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It is done, and submitted. You can play “Survival of the Tastiest” on Android, and on the web. Playing on the web works, but you have to simulate multi-touch for table moving and that can be a bit confusing. There’s a lot I’d like to talk about. I’ll go through every topic, insted of making the typical what went right/wrong list. Concept Working over the theme was probably one of the hardest tasks I had to face. Originally, I had an idea of what kind of game I wanted to develop, gameplay wise – something with lots of enemies/actors, simple graphics, maybe set in space, controlled from a top-down view. I was confident I could fit any theme around it. In the end, the problem with a theme like “Evolution” in a game is that evolution is unassisted. It happens through several seemingly random mutations over time, with the most apt permutation surviving. This genetic car simulator is, in my opinion, a great example of actual evolution of a species facing a challenge. But is it a game? In a game, you need to control something to reach an objective. That control goes against what evolution is supposed to be like. If you allow the user to pick how to evolve something, it’s not evolution anymore – it’s the equivalent of intelligent design, the fable invented by creationists to combat the very idea of evolution. Being agnostic and a Pastafarian, that’s not something that rubbed me the right way. Hence, my biggest dillema when deciding what to create was not with what I wanted to create, but with what I did not. I didn’t want to create an “intelligent design” simulator and wrongly call it evolution. This is a problem, of course, every other contestant also had to face. And judging by the entries submitted, not many managed to work around it. I’d say the only real solution was through the use of artificial selection, somehow. So far, I haven’t seen any entry using this at its core gameplay. Alas, this is just a fun competition and after a while I decided not to be as strict with the game idea, and allowed myself to pick whatever I thought would work out. My initial idea was to create something where humanity tried to evolve to a next level but had some kind of foe trying to stop them from doing so. I kind of had this image of human souls flying in space towards a monolith or a space baby (all based in 2001: A Space Odyssey of course) but I couldn’t think of compelling (read: serious) mechanics for that. Borgs were my next inspiration, as their whole hypothesis fit pretty well into the evolution theme. But how to make it work? Are you the borg, or fighting the Borg? The third and final idea came to me through my girlfriend, who somehow gave me the idea of making something about the evolution of Pasta. The more I thought about it the more it sounded like it would work, so I decided to go with it. Conversations with my inspiring co-worker Roushey (who also created the “Mechanical Underdogs” signature logo for my intros) further matured the concept, as it involved into the idea of having individual pieces of pasta flying around and trying to evolve until they became all-powerful. A secondary idea here was that the game would work to explain how the Flying Spaghetti Monster came to exist – by evolving from a normal dinner table. So the idea evolved more or less into this: you are sitting a table. You have your own plate, with is your “base”. There are 5 other guests at the table, each with their own plate. Your plate can spawn little pieces of pasta. You do so by “ordering” them through a menu. Some pastas are better than others; some are faster, some are stronger. They have varying costs, which are debited from your credits (you start with a number of credits). Once spawned, your pastas start flying around. Their instinct is to fly to other plates, in order to conquer them (the objective of the game is having your pasta conquer all the plates on the table). But they are really autonomous, so after being spawned, you have no control over your pasta (think DotA or LoL creeps). Your pasta doesn’t like other people’s pasta, so if they meet, they shoot sauce at each other until one dies. You get credits for other pastas your own pasta kill. Once a pasta is in the vicinity of a plate, it starts conquering it for its team. It takes around 10 seconds for a plate to be conquered; less if more pasta from the same team are around. If pasta from other team are around, though, they get locked down in their attempt, unable to conquer the plate, until one of them die (think Battlefield’s standard “Conquest” mode). You get points every second for every plate you own. Over time, the concept also evolved to use an Italian bistro as its main scenario. Carlos, Carlos’ Bistro’s founder and owner Setup No major changes were made from my work setup. I used FDT and Starling creating an Adobe AIR (ActionScript) project, all tools or frameworks I already had some knowledge with. One big change for me was that I livestreamed my work through a twitch.tv account. This was a new thing for me. As recommended by Roushey, I used a program called XSplit and I got to say, it is pretty amazing. It made the livestream pretty effortless and the features are awesome, even for the free version. It was great to have some of my friends watch me, and then interact with them and random people through chat. It was also good knowing that I was also recording a local version of the files, so I could make a timelapse video later. Knowing the video was being recorded also made me a lot more self-conscious about my computer use, as if someone was watching over my shoulder. It made me realize that sometimes I spend too much time in seemingly inane tasks (I ended up wasting the longest time just to get some text alignment the way I wanted – it’ll probably drive someone crazy if they watch it) and that I do way too many typos where writing code. I pretty much spend half of the time writing a line and the other half fixing the crazy characters in it. My own stream was probably boring to watch since I was coding for the most time. But livestreaming is one of the cool things to do as a spectator too. It was great seeing other people working – I had a few tabs opened on my second monitor all the time. It’s actually a bit sad, because if I could, I could have spent the whole weekend just watching other people working! But I had to do my own work, so I’d only do it once in a while, when resting for a bit. Design Although I wanted some simple, low-fi, high-contrast kind of design, I ended up going with somewhat realistic (vector) art. I think it worked very well, fitting the mood of the game, but I also went overboard. For example: to know the state of a plate (who owns it, who’s conquering it and how much time they have left before conquering it, which pasta units are in the queue, etc), you have to look at the plate’s bill. The problem I realized when doing some tests is that people never look at the bill! They think it’s some kind of prop, so they never actually read its details. Plus, if you’re zoomed out too much, you can’t actually read it, so it’s hard to know what’s going on with the game until you zoom in to the area of a specific plate. One other solution that didn’t turn out to be as perfect as I thought was how to indicate who a plate base belongs to. In the game, that’s indicated by the plate’s decoration – its color denotes the team owner. But it’s something that fits so well into the design that people never realized it, until they were told about it. In the end, the idea of going with a full physical metaphor is one that should be done with care. Things that are very important risk becoming background noise, unless the player knows its importance. Originally, I wanted to avoid any kind of heads-up display in my game. In the end, I ended up adding it at the bottom to indicate your credits and bases owned, as well as the hideous out-of-place-and-still-not-obvious “Call Waiter” button. But in hindsight, I should have gone with a simple HUD from the start, especially one that indicated each team’s colors and general state of the game without the need for zooming in and out. Development Development went fast. But not fast enough. Even though I worked around 32+ hours for this Ludum Dare, the biggest problem I had to face in the end was overscoping. I had too much planned, and couldn’t get it all done. Content-wise, I had several kinds of pasta planned (Wikipedia is just amazing in that regard), split into several different groups, from small Pastina to huge Pasta al forno. But because of time constraints, I ended up scratching most of them, and ended up with 5 different types of very small pasta – barely something to start when talking about the evolution of Pasta. Pastas used in the game. Unfortunately, the macs where never used Which is one of the saddest things about the project, really. It had the framework and the features to allow an endless number of elements in there, but I just didn’t have time to draw the rest of the assets needed (something I loved to do, by the way). Other non-obvious features had to be dropped, too. For example, when ordering some pasta, you were supposed to select what kind of sauce you’d like with your pasta, each with different attributes. Bolognese, for example, is very strong, but inaccurate; Pesto is very accurate and has great range, but it’s weaker; and my favorite, Vodka, would triggers 10% loss of speed on the pasta hit by it. The code for that is mostly in there. But in the end, I didn’t have time to implement the sauce selection interface; all pasta ended up using bolognese sauce. To-do list: lots of things were not done Actual programming also took a toll in the development time. Having been programming for a while, I like to believe I got to a point where I know how to make things right, but at the expense of forgetting how to do things wrong in a seemingly good way. What I mean is that I had to take a lot of shortcuts in my code to save time (e.g. a lot of singletons references for cross-communication rather than events or observers, all-encompassing check loops, not fast enough) that left a very sour taste in my mouth. While I know I used to do those a few years ago and survive, I almost cannot accept the state my code is in right now. At the same time, I do know it was the right thing to do given the timeframe. One small thing that had some impact was using a somewhat new platform for me. That’s Starling, the accelerated graphics framework I used in Flash. I had tested it before and I knew how to use it well – the API is very similar to Flash itself. However, there were some small details that had some impact during development, making me feel somewhat uneasy the whole time I was writing the game. It was, again, the right thing to do, but I should have used Starling more deeply before (which is the conundrum: I used it for Ludum Dare just so I could learn more about it). Argument and user experience One final aspect of the game that I learned is that making the game obvious for your players goes a long way into making it fun. If you have to spend the longest time explaining things, your game is doing something wrong. And that’s exactly the problem Survival of the Tastiest ultimately faced. It’s very hard for people to understand what’s going on with the game, why, and how. I did have some introductory text at the beginning, but that was a last-minute thing. More importantly, I should have had a better interface or simplified the whole concept so it would be easier for people to understand. That doesn’t mean the game itself should be simple. It just means that the experience and interface should be approachable and understandable. Conclusion I’m extremely happy with what I’ve done and, especially given that this was my first Ludum Dare. However, I feel like I’ve learned a lot of what not to do. The biggest problem is overscoping. Like Eric Decker said, the biggest lesson we can learn with this is probably with scoping – deciding what to do beforehand in a way you can complete it without having to rush and do something half-assed. I’m sure I will do more Ludum Dares in the future. But if there are any lessons I can take of it, they are to make it simple, to use frameworks and platforms you already have some absolute experience with (otherwise you’ll spend too much time trying to solve easy questions), and to scope for a game that you can complete in one day only (that way, you can actually take two days and make it cool). This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2012 at 10:54 am and is filed under LD #24. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. 3 Responses to ““Survival of the Tastiest” Post-mortem” darn it , knowing that I missed your livestream makes me a sad panda ;( but more to the point, the game is … well for a startup its original to say the least ;D it has some really neat ideas and more importantly its designed arround touch screens whitch by the looks of the submission is something rare ;o or that could be just me and my short memory -_-! awesum game, love et <3

Topic: reinvent midnight madness Amazon announced a new service at the AWS re:Invent Midnight Madness event. Amazon Sumerian is a solution that aims to make it easier for developers to build virtual reality, augmented reality, and 3D applications. It features a user friendly editor, which can be used to drag and drop 3D objects and characters into scenes. Amazon … continue reading

About Grand Slam Fishing Charters As a family owned business we know how important it is that your trip becomes the best memory of your vacation, we are proud of our islands, our waters and our crew and we are desperate show you the best possible time during your stay. We can not guarantee fish every time but we can guarantee you a great time! The biggest perk of our job is seeing so many of our customers become close friends” A Great Way To Make New Friends! Our dockside parties are a great way to make new friends! Everyone is welcome! Andrea runs the whole operation, from discussing your initial needs by phone or email through to ensuring you have sufficient potato chips. Andrea has worked as concierge for many International resorts and fully understands the high expectations of international visitors. “Life’s A Game But Fishing Is Serious!” Unlike many tour operators, our crew are highly valued and have been with us since day 1. Each have their own personalities and sense of humour and understand the importance of making your day perfect, for us the saying is true, “Lifes a game but fishing is serious!” TRIP ADVISOR Plan Your Trip! AJ and Earl were excellent. My son and I did a half day deep sea trip and though the fish weren’t too cooperative, they did everything to try to get something to bite. Very knowledgeable about the waters and my son was able to land a nice barracuda. The next day my wife, daughter, son […] When we arrived the crew made us feel right at home. They made us feel comfortable and answered all questions. The crew worked hard all day to put us on fish. We were successful in landing a nice size Wahoo even though the weather did not cooperate the entire day was enjoyable. I highly recommend […]

Working Women, Special Provision and the Debate on Equality There has been considerable coverage in the media recently about the possibility of offering women in employment paid leave from work during their menstrual period. This has generated a broad range of responses relating to long-standing discussions about ‘equality’ and ‘difference’: is women’s equality best achieved by treating them the same as men or by making provisions that recognise their differences in terms of physiological constitution and biological functions? If the UK introduces such an initiative, it would not be the first country in the contemporary world to do so. Many countries in Asia already make the provision and Russia debated introducing a law in 2013. The policy also has a significant historical precedent. A whole chapter of my book Women Workers in the Soviet Interwar Economy: From ‘Protection’ to ‘Equality’ (Macmillan, 1999), based on extensive research conducted for my PhD, is devoted to ‘Provision for “Menstrual Leave”’. In the 1920s, scientific researchers and labour hygiene specialists in the Soviet Union conducted extensive investigations into the impact of menstruation on women’s capacity to work in manual and industrial jobs requiring a significant degree of physical labour. Their recommendations led to two decrees being issued that targeted specific categories of women workers: Decree ‘On the release from work during menstruation of machinists and iron press workers working on cutting machines without mechanised gears in the garment industry’, 11 January 1922 Decree ‘On the working conditions of women tractor and lorry drivers’, 9 May 1931 These decrees arose from research that suggested, amongst other things, that inadequate seating at machines and on tractors resulted in congestion and tension in the abdomen that was exacerbated during menstruation. In practice, the decrees did not provide for regular absence from work. Women seeking to benefit from the provision had to provide a doctor’s note, similar to the usual requirements for sick leave. The official research into the impact of menstruation on women’s capacity to work and the application of the decrees in practice raised a number of issues on both sides of the argument. I offer only a summary of the contemporary research findings and observer commentary here: For the provision: • employers have a responsibility to protect the health of their workers and unhealthy, poor and inadequate working environments can have a detrimental impact on women’s reproductive health • women’s labour productivity and output would rise as a result • it is essential to protect the professionalism of certain categories of workers: the debates here centred on performance artists and female theatrical employees engaged in highly physical and intensely emotional work • heavy physical labour and strenuous exercise can lead to disruptions of the menstrual cycle • women’s physical and intellectual capacities are reduced during menstruation; women lose muscular strength and powers of concentration • women’s biological constitution and reproductive functions require specific recognition in law Against the provision: • employers are less likely to appoint women if they are guaranteed paid time off work during menstruation • (often from male workers, who viewed the employment of women as competition) women should not be employed in jobs for which they lack the physical strength and mental capacity • if necessary, women could be transferred to different tasks involving easier work during menstruation • the provision would be open to uneven application and abuse • women cannot expect to be considered equal with men if they are given special treatment in the law It is worth noting also that the various research projects often revealed that the vast majority of women reported no regular problems or abnormalities with menstruation, and that men commonly reported higher levels of sickness than their female colleagues. Many of the problems experienced by women in the workplace could be mitigated by the introduction of improvements to their physical working conditions (not sitting down or standing up in the same position for long periods of time) or by the simple introduction of very short breaks that would allow women to walk around and get some exercise. Debates in the UK, on the TV and in the press, are unlikely to reach a consensus on this issue. What do you think?

Jeanette Sawyer Cohen, PhD, clinical assistant professor of psychology in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City Pediatric Psychologist How to Teach Independence? How can I teach my toddler to do things independently? You’ve probably become more patient since you started this whole parenthood thing. And you’re going to have to practice patience even more as your toddler learns to become more independent. For example, she tells you she can’t finish the puzzle she’s doing. Instead of jumping right in and telling her which piece goes where, you’re going to have to tell her you’ll help a little. Go ahead and help, but let her do a lot of it herself, and make sure she’s the one to finish the job. That will give her a sense of accomplishment and the confidence to try again next time. Remember that children each progress at their own rate. It’s not always fast — and there will be setbacks along the way. But the more you can allow them to do on their own without stepping in, the more they’ll be likely to try for themselves again and again.

Running Stat Dinner with people is always better than eating alone, especially when the food is good. Good food tastes even better when enjoyed with people. Tonight Amy came over to try my second attempt at the Brussels Sprouts Veggie Soup to which I have made some changes (see recipe below in previous post) for a better result, I believe. We were at the store earlier and saw some nice looking haricot verts and heirloom tomatoes, so we decide to assemble a simple salad from those. Of course while I’m at the market, I can’t not get some five peppercorn salami. Our simple dinner of soup, salami, bread, cheese, salad, and wine was on the table in 15 minutes.

jOOQ on The ORM Foundation? I am the developer of jOOQ, a Java database abstraction framework. I was wondering whether jOOQ might be an interesting tool for discussion on your website, even if it is not exactly an ORM in the classic meaning (as in mapping objects to the relational world > ORM). Instead, jOOQ uses a reverse engineering paradigm (as in mapping relational entities to objects > "ROM"). Re: jOOQ on The ORM Foundation? Object Role Modeling (the original ORM) is not the same thing as Object/Relational Mapping. Object/Relational Mapping is still kind-of relevant and interesting to us, since Object Role Modeling is used to design databases (which then will require programmatic access). But there are probably better places to discuss it :] Your query DSL looks rather like some of the DSLs available for Ruby, such as through the Sequel gem, or Arel. Interesting to see how well that can work with a statically-types language like Java. Maybe you or I should make a generator for ActiveFacts which generates your DSL from CQL queries? Re: jOOQ on The ORM Foundation? Sorry for my late reply. Apparently I had not really understood the ideas behind your foundation when I wrote my original post. I understand now, that you are concerned with broader concepts than the "common ORM". I actually came across your group because of your linking to ORM Lite (where ORM does stand for Object/Relational Mapping, correct me if I'm wrong). Yes, I have seen some examples for Ruby's Sequel. I personally find statically-typed languages much better for DSL's as the syntax can be formally defined and checked by a compiler - with the limitations an OO language imposes, of course. So if I understand this correctly now, "Object Role Modeling" and CQL are actually a more general way of expressing what SQL calls DDL. Since you can already transform CQL into SQL DDL statements (CREATE TABLE...), and jOOQ can reverse-engineer database schemata into jOOQ generated source code, I don't think there would be need for an additional generator. Does CQL also specify means of querying the data described by the Object Role Model? The examples I found here only seem to describe what SQL calls "constraints" (although with a much broader functionality-range than SQL): Re: jOOQ on The ORM Foundation? "common ORM". I actually came across your group because of your linking to ORM Lite (where ORM does stand for Object/Relational Mapping Object Role Modeling was named before Object Relational Mapping, but the latter is now the more common meaning, as you point out. But ORM Lite is actually so-named by Bryan because it is an implementation of Object Role Modeling, not because it is also an O/RM. Bryan was a student of Terry's at Neumont, where he learnt ORM. Regarding DSLs, I think internal DSLs only work well in very simple cases. I prefer external DSLs for anything complex, and that's where CQL came from. Even the extremely flexible syntax of Ruby wasn't up to the task. lukas.eder: I don't think there would be need for an additional generator The problem is that a huge amount of meaning is lost in the mapping to SQL. SQL is practically (though not theoretically) limited to representing physical models. These are almost always very different from the conceptual model, as many relationships have been condensed (absorbed) into attribute/column relationships, so the semantics of the original relationship are lost. In the process, nullable columns are usually introduced, which adds further to the confusion, as such things cannot easily be correctly constrained (uniqueness, etc) in SQL. So by reverse engineering from the relational form, you're losing most of the benefit of building a conceptual model from the start This may be hard to see for someone used to O-O modeling, and who's authored an O/RM tool. The problem is that O-O suffers from many of the same problems of loss of semantics. The apparently clear notion of "attribute" breaks down when you look at it closely. O-O, although ostensibly behaviour-oriented, introduces attributes to store state, and this attribute orientation is the source of the problem in both cases. Fact-oriented model does not use attributes. Although it may seem obvious that, for example, my surname is an attribute of myself, if the system being modeled accrues the requirement to model families, suddenly surname becomes an attribute of family, and family becomes my attribute. This kind of instability is responsible for much of the rework that's required in evolving legacy systems, as well as many of the mistakes made when they were first modeled. If you want a further example of this loss of semantics, look at my Insurance example, and ask yourself why the VehicleIncident table has a DrivingBloodTestResult column. In fact, if VehicleIncident wasn't explicitly mapped separately, its fields would be in the Claim table. What's needed is not just yet another O/RM tool (which are tuppence a dozen anyhow - I personally have written three) but a tool which supports database programming using only the conceptual model, never exposing the physical model. Surprisingly, I can't think of a single tool which has done a good job of this, but it's where I'm heading with the ActiveFacts API. It's another O/RM, but using a purely conceptual object model that preserves the domain semantics, not a typical O-O one. lukas.eder: Does CQL also specify means of querying the data described by the Object Role Model Yes, though the published implementation doesn't quite handle the full query syntax (aggregate functions are still missing), nor does it yet translate them to SQL. Some examples are given towards the end of the video presentation on the CQL Introduction page. Re: jOOQ on The ORM Foundation? Regarding DSLs, I think internal DSLs only work well in very simple cases. I prefer external DSLs for anything complex, and that's where CQL came from. Even the extremely flexible syntax of Ruby wasn't up to the task. Absolutely. The optimal way to implement SQL in Java would be by extending the Java language itself, such that SQL would be compiled natively by the java compiler, similar to Linq2SQL in C#, or PL/SQL in Oracle databases. So for the complexity of CQL, CQL is certainly the right solution. Clifford Heath: The problem is that a huge amount of meaning is lost in the mapping to SQL. SQL is practically (though not theoretically) limited to representing physical models. You are right. I guess though, that in everyday work, this limitation is not really a problem. Personally, I think if your business rules become so complex that you cannot map them to a relational model easily anymore, then maybe your business rules could be simplified before changing/extending technologies. But that depends on the business, of course. I guess with insurance companies' businesses, I'd be pretty lost, personally ;-) In any case, I don't see jOOQ as a means to solve modelling issues, or the O/R impedance mismatch (which is even bigger when it comes to mapping your understanding of ORM, with CQL). jOOQ should simply make using the full power of SQL in Java as simple as possible. In that way, jOOQ is not really an ORM because it does not map from objects to the relational world, or try to solve any other high-level abstraction issues. It's really a low-level tool to make a developer's life a lot easier, seeing that unfortunately, JPA CriteriaQuery didn't meet the community's expectations. Clifford Heath: What's needed is not just yet another O/RM tool (which are tuppence a dozen anyhow - I personally have written three) but a tool which supports database programming using only the conceptual model, never exposing the physical model. Surprisingly, I can't think of a single tool which has done a good job of this, but it's where I'm heading with the ActiveFacts API. It's another O/RM, but using a purely conceptual object model that preserves the domain semantics, not a typical O-O one. I think you're on the right track with this. I hope for you, that this will soon show nice results with a practical implementation. I'm curious to see how you'll tackle performance issues, too, with all the abstraction. Among all attempts to overcome the old and proven relational models (XML databases, NoSQL databases), this one seems the most promising and focused to me!

I've learned the nitrogen vacancies used in Memristors are for "switching", between excited states and inhibited states, akin to our neurons and SYNAPSES abilities to generate EPSPs and IPSPs, this is the entire point to Memristors and DARPAs SyNAPSE program, emulating Neurons.. So in the memristor, NVs (which are truly Ancillas), Return to "resting states", just like Neurons do, hence Inhibitory states versus excited states, when a neuron reaches an action potential and fires.. So the ancillas use prepared/ known states, and are the equivalent of the ancillas ground state, which is equal to a neurons resting potential... So by weakly measuring certain aspects of living neurons, it is possible to superbroadcast/ teleport the wavefunction non-classically to the memristors vacancies, correlating each memristor with its neuron statistical ensemble counterpart, sharing the quantum state of the resting potential. the ground state of the ancilla. The type of measurement determines which property is shown. However the single and double-slit experiment and other experiments show that some effects of wave and particle can be measured in one measurement. Hence Mach-Zehnder interferometry, which also involves ANCILLAS Quote: When for example measuring a photon using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, the photon acts as a wave if the second beam-splitter is inserted, but as a particle if this beam-splitter is omitted. The decision of whether or not to insert this beam-splitter can be made after the photon has entered the interferometer, as in Wheeler’s famous delayed-choice thought experiment. In recent quantum versions of this experiment, this decision is controlled by a quantum ancilla, while the beam splitter is itself still a classical object. and the no-cloning theorem is about pure states.. But an ensemble of particles in a neuron would make it a mixed state.. The no-cloning theorem is normally stated and proven for pure states; the no-broadcast theorem generalizes this result to mixed states. And thats why PHASE works for quantum metrology and its ability to harness non classical states Apparently, worrying about measuring both position and momentum works differently for particles than it does waves. It may actually be possible using phase. Quote: Niels Bohr apparently conceived of the principle of complementarity during a skiing vacation in Norway in February and March 1927, during which he received a letter from Werner Heisenberg regarding the latter's newly discovered (and not yet published) uncertainty principle. Upon returning from his vacation, by which time Heisenberg had already submitted his paper on the uncertainty principle for publication, he convinced Heisenberg that the uncertainty principle was a manifestation of the deeper concept of complementarity.[6] Heisenberg duly appended a note to this effect to his paper on the uncertainty principle, before its publication, stating: Quote: Bohr has brought to my attention [that] the uncertainty in our observation does not arise exclusively from the occurrence of discontinuities, but is tied directly to the demand that we ascribe equal validity to the quite different experiments which show up in the [particulate] theory on one hand, and in the wave theory on the other hand. And "quadratures" is about position and momentum.. Which are apparently always orthogonal to each other. There is obviously something to all of this. Counterfactual Communication was recently used to transmit information without sending any PARTICLES. the information was sent in the phase.. of a wavefunction? and it used MachZenhder Interferometry.. which is part of Quantum Metrology and its ability to harness non-classical states.. and all of this can teleport non-classical light.. and it all uses ANCILLAS... which store VALUES, and WAVEFUNCTIONS.. because they are Qubits/ Nitrogen vacancies.. and are used in WEAK MEASUREMENT... which was used to measure a wavefunction.. something most would argue is impossible.. because of the uncertainty principle.. Quote: An interpretation of quantum mechanics can be said to involve the use of counterfactual definiteness if it includes in the statistical population of measurement results, any measurements that are counterfactual because they are excluded by the quantum mechanical impossibility of simultaneous measurement of conjugate pairs of properties. For example, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that one cannot simultaneously know, with arbitrarily high precision, both the position and momentum of a particle Quote: The word "counterfactual" does not mean "characterized by being opposed to fact." Instead, it characterizes values that could have been measured but, for one reason or another, were not and its the Ancillas that store values.. and may or may not be part of the measurement apparatus... / interferometer.. In 2015, Counterfactual Quantum Computation was demonstrated in the experimental context of "spins of a negatively charged Nitrogen-vacancy color center in a diamond".[5] Previously suspected limits of efficiency were exceeded, achieving counterfactual computational efficiency of 85% with the higher efficiency foreseen in principle Quote: The quantum computer may be physically implemented in arbitrary ways but the common apparatus considered to date features a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The quantum computer is set in a superposition of "not running" and "running" states by means such as the Quantum Zeno Effect. Those state histories are quantum interfered. After many repetitions of very rapid projective measurements, the "not running" state evolves to a final value imprinted into the properties of the quantum computer. Measuring that value allows for learning the result of some types of computations such as Grover's algorithm even though the result was derived from the non-running state of the quantum computer. NV CENTERS can also be used asQUANTUM SPIN PROBES, QUBITS & AS, ANCILLAS in devices such as BIOMEMs scanners QUANTUM REPEATERS PHOTONIC NETWORKING and.. MEMRISTORS.. where the vacancies are used for switching between inhibited and excited states, thus simulating NEURONS MEMRISTORS utilize wavefunctions. Wavefunctions can be weakly measured by ANCILLAS ANCILLAS hold "values" ie : wavefunctions and have GROUND STATES which measured particles are "cooled" into for measurement techniques. a literal form of "photon counting".. "This de-excitation is called ‘fluorescence’, and it is characterized by a lifetime of a few nanoseconds of the lowest vibrational level of the first excited state. De-excitation from the excited singlet state to the ground state also occurs by other mechanisms, such as non-radiant thermal decay or ‘phosphorescence’. In the latter case, the chromophore undergoes a forbidden transition from the excited singlet state into the triplet state (intersystem crossing, ISC, Fig 2.4), which has a non-zero probability, for example because of spin orbit coupling of the electrons’ magnetic moments" its a type of INTERSYSTEM CROSSING doing a search for Intersystem crossing, memristor brings up this link.. A composite optical microcavity, in which nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in a diamond nanopillar are coupled to whispering gallery modes in a silica microsphere, is demonstrated. Nanopillars with a diameter as small as 200 nm are fabricated from a bulk diamond crystal by reactive ion etching and are positioned with nanometer precision near the equator of a silica microsphere. The composite nanopillar-microsphere system overcomes the poor controllability of a nanocrystal-based microcavity system and takes full advantage of the exceptional spin properties of NV centers and the ultrahigh quality factor of silica microspheres. We investigate the construction of two universal three-qubit quantum gates in a hybrid system. The designed system consists of a flying photon and a stationary negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center fixed on the periphery of a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microresonator, with the WGM cavity coupled to tapered fibers functioning as an add-drop structure. These gate operations are accomplished by encoding the information both on the spin degree of freedom of the electron confined in the NV center and on the polarization and spatial-mode states of the flying photon, respectively Now Somewhere in this is evidence of a memristor holding a wavefunction The shown SPICE implementation (macro model) for a charge controlled memristor model exactly reproduces the results from [2]. However, these simulation results do not have a good compliance - not even qualitatively - with the characteristic form of I/V curves of manufactured devices. Therefore the following equations (3) to (9) try to approach memristor modeling from a different point of view to get a closer match to the measured curves from [2],[6],[7],[8],[10] or [11] even with a simple linear drift of w. Besides the charge steering mechanism of a memristor modelled in [2], [1] also defined a functional relationship for a memristor which explains the memristive behavior in dependence on its magnetic flux: i(t) = W φ(t) · v(t) . (3) Variable W (φ) represents the memductance which is the reciprocal of memristance M. Here a mechanism is demanded that maps the magnetic flux as the input signal to the current that is flowing through the memristor. The magnetic flux φ is the integral of voltage v(t) over time: φ = R v(t) dt. We can assume that an external voltage which is applied to the previously described two-layer structure has an influence on the movable 2+-dopants over time. The width w(t) of the semiconductor layer is depending on the velocity of the dopants vD(t) via the time integral: w(t) = w0 + Z0t vD(τ)dτ . (4) The drift velocity vD in an electric field E is defined via its mobility µD: vD(t) = µD · E(t) (5) and the electric field E is connected with the voltage via E(t) = v(t) D(6)with D denoting the total thickness of the two-layer structure (D = tOX + tSEMI). Due the good conductance of the semiconductor layer the electric field is applied to the time depending thickness of the insulator layer tOX for the most part (due to v(l) = R E dl). However, this was neglected for reasons of simplification. If we combine (4), (5) and (6), we obtain: n(t) = w0 + µDD· Z0t v(τ)dτ = w0 + µDD · φ(t) . (7) This equation shows a proportional dependence of the width w from the magnetic flux φ. Since the thickness of the insulator layer is in the low nanometer region a tunnel current or equivalent mechanism is possible. The magnetic flux slightly decreases the thickness of the insulator layer wich is the barrierfor the tunnel current.This current rises exponentially with a reduction of the width tOX(φ) (the exponential dependenceis deducible from the quantum mechanic wave function) which must become the GROUND STATE of the ANCILLA upon non-classical correlation.. because a wavefunction is essentially the "master equation" (which describe wave equations) We investigate theoretically how the spectroscopy of an ancillary qubit can probe cavity (circuit) QED ground states containing photons. We consider three classes of systems (Dicke, Tavis-Cummings and Hopfield-like models), where non-trivial vacua are the result of ultrastrong coupling between N two-level systems and a single-mode bosonic field. An ancillary qubit detuned with respect to the boson frequency is shown to reveal distinct spectral signatures depending on the type of vacua. In particular, the Lamb shift of the ancilla is sensitive to both ground state photon population and correlations. Back-action of the ancilla on the cavity ground state is investigated, taking into account the dissipation via a consistent master equation for the ultrastrong coupling regime. The conditions for high-fidelity measurements are determined. \\ Notice BACK-ACTION, which goes right back to DARPAs Nanodiamond Biosensors and their ability to overcome the standard quantum limit, because of the known/ prepared states in the ancillas/NITROGEN VACANCIES Quote: (Quantum) back action refers (in the regime of Quantum systems) to the effect of a detector on the measurement itself, as if the detector is not just making the measurement but also affecting the measured or observed system under a perturbing effect. Back action has important consequences on the measurement process and is a significant factor in measurements near the quantum limit, such as measurements approaching the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL). Back action is an actively sought-after area of interest in present times. There have been experiments in recent times, with nanomechanical systems, where back action was evaded in making measurements, such as in the following paper : When performing continuous measurements of position with sensitivity approaching quantum mechanical limits, one must confront the fundamental effects of detector back-action.Back-action forces are responsible for the ultimate limit on continuous position detection, can also be harnessed to cool the observed structure[1,2,3,4], and are expected to generate quantum entanglement. Back-action can also be evaded, allowing measurements with sensitivities that exceed the standard quantum limit, and potentially allowing for the generation of quantum squeezed states. So the NV centers are used as ancillas in the measurement process.. which weakly measure wavefunctions of particles in neurons, most likely singlet and triplet states occurring in ATP and phosphase... then those same wavefunctions are transfered and produce a correlation at the ground state.. where the ancilla takes on the new value/wavefunction.. and here we find all these ideas.. minus the switching which I can explain Memristors use NV centers to switch between inhibited and excited states singlet and triplet states thus producing/simulating/ EMULATING, living neurons and action potentials and it may just BE the network and its computing speed, that even allows the wavefunction to be "found" Artificial Neural Network. A pair of physicists with ETH Zurich has developed a way to use an artificial neural network to characterize the wave function of a quantum many-body system. [14]. A team of researchers at Google's DeepMind Technologies has been working on a means to increase the capabilities of computers by ... While there are lots of things that artificial intelligence can't do yet—science being one of them—neural networks are proving themselves increasingly adept at a huge variety of pattern recognition ... That's due in part to the description of a quantum system called its wavefunction. ... Neural network chip built using memristors. https://books.google.ca/books?isbn=9814434809Andrew Adamatzky, ‎Guanrong Chen - 2013 - ‎Computers Global and local symmetries In quantum physics, all the properties of a system can be derived from the state or wave function associated with that system. The absolute phase of a wave function cannot be measured, and has no practical meaning, as it cancels out the calculations of the probability distribution. Only relative ... The las vegas shooting left 58 INNOCENT PEOPLE DEAD. The gunmans brother was later arrested for possession of child porn. This technology was developed to defend against terrorism and child abuse. Connect the dots. I bet the brothers were sharing files and one of them ended up a "targeted individual" So he began to stockpile weapons and plan the only way out of his nightmare. There has been no mentioning of him."hearing voices" But the fact his brother was later arrested for such a crime paints a picture worth looking into. Those vibrations, are the result of this assumed BIOMEMS "deployable biosensor" And its use of excitation techniques made to single out single neurons to measure the WAVEFUNCTIONS during a tomographic scan. which makes such possible Quantum-assisted Nano-imaging of Living Organism Is a First Quote: “In QuASAR we are building sensors that capitalize on the extreme precision and control of atomic physics. We hope these novel measurement tools can provide new capabilities to the broader scientific and operational communities,” said Jamil Abo-Shaeer, DARPA program manager. “The work these teams are doing to apply quantum-assisted measurement to biological imaging could benefit DoD’s efforts to develop specialized drugs and therapies, and potentially support DARPA’s work to better understand how the human brain functions.” "Nuclear spin imaging at the atomic level is essential for the under-standing of fundamental biological phenomena and for applicationssuch as drug discovery. The advent of novel nano-scale sensors hasgiven hope of achieving the long-standing goal of single-protein, highspatial-resolution structure determination in their natural environ-ment and ambient conditions. In particular, quantum sensors basedon the spin-dependent photoluminescence of Nitrogen Vacancy (NV)centers in diamond have recently been used to detect nanoscale en-sembles of external nuclear spins. While NV sensitivity is approachingsingle-spin levels, extracting relevant information from a very com-plex structure is a further challenge, since it requires not only theability to sense the magnetic field of an isolated nuclear spin, butalso to achieve atomic-scale spatial resolution. Here we propose amethod that, by exploiting the coupling of the NV center to an intrin-sic quantum memory associated with the Nitrogen nuclear spin, canreach a tenfold improvement in spatial resolution, down to atomic scales." So what its all doing essentially, is mapping the phase of atoms/SINGLETS in ATP, onto a NV center based CCD and at the singlet level, correlations occur.. creating entanglement so the particles in the neuron are being correlated with the ancillas, the nitrogen vacancies, where they take on the "target" state.. not only is the above imaging done to obtain a correlation to living neurons, via the singlet states within, but once the connection is established, the MEMRISTOR NETWORK itself can be used to RECONSTRUCT VISION IN REAL TIME Now add the above method, a direct connection using correlated states shared from neurons TO Memristors... and imagine the reconstruction aided by the AI within the memristor network, as it works on so.. (note, this example is done MERELY using fMRI information) now Imagine statistical ensembles being observed in real time via non-classical entanglement But what I'm trying to show, is hows its this assumed entanglement based BCI technology, plus the memristor network it is coupled to, that is responsible for the TI communities complaints that "they (the government) can see through my own eyes" The nitrogen vacancies in the scanners hold values, wavefunctions, which are prepared states aka Ancilla bits, and are the time domain/reference frequency, which carrries the "quantum event/wavefunction" which causes the singlet pairs to form up in the scanned biology.. and correlates with them at the ground state as the relaxation occurs.. Quote: It is important to realize that particles in singlet states need not be locally bound to each other. For example, when the spin states of two electrons are correlated by their emission from a single quantum event that conserves angular momentum, the resulting electrons remain in a shared singlet state even as their separation in space increases indefinitely over time, provided only that their angular momentum states remain unperturbed and that weakly measured value, the wavefunction is sent through the optical cavity, teleported to identical nitrogen vacancies in memristors.. so the ground states in both system are correlated and thus the neural activity can be monitored in real time in the memristors

Volunteer Services Volunteer Services As Charleston Area Medical Center volunteers, our mission is to serve as support for patients, families and hospital staff, and to provide a caring, comforting and courteous environment. Volunteers at CAMC bring their unique personalities and skills to our hospital. They range in age from 15 to 99. Our ranks are made up of men and women; students and retirees; homemakers and business people. Last year, 334 volunteers contributed over 36,000 hours to our hospitals and Cancer Center. We are looking for volunteers who exemplify CAMC's core values of respect, integrity, stewardship, quality, service with compassion and safety. These volunteers will help us with our mission of "striving to provide the best health care to every patient, every day."

Playing back a meeting recording …Let me show you how to locate and play back a meeting that you have recorded.…First, let's understand how WebEx Meetings store and prepare your meeting recordings.…The meetings are recorded on the WebEx server.…WebEx will post the recording to their…server within 24 hours of the meeting completion.…When your recording is ready, you'll receive an update on…your dashboard homepage with the playback link and the recording information.…Let me show you how that looks.…When you get this notification, you can click the link that says Play Recording.…And WebEx will play back the video for you with the WebEx network recording player.… To locate your meeting recording manually, if…you miss the notification, the easiest thing…to do is look at the meetings space for the meeting that you recorded.…First, find the meeting in your meetings list by clicking the Meetings tab.…Click the Recent tab.…You'll note, in the list, whether it's recorded or not.…Click on the meeting title to visit the meeting space page for that meeting.… Resume Transcript Auto-Scroll Author Released 6/9/2014 Connect and collaborate across the globe with WebEx Meetings. In this course, author and webinar specialist Sally Norred shows you how to use WebEx Meetings to host, run, and record online meetings. Discover how to set up an online meeting and invite attendees, work with interactivity, let attendees participate and present, and save and record a meeting. Also check out the quick tips sheets (free to all members) for a list of handy shortcuts for hosts, presenters, and attendees alike.

During my pregnancy, I tried to gather as much information on how painful labor might actually be. I would often hear “mine was horrible, but everyone’s pregnancy is different” or “it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life!” I heard many horror stories which often ended with, “well, don’t worry. You’ll forget about the pain as soon as your child is born.” Not the most reassuring for a first-time mother, but something I definitely kept in mind the entire time. I had feared the unknown, but on the other hand, I knew there was no turning back and that my baby was coming one way or another! Two weeks before my due date, I noticed some blood. My water didn’t break and I saw no mucous plug, but it seemed that something was happening earlier than expected. Soon after, at 1 a.m. I woke up from a notably different type of cramping. It began to occur every 5 minutes. It wasn’t that painful (yet), but uncomfortable. I felt as if I had to go diarrhea every five minutes. If this is labor, I could handle it for sure I thought, but I knew this was only the beginning. My husband nervously drove us to the hospital as if the baby would pop out any second. I had to remind him to not worry. Things usually didn’t happen that fast for first-time moms (or at least I hoped it wouldn’t). I had to go by instinct although in the back of my mind, I wasn’t sure what would happen next. We finally got to the birthing center after an hour of driving and the nurses confirmed I wasn’t even dilated. I couldn’t believe it. We were turned away and had to find a hotel because returning home wasn’t an option. It would take two hours just to return again! The diarrhea-like cramps were painful and uncomfortable; I couldn’t sleep. I was bleeding slightly and started to actually have these cramps and stomach aches over a 10 hour period. I started googling my symptoms (never a good thing!) and discovered there are people who have this uncomfortable feeling for days and weeks! “Fake labor” would not be in my cards, I had hoped. Fortunately, I had an appointment with a midwife in the afternoon and was checked again for any cervical changes. I had finally dilated 3 cm and was 90% effaced. What a relief I thought! I welcomed the pain because I wanted things to progress. I couldn’t imagine having diarrhea cramps for weeks. However, 3 cm isn’t enough to be admitted, we were told, so back to the hotel we went. “When your cramps become more regular, every 3 minutes a part, and you become more snippy, check in again” the midwife suggested. In the mean time, I tried to walk around, pausing multiple times to catch my breath. A couple hours later, I was FINALLY admitted. My husband kept asking me questions non-stop about what I wanted, needed, and more. All I could say was “if I need something, I’ll let you know. Thanks.” I literally couldn’t talk. I felt like vomiting and had heart burn for the first time in my life. As my labor progressed, I felt the urge to push before I was even 10 cm dilated. I would have a cramp, then a couple of minutes later, one that made me yell out in pain as it forced my body to push. A gush of blood would come out as this happened and I felt extremely uncomfortable because the pain was in my back and butt! It would take my breath away. However, the pain was still tolerable, believe it or not. I had a volunteer doula come in that night who helped me breathe, rubbed my back, and encouraged me. She helped me be aware of my voice and how I could use it to save energy and get through the pain. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay the whole night, but the time she spent with me truly made a difference. Even though labor was hard work and painful, the right breathing technique and support helped ease the pain. This is probably the number one thing that helped me get through labor! As I started heading towards my second night of labor, I wondered how much longer I could go on … I questioned if it was even worth it to continue without an epidural? I went into labor without a plan. I wanted to go with the flow and make decisions as they came. I didn’t want to be tied to a bed or deliver on my back or disappointed if my perfect labor didn’t come true, so I left any expectations open. But after my second sleepless night, I started to inquire about pain medications (although deep down inside I knew I could handle more because the pain was still manageable). I was exhausted and sleep would have been nice especially if I didn’t have to feel any pain with an epidural. There were no walking epidurals available though and I didn’t want to take narcotics (which could make me dizzy), so I continued along, breathing away. A bath was an option too and this I requested and wanted. I was so uncomfortable as things progressed. I couldn’t get in the shower to relax my muscles, but somehow a bath sounded soothing and worth the effort. As soon as the bath was ready, however, I suddenly felt a pop down below as if major pressure had been released from my insides. Immediately, there was a shift. The back and butt pressure/pain I felt was no longer there. It was time to push! I knew as soon as I felt it. As the baby descended, I felt the burning sensation of the babies head crowning – a temporary stretching sting. The cramps were still there and I had no control over my own pushing. I let my body do its own work and took the breaks my body provided in between each wave of labor. I was standing up giving birth because I couldn’t get onto the bed as I would have liked and was given a stool to put my right foot onto in order to widen my pelvis. Gravity certainly assisted me. However, I never expected to be standing for 50 minutes! My legs were becoming tired and shaky, but I couldn’t move. My energy was sapped and I regretted not exercising more. Standing up was the most comfortable thing to do though and I listened to my body’s cues. I started to go along with my body’s signals to push, but after a while I felt as if the baby would never come out because things weren’t progressing fast enough. After his head came out, I thought it was all over until I heard my husband say “push, his body is stuck!” I ended up pushing as hard as I could and a gush of fluids came spewing onto the floor. It was the best sense of relief. The midwives held my baby from under me and told me to grab him. He was screaming, kicking, and punching his way into this life. He was so slippery, I was terrified to grab him. I had never held a baby before. He would be my first. I held my son and put him on my chest. I couldn’t stop looking at him in awe. He was so beautiful to me and I felt overwhelmed with love and joy. When the umbilical cord finally stopped pulsating, which happened surprisingly quick, my husband carefully snipped it. At this point, I’m glad my husband didn’t pass out. I always joked that he would get queasy and faint, but my husband did amazing! While holding my son, I had to deliver my placenta which did not hurt at all. In fact, I couldn’t even feel much down below because of the adrenaline pumping throughout my veins. Looking into my son’s eyes and holding him for the first time was the most incredible thing in the world. The pain that I felt earlier in labor vanished and I felt ecstatic to have made it through. It’s true what they say … After your baby is born, you forget the pain of labor and birth. At least most of it. Hello! Hello! It's nice to meet you! I'm Mary. Thank you for stopping by Stirring Up Delight. I hope you'll find some useful tips, recipes, and reviews or maybe a story or two that you might enjoy. Read More… Follow me Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Stirringupdelight.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com For those of you who were told you might need an endometrial biopsy, here’s my experience, so you can sleep a little better at night. Although I do not know what yours will be like, I can tell you that not all of them turn out horrific like you might’ve read online. Why You Might […] Kalua pig is a dish from Hawaii that may be intimidating to make if it’s done traditionally, but modern technology has its benefits. You don’t have to roast a pig underground, but instead you can use your slower cooker to make it. How easy is it? Buy some pork butt at the store and toss […] I’m so excited to be planning my niece’s 1st birthday party this fall! For anyone who really knows me, I absolutely love planning. It is one of my obsessions. After making numerous planning mistakes, however, I would like to share with you some tips I’ve learned along the way. If you are planning your child’s […] One of my favorite drinks when I return home is plantation iced tea. Last year, when I spent a week back home in Hawaii, I ended up drinking it as often as I found it on the menu. Now that the heat of summer is here, I’m dreaming of returning home to visit again. I really […]

POV: Henry vs Martin + a poll I won’t make claims as to their gifts and charms, but H & M do resemble me in various ways :) I usually like to write stories from a single point of view. It’s obviously a limited perspective, but I enjoy the constraints. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as a reliable narrator. Characters misinterpret things, miss things, draw the wrong conclusions, and it can be tricky and fun to work the “truth” into a story alongside the character’s perceptions. For instance, I think it’s obvious to the reader that Martin is DTF from the get-go, but Henry, equipped with the same amount of information, simply doesn’t get it. When I started writing the Ganymede Quartet books, it seemed obvious to me that the story needed to be told from the master’s point of view. Whether or not he’s actually prepared to take responsibility, the fact remains that Henry’s the one in charge and he sets the tone. It’s Martin’s job to adapt and respond and accommodate and serve. Obviously, Martin is better-equipped to steer this particular ship, but, unfortunately for Henry, the roles in this relationship weren’t assigned based on fitness or merit. If you’ve read A Most Personal Property (GQ Book 1), you know that when the opportunity finally arises for Martin to take charge, he does so with great effect, but he does wait for Henry to create the opportunity. He’s very well-trained. I think it’s apparent that Martin is miserable for most of AMPP, and writing weeks of self-doubt and misery even greater than Henry’s, from the perspective of a character who has even less power to effect change…I don’t think anyone wants to read that book, actually. Henry also needed to be the POV character for the main books because Henry is the one who has the most growing to do. They’re both young, both immature, but Martin is less immature, his sense of self is more solid and, well, he’s a lot smarter. Henry learns a lot over the course of the series, which is not to say that Martin doesn’t, but as the one nominally in charge, Henry’s growth has a greater impact on both of them. It was possibly something of a risk, but I left out or delayed certain trains of thought because Henry isn’t necessarily considering all aspects and implications of the master/slave dynamic from early on in their relationship. He’s very loving, but he’s not the most insightful person, and it takes him awhile to consider things that a savvier fellow might have questioned from the beginning. It really does take Henry a long time to wonder how Martin’s position and training impact the way Martin responds to him. I anticipate going a little deeper into Martin’s background, in a way, for the story that will accompany Book 3. I also have a pretty good idea which aspect of Book 4 I’ll present from Martin’s perspective. So far, the Martin stories have been really fun to write, and I definitely look forward to doing them. I think they’re so easy and enjoyable to work on because they revisit territory that I’ve already covered from Henry’s perspective to some extent, and when I’m writing Henry, I’m always considering how Martin might view a given situation, as well. Offering Martin’s POV at all was actually a pretty late development. It occurred to me shortly before publishing A Most Personal Property that the stories I was busy telling myself about Martin’s past would probably be of interest to anyone who was interested in AMPP, and so I quickly wrote A Superior Slave. I hoped that people who enjoyed reading ASS (ugh, that acronym!) for free might be interested in paying for AMPP, and I think that did happen to some small extent. I’ve gotten the impression (whether it’s true or not) that Martin might be the reader favorite by a small margin, so it just seems like a nice idea to continue offering Martin POV stories alongside the main books. While I think a person can enjoy the main books and Henry’s POV without side stories, I like to think Martin’s perspective is a valuable addition. I plan on adding additional points of view from other characters in the universe. I’ve got stories written about a couple of Henry’s friends to show how slave ownership works in private for other people. I’ve got at least two stories I want to write about Henry’s cousin Jesse. I think Tom gets his own novella :D With A Proper Lover (GQ Book 2) and A Master’s Fidelity (GQ Book 2.5) released, I’m just going immediately into editing Book 3 and fleshing out the notes I have for the Martin story. I’d had vague ideas about taking a break, but I honestly don’t know what that would mean at this point. I don’t know what I’d be doing during a break! Right now, the idea of downtime just makes me cranky. Knowing that there are people eager for the next books makes me want to work on getting them out. Besides, working on Martin’s POV is a treat :)

The terrifying 38-minute ordeal suffered by Hawaii residents on Saturday, when the state’s emergency-management agency sent out a false alert warning of an imminent ballistic-missile strike amid rising tensions with North Korea, seems to have sparked an unusually rapid response on Capitol Hill. Hawaii’s Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, told National Journal that he is working with other Senate Democrats on a bill that would implement a federal best-practice framework for the ballistic-missile-alert systems administered by U.S. states, localities, and territories. And while Republicans don’t appear to be involved in the process, relevant GOP chairs in both chambers have expressed a willingness to work with Schatz on the issue. Initial reports indicate that Hawaii’s screwup—which sent people across the archipelago scrambling for shelter before the all-clear was called more than a half-hour later—was because of an employee mistakenly pressing the wrong link on a confusingly designed interface. But for something as serious as a ballistic-missile alert, Schatz suggested that the potential for human error can, and should, be mitigated through federal safeguards. “You want a system that accounts for the fact that somebody may be sleepy or careless, or an interface may not be the most user-friendly, and yet it all works anyway,” Schatz said. “We have best practices for disaster notifications for natural disasters, for terrorism events. We just don’t have it for this.” On Wednesday, Schatz said he had convened a phone call with officials from the Federal Communications Commission, the Homeland Security Department, the Pentagon, and other relevant agencies to address the inconsistency. “We think it should be done legislatively, but I don’t know that for sure yet,” he told reporters, explaining that the ultimate goal is to craft “a federal law to establish a framework that states can use.” The way America’s missile-alert system operates is fundamentally different from how citizens are alerted to most other catastrophes, when local authorities often possess the best information. While states and cities are ultimately responsible for alerting civilians of an imminent attack, they lack the ability to detect and track incoming missiles. In the seconds and minutes after a launch, details of the threat would have to cascade through phone calls from the Pentagon to DHS. From there, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency would send the warning to at-risk states and localities, whose own alert systems would only then spring into life. That chain of causation was disrupted on Saturday. But David Simpson, a former admiral in the U.S. Navy who ran the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau from November 2013 to January 2017, said federal legislation should seek to dismantle that outdated process altogether. “That’s a 1950s kind of structure,” Simpson said, arguing that machine-to-machine communication technology should be utilized to eliminate lag time and cut down on human error. One way to do that could be for the FCC to create, at the direction of Congress, a unique wireless-alert category for ballistic-missile threats. “That would then ensure that the machine elements of this system could be built around that narrow bucket,” Simpson said. But that still wouldn’t solve the problem entirely. “The machine-to-machine piece of that, so it could be really useful, would require DHS and [Defense Department] plumbing changes that would be beyond the authorities of the FCC,” Simpson said. Simpson largely endorsed Schatz’s plan for a uniform federal missile-alert framework that states and localities can follow. “There’s over 1,000 alert originators at the state and local level, and I would say five, six, seven vendors for the user-interface systems,” he said. In a bid to improve innovation, DHS gave state governments broad leeway to design their own missile-alert interfaces. But Simpson said that decision has clearly come with a cost. “That variation is fine for notification about fire, notification about a tsunami coming in,” Simpson said. “But ballistic-missile warnings ought to be consistent, reliable, secure—because we don’t want it cyberattacked—across the entire country.” Republicans seem receptive to Schatz’s plan for missile-alert legislation. Schatz said he plans to introduce his bill through the Senate Commerce Committee, which is chaired by Republican John Thune. Frederick Hill, a Thune spokesman, told National Journal that the chairman “is considering convening a full committee hearing which would help inform legislative efforts.” House Republicans are further along than their Senate counterparts, with plans to hold an Energy and Commerce hearing on Hawaii’s false missile alert in the coming weeks. On Wednesday, committee chairman Greg Walden said he would be “happy to work” with Schatz on legislation, if needed. “We just haven’t got into the weeds on it,” Walden said. As long as lawmakers can work out issues surrounding committee and agency jurisdiction, Simpson said the chances for bipartisan support are high. But stakeholders from Homeland Security and the Pentagon—as well as the congressional committees that oversee them—will also need to weigh in. And Simpson worries those agencies may be loath to take responsibility for what’s widely viewed as a state-level mistake. “It’s a perfect bipartisan issue, as long as we don’t let the various lobbies and the competition between agencies pervert and potentially dilute the ultimate outcome,” Simpson said. "Two more House Republicans have joined the discharge petition to force votes on immigration, potentially leaving centrists just two signatures short of success. Reps. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) signed the discharge petition Thursday before the House left town for the Memorial Day recess. If all Democrats endorse the petition, just two more GOP signatures would be needed to reach the magic number of 218." Source: FIRED FROM RUSSIAN LAUNCHER Investigators Pin Destruction of Malaysian Airliner on Russia 3 hours ago THE DETAILS "A missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014 was fired from a launcher belonging to Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade, investigators said Thursday. The announcement is the first time the investigative team has identified a specific division of the Russian military as possibly being involved in the strike. Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in the incident." Source: THREE INTERVIEWS PLANNED FOR JUNE House GOP Will Conduct New Interviews in Clinton Probe 3 hours ago THE LATEST "House Republicans are preparing to conduct the first interviews in over four months in their investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe. A joint investigation run by the Judiciary and Oversight Committees has set three witness interviews for June, including testimony from Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, and Michael Steinbach, the former head of the FBI’s national security division." Source: IN OPEN LETTER TO KIM JONG UN Trump Cancels North Korea Summit 5 hours ago THE LATEST GANG OF EIGHT WILL GET SEPARATE MEETING Briefings at White House Will Now Be Bipartisan 7 hours ago THE LATEST "The White House confirmed Wednesday it is planning for a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders, known as the 'Gang of 8,' to receive a highly-classified intelligence briefing on the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling, reversing plans to exclude Democrats altogether. ABC News first reported the plans to hold a separate briefing for Democrats, citing multiple administration and congressional sources. While details of the bipartisan meeting are still being worked out, a Republican-only briefing will go on as scheduled Thursday."

Tag: Eloy Casados Original US release date: December 5, 2008 Production budget: $25,000,000 Worldwide gross: $27,426,335 There are timely films and then there are films that are before their time. Ron Howard is probably seen by most as a director who frequently makes good or very good films and occasionally makes a great one. Most recently, a lot... Continue Reading →

Sun aims powerful flares at Earth Top: Two large sunspot groups are visible in this image of the sun obtained by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Below: This SOHO image shows a large filament eruption that occurred February 26. The disk in the center is a mask that blocks out direct sunlight. By Richard Stenger CNN Interactive Staff Writer March 1, 2000 Web posted at: 3:24 p.m. EST (2024 GMT) (CNN) -- The sun should place the Earth squarely in its sights this week as it aims its solar ray gun. Astronomers tell terrestrial dwellers not to sweat it too much, despite the fact that solar activity is approaching an 11-year peak. Two large sunspots moving across the surface of the sun are expected to directly face the Earth soon for up to several days, according to solar scientists. Such sunspots often herald powerful coronal mass ejections and solar flares, space storms that can disrupt weather and electrical systems on Earth. Solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system. A typical one can release the energy equivalent of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at once. Highly charged particles from large flares can overload power grids and damage satellites. In 1989, one space storm knocked out a major power plant in Canada, leaving millions without power for hours. Solar activity generally waxes and wanes during an 11-year cycle and astronomers expect it to peak either this or next year. But so far, the sun has produced only a "disappointing" level of fireworks, said Joseph Gurman, a solar physicist who analyzes data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Coronal mass ejections are much more likely to produce effects, Gurman said. Like flares, they send streams of highly charged particles, but they also can emit a billion tons of plasma, or ionized gas. Fortunately the Earth's magnetosphere usually bears the brunt of plasma particles. "If we were exposed to them, we literally would be fried," Gurman said.

When Rudy Gay left the game with a left knee injury late in the first quarter, memories of the Sacramento Kings’ (16-22) recent poor play minus a star resurfaced. The thought came to fruition as DeMarcus Cousins joined him on the sidelines in the waning seconds of regulation, and the short-handed Kings fell to the visiting Dallas Mavericks (27-12), 108-104. The Kings are currently 2-2 on their six-game home stand and return to action on Friday in a contest against the Miami Heat. Join Cowbell Kingdom’sJames Ham as he recaps the action from the floor of Sleep Train Arena. Golden State Warriors Projected Starters (31-22) What to watch 1. Can the Kings win without DeMarcus Cousins? The Kings are 0-7 without their starting center and it looks like Cousins will miss another game on Wednesday with a strained left hip flexor. Andrew Bogut is questionable for the Warrior with left shoulder inflammation, as is reserve Jermaine O’Neal (sore back). This game might turn into a track meet, which doesn’t bode well for Sacramento. 2. Can the Kings defend the 3-point line? Sacramento ranks 28th in the league against the long ball. The Warriors starting backcourt of Curry and Thompson have already shot close to 800 3-pointers on the season. If the Kings don’t stay with Golden State’s shooters, they have very little chance of pulling off the upset. 3. How do the Kings players handle the trade rumors? The trade deadline is 12pm PST on Thursday and the rumors are swirling. Do the Kings players crumble under the pressure or do they come out swinging in what might be their last game in Sacramento? According to an NBA source, Sacramento Kings point guard Isaiah Thomas underwent an MRI earlier Tuesday on his left wrist. Counter to other media reports, the results of the tests were negative and Thomas is not expected to miss any time with the injury. Since taking over the starting position 35 games ago, Thomas is averaging 21.5 points, 6.9 assists and 1.3 steals per game in 37.5 minutes. But rumors that he was having some discomfort in his wrist began a few weeks back. Recently, his shooting numbers have taken a dramatic dip, beginning in January when he shot just 41.2 percent from the field and 32.7 percent from long range. Thomas’s overall field goal percentage has bounced back in the month of February, but his 3-point percentage for the seven games this month is 24.1 percent. Thomas and rookie guard Ben McLemore were the subject of a trade rumor on Monday, but coach Michael Malone and general manager Pete D’Alessandro refuted the reports following practice on Tuesday afternoon. “The report that was, I think on Yahoo!, about our offer to Boston was so erroneous and I don’t know where it came from,” Malone told reporters on Tuesday. “We dispel the rumors that are out there that we know are not true, but at the same time, this is a business and you have no idea what can happen up until trade deadline. I think all of our players realize that.” With injuries and possible trade rumors swirling, it should be a wild couple of days in Sacramento. DeMarcus Cousins Injury Update Thomas wasn’t the only Kings player to undergo an MRI today. For the second straight day, center DeMarcus Cousins made a trip to the doctors office for testing. Results of the first MRI were inconclusive, but a second test confirmed the Kings medical staff’s earlier diagnosis of a strained left hip flexor. Cousins has been unable to participate in practice since returning from the All-Star break. He is listed as day-to-day, but considered doubtful for Wednesday’s match-up against the Golden State Warriors. Hamady Ndiaye out of Rutgers and DeQuan Jones out of Florida are the only late additions. Ndiaye was in camp last season with Sacramento and left a solid impression. After being waived by the Kings, the 26-year old center spent last season playing for Tianjin Ronggang Golden Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association. Jones played in 63 games last season with the Orlando Magic, including 17 starts. He averaged 3.7 points per game in a little under 13 minutes a game. Last season it was high ropes courses in Colorado Springs, Co. This year, the Sacramento Kings open training camp away from home again, but instead of the Team USA practice facility in Colorado, it will be on the sandy beaches of Santa Barbara, CA. Camp will run from Oct. 1-6 at the Pavilion Gym on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus. The team will head back to Northern California for their pre-season opener on the road against the Golden State Warriors on October 7, before heading to Las Vegas to take on the Lakers on Oct. 10. After the initial week away, the Kings will continue camp in Sacramento at the team’s practice facility in Natomas. Cowbell Kingdom has grown exponentially since its founding in 2009 and we want to make sure we know our audience. The information you provide in this brief survey will be used to help us better serve you. For your participation, you will be automatically entered into a contest to win a copy of the 2013-14 Sacramento Kings Dancers calendar and a “Blackout” t-shirt commemorating last season’s first home game. But there’s probably no other player more overlooked and underrated on this season’s roster than the fourth-year guard. Just look no further than ESPN.com’s annual NBA Rank, which appraises the value of the league’s top 500 players. The 25-year-old guard moved up just five spots (no. 136 in 2011 to no. 131 in 2012) in this year’s rankings. These were the five players ranked just ahead of Thornton in the 2012 forecast: Such is life on a bad team with little to no national exposure. However, those who follow the Kings closely know just how valuable Thornton is, especially his competition. “He’s become an outstanding scorer in this league,” said Dallas Mavericks guard Darren Collisonback in January of his former New Orleans Hornets teammate. “He’s definitely made a niche in this league as far as (being) a big time scorer. “He can shoot the ball extremely well and he can do a lot of different things off the pick and roll,” added Collison. “And he’s exceptionally quick too.” In their rookie year, Collison and Thornton formed an explosive and exciting young backcourt for the Hornets. Though they’ve since gone their separate ways, the two remain close. Thornton worked out last offseason with Collison in Los Angeles during the lockout. The fourth-year guard out of UCLA thinks Sacramento is a good fit for his old teammate. He believes Thornton will only continue to improve with the Kings’ green nucleus. “This is a young team that’s going to be good in the near future,” Collison said. “He has a starting role here, so anytime you have a starting role, it’s always a good fit. And he’s one of their best scorers, too.” Averaging 18.7 points per game, Thornton led the Kings in scoring last season and usually found himself as their go-to-guy in clutch situations. The next step for Thornton, according to another former teammate, is becoming an accomplished defender. “He’s always been a capable scorer,” said Indiana Pacers big man David West. “Key for him has always been for him to play as hard defensively as he does offensively.” As explosive as he is with the ball, Thornton could stand to see some improvement on the defensive end. The Louisiana native finished in the bottom three among his 15 teammates in defensive rating. “We would challenge him to do the same thing on the defensive end,” said West of his days with Thornton in New Orleans. “Make him more of a complete ball player.” However like Collison, West thinks Thornton will continue to find success in the league. “He’s a strong-minded, tough-minded kid,” West said. “I knew that once he got an opportunity to just get in a system that worked for him and bring out his best skills, he’d do well.” The Kings may not belong to Marcus Thornton. But his importance to their success isn’t an understatement. Twenty-five years ago today, Sacramento Kings Head Coach Keith Smart hit a shot that changed his life forever. No matter where I go, people talk about it. Once they recognize me or see a nametag on my bag or something like that, they start talking about “The Shot”. So it’s a great moment and I’m glad it went in, but wasn’t just something for me. We just had our 25 year championship reunion. And we all got together and it wasn’t so much what we all did in the tournament and our careers. It was a friendship and a relationship that we have now that that moment brings us all together. Diehard Sacramento Kings fan Kevin Fippin wanted to propose to his long-time girlfriend Lydia Nicolaisen. So before he popped the question on New Year’s Eve, he recruited the services of a Sacramento Kings fan favorite.

A VISUALLY STUNNING architectural biography of Minnesota’s most influential architect of the twentieth century. Architect, artist, furniture designer, and educator, Ralph Rapson has played a leading role in the development and practice of modern architecture and design, both nationally and internationally. “Ralph Rapson is now a legend in the history of modern architecture.” —Cesar Pelli, FAIA REVIEW: Barbara Flanagan/The New York Times Ralph Rapson is best known as the designer of the Gutherie, Minneapolis’s landmark of theater design, but because he worked, taught and competed with most of the world’s first modernists–Wright, Mies, Corbusier, Saarinen–his elder son and biographer calls him “the Forest Gump of architecture.” Ralph Rapson: Sixty Years of Modern Design, by Rip Rapson, Jane King Hession and Bruce N. Wright, documents the architect’s vast career and uncanny associations. Rapson believed design should be reflect the moment–furniture, houses, cities–but his take on modernism was never pompous. He perpetuated endless ideas–still fresh–vibrant drawings and youthful pranks. (He had his students hoist famous visitors upside down, including the stocky Buckminister Fuller, and footprint the ceiling with their bare soles.) The book shows how one can be talented, influential and happy, all the while remaining internationally obscure. It also tells, discreetly, how one man can achieve all this single-handedly: with his right forearm amputated at birth, Ralph Rapson drew with his left hand.

All Studio Posts The upcoming AES 54th International Conferencem focusing on audio forensics, is set to take place June 12-14, 2014, at the Holiday Inn Bloomsbury in London. Dedicated to exploring techniques, technologies and advancements in the field of audio forensics, the conference will provide a platform for sharing research related to the forensic application of speech/signal processing, acoustical analyses, audio authentication and the examination of methodologies and best practices. Chairpersons for this conference are Mark Huckvale and Jeff M. Smith. This marks… View this post From the archives of the late, great Recording Engineer/Producer (RE/P) magazine, enjoy this in-depth discussion with engineer/ producer Val Garay, conducted by Robert Carr. This article dates back to the October 1983 issue. As a natural extension to his career as a musician during the early Sixties, Val Garay’s love for music lead him to pursue the art and science of audio engineering. Starting in 1969, he apprenticed at the Sound Factory, Hollywood, under rock-recording legend Dave Hassinger (Rolling Stones,… View this post Studio Technologies recently became Audinate’s 100th Dante licensee and is embracing the audio-over-Ethernet movement by developing a line of Dante-enabled products. “Studio Technologies prides itself on developing specialized solutions for its customers,” says Studio Technologies president Gordon Kapes. “Our users rely on us to deliver products that will enhance their workflow in both fixed and mobile broadcast applications. Dante has proven its technological excellence, and we are convinced that it is the correct, progressive solution for adding networking technology to… View this post Software company Plugin Alliance has announced the availability of bx_refinement and bx_saturator V2, two new native plug-ins from German software developer Brainworx. bx_refinement is the brainchild of mastering engineer Gebre Waddell of Stonebridge Mastering, who designed the original prototype as a tool to remove harshness, a problem he was encountering more and more in his work due to the transition to digital and the prevalence of over-compressed mixes. “Harsh recordings are one of the most common problems mixing and mastering… View this post Located outside Dallas, Cool Pony Media is a record label and artist development company that works with various music genres, as well as score-to-picture work. Brothers and co-founders, Mark and Mike Stitts, recently did an upgrade in part of their studio with help from API, and as a result, the team now uses THE BOX console on a daily basis for writing, tracking, creating stems, and mixing. “We’re amazed,” says Mark Stitts. “We have quite a bit of other API… View this post Article provided by Home Studio Corner. If you’ve been mixing for any length of time, you know how valuable the high-pass filter (HPF) can be. It removes excess low end from your non-bass-heavy tracks, allowing you to clean up the low frequencies, making room for the kick and bass. But then there’s this thing called a low frequency shelf. What’s that all about? In the picture below you can see both a high-pass filter and a low-frequency shelf. A… View this post Radial Engineering has announced that it has taken on the global sales, marketing and distribution of the Jensen Iso-Max range of products. Iso-Max is a range of isolators that provide ground isolation and noise abatement for audio and video in broadcast, home theater and commercial AV integration. Radial has a long history with Jensen. According to company president Peter Janis: “When Radial was founded in 1992, we started life as a distributor. One of our first product lines was Jensen.… View this post DPA Microphones has announced the appointment of Direct Imports as its distributor in New Zealand, signaling the company’s continued commitment toward growth and customer service in the country. From its headquarters in Hastings, Hawkes Bay, Direct Imports will carry a full stock of DPA products for live, recording and broadcast applications. “We are delighted to have been appointed the New Zealand distributor for DPA Microphones and honored to have this outstanding brand join our portfolio and complement our current range… View this post Record Factory Music Academy, a music production education facility in downtown Seoul, South Korea, delivers real-world recording experience to students, which is now aided with the addition of a Solid State Logic AWS 924 hybrid console/controller in its newly built studios. More than 1,000 students have gained an education since Record Factory Music Academy was established. Through hands-on workshops covering everything from MIDI production to in-studio engineering and music video creation, the facility is gaining a reputation for its advanced… View this post

From the mid-1960's until the close of that decade, automobiles became lighter, more compact, and more powerful. Auto manufacturers continued to compete against one another for drag-strip supremacy. As government regulations and safety concerns increased, the muscle car era began to decline rapidly. Many of these ultimate high-performance muscle cars were built to satisfy homologation requirements. Others were built just to have the fastest machine on the road. The Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda is an example of one of the fiercest and most powerful vehicle ever constructed for the roadway. It was derived from the lesser Barracuda's which began in the mid-1960's. It was built atop the 'E' body platform and was restyled in 1970 by John Herlitz, making it longer, wider, and lower. The 426 cubic-inch Hemi V8 was capable of producing an astonishing 425 horsepower. Matted to a four-speed manual 833 transmission, this was the ultimate muscle car of its day. This 1971 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda Convertible with black paint and orange billboards was offered for sale at the 2006 RM Auction in Monterey, CA where it was expected to sell between $180,000-$220,000. It came equipped from the factory with power windows, power brakes, power steering, Rally instrument cluster, rim blow steering wheel, bucket seats, AM/FM cassette radio, and driving lights. It has a Dana '60' rear end and the 426 cu in engine. It is one of just 374 'Cda Convertibles built in 1971. On auction day bidding reached $165,000 which was not high enough to satisfy reserve. The vehicle was left unsold.By Daniel Vaughan | Dec 2006 This 'Cuda Convertible was given a show-quality restoration to original specifications and is one of just 374 examples originally produced for the 1971 model year. It is believed to be one of just 87 383-powered convertibles produced for the last year of 'Cuda convertible production in 1971. The 383 cubic-inch V8 has four-barrel carburetors and is capable of producing 300 horsepower. There is a TorqueFlite three-speed automatic gearbox and four-wheel hydraulic brakes. The car is finished in Tawny Gold, with a white interior and a white power-operated convertible top. Features include dual chrome-tipped exhaust outlets, floor console, hood pins, power brakes, power steering, Rallye wheels, a 'Slap Stik' shifter and a 'Tuff' steering wheel. In 2010, this 'Cuda Convertible was offered for sale at the Vintage Motor Cars of Meadow Brook presented by RM Auctions. The car was estimated to sell for $60,000 - $70,000. As bidding came to a close, the car had been sold for the sum of $44,000 including buyer's premium.By Daniel Vaughan | Aug 2010 V8 Cuda Convertible The 3rd generation Barracuda ran from 1970 through 1974; the previous generations were A-body Valiant based which began in 1964. Designed by John E. Herlitz on the 108-inch wheelbase, unibody, E-platform, a shorter and wider version of the existing B-body. This example has the non-Hemi 340 cubic-inch V8 with automatic and it is a stock example. 1971 was the only year for four headlamps. Somehow, this model series didn't sell to expectation and production slowed over the years, making the cars quite rare today. An unaltered car is even more rare. V8 Cuda Hard Top Coupe The writing was on the wall by 1971 for the muscle car enthusiast. With rising gas prices and skyrocketing insurance rates, the days of the overpowered and often low priced performance automobile were numbered. For the big three, it seems that the decision was made to go out with a bang, and some of the rarest and most desirable muscle cars ever to come out of the Motor City were produced. Among the hottest is the Hemi 'Cuda, produced for a mere two model years. In 1970, it is believed that Plymouth produced just 696 Hemi 'Cuda hardtops and for 1971, a mere 118 would leave the line. Wild colors would survive for the 1971 model year and Chrysler would lead the pack with their Hi-Impact color palate. Several eye popping colors were offered, including Sassy Grass Green as seen on this example, which is one of the rarest offerings. When it comes to American Muscle, the Plymouth hemi 'Cuda is always at the top of the list. And when it comes to rarity and desirability, nothing compares to a 1971 Hemi ' Cuda. No matter what make or model you may prefer, there is no disputing the visual impact of the 426 Street Hemi engine. With the massive valve covers and the huge dual quad carbs, it certainly takes top honors when it comes to intimidation. To add the outrageous FC7 in Violet, (aka Plum Crazy) paint to the mix is to take things a step beyond. This 1971 Hemi 'Cuda exemplifies what Mopar Performance was all about in the final years of the original Muscle Car era. With a mere 107 leaving the Hamtramck, Michigan assembly plant with the Hemi engine under the shaker hood, these cars were rare even when new. This car is one of just 48 equipped with the Torqueflite automatic transmission and it also features the rare leather interior, elastomeric color keyed bumpers, power steering and power front disc brakes, a center console, the AM radio with the Dictaphone cassette recorder, tinted glass, dual color keyed mirrors and more, making it one of the highest option 1971 Hemi 'Cuda's in existence. Of course, when new these cars were flogged not only on the street, but at the tracks throughout the country, making this example among the most sought after and valuable American muscle cars ever built. The first series of the Barracuda was produced from 1964 through 1969, distinguished by its A-body construction. From 1970 through 1974 the second series was produced using an E-body construction. In 1964, Plymouth offered the Barracuda as an option of the Valiant model line, meaning it wore both the Valiant and Barracuda emblems. The base offering was a 225 cubic-inch six-cylinder engine that produced with 180 horsepower. An optional Commando 273 cubic-inch eight-cylinder engine was available with a four-barrel carburetor, high-compression heads and revised cams. The vehicle was outfitted with a live rear axle and semi-elliptic springs. Unfortunately, the Barracuda was introduced at the same time, separated by only two weeks, as the Ford Mustang. The Mustang proved to be the more popular car outselling the Valiant Barracuda by a ratio of 8 to 1. The interior was given a floor-shifter, vinyl semi-bucket seats, and rear seating. The rear seats folded down allowing ample space for cargo. By 1967, Plymouth redesigned the Barracuda and added a coupe and convertible to the model line-up. To accommodate larger engines, the engine bay was enlarged. There were multiple engine offerings that ranged in configuration and horsepower ratings. The 225 cubic-inch six-cylinder was the base engine while the 383 cubic-inch 8-cylinder was the top-of-the-line producing 280 horsepower. That was impressive, especially considering the horsepower to weight ratio. Many chose the 340 cubic-inch eight-cylinder because the 383 and Hemi were reported to make the Barracuda nose-heavy while the 340 offered optimal handling. In 1968 Plymouth offered a Super Stock 426 Hemi package. The lightweight body and race-tuned Hemi were perfect for the drag racing circuit. Glass was replaced with lexan, non-essential items were removed, and lightweight seats with aluminum brackets replaced the factory bench, and were given a sticker that indicated the car was not to be driven on public highways but for supervised acceleration trials. The result was a car that could run the quarter mile in the ten-second range. For 1969 a limited number of 440 Barracudas were produced, giving the vehicle a zero-to-sixty time of around 5.6 seconds. In 1970 the Barracuda were restyled but shared similarities to the 1967 through 1969 models. The Barracuda was available in convertible and hardtop configuration; the fastback was no longer offered. Sales were strong in 1970 but declined in the years that followed. The muscle car era was coming to a close due to the rising government safety and emission regulations and insurance premiums. Manufacturers were forced to detune their engines. The market segment was slowly shifting from muscle-cars to luxury automobiles. 1974 was the final year Plymouth offered the Barracuda.By Daniel Vaughan | Aug 2010 ◾Dodge Charger and Durango 'most loved' in their respective segments for second consecutive year ◾Jeep® Renegade leads Entry SUV segment in 2015 Most Loved Vehicles in America survey by Strategic Vision ◾FIAT captures most segment wins among small cars with 500 and 500e ◾FCA US ranked highest overall in Strategic Vision's 20th annual Total Quality Index™ this past July November 24, 2015 , Auburn Hills, Mich. - Strategic Vision has named five FCA US LLC vehicles to its 'Most Loved Ve...[Read more...] Scottsdale, Arizona (July 18th, 2015) – Thomas Scott is an accountant and entrepreneur from Athens, Georgia who has had a love for all things automotive for as long as he can remember. He possesses a lifetime of passion for buying, selling and working on classic American cars. 'I started out with the muscle cars — the Mopars, the Cobra Jet Mustang, the Chevelle,' Scott says. 'Those are cars that everybody recognizes — they're widely popular and very tradeable.' However, as S...[Read more...] Scottsdale, Arizona (December 1st, 2014) – For Enthusiasts – By Enthusiasts. ™ This is far more than a tagline at Russo and Steele Collector Automobile Auctions. It's a lifestyle, and we are gearing up to deliver that singular passion to the High Desert of sunny Scottsdale, Arizona for our annual flagship event during the world renowned collector car week. Additionally, Scottsdale marks the kick-off of the year-long celebration of our 15th anniversary. Held over five thrilling a...[Read more...]

Purdy was chatting to her bezzie mate who works at Colchester Hospital last night, and was impressed to hear that the Hospital wants more people to car share! Her mate, inspired by all the money she knows Purdy is saving, [...] Loveurcar The Loveurcar campaign is brought to you by the Colchester Travel Plan Club, Colchester Borough Council Air Quality Team and V102 as part of a Defra funded project to encourage more sustainable driving for those journeys that have to be made by car.

I got a wake up call, I got to make this workCause if we don´t we´re left with nothing and that´s what hurtsWe´re so close to giving up but something keeps us here I can´t see what´s yet to comeBut I have imagined life without you and it feels wrongI want to know where love begins, not where it ends Cause we don´t know what we´re doingWe´re just built this wayWe´re careless but we´re tryingCause we both make mistakesAnd I don´t want to keep on runningIf we´re only gonna fall behindWe´ve almost got it rightBut almost wasn´t what I had in mind We want it all and deserve no lessBut all we seem to give each other is second bestWe´re still reaching out for something that we can´t touch Cause we don´t know what we´re doingWe´re just built this wayWe´re careless but we´re tryingCause we both make mistakesAnd I don´t want to keep on runningIf we´re only gonna fall behindWe´ve almost got it rightBut almost wasn´t what I had in mind You know there´s nothing like this loveSo we don´t want to let it go Cause we don´t know what we´re doingWe´re just built this wayWe´re careless but we´re tryingCause we both make mistakesAnd I don´t want to keep on runningIf we´re only gonna fall behindWe´ve almost it got rightBut almost wasn´t what I had in mind

USA The EU is a political system with a unique structure and functioning, incomparable to anything which has existed before, far away from any classical, either national or international model. In such supranational union that is neither a pure intergovernmental organization nor a true federal state, political institutions appear vague and somewhat obscure and indistinguishable. Are Iran and Saudi Arabia going to war? They are already fighting – by proxy – all over the region. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran quickly deteriorated in January 2016 following Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimi but their struggle for power dates back to Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. Tehran's influence extends today across a broad area of the Middle East from Iran in the east to Lebanon in the west. UNESCO’s Director-General, Irina Bokova and the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni signed in February 2016 in Rome an agreement on the establishment of a Task Force of cultural heritage experts in the framework of UNESCO’s global coalition “Unite for Heritage”. Under the agreement, UNESCO will be able to ask the Italian Government to make experts of the Task Force available for deployment for the conservation of cultural heritage in areas affected by crises. In October 2016 John Sawers, a former MI6 chief, told BBC that the world was entering an era possibly “more dangerous” than the Cold War, as “we do not have that focus on a strategic relationship between Moscow and Washington”. Lt. Gen. Eugeny Buzhinsky, head of PIR Centre, a Moscow Think Tank, did maintain: “If we talk about the last Cold War, we are currently somewhere between the erection of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis but without the mechanisms to manage the confrontation”.

CIBC Poll: Nearly half of all Canadians with debt not making progress in paying it down Many say they simply don't have the money, but may be missing opportunities to get advice about how to reduce their debt TORONTO, June 5, 2013 /CNW/ - A new CIBC(TSX: CM) (NYSE: CM) Poll conducted by Harris/Decima reveals that half of Canadians with debtsay their debt level is the same or higher than it was a year ago, despite prior CIBC polls showing debt repayment as the top priority for Canadians in 2013. Highlights of the poll include: 71 per cent of Canadians said they currently carry some form of debt, in line with the national average in a similar poll conducted last year (72 per cent) Among Canadians with debt, 21 per cent say their level of debt has increased in the last 12 months, while another 28 per cent say their debt level has stayed the same - which indicates nearly half (49 per cent) of Canadians with debt did not make progress towards paying it down in the past year The top reason cited for not making progress on debt reduction was not having the money to do so 50 per cent said they have reduced their debt in the last year "Though Canadians have identified paying down debt as their top financial priority for the past three years, our poll shows almost an even split between those who are making strides and those who aren't," said Christina Kramer, Executive Vice President, Retail Distribution and Channel Strategy, CIBC. "Today's historically low interest rates represent a real opportunity to reduce your total debt level, however to take advantage of these low rates it is critical that Canadians have a plan to make that happen." CIBC's annual Financial Priorities Poll, released in January 2013, found that paying down debt was the top financial priority of Canadians for the third consecutive year. "Not Having the Money" Cited as Top Reason for not Making Progress Among those Canadians who said they aren't making progress on debt repayment, the top reason provided was they don't have the money to put against what they owe (29 per cent), followed by unplanned expenses which affected their ability to pay more towards their debt (12 per cent). A CIBC study from earlier this year shows that despite being a financial priority, debt is not top of mind when it comes to getting advice. When Canadians were asked what topics come to mind about a conversation they may have with an advisor, only 6 per cent cited debt. "It can be challenging to find the money each month to put towards reducing your debt, but our poll clearly shows that many Canadians are doing just that despite having the same everyday financial pressures of those who say they are not making progress," said Ms. Kramer. She noted that with many Canadians avoiding conversations about debt management, they are missing an opportunity to get personalized advice and put a plan in place. "You should talk with an advisor about your debt management goals the same way you would talk to them about your goals for retirement, because your finances are all connected," added Ms. Kramer. "A conversation with an advisor can lead to a plan that puts on you on track to achieve your broader financial goals." Advice on Managing Debt: CIBC offers these tips to help Canadians take charge of their finances and reduce debt as part of their long term financial plan. Make lump sum payments to higher interest debt first to reduce interest costs If you have debt, work with an advisor to structure it to minimize your overall interest costs by utilizing debt products that offer a lower interest rate and having a strategy to pay these balances down in a specific time frame While interest rates remain near historic lows, don't ignore the long term benefits of making small adjustments to your payment today. Setting your debt payment even slightly higher than your required payment can reduce your overall interest costs and help you become debt free faster Use free budgeting tools to help you stay on budget - CIBC CreditSmart, available to CIBC credit card holders, allows you to set customized budgets and receive spend alerts if you exceed your planned budget for the month, helping you stay on top of your everyday budgeting and saving KEY POLL FINDINGS Percentage of Canadians currently managing some form of debt, by region: 2013 2012 National 71% 72% Atlantic Canada 79% 78% Quebec 71% 72% Ontario 71% 69% Manitoba and Saskatchewan 73% 77% Alberta 69% 75% B.C. 64% 71% Percentage of Canadians currently managing some form of debt, by age: 2013 2012 National 71% 72% 18-24 59% 51% 25-34 82% 84% 35-44 79% 83% 45-54 78% 78% 55-64 66% 67% 65 + over 56% 56% Among Canadians with debt, percentage of those that say they have increased their debt over the past 12 months, by region: National 21% Atlantic Canada 8% Quebec 24% Ontario 23% Manitoba and Saskatchewan 24% Alberta 18% British Columbia 21% Among Canadians with debt, percentage of those that say their level of debt has stayed the same over the past 12 months, by region: National 28% Atlantic Canada 32% Quebec 33% Ontario 26% Manitoba and Saskatchewan 23% Alberta 24% British Columbia 31% *Each week, Harris/Decima interviews just over 1000 Canadians through teleVox, the company's national telephone omnibus survey. These data were gathered in samples of 2002 Canadians between March 28 to April 7, 2013 and 1002 Canadians between April 25 - 28, 2013. Samples of this size have a margin of error of +/-2.2%, 19 times out of 20 and +/-3.1%, 19 times out of 20 respectively. CIBC is a leading North American financial institution with over 11 million personal banking and business clients. CIBC offers a full range of products and services through its comprehensive electronic banking network, branches and offices across Canada, and has offices in the United States and around the world. You can find other news releases and information about CIBC in our Media Centre on our corporate website at www.cibc.com.

OS 10.2 - Permanently deleting emails and files This is my first time posting so I hope I don't screw this up...Does anyone have any advice on how to permanently delete emails and files? I am running on OS X 10.3.9 and have deleted files in my trash using the secure empty trash function, however, I have a large number of emails I have deleted in Mail. Are these permenently deleted as well? Secondly, is some of the shareware or freeware out there such as Shredit any good? I have a concern that someone is going to try and retrieve deleted data off my computer sometime soon and I really don't want any emails/files showing up that I have deleted. If you are using Mail as your email client and you account is setup as a pop3 account not leaving a copy on the server and your mac is not remotely backed up and your home folder is local then your mail lives in /Users/username/Library/Mail. Using the erase deleted messages from the mailbox menu will get rid of your mail. Will it be recoveerable from a drive recovery company,...possibly. Your company on the other handprobably not. Unless the above criteria is false.

The bantamweight champion of DEEP, Takafumi Otsuka, will take on Koichi Ishiuzka on May 13th at Differ Ariake in Tokyo. Otsuka was supposed to fight Fernando Vieira for the WSOF-GC bantamweight title in December. However, the Brazilian was over the weight at the first weigh-in and never showed up at the second weigh-in. Vieira was nowhere to be found after this.The Brazilian basically fled from the entire show. Otsuka became the inaugural WSOF-GC champ but this means, the last time he fought was back in August of last year. That was, however, against a Mongolian fighter named Baataryn Azjavkhlan who was 1-0 at the time. In terms of competitive fight, vs Daisuke Engo in February 2016 maybe is the last time Otsuka went through, which is more than a year ago. Ishizuka is basically born and raised in DEEP. And, he is undefeated in the last ten fights. For Ishizuka, this must be the opportunity he has been looking for all of his pro MMA career. So, Ishizuka has to be motivated than ever. The only concern is, his recent changes in the training environment. In last year, Ishizuka moved to Aichi because of the job which forced him to leave team Brightness Monma. And, Ishizuka joined team ALIVE which is based in Aichi prefecture. But Ishizuka left ALIVE now, and his status is “independent.” Besides this title fight between Otsuka and Ishizuka, men’s strawweight bout between Haruo Ochi and “Rambo” Kosuke is also confirmed. These two met all the way back in May of 2011. This fight took place in Shooto. “Rambo” almost caught Ochi with an armbar in the first round. But Ochi came back and KO’d Kosuke in the second round. That was “Rambo”‘s first pro defeat in seven fights.

Accounting Surf Works offer a range of accounting services suitable for all types of business. Below, we have listed packages suitable for sole traders, partnerships and limited companies. The packages can be fully tailored to your requirements by adding extra services to create the exact service that you and your business requires. All services are carried out on time with the minimum of fuss by our in house, fully qualified accountant The list of services offered is not exhaustive so please let us know if you require a service not listed. If you have specific needs we can build a bespoke accountancy package tailored to your exact requirements. Standard Packages From Sole Trader to Limited Company, we can organise your accounting with a simple, no-nonsense standard package. Sole Traderfrom £25pm Partnershipfrom £45pm Personal Tax Return for each partner (includes partnership income and bank interest received) Limited Co.from £65pm Year End Accounts Accounts Filed at Companies House Company Tax Return Payroll for Directors Salary Dividend Paperwork Directors Personal Tax Return Return Filed at Companies House Bolt on Services Year End Accounts Bookkeeping VAT Returns Payroll CIS Returns Management Accounts Company Formations Company Annual Returns Personal Tax Returns Partnership Tax Returns Company Tax Returns Rental Property Accounts Capital Gains Tax Inheritance Tax Warning: strpos() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in /srv/users/serverpilot/apps/surfworks/public/wp-content/themes/kallyas/framework/hg-theme-framework/inc/helpers/functions-image-helpers.php on line 157 Warning: strpos() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in /srv/users/serverpilot/apps/surfworks/public/wp-content/themes/kallyas/framework/hg-theme-framework/inc/helpers/functions-image-helpers.php on line 157 We also offer a fully outsourced finance function that includes: Raise and issue sales invoices to your customers Collect, allocate and bank money from your customers Maintain your purchases ledger Issue payments to your suppliers when invoices are due For more information about our accountancy services, give us a call or email :-)

How Idris Elba's 'Luther' Puts Us in the Mindset of a Renegade Detective "Luther" is a series about righteous indignation. Yes, it's a police drama, a dark (sometimes ludicrously so) crime saga set in a moody London with a greater and grimmer murder rate to equal that of other bleak procedurals. Yes, it's a police drama, a dark (sometimes ludicrously so) crime saga set in a moody version of London with a greater and grimmer murder rate to equal that of other bleak procedurals. But the satisfaction of seeing those cases solved, those murderers and kidnappers caught, is muted, secondary to the suffering and sacrifice and validation of protagonist John Luther, the detective played by Idris Elba with a staggering display of movie star charisma that seems like it ought to produce static shocks with everything with which he comes into contact. Luther's devoted to his job with an obsessiveness that's destroying him, that, as the series began in 2010, had ended his marriage and eaten him up inside, changing him. He's good at what he does, if prone to extremes, and yet he seems to be perpetually doubted, maligned and hurt because of it. In season one, Luther was framed for the murder of his beloved wife and forced to run from his fellow officers, and it's not the only time in the series he's a suspect. In season two he's treated like a certain career contaminant by a new, ambitious, by-the-books officer assigned to report to him. And in the four-episode third season airing on BBC America from September 3 through 6, that former colleague, DS Erin Gray (Nikki Amuka-Bird), is targeting him as part of an investigation of police corruption with DSU George Stark (David O'Hara), who may be a little obsessive himself. Aside from his sidekick DS Justin Ripley (Warren Brown), few seem to appreciate Luther and his incredible abilities -- instead, he's infamous, the rest of the police force apparently all too able of believing he's capable of dark things. We, as viewers, don't, because of Idris Elba. John Luther is Elba's best role since that of the fascinatingly savvy Stringer Bell in "The Wire," because it showcases the actor's utterly assured presence, his air of rakishly rumpled confidence in his tweed coat. Luther does not have swagger, he has conviction, conviction that informs his every -- frequently correct -- move. It's why it's so easy to trust him in a way that the characters working with him don't, and not without reason. When the series began in 2010, it was with Luther letting a pedophile fall to what could have been his death after extracting from him information about the location of the girl he'd kidnapped. It didn't doom his career -- he got lucky -- but he hasn't really changed. He even threatens a suspect with a similar fate toward the start of the new season -- but the move doesn't come across as harsh. We're more worried, when it happens, that it'll get him in trouble again. "Luther" is mesmerizing because of Elba, and because the show is so consumed by his performance that it becomes not one about a maverick cop but instead one of a man outpacing the justice system he's allegedly a part of, one that hampers him with its pesky rules, its politics and its skeptics. It encourages us to buy into his worldview, in which he should just be allowed to do his job and get justice done, though that may mean covering up crimes or allowing culprits he's judged deserving to go free -- like Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), his psychopathic superhero of a friend, and a wonderful, preposterous character who's essentially too enjoyable to be locked up. Luther's tactics make him so dangerous to the people around him that the case Stark tries to build against him is based on the peripheral body count rather than evidence, and when, in the new season, he starts a tentative romance with Mary Day (Sienna Guillory), a woman another character dismissively sums up as a "pixie," it's accompanied by a sense of dread. The series comes close to confronting the nature of its protagonist in the new season, introducing a grieving man who turns to vigilanteism and gathers public support for his actions as he starts targeting rapists and killers who've gotten off lightly. Confronting Luther on opposite sides of a canal, the man says "One out of five murders are committed by men on bail," and demands to know why nothing is being done about it. "It's complicated," Luther replies. "No, it's not," says the man. "No... it's not. You've got me there," Luther admits. The difference is that, while Luther may bend the rules to fit his ideas about crime and punishment, he doesn't do so looking for outside approval the way the antagonist he's facing down does -- the opposite, really. Instead, it's the viewers who seethe on his behalf and yearn for his efforts to continue, and it's that conflicting emotion far more than the procedural aspects that lifts "Luther" above the plethora of similarly lurid recent dark crime dramas it resembles.

The date is fast approaching for our spring rally. I have posted the reservation information in the Calendar section, I will post more details in the calendar section as they become available. If you have any questions please e-mail me at [email protected].

My Hero Academia Season 2- Episode 18 After last weeks episode, I was really curious what they had in store for us this week. How the heroes will come back to Earth after such a traumatic experience. And good thing for us, this episode is rightly named “The Aftermath of Hero Killer: Stain”. My Hero Academia- Funimation We open with Izuku, Iida, and Todoroki all in the hospital. They are all recovering from their tremendous fight. But also reflecting how lucky they are to be alive still. The door opens and we see Gran Torino and Pro Hero Manual. First thing Gran Torino does of course is scold Midoriya. But before Gran Torino goes full instructor on him, he tells the boys that they have a visitor. My Hero Academia- Funimation A tall figure turns the corner wearing a professional business suit. It’s Hosu’s chief of police, Kenji Tsuragamae. Who also happens to look like a dog (just go along with it I guess?). Kenji tells the boys that Stain is in custody and is being treated for several broken bones and serious burns. He also reminds them that what they have done was not okay on paper. Uncertified heroes using their Quirks against their instructors orders is highly frowned upon. But Todoroki is not taking it. He tells the chief that if Iida didn’t step in, then Pro Hero Native would have been killed. And the both of them would have been killed without Izuku’s help. But Gran Torino tells Todoroki to hear the chief out. Kenji tells them that the punishment would only happen if this was made public. And the people would applaud their efforts anyway. But if the police kept it quiet, no one gets punished, but the boys don’t get the praise they deserve. Instead Endeavor will get the praise from the masses. It would also explain Stain’s burn scars. So they choose to not be celebrated as heroes and apologize anyways. But Kenji tells them he respects what they did and he thanks them for protecting the peace. So it has hit the news that Endeavor has stopped hero killer Stain and the nomus from destroying Hosu City. It’s all anyone is talking about. Meanwhile, we get a look at how everyone else from Class 1-A is doing in their internship programs. First we look at Bakugo who is having a less than stellar time. The first thing he wants to do is go knock some heads around but his mentor is not allowing him and says it will be business as usual. Hopefully that could help Bakugo control his temper. Kirishima finds out the reason why Midoriya sent him his location. Apparently he also reported the incident last night. Go Kirishima! Momo debuted in a commercial with her mentor and it seems obvious modelling is not what she wants to be doing. But her mentor is letting her go on patrol like she has wanted since the start of their training together. My Hero Academia- Funimation And finally there is Uraraka who is on the phone with Midoriya. She tells him how glad she is that they are all safe. Midoriya of course apologizes for not contacting sooner but she understands. In the midst of the conversation, Uraraka’s mentor Gunhead reminds her that they are going to start their basic training. She then says bye to Midoriya and Gunhead asks in a very cute way, “Your boyfriend?”. And she immediately dismisses it. When Midoriya hangs up he gets all worked up that he talked to a girl on the phone. This scene was my favorite from this episode it had me busting up! We get back to the guys in the hospital and Iida comes out and tells the two that he may have long-term damage in his hand. But he reflects on his actions from that night and regrets them greatly. He shouldn’t have acted so swiftly and carelessly. But Midoriya doesn’t let Iida beat himself up too much. He agrees that him and Iida should get stronger together. My Hero Academia- Funimation We cut to U.A. with All Might in the staff room. He gets a phone call from Gran Torino. He tells All Might that he has had his teaching licence revoked for six months because of Midoriya’s actions but there was no way of avoiding that and that he has come to terms with it. But All Might is very ashamed of himself for letting down his former instructor. But this isn’t the reason Gran Torino called. He really wants to talk about Stain. He says in the few minutes he was with him, it had him trembling. It was because of how intimidating and obsessed he was on what he think a hero should be and what he will do to correct our society. Because this has hit so many news stations, Stains ideology and opinions will be put on blast. People will become influenced by Stain’s beliefs and become a plague. But All Might doesn’t believe it will be a problem because they will probably show up sporadically and they will be taken out 1 by 1. But this is where the League of Villains comes in. If they all combine their hatred and Shigaraki gives them an outlet to express and deal with their evil intentions, it will become a serious problem. Gran Torino then reminds All Might that he must tell Midoriya properly what is concerning him and One for All. Which I have no idea what that is all about. Apparently the quirk is “on the move”? I’m interested in what that might mean. This episode was mostly a lot of dialogue and context but it was needed after such a shift in the story. It was refreshing getting some insight on how everyone else is doing too. I’m hoping next time they elaborate on what is concerning All Might and what is happening with his quirk? Only time will tell.

Located on the Kefalonia Island in Greece, this spectacular cave was lost for centuries until being rediscovered in 1951 by Giannis Petrocheilos. Take a look at this beautiful cave system and the island that it is part of. The famous Mytros Beach is also on this island. In Greek mythology it is believed that Nymph's used to live in these caves.

Vale de Lua – Moon Surface on Earth The valley terrain is all covered with rock formations and intricate labyrinths created by nature. In ancient times, there were deposits of quartz. But the noisy river San Miguel has streamed lots of passages over the years. Now, quartz rocks hang over the pond and the holes of different shapes remind those seen on the moon. Due to the different degrees of refraction of light water in some places seems to be dark blue, in other - clear and transparent. Dark brown and almost black, sometimes bluish-gray rocks vary in height and shape. Such miracle undoubtedly shows that the forces of nature are capable of creating the most unusual landscapes. In Brazil, Vale de Lua unusual relief appeared also due to the presence of sand. Gradually, layer after layer, it was brought there with river’s stream, settled on the coastal cliffs and formed numerous mounds an unusual shape. If looking a little closer you will notice that in some places the quartz rock thinned to such an extent that its thickness does not exceed the thickness of a sheet of paper. The magnificent landscape of small lakes is completed with waterfalls.

Micro-Loan Program In order to promote economic development in the City of Alamo, the Alamo EDC established the Alamo Small Business Micro-Loan Program (MLP) with assistance from USDA – Rural Development. The MLP is a self-sustaining project that works by lending money to local businesses, with the money paid back plus interest being reused. The following documents must be submitted for a loan application: Application form. An executive summary with three years of financial projections. A project budget. A personal financial statement. Two years of income tax returns – business and/or personal (for the most current years). Year-end financial statement(s) from an existing organization. Balance sheet(s) (yearly). Profit and loss statement(s) (last quarter). A minimum of two bids from non-related third-party vendors/contractors. A credit report (to be conducted by AEDC), steps for loan process. Filling out the loan application: Must submit all documents to AEDC via mail or hand delivery. The AEDC begins the loan application review to determine eligibility. The applicant will be notified of eligibility status. If eligible, the loan application will be presented to the Loan Review Committee. A committee recommendation will be presented to the AEDC Board for final approval. The applicant will be notified of the board’s decision to approve or deny the loan application as well as loan-specific terms, when applicable.

The Doom Generation (1995) October 25, 1995 FILM REVIEW;Gory Kitsch in a Parody of Teen-Age Road Movies By JANET MASLIN Published: October 25, 1995 Production notes for Gregg Araki's "Doom Generation" say it is "Araki's first big-budget feature and marks the end of his film adolescence." Well, not exactly. After a promising debut with "The Living End" followed by the angrier, more marginalized "Totally F***ed Up," Mr. Araki is still sounding a note of self-congratulatory teen-age rebellion in a film gruesome and obvious enough to make "Natural Born Killers" look like a model of restraint. It's not even much of a change to find "The Doom Generation" billed as "a heterosexual movie," since it shares the effective homoerotic energy of his earlier work. That this film includes a teen-age girl, Amy Blue (Rose McGowan), as part of its sexual menage only means one especially clear target of contempt ("Don't get your uterus all tied in a knot" is one of the more printable things anyone says to her) in a film overflowing with it. Amy's insolence and Anna Karina hairdo (like Uma Thurman's in "Pulp Fiction") may offer a touch of Godard. But this film's satire of teen-age-wasteland cinema is so coarsely exaggerated that any homage is beside the point. Using outlaw characters named Red, White and Blue to condemn all aspects of unhip America, Mr. Araki indulges in such broad parody that thinking it clumsy means failure to get the joke. Though visibly more polished than his earlier films, "The Doom Generation" clings to a midnight movie sensibility founded on deliberate kitsch. So Amy is a one-note, rude, sulky heroine, saying things like "Life is lonely, boring and dumb" while the two men she's sleeping with enjoy an obvious attraction to each other. Not content to leave this as subtext, Mr. Araki throws in the occasional bumper sticker: "Ditch the bitch. Make the switch." Voluptuous Xavier Red (Johnathon Schaech) is way ahead of charmingly dim Jordan White (James Duval) in getting the hint about this, but it doesn't matter: "The Doom Generation" leads them both to a gory demonstration of America's intolerance toward sexual nonconformists. Obscured by strobe lights and boosted by the alternative-rock soundtrack that's sure to help sell the movie, this already notorious castration sequence is one of several gross-out epiphanies here. Others include the severing of a head that still talks, and even vomits, after it is removed from a vein-spurting body, and a blink-of-the-eye cameo by Heidi Fleiss. The genuine enthusiasm Mr. Araki brings to this film's bedroom scenes, with their whimsical sets and jokey porn ambiance, is matched by the occasionally workable black humor in his screenplay. ("You murdered two people tonight. Doesn't that faze you at all?" "Yeah, I'm bummed. To the max.") But sledgehammer direction, heavy irony and the easiest imaginable targets hardly show talent off to good advantage. THE DOOM GENERATION Written, edited and directed by Gregg Araki; director of photography, Jim Fealy; music by the Jesus and Mary Chain, Nine Inch Nails, Showdive, Curve, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pizzicato Five, Cocteau Twins and others; production designer, Therese Deprez; produced by Andrea Sperling, Mr. Araki and Why Not Productions (France); released by Trimark Pictures. At the Angelika Film Center, Mercer and Houston Streets. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is not rated.

On January 1, 2018, the most significant overhaul to the Internal Revenue Code in decades took effect. High-income taxpayers stand to benefit from lower tax brackets, higher estate tax exemptions and a less stringent alternative minimum tax. However, high-income earners face new limitations on some favored deductions and notable revisions in charitable write-offs. Some of the most noteworthy changes are…

4 ideas for improving your e-commerce ​website 2019 is here, and the new year provides an excellent opportunity to refresh your e-commerce website, by adding new features and updating content. Adding web banners Web banners are a great way to keep your e-commerce website homepage looking fresh, and making viewers aware of the latest news about products and offers. They can be easily modified to serve a range of purposes, are potentially eye-catching if they are placed in the appropriate area and are a good way of promoting a specific product or offer on a homepage while also retaining the core brand visuals elsewhere. The image below is an example of a web banner in development. We’ve put together a handy guide for creating your banners – click here. Adding new features New features on your e-commerce website can add value through improved functionality, which in turn enhances the usability for customers and users. Features that allow for easy modification to products that they wish to purchase, such as different colours or quantities, or a social login function that enables users to create an account through their Facebook credentials. Such responsive features make the e-commerce process as painless and easy-to-use as possible, limiting the barriers between browsing and purchase, in turn improving conversion rates and the chances of customers returning for more in the future. A positive experience can often leave the customer wanting more, and it’s the websites job to ensure that their features and functionality are kept updated and fit for purpose, in response to the ever-changing demands of the modern e-commerce customer. For example, one of the new features we’ve recently added from Amasty is the Social Login, which allows users to set up their account using login credentials from Facebook. To find out more about this feature, click here. Improve optimisation While you’re reading this, grab a smartphone or tablet and have a browse around your website. How does it look? Are the images stacked or overlapping, or is there text missing? These issues mean your website has not been optimised for mobile devices, making it unusable for a large percentage of potential customers browsing with their iPhones or Samsungs. Users are extremely unlikely to want to fight through images and texts to find the products they want, and will quickly become frustrated and depart for a different site. Don’t neglect these customers! Get your site optimised for different devices to reach as wide an audience as possible. Data from 2018, shown below in the graph, from Statista.com, shows that 52.2% of all browsing online was done on a mobile device, a trend which has grown exponentially year-upon-year. This graph underlines the importance of ensuring that your website is fit for use for all potential users. You’re potentially missing out on reaching these customers if your site doesn’t meet their demands, and, with the trend of mobile browsing only set to rise, optimising your website to ensure it’s fit for use is quickly become a necessity for online retailers. Our Liquidshop e-commerce platform is designed to provide the best user experience for your customers, though responsive e-commerce. Optimisation on devices of all sizes allows your website to be user-friendly for as many potential visitors as possible, expanding your reach and enhancing the user experience, leading to increased sales as part of the smooth and responsive overall e-commerce experience. Keeping branding updated and consistent There are few things more off-putting when navigating onto an e-commerce website that a poorly designed logo at the top of the page, or old, pixilated imagery taking up the homepage. A consistent brand image across the pages improves brand recognition for customers and gives the impression of a modern, well designed and cared for website and business as a whole. You can also create special themed logos for holiday times such as Christmas or winter, like we did with our logo below. What’s most important is too put time and effort into keeping your website updated. Whether that’s imagery, information or branding, putting the time into maintaining an attractive and cohesive e-commerce site means you keep your customers, and new visitors engaged and ensure that there as few barriers as possible between browsing and purchase. Magento is ending support for version 1 in June 2020. After initially announcing that November 2018 would be the cut-off point, this was revised to the later date, to allow for the vast amount of v1 websites around the world to be upgraded and rebuilt in v2. What... We closely monitor all areas of e-commerce, always on the lookout for developments that offer additional functionality and improved performance for our Liquidshop clients and their customers. One development that is a growing concern throughout the industry is... In case you missed the news last week, Liquidshop has become an official partner of Magento feature developer Amasty. Liquidshop has been recognised by Amasty as a company who have significant expertise and skills in Magento web development. This underlines the...

Update: Sree Narasimha Jayanthi – May 17th 2019 This day signifies the appearance of Lord Narasimha on the planet. Lord Narasimha is the fourth and the greatest incarnation of Lord Vishnu. He is believed to have appeared to protect his devotee, Prahlada, from his father Hiranyakashyapu . If you listen to the song ” Narashima Nembo davana” posted on youtube, there is a paragraph which explains how Lord Narashima came from the pillar. Hiranyakashyapu pointed out at a pillar in his palace and asked Prahalada whether Lord Vishnu was present in it pillar. Prahalada who was a great devotee said yes. Next, you know Hiranyakashyapu uses his Gadha and broke open the pillar and there emerged our Lord Narasimha who than slained Hiranyakashyapu using his sharp paws. The day signifies the triumph of good over evil and the eagerness of the lord to protect his devotees from evil. When my Parents visited us last year, my Father recited the “Bhagavatha Purana” for three weeks at my place. The way my Dad explained this part of the Purana, brings tears to my eyes every time I listen “Narashima Nembo Devana”. The greatest mistake I made was to not record the purana. Hopefully will record the next time my Father visits us. About Narasimha Jayanthi: Ms. Lakshmi’s write up summary from the book “ಭಾರತೀಯ ಹಬ್ಬ ಹರಿದಿನಗಳು” by ಶ್ರೀ ಶ್ರೀ ರಂಗಪ್ರಿಯ ಮಹಾದೇಷಿಕ ಸ್ವಾಮಿಗಳು. “The pillar in evil Hiranyakashipu’s royal court, signifies the ṃērusthambha, the central backbone system. Through the central nervous system called ṣuśumna, the brilliant light emanated. The energy associated came out in its full fierce glory as Narasimha and later transformed into the peaceful form after the destruction of evil force.” When is Narasimha Jayanthi celebrated? Narasimha Jayanthi is one of the important festivals of Vaiśnavas. It is celebrated in the vaiśāka māsam,on ṣukla pakśa chaturdaśi, after akśhaya thrithēya, svāti nakśatra, siddha Yōga, vanija karanam. The date is determined according to chāndramāna system. Since the inception of this avatāram is in the evening, the worship is done in the evening. It is considered to be more auspicious if this day coincides with sōmavasarē, Monday or ṣanivasarē, Saturday. It is a sacred day to remember Lord Narasimha’s sarva vyāpakatva- all pervading – spiritual knowledge, wealth, strength, valor, splendor, and compassion toward His devotees. Which are the major manifestations of Lord Narasimha? There are three major forms of Lord Narasimha. 1. Ugra-Narasimha – His fierce form: In this form He has conch – ṣanka, discus – chakra, mace – gada, bow – chāpa, bells – ghanta-, trident like – ankuśa, and his two hands ready to chisel the demon heart, as His āyudhams – weapons. This form is worshipped in the evenings. 2. Lakshmi Narasimha: In this form he is very peaceful – ṣanta – with His consort – Sri Lakshmi sitting on his left lap, with ādiseṣa on his head as umbrella, and Prahallāda standing in his front praying with his folded hands. This manifestation is followed after his fierce form– as a result, he is worshipped in the morning. 3. Yoga Narasimha – meditative: Here, He is in his Meditative form for those who aspire for results of Yoga. – Incense, lamplight, flowers and ṣrigandha or perfume.- tuḻasi or Holy Basil — Since he has the element of both viśnu and rudra- kamalam – Lotus, bilva daḻam – leaves of stone apple, japākusumam- red hibiscus can be offered to the Lord. What kinds of food can be offered to Lord Narasimha? Athirasa – fried cake made with jaggery and rice flour. Pāyasa – milk puddings made out of any of moong dal, channa dal, and – – – Pānaka – typically made with jaggery water and pepper, or fruit juice like lemonade. Any sātvik food can be offered with great devotion by chanting the Narasimha Mantra. sātvik food is that food creates an internal calmness and balance, when one consumes it. The lord graciously accepts devotees’ service and reverence. All worship should be followed by distribution of Prasāda or food offered to God. How do we worship Lord Narasimha? Lord Narasimha can be worshipped in two ways. The first is detailed below: Along with firm faith, worship of Narasimha is associated with rigid criteria. This is explained in detail below 1. ācharana ṣuddhi – Requires strict adherence to performance. 2. Cleanliness of ḍravya- physical things like utensils, lamps, ingredients. 3. Inner sanctity of five senses – body, intellect, mind, place, and act of worship 4. Chastity of Mind, speech and deeds unification, compassion, calmness of virtuous soul within. These are to prevent any glitches that might distract the mind while doing the worship. 5. Taking bath and starting with daily routine worship followed by pūja sankalpa-declaration to do worship, and completion without break with little or no food intake till then. 6. Bodily calmness in turn calms the mind. This helps to open up the channel that leads to internal visualization and realization of Narasimha. These are things that keep body, mind and intellect in balance to further the pursuit of (worship til)attaining perfection. 7. Those who seek Salvation, do fasting till worship is over in the evening.Those who seek all types of desire fulfillment do fasting till the next day morning worship and follow with chanting of Narasimha mantra. 8. To do further, people could do hōma – oblation and read “Nrsimhatāpini ” upaniśad. 9. An idol of Narasimha can be donated to someone who has great respect and potential to worship the idol. The second means of worship is detailed for those who find it difficult to adhere to the above strict rules, can do the following steps 1. ḍhyāna or meditation – along with imagining the worship of Narasimha with the above said flowers etc. 2. Acts of mind and soul offered to God is also oblation. This is equivalent to hōmam. 3.Various purifying actions performed during puja a. snānha – ablution, pāna – intake of water and food offered to God b. pādya – chant with clean and clear heart and intellect c. arghya – water offered with respect from the river of faith d. āchamana – water used for sipping same river e. abhiśeka – for the lord f. Mind filled with the flow of thoughts of God from the river of faith, ṣraddha – as the water for cleansing. 4. ātma – Offer sacred soul which is inside the body. 5. bow and perform salutation with state of equanimity 6. ṣaranāgati– self surrender to the Lord With pure mind and internal contemplation there is no need for external rituals to be performed. Pāramārthika or worship of realizing supreme alone with internal purity surpasses all other forms of worship. That is, true worship with internal purity is more powerful than the external rituals. As part of worship, singing, listening to discourse is recommended at the end of the worship. Insight about this incarnation of ṣri mahāviśnu: The brilliant form of Narasimha is described as comprising of three entities. 1. Brahma from feet to naval, 2. Vishnu–naval to neck 3. Rudra–neck unto head., From there onwards– it is the supreme Godhead, Parabrahma. Narasimha is personification of truth–perceived and experienced by those who are in the state of union with divine, and that, which is beyond senses – Yoga Samādhi. The brilliant form of Narasimha is also considered and viewed as an internal phenomenon. Dear Smt.Meera Raghu, Thanks for giving us a very comprehensive information on Narasimha Jayanti. Your efforts are always excellent, perfect and highly useful to all in Madhwa community.Rayaru will keep you and your family always happy hale and healthy to continue this sacred service. I just thought of sharing a very sacred stotra on Narasimha which I learnt from somebody (I dont remeber right now.) and chanting this stotra 5 time at any distressful/critical situation will clear the situation with wonderful solution to the problem causing the distress/crisis. I have reproduced this stotra below for the benefit of everyone Hare Krsna dear Meera Mataji! Dandavat pranaam! Thank you for the wonderful article but the word “Idol” is completely wrong, it is to be mentioned as “Deity”. The word Idol, which means “an object of false worship”, was introduced by the British to destroy our Vedic Culture. Thank you 🙂 About Narasimha Jayanthi: Here is my write up summary from the book “ಭಾರತೀಯ ಹಬ್ಬ ಹರಿದಿನಗಳು” by ಶ್ರೀ ಶ್ರೀ ರಂಗಪ್ರಿಯ ಮಹಾದೇಷಿಕ ಸ್ವಾಮಿಗಳು “The pillar in evil Hiranyakashipu’s royal court, signifies the ṃērusthambha, the central backbone system. Through the central nervous system called ṣuśumna, the brilliant light emanated. The energy associated came out in its full fierce glory as Narasimha and later transformed into the peaceful form after the destruction of evil force.” When is Narasimha Jayanthi celebrated? Narasimha Jayanthi is one of the important festivals of Vaiśnavas. It is celebrated in the vaiśāka māsam,on ṣukla pakśa chaturdaśi, after akśhaya thrithēya, svāti nakśatra, siddha Yōga, vanija karanam. The date is determined according to chāndramāna system. Since the inception of this avatāram is in the evening, the worship is done in the evening. It is considered to be more auspicious if this day coincides with sōmavasarē, Monday or ṣanivasarē, Saturday. It is a sacred day to remember Lord Narasimha’s sarva vyāpakatva- all pervading – spiritual knowledge, wealth, strength, valor, splendor, and compassion toward His devotees. Which are the major manifestations of Lord Narasimha? There are three major forms of Lord Narasimha. 1. Ugra-Narasimha – His fierce form: In this form He has conch – ṣanka, discus – chakra, mace – gada, bow – chāpa, bells – ghanta-, trident like – ankuśa, and his two hands ready to chisel the demon heart, as His āyudhams – weapons. This form is worshipped in the evenings. 2. Lakshmi Narasimha: In this form he is very peaceful – ṣanta – with His consort – Sri Lakshmi sitting on his left lap, with ādiseṣa on his head as umbrella, and Prahallāda standing in his front praying with his folded hands. This manifestation is followed after his fierce form– as a result, he is worshipped in the morning. 3. Yoga Narasimha – meditative: Here, He is in his Meditative form for those who aspire for results of Yoga. – Incense, lamplight, flowers and ṣrigandha or perfume.- tuḻasi or Holy Basil — Since he has the element of both viśnu and rudra- kamalam – Lotus, bilva daḻam – leaves of stone apple, japākusumam- red hibiscus can be offered to the Lord. What kinds of food can be offered to Lord Narasimha? Athirasa – fried cake made with jaggery and rice flour. Pāyasa – milk puddings made out of any of moong dal, channa dal, and – – – Pānaka – typically made with jaggery water and pepper, or fruit juice like lemonade. Any sātvik food can be offered with great devotion by chanting the Narasimha Mantra. sātvik food is that food creates an internal calmness and balance, when one consumes it. The lord graciously accepts devotees’ service and reverence. All worship should be followed by distribution of Prasāda or food offered to God. How do we worship Lord Narasimha? Lord Narasimha can be worshipped in two ways. The first is detailed below: Along with firm faith, worship of Narasimha is associated with rigid criteria. This is explained in detail below 1. ācharana ṣuddhi – Requires strict adherence to performance. 2. Cleanliness of ḍravya- physical things like utensils, lamps, ingredients. 3. Inner sanctity of five senses – body, intellect, mind, place, and act of worship 4. Chastity of Mind, speech and deeds unification, compassion, calmness of virtuous soul within. These are to prevent any glitches that might distract the mind while doing the worship. 5. Taking bath and starting with daily routine worship followed by pūja sankalpa-declaration to do worship, and completion without break with little or no food intake till then. 6. Bodily calmness in turn calms the mind. This helps to open up the channel that leads to internal visualization and realization of Narasimha. These are things that keep body, mind and intellect in balance to further the pursuit of (worship til)attaining perfection. 7. Those who seek Salvation, do fasting till worship is over in the evening.Those who seek all types of desire fulfillment do fasting till the next day morning worship and follow with chanting of Narasimha mantra. 8. To do further, people could do hōma – oblation and read “Nrsimhatāpini ” upaniśad. 9. An idol of Narasimha can be donated to someone who has great respect and potential to worship the idol. The second means of worship is detailed for those who find it difficult to adhere to the above strict rules, can do the following steps 1. ḍhyāna or meditation – along with imagining the worship of Narasimha with the above said flowers etc. 2. Acts of mind and soul offered to God is also oblation. This is equivalent to hōmam. 3.Various purifying actions performed during puja a. snānha – ablution, pāna – intake of water and food offered to God b. pādya – chant with clean and clear heart and intellect c. arghya – water offered with respect from the river of faith d. āchamana – water used for sipping same river e. abhiśeka – for the lord f. Mind filled with the flow of thoughts of God from the river of faith, ṣraddha – as the water for cleansing. 4. ātma – Offer sacred soul which is inside the body. 5. bow and perform salutation with state of equanimity 6. ṣaranāgati– self surrender to the Lord With pure mind and internal contemplation there is no need for external rituals to be performed. Pāramārthika or worship of realizing supreme alone with internal purity surpasses all other forms of worship. That is, true worship with internal purity is more powerful than the external rituals. As part of worship, singing, listening to discourse is recommended at the end of the worship. Insight about this incarnation of ṣri mahāviśnu: The brilliant form of Narasimha is described as comprising of three entities. 1. Brahma from feet to naval, 2. Vishnu–naval to neck 3. Rudra–neck unto head., From there onwards– it is the supreme Godhead, Parabrahma. Narasimha is personification of truth–perceived and experienced by those who are in the state of union with divine, and that, which is beyond senses – Yoga Samādhi. The brilliant form of Narasimha is also considered and viewed as an internal phenomenon.

Comment by Loreanadruid Arguably Inferior Socket for Paladin PvE Gems for the most part, but Superior for PvP.A side-grade to t6, but an upgrade for almost anything pre-Sunwell. Comment by mikititan Anyone knows if this schematic will be buyable from the trainer or will it drop (raid/heroic)? -thanks Comment by gennym This item, and all the other engineering helm upgrades, are sunwell trash drops. So since people need to start farming the instance to begin with and there will be people in the raids who need it you probably won't see this on the AH for quite some time depending on the server. Comment by mbg98 I wouldn't call this a side grade at all, considering that Sunwell requires paladins to spam Holy Light a lot more than Flash of Light, making their mana regen come mostly from Illumination/holy crit (great for pallies with the 2 piece t6 crit bonus to HL) and being in a group with a Shadow Priest. The upgrades here are where it matters most - a 20 crit increase over t6 (more than 1 % - thats fantastic in a single piece!) and plus 9 healing. Armor? lol - what are you going to do, tank in holy gear in Sunwell? You'll need the stam for the boss fights consdering the dots that Kalecgos does, for starters. Int doesnt matter so much since your mana regen and your +heal are really the major factors in post BT/MH content. Comment by natto My server has pug groups for sunwell trush run. BoP/BoE recipes usually drops from 1 to 5 and lots of epic-stones. You do not have to wear BT/Hyjal geared, Kara/SSC/TK gears are fine for trush run. It usually goes 4k-5k on my server. It is a good resource of money, and you can call ppl when your guild does not have scheduled raid. However, you will need 5-6 mages for trush run. Comment by Altoid Dropped for me tonight on Garithos-US on the last pull before the first stairs in the instance. My guild's been running Sunwell since 2.4 release and the patterns are extremely rare. We've only had 4 patterns drop, ever, and two of them were the Sunfire Robe (both dropped the day before this Schematic). I was seriously beginning to believe I'd never get my hands on this because of its extreme rarity. I'm reasonably certain it's the only Sunwell Schematic to have dropped on my server as of yet. I've been passing on T6 helms for months in hopes of getting this and was going to give in and pick one up this week, then this baby swooped in! Comment by alexiel Can only be learned by Paladins. Comment by DELMistrzu Can I learn this Schematic as a Rogue ? Comment by Entilzha2161 You can only learn this on a pally and it's supposed to only drop for pallies, but it dropped for my DK today (maybe since there were no DKs when Sunwell was released?) My engineer is a druid and cannot use it but I hope some Paladin buys it as the sell price looks pretty high.

Sony Bravia KDL-40HX803 review Summary Our Score 8/10 User Score Review Price £898.95 Sony’s first 3D TV is finally here, in the 40in shape of the KDL-40HX803. And to be honest, we’re not expecting very much. For whenever we’ve seen Sony 3D TVs in action at big shows, they just haven’t looked as good as those of some rivals. So let’s hope the Japanese brand has managed to cram in plenty of last minute improvements! Rather surprisingly, the 40HX803 doesn’t wear Sony’s new and rather stylish Monolith design. Instead you get a straightforward but sleek black bezel for the top, right and left sides, with a slightly proud metallic strip along the bottom edge. The set still looks nice, though, for all its non-Monolithic approach. It doesn’t do the 40HX803‘s aesthetic impact any harm, either, that it employs edge LED lighting to deliver a reasonably slender profile. Though it’s nothing like as slim as Samsung’s edge LED icons. What’s more, its edge LED system is a dynamic one, meaning that sections of the edge lighting can be independently controlled for a hopefully more impressive contrast performance than you usually get with a standard edge LED-lit LCD TV. Slightly surprisingly for such a slim screen, Sony has left most of its connections facing straight out of the TV’s rear, rather than using the side access approach that would suit wall hanging. But at least the number and variety of these connections is pretty prodigious. For instance, it has four HDMIs, all built to the v1.4 specification, so that they’re compatible with 3D sources. Also of note are a USB input, an Ethernet port, and a 3D Sync terminal, which we’ll look at in turn. The USB can play music, video and photo files directly into the TV, but also allows you to add Wi-Fi to the 40HX803 via an optional USB dongle. It’s a touch disappointing that the 40HX803 doesn’t carry built-in Wi-Fi for its money, but it’s hardly alone in preferring the optional upgrade route. The Ethernet socket, meanwhile, has three uses. First, it supports the set’s built-in Freeview HD tuner, to deliver potential future interactive services like the BBC iPlayer. Second, it provides a wired means of importing files stored on a DLNA PC. Finally, it allows you to take the TV online to experience Sony’s Bravia Internet Video platform, which we’ll return to in a minute. But first we’ve got to discuss the 3D Sync terminal. This is there because the 40HX803 doesn’t have a built-in 3D transmitter, unlike the Samsung and Panasonic 3D TVs we’ve tested. In fact, the 40HX803 doesn’t have 3D facilities at all in its standard form. You have to add an optional extra transmitter and optional pairs of active shutter glasses, with the transmitter costing £50 and the glasses setting you back £99 per pair. This effectively makes the 40HX803 £1,887 if you want 3D with two pairs of glasses. We do understand Sony’s idea with this, to be fair. For it helps keep the 40HX803’s up-front price down, allowing people to add 3D later as their finances allow. But there’s no getting round the fact that once you’ve 3Ded it up, the 40HX803 hits a similar price level to Samsung’s 40C8000 integrated 3D TV. In other words, 3D continues to be very much a premium technology.

Rentz RVs Inc. (RRV) 1. A stock is expected to pay a year-end dividend of $2.00, i.e., D1 = $2.00. The dividend is expected to decline at a rate of 5% a year forever (g = -5%). If the company’s expected and required rate of return is 15%, which of the following statements is CORRECT? a. The company’s current stock price is $20. b. The company’s dividend yield 5 years from now is expected to be 10%. c. The constant growth model cannot be used because the growth rate is negative. d. The company’s expected capital gains yield is 5%. e. The company’s stock price next year is expected to be $9.50. 2. A share of common stock has just paid a dividend of $2.00. If the expected long-run growth rate for this stock is 2.0%, and if investors' required rate of return is 10.5%, what is the stock’s intrinsic value? 3. E. M. Roussakis Inc.'s stock currently sells for $50 per share. The stock’s dividend is projected to increase at a constant rate of 4% per year. The required rate of return on the stock, rs, is 15.50%. What is Roussakis' expected price 5 years from now? 4. Carter's preferred stock pays a dividend of $2.00 per quarter. If the price of the stock is $60.00, what is its nominal (not effective) annual expected rate of return? 5. Schnusenberg Corporation just paid a dividend of $1.25 per share, and that dividend is expected to grow at a constant rate of 7.00% per year in the future. The company's beta is 1.35, the required return on the market is 10.50%, and the risk-free rate is 4.00%. What is the intrinsic value for Schnusenberg’s stock? 6. Rentz RVs Inc. (RRV) is presently enjoying relatively high growth because of a surge in the demand for recreational vehicles. Management expects earnings and dividends to grow at a rate of 30% for the next 4 years, after which high gas prices will probably reduce the growth rate in earnings and dividends to zero, i.e., g = 0. The company’s last dividend, D0, was $1.25. RRV’s beta is 1.20, the market risk premium is 5.25%, and the risk-free rate is 3.00%. What is the intrinsic value of RRV’s common stock? 7. Using the information on Rentz RVs Inc. from problem 6, what is the dividend yield expected for the next year? 8. The Wei Company's last paid dividend was $2.75. The dividend growth rate is expected to be constant at 2.50% for 2 years, after which dividends are expected to grow at a rate of 8.00% forever. Wei’s required return (rs) is 12.00%. What is the intrinsic value of Wei's stock? 9. Using the information on Wei Company from problem 8, what should be the price of Wei’s stock at the end of Year 5 10. You are an analyst studying Beranek Technologies, which was founded 10 years ago. It has been profitable for the last 5 years, but it has needed all of its earnings to support growth and thus has never paid a dividend. Management has indicated that it plans to pay a $0.50 dividend 3 years from today, then to increase it at a relatively rapid rate for 2 years with 50% dividend growth in year 4 and 25% dividend growth in year 5, and then to increase its dividend at a constant growth rate of 6.00% per year thereafter. Assuming a required return of 15.00%, what is your estimate of the intrinsic value of Beranek's stock?

Instead of attaching a complete file, could you please create a diff of your changes against the original file? If possible we'd also prefer it submitted as a commit change to our gerrit instance, see https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/gerrit but that's not strictly necessary if you're not familiar with git and develop tools and such. In any case we'll need your license agreement, apparently we don't have it on file, could you please send us a blanket statement that you contribute all your past and future patches under the MPLv2 and LGPLv3+ licenses? Best on the dev mailing list [email protected] so we can link to it from https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Developers Something like this does nicely: All of my past & future contributions to LibreOffice may be licensed under the MPLv2/LGPLv3+ dual license. Best use Subject: <your full name> license statement Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for cooperating :-) (In reply to kinfe from comment #0) > this is modified VCL.xcu file including my language,Tigrigna, default fonts Hi kinfe/Eike, Any update regarding these files? In the past year have we merged any default fonts for Tigrigna language (these files or others) ? As this bug has been dormant for over a year, I'll toss it into NEEDINFO and await further info. If the underlying issue has been resolved, let's close this bug. Dear Bug Submitter, This bug has been in NEEDINFO status with no change for at least 6 months. Please provide the requested information as soon as possible and mark the bug as UNCONFIRMED. Due to regular bug tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDINFO status with no change in 30 days the QA team will close the bug as INSUFFICIENTDATA due to lack of needed information. For more information about our NEEDINFO policy please read the wiki located here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/Bugzilla/Fields/Status/NEEDINFO If you have already provided the requested information, please mark the bug as UNCONFIRMED so that the QA team knows that the bug is ready to be confirmed. Thank you for helping us make LibreOffice even better for everyone! Warm Regards, QA Team MassPing-NeedInfo-Ping-20170131 Dear Bug Submitter, Please read this message in its entirety before proceeding. Your bug report is being closed as INSUFFICIENTDATA due to inactivity and a lack of information which is needed in order to accurately reproduce and confirm the problem. We encourage you to retest your bug against the latest release. If the issue is still present in the latest stable release, we need the following information (please ignore any that you've already provided): a) Provide details of your system including your operating system and the latest version of LibreOffice that you have confirmed the bug to be present b) Provide easy to reproduce steps – the simpler the better c) Provide any test case(s) which will help us confirm the problem d) Provide screenshots of the problem if you think it might help e) Read all comments and provide any requested information Once all of this is done, please set the bug back to UNCONFIRMED and we will attempt to reproduce the issue. Please do not: a) respond via email b) update the version field in the bug or any of the other details on the top section of our bug tracker Warm Regards, QA Team MassPing-NeedInfo-20170328

#1 Free Stationery Download Site Kathy and I would like to formally welcome you to our new free holiday and special occasion stationery website. We are working hard to add as many new stationery papers as we can as quickly as we can. We are adding new paper designs at least weekly when possible. We add them in Microsoft Word, PDF and a JPG format so that you can use them with just about any word processor, office suite or journaling program. Just as a note, our digital stationery papers can also be used as free scrapbook background papers too. Registration is FREE to leave comments (Required to keep out SPAM) and it doesn't put you on any lists of any kind. So, one more time... tell us what you think! What's on The #1 FREE-Stationery Download Site: Here, you'll have access to the best FREE digital computer stationery or scrapbook background paper site around with literally hundreds of free digital downloadable holiday, letter, special occasion, business, newsletter and every other kind of stationeries and templates you can think of. No registration or other info needed... We also NOW have the tutorial for how to create your own stationeries with MS Word. Along with the OpenOffice Suite digital stationery training, that we already had for you, you can now learn to create your own digital stationeries with MS Office (Microsoft Word (TM)) software. Tired of paying high prices for the same stationery that everyone else has? Now you don't have to. Just download any of our high quality stationeries and print as many as you need anytime you like. Try our new revolutionary way to get quality stationery. No storing blank sheets of stationery in a desk drawer or box taking up valuable space. Instead, save it directly onto your computer. You can also use our stationery papers as free scrapbook background papers? You get to download many quality stationeries whenever you want, all for FREE! New stationery added regularly, so book mark and check back often... Printable PDF Stationery Our FREE PDF Stationery formats are perfect for those that want to add that personal touch to letters, notes, flyers or even sales letters. Just pick the file and download it. After you have downloaded the file all you have to do is print it out and start handwriting on the page(s). You can even put it back in the printer and use any text editor or word processor to print your correspondence right on your newly created stationery... just set the margins to stay inside the borders. Save money Save that valuable storage space in the house Never run out of stationery pages Perfect way to personalize and make memorable Print and handwrite your letter Printable on any printer like any pre-printed stationery you get in the stores. Visit our Services Page to see a few examples of our PDF and Word templates. Just select examples to see what we did with a few of them and then try them out for yourself. You can also print our free pdf stationery papers and use them as free background scrapbook papers. Printable Microsoft Word Stationery Our Microsoft Word (MS Word) templates are perfect for those of you that like to type your letters and other correspondence directly on your computer. Simply open the template right inside Microsoft Word (tm) or most other office compatible programs that can read Microsoft Office (tm) files. Then just start typing. The text will automatically stay within the stationery borders and even go around any special graphics on the page. Now all you have to do is to print it out. Save 30% or more over the cost of pre-printed stationery Save that valuable Storage space in the house and office Never run out of stationery pages when you need them most Always legible and ready for the copier See what flyers and letter looks like before you hit print Typo or error, just fix it then reprint - no hassles Visit our Services Page to see a few examples of our PDF and Word templates in action. See some of the things we found to do with them. Just select the example you want to see and then try it out for yourself. OpenOffice Suite Templates FREE-Stationery.com is your first stop to turn those plain boring letters into a fun, personal and memorable way to communicate with friends, family and business relations. Create your own FREE Custom Stationery for use with OpenOffice (OOo) 2.0 and better. FREE Tutorial on how to make that happen is just moments away here on the site.

Education Week reporter Ben Herold explores how technology is shaping teaching and learning and the management of schools. Join the discussion as he analyzes the latest developments. Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Team Up to Seek 'State of the Art' Ideas for Schools By Benjamin Herold on May 8, 2018 1:31 PM The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are teaming up on a new research-and-development initiative aimed at identifying "state-of-the-art" educational strategies and bringing them to the classroom. The focus is on spurring development of new measures, new ways of teaching, and new technologies for tracking and supporting students' writing ability, math skills, and "executive functions," such as self-control and attention. In a new Request for Information released today, the groups wrote that researchers from fields as diverse as education, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and technology are generating exciting new ideas about how people actually learn—but that information "has not yet been translated effectively into methods and tools for teachers and students to use in the classroom every day." Such "research insights must inform ongoing development of tools and instructional approaches that will enable students to overcome math, literacy, and other learning challenges and at scale, in order to reach millions, if not billions, of students," the document reads. The focus of the new efforts is on identifying promising new developments and ideas in three main areas: Improving students' writing (especially non-fiction)."The skills connected to writing—evaluation of arguments and evidence, critical and creative thinking about solutions and sources, identifying support for a key idea or process, clear and evocative argument-making—are frequently cited as 21st century skills in high demand by employers," the Request for Information states. "Yet, the majority of high school graduates are not prepared for the demands of postsecondary and workplace writing." Among the areas where the groups hope to see improvements: comprehensive writing solutions, new metrics for measuring student progress and proficiency in writing, and new tools to promote more collaboration and better feedback. Improving students' mathematical understanding, application, and related mindsets.Here, the language of the personalized-learning movement (which both organizations support) is clear: There already exist promising approaches that "help teachers to address individual students' needs by mirroring the same personalized approaches used by the best 1:1 tutors," the document states. "Highly personalized learning experiences and tools have the potential to analyze student responses to understand barriers to student learning, provide immediate feedback, and apply immediate and effective remediation to students when needed." Among other things, the organizations are specifically looking for tools that can further personalize math instruction via a focus on the "whole student"—including children's mindsets, beliefs, attention, and "affective" or emotional states. Measuring and improving students' executive function."Student success in academics and in future careers is associated with their ability to wrestle with multiple ideas at once, think flexibly, and regulate their action and thoughts," the Request for Information states. "There is much to be done to track and improve students' progress on [executive function] development and connect it to real-world benefits, especially for those who are most at-risk." Areas of focus here include advances in techniques for tracking children's development of these skills and abilities, interventions (including "technology-enhanced programs in or outside of school") designed to improve desired behaviors, and supports for teachers. The Gates Foundation is a traditional charitable foundation, chaired by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Over the last decade-plus, the group has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars a year to such education-related causes as promoting small high schools, changing the way teachers are evaluated, and supporting development of the Common Core State Standards. Last October, the Gates Foundation announced a strategic shift in focus, including a new emphasis on "locally-driven solutions" and "innovative research." The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, meanwhile, is a newer entity, founded and led by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan. Structured as a limited-liability corporation, CZI is free to make charitable donations, invest in for-profit companies, and engage in political lobbying and advocacy, with minimal disclosure requirements. The venture-philanthropy group has announced that it will give hundreds of millions of dollars annually to support a vision of "whole-child personalized learning" that aims to customize each child's educational experience based on their academic, social, emotional, and physical strengths, needs, and preferences. Last June, the two groups announced their first substantive collaboration: a $12 million joint award to an intermediary organization known as New Profit, which in turns supports organizations working to promote personalized learning. In their new Request for Information, the Gates Foundation and CZI said that technology is not the focus of what they hope to spur, but it is expected to play a role. The groups also emphasized that their new plan is currently in draft stage. Individuals, nonprofit groups, universities, private companies, and government-sponsored labs are invited to respond, with the expectation that those groups' input will in turn shape the foundations' funding plans moving forward. No decision has yet been made as to how much money the groups will ultimately invest in the new R&D effort. Why this new partnership, and why now? "The reason our two philanthropies have decided to join hands in this effort is simple: We believe the scope and importance of this work exceeds what any single organization can or should undertake alone," wrote CZI president of education Jim Shelton and Gates Foundation director of K-12 education Bob Hughes in an op-ed published today by Fast Company. "The purpose of the initiative is not to mandate anything. It's to learn from the work that's currently happening in classrooms, universities, entrepreneurial efforts, and research centers throughout the country." Photos: Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and director at Berkshire Hathaway, is interviewed by Liz Claman of the Fox Business Network in Omaha, Neb., May 8. Photo by Nati Harnik/AP Facebook CEO and Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg delivers the commencement address at Harvard University commencement exercises on May 25, in Cambridge, Mass. Photo by Steven Senne/AP Categories: Tags: Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here. Ground Rules for Posting We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement. All comments are public.

Oh lawd oh lawd! I'm tired and weary of pain Please lawd! please lawd! forgive me if I complain Up in the mornin' out on the job work like the devil for my pay But that lucky old sun has nothin' to do but roll around heaven all day Fuss with my woman toil for my kids Sweat 'til I'm wrinkled and gray While that lucky old sun has nothin' to do But roll around heaven all day Good lawd above, can't you know I'm pinin', tears all in my eyes; Send down that cloud with a silver linin', lift me to paradise Show me that river take me across and wash all my trou-bles away. Like that lucky old sun, give me nothin' to do But roll around heaven all day

Senior Precision Rotary Microtome (latest Spencer 320 Type) which we trade, supply, export and manufacture is used for precise sectioning of tissues up to the thickness of 1 micron. Its interior mechanism rests on a heavy cast iron base that is covered with a full swing protective cover for easy cleaning and lubrication.Senior Precision Rotary Microtome (latest Spencer 320 Type) is known for independent feed mechanism with automatic safety device, universal knife holder with lateral movements permitting use of the entire knife edge and universal vice type object holder for accurate centering of the specimer. It is fabricated using fine grain steel tested for micro-structure, heat treated for optimum rigidity and sharpness and has a long service life.

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Friday, June 1, 2012 Song Story: 'Glory Hallelujah' Unity is huge. It's not just huge in sports teams and in successful businesses. It's not just huge in committees or even families. Unity is huge to God. It's huge in churches, from the leadership all the way to the last attender and even more it's huge in terms of the Church with a big 'C'... the collective Christ-followers and the churches in which they worship throughout our nation and world. The verses in God's Word that discuss the importance of unity are prolific and the urgency with which the concept is discussed is palpable. All that said, I wanted to write a worship song that, at it's core, could help unify the congregation singing it. I used 'we' language on this one--something I haven't used a ton in the past--because the lyric and theme begged for it, and I searched for words that could articulate the depth of unity that I believe God desires from us. I think the lyric I'm most proud of in this particular song kicks off the second verse: All of our brothers and sisters through time have sung of the blood of the same sacrifice This lyrics speaks to the beautiful truth that singing of His love and sacrifice for us binds believers together in a way that transcends even time. No matter what melody is being sung, no matter what chords are being played by what instruments, believers have been uniting together for centuries singing about the truths of Christ's glorious death and resurrection and all that they imply. To me that's an amazing reality, and one worth giving some serious real estate in our church services! As for the song-writing fodder I promised... this one was fun to play around with as I wrote it. I used a hemiola passage in the verse (played quietly with a wurlitzer) and bridge (a little more apparent from an electric guitar) with three notes being repeated all the way through large 4/4 phrases. I also truncated all of the phrases in the bridge--all of them 3 bars instead of four--just to add to the urgency of the concept sung there. One of the things I think is most fun, though, about this tune is that the chords in the second verse are quite different than in the first even though the melody is identical... capped off with a 2sus chord replacing the typical 5 in the first verse. Yup... theory geek stuff for sure! Hope that gives you some insight into the first song on the project! Come back and visit soon as I'll be discussing my first single next time... track #2, entitled 'Here With You.' AVAILABLE NOW!!! Subscribe To who's Mark Roach? I'm a Christ-following husband, father, songwriter, worship leader and St. Louis Blues fan. It's worth noting that, while I am the Worship Arts Director at MSC, all the stuff found here is me... just me... and shouldn't be taken to represent MSC or any other entity, really... beyond just me. :)

San Francisco is a city of rich history and culture, and as anyone planning a visit to the City by the Bay realizes, it can be difficult to narrow down all the places to visit and thing to do while there. Aside from the usual tourist spots like the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco also offers historic architecture on nearly every corner, a serene Japanese Tea Gardens, the glorious Golden Gate Park, alongside countless cultural and artistic institutions. Need help fitting it all into one vacation? You might need an app for your smartphone (or tablet) to serve as your guide. Getting Around & Accommodations Left: MobileMuni - Right: TripAdvisor MobileMuni What's a trip to San Francisco that doesn't include a ride on the infamous cable car going down Powell Street? MobileMuni is a complete guide to getting around San Franciscos transit service that lets you know when busses or street cars will be arriving as well as assisting you in getting around the city. Free Available for iOS ($2) / Android / Windows Phone TripAdvisorWhen researching your vacation, Trip Advisor has probably appeared multiple times. This popular service is an all in one guide for flights, restaurants, points of interests and most helpful, hotel reviews. TripAdvisor delivers intuitive options to take the stress out of finding a hotel room in any given city with reviews, prices, detail breakdowns and photos. FreeAvailable for iOS / Android / Windows Phone City Maps & Shopping Guide Left: Tourist Eye - Right: ShopNear.me Tourist EyeThose who plan out their trips beforehand will more than likely get the most out of their time, for those Tourist Eye is an absolute must download. Featuring offline map download ability, you can also pin point places you want to visit beforehand, journal every part of your day and flawlessly execute a preplanned itinerary. For those occasions when the unforeseeable gets in the way Tourist Eye will help find restaurants, tourist sites and more on the fly. FreeAlso available for Android ShopNear.meThis app was designed for trendy shoppers and at the moment features the best places to get your shop on in the city by the bay with promise for more cities in the future. You can search either by item (shoes, blouses, dresses and more) or by shop and use the sale tab to find savings nearby. Fashionistas who live or are visiting San Francisco will find ShopNear.me an essential part of their app library. Free Tourist Attractions Left: San Francisco Guide - Right: San Francisco Travel Guide San Francisco GuideSan Francisco Guide from mTrips gives us an app with an incredible UI. Although the priciest on this list, it manages to fit in a trip planner, offline map, nightlife guide as well but most incredible is the offline augmented reality function. You can see shops, restaurants, hotels and more around you by holding up your smartphone like a camera and seeing points of interest closest to you. $6Also available for iOS San Francisco Travel GuideAn app that neatly wraps up the must see locations of San Francisco is Triposos own travel guide. Although it has an offline map, weather info, nightlife and restaurant locales like some of the others on this list, it's the rich background information behind sites, museums and San Francisco itself that makes it fantastic for sightseeing. A unique ability SFTG possesses is a mini guide for day trips to optimize the full potential of a 24 hour vacation. FreeAlso available for iOS Wine and Dine Left: MenuPages - Right: Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants MenuPagesAre you in the mood for Japanese? Or maybe you'd like to try something vegan? Are you looking for a kid friendly place to eat? MenuPages will help find the perfect eatery for any meals of the day whatever the situation. Armed with menus for 30,000 restaurants in 8 major cities, it's easy to pick and choose your next meal with broad search criteria, user reviews, prices, hours of operation and current location at your fingertips. FreeAlso available for Android Top 100 Bay Area RestaurantsWhen travelling it's understandable to try the best of what a new location has to offer. The San Francisco Chronicler has compiled 100 of the best of eateries in San Francisco. Each restaurant entry includes a brief synopsis, prices, specialities, parking and noise level to tantalize your taste buds. FreeAlso available for iOS City Guides, Nightlife, and Traveling Necessities The Bold Italic: the most difficult task in visiting a city so rich in culture like San Francisco is cutting through the layers of tourist-y spots and experiencing the SF the locals enjoy on a day to day basis. The Bold Italic is all about local discovery...for locals, written by locals (Bold Locals), spotlighting the best and most relevant people and spots in San Francisco on a daily basis. This app is like having a good friend who lives in SF to guide you to all the best spots all the others might overlook or miss.iOS (Free) Left: San Francisco Hot List - Right: WeatherBug San Francisco Hot List Whether you're looking for a night of dancing or are looking to soak in the evenings atmosphere over drinks, San Francisco Hot List has your number. Supporting a robust list of 150 of the best bars, nightclubs, restaurants and handouts, you're guaranteed nothing but the creme de la creme of San Franciscan nightlife. Additional features include search criteria based on tidbits such as the best Bloody Mary in town or best Rooftop bar and up to date guides on weekly special events. $3 Also available for iOS WeatherbugWhat's worse than getting caught in the rain? Getting caught in the rain while on vacation. While we can't control the weather we can at least anticipate it's ups and downs before leaving the sanctuary of our hotel rooms. Weatherbug is a fantastic lightweight weather app that neatly wraps up daily weather forecasts so you'll know weather or not to dress warm or to take that umbrella along just in case. FreeAvailable for iOS / Android / Windows Phone

Sultan Abdulhamid II by kirbydog13 | March 27th, 2012 I was searching for a photo Sultan Abdulhamid II and recognized he was wearing a Fez on his head. Compared to the headpiece of the Qizilbash, it is similar. Perhaps it has a historical purpose or perhaps it is just a coincidence.

Tag Archive for interact Question by Jon: What is the best way to interact with or select job recruiters? I work primarily as a front end web developer and get calls from multiple recruitment firms. I do a fair bit of project work, so this is a recurring thing for me. Currently, if they have a position that I’m a fit for I reflexively ask them to present me for that position. Is that an optimal strategy? If one company submits me, another cannot, so I want to be submitted by the best company. Should I therefore be taking steps to identify which recruiting firms are the most effective, give preference to local firms, find which firms ask the target employer for a smaller fee, select (somehow) for firms that have a better relationship with the target client, check out a firm’s reputation online before submittal, etc. Or is all of that wasted work? I’m looking for things that are efficient yet effective. Thanks for any tips! Yes, I know I can work with several agencies for different jobs. However I CAN’T work with several agencies for the SAME JOB. Not in California, in any case. Double submissions get thrown out, or else the second agency to submit is rejected. Best answer: Answer by BillAs a freelancer you can usually work “through” several agencies. This creates competition between them to find you more work. Good Luck

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Exclusive Collection Of Rear View Cameras From TVC-Mall.com A car rear view camera is a special type of video camera that is produced specifically for the purpose of being attached to the rear of a vehicle to aid in backing up, and to alleviate the rear blind spot. TVC-Mall.com’s rear view cameras are well-known for the powerful functions and premium quality materials. Recently, TVC-Mall.com has released its new models, and launched a rear view cameras promotion. Anyone who want to buy wholesale rear view cameras can visit TVC-Mall.com for more details. TVC-Mall.com is a leader in cell phone accessories and other electronic accessories. Its rear view cameras are well-known for the powerful functions and premium quality materials. The new collection consists of many different designs. From IR night vision rear view cameras, to 2.4G wireless car rear view camera systems, TVC-Mall.com has everything to ensure customer satisfaction. “We are excited to launch this promotion, and we encourage wholesalers and retailers to keep coming back to our store to see what new products are available. Those who want to buy wireless car rear view camera systems should visit our online store as soon as possible, because the promotion is for a limited time only,” says a sales manager of the company. “We have the global reach, expertise and infrastructure necessary to guarantee our customers that their data is secure.” In addition, TVC-Mall.com’s online store features attractive low prices on its a hundred thousand of different styles ofelectronics and related accessories. Superior customer service, high-quality, speedy delivery, and affordable prices, are the reasons to choose TVC-Mall.com About The TVC Mall (TVC-Mall.com) Launched in 2008, TVC Mall has a sensitive marketing sense and it has established strong relationships with many original manufacturers of Apple products (iPhone, iPad, iWatch, etc.). Some Apple accessories used to have been sold at TVC-Mall.com before their official launch. The business used to be widely reported by some top media (like BusinessInsider.com, AppleInsider.com, CNET.com, etc.). Please visit http://www.tvc-mall.com or subscribe its newsletter for the best deals, special prices, rebate savings, exclusive bundles and more.

Debbie Gregory DNP, RN Dr. Debbie Gregory is a national leader in healthcare design, innovation, and transformation. As a nurse executive and interior designer, Dr. Gregory is passionate about “Intentional Design” that aligns People, Place, and Process. She creates and transforms environments into functional ecosystems using complex systems science and strategic thinking. Dr. Gregory has Doctorate of Nursing Practice in Health Innovation and Leadership from the University of Minnesota and a bachelors in nursing from Vanderbilt University. Currently, she serves as Senior Clinical Consultant for the Technology Planning Group at Smith, Seckman, Reid, Inc., a national engineering firm. In today’s healthcare environment, clinical transformation and innovation are essential in navigating and reengineering the care delivery model of the future. She serves as a liaison and visionary between the clinical community, the design and construction community, and the IT/engineering community to interpret and enhance the clinical operations and functionality of the healthcare environment. She develops strategies for operational and financial improvements designed to advance clinical excellence, improve quality of care, patient experience, and overall patient outcomes. She is a frequent presenter at national conferences and has authored many articles in national publications. Dr. Gregory provides educational summits that bring healthcare leaders, technology experts, and visionaries together to discuss the future of the healthcare delivery model and the integration of technology. She is the co-founder and past president of the Nursing Institute for Healthcare Design (NIHD) and current President of the Nursing Institute for Healthcare Design Foundation. NIHD is an international not for profit organization created from a need, an idea, and a passion to engage and include clinicians at the design table to improve the healthcare environment.

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Medical Designers Save Time, Parts With Software HIGH STRESS: The sensor in Tensys’ new blood-pressure monitor floats within a rigid frame attached to a serpentine arm designed to flex. Engineers used SolidWorks and COSMOSWORKS to design the arm and see how it would perform under real-world flexing, saving prototypes. “Faster, cheaper, better” is a phrase that may have its genesis in the aerospace industry, but it has launched breakthrough designs in other industries as well. Case in point: the medical industry, where device manufacturers have used CAD and FEA to give flight to new design ideas while slashing product-development time. Two recent examples, one in the U.S. and one in the U.K., show the improvements and time/cost savings engineers have realized from their use of engineering software. In Camberly, U.K., the design team at reseller Williams Medical Supplies set up a new technical development department to design medical products and settled on Solid Edge (UGS) as its core design tool. “Our aim is to take a routine surgical instrument and bring something new to the design that will provide significant benefit,” says Robert Steele, technical development director. Among their projects: the Opmaster Series 4 surgery operating table. The enhanced design allows a patient to be examined, operated on, and recover on the same table. Using Solid Edge, the team modeled parts and ran collision and interference analyses and motion simulation. “We were able to sit with sales and marketing during the initial design stage and get feedback,” says Steele. “Engineers don’t always get it right, but with the software we could rehearse the design and minimize the risk of getting it wrong.” The result was a major time savings, largely the result of not doing many prototypes. “In fact, we were almost able to dispense with the prototyping phase and go straight to manufacturing,” Steele asserts. Working with different software and on a vastly different product line, engineers at San Diego-based Tensys Medical, Inc. had similar results. Using SolidWorks for CAD and COSMOSWorks for FEA (both from Dassault Systemes, Inc.) the engineering team developed the T-Line[R] Tensymeter, a non-invasive arterial blood-pressure management system for use in surgery. Their goal was to replace the traditional cuff-based monitors that provide only intermittent measurements every few minutes. That kind of irregular monitoring can delay recognition of rapid changes in blood pressure. The design concept uses an actuator to move a sensor over the patient’s wrist to find the best position for producing a continuous waveform. “The sensor has to float within a rigid frame attached to a serpentine arm that’s designed to flex. The team used COSMOSWORKS to identify areas of high stress for the olefin-based serpentine arm and used the analysis results to make design modifications. Among those modifications, says Senior Engineer Russ Hempstead: “We removed the stress risers, added radii, and added thickening sections.” He and the engineering team didn’t expect to see the stress risers, but when they did they put static flexing on part of the serpentine arm so they could move it the way it would move in the real world. The software enabled the team to shorten the design cycle by 60 percent. They cut manufacturing time by four percent, material costs by three percent, and labor costs by three-four percent. In all, engineers did seven or eight analysis studies in just a couple of days. Hempstead says the team cut the number of parts by putting as much functionality in a part as possible. It’s a strategy he recommends to others. “It may complicate tooling, but it still eases manufacturing,” he says. “We got rid of four components.” Industrial workplaces are governed by OSHA rules, but this isn’t to say that rules are always followed. While injuries happen on production floors for a variety of reasons, of the top 10 OSHA rules that are most often ignored in industrial settings, two directly involve machine design: lockout/tagout procedures (LO/TO) and machine guarding. Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.

I listened to this one, narrated by Justine Eyre. It was about 12 hours long, but it passed by quickly with this fun read. It's not particularly deep or magical and it doesn't call life as we know it into question. It's a nice read/listen, light and intriguing for anyone in the mood for a little escape from the disappointments that have been abounding. Funny enough, the only problems with the book are also reasons why I liked it. Lily Kaiser's journey is a little too convenient throughout the book but that can be just perfect sometimes. It can be exactly what I need to read or listen in order to balance out the pressure of the world. So, yes, the book is a little too neat. The story a little too beautiful and coincidental and works a little too well, but I didn't mind it at all. Mostly because it was also written incredibly well. It moves between times, giving insight into Rose Gallway's life that Lily doesn't readily have and let's the reader piece some of it together on our own. I do enjoy that. And then the author lays it all out and it's just perfect. A little too perfect, like in one of those rom-coms that we watch to feel good but that we all know aren't the way the world works. I really loved that about it. It's going to be one of my comfort books, to peruse when I'm down, maybe listen to when I wanna revel in new beginnings, like the mood I re-watch Stardust in. If you've read a few too many mysteries lately, or too many books that ripped your heart out (like I have recently), than this is the perfect book to recover with. It's comforting and sweet and romantic and doesn't take itself too seriously. But it's not the book for that serious deep read. Don't expect it to be.

My new global trends book is out now: The Future of Almost Everything. But it takes at least 20 years to evaluate how good a trends analyst was / is – so what about forecasts made by me in previous books, about what to expect over the following decade or two or three? How did those forecasts measure up? I had to answer that question for myself by re-reading what I wrote in the past about the future, before writing my latest book. Read FREE SAMPLE of The Truth about Almost Everything. So you can judge for yourself, here are loads of predictions I made in the past - and the book in which they were made plus date. Every one of these is already a reality or looks like it soon could be, as of August 2015....And yes I got some things wrong - not many fortunately. I am going to publish the entire text of Futurewise 1998 edition on this website for a complete picture - but of course on this site already are hundreds of posts and videos going back in some cases over 20 years. Here's one I got wrong: I thought video streaming would take off - but with more use of live video using smartphones that we have actually seen. Most personal video streaming is of course things like YouTube clips. Most forecasting errors in my experience are not over WHAT is going to happen as the trend is usually fairly obvious, but by WHEN with questions about real impact. So here goes: how did I see the future of banking, global economy, mobile, smartphones, Internet of Things, Big Data and so on...? Banking Banking as it is in 1998 will never survive and will fall in profitability. 1998 - Futurewise Internet of Things and Smart Homes All new homes in developed nations will be intelligent by 2010, Smart homes will boast 15-20% energy savings. 1998 - Futurewise Every device with a power socket will be online. Washing machine will call engineer. Garage doors will open automatically, alarm will be turned off, lights will go on, coffee machine will begin to pour a coffee and so on. 1998 - Futurewise Power generation in many homes from solar cells and wind in rural areas 1998 – Futurewise Retail and e-commerce Basic shopping will be done online and the rest will become a recreational activity – so shopping centres will have to learn from theme parks to reinvent themselves as a leisure experience. 1998 - Futurewise Loss of millions of small retailers by 2005 as huge chains expand market share, These global chains will increase own brand sales from 15% to 30% by 2010. However many corner shops will survive because of convenience, parking restrictions and so on. We will see a big reversal of the trend to build more out of town superstores, with rapid growth of smaller outlets of the same chains. 1998 - Futurewise Millions of people will buy and sell from each other directly at cut throat prices for new and second-hand goods, by posting information online, with instant matching of buyers and sellers, creating virtual “street markets”. 1998 – Futurewise Europe and global economy Major economic disruptions will occur affecting many nations from a series of very low probability but very high impact events, with combined impact. 1998 - Futurewise Expect increasingly complicated financial instruments to be developed, which will add to risks of economic instability. 1998 – Futurewise The next global economic shock is likely to be triggered by events relating to complex financial products (derivatives) and hedge funds, overwhelming markets and governments - 2003 Futurewise Speed of change will be a fundamental and rapidly growing global risk, with sudden collapse of economies in different nations, related to loss of market confidence. 1998 – Futurewise Massive future economic tensions in Eurozone in next two decades, which may threaten the Euro project. 1998 – Futurewise Expect more rioting on the streets as workers untie to vent their anger and frustration at leaders, global institutions and wealthy ethnic minorities. 1998 – Futurewise Interest rate targeting set at 2% will turn out to be too low because no room to manage the deflationary economic shocks that we are going to see, without risk of tipping over into deflation. Expect central banks to begin relaxing such low targets – 2003 Futurewise 2nd edition Expect a growing backlash against globalization, blamed by workers in many nations for lack of jobs and economic decline. 1998 – Futurewise Expect growing anger and resentment against market speculators, blamed for price instabilities of commodities and currencies, and for destabilizing entire nations by over-trading complex financial products, which very few people fully understand. 1998 – Futurewise More governments will take refuge in larger trading blocs, with more grouped, linked of fused economies by 2020, particularly in Asia, but it will not be entirely effective as speculators also grow rapidly in global power. ASEAN will become stronger as part of this process. 1998 – Futurewise Outsourcing of manufacturing and service jobs to China and India will go into reverse, as inflation in Asia wipes out the economic argument for doing so, and as companies look to become more agile and reduce risk. 2003 - Futurewise Many people will be surprised at how rapidly China overtakes the US as the world’s largest economy. Futurewise 1998 Health AIDS will become a global pandemic which will require massive community mobilization over more than 20 years. Prevention programmes will prove effective, but a vaccine will be almost impossible to make, and certainly will not be developed before 2003. 1987 – Truth about AIDS Life expectancy will go on increasing rapidly with official forecasts revised every 12 months, over the next two decades and beyond, each of which will create added pressures on pension fund solvency. 1998 - Futurewise Viruses will be used to treat or prevent diseases such as cancer or cystic fibrosis. Viruses will be used to infect cancer cells and teach them to manufacture chemotherapy agents to poison cancer cells directly – 1993 Genetic Revolution We will repair damaged tissue using a person’s own cells, grown in the laboratory. – 1993 Genetic Revolution GM foods – new crops and improved animals - will be important and widely grown. – 1993 Genetic Revolution Genetically engineered animal and human cells will be used to manufacture next-generation pharma products including new types of vaccines. – 1993 Genetic Revolution Huge numbers of human genes will be linked to patterns of disease, enabling very accurate predictions to be made about future medical problems in an individual. – 1993 Genetic Revolution Monoclonal antibodies will become a very important treatment in future for cancer and other conditions. – 1993 Genetic Revolution Technology to create human cloned embryos in the laboratory for research purposes will become routine. 1993 – Genetic Revolution We will see many new virus threats emerge around the world by 2020, of which several will trigger global containment efforts. 1998 – Futurewise= Pensions crisis Pensions crisis will hit Germany and Italy, while France will be shaken by riots and demonstrations on the streets when governments try to increase retirement age. 1998 – Futurewise In 20 years time, many older people will carry on working to 75, or 85, or until they drop, with virtually no pension. 1998 – Futurewise Calls to legalise euthanasis will grow far stronger, with many high profile cases where doctors or family have taken the law into their own hands. 1998 – Futurewise Personal pension plans and investment funds will be growth markets for those approaching retirement, with increasing questions about charges and performance of actively managed funds. 1998 – Futurewise Future of Europe Eurozone will not be sustainable without huge pain. Economic conditions that enable some countries to swim will cause other economies to drown. 1998 - Futurewise Tribalism will be the downfall of Europe and will feed terrorism. 1998 - Futurewise Many former Eastern Bloc nations will not stabilize economically until beyond 2008, and even then there will still be a huge gap compared to Western Europe. 1998 - Futurewise It will take until beyond 2018 for new democratic traditions to take root in former Soviet bloc nations. Economic crisis in these nations may lead to riots, civil disobedience, internal military action or worse. Expect the EU to try to reduce these risks by early inclusion into an enlarged community. 1998 - Futurewise Enlarging the EU from15 to 25 nations will change it forever, adding to paralysis in decision-making. 1998 - Futurewise People tribes will sometimes be very hostile to the emerging mega-state. 1998 - Futurewise One of the final destructions of the United States of Europe will be high unemployment caused by rapidly changing economic conditions and labour force immobility. 1998 - Futurewise However Europe will benefit in the short term from instability elsewhere. 1998 – Futurewise Future of the UK UK will continue to disintegrate in the final death pangs of the English imperialistic dream. Scots will look to Europe as a way of staying together in a broader alliance, rather than close rule from London. 1998 - Futurewise The English will become increasingly resentful of rulings imposed by the EU. 1998 - Futurewise As Scotland asserts its own right to govern itself, the English will become more strident about being English. 1998 - Futurewise UK home ownership will prove a good long term investment, despite market collapse and many pundits claiming the end of the sector as a sound investment. Web posts 2007-2008 on globalchange.com and YouTube. London will remain very popular and powerful London will continue to be one of the most popular cities in the world for the next 30 years, and will continue to be dominated by financial service despite aggressive global competition. 1998 - Futurewise The City will keep top position or near top in cross-border lending, and will fight to remain the largest global centre for Forex. 1998 - Futurewise Cities will be popular places to live Hundreds of millions will migrate to large cities: city life will be increasingly popular, despite forecasts by some that cities will decay and die as wealthy people move out to escape crime, congestion, pollution and chaos. 1998 - Futurewise Politics, tribalism, new patterns of war and rapid rise of new terrorist groups Political whirlwinds will affect whole continents. 1998 – Futurewise Rise of new, sinister radical people movements, which are totally convinced of their moral cause and use tribalism, social networking and terrorism – these groups will seize great powers. 1998 – Futurewise Terrorist groups will multiply rapidly in the third millennium, taking advantage of new technologies to frighten, sabotage and attack for the sake of a cause. 1998 – Futurewise Security forces will use ever more sophisticated tools for surveillance, violating privacy of hundreds of millions. 1998 – Futurewise Traditional left-right political divides will be swept away in many nations by polarized debates over things like sustainability, or the application of Islamic laws, or whether a nation should be in or out of the Eurozone. 1998 - Futurewise Ever present video cameras will make large-scale traditional wars harder to fight, because horrors will be seen very clearly. 1998 – Futurewise World military spending will fall and then rise – with investment in drones, cruise missiles etc but experience show that wars are won by house to house fighting not by remote control smart weapons. 1998 – Futurewise Sustainability and single issues Left-right politics will give way to single issue politics eg should we be in or out of the Eurozone, or become independent from the UK, or spend more on carbon taxes. 1998 - Futurewise The environment will be the number 1 dominant single issue for decades to come. 1998 - Futurewise Marriage and children Marriage will become less fashionable but the dominant household pattern for middle aged people will still be having children and bringing them up together. 1998 - Futurewise A new generation of teenagers will emerge in the early Third Millennium, the M Generation: more conservative than in the past – less sex, less drunkenness, less drugs, more study, more concerned about issues like environment. They will still follow traditional romantic dreams… of one day finding a wonderful partner for a very long term relationship. 1998 - Futurewise Drugs and smoking We will see widespread drug testing – at work and in prisons, greater investment in drug rehab. 1998 - Futurewise We will see progressive criminalisation of smoking with ever stricter regulations on tobacco, and a bitter fight in some nations over decriminalization of cannabis. 1998 - Futurewise We will see hundreds of new designer drugs that fall outside government legal powers, of which some will enhance memory and intelligence, becoming widely abused by students. 1998 - Futurewise Feminisation Feminisation of workplace and wider society with men in retreat, labeled as testosterone addicts, dangerous, ill-behaved variants of human species prone to violence and sexual predatory acts. 1998 – Futurewise

Sandusky Sent Down River After a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Corrections Department review, convicted child molester and former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky has been sent to the Greene State Prison, where he will serve out his sentence (and probably, his life) in protective custody. He’s still pursuing appeals, which no one expects to go anywhere. Greene is a maximum security prison, classified as a “Supermax“, which contains a Death Row. Lifers there include Philadelphia serial killer Juan Covington, and three convicts await execution. This is one tough place. “We make individual decisions based on facts,” Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said in a written statement. “Given the high-profile nature of this individual, coupled with the nature of his crimes, this makes him very vulnerable in a prison setting.” Noooo kidding, John! (We all know from watching TV crime dramas what happens to guys like Jer in da Big House.) Just how effective will the security measures be? Better be Biohazard Level 5 containment for Ol’ Jer. He will not have a cellmate and will be subjected to heightened supervision and an escort when not in his cell. He will get an hour of individual exercise five days a week and three showers a week — alone, save for the escort. He will eat meals in his cell. All other services, including religion, medications, and treatment programming will be conducted in his cell. All visits will be non-contact. No touching of or by the Tickle Monster. Sandusky’s legal representations did not return phone calls. This is close to home for “Jer”. His home town of “Little Washington” is a half-hour north on I-79. A further half-hour north lies the thriving, post-ferrous metropolis of Pittsburgh. The State Correctional Institution at Greene, as it is formally known, is a maximum-security prison that houses a total of 1,800 inmates and employs 700 people. Friends' Blogs Whodat Turkey? The Nittany Turkey is a retired techno-geek who thinks he knows something about Penn State football and everything else in the world. If there's a topic, we have an opinion on it, and you know what "they" say about opinions! Most of what is posted here involves a heavy dose of hip-shooting conjecture, but unlike some other blogs, we don't represent it as fact. Read More…

Araucaria clonal forestry: types of cuttings and mother tree sex in field survival and growth Resumo: Araucaria angustifolia (Bert.) O Kuntze (Paraná pine or Araucaria) is a potential forestry native species for Brazilian silviculture. However, a number of challenges and technical restraints persist, hindering its silvicultural expansion, among which are the lack of cloning technologies of superior genetic materials and their assessment under field conditions. Thus, we evaluated the potential use of araucaria plants derived from cuttings and seeds for timber production, by assessing field survival, growth and strobilus production using cuttings from male and female plants, collected from different positions, compared with those produced by sexual reproduction. Clones of male and female trees from different types of cuttings and seedlings were planted in 3 x 3 m spacing. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design of one tree plot with three treatments. Female clones and apical cuttings showed higher growth in diameter at breast height (6.4 cm) and total height (3.6 m) 74 months after planting, followed by seedlings and other clones, with similar results. We conclude that cuttings technique is potential for araucaria propagation for wood production purposes, and it is favored by the use of apical cuttings from female mother trees.

Purchase either a combined Buildings & Contents Home Insurance policy, or separate Buildings or Contents Home Insurance Policy online at Littlewoods.com between 1st and 31st August 2017 to qualify for a free Amazon Echo Dot. New Littlewoods Home Insurance customers only. Provided your policy is still active and your premiums are up to date, we'll email you 4 weeks post-purchase to explain how you claim your free Amazon Echo Dot. If you return your item due to a fault, where possible, a replacement item will be provided. Own it! this summerwith £20 back! 1 - Spend £50 or more in one order before 30.06.172 - Enter code LAMJA at checkout3 - £20 will be credited to your original method of payment - simple! Offer excludes sale items, Apple products, Financial Services products and delivery/installation charges. Valid for one use only, this code cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer code.If you return items from your order, the credit will be reversed if the order value falls below the minimum required. Sat Navs at Littlewoods Make finding your way around easy with a sat nav from our fab range at Littlewoods. We’ve got a great selection of top brands like Garmin, TomTom and Kenwood, so there’ll be no chance of getting lost. Take a look at essential features to make journeys that little bit easier, like local area guides highlighting points of interest and useful info like the nearest petrol station or hotel. Choose from state-of-the-art designs with 3D map formats, or pick a bird’s-eye view. And we have accessories too, including travel cases for safe and stylish storage. In-car Entertainment Range If you like listening to music while you’re driving, have a look at our in-car entertainment range. Choose from a wide selection of multi-functional products with high-quality sound and easy-to-use controls. We've got state-of-the-art touch screen options with high-res graphics, and you can stream music with AppRadio Mode, CarPlay or via Bluetooth technology. If you prefer to play songs from your phone, opt for a USB connection, and sing along to those classic road-trip tunes. And if you’re all about that bass then check out our subwoofers for an immersive experience. Picking the Right Sat Nav If international travel is on your agenda, pick one of our sat navs with road maps for up to 152 different countries and get ready to explore. Keep up to date on recent road changes with a sat nav that comes with a lifetime supply of maps, meaning you'll always have access to the quickest routes available. For all the latest info and live traffic updates, choose a model with a data plan and SIM – they're particularly useful if you take a busy commuter route. We’ve got styles with handy reverse cameras too, for those who want a little extra help parking. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows you to delay payment for 12 months. The payment free period starts when you place your order (including items which are purchased on pre-order and/or are not ready for immediate dispatch). Select BNPL at checkout and the repayment period of either 104 or 156 weeks. This is the repayment period you will pay over, once the payment free period (12 months) has ended. The interest rate typically used to calculate BNPL interest is 44.9% per annum. Your interest rate will be detailed in checkout. The interest is calculated on the payment free period and the repayment period. You can avoid interest by paying the cash price in full within the payment free period. Delivery charges and other Financial Services products are not available on Buy Now Pay Later and will appear on your next statement. Please note, if you have non BNPL purchases on your account you will still need to make at least your minimum payment as detailed on your statement. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows you to delay payment for 12 months. The payment free period starts when you place your order (including items which are purchased on pre-order and/or are not ready for immediate dispatch). Select BNPL at checkout and the repayment period of either 104 or 156 weeks. This is the repayment period you will pay over, once the payment free period (12 months) has ended. The interest rate typically used to calculate BNPL interest is 44.9% per annum. Your interest rate will be detailed in checkout. The interest is calculated on the payment free period and the repayment period. You can avoid interest by paying the cash price in full within the payment free period. Delivery charges and other Financial Services products are not available on Buy Now Pay Later and will appear on your next statement. Please note, if you have non BNPL purchases on your account you will still need to make at least your minimum payment as detailed on your statement. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows you to delay payment for 12 months. The payment free period starts when you place your order (including items which are purchased on pre-order and/or are not ready for immediate dispatch). Select BNPL at checkout and the repayment period of either 104 or 156 weeks. This is the repayment period you will pay over, once the payment free period (12 months) has ended. Your interest rate will be detailed in checkout. The interest is calculated on the payment free period and the repayment period. You can avoid interest by paying the cash price in full within the payment free period. Delivery charges and other Financial Services products are not available on Buy Now Pay Later and will appear on your next statement. Please note, if you have non BNPL purchases on your account you will still need to make at least your minimum payment as detailed on your statement.

Hey Everyone, This is my first post on the board, and I'm glad to see there is a section specifically on Spanish wines as they've always been a favorite of mine! I recently drank the wine mentioned in the tile and absoultely loved it. The only problem is that I bought it in Sevilla, and haven't been able to find the exact wine at the local wine superstores. Any advice on how to find if this wine is imported and how to get it. Welcome to the board, MrB. A Website we commonly use when looking for an elusive bottle is wine-searcher.com, but unfortunately it turned up a no-find. Also checked my regional benchmark, Spec's in Houston, with the same result. You may need to settle for a reasonable sub. Despite all you see in the stores, both Spain and Italy (the largest wine producers in the world) only export a relatively small number of wines to the U.S. or anyone else. Find something you like in Chi-town and enjoy.

I admit I never thought I’d do any analytical work on Resident Evil 4. Don’t get me wrong; it’s one of my favorite games. Being extremely fun to play, and a having a wonderfully creepy aesthetic are just a few of the game’s strengths. But it’s a silly game in a lot of ways. There aren’t larger messages and meanings to glean from it. And at some moments, the game mechanics and the overall story don’t match up very well. I’d like to discuss one of those moments: Luis’s famous death in castle. I’ll use this example to discuss the elements of motivation and capacity in video games. You may recall from my previous article a discussion of a player’s motivation and capacity while playing a video game. Although I mentioned these terms, I never adequately defined them, so I’ll do so now. A player’s motivation is the reason he or she cares about playing the game and effecting some kind of difference in the world and story in which he or she is immersed. This element is present in other mediums—it’s the reason we continue to read/watch the story. A player’s capacity, unlike motivation, is intrinsically tied to game mechanics; it consists of the things that the player is able to do in the game world. The analogue of capacity in other media is simply the reader’s ability to continue to watch or read the story. There are further complexities in games, however, including that a player’s degree of capacity can effect his or her motivation, but that is a discussion for another time (probably focusing on Deus Ex). For now, recall my claim that in order for a game to be truly impactful, both of these elements must exist (or noticeably not exist, as I’ll discuss in my next article). Note also that the capacity element is harder and more important to make present, since it’s the element that video games have introduced to storytelling. So let’s see whether both motivation and capacity exist in the case of Luis’s death. For those who haven’t played the game, you can watch a video of the moment below. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsfebZKsp94&w=420&h=315] I’ll summarize the scene: Luis was attempting to help you get a “sample” of great value from the game’s primary villain, Saddler. But Saddler kills Luis, taking back the sample (classic). As Luis lies dying before you, he gives you a temporary antidote to the parasite that you are infected with, and tells you to stop Saddler. When he finally passes away, Leon yells out him name in anguish. So this moment most certainly provides the player with motivation. And there are multiple reasons for this. In his final moments, Luis literally gives the player the primary plot incentive for the remainder of the game: stop Saddler and get the sample back. On top of that, finding out that Leon isn’t doomed to die at the hands of his parasite energies the player with a new sense of hope. But, most importantly, the player’s motivation is an extension of Leon’s grief. If the player empathizes with Leon (hopefully they do if they’ve gotten this far in the game), when Leon cries out in agony over the death of his friend, the player, too, is motivated seek justice for a lost friend. This is the opposite of Link’s silence that I discussed in my last article. Unlike Link, who leaves you to form your experience for yourself, Leon hands you his grief, and in this way motivates you to action. This is good storytelling. Clearly Resident Evil 4 has nailed the motivational aspect of making a powerful narrative in a game. But at this point there’s no particular reason story-wise to play the game instead of just watching it. So let’s think about capacity. Capacity is the additional element that makes a video game unique as opposed to movies or books. And the extent of what video games can do with capacity hasn’t been fully explored. So, even though it’s not necessary for a game to use dynamics of capacity in order to tell a good story, ignoring this element is missing an opportunity for better storytelling. Since capacity is unique to games, if there’s no interesting storytelling or fun mechanics, there’s no reason to play the game instead of just watch it. Now, in order to discuss capacity in the case of death, capacity takes on a slight nuance. When a character dies in a game, the key aspect of capacity is actually the change in capacity. It doesn’t matter so much what the capacity level is in general, it just matters if there is a difference before and after a character’s death. This provides meaning for the death within the structure of the game mechanics. For example, if a character dies in a game but is immediately replaced by an almost identical analogue, their death has little visceral impact for the player, who can’t feel the impact of the character’s death on the gameplay. This actually does happen: in Legend of The Dragoon, when one of your party members, Lavitz, dies, Albert, who literally takes on the stats of Lavitz, almost immediately replaces him. Even more notably, Cait Sith dies in Final Fantasy VII, but is quite literally replaced by an entirely identical avatar called “Cait Sith 2”. In these situations the player’s capacity has not changed, and thus the deaths have lost some of their potential narrative impact. That’s kind of what it feels like when Luis dies in Resident Evil 4. Although he helps you out as a non-player character (NPC) at various points in the game, it’s not as though he’s the only character who does this. And there’s nothing to distinguish him mechanics-wise from the other characters you meet and team up with. What’s more, you continue to have access to other NPCs you can get help from after he dies. So, in terms of how it feels to play the game, you don’t even notice he’s gone. As far as the player’s capacity to team up with others in order to stay alive, very little changes after Luis’s death. The player’s capacity thus changes very little when he dies, and though the player grieves with Leon, it’s difficult to feel a real sense of loss. To sum up, although the story of Luis’s death in Resident Evil is well told in terms of movies and books, the developers missed the opportunity to tell this story through the game mechanics in terms of a change in player capacity. Luis was not a unique character mechanically, and other characters that Leon meets effectively replace his avatar. The death is meaningful to watch, but far less meaningful to play. Nathan Randall - Video Game Analyst Nathan Randall is a Master’s candidate in game design at FIEA. He analyzes how gameplay mechanics and design impact the storytelling of video games. Learn more here. With a Terrible Fate is dedicated to developing the best video game analysis anywhere, without any ads or sponsored content. If you liked what you just read, please consider supporting us by leaving a one-time tip or becoming a contributor on Patreon.

A small city in Iowa has taken an action to save the bees from extinction. Acres of land were donated to increase the local habitats of the bees. Over the past decade, bees are steadily disappearing. Worker bees disappear and leaving behind the queen. With a few nursing bees to take care of the immature bees, a colo… Read More To stay updated with the latest in the apiculture industry to can visit our beekeeping latest news. On the other hand if you are starting beekeeping and would like to begin professional beekeeping today download a copy of our beekeeping for beginners ebook. Beekeeping can be a full-time profession or a hobby that is simple. Nonetheless, more often than not, what started as a hobby would turn into a profession. But you cannot simply tell and decide yourself you will start to do beekeeping. Before starting on any avocation or profession, you need to have understanding and satisfactory knowledge on the subject that you are going to enter. If you’ve been putting off your interest in beekeeping for quite a while, then it’s about time to indulge yourself in your line of interest. Bee farming may seem simple; learning the basic beekeeping lessons can enable you to get away to a good start. What does a beekeeper need to understand? On beekeeping to start at the right foot you should have interest that is complete. You need to spend time taking care of your colonies of bees. You should have also agreed to share your home space with the bees. There are potential risks in beekeeping that can harm not only you but your family also. Your focus is not only to make money by selling honey; a good beekeeper should have passion and a keen interest in rearing bees. An apiarist should know the right place for the beehives. You have to make sure beekeeping is allowed in your area, if you decide to place your beehives at your backyard. There are several places restricted to beekeeping; you have to get permission concerning this. Beekeepers must know whether beekeeping supplies are available in the area where the beehives are situated. When you must go to a neighborhood beekeeping shop you may never understand; it is best that a nearby beekeeping store is reachable. Equipment and protective tools are also very important to beekeepers to know. Know the right kind of suit to choose to keep you from any possible danger in beekeeping. If you’re incapable to harvest honey from your bees all the efforts that are beekeeping would be futile. A beekeeper should know the methods in gathering the honey from the comb; beeswax is also part of the returns in beekeeping.

Defending champion Reilly Opelka and 2018 champ Kevin Anderson headline a stacked field of singles players committed to compete in this year’s New York Open men’s tennis tournament, which takes place Feb. 9-16 on the unique black courts at NYCB LIVE’s Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. more The Kumon Method was founded in Japan in 1954. Toru Kumon, a high school math teacher, was trying to help his own child. Convinced that his second-grade son could be taught the necessary skills to understand advanced mathematics, he created . . . more After a number of residents urged the city to install mats on the barrier island’s beaches so that those with mobility issues can easily access Long Beach’s iconic shoreline, the city last week released a plan to do just that. more

GREATER ....a study of the book of Hebrews A sermon series by Jay Lovelace....beginning February 18, 2018 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND HAPPENINGS... This week and next... AWANA...February 21 - Regular Night! Begins at 6:30 p.m.Small Groups…The Friday Small Groups will meet on February 23 at 6:30 p.m.; the Lovelace group at the Wilson’s home and the Barker group at the church. AWANA Grand Prix Garage...Kids, if you want advice on your race car for the Grand Prix or time to test the ride, come to the church at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 24. Volunteers will be there to help you with any finishing touches. (Note: the Grand Prix will be held on Saturday, March 3, beginning at 10:00 a.m.). Prayer Meeting...February 25 at 4:30 p.m. at the church Defending Your Faith...Join Marty Engel on Monday, February 26 for discussion time about everyday questions that Christians are asked of nonbelievers. Mark your calendars!

Mind The Gap America’s British population has taken to the web to voice its displeasure at news that U.S. candy giant Hershey has successfully blocked our much loved U.K.-produced chocolate from being exported to the land of the free. So the Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and, as expected, the great British hope, Atonement, was nominated for Best Picture. However, its two stars, James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, were omitted for the top acting … The British dominance of Hollywood has been a big story throughout award season. But one could be forgiven for mistaking last night’s Oscars for a World Cup match, and, predictably, Britain got beaten by Mexico. Latest Interviews The Latest from Mind The Gap America’s British population has taken to the web to voice its displeasure at news that U.S. candy giant Hershey has successfully blocked our much loved U.K.-produced chocolate from being exported to the land of the free.

Recently, I sat down to talk with a group of eight students from a large prominent church in Southern California. They were raised in the church. They were regulars at youth group. They claimed to be in relationship with Christ. Yet, they were dead. As I tried to engage them, most seemed unmoved and uninterested. And I was not surprised. As I work with churches around the country, I encounter countless Christian students who are apathetic toward spiritual things. Their relationship with Christ is passionless. Talk of God is ho-hum. But why? Shouldn’t our relationship with Christ be life’s most exciting adventure? I’m not suggesting the Christian life is one, big, emotional high, but why are students more willing to plug into their iPods than their Bibles? Why are they more excited about the latest celebrity gossip than the Gospel? Why aren’t their lives filled with the drama of God’s Kingdom? I think a big part of the problem is that Christian students rarely engage their world for the cause of Christ. Here’s what I’ve observed in my training over the years. The most exciting events I do, the events where students seem to come to life, are those where there is some component of engagement. Let me illustrate. For almost ten years now, I’ve been taking students on mission trips to Berkeley and Utah. Each trip requires hours of training, typically in the form of classroom instruction and the reading of required books. This training is important and necessary, but it’s not what generates the most buzz among the students. Students get fired up on the trip when we give them opportunities to engage non-believers. On these trips we invite Mormon leaders, Unitarians, gay activists, Hare Krishna priests, skeptics, and atheists to dialogue with students. We give our non-Christian guests time to share their views, followed by a time of questions from our students. It’s during Q&A when students really come to life. They ask question after question, graciously yet firmly force our skeptical guests to give a reason for their views. At the conclusion of each encounter, we thank our guests and then spend time debriefing. At this point, students are always abuzz, asking me question after question. Before I know it, an hour of discussing apologetics and theology with youth will have flown by. In addition, we send our groups onto college campuses, like BYU or Berkeley, to conduct surveys. The surveys are designed to get our students into conversation with non-Christians students about spiritual issues. At first, students are fearful and anxious. They’re skeptical about people’s willingness to engage with them. But after an hour or two of surveys, students return and they are always pumped. During our debrief time, students can’t wait to share about their encounters. They’re filled with excitement about their conversations on campus with non-Christians. When we create opportunities for students to engage, there is a vibrancy that infuses the events. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Our teaching should not remain in a classroom or behind the four walls of the church. If we want to train students who can defend the faith not just intelligently but passionately, we need to get them in the game. Think about any sports teams. It’s the starters who are the most passionate about the game, right? The benchwarmers, not so much. I think that’s one reason why our mission trips to Berkeley and Utah are exciting and successful. They get students in the game. They get students engaging a lost world with the truth of Jesus Christ. In 2014, students will get a taste of being in the game as I take them to Berkeley and Utah. I’ve already maxed out the number of mission trips I’m capable of taking through July. Indeed, we’ve had to turn groups away or ask them to start scheduling for 2015. So this year, we’ll be getting students off the sidelines and igniting their fire for Christ. I can’t wait. As a parent of 5 kids, summer gets expensive. I have to pay for swim lessons, soccer camps, VBS, youth group trips, family vacations, and more. And these costs don't even include feeding my kids all … > Read full article

Abstract The entorhinal cortex receives a large projection from the piriform cortex, and synaptic plasticity in this pathway may affect olfactory processing. In vitro whole cell recordings have been used here to investigate postsynaptic signalling mechanisms that mediate the induction of long-term synaptic depression (LTD) in layer II entorhinal cortex cells. To induce LTD, pairs of pulses, using a 30-millisecond interval, were delivered at 1 Hz for 15 minutes. Induction of LTD was blocked by the NMDA receptor antagonist APV and by the calcium chelator BAPTA, consistent with a requirement for calcium influx via NMDA receptors. Induction of LTD was blocked when the FK506 was included in the intracellular solution to block the phosphatase calcineurin. Okadaic acid, which blocks activation of protein phosphatases 1 and 2a, also prevented LTD. Activation of protein phosphatases following calcium influx therefore contributes to induction of LTD in layer II of the entorhinal cortex. 1. Introduction The mechanisms that mediate the induction of long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) [1, 2] and depression (LTD) [3–5] have been studied intensively within the hippocampus, but less is known about the signalling mechanisms for LTP and LTD in the entorhinal cortex. Because the entorhinal cortex receives highly processed inputs from sensory and association cortices and also provides the hippocampal region with much of its sensory input [6, 7], lasting changes in the strength of synaptic inputs to the entorhinal cortex could alter the manner in which multimodal cortical inputs are integrated, modulate the strength of transmission of specific patterns of sensory input within the hippocampal formation, and contribute to mnemonic function [8–11]. Determining the effective stimulation parameters and the intracellular signals that mediate synaptic plasticity in the entorhinal cortex should allow insight into basic mechanisms that contribute to the cognitive functions of the parahippocampal region. Long-term potentiation of cortical inputs to the superficial layers of the entorhinal cortex has been described in vivo [11–14] and in vitro [15, 16]. Stimulation patterns required to induce LTP tend to be more intense in the entorhinal cortex than in the hippocampus [12, 14], and we have also found that induction of LTD in the entorhinal cortex requires intense low-frequency stimulation [17, 18]. In the hippocampus, conventional 1 Hz stimulation trains have been most effective in slices taken from juvenile animals [19, 20] but are generally ineffective in adult slices [21–23] and in intact animals ([31, 32], see also [33]). Similarly, 1 Hz stimulation induces entorhinal LTD in slices from young animals [28, 29] but is not effective in vivo [17] or in slices from older animals [18]. Repeated stimulation using pairs of pulses separated by a short 25- to 50-millisecond interval can induce LTD more effectively in both the CA1 ([24–26], but see [27]) and entorhinal cortex [17, 18, 33, 34]. In the CA1, the LTD induced by this stimulation pattern is NMDA receptor-dependent, but it also depends upon activation of local inhibitory mechanisms by the pulse-pairs [30, 31]. In the entorhinal cortex, however, repeated paired-pulse stimulation using a 10-millisecond interval that evokes maximal paired-pulse inhibition does not induce LTD, and LTD is induced when a 30-millisecond interval is used that evokes maximal paired-pulse facilitation [17]. The LTD can also be enhanced when GABAA transmission is reduced with bicuculline [18]. This further suggests that LTD in the entorhinal cortex does not require activation of local inhibitory mechanisms but rather requires prolonged stimulation patterns that are strong enough to overcome local inhibition and lead to NMDA receptor activation. Strong local inhibition in the entorhinal cortex [8, 35] may thus place a restraint on activity-dependent synaptic modification. Consistent with this idea is the finding that the same pairing stimulation protocol that induces LTP in hippocampus leads to LTD in entorhinal cortex [28]. Signalling mechanisms that mediate LTD in the superficial layers of the entorhinal cortex share some similarities with NMDA receptor-dependent LTD in the hippocampus. Long-term depression of superficial layer inputs to layer II is dependent on NMDA receptor activation both in vivo and in vitro [17, 18, 28, 33] but does not require activation of group I/II metabotropic glutamate receptors ([18, 28], see [36, 37]). In the hippocampus, moderate and prolonged influx of calcium via NMDA receptors activates calmodulin which leads to LTD via activation of the protein phosphatase calcineurin (PP2b). Calcineurin increases the activity of protein phosphatase 1 by reducing the activity of inhibitor 1, and this can cause rapid reductions in AMPA-mediated responses [2, 38, 39]. Hippocampal LTD is expressed partly through the reduced conductance of AMPA receptors caused by dephosphorylation of the GluR1 subunit by PP1 [2, 4], but careful study has shown that calcineurin-dependent LTD in deep layer inputs to layer II neurons in the young entorhinal cortex is not associated with a reduced AMPA conductance, but rather involves internalization of AMPA receptors and their proteosome-mediated degradation [28]. In the present study, the early postsynaptic signalling mechanisms that mediate LTD in layer I inputs to layer II neurons of the medial entorhinal cortex have been investigated using recordings of whole cell excitatory postsynaptic potentials. Long-term depression was induced using a prolonged paired-pulse stimulation pattern that was previously found to be effective for induction of NMDA-receptor-dependent LTD [18]. Pharmacological agents applied to the bathing medium or intracellular solution were used to assess the dependence of LTD on calcium-dependent signalling mechanisms including the phosphatases calcineurin and PP1/PP2a. 2. Experimental Procedures 2.1. Slices and Whole Cell Recordings Experiments were performed on slices from male Long-Evans rats (4 to 8 weeks old). Animals were anesthetized with halothane and brains were rapidly removed and cooled (4°C) in oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF). ACSF consisted of (in mM) 124 NaCl, 5 KCl, 1.25 NaH2PO4, 2 MgSO4, 2 CaCl2, 26 NaHCO3, and 10 dextrose and was saturated with 95% O2–5% CO2. All chemicals were obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, Mo, USA) unless otherwise indicated. Horizontal slices (300𝜇m) were cut with a vibratome (WPI, Vibroslice NVSL, Sarasota, Fla, USA) and were allowed to recover for at least one hour before recordings. Slices were maintained in a recording chamber with oxygenated ACSF at a rate of 2.0 mL/min, and a temperature from 22 to 24°C was used to minimize metabolic demands on slices [18, 28]. Neurons were viewed with an upright microscope (Leica DML-FS, Wetzlar, Germany) equipped with a 40x objective, differential interference contrast optics, and an infrared video camera (Cohu, 4990 series, San Diego, Calif, USA). 2.2. LTD Induction and Pharmacology Whole-cell current clamp recordings of EPSPs were monitored 10 minutes before and 30 minutes after LTD induction by delivering test-pulses every 20 seconds. Intensity was adjusted to evoke EPSPs that were approximately 3 to 4 mV in amplitude, and cells were held 5 mV below threshold when necessary to prevent the occurrence of spikes in response to EPSPs. Stimulus parameters for LTD induction were based on those used previously in vivo and in vitro [17, 18]. The induction of LTD was tested using pairs of stimulation pulses (30-millisecond interpulse interval) delivered at a frequency of 1 Hz for either 7.5 or 15 minutes [18]. Control cells received test-pulses throughout the recording period and did not receive conditioning stimulation. Signalling mechanisms mediating the induction of LTD were tested using stock solutions of pharmacological agents that were stored frozen and diluted on the day of use. NMDA glutamate receptors were blocked by constant bath application of 50𝜇M DL-2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate (APV). The calcium chelator 1,2-bis(2-aminophenoxy)-ethane-N,N,N′N′-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA, 10 mM) was included in the recording electrode solution to block increases in intracellular calcium. To block activation of the calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase calcineurin (PP2b) slices were pre-exposed to 250𝜇M cyclosporin A (Toronto Research Chemicals Inc., North York, Ontario, Canada) for 1.5 to 3 hours [39]. In other experiments, FK506 (50𝜇M) was included in the recording electrode solution to block calcineurin [39, 40]. In other experiments, okadaic acid (0.1 or 1.0𝜇M) was included in the recording solution to block activation of protein phosphatases 1 and 2a [40, 41]. Control recordings without paired-pulse stimulation were used to verify the stability of recordings in cells filled with FK506 and 1.0𝜇M okadaic acid. 2.3. Data Analysis Synaptic responses and electrophysiological properties of layer II neurons were analyzed using the program Clampfit 8.2 (Axon Instr.). Data were standardized to the mean of baseline responses for plotting and were expressed as the mean ±SEM. Changes in EPSP amplitude were assessed using mixed-design ANOVAs and Neuman-Keuls tests that compared the average responses during the baseline period, 5 minutes after conditioning stimulation, and during the last 5 minutes of the recording period. Layer II neurons were classified as putative stellate or nonstellate neurons based on electrophysiological characteristics described by Alonso and Klink [42]. Stellate neurons were characterized by the presence of low-frequency subthreshold membrane potential oscillations, a depolarizing afterpotential following spikes, and prominent inward rectification in response to hyperpolarizing current pulses. Both pyramidal and stellate neurons in layer II can show inward rectifying sag responses [43]. Here, neurons recorded were clearly in layer II, usually near the border with layer I, and a proportion of these neurons did not show clear sag and were classified as pyramidal neurons. Input resistance was determined from the peak voltage response to −100 pA current pulses (500-millisecond duration), and rectification ratio was quantified by expressing peak input resistance as a proportion of the steady-state resistance at the end of the current pulse. 3. Results Stable recordings were obtained from 57 putative stellate neurons and 21 putative nonstellate cells. Peak input resistance was similar in stellate and pyramidal neurons (stellate, 95 ± 6 MΩ; pyramidal, 96 ± 10 MΩ) but there was a much larger sag in voltage responses to hyperpolarizing current injection in stellate cells (rectification ratio 1.37±0.04 in stellate cells versus 1.06±0.01 in pyramidal cells). The amplitude of baseline synaptic responses evoked by layer I stimulation was similar in stellate (3.9±0.2 mV) and pyramidal cells (3.7±0.4 mV), and the amount of depression induced was also similar for recording conditions in which significant LTD was obtained (71.2±5.6% in 14 stellate and 76.8±7.6% in 6 pyramidal cells). 3.1. LTD Induction To determine if a relatively brief LTD induction protocol could be used to induce LTD in whole-cell recordings, the first tests attempted to induce LTD using paired-pulse delivery at 1 Hz for 7.5 minutes (𝑛=10) which can induce moderate LTD of field potentials in a gas-fluid interface recording chamber [18]. Paired-pulse stimulation for 7.5 minutes did not induce depression of EPSPs relative to control cells (93.0±10.0% of baseline after 30 minutes; F2,28=0.09,𝑃=.92). We previously observed stronger LTD of field potentials in the interface recording chamber after 15 minutes versus 7.5 minutes of paired-pulse stimulation [18], and prolonged paired-pulse stimulation for 15 minutes also reliably induced LTD of whole-cell EPSPs (𝑛=7, Figure 1). EPSP amplitude was reduced to 56.3±9.5% of baseline levels 5 minutes after the conditioning stimulation, and remained at 58.6±6.1% of baseline levels at the end of the 30 minutes follow-up period (F2,22=14.2,𝑃<.001). Responses in control cells were stable (𝑛=6), and remained at 99.6±2.6% of baseline levels at the end of the recording period (Figures 1(b2), 1(c)). Figure 1: Prolonged, low-frequency stimulation induces long-term depression of EPSPs in neurons in layer II of the entorhinal cortex. (a) The location of stimulating and recording electrodes in acute slices containing the entorhinal cortex. (b) and (c) Long-term depression was induced by repetitive delivery of pairs of stimulation pulses at a rate of 1 Hz for 15 minutes (PP-LFS). The amplitude of synaptic responses remained stable in control cells that did not receive conditioning stimulation. Traces in (b) compare responses recorded during the baseline period (1) and during the follow-up period (2) in a neuron that received low-frequency stimulation (b1) and in a control cell (b2). Responses were obtained at the times indicated in (c). Averaged points in (b) indicate the mean ±1 SEM in this and subsequent figures. (d) Long-term depression was not reliably induced when low-frequency stimulation was delivered for only 7.5 minutes rather than 15 minutes, indicating that induction of LTD requires prolonged stimulation. 3.2. NMDA Receptors and Postsynaptic Calcium The NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 blocks induction of LTD in the entorhinal cortex in vivo [17] and the NMDA receptor blocker APV has been shown to prevent LTD of field potentials and EPSPs in entorhinal cortex slices [18, 28, 33]. We therefore tested for the NMDA receptor-dependence of LTD of EPSPs in the current preparation using constant bath application of APV (50𝜇M). Induction of LTD by 15 minutes of paired-pulse stimulation was blocked by APV (𝑛=6, Figure 2(a)). There was a tendency for responses to be potentiated immediately following conditioning stimulation, but this variable effect was not statistically significant, and responses were close to baseline levels at the end of the recording period (96.7±13.2% of baseline; F2,10=2.99,𝑃=.09). Figure 2: The induction of long-term depression is dependent on activation of NMDA glutamate receptors and on increases in postsynaptic calcium. (a) Constant bath application of the NMDA receptor antagonist APV (50𝜇M) blocked the induction of long-term depression by 15 minutes of paired-pulse low-frequency stimulation (PP LFS). (b) Blocking increases in postsynaptic calcium by including the calcium chelator BAPTA (10 mM) in the recording electrode solution also blocked the induction of LTD. The transient facilitation of EPSPs immediately following stimulation was significant for the BAPTA condition but not the APV condition, and responses were at baseline levels at the end of the recording periods. The block of lasting depression suggests that calcium influx via NMDA receptors is required for induction of LTD. The role of postsynaptic calcium in LTD induction was tested by recording from cells in which the calcium chelator BAPTA (10 mM) was included in the recording electrode solution (10 mM, 𝑛=6, Figure 2(b)). Cells filled with BAPTA had longer-duration action potentials than control cells (6.1±0.7 versus 3.3±0.1 milliseconds measured at the base; 𝑡1,9=3,57,𝑃<.01) consistent with a reduction in calcium-dependent potassium conductances. The induction of LTD was blocked in cells loaded with BAPTA. There was a significant increase in the amplitude of EPSPs immediately following paired-pulse stimulation (to 122.3±6.0% of baseline; F2,10=5.46,𝑃<.05; N–K, 𝑃<.05), but responses returned to baseline levels within 10 minutes and were at 94.8±7.1% of baseline levels after 30 minutes (N–K, 𝑃=0.50, Figure 2(b)). An increase in postsynaptic calcium is therefore required for induction of LTD in layer II neurons of the entorhinal cortex. 3.3. Protein Phosphatases The role of the calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase calcineurin (PP2b) in LTD in layer II neurons was tested using either pre-exposure to 250𝜇M cyclosporin A in the bathing medium [39], or by including 50𝜇M FK506 postsynaptically in the recording electrode solution. In cells pre-exposed to cyclosporin A, paired-pulse stimulation was followed by a depression in EPSP amplitude that reached 82.4±7.5% of baseline levels after 30 minutes (Figure 3(a)). Although the depression in the cyclosporin group was not statistically significant (F2,10=3.51,𝑃=0.07,𝑛=6), the depression obtained was also not significantly less than that observed in control ACSF (F1,11=3.79,𝑃=.08). The result was therefore ambiguous with respect to the role of calcineurin in LTD. To test the involvement of calcineurin more definitively and to avoid potential presynaptic effects, the calcineurin blocker FK506 was included in the recording electrode solution for additional groups of cells [40]. Responses in cells filled with FK506 showed a significant potentiation immediately following paired-pulse stimulation (𝑛=8), but there was no lasting change in response amplitudes in comparison to control cells filled with FK506 that did not receive conditioning stimulation (𝑛=7). Responses were increased to 134.9±10.5% of baseline levels immediately following paired-pulse stimulation, (F2,26=7.71,𝑃<.01; N–K, 𝑃<.001;𝑛=8) but returned to 102.2±6.1% of baseline levels after 30 minutes (Figure 3(b)). Figure 3: Long-term depression is dependent on activation of the calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase calcineurin. Although LTD was only partially inhibited by pre-exposure to cyclosporin A, it was completely blocked when FK506 was included in the recording electrode solution. (a) Pre-exposure of slices to the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporin A (250𝜇M) for 1.5 to 3 hours resulted in a partial block of LTD by repeated paired-pulse stimulation. The amount of LTD induced was smaller than in control ACSF and was close to statistical significance (𝑛=6,𝑃=.07). (b) Including the FK506 in the recording electrode solution to directly block postsynaptic calcineurin prevented the induction of LTD. Analysis of group responses showed a significant increase in responses during the baseline period, but responses in control cells indicate that this increase is transient and unlikely to have affected measurement of LTD. Inhibition of postsynaptic calcineurin therefore prevents induction of LTD in layer II cells of the entorhinal cortex. Inspection of averaged responses suggested that there was an initial increase in responses during the baseline period among cells filled with FK506, and comparison of responses recorded during the first and last minutes of the baseline period showed that the increase was significant (𝑡14=3.09,𝑃<.01). Interestingly, then, interfering with calcineurin function can lead to enhanced basal synaptic transmission in entorhinal neurons. This increase is not likely to have affected measures of LTD in conditioned cells, however, because control responses showed only a transient increase after which responses remained stable. Protein phosphatase 1 is thought to contribute directly to suppression of hippocampal EPSPs during LTD by dephosphorylation of the GluR1 AMPA receptor subunit. The involvement of PP1 to LTD in the entorhinal cortex was therefore tested by including okadaic acid in the recording electrode solution. In early experiments, a low concentration of 0.1𝜇M okadaic acid [41] did not block LTD induction, and responses were depressed to 72.7±8.7% of baseline levels at the end of the recording period (F2,24=4.65,𝑃<.05; N–K, 𝑃<.001;𝑛=8). However, increasing the concentration of okadaic acid to 1.0𝜇M [40] blocked the induction of LTD. There was a variable and nonsignificant reduction in responses immediately following conditioning stimulation (to 89.0±14.9% of baseline) and responses were also near baseline levels after 30 minutes (96.0±6.6% of baseline 30; F2,22=0.18,𝑃=.84;𝑛=7; Figure 4). Activation of PP1 is therefore likely to contribute to mechanisms of LTD in the entorhinal cortex. Figure 4: The induction of LTD was blocked in a dose-dependent manner by including okadaic acid in the recording electrode solution to block activation of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1). (a) and (b) A low concentration of 0.1𝜇M okadaic acid failed to block LTD induction, but raising the concentration to 1.0𝜇M resulted in a block of LTD induction (compare traces in A1 versus A2). Responses in control cells filled with 1.0𝜇M okadaic acid that did not receive conditioning stimulation remained stable. The block of LTD by okadaic acid suggests that activation of PP1 mediates LTD in the entorhinal cortex. 4. Discussion The current paper has used prolonged repetitive paired-pulse stimulation to induce LTD in layer I inputs to layer II neurons of the medial entorhinal cortex and has determined the early postsynaptic signals that mediate LTD in these cells. Consistent with previous observations, the LTD observed here was obtained in both putatively identified stellate [28] and pyramidal [44] cells. The induction of LTD was blocked by the NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist APV, and by the calcium chelator BAPTA, indicating that calcium influx via NMDA receptors is required for LTD. The induction of LTD was also blocked by the calcineurin inhibitor FK506, and by okadaic acid which blocks activation of protein phosphatases 1 and 2a. Calcineurin is required for LTD of deep layer inputs to layer II stellate cells [28], and calcineurin-dependent activation of PP1 contributes to NMDA receptor-dependent LTD of AMPA responses in the hippocampus [2, 4]. The dependence of LTD in the entorhinal cortex on activation of NMDA receptors has been a consistent finding in vivo and in slices. It has been observed following stimulation protocols including 1 Hz trains, pairing of presynaptic stimulation at 0.33 Hz with postsynaptic depolarization [28], repeated paired-pulse stimulation [18, 33], and spike-timing-dependent induction of LTD [44]. Long-term depression was blocked by including the calcium chelator BAPTA in the recording electrode solution (Figure 2) [28], and this is consistent with calcium influx via NMDA receptors as a critical trigger for entorhinal LTD. Metabotropic glutamate receptor activation and release of calcium from intracellular stores can contribute to LTD in the hippocampus [2, 36, 37, 45], but activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors is not required for entorhinal LTD [18, 28]. Calcium influx through voltage-gated calcium channels can contribute to spike-timing-dependent LTD in the entorhinal cortex, however. Cells with broadened action potentials that result in larger calcium transients show greater NMDA receptor-dependent spike-timing-dependent LTD in layer II-III cells [44]. Calcium influx through voltage-gated channels also mediates bidirectional spike-timing-dependent plasticity of inhibitory synapses in entorhinal cortex [46]. A form of long-term depression on layer V-VI neurons, expressed presynaptically through reduced transmitter release, is also dependent on activation of voltage-dependent calcium channels [33]. Calcium signalling mediated by voltage-gated channels therefore plays a number of roles in modulating synaptic plasticity in the entorhinal cortex. The contribution of the calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase calcineurin to LTD was tested by incubating slices in cyclosporin A or by including FK506 in the recording electrode solution. Cyclosporin A appeared to cause a partial block of LTD, and responses were reduced to 82.4% of baseline as compared to 58.6% in untreated cells (compare Figures 1(c) and 3(a)), but the sizes of these LTD effects were not statistically different. We obtained a more conclusive result with FK506, however, and LTD was completely blocked by including FK506 in the recording electrode solution. Including FK506 in the bathing medium has been used to block calcineurin-dependent depression effects in entorhinal cortex [28], and in excitatory [47] and inhibitory [48] synapses of the CA1 region. Here, we have loaded FK506 into the recording electrode solution to avoid possible presynaptic effects of the drug and to ensure that FK506 could act on calcineurin [39, 40, 49, 50]. The block of LTD by FK506 indicates that LTD is dependent on calcineurin, and this suggests that cyclosporin A resulted in only a partial block of calcineurin activity. Calcineurin is thought to mediate expression of LTD in part by dephosphorylating inhibitor 1 and thereby increasing the activity of PP1 [2, 4, 39]. The PP1/PP2a inhibitor okadaic acid blocks LTD in the CA1 region [38, 40], and we have shown here that the induction of LTD in the entorhinal cortex was blocked by including okadaic acid in the recording electrode solution. This is the first report of LTD in the entorhinal cortex dependent on PP1/PP2a. Protein phosphatases can regulate synaptic function through a variety of mechanisms [51] that include dephosphorylation of the ser-845 residue on the AMPA GluR1 subunit, and LTD in the entorhinal cortex may be expressed partly through this mechanism. In addition, the work of Deng and Lei [28] has found entorhinal LTD to be associated with a reduction in the number of postsynaptic AMPA receptors, with no change in AMPA receptor conductance, and has shown that this effect is dependent on proteosomes that degrade AMPA receptors internalized through ubiquitinization. As in the hippocampus, therefore, entorhinal LTD can be expressed through mechanisms involving trafficking of AMPA receptors [52]. Long-term depression was induced here using strong repetitive paired-pulse stimulation which we have used previously to induce LTD in the entorhinal cortex in vivo and in slices ([17, 18], see also [33, 34]). LTD was induced following 15 minutes, but not 7.5 minutes of paired-pulse stimulation; this is consistent with a requirement for prolonged activation of calcium-dependent signalling mechanisms, and is also consistent with the possibility that NMDA receptor-dependent metaplastic changes early in the train may promote LTD induced by stimuli that occurred later in the 15-minute duration trains [53]. We previously found 1 Hz stimulation to be ineffective in vivo and in slices from Long-Evans rats [17, 18], but deep layer inputs to stellate neurons in slices from 2 to 3 week-old Sprague-Dawley rats express NMDA receptor-dependent LTD following 15 minutes of 1 Hz stimulation, or following low-frequency stimulation paired with postsynaptic depolarization [28]. Thus, there may be developmental, strain-related, or pathway-specific factors that affect the ability of 1 Hz stimulation to activate these signalling mechanisms. The entorhinal cortex is embedded within the temporal lobe through an extensive array of anatomical connections [7] and has been linked behaviorally to a variety of sensory and cognitive functions (e.g., [9, 10]). Lasting synaptic plasticity in the entorhinal cortex is therefore likely to serve a variety of functions depending on the synaptic pathways involved. Synaptic depression effects are generally thought to complement synaptic potentiation during the formation of memory [45, 54–56], and it is possible that depression effects contribute to short and/or long-term memory processing. However, the laminar architecture of the entorhinal cortex, with superficial layers mediating much of the cortical input to the hippocampal formation, suggests that long-term depression of synaptic transmission in layer II may lead to long-term reductions in the salience of particular elements or patterns of cortical input and may thus lead to lasting changes in the multimodal inputs processed by the hippocampal formation. Similarly, the general resistance of the entorhinal cortex to induction of LTD could serve to maintain relatively stable information processing and integration of multimodal sensory inputs within the medial entorhinal cortex. Acknowledgments This research was funded by grants to C. A. Chapman from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and by a postdoctoral fellowship to S.K. from Fondation Fyssen (France). C.A. Chapman is a member of the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology funded by the Fonds pour la Recherche en Santé du Québec. A. Alonso, M. de Curtis, and R. Llinás, “Postsynaptic Hebbian and non-Hebbian long-term potentiation of synaptic efficacy in the entorhinal cortex in slices and in the isolated adult guinea pig brain,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 87, no. 23, pp. 9280–9284, 1990.View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar S. M. Dudek and M. F. Bear, “Homosynaptic long-term depression in area CA1 of hippocampus and effects of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 89, no. 10, pp. 4363–4367, 1992.View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar M. F. Bear, “A synaptic basis for memory storage in the cerebral cortex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 93, no. 24, pp. 13453–13459, 1996.View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar

Divesting Of Kruger’s Cash (Updated) Freshman Sen. David Carlucci, one of 17 Senate Democrats who received campaign contributions from Sen. Carl Kruger during the 2010 election cycle, is getting rid of that money after learning of the federal corruption charges lodged against his colleague earlier today. “It is unfortunate that these types of allegations have clouded the legislature, tainting the hard working men and women who work diligently and honorably to serve their constituents,” Carlucci said in a statement. “I ran on a platform of ethics reform and these unsavory allegations are just another example of why ethics reform in Albany needs to be addressed immediately. The people of New York deserve better. In light of these allegations, I will be donating the $5,000 given to me during my campaign from Senator Kruger to a charitable organization in my district.” All told, Kruger, a prodigious fundraiser who had close to $1.9 million in his campaign committee, “Friends of Carl,” as of Jan. 15, doled out $49,000 to fellow senators this cycle, according to campaign finance records on file at the state Board of Elections. He also gave $450,000 to the DSCC. Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who received $2,500 from Kruger, was the first lawmaker to announce he would divest himself of the scandal-scarred Brooklyn lawmaker’s contributions. Now, apparently, all four of the Independent Democratic Conference members – Carlucci, Diane Savino, Jeff Klein, and Dave Valesky – are following suit. UPDATE: DSCC spokesman Josh Cherwin says: “We will not be returning these funds, which were contributed during a previous election cycle and already spent.” “This is yet another sad day for New York residents who rightfully expect integrity and accountability from their elected officials.” “During the last election cycle, Senator Kruger’s campaign committee contributed a combined total of $8,000 to Independent Democratic Conference members. We decided to donate that amount to charitable organizations in our communities. We believe this to be the best use for this money.”

Holiday Punch — Plus a Cozy Fire Charles Dickens gave us so much. Including this. In A Christmas Carol,when Ebenezer Scrooge is presented with the Ghost of Christmas Present, he finds the "jolly Giant" sitting in state on an enormous heap of roast meats and other traditional English Christmas delicacies and flanked by "seething bowls of punch that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam." Charles Dickens knew all about delicious steam. He was a committed English traditionalist in his drinking. He didn't drink the international celebrity's customary champagne, champagne, and more champagne or the trendy drinks of his day — gin cocktails, claret cups, brandy smashes, or the like. Rather, his greatest affinity was for a drink that was fading faster and faster into the past by the time he came into fame. From 1700 to 1830, give or take a couple years on each end, the preeminent English social drink was the bowl of punch, a large-bore mixture of spirits (usually rum and cognac), citrus juice, sugar, water, and spice that was guaranteed to unite any gathering in jollity and boozy good cheer. But with the industrialization, commercialization, and urbanization of day-to-day life that the Victorian years brought, the convivial ritual of clustering around the flowing bowl became as quaint and outmoded as the tricorn hat. Dickens, however, not only bucked the trend but made a whole performance out of bucking it. When he was among friends, it was his custom to brew up a bowl of punch, complete with a running disquisition on the techniques he was using and the ingredients he was deploying, thus adding instruction to delight (as one of his characters might say). Fortunately, in 1847, he wrote the whole procedure out for a friend's wife. It's not hard to follow, and there's no better way to get a holiday party started than by getting everybody involved in draining a bowl of punch. All it takes is a little preparation in advance, a willingness to hold forth a bit in front of your guests, and a high enough ceiling that you won't burn your house down. Dickens was never afraid to employ cheap sensationalism if it would help him get over, and there's nothing more sensational for selling a drink than setting it on fire. Here's our interpretation. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Charles Dickens's Punch Ritual For 12 to 16 people Step 1: Three hours before your party, peel 3 lemons with a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler, trying to end up with three long spirals of peel. Put them in a 3- or 4-quart fireproof bowl with 3/4 cup demerara sugar or other raw sugar. Muddle the peels and the sugar together and let sit. Talking Points: One of the secrets of punch making is to use the fragrant, sweet oil that resides in lemon peels as the sugar extract. The resulting sugar-oil mix ("oleo-saccharum") adds body to the punch. Talking Points: The cognac is for body and smoothness, the strong rum for bouquet and (frankly) flammability, and the other rum for taming the strong one. Step 3: Set 1 quart water to boil and put the bowl containing the lemon peels and sugar on a wooden cutting board or other heat-resistant surface in a spot where everyone can gather around. When the water boils, turn it off, gather your guests around the bowl, and pour in the cognac and rum, noting what you're adding and why. Step 4: With a long-handled barspoon, remove a spoonful of the rum-cognac mixture and set it on fire. Return it to the bowl, using it to ignite the rest. Stir with a ladle or long-handled spoon, attempting to dissolve the sugar. Let burn for 2 or 3 minutes, occasionally lifting one of the lemon peels up so people can admire the flames running down it. Talking Points: You're setting the punch alight not because it looks cool but to burn off some of the more volatile elements of the alcohol. That's the story, anyway. Step 5: Extinguish the flames by covering the bowl with a tray, and add the reserved lemon juice and the boiling water. (For cold punch, add 3 cups cold water, stir, and slide in a 1-quart block of ice, easily made by freezing a quart bowl of water for 24 hours.) Step 6: Grate fresh nutmeg over the top and ladle out in 3-oz servings. A Part of Hearst Digital Media Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.

Go back to /usr/src/vdr-1.2.5 and run runvdr.remote. If you use Red Hat, set the environment variable LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1, because VDR doesn't yet work with the native posix layer that Red Hat introduced in the latest version. The modules for the DVB card then are loaded, and the VDR is started. Hook up your TV, and you should see a black screen prompting you to define the keys on your remote. After finishing the wizard, you're ready to watch TV, record shows and remove commercials. You can listen to your MP3s and watch videos. There's a manual in VDR's root that explains how to record and edit TV events, using the time-shift feature. Back It Up In case you're disappointed that the end of the article is within reach, don't worry; there still are some optional things you can do. The automatic backup feature has some limitations. Although the (S)VCD backup works flawlessly, the DivX encoding does not crop the picture to remove black bands, should they exist. This has quite a negative impact on bit rate, size and overall picture quality. If you really want a high-quality, small-size MPEG-4, you should back it up manually. The improved picture quality is well worth the trouble. Figure 3. The information bar shows the program name, running TV show and what's on next. VDR splits its recordings into 2GB files, which is a bit inconvenient for transcoding the videos. If you go for manual conversion, which gives you finer control over the quality/size aspect, mencoder or transcode are good options. Use the speedy mencoder, which I found to be perfect for backups to MPEG-4, or transcode, which comes with a lot of tools. If you favor the I-don't-want-to-care approach, get a hold of VDRCONVERT. The README file offers a pretty simple approach to installing it, and at least you can watch some TV while downloading and compiling. With VDRCONVERT you have to change some scripts and configuration files to adapt the DVD/(S)VCD resolutions to NTSC, in case PAL is not used where you live. It's too bad that a Linux PVR doesn't make the TV programs themselves any better, but I guess you can't have everything, can you? Christian A. Herzog is a programmer focused on Web development using open-source technologies. He's still on his never-ending quest to bring a Linux-based device to every home and company he comes across. Write him at [email protected]. Comment viewing options I was wonder if you could also include a connection diagram . I was looking at the nexus-s card and didn't see a TV out, just a loop connection is this the connection used for the TV. Or are using additional card to get the TV output?

MacEwan International MacEwan International promotes an internationally informed and cross-culturally sensitive learning environment. Our vision is to be a leader in internationalization, preparing all students, as well as faculty and staff, to succeed in and contribute to a global society and economy as members of an interconnected world community.

Robinsons ready to roll Twins Tyrell and Tyree Robinson making their marks in football, basketball A quick look at twin brothers Tyree and Tyrell Robinson (San Diego/Lincoln) reveals one big misconception: They're not identical. Tyree, older by two minutes, is taller by a full inch and likes to distinguish himself by wearing headbands. Tyrell is bulkier and less flashy with his wardrobe choices. And when the dual-sport athletes take the football field, their differences continue to stack up.

Friends of the Crow Collection: Adults/ Children ($10/ $3) || General Public: Adults/ Children ($18/ $5) Otsukimi Celebration, 2012 The Japan America Society celebrates the full autumn moon each year with an outdoor picnic, Japanese music, and haiku poetry. Although not commonly observed in modern-day Japan, the moon viewing tradition dates back to the Heian Period (794–A.D. 1185), when the evening was marked with poetry and music by court aristocrats. The celebration later spread to warriors, townspeople, and farmers, and became a harvest festival. Bring a picnic supper, beverage, and something to sit on as no food or drink will be sold at the event or pre-order an Obento from Mr. Sushi for $18 when purchasing your celebration tickets. Alcohol is not allowed at Winfrey Point, a City of Dallas park facility. For more information, visit jasdfw.org.

Promethium: uses The following uses for promethium are gathered from a number of sources as well as from anecdotal comments. I'd be delighted to receive corrections as well as additional referenced uses (please use the feedback mechanism to add uses). shows promise as a portable X-ray unit possibly useful as a heat source to provide auxilliary power for space probes and satellites

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By using this website you consent to our use of these cookies to find out more about how we use cookies and how to manage them, please see our Privacy Policy and our Terms & Conditions. Accept The Huffington Post: Top Design Destinations for 2017 2017-02-23 By Janette Ewen Ever since Frank Gehry’s spectacular Guggenheim Bilbao put its sleepy namesake city on the radar of architecture buffs two decades ago, design has became an integral aspect of travel and tourism, joining food, culture and climate when it comes to visitor draws. This year, the list of destinations sure to entice design fans includes spots from the West Indies to North Africa. They offer a wide range of aesthetic attractions, from cutting-edge urban design to exquisite historical gems. OLD HAVANA, NEW URGENCY Whether the recent detente between the United States and Cuba will result in an onslaught of American visitors to the island or not, Canadians aren’t waiting to find out: According to KAYAK, a world-leading travel search engine, Havana is one of the year’s top 10 trending destinations among travellers from the Great White North, whose online inquiries about the city skyrocketed by 230 percent compared to last year. In anticipation of more visitors, hotels in Havana are being modernized and restaurants given new polish, but it’s the bustling metropolis’ status as a living design museum that no doubt appeals to most foreigners. For architecture fans, hotels like the Nacional offer glimpses into long-gone eras, while automobile buffs would be hard-pressed to find a greater parade of vintage cars. Speaking of moveable feasts, bars like La Floridita, where Ernest Hemingway indulged his fondness for daiquiris, are modern-day links to literary and artistic legends. Clearly, the time to visit Havana is now, whatever your aesthetic bent. CARIBBEAN COOL Over the past several years, restaurant-rich Grand Cayman, the largest of the Cayman Islands, has been nurturing a reputation as the culinary capital of the Caribbean. Now, its growing foodie cred is being matched by its design cachet. In November, the ultra-sleek Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa, designed by U.S. firm SB Architects, opened on Seven Mile Beach, bringing a welcome shot of global chic (plus four more dining options) to that pristine stretch of coastline. Not far away, Camana Bay, an ambitious mixed-use development, has been heralded as a rare example of new urbanism in the region, its 500 acres encompassing high-end shops, office and residential space, interactive fountains and a pedestrianized main street called the Paseo. Situated between the Kimpton and Camana Bay is the Caribbean Club, a luxury apartment hotel and ideal base for exploring the area; it also houses one of Grand Cayman’s foremost eateries, the trattoria Luca. ROAD TO MOROCCO Another top trender among Canadian travellers according to KAYAK is Casablanca, the romantic Moroccan city that has long offered a beguiling mix of French and Arabic cultures. Nowhere is this hybrid allure more visible than in its architecture, which ranges from the art deco elegance of Place Mohammed V to contemporary showstoppers like the Four Seasons Casablanca on the oceanfront Corniche. At bustling Marche Centrale, the Moorish-style setting is as enticing as the fried fish and grilled vegetables, while L’Atelier 21, the city’s leading modern art gallery, showcases emerging and established artists in an au courant space. New air links to Casablanca from Canada this year make visiting even easier. LONDON CALLING The British capital has always been a magnet for design aficionados, but 2017 offers an extra-special reason to visit: the recently transplanted Design Museum, which has been moved from its previous home on the south bank of the Thames to much larger digs in Kensington. Ten years in the making, the $140-million wood-and-concrete marvel, reimagined by minimalist architect John Pawson on the site of the former Commonwealth Institute, is the Brit superstar’s first public building in London. Visitors must pay to see special exhibitions, but the museum’s extensive permanent collection, which includes everything from a 2012 Olympic torch to a full-size Tube car, is free to view. Another area museum completing a major update this year is the venerable Victoria and Albert, which will unveil a new underground gallery and a new entrance on Exhibition Road in July. Even the city’s best watering holes are offering new eye candy: Check out the restored blue walls in The Berkeley’s expanded Blue Bar.

Those words (choice profanity included) woke me with a start the other night. What was I thinking, organizing this trip to Vietnam to connect sons and daughters who lost fathers on both sides of the Vietnam War? I have a lot of fears about this journey. There’s the mundane ones about getting sick, or bitten by something slimy. Maybe I'll become separated from the group because something in a shop caught my eye (this, given my nature, is the most likely scenario). But the deeper fears are right under the surface. What’s going to happen when we come face to face with the Vietnamese sons and daughters? Will they be angry? Worse, will I? It was easy to push past these bigger fears earlier this year when I first formed the 2 Sides Project. Now the trip is getting closer—we leave four weeks from today—and they’re keeping me up at night. I’m going to have to remember what I know in the daylight: there have been moments in my life when I’ve found people who shared my experience, who spoke the same language as me, who felt the same way I did about things. These moments are profound. They make me feel connected, anchored in the world. They are often turning points that lead me to a better place. That was the case when I met other sons and daughters in the U.S. who lost fathers in the war. So, I’ll keep my focus on them. And on the amazing experience we have in store. Six of us will be meeting Vietnamese sons and daughters and visiting the sites where our fathers died. I’ll profile them all -- Mike, Ron, Margaret, Susan and Patty -- here in the coming weeks as we get ready. Come with us virtually. It’s going to be quite a journey, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you.

Got this cute little sewing chair from Sara and Stacy at SugarSCOUT–they have “super sweet finds of all kinds”…just check out their Etsy Shop. (lots of great ideas on their blog @ www.sugarSCOUT.com, too!) I do love spending time in my studio that has become a haven for creating my upcycled bags. I’m adding new bags as quick as I get them done to my Etsy shop. Take a look…it’s called itzaChicThing. I love to layer color, pattern and texture. I created this bag using a fusing process. After making many bags, all shapes and sizes (you can see some of them at bohochicbag.com), I decided to use the same concept to create pieces for hanging.

[Justin Timberlake & Chris Stapleton:] Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing But I can't help myself, no I can't help myself, no, no Caught up in the middle of it No I can't help myself, no I can't help myself, no, no, no Caught up in the rhythm of it [Justin Timberlake & Chris Stapleton:] Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing

The case of the vanished sword By washingtonpost.com editors By John Lockwood Washington One of our memorials is missing a sword. The General Sherman memorial just south of the Treasury Building shows General William Tecumseh Sherman on horseback atop a 32-foot pedestal guarded at each ground-level corner by a soldier. The memorial was designed by a Danish sculptor named Carl Rohl-Smith. It was dedicated on Oct. 15, 1903. The northwest soldier is an infantryman, holding his rifle by the barrel, with the butt resting on the ground. The southwest soldier is an engineer, holding his rifle in the same position. He also carries a cylinder or tube, about 3 feet long. Perhaps it contains surveying instruments. The southeast soldier is a cavalryman, with sword pointed upward across his left shoulder. At the northeast is an artilleryman — whose hands close upon empty air. When I saw the northeast soldier, the question arose: Is he missing a rifle or a sword? Well, what would one of my heroes, Sherlock Holmes, do? Look for a cartridge box, or a scabbard. There was a scabbard there, an empty one. So it was indeed a missing sword — a fact later verified in The Post’s Oct. 16, 1903, edition, which included a drawing showing the soldier with a sword, its point touching the ground. The lost sword is probably rusting in somebody’s attic or slowly corroding in a landfill. I doubt even Holmes could find it now.

Deposits in your Bank of Internet savings account are fully FDIC insured, so your money is absolutely safe when you invest your funds in a Bank of Internet account. The Bank of Internet online savings account has no maintenance fees, so it’s a great opportunity to earn a high interest rate with a free online bank account. There are no monthly maintenance fees for this Bank of Internet account, plus there are no minimum balance requirements and no direct deposit requirements to avoid fees or to earn the great interest rate. There is a $100 minimum opening deposit requirement, but once you open your account, you are not required to maintain a minimum balance thereafter to avoid fees or to earn the high APY. The Bank of Internet High Yield Savings Account provides free online statements, and an ATM card is also available if needed. You can also open this online savings account in conjunction with a free High Interest Checking Account from Bank of Internet for easy transfers between Bank of Internet accounts. Check out our Bank of Internet Review for more details on Bank of Internet online banking services including money market accounts and CDs as well as home equity loans and home mortgage refinancing. Then compare the Bank of Internet savings account with other High APY Online Bank Rates before opening this fee-free online bank account. Open a High Yield Savings Account from Bank of Internet today to take advantage of the high interest rate with no fees for online banking.

Summer Flowers at Danckerts Summer is now well and truly on its way now as we come upon another Bank Holiday this weekend. We have some lovely gardens plants and pots at the shop, as well as a new range of "Vivid Arts" garden animals on display, which are a fantastically realistic range of life size animals and birds to enhance the garden...from frogs to foxes, and rabbits to robins, pop in and take a look! The gardens in Wednesbury are going to be coming alive with plants, animals, and barbies! The summer flower collection is now in full swing, with some delightful bouquets and vases full of Snaps, Sweet Williams, and other summer favourites. Keep in touch via Facebook, and we'll keep you notified of any Special Offers that are coming up! We recently had St Georges day, and the St Georges Day March was hugely popular, starting at Stone Cross, just past the Wednesbury/ West Bromwich border, and finishing up at Dartmouth Park in the Sandwell Valley.

From 1 July 2018, the Tax Office is advising Australians that if they find an error in their tax return or activity statement they will not incur a penalty but will advise of the error and how to get it right next time. Penalty relief will only apply to eligible taxpayers or entities (i.e., turnover of less than $10 million) every three years. Eligible individuals will only be given penalty relief on their tax return or activity statement if they make an inadvertent error because they either: – took a position on income tax that is not reasonably arguable, or – failed to take reasonable care The ATO will not provide penalty relief when individuals have (in the past three years): Received penalty relief – Avoided tax payment or committed fraud – Accrued taxation debts with no intention of being able to pay (i.e., phoenix activity) – Previously penalised for reckless or intentional disregard of the law – Participated in the management or control of another entity which has evaded tax. Individuals can not apply for penalty relief. The ATO is reminding individuals that they will provide relief during an audit should it apply. Penalty relief will not be applied to: – Wealthy individuals and their businesses – Associates of wealthy individuals (that may be deemed a small business entity in their own right) – Public groups, significant global entities and associates Penalty relief will also not be applied to certain taxes, i.e., fringe benefits tax (FBT) or super guarantee (SG).

The verbals: sports quotes of 1994 There are no small accidents on this circuit. Ayrton Senna, before the San Marino Grand Prix, during which he suffered a fatal crash. One of my best friends has been killed on the curve where I escaped death. I was lucky; he wasn't. It's like having a cheque book. You start pulling out the pages until one day no pages are left. He was the one driver so perfect nobody thought anything could happen to him. Gerhard Berger, Formula 1 driver, on Ayrton Senna. It was at the bottom of our hearts to dedicate this victory to our great friend, Ayrton Senna. He was also heading for his fourth title. Claudio Taffarel, Brazil's goalkeeper, following victory in the World Cup final. There will never be another Senna. The poet of speed is dead. El Diario, Bolivian sports newspaper. Senna was the greatest driver ever and when someone like him is killed you have to ask yourself what is the point of it all. Nikki Lauda. When I saw him crash and realised there was no way he was going to be able to continue the race, I cheered with joy. I thought: `He'll be home earlier tonight'. Adrienne Galisteu, Senna's girlfriend.

**B Grade** CNPS12X Ultimate Performance Triple Fan CPU Cooler Below is the original description for this product, any reference to warranty is to be ignored. Warranty for this item is 90 days as with all B Grade items. B Grade items may have been used, have damaged packaging, missing accessories or a combination of these. Some items may have scuff marks or slight scratches but should otherwise be an operable product. Renowned for producing some of the world best CPU coolers, Zalman have now released their newest flagship cooler, the CNPS12X. It is the world's first "out of the box" triple fan cooler and is compatible with Intel latest LGA2011 Sandy Bridge E processors. Worlds first "out of the box" triple fan CPU coolerThere are many CPU coolers available on the market that can accommodate three fans, but to make this happen at least one additional fan needs to be purchased which add to the expense. With the Zalman CNPS12X you get three 120mm blue LED fans built into the cooler so there is no extra costs. Also all three fans run off one fan header, making powering the fans extremely easy. Six W-DTH composite heatpipes for excellent heat transferFirst seen on the CNPS11X, composite heatpipes help transfer the heat from the CPU up to 50% faster than standard heatpipes. This helps to increase the performance of the cooler even further. The six heatpipes are U-shaped, which effectively double the heat transfer compared to none U-shaped heatpipes.At the base of the cooler (where the heatpipes make contact with the CPU) the heatpipes utilise what Zalman call Whole-Direct Touch Heatpipes (W-DTH). This allows the heatpipes to make direct contact with the CPU, another feature to help increase performance. But not only that, the area of the Direct Touch will cover the whole CPU. Even the new Intel CPUs for LGA2011 will also be covered by W-DTH. 100% nickel plated with blue LED fans for amazing aestheticsMost CPU coolers are hidden inside the computer case where they go about their business unseen. But if you like to show off the internals of the PC you may want a CPU cooler than looks the part, and boy the CNPS12X does look the part!The entire heatsink of CNPS12X is plated with "Black-Pearl" nickel for a long-term corrosion resistance, while the deep "Black-Pearl" tone, along with the high intensity from the blue LED fans helps this cooler stand head and shoulders above the rest.

How do I edit my profile? You have a profile on this site. It was created for you on registration. Having a profile means other users can recognize you when you leave a reply or like a comment. Please keep it up to date and all the fields filled. To edit your profile simply click on your name in the top right corner. Fill in any missing fields and make sure to click ‘Save Changes’ when you are finished.

You can make an appointment to meet with your Financial Aid counselor using Orange Success through MySlice. Once logged in, select 'Orange SUccess' under 'Advising' in the Student Services panel. Within your Orange SUccess portal, navigate to 'My Success Network,' select your financial aid advisor and schedule an appointment at a day and time convenient for you. If your counselor is not available at a time that suits your schedule, please call or visit our office to schedule an appointment with the next available counselor.

Every industry has its own characteristics and requirements. For detailed benefits of our systems related to your industry please make a selection in the left menu. General benefits of using Hitec Power Protection rotary UPS systems are: Most reliable systemThe simple design has fewer components than for example static UPS systems. This highly improves the reliability (MTBF). Our systems have a lifetime expectancy of more than 25 years. Most cost and energy efficient systemOperating efficiency of our systems can exceed 97%, because they do not require power conversion in the power path or a conditioned, energy consuming battery room during operation. You also do not need battery replacement every 3 to 5 years, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to for example static UPS technologies. Most environmental friendly systemOur rotary systems have high energy efficiency and do not use batteries. Static UPS systems for example produce a considerable amount of chemical waste during its lifetime, because batteries need to be replaced every 3 to 5 years. Click here to find out more about the environmental benefits of our systems. Most space efficient systemA static UPS system requires a diesel generator set, power electronics, batteries and numerous auxiliary equipment. Our compact and simple diesel rotary UPS design combines all these components in one, reducing the footprint with 40 up to 60%.

Four-ever? Competition remedies in the audit market Oxera In light of recent accounting scandals, there are widespread calls for the UK competition authority to re-examine the audit market. Yet spending a substantial amount of resources on a market investigation, and concluding once again that there is a competition problem, is of little value if a suitable remedy cannot be found. A break-up of the Big Four is perceived by many as a necessary and long-awaited intervention, but is it the right solution? And if not, what would be an alternative remedy? The UK audit market has gone through some turmoil recently.[1] This month the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), which regulates UK audit, announced a deterioration in audit quality across the ‘Big Four’ firms (KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and EY) compared with the previous year. Most notably, the FRC noted that 50% of KPMG’s FTSE 350 audits failed to reach the FRC’s standard for audit quality.[2] At a global level, the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators found significant problems in 40% of the 918 audits of listed public interest entities that it inspected last year.[3] The recent audit failures uncovered by regulators are hardly trivial. In Miller Energy the US Securities and Exchange Commission found that KPMG had overvalued certain assets by more than 100 times.[4] In BHS the FRC noted that PwC had signed off the accounts just days before the company was sold for £1.[5] In the more recent case of Carillion, equity analysts appeared unaware of the warning signs that might have been flagged by a good audit.[6] These market outcomes in audit services are unsatisfactory from a policy perspective. The Big Four’s joint market share in FTSE 350 audit has been close to 100% for many years, and the Big Four likewise dominate the audit of large companies across the world. It is this high market concentration that is frequently blamed for the poor outcomes,[7] and regulators and competition authorities across the world have raised concerns about concentration ever since the collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2002. This year, two UK Parliamentary Committees have called for a new competition investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that ‘should explicitly include consideration of both breaking up the Big Four into more audit firms, and detaching audit arms from those providing other professional services’.[8] The Chief Executive Officer of the FRC and the CEO of PwC have both expressed support for the idea of having the CMA study the audit market afresh.[9] Previous remedies in the audit market The audit market is effectively dominated at the top end by the Big Four, and despite turmoil in financial markets the audit market structure has remained largely unchanged since 2002.[10] Concerns emanating from the high concentration include a lack of choice, a lack of innovation, higher audit fees, conflicts of interest, a lack of independence that weakens auditor professional scepticism, a systemic risk if one Big Four firm should fail, and, above all, poor-quality audit reducing the credibility and reliability of audited financial statements for the world’s largest companies.[11] The previous investigation by the UK Competition Commission (CC), predecessor to the CMA, put forward a package of seven remedies, the most significant of which was a requirement that FTSE 350 companies put their audit out to tender at least every ten years (‘mandatory tendering’). Shortly thereafter, the EU introduced rules that obliged listed companies to switch their auditor (‘mandatory rotation’) every 20 years.[12] At the conclusion of the previous market investigation the CC expressed confidence in its package of remedies, noting that they should ‘increase choice’ and provide a ‘substantially improved environment for competition’.[13] The CC’s remedies package did not include any structural remedies. The CC and EU remedies have not solved the problem of attracting more competition from outside the Big Four.[14] Indeed, the leading non-Big Four firms, Grant Thornton and BDO, between them have fewer FTSE 350 clients than before the regulatory interventions. In 2013, just before the new measures to boost competition were enacted, Grant Thornton had six FTSE 350 audit clients. In 2016, this number was unchanged. But in 2018 the firm said that it would exit the market for large audits.[15] In 2013 BDO had eight FTSE 350 clients, falling to five in 2016.[16] The previous rule changes are therefore widely perceived to have failed to remedy concerns over market concentration. The Big Four accountancy firms still audit 97% of FTSE 350 companies, a similar rate to that found by Oxera[17] in its 2006 market study for the FRC.[18] What could structural remedies achieve? Vertical separation There are different types of structural remedies. Vertical separation of the Big Four firms into audit and non-audit services would not increase the basic number of firms participating in the FTSE 350 audit market, but it would increase the effective choice for many companies that have non-audit relationships with Big Four audit firms. These relationships can preclude, whether legally or in terms of company perception,[19] considering all four current audit firms as viable substitute auditors.[20] Vertical separation would also be oriented towards audit quality, removing the conflicts of interest that can arise when the auditor also supplies valuable non-audit services. Yet the idea was not popular among investors at the time of the previous competition investigation. In 2012, an Oxera investor survey report found that ‘almost all investors surveyed do not want to see structural separation of the Big Four firms into audit and non-audit activities.’[21] Horizontal separation Horizontal separation of the Big Four firms would immediately improve choice in the sense of seeing more than four firms in the market, and also choice in terms of seeing several non-conflicted audit firms in every audit tender. Such a separation would therefore also, in general terms, improve competition. It could also serve audit quality by reducing the number of instances where a company involved in a complex transaction cannot realistically find an adviser that is not subject to some conflict of interest. In the case of Carillion, PwC acted as the company’s pensions consultant (2002–17), then switched to advising the pension scheme trustees on Carillion’s restructuring proposals (from July 2017), and was finally appointed by the government to help manage the defunct Carillion after its collapse (from January 2018).[22] It would appear that PwC was the only viable choice to advise on Carillion’s insolvency, because it was the only Big Four firm that did not have active contracts with Carillion at the time of Carillion’s demise.[23] Expanding the market from a ‘Big Four’ to a ‘Large 6’ seems attractive in the face of such apparent conflicts, but realistically it would be a very difficult exercise if the aim is to create a ‘Large 6’ group of firms of similar size with similar international networks. Would a break-up increase audit quality? Audits are for the protection of investors against false accounting by a company’s management. The starting point is therefore that the true customer of audit, the investor, is not the procurer of audit services. This alone creates an environment in which market failures may be expected. But why does audit quality fall short? Boeing and Airbus, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and the Silicon Valley giants all operate in concentrated markets—but it seems highly unlikely that half of new aeroplanes, or soft drinks cans, possess substantial errors. Market concentration per se does not entail a poor-quality product: even a monopolist will have regard to product quality, knowing that if its product is faulty the financial consequences of fines and compensating consumers will typically be severe. In equilibrium, a firm would only produce faulty items to the extent that it is rational to do so—i.e. if errors cannot be detected or if the financial consequences of errors are insubstantial. It seems to be widely accepted that audit quality is below the level demanded by investors, on whose behalf the audit is undertaken. The economics literature on audit has studied the link between greater market concentration and higher audit fees, but this does not help us very much in the present circumstances, where the primary concerns are not to do with high prices, or even exclusionary conduct, but with limited choice and sub-optimal quality. Where does the solution lie? Penalties for poor-quality service In public services markets (health, education) there is a high degree of regulatory supervision of quality—such as barring doctors who are found to be negligent, and awarding damages to patients harmed by negligence—even when the main providers are state-owned and have no incentive to chase profits at the expense of quality. In 2017, the UK National Health Service (NHS) estimated that the total liability for outstanding medical negligence cases could be as much as £56.1bn, and the £1.5bn annual NHS payout to settle claims is expected to double by 2023.[24] In audit, the strength of regulatory supervision by the FRC is subject to an independent review following concerns that it lacks adequate powers to intervene in the market.[25] However, the FRC has recently been levying higher fines for audit errors. It fined PwC £6.5m regarding failed UK retailer, BHS;[26] £5.1m for its auditing of accountancy group, RSM Tenon (also, ironically, an auditor);[27] and £5m in relation to the property company, Connaught.[28] The other Big Four firms have also faced heavy fines, in both the UK and USA: £1.8m for EY’s auditing of Tech Data;[29] £4.8m for KPMG’s work on Miller Energy;[30] and £4m for Deloitte relating to the audit of Aero Inventory.[31] The FRC is also fining audit partners whom it finds to be responsible for misconduct—for example, the lead partner for BHS has been fined £325k and banned from working as an auditor for 15 years.[32] These FRC penalties are, however, minor relative to the £38m audit-related settlement reached by the UK’s largest pension scheme, USS, with PwC Brazil as part of a class action lawsuit against troubled oil giant, Petrobras.[33] But note that the FRC has this month implemented an increase in fines to £10m or more for ‘seriously poor audit work by a Big 4 firm’, following an independent review in 2017 of FRC sanctions.[34] Are audit fines providing optimal enforcement? From an economics perspective, if the deterrence effect of penalties is sufficiently severe, firms that might otherwise chase market share by cutting prices and their costs for a given audit will be deterred from cutting quality. In other words, when deterrence is weak, there is an opportunity for rent-seeking by firms that cut quality on unobservable dimensions. Although it might be argued that the cost to an accountant’s reputation is great enough to give the right incentives, this point seems difficult to sustain in light of the continued flourishing of firms that have had quite major hits to their professional reputations. How large would audit fines need to be in order to deter bad audit? This article cannot provide the answer, but it may be instructive to look at a comparison between audit fines and cartel fines (in the EU). The latter are set based on the European Commission’s criteria. As the Commission explains: The Commission’s policy with regards to competition law infringements is one of prevention … [fines] are ultimately aimed at prevention, and must hence fulfil two objectives: to punish and to deter. Breaking the competition rules is profitable if it goes unpunished – that is why companies do it.[35] European Commission cartel fines are set based on the gravity and the duration of a competition infringement, and are capped at a maximum of 10% of a company’s total turnover. The 10% turnover ceiling for fines is engaged only when a cartel fine based on the usual criteria would otherwise be set at more than 10% of turnover. Cartel fines are large compared with audit fines, as Tables 1 and 2 illustrate. Looking at FRC audit fines in the cases mentioned above, the average fine is 0.016% of a Big Four firm’s annual global turnover, as shown in Table 1. The final column of Table 1 indicates that increasing this percentage to 0.5% would lead to fines of a much greater order of magnitude. This is purely illustrative; it is not a recommendation as to the optimal size of audit fines. Source: FRC and the audit firms’ annual reports for fiscal year 2017. How do cartel fines compare? Weighted by the number of fines falling into each percentage bracket of turnover, the average European Commission cartel fine is 2.40% of turnover. This means that cartel fines expressed as a percentage of global turnover are about 150 times larger (2.40% divided by 0.016%) than FRC audit fines measured in the same way. Table 2 shows the calculation of the weighted average European Commission cartel fine.[36] Table 2 European Commission weighted average cartel fines as a percentage of a company’s global turnover Source: European Commission cartel statistics, last updated 21 March 2018. It might be argued that increased deterrence for poor audit would come at the cost of competition, such as financial penalties leading to market exit and a ‘Big Three’, or hiking the barriers to entry for non-Big Four audit firms. Likewise, the Commission does not wish to fine a cartel with penalties that are so high that the consequence would be a reduction in the number of market competitors (or else the competition remedy would be self-defeating). Hence the scaling of cartel fines to turnover, and the ‘inability to pay’ test, whereby the Commission can reduce the scale of fines where it is shown that they pose a serious threat to the economic viability of the undertaking concerned. Scaling audit fines to audit firm turnover makes it unlikely that such penalties would deter entry or cause the market exit of one of the Big Four. The cartel fines policy therefore has useful principles, albeit it does not indicate the right order of magnitude for audit fines. Fines set as a percentage of turnover would of course decline if measured against a smaller metric for revenue. As a hypothetical exercise, taking Big Four audit-only revenues as the denominator, the FRC fines mentioned previously would be on average 0.039% of the firms’ global audit-only revenues. In this scenario cartel fines at 2.40% of global turnover would be about 60 times greater than the FRC recent audit fines (2.40% divided by 0.039%), and a hypothetical fine of 0.5% of audit fines would amount to between £45m and £60m. The latter figures are much closer to the penalties proposed in last year’s independent review of FRC sanctions—i.e. ‘£10 million or more (before any discount)’. Note also that the independent review recommended that ‘the figure could be well above [£10m] if dishonesty or conscious wrongdoing were involved.’[37] Evidence on the deterrence effect of cartel fines can be found in the economics literature. Professor Stephen Davies at the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy estimates that cartel deterrence is highly effective: On the most conservative of our estimates, more than half of all potential cartel harm never occurs, because it is deterred. This is very much a lower bound, and the proportion could be as high as 90%.[38] Similar research would be required to understand the effects of a different penalty regime for poor audit. Break-up or shake-up? There is little doubt that a new CMA investigation would consider a break-up remedy. However, no matter what the divestments and structural changes, the inherent tension within the industry’s ‘client pays’ business model is likely to remain—that is, an auditor’s basic conflict between serving the paying client and serving the greater good. If it were to address that conflict, the CMA would need to look into penalties and deterrence, as well as studying the effects of a break-up remedy. It is not realistic to expect the CMA to be able to fix every major issue in the market by achieving the goal of reduced concentration in FTSE 350 audit. The quality of audit might be improved with a more disaggregated market, but this link is not certain. Moreover, it is possible that greater deterrence for bad audit would lead to an organic change in market structure: the Big Four have expertise in advising clients as to when a substantial divestment or restructuring might increase shareholder value. It seems possible that, in a world of greater deterrence, the accounting firms might look inwards using this expertise and shake up the market structure themselves. Possibly the Big Four firms are already thinking along these lines. According to a letter from the two MPs who led the parliamentary review on Carillion, voluntary break-up scenarios are now under active consideration: Since our report was published, Bill Michael, Chairman KPMG UK, said his firm had been thinking about break-up scenarios ‘for some time’ as the current business model of the Big Four is ‘unsustainable’. Mr Michael is quoted as saying: ‘The profession, like it or not, is an oligopoly. You can’t be all things to all men and women forever. We have to reduce the level of conflicts and demonstrate why they are manageable and why the public and all stakeholders should trust us.’ Other Big four firms have reportedly begun making preparations for a break-up.[39] Finally, the example of cartel fines shows that they are of a different scale to audit fines, raising the question as to whether fines should be reconsidered in the audit market. Penalties for anticompetitive conduct are used for prevention, not retribution. An audit firm with consistent high quality would have a minimal incidence of fines, which would place the high-quality firm at a competitive advantage to an audit firm with lower quality.[40] If audit quality became high across the market, no firm would be faced with very substantial financial penalties, and investor perceptions as to the value of statutory audit might be restored. In summary: prevention is better than cure. [23] Peter Kyle, Member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, speaking at the pre-appointment hearing with the Government’s preferred candidate for Chair of the Competition and Markets Authority, HC 985, 24 April 2018. See Transcript of oral evidence, Question 34, p. 19. [36] The European Commission statistics provide the percentages of fines imposed on undertakings per cartel infringement. Certain cases may comprise several infringements for which multiple counting of undertakings is considered. 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Your inner Chimp can be your best friend or your worst enemy...this is the Chimp Paradox Do you sabotage your own happiness and success? Are you struggling to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions sometimes dictate your life? Dr. Steve Peters explains that we all have a being within our minds that can wreak havoc on every aspect of our lives—be it business or personal. He calls this being "the chimp," and it can work either for you or against you. The challenge comes when we try to tame the chimp, and persuade it to do our bidding. The Chimp Paradox contains an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you be happier and healthier, increase your confidence, and become a more successful person. This book will help you to: —Recognize how your mind is working —Understand and manage your emotions and thoughts —Manage yourself and become the person you would like to be Dr. Peters explains the struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows you how to apply this understanding. Once you're armed with this new knowledge, you will be able to utilize your chimp for good, rather than letting your chimp run rampant with its own agenda.

Susy and Geno, Inseparable! Susy and Geno’s long-awaited reunion finally took place on March 11 at Market-Market Mall in Taguig! A few weeks ago, Susy started a massive search for her missing friend Geno . Susy even put up a Facebook page where all info, photos and videos in relation to the search was posted. Finally after weeks of anticipation, Susy and Geno reunited again where the two met up not only with each other but with their loyal and very enthusiastic supporters, waving banners and placards expressing their unwavering support. Geno arrived at the activity center holding a fresh bouquet for Susy. It was a wonderful day for Susy and Geno and for their solid fans club. After long years of waiting, the two best friends shared a long and warm embrace. Check out this YouTube video dance performance from Susy and Geno! The two gladly gave a dance number people requested for. Afterwards, the pair mingled with the crowd where the latter grab the chance to take photos with them. The reunion was also the first public appearance in many years for the faces of Sustagen Milk in the 80’s and 90’s, who disappeared from the public eye, only to re-emerge two decades later, starting with Susy’s return last February. Only then would we find out that she and Geno had actually lost touch through the years. Meanwhile, Susy and Geno’s friends from Sustagen also did their part, providing free milk for all guests and fans. It was a lovely day for Susy and Geno and for their loyal supporters. I’m sure happy memories came to you as you watched them reunited.

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VIOLENT/NON-CONSENSUAL SEX WARNING/DISCLAIMER: It is a story portraying a Conqueror/slave relationship, so it would appear non-consensual at first. As for sexual violence, there are scenes (In parts 3 and 4) which are detailed and graphic, and may not suite some readers. Lord Conqueror of the Realm Written by WarriorJudge Part 19 In northern Greece , in the tavern on the border between Philippi and Macedonia , Nobleman Verosus and Nobleman Marton met with Domitia, in a room they had rented. The two Noblemen could not afford being overheard or even being seen in public with the lass. "I don't understand. What did you do wrong?" the frustrated Nobleman Marton shouted at poor Domitia, who of no fault of her own found herself in this impossible and dangerous position. It was all Nobleman Marton could do not to resort to physical violence. "I did exactly as I'd been told…" the young woman tried to defend herself. Nobleman Verosus sent his fist through the wall. "Then the Conqueror should have been all over you… in and out of you!" he yelled and his eyebrows nearly touched together. "The Conqueror wouldn't touch me," said Domitia. Both Noblemen were still waiting for a reasonable explanation for this brilliant failure. "Perhaps the Conqueror loves the Queen," she suggested quietly and shrugged. Both men burst into laughter. "Young women… All soft in the head… some of them never learn…" said Nobleman Verosus . "Silly child," said Nobleman Marton, "the Conqueror doesn't love. The Conqueror lusts, lusts after power, lusts after blood and lusts after women, that is all. That is the source of her power. That's what sets her ever so highly above the rest of her sex. She feels no emotions and so she isn't governed by them." "Well, the Lord Conqueror did marry the Queen," argued Domitia. "She only married her concubine to spite us, to show us who truly rules the Empire. It is common knowledge even amongst complete idiots!" Nobleman Marton turned to Nobleman Verosus and said, "We must consider the possibility that the Conqueror didn't take this silly girl over here because she realized it was all a ploy." "By the Gods… what shall we do? Should we run?" Terror began to tighten its grip over Nobleman Verosus and he began fidgeting like a skittish horse. "We are governors, we can't just disappear. Besides, there is no escaping the Conqueror. There is no place to hide, no place out of the Conqueror's reach. If we run now, the Conqueror will know we're guilty. Let me think…" Nobleman Marton said. After some time had elapsed in silence with both men pacing restlessly from wall to wall, Nobleman Marton continued: "Lady Messalina won't say anything. She's neck deep in this and she has too much to lose." "The Lord Conqueror knows nothing more than my name, and I am hardly the only Domitia in the Realm," she said. "And I wore nothing that would imply my station." "That's very good. We might just come out of it alive," he said. *** Two days had gone by. The Conqueror and the Queen were taking a stroll in the Imperial gardens, near the lily pond that the Queen adored so much. As they walked together side by side, enjoying the morning sun, the odor of blossoms and the light exercise, Gabrielle recalled the days when she had been a slave. How she used to walk in these magnificent gardens, trying to understand her Lord's moods and actions. It felt like a lifetime ago. As if to remind herself that she was in a different place now, that those days were over, Gabrielle reached for her Lord and interlaced her arm with the Conqueror's. "They are all waiting for us in the Great Hall," Gabrielle said. "Let them wait," the Conqueror smiled and looked at her Queen, while pressing a gentle hand over the pregnant Queen's back for support. "There is one thing that isn't clear to me, why didn't Lady Messalina wait until after nightfall to tell me about the girl?" "Whoever set this entire subterfuge didn't take two things into account. I wasn't familiar with the informant that disclosed Perous' whereabouts. I wasn't sure whether I could trust him or not, and I wasn't about to march blindly into a trap on the 'say so' of an informant I knew nothing about. First, I sent a scout to check the area and to confirm that Perous was indeed there and that he was alone. That took time," explained the Conqueror. "And the second thing?" "That I would return from Cyra alone and leave my forces behind… My desire to see you was too great. I couldn't wait." The Queen rose to stand on her toes and placed a warm heartfelt kiss on the Conqueror's jaw, the highest place she could reach. "You know, my Lady, you are the Realm's Sovereign." "I know, my Lord," the Queen said and wondered why her Lord chose this time to remind her of that fact. "And Lady Messalina is one of your ladies in waiting. She is your responsibility," the Conqueror said. The reason for the Conqueror's words began to become apparent and clear to her. "I assume treason is punishable by death, my Lord?" "It is, my Lady." As they were nearing the gates of the palace, the Queen turned to the Conqueror, "My Lord?" "Hmmm…?" "Death is the most sever penalty for treason, is it not?" the Queen asked. The Conqueror smiled for she understood the meaning and the reason for the Queen's question. "It is, my Lady." *** "The Lord Conqueror and her Majesty the Queen," the ceremony master announced as the Conqueror and the Queen entered the Great Hall. As the Conqueror and the Queen made their way to their thrones, all present in the Great Hall bowed before them until they reached their destination and seated themselves. "Noblemen and Ladies of the Realm," the Conqueror exclaimed, "We have summoned you all here due to a grave matter which has come to our attention and requires further investigation." The noblemen and the ladies of the Realm began to look at one another agitatedly to see if anyone had any idea as to what the Conqueror was referring to. "Lady Messalina," the Queen called. Lady Messalina approached the thrones. "Your Majesties," she said and bowed before them. As she stood before them, the Conqueror leaned over and whispered something in the Queen's ear. "Lady Messalina, is it not true that just before noon on the day of my Lord's return from Cyra, you informed me that a young lass had been seen entering the Imperial tent?" Lady Messalina's blood drained from her face and she grew as pale as a sheet. "It is true, your Majesty," she admitted. "And how did you come by this bit of information?" the Queen inquired further. "I… I can't remember, your Majesty," replied the nervous lady. "Is it not true, that the lass in question is your very own daughter?" Lady Messalina nearly fainted. The crowd around her gasped in surprise and walked backwards away from her, as if trying to disassociate themselves from her. "It is, your Majesty." At this stage, lady Messalina had already realized there was no point in lying. "Was it not your intention to cause dispute between my Lord and myself?" Lady Messalina threw herself at the Queen's feet and began kissing them. "You will stand up," the Queen ordered and her assertiveness gave pause to her subjects. Lady Messalina rose back to her feet. "You will answer the question." "I will your Majesty," Lady Messalina replied. "Did you act on your own volition?" "No, your Majesty." "Who put you up to this?" asked the Queen. "Please, your gracious Majesty, I beg you please don't make me…" "Nobleman Verosus and Nobleman Marton!" the Conqueror exclaimed. Both men made their way through the crowd, mortified, joined their accomplice and bowed before the thrones. "What have you got to say for yourselves?" the Conqueror's voice was ominous. "Indeed not, but when her Majesty the Queen asked the question, Lady Messalina threw a glance at the two of you," said the Conqueror. "That confirmed my suspicions." Noblemen Marton and Verosus confessed to the specifics of their scheme for all to hear by orders of the Conqueror, without trying to cast responsibility at one another and minimizing their own involvement in the traitorous conspiracy. "Is my Lady prepared to render her verdict in the matter of Lady Messalina?" the Conqueror asked. "I am, my Lord," the Queen replied. "Lady Messalina, you have handled yourself poorly and reprehensibly. Being a Queen's lady in waiting is a sacred duty. It has been proven to my satisfaction that you have betrayed that duty and my trust. You have been disloyal to me and disloyal to my Lord and to the Realm. You've tried by despicable means to come between my Lord and myself. This offense I cannot and will not pardon. However, I am satisfied that there are mitigating circumstances since you were extorted. Desperation deprives some of rational thought and behooves them to take desperate measures. Therefore, it is my verdict that you should be stripped of your station and be banished from the Realm forthwith for my Lord's pleasure." The Queen voice was steady, firm and confident. "Noblemen Marton and Verosus, greed and malice are no defense against treason. Your actions solicited, financed and facilitated an act of rebellion against us and against this Realm, which resulted in the death of several subjects and warriors of the Realm. Moreover, you have extorted her Majesty the Queen's lady in waiting and exploited her innocent daughter. You and your families will be stripped of your station and possessions. Marton and Verosus, you shall suffer a quick death in three days time. As for Macedonia , I hereby appoint Lila of Potidaea as the new governor to Macedonia and a Lady of this Realm. As for Philippi, I hereby appoint her Majesty the Queen's lady in waiting, Satrina, as the new governor to Philippi, if it pleases you, your Majesty," the Conqueror asked the Queen. "It does, my gracious Lord," smiled the Queen. As the guards came to remove the condemned men from the Great Hall, Lady Satrina scurried to bow before the Conqueror and the Queen. "Your Majesties, I cannot thank you enough for your infinite kindness, honor and generosity your Majesties have shown me, and I am grateful with all my heart and soul for the great trust you place in me, but I pray you, if I may," she said and her excitement was evident in her voice. "You may," granted the Queen. "With your Majesties' permission, and if it pleases you, I wish to remain in her Majesty the Queen's presence and service for I am so very contented and happy with my life here in the palace," she said. "I could not have hoped to serve a kinder, nobler Sovereign than our benevolent Queen." The Queen glanced over at the Conqueror with questioning eyes and the Conqueror, who was the one who first granted the honor, nodded her consent. Their subjects could not help but notice the silent exchange between them. "As you wish, Lady Satrina and thank you," the Queen said and did her best to remain formal and regal and not let her own excitement be known in the forum. "Captain Cornelius of the Imperial Guard," announced the ceremony master. The Queen wasn't familiar with the name. With wide determined strides, fitting a military man, Captain Cornelius approached the thrones and bowed before his Rulers. "Your Majesties," he greeted. It was then that the Queen recognized whom he was and fought an urge to move uncomfortably on her throne. "With your permission, your Majesty," he humbly said and turned his attention to the Queen. "Granted," said the Queen. "I come before your gracious Majesty, a humble servant, to beg for forgiveness. In the past your Majesty showed me great kindness and granted excellent remedy, which I, I am ashamed to say, repaid with gross disrespect." He chose this grand forum to offer his genuine remorse, rather than offer his apologies in private. In his mind, since he disrespected the Queen in the presence of the healer and others in the infirmary, it was only just that he should surrender his pride to the Queen in public. He was also careful not to divulge any specifics of his transgression, including the fact that he was referring to the times back when the Queen had been a slave, so as not to cause the Queen either discomfort or embarrassment. "I am sorry to say, I was foolish and a proud brute and I know in my heart I am not worthy of your Majesty's pardon. I assure your Majesty that as a result of your Majesty's dignity, generosity and supreme conduct towards me, which I didn't deserve I have mended my ways. I submit myself before you, your Majesty to punish as your Majesty deems fit," he said and knelt before the Queen. "Stand up, Captain," she ordered and he obeyed. "Your past misdeeds towards me are pardoned," the Queen said, then covered her mouth and whispered a private question in her Lord's ear, to which the latter nodded her agreement. "You have exhibited candor and great honor, which leads me to believe your repentance is true and sincere. I hereby appoint you a nobleman to the Realm and a governor to Philippi ," the Queen said. He lowered his head in humility and thanked his Queen for the bounty she had bestowed upon him. "That concludes our business here today, Nobleman and Ladies of the Realm," the Conqueror stated, stood up and offered her arm to assist her pregnant Queen to her feet. Standing in front of their subjects, the Conqueror went on to say, "As I trust you all know, today I have shown great leniency towards Marton and Verosus for their appalling treachery. By no means must you perceive it as any form of a precedent. I shall see no further division in this Realm." As the Queen and her Lord made their way out of the Great Hall, their subjects bowed before them then began clapping their hands and chanting, " Hail to the Queen. " Whilst strolling along the corridor that led to the Imperial chambers, the curious Queen asked, "How did my Lord know that the lass in Cyra was Messalina's daughter?" "They have the same shade of hair color and the shape of their eyes and chins are exactly alike," the Conqueror explicated. Alone in the privacy of their chambers, the Conqueror turned to her Queen took her small hands in hers and said with bright eyes, "I am so very proud of you, my Lady," and adorned the thin fingers with tender kisses. *** After three days had passed, Marton and Verosus were brought to the gallows upon a wagon, which resembled one that was fit to carry small livestock. In the square stood a large crowd, as with any execution. The Conqueror always believed that even regular people, non-warriors were fascinated by death and were curious to see life as it was leaving the body. If someone else did the actual killing, then all the better. Heavily guarded, the two men were escorted up the podium to face their Ruler and executioner. Verosus's neck was first to be stretched out and presented before the Conqueror. As he was waiting, trembling on his knees and mumbling unintelligible words, the Conqueror unsheathed her sword, which was resting over her chiseled thigh in a leather scabbard. The polished, long and well-whetted blade caught the sun's rays. The crowed cursed at the condemned men and cheered for their Sovereign, goading her on. It wasn't a novelty. The Conqueror knew that once she would lay the deadly strike, the cheers and the cursing would halt. With one strike, the Conqueror put an end to his mumbling, and his severed head rolled over the floor of the podium, which was covered with sawdust to absorb the spilt blood, and his headless corpse slumped to the ground next to it. Then came Marton's turn. Before he was shoved down to his knees by the guards and into his accomplice's pool of freshly spilt blood, the Conqueror leaned slightly towards him and whispered into his ear: “You do realize this is not retribution for some silly, inconsequential rebellion, which could have been handled quickly by a single battalion of my forces. This is mainly for trying to come between me and my Queen.” His shocked expression was still frozen on his face when the Conqueror removed his head from his shoulders. As the Conqueror wiped the blood off her sword and looked at Marton's head next to her boots, her mind strayed back to another execution which she had performed, the one of the British Captain, who had raped and killed some body slave, whose name the Conqueror couldn't even remember now. Before she had sent him to his death, the Conqueror had desired to make it perfectly clear to the Captain the true and exact reason for his chastisement. When he had extended his head forward before her, whilst on his knees, she'd hissed at him, “This is for putting your filthy hands on what's mine. The slave you've raped and killed was just an excuse.”

I welcome comments and constructive criticism of my images so that I may improve my photography Please click on image to enlarge. Friday, 7 October 2011 Caterpillar and Fungi. I D's required for this caterpillar and fungi please.The caterpillar was found on the backgarden path,so no idea what plant it came from.The fungi was found under a tall bank next to a stream in the Trough of Bowland. Christian.Thanks for your comments,I put the caterpillar on the stick and held it up with one hand and took the photo with the other. Cliff thanks for your comments. The I D is spot on thank you very much.

The news of the 2015 remastering of Air Jordan retros has resulted in a load of early photos featuring next year’s Jordans. Normally at this time we’d be stuck pondering what was to come based off early product sheets and such, but this time around we’ve got high res previews of everything for your viewing pleasure. This time around: the Air Jordan 7 “French Blue”. So far the group of Spring 2015 Air Jordans has been a newer leaning group, and this retro+ colorway sticks with that trend. See the 2015 Air Jordan 7 “French Blue” below and watch for extended previews right here on Sneaker News.

A Blog on India Menu Connect The Dots In her firstbook Stay Hungry Stay Foolish Rashmi Bansal profiled twenty five entrepreneurs who were alumni of IIM – Ahmedabad. Many had then wondered including yours truly, how important an MBA degree is to become an entrepreneur. Rashmi claims this inspired her to write Connect The Dots, story of twenty one entrepreneurs but who dont have an MBA degree. The format of the book is same as her last book. There are twenty chapters, one on each entrepreneur (Gaurav Rathore & Saurabh Vyas who co founded PoliticalEDGE are covered in one chapter) and the entire chapter is based on one single interview. The book is divided in three sections : Jugaad, Junoon & Zubaan. Jugaadis are those who didn’t get any formal training in business but learned by observing, experimenting and applying their mind. It includes some one like Kunwer Sachdev of Su-Kam who created a Rs 500 crore company from scratch; Ganesh Ram, who started what is today India’s largest English training academy, VETA when there were no BPOs and no one knew that English coaching would be as big a market as it is now. Junoonis as the name suggests, are passionate about something that is ahead of its time. This was my favorite section in the book. Gaurav Rathore and Saurabh Vyas envisioned a consulting and research firm exclusively for politics and founded PoliticalEDGE; Satyajit Singh, founder of Shakti Sudha not only created a new industry but also benefited thousands of farmers in rural Bihar; Chetan Maini, founder of Reva, designed a solar car and has been producing electric cars since the time when global warming was not so well known and creating electric cars seemed to make little sense. The third section Zubaan is about creative people like Paresh Mokashi, creator of Harishchandrachi Factory, India’s official entry to Oscar last year or Krishna Reddy, whose Prince Dance Group, consisting of daily wage laborers won India’s Got Talent last year. I had great hopes from the book as I loved Stay Hungry Stay Foolish. The first chapter on Prem Ganpathy is literally a rags to riches story of someone who came to Mumbai with no money and now owns Dosa Plaza, a fast food chain with 26 outlets in the country.The rest of the stories too are very encouraging. The book is replete with inspiring anecdotes and quotes . When I read the synopsis on the third section i.e. Zubaan, I thought it would be probably the weak link in this book as stories on creatives who had made it big in the field of art would be a misfit in this book about entrepreneurs. However, all these artists achieved commercial success by following their passion and this justifies their inclusion in this book about Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship after all is about following your heart. Generally when the first book is good and successful authors fail to recreate the magic in their subsequent books and that too in the same genre, as people have high expectations. In this case Rashmi Bansal definitely exceeded my expectations. A very good book and must read for some one aspires to be an entrepreneur.

I soon realised that Kathy and I had settled at the periphery of the rules and the order, separated categorically from the mystics and their task; we existed like stray animals sheltered in a monastery.

Ancient toolmaking site discovered near Niagara Falls Archaeologists have found arrowheads and drills, indicating that the camps were occupied for extended periods of time. DIGGING FOR TOOLS: Students at work in 2006 excavating a feature at the site on Grand Island that was most likely a hearth. (Photo: L.M. Anselmi) An ancient campsite where people were manufacturing tools has been discovered near the Niagara Falls. This find, combined with other archaeological discoveries in the area over the past few decades, suggests that such campsites lined the Niagara River as far back as 4,000 years ago. So far, the team has unearthed more than 20,000 artifacts, mostly bits of rock broken off when people were creating stone tools, on the southeastern tip of Grand Island New York, about 12 miles (20 km) upstream from Niagara Falls. The earliest artifacts at the site date back at least 4,000 years, opening a window on a time when people were living a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting, fishing and gathering plants. [In Photos: Digging Up Niagara's History] "I would anticipate that there would have been, back in the day, these kinds of campsites all along the Niagara River on both sides and on both sides of the island," team leader Lisa Anselmi, of Buffalo State University of New York, told LiveScience. The archaeologists found that people at the Grand Island site were making a wide variety of tools, including spear points, arrowheads and even a few stone drills. Anselmi said that the drills "would be sharp enough to go through a piece of leather... or go through shell or some bone to create a bead." The team also found bits of yellow and red ochre at the site; in ancient times it was common, for religious reasons, for ochre to be applied on the skin of someone who was being buried. No evidence of burials has been found so far at the site. Stretching across time The south tip of Grand Island appears to have been occupied for an extended time. Fragments of pottery dating between 2,900 and 1,500 years ago found by Anselmi and her colleagues suggest inhabitants experimented with ceramic production, using pots to collect nuts and plant remains. The team also found spear points that date back around 500 years, to a period shortly before Europeans started arriving in the area. More recent artifacts included nails from houses built in the 19th century and bullets that appear to date to the 1930s or 40s. Anselmi said that the site probably would have been used mainly between the spring and fall, when food would have been plentiful. "The island would have had the advantage of being close to the river (with) lots of freshwater fish and other kinds of resources from the river," she said. Also, "in all likelihood there would have been a very strong deer population on the island." Crossing the Niagara River To get to Grand Island people in antiquity would have had to cross the Niagara River. Today, the fast-flowing waterway moves at a rate of about 2-3 feet per second near the island. Curiously, rather than making use of rock found on the island, the ancient people imported a type of Onondaga chert — a tough limestone that they would have had to carry across the river from the mainland. Anselmi explained that they would have brought over small bits of this rock that could then be molded into tools. "It's not necessarily that they're filling a canoe up with boulders," she said. By using Onondaga chert the people of Grand Island were continuing a toolmaking tradition that goes back to when people were first entering New York State. For instance, at a site called Emanon Pond, located in western New York, people were using the material almost exclusively nearly 11,000 years ago. "With the exception of a single projectile point made from glacially derived drusy quartz, all of the artifacts are manufactured using local Onondaga chert," write Peter Neal Peregrine and Melvin Ember in the North America edition of the "Encyclopedia of Prehistory," published in 2001. The findings were presented in May at a meeting of the Toronto chapter of the Ontario Archaeological Society.

Commonwealth Bank and the Australian Chamber Orchestra kick off the 2009 Great Romantics national tour Sydney, 11 June 2009: The Commonwealth Bank today congratulated the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) on the commencement of its Great Romantics Tour. Commonwealth Bank Group Executive Human Resources and Group Services, Ms Barbara Chapman, said the Group was committed to supporting the Arts in Australia and helping its customers, staff and the Australian community engage with music at the highest level. “As a partner of the ACO since 1988, we have been privileged to watch it grow into the world class orchestra that it is today,” she said. “We are proud of our ongoing support and commitment to the ACO and excited to be the 2009 National Tour Partner for the Great Romantics.” Ms Chapman said the Commonwealth Bank was especially proud to loan its rare Guadagnini violin – crafted in 1759 in Parma, Italy, and purchased by the Bank in 1996 – to ACO’s Principal Second Violin and leader of the ACO’s Emerging Artists Program, Helena Rathbone. “We are delighted that on the violin’s 250th birthday, it is played by such an exquisite violinist for the enjoyment and appreciation of thousands of Australians,” she said. Ms Chapman said the Bank’s partnership with the ACO was one of three national Arts partnerships for the Group, which included Opera Australia and Bangarra Dance Theatre. The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Artistic Director, Mr Richard Tognetti, said he was proud of the Orchestra’s long association with the Bank. “When I started at the ACO in 1989, the Orchestra only had a handful of corporate supporters and we were in desperate need of committed companies who would be prepared to inject cash and help fuel some new ideas,” he said. “My dream was to create a first-rate Australian Orchestra that could hold its own anywhere in the world. The Commonwealth Bank took a risk on my dreams and, 21 years on, we have one of the most fruitful corporate relationships I’ve ever seen.” To find out more about the Bank’s support for the Arts, visit commbank.com.au

ABC News’ Good Morning America outstripped NBC News’ Today by 761,000 viewers and 279,000 news demo viewers the week of April 7. It’s GMA‘s seventh consecutive week on top of the morning infotainment show race in both metrics, and its largest demo margin in three months. GMA has ranked No. 1 in overall audience for 89 of the past 93 weeks, and No. 1 in the news demo for 25 of this season’s 29 weeks to date. Today meanwhile, boasted it finished first with the younger, 18-49 year old age bracket, for the 42nd consecutive week. Today is on top of the ratings in the daypart with men 25-54 this season, NBC noted — as well as adults, men and women 18-49. Today has posted seven consecutive months of ratings growth in total viewers, and both the 25-54 and 18-49 demos which NBC says is the show’s biggest ratings uptick since ’97. For the week, GMA clocked 5.617 million viewers — 2.212 million in the demo. Today logged 4.856 million viewers — 1.933 million in the demo. GMA bested CBS This Morning‘s 3.041 million viewers — 956,000 in the news demo. 8 Comments now if they would only get rid of Roker and Daly, maybe I would watch again. Also replace Hall in the 9 o’clock hour. She is awful. GIVE ME MY GEIST BACK B stock • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am I love GMA but they really need to get rid of the music that you have to listen to even when the anchors are talking…. So annoying….off today and excited to watch but had to turn channel because the music is too loud and so annoying… George even asked for the music to be turned down! Bill • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am who cares Carol Dehart • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am I miss Sam and josh very much. Congrats over you numbers. Please have Sarah on more edna • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am I love GMA, but I miss Sam and Josh. Carla • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am Format is fantastic – notice Today ditched there ugly sofa for the “round table.” Nothing like GMA comradery! Little late Today producers! Greatly miss Gosh and Sam. Not so keen w/Ginger – maybe trying too hard, not found her “nitch.” Only complaint? Too much Estrogen on the show! Enjoy success GMA! Barrack • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am I love, The new Weather Person…….Sam was great, but it was good that he moved on. Ginger is fresh and of course the storm chaser! Lara, has done well in her position. I did not think anyone could take Dianne’s place she has done very well. Now as for Josh, well he did not stay long enough to matter. Easy to replace. Robin is a fixture, so is George. The rest just compliment them. Ohhhhhh and Stahan wow that will be awesome!! Go GMA!! Sixto • on Apr 17, 2014 8:54 am Thanks God that people are discarding Lauer and in the future Al Roker as hosts of Today. People are being conscientious that Lauer is pucking and that Al is passe with the same phrase over and over and over “now lets see whats happening in your neck of the woods” .