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HONG KONG, Aug. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd. (HKEx: 0460) ("Sihuan Pharmaceutical" or the "Company"), a leading pharmaceutical company with the largest cardio-cerebral vascular ("CCV") drug franchise in China's prescription drug market, today announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2013 ("1H2013" or "review period").
Financial HighlightsFor the Six Months Ended 30 JuneKey Income Statement ItemsRMB MillionChange %20132012Revenue2,324.71,389.3
+67.3%Gross Profit1,847.11,071.4
+72.4%Profit Attributable to Owners
of the Company617.5461.4
+33.8%Dividend per Share (RMB Cents)4.33.1
N/AWith its successful internal adjustment in 2012 that strengthened its operational efficiency as a whole, coupled with the rebounds of its key products Kelinao and Oudimei and rapid growth of its fast-growing promising products such as Yuanzhijiu, Yeduojia and Danshen Chuangxiongqin, Sihuan Pharmarceutical recorded a revenue of RMB2,324.7 million, a significant increase of 67.3% year-on-year. The sales contribution from products launched after the Company's listing in 2010 continued to expand, reaching approximately 60% of total revenue. Gross profit surged by 72.4% to RMB1,847.1 million during the review period, while profit attributable to owners of the Company grew by 33.8% to RMB617.5million. The Board of Directors recommended an interim dividend of RMB 4.3 cents per share (2012: RMB3.1cents)
Dr. Che Fengsheng, Chairman and CEO of the Company, said, "In the first half of 2013, Sihuan Pharmaceutical further consolidated its well-established lead in the CCV drugs market and became the third largest pharmaceutical company in the Chinese prescription drug market. Momentum in growth in the Company's business picked up, which was the culmination of the ability of our extensive product portfolio to bring us a balanced contribution and sustainable growth. Together with our competitive edges developed over the previous years, we are well-positioned to weather the challenges arising from the external policy changes and market competition. More importantly, after the completion of our internal integration during the past 2 years, as well as having experienced various challenges in the past, Sihuan Pharmaceutical has become more mature and stable, with its overall competitive strengths significantly enhanced."
Rebounds of Key CCTV Products and Rapid Growth of Fast-growing Promising Products Boosted Strong Growth in SalesCCV Products
Thanks to a young and diversified product portfolio, sales of CCV products grew 73.4% to RMB2,214.7 million during the review period, which accounted for 95.3% of total revenue, and again making CCV products the Company's largest revenue contributor. The Company achieved significant improvement in sales of Kelinao and Oudimei, its two major exclusive products. As the Company stepped up its support to its distributors for academic promotion and deepened its penetration into third to fourth tier cities, sales of Kelinao increased by 32.1% year-on-year. As for Oudimei, the Company was able to deepen penetration in existing markets and expand into new markets by winning tenders at stable price levels in more provinces, and supplementary tender submissions in provinces where tenders were delayed. As a result, sales of Oudimei jumped 140.1% year-on-year in the first half of 2013.
Moreover, sales of the Company's two other exclusive products, Yuanzhijiu and Yeduojia, maintained rapid sales growth during the period, with sales of the products up 120.8% and 560.9% to RMB202.0 million and RMB129.4 million, respectively. Sales of the Company's other promising products, namely Danshen Chuanxiongqin injection, Guhong injection and Yimaining, also grew significantly by 157.2%, 109.6% and 53.3% to RMB 57.1 million, RMB151.2 million and RMB92.7 million, respectively. Meanwhile, the Company's established products such as Chuanqing, Qu'Ao, Qingtong and GM1 recorded steady sales growth on the back of deepened market penetration, especially into low-end markets.
Non-CCV Products
The increasingly fierce price competition in the Chinese market of non-exclusive products led to relatively lower sales volume of the Company's non-CCV products, which are predominantly non-exclusive drugs. Nevertheless, sales of and Zhuo'Ao increased by 59.1% and 21.8% respectively.
Clear sales and marketing strategies achieved positive resultsDuring the Period, the Company stepped up its academic promotion work as well as boosted incentives to distributors for Kelinao and Oudimei, thereby encouraging more frequent promotion of our products and increasing clinical use. In the meantime, the company speeded up market penetration of Oudimei by provincial tender wins and supplementary tender submissions in provinces where tenders were delayed. As a result, the Company successfully accelerated the sales rebound of Kelinao and Oudimei. On the other hand, the Company achieved satisfying results through appropriate tender strategies for each product, depending on competitiveness of their markets and their level of maturity in different markets. For products at earlier stages of development and are exclusive or have fewer competitors, the Company expanded market coverage by provincial tender wins and supplementary tender submissions in provinces where tenders were delayed. For non-exclusive products, the Company strategically expanded its access to low-end markets with EDL ("Essential Drug List") tender wins and participation in the rural cooperative medical scheme.
New products development enter into the harvest periodSince Xuanzhu Pharma Co., Ltd. becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company in 2012, the Company achieved a number of breakthroughs by leveraging its effective resources integration. To date, the Group has received Approval for Clinical Trials for a total of five Category 1 innovative drugs from the China State Food and Drug Administration ("CFDA"), including, Benapene, Imigliptin Dihydrochloride and Anaprazole Sodium. In addition, L-Phencynonate Hydrochloride, a Category 1 innovative drug, and Cinepazide Mesilate, a Category 4 exclusive new drug are progressing as planned. The collaborative development project with NeuroVive, innovative CCV drugs CicloMulsion and Neurostat, are in progress as planned towards clinical trials. CicloMulsion is filing application for Approval for Clinical Trials in China.
For the aspect of generic drugs, after gaining production licenses for Roxatidine, a first-to-market exclusive generic drug, and Nalmefene Hydrochloride Injection, a Category 3.1 generic drug, the products successfully passed final inspections and were officially launched. Development of other Category 3.1 generic drugs in the pipeline such as Levetiracetam injection, Lacosamide, and Aprepitant are also in progress as planned. Including these three drug development projects, the Group has a total of 17 Category 3.1 first-to-market generic drug projects under development. In addition, production license applications were filed for two other generic drugs during the Period and approvals from CFDA are expected to be issued by the end of 2013.
Production and Quality ManagementIn compliance with the new Good Manufacturing Practice ("GMP") standards, upgrades of the Company's production bases in Beijing, Jilin and Liaoning are approaching completion. The Group plans to apply for new GMP standard certification in September 2013. The Company's Active Pharmacentical Ingredients production facility, Langfang Gaobo Jingband established cooperation with the largest Canadian-owned pharmaceutical company Apotex Inc. during the Period. More importantly, the production facility passed on-site inspection by the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") of United States in July 2013. EIR from FDA is expected to be issued in the third quarter of 2013 representing FDA's approval of its GMP operation system that its products can be exported to the US.
Future ProspectsLooking ahead, the development of the Chinese pharmaceutical market in the second half of 2013 will continue to be driven by the expansion of national medical insurance coverage, the rising per capita subsidy standard for medical insurance and the increasing maximum reimbursements ratio for medical treatment, in addition to the accelerated pace of urbanization and China's ageing population. The Company believes that the pharmaceutical industry will remain one of the fastest-growing industries in the country. Consolidation in the industry is intensifying due to medical reform, tightening control of hospital medical budget, spiralling price competition and the implementation of the new GMP standard. Nonetheless, these changes will benefit the Company comprising companies with strong R&D capabilities, a balanced product portfolio, distinguished sales and marketing capabilities, and an efficient production system, by being in a better position in grasping rising opportunities in the market.
Leveraging its outstanding product portfolio, with all six key products and potential blockbuster being exclusive products, coupled with over ten products with exclusive formulations or dosages which have been included in the recently expanded national EDL, and products such as Kelinao, Yuanzhijiu and Chuanqing recently added to the Guangdong EDL, the Company is expected to sustain business growth for the Company in the coming five years. In addition, the Company's long-term growth momentum will be supported by a variety of innovative patented drugs and first-to-market generic drugs under development. These products are expected to be launched starting from 2015.
In view of strong future growth, the Company will continue to enhance its nationwide distribution network and sales and marketing capabilities. Meanwhile, the Company will continue to exploring opportunities and enhancing its R&D capability by continuous investment in order to sustain healthy and sustainable growth.
Dr. Che concluded, "Despite increasingly rigid demand in the pharmaceutical industry, changes in policies and intense market competition continue to pose challenges to the industry's development. As an innovative pharmaceutical company which focuses on exclusive and proprietary products, Sihuan Pharmaceutical has sharpened its advantage in resources amidst the challenging market environment. Backed by its outstanding capabilities in sales and marketing, R&D and resource integration, Sihuan Pharmaceutical is poised to capitalize on the trend of industry consolidation and to achieve sustainable development going forward. I am highly confident in Sihuan's 2013 full year operating results and the Company's future development, and firmly believe that it will welcome a new era of development by entering into a steady growth trajectory. We are taking concrete steps towards our goal of becoming the most competitive Chinese pharmaceutical company."
About Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd.Founded in 2001, Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd. is a leading Chinese pharmaceutical corporation and the largest cardio-cerebral vascular drug franchise in China's prescription drug market by market share. The Company also became the third largest pharmaceutical company in terms of hospital purchase in the Chinese prescription drug market in the first half of 2013. The success of the Group can be attributed to its differentiated and proven sales and marketing model, extensive nationwide distribution network, young and diversified product portfolio, and strong R&D capabilities. The company's current products encompass the top five medical therapeutic areas in China: cardio-cerebral vascular system, central nervous system, metabolism, oncology and anti-infectives. Their major products such as Kelinao, Oudimei, Yuanzhijiu, Yeoduojia, GM1 and Chuanqing are widely used in the treatment of various cardio-cerebral vascular diseases.
|SOURCE Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd.
Copyright©2012 PR Newswire.
All rights reserved


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|The tornado from the eastern shore of Indian Lake.
(Text copyright (c) 2011 Cynthia Shenette; Photo is not under copyright and is available from the Internet Archive. )
According to Mom June 9, 1953 was a hot day. A really hot day. She left work and was walking from her office in the Federal Building up Main Street to the bus stop in front of Barnard's department store when the sky started to get dark. When she heard thunder she decided to wait at the front of the store under cover, because rain seemed imminent. It wasn't long before the rain started.
Even fifty years later she remembered the storm, vividly. She described it as a "a wild storm" with a black sky, thunder, lightening, and an intense driving rain. It was nothing like she had ever seen before. When the storm finally stopped she started to hear sirens. Lots of them. One after another. Emergency vehicles--police cars, fire trucks, ambulances--racing up Main St. to the north part of the city. She said it wasn't long before emergency vehicles began to return back down Main St., sirens still blaring. Again, fifty years later, my mom's most vivid memory besides the storm itself, was of seeing pick-up trucks carrying dozens of bloody, wounded people down Main St. to hospitals around Worcester. There were too many injured people and not enough ambulances to transport everyone.
When my mom finally did get home she was relieved to find everything was okay. My grandmother, who was at home at the time, described an awful storm. The family home, the home where I later grew up, was near Indian Lake in Worcester. My grandmother said that after the storm passed, she looked out at the lake and saw huge, churning waves like you might see on a stormy day at the ocean. My mother and her family still had no idea what had happened. They didn't know that a massive tornado, one mile in width, had just blown through the city less than two miles away from their home. They were the lucky ones.
For my family the tornado was a close call, and given the losses other people suffered, more like an inconvenience. My parents wedding was scheduled June 13, and there was some doubt as to whether they would be able to hold their wedding reception in Sterling, two towns north of Worcester. The wedding guests were able to drive around and through the areas of destruction, and the reception went on as scheduled.
The Worcester tornado left a path of destruction through Petersham, Barre, Rutland, Holden, Worcester, Shrewsbury, Westboro, and Southboro. A second funnel cloud spun off the initial storm near Grafton to travel southeast eventually ending in the Wrentham area. When all was said and done 94 lives were lost, 15,000 were left homeless, 4,000 homes were destroyed, and the storm did damage to the tune of $53 million, in 1953 dollars.
My mother said that no one had ever heard of a tornado in Massachusetts. Certainly not one with that kind of power. Tornadoes were not classified according to the current Enhanced Fujita Scale in 1953 as they are today. The Worcester tornado is currently classified as a EF4, though I have heard that it was a strong F4, possibly even an F5. Last week's devastating series of tornadoes in Massachusetts are a painful reminder, that yes, it can happen here.
Tornado!: 84 Minutes, 94 Lives, is a wonderful book written by local Worcester author John M. O'Toole. The book, written in 1993 and still available through Amazon, is an "...eyewitness story of the tornado with the highest winds ever recorded," a true statement when the book was published. The record for highest winds stood until the Oklahoma City tornado of 1999. Heather Rojo of Nutfield Genealogy wrote a great post a couple of weeks ago about the Worcester Tornado. I also invite you to read Susan Clark's wonderful post, Our Places - Those Places Thursday if you haven't already. Her post is one of those pieces that makes me want to say, "What she said..." Finally, the American Red Cross of Central and Western Massachusetts is accepting donations for tornado disaster relief. Please donate if you can.
Yes, it can happen here...
Other Posts You Might Like:
Worcester Tornado Memorial - TombstoneTuesday
Where I Grew Up - Wordless Wednesday
The Stories My Grandmother Told Me
Fascinating Ladies

subset: commoncrawl


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NZ dollar gains vs. Oz dollar as business investment slows
Article – BusinessDesk
Nov. 29 (BusinessDesk) – The New Zealand dollar gained against its Australian counterpart after official figures showed business investment is slowing in Australia, which could be a key factor in its central bank interest rate decision next week. The kiwi …
NZ dollar gains vs. Australian dollar as business investment slows across the Tasman
By Paul McBeth
Nov. 29 (BusinessDesk) – The New Zealand dollar gained against its Australian counterpart after official figures showed business investment is slowing in Australia, which could be a key factor in its central bank interest rate decision next week.
The kiwi rose to 78.75 Australian cents from 78.56 cents yesterday. It traded at 82.41 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 82.34 cents at 8.30am, and up from 82.14 cents yesterday.
Australian capital spending advanced 2.8 percent from the second quarter, when it rose 3.4 percent, the Bureau of Statistics said in Sydney today. Still, signs of a slowing Australian resources boom have investors nervous the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut interest rates next week.
Traders are pricing a 68 percent chance the 3.25 percent target cash rate will be trimmed, according to the Overnight Index Swap curve. New Zealand's central bank, which also meets next week, is being given a 14 percent chance of a cut to its 2.5 percent official cash rate, meaning Australia's yield advantage will probably narrow.
"The Aussie capex data was a bit mixed, but doesn't seem to have done anything to upset things," said Chris Tennent-Brown, FX economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "The kiwi was lifting through the morning (against the Australian dollar), and since then (the capex data) it has outperformed."
Risk-sensitive currencies got a lift from upbeat comments by US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who said he was optimistic policymakers could "avert this crisis sooner rather than later," referring to the US$607 billion of automatic tax increases and spending cuts pencilled in for Jan. 1.
The kiwi dollar might also have got a fillip from investors in the Fonterra Cooperative Group's shareholder fund float. About 42 percent of the $525 million initial public offer went to international investors who will have to settle their accounts after getting their allocation yesterday. The units are set to begin trading tomorrow.
The trade-weighted index advanced to 73.74 from 73.46. The currency rose to 67.65 yen from 67.22 yen yesterday, and increased to 51.45 British pence from 51.30 pence. It advanced to 63.63 euro cents from 63.50 cents yesterday.
Content Sourced from scoop.co.nz
Original url


text:
Simple Machines Blogs > SMF Team Blog
Get To Know The Team - Suki
(1/27) > >>
Its been 6 wonderful months almost 4 years! since I joined the team so I thought about sharing some more info about me for those who wanna know :)
Name: Jessica.
Location: México City
Quote: "Sin talento no busques grandeza, porque nunca la vas a tener."
Support helper of the month
Support Specialist
Lead Customizer
* Do you have pets?
Yes, a dog.
Update, sadly, not anymore, my dog died early this year.
* What is your favorite color?
* What kind of music do you like?
I mostly enjoy bands like Ladytron, Crystal Castles and Zoé, I also enjoy listening to The Smiths.
* What do you do on your free time besides spending time on SMF?
I love backpacking, chatting, coding, shopping and reading One Piece. oh and watch Dawson's Creek and NCIS ;)
Update, Still pretty much the same, jut got bored watching NCIS and I already saw Dawson's Creek enough times :P added a bunch of new bands too
* What are your goals/dreams in life?
To open my own bookstore in a small quiet city.
Update, yep, still working on it.
* What got you involved in SMF?
I joined a Spanish scanlation forum that was using SMF 1.1.x to help out with translations back in 2006, eventually I became a global moderator and then an admin, I started to look how the forum worked and also started to tweak things here and there, that forum got closed and I decided to joined here to learn more about SMF.
* Who do you admire? Why?
My mom, she managed to raise 3 kids all by herself.
* Are you into sports? If so which ones?
Not really, I do Yoga though.
* What is your dream job?
Be self employed, preferable on a bookstore :P
* What was your first screenname?
Suki and Miss All Sunday are the only nicknames I had used so far.
Update, A few months ago I went to my mom's and re-discovered my old PC, turns out I also used to use the nickname "Manzanita" (little apple)
* Do you have any piercings?
* Are you a lefty/righty or ambidextrous?
Lefty, very proud of it BTW.
Update, still pretty damn proud of it :P
* Do you have any tattoo's? If not do you wish/plan to get one?
No, but I do like to have one.
Update, and I got one!
* Do you have any siblings? If so, how many of each?
Yes, two, an older sister and a younger brother.
Update, my sister now has a daughter so I am now the coolest aunt EVER! :D
* What is your favorite website?
My own.
Update, still my own :P
* Do you play computer games? If so, which ones?
Not really, I did played Plants vs Zombies recently and find it very addicted for a couple of days. When I was a kid I liked an ancient arcade game named "Super Pang".
Update, played Civ 5 but got bored pretty quickly, haven't play any game since then
* Do you play video game consoles? Which ones?
* Are you married or planing to get married?
Update, I've been living together with my BF for quite some time now, that does gotta count as marriage :P
* If so do you have any kids?
* How many kids?
* How many languages do you speak? If so which ones?
Spanish and English, a little bit of French.
* Do you drink?
No, well, occasionally :P
* Do you smoke?
No, and I do not like smokers.
* Did you play hookey from class?
Sure, quite a few times.
* Do you have a license?
Yes, soon to be expiring.
Update, got expired got a new one, got expired too, damn those things surely has a short livespan...
* Do you own a car?
Yes, a nice 1999 Honda Civic.
Update, I miss my hondie! in her honour I now drive a 2009 Honda Civic.
* Have you ever been stopped for speeding?
* Do you obtain a good amount of sleep daily?
I guess so, 6 hours are enough for me.
Update, oh I surely miss been youth... right now 24 hours of sleep aren't enough for me...
* How do you sleep?
I dunno, I never watched myself while sleeping.
* Have you ever been on an airplane?
* Have you ever broken a bone?
* Do you wear jewelry? If so what jewelry do you wear?
I like to wear necklaces, I prefer those handmade but I certainly won't be mad if someone gives me a 24k Gold Necklace ;)
Update, and my necklace collection has been constantly growing ever since!
* How do you dress?
Business casual for work, t-shirts and jeans for home.
* How many keys are on your keyring?
Update, still 5 :P I actually have never missed my keys, I still use the keyring my mom gave to me 15 years ago
* What time do you go to bed? What time do you wake up?
Around midnight and up around 6am.
* What's the freakiest thing you have done?
Some friends and I went to cancun for my birthday, we end up with no money and had to hitch a lift to get back, it took us a week to get back, it was a lot of fun.
* Do you live alone?
* How many hours a day do you spend in the computer?
Around 4~5
Update, those were the days! I now spend around 1, max 2 hours
* How many hours a day do you spend in SMF?
The same, I usually enter the forum whenever I got a chance.
* What is your favorite beverage - coffee, tea, soda, beer, other?
Ice Tea.
* What do you hate?
Smokers, Haters, Pretentious, Vain or Haughty people, Arrogances as well. oh and you don't want to be near me if I see someone hurting an animal.
* What do you love?
My family.
* What is your religion?
I was raised catholic but now I do not profess any religion.
* What is your hair color?
Dark brown
* How tall are you?
* How much do you weigh?
You don't need to know
* What's the feature on SMF you can't live without?
* As an administrator?
Packager Manager
* As an end user?
Unread and Unread replies.
* As a modder?
Update, I've always been a modder at heart, thats probably why 90% of all the stuff I've added to SMF 2.1 has to be about giving modders more tools to play with or just make the mod making process easier for them.
Well, thats about it :P
Whatever happen to privacy? :P
Anyway, at first I thought I recognized you and mistakenly you for someone else in SimplePortal. :P
--- Quote from: ~DS~ on September 07, 2011, 12:10:57 PM ---Whatever happen to privacy? :P
--- End quote ---
Well, this is a get to know topic ;)
Great to know you Jessica. Keep up all the good works!
Do you drink Tequila? :)
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text: Hes been very good at Noter Dame anyone eles think that he might be a good pick for the Chiefs in the draft. Chambers might still be around and bowe will still be in KC so they would defently be able to help him learn. And after yesterday WR is defently a spot the chiefs need help with. I think he might be worth a pick if hes still around in the secound round. Not sure he will be.


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2010 Track and Field
Bluffton opens indoor season at ONU
Bluffton places sixth at ONU Friday Night Series Meet
January 15, 2010
By: Jordan Hill, sports information assistant
ADA, Ohio - The Bluffton University track and field teams opened their 2010 indoor campaigns on Friday, January 15, in the Friday Night Series Meet #1 at Ohio Northern. Competing against a talented group of larger schools that included Huntington University, the University of Findlay and Indiana Tech, the men placed sixth and the women finished sixth. The University of Findlay finished first on the men's side while the host Polar Bears claimed victory on the women's side.
Leading the men with 13 points was senior Jason Fisher (Rockford/Parkway), who provisionally qualified for the NCAA Nationals in the weight throw while shattering his own school record by six feet with a throw of 55-06.25. His record-setting throw placed him second and earned the team eight points. In addition, Fisher took fourth in the shot put (49-03.50). Also leading the Beavers was senior Rob Johnson (Columbus/Marion-Franklin) who placed first in the 60 meter dash (7.00), scoring 10 points.
Leading the Bluffton women was freshman Elizabeth Brown (Edon) who placed second in the 500 meters (1:34.84), scoring eight points, while senior Sarah Binkley (Bluffton/Cory-Rawson) picked up five points by placing fourth in the 400 meters (1:13.84).
Pacing the Beavers in the field events was sophomore Megan Neal (Arlington) who placed fourth in the weight throw (38-08.75) and fifth in the shot put (32-10.25), scoring nine points for the team. Sophomore Allison Trent (Orrville/Smithville) garnered sixth place in the weight throw (30-03.00) and seventh in shot put (28-01.50) for a total of five points. Rounding out the field events was freshman Delylah Kubitz (Ashtabula/Edgewood) who placed sixth in shot put (32-07.75) and eighth in the weight throw (27-00.00), scoring four points for the Beavers.
The Bluffton indoor track and field season continues on Friday, January 22, 2010, when the Beavers make the short trek up Interstate 75 to compete at the University of Findlay. The meet is slated to start at 2:30 p.m.


text: The Natural Resources Trust of Mansfield has finished a 250-foot boardwalk over a wet stretch on a heavily used trail in the Mansfield Great Woods. Member Colin Cauldwell said a grant from the town's gift committee allowed the trust to purchase "hundreds of pieces of material" that volunteers hauled out to the site. Cauldwell, who is a carpenter by trade, headed the work to construct the boardwalk. The trail runs from the Oak Street parking area all the way through the 800-acre conservation property to the Comcast Center site. The boardwalk will make a stretch that is regularly very wet in the spring more accessible. Anyone wishing to pitch in to similar efforts organized by the trust or learn more about the organization's activities can log on to www.nrtwww.nrtma.org.


text:
We share the editorial view that outgoing Baltimore City Schools CEO Andrés Alonso created a strong platform to sustain ongoing improvement in our schools ("School reform 2.0," May 12). But the editorial's call for more standardization around the system is off the mark.
Instead, we urge the system to use this moment to engage parents, school leaders and others in a discussion about how we define a high-quality school. What does a good school look like and how do we measure it?
In some ways, we know a good school when we see it: children are loved for who they are and challenged to be their very best. But the type of instruction and programming may vary widely at good schools, and that's appropriate.
Measuring student progress through testing is one component of assessing schools. But high-quality schools undertake ongoing reviews of student work, create a collaborative teacher culture, have engaged parents, and are led by strong principals and staff who can articulate and implement a clear mission.
Insisting on high standards is critical to upgrading more of our schools, but not standardization. Under Mr. Alonso, the school system has implemented policies that recognize the value of diversity. Now, parents citywide have choices for where to send their children to middle and high school. And a wide range of public charters and other contract schools give parents options with many of them showing the ability to close the achievement gap between white and black students.
We hope the school system will use this time between CEOs to engage in a conversation with school leaders, parents and others to find out if their needs are being met.
The new school construction plan offers a great opportunity to get community input because school buildings are a physical manifestation of what we value in education. Let's also talk to parents on waiting lists for public charter schools. This demographically representative sample of parents can help the system understand which sorts of models are most attractive and why.
The people of Baltimore know what they want in education; they are smart, loyal to the city and eager for its schools to continue their progress. It's time to engage them to make sure that progress is maintained.
Carol Beck and Jocelyn Kehl, Baltimore
The writers are affiliated with Supporting Public Schools of Choice.


text:
As Silver Refined by Kay Arthur
Author Kay Arthur explains to her readers, "We dare not go into battle unprepared!"
Throughout As Silver Refined, Kay Arthur challenges readers to prepare for life inevitable challenges.
"I WAS A FAILURE. I was convinced of it. I had failed God, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was impotent to change my circumstances. Disappointment overwhelmed me." That kind of humility makes this book very approachable. I wish that there were more heart-connecting stories.
The author understand people and our circumstances: "The downward spiral begins…with disappointment. Disappointment comes when our expectations aren't met. Consequently we're not happy about it — we're disturbed.


text:
Tag archives for Feist
For several months, Minnow has thought that Mommy's computer exists mainly to let her look at pictures and videos of herself. But now she knows it can also access Elmo at any time of day. It was rainy here this weekend, and we must have watched this clip at least 37 times.


text:
What: Coal Creek Elementary "Share the Love" fundraiser
When: 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Coal Creek Elementary School, 801 West Tamarisk St., Louisville
Cost: $5 for three desserts, $10 for a plate, $12 for a plate and desserts.
About 500 students at Louisville's Coal Creek Elementary school have painted heart-shaped plates, while their parents are baking hundreds of brownies, cookies and other sweets.
Coal Creek is using both for a Valentine's theme "Share the Love" fundraiser to support the Sega Girls School in Tanzania. The secondary school provides an education -- plus a place to sleep, meals and uniforms -- for about 150 girls, most of whom previously dropped out of school.
"People should come to care for other people and to help," said first-grader Avery Dion.
The goal of the Tuesday event is to raise at least $2,000 -- enough to sponsor a year of education for a girl whose parents didn't have enough money to send her to secondary school. She dropped out after sixth grade and was selected in July to attend the Sega school.
Ashley Devery, a former Coal Creek parent and member of the Nurturing Minds board of directors, proposed that Coal Creek get involved. Nurturing Minds is the United States non-profit raising money for the school.
"The concept of kids helping kids is pretty cool," she said.
Coal Creek first raised money for the school last year with a small fundraiser, but this year decided to expand and involve the whole school community. There will even be dog biscuits for sale to go with the human treats. The YMCA will sell any leftover plates and baked goods after the event.
"It's a wonderful cause that will broaden students' awareness of how we belong to the whole community," said Coal Creek Principal John Kiemele. "It's an important message to send to the entire community."
He noted that in February, the school focuses on "understanding and empathy" as part of its character education program.
"This is a great concrete project to help them understand those concepts and how fortunate they are," he said.
At a recent school assembly, Devery talked to the students about what it's like for girls in Tanzania.
Only one in four girls continues past seventh-grade, making it a country with one of the highest drop-out rates for girls. Extreme poverty is the main issue, with many families unable to afford to send girls to school. Families also rely on girls to care for younger siblings and get water, which may be miles away.
Fourth-grader Brian Chen said he learned that "there's not much stuff" in Tanzania compared to here.
Second-grader Marisol Espindola added that schools there usually don't have desks or chairs, so students must sit on a dirt floor. They only have chalkboards, not technology like computers, she said.
Coal Creek is raising money, she said, so "girls can learn."


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RENO, Nev. -- If you've ever had a pet go missing... you know just how nerve wracking it can be.
This year Regional Animal Services is helping pet owners in Washoe County by offering free microchipping at mobile clinics and at their facility on Longley Lane. Hundreds of pet owners took advantage of the service Saturday at the PetCo on S. Virginia Street.
The chip is inserted between the shoulder blades of the animal and the process only takes a few minutes. It has proved valuable to many pet owners in the first 12 weeks of the campaign.
Barry Brode, Regional Animal Services Director, says, "Since we've been doing this campaign, we've had eleven animals returned... dogs and cats, even cats from out of state. The microchip is only as good as the information on it so if we have the proper contact info we can call while we're out in the field and return the animal home or to you."
The mobile clinics are held every two weeks and the animal services facility is open Monday through Friday. The goal is to get 5,000 pets microchipped by the end of next January.


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As I enter my eighth season as voice of the PawSox, I realize I have been fortunate to witness the emergence of many great players since 2004. Pedroia, Youkilis, Lester etc. You sense when a kid may become a success. Sometimes you're right. Clay Buchholz was one such guy for me. His "stuff" was undeniable in the minor leagues. The question was whether he'd be able to harness his immense gifts and succeed at the Major League level. Well, we now know the answer to that. In 2010, Clay stepped out of the shadows and went 17-7 with a sparkling 2.33 ERA, second best in the American League. Buch also made his first All Star team, as well, and finished 6th in the American League Cy Young voting. Not bad for a young man who went into Spring Training not knowing whether he'd be in Boston or back at McCoy. Clay told me he is ready for whatever Fort Myers offers this Spring. "I feel good. The approach is locking down a spot in this rotation. The stress isn't going to be there like it has in the past couple of years. Although, I think it did actually make it better the last couple of Spring Trainings, knowing the spot wasn't mine. I had to earn it. I've worked hard to get where I am, and there's no need to stop now."
Clay Buchholz has journeyed up and down route 95, between McCoy and Fenway many times. That is one of the reasons he relishes the success he enjoyed in 2010. "It was awesome. It was a fun season. I overcame a lot of struggles I went through and learned a lot too. It definitely helped me to get the confidence that I needed to have to go out there and pitch every five days in this town, and against the competition we play every day."
The young Texan is somewhat cautious when the term "Ace of the Staff" is thrown at him. "When you're a little kid, growing up, in your wildest dreams, if you were ever mentioned in the same sentence as Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, John Lackey…it would make my world. That's sort of where I'm at right now."
While Clay enjoyed personal success in 2010, he is hungry for team success in 2011. Buch is excited about the group in Fort Myers, and what they could accomplish. "This team is one of the best teams anyone's ever seen on paper, right now. Pedey is back healthy, Youk's healthy and the key acquisitions they made during the offseason, it's definitely going to be something to watch."
Another event that the Sox had to endure in 2010 was the tragic accident that claimed the leg of first base coach Ron Johnnsons' daughter, Bridget. Buch and RJ go way back to their time together in the minor leagues. Clay was looking foward to Johnsons' return. "RJ's the best. He never changed. When he got to the Big Leagues, he never changed, and that's what everybody loves about him. He is a guy who will always make you laugh. He helps us, because he helps keep everyone relaxed."
A burgeoning career, a beautiful wife and a new daughter. Life is good these days for Clay Buchholz. He appreciates it. "I never expected I'd have a baby as good as Colby is. She never cries. Lindsay and I are just keeping our fingers crossed." Colby got here just in time to watch her daddy pitch for the Red Sox.


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December 5, 2012
Scattered reports from South Korea say that its neighbors north of the 38th parallel have finished assembling a long-range rocket and are enthusiastically prepping the launch pad. North Korea intends to send this rocket to space, against the wishes of pretty much every other nation on Earth. But North Koreans are not bothered by these Earthly inconveniences. They're sending a rocket to space! They hope so anyways.
Nobody was entirely sure how serious North Korea was about this rocket launch until Monday evening, when satellite images showed workers scampering around the launch pad. Now, North Korea's statements about following through with the launch between December 10 and December 22 seem pretty realistic. The South Korean news agencyYonha reports, "The North is now expected to install support equipment, such as radar, cameras and measuring before fueling the rocket." Meanwhile, all three stages of the long-range rocket have been assembled, and fueling is expected to happen this weekend.
Read more at The Atlantic Wire.
December 5, 2012


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Nuevo Mundo Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2010, Valle del Maipo, Region del Valle Central, Chile
Price $16 | Score 87/100
This is a 75/25 mix of organically grown Cabernet Sauvignon and malbec. The nose is fresh and clean with pleasing red fruit and spice notes. The attack is soft and balanced with fairly meaty, leafy black-fruit flavours and some rustic but not overpowering tannin.
Alain Brumont Merlot-Tannat 2010, Cotes de Gascogne, Sud-Ouest, France
Price $15 | Score 87/100
The soft and hard mix of Merlot and tannat has produced a fresh nose of cherry jam, prune, pepper, leather, meaty, spicy aromas and a juicy palate of savoury, meaty, cherry, plum, tobacco, barnyard, earthy, peppery flavours. A warm rustic red with good fruit. Good value.
Rosemount Shiraz 2010, South Eastern Australia
Price $15 | Score 88/100
The Rosemount shiraz is more like it was a decade ago, with a softer, less acidic bite in the back end. It still has acidity and balance but the sweet fruit is more prominent. Look for a mix of blueberry and cocoa aromas followed by fairly supple black cherry jam, plummy cardamom and coffee flavours.
Crios de Susanna Balbo Torrontés 2011, Calchaqui Valley, Salta, North Argentina
Price $16 | Score 88/100
Torrontés is always underappreciated until it is in the glass. We love its spicy, floral, nectarine skin, lees, lemon oil and ginger aromas. The palate is fresh, juicy, round and slightly off-dry with honey, ginger, floral, spicy, gooseberry, nectarine and lemon rind flavours.
Les Halos de Jupiter Cotes Du Rhône 2009, Rhone Valley, France
Price $24 | Score 89/100
Expect a dark, almost opaque colour with an expressive nose of raspberry (Grenache) and a whack of spice. The attack is warm and rich with spicy, ripe, dark cherry dominating all, flecked by firm meaty undercurrents. Easy to like, especially if hedonistic reds are your favourite.
Errazuriz Single Vineyard Max Reserva Estates Carmenère 2010, Valle de Aconcagua, Chile
Price $24 | Score 90/100
A cooler vintage has supercharged this Carmenère with bright black fruit and pepper. It spends about a year in oak of which one-third is new. The attack is intense, with roasted red peppers, tobacco and blackberries conspiring to produce a glossy red with smooth light tannins.


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Brown, Nunn 2, Anthony 15, Gasper 10, Jones 4, Anderson 17, Owens 3, Martinez 4, Davis 2, Freeman 2, Fetzer 2, Taylor, Bonds.
Chattanooga State (6-3, 4-3)
Crawford 7, Gordon 6, Reed 9, Sales 12, Honeysucker, Scott 4, Benton 9, Johnson 1, King.
Halftime: Cleveland State, 32-24.
Jones 9, Suttles 22, Goncalves 17, Everette 6, Eason 16, Okoro 4, Dando 5.
Chattanooga State (7-5, 3-4)
Kitchens 11, Williams 24, Robinson 5, Prescott 4, Scott 1, Ross 29, Jackson 3, Dial 1, Warren 2, Smith 5.
Halftime: Chattanooga State, 40-36.
By the records going in, the basketball outcomes Saturday afternoon at Chattanooga State could be considered mild upsets. But the Cleveland State women and the host men's team continued recent surges of coming together in pulling off the TCCAA wins.
The Lady Cougars jumped to a nine-point lead late in the first half and maintained control for a 63-48 victory, and then Jay Price went from losing coach to winning coach as his men's team knocked off Lee Cigliano's 10-win Cougars, 85-79.
Nick Ross, who was a Cougar last year, led the Tigers (7-5, 3-4) with 29 points while point guard Dajion Williams scored 24, including four long shots in the first half. Demetrius Kitchens added 11 points to the win.
"Williams was the main difference," Price said. "Nick has been scoring at the same pace, but Dajion sparked us today."
Trey Suttles and Filipe Goncalves, freshman from Chattanooga high schools, had 22 and 17 points for Cleveland State (10-3, 5-2), while Ralph Eason added 16.
Ciera Anderson scored 17 and Robyn Anthony and Jara Gasper added 15 and 10 for the Lady Cougars (8-5, 4-3), and Gasper also provided strong defense on Chatt State's main outside threat, Khamilyah Crawford. She was held to seven points. Sierra Sales led Price's Lady Tigers (6-3, 4-3) with 12.
"The [Lady Tigers] haven't played well the last two or three games," Price said. "We don't have a lot of numbers, and we have a couple of knickknack injuries, and then we got some fouls and that took us out of what we needed to do.
"The guys have numbers at each spot, so we can fill in if someone is injured or not playing well. I think the guys have turned the corner in learning their roles -- and understanding that in order for us to have a chance to win, we've got to play together."
Winning women's coach Dan Lumpkin said his Lady Cougars had a "very good team effort," and he added that they were prepared for Saturday's rugged contest by playing through several physical games in a row.
Chelsea Jones has been playing with a mask protecting a broken nose, and she and fellow Chattanooga Christian graduate Mercedes Owens totaled only seven points but helped with hard-nosed hustle.
Anderson inside was the main weapon for Cleveland State, and the Lady Cougars made 30 of 37 free throws while the Lady Tigers were sinking 7 of 15. The visitors also did a good job on the boards, blocking or adjusting shots and creating turnovers.
"We did a much better job rebounding than in past games," Lumpkin said, noting also a successful emphasis on maintaining focus in the second half.
"The second half has been hard for us," said Anthony, a former Arts & Sciences standout who admitted particular pride in winning in Chattanooga. "We knew that if we came out in the first half and took care of business, we could afford a little leeway in the second half."
A Crawford 3-pointer and a Sales follow did get the Lady Tigers within three as the second half began, but then two Anderson free throws began a 17-2 run for the Lady Cougars.
"We told them it was zero-zero. Play that way," Lumpkin said of his halftime message.


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Call for Papers: Paulo Freire - The Global Legacy
An International Conference, University of Waikato, Te Whare Wananga o Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, November 26-27, 2012.
"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." ― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The University of Waikato, Te Whare Wananga o Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand is delighted to be hosting a major international conference, "Paulo Freire: The Global Legacy" as a retrospective celebration of his work and its legacy and influence across the globe.
Paulo Freire, one of the greatest educators of all time, was born in Recife, Brazil, on September 19, 1921 and died of heart failure in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 2, 1997. Freire taught Portuguese in secondary schools from 1941-1947 before becoming active in adult education and workers' training. He was the first Director of the Department of Cultural Extension of the University of Recife (1961-1964). Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) is an argument for a system of education that emphasizes learning as an act of culture and freedom. His works became justly famous as he gained an international reputation for his program of literacy education especially for the rural and dispossessed in Northeastern Brazil. He was jailed by the new government after 1964 and was forced into a political exile that lasted fifteen-years, eventually returning to Brazil in 1979. As a living testimony, his many works have been translated into many languages, and have inspired the tradition of critical pedagogy. The conference is aimed at experienced and new researchers, policy-makers and practitioners from all around the world who engage with Freire's work in any of the following broad themes that the conference will be organized around:
- Globalization
- De-colonisation
- Indigenous cultures
- Cultural studies
Plenary speakers
Ana Maria Araújo Freire, Antonia Darder, Peter McLaren, Shirley Steinberg, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Peter Roberts. Other plenary speakers may be added nearer the date.
A selection of papers from the conference will be edited for a special two-volume work in the series Global Studies in Education, Peter Lang, New York, ISSN: 2153-330X Series Editors: Tina (A.C.) Besley, Cameron McCarthy, Michael A. Peters & Fazal Rizvi.
Contact Details
For further information regarding venue, accommodation, registration etc, please visit the websiteor contact Courtney White, firstname.lastname@example.com.
Registration key dates
Early Bird registration: by 21 September 2012 Registrations close: October 26 2012 Online submissions – send to Professor Tina Besley, firstname.lastname@example.com, subject line : Freire Conference
Submission Deadlines
Deadline for abstracts Abstracts, not exceeding 200 words, should reach us by email on or before 1 May 2012. The manuscript should be 1.5 spaced, letter font size of 12 point in MS Word. Please set out your abstract submission as: file name: author's name_abstr Notification The reviewers' decision on the acceptability of the abstract will be indicated by 30 June 2012. Deadline for Full PaperA full paper of the accepted abstract is required to be submitted online through the Conference website so as to reach us on or before 30 August, 2012. Please send your full paper as: file name: author's name_ full_text
Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2012
The University of Waikato, with a student population of about 13,000 and 2000 academic and support staff, is committed to delivering a world-class education and research portfolio, providing a full and dynamic university experience, distinctive in character, and pursuing strong international links to advance knowledge. The University works closely with Maori tribes (iwi), particularly Tainui, to make the University accessible to Maori students and to foster an environment of success. (http://www.waikato.ac.nz/maori/ & http://www.waikato.ac.nz/about/) Hamilton is a vibrant city of approx. 150,000 people on the banks of the mighty Waikato River, centrally located in the North Island of New Zealand, about 1 hr 45 mins drive from Auckland and only 45 minutes to the beaches at Raglan to the West, and an hour to Tauranga & Mt Maunganui on the east coast. See: http://www.visithamilton.co.nz/


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In the 70s and 80s, though, companies tried to grab a consumer's attention with fancy artwork that bore no resemblance to the actual game.
You mean your box didn't have pages of perforated LSD blotters in the back of the manual? You got fleeced.
Owning and/or having mates that owned almost all of the consoles of the era, I was keenly aware of the romance novel approach to cover art. I longed for the day when graphics in the game would match or exceed the package (and sometimes still do). I used to get by, however, by falling back on the imagination built as a younger child playing with Legos or other similar representations of near-real life. The blocky representations of characters and objects were abstract due to technical limitations, but by applying imagination to fill in the gaps, the sprites and geometric shapes would flush out in my head to be what was needed to make the experience enjoyable.
No LSD required.
I could say the same about album covers back in the lp days. "Hey, hot chicks, fire breathing demons...omg this album is awful!"
I never owned an Atari 2600, but I remember the same phenomenon on the C64. Box art was usually colourful and cartoony. Very few games (at least until you got to the tail end of the C64's popular life span, when you had games like the Creatures series) could come even close to living up to this. It was a good lesson at an early age that you should never take promotional material at face value.
I also remember the loading screens you'd get on the C64 while loading the game from tape (a process which would take several minutes and often fail before the end). These were generally just as "dishonest", though they were at least limited by the display resolution. In fact, worse than that, I remember one particular game where the box description actually told outright lies. It was a top-down racer (think Super Sprint) where the box text advertised weapons, oil-slicks etc, none of which were actually present in the game. I later found out that this was a semi-infamous title (in the UK at least); a sort of 1980s equivalent to Big Rigs Over the Road Racing.
Mind you, misleading box-art continued for quite a lot longer. X-Wing was a fantastic game, but I do remember being a little disappointed by the contrast between the movie-quality box art and the slightly sparse polygon graphics in game. That said, if I remember correctly, some editions of the first two Wing Commander games actually used screenshots for their front-cover art (or can somebody correct me on this - the screenshots may have been "touched up"?).
Even today, it still goes on to some extent. Ok, the differences are probably less pronounced. Box-art still tends to save screenshots for the back cover, but this is usually clearly for stylistic reasons (in fact, the trend seems to be towards box art that is simpler and sparser than a screenshot would have been). But we still get plenty of cases of "touched up" trailers, pre-rendered cutscenes shown at conferences with the implication that they're game-play footage and so on.
I clearly remember looking at it and knowing full well it was false, but that I could tell that it was attracting me to pick up the box and want it. I remember feeling tricked, and wondering what the actual game would be.
Could you just turn the box over? Almost all my games (which were for the Acorn Archimedes, and published around 1988-1994) have a nice picture on the front, and actual screenshots on the back.
>>>I clearly remember looking at it and knowing full well it was false, but that I could tell that it was attracting me to pick up the box and want it. I remember feeling tricked
Ditto. Even now I see this beautiful picture on the front of a Windows 7 box, but the reality falls far short.
We've all been subjected to so much false promises it's now part of culture. People expect, demand, massive promises, don't buy the product if it's not flaunted as an outright miracle, and don't complain when it ultimately doesn't fulfill expectations. It's established business practice, called marketing and advertising, and those who master it are rewarded with lots of money and prestige. Enforcing an actual, 100% fulfilled, do-as-you-say in the marketing business would mean practically a revolution. No more smiling hotties in car ads on empty roads, show traffic, stress, and endless expenses with insurance, parking. Lots of accident statistics, pollution. Just imagine the ads for junk food. Cavities, no nutritious properties, vastly overpriced and unhealthy salt-and-fat-and sugar based, fattening and artery-busting food. It implies deep changes in advertising profits, marketing, production, communication companies, culture.
That's true. Another example of this is "just a buck" value items where they show some guy with a dollar bill buying the $1 item. At the end of the commercial, he's eating at a table with 3 or 4 of the items. This doesn't even take into account that sales tax applies to just about every item advertised that way. So the guy with the dollar bill, in real life, wouldn't even be able to afford one of the advertised "just a buck" items that he is enjoying.
I never owned an Atari 2600, but I remember the same phenomenon on the C64. Box art was usually colourful and cartoony. Very few games (at least until you got to the tail end of the C64's popular life span, when you had games like the Creatures series) could come even close to living up to this. It was a good lesson at an early age that you should never take promotional material at face value.
Marketing is based on deception and considers it an important tool. This is nothing new.
It's like when a toothpaste brand says "9 out of 10 dentists recommend it!". In reality they may have interviewed hundreds dentists in groups of ten, over and over again, until they finally found a group of ten out of which 9 preferred their brand. What they strongly imply but do not actually go so far as to claim is that their group of ten is a representative sample of all dentists. Because they do not actually make this positive claim, they escape any accusations of false advertising. Yet it's quite misleading.
It's the same deal with the box art. They do not actually print "this is an in-game screen shot" yet they count on creating that impression. The intent behind this is clear enough.
This should be called "The Misleading World of Marketing" that happens to use the Atari 2600 as an example of a much wider phenomenon. Like politics and public relations, marketing is a field that is very attractive to liars who can say anything with a straight face while performing just enough CYA to perpetuate their ability to do it. Maybe "How to Turn a Pathological Personality Disorder into Profit" would be a better title. I don't think the general public has enough appreciation for the fact that making demonstrably false factual statements is a very crude and inefficient way to deceive someone. The state of the art in those fields is far more advanced than that, relying instead on framing, subtle implication, emotional appeals, misleading use of statistics, selective presentation of information, etc.
I've heard this story many times, about how Atari, Intellivision, Coleco, and Commodore box art was misleading but I think it's ultimately silly.
Nobody at the time actually believed they were getting a colorful cartoon instead of a lo-res 160x240 blocky game. We knew what we were getting, and besides the screenshots were *on the back of the box* or in the Atari Age magazine. We consumers knew what what we were getting before we got it, and yet we still wanted it. So what if Dig Dug looks like a mess of w
Someone who's in marketing recently told me this story, which demonstrates the most important aspect of marketing: target audience selection. Disclaimer, before I continue: marketeers don't usually go this far.
You pick a random stock. You then send a letter to 4000 people saying this stock will rise, and a letter to 4000 other people saying it will fall. Wait two days, see what it does. Divide the 4000 people who got the right prediction into two groups of 2000.
Pick a new random stock. Tell 2000 people it'l
Even today, it still goes on to some extent.
Oh man does it ever! To harp on the most disappointing game I've ever purchased: Transformers2 for the PS2 has movie-quality art on the front, and looks like utter crap when you play. (The PS3 version is downright stunning, though. I thought the robots looked nearly as good in the game as in the movie.)
You know how many sugar laden pitchers of Kool-Aid I drank waiting for a massive jolly anthropomorphic red pitcher to burst through the side of my house?
You must of gotten some bunk kool-aid.
You must['ve] gotten some bunk kool-aid.
Probably Flavor Aid [wikipedia.org]. He should count himself lucky that he's still alive.
"Insightful"? Who was drinking Kool-Aid when they...
This is the only failblog post I've every bookmarked: Graffiti Win [failblog.org] I'm compelled to visit it every few months, and it never fails to make me chuckle.
You know how many sugar laden pitchers of Kool-Aid I drank waiting for a massive jolly anthropomorphic red pitcher to burst through the side of my house?
OH YEEAAHHHH!!! [jokes.com]
That's worse than goatse, tubgirl, and lemonparty combined. Dane Cook standup? You are one sick bastard.
1. Put a sachet of powder on your tongue
2. Add a shot of vodka, shake it around and swallow.
4. Repeat until you start talking to walls.
(I've never made a profit doing this.)
Penny Arcade coined a term for this: bullshot [penny-arcade.com].
Still as relevant today as it was in 2005.
This is a complaint I've made many times. What I recently discovered is that once I started playing a photogenic racer, I was spending a significant fraction of the time watching the replays because they looked so cool. I've softened my stance about racer marketing since then.
I can't stand it when I go on Gametrailers and I see "OMFG WORLD EXCLUSIVE TRAILER FOR
To be fair, that Star Wars Old Republic trailer is cool.
Or maybe I just thought that because it was better than Episodes 1-3.
I think it was more funny to pick up C64 games and see the words "actual C64 screenshot" during the late 80s when some game companies would put the Amiga screenshots on C64 boxes. I still see people referencing this phenomenon as a joke these days.
If they had shown actual screen shots, no one would have bought the things.
But seriously, in those days I saw the box art as similar to the painted covers on the paperbacks I was buying: a visual to feed your imagination, showing what the characters and setting "really" looked like. I didn't expect the latest Asimov or Niven book to be fully illustrated comics, and I didn't expect Atari or C64 games to be fully-rendered movies.
They did have screen shots. Every Atari 2600 game I bought had awesome cover art on the front, and a some screenshots on the back. The Activision Anthology [gamespot.com] GBA cart reproduces the box art for each game. If you have a GBA (or DS), I highly recommend it. Great collection of classics.
You mean the buxom blonde doesn't get naked in my romance novel?
"Everyone knows" is the phrase tossed around when people comment on how an actor or actress looks in a photo shoot or on a movie poster. Kiera Knightley has been photoshopped more than once and commented on it, http://www.ministry-of-information.co.uk/blog1/keiramanip.htm [ministry-o...tion.co.uk] They like to endow her with a breast size nature didn't and one she won't use surgery to obtain. From presenting perfect complexions to lightening the skin of black female celebrities; especially Beyonce; we are bombarded by what mark
In other news, people were heard complaining that the letters F A B I O look nothing like the hunky guy on the cover of their romance novels...
This sort of thing was common even through the early 90s for computer games. People understood that the graphical level on the boxes wasn't anywhere near the level of the games. It is misleading to call this sort of thing misleading.
Gamers understood, but the deception wasn't aimed at them. As a child, I remember being gifted crappy games quite a few times because the non-gamer adults thought I'd like it based on what was on the box art. "This looks really cool, I'll bet my son, nephew, grandson, will like it!"
The parents are the one with the money, so they were the ones that needed to fooled.
If you remember video card boxes in the 90s, they always seemed to be starving for metaphors for faster speed. First a hot rod, then a plane, then a space ship. They finally just ended up putting some Aboriginy guy on the cover. I didn't know they ran that fast.
Is that any different than the buxom chick in a skin tight body suit and carrying a sword that is so common these days?
Actually what I can't believe is that we're talking about how stupid marketing people are. Yes, they are stupid and we're tired of them. Let's move on.
My favorite box art of the 80's was "Star Raiders" for the Atari 400/800 computers. It bore only an abstract resemblance to the game. I could waste a whole day playing that game. I'd love to see a faithful update to Star Raiders.
Do you think gamers 30 years ago expected photorealistic games? If the game was well written, the screens became more than just a smattering of blocky pixels, in the same way that a cardboard box could become an impenetrable castle.
I love modern technology, but it seems to be feeding a growing segment of the population with no desire for creativity or imagination. Read a book, people!
I love modern technology, but it seems to be feeding a growing segment of the population with no desire for creativity or imagination. Read a book, people!
Or at least go play Dwarf Fortress. That's probably the only 'modern' game that I know of where the ability to construct a mental 3D view of the world from 2D slices is essential to success.
Read a book, people!
Books are even worse :
You got a nice cover with a pretty picture, but once you open it, there's nothing else than lots of tiny letters everywhere !
That's definitely misleading !
That artists that created the box art were often working several months in advance of the game being finalized. That pretty much means that they had the conceptual drawings by someone that were given to the developer and computer artists rather than an actual game.
So they had no idea what the game might look like. The programming wasn't done yet.
As someone that worked on a couple of 2600 games that were released under the Parker Brothers label, I can assure you that the boxes were done long before the code was completed. And the box production people were simply not interested in looking at what had been completed. We were in different parts of the country.
Incredible as it might seem, this is how software publishing works. The manual get done before the code is done. The artwork is conceptual because it has a significantly longer lead time. Marketing materials are approved and printed weeks before the gold master CD is burned. Everyone has a schedule and deadlines and stuff has to be done pretty much the way it was planned or it looks like something that was put together by a couple of high school kids after school.
Sure, it would be nice if everything could wait for the highly flexible and iterative development process to complete before committing to graphics for advertising. Except you would miss the big presentation at the trade show and nothing would get sold to the distributors, meaning nothing gets sold to the retailers. So everyone gets to go home and the furniture gets auctioned off along with the computers, phones and pretty posters on the walls. Yup, been there and done that as well for some people that didn't understand how the process works.
I'm glad you were good enough to mention the artists, since it seems they never get the recognition they deserve. Some of the artwork they produced for Atari is exceptional. Unfortunately, much of this work has disappeared, either thrown away or stolen by people at Atari. Among the creators of the "Atari look":
Cliff Spohn is a talented and sought after portraitist of real people, sports figures in particular.
http://www.artworkoriginals.com/JAAAAAOU.htm [artworkoriginals.com]
Steve Hendricks also usually focused on portraiture and
Quite a ripoff. I want to SEE the tits, not read about them. (Yeah, yeah, I should go to the magazine rack. Not the point, people.)
Oh, how quaint. Old fashioned glossy magazine porn. Do people still use analog porn? I figured the internet would have put most of those out of business.
I remember buying Ikari Warriors for the PC, way back in the day. The box had killer screenshots... the game looked exactly like the arcade game!
I loaded it up, and was met with horrific 4-color (white/black/cyan/magenta) graphics.
http://www.giantbomb.com/ikari-warriors/61-1619/all-images/52-164216/1029683900_00/51-803378/ [giantbomb.com]
When I looked more closely at the box, it had small print that said something like "Arcade-version images shown. PC images may be different", or something to that effect.
I was pissed.
Oh god, I remember that. Ikari Warriors came bundled with the first PC we ever had in our household (a then-top-of-the-line 286 12mhz). CGA graphics and PC speaker sound effects in all of their glory. I took one look at it and went back to my C64. Funny, really, that PC gaming felt so far behind the curve compared to the C64 at the time. I'm trying to remember when that changed; I guess Their Finest Hour (WW2 flight sim) was probably the first PC game I played that was clearly beyond anything the C64 could
I loaded it up, and was met with horrific 4-color (white/black/cyan/magenta) graphics.
Man, I haven't seen cyan and magenta on screen in years. That's hilarious.
Neither had I, and then this [bestbuy.ca] happened.
You know I have the same thing when I go to a restaurant. The picture of the burger looks oh so good but when I get it, it's just a smushed crap sandwich in a wrapper.
Back then, you filled in the missing content with your imagination. These days, nobody has one anymore. Games (and movies) have to spell out every little detail, leaving nothing to the imagination. Remember seeing the Balrog on film? Was that what you imagined it to look like when you read the book? Wasn't what I had pictured, but I can't read the book now without seeing it the way it was depicted in the movie. Kinda sad, in a way.
I remember playing AD&D with my friends for days on end as a kid. Imagination was such a huge driving force that time had no meaning to anything but our starving stomachs. It seems that people nowadays would kill for the kind of technology that can transfer pictures from written words directly into their brains.
Honestly, I pictured it like this: &
Screen shots of the graphics back then wouldn't sell the game (especially not in the case of unsavvy parents and grandparents buying the games for their kids/grandkids), so they usually designed box art that was attractive and evocative of the title. Many of them were really well done, and remember that that was in the days before Photoshop and Illustrator. Whoever owns the rights on those images should sell enlarged reproductions-- they'd probably do okay among the nostalgia crowd.
If you wanna talk mislead
Plenty of TV commercials show nothing but cutscenes and not actual game play.
It had a color picture on the cover.
Yet inside there were just black letters on white pages bearing no resemblance to the scantily clad lady on the cover.
Atari? Try Infocom, or any of the other less established companies that produced text adventures into the early 90s.
Which isn't to say that I take exception with this practice; on the contrary, it's an example of why box art needn't accurately represent the contents. The art was simply something to admire, like the dust sleeve of a sci-fi novel. In some cases it added to the overall effect of the game; in others it added to the mystery. And back in the age of a prepubescent internet, genres were less rigid and reviews of a given title could be much harder to come by, so each new game purchase was almost always a mystery.
Of course, there was also *zero* expectation that a game would resemble the cover art back then. Everyone knew this and for the most part nobody cared. These days, a CG scene on a box (or TV commercial) could reasonably be construed to represent the game content, and a variance between the two could therefore be seen as misleading, or worse.
Still, I've always been told that you can't judge a book by its cover, and packaged software, while typically (though not always) sold on a medium other than book/paper, was no exception. That's was as true back then as it is today.
I see it as the opposite of the way the summary described it: When I had a 2600 I *knew* the games weren't going to look like they did on the box art. It just wasn't possible. These days, gamers are treated to bullshots, hi-resolution scripted renders, and other kinds of doctored media designed to make gamers think the game looks better than it really does. This is especially common, I've noticed, on the console side of gaming where the graphical fidelity achievable on modern computers isn't attainable anym
As to the box artwork: I remember programmers commenting on the nice box artwork, but there was never any mention about how it didn't match the game. Like someone else said, it was like looking at a cover of a science fiction book, knowing that the contents were probably very different.
To put things into perspective: Back in those days pinball machines were still popular and people expectations of computer games were pretty realistic, e.g. rather low. The IBM AT and XT had just come out, and were targeted at businesses and considered too expensive for the normal household. Graphical user interfaces only existed in research labs and universities. Coin operated video games had much better (and much more expensive) hardware, as compared to the home versions. The home systems had to be less sophisticated, otherwise they would have been too expensive for their target market.
I used to program these things and remember late night sessions pouring over hex dumps trying to recover a byte or two. The initial programming was done in 6502 assembler (to keep the cost down the CPU packed in a 28-pin DIP, which allowed for all sorts of tricks for saving bytes by addressing memory in unconventional ways). The last few weeks of the programming was typically done in hex, looking for opcode sequences that could be used as data. E.g. we spent our time hand optimizing the hex code. Sometimes we found enough space to put in a new feature or two.
Now nearly 30 years later I can still remember some of the hex code a few of the 6502 instructions. 4C is JMP, A9 is LDA, etc.
And by the way, we considered C a high level language back then.
How many of you actually grew UP during that era? I'm willing to bet very few. Why? Because if you did, you'd know that THE BACK OF THE BOX HAD THE ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS. Want to know what the game looked like for reals? Flip the damn box over and use your damn eyes. Simple isn't it? See in the old days we used our hands to do things like that.
OHH WAH you mean the cover of "Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar" doesn't have a high resolution guy in a robe conjuring up a tidal wave? Sheesh. The authors of this nonsense need to get a life.
See back then, the actual box art was often something to be admired. The above mentioned "Quest of the Avatar" was painted by Denis Loubet, who made some of the best cover art for any game, bar none. There were many games that had fantastic cover art. Do you think any of us were fooled into thinking that this is what the game actually looked like? I used to KEEP the boxes around and mount them on the wall of my computer room (haw haw he said computer room he so old!).
The whole article is just a sarcastic "haw haw look how primitive old consoles were, xbox is so cools!" my-dick-is-bigger fest.
The back of the box typically had screenshots from systems I didn't use, in my experience. That could be much more deceptive.
Panic, maker of (excellent) Mac software has some Atari 2600 boxes for their current lineup of products [panic.com].
Pretty cool if you ask me.
We thought the box covers were lame, and the games were totally cool.
In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on ... the overriding problem of war and peace. -- James Slagle


text: Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - long term foreigners in Taiwan being cast aside Get TEFL Certified & Start Your Adventure Today! Job Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in long term foreigners in Taiwan being cast aside Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Taiwan View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message teacher4lifeJoined: 22 Apr 2012Posts: 121 Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:47 am Post subject: long term foreigners in Taiwan being cast aside Goodbye to all you unqualified, drunken, tattoo-faced, cant-speak-a-lick-of-Chinese suburban punks on a lark! Taiwan is happily finally casting those types out in favor of genuinely qualified teachers of a far higher caliber. Their days are numbered and so they come to boards like this and lie to each other to try for one last breath of hope before they too get axed once and for all. Back to top romanworldJoined: 27 May 2008Posts: 388 Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 2:08 pm Post subject: Re: long term foreigners in Taiwan being cast aside teacher4life wrote: Goodbye to all you unqualified, drunken, tattoo-faced, cant-speak-a-lick-of-Chinese suburban punks on a lark! Taiwan is happily finally casting those types out in favor of genuinely qualified teachers of a far higher caliber. "Far higher caliber?" Really? Could've fooled me. Again, it seems like the far higher calibre crowd are leaving for greener pastures, most notably China. Back to top atreyueJoined: 07 May 2010Posts: 33Location: Taipei, Taiwan - The Rain Capital Of Asia Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 2:29 pm Post subject: You seem a little "angry" in your post - been here 9 years and can't speak-a-lick of Chinese other than ordering at subway and starbucks. Quote: Taiwan is happily finally casting those types out in favor of genuinely qualified teachers of a far higher caliber. Really? Point me in the direction of this high-caliber you speak of.... Stop being an asshat and get out of the house more. Back to top BruceLeeWannaBeJoined: 12 Jun 2012Posts: 186 Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:32 am Post subject: which unqualified foreigners work in Taiwan? Those who don't have a degree? Or two year diploma? Those who never went to college or university at all? High school dropouts? Those are the only people I can imagine being unqualified to teach. But they cracked down on that a long time ago. Many years ago you could teach on a tourist visa with little fear of being caught. But no longer do those days exist cause the police do checkups on all the schools once in a while. Getting the proper visa and resident permit to work in Taiwan requires real qualifications. Not some cheap bogus online degree mills where you get your unaccredited life experience degree in 5 days. Sorry. This isn't China. Tattoo faced foreigners? Um.... Regardless of how qualified they are, wouldn't that scare the kids? Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Taiwan All times are GMT Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Where to Begin----------------General DiscussionNewbie ForumCurrent Events ForumTechnology ForumOnline Teaching Forum Africa Forums----------------General Africa Forum Asia Forums----------------CambodiaChina (Job-related Posts Only)China (Off-Topic)Hong KongIndiaIndonesiaJapanMalaysiaPhilippinesSingaporeTaiwanThailandGeneral Asia ForumVietnam Caribbean Forums----------------General Caribbean Forum Europe Forums----------------Czech RepublicFranceGermanyGreeceItalyMacedonia and the BalkansPolandRomaniaRussia & C.I.S.SpainTurkeyUkraineUnited KingdomGeneral Europe Forum Latin America Forums----------------ArgentinaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaMexicoMexico (off-topic)PeruGeneral Latin America Forum The Middle East Forums----------------BahrainEgyptIsraelKuwaitOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab EmiratesGeneral Middle East Forum North America Forums----------------General North America Forum Oceania----------------Australia/New Zealand You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Contact Dave's ESL Cafe Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved. Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group Teaching Jobs in China


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All reality shows are inevitably cancelled once the novelty wears off, and bloody reality game show FPS Bullet Run is no different. Publisher Sony Online Entertainment has announced that it'll shut down the free-to-play FPS, developed by Acony and originally named Hedone, on March 8. Because it's an online-only affair, that'll be it, no more Bullet Run for anyone.
"After much review and consideration, Acony Games and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) have mutually made the decision to discontinue development on the free-to-play FPS game, Bullet Run," says the announcement. "As a result, SOE and Acony will sunset the game and end all game services for Bullet Run on March 8, 2013. We would like to thank the players for their dedication and support of the game."
While Acony will keep the game code, "at this time there is no plan to relaunch the game," and Sony has control of the account data anyway. The forums and website will shut down too, casting what remains of the Bullet Run community to the four winds.
People who've paid the optional subscription fee for Platinum membership will be refunded money for however much time is left after the shutdown in March.
Bullet Run was a fairly standard free-to-play FPS, really, but had the cosmetic twist of being set up as a violent reality show where people murder each other for fame and fortune. This also meant you could dress your character up in strange and wonderful ways, which is what really matters.
BOOM video 12827


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Biodata Vino G. Bastian
Full Name : Vino Giovanni Bastian
Nickname : Vino G Bastian, Vino Bastian
Place / Date of birth : Jakarta, 24 Maret 1982
Father's Name : Bastian Tito
Height : 179 cm
Weight : 65 kg
Occupation : Actor, drummer, model
Education : Institut Technology Industri Jakarta, majoring Chemical Engineering
Hobby : Watching movies, Listening music, Playing instruments, Eating
Color : Black and other dark colour
Actor : Al-Pacino
Hot Boys Photo
Vino Giovanni Bastian, better known as Vino G. Bastian or Vino Bastian was born in Jakarta, 24 Maret 1982. He's an Indonesian sexy actors and Indonesia cute male model , but not Asian male nude models. Vino Bastian is the youngest son Bastian Tito, fighting script-writer through the famous series Wiro Sableng which have famous weapon Kapak Maut Naga Geni 212 and a mad teacher Eyang Sinto Gendeng.
In the junior high school, Vino Bastian began playing music as a drummer. He then became a model and in 2004 as the actors with first debut through film 30 Day Search for Love. In the film director Upi Avianto landing, the Vino portray characters who dream school children formed a band group, but you can't find foto cowok telanjang Vino Bastian here. In the last film Radit dan Jani, Vino G. Bastian portray marijuana as a habitue, he had to do a survey of some old friends who use a lot of drug addict. Habitue role as a drug in the film Radit and Jani was not to make the main actors, Vino G Bastian, a fear of its image will be affected. For Vino, any role that he not be a problem play.Foto, Fans Club, Wallpaper
In some photos circulating on the internet forum, the man who similar to Vino G Bastian appear that the smooch with a short blond woman. Both shirt and black lips they look cool intimate smooch, and I think that's very hot kissing altough they didn't do adegan photo pria bugil and gadis telanjang. At the forum is called Vino-a smooch with Upi Avianto, film director Reality Cinta Rock n Roll & Radit and Jani, who is the girlfriend alone. Both a relationship for two or three years ago. Is it right that Vino Bastian and Upi Avianto? Until now, they still have not provided further information with intimate sexy images of their face like this.
Vino G Bastian with Nicholas Saputra in the same category to nominated Best Actor on the Indonesian Film Festival 2008. Vino is nominated for his movie Radit and Jani which made him become the Most Favorite Actor in Indonesian Movie Awards 2008, beating Nicholas Saputra. I think, he's the most sexiest actors and the cutest male in Indonesian..
hot sexy male models, Vino Bastian pictures
Vino G Bastian with Nicholas Saputra in the same category to nominated Best Actor on the Indonesian Film Festival 2008. Vino is nominated for his movie Radit and Jani which made him become the Most Favorite Actor in Indonesian Movie Awards 2008, beating Nicholas Saputra. I think, he's the most sexiest actors and the cutest male in Indonesian..
hot sexy male models, Vino Bastian pictures
Vino Bastian Movie Title (Filmography) :
* 30 Day Search for Love / 30 Hari Mencari Cinta (2004), play with Nirina Zubir, Dinna Olivia and Revaldo, Penis Panjang
* End Note School / Catatan Akhir Sekolah (2005), with Marcel Chandrawinata, Christian Sugiono, Joanna Alexandra, directed by Hanung Bramantyo
* Images and The Box / Foto Kotak dan Jendela(2006), play with Christian Sugiono, Noveleta Dinar.
* Reality, Love and Rock'n Roll / Realita, Cinta dan Rock'n Roll (2006), with Herjunot Ali, Nadine Chandrawinata, Sandy Harun, Penis Besar
* Message From Heaven / Pesan Dari Surga (2006), with Luna Maya, Rianti Cartwright, Catherine Wilson and Davina Veronica
* Badai Pasti Berlalu (2007), Raihaanun, Winky Wiryawan and Davina Veronica
* About Love / Tentang Cinta (2007), with Sheila Marcia, Fedi Nuril, Penis
* Radit and Jani / Radit dan Jani (2008), with Fahrani Empel, an Indonesian supermodel
Vino Bastian Telanjang, Cowok Telanjang, Cowok Bugil, Cowok Seksi, Cowok Keren, Foto Artis Vino Bastian. Artis Sinetron, Pria Tampan, Laki-laki Telanjang.


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Looks like MS has done some amazing things with Internet Information Systems... it's a shame really. This stuff seems like it's work better on the International Space Station. Oh well!
Seriously, I'm curious here. Don't they already have like a dozen modules for doing experiments that they hardly use?
What exactly are they doing up there that they'll need these new cubes for?
Don't they already have like a dozen modules for doing experiments that they hardly use?
Seems like IIS and ISS have more in common than you'd think.
It's been awhile since I've been in the program, but the idea is that racks with experiments come and go via Shuttle. With the demise of Shuttle, they'll bring smaller on-orbit replaceable units. Experiments on ISS have a longer lifetime than a lot of geeks' attention span, so they get lost in the background noise. Also, it's, well, science. Often, they're long-term experiments and have to be allowed to run during the course of the experiment, but don't require a lot of tweaking.
At the cost of space up ther
The existing lab racks are being regularly used, but their schedule is full and thus cannot support rapid turn around experiments which these cubes can do.
Which pretty much is explained right in TFA.
The Shuttle is going away, and with it one of the very few ways of transporting big equipment racks up & down.
All current vehicles servicing ISS don't have the large berthing ports; Shuttle also doesn't have one...but it could carry multipurpose cargo module (equipped in one) in its bay. Soyuz, Progress, ATV, upcoming Orion...their docking ports are small. Japanese transport vehicle does have the big berthing port (and also upcoming Dragon & Cygnus), but it's good to have options...
but it's good to have options...
Sure, but the Shuttle is too expensive. At two launches a year (which would be the frequency that the Shuttle would launch at), you're looking at costs somewhere above a billion dollars a launch. That can buy a lot of shiny.
Uhm, in above case "good to have options" was meant to relate to smaller lab modules, which can be transferred through the hatch of all (hence giving more options) vehicles docking with ISS.
The Shuttle is going away, and with it one of the very few ways of transporting big equipment racks up & down.
Up, not much of a problem. Progress hauls 2400 Kg up per shot (plus or minus a Raduga capsule, depending on particular variation launched, etc). That's enough for a rack full of stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft) [wikipedia.org]
Down, BIG problem. Raduga hauls 150 Kg per shot and is physically much smaller. Also, despite being a simple reentry vehicle, vaporizes on re-entry about 1/4 of the time. Makes you wonder how reliable are soviet ICBMs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBK-Raduga [wikipedia.org]
Yes, it can haul the weight - but you can't fit standard ISS cargo rack through it's docking port!
And Raduga seems to had better odds than you claim. Also, remember it started from higher, almost orbital, velocity; plus depended on proper ejection from Progress.
Soyuz, Progress, ATV, upcoming Orion...their docking ports are small.
"But... it's not the size of the port, it's the force of the thruster!"
If this indeed will prove to be the case (not that Constellation is in trouble; that Orion will never fly), there's still the possibility of Orion Lite.
Heh... Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.
Slashdot editors: It's ISS , which stands for International Space Station . This is not to be confused with IIS, which stands for Internet Information Server/Services.
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work. -- John G. Pollard


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- Ferrari
Raikkonen hopes to retain better feeling of F14 T
Kimi Raikkonen does not think the summer break will have changed the fact he felt better in the Ferrari F14 T than he has done all season in Hungary.
Raikkonen's struggles since his return to Ferrari have been well-documented, especially as he has been out-performed by Fernando Alonso at every race this season. At the beginning of the year Raikkonen was struggling to find the right setting for his car but he thinks the signs from the last few races suggest he is ready to turn a corner.
"I think overall the second half can only get better," Raikkonen said. "If it gets worse, obviously it's pretty bad. These two circuits [Spa and Monza] on paper are not the strongest for us but there's been a better feeling in the car overall in the last few races. I don't think that's suddenly disappeared somewhere, we've had some new things, small things, which have improved.
"There's a much better feeling now than there was in the first races of the year because I knew those issues and couldn't do anything about it at that moment. We are making the right steps and hopefully it's going to be a bit easier in the second half."
When asked whether he can pull off another miracle result in Belgium as he did in 2009, when he won his first race of a frustrating season, Raikkonen said he is not too optimistic. "I think it is a similar story but that year we were one of the only ones to run with the KERS and in this kind of place it was a good help for us. Now it's a bit different, though it's a difficult year again. Hopefully we can have a good weekend weekend overall and start improving things.
"I expect here and Monza will not be the easiest places for us with the speed we are missing on a straight line, a very important part of those circuits. We will do our best and see where we end up."


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0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
This was my story, and nope ... I didn't complain. To be honest, I have no idea to whom I could have directed a complaint ... there was no customer service or anything like that
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Thank You For Contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My Name Is Lethel.
Katherine, a new Comcast subscriber, was setting up her online account access when for reasons unknown it told her that she must talk the online CSR. Suddenly she felt fear and trepidation radiate down her arm and settle into her mouse hand. She took a deep breath, said a silent prayer and clicked "CHAT NOW." What proceeded was a mind numbing 20 minutes of her life that Katherine will never get back. Her letter and chat log inside…
Hi consumerist,
I'm writing in about your absolute favorite company. I wanted to be able to pay my new Comcast bill with a credit card, which means that I had to set up online access to my account. Well, Comcast, being the helpful company that they are thought it would be great to automatically change my preferences from receiving a paper bill to solely getting electronic statements. Well, I still wanted paper statements, just wanted to be able to pay my bill online. I figured changing back would be easy, but, as you guessed, it wasn't.
When I went to Manage My Account, and tried to change "Delivery Method" to paper statements. Comcast redirected me to a site telling me that my choice would require talking to a CSR, and included a big orange button saying "chat now". I hit the button, and had the following hilarious interaction with a chat CSR. Turns out the only possible way to reinstate paper statements after Comcast automatically stopped them is to call Comcast. I've only been a customer a week, and they've already made me wish I picked DSL in my new apartment!
Lethel > Hello guest_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Lethel. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Lethel > It would be a pleasure assisting you today. How are you doing?
guest_ > hi- i would like to receive a paper bill, which automatically was replaced with e-statements when i signed up for online access to my account
Lethel > Can you please acknowledge that you are still at your computer?
guest_ > i am at my computer.
Lethel > Thank you.
Lethel > May I know your name, please.
guest_ > katherine *******
Lethel > Hi Katherine! Thank you for asking that. <
Lethel > May I ask how long have you been a Comcast customer.
guest_ > is this really all necessary just to reinstate a paper bill?
guest_ > less than a month
Lethel > I see.
Lethel > Katherine, I will ask your assistance to call us in 1-800-COMCAST to request for that.
guest_ > are you kidding? please explain why you can't reinstate this
Lethel > We will be more than glad to send you a paper bill as soon as you gave us a call.
guest_ > why is this not as simple as a chat session? please explain
Lethel > I can give you the breakdown here online but I can't send you a paper bill.
Lethel > You may need to request for it.
Lethel > May I have your account number, please.
Lethel > I do apologize for the inconvenience.
guest_ > i don't need one sent. just need my preferences changed so i receive them
Lethel > I will try to help you with that.
Lethel > May I have your account number, please.
guest_ > i am looking it up. one moment
Lethel > Sure.
guest_ > ******************
Lethel > Thank you very much for the information. May I ask for your complete address, too.
guest_ > ****************
guest_ > ***************
Lethel > Thank you.
Lethel > May you give me a sec to pull up your account.
Lethel > Thank you for patiently waiting. I will ask you to log in to http://www.comcast.com. You may click the link the "customer", then click "manage my account", and change your STATEMENT DELIVERY to "paper statement".
guest_ > it directed me to you
guest_ > said that i need to talk to a "csr" on chat.
Lethel > Let me try to do it for you.
Lethel > May you bear with me.
guest_ > thank you
Lethel > I do apologize but it require me to provide password.
Lethel > As much as I want to do it for you. But password is case sensitive.
guest_ > so there is no way for me to change my preference myself, and you can't do it unless i provide you my password.
Lethel > There is a way. I suggest that you may try logging in again and changed your preferences. If it still directed you to us in live chat support, I suggest that you may call us to request for it. That is the easiest way to changed your preferences in your account.
guest_ > well, this has been a waste of my time
Lethel > I do apologize for the inconvenience.
Lethel > I understand that your time is valuable.
guest_ > is there any place i can lodge a complaint for how highly inefficient this has been? it seems that comcast needs streamlining if something as simple as changing bill delivery options requires so much effort
Lethel > I am sorry to hear that. You can call us in 1-800-COMCAST. As much as I would like to help you but I am limited to our system here. And also, password is a case sensitive which
are not allowed to ask to our customer.
Lethel > The reason why I was suggesting earlier that you may call us in our customer hotline so that we can assist you right away with your concern. You have reached sales department.
Lethel > I can only place orders and provide information with our products.
Lethel > Is there anything else I can assist you with today, Katherine?
Lethel > Can you please acknowledge that you are still at your computer?
guest_ > there is not
Lethel > Thank you for your time. I hope you will give us a call and assist you with your concern.
Lethel > Thank you for choosing Comcast. We do appreciate your business. Please do not hesitate to chat with Comcast again at http://www.comcast.com. We are always available, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Lethel > Analyst has closed chat and left the room
We can't that say we've ever heard the name "Lethel" before but the sound of it certainly embodies the Comcast we have come to know and loathe. We are still trying to figure out why Lethel kept dragging Katherine along, only to declare at the end that she was merely an impotent sales rep. We hear so many of these stories that we don't even get upset any more, we just say, "that's comcastic!"
(Photo: jorny)
Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.


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The 25-year-old, who had a loan spell in the Premier League with Blackpool last season, is surplus to requirements at St Mary's.
His agent, Tony Finnigan, has confirmed Pompey have made an enquiry and that Puncheon would consider signing for the Blues.
"Southampton don't want him there. They want to sell him, so people are being encouraged to enquire," Finnigan told The News. "He is a good player but [Southampton manager] Nigel Adkins doesn't want him. He has gone from playing at Old Trafford to playing with the Under-16s.
"Portsmouth have made an enquiry to find out what the price would be and there was a chat. Jason is a good player and just down the road from them so I'm sure they would have seen him a few times.
"Of course he would be interested, he is not wanted by Southampton so needs to go. I don't know the price Southampton have put on him or what they are going to do. It is out of my hands."
Source: Team_Talk


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The great unmapped territories of the Canadian North and the impetus of war are reviewed in this film. This is the story of the barnstormers and bush pilots who explored Canada's vast hinterland, and of the heroes of World War II who flew the Bolingbrokes and the Ansons, the Mosquitoes and the Hurricanes. Part two of Salute to Flight.
More info on this film in NFB catalogue »»