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14873100
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1. Actuality of the work proposed.
1.1. Deuterium (2H), the hydrogen isotope with mass 2, was discovered by Urey. In the years immediately following this discovery, there developed a keen interest in a biological enrichment of a cell with 2H, which resulted in a miscellany of rather confusing data (Katz J., Crespy H. L. 1972). The main conclusion that can be derived from the most competent and comprehensive of the early studies is that high concentrations of 2H2O are incompatible with life and reproduction. Nevertheless, a many cells could be quite well adapted to 2H2O, so that a discussion about the role of macromolecules in biolodical adaptation to 2H2O is still actual through more than four decades of years after the first description of the biological consequences of hydrogen replacement by deuterium.
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http://www.o8ode.ru/article/eng/engl/
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14873101
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We work with many of the world’s largest financial services companies, and we have accumulated extensive expertise in Banking, Insurance, Market Infrastructure, Payments, Asset Management, Private Equity and Fintech. We create expertly-defined communications strategies that get to the heart of specific opportunities and challenges faced by financial services companies around the world. We have counselled corporations on protecting and enhancing their reputations over the long term, and have supported them through many of the most critical junctures in their history, including mergers and acquisitions, hostile defences, IPOs, capital raisings, leadership changes, governance matters, crises and responses to activist shareholders.
We understand the challenges of communicating in a highly regulated, heavily scrutinized and often volatile environment. Successfully communicating with all stakeholders, including the investment community, media, governments, regulators, employees, customers and society-at-large is a key component of creating trust and confidence. For some financial services players, today’s challenge is to redefine and rebuild reputation. For others, this is a time of significant opportunity.
We draw on the full range of communications capabilities to help our clients achieve critical corporate goals and address emerging issues. By helping our clients to define and articulate their purpose and narrative, we help them to build a long-term communications strategy that will resonate with all their key audiences.
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https://www.brunswickgroup.com/what-we-do/sectors/financial-institutions/
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14873102
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Normally, you can delete iCloud backups easily from an iOS device by tapping on “Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage. However, sometimes you may see an error message stating “cannot delete backup” when you try to delete your old iCloud backups.
How to Fix “Cannot Delete Backup” iCloud Error
First, you have to restart your device by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button until the red slider shows. Simply swipe the slide to turn off the device. To turn the device back on, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until you see the Apple Logo. After that, follow the steps below to resolve your issue.
Step 2: Go to settings again, iCloud > Storage >Manage Storage and then select your device backup that you cannot delete.
Step 3: You will see a spinning wheel (backup options) that shows that iCloud is busy performing an operation.
Step 4: Wait for some time say a few seconds until this wait cursor is gone.
Step 5: Now, try again to delete your backup.
Disadvantages of Old iCloud Backup on iPhone
Cannot delete iCloud Backup may lead to many inconvenient:
- Privacy: unauthorized persons can have access to your files since you are storing them to a third party.
- Storage: you have 5GB of free iCloud storage to store files. When you start having too many old iCloud backups, you may need more space and you will have to pay if you want more storage space.
- Slow transfer of large files: when you have too many old iCloud backups, you can start noticing that transferring large files will become really slow.
All in One Solution for iPhone & iCloud Storage Issues
If you want to create some free space on your iPhone or you want to make sure that all the private information and files are completely removed, then iMyFone Umate Pro will do that for you.
- 1- click free up space: This feature lets you delete all unwanted files from your device like hidden temporary & junks files, caches, large media files, Apps etc.
- Permanently erase iPhone data: It can conveniently destroy every data you need to be destroyed permanently, no data recovery tool can recovery these destroyed messages, call histories, contacts, photos, videos, WhatsApp messages & attachments etc.
How to Free up & Speed up iPhone using iMyFone Umate Pro?
Step 2: Choose the “junk files” option from the “1-Clock Free up Space” tab. Then click on the “Scan” button.
Step 3: After the scan is finished, you will see all the junk files that you need to delete. At this point, all you need to do is to click on the “Clean” button to start the cleanup.
As a powerful iPhone data eraser, iMyFone Umate Pro can do much more for your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch:
- Decrease photo storage: compress, export or mass delete multiple photos, with original photos be backed up on your PC.
- Deal with large files: export or mass delete all large files over 5MB on your iPhone.
- Manage Apps: list all apps installed for bulk deletion.
- Erase previously deleted files: erase deleted files to make them 100% unrecoverable, even with recovery software.
- Erase third-party App data: erase private data stored in WhatsApp, WeChat, Kik, Viber, SnapChat, Skype etc.
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https://www.imyfone.com/ios-data-erase/cannot-delete-icloud-backup-why-how-to-fix/
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14873103
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- 6 x 9.
- tables, figures.
Add to Cart
- $75.00 U.S.
Ballots of Tumult examines the dynamics of explosive and large-scale electoral change in the United States throughout the twentieth century. The case is made that electoral volatility, often overlooked, is nonetheless common to American politics. This conclusion runs counter to much of the conventional wisdom regarding stability in American politics.
Four types of electoral events are brought together to demonstrate the mass-based structure of electoral volatility: electoral realignments, the emergence of third parties, extensions of the franchise, and recurrent shocks to congressional mobilization. Among the historical episodes studied under these categories are the 1928-36 Roosevelt realignment, the Bull Moose and Populist parties, George Wallace's and John Anderson's presidential bids, the bizarre effects of doubling the electorate in 1920, and changes in African-American and white voting in the 1980s.
As well as testing formal theories of mass behavior, Ballots of Tumult also resolves such longstanding debates as whether new voters or partisan switchers voted for Roosevelt in the 1930s. It also shows that African-Americans have "long memories" with regard to voting against the Republican party, and that changes in the national economy affect congressional voting among separate subgroups in teh population in dramatically different ways.
To support this unconventional and provocative thesis Courtney Brown has used a large and newly organized set of electoral and census data. As well, new and sophisticated analyses of dynamic data using numerically intensive techniques are used to support Ballots of Tumult's claim of volatility. These pioneering methods of data analysis were recognized by IBM in the 1989 Supercomputing Competition. This unique analytical sophistication has allowed Courtney Brown to examine his subject from a broad and general perspective and so create new and challenging conclusions.
Chapter 1. Political Competition in a Volatile Electorate 1
Chapter 2. Concepts of Change 13
Chapter 3. An Algebra of Partisan Change 23
Chapter 4. Mass Dynamics of U.S. Presidential Competitions, 1928-36 45
Chapter 5. Third-Party Dynamics 79
Chapter 6. When Women Came to the Party 129
Chapter 7. Stability and Complexity in the Congressional Mobilization Cycle 149
Chapter 8. The Meaning of Volatility 193
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https://www.press.umich.edu/23411/ballots_of_tumult
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14873104
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UMD Hockey To Hold Equipment Sale
The University of Minnesota-Duluth Men's and Women's Hockey Teams are going to be holding an equipment sale in May for the public.
The defending National Championship Men's hockey team and the Bulldogs Women's hockey team will be selling equipment surplus on Wednesday, May 23rd from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM at the Amsoil Arena. You can access the sale from door 12 of the arena, which is across from the Great Lakes Aquarium.
This is a cool opportunity to get hockey equipment and team issued Bulldogs gear on the cheaper side. Things that will be sold during the sale include: New and used gloves, hockey sticks, goalie pads and team gear. Cash and credit card only will be accepted.
Not a bad deal if you can get some gear from the champs. Brand new hockey sticks can retail for up to $260 now, which is insane to think about. If there's a big bulldog hockey fan in the family, you could even get your Christmas shopping done early by stopping by!
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https://kool1017.com/umd-hockey-to-hold-equipment-sale/
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14873105
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GUWAHATI, June 18: Floods on Monday claimed two more lives in the State taking the death toll to 14 on the fifth day of the first spate of floods and accompanying landslides even as the water level of the mighty Brahmaputra saw a receding trend.
Despite the receding trend of water of the Brahmaputra, more areas have been inundated as many of the tributaries and rivers are still flowing the above the danger level. According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, the rivers Dhansiri, Barak, Kushihara and Katakhal are still flowing above the danger level.
The first spate of floods has badly affected six districts —Nagaon, Hojai, Golaghat, Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimgang. Even though there has been slight improvement of flood in central Assam, the situation in Barak Valley still remains grim. Floods claimed one life each in Cachar and Hailakandi district on Monday.
The total number of affected population has risen to 5,48,986 in 719 number of villages in six districts. Crop areas have been also affected in the floods in Nagaon and Morigaon districts. Altogether 1,59,652 inmates are currently staying at 225 relief camps and 212 relief distribution centres set up by the State Government in different districts.
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday took stock of the flood situation of Karimganj district and directed the Deputy Commissioner to speed up relief-and-rescue operations. Sonowal, while reviewing the flood situation, over phone also asked the DC to immediately release the one-time financial assistance to the family members of the flood victims. He laid stress on ensuring adequate relief to the inmates of flood relief camps and directed the Karimganj district administration to remain alert to tackle any situation.
On the other hand, normal running of train has been restored in Lumding-Badarpur and Badapur-Agartala sections after completion of restoration work following heavy landslides. But traffic is still suspended between Silchar and Badarpur as some portion of the railway track at Km 8/7-9/1 between Panchgram and Katakhal stations is still under flood water.
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https://www.sentinelassam.com/news/flood-fury-on-as-usual-this-time-too/
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14873106
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Check out Virgin Australia’s fabulous flight deals, starting from $79.
Has the holiday season left you exhausted and in need of a, erm, holiday? Set your sights to the sky and secure yourself one of Virgin Australia’s fabulous flight deals, to just about anywhere in Australia.
Virgin has dozens of flights on their Best Fares page – all you have to do is choose your destination and dates to find a great deal.
Some deals include:
Sydney to Gold Coast from $95
Sydney to Brisbane from $99
Sydney to Melbourne from $109
Melbourne to Launceston from $79
Melbourne to Sydney from $109
Melbourne to Adelaide from $115
Brisbane to Newcastle/Port Stephens from $89
Brisbane to Sydney from $99
Brisbane to Melbourne from $145
Find plenty more options flying out from most cities and towns at virginaustralia.com
Join YOURLifeChoices, it’s free
- Receive our daily enewsletter
- Enter competitions
- Comment on articles
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https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/travel/travel-deals/cheap-flights-in-australia-from-79
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14873107
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There are two, major assumptions people have when they discover you work as a legal prostitute. On one end of the spectrum, they think you have the most rockin’ job in the world—like some kind of giant, erotic vacation. On the other end, they hazard that your soul is empty, your mind numb, and your ability to feel, romantically and sexually, depleted.
What these people don’t understand is that being a prostitute is, after all, just another job, and a demanding one, at that. In the sense that you’re on call, it’s like being a doctor. I don’t freelance, so I’m not picking and choosing which clients to see or when to see them. I work at a brothel, so the clients come to see me when they want me. During the hours that I’m there, I’m fair game, and may have to attend to any number of “emergency” erectile situations (if we’re sticking with the doctor analogy).
That means that whenever a customer (a “John,” as you’ve surely heard them called) flips through the book with all of us working girls’ pictures in it when he arrives at the brothel and decides he likes me best, I have to drop whatever I’m doing to glue on my fake eyelashes (well, those are likely already on), swipe on some ruby lipstick, and spray some…well, no need to get rid of all the mystery.
When I put on that lipstick, heels, and lingerie, I’m also putting on my personality for the duration of the trick. No longer am I Kendra, a young woman trying to pay off student debt for her seemingly useless degree in art history—I’m Gemma, the kind of woman who’s always down for one more drink, one more mechanical bull ride, and one more round in the sack. Gemma looooves the size and shape of your penis, and she’ll tell it whatever it needs to hear to stay erect and achieve a climax as soon as humanly possible—depending on the gig, that is. If they’re paying by the hour, as opposed to a flat rate, Gemma can go real slow…
Another aspect of working in a brothel that’s just like any other job—and that might not have occurred to you—is the inevitability of lame co-workers. Just how Ted in the cubicle next to you doesn’t seem to bathe and always leans in way too close when he asks to borrow your tape five times a day (by the way, Ted is likely my client), I have a Nell who seems like she soaks daily in a tub of perfume, and she always laughs too loudly at our house mom’s jokes (sucking up to the boss) while turning around and acting the absolute bitch to everyone else.
Of course, some of my co-workers are lovely, and the good ones are how I get through the day. But my co-workers aren’t the only ones who help me with that. In fact, this may sound crazy, but a knitting circle—in other words, a group of religious grandmothers who like to knit together—come visit us every Sunday. They bring with them new scarves to keep us warm in the winter (though we work indoors, we do have to walk to and from work) and sometimes even freshly baked oatmeal cookies. Maybe they’re there to try and save us from going to hell, but they’ve become my friends in the eight months since I started working at the brothel. Mostly, I like what I do. I don’t love it (how many people can truly say that they love their jobs?), but I don’t hate it. I hate some days, I hate some clients, but ultimately, I’m just trying to pay next month’s rent. If some sweet, old ladies with knitting needles want to offer moral support while I do it, even better. – Kendra Klark
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http://brotheladvisor.com/news/just-another-job-things-you-might-not-have-guessed-about-being-a-legal-prostitute/
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14873108
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Not only was the late Lee Radziwill one of Martin Grant’s early supporters, the two developed a friendship that lasted more than 20 years. “She’s always a part of it somewhere,” the designer said during a showroom visit. “The test point became: Would she like it or not?” Radziwill never missed a show, and she would tell Grant exactly what she thought. “She went through every period, and she would wear them all—even Zandra Rhodes, if you can imagine,” he recalled.
Grant reckons Radziwill might have liked his ’60s-inflected white blouson with mirror leather trim for Fall. But overall he decided on a looser vibe. Take, for example, the reversible trench with black-and-white check on one side, bonded with a glossy russet coating on the flip side. “I wanted something that was a little more dynamic,” the designer explained. That same check returned on A-line skirts and in a cropped bomber. Further along, he decided to amp things up a bit, pairing a russet duchesse satin pantsuit with a violet sequined shell, or else showing that shimmering shell with a fuchsia pantsuit. Improbable as it sounds, it worked.
Grant is a poised, considered designer: His sharp suit shot through with Lurex is the kind of piece that never goes out of style. Ditto the wisp of an asymmetrical silver top. So it came as something of a surprise to see him working a harder, frankly impertinent edge. A handful of numbers with petrol-finish sequins were smart, sophisticated, and flattering; the shocker of a punch line came in a one-shoulder/one-leg catsuit. “It takes me back to Debbie Harry days,” the designer joked. Throw on that burgundy shearling coat and you’re ready to hit the town. Radziwill it was not. “She was always very positive, but would have found that one completely ridiculous,” Grant said with a laugh.
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https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2019-ready-to-wear/martin-grant
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14873109
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There appears to be a resurgence of sorts of the modern troubadour. the male singer/songwriter armed with only an acoustic guitar and the stories he weaves always teetering on the precipice between emotional authenticity and cloying sentimentality. The balance becomes even more precarious when you have pop leanings as the term “pop” has been severed from it’s root “popular” into something fleeting and vapid.
A well-crafted song defies genre. Whether it’s Sinatra’s I did It My Way or Willie Nelson’s Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, there’s a craftsmanship that transcends and a balanced symmetry of sound and word. These types of songs also used to fall under the moniker of pop because they were “popular” not because they were reminiscent of sugary confection.
New Jersey based Joe Whyte’s new (FREE!) release, When The Day Breaks, is a slice of pop-Americana that straddles territory settled in the 70’s by pioneers like Gordon Lightfoot and Stephen Stills and currently being reshaped by the likes of the Avett Brothers, Darrell Scott and Brice Robinson.
Rambling is the asphalt-hearted theme that runs through this release. The jangly channeling of Gram Parsons in the opener Please Believe Me portrays a sunny tempo belying the narrators compulsion to hit the road and not allow anyone to fence him. It’s a Shame with its Dobro yawn supplies a precisely suited accompaniment to reflect the dark dysfunction of a man destined to leave a caring woman knowing full well its the wrong thing to do,
This City is Alive has the narrator sit still in the City that Never Sleeps (sounding like a lost track from Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection) yet fights the urge to escape before it steals the person he’s finally discovered he is. Off to War is a different kind of leaving. A soldier being deployed wants more then anything to be home with his family and his solemn ache is the strongest testament against an unjust war.
Blending a pop songwriters instinct for precision and hook with the warmth and authenticity in storytelling that are the trademarks of folk and country Whyte rescues the much maligned genre and gives it beauty and depth.
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http://www.twangnation.com/2010/06/07/music-review-joe-whyte-when-the-day-breaks-bridge-tunnel-records/
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14873110
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How to Add
New Coin Acceptor Button
Inorder to help increase the longevity of our coin acceptors, we have introduced a new button feature to our coin acceptor installation. We add a temporary push button to the front of the coin box. In order to register a new coin the customer must press the button. This button then activates power to the coin acceptor. If the customer does not press the button the coin is return via the coin rejection slot. To install the button make a whole in the front of the cover and attach the red power supply wire to the button.
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https://www.limitedresources.us/push-button-upgrade.html
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14873111
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On Wednesday, June 14, the Fine Arts Guild offered a “Fun Afternoon of Art.” Sixteen Robson Ranchers produced a variety of colorful tote bags with Sharpie markers, alcohol and a plain tote bag after viewing two short YouTube videos and with guidance from one of the Guild members, Joann Bunyea. Although six participants were members of the Fine Arts Guild, 10 were Ranchers looking for an afternoon of art fun out of the heat. A few Grandmas thought the project would be good to do with their grandchildren. Even some of the Material Girls next door were interested in our project. We welcome anyone to drop by on Wednesday between 9:00 a.m. and noon and 1:00-4:00 p.m. this summer to check out our group. No artistic talent is needed to have fun in a variety of art mediums. Watch for more upcoming classes from the Fine Arts Guild. If you would like more information about the Fine Arts Guild contact Jillian Moon, co-president, at 805-705-0374.
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http://robsonranchviews.com/bring-sharpies-alcohol/
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14873112
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Tag Archives: runs
Tuomas Sandholm, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, is not a poker player—or much of a poker fan, in fact—but he is fascinated by the game for much the same reason as the great game theorist John von Neumann before him. Von Neumann, who died in 1957, viewed poker as the perfect model for human decision making, for finding the balance between skill and chance that accompanies our every choice. He saw poker as the ultimate strategic challenge, combining as it does not just the mathematical elements of a game like chess but the uniquely human, psychological angles that are more difficult to model precisely—a view shared years later by Sandholm in his research with artificial intelligence.
“Poker is the main benchmark and challenge program for games of imperfect information,” Sandholm told me on a warm spring afternoon in 2018, when we met in his offices in Pittsburgh. The game, it turns out, has become the gold standard for developing artificial intelligence.
Tall and thin, with wire-frame glasses and neat brow hair framing a friendly face, Sandholm is behind the creation of three computer programs designed to test their mettle against human poker players: Claudico, Libratus, and most recently, Pluribus. (When we met, Libratus was still a toddler and Pluribus didn’t yet exist.) The goal isn’t to solve poker, as such, but to create algorithms whose decision making prowess in poker’s world of imperfect information and stochastic situations—situations that are randomly determined and unable to be predicted—can then be applied to other stochastic realms, like the military, business, government, cybersecurity, even health care.
While the first program, Claudico, was summarily beaten by human poker players—“one broke-ass robot,” an observer called it—Libratus has triumphed in a series of one-on-one, or heads-up, matches against some of the best online players in the United States.
Libratus relies on three main modules. The first involves a basic blueprint strategy for the whole game, allowing it to reach a much faster equilibrium than its predecessor. It includes an algorithm called the Monte Carlo Counterfactual Regret Minimization, which evaluates all future actions to figure out which one would cause the least amount of regret. Regret, of course, is a human emotion. Regret for a computer simply means realizing that an action that wasn’t chosen would have yielded a better outcome than one that was. “Intuitively, regret represents how much the AI regrets having not chosen that action in the past,” says Sandholm. The higher the regret, the higher the chance of choosing that action next time.
It’s a useful way of thinking—but one that is incredibly difficult for the human mind to implement. We are notoriously bad at anticipating our future emotions. How much will we regret doing something? How much will we regret not doing something else? For us, it’s an emotionally laden calculus, and we typically fail to apply it in quite the right way. For a computer, it’s all about the computation of values. What does it regret not doing the most, the thing that would have yielded the highest possible expected value?
The second module is a sub-game solver that takes into account the mistakes the opponent has made so far and accounts for every hand she could possibly have. And finally, there is a self-improver. This is the area where data and machine learning come into play. It’s dangerous to try to exploit your opponent—it opens you up to the risk that you’ll get exploited right back, especially if you’re a computer program and your opponent is human. So instead of attempting to do that, the self-improver lets the opponent’s actions inform the areas where the program should focus. “That lets the opponent’s actions tell us where [they] think they’ve found holes in our strategy,” Sandholm explained. This allows the algorithm to develop a blueprint strategy to patch those holes.
It’s a very human-like adaptation, if you think about it. I’m not going to try to outmaneuver you head on. Instead, I’m going to see how you’re trying to outmaneuver me and respond accordingly. Sun-Tzu would surely approve. Watch how you’re perceived, not how you perceive yourself—because in the end, you’re playing against those who are doing the perceiving, and their opinion, right or not, is the only one that matters when you craft your strategy. Overnight, the algorithm patches up its overall approach according to the resulting analysis.
There’s one final thing Libratus is able to do: play in situations with unknown probabilities. There’s a concept in game theory known as the trembling hand: There are branches of the game tree that, under an optimal strategy, one should theoretically never get to; but with some probability, your all-too-human opponent’s hand trembles, they take a wrong action, and you’re suddenly in a totally unmapped part of the game. Before, that would spell disaster for the computer: An unmapped part of the tree means the program no longer knows how to respond. Now, there’s a contingency plan.
Of course, no algorithm is perfect. When Libratus is playing poker, it’s essentially working in a zero-sum environment. It wins, the opponent loses. The opponent wins, it loses. But while some real-life interactions really are zero-sum—cyber warfare comes to mind—many others are not nearly as straightforward: My win does not necessarily mean your loss. The pie is not fixed, and our interactions may be more positive-sum than not.
What’s more, real-life applications have to contend with something that a poker algorithm does not: the weights that are assigned to different elements of a decision. In poker, this is a simple value-maximizing process. But what is value in the human realm? Sandholm had to contend with this before, when he helped craft the world’s first kidney exchange. Do you want to be more efficient, giving the maximum number of kidneys as quickly as possible—or more fair, which may come at a cost to efficiency? Do you want as many lives as possible saved—or do some take priority at the cost of reaching more? Is there a preference for the length of the wait until a transplant? Do kids get preference? And on and on. It’s essential, Sandholm says, to separate means and the ends. To figure out the ends, a human has to decide what the goal is.
“The world will ultimately become a lot safer with the help of algorithms like Libratus,” Sandholm told me. I wasn’t sure what he meant. The last thing that most people would do is call poker, with its competition, its winners and losers, its quest to gain the maximum edge over your opponent, a haven of safety.
“Logic is good, and the AI is much better at strategic reasoning than humans can ever be,” he explained. “It’s taking out irrationality, emotionality. And it’s fairer. If you have an AI on your side, it can lift non-experts to the level of experts. Naïve negotiators will suddenly have a better weapon. We can start to close off the digital divide.”
It was an optimistic note to end on—a zero-sum, competitive game yielding a more ultimately fair and rational world.
I wanted to learn more, to see if it was really possible that mathematics and algorithms could ultimately be the future of more human, more psychological interactions. And so, later that day, I accompanied Nick Nystrom, the chief scientist of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center—the place that runs all of Sandholm’s poker-AI programs—to the actual processing center that make undertakings like Libratus possible.
A half-hour drive found us in a parking lot by a large glass building. I’d expected something more futuristic, not the same square, corporate glass squares I’ve seen countless times before. The inside, however, was more promising. First the security checkpoint. Then the ride in the elevator — down, not up, to roughly three stories below ground, where we found ourselves in a maze of corridors with card readers at every juncture to make sure you don’t slip through undetected. A red-lit panel formed the final barrier, leading to a small sliver of space between two sets of doors. I could hear a loud hum coming from the far side.
“Let me tell you what you’re going to see before we walk in,” Nystrom told me. “Once we get inside, it will be too loud to hear.”
I was about to witness the heart of the supercomputing center: 27 large containers, in neat rows, each housing multiple processors with speeds and abilities too great for my mind to wrap around. Inside, the temperature is by turns arctic and tropic, so-called “cold” rows alternating with “hot”—fans operate around the clock to cool the processors as they churn through millions of giga, mega, tera, peta and other ever-increasing scales of data bytes. In the cool rows, robotic-looking lights blink green and blue in orderly progression. In the hot rows, a jumble of multicolored wires crisscrosses in tangled skeins.
In the corners stood machines that had outlived their heyday. There was Sherlock, an old Cray model, that warmed my heart. There was a sad nameless computer, whose anonymity was partially compensated for by the Warhol soup cans adorning its cage (an homage to Warhol’s Pittsburghian origins).
And where does Libratus live, I asked? Which of these computers is Bridges, the computer that runs the AI Sandholm and I had been discussing?
Bridges, it turned out, isn’t a single computer. It’s a system with processing power beyond comprehension. It takes over two and a half petabytes to run Libratus. A single petabyte is a million gigabytes: You could watch over 13 years of HD video, store 10 billion photos, catalog the contents of the entire Library of Congress word for word. That’s a whole lot of computing power. And that’s only to succeed at heads-up poker, in limited circumstances.
Yet despite the breathtaking computing power at its disposal, Libratus is still severely limited. Yes, it beat its opponents where Claudico failed. But the poker professionals weren’t allowed to use many of the tools of their trade, including the opponent analysis software that they depend on in actual online games. And humans tire. Libratus can churn for a two-week marathon, where the human mind falters.
But there’s still much it can’t do: play more opponents, play live, or win every time. There’s more humanity in poker than Libratus has yet conquered. “There’s this belief that it’s all about statistics and correlations. And we actually don’t believe that,” Nystrom explained as we left Bridges behind. “Once in a while correlations are good, but in general, they can also be really misleading.”
Two years later, the Sandholm lab will produce Pluribus. Pluribus will be able to play against five players—and will run on a single computer. Much of the human edge will have evaporated in a short, very short time. The algorithms have improved, as have the computers. AI, it seems, has gained by leaps and bounds.
So does that mean that, ultimately, the algorithmic can indeed beat out the human, that computation can untangle the web of human interaction by discerning “the little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do,” as von Neumann put it?
Long before I’d spoken to Sandholm, I’d met Kevin Slavin, a polymath of sorts whose past careers have including founding a game design company and an interactive art space and launching the Playful Systems group at MIT’s Media Lab. Slavin has a decidedly different view from the creators of Pluribus. “On the one hand, [von Neumann] was a genius,” Kevin Slavin reflects. “But the presumptuousness of it.”
Slavin is firmly on the side of the gambler, who recognizes uncertainty for what it is and thus is able to take calculated risks when necessary, all the while tampering confidence at the outcome. The most you can do is put yourself in the path of luck—but to think you can guess with certainty the actual outcome is a presumptuousness the true poker player foregoes. For Slavin, the wonder of computers is “That they can generate this fabulous, complex randomness.” His opinion of the algorithmic assaults on chance? “This is their moment,” he said. “But it’s the exact opposite of what’s really beautiful about a computer, which is that it can do something that’s actually unpredictable. That, to me, is the magic.”
Will they actually succeed in making the unpredictable predictable, though? That’s what I want to know. Because everything I’ve seen tells me that absolute success is impossible. The deck is not rigged.
“It’s an unbelievable amount of work to get there. What do you get at the end? Let’s say they’re successful. Then we live in a world where there’s no God, agency, or luck,” Slavin responded.
“I don’t want to live there,’’ he added “I just don’t want to live there.”
Luckily, it seems that for now, he won’t have to. There are more things in life than are yet written in the algorithms. We have no reliable lie detection software—whether in the face, the skin, or the brain. In a recent test of bluffing in poker, computer face recognition failed miserably. We can get at discomfort, but we can’t get at the reasons for that discomfort: lying, fatigue, stress—they all look much the same. And humans, of course, can also mimic stress where none exists, complicating the picture even further.
Pluribus may turn out to be powerful, but von Neumann’s challenge still stands: The true nature of games, the most human of the human, remains to be conquered.
This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.
Image Credit: José Pablo Iglesias / Unsplash Continue reading
When Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, it may have seemed artificial intelligence had finally arrived. A computer had just taken down one of the top chess players of all time. But it wasn’t to be.
Though Deep Blue was meticulously programmed top-to-bottom to play chess, the approach was too labor-intensive, too dependent on clear rules and bounded possibilities to succeed at more complex games, let alone in the real world. The next revolution would take a decade and a half, when vastly more computing power and data revived machine learning, an old idea in artificial intelligence just waiting for the world to catch up.
Today, machine learning dominates, mostly by way of a family of algorithms called deep learning, while symbolic AI, the dominant approach in Deep Blue’s day, has faded into the background.
Key to deep learning’s success is the fact the algorithms basically write themselves. Given some high-level programming and a dataset, they learn from experience. No engineer anticipates every possibility in code. The algorithms just figure it.
Now, Alphabet’s DeepMind is taking this automation further by developing deep learning algorithms that can handle programming tasks which have been, to date, the sole domain of the world’s top computer scientists (and take them years to write).
In a paper recently published on the pre-print server arXiv, a database for research papers that haven’t been peer reviewed yet, the DeepMind team described a new deep reinforcement learning algorithm that was able to discover its own value function—a critical programming rule in deep reinforcement learning—from scratch.
Surprisingly, the algorithm was also effective beyond the simple environments it trained in, going on to play Atari games—a different, more complicated task—at a level that was, at times, competitive with human-designed algorithms and achieving superhuman levels of play in 14 games.
DeepMind says the approach could accelerate the development of reinforcement learning algorithms and even lead to a shift in focus, where instead of spending years writing the algorithms themselves, researchers work to perfect the environments in which they train.
Pavlov’s Digital Dog
First, a little background.
Three main deep learning approaches are supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning.
The first two consume huge amounts of data (like images or articles), look for patterns in the data, and use those patterns to inform actions (like identifying an image of a cat). To us, this is a pretty alien way to learn about the world. Not only would it be mind-numbingly dull to review millions of cat images, it’d take us years or more to do what these programs do in hours or days. And of course, we can learn what a cat looks like from just a few examples. So why bother?
While supervised and unsupervised deep learning emphasize the machine in machine learning, reinforcement learning is a bit more biological. It actually is the way we learn. Confronted with several possible actions, we predict which will be most rewarding based on experience—weighing the pleasure of eating a chocolate chip cookie against avoiding a cavity and trip to the dentist.
In deep reinforcement learning, algorithms go through a similar process as they take action. In the Atari game Breakout, for instance, a player guides a paddle to bounce a ball at a ceiling of bricks, trying to break as many as possible. When playing Breakout, should an algorithm move the paddle left or right? To decide, it runs a projection—this is the value function—of which direction will maximize the total points, or rewards, it can earn.
Move by move, game by game, an algorithm combines experience and value function to learn which actions bring greater rewards and improves its play, until eventually, it becomes an uncanny Breakout player.
Learning to Learn (Very Meta)
So, a key to deep reinforcement learning is developing a good value function. And that’s difficult. According to the DeepMind team, it takes years of manual research to write the rules guiding algorithmic actions—which is why automating the process is so alluring. Their new Learned Policy Gradient (LPG) algorithm makes solid progress in that direction.
LPG trained in a number of toy environments. Most of these were “gridworlds”—literally two-dimensional grids with objects in some squares. The AI moves square to square and earns points or punishments as it encounters objects. The grids vary in size, and the distribution of objects is either set or random. The training environments offer opportunities to learn fundamental lessons for reinforcement learning algorithms.
Only in LPG’s case, it had no value function to guide that learning.
Instead, LPG has what DeepMind calls a “meta-learner.” You might think of this as an algorithm within an algorithm that, by interacting with its environment, discovers both “what to predict,” thereby forming its version of a value function, and “how to learn from it,” applying its newly discovered value function to each decision it makes in the future.
Prior work in the area has had some success, but according to DeepMind, LPG is the first algorithm to discover reinforcement learning rules from scratch and to generalize beyond training. The latter was particularly surprising because Atari games are so different from the simple worlds LPG trained in—that is, it had never seen anything like an Atari game.
Time to Hand Over the Reins? Not Just Yet
LPG is still behind advanced human-designed algorithms, the researchers said. But it outperformed a human-designed benchmark in training and even some Atari games, which suggests it isn’t strictly worse, just that it specializes in some environments.
This is where there’s room for improvement and more research.
The more environments LPG saw, the more it could successfully generalize. Intriguingly, the researchers speculate that with enough well-designed training environments, the approach might yield a general-purpose reinforcement learning algorithm.
At the least, though, they say further automation of algorithm discovery—that is, algorithms learning to learn—will accelerate the field. In the near term, it can help researchers more quickly develop hand-designed algorithms. Further out, as self-discovered algorithms like LPG improve, engineers may shift from manually developing the algorithms themselves to building the environments where they learn.
Deep learning long ago left Deep Blue in the dust at games. Perhaps algorithms learning to learn will be a winning strategy in the real world too.
Image credit: Mike Szczepanski / Unsplash Continue reading
The causes of aging are extremely complex and unclear. But with longevity clinical trials increasing, more answers—and questions—are emerging than ever before.
With the dramatic demonetization of genome reading and editing over the past decade, and Big Pharma, startups, and the FDA starting to face aging as a disease, we are starting to turn those answers into practical ways to extend our healthspan.
In this article, I’ll explore how genome sequencing and editing, along with new classes of anti-aging drugs, are augmenting our biology to further extend our healthy lives.
Genome Sequencing and Editing
Your genome is the software that runs your body. A sequence of 3.2 billion letters makes you “you.” These base pairs of A’s, T’s, C’s, and G’s determine your hair color, your height, your personality, your propensity for disease, your lifespan, and so on.
Until recently, it’s been very difficult to rapidly and cheaply “read” these letters—and even more difficult to understand what they mean. Since 2001, the cost to sequence a whole human genome has plummeted exponentially, outpacing Moore’s Law threefold. From an initial cost of $3.7 billion, it dropped to $10 million in 2006, and to $1,500 in 2015.
Today, the cost of genome sequencing has dropped below $600, and according to Illumina, the world’s leading sequencing company, the process will soon cost about $100 and take about an hour to complete.
This represents one of the most powerful and transformative technology revolutions in healthcare. When we understand your genome, we’ll be able to understand how to optimize “you.”
We’ll know the perfect foods, the perfect drugs, the perfect exercise regimen, and the perfect supplements, just for you.
We’ll understand what microbiome types, or gut flora, are ideal for you (more on this in a later article).
We’ll accurately predict how specific sedatives and medicines will impact you.
We’ll learn which diseases and illnesses you’re most likely to develop and, more importantly, how to best prevent them from developing in the first place (rather than trying to cure them after the fact).
CRISPR Gene Editing
In addition to reading the human genome, scientists can now edit a genome using a naturally occurring biological system discovered in 1987 called CRISPR/Cas9.
Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9, the editing system was adapted from a naturally-occurring defense system found in bacteria.
Here’s how it works. The bacteria capture snippets of DNA from invading viruses (or bacteriophage) and use them to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays. The CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to “remember” the viruses (or closely related ones), and defend against future invasions. If the viruses attack again, the bacteria produce RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays to target the viruses’ DNA. The bacteria then use Cas9 to cut the DNA apart, which disables the virus.
Most importantly, CRISPR is cheap, quick, easy to use, and more accurate than all previous gene editing methods. As a result, CRISPR/Cas9 has swept through labs around the world as the way to edit a genome. A short search in the literature will show an exponential rise in the number of CRISPR-related publications and patents.
2018: Filled With CRISPR Breakthroughs
Early results are impressive. Researchers have used CRISPR to genetically engineer cocaine resistance into mice, reverse the gene defect causing Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in dogs, and reduce genetic deafness in mice.
Already this year, CRISPR-edited immune cells have been shown to successfully kill cancer cells in human patients. Researchers have discovered ways to activate CRISPR with light and use the gene-editing technology to better understand Alzheimer’s disease progression.
With great power comes great responsibility, and the opportunity for moral and ethical dilemmas. In 2015, Chinese scientists sparked global controversy when they first edited human embryo cells in the lab with the goal of modifying genes that would make the child resistant to smallpox, HIV, and cholera. Three years later, in November 2018, researcher He Jiankui informed the world that the first set of CRISPR-engineered female twins had been delivered.
To accomplish his goal, Jiankui deleted a region of a receptor on the surface of white blood cells known as CCR5, introducing a rare, natural genetic variation that makes it more difficult for HIV to infect its favorite target, white blood cells. Because Jiankui forged ethical review documents and misled doctors in the process, he was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $429,000 last December.
Coupled with significant ethical conversations necessary for progress, CRISPR will soon provide us the tools to eliminate diseases, create hardier offspring, produce new environmentally resistant crops, and even wipe out pathogens.
Senolytics, Nutraceuticals, and Pharmaceuticals
Over the arc of your life, the cells in your body divide until they reach what is known as the Hayflick limit, or the number of times a normal human cell population will divide before cell division stops, which is typically about 50 divisions.
What normally follows next is programmed cell death or destruction by the immune system. A very small fraction of cells, however, become senescent cells and evade this fate to linger indefinitely. These lingering cells secrete a potent mix of molecules that triggers chronic inflammation, damages the surrounding tissue structures, and changes the behavior of nearby cells for the worse. Senescent cells appear to be one of the root causes of aging, causing everything from fibrosis and blood vessel calcification to localized inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis to diminished lung function.
Fortunately, both the scientific and entrepreneurial communities have begun to work on senolytic therapies, moving the technology for selectively destroying senescent cells out of the laboratory and into a half-dozen startup companies.
Prominent companies in the field include the following:
Unity Biotechnology is developing senolytic medicines to selectively eliminate senescent cells with an initial focus on delivering localized therapy in osteoarthritis, ophthalmology, and pulmonary disease.
Oisin Biotechnologies is pioneering a programmable gene therapy that can destroy cells based on their internal biochemistry.
SIWA Therapeutics is working on an immunotherapy approach to the problem of senescent cells.
In recent years, researchers have identified or designed a handful of senolytic compounds that can curb aging by regulating senescent cells. Two of these drugs that have gained mainstay research traction are rapamycin and metformin.
Originally extracted from bacteria found on Easter Island, rapamycin acts on the m-TOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) pathway to selectively block a key protein that facilitates cell division. Currently, rapamycin derivatives are widely used for immunosuppression in organ and bone marrow transplants. Research now suggests that use results in prolonged lifespan and enhanced cognitive and immune function.
PureTech Health subsidiary resTORbio (which went public in 2018) is working on a rapamycin-based drug intended to enhance immunity and reduce infection. Their clinical-stage RTB101 drug works by inhibiting part of the mTOR pathway.
Results of the drug’s recent clinical trial include decreased incidence of infection, improved influenza vaccination response, and a 30.6 percent decrease in respiratory tract infection.
Impressive, to say the least.
Metformin is a widely-used generic drug for mitigating liver sugar production in Type 2 diabetes patients. Researchers have found that metformin also reduces oxidative stress and inflammation, which otherwise increase as we age. There is strong evidence that metformin can augment cellular regeneration and dramatically mitigate cellular senescence by reducing both oxidative stress and inflammation.
Over 100 studies registered on ClinicalTrials.gov are currently following up on strong evidence of metformin’s protective effect against cancer.
(3) Nutraceuticals and NAD+
Beyond cellular senescence, certain critical nutrients and proteins tend to decline as a function of age. Nutraceuticals combat aging by supplementing and replenishing these declining nutrient levels.
NAD+ exists in every cell, participating in every process from DNA repair to creating the energy vital for cellular processes. It’s been shown that NAD+ levels decline as we age.
The Elysium Health Basis supplement aims to elevate NAD+ levels in the body to extend one’s lifespan. Elysium’s first clinical study reports that Basis increases NAD+ levels consistently by a sustained 40 percent.
These are just a taste of the tremendous momentum that longevity and aging technology has right now. As artificial intelligence and quantum computing transform how we decode our DNA and how we discover drugs, genetics and pharmaceuticals will become truly personalized.
The next article in this series will demonstrate how artificial intelligence is converging with genetics and pharmaceuticals to transform how we approach longevity, aging, and vitality.
We are edging closer toward a dramatically extended healthspan—where 100 is the new 60. What will you create, where will you explore, and how will you spend your time if you are able to add an additional 40 healthy years to your life?
(1) A360 Executive Mastermind: If you’re an exponentially and abundance-minded entrepreneur who would like coaching directly from me, consider joining my Abundance 360 Mastermind, a highly selective community of 360 CEOs and entrepreneurs who I coach for 3 days every January in Beverly Hills, Ca. Through A360, I provide my members with context and clarity about how converging exponential technologies will transform every industry. I’m committed to running A360 for the course of an ongoing 25-year journey as a “countdown to the Singularity.”
If you’d like to learn more and consider joining our 2021 membership, apply here.
(2) Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital. Abundance-Digital is Singularity University’s ‘onramp’ for exponential entrepreneurs—those who want to get involved and play at a higher level. Click here to learn more.
(Both A360 and Abundance-Digital are part of Singularity University—your participation opens you to a global community.)
This article originally appeared on diamandis.com. Read the original article here.
Image Credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay Continue reading
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https://androidhumanoid.com/tag/runs/
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Aside from being a new author which means that no one has heard of you and isn’t listening because they haven’t heard of you, yet, you have the added drawback of not really knowing how to sell on the internet. As an author you will have to advertise, not just your book, but yourself, your talent. That’s where today’s market is buying – eBooks, iPads, Kindle, etc. gradually becoming the largest market for readers that need to find new books. That doesn’t mean you can’t sell paperbacks or hardbacks or both in addition to being active in the eBook market. Where do you start?
While talking about methods for promoting books and increasing sales on the internet recently, someone said to me that they would rather have a toothache than to have to learn more technology that will only change in a year. Common knowledge – technology is constantly changing and affecting what we have to learn to get anywhere, every day.
Fear of learning new technology shouldn’t stop you – its not what you need, what you need is not this ever changing scary code thing.
- You wrote a book and you want people to read it.
- Where are the people that want to buy books and read about authors hanging out?
- Where are they shopping for new books?
People don’t change as quickly as the internet and you are trying to sell to people that are using the same technology that you are! You do have to be aware of how the changing technology is affecting people’s trends and behaviors but all of the programs you use will have some kind of performance reporting tool that will help you with that. Yes, there are tools out there that will do most of the work and most of it is free.
Sample Marketing Plan:
- Identify your target audience. Who reads your genre?
- Where do they hang out? Make a list of websites that have large followings and connect readers with books based on genre, not authors.
- Open a twitter account and start following other authors, writers of all types, readers and anyone that shows up under #(your genre) and any other keywords you can put a hash tag in front of and see tweets that have them in it. (see twitter’s help pages to understand how to use hashtags to target specific followers) I personally recommend twitter, there are other social media platforms, choose what you like but don’t get caught up trying to manage an account on too many platforms.
- Grow your twitter following daily: reply, favorite and retweet other people’s tweets, look for people with similar interests as your own and connect with them, use the twitter “who to follow” tools. Never lose sight of this being a social media marketing tool – it only truly works if you are SOCIAL.
- Create your online presence – you need a website and/or blog site that tells who you are, what you write about and showcases your talents. Many authors also do blogging to accomplish this last and connect with readers. If you know a lot about the publishing steps, there’s your niche for writing articles on your blog site, for example. This is of key importance, readers want a personal connection with an author before they will spend money on their books. In other words, until your name is known, you must work on developing a following and getting your name recognized. Example, I own every Stephen King book in hardback though I didn’t enjoy every one of the books (most of them though) I am loyal to the author…you want this loyalty to be successful too.
- Use your twitter account to send tweets about your website, your books sales page and more than anything else, about other stuff, news headlines, a good movie you just watched, etc. No one wants to see sales ads over and over again on twitter and that will get you un-followed very quickly. Your focus is building a following that will be interested in you as a person and your book as reflection of your talent…not on selling cars by telling everyone all about them.
- Link your social media accounts and your website/blog site so that you are automating posting to some degree. For example, when I posted this article on the blog, WordPress automatically sent a tweet and a Facebook page update and sent an email to the blog’s followers, all at once, no work from me. However, I spend time every single day cultivating connections, making new friends and tweeting real responses to others – the actual social effort must be there and must not be automated.
- Search for and contact legitimate book reviewers and author interviewers. If you scroll through their book reviews and find all 5 star, icky sweet reviews, RUN! You need to have your book reviewed and that review published on your sales page (Amazon, Smashwords, etc.) by the reviewer as many times as you can. The legitimate ones tend to be booked weeks, even months out and that is ok. Get on their list and in time it will pay off.
Your question was “where do I start”, right? You start by creating an online presence and getting your name out there. Selling will come later and will start right under your nose without you having to learn car salesmen skills.
- Do what you do naturally at social events, among friends and people with similar interests, just do it online and do it consistently.
- Don’t pass up little opportunities to have real conversations with authors and readers alike and don’t ignore what the people you will start meeting through social networking are saying. Other authors are going to talk about and demonstrate the use of online tools that are working for them and try to sell you stuff.
- Try everything that interests you, but don’t spend a penny on any kind of internet product or tool without a free trial and proven results. Then make sure your cost is similar to other providers and you don’t pay too much. Also, some services will offer multiple options and you can use one account to manage several aspects of your campaigns. Always look for the free versions first!
- Feedback from other people doing the same things will be useful, don’t get excited and drawn in, research things carefully and make sure it fits you. Too many authors are caught up in self-promotion and do nothing else. This is not effective marketing.
You need to start by making your name known, becoming known for being talented through your online presence, site content and book reviews and by consistently demonstrating that you are more than a sales machine only interested in selling books.
- Twitter.com – of course. Who isn’t on twitter? Make sure you offer interesting tweets and lots of variety…people should want to see your daily activity, quotes, links, quips, jokes, etc. – Related article – Using Twitter to Find New Readers for Your Book (faymoore.wordpress.com)
- Hootsuite.com – manages multiple social networks, has reporting and a scheduling program that lets you schedule tweets and posts to any connected social networks in bulk – $9.99 a month
- justUnfollow.com – the free version lets you set up automatic reply DMs to new followers, unfollow and follow to synch up and a few other things – FREE
- wordpress.com – obviously, my favorite blogging tool
- webs.com – of all the free website services, their FREE version has the least obtrusive domain name requirements and the easiest to use tools for creating your site. It can be a little quirky but compared to the many other sites I tried…well, I’ve used webs.com since 2005 and use to sell web design services creating sites on there for local businesses on the side
- Office.com – I actually saved money and took care of two problems, my new laptop didn’t have Microsoft programs on it ($199 retail value) and I had already gone through the expense of having to pay someone to recover all my files off my old laptop when it crashed, didn’t want to do that again. Needed “cloud storage” to make sure I never loose my files again and have the bonus of accessing them from anywhere I can sign onto email. For $9.99 per month I have the cloud storage, completely mobile files, automatic file syncing and all of the office programs I needed.
- Goodreads – this is a great place to meet readers and other authors, also looking for readers. The library is great, has events tools, social based and is FREE. – Related article – Goodreads – the #1 Choice for Authors by Doris-Maria Heilmann with 111Publishing (thelindenchronicles.com)
- OPB – Other People’s Blogs and if you start typing that in your URL address, you can stop and giggle now, nobody is looking. You should be visiting other people’s blogs and Following all of the ones that interest you and have something in common with your goals, genre, etc. as well as commenting. Comments should be intelligent, relevant and non-promotional. You will increase your realm of influence and followers doing this and meet some wonderful people. Hmmm…big part of becoming known!
- 5 Online Marketing Strategies for a Tight Budget (entrepreneur.com)
- Five Book Marketing Ideas That Will Sell Your Book By Hae Debenham (louisefindlaybooks.wordpress.com)
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https://authorshelpingauthors.wordpress.com/marketing/selling-my-book-where-do-i-start/
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Muslims should avoid families that raise ‘haram’ (illegitimate) money earned from a banking job and instead look for a “pious” family while considering marriage proposals, according to a fatwa issued by Darul Uloom Deoband.
The prominent Islamic seminary was responding to a query from a person in which he had stated that he had a few proposals for marriage from families where the father earned money from a banking job in India.
“Obviously, the family is raised on ‘haram’ money. Is it preferable to marry in such families?” he had sought to know from the fatwa section of Darul Uloom (Darul Ifta).
In its reply, the seminary’s fatwa said, “Marrying in such a family is avoidable and not preferable. Those who are nourished with ‘haram’ (illegitimate) wealth usually they are not good in respect to instinct and morals. Hence, it should be avoided. One should find out a match in some pious family.”
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http://kashmirnarrator.com/look-pious-family-considering-marriage-proposals/
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Today, companies have a big quantity of data at their disposal. If utilized effectively and correctly, such data can be of top-notch help for making correct decisions and avoiding terrible mistakes in marketing and branding domains. Some approaches an enterprise can follow to use the information to gain a competitive edge in the market are listed below:
Investment of Funds
The success and failure of campaigns enable organizations to understand whether or not it is an effective investing budget in similar activities. For example, an event may do wonders if it’s attended by the right audience. When a product is promoted to uninterested people, the campaign will be a failure, irrespective of the exceptional attributes of the product. The information on the profile of site visitors and the corresponding conversions will throw light on whether the company should invest assets in similar campaigns and activities or not.
Product Launching Strategy
There are several methods of launching a new product in the marketplace. The company may prepare a massive event, get the endorsements done by celebrities, or conduct a press conference. By studying the information of previous campaigns, one might also decide the best way of communicating the benefits and advantages of the product to the target audiences and reporters.
Download Branding Resources Guide
Building a brand starts by having the right tools and advice. Download our top 10 essential tools and resources to kick-start your branding.
The various tools for advertising include PR, social media, paid advertising, and many more. With the help of the information about the number of clicks, the number of shares, likes, & followers on social media websites, internet visitors, and subsequent conversions one may effectively find out the most feasible channel for accomplishing advertising and marketing activities, and accordingly set a budget for each of the channels. The company may additionally increase or decrease the finances based on the overall performance of the various mediums of advertising and marketing.
Deciding the spokesperson of the company
The spokesperson serves as the face and the voice of a business enterprise. While in maximum instances, the CEO speaks on behalf of the company at primary activities, Sometimes, other technical or product managers may also play the role of the company representative. The decision of selecting the proper spokesperson may additionally rely on the anticipated questions of the media outlets. If the data indicates that the media aims to cover the financial scenario of the organization, then the CEO would be the best person for the process.
Understanding of the Customer’s Needs
Data Analysis enables the organizations to gain insight into how much progression or regression their overall performance is showing. It additionally facilitates a higher understanding of the customer’s needs and requirements. Learning about customers’ necessities and behavior will open new doors for effective marketing. Companies can come up with innovations by keeping in mind their customers’ viewpoints. Data Analysis will help the company to gain insights properly and thus effectively lower the risk of business.
Companies that keep aside a huge amount of budget for advertising purposes must ensure that they take the effective and efficient strategies. In such instances, it becomes imperative for organizations to take the help of PR firms to decide the most feasible solution by analyzing data.
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https://altitudebranding.com/how-data-analysis-helps-in-making-smart-marketing-decisions/
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Our company maintains several trees of hardened Linux kernels with extended functionality for scheduling, networking, and storage (we pretty much have our own Arch distro). While our primary efforts focus on development atop Grsecurity kernels, we maintain a parallel tree using the GrapheneOS kernel patches (linux-hardened) for distribution to clients who do not acquire Grsecurity patches from Open Source Security Inc. During out internal work on VyOS we've incorporated all of the out-of-tree kmods and patches directly into the kernel source - ixgbe, qat, stackable FS changes, etc. We have extracted these efforts along with applicable other patches to use in VyOS which provide:
- xtables-addons in-tree: iptables modules for geoip, tarpit, etc
- PF_RING in-tree: this can underpin NIDS traffic collection and other direct-access network functions
- LVS patches: http://ja.ssi.bg/
- IPoE in-tree: VyOS patch adapted for 5.4 tree
5: VLANmon in-tree: VyOS patch adapted for 5.4 tree
6: WireGuard official in-tree backport
7: AUFS5 to permit complex overlays without the efficiency issues of overlayfs
8: EoIP protocol driver in-tree: support MikroTik L2 tunneling protocol
9: UKSM in-tree for userspace memory dedup: this will be very handy once Dockers are being run in VyOS (we use systemd-nspawn today to do things like run Duo's authproxy, works great)
10: Inotify VyOS patch adapted for 5.4
11: RT6 link filter VyOS patch adapted for 5.4
12: Linux-Hardened: ASLR patches, some community backports from grsec, reduces privileged access vectors, hardens and fixes type issue on certain structures and data types, etc. Basically makes the OS-tier harder to attack, its no grsec, but its IS better than upstream. Can also theoreticaly work with LTO+CFI with Clang, though we use GCC in-house to take advantage of RANDSTRUCT and such (custom kernels which aren't distributed gain decent standoff from this, distro kernels benefit too, though less).
13: If desired, we can also push up our linux-hardened + RSBAC patch to provide full-fledged RBAC implementation on vanilla/hardened kernels.
Once this is done, we will upstream implementation of Hardened Malloc from https://github.com/GrapheneOS/hardened_malloc to help tighten up userspace memory defenses (we run it on our images, for a while now, no issues there).
None of this will make your system impervious, but memory corruption attacks will be harder (a lot harder remotely), same for privesc, and actual network defensive capabilities using XTables (geoip firewall rules are handy).
We tend to track LTS' so can support this work ongoing with minimal overhead if VyOS sticks to those kernels, or if we have to support yet another tree, we can work with the VyOS team to transfer knowledge and share maintenance costs for the effort.
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https://phabricator.vyos.net/T2884
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Plants perennial or annual; tufted or cespitose, sometimes stoloniferous, perennial species sometimes rhizomatous. Culms 5-250 cm, erect or decumbent; nodes usually villous or pilose, particularly the upper nodes. Sheaths open, glabrous or pilose, lower sheaths often glabrous basally and pilose distally, margins sometimes villous or pilose, upper sheaths often glabrous even if the lower sheaths are pilose; ligules 0.5-5 mm, membranous, lacerate or ciliate. Inflorescences terminal, spikelike panicles of reduced, disarticulating branches, exceeding the upper leaves; branches with 3 spikelets, appressed to the rachises, bases straight, seated in a ciliate, cuplike structure, sometimes with a 0.5-2 mm callus, calluses pilose, axes not extending past the distal florets; disarticulation at the base of the branches, leaving the zig-zag rachises. Lateral spikelets of each branch shortly pedicellate, with 1-4(5) sterile or staminate florets; glumes almost as long as the florets, deeply cleft into 2 or more lobes, with 1 or more dorsal awns; lemmas membranous, hyaline. Central spikelets sessile, with 1 pistillate or bisexual floret; glumes shorter than the florets, rigid, indurate and fused basally, apices with 2 or more lobes; lemmas membranous, awned or unawned. x = 9. Named for Auguste François César Prouvençal de St.-Hilaire (1779-1853), a French explorer, botanist, and entomologist.
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https://www.intermountainbiota.org/portal/taxa/index.php?tid=4376&clid=2584&pid=1&taxauthid=1
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14873118
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Are We Living Sacrifices?
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.Romans 12:1
What does it mean that we offer our bodies as living sacrifices while Galatians 5:1 tells us that we are set free by Christ? Evidently when we offer ourselves as God’s servants, the blessings we receive enable us to overcome the world and to be free in Christ.
Being a living sacrifice for the Lord is a blessing because the Lord molds us to be the person he created us to be. Most people in the world live by Satan’s lies, but when we surrender to the Lord he changes us to live by the truth. We will actually see the person God created us to be.
When we sacrifice our lives to the Lord, we give the Lord priority in our lives. He renews our minds and changes our hearts to model Jesus and serving the Lord becomes the driving force in our lives. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord (Romans 12:11). When we surrender to the Holy Spirit he will guide us into ministry reflecting God’s love to others. This changes our hearts and motivates us to reach out to lost souls. This increases the fire in our souls, freeing us from ourselves and bringing us closer to God. We find that our souls are filled with more love, peace, joy, confidence, and contentment.
This is a continuous, ongoing process that gives us a better life until we draw our last breath and we enter the perfection of eternal life. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). There is freedom and blessing when we sacrifice our sinful nature and live for Christ. When we trust the Lord he provides for our needs. He provides for our spiritual needs and growth, protects our souls from the evil one, and provides for our physical needs. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one (2 Thessalonians 3:3). But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33).
Giving our bodies as living sacrifices and becoming the Lord’s servants frees us from the world. Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 John 5:4). Through faith in the Lord we overcome the world, meaning we are not controlled by the world but by the Spirit, giving us freedom in Christ. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). The Lord’s servants live by faith and we are free in Christ because we are no longer in bondage to the world.
Today, live as the Lord’s servants, sacrificing yourself for His service. It pleases the Lord when you put him first in your life, and the result is spiritual and physical blessings. Depend on the Lord and call on Him for guidance throughout the day because he is eager and willing to guide you through the Spirit to do his will.
Let’s Pray: Lord, help me to sacrifice my body and soul and live for your good, pleasing and perfect will. Guide me to always give you priority in my life and to overcome Satan’s temptations to become my own god. In Jesus’ name, Amen
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https://www.eternalwalk.com/are-we-living-sacrifices/
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14873119
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Halcyon Days, Agama Deep Cobalt & Gold Hinged Bracelet
Elegantly simple, the Agama hinged bangle is one of Halcyon's most popular designs. Featuring a deep cobalt base with opulent, 18ct gold plated rims and inlay, this exquisite piece looks fabulous on its own or when stacked, layered and styled with other statement bangles.
- Comes in Halcyon jewelry pouch and gift box
- Polished enamel bangles feature a hinged closure.
- One size fits all - 10 mm wide
- Imported from Great Britain
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https://aubongoutboutique.com/products/halcyon-days-sale-agama-deep-cobalt-gold-hinged-bracelet
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14873120
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Vintage Mid-Century American Of Martinsville King Headboard
King Size Danish Style Bookcase Headboard
Out of stock
This item is no longer available
We’re offering yet another fabulous vintage Mid-Century furnishing from the American Of Martinsville Furniture Co. This was part of a set that we acquired when we purchased the “Dania” Series (pieces posted individually). The set was originally purchased in the 1950’s and holds true to be a very desirable style today! I can imagine that this king headboard will be the focal point in your bedroom! This features two sliding doors that glide across the entire front face. Tucked away behind the doors is plenty of storage space, a perfect spot for books, alarm clock, remotes and much more! This is all original and the cane fronts reflect a clean Danish style that is still very popular among mid-century enthusiasts.
American Of Martinsville furniture was built with great craftsmanship. They used oak as their secondary wood on the interior of pieces, and walnut as their primary wood, although they were known to use Cherry as well. When you buy an American Of Martinsville piece, you’re purchasing a quality name brand. It blends well among the modern designs of today. You will find yourself wanting to acquire another. Don’t forget, these are pieces that only go up in value over time.
Cosmetically, you can expect some minor age-related wear on the exterior finish, nothing to detract from the overall appearance. This has been thoroughly inspected, cleaned and conditioned. The structure is solid, everything is intact. The doors glide with ease and no breaks are present (we can provide the metal bedframe).
77.75” Wide x 9” Deep x 36” Tall
Shipping costs are not included in the purchase price. We are happy to assist with a shipping quote once a zip code is provided. Please do not purchase until the shipping arrangements have been discussed. All shipping funds are to be paid to the shipper.
Amazing Items, Wonderful People
We purchased several pieces of furniture, and some smaller items. Everything was just as described, and transported to us safely! They even hung out for a while and helped us put things together! Amazing items, and wonderful people! - Tara and DeWayne Keating
Eye for Detail
My husband and I are always on the hunt for some great mid-century modern pieces for our home, and many of our best finds have been through Shelley! Her eye for detail, while keeping the mid-century modern simplicity in mind, is right on point! Always. Their love for finding a diamond in the rough and turning it
The Most Fabulous Finds
Iconic Mid Mod Décor & Restoration has the most fabulous finds! We started with one piece and quickly became hooked! Their pieces are fabulous, however, what really sells them is Matthew and Shelley. The craftsmanship they put into their pieces — along with their dedication to excellent customer service — keeps me coming back for more. The attention to detail, advice, searching for special items, shipping, and delivery makes purchasing these special items so easy. Excellent customer service, quality work, and beautiful items are the standard. Absolutely love everything we have from them!!! — Lauron
A Brilliant Eye
Shelley and Matt are Amazing
Shelley and Matt are amazing! They are very professional to work with and always find amazing pieces that compliment our home. We’ve purchased several pieces of furniture from them and each piece has been in great condition and we’ve never had any issues with the items. They are very accommodating in meeting to view an item and for pick-up. The Briggs’ are the go-to team for anything mid-mod! – Jeff
It will be our pleasure to help you find your next vintage or mid-century piece.
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https://iconicmidmoddecor.com/shop/bedroom/vintage-mid-century-american-of-martinsville-king-headboard/
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14873121
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I have been shooting my whole life, however I am coming to realize that:
1. My equipment is WAY out of date
2. I can shoot well, but don't know too much about all the different tech (I have always shot a slow bow with low end arrows)
3. I am looking to do a pretty big upgrade, but...
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https://www.archerytalk.com/tags/oh-crap/
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14873122
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Dr. Feist is Board Certified by the American Board of Podiatric medicine. He is a native of Cincinnati's Westside, a 1983 graduate of LaSalle High School, a 1986 graduate of Miami University and a 1990 graduate of the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. He completed his surgical residency at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN.
Dr. Feist has been practicing in Bridgetown for over 20 years. "I grew up on Cincinnati's Westside and I enjoy living and working among friends, family, and neighbors."
Dr. Feist finds it very satisfying to diagnose and treat a patient, returning them to pain-free activities. "Your foot health is always a a good indicator of your overall general health". Patients are often surprised to learn that foot pain is not normal and it can be treated and cured.
Dr. Feist is on staff at the following hospitals: Jewish, Christ, Bethesda, Mercy Fairfield, and Mercy West. He is an attending teacher in the Jewish Hospital Surgical Residency program. "I enjoy teaching and learning with the residents. The interaction keeps me up to date on the latest procedures and techniques".
Dr. Feist is married with four children, three boys and one girl. He is an active member of St. Ignatius Parish where he has coached basketball and baseball for several years and stays active playing basketball and softball.
Dr. Feist's love of sports and activities has influenced his practice with special interest in sports medicine, surgery, exercise, and diabetes. "I like my office to have a warm, family and friendly feel where patients are comfortable to receive the best medical care".
Dr. Feist's office is located in Bridgetown.
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http://www.choicepodiatry.com/dr-jay-t-feist/
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14873123
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AGAIN----THEY ARE CALLING ALL OF THIS REPRESSIVE HEALTH POLICY OBAMACARE AND MAKING IT SEEM PROGRESSIVE WHEN THE GOALS ARE MAXIMIZING HEALTH INDUSTRY PROFITS USING WINNING AT ANY COST NEO-LIBERAL POLICY.
These microchip technologies have good applications. There are people who would want to have this kind of individualized medical oversight------the aging patient who forgets to take meds for example-----the chronically ill who worry about taking meds late or under the wrong biochemical conditions in their bodies. If this was not the age of global corporate neo-liberalism controlling our government----anything goes with no oversight and accountability----then we could see working these microchip technologies into health care in a responsible way.
KILLING HIPPOCRATIC OATH KILLS RESPONSIBLE HEALTH CARE.
I want to begin by outing that all of this BIOTech health policy that once functioned in the confines of REAL clinical trials that actually looked out for the welfare of people-----are now totally controlled by people working only to move products to market and maximize profits who fight any attempts at oversight and accountability. This means----WHAT IS COMING OUT OF CORPORATE UNIVERSITY BIOTECH FACILITIES WILL NOT BE GOOD SCIENCE-----
I worked in medical research for a few decades----I know the processes. For example, I worked in the development of PCR technology and biomarkers. I was part of prostate cancer treatment by biotechnology. Now, almost all of this was funded by Federal NIH and NCI funding and yet----they are patenting these processes and have used them far beyond the time professional data was proving them ineffective. We heard the same mantra----the development costs for these medical procedures must be recouped. So, the process in place under Clinton neo-liberals and Republicans under deregulation and no oversight and accountability is to allow medical products to market with little testing to recoup development costs and to monitor symptoms and efficacy on the general population.
Below you see how complex clinical trials have been----all of this trial system is being dismantled as too costly-----and we will not have data that tell us a medical procedure or process does not work---they will only release data that sells the idea that this product helps.
Long-Term Trial Results Show No Mortality Benefit from Annual Prostate Cancer Screening
New data from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) randomized screening trial show that, after 13 years of follow up, men who underwent annual prostate cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing and digital rectal examination (DRE) had a 12 percent higher incidence of prostate cancer than men in the control group but the same rate of death from the disease. No evidence of a mortality benefit was seen in subgroups defined by age, the presence of other illnesses, or pre-trial PSA testing. The results were published January 18, 2012, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
When the PLCO researchers published their initial prostate screening results in 2009, which also revealed no prostate cancer mortality or overall mortality benefit from annual screening, critics countered that participants had not been followed long enough to detect a difference in prostate cancer mortality, if one existed.
“The natural history of prostate cancer is so long that 10 to 15 years of follow up is usually the window we look for” when determining the effectiveness of a screening intervention, explained first author Gerald Andriole, M.D., who is chief urologic surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and the Washington University School of Medicine.
The persistent increase in incidence of prostate cancer in the screening arm of the study may indicate that regular screening can lead to overdiagnosis—finding tumors that never would have caused symptoms or death. “Even if there was just a tiny mortality benefit [from prostate cancer screening], overdiagnosis wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t hurt people. But we do hurt people by finding a lot of trivial cancers that are most often overtreated,” explained Dr. Andriole.
The PLCO began in 1993 and enrolled men through mid-2001. More than 38,000 men were randomly assigned to annual screening for 6 years (including DRE for the first 4 years and PSA testing for all 6), and the same number of men were assigned to usual care.
Because prostate cancer screening is so common, more than half of the participants in the control arm underwent at least one prostate cancer screening test outside the trial. This contamination made it more difficult to determine whether annual testing affected mortality. However, “the level of screening in the intervention arm was substantially greater than that in the control arm throughout the trial screening period,” wrote the authors.
“Every time we screened [in the intervention arm] we got a bump of excess cases,” said Philip Prorok, Ph.D., a lead NCI investigator on the study. “What we can’t say for sure is whether we would have seen more of an effect on mortality had there been absolutely no screening in the control arm.”
Another recent large trial, called the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer, did report a mortality benefit for prostate cancer screening. Although that trial had less contamination in the control arm, it had other limitations that could bias the results, such as differences in the treatments given to men in the screening and control arms.
To help reconcile the differing results from these two trials—the largest trials to date of organized prostate cancer screening—an effort is under way by the NCI-funded Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) to use mathematical modeling to tease out how differences in the trial designs and populations may have contributed to the disparate trial results, explained Paul Pinsky, Ph.D., an NCI investigator on the PLCO trial and consultant to the CISNET project.
“Even though the results seem to be disparate, because one [trial] found a [statistically] significant protective effect [on prostate cancer mortality] and one didn’t, it could be because of the ways the trials were designed and carried out,” he said. The CISNET study began in 2011 and is examining data from the two trials.
Men and their health providers agree that a more definitive answer is needed as doctors and policy makers seek to understand which, if any, men may benefit from routine prostate cancer screening. In October 2011, the United States Preventive Services Task Force released new draft guidelines for prostate cancer screening for public comment. The new draft guidelines, which are based in part on PLCO findings, recommend against routine PSA testing in men who do not have prostate cancer symptoms.
Some doctors think the new recommendations go too far in not accounting for the informed decisions of individual men. “If prostate cancer constitutes a continuum of disease and its overdiagnosis and overtreatment are mainly limited to low-grade disease, then instead of completely eliminating the potential benefits of screening along with the risks, why not consider managing low-risk patients differently?” asked Jeri Kim, M.D., and John W. Davis, M.D., of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in a commentary published December 28, 2011, in JAMA.
Practice appears to be moving in this direction, with a greater emphasis on active surveillance instead of immediate treatment for some men who have prostate cancer that is thought to be at low risk of progressing. A big advance, explained Dr. Andriole, would be the ability to predict, even before a biopsy, whether a man with an elevated PSA level is likely to have an aggressive versus a nonaggressive cancer.
“There’s a lot of effort now being put into this, and not just for prostate cancer, but for a lot of other cancer types as well,” added Dr. Prorok. “If we diagnose someone with symptoms, or you find something on a screening test, can we eventually find a way to determine for which individuals the cancers are in fact aggressive and need more aggressive treatment, versus some that need less aggressive treatment or don’t need any treatment at all?”
Researchers are looking for biomarkers, including genes and proteins, that may give clues to a cancer’s aggressiveness. “If we could selectively change our criteria for biopsy such that only men who are at high risk for aggressive cancer get biopsied, we might be able to substantially shift the overall risk/benefit [ratio] of screening,” said Dr. Andriole.
- Posted: February 17, 2012
- This is a long article but if you glance through you will see what is an industry being built and released to the public BEFORE all of the foundation principles are identified and validated. These medical processes are now structured like computer technology where the drive is to roll out one product after the other with no research as to whether it is a positive value for society or if these technologies will be used for the public good. THERE IS NO ETHOS OR MORAL DISCUSSION HAPPENING AT ALL. Social democratic principles built all that oversight and accountability and a clinical trial structure that made sure all sides of medical advancement were studied-----Clinton neo-liberals and Republicans deregulated and dismantled all this because the goal is to get new products to market....bad effects will be mitigated with money payoffs as always.
The most blaring issues raised by this article and it is the number 1 reason people do not like Federal funding and public health involved in all this-----IT IS VERY COSTLY BECAUSE IT TARGETS SPECIFIC GENETIC CHARACTERISTICS THAT MAKE EACH TREATMENT UNIQUE TO A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE. INDIVIDUALIZED MEDICINE WILL ONLY BE AFFORDED BY AFFLUENT PEOPLE WITH THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF PRIVATE INSURANCE.
Fast forward to BIOTech facilities tied to mostly Ivy League universities geared to global health tourism. Meanwhile, over 80% of Americans are being tied to these telemedicine-----microchip level of care. THE ENTIRE PROCESS IS BACKWARDS BEING BUILT FOR VERY FEW. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that these techologies will be made main stream and be given over and over again earning billions of dollars for corporations and then we will see the data that shows most of those tests proved/improved nothing. This is because they are not taking the time to develop the basic science.
MEANWHILE, LAW FIRMS TIED TO MEDICAL MALPRACTICE HAVE CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS SOARING FOR BAD MEDICINE----THEY EVEN HAVE THIS CATEGORY----BAD MEDICINE.
Biotechnol Healthc. 2004 May; 1(2): 37–41. PMCID: PMC3555164
Explaining The Cost Of Biotech Therapies
ALL OR NOTHING“The biotech drug market is different from the traditional retail market, in that you have high-cost drugs and few people taking them. Many of these are orphan-status drugs that get propelled through the FDA approval process as a result,” says Greg S. Weishar, president and CEO of PharmaCare Management Services, a pharmacy benefit manager and parent company of PharmaCare Specialty Pharmacy. “Health plans are in the insurance business, and they’re in a dilemma. They’re trying to control costs, and these drugs have very few alternatives.”
Weishar gives this example: For multiple sclerosis, there are few, if any, viable therapeutic alternatives to interferon β-1a (Avonex or Rebif) — the gold standard for MS patients for MCOs.
When the MCO must choose between a chemical therapy and a biotech therapy, the principal variables to weigh are safety, efficacy, and cost. But when the choice is between covering a biotech therapy or providing no viable coverage, the equation is simpler, because depriving an MS patient of the only effective treatment available invites a public relations disaster.
Though only a few patients in a given plan population are diagnosed each year, Weishar observes, the MCO providing this therapy takes a big financial hit.
“At its most fundamental level, insurance is about taking care of people who have a very expensive condition to treat. That’s what it is all about; insurance is catastrophic,” Weishar says. “It’s a question of risk exposure to the insurance company. Only 1 percent of its population needs the drug. The question is, how should the insurance company or health plan manage that 1 percent of covered members who need Avonex [or Rebif]? Probably, the best way to manage those patients is to give them the drug.”
Jeff Kimmell, RPh, vice president and general manager of pharmacy for drugstore.com, agrees that the nature of orphan biotech drugs means that they have an easier path through the MCO approval process: “Uniqueness buys you something, though MCOs will still question whether the patient needs that particular drug. If you can find the item that is unique and provides 5 or 10 percent more effectiveness or 5 to 10 percent fewer side effects, that is what patients will want and physicians will demand. If physicians tell the MCOs, ‘Don’t make me jump through hoops; this is, far and away, the better product,’ the MCOs will start paying for it without question.”
In contrast to Avonex, omalizumab (Xolair) has multiple competitors and is used to treat a common condition, asthma. “Because there are some quite good treatment alternatives for asthma, step therapy is a viable strategy and health plans have the ability to winnow that one tenth of 1 percent of asthma patients who really need Xolair,” Weishar points out. At $700 per prescription, Xolair is reserved for those few patients who cannot obtain acceptable results using chemical-based options.
Indications for the use of biotech drugs are expanding, and physicians are prescribing them increasingly. Joel Owerbach, PharmD, vice president and chief pharmacy officer for Excellus BlueCross/BlueShield estimates that the expense of biotech drug therapy increases by 30 to 50 percent annually. To decrease waste and its inherent expense, ensuring appropriate use is vital. “We need to evaluate whether a person should get the drug, determine who has the best chance of responding to it, and make sure we get the best return on the investment, which means getting the best outcome,” Owerbach says. “We need adequate proof that the patient is responding to treatment, the drug is controlling the condition, and the patient is going to avoid complications later.”
Kimmell likens this paradigm to the emergence of the earliest mass-market drugs. “When we first developed traditional pharmaceuticals, we were able to develop a few strains to take care of everybody and his brother. Anybody in the world who had an infection was able to take penicillin and get better,” Kimmell observes. “Then we had to make erythromycin because of penicillin allergies. Now, we’ve progressed to biotechnological drugs.”
Pharmacogenomics likely will yield effective drugs to people with similar genetic make-ups. Despite physical differences, persons can be so genetically alike that they can be grouped; a drug custom-designed to produce positive clinical outcomes in them may not be as effective for other genetic types. Yet finding patients who will respond best to a specific therapy necessitates biologic assays costing $100 to $700 or more. Many assays are either not covered by health plans or are covered at the Medicare rate — which often amounts to a fraction of the cost of the test.
Not many people know or understand what has been the focus of medical research for two decades-----with Wall Street corporations bought and sold like crazy. BioTechnology has taken the concept I show above-----finding genetic markers and then targeting those markers with different treatments----sometimes involving light, chemicals, and even living combatants. These technologies are as interesting as all nanotech and robotics being installed. The problem falls in the variability and arbitrary nature of these processes. PHARMA used a chemical compound as in aspirin that was known to migrate through body systems to the point of inflamation.....the precision needed for these new technologies----and the specificity of applications to individuals and treatment will assure problems for far into the future----a few decades let's say. The J-CHIP being developed by Johns Hopkins seeks to integrate what is an already complex set of biotechnical activities.
When Hopkins says it is taking these technologies out into Baltimore's underserved communities for testing and development----we are talking very serious medical invasion. Just the faith in a technology's reliability in releasing whatever chemical treatment into someone's body remotely -------and then the measurements and data capture-----can be a great risk. Not to mention the intent to use treatments that are as of yet not proven efficacious.... meaning providing improvement.
HOW MUCH CLINICAL TRIAL TESTING ON HUMANS HAS THESE TECHNOLOGIES HAD -----OR IS THIS MOSTLY LAB TESTED?
We have no Federal public health or Baltimore City public health reporting these figures that I know of. IMEC below is a partner global corporation in these technology applications ----having a broad field of applications including human body tracking. We know it is these corporations and their data being presented as successful -----and the Federal government whether Department of Health and Human Services or the Food and Drug Administration are NOT LOOKING AT THE VALIDITY OF THESE DATA.
About IMEC Technologies
IMEC Technologies is a supplier of data collection and Track and Trace solutions for use in regulated industries and healthcare environments. Our customers include some of the world’s leading organisation including Pfizer, American Airlines, Kerry Group and GlaxoSmithKline. Headquartered in Urbana, Illinois the company also has development and sales offices in the UK and Ireland.
IMEC Technologies’ solutions include
- HazMat T&T, a Waste Management system used to track and trace all waste streams within organizations such as hospitals, oil and gas companies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies;
- Inspector T&T a web based inspection system that will schedule, track, manage and report on any type of equipment, asset, location inspection or audit on a predefined planned schedule or on and ad hoc basis;
- Navigation Material Movements, an RF Material Tracking System to track and report on material movements within a manufacturing company, Navigation Enterprise Labelling(NEL) which is a FDA and GMP compliant label design, approval, control, printing and reconciliation system for use in life science industries.
Biomedical chip technology: Small but powerful tools for our health
By Kris Verstreken, MD, PhD and Hanne Degans, PhD – Imec
March 9, 2011 — How will nanoelectronics and nanotechnology contribute to prevention, diagnosis, therapy and post therapy of diseases? Will the introduction of nanoelectronics in pharmacy bring a breakthrough in developing revolutionary therapies such as immuno- or gene therapy? The continued scaling of chip technology resulted in nanoelectronics dimensions evolving increasingly toward cell dimensions, cell parts, and even molecules. As a result, electronic and biological functions can interact, and new applications arise in the area of biomedical electronics.
Biosensor technologies combining a biological identifying element (protein, DNA/RNA, virus, cell) with a physicochemical detector component are widely applicable in drug development at all stages of the development track (from lab to clinical tests), for localized therapy, for inexpensive and comfortable tools for post-therapy, for early diagnosis (genetic profiling) and even for prevention. Innovative biosensors based on nanoelectronics and nanotechnology will be key to creating a better, patient-oriented and less expensive healthcare in the future.
The pharmaceutical industry’s interest in disease diagnosis is growing. These days, diagnosis is being carried out especially by post-symptomatic analysis and diagnosis in laboratories. In the future, technologies based on nano-electronics will enable diagnosis by means of genetic or other early screening of patients, and therapies will be administered with personalized observation. Biomedical electronics will also improve treatment efficiencies and reduce its costs. Sensor-based technologies will enable localized therapy, only intervening when necessary and reducing the side effects of a treatment. Post-therapy based on nanoelectronics will be less burdensome on the daily life of the patient. Such instruments should be low-cost, portable, and comfortable in maintenance and operation.
An essential aspect for the pharmaceutical industry is that new measuring methods are not only fast and efficient; they should also be widely applicable and therefore can be produced in large volumes at reasonable cost. The industry is looking for instruments that can be used not only for drug development, but also during the post-therapeutic stage, to keep an eye on the patients that participated in the clinical tests for drug development. These instruments that will be used for genetic profiling for disease diagnosis and prevention.
Figure. General concept of a biosensor to detect a target in blood.
New measuring methods using nanoelectronics-based biosensors are of key interest to the pharmaceutical industry because of the variety of applications. They are useful for diagnosis, but also in lab studies (genetic profiling), for preclinical and clinical tests, and for therapy and post therapy. Molecular biosensors detect a biomarker (antibodies, enzymes, DNA, diseased cells, foreign substances such as radioisotopes) in blood. They allow fast, exact and very specific measurement of a biomarker or of several different biomarkers at the same time. Biomarkers are blood substances that are characteristic for a certain biological condition and therefore can be used to determine diseases. A biomarker can be a genetic code within the DNA that is characteristic for a particular disease; but it can also be a diseased cell, such as a cancer cell. Additionally, biomarkers can be foreign substances such as radio isotopes, which are being injected into the blood to examine, for example, organ functions. In order to detect biomarkers in the blood, a blood sample needs to be analyzed. Currently, time-consuming and expensive lab tests have to be carried out in several steps to detect biomarkers. When molecular biosensors are integrated into an electronic system (lab-on-chip), detection can be done much faster and cheaper. Imec develops lab-on-chip systems, such as a breast cancer diagnostic system that can detect cancer cells.
Chip technology’s role in healthcare has the world’s attention. Nanoelectronics will help more patients than we can today, at a lower cost price and for a larger number of diseases, or at least such is the hope. Imec’s research supports the necessary innovation of biomedical instruments for prevention, diagnosis and therapy. Within its life science program, imec cooperates with industrial partners for smart electronic systems in order to study diseases, diagnosis and disease therapy: lab-on-chip systems, nanoparticles for treatment of diseases, technologies for intelligent implants, etc.
This list of research on microchip delivery systems is not all that has been done of course----I simply wanted to show how new all of this is-----below you see the first in human testing in 2012 for goodness sake. The rest fall within the last decade. Clinical trials have historically taken a decade or so and that was not for basic science like this which takes much longer. Because we have Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons making all policy about maximizing profit-----the goals here are simply to move products to market as fast as possible and then pay off people getting harmed.
If you are like me----regardless of the efficacy and research ---I do not want to be forced to be involved in remote medicine. What Affordable Care Act did was to require health insurance and gave corporations the power to tell citizens what they must submit to in order to stay on a health plan. They will boost the rates if you decline to a point you cannot afford----just as they are pushing all this SMART METER technology on everyone.
Publications Farra, Robert, et al.
"First-in-human testing of a wirelessly controlled drug delivery microchip."
Science Translational Medicine 4.122 (2012): 122ra21-122ra21.
This first-in-human clinical trial evaluated the pharmacokinetic profiles of human parathyroid hormone (hPTH(1–34))delivered by the microchip-based implant versus subcutaneous injections. Results indicated that the release profile of hPTH(1–34) from the microchip-based implant was comparable and bioequivalent to the profile of subcutaneous injections. In addition, patients reported positively when surveyed about their implant experience.
Prescott, James H., et al.
"Chronic, programmed polypeptide delivery from an implanted, multireservoir microchip device."
Nature biotechnology 24.4 (2006): 437-438.
This first-in-animal study evaluated the ability of the microchip-based implant to deliver leuprolide (an analog of a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone that is marketed for the treatment of prostate cancer and endometriosis) over a 6-month period in dogs. Results supported the feasibility of applying microchip-based implant technology to deliver other therapeutic peptides and proteins. In addition, the study suggested that drug delivery from an array of discrete reservoirs is not restricted to solution-phase drug formulations, and that stability-optimized, solid-phase drug formulations can be packaged and released in vivo.
Grayson, Amy C. Richards, et al.
"Multi-pulse drug delivery from a resorbable polymeric microchip device."
Nature materials 2.11 (2003): 767-772.
The Microchips Biotech IP portfolio includes both electronically-controlled reservoir implants as well as preprogrammed, non-electronic reservoir-based implants, made of resorbable polymers. This study evaluated the functionality of a biodegradable microchip implant and demonstrated that timed, pulsatile delivery is possible by varying the molecular mass of the membranes covering each reservoir.
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https://www.citizensoversightmaryland.com/blog/september-23rd-2015
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Myrrh essential oil benefits are well-studied, and are incredible examples of how a historical plant based medicine is relevant today. So, forget about the Christmas story for a minute, myrrh should be on everyone’s radar throughout the entire year!
History of Myrrh
Gifted to the baby Jesus and remembered each year at Christmas, many of us may not realize that myrrh is actually used every day around the world. While most of our essential oils and herbal remedies come from leaves and flowers, myrrh is much more exotic. It is the resin, similar to a sap, of an African and Middle Eastern tree, the Commiphora myrrha, that is used to distill the essential oil.
We know that myrrh is of old thanks to the gifts of the Magi, but that’s not the only documentation. Ancient Egyptians, as part of their intricate mummification process, utilized myrrh in their rituals. We have record from Herodotus that describes myrrh’s use in approximately 450 B.C., though mummification was in practice for centuries prior.
Myrrh has been historically used as medicine in China and as part of Jewish anointing oils, and is still used to this day. Myrrh essential oil is an incredible example of the way plant based medicines connect us with history. This tree has stood where ancient Egyptians and Hebrews walked, and still stands today, sharing its healing resin with yet another era. Not all healing is sweet and pleasant, though. Myrrh is named for the Arabic word for “bitter”: murr.
Myrrh’s Therapeutic Properties
Chemically, myrrh oil is comprised of terpenoids. Terpenoids have a reputation as potent healers, potentially because of their role in protecting the plant from oxidative stress. As we know, this kind of stress causes cell death, and it’s not exclusive to humans.
After centuries of use in aromatic and medicinal forms, science is uncovering more and more of the healing properties of myrrh oil by the day. Some of the scientifically acknowledged properties include:
- Wound healing
These actions have been traditionally applied to skin infections, oral health, inflammation, intestinal health, and pain relief, all confirmed in some way by modern science. (1)
The more research uncovers, the more we see stress in its various states as an underlying cause of so many illnesses and discomforts. It’s no wonder that a powerful antioxidant would carry such varied benefits. And powerful it is! Myrrh extract exhibited an antioxidant effect strong enough that it can protect the liver – the “detox” organ that is bombarded with toxins every day – from oxidative damage.
Not only does myrrh utilize antioxidant properties to seek out free radicals and reverse oxidative damage, but it may be able to eliminate cancer cells, as well. Researchers in China recently published their findings on myrrh’s cancer fighting abilities, after in vitro lab tests demonstrated the inhibition of cancer cell growth. (2) As with most cancer research, the steps forward toward proven treatments are detailed and difficult, but the foundation is clearly there, and the potential is absolutely intriguing!
5 Benefits of Myrrh Essential Oil
So how exactly does one utilize such a powerful, ancient, even holy substance? Honestly, however you’d like! The healing properties of myrrh oil have an increasingly well-studied background, and has been demonstrated as an effective remedy in more than one category. The myriad of myrrh essential oils benefits makes it one of my favorites.
Microbes are all around us, in many shapes and forms both beneficial and deleterious. When we’re thinking in terms of pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines, there are treatments for bacterial infections, another treatment for fungal infections, and still others for viruses. Instead of treating individual problems, myrrh essential oil is beneficial against a variety of microbes.
Natural antivirals, antifungals, and antibacterials exist, of course, with each substance carrying its own strengths and weaknesses. A strong antimicrobial, though, may have the ability to affect more than one category of microbes. Myrrh essential oil is one such antimicrobial substance and was even successfully tested against eleven strains of bacteria. (3)
2. Wound Healing
With these antimicrobial effects in combination with pain and inflammation relief, myrrh is an excellent wound healer. In an interesting study evaluating postpartum women who delivered vaginally with an episiotomy, myrrh oil in a sitz bath or soap application was actually shown to help the perineum heal by warding off the identified bacteria Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. The researchers concluded, “These findings indicate that postpartum aromatherapy for perineal care could be effective in healing the perineum.” If you plan to breastfeed, however, some indications are that myrrh may impact milk supply. (4)
3. Oral Health
The mouth is a dirty place. We’re exposed to so much through our mouths, making it a hotbed of microbes and potential illness. When we do get sick, our mouths often notice first – sore throats, phlegm, and other discomforts settle in as one of the first signs of many illnesses. What’s more, diseases of the mouth and gums are all too common.
According to a review conducted by Egyptian researchers, myrrh oil “is one of the most effective herbal medicines in the world for sore throats, canker sores and gingivitis.” (5) And when it is combined with frankincense essential oil, a special synergy occurs. According to a recent South African study,
“Frankincense and myrrh have been used in combination since 1500 BC…When assayed in various combinations, the frankincense and myrrh oils displayed synergistic, additive and noninteractive properties, with no antagonism noted. When investigating different ratio combinations against Bacillus cereus, the most favourable combination was between B. papyrifera and C. myrrha.” (6)
Utilize its antiseptic, antimicrobial, and wound healing effects by mixing a drop into your toothpaste when you brush your teeth each night.
MORE ESSENTIAL OIL USES & RECIPES! For 150+ effective recipes & natural remedies, get a copy of my national bestselling book, The Healing Power of Essential Oils. Buy today to get instant access to $300 in digital bonuses (videos, guides & more) to help you learn how to use essential oils safely & effectively!HealingPowerOfEssentialOils.com
4. Antiparasitic Actions
No one wants to think about parasite infestations, but what we really don’t want is to be caught with a parasite and unable to treat it. Egyptian scientists tackled this issue, as well, working with patience who had signs of parasites in their stool. Antiparasitic treatments are often harsh and come with intestinal discomfort. After testing a treatment utilizing myrrh essential oil, “no signs of toxicity or adverse reactions” were a problem and the treatment was successful. (7) This was against a specific parasite, of course, but the potential for improved treatment and even protection against infection exists!
5. Cancer Fighting
Last, but certainly not least, the ability myrrh essential oil has in fighting cancer is becoming a popular topic in the industry. One of the most thorough studies on the topic was published in the journal Oncology Letters in 2013, and this is what they discovered about frankincense and myrrh oil:
“The effects of the two essential oils, independently and as a mixture, on five tumor cell lines, MCF-7, HS-1, HepG2, HeLa and A549, were investigated using the MTT assay. The results indicated that the MCF-7 and HS-1 cell lines showed increased sensitivity to the myrrh and frankincense essential oils compared with the remaining cell lines. In addition, the anticancer effects of myrrh were markedly increased compared with those of frankincense, however, no significant synergistic effects were identified.” (8)
Of course, no one is claiming that myrrh will cure cancer here, but as more research is conducted in this area, I hope to see more definitive recommendations on how to use it!
Recommendation: For a truly Biblical combination, use frankincense and myrrh essential oils together for a synergistic blend of antimicrobial benefits!’
Notably, these two resins are generally prescribed simultaneously in traditional Chinese medicine. They are used primarily to treat blood stagnation and inflammatory diseases, as well as for the relief of swelling and pain, (8) Even though there were no synergism noted regarding cancer, “A previous study identified that the combination of frankincense and myrrh oils exhibited synergistic effects on harmful bacterial infections Cryptococcus neoformans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” (8)
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https://naturallivingfamily.com/myrrh-essential-oil-benefits/
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We have 46 records for Judy Nation ranging in age from 41 years old to 80 years old. Judy has been found in 13 states including California, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, and 8 others. Possible related people for Judy Nation include Fred T Nation, Fred Thomas Nation, Juliette K Nation, Anita G Morgan, Daniel Lebron Nation, and many others. On file we have 15 emails for Judy including firstname.lastname@example.org, email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.org, and 12 other email addresses. On record we show 38 phone numbers associated with Judy in area codes such as 740, 706, 256, 502, 407, and 8 other area codes. You can view more information on Judy Nation below.
46 results found for Judy Nation in 30 cities.
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Lived In Tulare, CA 93274
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Lived In Siloam Springs, AR 72761
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Lived In Broken Arrow, OK 74012
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public records summary
Judy Nation’s full report may contain information on how to contact them such as phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses.
The personal information that is included in the full report could contain schools that they attended, degrees earned, and possible dates they attended the institutions.
Judy's Social Media profile section may have links to their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and dating app profiles.
The Finances section of Judy's report may have a history of bankruptcies, liens, judgments, evictions, and UCC filings entered against Judy.
If you suspect Judy Nation has a criminal record, you could find more information in the Criminal Records section of the report.
The report may contain details on possible charges/offenses, the date the charges were filed, the court system used (civil or criminal), and where Judy may have been charged and convicted.
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https://www.instantcheckmate.com/people/judy-nation/
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The shift to Value Based Healthcare is not as simple as changing the way that healthcare providers get paid. Healthcare organizations across the spectrum are not equipped to handle a landscape where long-term quality and outcomes are the driving force behind the success or failure. The implementation of the MACRA legislature for Medicare is driving change in the private insurance world and those providers that do not embrace and adapt to the changes will find it difficult to survive.
It would seem that a large number of providers, payers, and industry experts believe that the only way for those smaller practices and organizations to survive is to band together. Many VBH payment models that have already been implemented center on the concept of coordinated care. Coordinated care relies on the concept that providers can come together to provide a comprehensive care regimen. The different providers would collaborate in order to reduce duplicate or unnecessary procedures and tests as well as ensure that a more complete picture of health is driving the treatment rather than the separate opinions of different specialists.
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) from CMS and patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) are two such examples of coordinated care models intended to drive a more collaborative and customized approach to health. There are other models out there right now, but if I mention too many others this post would start to look more like alphabet soup than I am comfortable with. More and more VBH models appear all the time and each has its distinct pros and cons. To my earlier point, this hangs some smaller providers out to dry because they simply aren’t equipped to meet the requirements of the new collaborative models.
That isn’t to say that they can’t provide high quality care or collaborate with other providers. It’s more likely a matter of the VBH world moving faster than many thought it would. Innovative and advanced payment models that rely on new health care trends like electronic health records, telemedicine, data collection, and predictive analysis are out of reach for many providers because they weren’t prepared to need them any time soon. You may be asking yourself “But Kevin couldn’t those providers just get some new technology and everything would be ok?” and to that I would say “Probably not”.
Let me paint a picture to help explain. A smaller provider wants to get into this VBH stuff and so decides to invest in updated software and a whole lot of fancy computers to help move into the new age. He can’t afford them himself so he gets some help, say from his friendly neighborhood bank. He is convinced that this new coordinated care concept is going to help him improve his margins and build a stronger business. He has even found a coordinated care group to join. All is well. Shortly after working in the coordinated care system, a series of troubling events occurs. A number of patients didn’t take their medication when they were supposed to and have become even more ill. He didn’t prescribe the meds but he performs the procedures that help treat the problem the meds were supposed to have prevented. Now he or his partners can’t force their patients to take their medicine and, in fact, have no control at all but to the payer it seems like they are falling well short of the expected cost and quality measures they are expected to adhere to. That means they don’t get paid as much as they could have. Things get better for a while but then it happens again and again and again. Now our provider friend can’t pay the friendly neighborhood bank and is left holding his hat in an office filled with fancy computers that are now nothing more than expensive door stops. His partners in the coordinated care group however, are fine because they are large enough to take a few hits and keep on moving. Unfortunately, for our friend he is out of luck and out of business.
Now that example is somewhat exaggerated but it does fall close to reality. There is a shared risk when it comes to coordinated care and as such, it may be difficult to get some providers to fall into such a model. I have noticed that a lot of smaller practices and providers have started forming “alliances” and other more local networks where they share a patient base and certain standards. That shift is likely due to other financial reasons but it may have an added benefit. This kind of networked provider group is probably going to be much more commonplace as time goes on. As the needs of VBH standards grow more and more complex it will be necessary for your local doctor’s office to no longer stand alone unless they want to get swallowed up by other larger and more corporate healthcare groups.
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https://healthintegrityblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/needs-of-the-many/
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The College of Wooster Special Collections
This letter from F.W. Cropp invites select students, faculty members, and administration to join the committee that would become Campus Council. The letter details the proposed make up of Campus Council and the intentions of creating the group.
The College of Wooster
Campus Council, Wooster Campus Council, Campus Council proposal, start of Campus Council, first Campus Council
Student government; College student government; College students--Conduct of life
"Invitation to Join Campus Council 1968" (1968). Campus Council Records. 2.
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https://openworks.wooster.edu/campuscouncil/2/
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This is the second and last series in our Convert Perspectives Collection. Interviewees: Francesca and Chib
QUESTION #1: WERE YOU RAISED IN A RELIGIONS HOME PRIOR TO REVERTING TO ISLAM?
Francesca: I was raised in a Catholic household before I converted to Islam, although I didn't really practice Catholicism myself.
Chib: Salaam and hello everyone. I was raised in a Catholic home. My parents are Hispanic and Catholicism is the religion which many Hispanics tend to follow. I, however never really felt any connection to it. I attended Sunday school and did my first Communion but afterwards I didn't feel comfortable following a religion which did not seem to fit who I was as a person. So I left the Catholic Church when I was only 11.
QUESTION #2: WHAT INITIALLY DREW YOU TO ISLAM?
Francesca: My friend from school went to Saudi for Umrah(pilgrimage to hajj that is taken outside of the month of dhul hijja), and when he came back he showed me pictures of Mecca. I remember looking at them and feeling like someone had taking my breath away, SubhanAllah. Everything was just so beautiful, and I wanted to know more. My friend began telling me a few things about the pilgrimage and what it involves and he then sent me a link of the Adhan. When I listened to it, I started to tear up and I felt like something touched my heart. I'd never admired something so much before, and it felt weird. I began to research a little bit about Islam after this independently, and began to find myself agreeing with what it taught and discovered the true beauty of Islam. Within a short period of time, I'd already believed that Islam provided me with a connection with God that I had never experienced before. I was very scared though at what other people would think, so I kept my thoughts to myself. However, after a conversation with my friend, he started to ask me how I felt about Islam, and when he asked me if I believed that Allah is one and that Prophet Muhammed(PBUH) was his final messenger, and at that moment I realised that there was nothing holding me back so I decided to take my Shahadah, Alhamdulilah.
Chib: What initially drew me to Islam to begin with was always the fact that there was one God to pray to. Also that the Qur'an has not ever been rewritten. The more research I started to do the more I fell in love with Islam. How it intertwined with science and gave explanations as well as how it explained how the Qur'an is the real word of Allah SWT by giving examples scientifically as well as mathematically and logically. Also how women are viewed as the highest things in this world. That was what sealed the deal for me.
QUESTION #3: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO CONVERT?
Francesca: See response to #2
Chib: I decided to convert because I knew this was what I was looking for. My whole life has always been a long search for something to make me feel whole. I never understood what I was trying to find so I decided to fill it with other things like relationships, parties, drinking, smoking you name it. After a while I fell into some hardships and decided to start searching for religion again. I tried to become Christian but it didn't feel right to me. I remember looking at this Youtube video that was titled “Don't Be Sad Allah SWT Knows Why”. After watching that video I just couldn't believe that everything I had been so confused about was answered in this video and right then and there I knew that Islam was for me. I felt it in my heart.
QUESTION #4:HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU FROM LEARNING ABOUT ISLAM TO ACTUALLY CONVERTING? WHY WAS IT A QUICK OR PROLONGED DECISION?
Francesca: My interest in Islam always lingered in the back of my mind but I never really took it seriously. It was just something I was aware of. Once I began to think about what Islam meant and whether I wanted to be a Muslim, it wasn't long before I converted.
Chib: It took me around 4-5 months before I actually decided to take my Shahada, I knew after finding Islam that I wanted to convert. However I wanted to make sure I took my time and did my research before I made that commitment to Allah SWT. I always told myself that Allah SWT would tell me when the time was right and on January 6th 2014 I woke up and it was the coldest day in Chicago -35 degrees and I knew today was the day.
QUESTION #5:WHAT WERE THE REACTIONS OF YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY UPON YOUR CONVERSION?
Francesca: My parents do not know that I am Muslim, I did try to tell them when I originally converted. They already knew that I was interested in Islam, as I would talk about it to my mum. My mum seemed very calm about it and would be interested to. I thought it meant that when I would tell her about my interest of being a Muslim, she would have been okay with it but I was wrong. The first thing I decided to do was give up pork, so I told my mum that I no longer wanted to eat it anymore because I wanted to take my interests in Islam seriously. My mum got very angry with me. And over the next couple of weeks, my parents and I argued constantly. Eventually, it ended up in a lot of tears from both sides. I remember my parents saying things like "Aren't you proud of us" "Do you love Islam more than us", and it broke my heart because I didn't know what to say. My parents are very ignorant about Islam and make assumptions so they weren't happy and it caused a huge amount of stress. They said a lot of hurtful things about Islam, and our relationship isn't the same anymore, but it just made me want to stick by the decision I had already made to be a Muslim. My friends however, are really supportive and are happy for me.
Chib: After converting I decided to only let 2 of my closest friends know, they were very supportive and provided me with so many sources about Islam to make sure this was what I wanted. They even took me to the masjid to take my Shahada. However not all my friends were as supportive. I lost a lot of friends after they had found out about my conversion. I even stopped talking to one of my closest girl friend because she just wasn't the type of person I wanted to surround myself with anymore. I would say a good percentage of my friends were surprised because I never looked like the type to be Muslim. But they were so happy for me because most of my friends were Muslim. As for my family they were a little uncertain on how to take the news. I had to hide it from my parents for a bit because I wasn't sure how they would react. After I told my mom she told me she was happy for me that I found something to believe in. As for my father he doesn't really discuss it with me.
Welcome to our "Convert/Revert" section. This section of Striving For Clarity is dedicated to articles and stories geared towards those who chose to enter Islam later in life. If you would like to contribute to this section, visit our Guest Contributor page.
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https://www.strivingclarity.com/convertrevert/archives/09-2014
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Additions with Source LInes in Corporate Book Are Not Copied Through Mass Copy Process to Tax Book
(Doc ID 2437703.1)
Last updated on NOVEMBER 20, 2019
Applies to:Oracle Fusion Assets Cloud Service - Version 11.13.18.02.0 and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.
Having setup Subledger Acounting Rules to take project information from Sources Lines is working in Corporate book for Accounting, but in the Tax book, it is not producing the correct accounting combination.
To view full details, sign in with your My Oracle Support account.
Don't have a My Oracle Support account? Click to get started!
In this Document
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https://support.oracle.com/knowledge/Oracle%20Cloud/2437703_1.html
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The role of capitalism in producing social capital
Imagine you’re driving through a town where there’s a huge festival, drawing in all types of people. You’ll see holiday decorations, with churches and downtown homes joining in. The civic organizations are strong, kids are going to the schools and residents trust with the police, fire department and local hospitals or clinics.
Then there’s the next town on the trip, which looks the opposite. The downtown is in decay, and few residents can be seen walking around anywhere. Shutters are closed and curtains are drawn. People look at each other suspiciously. Nobody wants to have much to do with the cops, fire fighters, and prefer strange home remedies for any ailment. Kids are abandoning the schools for the comfort of online learning at home.
Of course there are private enterprises in both, but what role are they playing? Which is more likely to be “open for business” where the chamber of commerce and civic organizations like Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions are strong, where there’s more than enough money for all to make? And which is likely to have one corporation that’s “the only game in town,” or cutthroat competition has poisoned the community?
One of my undergraduate students sought to answer that very question. Pete Alford got interested in a book called Bowling Alone, written by Harvard Professor Robert Putnam. Putnam found that while more Americans are bowling than ever before, bowling leagues have declined precipitously. Putnam looks for places which have strong communities where trust in each other and public institutions are strong, and locations where they just ain’t.
While Putnam focused on American states and Italian states, Alford sought to look at nearly 200 countries in the world for levels of social capital. And while Putnam doesn’t look much at capitalism and its role, Pete tested whether countries with stronger amounts of economic freedom have closer communities. His statistical analysis is strong: capitalism is indeed connected to social capital. Free markets tend to help build strong communities, and vice versa.
Though Alford focused on countries, it’s clearly a lesson for communities in America. That word community for a long time was much disparaged, as an antithesis of individualism and personal achievement. But think about what people look at when they want to move to a neighborhood. What are the schools like? What kinds of activities are going on? We can also add a thriving business community to the mix.
Alford’s paper was well-received. He competed at LaGrange College’s Honors Day and got his paper published in the college’s online journal Citations. His work finished in the top two for the Pajari Award, given to the best undergraduate paper presented at the Georgia Political Science Association. And his achievements have already caught the notice of law schools.
If you’re looking for a similar opportunity, to conduct research on any topic, whether it’s one associated with liberal or conservative issues, or maybe a little of both, take a look at our college.
If you’re not afraid to compete for awards in the classroom and the scholarly community, and not just on the field or in the arena, come see us. And if you’re brave enough to get up in front of professors, graduate students and fellow undergraduates to present your work, we want you. Come by and sit in on a class, whatever your field is (politics or otherwise). I assure you that political science isn’t the only academic field at LaGrange College to do this.
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https://www.lagrangenews.com/2019/12/10/the-role-of-capitalism-in-producing-social-capital/
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Linux Administration Certification Training
- 9k Enrolled Learners
- Live Class
The moment I hear the word ‘Linux’ a chubby, waddling, cute penguin comes to my mind. The Linux Penguin has more than waddled its way when it comes to operating systems. It has matured and blossomed since its humble beginnings in 1991. Released by a young Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, it has even reached Space Stations and has achieved legendary popularity. Linus Torvalds began a project that later became the Linux kernel. He wrote a program for the hardware he was using and wanted it to be independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor.
Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a morpheme of ‘free’, ‘freak’, and ‘x’ . But named it ‘Linux’, which he had in mind but dismissed it as it sounded too egotistical (Linux….Linus)
Let’s take a look at how Linux has fared when it comes to career and job opportunities.
There is a huge demand for Linux talent and employers are going to great lengths to get the best candidates. The explosive demand for Linux talent is intensifying and shows no sign of slowing down. Professionals with Linux skills and cloud computing are sough-after today. This is clearly evident from the the number of job postings recorded in Dice for Linux skills.
The above image is a clear indicator that the demand for people with Linux skills is increasing. Cloud infrastructure like Amazon Web Service is largely Linux-based, as a result there is an overall growth.
The Linux Jobs Report 2014 by Linux foundation shows a sunny picture when it come to demand for Linux skills. According to this report, it’s a great time to be a developer or systems administrator with Linux experience. Here are some key findings from this report:
Hiring managers at technology-based companies are focusing more on Linux talent and this has resulted in higher than average salary to those with Linux skills.
Hunting for Linux talent was such a top priority for hiring managers that it was 77%, up from 70% a year ago.
With these set priorities, more than nine in ten hiring managers plan to hire Linux professionals in the coming months.
Forty six percent of hiring managers have plans to increase the number of Linux professionals to be recruited in the next six months, a three-point increase over last year.
Hiring managers are also looking more at professionals with formal training and certifications.
Ninety-seven percent of hiring managers report they will bring on more Linux-skilled professionals compared to other skills in the next six months.
Fifteen years ago, if you wanted a Linux job, there were just a handful of companies and even lesser opportunities, but today there are thousands of job openings. This is due to the maturity of Linux as it has proved its pervasiveness, effectiveness and has become the platform of choice for new technologies like Big Data and Cloud Computing.
According to Shravan Goli, president of Dice, the competition for Linux talent is accelerating, as the software is becoming omnipresent. Linux professionals are well positioned in the job market, with 44% of hiring managers saying there is high possibility for them to hire a candidate with Linux certification, and 54% expecting either certification or formal training of their system admin candidates.
When it comes to career in Linux, there are two options; you can work towards becoming a developer or head over to the administration side. Moreover, the career opportunities are not solely based on Linux platform, it covers wide areas of application.
The areas of expertise that hiring managers are looking for are:
Desktop Application Development
Kernel & Device Drivers Development
Web Development & Deployment
Systems Architecture/ Engineering
According to Linux Jobs Report 2014, hiring managers are most aggressively concentrating on the following areas;
Web Server Administration
PERL & python Developers
Ruby on Rails
PHP & Mysql Developers
Linux System Developer
Out of the above areas, the following are much more in demand:
Also, 86% of Linux professionals have responded that being skilled in Linux has given them more career opportunities and 64% have opted to work with Linux because of its pervasiveness.
As the demand for Linux pros is high, the organizations are offering various incentives to retain and rail in potential talents. Candidates with the right skill are being offered top incentives like:
Salary increases above the company norm
Flexible work schedules or telecommuting
Additional training or certification
According to Dice Salary Survey 2014, Linux professionals have got 5% more than the average salary for tech professionals. On top of this, they also received an average bonus of $10,336, which is a 12% hike from the previous year.
There is no doubt that there is a huge demand for Linux-skilled professionals and when there is a huge demand, the need for well-trained developers and administrators rises just as steeply. In short, Linux has continued to positively impact corporate bottom lines and companies really want Linux-savvy employees and they want them now.
Many Fortune 500 companies have migrated to Linux and open-source softwares and looking for the right skills. The various job positions that require Linux skill are as follows:
Linux System Developer
Here’s a list of various areas and their corresponding designations given to Linux professionals.
Considering how high up Linux skill is in the list of priorities of hiring managers and coupled with other strong indicators, Linux is here to stay! Not just stay, there are sure-shot signs of it continuing to grow. Linux skill has survived two recessions and still shows good growth. All-in-all it is a good time to be associated with Linux.
Got a question for us? Please mention them in the comments section and we will get back to you.
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https://www.edureka.co/blog/linux-making-the-right-career-choice
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Wolf Single UK Flag Watch Roll 523203
An essential for the well-travelled gentleman the Navigator Single Watch Roll, with black pebble leather exterior and iconic Union Jack lining, pays tribute to over 180 years of British influence and heritage. Includes space for 1 watch and ultrasuede lining.
- Material: Black pebble leather, ultrasuede interior
- Storage: Watch roll suitable for 1 watch
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https://hamiltonandlewis.co.uk/products/wolf-single-uk-flag-watch-roll-523203
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14873133
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There’s no argument that Casio is a household name — whether you grew up using a Casio calculator or are proudly wearing one of their watches on a daily basis, most of us have interacted with the brand at some point in our lives. Unlike their recognisable G-SHOCK and BABY-G silhouettes, Casio’s EDIFICE collection of timepieces is one that’s gone slightly under the radar, though the latest pair of releases is truly hard to resist — the race car-inspired EQB-1100.
Boasting a super slim width of just 8.9mm, both models bear a brand new octagonal bezel, pairing the right amount of sport and luxury to show off on your wrist. With the help of Bluetooth Smartphone Link technology, there’s no need to worry about your watch being too fast or too slow — no matter where you are in the world, the watch can automatically connect to your smartphone, updating the time setting up to 4 times a day. They also feature Dual Dial World Time, simultaneously displaying their local time along with a secondary time zone within the leftmost dial.
Available in two sleek colourways, each timepiece boasts a non-reflective sapphire crystal watch face — the EQB-1100D-1A features cobalt blue accents against a black dial, brought together by a silver stainless steel band, while the EQB-1100DC-1A bears subtle red accents, finished with grey ion plating on the exterior. Supported by a Tough Solar power system, exposure to even the smallest amount of light enables charging, with up to 5 months battery life with regular use on a single solar charge, even without further exposure to light. If stored in total darkness after a full charge, this extends to up to 19 months of battery life with the power save function activated.
Like previous collections within the EDIFICE line, each watch also features water resistance of up to 100m, a daily alarm, full auto calendar, a stopwatch and even memory storage of up to 200 lap times.
Casio’s EQB-1100 series includes the EQB-1100D-1A ($539) and EQB-1100DC-1A ($659), and will be available at all G-SHOCK Boutiques and EDIFICE retailers from 11 September. For more information, visit edifice-watches.com.
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https://www.nylon.com.sg/2020/09/casio-adds-2-super-slim-8-9mm-timepieces-to-their-edifice-collection/
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These earrings are exclusive one-of-a-kind earrings. The stones- uvavorite- are bought from Japan and seated into the silver.
The hanging part of the earring is transformed from a single piece of metal into an elegant twisted form using only a hammer and stake. It is made of the silver and is patinated. The surface is covered with the structural painting medium. Earring posts and clutches are made of the sterling silver (925).
Prongs holding the stones are made of silver and are patinated.
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https://kadiveesaar.shop/products/yakushima-earrings
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14873135
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Good Grief… Just Get Over It?
If you’ve been following me on social media lately, you’ll know that I’ve been dropping teasers and hints about the construction we are undergoing and a new service we will be offering. As a spa, most of you were guessing that our little surprise would be a service like injections, laser, hair-styling, etc. Great guesses, but all wrong ;)
Having been in this industry for nearly two decades, the one thing that remains a constant is the emotional (and physical!) toll that grief takes on women (before anyone pulls the politically correct card on me, I deal primarily with women, so this is my experience).
For nearly twenty years, I have listened to women tell some of their most intimate secrets, struggles & worries. It seems once my treatment door is closed, my clients feel safe enough to tell me their stories, and all I can do is listen, give an unbiased opinion and draw from my own experiences in life.
Mistakenly, many people assume that grief is strictly related to death – but, that is only one component of it. Grief can result from divorce, the break-up of a relationship, the loss of a job and even the sense of loss of self. These are all things I have experienced in my own life that some days made it hard to even get out of bed.
I myself am divorced. I had no idea who I even was at that time. With my divorce came so many additional losses like having to sell my house and my business and just being at a complete loss on how to cope with it all. Recently, I lost one of the most important people in my life: my “go-to” with everything. Here one day, then she was just gone... These are experiences I have shared with women I have met over the years. I don't share my experiences so that others feel sorry for me, but instead to let them know that they are not alone and someone is here to listen. As an industry, I am concerned that we are not doing enough to facilitate the mantra of the spa industry: healing the mind, body & spirit.
At Enrapt Boutique & Spa, we are 100% supportive of the holistic approach to healing the mind, body & spirit and to always leave our clients better than we found them.
It is with this holistic approach in mind that I am thrilled to welcome Lesley Lehmann, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, to Enrapt. Over the years, I have had the advantage of knowing Lesley (who just happens to be for me the friend you call no matter what time it is, my moral compass and one of my absolute favorite humans) and I know that this work was Lesley’s calling long before she knew it.
Lesley's educational background includes an Undergraduate Degree of Psychology and ongoing studies in the field of Thanatology (the study of death and dying) with Conestoga College, where she is a part-time Professor. Lesley is a highly skilled mediator and has completed extensive training in alternative dispute resolution. She is a long-time member of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Canada.
Following the death of her mother in 2015, Lesley acted as the Director of Development and Communications for a large Charitable Foundation responsible for funding the free end-of-life programs and services provided to hundreds of terminally-ill people and their families at Stedman Community Hospice each year.
As the result of several significant losses in her own life, including the death of her niece, the end of her marriage, and the death of her mother, Lesley is deeply compassionate and fully understands the broad range of emotions that grievers experience following a loss.
Lesley chose to pursue a specialization in grief support not as a result of her academic training, but rather, as a result of recognizing the profound need for improved grief support services. Through her own healing, she was inspired to help others move beyond the pain, isolation, and loneliness caused by loss.
Lesley's company, North House, has been working out of our space for close to a year now, after hours. However, after seeing the overwhelming response to what we are trying to achieve, we knew it was something that needed to be available all the time. So, we are thrilled to announce that Lesley’s office is now officially a part of our space. We couldn’t be happier to have her here.
For more information please email email@example.com
Now grief is not something you just get over, it’s a battle and some days a war, but we are here to make it a little easier.
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https://www.enraptboutiquespa.com/post/good-grief-just-get-over-it
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I know I just blasted parents a bit yesterday due to SpongeBob but I just do not get parents today.
This post came to mind during my duties as a dispatcher because we get a TON of, I’m a shitty parent and can’t handle my kid calls.
I partially blame the government for this.
You can’t do anything without DFS getting involved.
Spanking is not abuse.
I am all for trying different things to get a point across but sometimes you need a last resort or you end up with a society of entitled little fucktards.
Shit, too late.
Now do not let my next line make you think I am for abuse or anything but:
If your pre-pubescent child is biting you/hitting you/kicking you and rather than punting that little bastard across the room, you call 911, you have failed as a parent and it will never get any better.
That kid now knows you have absolutely no power.
You should send that kid off to military school or something because that kid is going to grow up to be a piece of shit otherwise.
Probably just like you.
I didn’t get nearly enough spankings as a kid but if I would have pulled some shit like these retards call dispatch with… my mom would have put my ass in a coma.
And I would have deserved it.
Spanking does not mean you do not love your child, exactly the opposite actually.
Every time my butt got whooped it was because I was doing something stupid and after it was over my mom or dad would talk about it with me, I knew I was loved, I also knew to avoid doing that again.
It may not have always worked the first time, but it worked.
Now, let me preface this by saying that I am not a parent.
I’m not a Nazi either but I can see what they were doing was wrong.
I like the idea of being a parent but it just hasn’t happened.
Much to the dismay of my mom.
I tell her that I am going to try to make her a grandchild with a resident of every country in the world, then she calls me a man-whore.
There is no pleasing this woman.
On the flip side, both of my dads are ok with my plan.
If you are a good parent then I am not referring to you whatsoever. Even if you are a good parent because you knew that you were not going to be a good parent and so made the choice to let someone better suited be a parent, this is also not meant for you.
You made one of the hardest choices in the world and had the courage to say that you weren’t up to the task.
I respect you.
My childhood was not without its trials and tribulations but I lucked into three good parents.
And a good Nanny and Papa during the trials and whatnot.
But parents kill me nowadays.
If they are not using their kid as a fuck trophy that they can lord of over their baby daddy for prompt payments monthly then they are treating the kid as a burden.
And this is all in the off chance that they don’t hand off their kid to some family member and try to be part of the kid’s life when it is convenient for them, usually the kid’s grandparents.
We will get into all of this and I will try to not fly off on too many tangents.
I say baby-daddy because more often than not, it is the mother lording the kid over the father.
If the father isn’t a shit-bum who isn’t even in the picture.
This is due, in part to the fucked up justice system.
It is damn near impossible for the father to get custody of the child even if he doesn’t need child support.
Every father I know who has gotten custody does not receive a single dollar in child support which seems like a kind of fucked up double-standard.
If a father wants to be in the picture let him be in the picture regardless of how much he can pay you to rent some time with his kid.
I also think that the amount given for child support should be directly linked to how much time the outside parent is allowed to spend with the child.
If the parent is only allowed to spend one weekend a month with the child then at most the parent should only pay a quarter of what the child’s expenses should be.
Note that I said “child’s expenses” because every dime that someone gets for child support should go to that child.
If you are out getting your nails or hair done on the extra income you receive then you should immediately be opted-out of receiving child support.
Honestly, I think instead of checks, the process should be you buying food and clothes for the kid and that is what you give them every month rather than money.
Paying for utilities or rent with some of it I understand but using it as your very own trust fund while that kid eats ramen noodles and bologna sandwiches pisses me off.
Let’s once again go back to my nephew, I wasn’t writing this because of him but when I think of shitty parents, I think of my nephew.
My nephew was raised by his grandparents.
He was also raised in a small part by myself and my brother Chris.
Both of his parents have treated him like shit his entire life.
Even with how he was treated, he always remained loyal to them which absolutely blows my mind.
I give him a lot of shit but he is a good kid.
As he has gotten older he has realized he was not a priority in their lives and has started to act accordingly.
His father, who, until recently, would have been considered a saint compared to his mother, never made my nephew a priority and that continues to this day.
His work, any girlfriend he picked up, any girlfriends kids he picked up, any girl and kids he married into, just going to the bar… all of this took priority over his son.
His whole life he has taken a back seat to everything.
My nephew has never seen the ocean ( I really hope to take him one day soon) but recently, his father went with his then girlfriend now wife on a trip to Hawaii with one of her kids.
My nephew wasn’t even thought about in this decision.
He will occasionally buy him something to show his love but he was rarely physically there to give it to him.
My pretty awesome nephew is just a burden to him.
His father is still up in North Dakota with his wife and her kids and the nephew hasn’t seen him for 2 years or so.
They talk on the phone occasionally, especially if my nephew goes over the data on his phone.
There has been talk of them moving back to Missouri and I really hope it doesn’t happen.
When his father is around, he starts trying to act like a father and is constantly getting into it with the grandparents who are the actual parents of this kid.
That and the nephew and his father are both exactly alike for having spent so little time together and they argue constantly which gets annoying pretty fast.
We have a big house and the nephew lives with Chris and I. I assume if they moved back, at least temporarily they would be staying with us and I think I would be moving out dealing with them together.
Now, if you can imagine someone being worse of a parent than the nephew’s father… it would be his mother.
I don’t have as many stories about her because I wasn’t around her with some these things happening but when the nephew was pretty young we all moved from Southeast Missouri to around Jefferson City (Central), Missouri.
The nephew’s mom did not come with us, of course.
He would try to talk to her on the phone or go see her all the time but it was never a good time because someone was sick or whatever excuse she could come up with.
And almost always, during the time that he was trying to see her, she would post pics on Facebooks of all the things her man and his kids or nieces and nephews were doing.
Kind of a slap in the face to the kid who just wants to be loved by his parents.
Recently she took my nephew’s half-brother and his fiance on a trip to Florida, guess who wasn’t invited.
Don’t be a parent like these two.
The boy knows that he is loved but at the same time struggles with why the two people are supposed to care about him most in the world can barely be bothered to allow him to talk to them on the phone, much less see them.
Kid’s are a pain in the ass but they should not be a burden.
The decision on if you should either go out and party and get hammered every weekend or spend the night hanging out with your kid shouldn’t even be a decision.
You have to have some adult time, and taking some doesn’t put you in the same boats as the degenerates I have listed so far in this post.
It is when your kid continually becomes the second choice that you become one of the twatwaffles mentioned above.
There are THOUSANDS of people who would love to be a parent to your neglected child (sometimes even the other parent), maybe you should give them a shot at it instead of ruining your kid like you have ruined yourself.
That isn’t love.
That is sadism.
If at any point in this post, you became offended, maybe you need to reevaluate your life and adjust some shit.
Your kid deserves it.
And the world deserves not to have to deal with the shit-bum you sprang from your loins.
Give the world something you aren’t… useful.
Read to your kid.
Play board games with your kid.
Treat them like they matter.
Don’t use your kid as a chess piece.
Sign them up for lessons, in anything (karate, dance, cello, drums), if you can’t afford lessons, set up a gofundme page and people will help you pay for the lessons.
Stop letting your kid walk all over you.
STOP CALLING 911 TO BE THE PARENT OF THE PRODUCT OF YOUR BAD CHOICES!
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https://chopsguide.com/2016/08/29/parenting-what-youre-doing-wrong-if-youre-a-shit-parent/
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1 >>Which nursing intervention is most important to perform before administering digoxin (Lanoxin) to a child? ?
- (A) Checking apical pulse for 1 full minute
- (B) Positioning the child with the head slightly elevated
- (C) Counting the child’s respiratory rate for 1 full minute
- (D) Calculating the child’s urine output
2 >>An infant is diagnosed with PDA. Which drug may be administered to achieve pharmacologic closure of the defect? ?
- (A) digoxin (Lanoxin)
- (B) prednisone (Deltasone)
- (C) furosemide (Lasix)
- (D) indomethacin (Indocin)
3 >>Which cardiac defect is associated with VSD, right ventricular hypertrophy, right ventricular outflow obstruction, and an overriding aorta? ?
- (A) Tricuspid atresia
- (B) Hypoplastic left heart syndrome
- (C) PDA
- (D) Tetralogy of Fallot
4 >>In which anatomic structure does gas exchange take place? ?
- (A) Nasopharynx
- (B) Trachea
- (C) Bronchioles
- (D) Alveoli
5 >>A child with difficulty breathing and a “barking cough” is displaying signs associated with which condition? ?
- (A) Cystic fibrosis
- (B) Asthma
- (C) Epiglottitis
- (D) Croup
6 >>The nurse is assessing the lung sounds of a child with asthma. Which sound is the nurse most likely to hear? ?
- (A) Murmur
- (B) Wheezing
- (C) Crackles
- (D) Pleural friction rub
7 >>Which condition can rapidly obstruct the airway, requiring immediate attention? ?
- (A) Tonsillitis
- (B) Bronchiolitis
- (C) Epiglottitis
- (D) Tuberculosis
8 >>Which sign or symptom suggests cystic fibrosis? ?
- (A) Steatorrhea (fat in the stool)
- (B) Decreased appetite
- (C) Decreased respiratory rate
- (D) Early passage of meconium in the neonatal period
9 >>The main functioning unit of the kidney is the: ?
- (A) renal cortex.
- (B) renal medulla.
- (C) nephron.
- (D) ureter.
10 >>An X-ray done with I.V. contrast media to show the structure of the urinary system is called: ?
- (A) KUB.
- (B) excretory urography.
- (C) VCUG.
- (D) renal biopsy.
11 >>A child has decreased output of pink-tinged urine, facial edema, and a history of a sore throat “a little while ago.” The nurse anticipates the doctor will be evaluating the child for: ?
- (A) cryptorchidism.
- (B) adverse effects of hemodialysis.
- (C) HUS.
- (D) acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis.
12 >>A child is admitted to the pediatric unit with a new diagnosis of nephrotic syndrome. Which set of symptoms would the nurse expect to see? ?
- (A) Periorbital edema, polyuria, proteinuria, and hyperproteinemia
- (B) Hypercholesterolemia, hypoproteinemia, proteinuria, and periorbital edema
- (C) Pedal edema, hypolipidemia, hematuria, and oliguria
- (D) Hyperlipidemia, glycosuria, hyperproteinemia, and generalized edema
13 >>The growth plate of the bone is known as: ?
- (A) the epiphyseal plate.
- (B) the metaphyseal plate.
- (C) the diaphyseal plate.
- (D) the medullary plate.
14 >>When teaching parents about treatment for their baby’s clubfoot, the nurse should educate the parents that the casts will be: ?
- (A) placed on the affected foot for 2 weeks only.
- (B) placed on both feet for 6 weeks.
- (C) placed on the affected foot initially then changed every 2 to 3 weeks as the baby’s foot grows and is manipulated.
- (D) placed on both feet initially and then changed every 4 to 5 weeks as the baby’s feet grow and are manipulated
15 >>Initial treatment of JIA includes: ?
- (A) gold salts.
- (B) methotrexate.
- (C) aspirin.
- (D) NSAIDs.
16 >>A nurse is caring for a child with an SCFE. What findings would she expect on exam? ?
- (A) Pain in the affected hip only and a noticeable limp
- (B) Pain in the knee, hip, groin, or thigh; possible complaints of stiffness; and perhaps a limp
- (C) Pain and swelling of the affected hip and a severe limp
- (D) Redness, swelling, and pain above the knee of the affected side
17 >>A 2-month-old male infant is admitted with a diagnosis of pyloric stenosis. Due to the projectile vomiting he has had, he’s at risk for: ?
- (A) metabolic acidosis.
- (B) metabolic alkalosis.
- (C) hyperkalemia.
- (D) hypernatremia.
18 >>A 12-year-old boy is admitted to the pediatric unit with complaints of RLQ abdominal pain and vomiting. When the nurse checks on the child 2 hours later, he states that the pain has stopped. The nurse should suspect that: ?
- (A) he had indigestion, which has been relieved.
- (B) he’s afraid of going to surgery.
- (C) his appendix has ruptured.
- (D) he has irritable bowel syndrome.
19 >>An 18-month-old child is admitted to the pediatric unit with intussusception. As the nurse is preparing the child for a barium contrast reduction, he passes a soft brown stool. What should the nurse do? ?
- (A) Notify the doctor in order to cancel the procedure.
- (B) Prepare the child for emergency surgery.
- (C) Take vital signs and monitor for abdominal sounds.
- (D) Administer an enema to clear the rectal area for testing.
20 >>The nurse is completing discharge teaching for a child and her parents regarding her diet to treat celiac disease. Which meal selection would be appropriate for this child? ?
- (A) A bologna sandwich on whole wheat bread, a chocolate chip cookie, and a glass of milk
- (B) A vegetable pizza, an apple, and a diet cola
- (C) A corn tortilla with hamburger and cooked vegetables and a glass of fruit juice
- (D) A hot dog on a roll, celery and carrot sticks, and a chocolate milk shake
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https://imbooz.com/competitive-exam-quiz/pediatric-nurse-quiz-practice-mcq-mcq-imbooz/2/
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14873138
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We’ve had a marvellous whole day (two nights) at Lightning Ridge and loved it, but must move on, to where we don’t quite know. We did an excellent Black Opal tour with a dozen people in a small bus. The big steps were a struggle for us both!
Over the duration about 4 hours, an English (Lancaster) driver both entertained and informed us, as we toured a lot of the “camps” and other notable things in this strange place. I’m very tired and can barely type. This fatigue is becoming a major problem for us both. We’ve got over 200 photos but I haven’t time to process images and write about things we have experienced.
We did receive daily entertainment both afternoons at 4:30 pm by Mel and Susie, who joked, sang, delivered poetry, and did comedy, with audience participation. They are Melanie Hall and Susan Carcary. They work all over Australia, and do school workshops, and so on. They are also adjudicators at Folk and Yarnspinning competitions. We enjoyed them very much. They have a web site at: http://www.melandsusieontour.com.au/
PLEASE NOTE: Please check the <—– LH SIDE among the butterflies for further Recent Posts.
Hello and welcome from Bill and Glenyce Leithhead, from Glen Waverley, SE suburb of cosmopolitan Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, Australia. This ‘sticky’ Header was used in 2016 as part of a Blog, recording our caravan journey as a round trip from Melbourne to Cairns and back, from July 13th, to between the middle and the end of September. We aimed to escape the cold southern winter into the warmth of the tropical northern Queensland dry season, and to see more of this wonderful country of ours. It was an excellent trip, but too tiring to keep up the Travel Blog, so I ditched it. But I’ve left this part in.
And so our lives continue on … we both turn 80 in 2018, but try to keep going in the face of arthritis and other challenges to our well-being ….
My wife Glenyce and I were watching a TV show which involved a personal parting under war-time pressure. The background tune was “There’s a long, long trail a-winding”, and I very, very often heard this in my early childhood. It triggered almost uncontrollable sadness, and I smothered a sob – not very successfully, and from the corner of my eye I saw Glenyce glance in my direction.
During a TV break she spoke in a very caring way, which is a little unusual. She asked me what was troubling me, and I couldn’t reply, and escaped into the toilet. When I came back, sitting in a different room, she came up to me and caressed me, which is unusual, asking me again what was going on because I was still tearful. I couldn’t put it all together and give an explanation then, but over the week I’ve figured it out, more or less, and in bed last night I raised the topic.
It’s to do with my feelings that I belong to a generation which is dying out, and, of course, some time my turn will come. That doesn’t concern me at all, but I want to leave a written record of what it has been like being Bill Leithhead, with my childhood experiences, career, marriage, children and grand-children. I’ve had some unique experiences, – nothing dramatic, but a wartime small boy, exposed to a social stratum and milieu which are passing away.
My mother was a dance-band pianist, and I grew up in the Western Australian town of Kalgoorlie with the WW2 going on. An only child, I was often taken along to musical events in which Mum played, most often with a drummer and saxophone. Other times she just played the piano or her piano accordion alone, surrounded by people singing the old songs, especially from the First Word War, but including popular music of those wartime days. These have been imprinted into my brain.
I was often tucked up in the parked car, listening to the tunes. Many of these were very sentimental, dwelling on parting, loss and destruction and the ever-present figure of death in the shadows. The local newspaper was always full of maps with arrows and symbols such as the Swastika and the Rising Sun, as well as the US and English flags – and others, of course.
A week later I opened up on this topic in a chat in bed with dear Glenyce just before we were going to sleep. That’s because I had had enough time to work out what was going on in me. I’m still not sure, but it’s to do with the feeling that knowledge of the reality of those past times is painfully nostalgic for me. My generation is dying out – I see friends die out each year.
And another major factor is the music of today, or rather the general type of popular music played ever since the rock-n/roll revolution, coming down to just rock and metal, and such-like, brought in by the advent of the electric guitar. Most popular tunes up to the late sixties at least had a melody, and were not so monotonous. But now, all I hear is rather simplistic music with only a few notes in the “melodies”, and a lot of repetition. That’s in general – there are exceptions of course.
But this stuff is churned out in the thousands by talentless dolts who don’t sing, but just “say it”, approximately somewhere near the notes, and often don’t sing but they “yell”. Of course, I’m sounding like the stereotypical old buffer who is resistant to change. I’m in my late 70s, but can play pretty good jazz on the piano – and do the same on the drums, if necessary.
Another thing that’s gone is the idea of singing around a piano, as a family, or friends, or in pubs or clubs. That’s gone, as far as I can see, and that sort of thing was so formative about my whole being, that I absolutely mourn for the cultural loss that I’m experiencing. People just don’t seem to sing together in the way I grew up with – or at least not among my family and friends.
And that, dear readers, is what can render me to tears or a sob, when the triggers happen to be in some TV show or other. I’m stuck with it, but at least I understand it now.
Last Saturday’s party for our Golden Wedding was, I should say, a success, in that everyone said they had a good time. My family said they had a good time. Various friends said they had a good time. I had a good time except for a series of incidents that were anxiogenic verging on panicogenic. (Yes, they are real words.)
But there were moments when my worst fears were realized.
The venue was ready with about 8 large, set tables. making it crowded fro the musos. I was staggering in (with help) with my gear for a digital keyboard, amp, and bits and pieces. Setting up was a problem and I dithered, and misplaced bits, and got flustered. It was quite warm, and my daughter Leanne said “Dad, slow down. Slow down. Your face is red! Would you like a glass of water?” So it showed. Anyway that was finally done, but it was surprisingly stressful. Then the bass and drums arrived, so I helped there.
Let me say that I’m battling against two factors. The first is a life-long depressive illness, whereby I panic to varying degrees and give myself a hard time, verging on suicidal – in fact more than just verging. I know about it, and try to use Cognitive Behaviour techniques to manage it, and it’s much better than it once was. But the depression is still alive and well enough to potentially deprive my wife and family of my existence. Not that I’d care then, being non-existent. but I love them and that would hurt and shatter them. I don’t really want that legacy.
The other is fairly severe spinal arthritis in the lumbar region. Not that here’s anything unique about that, and millions have it, but it’s permanent and continuous, with chronic back pain plus a horrible dead sensation in the legs. After 3 operations, nothing more can be done, so I take necessary pills and struggle along, but it really bloody well hurts!
Pain drains my soul and robs my psyche of its clarity.
People started arriving. We’d stipulated “no gifts, please”, but in came some nice picture frames, bottles of wine, a nice scarf, and so on. I left Glenyce and the daughters to help sort this out, which worked.
BUT, I had written a listwhich I desperately need for a welcoming speech I’d planned, but couldn’t find it!! People milling around, drinking, chatting, and me hunting high and low for this bloody list. Glenyce discovered it on the floor under a chair I’d sat in. Duh!
It was absolute hell missing that list, but I did find it, and my intro went well, I thought.
But I gave myself a bloody hard time over losing it. And it fed into a general feeling of what next is going to happen. As it happens, my older son Peter made an excellent, interesting, humorous speech about us, and everyone cheered.
Then it was time to cut a cake (made by Nicole), and after photos do a bridal waltz, which was OK. and so things went on – I got involved with playing jazz, and so on. But now I remember that I forgot to reply to Peter’s speech. I never did get to that, because the music took off, and after a while people started leaving in dribs and drabs and I had to do the hostly duties.
Y’know, I’d worked out a speech about how we met and how it blossomed out, and how I proposed as a surprise. I took her to lunch in town one day (we both worked near the city centre). I said I needed her help to help me buy something “for the family”, and she was shocked when I took her to a jewellery store and put some rings in her hand to chose from. I had fore-warned the owner, so he was ready for us, and knew what I had in mind.
So it was a really good surprise. It was also a surprise to both sets of parents, because no prior discussion had taken place. My own Mum burnt the veggies due to the distraction. But I didn’t get to do the speech. No great loss, I suspect! It was by no means conventional, and I suppose, verging on the presumptuous.
Further anxiety set in when I played my first set of numbers with my trio. I had an idea what I’d do, but at the last moment couldn’t find the right music Grrr!!! “Not happy, Jan!”, is apparently an Australian vernacular saying for that, arising from a distant TV commercial of some note,, but it’s how I felt. So I stumbled through some other numbers, but it was OK, apparently. But I wanted it to be brilliant, which wasn’t going to happen. Drat!
BUT I THOUGHT THEY WERE BORING!!
So my well-planned speech was stillborn.
Then a became quite transfixed with anxiety as I sat at the keyboard, with three different people offering me books of possible jazz numbers to play. I hope I chose wisely, but it was hard to please everyone. Look, the musos and singers were well-chosen, good players, good friends, and it all went well. many of my family and other friends hadn’t heard the musical side of me, so it turned out well.
I love all of my friends who were there, and count myself a fortunate man. And I know Glenyce shares my feelings!
But not without the predicted anxiety! And I used no Valium at all – just a little white wine did the trick!
OK , It’s my our 50th wedding anniversary coming up, the symbol for which, we are told by the powers that be, is Gold for 50 married years. The actual date is Dec 11th, but tomorrow we’re having a Golden Wedding celebration, with about 50 people in a nice little venue with a catered lunch and free drinks for all.
Except not free yours truly of course! My do, my pockets. Really happy to do so, and never thrown something like this before, so I’m a bit nervous, although I’ve played in bands for many of these in the distant past, when I did play the drums. OK – really nervous. Like – something will go wrong. I’ll forget people’s names. I’ll make a fool of myself in the speech. I’ll drop my dinner. Spill my drinks
My family’s done everything – venue, invitations, RSVPs, arrangements, decorations, and so on. but I’m still nervous.
Y’know, it’s as though I’m getting married all over again. Ridiculous, of course. I’m a perfectly competent 77 year old man with an academic career behind me, three successful children, four grandkids, and so on.
I’m taking a bottle of Valium with me.
It’s to do with music. Many of the invitees are musicians, all of whom I know and with whom I’ve played many times. I’m nervous that I couldn’t invite all that I know, because there are limits, and I had to make choices. I’m worried that someone will feel left out. God, this is annoying!!
And I’m taking my digital keyboard and amp and stuff, and I’ve got a drummer mate who’s going to all the trouble to bring his kit, and a bass player, and others with instruments and yadayadayada! And we’ll play our jazz and ballads. Some will sing, and we’ll have a bloody good time, as a matter of fact.
But I’m still nervous. There’s always the Valium!
I’ll make mistakes on the piano. I won’t know the tunes and feel like an idiot!! None of this will actually happen, but I’m afraid it will and that’s bad enough. In fact I won’t need the Valium, because I’ll do well, and everyone will have a great time. Lots of people there will never have heard me play at all, and certainly not the jazz stuff in which I’m involved, and that will be quite an experience for them. And me.
All of the musos are characters, and are very entertaining, and really good players and singers. The musos like to jam, too. And this is for people who know nothing about jazz and so on. But that’s why I’ve invited them all there at once, so they can all meet each other. The showbiz group can meet the family, and the family can meet the fungi people, and the family can meet people I went to school with, and the latter will meet some of the whole damn bunch of friends we’ve been so lucky to acquire as we pass through our lives.
I’m nervous, too, because I wonder whether people will mingle easily, and introduce each other, because I certainly won’t have time to. And I ended that with a preposition, which you’re not s’posed to do but I don’t care.
And I’m selfish, because I haven’t even mentioned my dear wife yet. but she’s watching me type this, and if she hadn’t, I might have forgotten about her completely.
Because performance anxiety is so self-centred, isn’t it?! Typical of me. Hopelessly self-centred. Narcissistic. Like all performers, probably.
And that’s OK.
But it’s OK. the day will be good. Nothing will go ‘wrong’, and if it does, it won’t matter. Because life is to be lived, and “is fired at us point blank”. My performance anxiety has gone now, because I feel so much better with Glenyce by my side. (Can’t find a marriage photo on this computer!) And isn’t that what a Golden Wedding anniversary is all about?
I know the anxiety will be there again tomorrow. It’s a permanent companion. Maybe, a good friend.
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http://www.elfram.com/wp/category/music/
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Sometimes you need a little treat for yourself to start the morning. And, sometimes that means brunch filled with waffles, pancakes and all the mimosas. Here are our favorite (and most indulgent!) brunch recipes to make at home—all sure to be followed by a mid-morning nap.
- The Guardian - Graham Readfearn
About 380 pilot whales were confirmed dead in Tasmania’s west on Wednesday afternoon with rescuers fighting to save the remaining 30 that are still alive. More than 450 long-finned pilot whales were caught...
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https://amp.flipboard.com/@macplas
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DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION STATEMENT
Since its inception, motorsport has been influenced by a narrow demographic. To promote diversity and inclusion in ourselves and in our community, we stress the importance of leading by example and creating an open learning environment. Because problem-solving ingenuity isn’t tied to seniority, race, gender, sexual orientation, or culture; Cal Poly Racing aims to teach anyone willing the skills needed to positively influence their future endeavors.
WE WILL NOT BE SILENT
BLACK LIVES MATTER.
The members of our club are heartbroken and angry about the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and many other acts of violence perpetrated against the Black community. These injustices remind us of the racism that has deeply rooted itself in our world. In the past, Cal Poly Racing has been indifferent to numerous inequities, even ones in our own backyard; but we will no longer allow ourselves to sit in silence. We stand in solidarity with the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement.
We recognize that Cal Poly Racing has historically been a primarily white and male institution. Our history has been tainted with inaction to the oppression around and within the club, and as the outgoing and incoming presidents, we seek to incite change towards equality. We are committing to making Cal Poly Racing a more welcoming and all-inclusive club where racism, sexism, classism, ableism, or any discrimination of any sort based on race, religion, gender identity/presentation, sexuality will not be tolerated. We will not turn a blind eye to or contribute to the injustice that surrounds us.
As one of the largest engineering clubs on campus, here are a few steps Cal Poly Racing plans to take to use our voice and change:
Reaching out to the College of Engineering calling for the education and training of students and faculty in anti-racism and implicit bias.
Create by-laws for the club that include a zero-tolerance policy to hateful comments or actions by any member of the club. Perpetrators will face removal from club activities and reporting to the College of Engineering.
Include a discussion on our continual commitment to making Cal Poly Racing a welcoming community in every meeting or event that we have a voice.
In order to become anti-racist and support those who have been marginalized by society’s system, we all must take action. Now is not the time to stay silent; use your voice and stand against injustice.
Raymond Deng (firstname.lastname@example.org) and
Allyse Birken (email@example.com)
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https://www.calpolyracing.org/diversity-and-inclusion
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If you're five hours past your bedtime and still reading this, may I suggest getting some sleep? The fic will still be here tomorrow... unless, you know, something bad happens to it and the next morning there's just a 404 at this address and you're left with nothing but a fading memory and an eternal regret that you didn't stay awake longer and keep reading while you still had the chance... but hey, how probable is that?
This story spreads by blogging, tweeting, word of mouth, favoriting, plugging on forums, and adding to lists; and remember, if the readers before you hadn't taken a moment to do that, you probably wouldn't have found this. If that's not enough to motivate you, then let me add that if you don't help spread rationality, Hermione will be sad. You don't want her to be sad, right?
Don't forget to visit LessWrong dot com and read the Sequences, the true existence of which this fic is but a shadow. I recommend starting with the sequence How to Actually Change Your Mind.
And now, with all universes owned by their respective creators, I present:
OMAKE FILES #4:
THE OTHER FANFICTIONS
YOU COULD'VE BEEN READING
LORD OF THE RATIONALITY
Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.
"We cannot," said Frodo. "We must not. Do you not see? It is exactly what the Enemy desires. All of this he has foreseen."
The faces turned to him, puzzled the Dwarves and grave the Elves; sternness in the eyes of the Men; and so keen the gazes of Elrond and of Gandalf that Frodo almost could not withstand it. It was very hard, then, not to grasp the Ring in his hand, and harder still not to put it on, to face them as only Frodo.
"Do you not question it?" Frodo said, thin like the wind his voice, and wavering like a breeze. "You have chosen, of all things, to send the Ring into Mordor; should you not wonder? How did it come to this? That we might, of all our choices, do that single thing our Enemy most desires? Perhaps the Cracks of Doom are already guarded, strongly enough to hold off Gandalf and Elrond and Glorfindel all together; or perhaps the Master of that place has cooled the lava there, set it to trap the Ring so that he may simply bring it out after it is thrown in..." A memory of awful clarity came over Frodo then, and a flash of black laughter, and the thought came to him that it was just what the Enemy would do. Only the thought came to him so: thus it would amuse me to do, if I meant to rule...
There were doubtful glances exchanged within the council; Glóin and Gimli and Boromir were now looking at the Elves more skeptically than before, like they had awoken out of a dream of words.
"The Enemy is very wise," said Gandalf, "and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it -"
"He will think of it!" cried Frodo. He struggled for words, trying to convey things that had once seemed perfect in his comprehension, and then faded like melting snow. "If the Enemy thought that all his foes were moved by desire for power alone - he would guess wrongly, over and over, and the Maker of this Ring would see that, he would know that somewhere he had made a mistake!" Frodo's hands stretched forth pleadingly.
Boromir stirred, and his voice was doubtful. "You speak fair of the Enemy," said Boromir, "for one of his foes."
Frodo's mouth opened and shut in desperate bewilderment; for Frodo knew, he knew the Man was mad, but he could think of nothing to say.
Then Bilbo spoke, and his withered voice silenced the whole room, even Elrond who had been about to speak. "Frodo is right, I fear," whispered the old hobbit. "I remember, I remember what it was like. To see with the Black Sight. I remember. The Enemy will think that we might not trust one another, that the weaker among us will propose to destroy the Ring so that the stronger may not have it. He knows that even one not truly good might still cry to destroy the Ring, to make a show of pretended goodness. And the Enemy will not think it impossible that such a decision be made by this council, for you see, he does not trust us to be wise." A whispering chuckle rose from the ancient hobbit's throat. "And if he did - why, he would still guard the Cracks of Doom. It would cost him little."
Now foreboding was on the faces even of the Elves, and the Wise; Elrond had frowned, and the sharp eyebrows of Gandalf furrowed.
Frodo gazed at them all, feeling a wildness come over him, a despair; and as his heart weakened a shadow came over his vision, a darkness and a wavering. From within the shadow Frodo saw Gandalf, and the wizard's strength was revealed as weakness, and his wisdom folly. For Frodo knew, as the Ring seemed to drag and weigh on his breast, that Gandalf had not thought at all of history and lore, when the wizard spoke of how the Enemy would not understand any desire save power; that Gandalf had not remembered how Sauron had cast down and corrupted the Men of Númenor in the days of their glory. Just as it had not occurred to Gandalf that the Enemy might learn to comprehend foes of goodwill by looking...
Frodo's gaze swung to Elrond, but there was no hope there, no answer and no rescue in the shadowy vision; for Elrond had let Isildur go, carrying the Ring from the Cracks of Doom where it should have been destroyed, to the cost of all this war. Not for Isildur's own sake, not for friendship had it been done, for the Ring had killed Isildur in the end, and far worse fates could have followed him. But the Doom that had stemmed from Isildur's deed would have seemed unsure to Elrond then, unsure and distant in time; and yet the cost to Elrond himself of taking his sword's pommel to the back of Isildur's head would have been surer, and nearer...
As though in desperation, Frodo turned to look at Aragorn, the weathered man who had donned his travel-worn clothes for this council, the heir of kings who spoke softly to hobbits. But Frodo's vision seemed to double, and in the shadowy second image Frodo saw a Man who had spent too much of his youth among Elves, who had learned to wear humble and stained clothes amid the gold and jewels, knowing he could not match them wisdom for wisdom, and hoping to outplay them in a fashion they would not emulate...
In the sight of the Ring, which was the sight of the Ring's own Maker, all noble things faded into stratagems and lies, a world of grey and darkness without any light. They had not made their choices knowingly, Gandalf or Elrond or Aragorn; the impulses had come from the dark hidden parts of themselves, the black secret depths which the Ring had rendered plain in Frodo's vision. Would they outthink the Shadow, when they could not comprehend even their own selves, or the forces that moved them?
"Frodo!" came the sharp whisper of Bilbo's voice, and Frodo came to himself, and halted his hand reaching up toward where the Ring lay on his breast, on its chain, dragging like a vast stone around his neck.
Reaching up to grasp the Ring wherein all answers lay.
"How did you bear this thing?" Frodo whispered to Bilbo, as if the two of them were the only souls in the room, though all the Council watched them. "For years? I cannot imagine it."
"I kept it locked in a room to which only Gandalf had the key," said his uncle, "and when I began to imagine ways to open it, I remembered Gollum."
A shudder went through Frodo, remembering the tales. The horror of the Misty Mountains, thinking, always thinking in the dark; ruling the goblins from the shadows and filling the tunnels with traps; but for Bilbo wearing the ring that first time not a single dwarf would have lived. And now, Legolas the Elf had told them, Gollum had given up on sending his agents against the Shire, had at last found the courage to leave his mountains and seek the Ring himself. That was Gollum, the fate which Frodo would share himself, if the Ring were not destroyed.
Only they had no way to destroy the Ring.
The Shadow had foreseen every move they could make. Had almost - Frodo still could not imagine how it had been done, how the Shadow had arranged such a thing - had almost maneuvered the Council into sending the Ring straight into Mordor with only a tiny guard set on it, as they would have done if Frodo and Bilbo had not been there.
And having foregone that swiftest of all possible defeats, the only question remaining was how long it would take to lose. Gandalf had delayed too long, delayed far too long to set this march in motion. It could have been so easy, if only Bilbo had set out eighty years earlier, if only Bilbo had been told what Gandalf had already suspected, if only Gandalf's heart had not silently flinched away from the prospect of being embarrassingly wrong...
Frodo's hand spasmed on his breast; without thought, his fingers began to rise again toward the vast weight of the chain on which the Ring hung.
All he had to do was put on the Ring.
Just that, and all would become clear to him, once more the slowness and mud would leave his thoughts, all possibilities and futures transparent to him, he would see through the Shadow's plans and devise an irresistible counterstroke -
- and he would never be able to take off the Ring, not again, not by any will that would be left to him. All Frodo had of those moments were fading memories, but he knew that it had felt like dying, to let all his towers of thought collapse and become only Frodo once more. It had felt like dying, he remembered that much of Weathertop even if he remembered little else. And if he did wear the Ring again, it would be better to die with it on his finger, to end his life while he was still himself; for Frodo knew that he could not withstand the effects of wearing the Ring a second time, not afterward when the limitless clarity was lost to him...
Frodo looked around the Council, at the poor lost leaderless Wise, and he knew they could not defeat the Shadow by their own strength.
"I will wear it one last time," Frodo said, his voice broken and failing, as he had known from the beginning that he would say in the end, "one last time to find the answer for this Council, and then there will be other hobbits."
"No!" screamed the voice of Sam, as the other hobbit began to rush forward from where he had hidden; even as Frodo, with movement as swift and precise as a Nazgûl, took out the Ring from beneath his shirt; and somehow Bilbo was already standing there and had already thrust his finger through.
It all happened before even Gandalf's staff could point, before Aragorn could level the hilt-shard of his sword; the Dwarves shouted in shock, and the Elves were dismayed.
"Of course," said Bilbo's voice, as Frodo began to weep, "I see it now, I understand everything at last. Listen, listen and swiftly, here is what you must do -"
THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
With a critical eye, Peter looked over the encamped Centaurs with their bows, Beavers with their long daggers, and talking Bears with their chain-mail draped over them. He was in charge, because he was one of the mythical Sons of Adam and had declared himself High King of Narnia; but the truth was he didn't really know much about encampments, weapons, and guard patrols. In the end all he could see was that they all looked proud and confident, and Peter had to hope they were right about that; because if you couldn't believe in your own people, you couldn't believe in anyone.
"They'd scare me, if I had to fight 'em," Peter said finally, "but I don't know if it's enough to beat... her."
"You don't suppose this mysterious lion will actually show up and help us, d'you?" said Lucy. Her voice was very quiet, so that none of the creatures around them would hear. "Only it'd be nice to really have him, don't you think, instead of just letting people think that he put us in charge?"
Susan shook her head, shaking the magical arrows in the quiver on her back. "If there was really someone like that," Susan said, "he wouldn't have let the White Witch cover the land in winter for a hundred years, would he?"
"I had the strangest dream," Lucy said, her voice even quieter, "where we didn't have to organize any creatures or convince them to fight, we just walked into this place and the lion was already here, with all the armies already mustered, and he went and rescued Edmund, and then we rode alongside him into this tremendous battle where he killed the White Witch..."
"Did the dream have a moral?" said Peter.
"I don't know," said Lucy, blinking and looking a little puzzled. "In the dream it all seemed pointless somehow."
"I think maybe the land of Narnia was trying to tell you," said Susan, "or maybe it was just your own dreams trying to tell you, that if there was really such a person as that lion, there'd be no use for us."
MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS SCIENCE
"Applejack, who told me outright that I was mistaken, represents the spirit of... honesty! " Twilight Sparkle raised her head even higher, mane blowing like a wind about the dusky sky of her neck. "Fluttershy, who approached the manticore to find out about the thorn in its paw, represents the spirit of... investigation! Pinkie Pie, who realized that the awful faces were just trees, represents the spirit of... formulating alternative hypotheses! Rarity, who solved the serpent's problem represents the spirit of... creativity! Rainbow Dash, who saw through the false offer of her heart's desire, represents the spirit of... analysis! Marie-Susan, who made us convince her that we were right before she agreed to come on our expedition, represents the spirit of... peer review! And when those Elements are ignited by the spark of curiosity that resides in the heart of all of us, it creates the seventh element - the Element of Sci-"
The blast of power that came forth was like a wind of moonless night, it caught Marie-Susan before the pony could even flinch, and she was gone without a trace before any of them had the chance to rear in shock.
From the dark thing that stood in the center of the dais where the Elements had shattered, from the scarce-recognizable void-black outline of a horse, came a voice that seemed to bypass all ears and burn like cold fire, sounding directly in the brain of everypony who heard:
Did you expect me to just stand there and let you finish?
Twilight Sparkle stared at the space where Marie-Susan had been, where not a trace of the unicorn remained. She - she just - she - In the back of her mind, unheard, she was aware that Rarity was screaming.
That wasn't a disintegration, said the voice of Nightmare. I sent her somewhere else.
Rarity's scream stopped abruptly.
Twilight Sparkle felt like her own scream was only beginning. Seven. It took seven ponies to use the Elements of Inquiry. Everyone knew that no matter how honest, investigating, skeptical, creative, analytic, or curious you were, what really made your work Science was when you published your results in a prestigious journal. Everyone knew that. Could there be more than one Element of Peer Review at a time - how long would it take to find another one - and the Nightmare wouldn't just stand there and let them do it -
"Where?" yelled Rainbow Dash. "Where'd you put her?"
I put the little pony in the same place I bound my pathetic sister, in the heart of her pathetic Sun.
"She'll die!" cried Fluttershy, staring at the Nightmare in horror. "It's too hot, she'll burn!"
Oh, don't worry. The power of the Nightmare surrounds your little friend, keeping her safe and cool, sustaining her without food or drink. She will suffer nothing more than boredom...
The void-black outline stepped off the dais, walking slowly, deliberately, past the remaining six ponies.
...so long as the Nightmare's power is not broken. By any backup plans my sister may have set in motion, for example, and which may be known to you. In that case she will vaporize instantly. Such a lovely thing, friendship. It makes such a wonderful instrument of blackmail. Be sure to keep safe the Elements of Inquiry. You wouldn't want anyone else using them on me, now would you?
"No," whispered Twilight Sparkle, as the horror began to dawn on her.
Then a crawling sensation all over her skin, as the Nightmare walked past her, and the deadly power brushed her with its cold caress.
Now if you'll pardon me, my little ponies, I have an eternal night to rule over.
THE VILLAGE HIDDEN IN THE CLARITY
"Consider the computational power required to manifest over a hundred shadow clones," the Uchiha genius said in his dispassionate tones. "It is an error of rationality, Sakura, to say 'fluke' and think you have explained anything. 'Fluke' is simply the name one gives to data that one is ignoring."
"But it has to be a fluke!" Sakura yelled. With effort, she calmed her voice into the careful precision expected of a rationality ninja; it wouldn't do to have her crush think she was stupid. "Like you said, the computational power required to use over a hundred Kage Bunshin is simply absurd. We're talking the level of a major superintelligence. Naruto's the dead last of our class. He's not even jounin-level smart, let alone a superintelligence!"
The Uchiha's eyes gleamed, almost as though he had activated his Smartingan. "Naruto can manifest a hundred independently acting clones. He must have the raw brainpower. But, under ordinary circumstances, something prevents him from using this computational power efficiently... like a mind at war within itself, perhaps? We now have cause to believe that Naruto is in some way connected to a superintelligence, and as a recently graduated genin, he, like us, is fifteen years old. What happened fifteen years ago, Sakura?"
It took a moment for Sakura to comprehend, to remember, and then she understood.
The attack of the Nine-Brains Demon Fox.
Just a small bone-white creature with big ears and bigger tail and beady red eyes. It was no stronger than an ordinary fox, it didn't breathe fire or flash laser eyes, it possessed no chakra and no magic of any kind, but its intelligence was over nine thousand times that of a human being.
Hundreds had been killed, half the buildings wrecked, almost the whole village of Beisugakure had been destroyed.
"You think the Kyubey is hiding inside Naruto?" Sakura said. A moment later, her brain automatically went on to fill in the obvious implications of the theory. "And the software conflict between their existences is why he acts like a gibbering idiot half the time, but can control a hundred Kage Bunshin. Huh. That makes... a lot of sense... actually..."
Sasuke gave her the brief, contemptuous nod of someone who had figured all this out on his own, without anyone else needing to prompt him.
"Ano..." said Sakura. Only years of sanity exercises channeled her complete screaming panic into pragmatically useful policy options. "Shouldn't we... tell someone about this? Like, sometime in the next five seconds?"
"The adults already know," Sasuke said emotionlessly. "It is the obvious explanation for their treatment of Naruto. No, the real question is how this fits into the outwitting of the Uchiha..."
"I don't see how it fits at all -" began Sakura.
"It must fit!" A tinge of frantic emotion flickered in Sasuke's voice. "I asked that man why he did it, and he told me that when I knew the answer to that, it would explain everything! Surely this must also be part of what is to be explained!"
Sakura sighed to herself. Her personal hypothesis was that Itachi had just been trying to drive his brother into clinical paranoia.
"Yo, kids," said the voice of their rationality sensei from their radio earpieces. "There's a village in Wave trying to build a bridge, and it keeps falling down for no reason anyone can figure out. Meet up at the gates at noon. It's time for your first C-ranked analysis mission."
(This has now inspired an extended fanfiction, _Lighting Up the Dark_ by Velorien.)
ERDŐS IN CHAINS
"How could you do it, Anita?" said Richard, his voice very tight. "How could you coauthor a paper with Jean-Claude? You study the undead, you don't collaborate with them on papers!"
"And what about you?" I spat. "You coauthored a paper with Sylvie! It's all right for you to be prolific but not me?"
"I'm the head of her institute," Richard growled. I could feel the waves of science radiating off him; he was angry. "I have to work with Sylvie, it doesn't mean anything! I thought our own research was special, Anita!"
"It is," I said, feeling helpless about my inability to explain things to Richard. He didn't understand the thrill of being a polymath, the new worlds that were opening up to me. "I didn't share our research with anyone -"
"But you wanted to," said Richard.
I didn't say anything, but I knew that the look on my face said it all.
"God, Anita, you've changed," said Richard. He seemed to slump in on himself. "Do you realize that the monsters are joking about Blake numbers, now? I used to be your partner in everything, and now - I'm just another werewolf with a Blake number of 1."
"I am sick of this!" shouted Liono. "Sick of doing this every single week! Our species was capable of interstellar travel, Panthro, I know the quantities of energy involved! There is no way you can't build a nuke or steer an asteroid or somehow blow up that ever-living idiot's pyramid!"
HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF RATIONALITY
"Fabulous secret knowledge was revealed to me on the day I held aloft my magic book and said: By the power of Bayes's Theorem!"
I am the core of my thoughts
Belief is my body
And choice is my blood
I have revised over a thousand judgments
Unafraid of loss
Nor aware of gain
Have withstood pain to update many times
Waiting for truth's arrival.
This is the one uncertain path.
My whole life has been...
Unlimited Bayes Works!
THE NAME OF THE RATIONALITY
The eleven-year-old boy who would someday become legend - slayer of dragons, killer of kings - had but one thought upon his mind, as he approached the Sorting Hat to enter into the study of mysteries.
Anywhere but Ravenclaw anywhere but Ravenclaw oh please anywhere but Ravenclaw...
But no sooner the brim of the ancient felted device slipped over his forehead -
As the table decked in blue began to applaud him, as he approached the dread table where he would spend the next seven years, Kvothe was already wincing inside, waiting for the inevitable; and the inevitable happened almost at once, exactly as he had feared it, before he'd even had a chance to sit down properly.
"So!" an older boy said with the happy expression of someone who's thought of something terribly clever. "Kvothe the Raven, huh?"
TENGEN TOPPA GURREN RATIONALITY 40K
I have a truly marvelous story for this crossover which this margin is too narrow to contain.
(Note: Written after I heard Alicorn was writing a Twilight fanfic, but before I read _Luminosity_. It's obvious if you're one of us.)
"Edward," said Isabella tenderly. She reached up a hand and stroked his cold, sparkling cheek. "You don't have to protect me from anything. I've listed out all the upsides and all the downsides, assigned them consistent relative weights, and it's just really obvious that the benefits of becoming a vampire outweigh the drawbacks."
"Bella," Edward said, and swallowed desperately. "Bella -"
"Immortality. Perfect health. Awakening psychic powers. Easy enough to survive on animal blood once you do it. Even the beauty, Edward, there are people who would give their lives to be pretty, and don't you dare call them shallow until you've tried being ugly. Do you think I'm scared of the word 'vampire'? I'm tired of your arbitrary deontological constraints, Edward. The whole human species ought to be in on your fun, and people are dying by the thousands even as you hesitate."
The gun in his lover's hand was cold against his forehead. It wouldn't kill him, but it would disable him for long enough -
JASMINE AND THE LAMP
Aladdin's face was wistful, but determined, as the newly minted street urchin addressed the blue being of cosmic power for one last time, prepared to leave behind the wealth and hope he had so briefly tasted for the sake of his friend. "Genie, I make my third wish. I wish for you to be -"
Princess Jasmine, who had been staring at this with her mouth open, not quite believing what she was seeing, just barely managed to overcome her paralysis and yank the lamp out of the boy's hand before he could finish the fatal sentence.
"Excuse me," said Jasmine. "Aladdin, my darling, you're cute but you're an idiot, do you know that? Did you not notice how once Jafar got his hands on this lamp, he got his own three wishes - oh, never mind. Genie, I wish for everyone to always be young and healthy, I wish nobody ever had to die if they didn't want to, and I wish for everyone's intelligence to gradually increase at a rate of 1 IQ point per year." She tossed the lamp back to Aladdin. "Go back to what you were doing."
(contributed by Histocrat on LiveJournal, post 13389, aka HonoreDB on LessWrong)
(reposted with permission)
Interloper, abandon this strange prank,
which makes cruel use of the blindness of my grief,
and the good heart of my good friend Horatio.
Or else, if thou hast true title to this belov'd form,
What drawing did I present to Hamlet King,
when six years old and scarce out of my sling?
'twas a unicorn clad all in mail.
Father, I will.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Thou art in torment?
Ay, as are all who die unshriven.
Like every Dane this is what I've been taught.
Yet I did figure such caprice ill-suited to almighty God.
For all who suffer unlook'd for deaths, unattended by God's chosen priests,
to be then punish'd for the ill-ordering of the world...
'twas not the world that killed me, nor accident of any kind.
If thou didst ever thy dear father love,
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
My time grows ever shorter. Wilt thou hear the tale?
My love for you does call me to avenge your death,
but greater crimes have I heard told this night.
If all those murdered go to Hell, and others as well,
who would have confess'd had they the time,
If people who are, in balance, good, suffer grisly
at the hands of God, then I defy God's plan.
Good Ghost, as one who dwells beyond the veil,
you know things that we mortals scarce conceive.
Tell me: is there some philter or device,
outside nature's ken but not outside her means,
by which death itself may be escap'd?
You seek to evade Hell?
I seek to deny Hell to everyone!
and Heaven too, for I suspect the Heaven of our mad God
might be a paltry thing, next to the Heaven I will make of Earth,
when I am its immortal king.
I care not for these things.
Death and hell have stripp'd away all of my desires,
save for revenge upon my murderer.
Thou shalt not be avenged, save that thou swear:
an I slay thine killer, so wilt thou vouchsafe to me the means
by which I might slay death.
He who killed you will join you in the Pit,
and then that's it. No further swelling of Hell's ranks will I permit.
Done. When my brother is slain, he who poured the poison in my ear,
then will I pour in yours the precious truth:
the making of the Philosopher's Stone. With this Stone, thou may'st procure
a philter to render any man immune to death, and more transmute
base metal to gold, to fund the provision of this philter to all mankind.
Truly there is nothing beyond the dreaming of philosophy.
The man whom I must kill-my uncle the king?
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-
Indeed, he has such gifts I near despair,
of killing him and yet succeeding to his throne.
'twill be an awesome fight for awesome stakes.
Hast thou advice?
A cock crows. Exit Ghost.
(HonoreDB has now extended this to a complete ebook)
(entitled _A Will Most Incorrect to Heaven: The Tragedy of Prince Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone_)
(available for $3 at makefoil dot com)
MOBY DICK AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY
(as related by Eneasz on LessWrong)
"Revenge?" said the peg-legged man. "On a whale? No, I decided I'd just get on with my life."
ALICE IN THE LAND WHERE THINGS ARE EVEN CRAZIER THAN HERE
(as first written by braindoll in a review of this chapter, with some further edits)
Alice was sitting by her sister on the bank, reading a book. She had several friends who were older, and if she just asked nicely, they were often happy to lend her books without quite so many pictures and conversations as was thought appropriate for a girl her age.
Hot days often made her feel sleepy and stupid, so Alice had thoughtfully wet a handkerchief and placed it at the back of her neck. Still her mind had gone off wandering (just as if it was some little kitten whose owner had taken off her eyes for just a moment), and she had just decided that the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth around 4/3 of the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, which was nonetheless not equal to the opportunity cost of putting down her book, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor, in fact, did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" But when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat- pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice froze in sudden clarity and fear, for she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it. "Oh bother," she said to herself (though not aloud; she had long since cured herself of that habit, as it made people take her even less seriously than they already did). "If I did not immediately recognize how much curiouser that was than the average rabbit, then something is interfering with my curiosity, and that is most curious of all." So, burning with questions, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD
(thanks to dsummerstay for reminding me to post this one)
MORPHEUS: For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living -
NEO (politely): Excuse me, please.
MORPHEUS: Yes, Neo?
NEO: I've kept quiet for as long as I could, but I feel a certain need to speak up at this point. The human body is the most inefficient source of energy you could possibly imagine. The efficiency of a power plant at converting thermal energy into electricity decreases as you run the turbines at lower temperatures. If you had any sort of food humans could eat, it would be more efficient to burn it in a furnace than feed it to humans. And now you're telling me that their food is the bodies of the dead, fed to the living? Haven't you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics?
MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo?
NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!
MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?
NEO: ...in the Matrix.
MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.
NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook?
MORPHEUS: There is no such thing, Neo. The universe doesn't run on math.
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https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5GCoBhagXMDG6XYTj/chapter-64-omake-files-4-alternate-parallels
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In addition to starting at the weakside linebacker spot in Rutgers’ defense, Antonio Lowery is considered one of the Scarlet Knights’ premier performers on the kick and punt coverage units. In an interview earlier this week, Lowery said both Rutgers’ defensive and special team players will have their hands full guarding T.Y. Hilton — FIU’s dynamic wide receiver/return specialist. In last Saturday’s loss at Alabama, Hilton picked up where he left off last season — when he ranked third in the NCAA in all-purpose yards — by returning a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown.
Lowery spoke about the challenge of defending Hilton, as well as what the defense needs to do when Rutgers plays host to FIU on Saturday evening.
For the first time in his nine-year tenure at Rutgers, Greg Schiano will match wits with someone stemmed from his coaching tree when the Scarlet Knights host Florida International on Saturday (5 p.m., SNY) at Rutgers Stadium.
FIU is coached by Mario Cristobal, who mentored Rutgers’ offensive line under Schiano from 2001 through ’03.
“”I’m really happy for Mario,” said Schiano, whose Scarlet Knights (1-1) will be looking to climb over the .500 plateau when they meet the Miami-based Sun Belt Conference foe. “”He’s a great person and a really fine football coach. I root for them every week except this one. So it will be neat, but once the game starts it will be a football game and that’s all that matters.”
Cristobal says he has used Schiano’s program as a blueprint for what he’s trying to build at FIU. After going 1-11 in his first season, Cristobal led the Golden Panthers to the brink of bowl-eligibility with a 5-7 mark last season.
His squad is 0-1 this season, but its 40-14 loss at Alabama deserves an asterisk: The Golden Panthers trailed the Crimson Tide by only six points late in the third quarter before succumbing to the nation’s fourth-ranked team.
The responsibilities for the Rutgers men’s basketball coaching staff have undergone some alterations for the upcoming season. Due to family obligations relating to illness, Jim Carr will assume the position of recruiting coordinator. Craig Carter will re-assume the position of assistant coach.
“There is nothing more important than family,” head coach Fred Hill said. “Jimmy needs to dedicate as much time as possible to his wife and son.”
Hill also said he intends for the assistants’ roles to rotate on a year-to-year basis. Carter and Carr, along with Darren Savino and recently hired Sal Mentesana, will enter a four-year rotation. In any given season, one of the four will serve as recruiting coordinator, while the other three will serve as assistant coaches.
A rotational system between bench and coordinator positions is somewhat unusual but not unique in college basketball. North Carolina head coach Roy Williams employs such a system and earlier this month moved longtime assistant Joe Holladay to an administrative role.
“As a coach, you always want the deepest bench possible,” Hill said. “This applies not only to your players, but to your staff as well. We are fortunate to have four very talented assistants. I intend to maximize the abilities of our staff.”
Nickname: Golden Panthers. Conference: Sun Belt. Head coach: Mario Cristobal, third year (6-19). 2008: 5-7 (3-4). 2009: 0-1 (lost to No. 4 Alabama, 40-14, last Saturday). Returning starters: 14 (9 off., 5 def.) Basic offense: Spread. Basic defense: Multiple. Series: First meeting.
Returning leaders (last year’s stats) Passing: Paul McCall (167-317, 2,332, 15 TDs, 9 INTs). Rushing: Darriet Perry (31 car., 172 yds., 2 TDs). Receiving: T.Y. Hilton (41 rec., 1,013 yds., 7 TDs). Tackles: Scott Bryant (89). Sacks: Toronto Smith (2.5); INT: Anthony Gaitor (5). FIU on the Web: FIUSports.com
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http://blogs.mycentraljersey.com/rutgers/2009/09/18/
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By Thanda Ko Gyi
Over the past 12 months, I didn’t have much time to myself. Rushing from one Myanmar Ocean Project expedition to the next, there was little time to relax and even less time to absorb everything my team and I had experienced over the course of our field trips.
When COVID-19 put our plans for the rest of the season to an abrupt halt, I found myself with a scarce resource: time.
I decided to take these weeks of isolation to organise my thoughts and reflect on everything that has happened in this past year. The result? I realized how incredibly proud and grateful I am for the life-changing and fun experiences I’ve had through my work with Myanmar Ocean Project.
Here are three things that put a smile on my face and maybe on yours too:
1. We removed nearly two tonnes of harmful fishing gear from the ocean
When we set out on our first-ever survey expedition into the Myeik Archipelago in early 2019, we had no idea what to expect. Our goal was to collect data on derelict fishing nets in as many locations as possible and research its underlying causes and impacts.
But would we actually find the places, where abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) accumulates? How many nets would our small team of divers be able to remove?
11 months, 89 dive sites, and hundreds of dives later, our team has extracted over 1,800 kg (yep, that’s right!) of discarded fishing gear from Myanmar’s beautiful underwater world.
What does that mean? It means that in those places, coral reefs can thrive again without being suffocated by layers of fishing nets, crustaceans and juvenile fish can grow up without getting injured or killed in net entanglements, and fishermen should see fish populations rebound in the future.
If you look at the big picture, of course, this is just a drop in the ocean. Myanmar’s ocean still holds thousands of tonnes of discarded or lost fishing gear beneath its surface. We haven’t stopped the problem at its source - yet. But we are working on it and we can already see our advocacy efforts bearing fruits.
2. I’m a Myanmar woman
After having lived abroad, away from my family and culture for over ten years, I struggled to fit in culturally and socially when I returned to Myanmar.
It wasn’t until I went on my first Myanmar Ocean Project expedition that I began to embrace my differences. As it turned out, the combination of my Myanmar heritage and my outsider’s perspective was an advantage.
As a Myanmar woman, my interactions with the communities were not limited to formal arrangements, where social norms dictate who can communicate and who can’t. Instead, I was able to engage with everyone in a more informal manner building trusted relationships with people across different communities.
One day, I’d be having my morning coffee and a retired fisherman fixing a nearby building would strike up a conversation about Myanmar Ocean Project’s work and share his thoughts on the issue of discarded fishing gear.
Another day, I’d be helping out giggling Moken girls in their kitchen and end up planning a Try-Scuba-Dive for them to show them their home reef from a different perspective.
In some of the communities, the locals were so welcoming it started to feel like a second home for us. I’d never have thought that my mission to explore the scope, causes, and threats of discarded fishing gear would bring me closer to my identity as a Myanmar woman but I’m glad it did.
3. Our team rocks
When you’re out on expeditions for weeks in a row, spending twenty-four hours a day together, it takes a lot of flexibility and humour to work effectively as a team (and not kill each other!).
I was lucky enough that every single person contributing to Myanmar Ocean Project’s work, may it be the captain, the boat boys, the volunteers from the community and villages, or the divers and researchers were nothing short of incredible.
Some of our divers would be so enthusiastic to remove fishing gear I had to force them to sit out on dives to make sure they pace themselves.
Our boat boys assisted our divers diligently from the surface on kayaks and put in extra hours to sort and store collected ghost nets properly.
The kids in the village would await us at the pier in the mornings asking whether they could join us and help out in spotting and retrieving fishing nets.
I never dreamt of being surrounded by such a dedicated, hard-working, and passionate bunch of people both below and above the water’s surface.
Whenever the tasks in front of us seem overwhelming, I just look around me to find renewed motivation and inspiration.
Thank you to my team and everyone involved for being part of this incredible journey! I can’t wait until we can start into the next chapter for Myanmar Ocean Project and work together towards a healthy ocean in Myanmar.
By Sophie Gotthard
Eight curious faces are looking at me, waiting for the briefing to start. We’re sitting in a small semicircle to prevent the roaring engine from drowning our voices.
The boat just left the sheltered bay a few hours from Dawei and we’re headed towards the tiny Moscos Islands for our first Sustainable Snorkel Guide training with local tour guides.
Myanmar boasts an extensive coastline stretching over almost 2,000 kilometers. In the past few years, the country has increasingly opened up to tourists. Now that tourism is on the rise, many Myanmar expats are returning home from neighboring countries to seize the moment and open tourism businesses.
Given Myanmar’s unspoiled shores, abundance of islands, and stunning marine life, snorkel and dive tourism are an obvious choice for anyone looking into the country’s tourism potential.
It’s time for a quick icebreaker session. Thanda introduces our team and the purpose behind this training. She asks the tour guides to talk a bit about their background.
After exchanging a few shy looks among each other, one of the tour guides named Ko Thet decides to take the lead. He’s quite tall and wearing ear piercings – something you don’t see every day in Myanmar. "For the past seven years, I worked in Koh Tao, an island on Thailand’s east coast. During the day, I was a boat boy on a dive boat, at night, I was a barkeeper in a tourist hotspot“. His English is good and he greets everyone with “Hello Darling”, a phrase he picked up from his Australian coworkers in Thailand.
Ko Thet is used to working on a boat and dealing with tourists from all around the globe. However, he’s never been the one holding the briefing or taking people out for a snorkel. “I really love the underwater world and I want to learn more about it. In Koh Tao, I saw that tourism could also have negative effects on the environment so I want to make sure I do a good job in my country and keep the coral healthy.”
In many countries, tourism is one of the most important sources of income. Worldwide, the tourism industry accounts for almost 300 million jobs. There are many examples of tourism bringing development and opportunity for locals.
Take the world-famous dive site Pulau Sipadan in Malaysia as an example. You can walk around this tiny island in less than 15 minutes, yet it attracts thousands of tourists looking for pristine marine life and big schools of pelagic fish each month. These tourists require transportation, accommodation, food and drinks, dive operators, and so on. Locals that used to fish to provide for their families now have a range of tourism-related jobs to get involved in.
Unfortunately, there’s also a dark site to marine tourism. If managed unsustainably, tourism can destroy the very things it is based upon and turn colorful coral gardens into sandy deserts.
In Pulau Sipadan things almost took a turn for the worse too. After the dive site was discovered, unregulated marine tourism pushed the boundaries of the precious marine ecosystem. Burdened by careless divers, snorkelers, and increased boat traffic, coral reefs deteriorated.
In 2005, the Malaysian government put a stop to this development by establishing a Marine Protected Area (MPA) and strictly limiting the number of visitors per day. Since then, tour operators are encouraged to practice responsible marine tourism. Sipadan’s reefs have been slowly recovering.
Sipadan is known for its big schools of jackfish and barracuda.
In Myanmar, marine tourism is just starting out. Therefore, training local tour guides around the coastal areas is a great opportunity to encourage marine-friendly tourism. Some basic rules include anchoring without damaging corals, teaching proper snorkeling technique to avoid kicking sand or coral, preventing marine pollution, and briefing tourists not to touch or take anything.
We finish the introduction round and are stunned by the diverse backgrounds of the guys around us. Some of them used to work in mining or construction, others in bars. One of them is studying law. Ko Htike, a wiry, quiet man, whose whole face brightens up when he smiles, is a fisherman. He’s used to spending long hours out at sea, but he decided to protect the marine environment from overfishing and instead show its beauty to tourists from all over the world. Everyone listens carefully to what we say. I’m surprised and happy that everyone is so eager to learn new things.
After about an hour we reach the first island. A dense, green jungle is covering the terrain, gently sloping down and opening up into protected little coves with unspoiled beaches. It’s stunning. We start our briefing with some basic things guides should be aware of when taking out customers on a reef trip. What should you organize before and during the trip, how do you give a proper briefing and how can you protect the coral throughout the tour. When we finally get into the water we're greeted by massive coral bommies covering the ground. Sadly, we encounter only a few fish.
Some of the guys actually haven’t used snorkel gear before, so we start by setting everyone up and making sure they know how to use the gear properly. Although it’s not common to learn swimming in Myanmar, most of the guys are already good swimmers.
We start to practice duck diving with snorkel and fins. This will help the guides to point out marine life to their customers. We keep practicing and I’m happy to see how keen everyone is to improve their technique.
We get back on the boat and drive to the next spot. Some snacks and a little debrief later, we have arrived at the next site. This time we’re concentrating on the different fish species.
There’s more life around this spot, so we’re taking a waterproof slate to refer to the marine life we're encountering. A few beautiful Moorish Idols are passing by. A white-orange striped clownfish is hovering over his anemone protecting it from intruders. A moray eel is sticking its head out of a crevice.
Now we can use our new skills and duck-dive down to have a closer look at the things we see. The reef seems relatively healthy, but I discover some areas with early coral bleaching and point it out to my fellow guides.
After another hour we leave for our last destination of the day. It’s another stunning bay, but as soon as we get into the water, we discover a big fishing line. We follow it along the reef. It seems endless and is entangled in many different types of corals. We take turns diving down to safely remove the line without damaging the reef. Quite the task with such a long line!
In the end, we emerge with a whole bunch of nylon ropes. Now the guides also know how to remove fishing nets or lines without breaking off any coral.
Time flies and suddenly the captain says we have to head back to the mainland before it gets dark.
The next day, we continue our training with a workshop on marine life and threats to the ocean. Ko Thet asks us whether we’ll be back for more training sessions. “I’d really love to try scuba diving as well. I’ve never had the chance in Thailand”.
We’re excited everyone wants to learn even more and feel encouraged to hold more trainings for tour guides along the coast.
Yes, we’ll be back – maybe even with some scuba diving equipment. But for now, we’re headed to our first cleanup expedition further out in the Myeik Archipelago!
By Mirja Neumann
Ghost gear. What does this ominous term stand for? It refers to any type of fishing gear that’s been left behind by fishing boats - accidentally or on purpose. On our cleanup missions, we mainly find fishing nets, ropes, and lines, but we’ve also encountered some traps.
Ghost fishing is what happens when these nets or lines are let loose in the ocean and continue to do their job without an owner. Invisible to fish, these ghosts catch whatever crosses their path. Given that their lifetime can reach up to 600 years depending on the material, this is a big problem.
But why would a fishing boat drop its nets in the first place? Nets get stuck on rocks, coral, or other underwater structures, which prevents fishermen from pulling them back onboard. Nets rip and hence lose their value for the fishermen so instead of carrying the extra weight back to shore, they dump them in the ocean. Strong currents sweep away nets. Heavy catches make it impossible to haul them in. There are many reasons and therefore many nets in the ocean.
Ghost nets are one of the biggest threats to marine life worldwide. Yet, unlike consumer plastics that end up in the ocean they’re not talked much about. Underwater, out of sight, out of mind. As divers, we’ve seen hundreds, no thousands of them. They’re everywhere. Some places look like fishing gear graveyards.
It’s a topic that needs to be addressed. You need to be aware of it because it will affect you at some point as well. Here’s everything you need to know about this silent killer in the ocean.
1. It kills marine life. Big time.
Once fishing nets are torn away, lost, or abandoned, they drift around in the currents until they get stuck somewhere or have collected enough organisms to sink to the bottom under their weight. Ghost nets suffocate, drown, maim, and starve hundreds of thousands of marine animals including turtles, sharks, mantas, and whales each year without being of any use to the fishing industry. In fact, an estimated 90% of species caught in ghost nets are of commercial value to fisheries. Since the cycle of killing can continue for decades, you can imagine the economic losses it causes.
Corals, the base of the maritime food chain, are also affected by ghost nets. When nets settle on top of sensitive habitats such as coral or seagrass beds, they can damage the tissues of the organisms and smother whole underwater landscapes. Since the nets travel with currents for long distances, they can also spread parasites and invasive species, which cause great harm to marine ecosystems.
To sum it up, ghost gear is one of the most lethal threats to a healthy ocean. If the pollution through ghost gear continues at its current rate, fish stocks will be depleted with severe consequences for local communities as well as the fishing industry.
2. It contributes to the world’s plastic crisis.
A few decades back, fishermen mostly used gear made from biodegradable materials like cotton, hemp, or wood. In the early twentieth century, the invention of synthetic fibers changed the fishing industry dramatically. Handcrafted cotton nets were replaced with non-biodegradable, durable, lightweight nets made from plastics. Today, the majority of fishing nets consist of nylon.
While the strong, light nets ease the immediate burden on fishermen, they pose a great threat to marine life, the fishing industry itself, and seafood consumers. Why? Synthetic fishing nets take decades, some parts even hundreds of years to decay. Every single net that found its way into the ocean may be floating around the ocean without an owner, silently killing and maiming marine life for its entire lifetime.
Once the nets start breaking down, the small particles or microplastics are ingested by fish, shellfish, coral polyps, and other marine creatures. If the amount of ingested microplastics doesn’t kill the organisms from the inside, it gets passed up in the food chain and ends up on our plate.
We’ve all heard about the massive garbage patches, where ocean trash gets rounded up by the currents. A recent study suggests that roughly 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of lost or abandoned fishing nets. With a whopping 640,000 tons of nets added to the mix each year, ghost nets are the single biggest contributor to the ocean’s plastic crisis.
3. It spoils tourism.
Despite its fatal consequences for the fishing and seafood industry, ghost nets also affect people trying to make a living off tourism. Beachgoers, snorkelers, and divers want to see pristine shorelines and bustling coral reefs, not dead coral gardens and oceanic litter. Additionally, nets can damage boats by entangling propellers and anchors.
Cleaning up ghost nets is a costly and time-consuming investment that not everybody can afford. However, if nets are not cleaned, tourists don’t return and the financial loss for the tourism industry gets even bigger.
4. There’s no magical cure to it.
How amazing would it be if some genius just invented a cure to make this problem go away? Unfortunately, the odds for that happening are extremely low.
Recovering ghost nets from the ocean as we do in our expeditions around the Mergui Archipelago is only a short-term solution to save local marine environments. There’s more organizations like ours helping to remove ghost gear from the ocean in other parts of the world. However, we need to tackle the root of the problem to make a difference.
Ghost fishing mostly takes place in the middle of the ocean. Some fishermen, island communities, and tourists may come across it, but the majority of people will never see the problem with their own eyes. Bringing this issue to the public’s attention through reporting on the scope of the problem is the first step to finding a sustainable solution.
Strict regulations for the disposal of fishing nets would be the next, obvious attempt to tackle the ghost gear issue. The problem is that commercial fishing predominantly takes place in the open ocean, in international waters, which makes any sort of regulation and enforcement extremely difficult.
A few local governments have worked on this issue, but it requires all stakeholders to come together, agree upon appropriate measures, commit to enforcement and set aside a budget to actually make progress. Achieving this will take a long time. Too long.
So what can you do on a personal level? Despite supporting organizations and individuals that spend their day working on this issue, you can help us spread the word about ghost gear.
If you’re a seafood lover, you can make an effort to eat seafood that’s been caught sustainably. That means inquiring about the area, where the fish has been caught and finding out about the fishing technique as some fishing gear is more destructive for the marine environment than others.
By Sophie Gotthardt
Our boat is gently rocking side to side with the rhythm of the waves crashing against it. The sky is clear and the late afternoon sun gives everything a golden glow. I can already see that the sunset will be beautiful, but right now we’re racing against the clock. We’re in search of something big. “We’re not far off!”, yells the captain. His voice is almost completely drowned in the clattering sound of the engine.
We’re standing on our boat’s roof, trying to counterbalance the vessels swaying movements while covering our eyes from the blinding sun with both hands. Everyone is watching the movement of the water closely, looking for any clues about what might be awaiting us below the surface. Sunset is getting closer and we’re running out of time. Diving with strong currents is one thing, but doing so while it's getting dark can be dangerous.
We’re on a treasure hunt. Our mission is to find a big, submerged pinnacle, in fact three of them in close proximity - a place only a handful of local fishermen are familiar with. But why do we need to find this particular spot?
The goal behind our expedition to the Mergui Archipelago is to survey and identify ghost net hotspots. That means we’re looking for sites, where discarded fishing nets get entangled and endanger marine life.
So what does that have to do with our mysterious pinnacle?
Once a net gets dropped into the ocean it floats with the current until it gets stuck somewhere, possibly on a rock, a coral bommie, or a pinnacle.
The pinnacles we’re searching for are located right in between the open ocean and an island channel, where currents get really strong because big water columns are squeezed through a small area. The currents carry anything from driftwood, plastic trash, and fishing nets into the open ocean. Our pinnacle rising up from the ocean floor is one of the few obstacles for drifting matter to get entangled.
Why are nets stuck on a random pinnacle a problem?
Strong currents don’t only bring lots of trash and nets. They also bring a staggering amount of marine life. Currents carry plankton and larvae from many places, leading to high biodiversity and wide gene pools wherever they pass by.
Pinnacles in particular offer a rich substrate that corals, sponges, and other marine life use to form nurseries, which are, in return, a safe shelter for larvae and juvenile reef fish. Healthy and diverse reefs help to sustain the food chain for bigger predators like trevallies, groupers, and sharks.
In addition, pinnacles in the open ocean offer a rest stop for big pelagic fish like manta rays and whale sharks. Pelagic species like oceanic manta rays or sharks use these oceanic oasis for getting cleaned by cleaner wrasses in what we call a cleaning station.
In other words, pinnacles in the open ocean are often teeming with marine life. Therefore, ghost nets can cause a great deal of harm in these spots.
Imagine a big nylon net getting stuck between two underwater pinnacles. The net will undoubtedly injure and kill lots of marine life without being of any use for the fisheries themselves. Over time, it will reduce not only the biodiversity of the ecosystem but also the catch of fishermen in the area.
How are we helping?
Removing nets from biodiversity hotspots, like our pinnacle, is, of course, only a short-term solution. The long-term goal must be to protect the area and prevent ghost nets from ending up in these places.
It is by collecting data and proving the existence of a biodiversity hotspot for threatened or endangered species like the oceanic manta ray that we can make a difference. Establishing Marine Protected Areas (MPA) can help to put a stop to unsustainable fishing practices and make the health of Myanmar’s ocean a priority.
“I think there might be something over here!“, Ben shouts through the engine noise pointing northeast. The surface looks perfectly flat, a sign for upcoming water. Not too far from the same spot, the water appears choppy - a sign for a downward current?
A quick look on my dive computer tells me that we have to jump in right now or we’ll miss our chance. We put on our gear, set our compass towards the direction of the suspected pinnacle, and jump in. Gripping onto the anchor line we slowly descend into the unknown.
The visibility is poor and the ocean floor is still too far off to see. The current is dragging us south. 18 meters and still no sign of life. The water underneath us remains pitch-black like a starless sky at night. 20 meters and still nothing but darkness. Maybe we’re in the wrong spot after all?
I’m looking back to check on my dive buddies. I can tell that Thanda is in between curious and concerned. Finally, we’re hitting the ocean ground. 31 meters. Everyone seems relieved that we reached the floor.
We follow our compass heading and we find ourselves in an underwater desert decorated with a few whip corals, but not much life despite that. We slowly push our way forward into the unknown.
Suddenly a school of yellow-tail fusiliers appears - a good sign that we are getting closer to a reef. Now I also start hearing the crackling sound of a busy reef. Still following the disappearing fusilier school I catch the sight of another passing school - a bigger one. The crackling sounds get louder. I turn around to look at my buddies. They seem just as excited as me. We’re onto something. Thanda gets her camera in position. A huge barracuda school appears and starts circling us. They slowly start forming a tornado and we’re in the middle of it! I almost burst out laughing.
The barracuda school vanishes as quick as they appeared and opens the view to something much bigger - the pinnacle. We finally made it!
After exploring this hidden paradise for a bit, the sunlight disappears. The sun has set. We have to ascend.
Everyone is excited about our discovery. In just one dive we had the pleasure to observe lionfish, surgeonfish, filefish, boxfish, parrotfish, pufferfish, butterflyfish, moorish idols, scorpionfish, pilotfish, big trevallies, fusiliers, barracudas, big groupers, and many more.
We even spotted a potential cleaning station with five cleaner wrasses waiting for their next patient. We’re certain our pinnacle gets way bigger visitors passing by than groupers. And just as we’re about to leave this magical site, two mobula rays show up on the surface dancing with each other as if they wanted to reassure us.
We're sad to leave already, but one thing is for sure: We’ll be back!
By Sophie Gotthardt
Two girls are sitting in the cushioned car seats between compressor, tanks, and other dive equipment aboard our self-proclaimed dive boat. A former fishing boat, the wooden vessel offers just enough space for our team to travel around the Mergui Archipelago, where we conduct our survey and cleanup missions. The boat has quite a big roof, perfect for storing our daily catch: discarded fishing nets.
Today is not about retrieving ghost nets from the ocean though. We’re taking two girls from the village on their very first scuba dive. After holding a presentation about our project, Thanda asked the group if anyone would be interested in experiencing their home reef from a whole different perspective - as a diver. At first, no one dared to volunteer. A few girls exchanged shy looks and giggled. “We’ll give it some time”, Thanda said. “I’m pretty sure at least one of the girls will try it.”
The next day, Thanda entered the kitchen while the 17-year old Htar Htar Linn, a half Moken half Myanmar girl, was cooking. “Would you like to try scuba diving?”, Thanda asked straightforward. She replied with a hesitant smile: “Yes, I'd like to. Can I bring my friend?”
Fast forward to the next morning and the two girls are sitting here with us, trying on the dive equipment for the first time. Every time I catch a glimpse of one of the girls they smile and start giggling. They don’t speak English, so Thanda is translating everything I say.
The boat engine stops. We’ve arrived at the other side of the island and are parked in safe distance from the shallow coral gardens in front of the Moken village. Htar Htar Linn and her friend Kin Lah, another Moken girl, laugh and say something in the Moken language that even Thanda can’t understand.
The Moken, often referred to as sea gypsies, are a group of about 3000 semi-nomadic people who live and work around the 800 islands of the Mergui Archipelago. They spend the majority of their lives out at sea. Over the generations, they have collected a tremendous knowledge about the ocean that helps them to live in harmony with nature. Dependent upon the sea for their survival, overfishing, pollution, and climate change heavily affect their lifestyle. Today, many of them live in villages and instead of selling fish to consumers directly, they end up selling to bigger fishing fleets that export much of the catch to Thailand.
After a detailed briefing about the gear and underwater safety, we get everyone’s equipment ready and jump into the crystal clear water. Both girls are confident in the water. It’s easy to see they grew up surrounded by the ocean. Two little boys, no older than six, paddle by in their tiny nutshell. They point at us and laugh. This is probably the first time they’ve seen divers. We must look quite silly to them in all our gear.
Moken people have fascinated researchers from all around the globe. Like the Sama-Bajau nomads from the southern Philippines, who can hold their breath for up to thirteen minutes, Moken are believed to have genetically adapted to life at sea. A study revealed that they can see twice as clear underwater due to a reflex that closes their pupils when diving down instead of opening it.
Until now, Htar Htar Linn and Kin Lah have only been freediving. They can hold their breath for a very long time. For scuba diving, however, it is very important not to hold your breath and continue breathing in and out at all times. I’m watching the two teenagers take their very first breaths underwater. They look a bit spooked and excited at the same time. A few breaths later, the girls feel more confident and we are ready to go deeper.
Thanda and I split the girls in between us so we can both look after them one-on-one. I’m with Htar Htar Linn, who swims remarkably fast and quickly wants to take the lead. I’m holding onto her tank to make sure she doesn’t slip away while we explore the reef.
We’re only at about 3.5 meters of depth and surrounded by stunning, healthy coral. I point out three different types of branching Acropora coral just next to a massive Poritidae bommie. Considering the size of these coral bommies, they must be at least a hundred years old. I also spot my favorite coral, the Euphyllidae - or bubble coral - named after their grape-sized blobs. In the deeper end of the reef, we see many different sized Fungiidae, the mushroom coral, covering the sandy bottom. I’ve dived many different sites around the world, but I’ve never seen this species grow this big!
About forty minutes later we make our way back to the boat. The girls are still pumped with adrenaline discussing their new experience with each other and laughing. Shortly thereafter they get picked up by a boat that takes them back to the village. They joke around with the boat boy. Without a doubt, they have something over all the boys in the village now!
While we’re headed to the next site for a survey dive, I’m day-dreaming about the first two Myanmar-Moken girls becoming certified divers and exploring the beautiful coral gardens of the Mergui Archipelago.
Maybe on our next visit!
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http://www.myanmarocean.org/our-stories
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A group of Australasian experts has lodged a comprehensive proposal for the resumption of safe transtasman travel with the New Zealand and Australian prime ministers which could implemented within weeks if given the green light.
The detailed plan, which was developed by the Trans-Tasman Safe Border Group made up of a team of 40 experts, provides a series of recommendations to the two governments on the creation of a safe air corridor between Australia and New Zealand.
The group's plan is separate to one developed by chambers of commerce on both sides of the Tasman released yesterday which suggested trial flights between Wellington and Canberra.
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Scott Tasker, co-chair of the Trans-Tasman Safe Border Group and Auckland Airport's general manager aeronautical commercial, said the proposal was aligned with official guidance released yesterday from the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
The bubble was aimed at doing away with the need for a 14-day quarantine but information released by the group today has no details on the need to wear masks and other health measures at airports. The timing of new arrangements and the health requirements would be up to governments.
''We've worked solidly together over the past three weeks to develop a detailed and comprehensive framework to enable the safe and sustainable re-start of scheduled passenger services between Australia and New Zealand, and we're delighted to have submitted our proposal to government," said Tasker.
He said he was confident recommendations would effectively manage the risks but importantly they will also provide confidence to travellers to visit each other's countries to reconnect with family and friends, re-establish vital business links, and provide a lifeline of visitors to our respective tourism industries.
Co-chair of the group and chief executive of Australia's Tourism & Transport Forum (TTF), Margy Osmond, said the protections would ensure passengers felt safe throughout their journey.
"It is now for our respective governments to review and work through the detail of the proposal and we are looking forward to supporting them further in re establishing travel between the two countries," she said.
The recommendations include several layers of protections across the journey, allowing for the sustainable re-start of scheduled passenger services without the need for a 14-day passenger quarantine.
The members of the group are:
• Ministry of Health (NZ)
• Auckland District Health Board (NZ)
• Waitemata District Health Board (NZ)
• New Zealand Immigration
• New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• Australian Department of Health
• Australian Trade and Investment Commission
• Australian Border Force
• Aviation Security Service (NZ)
• Ministry for Primary Industries (NZ)
• Ministry of Transport (NZ)
• Te Tari Taiwhenua Internal Affairs (NZ)
• New Zealand Customs
• Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (NZ)
• Auckland Airport
• Sydney Airport
• Wellington Airport
• Melbourne Airport
• Christchurch Airport
• Brisbane Airport
• Air New Zealand
• Australian New Zealand Leadership Forum
• Tourism & Transport Forum (AU)
• Tourism Industry Aotearoa
• Board of Airline Representatives NZ
• Business NZ
Australia and New Zealand contribute strongly to each other's tourism sectors, with estimated $3 billion in international visitor spend each way every year.
Prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, New Zealand was the most popular outbound travel destination for Australians with 1.5 million visitors arriving from across the Tasman in 2019, accounting for 40 per cent of all foreign visitors to New Zealand.
Likewise, Australia was the most popular outbound travel destination for Kiwis. New Zealand is Australia's second largest source market for visitors (behind China), with 1.4 million visitors in 2019, accounting for 15 per cent of total visitors to Australia.
Chief executive of Auckland Airport and a sponsor of the group, Adrian Littlewood, said that if the governments approved of the plans they could be implemented in weeks rather than months. He said the prospects of resuming scheduled services approaching normal levels had improved more quickly than expected when the group started its work in April.
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https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12337337&ref=art_readmore
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For most people, acquiring and maintain the perfect glowing, clear skin naturally is going to be a huge task. With hectic daily schedules that make it much more challenging than we would like, maintaining a consistent skin care routine can be extremely difficult. With that being said, there is still hope for you quest to achieve the perfect skin that you are looking for. All that you will need to do is follow some simple guidelines and have a little bit of patience. If you can do that, you will have the perfect glowing skin that you are looking for in no time at all, regardless of how hectic your schedule may be.
Here are some of the top tips that you should start practicing every day in order to have the best skin ever.
Use Mist Moisturizing Water
If you feel like you should be misting your skin, be sure that you are not using only water. Water is going to quickly evaporate and help your skin to dry out.
Use Dilo Oil to Minimize Acne Scars
Dilo oil is a very soothing, rich oil that is packed with skin nurturing antioxidants. This oil, which is a dry oil originating in the Fiji Islands, is never going to leave your skin feeling any type of greasy. It is actually very effective for helping to minimize and repair any acne scars that you may have.
Try Exfoliating Longer
When you are exfoliating, be sure that you are not scrubbing harder, but instead for a longer amount of time. Simply wet your face and apply your exfoliating skin scrub with your fingertips in a circular motion. Once you have done this, be sure to rinse of the scrub with some warm water and follow up with a good moisturizer from maaemo.com.au.
Always Remember That Less is More…in Regard to Ingredients
Just like the food that you eat, when it comes to the ingredients in your skin care products, less is always going to be more. This is even more important if you suffer from sensitive skin.
Stop Drinking as Much Alcohol
When you drink alcohol on a regular basis, it is going to start causing your body to produce much more oil than it should, which is going to increase to an increased pore size. This combination means that you can expect to experience much more ‘troubled’ skin than you would like too.
Add Some SPF
Most of the high-quality daily moisturizers already have this included, but just in case that it doesn’t, be sure that you are adding some lightweight SPF sunscreen to help protect you from the sun on a daily basis.
Natural Acne Remedies
The next time you are faced with a huge pimple that you simply need to get rid of, try putting a hot washcloth on it. After that, apply a 1% hydrocortisone cream to the affected area. This should get rid of the acne in record time.
If you are looking to have some amazing skin, follow the tips outlined above and you will have no problem creating the glow that you are looking for.
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https://www.modelonamission.com/natural-skin-care-tips-tricks/
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- This event has passed.
CLASS Community [ONLINE]
July 5 @ 8:30 am - 9:45 am
An event every week that begins at 8:30 am on Sunday, repeating until July 19, 2020
Join us for our Marriage and the Bible class, from June 7-July 12th! Join our reflections on the meaning and purpose of marriage. Tools and resources will be introduced to examine and unpack the biblical message in today’s context. Engage in thoughtful conversation on the various passages that reference marriage and human relationships. For Zoom details, please contact firstname.lastname@example.org
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https://ebcla.org/event/class-community-online-2/2020-07-05/
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Esthetics schools in Nebraska prepare students for careers in the spa and skin care industries. Programs teach students about facials, body treatments, hair removal, and cosmetic application. They also give students customer service and business skills training. Nebraska students who want to learn to enhance the skin of their clients, and to work in spa or salon settings, may want to explore attending a Nebraska esthetics school.
The profession is expected to grow by 25 percent over the next several years, faster than most other careers nationwide. New salons and spas are opening frequently, spurring the growth of this industry.
Nebraska Esthetician License Requirements
Nebraska esthetics schools providing training for students who are 17 and have their high school diploma or a GED. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Cosmetology Department requires schools give at least 600 hours instruction in the skin care and esthetics skills. Schools must teach the basic skills for performing facials, hair removal, and makeup application. Salon disinfecting and hygiene procedures are a key part of the curriculum, too. Students must pass both a written and a practical exam after completing the school hours to qualify for the license.
Other procedures, including waxing, facial massage, body wraps, and skin analysis are commonly taught in Nebraska esthetics schools. Students learn about skin anatomy and skin illnesses, so they can recommend appropriate treatments to their clients. Nebraska also requires esthetics schools teach students about the laws and regulations governing the profession. Advanced classes in aromatherapy, nutrition, and medical esthetics practices can be taken for continuing education and career advancement.
Career Outlook for Nebraska Estheticians
Licensed Nebraska estheticians earn an annual average salary of $33,600 before tips according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Skincare specialists and make up artists in the state may work in spas, salons, hotels, resorts, or in department stores. They may also work with photographers or own their own spa or salon. Some estheticians work with skin care and cosmetics companies, in sales, education, administration, or development of new products.
You may also be interested in these schools that offer Full Cosmetology Programs
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https://www.beautyschools.com/states/nebraska/esthetics/
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While nanowires have been around for many years, scientists had no way of mixing different materials together within one wire. Until now.
Setting the stage for integrating devices right into the wires themselves – a development expected to further shrink electronic circuits – three teams of scientists managed to grow single nanowires made from layers of different semiconductors earlier this year. The Swedish team was the first to report the ability to construct functional electronic devices using the technology, within wires just 20 billionths of a meter wide, this week at the 26th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Resembling a stack of different-colored pancakes, these striped nanowires – just 20 billionths of a meter wide – are formed by combining semiconductors such as indium arsenide and indium phosphide in layers of particular thicknesses. Built in such a way that the atoms of each layer line up perfectly with those of the layer below, the nanowhiskers create an ideal heterostructure (composite material made from layers of different types of semiconductor).
As well as enabling tiny versions of existing electronic devices to be manufactured, entirely new types of devices could be developed with this technology since the wires are so small that they only allow electrons – which produce electric currents in metals and semiconductors by moving steadily through them – to move in one direction.
"At present we are concentrating on building electronic devices in which we create different types of barriers for electrons either to tunnel through or to 'climb over' in nanowires about 20 nm to 50 nm in diameter," said professor Lars Samuelson, part of a team from Sweden. The scientists have created an electronic device known as a "double-barrier resonant tunneling device" (DBRT), commonly used in electronic circuits, and are presently testing how well their nanowire version works.
In addition to DBRTs, potential applications include ultrasmall light-emitting devices (LEDs) that can be prepared inside the nanowires, minute photonic detectors, and smaller chips with transistors and other devices being assembled within current-carrying wires.
Samuelson said commercial applications of the technology could appear in as soon as five years. He added that the technique could be used to grow wires composed of numerous electron-trapping quantum dots, another area of research that was highlighted at the conference.
Quantum dots are tiny regions of semiconductor about one billionth of a meter big, which can be made to contain just one electron each. Researchers from the COBRA Inter-University Research Institute in the Netherlands, and University of Glasgow and University of Sheffield in the U.K., produced pictures of quantum dots in such detail that they revealed the individual atoms from which the quantum dots were made.
"We can resolve the atomic details in the dots," said Paul Koenraad from COBRA, who presented measurements taken from cross-sectional views of indium arsenide quantum dots just 5 by 15 billionths of a meter across.
Using a technique called Scanning Tunneling Microscopy to view a surface containing a cross section of the quantum dots, the scientists were able to spot individual atoms.
"The quantum dots are composed of atoms which are bigger than those of the surrounding matrix, and therefore the whole dot will bulge out of the surface just as a sponge would when stuck in a small hole," Koenraad said.
As well as possibly finding a use as qubits, the dots could be used to make miniature semiconductor lasers, light detectors, or optical switches for transmitting data through the telecommunications networks of the future. And "if we know how quantum dots obtain their size, shape and composition during their formation, we can then design at will the operational properties of laser structures or other optical components," Koenraad said.
Rameshwar Bhargava of Nanocrystals Technology, USA described his work in "quantum confined atoms," which he hopes will become the building block for a new breed of semiconductor devices. A QCA is an atom or an ion (atom with an electric charge) trapped within a "nanocrystal cage" (a tiny cage made from the atoms of a semiconductor).
The direct opposite of conventional semiconductor technology, where a trapped atom alters the properties of its semiconductor host, here the semiconductor atoms of the cage modify the properties of the atom they are confining. QCAs could act as storage materials for data in ultra-high-density magnetic recording systems and for a variety of other devices such as MP3 players and cell phones.
"Our ability to control the optical and magnetic properties by introducing an atom in a nanoparticle and then fabricating microstructures using organic polymers or self-organized structures gives us the opportunity to make a new class of very efficient phosphors (for light, displays, biotagging etc.), magneto-optical (for magnetic memories and other sensors), lasers for fiber optical communicators and eventually optical computers," Bhargava said.
An unused type of radiation known as terahertz radiation was also discussed at the meeting, by David Whittaker from the University of Sheffield.
The T-rays are ideal candidates for medical imaging because they are too large to scatter randomly off cell walls, but small enough to provide images with useful resolution. They lie within the infrared region of the spectrum, close to the microwave region, and have a wavelength of about one-tenth of a millimeter.
They are much safer than X-rays since they lack the energy to remove electrons from their parent atoms in cells, a factor likely cause cell mutation.
Systems based on T-rays could be used at airports for scanning baggage, and in the cosmetics industry for measuring the effectiveness of moisturizers. T-rays could even be used for new forms of wireless communication.
"The idea is to use it for free space networks within buildings for faster communication between computers," Whittaker said. Networked computers could have a transmitter and a receiver each, with files and e-mails being beamed around the room via T-rays, removing the need for a tangle of wires connecting the machines. "Because it is absorbed by walls and by water in the atmosphere, terahertz radiation gives you security and also provides isolation between different buildings," he added.
Viable commercial applications of these technologies are still many years away, and the researchers emphasized that the fields being explored are so new that their full potential is not yet known.
"One should not forget the value in science getting access to novel types of materials and to studying previously unavailable low-dimensional physics," Samuelson said. "Very unpredictable science may actually be the most significant value of these new achievements."
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https://www.wired.com/2002/08/honey-who-shrank-the-circuits/
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I really enjoy ‘Day in the Life’ sessions. I find it interesting seeing the similarities and differences in parent struggles; the fun and games of getting dressed, of eating, playing and finally settling down with a story and bedtime cuddle. Day in the Life sessions are special as they allow me to capture those little moments that are otherwise missed or forgotten. Below are a few images from a Day in the Life Session I carried out in October last year.
The morning started with a quiet breastfeed and cup of tea.
Once morning was well under way mum had her bath and as soon as the bathroom door opened, little one crawled as fast as she could towards her. The one handed, multi-tasking had began!
Then commenced the battle of getting dressed. I am still baffled as to why children fight this process. It happens everyday, yet they still fight it and it goes on and on, for years! It’s amazing what parents deal with on a daily basis and the emotional strength that is needed just to get your children ready to leave the house. Only a parent knows what this is like. So for all those without children, please treat us kindly when you see us out in the street, especially if we look disgruntled, you have no idea how hard it was to get there.
I don’t like to stereotype; however, there is something quite special about dads. I believe it is said that fathers often let their children take bigger risks than mums (although it is the other way round in our family) and I love the picture below where dad is pushing his son as high as he possibly can.
Once you have children, meal times are never the same again. The days of relaxing, eating and chatting are a thing of the past and replaced with eating one handed while holding a baby or pleading with toddler to ‘just try’ something that is on their plate, unless of course if its ice cream, then there’s no problem.
I think the picture below speaks for itself. What amazes me is that mum somehow managed to find the funny side and stay calm. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have. The anticipation of a dirty bottom landing anywhere in the house would have been too much. Maybe because I’m slightly scarred from when this did happen and poo was smeared all over the sofa. For me poo incidents always seem to happen at the most inconvenient time, usually while making dinner. Not that it is ever convenient to be elbow deep in s**t!
More dinner time battles, followed by face cleaning battles and all with a smile and sense of humour.
I love this picture, I think because I know what’s going on and can relate to it. Having not eaten very much dinner, Little Man ‘steals’ a banana and has ‘won’ a dinnertime battle, with a cheeky, nervous giggle and parents communicating only with looks. I imagine the communication to go something like this “I’m not happy about this.” “Me neither.” “Shall we let him have that banana? He didn’t eat all his dinner.” “I don’t want him to be hungry and it is healthy.” “He can’t replace dinner with a yoghurt and banana every day (for the rest of his life).” Along with the feelings of defeat. At least this is the internal dialogue I have with myself. I have, however, just come to the decision that this is just a phase (like all the many others). Small children are ‘fussy eaters’, it won’t last forever and one day our child will enjoy a good healthy meal and may even eat a curry! At the end of the day, it will put food in his tummy and we might even get an extra half hour of sleep. Because refusing to give that after dinner banana isn’t going to make him decide that he’s going to eat his dinner. He’ll just decide to go to bed a little hungrier and wake a little earlier for his breakfast.
Once bedtime arrives and the getting undressed and dressed battle comes to an end, harmony is restored and the little people become lovely, adorable little beings again.
Great team work mum and dad!
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http://www.familylifephotography.co.uk/family-life/
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As the rule goes, never run away from an aggressive dog. Triggering an instinct, the dog may chase you down. We can never predict what an animal will do, but if they are showing aggressive behavior, proceed with caution. This does not just apply to humans when dealing with dogs, the rule applies to dolphins as well.
Maverick Meets Dolphins
In the video, this German Shepherd Maverick watched as dolphins jumped near the surface of the boat. He watches them eagerly as the jump and play closer and closer to the boat. Eventually, their taunting gets to Maverick. While Maverick isn’t aggressive, his puppy dog instinct kick in– He jumped straight into the water!
Being very curious and smart, dolphins commonly swim along with ships while playing in the water. They are extremely intelligent and often “escort ships” to where they need to go. They swim along with the boats for a period of time until they find something else to follow or until they’ve completed their “journey”. They are also the only other mammal known to mate for pleasure. Additionally, dolphins became known for assisting humans in danger.
With fish guts, also known as “chum” already in the water, they’re lucky Maverick got back safely. Often the appearance of chum shows sharks are in the area. But in this case, Maverick was safe. Thank goodness. Sharks could’ve chased Maverick around, and it may not have ended as happily as his romp with the dolphins did. Luckily, the dolphins seemed pretty friendly with this cute dog!
The sweet pup tried his hardest to watch from afar, but he just wanted to play with the hairless, sea puppies. Check out the video below to see some total cuteness when it comes to this sweet Shepherd and the Bottlenose Dolphins becoming friends.
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https://mamzelka.com/animals/dolphins-tease-german-shepherd-on-boat-he-decides-to-go-after-them.html
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July 28, 2013
PEACE THAT PASSES UNDERSTANDING
There are lots of things that I don’t understand. I don’t understand how electricity works. I don’t even understand how to ask how it works. I don’t understand how aspirin works. How does the aspirin know whether you have a headache or a backache? How does it know where to go? I don’t understand how airplanes work. I always expect them to fall to the ground, but they don’t.
Let me try one out on you. How do you pronounce this word? P-O-L-I-S-H. How many of you first thought “polish”, like polishing your car? How many of you first thought “Polish”, like someone from Poland? I don’t understand that.
I don’t understand women. Actually, I do understand women, but I pretend I don’t.
I do not understand how people can be cruel to animals, or children, or even to other people. I do not understand the pictures I see from some foreign countries, with people starving to death in front of the camera. In a world where some governments have paid farmers not to grow food, how can there be starving people – either overseas or here in the United States? I do not understand the pictures I see of homelessness in our own country, or of violence and rioting in other countries. There’s a lot that I don’t understand.
Sometimes when we’re faced with things we don’t understand, we wish that things were simpler. We wish that things were easier. We wish that things were a bit slower paced. We may say, “Wouldn’t it be great if everything was like the good old days. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just turn back the clock to a simpler time when we didn’t have the problems that we have today.”
Of course there is no such time. Back in the 1960’s they didn’t have some of the same problems that we have today, but they had others that we don’t. I suspect in the 1960’s people were saying wouldn’t it be great if everything was like the good old days, before all these hippies, and if everything was simpler, back before we had all these interstates.
In the 1960’s, there were probably people who felt pretty good about the 1920’s. In the 1920’s you could probably find some folks nostalgic for the 1890’s. And in the 1890’s… well, you get the picture. Wherever you are in history, the past can look better and the future can look scarier. The past looks simpler, the future looks harder.
We can understand the past, because we’ve all got 20-20 hindsight. We cannot understand the future, because we don’t really know what it’s going to be. One thing about the future is sure – someday, sometimes, somewhere, somebody will say, “Boy, life was a lot simpler back in 2013.” That’s a little scary, I know, but I am sure that it’s going to happen.
I’ve got some news for you. Back in the good old days there were problems. Let’s take a look at the good old days – let’s go a couple of thousand years back to the early church. What do we find? A problem.
Euodia and Syntyche were not getting along. We don’t know why, we don’t know what the trouble was, but we do know that it was serious because news of the disagreement had reached Paul in prison. And so Paul writes to try to settle things between the two women. Even in the early church, even with people around who had known Jesus Christ personally, even under the discipline of the apostle Paul, there were problems, there were disagreements, and there were misunderstandings.
How did Paul tell these women to deal with their misunderstandings and find peace? How do we deal with the things we don’t understand – not the silly stuff like aspirin but with the things that really trouble us? How do we deal with people that we don’t get along with or that we don’t understand?
There’s one phrase that Paul keeps coming back to in this section of Philippians – one little set of words that he repeats over and over. See if you can spot them. Verse 1 – “So then, how dear you are to me and how I miss you! How happy you make me, and how proud I am of you: – this, dear brothers, is how you should stand firm in your life in the Lord.”
Now verse 2 – “Euodia and Syntyche, please, I beg you, try to agree as sisters in the Lord.” And finally, verse 7 – “May you always be joyful in your union with the Lord. I say it again: rejoice.” A more familiar translation says, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say rejoice.”
Did you catch the phrase repeated in all three sections? “Stand firm in your life in the Lord.” “Agree as sisters in the Lord.” “Rejoice in the Lord.” In the Lord.
Paul says that it is only in the Lord that we can begin to understand the world around us. It is only in the Lord that we can begin to really love other people. It is only in the Lord that we can begin to deal with the things that we don’t understand.
I listen to talk radio every once in a while, but after a half hour or so, no matter what the political perspective of the host, I become convinced that people simply will never get along. After the anger and the hostility, after hearing people being rude to each other and interrupting each other and putting each other down, after I listen to the disrespect and maybe even the hatred that some of these folks hold for those who disagree with them, I wonder if people can ever really get along, can ever really understand each other.
But then I think about my first congregation as a pastor. The Church of the Brethren is one of the historic peace churches. The Brethren as a denomination teach that all war is sin. Period. The Brethren have taught that Christians do not participate in war. Christians do not serve in the military. Christians do not help prepare for war. That’s the historical teaching of the Brethren – war is sin. Period.
My first congregation as a full-time pastor was the Lower Miami Church of the Brethren, near Dayton, Ohio. The largest single employer of folks at that congregation was the nearby Wright Patterson Air Force base. We also had a couple of people in that congregation who were very public peace activists. Sometimes members of the congregation reporting to work at the base would see other members of the congregation protesting and holding signs outside of it.
Now if those two groups got together on the Rush Limbaugh show, I guarantee that sparks would fly and Rush would fan the flames. But those two groups of people got together every Sunday, right there in the sanctuary, and at Bible studies, and at carry-in dinners, and at weddings and funerals, and no sparks flew. No dirty looks were exchanged. No fingers were pointed.
In fact, those folks did not see themselves as separate and distinct groups. Within the church, they saw themselves as brothers and sisters. They prayed for each other, they laughed with each other, they helped each other, they loved each other. In the church, folks that most people would try to pit against each other worked together. They did not see themselves as separate and distinct groups because they weren’t. They were Christians. They found unity in the Lord.
When we recognize our unity in the Lord we begin to understand each other. We begin to see the things we have in common – our sinfulness, our weakness, our pride. And we begin to see the good things we share in common – our faith, our willingness to serve, our desire to follow God, our concern for others. We can see these things that we share in common, and we begin to understand each other.
When I focus on God, when I live “in the Lord” as Paul would say, there’s one other thing that I begin to understand. I begin to understand that I will never understand. I will never understand why some people and nations choose to do wrong and evil things. I may have some guesses, I may have some insights, I may have some ideas, but I will never completely understand why people willingly choose to do wrong.
I will never understand why some people reject God’s gift of love. If it were a free gift for their birthday, these same people would be ripping the paper off. If it were a coupon for a free meal, they’d be at the restaurant checking the menu. If it were an interest free loan at the bank, they’d be putting together their personal financial statement. But the free gift of grace and forgiveness from God is rejected. The free gift, the free sacrifice of God’s son is not believed. I will never completely understand that rejection.
And I will never completely understand the gift itself. Why God, God who created the heavens and the earth, God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, God who did so much and gave so much and got so little in return, why God would take human form as Jesus and die on a cross I will never understand. Why God offers me love and care and grace and the Spirit I will never completely understand.
But I don’t need to understand to say “yes.” I don’t need to understand to accept the gift. I don’t need to understand to feel forgiveness, to claim God’s mercy and grace and peace. I don’t need to understand to receive Christ into my life.
What I do understand is that when I start to live in the Lord I will be able to love and care for other people that I might never have thought about before. What I do understand is that when I live in the Lord I am a new creation. And I understand that the rest of it passes understanding. May we each one understand God’s call in our lives and how we can respond. May we each understand what it means to live in the Lord. Amen.
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https://washingtoncitycob.org/2013/08/01/peace-that-passes-understanding/
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We begin a new Sermon Series today entitled “Encounters.” It speaks of some of the major players in the Easter story, their face-to-face encounters with Jesus, and the implications of their experience for our lives today. This series is not being offered because the subject should be interesting for you. Rather, it is shared to give you the opportunity to experience for yourself a personal encounter with Jesus. It is hoped that in the context of their stories, in the margins and shadows of their lives, you’ll recognize glimpses and echoes of your life.
We start with Mary. You remember her; she had a sister named Martha and a brother named Lazarus. I’m confident you’ve heard of them and remember their stories at least in part. Jesus, in a way, foretold the significance of Mary in the context of His life and His story in this way:
“I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed” (Mark 14:9, NLT).
Those words remind me of the title of Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 hit single, “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About.” Mary gave those gathered that evening something to talk about, something that is still being talked about even today, almost 2,000 years later. We remember Mary not because of the extravagance of her gift, but because of her sacrifice. It reflected the purity and devotion of her character, even in the midst of the challenges she faced. Such is the reason her gift was so honored by Jesus’ words and remains endearing to those who hear it even now. Let’s take a look at her sacrifice, those challenges and their implications for us today.
1. Mary’s gift was offered at a risky time.
“Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead” (John 12:1, NLT)
The Passover at that time was a major festival, akin to the American observance of the 4th of July, in its marking of an event in their history when they realized an identity as a nation. During that celebration, within the city walls of Jerusalem, a resident population of 50, 000 grew to a throng of more than 250,000, all celebrating with the fervor of Jewish patriots.
“When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see Him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus” (John 12:9-11, NLT).
Let’s indulge ourselves in a flashback to Chapter 11 of John’s Gospel. Jesus heard of Lazarus’ illness through messengers, went to see him after a delay of several days, and was met by Martha and Mary. They both lashed out that if he had come sooner, their brother would not have died four days before. Jesus goes the tomb where they had laid Lazarus, instructed the men to roll away the stone, and called Lazarus to come out, resurrecting Lazarus from the dead with those word.
Caiaphas, the High Priest, was the most powerful political figure within the city of Jerusalem. When he heard of what Jesus had done, he considered how Jesus’ actions were responsible for people abandoning the Jewish faith and following Him. Because of the religious and political ramifications, Caiaphas literally puts “a hit” out on Jesus, a price on his head. You can imagine something akin to “Wanted Posters” for Jesus on every corner, street sign, light pole, and Post Office in Jerusalem. It was three months later when Jesus arrives in Bethany, a virtual suburb of Jerusalem, for a meal at which He is the guest of honor. To put it mildly, it was a tense, risky time to be there!
So, of what relevance is this dynamic of Mary’s story to us today? If we choose to do something for Jesus that people will talk about, there’s not a convenient time. We can’t wait until a convenient time to offer to teach a Sunday School class or to sing a solo in worship or serve the church in an official capacity. There absolutely is not a convenient time to step out for Jesus!! All of us takes risks – physically, emotionally, and spiritually – when we step out for Jesus and do, like Mary, what we feel God is leading us to do. For us, any time we choose to respond to such a calling upon our lives, we do so, in what it means to us, as nothing less than a risky time!
2. Mary’s gift was offered in a difficult place.
“A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him” (John 12:2, NLT).
Imagine a low u-shaped table, a table low enough to the ground that the men, on the outside of the tables, lay on pillows on the floor. They would recline on their left elbow, grabbing their food with their right hand. In that position, their feet would be extended away from the table and they would be facing the person to their right. At the top of U would be the host and to his right, the honored guest. In the case of the meal Jesus attended, it was He sitting to the host’s right as the honored guest. Inside the U was the women’s space, not a place for reclining and enjoying the meal, but a place in which they were serving the men. Martha was busy serving on that side of the tables when, out of the corner of her eye, she catches a glimpse of Mary.
There she was, in the “man zone,” stepping over the feet of men, approaching Jesus with a pint jar. Not only was she intruding in an area that was unacceptable for a woman to be, she was seen by Martha and all the invited guests pouring ointment on the feet of Jesus as she was poised in-between the feet of Jesus and the host. Who was the host? John’s Gospel gives us no indication, but Mark made his identity known in his telling of Mary’s story:
“While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head” (Mark 14:3).
While what she did with the oil (very expensive perfume) differs in the two accounts, tradition and commentators understand it to be the same incident related in today’s Gospel lesson.
The relevance of this detail of Mary’s story to our lives today is that if we are to do something for Jesus, something that is extraordinary and worth others talking and gossiping about, it will take place not only at a risky time but also in a difficult place! I don’t know about you, but I would definitely consider kneeling between the feet of two men – between two pairs of feet that had never been covered or protected as they walked the dirt pathways of the day – to be unsavory at least. Considering that the feet of the host had once borne the open sores of leprosy would make it even less pleasant and more difficult! When do we ever find ourselves in a comfortable situation when we feel led to witness of our faith or confront others with the truth of Christ? It will always be at a risky time and in a difficult place.
Tanner was an average High School Junior Varsity football player in Amarillo Texas. He had the simple personal goal of seeing every team member in his church on Sunday morning. He was never reluctant to invite his teammates on a regular basis to come to church with him, but his efforts never yielded the results he envisioned. An unfortunate season-ending back injury didn’t stop Tanner from being at every team practice and every game. Whether at practice or a game, he was seen on the sidelines, serving the team and cheering them on. The fact that he was always there never went unnoticed by his teammates. He was there and it gained a newfound respect of him from those teammates.
Throughout the remainder of the season, his injuries never diminished his desire and tenacity in inviting his teammates to church. They began to respond. First there five who were there one Sunday morning. In the following weeks, their number grew to 10, then 15, 20, 30. The number of his teammates in church on any given Sunday grew to where half the team was present. This prompted his coach to ask if he could borrow the church van to pick them up and take them home. One day after practice, the coach pulled Tanner aside and congratulated him on getting half of the team in church. Tanner’s humble response was simply, “Coach, half was never my goal, I want the whole team to come to Christ!”
In the months that followed, a new chapter was added to Tanner’s story. He and his parents began taking endless flights from their home in Amarillo to Houston. It was there that extensive treatments for cancer were a regular part of their lives – not for his dad or his mom, but for Tanner. On those countless flights, Tanner would always insist that his parents never sit beside him. Without them at his side, it gave him the opportunity to sit beside one, sometimes several, strangers. He insisted that those flights gave him the greatest joy because they gave him the opportunity to tell strangers about Jesus!
His story and his example begs the question for us – what are you doing to tell others about Jesus? Likewise, Mary’s story and her example challenges us to ask of ourselves what we are doing at a risky time and in the difficult place in which we find ourselves in today’s world to tell others about Jesus?
3. Mary’s gift was a costly gift.
“Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance” (John 12:3, NLT).
Ladies, right now you are probably thinking to yourself, “Okay, at some level I can understand her use of an expensive perfume, but then to wipe it from His feet with her hair!!” What we know of that which she poured on the feet of Jesus was that it was made of pure nard. It was either in the form of an oil or ointment imported from the Himalayas in India. It was super expensive as described by Judas as “. . . worth a year’s wages” (John 12:5, NLT).
Think about it – Mary was in the same room as her brother who, just a few months before, was dead and now he’s alive – what’s that worth? Others, including some of the disciples said of her gift, “that’s too much!” Can’t you imagine Mary thinking to herself, “that’s not enough!”
What it is worth to you to be able to bring your kids and your grandkids to church where they can learn about Jesus in a friendly environment? What is it worth to sit in a variety of settings in the church on any given day of the week to fellowship with others as you talk freely about the blessings and challenges of life and the goodness of God? What is it worth to recognize that your church is making intentional efforts to reach the hurting and the lost with God’s love and envisioning new ways to do more in the future? Can you put a price tag on any of that? When you start counting your blessings, you should stop counting the cost! Think about that last sentence for a moment – when you start counting your blessings, you should stop counting the cost! Write that down! I’m of the opinion that that’s at least Twitter and Facebook worthy!
Did you realize that her action that evening was not the only time Mary was at His feet? Several mentions of her sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to His teachings, are found in Scripture:
“As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me” (Luke 10:38-40).
Jesus answered Martha’s question with a firm but compassionate no:
“There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42, NLT).
Mary had a habit of sitting at the feet of Jesus and truly listening to His every word. Out of those experiences, she came to know and understand the reality of His impending death like no one else! She saw that meal as her last chance to properly honor Him and prepare Him for His funeral. If you are wanting to do something to honor Him, something that will advance the work of the Church, the work of His Kingdom, something worthy of others talking about, it will require a sacrifice, a giving of yourself that is nothing less than a costly gift!
Becky and Kevin were High School Seniors. Gunner and Tammy were also, but with special needs. Out of their love of God, Becky and Kevin chose to befriend them and act as their hall buddies. As such, they would ensure that their disabled friends always made it to their classes on time, always had someone to eat lunch with, always had someone who cared about them. As the date for the Senior Prom approached, Becky and Kevin made a decision that would forever alter their memories of that special evening. Becky took the money that she had been saving for her Prom dress and purchased one for Tammy instead. In so doing, she knew that Gunner and Tammy would enjoy the experience of Senior Prom while she and Kevin would not. The conscious decision was theirs for their special needs friends to attend the Prom at their expense.
On the night of the Prom, Gunner and Tammy joined Kevin and Becky for dinner at Becky’s house. Unlike so many others, Gunner and Tammy had no interest in going to the Prom in a limousine. Both loved the big green trolley used for public transportation. Kevin rented one for the evening and it appeared at Becky’s house at the appointed time. As they arrived at the school, Gunner and Tammy could be seen leaning out of the windows of that green trolley, grinning from ear to ear, waving frantically to the crowd. The trolley stopped at the red carpet where others had disembarked their limousines and walked the length of it to the cheers and applauds of parents and classmates gathered. As Gunner and Tammy walked the red carpet, everyone offered their loudest cheers and their greatest applauds of the evening for them.
What does Becky and Kevin’s story say about sharing Jesus? Every kid in their High School, every parent there that evening knew Becky and Kevin. They knew that the young couple had literally sacrificed their own Senior Prom. They knew they did it out of their love for Gunner and Tammy and their love of Jesus who sacrificed His life for them! When you start counting your blessings, stop calculating the cost!
4. Mary’s gift was offered before a critical audience.
“But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, ‘That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” (John 12:4-5, NLT).
In Mark’s Gospel, the other disciples chimed in, putting Mary down. Martha didn’t defend her for Mary was on the wrong side of the table. Simon the Leper was likely miffed because she was now the center of attention at the head table, not him! Nobody appreciated or liked what she was doing except Jesus and that was enough for her! In doing something worthy of others talking about us at the mention of His name, we should be doing it because we are focused on His approval and no one else’s! One of the reasons Mary bestowed her lavish gift upon Jesus was because He had given her brother back. Isn’t the reality that He offers us the assurance of eternal life through his death and resurrection sufficient reason for us to offer lavish gifts and the sacrifice of ourselves to Him, to His church, and to His kingdom?
Let’s take a step back and look at that conversation between Jesus and Martha at the occasion of the resurrection of Lazarus:
“Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” (John 11:25-26, NLT).
If you believe this, are willing to make a lavish sacrifice, a sacrifice of yourself, whatever that might looks like for you? If you do, are you willing to face the same four challenges that Mary did – a risky time, a difficult place, a costly gift, and a critical audience? If you feel in your heart the urge to do something for God that is worth others talking about at the mention of His name, it is likely an urge that is prompted by the Holy Spirit. Understand clearly that, regardless of how strong the urge, it will never be realized or fulfilled unless you are willing to take the risks!
Our Take Away from Mary’s story and its implications for our lives today comes in the form of a question: What is the one thing you are willing to do so that when others are bragging about Jesus and what He’s done in their lives, they’ll also speak of you and what you’ve done?
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Vukasin of Klepci
Our father among the saints, Vukašin of Klepci (in Serbian: Свети Вукашин из Клепаца), was a Serbian Orthodox Christian from Herzegovina who was martyred by fascists during World War II for refusing to acknowledge the Ustashi leader. He is remembered on May 16 under the new calendar.
Little is known about the life of Saint Vukašin. He was born in the village of Klepci, in Herzegovina, at the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century. He was from a well known family of Mandrapa and moved from Klepci to Sarajevo. His family was known as benefactors of the church of Archangels Michael and Gabriel in Sarajevo. He and his nephews Chedo and Dobro were serving as readers at this church. At the beginning of World War II, he fled from Sarajevo back to Klepci and was hiding from fascists until the members of the Croatian fascist Ustašas arrested him and transported him, together with other Serbs of that region, into the notorious concentration camp of Jasenovac (the number of victims at this camp have been estimated to be at least 700,000). His martyrdom was revealed by doctor Nedelko Nedo Zets in 1946. Many relatives of Vukašin were also killed, including his nephews who died in Jasenovac.
One night in January of 1943, 3000 people were sent to death. Four Ustashe`s soldiers (their names were Petro Brzitza, Zrinushich, Shipka and Zhila) decided to kill people on a bet and compete who will kill most. During the night, one of the killers, lieutenant Josep Friganovich with nickname Zhila, signifincantly surpassed the others killing 1100 people in several hours while others killed 300-400. He felt an ecstasy, a special enthusiasm from the killing. When Zhila saw Vukašin, he was stroke by his calmness, the ecstasy disappeared and for several seconds he could not even move.
Zhila approached Vukašin and asked about his life, his family and felt an irresistible desire to destroy the calmness of Vukašin. The killer said that he would spare his (Vukašin's) life if Vukašin cried loudly: "Long live Pavelic!". Ante Pavelic was the leader of Ustashe movement and Independent State of Croatia - a Nazi puppet state. Vukašin, who saw a knife in the hands of the soldier, replied calmly: "My child, you do what you must", and refused to obey the soldier`s request. The Ustashe soldier brandished his knife and cut off Vukašin`s ear. The soldier then repeated his request. Vukašin repeated his answer. The soldier then cut off Vukašin's other ear, followed by his nose, and then scarred Vukašin`s face. Next his tongue was cut. After repeating the request to Vukašin to utter the vicious words and hail the Head of Ustaše (Ante Pavelic), Vukašin once again calmly replied: "My child, you do what you must". In the end, Vukašin made the sign of the Cross with his hand. Distracted, the soldier cut his hand and eventually killed him and afterwards went mad.
Right after the death of Vukašin, Zhila could not kill any more and lost the bet to another killer, Petro Brzitza, who executed 1350 people. Zhila often started to see a vision of Vukašin saying "My child, you do what you must". And this phrase in the head became so unbearable that Zhila started to drink a lot of alcohol, but this did not stop the voice. And then he began running around and attacking random people trying to stop this nightmare and suppress this memory. The story of martyrdom of Vukašin was written by doctor Nedo Zets in the hospital from the words of the killer.
At the regular session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1998, Vukašin, from the Klepci village, was entered into the List of Names of the Serbian Orthodox Church as a martyr. His feast day is May 16 (29).
- Joachim Wertz. On the Serbian Orthodox New Martyrs of the Second World War: A Brief Historical Background. Orthodox Life, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1983), pp. 15-22.
- Serbian New Martyrs at Wikipedia.
- (Russian) Martyrs from the camp of Jasenovac.
- (Russian) Service to St. Vukasin. May 6/19.
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https://orthodoxwiki.org/Vukasin_of_Klepci
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Michelle's course on multi-generations should be a mandatory course for everyone. It gives you a different perspective how you see things and how other generations see things. Very eye opening!
Anyone who has done any reading or thinking about this topic - frankly, anyone who is currently in the work force - should take this course.
Excellent, extremely well done and the best [internal] course I've taken in a few years!
- City of Kitchener, CapaCITY Training
I recently worked with Michelle when I booked her for a keynote speech on the multi-generational workforce. Working with Michelle was nothing short of a great experience. She is enthusiastic, reliable, extremely knowledgeable and an incredible communicator. Her knowledge shines throughout her presentation - yet she is able to create a unique, authentic and personalized talk geared towards her audience. As this event included many people from various organizations and industries, it is apparent that Michelle is genuinely interested in helping organizations solve their workforce challenges in an inclusive, fun and professional environment.
As an event coordinator, I would highly recommend Michelle as a speaker - we still have attendees talking about it!
- Guelph Chamber of Commerce, Breakfast Academy
Michelle is a great speaker and I would definitely refer people to this training opportunity and would take other courses offered by her.
- 25th Annual Community Futures Ontario Conference, Timmins
Relevant content, useful in my line of work, important for all employees to be aware of - senior management included :)
- Ontario Municipal Social Service Association, Annual Leadership Symposium
She did amazing!
Kept us all engaged and really made us think.
- S&C Utilities
Michelle is a knowledgeable, skilled and dynamic instructor on this topic.
-Jablonsky, Ast and Partners
Your presentation resonated so strongly with our table of attendees yesterday! We have an office where multi-generational people work, and I would truly appreciate receiving a copy of your slide presentation, if possible, to illustrate the differences between the generations, both in terms of their values and reward expectations/validations. We were inspired by your talk, and I believe that level of understanding inter-generationally can help our office function with greater understanding of the key motivating factors of all generations.
Once again, thank you for inspiring us and informing us with your presentation!
- Electricity Distributors Association,
Annual Women's Leadership Event: EDA CON::NECT Women Connected 2017
Attending Michelle’s presentation regarding multi-generational employees in the workplace allowed me to clearly see where my own strengths may not be enough and that there are not only “older, experienced” people that I can hire but “younger” people with new insight and understanding about how certain things are done simply due to their age.
The session gave me encouragement to step out of my entrepreneurial shoes and allow myself permission to give up trying so hard at putting a square into a circle and assign certain tasks to a new and energetic, very much younger individual who will hit the road running with the task. I am expecting great return for my investment!
- Guelph Chamber of Commerce Member, Business Owner
Really engaging workshop.
Very well informed - excellent experience!
- Stratford Managers Corporation, Leadership Development Training
Informative, fun, relevant, eye-opening!
- National Community Futures Conference, Winnipeg
Understanding the perspectives of the various generations leads to improved communication and collaboration.
- Big Brothers, Big Sisters Peel
At the end of the session, my seat-mate said she could stay for another hour to hear more about the topic.
- RLB LLP Chartered Professional Accountants
This should be shared with all levels of management as well as with Regional management. Additionally, there should be consideration given to including the types of people/groups we engage with within reports. Currently we just say yes we engaged with this many people - would be great to understand the diversity of each engagement level.
I feel this is a topic that would benefit from management taking. Perhaps a workshop could be designed for that particular audience, or included in the LEAD workshops/topics. As our workforce continues to expand to include millennials and iGen, now more than ever before, we need to be adapting.
- City of Kitchener, Customer Service Training 2018
Thanks for a great talk yesterday. As a somewhat anxious, career-focused millennial, it's wonderful to hear positive messages about my generation in the workforce, as opposed to the classic "entitled millennial" narrative :)
I enjoyed learning about your strategies to leverage what you have, change your mindset and then make well thought out decisions -- it's given me a lot to think about in my career and life. Thanks once again - I hope to see you at another event in the future!
- Ontario Libraries Association, Marketing Think Tank Symposium
Knowledgable, Sincere and Awesome! 3 words that come to mind when I think of Michelle. After seeing Michelle present about multi-generations several times, I have learned she consistently captures her audience with an interesting and engaging keynote presentation no matter the age group (generation) or industry. She has a way with words, always leaving her audience feeling enthusiastic about the future and enlightened.
If you want to future-proof your workforce, you need to talk to Michelle!
I look forward to working with her more often!
- Wellington Waterloo Community Futures
I would recommend it to a lot of my colleagues that don't really get millennials and iGens :D WE ARE THE FUTURE :P
- Municipality of Chatham Kent
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https://www.millennialstrategist.com/testimonials
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There’s a Zen koan that goes like this:
“If a man puts a gosling in the bottle and feeds it until it is full-grown, how can the man get the goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?”
Apparently this riddle has been driving Zen monks crazy for the past several hundred years. Now, the thing about koans is this: they’re not supposed to be easy. Wikipedia describes koans as a Zen-practice “to provoke ‘the great doubt’, and test a student’s progress in Zen practice.” The point is to sit with the sheer illogic of the situation, tearing at it with the logical part of your mind the way a dog gnaws on a bone, until finally — pow — your mind surrenders further attempts at “analysis” and makes a leap into “pure consciousness”. Interestingly, teachers do not, necessarily, expect students to present a straight-forward answer when asked about a k?an. Consider, for example, Osho’s account of the response a great Zen master, Nansen, gave to his student, Riko, when presented with the goose koan:
After hearing the riddle, Nansen gave a great clap with his hands and shouted, “Riko!”
“Yes, Master,” said the official with a start.
“See,” said Nansen, “The goose is out!”
So what in the world are we supposed to make of all this koan mumbo jumbo, and how does it relate to our personal and business lives? I don’t know about you, but when I first heard the goose koan, I thought: Why in the world would anyone raise a goose inside of a bottle in the first place? That is so completely inhumane! Not to mention, how do you clean out the bird droppings? In subsequent attempts to make sense of this riddle, I considered several “highly feasible” solutions, namely:
The bottle has a very big mouth, large enough for the goose to escape when needed.
Growing up in the low-nutrition and low-exercise environment of a bottle, the goose would be veeeeery thin–easily lean enough to slip out of the bottle neck
The bottle can somehow be dissolved (by acid, say), rather than broken.
We put the goose in the freezer and send him into a cryogenic state, then break the bottle, remove the bird, and put him into a new bottle
Or, as Neo might say in the Matrix, “”There is no bottle; there is no goose”
Given time, I’m confident I could come up with a list of at least 20 other ways to “cheat” that bird out of its confinement. This, however, rather defeats the purpose. The true value of the koan lies in the metaphor it represents.
From a Buddhist perspective, the goose symbolizes your consciousness… your free spirit… your ultimate reality, while the bottle represents your mind. This koan suggests that your consciousness is trapped inside the mental structures of your logical, analytical mind. If you want to experience the ultimate freedom of pure consciousness and liberation, you need to interrupt the process of asking rational questions and generating logical solutions. When you can stop and just “be”, without all the mental narration, only then will “the goose be out”.
Needless to say, achieving such “mindfulness” requires a good deal of time and effort. The first step is implementing a regular centering technique that works for you — be it meditation or whatever — one that you can practice regularly and often. Sounds like a lot of work, huh? But here’s the pay-off: organizations around the world are already reaping the benefits of creating a more “mindful” workplace. Imagine what your organization would be like if you came into work everyday and people were:
Listening to each other with full attention, in a very present way
Minimizing judgment, competition and control
Accessing their inner creativity and intuition on a regular basis
Wouldn’t that be incredible? Well, it’s happening. In organizations where leaders are actively centering themselves and modeling mindful behaviors, all sorts of amazing things arise. Employees begin to connect deeply with the meaning of their work. Retention skyrockets. Innovation flows freely. People experience far more engagement. Employees feel willing and able to bring 100% of themselves to the workplace.
Isn’t it time we considered turning the attention away from the external challenges in our lives and work and, instead, place more focus on what we can do internally, to create a positive, energize work environment? Let the goose out!
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https://drclue.com/mindfulness-work-goose/
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Lighter review: For those who enjoy a cigar or a pipe , the usual rule is to have several lighters in your possession. At last count I have at least 10 of various quality, size and design.
I do not use throw away disposable products as they are basically poorly made and do not work to my satisfaction.
I received a gratis lighter from Groovy Guy Gifts, an interesting company which distributes items that appeal to male clientele. Check out their entire line at Groovyguygifts.com.
As always how and where I receive an item does not impact my subjective judgment. Please try the product yourself if you are interested in purchasing.
Lighter Review: Bazooka Torch
This is a lighter for heavy hitters. First off , it is a table lighter not a carry in your pocket item. Solid construction, attractive in appearance and easy to add fluid and operate.
It comes packaged in an attractive box with a detailed instruction on how to use.
The printed instructions sheet is on the small print size so you might need to wear your reading glasses to ascertain.
The Test: I used the Bazooka Torch to light a LaGloria Cubana Spanish Press Robusto cigar.
Here were my steps to get the lighter ready for my test and use.
1. Follow the directions on the handout. Bleed the valve first before you fuel up.
2. Use high quality butane and make sure the can nozzle fits the valve. Many butane cans have adapters for different lighters. Let the lighter sit for several minutes before you engage use.
3. After a few minutes of quiet time, I made several adjustments to find the right setting for the cigar. I suggest trying the lowest setting first. The flame is quite powerful so be very careful to adjust according. It would be very easy to burn the cigar and destroy it .
4. The flame was steady, direct with no flareups. It made the lighting of the cigar very easy with a even burn.
5. The Bazooka Torch is for table and multiple use. You are not going to be carrying this around in your pocket.
6. It would make a fine gift or for your own needs.
One suggestion for the manufacturer. A visible fuel line would help to see how much fuel you have in the torch.
I plan to eventually test it out lighting a pipe. It looks and feels sturdy so I think you will get many years of use out of it.
If you need a heavy duty lighter , with a good price point, this is your baby.
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https://urbanfishingpolecigars.com/2020/08/17/lighter-review-blow-me-away-mates-bazooka-torch/
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Farmers are level 7 humans found on farms. They are the only monsters to drop the decorative gardening boots. Farmers are fairly weak and can be fair melee training for lower levels. Player with level 10 Thieving can pickpocket farmers, gaining 14.5 experience and 9 coins or 1 potato seed.
Farmers are located:
- One in Seth Groats' farm, east of Lumbridge, and another just north of it.
- One on the road from Lumbridge to Varrock, near Rat Burgiss.
- Two in the farm north of Ardougne.
- One west of Lumbridge mill, inside barn with goblins.
Item Quantity Rarity GE market price Bones 1 Always 89
Item Quantity Rarity GE market price Sweetcorn seed(m) 1 Unknown 2 Onion seed(m) 1–4 Unknown 1–4 Tomato seed(m) 1–4 Unknown 1–4 Cabbage seed(m) 4 Unknown 4 Watermelon seed(m) 1–4 Unknown 71–284 Potato seed(m) 1–4 Common 1–4 Strawberry seed(m) 4 Common 20
Item Quantity Rarity GE market price Grimy guam leaf(m) 1 Unknown 15 Grimy tarromin(m) 1 Unknown 132 Grimy irit leaf(m) 1 Unknown 775 Grimy dwarf weed(m) 1 Unknown 448 Grimy ranarr weed(m) 1 Rare 7,640 Grimy kwuarm(m) 1 Rare 1,165 Grimy avantoe(m) 1 Rare 1,814
Item Quantity Rarity GE market price Chaos rune 2 Unknown 178 Fire rune 6 Unknown 30 Mind rune 9 Unknown 27
Item Quantity Rarity GE market price Cabbage 1 Unknown 40 Earth talisman 1 Unknown 310 Fishing bait 1 Unknown 4 Rake(m) 1 Unknown 171 Secateurs(m) 1 Common 82 Coins 3–15 Common Not sold Gardening boots(m) 1 Rare 2,999 Watering can(8)(m) 1 Rare Not sold Seed dibber(m) 1 Rare 163 Clue scroll (easy)(m) 1 Rare Not sold
A successful picketpocketing attempt will gain the following loot:
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https://oldschoolrunescape.fandom.com/wiki/Farmer
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In June, HTC had launched the Desire 19+ smartphone. Today, it has unveiled its a toned-down variant of the sam, the Desire 19s in Taiwan. The Desire 19s comes with a front and rear design that is identical to the HTC Wildfire X that had gone official in August. Compared to the Wildfire X, it comes with a larger battery and improved front and rear cameras.
HTC Desire 19s specifications and features
The polycarbonate bodied HTC Desire 19s measures 156.2 x 74.8 x 8.47mm and it weighs 170 grams. The rear panel appears glossy at the top and portion below the fingerprint scanner has a textured design. The Desire 19s has an IPS LCD display panel of 6.2 inches. The waterdrop notch enabled screen supports HD+ resolution of 720 x 1,520 pixels and 19:9 aspect ratio. The Helio P22 chipset that includes 2.0GHz octa-core processor powers the smartphone along with 3GB of RAM. The Wildfire X also features same-sized display, Helio P22 Soc and 3GB of RAM.
The Desire 19s comes with an internal storage of 32GB. There is a hybrid SIM card slot onboard for expanding its storage. The smartphone boots Android 9 Pie that is customised with HTC Sense UI. The handset draws power from a 3,850mAh battery that comes with support for 5V/2A charging.
Placed on the backside of the phone is a triple camera system. It includes a 13-megapixel main lens with f/1.85 aperture, a 5-megapixel ultrawide lens with a 118-degree field-of-view with f/2.2 aperture, and a 5-mgeapixel depth sensor with f/2.2 aperture. The rear cameras offer features like dual-LED flash, automatic HDR, portrait mode and full HD video recording. The front notch of the phone houses an AI powered 16-megapixel f/2.0 aperture lens with HDR and full HD video recording support. On the connectivity front, the device offers features like dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC, USB-C and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
HTC Desire 19s price and availability
The HTC Desire 19s is now up for purchase in Taiwan with a price tag of TWD 5,990 (~Rs. 14,100). Free Blue and Yashi Black are the two colour editions of the smartphone. There is no word on the availability of the smartphone outside Taiwan.
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https://pricebaba.com/blog/htc-desire-19s-launched-price-specifications-features
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Nature’s Love provides the highest quality natural hemp oil vape products for you. It’s Only Natural! Their Extract cartridges will do wonders for you with cannabinoids.
The wonderful team at Nature’s Love simply REFUSES to use artificial emulsifiers or carrier oils because they want to offer the purest and most unadulterated form of the hemp plant. This can result in the natural crystallization of the distillate, just like water freezes into ice!
Some Handy Hints about Nature’s Love Cartridges
How to Avoid Crystallization: Store at 70°-85° F and seal in it’s tube when possible.
Here are some tips to help you along with your hemp extract vape experience. It’s good for everyone to be comfortable and familiar with the products you buy from us. If you have any questions about our Hemp Oil Extract Vape products feel free to reach out to us!
How to Melt Crystallization: Gently warm your cartridge to 95°-100° F by placing it in a location that is no more than 100° F. It may take up to 3-4 hours for the extract inside the cartridge to reach the desired temperature. Use caution to NOT overheat the cartridge or the extract will leak out!
Ideal locations to gently warm the cartridges: Atop warm appliances, in a warm sunny spot, or even your inside jacket pocket will often give enough heat if left for a few hours. ALWAYS measure the temperature of your location first!
DO NOT OVERHEAT!
If these terpenes are not your preferred “flavors”, you may wish to consider the great terpene/strain combinations of Liberty CBD.
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https://carolinahemphut.com/product/natural-hemp-oil-vape/?attribute_terpene=Blueberry+Patch
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SunglassHutFeedback Survey 2020
Sunglass Hut Feedback Survey gives a good opportunity to its customers to raise up the voice by sharing opinions and reviews about the visit to a Sunglass Hut Store.
By the feedback given by you through the Sunglass Hut Customer Experience Survey at www.sunglasshutfeedback.com will help the company to grow and make changes or improvements in the services and products.
Help the company by sharing your suggestions and opinions through the Sunglass Hut Customer Feedback Survey and get a chance to get your $25 Coupon Code.
Sunglass Hut Contest Rewards
Share your Sunglass Hut Opinion at www.sunglasshutfeedback.com Sunglass Hut Survey Website, and get some Sunglass Hut Rewards.
Get $25 Sunglass Hut Coupon
Sunglass Hut Feedback Survey Rules & Requirements
How To Complete The Sunglass Hut Survey at www.sunglasshutfeedbac.com?
Sunglass Hut Contact Us
Sunglass Hut Mill Corporate Office
Sunglass Hut Customer Service Number: 1.800.786.4527Give us a call at 1.800. SUNGLASS (1.800. 786.4527), Monday-Friday 8:30 AM-5:30 PM EST; Saturday, 9 AM-5:30 PM EST and select option 2.
Sunglass Hut Survey Reference Links
- Sunglass Hut Customer Experience Survey Link: www.sunglasshutfeedback.com
- Sunglass Hut Official Site: www.sunglasshut.com
This article will help you to complete the Sunglass Hut Survey via www.sunglasshutfeedback.com and get an entry in Sunglass Hut Store Survey Rewards to Win a $25 Coupon.
For any question you have or want to give your feedback about this article then use the below mention comment box to share. And visit our website _takeyoursurveys.com for more survey offers.
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https://takeyoursurveys.com/www-sunglasshutfeedback-com/
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Half wave Rectifier
A rectifier is nothing but a simple diode or group of diodes which converts the Alternating Current (AC) into Direct Current (DC).We know that a diode allows electric current in one direction and blocks electric current in another direction. We are using this principle to construct various types of rectifiers. Rectifiers are classified into different types based on the number of diodes used in the circuit or arrangement of diodes in the circuit. The basic types of rectifiers are: half wave rectifier and full wave rectifier.
Half wave rectifier definition
A half wave rectifier is a type of rectifier which converts the positive half cycle (positive current) of the input signal into pulsating DC (Direct Current) output signal.
A half wave rectifier is a type of rectifier which allows only half cycle (either positive half cycle or negative half cycle) of the input AC signal while another half cycle is blocked.
For example, if the positive half cycle is allowed then the negative half cycle is blocked. Similarly, if the negative half cycle is allowed then the positive half cycle is blocked. However, a half wave rectifier will not allow both positive and negative half cycles at the same time.
Therefore, the half cycle (either positive or negative) of the input signal is wasted.
What is half wave rectifier?
The half wave rectifier is the simplest form of the rectifier. We use only a single diode to construct the half wave rectifier.
The half wave rectifier is made up of an AC source, transformer (step-down), diode, and resistor (load). The diode is placed between the transformer and resistor (load).
The AC source supplies Alternating Current to the circuit. The alternating current is often represented by a sinusoidal waveform.
Half wave rectifier operation
When high AC voltage (60 Hz) is applied, the step-down transformer reduces this high voltage into low voltage. Thus, a low voltage is produced at the secondary winding of the transformer. The low voltage produced at the secondary winding of the transformer is called secondary voltage (VS). The AC voltage or AC signal applied to the transformer is nothing but an input AC signal or input AC voltage.
The low AC voltage produced by the step-down transformer is directly applied to the diode.
When low AC voltage is applied to the diode (D), during the positive half cycle of the signal, the diode is forward biased and allows electric current whereas, during the negative half cycle, the diode is reverse biased and blocks electric current. In simple words, the diode allows the positive half-cycle of the input AC signal and blocks the negative half-cycle of the input AC signal.
The positive half-cycle of the input AC signal or AC voltage applied to the diode is analogous to the forward DC voltage applied to the p-n junction diode similarly the negative half-cycle of the input AC signal applied to the diode is analogous to the reverse DC voltage applied to the p-n junction diode.
We know that diode allows electric current when it is forward biased and blocks electric current when it is reverse biased. Similarly, in an AC circuit, the diode allows electric current during the positive half cycle (forward biased) and blocks electric current during the negative half cycle (reverse biased).
The positive half wave rectifier does not completely block the negative half cycles. It allows a small portion of negative half cycles or small negative current. This current is produced by the minority carriers in the diode.
The current produced by the minority carriers is very small. So it is neglected. We can’t visually see the small portion of negative half cycles at the output.
In an ideal diode, the negative half cycles or negative current is zero.
The resistor placed at the output consumes the DC current generated by the diode. Hence, the resistor is also known as an electrical load. The output DC voltage or DC current is measured across the load resistor RL.
The electrical load is nothing but an electrical component of a circuit that consumes electric current. In half wave rectifier, the resistor consumes the DC current generated by the diode. So the resistor in half wave rectifier is known as a load.
Sometimes, the load is also refers to the power consumed by the circuit.
The load resistors are used in half wave rectifiers to restrict or block the unusual excess DC current produced by the diode.
Thus, the half wave rectifier allows positive half cycles and blocks negative half cycles. The half wave rectifier which allows positive half cycles and blocks negative half cycles is called a positive half wave rectifier. The output DC current or DC signal produced by a positive half wave rectifier is a series of positive half cycles or positive sinusoidal pulses.
Now let’s take a look at the negative half wave rectifier……..
Negative half wave rectifier
The construction and working of negative half wave rectifier is almost similar to the positive half wave rectifier. The only thing we change here is the direction of a diode.
When AC voltage is applied, the step-down transformer reduces the high voltage to low voltage. This low voltage is applied to the diode.
Unlike the positive half wave rectifier, the negative half wave rectifier allows electric current during the negative half-cycle of input AC signal and blocks electric current during the positive half-cycle of the input AC signal.
During the negative half cycle, the diode is forward biased and during the positive half cycle the diode is reverse biased, so the negative half wave rectifier allows electric current only during the negative half cycle.
Thus, the negative half wave rectifier allows negative half cycles and blocks positive half cycles.
The negative half wave rectifier does not completely block the positive half cycles. It allows a small portion of positive half cycles or small positive current. This current is produced by the minority carriers in the diode.
The current produced by the minority carriers is very small. So it is neglected. We can’t visually see this small positive half cycles at the output.
In an ideal diode, the positive half cycle or positive current is zero.
The DC current or DC voltage produced by the negative half wave rectifier is measured across the load resistor RL. The output DC current or DC signal produced by a negative half wave rectifier is a series of negative half cycles or negative sinusoidal pulses.
Thus, a negative half wave rectifier produces a series of negative sinusoidal pulses.
In a perfect or ideal diode, the positive half cycle or negative half cycle at the output is exactly same as the input positive half cycle or negative half cycle. However, in practice, the positive half cycle or negative half cycle at the output is slightly different from the input positive half cycle or negative half cycle. But this difference is negligible. So we can’t see the difference with our eyes.
Thus, the half wave rectifier produces a series of positive sinusoidal pulses or negative sinusoidal pulses. This series of positive pulses or negative pulses is not a pure direct current. It is a pulsating direct current.
The pulsating direct current changes its value over a short period of time. But our aim is to produce a direct current which does not change its value over a short period of time. Therefore, the pulsating direct current is not much useful.
Half wave rectifier with capacitor filter
A filter converts the pulsating direct current into pure direct current. In half wave rectifiers, a capacitor or inductor is used as a filter to convert the pulsating DC to pure DC.
The output voltage produced by a half wave rectifier is not constant; it varies with respect to time. In practical applications, a constant DC supply voltage is needed.
In order to produce a constant DC voltage, we need to suppress the ripples of a DC voltage. This can be achieved by using either a capacitor filter or inductor filter at the output side. In the below circuit, we are using the capacitor filter. The capacitor placed at the output side smoothen the pulsating DC to pure DC.
Characteristics of half wave rectifier
The direct current (DC) produced by a half wave rectifier is not a pure DC but a pulsating DC. In the output pulsating DC signal, we find ripples. These ripples in the output DC signal can be reduced by using filters such capacitors and inductors.
In order to measure how much ripples are there in the output DC signal we use a factor known as ripple factor. The ripple factor is denoted by γ.
The ripple factor tells us the amount of ripples present in the output DC signal.
A large ripple factor indicates a high pulsating DC signal while a low ripple factor indicates a low pulsating DC signal.
If the ripple factor is very low then it indicates that the output DC current is closer to the pure DC current. In simple words, the lower the ripple factor the smoother the output DC signal.
Ripple factor can be mathematically defined as the ratio of rms value of AC component of the output voltage to the DC component of the output voltage.
Ripples factor = rms value of AC component of the output voltage / DC component of the output voltage
Where, rms = root mean square
The ripple factor is also simply defined as the ratio of ripple voltage to the DC voltage
Ripple factor = Ratio of ripple voltage / DC voltage
The ripple factor should be kept as minimum as possible to construct a good rectifier.
The ripple factor is given as
Finally, we get
γ = 1.21
The unwanted ripple present in the output along with the DC voltage is 121% of the DC magnitude. This indicates that the half wave rectifier is not an efficient AC to DC converter. The high ripples in the half wave rectifier can be reduced by using filters.
The DC current is given by,
Imax = maximum DC load current
Output DC voltage (VDC)
The output DC voltage (VDC) is the voltage appeared at the load resistor (RL). This voltage is obtained by multiplying the output DC current with load resistance RL.
It can be mathematically written as,
VDC = IDC RL
The output DC voltage is given by,
Where, VSmax = Maximum secondary voltage
Peak inverse voltage (PIV)
Peak inverse voltage is the maximum reverse bias voltage up to which a diode can withstand. If the applied voltage is greater than the peak inverse voltage, the diode will be destroyed.
During the positive half cycle, the diode is forward biased and allow electric current. This current is dropped at the resistor load (RL). However, during the negative half cycle, the diode is reverse biased and does not allows electric current, so the input AC current or AC voltage is dropped at the diode.
The maximum voltage dropped at the diode is nothing but an input voltage.
Therefore, peak inverse voltage (PIV) of diode = VSmax
Rectifier efficiency is defined as the ratio of output DC power to the input AC power.
The rectifier efficiency of a half wave rectifier is 40.6%
Root mean square (RMS) value of load current IRMS
The root mean square (RMS) value of load current in a half wave rectifier is
Root mean square (RMS) value of output load voltage VRMS
The root mean square (RMS) value of output load voltage in a half wave rectifier is
Form factor is defined as the ratio of RMS value to the DC value
It can be mathematically written as
F.F = RMS value / DC value
The form factor of a half wave rectifier is
F.F = 1.57
Advantages of half wave rectifier
- We use very few components to construct the half wave rectifier. So the cost is very low.
- Easy to construct
Disadvantages of half wave rectifier
- Power loss
The half wave rectifier either allows the positive half cycle or negative half cycle. So the remaining half cycle is wasted. Approximately half of the applied voltage is wasted in half wave rectifier.
- Pulsating direct current
The direct current produced by the half wave rectifier is not a pure direct current; it is a pulsating direct current which is not much useful.
- Produces low output voltage.
Full Wave Rectifier
Like the half wave circuit, a full wave rectifier circuit produces an output voltage or current which is purely DC or has some specified DC component. Full wave rectifiers have some fundamental advantages over their half wave rectifier counterparts. The average (DC) output voltage is higher than for half wave, the output of the full wave rectifier has much less ripple than that of the half wave rectifier producing a smoother output waveform.
In a Full Wave Rectifier circuit two diodes are now used, one for each half of the cycle. A multiple winding transformer is used whose secondary winding is split equally into two halves with a common centre tapped connection, (C). This configuration results in each diode conducting in turn when its anode terminal is positive with respect to the transformer centre point C producing an output during both half-cycles, twice that for the half wave rectifier so it is 100% efficient as shown below.
Full Wave Rectifier Circuit
The full wave rectifier circuit consists of two power diodes connected to a single load resistance (RL) with each diode taking it in turn to supply current to the load. When point A of the transformer is positive with respect to point C, diode D1 conducts in the forward direction as indicated by the arrows.
When point B is positive (in the negative half of the cycle) with respect to point C, diode D2 conducts in the forward direction and the current flowing through resistor R is in the same direction for both half-cycles. As the output voltage across the resistor R is the phasor sum of the two waveforms combined, this type of full wave rectifier circuit is also known as a “bi-phase” circuit.
Partsim Simulation Waveform
As the spaces between each half-wave developed by each diode is now being filled in by the other diode the average DC output voltage across the load resistor is now double that of the single half-wave rectifier circuit and is about 0.637Vmax of the peak voltage, assuming no losses.
Where: VMAX is the maximum peak value in one half of the secondary winding and VRMS is the rms value.
The peak voltage of the output waveform is the same as before for the half-wave rectifier provided each half of the transformer windings have the same rms voltage value. To obtain a different DC voltage output different transformer ratios can be used.
The main disadvantage of this type of full wave rectifier circuit is that a larger transformer for a given power output is required with two separate but identical secondary windings making this type of full wave rectifying circuit costly compared to the “Full Wave Bridge Rectifier” circuit equivalent.
The Full Wave Bridge Rectifier
Another type of circuit that produces the same output waveform as the full wave rectifier circuit above, is that of the Full Wave Bridge Rectifier. This type of single phase rectifier uses four individual rectifying diodes connected in a closed loop “bridge” configuration to produce the desired output.
The main advantage of this bridge circuit is that it does not require a special centre tapped transformer, thereby reducing its size and cost. The single secondary winding is connected to one side of the diode bridge network and the load to the other side as shown below.
The Diode Bridge Rectifier
The four diodes labelled D1 to D4 are arranged in “series pairs” with only two diodes conducting current during each half cycle. During the positive half cycle of the supply, diodes D1 and D2 conduct in series while diodes D3 and D4 are reverse biased and the current flows through the load as shown below.
The Positive Half-cycle
During the negative half cycle of the supply, diodes D3 and D4 conduct in series, but diodes D1 and D2 switch “OFF” as they are now reverse biased. The current flowing through the load is the same direction as before.
The Negative Half-cycle
As the current flowing through the load is unidirectional, so the voltage developed across the load is also unidirectional the same as for the previous two diode full-wave rectifier, therefore the average DC voltage across the load is 0.637Vmax.
However in reality, during each half cycle the current flows through two diodes instead of just one so the amplitude of the output voltage is two voltage drops ( 2*0.7 = 1.4V ) less than the input VMAX amplitude. The ripple frequency is now twice the supply frequency (e.g. 100Hz for a 50Hz supply or 120Hz for a 60Hz supply.)
Although we can use four individual power diodes to make a full wave bridge rectifier, pre-made bridge rectifier components are available “off-the-shelf” in a range of different voltage and current sizes that can be soldered directly into a PCB circuit board or be connected by spade connectors.
The image to the right shows a typical single phase bridge rectifier with one corner cut off. This cut-off corner indicates that the terminal nearest to the corner is the positive or +ve output terminal or lead with the opposite (diagonal) lead being the negative or -ve output lead. The other two connecting leads are for the input alternating voltage from a transformer secondary winding.
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https://www.banaao.co.in/rectifiers/
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Waterproblems find their solutions
Insufficient water quality due to a nutrient overkill.
The water contains a lot of nutrients for algae, particularly in the spring and summer months. Excess nutrients can cause massive blue algal bloom, leading to smelly scum layers.
Blue algae is particularly susceptible to hydrogen peroxide, even in low concentrations.
By logging in you can access the contact information of the referer and involved companies.Login
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https://waterwindow.org/case/eutrophication-0
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Are you looking for more information on pollution reduction?7 most efficient ways of reducing pollution- additional information
Biodegradable plastics technology that saves our planet from plastic pollution
CO2 Sequestation- removing CO2 from the global warming equation
Renewable fuel- the only answer to saving ourselves and the world
Easy ways to reduce air pollution
Green revolution worldwide
Energy conservation- saving the planet and your money
1. Drive smart and in the right vehicle. One of the most effective ways to reduce pollution is to drive the right vehicle. An electric vehicle or at least a hybrid is environmentally friendly and will help in preventing pollution. Even if you just shop for a gasoline-fueled car with lower emissions, it will have a positive impact on the environment and assist in reducing pollution. Driving smart also goes a long way. Here are some basic ways to reduce pollution while actually driving: accelerate gradually, use cruise control when possible, replace your air filter, report smoking vehicles, and keep your tires inflated.
2. Minimize Vehicle Use. Even better than driving smart is to drive as little as possible in general. Ride a bicycle, use public transport, or carpool whenever you can. Combine appointments and errands into a single trip when you can, which will reduce the exhaust fumes and emissions in the long run. This is important for preventing pollution.
3. Plant trees and plants. Trees and plants take carbon out of the environment and the air we breathe. Planting more trees and landscaping helps with preventing pollution and keeps the environment cleaner. So, grow a garden if you have a yard, or simply get lots of plants to put around your apartment, and you’ll be reducing pollution.
4. Reuse and recycle. This is one of the most obvious ways to reduce pollution. When you reuse and recycle items, it goes a long way in preserving new raw materials. Recycling also minimizes the landfill garbage and the environmental damage caused by manufacturing processes. Recycling is the most basic aid in preventing pollution.
5. Correctly dispose of hazardous materials. This includes pesticides, chemicals, and any materials that can cause harm to the general population in the area. So, one of the ways to reduce pollution is to dispose of them properly, instead of just throwing them into the garbage can.
6. Replace fossil fuel use with renewable energy. This is probably one of the most effective ways to reduce pollution. Fossil fuels cause a lot of damage to the environment through pollution. Even to get them out of the earth is very polluting, because mining of any kind damages the earth and harms the environment.
7. Conserve energy when possible. This one is also important for preventing pollution, because conservation of energy decreases demand, which conserves resources that would be utilized otherwise. Some examples of things you can do to save energy include: switching off the lights in rooms not in use, replace energy-sucking incandescent bulbs with fluorescent ones, install window fans instead of AC units, insulate the water heater, install a programmable thermostat that can turn off automatically when the temperature has reached comfortable levels, use low-flow shower heads. There are many other ways to save energy around the home as well and most of them are very easy to implement, like unplugging electrical devices when not in use.
For more information, go to:
11 Responses to “7 Most Efficient Ways of Reducing Pollution – Updated information”
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http://www.bionomicfuel.com/7-most-efficient-ways-of-reducing-pollution/
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HUGE NEW FEATURE: Advanced Search!
Job Sleuth now has Advanced Search capability to help you scour the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and Selected Characteristics of Occupations (SCO) for the job(s) that match the exact criteria or combination of criteria you choose. This is an incredible enhancement to Job Sleuth’s (already astounding) usefulness.
Advanced Search is perfect for all Social Security or vocational practitioners:
– Social Security attorneys and representatives can prepare their cases by checking their client’s disabilities against potentially compatible jobs to help guide medical development, treating physician questionnaires, and hearing preparation.
– Vocational experts can easily answer any “step four and five” questions by simply plugging in the hypothetical restrictions.
– Vocational rehabilitation specialists can find jobs their clients are suited for based on the limitations each individual presents with.
Below are some pictures of the advanced search in action:
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https://jobsleuthapp.com/2014/03/06/version-1-4-released/
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14873165
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Go fishing on Amur River
Fishing on Amur is a window of opportunity to catch the huge fishes, most of them inhabit only the river. Some of the species you never find anywhere else. We can offer for fishermen 7-days comprehensive program adventure in the untrodden places.
The Black Dragon River
Fishing at the Far East
The trip are for those fishermen who dreams to catch the big fish that inhabits Amur
The trip is for those who is looking for the new impressions and wants to enlarge the list of the hooked fishes
There is no another big river with such various fauna in the Russia
Everybody who wants can hook different kind of fish, such as: Chinese bass, cowfish, skin-carp, pike, mudfish and some others
Most of the fishermen think that only salmon fishes are at the Far-East, but they are wrong. If you lucky you can catch Elopichthys bambusa, The strength and the size of this fish can compare with the strength and the size of taimen and sometimes resistance is much greater
There are some other phenomenal predatory fish in the bed of Amur. As an example we can speak about skygazer (Erythroculter). It’s very strong fish and can be very big in size and a good trophy
The best time (for the trip)
from May till October
- Fishing in unpopulated places and the chance to devote your time to hobby
- to hook endemic of the big size that you can never find anywhere else.
- in comparison with flight to Kamchatka or Sakhalin the tickets are cheaper till Khabarovsk or Komsomolsk-on-Amur
- subaerial transportation to the camp is cheaper then air transport.
- you will feel yourself comfortable with the new motorboat and camp equipment
- Long fishing season with 6-months duration can help you to plan your trip
- our guides are skilfull with big experience in fishing in Amur river.
- We pay much attention to meals, our cook is excellent.
- If you can find 6 persons for the trip, the 7-the can go free of cost like a team-leader.
- 50 %prepayment for booking
- for managers of the travel agency we may send the presentation
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https://www.amurfishing-tur.com/anglijskaya-glavnaya
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14873166
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First United Methodist Church has a lot to offer anyone who is looking to grow deeper in Christ amongst friends from all different walks of life.
Our Young Adult Ministry is designed for young adults in Siloam Springs, including students attending John Brown University.
If you would like to visit our church but do not have transportation, we would love to pick you up in our church van!
Sunday school offered at 10:15 on Sunday morning. We have many to choose from, including one class specifically for those who are 18 to 25, and as well as other cross-generational classes. College Age Sunday School Class (Nehemiah) We offer a college age Sunday school class right after the Celebration Service (10:15am-10:45am). This is an excellent class for anyone who is looking to deepen their faith and fellowship with other young adults in our congregation. The class is located one of the classrooms in the Fellowship Hall and we would love to see you there!
Fundraisers Are you in need of some help doing a fundraiser out in the community? In the past, we have offered meals to the community and hosted concerts to help raise money/awareness for different ministries and causes.
Volunteer/Internship Opportunities First UMC has several vibrant ministries, including Children, Youth, Cooking, Music, and A/V. If you feel called to serve a local church in any capacity, we would love for you to join us! First UMC also offers internships designed to help educate and provide practical experience to anyone with an interest in leading worship or working in ministry.
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https://www.fumcss.com/young-adult-ministry.html
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14873167
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Stoler JM, Oaklander AL
Rare patients are left with chronic pain, vasodysregulation, and other symptoms that define complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), after limb traumas. The predisposing factors are unknown. Genetic factors undoubtedly contribute, but have not yet been identified. We report four CRPS patients also diagnosed with the classical or hypermobility forms of Ehlers Danlos syndrome (EDS), inherited disorders of connective tissue. These patients had been diagnosed using standard diagnostic criteria for CRPS and for EDS. All had sustained joint injury; in three this had been surgically treated. The association of these two diagnoses leads us to hypothesize that EDS might contribute to the development of CRPS in one or more of the following ways: via stretch injury to nerves traversing hypermobile joints, increased fragility of nerve connective tissue, or nerve trauma from more frequent surgery. We review the clinical presentation of the different Ehlers Danlos syndromes and provide clinical criteria that can be used to screen CRPS patients for EDS for clinical or research purposes.
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
full text source
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https://www.oneedsvoice.com/rcuratenew/patients-ehlers-danlos-syndrome-crps-possible-association/
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14873168
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I have seen Martha Reeves describe this as one of her favourite songs. Released in 1966 on Motown’s Gordy imprint and apparently originally earmarked for Kim Weston, the actual song recording features Martha backed by Motown session group The Andantes, stable mates The Four Tops, with the ever reliable Funk Brothers providing instrumentation. It is a truly exquisite record, a sparkling piece of Motown Magic that floats, glides and soars into an almost classical sphere in parts, enchanting you to take an emotive journey. It is also a beautiful show case for Martha’s vocals, which are perhaps more defined, sculptured, and personal than on her earlier more popish Motown hits.
Make sure you subscribe to the Song Of The Day Spotify playlist below!
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https://thefaceradio.com/sotd/martha-the-vandellas-%E2%80%8E-my-baby-loves-me/
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14873169
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Going to college right after high school is not an idea that everybody is comfortable with. If you are one of these people, a gap year might be the right choice for you.
A gap year, also known as a sabbatical, is when a high school graduate waits one year (or more) before going to college. There are a lot of reasons why people do this, and there are countless opportunities that can be taken during a gap year.
Why do students take gap years?
There are a lot of reasons why people take gap years. College can be a physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding experience. And while high school graduates are expected to be ready to go to college, some people are not adequately prepared for it. A gap year can give them a break that they need to tackle college with a much clearer head while also giving them opportunities to grow as a person, gain experience, and explore other options.
What are the best things to do during your gap year?
If you are planning to take a gap year, here are some of the best things that you can do with your year off:
1. Get a job
Working during your gap year is an excellent way to build your CV and earn extra money for college. There are lots of job opportunities that you can explore. Some companies even offer jobs specifically for people taking their sabbatical, such as the position of gap year teaching assistant in Australia.
By getting a job, you are also gaining real-world experience that can help you grow as a person. It also gives you excellent training on how to manage your hard-earned money, especially if you are living independently.
Volunteering is a great way to give back to the community, and it will look good on your resume. Find a cause that you care about and see what you can do for them. Aside from realizing the importance of helping others, you can also gain valuable work experience that will guide you later in life.
3. Take a class
Just because you took a break from school doesn’t mean you stop learning. During your gap year, you can try taking classes that interest you and will help you learn new skills. Have you always wanted to learn how to cook, bake, paint, or play the piano? A gap year can give you a lot of time to learn.
Traveling to other places, especially overseas, is one of the best ways to gain new life experiences. It is also an opportunity to learn more about yourself as you navigate unfamiliarity and practice independence. So don’t pass up the chance to travel during your gap year.
5. Take care of yourself
Senior year can get pretty hectic with the SATs, college applications, exams, and extracurricular activities piling on top of each other. Thus, a gap year can be your opportunity to recharge physically, mentally, and emotionally.
If you think a gap year is going to make you a better person and a better student, don’t hesitate to take one! Taking a gap year doesn’t mean you’re lazy -even Malia Obama took one before going to Harvard. So if you think a gap year right for you, go ahead and jump in on the trend.
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https://what-is-the-meaning-of.com/people/5-gap-year-activities-that-you-shouldnt-miss-out/
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14873170
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MagCellect Human Naive CD4+ T Cell Isolation Kit
MagCellect Human Naive CD4+ T Cell Isolation Kit Summary
CD4 is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is expressed predominantly on thymocytes and a subset of mature T lymphocytes. It is a standard phenotype marker for the identification of T cell populations. CD4 is expressed along with CD8 on double positive T cells during their development in the thymus. Either CD4 or CD8 expression is then lost, giving rise to single positive (SP) CD4+ or CD8+ mature T cells. CD4+ SP cells, also known as T helper cells, further differentiate into multiple subsets of CD4+ cells including Th1, Th2, Th9, Th17,Th22, Tfh, and Treg cells which regulate humoral and cellular immunity. In human, CD4 is additionally expressed on macrophages, neutrophils, monocytes, NK cells, and neurons and glial cells in the brain. CD4 binds directly to MHC class II molecules on antigen presenting cells. This interaction contributes to the formation of the immunological synapse which is focused around the TCR-MHC class II-antigenic peptide interaction. CD4 also functions as a chemotactic receptor for IL-16 and, in human, as a coreceptor for the gp120 surface glycoprotein of HIV-1.
Refer to the product datasheet for complete product details.
The MagCellect Human CD4+ T Cell Isolation Kit (Catalog # MAGH102) contains the following reagents:
- MagCellect Human CD4+ T Cell Biotinylated Antibody Cocktail
- MagCellect Streptavidin Ferrofluid
- MagCellect Plus Buffer (10X)
This kit contains sufficient reagents to process 1 x 109 total cells.
Other Supplies Required
- Human Erythrocyte Lysing Kit (Catalog # WL1000)
- MagCellect Magnet (Catalog # MAG997) or equivalent
- 12 x 75 mm (5 mL) polystyrene round-bottom tubes
- Sterile Pasteur pipettes or transfer pipettes
NOTE: Reaction incubations must be carried out at 2 to 8° C in a refrigerator and not in an ice bath to avoid excessively low temperatures that can slow the kinetics of the optimized reactions.
R&D Systems Protocol for MagCellect™ Human Naïve CD4+ T Cell Isolation Kit (Catalog # MAGH115)
- Prepare a single cell suspension of mononuclear cells.
- Wash the cells once with excess PBS.
- Centrifuge the cells for 10 minutes at 200 x g.
- Decant the supernatant. If necessary, remove red blood cells using R&D Systems Human Erythrocyte Lysing Kit (Catalog # WL1000).
- Resuspend the cells in a small volume of cold 1X MagCellect Plus Buffer.
- Perform a cell count.
- Adjust the cell concentration to at least 50 x 106 cells/mL with cold 1X MagCellect Plus Buffer.
- Transfer 50 x 106 cells (1 mL) into a 5 mL polystyrene tube.
- Add 100 μL of MagCellect Human Naïve CD4+ T Cell Biotinylated Antibody Cocktail.
- Mix the cell-antibody suspension and incubate at 2 °C to 8 °C for 15 minutes.
- Add 150 μL of MagCellect Streptavidin Ferrofluid to the cell suspension.
- Mix gently.
- Incubate at 2 °C to 8 °C for 15 minutes.
- Place the reaction tube in the MagCellect Magnet.
- Incubate for 6 minutes at room temperature (18 °C to 25 °C).
- Transfer the supernatant containing the naïve CD4+ T cells into a new 5 mL tube.
- Repeat the magnetic depletion with the new tube containing the recovered cells. The supernatant obtained at the end of this step is the final depleted cell fraction containing the desired enriched naïve CD4+ T cells.
- If sterile cells are required following the cell selection, the entire procedure should be carried out in a laminar flow hood to maintain sterile conditions. Use sterile equipment when pipetting reagents that will be reused at a later date.
- Avoid antibody capping on cell surfaces and non-specific cell tagging by working fast, keeping cells and solutions cold through the use of pre-cooled solutions and by adhering to the incubation times and temperatures specified in the protocol. Increased temperature and prolonged incubation times may lead to non-specific cell labeling thus lowering cell purity and yield.
- When processing different numbers of cells observe the following guidelines: keep antibody cocktail and ferrofluid incubation times and temperatures the same; keep the cell density at 10 x 107 cells/mL; add 10 μL of the antibody cocktail per 1 x 107 cells being processed; add 12.5 μL of Streptavidin Ferrofluid per 1 x 107 cells being processed.
- When processing 20 x 107 cells or fewer, use the 12 x 75 mm (5 mL) tubes with the MagCellect Magnet horizontally positioned to accommodate up to six 5 mL tubes. Do not process more than 20 x 107 cells in each 5 mL tube and do not exceed a total reaction volume of 3 mL in each tube. A reaction volume of 2 mL is recommended for processing 10 x 107 cells. A reaction volume of 1 mL is recommended when processing 5 x 107 or fewer cells. Reaction volume adjustments must be made using 1X MagCellect Buffer just prior to the magnetic separation step.
- When processing greater than 20 x 107 cells, use the 17 x 100 mm (15 mL) tubes with the MagCellect magnet vertically positioned to accommodate up to two 15 mL tubes. Do not process more than 60 x 107 cells in each 15 mL tube and do not exceed a total reaction volume of 9 mL in each tube. When using this larger tube, increase the reaction volume before the magnetic separation step according to the following formula: 3 mL for each 20 x 107 cells processed. Also increase the magnetic incubation time described in to 8 minutes. Reaction volume adjustments must be made using 1X MagCellect Buffer just prior to the magnetic separation step.
No product specific FAQs exist for this product, however you mayView all Cell Selection and Detection Kit FAQs
Supplemental Cell Selection Products
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https://www.rndsystems.com/products/magcellect-human-naive-cd4-t-cell-isolation-kit_magh115
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14873171
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Biometric identification usually relies on fingerprint and facial recognition authentication methods, but The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) states that those methods can be difficult to use in the field. In an attempt to solve this problem, DISA is working to develop a suite of seven multi-factor authentication tools that would include a user’s gait or manner of walking. The seven factors include GPS location, voice recognition, facial recognition, device orientation, trusted peripherals and trusted networks, as well as gait. A gait test basically measures and records the way you walk and then compares it against stored information and has been dubbed “impossible to counterfeit”. The information would be accessible on modified mobile devices.
DISA has worked with biometric companies on the new authentication methods. Outgoing DISA Director Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn said, “What we are building is something that I think could easily transition to the commercial side. Because your identity is out there. You see all of these commercial guys perform with pieces or parts of it. If we could pull it all together so it’s kind of a platform and it’s informed by all the work we do with highly classified folks to really harden it, it’s kind of a win-win.”
DISA is also working on a system to authenticate the identity of mobile users through their so-called patterns of life – such as how fast they walk to work or locations they routinely visit.
“We’re looking to prototype a specific type of technology as we go forward here, and … we’re trying to do it in a fairly rapid fashion. So in the next 12 months, I think you’re going see that technology really evolve,” stated Jeremy Corey, DISA’s assured identity program manager.
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https://defensetechconnect.com/2018/02/05/biometric-identification-expands-to-include-gait/
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14873172
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There are horses and ponies of all shapes and sizes competing at the LeMieux National Dressage Championships at Stoneleigh (20-23 September) this week. And 14.2hh Tiger Tim is one of them.
Owned and bred by Denise Kersley, Tiger Tim is a traditionally bred gypsy cob, who is ridden and competed by Danielle Rhodes.
“’Tim’ Is out of Denise’s own traditional gypsy cob, Bashful Bobby Dazzler, who was actually bought directly from gypsies,” explains Danielle, a full-time rider from Somerset.
Tim, a stallion, is now 13 and this isn’t the first time he’s competed at these championships. He won the novice restricted final here in 2013 with his previous rider, Ali Matravers, who had to hand over the reins to Danielle three years ago due to work commitments.
Although Danielle says Tim is very chilled at home, and is even able to be stabled next to mares, at shows he can be “fairly challenging”.
“At home he’s very, very laid back and to come to a competition he’s rather loaded with oats and energy boosters,” explains Danielle. “But the competition atmosphere can affect him adversely — just before I went in today, the crowd applauded the previous test and he got quite lit up. And, for example, last weekend we were at the CHAPS [Coloured Horse & Pony Society] British Dressage championships — we were in the indoor arena and the commentator starting speaking which sent Tim off bucking his way past the judges — I was hanging on around the test! So he can go one way or the other — I’m either kicking or holding on for dear life. But he’s talented and we also have to remember he’s a stallion.”
Despite this, Danielle says that Tim, who is also partial to “dragging people leading him to the nearest blade of grass”, can “lack a lot of confidence” too.
“Once he understands what we’re asking him, he’s fine. But, for example, we’ve just moved him up to medium and when we started teaching him the new movements he sort of coiled back into himself.”
Danielle sights Tim’s rhythm and regularity as his test highlights.
“Every judge loves his rhythm in his way of going — a lot of people call it a tic-toc rhythm and that’s what helps him along. He moves well for what he is but he’s never going to beat a big-moving warmblood. But if we focus on our accuracy and rhythm, that’s where we can pick up the good marks.”
Find out about this Fell pony who was a “nutter” and an interesting past
Danielle and Tim scored 67.865% in the Childeric Saddles elementary silver championship.
Keep up-to-date with all of the news from the National Dressage Championships by keeping an eye on the Horse & Hound website, and don’t miss the full magazine report, out on Thursday 21 September.
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https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/tiger-tim-national-dressage-championships-2018-665490
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14873173
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Successfully selling San Diego since 1979, Mike is one of the most recognized Brokers in the Metro San Diego market. Spanish haciendas, Craftsman bungalows, Traditionals, not to mention Condos, and Income Properties, Mike has sold it all! Historically Designated/Mills Act properties are a specialty, not only in selling but assisting homeowners in the proper direction to obtain designation.
Kensington, Mission Hills, University Heights North Park, South Park, Talmadge and Downtown are just a few of the Metro markets Mike has significant experience in.
Mike's familiarity with the city’s neighborhoods will give you a definite advantage in choosing just the right property!Contact Us
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https://www.metrosandiego.com/
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14873174
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[ blab-er-mouth ]
EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR BLABBERMOUTH
Silence that blabbermouth; he does not know what he is talking about.
Pelton muttered: "Why Frank sponsors that blabbermouth of a Mongery—"
"I thought you'd managed to get that blabbermouth transposed to PolTerm," Zostha said.
RELATED WORDS AND SYNONYMS FOR BLABBERMOUTH
nouninformer to police
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.
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https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/blabbermouth/2
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14873175
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I FEEL compelled to respond to the letter “Capitalise on MCKK Brand” (The Star, May 3) on the modelling of national schools on the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) and/or privatising MCKK to achieve greater heights.
The article resonated with me as I am part of the stigma. My children are in international school although that wasn’t the plan. I am a product of the national school system. My eldest child was meant to enrol in a national school. National schools are incubators for national integration, where the myriad cultures, populations and languages represent the melting pot we call Malaysia. Or so I thought. My daughter’s incoming class comprised two Indians, zero Chinese or other races, and 197 Malays. For a school 4km away from KLCC, I pray that it wasn’t a true reflection of the country’s education system. And I made the decision to pull my daughter out of the school and never looked back.
Prof Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim attributed the increased enrolment in international schools to a multitude of factors, most of which relate to responsible parents. My own personal reason, however, was slightly unique: I desired for my children to appreciate diversity and celebrate the differences.
International schools allow children to grow and learn beyond the academic-centric syllabus and to be “themselves”. The students are not defined by their race, religion, grades or strict academic milestones. Instead, they are taught to be proud of individual achievements no matter how small. Difference in cultures and religions are celebrated; school-level Malaysian festivals are part of the calendar that students look forward to and participate in actively. Co-curricular activities are mandatory to instil the confidence that excellence is beyond the classroom. Three languages (Malay, English and Mandarin) are part of the syllabus, giving students an earlier introduction to the intricate yet real fabric of this country.
It is almost narcissistic perhaps to think that such values and qualities that prevail in international schools are prevalent in MCKK for it to be a model school. After all, MCKK was meant to groom selected Malays (elites) with a system designed to maximise the opportunities available to them all the way to tertiary education to jump-start their careers.
Assuming this, however, would make us complicit to the real issues. Educational institutions established before independence – Penang Free School, King Edward VII Taiping, Victoria Institution and MCKK just to name a few – transcend politics and changing government policies. It took decades for the internal development of ingrained culture in the schools and the students to occur, and the early stages of the development were heavily influenced by British administrators who put heavy emphasis on holistic education beyond traditional classroom, grade-based achievements.
Alumni from any of these prestigious educational institutions will affirm that what they learned in school is beyond academics (after proudly declaring their school affiliation, of course). They were groomed to value diversity and differences. They were taught that for Malaysia to progress, world-class politicians, corporate captains, teachers, and public officers were as essential as brilliant academics, scientists and doctors and that the skills and personalities to be honed for each were different.
The most valuable player for the school in winning the state rugby tournament would be celebrated as much as the student achieving straight As in the SPM examination. Aspiring school-level speakers and debaters would receive similar support from the school as its best academic students. Success and achievements came in different forms and the students charted their own path.
Above all, they were taught that any team could only progress so far if they were divided. Leadership, teamwork and cultural integration were essential components of the experience. The camaraderie established transcended petty squabbles – a source of countless jokes when reminiscing – which became parlayed to greater significance two to three decades later as the students matured to become industry leaders and ministers. This is what we should emulate for the future of our children. If privatisation of schools in the country is what it takes, so be it.
Yes, I am an old boy of the Malay College Kuala Kangsar and I say that with pride.
IKRAM ISKANDAR ABD RAHIM
Did you find this article insightful?
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https://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/letters/2017/05/05/true-reflection-of-education/
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14873176
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I've been searching for awhile, and I haven't had a lot of luck. I am looking for a way to add a maximum order limit by product and to enforce that limit on a monthly basis. For example, I would like to limit product A to 10 per customer, per month. So if a customer orders 10 of product A within a month, they will be unable to place an order for that product until a new month starts over.
I thought I found something with Limits by Limitsify, but the by day/week/month functionality is currently not working.
Does anyone have any ideas?
I'd be happy to take a look at your site and see if I can help. I think using the Customer object would provide the necessary functionality you're after (https://help.shopify.com/en/themes/liquid/objects/customer).
I've worked on quite a few high-profile Shopify sites and feel I'd be able to tackle this problem.
Feel free to contact me at: email@example.com
Anyway, let me know your thoughts. Would be happy to discuss further over Skype or Zoom when you have time.
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https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Apps/Limit-Order-Quantities-Per-Product-Per-Month/td-p/497537
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14873177
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all emergency preparedness sessions are cancelled until further notice.
Emergency Preparedness Sessions
The sessions below are offered periodically during the year depending on the level of interest. If you have any questions, or would like to schedule an on-site session for your community group, please send an e-mail to [email protected] or leave a message at 250-414-7120.
Individual, Family and Neighbourhood Preparedness Workshop - 1.5 Hours
This workshop provides a basic overview of general emergency preparedness including understanding hazards in our region, how to make a family plan, build emergency kits, communicate during an emergency, and make your home safer.
Emergency Preparedness Sessions – 30 minutes
The following short, 30 minute sessions will provide an overview of emergency preparedness for specific topics:
Grab n Go Kits - purpose of having a kit, what items to include and why, options of places to purchase items, and personal experiences about why a kit is so important.
Young Children – how to talk to young children about preparing for an emergency including plans for when they are at home, in pre-school or elementary school.
Pets – emergency kits for pets, plans for your pet if you aren’t able to get home, and reducing stress in your pet.
Seniors – emergency kits and additional considerations for health and mobility issues, medications, and working with the “Buddy System.”
People with Disabilities – emergency kits and additional considerations, evacuations that do not allow the use of mobility aids, special supplies, and working with the “Buddy System.”
Neighbourhood Damage Assessment – 1.5 hours
This workshop provides you with information for assessing building damage in your neighbourhood following an earthquake that can help keep you safe. Please note that this is NOT a certification course.
Learn how to make your community more resilient is by strengthening the connections and relationships between neighbours on a street, or in apartment or condominium buildings: https://resilientneighbourhoods.ca/connect-prepare-program/
Are you passionate about emergency preparedness? We are always looking for volunteers to assist in the delivery of presentations and to help provide information to residents during public events. Interested? Please contact the emergency program office at 250.414.7120.
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https://www.esquimalt.ca/public-safety/emergency-program/neighbourhood-emergency-preparedness-program
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14873178
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BEFORE YOU WATCH
Match the word in Spanish to a word in English. You may use some words more than once.
WATCH AND LISTEN
Watch the video. As you listen, pause and write down any words you want to learn.
Fill in the blanks using the adjectives below.
Spin the roulette wheel and conjugate the verbs in the activity below.
Conjugate the verbs in the present simple.
Discuss with a partner.
- Qué temen muchas familias en cuarentena?
- Noticias Telemundo
- CEFR Level of Vocabulary: B1
- CEFR Level of Grammar: A1
Verb forms used:
- 29 present simple affirmative
- 7 affirmative infinitive
- 4 past simple affirmative
- 4 present subjunctive affirmative
- 2 present simple negative
- 2 present affirmative infinitive
- 2 present negative infinitive
- 2 present perfect affirmative
- 2 simple affirmative
- 1 future simple negative
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https://www.fluentcity.com/resources/activity/35
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14873179
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Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer. Whether in the enterprise or in the foreign enterprises, almost successful people have unique personal abilities and personal charisma, which may be just what people lack. Their success can never be simply attributed to opportunities. These abilities can be summarized as following 15 points.
1, reverse thinking ability in solving problems
Facing the new problems encountered in the work, can’t find a solution. Moreover, the boss may not have what good ideas, they are good at exploring the way to solve the problem of using reverse thinking method. They know the specific business executives are more likely to find the node than the boss, is artificial, or objective; is a technical problem, or management. Reverse thinking to find the solution, would be easier to extricate themselves from the problem. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
2, the ability of transposition thinking in consideration of problems
In consideration of the solution to a problem, people often stand on their own as soon as possible and properly handle the responsibilities of position and they always consciously standing in the position of the company or boss to consider a solution to the problem. As a company or boss, the starting point to solve the problem first consideration is how to avoid the recurrence of similar problems, rather than a headache medicine head, practical scheme Jiaoteng. Can always stand in the position of the company or boss brewing up solution to the problem, they gradually become a trusted person. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
3, stronger than others’ ability to sum up
The problem of inductive analysis, they have the ability to sum up than ordinary people strong. Things can always find out the law, and control things, so as to achieve a multiplier effect in people often say that hard work as ingeniously. But not everyone knows how to work, otherwise it will not do the same thing, a day to night are to not; and they are all very chic. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
4, concise writing ability
The boss usually have no time to read lengthy documents. Therefore, learn to write simple text reports and the preparation of pleasing form is particularly important. Even more complex problems, they can also be concentrated on page A4 paper. It is necessary for detailed description of the problem, and then use the attachment attached behind the report or table. Let the boss just browsing a page or a form can know the profile. If interested or think it is important to understand the details you can by reading the information in the attachment. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
5, the ability to collect information
They are about to collect all kinds of information, including policies, reports, plans, plan, statistics, business processes, management systems, assessment methods and so on. Pay particular attention to the competition information. Because any hot business process itself is a lot of experience and lessons of accumulated experience with the time, you can come in handy. This is cannot be found in any textbook, nor is the teacher to teach. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
6, the ability to solve the problem
Encounter problems, they will not let the leadership to do “question and answer” but the “choice”. The ordinary problems, the first is to report to the leadership, FORSOLUTION. With ears to listen to the leadership of this specific steps. This is called leadership to do so “questions and answers”. They often with their own to solve the problem of multiple a good plan for leadership, decision. This is often said to lead a “choice”. Leadership is more love to do is choice. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
7, target adjustment ability
When unable to achieve personal goals in an organization, and can not get rid of the environment, they will help to adjust short-term goals and development goals of the company and the target of organic combination. In this way, we view it is easy to close or agree, will have a common language, would do joy. In turn, others will be willing to accept them. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
8, super self consolation ability
Encounter failure, frustration and combat, they often self comfort and relief. Lessons learned will be quickly and firmly believe that the situation will change. Their creed is: A, be a blessing in disguise, or when God closes a door for you at the same time, will open a window for you.
9, written communication ability
When found in face-to-face communication effect is poor, they will move back to the e-mail to, or written correspondence, report forms to communicate a lot. Because, written communication can sometimes achieve face to face language communication can not be achieved. It can comprehensively to express ideas, suggestions and methods. To let the boss listen to you to talk, not to interrupt your speech, or its platform calls interrupt your ideas. It can easily let the boss choose one that its idle time to listen to your “chatter”. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
10, the adaptability of enterprise culture
The new organization’s corporate culture will have a strong ability to adapt. A new enterprise is like another office, can still look like a duck like doing mischievously and was entrusted with reuse.
11, the ability to bear the change of the post
Increased competition, increased business risk, the success of the enterprise can occur in a short duration of time. For them, job changes, and even the loss of their jobs are fearless. Therefore, they bear the ability to change jobs is unmatched by ordinary people. In their opinion, this is not only a question of personal development, it is a a survival issue. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
12, to treat loyalty objectively
From them, you will find that loyalty to the organization. They are aware that loyalty is not only beneficial to the organization and the boss, the biggest beneficiaries of their own, because, once the habit of loyalty responsibility and to the organization form, will enable him to have become a trustworthy person, can be entrusted with the responsibility of the people they are more clear. The investment return rate of loyalty is very high.
13, the opportunity to actively seek training and Practice
They valued training opportunities in the recruitment will ask whether the company has to provide training opportunities. Seize any opportunity of training. An enterprise, if it benefits no satisfactory, but there are many opportunities for training and practice, they will try. After all, some experience is not money can buy back.
14, be brave to take part in a job
They never give up any opportunity to exercise, but regard it as a rare opportunity for training. And realize that today’s experience may be the inside part of tomorrow. They often see that they are willing to accept other things that others don’t want to receive, and try to find a satisfactory result.
15, professional spirit
They have an efficient, dedicated and loyal occupation spirit. The main performance is: the modern way of thinking, with advanced management concept and can be applied to business practice. Behave unselfishly, in the company’s business activities never mixed personal selfishness. Thus, outspoken, daring to correct other employees wrong behavior, quality defects dares to carp as critical suppliers. Because only the selfless can be fearless. The way of getting along with people standardization, a requirement which is the behavior of occupation. This occupation spirit of the people, any organization are welcome, and will succeed sooner or later. Competitive custom aluminum fabrication China Manufacturer
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https://www.xmprecision.com/custom-aluminum-fabrication/
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Sign up to get the latest promotions, new releases and freebies! You can quickly get an overview of all vaillant products on one page or see exactly what you’re looking for by setting the filters according to the energy type or technology you’re interested in. Be the first to ask a question want gb points? just write a review! Of course, using a timer for your boiler depends on the quantity of warm water that you need and the size of the boiler. The tables below include key data on ) heating out puts and ) domestic hot water flow rates - expressed as litres per minute (lpm) it is important to remember that for some combination boilers the heating output is the same for all of the model ‘sizes’, it is only the hot water flow rate that increases on the ‘larger’ models so for example, the ideal independent comes in c, c and c models the heating output is kw for all models, only the hot water flow rates vary: . lpm, . lpm and . lpm respectively. The uft is htp’s medium mass high efficiency boiler this advanced modulating gas condensing boiler has a l stainless steel fire tube heat exchanger with up to a % afue rating it has a to turndown ratio and has ultra-low nox emissions, making the uft eco-friendly! Thumbtack currently has over , professionals completing projects clareamento dental como funciona http://pt-pt.teethwhitening-48.eu for customers across categories including home, events, lessons, wellness, and more. Be entered into our monthly prize draw when you sign up for newsletters! But here lies a problem the boiler has lost pressure and that means there is a problem that needs to be fixed. We represent leading manufacturers that produce the most innovative & efficient products in the world let us apply these solutions for you! Through a competitive tender process seven were awarded the surveying contract to provide topographical, underground utility mapping and laser scanning surveys as part of the of the east hyde stw growth project. All the clever stuff is included inside, so you don’t need to find space for a cold water expansion tank in the roof or a hot water storage cylinder in the airing cupboard or anywhere else in your home so that’s good news! I feel i must put pen to paper regarding the fantastic work your team of engineers have done for us the two employees i am congratulating you for are namely david and his apprentice daryl david is very very professional and knew exactly what he was doing he was at one time working on all four rooms yet not one spot of mess was left any ware he was immaculate in his work and his tidiness while still being pleasant and listening to any question i may have asked him.”. Is your network connection unstable or browser outdated? Asap plumbing installed a tankless water heater for us all facets of the job went really well i especially want to commend them for their truthfulness as i found out a few other companies were being less than percent honest.
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http://comite-contre-protocole-londres.eu/one/sign-up-to-get-the-latest-promotions.html
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Hand sanitizers are exceptionally viable at diminishing the probability of getting a portion of the extremely regular conditions, for example, seasonal influenza or normal virus. In any case, they are not exceptionally powerful at expelling physical issue and except if the soil is truly expelled from the hands first, the liquor or other substance elements of the sanitizer cannot interact with the pathogens and can’t execute them. Hand sanitizers are regularly liquor based gels containing is opropanol as well as ethyl liquor, the two of which are combustible. Hand sanitizers are now and again alluded to as waterless hand cleaners like PDI Sane-Hands Wipes or Purell and Germ. These and different sanitizers are successful in assisting with forestalling the spread of contaminations and are generally strategically placed all through offices.
The sanitizers are not as compelling as hand washing and ought not to be utilized as a substitution. Hand sanitizers are made accessible in places like a congregation, grocery store, or medical clinics for your utilization. It is utilized in the congregation before taking communion. Hand sanitizers are less viable if hands are noticeably grimy and are to be utilized during lunch periods at school for the youngsters and routinely for the duration of the day varying. Hand sanitizers are a fatal blend for recuperating heavy drinkers on account of its high liquor content because of enticement. Moment hand sanitizers are extraordinary when you can’t get to a sink, yet cleanser and water, as it was done in the good ‘old days of washing, is as yet the best technique for eliminating microbes.
Hand sanitizers are utilized worldwide in workplaces, clinics, kid care focuses, schools, drive-through eatery chains and lodgings to enhance routine hand washing prompting better hand cleanliness consistence and illness avoidance. They are additionally advantageous, as they can be utilized when cleanser and water are not accessible and they don’t require flushing. This is perhaps the best answer for cleaning your hands and eliminating germs. Sanitizers need to have a liquor grouping of at any rate 60 percent so as to be successful. Liquor based hand sanitizers which don’t require water are a magnificent choice to hand washing, especially when cleanser and water are not accessible. Liquor based Germ-X moment disinfectant gel is demonstrated to dispense with destructive microscopic organisms. They have the broadest scope of viability over the various sorts of infections and microscopic organisms.
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http://ivernature.com/hand-sanitizers-can-help-keep-the-germs-away/
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I’ve been searching Vimeo all morning for videos from the Red Bull Mini-Drome event at last weekend’s All Track in New Zealand. Out of all the ones out on the web at the moment, Grunt5‘s is looking the freshest. After seeing the other edits, looks like people had a fun time. Anyone else think it looks kinda weird riding on it? Something about the pedal stroke to flat distance. Anyway, I’m sure everyone had a blast riding it.
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https://theradavist.com/2010/04/grunt5-red-bull-mini-drome-at-all-track/
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Assumption Knights of Columbus Meeting Minutes – May 16, 2019
Meeting called to order 7:30 PM
Roll call – Not present: Chancellor Dale Limoges, Warden Chris Kitt, Advocate Joe Fernandez, Trustee Travis Risvold.
Nancy Prall and Gary Friemel talked to us about Volunteer Community Services of Woodward & Granger and thanked us for our support. So far there are 27 clients and 15 volunteers. They need more volunteers. United Way 55T volunteers can get reimbursed. 3,764 volunteer miles, 641 volunteer hours, and 117 trips have been logged. Frank Geneser has donated storage space for durable medical equipment.
Chaplains message: It is still Easter season. The Crucifixion vs. the resurrection is a mystery. The Eucharist is a unifying factor. Make yourself available to the Grace present in the Eucharist.
Marty Herrmann made a motion to waive the reading of the minutes, Ken Wiley seconded the motion; motion passed.
Ken Welch became our newest 4th Degree member on May 3rd. Congratulations Ken!
Raffle tickets purchased for Fr. Dominic was a success…he won!
Fr. Koch is still not doing well and needs our prayers.
Grand Knight: It has been a great month. Highlights are: K of C Scholarships awarded, Mary’s Meals 5K fundraiser (raised enough money to feed 850 kids for a year), church grounds cleanup (thank you to the seven Knights who volunteered).
Treasurer’s report: $18,183 in checking, $16,967 in CD, $8,000 in the Bill Geneser Scholarship Fund CD.
Tom Letsch talked about the remaining Knights left to pay dues. We discussed waiving dues for some members with financial and/or health issues. Shannon made a motion to allow officers meeting to determine if we should waive members dues due to special circumstances on a case by case basis. Marty seconded the motion; motion passed.
Intervisions Clinic fundraiser is Thursday, June 6th. $150/ couple. One table was filled at the meeting.
Money was donated for flowers for priests’ graves. This is a mission of the Beaverdale Knights of Columbus.
Mike Musich talked about the Granger Trails Committee. There is a Facebook page for more information. Named donations for bike rack and park bench are needed.
Nomination of Officers: Merlyn Weisse for Deputy Grand Knight, Joe Henkels for Chancellor (we discussed increasing the role for chancellor), Dan Altier for Secretary, Dan Merry for Outside Guard, Paul Martin for Treasurer, Paul Hauser for Warden, Ken Welch for inside guard, and Travis Risvold, Shannon Godwin, Kendall Geneser for Trustees.
Father Dominic has asked for assistance with a project to get indoor water to a parish church rectory, and school in Ghana. Total anticipated need is $7,000. Tom Letsch made a motion to provide $1,000 in seed money for this project Joe Henkels seconded the motion; motion passed. We talked about having dedicated breakfast fundraisers for this project.
Shannon Godwin talked about Hot Rods & Hogs which is planned for August 6th. The event will be coordinated as it has been in the past. Shannon made a motion to donate the Hot Rods & Hogs fundraiser proceeds to the Woodward Granger Volunteer Social Services. Tom Letsch seconded the motion; motion passed.
Meeting adjourned – 8:50.
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https://www.assumptionknights.org/may-2019-minutes/
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If you’ve ever heard ragtime piano music and the first thing you think of is pizza, you are likely one of the millions that has dined at Shakey’s Pizza. Perhaps you celebrated a birthday there, or met with your Little League team, or maybe your family just wanted an inexpensive way to avoid cooking dinner for the evening. Whatever the reason, a friendly straw hat-wearing employee stood ready to dish out the goods.
The first Shakey’s opened in Sacramento, California in 1954, thanks to two entrepreneurs, Ed Plummer and Sherwood “Shakey” Johnson (whose nickname came from nerve damage he received in WWII). It holds the distinction of being the first franchised pizza parlor.
Johnson, a musician and lover of Dixieland jazz would entertain his guests regularly on piano or banjo. For customers who weren’t privy to this personal touch, most Shakey’s were eventually equipped with player pianos that could belt out a few tunes from Scott Joplin for a mere quarter.
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https://www.ifyourememberwhen.site/remember-shakeys-pizza-have-you-ever-dined-on-a-pizza-from-shakeys/
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Italy is known as one of the world’s leading melancholy capitals. It seems that even though the sunny existence of Pasta, Tuscany and the San Remo festival, the gloom is flowing and floating endlessly in the boot land. Like every decent scene, name-dropping will be long, exhausting and surely won’t help to understand how this lively land has become one of the major forces when it comes to the dark streams of metal (and beyond, if to mention the vast Italian involvement in the Goth and Neo-Folk territories). Perhaps through today’s subject, I’ll try to shed some light upon this so-called phenomenon of Italian gloom. Neronoia, very much like its older sister Canaan (as it’s officially a side-project of all the band members, only with a different vocalist, courtesy of electro-outfit Colloquio), reflect a mission of closing the gap between Goth rock, Dark Wave and metal, and conceive some resort for all kinds of dark atmosphere. One can also try and stick the “dark metal” badge to the band, but we have learn that there’s much to it, behind this strict tag.
At first listening, maybe the term “metal” does not fit. It’s much more light metal-oriented dark wave layer-cake with Goth sprinkles above. The immediate power of Neronoia, exactly like Canaan, lies in the grand lands of what sounds clean guitars can produce. They swing slowly dark melodies, dreamy and distant as if Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins was the composer. The band’s using of light industrial samples in the background and as some percussion unit can be regarded as a difference from Canaan. Nevertheless, it is clear that the mother band will appear over and over again along the review, for the essential differences are quite slim.
Another difference is Neronoia expresses itself in Italian only. It gives the known sound tag more mysterious aroma, which stands as an absolute opposite from the cold winds, breathing of the music. The supposed warmth of the southern European lands is somehow lingered in the collective cliché memory as an obvious object. Well, one night say that Neronoia display the other mood of Italy. Maybe it got to do with the band creating in the northern hemisphere of land, sharing something from the core of all the northern areas of the world. And maybe no matter what reason stands behind it, for it is spellbinding – imagine “La Primavera” in this bleak vision, how the colors trembling and shaking into some cold grey melody.
However the character Neronoia is claiming to have, all in all, the album is a direct continues of the excellent Canaan effort, “Brand New Babylon”. Despite Neronoia is more atmospheric, and emphasize the ethereal layers more than the sacred presence of the elusive guitars, which are more far more present in Canaan’s song-building and arrangements. Moreover, the vocals of Gianni Pedretti reminds of its Canaanian colleague, Mauro Berchi – the rough whispers, the recitation, the hypnotic half-singing. There is even resemblance in engineering the atmosphere. One might sense that despite the electro background of Pedretti which could be an interesting spice that could separate the bands common identity, the curtains are still the sole turf of the Canaan gang.
The bottom line of the Neronoia existence is being the Doppelgänger of Canaan. It might be a harsh conclusion, but it doesn’t lessen the sheer dark and gloomy enjoyment of listening to both entities. After all, a double portion of this enchanting Goth-dark-wave-dark-metal is always welcome. And the Italian gloom? It will remain the ceremony of opposites.
01 – I
02 – II
03 – III
04 – IV
05 – V
06 – VI
07 – VII
08 – VIII
09 – IX
10 – X
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http://avantgarde-metal.com/neronoia-un-mondo-in-me-2006/
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Here is my email earlier this evening to MI DOE Superintendent Mike Flanagan and his immediate response regarding my concerns about the August 14, 2014 job posting for the new director of un-special education. Clearly, I hit a nerve as Mr. Flanagan doth protest too much….
Dear Superintendent Flanagan-
As a lay advocate for students with disabilities, I am dismayed by the MDE’s job posting for a new director of special education. The job posting does not begin to meet the requirements pursuant to the Michigan Administrative Rules for Special Education, R 340.1771, Director of Special Education or R 340.1772, Supervisor of Special Education. A “bachelor’s degree in any area of major” does not begin to meet the requirements that include “a minimum of endorsement or certification in one area of special education (including social work and school psychologist); along with a special education administrator cert, or enrollment in a special education administrator program with 12 semester hours completed for a “director.”
Perhaps this is just a big mistake and the wrong information has been posted? Should the MDE hire a supervisor or director of special education who does not meet the aforementioned requirements, the Department will be unable to use any special ed dollars to pay this person’s salary. That is curious enough. Further, this job posting is a complete insult to every special ed administrator across MI with the aforementioned credentials and special education teachers, who have spent hours and dollars, earning special education endorsements and taking tests to meet the highly qualified teacher status. There are already teacher listservs in MI and across the U.S. talking about this job posting.
Just another sad day in Michigan for children with disabilities. A sad eighteen years since former Governor John Engler issued the Executive Orders that stripped the SBE of their elected authority and gave it all to a non-elected superintendent.
Here is State Superintendent Mike Flanagan’s almost immediate response. Clearly, I hit a nerve!
“Ma’am- I would call to your attention (and others cc’d) the “preferred” statement in the posting you link. This is the way civil service posts. We are looking for candidates w the “preferred” in that posting. I think and hope we will get candidates with the credentials you cite. I hope you have a good weekend. m”
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https://marcielipsitt.com/mde-superintendent-mike-flanagan-responds-to-my-concerns-about-director-of-un-special-ed-job-posting/
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What You Should Know About The Cost of Piano Tuning
The piano is considered to be one of the oldest musical instruments especially because of how it has been played over many years. The piano has been able to evolve a lot over the years and, there are very many different variants that are available today. Digital pianos, for example, take very little time to make and they are available in huge numbers. However, one of the interesting things is that they grant piano is still available today and, it is important for you to know that it requires tuning. Without tuning, the piano is not going to be in perfect key and that is not something that you want especially when you are creating music. For the sake of perfect harmony, you always have to ensure that every instrument is going to be in sync. It is the reason why you have to be very careful about is not unique. The cost of piano tuning is different depending on what you want to do. It is usually the process of trying to adjust the tension of the strings so that you can be able to get the best pitch or the frequency that will be perfect for you. One of the things you need to realize is that you can be able to get a lot of advantages especially if you get the right kind of tuning. There are companies today that usually provide such services. The best thing that you can do is to ensure that you have been able to get the best kind of tuner. Getting these tuning solutions is not going to be very easy. Going to the right company is going to be very critical. These companies usually have the best people who are going to do that you need. The process is going to depend on how far the strings are from the pitch. Some of the pianos are usually very far such that, getting the right thing becomes very difficult. This means that it is going to require much work and you may have to pay much more.
Pianos that are very close will not require so much work. One thing you realize is that they also use the right kind of equipment to measure the tension of the strings because that is very critical. Another reason why you have to go to the companies that provide such services is that they also provide piano repairs. This is a very unique service that allows them to ensure that they are providing the best quality of sound. When doing piano repairs, these companies are going to be very committed to giving you high quality. They are repairing the piano is always going to affect the sound quality and that is why it is a service that you’re going to require. Another reason why you have to work with these companies is that they will always be available to you at any time of the day and therefore, you just have to call for the appointment.
What No One Knows About
What Research About Can Teach You
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http://airtravelcenter.asia/archives/date/2020/06/page/2
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Director, Equity and Wellbeing
Vice-Chancellor and President
Date of Next Review
- promotes and encourages awareness, understanding and appreciation of the differences that exist amongst cultural groups and acknowledges and celebrates the breadth of experience and resources that people from diverse backgrounds bring to the University
- recognises and acknowledges the particular significance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the original owners of this land
- recognises the responsibility of educational institutions to redress disadvantage and to overcome exclusion, bigotry, ethnocentrism, prejudice and racism
- respects and protects the rights of its students and staff to study and work in a discrimination-free environment.
This policy applies to all staff members, students, and members of the University community, and all aspects of QUT’s operations.
Director, Equity and Wellbeing
University Equity Committee
|Managers and Supervisors (within their scope of authority)||
|All staff, students and members of the QUT community (as defined in B/8.1.2)||
Organisational culture and environment
QUT will take all reasonable steps to provide and support a culturally diverse and inclusive work, study and research environment. A culturally diverse community is characterised by a wide range of traditions, languages, beliefs, values, ideas and practices. Consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and with Australian law, the University will make every effort to ensure staff and students are aware of their rights to have their cultural identity respected and to be free of discrimination.
The University will provide opportunities to increase respect for cultural diversity, such as training, events, inter-cultural interaction, promotional materials and open debate, and ensure that decision-making structures are inclusive.
Through strategic planning, QUT will monitor its progress towards being a culturally-inclusive environment. Any complaints that may arise on cultural, ethnic or racial grounds will be resolved by the University using established process The Grievance resolution procedures for discrimination related grievances (A/8.5) provides further information.
QUT will facilitate cross-cultural competence by providing professional development and learning opportunities for staff, and will recognise those who develop their skills and knowledge in this area. The University will also support and monitor the effectiveness of managers and supervisors in their responsibilities to achieve a culturally inclusive environment. Working conditions are to be consistent with the needs of a socially and culturally diverse community, particularly the cultural and religious obligations of staff.
Curriculum and students
QUT will develop and deliver programs which are culturally inclusive in course design, curriculum content and teaching methodologies. Through these programs the University is responsible for producing cross-culturally competent graduates who can engage with multiple perspectives, operate in diverse environments, work in multicultural teams and value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ perspectives and knowledges. Student policies, procedures and support services, appropriate for a diverse student population, will be provided as well as targeted support services for groups identified as having particular needs.
Research and community service
MOPP A/8.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education and employment
MOPP A/8.3 QUT Reconciliation Statement
MOPP A/8.4 Equal opportunity and diversity
MOPP A/8.5 Resolution procedures for sexual harassment, sexual assault and discrimination related complaints
Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld)
Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth)
Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth)
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)
|19.04.18||All||Vice-Chancellor||Revised and simplified policy|
|25.08.11||All||Equity Director||Periodic review - No change required|
|29.11.07||All||Vice-Chancellor||Revised and renamed policy as part of revised policy framework for social justice (endorsed by Equity Board 23.08.07); renumbered to A/8.7 (formerly A/8.10)|
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http://www.mopp.qut.edu.au/A/A_08_07.jsp
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Is efficiency the key to innovation? It is certainly a topic for discussion, especially in the AEC industry. To talk about the connection between efficiency and innovation as well as efficiency and safety, we’re joined by Paul Guth, President of iQ Power Tools, manufacturers of dust collection power tools.
Paul has almost a lifetime of experience in the construction industry, as it was a family business. “We grew up on the job site. We soon learned that we got paid by the job, not the hour. So, this inspired innovation to get the work done faster and more efficiently,” Paul shared.
Paul noted that being more efficient on the job site is never about cutting corners. He said, “We knew that time was money, so the best way to look at it was to determine what was impacting efficiency. There was never any effect on quality. It was more looking at simple things like ensuring the trash pile on a job site was streamlined or having material delivered as close as possible to where it was to be installed.”
This drive for efficiency and innovation became even stronger when Paul and his brother began creating their own tools. “We started with a dry masonry saw that we received a patent for. Because it was dry, it could make cuts much closer to where the material was to be used. But then we ran into the challenge of dust, and that’s how we got into the dust collection business,” Paul said.
There wasn’t anything available to collect the dust, so they fabricated their own. Now they have a focus on solving challenges out in the field through simplification. He added, “Our philosophy is to take a problem and crunch it down to its simplest form, then master the process to solve it, and then become very efficient at it. Often with better efficiency comes better safety as well.”
Learn more about the innovative tools created by iQ Power Tools and how they are helping protect workers by listening to the podcast.
For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the AEC Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.
Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!
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https://marketscale.com/industries/aec/power-tools-safety-efficiency/
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14873190
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Akrapovic - E87 1 Series M Slip-On Exhaust System (AKR-1M-SO-CF)
Available: In stock
SKU: Vac Motorsport-AKR-1M-SO-Ti
On all products!
60 days return policy
The Ultimate Exhaust Technology for your BMW
Akrapovic Exhausts offer quality, sound, and performance unlike anything you have ever experienced. These systems are not ones of compromise in any fashion; with ultra light weight, amazing sound quality, never before seen build quality- all in a system that delivers unrivaled performance.
The titanium used to build your exhaust system is produced exclusively for Akrapovic. It is three times stronger and is more heat resistant than any other titanium product on the market, making it ideally suited to turbocharged applications. Through careful engineering, this system is still 3lbs lighter than the BMW OEM systems and lighter still than many other aftermarket systems.
Slip-On System: Utilizing a single muffler arrangement, the Slip-On is designed to be modular; it directly replaces the factory rear muffler and tips and all exhaust gases flow through the main body of the muffler, giving you a deeper rumble of an exhaust note compared to stock, without any drone.
In Europe this system meets TÜV standards for noise. However, the muffler system is built in such a way that you may upgrade from the standard blocking plate with the Akrapovic Wireless Kit valve system. The driver is then able to noticeably increase the volume of the exhaust at the press of a button. Once activated, the majority of the exhaust gases route through the muffler bypass outlets.
We offer either carbon fiber or titanium exhaust tips. Both versions feature a spherical mounting system to allow for perfect alignment of all four tips. The carbon fiber tips are constructed at our in-house production facility using “prepreg” cloth that is vacuum-bagged and autoclaved. The result is an attractive yet extremely durable part. They are adjustable and removable for easy cleaning and a personalized fit.
To cap off your system, Akropovic offers either Carbon Fiber or Titanium Exhaust Tips. Both versions feature a spherical mounting system to allow for perfect alignment of all four tips. The carbon fiber tips are constructed at our in-house production facility using “prepreg” cloth that is vacuum-bagged and autoclaved. The result is an attractive yet extremely durable part. The tips are adjustable and removable for easy cleaning and a even a personalized fit to match your tastes.
All Akropovic systems flow as great as they look, otherwise, what would be the point of such a high end system: compared to others there isn't a more fitting match for BMWs greatest small M Car.
- Sound is one of the most popular reasons to buy an exhaust, but its nuances are difficult to capture in words. With all of this scrutinizing for details, fitment and performance, the unique properties of titanium aid in producing an exhaust note that is impossible to replicate in any other system on the 1M.
- This application has been made with you,
- , in mind. Gaining a well deserved inline-6 howl with wonderfully aggressive yet smooth sounding overtones of resonant titanium 1M Slip-On system offers terrific sounds at wide open throttle, while cruising quietly under normal driving.
- Add the Wireless kit for exhaust valves, and
- ith a touch of a button the system gains volume and a meaner tone for M-car attitude ... Another touch of the button, and the system returns to normal daily driving that is still exciting but non-intrusive.
Akropovic systems for the 1M include...
|:Evolution (Click here to move to this system)||:Slip On (selected here)|
A word about Titanium exhaust from Akropovic themselves:
Not all titanium alloys are created equal; Akrapovič titanium exhaust systems are made from a proprietary titanium alloy. Although our alloy is considerably more expensive and difficult to form than the more common commercial alloys, it ensures a product that’s substantially more durable, dimensionally stable, and heat resistant. Unparalleled in quality, all Akrapovič products are designed without compromise to guarantee the highest in customer satisfaction.
• Turbocharger Downpipe
• Wireless kit for exhaust valves
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https://www.drifthq.com/products/vac-motorsport-akrapovic-e87-1-series-m-slip-on-exhaust-system-akr-1m-so-cf-2
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14873191
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I personally think "forgiveness " is highly overrated. There are some things that are unforgivable. An assault on the good re****tion of a person like Joy who is the epitome of a Good Christian girl who actually walks the walk (unlike ANYONE else here) is simply unforgivable.
I never assaulted her re****tion, I just questioned her judgment. With that clarification, i give you the last word.
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https://tnvalleytalks.hoop.la/printer-friendly-topic/deepfat-returns-victorious?forReply=231815821594091132
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14873192
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Culverts – Professional Drainage Solutions For Texas
A culvert is installed at the bottom of a ditch, gulley or creek to allow continuous water flow, allowing access to your property using a driveway or road. Houston culverts can come in all sizes and designs to meet the needs of your property.
Dean Land Clearing can install a culvert with stabilized sand (sand mixed with cement) or without. It is a good idea to use the stabilized sand if the ditch often holds water. When stabilized sand dries it becomes almost as hard as concrete.
How To Choose The Right Company For The Job
Culverts that are poorly designed can become jammed with sediment and debris after a heavy rain. If the culvert cannot pass the a volume of water, the water will find the path of least resistance, often overflowing into your yard or over a nearby road and cause erosion.
Washed away embankment material can clog other structures downstream, and cause them to fail. A properly sized culvert can help to fix these problems. And Dean Land Clearing has the equipment and know-how to install the right type and sized culvert for your upcoming development.
Houston culverts can save your property from improper drainage. Standing water is always a clear sign that your land isn’t graded correctly. If the water levels rise too high then you could end up stranded in your own home.
Give us a call today for proper Houston culverts that could save you thousands of dollars in land damages. Drainage is important and it keep things flowing smoothly. Call (281) 356-3326 today and protect the land you love!
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http://deanlandclearing.com/culverts/
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Gloria contacted Legal Aid’s Warrensburg office on behalf of her friend Carla, who had severe mental disabilities and was in need of emergency treatment for cancer. Due to her disabilities, Carla’s doctors would not provide the appropriate treatment that she required until she had a guardian. Carla’s husband Harold did not have the capacity to assume this role, nor did any of Carla’s family, so Gloria consented to be appointed as guardian and conservator.
A Legal Aid attorney interviewed Carla and Gloria to determine if Carla possessed the capacity to understand the guardianship and conservatorship process, and what it would mean if she had someone appointed as her guardian and conservator. The attorney determined that Carla was able to understand the process, and assisted her in filing an emergency petition requesting that Gloria to be appointed as her guardian and conservator.
Working closely with the Judge and Guardian Ad Litem, the Legal Aid attorney was able to obtain an expedited hearing for Carla’s petition, and to successfully have Gloria appointed as Carla’s guardian and conservator. Without Legal Aid’s help, Carla would not have been able to obtain the medical treatment that she desperately needed.
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https://lawmo.org/client_stories/guardianship-clears-path-for-cancer-treatment/
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A Beloved Night of Wednesday Trivia!
Wednesday’s game of Pour House Trivia welcomed 97 teams across 14 venues.
Our Wednesday teams needed to be on their toes right out of the gate this week, as the first bonus question of the night was also its most difficult. After most of the field earned wagering points on a question concerning the musical film “The Greatest Showman”, only TWO teams tacked on two bonus points by correctly identifying Philip Carlyle as the fictional businessman portrayed by Zac Efron. Monstars (Black Hoof) and Leprechauns (28 South) each gained two points on the entire field with that answer. Other first round topics included Canadian geography, the Tasmanian Devil, and world history. Thanks to the first bonus question of the game, the first round did not yield any perfect scores.
Wednesday’s audio question fell a bit on the easier side, as nearly one-third of our teams earned bonus points by identifying the three ‘colorful’ music groups of Blue Oyster Cult, The White Stripes, and Black Eyed Peas. We continued the second stanza with a look at baseball star Chase Utley, the concept of amnesty, and Cheetos. The first half closed with a question regarding the taxonomic family Hominidae. In the final bonus question of the half, only 11% of the field snagged an extra two points by recalling that the bonobo is a member of this family. Four teams ran the table by posting 36 points in the second round: It’s All Maya’s Fault (Belles’), Scrotal Charisma (Quinn’s), Sexual Chocolate (Memories), and Van Buren Boys (Memories).
Phrases and titles bearing the words “LOVE” or “WAR” were featured on Wednesday’s halftime page. The overall average reached 16.2 points, as only three teams posted a perfect score of 20 points: Harsh Reality (Nido’s), Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s), and Van Buren Boys (Memories). Here is Wednesday’s leaderboard at the break:
- Harsh Reality (Nido’s): 89
- Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 89
- Scrotal Charisma (Quinn’s): 87
- Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s): 87
- Van Buren Boys (Memories): 87
In a surprising outcome, more than a dozen teams lost their nine-point wager to begin the third round, with several others losing out on their five-point category bonus (and in some cases, both). The culprit was this question on the topic of literary vocabulary:
–> Defined as ‘exceedingly idealistic’, which eight-letter adjective is derived from the name of the title character in a 17th century work of literature?
Despite the phonetic similarity, the word ‘gullible’ has nothing to do with the character of Gulliver from “Gulliver’s Travels”. Only 27% of the field dreamed the impossible dream with the correct answer of quixotic. The rest of the third round progressed with fewer speed bumps, as the field was largely successful with questions regarding the song “Take the A Train”, the biographical film “Monster”, and ancient Roman history. Eight Wednesday teams recorded a perfect third round score.
After the 6-4-2 question looked at the many Grammy Awards won by singer Adele, we began a treacherous final round. Though the five wagering questions we not particularly difficult, the three bonus questions were simply diabolical, as each of the three yielded a success rate of under 10%. First, only eight teams successfully named Don Hewitt as the creator the TV news show “60 Minutes”. Later, we began the nightly Three Clues question with these two facts:
CLUE 1: He opened a namesake Falafel City restaurant on a “Saturday Night Live” sketch from 2005.
CLUE 2: He was the first NFL quarterback to throw for 50 touchdowns in a single season.
Many teams eschewed the final clue and turned in the wrong answer of Peyton Manning. Yes, the former Colts QB appeared in a memorable 2007 episode, but this correct answer in this case was Tom Brady. Once again, only eight teams earned a two-point bonus. But those two questions were actually easier than the final bonus question of the game, as only five teams correctly identified Podgorica as the capital of Montenegro. Despite this wicked finish, Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s) inexplicably answered all three of these bonus questions correctly as the only team to sweep the final round. Here is Wednesday’s leaderboard after four rounds of play:
- Harsh Reality (Nido’s): 157
- Scrotal Charisma (Quinn’s): 156
- Fan Club (Silo Falls): 154
- Why Not Zoidberg? (Memories): 154
- Fondue or Do Not (Quinn’s): 153
WEDNESDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (43.8% success rate):
–> Which author is the most recent recipient of both a Nobel Prize and a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction?
About half of the field gave us the correct answer of Toni Morrison. Congratulations to Think, McFly, Think (28 South), who did not miss a single wagering question en route to the only Perfect 21 on Wednesday night. Here is Wednesday’s final overall leaderboard:
- Scrotal Charisma (Quinn’s): 166
- Why Not Zoidberg? (Memories): 166
- Fondue or Do Not (Quinn’s): 165
- Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s): 164
- Think, McFly, Think (28 South): 164
- Jock-ish (28 South): 164
- Flight Level Awesome (Belles’): 160
- Nightmare Squad (Black Hoof): 158
- Harsh Reality (Nido’s): 157
- Fan Club (Silo Falls): 156
Whole Foods Market in Vienna, VA: Booze Hounds (NEXT GAME ON OCT. 30 – First category: Ten Most Populous Nations)
Valley Grill in Middletown, MD: Drunk Savants (Next week’s first category: U. S. Vice Presidents)
Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Flight Level Awesome (Next week’s first category: “American Horror Story”)
Nido’s Ristorante in Frederick, MD: Harsh Reality (Next week’s first category: “Downton Abbey” – film)
Furnace Grill and Crab House in Thurmont, MD: Slow Trivia Movement (Next week’s first category: Serial Killers)
Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Scrotal Charisma (Next week’s first category: Lizzo)
Dragon Hops Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Sugar Sugar (Next week’s first category: TV Cowboys)
Black Hoof Brewing in Leesburg, VA: Nightmare Squad (Next week’s first category: “Band of Brothers”)
GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Why is This Wet? (Next week’s first category: Harry Potter Characters)
Manor at Silo Falls in Brookeville, MD: Menace 2 Sobriety (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Tom Brady or Peyton Manning?)
Anchor Bar in Frederick, MD: Half Nelsons (Next week’s first category: Fred Rogers)
28 South in Hagerstown, MD: Jock-ish (Next week’s first category: MLB Wild Card)
Memories in Mount Airy, MD: Why Not Zoidberg? (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Mike Myers or Michael Myers?)
Brookside Inn in Jefferson, MD: Darn You to Heck (Next week’s first category: “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”)
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https://blog.pourhousetrivia.com/a-beloved-night-of-wednesday-trivia-2/
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Jarvis Landry supports community
CONVENT – NFL Superstar Jarvis Landry of the Cleveland Browns gave back to his hometown of Convent over the weekend with a backpack giveaway for 500 underprivileged children of the St. James Parish area.
Organizers said the inaugural Jarvis Landry Back to School Drive helped students prepare for the upcoming school year while encouraging positivity and excitement despite the abnormal challenges facing education systems amidst COVID-19.
Backpacks were pre-packaged with school supplies, hygiene items and some of Landry’s favorite swag and products. The event was held Saturday at the Convent Senior Center with social distancing and COVID-19 safety guidelines in place. Families remained in their vehicles while entering and exiting the supply line.
To learn more, visit https://iamjarvislandry.com/the-foundation.
THIBODAUX – Thibodaux Regional Health System teamed up with Nicholls State University Athletics to provide on-going COVID-19 testing for its... read more
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https://www.lobservateur.com/2020/08/26/jarvis-landry-shows-community-support/
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Every week the National Ministry Team compiles stories and important upcoming events in a quick weekly update video. Here is what we cover this week:
Christmas with True Parents
On the morning of December 21, True Mother shared breakfast with national Unificationist representatives to express her heart and hopes for the future of the American movement.
From December 15 to 18, tribal messiahs from all around the nation have gathered for TribeNet at the International Peace Education Center (IPEC) to share their testimonies and best practices, take a pilgrimage in the footsteps of True Parents to their favorite sites, and enjoy some of the wonderful family entertainment of Las Vegas.
ACLC Convocation at IPEC
Religious leaders from a wide variety of denominations gathered once again for an American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC) convocation with the theme, “A New Paradigm: Building God’s Kingdom on Earth” at the International Peace Education Center (IPEC) in Las Vegas.
Revival Starts with Love
On December 16, the Los Angeles chapter of the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), in collaboration with the American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), hosted a Revival Starts with Me rally for the peaceful reunification of North and South Korea.
Watch the weekly update for a Christmas message from FFWPU USA President, Rev. Richard Buessing!
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http://kodanusa.org/2017/12/2175
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news: Gold does not go with everything.
Crushing news, I’m sure, but I found myself wishing someone had delivered that tidbit of information to Emilia Wickstead prior to her fall/winter 2014 show this morning. The fashion itself was, for the most part, quite lovely, but her decision to pair gold lame shoes over black knee-high stockings with everything was a critical error that was terribly distracting. To be fair, there were some ensembles given python-print shoes, but the gold lame kept popping up and the contrast to the clothing and other accessories was severe. Worst offense: paired with a set of baby blue gloves.
Designing clothes is something Emilia Wickstead does well and her approach is one I’m sure many designers in the Midwestern United States can appreciate. Her background is as a made-to-measure atelier. She has only been doing full-production ready to wear since 2011. She focuses so completely on the clothes, to wonderful results, that she sometimes loses sight over the overall aesthetic of the collection; a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.
Consider the first five looks coming down the runway this morning. Look one is a lovely black wool dress with fitted wool cap. Look two is a very plain, minimalist, black leather coat with pink gloves. Look three is a darling two-piece set of blue floral brocade on pink silk. Look four introduces us to the very popular oversized python print. Following that was an unadorned white jumpsuit.
Do you see how disconnected the looks are? The only cohesive point is that they all were wearing the same gold lame heels with black socks. Well, one correction there. The model wearing the white jumpsuit apparently forgot her black socks; it was the only look in the show without them.
The problem is not bad designs, although those colored opera gloves had their day in 2009 and are rather boring at this point. Considering each one on its own, the pieces are very well conceived, very well sewn, and largely wearable. The brocades in light blue, girlish pink, and orange gold are very eye catching and work especially well on body-contoured suits and dresses. Ms. Wickstead also makes very good use of the enlarged python prints. Had we seen those pieces grouped together I dare say the response would have been stronger and more positive. Unfortunately, the leather pieces go in such a different, minimalist direction that they almost feel as though they came from a different designer.
At the end of the day, Emilia Wickstead is a very strong and popular brand in Great Britain and her show was very well received by local buyers and editors. Her clothes are well designed and likely to do well at retail. Perhaps she can find someone to assist her with the presentation aspect for next season.
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http://www.patternindy.com/lfw-emilia-wickstead-fw-2014/
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In my defense, I'm terrible at judging age. I robbing the local sluts live Caplan Québec- - or in this case, getting robbed from mine- - and there's rarely any in between. This guy was going to turn forty, but I thought that he was twenty- five- ish. The real reason was because I tried to make sure that was any younger than him.
It is a daunting task to be sure, to fit abstract variable traits such as a sense of humor, for instance, with a physically magnificent- appearing individual. Try joking with a wonder. It's hard, since you can't focus on the substance. However, when you think about it, that is mainly what entire populations of men appear to want to perform: fit some awful, reprehensible habit of theirs into a lovely- framed lady that is faultless.
My friends have advised me to forget about her and proceed. I have reached out for her a few occasions, teasing her and joking with her, but I've heard nothing back. I can't proceed from her though as I truly do think she's the one for me. . . ' This kind of scenario is very common. Regrettably.
One Caplan real prostitutes- and- derogatory photographs, home movies, not intended for strangers, reach a massive number of recipients. Even the most insignificant virtual terror affects the mentality of a teenager, makes him feel incomplete. They are afraid to talk about the incident for fear of new harassment online and an even larger series of revenge, conceal the issue from near friends, to parents. Thus, even if the cameltoe local sluts Caplan is solved safely by itself, the kid's self- esteem will be dealt with a tangible blow, possibly might need to turn to a psychologist to restore the adolescent's psychological state.
Prior to you have actually made love people are constantly seeking factors to watch dogs 2 prostitutes Lefroy ON the connection. Do not make it very easy for them. You might sink yourself by claiming something as easy as" I have actually been terminated from lots of jobs. " My buddy wrote that and afterwards his online conversation fizzled which was completion of that.
Online dating is a challenging noise. The ideal match isn't mosting likely to go down right into your lap. Many people give up. They determine that online dating just" isn't for them, " or" not what they believed, " or they come to be" bewildered. " This is all simply vernacular for weak point. Discovering your match online resembles parachuting into a jungle in the Caplan QC geo based dating apps of the evening with a lantern, a machete, and a walkie- talkie. At any moment you can radio for a discharge. Most people just take a seat and also weep for an evac.
In the twenty minutes it took Dan to answer to my Lots of Fish query, I'd also sent a message to another possible contender: " Paolo di Padua. " Paolo did not have a lot to saybut that was okay because I didn't either. And what he did was kind of lovely.
Keep personal items with you at all times You don't want to risk having information stolen. Caplan local snapchat sluts names with you and keep it near you the entire Caplan QC how are prostitutes lives. So it can not be tampered with, if you are drinking anything in any way, keep it.
The way to handle this would be to decide, before you even start local sluts, everything you are willing when it comes to sex and kissing, especially in the event that you discover yourself really attracted to a man to do on a date.
Managing Your Dating Frustrations" Here is to all you who encircle the dirty dishes from the dishwasher after someone else has loaded it. " ~Someecards Are there instances in your life when you've gotten found yourself tired of looking for Mr. Right and frustrated with dating? Those are the moments when you feel as if there is just no one out there to date every legal hookers that is good was taken. You think if somebody decent showed in your lifetime, at this point you would only settle.
Women are experts in understanding if she is being approached by a man with something jumping around even when he says the right things. She give out her number to be polite might speak with the guy because she's bored, or hook up with the guy because she wanted to get laid. The guy will then Caplan Québec local facetime sluts on the back for his abilities, but it is because she felt that disgust inside, if she meets up with him for a date.
When two young men and women, who know each other through Facebook, become attracted to each other what happens? They begin texting! The texts between Meg and Nev started out innocently and very sweet flirty.
Some have forums and sites. Participating in the community can help bring more attention to your profile as folks wish to have to know more about you. Of course, if you act like an asshat from the forums, you'll be attracting the wrong type of attention. . .
Build puzzle. Tell your date that you do not kiss on the first date. That way of the both of you and neither of you will wonder what is wrong; thereby avoiding the awkwardness at the end of the date when you are both standing there waiting to see who'll make the first move. Bear in Mind the Caplan QC find horny local sluts email Hitch? Women are drawn to men who respect them and would like to earn the right. Bear in mind, what starts also ends.
Look your date in the eyes and be Nice Smile every once in a while, making them feel special. Additionally, it indicates that you are currently paying them attention and you'll have the ability to tell if they are being honest. It is not only about giving your undivided attention to them, it's about thanking them outside enjoying them for every gesture, which makes them know that their efforts were not in vain.
In another segment, that's the last section, we place the icing on the cake by covering how to filter games, the way to initiate contact( first message) , how to respond to emails and messages, and cap it off with how to program dates.
The other pitfall of the internet world is identifying andeliminating'catfish'. The expression refers to someone who uses online dating faking to be a person to fulfil a few undisclosed requirement of their own while. The amusement value ofthis'catfish' has grown in popularity, using a tv show you might have watched by the exact same name.
Love and charm, able to get you out of your panties in less than three dates on the initial date. I deliver my lines. I grin at you and cause you to believeyou're the only girl in the room. Obviously, sooner or later, once I've extracted everything I could out of youemotionally, physically, or financially, I'll be gone in the blink of an eye, where to find local snapchat sluts Caplan to prey on another innocent soul" The reality is, however, that neither of those guys- - the participant or the failure- - are currently going to place this. They are likely to say all of the right items and immerse you in.
But first, let's examine a system by which you can handle the inflow of greetings from the Upright Beer- Drinking Dogs.
Photos- As a wonderful memento of your budding love, Caplan local homemade hairdressers being sluts an on- line image cd for your brand- new cyber- mate. Consist of digital pictures of favored outdoor scenes, animals, flowers, vehicles, silly moments, your computer system edge or laptop, and so on
You Both Know Why You Pornmastermind casual sex Caplan There The last amazing thing about dating is that it clears up the ambiguity of why you are sitting there with Caplan Québec post local sluts else. You both know why you are there: ifyou're compatible in a romantic capacity to see.
If you are a promoter: Marketers can hit it off with controllers if they structuretheir day around tasks that awards with success as well as results. Controllers like being champions in a competitive challenge. If you are talking halfway, allow the controller reveal their view, concur with them and also continue on with your tale. Do not smolder him with also much vivid information. They such as points to the point and also revealing the controller that you have worked out the whole night without squandering excessive of their time will please their fixation with performance. They like remaining in control so prior to you begin chatting, inquire what they desire to speak about so you can inform them your tales as soon as you find their hot switch.
You have the Caplan QC sexy local amateur sluts and freedom of being yourself, Whenever you can show yourself entirely to your partner. From understanding you all, not just your glossed- over parts and your partner benefits.
The problem is you really did not shut the deal. Try and also assume of each suit as a client who's walked right into your Caplan QC local sluts image board since they such as the signage. They're purchasing a relationship, however they require to be persuaded they're not making an error prior to they pull out their charge card.
This is his capacity to be more happy for you once you have a large victory or a great day. Strong, smart, lively women often struggle with relationships in which their guys can't handle their achievement or their bigness. You can tell fairly fast with a guy if he's insecure in that manner by discussing some successes or entertaining stories and asking him things like, " Well, what do you want for me? " This dynamic isn't likely to change, if every moment turn into fights- - or perhaps little ones- - , particularly once you know you are not discussing in any kind of fuck buddy on tumblr Caplan QC.
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https://nrocommission.com/local-sluts-quebec/caplan-qc
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It’s been a crazy year for SEO. The last 12 months have seen some pretty big changes in the way we do SEO and local business. With the loss of keyword referral data, and Google bringing out the new Hummingbird algorithm, things got real. The shift away from keywords and towards user intent, semantic search became a huge priority for SEOs this year.
In this piece by Jessica Thompson, she shows us the top ten SEO Columns Of 2013 for Search Engine Land. What are they? What could they be?
To find out, follow the link below and find out!
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https://thrivesearch.com/year-hummingbird-top-seo-columns-2013/
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