early childhood development a top priority of our nation.
- The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services web site for
information on day care licensing, etc.
- The Illinois
Department of Human Services Early Intervention site contains
information for parents and service providers, including Child
and Family Connections contacts. .
- The Illinois
Early Learning Web site provides evidence-based, reliable
information for parents, caregivers, and teachers of young
children in the State of Illinois.
- Illinois Head Start Association information.
- Lists of recommended children's books for birth to five and
Early Childhood Block Grant professional development opportunities
are available on the Early Childhood portion of the Illinois
Resource Center's web site.
- The Illinois
Secretary of State's literacy program site includes grant
applications and literacy resources.
- Meld offers education and
support for parents, trains family service providers to apply
best practices in their work with families and publishes a
broad range of resource materials for parents and the people
who work with them.
- The National Association for
the Education of Young Children has for its purpose, “leading
and consolidating the efforts of individuals and groups working
to achieve healthy development and constructive education
for all young children.”
- The National
Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect is a resource
for professionals and others seeking information on abuse
and neglect and child welfare.
- The National Early
Childhood Technical Assistance Center supports the implementation
of the early childhood provisions of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Their mission is
to strengthen service systems to ensure that children with
disabilities (birth through five) and their families receive
and benefit from high quality, culturally appropriate, and
family-centered supports and services.
- The National Head Start Association is a private not-for-profit membership organization that provides
a national forum for the continued enhancement of Head Start
services for children ages 0 to 5 and their families.
- The National Institute for
Early Education Research supports early childhood education
initiatives by providing objective, nonpartisan information
based on research.
- Ongoing update about the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHID)
study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.
- The Ounce of Prevention was established to promote the well-being of children and
adolescents by working with families, communities, and policy-makers.
- The Parents as Teachers National
Center is committed to seeing that “all children will
learn, grow, and develop to realize their full potential."
The information is geared to parents but helpful to all programs
in early childhood.
- The Partnership
for Reading continually creates resources and shares information
about how scientifically based research can inform the acquisition
of reading skills across the lifespan, from birth to adulthood.
Visit the Early
- Prevent Child
Abuse America provides leadership to promote the prevention
of child abuse and neglect at both the national and local
levels. Information is also available in Spanish.
- Reading Rockets,
"launching young readers", contains resources, book
lists, and tips on early reading.
- The Society for Research in
Child Development at the University of Michigan is a multidisciplinary,
not-for-profit, professional association of approximately
5,000 researchers, practitioners, and human development professionals.
- The U.S.
Department of Education's Early Reading First site contains
information on the status of Early Reading First grants.
- The U.S. Department
of Education main site includes information on No Child
- Voices for Illinois
Children works with families, communities, and policy-makers
to ensure that all children grow up healthy, nurtured, safe,
and well educated.
- Zero to Three is
a leading resource on the first three years of life.
Its goal is to strengthen and support families, practitioners
and communities to promote the healthy development of babies
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Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Glory be to Allah and all praise be to Allah, and there is no deity (worthy of worship) save Allah, and Allah is Great.
Al Hasan Al Basri (ra) said," You always see the believer reproaching himself and saying things like: Did I want this? Why did I do that? Was this a better thing to do or should I have behaved otherwise?
Hazrat Umar Al Farooq (ra) Said:
"The Wisest Of Men is he who can account for his own actions."
Start With the Self.
A man was on his death bed, Someone asked him to give some wise counsel before he departed, the world he Said.
" When I was young I wanted to change the world and solve its problems, As I got older I realized that perhaps I should lower my sights, I thought I would be better served in changing my country as time went on I realized that people of country could not be changed. I decided to change the people of my town , but they also did not wish to change, When I reached my old age I thought I would try changing my Family, here also I found my endeavors go to waste, try as I might my family members would not change.
" Now that I am on my death bed, I have realized that if I had sought to improve myself, and removed my own defects, then perhaps my family members would have been influenced. Then seeing the behavior of my family people of my town would have been influenced. By seeing the spiritual change and improvement of the people of my town, the people of my country would have been influenced. And perhaps through the people of my country the world may have been influenced."
* Source Unknown.
Is it not the case that we spend very little time reflecting on ourselves, but seek out the faults and defects of others. I joined this forum last week, to help improve my knowledge, instead what I have found myself doing is getting engaged, in fruitless debates be it sectarian issues, political issues or otherwise. I wish to change the world but I find it near impossible, to change myself.
MaY Allah give us all the Tawfiq to improve our own behavior and conduct and a sinner like me in particular, ameen.
Shaqeeq Bin Ibraheem (ra) says: " In four things a person conforms with me by way of his tongue but opposes me by way of his deeds.
1.) He says that we are the servants (and slaves) of Allah subhanahu wa tala,
Yet does the deeds of free people.
2.) He says that Allah subhanahu wa tala is responsible, for our sustenance, yet his heart is not at ease upon this responsibility until at such time that he is not in possession of any worldly material;
3). He says that the hereafter holds virtue over the world, yet he always worries about hoarding wealth for this world (he has no worry for the hereafter);
4.) He says that death is inevitable, it will definitely come, yet his deeds are like those who do not want to die."
In short we spend our whole lives in the pursuit of wealth, material things and violating the rights of others, It fails to register with us that one day we shall die, only our deeds will accompany us to the grave: Often we find people who fall out with their loved ones over something petty, they spend the rest of their lives in enmity, neither willing to apologise, or compromise.If one of them passes away then the one who remains alive is filled with remorse of course by then it is too late to make ammends.
Enhance your good deeds, settle your debts, Make ammends with those whom
you have fallen out with, does it really matter whose right ,or whose in the wrong, Will our status be lowered if we are the ones who compromise and offer an apology.
The Third Kalimah
The third kalimah has a unique and very interesting story behind it. It all started before Allah Ta'alah created Adam A.S. The Angels were trying to move the Arsh (Throne) of Allah Ta'alah but it was too heavy and wouldn't budge. So they asked Almighty Allah for help. Allah told them to recite "Subhanallah." The Angels did as they were told and found that it gave them power and strength and they were able to move the Arsh. They liked this so much that they began constantly hymning "Subhanallah."- (Glory be to Allah)
Then Allah created Adam A.S. When Allah blew life into Adam, the first thing he did was sneeze and say "Alhamdulillah" (All parise be to Allah)The angels liked this act so much that they added this to their parise and glorification of Allah. Thus the kalimah became "Subhanallah Walhamdulillah"
Hundreds of years passed and the Prophet Nooh A.S. was now on earth. For nine hundred years he proclaimed the oneness of Allah with the words "La illaha illalah." (There is none worthy of worhip The Angels loved this act so much that they added this to the kalimah. Thus, the kalimah now became "Subhanallah Walhamdulillah Wa La illaha illalah."
The Angels kept repeating this kalimah day and night. Many centuries passed and the Prophet Ebrahim A.S. (Abraham) was asked by Almighty Allah to sacrifice his beloved son Ismaeel A.S. He was about to slaughter his son and He needed something to give him the courage he needed to do this difficult deed. So he recited "Allahu Akbar." (Allah is Great) The Angels loved this act so much that they added "Allahu Akbar" to the kalimah. Thus the kalimah became "Subhanallah Walhamdulillah Wa La illaha illalah Allahu Akbar."
More centuries passed. It was the night of Meraj, when our Beloved Prophet Muhammed S.A.W. ascended to the Heavens with Gibraeel A.S. There Gibraeel A.S. told Nabee S.A.W. the story and Nabee S.A.W. added the final part of the Kalmiah "Wala Howla Wa La Quwata Illah Billah Hil Aleyeel Azeem." Thus the kalimah now became Subhanallah Walhamdulillah Wa La illaha illalah Allahu Akbar Wala Howla Wa La Quwata Illah Billah Hil Aleyeel Azeem" (There is no Power and Might except from Allah, The Most High, The Great)
And up to this day, this kalimah (or declaration of faith) buzzes around the Arsh of Almighy Allah.
Third Kalima is Tumjeed, this is the Kalima(the first part) that is recited 33 times after each Farz Namaaz, and is called tasbih Fatima.
urah Fatiha protects one from the anger of Allah.
Surah Yaseen from the thirst of the Day of Judgement.
Sura Waaqiah from poverty and starvation
Surah Mulk from the punishment of the grave
Surah Kausar from the enemity of the enemy
Surah Kaafiroon from kufr at the time of death
Surah Ikhlaas from hypocrisy
Surah ! Falaq fr om calamities.
Surah Naas from evil thoughts
Should someone become aware of the above from your message and read any of these surahs, u will also receive the sawaab for passing on the knowledge. So keep forwarding…….
Hazrat Muhammad S.A.W.W (PBUH) says that
“If a person recites ” Ayatal Kursi” after every Farz Namaz then there will be nothing between him and Heaven except Death”
2) There is a Hadith that says “3rd kalima” is such a great medicine that it cures every disease and the most minor disease it cures is “Sorrow” (Gham).
Third kalima being: ” Subhaan Allah, WalHamdo Lillah, Wa La Illaha IlAllah, Wa Aallah o Abar. Wa Lahoalwalla quwatta illa billah hilm Ali al Azeem.”
3) Another Hadith says “if a person recites surah ikhlaas 10 times in a day then Allah build a palace for him in the Heaven.(Subhaan Allah)”
and the last but not the least ALLAH says ” spread the knowledge whatever u have …Its duty of each n every Muslim”
May ALLAH accepts our good deeds…Aamin (InshahALLAH)
..........The Third Kalima...........
Relates Hazarat Sumara bin Jundub that the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) once said that of all the spoken words and the Kalimas the most excellent were these four:
Narrates Abu Haraira that the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said, "The Kalima of is dearer to me than the entire world on which the sun shines.
This Kalima is most complete and comprehensive and all the aspects of Divine Praise are covered by it. In some Traditions the phrase is also included in it. It occurs after . A revered spiritual mentor used to explain the import of the Kalima to the present writer in following manner:
Subhaa nallah, 'Glory be to Allah, Free from all faults and blemishes and other things that are not worthy of His Glory .
Alhamdu lillah, 'Praise be to Allah, He is the embodiment of perfection and the center of every kind of virtue, (therefore) all praise is for Him, and when such is His Glory that He is absolutely blemishless and all the wonderful virtues are assembled in Him, He alone is our Lord and the sole object of our heart's desire .
Laa ilaaha illalaah, 'There is no Allah save Him, We are His own helpless slaves and of no one else.
Allahu Akbar, 'Allah is Great, He is Most Powerful, Almighty. We can never acquit ourselves of our duties to Him as His slaves nor can we ever gain nearness onto Him except that he himself blesses us with His grace.
Laa howla walaa quwwata illa billaah, 'There is no power or virtue but in Allah."
A well-known Tradition of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) has it that the Prophet's beloved daughter (and Hazrat Ali's wife), Hazrat Fatima, used to perform all the domestic duties with her own hands. She had even to draw water from the well and to carry it home and to grind the corn in the millstone. One day she begged the holy Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) to provide her with a domestic servant upon which the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) observed, "I will tell you of something that will serve you better than a domestic servant. Recite Subhaa-nallaah 33 times, Alhamdu lillaah 33 times, and Allahu Akbar 34 times after each Salaah and on retiring to bed. This will be of greater value to you than a servant."
Another Tradition says, "Whoever will recite after each Salaah 33 times Subhaa-nallaah, 33 times Alhamdu lillaah, and 34 times Allahu Akbar, and, at the end of it, the Kalima of ‘Laa ilaaha illal laahu wahdahu laa sharika lahu lahul mulku wa-lahul hamdu wa huwa alaa kulli shay-in qadiir’. (There is no Allah but one Allah. He is alone. No partner hath. He Him belongs sovereignty and unto Him belongs Praise and He is all-Powerful) all his sins will be forgiven even if they be as profuse as the foam of the sea."
May Allah give us all the Tawfiq to examine our own faults and rectify them ameen.
May Allah give us all the tawfiq to reform ourselves, and a hypocrite like myself
in particular ameen.
P.s I humbly request that you please, remember me in your duas.
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Praise be to Allaah.
We ask Allaah to set the affairs of the Muslims straight, and
keep us and you away from places of turmoil and trials, and to unite them on
the truth, and grant them victory against their enemies, for He is able to
Praying in congregation in the mosque is obligatory for men
who are able to do that, and there is a great deal of evidence for that
which has been explained in the answers to questions no.
The obligation of performing prayers in congregation and
Jumu’ah prayers is dependent upon there being no danger to a person’s life
or wealth or family, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):
“and [Allaah] has not laid upon you in religion any
“Allaah intends for you ease, and He does not want to make
things difficult for you”
Ibn Qudaamah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in
al-Mughni (1/366): The one who is afraid is excused for not praying in
congregation or praying Jumu’ah, because the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Valid excuses are fear and
Fear is of three types: fear for oneself, fear for one’s
wealth or property, and fear for one’s family. End quote.
If a person fears that he may be killed or arrested and
imprisoned unlawfully, then this is regarded as a valid excuse for his not
praying in congregation or praying Jumu’ah, and he may offer these prayers
in his house in order to protect himself.
But if he prays Jumu’ah in his house, then he should pray it
as Zuhr with four rak’ahs, not like Jumu’ah prayer.
And Allaah knows best.
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12:02 am - In this age, show business is as big a part of coaching as, well, coaching. When you’re losing, sometimes it’s not a bad idea to go to outlandish lengths to show the fans you care. In New York, we’ve had some legendary actors: Billy Martin, Bill Parcells, Al Arbour. When Al compared Kevin Hatcher to Paul Bunyon, you think he really meant it?
The MSG Plus cameras almost never fail to show Scott Gordon after an opposing goal. Tonight for the 3-2 game-winning goal by Edmonton, the camera went from Andrew Cogliano to Joey MacDonald to Gordon in under five seconds.
When the calls are going horribly against your team – as they did tonight from Ontario to Alberta - Scott might want to consider drawing the cameras to him. There is no downside to freaking out on the officials. The refs will understand. The fans will see the heart beating.
That may be unfair, but it’s the truth. It’s the difference between Shrugging Eric Mangini and all the men Jets fans now want to coach their team.
(12:12 am, P.S.: Gordon did well in the post-game, showing some fire in his press briefing. Next up, he might need an Instant You Tube Classic wig-out within a game).
I called Islanders European scouting director Vellu-Pekka Kautonen tonight with a few questions about 2008 fourth round pick David Ullstrom of Team Sweden and snuck in one about another guy.
Point Blank: Do you get the sense from David Ullstrom that playing in North America, playing in the NHL, is very much in his plans?
Kautonen: I’ll tell you what happened last night. I went with the rest of our scouts in Ottawa for the WJC out to dinner at The Keg (a sort of Friday’s in Canada). We get there, and it turns out David’s father, mother and sister are at the table next to us. His father told me that David is so excited about the opportunity to come to North America and be part of the Islanders organization.
David has been blown away by the incredible excitement at the WJC and he’s following all the hockey since he got here two weeks ago. His father said that David can’t stop talking about how much he wants to make it to the NHL. His dad told us he was going to do everything in his power to make sure his son is doing everything to get to this level. It was a real nice moment.
PB: Do you think Ullstrom’s style would be a good fit for the Islanders and at the NHL level? Is he what you would call an NHL-style player?
Kautonen: Absolutely. He already has the size (6-3, 205) and his skating gets better with each year. He has the willingness to pay the price and is not shy in traffic. He has very good potential at this level.
PB: There’s been a sense since you drafted him in the fourth round last summer that Ullstrom may have been the Islanders’ biggest steal.
Kautonen: You’re always happy with your picks in the days after, but it was nice when 4 or 5 of my European colleagues came up to me at the NHL Draft and said David was right in their sights with their team’s next pick.
Ullstrom’s a good player. Since we selected him, he has played in the Swedish Elite League and seen some time in the second league. (Former Islanders dynasty member and current scout) Anders Kallur sees him a lot and is very happy with him, and I know (Islanders scout) Eric Cairns was pleased with his progress when he traveled to Sweden last month to see Ullstrom and some of our other European draft picks.
PB: Any idea of a timeline for Ullstrom coming to play in North America?
Kautonen: Probably too early right now to be sure. I don’t think we can rule out him coming here next season, but I’ll also say that if he could play a regular shift on the third line of HV-71 of the Elite League next season, that would a very good option for his development. We’ll have a better idea of a good plan for David after this season.
PB: Okay, I fibbed about talking Ullstrom-only. I’m doing a bad job if I don’t ask the Islanders Director of European Scouting about Victor Hedman.
Kautonen: He’s real good. It’s been an interesting time for Hedman at this tournament. Because of the hype around Victor, people are disappointed when he’s not as flashy as they expect of him. That’s not the type of player he is. He may not ”wow” you every shift. He may not even “wow” you every game. It’s not fair for anyone to compare him to John Tavares. Hedman’s going to be fine. He is an outstanding prospect.
PB: I’m curious. When NHL scouts go to the World Junior Championships, do they spend time with their draft picks or do you leave them alone to focus on the tournament?
In most cases, you don’t meet with them. You want them to be able to concentrate on the hockey, and you want to show respect to their teams. After David’s first game in Ottawa, Eric Cairns gave him a quick call on behalf of all of us to tell him we were proud of the strides he has made. David has always been very good with the puck, but now he has come a long way in his play without the puck. David appreciated the call and since then we have kept our proper distance. This was an important time for him and for Team Sweden.
PB: How did Ullstrom do in the final tonight?
Kautonen: It was Canada’s night tonight, but David played very, very hard. He had an excellent tournament and gave everything he had tonight. We’re proud of the way he played.
PB: Will you go visit with Ullstrom after the game?
Kautonen: Part of you wants to, but it’s always complete mayhem down there after the championship game. David knows we’re proud of him. We will definitely make contact with him soon.
Since we’ve had to change our focus to The Big Picture about ten games ago, here’s your mid-season report.
Tonight’s loss in Edmonton takes the Islanders to 12-25-4 at the 41-game mark.
That’s 12 wins in 41 games. That’s 13 games under .500 just 41 games into a season in a league where only 7 of 30 teams are any games under .500.
In the interest of balanced journalism, the Islanders entered tonight’s game with an astounding 253 man-games lost to injury.
After 41 games, the Islanders have won only 8 of them in 60 minutes of regulation play.
Believe me, I wish it were different. I really was looking forward to writing about hockey games. But 12-25-4 is the answer to the question why our coverage will continue to focus on trade deadline and prospective UFA decisions, the Tavheduch Watch and the development of young players in the NHL, AHL, Europe and junior hockey. It is why one of tonight’s lead stories was about a fourth round draft pick from Sweden playing in the final of the World Junior Championships.
Good point by Jiggs McDonald: when the rosters for the Young Stars Game on All-Star Weekend are announced on Friday, Kyle Okposo should be part of it. Here’s hoping the Islanders have campaigned to the league on behalf of Okposo. The Islanders assuming the NHL has got it covered would be a mistake.
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iSmarty is here...
Announcing the Exciting New Child's Game "iSmarty"
iSmarty is going to bring loads of fun to kids and teach them about love and fun as well.
iSmarty is a brand new interactive HD game that unites education and fun for young children using the iPad or iPhone or Android. It features 15 beautifully animated and friendly animals with professional voices. The challenge of these educational games is for the child to find the Mother's pup and bring it home to her. The child can choose from three different animals and is rewarded when they find and help the little one get back to its Mother. The child receives praise and a sticker of the little creature they saved.
These games for kids stands out from the rest of the games for toddlers in that it can give hours of fun for a young child and can also provide a much needed rest for parents. This is because a child can play these, iPad games or iPhone games on their own. They are so simple with their intuitive interface that a child could play the game without assistance and really master the touchscreen. Also, the game has a special menu for parents, which can be accessed on the page with stickers (just press menu buttons together).
There are five different scenes all beautifully animated. The child will have so much fun on each stage that they will eagerly anticipate going to the next one. There are flying birds and butterflies that create a cartoon atmosphere and make the child feel that they are in a dreamland. The game teaches young children all about caring for others and helping somebody when they are in trouble. It also lets them empathize with the lost young animal and share the joy of its return to its Mother. The touch screen and learning how to use it improves co-ordination and fine movement. And the mostly loved by kids feature - the short cartoon at the end of 15th scene.
The game is the first mobile app of its kind that brings love and fun to a child's world.
A Company officer was heard to say "iSmarty is going to bring loads of fun to kids and teach them about love and fun as well". Word in the office is "If your kid has not tried iSmarty they have missed out on a great experience."
Stay tuned, we continue work for new characters.
Thank you for your feedback and opinions, it help the game to become better.
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Image Source: savagechickens.com
Just a quick post to let you know that starting tomorrow we will be running some sponsored posts here on JAiB. This is a subject I ‘ve thought about for a long while, and discussed with friends and colleagues before deciding that we ‘ll do these.
Right off the bat, I want to mention that there will generally be only one (and maximum two)sponsored post each week, so please don ‘t worry about seeing any great amount of these. Hit the jump for a quick rundown of why we ‘re going to run these and how they ‘ll work
What will sponsored posts look like?
All sponsored posts will be very clearly labeled, right within their post titles “ so that it is always very clear that they are promotional content, not standard editorial from our writers.
They will be kept very short “ generally around 100 words, a little longer if they include any special discount offers for our readers (which we will strongly encourage).
On some occasions, if we genuinely know and like a product, we may add a short endorsement line.
Why Are We Doing These?
Plain and simple – I ‘d like for this site to generate more revenue. And, I would love to get to a place where it generates more money with LESS ads. I believe this is one promising way to work towards that.
That will not happen overnight, or may not even happen at all “ but it is the goal. More revenue, less ads on the pages.
I really hope in the end this may become a win-win for readers and for myself as the site owner. In that eventually you should see our pages with less ads on them, while also seeing weekly promotional sponsored posts that will hopefully very often contain good offers for readers “ free promo codes, discounts on iPhone related products, and so on.
Ways to Support the Site?
Ha “ just in case any of you are thinking ‘Hey, less ads sounds good ‘ and would like to help us get there faster, here are some things you can do to help out:
– Just keep doing what you already do “ visit the site, add your excellent comments, tweet about our posts when you think they deserve it, share our good content on Facebook and wherever else you spend time on the web, tell your friends about us.
– Show our sponsors some love.
– Hit that lovely Paypal Donate button in the sidebar and make a small donation if you feel the site helps you and merits it.
Ok “ that ‘s it for site stuff today. Look out for our first sponsored post tomorrow. I hope you all think this new initiative makes sense, and as always would love to hear your thoughts on it.
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Oct 25, 2011
Podcast: Download (Duration: 54:44 — 22.0MB)
Guests: Ken Schurb
Tagged: Calvinism, Double Predestination, Irresistable Grace, John Calvin, Limited Atonement, Once saved always saved, Perseverance of the Saints, Total Depravity, TULIP, Unconditional Election
Find shows prior to Oct. 12, 2009 here. Use your "back" button to return to this site.
©2010 Lutheran Public Radio
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FINS Technology is the one stop shop for your technology career. On FINS, you can browse the latest job listings, find in-depth profiles and news about today's hottest tech companies and read career news and advice written by the experts especially for technology and IT employees.
FINS offers the same excellent career resouces for other industries. For more information, be sure to visit FINS Finance
and FINS Sales & Marketing
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I am fascinated by Piemonte for several reasons, many of them beginning with “B”. Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera, and most recently, Boca. This tiny region is located in the province of Novara in the northern part of Piemonte. The Boca DOC was estabilished in 1969, and even now there are only about a half a dozen wineries making wines under the Boca DOC. The DOC rules prescribe a minimum of 45% and a maximum of 70% of Nebbiolo grapes, while the remaining blend is Vespolina, a grape known for its spiciness, and tiny portions of Uva Rara also known as Bonarda Novarese.
The signature difference for me between the Boca wines, and the more well-known Nebbiolo-based reds of Barolo and Barbaresco, is the acidity level. The altitude of these vines, as well as the soil composition gives them a unique and long-lasting elegance. These wines can age for decades.
Thanks to Max Stefanelli at Terroni in Los Angeles, I recently discovered a Boca producer making a “Boca Chinato” from their red wine. Just as the Langhe has it’s “Barolo Chinato”, so too can the wineries of Boca turn their red wines into lovely little vini da meditazione. By cold-soaking their Boca DOC in herbs and spices, and then adding sugar to fortify the end product, Conti Cantine del Castello ends up with an amazingly light, intriguing little liqueur. The aromatized Elixir reminds me of violets, cardamon and heather. It’s trademark Boca acidity turn the flavors towards rhubarb and strawberry pie.
Products like these make me realize just how much there is to know about the nooks an crannies of Italian wine. I hope I never stop learning.
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ITS wins an end to end maintenance support for several bespoke applications for a major pharma client.
ITS adds State of South Carolina to its list of government clients
ITS launched a beta version of Sales Scorecard 1.0
ITS is a preferred vendor for major banks in the Tristate area
ITS provides complete score card solutions for pharma companies in NJ
8(a) certified SDB by the U.S. SBA.
Certified as Minority owned, controlled and operated Minority Business Enterprise by NMSDC
ITS provides staffing solution for State of GA, State of NC, State of VA and many more
ITS Factory ™
State of art product development center
Right resource Mix – Our onsite and offshore delivery model is a well secured and client domain specific
ITS launches reporting scorecard 1.0.
ITS developed several portal solutions in Banking and Pharma domains
© 2008 International Technology Solutions. All rights reserved
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One great benefit of using Linux, Apache, and other open source software is that you can modify the code to make it perfect for your business. But open source licensing restricts how you distribute the modifications. Here’s what a CIO needs to know about open source licenses.
Most open source software licenses have two provisions in common:
No limits on personal use, unmodified redistribution, or internal re-use. You can use the software as-is on your own, redistribute it, or modify it from source for your own use. This makes most every open source application immediately useful as an in-house productivity booster: you don’t pay anything to use it, no matter how many seats you deploy it on. And as long as you restrict the software to in-house use, you can modify it freely and keep the modifications confidential. READ MORE
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The Federal Trade Commission offers invaluable tools for restoring your identity if it has already been compromised. The tools can be found at http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0009-taking-charge.pdf. On this website, you will find a complaint form, affidavit of your identity, and sample letters. You will also find a log to chart your actions while restoring your identity. It is important to utilize this log to keep a record of contacts you have made with the authorities, credit card companies, banks, and credit bureaus. If something gets lost in the process, the log ensures detailed notes to help prove your efforts, and ultimately, rescue your identity from a criminal.
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Jim CombsAlumni, Class of 1989
Currently Director, Client Delivery at WebMD
Past experience includes
VP/Group Program Director at Moxie Interactive (Interactive Mkting and Advertising)
CEO at EMERGENTcy (Strategy/Research/Design)
Executive Strategy Director at Matter (Strategy/Research/Design)
Director, Program Management at Sapient (Web)
Senior Producer at IBM Interactive (Web)
Senior Producer at Tele-TV Media (Interactive TV)
Senior Producer at AVL (Multimedia)
Director of Technology at MSI (Multimedia)
Jim is also the musician known as Sensitive Chaos...
StillStream.com\'s Artist of the Month for April 2010
The first artist played on the first 2010 show of NPR/Sirius/XM Radio\'s Hearts of Space program
Atlanta Creative Loafing\'s Best of 2009 Readers Poll Runner-up for \"Best Local Electronic Act\"
KKUP (91.5 FM in Cupertino, CA) \"Best Visionary Music of 2009\"
Atlanta Creative Loafing\'s Best of 2007 Readers Poll Winner for \"Best Local Electronic Act\"
KKUP (91.5 FM in Cupertino, CA) \"Best Visionary Music of 2007\"
New Age Reporter\'s \"Top 12 Best Ambient/Spacemusic/Electronica Recordings of 2006\"
Atlanta Creative Loafing\'s Best of 2005 Readers Poll Winner for \"Best Local Electronic Act\"
#1 on WWSP 90 FM Ambient Aether / Space Continuum show for May 2010, and April and March 2009
#2 on WWSP 90 FM Ambient Aether / Space Continuum show for August 2010
#2 on WDIY 88.1 FM Galactic Travels show for August 2010
#2 on WDBX\'s Music from Beyond the Lakes show for May 2009
#3 on WXDU\'s New Frontier show for March 2009
#6 on StillStream.com for 2009, Top Collections (unreleased songs)
#7 on WWSP 90 FM Ambient Aether / Space Continuum show for May 2009 and July 2010
#8 on WVKR FM\'s Secret Music Top 20 for April 2009
#9 on WWSP 90 FM Ambient Aether / Space Continuum show for September 2010 & April 2010
#11 on KRSC 91.3 FM\'s Spectral Voyages Top 20 for April 2009
#11 on KKUP 91.5 FM\'s Mystic Music Top 20 for March 2009
#12 on WWSP 90 FM Ambient Aether / Space Continuum show for June 2010
#15 on KKUP 91.5 FM\'s Neptune Currents for September 2010
WXPN 88.5FM\'s Star\'s End Top 15 for May 2010, Top 30 for April 2010, and Top 20 for March 2010
WDIY 88.1 FM\'s Galactic Travels Top 20 for June, May, April and March 2010, and March and February 2009
#28 on KKUP 91.5 FM\'s Mystic Music Best Visionary Music for 2009
#34 album on New Age Reporter Spin List for May 2009
#50 on New Age Reporter\'s Top 100 for March 2009
#52 on New Age Reporter\'s Top 100 for April 2009
#65 on New Age Reporter\'s Top 100 for May 2009
Both Sensitive Chaos CDs are in rotation on Space Station SOMA FM and Stillstream.com.
Sensitive Chaos music has also received airplay on WRSU FM in New Brunswick, NJ, WBGU 88.1FM in Bowling Green, OH, Echoes, the daily two-hour music soundscape, distributed by Public Radio International and broadcast on 130 radio stations from Maine to California, WDBX 91.1 FM in Carbondale, IL, WWSP 90 FM in Stevens Point, WI, WRSU FM in New Brunswick, NJ, WXDU 88.7 FM in Durham, NC, KKUP 91.5 FM in Cupertino, CA,, Radio Despi 107.1 FM in Barcelona, Spain, and WDIY 88.1 FM, in Allentown and Bethlehem, PA, 93.9 FM in Easton, PA and Phillipsburg, NJ, 93.7 FM in Fogelsville and Trexlertown, WFIT 89.5FM in Palm Bay, FL, WRAS 88.5 FM in Atlanta, GA, KRSC 91.3 FM in Tulsa, OK, YLE Radio 1 in Helsinki, Finland, WVKR FM in Poughkeepsie, NY, and WMUH 91.7 FM, Allentown, PA
Sensitive Chaos is also Jim Combs, 1/3 of the trio Combs Creek Haller, whose Singularity double CD on the Earth Mantra label has received airplay on WXPN 88.5 FM Star\'s End (Top 30 for April 2010 & Top 21 for March 2010), WDIY 88.1 FM Galactic Travels, WWSP 90 FM Ambient Aether, WMUH 91.7 FM Thought Radio, and StillStream.com.
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Ron GoldinAlumni, Class of 2004
Ron is a visual/interaction designer currently working as an independent consultant. Ron has worked with companies ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 500’s on graphic user interfaces, physical design and design strategy for websites, applications, mobile, embedded devices and more. He is frequently engaged with the design community and has spoken at AIGA, IxDA, SXSW, EuroiTV, and PechaKucha and his award winning designs have been feature in publications such as ID Magazine. Past clients include AAA, AT&T, HP, LG, Logitech, McGraw-Hill, Mercedez-Benz and Microsoft.
|City of Origin:||New York, USA|
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Happy Thursday !
Love the contrasts in this shot. Looks like you applied a texture? Anyway, I really like this. :)
Love,love,love, this simple still life!
This made me smile...
cute little white/blue pumpkin.
very very pretty!
lovely!hey..and very cool that your staw bale garden is in that magazine!
Now, that looks like fall in a small town! Nice.
Oh i LOVE this!!
Seasonal still life, beautiful!
Awwwww, it's just beautiful and needs no words.God bless and have an incredible day!!! :o)
The frost is on the pumpkin! :)I loved the photo of the barn in your prior post..and it sounds like you are very content with your life there -- a good exchange!
Just looked at white pumpkins today for my autumn table decor, but haven't bought any yet. Love the shot!
I. Need. A. Pumpkin. ... or 5. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)
Wonderful Fall photo.
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An experiment in sustainable living on 1000 square feet.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Get 'Em While They're Hot
I've finally put the "Cluckin' Good Eggs" t-shirts up in my Etsy shop. You can show off your urban chicken pride with a clean conscience as they are made from recycled tees. They'd make a great Christmas gift for your favorite homesteader.
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World’s poorest on front line in climate change fight
24 July 2008 | News story
Climate change is already happening – and it hits poor people most. The effect of more frequent hurricanes, floods and droughts on developing countries is devastating, as this year’s cyclone Nagris proved again in southern Myanmar, leaving over 130,000 people dead or missing.
To protect the world’s poor against today’s more frequent extreme weather events, some US$ 2 billion is required according to the Internacional relief agency Oxfam. However, commitments so far only total US$173.
The need for innovative means to mitigate climate change impacts and help poor countries adapt is high on the agenda of the World Conservation Congress, held by IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature from 5-14 October in Barcelona.
- In 2007, there were 950 natural catastrophes in 2007 compared with 850 in 2006, according to Munich Re, one of the world’s largest insurance companies. This is the highest number recorded since the company started compiling annual disaster reports in 1974.
- The burden of the disasters fall on the poor who are least to blame for climate change. Benin, and Bangladesh, for example, are at particularly high risk from rising sea-levels and storm surges, yet their per capita contribution to greenhouse gas output is one eightieth that of the United States, according to the British Institute of Development Studies.
- “What worries us the most is the impact on the poorest countries which have the least capacity to respond to the challenge,” said Yvo de Boer, secretary of the Convention on Climate Change.
- A healthy environment can help people survive. Healthy mangrove forests and coral reefs, for example, can serve as barriers and prevent coastal erosion; a solid forest cover prevents flooding in times of heavy rainfall.
- “There are positive examples of local level adaptation to the impacts of climate change, such as replanting mangrove forests that can serve as buffers against more frequent storms. But to implement these solutions on a larger scale, substantial financial support is required,” says Ninni Ikkala, Climate Change Officer at IUCN.
Upcoming media products:
6 August – International Press Release – Primates Red List update
12 August – International Press Release – Cetacean Red List update
Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN’s Director General.
Ninni Ikkala, IUCN Climate Change Programme
Brian Thomson, IUCN Global Communications, m +417972182326, e email@example.com.
Carolin Wahnbaeck, IUCN Global Communications, m +41 79 85 87 593, e firstname.lastname@example.org
World Conservation Congress, Barcelona (5-14 October)
The World Conservation Congress (WCC) brings together 8,000 leaders from the public sector, government, business and non-governmental organizations for what is the premier summit on sustainable development in 2008. Over ten days they debate the best ways to tackle environmental and development challenges. They share pragmatic solutions to pressing issues. And they commit to collaborative action.
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Chancellor’s Diversity Award
2012 Chancellor's Diversity Award Recipient
Leslie Turner, Financial Aid Counselor/Work-study Coordinator
Announcement and Call for Nominations
The Chancellor’s Diversity Award is given annually to recognize exceptional performance in promoting and enhancing diversity efforts on IU Southeast campus. It will support IU Southeast employees and units with innovative projects for advancing the diversity agenda outlined in the IU Southeast strategic and diversity plans.
The winner will receive an appropriate certificate and would have his or her name added to a plaque that will be displayed publicly. Funding in the amount of $500 would be made available for the person to designate for support of a program or programs that would further advance the cause of diversity during the upcoming academic year. Accomplishments based on the award will be publicized for wide recognition as well as nomination for appropriate all-university diversity awards (being proposed for the Founders Day).
- Eligibility and Nomination Requirements
All IU Southeast employees are eligible for nomination. Nominations should be submitted to the Diversity Council via the Academic Affairs Office in the spring semester of each year. The deadline for submission is normally March 15. The nomination package should detail the nominee’s achievements with supporting documents.
- Selection Process and Criteria
The Chancellor’s Advisory Council on Diversity (Diversity Council) is responsible for developing criteria for the award and is responsible for recommending to the Chancellor the award recipient each year. In case a member of the Diversity Council is a nominee, the member will be excused from the selection process. The Council will evaluate the proposals after the nomination deadline and recommendations will be made to the Chancellor in April. The recipient will be announced in one of the subsequent award ceremonies held by the Chancellor.
The award recipient must meet the following criteria:
- Demonstrate efforts exceeding his or her mandated job responsibilities to support the goals and objectives of the IU Southeast Diversity Plan.
- Demonstrate a firm commitment to the recruitment and retention of individuals of diverse populations.
- Demonstrate efforts that foster a more inclusive and equitable learning and work environment.
The money will be spent in accordance with university policies, and the purpose of the expenditure needs approval in advance by the Vice Chancellor or Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
2012 – Leslie Turner, Financial Aid Counselor/Work-study Coordinator
2011 – Jen Crompton, Assistant Director of Residence Life & Housing
2010 – Matt Springer, Coordinator of Disability Services/Academic Advisor
2009 – Kim Pelle, Coordinator of Non-Traditional Student Programs
2008 – Dean Gloria Murray & Dean Cliff Staten
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Dear Network Marketing Professional,
You are already sold on the concept of Network Marketing, and maybe you’ve already selected a great business. You know the product line, the compensation plan, and have set some solid goals for what you want to accomplish for yourself and your family.
But, you are spinning your wheels.
Talking to family and friends have left you feeling frustrated and like you’ll never get your business off the ground. You may have run advertising or purchased “business opportunity leads” only to find tire kickers and people looking for a job, not a business. Or worse, someone who doesn’t even remember asking for information on a home business.
You may have been told to use the “three foot rule” and go out talking to everyone you meet; put “sizzle cards” on car windshields and put up fliers all over.
And, if you are like me, you may have found this to be a VERY slow process.
Your full time job, family, and other obligations leaves you with very little time to put toward your Network Marketing business. You may have even thought about throwing in the towel, and giving up your dream of
- Being Your Own Boss
- Setting Your Own Paycheck
- Total Time and Financial Freedom
So, you’ve turned to the Internet in hopes of finding the elusive answer that will turn your business around. And, wading through so much information online can be a challenge as well, right?
Here is my story of taking my business online, you may be able to relate!
Well, you are not alone. I had these same feelings at one time. I found the answer and I want to share it with you. It’s not as difficult as it may seem, and it does require a commitment to learn and experiment.
Oh my gosh, following all your advice, and received this email this morning, someone wanting to know about my business. SO excited!!! Getting the sections out again now on what to do once I get a great lead. I don’t want to do what I’ve been doing, because it’s not worked so well for me. Thanks Jackie!
If you are looking for the knowledge and the exact action steps to take your existing business to the Internet, market it successfully online, and have your prospects come to you, read on……..
Is this you?
You want to build a successful Network Marketing business, but you are tired of chasing family, friends, neighbors and anyone else within three-feet of you.
You are tired of long, boring hotel meetings and endless coffee shop no-shows. After all, you started this business in order to have more time, not less, right?
You have limited time available to build a business, and want to maximize technology and tools such as the Internet and email.
Maybe you are frustrated because you “get” the concept, but want a different and more effective method for building your current MLM business.
Great news! You CAN build a lucrative MLM, online, using your computer and telephone, without chasing people you know, or sacrificing your precious family time!
And, you don’t have to waste your time on tire-kickers, looky-lou’s or anyone else that is not ready and serious about getting started in an MLM business.
What if you had -
A stream of steady leads, pre-qualified and interested in an MLM
A personal blog or website, linked right into your company site
Coaching and training by someone already successful in MLM, without leaving your current company
Complete training on how to market your business and your website online
Get the book Now, Immediate Download!!!
Sound like something you would be interested in? Read on…..
Here’s my story in a nutshell.
I started in Network Marketing in January, 1994. I researched dozens of companies and all types of options for staying at home. I was very skeptical about Network Marketing in the beginning.
Once I educated myself on what the MLM industry is all about, I rolled up my sleeves and jumped in with both feet.
Six years later, I had a million-dollar business, a downline of thousands and an exciting paycheck.
There was one small problem, though. I wasn’t truly happy with what I was doing.
I had exhausted the warm market approach. I was tired of the endless meetings, driving all over town to meet with people who were actually looking for a job or a get-rich-quick scheme. And, since I didn’t really enjoy the method I was using to build my business, I was not excited about training others to do the same.
I found the Internet in October of 1999, and the rest, as they say, is history. In 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, I was named “Top Gun Recruiter” for my company. The 2004/2005 winner bought this book, and took my classes, was coached by me and used the methods presented here.
Also, all ten of the top sponsors in my company for 2006 were from my team, and all using the internet!
I learned how to effectively market a personal website (and myself) instead of my company first. I learned how to attract prospects to me (yes, people do call me first.) And, I learned how to work only with pre-qualified leads.
No more family, friends or three-foot rule. No more spending hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours on opportunity leads who are looking for a job, not a Network Marketing business.
And, I got so good at this that I sponsored more people in six months than I did in six years!
More importantly, I fell in love with my business, the system, and teaching other people how to do the exact same thing.
And, I think that is why you are here.
If you are serious and committed to your business and moving it to a six-figure level, you are going to want to learn how to use the internet effectively to achieve what you want!
If you are sick and tired of cold calling and begging unqualified prospects to join your MLM opportunity; tired of chasing your family and friends; frustrated with a downline that drops out as fast as you can sign them up, then we need to talk!
I have perfected a number of recruiting strategies that, if applied diligently, can double and triple your income – in record time.
I don’t make that statement lightly, either.
And, I am willing to share my secrets with you on the process.
Here Are the Secrets You Will Discover About Using the Internet to Build a Lucrative Paycheck in Network Marketing, truly working from home with the Internet and your telephone.
MLM, the Internet and YOU – How to Build a Successful Network Marketing Business Online – What’s in the E-Book -
About the Internet, it’s a sorting tool and the best way I have ever found to get people coming to you. This way puts all of the fun back into the business (page 12)
No More Overcoming Objections, When people have the chance to learn about your business without you being physically present, they work through any objections right there. I never hear “Is this a pyramid?” anymore! (page 13).
Qualified Prospects, they know your business, the start up costs and what will be expected of them before they sign up. (page 13).
Developing a Personal Blog or Website, this sells you and not just your company. It’s something that can be listed in the search engine and will put you out there to be found by those who are company and sponsor shopping! This is a critical step you must take to be successful (page 21).
Build Your “Opt-In” List, develop a successful campaign to capture the names and emails of your prospects and “drip” information on them until they are ready to get started. Communicate with thousands with a few simple key strokes. (page 32).
How to Market Your Site Online, So, you’ve built it, now how do you get them to come! You’ll learn the best strategies for getting excited, qualified prospects to your site and signed up in your business! (page 48)
Your Target Market – How to Find and Sponsor Them, Wouldn’t you love to work with those people whom you share something in common with? Think this might raise your success level? You bet it does. Find them online! (page 52).
Search Engines, learn how to get your site ranked high and producing traffic for you 24/7. People are out there looking for a business. Put yourself out there to be found. (page 58).
Branding Yourself Online, Make your name a household name online and get people associating you with your business and website. Branding is the key and here is how you do it. (page 118).
Social Media Marketing Strategies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and More! This is critical! (pg 94)
You Have a Lead, Now What?, How to take your High Tech business and make it High Touch as well. Knowing how to develop the relationship is key to being a “sponsor monster.” (page 121).
Your Daily Internet Strategy, develop a strategy so you know what to do and what steps you will take daily online to grow your business. (page 126).
Duplication and Coaching, how to get your team duplicating your steps and how to coach them in the process. (page 129).
And so much more!
So, bottom line – are you ready to use the most phenomenal tool in your lifetime to build a successful Network Marketing business?
If you are honestly interested in learning the skills of the successful Internet Network Marketing masters, and creating the type of business and income you have only dreamed up, you’ve got to see what I’ve put together for you.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Your decision right now will affect you, your family and those on your team (and those yet to come) who are waiting for your coaching and leadership.
I’ve spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars educating myself and developing the principles for success online. Today, my life and my business create something only dreamed of by most.
“Jackie, aloha. Just finished reading your book MLM the Internet and You. Wow! What a masterful job you have done of painting the possibilities of online marketing while giving a well defined “how to” blueprint to accomplish goals. Your common sense/no nonsense approach is exactly what I need to expand my business online. Though I have been successful in network marketing for 18 years, I have always built my businesses in the “traditional” way. Now, thanks to you, I can help more people in more ways live the life they want. Mahalo and aloha. Janet Callaway, The Natural Networker“
Don’t you think it’s your turn? Order MLM, The Internet and YOU today and get started right now online. You’ll be glad you did!
Order it NOW, Download it Instantly – Pay by Credit Card or PayPal Securely
If you think this would be helpful to others, “Tweet It” or “Like It” at the top of the page or “Share It” right below!
I would love to hear your feedback and comments. Let’s exchange ideas
below. Just leave your thoughts/questions.
Hello Jackie. My name is Nonso. I’m from Lagos, Nigeria. I’m also a network marketer albeit recently. I came across ur website few weeks back & am very impressed with your input into the MLM industry. You have taught me a lot through your articles and newsletters. May God bless your good work. I’ll be setting up my site very soon . Thank you jackie. Regards to your family.
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Lights once flickered on a small movie screen inside an Arlington building.
The warm glow of the Jacksonville film studio's projector dissipated about 70 years ago. For the next 40 years, it was a dance studio where Gloria Norman taught scores of fluttering feet. Later, a plumbing company, telephone answering service and other businesses filled the two-story, wood-sided building.
Now, as the blue paint peels and as plywood veils the first-floor windows, some are trying to preserve the vacant building on Arlington Road before it descends into decay.
Those trying to save the structure -- residents, city officials, scholars and film historians -- tell of Richard Norman Sr., a white filmmaker who created celluloid heroes of black actors at a time the races were segregated.
When Arlington resident Ann Burt learned Norman's silent movie magic sparkled in her neighborhood in the 1920s, she was inspired to cultivate a tourist site of the buildings that made up Norman Film Studios.
Thanks to Burt, other residents and City Councilman Lake Ray, the city signed an option in April to buy the primary building on Arlington Road a few blocks east of Cesery Boulevard and three others. The city has about six months to decide on the $260,000 purchase.
A 2000 report by the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed nine recommendations for the greater Jacksonville area, and five suggestions pertained to the Norman Studios as a potential tourist destination and a way to swell community pride.
Burt envisions the studios as a place where static exhibits teach about Jacksonville's role in the movie industry, and reflect Norman's life and works.
Norman was raised in Springfield in an era before Hollywood became Tinseltown. But he left town and started making films in the Midwest until the film industry lured him back home.
The place to be
Jacksonville was billed as the place for filmmakers to come during the winter months in the early 1900s, said William E. McRae, a visiting professor at the University of North Texas who is writing a book about Norman. A selling point was the varied landscape of Jacksonville, with its beaches, river, wetlands, woods and hanging Spanish moss, he said.
Norman Film Studios' 1926 filmThe Flying Ace film is stored in the Library of Congress in Washington.
By the time Norman returned home in the 1920s, the spotlight was dimming on Jacksonville as a film city. He bought five buildings that used to be the Eagle Film Studios.
The main building was an old cigar factory built between 1900 and 1914. That building became the film studio and the Norman home, complete with film vault and private screening room. Three other buildings still stand on the site. And a swimming pool is buried under a grassy vacant lot on Arlington Road.
Another structure that was part of the studios exists on an adjacent lot, but the city does not have an option to buy that property.
The film studio site would attract filmmakers and actors working in the area who want to learn more about Jacksonville's film history, said Todd Roobin, division chief of the Jacksonville Film and Television Commission.
A Norman film museum could showcase contributions of both white and black cinema, which is rarely done, Burt said.
Merging the history of black films and white films can be done in a museum dedicated to Norman because of what he did in his lifetime.
During the 1920s, white silent films often depicted African-American characters as comical or menacing. Yet Norman decided to produce six feature-length films with all-black casts that were not derogatory.
"There were white filmmakers making horrific, terrible films with stereotypes of stupid, ignorant African-Americans with watermelons," McRae said. "That's the garbage that was shown."
Filling a niche
Norman made comedies, action flicks and westerns with positive images of blacks because he saw a niche that was not being filled, McRae said.
"He wasn't a civil rights activist by any means," McRae said. "It was a business decision."
The city signed an option in April to buy the primary building of the old Norman Film Studios on Arlington Road and three others for $260,000. The city has about six months to decide about the purchase.
-- Bob Self/staff
It is unknown how many pictures Norman made. All of Norman's full-length movies are lost except for the 1926 film The Flying Ace, which is kept in the Library of Congress.
As talking movies became the craze in the 1930s, Norman created a method of synchronizing the sound on a record with images on the silver screen. But his method competed with a new innovation from Western Electric that placed sound onto the film itself. Norman suffered financially because his method was less convenient.
To make a living during the Depression, Norman showed his films in communities that could not afford the latest technology. He would show his films in schools, churches and small theaters.
Jesse Wright, executive secretary of the Jacksonville University Council, brought an exhibit of Norman's memorabilia and film posters to the university in 1998. The council is a group of business leaders who support JU.
"The fact that we were a filmmaking capital at one time should be memorialized somewhere, and one of these film companies did something that for its time was very enlightened," Wright said.
Not an easy task
But it took years for the city to come this close to preserving the buildings.
Anything to share?
People who have a memory, photograph or prop from the Norman Films era can call Ann Burt at (904) 721-0708.
In 1993, property owner Hugh Smith resisted efforts of Old Arlington Inc. to have the buildings designated historic because he said the organization was telling him what to do with his own property.
This time around, Burt urged Smith to sell the property to the city. Grants are easier to obtain when property is publicly owned, Burt said.
The signed option is a first step toward full ownership, and Burt is pleased the project has come this far.
Once the buildings are purchased with bond funds, a feasibility study can be done to determine how much it would cost to stabilize and restore the buildings, Burt said.
Family likes idea
Richard Norman Jr., Richard Norman's son, said he is excited about the prospect of the city buying his the studios and creating a museum.
"It certainly does mean an awful lot to myself and my family," said Norman Jr., a retired airline pilot who lives in Tallahassee.
Norman Jr. was born toward the end of his father's movie-making days, so he doesn't remember much. But he recalled watching early edits of film in a screening room on the second floor of the studio building.
Just three or four people would be in the room. His father would run the projector.
"As a kid, I'd run back to the projector booth and look at the machine run. Then I'd run back in the room," he said. "I used to like the cowboys because they're riding around with their guns and their horses."
Burt hopes someday others can see the screening room the younger Norman remembers. But it could be years from now.
"It takes time," Burt said. "These things take time."
Staff writer Alliniece T. Andino can be reached at (904) 359-4546 or via e-mail at email@example.com.
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Name/position: Khalif Barnes, offensive tackle.
NFL experience: Fourth year.
Born: San Diego.
On his iPod: Right now, I've got some Jay-Z in there, some Lupe Fiasco. ... Just some good music I can groove to.
Favorite athlete in any sport: Michael Jordan.
Favorite NFL city: I'd be [in trouble] if I said anything but Jacksonville, huh?
Can't stop eating: Tacos.
With two losses, what's the general feeling on the team? We're in a bit of a hole right now because we're 0-2, but it's early in the season. There's a whole lot of ball left. Last year, we were in a similar situation, but we were 1-1. ... The guys are out there fighting. The energy is there, and when you look at the tape, there are plenty of plays we've made. But there's a lot we left out there as well. So coming back after looking at the mistakes, we know that there's a lot of ball left. We just need to correct things, and we'll be all right.
How would you describe the rivalry between Jacksonville and Indianapolis? It's pretty tough. We've been chasing them for quite a while. They've won our division for the last four or five years, so it's a good game every time we get together and play these guys. They have good guys on defense that we have to account for. I think our teams match up well with one another.
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놀자!: bigbangtoinfiniteandbeyond: Now that P.O.’s... →
bigbangtoinfiniteandbeyond: Now that P.O.’s been hospitalized, Korea is saying that it’s all a media gimmick/ploy to get sympathy on their side. Some idiots are even claiming that the suicide petitions were falsely photoshopped by fans and BNS to come up with another excuse, but BNS…
I want you to prove them wrong. I want you to prove every bad idea they have of you now wrong. I want you to stand tall again, like I know you can. I want you to learn from your mistake, and grow from it. Find your feet and put them back on solid ground. Don’t forget, but do not live in fear and regret of the past. You’re still young; you still have heart, spirit - pure, untainted by...
We're all going to support Block B ♥
B2uties, VIPs, Cassies, ELFs, Inspirits, Sones, A+’s, Blackjacks, Kamilias, I AMs, Banas, Best Friends, Boices, it doesn’t matter who. We’re all going to support Block B.
I really want to know what goes through peoples’ heads sometimes, to elevate things to levels like this. It’s not the first time things like this have happened either, which breaks my heart that much more. Nineteen. He’s the same age as me - our birthdays are actually the same. That boy is just like me, just like you. A petition for him to kill himself? Really? What gives you the...
lol but everything is so beautiful and lovely over...
that I think that I don’t really care about any of this other stuff right now <3
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Cars are useful for lots of things, like getting us from point A to point B and giving us the means to do donuts in a high school parking lot while we blast "Carry On Wayward Son" at an extremely high volume.
But as this South African TV Candid Camera-type show discovered in the late 1970s, cars are also useful at playing pranks on people. The hosts put some cash under the tire of a Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback wagon, then remotely set off the horn at the unsuspecting rubes who try to remove it.
The best part comes towards the end when people start ripping the front fender off after the hosts "doctor" the car a bit. Or maybe the Type 3s were just made that way. One guy was even able to lift the car up himself to get the money, so their build quality couldn't have been that great.
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The Death and Dying Process
Death and Dying
As caregivers, one either becomes a better person through compassion, patience, and humor, or they become embittered and angry. Wendy Lustbader is an author who has written a moving book entitled " Counting on Kindness: The Dilemmas of Dependency."1991. The Free Press, New York, New York. In the book she describes the importance of receiving gratitude when we help others; because giving help without recognition can embitter us as individuals. We need to be kind, in order to count on kindness as we age.
The person who has dementia cannot always provide gratitude for their caregiver. Gratitude must be looked for in gentle ways and unassuming ways. Perhaps it is a smile, or a gesture, or an expression of love such as placing the head on the caregiver's shoulder. If gratitude is not felt even on an occasional basis, it is difficult to cope with death and dying. Death and dying as Dr. Kubler-Ross indicates, is the "final stage of growth".
Death and Dying
During the final stages of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease, an individual may lose his/her ability to ambulate, verbally communicate, swallow, or may become totally incontinent and continue to lose weight despite nutritional supplements. Usually people with Alzheimer's die of another problem---perhaps a stroke, or pneumonia due to aspiration. At this point, the caregiver must be aware that the only way a person can stay alive is by inserting a stomach tube that provides artificial nutritional sustenance.
Caregivers may have different feelings about this intervention for religious or personal reasons. At the end stage of Alzheimer's the use of invasive procedures such as a stomach tube, can keep the persons alive from months to years. This important decision must be made by the family member and can create an "ethical dilemma". Families, should in no way feel pressured by a medical professional to insert life sustaining interventions.
When family members are prepared with regard to the physical process of death and dying they are more able to accept death as an inevitable and peaceful process. The recent expansion of Hospice Services has done much to promote discussions about death and acceptance of withholding end-of-life medical interventions. Once a person is terminal, as determined by a physician who understands the disease process, a caregiver may decide to engage Hospice Services. The physician must be willing to certify that a person will die within six months. If the person does not die within six months, they are not disqualified from the program.
Hospice Services are usually provided by a local Home Health Agency. Hospice services can be provided in the home, assisted living facility as well as a skilled nursing facility. When a family signs up for Hospice Benefits they agree to forgo extreme invasive procedures and agree to support procedures that alleviate pain for the person with dementia. This is known as "palliative care" or comfort measures. At the final stage of death, water and food are withheld as the individual no longer desires this. This is a part of the natural process of dying.
Families can anticipate the final stages of death by the various physical stages a person may be going through. Barbara Karne, a Hospice R.N. developed a very comprehensive booklet entitled "Gone From My Sight: The Dying Experience" which delineates the various physical stages of death and dying. To obtain a booklet, contact her at the following address: Barbara Karnes, R.N., P.O. Box 335, Stillwell, Kansas, 60085, 1995.
In Karnes' booklet she describes what occurs, one-three months prior to death, one to two weeks before death, days or hours before death, and then the final minutes. This information has been extremely helpful to families and can be summarized as follows:
One to three months prior to death
· Withdrawal from world and people
· Decreased food intake
· Increased sleep
· Going inside self
· Less Communication
One to Two Weeks Prior to Death
· Talking with Unseen
· Picking at Clothes
· Physical Changes
o Decreased blood pressure
o Pulse increase or decrease
o Color changes; pale, bluish
o Increased perspiration
o Respiration irregularities
o Sleeping but responding
o Complaints of body tired and heavy
o Not eating, taking little fluids
o Body temperature hot/cold
Days or Hours
· Intensification of 1-2 week signs
· Surge of energy
· Decrease in blood pressure
· Eyes glassy, tearing, half open
· Irregular breathing, stop/start
· Restlessness or no activity
· Purplish knees, feet, hands, blotchy
· Pulse weak and hard to fine
· Decreased urine output
· May wet or stool the bed
· Fish out of water breathing
· Cannot be awakened
It is important that individuals be aware of their wishes and that the wishes be formally documented in a legal document that is known as an "Advance Directive". Each state has different instruments for these directives and the caregiver should contact the local medical facility to determine the appropriate document to be used. The Advance Directive delineates one's wishes regarding medical treatment and appoints a surrogate decision-maker on a person's behalf. Of course, the important aspect of the Advance Directive is to discuss end-of-life care before one becomes diagnosed with dementia or has an another debilitating illness.
pp.309-311. Beckerman, Anita G. and Tappen, Ruth. M. 2000. It Takes More Than Love. Health Professions Press: Baltimore, MD.
1. Review the video clip on death and dying narrated by Dixie Merrill.
Dixie Merrill is a caregiver who is also taking care of three sets of parents--in laws, step parents, as well as parents. Dixie has been part of a support group and has indicated how information learned in the group has helped her cope with the death and dying.
Note how she describes the process of death and dying as peaceful and calming. She indicates talking about death and dying has made it less fearful and she also emphasizes the importance of advance directives.
2. Consider the following questions for reflection when watching the video:
· What strategies helped the Merrill family cope with their mother's death and dying process?
· How can "Advance Directives" help individuals cope with the dying process?
Link back to index.html
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Top Spin 4
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Wii
From: 2K Czech/2K Sports
ESRB Rating: Everyone
By Billy O'Keefe
There may be no harder needle to thread than the one that forces you to take a great but steeply difficult tennis simulation ("Top Spin 3") and scale back in a way that makes it more accessible without leaving the devoted feeling alienated.
Fortunately in this case, "Top Spin 4" could teach a class on how to do it right.
In essence, all "TS4" does is level out the mountain without making it a shorter climb to the top. Anyone who wants to simply press the face buttons to return standard-issue shots may do so — and if you're quick on your feet and smart about your shot selection, you can win this way as well.
But avenues for excellence abound. Holding down those same buttons can result in a more powerful version of the shot — provided you time it right. A well-timed shot in conjunction with the stick allows you to better place your shot, while a couple of modifiers allow for advanced maneuvers like reversing orientation and performing drop shots.
"TS4" ties it all together under a currency — timing — that's tricky to master but always makes sense. The harder the shot, the more timing matters, and a perfectly-timed standard shot will take you farther than a power slice that's sabotaged by late contact.
(A brief sidebar about "TS4's" Playstation Move integration: It's as tacked-on as tacked-on gets, and doesn't work well at all.)
"TS4" lays this out across an extensive Tennis Academy mode, and while it's never mandatory — the game boots into a free-form practice court for those who prefer to experiment without interference — it's highly recommended you pay a visit. "TS4" sports a terrifically user-friendly interface throughout the game, and the efficiency with which the Academy introduces the spectrum of available techniques is nearly as impressive as the spectrum itself.
The sum of all this accessibility and shot science — along with the series' customary attention to animation, weight and momentum with regard to player movement — makes "TS4" an enviably faithful representation of the energy and strategy that comprises a professional tennis match. A great sports sim has to understand the "easy to play, difficult to master" credo better than most other genres, and this one nails it.
In terms of features, "TS4" mostly goes where past games have been. The career mode once again is the highlight: You design your own tennis pro via a satisfyingly deep player editor, are presented with a calendar of events, and are free each month to engage in one practice event and one tournament for which you qualify.
Predictably, your success in your career — and subsequent ability to enter prime events (US Open and Roland Garros, among others, though Wimbledon is omitted due to licensing reasons) against the 25 licensed stars (Nadal, Federer, Serena Williams and a few legends like Agassi and Borg) — is dependent on your popularity and tour ranking. But "TS4" dangles additional carrots by giving you coaches who each have their own challenges to complete, and there are additional objectives within the practice events that reward bonus experience points that boost your player's attributes.
The best news about the experience system is that it's game-wide: Win matches online with your created player, and points funnel into your career progress (and vice versa). "TS4" cleverly adds cachet to online play by inviting all comers to participate in an online World Tour, an accelerated season mode that each week crowns its top-rated player as champion for all to see. For the less ambitious, standalone exhibition matches (singles and four-player doubles, online or offline) are still available as well.
(c) 2011, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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Friday, 11 December 2009
mental ray_Adding glow to the window glass
The above image was produced whilst at GMJ Design Ltd
In our latest book, we have covered a number of ways of emulating light without the need of creating a physical light.
Production companies often adopt similar methods to reduce the rendering times and retain the overall quality.
It is worth pointing out that the usage of Ambient Occlusion(i.e. AO) as a separate pass or/and directly from Max is utterly imperative for the final shot.
The following exercise will take you through another unique methodology of achieving similar results with reduced rendering times:
Another quick way of emulating “glow”/"light" on windows, is to in fact enable the glow function on the glass panes themselves.
To do this, simply go to the main material parameters, under the "refraction" group.
1-Reduce the transparency to about 0.9 to prevent the surface from being fully transparent.
2-To add a bit of blur to the transparency, decrease the glossiness to about 0.78. Note that, these values may vary depending on one’s camera angle...and the level of transparency/blurriness intended.
3-Next,change the colour swatch from white to a warm yellow.
Also, the "fast (interpolate)" function, can be enabled for quick and fast results, as the glossiness and its samples can often slow down the renders.However,it may create artifacts.
4-Pan down to the "self illumination (glow)" parameters and enable the "self illumination (glow)" function.
5-Under the "luminance" group, change it from "unitless" to "physical units: cd/m2)". Also, pick and choose any relevant bitmap (i.e. photo) that has a prominent light source.
Note: The "unitless" function often creates artifacts on glossy reflections, therefore, to be avoided at all costs.
Depending on time in hand, one can set the glow to generate light, or not, through the FG, by checking the "illuminates the scene (when using fg)" function.
...and... “...let there be light...”!!!
The final rendered image below was achieved using this technique. I hope you like it.
I hope you have found this post interesting.
Also check this new article in this Blog:
3D Realism:Practical & Easy Workflows
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let me take you on a trip to some interesting places, amazing nature wonders or just magnificent moments of my life in Europe and around the rest of the world:-)
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Colourful Dutch tulip fields 2012 edition, around Noordwijkerhout
One of the most colouful and fantastic ways to enjoy tulipland Holland in the second part of April is a walk/bike through the flower-bulb area...My favourite/secret place is Noordwijkerhout. Around this village every year the tulip and other flower bulbs paint the fields in amazing colour combination and nature masterpieces!
We even flew over the fields into picture above, have a look here:
Lovely that you stopped by:-) Living+working now for 8 years in the Netherlands. Originally I am from Sofia, Bulgaria. I enjoy working as a freelance journalist& photographer, while I discover Europe and the rest of the big world...
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Every now and then I hear 待ちに待った, as in:
待ちに待ったライブ a long-awaited concert
I started wondering if this pattern can apply to other verbs, and it certainly seems to, if Google is any indication. I found instances of 望みに望んだ, 祈りに祈った, and even things like 飲みに飲んだ.
Question A: Can I use this pattern with any verb showing intent? Is there a particular nuance behind it, or does it simply mean "to [verb] and then [verb] some more"?
Question B: For the linguists in the room (y'all know who you are), how is the に classified in this pattern? Is it the same に as in 買いに行く?
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- Tom Dale (twitter github blog Tilde Inc.)
- James Halliday (twitter github substack.net)
- AJ O’Neal (twitter github blog)
- Jamison Dance (twitter github blog)
- Merrick Christensen (twitter github)
- Joe Eames (twitter github blog)
- Tim Caswell (twitter github howtonode.org)
- Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up)
01:52 – James Halliday Introduction
02:37 – Tom Dale Introduction
04:47 – Specialized vs Monolithic
- Micro Libraries
14:13 – Learning Frameworks
18:04 – Making things modular
25:23 – Picking the right tool for the job
38:19 – Module Systems
41:14 – Cloud9 Use Case
43:54 – Bugs
- jQuery 2.0 (Merrick)
- ECMAScript 6 Module Definition (Merrick)
- AMD (Merrick)
- Yiruma (Joe)
- Elementary (Joe)
- Miracle Berry Tablets (AJ)
- The Ubuntu You Deserve (AJ)
- Bravemule (Jamison)
- RealtimeConf Europe (Tim)
- visionmedia / cpm (Tim)
- Why I Love Being A Programmer in Louisville (or, Why I Won’t Relocate to Work for Your Startup: Ernie Miller (Chuck)
- Is Audio The Next Big Thing In Digital Marketing? [Infographic] (Chuck)
- testling-ci (James)
- voxel.js (James)
- CAMPJS (James)
- Discourse (Tom)
- Williams-Sonoma 10-Piece Glass Bowl Set (Tom)
- The Best Simple Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen (Tom)
JAMISON: You can curse but we will just edit it out and replace it with fart noises.
TOM: I’ll be providing plenty of my own.
JAMISON: Okay, good.
[Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at Bluebox.net.]
[This episode is sponsored by Component One, makers of Wijmo. If you need stunning UI elements or awesome graphs and charts, then go to Wijmo.com and check them out.]
AJ: Yo! Yo! Yo! Coming at you not even live!
CHUCK: [Laughs] Alright, Jamison Dance.
JAMISON: Hi guys, it’s tough to follow that.
CHUCK: Merrick Christensen.
CHUCK: Joe Eames.
CHUCK: Tim Caswell.
CHUCK: I’m Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. And this week, we have two guests. The first one is Tom Dale.
TOM: Hey, thanks for having me.
CHUCK: The other is James Halliday.
JAMES: Yep. Hello.
CHUCK: Welcome to the show, guys. We were having a conversation a while back, I don’t remember if it was during another episode or after another episode. But we were having a discussion over code complexity and having like small simple libraries or small simple sets of functionality versus large monolithic sets of functionality, and how to approach those and when they’re appropriate. So, we brought you guys on to help us explore this because you’re experts, right?
TOM: I don’t think that’s a fair analysis of the situation, but we can certainly fumble our way through something.
CHUCK: Alright. So, why don’t you guys, real quick, just kind of introduce yourselves? Give us a little background on what your experience is so that we know which questions to ask you guys.
James, why don’t you start? I know you’ve been on the show before.
JAMES: Hello. I suppose I wrote Browserify which is relevant here. It’s a common JS style, bundler packager thing that just uses NPM. And I have a bunch of other libraries. And I really like doing data development as just a bunch of little modules put together. They are all published completely independently on NPM. I think I’m up to like 230-ish some odd modules on NPM now. So, I’ve been doing that and I really like that style.
MERRICK: Rock on!
CHUCK: Yep, and then we also have Tom. Tom, do you want to introduce yourself?
TOM: Yes, I’d love to. So, I guess I should say, I should give it a caveat that I am not a classically trained engineer. I don’t have a degree in Computer Science or anything like that. I basically, like I said, fumbled my way through the whole thing. But perhaps, one of the most influential aspects of stuff that I worked on that has influenced how I perceive programming is I was working on the iCloud apps, the web applications for iCloud.com. At the time when I was working there, it was still called MobileMe. These are really big applications. So, they are basically the equivalent of like iCal on the desktop and the Address Book on the Mac Desktop, et cetera. And I left.
And I think I agree with James. I also like writing small modules that work well together. I think the difference between us, our philosophies, is that when I present it to the world, I like to present it as an integrated package that’s easy to get started with, it’s obvious where to get started with. And if you need to swap out the modules, you can do that but that’s not the default behavior, basically.
JAMISON: I just want to correct one thing that you said. You said the thing you’re best known for is Ember. I thought the thing that you were best known for was Big Data and Hadoop.
TOM: Well, Hadoop specifically, yeah.
JAMISON: And then Ember is really an extension of your work with Hadoop.
TOM: Well, Ember.js is really the premier framework for integrating with Big Data and Hadoop. Although as a side note, you know I found something out? Did you guys know that Hadoop is not real time?
AJ: Oh, my gosh!
TOM: I thought to be Big Data, you had to be real time. But, apparently not.
AJ: They go hand in hand everybody knows that.
CHUCK: Nice. Alright. So, I want to kind of get into this a little bit. It seems like a lot of people, when they talk about the trade-offs between a large set of tools like Ember versus the little one off tools that James is talking about, it seems like a lot of people tend to pick one or the other based on, will this, like you said, this gives me everything it needs to get started versus other people saying, “You know what? I just want a whole bunch of tools that do one thing and do it real well.” So, what is the trade off? I mean, when is one appropriate over the other?
TOM: Well, I don’t know. There are actually two sides of the same coin. I don’t know. I guess my approach to this is that you want to choose a solution that fits the complexity of the problem. So you want simple solutions, but you don’t want simplistic solutions.
And I guess I’ve written plenty of micro libraries. In fact, if you go onto the GitHub page for my company Tilde, GitHub.com/TildeIO, you’ll actually see that we have published many different micro libraries that solve one very specific problem. And in fact, a lot of the pieces of Ember are built in terms of these, I guess what you call, micro libraries.
So personally, I think that if you’re trying to solve a problem, if you can solve it using a smaller solution then that’s great, right? But usually after you think through, especially these very complex problems that we’re trying to solve, you need a bigger and more integrated solution. You should be pragmatic. You should pick the approach that works for the particular problem. I don’t have anything against micro libraries or small modules. However, we have a name for the thing which is — we have a name for when you see the same solution to every problem. And the name for that is ideology. And I don’t really subscribe to the ideology that everything must be small, that everything must be these tiny little things. And it’s your responsibility to package those together.
AJ: Sure, sure.
JAMISON: How would you describe your approach to solving problems?
TOM: AJ, that’s a great point. And I think that leads to another point which is that oftentimes when you’re learning, when you’re new to a new domain of software engineering, you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s bad if you are learning as a web developer and you’re deploying stuff to production that’s susceptible to a lot of, for example security vulnerabilities, that as an industry, we’ve already learned how to deal with. Things like CSRF attacks, right? Like maybe, you can deal with simple CSRF attacks but there are actually many exotic varieties and you’re not aware of those things. Encodings are another good example. You’re not even aware of the problem of encodings because you’ve never dealt with it. And that’s too much complexity to load upfront. So having a framework that helps you deal with those things and then once you’ve leveled up to a point where you can understand what it’s doing, then you can swap out whatever pieces you’d like.
JAMES: I think that’s a good methodology.
MERRICK: I agree with a lot of things you’re saying, Tom. My problem is, say some of these bigger frameworks, because they grow bigger and they’re more integrated, they have to make a lot more decisions in terms of what you can use with them, like it’s really hard to keep the same level of flexibility when you are using some sort of monolithic framework upfront.
Monolithic is a bad word because it carries a bit of negative connotation. But for example, when I use Ember.js, I find myself getting frustrated a lot because there’s some opinions that you guys have that I don’t have. And because it’s so integrated, I can’t necessarily change out those opinions that I have. Does that make sense?
TOM: Yeah, totally. And I would say that if you have opinions that differ largely from ours, then Ember’s probably not a good fit for you, right? That’s kind of the trade-off that you get with an opinionated framework. I think DHH feels the same way about Rails which is like — for example, if you really like configuring your application server with a bunch of XML files, you probably shouldn’t use Rails, right?
So definitely, the opinions that Yehuda and I have about how you should architect these web applications are 100% baked into Ember. It’s not something like Backbone where it’s basically, we’ll give you these primitive objects and you compose those yourself to figure out how you want to best architect this. We have some strong ideas and we think that those are really good ways. But of course, you can easily fall off the happy path if you disagree.
MERRICK: There are some things I struggle with like for example using strings to trace down an object path means that you have to hang off of a name space, right? And those things, you just have to buy in like you’re saying to use the framework effectively because you end up fighting it more. And I think that’s one of the hard things. I’ve always been attracted to these more monolithic things or these larger frameworks because the development environment is so consistent and maintainable but the nerd in me has a really hard time buying into opinions that I don’t subscribe to all the time.
So, I feel like I wish there was more of a middle ground because when you buy into all the micro libraries, you end up piecing together a situation that isn’t nearly as consistent and a blessing to work in.
TOM: Right. And I think that’s kind of fundamentally the problem with micro libraries. And the job that we have is to make sure that as an integrated solution, the point of making a modular is that you should be able to swap things out, for example.
So, let me give you a good example of this. I know that both James and I share opinions about AMD and that Merrick, you do not. And that’s fine. Presumably, you guys read the DHH blog post, Rails is Omakase, and it’s kind of a similar thing. I wouldn’t put it the same way that DHH put it but it’s the vague, the rough contours of the argument you were making apply to Ember. But at the same time he says, if you want to take a piece of the menu and add your own, you should be able to do that.
We’ve been doing a lot of work internally as we approach Ember 1.0. The internals are geared around the idea that maybe you want to use AMD, maybe you want to use some kind of modular. The approach that Rails takes that we take is, if you want to do something that we don’t think is a good idea, at the very least, we’ll give you the hooks into the framework so that you can put together some kind of integrated package that works in the way and with the opinions that you have.
MERRICK: Yes, which is something that I think these monolithic frameworks oftentimes don’t do but they ought to do, right? Because there is certainly a middle ground. You usually see that as projects mature, right? I’m looking forward to Ember having those kinds of things because admittedly, working with AMD in Ember has gotten a ton better than it was months ago.
And these bigger full stack frameworks also tend to, when they do, I think they do try to make themselves modular. I find very few that at least get to be to a good standpoint in popularity that at least don’t say they are modular, they say they are. When it comes down to it, what they anticipate that you might want to swap out, isn’t what you end up wanting to swap out. And it just comes down to the fact that you can’t be, it’s hard to be truly, truly modular where you could swap out truly anything. And like you said in the beginning, if your opinions differ way too much from the opinions in this framework, then you shouldn’t be using this framework.
CHUCK: I want to jump in here real quick. I have something to say that’s kind of along the same lines or more of a question, I guess, for Tom and James. But is it easier to write something that is tightly coupled together like that, versus making it modular? And what are the challenges in doing something like that?
JAMISON: I can jump in just from having done this a little bit, not at the scale that either of these two guys have but yes it is way harder, it’s much harder to write stuff that’s modular and allows people to hook into. It makes the code more complex, at least when I did it. Maybe it just means I’m bad at it. It looks like James is trying to talk.
CHUCK: Yes. I’m really curious to hear what he has to say because he does kind of have the experience from the other end. It looks like he’s having Skype difficulties.
JAMISON: Everybody look in the mirror and say ‘James’, or actually say ‘substack’ three times.
TIM: There you go.
CHUCK: Click your heels together three times.
CHUCK: Alright, Tim.
TIM: Well, I was going to say earlier that coming from my perspective where I am often teaching new people how to program and getting people started in the field, that large frameworks are actually a problem. Because first you have to learn the language, you have to learn programming. For example, I had some interns last summer. And the job I got for them, the employer said, “Alright. Well, you need to use Twitter Bootstrap, you need to use MongoDB or CouchDB and you need to use all these large frameworks.” So they basically had like ten technologies to learn at once which was just completely overwhelming.
JOE: See but this is my contention with that and maybe this isn’t a real valid contention. But the people that I’ve met that do have that approach, I wouldn’t call them web developers or server developers. They’re Rails developers and jQuery developers. They don’t understand web development. They truly just understand jQuery and without it, they’re kind of lost.
MERRICK: I think one of the things for me is like, it’s a lot easier for me to learn by pulling say one of sub stacks modules and looking at that source because it’s isolated and it has a single purpose and I don’t have to look at any of the integration pieces. It’s just like, it is what it is. Does that make sense?
JOE: It depends a lot on the personality of the person as well. Because like maybe the people that you’re thinking of Merrick that you need, those are people that aren’t driven by learning new things. So if you learn framework, depending on your personality, you’re potentially going to be driven to stretch out, learn new things and you’re going to want to start on CSS. And pretty soon, you’re going to want to learn something else besides Rails.
MERRICK: Yes. And maybe my expectations are too high for people but I would like it if the majority of the people that use the framework would be able to rebuild that framework. I don’t know. But obviously, that’s a really high demand but I think that’s a really good way.
JOE: I mean, think about it. Can you re-implement TCP? But you program as TCP all the time.
MERRICK: I can re-implement TCP with HTML tables.
MERRICK: No. That’s an excellent point. And I think I’ve probably been a little bit spoiled that way.
JOE: And it is the difference because we’ve reached a point where we can abstract with TCP. People don’t need to understand TCP to be a web developer. You might need to understand one little tiny principle, but that’s it.
MERRICK: And being able to understand how the frameworks work, to me gives you so much more power in terms of how to use the framework.
CHUCK: Anyway. Let’s get back to the topic a little bit. James, are you able to chime in here? I feel kind of bad because I really want to hear what he has to say. But let’s talk about a little bit more of this.
It sounds like with something large like Ember, you’re talking about breaking it apart so that you can swap things in and out and you just provide kind of an API that people plug into. ‘Hooks’ is what you said, and if you’re familiar with those terms, then it makes sense. But anyway, why is it so hard to make things modular? Why is it so much work?
TOM: It’s not hard to make things modular. It’s hard to make things modular in a way that they all compose well together, from the very bottom all the way to the top. So like I said earlier, we try to extract these micro libraries from problems that we’re solving with Ember. But I think Yehuda and I spent far more time talking and discussing, then we do actually coding. We like to go for walks down the Embarcadero, which is less romantic than it sounds, and kind of really thoroughly discuss these very hard CS problems from top to bottom. What is the core of the problem? What are people trying to do? And then from that core piece, we kind of back up and say, “Okay. How can we expose that in a way that’s really approachable to people? In a way that doesn’t expose the concepts to them?” It’s better to hide things from people than to force them to learn about it and deal with it. And I think that’s why it’s taken us almost two years to write Ember because we really want to think through these problems.
And I think that’s the piece that you miss if you focus too much on the modular. I think that’s good, right? You have to write modular software if you’re going to write good software. I think James and I definitely agree on that. But I believe that how those modules compose together, has to be influenced by viewing the problem holistically. And I think that’s the piece that is missing for a lot of people where we say, “Okay, just go and find all of your favorite modules from NMP and put them all together.” That piece of stepping back and looking at the holistic picture and integrating, that’s what’s missing.
CHUCK: Okay. So I kind of want to hear things from the other end. I know some of you guys do deal with things on the other end.
TIM: I know these frameworks and I’ve built many of my own frameworks yet I find myself in practice never ever using them. If I have a problem to solve, the first thing I’m going to do is spend about ten minutes seeing what’s out there. And if nothing there fits exactly what I want, I’ll just write my own. And that’s the biggest beef I have with frameworks is you have to make some decisions about what this framework is good for.
Like you take Rails for example, it’s really, really good at making web applications that have a database, that have some HTML templates and do something. Like if you’re writing that kind of app, you can just throw that instantly using Rails, yet the kind of things I want to create are always unique. I want to do something that’s never been done before. And if it’s never been done before, then how is a framework going to help you do something that’s never been done before? That’s a lot harder to make frameworks that can do that. And that’s where the smaller libraries work well because well, I need an MD5 hash, has someone written that code? It’s kind of hard to do by hand and that could be a micro library.
AJ: So to your point Tim, I started Ruby with Rails and I thought it was way cool because I could do a few simple things really easily. But then when I got to the point of wanting to customize it, it was too hard. So when I got into node where there wasn’t a framework yet, it was definitely a breath of fresh air. And I was actually doing things faster with connect than I could do with Rails because of the specific things I was trying to do.
So I totally agree with that. But I still feel like the experience of coming into a framework to learn some patterns and then get the general idea is much better than trying to start from scratch. It’s like learning memory management when what you want to do is add numbers.
TOM: Right. And Tim, the thing you have to keep in mind is that you’re Tim Caswell, not everyone is you. And if everyone was, the world would be a much better place.
TIM: Or we’d have thousands and thousands of modules that don’t work together, one of the two.
TOM: So obviously, we all only have a limited amount of time here on the planet and I spend time thinking about the things that I’m working on, are they good? Are they valuable? And I think the way that I look at these problems is in terms of leverage. So I can work on a particular problem that maybe doesn’t affect that many people. Or I can work on solving a problem that helps other people solve the problem that they want to solve.
And the thing that I realized it’s just, it’s 2013, the world is powered by software. There are going to be lots of people who are writing that software that are not us. They don’t actually care about the craft. They’re not going to be doing it for the problem solving. For them, it’s a job. I think that you can — so DHH has a thing which is that there is value in climbing the mountain together, there’s value in having the experts be on more or less the same path as the beginners. There are numerous good things that fall out of that. So for me, I want to provide a thing where people don’t have to learn all the intricacies, they don’t have to get in-depth with the framework. They can deliver something of value relatively easily, relatively quickly and get on with their lives and go home and be with their families on the weekend and not to have like focus on the intricacies of anything.
CHUCK: So my thing is that — and I’m probably just going to summarize what Tom just said. But there are a certain number of people that have a problem that are all fairly similar. So I’m trying to deal with something where I have this backend service that provides a ton of data that I need to organize in a certain way. And so, something like Ember gives me a lot of conventions for dealing with that and thinking about those problems.
To Tim’s point, if I’m going to do something that’s totally different, that has a totally different application, Ember may not be a good fit. But if it gives me a pattern to solve a problem that I actually have, then the framework has a lot of value.
MERRICK: Like Tom said, he thinks about it from the problem as a whole and that’s awesome because when you’re solving that problem, you’re going to have a better experience than looking anywhere else. But if you want to use your same tool solving a completely different problem, then sometimes you can be fighting against it. Is that fair, Tom?
TOM: Oh yeah. I think that you guys have summed it up well. I don’t want people to get the idea that I think Ember is a good tool for everyone to use, right? There are certain classes of problems where I think it will make you more productive faster. Tim, probably you are not a good candidate to use Ember.
JAMISON: When you write in Crypto libraries in the browser, Ember doesn’t help you with that?
TOM: Not yet. But we have in version two maybe.
TIM: What about parsing Linux towards kernel output?
CHUCK: I remember at one point, Yehuda pointed out that the ‘to do list’ app wasn’t a terrific example of use for Ember and to me that kind of drove the point home too. It depends on the tool, it depends on the problem because if I were going to do a ‘to do app’, I probably would use Backbone just because it is so simple and there really aren’t that many moving parts. It’s when you have the big lists of objects and things that it really pays off to use something that is built to organize that.
JOE: Sure. I agree with that sentiment.
TIM: I have an analogy. I used to do Python GTK apps back in the day, right after I left Swing and swore I’d never do Java again. And the cool thing about GTK like most GUI frameworks is you have widgets and that’s great. You want a combobox, you got a combobox. You want a treeview, there’s that. And with the new platform of the web, you have HTML and CSS. The browser doesn’t give you all these fancy widgets. And so, I think that’s a similar situation of the micro frameworks versus the more structured system, the more structured frameworks. Do you think that’s a valid analogy? Does it make sense at all?
TOM: Well, you probably shouldn’t bring up widget frameworks because I used to work on SproutCore. That’s a little bit of a sore subject.
TOM: But in seriousness, I agree with you. I think that’s a good analogy. But at the same time, I think that there are people who are coming to the web that are frustrated that they want very simple controls that aren’t available. And you actually see that like you see auto-complete fields, you see things like slick grid, you see big tables, you see things like jQuery mobile and jQuery UI, where the web is clearly deficient in terms of providing everything that people need. Especially when all they want to do is slap something together and ship it and call it a day.
TIM: Right. And even more so, I’ve been working on a platform on and off for the last while that’s based on open GL, it’s basically a web GL type thing. And there you’ve got nothing. At least in HTML, you have text and divs, and CSS, and boxes, and borders. But when you’re doing GL, you’ve got shaders and vectors. And if you want to make a text widget or a dialogue box, good luck. That’s going to be a lot of work. Yeah, it’s insanely powerful. You have this very simple system with these very simple primitives and all these massive parallel GPU. So, there’s definitely trade-offs there.
TOM: I really wish that James was here to participate because I have some questions to ask him. But I actually think that there is a fair bit of analogy between Ember and the project he’s been working on most recently which is Voxel.js which is really cool.
I think Voxel.js is really cool. I’ve been playing around with it. I think that it’s actually very similar to Ember in the sense that — it’s similar to Ember other than that there’s no standard distribution. But Voxel is basically like a 3D rendering engine. There are many modules that you put together and it all works together and that’s basically what Ember is. Ember is just a standard set of those modules put together. In fact, if you go and look at the Ember source code, if you go and look at the GitHub repo, you go into the packages directory, you will see the equivalent of, it’s broken up into different packages. And each one of those packages provides a small piece of functionality.
TIM: Right. Recently, I was working with TJ on his component JS system and I want to make some UI widgets for it because I was making an app and I needed like a slider where you can resize things, I needed a treeview which basically just HTML doesn’t have. And so, I was asking TJ, “Are there any conventions in component?” He’s like, “Well, not really except for maybe your object has a .el property that’s your root element.” And so basically, I had to make a set of widgets and then make up conventions for them on the fly. And as long as you use my widgets together, you have a framework. But if I wanted to use someone else’s micro component that used different conventions, then I’d have to shim it to be able to use it.
MERRICK: Yeah. And that’s why it feels so fragmented when you’re using those kinds of things.
TIM: It’s not so much the monolithic versus the modular. It’s, are your conventions compatible?
JAMES: Can you guys hear me?
IN UNISON: Yes! Yeah!
TIM: Tom was saying that Voxel.js is monolithic, I believe.
JAMES: Yeah, it is kind of monolithic.
JAMES: No, no, no. It’s not a good thing by any means, it certainly could be more minimal. I’m just not really sure how to do that for a 3D system. It’s not really…
JAMES: Well maybe, it’s just not possible for MVC frameworks. And I don’t even use those. So, I don’t really know much.
AJ: Backbone does.
TOM: So James, I had a question for you that I wanted to ask which is, have you gone and looked at the Ember source code ever?
JAMES: No. I don’t think so.
TOM: Okay. I think it was you that posted a comment on Google+ one time that accused me of being a peddler of monolithic software.
TOM: I’m not angry. I’m just trolling lightly right now. But I think someone said that.
JAMES: Okay. I really don’t think I said that. I really don’t even know much of Ember in the first place.
TOM: I’m just teasing you lightly.
MERRICK: I’ll call you that, dude! You’re such a peddler. Every time I release a library, you troll me about the lines of code it has.
TOM: So anyway James, the thing that I want to say is actually, I think that you and I actually might have a more similar world view than people might think because if you actually go and look at the Ember source code on GitHub, there’s a directory called Packages. And inside of Packages, there are a number of packages and each one of those is an individual piece that provides some value to the system.
JAMES: Okay. So, why aren’t those separate projects though? Because this is one thing that I think is really important for splitting things up properly is to split them up entirely so that it’s really easy to contribute, so that you get independent versioning and so that each piece is completely independent and can be reused by other systems because what’s the good of reuse if we can’t actually reuse the pieces trivially? Like, reach in and rip them out.
TOM: So, there’s two answers to that. The first one is that many of the dependencies of Ember, we actually have released as micro libraries which are totally separate projects. You can use them with Backbone. You can use them with whatever. Usually when we release these micro libraries, we try to make them run in both node and in the browser which is probably more painful than an iron maiden.
But the real answer to the question, why aren’t these provided as separate things is because there is no good package manager for the web. And in fact, we were distributing as separate packages back two years ago, we were working on a project called BPM, the Browser Package Manager, which unfortunately we haven’t had the resources to work on again yet. But the intention absolutely was to release these as separate projects. There’s just no good infrastructure for doing that for the browser right now.
TOM: You just highlighted why it doesn’t work.
JAMISON: Why it doesn’t work?
TOM: Because there are 20,000 packages. And when I am…
JAMISON: Okay, so…
TOM: …getting started and I have to find jQuery for the browser, is it jQuery, lower case? Is it jQuery, capital Q? Is it browser dash jQuery. I have no clue.
TIM: That was my fault.
JAMISON: So, that is good. Don’t use that in the first place. Don’t use jQuery, if you’re going to do modules that’s really different from — I mean, jQuery was built in the age before modules. So, it has a lot of relics for that. If you’re going to use jQuery, just throw it in the script tag. It’s really not meant for the future, the modular future that we’re racing towards.
TOM: Have you read the source code for jQuery 2.0?
JAMISON: Oh, it’s so bad. I actually have read the jQuery, well not 2.0. It’s like 1.-something. It’s so bad. Anyway, who cares?
So, the so-called problem that you’ve mentioned is not actually a problem. This is just an unavoidable thing that happens when something is useful and popular. You have 20,000 packages and that’s good. People make exactly the same complaint about CPAN or about Ruby Gems. It’s a good problem to have, I think. Because the alternative is, sure you might be able to find jQuery or Backbone or some popular packages, but you can’t find anything else since the people don’t write modular programs with rich dependency graphs because there just isn’t anything to depend on and that is much, much worse.
TOM: No. So, there is a difference between node and the browser. The difference is that if I’m using five different packages and each of them have five different dependencies, each of them uses a different library for parsing JSON or whatever, or parsing XML. Then on the node, it doesn’t matter because I can just load it in memory, not a big deal. In the browser, if I have several different dependencies and they all depend on different versions of parsers, they all depend on different versions of jQuery, I have to load those over the wire.
CHUCK: Yeah. We are getting a little off topic, though.
AJ: I think this is the exact topic.
AJ: And I tend to agree, not knowing whether or not when you NPM install something if it’s going to be browser compatible. And I may have to potentially have to run Browserify to make it browser compatible. But even then, it’s still no guarantee. That doesn’t really seem like a solid experience.
JAMES: But actually, there is a solid way to check this now. I’ve been working on this project called Testling CI. So, if you go to Browserify.org/search and you do a search on that, you’ll get, at the top of the results, kind of like how search engines have ads a little bit. But if something has been run through Testling CI, that will show up at the top of the results with exactly which browsers that module works on.
TOM: There’s a thing I want you address. The thing that I’d like you to address is how do you deal with the fact that if you have many, many, many different solutions to similar problems, and there’s a culture of, “If it doesn’t do exactly what I want, let me just rewrite it and write my own version,” and you have many widespread dependencies. In the browser, you have to transfer that every time the user loads the page. And as far as I know, and please do correct me if I’m wrong, there’s no equivalent to something like bundler in NPM that will try to distill all those dependencies, all different versions of a dependency down to a single version that they could share in common.
JAMISON: NPM actually does this by default if the versions are compatible. If you have, say I use the library through and two packages both have a compatible range, and so, NPM will actually move that up a level. And it does this recursively for all of the module levels.
Sure, you might get version discrepancies. You probably will, if you have really a lot of dependencies. But I think that that’s actually a feature because for me personally, it’s much, much more important that these pieces work in the first place than if they are exactly optimized. Most of these libraries are very tiny in the first place. I mean like, maybe ten kilobytes is a big module, and then you can minify and GZip it and it’s nothing at that point. So, I don’t know. People make this complaint a lot but I really haven’t seen it so much.
TOM: So, the reason I think it’s an issue is because I see many web applications in the wild that are built on small frameworks like Backbone that end up being like 500, 600, 700, or 800, 900 K. So, it seems obvious that if you — something’s happening. One is either web developers are having to write a lot of code themselves to build their web application or they’re having to include many, many dependencies that don’t know about each other. And because there’s no shared ecosystem, there’s no kind of standard library, if you will. They each have to implement their own — for example foreach. If you’re using something like component, then each library can’t depend on the fact that foreach has been shimmed in something like Internet Explorer. So, it has to shim foreach. Even though if you knew that you had a shared dependency, you could just say, I’ll just use the one available there.
JAMES: Well, that’s exactly where explicit dependencies in the pack of JSON can help you out and while having a separate module to do that is very beneficial. I don’t really think that it’s a problem with micro frameworks so much as a problem not having a module system or not using a module system. Once you use a module system, you can actually explicitly say, “Okay, I’m going to depend on this package and this package can do all the work for me,” instead of having to inline everything.
CHUCK: When you’re talking about a module system, you’re talking about like AMD?
JAMES: I’m talking like Common.js. AMD would be another example that I don’t like as much.
TIM: So, if I can jump in here. The issue, what it sounds like to me, isn’t really about whether there’s a module system or not. That’s just why packaging them as one library is useful is because it’s the best way to package it. I think the real issue is how do these libraries talk to each other? In node, we have very simple conventions. There’s the node callback convention, there’s the node stream interface. And for the most part, this is pretty much all libraries need to talk to each other. This library takes in a stream out with some other stream. And so, you don’t need a whole lot of conventions.
But when you get into other use cases like maybe you’re making UI widgets, then UI widgets need some conventions. How do you get to the root element? How do you tell a UI widget to redraw itself? How do you do a vent delegation? There’s just a much bigger surface area of how these modules need to interact.
MERRICK: How do they communicate to each other? Do they trigger events on themselves? Do they have some sort of known API?
TIM: Right. And if there’s no conventions, then every library is going to do it differently. So it’s not so much of whether they are bundled or not, that’s a packaging issue. The problem is whether they agree or not.
TOM: I think this comes back to thinking about the whole thing holistically and climbing the mountain together, if you will. There are a lot of trivial choices. And they’re choices that end up not really mattering in the long term, but developers love to argues. So, developers are going to argue about, for example, should I use low dash or should I use underscore? Now, if I’m building a web application where there’s many, many small dependencies and there’s not kind of a shared ecosystem where everyone just accepts, “Okay, you know what? We’re just going to use underscore.” Now, I have one dependency that uses underscore, one dependency that uses low dash, and another dependency that uses whatever else. And these things actually add up. These things add up over time.
MERRICK: Or for framing latency?
TIM: It matters in node too.
AJ: But the thing is the NPM is not the problem there. The problem is that developers going in with the mindset of, not considering those problems. You can have any sort of package manager, they’re all going to have that problem until the developers are disciplined to understand it and code to that problem.
TOM: Right. And that’s why I think it’s largely a community issue. It’s largely a community ethos issue.
TOM: Cloud 9 is awesome, by the way. Good job.
TOM: Tim, you’ve just described the problem that I’ve encountered every time I’ve tried to build a big application.
CHUCK: So, to boil it down. Really what it seems to come down to is like Tim said, with the large — I don’t want to use the word ‘monolithic’, let’s say fully featured libraries. Everything in there is designed to work together and the one off libraries, the thing is it does their jobs well which is really nice, but they don’t always talk well together. And so, depending on what your problem is, you may find that it’s simpler to go with something that everything is there. Some things you may not need but overall, everything works well together and you get everything you want in just one big library versus having to go figure out what all the pieces are that you’re going to do what you need to do.
JAMISON: Well, I think that’s a mischaracterization because when you have something that all of the pieces work well together, there can’t be that many pieces because the institutional overhead of managing that kind of a thing is much higher than a completely distributed ad hoc community like NPM where everybody is just doing whatever. So, the benefit of the other side of everybody’s doing whatever Tom has said is that you have a much broader swap of scope. So, it’s much more likely to have some obscure module that you need that does that one thing very well, that you just don’t get in a more integrated community.
CHUCK: I totally agree. You also get the variety, you get the…
TOM: It’s also much more likely to have exotic bugs, obscure bugs that you’ve never heard of either. Like if you look at the jQuery source code, in fact now, in jQuery 2.0, there is more — so, jQuery 2.0 has now pulled out support for the old IE’s. There is now more code in jQuery 2.0 that deals with WebKit and Firefox bugs than IE bugs.
TIM: That doesn’t surprise me.
So if you have different dependencies and some of them solve some of the bugs, you’re going to have a worse experience than something like jQuery where you know everyone is on it so you know it’s well tested, it’s well run through and you have an entire community, an entire organization around fixing those bugs and making sure there’s a consistent experience across all these very different browsers.
JAMES: I still don’t think that you need it packaged together. I think that we should all work together to solve the module system for the browser and I don’t know if we’ll ever agree on what the best solution is.
TOM: It’s coming in ES6. Dave Herman’s working on it. Dave Herman’s a very smart guy. You talked to him recently on the show. He will solve the problem.
JAMISON: I disagree that anything is going to happen in ES6 that anyone will like. I don’t even know that people on ES6 will like what they come up with.
JAMES: Well, if they agree, then that will help.
TOM: Wait, what does that even mean?
JAMISON: I’m just completely pessimistic. I’ve just completely written ES6 off at making a good module. I’m not convinced that they will be able to pull anything off that anyone likes.
JAMISON: They’re not aware of what people on the ground have been doing all of these years. They are just inventing more language abstractions that nobody needs.
CHUCK: So now that we’re down this rabbit hole, why don’t we go ahead and do picks?
TOM: We can do that as long as you’ll promise me that you’ll have James and Dave Herman on for another episode to talk about this.
JOE: I was going to say James.
JAMISON: And bring Isaac, also.
JAMES: Isaac would be good, yes.
CHUCK: Yes, we‘ll see what we can do. I think it’s definitely worth discussing. I didn’t realize that there was a module system coming down in ES6. So, we can definitely talk about the pros and cons and maybe some of the things that they could consider or should have considered and see where we go with it. I think it will be really interesting.
TIM: So, my point before I mentioned modules and got sidetracked was that, ignoring that problem, then all that’s left is we just need conventions that people can agree on, whether they are packaged as one package or a thousand micro libs doesn’t matter as long as they work together.
One of my favorite books by the pragmatic people was ‘Interface-Oriented Programming’. And the book basically says it’s all about your interfaces, how things work together. That’s all that really matters in the end when you have modular code.
CHUCK: Yeah, we talked to Sandi Metz on Ruby Rogues and she said a lot of the same. It’s how they interact, not what they are that really defines what your code is or what your program is.
Anyway, let’s get to picks. Merrick, why don’t you start us off?
MERRICK: Sure. I’m going to pick jQuery 2.0 and also the ECMAScript 6 Module Definition.
CHUCK: I think that troll has horns.
MERRICK: And also AMD, because I actually think all of those things are awesome.
CHUCK: Alright. Joe, what are your picks?
JOE: I’m going to pick two things here. There’s a musical artist named Yiruma. I think he’s a Korean, composes original piano pieces and his stuff is just awesome, absolutely awesome. I’m going to pick him.
And then, I’m also going to pick a TV show ‘Elementary’ which is apparently the hottest new show on TV. I’ve been watching it since the season started and it’s freaking awesome.
CHUCK: I didn’t really get into it.
JOE: Oh, man! It’s amazing. It’s because you have no taste.
CHUCK: That is very likely true. AJ, what are your picks?
AJ: So, the most amazing thing that’s happened to me perhaps in my life even was my friend had a birthday party and it was a tasting party. He bought these tablets called Miracle Berry Tablets. And Miracle Berry is a fruit that has a very unique and special protein in it called miraculin, after the word miracle.
AJ: When it binds to your taste buds, it makes everything terrible taste amazing. So, you can take something like grapefruit after you dissolve one of these tablets on your tongue and it tastes like the sweetest, most delicious amazing fruit ever. You just pick up nasty stuff out of the fridge that you hate and stick it in your mouth and the worst that it would normally taste, the better it tastes with the Miracle Berry Tablets.
The only downside is that once you put that on your tongue and everything tastes delicious, you start putting these terrible foods in your mouth particularly the citrus fruits is what it’s really, really, really powerful for. So, just add it to lemons and limes and all that acid, still makes your tongue raw and eventually bleed but you don’t feel it until the tablet wears off.
CHUCK: Sounds like a bonus feature to me. So, did you want us to sell it and then sell it to our friends? Or try it and then sell it to our friends?
AJ: Yes. Oh, my gosh! This stuff’s amazing. You’ve got to have that experience just once. It’s a little expensive but no more expensive than your common drug.
TIM: Are you promoting drug abuse? Wait a minute.
JAMES: I also see THC on this agreement list, AJ. I think there might be something else miraculous about these miracle berries.
TOM: AJ, I want to come to your parties.
AJ: One other thing is I compiled together. Maybe I mentioned this on the last show. I don’t know but I compiled together a script for Ubuntu. So, if you’re getting started with Ubuntu, you’ve made the jump to get an ALS and you’re trying to commit yourself to it, put together a script that install all the common things for you like Skype and Chrome and Steam. All the stuff that you would expect to kind of have on it already if you had bought it preinstalled from like Dell or HP at Wal-Mart, you know.
JAMISON: Does it have the Ask.com toolbar on it because I can’t browse the web without my Ask.com toolbar.
AJ: None of that stuff. It just installs the things that you should get like the Microsoft fonts, Times New Roman, Arial, yada…yada…just the things that the DVD player, the Blue Ray player, stuff that they don’t include by default but should be there.
CHUCK: Alright. Jamison, what are your picks?
JAMISON: Mine is just one, it is a Dwarf Fortress comic called Bravemule. So if you don’t know what Dwarf Fortress is, it’s a game made by this math genius hermit guy that is basically a super realistic simulation of controlling this colony of dwarfs. It simulates their sanity and their internal organs and it’s incredibly detailed and complex and hard to get into it and I’ll never ever play it, but it creates these amazing stories. So this guy, or actually this team of people, documented one of their Dwarf Fortress games on this website called Bravemule and it’s amazing. It captures just the weirdness of the game and all the crazy things that happen and it’s got this really cool comic art style that accompanies it and stuff. Even if you’ve never played the game, aren’t interested in it at all, it’s a really good story. So, just check it out, it’s just Bravemule.com.
CHUCK: Alright. Tim, what are your picks?
TIM: Alright, I’ve got two. One of them is RealtimeConf EU, because I actually get to go this summer in France and it will be a blast. So, if any of our listeners are in Europe or any of our other people like flying to Europe and can afford it, I think it will be a really good conference.
JAMISON: Isn’t that a harder problem to solve in compiled languages too though?
TIM: No, the source code is pretty portable. The linker problem is a pain. How do you link binaries? I don’t know. I think it’s neat.
JAMISON: Because I’ve been playing with some compiled languages and I always miss NPM.
CHUCK: Well, then I’ll go next. My first pick is, it’s a blog post by Ernie Miller. It’s ‘Why I Love Being a Programmer in Louisville’ or ‘Why I Won’t Relocate to Work for Your Start-up’. And he talks about why he likes living and working in Louisville as opposed to being in some of the big software centers like New York or DC or San Francisco or any of those. And he kind of outlines a lot of the reasons why when people come after folks that aren’t in those locations, “Why do you live there?” Or, “Why do you work there?” He really outlined a lot of the reasons why I work from home in a location other than one of those places.
The other one that I want to pick is an Infographic that the folks over at Crazy Egg came up with. And it’s basically about podcast listening and audio consumption and I thought it was really interesting. So, if you’re a podcast listener or a podcaster or anything like that, then this is probably interesting to you.
James, why don’t you give us your picks?
CHUCK: Cool, sounds like fun.
TIM: So, you’re like ultra gold status on whatever airline you use now, right?
JAMES: Yeah, I guess.
TIM: Because you’re always everywhere.
CHUCK: Yeah. His Frequent Flyer card is platinum plated. Alright. Tom, what are your picks?
TOM: Alright. I’ve got three for you this time. The first is Discourse which is a form software, open-source form software under GPL license by Jeff Atwood who you probably know from Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange. So, he’s got a new start-up, it’s in Ember.js app. It’s running on top of Rails. Again, open source. And the business model that they’re going for is basically like WordPress. So you can download source code, you can run it, you can install it, you can do whatever you want. If you don’t want to deal with that, you can pay them and host it. So that just launched the other day and I’m really excited about it because it’s the first really big open source Ember app and I think it’s cool to check out. It’s really fast too.
CHUCK: Is it Rails on the backend, because I thought I heard about it from one of their folks too.
TOM: Yeah. It’s Rails on the backend.
So the first is the ten-piece glass bowl set from Williams-Sonoma. Now really, any set of glass bowls will do, but it makes me feel like a professional. You feel like you’re on a Food Network show. There’s a technique called Mise-en-place where you basically prepare all of your ingredients up front, ahead of time and then cooking becomes very easy and very pleasant and you look cool too. So, if you have someone over and you’re cooking for them, it looks really impressive.
The last thing is there’s a recipe book by America’s Test Kitchen called ‘The Best Simple Recipes’. And every recipe that I’ve made from here is very simple, it takes about half an hour and they have all tasted amazing. They’re like an order of magnitude better than the average recipe you’ll pull of the Internet. So, whenever I’m about to go cook dinner, I just go pull something from there and it always ends up great and it’s easy.
JAMISON: Are you an experienced chef? Or you’re just kind of figuring this out?
TOM: No. Two years ago, I couldn’t even boil water but it’s something I picked up. It’s nice because you’re sitting in front of a computer all day, you don’t really have anything tangible. Making something with your hands is really nice and you can kind of disconnect and then you get a nice meal at the end. It’s really cool.
CHUCK: Awesome. I think you spent some of my money right there on that book. Alright. We’ll go ahead and wrap this up. Thanks for coming guys. It’s been a really, really interesting and awesome episode.
TOM: Yeah, thank you. I had a lot of fun.
JAMISON: Sorry about all the tech problems. I’m glad that substack got on.
CHUCK: Yeah, you got them on.
TOM: Hey, I’ll be back for a rematch whenever you guys want.
CHUCK: Well, I think you both made good points and that’s the thing is, it’s like, “Okay, where do I fall? What kind of projects am I working on? How does this apply?” And there’s real value there. So, thanks again for coming.
JAMES: Thanks guys.
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Kentucky Senate Candidate, Dr. Rand Paul (R)
Rand Paul, as many are aware, has become somewhat of a media star of late, with the majority of the mainstream attention focused on anything but the issues. We have heard ad nauseam about “Aqua Buddha,” that Dr. Paul kidnapped women in college, forcing them to smoke pot, he is a “racist,” that he is for drugging children and forcing “everyone” to pay a $2000 dollar Medicare deductible. This is all you will hear from the mainstream media, and guess what—none of it is true.
The “anonymous source” for the Aqua Buddha fiasco has retracted her story, but the mainstream outlets have not reported this. In fact, there was no kidnapping, and the “secret society” is a joke. When Dr. Paul was on Rachel Maddow’s show, what he responded “yes” to was whether he could hear the audio feed, not “yes” to repealing all civil rights laws. But that is not how the media has spun the incident—it’s far juicier to say he wants to appeal all civil rights.
Ironically, it is not Dr. Paul who wants to see all children “drugged,” as his opponent Jack Conway has implied, but rather Dr. Paul supports decriminalization of drugs solely for the purpose of decreasing out massive prison population. The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world, and most are there for non-violent offenses. To reduce the massive prison complex would cut taxes, as well as create new jobs (since inmates are cheap labor). In fact, as has just recently surfaced, according to the Louisville Courier Journal’s article of October 23rd “LMPD Probes Detectives Who Tipped Off Prosecutor Under Investigation,” it is now Jack Conway and his brother who are embroiled in a possible absconding of a drug investigation. So it appears that in terms of drugs, Conway has more to explain that Rand. In regards to the Medicare, what Rand actually said was that seniors over a certain age might have to pay a deductible if we want to continue the system, since it is not working.
Now that we have cleared away the smoke and mirrors of the mainstream liberal establishment, it’s crucial to consider that students might be tempted to think Dr. Paul is just a mainline neo-conservative. This is also not true. Dr. Paul, like his extremely popular father, Dr. Ron Paul, has as his main agenda balancing the budget and the private Federal Reserve banking system. The Federal Reserve is a private institution that prints fiat money and controls our monetary system, as well as our government.
Read more of this post
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GDAsCNTF express GFAP and neurocan after transplantation into spinal cord injuries. (a) Intra-injury GDAsCNTF are uniformly GFAP+ within acute dorsal column injuries. Note the co-localization (yellow) of human placental alkaline phosphatase (hPAP, red) with GFAP (green). GDAsCNTF have also failed to align host astrocytic processes within injury margins. Survival, 8 days post-injury/transplantation. (b) High-magnification confocal image of neurocan immunoreactivity at the injury margin and within a GDACNTF-transplanted injury site at 8 days after injury/transplantation. Note that some GDAsCNTF are immunoreactive for neurocan (green). In contrast, intra-injury transplanted GDAsBMP (not shown) do not express GFAP or neurocan, and can align host astrocytic processes within injury margins . Scale bars 100 μm.
Davies et al. Journal of Biology 2008 7:24 doi:10.1186/jbiol85
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March 6, 2012
Devils impress four-star LB
Matthews (N.C.) Butler linebacker Peter Kalambayi is one of the most talented football recruits to unofficially visit Duke in recent memory and the Blue Devils seized the opportunity and showed him a good time. Devils Illustrated caught up with the Rivals100 prospect to get his thoughts on his time in Durham.
Kalambayi told Devils Illustrated he doesn't have any favorites yet but that's not for a lack of effort on his part. He's been visiting schools and has tried to sort things out. It's just a little too early to tell at this point.
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Our objective was to develop a quality improvement project on diabetes mellitus at our internal medicine residency clinic. Residents developed projects aimed at improving an aspect of diabetic care. Continuity of care, achievement of clinical targets, no-show rates, patient knowledge of diabetes, and preventive care were evaluated. Our data was obtained with a questionnaire and a retrospective review of medical records. A different provider was scheduled about every 1.78 visit. The no-show rate was 25.4%. About half of patients identified goal hgbA1c and BPs, and 35% and 60% achieved their hgbA1c and SBP goals respectively. Nearly all of the charts planned for screening exams. We concluded that our clinic needs to improve diabetes education, reaching clinical targets, continuity of care and no-shows. Incorporating a QI project into the clinic with one disease such as diabetes is an efficient way to include practice based learning into an internal medicine residency’s curriculum.
Punzalan, MD, Carmi Santos; Rutherford, MD, Sarah; Lerner, MD, Andrew; Kouvatsos, MD, Tasha; Thakkar, MD, Sneha; Klein, MD, Melissa; Manoff, MD, David; Kelly, MD, Cecilia; Halegoua, MD, Dina; and Kane, MD, Gregory
"Quality Improvement of Diabetic Care at a Resident Clinic,"
The Medicine Forum:
Vol. 13, Article 21.
Available at: http://jdc.jefferson.edu/tmf/vol13/iss1/21
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November 19th - 2 degrees outside! More rahtid snow. Not a tree or shrub in our yawd that hasn't been damaged. Power was off most of the night. "Blouse and skirt" got mi first heating bill, Tried to keep from freezing to death wid candles and kerosene heater, tipped over and nearly burn the rahtid house down. I managed to put the flames out but suffered second degree burns on my hands and lost all my eyebrows and eyelashes. Car slid on the white s*** on the way to the hospital and was a write-off.
November 20th - Rahtid white ting keeps coming down! I have to put on all the clothes I own just to get to the mailbox. If I ever catch the **** that drives that rahtid snowplough, I gwine mek him mumma feel it. I think he hides around the rahtid corner and wait for me to finish shovelling, then comes down the street at about 160km/hr and cover up wi driveway again. Rahtid power still off.
November 21st - Twelve more centimetres of rahtid snow and rahtid ice and God knows what other kind of rahtid white s*** fell last night. I wounded the rahtid snow plough with the pick,but the driva got away. The wife took off and left me. The rahtid car won't start and I think I'm going rahtid snow-blind. I can't move my rahtid toes, haven't seen the bomboclaat sun in weeks and there's more rahtid snow predicted. Wind chill is 30 rahtid degrees below rahtid zero!!
November 22nd - Me a move back to JA cause dis ya place a go kill mi!
Well boy the last few weeks I sort of feel that way cause winter has been rough this year.
I mean I've been here a good few years and this winter just seems to have the most precipitation I've ever see. We literally getting wash way in snow. And I not just complaining about having to shovel it although that is a major part of my complaint but is also hard to walk and drive and basically do anything useful in.
An dont mind dem tv people that talking about how this is a normal winter and we had mild winters the last few years and get soft. Is lie dem tell! True we had milder than normal winters the last two or so years but even stretching back the last ten years, ignoring the ice storm in 99 0r was it 2000, we never had so much snow so bunched together. So I have a real issue when they call this abnormal weather normal.
I mean lets see, we had mildish weather a few days in January and the snow melt, then all a sudden we had snowstorm two Fridays ago. I mean all day snow, snow that tek me three trips to shovel, snow that mek nuff people had car accidents and nuff businesses close down for the day snow. Snow that they say if ya dont need to leave home dont leave type of snow.
Then more snow the Tuesday and Wednesday after that, then last Friday - Saturday and now today. And is not like how some snow duz come and hit the ground and poof disappear. No this thing sticking and then getting icy and got people stumbling around on the sidewalk.
Look I dun more shovelling in a week than the average poli-trickson when he running for office and this thing still aint stopping. I see people with snow piles that bout two three times my height. I personally dig out the driveway and the snow so high that it got one of my trees looking like a shrub now.
Anyway I wasting time with all this chat, let me go shovel some more so I can leff the house in the morning.
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Status as of March 22, 2011 at 7:30 a.m.
Jefferson County, Co. – The status of the Indian Gulch fire is as follows:
- 1162 acres burned
- 15% containment
- 200 firefighters working the fire
- Fire moved west overnight; 2 homes required structure protection
- Of the 100 reverse 911 calls issuing evacuation orders yesterday, 17 were to homes while with the other calls were local businessess.
- 2 single engine air tankers standing by to make fire retardant drops
- 2 helicopters standing by to make water drops
- Wind gusts of up to 70 mph are expected today which could result in a small window of opportunity for air support.
- Golden Gate Canyon Road is closed from Catamont Drive to Crawford Gulch.
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Appalachian Senior Programs will hold its 10th annual gift project for senior citizens called “Project Star,” which is a program that offers gifts to anonymous seniors in need.
“Most of the seniors served by this project are lonely, isolated, don’t really have any family and wouldn’t get any gifts otherwise,” said Tammy Taylor, Project Star’s coordinator.
Groups that work with the elderly in the county submitted a list of names of seniors in need, along with a list of gift ideas for each person. Those groups include the Department of Social Services, Ashe Really Cares, Ashe Outreach Ministries, Spruce Hill Apartments, Mountain Living and Mountain Village.
Once the names were submitted to Appalachian Senior Programs, each name was assigned a number so the senior can remain anonymous. Each number, along with an outline of gift ideas, has been printed on a cut-out paper star.
Since the list of seniors has been finalized, the cut-out stars were placed in different locations throughout town. As of Thursday, 184 stars had been printed and were on display Monday at Wendy’s, Food Lion, Ingles and Sweet & Savory. Taylor said the project averages about 200 stars per year.
“For many of these seniors, these gifts are the only presents they will receive over Christmas,” said Taylor.
According to Taylor, most of these gifts are simple, inexpensive items, like blankets, clothing and food.
Debbie Wellborn, who also works for Appalachian Senior Programs, said “most of the gifts are simple things that many people take for granted.”
She said last year a 95-year-old woman wanted a few modest gifts, which included Pringles potato chips, peppermint candy and a baby doll.
In the last nine years of Project Star, every senior wishing to get a gift managed to receive at least one. “No one has been left out so far,” said Wellborn.
Anyone wanting to donate gifts to a senior in need can pick a star and purchase the items. Afterwards, the gifts will need to be returned to the Appalachian Senior Programs’ office so they can be distributed to the seniors over the holidays.
According to Wellborn, the concept for Project Star was created when workers from Appalachian Senior Programs recognized children draw most of the attention during Christmas, but there were no local programs that attempted to help the elderly.
Since Project Star’s first gift drive nine years ago, it has attracted the attention of local businesses that wish to contribute to the cause.
Mike Powers has donated trees to Project Star for the past nine years, courtesy of Mountain Memories Tree Farm, and plans to do so again. Employees from Gates donate between 25-30 food boxes every year to Project Star, and Skyline/Skybest’s employees also help by getting gifts for 20-25 stars every year for the past 9 years.
“It’s the generosity of the kind people of Ashe County that makes this project possible each year,” said Taylor.
Jamie Richardson, from the Department of Social Services, said “I’ve been here for seven years and for most of the seniors, these are the only gifts they receive. They really look forward to getting these gifts for Christmas.”
“Ashe County is very lucky to have a Christmas program for the elderly, most places don’t have something like this,” said Richardson.
Appalachian Senior Programs also helps seniors with fuel assistance, especially with winter quickly approaching.
“Donations are greatly appreciated as the money will be used for fuel assistance and for stars that were not collected and didn’t receive any gifts,” said Taylor.
Appalachian Senior Programs is funded by a federal grant and sponsored by Appalachian State University.
Anyone interested in participating in the gift drive will need to deliver gift items to the Appalachian Senior Programs’ office before Thursday, Dec. 6, next to Jefferson Drug Store. Only newly-purchased items will be accepted.
For more information, call Tammy Taylor at 336-846-4898.
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Customising a Navigation List
I like the “Vertical Images List” in Apex, which allows me to create a navigation bar of icons to give users quick access to various pages in my site. It’s easy to customise each item – you can select any image, add attributes for the image if necessary, and each item in the list has a URL which can point to another page in the application, or to an arbitrary URL.
My problem, however, was that some of the URLs in my list took the user to another site, or opened a PDF, and these would open in the same window. I wanted these particular items to open a new window, but the navigation item properties don’t allow this.
To solve this, I modified the Vertical Images List template, and used one of the User Defined Attributes to add “target=_blank” to the items that I wanted. While I was in there, I made a few tweaks to customise the template further to my liking.
A. Modify the Vertical Images List template.
- Go to Shared Components and open the Templates (under User Interface).
- Scroll down to Vertical Images List (in the Lists category) and open it for editing.
- Modify the Template Definition (WARNING: the code for different Apex templates may differ slightly; you’ll have to use a bit of nouse to customise it to your requirements) – you can add bits like #A01#, #A02#, etc – in my case I’ve used the following convention:
#A01# = extra text to appear below the icon & link;
#A02# = tooltip text for the hyperlink;
#A03# = extra attributes for the link (HTML <A> tag).
I’ve done this in both the “List Template Current” and “List Template Noncurrent” sections.
<tr><td><a href=”#LINK#” TITLE=”#A02#” #A03#>
<img src=”#IMAGE_PREFIX##IMAGE#” #IMAGE_ATTR# />#TEXT#</a>
B. Set User Defined Attributes.
- Open the Navigation List for editing (Shared Components -> Navigation -> Lists).
- Open the list item for editing that you wish to customise (or create a new one).
- In User Defined Attributes, attribute 1, add any text you wish to show beneath the link (but not highlighted as part of the ink)
- For attribute 2, add the title you wish to show up as a tooltip.
- For attribute 3, add the html attribute “target=_blank” if you wish this navigation entry to open a new window when invoked.
This is how it looks in a sample application:
If the user clicks on “Address Book”, the “target=_blank” attribute instructs the browser to open in a new window (or tab, in some cases).
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We’re almost a year into this whole parenting thing, and I can’t believe how the time has flown. While I can’t even begin to think about the possibility of having another little one of our own just yet, I’m incredibly excited for friends of ours who are expecting new additions to their families in the coming months, so I’ve been thinking a lot about baby gear.
I remember all too well how thoroughly overwhelming it was to figure out just what and how much (or how little) STUFF we truly needed for the baby. Mike and I did our own (extensive!) research, of course, but in the months before Julian was born, I also received a lot of wonderful recommendations and advice from friends who had started down this road before us. I never like to offer unsolicited advice or opinions to other parents-to-be, but I would like to share what has worked for us – the products we ended up loving and why, and what we would recommend to others who may be looking for baby gear in the near future.
I feel so lucky that I was able to (and continue to) breastfeed Julian, but it wasn’t always easy. Two things I was especially grateful for while we were getting the whole process down were Dr. Sears’ Breastfeeding Book, and a good nursing pillow. I hadn’t intended to get a special pillow for nursing, thinking I could just use one of the standard bed pillows we already had around, but my mom brought me a Boppy when she and dad came up for J’s birth, and it was so helpful, especially in the early weeks when we were working on Julian’s latch and he was so wee he needed the firm support it provides. I’m all for minimalism, but this is a specialized item I am grateful we had around.
As my maternity leave drew to a close and we started to transition him to bottle feedings during the day, we tried a couple of different brands of bottles. There were some that were specifically designed for breastfed infants, with a nipple that was designed to mimic the feel and flow of the breast, but Julian didn’t do well with them. I definitely wanted something without BPA and phthalates for our little guy, so we ended up going with these glass bottles from lifefactory. Julian took to them right away, and never experienced nipple confusion or any other issues. They are easy for him to hold himself, have sippy caps you can purchase separately, and the bottles have survived countless falls to the floor and other hard surfaces.
We did quite a bit of research before buying a high chair (and we waited until J was several months old to actually get one). We finally decided on the Inglesina Fast Table Chair, a nifty little number that hooks right onto our high dining table, and folds into its own little carry pouch for travel or meals out. It takes up a minimum of space in our apartment, and Julian loves being right at the same level with us as we eat meals together. The fabric cover is removable for cleaning, but it also wipes up well with a damp cloth.
I cannot say enough about the Arm’s Reach Mini Convertible Co-Sleeper. It was recommended to us by some good friends, and I have in turn recommended it to countless other parents-to-be. Julian used it until he was about 8 months old, and while he often ended up in our bed at some point during the night (and still does), this was probably the single best purchase we made for him. I truly believe that co-sleeping is why we were so successful at breastfeeding, and why my return to work after maternity leave was so relatively smooth. I know my mental state was helped by knowing that he was right there next to us, literally an arm’s length away, and that he never had to cry longer than it took me to roll over, pick him up, and bring him to me for a feeding or other care or comfort during the night.
We also absolutely love our aden + anais muslin swaddles. They’re great, versatile blankets for swaddling, keeping sun or wind off baby when you’re out and about, covering up while nursing, really anything you can imagine. They’re breathable and butter-soft, and they wash up beautifully.
Julian never really dug the whole swaddling thing, so once we switched him to wearable blankets, aden + anais were a hit again. Their sleeping bags are sleeveless, and again very soft and breathable, which is great since Julian tends to get pretty warm when he sleeps. The fact that they zip open at the bottom means it’s super easy to change a diaper during the night, too. Now that he’s (mostly) in a traditional crib, we’ve picked up aden + anais’ muslin crib sheets. I love them so much I wish they made bedding for grown-ups.
We spent a lot of time looking into diapering options for Julian, and we feel pretty good about the options we chose. We started him in gDiapers, with their flushable/biodegradable/compostable inserts (there are cloth inserts available too). These worked well for us for the first 9 months – he never had even a hint of diaper rash, and the diapers were typically leak-free throughout the daytime hours, though having extra plastic liners on hand was an absolute must.
That said, we did decide after the first month or so to use disposables (Seventh Generation) overnight, and we moved away from the gDiapers entirely once J was on solid food, as the change in his diet made for bigger, messier messes that the g’s didn’t always contain well. I think if we had a washer and dryer of our own instead of having to rely on shared laundry facilities in our apartment buildings, we would have stuck with the gDiapers, and I’d definitely recommend them to anyone who is considering them. I also wish we would have been able to flush more of the soiled inserts as intended – unfortunately, both places we’ve lived since Julian’s birth have had older plumbing that wasn’t quite up to the task.
We’ve used Earth’s Best Tender Care Wipes from the start, and they are absolutely the best baby wipes we’ve tried. They’re big, thick, and really absorbent, they smell clean and fresh, and they really do the job on even the most challenging messes.
We used a regular step can and liner for diaper disposal until just a few months ago, when odor became an issue (ah, how I miss the days of sweet-smelling breastmilk poop… ). A lot of friends use, and love, the Diaper Genie and similar devices, but we decided on the Diaper Dekor Classic Pail and biodegradable bag inserts. So far it has worked really well for us.
We started out using two carriers: a basic Moby wrap and a handed-down Baby Bjorn Classic. The Moby was great when Julian was wee, especially for wearing him around the house. The Bjorn was great until he got to be about 15 lbs. or so. At that point, because we were using it so much, we decided we needed something with more lumbar support, and after A LOT of research, we decided on the Lillebaby NORDIC carrier. It’s very much like the ERGO carrier, but it is adjustable to six positions, and you can use it from birth until 42 lbs without having to buy any additional inserts. Mike and I both wear Julian in it daily, and it has been great for all of us. It’s super easy to adjust the straps when we switch off, and it’s also really easy to change Julian’s position in the carrier if, for example, he falls asleep facing out and we want to face him inward. We’ve taken him everywhere in this thing, even on airplanes, and it has been great. I have also had no problem nursing him in it.
We went with Britax for our biggest-ticket items: our infant car seat, stroller, and now a convertible car seat. Our Chaperone infant seat was subject to a voluntary recall for a possibly faulty screw, and we requested and received the replacement part in question within a matter of days. We never had issues with the seat, though, and although we used it far less than someone who actually owned a car would have, we thought it was great. Because of its size and bulk, we rarely used it as an infant carrier, but we did attach it to our stroller when Julian was very small, and that worked well.
The B-Agile stroller has been great. It’s lightweight but solid and sturdy, with great maneuverability and a single-handed fold. Again, we haven’t used it as heavily as some parents might since it has generally been easier for us to just strap Julian into a carrier and go, but when we have used it, we’ve been pleased with its performance.
We just recently purchased a Roundabout 55 convertible car seat for Julian, and used it for the first time while traveling in Indiana. It was very easy to get in and out of our rental car and Mike’s mom’s car, and the Britax rolling travel bag we purchased separately for it worked really well, too.
We didn’t end up buying a whole lot of “non-essential” stuff for Julian, but we did receive a couple of gifts that ended up being really useful and appreciated. The Fisher Price Rock ’n Play Sleeper was particularly nice when I went back to work and Mike was home alone with the baby. Our model didn’t come with any added bells and whistles, and it provided a safe place for Julian to hang out and nap or just abide while Mike worked or did other things around the apartment.
The bathroom in our last apartment was tiny, so fitting a standard baby bathtub into our space would have been tricky. Enter the puj tub, a soft and flexible baby bath that fit nicely in our sink. Julian seemed very comfortable sitting in it for bathtime, and I appreciated the extra layer of cushioning between baby and hard, cold porcelain. Both of these items are now being used by our new nephew Solomon.
You can find all of these items (and a few others) on my Julian – Gear board on Pinterest.
(I should probably mention that every product mentioned here was either purchased by us or gifted to us by friends or family members. I have not ever received any sort of free or discounted products or compensation from any of the companies mentioned in exchange for writing about them here or elsewhere, and all opinions are, of course, my own.)
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For YEARS I have wanted to have matching family pajamas for Christmas morning. I know it's totally cheesy, but cheesy family moments make the best memories. The last two years I've been able to find reasonably priced matching Christmas pajamas for the kids, but now with A in the honest-to-goodness BOYS section I don't think I'll be able to that again this year.
There are plenty of store-bought options out there. But have you ever priced matching family pajamas? I just can't justify spending $150+ on jammies. I mean, I'm serious about embarrassing my children later with the photos, but not $150 serious.
So I'm finally thinking about it early enough this year that I'm going to make the jammies! Well, probably just pajama pants for everyone. I'm planning on solid color t-shirts for the tops. I may appliqué a little something on the shirts if I get the time (and we all know how easy it is to find extra time during the holidays). I've started with K's pants, because they're the smallest and therefore the quickest to finish!
I did the ol' make-a-pattern-from-an-existing-pair-of-pants thing. There's been discussion among the Oliver + S sew along peeps about using freezer paper for pattern pieces in order to avoid pinning. I've used freezer paper for my last couple of sewing projects and, oh my gosh, why didn't I start doing this earlier?
I added an inch and a half at the top for the waistband casing and another inch and a half at the bottom for hemming. I thought I was giving myself an extra wide hem. But when I tried them on her to check the length, I didn't end up having as much extra fabric as I was expecting. She hasn't worn those purple pants in a month or so and she must have had a growth spurt!
I'd like all these matching pants to last a few Christmases, so my plan was to make an extra wide hem that I could let down each year as needed. I also didn't completely sew the elastic casing closed. I don't think leaving this little opening makes a big difference, and this way it will be easier to adjust the waist in coming years.
Don't mind the too small shirt. As I mentioned before- growth spurt! She's also in a hurry to get them back off because this was right before bath, and she'd much rather be playing in the bath than posing for photos.
One pair down, three to go!
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Welcome to another Papertrey Ink blog hop! This month our theme is felt! I chose to make a scrapbook page which I haven't done in a while and a matching hair barrette.
First, the scrapbook page:
Here's a closeup of the felt embellishment in the corner:
I liked that custom embellishment, die cut with PTI's Beautiful Blooms II dies, so much that I decided to make a matching hair barrette.
Isn't she the cutest model? Yep, I agree. She is! :)
Thank you SO much for stopping by! I'd love to hear what you think!
Be sure to check out the other blog hop participants! Blog posts can be added until 11:00 PM Central Time tonight so be sure to check out Nichole's blog for an updated list!
Supplies (all PTI unless noted)
Stamps: Guide Lines II
Paper: Lemon Tart, Sweet Blush, White
Ink: Hawaiian Shores, Lemon Tart, Raspberry Fizz, Giverny Green Palette
Other: Felt, RF, HS & LT Buttons, Beautiful Blooms II Die, Ribbon, Cricut (for scalloped border), White DMC Floss, Pop Dots
White Felt, RF, HS & LT Buttons, Beautiful Blooms II Dies, White DMC Floss, Hair Clip, HS Satin Ribbon
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Rabbi Sharon Brous – a JWI Woman to Watch in 2009 – wrote an “On Faith” essay for the Washington Post this week about the role of inflammatory political language in last weekend’s shooting in Tucson.
“For two years we have watched as political leaders and members of the press have made incendiary rhetoric not the exception but the rule in Washington and around the country… Those who have been in politics from the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement and the most contentious years of the Vietnam War have warned us that they have never seen an America as dangerously divided as our country is today.”
JWI is an increasingly audible voice on Capitol Hill advocating for federal legislation that addresses domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, reproductive choice, economic security and gun violence. As leaders in the faith community, we work in coalition with secular and faith organizations, and we are proud to be a powerful force within the Jewish community. Please join our advocacy network and help make the world – and your community – a safer place.
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May 13, 2013
David G. Savage:
Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross :
Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same?
With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May:
Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.:
How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick:
Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar:
High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom:
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo:
Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.:
Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
Jewish World Review
May 9, 2007
/ 21 Iyar, 5767
The Really Big Story (Maybe)
One of the legacies of the O.J. Simpson saga was the discovery that a TV news division could garner huge ratings with blanket coverage of a Really Big Story, or RBS. ("Really Big Story" being a journalistic term meaning a story deemed capable of garnering huge ratings with blanket coverage). The RBS lesson has been adopted with a vengeance by the 24-hour cable news networks, and it continues to be an effective ratings tool.
However, the problem with relying on an RBS for elevated ratings is, what happens when there's no story deserving of that status? The answer is simple: you just decree that something is an RBS, and you cover it with ferocity until the next RBS comes along.
Of course, some stories actually merit extensive coverage, among them the recent horror at Virginia Tech and the 2001 terrorist attacks. When those kinds of legitimate stories happen, they tend to knock the ersatz ones off the radar screen, most likely never to return. When I sat, stunned, with my wife watching the second jetliner slam into the World Trade Center, I remember saying two things to her. First, I said our lives would never be the same, and, second, we would probably never hear the name Gary Condit again. (Condit was the RBS prior to 9/11. Does anyone know the status of that story?)
I thought of this phenomenon when the latest copy of Newsweek arrived in the mail. It was printed too early to be able to feature the Virginia Tech story on the cover. Instead, there was Don Imus, the most recent media-driven RBS, and it felt as dated as if I were picking up a 1942 copy of The Saturday Evening Post. That's the trouble with a fake RBS; there's no shelf life. When it's hot, it's hot; when it's not, it's really not. (Though, in the case of Imus, his hiring by another media outlet could generate another round of 24-hour coverage.)
In a way, the phony RBS is a comfort. It means there's nothing terrible enough happening in the world to interrupt the saturation coverage of the missing girl in the Caribbean or the DNA tests on the offspring of dead celebrities. The downside, though, is much worse. Elevating a relatively minor story to RBS status removes all perspective and diminishes the import of stories that really deserve to be examined at length. It reduces news coverage to nothing more than an ongoing reality show; a circus where the center ring must always be filled, even if the acts are unworthy of the showcase.
It forces otherwise capable journalists to try to sell us on the validity of their coverage, even though they have to know better. It has allowed networks to superimpose the words "Breaking News" over a story that is not breaking, or perhaps not even news. It's a charade played by those who present the news and those of us who watch it. That's why it was excruciatingly jarring to CNN's Wolf Blitzer as he recently stood, looking somber, in his "Situation Room", only to have fellow anchor Jack Cafferty ask, "Well, Wolf, is Anna Nicole still dead?" For a moment, at least, the jig was up.
There will be another Really Big Story soon. For the sake of our world, let's hope it's the manufactured type. For the sake of journalism, let's hope it's not.
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JWR contributor Pat Sajak is the recipient of three Emmys, a Peoplesí Choice Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He's currently the host of Wheel of Fortune.
© 2007, Pat Sajak
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Frank J. Gaffney
Victor Davis Hanson
A. Barton Hinkle
Judge A. Napolitano
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Debra J. Saunders
J. D. Crowe
Ask Doctor K
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