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711 So.2d 829 (1998) Bryin and Patricia LANDRY, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Dr. Richard J. CLEMENT and Southwest Louisiana Hospital Association, d/b/a Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, Defendants-Appellants. No. 97-852. Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit. April 15, 1998. *830 Steven Broussard, Lake Charles, for Bryin and Patricia Landry. John E. Bergstedt, Lake Charles, for Dr. Richard J. Clement, et al. John Stanton Bradford, Benjamin Joseph Guilbeau, Lake Charles, for Lake Charles Memorial Hospital. Before DOUCET, C.J., and YELVERTON and SAUNDERS, JJ. SAUNDERS, Judge. After giving birth to a stillborn baby boy, Patricia Landry and her husband, Bryin Landry, brought this medical malpractice action against her treating physician, Dr. Richard J. Clement, and against Lake Charles Memorial Hospital. The plaintiffs alleged negligence on the part of Dr. Clement and the nurses employed by the hospital who cared for Mrs. Landry in the hours preceding delivery. After a jury trial, verdict was rendered in favor of plaintiffs, finding defendants negligent and assessing Dr. Clement with eighty percent of the fault and Lake Charles Memorial Hospital (hereafter LCMH) with twenty percent of the fault. Judgment in accordance with this verdict followed. FACTS Mrs. Landry had last been in Dr. Clement's office on October 28, 1993, following a phone call in which she complained of heavy vaginal bleeding and abdominal cramping. She was seen immediately but no vaginal bleeding was noted on that examination. She was cautioned and instructed to return if the problem reappeared, or to go to the hospital if she felt she was in labor because of the fact that she was at term. The following material facts took place on October 31, 1993, and November 1, 1994, which can be broken down into the following periods: two four-hour OB watches on October *831 31, 1993, and the final labor and delivery admission on the morning of November 1. OB Watch 1 Sixteen year old Patricia Landry arrived at LCMH at approximately 8:15 a.m. on October 31, 1993, complaining of contractions.[1] She was attended to by Lori Guillory, R.N., who informed Dr. Clement that Mrs. Landry, his patient since April 29, 1993, was complaining of contractions every five minutes. Mrs. Landry was put on an external fetal monitor, and the fetal heart rate was documented at 150.[2] Dr. Clement instructed Nurse Guillory to keep his patient under observation for four hours, to run a blood test and a urine test, and to start an IV giving fifty milligrams of Demoral and fifty milligrams of Vistaril to alleviate Ms. Landry's discomforts. With no increases in the rate of her contractions and no other apparent progression of labor, Mrs. Landry was discharged from the labor and delivery unit at approximately 11:00 a.m. on October 31, 1993. OB Watch 2 A few hours later the same day, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Mrs. Landry returned to LCMH, again complaining of contractions. She was again placed on a four hour OB watch. This time an external fetal monitor showed the baby's heart rate to be between 150 and 160. At 3:00 p.m., an IV was started, and again the patient was given Demoral and Vistaril for pain. By 4:00 p.m., the fetal heart rate fell slightly to the 140-150 range, and the patient was contracting every two to five minutes, for forty seconds duration. Eventually, the fetal heart rate decreased into the 90's, but returned to the 120's after oxygen was administered. According to contemporaneous hospital records, Dr. Clement called in for a report at 4:30 p.m. and gave orders to the effect that if the patient's condition did not change by 6:30 p.m., she should be discharged with instructions to see him in his office the following day. In seeming accordance with these orders, the patient was examined by Nurse Lori Guillory at 6:20 p.m. and discharged from the hospital. During this second OB watch, testimony is disputed between Dr. Clement and the nursing staff regarding exactly what took place. The electronic fetal heart monitor strip evidences two or more decelerations or drops in the fetal heart rate during OB watch number 2, with some question as to precisely when at least one occurred. The record contains conflicting evidence on the question of whether Dr. Clement was explicitly informed of the decelerations. Nurse Guillory, the attending nurse between OB watches one and two, testified that she informed Dr. Clement over the telephone of both of the decelerations. While it is not disputed that Dr. Clement made a phone call to the hospital at 4:30 p.m. and spoke with Nurse Guillory, Dr. Clement denies being informed of the decelerations. According to the fetal monitor strip clock, the second deceleration occurred at 5:30 p.m. However, Nurse Guillory testified that the clock was inaccurate, and that the actual time was 4:30 p.m., moments before Dr. Clement's telephone call. Further confusion is caused by an entry made by the attending OB tech, which indicates a deceleration approximately nine or ten minutes after the phone conversation with Dr. Clement. Despite these inconsistencies, Nurse Guillory adamantly testified that she informed Dr. Clement of both decelerations in the 4:30 p.m. phone conversation, and that she discharged Mrs. Landry pursuant to Dr. Clement's instructions over the phone. After the 4:30 p.m. phone conversation, there is no evidence of any contact between Dr. Clement and the nursing staff regarding Mrs. Landry's status. Final Labor and Delivery Admission Mrs. Landry returned to the hospital at approximately 11:00 p.m. on the night of October 31, 1993, the same date of OB watches one and two. The patient was placed on an external monitor and the fetal *832 heart rate was shown to be between 130 and 140. An IV was started at 12:35 a.m. on November 1, 1993, and Demoral and Vistaril were given for pain. At 2:00 a.m., Pitocin was started as per Dr. Clement's protocol. At 1:15 a.m., a late note was added by the attending nurse at that time, Janine Henning, R.N., that the fetal heart tones had dropped to the 90's and the patient was turned to her right side, oxygen was applied and fetal heart tones recovered to 130. The nursing notes reflect that fetal heart tones remained between 130 and 150 until 7:00 a.m. The patient had received further doses of Demoral and Vistaril for pain at 2:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Dr. Clement arrived at the hospital and evaluated Mrs. Landry at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of November 1, 1993. Dr. Clement claims that he had been given no information during the course of the night of any problems or difficulties with the progress of labor up to that point, or of any compromise of the condition of the fetus or the mother. Dr. Clement ruptured the plaintiff's membranes and found that meconium staining was present, which is a possible sign of fetal distress. A call was placed for an epidural anesthetic preparatory to normal delivery. Dr. Clement then left the hospital and returned to his office. The labor and delivery nursing assessments note that meconium staining was present. There is no evidence reflecting that Dr. Clement had been informed of the reduced fetal heart rates during the night. However, the hospital points out that, upon his arrival, Dr. Clement had access to all nurses' notes and fetal monitoring strips. An epidural was inserted at 6:50 a.m., and Mrs. Landry was placed on an external fetal monitor. At that time, the fetal heart rate was noted to be in the 70's. Oxygen was administered and an internal electrode was inserted by Margaret Kramer, R.N. At that time, Dr. Clement was immediately notified of the problems and preparations were commenced for an emergency Caesarean section. Dr. Clement performed a low transfer section and delivered Ms. Landry's nine pound nine ounce stillborn fetus at approximately 7:28 a.m. Mrs. Landry and her husband subsequently filed suit, alleging negligence on the part of LCMH and Dr. Richard Clement. Plaintiffs alleged that both Dr. Clement and LCMH committed various acts of negligence which resulted in the stillbirth of their child. Following trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the Landrys, awarding them damages, and assessing fault eighty percent to Dr. Clement and twenty percent to the hospital. The jury awarded Patricia Landry $300,000.00 and Bryin Landry $150,000.00 in general damages for the wrongful death of their stillborn baby boy.[3] The Landrys were further awarded $150,000.00 for the conscious pain and suffering of the stillborn fetus. Finding that the $600,000.00 gross award exceeded the permissible amount recoverable in a medical malpractice action, the trial judge reduced the jury award to $500,000. Both Dr. Clement and LCMH appeal the jury's verdict and allege several assignments of error. Both maintain that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to consider and subsequently award damages to the stillborn Landry fetus for conscious pain and suffering, particularly given their view that there was inadequate evidence to support the finding that the fetus had indeed suffered conscious pain and suffering. Defendants also complain of the wrongful death awards to Mrs. Landry of $300,000.00 and to Mr. Landry of $150,000.00. Both defendants further maintain that the trial court erred in refusing to allow evidence to be presented regarding Mrs. Landry subsequent pregnancies. Finally, both appellants allege error regarding their respective allocations of fault In addition, Dr. Clement alone alleges that the jury erred in finding that he had breached the appropriate standard of care, or that such breach was the legal cause of the fetus's demise. Finally, LCMH alone alleges error *833 regarding certain jury instructions as well as a reference made by the judge to the national electronic fetal monitoring standard. Responding by way of answer to appeal, the Landrys maintain that a multiple statutory cap should apply in this case, and as such, the $600,000.00 verdict should not have been reduced to $500,000.00 by the trial court, and that the jury's findings were not erroneous. FINDINGS AND ALLOCATIONS OF FAULT Both defendants allege that there was insufficient evidence to show that they had breached their respective standards of care owed to the Landrys. For the following reasons, we find that the jury did not err in its findings and affirm its allocation of fault. Doctor's Standard of Care The standard of care owed to a patient by a physician is set forth in Cangelosi v. Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center, 564 So.2d 654, 661 (La.1989). "In a medical malpractice action against a physician, the plaintiff must establish the doctor's deviation from the standard of care exercised by others in the same field. The plaintiff must also show a causal relationship between the doctor's alleged negligence and the resulting injury. La.R.S. 9:2794(A); Smith v. State, 523 So.2d 815 (La.1988)." The heart of plaintiffs' case against Dr. Clement is that had the physician taken it upon himself to be better apprised of his patient's pregnancy and its complications, he would have been aware of the vigilance which was required of him to save the fetus. We have reviewed the record, and there is sufficient evidence to support the jury's determination that Dr. Clement had access to Mrs. Landry's medical records, yet failed to avail himself of them, even after the meconium staining should have alerted him at 6 a.m. on November 1 of the possible complications in Mrs. Landry's case. Dr. Robert Carpenter, Jr., the Landry's expert witness obstetrician, testified that under the circumstances of this case, Dr. Clement should have taken several steps which would have increased the chances of survival of the Landry fetus. Dr. Carpenter felt that upon noticing meconium staining, Dr. Clement should have taken Mrs. Landry off of Pitocin, which causes an increase in the frequency and intensity of contractions and can increase stress placed on the fetus. Dr. Carpenter also stated that Dr. Clement should have looked at the fetal heart monitor strips where he would have noticed the prior decelerations, and than he should have placed an internal electrode on the fetus. Additionally, Dr. Carpenter stated that Dr. Clement should not have ordered the epidural and should not have returned to his office after the 6 a.m. examination, but rather should have delivered the child. Furthermore, Dr. Carpenter opined that if the fetus had been delivered at 6 a.m. it would have survived. In view of Dr. Carpenter's testimony, we are not in a position to say that the jury erred in concluding that Dr. Clement's actions fell below the applicable standard of care, or that the fetus's stillbirth was partly attributable to his negligence. It is well established that a jury's findings of fact are entitled to great discretion, and in order to reverse a jury's factual determinations, we must satisfy the two part test set forth in Stobart v. State of Louisiana through Department of Transportation and Development, 92-C-1328 (La.4/12/93) 617 So.2d 880. 1) The appellate court must find from the record that a reasonable factual basis does not exist for the finding of the trial court, and 2) the appellate court must further determine that the record establishes that the finding is clearly wrong (manifestly erroneous). Id. at 882. The Stobart Court goes on to state: "[R]easonable evaluations of credibility and reasonable inferences of fact should not be disturbed upon review where conflict exists in the testimony Rosell v. ESCO, 549 So.2d 840 (La.1989); Arceneaux v. Domingue, 365 So.2d 1330 (La.1978)." Id. Furthermore, "[t]he reviewing court must always keep in mind that `if the trial court or *834 jury's findings are reasonable in light of the record reviewed in its entirety, the court of appeal may not reverse, even if convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently.'" Id. at 882, 883; Housley v. Cerise, 579 So.2d 973 (La.1991). Applying these standards to the facts before us, we find that the jury was not manifestly erroneous in concluding that Dr. Clement breached his standard of care owed to Mrs. Landry, regardless of whether it concluded that he knew of the decelerations of the fetal heart rate before his examination of Mrs. Landry at 6:00 a.m. on November 1, or whether it concluded that he should have known of them since he had access and could have viewed the fetal heart monitor strips and the nurses charts.[4] Accordingly, we find no merit to Dr. Clement's contention on appeal that the trial court erred in entering an adverse judgment on the merits. Hospital's Standard of Care We likewise find no error in the trial court's judgment of liability with respect to LCMH. The standard of care owed to a patient by a hospital is "to protect a patient from dangers that may result from the patient's physical and mental incapacities as well as from external circumstances peculiarly within the hospital's control." Galloway v. Baton Rouge General Hospital, 602 So.2d 1003,1008 (La.1992). Hunt v. Bogalusa Community Medical Center 303 So.2d 745, 747 (La.1974). Whether a hospital has "breached the duty of care it owes to a particular patient depends upon the circumstances and facts of that case". Id. The facts established at trial clearly show that several decelerations were not reported to Dr. Clement by the nurses on duty. Although the fetal heart monitor strips showed several decelerations during the night of Mrs. Landry's Labor and Delivery admit, the hospital does not dispute that Dr. Clement was not informed of them. Furthermore, while the head nurse of Labor and Delivery at LCMH testified that the nurses working in Labor and Delivery are required to complete a test in fetal heart monitoring after a training session, the evidence established that none of the attending nurses caring for Mrs. Landry, each of whom was licensed as R.N.'s less than three weeks before Mrs. Landry was admitted to the hospital, had ever received the training or taken the fetal heart monitoring test. In light of the facts presented, we do not find that the allocations of fault on the part of the defendants were clearly wrong or an abuse of discretion. Both defendant-appellants contend that the jury erred in assessing Dr. Clement with 80% and LCMH with 20% of the fault. It is interesting to note that neither appellant alleges that negligence was altogether lacking. Instead, each attempts to justify their own actions by charging the other appellant with 100% of the fault. Considering the above standards of care, the facts established at trial, and the vast discretion we are to afford the jury, we cannot say that the jury in the case before us was unreasonable in its allocation of fault among the appellants. As such, we find that appellants' assignments of error regarding allocation of fault and the standard of care owed lacks merit. SURVIVAL ACTION Both defendants allege that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to consider and subsequently award damages to the stillborn Landry fetus for conscious pain and suffering. The Landrys were awarded $150,000 in damages under La.Civ.Code art. 2315.1, which states: A. If a person who has been injured by an offense or quasi-offense dies, the right to recover all damages for injury to that person, his property or otherwise, caused by the offense or quasi-offense, shall survive *835 for a period of one year from the death of the deceased in favor of: .... (2) The surviving father and mother of the deceased, or either of them if he left no spouse or child surviving; and.... The Louisiana Supreme Court recently addressed the issue of whether a survival action can be pursued in connection with the death of a stillborn fetus in the case of Wartelle v. Women's and Children's Hospital, Inc., 97-744 (La.5/9/97); 690 So.2d 856. The court concluded that such a cause of action does not exist and reversed this court's prior holding[5] to the contrary on the basis that an unborn child cannot be recognized as a legally recognized life form unless born alive, even when its right to an imminent life is nullified by the negligent actions of a fellow human being. Upon the denial of the supreme court to grant a rehearing in Wartell, the Landrys filed in this court a motion for voluntary dismissal of the survival action claim, which was granted. Accordingly, the $150,000.00 awarded by the jury for the conscious pain and suffering of the Landry fetus is reversed. WRONGFUL DEATH DAMAGES Both appellants contend that the jury committed error in awarding Mrs. Landry the sum of $300,000.00 and Mr. Landry the sum of $150,000.00 without evidence to justify such awards. They contend that the testimony presented by the Landrys does not in any way justify the large awards granted by the jury. Appellants argue that the death of the fetus has not changed the Landrys' relationship with one another, and point out that neither have sought any sort of help in terms of counseling. To further support their contention that the amounts awarded to the Landrys were grossly excessive, LCMH refers to a number of Fourth Circuit cases wherein that court was unwilling to award a parent in similar wrongful death actions more than $150,000. They allege that in these cases the fetus was born alive and the parents would have had more contact with the baby than with a stillborn. We are not persuaded by appellants' arguments. The standard for appellate review of damage awards is well-settled and clearly set forth in Andrus v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Insurance Company, 95-C-0801 (La.3/22/96); 670 So.2d 1206, 1210. In appellate review of general damage awards, the court must accord much discretion to the trial court judge or jury. Reck v. Stevens, 373 So.2d 498 (La.1979). The role of an appellate court in reviewing awards of general damages is not to decide what it considers to be an appropriate award, but rather to review the exercise of discretion by the trial court. Id. Only if the reviewing court determines that the trial court has abused its "much discretion" may it refer to prior awards in similar cases and then only to determine the highest or lowest point of an award within that discretion. Coco v. Winston Indus., Inc., 341 So.2d 332 (La.1976). Our high court goes on to explain that: Because discretion vested in the trial court is "great," and even vast, an appellate court should rarely disturb an award of general damages. Youn v. Maritime Overseas Corp., 623 So.2d 1257, 1261 (La. 1993). Reasonable persons frequently disagree about the measure of general damages in a particular case. It is only when the award is, in either direction, beyond that which a reasonable trier of fact could assess for the effects of the particular injury to the particular plaintiff under the particular circumstances that the appellate court should increase or reduce the award. Id. Id. at 1210. Reviewing the particular facts of the case before us, we conclude that a reasonable trier of fact could have assessed damages in the amounts awarded to the Landrys *836 for the effects of the particular injuries they suffered. The testimony elicited at trial established that the Landrys were both in their first marriage and the stillborn fetus was to be their first child. Furthermore, Mrs. Landry testified that she suffered a great deal of pain after her second OB watch, and that after the epidural, she was frightened and was not informed as to whether she was going to have a natural birth or a C-section. Mrs. Landry further testified that it was a painful experience to hold a lifeless baby in her arms after the C-section. Since she remained in the hospital for further treatment, she was unable to attend her baby's funeral and thus had to watch it on videotape. Further testimony established that early during the pregnancy, the Landrys began purchasing items in anticipation of their baby's upcoming birth. Mrs. Landry also testified that during the time she was pregnant, she could feel the baby reacting to her and her husband's voices. Mrs. Landry's upset over her initial losses did not abate with her discharge, as evidenced by her not returning to school for three months, fearful that she might be asked questions about her baby. In light of this and other evidence presented to the jury regarding the Landrys' pain and suffering, we find that the jury, being the ultimate trier of fact, was not unreasonable in its awards to this family under these circumstances. Consequently, we need not engage in a comparison of prior awards in superficially similar cases. EVIDENCE OF SUBSEQUENT PREGNANCIES Both appellants argue that the trial court erred in refusing to allow evidence to be presented regarding Mrs. Landry's subsequent pregnancies. At trial, the defendants attempted to introduce evidence of three subsequent pregnancies, two of which resulted in miscarriages and one of which resulted in the birth of a healthy baby. The defendants felt that this evidence was relevant regarding the emotional distress suffered by the Landrys, specifically regarding Mrs. Landry's testimony that she became very upset when she went around other children. We find that it was within the judges discretion to omit such evidence. Although this issue has seldom been addressed in our jurisprudence, we agree with our colleagues in the fourth circuit who found that "[a]ppellants argument that the birth of the.... two daughters helped mitigate the loss of the infant has little merit." McCann v. ABC Insurance Co., 93-CA-1789 (La.App. 4 Cir. 7/14/94); 640 So.2d 865, 875. We do not feel that subsequent pregnancies and births should be considered as mitigating factors, unless offered to directly rebut prior testimony. The Landrys did not testify at trial that they were unable to conceive and have more children, and it would be highly prejudicial and unfair to the Landrys to focus the jury's attention on the subsequent pregnancies instead of on the loss at hand. We find this assignment of error lacks merit. ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR ON BEHALF OF LCMH LCMH contends that the trial judge erred in failing to include its requested jury charge regarding the relationship of the doctor and the hospital, and who between them has ultimate control of a patient's health care course. We have reviewed the proposed jury charge and find that it contains language heavily stacked in favor of the defendant hospital. Although it is understood by this court that nurses generally follow the orders of the treating physician, this particular jury charge would have been highly prejudicial and it overlooks the fact that nurses must nevertheless follow the standard of care imposed upon them by Louisiana law. It was certainly within the trial judges discretion to exclude LCMH's proposed jury charge number four. This assignment of error lacks merit. LCMH next contends that the trial judge erred in including a reference to the national electronic fetal monitoring standard in contravention of Louisiana law on the duty of a nurse. LCMH claims that this reference to a national standard held the hospital nurses *837 to a standard that does not exist in Louisiana, prejudicing the jury into awarding fault against the hospital. The Landrys contend that the reference to the national electronic fetal monitoring standards was proper. Both LCMH and the Landrys cite case law in support of their respective positions. Under the circumstances, we find it unnecessary to address the issue for, regardless of which standard is appropriate, there was sufficient evidence to establish negligence on the part of the LCMH nurses, as it is clear that Dr. Clement was not advised at all of some of the fetal decelerations and that certain personnel might have lacked the training necessary to comport with any legal standard. In its final assignment of error, LCMH contends that the trial judge erred by including an instruction to the jury that negligence could be inferred when the hospital violates its own bylaws. We find this assignment of error also lacks merit. Undoubtedly, a primary purpose of written standards established by hospitals is to prevent negligent acts from occurring. The complained of jury charge reads as follows: "Negligence on the part of the hospital may be established through proof that the hospital violated its own written rules, regulations, bylaws or policies." This particular charge was not unnecessarily prejudicial, especially in light of the hospital policies which were violated. We certainly agree that negligence may be established when it is proven that improperly trained nurses are working for a hospital in a specialized department. MULTIPLE CAPS In their answer to this appeal, the Landrys originally requested this court to reinstate the jury verdict of $600,000.00, which was reduced by the trial court to $500,000.00 pursuant to La.R.S. 40:1299.42(B)(1). However, since the Landrys have voluntarily dismissed the survival action on behalf of the fetus, the amended jury award totals $450,000 and as such, clearly falls within the $500,000.00 statutory cap. Accordingly, we need not address the issue of whether multiple caps should apply. DECREE In light of the foregoing, the judgment of the trial court is reversed in part and rendered, awarding damages totaling $450,000.00, plus interest, with defendants to bear the costs of this proceeding in accordance with their respective percentages of fault. REVERSED IN PART AND RENDERED. NOTES [1] The imminent expectancy of Ms. Landry was not in doubt, as her expected delivery date of October 25, 1993, had been known for months. [2] According to exhibits introduced at trial, the average fetal heart rate for the term infant is between 110 and 160 beats per minute (bpm). [3] Patricia and Bryin Landry were awarded $100,000 and $50,000, respectively, in each of the following categories: 1) Past, present, and future mental anguish and suffering, 2) Loss of love and affection of their child, and 3) Loss of service and society of their child. Thus, the total award for wrongful death general damages is $450,000. [4] In fact, Dr. Clement's own expert witness, Dr. Harvey Gabert, testified that he would have reviewed the fetal heart monitor strips after having noticed the meconium staining at the 6 a.m. examination. [5] Wartelle v. Woman's and Children's Hospital, 95-736 (La.App. 3 Cir. 5/22/96); 676 So.2d 632, writ granted, 97-744 (La.5/9/97); 693 So.2d 779.

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Life on Alberta's campaign trail: a death sentence for the waistline JOSH WINGROVE AND DAWN WALTON LETHBRIDGE AND CALGARY — The Globe and Mail Last updated Monday, Sep. 10 2012, 2:05 PM EDT Alberta Wildrose leader Danielle Smith picks up a take out order at Peter's Drive-In while making a campaign stop in Calgary, Alta., Saturday, March 31, 2012. Albertans go to the polls on April 23. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press) Doughnuts, sandwiches, watered-down coffee, beef jerky, pop - life on the campaign trail can be a death sentence for the waistline. Regular meals are little more than a faint hope, but would-be premiers need to fuel their long days without piling on weight, as some politicians are prone to do during campaigns. “All protein,” she says, after a dinner of steak and prawns on the campaign trail, which she has been on for over a year, dating back to her campaign to win the leadership of the PC party. Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith also has a number of rules on the road: frequent stops at Tim Hortons for coffee - lots and lots of coffee. Rarely is she without a Roll up the Rim to Win cup. (So far, staff have mostly won more free coffee.) Another all-party dining directive: Lunch and dinner is always ordered from whatever restaurant is considered the local institution in the communities she visits. As such, the meals are always workmanlike: mostly sandwiches, but on occasion more exotic, such as Chinese food in Drumheller during one Wildrose stop. (Ms. Smith’s dogs, Turk and Caine, have proven themselves disciplined while those on the bus are eating. Rarely do they beg. They have their own supply of dog food anyway.) Media travelling with each party pay the cost of travel and a lunch, which is included. On Monday’s PC campaign, that meant steak sandwiches from a small-town grill. The “sandwich” part was misleading, though - they didn’t bother putting it on a slice of bread. It was just a giant steak, paired with soggy fries and plastic cutlery. Dry cleaning bills abound. But elections strategies change, and so too do diets. A poll Tuesday put Ms. Redford’s PC party 13 per cent behind Ms. Smith’s Wildrose, which was now firmly on track to form a majority and end 41 years of Tory rule. PC campaign staff, as such, switched up their dietary approach - darting out of their Lethbridge hotel, in search of beer.

Q: byte[] to string conversion Hiii, I am using Gearman to handle communication between PHP and java. I am trying to send array from PHP using json_encode to java worker. At php Side: public function test() { $test = $this->serviceManager->get('test\Model\test'); //print_r($test);exit; $message = array( 'to' => 'abhi', 'message' => 'this is a test', ); $test->sendtoJavaWorker(json_encode($message)); } At java side: @Override public byte[] work(String function, byte[] data, GearmanFunctionCallback callback) throws Exception { String json = new String(data, "UTF-8"); JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(String.valueOf(json)); String to = (String) jsonObject.get("to"); return data; } Now I am getting json value as shown in picture like ""{\"to\":\"abhi\",\"message\":\"this is a test\"}"". Can someone help. For time being, I m fixing this by using this code String json = new String(data); json = json.toString().replace("\\", ""); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(json); sb.deleteCharAt(0); sb.deleteCharAt(sb.length()-1); json = sb.toString(); System.out.println(json); And then I am getting answer like: A: Hiii, I got the answer, I was sending array after using json_encode to gearman, turns out sending directly to it worked. public function test() { $test = $this->serviceManager->get('test\Model\test'); //print_r($test);exit; $message = array( 'to' => 'abhi', 'message' => 'this is a test', ); $test->sendtoJavaWorker($message); }

An estimated 1 in 5 children are diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder. Neurodevelopmental disorders increase the likelihood of poor academic performance and social challenges. Although there has been some research on early risk for later neurodevelopmental disorders, there are few studies in the first years of life. Maternal immune activation (MIA) to infectious and inflammatory agents raises the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as intellectual disabilities and autism. The overarching purpose of the Career Development Award (K23) is for the candidate, Marisa Spann, a clinical child neuropsychologist, to gain training and mentored research experience on prenatal immunological antecedents of infant brain and behavioral development. With mentorship from Drs. Catherine Monk, Alan Brown, and R. Todd Constable, the application includes training activities for the candidate to achieve the following career goals: 1) develop knowledge of developmental and maternal-fetal immunology; (2) develop skills in perinatal biobehavioral study design and methods; and (3) develop skills in functional neuroimaging and longitudinal statistical modeling. The training and mentored research will occur at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC)?a top research institution with multi-disciplinary research programs. The research plan will capitalize on a cross-disciplinary model that combines the strengths of a population-based Finnish birth cohort from an extant dataset, and new data collection with a clinical sample of pregnant women recruited from CUMC. The primary goal of the study is to detect associations between prenatal MIA and early brain (head circumference, brain morphometry and connectivity) and behavioral development. In the population-based birth cohort, the candidate will investigate the associations between prenatal maternal influenza infection (influenza immunoglobulin G) and an inflammatory (C-reactive protein) marker, and growth velocity of head circumference from birth to one year. The new data collection will include the recruitment of a new hospital-based sample of pregnant women. In the newly established clinical cohort from CUMC, the candidate will detect associations of maternal influenza and inflammatory markers with neonatal brain morphometry and functional connectivity indices and behavioral reactivity in 3rd trimester fetuses and 4 month old infants. With the well-integrated training and research plans, the K23 award will ensure that the candidate develops the skills necessary to achieve independence in a novel interdisciplinary career area as a perinatal?developmental neuroscience researcher. The candidate will be uniquely positioned to discover distinct and common neurobiological and behavioral trajectories of neurobehavioral health prior to age one, in the service of determining risks for neurodevelopmental disorders, and its early identification.

A total of 4,607 applications were received, including from the Employment Exchange. (Representational) People with professional qualifications such as M.Tech, B.Tech and MBA, post graduates as well as graduates are in the race to bag the work of sweepers and sanitary workers in the Tamil Nadu Assembly Secretariat. Many Diploma holders too are fighting it out for the posts of sweeper (10 vacancies) and sanitary worker (4 vacancies). On September 26, the Assembly Secretariat sought applications for the posts. The only qualification was that the aspiring candidates should be able-bodied. The minimum age limit was 18 years completed. The maximum age differed. A total of 4,607 applications were received, including from the Employment Exchange. Of this, 677 applicants were rejected while the balance have fulfilled the eligibility criteria.

The auto industry is once again attempting to slow down the rollout of electric vehicles. Virtually all automakers, except for Tesla of course, have sent a letter to the Chinese government in an attempt to have them drastically weaken their zero-emission vehicle mandate. As we previously reported, China, the world’s biggest car market, has somewhat of an aggressive ZEV mandate that would force Automakers to have zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) represent 8% of new car sales as soon as 2018 and quickly ramp up to 12% by 2020. Now Germany’s WirtschaftsWoche magazine (via Auto News) reports that the American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC), which represents Chrysler/Fiat, Ford, and GM, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), which represents all major European automakers, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) and the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA), have all sent a joint letter to China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology to ask for several significant changes to the mandate. “Because we have common concerns with the proposed NEV rules, we have joined together to offer, with utmost respect, six recommended modifications that address those concerns while still meeting the goals of those rules and other related policies,” the letter said. The “six recommended modifications” include slowing the rollout of the mandate by 1 to 3 years, reconsidering the penalty system if they don’t meet the quota, having credits not only for all-electric cars but also plug-in hybrid cars, and basically making the whole mandate weaker so that they don’t have to produce as many electric cars. It’s not the first time that the auto industry banded together to weaken the rollout of electric cars. Virtually the exact same situation happened in an attempt to block EPA’s new fuel consumption standard in the US. What is often left out of this conversation is that the auto industry is not the only thing that is at stake here. Basically, those automakers are asking the Chinese government to let them sell their polluting vehicles in their country for a longer period of time without penalties. China has an important problem of air pollution that is believed to be the cause of over 4,000 deaths every day. This initiative is part of their campaign to reduce the air pollution in cities and its impact on the health of its population. The country is also addressing the issue on the energy front by adding renewable energy on its grid faster than any country, which in turn, is making electric vehicles even greener by being powered by this increasingly greener electric grid. Apparently, this is happening too fast for those automakers. While almost all of them have admitted at some point that electric cars are the future of the industry, those actions they are taking through their special interest groups are sending a different message. What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.

Q: Overlapping UTI declarations for same file extension Users of my application keep running into issues related to other applications declaring a different UTI for the same file extension as my application. I think I can best describe this with an example: My application supports importing and exporting OPML files. For this to work I import the org.opm.opml UTI in my info.plist. This mostly works fine, but fails if an other application declares a different UTI for the opml file extension. For example com.redlex.opml or com.xwavesoft.cloudoutliner.opml. Is there something I can do to work around this problem? Can I somehow tell launch services that my application accepts all files with an .opml extension? A: I solved this issue with the following work around: I removed the entire LSItemContentTypes entry from the list of CFBundleDocumentTypes In my NSDocument subclass I use NSString's rangeOfString:: method to look for the @"opml" keyword in the typeName parameter. This work around was confirmed by a user.

Here you can find complete information about study online. Check out the list of online schools, colleges and universities. Take an online degree or courses to raise your proficiency. Get all benefits from online education. Online Degrees Online Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's or Doctor's degrees in many fields are offered by US online universities, colleges and professional schools. You can benefit from study online because of its flexibility and low cost. Study Online Online education is a simple way to learn foreign language, get professional certificate or increase your professionalism with the help of online diploma programs or online courses. The Fire Protection Engineering graduate certificate consists of a cluster of four thematically related fire protection engineering courses. All courses taken for the graduate certificate may be later applied toward the master's degree in fire protection engineering. The curriculum is designed to provide the needed knowledge and skills to begin work in many areas of the Fire Protection field and to help solve fire protection and related safety problems in our complex technical society. Graduates have a broad scope of occupational opportunities in a variety of areas which include insurance, industry, equipment manufactures, municipal, and state industries.

Science is one of the greatest subjects for inspiring young minds to explore, test, play and ultimately create. And the way that children learn and scientific method have a lot more in common than most people might think.

MCR Corporation moves into MLP Pruszków II 01.2018 This cosmetic company that produces products under the Mincer Pharma brand, among others, has leased more than 2,200 square meters of manufacturing and warehousing space in the MLP Pruszków II logistics park. The new facility will be handed over to the MCR Corporation in mid-February 2018. The JLL consulting company acted as an intermediary in this transaction.

Q: How can i access different models with same plural in loopback? I want to access different models with same plurals. Is there any way in loopback to do so, e.g.: get-account.json { "name": "getAccount", "plural": "account" } to access get-account.js and inside it remoteMethod with http path / get-smtp-account.json { "name": "getSmtpAccount", "plural": "account" } to access get-smtp-account.js and inside it remoteMethod with http path /smtp A: I think you are missing the point of Restful resources. The restful specification is all about using the http verbs, representing CRUD actions like this: GET: READ - POST: CREATE - PUT: UPDATE - DELETE: DELETE Each model should represent a resource, that would be the name of a single entry in the persistance, for example, account. Because we are storing a collection of models, we use a "plural" to refer to this resources, thats why all endpoints should be named in plural, in this example that would be accounts. So, in any restful resource, if you wanna read data from the persistance, you should use GET http://0.0.0.0/api/accounts In loopback, you can create relations between models. This relations, are representations of the relations in the persistance (db). So you can create a model called "smtp". After the relation is made, you can query the account and "include" the smtp relation, bringing together all users with their data. Check the documentation for more information https://docs.strongloop.com/display/public/LB/Creating+model+relations If you have more questions, like, how to create relations between models, i'm really happy to help you in another question.

Climate, Jobs and Justice Accountability Forum May 12, 2017 @ 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Event Navigation Let’s translate the energy of the People’s Climate March and the Trump resistance into political impact in NYC: join a mass people’s interview of NYC Mayor de Blasio, Public Advocate James and Comptroller Stringer. Come learn about the issues, and then hear our city’s leaders’ views, question them on the big issues, hold them accountable, and urge them to take the bold policy action we need! With Trump taking us backwards in the fight against climate change and inequality, it’s now even more important that NYC step up. New York produces massive climate pollution and is also riven by inequality. We can fight both of these moral crisis at the same time by urging our top elected leaders to take action. Our city-wide elected leaders who make the critical decisions on climate, jobs and justice are invited and expected to participate – let’s show them bold action on these issues is vital! Please join hundreds of your fellow New Yorkers at this important town-hall style event to stop climate change, create good jobs, and ensure justice for all. This event is co-organized by the People’s Climate March – NY, 350.org, 350NYC, ALIGN-NY, Bronx Climate Justice North, Catskill Mountainkeeper, CUNY University Student Senate (USS), DSA – Climate Justice, Faith in New York, Food & Water Watch, Frack Action, Green Education and Legal Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), New York Communities for Change (NYCC), New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Sane Energy Project, Sierra Club NYC Group, Transform Don’t Trash NYC, United for Action, VOCAL-NY, WeACT for Environmental Justice and the Working Families Party (event co-sponsor list in formation).

Description: Course winds through both parks. Open rolling fairways with some water hazards in play on seven holes. Dual tees: short/advanced and long/pro, along with multiple pin positions for the first 19 holes.

The invention relates to an accelerator agent comprising a novel blend of aldehyde-amine condensation product and aliphatic amines, for use with diaminic, metal oxide, sulfur, and triazine crosslinkable elastomers, in particular, ethylene acrylate elastomers (AEM) and polyacrylate elastomers (ACM), polyisoprene (IR), styrene butadiene (SBR), acrylonitrile butadiene (NBR), ethylene-propylene diene terpolymers (EPDM), isobutylene-co-isoprene (IIR), chlorinated isobutylene-co-isoprene (CIIR), and brominated isobutylene-co-isoprene (BIIR). Diaminically crosslinkable ethylene acrylate elastomers (AEM) and polyacrylate elastomers (ACM) are relatively inexpensive elastomeric materials which are of interest in the area of seals, particularly those used in various elements of vehicle engines. AEM elastomers are available, for example, from DuPont under the trade name Vamac®, while ACM elastomers are available from Zeon Chemicals, for example, under the trade names Nipol® and HyTemp®. Those AEM and ACM elastomers which are accessible to diaminic crosslinking comprise so-called cure site monomer units whose content in the elastomer is normally approximately 1 to approximately 5 phr. Conventionally, diaminically crosslinkable AEM and ACM elastomers are crosslinked with crosslinking agents such as, for example, hexamethylene diamine carbamate, N,N-dicinnamylide diamine carbamate, 4,4-diaminodicyclohexylmethane, m-xylene diamine, 4,4-diaminodiphenylmethane, 4,4-diaminodiphenyl ether and 2,2-bis[4-(4-amino-phenoxy)phenyl]propane, which can be used individually or in mixtures. Other suitable diamine crosslinking agents belong to the group of hexamethylene diamines. US 2009/0270549 teaches a crosslinking agent for diaminically crosslinkable ethylene acrylate (AEM) and polyacrylate (ACM) elastomers, comprising a diamine crosslinker, an accelerator selected from 1,8-diazabicyclo-5,4,0-undec-7-ene (DBU), derivatives and salts thereof, and a moderator of the pyrrolidone type. The reference notes that while DBU, a tertiary amine, was a known accelerator, it was not possible to use with these AEM and ACM elastomers as it resulted in inferior compression set at elevated temperatures. The reference teaches that the problem is overcome by combining DBU with a moderator. Polychloroprene (CR) and natural rubber (NR) elastomers are relatively inexpensive elastomeric materials which are used in many broad range rubber applications. CR elastomers are available, for example, from DuPont under the name Neoprene, while NR elastomers are widely available under many technical specified descriptions of natural rubber. General purpose CR is used in molded and extruded goods, hoses, belts, wire and cables, heels and soles of shoes, coated fabrics, and gaskets. Most natural rubber is used in tires and automotive products. Other major applications of NR are industrial and engineering goods, footwear and adhesives. CR and NR use differing crosslinking systems for their different polymeric chemical makeup. CR uses metal oxides as a curative while NR uses sulfur as its curative. Both crosslinking systems are used together with an accelerator, of which can be from a wide variety of chemical groups. Polyepichlorohydrin is a triazine crosslinkable elastomer group, of which epichlorohydrin polymer (CO), copolymer of epichlorohydrin (ECO), and terpolymer of epichlorohydrin (GECO) are examples. Polyepichlorohydrin elastomers have a balance of properties that make it useful in automotive seals and hoses, and are available from Zeon Chemicals, for example, under the trade name Hydrin®. Triazine crosslinking systems can be used with a variety of accelerators and retarders to make the cure systems widely adjustable. These crosslinking systems are used together with an accelerator, which is preferably taken from substances of the guanidine group, to which, in particular, the accelerators OTBG, DOTG, DPG and/or biguanidine belong. However, due to possible toxicological problems, it is likely that these systems, particularly DOTG, will be phased out under regulatory requirements.

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3802641512940122703.post9043225938242792191..comments2016-05-11T04:55:46.097-05:00Comments on Genealogy Lines: Something About BlogsRuby Colemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]:blogger.com,1999:blog-3802641512940122703.post-57512339559778564422011-05-08T19:40:50.348-05:002011-05-08T19:40:50.348-05:00I always enjoy reading your blog, Ruby. I've b...I always enjoy reading your blog, Ruby. I've become more of a blog reader than a blog writer because I'm one of those bloggers whose life has interfered with blogging time. I know it won't always be this way and meantime, I just enjoy reading whenever I can find the time! :-)Miriamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]:blogger.com,1999:blog-3802641512940122703.post-3965759554863238422011-04-25T13:38:49.027-05:002011-04-25T13:38:49.027-05:00Nice post, Ruby. I remember in the not too distan...Nice post, Ruby. I remember in the not too distant past that I was doing Google searches just to find a genealogy-related blog to read. No need for that anymore. There are so many interesting blogs now that I run out of time instead of running out of blogs to read.PalmsRVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

A quantitative histologic study of avian osteopetrotic bone demonstrating normal osteoclast numbers and increased osteoblastic activity. Hyperostotic diseases caused by increased osteoblastic activity are poorly understood partially because a suitable animal model is not available for their study. In contrast, a hyperostotic disorder caused by defective osteoclasts (mammalian osteopetrosis) is better understood, largely because of advances made with a murine model of the disease. The avian form of osteopetrosis is caused by RNA tumor viruses, but the role of osteoblasts and osteoclasts is not clear. We have performed a morphometric analysis of osteopetrotic avian bone to provide basic information about changes in the cells of bones from animals developing the disease. Chick embryos were injected at 12 days of incubation with a virus (MAV-2(0)) that induces osteopetrosis at a high frequency. Changes in bone volume were detected 14 days after virus injection. By 3 weeks of age, the bone volumes of osteopetrotic chicks were 4.7-fold larger than controls. The mean caliper diameter of an osteoclast was the same in osteopetrotic and normal bone. The number of osteoclasts per tibia increased in osteopetrotic animals, but the density of osteoclasts decreased. The presence of an increased number of osteoclasts of a normal size rules out the possibility that the virus causes osteopetrosis by selectively killing osteoclasts. The total bone-nonbone interface increased in osteopetrosis, and greater than 90 per cent of interface surface was devoted to bone deposition. These results indicate that avian osteopetrosis is an osteoblastic, proliferative disorder of bone and may serve as an excellent animal model for human diseases in which osteoblasts increase in number.

Q: Is it possible to override a set DependencyProperty of a nested Control with a XAML-Style? Lets assume there is a Control with a default Style which i can only base-on or override. In this Style there is a ControlTemplate which has another Control and sets the Value of a DependencyProperty directly. Something like this: <Style TargetType="{x:Type ParentControl}" x:Key="Test"> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type ParentControl}"> <ChildControl Property="Value" ... /> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> Now i want to change the Value of the Property in the ChildControl without access/changing the default Style. If i'm not mistaken, the Foreground of the ChildControl can't be overridden with a simple Style-Setter due the Value Precedence. <!-- Doesen't Work --> <Style TargetType="{x:type ChildControl}"> <Setter Property="Property" Value="Value"/> </Style> But according to the same Source it would be possible to override it with an Animation (if the Animation lasts forever). Right there, i'm stuck. More precisely: I can't override the IsDirectionReversed Property of the vertical ScrollBar-Track in a ScrollViewer. <ScrollViewer Height="300" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled"> <ScrollViewer.Resources> <Style TargetType="{x:Type Track}"> <Style.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsVisible" Value="True"> <Trigger.EnterActions> <BeginStoryboard x:Name="SetValue"> <Storyboard Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Track.IsDirectionReversed)"> <BooleanAnimationUsingKeyFrames RepeatBehavior="Forever" Duration="24:00:00"> <DiscreteBooleanKeyFrame Value="False" KeyTime="00:00:00"/> </BooleanAnimationUsingKeyFrames> </Storyboard> </BeginStoryboard> </Trigger.EnterActions> <Trigger.ExitActions> <StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="SetValue"/> </Trigger.ExitActions> </Trigger> </Style.Triggers> </Style> </ScrollViewer.Resources> <Rectangle Height="800"/> </ScrollViewer> Is there something wrong with the Trigger/Animation? Or does the Behaviour of the Track-Control not change when the IsDirectionReversed-Property is set via Animation? A: Try to define an implicit ScrollBar style and put the Track style inside the Resources dictionary of this one. Then your style should get applied to the Track element: <ScrollViewer Height="300" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled"> <ScrollViewer.Resources> <Style TargetType="ScrollBar"> <Style.Resources> <Style TargetType="{x:Type Track}"> <Style.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsVisible" Value="True"> <Trigger.EnterActions> <BeginStoryboard x:Name="SetValue"> <Storyboard Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Track.IsDirectionReversed)"> <BooleanAnimationUsingKeyFrames RepeatBehavior="Forever" Duration="24:00:00"> <DiscreteBooleanKeyFrame Value="False" KeyTime="00:00:00"/> </BooleanAnimationUsingKeyFrames> </Storyboard> </BeginStoryboard> </Trigger.EnterActions> <Trigger.ExitActions> <StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="SetValue"/> </Trigger.ExitActions> </Trigger> </Style.Triggers> </Style> </Style.Resources> </Style> </ScrollViewer.Resources> <Rectangle Height="800" Fill="Red"/> </ScrollViewer>

This is your chance to WIN 2 FREE TICKETS to see Protoje & The Indiggnation live at Melkweg Amsterdam on November 14, 2013. We give away 3 x 2 tickets for this great show! How can these tickets become yours? Please send an email to [email protected] and tell us why we should give you 2 free tickets for this show at Melkweg Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Please put your first and last name in the email and use ‘Protoje Melkweg Amsterdam’ as the subject.

28-06-06 - version 0.1 - initial creation28-06-06 - version 0.2 - alsa-source guide added28-06-06 - version 0.3 - alsa-drivers from alsa-project guide added29-06-06 - version 0.4 - multiple sounds and multiple cards support added02-07-06 - version 0.4 - fixed mistake spotted by Jvaldezjr04-07-06 - version 0.5a - layout changes - starting on MIDI guide - Read *EXPERIMENTAL*04-07-06 - version 0.5a - added part on saving sound settings so they are restored after reboot.11-07-06 - version 0.5b - added guide for doing a *fresh* kernel installation13-07-06 - version 0.5c - minor layout edit - moved *fresh* kernel above compilation to see if it is more help and if it solves more problems.15-07-06 - version 0.5d - usage update17-07-06 - version 0.5e - added Advanced Guides by other Ubuntuers21-08-06 - Initial phase of moving page to UDSF23-08-06 - Added a Further Reading section - first link thanks to segalion.12-11-06 - version 0.6 - finally added "Adding the current user to the audio group" - and a few formatting fixes Background / Notes / Warnings I can't guarantee if these instructions will work for everybody, and this is definitely a work in progress. But if these instructions can at least help one person out, I'll be happy. If anyone has any suggestions or tips in making this post better, feel free to PM me or post below. Credits will be given regardless of how small the improvement. If you find that you have followed the instructions on this post that something did not and you don't know why, it will be better if you start a new post and cite the fact that you used the instructions on this guide to solve your problem. Your post might get lost in all the other posts and you might not get help. If you however find a solution to your problem, and you fee that the solution should be here, don't hesistate to post. However, please be specific. If you cannot use hear anything, and you have just installed Ubuntu, then it could very possibly be a bug. It could be something as simple as not detecting your hardware the first time or evidence of a deeper problem. As fun as it is to find workarounds and fixes on your own or with help, Ubuntu developers need your feedback to see what is not working for you. That's right ladies and gentlemen, they would really really like it if you would file bug reports onhttp://launchpad.net under the Ubuntu distribution. Note: To make it absolutely clear, when I say 'Ubuntu', I mean Ubuntu AND Kubuntu AND Xubuntu (for people who find this confusing - just accept it and don't feel bad - I and probably a whole lot others got confused when we started out). Important syntax note: ALSA modules are denoted by the prefix 'snd' followed by the dash ' - ', followed by the module name (i.e. 'via82xx'). So the full name might be something like snd-via82xx. However, in some cases you will see an underscore ' _ ' instead of the dash. This is OK, do not let it confuse you. For all intensive purposes (installing modules or posting on forums) only use the dash ' - '. General Help - Start here if you have no idea why sound is not playing (1) Go to a shell and type: Code: aplay -l Success - You will get a list of the all the soundcards installed on your system. Your sound just might be muted. See alsamixer section. Failure - You will get a message like Code: aplay: device_list:221: no soundcard found... Move on to step 2. (2) Type this into the shell: Code: lspci -v Success - At this point, you should see your sound card listed. This is a positive sign because it means that Ubuntu is detecting the presence of your soundcard, but the drivers are not installed/running. Leave your shell running since you will need it. Failure - If it is not listed, then there are a few things that you can do. If your soundcard is an onboard sound card, then it might be disabled in the system's BIOS. You will have to reboot and hit the key that lets you enter into the BIOS (usually Delete, F2, or F8). If your soundcard is not onboard, make sure that it is properly seated in the PCI slot. If your card is working under Windows then this is not a problem. (3) Check to see if the ALSA driver for your sound card exists. Go to http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/ and search for your sound card (chipset) manufacturer in the dropdown box. You'll be given a matrix of the sound cards made by the manufacturer. Try to match the chipset you found in step 2 with the driver(green hyperlink text). Success - You will have found the driver for your soundcard's chipset. Failure - You will have not found the driver for your soundcard chipset. (at the moment I cannot help you, but stay tuned!) (4) Now go back to the shell and type Code: sudo modprobe snd- Now, press the TAB key BEFORE pressing the ENTER key to see a list of modules. Try to find the module that matches the driver you found in step 3. For example, my driver is a via82xx so I would type, sudo modprobe snd-via82xx. Success A success here means that your soundcard was installed, but it was not being loaded. Now you have loaded it for the current session. To load it for all sessions (you will probably want to do this) you will have to edit /etc/modules (I think this is the file, I'll check once I get to my Dapper PC). Type this into the shell Code: sudo nano /etc/modules Add only the name of the module to be loaded at the end of the file. In my case, the via82xx module gave me sound so I added "snd-via82xx" to the end of the file.(iii) Make sure that you have all channels unmuted in alsamixer See the alsamixer section Play media using your favorite media player. Set your audio engine to alsa. In some cases, you have to configure your audio engine within another (media engine) like in Kaffiene in Kubuntu. If you hear sound, hurray! One final step. Go onto Saving Sound Settings Failure -You have two options Move on to Getting the ALSA drivers from a *fresh* kernel. This step is easier and is recommended to users who might have been tinkering with their sound settings and want to revert back to the way it was just after installing Ubuntu (without reinstalling Ubuntu of course ) Move on to ALSA driver Compilation, if you have not done so already. If you have, please post a new thread with your problem. Getting the ALSA drivers from a *fresh* kernel Sometimes, sound might be configured correctly, but for some reason or another (tinkering) it stops working. One way to go back to the old setup is to reinstall Ubuntu. However, this step is actually quite unnecessary since you are reinstalling everything because of one thing. A faster way, is to just remove the problematic packages and reinstall them cleanly. (1) Remove these packages Code: sudo apt-get --purge remove linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils (2) Reinstall those same packages Code: sudo apt-get install linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils [LIST][*] VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Ubuntu (GNOME) users have reported that packages 'gdm' and 'ubuntu-desktop' are removed after removing the linux-sound-base packages. If this happens, then do the following Code: sudo apt-get install gdm ubuntu-desktop (3) Reboot [*][LEFT] VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Xubuntu (XFCE) users have reported that packages 'gdm' and 'xubuntu-desktop' are removed after removing the linux-sound-base packages. If this happens, then do the following Code: sudo apt-get install gdm xubuntu-desktop (3) RebootNow you may ask "I already had the packages, so why did I go through the trouble of removing them, then installing them". The answer lies in the --purge option which removes all the extra information that accumulated from tinkering and upgrading. After doing a purge then install, the packages are unpackaged as if it they are brand new.(4) At this point, try using Code: aplay -l you should get your soundcard listed. Success - Your soundcard is detected. Go onto the Using alsamixer section, then try playing something on your music or media player. If you are here, then either your soundcard driver could not be loaded with modprobe, or you want to compile the drivers yourself from scratch. Good luck to you! There are two main ways the sources of alsa-drivers are made available to you. One is though the apt-get system. Using this system would be the recommended system since most of the heavy lifting is done for you. The other way, is getting the latest drivers from alsa-project.org. This page has the latest drivers available, which you might want to fix problems with. However, these have not been tested with Ubuntu and therefore should be used with caution. Using alsa-source Type the following to shell: (note: module-assistant is optional, it will compile the package for you) You now have a big blue dialog box (left and right keys to choose 'Yes' and 'No', Enter key proceed). Answer yes (for ISA-PNP - recommended by package maintainers), then yes again (for debugging - recommended by package maintainers). Now you must pick which driver you want to install. Use space to select and deselect modules, and up and down to navigate. From General Help step 3, you should know the name of your driver. Deselect 'all' (the * will go away), and select your driver. In my case, I deselected 'all' then selected 'via82xx'. Hit Enter. Almost home free! If you chose module-assistant Code: sudo module-assistant a-i alsa-source If the progress bar reaches 100% with no errors, you will have installed the drivers successfully. Resume this guide from General Help step 4. If you did not choose module-assistant - Remember the name of your soundcard driver and use it place of the blue text below. If you get no errors from doing the above then you have successfully compiled alsa-drivers from source. Resume this guide from General Help step 4. Using alsamixer Type this into a shell Code: alsamixer You will now see what appears to be a graphical equalizer. It is more like ten different volume controls in the sample place. To navigate around: Left and Right Arrow Keys - Move left and right (if you move long enough in one direction you will get back to where you started - you will not fall off the screen ) Up and Down Arrow Keys - Increase and decrease volume respectively. Letter M Key - Mutes/unmutes. If a channel is unmuted, then there is a green box underneath the volume slider. If the channel is muted, the box is grey. Saving Sound SettingsDo this step to ensure that your alsamixer settings are reloaded with each boot. First make sure you have your settings just the way you like them in alsamixer. Then do Code: sudo alsactl store 0 or if this is your nth sound card (where n is the number of soundcards in your computer) replace 0 with n-1. Many thanks to xpix for trying this out.- Getting more than one application to use the soundcard at the same time You might want to play a game and listen to music on your favorite music player at the same time. To do this successfully, you will have to use ALSA since it supports this feature the best. On all the music players I know of, you can configure the sound engine, to any module that is available. The setting is usually found under something like Tools >>> Configure >>> Player Engines. For games, it is a bit more tricky since there is not always a way to configure the player engine directly. Most games, however, do support the OSS. ALSA has an OSS module that allows OSS applications to use the ALSA driver. To do this you will need the alsa-oss package Code: sudo apt-get install alsa-oss After doing this step, it is very easy to use alsa-oss. In the shell, you can type 'aoss' then the name of the program name you want to use with alsa-oss. Note: This section assumes that you have installed each soundcard properly. In a shell, type Code: cat /proc/asound/modules This will give the the name and index of each soundcard you have currently. Make a note of the names, and decide which one you want to be the default card. Now type Code: sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base At the very end of the file, add the following (assuming you have 3 cards with module names A, B and C and you want to have them in the order CAB) Code: options snd-C index=0 options snd-A index=1options snd-B index=2 Adding the current user to the audio group A very common cause for a user to not have sound is not having his/her username in the /etc/group. Thanks to rustybutt for this simple check. Code: grep 'audio' /etc/group You should see a line similar to Code: audio:x:29: followed by a username i.e. if the username is "ubuntu" then you should see Code: audio:x:29:ubuntu . If you see something else i.e. Code: audio:x:29:root you should add your username to the file by doing Code: sudo nano /etc/group . Now find the line that looks like Code: audio:x:29:root and change it to Code: audio:x:29:root:moocow only replacing moocow with your real username. Hit CTRL + 0 to save, then CTRL + X to exit. That's the end of that Getting MIDI To Work - *EXPERIMENTAL* This section assumes you can successfully hear sound from your soundcard. First of all, make sure that you actually have a MIDI port on your soundcard. Most onboard soundcards do not have a MIDI port. Next, open up this file: Code: sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base Then add this options line Code: options <snd module name here i.e. snd-via82xx> mpu_port=0x330 OR if you already have a options line for this soundcard add Code: mpu_port=0x330 to the line. The default MIDI port is 330. You should verify this number in your BIOS if you are not sure. If the number is not listed, it is most likely that the number is 330 (add the 0x for the file). If you get no errors, you have successfully installed your MIDI port. At the moment, I do not know if any further configuration is necessary. Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks Here are a few things that other people have dug up over the course of this guide. Not all tips are meant to work for all hardware (believe me hda-intel will probably have like a mini guide of it's own one day). The crucial thing is to enable everything in alsamixer EXCEPT "external amplifier." (I had to turn off microphone too, to stop feedback). Useff had a very annoying problem where he could get sound through alsa from one user, but not through is main account. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1221754. Him and I managed to fix the problem by making sure the main account was in the audio group in /etc/groups (which he was) and deleting the .asoundrc file in the main account's /home directory. Bo Rosén solved his ISA problem the following way. Thanks to FarEast for his help in the matter. (I personally like the non-keytouch route - configuring xmodmap and then using gnome-keybindings or for KDE (System Settings >> Regional and Language Settings >> Keyboard Shortcuts). The xmodmap route also works for XFCE, but I do not how to configure XFCE application keybindings. Re: Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide Bumping this post since I think it is ready to be used by people having trouble with sound. I'll do my best to field questions and make changes to this guide as needed. If you are an experienced Ubuntu user, please help out with testing, verifying, and helping people who use this guide. Re: Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide Excellent. Thank you. I had a problem with multiple card switching and reported it as a bug. Are options in alsa-base (also suggested to me on launchpad) workaround or solution? Im definitely interested in midi (new yamaha dx-305 sitting just next to pc). Re: Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide Options in alsa-base would be a solution. alsa-base is a part of the official Ubuntu Repositories, so they would be considered a solution. The alsa-drivers from alsa-project would be considered a workaround until Ubuntu incorporates the official 1.0.11 stable into alsa-base. Re: Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide Excellent guide- I've just reinstalled Dapper, so I'll retry my sound issues with this guide, and see what happens. **Update*** I went through the steps like you mentioned, and I believe it is working like it is supposed to. I'll post if I have more problems in another thread, but as of right now I'm getting 5.1 sound. The only problem I had was when I rebuilding the alsa drivers with alsa-source. The command "dpkg-reconfigure alsa-base" didn't produce anything- there was a pause at the prompt, then that was it. Something ran, but I got no feedback as to what it did. So I went through the steps with the module-assistant method, and so far so good. Also, I never was able to get any output when I did "sudo modprobe snd-" and hit tab. So I went through with the loading the module anyway (my case it was snd-intel8x0). When I added that module to my /etc/modules file and rebooted, I believe that fixed it. However, when I checked to see if the module was loaded (lsmod | grep snd) the only thing I saw that was close to snd-intel8x0 was snd_intel8x0. Is there a different between using the - and the _ , or is it still the same module, and should I have added snd_intel8x0 to /etc/modules? Re: Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide Jvaldezjr - Thanks for the comments - you found an error in my instructions - it was supposed to read Code: sudo apt-get dpkg-reconfigure alsa-source not alsa-base. In the alsa-project wiki, using a - and a _ are the same thing. They just appear in different areas. ubuntu_demon - thanks for the comments and the sticky!!! linish - glad I could help. Video gets a bit tricky and most of the work has been done. I might make a guide that links to all the relevant guides for ATI/NVIDIA/free drivers. acorn22 - thanks for the comments. I tried to make it as new-user friendly as possible and I assume that the new-user has no previous knowledge whatsoever. This characteristic, IMO, makes the guide longer, but more thorough and less ambiguous.

Thursday, August 05, 2010 Ainge Goes Against Instincts to Build Celtics Danny Ainge was a key member of the Celtics the last time the team was trying to balance their hopes of winning a championship against a roster of aging stars. At one point in the 1988 season, Ainge instructed Red Auerbach to trade all of the Celtics superstars who were on the wrong side of 30. That included Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson, and Ainge. Auerbach refused to part with Bird, McHale, Parish, or Johnson but he did move Ainge. By allowing his team to get old without reinforcing the roster with young talent, the Celtics lost their grip on the Eastern Conference to the Pistons and Bulls. As the man currently in charge of making roster decisions for the Celtics, it is interesting that Ainge has not taken his own advice. When presented with the opportunity to begin a long rebuilding process this summer when Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (two of his best players) became free agents, Ainge instead made the commitment to staying the course with his aging team and added depth with additional aging stars. Ainge added 38-year-old Shaquille O'Neal and 32-year-old Jermain O'Neal, who bring a combined 31 years of experience to the Celtics, to a team built on a foundation of Kevin Garnett (age 34), Pierce (33), and Allen (35). There is some young blood on the team that will take pressure of the AARP crowd. Point guard Rajon Rondo is just 24-years-old and he is joined in the rotation by Glen Davis (24), Nate Robinson (26), Kendrick Perkins (26), and Von Wafer (25). The roster will be rounded out by promising rookies Avery Bradley (20), Luke Harangody (22), and Semih Erden (24). That group of young players is probably the way that Ainge justified his decision to keep Pierce and Allen in Boston while adding the O'Neals. The Celtics are built to be a force in the playoffs and the experience of contending for a championship will hasten the development of the younger players. Ainge has given Doc Rivers a team long on experience that should win between 50-60 regular season games and in the end should be celebrating and holding the Larry O'Brien trophy on the Garden floor. The young legs will get them through the October-April stretch and then the future Hall of Fame inductees will take over in May and June. Let's be happy that Ainge the general manager did not listen to the advice of Danny Ainge the player. Blog Archive Quote of the Week ""Sports radio' is really an acronym for 'guy radio.' Sports are comfort. When you go to a party and your wife introduces you to some guy you've never met, but he's married to one of her friends, it's like this sort of grown-man playdate that you're forced to be on: I don't know you, you don't know me. What do we do? We talk about sports. Eventually, once I know you better, we're going to talk about taking our wives to see Titanic. We're going to talk about Seinfeld. Women can talk about anything. Guys have to start with sports. It's the bond we have since the time we're 5."

Q: Pattern-matching algorithm for lists I am trying some pattern matching in Python. I have two lists as follows: a = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1,3] b = [3,4,5,2,1,7,8,9,1] Now I want to retrieve some common patterns c = [3,4,5,7,8,9,1] Is there a library that can help me with this? A: I hacked something together for you. This returns the longest list c that is an ordered sublist of both a and b. In other words, the longest list that can be obtained by deleting elements from either a or b without changing their order. def match(a, b): if len(a) == 0 or len(b) == 0: return [] if a[0] == b[0]: return [a[0]] + match(a[1:], b[1:]) return max(match(a, b[1:]), match(a[1:], b), key=len) Here's the output: >>> a = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1,3] >>> b = [3,4,5,2,1,7,8,9,1] >>> match(a, b) [3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 1] In the future, it's always a good idea to write a definition of what it is you want to achieve. That way, other people can better understand you, and functions can be checked against the definition to see if they are correct. You will get a better idea how to do this if you study more mathematics. Combinatorics and number theory are two subfields closely related to computer science and programming. Good luck!

Direct, solid phase assembly of dihydropyrroloindole peptides with conjugated oligonucleotides. A new controlled pore glass (CPG) support is described that allows for the direct synthesis of oligonucleotide derivatives carrying a minor groove binding (MGB) agent at the 3'-terminus. The MGB consisted of three repeating 1,2-dihydro-3H-pyrrolo[2,3-e]indole-7-carboxylate (DPI) subunits. The DPI trimer (DPI3) was prepared directly on the CPG support using repeated addition of the DPI subunit. The subunit was protected at the N-3-position with tert-butyloxycarbonyl residue and activated at the 7-carboxy residue by esterification with the 2,3,5,6-tetrafluorophenyl group. A linker, which provided the starting point for oligonucleotide synthesis, was introduced by reaction of the terminal N-3 with p-nitrophenyl 4-[bis(4-methoxyphenyl)phenylmethoxy]butyrate. When used as a support for oligonucleotide synthesis, this modified CPG gave the desired 3'-DPI3-octathymidylate [(dTp)8-DPI3] conjugate in good yield. This conjugate formed hyperstabilized complexes with complementary polyribo- (Tmax = 35 degrees C) and polydeoxyriboadenylic (Tmax = 69 degrees C) acids. In contrast to the N-carbamoyl derivative reported earlier by us, it demonstrated higher cooperativity of melting transitions.

If you thought you were special, think again, human. A new study found that young dolphins actually recognize themselves earlier than young chimps ... and human children. When scientists want to figure out if an animal can recognize itself, they need one thing: a mirror. It's a pretty simple idea: you put an animal in front of a mirror and see what it does. Most animals can't figure out that the animal in the mirror is really itself (ever seen a dog bark at its reflection?). But some animals make repetitive motions in the mirror to figure out what's going on. Scientists have only found a handful of animals that can do this, including humans, chimps, dolphins and, for some reason, magpies. And even though we know adult dolphins can see themselves in mirrors, no one had ever tried out the test on young dolphins ... until now. A couple of scientists from New York's CUNY Graduate Center put a mirror underwater and filmed Bayley and Foster, two young bottlenose dolphins, looking at themselves over a period of three years. The dolphins recognized themselves right away; they started making those repetitive motions when they were only seven months old. It usually takes human babies at least a year to do the same, and it takes chimp babies even longer. "We suggest that the dolphins in this study began to use the mirror as a tool to view themselves as they performed a variety of novel and sometimes 'apparent social behaviors'," write the researchers. This test isn't just about mirrors. Scientists have found that recognizing yourself in a mirror goes hand in hand with things like empathy, play, intelligence and just plain dealing with others. Yet more proof that these marine friends of ours are really, really smart.

SIGUEME: Technology-based intervention for low-functioning autism to train skills to work with visual signifiers and concepts. People with low-functioning ASD and other disabilities often find it difficult to understand the symbols traditionally used in educational materials during the learning process. Technology-based interventions are becoming increasingly common, helping children with cognitive disabilities to perform academic tasks and improve their abilities and knowledge. Such children often find it difficult to perform certain tasks contained in educational materials since they lack necessary skills such as abstract reasoning. In order to help these children, the authors designed and created SIGUEME to train attention and the perceptual and visual cognitive skills required to work with and understand graphic materials and objects. A pre-test/post-test design was implemented to test SIGUEME. Seventy-four children with low-functioning ASD (age=13.47, SD=8.74) were trained with SIGUEME over twenty-five sessions and compared with twenty-eight children (age=12.61, SD=2.85) who had not received any intervention. There was a statistically significant improvement in the experimental group in Attention (W=-5.497, p<0.001). There was also a significant change in Association and Categorization (W=2.721, p=0.007) and Interaction (W=-3.287, p=0.001). SIGUEME is an effective tool for improving attention, categorization and interaction in low-functioning children with ASD. It is also a useful and powerful instrument for teachers, parents and educators by increasing the child's motivation and autonomy.

WTBU WTBU may refer to: WTBU (FM), a radio station (95.3 MHz) licensed to York Center, Maine, United States WDTI, a television station (channel 44), which held the call sign WTBU-TV until 2004 WTBU (college radio), an unlicensed college radio station

129e9abcc Merge pull request #4276 from nextcloud/uploader bc0b9e78f Engineering Test Mode (#4133) a6371ee30 check status on transfer update 0938d81c7 mHostUrlInput can be null if used with direct login (#4270) 53a4844ab Merge pull request #4269 from nextcloud/daggerBump 4632dc659 [tx-robot] updated from transifex 2124364b4 daily dev 20190727

Tom FordLeather crossbody bag Punctuate your looks on a stylish and practical note courtesy of Tom Ford. This miniature crossbody style comes crafted from butter-soft leather in neutral tan for endless pairing possibilities. The house's logo in a golden effect sits to the front for a subtle punch of recognition.

Analysis of the effect of foreign gases in the production of hyperpolarized 129Xe gas on a simple system working under atmospheric pressure. Experimental conditions that affect the degree of polarization of 129Xe gas were tested for a higher degree of polarization to facilitate a laboratory use of 129Xe NMR, primarily on the effect of addition of foreign gases. When He, N(2), or D(2) gas was added separately to pure Xe gas with natural isotope abundance, D(2) gas gave better results than the others in enhancing the degree of polarization in 129Xe atom. When these gases were added in mixture, however, N(2) plus He was proved to be more efficient than D(2) or He in enhancing the degree of polarization. As a result, the degree of polarization was found to be increased by more than an order, when diluent gases were properly mixed; polarization as high as 35% was reached at gas composition of 5% Xe, 10% N(2), and 85% He, whereas only a few percent was attainable when Xe gas was polarized without mixing any foreign gases [J. Magn. Reson. 150 (2), 156-160 (2001)]. These results were discussed on a basis of quenching and buffer effects of foreign gases. Polarization was also measured after separating the pure Xe gas from the mixture; value of 22% was obtained for the Xe gas isolated after solidification in liquid nitrogen trap. Build-up time of the polarization was also tested, which did not change remarkably depending on the gas composition.

--- abstract: 'The nonsingular bounce models usually suffer from the ghost or gradient instabilities, as has been proved recently. In this paper, we propose a covariant effective theory for stable nonsingular bounce, which has the quadratic order of the second order derivative of the field $\phi$ but the background set only by $P(\phi,X)$. With it, we explicitly construct a fully stable nonsingular bounce model for the ekpyrotic scenario.' author: - 'Yong Cai$^{1}$[^1]' - 'Yun-Song Piao$^{1,2}$[^2]' title: A covariant Lagrangian for stable nonsingular bounce --- Introduction ============ General relativity (GR) suffers the singularity problem [@Hawking:1969sw], which indicates the incompleteness of our understanding about the gravity theory as well as the origin of the Universe [@Borde:1993xh][@Borde:2001nh]. Instead of looking for a UV(ultraviolet)-complete theory to describe what happens at the “singularity", investigating the possibility of a nonsingular origin of the Universe with the effective theory, which captures low energy behaviors of the complete theory, is a significant direction. It seems that since [@Cai:2007qw], the perturbations of the Friedmann-Roberson-Walker background usually suffer from the ghost or gradient instabilities in nonsingular cosmological models, see [@Rubakov:2014jja] for a review. Recently, this observation has been proved, up to the cubic Galileon theory [@Libanov:2016kfc] and the Horndeski theory [@Kobayashi:2016xpl]. Based on the effective field theory (EFT) of nonsingular cosmologies [@Cai:2016thi][@Creminelli:2016zwa][@Cai:2017tku], this No-go result has been more clearly illustrated. It is found that the stable nonsingular cosmological models can be implemented only in the theories beyond cubic Galileon, (see also [@Kolevatov:2016ppi][@Akama:2017jsa]). Recent progresses have inspired a wave of looking for stable nonsingular bounce [@Ijjas:2016vtq][@deRham:2017aoj][@Yoshida:2017swb] (see also [@Misonoh:2016btv][@Giovannini:2016jkf]), along the road beyond the cubic Galileon (even the Horndeski theory [@Horndeski:1974wa][@Deffayet:2009mn][@Kobayashi:2011nu]). Moreover, the developments of scalar-tensor theory (the GLPV [@Gleyzes:2014dya] and DHOST theory [@Langlois:2015cwa][@Langlois:2015skt][@Langlois:2017mxy], the mimetic gravity [@Chamseddine:2014vna][@Chamseddine:2016uef]) might also be able to provide us with some chances to implement stable nonsingular cosmologies. However, due to the complexity of relevant theories, which component is required for a stable bounce is not clear. Thus so far building a realistic and stable model is still difficult. In Refs.[@Cai:2016thi][@Creminelli:2016zwa], with the EFT of nonsingular cosmologies, it has been found that the operator $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$ is significant for the stability of nonsingular bounce. Actually, in unitary gauge, without getting involved in the specific theories, L\_[add-oper]{}\~[M\_2\^4(t)2]{}(g\^[00]{})\^2 +[\_4\^2(t)2]{}R\^[(3)]{}g\^[00]{}\[EFT\]might be the least set of operators added to GR to cure the instabilities, since $(\delta g^{00})^2\sim {\dot \zeta}^2$ while $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}\sim ({\partial \zeta})^2$ at quadratic order. In this paper, based on the covariant description of the $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$ operator, we propose a covariant theory for stable nonsingular bounce, which has the quadratic order of the second order derivative of the field $\phi$ but the background set only by $P(\phi,X)$. We illuminate its application by constructing a fully stable nonsingular bounce model for the ekpyrotic scenario [@Khoury:2001wf][@Lehners:2008vx]. **Note added:** Several days after our paper appeared in arXiv, the preprint [@Kolevatov:2017voe] appeared, in which somewhat similar analysis is done in beyond Horndeski model with sort of similar result. Covariant description of $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$ ================================================ In unitary gauge, $\phi=\phi(t)$. We have g\^[00]{}=[X\^2(t)]{}+1=[Xf\_2(t())]{}+1, \[g00\]where $X=\phi_{\mu} \phi^{\mu}$, $\phi_\mu=\nabla_\mu\phi$ and $\phi^\mu=\nabla^\mu\phi$. $R^{(3)}$ is the Ricci scalar on the 3-dimensional spacelike hypersurface. Using the Gauss-Codazzi relation, it is straightforward (though tedious) to find \[covaR3\] R\^[(3)]{}&=& R-[\_\^-()\^2X]{} +[2\^\_\^\_X\^2]{}-[2\^\_\^X\^2]{}\ && +[2(\^\_[ ]{}\^-\_[ ]{}\^[  ]{} \^)X]{}, with $\phi_{\mu\nu}=\nabla_\nu\nabla_\mu\phi$ and $\phi^\nu_{~\nu\mu}=\nabla_\mu\nabla_\nu \nabla^\nu\phi$. It is simple to check that the right hand side of Eq. (\[covaR3\]) is 0 at the background level. We define $S_{\delta g^{00} R^{(3)}}=\int d^4x\sqrt{-g} L_{\delta g^{00} R^{(3)}}$, and have \[covaaction\] L\_[g\^[00]{} R\^[(3)]{}]{}& =& [f\_1()2]{}g\^[00]{} R\^[(3)]{}\ &=& [f2]{}R - [X2]{}f\_d X -(f\_+dX)\ & + & [f2X]{}-[f-2Xf\_XX\^2]{}after integration by parts, where $f(\phi,X)=f_1\lf(1+{X\over f_2}\rt)$ has the dimension of mass squared, $f_2(\phi)$ is defined in (\[g00\]), and the total derivative terms have been discarded. One useful formula for obtaining Eq. (\[covaaction\]) is 2[B]{}(,X)\^\_\^= \_(\^dX)- XdX -dX. Stable nonsingular bounce ========================= The covariant theory -------------------- Here, the EFT proposed is S=d\^4x([M\_p\^22]{}R +P(,X))+S\_[g\^[00]{} R\^[(3)]{}]{},\[action01\]which is a covariant theory equivalent to GR plus the set of operators in (\[EFT\]), since $M_2^4(t)=\dot{\phi}^4P_{XX}$ and ${\tilde m}_4^2(t)=f_1(\phi)$. The covariant action (\[action01\]) actually belongs to a subclass of the DHOST theory [@Langlois:2015cwa][@Langlois:2015skt] (see Appendix \[App\] for details), which could avoid the Ostrogradski instability, up to quadratic order of the second order derivative of $\phi$. Ijjas and Steinhardt used the quartic Horndeski action in [@Ijjas:2016vtq]. In (\[covaaction\]), though the nonminimal coupling $f(\phi,X)R$ is similar to that in [@Ijjas:2016vtq], terms $\sim\Box \phi$, $\phi_{\mu\nu}\phi^{\mu\nu}$, $(\Box \phi)^2$, $(\Box \phi)\phi^\mu\phi_{\mu\nu}\phi^\nu$ and $\phi^\mu\phi_{\mu\rho}\phi^{\rho\nu}\phi_\nu$ also appear simultaneously with the coefficients set by $\delta g^{00} R^{(3)}$, so that the effect of $S_{\delta g^{00} R^{(3)}}$ on background is canceled accurately. Here, the background is set only by $P(\phi,X)$. In [@deRham:2017aoj], $(\Box\phi)^2$ is used, which shows itself the Ostrogradski ghost, see also earlier [@Li:2005fm], how to remove it requires argumentation. The quadratic action of scalar perturbation for (\[action01\]) is S\_\^[(2)]{}=a\^3 Q\_s(\^2-c\_s\^2 [()\^2a\^2]{} )d\^4x ,\[scalar-action\] in which Q\_s=[2\^4P\_[XX]{}-M\_p\^2[H]{}H\^2]{},c\_s\^2Q\_s=M\_p\^2([[c]{}\_3a]{} -1)\[cs2\] and $c_3=a(1+{2f_1\over M_p^2})/H$. We can see that the sound speed of scalar perturbation can be directly modified by $f_1(\phi)$, namely, the function before $\delta g^{00}R^{(3)}$ operator. Therefore, the gradient instability of scalar perturbation could be cured by proper choice of $f_1(\phi)$, while that of tensor perturbation is unaffected by $S_{\delta g^{00} R^{(3)}}$, hence is same with that of GR. A fully stable nonsingular bounce ($Q_s>0$ and $c_s^2=1$) can be designed with (\[action01\]). In the bounce phase, ${\dot H}>0$. However, $Q_s>0$ can be obtained, since $P(\phi, X)$ contributes $\dot{\phi}^4P_{XX}$ in $Q_s$. While around the bounce point $H\simeq 0$, c\_s\^2\~-[H]{}(1+[2f\_1M\_p\^2]{}). Thus we will have $c_s^2>0$ for $2f_1<-{M_p^2}$, as has been clarified in Refs.[@Cai:2016thi][@Cai:2017tku]. It should be mentioned that if $f_1=0$, we have $c_s^2\sim -{\dot H}<0$ around the bounce point, thus $S_{\delta g^{00} R^{(3)}}$ is needed to contribute $f_1$. Here, we always could set $c_s^2\sim {\cal O}(1)$ with a suitable $f_1(\phi)$ (see also [@Cai:2017tku]) which satisfies =[ Ha]{}a(Q\_s c\_s\^2 +M\_p\^2)dt-M\_p\^2. \[m4tilde\] A stable nonsingular bounce model {#pbounceinf} --------------------------------- With (\[action01\]), building a nonsingular bounce model is simple. The ghost-free nonsingular bounce is set by $P(\phi, X)$, while $c_s^2\simeq 1$ is set by using suitable $f_1$ and $f_2$ in (\[g00\]). As a specific model, we set $P(\phi,X)$ in (\[action01\]) as P(,X)= + [q\_0(1+\_2\^2)\^2 ]{}X\^2-V(),\[P\] where the potential is ekpyrotic-like $$\begin{aligned} \label{vphi} &&V(\phi)=-{ V_0\over 2} e^{\phi/{\cal M}_1 }\left[1-\tanh( {\phi\over {\cal M}_2})\right] \,,\end{aligned}$$ with constant ${\cal M}_1, {\cal M}_2, V_0$, and $k_0, \kappa_1$ responsible for the switching of the sign before $X/2$ around $\phi\simeq 0$, and $q_0, \kappa_2$ for the appearance of $X^2$ around $\phi\simeq 0$, see [@Koehn:2015vvy] for a similar $P(\phi,X)$, which might allow for a supersymmetric counterpart [@Koehn:2013upa]. The background equations are 3 M\_p\^2H\^2 & =& -2\^2P\_X-P,\ M\_p\^2 & =& \^2 P\_X .\[dotH\]\[eomphi\] Initially $\phi\ll -{\cal M}_2, -1/\sqrt{\kappa_1}, -1/\sqrt{\kappa_2}$, we have $P(\phi,X)=-X/2{ +V_0 e^{\phi/{\cal M}_1 } }$, the Universe is in the ekpyrotic phase with the equation of state parameter\_[ekpy]{}=[ M\_p\^23[M]{}\_1\^2]{}-1&gt;1. Around $\phi\simeq 0$, we have ([k\_0-12]{}-2q\_0\^2)\^2&gt;0. Thus the bounce could occur. However, after the bounce the field $\phi$ will be canonical again but with $V(\phi)=0$. It is possible that the phase after the bounce might be the inflation [@Piao:2003zm][@Liu:2013kea], we will consider it elsewhere. Here, in the quadratic action (\[scalar-action\]) of scalar perturbation, Q\_s= -[M\_p\^2[H]{}H\^2]{}+[4q\_0(1+\_2\^2)\^2 H\^2]{}\^4&gt;0 can be obtained, while $c_s^2=1$ can be obtained by setting suitable $f_1(\phi)$ in (\[covaaction\]), which is given by (\[m4tilde\]), and $f_2(\phi)={\dot \phi}(t(\phi))$. The background evolution is numerically plotted in Fig. \[fig01\]. We show the behaviors of $f_1(\phi)$ and $f_2(\phi)$ with respect to $\phi$ in Fig. \[fig02\] while we require $c_s^2=1$ throughout. In both Figs. \[fig01\] and \[fig02\], we set $k_0=1.2$, $\kappa_1=30$, $q_0=1.25$, $\kappa_2=20$, $V_0=2\times 10^{-7}$, ${\cal M}_1=0.22$ and ${\cal M}_2=0.1$. We set the initial condition of $\phi$ as $\phi_{ini}=-0.54$ and $\dot{\phi}_{ini}=2.24\times 10^{-4}$, while the initial value of $t$ is $t_{ini}=-2000$. We see that with $f_1$ and $f_2$ plotted in Fig. \[fig02\], the Lagrangian (\[action01\]) with $P(\phi,X)$ in (\[P\]) will bring a fully stable nonsingular bounce ($Q_s>0$ and $c_s^2=1$). Discussion ========== The exploration of stable nonsingular bounce has been still a significant issue. Recently, it has been found in Refs.[@Cai:2016thi][@Creminelli:2016zwa] that the operator $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$ in EFT of nonsingular cosmologies is significant for the stability of bounce. Here, based on the covariant description of the $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$ operator, we propose a covariant theory (\[action01\]) for stable nonsingular bounce. Our (\[action01\]) is actually a subclass of the DHOST theory [@Langlois:2015cwa][@Langlois:2015skt], but the cosmological background is set only by $P(\phi,X)$. The $P(\phi,X)$ nonsingular bounce model could be ghost-free [@Buchbinder:2007ad][@Koehn:2015vvy], but suffers the problem of $c_s^2<0$, which can not be dispelled by using the Galileon interaction $\sim \Box \phi$ [@Libanov:2016kfc][@Kobayashi:2016xpl][@Cai:2016thi][@Creminelli:2016zwa]. Actually, in [@Ijjas:2016tpn][@Cai:2017tku], it is observed that the Galileon interaction only moves the period of $c_s^2<0$ to the outside of the bounce phase, but can not remove it, see also earlier [@Easson:2011zy]. Thus it could be imagined that the quadratic order of the second order derivative of $\phi$, i.e., $\phi_{\mu\nu}\phi^{\mu\nu}$, $(\Box \phi)^2$, $\phi^\mu\phi_{\mu\rho}\phi^{\rho\nu}\phi_\nu$ and $(\Box \phi)\phi^\mu\phi_{\mu\nu}\phi^\nu$, might play crucial roles in stable nonsingular bounce model. However, due to the complexity of relevant theories, what kind of combination of these components is required for a stable cosmological bounce is unclear. Here, the corresponding combination (\[covaaction\]) is just what told by the covariant description of the $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$ operator. With (\[action01\]), the design of stable nonsingular bounce model is simple, as illuminated for the ekpyrotic scenario. Our work actually offers a concise way to the fully stable nonsingular cosmologies. See also [@Biswas:2011ar][@Odintsov:2014gea][@Banerjee:2016hom][@Hendi:2016tiy] for other interesting studies. Here, the importance of the EFT of nonsingular cosmologies is obvious. Actually, the role of $R^{(3)}\delta K$ in EFT [@Cai:2016thi] is similar to that of $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$, where $K_{\mu\nu}$ is the extrinsic curvature on the 3-dimensional spacelike hypersurfaces. The covariant description of $R^{(3)}\delta K$ involves the term $\sim (\Box\phi)R$, which might have the Ostrogradski ghost unless certain constraint is imposed. This issue will be revisited. In mimetic gravity [@Chamseddine:2014vna][@Chamseddine:2016uef] (see e.g. [@Sebastiani:2016ras] for review), since the mimetic constraint suggests $\delta g^{00}=0$ (which is the source of instabilities [@Cognola:2016gjy][@Ijjas:2016pad][@Firouzjahi:2017txv][@Hirano:2017zox]), one might apply the operator $R^{(3)}\delta K$ to make the (possibly-built) nonsingular bounce stable [^3], instead of $R^{(3)}\delta g^{00}$. The mimetic gravity with the couple $(\Box\phi)R$ has been proposed in Ref.[@Zheng:2017qfs]. We will back to the relevant issues. **Acknowledgments** We thank Mingzhe Li, Taotao Qiu and Youping Wan for helpful discussions. This work is supported by NSFC, No. 11575188, 11690021, and also supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of CAS, No. XDA04075000, XDB23010100. Correspondence with a subclass of DHOST theory {#App} =============================================== Up to cubic order of $\phi_{\mu\nu}$, the covariant action of DHOST can be written as (see e.g., [@Langlois:2017mxy]) \[covaDHODST\] S\_[DHOST]{} &=& d\^4 x , where $R$ and $G_{\mu\nu}$ denote the usual 4-dimensional Ricci scalar and Einstein tensor associated with the metric $g_{\mu\nu}$, respectively; \[C2\] C\_[(2)]{}\^ \_ \_ =\_[A=1]{}\^[5]{}a\_A(,X) L\^[(2)]{}\_ A, with \[QuadraticL\] & L\^[(2)]{}\_1 = \_ \^ , L\^[(2)]{}\_2 =()\^2 , L\_3\^[(2)]{} = () \^ \_ \^ ,\ & L\^[(2)]{}\_4 =\^ \_ \^ \_ , L\^[(2)]{}\_5= (\^ \_ \^)\^2, and \[C3\] C\_[(3)]{}\^ \_ \_ \_ = \_[A=1]{}\^[10]{} b\_A(,X) L\^[(3)]{}\_A , with \[CubicL\] & L\^[(3)]{}\_1= ()\^3 , L\^[(3)]{}\_2 = () \_ \^ , L\^[(3)]{}\_3= \_\^ \^\_ ,\ & L\^[(3)]{}\_4= ()\^2 \_ \^ \_ , L\^[(3)]{}\_5 = \_ \^ \_ \^ , L\^[(3)]{}\_6 = \_ \^ \_ \^ \_ ,\ & L\^[(3)]{}\_7 = \_ \^ \_ \^ \_ , L\^[(3)]{}\_8 = \_ \^ \_ \^ \_ \^ \_ ,\ & L\^[(3)]{}\_9 = (\_ \^ \_)\^2 , L\^[(3)]{}\_[10]{} = (\_ \^ \_)\^3 ; extra conditions on the functions $a_A$ and $b_A$ need to be satisfied so that there is no extra propagating degree of freedom, see [@Langlois:2017mxy] and references therein for further discussions. Comparing with (\[covaDHODST\]), we find our model (\[action01\]) corresponds to the covariant form of DHOST theory with && p(,X)=P(,X)- [X2]{}f\_d X, q(,X)=-f\_-dX,\ && g\_2(,X)=[M\_p\^2+f2]{}, g\_3(,X)=0,\ && a\_1=-a\_2=[f2X]{},a\_3=-a\_4=[f-2Xf\_X X\^2]{} , a\_5= 0,\[ab000\] and $b_A=0$. In the EFT formalism, the quadratic action for DHOST theory can be written as \[DHOST\] S\^[(2)]{}\_[DHOST]{} &=& d\^3x dt a\^3 2{ K\_K\^ -(1+[23]{}\_L )K\^2 +(1+\_T)(R\^[(3)]{}[a\^3]{}+\_2 R\^[(3)]{} )\ &&+H\^2\_K N\^2 +4H\_B KN +(1+\_H)R\^[(3)]{}N +4\_1K +\_2 \^2 +[\_3a\^2]{}(\_i N)\^2 } ,\ where $\delta N=\delta g^{00}/2$, $\delta_2 R^{(3)}$ stands for the second order term in the perturbative expansion of $R^{(3)}$, the dimensionless time-dependent functions $\alpha_L$, $\alpha_T$, $\alpha_K$, $\alpha_B$, $\alpha_H$, $\beta_1$, $\beta_2$ and $\beta_3$ satisfy certain conditions so that there is no extra propagating degree of freedom, see [@Langlois:2017mxy] for details. 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S Lalitha By BENGALURU: Unprecedented response to online train ticket booking has prompted the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to start the process of making its website failproof. A record 1.09 lakh passengers booked tickets online on April 1 for trains originating from Bengaluru, Mysuru and Hubballi railway divisions. The Indian Railways kickstarted its 120-day advance booking period for reserved tickets from that day. “Revenue earned by the South Western Railway (SWR) division on that day alone totalled `8.8 crore, which is a big record,” V Ganapathy Subramanian, Deputy General Manager (DGM), Information Technology Department, South Zone of IRCTC, told Express over phone from Chennai. “The passenger figure refers to those who begin their journey from any of the stations within the SWR division. Booking could have been done from any part of the world,” the DGM said. This figure is a significant chunk of the all-India record of 32 lakh (32,16,039) passengers booking tickets on the website (www.irctc.co.in) that day. The Railways earned a whopping `200 crore. Dr A K Manocha, Chairman and Managing Director of IRCTC, who was in Bengaluru recently, told Express, “What really stood out was the fact that an unprecedented 20,000 train tickets were booked in one minute for journeys all over India on April 1 and the website did not crash. This took us by surprise as we had only seen a maximum booking of 17,000 tickets per minute on a particular day in 2014.” Nearly 60 per cent of all train tickets in India are now being booked online. “With 2.5 crore registered members on our portal, maximum for any website globally, a further rise in bookings is expected,” Manocha said. Hackathon Bearing this in mind, IRCTC now plans to organise a national-level hackathon for its website. “We want to make the site absolutely secure and ensure it can cope with even bigger volumes of web traffic,” Manocha added. Subramanian said the hackathon would be organised in Chennai, Bengaluru or Secunderabad within one or two months. The website, which is now among the biggest e-commerce websites in the world, kickstarted its operations on August 3, 2002, with a booking of 27 tickets. It started as an I-ticketing site where tickets could be booked online but would be couriered to the address before the journey. The portal was then equipped to handle a maximum of 1,200 tickets per minute. The Next Generation E-ticketing (NGeT) System, launched on April 13, 2014, was a gamechanger, the DGM said. It speeded up booking hugely, enabling a minimum of 7,200 tickets to be booked in a minute and transformed a tedious online process into a very quick and user-friendly one. “A private firm, Broad Vision, used to handle online bookings earlier. But for NGeT, both Passenger Reservation System and IRCTC bookings were entrusted to the Chennai-based Centre for Railways Information Systems (CRIS),” he added. A massive server that has been installed and upgradation turned out to be the main reasons the bookings went on unhindered on April 1. A lucky draw scheme, launched by IRCTC from January 1, 2015 could also be motivating people to opt for online booking, Manocha said. Under this scheme, new users of the site who register and book at least one ticket are eligible for a monthly lucky draw. The prizes on offer are an Apple Macintosh laptop for first prize winner, an iPhone 6 each for second and third, and the fourth winner gets a New Delhi-Mata Rani package (Vaishnodevi temple)for four.

According to Quant, the processor is currently being tested on a prototype device and the chipset will have WQHD resolution (2560 x 1440p) support. It also supports eMMC 5.1 storage as the prototype had 64 GB of internal storage of the same kind. Other than that, the prototype had 6 GB of DDR4X RAM, a rear facing 22.6 Megapixel camera and a front facing 13 Megapixel camera. So these are some of the specs that can be confirmed to be supported by the Snapdragon 670. A report published in GizmoChina claims that the SoC will be run by 2 high-performing custom Kryo 360 cores, six high-efficiency cores and could be built using the Samsung’s 10nm LPP technology. Additionally new 600 series graphics may also be added to the chipset. But considering the fact that very few devices this year had the Snapdragon 660, it might be some time before we see devices powered by the Snapdragon 670. It’s speculated that the upper mid-range phones in the first half of 2018 may have the Snapdragon 660 before manufacturers start switching to the Snapdragon 670. According to reports, the mass production of the Snapdragon 670 may also start by the first quarter of 2018. So we’ll see devices powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 845 before the Snapdragon 670. An avid football lover. A die-hard Barca fan. Love to read about all the tech and gadgets I can't afford (yet). A music enthusiast, with Coldplay being my favorite. A calm and peaceful person. I believe in taking everything as it comes and being happy with the simple things.

Delray Beach (Fla.) American Heritage cornerback Desmond Cain committed to Illinois, Tuesday evening, 247Sports has learned. Cain took his official to Champaign back in September. 247Sports ranks Cain as the country's No. 66 cornerback. Cain gives Illinois 15 commits in the class-of-2015. Besides the Illini, he held offers from the likes of Cincinnati, Rutgers, South Carolina, South Florida and Syracuse. Bill Cubit and Tim Banks recruited Cain.

RuPaul Enlists Willow Smith to Star as Him in TV Movie about His Life Back in March, it was announced that J.J. Abrams is slated to produce a television movie based on RuPaul’s life. Although it’s been a few months since we’ve heard any news about the film, RuPaul wants everyone to know that he has the perfect candidate in mind. According to Page Six, the drag legend sat down to speak about the upcoming movie and share who he has in mind for the role. “Next is a TV movie about me,” he confirmed to NewYork Post’s Cindy Adams. “Not filmed yet. No title yet. Not cast yet. I won’t play me. It’s maybe Willow Smith.” The suggestion was a surprise to the interviewer, as she confirmed the age of the young actress to RuPaul and suggested she would be too young for the role. However, RuPaul didn’t seem fazed by Willow’s age and continued to confirm his choice. “Please. I’m doing this a hundred years. At least she’s a biological female. And I don’t need someone bitchy. I’m not. I’m sassy. There’s a kindness in me. I’m really a sweetheart.” The Emmy-winning actor/producer also shared some details about the upcoming movie, stating the film won’t highlight the 1980’s New York grit that everyone else is used to. “This is about my New York life in the ’80s. Interview magazine in those days was my Bible. I grew up in San Diego wanting to be Andy Warhol,” RuPaul said. “No grim storyline about white guys sniffing white powder. It’s the Yellow Brick Road. Wanting to go to six different clubs every night.” He also explained that the format is still up in the air, and how the TV movie will be released. “Networks are bidding on the project now. A one-hour show is 42 minutes. A streaming service is an hour. Until we know which, we haven’t started shooting. J.J. Abrams is behind it.” According to Deadline, RuPaul will serve as executive producer alongside Bad Robot’s Abrams and Ben Stephenson, as well as World of Wonder’s Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, and Tom Campbell. Power executive producer Gary Lennon is slated to pen the script for the 80’s era drama. RuPaul, whose full name is RuPaul Andre Charles, first came on the scene back in the early 90’s where he began performing in local clubs in New York City – and became a popular attraction due to his colorful acts and fierce personality. After creating success from his hit single “Supermodel (You Better Work)”, RuPaul took his talents to the small and silver screens, appearing in Spike Lee’s Crooklyn, The Brady Bunch Movie, Sister, Sister, Ugly Betty, and 2 Broke Girls. RuPaul went on to create and produce shows including The RuPaul Show for VH1 and RuPaul’s Drag Race, now heading into its ninth season. The series earned RuPaul an Emmy in 2016, along with several award nominations. As for Willow, the young Hollywood star has had her fair share of screen time. The daughter of actor/rapper Will Smith and actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow has appeared in several films and TV shows including I Am Legend, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Madagascar, and True Jackson, VP.

Q: How to write common function for keypress function check for floating number of a textbox in C#? I want to call a common function for more than 2 textboxes so that keypress can check that only floating point number can take a input. This is my sample code: this work only for a single textbox (tbL1Distance). But I want it as a common textbox control. private void tbL1Distance_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e) { char ch = e.KeyChar; if (ch == 46 && tbL1Distance.Text.IndexOf('.') != -1) { e.Handled = true; return; } if (!Char.IsDigit(ch) && ch != 8 && ch != 46) { e.Handled = true; } } Thanks in advance. A: You can simply create your own control, inheriting the TextBox, where you override the OnKeyPress method. public class CustomTextBox : System.Windows.Forms.TextBox { protected override void OnKeyPress(System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs e) { char ch = e.KeyChar; if (ch == 46 && this.Text.IndexOf('.') != -1) //Replaced 'tbL1Distance' with 'this' to refer to the current TextBox. { e.Handled = true; } else if (!Char.IsDigit(ch) && ch != 8 && ch != 46) { e.Handled = true; } base.OnKeyPress(e); } } When done, go to the Build menu and press Build <your project name here>, and your control can now be found on the top of your Tool Box. Now just replace every normal TextBox with your own. If you don't want the KeyPress event to be fired at all if your validation fails, you can just add return; in both if-statements.

Expression of renal cell carcinoma antigen (RCC) in renal epithelial and nonrenal tumors: diagnostic Implications. Antibody to renal cell carcinoma (RCC) antigen, a normal human proximal brush border antigen, has recently become commercially available and reported to be highly specific and a relatively sensitive marker for RCC. Of the nonrenal tumors occasional carcinomas have been reported to express RCC, notably breast carcinoma. Using tissue microarrays, we investigated the use of RCC on a large number of renal epithelial neoplasms (RENs) and nonrenal tumors, especially those potentially confused with REN. Three tissue microarrays containing 241 REN samples, 192 samples of a wide variety of neoplasms and 170 adrenal tumor samples, respectively, were stained with RCC monoclonal antibody. RCC expression was scored for staining intensity and percentage expression. Out of 241 REN, 173 were positive for RCC (sensitivity 72%): clear cell 72%, papillary 95%, chromophobe 91%, unclassified 85%, oncocytoma 75%, sarcomatoid 20%, and metastatic RCC 40%. The overall immunostaining intensity was consistently much higher in papillary and clear cell RCC than in other tumors. Seventy-six out of 362 nonrenal tumor samples demonstrated either focal or diffuse expression for RCC (specificity 79%). These included: adrenocortical neoplasms 37/170 (22%), colonic 11/29 (37.5%), breast 9/27 (33%), prostate 5/18 (27.7%), ovary 2/17 (11.7%), melanoma 3/18 (16.6%), lung 3/21 (14.2%), and parathyroid 3/3 (100%). RCC expression was seen equally among adrenal adenoma and carcinoma group. Eight out of 28 (28.5%) normal adrenal cores also stained for RCC. RCC is a relatively useful marker in the differential diagnosis of REN only if used in a panel with other positive and negative markers. RCC does not reliably differentiate REN, especially classic clear cell type, from adrenocortical neoplasms, which are frequently confused due to close anatomic proximity and similar morphology. RCC also does not reliably differentiate subtypes of renal epithelial neoplasms.

Q: Add paper package to Angular 2 application (VS 2015 update 3 project) I'm using asp.net MVC with Angular 2. (VS 2015 update 3). I want to use paper.js to draw something on canvas selector. What I did: install paper via npm and include it to project (in systemjs.config.js): var map = { 'app': 'angular-app', // 'dist', ... 'paper/paper-full': 'npm:paper/dist/paper-full.min.js', ... }; import this js file to component with canvas: import { Component } from '@angular/core'; import 'paper/paper-full'; import 'angular-app/app/paper-canvas/paper-functions'; @Component({ selector: 'paper-canvas', templateUrl: 'angular-app/app/paper-canvas/paper-canvas.component.html', styleUrls: ['angular-app/app/paper-canvas/paper-canvas.component.css'] }) export class PaperCanvasComponent { title = 'canvas here' } my angular-app/app/paper-canvas/paper-canvas.component.html: <div class="well"> <h2>{{title}}</h2> <canvas id="canvasArea">loading canvas</canvas> </div> and add functionality to draw on canvas: document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () { alert('it works'); }); window.onload = function () { alert("in func"); // Get a reference to the canvas object var canvas = document.getElementById('canvasArea'); // Create an empty project and a view for the canvas: paper.setup(canvas); // Create a Paper.js Path to draw a line into it: var path = new paper.Path(); // Give the stroke a color path.strokeColor = 'black'; var start = new paper.Point(100, 100); // Move to start and draw a line from there path.moveTo(start); // Note that the plus operator on Point objects does not work // in JavaScript. Instead, we need to call the add() function: path.lineTo(start.add([200, -50])); // Draw the view now: paper.view.draw(); } All files loaded: As you can see I have loaded paper-full.js file and my file with draw function, but there no even alert I have.. I tried to write my draw-function into angular-app/app/paper-canvas/paper-canvas.component.html like paperscript but it wasn't work too. Thank you for any help in advance. A: I think you need to include paper.js so that it is available in whole application, since it is not written specially for angular I suggest you to look at this question using external JS libraries in my angular 2 project Everything else you did seems okay.

From the dawn of time to the battle of Jutland, the Ambrose family tree has always maintained its ability to create a long line of distinguished naval officers, until now. Captain William Horatio Ambrose (Guinness) has tried hard to preserve his family’s tradition but unfortunately suffers from chronic sea sickn... From the dawn of time to the battle of Jutland, the Ambrose family tree has always maintained its ability to create a long line of distinguished naval officers, until now. Captain William Horatio Ambrose (Guinness) has tried hard to preserve his family’s tradition but unfortunately suffers from chronic sea sickness... Ambrose retires from service and buys a decrepit amusement pier in a small coastal town. The Captive Heart is the story of a group of British Prisoners of War, captured after Dunkirk in 1940. Amongst them is a man known as Captain Geoffrey Mitchell – the identity of a dead man, which he has assumed after escaping from a concentration camp. To avoid exposure, he must correspond with the dead man’s... The Captive Heart is the story of a group of British Prisoners of War, captured after Dunkirk in 1940. Amongst them is a man known as Captain Geoffrey Mitchell – the identity of a dead man, which he has assumed after escaping from a concentration camp. To avoid exposure, he must correspond with the dead man’s estranged wife Celia. Commander Ericson is made captain of the Corvette Compass Rose, a small escort vessel used to guide and protect convoys travelling through the Atlantic. Ericson is thrown into a life and death dilemma which forces him to choose between destroying an enemy ship and sparing the lives of his own men. Ealing breaks fr... Commander Ericson is made captain of the Corvette Compass Rose, a small escort vessel used to guide and protect convoys travelling through the Atlantic. Ericson is thrown into a life and death dilemma which forces him to choose between destroying an enemy ship and sparing the lives of his own men. Ealing breaks from its traditional light comedies to offer a serious, authentic reconstruction of the battle of the Atlantic. Starring Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers and Mervyn Johns, DEAD OF NIGHT represented a departure for Ealing from the classic comedy mode and is instead a spooky psychological thriller made up of five chilling ghost stories. An architect visits a country house only to get trapped in a recurring nightmare involving... Starring Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers and Mervyn Johns, DEAD OF NIGHT represented a departure for Ealing from the classic comedy mode and is instead a spooky psychological thriller made up of five chilling ghost stories. An architect visits a country house only to get trapped in a recurring nightmare involving tales of the occult told by fellow guests at the manor. A portmanteau work from four of Ealing’s best directors, DEAD OF NIGHT preye...Starring Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers and Mervyn Johns, DEAD OF NIGHT represented a departure for Ealing from the classic comedy mode and is instead a spooky psychological thriller made up of five chilling ghost stories. An architect visits a country house only to get trapped in a recurring nightmare involving tales of the occult told by fellow guests at the manor. A portmanteau work from four of Ealing’s best directors, DEAD OF NIGHT preyed masterfully on the country’s post-war fears and paranoia. Show more Show less Dunkirk follows the dramatic events leading up to Operation Dynamo, where upon the British Army attempted to rescue fellow soldiers and allied troops from Nazi occupied France. Seen from the dual perspectives of a jaded journalist in search of propaganda and a weary soldier desperately trying to give his troop som... Dunkirk follows the dramatic events leading up to Operation Dynamo, where upon the British Army attempted to rescue fellow soldiers and allied troops from Nazi occupied France. Seen from the dual perspectives of a jaded journalist in search of propaganda and a weary soldier desperately trying to give his troop some hope, Dunkirk never shies away from the brutality of war and the bravery of its soldiers. Directed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets) IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY is considered to be one of the greatest and most overlooked achievements of British 1940's cinema. The film was featured in Time Out’s 100 Best British Films list, as chosen by 150 film industry experts, including Sam Mendes and Wes An... Directed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets) IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY is considered to be one of the greatest and most overlooked achievements of British 1940's cinema. The film was featured in Time Out’s 100 Best British Films list, as chosen by 150 film industry experts, including Sam Mendes and Wes Anderson. Googie Withers stars as Rose Sandigate, a Bethnal Green housewife whose Sunday is turned upside down by the re-appearance of an...Directed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets) IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY is considered to be one of the greatest and most overlooked achievements of British 1940's cinema. The film was featured in Time Out’s 100 Best British Films list, as chosen by 150 film industry experts, including Sam Mendes and Wes Anderson. Googie Withers stars as Rose Sandigate, a Bethnal Green housewife whose Sunday is turned upside down by the re-appearance of an old flame who is now an escaped convict seeking protection from the police. A rare glimpse into life in London’s East End post WWII, IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY was Googie Withers’ last film for Ealing Studios and, due to her wonderful performance as a woman trapped in a claustrophobic domesticity, it remains one of her best. Show more Show less A coolly elegant, critically acclaimed comic masterpiece, Kind Hearts and Coronets is classic black comedy from Ealing Studios. Louis Mazzini’s mother belongs to the aristocratic family D’Ascoyne, but she ran away with an opera singer. Therefore, the D’Ascoynes rejected her and Louis. Once an adult, Louis (P... A coolly elegant, critically acclaimed comic masterpiece, Kind Hearts and Coronets is classic black comedy from Ealing Studios. Louis Mazzini’s mother belongs to the aristocratic family D’Ascoyne, but she ran away with an opera singer. Therefore, the D’Ascoynes rejected her and Louis. Once an adult, Louis (Price) decides to avenge his mother and himself, by becoming the next Duke of the family. Murdering every potential successor – all fa...A coolly elegant, critically acclaimed comic masterpiece, Kind Hearts and Coronets is classic black comedy from Ealing Studios. Louis Mazzini’s mother belongs to the aristocratic family D’Ascoyne, but she ran away with an opera singer. Therefore, the D’Ascoynes rejected her and Louis. Once an adult, Louis (Price) decides to avenge his mother and himself, by becoming the next Duke of the family. Murdering every potential successor – all famously played by Alec Guinness - is clearly the safest way to achieve his goal. Louis employs a variety of imaginative murder techniques in order to achieve his aim, and gradually his goal seems to be moving towards his grasp. Regarded by many as Ealing’s greatest film, Kind Hearts and Coronets was voted the 7th best British film ever made by Total Film magazine. Show more Show less Ealing Studios' output from the 1940s and the 1950s helped define what was arguably the golden age for British cinema. It fostered great directors such as Alexander MacKendrick and Robert Hamer, while giving stars such as Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers the chance to shine. With iconic performances from Alec Guin... Ealing Studios' output from the 1940s and the 1950s helped define what was arguably the golden age for British cinema. It fostered great directors such as Alexander MacKendrick and Robert Hamer, while giving stars such as Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers the chance to shine. With iconic performances from Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, THE LADYKILLERSis quintessential Ealing. Director Alexander Mackendrick’s film centres on a crim...Ealing Studios' output from the 1940s and the 1950s helped define what was arguably the golden age for British cinema. It fostered great directors such as Alexander MacKendrick and Robert Hamer, while giving stars such as Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers the chance to shine. With iconic performances from Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, THE LADYKILLERSis quintessential Ealing. Director Alexander Mackendrick’s film centres on a criminal gang planning their next job, who find themselves boarding with an innocent old lady who thinks they are musicians. When the gang set out to kill Mrs. Wilberforce, they run into one problem after another, and get what they deserve. Mackendrick’s last film as director before his move to Hollywood, THE LADYKILLERS remains one of the best British comedies ever made. Show more Show less Holland (Alec Guinness), is a shy retiring man who works as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), a maker of souvenirs. Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury’s smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Tower... Holland (Alec Guinness), is a shy retiring man who works as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), a maker of souvenirs. Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury’s smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Towers and smuggle the gold into France. Soon after, they gain the services of professional criminals Lackery (Sid James) and Shorty (Alfie...Holland (Alec Guinness), is a shy retiring man who works as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), a maker of souvenirs. Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury’s smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Towers and smuggle the gold into France. Soon after, they gain the services of professional criminals Lackery (Sid James) and Shorty (Alfie Bass) and the four plot what they believe will be the perfect crime - but which turns out to be anything but. An enduring classic from director Charles Crichton, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB features an early screen appearance from Audrey Hepburn and was included on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Best British Films of the 20th Century. Show more Show less

In much of SW Idaho, you have two choices for high speed Internet: Cable ONE and CenturyLink. And a new report from CNBC highlights a surprising fact: Cable ONE charges more for home Internet than any of its peers. Telecommunications analyst MoffettNathanson says the average revenue per user for home internet from a Cable ONE customer is $69.90. That’s more than any other company, according to CNBC. CNBC also says Cable ONE has been moving to shed customers who use it for cable TV. It doesn’t offer discounts, and does not try to talk customers out of cancelling if they call. “I know that we don’t put time and resources into pretty much anything having to do with video because of what it nets us and our shareholders in the long run,” Cable One CEO Julie Laulis said according to SeekingAlpha. “We pivoted to a data-centric model over five, six years ago, and we’ve seen nothing to derail us from that path.” - Story continues below ads - The Boise TV market has the lowest number of homes with cable in the country. Nationally, CNBC notes 70% of Cable ONE customers only buy broadband from the company. The high prices for Internet and lack of attention to TV service has been good for Cable ONE shareholders. Since the company first started trading on Wall Street in 2015, shares have increased 136 percent. Later this year, the company will drop the Cable ONE name and rebrand as Sparklight – increasing the focus on home internet services.

Q: Installing oracle 12c R2 on ubuntu 18.04 Installing Oracle 12c Release 2 on Ubuntu fails because it is not a supported distribution. How can I install it anyway? A: Download the installation files and unzip them as usual. Create the oracle, dba and oinstall users: sudo groupadd oinstall sudo groupadd dba sudo useradd -g oinstall -G dba,oinstall -s /bin/bash -m -d /home/oracle oracle Add the following parameters to /etc/sysctl.conf: fs.aio-max-nr = 1048576 fs.file-max = 6815744 kernel.shmall = 3355443 kernel.shmmax = 17179869184 kernel.shmmni = 4096 # semaphores: semmsl, semmns, semopm, semmni kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128 net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 9000 65500 net.core.rmem_default=262144 net.core.rmem_max=4194304 net.core.wmem_default=262144 net.core.wmem_max=1048576 The above is for a 32GB machine. If you have a different amount then set: shmmax = (memory in bytes / 2) Now install a set of packages needed for the install to complete. Start by updating your packages: sudo apt update Then install the following: sudo apt install libc6-i386 \ gcc-multilib g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 libstdc++6:i386 \ alien autoconf automake autotools-dev elfutils rpm rpm-common \ build-essential debhelper expat gawk gsfonts-x11 html2text sysstat \ unixodbc unixodbc-dev doxygen ksh openssh-server pax perl-doc rlwrap \ lsb lsb-core zlibc \ lib32z1-dev lib32ncurses5 libaio1 libaio-dev \ libelf-dev libodbcinstq4-1 libpth-dev libpthread-stubs0-dev \ libpthread-workqueue0 libpthread-workqueue-dev \ libtiff5-dev libzthread-dev libqt4-opengl:i386 libodbcinstq4-1:i386 \ libglu1-mesa:i386 libxtst6:i386 libxtst6 sudo apt-get install -s cabextract sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 sudo apt update sudo apt install wimtools libwim-dev sudo apt install -s libbz2-dev:i386 Create a number of soft links so that the installation can find the files it needs at the places it expects them to be: sudo ln -s /usr/bin/basename /bin/basename sudo ln -s bin/bash /usr/bin/bash sudo ln -s /usr/bin/rpm /bin/rpm sudo ln -s /usr/bin/awk /bin/awk sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu /usr/lib64 sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 /lib64/libstdc++.so.6 sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 /lib64/libgcc_s.so.1 sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpthread_nonshared.a /usr/lib/libpthread_nonshared.a sudo ln -s /lib/lsb/init-functions /etc/init.d/functions sudo ln -sf /bin/bash /bin/sh Now start the Oracle installer running under account "oracle", usually as follows: xhost + sudo su - oracle cd /path/to/unzipped/files/database ./runInstaller Install the database but do not create a database during the installation! After a while the installation will give an error on linking. Leave the error message on-screen, then open a terminal and edit the file $ORACLE_HOME/bin/orald. Find, at the start, the part reading: if [ -z "$BASH_VERSION" -o -n "$ORALD_USE_GCC" ] ; then exec gcc "$@" exit 1 fi and change the gcc line to read: exec gcc -no-pie "$@" (the -no-pie option starts with a single dash). Then copy the following script into a file, for instance /tmp/fixora: #!/bin/bash # Change the path below to point to your installation export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/oracle/12cr2 sudo ln -s $ORACLE_HOME/lib/libclntshcore.so.12.1 /usr/lib sudo ln -s $ORACLE_HOME/lib/libclntsh.so.12.1 /usr/lib cp $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.bkp cp $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.bkp sed -i 's/\$(ORAPWD_LINKLINE)/\$(ORAPWD_LINKLINE) -lnnz12/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(HSOTS_LINKLINE)/\$(HSOTS_LINKLINE) -lagtsh/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(EXTPROC_LINKLINE)/\$(EXTPROC_LINKLINE) -lagtsh/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(OPT) \$(HSOTSMAI)/\$(OPT) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(HSOTSMAI)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(OPT) \$(HSDEPMAI)/\$(OPT) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(HSDEPMAI)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(OPT) \$(EXTPMAI)/\$(OPT) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(EXTPMAI)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/^\(TNSLSNR_LINKLINE.*\$(TNSLSNR_OFILES)\) \(\$(LINKTTLIBS)\)/\1 -Wl,--no-as-needed \2/g' $ORACLE_HOME/network/lib/env_network.mk sed -i 's/\$(SPOBJS) \$(LLIBSERVER)/\$(SPOBJS) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(LLIBSERVER)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(S0MAIN) \$(SSKFEDED)/\$(S0MAIN) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(SSKFEDED)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(S0MAIN) \$(SSKFODED)/\$(S0MAIN) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(SSKFODED)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(S0MAIN) \$(SSKFNDGED)/\$(S0MAIN) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(SSKFNDGED)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$(S0MAIN) \$(SSKFMUED)/\$(S0MAIN) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(SSKFMUED)/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/^\(ORACLE_LINKLINE.*\$(ORACLE_LINKER)\) \($(PL_FLAGS)\)/\1 -Wl,--no-as-needed \2/g' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/\$LD \$LD_RUNTIME/$LD -Wl,--no-as-needed \$LD_RUNTIME/' $ORACLE_HOME/bin/genorasdksh sed -i 's/\$(GETCRSHOME_OBJ1) \$(OCRLIBS_DEFAULT)/\$(GETCRSHOME_OBJ1) -Wl,--no-as-needed \$(OCRLIBS_DEFAULT)/' $ORACLE_HOME/srvm/lib/env_srvm.mk sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/env_rdbms.mk sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/crs/lib/env_has.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/odbc/lib/env_odbc.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/precomp/lib/env_precomp.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/srvm/lib/env_srvm.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/network/lib/env_network.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/ldap/lib/env_ldap.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/ord/im/lib/env_ordim.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/plsql/lib/env_plsql.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/ctx/lib/env_ctx.mk; sed -i 's/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--disable-new-dtags/LDDISABLENEWDTAGS=-Wl,--no-as-needed,--disable-new-dtags/' $ORACLE_HOME/sqlplus/lib/env_sqlplus.mk; Change the ORACLE_HOME line in the script to point to your installation directory for Oracle. Make the script executable and run it as the oracle user: chmod a+x /tmp/fixora sudo su - oracle /tmp/fixora Now return to the installer and press the "retry" button on the error dialog. The installation should now finish without further issues. The resulting installation does not work, however: creating a database will hang in the "startup mount" command, with an oracle BEQ process deadlocked inside localtime. To fix that do the following, again as the user oracle: cd $ORACLE_HOME/lib/stubs rm libc* cd ../../bin ./relink all After the relink creating a database should work; you can create one using: dbca -silent -createDatabase \ -templateName General_Purpose.dbc \ -gdbname $DBNAME -sid $DBNAME -responseFile NO_VALUE \ -characterSet AL32UTF8 \ -sysPassword REPLACE_WITH_PASSWORD \ -systemPassword REPLACE_WITH_PASSWORD \ -createAsContainerDatabase false \ -databaseType MULTIPURPOSE \ -automaticMemoryManagement false \ -totalMemory 2048 \ -storageType FS \ -datafileDestination "/opt/oracle/oradata/" \ -redoLogFileSize 500 \ -emConfiguration NONE \ -ignorePreReqs

Gamestorming’s success is a vindication of the marketing success that awaits truly innovative, well-written, and well-presented business books: Gamestorming is one of Amazon.com’s top 2,000 books overall, and one of the top 3 books in 3 target business book categories. Takeaway The big lesson, of course, is the seamless transition between Gamestorming and the way that Sunni Brown describes her business on her site. A busy, cluttered text-filled page would have created a barrier between readers looking for assistance implementing the book’s advice. But, by “walking the walk” on her website, proving the power of visuals to simplify complexity, there’s a perfect transition between book and picking up the phone to schedule an exploratory call. Which leads to the big question: is your description of your products and services on your site as consistent with your book as Sunni’s?

Q: How to show a viewController for each cell created by user? i am wondering how to make that if user adds a new cell in tableview, and when he select it it goes to a detailview, and if he add other cell, its go to other view and keep on. Summing, it gets a detailviewcontroller for each cell he creates. Aother solution to my problem will be that when the user create a cell, what he writes in the detail is saved for this particular cell. Using a "prototype" detailview. I was diggin a lot without any result, i am stuck days ago. Im using excode 4.5, so i can do it with storyborda if its possible but i dont know how. Thanks. Sorry my english A: Allow the user to add cells to the table view : Here Then in the didSelectRowAtIndexPath method, when the user selects a row, load the same view each time. MyDetailView, but depending on which row was pressed, populate the detail view with certain data. Go watch this youtube tutorial it shows how to do this, and save it with core data. Good luck :) EDIT -(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{ UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"Storyboard" bundle:nil]; DetailView * detail = (DetailView *) [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"myDetailView"]; [tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];//This makes the cell flash blue [self detail animated:YES completion:nil]; } The above code will send the user to that detail view no matter what cell was pressed. So, an if isnt really necessary.

Newton Trucks are an anomaly.Everyone is familiar with the companies that follow trends in longboarding…and have their own unique interpretation. We also know those that don’t seem to know at all what longboarders want. What’s kind of rare, however, is finding a company run by people passionate about skating that use their engineering expertise to create something innovative based on their own personal taste, regardless of what’s trendy. Refreshing? Sure…but versatile? I guess we’ll just have to see. Long Distance Push: It’s hard to tell if Newton had LDP in mind when designing these trucks, but it sure as hell works for it. All of their marketing is based around “reaching a new low”, so it’s kind of impossible to miss…these trucks are short. Their ride height is comparable to a drop mounted Randall. So when they are drop mounted its like having drop risers (lowers?). Making for a very comfortable, stable ride and easy pushing. Freeride: Here’s what everyone wants to know…from DH to dancers everyone loves freeride, even if it isn’t your main squeeze. Unfortunately…these trucks need cut-outs not to get wheelbite, and even then don’t provide much leverage. Fortunately, the solution to this is not only obvious but extremely useful: risers. Done. That’s it, but hear me out…this gets rid of wheelbite, gives you the leverage you need for slides…and allows the customizability of angled risers but without the added hight you’d usually get from wedging normal trucks. BAM! Freeride away… Downhill: Let’s expand on this riser idea…How would you like to dewedge the back truck of your DH board without feeling like your a foot taller? Seems like a pointless trade-off to me, sacrifice turning to stabilize your back truck while making the whole thing higher off the ground? A lot of people use drop decks to compensate for this…which works but then you’re no longer really dropped are you? And not everyone likes drop decks. Newton trucks give you the option of a lower center of gravity with cut-outs or several wedging/dewedging options while maintaining a standard ride height. Which, for those of you that like drop decks, means they still feel dropped…even with risers. Freestyle: These trucks have a complicated relationship with freestyle. Let’s start simple…less truck means less weight. That’s a good thing, so with risers they act much like regular RKPs would, only lighter. Without risers? Well with RKPs that are the same height as TKPs kick tails start feeling better for tricks that need pop, like ollies. The only problem being that you have to use a deck with cut-outs. Which makes for a much thinner tail and less control over flip tricks. Though the loss is still minimal enough to make it a setup worth checking out. So there it is, Newton trucks are made by engineering experts to ride lower than any other RKPs without losing any strength or disability. Luckily for us, these aren’t your typical metalworkers with extra beercans or complete squares trying to reinvent the wheel. (see what I did there?) No, these engineers are skaters too! So while this unassuming truck doesn’t seem very special until you look at it next to any other RKP, it’s a lot more useful and innovative than some more “flashy” products. Check out their Facebook for more details (and maybe a few sneak peaks of future Newton projects), and if your local shop doesn’t have a few sets for you to check out…Get on their ass! If you want to be supplied, you gotta start making demands. This is economics 101 people… As always, don’t forget to like The Longboard Critic on Facebook to get updates on our weekly reviews! Not to mention, some pretty cool contests. DISCLAIMER: This company was confident enough in its quality that it was willing to provide me with product to review.

Change is coming to the Cubs roster, but that change should not extend to Kyle Schwarber. The case for trading Schwarber makes sense: It would be selling at potentially the height of his value. It could also free up a corner outfield spot and subsequent money to bring back fan favorite Nicholas Castellanos (it would be hard to fit both Schwarber and Castellanos on the roster long-term). But consider this: Schwarber performed almost as well as Castellanos down the stretch last season, putting up a .997 OPS after the All-Star Break compared to Castellanos' 1.002 OPS following the trade from the Tigers. Those totals were good for seventh and eighth in the National League in the second half. Schwarber also ranked 11th in the NL in wRC+ (151) in the second half, just behind Castellanos and Anthony Rizzo. That led to a number of career highs for Schwarber this season, including homers (38), RBI (92), batting average (.250), slugging percentage (.531), OPS (.871) and doubles (29). Chalk it up to a small sample all you want, but this is nearly half a season (257 plate appearances) where Schwarber was one of the best hitters in the league and it certainly seems like the 26-year-old finally reached his potential. "There were obviously a lot of ups and downs [this season], but pretty pleased by how I handled it," Schwarber said during the last series of the year in St. Louis. "Overall, on a personal side there, it was definitely a positive." Schwarber wouldn't completely acknowledge that something "clicked" in his second half, instead crediting his mindset and how he avoided riding the roller coaster of getting too high or low after each game. The mindset also carried over into his approach at the plate, where he stopped trying to pull the ball so much and went to the opposite field more than ever before. "I'm a pretty simple human," Schwarber said with a laugh. "Obviously whenever the ball is pitched away, you want to hit it that way. There's gonna be sometimes, too, when you catch it a little deep on the inside part of the plate and it goes that way and it lands in there for a hit. "This game's really messed up because you can do everything right and get out and then you can do everything wrong and get a hit. You just gotta be able to stay consistent with the work and obviously some adjustments there with being able to stick more middle, it allows you to be a little more reactive away." Sure seems like something clicked there mentally for Schwarber and the physical tools have always been there. The development in the mental game has led to tangible changes on the stat sheet that very well might hold up over time. For example, Schwarber hit the ball on the ground less in 2019 than ever before and subsequently increased his line drive percentage. He also hit the ball harder overall, dipping to a career-best 12.7 percent low contact rate. He silenced some of the doubters about his ability to make an impact against left-handed pitching, posting an .809 OPS against southpaws in the second half and carving out consistent playing time down the stretch regardless of the opposing pitcher. It all adds up to a true breakout and Schwarber might just be scratching the surface of what he's fully capable of. "I think he made some adjustments," Theo Epstein said on ESPN radio in an interview with David Kaplan and Pat Boyle last week. "Some of it was mindset and belief and approach and some of it was a little bit fundamental mechanics of the swing. But just the combination led to a really confident hitter up there who's dictating a little bit more instead of being reactive — not trying to cover every single hole, but going up there with a really good gameplan. "More of the rhythm and timing to his swing — the prepitch movement that is a little bit unconventional, but it allowed him to always be on time as an amateur and as a minor-league player. When he's locked in like that and feeling good and has the right kind of approach, he's extremely dangerous. I think it just gets back to what we talk about with development not being linear in baseball — you never know when it's gonna click. A lot of guys have to go up and back — Triple-A to the big leagues a couple different times and in Kyle's case, he missed a whole year [due to injury]. He had that one really rough season initially in the leadoff spot and then had to go back to the minor leagues. "I think he's reached that point where he's turned the corner and can be really impactful middle-of-the-order bat for years to come." It can be dangerous to point to one half season for any player and extrapolate it out over a full campaign year over year, but if fans are really sold on bringing back Castellanos after two good months, why sell off Schwarber right now after he was essentially as effective as Castellanos over the same stretch? Schwarber is also a lot more affordable than most other players capable of approaching 40 homers, as he's projected for $8 million by MLB Trade Rumors in 2020, his second year of arbitration. It's unknown exactly what Schwarber would fetch in a trade because of the public perception about his defense, the lack of track record and how this Cubs front office views him. It's hard to see any team truly meeting the price Epstein and Co. will set forth given how highly they think of him internally. So you have a left-handed slugger who tears up right-handed pitching and has started to come around against southpaws, a guy who could hit in the middle of the order, is still young (he'll turn 27 in March), affordable and may not fetch enough in a trade to make it worthwhile? That doesn't exactly portend a trade coming this offseason involving Schwarber. If they held on to him this long, why deal him away now that he finally put it all together? Sure, crazier things have happened and maybe some team meets the Cubs' asking price. In the meantime, Schwarber will spend the winter making sure all those positive developments he made in the second half stick. "The foundation's there," he said. "It's just being able to stay consistent. Whenever you pick up that bat again and start swinging, you got your routine, you got your standards for what you want to do with the ball and keep repeating it."

1. Introduction {#sec1-micromachines-09-00205} =============== The power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells has increased from 3.8% in 2009 to 22.1% in several years \[[@B1-micromachines-09-00205],[@B2-micromachines-09-00205],[@B3-micromachines-09-00205],[@B4-micromachines-09-00205],[@B5-micromachines-09-00205],[@B6-micromachines-09-00205],[@B7-micromachines-09-00205]\]; improvements in the efficiency of these solar cells have thus been remarkably rapid. Perovskite cells are also more cost effective than silicon cells and are easy to fabricate. Perovskites generally have an ABX~3~ structure (A = cationic organic molecule; X = halide) \[[@B8-micromachines-09-00205],[@B9-micromachines-09-00205]\]. These materials have a number of unique attributes including bipolarity, high absorption coefficients, long carrier diffusion lengths, and high solar conversion efficiencies \[[@B10-micromachines-09-00205],[@B11-micromachines-09-00205],[@B12-micromachines-09-00205]\]. Furthermore, the sources of perovskite components are relatively abundant. A number of studies have been conducted on perovskite quantum dots. For example, Im et al. proposed a QD-MAPbI~3~ solar cell \[[@B13-micromachines-09-00205]\], and Huang et al., developed a QD-MAPbI~3~ light-emitting diode \[[@B14-micromachines-09-00205]\]. The perovskite material used in this experiment was QD-MAPbBr~3~. When compared to crystal MAPbBr~3~ films, QD-MAPbBr~3~ has unique physicochemical characteristics such as tunable band gaps, a functionalizable surface, and high quantum yields \[[@B15-micromachines-09-00205]\]. However, QD-MAPbBr~3~ has poor surface morphologies; these traits can be expected to affect the efficiencies of the solar element. Recent studies have shown that reductions in the sizes of perovskite crystals effectively reduce the number of internal defects in the perovskite material and the probability of non-radiative transitions. This was shown to improve the fluorescence efficiency of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ material as well as its stability \[[@B16-micromachines-09-00205],[@B17-micromachines-09-00205]\]. Several articles about colloidal QD solar cells have been reported \[[@B18-micromachines-09-00205],[@B19-micromachines-09-00205],[@B20-micromachines-09-00205]\], however, in our work comprising the perovskite QDs (MAPbI~3~), the colloidal QDs (ZnSe) demonstrated poor reliability, as shown in [Figure 1](#micromachines-09-00205-f001){ref-type="fig"}. Even so, QD-MAPbBr~3~ is still far away from commercial applications. In this work, octylammonium bromide (OABr) was added to QD-MAPBr~3~ to improve its exciton binding energies, surface morphology, and stability to improve the efficiency of QD-MAPBr~3~ devices. 2. Materials and Methods {#sec2-micromachines-09-00205} ======================== First, a MAPbBr~3~ perovskite quantum dot solution was prepared. OABr powder (37.8 mg) was added to a solution containing 6 mL of octadecene and 60 µL of oleic acid. A methylammonium bromide (MAB) solution (13.2 mg of MAB dissolved in 300 µL of dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent) and PbBr~2~ solution (110.1 mg of PbBr~2~ dissolved in 500 µL of DMF solvent) were then added to this mixture to form the MAPbBr~3~ precursor solution (with 30, 120, 240, or 360 min of reaction time), as shown in [Figure 2](#micromachines-09-00205-f002){ref-type="fig"}. Acetone was then added, followed by centrifugation to isolate the yellow precipitate from the MAPbBr~3~ precursor solution. The yellow precipitates were then dried under vacuum for half a day to completely remove the solvents of the precursor solution. The MAPbBr~3~ powder was then dissolved in hexane to prepare the MAPbBr~3~ perovskite quantum dot solution. The detail of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ process has been reported elsewhere \[[@B21-micromachines-09-00205]\]. The ITO glass substrate was sonicated for 10 min in acetone, and then in ethanol, and finally isopropanol. A nitrogen gun was used to dry the substrate, which was irradiated in UV-ozone for 10 min. A 0.45-µm syringe filter was used to drop NiO~x~ evenly on the ITO substrate, followed by spin coating at 4500 rpm for 90 s. The substrate was then heated at 120 °C on a hot plate for 10 min, and baked in an oven at 350 °C for 10 min. The NiO~x~ film here was as an adhesive layer and hole transport layer to coat the QD-MAPbBr~3~ layer. The resulting NiO~x~/ITO substrate was placed in a glove box filled with nitrogen, and a micropipette was used to evenly drop 50 µL of QD-MAPbBr~3~ on the NiO~x~/ITO substrate. The substrate was then coated in two stages (the rotational speeds and times of the first and second stages were 1000 rpm for 10 s and 3000 rpm for 10 s, respectively). After the coating process was completed, the substrate was placed on a hot plate for heating at 80 °C for five minutes. Finally, C~60~ and Ag were then thermally deposited one after the other in a thermal evaporator with a high-vacuum environment (1.5 × 10^−6^ torr) to complete the whole cell structure. In this device, NiO~x~ was the hole transport layer, QD-MAPbBr~3~ was the absorption layer, and C~60~ was the electron transport layer. The current density--voltage (J--V) curves of the photovoltaic cells were obtained using a source-measurement unit (2400, Keithly, Cleveland, OH, USA). The optical intensity of the simulated sunlight was calibrated using a reference cell (91150V, Oriel, Strarford, CT, USA) with an optical filter (KG-5) to have an intensity of 100 mW/cm^2^. The absorbance spectra were determined by a visible spectrometer. The crystallinities of MAPbBr~3~ thin films were determined by a commercial X-ray diffractometer (PW-1830, PANalytical, Almelo, The Netherlands). The photoluminescence (PL) spectra were measured with a commercial PL spectrometer (Protrustech Co., Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan). 3. Results and Discussion {#sec3-micromachines-09-00205} ========================= [Figure 3](#micromachines-09-00205-f003){ref-type="fig"}a shows a scanning electron microscopy (SEM, GeminiSEM, ZEISS, Oberkochen, Germany) image of the surface morphology of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ film with 30 min of reaction time. Here, it presented significant differences in the size between the grains of the film, and some of these grains were aggregated into QD-MAPbBr~3~ particles. This could be because the reaction time allowed for the reaction between PbBr~2~ and the mixture of MAB and medium-chain OABR in the presence of oleic acid and octadecene was insufficiently short in this case, thus the reactions at each grain were still incomplete. [Figure 3](#micromachines-09-00205-f003){ref-type="fig"}b exhibits the smallest and most homogeneous grains among the four reaction times. The QD-MAPbBr~3~ particles that covered the NiO~x~ layer were smooth and uniform and formed a continue film. This indicated that 120 min of reaction time was the optimal reaction time. However, as the reaction time increased to 240 min, the OABr precipitated on the surface, causing some of the grains to aggregate into a sheet-like film, as shown in [Figure 3](#micromachines-09-00205-f003){ref-type="fig"}c. When the reaction time was increased to 360 min, the surface morphology was a continued film due to the grain aggregation of most of the QDs by the formation of a homogeneous solution, as shown in [Figure 3](#micromachines-09-00205-f003){ref-type="fig"}d. [Figure 4](#micromachines-09-00205-f004){ref-type="fig"}a presents a transmission electron microscopy (TEM, Tecnai F30, Philips, Germany) image of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ particle consisting of many quantum dots. The sizes of the quantum dots ranged between 5 nm and 7 nm, as shown in [Figure 4](#micromachines-09-00205-f004){ref-type="fig"}b. The QD-MAPbBr~3~ particle formed from many MAPbBr~3~ quantum dots due to aggregation. However, there was no reaction between the quantum dots. [Figure 5](#micromachines-09-00205-f005){ref-type="fig"} shows the XRD patterns of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ films. The QD-MAPbBr~3~ films were deposited on the NiO~x~ layer for all measurements in this study. The diffraction peaks occurred at 14.53°, 22.04°, 29.7°, 33.5°, and 45.35°, and these reflections corresponded to the (100), (110), (200), and (300) crystal lattice planes of the MAPbBr~3~, respectively \[[@B22-micromachines-09-00205],[@B23-micromachines-09-00205]\]. After annealing, XRD peaks of the MAPbBr~3~ films were slightly shifted towards higher diffraction angles. Two diffraction peaks with the most intensities at 14.53° and 29.7° were significantly increased after the annealing process. This indicated that the annealed film had smaller crystal lattice distances and greater crystallinity than that of the film without annealing treatment. [Figure 6](#micromachines-09-00205-f006){ref-type="fig"} shows the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of QD-MAPbBr~3~; the locations of peaks of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ solution, the film without annealing, and the annealed film were at 539, 531, and 533 nm, respectively. The band gap can be expected to increase when the size of the quantum dots becomes smaller, thus leading to a blue shift of the PL emission peak. In this work, the PL spectrum of the film without annealing exhibited a greater blue shift than that of the film with annealing. This indicated that the film without annealing had a smaller particle size and larger band gap than the film with annealing. The inset is a picture of a QD-MAPbBr~3~ specimen that emitted green light while being excited by a 405-nm laser. The fluorescence quantum yield is around 4.96%. It reveals a high trap density in the QD-MAPbBr layer \[[@B24-micromachines-09-00205],[@B25-micromachines-09-00205],[@B26-micromachines-09-00205],[@B27-micromachines-09-00205]\]. [Figure 7](#micromachines-09-00205-f007){ref-type="fig"} shows the absorption spectra of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ films. One may observe that the films absorbed significantly between 400 nm and 500 nm, and the absorption increased slightly after film annealing. When compared to conventional MAPbBr~3~ films, the absorption peak of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ films underwent a blue shift to 491 nm due to the quantum confinement effects in MAPbBr~3~ \[[@B28-micromachines-09-00205]\]. [Figure 8](#micromachines-09-00205-f008){ref-type="fig"} shows the transmittance spectra of QD-MAPbBr~3~ with and without annealing. The transmittance of the film was 65% between 600 nm and 1000 nm, but only 10% between 400 nm and 500 nm. The highest transmittance was around 75% at 700 nm in the spectrum of QD-MAPbBr~3~ on NiO~x~/ITO glass. The location of the absorption edge was at 500 nm, corresponding to the absorption of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ films. The inset in [Figure 8](#micromachines-09-00205-f008){ref-type="fig"} is an image of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ film and shows that the text below the film was easily readable. [Figure 9](#micromachines-09-00205-f009){ref-type="fig"} illustrates the structure of a QD-MAPbBr~3~ solar cell device. [Figure 10](#micromachines-09-00205-f010){ref-type="fig"} presents a typical J--V curve of the ITO/NiO/QD-MAPbBr~3~/C~60~/Ag structure solar cell. The open circuit voltage (V~oc~), current density (J~sc~), fill factor (FF), and power conversion efficiency (PCE, %) of the solar cell were 0.04 V, 0.257 mA/cm^2^, 0.258, and 0.0347, respectively. The QD-MAPbBr~3~ solar cell exhibited poor performance due to the high resistance of the QD-MAPbBr~3~ film. This may have contributed to the electron transition in the QD-MAPbBr~3~ film being hard from quantum dot to quantum dot, from grain to grain, and from particle to particle, as shown in [Figure 3](#micromachines-09-00205-f003){ref-type="fig"} and [Figure 4](#micromachines-09-00205-f004){ref-type="fig"}. 4. Conclusions {#sec4-micromachines-09-00205} ============== This work involved varying the reaction time of the reaction between MAB, PbBr~2~, and OABr to optimize the size of the precipitating particles of the resulting QD-MAPbBr~3~ solution; this solution was then spin-coated to form a film and was used as the active layer of a perovskite solar cell. The transmittance spectra showed that the QD-MAPbBr~3~ films had high levels of transmissivity, and their PL spectra also indicated a significant degree of fluorescence. The TEM image showed that these films consisted of nanocrystals with a size of approximately 6 nm. However, the J--V curve and PCE values of the film showed that the FF of the resulting solar cell was poor. The QD-MAPbBr~3~ solar cell exhibited a high transparency, but poor performance. Electron transition in the QD-MAPbBr~3~ film was hard from quantum dot to quantum dot, from grain to grain, and from particle to particle. Therefore, the QD-MAPbBr~3~ film requires further refinement to improve its quality, as the maximum solar conversion efficiency of the film is only 0.0347% at present. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology under Grant MOST 106-2221-E-027-091. L.-C.C. wrote the paper, designed the experiments, and analyzed the data. K.-L.L., C.-Y.H., J.-C.L., and Z.-L.T. prepared the samples and performed all measurements. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The authors declare no conflict of interest. {#micromachines-09-00205-f001} {#micromachines-09-00205-f002} {#micromachines-09-00205-f003} {#micromachines-09-00205-f004} {#micromachines-09-00205-f005} {#micromachines-09-00205-f006} {#micromachines-09-00205-f007} {#micromachines-09-00205-f008} {#micromachines-09-00205-f009} {#micromachines-09-00205-f010}

Please let me know if you would be interested in attending a Derivatives III course in Portland (next year). (We are working to create a training calendar for 2002 and would like to be sure we have enough interest to offer DIII next year.) Thanks! Julie & Grace

MetaFilter IRL events tagged with GoatUphttp://irl.metafilter.com/tags/GoatUp Events tagged with 'GoatUp' at MetaFilter IRL.Sun, 11 Nov 2018 18:49:30 -0800Sun, 11 Nov 2018 18:49:30 -0800en-ushttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss6010 Years of Goating It Uphttp://irl.metafilter.com/4079/10%2DYears%2Dof%2DGoating%2DIt%2DUp So at some point, post-daylight savings but pre-New Year <b>ten long years ago</b> we settled into a comfortable routine of drinking tiny beers and eating greasy grill food on the First Wednesday of every month in one another's splendid company. This is the closest you're getting to an anniversary event. We hope you'll join us. There might be cake. Or swag. Or nothing at all. Really, as near as we can figure (though we've been meeting up regularly for longer), we hit ten years of First Wednesdays at the Original Billy Goat Tavern in October or November or will in December. Our memories are a bit hazy. So it would be a treat to see your face, one more time. We meet at the Goat after work between 5 and 6 (some of us not till 7 or 8; others in an endless state of calendar panic not at all). We drink. We chat. We watch Wheel of Fortune. We generally enjoy one another's company. Then we move on to karaoke, which will be at Live Wire hosted by Our Lady of Perpetual No Booing. We will get drunk. We will dance. We will show each other the love.<br><br>Wed December 5 at 6:00 PM, The Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2018:site.4079Sun, 11 Nov 2018 18:49:30 -080010YearsGoateningGoatonAWireGoatUpLiveWIreNoBooingTonyBeerscrush41.8903358-87.624700910 Years of Goating It Up20181205T060000The Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSGoating Is Easy, Calendars Are Hard!http://irl.metafilter.com/4000/Goating%2DIs%2DEasy%2DCalendars%2DAre%2DHard The calendar has pulled that trick again where First Wednesday falls on the first of the month, which is...this week! That's very soon, but there's still time to make plans to join us at the Original Billy Goat Tavern for tiny beers and excellent company. Even if - especially if! - you haven't joined us before, we'd love to see you on Wednesday. If you're joining us for the first time, the Goat is under, not on, Michigan Avenue and is easiest to get to from Hubbard Street, or by taking the stairs down from Michigan. You can find us at a large table to your left as you enter the restaurant. Several of us have our pictures or phone numbers in our profiles if you'd like extra assurance that you've found the right people. There is usually karaoke at LiveWire afterwards, if you'd like to keep going after the Goat or prefer to meet up with us later in the evening.<br><br>Wed August 1 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2018:site.4000Mon, 30 Jul 2018 09:49:40 -0800CalendarsAreHardDrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpKaraokeLiveWireTINCCTinyBeersjessypie41.8903358-87.6247009Goating Is Easy, Calendars Are Hard!20180801T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSLOCATION CHANGE--The Goat Blowed Up Real Goodhttp://irl.metafilter.com/3960/The%2DGoat%2DBlowed%2DUp%2DReal%2DGood <strike>We tried and failed to come up with an alternate plan</strike> R Bar Chicago (Renaldi's bar annex) for First Wednesday which happens to be this <strike>miserable shitheel of a</strike> country's birthday celebration.There is no Live Wire karaoke that night, but we think Shakers on Clark in Lakeview/Boystown will have karaoke for those who enjoy. If not, trivia starts at R Bar around 9 pm. If we all change our minds and meet somewhere more north because none of us have any reason to be downtown or downtown-adjacent (sorry, garlic) on a day off, we'll talk about it here.<br><br>Wed July 4 at 5:00 PM, R Bar Chicagotag:irl.metafilter.com,2018:site.3960Thu, 28 Jun 2018 11:55:30 -0800DrunkeningGoateningGoatUpKaraokeMetahoundsSpaciousSpaLikeRestroomscrush41.9336311-87.6442975LOCATION CHANGE--The Goat Blowed Up Real Good20180704T050000R Bar Chicago2827 N Broadway St, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSThe Return of the Goathttp://irl.metafilter.com/3878/The%2DReturn%2Dof%2Dthe%2DGoat Yes, it's open again. The Press tells us it now has <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-food-secret-billy-goat-party-room-obama-burger-20180319-story.html">spacious spa-like bathrooms</a>. No shit! Or shit! Whatever. Join us, won't you? Goat at around 6:00pm. Then we'll adjourn to Live Wire for karaoke. Usually with a stop for tacos on the way.<br><br>Wed April 4 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2018:site.3878Thu, 29 Mar 2018 06:57:53 -0800DrunkeningGoateningGoatUpKaraokeLiveWireMetahoundsRenovationsSpaciousSpaLikeRestroomscrush41.890335-87.6247037The Return of the Goat20180404T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSIn Like a Lion, Out Like a Goathttp://irl.metafilter.com/3860/In%2DLike%2Da%2DLion%2DOut%2DLike%2Da%2DGoat First Wednesday is almost upon us, which means it's time for the monthly Chicago meetup! Unfortunately, the original (and for our purposes, only) Billy Goat Tavern <a href="https://twitter.com/Cheezborger/status/970328011160485888">still seems to be closed for renovation</a>. <strike>We've repaired to Monk's Pub on Lake Street for the last couple meetups; shall we meet there one more time?</strike> Instead, we'll be meeting at the historic <a href="https://www.theberghoff.com/">Berghoff</a>, just off Adams and State in the Loop! Rather than take a table on the formal restaurant side of the house, I think we'll probably want to sit in the bar area. That means you'll want to enter through the leftmost of the Berghoff's bewildering array of doors. Last I checked, Cheesie's on Belmont and Livewire Lounge on Milwaukee remain open to the public, so there's no need to alter the traditional second and third legs of the evening (grilled cheese sandwiches and karaoke, respectively).<br><br>Wed March 7 at 6:00 PM, The Berghofftag:irl.metafilter.com,2018:site.3860Mon, 05 Mar 2018 20:33:55 -0800chicagogoatgoatupgrilledcheesekaraokelengthyrenovationsrenovationstinccwhatshebuildinginthereIridic41.879232-87.6283942In Like a Lion, Out Like a Goat20180307T060000The Berghoff17 W Adams St, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSGoat Goat Goat? Fr. Goathttp://irl.metafilter.com/3835/Goat%2DGoat%2DGoat The Goat is not yet reopened, but First Wednesday is next week. We will decamp to LiveWire for Metahound karaoke around 10, but where should we drunken first? We have agreed that Monk's Pub is a good place for the drunkening. Hope to see your faces there!<br><br>Wed February 7 at 6:00 PM, Monk's Pubtag:irl.metafilter.com,2018:site.3835Tue, 30 Jan 2018 09:27:07 -0800DrunkeningGoateningGoatUpKaraokeLiveWireMetahoundsRenovationscrush41.8854689-87.6342957Goat Goat Goat? Fr. Goat20180207T060000Monk's Pub205 W Lake St, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSRemember, Remember the Goat of Novemberhttp://irl.metafilter.com/3755/Remember%2DRemember%2Dthe%2DGoat%2Dof%2DNovember First Wednesday is on the first of the month in November! Don't let it catch you by surprise. Join us at the Original Billy Goat Tavern for tiny beers and excellent company. If you're joining us for the first time, the Goat is under, not on, Michigan Avenue and is easiest to get to from Hubbard Street, or by taking the stairs down from Michigan. You can find us at a large table to your left as you enter the restaurant. Several of us have our pictures or phone numbers in our profiles if you'd like extra assurance that you've found the right people. There is usually karaoke at LiveWire afterwards, if you'd like to keep going after the Goat or prefer to meet up with us later in the evening.<br><br>Wed November 1 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Tavern tag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3755Sat, 21 Oct 2017 14:05:43 -0800CalendarsAreHardDrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpKaraokeRememberRememberTINCCTinyBeersjessypie41.8903697-87.6244233Remember, Remember the Goat of November20171101T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern 430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSHere We Come A-Goateninghttp://irl.metafilter.com/3740/Here%2DWe%2DCome%2DA%2DGoatening It's about to be first Wednesday again! Let's go enjoy burgers and tiny beers and excellent company. If you're joining us for the first time, the Goat is under, not on, Michigan Avenue and is easiest to get to from Hubbard Street, or by taking the stairs down from Michigan. You can find us at a large table to your left as you enter the restaurant. Several of us have our pictures or phone numbers in our profiles if you'd like extra assurance that you've found the right people. There is usually karaoke at LiveWire afterwards, if you'd like to keep going after the Goat or prefer to meet up with us later in the evening.<br><br>Wed October 4 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3740Sun, 01 Oct 2017 16:05:25 -0800CalendarsAreHardDrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpKaraokeTINCCTinyBeersjessypie41.8903697-87.6244233Here We Come A-Goatening20171004T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSLet Us Goat Then, You and Ihttp://irl.metafilter.com/3684/Let%2DUs%2DGoat%2DThen%2DYou%2Dand%2DI Did you know this Wednesday is First Wednesday again already? Where did July go? Join us at the Original Billy Goat Pub for drinks and friendship! If you're joining us for the first time (and you should! yes, you! we want to meet you!), the Goat is under, not on, Michigan Avenue and is easiest to get to from Hubbard Street, or by taking stairs down from Michigan. You can find us at a large table to your left as you enter the restaurant. Several of us have our pictures or phone numbers in our profiles if you'd like extra assurance that you've found the right people. There is usually karaoke at LiveWire afterwards, if you'd like to keep going after the Goat or prefer to meet up with us later in the evening.<br><br>Wed August 2 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Tavern tag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3684Sun, 30 Jul 2017 07:14:14 -0800CalendarsAreHardDrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpKaraokeTINCCTinyBeersjessypie41.8903697-87.6244233Let Us Goat Then, You and I20170802T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern 430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSGoats!http://irl.metafilter.com/3660/Goats Oh hey, Wednesday is first Wednesday. So join us at the Original Billy Goat Tavern where we eat sandwiches, drink tiny beers, and talk about stuff and junk. Then possibly on an adventure to other places (I'm assuming, but have not confirmed, LiveWire Lounge for rockstar karaoke). We're friendly; you'd like us.<br><br>Wed July 5 at 5:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3660Thu, 29 Jun 2017 08:58:09 -0800FirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpTINCCTinyBeerscrush41.8903616-87.6248004Goats!20170705T050000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSLive Goats!http://irl.metafilter.com/3570/Live%2DGoats Join us after work for tiny beers and cheeseburgers and delightful company at the Original Billy Goat Tavern under Michigan Avenue. You won't be sorry. Special half-tine stop at <a href="http://cheesies.com/belmont">Cheesie's Pub</a> for hard root beer floats! You *really* won't be sorry. Many of us will continue on the <a href="http://www.livewireloungechicago.com/">Live Wire Lounge</a> (3394 N Milwaukee) for rock star karaoke. Others will go home. Either way, don't be sorry. Be there!<br><br>Wed April 5 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3570Mon, 27 Mar 2017 17:23:00 -0800DrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpLiveWireTINCCtinybeerscrush41.8903616-87.6248004Live Goats!20170405T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSA-Goating We Shall Gohttp://irl.metafilter.com/3532/A%2DGoating%2DWe%2DShall%2DGo As is the <em>other</em> custom of our people, we gather at the <a href="http://www.billygoattavern.com/">Original Billy Goat Tavern</a>, sip the tiny beers, quaff the tiny whiskeys, eat the beast (no fries). Then make the long journey to <a href="http://www.livewireloungechicago.com/index.htm">Live Wire</a>, tip our bartenders generously and show each other the love. You know you want to.<br><br>Wed March 1 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3532Thu, 23 Feb 2017 20:03:25 -0800DrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpLiveWireMaryokeTINCCtinybeersYouKnowYouWantTocrush-onastick41.8903616-87.6248004A-Goating We Shall Go20170301T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSAnother First Wednesday at the Goathttp://irl.metafilter.com/3504/Another%2DFirst%2DWednesday%2Dat%2Dthe%2DGoat First Wednesday is on that trickiest of calendar days this February - the first day of the month! Please join us at the Original Billy Goat Tavern, followed by karaoke later in the evening. Newcomers are always very welcome. There had been concern that we might not be able to go to the Goat this month, but right now it sounds like we should be able to go there as usual. If you're joining us for the first time, the Goat is under, not on, Michigan Avenue and is easiest to get to from Hubbard Street, or by taking stairs down from Michigan. You can find us at a large table to your left as you enter the restaurant. Several of us have our pictures or phone numbers in our profiles if you'd like extra assurance that you've found the right people.<br><br>Wed February 1 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2017:site.3504Sun, 29 Jan 2017 15:46:45 -0800CalendarsAreHardDrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatExpectedToBeOpenGoatUpInFieldsIsStillTheBackupPlanKaraokeTINCCTinyBeersjessypie41.8903616-87.6248004Another First Wednesday at the Goat20170201T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSLive Goat on a Wirehttp://irl.metafilter.com/3454/Goat%2Don%2Da%2DWire First Wednesday of the month, first Wednesday of the new year! Bring your resolutions and drown them in a tiny beer (in a weird new glass) at the Original Billy Goat Tavern. Then adjourn to the Livewire Lounge (3394 N Milwaukee Ave) for karaoke of the finest sort. Nothing to see here, folks.<br><br>Wed January 4 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2016:site.3454Thu, 29 Dec 2016 18:17:57 -080020173CheersfortheBelmontBusALLoftheFogDrunkeningFirstWednesdayFogGoatGoateningGoatUpLiveWireTINCCtinybeersWeMissYourFacecrush-onastick41.8903616-87.6248004Live Goat on a Wire20170104T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSFirst Wednesday is Upon Ushttp://irl.metafilter.com/3439/First%2DWednesday%2Dis%2DUpon%2DUs First, we meet at the Original Billy Goat Tavern. Then we decamp for shenanigans. You should join us because the world is a terrible place, but the Goat is familiar and the Chicago Metahounds are the best folks around. The Original Billy Goat Tavern is on the lower level of Michigan Avenue. Cash only grill, beer and a full bar. Shenanigans are karaoke. This week our favorite karaoke magic-maker is making her magic at LiveWire Lounge Chicago (3394 N Milwaukee Ave,) and many of us are going there. We are full of nonsense and looking forward to seeing your face. Don't let us down.<br><br>Wed December 7 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2016:site.3439Sun, 04 Dec 2016 18:56:25 -0800ChicagoDrunkeningFirstWednesdayGoatGoateningGoatUpGoatwireTINCCtinybeerscrush-onastick41.8903616-87.6248004First Wednesday is Upon Us20161207T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSAugust: Goat Countyhttp://irl.metafilter.com/3297/August%2DGoat%2DCounty This Wednesday is First Wednesday, which means Chicago will be gathering for another meetup at the Billy Goat. We meet at the Original Billy Goat Tavern downtown every First Wednesday. Sometimes we forget to post it until a few days before meetup time. (Calendars Are Hard.) Sometimes things are so hard that I just copy and paste the text from the previous month except changing the title. Speaking of, I've made this not-that-funny IRL title joke 3 times now, and I'd like to thank you for leaving it for me to do again.<br><br>Wed August 3 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2016:site.3297Sun, 31 Jul 2016 20:19:52 -0800billygoatchicagogoatgoatupTINCCtinybeersMCMikeNamara41.8903616-87.6248005August: Goat County20160803T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSIndependence Goat: Resurgencehttp://irl.metafilter.com/3263/Independence%2DGoat%2DResurgence This Wednesday is First Wednesday, which means Chicago will be gathering for another meetup at the Billy Goat. We meet at the Original Billy Goat Tavern downtown every First Wednesday. Sometimes we forget to post it until a few days before meetup time. (Calendars Are Hard.) There are a lot of regulars but we always love to see new faces. We are pretty easy to spot at a big table to your left as you come down the stairs, but if you have any questions or just want to know we're looking out for new faces, let us know.<br><br>Wed July 6 at 6:00 PM, Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2016:site.3263Sun, 03 Jul 2016 18:20:28 -0800billygoatchicagogoatgoatupTINCCtinybeersjessypie41.8903616-87.6248005Independence Goat: Resurgence20160706T060000Original Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSG . O . A . T .http://irl.metafilter.com/3174/G%2DO%2DA%2DT Let's get our act together and go, at the usual time, to the greatest of all taverns! (The Billy Goat.)<br><br>Wed April 6 at 6:00 PM, The Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2016:site.3174Fri, 25 Mar 2016 13:07:40 -0800billygoatchicagogoatgoatupTINCCIridic41.8903616-87.6248004G . O . A . T .20160406T060000The Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSQuite possibly the end of an erahttp://irl.metafilter.com/3050/Quite%2Dpossibly%2Dthe%2Dend%2Dof%2Dan%2Dera The Blue Frog is shutting down in January and there's a pretty good chance the owners will have alienated the staff so much that everyone will throw in the towel before then, so this might be the last First Wednesday. If you've ever been, you'll want to join us this time. If you've <em>never</em> been, you <strong>must</strong> join us this time. Goat first, as usual. We might head to the Frog a bit earlier just to lock things down early, so latecomers be aware.<br><br>Wed December 2 at 5:00 PM, Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2015:site.3050Thu, 26 Nov 2015 21:26:12 -0800cheezborgerschicagochicagocabalfroggoatgoatfroggoatupkaraokemagicmeetuptheendtincctinybeerseamondaly41.8903697-87.6244233Quite possibly the end of an era20151202T050000Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSDid You Get the Sizzle 2: The Return of the Curse of the Billy Goathttp://irl.metafilter.com/3007/Did%2DYou%2DGet%2Dthe%2DSizzle%2D2%2DThe%2DReturn%2Dof%2Dthe%2DCurse%2Dof%2Dthe%2DBilly%2DGoat <strike>IF the Cubs make it to the World Series and IF the World Series makes it to game 7, it will all happen at the Goat. <em>Our</em> Goat. The first Wednesday in November strikes again. We are the chosen ones.</strike> Well, poop. It will <strike>either</strike> be a regular day for us, <strike>or us plus news crews plus everyone in Chicago who is not actively setting things on fire</strike>. Yay! p.s. MCMikeNamara remember that time you said you'd take the day off work to stake out our tables? GOOD LUCK, WE'RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU<br><br>Wed November 4 at 5:00 PM, Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2015:site.3007Thu, 15 Oct 2015 09:44:00 -0800baseballcheezborgerschicagochicagocabalcubscursecurseofthebillygoatdidyougetthesizzlefroggoatgoatfroggoatupmeetupthesizzletincctinybeersworldseriesphunniemee41.8903697-87.6244233Did You Get the Sizzle 2: The Return of the Curse of the Billy Goat20151104T050000Billy Goat Tavern430 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSba dee yaa goating in Septemberhttp://irl.metafilter.com/2939/ba%2Ddee%2Dyaa%2Dgoating%2Din%2DSeptember Do you remember the second night in September? Only Blue Frog and Goat, remember the meetup we share today. <small><small>ba dee yaaa goating in September ba dee yaa say that you remember...</small></small> It's time once again for our monthly Goatup! Any potential newcomers, note that this is the location underneath Michigan Ave just north of the river. They always set up a long table for us over to the left as you walk in the door--you can't miss us. Festivities always proceed to the Blue Frog for karaoke at whenever people decide to go over there, usually 9? 8:30? maybe? <em>Later.</em><br><br>Wed September 2 at 5:00 PM, Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2015:site.2939Thu, 27 Aug 2015 12:00:28 -0800billgoatbluefrogchicagochicagocabalfroggoatgoatupgoat-upmeetuptinccwithapologiestoearthwindandfirephunniemee41.8903697-87.6244233ba dee yaa goating in September20150902T050000Billy Goat Tavern430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSMay Goatup!http://irl.metafilter.com/2781/May%2DGoatup Time for our regularly scheduled monthly meetup at the Billy Goat, plus a very important PSA: Mother's Day is the Sunday after this meetup! If you're at this meetup and haven't figured something out yet, you're setting yourself up for failure. Don't let it happen to you. Bonus: <a href="http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/bwe/images/2011/06/GOAT-IN-A-SUIT-1-1306959118.jpg">goat in a coat</a>. <small>Note for newcomers and folks who come less regularly: Chicago always meets the first Wednesday of every month at the Michigan Ave Billy Goat! It's as certain as death and taxes (but hopefully more fun than either of those things), even if you don't see the IRL post for it yet. We sit to the left of the entrance as you walk in the door and are usually easy to spot due to a combination of nerdiness and idiosyncratic sartorial choices.</small><br><br>Wed May 6 at 5:00 PM, Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2015:site.2781Sun, 26 Apr 2015 16:43:50 -0800chicagochicagocabalfroggoatgoatupmeetupmonthlytincctinybeersphunniemee41.8903697-87.6244233May Goatup!20150506T050000Billy Goat Tavern430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSDecember Goathttp://irl.metafilter.com/2585/December%2DGoat Alternately known as "<a href="http://irl.metafilter.com/2178/Anvil-of-Bacon-Crom">100 Days to Anvil of Bacon Crom</a>". Same Goat time, same Goat place, followed by same Frog place, same Frog shenanigans. 6:00 or so, at the original Billy Goat Tavern for tiny beers and civilized conversation. Then we'll hike over to the Frog for better beers and civilized karaoke mayhem. Never any pressure to sing--always much pressure to come along and cheer. It's the holiday season--you know you want to.<br><br>Wed December 3 at 6:00 PM, The Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2014:site.2585Sun, 23 Nov 2014 11:46:59 -0800calendarshowdotheyworkdrunkeningfroggoatgoateninggoatupgoat-upkaraokeTINCCwhiskeycrush-onastick41.8903697-87.6244233December Goat20141203T060000The Original Billy Goat Tavern430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSGoats &amp; Frogs Next Weekhttp://irl.metafilter.com/2559/Goats%2Dand%2DFrogs%2DNext%2DWeek Right? I'm reading this calendar correctly? First Wednesday in November is a week from today? Hopefully, cause I'll be Goat Frogging. You should join. If you don't know the drill, just ask.<br><br>Wed November 5 at 6:00 PM, The Original Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2014:site.2559Wed, 29 Oct 2014 08:07:03 -0800calendarsdonotworkthatwaycalendarshowdotheyworkdrunkeningfroggoatgoateninggoatupgoat-upkaraokeTINCCtinybeerswhiskeycrush-onastick41.8903697-87.6244233Goats &amp; Frogs Next Week20141105T060000The Original Billy Goat Tavern430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUSCan I interest you in a Goat Frog?http://irl.metafilter.com/2509/Can%2DI%2Dinterest%2Dyou%2Din%2Da%2DGoat%2DFrog I definitely need one. You probably do, too. By now, you know the drill and if you are not participating, you should be ashamed of yourself. Tiny beers and foodstuffs from the grill (free pickles!) at the Original Billy Goat Tavern, lower Michigan Avenue, starting at around 6:00pm. Then adjournment to the Frog for increasingly poor decisions and much awesome.<br><br>Wed October 1 at 6:00 PM, Billy Goat Taverntag:irl.metafilter.com,2014:site.2509Mon, 22 Sep 2014 07:08:04 -0800froggoatgoatfroggoatupgoat-uprandomwhiskeysTINCCtinybeerswhyaren'tyoujoininguscrush-onastick41.8903697-87.6244233Can I interest you in a Goat Frog?20141001T060000Billy Goat Tavern430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, USAChicagoILUS

Robotic-assisted laparoscopic dissection of the infrarenal aorta and iliac artery: a technical description and early results. We report our initial experience with a novel robotic-assisted dissection of the infrarenal aorta and iliac arteries for the treatment of aortoiliac occlusive disease and abdominal aortoiliac aneurysm. Seven patients underwent the procedure using the da Vinci Surgical System. Transabdominal, retroperitonal dissection of the aorta and iliac arteries was completed using the robotic system; then, a mini-laparotomy and hand-sewn aorta-to-graft anastomosis were performed. There was no mortality in this series of patients. This novel technique may overcome the difficulty of aortic dissection in a purely laparoscopic aortic surgery and serves as a bridging step toward totally robotic-assisted aortic surgery.

More Piggy Toes How is Vernoika six months old, and yet I’ve barely played “This Little Piggy” with her? After all, doesn’t every baby get tickles after that little piggy runs wee wee wee all the way home? It was time to remedy the situation! No doubt you’re familiar with the rhyme, but I have two silly vegan variations that I always use. For the first: This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had roast beef, But this little piggy was vegan! And this little piggy went wee wee wee wee wee all the way home. The second version goes: This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had tofu, And this little piggy had none! And this little piggy went wee wee wee wee wee all the way home. Wiggle one toe for each line, working your way from the big toe to the smallest, then run that little last toe up for tickles. Veronika’s sweet spot is her armpit! To add to the day’s play, I pulled out a few plastic pig toys. She of course didn’t make the connection, but loved playing with them and their barn!

There is more smoke in this kitchen Than in Snoop Dogg's tour bus 15,214 shares

The vulva (Latin for sheath) corresponds to the female external genitalia. It has a complex and variable anatomy, but is fundamentally composed by a hymen, anal margin, labia majora and labia minora, and clitoral hood.^[@r1],[@r2]^ Folds, humidity and many types of epithelium are present in this region, favoring a wide range of conditions.^[@r1],[@r3]^ Vulvar dermatoses (VD) are of common occurrence in clinics and comprehend a heterogenous group of inflammatory (contact dermatitis, lichen sclerosus), malignant (vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia and vulvar Paget\'s disease) and infectious (candidiasis, herpes simplex and genital wart or condyloma acuminatum) conditions. ^[@r4],[@r5]^ Vulvar pain, pruritus and dyspareunia are the symptoms that most frequently lead to seeking medical care. Knowledge on this region and its conditions by gynecologists, dermatologists and genitourinary tract specialists allows for better clinical management, demystification of the subject and, consequently, better quality of life of the patients, since VD have an important impact on self-esteem, emotional and sexual life. From what was discussed, the objective of this study was to fill a literature gap providing data on the epidemiology of VD in a reference outpatient clinic and also determining the most common dermatoses in this population. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study performed at the Vulvar Pathology Outpatient Clinic of Hospital Universitário de Taubaté - Taubaté (SP), from May to December/2015. This outpatient clinic is conducted by the Services of Dermatology and Gynecology of the institution. The studied population comprehended all women attended at this clinic, in the period of the study, with a diagnosis of VD, with no exclusion criteria. The data were obtained from a standard form, tabulated and analyzed in *Microsoft Excel*, contemplating demographic parameters and parameters related to the habits and VD. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board under the n.º 1.188.039. Seventy-five women were included in the study. Age ranged from 15 to 82 years (mean age of 37 years/sd = 18.7 years). The age group distribution is shown in [Graph 1](#f1){ref-type="fig"}. Graph 1Distribution of the patients seen at the vulvar pathology outpatient clinic according to age group Patients were predominantly Caucasian (52 patients - 69.3%). Regarding the marital status and schooling, there was an expressive number of single women and with low schooling (up to middle school), 44 (58.7%) and 40 (53.3%), respectively. Defined occupation was reported by 59 women (78.7%). Regarding parameters related to sexuality, 70 women (93.3%) reported active sexual life. Among those, 32 (42.7%) utilized contraceptive methods, being hormonal contraceptives the most utilized (53.1%). Previous history of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) was present in 15 women (20.0%), and condyloma acuminatum was the most prevalent STD (11 cases - 73.4%). Other STDs reported were syphilis and AIDS, eacg with 2 cases (13.3%). Mean age for starting sexual activity was 17.3 years (sd = 4.3), ranging from 12 to 40 years. Of the 75 patients included, 67 (89.3%) reported the number of sex partners that ranged from 0 to 14, with a mean of 2.8 partners (sd = 2.6) per woman. Comorbidities were reported by 31 patients (41.3%), being systemic hypertension the most prevalent (16 cases - 51.6%). The most prevalent VD was condyloma acuminatum (28 cases - 37.3%), followed by lichen sclerosus (12 cases - 16.0%) ([Table 1](#t1){ref-type="table"}). Condyloma acuminatum was the most prevalent in younger women (around 93.0% below 45 years), single (75.0%) and with up to middle school level (53.6%). Lichen sclerosus was more prevalent in older age groups (100.0% above 35 years, being 75.0% above 45 years). ###### Vulvar dermatoses - absolute values and respective percentages Vulvar dermatoses N (%) ---------------------------------- ---------------- Condyloma acuminatum 28(37.3) Lichen sclerosus 12(16.0) Vulvitis 5(6.7) Vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia 5(6.7) Candidiasis 4(5.3) Molluscum contagiosum 3(4.0) Vulvar granuloma 3(4.0) Bartholin cyst 3(4.0) Perineal abscess 2(2.7) Seborrhoeic keratosis 2(2.7) Vitiligo 2(2.7) Contact dermatitis 2(2.7) Neurodermitis 1(1.3) Hidradenitis 1(1.3) Cysts 1(1.3) Pityriasis versicolor 1(1.3) **Total** **75 (100.0)** Other VD found were: vulvitis (6.7%), vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (6.7%), candidiasis (5.3%), molluscum contagiosum (4.0%), vulvar granuloma (4.0%), Bartholin cyst (4.0%), perineal abscess (2.7%), seborrheic keratosis (2.7%), vitiligo (2.7%), contact dermatitis (2.7%), neurodermitis (1.3%), hidradenitis (1.3%), cysts (1.3%) and pityriasis versicolor (1.3%) ([Table 1](#t1){ref-type="table"}). This is a pioneer study on this subject that allowed for the identification of the epidemiological profile of VD patients seen in this reference outpatient clinic and for the determination of the most prevalent dermatoses in this population, providing original data and motivating future studies. The comparative analysis of the epidemiological profile becomes difficult in view of the lack of data from clinics with the same characteristics, in general, studies from gynecology or general dermatology clinics, and also population-based and non-hospital- based studies. The most prevalent VD is a controversy in the literature.^[@r6]-[@r8]^ This discrepancy is possibly due to the diversity of the source of data. The predominance of condyloma acuminatum was in agreement with the findings by Carvalho and Queiroz^[@r8]^, but differed from the findings by Virgili *et al*.^[@r6]^ and Farias *et al*.^[@r7]^ The age group, marital status and schooling levels found for this condition in this population is in accordance to the literature.^[@r8],[@r9]^ Lichen sclerosus, the second most prevalent in this sample, has a bimodal distribution: pre-pubertal children and women with more advanced age.^[@r6]^ Thus, the findings of this study support the literature regarding its occurrence in older age groups. The limitations of this study are its short period of recruitment, small sample and its hospital-based nature. Therefore, care is advised in the external extrapolation of the findings. Study conducted at Hospital Universitário de Taubaté - Universidade de Taubaté (HUT/-UNITAU) - Taubaté (SP), Brazil. Financial support: None. Conflict of interest: None.

Comparison of Unenhanced T1-Weighted Signal Intensities Within the Dentate Nucleus and the Globus Pallidus After Serial Applications of Gadopentetate Dimeglumine Versus Gadobutrol in a Pediatric Population. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare changes in T1-weighted signal intensity (SI) within the dentate nucleus (DN) and globus pallidus (GP) in a pediatric population after serial applications of the linear gadolinium-based magnetic resonance contrast medium gadopentetate dimeglumine and the more stable macrocyclic agent gadobutrol. Institutional review board approval was obtained. Two similar pediatric patient cohorts who underwent at least 3 serial contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations with sole application of gadopentetate dimeglumine or gadobutrol were analyzed. All MRI examinations were performed on a 1.5 T system acquiring unenhanced T1-weighted spin echo sequences, which were evaluated on the baseline MRI and after the contrast medium administrations. For analysis of SI changes in the DN, the ratios of the DN to the pons (P) and to the middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP) were assessed. The GP was compared with the thalamus (TH) by dividing the SIs between GP and TH (GP-to-TH ratio). Twenty-eight patients (13 boys, 15 girls; mean age, 8.4 ± 6.8 years) who received at least 3 applications of gadopentetate dimeglumine and 25 patients (13 boys, 12 girls; mean age, 9.7 ± 5.4 years) with 3 or more gadobutrol injections were included. After 3 administrations of gadopentetate dimeglumine, the T1-weighted SI ratios significantly increased: mean difference value of 0.036 ± 0.031 (DN-to-P; P < 0.001), 0.034 ± 0.032 (DN-to-MCP; P < 0.001), and 0.025 ± 0.025 (GP-to-TH; P = 0.001). In a subanalysis of 12 patients with more than 3 injections of gadopentetate dimeglumine, the mean differences of the SI ratios were slightly higher: 0.043 ± 0.032 (DN-to-P; P = 0.001), 0.041 ± 0.035 (DN-to-MCP; P = 0.002), and 0.028 ± 0.025 (GP-to-TH; P = 0.003). In contrast, gadobutrol did not show a significant influence on the SI ratios, neither after 3 nor after more than 3 applications. The T1-weighted SI increase within the DN and GP after serial administrations of the linear contrast medium gadopentetate dimeglumine, but not after serial applications of the macrocyclic agent gadobutrol, found in a pediatric population, is consistent with results published for adult patients. The clinical impact of the intracranial T1-hyperintensities is currently unclear. However, in accordance with the recent decision of the Pharmacovigilance and Risk Assessment Committee of the European Medicines Agency, intravenous macrocyclic agents should be preferred and MR contrast media should be used with caution and awareness of the pediatric brain development in children and adolescents.

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Chemical analysis of the principal flavonoids of Radix Hedysari by HPLC. Five major flavonoids in 48 batches of Radix Hedysari from different origins have been simultaneously evaluated by HPLC. Among the five major flavonoids, four, ononin, formononetin-7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside-6"-O-malonate, formononetin and medicarpin, were detected in almost all the samples and thus can be used as marker compounds to evaluate the chemical quality of Radix Hedysari, while naringin was not suitable because it was not be detected in most samples. Further analysis of the contents of the four flavonoids in different samples showed that processing procedure, harvesting time and habitats were important factors affecting the flavonoid contents of Radix Hedysari.

US Border Patrol on Heightened State of Alert - 2001-10-12 The U.S. law enforcement response to the terrorist attacks in September has had a profound effect on the nation's borders, where a heightened state of alert continues in effect. U.S. officials are determined to stop potential terrorists from entering the country. As lines of vehicles and pedestrians lengthen, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents stop every person crossing over from Juarez. Also at the entry ports are U.S. Customs agents who question people and check the items they are bring across. The borders with Canada and Mexico remain at Level One Alert, the highest level, and that means very few people are allowed to enter without at least answering some questions. U.S. Customs spokesman Roger Maier says asking simple questions of entrants is the most effective way of screening out those people who may have criminal or even terrorist plans. "Our inspectors are trained. They see thousands of vehicles every week. They talk to thousands of people," he explains. "They can detect these sorts of anomalies in people's stories and the appearances of their vehicles, maybe some physical manifestations in the way that the person is acting. We do not like to discuss these things publicly for obvious reasons, but we are trained to detect these things and we do a generally good job in this area." Customs agents are looking for contraband as well as weapons and explosives that could be carried over the border in a vehicle or on a person. An alert Customs agent stopped a would-be terrorist two years ago who tried to smuggle explosives into the United States from Canada. The only initial clue the agent had was the suspect's unusual reaction to simple questions. Immigration agents at the borders are also trained to look for people trying to enter with false documents. INS El Paso spokeswoman Leticia Zamarrippa says the ethnic background or race of the person being questioned is not a factor in determining who is stopped for further questioning. She says the increased inspections apply to everyone equally. "Level One Alert means intensified inspections all around. Everyone who is crossing at our points of entry is being inspected to the same degree," she explains. "Of course, there are people; there are vehicles; there are packages that inspectors are going to take more of a special interest in. But everyone is being looked at just the same." Ms. Zamarrippa says many El Paso-based agents gave up planned vacations in order to increase the force on the border necessary to handle the extra inspection load. New technology is also helping inspectors at the border. Special cameras near the entry gates read the license plates on every vehicle. A computer then searches for information on the vehicle and its owner. Roger Maier says Customs agents are hoping to have more such technological assistance in near future. "Certainly our agency is always looking for various forms of technology to allow the inspectors to better perform their job," says Mr. Maier. "Over the years the number of vehicles and the number of people crossing the border has increased dramatically while our work force has remained somewhat static, so we have employed a lot of technology already, mostly to examine vehicles, containers and that type of thing." U.S. officials admit they cannot stop every person trying to enter the country illegally, nor can they stop all the shipments of narcotics and other dangerous contraband. Each year, there are 500 million entries at U.S. border entry points. Checking each of those persons to prevent a terrorist from entering U.S. territory without damaging vital crossborder commerce is a daunting challenge. But U.S. Immigration and Customs officials are hoping an increase in personnel and in technological devices will help them tighten their control on the border.

I'm not as crazy about this statue in it's chrome form, but the light-up lightsaber is pretty cool. ...edit... After fighting with the translation a bit, it seems that there will be 1000 pieces available from Blister.jp, but a total of 2500 pieces available worldwide. So I imagine the other 1500 should be made available to North America at a later time. "The number of day sales": 1000"The worldwide number of limitations": 2500 Since I never put down the money for GG's orginal version of this statue, I'm definitely jumping in this time. I always figured that since I had ordered the Sideshow Vader statue, I didn't need the GG version. But this chrome version is unique enough that I will gladly order it!

While some might speculate that the NBA season will not resume because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Milwaukee Bucks, who had the league's best record when play stopped, are going forward as if they will eventually be on the court. "We are operating and functioning and just have a mentality that we will play," Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said Wednesday during a conference call. "I think it's important for players and all of us to function that way, to think that way, and it's out of our hands. "Luckily, [commissioner] Adam Silver and the league office, they'll make the hard decisions and they'll do what's best for everybody, but I think it's certainly important that we kind of operate and have a mentality that we will play again, and we'll be excited about that if and when it does happen." Bucks players have maintained contact since the March 11 stoppage via group chat, according to All-Star guard Khris Middleton. Although they aren't able to use team facilities, there is still an emphasis on players keeping their bodies in top condition. Bucks players are relying on in-home workouts and basketball-related drills, though some are not possible. Milwaukee isn't overdoing anything, however. While still doing film work, it's not as comprehensive as usual. The team might start doing group video sessions. The team also sees the value in mental breaks, since overall health is the top priority these days. Despite the circumstances, the Bucks are still focused on improvement as a team. "A lot of people find it hard to believe, but we actually live and believe it every day," Bucks general manager Jon Horst said. "We've taken a focus to get better every single day and to literally just focus on getting better every day, not thinking about championships or Finals or opponents that we're going to play weeks out or months out, but to really think about how to improve every day. "That's been a mantra and something that we believe in and something that's ingrained and built into kind of the fabric of who we are." If the season resumes, the Bucks (53-12) will look to get back on track. Prior to the break, Milwaukee had lost three consecutive games for the first time under Budenholzer after playing the third-most games without a three-game losing streak in the past 10 seasons, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. So during the time off, Budenholzer is getting in as much video preparation as possible, but he is also enjoying time with his family and streaming a few shows -- such as "Yellowstone," "Ozark" and "Game of Thrones." Staying ready is the main focus right now, though. "Basketball-wise, I would say we are kind of finding ways to dig into potential playoff opponents, maybe not just first round, but Eastern Conference," Budenholzer said. "And right now that's kind of where we are, with kind of a little bit more emphasis on if the season ended today it's very, very close with Orlando and Brooklyn [as the seventh and eighth seeds]."

The Grammys 2016 Nominations Are Out – And They’ve Snubbed The Internet Many great things have come from the recently unveiled 2016 Grammy nominations, with Taylor Swift picking up seven nominations for her stellar fifth album ‘1989’ (it came out late last year but is eligible because it slots into the cut-off dates between October 1 2014 and September 30 2015), which is the same number of Grammys currently on display in her downstairs loo. Meanwhile Kendrick Lamar’s up for a staggering 11 gongs for his blistering album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ and Swedish songwriting powerhouse Max Martin (who co-wrote The Weeknd’s ‘Can’t Feel My Face’, among an endless array of other hits) could walk away with six awards. But the real loser here is the internet. The stuff that got us meme-ing, reblogging and hearting is ignored, cast aside into the online abyss, to the second page of Google, to the YouTube comments section. Hotline Bling Is Left Hanging Now, this is possibly because the video for Drake’s jaunty and only vaguely chauvinistic ‘Hotline Bling’ – which chastises an ex for going out and having fun when, in the good old days, she used to sit patiently at home and wait for Drizzy to roll in from the club – was released after the cut-off date, on October 19. It was arguably the video that made it a success. Still, given that the single was released on July 31, you’d think it would at least get a hat-tip, eh? We’re Gonna Let You Finish, But… A record-breaking stream-athon, the Kanye West, Rihanna and Paul McCartney collaboration ‘FourFiveSeconds’ was reportedly the fastest-ever song to reach 100m Spotify streams (in 53 days) but do the Grammys have love for the folky pop song? Apparently not – Kanye’s ‘All Day’ is up for Best Rap Performance but ‘FourFiveSeconds’ hasn’t a single nomination. A Billion YouTube Views Mean Nothing ‘Uptown Funk’ by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars: quite a popular video. It broke a billion YouTube views this year – joining a rarefied club in which Psy sits atop an invisible horse – and won an MTV Award, but that means nothing to the suits at the Grammys. The song’s up for a deserved few gongs, including Record Of The Year, but the smash-hit video isn’t nominated in the Best Music Video Category! Oh but don’t worry, The Dead Weather received a Best Music Video nomination for ‘I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)’, which literally no-one has seen. The Grammys Panel Ain’t Beliebers Justin Bieber’s Jack Ü (Skrillex and Diplo) joint ‘Where Are Ü Now’ is nominated in the ‘Best Dance Recording’ category, but his crowning achievement, the one that saw him truly forgiven for years of bad behaviour (court appearances and late-show to concerts and the like), ‘What Do You Mean?’, is nowhere to be seen. It broke Spotify’s record for most-streams in a week, after it was streamed 21 million times in just five days. The record was later beaten by Adele’s comeback single ‘Hello’ (which will not be eligible until the 2017 Grammys due to that pesky cut-off date) but the song might still have earned a nomination, no? Reviews Mean Nothing To These People Although Carly Rae Jepsen’s album ‘Emotion’ flopped commercially, shifting only 16,000 copies in a week in the US, the critics creamed themselves over it. The Grammys did not cream themselves over it. Carly Rae Jepsen’s album ‘Emotion’ is not nominated for Album Of The Year or Best Pop Vocal Album. The Grammys’ lap is dry.

Hot Topics: Coastal California town sold for undisclosed price HARMONY, Calif. (AP) — A small town midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the Pacific Coast Highway has been sold for an undisclosed price. The San Luis Obispo Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/VwBwR3) the buyers plan to restore the one-block, 2.5-acre town of Harmony. "We want to recreate the special feeling of time gone by," Alan Vander Horst said. "I see this is an opportunity to be part of the history, to be part of something fun and quirky." Set in the rolling coastal hills 6 miles south of Cambria, the ranching village dates back to the mid-1800s when the region thrived on cheese and butter production. The Excelsior Cheese Factory, which built the town's first creamery building, used to produce up to 1,200 pounds of cheese per day. As many as 400 dairymen countywide were members of the Harmony Valley Creamery Association. The town was once famous for its "Doo Dah" parade. With nowhere to go in the one-block burg, the entries stayed in place while spectators circled the parade. A Maine Coon cat was once proclaimed to be town mayor. More recently, Harmony is known for its listed population, perpetually consistent at 18. A Los Angeles man whose family owned the town for 17 years said he couldn't invest the time and money it would take to keep Harmony the rustic artists' community it has become. Vander Horst, who is a member of a three-generation dairying family, says he understands the history his family wants to preserve. The town manager hopes the post office, which opened in 1914 and shut in 2008, might even reopen.

Q: libdvdcss2 install-cs.sh not completing on PowerPC Mac (or other achitectures besides x86) Did an install of Lubuntu 12.04 a few days ago, and managed to get libdvdcss2 installed - all good, then I mucked up the installation because I'm a noob, and could no longer install Libdvdcss2. So, decided to get latest 14.04 version and install on my iMac PPC G4 system, all good until I try to install libdvdcss2. This is what I did.... Installed OS (Lubunto 14.04 PowerPC 32bit) & updated Rebooted installed ubuntu-restricted-extras ran /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh script which seemed to work, right up till the end, then got the following error: --2014-07-16 16:51:09-- http://download.videolan.org/pub/debian/stable/libdvdcss_1.2.13.orig.tar.gz Resolving download.videolan.org (download.videolan.org)... 88.191.250.9, 2a01:e0d:1:3:58bf:fa02:0:2 Connecting to download.videolan.org (download.videolan.org)|88.191.250.9|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found 2014-07-16 16:51:09 ERROR 404: Not Found. So, to me it looks like the script is trying to download a specific file libdvdcss_1.2.13.orig.tar.gz, when I browse the source, it doesn't exist! What does this mean? Is it a case that the VLC people have pulled the file, or is the script wrong? Either way, UBUNTU & Lubuntu Noobs like me are not getting DVD playback! can someone here point me to the correct way for installing the codecs? Many Thanks A: For all architectures Unfortunately the VideoLAN Project team only provides pre-built packages of libdvdcss2 for Intel x86 architectures (see below). Therefore for PowerPC, ARM and other architectures you must compile and build it yourself as described here: Add the VideoLAN package repository to your repository list, add the repository key and update the repository index. In the commands below replace trusty with the name of your Ubuntu (or Debian) release (see the output of lsb_release -sc if you don't know). (Currently the most recent suppported release name is utopic. The old packages should still work for newer releases though.) printf '%s http://download.videolan.org/pub/ubuntu/trusty / #VideoLAN Project\n' deb deb-src | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.d/videolan-project.list wget -O - https://download.videolan.org/pub/ubuntu/videolan-apt.asc | sudo apt-key add - sudo apt-get update (Source, modified for Ubuntu) Change to a directory where you have write privileges and want to compile and build the package, e. g.: cd /tmp Install the build dependencies, download the package sources and compile them: sudo apt-get install build-essential sudo apt-get build-dep libdvdcss2 apt-get source --compile libdvdcss2 If successful, the current directory should contain a few .deb files. Install the relevant one and you're done: sudo dpkg -i libdvdcss2_*_$(dpkg --print-architecture).deb Where * will be matched and substituted automatically by the just compiled version of libdvdcss2 (currently 1.2.13-0). For PCs and Intel Macs Instead of building the library yourself, you can install a pre-compiled and packaged version from the VideoLAN project: Same as step 1 for all architecures (see above). sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

From the way the U.S. media talk about the boom in Mandarin classes, it’s easy to get the impression that Mandarin is about to become the most studied language in the United States. So I offer the following overdue reality check. The data come from the results of a large survey of foreign-language enrollments in U.S. post-secondary schools. The survey was conducted by the Modern Language Association. I started work on this post when the results were released in November 2007; but, well, I got distracted. This post has lots of tables and figures, so for those who don’t want to scan through everything I offer some basic points up front. Spanish has more enrollments than all other foreign languages put together. By far the biggest enrollment boom since 1990 has not been for Mandarin but for American Sign Language. The boom in enrollments in Arabic also surpasses that for Mandarin. Mandarin is indeed growing in popularity — but in recent years only at the undergraduate level. Japanese continues to be more popular than Mandarin, though by an ever-smaller margin. Mandarin is the seventh most studied foreign language in U.S. post-secondary schools, behind Spanish (which leads Mandarin by a ratio of 16:1), French, German, American Sign Language, Italian, and Japanese. Relatively speaking, enrollments in foreign languages are much lower than they were 30 years ago. A few summary remarks of my own: I don’t expect the high growth rates for Mandarin to continue for many more years unless the programs are dumbed down (in which case they wouldn’t count for much) or Pinyin gains a much more prominent role in Mandarin pedagogy (and not just at the introductory level). The difficulties of Chinese characters will help keep numbers down, as will the eventual realization that learning Mandarin isn’t an easy ticket to riches (or even a ticket to riches at all). Japanese received a big boost in the 1980s, when the media cranked out story after story about the power of Japan’s rising economy and the need to learn the language. Yet Japanese didn’t become the next big world language. I predict a similar path for Mandarin. A high percentage of those taking Mandarin classes in U.S. high schools are students who are both ethnically Chinese and already familiar with the language. The MLA didn’t provide figures on that for post-secondary students. But I would be surprised if such “heritage” students don’t represent a higher percentage of those in Mandarin language courses than heritage students in most other language classes. OK, now on to some details. Look below at the growth for American Sign Language since 1990. If Mandarin had had that sort of growth (4,820 percent!) the pundits would no doubt be telling us that the Chinese had already taken over the planet and were going to rule the entire galaxy within the next decade. (And don’t get me started about the supposed Mandarin in Serenity/Firefly.) But American Sign Language just doesn’t seem to get the same sort of respect, despite the fact that it still has more than 50 percent more enrollments than Mandarin. Arabic, which has also had a much faster growth rate than that of Mandarin, hasn’t received the same level of hype either. Growth in Enrollments: in declining order of growth from 1990 to 2006 Enrollments 1990 2006 % Growth 2002-06 % Growth 1990-2006 American Sign Language 1,602 78,829 29.7 4820.7 Arabic 3,475 23,974 126.5 589.9 Korean 2,286 7,145 37.1 212.6 Mandarin 19,490 51,582 51.0 164.7 Hebrew 12,995 23,752 4.2 82.8 Portuguese 6,211 10,267 22.4 65.3 Italian 49,699 78,368 22.6 57.7 Spanish 533,944 822,985 10.3 54.1 Japanese 45,717 66,605 27.5 45.7 French 272,472 206,426 2.2 -24.2 German 133,348 94,264 3.5 -29.3 Russian 44,626 24,845 3.9 -44.3 Total 1,125,865 1,489,042 12.7 32.3 Change in enrollments over time: in declining order of total enrollment for 2006 Change between Surveys 1995-98 1998-2002 2002-06 Spanish 8.3% 13.7% 10.3% French -3.1% 1.5% 2.2% German -7.5% 2.3% 3.5% American Sign Language 165.3% 432.2% 29.7% Italian 12.6% 29.6% 22.6% Japanese -3.5% 21.1% 27.5% Mandarin 7.5% 20.0% 51.0% Russian -3.8% 0.5% 3.9% Arabic 23.9% 92.3% 126.5% Hebrew * 20.6% 44.0% 4.2% Portuguese 6.0% 21.1% 22.4% Korean 34.0% 16.3% 37.1% Total 5.0% 16.6% 12.7% * Modern and Biblical Hebrew combined Below: Russian may not have the top number of enrollments, but it certainly has some motivated students, given the high numbers of them in advanced courses. Enrollments in Introductory-Level Courses vs. Enrollments in Advanced-Level Courses Intro Enr. Advanced Enr. Total Enrollment Ratio of Intro Enr. to Advanced Enr. Russian 17,527 6,569 24,096 2.67:1 Portuguese 7,387 2,422 9,809 3.05:1 German 72,434 18,758 91,192 3.86:1 French 160,736 40,927 201,663 3.93:1 Korean 5,511 1,397 6,908 3.94:1 Greek, Ancient 13,250 3,176 16,426 4.17:1 Mandarin 41,193 9,262 50,455 4.45:1 Spanish 669,432 142,602 812,034 4.69:1 Japanese 55,161 10,585 65,746 5.21:1 Latin 26,787 4,383 31,170 6.11:1 Hebrew, Modern 7,665 1,250 8,915 6.13:1 Arabic 20,571 2,463 23,034 8.35:1 Italian 69,757 7,593 77,350 9.19:1 Hebrew, Biblical 7,854 705 8,559 11.14:1 American Sign Language 72,694 5,249 77,943 13.85:1 Other languages 27,836 3,478 31,314 8.00:1 Total 1,275,795 260,819 1,536,614 4.89:1 One thing I find particularly troubling is that the number of graduate students studying Mandarin has fallen. (Please click on the link in the previous sentence, since the relevant table is too wide to fit on this page.) The much-ballyhooed but also much-deserved increase in students studying Mandarin has all been at the undergraduate level. Given that the grad enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment for Mandarin is about the same as that for French (2.63 percent and 2.73 percent, respectively) it might appear that Mandarin has simply reached a “normal” ratio in this regard. But native speakers of English generally need much more time to master Mandarin than to master French. Simply put, four years, say, of post-secondary study of French provides students with a much greater level of fluency than four years of post-secondary study of Mandarin. Also, there is a great deal more work that needs to be done in terms of translations from Mandarin. I do not at all mean to belittle the work being done in French — or in any other language. In fact it pains me that the MLA’s list of languages being studied included neither Old French nor Provençal, both of which I have studied and love dearly. I just mean that Mandarin has historically been underrepresented in U.S. universities given the number of speakers it has and its body of texts that have not yet been translated into English. U.S. universities need to be producing many more qualified grad students who can handle this specialized work. And right now, unfortunately, that’s not happening. Post-Secondary Enrollments in Select Sino-Tibetan Languages and Classical Japanese: 2002, 2006 Two-Year Colleges Undergrad Programs Grad Programs Total Language 2002 2006 2002 2006 2002 2006 2002 2006 Cantonese 47 96 128 82 5 0 180 178 Literary Sinitic 0 0 56 101 18 12 74 113 Japanese, Classical 0 0 8 23 11 7 19 30 Taiwanese 0 0 34 21 13 0 47 21 Tibetan 0 0 43 56 35 64 78 120 Tibetan, Classical 0 0 8 11 20 33 28 44 The figures in the table above are probably too low. Literary Sinitic (“classical Chinese”) is probably especially underrepresented because often too little differentiation is given between it and modern standard Mandarin. But at least the numbers can provide minimum figures. Enrollments in Introductory Classes: 2-Year Schools vs. 4-Year Schools Language Ratio of Intro Enr. in 2-Year Schools to Intro Enr. in 4-Year Schools Greek, Ancient 0.00:1 Hebrew, Biblical 0.01:1 Latin 0.04:1 Hebrew, Modern 0.07:1 Portuguese 0.11:1 Russian 0.15:1 German 0.20:1 Italian 0.23:1 French 0.24:1 Arabic 0.26:1 Mandarin 0.26:1 Korean 0.28:1 Japanese 0.39:1 Spanish 0.49:1 American Sign Language 1.47:1 Other languages 0.24:1 American Sign Language sticks out here as the only language that more people take at the introductory level at junior colleges than at universities. Roughly twice as many people take introductory Spanish in universities as at junior colleges. Introductory Japanese classes are surprisingly popular at the two-year college level, well above the level for introductory Mandarin, though Mandarin is not unpopular itself. Course Enrollments in Some Asian and Pacific Languages Language 1998 2002 2006 % Change 2002–06 Hindi/Urdu 1314 2009 2683 33.55 Vietnamese 899 2236 2485 11.14 Tagalog/Filipino 794 1142 1569 37.39 Sanskrit 363 487 607 24.64 Hmong 15 283 402 42.05 Thai 272 330 307 -6.97 Indonesian 223 225 301 33.78 Samoan 207 201 280 39.30 Cantonese 39 180 178 -1.11 Tibetan 80 78 120 53.85 Literary Sinitic 32 74 113 52.70 Pashto – 14 103 635.71 Punjabi 32 99 103 4.04 Total 4270 7358 9251 25.73 Although more U.S. postsecondary students are studying languages other than English than ever before, that’s unfortunately not because U.S. students as a whole have finally embraced the study of languages. Rather, there are simply more students now. Relatively speaking, enrollments in foreign languages are much lower than they were 30 years ago. If “ancient” foreign languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek were included in the graph, the imbalance between the 1960s and the present in foreign-language enrollments would be even greater. source: Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2006 (PDF), MLA, November 13, 2007

Exhausted, burnt out and undervalued was how the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation described the bulk of its members yesterday. They will now ballot on industrial action if demands for increased staffing levels are not met. Exhausted, burnt out and undervalued was how the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation described the bulk of its members yesterday. They will now ballot on industrial action if demands for increased staffing levels are not met. Surely this should not be necessary; nurses ought not be required to walk off the job of caring for the sick in order to get the resources and staff required to treat the ill. The organisation believes the profession of nursing is being "annihilated". No sane minister or government would set out to degrade the conditions of nurses to such an extent that they are out on their feet, but this is the reality. Years of under-investment, poor planning, over-work and lack of resources have had a devastating impact. Liam Doran, the organisation's chief, said that his membership was worn out "papering over the cracks". Please sign in or register with Independent.ie for free access to Opinions.

Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) is a medical term referring to a histological variant of malignant tumor arising from the uncontrolled mitosis of transformed cells originating in epithelial tissue (or in cells that display epithelial characteristics) that bear microscopic resemblance to lymphoepithelioma (nasopharyngeal carcinoma). There is considerable variation in the classification of LELC—while it is perhaps most commonly considered a subtype of squamous cell carcinoma, it can also be classified as a form of large cell carcinoma (i.e. when occurring in the lung), and can be considered as a separate, unique entity. In most anatomical sites, many cases are associated with the Epstein-Barr virus. In the breast, the macroscopic, microscopic, epidemiologic, and prognostic features of LELC are very similar to medullary carcinoma; EBV status is one differentiator. See also Nasopharyngeal carcinoma Lymphoepithelioma References External links Category:Glandular and epithelial neoplasia Category:Epstein–Barr virus-associated diseases

Cottage in the city Get the look with panelling and a nature-inspired palette When I look at the above photo from a young family's summer home that we decorated on the show, I can imagine the entire space transplanted into an urban condo. The floors would probably be dark hardwood or concrete and the walls would be painted drywall, but everything else could stay the same. Photograph by: Virginia Macdonald , National Post Summer style is not just for the cottage. I've been receiving lots of messages lately asking how to bring the easy and carefree look of summer homes to the city. When I was asked to host Summer Home on HGTV, I wondered if it would be a problem that I'm a city girl. My designs, however, were described to me as having a cottage vibe. I never really thought of my style as being summery or countrified, though I do recall my brother telling someone "Sam loves beat-up old country stuff from the garbage." OK, I do love a curbside find, but I always refurbish what I bring home. I have to admit though, looking around my living room now, if there were a tongueand-groove backdrop (whitewashed of course), all my furniture would work. Similarly, when I look at the above photo from a young family's summer home that we decorated on the show, I can imagine the entire space transplanted into an urban condo. The floors would probably be dark hardwood or concrete and the walls would be painted drywall, but everything else could stay the same. Summer style has a fresh, airy feeling and it's relaxed. In the country, we don't care if everything isn't perfect. When it comes to pulling together the perfect imperfect room, there are definitely conventions that can help you bring summer style to your city or country home. In every space I work on, I like to use old furniture, especially when it has sentimental value. The mid-century modern chairs were part of the family's original cottage decor. There was concerns the clean lines of the chairs didn't feel like they belonged in the country. But country furniture doesn't have to look like granny's old wicker rocker. All the mid-mod chairs needed was fresh leafy green upholstery. Modern works in the woods (and in your city home if you're trying to make it look like the woods) but precious and delicate furnishings don't. Bigbox store furniture can take a beating and looks super when paired with a few custom pieces. Steer clear of anything that's disposable or that you plan on having for just a couple years. I've had my Ikea Stockholm sofa for five years and it's still going strong. The sofa, island and floor lamp (in the photo) are from Ikea, but the space doesn't feel like a showroom because of the mix of custom pieces such as the ikat upholstered ottoman, and the wool rug. We customized the white, store-bought drapes with bands of green fabric on the bottom. Any time you put your own spin on mass-market purchases, you elevate their look. Another way to bring a summer breeze into your urban abode is with a palette taken from the great outdoors. Our space is a mix of lakeside blues, sunshiney yellows, leafy greens and plenty of white. A white backdrop will always make a country or city home feel summery and fresh. In my early magazine days, I learned that white space on a page allows a photo to breathe; white walls do the same thing for furniture, fabrics and art. A fail-proof shade of white you ask? Sarah Richardson's Cotton (SR15) for Para Paints is the perfect white - it's not stark nor overly yellow. We also painted the ceiling in Sarah's Robin's Egg (SR17). Using pale blue on a ceiling is like painting a sky above your living room. In terms of finishes, if it's natural, use it. Butcher block, stone or man-made surfacing material that looks like stone will bring the outdoors inside. And lastly, texture: The country isn't a perfectly smooth place. Woven wicker blinds, sea grass rugs, raw wood, and, yep, stuff that looks like someone's beat-up trash will give your city and country home depth and character. Mid-century modern chairs were recovered in fresh green to make them suitable for the cottage. More on This Story Story Tools When I look at the above photo from a young family's summer home that we decorated on the show, I can imagine the entire space transplanted into an urban condo. The floors would probably be dark hardwood or concrete and the walls would be painted drywall, but everything else could stay the same. We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information. Househunting Newsletter Receive the latest in real estate news, decorating and renovating tips every two weeks in the househunting.ca newsletter.

Rust-Oleum® Shumski's Flooring...With You Every Step! About Rust-Oleum® Stopping Rust is Just the Start™ There's a high-seas adventure story behind the creation of Rust-Oleum® coatings. A Scottish-born sea captain, Robert Fergusson, noticed that when raw fish oil spilled on rusty metal decks, corrosion stopped spreading. This observation inspired the Captain to create the world's first rust-preventive paint. But it wasn't easy. After settling in New Orleans, Captain Fergusson spent years of painstaking (and smelly) research in an attempt to formulate a fish-oil-based paint. Finally, in 1921, the Captain got a whiff of the sweet smell of success. He perfected a paint that stopped rust, dried overnight and left no lingering aroma. Rust-Oleum Corporation was born. Today, Rust-Oleum Corporation, backed by the resources of our parent company, RPM International Inc., is a worldwide leader in protective paints and coatings for both home and industry. Besides our famous rust-fighting paints, our products range from decorative American Accents® paints to durable industrial roof repair coatings. After 75 years, Captain Fergusson's spirit of innovation, determination and commitment to quality lives on at Rust-Oleum. And if you want proof, just take a quick tour of our site.

1. Field of Invention This invention generally relates to portable tree hoist, specifically hoist capable of raising and lowering game feeders or for dressing game animals. 2. Prior Art When hunting large game such as deer, It is often times desirable and necessary to dress a fallen animal in the field. There are many advantages to field dressing. For example, by leaving behind the unwanted portions of the animal in the field you considerably reduce the overall weight for transportation of the desirable remains. Furthermore, prompt gutting decreases the temperature around the desirable meat reducing the chance of meat spoilage. While field dressing of game animals is desirable, it also requires that you have means to elevate the fallen animal so that the exposed meat does not get soiled and contaminated. Often times the fallen animal is deep into wooded areas inaccessible by vehicle means. Therefore, there is a need for a portable, compact, lightweight hoisting device which can easily be attached to a tree and operated by a single individual. Similarly, game feeders such as ones used to disperse corn to deer are often set up in remote wooded areas. These feeders are most commonly made with a drum which houses corn and includes a motor to dispense the corn at determined time intervals. Therefore, a portable, compact, lightweight hoisting device is desirable for lifting and lowering game feeders in remote settings. Many hunters use a well known Block and Tackle Pulley Technology which utilizes a series of pulleys to reduce the amount of pull required to lift a desired weight. These systems include a hook at the upper end which are often attached to a tree limb for upper support. Another hook at the lower end can be connected to a gambrel for attachment to a deer carcass or for direct attachment to a game feeder (For more on “Block and Tackle Pulley Systems” see www.howstuffworks.com/pulley.htm). The problem exist with finding a tree limb strong enough to support the required weight and with the safety issues required to attach to such. One prior art product utilizes a patented locking single pulley (U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,281 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,640) at the lower end and a separate free turning pulley at the upper end to create a Block and Tackle arrangement (The patented Rope Ratchet and the Hang-'em High Hoist can be viewed at www.roperatchet.com/index.shtml). The amount of force required to lift the desired weight is cut in half. While beneficial, a 2:1 pulling ratio is not sufficient for lifting large deer or even 35 gallon drum feeders filled with corn. In either case, the weight to be hoisted exceeds 200 pounds. Experimenting, I have found that a 4:1 ratio is needed to pull 200 pounds with any ease. My invention is designed with a 6:1 pulling ratio for these same concerns. Additionally, pulleys can not be added to the Hang-'em High Hoist as designed to increase the lifting ratio. The lower pulley which is the patented Ratchet Rope Pulley on the Hang-'em High Hoist does not have means to attach additional pulleys. U.S. Pat. No. 5,263,675 to Roberts and Gribling, Jr. (1993) is a portable support assembly consisting of a vertical support, a horizontal support and a diagonal support. The disadvantages of this device is that the supported item has to be lifted onto the support assembly. Lifting fallen game such as white tail deer in this manner is cumbersome and generally requires more than a single individual. Secondly, a considerable amount of assembly is required. U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,534 to McGough (1996) is a portable game hoist which comprises a vertical backing member, a horizontal support frame and a diagonal brace with a winch support at the lower end. McGough's device is mostly welded and therefore is not collapsible to allow easy transport. Furthermore, McGough's device, as with most other comparable hoisting devices, utilizes a winch and cable for lifting. In all but one of the patents I researched, no specification was made for use of an automatic brake winch. It is a serious safety issue to hoist heavy items with a marine trailer type winch. For the lifting process, a marine trailer winch automatically holds the weight as the item is being raised but this is not true for the lowering process. For the decent, once the stop lever is released from the drum gear, the weight of the item hoisted must be manually held back. If you release the stop lever and let go of the handle, the hoisted item will fall suddenly and the winch handle will spin violently. The use of an automatic brake winch is designed to automatically hold the lifted weight during the assent and the decent. The problem with an automatic brake winch, as with a marine trailer winch, is that the added weight of a winch becomes a concern when a hand held portable hoist is desired. Furthermore, an automatic winch is more expensive than a marine trailer winch; and therefore, it becomes an overall cost concern. In addition, if a winch is connected to a compact hoisting frame and is attached to a tree out of reach, the winch operator must climb the tree in order to actuate the winch. If the hoisting device is designed so that the winch can be actuated at ground level with the support frame above, the portability of the unit is compromised. U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,455 to Breedlove (1998) is a portable game hoist comprising a vertical member, a horizontal member, and a diagonal member. One disadvantage of this device is that the bottom portion of the hoist is not strapped to the tree. Instead, a sharp bracket attached to the bottom of the hoist engages the tree. If the hoist is bumped or bounces for any reason, the hoist could slide by the supporting post causing hoist failure. Also, some assembly is required at the point of use which may require the need for tools. Furthermore, the rope and pulley system described does not have a locking feature to prevent sudden hoist failure if hands slip from the rope. Also, hoisted items must be tied off to a near by tree or the like in order to hold the lifted weight. U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,442 to Bounds (2000) is a game hoist comprising two vertical supports, two horizontal supports, and a diagonal support. One disadvantage of Bound's device is that it does not collapse into a compact unit for easy transport. A compact unit is oftentimes needed for field dressing of fallen game in dense locations. Secondly, because the winch is separated from the main frame, more set up time is required. When a hoisting device is primarily used for field dressing of fallen game, it is continuously being set up and taken down. Therefore, it is desirable to have a hoisting apparatus which minimizes the amount of set up and take down time required. Finally, the height of the gambrel in the maximum hoisted position is considerably lower than the uppermost horizontal member. U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,974 to Williams (2000) is a portable game support consisting of a upper arm and a lower arm. While in use, the upper arm is horizontal and is attached to a vertical columnar structure via a chain. The lower arm is diagonal and has two spikes to engage the tree or pole. The problem with William's game support is that the lower arm is not chained or strapped to the vertical columnar member; therefore, if the device is bumped or bounces for any reason, the lower arm could slide down the vertical columnar member causing the hoisted item to drop violently. Furthermore, the single pulley design shown is not sufficient. U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,964 to Gearhart (2004) is a V-shaped hoist which has an upper frame designed similar to that of climbing tree stands. A rear retaining bar supports the weight on the rear side of the tree or pole, while a V-shaped blade bites into the hoisting side of the tree/pole. A winch is attached separately to the tree/pole via a winch bracket below the upper frame. The disadvantage of Gearhart's device is that it is not collapsible. While the unit can be partially disassemble into a single package for portability, it is bulky and would be cumbersome to carry by hand as are most tree climbing devices. U.S. Pat. No. 6,695,688 (2004) by James an Alva Owens is a portable hoist designed to be attached to a tree or pole comprising a vertical member and a pivoting support arm. The pivoting support arm is near horizontal while in use. One disadvantage of this device is that the winch must be operated while attached up on the tree and may require elevation means to the operator of the winch. Also, a winch can easily fail if the winch gear locking lever is accidentally disengaged while under load. If this occurs, the load will drop immediately, possibly causing injury to person(s) tending to the lifted object. Another disadvantage of Owens' device is the lack of a diagonal support member which distributes part of the load back to the vertical columnar structure. Without a diagonal support or other means to distribute load, the removable bolt or ball pin is the main means for support. Over time the pin could shear, causing hoist failure. U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,831 to Martin (1999) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,138,991 to Myers are examples of hoisting devices which require attachment to a vehicle such as an all terrain vehicle (ATV). This type of device can only be used where ATV use is allowed. ATV use is generally prohibited on state-owned game lands. Also, the use of ATV game hoists are obviously restricted to owners of ATV's. Other patents and patent applications which may have some pertinence to the present invention may include; U.S. Pat. No. 6,152,675 to Compton (2000) U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,821 to Phillips (2004) U.S. Pat. No. 6,250,483 to Frommer (2001) Patent Application No. 20040026675 to Green (2004) Patent Application No. 20050136816 to Lake (2005) Patent Application 20030000906 to Perkins (2003)

Delton de Armas, former chief financial officer of Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corporation (TBW), has pled guilty to making false statements and conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud for his role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of TBW and Colonial Bank. Recall that ML-Implode blew the whistle on TBW a year before it collapsed, but the Feds ignored our tip (and later were called to account for it). So we watch all this TBW stuff closely.

Third Group of Port Drivers Ready to Join Teamsters A delegation of courageous truck drivers from the Port of L.A./Long Beach delivered a letter to their boss at Green Fleet Systems. The message: They intend to join the Teamsters. On Thursday, Green Fleet was put on notice about the organizing drive by a delegation of clergy, community activists and drivers. The delegation representing the 136 drivers at the company came face to face with CEO Gary Mooney. Though he tried to refuse the delivery of the letter, he was left with the letter in hand and with no doubt that his workers are ready to win a victory for workers everywhere.

//>>built // wrapped by build app define("dojox/lang/aspect/tracer", ["dojo","dijit","dojox"], function(dojo,dijit,dojox){ dojo.provide("dojox.lang.aspect.tracer"); (function(){ var aop = dojox.lang.aspect; var Tracer = function(/*Boolean*/ grouping){ this.method = grouping ? "group" : "log"; if(grouping){ this.after = this._after; } }; dojo.extend(Tracer, { before: function(/*arguments*/){ var context = aop.getContext(), joinPoint = context.joinPoint, args = Array.prototype.join.call(arguments, ", "); console[this.method](context.instance, "=>", joinPoint.targetName + "(" + args + ")"); }, afterReturning: function(retVal){ var joinPoint = aop.getContext().joinPoint; if(typeof retVal != "undefined"){ console.log(joinPoint.targetName + "() returns:", retVal); }else{ console.log(joinPoint.targetName + "() returns"); } }, afterThrowing: function(excp){ console.log(aop.getContext().joinPoint.targetName + "() throws:", excp); }, _after: function(excp){ console.groupEnd(); } }); aop.tracer = function(/*Boolean*/ grouping){ // summary: // Returns an object, which can be used to trace calls with Firebug's console. // Prints argument, a return value, or an exception. // // grouping: // The flag to group output. If true, indents embedded console messages. return new Tracer(grouping); // Object }; })(); });

The Truth About Parenthood Sometimes, I have this imaginary conversation with an imaginary friend who is days from giving birth to her first child. In this fictional scenario, we are huddled at a small table in a coffee shop and she, my fictional friend who is about to pop, shifts uncomfortably in her wooden chair and plucks errant blueberry muffin crumbs from her cleavage. She asks me for advice. Because I have been there, and three times now, and my kids seem to her healthy and happy. To her, I am a relatively seasoned member of the Mother Species and she wants me to share the secrets. She asks me one question as she traces small circles around her bulging belly button, just one part of her anatomy that will never be the same. What’s the one thing I need to know? She asks me this question while fixing me with her eyes, eyes that shimmer with excitement and fear and anticipatory love. I can tell that she is literally hungry for information, for a piece of wisdom that will work to sate and to soothe, for a little gem that will get her through. She clutches her belly, a belly that is powerful in its roundness, a belly that is full of life, a belly that will be empty so soon. And everything about this scene makes me smile. The coffee shop full of strangers seeking caffeine and connection. My friend – puffy but beautiful too, full of an intelligent and endearing panic I recognize. Her question – foolish in its simplicity, gorgeous in its gall. And my mind does its jig, rumbling with all the bits I have learned – secrets about strollers and swaddles, secrets about nursing pillows and boob tents, secrets about the magic of meeting other new moms and believing only half of what they say (something about fresh motherhood makes us candy-coat the early days), but as all of these things flit through my mind, a single sentence arrives. A simple sentence. One that is stark and undeniably true. Bitter. Unsweetened. Like the coffee I drink. She leans in, my friend, as if she knows I have it, the secret to share. Parenthood is hard, I say. She shrinks a bit in her chair, no doubt deflated. But I am quick to elaborate, fired up now: Here’s the thing. One day you are a person with a belly and then suddenly you are a person with a baby. And you will love that baby in a way that you can neither fathom nor articulate. This love will be fierce in essence, something that grips you and guides you. You will want, and immediately, to get it right. You will want to be good at this, this elusive thing you are suddenly and desperately immersed in doing, this nurturing of a tiny creature you have created. And you will quickly realize that there is no Right. There are people who will say things. There are books that will say things. All of these things will commingle and conflict and conspire to confuse you. You will cry. From joy. From crippling fear. From exhaustion. You will have moments when you feel alive and invincible, when your instincts are golden and then you will have moments when you are a puddle, when the baby is crying and you are too and it is dark outside and morning seems like it will never come. But it will come. It always does. It’s not just the early days either. The days when your milk is coming in, or not coming in, when you are shredded with fatigue and lost in a wilderness of hormones and change. It’s all the days after, too. They will be hard. They will be stuffed with moments of confusion and guilt and piercing love. They will be full of questions and conundrums and frustrations and fears, but they will also be laced with the most incredible sense of satisfaction that you are doing important and invaluable work. Work that is, if you are doing it honestly, if you are doing it “right”, hard. When I finish my hushed-but-heated monologue on motherhood, I am surprised by something: My fictional friend is smiling. And this baffles me and delights me in equal measure. Thank you, she says. Maybe this sounds kind of crazy, but I am looking forward to the struggle. And her words, to me, don’t sound crazy at all. They sound honest. They sound real. For one delicious moment, I imagine a world where we women, we moms and almost-moms and non-moms, have coffee and muffins and talk instead of casting dispersions and judging. A world where Maternity Leave is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, where some of us stay home and some of us go to an office, but all of us, each and every one of us, works and hard. A world where we acknowledge, tacitly, triumphantly, truly, the work that we are doing – individually, collectively, imperfectly, lovingly. The work that we are doing well, and not so well sometimes. A world where we are humble and reverent and real about the fact that when it comes to parenthood, and to life, really, most of us are trying. And hard. It’s getting dark outside, in my dream world, as day dips toward night, and we stand to go. I throw my arms around my friend, capturing her in an awkward and abiding hug. And I feel it, a twinge of something between envy and empathy, a tiny taste of the magical murkiness she’s about to muddle through. Good luck, I say. Thanks, she says, her smile wild and wide, and then she takes my hand, puts it on her belly. And I feel it, a pointy little something, rolling along the surface of her skin. I think it’s her elbow!, she says, her beautiful eyes brimming with a breed of awe I know oh so well. Do you agree that parenthood is both wonderful and hard? What advice do you have (from the super-practical to the super-philosophical) for parents-to-be? What do you wish someone had told you about parenthood before you became a parent? Why do you think we women are so quick to judge each other and the choices we make (and don’t make) vis-a-vis motherhood? Oh, and... Share. Comments I love this. Yes, hard. But oh, oh so wonderful. I never really thought about being a mother – it was something I always assumed I’d do but I was not really focused on planning it, I’d never babysat, etc. My sister was the maternal one. And when I had my children (the first in an unplanned way, an event that redirected the rest of my life) it upended my world. In good and bad ways, in the short term, but all good in the long term. Advice? I’d say don’t be afraid to let them cry a little when they’re babies in the night. Don’t go in without letting them fuss for a few minutes (maybe up to 5-7) – they make noise in their sleep and are not always awake. This can also be accomplished by having the baby in their own room (not yours) and not using a monitor! That was my strategy. Also, I would simply say pay attention. Take photographs, keep your eyes and ears open. Just be there. It’s all they want, in my opinion, and you will see and experience things that blow you away. Such a cliche and so true. Such good bits of advice, Lindsey. Thanks. I agree with both. I learned to let my girls fuss (even cry) a bit and it was so hard, but so worth it. All three of them have become very good sleepers, skilled at the “art” of self-soothing, and it has profoundly improved our experience as parents… All 3 of our girls are asleep by 7:30 every night and Husband and I can settle into a night to ourselves – dinner, conversation. I do not take this for granted and I think that focusing so thoughtfully on sleep stuff in the early days and months really really helped. And, yes, pay attention. I tell myself that this is so much of what this blog is about. That it is about really looking and seeing them, and this life, and paying homage to the images and lessons. That it is about memorializing moments big and small. But then of course I worry that I am missing so much by having such an intense and abiding desire to “notice.” Does that make sense? Love that you shared some very practical things here. I think I will pop in throughout the day and scribble down the more practical things I have learned in my 5-plus years of being a mom. I know I would have loved to find such a repository of “advice” as I pondered becoming a mom for the first time. “For one delicious moment, I imagine a world where we women, we moms and almost-moms and non-moms, have coffee and muffins and talk instead of casting dispersions and judging.” I love this. In the midst of all the drum banging about defining feminism and “having it all,” wouldn’t it be better if we could all sit down and just talk? Wouldn’t it be better if we could check our judgment at the door and have honest and real conversations about our choices rather than trying to fit each choice with a pre-determined label? It is time for us to recognize, finally, that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. That we are all working hard at the life and the choices we choose. Wouldn’t that really be amazing? If we could just discuss these things – our questions, our choices, our confusions – without rushing to judgments, without professing knowledge of the inherently unknowable. I know it’s a long shot, but let’s continue to imagine this world. Thanks, you. One of my dearest friends had her first child, a boy, this morning at 3:38. Such an appropriate entry for today – I sent it to her immediately. This is the same piece of advice I give whenever asked (always with the disclaimer that I’m no expert, and I’m sure there are others with more useful practical tips). But it is absolutely hard. And made harder because, as you note, there are those among us who either (1) just have an easier time or an easier baby, or (2) don’t have an easier time or an easier baby but say that they do. And it’s hard to find your way through it all in those early weeks and months. But at the same time, so fantastic and rewarding and beautifully emotional. The best thing I do, even through the struggles, for certain. Thank you so much, Lindsey. For these words – to which I relate, and immensely. And for sending my post to your friend. I hope she reads it and it makes her smile. What an exciting and wild time for her, right? And want to know something nuts? I was born at 3:38am. How’s that for crazy? Oh, such loaded questions, Aidan! I mean, if you’re 21 and having a baby, then YES, parenting is going to be HARD! But, for me? I was 36 and married before I had my first child. I had come into my own person, felt financially stable and was in a solid marriage at the time of my pregnancy. I’ve been pretty laid back about pregnancy and parenthood so far (including our son’s 5-week stay in the NICU). I try not to sweat the small stuff (or the big stuff, for that matter). I don’t expect our son to be first at everything or anything, but I do expect him to show up and try … and have fun along the way (I have the same expectations on my husband and me as parents, too). I think that takes a lot of pressure off me as a parent (as does a child in daycare, because his teachers are such a big help on the teaching front). If I had to summarize, I’d say parenting was one of the best choices I ever made and has led to some huge changes in our life, but I don’t think it’s hard. Not yet at least – I reserve the right to change my mind at any point going forward. =) Oh, so happy to have your perspective! I think there is hard (standard issue exhaustion and confusion and frustration) and Hard (financial woes, health concerns, marital strife), but I guess my feeling is that if we are really immersed and entrenched in it, there is an essential – and, yes, exquisite – struggle at the core of parenting little people. It is not bad, not in the slightest, but it is hard – as in requiring constant and evolving effort and exertion. Always so happy to see you here, Nilsa Hi Aidan, I am days away from giving birth to my first and your post was exactly what I needed to read today. I was teary and smiling while I read it. The fear of childbirth, of change and of having a child who needs me in a way that no one has ever needed me before has at times felt isolating – even though I know I’m not the first to feel this way! So thank you for your advice and for this post. Britta! I am so so excited for you. I remember that anticipatory time oh so well. It is so full and scary and real. I know that you are probably a bit anxious – understandably – but everything will be great. Yes, it will be hard, but good hard. Good luck. You will be wonderful. All will be wonderful. I know it You nailed it. That’s my advice to all the parents-to-be in my life. There is no Right. You can read every book, cull every trusted opinion, but your baby doesn’t have an instruction manual. She only has you. And nobody will know her better. Except of course on the days when you don’t. And that’s when the wine comes in handy. Oh, this is wonderful. You’ve articulated it just right. I have so much to say, but cannot do justice to a response to your beautiful words right now…Just know that they touched my heart and the hearts of many others. I wish someone would have had this conversation with me before I had my first child! Everyone told me how wonderful parenthood and babies are…and they are, but no one ever hinted at the struggles involved. That’s why I turned to mommy-blogs after the birth of #1 – I was desperate to find out if I was the only one or not. Turns out, everyone struggles. And that’s OK. I’ve been to several baby showers since my initiation into motherhood, and when they pass around those “advice & wishes cards” I always write something like: Motherhood will be the most difficult and the most amazing thing you’ve ever experienced…and always remember to trust your instincts -because even in the most frustrating and terrifying moments (cause there will be plenty of those), You (and only you) will always be The. Best. Mother. to your child. Hopefully my words surface in their minds when they feel like they are in over their heads – because those fluffy wishes of good cheer don’t really matter when it’s 2am and you’ve only slept 2 hours! p.s. enjoy your weeks of being un-plugged (summer months are just naturally anti-technology in my opinion!) Such a reassuring piece of writing. As I’m half way through my pregnancy, your words are those that you don’t often see. Sure, I have friends who are harried and tired, overworked, overstressed and stretched thin. But the simple words “its hard” seem both powerful and reassuring at the same time. Thank you for your insight and reassurance. I love reading about your posts as a mother and parenthood and your darling children. Have you ever thought about writing a post about people who choose not to have children? Their reasons why and your thoughts on people who choose not to? Aidan, Although I seldom post, I am a frequent reader…and felt compelled to respond to this thread. I am not a mother (yet! we just started trying) and what you said is the single largest reason I’m so scared to be a mother. I was one of three with a single working mother and at age 36 I’ve seen it all with my friends (and they are the kind who do tell the truth, who don’t judge, who their frustrations/fears/triumphs of being parents) So, as much as one ever can without having been a mother yet, I feel I truly DO UNDERSTAND just how HARD it is… However, for me, knowing how hard it is beats going into it thinking it is going to be all “rainbows and rose petals” as some people paint it to be. And let me be clear I’m not afraid of hard work itself…rather, fear of doing hard work and not doing if you are doing it right or wrong – the knowledge that you are responsible for this individual and the fear of screwing it up – and the fact that the kind of “hard work” that involves being a parent is something FAR, FAR, FAR more complex in its combination of physical, mental, and emotional demand I’ve ever done so far in my life – and honestly, the fear that I will resent my kids (something RARELY ever talked about or acknowledged by many even though it is a real thing). So I commend you for being brave and telling the truth – for reminding and encouraging us to all be humble, honest, and supportive rather than derisive or critical. And, as for the repository of mother advice – I would LOVE to see that compiled – tips, tricks, reminders, etc!!!

Witches and Wyverns is a fantasy roleplaying game in the spirit of the Old School Revival movement. Based on the direct predecessor of The Original Roleplaying Game, Witches and Wyverns is meant to take you back to the olden days. Nowadays RPGs are all unicorns and faeries. In Witches and Wyverns, combat is bloody and swift and monsters are deadly and mysterious. In this homage to the days of old, you will pick up your blood-stained sword and shield and adventure in the chance that you will gain gold and fame. In Witches and Wyverns, all you need to play are two six-sided dice, this book, and a sense of imagination. No fancy polyhedral dice, no grid, nothing but two dice and this book.

Surgical treatment of falcotentorial meningiomas: a retrospective review of a single-institution experience. Meningiomas at the falcotentorial junction represent a rare subgroup of complex meningiomas. Debate remains regarding the appropriate treatment strategy for and optimal surgical approach to these tumors, and surgical outcomes have not been well described in the literature. The authors reviewed their single-institution experience in the management, approach selection, and outcomes for patients with falcotentorial meningiomas. From the medical records, the authors identified all patients with falcotentorial meningiomas treated with resection at the Barrow Neurological Institute between January 2007 and October 2017. Perioperative clinical, surgical, and radiographic data were retrospectively collected. For patients who underwent the supracerebellar infratentorial approach, the tentorial angle was defined as the angle between the line joining the nasion with the tuberculum sellae and the tentorium in the midsagittal plane. Falcotentorial meningiomas occurred in 0.97% (14/1441) of the patients with meningiomas. Most of the patients (13/14) were female, and the mean patient age was 59.8 ± 11.3 years. Of 17 total surgeries (20 procedures), 11 were single-stage primary surgeries, 3 were two-stage primary surgeries (6 procedures), 2 were reoperations for recurrence, and 1 was a reoperation after surgery had been aborted because of brain edema. Hydrocephalus was present in 5 of 17 cases, 4 of which required additional treatment. Various approaches were used, including the supracerebellar infratentorial (4/17), occipital transtentorial/transfalcine (4/17), anterior interhemispheric transsplenial (3/17), parietal transventricular (1/17), torcular (2/17), and staged supracerebellar infratentorial and occipital transtentorial/transfalcine (3/17) approaches. Of the 17 surgeries, 9 resulted in Simpson grade IV resection, and 3, 1, and 4 surgeries resulted in Simpson grades III, II, and I resection, respectively. The tentorial angle in cases with Simpson grade I resection was significantly smaller than in those with an unfavorable resection grade (43.3° ± 4.67° vs 54.0° ± 3.67°, p = 0.04). Complications occurred in 10 of 22 approaches (17 surgeries) and included visual field defects (6 cases, 2 permanent and 4 transient), hemiparesis (2 cases), hemidysesthesia (1 case), and cerebellar hematoma (1 case). Falcotentorial meningiomas are challenging lesions. A steep tentorial angle is an unfavorable preoperative radiographic factor for achieving maximal resection with the supracerebellar infratentorial approach. Collectively, the study findings show that versatility is required to treat patients with falcotentorial meningiomas and that treatment goals and surgical approach must be individualized to obtain optimal surgical results.

Q: Query More Than 2 Tables with 1 Key in MySQL? We have three tables. 1) Product_Table Product_ID Product_Name 2) Warehouse1_Table Product_ID Inventory1 3) Warehouse2_Table Product_ID Inventory2 Product ID may not exist in Warehouse1_Table or Warehouse2_Table or both. I'm trying to figure out a single query which gives us something like this: Product_ID, Product_Name, TotalStock TotalStock is Inventory1 + Inventory2 if the Product_ID is in both tables. TotalStock is Inventory1 if Product_ID is in Warehouse1_Table TotalStock is Inventory2 if Product_ID is in Warehouse2_Table TotalStock is 0 if Product_ID not in any of the Warehouse tables A: Try using a LEFT JOIN, that's a join that doesn't break your query if your cross-table doesn't produce a match. And then sum up the inventories, like so: SELECT p.Product_ID, p.Product_Name, (IFNULL(w1.Inventory1, 0) + ISNULL(w2.Inventory2, 0)) AS TotalStock FROM `Product_Table` AS p LEFT JOIN `Warehouse1_Table` AS w1 ON ( p.Product_ID = w1.Product_ID ) LEFT JOIN `Warehouse2_Table` AS w2 ON ( p.Product_ID = w2.Product_ID ); Then your resultset should contain the 'TotalStock' field with either the combined stock or the stock that either one of the warehouses returned.

#pl_PL enchantment.cofhcore.holding=Trzymanie enchantment.cofhcore.multishot=Wielokrotny strzał enchantment.cofhcore.vorpal=Vorpal gui.cofh.friendList=Lista znajomych gui.cofh.transferInDisabled=Automatyczne wprowadzanie wyłączone gui.cofh.transferInEnabled=Automatyczne wprowadzanie włączone gui.cofh.transferInUnavailable=Automatyczne wprowadzanie niedostępne gui.cofh.transferOutDisabled=Automatyczne wyjście wyłączone gui.cofh.transferOutEnabled=Automatyczne wyjście włączone gui.cofh.transferOutUnavailable=Automatyczne wyjście niedostępne fluid.tile.lava=Lawa fluid.tile.water=Woda info.cofh.access=Dostęp info.cofh.accessMode=Tryb dostępu info.cofh.accessPrivate=Tylko właściciel info.cofh.accessRestricted=Ograniczony info.cofh.all=Wszystko info.cofh.amount=Ilość info.cofh.anotherplayer=Inny Gracz info.cofh.augmentation=Zwiększanie info.cofh.blank=Czyste info.cofh.capacity=Pojemność info.cofh.chance=Szansa info.cofh.charge=Naładowanie info.cofh.configuration=Konfiguracja info.cofh.contents=Zawartość info.cofh.controlStatus=Status kontrolowania info.cofh.damageAttack=Obrażenia ataku info.cofh.damageFlux=Obrażenia flux'owe info.cofh.disabled=Wyłączone info.cofh.dry=Suche info.cofh.empty=Puste info.cofh.enable=Włącz info.cofh.enabled=Włączone info.cofh.energy=Energia info.cofh.energyConsume=Użytek mocy info.cofh.energyProduce=Wyjście mocy info.cofh.energyStored=Przechowywana energia info.cofh.filter=Filtr info.cofh.fluid=Ciecz info.cofh.fluids=Ciecze info.cofh.forDetails=dla detali info.cofh.frequency=Częstotliwość info.cofh.hasInfo=Ma informacje info.cofh.high=Wysoki info.cofh.holdShiftForDetails=Przytrzymaj §e§oShift§r§7 aby uzyskać więcej informacji.§r info.cofh.hold=Trzyma info.cofh.ignored=Ignorowane info.cofh.infinite=Nieskończone info.cofh.infiniteSource=Nieskończone źródło info.cofh.information=Informacje info.cofh.item=Przedmiot info.cofh.items=Przedmioty info.cofh.level=Przedmiot info.cofh.locked=Zablokowane info.cofh.low=Niski info.cofh.maxPower=Maksymalna moc info.cofh.modeChange=aby Zmienić Tryb info.cofh.none=Żadne info.cofh.owner=Właściciel info.cofh.perUse=Na użycie info.cofh.press=Naciśnij info.cofh.receive=Otrzymaj info.cofh.redstoneControl=Kontrola redstone'em info.cofh.security=Bezpieczeństwo info.cofh.send=Wyślij info.cofh.sending=Wysyłanie info.cofh.shift=Przesunięcie info.cofh.signal=Sygnał info.cofh.signalDisabled=Sygnał: §4Wyłączony§r info.cofh.signalEnabledHigh=Sygnał: §aWłączony§7, Wysoki§r info.cofh.signalEnabledLow=Sygnał: §aWłączony§7, Niski§r info.cofh.signalRequired=Sygnał wymagany info.cofh.soaked=Mokry info.cofh.source=Źródło info.cofh.stored=Przechowywane info.cofh.tutorial.fluxRequired=Wymaga redstone'owego flux'u do operacji. info.cofh.tutorial.tabAugment=Karta powiększeń zezwala na modularne dodatki. info.cofh.tutorial.tabConfiguration=The Configuration tab determines input and output parameters for this block. info.cofh.tutorial.tabRedstone=Karta kontroli redstone'a konfiguruje to, jak to urządzenie reaguje na sygnały redstone'a. info.cofh.tutorial.tabSecurity=Karta bezpieczeństwa zezwala na kontrolowanie tego, kto ma prawo dostępu do tego urządzenia. info.cofh.tutorial=Samouczek info.cofh.unlocked=Odblokowany info.cofh.upgradeRequired=Ulepszenie wymagane item.invalid.name=Niepoprawny przedmiot (zniszcz) key.cofh.augments=Open Player Augment GUI key.cofh.category=CoFH Klawisze key.cofh.multimode=Cykliczny tryb pozycji tab.cofh.friendList.0=Użyj tej listy, aby dodać lub usunąć Znajomi! tab.cofh.friendList.1=Przyjaciele mają dostęp do zabezpieczonych bloków i elementów, jeśli zechcesz. tab.cofh.friendList.2=Znajomi nie są udostępnieni

Print journalism was once a reliable career path for the heroines of so-called chick lit. We had Carrie Bradshaw, who got her start as a columnist in Candace Bushnell’s pages; Andrea Sachs, Lauren Weisberger’s Vogue serf; and Becky Bloomwood, aka Shopaholic, ironically employed at a personal finance magazine. Jennifer Weiner gave us Cannie Shapiro, feisty entertainment reporter; Jane Green gave us Jemima J., somewhat less feisty, still working at a newspaper. The authors inventing these heroines had often worked as journalists themselves. They knew what they were talking about; they had stories to tell. Print journalism promised excitement (colorful characters, a dash of creativity) but also reassuring stability—a place where women could clock in for manageable daily adventures then clock out for afterhours drama. But as print journalism has become a decreasingly reliable real-world profession, a new brand of chick lit has emerged. It is set against a somewhat less glamorous backdrop: the blogosphere. From Jessica Grose, formerly of Jezebel and Slate, comes Sad Desk Salad, about a Brooklynite named Alex Lyons who writes for a women’s site called Chick Habit. Karin Tanabe, formerly of Politico’s Click blog, will soon publish The List, about a D.C. native named Adrienne Brown who writes for a political outlet called the Capitolist. Then there’s Janis Thomas’s heroine in Something New, a suburban mom unhappily staring down her forty-third birthday when she stumbles into blogging. Sad Desk Salad and The List both bear blurbs comparing them to The Devil Wears Prada, but they suggest a distinct breed, one with fewer expense accounts and more page-view panic. Gone are the celebrity encounters and expensive accessories. Now there are coworkers who communicate solely by IM and smartphones that must remain perpetually aglow. But if new media chick lit presents a version of journalism that’s decidedly bleaker, there’s a surprising new romance to the genre as well: the romance of work. In Sad Desk Salad, Grose offers an affectionate send-up of the slovenly-blogger stereotype, creating a quick-witted heroine who lusts after egg sandwiches and takes comfort in an extravagantly stinky muumuu. Alex Lyons, Grose’s protagonist, is a Wesleyan graduate who won college prizes for advocacy journalism, then worked at a music website after graduation. Now she wakes at 6:20 in the morning to read RSS feeds on her couch and churns out ten posts a day. Her routine is derailed when a mysterious reader starts a “hate blog”—and, around the same time, an anonymous tipster sends in a video of a parenting guru’s college-age daughter snorting coke. Over the course of one tightly paced work week, Alex swallows her scruples, posts the video, and unravels the hate-blogger mystery, weathering the personal and professional fallout for both. In the end, things work out fine for her. When we leave Alex, she’s accepted a job as online editor at a glossy magazine, where her new boss immediately asks if she’s got anything like that coke video in the hopper. The sadistic scheduling of online news becomes a kind of fetish. Grose’s new media heroine may be ambivalent about the moral defensibility of her work, but Tanabe’s (for the most part) is not. Adrienne Brown, protagonist of The List, has spent a few years post-Wellesley living in Manhattan, dating bankers, and covering society for Town & Country. At 28, she decides that the time has come to conquer political journalism by working at the Capitolist—a “new-media empire” that promises meteoric ascent to the young “geniuses” who toil in its “sweatshop”/newsroom. Still proudly clad in her “so not Washington” wardrobe, Adrienne moves back in with her parents to write for the Capitolist’s Style section. The shadow of old media looms large: long ago, her mother worked as a D.C. gossip columnist, which meant carousing lavishly and smoking lots of pot. Adrienne, however, must answer all email messages within three minutes, starting at 5 a.m. Acting on little more than a hunch, Adrienne sets out to pursue what she deems a career-making scoop—an affair between a young journalist (her colleague) and a senator. She rents a camera with a telephoto lens and wriggles commando-style through the woods outside the hotel where she’s spotted them. Her suspicions are vindicated. She sits on the story, does the requisite legwork—filing hourly Style posts from her Blackberry all the while—but finally rides her sex pix to professional glory.

Intraoperative gastrojejunoscopy-assisted fistulojejunostomy for postoperative pancreatic fistula. Postoperative pancreatic fistula is a known complication after pancreaticojejunostomy. When an anastomosis collapses completely, two-stage reconstruction is necessary. Herein, we describe the case of a 70-year-old woman who underwent subtotal stomach-preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy with pancreaticojejunostomy after she had developed a severe postoperative pancreatic fistula. The pancreaticojejunostomy was divided, and an external pancreatic drainage tube was placed. Four months later, fistulojejunostomy between the pancreas and the stump of the jejunum was performed successfully using intraoperative gastrojejunoscopy.

Q&As Why should I bother outsourcing to Integral2? We are able to bring to small businesses high quality expertise and robust financial control normally affordable only by large organisations. Because we are a shared service provider our total costs are shared across a portfolio of clients. Because we have scale, we are able to keep your costs low. How do you charge for your services? We charge a monthly retainer for all the routine, month on month activities expected from a typical finance function. The monthly fee is a function of complexity, not sheer scale of turnover, hence we base our fee at the outset on a combination of transaction volume, number of entities within the Group, whether there any overseas entities, whether there are any institutional investors or bank debt and other matters of a similar nature. Who controls my bank account? We control all aspects of your bank account as this is a vital control point for our solution. All cheque receipts from your customers will be sent directly to us. We will match these payments on the ledger and bank the cheques. We prepare all supplier payments and manage the payroll process. What are the controls over my money? All cheque payments require dual signatures with at least one of them coming from someone within your management team. Likewise, all electronic payments will require authorisation from someone within your management team. You will receive daily updates on your bank position as part of our start of day routines so you can keep a daily eye on your cash. What happens with all the accounting documents? How do they flow and where do they go? All supply related invoices must go straight to your business first for approval and coding then batched and sent onto us. This best works where there is an ‘accounts out-tray’ at a designated point in your office. We will organise for all sales receipts, HMRC and banking correspondence to come straight to us. We will store and file all accounting documentation here. What if I need information on an ad hoc basis? Your dedicated team will be on hand during working hours by phone or email to answer any of your queries or provide you with ad hoc analysis on a real-time basis. What if I need an ad hoc urgent payment? No accounting function likes ad hoc, unscheduled payments; payments outside agreed process tend to test financial controls and mess with cash flow plans. However, the real world does tend to throw these things in the air: in the age of electronic banking, we are able to make ad hoc payments quickly, securely and efficiently. What happens to the petty cash? If your business requires a petty cash float, we can leave a cheque book in the business for this purpose. Will my data be secure? Yes. We take data security very seriously and use robust servers, firewalls, virus control, on and offsite backup routines to ensure your data is only available to approved personnel. Are there any Data Protection Act issues to consider? No. We are registered with the DPA for this activity.

歡迎光臨cr8ig26在痞客邦的小天地 Affiliate merchandising has a monumental enlargement on the internet. According to Marketing Sherpa's "E-commerce Benchmark Guide 2006", affiliate mercantilism is a $6.5 Billion Business inclusive. Cases of affiliates next to address business, earning thousands of dollars per month, enlargement dramatically. Research estimates that associate commercialism will go off even more in 2010, since the shining example of finding thousands affiliates for promoting products is decorous much winning to the merchants. The affiliate business organization archetype has so whatever incomparable advantages that they could not yield position in other than firm models all equally at the same instance either in offline dealing or even in the e-commerce. One of the utmost precocious features associate conglomerate original has is the famine of inventory. This is vastly rewarding for the affiliate since at hand is no want for finance in inventory and more important, the peril of domestic animals remainder eliminates flattering. Another plus is the "no support" facet. The business deals near it, either it refers to a palpable goods or not, like software system for standard. The affiliate has nil to do beside it. That finances increase of sponsorship which can be invested in the publicity of the associate commercial. Less sum of the business organisation. That is the principal help of e-commerce in unspecialized but it refers reciprocally in associate commercialism. No physiologic mercantile establishment address, no entrepot and cost of the rent, actually the total affiliate commercial can be applied in affiliate's address. Plus, the demand of payroll will vanish, since near will be no entail for human resources. In whichever cases all is requisite is a information processing system and cyberspace bond and zero more than. Case studies of affiliates doing that and surpass have been verified. The above features pb in the end to other lead. It is the indefinite quantity of example. The associate will not have to run to his or her business establishment. All this instance which can be regenerate for much inexhaustible chore can metal to a more than remunerative business organisation in smaller quantity event mount. The modus vivendi of the business concern. It is the perfect way of being supreme ancestors imagery of. The potential to make a convenient enterprise quintessence and adjust the online business, even with a laptop, comprehensive is the trade quintessence utmost nest firm entrepreneurs aim to. Before few decades that was well-nigh impossible, but today with the computer network technology has change state day-after-day mechanical. The disadvantage is that the affiliate marketer has to compromise next to the information that in that will be e'er commissions or else of the chock-full net profit the wares or feature provides. There are merchants that set aside big commissions to their affiliates but they are fixed commissions. Loneliness. There is no human face to obverse quality relationship. It's the affiliate next to the data processor and the receiver flash. It's a introverted business organisation ideal with psychosomatic effect sometimes. There is no talking near else individuals, demur email discipline and sometimes car phone human action. It should be noted in spite of this that for every folks that is well thought out as an help and not a pessimistic portion. Finally it is not as graceful as it seems. Many tradition has been daub on all sides something like "working 15 report per day-make 15000$ per month". Reality is far from it. It is a concern which implementation proper planning, developing, uniform advertizement and promotion, on a daily basis questioning for new tools and treasures to ameliorate the firm and so on. All these undertakings require academic amount of time, attempt and numerous introductory funds to expend. Many affiliate marketers do not trace these principals and that's why 95% of associate marketing businesses fall through. The online associate commercialism industry is mullioned into two groups: The initial is serene of ace affiliates who have profound affiliate commerce business organization next to professional website, email lists, new website updates and awfully precocious gen for their clients. These associates craft the 85% of the affiliate commercial enterprise turnover rate macro. The 2d body of people contains fledgling affiliates, amateurs are the majority, who believe associate selling as a hobby as an alternative of business concern. These "businessmen" will agreement near online associate commercialism business organisation for both time, they will inauguration enthusiastically, but give up when they face up to the original barrier. These people, which are the majority, are in the per centum of 15% of the employee turnover.

Sunday, May 24, 2009 How to Treat a Celebrity Last weekend was eventful, and I hope the pictures are enjoyable to view despite their photographic frailties. I'm becoming something of a reality snob (which, among all the snobberies, is probably the most meaningful and worthwhile - this is not why I adopted it, however). I see a view that moves me in ways I can't quite credit to mere grass and trees and scenery, an interaction between a mother and child on the street that signifies for me something profound about the universals of human relations, a philosophic expression on Malachi's unphilosophic face - and I think "I want a picture..." as in, I want proof that this happened, and that it is true. But then the photographic is flat - or rather, it just isn't like real life, and I find I'm becoming a reality snob. All this is just to say - please enjoy our pictures. The events of our weekend are not the direct subject of our blog, but hopefully the pictures tell enough of the narrative version. We have decided to write about our position here in society. Korean culture has long functioned within the structure of distinct and discernible classes, with specific expectations and traditions governing the behavior of each. For instance, we belong to the class of Mary Pickford and Matt Damon. In other words - in the words of the giftshop sales lady at the Folk Village - we are movie stars. We are so beautiful. I thought I was prepared for this because Solomon claimed that he was treated like a celebrity in China. But, he did not carry an eleven-month-old cherub on his hip that lacks any semblance of social constraint and also, apparently, wears a label on his back that reads something like "please click at me, pinch my forearm, slap my cheek and, if your strength is great enough, release me from my incompetent parents" in Hangul. We exaggerate, but in minor moderation. This is a composite-construction of our experience when we leave our apartment: We enter our elevator and greet the mother and children already inside. The children hush themselves but the mother prods them to speak to us. A brave little boy says "hello," and we say "hello" and then the mother takes off Malachi's sock and compares his skin tone to that of her daughter's. The elevator reaches the ground floor. We say "bye" to the family, but are unable to take a step out because five little boys block our exit and say "babeeee" in unison and reach up their hands to touch some part of Malachi, somewhat as if he is hem of Jesus' garment. We push through and smile and say "hi" and "bye" (sometimes not in the right order) and make it to our mailbox before realizing that the one of the boys has followed us and is tugging at us. We stop - "for baby" he says, holding out a piece of hard-candy. We thank him (we no longer try to argue with these gifts) and say bye again, and then we make it out into the fresh air. We walk very very quickly, but two older ladies plant themselves in front of us and laugh and clap their hands together, and we pause for them and Malachi claps his hands. It is then that I realize, they are not just clapping their hands, they are demanding that we give them Malachi. I act like I don't know this, and just keep encouraging him to clap and to wave at them. We try to walk on but a crowd has already formed in the milli-second that we paused. The ladies begin clapping harder and one of them takes ahold of Malachi and tries to peel him from me, to illustrate that this is what she means. I begin stepping away and twisting a little, back and forth, to get out modeled after a screw-driver removing a screw, and we smile and say "bye" in Korean and in English, only to meet another lady who has no desire to hold Malachi - only to look into his eyes and say "BLUEEEE", and to give him a small paper fan with an advertisement on it, which he promptly throws on the ground. So we mix thank-yous into our byes, and we get away from our apartment building. At the first intersection, a group of six or seven school-age girls spot us and squeel and scream and dance around us and say "cuteee" and then, when the wind knocks Malachi's hood off and he is exposed in all his blondeness, the squeels become deafening and everyone is rubbing his head and asking where we are from. Busses of people go by, and anonymous hands come out, with fingers all pointing at us. We cross the intersection, where an old man is waiting. This time, it is not Malachi that gets all the attention. The man reaches out and strokes Thaddeus' stubbly chin"aah, nice beard." We walk on, with similar attention until we get to our bus-stop. On the bus, the people closest to Malachi offer him their cell-phones and business-cards and unchewed gum as toys, and he throws each of them on the floor (or into my hand if I'm able to intercept it), and the others, not close to us, stare at us, blinking twice perhaps in ten minutes. We emerge from the bus and hear the conversations begin in our wake... The affects of all this can be strangely dehumanizing, I guess that is our conclusion. And to find some response that is not equally dehumanizing - that is sensitive, appropriate, personable - is a challenge we will probably never quite conquer, but one I do hope we always feel. So, if you see the local weatherman at a gas-station, or Dick Cheney at a gun store or anything - ignore them, give them nothing, don't point at them, don't stroke their head or compare their skin to yours. Just to commemorate us.

Ramblings from a guy that has lots of varied interests: soccer, beer, basketball, Portland, hiking, sci-fi, computers and being the best sports fan possible. Thursday, June 11, 2009 Match Day Vs. Carolina And Charleston on the Road It's match day and the Timbers face off against Carolina on the road, then Charleston on Saturday. Since I'm on the road tomorrow to Central Oregon, doing my previews now: Match particulars – Carolina Game starts at 4 PM PT at WakeMed Soccer Park. Apparently, they aren't playing in the main stadium, but in a practice field on the complex, as WakeMed is similar to S**kfire in its setup.You can listen to the game by visiting the Portland Timbers website (http://www.portlandtimbers.com/) and finding the live web broadcast with Andy McNamara, or watch it on USL Live (http://www.usllive.com/) for free.In the Portland area, you can watch the match live at the Rogue Pub in NW Portland, the Cheerful Bullpen near PGE Park, and Beulahland in SE Portland. Match Particulars - Charleston Game starts at 4:30 PM PT at Blackbaud Stadium, one of the nicer parks in the USL.You can listen to the game by by visiting the Portland Timbers website (http://www.portlandtimbers.com/) and finding the live web broadcast with Andy McNamara, watch it on USL Live (http://www.usllive.com/) for free, or listen to 955 The Game in Portland for John Strong's call (95.5 fm or http://www.955thegame.com/)In the Portland area, you can watch the match live at the Rogue Pub in NW Portland, the Cheerful Bullpen near PGE Park, St. John's Pub in N Portland and Beulahland in SE Portland. You can also find folks watching the match in Bend, OR at the Old St. Francis School. Team Updates Timbers V. RailHawks - Previous meetings were here in Portland on April 30th and May 2nd in PGE Park. The Timbers and RailHawks drew in the first match in a scoreless affair, but then the Timbers got goals from Brian Farber and Ryan Pore to beat the RailHawks on May 2nd 2 to nil. The Timbers are 2 - 2 - 3 against Carolina, getting one win at home and one on the road in the team's brief game history. The Timbers have never lost to Carolina at home, getting a win and the 3 draws at PGE, while having a 1 and 2 record in Cary. Portland team status - Tony McManus is not on the trip apparently after sustaining a shoulder injury in the Tuesday US Open Cup match, and Ryan Pore has a knee ligament strain which will keep him out for a bit. Johan Claesson is also day to day with an undisclosed ailment. This is the Timbers second of 4 matches in the next week, as they travel to Charleston on Saturday then Sonoma, CA next Tuesday for the Open Cup. The team's depth will be tested over this stretch. Ryan Pore leads the team with 3 goals, while Brian Farber has 2 assists to lead the team. The Timbers are 5 - 1 - 3 overall with 10 goals scored and 4 goals allowed. Carolina team status - The RailHawks also played Tuesday against Richmond in the Open Cup, getting a win, and then they get the Timbers tonight before they head on the road to face Minnesota on Sunday, then come back home to face Wilmington in the next round of the Open Cup. I couldn't find any major injury news, and really the only issue that is known right now is with the field as noted above. Carolina has three players with 2 goals each, former Timber Luke Kreamelmeyer, Gavin Glinton and Daniel Paladini, while Paladini has 3 assists to lead the team. The RailHawks sit in second place in the USL Division 1 table at 7 - 1 - 2, with their only loss of the year in PGE Park. However, their seven wins have been against some of the lower teams on the table - Minnesota and Cleveland twice. Timbers V. Charleston - First meeting of the year between the two old time USL rivals. The Timbers have a 4 - 6 - 1 record versus the Battery, getting 3 of the wins at home (3 - 2 - 1), while winning in Charleston only once (1 - 4 - 0) overall. Charleston has a great fan base, and it's usually a loud environment. Charleston visits PGE Park on August 8th, while the Timbers come back to Blackbaud on August 28th. Timbers Team Status - Same as above, unless something happens on Thursday. Which it won't. Charleston Team Status - The Battery last played on Tuesday in the Open Cup, beating the Atlanta PDL team, and so they will have nearly 4 days of rest before facing the Timbers before they face their next open cup opponent, the Miami FC Blues on Tuesday. The Battery are top of the table right now, with a 6 - 0 - 5 record. Yes, they haven't lost yet, they've only won or drew. What is interesting is that they have 3 road wins and 3 away wins, and they've faced Montreal at home and away and drew both, while beating Miami at home and on the road. It seems like Charleston has played well against varied competition, but then again, they always seem to have a strong, balanced team. Darren Spicer and Frankie Sanfilippo lead the team with 2 goals, but there have been 9 Charleston players that have notched a goal, while Tyler Hemming leads the team with 3 assists and veteran Dusty Hudock mans the goal. Predictions - The Timbers should be happy if they get 4 points on the trip, and I think their best chance to win would be tonight, against a Carolina team that while they play physically at home, are prone to give up goals if they are matched in intensity. Plus, we've played well against Carolina this year so far. I believe that we get the win versus them 2 to 1, while we play for the draw in Charleston and the game ends up 1 to 1 in a well played, back and forth affair. MLS Update - The Oregon House passed the MLS Bill 2531, which would be an extension of an existing bill passed a few years ago for the MLB effort. The bill would target a portion of salaries for MLS Timber employees and players of all MLS teams that play in Portland, and a slice of that tax revenue would be directed towards helping pay for the MLS stadium change to PGE Park. You can learn more about the effort by following this link: Cities and counties have been doing things like this for years, essentially targeting the people that work for the team or play in the stadium, and it's a small drop in the overall stadium budget. The bill now moves to the Oregon Senate, and if it passes, it will be sent to the Governor for signature. At this point, the Governor has indicated that he's not a huge fan of the bill and he may not sign it, but may allow it to pass without signature, which happens if the bill passes both chambers and he doesn't sign it within 5 days of passing. One more hurdle passed, but still a few left to go. Talk to all next week, when I'm back from the Central Oregon road trip!! Latest Football Matches, Leagues and News About Me Normal, average guy (for the most part) living in the most amazing place in the world. Loves the odd things in the world, and wants to talk about the weird, the different, the unusual, and the goofy. Love sports, and living life to the best of my abilities with my new wife. What's with the name of this blog?I love animated shows, and one of my all time favorites is Beavis and Butthead because it was very smart and very stupid at the same time. During one episode where they needed to get a cup for phys ed class, the guy at the sporting goods place could only find eye patches that would fit the boys. After suffering humiliation at being seen in the dressing room with the eye patches, the boys crafted a note to Mr. Buzzcutt that asked him to excuse the boys from P.E. because they didn't have althetic sippotters. He laughed at the note, and being the maniac he was, Buzzcutt yelled at them "Elementary squat thrusts, NOW!!"

The EU is investigating Google for anti- competitive activities. This action is the latest in a series of anti-trust investigations by the eU against powerful tech corporations. Google is everywhere and, as corporations go, sees itself as benevolent. Google was the first search engine to work as intended and its means of raising income are barely perceptible to the end user, but it is also one of a small number of corporations that have ‘owned’ the commons that is the world wide web. others include amazon, facebook and Twitter. The promise of the web has always been its diversity, an instant medium where we can speak and share our vision with our fellow citizens on the opposite side of the globe. Nobody can argue that the services provided by these corporations don’t have a value for their users, but the first ‘duty’ of a corporation is to return a profit for its shareholders. The shareholders, albeit temporary and subject to the price of today’s stocks and shares, are the sole beneficiaries, and the short term profits of shareholders override any other interest. Free software, like the web, is promoted by corporations when it is useful to their profit margins. Many disparate organisations collaborate and contribute to GNU/Linux and other free and open source software projects, because they are beneficial to their bottom lines and seldom for altruistic reasons. Contributing to GNU/Linux reduces development costs and encourages open standards. open standards are useful because they reduce barriers to entry for technologies that were ‘not invented here’. Most corporations, however, tend to be in favour of proprietary standards when they operate in their favour, and it follows that very few corporations take a consistent stance in standards committees. apple is in favour of open standards except that everything must be directed to the iStore. Microsoft erects a closed shop around its technologies. open source projects, nominally released under copyleft licences, demand that contributors assign their copyrights to the corporate entity. Companies that make generous contributions to free and open source software projects also vehemently enforce software patents. The problem for the users and developers of free software is that this too often translates into compromise. The GPLv3 and LGPLv3 can be compromised by “community agreements” and copyright assignment clauses, which pass ownership of the code to the holding company and allow relicensing and consequent dereliction of the patent clause and other protections of a copyleft license. A consequence of a culture dominated by corporations is that profits are moved around from country to country and corporations often pay little tax in their host countries. a company like amazon provides convenience and reduced costs for its services, but a secondary consequence of its ubiquity and success is that small book and record shops can’t compete and are disappearing, reducing diversity and choice. The EU’s investigation of Google for anti-competitive practices may or may not prove to be justified, but stands in marked contrast to its stand on TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – a trade agreement being negotiated between europe and the US, which in the words of George Monbiot, would give corporations the right “to sue the living daylights out of governments which try to defend their citizens. It would enable a secretive panel of corporate lawyers to overrule the will of parliament and destroy our legal protections – known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).” ISDS enables a corporation to override the will of an elected government and “could be used to smash attempts to save the NHS from corporate control, to re-regulate the banks, to curb the greed of the energy companies, to renationalise the railways, to leave fossil fuels in the ground,” in other words, to hand the role of government to corporate lawyers. We should be looking for ways to spread diversity. we must hope that the eU’s pursuit of Google results in more options becoming available. as Tim Berners- Lee said when announcing The Web We Want, “Unless we have an open, neutral Internet we can rely on without worrying about what’s happening at the back door, we can’t have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture. It’s not naive to think we can, but it is naive to think we can sit back and get it.”

The seven new outfits added to "Fortnite" with Season 9. "Fortnite"/Epic Games "Fortnite" Season 9 launched on May 9 — adding new outfits, big map changes, and a futuristic theme to the world's most popular game. Tilted Towers and Retail Row, two of the most popular "Fortnite" hotspots, have been destroyed by a volcanic eruption and replaced with two brand new destinations: "Neo Tilted" and "Mega Mall." Both locations have a futuristic tech theme, and a transportation system called Slipstream will let players ride the wind around the new map locations. Players can purchase the season nine battle pass to unlock seven new skins, including three legendary outfits: Vendetta, Rox, and Sentinel. Leveling the battle pass gives players access to hundreds of rewards. Season nine of "Fortnite" is finally here after a volcanic eruption destroyed two of the game's most popular locations. If nothing else, Epic Games isn't afraid to make big changes, and a new cinematic trailer shows that Season 9 of "Fortnite" is all about the future. With more than 250 million registered players, "Fortnite" is the most popular game in the world. It helps that the game is available for free on essentially every modern video-game platform, including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, and Android. Players can squad up with each other regardless of what platform they choose. The game has three separate modes: the mega-popular Battle Royale, the freewheeling Creative, and the single-player Save The World campaign. The Battle Royale and Creative modes are free to play, while Save the World costs $40. The Season 9 update comes with a new battle pass that adds more than 100 unlockable rewards to the game, along with weekly challenges to encourage players to explore the updated "Fortnite" map. Players who have been keeping up with "Fortnite" should know that Tilted Towers and Retail Row — two of the most recognizable areas in the game — were erased by the volcanic eruption at the end of season 8. In their place, Epic has introduced a pair of brand new destinations, and a new transportation system to help players travel across the island faster. These are all of the key updates in "Fortnite" Season 9: 'Fortnite' Season 9 update adds seven new skins, but you'll a battle pass to unlock them. From left to right: Bunker Jonesy, Sentinel, Rox, Vendetta, Demi, Stratrus, and Punk. "Fortnite"/Epic Games The Season Nine battle pass adds three legendary outfits: Vendetta, Rox, and Sentinel. Legendary skins can be upgraded over time, unlocking new styles and color options as you play. Rox and Sentinel are unlocked as soon as you buy the battle pass. The battle pass also includes four epic outfits: Bunker Jonesy, Demi, Stratus, and Punk. Jonesy is a twist on the default "Fortnite" skin, while Demi, Stratus, and Punk all embody the futuristic theme of Season 9. The season 9 battle pass costs 950 vbucks, the game's virtual currency. You can pay $10 to unlock it right away or earn vbucks by playing over time. The Battle Bundle gives you some extra rewards for 2,800 vbucks, or $25. "Fortnite"/Epic Games Like prior seasons, the season nine battle pass costs 950 vbucks, and a discounted battle bundle includes the battle pass and the first 25 tiers of rewards for 2,800 vbucks. Vbucks can be earned through in-game challenges, or you can purchase them in bulk from the "Fortnite" shop. The battle pass costs just under $10 if you're paying with cash, while the battle bundle is $25. The battle pass will let you unlock more than 100 rewards — like this new pet, Kyo. Kyo is the only new pet in Season 9, but it comes in multiple colors. "Fortnite"/Epic Games While you can still unlock some items without the battle pass and save your vbucks for your favorite items in the shop, the battle pass has the most valuable rewards. Other exclusive items in the season nine battle pass include Kyo, a robotic pet. Luckily, even if you spend the first few weeks of season 9 playing without the battle pass, you can still level up. If you decide to buy the pass late in the season, you'll unlock the same rewards you would have received on day one. "Mega Mall" is an upgraded version of Retail Row with multiple detailed floors, and players can use the new Slipstream rings to ride the wind around the map. "Fortnite"/Epic Games "Neo Tilted" is a new destination replacing Tilted Towers, the popular drop zone that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in Season 8. "Fortnite"/Epic Games The Season 9 update also adds the Combat Shotgun, a semi-automatic weapon. "Fortnite"/Epic Games The combat shotgun is an semi-automatic weapon with 10 shells. Each shell fires 9 pellets for 73 to 81 damage; players reload two shells at once. Headshots with the combat shotgun do 70% extra damage and the pellets have a tight firing radius. The combat shotgun will drop in standard locations, with rare, epic and legendary variations. "Fortnite" has also removed a number of items from Season 8, like the poison dart trap and buried treasure chests. Other vaulted weapons include the pump shotgun, scoped revolver, suppressed assault rifle, thermal assault rifle, and balloons. Updates to Creative Mode and Save the World Players can now customize the husk monsters in Creative Mode. "Fortnite"/Epic Games While Battle Royale is the game's most popular mode, Creative and Save the World are getting some big updates too. Creative mode will give players access to assets based on Neo Tilted and Mega Mall, as well as new options to create specific settings for players and enemies in custom game types. Creators can now adjust the health and damage of monsters, and place resource limits on other players. Save the World will introduce a new mission system called Wargames that will give players a variety of challenges to survive. Some force Wargames challenge players to detail with natural disasters like volcanoes and tornadoes, while others force players to defend specific parts of the map to avoid getting killed. Players must rely on their teammates to revive them if they die, which means you'll only have one shot at completing the challenge if you're playing solo. You can also add difficulty modifiers for extra rewards. Fortnite Season 9 will end on August 1st, giving you 10 weeks to unlock your battle pass rewards. Good luck out there!

If you were like me, the first time I found myself singing Only Your Blood Is Enough, I immediately thought, “What on earth am I singing about?” Bleeding birds? Bleeding beasts? Hyssop branch? What in the world is a hyssop branch? To begin to understand this song, we have to go back to Psalm 51:1-19. David composed this psalm/prayer after the prophet Nathan confronted him about his adultery with Bathsheba, and his subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah. And even though the the situation that led to this particular psalm was intensely personal, the psalm as we have it today is meant to be sung as the gathering of worshipping Christians confess their sins. It seems such a strange request from a man who’s in the throes of grief over sins that he can’t deny and can’t take back. I would propose to you that it was exactly the right thing for David and each of us to pray whenever we’re confronted with our sins. But when you first read the word in Psalm 51, it does make you wonder, “What in the world is hyssop?” Researching the plant won’t give you much help. It produces a delicate white flower and is thought by some to have medicinal qualities. But this is one time that wikipedia.com won’t help you. What you really need to know, in order to understand the grieving in David’s request, is Old Testament history. David’s mind goes to that original Passover, when the firstborn of Egypt were stricken dead and the houses of Israel that had blood on the door frames, were passed over. What does this have to do with David’s request? Here it is. God directed the Israelites to take a branch of hyssop and dip it in blood and paint the door frames with it. Here is David, grieved by his sin and bowed before God between the “already” and the “not yet.” Already the blood of the first Passover had protected Israel from death and made their exodus to freedom and the land of promise possible. Already the Mosaic system of constant animal-blood sacrifices covered the sins of God’s people. But the promised Lamb had not yet come. Not yet had his blood been spilt, once and for all, in the final moment of sacrifice that forever ended any need for further sacrifice. So, reflecting on the past, David’s words actually reach into the future. They form the ultimate backdrop to the future prayer. For embedded in this cry for cleansing that remembers the spilt blood of deliverance (Passover) and the shed blood of forgiveness (Mosaic sacrifices), David cries for the one thing that anyone who acknowledges his sin will cry for; cleansing. When your sin really does become ugly to you, when it produces pain in your heart and sickness in your stomach, you celebrate forgiveness, but you want something more. You want to be clean. You long to be once and for all purified from all sin whatsoever. You want your sin to be once and for all washed away. You want to be free of every dark residue of sinful thought, desire, word, or deed. Yes, you’ll love the fact that you can stand before God dirty and unafraid because of his comprehensive and freely given grace. You’ll love the fact that his forgiveness of you has been full and complete. But you’ll grow tired of needing and seeking forgiveness. You’ll mourn the hold that sin has on you. You’ll be frustrated with the way that sin seems to infect everything you do. And you’ll begin to plead for what the blood of Jesus alone is able to do; wash away your sin! In this moment of need and helplessness, you’ll cry, “Purge me with hyssop Lord, dip the branch of your grace into the blood of your Son and cleanse me once and for all!”

An alternate syntax for let In this post I wondered how one might implement an alternate syntax for let (described in this C.L.L. post), which looks like this: (let (x 0 y 1 z 2) (+ x y z)) As it turns out my solution was actually let*, and therefore wrong. Nonetheless, here is wonderful macro provided by Jos that both implements the alternate syntax for let and also demonstrates a technique for how to use the equivalent of “temporary variables” inside of a macro:

1973 Cadillac Eldorado Here is a great example of a 1973 Pace Car, he Cadillac Eldorado with only 71,430 original miles. I've owned this vehicle since 2011 and I've had lots of fun with it at car shows.This is 1 of 513 vehicles that Cadillac made as "official replicas" that were sold thru the Cadillac dealers in the U.S.A. Each Cadillac dealer received one.All cars were white (Cotillion White) exterior and red (Med Scarlett) leather interior. They each came with a dash plaque stating that the car was indeed a limited edition replica of the pace car for the Indy 500 Mile Race.The car is listed on the 1973 Indy 500 pace car website www.indy500pacecars.com It's a good website to check theauthenticity of any 1973 Pace Car being sold.This vehicle drives very smooth at highwayspeeds. There is a small tear on the left lower side of the convertible top.Im also listing this car locally so auction can end at anytime.

Anne-Frances Miller: Spinning Toward Success BY NICK ZAGORSKI Anne-Frances Miller believes enzymes are catalysts extraordinaire. Consider the following: The industrial process used to make the vast quantities of fertilizer necessary to support agriculture worldwide involves exposing nitrogen gas (N2) to temperatures in excess of 400 degrees Celsius at 200 atmospheres of pressure. This illustrates the difficulty of breaking the triple bond in dinitrogen (second in strength only to that of carbon monoxide). Meanwhile, in the roots of leguminous plants, bacterial enzymes are carrying out the same chemical conversion at room temperature under standard pressure. Anne-Frances Miller in front of one of her NMR machines. This is the reason that Miller will never cease to be fascinated by enzymes. “Their ability to speed up chemical reactions by factors of millions, billions or more gives biology access to chemistry that would be useless at uncatalyzed rates,” she says. However, Miller, an associate professor of chemistry at the Uni­versity of Kentucky and director of the university’s nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy facility, is quick to point out that proteins should not get all of the glory. “Many of the most marvelous enzymes subcontract out the dirty work,” she says. “The most difficult chemistry is actually being executed by metal ions or organic cofactors. What the protein does is help select the proper substrate, focus the reactivity on the desired reaction and coordinate the reaction with other aspects of metabolism.” That partnership between the protein and its cofactor forms the basis of Miller’s research interests. Using spectroscopic tools like NMR and electron paramagnetic resonance, which can reveal the details of the molecular interactions occurring at the interface of the protein and cofactor, Miller seeks to understand the mechanistic basis behind enzyme catalysis, particularly oxidation-reduction reactions. And, by answering questions about, for example, how proteins guide the specificity of broadly reactive cofactors like metal ions or how a flavin’s chemical properties change when it becomes associated with a protein, Miller hopes to figure out one of the most enduring mysteries in enzymology: how proteins can both activate and control such powerful chemical reactions. “Take dioxygen, for example,” Miller says. “Molecular oxygen is an extremely reactive molecule thermodynamically, but it also has a large kinetic barrier for activation. This is why it has accumulated to about 20 percent of our atmosphere. Because of that barrier, dioxygen holds a huge reservoir of potential energy.” “Then, look at proteins,” she adds. “As reagents, they’re pretty mild-mannered— we even eat them for breakfast. How can proteins catalyze reactions with oxygen and not get burned up?” Such a sense of wonder about the natural world has been a staple of Miller’s mindset since her youth in Toronto. She recalls that her scientific awakening occurred around the time she was 13 years old, when her family took her and a friend for a weekend naturalist program on Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula. During their hikes, Miller was fascinated by how much information the guides knew about every moss, plant and liverwort they passed, including tidbits such as the plant’s habitat range, what chemicals were inside it and how the indigenous people used it. “I remember one foggy morning walk in particular,” she says. “We had heard a squawk in the distance above us, and one of our guides immediately told us that was a goshawk. That weekend revealed for me just how much information surrounds us, but we don’t notice, and so it passes us by. And I keep thinking how much richer our whole experience could be if we paid attention more.” That weekend getaway eventually led to a vigorous pursuit of science projects, both for science fairs and personal curiosity; Miller even dabbled in some plant breeding, which led her to pursue a degree in molecular genetics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Along the way, Miller also began taking physics courses, because she found that most of the biology courses were too descriptive and she was eager to understand science at a deeper level; in fact, by the time she graduated in 1982, Miller was just one course short of a physics major. At Guelph, Miller also got her first taste of NMR and EPR spectroscopy. “The notion that we could observe signals from single atoms or electrons was just amazing,” she says, “and it was a technology I wanted to learn more about.” To do that, Miller crossed the border into the United States, following a career trajectory that included graduate studies at Yale University with Gary Brudvig, analyzing the assembly and mechanism of photosystem II, a postdoctoral position with William Orme-Johnson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a second postdoctoral fellowship with Al Redfield at Brandeis University, conducting NMR studies on the conformation changes in the p21-Ras protein that contribute to tumor development. Her first independent appointment was at the Johns Hopkins University in 1992. Her professional journey was far from a series of seamless transitions. For example, Miller considers her time in graduate school to have been quite rewarding but not entirely successful. “I had two projects that either didn’t prove interesting to anyone other than me, or, by the time they worked, someone else had published the result,” she admits, adding that she learned valuable lessons about what constitutes good science, and that helped her career immensely later on. “I am enormously grateful to Gary Brudvig for giving me independence so I could learn these important lessons before it was my career on the line. This was especially courageous of him considering that, at the time, his was.” Other events were unforeseen, however, such as Miller having to leave her first postdoctoral position at MIT because her lab ran out of funding, forcing her to scramble to find a new lab to work in. This situation was made more difficult by the facts that her husband had just gotten a job in the Boston area and that Miller wasn’t a U.S. citizen and would have to leave the country if she didn’t find a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service-acceptable position very quickly. And, while Miller did secure a position at Brandeis, two years later the “two-body problem” became an issue again. After many unsuccessful attempts at finding a suitable destination with her husband, Miller eventually received a job offer she simply could not refuse: assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins University chemistry department. Although her long-distance “e-marriage” was trying, Miller had a fantastic time at Hopkins. “I had a chance to launch some very exciting studies and to work with fabulous colleagues; I would have loved to have been able to stay permanently.” Despite the best efforts by her colleagues, the university couldn’t find a way to open up a spot in the physics department for her husband. “After eight years, our family had reached a point where our first child was ready to start school, and we just had to be in the same city.” That led Miller to a difficult professional decision— relocating her lab to the University of Kentucky in 1999 so her family could be together. Heading into Orbit While the nature of the projects in Miller’s group at the University of Kentucky varies to exploit the composition and interests of her lab members, she maintains an overall theme of combining principles of biophysics and spectroscopy to examine protein control over cofactor reactivity. The lab focuses on two enzyme types: superoxide dismutases and enzymes that use flavins as cofactors. Superoxide dismutases, which metabolize toxic superoxide ions (O2-), regulate the reactivity of potentially reactive chemical species and are fairly well studied, providing a firm foundation for detailed studies of fundamental questions. “That is not to say superoxide dismutase has no more new stories to tell, because it certainly has,” Miller says, noting some exciting work in which her lab provided the first mechanistic explanation as to why iron- or manganese-containing superoxide dismutases become inactive if their cofactor is exchanged with the opposing ion, even though the three-dimensional structures of the two enzyme types are basically superimposable. Out of Focus: Language Barrier While you won’t catch more than a hint of a Canadian accent in speaking with Miller these days, she admits to having had occasional communication “challenges” when she first moved from Guelph to New Haven, Conn. This led to one of her more bizarre graduate school experiences. One day, while returning from school, she was approached and accosted by a pair of youths who demanded her bicycle. “Their accent was so strong and foreign to me that I could barely understand them,” she says. Add in the fact that she came from a small, quiet college town, and she was not prepared for such a situation. “So rather than run away immediately (and lose my bike), I responded with a polite, if scared, refusal. Then they had trouble comprehending me. After several back-and-forth exchanges in which I can remember thinking I was completely crazy to be insisting on retaining my bicycle and repeating ‘I beg your pardon’ (because I still could not understand their English), instead of fleeing back up the street, one of them cracked a smile.” She says, “This whole conversation was probably the last thing they expected and in retrospect, it really was humorous. Once it had become a joke, they waved me on and I rode off. I would, nonetheless, not recommend this as a general strategy.” Other recent spectroscopic analysis has revealed insights into how superoxide dismutase controls the movement of the electrons between the active site metal ion and substrate. “Proteins do not have good means of controlling electrons directly,” Miller says. “But we found that the big bridge by which superoxide dismutases regulate the sources and destinations of the transferred electrons is the protein’s exceptional control over protons, because the protons have a very big influence over where the electrons go.” Miller chose enzymes that use flavins as cofactors as her second interest, because these cofactors, which resemble nucleotides, hearken back to the ancient RNA world and are likely the remnants of the evolutionary ancestors to enzymes. And, as organic molecules, not inorganic metal ions, they have different spectroscopic properties that enable Miller to ask a different set of questions. Solid-state NMR, which, as implied by the name, examines samples that are solids or frozen solutions, can prevent the molecules under study from moving or reorienting. This allows orientation-dependent properties to be observed in the spectra, and, in Miller’s case, allows the three orientationally distinct components of the chemical shift to be resolved. Miller has looked at the carbon and nitrogen atoms of the flavin ring system to complement solution NMR studies of the surrounding amino acids of the protein. Most importantly, the solid-state NMR results often can distinguish between effects on different orbitals of the flavin, resulting from different interactions between the flavin and the protein. With that information, she hopes to understand how different protein environments cause the bound flavin to emphasize different reactivities out of its inherently broad repertoire. Meanwhile, solution NMR studies of the surrounding protein address issues such as how some flavoenzymes like nitroreductase have such a broad substrate specificity range. Beyond these studies, though, Miller is also busy trying to improve on the existing NMR and EPR technologies, so as to give them a broader and more cost-effective appeal. In discussing her drive to do this, Miller reflects back on when she first came to the U.S. for graduate school. “At the time I left Guelph, there were very few positions available in Canada, as funding for universities was very tight,” she says. “My professors not only repaired laboratory equipment themselves, because they couldn’t afford to get it serviced, they built the equipment themselves as well.” Considering the perilous nature of today’s economy, such memories resurface. “In a time of tightening budgets, there will be questions about the need to continue to run expensive NMR facilities,” she says, adding that the cost not only reflects the machines but the cryogens and reagents (like heavy isotopes of carbon and nitrogen) required to produce NMR-quality samples. While NMR holds many advantages as a tool for structure determination, it is weak when it comes to sensitivity because the magnetic moments of nuclei are quite small, thus, requiring large amounts of pure protein in each sample. Some research groups have begun trying to alleviate the sensitivity problem by combining elements of NMR and EPR technology in a new application known as dynamic nuclear polarization. Rather than directly polarizing (or exciting) nuclear magnetic moments, DNP polarizes electrons first, as they have magnetic moments about 660 times that of the 1H magnetic moment. DNP then transfers that polarization to nearby nuclei. “So in theory,” says Miller, “you could have an NMR signal that’s 660 times more powerful than usual, which is mind-boggling.” Thanks to a sabbatical she took, Miller, in collaboration with Thorsten Maly and Robert G. Griffin at MIT’s magnet lab, has tried to take DNP one step further. “Currently, DNP relies on added free radicals as bearers of the unpaired electrons,” she says, “but I realized that biology provides built-in radicals whose unpaired electrons can be used as sources of polarization. Many flavoproteins can be prepared with the flavin in a radical state, and the flavin molecule is bound in exactly the same way in each molecule. So we know where the polarization starts in every instance, in contrast with the random and uncontrolled locations of exogenous radicals.” Moreover, the flavin radical is often located in the enzyme’s active site. “So, instead of having to analyze an entire protein, you can take a shortcut and focus your measurements just on the active site,” she continues. This “smart” DNP, as Miller refers to it, should make the technique more applicable than ever, as a researcher won’t need large quantities of protein or even a pure sample. Only protein molecules containing the flavin would be evident in a DNP-NMR spectrum.

Ambulatory blood pressure and blood pressure measured at home: progress report on a population study. To determine reference values for ambulatory blood pressure, a population sample of 718 subjects (20 through 88 years old) was investigated. Ambulatory blood pressure was recorded over 24 h, taking measurements at 20-min intervals from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and at 45-min intervals from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. Trained nurses also measured the conventional pressure at each participant's home. The ambulatory blood pressure in the 718 subjects averaged 119/71 mm Hg over 24 h, 125/76 mm Hg during the day (10 a.m.-8 p.m.), and 108/62 mm Hg at night (0 a.m.-6 a.m.). Compared with the daytime pressure, blood pressure at home was on average the same in all 718 subjects but was 3/1 mm Hg lower in 530 normotensive subjects. The 95th percentiles of the 24-h pressures were 134/85 mm Hg in 182 men below age 50, 145/87 mm Hg in 164 men aged > or = 50 years, 127/80 mm Hg in 198 women below age 50, and 141/81 mm Hg in 174 women aged > or = 50 years. In the normotensive subjects of these four strata, these percentiles were 132/82 mm Hg (n = 149), 128/80 mm Hg (n = 103), 125/79 mm Hg (n = 180), and 131/79 mm Hg (n = 98). In comparison with earlier results in a smaller sample (n = 318) from which treated patients were excluded, this analysis demonstrated consistent results in the determination of a reference frame for ambulatory monitoring. Nevertheless, the prognostic significance of such reference values needs to be established in longitudinal studies and clinical trials.

Spart...congrats on the PR. I see some things that we need to help you fix. Your hips are coming up and you're losing leverage. You would be able to pull more if we get this ironed out. Do you concentrate on leading the lift with the head? I see when you tug on the bar your hips come up and your eyes go down. This is a sign to me that you're not leading with the head, but rather trying to pull the bar off the ground. Think about standing up instead of pulling the bar off the ground. Standing is a natural movement that forces you to lead with the head, and generally helps you to keep better leverage. On the other hand, when you focus on pulling the bar off the ground, the hips tend to shoot up. Think...stand up with the bar in my hands; lead with the head. Thanks! That was an ahhh moment! It makes a lot more sense than trying to pull it off the ground. I just want to try it tomorrow at the gym lol. __________________ Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. "When in doubt, just get really, really strong. It tends to cure most problems in training – and life." - Wendler

Aberrant cytoplasmic aggregation of FUS, which is caused by mutations primarily in the C-terminal nuclear localisation signal, is associated with 3% of cases of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis… (More) The G4C2 hexanucleotide repeat expansion, located in the first intron of the C9ORF72 gene, represents a major genetic hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.… (More)

1. Field The present invention relates generally to provisioning an endorsement primary seed (EPS) and an endorsement key certificate for a firmware trusted platform module (fTPM). 2. Background An EPS is a fixed-size random value fixed/bound to a particular trusted platform module (TPM). The EPS value is a secret. The endorsement key (EK) is an asymmetric key pair (e.g., RSA/ECCkey) generated using the EPS. The private component of this asymmetric key is a secret. A corresponding EK certificate (EKCert) is generated and signed by a Certificate Authority that vouches for the corresponding EK. The manufacturer of each TPM (a hardware module) provisions a unique EPS and corresponding EKCert into each TPM. For a firmware TPM (fTPM), nonvolatile (NV) storage is not available until an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) boots up the device using the TPM. Thus, the TPM manufacturer has no way to provision the EPS and corresponding EKCert in the factory. Storing the fTPM's unique EPS and EKCert (signature) in fuses would require hardware changes. During device initialization (or when needed) the TPM uses the EPS to generate the EK. The TPM can present the corresponding stored EKCert to another entity, and that entity can determine with certainty that they are communicating with a specific TPM. The EPS and private EK are security sensitive and should not be leaked during and after provisioning to the TPM. For such hardware-based TPMs, when the hardware is created, the EK and certificate pairs are generated on the factory floor and fused inside the TPM's emmc/fuses/ROM that is only accessible to the TPM. The TPM, by design, is not supposed to leak the private information. A problem with the fTPM is that it is software running in a secure kernel (TrustZone or other such environments) and it loads and runs on a standard CPU. Since it is all in software, device unique keys cannot be provisioned in the software. Also, it is especially challenging due to time-consuming secure generation of the EPS, EK, and EKCert, and to provision these when the final device (e.g., mobile phone, tablet, or other such device) is made in the factory. There is therefore a need for a technique for provisioning an EKCert for an fTPM.

Ag Food and Resource Economics Summer Experiences Week 9 Seeing as the end date is coming close I have been working on training the new co-op with the reports I run. I created a training document that would make this transition easier for him. The training document goes step by step what you have to do to run the MIC/Phytosanitary report. On Thursday Nolan (the new co-op) sat with me and ran part of the report himself. One of the benefits that I get from this report is SAP experience. I also presented the Spotfire Map I have been working on for a while now to the Veg Leadership team, Stock Seed Scheduler and Commercial Seed Schedulers. I’ve spoken about this map before and this is the coolest project I have ever worked on. Spotfire was new to not only Monsanto but also the vegetable team and I got the privilege to work on one of the first Spotfire projects in the vegetable team! I volunteered to create a survey for the Planning team, these surveys are to capture ways the planner and the planning team can better in terms of efficiency. This quiz will be distributed across the whole vegetable supply chain business and work its way to the foundation seed specialist. I worked with the team to also narrow down the list of questions we had to the ones we believed would be best for our situation. After these tasks I just tied up some loose end on my projects and my final presentation PowerPoint. An example of the map I created.

Read smart reviews: Connection Monitor - all you need to know about your network traffic — Although most people don’t care about their Internet connection until it goes down, there are users out there who need to know everything about incoming and outgoing traffic. These people may have their own servers or services that consume paid traffic or may be using Internet access plans with bandwidth or traffic limitations. Standard Windows tools do not allow you to log this information or generate traffic reports, so you will need Free HTTP Sniffer - a simple and efficient tool for real-time HTTP traffic monitoring — If your corporate network has been underperforming lately and demonstrating speeds that never reached their nominal design bandwidth, the reason may be that your LAN is slowed down by multiple concurrent multimedia streams opened by employees. In such situations, restricting access to streamed content may increase the speed of your LAN and boost the efficiency of your network. If you have faced this problem and still haven’t found

Three dimensional biphasic calcium phosphate nanocomposites for load bearing bioactive bone grafts. Mimicking matrix mediated bio-mineralization process, three dimensional blocks of biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP, hydroxyapatite (HA) and β-tricalcium phosphate (TCP)) nanocomposites, having three different stoichiometries have been synthesized for possible application as load bearing synthetic bone graft or scaffolds. Biphasic blocks with three weight ratios of 20:80, 25:75 and 30:70 of HA and TCP respectively have been synthesized. Detailed structural and chemical characterization of the samples revealed a strong dependence of porosity and mechanical properties on the stoichiometry of biphasic blocks. Effect of physiological medium on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the three different blocks has also been studied. Bioactivity of the BCP block, exhibiting highest compressive strength in air as well as in physiological medium, has been evaluated through adhesion, proliferation and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells using different markers.

Growth of Trichomonas vaginalis in a serum-free McCoy cell culture system. Axenic cultures of Trichomonas vaginalis normally require serum for proliferation, yet serum-containing medium may interfere with the detection of T. vaginalis-secreted virulence factors. Trichomonas vaginalis can, however, grow in coculture with a McCoy cell monolayer in both the presence and absence of serum. For 6 T. vaginalis isolates examined, growth in this serum-free system shows lower peak concentrations of T. vaginalis and longer doubling times than those apparent in a serum-containing McCoy cell system. McCoy cells employed in the system did not appear to secrete soluble growth factors for T. vaginalis. The presence of McCoy cells was required for serum-free proliferation of T. vaginalis possibly indicating that eukaryotic cell membrane components may be important in supporting serum-free growth in this system.

B.C. realtor suspended for alleged predatory schemes WATCH: The Real Estate Council of BC has suspended the licence of a realtor who’s at the centre of a dispute with a Maple Ridge couple who lost their home in a ‘rent to buy’ plan. As Geoff Hastings reports, the council is trying to determine whether it was an isolated case. The Real Estate Council of B.C. has suspended the licence of a realtor at the centre of a dispute with a Maple Ridge couple. The licences of Kevindeep (Kevin) Singh Bratch and Bratch Realty Ltd., have been suspended while the council investigates whether Bratch was using aggressive marketing and sales practices to target vulnerable people who were financially distressed as a result of their homes being in foreclosure proceedings. The licence suspensions remain in effect until further notice. Concerned clients of Bratch or Bratch Realty should contact the Real Estate Council of BC at 604-683-9664, toll-free at 1-877-683-9664, or by email at [email protected].

1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording tape cartridge which is used as a recording/playback medium mainly of computers or the like, and in which a recording tape, such as a magnetic tape or the like, is accommodated within a case. 2. Description of the Related Art There are conventionally known recording tape cartridges in which a recording tape, such as a magnetic tape or the like, is wound on a reel and the single reel is accommodated within a case. The recording tape cartridge is used as a data recording/playback medium of computers or the like. When the recording tape cartridge is loaded into a drive device, the recording tape is pulled-out from an opening via a leader member. The recording tape which is pulled-out is taken-up onto a take-up reel which is disposed at the opposite side of the recording tape cartridge, with tape guides and a recording/playback head of the drive device therebetween. Recording/playback systems (drive devices), which use recent recording tape cartridges which have improved recording density, are mainly of a type in which, on the basis of servo signals which are recorded in advance on the recording tape, the recording/playback head is moved in the vertical direction by an actuator with making the recording/playback head follows the servo signals, and data signals are recorded. Accordingly, it is desirable that the recording tape, which has been pulled-out from the recording tape cartridge, is supported by a plurality of tape guides within the drive device, and that control is carried out so that the recording tape always travels past a predetermined position of the recording/playback head. Examples of tape guiding systems within a drive device are: a system in which a cylindrical-shaped member rotates and regulating portions (flanges) are formed at both ends of the member, a system in which a similar cylindrical-tube-shaped member or a block-shaped member is disposed so as to be fixed disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2004-362755; a system in which a block-shaped member, which jets-out air and actively causes the recording tape to rise up, is disposed so as to be fixed disclosed in Japanese National Publication No. 9-511352, and the like. It is difficult to provide the reel within the recording tape cartridge and the reel hub of the take-up reel within the drive device to be straight absolutely. It is also difficult to straightly assemble and operate the tape guides and motors which rotate the respective reels. Therefore, even if the recording tape is supported by the tape guides of the drive device, the recording tape fluctuates in the transverse direction (the vertical direction) while traveling. In cases in which these fluctuations are marked, and, in particular, in cases in which the recording tape fluctuates in a short time period, it may be difficult for the recording/playback head, which moves in the vertical direction on the basis of the servo signals on the recording tape, to record or play-back the data signals because of these sudden positional fluctuations of the recording tape. Further, in recent recording/playback systems having high recording density, the size of the servo signals is made to be small, the recording density of the servo signals themselves is increased, and the traveling speed of the recording tape is made to be faster. Therefore, recording/playback errors of the data signals arising due to reading errors of the servo signals may happen because of the recording tape fluctuation of a level which has not been problematic conventionally. There are various factors causing fluctuations of the recording tape, such as bending of the recording tape, dispersion in the thickness distribution, residual warping, curling, an irregular curl in the transverse direction (heightwise direction) at the time when the recording tape is taken-up, the degrees of straightness of the take-up reel and the reel of the tape cartridge, the degrees of straightness of the motor, the tape guides, and the recording/playback head of the drive device, tape tension, positional offset in the transverse direction (vertical direction) of the plural tape guides, sliding resistance between the recording tape and contacting members, and the like. If the traveling position of the recording tape becomes unstable for any reason, this becomes a cause of the winding position of the recording tape being in disorder when the recording tape is taken-up onto the reel or the take-up reel, and, when the recording tape is next fed-out in the opposite direction, fluctuations in the position of the recording tape arising, or the recording tape colliding with the regulating portions (flanges) of the cylindrical-tube-shaped tape guides such that the transverse direction end portions (edges) thereof become damaged. Moreover, low-cost members are required in recording tape cartridges which are mass produced and consumed, as compared with the number of drive devices. Therefore, it is difficult to supply a recording tape cartridge which is adjusted at the time of assembly such that the precision thereof is improved. Further, as compared with the tape guides of the drive device, the dimensions of the reel hub of the tape cartridge are relatively large. Therefore, it is also difficult to obtain the reel hub having a cylindrical-tube shape which is as highly accurate as the tape guides of the drive device.

Adoration Point Adoration Points Adoration Points Adoration Points Past Events Barbecue night is today. Adoration Point measuring robots are hard at work measuring the Adoration Points of members. Not having high enough Adoration Points may deny you entry to the barbecue night. "Praise Conductor", "Basking Instructor" and "Adoration Officer" thelewa (that's me!) skyllzhogo (Archbishop of a Cult Assimilated) Tarix (Adoration Officer) Gragas (Supreme Supreme Director of Visual Praise) Brian OA (Supreme Director of Visual Praise) Demon (Prolific Artist of Visual Praise) [Kano Shuuya] (Grandmaster of Photoshop Glorification) TheNekoNextDoor (Specialist of Visual Praise) Please (Secretary of Complimentary Defense) Noobsicle (Chairman of the Beautification Committee) Darth_InvadeHer (Commander of the lewangelist Crusade) felicitousname (Supervisor of the Literary Division) smudgerox (Chief Engineer of Edible Praise) Vexy (Spokesman of the Sweet-talking Committee) Sonatora (Writer of Gospel) Matu (Artisan of Physical Adoration) Static Noise Bird (Apprentice of Physical Adoration) Akali (Elite Mapper) Worthlessx3 (Leader of the Choir) theLiminator (Head of Costly Adoration) Trehorna123 (Missionary) Harumi (Missionary) Justin- (Preacher of my Glory) Nikkumi (Adoring Masseuse) HaiK (Speaker of Glorious Facts) Maxorq (Maker of the Adoration Point Measuring Robots) Orteiga (Head of the Department of Ask.fm Study) NightPhoenix (Plan Supervisor for the Space Praise Program) laatikko2 (Collector of my Glorious Relics) Celizavia (Member of the Tsundere Adoration Brigade) ManiakkuChan (Full-time Member of the German Adoration Section) Arufrog (Dispenser of Doughnuty Praise) Ephemeral (Honorary Piece of Shit) IppE (Basking Instructor) [ RemoveKebab ] (Responsible for our sustenance during the barbecue night) Samui ABCD NpSun Athrun_Yamato Rewben2 Duskuser Tupsu a55b0mb B1rd Soulg LunarFox SHEP Rtyzen Trehorna123 persian Faayne Pacolito CptBlackBird Dozy Van Suzune Ihaz Vadrone GhostFrog Kui Tatch pondokers Ichara TheBurningFox Railgyun klonoa HanzeR deetz Ukod AusBox Ruri- Jugment Xenou 19120113121308 Makan1 SlySly JMC Ugmo uhuorc Syrasu Lerq Jimzzyyy HolyNightmare axsepsilon darkstar738 FujibayashiKun DatPenguinTho Capuce Sm superhero6 xElectroGH lolbob dippidy Maarteyy Crumb (Ascended to a higher plane of existence due to basking in my glory so much) Girl Gamer Inc (Habitual Adorer of Little Girls) Blueson (Possible future rival due to dangerous ambitions) pooptartsonas (Likely future rival due to dangerous ambitions) Mindfang (Suspiciously low amount of Adoration Points ) RemmyX25 ( Adoration Points at zero. No entry to the club at any cost.) Hika (Her commitment to the club was simply not enough and as such she has been barred entry.) Adoration Points AP Adoration Points Praise. Adore. Bask in my glory. The barbecue night was an overwhelming success. Everyone who attended definitely had great fun basking in my glory. I did enjoy the well-deserved praise and adoration, as well.Pay no heed to the disappearance of several members. I assure you that they never existed in the first place.Themeasuring robots have gathered so much data that they can now better determine theof members. They can now even measure theof non-members!Non-members whoseare found to be sufficient enough will be extended an invitation to the fan club. Joining the club is expected of you. Refusals will not be accepted.Today when I woke up I had an epiphany. I realized that some of the most brilliant people in the world still don't have legitimate fan clubs. This means that some of the most brilliant, amazingly awesome people don't get the praise and adoration they deserve.Incidentally, I am one of those people.So, to address the problem, I've decided to establish my own fan club.A lot of people who want to sound intelligent say stuff like "love yourself, and you will learn to love others", so I don't think this is weird in any way. I'm probably my biggest fan. I love myself. If I were asked to describe my relationship with myself, I'd probably say that it's something like "a dude who really likes jerking off". The bigger meaning behind that simple sentence is often overlooked. While a lot of people think that it's just a crude statement about a dude who really likes jerking one out, I think of it as something bigger. Me, a heterosexual male, am willing to eschew my own sexual preferences and make constant love to myself, who happens to be male(!). This is quite possibly the biggest form of love ever witnessed, and because of it, I should be the president of my own fan club.As a community, the obviously enormous amount of people that are going to join my fan club, will hold monthly meetings at my house. During those meetings, people will bask in the light of my incandescent light bulbs and my glory. If you are willing to attend these monthly sessions, you must agree to praise me nonstop and to bask in my glory when I play osu!You can consider thelewa's fan club operational from this day (29.10.2014) onwards. What follows is the recruitment of people for the very important jobs ofwhatever I can think of. Please post in this thread if you are in any way interested in helping my fans praise me or bask in my glory more efficiently.List of members:I will also be grading members through the use of. These points are determined by how much you adore me. The actual algorithm for calculating) will be kept secret to discourage farming. I want the ranking to be as fair as can be, so that I will know who my most adoring fans are.

Q: Finding smallest value in a linked list so i have two linked lists: One which contains items that are required, and another linked list which has a list of items. So linked list that contains items which are required outputs: Required item: Automobilis | Amount needed: 1 Required item: Kirvis | Amount needed: 2 Required item: Piesiniai | Amount needed: 2 Another linked list which holds all the items that i have Item name: Automobilis | Amount available: 1 | Price of item: 3000 Item name: Automobilis | Amount available: 1 | Price of item: 5000 Item name: Rubai | Amount available: 20 | Price of item: 80 Item name: Lemputes | Amount available: 3 | Price of item: 700 Item name: Piesiniai | Amount available: 1 | Price of item: 2000 Item name: Piesiniai | Amount available: 1 | Price of item: 1800 Item name: Kirvis | Amount available: 50 | Price of item: 100 I am trying to sort through the items that are required and the items that i have, see if the names match, if they match i want to add them to a new linked list. My linked list looks like this static void FormingNewList(LinkedList<Warehouse> house, LinkedList<Order> order, LinkedList<MatchingItems> match) { double min = house.First().Price; int count = 0; foreach (Order ord in order) { foreach(Warehouse store in house) { if(ord.Title == store.Title) { string nam = store.Title; int am = store.Amount; double price = store.Price; int id = count++; MatchingItems add = new MatchingItems(nam, am, price, id); match.AddLast(add); } } } } It outputs: Name of item: Automobilis |Amount of said item available: 1 |Price of item: 3000 Name of item: Automobilis |Amount of said item available: 1 |Price of item: 5000 Name of item: Kirvis |Amount of said item available: 50 |Price of item: 100 Name of item: Piesiniai |Amount of said item available: 1 |Price of item: 2000 Name of item: Piesiniai |Amount of said item available: 1 |Price of item: 1800 How do i go about only finding lowest price of given item. So for example if i have 1 car which is worth 5000 and another worth 3000 i want to choose the lowest price. So the desired output would be: Item: Automobilis | Amount: 1 | Price: 3000 Item: Piesiniai | Amount: 1 | Price: 1800 Item: Kirvis | Amount: 50 | Price: 100 A: If I understand, you want to group the products by Name then select the lowest price of that item. You can use GroupBy to separate the list by item Name, then Select the first item from the group after ordering by price (low to high). var SmallestValues = Items.GroupBy(i => i.Name) .Select(group => group.OrderBy(x => x.Price).FirstOrDefault());

GOP lawmakers approved some $2 billion in tax cuts over the past four years but since those cuts were largely phased in over time, they are now contributing to the projected future shortfalls by 2017, says Dale Knapp of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. “We really can’t say for sure what is driving this deficit but the economy might be growing more slowly than we thought, the (M&A) tax credit could be bigger than we thought and the cost of the income tax cuts could be bigger than we thought,” he says. The M&A tax credit in particular drew fire at the time it was approved in Walker's first two-year budget in 2011. Phased in over four years it was projected to reduce taxes on those business owners by $360 million initially and $130 million each year going forward.

Sunday, August 31, 2008 So why do we still have so many public buildings that fail to take that into consideration? Take a look at this picture. There is no cover over the “transition area” from the road to the front door of the store. Target put its big red balls out there to keep the cars ff the sidewalk but they didn’t think about people coming in from the rain. I particularly like the irony of the person in the black hoodie. He or she sits on the concrete planter between two empty benches, supposedly provided by the store, instead of the benches. At least the planter area is partially covered by trees The rains this past Friday got me thinking again about modern building design. As far as we have come in building design concerning accessibility and comfort systems, architects and building owners remain inconsistent in dealing with the rain and snow. Perhaps they believe that the building vestibule serves the purpose of providing a transition point between the outside elements and the inside elements. In my opinion, the common vestibule is just not up to this task. It is too small and too far removed from the street. This has always been one of my pet peeves of newer buildings. This shortcoming is not limited to retail either. You can find it in office buildings, libraries and cultural facilities too. When you approach these buildings with an umbrella in rainstorm, you often have to close the umbrella while still in the rain before you enter a store. Inevitably this simple process can give you a decent soaking, somewhat negating the value of the umbrella in the first place. Some modern buildings, such as this branch of The Columbia Bank, make an attempt to address this failing but even this effort comes up a bit short. A better example is found in the old aluminum awning covering the sidewalk in front of Yates Market on Main Street in Ellicott City. Town Center does not have a grocery store. It never had one. It doesn’t have a pharmacy. It doesn’t have a convenience store. Town Center does not have any neighborhood pools. Not one. The opponents of the Plaza Residences often decried the exclusivity of that buildings rooftop swimming pool but at least it had a pool. Town Center has neighborhoods that are separated by another village. The Town Center neighborhoods of Amesbury Hill and Creighton’s Run are only accessed by driving through the Wilde Lake neighborhood of Running Brook. It kind of makes you wonder whether the original Rouse planners had more of a concept than a real plan for Town Center beyond the mall and the office buildings that surround it. In many ways, the residents of the village are fortunate that General Growth has come along to fill this void in the Columbia vision. Monday, August 25, 2008 At the Wilde Lake Village Board meeting on August 4th, Geoff Glazer, Kimco’s Development Director, laid out the economics of opening a new grocery store. According to Geoff, it costs $6 million to build a typical store (approximately 50-60,000 square feet), another $6 million to install fixtures and an additional $4 million for staffing and inventory. That brings the total to $16 million. Within a mile and a half of Wilde Lake there is a Safeway at Harpers Choice, Giant at Hickory Ridge and Food Lion at Oakland Mills. The presence of these existing grocers combined with the lack of visibility of the village center (Twin Rivers Road is not a major artery) make it highly unlikely that a grocer would invest $16 million in a new store in Wilde Lake. Traditional grocery stores are feeling the same competitive pressure as other retailers. They are now attracted to centers that offer much more than the old village center model. A prime example is the Long Gate Shopping Center in Ellicott City where a Safeway shares space with Target, Kohl’s, Barnes & Noble, an Old Navy, Staples, and Michaels. As painful as it is for some older residents of the village to accept, it is time to accept this reality and move forward with a new model for Wilde Lake. Thursday, August 21, 2008 Nellis Corp, a developer based in Rockville, Maryland, recently purchased the Owen Brown Village Center from Winthrop Realty Trust, a New York based publicly traded (FUR) real estate investment trust. This village center, originally opened in 1979, was originally developed by the real estate division of Giant Foods and is the only village center in Columbia that was not developed by The Rouse Company. The purchase price was $5 million dollars for the 73,380 square foot shopping center, which seems to be a bargain price ($68.00 per square foot) considering that most commercial buildings in Columbia now trade for well over $200.00 per square foot. Tuesday, August 19, 2008 Another new subdivision has sprouted on College Avenue just up the hill from downtown Ellicott City. The subdivision, dubbed Maple Cliffe, consists of 21 homesites surrounding a home built in 1912 and commonly referred to as the Hogg home. The builders’ property brochure identifies the home as an “existing historic home.” When I visited the onsite sales trailer I was told by the sales agent that the home is a “registered historic property.” Still, it is an interesting old house. According to an article from the Sun dated May 1, 2005, the developer of the Hogg property told the Howard County Planning Board that “each home would be custom-designed and would reflect the architecture of the historic house.” This is what Dorsey Family Homes has built so far in the development. Does it “reflect the architecture of the historic house?” Monday, August 18, 2008 Yesterday I convinced Mama Wordbones that it was just too beautiful to spend at home working on the yard. I mean, how may August days do you get in Maryland when the temperature stays below 90 and there is a slight breeze? The trail passes under Broken Land Parkway, Route 32, Broken Land Parkway South, Guilford Road, and Interstate 95. There is something otherworldly about riding your bike through a bucolic stream valley with the continuous roar of traffic high above on the interstate. After the approximately 5 mile trek down from Columbia, you can stop in for a nice cold brew at the Rams Head Tavern in Savage Mill before heading back. We are already planning on making a return visit in the fall. It sure beats doing yard work anyway. Saturday, August 16, 2008 When Nancy Smith died on February 16, 1997, her 300 acre Blandair farm in the middle of Columbia went up for grabs. Over the years Ms Smith had been approached by many developers, including The Rouse Company, to sell her property. She rebuffed them all. She even refused to negotiate with the State of Maryland for the land needed to extend MD 175 (Rouse Parkway) through her property. The state eventually resorted to condemnation proceedings in order to secure the land. The state sent her a check for the land which she never cashed. Since she died without a will, her heirs were free to dispose of the property as they saw fit. Fortunately, the county and the state stepped in to purchase the farm for county parkland and prevent it from being developed with new homes. The county appointed a 23 member citizen Blandair Planning Committee to develop a master plan for the park. After 19 months and three public meetings a master plan was approved in 2003. Since that time, restoration work has commenced on the Blandair manor house and refinements have been made to the master plan. The revised master plan is shown in this post. Not surprisingly, this plan has generated some strong objections from the parks neighbors. There will be a public meeting to discuss this revised plan on Thursday, September 11th at 7pm at Oakland Mills High School. Friday, August 15, 2008 The news of the stalled hotel deal in Columbia Gateway reminded me of another large local hotel project that may be in jeopardy. The Crosswinds Resort at the BWI Thurgood Marshall airport is a $450 million planned development that includes 1,100 hotel rooms, a 125,000 square foot indoor aquatic park (think larger than Lifetime Fitness), a 90,000 square foot conference center and 100,000 square feet of retail off Winterson Road in the Airport Square Tech Park. The website projects a late 2007 construction start with project completion in late 2009. The photo above was taken last month. Aside from this sign, there was no evidence of any other construction activity. A subsequent email sent to the ASHA Companies in Clarksville requesting an update on the development went unanswered. I suspect that the current constriction in the capital markets has adversely affected this hotel deal too. One of the attractions of this film is that it is shown in Real 3D. Unfortunately for us, the Regal Cinemas at Snowden Square were not showing the Real 3D version. If I had read the fine print I would have seen that it had advised that you call the theatre beforehand to see if they are showing it in Real 3D. Of course I didn’t do that so it wasn’t until I got to the ticket window that I found out that this was one of the theatres that wasn’t showing it in 3D. I stood there wondering why a theatre would not show a movie that was especially made for 3D in 3D. As it turns out, my daughter didn’t care. She really just wanted to see the dinosaurs and she really didn’t care that it was or wasn’t in 3D. In fact, she isn’t a big fan of wearing those glasses anyway. So we bought the tickets and entered the near empty lobby. There was no wait at the concession stand. When we entered the theatre we were also the only ones there. In all my years of going to movies, this is the first time that I have been in a movie theatre where we were the only patrons. It was our own private showing. This morning, as I was reading the Sun, I came across this story about a protest that was held that same morning at Snowden. Judging from the lack of crowds that we witnessed, we both would have been better off at the other Columbia theatre. According this story in this weeks Baltimore Business Journal, the response to General Growths Request for Proposals for a new hotel in Columbia Gateway was underwhelming. Approximately a year ago, GGP sent out the RFP to hotel developers for a 300 room hotel on a recently cleared ten acre site directly across MD 175 from the new Gateway Overlook shopping center. GGP had previously envisioned a conference center hotel on this site to service the growing business community in the park. GGP is also proposing a 340 conference hotel in the plans for the Symphony Overlook neighborhood in the new Columbia Town Center plans. It is unclear if the lack of response to the Gateway hotel site will have an impact on the hotel plans in the first phase of the town center redevelopment plans. Tuesday, August 12, 2008 “Seriously!” Apparently they make a nice local resource for historians. I was having this conversation with one of the volunteers at the Howard County Historical Society library in Ellicott City a few weeks ago. I had dropped by to do a little research on another post that I am working on. They were super helpful and pleasant. When he mentioned the yearbook thing, I immediately knew exactly where my copy of the 1972-1973 edition of The Glass Hour was. As it happens, we had recently built a new bookcase in my home office. In the process of selecting which books would stay and and which ones would be relegated to the donation box bound for the library, I uncovered my Wilde Lake High School yearbook. It has survived numerous moves over the years, some of which was spent in musty basement storage bins. It has a certain smell now. I guess it kind of smells like history. Anyway, the conversation with the guy at the Historical Society (I am afraid I have forgotten his name) resulted in my retrieving the old book for another look. It had been awhile since I had last paged through it. One of the pages that caught my eye was this one. It lists the speakers that tried to enlighten us during our senior year. In a way it captures what the vibe was in Columbia back then. Of course the question is now can I part with my old yearbook? I mean we’ve come so far already, how could I let it go now? Then again, this is kind of like sending it off to an assisted living facility. Saturday, August 09, 2008 Every so often I’ll write a column, sit on it for day or so, then tear it up and start all over. That was the story with my August column in The Business Monthly. The August column started out being narrative of sorts about the July meeting of Columbia Association Board of Directors. This was the meeting where a motion, put forward by the boards Planning and Strategy Committee, was to be discussed and voted on. The motion was intended to lay out ground rules for the Columbia Association staff before they sat down with representatives of General Growth Properties to discuss the company’s draft master plan for town center. A key element of the motion was the stipulation that no new roads or buildings would be allowed in Symphony Woods Park. This stipulation was in response to GGP’s suggestion that the park become a more widely used and accessible amenity and a gateway to a renovated Merriweather Post Pavilion. GGP is also proposing that this ‘gateway” would also be an ideal place to locate a new headquarters for the association and possibly a new and larger central library. Unlike most CA board meetings which are lucky to attract more than ten people, this particular meeting was packed. By the time the meeting got underway it was standing room only. Interestingly, the audience seemed to be evenly split between those who supported the motion and those who felt that it was too constraining and counter productive. The resident testimony ran the gamut from the absurd with comments like “When I moved here I was told that nothing more would be built in town center” to the comical “New roads and buildings in the park would be illegal.” The attendees also shared a common characteristic. They were mostly boomers. The only young person I saw was a guy named Matt Petr. I told him I was heartened to see a young face in the crowd. He explained to me that he was there to get CA to sign off on some utility easements. In other words, he was working. He didn’t have a clue about the big debate of the evening but he was profoundly affected by it. Matt didn’t get to go before the board until just before 11:00 PM. I guess he got to know Columbia pretty well that night. At the end of the meeting the motion was modified to allow staff to consider “limited new roadways or buildings of a park related scale.” That sounds ambiguous enough for me. So I wrote about the meeting. I included all the good quotes I had collected. Then I put it aside and went for a ride. I drove into Town Center, parked in Symphony Woods and looked around. That’s when it hit me. What happened to the Columbia I used to know? I went back to my computer and started all over. You can find this month’s column here. Thursday, August 07, 2008 Some people have been raising a fuss about “the removal of two fifths of the trees in Symphony Woods in order to accommodate buildings.” It's pretty easy to get folks all riled up with statements like that. I don’t know where the two fifths calculation came from but since Liz Bobo mentioned it in her op-ed piece in the Sun last month it seems to have become gospel. This exhibit from General Growths draft master plan for Town Center puts the tree removal issue into perspective. When you look at it this way the impact of the new buildings and roads on the park just doesn’t seem that significant. If the “two fifths” cry is gaining traction in the court of public opinion it is partially GGP’s fault. The graphic depiction shown here is found towards the end of the “Vision in Focus: Sustainability / Environment” presentation that can be downloaded from their town center website. The problem is that this presentation downloads very slowly, even with a good high speed connection. Many people will give up viewing this critical presentation long before they get to this particular exhibit. It’s much easier to hang on to a politician’s sound bite than to wade through a slow loading power point presentation for the real story. Wednesday, August 06, 2008 Two days ago we received this water cut off notice in the mail from the county. I asked Mama Wordbones if I should start filling the bathtubs and all available containers while we still had service. Mama Wordbones takes care of the household bills in our household. She did not share my humor in this matter. “I just the paid that bill and it isn’t even due yet,” she told me. I was instructed to call the the next day to find out what was going on. It turns out that we were not only ones who received a cutoff notice. According to this story in today’s Sun, 1,047 other customers got them as well. The woman I spoke with in the Water and Sewer Division of the Department of Finance apologized. She told me they were using a new computer program and they apparently were still going through a learning curve with it. She said she had spent most of the day talking to some very irate people. Monday, August 04, 2008 Driving by the Howard County Off Leash Park on Hillsborough Road in Ellicott City today I spotted these colorful piles of trash. Being the curious type and it being a lovely day I decided to check it out. There were three or four loosely scattered piles of what are often referred to as “bandit” signs. Bandit signs are temporary real estate signs. I believe they are only allowed to be used over the weekends and that the owners are responsible for seeing to it that the signs are removed by sometime on Monday. It looks to me as if somebody was policing that policy today. From the dog park I scooted down 29 to the Wilde Lake Village Center. I needed to stop in at that particular branch of the Columbia Bank. At 2:30 in the afternoon the village center was a ghost town. Tonight the Wilde Lake Village Board will meet at 7:00 PM. One the guests will be Kevin Allen from Kimco. He will presumably be there to discuss the proposed revitalization of the village center. A number of people are opposed to the plans which include adding 500 residential units to the property. Kimcos plan will also greatly reduce the amount of retail space in the center. This of course, upsets those Wilde Lake residents who stubbornly cling to the notion that another grocery store will come if only Kimco would just try a little harder. Ahem. I know Kevin Allen. He’s a nice guy. I think he’s going to have a rough time tonight. Sunday, August 03, 2008 In a previous post I wrote that it appeared as if Altieri Homes was closing up shop. That conclusion may have been a bit premature. According to this story in this weeks’ Baltimore Business Journal, the Columbia based homebuilder is still hoping to avoid bankruptcy. According to story reported by Daniel Sernovitz “the company has been forced to slash its staff from 105 to seven employees, eliminate several communities from its pipeline and turn over much of its construction and marketing work to outside firms. Even with those efforts, Altieri said, the company does not expect to reach firm financial footing for at least another year or more.” About a year ago I wrote a little post about a roadside farm stand on New Cut Road in Ellicott City. What I did not share at the time was the ongoing deliberations as to the status of this portion of New Cut Road. The intersection of New Cut and Montgomery Road has always been a little tricky. Cars looking to exit New Cut on to Montgomery often have a difficult time. The construction of the new Glen Mar United Methodist Church accross the road from Baughers includes a rerouting of a portion of New Cut Road. This new alignment bypasses the little farm stand. Last year the county was contemplating “dead ending” the section of New Cut that runs in front of the stand. This plan did not sit well with the Baughers who have operated this farm stand for over 70 years. Yesterday, when I stopped to buy some fresh picked corn, Joan Baugher informed me that the road will now be restricted to turn ins only from Montgomery Road when the road work is completed. The family is pleased with this plan. The little stretch of road that runs in front of the farm stand will be renamed “Baugher Farm Road.” It remains unclear when this work will be completed and these changes put in place. Friday, August 01, 2008 I met a colleague for lunch today at Sushi Sono. It was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon with a slight breeze, picture perfect day at the lakefront in Columbia. There was only one thing missing…people. Now I can understand that this time of year lots of folks are on vacation so traffic might be expected to be light but this was striking. Town Center at noon on a beautiful Friday in the summertime was dead. As I walked towards the restaurant I ran into Barbara Lawson. She was sitting at an outdoor table at the Tomato Palace waiting for Mary Ellen Duncan to arrive. She had the same observation. Barbara told me that she recently hosted a family from Columbia’s sister city, Tres Cantos, in Spain. One night, one of her guests asked if they could take a walk to the lakefront. Barbara lives in the Bryant Woods neighborhood near the lake so this was theoretically easy to do. Theoretically easy perhaps but in practicality it turned out to be a bit challenging. She described racing across Governor Warfield Parkway before the crossing light turn red while hoping that nobody ran that light. She then described navigating through the mall ring road and parking lots.. The light was out at Sterrett Place and Little Patuxent Parkway so that crossing was a little dicey too. When they finally arrived at the lakefront it was much like this afternoon…dead. They walked out to pier and were looking back at the pretty but empty lakefront plaza when one of her guests uttered “Such a pity.” I’ve been going over the numerous exhibits on the Columbia Town Center website put up by GGP. I enjoy it when I uncover a little detail that I missed when I first started seeing these drawings a few months ago. My latest discovery is the “Hug” statue park. In the first pubic presentation of GGP’s town center draft plan, a new “street” was shown running through the little park between the American City Building. This immediately raised the ire of CoFoDoCo among others. One month later, Doug Godine was replaced as the General Manager of Columbia with Greg Hamm. Greg arrived in his new post just as the poinsettia tree dust up was going on at the mall. In one of his first official acts as the new sheriff in town, Greg restored the poinsettia tree tradition and immediately earned himself some serious Columbia brownie points. The poinsettia tree was saved by the hand of Hamm. Now it appears that the Hug park has been saved by the same hand. If you look close at the drawing, you will see that a street no longer runs through the little park. Compare this drawing with the one that Doug Godine showed back in November. True, there are many more changes from that earlier version as well. This one just seems to have a strikingly familiar “community gesture of goodwill” feel like the poinsettia tree decision. I’m calling it another save by the hand of Hamm. And, in all fairness, the saving of this little park should also be attributed to CoFoDoCo. Subscribe Now: Feed Icon My Stuff Facebook Badge The Gong Wampeters, Foma & Granfaloons Quantcast/Alexa Disclaimer Stuff This is a personal web log about stuff around here. The opinions and views of the blogger are just that, opinions and views of the blogger, not the bloggers employer, parish priest, probation officer or anyone else for that matter. 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