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Toshiba’s refocusing smartphone camera spells more trouble for Lytro
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After a huge buildup and splashy product announcement, Lytro’s trendy refocusing camera has so far failed to live up to its hype. While the idea of being able to point, shoot, and worry about focus later sounds appealing, the cost in dollars, missing features, and lost image quality has just been far too high for many photographers to consider it. Long-term the hope for $399 Lytro is the broad applicability of its technology, and its eventual use in a wide-array of products including smartphones.
Unfortunately for Lytro, the market isn’t standing still. Its headstart in computational imaging cameras is being tested by firms around the globe. This week Toshiba was the latest to announce a smartphone sensor and lens unit. Its product will feature 500,000 microlenses, each .03 mm in diameter. The microlenses focus rays from various angles onto a 5 mm x 7 mm sensor — a typical size for smartphones. Toshiba expects to begin selling the camera module to smartphone makers in 2013.
Global micro-optics firm Heptagon and Lytro’s neighbor Pelican Imaging have already announced similar microlens based smartphone sensors, although details on either companies products are scarce. Curiously, imaging guru and Stanford professor Dr. Marc Levoy — godfather to much of computational photography — is listed on the technical advisory boards of both Lytro and competitor Pelican.
Re-focus doesn’t mean infinite depth of field
Because each microlens captures rays from a variety of angles, the camera can use the directional information to re-assemble an image as if it was focused at a variety of different depths. As Lytro users have discovered, however, refocusing doesn’t mean that the entire image can be in focus at once. Future software may remove this limitation, but for now light field cameras like the Lytro, and the Toshiba, will not reach the holy grail of infinite depth of field that would make smartphone cameras truly point and shoot. Omnivision is way ahead in this area, by providing extended depth of field for smartphone cameras, so Toshiba will have to play catch up.
Image quality: How low can it go?
Lost in the early reporting on Toshiba’s announcement is that the new camera’s 500,000 lenses means that its actual resolution is only about 500,000 pixels. Toshiba is betting that the allure of refocusing will offset this paltry resolution, but as mediocre reviews received by Lytro images have shown, resolution does still matter.
The sample images below, provided by Toshiba, illustrate the potential quality issues. In addition to the low resolution (908 x 537 pixels) the images are not crisp and show significant noise. They do illustrate the camera’s refocus capability though. The first image is focused on the the front subject, while the second version has been refocused on the middle subject.
Like the initial hype surrounding the Lytro camera, plenty of excitement surrounds each new announcement in computational photography, but the devil has been in the implementation. Other than high-end industrial products like those sold by Raytrix, and university research projects, the world of everyday photography is still firmly rooted in traditional pixel-based image capture.
For a great introduction to light field photography and how the Lytro camera works, check out this IEEE article.
More on ExtremeTech: The history of digital photography
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Originally Posted by albanian1
Technically any animal that is in heat can breed successfully (Human, puppy.) Breeding at first heat is accepted so long as calcium and other nutrients are given to prevent any damage to the damn. Breeding age has nothing to do with the quality of dog. Quality is judged by the pedigree as my clients well know. I encourage all people to do research and ask breeders for the parents pedigree and understand the problems the breed may have down the road. If you just pick someone off craigslist without papers than good luck because chances are they will have issues. DNA samples for damn and sier are also registered with AKC. I just ask for you to educate yourself a bit more before jumping to several points with ZERO knowledge of the facts. :-(
Just, uh, FYI, since you seem to have missed that day in health class--human females don't "do" estrus.
Ahem, moving on.
It is people like you who keep people like me and my rescue buddies, sadly, in business.
We really want you to stop. A lot. As in, STOP IT.
Do not damn well breed your "damns" anymore.
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Social Security Disability Insurance provides a monthly cash benefit assistance to individuals with a disability who were once gainfully employed. However, in order to obtain SSDI, an applicant must go through a process that determines their eligibility.
- 1 How Social Security Determines Who Is Disabled
- 2 Determining a Disability
- 2.1 1. Is the applicant working above the Substantial Gainful Activity level?
- 2.2 2. Is the applicant’s condition considered severe enough?
- 2.3 3. Does the impairment or condition meet the severity to be considered one of the listings in Social Security’s Blue Book of Impairments?
- 2.4 4. Can the person still perform any of his or her relevant past work?
- 2.5 5. Can the person adjust to doing other similar kinds of work?
- 3 How do I check the status of my claim?
- 4 What if my claim is denied?
- 5 SSA Disability Determination Process
How Social Security Determines Who Is Disabled
- Is the applicant working above the Substantial Gainful Activity level?
- Is the applicant’s condition considered severe enough?
- Does the impairment or condition meet the severity to be considered one of the listings in Social Security’s Blue Book of Impairments?
- Can the person still perform any of his or her relevant past work?
- Can the person adjust to doing other similar kinds of work?
Before the SSA assesses a disability claim, they will need to determine if the applicant in question even has enough SSDI work credits to collect SSDI. Work credits are based on wages earned of self employment income, and a gainfully employed individual can earn up to four work credits per year. Considering that it only takes $1,410 of income to garner one work credit, most gainfully employed individuals will earn their four credits every year.
In most cases, someone applying for SSDI will need 40 credits, with at least 20 of them earned in the decade prior to becoming disabled. That will usually imply a work history of at least a decade, and also at least some sort of gainful employment for at least 50% of the decade prior to the onset of a disability. But it also means that someone who has been out of work for a longer period of time may not qualify for SSDI.
The basic benchmarks for all ages are a recent work test and a duration work test. The recent work test gauges that the applicant actually worked for a certain time period before becoming disabled, while the duration work test gauges how much work they’ve performed over a lifetime. These numbers vary by age, so it is possible for younger individuals to obtain SSDI benefits. For example, anyone under the age of 24 applying for SSDI only needs 6 SSDI credits over a three year period.
It’s important to distinguish SSDI from worker’s compensation. While they are both types of insurance, SSDI is administered and funded by the Federal government, while worker’s compensation (in most states) is purchased by companies from private insurance companies or a state fund. Worker’s compensation is not meant to be a permanent solution if someone finds themselves with limited income due to a disability. SSDI, on the other hand, is meant to provide long term or even lifetime disability benefits.
Determining a Disability
If an applicant for SSDI benefits does indeed meet the requirements for coverage based on SSDI work credits, the SSA will take a look at their alleged disability and determine if it merits receiving SSDI. Applicants must pass both the recent work test and duration work test and have filled out their application properly.
SSDI is for providing monthly benefits to individuals whose disability prevents them from working long term or will end terminally. The SSA will also conduct a continuing disability review to determine whether a claimant still needs disability benefits. In most cases, a continuing disability review is conducted every three years. If medical information indicates your condition will not improve, that time frame may be extended to every five or seven years. The initial process performed by the disability determination service looks somewhat like this:
1. Is the applicant working above the Substantial Gainful Activity level?
If you are earning at least $1,260 per month (this amount is higher, at $2,110 for legally blind individuals) you cannot collect SSDI. This amount is described as substantial gainful activity and it is the first basic benchmark the SSA uses to gauge how much your alleged disability impacts your ability to remain gainfully employed and supporting yourself.
If you have a limited income below the substantial gainful activity level, the disability examiner will move on to considering the other benchmarks toward approval for disability benefits. If you are earning a monthly income beyond that threshold, the disability determination process will end here and you will be denied disability benefits, as the SSA determination will determine you are not a candidate for this type of Social Security benefits.
2. Is the applicant’s condition considered severe enough?
The condition in question must reduce your ability to perform work related tasks such as lifting, standing, sitting, and walking. The disability can also be regarded as severely impacting your ability to work if it impacts cognitive functioning like memory or concentration. The claims examiner processing responsible for rendering a disability decision will consider how the medical information a claimant has provided shows that their work activity is impacted enough to necessitate receiving social security disability benefits.
The assessment of the disability examiner will often depend on the type of work activity a claimant formerly engaged in prior to applying for disability benefits. If their work was physically active, there would need to be severe impairment in their ability to perform physical tasks, while if their work was sedentary, issues around concentration and memory would be more appropriate. However, a physical disability can impair sedentary work, and mental disabilities can also impair physical work.
3. Does the impairment or condition meet the severity to be considered one of the listings in Social Security’s Blue Book of Impairments?
The SSA has something called the Blue Book which lists a number of debilitating conditions and thresholds for determining if an applicant is impaired vis-a-vis work by their alleged condition. If a person has presented medical documentation regarding a condition that is not in the Blue Book, the SSA will need to decide if it prevents them from achieving substantial gainful activity; if it does, they will consider that person disabled.
Certain conditions like ALS and specific types of cancer are known as Compassionate Allowances and will receive expedited attention on the application. A separate program called Quick Disability Determinations will assess using AI if an application has a higher degree of probable acceptance (for instance, due to appropriate and thorough medical documentation) and bump that application into a faster track for approval, alleviating the overall paperwork burden of the SSA.
4. Can the person still perform any of his or her relevant past work?
If you are unable to perform the work you did previously, whatever it was, the SSA will move your application further along. If however, they determine that you still are able to perform that work, they will send you a denial letter, and you will have to appeal their decision.
5. Can the person adjust to doing other similar kinds of work?
Even if the SSA determines that you can no longer perform the work you used to do, they will decide whether you could perform some similar type of work. They will consider your medical condition, along with other factors such as age, education, work experience, and skills that can be transferred to a new work setting. If the SSA believes you cannot transfer your skill sets and experience to a different workplace, you will be determined to have a disability.
How do I check the status of my claim?
If you create a My Social Security Account, you can check the status of your application by logging in any time if you have internet access. You can also call the SSA or stop by your local Social Security office, but they tend to have notoriously long waits even for routine questions, so it’s best to create an online account and check the status of your application that way.
What if my claim is denied?
If you tried to apply for SSDI and your claim was denied, it doesn’t mean you have to give up. You are allowed to appeal the decision of the SSA, but you will just need to make sure you stay within the time frames listed on the material they send you. For example, if you are sent a denial letter, you will have 60 days to initiate an appeal.
The first level of appeal is a reconsideration, either on medical or non-medical grounds. The reconsideration is initiated online and is conducted by someone who was not involved in the initial review of your application. The next level is a hearing by an administrative law judge, should the reconsideration come back unfavorably. You will need to make sure you do not miss your hearing date, whether it’s in person or via a video conference.
Should the results of the hearing come back unfavorably, you can still pursue an appeal with a request for a review by the Appeals Council. This review does not involve any in-person hearings, though you can solicit the services of a Social Security disability attorney to assist in your case. The reason a lawyer specializing in SSDI is so helpful at this level is that the Appeals Committee is not reviewing the merits of the actual application itself, but rather the decision of the administrative law judge. A lawyer can help pinpoint places where the ALJ may have made a mistake in their treatment of the case.
Should you remain dissatisfied with the decision of the SSA, you can initiate litigation against them in a Federal Circuit Court. It is difficult to win an appeal in Federal Court, but the courts do send around half of the cases back to the hearing level because they find that the ALJ conducting the hearing did not properly consider certain issues.
In these cases, you will become entitled to a lump sum of disability back pay. SSDI back pay is meant to cover any gaps in payment you should have received but did not because of delays in approving your application. It should not be confused with retroactive pay, which is payment for your disability during the time frame between your established onset date (when you became disabled) and when your application was approved. In regards to back pay, however, even if it takes years to appeal your case the most you can collect is 12 months of benefits.
SSA Disability Determination Process
SSDI is meant to provide disabled individuals having a sufficient work history with the income they need for basic living expenses, in the absence of an ability to remain gainfully employed. As you can see from the above article, the SSDI determination process is relatively simple and straightforward, involving an assessment of medical evidence, work history, skills, education, age, and other factors. Anyone applying for SSDI should put together as thorough of an application as they can. Not only will it improve your chances for getting approved, but it may also be picked up by the Quick Disability Determination software and moved along the fast track for quicker approval.
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Add breath-test devices to local anti-DUI efforts
Police set up roadblocks to catch drunken drivers last weekend and plan to continue the practice through the holiday season.
Surprise roadblocks netted 45 arrests for drunken driving last weekend as an early greeting of the holiday season, and drivers can expect random sobriety checkpoints around Oahu. The effort to reduce drunken driving should be carried into the upcoming legislative session and include approval of a measure allowing judges to order that breath-test devices be installed in the vehicles of repeat offenders.
Of the 161 people who died on Hawaii roads last year, 63 -- or 39.1 percent -- were in accidents that involved drunken drivers, according to a national survey by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The organization's Hawaii chapter says that 84 of the traffic deaths were "alcohol-related."
Hawaii's percentage of accidents involving impaired drivers, those with a blood-alcohol content of at least .08 percent, was fourth-highest in the country. The effort to combat drunken driving should focus on getting repeat offenders off the roads.
The most obvious tool in doing so is to allow judges to order ignition interlock devices for repeat offenders. The device requires a driver to breathe into it in order to start the engine. If it does start a short time later, the test must be repeated at certain intervals to make sure the car wasn't turned over to the offender after a friend breathed into it to start the engine. If so, the driver is warned before the horn honks and lights flash.
Hawaii is one of only fives states that have no interlock laws. Leah Marx, MADD's Hawaii director, says the chapter is working with the state Department of Transportation, police and prosecutor in crafting the law. Judges should have the option to order the use of such devices.
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Rachel Carson was a trained biologist and a best-selling author. In her writing, Carson presented scientific facts from an ecological perspective in a poetic writing style. She made science interesting and understandable to regular people. She was best known for her books Silent Spring and The Sea Around Us. Her writing about ecology and the dangers of pesticides was essential to the start of the environmental movement.
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Johnsons plan for reconstruction was called Presidential Reconstruction In this plan he made it that the seven remaining states could be readmitted to the Union if they did several things The seven states were Alabama Florida Georgia Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina and Texas The guidelines that they must had to meet were to declare session illegal swear allegiance to the union and to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment which would end slavery All of the states except Texas quickly accepted these terms and elected legislators Congress did not believe that Johnsons plan truly brought an end to reconstruction and were infuriated by the pardons of over 13000 confederates and when congress convened in December 1865 congress refused to admit the newly elected southern legislators In 1866 the Civil Rights Act was passed which made African Americans citizens and said that states could not pass discriminatory laws called black codes Johnson shocked everyone by vetoing both the Freedmens Bureau and the Civil Rights Act After this the moderate and the radical republicans joined together to override the Presidents veto They also passed the fourteenth amendment which gave the Civil Rights Act a constitutional basis All of this brought about congressional Reconstruction In 1867 the Reconstruction Act was passed which did not recognize state governments created under Lincoln and Johnson plans except for Tennessee who had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment Johnson also vetoed this but Congress quickly overrode the veto Congress then tried to impeach Johnson saying he had violated the Tenure of Office Act by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton His trial began in March 1868 and lasted 11 days but in the end President Johnson was not found guiltyThe rise of the cattle industry can be attributed to many things One of those things was the railways The railroads gave cattlemen an easy way to get their animals across long distances Another way was the Chisholm Trail which was made by Joseph McCoy He
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There is a myth that we only use 10% of our brain, but we certainly don’t use the fullest array of creative means of communication at our disposal. What if designers, health promoters and those seeking to communicate better started considering a more sensory-forward way of sharing what they know to each other?
“Pheromones?” I said.
“Yes. Think about how much we convey by pheromones?” my colleague said. “Imagine what we could explain if we knew what they told us?”
So started a conversation between three of us faculty at the annual Center for Contemplative Mind and Society annual faculty curriculum development program. The conversation was prompted by a performance by New York-based dancer and fellow contemplative Yin Mei the previous night that we found bereft of words to fully explain. The performance, and our conversation, The dance and movement performance blended film, sound, music, dance and kabuki-style masks in an interactive dance studio environment. If I wrote any more and I wouldn’t be doing the performance justice.
Here were three people who were literally involved in a performance virtually unable to share a common description of what they saw, even if it was the same thing. We three were stuck trying to come up with words to describe what we had experienced. Words, feelings, text all failed. And that is how we came up with our conversation.
Our discussion has inspired reflection on how much information we neglect and the types of information that we privilege when we design things and communicate what we know to the world around us.
Pheromones are a means of communication available to us to use. Yet, we don’t, nor have the knowledge of how to use them. We might develop an instantaneous connection with someone — even fall in love (or lust) — for reasons that make no rational sense to our brain, but it happens. We don’t have the sensory intelligence to make sense of the signals we receive, but we nonetheless transmit and receive a lot more than we are aware of.
When we seek to develop a design for something, good practice involves engaging a diversity of perspectives to generate ideas that create new knowledge, best suit the communication of those ideas, and develop those ideas into products, services and policies that best help people. However, our means of communicating these still remain with spoken and written words.
A touch can convey information that is immeasurable. A look, a feeling, a smell, a brush of a hand are all sensory means of conveying information and learning about our world. As we seek to tackle the kind of ineffable, yet persistent and pernicious problems that complexity introduces, new ways to express and share our understandings are necessary. There are simply times when words won’t or cannot do it.
The practical application of this sensory-based approach to design is not a simple venture. Western culture is not very kinesthetic making a lot of touch-based collaboration problematic. Add in the very real issues that those who’ve experience physical trauma or abuse, and such application of touch must be handled with care. But just as words can be weapons or means to joy, so too can touch if done with compassion, skill and sensitivity. Artful methods like dance, sculpture, or video could be means of communicating ideas that simple words cannot.
What if we could cultivate the means to be intimate with these methods in the service of better design and communication? What kind of design would that look like? Could we engage a much broader range of people into the discussion? Right now, we privilege those who can write and speak well, those who are forward (i.e., extroverted) and verbal, at the expense of those who might have as much to offer, but for whom writing, reading or oral communication might not be their strongest method of communication, yet that is all they are given.
We are more than our words and we can be more than what those words convey. It seems time to start taking this a little more seriously and seeing where it goes. Who knows? Maybe the best ideas are just a painting or dance away.
Clowning might seem either silly or scary to some, but the art of non-verbal communication is just that: an art. And like art, it opens the door to myriad interpretations, but also to greater empathy and that only benefits design.
Tonight I attended my first of what I hope will be many monthly meetings of the Design With Dialogue community of practice being held at OCAD University in Toronto. The topic of the evening was What do clowns know that you don’t ? The hosts were an international clown troupe comprised of Patricia Kambitsch, Heidi Madsen, and Elsa Lam. The answer to the question posed by the evening is: a lot.
The night began with a series of exercises done first in pairs, then pairs of pairs, and then as teams of four. What struck me was that, prior to this evening and a few Twitter follows, I didn’t know a single person at this event. Yet, after the course of two and a half hours, I felt I had a room full of new “peeps”. I was thrilled to find an interesting, engaged and dynamic group of people who could perform for each other without the safety net provided by familiarity.
So what brought this about and what does it have to do with clowns? Actually, the clowns were not made up nor was there even mention of clowning beyond the introduction of the hosts. In the case of tonight’s activity, the clowning was due more to physical performance, and particularly the use of non-verbal communication. Over the course of two hours we went through four sets of activities:
1. In pairs, determined by how tall you were (which isn’t relevant, it just allows for a creative way of splitting the room up), introduce yourself using gestures — particularly exaggerated ones — and then mirror that response back to your partner with no words expressed between you.
2. As a pair, join with another pair and use the non-verbal communication rapport generated from the first exercise to work together to non-verbally communicate a particular emotion (including some tough ones like passed over and pity — try acting these out, you’ll see how hard that can be).
3. Working with both pairs together as a foursome, the new group of four is asked to act out a particular phrase. They are to do this while walking across the room where the rest of the participants are asked to guess the phrase. There is little communication between the four people in this new group.
4. The four individuals sit on four chairs and acts out a skit called “four clowns on a bench” where one person is whispered a scenario and the other three are asked to follow along, not knowing what the actually phrase is.
What happens after all of these is remarkable. I found myself acting in a group on something I didn’t know, yet perceived because of the empathy that I developed over the course of two short hours of working non-verbally. As a result, my group — team — and all the others put on performances that were funny, coherent, and creative with little to no verbal sharing of information.
This stoking of empathy and the insight it produced demonstrated enormous potential for design and teamwork. Building on work that Keith Sawyer has done looking at improv and creativity, this session demonstrated just how powerful non-verbal, emergent communication can be and how us designers — in whatever situation we inhabit — dismiss such opportunities for learning, creative expression and community building at our peril.
I wasn’t really a fan of clowns before tonight; now, I am.
** Photo by Peter Pearson under Creative Commons License from the Flickr pool
Earlier this week I attended a presentation by Rotman School of Management Dean and design-thinking advocate Roger Martin. The talk, given as part of Torch Partnership’s Unfinished Business lecture series put on with S-Lab, was titled: The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage
The presentation provided some clear-headed thinking about design and managed to reduce the concept of design thinking into something very simple, without being simplistic. This was, not surprisingly, done by design. As Martin himself stated:
Our knowledge moves forward when we leave things out
In research we are often seduced by our data and the volume of potential information it can provide. If we have enough of it, twist it, mine it or manipulate it the right way, we can find answers. Certainly there are areas where this kind of thinking is useful. Genomics appears to be one of them – - at least, as far as discovering potential relationships and systems of organizing goes, gene expressions may never be fully understood through quantitative means alone. But the complexity in human systems seems more fraught with information overload and rarely, if ever, does volumes of information lead to better understanding. Indeed, as Martin suggests, sometimes we need to apply design thinking not to generate more information, but reduce it.
Qualitative researchers know this all to well. So do great artists. The latter point is brought home all too much this week as Toronto hosts Hot Docs, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. I’ve seen about a dozen documentaries so far and most of them were, in the opinion of me and my fellow theatregoers, too long (that is, they could have left things out).
But like art and qualitative inquiry (and the theories that underpin both), design thinking can be viewed much less as something that you do, but rather a way of positioning oneself relative to the topic of interest. As one audience member proposed:
Design thinking isn’t a theory of activity, or a method, but a stance
To my mind this may be the best description of design thinking I’ve heard. While there are certainly methods of using design, and strategies that firms such as IDEO, BMW DesignWorks, and Porsche Design use it is the particular stance that designers take that enable those methods to translate across settings, issues, and time horizons.
Interestingly, the discussion about design then shifted to the kind of training one needs to foster the ability to take a stance in a particular manner, not just use tools and theories. When polled about whether they had any training in thinking approaches, less than 5 per cent (estimate) of the audience said that they had and it was speculated that this was because those people had gone to private school or some other specialized training program as children (e.g., schools for the gifted) where such high-level cognitive skills are taught (which is also the foundation for the Rotman School of Management’s approach to teaching).
So here we have a skill or stance in perspective taking that is viewed as a competitive advantage, a means of advancing more humane products and systems, yet is taught to a very small number of people. It seems that should be turned on its head and that we need to consider teaching thinking as a core feature of our educational programs.
Imagine? Teaching people to think in order to do instead of to do and not to think.
Yesterday I attended another one of the fabulously inspiring Unfinished Business lectures put on by my friends from the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCAD by Alexander Osterwalder, Ph.D on business model generation. The talk focused on the methodology developed and employed by Osterwalder and his colleagues (including 470 members of an open online forum who paid to see the project bought to life!) and how it can be used to illustrate (literally!) the business model for an organization. The methodology, described in the book, which was designed carefully to reflect the visual nature of the approach, centres on using art, sticky notes and conversation to help organize firms’ thoughts about how to design their business.
At its core is something fundamentally juvenile – play, drawing, movement and tactile embodiment of ideas. At the end of the talk my colleague and I were chatting with some others about the way in which methods like this — ones that use visual learning and active, arts-based approaches to creative expression — get disregarded in mainstream. I even overheard comments made about the book (which was on sale) that somewhat dismissed the reliance on pictures, sketches and a relatively non-conventional layout (for similar examples of this layout look at two books highlighting Bruce Mau’s work and ideas: Massive Change and Life / Style) .
So even among designers and design thinkers this is still an idea that’s hard to grasp. It’s the tyranny of text.
Yet, it seems so intuitive to use the many tools at our disposal to facilitate creativity. Text is good for some things, but lousy for others. It’s like the old saying:
Give someone a hammer and pretty soon everything starts looking like a nail
We’ve given our health professionals tools and learning methods made up of numbers and letters and they’ve consequently treated their subsequent strategies for learning as ones requiring text and numbers to solve. The hammer is given in school, the public and patients are nails are used in the field.
It’s not like this for everyone. Ask a five-year old to share their ideas and they might offer a story, a finger paint picture, create a play, or get their friends to build something with clay. As a thirty-five, forty-five or fifty-five year old to do the same and they’ll likely offer you a typewritten page and PowerPoint presentation (with lots of text). Why? We’ve been so acculturated into a dominant design culture of text that we rarely consider sketchbooks, art tools, or performance as options, let alone good options when we develop ideas. Our education system, cultural bias towards the written word and perhaps an elitist attitude among the learned societies (combined with a mystery around arts-informed methods of learning) all contribute to this constant promotion of written work over other forms.
Knowledge translation, at its heart, is about generating the data needed to address problems, making sense of it, and ensuring that such knowledge is implemented in a manner that solves the problem.
I’ve heard many times that we only use 10 per cent of brain, which is a myth (note: I was thrilled to find that when you look up this “fact” in Google, nearly all of the first two pages of hits are myth-busters, raising my faith that the collective peer-review system is working — something Laura O’Grady kindly commented on with my last post) . But it might be closer to reality to say that we only use 10 per cent of our available creative tools to solve problems in the health sector.
So at your next meeting, maybe bring a sketchbook instead of your laptop and see what you produce.
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Automatic text classification for a Web collection is a challenge task, especially in the case that the language is not English, such as Thai. However, most of Thai educational Web pages usually include English terms due to their technical aspect. Lots of technical terms and typing errors both in Thai and in English are found in Web sites of universities. Most previous works on text categorization applied term frequency and inverse document frequency for representing importance of terms. In this paper, we use inverse class frequency instead of inverse document frequency in centroid-based text categorization because it works well on a collection with a large number of unique terms. The experimental results show that inverse class frequency is useful, especially when it is applied on both prototype and query vectors.
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Advertising during a Recession : “When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.” Why recession should motivate you to choose TVLowCost, the affordable TV advertising agency?
Here we are, recession seems to be very probable in front of us in the vast majority of countries. All the reasons seem to be joined to create a slow down in many markets. Many companies will start reducing their marketing expenditures in order to save money and try to keep a normal level of profitability. Every soud manager knows it is not a good decision to stop advertising, but “what else can I do ?” will they say… It is not so easy to maintain the same level of advertising investment when you know that your billing will probably be reduced in the months to come.
In a famous study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies from 1980-1985. The results showed that Firms that Maintained or Increased their Advertising Expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession Averaged Significantly Higher Sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were Aggressive Recession Advertisers had Risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising. In addition, a series of six studies conducted by the research firm of Meldrum & Fewsmith (below) showed conclusively that Advertising Aggressively during Recessions not only Increases Sales but Increases Profits.
(source: Meldrum & Fewsmith)
Plenty of evidence demonstrate this, but, I still hear many advertisers saying : “OK, I agree on this, but I cannot afford the costs of advertising on TV in this moment ?”
Well, then it’s time for you to change your habits and quit the world of “HIGH COST” TV advertising, and discovering that with TVLowCost, TV advertising is not only affordable, but also very efficient, for budgets several times inferior to what you used to pay! With the power of TV advertising to boost your business.
Recession should be the opportunity to adopt a “Low Cost Attitude” in TV advertising.
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Next: TVLowCost … and the “Last 60 minute theory”. Hitting consumers with TV spots just before shopping is far more effective and affordable than over-priced Prime Time spots 12 hours earlier.
Previous: The success of TVLowCost internationally is due to the fact that we make TV advertising affordable in every country where we are.
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Pennsylvania is suing oil companies over environmental damage caused by a chemical additive used in gasoline, as well as reimbursement over the alleged misuse of state funds to clean up gasoline spills.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane and Gov. Tom Corbett’s General Counsel James Schultz filed separate lawsuits in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Thursday.
The first lawsuit seeks to recover millions of dollars paid by the state to clean up “the widespread pollution and harm done to Pennsylvania’s waters” caused by gasoline containing the additive known as MTBE, according to a statement released by the state attorney general’s office.
Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) is a chemical additive that oil companies used in gasoline beginning in the 1970s. It was phased out as a gasoline additive in Pennsylvania in 2005.
The lawsuit also seeks monetary damages for the loss of groundwater use and damages to water resources, as well as injunctive relief, fines and penalties relating to unfair and deceptive trade practices and marketing of MTBE and MTBE gasoline.
“When we entrust the Commonwealth to the hands of others we expect that they will care for it as we do, however, when companies pollute something so precious as our water this cannot and will not be overlooked,” said Ms. Kane said in a statement issued late Thursday.
"MTBE-related spills over the past 20 years have cost Pennsylvania hundreds of millions of dollars," said Mr. Schultz in a joint statement. "We cannot take the health of Pennsylvania’s waters for granted and their protection must remain our utmost priority."
Since 1994, more than 3,000 gasoline releases have occurred from underground storage tanks at gas stations and other petroleum facilities in every Pennsylvania county, according to the attorney general’s office. More than 75 percent of these spills and leaks involved MTBE gasoline, which is substantially more difficult to clean up than MTBE-free gasoline.
The lawsuit alleges that the oil companies knew of MTBE’s risk to groundwater, but still used it as an additive.
The suit also “details how MTBE is more persistent and mobile in groundwater, which increases the size, complexity, duration and cost of MTBE gasoline clean-ups, many of which continue to this day,” according to the attorney general’s office. “Minute amounts of MTBE render water non-potable due to foul and putrid smell and taste.”
A number of other states and governmental bodies are suing or have sued oil companies for MTBE groundwater pollution, with substantial financial recoveries achieved.
The statement did not list which oil companies were named in the suit, or how many companies were named. The attorney general’s office did not return phone calls.
A second lawsuit seeks reimbursement of money disbursed by the Pennsylvania Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund to 36 named defendants to clean up gasoline spills, regardless of whether they were MTBE related or not.
The Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund lawsuit alleges that the “defendants had numerous releases prior to 1994 that were ineligible for reimbursement from the USTIF and that the defendants collected in excess of $1 billion under their commercial, captive and mutual insurance policies for the same corrective action costs covered by the USTIF.”
The Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund lawsuit also states that the defendants chose to not disclose what they knew about the pre-1994 releases and that they failed to inform the state about their insurance recoveries. The state alleges that these “double-dip” payments are prohibited by law and that the oil companies must return the payments.
Stephanie Ritenbaugh: firstname.lastname@example.org or 412-263-4910 First Published June 19, 2014 6:07 PM
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Advances in packaging technologies have led to the development of three-dimensional (3D) integrated systems that offer the potential to deliver significant improvements in performance, power, functional density, and form factor over systems that rely on standard packaging integration techniques. This whitepaper discusses some of the key test challenges related to 3D integrated systems, and how Synopsys’ synthesis-based test solution can be used to rapidly address these challenges.
Chris Allsup, Marketing Manager, Synopsys, Inc.
DRAM process technology has been on the leading edge of semiconductor technology, with the density of DRAM quadrupling every three years. As the design rule of DRAM shrinks to sub-80nm, data retention time, cell-capacitance, and parasitic capacitance become the primary factors that determine device performance. At these shrinking dimensions, genuine 3D effects become more pronounced. The strong 3D capabilities of TCAD Sentaurus enable engineers to investigate 3D effects using simulations.
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Scientists this week announced that they have successfully created a synthetic cell that can self-replicate. Big deal, you might say. Cells have been self-replicating since the first single-celled organisms evolved into multi-celled organisms and eventually into platypuses and Lindsay Lohan.
But the big difference here is that the cell was created in the laboratory, not by nature, and the implications are mind-boggling. You could theoretically create new cells to replace faulty ones or even design your own organism, something that doesn’t exist in nature. Someday we might actually be able to walk into a store and purchase a “Create Your Own Creature” kit. Igor not included.
Of course, there are sure to be ethical and religious objections to scientists playing God and altering the natural order of things. The Vatican this week commented on the achievement by calling it “interesting,” which I believe is Catholic for “don’t you dare go near that.”
But man playing God aside, think of the possibilities. We could, conceivably, create the perfect human, which is an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Physically, of course, that would be wonderful. No more diseases, no more obesity, no more baldness, no more handicaps, no more doctors, no more insurance companies, etc.
But we’re more than just our physical selves. We’re all products of our environment, our upbringing, our education and our cultures, all of which can’t be controlled in the laboratory. Well, maybe cultures can but only the kind you find in a Petri dish. Dr. Frankenstein would be the first to tell you that a perfect body “or bodies” with the wrong kind of mind isn’t a real improvement.
For instance, could we build the perfect politician? That seems to be what everyone is calling for these days. The overwhelming sentiment of voters seems to be that there’s something wrong with the politicians we’ve got so let’s replace them with new ones or, better yet, build some from scratch.
But the problem with humans playing God is which humans are building the new politicians. If we could all agree on what we wanted in the perfect politician we probably wouldn’t need them in the first place. And many of us can’t even seem to agree with ourselves over what we want in a politician.
Take, for example, the events of the past month. Many of the same people who have been calling for less government and denouncing the federal bailouts and takeovers of banks, automakers and big business are now the same people screaming for the government to step in and take over the oil spill crisis in the gulf and clean it up.
As long as we remain politically schizophrenic, we’ll never be completely satisfied with whomever or whatever we put in office. Science has and continues to make huge strides in perfecting the human body but not the perfect human. Because, in the end, nobody’s perfect.
Marty Russell writes a Wednesday column for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at 222 Farley Hall, University MS 38677 or by e-mail at email@example.com.
NEMS Daily Journal
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February 13, 2013
America’s Internet Report Card Says Broadband Is Great
Peter Suciu for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online
Americans continue to complain about the quality of roads and highways and according to the Report Card for America´s Infrastructure pertaining to the automotive superhighway rated D- in 2009, the most recent report on public opinion on that aspect of American infrastructure.Opinion for the information superhighway however scored much higher according to a new report by a Washington D.C.-based think tank, which found the broadband policy is more than acceptable to most Americans.
The new report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), titled “The Whole Picture: Where America´s Broadband Networks Really Stand,” found despite the fact Americans are actually paying a bit more per megabit than their counterparts in Europe and Asia — especially in larger cities — the general opinion is things are good and actually getting better.
The report noted:
“Taking the whole picture into account, this report finds that the United States has made rapid progress in broadband deployment, performance, and price, as well as adoption when measured as computer-owning households who subscribe to broadband. Considering the high cost of operating and upgrading broadband networks in a largely suburban nation, the prices Americans pay for broadband services are reasonable and the performance of our networks is better than in all but a handful of nations that have densely populated urban areas and have used government subsidies to leap-frog several generations of technology ahead of where the market would go on its own in response to changing consumer demands.”
The 76-page ITIF report finds the U.S. now has the third-highest rate of wired intermodal competition in the OECD — the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. As a result, about 89 percent of US residents have a choice of five or more broadband providers, when including mobile and satellite, and 85 percent have a choice of two or more wireline broadband providers.
Moreover, the average network data rates for broadband in the United States — including residential and commercial — was about 29.6Mbps in the third quarter of 2012, with the country ranking eighth in the world.
About 80 percent of Americans have access to a cable broadband network that will eventually be capable of delivering 100Mbps.
As for cost, the ITIF report found the United States actually ranks in the middle of OECD for broadband for speeds under 20Mbps, but is the most expensive for broadband service above 20Mbps. Thus, the overall perception is American broadband is actually very good.
Susan Crawford, a former science advisor to President Barack Obama, told Bill Moyers of PBS US Internet access is slow, costly and unfair.
Crawford, who is author of 'Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,' stated Americans are actually at the mercy of the biggest business monopoly since Standard Oil, the company founded by John D. Rockefeller, which was the largest oil refiner in the world and was only broken up by the Supreme Court in 1911.
While one major broadband provider hasn´t exactly created a Standard Oil-sized monopoly, Crawford has argued large broadband providers have instead divided up markets, eliminated competition and provided consumers with second-class access.
“The rich are getting gouged, the poor are very often left out, and this means that we´re creating, yet again, two Americas, and deepening inequality through this communications inequality,” Crawford told Moyers.
Crawford has suggested the solution would be to treat broadband more like a public utility than a private service.
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The Petroleum Extension Service (PETEX) at the University of Texas at Austin has launched the 3D Interactive Offshore Oil Rig as a learning tool for the inner workings of a semisubmersible. The tool provides an inside view to see and hear about each component of the rig – what it does and where it is located – and lets users zoom in for expanded views. Options include visuals and detailed audio describing 10 areas of the rig, including a 360° rig view, power and hoisting equipment, and circulating and cementing equipment.
An online assessment is included that tests the learning progress of the user. A passing score earns users a completion certificate from PETEX and UT Austin.
“The Interactive Offshore Oil Rig is the only product of its kind on the market for offshore drilling and is especially useful for oil and gas industry personnel seeking a better understanding of the individual parts of this extremely complex mechanical unit. With thousands of offshore rigs actively drilling for oil and gas around the world, effective training is now more critical than ever,” PETEX director Zahid Yoosufani said.
The tool, developed by PETEX with assistance from the university’s Faculty Innovation Center at the Cockrell School of Engineering, is available for subscription and licensing purchases. For more information or to try a demo, click here.
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It’s Christmas! Let’s make bonds through celebrations
This is my weekly column for The National UAE, published today.
I used to love singing Christmas carols, even though I’m a Muslim. As a young child at primary school, we were handed out special booklets once a year and together sang rousing carols that had been passed down over centuries. I loved Silent Night in particular, with its elegant melody and soothing tones. And also because it had no words in it that contradicted my religion as a Muslim.
I had to be more careful with the carol Away in a Manger. As the whole school sang the words the little Lord Jesus, I changed them under my breath to “the little baby Jesus”so I would still be in synch with the Islamic view of Jesus’s importance as a prophet. And in the carol O Come all Ye Faithful, I changed the words “Christ the Lord” to “Allah the Lord”. No harm done, eh?
I didn’t mean any disrespect to my Christian friends, I simply loved the togetherness of the singing and wanted to be part of it, but not compromise my religion.
Although I was only seven, I can see now my efforts were an attempt to connect my own place in the world with a wider universal experience.
We live in a world where our social circle increasingly consists of people from different backgrounds. Secret attempts to adjust the words of Christmas carols is probably not the adult way to connect with others, but attempting to find the common points in our experiences and world views does become ever more important.
For example, for the past few years, the Islamic celebration of Eid al Adha, the festival marking the Haj, has fallen close in timing to Christmas. And this year, two festivals of light, Hanukkah and Diwali, fell close by, too. Much the same tinsel, streamers and wrapping paper can be used in the exchange of gifts, whatever your religious position. But more significantly, lessons of common human experience and morality can also be shared.
As someone who has grown up celebrating Eid, but totally immersed in Christmas culture by virtue of living in a Christmas-celebrating environment, I can see more similarities than people might expect. Both festivals mark individuals of great standing in the Abrahamic faiths – Jesus and Abraham. Both allude to a spirit of sacrifice (although with all the shopping and indulgence we may be inclined to forget this). Both have become a time of sharing and family, and remembering people less well off than ourselves.
Am I painting a cuddly, loving picture of interfaith and intercultural harmony? Yes. And why not? If religious and even secular celebrations teach us anything, it’s to share our love and promote togetherness in the hope of living better lives.
Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people around the world are celebrating today. It’s true that some people have turned it into an excuse for consumption and gluttony, spending profligately on presents, food, clothes and partying. But let’s also remember that, for many people across the world, Christmas is a time of pious devotion, the gathering of family, or simply a much-needed rest from the chaos of overly busy lives.
As a child, I found something to connect to in the Christmas carols by making some slight alterations. As an adult, I have found the connections in the similarities with my faith. For all those celebrating Christmas, let us rejoice with those who find their own meaning in the message of today.
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April 12, 2012
The British government has fast-tracked a move to restore the rights of towns and cities to hold prayers as part of their official business, effectively overriding a High Court order to stop the practice, the Religion News Service reports. In February, the High Court ruled that it was illegal for town halls to continue with the centuries-old practice of conducting prayers at the start of official meetings, but Communities Secretary Eric Pickles spearheaded the introduction of a new "general power of competence of local authorities in England" to give new powers to local governments to resume prayers and sidestep the court ruling. The parliamentary order took effect immediately when Pickles signed it on April 6. "Parliament has been clear that councils should have greater freedom from interference," the British government said, adding that the new powers enable councils to "innovate" and "hands them back the freedom to pray." Pickles said the measure "sends a strong signal that this government will protect the role of faith in public life."
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Commercial launch of SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket a success
BY STEPHEN CLARK
Posted: July 14, 2009
A Malaysian satellite rode a Falcon 1 rocket into orbit Monday night, marking the first time the privately-developed booster has successfully launched an operational spacecraft.
But SpaceX, the California-based company that developed the launcher, scored its second straight success Monday, almost nine months after the Falcon 1 first reached orbit last year.
"We nailed the orbit to well within target parameters, pretty much a bullseye," Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, told Spaceflight Now.
Musk confirmed Malaysia's RazakSAT satellite separated from the Falcon 1's upper stage and is communicating with ground controllers.
Monday's launch was the first time the company hauled a customer's satellite into orbit. Last year's success carried only a dummy payload.
The flight began at 0335 GMT Tuesday (11:35 p.m. EDT Monday) with liftoff from SpaceX's launch pad on Omelek Island, a seven-acre strip of land at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The complex is part of the U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site, a missile range in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Liftoff was delayed more than four hours due to a glitch in the rocket's helium system and passing rain showers.
The two-stage rocket pitched east from the launch pad, accelerating through mostly cloudy skies and past the speed of sound less than one minute into flight.
The first stage's kerosene-fueled main engine shut down on schedule about two-and-a-half minutes after launch. The first stage separated and the second stage's Kestrel engine ignited a few moments later.
The payload fairing was jettisoned just past the three-minute mark in the mission, and the Kestrel engine completed its first burn nine-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.
After coasting through space, the Kestrel engine briefly fired again to circularize its orbit.
The 400-pound RazakSAT satellite was deployed nearly one hour after the mission began, ending the Falcon 1's second successful flight.
RazakSAT carries a medium-sized aperture camera with a black-and-white resolution of 8.2 feet and a color resolution of about 16.4 feet, according to ATSB, the Malaysian company that built the satellite.
Flying in an orbit with a low inclination of 9 degrees, RazakSAT will pass over Malaysia up to a dozen times per day, an increase over the coverage of most other satellites.
RazakSAT imagery will be used by researchers, commercial customers and government agencies, according to ATSB.
Applications for the data include agriculture, environmental monitoring, exploration, forestry, mapping, transportation, utilities management, and urban planning.
The six-sided satellite was one of SpaceX's earliest payloads. Standing nearly four feet tall, RazakSAT was originally supposed to launch aboard the Falcon 1's fourth flight.
But Musk vowed to complete a successful test flight of the new rocket before putting the Malaysian satellite on the Falcon 1.
SpaceX will next turn its attention to the maiden launch of the much larger Falcon 9 rocket, a medium-sized booster designed to lift supplies to the international space station.
The Falcon 9 will be based at a Cape Canaveral launch pad now being modified to host the rocket.
Officials say the launcher will be ready for its first flight by the end of this year.
A Falcon 9 test vehicle, partially containing flight hardware, was brought to its Florida launch pad last year and erected for a series of compatibility checks with ground systems.
SpaceX is developing a pressurized cargo carrier called Dragon to fly atop Falcon 9 rockets. The Dragon capsule will deliver cargo to the international space station as part of a contract with NASA.
The next Falcon 1 launch, slated for next year, will be the first flight of an augmented version of the rocket. Called the Falcon 1e, the upgraded booster will feature a more powerful propulsion system to carry twice the payload of the standard Falcon 1.
Final Shuttle Mission Patch
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The crew emblem for the final space shuttle mission is now available in our store. Get this piece of history!
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The final planned flight of space shuttle Endeavour is symbolized in the official embroidered crew patch for STS-134. Available in our store!
Ares 1-X Patch
The official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.
This beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.
The Orion crew exploration vehicle is NASA's first new human spacecraft developed since the space shuttle a quarter-century earlier. The capsule is one of the key elements of returning astronauts to the Moon.
Fallen Heroes Patch Collection
The official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store.
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Cesar Chavez dedication: About 1,000 invitations rescinded
The struggling United Farm Workers union usually has a tough time attracting a crowd at its Kern County events.
But on Monday morning, it had its hands full with more than 7,000 people who had traveled long distances to witness President Obama’s dedication of the three-acre Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in the Tehachapi Mountains between Bakersfield and the Mojave Desert where Chavez was buried.
Only a week ago, National Park Service officials figured about 4,000 people would show up for the dedication of the first national monument to honor a contemporary Mexican American.
As of Monday, about 1,000 people who registered for invitations saw them rescinded by the UFW and Chavez foundation.
Among those turned down was Maricela Mares-Alatorre, a community activist from Kettleman City, an impoverished farming community north of Bakersfield.
“We were uninvited Sunday night,” said Mares-Alatorre, who had planned to accompany 13 other Kettleman City residents including her father, a farm worker who marched in Chavez’s funeral procession in 1993. “They said they were overbooked. We’re heartbroken.”
Marc Grossman, spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Foundation, which, along with the union, is headquartered at the site, said the crowd at the site was the biggest since Chavez died in 1993. “Clearly, we all underestimated the passion people have for Cesar, the farm workers union and the opportunity to see the president,” he said.
Roughly a third of the people in attendance were farm workers who arrived in 32 buses chartered by the UFW. Hundreds more, including schoolchildren from across the Central Valley, came in buses chartered by the National Park Service.
All those vehicles and more were parking wherever they could find space outside the monument site that UFW members know as the Nuestra Reina de La Paz, a shady retreat that served as headquarters of the UFW and Chavez’s residence from 1971 to 1993.
Getting from parking sites to the monument itself was equally trying, given that it is at the end of a narrow winding lane off California 58.
President Obama was expected to lead the dedication ceremony at 11:15 a.m.
“These folks are making big sacrifices to witness history,” Grossman said. “They are having to brave long waits in line to get through the gates and be screened by the Secret Service.
“We announced the event on Wednesday evening and invited people to register online on our website,” he said. “The response was unanticipated and overwhelming. By Friday morning, we had to stop taking requests.”
Over the weekend, the UFW and Chavez foundation officials sent out emails to thousands of people hoping to dissuade them with reminders of the long distances and tedious waits that would be involved.
“Almost no one changed their minds about coming here,” Grossman said. “So we decided to confirm RSVPs based on a first-come, first-served basis.”
By Monday morning, roughly 1,000 invitations had been rescinded, Grossman said.
“Some folks were understandably upset,” he said.
-- Louis Sahagun
Photo: President Obama is greeted after arriving at Bakersfield's Meadows Field Airport Monday morning. Credit: Brendan Smialowski /AFP/GettyImages
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Pollution, oil spills, climate change, overfishing-these are just some of the threats to our planet's water system, resulting in a lack of clean drinking water for millions of people and the devastation of plant and animal life. Teens around the globe are taking action to address these crises. With this guide you can join them. Will you?
Original Price $14.99
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Ibn Warraq reports from Casablanca that a musical satire on YouTube has tickled the funny bone of local Moroccans
The video - No Woman No Drive - by Hisham Fageeh takes a Bob Marley song and with a change of lyrics makes it the perfect response to the Saudi prohibition on women driving. He also manages to get in a line mocking the Saudi Imam who has been ridiculed around the world for saying driving would effect women's ovaries!
Walking past cafes in Casa you can hear the song and the chuckles as people watch it on their phones or iPads. The Marley song has been a Moroccan favourite for years especially with the Gnawa. It seems that the new lyrics may catch on.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive. The ban is informal, rather than enshrined in law.
Activist and writer Tamador Alyami said clarification was needed from the authorities: “They are giving us confusing messages. There’s nothing clear about it, no clear law, no clear punishment, so the message is not clear and that’s why we’re fighting for it.”
The campaign has sparked a wider debate in Saudi society over how women are treated. Social activist and comedian Hisham Fageeh's ironic video, ‘No Woman, No Drive’ was posted ion YouTube on the day of the protest.
Fageeh’s unique twist on Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’ had been viewed more than 140,000 times within hours of being posted online.
While Morocco enjoys good diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, there is a view amongst young Moroccans that Saudi society is repressive and behind the times - especially with its treatment of women. The campaign to allow women to drive in KSA is gaining ground and in the recent protest some 60 women drove in public. Sixteen of them are reported to have been fined around $80. This is a far cry from a few years ago when a woman was jailed for driving.
As part of the latest campaign, dozens of women have posted online videos of themselves driving in different Saudi cities. No-one has been arrested.
The activists behind the campaign believe the public mood is changing, with many more people - including an increasing number of men - publicly supporting the lifting of the ban.
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
[first title card]
Title card: For childhood, Saturday - free from school - is the most changeless of institutions - whether it is in city or village, or main street, or in those vital, teeming streets which were the Brooklyn of a few decades ago.
Francie Nolan: Neeley ...
Neeley Nolan: Uh-huh?
Francie Nolan: Am I good-looking?
Neeley Nolan: Aw, what's eatin' ya?
Francie Nolan: No, honest, Neeley, I wanna know.
Neeley Nolan: [after considering her for a few moments] You'll pass.
Francie Nolan: You're sweet, Neeley.
Neeley Nolan: Aw, cut the mush.
Katie Nolan: Flossie Gaddis died last night.
Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: The poor baby. It was nice that her Mama got her all them pretty dresses.
Katie Nolan: Only now the poor thing will have to lie in Potter's Field!
Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: But at least she had the dresses!
Francie Nolan: [Johnny has promised to get Francie enrolled in the school she admires.] Bend down Papa.
Francie Nolan: My cup runneth over.
Francie Nolan: Out the window, our tree they killed it!
Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Well, would you like at that now.
Francie Nolan: They didn't have any right to kill it did they papa!
Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Now wait a minute. They didn't kill it. Why they couldn't kill that tree.
Francie Nolan: Promise?
Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Why sure baby. Don't tell me that tree is gonna lay down and die that easily. Look at that tree. See where it's coming from. Right up outta that cement! Didn't nobody plant it. Didn't ask the cement to grow. It just couldn't help growing so much it just pushed that old cement out of the way. Now when you bust it with something like that, can't anybody help it, like... like that little ole bird up there. He didn't ask anybody could he sing and he certainly didn't take any lessons. He's so full of singing it just has to bust out someplace. Why they could cut that ole tree right down to the ground and a root would push up someplace else in the cement.
Francie Nolan: Mama says not to be too late, Papa.
Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Look, God invented time and when He invents something, there's always plenty of it.
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Most of Forsyth County sheriff’s SWAT raids are for drug arrests
FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. — Near the back wall of Sheriff Bill Schatzman’s office in downtown Winston-Salem stands a plaque that says he was among the few people who started the SWAT program at the FBI in the early 1970s, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
“We mirrored that after the Los Angeles police department and New York City police department,” Schatzman said.
“That grew into what it is today, and certainly the same basic theology is there. The same basic tenets are there. The equipment’s better and the technology is a little bit faster, quicker. But the SWAT theory was that they’re more highly trained law enforcement officers … to be involved in special operations that are high risk – the stuff that the beat cop doesn’t walk into – and their purpose is to save lives,” he said.
Schatzman and Maj. Beth Pritchard, during an hour-long interview with the Journal, talked about the way the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office runs its SWAT team, about a month after the American Civil Liberties Union released a report on the militarization of police departments nationwide.
Among the several concerns raised by the ACLU: law enforcement agencies deploying SWAT units for what it considers inappropriate situations, such as standard law enforcement duties as executing search warrants for drugs, and not those involving active shooters or hostages.
Another central point of the ACLU report was that the rising use of SWAT teams for drug raids comes as support for the war on drugs wanes, a trend highlighted by voters’ views on marijuana. Twenty-three states have passed referenda since the 1990s legalizing marijuana for medicinal use. Two of them – Washington and Colorado – have also legalized recreational use of the drug.
SWAT mostly used for drug raids
Like his counterpart, Barry Rountree, the chief of the Winston-Salem Police Department, Schatzman oversees a law enforcement agency that has used its SWAT team more often for situations involving suspected drug violations – coupled with suspicions of a dangerous suspect – than for any other purpose.
In the year ending June 30, the Sheriff’s Office’s SWAT team was activated, or called up, 16 times, according to incident reports obtained by the Winston-Salem Journal through public record requests.
Of those, three activations, all involving a barricaded subject, were canceled because officers on the scene handled the situation, officials said. A fourth activation – an incident involved “swatting,” or a hoax call – was also canceled. It’s tough to say why someone would engage in swatting, Pritchard said: “We just know that there is a phenomenon of people who call in hoax calls and our telecommunicators and deputies do their very best to identify those calls when placed.”
In the end, the SWAT team was activated and used 12 times during the year – mostly to execute search warrants for drugs.
By comparison, the Winston-Salem Police Department, which covers a larger population, deployed its SWAT team more than 40 times during the year ending May 31, mostly to execute drug search warrants.
SWAT teams are being used more often, Schatzman said, because these are different times.
“You can talk about the number of times SWAT gets used today as opposed 20 years ago or 30, 40 years ago,” Schatzman said.
“Well, 30, 40 years ago we didn’t have police officers in schools. Today we have that. The world is a little more dangerous place,” Schatzman said. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, Schatzman said, it’s not all too strange for him to wonder whether one of the planes flying out of Smith Reynolds Airport may inexplicably turn course and fly into a downtown building.
“We live in that kind of world now,” he said.
“We’ve learned by experience that people involved in illegal activity, especially illegal drugs, are usually equipped with guns,” he said.
Little is known about deployments
There is little room for error when law enforcement agencies use SWAT teams, the ACLU report said, highlighting several tragic cases, among them a raid in which a flash-bang grenade was thrown in a crib holding a baby.
“Awful. Terrible. Bad,” Schatzman said.
“I have been in an operation personally where we hit the wrong house because the information was bad. The informant gave us bad information,” Schatzman said, referring to his time with the FBI about 40 years ago.
Asked how the public can know whether the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office is using its SWAT team judiciously, Schatzman said that his deputies make decisions based on the information they have with the overall aim of enforcing the law and protecting lives.
“The point is: You work with the information you have and you try to gather within the circumstance of time all of the information that you need, and then you deploy. And it should be done judiciously, with great restraint and as a tactic of last resort,” he said.
Both the Winston-Salem Police Department and Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office have a chain of command through which decisions on SWAT deployments must pass. On the back end, both law enforcement agencies have a review process to talk about what worked and what didn’t.
However, there is little transparency on that aspect of the process.
Neither the police department nor the sheriff’s office would agree to make public their “After Action Reports” related to SWAT deployments, citing exemptions in state public record laws.
Moving ahead, the police department and sheriff’s office are trying to get more body cameras, a move that is supported by Mike Meno, a spokesman for the ACLU-NC.
Those cameras may hold the key for increased public oversight of SWAT activities. But much depends on what policies may govern the use of those cameras – whether police officers will be able to stop recording and whether they will make the video available to the public, Meno said.
“North Carolinians deserve to know that law enforcement officers are there to protect and to serve, and not abuse their power,” he said.
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The team is developing a web-based ecosystem of software and hardware to create embodied collective interaction with media, and particularly with sound and music. In this context, the challenge we propose is to invent, design and develop novel scenarios, interactive paradigms, gameplay – by means of any artistic form with a strong emphasis on sonic aspects – that implement, support and/or question human / human interaction through the mediation of these technologies.
In a close collaboration with the Sound Music Movement team (IRCAM) this project proposes the creation of a sonic environment from which emerges an interactive and collective musical work. Configured as a mix of musical set and installation, this musical space will have cell phones as main tools and instruments. It proposes to shift towards a new paradigm for musical score through the appropriation of web audio tools, mobile technologies and musical instruments. In this context, the musical score is replaced by a collective game whose rules are implied in the instruments interface, visual representation, spatial arrangement, forms of interaction, and sound profiles. The participants (audience) are invited to navigate between codes and different types of visual representation: QR codes, drawings, tablatures, calligrams. In this proposition, music writing is conceived as collective actions that unify sound, sound representation and gestures in a multidimensional space. This results in highly shifty musical and interaction forms that alternatesconstella(c)tions and pop-up musical forms.
Michelle Agnes Magalhaes
Michelle Agnes Magalhaes is a Brazilian composer whose music explores the limits between gesture and writing, composition and improvisation. She has been awarded fellowships, residences and commissions from Radcliffe Institute (Harvard University), Fapesp, Camargo Foundation, Villa Sträuli, Brazilian Culture Minister, Fondazione Giorgio Cini Venezia, IRCAM and Siemens Foundation. Her compositions are about the production of sound and physicality. She focus on raw materials, creating complex sounds inside forms that are geometric and structured. Magalhaes also places a high premium on the engagement of the musician's body with her performance, as well as new approaches to traditional instruments and instrumentation.
The goal of the Constella(c)tions project was to develop new paradigms for screenless and collective musical interaction, repurposing web and mobile technologies. Constella(c)tions unfolds as a set of collective musical games and interactive pieces involving various gestures, body movements and action of performers and/or public within open musical environments (open work). The project is inscribed in a practice-based methodology with the aim of exploring and developing further technological tools dedicated to playing sounds using the motion sensors embedded in smartphones. In this context, the residency allowed the composer to create new musical pieces, involving various performers, from professional music ensemble to pedagogical action in schools, as well as including the general public in performances. Feedback and continued discussions and experimentations allowed the team to constantly and reflectively revise both the interaction design and technology. The gained experience ultimately allowed them to design a new version of the technological ecosystem. The results are thus intrinsically of a hybrid nature, beyond strict scientific and artistic boundaries, and allowed to reconsider the technical setup from a novel epistemic point of view. Several new projects have already been engaged, with dancers, musicians, as well as pedagogical actions. The project created novel ways to engage the public, aiming at fostering social interaction and inclusion.
Final video of the residency
Interview with Michelle-Agnès Magalhaes at CENTQUATRE Paris, during the STARTS Residencies Days
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While many of the teachers are great, some are very ineffective. There are some classes where the students do not know what is expected of them and where requirements for assignments can change randomly for certain people.
There is a lack of communication between teachers as on many days students can come home with very lengthy assignments from each subject as well as being given no time to work on them in class. Some classes have even had to have students come in during the study hall period in order to get assignments they could not hand out in class.
No, from the teachers that bully special needs kids, to the staff members who will lower your grade for "criticizing" a class when talking about how they struggle in it. This school will not develop any of these traits in their students as ultimately it will more than likely cause many to become very cynical and cold towards others.
There has been at least one instance in this school where a child who had done something wrong and had not been punished went to the teacher and confessed what they had done. They felt that what they had done had not been noticed, so being honest they told the teacher of what they had done. To this the teacher told them that they were "just going to give them a break, but since they wanted to be punished they would be happy to do that." What does this teach our students? That it is better to lie and get away with something than to be honest and just get punished for it? Please tell me how this builds any sort of mortal characteristics at all.
This school does help give some sense of respect towards most of the teachers, however, it gives many students a "I only give respect to those who deserve it" attitude. Which will lead to many students actually hating and mocking their teachers behind their back, however, for the most part; Respect is developed.
This school does have quite a few decent qualities, however, there are more negatives than positives in this school. While you may get a decent education with quite a few of the courses (mainly in the fields of math, science, and history) you are likely to find massive problems with other areas of the school. The first of these core fundamental problems is their treatment of special needs kids, especially with some examples of at least one staff member actually bullying them and treating them as lesser beings or "inconveniences". The second one is the problem with the rules and their enforcement. There is a massive amount of inconsistencies within the school as well. One of the core problems being the dress code and its enforcement. Though it specifically states in the student handbook that there are no extremely short shorts allowed or low cut tops a majority of students wear these and only a few are ever punished. This is only made worse by the fact that only certain teachers only seem to enforce it, much to the dismay of the principal's statement of how they would all do their part to enforce it. Another problem with the dress code seems to be with special events. The school regularly has things like "Dress-Up Days" where students can dress up in costumes based on the day's theme. However, it appears some teachers do not get the memo as on these days most of the staff will be fine with these costumes. However, some have been known to become very hostile if one of these costumes has a hat as a part of it. Hats have always been a part of a mock holy war within the school as the principal is very fanatical about hats not being worn inside (except for on days where you dress up, of course in which he is fine with that). While that is perfectly acceptable some teachers will become very aggressive towards you for wearing a hat in school on these dress-up days. So, in essence there needs to be consistency on that aspect of the school ruling because when it comes to a lot of these "school rules" there are too many mixed messages for a student to possibly understand what is acceptable. This can also transfer over into the class as well. As there are some teachers who love to have discussions with their students and small debates where in others your grade can actually suffer for questioning a teacher. So, in the end, do not go to this school.
Bottineau Elementary Central School is the worst elementary school in ND. The administration is terrible, specifically the Principal and the Superintendent. The retired principal had a problem with "keeping his hands to himself" and abused children in the school. This of course, got swept under the rug for numerous years. I have been asked to "leave" the school if I had a problem with things and go somewhere else. If you have a child with special needs, you're better off homeschooling. They don't care for special needs children, as they perceive them as a burden and an inconvenience to them. They have zero experience with special education and have zero knowledge or training in it. All the teachers are associated with the administration and they all back each other up and continue to teach poorly. If your child is getting bullied, you will be the one getting a phone call for your child being seen sticking up for themselves. There are apparently no para's to watch special needs or other children in school and on the school bus. I can't stress enough how terrible this school district is. Don't send your child to Bottineau school district, home school or move! Awful school.
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Thursday, October 21st has been coined as the Affordable Textbooks Day Of Action. Students from over 40 campuses will speak out against expensive textbooks by hosting presentations, sending emails and talking with professors directly. This is part of the Student PIRGs, Make Textbooks Affordable campaign. The campaign has been in effect since 2003, and focuses on the following areas:
Passing Laws: As of July 1st, 2010 schools need to provide a list to students of the books required for their courses before classes begin. This allows students to have more time to explore other channels such as buying or renting textbooks online. Additionally, publishers will need to offer bundled items separately, allowing students to have more control over which items they choose to purchase for class.
Promoting Open Textbooks: Increasing the popularity of open textbooks is another primary initiative of the campaign. Instead of costing $150-$200 per textbook, open source textbooks allow students to download and read content for free.
Exposing the Problem: Getting the media to address the cost of expensive textbooks to raise awareness among the general American public is also critical. In fact, the campaign was mentioned in today’s New York Times article.
Promoting Used Books: Encouraging students to shop online for used textbooks, or by swapping with friends and classmates is great way for students to save money and to combat publishers who undermine the used book industry by releasing similar, but new editions of textbooks every couple years.
Establishing Rental Programs: Encouraging cost-saving textbook rental programs to become more prevalent on college campuses and online. On average, students who rent textbooks spend between $130-$240 per year opposed to $900 spent by students who buy; a savings of about $700.
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President Bush to Request $75 Billion for War
According to White House officials, the United States will bear the brunt of the war costs but is looking to other countries to assist with some of the humanitarian costs.
“There is a commitment from nations to help in the humanitarian aspects of helping the Iraqi people with the reconstruction costs that will be incurred,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. “So there will be some effort, but clearly this is going to be something the United States is taking the lead in.”
The supplemental budget reportedly includes approximately $62 billion for a month-long Iraq war and increased funds for the war on terrorism, $4 billion for homeland security, and more than $7.5 billion for foreign aid.
Regional allies — including Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey — are in line for economic aid to compensate for the expected impact of the war on their economies.
Monday’s meeting was a preview of the bill that the president will announce Tuesday during a visit to the Pentagon.
The White House’s emergency supplemental bill will arrive on Capitol Hill while Congress is still debating the more than $2 trillion 2004 budget. Democrats and some Republicans wanted the war budget included in the administration’s proposed 2004 budget, but the administration proposed it after the House had already passed the budget last week.
“I think that the Congress has known all along that a supplemental was coming,” Fleischer said. “There have been any number of discussion in the open media about what the range would be.”
The Senate, which trimmed $100 billion from the total $726 billion President Bush requested for tax cuts, is expected to pass the 2004 budget midweek. The House and Senate are expected to put the reconciliation of the two bills on a fast track, passing a final bill in two weeks.
The budget request comes as the U.S. economy struggles to recover, but Fleischer said that once the war is over, the economy should improve.
“There may still be some underlying economic factors that need to be addressed,” he said. “One of the best ways, in the president’s judgement, to address them is by Congress passing an economic stimulus that helps grow the economy and create jobs.”
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Har du hørt om denne bog? Jeg fik bogen som en gave før jeg flyttede til Danmark (for at hjælpe mig lære alting om danskerne så jeg vil blive lykkelig i mit nye land....)
Have you heard of this book? I received it as a gift before I moved to DK (in order to help me learn everything I need to know about the Danes so I could be happy in my new country....)
Jeg viste bogen til mine elever mens vi lærte om xenophobia i amerikas fortid (da vi læste Lorraine Hansberrys "A Raisin in the Sun" sammen).... og de var meget nysgerrig for at høre mere om hvad forfætter har skrevet om dem (især fordi han er ikke dansk!). Før jeg viste alting han har skrevet, spurgte jeg dem at lave deres egen "Xenophobes Guide to the Danes"...inklusiv alle ting some de tror er vigtig for immigrants til Danmark at lære så de kan have en lykkelig liv i her.
I showed this book to one of my classes as we were studying the idea of xenophobia in US History (as we were reading Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" together)...and they were really interested to find out what the author had said about them (especially since the author is not a Dane!) However, before I showed them the book's contents, I asked them to make their own "Xenophobe's Guide to the Danes"... including all the things they think are important for immigrants to Denmark to know and understand in order to have a successful life here.
Jeg var meget imponerede med deres opgaver som de afleverede. Og selv om jeg har boet i Danmark næsten 2 år, lærte de mig masser ting! Så uden kendskab om bogen, kan du gætte hvad de har skrevet i deres personlige Xenophobes Guide to the Danes?
I was really impressed with their work that they handed in and although I have lived in Denmark almost 2 years, they ended up teaching me lots of things! So without knowledge of this book, can you guess what they wrote in their personal Xenophobe's Guide to the Danes?
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This software offers a solution for users who want to convert multiple DjVu to EPUB files. The user chooses the files or an entire folder to be processed before starting the conversion. Using this time saving software, even large numbers of files can be handled with one click.
Geometrical design and strength check of common chain transmissions using roller chains.The application works with many 2D and 3D CAD systems and includes corresponding databases of roller chains from ANSI/ASME, ACA, ISO, DIN, BS and JIS.
Downloads: 94725 - Shareware - Download Now
Paint is a drawing tool you can use to create simple drawings. This program is similar to well-known desktop program Paint. Unlike desktop version, PDA version is more comfortable, because you can draw directly on touch screen with stylus.
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DWG to DXF Converter Pro is a batch DWG and DXF bi-directional converter that allows you to convert DWG to DXF, DXF to DWG without the need of AutoCAD. It is also an AutoCAD drawing file version converter. The Pro version supports command line.
Downloads: 99023 - Shareware - Download Now
Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on the Ribbon of Microsoft Publisher 2010. All new features of Publisher 2010 have been added into the software. You don`t need any training or tutorials if you use Publisher 2003/XP/2000 before.
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Geometric and strength designs of helical compression cylindrical springs loaded with static or fatigue loading.
Application supports Imperial and Metric units, is based on ANSI, ISO, DIN standards and support many 2D and 3D
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Cameroon’s coffee production has been suffering from long-term decline, but the New Generation programme aims to rejuvenate the industry by attracting younger producers. Reports Mahamat Ben Abdel in Yaoundé.
Coffee Production has been suffering from a long-term decline in Cameroon. According to figures released on 4 April 2018 by Cameroon’s National Cocoa and Coffee Board (NCCB), coffee production was 20,270 tonnes in the 2016–17 season, a decline of nearly 20% on the 24,500 tonnes produced in the 2015–16 season. This contrasts with exports of 156,000 tonnes of coffee in 1990.
In an effort to rejuvenate the industry, Cameroon’s Cocoa and Coffee Inter-professional Council (CCIC) launched the New Generation programme in 2012. It seeks to attract younger people into coffee cultivation and renew the trees on the plantations to make them more productive.
In December 2017, an assessment of the programme showed that 95 young people had completed the process, planting a hectare of plants each. This year, the enrolment of 300 young people has been announced. For the chairman of the CCIC, Apollinaire Ngwé, the involvement of these young people in the reinvigoration of the industry is an absolute necessity: “Thanks to these young people and the availability of seeds, three years from now we will be able to raise production levels.”
A promising trend
It was against this background that the sixth edition of the “Festival du Café” (Festicoffee) was held on 4 April. It was an opportunity for the minister of commerce, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, to talk with the producers and evaluate the progress made in the industry.
“The trend is promising”, said Michael Ndoping, general manager of the NCCB, as did Joseph Mouen Bedimo, deputy general manager of the Agricultural Research Institute for Development and Omer Maledy, executive secretary of the CCIC. In support of their statements they mentioned the introduction of improved seed varieties made available to numerous coffee growers and initiatives intended to encourage the growing and consumption of coffee around the country.
Local processing is also, and more than ever, on the agenda. Only 2% of the total output is consumed locally. However, the volume of coffee processed locally grew from 3,786 tonnes in 2015–16 to 5,610 tonnes in 2016–17, a rise of 148%. In 2014 and 2015, Cameroon processed only 448 tonnes of its own coffee. In the space of three seasons, the quantities processed locally have therefore jumped by 1,252%. According to Mbarga Atangana, “Cameroon is currently one of the 80 countries, including five in Africa, at the forefront of promoting local consumption.”
In February 2018, the government announced the setting up of a CFA900m ($1.7m) fund to stimulate the coffee industry by accelerating the local production and industrialisation of coffee (75% of the coffee consumed locally is imported).
As early as September 2014, the government had adopted a plan to re-invigorate and develop the cocoa and coffee industries by 2020, with the aim of increasing production of cocoa to 600,000 tonnes and of coffee to 160,000 tonnes (125,000 tonnes of Robusta and 35,000 tonnes of Arabica). For coffee this plan is in addition to the development strategy drawn up in 2010 by the Ministry of Commerce with the support of the Inter-national Trade Centre in Geneva.
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The most striking glacial erosional features are associated with alpine glaciation. In fact, rugged mountainous areas can be made even more spectacular by glacial action. Alpine glaciers transform V‐shaped valleys made by streams into deeper U‐shaped valleys called
glacial troughs—the ice is too massive to follow the stream bed and pushes right through, scouring out a U shape. The ice also erodes away the ends of any ridges along the valley walls. These eroded ridges are called
truncated spurs. The valleys of tributaries can also be truncated, forming
hanging valleys that are higher than the main valley and often marked by waterfalls.
The mass of ice at the top of a glacial valley ultimately forms a steep‐sided, circular hollow called a cirque. Mass wasting and frost wedging also contribute to the formation of a cirque. A bergschrund is a crevasse that forms where the glacier separates from the cirque wall and is commonly filled with rock fall debris. A horn is a sharply defined peak that has formed from erosional processes along the rim of the cirque. A steep ridge called an arete commonly extends downward from a horn to separate two adjacent glacial valleys.
An advancing glacier scours out a series of depressions in the underlying bedrock, which later fill with water and become rock‐basin lakes, or tarns. Tarns are best developed in softer or highly fractured bedrock. Tarns are less common on smooth, hard bedrock surfaces because it is more difficult for the glacier to “grab hold” and break off pieces of rock.
Ice sheets, with their slower rates of movement and greater weight, tend to grind down and smooth out the irregular, or sometimes mountainous, underlying surface. Exposed bedrock is polished and striated. The rounded geologic landforms and extensive, flat, bedrock surfaces in Ontario, Canada, are good examples of how an ice sheet affects the surface.
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Posts Tagged «ATX»
ExtremeTech’s guide to air cooling your PC May 3, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Blowing room-temperature air across heatsinks is an effective way to mitigate heat. This guide aims to help you maximize air flow through your case.
How a Computer Restarts June 9, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Have you ever wondered how a computer restarts? When your computer is seemingly powered down for a second or two, how does it roar back to life
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Wallbarn’s new hdpe a15 drainage channel is suitable for pedestrian and lightly trafficked areas. It is designed to collect surface water off paved or asphalted areas and move that water away towards an underground drainpipe or escape route. The anti-slip, hardwearing galvanised steel grate maintains structural integrity across the area, so foot traffic and very light vehicles can pass over the drain without issue.
It has many applications:
domestic applications; such as driveways, gardens & patios
public areas; such as pedestrian walkways, door thresholds, squares, recreational areas, schools, parks and playing fields.
Wallbarn's drainage channel is CE marked and fully certified to Load Class A15 BS EN 1433. It is eco-friendly and 100% recyclable. The Protecto-drain Drainage Channel is designed to be installed quickly and easily. It simply slots in front of the building entrance or within the paved / asphalt area and provides an un-obstructed channel cross-section. All slots and measurement grooves run the whole way through the channel so side bars can also be installed into cut channels successfully.
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When I was about 15 my dad tried to force me into reading The Wealthy Barber in the hopes I’d glean some skills about how to manage my meagre babysitting money and earnings from my part time job at the video store. “Ugh,” said teenaged me. “Stop telling me what to do.”
Sigh. I wish I had listened a bit more closely to either one them and their advice, because I spent most of my 20s in a constant state of awful consumer and student loan debt. By my 30s I knew something had to change and I pulled up my socks and got on track. Today I would call myself an excellent budgeter and moderate saver – not too frugal but not too spendy – and one of my biggest goals is to instill financial literacy in my son.
I asked Gurpal Siekham, the branch manager from Westminster Savings, for some simple advice about getting on track with a savings plan. “It is never too late to start saving money or to become good at saving money,’ said Gurpal.
“I like to tell clients to keep it simple.” Continue reading “Saving Money Simply”
A love for boxing brought Robyn Murrell to fitness.
Now the New Westminster personal trainer is planning to use some of that sport’s training techniques to help people living with Parkinson’s stay active and fit.
Parkinson’s is a progressive brain disease that robs sufferers of their fine motor skills, their mobility and sometimes even their ability to communicate. It often strikes when people are about to retire and enjoy the fruits of their life’s toil, but younger people aren’t immune from its symptoms.
Nobody knows what causes Parkinson’s, but some of its more famous sufferers include former boxers like Muhammed Ali, perhaps paying the price for years of blows to the head.
It’s that connection to her beloved sport that lit a bulb over Murrell’s head. Continue reading “New exercise program for people living with Parkinson’s to launch in New West”
Estate planning: it may be scary, but it is very necessary.
Boring Adult Stuff like Powers of Attorney, Wills, and appointing a guardian for my child were on my to-do list for an embarrassingly high number of years. For years I (wrongly) believed that because I had no assets aside from a giant pile of student loans I didn’t need any planning documents.
Eighteen months ago I finally got my act together. On the pain in the butt scale, I’d rate it a 6.5 for having to find the time to make an appointment, arrange all the paperwork, seek and ask a guardian, and have a really important conversation with myself and my spouse about medical interventions. And it honestly wasn’t that cheap, either. But the truth is that it was a small amount of hassle for a whole bunch of peace of mind and I felt actual relief when it was done. And now I can forget all about it unless my circumstances change.
If you don’t yet have your act together here is an overview of what documents you might need and who can help. It probably goes without saying, but this post isn’t legal advice at all, and you should definitely seek the advice of a professional for your own personal situation. There are low or no cost services out there too, so don’t let cost be the reason you don’t get your act together.
Continue reading “Get ‘Er Done, New West”
Exciting criterium coming in May!
The B.C. provincial criterium championships are scheduled for the Royal City on May 28. The Hyack Festival Grand Prix will be held in conjunction with the annual Hyack Festival parade.
And while a course has yet to be finalized, David Brett, the race organizer, said the event will add to the excitement in Uptown on parade day.
“This will be one more reason for people to head Uptown, camp out for a few hours and take in a high-level sporting event,” said Brett.
A criterium is a high-speed competition in which riders circumnavigate a closed course one to two kilometre long dozens of times. The provincials will consist of races for juniors, senior men and women, as well as masters.
Continue reading “High speed bike racing is coming to Uptown New Westminster”
Plant-fueled local Melissa Maltais gives you some ideas.
If you are looking to incorporate more Meatless Monday meals into your weekly dinner rotation for health and economic benefits this year, New Westminster is a great place to shop for obscure and new-to-you plant based ingredients. Here is a handy guide for anyone looking for unfamiliar ingredients around New Westminster. Continue reading “Trying On a Plant-Based Diet”
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Potentially deadly heart condition plagues family members around same age
Ascending, descending, and abdominal aortas.Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Elefteriades and the Aortic Institute at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut
People with a family member who had an aortic dissection — a spontaneous tear in one of the body’s main arteries — should take note of the age that family member was when the aortic dissection occurred. According to a new study published online in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, aortic dissections have the potential to run in families and often occur within 10 years of the same age.
“This study allows us to better appreciate the playbook of aortic dissection,” said John A. Elefteriades, MD, of the Aortic Institute at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. “Knowing how dissection operates — in this case, at what age dissections are likely to occur in a specific family — permits us to combat it more effectively and save many lives.”
Dr. Elefteriades, along with lead author Alan S. Chou, BA and other colleagues, determined that aortic dissections tend to cluster by age in family members. The group reviewed information for 298 aortic dissection patients treated from 1990 to 2014 at the Aortic Institute at Yale. Detailed family histories were available for 90 patients. Among these patients, more than 50% of familial dissections occurred within a 10-year age span, and the odds increased within certain age groups.
For patients who experienced an aortic dissection between the ages of 30 to 49 years, 71% of familial dissections occurred in that timeframe. For those aged 60 to 79 years at the time of onset, 80% of other family member dissections occurred beyond the age of 50 years.
“Family history is very important and is one factor in our ‘guilt by association paradigm’ for identifying patients at risk,” explained Dr. Elefteriades. “If a family member suffered an aortic aneurysm or aortic dissection, chances are at least 1 in 8 that you may experience something similar in the future.”
When an aortic dissection occurs, blood moves through a tear in the wall of the aorta and causes the inner and middle layers of the aorta to separate (dissect). In most cases, the aorta was made vulnerable by an aortic aneurysm, which is a balloon-like bulge in the aorta. Risk factors for tearing include poorly controlled high blood pressure, injury to the chest, extreme exertion, illicit drug abuse, as well as connective tissue disorders such as Marfan Syndrome. Symptoms are similar to a heart attack, and once a tear develops, severe, knife-like chest pain usually results.
Aortic dissection is relatively rare and can be fatal. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that each year, a ruptured or dissecting thoracic aortic aneurysm is the primary or contributing cause in more than 15,000 deaths in the US. When an aortic dissection occurs in the first part of the aorta (ascending aorta), up to 90% of patients can be saved with emergency surgery. But as many as 40% of people with aortic dissections die instantly, and the risk of the death increases 1% every hour the diagnosis and surgical repair are delayed, according to the “Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Patients With Thoracic Aortic Disease” from multiple societies, including the American Heart Association and The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Olympic volleyball star Flo Hyman and actors Lucille Ball and John Ritter all died from thoracic aortic dissections.
Early detection and enhanced clinical management are possible when family patterns are considered during the clinical decision-making process, according to this study. Dr. Elefteriades stated that family members of dissectors are important candidates for prophylactic (preventative) screening (CT, MRI and transthoracic echocardiogram), with frequent and careful surveillance beginning 10 to 15 years before the age of the family member who had a dissection.
“If patients are approaching the age at which one of their family members suffered an aortic dissection, they need to be very vigilant,” said Dr. Elefteriades. “If patients have aneurysms in their family, get checked. If they have premature sudden death in their family, get checked. If they themselves have an aneurysm, comply with regular follow-up visits.”
In addition, the study suggests that in patients known to have moderate-sized aneurysms and a family history of aortic dissection, prophylactic surgery should be strongly considered as those patients reach the age of their family member’s dissection.
“We can keep patients safe once we know they are at risk,” said Dr. Elefteriades. “Be reassured that with many thoracic aortic aneurysms, a full, normal life expectancy can be restored after protective aortic surgery.”
Source: The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
- Chou A, Ma W, Mok S, Ziganshin B, Peterss S, Rizzo J, Tranquilli M, and Elefteriades J. Do Familial Aortic Dissections Tend to Occur at the Same Age? Annals of Thoracic Surgery, August 2016 DOI:10.1016/j.athoracsur.2016.06.007
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Bishop Manning said he did not sign nor authorise the circulation of the petition because of the “tone of dissent it contains” and added that much of the current discussion on priestly celibacy overlooked the traditional teaching of the Church.
“Although the concept of priestly celibacy has been increasingly and sometimes stridently questioned, the Church has been constant in reaffirming the importance of clerical celibacy,” Bishop Manning wrote in response to a question asked of him on the Parramatta Archdiocese website.
"Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes."
Bishop Manning added celibacy was esteemed because of its connection with charity and Jesus Himself stated that celibacy was a gift and that Priests must bear witness that theirs is a "happy sacrifice".
“There are Christological, ecclesiological and eschatological reasons for celibacy, all based in the special communion with Christ to which priests are called,” he said.
“It is a much deeper reality, which affects the priest's being, not only the functions he carries out.
“The example of Christ Celibacy is the example that Christ Himself left us. In choosing to be celibate, He left us an example of total dedication to God.
"Priests need to live close to Christ so that they will pour out God's goodness and love into their ministry of service.”
Questions bishops are asked (Catholic Outlook, November 2007)
LINKS (not necessarily endorsed by Church Resources)
Diocese of Parramatta
Responses to Bishop Manning's statement on the Petition (Catholica Australia 28/10/07)
Alternative priests´ council hits back on mandatory celibacy (CathNews, 28/01/05)
Council of Priests argues for married clergy (CathNews 27/1/05)
Bishops´ Secretary confirms priests´ survey on celibacy (CathNews 31/10/04)
US priests urge optional celibacy (CathNews 21/8/03)
New Vatican Clergy Cardinal dampens celibacy speculation (CathNews 05/12/06)
Survey of Australian priests' finds 71% question compulsory celibacy (CathNews 29/09/04)
Pell call to preserve celibacy rule (CathNews 12/10/05)
5 Nov 2007
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| ||Format||Pages||Price|| |
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Significance and Use
4.1 Numerous ASTM test methods and practices (for example: Test Methods and , and Practices and ) report colony counts as their measured parameter.
4.2 These practices provide a uniform set of counting, calculating, and reporting procedures for ASTM test methods in microbiology.
A—Counting Colonies on Membrane Filters
B—Counting Colonies on Pour Plates
C—Counting Colonies on Spread Plates
4.3 The counting rules provide a best attainable estimate of microorganisms in the sample, since the samples cannot be held and reanalyzed at a later date.
1.1 These practices cover recommended procedures for counting colonies and reporting colony-forming units (CFU) on membrane filters (MF) and standard pour and spread plates.
1.2 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard. No other units of measurement are included in this standard.
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.
2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.
D1129 Terminology Relating to Water
D5259 Test Method for Isolation and Enumeration of Enterococci from Water by the Membrane Filter Procedure
D5392 Test Method for Isolation and Enumeration of Escherichia Coli in Water by the Two-Step Membrane Filter Procedure
D6161 Terminology Used for Microfiltration, Ultrafiltration, Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis Membrane Processes
D6974 Practice for Enumeration of Viable Bacteria and Fungi in Liquid Fuels--Filtration and Culture Procedures
E2563 Practice for Enumeration of Non-Tuberculosis Mycobacteria in Aqueous Metalworking Fluids by Plate Count Method
Other Standards9215 Heterotrophic Plate Count Available online from http://standardmethods.org/store/ProductView.cfm?ProductID=102, or from American Public Health Association (APHA), Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 800 I Street, NW Washington, DC 20001, http://www.apha.org.
ICS Number Code 07.100.20 (Microbiology of water)
|Link to Active (This link will always route to the current Active version of the standard.)|
ASTM D5465-16, Standard Practices for Determining Microbial Colony Counts from Waters Analyzed by Plating Methods, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2016, www.astm.orgBack to Top
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What Are the Important Things You Need To Know About Painting Your Nails?
1. Paint your nails in three strokes. Beginning at the base of your nail, stroke the nail brush to the left, then to the right, and then down the middle.
2. Always apply a base coat. Base coat delivers the colored polish something to stick to, making your manicure last longer, plus it helps prevent staining on your nails when you’re using pigmented ones.
3. Reuse your old lip brush to help clean up the sides of your nail. Dip your old lip brush into nail polish remover and swipe it all over your nail bed to clean up the sides.
4. Avoid quick-dry nail polish. It’s usually dehydrating and can make your nails really dry.
5. Apply cuticle oil frequently. Cuticle oil does the magic of making your hands and nails instantly hydrated.
6. Hold both hands in cold water post-paint job. Dipping your fingertips into cold or ice water for a bit helps them dry faster.
7. Make neon paint even brighter. Apply a white or any opaque nude shade as your first coat of polish. This will make neons colors to be sheer and look thicker.
8. Apply thin coats of polish. One of the best techniques to get your polish to dry more quickly is to apply three thin coats of nail paint rather than two thick layers.
9. Don’t shake your nail polish. To avoid air bubbles forming in the lacquer or on your nails as you paint it on, hold the nail polish bottle vertically between your two hands and then roll the bottle back and forth.
10. Use non-acetone polish remover whenever possible.
11. Always apply a top coat. Swipe a top coat to the very tip of your nail to protect it from chipping from keyboard typing.
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In atom probe tomography (APT), a technique that has been used to determine 3D maps of ion compositions of metals and semiconductors at sub-nanometer resolutions, controlled emissions of ions can be induced from needle-shaped specimens in the vicinity of a strong electric field. Detection of these ions in the plane of a position sensitive detector provides two-dimensional compositional information while the sequence of ion arrival at the detector provides information in the third dimension. Here we explore the use of APT technology for imaging biological specimens. We demonstrate that it is possible to obtain 3D spatial distributions of cellular ions and metabolites from unstained, freeze-dried mammalian cells. Multiple peaks were reliably obtained in the mass spectrum from tips with diameters of ∼50. nm and heights of ∼200. nm, with mass-to-charge ratios (m/z) ranging from 1 to 80. Peaks at m/z 12, 23, 28 and 39, corresponding to carbon, sodium, carbonyl and potassium ions respectively, showed distinct patterns of spatial distribution within the cell. Our studies establish that APT could become a powerful tool for mapping the sub-cellular distribution of atomic species, such as labeled metabolites, at 3D spatial resolutions as high as ∼1. nm.
- Atom probe tomography
- Chemical imaging
- Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Structural Biology
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A landmark debate on cycling will take place in the House of Commons on Monday, September 2, when MPs will debate the findings of the Get Britain Cycling report. This calls on the Government to increase investment in cycling across the UK.
This debate came about because almost 70,000 people signed a petition. The next step is to write to your MP and ask them to attend the debate on your behalf.
The result could improve safety for the 750,000 cyclists who already commute to work by bike in Britain, and also have a significant impact in reducing traffic jams for motorists, easing overcrowding on public transport and saving millions from local health budgets.
Act on this here.
- The number of journeys to train stations by bicycle has increased by 40 per cent since 2009, to 39 million this year: more than half of the 107,000 daily bike rides are made by commuters. Read more.
- There will be a widespread ban on cars in London within the next 20 years, according to one of Britain’s leading architects, who has called for cities to be designed for pedestrians and cyclists rather than for traffic. Read more.
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Allowing younger people to withdraw superannuation savings to buy their first home would punch a $31 billion hole in the federal budget by mid-century.
Indicative modelling by PwC confirms changing super rules to fund housing would cost the government between $500 million and $1.1 billion a year in lost revenue at a time when the budget is already in trouble.
The figures also raise questions about the government's priorities at a time when business, community and welfare groups are demanding more significant tax reform, including curbing concessions to wealthy super balance holders.
Since flagging the issue a week ago, Treasurer Joe Hockey has found himself embroiled in a contentious debate about whether using super could improve housing affordability for young people.
While the government isn't considering the issue in concrete terms, Mr Hockey has pursued the issue as a way of sparking debate about making super more "flexible" in the wake of last week's intergenerational report.
Opponents of the plan, including former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, the head of the Coalition's financial system inquiry David Murray, and Mr Hockey's cabinet colleague – Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull – argue super should only be used for retirement.
The analysis by PwC provided to The Australian Financial Review is based loosely on a similar scheme in Canada, which allows people to withdraw $25,000 from the equivalent of super for a first home.
PwC partner Paul Abbey said he assumed that an Australian scheme would be limited to people below 35 years, with around half of those eligible choosing to withdraw $25,000 for a 10-year period.
The loss to government – which taxes earnings on super balances at 15 per cent – would be $1.1 billion in 2016-17, and fluctuate between $611 million and $993 million over the next nine years. By 2049-50, the figure would hit $2.1 billion, taking the accumulated hit to government to $31 billion, according to the estimate.
Mr Abbey said the modelling relied on assumptions about how individuals would respond to the scheme – something for which there is no current data available.
"It's obviously a relatively significant number and in policy terms, is not a small number to take out of the budget annually," Mr Abbey said.
He said the ultimate budget impact – if ever adopted – would be affected by its final design, the method and timing of repayments, as well as decisions about who could access it.
Mr Abbey said while the scheme was clearly not costless, its side effects could actually produce benefits for other levels of government.
"If this encourages additional housing investment, that might increase the amount of stamp-duty collected at a state level, or council rates.
"There would be other revenue impacts in other areas."
Greens housing spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam said young people wouldn't need to raid their super savings had the government not scrapped a series of measures aimed at improving affordability – including the First Home Saver Accounts.
"Instead of spontaneous brain-snaps, Mr Hockey should reinstate these programs and avail himself of the huge number of sensible proposals out there to deal with housing affordability," Senator Ludlam said.
The super-for-housing debate also threatens to overshadow an alternative proposal currently being actively considered by many in government that would allow young workers to pay off university debts using super savings – a plan that could actually improve the budget bottom line by reducing federal debt.
Mr Hockey alluded to the proposal, saying younger Australians faced the challenge of having to pay back university loans at a time when they were expected to enter the housing market.
"And of course, you have to have a much larger mortgage these days, even based on household income, than you would've had 10 or 20 years ago," Mr Hockey told the ABC.
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This Austrian filmmaker is fascinated by the calm and the silence that prevails before the storm. He declares that he is interested “in what happens before and after the violent act.” He develops once again this same topic in his latest movie: ‘The White Ribbon‘ (’Das Weisse Band’), awarded as the Golden Globe for best foreign film at the Cannes Festival in May 2009. This is the perfect occasion to talk about this filmmaker who became famous in 1997 with the movie Funny Games. Discover his disturbing style and his talent to reveal the human contradictions.
Michael Haneke’s movies usually touch on topics of the obscure human essence such as childhood, the sadomasochistic behaviour, violence and guilt. Originally from Munich, he was a former student of philosophy, psychology and drama and soon became passionate about the dark side of Mankind. His cinema has the reputation of asking questions without giving an explicit answer, putting in the viewer in an uncomfortable situation with the aim of provoking vivid and emotional reactions. “I think that art should deal with all subject matters. I suppose I did just think that we needed a sense of proportion”, revealed the filmmaker in January. The silences, the laughter, the movements, the events, the behaviours… all tend to be disturbing.
In ‘The White Ribbon’, a black and white film on which he worked for ten years, the protagonists are the children of a Protestant Village of Germany during the years 1913 and 1914. Why? Haneke wanted to show a group of children in this context to illustrate how values are transmitted via Nazism and Fascism, and how these children assimilate them. It has a social, political and religious message because he wants to demonstrate how it can turn innocence into something inhuman, even into terrorism. According to Haneke, The White Ribbon interrogates “the universal problem of the perverted ideal”. One should come to their own conclusions and find their own answers.
Other films by Haneke that received international admiration were Hidden (2005) which won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the Prize for best film and best Director in the European Film Awards (2005). In 2001, The Pianist won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This cinematographic work was developed in France and the United States, with actors like Juliette Binoche, Naomi Watts, Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel.
We are not going to reveal all the talent of this Austrian filmmaker as you can see.There is no one similar to Haneke. We can compare him to the greatness of Madrid – there is nothing like it. Rent the best Apartments in Madrid and let yourself be dazzled by this amazing city.
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An executive training program at Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan, uses guide dogs to teach managers how to improve teamwork skills, clarify communication, build trust, do strategic planning, use creative problem solving and ultimately become better bosses.
Meet Coco. She’s a 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever — and she happens to be one of the best trainers of people in the world.
Coco is one of about a dozen dogs in the executive-training program at Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan. The program teaches managers how to improve teamwork skills, clarify communication, build trust, do strategic planning, use creative problem solving and ultimately become better bosses.
“It’s the best training for people you’ll find,” said Dave Bann, corporate-engagement manager for theLeader Dogs for the Blind program.
Dog teaching man might sound as far-fetched as man biting dog. But not to those who have experienced the training course, such as Ginger Auten of Mitsubishi Motors research and development in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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“It was amazing,” said Auten, manager of human resources and administration at Mitsubishi, who did the Harness the Power of Leadership training last week.
Auten donned a blindfold, took hold of Coco’s harness, used precise commands to communicate where she wanted Coco to go, then surrendered control and extended trust.
The result was an epiphany: “Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and let yourself rely on help from others to guide you,” Auten said. “You’re still in charge, even if you’re the blind person guiding the dog, and with any leader and employee, it’s a give-take situation.”
The challenge of overcoming fear, handing over trust and feeling “amazing” for doing it, seems to be a universal reaction from those who do the course.
“When you’re in leadership, you want to control things. That took me out of my comfort zone. I had to purely trust the dog,” said Phil Bertolini, chief information officer for Oakland County, northwest of Detroit. Bertolini and about 19 of his colleagues did the training last year. “It was kind of an amazing feeling.”
The tighter Bertolini pulled on the harness, for example, he learned, “The less the dog was able to lead you,” said Bertolini, who worked with Coco’s canine colleague Flaim, a black Labrador retriever. “If you do the same thing with your team, the harder you pull on them, the less they can help you achieve.”
Leader Dogs for the Blind started its executive training program about five years ago with Purina as its first client. Purina is a partner with Leader Dogs for the Blind.
The idea for the program came out of repeated comments from Leader Dogs for the Blind’s clients who struggled to answer people who asked, “How does the dog work?”
“We realized a lot of our clients are executives and they’re successful,” said Bann, who said Leader Dogs for the Blind has put together about 15,000 guide-dog teams globally in its 80 years of existence. “They said they often used what they learned working with the dogs across the rest of their lives: in their marriages and at work.”
Bann decided teaching the lessons his blind clients learned by working with their dogs might be valuable to others.
One of those clients was Richard Brauer, 57, who lost his eyesight at age 14. Today he owns his own company that specializes in executive recruiting, development and diversity training. He also coaches the Leader Dogs executive training courses.
Brauer started using a guide dog in 1944. “He filled me with this level of confidence and gave me the tools to be a guide-dog handler, which are the same tools required to be successful in life,” he said.
Most important is to demonstrate consistency in the treatment of people around you, Brauer said, using his partnership with his current guide dog, a 5-year-old golden retriever-black Labrador mix named Logan, as an example.
“I treat Logan with the greatest respect and the same way every day,” said Brauer. “What happens if you are happy one day, angry the next? The person who works for you is going to leave because you’re inconsistent and lack respect.”
It took about a year to write the curriculum for the executive training course, Bann said. The courses are either a half-day or full-day. They involve the blindfold walks, a white-cane walk and various team-building activities such as clicker training, in which participants must complete a task based only on cues Bann gives them by using a dog clicker.
In short, they become the dog in an exercise designed to teach them how to give and receive instructions through cues. It’s analogous to how different parts of businesses often speak different languages yet have to learn to communicate so they can work together.
About two years ago, Bann started aggressively marketing executive training at conferences. He’s done about 20 sessions since Purina in St. Louis first did the course.
“I wondered about the relevancy of this,” Amy Kopin, manager of regulatory affairs and vehicle-emissions lab at Mitsubishi, said minutes after doing the blindfolded dog walk that day. “It’s very interesting to be totally in darkness; you feel like you’re not in control and it would take some time to develop some trust. It’d be nice if there were more of that trust to trickle down in the company.”
Daniel Meloni, 56, is senior director of talent development at ProQuest, a technology company in Ann Arbor. He and about a dozen senior managers did the Leader Dogs for the Blind executive training last fall. One team-building activity that involved building a display using different colored blocks has now changed the way Meloni talks to his staff.
“I heard it from experienced leaders, ‘Grab the blue block.’ Well, the blindfolded person can’t see that it’s blue or feel that it’s blue, so you have to use clearer language,” said Meloni. “It required saying, ‘Take the block that is in front of your right hand.’ You have to be a lot more intentional.”
Training also teaches the power of strategically planning and intelligent disobedience. For example, a person who is blind must plan a walking route and be ready to change course if an obstacle appears. The guide dog must be given leeway to disobey commands when the dog knows best.
A dog-handler trainer at the Mitsubishi session told about a woman who was blind and lived in a high-rise apartment building in New York. One day, when the elevator doors opened on her 78th floor lobby, she commanded her guide dog to walk forward. The dog did not budge. Again, she said, “forward.” The dog refused. That’s because the elevator doors had opened to an empty shaft and the dog knew stepping forward would be deadly.
“So in business, even though the boss says ‘proceed,’ there is a place for intelligent disobedience,” said Meloni. “The white-cane walk is analogous to a manager who’s trying to accomplish things on his or her own and not placing full reliance on their team.”
The blindfold walk with the dog is analogous to a leader who empowers the team to deliver results, Meloni said, adding, “You still set the direction, but the team depends on you for unambiguous language.”
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Essential information on how to obtain an EB-5 visa to live in Miami, Florida.
It is difficult to attend a social gathering of Hispanics where the topic of "papers" does not occupy a good portion of our conversations because for us the avenues that lead to the encounter of the American Dream are usually multiple, varied and, at times, complex.
From going to the political asylum file, the marriage visa, the investor visa, the transferred executive or the hired professional, to arriving at the elitist EB-5 visa, many Hispanics manage to emigrate and rebuild our lives. In the USA.
Since the EB-5 visa, "the one with $500,000", is the one that lends itself the most to confusion among Hispanics, in this article I will try to clarify the details that surround it and unravel the misunderstandings that are usually discussed in our daily conversations..
The EB-5 visa is so named because it is fifth in order of preference of employment-based visas (EB=Employment Based) that grant the possibility of obtaining residence (Green Card) to “breaks”, bypassing temporary nonimmigrant status. EB-5 was enacted by Congress in 1990 as a formula to increase foreign investment and improve domestic employment levels.
In 1992, a pilot immigration program based on the so-called "Regional Centers" was incorporated into the original concept of EB-5.. Regional Centers are public or private entities authorized by the USCIS to promote economic activities that generate high levels of employment by attracting foreign capital.
With the introduction of the Regional Center the regulatory norm of the EB-5 visa has been divided into two aspects:
- The primary version that grants the beneficiary residence (Green Card) if you carry out a business activity under your own tutelage, that generates 10 or more jobs, with a minimum investment of $1 in normal areas or $000,000 in economically affected areas.
- The version that grants the beneficiary residence (Green Card) if he invests $500,000 in stocks or shares of a project qualified by the Federal Government (USCIS) as a “Regional Center” for the purposes of the Immigration Law.
We see here that the investor can manage his own company, in case 1, or acquire shares in an investment project classified by the Federal Government as a "Regional Center" and thus remain a passive investor, in case 2.
The residence granted (Green Card) under the EB-5 category is conditional. The foreign investor must file a petition to remove the condition within the second anniversary of the grant of residence. If it is determined that the foreigner did not keep the new company operating in accordance with the commitments acquired with the Federal Government or if the Regional Center ceased its activity, the "Green Card” will be suspended.
To date, 63 Regional Centers have been approved in Florida. The recently created Miami Regional Center involves the regional government and local private initiative in development plans based on foreign investment. The Mayor's Office for International Business Development is responsible for overseeing the program.
The Miami Regional Center, which will benefit Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, will act as an intermediary between local entrepreneurs and foreign investors. On the one hand, it will be in charge of approving the projects to be financed under the EB-5 modality and, on the other hand, it will select the foreign investors who wish to benefit from the program.
In operational terms, the promoter of an investment project may register his initiative as a Regional Center before the Federal Government or take refuge in the shadow of the Miami Regional Center.
To register a project with the Miami Regional Center, the relevant rights and fees must be paid; present a business plan that includes an analysis of the economic impact of the project on the economy and employment within the region; a financial analysis that shows the sources and uses of the resources and the market strategy that would be used to raise funds from EB-5 visa beneficiaries. All this information will be reflected in detail in the investment prospectus that will be delivered to the applicants for the EB-5 visa.
At this point It is convenient to point out some warnings to those who intend to take advantage of the EB-5 program to emigrate to the US.
- To qualify for the EB-5 visa, you must have substantial assets that allows the investor to cover the amount of his investment plus the expenses of professional fees and registration rights and, going further, that the eventual loss of these amounts does not have catastrophic effects on his business life.
- Although the EB-5 program grants temporary residency to the investor and his or her spouse and children under the age of 21, there is a possibility that the migratory benefit will be lost if the Regional Center project that supports it fails before the first two years of execution.
- The investment in an EB-5 Project is not guaranteed by the government, so the investor must bear the business risk inherent in any private investment.. It is essential to carry out a thorough evaluation of the background of the promoters as well as the verification of the information contained in the investment prospectus in order to minimize the risk.
- Since the investment is tied to the granting of the EB-5 visa, it is highly recommended to place the $500,000 in a trust account (escrow account) and subject its disbursement to visa approval.
The EB-5 program has become especially popular among the conglomerate of Chinese investors and is becoming more topical among Hispanic communities seeking better levels of legal security and economic stability in the US The advantages offered by the use of the platform Miami Regional Center are linked to lower installation cost and faster processing speed.
To obtain information on the registered projects, those interested should go to the Office for the Development of International Businesses of the Mayor's Office of the city of Miami. As a final note, it is good to clarify that the Miami Mayor's Office does not endorse the quality of each EB-5 initiative, it only registers them once it has evaluated the minimum requirements. It is up to each investor to review the merits of the project and decide accordingly.
And if all goes well with the "half million visa", the investor and his family will start a new life while providing Miami and its area of influence with a new source of job creation and economic activity.
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First of all something that would have seemed normal to English visitors to another city, but Madrid residents found it to be a surprise. It rained some of the time! Generally speaking it rained rather softly, but on Wednesday morning when the guard was changed outside the splendid Royal Palace it rained in English style. Still, it was an impressive spectacle.
|Madrid - changing the guard, almost London style!|
There was so much rain that the roads were awash.
|Madrid - unusually rainy!|
Second surprise - it is hard to buy bottles of wine with screw tops. In UK these days it is almost un-necessary to own a corkscrew. Even in France the standards are changing. But on holiday in a nice hotel in Madrid, where no such tool is available, there was no point buying a bottle of wine to enjoy in the evening.
Thirdly, architecture built in marzipan, seen in a shop window in Toledo (of which, more below).
|Built out of marzipan!|
Fourth, on various menus I saw the words 'jamon de york'. The dictionary was not much help with the word 'york', but I didn't need it to translate jamon as ham. My host in Toledo, (of which, more below, really!), told me that this was a type of boiled ham, rather than the cured variety, and that 'york' literally meant the place, York. Having grown up in and around York I was unaware that the city was so famous in Spain, or that the city had a particular tradition with boiled ham. However, I did notice the similarity between the Spanish pronunciation of 'jamon' (with the j being an h sound produced at the back of the throat), and the English word 'gammon'.
Fifth, was a splendid utilitarian set of double sided pews seen in the cathedral. I can only assume that one side should be used to face the alter in transept for smaller services, whereas the other would be more appropriate to face the main alter in the centre of the church.
|The Cathedral in Madrid - face the other way |
if you don't like the sermon perhaps?
On the other hand, if you did not find the sermon to your liking perhaps you could choose to face in the opposite direction - at risk of ex-communication of course.
Sixth was delightful illusion seen in the city. The guy sat there as though floating in the air with a fascinated crowd around him. He waved at passers-by - but only with his left hand. Perhaps that gives you a clue? I wonder whether he employed someone to hold up a screen while he got on and off the contraption. It would be a shame to spoil the illusion.
|Illusionist floating eerily in mid air. |
He never seemed to wave with his right hand.
And finally, the very best surprise of all was that a dear Spanish friend and her husband collected us from our hotel one evening and drove us to the historic city of Toledo.
They showed us around the Christian, Jewish and Islamic influenced areas and then introduced us to a delightful restaurant where they generously entertained us for dinner.
|After delicious Spanish cuisine|
Nobody could have hoped for better hosts. Thank you to both of them. I'm looking forward to attempting to return the favour when they visit England.
I hope it will be soon!
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|Google Scholar:||Look up in Google Scholar|
Book summary: how can we make sense of the varying concepts of care and of the many forms care takes in practice? How can `good' care be defined and evaluated?
This book draws upon a range of academic disciplines including sociology, social policy, psychology, history, geography, social work and nursing to address these questions. The authors consider whether shared meanings in the concept of care can still be found across differences of: family and paid care; health and social care; perspectives `carer' and `cared for'; and the experiences of different `client' groups. Commonalities are identified in the form of concerns about personal empowerment, about choice and self-esteem and about the balance needed between independence, interdependence and dependency. What also emerges is the relevance of such issues for those giving as well as receiving care.
|Item Type:||Book Chapter|
|Copyright Holders:||1998 Sheila M. Peace|
|Academic Unit/Department:||Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS)|
|Depositing User:||Katy Gagg|
|Date Deposited:||22 Apr 2010 12:02|
|Last Modified:||02 Aug 2016 13:38|
|Share this page:|
| 89,780
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Getting the latest greatest piece of gear might make you think it's going to make you a better producer, but a solid understanding of video techniques and a good skillset will take you farther than the newest toys.
People who have been impressed by the work my team does often ask what kind of equipment we use. They then ask what I think they should buy so their videos can look as good as mine; as though the secret to making great video is buying the right gear. I say it's time to stop believing the myth that the secret to taking your productions to the next level is buying better cameras and upgrading your editing apps. If that were true, then anyone willing to run up his or her MasterCard could master the craft. In reality, it's not what you own, but what you know, that makes you a great producer; and that is incredibly encouraging. Chances are, the equipment you own right now is more than capable of creating video good enough to broadcast. Producing like a professional is more about how you think than anything else.
In this article we share seven time-tested tips and insights that will help you approach your productions with the right mindset for making media. If you commit to putting these seven simple principles into practice you'll lay a firm foundation that will allow you to build more powerful productions without dropping a dime. While some of them may seem simple on the surface, the discipline of actually doing these things will make a big difference in what you see on the screen at the end of your edit.
1. Commit to Quality
The best way to create great work is to begin with the end (or in video's case, the edit) in mind. Determine at the onset that you will produce the highest quality work that you can. Set your expectations for production quality high, and determine to do your best. While this sounds like a tip you can shrug off, commitment to quality may conflict with, and lose out to, the other expectations that you have and hold; getting the project done fast, or making the job as easy as possible. The value of committing to quality above all else stems from the mindset that anything that distracts the viewer from the story and makes them miss the message is a mistake. The best productions draw the viewer beyond the surface of the screen and allow them to enter into the story. Whether you are making movies or infomercials, the content is always king. Poor production practices of all kinds call attention to themselves and compete with the content you are trying to communicate. That's why making a commitment to quality is number one on our list.
2. Learn to Love Lighting
The quality and execution of lighting is one of the biggest differences between hobbyist and professional-looking video. Before you even think of buying a better camera or updating your editing app, invest some time and energy into learning lighting. This one aspect alone has the power to propel your productions towards a more professional level.
Light is essential to video. The basic purpose of lighting is to illuminate your subject, but it does much more. Good lighting enhances color, improves contrast, and creates the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional screen. The way you position your lights creates a mood that influences the way your viewers feel about the subject and the scene. Although lighting is complex in principle, it is simple in practice. You don't need to have a professional light kit to get started, any source of illumination will do. Cable your camera to a monitor, plop a person in a chair, frame up a shot and experiment. Play with light position, altering the angle of impact from straight, to profile, to behind your subject. Alter the intensity by moving your light closer to or farther from your subject. Bounce your light off a card, or use diffusion to change its quality from hard to soft. The best way to learn lighting is to get your hands dirty doing it. So go do it! We'll be here when you get back.
3. Improve Your Audio
Awful audio can kill good video. Always use an external microphone and monitor your audio at the camera using headphones while you roll so you know what you're really recording. It should be very apparent whether you're capturing audio from a camera's onboard mic or the external mic. If you hear rustling, a buzz, or nothing at all, stop and fix the problem before you continue. There are few things worse than recording all day only to discover an audio problem in post. One of the cardinal rules of recording clean, clear audio is proximity. Get the mic as close to your subject's mouth as you can. Make a decision about whether your mic should be seen on the screen. Aside from singers on stage or reporters in the field, most professionals hide their mics so that they're invisible to the viewer. This can be done by running them inside your subject's clothing or by positioning the mic just outside the frame. Good sound can make good videos great, but bad audio will kill even the best looking footage. So make every effort to record awesome audio.
4. Keep Your Camera Candid
Good camerawork is more about the work than the camera. The rule that anything that distracts the viewer from the message is a mistake really hits home here. Shaky shots, drifting focus, indecisive camera moves and automatic camera adjustments have no place in your edits. The best camerawork is invisible to the viewer, so be ready to shoot steady. Whenever possible, use a tripod to support your camera. To achieve the most solid shots, frame up your subject, lock the drags, and take your hands off the camera when you roll. Even resting your hand on your tripod can create vibrations that will be visible on playback.
Understanding how your lens works can be a big benefit. The telephoto end of your lens doesn't just enlarge your subject in the shot, it also magnifies every move the camera make so that even wee wiggles become giant jerks. An insider secret to shooting steady is to leverage the mechanics of your lens by zooming wide and moving closer to your subject. Use the zoom control to help compose and frame your shots, but don't record your zooms. Instead of whipping your camera around to capture an entire scene in one shot, plan a sequence of shots. Start with a wide shot to establish your setting before cutting to a closeup. Whip pans and zany zooms are the hallmark of home video, but you rarely see them in the professional productions you see on TV. Start looking for them in the shows you watch. You'll see what we mean.
5. Plan Your Production, Produce Your Plan
Producing a video is a lot like building a house. You need a blueprint before you begin building. Avoid shooting from the hip and winging it as you go. Think about what you need to shoot before you show up on the set. Make a shot list and shoot what's on the list. This could be a broad checklist scribbled on a napkin or complex collection of notes that go into great detail.
For my productions, I typically create massive spreadsheets with shot-by-shot, scene-by-scene details that include notes on camera position, talent position and action, and lens settings (but I have been accused of being a bit of a control freak). How ever you log your pre-shoot notes, always shoot with the edit in mind. As the producer/director it is important that you can communicate the purpose of your production to your actors and crew, and to keep that clear purpose in mind as you produce. Don't try to communicate too many messages. Make a plan. Shoot your plan. It's always fine to shoot more than you need. When it comes to editing, extra options are always awesome; as long as you have everything you need. Be careful to not miss essential elements because you get distracted shooting non-essential extras.
6. Know Your Audience
The success or failure of a professional project isn't determined in a vacuum; it is based on whether or not the piece elicits the desired response within the target audience. Before you start your production you need to know who will be watching your video when it's done. Once you know who you want watching, you should make aesthetic choices with that demographic in mind. Amateur producers tend to create things that they like themselves (their choice pace, music, font choices, color palettes, formality of presentation, etc.) without much consideration that the actual audience may have tastes that are different than their own. When you produce, do it with a specific viewer in mind, and produce differently depending on who will watch (preschool children, senior citizens, teens, business people, a church congregation, etc.). Know whether or not your audience cares about details such as perfectly composed interviews - for a friend's best wishes to a newlywed couple, audio may be all that's needed. One of the great disciplines of professional production is the ability to lay aside your own personal tastes to cater to those various different audiences.
7. Use Restraint
Putting your all into your work doesn't mean using every trick in the book in each edit. Restraint and discernment are essential disciplines to cultivate. Remember that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should! While it's good to have a variety of tricks up your sleeve, you should only pull one out if the production demands. Things like wacky wipes, freaky fonts, crazy colors, 3D titles, rack focus effects, shallow depth of field, and slow motion can all be used to great effect in the right context, but 99.9 percent of the time, less is more. Resist the urge to throw visual effects into every edit. By design, visual effects are the equivalent of sending a text or email in all capital letters. They shout in the face of your viewers and call attention to themselves. If you are making car commercials, go for it, but otherwise, your effects need to stay special.
The next time you're considering buying the newest gadget released, remember that in six month's time, something newer will come along and you probably don't need it; you just want it. Will it improve your work? Maybe, but if you have the proper knowledge and skills, techniques will beat out technical every time. So, keep your money in your pocket, or take the kids out for ice cream. Begin taking steps to improve your productions by changing the way you think about the content you create in these seven areas. Before you know it people will be asking you to share your secrets of success.
Sidebar: Conditioned Consumers
According to The Nielsen Company, the average American watches nearly five hours of TV each day. That adds up to well more than months of TV time every year. This number is even greater when you add video watched online. While we're sure there are all kinds of insights that psychologists and sociologists could glean from this statistic, there is something important for us to acknowledge as video producers. Whether we like it or not, our viewers have been conditioned by the content they have consumed. They know what network-quality TV productions look like, and they can tell the difference between a top-notch program and a second rate video in about two seconds. The result is that, whether it's fair or not, the videos you produce will be compared to what your viewers see on TV, and your viewers will assign a degree of credibility (or a lack thereof) to your work, and to the message you are trying to communicate, based on the quality and professionalism of your presentation. Consider that the next time you pick up your camera or sit down at the edit bay.
Chuck Peters is a 3-time Emmy award-winning writer and producer. He is currently VP of Production at KIDMO/Rivet Productions in Nashville, Tenn.
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The Rise Of Pro-Life Atheism
October 1st, 2012 - J. Hodgson
“In fact, almost 80% of Canadians think our law already recognizes the rights of children after the second trimester. They are unaware that our 400 year old definition of human beings actually strips away such rights. When informed, over 70% of Canadians say they believe our law should recognize the rights of children, at least during the third trimester.” - Stephen Woodworth, MP for Kitchener Centre, on Bill 312
Steven Woodworth has done what no Canadian politician has done, in any meaningful way, since 1989. He has attempted to re-open the abortion debate. He’s done it publically. He’s done it officially.
Bill 312 seeks to legally redefine the point when life begins.
The current state of Canada’s law goes back 400 years, to a time when clergy debated as to whether the soul entered a baby’s body during the time of quickening or not. The modern result of this antiquated legalism has led to some legal outcomes many Canadians find horrific.
Roxanne Fernando was murdered by her boyfriend because she refused to have an abortion. No charges were laid in regards to the death of her baby, because a fetus is not a human under Canadian law.
Katrina Effert secretly gave birth and then strangled her newborn and threw his lifeless corpse over her neighbour's fence. Her sentence? Three years in jail. The sentence was a suspended sentence, so...three years in jail, but without actually, you know, going to jail.
I suppose in the latter case, the issue wasn’t specifically abortion related, but the judge used unrestricted abortion to justify the light sentence. She wrote, "While many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”
Er, right. So, strangle away then? Don’t worry, things are changing.
2009 marks the turning point for mainstream culture. The number of people who self identify as pro-life is now constantly on the rise. In the United States, pro-choicers are being whittled away rapidly.
In Canada, the results are a little more varied, but the numbers for supporting restrictions are similar.
Why the trend? Jojo Ruba thinks he knows why...
“The question now is: what is the pre-born child? A secular person can take a pro-life position, but only if they believe in right and wrong.”
We meet in downtown Calgary over lunch and while the other patrons discuss light-hearted topics over their sandwiches, Jojo and I immediately launch into abortion and atheism. Jojo Ruba is a pioneer of new wave pro-life activism and he has a very clear idea of why abortion is moving in a pro-life direction. It hinges on two elements.
#1. Science has caught up to the debate.
In the ancient days of bell bottoms and disco, the nature of abortion was more mysterious than it is today. When mass abortion arrived in Western culture, the science wasn’t developed to the point where we could definitively address the issue of when life begins. The debate, very quickly, became packaged up as a war between religious folks adhering to traditional beliefs about life in the womb and modern beliefs about the rights of female autonomy superseding the rights of a “clump of cells".
As technology and medical science have evolved, there is no doubt about life beginning at conception.
#2. The debate is now a philosophical one about the value of human life.
Pro-choicers can no longer win debates regarding abortion. New Wave schooled pro-life activists such as Jojo Ruba and Stephanie Gray routinely wipe the stage with pro-choice challengers using logic, and as a result the pro-choice crowds have resorted to simply shouting them down.
“Most Canadians don’t seriously investigate abortion,” Ruba says. “So our tactic is to bring the investigation to them.”
By engaging publically with people using science, reason and values, Ruba is able to win people’s hearts and minds without playing the religion card. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform is at the forefront of these new tactics. Graphics and controversy aside, his general question to people goes like this...
If we know the pre-born are human and alive, then why do we feel we have the right to kill them?
This is the question that causes secular people to struggle. This is the question that is slowly bringing atheists over to the pro-life side of the debate. It stops looking like an old preacher hating on a girl who made a sexual mistake and starts looking like an unexpected arrival of vulnerable life that should be protected by the able.
Jojo directed me to an atheist friend of his named Kristine Kruszelnicki. She’s writing an article about this very subject for The Humanist magazine, due out at the end of this year. I asked her why she’s a pro-life atheist and this was her reply...
“I'm pro-life for the same reason I'm an atheist: I trust science and I believe in critical thinking. When it comes to defining personhood, none of the differences between a born infant and preborn fetus - their size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are morally relevant. Big humans aren't more important than little humans, and a teenager isn't more of a person because they can reproduce while an infant can't yet do so. The fetus may not be conscious or self-aware, but her body is operating as a human being of her age of human development is supposed to operate. And if a change of location doesn't change the essential nature of any born human being, neither can a journey of six inches down a birth canal transform a non-human tissue blob into a being we ought to recognize as our equal."
"As for dependency, what kind of civilized society would argue that the more dependent one is, the less obligated the other is to protect and care for them? Human beings change in their dependency on others all throughout their lives. And while it's true that we gain rights and freedoms (such as the right to vote) based on our developmental skills and increased independence, younger and more dependent humans aren't killed and denied the opportunity of ever attaining these higher levels of development and independence."
"A fetus is not an intruder on the woman's body. She is in the rightful place which evolution has intended for a human being of her age and stage of development. A parent is morally obligated to provide basic care, food, and protection to their born offspring (at least until someone else can take the responsibility to continue the care). Likewise, if the preborn is a human being as biology indicates, than basic protection and sustenance must be offered to one's dependent preborn offspring while she is in utero.”
What about the pro-life movement being seen as a religious agenda?
“While I'm grateful for the Catholic Church's involvement in speaking up for their convictions on this matter, I'm desperate to see the abortion debate made secular. Our case is scientifically and philosophically sound, and the invocation of rosaries onto ovaries only results in too many people rejecting the pro-life position along with the supernatural claims of the Church,” Kruszelnicki says.
The secularization of the abortion debate is easily achievable, but it does hinge on one element that ties into religious belief: objective moral values.
"But tell me," I asked him, "what will happen to men? If there’s no God and no life beyond the grave, doesn't that mean that men will be allowed to do whatever they want?"
"Didn't you know that already?" he said and laughed again. "An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he's clever enough to get away with it." - Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
Peter Singer recently advocated infanticide by suggesting human beings don’t have a right to life until 30 days after they’re born.
Richard Dawkins recently advocated for eugenics policies in order to create a better quality of human.
Feminist Camille Paglia shocked the mainstream by suggesting that abortion is murder, and that’s okay. Using murder to improve your life isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
These sorts of prognostications strike fear into the hearts of many people, religious or not. This forces “non-radical” atheists to do a lot more soul searching (pun intended) in order to formulate their own consistent principles and values or else risk sinking into the total moral relativism that would naturally lead to anarchy.
It also explains the hesitation many faith based pro-life advocates feel towards welcoming atheists into activism. Kristine admits to feeling like a minority within the minority, but that doesn’t impact the value of choosing a side in the abortion debate. She believes the pro-life position is strong enough to withstand faith/non-faith factionalism. “Abortion is no more a religious issue than the civil rights movement, though it was predominantly led by southern churches. That people of faith would fight for the less fortunate should come as no surprise. But it behooves us all as civilized people to ask whether there isn't a better way that we can help women in crisis situation. I believe we can do better than abortion,” she states.
Jojo and I finish our lunch and part ways. His 20 year action plan to end the killing has already begun and time will tell if this new approach will have an effective impact.
In the House of Commons, Stephen Woodworth defied the orders of the Prime Minister and presented his defence of Bill 312. He lost by a vote of 203-91. Again, time will tell if Woodworth is a harbinger of social change, but in the meantime his ‘Xanatos Gambit’ has paid off in awareness and debate alone. As Bill 312 has shown, the abortion debate is a long way from being settled and, religious or not, people are finally thinking.
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Leaders’ Trail @ Horizon provides our students the opportunity to direct their own scientific inquiry either individually or in groups using the 7 Habits. Stations are set up in the Eco-garden and students who are the inquirers will explore the stations and self-assess their learning through answering the questions.
While going through these series of enjoyable and meaningful learning trails, students learn scientific concepts using a ‘hands-on’, ‘heads-on’ and ‘heart-on’ approach aligned to Inquiry Science Teaching. Students also develop a deeper sense of curiosity about the natural world and their surroundings based on the Primary Science syllabus. They will learn about being responsible for and caring for the environment. They will learn to be proactive, think win-win and synergise with other students through the process.
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The answer is YES, you can work and earn your degree.
More than 50% of our students attend college on a part-time basis while working full-time and part-time jobs. It just takes a bit more planning to schedule classes around your family and work responsibilities. It may also take more effort to hold down a job and still get good grades, but you can do it! With all the campus resources available at the community colleges, you will get the support you need. We offer flexible class schedules, online learning options, financial aid, scholarships, and many other student support services that can help you reach your educational and career goals.
Steps to Success
We offer many campus resources that can help you balance your family
and work responsibilities while pursuing your college degree, such as:
- Academic Advising
- Career Centers
- Computer Labs
- Day Care
- Disability Support Services
- Distance Learning and Online Classes
- Financial Aid & Scholarships
- Free Parking
- Health Centers
- Off-campus Learning Centers
- Student Activities
- Tutoring Services
- University and Education Centers
- Weekend and evening classes
Contact the college of your choice for more details on these resources.
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The medical correspondent for women's health on the 'Today Show', bestselling author and a regular on Oprah, Dr Judith Reichman explains exactly why we age, how we age, and what we can do to slow down the aging process. Targeted for women in their forties and fifties, this book shows women how to extend the minutes and hours of their bodies' internal and external clocks.
Of course, some of what ages us is inevitable, fated by the genes that guide our cells to replicate or degenerate. As we get older, genetics may be less important than how we live. We can take wonderful genes and run them into the ground through a lifetime of poor health habits or we can take bad genes and make them better.
As a practicing physician in Los Angeles, Dr Reichman has followed and treated many women who, despite advancing years (and in LA, this is defined as anyone over the age of forty), continue to feel young, vital, creative and healthy. She has helped women overcome many of the gynaecological problems related to hormonal changes and age. Dr Reichman's patients have fought and even thwarted heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity and cancer.
In her first bestselling book she voiced the Baby Boomer's battle cry I'm Too Young to Get Old. She has continued to do so in her next two books: 'I'm Not In The Mood' and 'Relax, This Won't Hurt'.
In this book, Dr Reichman uses the characteristic, sharp, incisive voice that has made her one of the country's foremost commentators on health issues. She addresses the aging effects of women's hormonal changes, offers a healthy anti-aging diet, exercise and vitamin regimen, and discusses how to stay young mentally, emotionally, and physically, providing women with invaluable, medically based methods to maximise well living and minimize aging.
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Pay day loans and name loans are small-dollar, high-interest loans offered for really short terms and marketed to those people who are cash-strapped and frequently don’t gain access to old-fashioned banking possibilities.
Many economic institutions, like banking institutions and credit unions, need that borrowers have credit that is decent and a banking account before they’ll be authorized for the loan. But though some title and payday lenders need which you do have checking or banking account, other people usually do not. Leading many “unbanked” People in america without checking records, a true quantity now projected because high as 17 million individuals ( frequently because of the high expenses of old-fashioned banking through overdraft charges and also proximity to banking areas) to seek payday or name loans within the lack of other choices. (more…)
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Are Cybersecurity Bootcamps Worth It?
A cybersecurity bootcamp is an intensive training program that focuses on the fundamentals of cybersecurity and teaches the skills needed for entry-level positions in the field.
The length of most programs ranges from 6 to 12 weeks, with some as long as 24 weeks; however, many also offer short courses or weekend workshops for professionals who want to brush up on their skills.
Most programs cover topics like network security, ethical hacking and penetration testing, cryptography, forensics, incident response, vulnerability management, and security operations. Depending on your preference you will likely specialize in one area giving you a better area of focus and complete the bootcamp with a specialization in your toolset.
Bootcamps typically include lectures from experts in the field plus hands-on practice with real-world tools and scenarios. When you complete a cybersecurity bootcamp you will receive either a certificate of completion or a more formal certification such as CompTIA Security+ or Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH). These qualifications demonstrate your knowledge of core cybersecurity principles and your ability to use industry-standard tools and techniques.
Cybersecurity jobs and what they pay
The potential job opportunities after completing a cybersecurity bootcamp vary greatly depending on experience and qualifications. In the US alone there are over 200 different job titles related to cybersecurity and these roles carry salaries ranging from $40k – $150k per year depending on experience level.
Common jobs include:
- Security Analyst (average salary $80k)
- Threat Intelligence Analyst ($100k)
- Penetration Tester ($90k)
- Information Security Engineer ($120k)
- Chief Information Security Officer ($150k).
No matter which path you choose after completing a cybersecurity bootcamp there will be plenty of opportunity for growth within your chosen organization as well as within the broader industry itself.
Fundamentally, talent gaps exist across the United States (as well as globally). Demand for talent outweighs supply. To understand this a bit better we need to look into the data. According to CyberSeek, there are only enough cybersecurity workers to fill 68% of jobs on the market in the USA. Heading into 2023 there are almost 800,000 cybersecurity job openings in America.
The most job openings exist in the following states:
- New York
CyberSeek’s data also tells us that the most sought-after talent to fill jobs fall within the following titles:
- Cybersecurity Analyst
- Software Developer
- Penetration & Vulnerability Tester
- Cybersecurity Consultant
- Network Engineer
- Cybersecurity Manager
- Systems Engineer
- Senior Software Developer
- IT Director
Cybersecurity bootcamps open up opportunity
Cybersecurity is an ever-expanding industry with plenty of opportunity for those looking to make their mark in the field. By attending a specialized bootcamp you can gain invaluable knowledge about cybercrime prevention plus all the necessary certifications required for employment in the cyber sector.
With so much potential available it’s no wonder why more people are turning towards specialized cyber education programs like these. Depite recent downturns in the tech industry (let alone the economy), cybersecurity appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut given the technical nature of so many products and technology that underpin them.
A cybersecurity bootcamp seems to be worth it for those that want to pursue a career in cybersecurity which has a plethora of opportunity and a market that is screaming out for new talent.
Other posts and articles you may be interested in.
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Achievement Centers for Children: A Legacy of Hope for Children with Disabilities
What began in 1940 as a three-man Rotary Club service project known as the Society for Crippled Children, has become one of Cleveland's most effective agencies for the care and rehabilitation of children with disabilities.
Children at the Achievement Centers may have a wide range of disabilities including physical, neurological, sensory, cognitive or a combination of these. In fiscal year 2012-2013, the Achievement Centers served over 4,000 children and their families through a variety of services and programs. We serve families from all income levels.
In 2004, we opened our state-of-the-art 38,000 sq. ft. facility, the Breen Family Center, after completing a $8.5 million capital campaign. The five-acre site includes gardens, an atrium, outdoor pavilion, accessible paths and multiple play areas.
The Achievement Centers for Children is a private, non-profit organization. Recognizing that raising a child with a disability can create financial burdens for families, we work with each family to determine affordable, sliding-scale fees in many of our programs and identify community benefits that may offset all or part of the cost of services whenever possible.
We could not maintain this philosophy without the tremendous support we receive from our community.
- a child with disabilities or special needs is a child first. We focus on abilities and potential rather than limitations. Last year, over 4,000 individuals and their families benefited from our programs and services.
- in providing counseling and coordination of services to families to help them deal with the often challenging and emotional times that accompany raising a child with a disability.
- that services provided to children with disabilities early in life can have the greatest impact on their lifelong abilities.
- in providing innovative and effective methods of treatments based on research to gain the greatest outcomes. We are one of the few organizations in the U.S. offering an Intensive Therapy Clinic to children and young adults with limitations in movement as a result of such conditions as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and other diagnoses.
- in sound fiscal management. Out of every dollar donated, $.23 goes directly for the benefit of our clients and to further our mission.
The Achievement Centers for Children is grateful for the financial support contributed by our many community donors. All information gathered, presented and provided by the Achievement Centers' Development Department is used solely for fundraising purposes to benefit the Achievement Centers for Children. Donor information is considered confidential and is treated as such. The Achievement Centers for Children does not sell, rent or trade donor lists. We value our donors and adhere to the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Donor Bill of rights. If at any time you choose not to receive communications from us, you may contact the Development Department and your name will be removed from our mailing list.
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Originally published in December 2009.
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley wrote the dystopian novel Brave New World in 1931 at the inauguration of the last Crisis period in America. Dystopia is the often futuristic vision of a society in which conditions of life are miserable and characterized by poverty, oppression, war, violence, disease, pollution, nuclear fallout and/or the abridgement of human rights, resulting in widespread unhappiness, suffering, and other kinds of pain. The novel was his response to the writings of H.G. Wells (Men Like Gods) and George Bernard Shaw which glorified socialism and a one World State. Orwell’s 1984, written in 1948, is the other famous dystopian novel of the era. Huxley had visited America during the Roaring 20’s and his experience provided the character for the novel. He was outraged by America’s out of control materialistic egocentric society. He witnessed youthful superficiality, commercialization, sexual promiscuity, and a self centered culture. Fellow writer G.K. Chesterton explained his view of Huxley’s novel:
“After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made capitalism the common good. But it was not native to us; it went with a buoyant, not to say blatant optimism, which is not our negligent or negative optimism. Much more than Victorian righteousness, or even Victorian self-righteousness, that optimism has driven people into pessimism. For the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War. A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life, and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not only of the old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism. Brave New World is more of a revolt against Utopia than against Victoria.”
Using Technology to Control Society
“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” Aldous Huxley
Science and technology are not inherently good or bad. They can be used or misused. They offer promise or peril. Ultimately, humanity can benefit from science and technology or it can be detrimental to our planet. Huxley envisioned a horrifying future where mankind used science and technology in a self destructive manner. He was disillusioned with the decadence of society and disgusted by the behavior of his class. Huxley’s outlook is a world where the vast majority of the populace is united under one World State. The world is restricted to two billion inhabitants. The inhabitants are strictly divided into five castes. The world is controlled by Alphas and their subordinates, Betas. Below them, in descending order of brainpower and physique, are Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each caste is further subdivided into Plus and Minus (save for Epsilons, which are regular or semi-moron). Reproductive technology, referred to as the Bokanovsky Process, is used by the government (Alphas & Betas) to manage the number of human beings and their functions. The process is applied to fertilized human eggs in-vitro, causing them to split into identical genetic copies of the original. The State has eliminated procreation by loving couples. Ovaries are surgically removed from women. The lower caste children are created in hatcheries.
At the very pinnacle of society sit Alpha Double-Pluses, who serve as the future scientists and top administrators of the world. People in different castes are conditioned to be happy in their own way – they do not feel resentment towards other castes, but rather feel a slight contempt for people not members of their own caste. The upper castes are intelligent, and have managerial jobs, where as the lower castes do the manual labor. The Alpha’s have what we would consider the best jobs, and it continues down until the Epsilons, who have the least skilled jobs. The Alphas are tall and fair, while the Epsilons are dark skinned.
The novel takes place in the year 2540 in London. The disturbing aspect is that we are now in the year 2009 and much of Huxley’s vision has come to fruition. At the heart of the World State’s control of its population is its rigid control over sexual mores and reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are controlled through an authoritarian system that sterilizes about two-thirds of women, requires the rest to use contraceptives, and surgically removes ovaries when it needs to produce new humans. The act of sex is controlled by a system of social rewards for promiscuity and lack of commitment. The United States has restricted population growth through a number of methods. Abortion on demand was made the law of the land in 1973. Since that date 50 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. I ask myself how many Martin Luther Kings, Stephen Hawkings, and Ernest Hemingways have been among those aborted before having the chance to positively impact our world.
Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute
Over 12 million women in the U.S. use the pill (available since 1960) on a daily basis in order to avoid pregnancy. The morning after pill was introduced in 1999. Planned Parenthood, created in 1916, has 850 locations in the United States offering easy access to abortions and other forms of contraception. The net result of these government supported efforts has been to cut the birth rate in half in the last century.
“We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early success of science, but in a rather grisly morning after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimportant or actually deteriorated ends.” Aldous Huxley
The upper classes in the U.S. have persuaded the lower classes to restrict their reproduction. They promote non-consequential promiscuity among the other classes while reproducing and raising the new ruling class. American society is also segmented into castes as portrayed by Huxley. The Alpha Double-Pluses are the Harvard MBAs running Goldman Sachs and the other mega-banks. Others in the Alpha caste are the Bushes, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Clintons, Gores, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Paul Krugman. The Betas include Congressmen, bank executives, government bureaucrats, military leaders, and corporate executives. The Gammas and Deltas are the working classes that do the hard work without ever advancing. The Epsilons are the morons produced by the inner city public school system. They fill the non-thinking manual labor jobs of society.
The Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are brought up in conditioning centers. The Alphas and the Betas use technology to mould them into their predetermined roles in society. They use operant conditioning and sleep teaching to modify the behavior of the lower castes. Hatcheries rely on machines to condition bottled embryos to heat, sudden motion, and disease, allowing the embryos to fulfill their predestined jobs in specific climates. The science exists today to produce whatever traits are desired in our children. The procedure is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and is being practiced in fertility clinics in the U.S.
Those in control of America also use conditioning and teaching to keep the lower classes in their place. The ruling elite send their children to exclusive private schools, grooming them for Harvard, Yale and Stanford. This guarantees they will be given the high level positions in business and government. After decades of pumping billions of tax dollars into public schools while instituting politically correct diversity programs to dumb down the curriculum, the ruling elite have conditioned a vast swath of Americans to care more about Tiger Woods’ driving and night putting skills than about the National Debt or the insidiousness of Federal Reserve induced inflation.
|Total 18 Yrs||No High School||High School||Some||Associates||Bachelors||Advanced|
Source: Census Bureau
Just as in Brave New World, the ruling Alphas are White and the lowest class Epsilons are dark skinned. Blacks and Hispanics represent 50% of all the high school dropouts even though they only make up 25% of the population. This guarantees a life of blue-collar low paying jobs for these people. Whites obtain 78% of the advanced degrees, guaranteeing them the positions of leadership in society. The social welfare state implemented by the ruling elite provides enough sustenance to the lower classes to keep them anesthetized, ignorant and easily manipulated. Whites also obtain 77% of the bachelor’s degrees, assuring that they will fill the Beta administrator positions in society.
Another technological method of keeping the masses tranquilized and distracted in the Brave New World is through high tech sports and entertainment. Sport is a pillar of the World State consisting of various games and activities which use high-tech equipment. Another key aspect of entertainment is the “feelies”. Users rest their hands on metal knobs protruding from the arms of their chair, allowing them to feel the physical sensations of the actors on-screen (usually in sexually-themed films). The mass production of HDTVs, CD players, Laptop computers, Blackberries, iPhones, iPods, luxury automobiles and other electronic toys distributed to the masses through easy credit policies has successfully distracted the populace from the pillaging of the country by the Alphas at Goldman Sachs. The feelies of today are 24 hour cable TV with 600 stations, downloadable movies, an unlimited amount of free porn on the internet, strip joints, and prostitution. Sports addicts can attend baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, wrestling, boxing, auto racing, and Michael Vick sponsored dog fighting events year round, or watch it on TV 24 hours per day. With mindless jobs and unlimited distractions, the preponderance of citizens are as docile as sheep.
Soma is a biological method used by the Alphas to keep the lower castes sedated. It is a drug that provides an easy escape from the hassles of daily life and is employed by the government as a method of control through pleasure. It is ubiquitous and ordinary among the culture of the novel and everyone is shown to use it at some point, in various situations: sex, relaxation, concentration, confidence. It is seemingly a single-chemical combination of many of today’s drugs’ effects, giving its users the full hedonistic spectrum depending on dosage. As a kind of “sacrament,” it also represents the use of religion to control society. Huxley’s description of soma reveals its power:
“And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.”
American leaders bluster about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, but their actions speak otherwise. Americans can sedate themselves legally with alcohol, over the counter prescriptions, and tobacco. Almost 10% of the entire U.S. population, or 27 million people, are taking anti-depressant pills. Over 4 million children are being drugged with Ritalin every day to make them malleable. The government looks the other way as the middle class uses marijuana, heroine, and cocaine. The Epsilons (Blacks & Hispanics) on the other hand are prosecuted, with 2.3 million of them occupying cells in the thousands of prisons in the U.S. There are thousands of churches in the U.S. preaching the good word and sedating the masses. As they preach morality and sacrifice, there have been recurring instances of sexual deviation covered up church hierarchy and the bilking of congregations out of millions in contributions for the enrichment of the church leaders.
“Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself from thinking.People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.” Aldous Huxley
Huxley formulated his dystopian world after observing the excessiveness of Americans during the Roaring 20’s. If he thought things were decadent and Americans were self consumed in the 1920’s, Huxley’s head would explode at the debauchery, ignorance materialism, and shallowness of Americans today. Our landfills contain more wealth than entire Third World countries. We throw away over 100 billion pounds of edible food per year. In his Brave New World Revisited, written in 1958, Huxley clearly laid out the dangers of consumerism:
“Consumerism requires the services of expert salesmen versed in all the arts (including the more insidious arts) of persuasion. Under a free enterprise system commercial propaganda by any and every means is absolutely indispensable. But the indispensable is not necessarily the desirable. What is demonstrably good in the sphere of economics may be far from good for men and women as voters or even as human beings.”
“Consider a simple example. Most cosmetics are made of lanolin, which is a mixture of purified wool fat and water beaten up into an emulsion. This emulsion has many valuable properties: it penetrates the skin, it does not become rancid, it is mildly antiseptic and so forth. But the commercial propagandists do not speak about the genuine virtues of the emulsion. They give it some picturesquely voluptuous name, talk ecstatically and misleadingly about feminine beauty and show pictures of gorgeous blondes nourishing their tissues with skin food. “The cosmetic manufacturers,” one of their number has written, “are not selling lanolin, they are selling hope.” For this hope, this fraudulent implication of a promise that they will be transfigured, women will pay ten or twenty times the value of the emulsion which the propagandists have so skilfully related, by means of misleading symbols, to a deep-seated and almost universal feminine wish — the wish to be more attractive to members of the opposite sex. The principles underlying this kind of propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true.”
Our economic advancement has been marketed to Americans as “true happiness from consumption”. Every need can be realized through material gain. Success as a society is measured by GDP growth and the facade of prosperity. In Brave New World children are conditioned from birth to value consumption with such platitudes as “ending is better than mending,” which means buy a new one instead of fixing the old one. America has become the definitive throwaway society. Product waste has grown from 92 pounds per person per year in 1905 to 1,242 pounds per person per year in 2005. American human beings are lumped into the category of consumers by the mainstream media. Consumerism and consumer debt have been the contaminated lifeblood of the United States for the last three decades. Government actively promotes gambling by the poor, offering them false hope for riches. Americans squander $160 billion per year on lotteries and in casinos. Our society has become even more extreme than the Brave New World as we have outsourced our production to foreign countries, thereby gutting our economy. Even at the dawn of television Huxley realized the immense power for propagandists:
“Thanks to compulsory education and the rotary press, the propagandist has been able, for many years past, to convey his messages to virtually every adult in every civilized country. Today, thanks to radio and television, he is in the happy position of being able to communicate even with unschooled adults and not yet literate children.”
United States advertising expenditures, 1920–2007 in constant 2007 dollars (billions)*
The mass media is owned and controlled by mega-corporations run by the Alphas of our society. Colleges graduate thousands of people with the skills to manipulate the uninformed masses through advertising and propaganda. What passes for news organizations are just propaganda machines for a particular point of view. The public is distracted by the seemingly major differences between the two main political parties. The reality is that both parties are controlled by banking and corporate interests who pay for the laws that benefit their interests. Huxley’s description of political candidates in 1958 is even truer today:
“The methods now being used to merchandise the political candidate as though he were a deodorant positively guarantee the electorate against ever hearing the truth about anything.”
News people must be beautiful and entertainment is indispensable. They provide the people what they want – 24 hour coverage of Tiger Woods’ sex life, weeks of reporting about Michael Jackson’s death, and 10 seconds about the $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities we are leaving future generations. Truth is an inconvenience in the consumer society.
Incompatibility of Happiness & Truth
“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.” Aldous Huxley
Mustapha Mond, World State Controller, believes that the population is better off with happiness than truth. In the Brave New World happiness is represented by immediate gratification of every citizen’s desire for food, sex, drugs, nice clothes, and other consumer trinkets. If the proletariats think they are happy, they won’t need to think or question reality. The World State cannot allow individuality to blossom. Free thinking individuals seek the truth. Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money. Confession to a craving for individuality is shocking, horrifying, and embarrassing. John, the savage, grew up outside the World State and has studied Shakespeare. Everything that Shakespeare stood for: passion, love, intensity, seeking truth, relationships, and tragic endings, are at odds with the World State foundation. They cannot allow truth and true human happiness to exist in society or the Alphas will lose control.
The United States is the richest most powerful country in the history of the world. Our poorest live better than the aristocracy lived 100 years ago. We have indoor plumbing, air conditioning, heaters, clean water, automobiles, trains, jet airplanes, televisions, CD players, portable gadgets galore, free public education, fast food, gyms to work off the fast food, movies, the internet, restaurants, bars, concerts, sporting events, casinos, home improvement stores, grocery stores, discount stores, Wal-Mart, clothes stores, jewelry stores, dollar stores, churches, Disney World, Las Vegas, and Graceland. These are the “things” that are supposed to make Americans happy. Going into the woods alone, like Thoreau, to think is frowned upon. The propagandists sell the American public happiness in the form of material goods and services. If you don’t feel happy, take a pill. If you aren’t happy with your appearance have plastic surgery. If your spouse isn’t making you happy, cheat or get a divorce and try again. If your neighbor outdoes you by getting a $20,000 kitchen remodel, get yourself a $40,000 kitchen remodel. Happiness is a 6,000 sq ft McMansion with 5 bathrooms, a pool, game room, and Jacuzzi for your family of three. Having your neighbors see you driving a BMW 750Li will surely make you happy. Wearing a Rolex will definitely make you happy. If you die with the most toys, you’re still dead. Until reading a book to your three year old at bedtime is valued more than staying at the office until 10:00 pm to complete an investment offering, our society is destined for decline. Ours is not to reason why, but simply to do and die with a bare minimum of fuss.
In the Brave New World the policies of the State dehumanize the population. Stability and artificially induced happiness are more imperative than humanity and truth. Mustapha Mond explains to John that social stability has required the sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John protests that, without these things, human life is not worth living. After John eventually succumbs to the lure of the World State version of happiness, he hangs himself. An ending truly worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy. The pillars of our society are based upon the acquisition of material possessions using debt. Our society glorifies steroid taking athletes, sex crazed sports icons, drugged out entertainment personalities, vacuous TV housewives, and moronic cosmetically enhanced movie stars. Those who seek truth through questioning the status quo or digging for answers to questions the State doesn’t want asked, risk alienation and scorn. The Alphas (bankers) of our society issue the debt and convince the masses that accumulating more stuff will make them happy. The Alphas (media titans) use their mass media to persuade, manipulate, and sell their message of material happiness to the masses. The Alphas (politicians) use the taxes collected from the masses and the dollars printed by the bankers to distribute social welfare benefits to the lower classes, keeping them sedated and under control. Seeking the truth through the study of literature, the questioning of authority, and pondering of our existence on this earth are rare. Those who question and doubt the propaganda put out by those in authority are shunned and denigrated as being unpatriotic.
“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” Aldous Huxley
Dangers of an All-Powerful State
“Freedom is therefore a great good, tolerance a great virtue and regimentation a great misfortune. Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.” Aldous Huxley
The all powerful State in Brave New World uses technology and mind control starting before birth until death to instruct people what they want. Power over the citizens is maintained by lulling them into a false sense of happiness and contentment to the point where personal freedom and thinking are unnecessary. Superficiality is encouraged by the World Controllers. The consequences of citizens rolling over to the rulers are a loss of dignity, morals, values, and emotions—in short, a loss of humanity. Amazingly, this book was written in 1931. Huxley’s vision, which seemed so outrageous in 1931, has come to fruition in less than 70 years, versus the 600 years in the novel. Huxley realized that technological advances which are almost universally hailed as progress are fraught with danger. Man has built higher than he can climb; man has unleashed power he is unable to control. Brave New World is Huxley’s warning to make man realize that since knowledge is power, he who manages and exploits knowledge exerts the authority. Science and technology should be the servants of man – man should not be adapted and enslaved to them.
In the novel the “Nine Years’ War” broke out in 2049 AD. It can be deduced that the conflict broke out in Europe, affected most of the planet, and caused enormous physical damage. It is repeatedly stated that chemical and biological weapons were broadly used during the war, particularly in mass air-raids against cities. Following the war the global economy collapsed and created an unprecedented worldwide economic crisis. Realizing that they could not force people to adopt the new lifestyle, the World Controllers instead united the planet into the One World State and began a nonviolent movement of change. This campaign included the closing of museums, the suppression of almost all literature published before 2059 AD, and the destruction of the few historical world monuments that had survived the Nine Years’ War. The type of war described in the novel is a very feasible scenario in our current environment. It is interesting that a worldwide economic crisis was the trigger for a One World Government. Our current worldwide economic crisis has resulted in our Federal Reserve propping up European banks with U.S. taxpayer funds and unprecedented coordination between worldwide fiscal policies.
Huxley wrote his novel in 1931 at the outset of the Great Depression. His vision did not take long to crystallize. FDR initiated social programs on a vast scale to satiate the masses with manual labor government created jobs and social services that encouraged reliance upon the state at the expense of freedom and liberty. His nightmare world became more of a reality after World War II as progressives were successful in creating the United Nations, NATO, World Bank, IMF, Bretton Woods system, and GATT. These organizations reduced the freedom of individual countries to the benefit of worldwide bureaucracies. These organizations have gained power over time, but their total incompetence and ineffectiveness has kept them from gaining total control over world populations.
We are now at a crucial juncture as the worldwide financial crisis and the sham global warming crisis are being used by the New World Order crowd to confiscate more of our freedoms and liberties. Socialist minded world leaders Gordon Brown and Barack Obama, along with the revered Henry Kissinger have referenced a New World Order while offering their Keynesian spending solutions to the worldwide financial crisis. A number of Obama advisors have written they support a one world government. The Copenhagen Conference on Global Warming has drawn thousands of one world government apostles. They want to use the scientifically unproven environmental crisis as a way to impose worldwide taxes on sovereign nations and to compel the citizens of the world to honor their green agenda. The use of propaganda in our school systems to scare children by telling them that polar bears are all dying, is part of their plan. Again, the subtle use of media and propaganda to influence the thinking of the willfully ignorant public has worked.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley
When I started this article I was unsure whether Huxley’s nightmare would resonate in our current reality. Sadly, much of his novel applies to our society. Even sadder, our society now resembles an amalgamation of the two most famous dystopian novels in history: 1984 and Brave New World. Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the two views of the future:
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no-one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.”
Our civilization has fused the worst of both novels. Many people in our country aren’t capable of reading a book. Supposedly educated people have no interest in reading a book. The government withholds or manipulates information that is spoon fed to the public. Trivial meaningless information floods the airwaves, keeping the public continuously diverted from seeking truth. The truth is lost in shades of grey and purposeful misinformation. Supposed differences between the ruling parties distract the public from realizing they are being fleeced by those in power. Government has used fear to create agencies and departments that have taken away our liberties and freedoms through Orwellian surveillance techniques. Our dumbed down culture of hero worship, material pleasures, and ego enhancement is the representation of triviality. The Alphas have used our fears and desires to distract us from their plans to dominate and control every aspect of our lives. Their success is all but assured at this point.
I’m not optimistic that there are enough Americans who value freedom over presumed safety, security, and social welfare benefits. The public has been duped into believing thrilling falsehoods rather than unexciting truths. Huxley explains how the propagandists have stolen our freedom:
“In their anti-rational propaganda the enemies of freedom systematically pervert the resources of language in order to wheedle or stampede their victims into thinking, feeling and acting as they, the mind-manipulators, want them to think, feel and act. An education for freedom (and for the love and intelligence which are at once the conditions and the results of freedom) must be, among other things, an education in the proper uses of language.”
I do not pretend to have the answers. Intellectual curiosity, a skeptical nature, and not buying into our shallow culture are the best chance for change. Reading or re-reading Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited will open your eyes to our plight. The current Fourth Turning will end in glory or tragedy. The choices we make as a society in the next 10 to 15 years will ultimately decide our fate. Huxley’s advice in Brave New World Revisited is wise, pertinent, and implementable today:
- As recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily cooperating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.
- If you wish to avoid the spiritual impoverishment of individuals and whole societies, leave the metropolis and revive the small country community, or alternately humanize the metropolis by creating within its network of mechanical organization the urban equivalents of small country communities, in which individuals can meet and cooperate as complete persons, not as the mere embodiments of specialized functions.
As citizens of the American Republic we must answer the question posed by Huxley:
“Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worthwhile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything?”
“There is no darkness but ignorance. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” William Shakespeare
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ImageUSB is a free utility designed for use with PassMark OSForensics™
ImageUSB is a free utility which lets you write an image concurrently to multiple USB Flash Drives. Capable of creating exact bit-level copies of USB Flash Drive (UFDs), ImageUSB is an extremely effective tool for the mass duplication of UFDs. ImageUSB also supports writing of an ISO file byte by byte directly to an USB drive (*). ImageUSB can also be used to install OSFClone to a USB Drive for use with PassMark OSForensics™.
Unlike other USB duplication tools, ImageUSB can preserve all unused and slack space during the cloning process, including the Master Boot Record (MBR). ImageUSB can perform flawless mass duplications of all UFD images, including bootable UFDs.
(*) CD ISO images use a different file systems compared to USB drives. So the direct imaging of ISO9660, Joliet or UDF file system, from a CD, to a USB drive, might not allow the USB drive to funtion in all operating systems. A reformat can recover the drive however.
Warning: Due to the forensic nature of image duplication by ImageUSB, please ensure that you select UFDs with a storage size similar to the image you wish to duplicate. For example, if a 2GB image is copied to an 8GB USB Flash Drive, the drive will only be able to use two out of the eight gigabytes of storage space. In this scenario, users will need to reformat the UFD in order to access the rest of the storage space.
The current version of ImageUSB is v1.1.1015 (427 KB).
Download ImageUSB.zip from the link above and extract the contents of the archive to a directory of your choosing.
To start using ImageUSB, double click on the ImageUSB.exe application.
|Operating System:||Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista,
Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 or Windows 8
|Memory (RAM):||256 MB or more.|
|Hard Disk Space:||2 MB of free space for installation, plus additional space required to store an image file.|
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Isamu Noguchi is one of my design heroes - I love how his work is cerebral in its purity of form, but still has an organic tactile quality that's warm and human. The end result is a body of work that manages to invoke the spiritual while still being accessible - no mean feat.
The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City New York is a beautiful space dedicated to the life and work of Isamu Noguchi. It showcases Noguchi's extensive range of work, including his sculpture, furniture and interior design, gardens and playgrounds, fountains, dance and theatre sets, monuments and memorials, and drawings. You can get a sense of the museum on their website here. Shown above is Noguchi in January 1978, working on an Akari lamp frame at Ozeki & Company in Gifu, Japan. (Photo: Michio Noguchi)
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Some of Isamu Noguchi's furniture and utensil designs. Clockwise from top left: Knife, Fork and Spoon (1952), Hive Modern; Cyclone Dining Table (1953), Hive Modern; Akari Freeform Column Floor Lamp (1951), Design Within Reach; Table (1947), Design Within Reach; Teacup and Saucer (1952), Hive Modern; Akari Square Lantern Table Lamp (no date given), Design Within Reach; Freeform Sofa and Ottoman (1946), Hive Modern.
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Toronto Skyline by ElPadawan
The liveability rating is a very prestigious figure and it’s a huge honour for any city to rank in the top positions. The main aim of liveability surveys is to examine and assess living conditions in different locations around the world and determine which places have the best and the worst living conditions. The results are used by employers assigning hardship allowances as part of expatriate relocation packages as well as by city councils, non-government organizations, and corporate entities that compare and benchmark regions with different liveability ratings. Furthermore, the annual city rankings always draw extensive attention of media coverage and become objects of many discussions. It’s interesting that Toronto, the city that finished at the fourth place in the world liveability ranking, was ranked by another survey as the 88th best place to live in Canada. This article analyzes the methodology of different surveys and Toronto’s position in them.
Toronto in the Liveability Ranking of The Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economists Intelligence Unit’s liveability rating measures the challenges that could affect an individual’s lifestyle anywhere around the world and that can be directly compared with different locations. There are more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors assessed across five wide categories, which are stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. Each of these factors are then rated as either acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, or intolerable on a 1-to-100 scale, where 1 represents and intolerable situation and 100 stands for ideal. The liveability rating is calculated both as an overall score and as a score for each category.
The last EIU liveability ranking, which was released in August 2011, designated Melbourne as the most liveable city with an overall rating of 97.5. Toronto finished at fourth place for the third time in a row, only 0.3 points behind Melbourne. The only Canadian city that was able to beat Toronto was Vancouver, with 97.3 points.
Toronto by David Baron
Toronto reached the highest possible rating in three of five basic categories: stability, healthcare, and education, and 100 in the stability category, which accounts for 25 per cent of the total score — which is a very positive sign. This category consists exclusively of factors concerning people’s safety such as the prevalence of petty crime, the prevalence of violent crime, the threat of terror, the threat of military conflict, and the threat of civil unrest/conflict.
Healthcare is also a category of higher priority since it demonstrates the quality of life protection. A score of 100 in this category gave Toronto 20 per cent in the overall rating. It consists of factors such as the availability of private healthcare, the quality of private healthcare, the availability of public healthcare, the quality of public healthcare, the availability of over-the-counter drugs, and general healthcare indicators. In the EIU’s rating, education is not as important as other categories and hence awarded Toronto only with 10 per cent in the overall rating. It consists of the availability of private education, the quality of private education, and public educational indicators.
Toronto did a bit worse in the culture and environment category, reaching 97.2 points. This category is of the same importance as the stability category and comprises 25 per cent of the overall rating. It’s measured by using information from external sources such as Transparency International and the evaluation of the average weather conditions. It wasn’t a surprise that in the extensive diversity of relevant factors affecting the overall score in this category such as humidity/temperature rating, discomfort of climate to travellers, the level of corruption, social or religious restrictions, the level of censorship, sporting availability, cultural availability, food and drink, and consumer goods and services, there were some in which Toronto didn’t reach the ideal score of 100.
Toronto received a very low score in the infrastructure category, with only 89.3 points. This category amounts to 20 per cent of the overall rating and considers factors such as the quality of road networks, the quality of public transit, the quality of international links, the availability of good quality housing, the quality of energy provision, the quality of water provision, and the quality of telecommunications. One of the main reasons of this failure is the catastrophic commuting situation in Toronto, where people spend significantly more time commuting than in any other city in Canada. The city is overcrowded with cars as more than 70 per cent of Torontonians travel to work by car, and this number is expected to grow by 1 million more cars in 20 years. The support of active transportation in Toronto is an important issue that should be dealt with as soon as possible.
Toronto in MoneySense’s “Best Places to Live”
Ottawa Skyline by D.Neuman
Compiling a list of the best places to live in Canada without including Toronto or Vancouver in the top ten is always considered contentious. MoneySense, a Canadian personal finance website, annually publishes a list of the best places to live in Canada, and both Toronto and Vancouver tend to receive only mediocre score in the ranking. This year’s ranking evaluates 190 Canadian cities and towns according to municipal data and information from Statistic Canada and other sources. The winner of this year’s ranking is Ottawa with a score of 74 points out of a possible 105, while Toronto finished 47th and Vancouver 56th. Even though the ranking is not as prestigious as the one provided by The Economists Intelligence Unit, its results should demonstrate the quality of life in different Canadian regions.
MoneySense assesses 190 cities and towns in Canada in 22 separate categories. They work with information on Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA) and Census AGglomeration (CA) areas as defined by Statistics Canada. CMAs of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Quebec City, Hamilton, Ottawa-Gatineau, St. Catharines-Niagara, Oshawa, Edmonton, Victoria, and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo were divided into their component cities of 50,000 or more in population.
Each city and town could receive a total of 105 points, while every single category was assigned a certain number of points according to the importance of the category. The best city in each category received the maximum number of points, and the rest of the cities received descending incremental points based on their ranking.
For example, in the area of unemployment, Estevan, Saskatchewan had the lowest unemployment rate in the country (1.6 per cent). It was ranked No. 1 in that category and received 10 points. The second-best city in the unemployment category, Wetaskiwin, Alberta, received 9.95 points. The next city was Swift Current, Saskatchewan, with 9.89 points and so on down to the 190th city (Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, with an unemployment rate of 16.8 per cent), which received 0.53 points.
Calculations for some other categories follow a slightly different methodology. For example, in the category of population growth, an annual rate of 7.9 per cent was considered ideal. Anything below or above that rate loses points and cities with a population loss got zero. The same is true for the subcategory of precipitation, which makes up part of the weather category. (The ideal number is 700 mm a year, with anything above or below that losing points accordingly.)
Toronto Bike Rally by James
Furthermore, a bonus of 5 points was awarded depending on the percentage of people employed in arts, culture, recreation, and sports. Each city is the compared to all other cities to determine the best places to live overall.
MoneySense’s “Best Places to Live“ ranks Canadian cities according to these categories: walk/bike to work (7 points), weather (18 points), air quality (2 points), population growth (10 points), unemployment (10 points), housing (15 points), household income (4 points), discretionary income (4 points), new cars (4 points), income taxes (2 points), sales taxes (1 point), crime (5 points), doctors (6 points), health professionals (4 points), transit (5 points), amenities (3 points), and culture (bonus points).
Toronto finished in MoneySense’s list at 47th place; however, there were vast differences among particular categories. The percentage of people who walk or ride a bike to work in Toronto was 8.82, which was better than in 130 other Canadian cities. Toronto lost a lot of points in the housing category, mainly due to the high average house price ($474 300), which was the 26th highest in the whole country. The average household income in Toronto was estimated to be $94,526. which was enough for a mediocre 48th place. On the other hand, discretionary household income (it was calculated as a percentage of total household income derived from 2012 estimates) ranked as number 28. Furthermore, the percentage of new 2009-2011 cars bought in Toronto was 17,61, representing the number 31 in the new cars category. Toronto ranked number 4 according to provincial sales and income taxes. The population growth rate in Toronto, which was 4.5 per cent between the years 2006 and 2011, represented rank number 71.
Toronto was number 75 in crime severity rank and number 89 in violent crimes rank but managed to finish as the 27th best in the overall crime category. There are 2.07 doctors for every 1,000 people in Toronto, representing rank number 110. Toronto ranked 157th according to the percentage of people employed in health occupations. The unemployment rate in Toronto reached 9.4 per cent and overall rank number 156. According to Environment Canada, there are 155.9 precipitation days in Toronto and the average volume of precipitation per year is 835,9. Toronto was the 6th best city in the culture category, which is determined by the percentage of people employed in arts, culture, recreation, and sports.
Different Approaches; Different Results
Toronto Sunset by Silent Shot
It’s hard to determine the quality of life in a certain area and compare it with the rest of the world. The general well-being of individuals is a relative indicator that cannot be measured with scientific accuracy. However, differences between Toronto’s performance in EIU’s and MoneySense’s rankings are so vast that you wouldn’t believe that they assessed the same city.
This is caused by the fact that EIU’s rating focuses mainly on criminality and healthcare while MoneySense gave high importance to weather and average house prices. The weather in Toronto is enjoyable; however, house prices are relatively high. This was one of the main disadvantages of bigger cities such as Toronto or Vancouver where people earn more and therefore spend more money on housing. Overall, Toronto didn’t do as badly in the MoneySense “Best Places to Live“ survey as it might seem. The results in individual categories were decent; however, there were several categories that drew Toronto back. MoneySense’s ranking lacks balance between individual categories and therefore enables smaller cities to score more overall points. EIU’s rating reflects the quality of life in a certain area in a wider context and therefore creates a more adequate overview.
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Messer Cemetery at
Haywood County, NC
Take Joe Carver Road on the left and follow it to Beantown Road on the left.
Take Beantown Rd. to the NC Baptist Association's Hispanic Mission.
Turn right into the Mission driveway and continue to stay right to the top of the hill.
This road is very steep and rough.
The Messer Cemetery will be on your left surrounded by a woven wire fence.
The Messer Cemetery was originally part of the Allison Cemetery at Shady Grove, but since it has been fenced separate from the original cemetery, I am recording it as a separate cemetery.
This cemetery is well cared for and still in use.
June 17, 1911
June 20, 1882
Annie Mae Messer
September 17, 1913
November 11, 1983
June 24, 1905
December 16, 1984
Sybil Brown Messer
January 10, 1899
October 31, 1977
John Henry Messer
November 12, 1870
September 10, 1958
(c)This cemetery was surveyed on August 9, 2001 by Rebecca Howell
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Neutron Radiography with Inorganic Scintillation Detectors
Small Business Information
1105 Highland Circle, Blacksburg, VA, 24060
Dr. W. Peter Trower
AbstractWe propose here to evaluate a variety of inorganic scintillators, including sodium iodide and bismuth germanate, for use in energy-sensitive neutron detectors. We will couple these crystals to photomultiplier tubes and measure the prompt response to inelastic neutron reactions with the scintillator atoms. To unfold the incident neutron energy distribution from the resulting signal pulse heights, we will employ our differential filter method. With fast neutrons traversing carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen targets, we will investigate our differential filter's ability to resolve resonant absorption bands in these total neutron cross sections. Photon energies up to ~9 MeV have been obtained with a resolution of ~100 keV in a sodium iodide detector using our approach. Thus, encouraged that we will be able to resolve at least one resonant absorption band in each of these elements, we will test our method using explosive simulants.
* information listed above is at the time of submission.
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Playwright Glen Berger, who co-wrote the book to the Broadway musical Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, is documenting his experience during the show’s tumultuous development in the new book Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History. Published by Simon & Schuster, the book is due to hit stores on November 5.
In Song of Spider-Man, Berger describes his collaboration with director Julie Taymor and U2’s Bono and The Edge, who wrote the show’s score. He discusses the passion and ambition that went into the production, detailing both the highs and lows of the multi-year process that led to the creation of one of the most expensive and talked-about Broadway musicals of all time.
Glen Berger’s plays include O Lovely Glowworm and Underneath the Lintel. In addition to Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark, he has worked on the musicals A Night in the Old Marketplace and On Words and Onwards.
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WAS A PRETTY GOOD DAY 6 WALLEYES FROM 16-19" AND 9 PERCH 11-13" WAS NOT FAST AND FURIOUS
Perca is the genus of fish referred to as perch or, sometimes, yellow perch, a group of freshwater fish belonging to the family Percidae. Perch, of which there are three species in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Perciformes, from the Greek perke meaning perch, and the Latin forma meaning shape.<br />
Perch have "rough" or ctenoid scales. On the anterior side of the head are the maxilla and lower mandible for the mouth, a pair of nostrils, and two lidless eyes. On the posterior sides are the opercula, which are used to protect the gills. Also there is the lateral line system which is sensitive to vibrations in the water. They have a pair of pectoral and pelvic fins. <br />
On the anterior end of the fish, there are two dorsal fins. The first one is spiny and the second is soft. There is also an anal fin, which is also considered spiny, and a caudal fin. Also there is a cloacal opening right behind the anal fin. All perciform fish share the perch's general morphology.<br />
The type species for this genus is the European perch.
Fished Swan lakeon 16th Jan. for about 5 hours, walked in and there is no vehicle access to lake, a smart 4-wheeler operator will get around if you can get on without getting stuck at edges. Drilled in about 5 different spots and marked fish at all of them, wish I would have had a camera to see what was actually down there. Caught ten 4-6 inch perch and they were barely tapping the wax worms and the minnow never got touched, excited a few times but on bobber's down. dukgnfsn
Decent action all day, probably caught 50 perch, but only had a handful big enough to keep.
Fished Larimore Dam on Saturday for a few hours. There were 4 of us out there, Ice was 4" across most the lake with one spot a little thinner at 3". Caugt a few perch around 6" and 2 walleyes about 5-7" each. Was good to be out.
Fished out of Grahams Island on Saturday with a few freinds. We found fish in 15-31 FOW drifting/trolling sinners. Caught a few ripping puppets as well. Lots of undersize fish to pick through to get our limits. Bonus for the day was a pair of dandy jumbo perch.
Silver seemed to be the color, minnow and crawlers worked equaly as wel..
Fished the southern portion of the lake where in the past i have caught lots of perch, but none this time. 9 bullhead were caught and released.
Froelich Dam. Went here 3/23/16 about 2:30 til 7pm. Caught 3 walleye's 24,16and 14 inches and a 10 inch perch. Very happy with the fishing considering it was pretty windy and cloudy.
Fished Creel Saturday 27 February 2016. The bite was great in the morning till about 8 am in 14-17FOW, we bucketed a few walleyes and perch each. At 9am, we followed the fish out to deeper flats and fished 30-38 FOW, with most fish coming in 34ft. Fish were very active, and the dead stick with a plain hook and minnow and active jigging with a slender spoon and minnow head both produced well. We actually got down to our T-shirts with the sun and 42 degree temps.
Fished sw side in about 11 ft of water, had one bite the whole time. Marked a few but they would not bite. About 20 inches of ice but the ice is getting worse in spots. This was on lake Addie, no tag for it
I fished Devils lake with my neighbor yesterday 24 February. We stuck to Creel Bay all day. Found Walleyes and Perch in 17fow in early mornind fron 430-630 in the evening. Got into perch mid day on a 25-30 drop off, but all were 8 inch size range, but it broke up the lul of the day. Also got 2 nice 5lb pike as a bonus. Final number of fish taken home was 5 walleyes, 2 pike, and 12 perch, released about 3 times that number of fish.
Dead stick next to a jig was key, mid day fish took agressive jigging to attract.
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For example, shear and peel strength for bonding polycarbonates are in the order of 1,000 psi and 20 pli, respectively, while steel and aluminum bonds have shear strengths of 1,800 and 1,500 psi. It is formulated to cure readily at ambient temperatures, but more quickly at higher elevated temperatures. Its mix ratio is 1:1, by weight or volume. Its electrical insulation properties are also said to be good, even after prolonged exposure to hostile environments. The adhesive’s low viscosity simplifies bonding, sealing, and casting. It adheres to a variety of substrates ranging from engineering plastics, such as polycarbonates, acrylics, and ABS, to steel, aluminum, and other metals. It resists temperatures from 100 to 230°F.
MasterBond Inc., 154 Hobart St. Hackensack, NJ 07601, (201) 343-8983, masterbond.com/
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You can almost feel summer in the air. It’s a beautiful time of year. But, for others, it can be incredibly stifling. When it comes to long, summer days, they can be even longer if you live within a hot area. So, what are you options? Spritz you with endless supplies of water? Or, are you going to be savvy and invest in air conditioning?
Many people love the feel of air con, but they think that it is too expensive to have in their homes. This is untrue! On the contrary, air con can be incredibly cost-effective. But, low pricing aside, there are a plethora of benefits to installing air conditioning units in your home.
Reducing the Heat
Okay, so this is kind of a given. But, reducing the heat in your home is one of those things that you simply cannot do without an AC unit. When it comes to the hot, hot heat of the summer, it’s imperative that you invest in air conditioning. Leaving the windows open all day and night is simply not an option.
The Perfect Allergy Buster
Air conditioning can be a powerful tool in your home if you are allergic to pollen and grass cuttings. Hay fever sufferers usually dread the summer months. The pollen that can get trapped into the fabrics of your home is unbearable. But, the great thing about air conditioning is that it traps the pollen within the filters in the device. As such, this can be an effective, drug-free way of making sure that your allergies are in check. What could be better than that?
Ramp up Your Home Security
Home security is at the forefront of every homeowners mind. You don’t want to think about the consequences of leaving your windows open while you head out to work. But, the heat when you get back home can be cloying. Air conditioning can ensure that you have a cool, fresh home without having to compromise your security. You may live in the nicest neighbourhood in the world, but there are still rogues around.
A Cheap Solution
Air conditioning units can be purchased for a cheap price. What’s more, you can fit them yourself with ease. When it comes to air conditioning, you don’t have to pay a premium. When it comes to essential maintenance repairs, ensure that you get a reputable professional in. Check out Austin air conditioning repair to find great contractors in your area. It’s a cost-effective way of getting the right things in check in your home.
Let’s be honest here, we can all be a little squeamish when it comes to bugs. The summer months are a breeding ground for pests and parasites. But, you need to think about the reasons why they are so prevalent in summer. It’s because of the heat. So, if you want to make sure that your home is not a nest for bugs, parasites and critters, air conditioning provides the obvious solution. Cooler temperatures result in bugs not being able to thrive. Not only do you have a clean home, you have a healthy home too.
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Doshu although he did not participate in military action did have first hand experience of the effects of the war through the bombing of Tokyo. I do think witnessing the acts and atrocities of war as a bystander vs being on enemy territory with sights set on you and your sight on the enemy are different. Your duty in this foreign land is to kill the enemy by any means necessary and try not to be killed in the process. It is a hard thing to process for me since I have not been in the military or had to experience anything like the atrocities of war.
I live in Hiroshima and I think I do not need to spell out the emphasis laid here on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a unique act of war. There are still living A-Bomb victims here, some of whom I know. The distinction you make, between 'witnessing the atrocities of war as a bystander vs being on enemy territory with sights set on you' was probably clearer to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War than it was in World War II. The Japanese at home had a romantic notion of being involved in the siege of Port Arthur, which is why General Nogi was hailed as a war hero afterwards, even though he was responsible for sending thousands of young soldiers to their deaths. All the stuff about 'fighting spirit' was propaganda, designed to divert attention from the poor equipment, lack of ammunition and poor training. At least Morihei Ueshiba was in a position to creep up at night, with a sword, rather than face a machine gun barrage, also with a sword, in the daytime and in full view of the enemy, which is what many of his subordinates were ordered to do.
One factor in making your distinction less clear in the case of World War II, is that in 1945 the Japanese population was much more conscious of being participants, civilian combatants if you like, preparing for an allied invasion of Japan. And, yes, there was the fire bombing of many Japanese cities and I believe the fire-bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 caused as many deaths as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August. And the deaths were caused, not by an emeny solider with a machine gun, or a sniper with a rifle, whom you can't see but you suspect is there, but by an enemy pilot, high in the sky, whom you can't see but you also suspect is there (though in the case of Hiroshima, this was not so clear). For the unlucky ones, the results were the same, however.
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Trade Wind was designed by Ralph Winslow while he was employed at the John Alden shop. She was launched in 1938 as a one off for a coal manatee who wanted a tender to his sailing fleet for the Newport/Bermuda race. Later she spent a few decades as a radar and sonar demonstration platform and then went back to into private hands.
She was the first private vessel to be tank tested, and the designer got the hull shape just right. Trade Wind is the epitome of a stable cruising motor sailer. Her two 1956 Detroit 671 Diesels were restored as was the whole ship. She has been cruising the East Coast since launching in 2011 and was taken to the Great Lakes in 2018. The rig was redesigned to fit under the 65′ bridges along the ICW and her draft is only 6’3″ so she does well in the Bahamas, too.
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Managing Community Toxicity
Here’s What Jeff Kaplan Thinks
Jeff Kaplan, director of Overwatch, has been known to regularly upload videos reflecting changes and trends in the game itself, but oftentimes he’ll discuss aspects of the game from a community-focused viewpoint. Kaplan recently spoke out about gamer toxicity within the Overwatch community and shared potential ways to fix, or at least discourage, this disruptive behavior.
The video received mixed reviews with many suggesting he’s feigning naivete and others saying he shouldn’t have expected “normal” behavior. Unfortunately, his critics have a point, and this is a perfect example of how not to handle a thought-provoking non-issue.
Here’s Why He’s Wrong
Toxicity exists in nearly every online community to some extent. And apart from a relatively few exceptions, it never dictates the overarching player experience. Nobody’s pretending that toxicity doesn’t exist or that there’s a perfect strategy to rid ourselves of it once and for all, but Kaplan’s approach is exactly what you shouldn’t do as a public figure.
He said that the “community needs to take a deep look inwards” and think about how to better self-regulate and behave.
This is all kinds of wrong. Unless it’s a blatant wrongdoing by select, identified members, it’s never a good idea to blame the community as a whole, when the vast majority of its members are likely equally frustrated. . Barring trolls, how many players do you think enjoy being toxic? Toxicity is a product of frustration, disappointment and usually a combination of poor self control, a misunderstanding of social cues and a bad sense of humor.
Even when they’re completely aware that their behavior negatively impacts the l community, few toxic players feel it’s their responsibility to be a positive force for change. “If my team wasn’t so bad I wouldn’t have to yell at them” is something you’ll hear paraphrased often (usually with quite colorful language)–even in communities generally considered to be “non-toxic”.
The Solution? Reward Good Behaviour.
As a community manager, what can you do? There’s no single approach that can be applied to every situation, but in most cases, a good starting point is to reinforce positive behavior.
Counter Strike: Global Offensive introduced a way to have player-reviewed gameplay of suspected cheaters. It’s called the Overwatch program (not to be confused with Blizzard’s successful FPS). It allows players to watch a match replay from the suspected player’s perspective to look for suspicious behavior, such as quickly snapping enemies’ heads or unrealistically fast reactions.
However, this approach fell flat because there was no reward system for the “good guys”. It could take upwards of 20 minutes to watch enough footage to find conclusive evidence, and all that would get you is a “thanks for your effort” message.
With the Counter Strike in-game economy booming, wouldn’t it have made sense to reward participants who submit a significant number of successful reports with low-tier items to trade in for desirable equipment?
While some may be opposed to this approach (“I paid X dollars for this weapon skin and they didn’t pay a penny”), proper implementation should reflect community values. They say time is money; mobile games love encouraging players to spend money to reduce waiting time, so why can’t the gaming industry embrace spending time too?
Ultimately, you’ll have to devise a solution which accurately reflects your community’s values. But, why not award the “least toxic” players a unique avatar flair (or shame toxic players with some other marking)? In general, users view player reports as having little significance. A toxicity reporting system could prove effective at isolating the worst offenders with a virtual scarlet letter. They can then be matched in games accordingly.
- Implement the most effective solution while reflecting community values. Look at issues from a neutral 3rd party standpoint and decide the best way to address them. Then put yourself back in the community manager’s shoes to determine and plan for the community reaction. While it may not always be intuitive to plan for Z when you’re about to announce X, it protects you (and the community) from Y.
- Reward good behavior with opportunities for players to actively make an effort to do good. This is more effective and easier to monitor than passive approaches like frequent reminders to praise good teamwork and “don’t feed the trolls”.
- Never, never, never blame the community. This is right next to “the customer is always right” in how to keep your community happy. Unless it’s a specific individual or relatively small group within the community (i.e. a gaming clan or group of friends), it’s crucial to remember that by blaming the community for negative behavior, you’re implicating every member of the community individually.
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We keep track of falls. Sometimes it hard to determine exactly what constitutes a fall. For example, if a person slides out of a chair and lands on the ground, is that really a fall?
I asked if anyone had an official definition and, sure enough, they did.
A fall is: Loss of upright position that results in landing on the floor, ground, or an object or furniture, or a sudden, uncontrolled, unintentional, non-purposeful, downward displacement of the body to the floor/ground or hitting another object like a chair or stair; excluding falls resulting from violent blows or other purposeful actions.
A slide out of a chair therefore represents a fall.
I'm still a little confused.
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Home Price Data
LPS' HPI Now summarizes sales concluded during each month using a repeat sales analysis of home prices as of the transaction dates. The data contained in HPI Now is generated by the LPS HPI, one of the most complete and accurate home price sources available. Each month for each of more than 15,500 U.S. ZIP codes, the LPS HPI reports five price levels (quintiles) and corresponding discounts from these normal market prices for foreclosure (REO) and short sales. By combining property and loan data in its repeat sales analysis, the LPS HPI covers about 83 percent of single-family residential properties in the U.S. The innovative approach used to maximize geographical resolution enables the LPS HPI to meaningfully cover about 98 percent of these properties at the ZIP-code level.
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Tragic toll of infants lost to hunger and epidemics
In the winter of 1926, 24 babies died in the space of two months when measles swept through the home.
Published 15/06/2014 | 02:30
THEY are the babies that society has tried to forget. Many were born in "shameful" circumstances to unmarried or impoverished mothers at a home in Tuam.
Those who weren't given up for adoption were sent to industrial schools or Magdalene Laundries.
Seven-hundred and ninety-six babies died, their resting place unmarked.
The local historian who discovered the scale of baby deaths in St Mary's can find no burial records. They are thought to have been buried in unmarked graves on the site of an old septic tank. There is no plot with their names on it that says they lived – for however short a period – or that they died.
Today we publish for the first time official public records documenting the harsh, short lives of the 796 babies and children who died in Tuam.
The records, compiled by the General Register Office and released on Friday to this newspaper, do not say where the babies are from to protect their privacy. The records give the babies the dignity of being called by their name, while the notes and causes of death entered after their names tell their own story.
Patrick Derrane, who was five months old and who died of gastroenteritis in August 1925, was the first recorded baby death. The last was Mary Carty, who died in January 1960. She was four-and-a-half months old and her death attributed to a "fit". A note on her entry simply says: "Was a restless baby." The Bon Secours closed the home the following year.
Some babies are registered only by their surname, mostly because they were born premature. There is "Unknown" Bell, a boy born at 26 weeks in 1950 and dead three hours later; "Unknown" Maye, a girl, who was five days old and died in 1945 of a cerebral haemorrhage; and four-day-old "Baby" Fallon, a boy who died in May 1957, of sudden circulatory failure.
There were epidemics for every decade of the home's existence. In the winter of 1926, measles swept through the Tuam mother and baby home, taking with it 24 babies in just two months.
Mary Wade, three years and three months, was the first child to die of it, on April 5. Maud McTigue, six-and-a-half, died of measles and meningitis three days after Mary Wade. The rest succumbed in quick succession. On 22 April, three children died; John Carty, who was one year and nine months, Madeline Bernard, who was two-and-a-half, and Maureen Kenny, who was eight. There were 39 deaths at the Tuam home that year, and measles accounted for two-thirds of them.
There were many more outbreaks. In 1936, 22 babies died in another measles epidemic. Thirteen babies died in April and May 1944. Seventeen died in June and July 1947.
The babies died of congenital conditions, viral and bacterial infections, abscesses, blood poisoning, whooping cough, and simply from being "debilitated since birth" or "delicate". Some also died of hunger. Marasmus is a form of acute malnutrition in children and young infants who are not getting enough to eat, and not getting enough nutrients. Children who suffer from it look emaciated and their stomachs are swollen.
Ten babies had "marasmus" listed as their cause of death. In other words, they died of hunger. They include Patrick Kelly, two-and-a-half months old, who died in 1929 and Patricia Judge, who died in July 1932. But why did four babies die of hunger in 1933? Mary Finola Cunniffe, six months old, died in May that year and John Kilmartin, who was two months, in August. Brigid Holland, aged two months, died of marasmus, asthma and cardiac failure in September. So did Mary Brennan, four months old, who had marasmus for three months.
The others were Patrick John Loftus, who died in May 1937 aged 10 months; Margaret Linnane who died in January 1938, aged three and a half months; Teresa Heneghan died a few days after Margaret on 23 January 1938; the last recorded death from malnutrition was Brigid Hurley who died in October 1939, aged 10-and-a-half months. Cause of death was "dyspepsia and marasmus since birth".
Sunday IndependentFollow @Independent_ie
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35th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry (5th Infantry) (1st Mountain Rifle Regiment)Edit This Page
From FamilySearch Wiki
The 35th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry (5th Infantry) (1st Mountain Rifle Regiment) was organized during September, 1861, at Camp Smartt, near McMinnville, Tennessee. At Chickamauga on April 26, 1865, it surrendered.
Companies in this Regiment with the Counties of Origin
Men often enlisted in a company recruited in the counties where they lived though not always. After many battles, companies might be combined because so many men were killed or wounded. However if you are unsure which company your ancestor was in, try the company recruited in his county first.
- Company A - Captains Albert C. Hanner, R.B. Roberts - Men from Grundy County.
- 2nd Company A, formerly Company B - Captains John W. Towles (Towls), William H. Large, G.N.M. Newby - Men from Warren County.
- 2nd Company B, formerly Company C - Captains Charles M. forrest, Thomas B. Rust - Men from Warren County.
- 2nd Company C, formerly, Company E - Captains W.B. Cummings, G.M. Cummings - Men from Van Buren County.
- Company D - Captains Benjamin J. Hill, William T. Christian - Men from Warren County.
- 2nd Company D, formerly Company F - Captains John Mason, Riley B. Roberts, L.P. carson - Men from Warren County.
- 2nd Company E, formerly Company G - Captains James H. Woods, S.M. Gunter - Men from Cannon County.
- 2nd Company G, formerly Company H - Captains Edward J. Wood, H.S. Fowler, John B. Blair - Men from Warren County.
- 2nd Company H, formerly Company K - Captains W.D. Stewart, George S. Deakins, L.L. dearman, H.T. Kell - Men from Sequatchie County.
- Company I - Captains John Pack, L.L. Dearman - Men from DeKalb County. Some from Hamilton County and Bledsoe Counties.
Fifth Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Infantry-later Thirty-fifth Regiment
Was organized at Camp Smartt, September 6, 1861.
Company B (Captain John W. Towles) - many men from Warren County
Company C (Captain Charles W. Forrest) - many men from Warren County
Company D (Captain W. T. Christian) - many men from Warren County
Company F (Captain Ed. J. Wood) - many men from Warren County
Company H (Captain John Macon) - many men from Warren County
The information above is found in The Goodspeed Histories, Vol. 4.
- Beginning United States Civil War Research gives steps for finding information about a Civil War soldier or sailor. It covers the major records that should be used. Additional records are described in 'Tennessee in the Civil War' and 'United States Civil War, 1861 to 1865' (see below).
- National Park Service, The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, is searchable by soldier's name and state. It contains basic facts about soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, a list of regiments, descriptions of significant battles, sources of the information, and suggestions for where to find additional information.
- Tennessee in the Civil War describes many Confederate and Union sources, specifically for Tennessee, and how to find them.. These include compiled service records, pension records, rosters, cemetery records, Internet databases, published books, etc.
- United States Civil War, 1861 to 1865 describes and explains United States and Confederate States records, rather than state records, and how to find them. These include veterans’ censuses, compiled service records, pension records, rosters, cemetery records, Internet databases, published books, etc.
- Lindsley, John B. The Military Annals of Tennessee: Confederate, First Series; Embracing a Review of Military Operations, with Regimental Histories and Memorial Rolls, Compiled from Original and Official Sources. 1886. Reprint. Spartanburg, South Carolina: Reprint Co., 1974. (Family History Library book 976.8 M2L.) Digital versions at Ancestry ($); Internet Archive. A brief history and memorial rolls of the 35th Tennessee Infantry begin on page 492.
- Tennesseans in the Civil War, 35th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, (accessed 22 Oct 2011).
- The First Tennessee Mountain Rifle Regiment Co. H, 35th TN Inf. 35th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, (accessed 22 Oct 2011).
- The Thirty-fifth Tennessee (Confederate) Regiment, a brief history, (accessed 29 Dec 2011).
- ↑ National Park Service, The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, (accessed 6 December 2010).
- ↑ Tennesseans in the Civil War, 35th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, (accessed 29 Dec 2011).
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The Turbo Entabulator – a 3D-printable, fully mechanical computer
Chris Fenton has released the files allowing you to build your own 3D printable mechanical computer.
This is is a simple, 3D-printable (caveat: It requires some springs, bearings, rubber bands, and nuts/bolts), fully-mechanical computer. It has 3, single-digit base-10 counters for memory, and processes a chain of 10-position punch cards. With the included program, it will compute the first few digits of the Fibonacci sequence.
You can find project details on Chris Fenton’s website.This entry was posted in 3D fabrication, DIY and tagged mechanical computer, Turbo Entabulator.
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April 25, 2011
Cracking the Scouting Code
Consistency: the word itself a food metaphor, irony dripping from it like ice cream from a half-melted cone. Despite the rhetoric, consistency doesn’t matter much in baseball. What matters is being good. In the process of evaluating ballplayers, however, consistency is all that matters.
Scouts grade prospects based on a 20-80 scale where 50 is average, and, according to one scout*, “one grade is a standard deviation. Think of it as a bell curve.”
*Kevin Goldstein, Managing Partner of Baseball Prospectus.
But that bell curve is meaningless without further processing. The fundamental building block of baseball is runs, from which you get wins (and from there, you can derive dollars). The 20-80 scale contains numbers without backing, and the “five tools”—hit, hit for power, run, throw, field—all have separate weightings.
“Different tools have different curves,” Goldstein says. “The range of ability is much wider in something like speed than hitting. You can only really have a .200 hitter or a .300 hitter, but speed-wise you have Billy Butler and Brett Gardner—the range is crazy. There’s no such thing as a 70 or 80 hitter who’s not an every-day big leaguer. There is such thing as a 70 or 80 runner who won’t be a big leaguer. I’d say 15 percent of major leaguers have average speed, and I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense.”
While he understands how nonsensical it might seem to call 15 percent of a population “average,” Goldstein has nevertheless written an article on the subject, with the “staggering” finding that “nearly 92 percent of all right-handers have at least average velocity.” Indeed, sometimes scoutspeak falters upon closer inspection.
Goldstein and fellow scout Jason Parks, who co-hosts the BP Podcast, agree that Mariano Rivera’s cutter has exceptional “late life.” But according to BP’s PITCHf/x expert Mike Fast, “Sportvision tests that Alan Nathan helped with confirmed that constant acceleration is a very good approximation for nearly all, and perhaps completely all, pitches.” So what to make of the late break phenomenon?
“That pitch was filthy,” Parks says. “It buckled his knees. The cutter on a righty to a righty, you aim for the hip, and that’s what he did. Kinsler thought it was going to hit him in the crotch.”
“It may not be in compliance with the laws of physics, it may be an optical illusion, but that cutter breaks late,” says Goldstein. “It comes down to where the pitch is at the time of decision for a hitter and where it ends up.”
Goldstein points to Justin Masterson’s sinker and Cole Hamels’ changeup as other examples of pitches with late life. The cutter, sinker, and changeup all have something in common—they work best off the traditional four-seam fastball. They can all be hidden in that fastball’s plane during the first moments when the batter is trying to recognize the pitch.
From 2008-2010, there were just 500 pitches thrown by right-handed pitchers that traveled at least 90 miles per hour with as much cutting action as Mo’s Sunday nighter. Combined, Rivera and Jared Burton have thrown over half of them. The point is, even if a hitter knows it’s coming, there’s no way he can adjust to that type of horizontal movement on a pitch. Just when he expects the pitch to zig, it zigs slightly more than he expected.
“Late life” might not mean much in the physical world, but as a descriptor, it appears to get the job done. Maybe a scout’s “average” doesn’t apply only to the major leagues. There are many levels of amateur and professional ball, and many averages across levels. So long as it’s understood which average is being referenced, the terminology works.
Some terms are even harder to nail down, such as pitchability and deception. You just know them when you see them.
“Pitchability is something that gets thrown out a lot, and there’s something to it,” Goldstein says. “His pitches wouldn’t grade out crazy high, but Greg Maddux is one of the best pitchers in the history of baseball, and there’s a reason for that. It goes beyond his 80 command and control. Understanding sequencing, getting hitters to guess wrong, the mind game. Tom Glavine and Jamie Moyer were huge pitchability guys. Guys pitching well beyond their stuff and still do it for a reason other than luck.”
Picking up on “pitchability,” whatever it is, in prospects and being able to spot a 250-game winner might be helpful. But actually knowing the importance of pitchability is irrelevant. Not every pitcher with pitchability will become Greg Maddux. The process is to find a trait that exists in a set of players and then, after that, analyze the significance of that trait.
As for deception, “PITCHf/x can’t judge Tim Collins at all,” Goldstein says. “Deception is a big part of his game. He twists, goes behind his head; it’s hard to pick up the release. It’s like, 'Oh, there it is.' It depends on the guy, but [deception] can add somewhere between zero and four clicks. 92 seems like 95 for Collins.”
Data on tangibles and biographical information still needs to be processed. Collins’ height can’t simply be taken as a negative. The general wisdom is that shorter pitchers are at a disadvantage, but by how much?
Parks believes that the difference in impact on a game between Brett Gardner’s and Billy Butler’s speed (20-80) is roughly equivalent to the difference between a 50 hitter (.275-.280) and a 60 hitter (.290-.295). Goldstein sees tools impacting the game differently depending on the position. “Shortstop might be 30 or 40 percent glove, and the first baseman might be five percent. Speed is important for the center fielder, but maybe it’s one percent for a catcher.”
So long as Goldstein and Parks have conviction in their beliefs and compile data in that manner, when they assemble a body of work, their hypotheses can be tested. It’s all about consistency, and not just when it comes to one scout. Ideally, that consistency would apply to an entire scouting department.
“That’s why teams get different reports on different sources throughout a season,” Parks says. “You get another report, have another set of eyes on it, they can see the conceptual space between grades, if those numbers have grown closer together or farther apart. Even if I’m wrong, I’m providing a baseline through which all other reports are going to be judged.”
Imagine this: Jim Callis and John Manuel suddenly realize what Victor Wang already realized—that they systematically overrate the potential of top pitching prospects. Baseball America’s scouting paradigm is overhauled—an apocalypse in player evaluation. Baseball America improves its batting average, but at what cost?
In this scenario, their new rankings don’t proceed from the same tried-and-untrue system. That system, with years and years of data, is practically invaluable. If you churn out consistent data, analysis can find the bias. Analysis can make sense of the noise. It's the Costanza corollary: if everything you do is wrong, then the opposite must be right. Baseball America is valuable not because it’s always right, but because it always provides a reliable and comprehensible baseline.
Tangotiger has been compiling the Fans Scouting Reports for a number of years. Fans rate fielders based on criteria such as arm strength and arm accuracy. Incidentally, sabermetricians have developed metrics to evaluate outfield arms. I’m a Fan. I think I can do a decent job of judging an outfielder’s arm, without having had any training. I also think Roberto Clemente’s arm won the Pirates ten games a year. But the data shows that one grade in the FSR, the difference between a 50 and a 60, equates to about one run per year in the value of an outfield arm.
This type of analysis can be performed on every single data point a scout collects. Generally, OFP, Overall Future Potential, is seen as the most important predictor of a prospect’s success. Scouts base their reputations on that number, and decision-makers give that number the most weight. But really, who knows what scouting numbers are the most reliable without actual analysis? Why not throw all of those numbers into a regression? OFP might as well be an OLS-Founded Projection.
Sky Andrecheck, among many others, has shown that the expected value of the No. 1 draft pick is by far the highest when it yields a college hitter. Andrecheck, Wang, BP alum Keith Woolner, and other Prospectus veterans do work for the Indians. Yet the Indians selected a pitcher, Drew Pomeranz, fifth overall last year, and so far his performance ranks up there with that of any 2010 pick. There are no hard-and-fast rules to scouting.
This year, the choice for 1-1 appears to be between Rice infielder Anthony Rendon and UCLA RHP Gerrit Cole.
“Cole is a no-brainer,” Parks says. “Even though all the data backs up taking Rendon, Cole gives me the opportunity to go get a legit No. 1. You can’t acquire that on the free agent market, it’s difficult to trade for one.”
Goldstein: “I’d wonder what the value is if you took away the players who never reached the majors. You’re measuring value in total instead of players who make it to the big leagues.’
But why would you do that?
“In the investment game, there’s the concept of risk,” Goldstein continues. “If you put your money in savings bonds, you’re going to get these little checks every year, and it’s going to be awesome. But if you take risks in the international market, in tech stocks, you’ll lose your hat sometimes, but other days it will let you buy a house. The expected value is lower, I’ll admit you’re right, but you’re never going to win. I don’t like the concept of expected value. I don’t care about expected value. It’s about the chances of finding an impact player. If you get 12 years of big-league-average baseball, you’re going to do well on an expected-value spreadsheet, but it’s not about finding average value. It’s about finding impact players. You have to take those chances.”
Between 1987 and 2007, 12 position players were chosen first overall and 10 became All-Stars. Of the nine pitchers, only two became All-Stars.
“It’s funny, you can know the data and still give the same answer,” Parks adds.
And that’s really all it is: consistency. If the scouting director is providing his own analysis on his scouts’ data, all he needs is reliability, and the rest falls into place. In the end, it comes down to what you’re asking your scouts to be: data providers or data analysts?
“I’d call myself both,” Goldstein says. “Scouting reports are at their very core data, but there is narrative to it. There will be 20 or so numbers on, say, fastball velocity, makeup, bio info, and then there will be paragraphs writing about what he is.”
“You are collecting, analyzing what you collect, articulating it for other people to analyze,” Parks says. “But you analyze it first to have it make sense to you. You’re basically a salesman—you are convincing yourself of the validity of some product. Everything in life takes some form of convincing. The fact he can throw 98 convinces me he can throw a good fastball. You need to be able to articulate your thoughts. They need to know that I think Cole has a good fastball, a good slider, and an improving changeup. It’s all about collecting data, processing data, and putting it in a nice little package.”
The language spoken by PITCHf/x analysts can be lost in translation just as easily.
When it comes to classifying pitches, what do you call a pitch like Rivera’s non-cut fastball, Angel Guzman’s cut fastball, or Aroldis Chapman’s breaking pitch? They may be gripped one way or have the physical properties of a typical pitch type, but who determines the label?
“A lot of the time, PITCHf/x won’t properly identify a breaking ball, but ultimately it really doesn’t matter,” Parks says. “Call it a 78 mile-per-hour breaking ball. If it features more tilt than vertical action, then, depending on the arm angle, it will be a slider versus a curveball. The label doesn’t matter. I care about the effectiveness of the pitch.”
Clustering algorithms used for pitch classification are essential for analysis, but trying to label pitches in English right off the bat might be a mistake. Until these pitch types have to be communicated, they should be thought of in terms of their properties. Everyone throws a fastball, and off-speed pitches work off the fastball. You can describe the physical properties of a pitcher's fastball and how his off-speed pitches relate to it, but it doesn’t make much sense to compare pitches thrown by different pitchers because they are named the same. It makes sense to compare them because they have similar speed and movement or are similarly separated from a fastball.
“Baseball is so old-school, it might confuse a lot of people, but I’d be all for it," Parks says. “All I care is what the pitch does, how it affects people, if the pitcher has command over it.”
Players and scouts and coaches are always accurate. That doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with what they’re saying, but if I introduce a PITCHf/x concept and they either disagree or don’t understand, it has to be my fault. They’ve been speaking in their own language for ten times longer than PITCHf/x has existed. They already have definitions that they understand. PITCHf/x is still searching for its own language.
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LOST is a business game that allows students to acquire logistics concepts quickly and fun; and to develop an intrinsic motivation that leads them to reach, understand and experiment new strategies.
Logistics is defined as a business planning for the management of materials, services, information and capital flows. By other hand, a strategy game is a game in which players use their technical and planning skills, a tactical deployment and have a high situational awareness that allows them to make an optimal decision making in order to win the game.
Logistic Simulator (LOST) is a video game that allows to students to develop logistical concepts and understand its interfaces showing to people the consequences of each decision they make and indicating how a decision in one department affect the performance of the overall system.
Traditionally, one of the greatest difficulties in teaching logistics is that a huge majority of universities have organized their programs in such way that the knowledge they offer is functionally fragmented. Regularly there are specific areas where it is taught: forecasts, inventory, scheduling, etc. Moreover, these techniques and models require a high mathematical expertise, which for many students means an arid phase where it is difficult to assimilate the content.
Finally, even if the students have been able to overcome these difficulties and to distinguish production problems, inventory problems, optimization problems; when they facing the real world, they have trouble involving at the same time many of these functional areas and need to manage the interfaces between them.
LOST is a new vision for teaching logistics; it’s a business game that gradually increases its difficulty and allows students:
- To acquire logistics concepts quickly and fun
- To observe the consequences of each decision in different areas of a company
- To identify the main variables that must be observed when making every decision.
- To develop an intrinsic motivation that leads them to investigate, understand and experiment new strategies to reach the solution of a problem
LOST is a video game based on a didactic technique called "gamification". The scenarios are defined by the teacher depending on the thematic content of the subject.
Through a video, an introduction to the game is presented to students where we narrate a problem faced by a company and we ask students to make decisions that help the company.
Once students have understood how to operate the program and goals of the company, each of them will receive a file with a set of data (demands, operating costs, delivery times, costs of raw materials, quality) that is randomly generated but has a homogeneous degree of difficulty. Based on these data, students must define a feasible production plan that allows their company achieve higher profits.
Before the students begin the game we asked them to define the strategy that they will follow during the game. Each of the decisions that the students make is transferred and stored in a database so we can observe the consistency between the decisions made and the defined strategy.
On the other hand, within the simulator there is a "trophy room" where we indicate to each student the challenges of the scenario. There is also a "leaderboard" that allows them to identify their performance against other group members.
When a student has achieved the goals successfully, a new scenario is given, containing new variables and regularly where he/she should take a greater number of decisions.
Regularly the teacher should review continuously the database to check the student progress, so when a student is away from the established goals, the teacher and the student discuss the possibility of changing the strategy or suggest adjustments about the operationalization of the decisions.
As mentioned above, the game is based on a teaching technique called gamification. This technique allows students to achieve some awards and trophies throughout the game, and moreover, for a great majority of the students is very rewarding to see his/her name appearing at the top of the leaderboard.
The teacher regularly puts students a deadline to finish each game episode, during this period the students have the opportunity to play the game up to three times if the score obtained does not satisfy them, so that they can register again and try to improve their results. The highest score achieved is the one recorded in the standings.
Moreover, students also have a minimum target to beat. If any of the students do not reach the minimum score, then one of those who have achieved the highest scores will become his/her mentor to make sure he/she understands the key concepts of the game. For example, suppose that three of the students do not reach the minimum score, then the first three places on the leaderboard have the opportunity to be the "counselors" of these students, and this extra work allows them to obtain specific rewards along the course.
Although regularly at the first opportunity 70% of them exceeds the minimum overcome, 85% of them return to play in order to improve their score!!!
When they reach the goals, a new scenario is presented to them. All scenarios contain logistical problems related to topics such as forecasts, inventory, transportation, quality, production management, vendor selection, scheduling activities, etc., but the complexity of the situation faced by the student and goals achieve are increasingly high.
Additionally, although the different stages and episodes of the program are described to students, there is always a suggestion box to recommend new challenges, so that most of the improvements that we have made come from the opinions of the students themselves.
- The game helps me to learn: 48% strongly agree, 39% agree.
- The game helps me to develop interest in the subject: 61% strongly agree, 28% agree.
- The game prompts me to push myself: 64% strongly agree, 27% agree.
- The game helps me to build confidence in the mastery of the subject: 43% strongly agree, 42% agree.
- The game develops my persistence to solve a challenge: 55% strongly agree, 36% agree.
- The game helps me to demand more from myself: 60% strongly agree, 30% agree.
- The game does not bring me any benefit: 61% strongly disagree, 31% disagree.
- The game seems to me like a waste of time: 60% strongly disagree, 31% disagree.
- Based on this data and the change in attitude of the students to these courses, we believe the results are encouraging.
Although we have designed twelve different scenarios for the game, there are currently only six programmed scenarios. In addition, the project wants to incorporate experts in the areas of finance, marketing and supply chain to help us think and design new challenges.
Moreover, the game is set on a platform with Excel VBA programming. We want to rebuild it in a more robust computer language that allows students to operate it from mobile devices (tablets and phones).
Likewise, we want to build a largely enough data base that allows us to observe what are the main mistakes that students make when playing the simulator; what variables they consider important; what variables pass them unnoticed; what are the more successful strategies; how they apply the previous knowledge; etc. Based on these results, one objective is to design a series of didactic supports (exercises, videos, readings) that offer useful advices that may strengthen their weaker skills.
In Mexico, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) generate 72% of employment and 52% of gross domestic product (GDP). We believe that putting the game on the network to develop logistics concepts in this type of business becomes an essential task that will contribute to the development of our country.
In addition to the survey applied to students at the end of each scenario, there is also another survey that allows us to identify general student characteristics (gender, career, semester, age, etc.). Through this type of survey we are able to develop a deeper research that allows us to explore the usefulness of the simulator on different types of students.
Finally, we want to put at least the first two scenarios on the network in order to allow the project to be available for both, students and teachers to use.
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Speech about the Illuminati (NWO) - President J. F. Kennedy
"Ladies and gentlemen, the very word secrecy is repugnant, in a free and open society, and we are as a people, inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings.
We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweigh the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation, if our traditions do not survive with it.
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious who wish to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit, to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my administration whether his rank as high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight, as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes, or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, that relies primarily on covet means for expanding its fear of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation, instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night, instead of armies by day.
It is a system which has conscripted, vast material and human resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed.
No president should fear public scrutiny of his program. Because from that scrutiny comes understanding. And from that understanding comes support or opposition, and both are necessary. I am not asking your newspaper to support an administration. But I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people.
For I have complete confidence in the response and the dedication of our citizens when they are fully informed. I not only could not stifle controversy from your readers I welcome it. This administration intends to be candid about its errors. For as a wise man once said, "An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it".
We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors and we expect you to point them out when we miss them. Without debate without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed. And no republic can survive.
That is why the Athenian law decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the first amendment, the only business in America specifically protected by the constitution, not primarily to amuse or entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants, but to inform, to arouse, and to reflect to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mould, and educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
This means greater coverage and analysis of international news, for it is no longer far away and foreign, but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved attention to greater understanding of the news, as well as improved transmission, and it means finally, the government at all levels, must meet its obligation, to provide you with its possible information, outside the narrowest limits of national security. And so it is to the printing press, to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the carrier of his news, that we look for strength, and his assistance, confident that with your help, Man will be what he was born to be - Free and independent."
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Interleukin (IL)-1β is the major factor underlying peripheral blood-macrophage-conditioned medium (PB-MCM)-induced urokinase-type PA (uPA) expression in chondrocytes. RNA samples were then isolated and subjected to real-time PCR analysis. The mRNA data are presented as the fold changes in fluorescent intensities compared with control (CL) chondrocytes normalized to the 18S rRNA levels. (A) Chondrocytes were untreated (CL) or stimulated with PB-MCM for 2 hours. Before culturing under control conditions (CL) or stimulation with PB-MCM, the PB-MCM and chondrocytes were preincubated with PBS, IL-1ra, isotype-matched IgG, or neutralizing antibody against TNF-α (TNF Ab) individually for 2 hours. *P < 0.05 versus CL. #P < 0.05 versus PBS, IgG-, or TNF Ab-treated cells under PB-MCM stimulation. (B) Chondrocytes cultured as unstimulated CL, or stimulated with different doses of IL-1b or TNF-a for 2 hours. *P < 0.01 versus CL.
Yeh et al. Arthritis Research & Therapy 2013 15:R53 doi:10.1186/ar4215
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Just discovered this fascinating video from a cultural anthropology class at Kansas State.
The class, taught by Michael Wesch, explored a simple but oft-neglected question: What’s it like to be a student today? The answer: Not what we teachers and prospective employers, parents and neighbors, think.
The school and university, as we know them today, are products of the nineteenth century. Information and expertise, in those days, were rare. You had to enroll in a class — or make time-intensive trips to the library — to get access to that information. The major role of the teacher, then, was to offer ideas that could not be found elsewhere.
But today, we have more information that we can ever imagine. In 2010, the world created 1,200 exabytes of information — the equivalent of 1,200 trillion books. Almost three-quarters of those data come from humans, writing books and papers, blogs and reports, video transcripts and social media comments, and more. The rest gets generated automatically sensors and scanners that track our movements on the web and in streets, stores, and airports. Google, Bing, and Yahoo make finding data easy.
So the very foundation of schools today — teachers expounding in front of the room, as if the information they offer cannot be found anywhere else — is questionable. Students are asked to get enthused about something as up-to-date as a horse and buggy. They are asked to treasure the classroom’s information and insights, when they explore much more on a device the size of a pack of cards.
Yes, I know what happens in the classroom can be magical, transforming, liberating. A great class does much more than transmit ideas. But I have also been involved in higher education, on and off, for 30 years. And I know that the truly inspiring class is not the rule.
One claim from the video struck me. Don’t know its validity. But did you catch the claim that students write an average of 42 pages for papers over a semester … and 500 pages worth of emails?
How much of a dent can those papers make in students’ thinking and writing, given the context of everything else they do? Forty-two pages is nothing compared not just to that impressive output of email, but also in the context of TV, the Internet, music, and other claims on students’ lives.
So how can learning — including writing — better reflect contemporary realities?
As the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off says: Anyone? Anyone?
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Typically, the surgery will last just a quarter hour. Before you leave following your surgery, your health care team will make sure you are responding well to the treatment you’ve been given. Lasik eye surgery has turned into a favourite technique for the intent of correcting all types of eye difficulties.
By consulting an experience eye clinic, you can make certain that the surgery will take place in a secure and beneficial fashion and the consequence of it will also be positive. In the event you will need LASIK surgery in both eyes, doctors will often conduct the process on just the very same moment. Keep reading if you want to see if Lasik eye surgery is right for you. It has become a popular method for the purpose of correcting all kinds of eye problems. When you’re considering LASIK eye surgery you must make sure you have all the info that you’ll need to create an educated choice.
My surgery is presently scheduled for the exact first week in September! LASIK surgery is a fast and simple procedure, which is accomplished by means of an eye surgeon to reshape the cornea and boost vision. Keep reading in case you want to determine if Lasik eye surgery is excellent for you. When you’re considering LASIK eye surgery you have to receive all the facts to be able to make an educated choice. If you wish to try out lasik eye surgery Minneapolis, then it is preferable to look at the reviews online before you choose the surgeon.
Be sure to ask any questions you may have regarding the surgery, and your physician will provide the answers. You don’t have to have LASIK surgery and consequently, you need an extremely thorough discussion with your ophthalmologist before you opt to have the procedure. LASIK eye surgery is done in offices all over the country by experienced eye surgeons and you ought to be in a position to locate a great surgeon to work with. When you’re considering LASIK eye surgery you have to make sure that you have all of the info you want to make an educated decision.
In many of the surgeries, it’s among the most common kinds of the eye surgery. Naturally, there are different forms of laser eye surgery out there, a few of which you might have already heard about, like intralase surgery. It can give you amazing results and permanently change the shape of your cornea in just minutes. Laser eye surgery is among the best solutions for those who wish to eradicate their glasses. It is just one of the important surgeries that are being done. A YAG eye surgery is corrective kind of laser eye surgery performed to eliminate obstructions that can cause vision difficulties. Today if you’re interested in vision correction surgery you can choose a bladeless LASIK.
Every surgery is going to have a follow-up call or appointment to discuss your recovery and let you ask any questions about unusual symptoms or changes in your total wellness. You prepared me that there could be follow-up surgery. Besides mirrors or contact lenses, people can choose to do the ideal laser surgery.
Lasik Surgery Reviews and Lasik Surgery Reviews – The Perfect Combination
All surgeries have their benefits and disadvantages, and Lasik eye surgery is merely the exact same. Moreover, the surgery isn’t great for each person. LASIK surgery is merely among the most popular eye surgeries today. LASIK eye surgery can be less stressful if you’re acquainted with the approach. It nowadays is practiced all over the world and the bulk of the patients are highly pleased with the results.
The Basic Principles of Lasik Surgery Reviews You Can Benefit From Starting Immediately
Lasik is an outpatient procedure, but your doctor may supply you medicine to help you relax. Before you choose whether or not LASIK is suitable for you, you will need to spend the opportunity to speak with an eye surgeon about all of the info involved with LASIK. Before you choose whether LASIK is appropriate for you, you wish to spend the chance to talk with an eye surgeon about each of the info involved with LASIK. All Laser LASIK is truly a precise two-step procedure.
LASIK is almost universally regarded as one of the most significant investments a person can make in their wellness and higher quality of life. Topography-assisted LASIK was made to be an advancement in precision and reduce night vision side success. Although LASIK can’t cure presbyopia, a physician may be able to boost a patient’s vision by way of a technique called monovision. To determine conclusively that LASIK is a remarkable fit for you, your doctor will conduct an extensive eye exam. Although LASIK is a kind of surgery, it’s done at our center with a minimally invasive technique, resulting in rapid healing, and a high degree of succeeding. All lasers LASIK lessens the danger of particular complications caused because of the use of microkeratome. All lasers LASIK lowers the chance of particular complications caused because of using microkeratome.
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North of Tyne Combined Authority is a partner of the North East and Yorkshire Net Zero Hub, one of five Net Zero Hubs across England, funded by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
The North East and Yorkshire Net Zero Hub is a collaboration of six Combined Authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships accelerating the transition to ‘Net Zero’ and a future of clean growth through local energy delivery.
The Hub enables, facilitates and accelerates Net Zero in the North East and Yorkshire by:
- Providing local areas with the capacity to accelerate and realise their Net Zero ambitions.
- Helping take local projects from idea to investment by developing funding strategies.
- Providing practical and financial resources to make Net Zero happen.
- Bringing partners together to deliver projects and increase local knowledge of Net Zero opportunities.
We actively support the transformation of projects across the North East into fundable propositions. In parallel, we are shaping the Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) process in the region, which are costed and evidenced roadmaps to decarbonising heat, transport, energy efficiency of buildings and generating renewable energy on a local scale.
As a key partner of the Hub, we are closely involved in supporting a range of programmes driving Net Zero in the North East:
- Energy Project Enabling Fund: Further grant funding to help mobilise and deliver local clean energy and heat projects.
- Public Estates Decarbonisation Programme: Further support for local authorities to help decarbonise public sector estates.
- Community Energy North: Creating a programme of support to build the community energy sector and identify solutions for local authorities delivering Net Zero strategies.
- Domestic retrofit activity: Continuing to help local authorities to improve the energy efficiency of low-income households.
- Local Energy Advice Demonstrators (LEAD): Working with the government to pilot innovative approaches to local in-person energy advice, particularly aimed at digitally excluded communities and hard to treat properties.
More information is available on the North East and Yorkshire Net Zero Hub website.
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Are you the executor of an estate or have you been asked by a family member or close frield to be appointed as an executor under their Tasmanian Will? If so, you should understand the importance of this role and what is involved. This article describes the process by which a person’s estate (being any property, bank accounts, cash, shares, furniture etc.) is transferred after they die. One of the critical aspects of this process is choosing an Executor of the estate.
It is important to note that Wills are governed by State laws. In Tasmania, when a person dies leaving assets, their appointed Executor must obtain a Grant of Probate (Probate’’) from the Supreme Court of Tasmania. Without Probate an executor cannot deal with any assets, including transfer of property or accessing bank accounts to beneficiaries, no matter what the Will states.
In the case of a couple whose assets are all jointly owned, or who have relatively small holdings of shares or cash, Probate may not be required because joint assets will automatically pass to the surviving partner.
Obtaining Probate can be straightforward, but on occasions it can be complex. There can be issues for technical reasons – for example if the spelling of the person’s name on the death certificate differs (not matter how small the difference) from the spelling of their name in the Will can cause issues and delay the Executors ability to administer the Estate.
However, the most common difficulty faced by Executors is an application for Probate being challenged by others. There are a number of grounds that challenges can be made. Such challenges being the:
Such challenges are normally made by people who consider that they are entitled to a share, or greater share of the estate than is provided for them in the Will.
Apart from applying for Probate, what are the other responsibilities of the executor? The executor stands in the shoe of the deceased and administers the estate. The executor's role varies depending on the of estate, however the role of executor generally includes:
Arranging the funeral and the burial or cremation of the deceased (although the arrangements are usually carried out by agreement with the family and in accordance with any express wishes of the deceased). Funeral expenses are to be paid first from the estate of the deceased;
Given the importance of the role of the executor, you should take the time to appoint the right person to be the executor of your Will. This should be a person who can make prudent decisions potentially under great pressure.
If the role of executor sounds difficult do not despair, the lawyer acting for the estate will provide assistance along the way and will prepare the required legal documents and complete the forms for the executors to check and sign.
If you are an executor of an estate Cormiston Legal can help you collect the assets, identify their value, lodge the appropriate documentation in the Supreme Court of Tasmania, obtain Probate and attend to the liquidation or transmission of assets to the beneficiaries under the Will.
To discuss how we can help please contact us on 03 6332 9353.
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Buying a property through your Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) can be more complex than if you buy a property in your own name. Using an ...
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A possible national model for a new, sustainable and qualified tourism?
Destination Florence, the first national marketing and promotional project between a public body and a private professional consortium, developed by the Destination Florence Convention and Visitors Bureau and realized in partnership with the City of Florence that will allow for the monitoring of tourism flow, diversifying the offerings and bettering the strategy of Florence as a destination, thus raising the standards of users and of the experience.
The City of Florence, along with its partners, aims to outline new and effective strategies in the field, relying on the governance of tourism and the ability to directly foster agreements between institutions and individuals, while defining and clarifying the roles of various on-site actors. The current widespread existence of offers and fragmentation of products, aside from damaging the image of the destination, are a cause for great confusion for buyers and potential users of the city.
Leading this battle, the Mayor reiterates his strategic role as Florence’s first ambassador, promoter and sponsor. “This is a unique project in Italy – confirms Mayor Nardella – to redesign strategies and tools in order to better the quality of fluctuation and flow in cities such as our own, succumb to high pressure by tourism. Thanks to the exclusive relationship that the City of Florence maintains with the Destination Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau, we will launch the first platform for information, promotion and online sales of qualified and certified tourist services in the city, including the greater metropolitan area, to include lesser-known concepts of great touristic value. In this way – Nardella continues – we can become a “tailor-made” alternative to the massive online and mass-market sales players, putting in to play concrete actions such as the war against ‘hit and run’ and ‘piggybacking’ tendencies of museum entrances, which often leads to overwhelming ticket numbers, a true disservice to the tourists who seek an authentic visit to our museums. We’re aiming to better the tourism within the city of Florence, to decongest the historic city center, by promoting and selling destinations belonging to the communal and metropolitan areas. This is the challenge that all Italian art cities must have the courage to confront”.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT:
- Augment a number of tourists with a qualified profile and high spending capacity.
- Increase the average duration of stay within the territory.
Expand and diversify the range of services, products, and experiences.
- Develop and promote tourism offerings, proposing a benchmark for a single, potential national model.
- Qualitatively enhance the image of Florence worldwide.
- Monitor the presence and behavior of tourists through state-of-the-art profiling and analysis to aid in potential economic support for the City and Metropolitan Area.
- Targeted actions at the international level with the most qualified operators.
- Presence at primary Fairs and Events of the sector (ILTM Cannes, WTB Berlin, etc.).
- International Media Relations and PR activities in US, UK, GERMANY, and NORTHERN EUROPEAN markets.
- The Destination Florence project will rely on the portal com at its core, a strategic marketing and promotion tool from which to draw information, contacts, and services.
The Destination Florence project represents a unique experience on the national level as it is realized by FCVB, a private company, in partnership with the City of Florence. This ensures it to be the official portal of the city, an aspect that greatly enhances its reliability and efficiency and, at the same time, allows for the commercialization of tourism offerings, a unique defining factor.
The portal addresses three target users: citizens, tourists, and students and will serve not only as a platform accessible to global tourists but also a live, commercial outlet to be promoted worldwide. It will also be a single point of reference for anyone looking to find information about the city of Florence, making his or her experience in the Tuscan capital unique.
The Destination Florence platform utilizes a technology system capable of monitoring tourist behaviour and activity, from their origin and habits to the most frequented places. These studies give way to identifying new reservation systems for big museums, tour operator certifications, and tariff modulation based on seasonal flow and demand. Above all else, they shed insight on the attractions of return tourists.
Inside the portal, you will be able to purchase the following services using a single shopping cart (cross booking): state, civic and private museum tickets, theatre tickets, concerts, sporting events, taxi reservations, car services, airline and train tickets, guided tours, tourist services, packages, etc.
Destination Florence’s philosophy is to use the location’s existing platforms and unite them under one hat by way of various agreements, while the content will be enriched with up-to-date, trusted institutional sources such as firenzeturismo.it and turismo.intoscana.it. Anyone wishing to join the project can be present on the platform.
As for hotel reservations, it has been decided not to use a large OTA and not to create a booking portal from scratch, but to use a pre-existing, credible instrument in the world of OTA’s that can be adjusted ad hoc based on necessity.
The marketing and communications plan will be one of the key levers to promote the city and will be supported by a significant investment on behalf of the Destination Florence Convention and Visitors Bureau. A dedicated logo was created to foster recognition by the target audience, giving the project an identifiable symbol and crediting the network present in the city of Florence.
The graphic design and technical realization of the portal were realized by Vertical Media of Florence, along with the web marketing and communications plan for the promotion and positioning of the platform.
The Destination Florence portal supports Florentine culture and territory by devoting a percentage of booking fee revenues to projects dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of the city’s heritage. In accordance with the City of Florence, each year a Cultural Art commission will select a work of art that will be sustained thanks to donations collected through bookings made by travellers who use the portal.
FCVB already relies on important confirmed partnerships with major local businesses operating in the tourism sector. The partnerships involve sharing all promotional and marketing activities abroad to strengthen the image of the destination and the excellence of the territory, as well as identifying paths and projects designed and realized ad hoc for users of the www.destinationflorence.com platform.
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BRICS alliance working to create its own currency, says Russian official1 min read 02 Apr 2023, 10:25 PM IST
The bloc grouping the emerging economic heavyweights Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are reportedly working on their own currency - established on a strategy that ‘does not defend the dollar or euro’.
Moscow has found itself reeling under an avalanche of sanctions and restrictions as the Ukraine Russia war rages. Against this backdrop, President Vladimir Putin adopted a new foreign policy this week, identifying China and India as its main allies on the world stage. Now, the ties between the three nations (and a few others) appear poised to go a step further with the formation of a new currency.
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How to Do Proper Maintenance on Your Aquarium?
It is very important to do aquarium maintenance though, it is quite daunting and often involves delicate procedures in maintaining its cleanliness. No matter how hard this task is, it’s imperative that you set aside time in doing such thing for your marine animals to live longer. Fish much like other pets need a clean and healthy surrounding to live. Keeping a fish tank as a goal is not enough if you fail to clean it on a regular basis.
As time flies, you’ll not notice it but your aquarium will become dirt due to algae, the accumulation of waste materials and so forth. After all, it’s nice to see clean aquarium not for its aesthetic appeal but for the fish to stay healthy and at the same time, to promote proper hygiene. One thing is for sure, doing this task is going to be hard especially for beginners but in the long run, this is going to be a rewarding experience. If you want your aquarium maintenance to become less of a challenge and easier as well, then better make yourself aware of the next tips.
Number 1. Changing water regularly – water in aquarium needs to be checked from time to time to know whether it needs to be cleaned or not. There’s certain level of care needed when cleaning the aquarium so by that, everything inside goes well.
In maintenance of the tank, the first thing that needs to be done is removing old water from the tank and transfer the fish to your hospital tank for a short time. To make the cleaning faster and easier, all other objects in your main tank should be removed as well.
Number 2. Remove excess dirt and algae – if you make it a habit to perform routine cleaning, then it can be easier to eliminate algae and dirt. And in the event that the last time it was cleaned was not thorough enough, this can take longer. Before you start with the cleaning, it will be wise of you to remove everything in your aquarium. If you have an acrylic tank, it is best to make use of a soft sponge. Also, this is advised to avoid scratching the aquarium’s surface.
Number 3. Clean or replace filters – as a matter of fact, you’re better buying a new filter than cleaning it. Filters that are cleaned and reused 2 or 3 times are good for replacement to maximize efficiency and savings. As much as possible, steer clear of using soaps or detergents when cleaning the filter as these might have harmful ingredients that can affect the fish.
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Why is that?
An occult deconstruction is really about revealing the nature of the design and the Construct. This "deconstruction" is only regarded as being "of the Occult" owing to the nature that the Construct, which, although hidden in plain view, remains essentially unexplored, lacking in discussion, and hence hidden (occulted).
One need not attach mystical mumbo-jumbo bogeyman principles to this philosophical reality: the Letters, and with it, the Language, remains a system of overlapping constructions that, when taken as individual units or as sub-units, reveals in subtle shadows the larger Construction upon which it has been based.
This very concept, of course, flies in the face of some mass market academic thinking. I cringe every time I hear of some "etymologist" spinning yarns about how the language evolved without any logic or reason and that it "evolved". The very fact that the language has a "grammar", or rules, tells you that the construct HAS BEEN BASED on some form of logic and reason.
Extending this "logic and reason" to include the fabrication of the very Letters soon follows.
Food Tastes Better when Eaten out
The study of the Runes and Jewish letters seemed as if a "requirement" before one could "graduate".
At one point, and don't ask me to do such now, I was writing whole letters in runes with the idea that if I used the runes as an actual tool of personal communication, I would be better able to penetrate their mysteries.
Regarding Jewish letters, which at that point in time fell under this idea of Jewish exclusivity regarding Kabballah, most of it appeared to me to be conjecture and nonsense - irrational at best, and borderline psychopathy at worst.
The main issue for me, however, during the whole process of this education was this: "Why do people have this pressing need to go off in search of these "mystical letters"? I could never really answer such satisfactorily, but I do have a theory.
Human nature, sorta like eating out.
Have you ever noticed that when you go out to eat, or otherwise dine out at a friends house, etc., that the food always seems to taste better? The "uniqueness", the "difference", the "unfamiliarity" adds to the mystique and experience. What one has tasted dozens of times, on the other hand, breeds familiarity. With the familiarity comes a desensitized sensory experience.
The study of runes and "Jewish letters" carries this mystical equivalence. Yet nothing, at least relative to solving the riddle of the Construct, can be solved through the singular study of any of these given "esoteric systems".
It is sorta like "Kabballah! Oooh! This is so mystical!"
Yeah. Sure. And eating out always tastes better too.
A Traditional Study of the Letters
A "traditional study of the letters" hints at a formal structure to one's study. However, in the case of an "occult study of the Letters", our "traditional study of the Letters" incorporates a vast amount of material drawn from "occult" sources.
For example, we may draw from Plutarch who says,
"As for the robes, those of Isis are variegated in their colours; for her power is concerned with matter which becomes everything and receives everything, light and darkness, day and night, fire and water, life and death, beginning and end. But the robe of Osiris has no shading or variety in its colour, but only one single colour like to light. For the beginning is combined with nothing else, and that which is primary and conceptual is without admixture; wherefore, when they have once taken off the robe of Osiris, they lay it away and guard it, unseen and untouched. But the robes of Isis they use many times over; for in use those things that are perceptible and ready at hand afford many disclosures of themselves and opportunities to view them as they are changed about in various ways."
In this instance, the "Robe of Osiris" is the Alphabet, while the "Robes of Isis" are the individual Letters which are spun into words that describe physical reality in all its manifestations.
Name Values and the Letters
When one immerses themselves into a traditional study of the Letters (note that I am not saying that a traditional study implies a proper and accurate study), one invariably is led into the Rabbinical schools. One is taught that the "Alphabet" comes from the Jewish "Alef Beit", for starters, but this whole logic is predicated on a particular vein of religious thinking.
"If God created the world as described in the Bible, then all things must derive from Jews because Jews were the first created." Then you can snicker and laugh at the academic rationalizations that turn Hebrew into a root language which branches out to eventually evolve into a hyper Occult link to English (as taught in some Setianist schools).
However, our business is not a business of irrational insanities justified through the application of funded agenda after funded agenda at the academic level - ours is a precise and surgical study into the Occult nature of the Letters.
In this way, we can rapidly cut through the obfuscations.
We know that "reality" as exhibited through the Alphabets of the world present a series of precise mathematical or phonetic transpositions. Further, there are "letters" and there are "names". A deeper study into Rabbinical Kabballah reveals, for instance, an often tortured logic relative to their lettering system. There are holes in their system of Gematria.
For example, the phrase
brings one to an elaborate illogical conclusion.
The actual phrase is translated in English as YUD HE VAV HE. What happened to the "UD" in the term YUD? What happened to the "AV" of VAV? So we just ignore the letters UD in YUD when we make up its calculated Occult value? So how did you arrive at "26" while ignoring the total value of the letters within the phrase?
The Rabbinical Systems have no choice but to invent further rules that deal with these glaring holes and anomalies in their larger "kabballah" system.
But the food is always better when eaten out, right?
Acrophony and Occult ConstructionsThere is a simpler reality going on.
Hebrew, Runes, and Greek, are but examples of "acrophonic alphabets." Acrophonic alphabets essentially assign a word to the first sound of the letter of the Alphabet. In this way, the Greek "delta" is for the letter D, while in Hebrew it would be called "Daleth". The concept of use of "acrophony" in and of itself, if done in a random fashion, would theoretical contain no inherent Occult signature aside from the injection of synchronicity. It is no more complicated that we in English assigning to English "A is for Apple" and "B is Boy", "C is for Cat", and so forth.
Aviation letter call outs such as "Alpha Bravo Tango" for ABT are but examples of an acrophonic construction.
So to apply some mystical value to Hebrew without having some rational basis for the construction sends one into superstition. Why is Pei of the Hebrew called Pei? To solve this, you MUST USE ENGLISH (fancy that), just as sure as to solve for the "esoteric significance of Gimmel"?
Who died and made "acrophony" "mystical", after all?
The key is in what we may term "interlocking ciphers" and was hinted at in the Matrix Reloaded,
Interlocking Ciphers - Transpositions
In the Matrix Reloaded, the "Keymaker" is speaking with Seraph.
Seraph: The code is hidden in tumblers. One position opens a lock. Another position opens one of these doors
Keymaker: If one fails, so must the other.
Such a script is actually quite a Qaballistic insight.
Gimmel is one of the locks, which I call a "hinge point" for it fuses one system to another and at the same time reveals the "Qaballistic" deconstruction for the name "Gimmel" as an acrophone for the phonetic of "G".
Phonetically clear enough. The Letter G is located at 3 and shares with it a phonetic equivalent to C. The shape of Gimmel reveals nothing. It's revelation is seen in the "English" in that the Letter C shares a clear design parallel to the Letter G.
C = G
Each is made of the Letter C, with the G having but a T located such that the horizontal of the T is set at the middle of the C. As per the Isisian Codes, the Letter C is 3 and the Letter T is 4.
C(3)+T(4)=G. The Glyph G is encoding the mathematical formula. The CODE is in English. The clue is in Hebrew, wherein the "clue" is but one of the many "robes of Isis" that lead us to the primary and principle truth, which may lead us to an appercetion of the conceptual.
But you don't have to stop at this explanation. We are dealing with often HYPER RATIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS across multiple language systems. For the LETTER G, we can surmise through direct esoteric analysis that indeed G is comprised of 3+4, or C+T (see the Isisian Codes value for T below).
In Hebrew, the Letter G is given an acrophone of GIMMEL WHICH ONLY MAKES SENSE WHEN ENGLISH MATHEMATICAL (ISISIAN CODE) ANALYSIS IS APPLIED. The mathematics clearly have not failed, but we do not need to stop. We can then delve and "check" our work even further.
The Cryllic alphabet as used in Russia, for instance, clearly shows the principle of "transpositions and modifications". Here is the Letter G in Cryllic. The Construct is clear, and as shown in this case, the Letter G is the comprehensive glyph.
Gimmel is a corrupted transposition, per say, while Crylic provides us with an equally partial view of the larger philosophy behind the Construct which is the Letter G.
And you wonder why G is held in such high esteem within certain secret societies?
The letter is at the very core of the rational construction.
A Contemporary Analysis of the Letters
Fortunately, the Construct has been so finely crafted that it is now possible to shortcut much of the traditional study. For instance, it is said that one can "get their vitamin D from the Sun". Ingenious. Vitamin D, or "the Letter D", is the glyph that represents the Sun coming up over the horizon.
Of course you can get your "vitamin D" from "the Sun". They are one and the same.
Vitamin A "helps you see", but the Letter A is the "pyramid letter", and how, really, do you separate the pyramid from "the Eye of Providence"?
Of course vitamin A helps you see.
And what of vitamin C? Vitamin C is an "anti-oxidant". What is an "oxidant" but that which "rusts"? What "rusts" is symbolic of Jehovah/Typhon/Seth, and so an intake of "vitamin C" (SEE) is as an "anti-oxidant" which then fights back the oxidizing properties of Jehovah/Typhon/Seth.
Then there is the Letter O made quite popular by OPRAH. "O" of course is feminine, and, when fused to its representative number, or that which is called ZERO, we have but an anagram play on the word "ROZE", which then becomes ROSE which then becomes EROS which then becomes....
The Letter T (tee) is what "raises you up", or, when represented as "tea", is what "wakes you up".
O is Feminine is 15 is the "quince anos" celebration through much of Latin America.
It is all there to be explored and unlocked, but you will never get there trying to bang your head figuring out how the heck "gimmel" is a "camel" when the answer to the riddle remains hidden in the Isisian Codes and the English order and placement of the Alphabet.
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Enrico Leone Donati was born in 1934 in Riva del Garda, Italy. He lived and worked in Switzerland from 1948 to 1990. His artistic development ranged from architecture, classical ballet and choreography to painting and sculpture in Zurich and Geneva. Since 1962 he has been a freelance visual artist and lives in Poggio Moretto in Tuscany.
Modern Art Center, Zurich
Central Library Helsinki
Also in galleries
in Zurich, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Milan
Selected Public Commissions:
Reformed Church, Spreitenbach (pictures); Spreitenbach School (pictures);
Shopping Center, Spreitenbach (sculpture); Old Church, Lenzerhei
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Turn to the nation's most objective and informative daily environmental news resource to learn how the United States and key players around the world are responding to the environmental...
June 6 — Legislation to overhaul a 1970s-era U.S. chemical law now has a green light to return to the Senate floor, possibly this week, after Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul agreed to drop his objection to a fast-track vote.
“Senator Rand Paul believes in reading legislation before voting for or against it,” Paul spokesman Sergio Gor said in an e-mail to Bloomberg BNA, echoing the Kentucky senator's previous concerns that the Senate wasn't given ample time to review the bill.
“But [h]aving been given the opportunity to review this legislation, he’s now prepared to allow a vote to occur,” the spokesman said.
It's unclear how quickly the bill, which already has House approval, can be returned to the Senate floor, but proponents are pushing for a vote this week.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate majority whip, told Bloomberg BNA earlier in the day that the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576), which would revamp the Toxic Substances Control Act, remains a priority for Republican leaders—as long as a vote doesn’t consume valuable floor time.
“It’s a big, bipartisan bill, and I think most” concerns raised by Democrats and Republicans alike have “been hashed out already,” Cornyn said.
The majority whip spoke as senators returned to the Capitol to begin debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2943); that bill is likely to consume at least a week of floor time.
Donelle Harder, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a leading proponent of the bill, confirmed that Paul had relented.
“Rand Paul lifted his hold today and we expect a vote on TSCA this week,” she said.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who took up the mantle for TSCA reform after Lautenberg died in 2013, told Bloomberg BNA by e-mail: “TSCA reform will become law in the near future, the only question is how soon. Since there's overwhelming support for TSCA reform in the Senate, I remain optimistic that we will soon find a path forward on an agreement.”
Bloomberg BNA prepared an analysis of TSCA compared with the authorities provided and requirements of the Lautenberg bill (see table this issue).
Paul objected to the bill being approved under unanimous consent on the Senate floor May 26. Under that expedited procedure, an objection from a single senator essentially blocks its passage.
If passed, H.R. 2576 would update TSCA’s core provisions for the first time since 1976. Supporters say the revisions would spur assessment of tens of thousands of chemicals in U.S. commerce that the EPA has not yet vetted, many of which threaten human health and the environment.
Paul’s objections, which ranged from the need for more time to comb through the bill to concerns over preemption of state regulatory authority, halted progress on a bill that had sailed to passage in the House days earlier by a vote of 403-12 (106 DEN A-3, 6/2/16); (101 DEN A-1, 5/25/16).
Republican aides on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Inhofe chairs, said June 6 that they were in discussions earlier in the day with staff from Paul’s office. The aides, however, declined to discuss specific details of the meeting but suggested a deal was imminent.
Cornyn sounded an optimistic note earlier in the day, suggesting another try at a unanimous consent vote remained the preferred option given the time-consuming alternative, which would be to bring the bill like any other legislation to the floor.
That traditional route at a minimum would have required 60 votes to proceed, followed by days of debate, which could have derailed the measure given the Senate's already crowded legislative agenda.
“I just know that generally speaking he [Paul] is a pretty reasonable guy, and once he’s able to express himself” the Kentucky Republican would likely relent, Cornyn predicted hours before Paul's announcement that he would allow the bill to go forward.
An aide to South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, another member of the Senate Republican leadership, said Thune still considers the TSCA bill a priority “and remains hopeful that could happen as early as this week.”
If Paul had not relented, the bill would have faced stiff competition not only from multiple appropriations bills but also possible legislative action to address the Zika virus and Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.
“I would be a little surprised if there was floor time devoted to TSCA” if the bill now headed for expedited action had required a week or more of legislative attention, Cornyn warned.
With assistance from Pat Rizzuto in Washington.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Pearl at firstname.lastname@example.org
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I am joining Surfers Against Sewage in calling on Cornwall Council to refuse the license to Marine Minerals Limited for their commercial dredging proposal off the coast of North Cornwall.
The proposal is targeting tin reserves in the sand just offshore of some of Cornwall’s premier tourist spots, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, conservation zones, recreational and surfing beaches.
Dredging millions of tones of sand, up to a depth of 2.8 metres, from as close as 200 metres from the shoreline could result is catastrophic impacts on wildlife, water quality, beaches and surf spots. It could also mean long stretches of sea closures as restrictive zones are placed around the dredging vessels.
Council is the regulatory body of the St
Ives Protection Order. Cornwall
Council has the power in its hands to stop Marine Minerals Limited from
progressing with this potentially catastrophic activity within the St Ives Bay
area, protecting our best assets, our beautiful beaches.
This petition closed over 1 year ago
Join Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) in voicing concerns to Cornwall Council about Marine Minerals Limited's commercial dredging proposal for the North Cornish coast. Cornwall Council is the...
Join Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) in voicing concerns to Cornwall Council about Marine Minerals Limited's commercial dredging proposal for the North Cornish coast. Cornwall Council is the regulatory body enforcing the St Ives Bay Coast Protection Order 2002 and has the power to decide if Marine Minerals Limited can proceed with this ominous commercial venture. The dredging will involve removing, processing and partially replacing millions of tonnes of sediment from St Ives Bay, as close as 200 metres from beautiful Cornish beaches, for the next 10 years.
Surfers Against Sewage has serious concerns about the lack of competency displayed so far by Marine Minerals Limited. Marine Mineral Limited's dredging proposal has the potential to devastate an extremely valuable stretch of coastline. Cornwall's north coast is environmentally important, well used by communities and tourists, and supports numerous established industries and thousands of jobs. Marine Minerals Limited has already unlawfully removed sediments without the required licenses and submitted a deficient project scoping opinion, heavily criticised by both SAS and the national regulator, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).
Marine Minerals Limited claims their dredging project could support up to 100 jobs. This sounds like good news in the current economic climate, however, Marine Minerals Limited offer no data to support these figures. Nor have Marine Minerals Limited taken into account any impacts their dredging proposal might have on established jobs in the area. Surfing alone brings in £64 million to the Cornish economy annually and support 1,600 full time jobs. Tourism in the South West dwarfs surfing in terms of revenue and associated jobs. Furthermore, Hayle, smack bang in the middle of St Ives Bay is home to more tourist beds than anywhere else in Cornwall outside of Newquay.
Hidden deep within Marine Minerals Limited's proposal is the disturbing requirement for significant exclusion zones around their operations in the sea, which will prohibit bathers, surfers and other recreational water users from entering the sea and exclude other commercial activities from significant areas of the ocean. On balance the costs seem to far outweigh any potential benefits, unless you are a director at Marine Minerals Limited.
If you share SAS's concerns please join SAS in lobbying Cornwall Council who are responsible for granting or refusing Marine Minerals Limited's commercial dredging license for St Ives Bay. Cornwall Council recently became the first local authority to support SAS's Protect Our Waves petition and officially recognised the value of surfing and the marine environment to the region. The Cornish coastline belongs to Cornish communities, not to commercial dredgers.
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“Sponsorship and mentorship are often used interchangeably, but they are two different things,” says Stephanie Smith (DBA ’19), vice president and chief human resources officer at DePaul. Making the distinction between the two is a big part of Smith’s recently completed dissertation, which examines racial and gender differences in the executive sponsorship of black women.
Smith is a recent graduate of the Doctorate in Business Administration program at DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. She managed human resources organizations for big corporations, including Kraft Foods, before joining DePaul’s executive leadership in 2012.
“Sponsorship as a vehicle for career advancement resonates with me because it made a big difference in my own professional journey, especially as a first-generation corporate professional,” she says. “Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate to have people take an interest in my growth, [people] who have helped identify and provide opportunities for me to move forward.”
People tend to seek out mentorship when they want a professional relationship that provides career guidance and development. A mentor is a valuable resource but, according to Smith, can only take you so far, particularly if your goal is to sit at the executive table or get to the role of CEO.
According to research, 95 percent of all white males who are in CEO positions said that there was someone who helped them get there. “Those are sponsors, not mentors, who are lifting them up,” says Smith.
Mentors provide coaching and counseling around a certain issue or career choice. They offer psychosocial support, helping you navigate through organizations or difficult situations, but they can fly under the radar. No one may know you have a mentor. Sponsors, on the other hand, provide strictly career-oriented support that helps open doors to top positions. “They are the people who sit in the rooms where key decisions are made, especially decisions around succession planning,” Smith explains. “They possess the influence, leadership and reputation that allow them to advocate for others. That’s the key difference between mentors and sponsors.”
Conducting a study on sponsors and their proteges, Smith set out to investigate why black women are not represented in the CEO landscape of Fortune 500 companies. “With so much emphasis that companies place on diversity and inclusion initiatives, I find it problematic that the 5% of women CEOs today are all white,” she says. “That’s a weak number for women in general, but it’s bleak for black women in particular. I wanted to find out how and why sponsorship is playing out differently for them.”
They are the people who sit in the rooms where key decisions are made, especially decisions around succession planning…They possess the influence, leadership and reputation that allow them to advocate for others. That’s the key difference between mentors and sponsors.”
– Stephanie Smith
One theory Smith explores in her research is the similarity-attraction paradigm, which posits that people tend to be drawn to people who are similar to themselves. “I found that a number of black women out there do have sponsors to help get them to the top positions, in addition to the education, experience and intellect. But the missing piece had to do with similarity-attraction. White males are still primarily in charge, so part of the issue is that there aren’t enough people of other backgrounds or races with whom to confer on who gets into those executive board rooms.”
Based on these findings, Smith has some advice to share with sponsors: “I think you have a duty to develop a diverse talent pipeline and break the similarity-attraction paradigm. It’s important to see beyond just white males as the prototypical CEO or senior executive. Other people can succeed in those roles, too.”
Smith has these three tips to share for anyone interested in being sponsored:
- Do excellent work
It may sound simplistic, but the best way to gain a corporate sponsor is to perform with excellence. Sponsors tend to take someone under their wing because they see a person’s potential, so how you get noticed is through your work. Particularly once they become senior, sponsors want to leave a legacy by developing a talent pipeline for their organization, so they are on the lookout for people who shine.
- Assume work that increases your visibility
Of course, you can’t get noticed unless your work is visible, so it’s important to take on responsibilities and projects that will put you in front of the key players in an organization, even if it means going outside of your job’s main duties. You can volunteer to lead a task force or take on a challenging assignment. The quickest way to get noticed, however, is to have a job that is responsible for decisions that contribute to whether an organization/brand fails or succeeds, such as jobs that are responsible for profit and loss. You can ascend to high positions in just about any field, but if the CEO role is your goal, you definitely need experience in profit and loss.
- Seek access to senior leadership
The best kind of sponsor-protege relationships happen organically. It’s something that can’t be forced. But to start, you need to be comfortable with introducing yourself to senior leaders when the opportunities present themselves. Whether at networking events or company meetings, don’t be afraid to approach them. Start a conversation and put yourself on their radar. This ability to advocate for yourself, to use political skill to influence people, is key to navigating and leveraging powerful relationships within an organization.
By Nadia Alfadel Coloma | Photo by Kathy Hillegonds
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WILKES-BARRE -- A city spokesperson said that for the first time in years, Wilkes-Barre would not be offering free parking downtown during the holidays, and he said it's not because of the city's financial problems. However, shoppers we spoke with aren't buying that, and now businesses owners are scared they're going to take a hit during the holiday.
The wreaths are hanging. The lights have been strung, but something's not so festive about downtown Wilkes-Barre this holiday season.
For the first time in years, there's no free holiday parking.
"I think it's a mistake. If you're shopping and going to the movies and coming back, you have to wonder am I out of time? It only holds so many coins," said Sandra Foy, of Plymouth.
The city typically offers free parking downtown from Black Friday to New Year's. However, a city spokesperson said people take advantage of it, parking their cars for hours and limiting spaces for others.
Downtown shoppers aren't buying that.
"Even if people park for six hours, so what? There's always another place to park," said Foy.
"So you think it's a financial issue?" Newswatch 16 asked.
"Absolutely, like everything in this city," replied Foy. "They're trying to find every way that they can to make some extra money."
Some business owners think that with people paying, there will be more turnover in the parking spots and therefore more foot traffic in their stores. Other business owners think it makes no sense.
"If people are parking to shop, they might be paying for the hour or two hours, and it turns over more spots more frequently," said Lisa Kohut, who owns Ellesse Boutique.
Tom Healey opened Big T's Coney Island Deli on South Main Street this summer. He said free parking's an incentive to bring people downtown. Now he worries he'll lose business.
"We're doing well and we're building a clientele, but I don't want obstacles put in a path to keep me from doing good or doing better than I could be doing," said Healey.
Some business owners had suggestions for a compromise, such as free weekend parking or two-hour parking.
However, it seems the city's made up its mind, at least for this holiday season.
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If you haven't turned off USB autoplay on your PC, it's conceivable that plugging in an infected USB drive could install malware on your system. The engineers whose uranium-purifying centrifuges were blown up by Stuxnet learned that the hard way. It turns out, though, that autoplay malware isn't the only way USB devices can be weaponized. At the Black Hat 2014 conference, two researchers from Berlin-based SRLabs revealed a technique for modifying a USB device's controller chip so it can "spoof various other device types in order to take control of a computer, exfiltrate data, or spy on the user." That sounds kind of bad, but in fact it's really, really dreadful.
Turn to the Dark Side
"We're a hacking lab typically focused on embedded security," said researcher Karsten Noll, speaking to a packed room. "This is the first time we looked a computer security, with an embedded angle. How could USB be repurposed in malicious ways?"
Reseacher Jakob Lell jumped right into a demo. He plugged a USB drive into a Windows computer; it showed up as a drive, just as you'd expect. But a short while later, it redefined itself as a USB keyboard and issued a command that downloaded a remote access Trojan. That drew applause!
"We won't be talking about viruses in USB storage," said Noll. "Our technique works with an empty disk. You can even reformat it. This is not a Windows vulnerability that could be patched. We're focused on deployment, not on the Trojan."
Controlling the Controller
"USB is very popular," said Noll. "Most (if not all) USB devices have a controller chip. You never interact with the chip, nor does the OS see it. But this controller is what 'talks USB.'"
The USB chip identifies its device type to the computer, and it can repeat this process at any time. Noll pointed out that there are valid reasons for one device to present itself as more than one, such as a webcam that has one driver for video and another for the attached microphone. And truly identifying USB drives is tough, because a serial number is optional and has no fixed format.
Lell walked through the precise steps taken by the team to reprogram the firmware on a specific type of USB controller. Briefly, they had to snoop the firmware update process, reverse engineer the firmware, and then create a modified version of the firmware containing their malicious code. "We did not break everything about USB," noted Noll. "We reverse-engineered two very popular controller chips. The first took maybe two month, the second one month."
For the second demo, Lell inserted a brand-new blank USB drive into the infected PC from the first demo. The infected PC reprogrammed the blank USB drive's firmware, thereby replicating itself. Oh dear.
He next plugged the just-infected drive into a Linux notebook, where it visibly issued keyboard commands to load malicious code. Once again, the demo drew applause from the audience.
"That was a second example where one USB echoes another device type," said Noll, "but this is just the tip of the iceberg. For our next demo, we reprogrammed a USB 3 drive to be a device type that's harder to detect. Watch closely, it's almost impossible to see."
Indeed, I couldn't detect the flickering of the network icon, but after the USB drive was plugged in, a new network showed up. Noll explained that the drive was now emulating an Ethernet connection, redirecting the computer's DNS lookup. Specifically, if the user visits the PayPal website, they'll be invisibly redirected to a password stealing site. Alas, the demo demons claimed this one; it didn't work.
Trust in USB
"Let's discuss for a moment the trust we place in USB," said Noll. "It's popular because it's easy to use. Exchanging files via USB is better than using unencrypted email or cloud storage. USB has conquered the world. We know how to virus-scan a USB drive. We trust a USB keyboard even more. This research breaks down that trust."
"It's not just the situation where somebody gives you a USB," he continued. "Just attaching the device to your computer could infect it. For one last demo, we'll use the easiest USB attacker, an Android phone."
"Let's just attach this standard Android phone to the computer," said Lell, "and see what happens. Oh, suddenly there is an additional network device. Let's go to PayPal and log in. There's no error message, nothing. But we captured the username and password!" This time, the applause was thunderous.
"Will you detect that the Android phone turned into an Ethernet device?" asked Noll. "Does your device control or data loss prevention software detect it? In our experience, most do not. And most focus only on USB storage, not on other device types."
The Return of the Boot Sector Infector
"The BIOS does a different type of USB enumeration than the operating system," said Noll. "We can take advantage of that with a device that emulates two drives and a keyboard. The operating system will only ever see one drive. The second only appears to the BIOS, which will boot from it if configured to do so. If it's not, we can send whatever keystroke, maybe F12, to enable booting from the device."
Noll pointed out that the rootkit code loads before the operating system, and that it can infect other USB drives. "It's the perfect deployment for a virus," he said. "It's already running on the computer before any antivirus can load. It's the return of the boot sector virus."
What Can Be Done?
Noll pointed out that it would be extremely difficult to remove a virus residing in the USB firmware. Get it out of the USB flash drive, it could reinfect from your USB keyboard. Even the USB devices built into your PC could be infected.
"Unfortunately, there no simple solution. Almost all our ideas for protection would interfere with the usefulness of USB," said Noll. "Could you whitelist trusted USB devices? Well, you could if USB devices were uniquely identifiable, but they're not."
"You could block USB altogether, but that impacts usability," he continued. "You could block critical device types, but even very basic classes can be abused. Remove those and there's not much left. How about scanning for malware? Unfortunately, in order to read the firmware you must rely on functions of the firmware itself, so a malicious firmware could spoof a legitimate one."
"In other situations, vendors block malicious firmware updates using digital signatures," said Noll. "But secure cryptography is tough to implement on small controllers. In any case, billions of existing devices remain vulnerable."
"The one workable idea we came up with was to disable firmware updates at the factory," said Noll. "The very last step, you make it so the firmware can't be reprogrammed. You could even fix it in software. Burn one new firmware upgrade that blocks all further updates. We could conquer back a little of the sphere of trusted USB devices."
Noll wrapped up by pointing out some positive uses for the controller-modification technique described here. "There's a case to be made for people playing around with this," he said, "but not in trusted environments." I, for one, will never look at any USB device the way I used to.
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At PBLCS, we believe it is important to start exposing children to college and career opportunities as early as the elementary level. As early as kindergarten, teachers begin to plant seeds about college and careers so students get an early start in preparing for a successful future. We believe that children can become what they see.
‘To and Through College’ is our method of giving young scholars a head start on developing a positive vision of their future.
At PBLCS, each homeroom class adopts a college and mascot to learn about and represent for the year. We incorporate a virtual college and university tours during each of our Town Hall assemblies with the scholars, exposing them to a variety of schools throughout the year.
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I thought Lincoln was excellent in all respects… except for the ending, so I was pleased to read this LAT article by Steve Zeitchik:
The filmgoer was noticeably upset. He didn’t like a moment in “Lincoln.” More specifically, he didn’t like the final moments of “Lincoln.”
“I don’t understand why it didn’t just end when Lincoln is walking down the hall and the butler gives him his hat,” he said. “Why did I need to see him dying on the bed? I have no idea what Spielberg was trying to do.”
The man on the mini-rant wasn’t some multiplex loudmouth. He was actor Samuel L. Jackson, and he was just getting started. “I didn’t need the assassination at all. Unless he’s going to show Lincoln getting his brains blown out. And even then, why am I watching it? The movie had a better ending 10 minutes before.”
That ending, the one Jackson wanted, I wanted, and I expect thousands of other movie fans wanted was this moment:
Not just the image of Lincoln walking away, but the echo of the character’s final words: “I suppose it’s time to go, though I would rather stay.” The line works beautifully on so many levels. As text, Lincoln is simply saying he would prefer not to go to the play. He’s exhausted from the events at the close of the War and in general he’s not much of a socializer. But subtextually it is both a portent of the horrible occurrence upcoming and a haunting message about a man’s simple request to continue with his life.
Unfortunately the movie continues on with a scene we do not – in my view – need: the President’s death [although not seen], his death, and a flashback to a speech by Lincoln.
This circumstance raised a question in Zeitchik’s mind:
Jackson was offering a sentiment common among people who’ve seen “Lincoln” and moviegoers in general: Hollywood films are struggling to find the exit. Stories that seem to end, end again, and then end once more. Climactic scenes wind down, then wind up. Movies that appear headed for a satisfying resolution turn away, then try to stumble back.
The definition of a good ending is as hard to pin down as Keyser Söze. But there has been no shortage of filmic finales for people to shake their fists at this season.
He considers Les Misérables and Life of Pi, then digs into possible root causes, one of which is voiced by Ben Affleck:
“We now develop so many movie ideas based on pitches. And the thing about a pitch is that it does a pretty good job figuring out the first and second acts, but no one ever sits down and works out the third act.”
There’s some takeaway slapping us writers smack in the face: Work out the damn ending! I wrote about this at length in my most recent post on the 1920 book “How to Write a Photoplay.” If you missed it Sunday, check it out.
What do you think of the ending of Lincoln? What other movies — in your opinion — suffer from the ‘when to end’ syndrome? How would you choose to end those movies?
Finally how do you go about crafting the end of your stories?
For the rest of Zeitchik’s article, go here.
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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – A diminished fuel supply and the switch to a more expensive summer blend of gasoline means that White Plains residents will not enjoy much relief at the pump as prices continue to soar.
As of Friday afternoon, motorists in New York were paying an average of $3.92 per gallon for regular, the second highest in the continental United States – behind California’s $4.01 – according to AAA. Average prices in the state had risen 10 cents since the prior week.
Robert Sinclair, the spokesperson for AAA New York, said the Port Reading Refinery in Woodbridge, N.J., is set to shut down at the end of the month. The refinery ships 70,000 barrels of oil each day, about 7.5 percent of what is consumed in the Northeast.
“When you take that amount of product off the market, what’s left becomes that much more valuable,” he said. “We can expect prices to go up when that happens. Things are going to get very hairy during the summer driving season.”
In White Plains, the cheapest regular gas Friday evening was $3.85 per gallon at the Gulf station at 274 Hamilton Ave., according to New York Gas Prices. The Sunoco at 555 N. Broadway was selling regular gas for $3.93 per gallon.
“With the refinery going down, it’ll be up to the other guys to make up the difference, or we’ll have that much less volume,” Sinclair said. “What’s left will become more expensive. It’s a pretty big hit, taking that amount of a commodity off the market.”
In mid-March, gas stations will switch to a summer blend of gasoline, which is more eco-friendly for the busier driving season. Between the switch in blends and the extended cold spell the East Coast is experiencing, Sinclair said, prices will likely only continue to rise.
“We won’t see relief anytime soon,” he said. “The cold weather has worsened the situation. The colder it gets, there is a greater demand for home heating oil, which competes with gasoline for available crude oil. All of these factors flying into the market leave us believing prices will continue to go up.”
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Soray gets a check up at a local medical health clinic
Image by World Bank Photo Collection
10 May 2012, Tajikhan Village, Jabalseraj District Parwan Province, Afghanistan : Twenty two year old Soraya is checked by Muzhda, a mid wife at the Sar-e-Hause medical health clinic. "We had fireworks every day." she says..The clinic is funded by the Strengthening Health Activities for Rural Poor Project (SHARP). SHARP aims to improve the health and nutrition status of Afghans, focusing especially on women and children and the underserved areas of the country. Already remarkable progress has been made in the reduction of infant and under five mortality as well as pregnancy related mortality. With World Bank support in 11 provinces the number of health clinics has nearly tripled from 148 to 432 and about 85% of the population now lives in districts which now have service providers to deliver a basic package of health service. The project supports Afghanistan’s Health and Nutrition Sector Strategy which is the governments blueprint for the health sector program for the period 2008-13. Photo: Graham Crouch / World Bank
Photo ID: 100512_Parwan Health Clinic_SHARP_016
Doctors living angles
Doctors are the living angels. They give their whole life to serve people. They studied hard day and night to achieve their degree. Doctors deal with different branches of problems of human beings. Gynecology is the branch that deals with the woman problems. Gynecology is a very old branch of medicine dated back to about 1800 B.C. Still this branch is working and introducing more and more new technologies to cure woman suffering from many different gynecological problems.
Gynecologist has miracle power
Every woman should visit her gynecologist annually. A gynecologist is a doctor especially for women. They deal with all the gynecological problems of woman such as pregnancy, contraceptives, pelvic problems, reproductive system, and breast cancer etc.
A professional degree of gynecologist
When gynecologists step toward their profession they have to complete the post graduate diploma in Obs & Gyn. After that they can do more specializations in their field.
A woman has to deal with gynecological problems starting from the early age of 12 or 13 when she starts with her menstruation cycle then traveling through various states of her life may get pregnant, deliver children and a time comes when she goes through menopause.
Sometimes, woman have to visit the gynecologist for other reason such as infertility, pelvic problems, cervical problems, cancerous cyst in uterus and many more.
Importance of gynecologist
Gynecologist are very important. Every woman should have an annual visit with her gynecologist. Still in many countries society does not consider gynecology an important factor, but they are ignorant with the importance of gynecologist. Here are some of the times when gynecologists are very important such as:
* Vaginal abnormalities
* Abnormal Menstrual Cycles
Why it is important to have a gynecologist?
It is very important to have a gynecologist because:
* Gynecologist understand women
* Gynecologist can suggest healthy diet changes
* Gynecologist specialize in gynecological problems
* Gynecologist specialize in healthy pregnancy and delivery of your children
* Gynecologist understands the changing bodies of women and may suggest a diet plan appropriate with a women’s life cycle.
When woman have to visit a gynecologist?
Many women dread going to the gynecologist. Many women only see the gynecologist when they are experiencing gynecological problems such as these:
* Irregular menstrual cycle
* Unusual bleeding or pain associated with her menstrual period
* If a woman has heavy periods, the gynecologist may suggest a new procedure called nova sure.
* Annual Well Woman exams
* If a woman has abnormal pelvic pain
* Abnormal discharge
* If woman has breast pain
* A woman can visit her gynecologist for advice on her changing body and a diet plan.
Gynecologists add to the overall benefits of women’s health.
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20th February, No Comments
By John Watson
Whilst the arguments rage over who wrote this (it certainly wasn’t me which could account for the style and typographical and other errors) here is the text gleaned from the pamphlet for you to ponder over . . .
To me it seems that it was written either by Doyle or someone else but that the character describes here as me (Watson) is, in fact Doyle who is thinking about his future political stance at the Border Burghs.
DISCOVERING THE BORDER BURGHS,
and, BY DEDUCTION, the BRIG BAZAAR
‘We’ve had enough of the old romancists and men of travel’, said the Editor. As he blue-pencilled his copy, and made arrangements for the great Saturday edition of the Bazaar Book. ‘We want something up-to-date. Why not have a word from “Sherlock Holmes”?’
Editors have only to speak and it is done, at least, they think so. ‘Sherlock Holmes!’ As well talk of interviewing the Man in the Moon. But it does not do to tell Editors all that you think. I had no objections whatever, I assured the Editor, to buttonhole ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ but to do so I should have to go to London.
‘London!’ scornfully sniffed the Great Man. ‘And you profess to be a journalist? Have you never heard of the telegraph, the telephone, or the phonograph? Go to London! And are you not aware that all journalists are supposed to be qualified members of the Institute of Fiction, and to be qualified to make use of the Faculty of Imagination? By the use of the latter men have been interviewed, who were hundreds of miles away; some have been “interviewed” without either knowledge or consent. See that you have a topical article ready for the press for Saturday. Good-day.’
I was dismissed and had to find copy by hook or by crook. Well, the Faculty of Imagination might be worth a trial.
. . .
The familiar house in Sloan Street met my bewildered gaze. The door shut, the blinds drawn. I entered; doors are no barrier to one who uses the Faculty of Imagination. The soft light from an electric bulb flooded the room. ‘Sherlock Holmes’ sits by the side of the table; Dr Watson is on his feet about to leave for the night. Sherlock Holmes, as has lately been shown by a prominent journal, is a pronounced Free Trader. Dr Watson is a mild Protectionist, who would take his gruelling behind a Martello tower, as Lord Goschen wittily put it, but not ‘lying down!’ The twain had just finished a stiff argument on Fiscal policy. Holmes loq.–
‘And when shall I see you again, Watson? The inquiry into the “mysteries of the Secret Cabinet” will be continued in Edinburgh on Saturday. Do you mind a run down to Scotland? You would get some capital data which you might turn to good account later.’
‘I am very sorry,’ replied Dr Watson. ‘I should have liked to have gone with you, but a prior engagement prevents me. I will, however, have the pleasure of being in kindly Scottish company that day. I, also, am going to Scotland.’
‘Ah! then you are going to the Border country at that time?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘My dear Watson, it’s all a matter of deduction.’
‘Will you explain?’
‘Well, when a man becomes absorbed in a certain theme, the murder will out some day. In many discussions you and I have on the fiscal question from time to time I have not failed to notice that you have taken up an attitude antagonistic to a certain school of thought, and on several occasions you have commented on the passing of “so-called’ reforms, as you describe them, which you say were not the result of a spontaneous movement from or by the people, but solely due to the pressure of the Manchester School of politicians appealing to the mob. One of these allusions you made a peculiar reference to “Huz an’ Mainchester” who had “turned the world upside down.” The word “Huz” stuck to me, but after consulting many authors without learning anything as to the source of the word, I one day in reading a provincial paper noticed the same expression, which the writer said was descriptive of the way Hawick people looked at the progress of Reform. “Huz an’ Mainchester’ led the way. So, thought I, Watson has a knowledge of Hawick. I was still further confirmed in this idea by hearing you in several absent moments crooning a weird song of the Norwegian God Thor. Again I made enquires, and writing to a friend in the Sounth country I procured a copy of “Teribus.” So, I reasoned, so – there’s something in the air! What attraction has Hawick for Watson?’
‘Wonderful,’ Watson said, ‘and—‘
‘Yes, and when you characterised the action of the German Government in seeking to hamper Canadian trade by raising her tariff wall against her, as a case of “Sour Plums,” and again in a drawing room asked a mutual lady friend to sing you that fine old song, “Braw, braw lads,” I was curious enough to look up the old ballad, and finding it had reference to a small town near to Hawick, I began to see a ray of daylight. Hawick had a place in your mind; likewise so had Galashiels – so much was apparent. The question to be decided was why?’
‘So far so good. And—‘
‘Later still the plot deepened. Why, when I was retailing to you the steps that led up to the arrest of the Norwood builder by the impression of his thumb, I found a very great surprise that you were not listening at all to my reasoning, but were lilting a very sweet–a very sweet tune Watson–“The Flowers of the Forest;” then I in turn consulted an authority on the subject, and found that that lovely if tragic song had a special reference to Selkirk. And you remember, Watson, how very enthusiastic you grew all of a sudden on the subject of Common-Ridings, and how much you studied the history of James IV., with special reference to Flodden Field. All these things speak, Watson, to the orderly brain of a thinker. Hawick, Galashiels, and Selkirk. What did the combination mean? I felt I must sold the problem, Watson; so that night when you left me, after we had discussed the “Tragedy of a Divided House,” I ordered in a tin of tobacco, wrapped my cloak about me, and spent the night in thought. When you came round in the morning the problem was solved. I could not on the accumulative evidence but come to the conclusion that you contemplated another Parliamentary contest. Watson, you have the Border Burghs in your eye!’
‘In my heart, Holmes,’ said Watson.
‘And where do you travel to on Saturday, Watson?’
‘I am going to Selkirk; I have an engagement there to open a Bazaar.’
‘Is it in aid of a Bridge, Watson?’
‘Yes,’ replied Watson in surprise; ‘but how do you know? I have never mentioned the matter to you.’
‘By word, no; but by your action you have revealed the bent of your mind.’
‘Let me explain. A week ago you came round to my rooms and asked for a look at “Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome.” (You know I admire Macaulay’s works, and have a full set.) That volume, after a casual look at, you took with you. When you returned it a day or two later I noticed it was marked with a slip of paper at the “Lay of Horatius,” and I detected a faint pencil mark on the slip noting that the closing stanza was very appropriate. As you know, Watson, the lay is all descriptive of the keeping of a bridge. Let me remind you how nicely you would perorate –
When the goodman mends his armour
And trims his helmet’s plume,
When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom,
With weeping and with laughter.
Still the story told —
How well Horatius kept the bridge,
In the brave days of old.
Could I, being mortal, help thinking you were bent on such exploit yourself?’
‘Well, goodbye, Watson; shall be glad of your company after Saturday. Remember Horatius’ words when you go to Border Burghs :- “How can man die better than facing fearful odds.” But there, these words are only illustrations. Safe journey, and success to the Brig!’
Posted in Pastiches
6th February, No Comments
By John Watson
I am indebted to Matthias Bostrom, who, via his writings, drew my attention to the problem of an early pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes story.
Many have assumed that Sir Arthur’s close friend, J M Barrie, produced the first “parody” of a Holmes story, but Charles Press, in his book “Parodies and Pastiches Buzzing ‘Round Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” mentioned “The Man Who ‘Bested’ Sherlock Holmes” as having been first published in Tit Bits on October 27th 1894. The story is included in John Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green’s book “My Evening with Sherlock Holmes”.
This itself is a remarkable coincidence, as my Literary Agent hails from the very same town! So I set him the task of tracking down the paper, published in December 1892, and obtaining a copy of the story for my library. It has taken him a while but I now have a copy of the story.
The newspaper boasts about “Our Almanac and Special Christmas Number”, saying that “Next Saturday every purchaser of the Express will be presented with a splendid local almanac, produced regardless of cost. It will be printed on excellent toned and specially-prepared paper, in two colours, and will be embellished with excellent portraits of Sir John and Lady Thursby with a capital view of Ormerod House.”
Sir John Thursby was well-known to people in Burnley and gives his name to a college in the town.
The paper goes on to say that “the almanac will contain a vast amount of useful local and district information, and will prove the best ever presented by any paper in North – East Lancashire. Next Saturday’s Express will contain, in addition to the fullest local and district news and the regular features, the following entertaining Christmas reading :—
“Owd Nick and Scotch Snuff,” a laughable Lancashire Sketch by the Editor of Ben Brierley’s Journal,
“A Pendle Forest Christmastide Story of the Forty-Five” by Henry Kerr.
and “The Man Who Bested Sherlock Holmes” by Joseph Baron.
The paper also says that “Dr. Conan Doyle has gone through the manuscript of this story, and emphatically pronounced it “good”.
Well, see what you think . . .The Man Who Bested Sherlock Holmes
Posted in Pastiches
27th September, No Comments
By John Watson
“A century after Holmes and Watson’s adventures together in London, their grandchildren, Spencer Holmes and Jack Watson, experienced their own adventures. As his grandfather did Jack Watson often kept notes about these adventures and has decided to share them with the world. These are his stories…”
So begins the series of stories from Strobie Studios in Eastern Iowa with Michael Helgens as Spencer Holmes and Greg Kilberger as Dr Watson.
The stories usually last between 10 and 15 minutes and follow the same format as Rathbone and Bruce’s “The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. The host, Craig Dahlen, goes to visit Watson each week to hear him relate one of the stories. The shows are very atmospheric, complete with gunshots that will make you jump if you’re not expecting them. Some characterisations are peculiarly American which takes a little time to get used to.
In the first season of 21 episodes there were two from the Canon, “The Dying Detective” and “The Red-Headed League” – both expertly done. We meet a certain mathematical genius called Professor Marty and Lestrade has become Officer Weathers and Mrs Hudson … well, I will leave you to work that one out!
- The Missing Cat
- The Locked Room
- The Dying Detective
- The Cunning Thief
- The Strange Case of the Underwater Fire
- The Headless Ghost
- The Case of the Red Light Ripper – Part 1
- The Case of the Red Light Ripper – Part 2
- The Adventure of the Red-Headed League
- The Poisoning of Juliet
- The Beginning
- The Case of the Stolen Manuscripts
- The Case of the Fatal Premonition
- The Case of the Missing Reporter
- The Case of the Tacky Lipstick
- The Case of the Stolen Teddy Bear
- The Purloined Letter
- The Inferior Liver
- The Viral Video
- The Assassination of the Scots – Season Finale Part 1
- The Riddling Henchman – Season Finale Part 2
The complete set of Season 1 episodes is available from Nimbit Music along with a few bonus recordings including outtakes!
In the second series there were again two stories from the Canon – “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and “The Empty House”.
- The Hound of the Baskervilles – Season Premiere Part 1
- The Hound of the Baskervilles – Season Premiere Part 2
- The Return of the Ripper
- The Secret in the Narwhal
- The Case of the Flying Pig
- The Kidnapping of Jennifer Watson
- The Adventure of Ancient Antiquity
- The Case of the Killer Cave
- The Adventure of Alien Abduction
- The Adventure of the Empty House
- The Case of the Combustible Comedian
- The Twenty Million Dollar Mistake
- The Case of the Missing Case
- The Continuing Saga of the Missing Case
- The Case of the Drugged Doctor
- The Pursuit of Professor Marty
- The Continued Pursuit of Professor Marty
- The Billion Dollar Blunder
- The Zoo Escapade
- The Case of the Missing Smell
- The Explosive Trial – Season Finale
Again two stories from the Canon – “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Speckled Band”.
- A Scandal in Bohemia – Season Premiere Part 1
- A Scandal in Bohemia – Season Premiere Part 2
- The Case of the Smoking Ghost
- A Little Cheese with Your Wine
- The Case of the Mummy’s Curse
- The Case of the Crazy Millionaire
- The Case of the Cold Case
- The Speckled Band – Part 1
- The Speckled Band – Part 2
- Two Funerals and a Wedding
- Murder in the Viper’s Nest
- It’s All Fun and Games – Part 1
- It’s All Fun and Games – Part 2
- The Case of the Questionable Merger
- The Quest for Excalibur – Part 1
- The Quest for Excalibur – Part 2
- The Quest for Excalibur – Part 3
- The Case of the Mirror Twin
- The Case of Low Mileage
- Capturing Moran – Season Finale Part 1
- Capturing Moran – Season Finale Part 2
Another two stories from the Canon in this series “The Musgrave Ritual” and “The Cardboard Box” plus a behind the scenes video of a third “The Red-Headed League” from Season 1.
- The Case of the Dental Alarm
- The Return of Frankenstein
- The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
- The Case of the Railroad Murders – Part 1
- The Case of the Railroad Murders – Part 2
- The Harker’s Landing Whale Preservation Society – Part 1
- The Harker’s Landing Whale Preservation Society – Part 2
- The Case of the Impossible Shot
- The Strange Case of the Does
- The Deadly Recipe
- The Strange Case of E. Edmond Montebank
- Max Noir
- The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
- The Magic Bullet
- A Swift Caper
- The Return of the Governor
- A Case of Mistaken Identity
- The Death of Holmes
- The Case of the Questionable Mummy
- The Succubus Adventure
Strobie Studios can also be followed on Twitter. Along with the studio’s commercial work (which is well worth a look) they have recorded some of Edgar Allan Poe’s work and a time travel saga called “The Ark of Time”.
No new adventures so far this year . . .
Posted in Pastiches
4th June, 2 Comments
By John Watson
How this came about remains a matter of some dispute. A certain Aubrey B Watson, LDS, FDS, D.Orth. held a number of documents that came into his possession via his late uncle, Dr John F Watson, whom he says was a Doctor of Philosophy at All Saints College, Oxford. This itself is very puzzling as there is no All Saints College at Oxford although there is an All Souls College.
His uncle, whom I can assure you is in no way related to me, made a study of my life and background because of our similar names, and, his nephew insists, became an authority on me, though I can find no record of this. However, a lady called Adeline MacWhirter, approached the said uncle, saying she was related to me on my mother’s side, though again I cannot confirm this as my mother had passed away in Australia before I returned to England after being invalided out of the Army.
MacWhirter apparently told this other Dr Watson that she had inherited my old battered tin dispatch box, the one I mentioned in The Problem of Thor Bridge, which I had deposited at my bank, Cox and Company at their branch at 16 Charing Cross. I have regretted on many occasions mentioning this fact as too many people have alluded to this treasure chest as the source of their many fanciful stories about Holmes and I. She told this Dr Watson she had inherited the box and believing her to be honest and respectable, he bought the box for an undisclosed but apparently large sum in 1939.
Dr Watson says he made copies of all the originals for safe-keeping and deposited the dispatch box at his own bank. This bank, he says, received a direct hit “in 1942, at the height of the Blitz” and the box’s contents were destroyed. Again, some of these details imply some doubt as to the validity of the claims as the Blitz in the Second World was was from 7 September 1940 to 10 May 1941. Also, it is not clear to which bank he is referring as my dispatch box was safe in the vaults of Cox and Co, which incidentally, merged with Lloyds Bank in 1923, the year after The Problem of Thor Bridge was published in The Strand magazine.
It is from these “copies” that Thomson has published in this latest selection of cases entitled The Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes.
They include following cases:
- The Conk-Singleton Forgery
- The Stray Chicken
- The One-Eyed Colonel
- The Three-Handed Widow
- The Pentre Mawr Murder
- The Missing Belle Fille, and
- The Watchful Waiter
Those of you who are familiar with my stories will know that the Conk-Singleton forgery case was around the time of the case of The Six Napoleons so I can confirm that some of the details of this case are correct.
Again those of you who are familiar with my stories are aware, I do not as a matter of policy, confirm or deny the validity of any stories purporting to be details of actual cases that Holmes was involved in as that might betray confidences that I have sworn to maintain. All I can say is that if you read the details of these seven cases you will find them as one other reviewer has put it “properly detailed and convincing, the dialogue natural, and the narrative style fluent and immaculate” as if they were, in fact, written by yours truly.
Have a read yourself and see if you agree . . .
The other books produced by June Thomson include the following which are all being produced as new editions this year:
- Holmes and Watson
- The Secret Journals of Sherlock Holmes
- The Secret Documents of Sherlock Holmes
- The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes
10th November, 5 Comments
By John Watson
It has been endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate which has led some reviewers to suggest that it somehow more “authentic” that might otherwise be the case. One review I read said that it had been “commissioned by the Conan Doyle Estate”. The dust jacket claims it to be “utterly true to the spirit of the original Conan Doyle books” but this is, in my view questionable. Horowitz appears keen to ensure his story is as “authentic” as he can make it and to this end there are frequent references to detail from the Canon including many of the familiar names (Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Wiggins, Mycroft and Moriarty), familiar locations (221B and the Diogenes Club) and some of the related cases (The Dying Detective, The Copper Beeches, The Red Headed League, The Resident Patient, and The Final Problem). I started to wonder, seeing all these references to my original stories, if Horowitz is hoping that this book could be the first of a new television series after his plans to take Foyle’s War into the post-war era were turned down by ITV? That would raise the interesting possibility of another screen Holmes!
Alistair Duncan has already published a review of the book and as usual this is an admirably balanced critique. He points out a glaring chronological error and, as I have noted above, the many Canonical references, some of which work better than others. For me, one of the strangest examples of this is the introduction of Professor Moriarty, who has nothing to do with the main plot, who promptly disappears again after making me promise to pretend I have never met him when I do eventually get a glimpse of him (at Victoria Station when Holmes and I are heading for the continent a year later in The Final Problem). Horowitz also chooses to rewrite the sequence of events concerning my first meeting with Holmes.
He does get himself into a knot by using all these references to other cases. Given this case starts in November 1890, he says it is shortly after The Dying Detective when that was two years earlier in 1888 but correctly positions The Red-Headed League in October 1890 and The Resident Patient in October 1881 (but gets the name of the Resident Patient wrong – it was “Blessington” and not “Blessingdon”). Our client from Resident Patient has a small part in this new plot but he says he has been reading my stories in the Cornhill Magazine. I was not aware they had been published in this magazine although some of Arthur’s own stories have been.
None of this is important to anyone but a “hardcore fan” as Duncan calls them and, getting back to the date of the this adventure, Horowitz has added a couple of contemporary references to secure the case in the correct timeframe. The first of these is the mention of the Norton Fitzwarren rail crash that occurred on 11 November 1890 south-west of Taunton, Somerset in which ten people were killed. The second is the mention of the murder “two years before” of Mary Ann Nichols at the end of August 1888 and attributed to Jack the Ripper.
Believe it or not, the story is a good one and although the crime is not one I would have been able to write about in my own time, I found that two-thirds of the way through I couldn’t put it down! I learned a few new words too including “tatterdemalion”, “gallipot” and “magsman” though I puzzled over the use of “liquid cocaine” over the more memorable “seven percent solution”. Something else that was missing was those pithy statements from Holmes that have become some of his best known quotations – except for “when you have eliminated the impossible . . .” which Horowitz does include. I concur with Duncan’s view that if you can get past the errors and the book’s publicity, it is better than most pastiches.
The House of Silk, read by Derek Jacobi, is the current “Book at Bedtime” on BBC Radio 4. Episodes 1-5 were broadcast Monday November 7th to Friday November 11th . Episodes 6-10 are being broadcast Monday November 14th to Friday November 18th at 22:45 and will be available on the BBC iPlayer for a week after transmission.
24th February, 4 Comments
By John Watson
Some pastiches are better than others and John Taylor’s first set of stories, The Unopened Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, was quite good but they had a slightly bizarre and comic element that some Sherlockians may not have liked. I now understand that they were intended for a younger audience.
Taylor’s original stories appeared on the radio before being released on CD, and have now been released as an The Paranormal Casebook of Sherlock Holmes with a foreword that I must have written at some point.
The new stories, The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries, have not been broadcast and appear on CD and download. They are much more realistic and have the benefit of being read by the latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, though he is, of course, narrating the stories as myself.
For once the stories are not from one of the many tin boxes that seem to materialise whenever anyone needs to find a Holmes case to relate but from a wooden chest in my bureau. Yet another “archive of notes referring to some of Holmes’ cases that, for one reason or another, never saw the light of day.”
The first story “An Inscrutable Masquerade” appears not to have an obvious railway connection until very near the end but the byline in the title of the set of stories is “and other stories” so I suppose that is fine. It is nevertheless an intriguing story of how I appear to be leading a double life. It nicely follows my usual style of narration where I give nothing away until all is revealed towards the end.
The second story “The Conundrum of Coach 13” is firmly placed on the rails and is a “closed room problem” although in this case it is a carriage rather than a room, locked from the outside, from which a large quantity of gold bullion has completely vanished without trace.
The third story “The Trinity Vicarage Larceny” again has no railway connection that I could remember. It concerns a robbery (now who can say why this was a larceny rather than a burglary?) where a set of boots provides the main clues that lead to the case being solved.
The fourth story “The 10.59 Assassin” is a very ingenious story involving a very unlikely murderer. Here there is a clear railway connection in a murder and as the suspicion grows there comes an unusual twist. In some ways it reminds me of Silver Blaze. The murderer is the least suspicious of all the possibilities!
Cumberbatch’s reading of the stories is excellent despite the fact that his BBC Sherlock persona that kept popping into my head, especially when he is speaking as Holmes. He also does a very good job of helping the listener distinguish between Holmes, myself and the other characters in the stories and he switches between voices and accents with consumate ease.
These are very accomplished pastiches by John Taylor and, in my view, a much more serious attempt to emulate my style of narration. I hope he is encouraged to write more and that Cumberbatch can be persuaded to narrate again. A complete set of the Canon, read by Cumberbatch, would be a large undertaking but would, I am sure give a fresh take on my stories.
The railways are mentioned in many of our cases together, but mainly just as a means of travel. Alistair Duncan’s “Close to Holmes” contains details of many of the stations we used in and around London.
12th July, 5 Comments
By John Watson
At the end of Part 1, I said the heyday of Holmes on the radio in the USA was coming to an end with the series of 39 shows with Ben Wright as Holmes and Eric Snowden taking my part. This series lasted until June 1950.
Then, after a gap of five years, in 1955 the shows with the Gielgud and Richardson pairing mentioned in British Radio Part 1 were broadcast in the USA in a different order and with four extra shows. These were repeated in 1956.
In 1959, 36 of the Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley shows were aired for the first time in the USA.
Then after what appears to be a very long gap, in 1977 the CBS Mystery Theatre broadcast eleven shows with Kevin McCarthy as Holmes and Cort Benson as Watson. These shows are all from the Canon and include HOUN, SIGN, STUD, REDH, BOSC, SPEC, SCAN, BLUE, BERY, IDEN and GLOR.
I can then find details of three more CBS Mystery Theatre shows, all with Gordon Gould as Holmes but with a different Watson in each case – MUSG with Lloyd Batesta in 1981, NAVA with Bernard Grant in 1982, and NAVA again later in 1982 with William Griffiths.
Nine years later in 1991, Edward Petherbridge appeared as Holmes with David Peart as Watson in STUD followed by VALL, FIVE, TWIS, SILV, GREE, SCAN, BLUE, SPEC, BRUC, NOBL, SIXN and HOUN stretching into 1993.
I also have a note of a production of HOUN with Nicol Williamson and George Rose but I have no date for this and I cannot tell whether this is a radio broadcast or not.
There are two more series, both of which are still running and produced by Jim French for the Imagination Theatre. The first of these, The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are all pastiches with Lawrence Albert as Watson but with a succession of different actors playing Holmes. These include John Gilbert, John Patrick Lowrie and Denis Bateman. In one episode, Watson (played by Lawrence Albert) impersonates Holmes and works with Mycroft in that episode and the previous one. Over 90 episodes have been produced (at the end of 2009) and scripts and recordings are available.
Following on from this, Jim French started another series in 2005 called The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert again as Watson. This time they are all stories from the Canon and, as of March 2010, 23 shows have been produced.
So this brings this series itself to an end. The previous parts were:
- Sherlock Holmes on British Radio – Part 1
- Sherlock Holmes on British Radio – Part 2
- Sherlock Holmes on American Radio – Part 1
But, before I go I must acknowledge the following sources without whom this series could not have been produced:
- Allen Eyles “Sherlock Holmes – A Centenary Celebration“, John Murray 1986 ISBN 0-7195-4332-0
- Hugo Brown’s VV341 – The Valley of Fear website
- Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs website
- Frank M Passages Old Time Radio Program Logs (scroll down the list to Sherlock Holmes and other related series such as “Second Holmes”)
There are still some broadcasts that I am trying to track down but if anyone knows about any that I have missed then please drop me a line care of 221B Baker Street.
14th January, 3 Comments
By John Watson
Each volume contains 12 stories, some with Canonical connections, marked below with a “C” if they are based on actual stories or with an “R” if they are merely cases that I mentioned in the stories.
Volume I comprises:
- The Unfortunate Tobacconist [R]
- The Paradol Chamber
- The Viennese Strangler
- The Notorious Canary Trainer [R] [L]
- The April Fool’s Day Adventure [L]
- The Strange Case of the Uneasy Easy Chair [L]
- The Strange Case of the Demon Barber [L]
- The Mystery of the Headless Monk [L]
- The Amateur Medicant Society [R] [L]
- The Case of the Vanishing White Elephant
- The Case of the Limping Ghost
- The Girl with the Gazelle [L]
Volume II comprises:
- The Case of the Out of Date Murder [L]
- The Waltz of Death
- Colonel Warburton’s Madness [R]
- The Iron Box [L]
- A Scandal in Bohemia [C]
- The Second Generation [L]
- In Flanders Fields
- The Eyes of Mr Leyton
- The Tell Tale Pigeon Feathers
- The Indescretion of Mr Edwards
- The Problem of Thor Bridge [C]
- The Double Zero
From October 1939 to July 1947 Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce starred in 220 episodes (though Bruce missed one due to illness). By 1947 Rathbone wanted to dissociate himself from the character of Holmes. Neverthe less he remains so closely associated with him that many still regard him as “the definitive Sherlock Holmes”.
Nigel Bruce continued for another two series with Tom Conway as Holmes.
These recordings include war-time announcements, original narrations and commercials for the shows sponsors.
There is a book by Ken Greewald who has taken some of these radio programmes and written them up as short stories. As well as the stories on the the CDs above (which I have marked with [L], the book also contains these three cases:
- Murder Beyond the Mountains
- The Case of the Baconian Cypher
- The Case of the Camberwell Poisoners
The book is called “The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” and has a picture of Nigel Rathbone on the cover. The book is out of print but a second hand copy should be easy to come by. I appear to have written a short introduction to the stories in the book!
6th November, No Comments
By John Watson
1. The Complete Sherlock Holmes – the Canon is an essential part of any Holmes libary and this edition is a real bargain.
2. Dust and Shadow – my own account of the Ripper killings.
3. The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – stories that I’m not sure are really true!
4. Sherlock Holmes Handbook– a new edition of this essential handbook.
5.Eliminate the Impossible: An Examination of the World of Sherlock Holmes on Page and Screen – a fascinating examination of Holmes’ world from the author soon to bring us a book about my literary agent’s time in Norwood.
6.The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 and Volume 2 – Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce radio shows. Witty, fast-paced, and always surprising, these great radio plays are as fresh as when they first premiered and feature perfect sound.
7. Sherlock Holmes’s London – a recreation of the London Holmes and I know.
8. Sherlock Holmes Calendar 2010 – how could you manage without this?
9. Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography – pure guesswork of course!
10.Sherlock Holmes Handbook: Methods and Mysteries of the World’s Greatest Detective – seems as though this gives the whole game away!
This is only the start of what promises to be a bumper year of Holmes books and other paraphernalia as the Sherlock Holmes film creates a renewed interest in the world’s first consulting detective. There’s even going to be a Sherlock Holmes for Dummies!
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The size of a 10-K report, an annual filing required from public companies by the Securities & Exchange Commission SEC, is correlated with a stock’s price volatility. Stocks of companies with larger 10-K file sizes experience more price volatility in the period immediately following the filing date. These stocks also experience larger earnings surprises and have a greater dispersion of forecasts by the covering analysts.
These were the conclusions reached by two University of Notre Dame professors, Tim Loughran and Bill McDonald, in a forthcoming Journal of Finance paper. The two professors proposed replacing The Fog Index, a commonly used measure, with file size as a gauge for determining how readable a 10-K filing is. The professors believe the goal of readability should be “the effective communication of valuation-relevant information, whether it is directly interpreted by individual investors or assimilated and distributed by professional analysts.”
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The Plaza de San Francisco is one of Seville’s most regal, lined as it is with the facades of the Audiencia, the Ayuntamiento and the Adriatica’s curved corner, not to mention the terrace of balconied, 18th century town houses that would have accommodated the great and the good – chief benefactors of the city’s waning golden age. It’s one of those spots in Andalucia’s capital where you can stop for a moment, raise your nose in the air – otherwise scented with oranges or their blossoms – and still catch the reek of all the money that came pouring into this town, off the backs of South American slave miners for the most part, I would have thought.
Dark history aside, it’s a beautiful place, and rarely dark in this day and age. On the contrary, the plaza is sunny and colourful, a venue for everything from Christmas markets to Easter processions. At a distance from its southeastern corner, but tall enough to preside over it, is the Giralda – Seville Cathedral’s bell tower, symbol of Spain and former minaret, topped now with a 16th century addition: the belfry. People forget that the Moors built skyscrapers. The Almohads in particular – they erected the Giralda as well as its sister tower in Rabat in their native Morocco, both of them modelled on the Koutoubia minaret in Marrakesh.
It gives a striking perspective to the bricks and cobbles of a city square that was built on the proceeds of Spanish supremacy in the Americas; the looming legacy of an older empire that spread into Spain itself and ran the show in most, then part, then just a pocket of the country for eight centuries. Both types of Hispanic influence, of course, are strongly felt at the centre of today’s great empire, the very design of the Giralda echoed in Chicago’s Wrigley building, the Ferry Building in San Francisco and so on.
The mind tends to turn toward perspective here, therefore, and the passage of time. I first set foot in this northwestern corner of the plaza some years ago in the company of my father’s family who, like me, enjoy nothing more than eating, talking and drinking but who, in a concession to culture and civility, prefer to do it in places like this. We sat outside Bar Laredo on that visit while my uncles strained to make out the elaborate detailing on the Almohad tower through the distorting lens of late morning gin & tonics. Given the size of the drinks served there at the time I couldn’t swear to it any of us was looking at the tower, or even aware of it, but I certainly am now.
I still get to take in the view whenever I’m in town, but I don’t do it from the Laredo tables anymore, which have spread out now into the square, canopied by plush umbrellas and heated. They’ve ripped out the interior too. As in so many cases, what wasn’t broken has been ‘fixed’. It probably cost them a fortune to refurbish and expand and the likely expense is reflected in the ludicrous new prices. A beautiful bar. An institution. Gone.
Marbella, on the southern coast and a sometime haven for the aspirational holiday-maker or property owner, can hardly be described as regal, although it does have a pretty old town, hidden in the centre of what has become, over the last few decades, a rather sizeable city. It’s where we head for a reunion with the Bar Laredo crew – lunch, dinner and a quick overnight. It isn’t the first since the Seville outing, by any means. Marbella has in fact become a fairly regular meeting point for my family.
We get a little peevish, from time to time, that we can’t seem to lure more of them, more often, as far as Tarifa, a mere hour and twenty minutes down the road but, es lo que hay, as they say around here, and we’re always happy to see them. It’s the same as it always is – wine, small talk and tapas. Nobody has any earth shattering news – a good thing – and everyone’s reasonably up to date with me via my weekly dispatches. The circle is not complete though. A cousin is absent and so is an uncle, who is undergoing some surgery after a few days of ill-health. We hear of it the previous day and it’s only when we finally sit down with J that we learn the surgery has gone well.
With that news we can enjoy our day together and, notwithstanding the regrettable absence, it is a good day. We used to do something similar every Sunday when K and I still lived in Ireland. E, J, I and B still do and it’s the first thing I think of whenever a visit to Dublin is on the cards, which isn’t often enough. B’s health scare is a reminder, of course, of the passage of time, the impervious onward march of things, with or without us.
It has a bittersweet effect. A reminder to relish the moment. Love and loss all tied up in the same feeling. The family has had its fair share of the latter, and then some, but the gatherings have proven to be a durable affair. We still get together with encouraging regularity, given the distances, and it is always the same. An institution. No bricks or mortar – we take it with us. Not everybody is present every time but the underlying structure is still there, like the old Giralda sitting beneath its renaissance crown. In the long shadow it casts, they have ruined the Laredo.
But they haven’t ruined us.Follow @RobinJGraham
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Siri knows you are near via tweaked infrared sensor: video
With the iPhone 4S it appears the biggest thing is the new voice assistant Siri, and with anything new to the game, most want to know every little detail as to just why the feature works the way it does, and today we learn a little more about Siri and how it works courtesy of a video, which we have for your viewing pleasure below.
Apparently if you have every wondered just how Siri reacts so quickly when you bring the iPhone 4S up to speak, well it’s all down to a tiny little sensor, an infrared LED to be exact that has been added to the proximity sensor.
Now the use of a proximity sensor on the iPhone isn’t anything new as its always been there using infrared all the time your are speaking on your iOS device, however with the iPhone 4S that little sensor has been tweaked a little.
The How Siri knows you are there video below, which comes our way courtesy of the guys over at TiPb shows MJ of iFixit explaining that the tweaked proximity sensor now turns on every time the screen is activated rather than only when placing a call as in previous iPhone handsets.
Anyway, the iFixit people can explain it far better than I, so I’ll leave it right there and let you head on down to check out the footage.
The big question is though is, perhaps the tweaked infrared LED proximity sensor is the reason why Apple isn’t delivering Siri to older devices, however no doubt the cleverness of the hackers out there they will find some way of making Siri fully work on other devices regardless…enjoy the footage.
If you have enjoyed this Phones Review article feel free to add me to your circles on Google+ and I will of course add you back.
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We need to stop saying “This is not who we are” in America because there is much evidence to the contrary.
Look at the history of riots and violence in cities across this country these past 300 years, 100 years, 50 years, 10 years.
Sometimes the riots assisted in change that was for the better for that city or state or the country, sometimes they did nothing but raise awareness. Either way, the citizens decided for themselves how their city or state or country would be governed and regulated.
America aspires to have the citizens all agree and live by certain principles that let us each have the inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Until that actually happens, we will have agreed on a truce until it's time for a group to riot or incite violence.
Our history is not neat or clean. Our future will be messy.
When you have every religion, every skin color, every culture, every belief system allowed to exist (and in most cases flourish) within the borders of a country … you have what is known as a Melting Pot.
This isn't multi-culturalism. There is only one culture. American Culture.
We don't have to share beliefs and values to respect each other's right to exist and live within the borders of the USA.
As individuals, we can walk away from those whose beliefs are so divergent from our own that we simply cannot understand them when they speak.
We can also move to a community or city or state that aligns more closely with our beliefs.
We will argue. We will resort to name-calling. We will fight with words, fists, knives, guns, baseball bats, and whatever else we have available.
We will defend ourselves and our properties – from each other – and rely on law enforcement to punish those who got through our defenses.
So, please, stop saying “This is not who we are” in America because you're ignoring the facts that indeed…this is exactly who we are.
When a segment of society resorts to violence – it is time to listen and then work together to find a resolution. Does this mean we negotiate with domestic terrorists? With those focused on doing harm for the sake of doing harm? Of course not. It does mean that we, as citizens, must rely on law enforcement and investigators to discern the purpose of the violence. And when they've returned their answer, that is when we the citizens can make the biggest difference.
Does listening and working together for a resolution mean acceptance – of anything?
No. It means that we now have a foundation of understanding to begin discussions. Which often leads to compromise. That is what will lead to resolution.
If the compromise is uneasy or unbalanced, violence will erupt again.
This level of understanding and compromise occurs at all levels:
- between individuals
- between community groups and local government
- between individuals/organizations and state government
- between organizations/state legislators and federal government.
This is why it is important to stop saying that “This is not who we are” in America. Uneasy compromises have been made and more will be made. This means we can expect a future that is just as messy as our past has been.
You get to decide how you will best prepare, now, for future messiness. How? Just look over the last 100 years. Whether or not you participated in protests or riots or violence. Whether or not you experienced natural and man-made disasters. You can see what occurs during those incidents and prepare yourself to survive them when they happen to you.
How to prepare for natural disasters.
Stock up on canned food, cleaning supplies, water, first aid supplies. Have a heat source for the winter. Learn self-defense tactics. Your state website will have a guide on how best to prepare for natural disasters in your area. California earthquakes. Missouri tornados. Texas floods and hurricanes and tornados. Arizona droughts. Blizzards. Wildfires. You can be prepared.
How to prepare for group violence.
Check your state's laws regarding self-defense. If you have weapons, get trained properly on how to use them. Learn to be vigilant with situational awareness – knowing what is going on around you. Being able to draw a mental map that helps you understand where you are, what surrounds you, and the challenges that lie ahead. This ability allows you to see clearly what is happening so you can develop an effective coping plan – fast.
How to prepare for individual violence.
Self-defense is a skill we all can improve, and many have mastered. Seek out the masters in your area and learn how to defend yourself against other individuals, from a group or gang, from the local government if necessary.
It's on you to protect your body and property and family. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you understand that it is time to stop saying “This is not who we are” in America.
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This is the speech I gave at the Northern Lit Awards ceremony in Sudbury on May 4, 2011:
I am honoured and thrilled to receive this award and want to take a moment to praise librarians and libraries, not only for their support to Canadian culture, but also for their contribution to clients' happiness and good mental health.
Growing up in Northeastern Ontario in the 1950s and '60s, I felt a distinct lack of books and library resources. When I was a young child, relatives gave me little books from the five and ten cent store, but as I became an older and better reader, it was a struggle to find new material. At the time, there were no book stores anywhere near. In any case, we were not a well-off family and the basics like food, clothing and shelter took priority.
My mother, who taught elementary school, was my main early source of encouragement in reading and writing. Our school didn't have much money, though, so the "library" consisted of two bookcases in each classroom. I soon read the books available and also went rapidly through my aunt's collection of Ladies Home Journals and Readers' Digest Condensed Books.
When I complained to my mother about having nothing to read, she remembered that the Women's Institute had a cupboard in the cloakroom of the community hall, where they kept a collection of books, mostly by minor Victorian writers, under lock and key. My mother, who was an Institute member, asked the local president if she would unlock the cupboard and let me look at the books.
The president was frankly puzzled, and said, "What does Ruth want the books for?"
In that day and age, children, especially girls, were often told to "Get your nose out of that book and do something useful."
The nearest town was about thirteen miles from where we lived and it had a public library, one room in a municipal building, so when I started high school I inquired about borrowing from it. As a non-resident I paid a fee, but it was worth it to have access to a wider choice of books. One book I read at that time, which I thought of on election night, was George Bernard Shaw's "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism."
Now, that town has a new self-contained library on one of the two main streets, staffed professionally and associated with a regional library system through which borrowers can order pretty much anything they need.
I remain a persistent, curious and addicted reader, and frequently use the libraries in Ottawa, where I live now. Today, libraries are almost like community centres in offering all manner of activities and services including author events and readings.
When I was growing up in Northeastern Ontario there was just one writer in the community and he was regarded as an eccentric, so it's a pleasure to be in an environment where writers are numerous, commonplace and treated by librarians as associates in the encouragement of reading.
I'm glad that younger generations growing up in Northern Ontario are receiving nourishment for their minds and imaginations through well -organized public library systems and qualified librarians. My nieces, who grew up in Northeastern Ontario as I did, had this advantage. Both girls graduated from Laurentian University and when we attended the younger girl's graduation, I was struck by her class motto, which was: "Dream it, live it, be it."
To be able to dream of what you can be and imagine what constitutes a good life, you need people and facilities to support and encourage your imagination and curiosity, and that's what librarians and libraries do.
Thank you so much.
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John Donne, Body and Soul
For centuries readers have struggled to fuse the seemingly scattered pieces of Donne’s works into a complete image of the poet and priest. In John Donne, Body and Soul, Ramie Targoff offers a way to read Donne as a writer who returned again and again to a single great subject, one that connected to his deepest intellectual and emotional concerns.
Reappraising Donne’s oeuvre in pursuit of the struggles and commitments that connect his most disparate works, Targoff convincingly shows that Donne believed throughout his life in the mutual necessity of body and soul. In chapters that range from his earliest letters to his final sermon, Targoff reveals that Donne’s obsessive imagining of both the natural union and the inevitable division between body and soul is the most continuous and abiding subject of his writing.
“Ramie Targoff achieves the rare feat of taking early modern theology seriously, and of explaining why it matters. Her book transforms how we think about Donne.”—Helen Cooper, University of Cambridge
2 Songs and Sonnets
3 The Anniversaries
4 Holy Sonnets
6 Deaths Duell
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