text:
The Browns officially introduced the members of Mike Pettine's first coaching staff on Thursday and defensive coordinator Jim O'Neil said he was excited by the young players that Cleveland has on defense.
One of those players is Barkevious Mingo, the edge rusher who was drafted sixth overall last season. Mingo had five sacks in 15 games in a rotational role during a rookie season that was a bit less productive than hoped for on draft day. Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal reports that O'Neil said he's a big fan of Mingo's (so is his wife, who O'Neil revealed baked cupcakes for Bills staffers last year to prod them to draft the LSU product), but that doesn't mean the new staff doesn't see room to improve.
Pettine said that the organization will push Mingo, who is listed at 240 pounds, to gain weight before next season. If a bigger Mingo can hold up better at the point of attack, he'd help his chances of being on the field more often next season.
Pettine feels confident that the coaching staff can get Mingo to play like player the Browns wanted with the sixth overall pick and the results from Buffalo last year should make Mingo confident that the coaches know what they're talking about. Pettine, O'Neil and linebackers coach Chuck Driesbach coached that Bills unit to 57 sacks last season, results they'd surely like to replicate with Mingo blossoming into a major threat to opposing quarterbacks.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Spencer Goes Global in "Ultimate Comics X-Men"
- by Dave Richards
- – on
- in Comics, Comic News
Most fans are familiar with the Marvel Universe's mutants. As the next step in human evolution, mutants are imbued with fantastic and amazing powers which separate them from normal humans. However, in Marvel's Ultimate Universe, mutants aren't the result of evolution; merely one of humanity's mistakes -- and in the first arc of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" written by Nick Spencer with art by Paco Medina and Carlo Barberi, the populace of the Ultimate U discovered mutants are a byproduct of an experiment conducted long ago by the U.S. government.
The revelation kicked off the most intense wave of anti-mutant hysteria the Ultimate Universe has ever seen. Now, the X-Men of the Ultimate U aren't just fighting to protect a world that fears and hates them -- they're fighting for their very survival. On February 15, Nick Spencer begins a new arc for the Ultimate X-Men in issue #7, beginning directly after the harrowing revelation to the general public of the true origin of mutants.
The initial arc of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" introduced readers to a group of young mutants and one super powered human banding together to help cope with the current climate of anti-mutant paranoia. Their ranks include the Human Torch, Iceman, Jimmy Howlett, Rogue and the team's de facto leader Kitty Pryde.
"Kitty is the person that everybody looks to when the chips are down. It's not a position that she ever wanted and she's always been my favorite character within the Ultimate Universe because of the amazing work that Brian Bendis did on her in 'Ultimate Spider-Man,'" Spencer told CBR News. "As soon as I heard the words 'Ultimate Comics X-Men,' I knew she was my lead. I think we hit some great emotional moments with her in this first arc like the confrontation between her and Johnny.
"Kitty's arc; how she comes to grips with who she is and where she goes from here, is the book. Whether or not she can be a leader is something that we've been setting up since the first issue," Spencer continued. "Now after our first arc, Kitty isn't just responsible for a few of her friends. She's now the de facto leader of a few dozen young, homeless mutants."
While Kitty may have fallen into the role of leader, her dynamic with the team was especially complicated in the series first arc -- with a very contentious relationship with the devoutly religious Rogue.
"She's our other lead and someone on Twitter referred to her as the mutant Joan of Arc. I think that's a fantastic way to sum up where she is," said Spencer. "Rogue's religious backgrounds and leanings were something that made me gravitate towards her in this story because when you look at everything that mutants had been through -- and the world had been through -- over the last couple of years in this universe, it was really obvious to me that somebody like her would fall back on their faith and beliefs. A key part of this story is a belief in something greater, something better versus pragmatic realism.
"Rogue and Kitty are the two sides to that coin. The way they play off each other is a lot of fun for me to write and one of the strongest aspects of the book. That is always a really cool dynamic because the reader is so eager to go with the person who believes in something better. We're trying to make that really challenging. When we made it look like Rogue was betraying the X-Men in this first arc, people were saying awful stuff about her all over the Internet. Nobody has apologized," Spencer said with a laugh. "So that was fun."
For Spencer, the fun continued with readers' responses to the reveal of the identity of Rogue's unseen "God." In the first arc, Rogue claimed her unknown benefactor gave her a plan to help defeat the X-Men's first foe by making it seem as though she had betrayed the team. At the end of issue #6, readers leaned "God" appears to be Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, supposedly dead after the events of "Ultimatum."
"It was a lot of fun seeing people's responses to that scene," said Spencer. "We played a long game on the arc. We let the tension mount up and we set up our mysteries very carefully. In this age of instant gratification and short attention span, reading that can feel like a tough slog. When issue #6 dropped and I saw the response, it was really rewarding. It validated the direction that we chose."
While readers will learn more about Rogue's conversations with Xavier and possibly other characters in upcoming issues, it's only one of several ongoing mysteries that Spencer is developing in "Ultimate Comics X-Men" -- a tactic the writer compares to his critically acclaimed Image series, "Morning Glories."
"I think now people can see that this is probably the closest to a 'Morning Glories' style long form mystery that I've done at Marvel. I think you can see some similarities in the structure of the stories and I was really curious to see how the mainstream super hero comic reader would respond to that kind of structure, pacing, and approach -- because we are in an age of recompression," the writer said. "You've got to really have some patience and confidence to not put all your cards on the table in your first three issues. We've had all these hints that we've been laying out about who's dead and who isn't, the mystery of who 'God' is, the mystery of what's been going on in Egypt and the mystery of what Quicksilver is up to. You really start to see it hit that crescendo at the end of issue #6 and people were going nuts. It was fun. That's what comics should do."
Rogue seeing Xavier also raises questions about the nature of death in "Ultimate X-Men" and the Ultimate Universe, which has operated on a "dead is dead" principle, with characters coming back to life only rarely. "It's been funny seeing all the responses on the Xavier thing -- and also in terms of the Scarlet Witch, who is also dead but has been seen interacting with Quicksilver. Everybody is saying, 'This can't really be them because they told us dead means dead,'" said Spencer. "The first thing I would say to that is if I thought it would make something more shocking and make the story stronger, I would lie through my teeth about that kind of thing publicly. I have no qualms about that I will happily misdirect you.
"What I will say about this story in particular is the answer may not be as simple as 'Are they or aren't they?' There could be more to it," Spencer continued. "I think we've come up with a very rewarding story in its own right that strengthens the uniqueness of this universe. I think the primary reason of the 'dead means dead' rule is to give the Ultimate U something that distinguishes it from the mainstream Marvel Universe. When this story is done I think readers will see that's still the case regardless of the validity of these appearances."
Rogue's visions of God and dead people make her one of the book's more mysterious characters, Johnny Storm -- who may be the team's only human member, but has made it crystal clear he's just as devoted to the cause of mutant rights -- seems to be a much quicker study.
"I think one of the things that is always easy to forget when you're writing these books is the age of the characters in question. They're all teenagers -- and in my experience nobody picks up a cause like a teenager. When they get it in their head that a treatment of a particular group is wrong, they tend to go all in. Johnny's best friends are mutants and he's surrounded by them, so it made a lot of sense to me that he would get really into the cause," said Spencer. "So it's almost like he's trying to be a mutant and it's a source of consternation, especially to Bobby. This speaks to his character, though. Johnny is a good guy who cares about his friends. This is his way of trying to show solidarity with them. Maybe he's overdoing it, but it's a sweet gesture."
During their quest for mutant rights, the group was forced to confront a group of violent human supremacists armed with high tech weaponry. Their leader, William Stryker Jr., has the ability to turn off mutant powers -- something he claims is a divine gift. However, in issue #6, Stryker's ability is revealed to be the mutant power to communicate with machines -- a revelation which hints at the Ultimate X-Gene being man-made technology.
"We're still exploring the nature of what the X-Gene is, but in issue #6 we hint that the X-Gene is in fact man-made technology. That's why Stryker is able to do what he does to mutants, because of his ability to communicate with technology," Spencer explained. "We are going to explore the history of the X-Gene. We'll touch on that in issue #12. That is going to be another big, shocking moment for readers who have been following along."
Stryker and his anti-mutant bigotry are familiar to long time X-Men fans. The character made his Ultimate Universe debut in the final story of "Ultimate X-Men" before "Ultimatum," but in "Ultimate Comics X-Men" #6, he power and danger grew exponentially when he used his mutant ability to transfer his consciousness into bodies of the U.S. government's fleet of anti-mutant Nimrod robots.
"As soon as I started thinking about the book, Stryker was an obvious choice for a first arc villain because there's something familiar about him," Spencer said. "He's thought of as an 'A-List' preeminent X-Men foe, but I think what we've come up with for him takes him in a new and very terrifying direction. That's really what the Ultimate line of comics is all about. You're supposed to be taking things that are familiar so people think they know what they're getting and then turning them on their head."
Stryker was able to gain control of the Nimrod fleet thanks to Pietro Maximoff. Pietro, known as Quicksilver, convinced the President of the United States to link the Nimrods to the mutant tracking Cerebra computer -- a decision the president immediately regret.
"In issues 5 and 6, there was considerable debate amongst the White House staff over what has happened to the president in his conversation with Pietro," said Spencer. "Was he somehow being manipulated? Was this his decision? The bottom line of whether or not he was of sound mind at the moment of his decision is going to quickly be irrelevant because he has had a very bad 48 hours. It's probably the worst 48 hours that any president in the history of the United States has ever had, even in the Ultimate Universe. He is looking at an avalanche of bad news in terms of the 'mutant problem.'
"That is going to be a major part of the book as well. There will be consequences for his actions. Val Cooper, who is a major part of our story, will have to deal with a lot of them. She's a new Ultimate character that I'm enormously proud of and a love to write," Spencer continued. "We are going to see in issue #8 that Val has more problems on her hands then she even realizes. That's another one I think is going to surprise the hell out of people. It's fun because we're still in our set up phase. Really our first year is all about setting the foundations and stage. We are now at the point though where the twists will start coming real fast."
One of the Spencer's unknown twists is Quicksilver's true agenda, which has been murky since "Ultimate Comics Fallout." Is the former member of the Ultimates insane? Is he out to destroy mutants or save them? According to Spencer, readers may soon get answers.
"Pietro is the focus of issue #7 and we're going to spend some time with him. We'll answer a couple of the questions we posed about what he's doing, why he's doing it, and who's instructing him to do it. He's one of my favorite characters to write in the book. He has been since we started setting things up in 'Ultimate Comics Fallout,'" said Spencer. "We've seen him make a play in the private sector with Worldwide Solutions. We'll find out more about the extent of that. We've seen him make a political power play with his grabbing the president's ear. The ramifications of both of those moves on his part are going to be felt throughout this series. I believe at the beginning of issue #7 it's going to be really clear to the readers just how devastating those choices he's made have been for mutants throughout the entire United States."
Looking to the upcoming arc of "Ultimate Comics X-Men," Spencer will focus on some characters that have only appeared briefly -- like Quicksilver -- and others who have not appeared in the book yet at all, meaning readers will be taking a break from Kitty's rag-tag team of teen mutants.
"The biggest thing about the second arc is that we're not going to spend any time with the kids. We're going to be doing quick stop ins across the country and across the globe and seeing the reverberations of what happened with Kitty, Rogue, Bobby, Johnny and Jimmy. So we're now going to take six issues away from our main cast and in this age of impatience it's a little terrifying for a writer to do that," said Spencer. "Knowing what I know about the third arc though, which is about starting to connect these things and seeing how they're all inter related, it's going to make it so much sweeter when we come back to Kitty and company in issue #13."
Some of the characters featured in the second arc of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" have the potential to become regular cast members -- if they survive the events of the arc. "We will be checking in with some mutants we have not yet seen in the past arc, but were an important part of 'Ultimate X-Men' in the past. We're going to be visiting some familiar faces and see where they are,' the writer said. "We checked in with a couple briefly in issue #1, but we didn't get too spend much time with them all. We're going to be coming back to them in a big, big way. What they do is a major part of our story."
Spencer will actually be telling several different interconnected tales in the second arc of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" that follow the events of issue #6. "The biggest of that are the ramifications of where we left Pietro, Stryker, and the Nimrods at the end of issue #6. The Stryker-controlled Nimrod fleet flew off and we're going to see what they're going to do next. The ramifications of it are the biggest thing we've done in the book by far," Spencer said. "Our first arc was really about putting these characters in place and Jonathan Hickman over in 'Ultimates' has been blowing up countries. He's been doing these massive things. So, I can say don't count us out of that yet! Now that my pieces are all in play, the scale will start to increase exponentially. We go global and things are going to get real big."
One of the locales Spencer visits in the second arc of "Ultimate Comics X-Men" is the Southeast Asian Republic, home to two new mutant dominated cities; the Celestial and Eternal cities ruled by brothers Xorn and Zorn. Jonathan Hickman introduced the cities and their rulers in his recent "Ultimate Comics Hawkeye" mini-series.
"Jon set up a really amazing other component to mutants' statuses in the Ultimate Universe with the appearance of Xorn, Zorn and their cities. We're going to be playing with all of that in a big way. We started to see a little bit of that in issue #6 when the Oracle appeared, but issue #8 will link these two stories very intimately," said Spencer. "Ultimate Hawkeye' ended with Karen Grant, Liz Allen and Derek Morgan -- the stars of 'Ultimate Comics X' -- still in the SEAR. What they're doing and what's happening there is going to be a huge moment. I know lot of 'Ultimate X' fans have wondered when we're going to see those characters and what's going to happen to them. All I can say is make sure you check out that issue because they are the focal point there."
"Ultimate Hawkeye" isn't the only book Spencer will follow up in "Ultimate Comics X-Men." In upcoming issues the writer will examine how the climate of fear being created by the Children of Tomorrow as they assimilate Europe in current issues of "Ultimate Comics Ultimates" impacts mutants in the Ultimate U.
"We want to make sure things that happen in one book play off of and are felt in the others," said Spencer. "I'm very committed to that. It's not just Jon's 'Ultimate Hawkeye' stuff that you'll see reactions to in 'Ultimate Comics X-Men.' One of the biggest things to think about on that front is obviously there's a lot of history between Johnny and the Children of Tomorrow's leader, Reed Richards."
Confrontations with former teammates and dealing with anti-mutant bigotry means "Ultimate Comics X-Men" is a series that regularly deals with intense, and often ugly emotions. Spencer doesn't want the book to be heavy or emotionally draining and seeks to balance the emotion of the book by regularly including other elements like adventure and mystery. The writer feels his artistic collaborators Paco Medina and Carlo Barberi are integral in helping him achieve balanced stories that walk the line between intense and fun.
"Paco and Carlo are switching off between arcs. I'm working with Carlo right now and both of these guys are a blast to work with. It's always great when you have an A-B artist team that synchs up well with each other," said Spencer. "It makes the book consistent despite there being two artists and that's almost impossible to find in comics. So I'm thrilled about that. I think there's such an energy and dynamism in their work and that really bleeds into how I tell the story.
"Paco has such a strong grasp on that core cast. His depictions of Kitty, Rogue, Bobby, and Johnny are fantastic. He did an incredible job of taking characters that were already known and making them his. Plus, he's a fantastic storyteller. He brings a lot of positivity and energy to his projects and Carlo is the same way," Spencer continued. "They are the perfect fit for this book. They're finished work looks really, really close and I really wanted the book to read consistently. When you're doing a long form mystery that helps a lot. So getting Carlo on board was exactly what we needed. I feel really good about where the book is and where it's headed."
"Ultimate Comics X-Men" #7 is on sale February 15.


text:
Guest Post: My Husband Is the Nurturer
By Bryn
The October 2018 Women's Session of General Conference certainly electrified me (not in a good way). As I went from deep unease to shaking a bit and wanting to cry, I'm not sure I can explain fully why I felt such a deep sense of wrongness as my being was continuously described to me as a natural nurturer, but I know it has something to do with my husband, the nurturer, who happened to be sitting right next to me during the session.
I married a man who was raised, at least for a time, by his single father. Becoming a father himself was one of his great ambitions. He expected to be a father, just like his dad had been a father to him. It was special, perhaps made more so by the passing of my husband's father before we started having children.
Well, now we have children. Three, in fact. My husband used to toss his tie over his shoulder as he held a baby through sacrament meeting. He never once complained about holding a baby, managing bottles, diapers, and entertainment, but he didn't enjoy getting spit up on his silk ties. He would hide out in hallways and unused classrooms as he rocked a little one to sleep. He packed the diaper bag and made a point of us choosing that diaper bag together. He wanted to feel comfortable, like it was HIS bag and MY bag, as we carried our babies around in public.
My husband is the chief night nurse of the house. Now that our children are mostly sleeping through the night, he does the late night feedings, the bathroom runs, and the early risers. He bears sleep deprivation better than I do and can usually get back to sleep faster, so it made sense for him to take on this role. Our children even go all the way around the bed to get to him, even though they have to pass me. They know their dad is their go-to 2 AM problem solver.
My husband asked for flex-time at work so he could be home in the late afternoon. He gets up early in the mornings so he can be home with time to make dinner or to take the kids out to play. My husband loves to cook and often makes the bulk of our dinners. With three young children still mostly at home and me working part-time from home, he often takes over in the afternoon by planning and making dinner while managing the kids so I can lock myself in the bedroom and finish my work. He doesn't multi-task effortlessly, but he does it, the same as I do during the breakfast and lunch rush of my daytime activities.
My kids light up when my husband arrives home. They know it's play time. He lays down on the floor and plays "Robot Dad," "Chase," and "Tackle." They sit on his lap to play video games. They giggle, screech, and beam with joy. They go to the park so often with their dad that the kids christened our park bag, with toys and snacks, the "daddy bag."
In the evening, my husband takes either the littlest one or the two big ones, while I take the other option, and reads a few bedtime books. He cuddles, hugs, kisses, and noses each child in the way that they love. They hug first, they give a kiss, and then they brush their noses together. He puts out the bedroom lights, shuts the door, and walks to the kitchen.
Now he's going to prepare the older kids' milk cups in the fridge, in the exact place and with the exact cups that they like, so they can get them out in the morning and buy us a few extra minutes of peace. He'll wash the lunch box containers and set them out so I can pack them on preschool mornings. If it's Sunday morning, he'll be packing the sacrament activity bag with snacks, scrubbing a child's hair with shampoo (he leaves the brushing to me because he is just. so. awkward. at it), and picking out Sunday clothes.
I could write an entirely different piece about the vital and unique ways I also nurture my family. I could write about our partnership and how we perceive our roles as equal providers, nurturers, and individuals who bring our unique skills and talents together to serve our family. But today, I think it's just better to say, without a doubt, that our happiness as a family is deeply derived from the efforts of my husband, the nurturer, far more so than his efforts as a provider or leader.
What a shame it would be to limit him to presiding and providing. What a shame it is to ever limit anyone to one single role.
Bryn teaches online basic writing classes, studies rhetoric and writing, and keeps three little people going all in partnership with her awesome husband. Her greatest parenting trick is that she can now recite Little Blue Truck from memory.


text:
Choose Faith Deluxe Return Address Labels (2 Designs)
Personalized address labels are also a quick and easy way to label your books, CDs, DVDs and other belongings to avoid mix-ups. The set includes 144 personalized self-stick address labels, each measuring 1" x 2-1/4". We'll print your labels with the name and address, message, or information you choose.
© Velvet Lime Girls
Specify block or script and 1st line of personalization, up to 35 characters and 2nd line of personalization up to 50 characters.
Write Your Own Review


text:
$4.99 shipping on any size order
Put that fork away and grab a glass! Our My Favorite Salad is Wine Socks are the perfect complement to any delicious glass of wine. After a long day, don your comfy clothes and these brightly colored socks and let the good times roll.
My Favorite Salad is Wine Socks are a cheeky, fun gift for all the ladies who look forward to a relaxing evening with a nice vintage "salad." They'll love the hilarious message and abstract art on these cozy socks every time they slip them on.
Fits ladies' sizes 5-10
Made from 53% combed cotton, 45% nylon and 2% spandex.


text:
A sudden torrent of rain took us by surprise. Our umbrella clothesline, newly transplanted from Krum and hung with several washer-loads of clothes, keeled over like a felled tree. Happily, the clothes fell on clean grass.
Daniel's MP3-playing stereo and alarm clock did not fare so well. After the rain we discovered that the roof in his porch room leaks. (It's too bad about the stereo. Daniel received it at as a gift at a karate Shiai, a three-times-yearly event at which students demonstrate what they've learned and possibly receive promotions; Kyoshi Robert Kristensen makes sure that every junior student who attends a Shiai receives a gift.) A library book got a thorough dousing as well. Daniel started drying it in front of a fan right away; we may have to pay for some damages, but the book ought to be quite usable.
Richard and Sheila left after lunch. Now that we live in Kingsbury, we are two hours away from them instead of three.
After they drove away, we went out to the land where we intend to build, and just walked around. Ann suggested this place as a building site years ago when we started seriously planning to move south. If I recall correctly, two houses have stood there; one of them burned, and the other sort of fell apart. A family named Burns lived there before Greg's grandfather bought the property, and then a lady whose name I don't remember, and then a hired man and his wife. The hired man believed that that location was the best on the whole farm for gardening, and he did always have a good, productive garden.
Unfortunately, the site now contains a lot of junk: metal, glass, and just plain trash. But the road doesn't flood, and after nine years of coping with Krum's sticky black clay, I find the prospect of sandy loam very attractive.
The area around the gate is overgrown with lots of herbage, some of which looks an awful lot to me like poison ivy. Greg doesn't want to believe it is. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right. Neither of us has ever reacted to poison ivy before, but according to what I've read, this does not mean we are immune. On the contrary: the more times you have been exposed, the more likely you are to get a rash, because the toxin builds up in your system. Some people are so sensitive that they break out after only one exposure.
I knew we were bound to run into poison ivy sooner or later on the land, so before we moved I stocked up on plantain and jewelweed from The Bulk Herb Store, which Shoshanna Pearl Easling says make a terrific remedy. Still, I would prefer to avoid the noxious plant altogether.
Our goal today was to figure out where to plant our garden. Heading west from where the vanished houses used to stand, we suddenly emerged from the brush and grass into a big rectangular area, almost entirely clear of mesquites, and retaining some of an old barbed-wire fence. Greg said, "I think we've found the old garden site." (Ann later confirmed this.) South of the garden site was another open area in which we could envision an orchard. Inspired, we went home and got out our copy of Neil Sperry's Complete Guide to Texas Gardening.
Recently someone posted some citrus trees to sell on Craig's List, and that got us talking. I have long desired to grow some citrus for home use. Of course the trees are too cold-sensitive to be grown on a large scale around here; even in the Rio Grande Valley, where I grew up, citrus farmers suffered periodic crop losses whenever temperatures would drop below freezing. (I well remember the drama of the infrequent cold snaps, listening to local weather people keep track of the temperature as it hovered in the low thirties.) But individual trees can be grown quite nicely, provided they are well wrapped in freezing weather, which even here occurs infrequently. Some people even keep the trees in containers, and move them to a garage or other shelter when temperatures drop. It is one thing to protect a whole orchard against a freeze, and quite another to take care of two or three trees. People do it in far colder climates than ours.
Greg continued to read Neil Sperry while I did other things. He examined the zone map and studied the chapter on fruits; and he kept talking about the citrus trees. It seemed that he was against the idea of keeping any, because of their cold sensitivity. I explained again about the containers and about wrapping the trees in plastic, but Greg resisted to a degree I found unreasonable. He was almost pleading with me to abandon the whole notion. Finally I realized that he didn't understand that I wanted only a few trees. He thought I wanted a whole citrus orchard south of the garden and intended to raise the fruit as a cash crop. My remarks about the containers only confused him further, giving him a mental image of a field of potted trees, standing in orchard rows, which our family would lug to a garage in case of freezing weather. Daniel, listening in, also misunderstood, and had harrowing visions of midnight smudge fires as described in Edward Bloor's excellent book, Tangerine.
It is always disconcerting to realize someone has spent the last several minutes thinking you are a complete numbskull. Daniel and Greg were both relieved to find out what I really meant. Greg should have known better, as I have spoken before about keeping a couple of citrus trees for personal use.


text:
Rutherford College NC Senior Apartments
There are 0 Senior Apartments in Rutherford College, North Carolina and 1 Senior Apartments nearby.
PinecrestHickory NC 28601 - Distance: 12.5 miles
You'll be instantly charmed by our peaceful, rural setting that's just a short drive from Charlotte, Asheville, Blowing Rock and Boone. Residents enjo ...Independent Living - Senior Apartments


text:
Roger Moore
Yeah, it's my real name. I think my parents named me after that James Bond fellow, whom I've met and interviewed, BTW.
Not to date myself, but my first published review was "Rocky IV," made some lame crack about Stallone sticking with this franchise until he was "Rocky on I.V.," or some such. I have been a film critic with several newspapers and such wire services as McClatchy-Tribune News Service, and my work -- filmmaker, actor profiles, movie reviews -- has appeared in a vast array of North American (and Australian) newspapers -- Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Philly papers, The Atlanta Journal Constitution to The Washington Post.
I've also been published in Spin, The World, Vitae, assorted other magazines over the years. And I've popped up on MSNBC, CNN, and more local TV and radio programs than I can count.
As newspapers, TV and radio stations and magazines have finite shelf lives for articles they keep up online, this site serves mainly as an archive -- one place where every actor or filmmaker profile or review that I write can be found.
Now, let's talk about movies.


text:
Regular price
No Good Deed goes unpunished...
In Stock - Sample Pricing - Size Small.
No returns or cancellations - no exceptions. If for some reason you are unhappy just contact us and we'll do everything we can to try and make you happy again :) We also welcome both positive and critical feedback on these printed garments to continuously improve them!SIZING INFO: See measurement chart in photos; sizing is approximate.
This shirt feels soft and light, with just the right amount of stretch. It's comfortable and the unisex cut is flattering for both men and women.


text:
Its been a season for change for the Portland Trail Blazers.
Former franchise player Brandon Roy retired before the start of the season due to degenerate knees. Former number one pick Greg Oden was released after undergoing another season-ending knee surgery and they dismissed Coach Nate McMillan and assistant coach Kaleb Canales was promoted to interim coach.
"That's hard to come back from, but we feel we've set a course," acting general manager Chad Buchanan said at the time of McMillans firing. "We've got a lot of room to spend this summer. We've got some really attractive draft picks. We feel good about the direction we're setting ourselves with."
With still having to hire a general manager, whoever is handling the decisions this summer will have to decide what to do with restricted free agent Nicolas Batum.
According to CSNNW.com, his price may exceed what the now rebuilding Trail Blazers are willing to spend on the 23-year-old forward.
The number Im hearing Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum will command this offseason is 10-11 per, according to a few league executives when Batum becomes a restricted free agent.
And, Im being told by multiple sources that the San Antonio Spurs will a hard push to attain the small promising small forward.
It makes sense that the Spurs would be interested in Batums services.
The four-year small forward is one of the leagues better perimeter defenders and an improving offensive player.
Aside from him being able to slip seamlessly into the Spurs system, he would join countrymen Tony Parker and assuming they choose to bring him back, Boris Diaw.
The Blazers will definitely have the money to match any offer Batum receives, but it all depends on what direction the acting general manager, at the time, wants to go in.


text:
Having worked as an arbitrator and litigator in the City for 18 years, Tom Sprange QC, the newly appointed managing partner of King & Spalding's London office, describes his outlook on the market.
Tom Sprange QC, the new managing partner of London office at King & Spalding confesses to CDR that he "fell into" practicing law. His career started at a commercial litigation firm in Sydney, where he worked on employment and small injuries cases in New South Wales and simultaneously studied for an LLM in international law. The completion of his LLM was the catalyst for him upping sticks and moving to London because of the sparse international law opportunities to be found in the domestically focused Sydney market.
The plan was to stay in the City for a year or two and his first brief stint was as a contract lawyer at the now defunct Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, which he left after one year to become a partner at Steptoe & Johnson, a position he held for over eight years, and holds some significance to him.


text:
Artist and designer Arnold Martin produces templates for a variety of fanciful airship models (not functioning, sadly) that you can print out on a home 3D printer such as the MakerBot Replicator 2 (now only $2199). I didn't know I needed one of these, but I do now. Hopefully the prices will come down in 4-5 years, just in time for my kids to make their own Archaeopop-themed toys.
A trireme, BTW, is an ancient greek warship. I love this design but I must quibble slightly: to be a trireme there have to be three banks of oars! (tres = 3, remi = oars.) Otherwise it's just a monoreme. Here's an awesome bonus video of a full-size trireme reconstruction at sea, circa 1991:
Look at 'em sweat!
Hat tip to the inimitable Boing Boing.


text:
December 05, 2011
Film: "Address is Approximate"
Absolutely lovely work from Tom Jenkins (just trust me & take the two minutes):
Update: Here's some great making-of info from Digital Arts.
Apropos of very little, I saw a Google Street View car sitting alongside Page Mill Road last week, its little optical turret spinning away. I hoped it was secretly one of their self-driving robots in disguise. [Via]
Spinning turret without the 4 foot tall / eight eyeball tower on top is a self-driving car. I used to see them rather frequently on I-280.
Beautiful, just beautiful. It's like if Toy Story was stop-motion instead of CG.
Recently Approved
Copyright © 2019 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy and Cookies (Updated)
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy and Cookies (Updated)


text: House Team Cleaning in Highland Park, MN To book your cleaning, first click on the Sq Ft link that corresponds with the square footage of your home. Next, select Area #4 IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TEAM CLEANING WORKS. CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT S&L TEAM CLEANING. Groupon or Living Social coupons may only be purchased once if you purchase another coupon in the same year the coupon will be subject to a $25 plus the state sales tax for your house cleaning.


text:
There are a few different ways this can be done but using MQC is going to be the most flexible.
Here is one way it can be done…
Basically you can create a class-map for each group of traffic you are trying to classify.
access-list 101 permit ip x.x.x.x y.y.y.y <customer A's ip address /inverse mask
access-list 102 permit ip x.x.x.x y.y.y.y <customer B's ip address /inverse mask
class-map match-any customera
match access-group 101
class-map match-any customerb
match access-group 102
Then you will create your outbound policy for the external interface
policy-map myoutboundpolicy
class customera
bandwidth (desired bw in kbps)
class customerb
bandwidth (desired bw in kbps)
interface (outbound interface)
service-policy output myoutboundpolicy
This configuration will allow each map to us above it's allocated bandwidth if it's available. In times of congestion, the traffic allocated as you defined.
If you want to only strictly allow the 300kbps or whatever number you decide, you can use the police option under each class in thepolicy map
police (bw in bps) conform-action transmit exceed-action drop
And finally you will have to determine how you want to limit inbound traffic.
An easy way to do this is to create a new service policy for each inside or customer facing interface and then police the outbound traffic there to your desired bandwidth.
There are numerous other ways to get to the same end goal but this seems to be a very easy and quick way to do what you're trying to do.
Good luck
set your bandwidth on the interfaces to teh speed you wish them to allow. it's fairly simple.
Register Hereor login if you are already a member


text:
Academy-award nominated Japanese animator Koji Yamamura has created this tiny, beautiful story about a Japanese headmaster who saves a whale, returning a debt for having been saved from starvation after the second world war. The 2-minute film took him 5 months to make and comprises 1700 drawings.
You can read more about Yamamura here.
Brian Fitzgerald is a Story Advisor at Greenpeace International.
this is a very nice animation. please help the whales. save the environment.
31 May, 2007 at 17:35
Flag abuse
Lament of the Whale
I cry for our shared grace
I cry for your human family
I cry for your whaler's family
I cry for my family
Lament of the Whale
I cry for our shared grace
I cry for your human family
I cry for your whaler's family
I cry for my family
I cry for me
With your warm hand you could stroke my skin like so many of your family have chosen to do
You would feel my warmth and gratitude
Why do you touch me only with your cold harpoon as you thrust it into my flesh?
I thought after so much killing that we would both crave harmony
That we had learned that we both feel and love
That we both treasure life
That we revere our comrades
That we embrace our children
That we share the same blood of our ancestors
That our hearts both beat the rhyme of life
How my child will cling to me as you haul my dying carcass out of the sea
How she will cry
Until you kill her too
31 December, 2007 at 7:15
Flag abuse
Read more
Read less
1 - 2 of 2 results.
Are you sure to remove this comment?
Are you sure to report this comment as abuse?


text:
After years of dismal test scores and a demonstrated inability to get a grip on its finances, as well as months of high drama with the school board firing and un-firing its superintendent several times, the North Forest ISD was officially put on notice today that the state is going to run its business.
Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott announced that he's going to put in a new three-member board of managers to replace the elected school board and a new superintendent as soon as the Justice Department gives its OK. The board of managers approach is the last step before shutting down a district.
If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.
You have successfully signed up for your selected newsletter(s) - please keep an eye on your mailbox, we're movin' in!
"The district is expected to start the new school year with an $11.8 million budget deficit. The district will not be able to sustain itself financially at its current taxing rate," Scott said in a statement.
In the past year, North Forest wasn't meeting payroll, has been denied short-term bridge loans by several banks, and its schools having been doing much to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Texas Education Agency reported.
More great news: the TEA will release its accountability ratings Friday at 1 p.m. as well as its annual dropout and completion report. Might as well get it all out of the way before school starts in less than a month.
-- Margaret Downing


text:
I recently started to document my family's history. This genealogy expedition became urgent since my grandparent might not life much longer. I encountered several practical and conceptual problems that are far from being trivial and I would like to invite you to work with me on them, possibly in the format of a (student) project.
This first challenge was to setup a collaboration with other family members that had already started collecting information. Since we do not life close to each other, we choose for the online service Ancestry.com. We made good progress and were able to quickly gather information about more than one hundred people. I can also download this information in the GEDCOM format to be able to process the data offline on my Mac using Reunion, the currently best genealogy program for the Mac. This software allows me to create nice family trees. Ancestry.com is also marketing their own software called Family Tree Maker, but it is only available for Windows. But then the real trouble started. I also have thousands of family pictures. They date back to the beginning of photography. Ideally, I want to document who the people in each photograph are. I encountered practical problems, but also conceptual ones and I would like to share my insight with you.
Lets first talk about some conceptual problems. Most genealogy programs allow you to add pictures to the people listed in their database. But in most of my pictures, several people are being depicted. We have here a classical many-to-many relationship. One person can be in multiple photographs and one photograph can contain multiple persons. This means that you cannot just create a folder for each person and drop their picture in it, because the same picture would have to be in multiple folders. You could work around this by creating shortcuts or symbolic links, but a file system is not made to easily maintain data structures. This is the typical task for databases. Most of the genealogy software use databases to maintain the information, but as of today, almost none have adequately solved this many-to-many relationship issue for photographs.
You could of course create your own database for your photographs, but it does not seem to make sense to maintain the information of the people in another software than the information about your photographs. On the other hand, if you do use an existing software or web service, you make yourself dependent on them. Any information you put into their system that goes beyond what the data format GEDCOM supports will be difficult to transfer to another software because each product uses its own format. Moreover, companies, software, operating systems, computers, all of these, come and go. What happens to your data when the company, who's product you use, suddenly declares bankruptcy and stops updating the software? For some years you will be okay, but as soon as you start using a newer operating system, you might no longer be able to use the software. What is most important is to keep your data in a format that can be transferred to the ever changing world of modern information technology. Using standardized formats, such as GEDCOM, greatly helps.
However, GEDCOM does not (yet) support storing information about photographs of the people in your family. Assuming that you do not want to go throught the trouble of building and maintaining your own database, where can you store this information in a standardized way? One solution is to store the information about who is in the photograph in the meta data of the photograph itself. The IPTC standard allows you to store text information about the picture within the file itself. Not every file format supports this standard, but two of the most commonly used formats, JPEG and TIFF, allow you to store meta data. So far so good. Many photo managing software allow you to add tags to each photo and stores them in the photo file. The names of your family members will of course become the tags, but you can also add information about when and where the photo was taken.
Lets summarize the main lessons so far before diving into more advanced topics. It is important to store your genealogical information, including information about the people in your family photographs in a standardized format, so that they will continue to be readable in the quickly changing world of modern IT. GEDCOM is the standard for genealogical data, but it does not help you storing information about who is who in all your family pictures. For this, you can use many photo managing software (such as iPhoto or Picassa) to add keywords to them, which are then being stored as IPTC compatible meta information.
Two problems remain. First, it would be desirable not only to know who is in a certain photo, but also where on the photo is that person. Imagine a large group photo. Just knowing all the people in there is only the first step. Knowing exactly who the person in the second row, third from the left, is the key. Marking the people in a photograph with a simple geometrical shape, such as a rectangle, would be the solution. But the IPTC does not allow you to store this information in a structured way. So again, we want to store information that go beyond the current standard for information storage. Again, you could extend a custom made database with the coordinates of a rectangular that defines the position of a person, but then we are back at the problem discussed earlier. Building and maintaining your own database is a considerable task that may go beyond your skills or your available time. So far I only found one genealogy program that allows you to mark the pictures in your collection: Family Tree Builder. Overall, it is a good program, but it is still a bit immature and it only runs on Windows.
I came across this software while searching for the solution for the second main problem. I have thousands of pictures, and most of them contain several people. That means that I would have to assign a great great great number of tags. Today's face recognition algorithms are good enough to detect the face in a picture and they can even identify people on a picture. So, why not unleash their power on my collection of family pictures? Family Tree Builder can find faces on a photograph, but it does not seem (yet) able to actually identify them. They claim it could, but even after a thorough search, I could not find this functionality. Adobe Photoshop Elements is also able to find faces on a photograph, but it does not automatically identify and tag them. There are some web services, such as Riya, Fotonotes and Picporta that make considerable progress at identifying people on photographs, but they are not focused on family history.
Academia has started to address this problem (paper1, paper2), but it appears to me as if no commercial or open-source program has yet solved these open issues: Create a genealogy software that not only allows you to maintain factual information about people, but also about photographs. This software should automatically find and identify the people in the photographs and store this information in a standardized format. If you think you are up to this challenge, maybe in the form of a student project, then please contact me. I would be happy to host such a project.
13 Comments
Update: Google released Picasa Web Albums 3 which contains face recognition. It works pretty well, but so far it is not possible to export the name tags. The information is therefore locked into the Google Universe. (http://picasaweb.google.com/home)
Another software that hopefully will hopefully soon be released is iLovePhotos. (http://ilovephotos.com/) it is also supposed to feature face recognition.
I am a beta user for picporta and also played with picasa, i must say picporta's face recognition is quiet accurate and the way they have integrated it in picporta is quiet amazing.
Also – now whenever i upload my pictures at picporta – they automatically suggest me tags based on the content – amazing isn't it ?
waiting for other players as well in this domain :)
Boy this is a timely post, I'm struggling with this exact issue! I just had a bunch of photos scanned using ScanCafe and I want to catalog all of this info and tie it to a family tree. In addition to what you have mentioned I would really like to have group editing of this information of course (like a wiki) as I don't know everyone in the photos but others do and a timeline tool (I came across a startup called Dipity that has a neat timeline feature (http://www.dipity.com) that pulls from Picasa and flickr, but they currently only go back 30 days or so, it's based on RSS feeds.
I too also came across the face recognition in Picasa and was encouraged, but disappointed in that only the owner can really make use of it. Flickr has the "community" stuff down pretty good, and you can do "notes" which allow you to draw boxes on the picture to identify things (like faces) but that just isn't practical for large volumes of pictures.
I sure hope something comes along on this front and hope you can let me know if you come across anything.
Also, in regards to ancestry.com, how happy are you with their fees and what you get with it? To me, their subscription price seems high. I have gone in with the free piece and would like to do the subscription, maybe for a concentrated period of time just to get some of the value, then cancel the subscription because once I use their research tools I should be done. But I'm not sure if once you cancel, do you lose that data you collected and maybe some other features. In any case, just wondering what you think of it in general since you are using it. I'll check out your other postings and see if you already answered this!
Hello Christoph,
Your post about recognizing and identifying people in family pictures is very interesting and I thank you for considering us in trying to solve this problem.
We've released version 1.0 and I was wondering if you had a chance of downloading our software (available FREE at http://www.ilovephotos.com), because we would love to hear your feedback. Currently we are using face detection and we will move in the future to facial recognition.
Good luck in improving the process of recognizing and identifying people in family pictures!
I experienced similar problem in the attempt to "reconstruct" my family history using narrations and a set of about 2000 pictures in a time range from 1880 until now.
The main difficulty was to find genealogical software able to support intelligent linking and display of people in pictures.
I use Family Tree Maker, though it not supports picture annotation (i.e. drawing boxes over each face in a picture and provide it with a link to the appropriate individual).
I also reflected to put the local coordinates for each individual in e.g. IPTC. Some software must also handle the situation a picture is cropped afterward when the origin of the coordinates must be recalculated (e.g. memorize in IPTC how the cropping was provided).
http://www.myheritage.com provides a good, imho, free genealogical software which includes picture annotation and linking.
The feature I miss is the face identifying. I can accept the face recognizing could be done manually – the software should be assisted by the user in several matter.
Talking about face identifying, a usual case is when I have a picture of known individual R1 at a later age and a set of pictures (some of them group pictures) taken at different dates (suppose 2-4 decades earlier). In this set some pictures represent groups in which the person R1 is supposed to be depicted, though not surely (e.g. could be not himself but a brother).
What I miss is an algorithm and software based on anthropological measures which are relatively constant through the whole life. This software could be assisted by the user, i.e. it would not be a problem the user point part of the face (e.g. eyes, mouth, nose etc) and generally provides the necessary information letting the software to calculate an "individual profile" which could be use to recognize the individual during all life moments.
What I mean is that it would be possible to identify some relative parameters (e.g. eye distance / eye to nose distance – lets call it P1) P1, P2 etc which are relatively specific for a physiognomy and relatively constant within an limited variation v1max, v2max etc during the whole life. P1, P2 etc should in this case be a kind of personal profile or spectrum.
Identifying if individual Rx, about 65 years old is the same as individual R1 (but not same as R12) would mean that Rx had a set of (P1+v1, P2+v2 …) which is sensibly within P+vmax set for R1 but outside P+vmax for R12.
Imho, the requirements for a tool genealogical face identification is not to be very fast and very automate. Instead, the software should perform functions on the scanned picture e.g. normalize (rotate, change perspective and distance), ask the user to point important face elements, calculate and store the specifically profile, match it with stored existent ones. The approach and final decision could be probabilistic e.g. "the person Rx is probably 90% the same as Rx but only 67% same as Ry). After that, the operator should decide, by applying other cross checking analysis about the person, whether the supposition is correct.
About appropriate format to store the genealogical and visual information and links, probably an XML based gedcom, which permit further, non limited, extensions would be useful.
Sorry for my English – I hope I succeed to explain what I mean.
It will be exciting to follow your progress. Good luck!
iPhoto 09 has now the ability to recognize people on photos, similar to Picassa Web. This is good news, but apparently it is not possible to export this meta information. Unless you create smart lists and add the names of the people manually into the comments. The comments can be exported using AppleScript (http://highearthorbit.com/289/).
If you go via Aperture you can then export this information to Adobe's XMP (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp/) using Lightbox XMP http://www.lightboxsoftware.com/lightboxXMP.html
Oh my gosh! Some one else has my problem!!! I came across this blog entry while trying to research possible software to find solutions for my quandary. As background, I do subscribe to ancestry.com and have recently found that the "unofficial family historian" has heaps and heaps and heaps of photos of various branches of our family. Many people are identified and some are not.
Problem #1: Seems simple enough- why can ancestry.com use the same technology as facebook to identify people? facebook's social networking site is made up tons of individuals (like those in my GEDCOM) and you can upload picture and movies. For pictures you can get the ubiquitous rectangle and tag a person. Movies, you simply tag that person as being in the movie. That would solve a bit of the many to many issue. This also solves another huge obstacle of ancestry, which is sure I can link the photo to various photo, but unless I can mouse over the face to get the tag, it is almost useless. Sure I know Sally, John, Emma, Richard are in the picture but which one is which if I am not familiar enough to identify them?
Problem #2: Storing data about the photo itself. Off the top of my head I would like to inventory: name of the photographer and location (if available), estimated year, possible significance (like you identified an event) which might tie to the GEDCOM. I am actually OK not tying to the actual event if I could overcome Problem #1 and #2.
These are the conceptual problems I have that are similar to what you identified. Second I have a few practical questions, but I think it is also a function of me being a newbie to the details of photography and digital photography.
Questions #4: what is the correct dpi to scan at (because this will feed into my next Question/Problem)? I want to scan all of our old photos at an appropriate dpi and format to allow for high quality reproductions. I want the originals properly stored and backups made in case anything should happen. However the size soon become unwieldy…
Question #5: For uploading to ancestry my file must be smaller than 10MB. clearly this size can support a high quality reproduction of the photo. However, the time it will take me to scan all these photos and THEN upload giant files is so intimidating I don't even know where to start. Do you maintain one copy of the picture for reproductions and another for easy uploading to sharing sites?
Question #6: This then brings me to why I want to share… duh. We have tons of very old family pictures which means some families might have NONE of their ancestors. I WANT them to have them. I want them to see them. I am so passionate about genealogy, I want others to have the opportunity. Keeping the originals is important too because to give the family the pictures to the various families disperses the collection to the four winds and means that you risk them being lost if some generations do not care about them. Plus, opening up what you have allows you to collaborate with others to identify previously UNKNOWN people. (That is why Problem #1 is so key- it isn't just about tracking who you KNOW but who you don't!)
Question #7: So OK, question #6 addresses a manual and emotional reason to identify previously unknown people in pictures but it very imperfect. So therefore I would like facial recognition like what I saw advertised in the MAC vs PC commercials. Scanning through thousands of photos it should be able to identify those we missed (while scanning, and scanning, and scanning)
Question #8: How many places do I need to maintain this information? Ack. So, say in my lifetime I scan all these high quality photos, upload them to ancestry (although picture also contain people and info that we may NOT maintain in our GEDCOM like friends, neighbors, the family dog, a local, a heirloom). I have to maintain my pricey ancestry membership lose my entire effort (though the though of uploading these pics to some other site makes me want to cry). Second I still want to maintain my original scans (which I back up using carbonite). BUT….
*sigh* I would hope such a software would either allow you to actually scan INTO the software (like Adobe does), OR the software should be based on linking to the original file location on a hard drive noting when new files are added or deleted… thus saving the ordeal of having yet another instance of the pictures to maintain. Preferably PC based so that I don't have to upload to a website.
Part of the answer should be that ANCESTRY.COM SHOULD HAVE THIS CAPABILITY!!!!!!!! For what we pay for it, it should perform facial recognition of all photos we upload to other members trees if they could just solve problem#1. It would be nice to receive discounts based on your contributions as an incentive to preserve family heirloom photos.
However, the other part is that I am a firm believer in open-source free ware too. Ancestry already has us hostage for other reasons… it is the BEST out there (despite my complaining). But the people developing these programs are not usually family historians or genealogists. Any solution should integrate with at least a GEDCOM file.
Sorry so long, but I am so disheartened that there is no solution out there yet. I would be willing to help, assist, test for anyone out there developing such a solution.
In the meantime, I will give the Family Tree Maker solution a try.
You exposed some very interesting issues with pictures. I have another potential problem: picture corruption. It's fairly easy to get your pictures or files corrupt, especially when doing housekeeping by moving files around disks. It's virtually impossible to check the 1000s of pictures if they are not corrupt after some time. You can use some CRC SFV tool but it is limited to the whole file. If you edit pictures, adding metadata, they have a different CRC, but graphical data is intact. What I need is a CRC check of only graphical data of JPG stored as metadata and a program to create and validate such CRCs. That way no matter how you add keywords, GPS coordinates, etc, you can always check the integrity of the picture.
(JPG intergrity check)
I have just received newsletter from myheritage.com. They claim to have included face detection and recognition in their pictures.
ImageMagick has a command to create a CRC of the image data (thereby ignoring EXIF stuff that might change)
identify -format "%#" myimage.jpg
Personally, I have been storing this hash in the comment section of my photos, as such:
so that even if the file gets manipulated, there is a chance I will be able to tell what original it came from.
I have the same problem and it is going to get worse. Out of my 4000+ hi-resolution scans there are many that are of marginal value to me but would be very valuable to others. Sharing on Ancestry would work, but it is cumbersome to work with, does not accept video or audio files (you can record on the site but not produce off line) and there is no face recognition so far. You can make small cropped faces from your group photos and use those, but this is a lot of work. Picasa is great but not exportable so far, though I have seen comments in the forums that indicate that a future version may support export of facial recognition info. myHeritage sounds good but looks a little rough as yet, and if you collaborate on line and make changes these cannot be downloaded. The changes exist only in the cloud. A good website based program called TNG solves many of the problems but does not yet have facial recognition.
I hope someone takes your comments to heart and develops a program to your excellent specifications. But realize it will not be trivial. The facial recognition engine must be licensed from the author. The GEDCOM format is fairly robust and standard, but extremely clunky and old-fashioned. Most real coders insist on using XML or a SQL database instead, but then it must be translated to GEDCOM for export. Losses and errors in translation are a knotty problem.
To Carolyn E. Re: Q4, there is no "right" dpi. Given that photos fade, get damaged or lost with time we need a photo archival copy that retains all the original information. This archival copy really should be a TIF with no compression. Someday a lossless compression scheme will become so popular that it becomes a cross-platform standard that will survive the evolution of operating systems and platforms. It hasn't happened yet. High resolution TIFs are huge files. So the only real archival solution so far is hard drives that are maintained by upgrade every few years to a new hard drive, with multiple copies in multiple locations. Since most of my valuable photos are black and white, I use 16 bit greyscale TIFs. I crank up the resolution til it hurts IE: till the zoomed-in results look like film grain and not pixels. A typical 5×7 print usually comes out to 48 Mbytes this way. Resolutions from 800 to 1600 dpi are not uncommon. Slides need 6400 dpi. If your scanner can do multi-pass scanning this helps a lot. Of course you can't upload these files and you don't need to. Use Picasa to make lower resolution copies and organize them at the same time, with tags and facial recognition. Picasa can read the TIFs (but don't edit them in Picasa! you will lose resolution) and you can group them as needed for export. Then you can batch export the whole album in lower resolution with one command, or upload for sharing etc. Hope this helps.
bp Tech: Thanks for your feedback!
This blog entry has stuck in my head for the last 6 months or so as I trudge through the extensive colletions family members have and figure out how to sort it all out. Some things are heirloom pictures and some things are heirlooms themselves!
The first thing I found is that you really need to define a goal, because the solutions depend on it. Is it 1) to preserve the photos and the identities of the people in the pictures? (AND attempt to identify the ones you DON'T know) 2) Do you have a larger interest in genealogy so you are interested in the RELATIONSHIPS among the people in the pictures and the among the pictures? 3) Do you have big hairy audacious goals of 1, 2 as well as 3) documenting the pictures themselves as heirlooms and every detail of the photo (location where was it taken, when it was taken, what photography studio, why was it taken) as well as every detail you can about the people in the pictures (a depth and bredth that moves you from genealogist to family historian).
I find myself not bitten but smitten with the genealogy bug! I fall in category 3, and unfortunately I have yet to find a satisfactory solution. I started on ancestry.com and it works well in that I can assign the photo to a person in my tree AND I can use rectangle "mouse-over notes" to specifically identify who is in the picture. Through the social networking that ancestry.com supports I have been able to identify some previously unknown people through other people who have connected to my tree. Even if there was an automated face recognition software out there, it will give Type I and Type II errors. You have to validate its solutions anyway and the people doing the research have the details and facts to help do that. The problem lies in some photos I have uploaded that are people not yet identified. Ancestry.com also limited the files to 10MB, not exactly the size needed to accomplish goal #1 like bpTech has shown. But overall, I have found it extremely rewarding because people who are serious enough to shell out the fairly substantial ancestry.com fee are serious enough to search for the answers.
Genealogy software solutions do a pretty good job of #1 and #2. Local genealogy software can link to pictures on your harddrive or expanded harddrive OR to directly scan into the software. They provide fairly nice linear relationships. I want the genealogy software solutions to go farther and track facts about neighbors/friends, heirlooms, photos as heirlooms, and homes (like architect, when it was built, what it cost, etc)
I am struggling because I want more complex relationships than the genealogy software is providing. Viewing the picture not just as a representation of the individuals in linear relationships, but the complex relationships of the photos as objects separate from the individuals and other objects in them.
Needless to say, I think I will need to cobble together several solutions to meet all goals 100% :)
Here's an interesting genealogy program that allows tagging [here it is called a rectangle tool] of individuals in group pictures and linking that tag to that person's own page.
It doesn't show up very high in any google searches. It was only after persistent googling that I found it.
Some features:
Reads genealogical data from GEDCOM files. That means that you can use FamiliaBuilder with almost any genealogy program.
Lets you create an album with still pictures, video/audio clips and other types of files.
You can link files to individuals and vice versa.
FamiliaBuilder supports group pictures: our rectangle tool lets you show where is each individual in the picture.
See the samples from FamiliaOnline to see the thumbnails enabled.


text:
Public Comment
Berkeley City Council Votes for a Flawed Minimum Wage Ordinance
In the year 2000, the Berkeley City Council voted for a living wage law that benefits workers employed by businesses contracting with the city or on Berkeley owned property. The Council on Tuesday (May 6) approved a much more modest, and unquestionably, a rather miserable minimum wage ordinance that extends to almost all workers in Berkeley. Here is all there is to it. There is no minimum wage increase this year. On January 1, 2015 the minimum wage will be $10 an hour, which will be only a dollar more than the State minimum wage law. In January 1, 2016, the minimum wage would rise to $10.75. So it will be two years before it reaches the current minimum wage in San Francisco. No further increases have been enacted for the following years even though the City's Labor Commission, whose members are appointed by Council members, submitted a proposal that would increase the minimum wage by 2020 to $15.25. It also included an annual cost of living adjustment (COLA).
Although the pressure from the business community was enormous, it was surprising to many and devastating to the Labor Commission that its proposal was completely ignored despite spending a year of hard work drafting the measure. It was especially distressing because the Commission had worked out a detailed agreement with Council member Capitelli, who was charged with the responsibility of reaching a compromise. Despite saying that he is giving his word that the proposal would be voted on with his support on at the May 6 Council meeting, he announced at Tuesday's meeting "I renege". Those words continue to ring in our ears.
The proposed ordinance submitted by the City Council's own Labor Commission provided additional income to cover health care if it was not provided by employers. This provision was ignored by the City Council. Also eliminated was a substantially higher hourly wage for employees in large businesses. Non-profits are exempted for one year, which include Kaiser and Sutter, whose executives make millions of dollars.
The Labor Commission's proposal also included annual increases that would have reached by year 2020 $15.25 an hour, and it would include a COLA each year afterward. But the measure that the City Council enacted expires after the January 1, 2016 increase to $10.75. Also, non-profits and government agencies will not be required to pay the minimum wage to young employees who were hired for job training purposes. Sounds innocent enough. But experience proves how such exemptions are often abused by non-profits offering training in name only. In short, many pro-labor provisions of the Labor Commission were omitted and some pro-business features were added.
Is there a brighter side to what happened? I hope so. But unless we can bring considerable pressure to bear, the prospects look gloomy. A ten member committee will be formed whose purpose is to fashion other minimum wage provisions. The committee will include four City Council members, three from the business community, and three representing labor interests. Since labor members are in the minority, It will be difficult to persuade the Committee to improve and expand pro-labor provisions.
There is no doubt that the majority of the public in Berkeley support a good minimum wage ordinance. And we demonstrated to the City Council the considerable public support by involving large numbers of people in one way or another. But on progressive economic issues, most of the Council members are unsympathetic. This may be surprising to many who think the Council is quite liberal. This is true, but mainly on domestic social issues and foreign policy matters, which it has often addressed.
So what do we do? We need to do what we can to influence the Committee and then the entire City Council. In the longer run, we need to elect more progressive Council members. And most of all, we must seriously consider taking the referendum route, which generally achieves the best results. Take for example, how eleven states have enacted a COLA in their minimum wage laws. Ten of these eleven States achieved the COLA by referendum. Only in Vermont was it enacted by the legislature.
Despite the disappointment, I am optimistic. We need to keep in mind that winning major victories often takes a very long while. Meanwhile we have built a social and political infrastructure that is capable of mobilizing large numbers of people and organizing political campaigns. And our credibility quotient is very high. I am certain that our efforts will enjoy a happy ending.


text: The freeze to be proposed would exclude spending on defence and international affairs [AFP] "The savings from the three-year freeze will amount to $250bn over the next decade," the official said. Second Obama budget Details of the spending hold-down will be spelt out in detail on February 1, when Obama unveils his second budget since taking office. Agencies that could feel the pinch include the commerce, interior, justice and labour departments, as well as the environmental protection agency. Obama's proposed budget savings will need to be approved by Congress. The US government closed its 2009 fiscal year with a record $1.4 trillion budget deficit and the White House forecasts an even bigger gap of $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2010. The proposed freeze would cut the deficit by between $10bn and $15bn in fiscal 2011. Republicans dismissed the move as window-dressing by Obama's Democrats after an "unprecedented spending binge." "This is like announcing you're going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest," Michael Steel, spokesman for John Boehner, the House of Representatives Republican leader, said. Bernanke nomination In other US economic news, senators are hesitating to approve Ben Bernanke, the federal reserve chairman, for a second term. A poll by Reuters news agency showed 38 senators were either committed to approving the nomination or leaning that way, while 17 were outright opposed or inclined that way. Obama said on Monday that Bernanke had his "strongest support". "He has my strongest support. I think he's done a good job," Obama said in an interview with ABC News. "What we need is somebody at the Federal Reserve who can make sure that the progress that we've made in stabilising the economy continues, and I think Bernanke's the best person for that job." SOURCE: Agencies


text:
Littleton Storage Features
At Littleton Storage, our clean and convenient location in Littleton, CO, will meet your needs and exceed your expectations. Our facility boasts convenient features designed to make your life easier, such as and . Our friendly staff have years of experience helping our clients find the storage solution that fits their needs, and they are always ready to show you around our facility.
Whichever kind of storage you're looking for, whether for business or personal use, you'll find it at Littleton Storage. Stop by our facility to learn more about why our features are right for you.
Facility Features
- Access 7 Days a Week
- 24-Hour Security Monitoring
- Freight Elevator
- Electronic Gate Access
- Climate-Controlled Units
- Business Storage
- Dollies and Carts Available
- Drive-Up Access
- Wide Driveways
- Ground-Level Units
- Deliveries Accepted
- Major Credit Cards Accepted
- Month-to-Month Rentals
- No Deposits
- Online Bill Payment
- Packing and Moving Supplies
- Tenant Insurance Available
Littleton Climate-Controlled Storage
Temperatures in Littleton, CO can be hard to predict. Renting a climate-controlled storage unit at Littleton Storage near gives you peace of mind that your belongings are being kept at a constant temperature and humidity.
Climate-controlled storage is a better option for you if you're planning on storing items that are sensitive to fluctuating temperatures, like documents, electronics, and clothing. Climate-controlled storage can help protect your belongings by ensuring they never get too hot, cold, or humid.
Learn more about Littleton Storage's climate-controlled units in Littleton, CO. Give us a call today.


text:
Tom on Pole Dancing and Disappointment
Tom reflects on being free on the dance floor and is appalled by Kristen's harsh treatment of Scheana in Cabo.
I was really stoked to go to Cabo! I was a little worried about going to Cabo with this group of people, though. I was maybe a little concerned about this whole Ariana stuff clouding an otherwise great time, but figured that we would be too distracted with paddle-boarding, dancing, and tequila to sweat some annoying Jax rumors.
The one thing I was not looking forward to was hearing Stassi cram 'It's MY birthday' down everyone's throat for four days straight. Stassi didn't pay for our tickets to Cabo, or our rooms, or any dinners for that matter. So really, in my opinion, it's a trip that we all decided to take that Stassi's b-day just happens to take place during. I thought it was pretty weird to have all the girls staying together, I bet that would've been different if Stassi had a man at the time.
I think the girls took what Scheana said in the car way over the top. I'm sure it didn't help having Jax tell that to them in his 13-year-old gossip girl way, but she was obviously joking. Wish those girls would just grow up sometimes. . .at least she didn't misuse the word "literally" when she said it.
Well, at least I didn't get really drunk and pole dance in Cabo. . .what can I say. . .I was drunk? When in Rome? I'll try anything twice? I love to dance especially when I'm in a different country and don't have to worry about anyone judging. Once upon a time, I was the token white boy on a dance crew and used to compete in dance contests many moons ago, so I love to explore the fraction of skills I used to have back in the day. What else was I supposed to do while all the girls were sitting around bickering. . .That pole wasn't going to dance on itself, right?
I'm not exactly surprised that Kristen made such a stink about Scheana hanging out with us, but that doesn't mean I didn't find it ridiculous and appalling. I was actually really embarrassed at how Kristen acted towards Scheana. We are in another country, not just down the street. I could understand if Scheana was maybe being obnoxious or annoying, but her and Shay were just being they're normal chill selves. Kristen was just being a brat. Not a good look, and definitely not an acceptable way to act past sophomore year in high school.


text:
I am not normally one to review or promote anything that I personally buy, BUT I received this morning an order from Phoenix Copper Art and just had to let you guys aware of this.
I ordered an A4 sketch pad when PCA did a special promo to celebrate there birthday. I have to say that that it has turned out better than expected.
I emailed them over what I wanted on the cover and being a massive fan of Silver Surfer i decided on the 1st Issue cover. Here it is.
Completely all hand made and amazing.
With all the artist and writers I meet, at conventions and private signings (yes I copied the idea) thought what better than to ask them to sketch in this Silver Surfer book, than a picture of Silver Surfer. We are not talking full commissions but a quick sketches.
For any orders you can find details at Phoenix Copper Art


text:
Hey guys! I am excited to share this interview showcase of Kelly, one half of the new online shop of handmade fandom fun & geeky cuteness, Freak + Pocky, with you! On my vacation, I was able to stop in Lexington, KY and spend the night with Kelly & Josh. They are SO cool and I am so eager to introduce you guys to such a fun maker, creative spirit and geek girl soul sister. I think you guys will love her just as much as I do! Without further ado, let's get to know Kelly!
Kelly, Me & Zoey!
Hi Kelly! Tell us a bit about yourself:
I'm Kelly – or better known to my gaming friends as Pocky, the pocket-sized healer.
I'm a 30-something crafty nerd living in Kentucky with the geek of my life, who I married 6 years ago, and our 14 year old rescue mutt Skylar. I have some nerdy degrees (B.S. in Electrical Engineering & M.B.A.) and work at a zombie job, but would rather spend my days making things + playing games.
When I'm not slaying the zombie job or being the poppet master, I can usually be found gaming with my friends or curled up with Freak and the pup catching up on anime or binge watching tv shows we are seasons behind on.
When/how did you learn to crochet?
I learned to knit + crochet when I was 11 years old.
My mom was learning to knit and crochet in some group that was meeting at our church. When she came home to work on her project I was mesmerized at how you could tangle up yarn to make a sweater. So I did what I always did…bugged her to teach me because I wanted to learn to do whatever craft my mom was doing.
That was over 20 years ago and I've seldom put down the yarn since.
What got you started as a geek? What was your first video game or geeky obsession?
I like to say that I was raised to be a geek. The first movie my parents took me to see – I was just a wee nerdling at the time – was The Empire Strikes Back. I don't remember it, of course, but I've always loved the original Star Wars Triology.
But what really got me started was gaming. I started out on Atari, but Nintendo is where my true gaming love really started. In our house, as an only child, I had to fight my parents for a turn to play. And my dad would organize Nintendo tournaments for my friends and I, which I kinda threw when I picked a game I knew this one boy was better at than me. And yes, I'm still a Nintendo fangirl.
How did you first intertwine crafting & fandoms? How did you first bring your love of fandoms & craft together?
The first project I designed that brought my love of yarn and fandoms together was a surprise birthday gift I was making for my husband, when we just started dating. I designed a stocking hat after Link from Zelda, and a matching Triforce scarf.
It wasn't until I first came across amigurumi, specifically Creepy Cute Crochet by Christen Haden, that I started finding new ways to make nerdy things. And now I just can't stop!
What is your favorite fandom?
Ummmm…I honestly can't decide. I love Doctor Who. Sherlock. Supernatural. Firefly. Star Wars. Sword Art Online. Invader Zim…I could seriously go on all day.
What are you thoughts on a female Doctor?
I think it's great and can't wait to see where they take the story with her!
Secretly I would love to see Simon Pegg be the Doctor, but I know that really wouldn't make sense since he's been a villain.
Zombies, werewolves or vampires?
Zombies, no question! I'm a huge Walking Dead fan!
In your honest opinion, should they reboot Firefly?
The answer is always YES! The world needs more Captain Mal!
What Poppets are next on your to-make list that fans can look forward to?
Well, my list is longer than I am tall, but a few that I've been brainstorming recently are: some Star Wars characters, Leela from Futurama and Shaun from Shaun of the Dead.
How do fans submit suggestions for Poppets or place custom orders?
Right now the best way to reach out is by emailing email@example.com.
Since each poppet is handcrafted, we do have a limited number of custom orders we can take at a time. If we've reached our limit at that time, you can be added to a wait list and contacted once we've caught back up.
Can people order poppets of their favorite actors to gift at Cons?
Absolutely! Right now these are done as custom orders, so just send an email to email@example.com with the request and we can hash out the details.
Thanks for taking the time for the interview, Kelly! Happy launch day – and happy birthday! ♥


text:
Newsletter 6
Dear colleagues,
With two follow-up projects to "Peer Review in initial VET" the project series has developed into a "European Peer Review Initiative" which has been taken up in different European countries. In Austria, Finland, Hungary, Italy and Catalonia national res. regional (pilot) implementation has started. In addition, European Peer Review has also been adopted by ENQA-VET, the European Network for Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training.
In this newsletter we would like to present to you the ongoing activities and first results of the third European project "Peer Review Extended II" as well as plans and endeavours to introduce Peer Review in Austrian initial vocational education and training. Basic information will also be provided on activities in ENQA-VET related to Peer Review.
1) Peer Review Extended II: Project aims, activities and status quo
2) Peer Review activities in Austria:
• Austrian Peer Review Pilot Project
• Feasibility Study on Peer Review
3) ENQA-VET Thematic Group Peer Review
4) New publications:
• Peer Review Reader (German)
• Externe Evaluierung durch Peer Review (German)
5) Events: Peer Review at the Conference "Quality in VET"
We hope that our Newsletter provides relevant and interesting information for VET professionals in Europe. Should you have questions or need more information, please contact us. We welcome feedback and look forward to hearing from you.
Dr. Maria Gutknecht-Gmeiner
Judith Proinger
Peer Review Competence Centre
at the
Österreichisches Institut für Berufsbildungsforschung
Austrian Institute for Research on Vocational Training
Visit the Peer Review Website:
Today in the Newsletter
• Project aims and activities
• Austrian Peer Review Pilot Project
• Feasibility Study on Peer Review
• ENQA-VET Thematic Group Peer Review
• Peer Review Reader (German)
• Externe Evaluierung durch Peer Review
• Conference "Quality in VET", Oct. 06, 2008, Vienna, Austria
Project aims and activities
Peer Review Extended II aims at the transfer and further development of the European Peer Review methodology as an element of the Common Quality Assurance Framework (CQAF).
In particular, the project has set out to
• adapt the European Peer Review procedure to the needs of the "new" countries (Czech Republic, Slovenia, Turkey),
• transfer the European Peer Review methodology to continuing VET,
• support further experimentation and evaluation by conducting another six transnational Peer Reviews in Austria, Denmark, and Portugal in winter/spring 2008/2009. One of the Peer Reviews will be carried out in continuing VET.
• develop a curriculum for a face-to-face Peer Training to improve and enhance the use of the European Peer Review methodology, and
• support the (further) dissemination and transfer of the European Peer Review methodology in the participating countries and on the European level.
Status quo
At mid-term, major progress has been made by the project partners:
• Peer Review in "new" countries
A survey on the needs and requirements of the new countries has been conducted which showed that the European Peer Review procedure as laid down in the Manual is suitable for the new countries.
• Peer Review in continuing VET and guidance and counselling
Likewise, an expert study has been carried out by the responsible partners to investigate the adaptation of the European Peer Review procedure for use in continuing VET and - due to the special interest of the Slovenian partner - also to guidance and counselling in VET. Again, the procedure seems highly appropriate also for these sectors. Changes must, however, be made concerning the terminology used in the Manual. In addition, the Quality Areas need comprehensive revision and adaptation.
So far, a first internal version of an adapted Manual has been completed and drafts for Quality Areas for use in continuing VET have been drawn up.
• Peer Training
A first outline of a European Peer Training curriculum has been developed in close cooperation between partners from Austria, Finland, Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom. A pilot Peer Training was conducted in Finnish-Austrian cooperation on Oct. 28-29 in Vienna to prepare the Peer Teams of the Austrian pilot schools.
Austrian Peer Review Pilot Project
In Austria, a first pilot project has started by the Ministry of Education to test national implementation of the European Peer Review procedure within the framework of QIBB, the Austrian quality initiative in initial VET.
öibf is responsible for the coordination.
Project overview
The project comprises
• the preparation and conduct of seven Peer Review in VET schools and colleges from all over Austria,
• the adaptation of the Peer Review tools (forms, checklists etc.) to QIBB
• the training of the Peers
• the establishment of mentoring activities to make use of experienced Austrian Peers and Peer Review Facilitators
• networking between the pilot schools and colleges
• monitoring and quality assurance of the Peer Reviews.
Activities and achievements: status quo
• Internal preparation
After a kick-off workshop in May, the pilot schools and colleges started the internal preparation of the Peer Review. This included decision-making on the quality areas to be reviewed and the distribution of responsibilities for the Peer Review within the institution. The pilot schools also concluded a formal contract with the project coordinator.
• Recruiting Peers
In addition, the pilot schools were asked to identify suitable Peers in their own institution as well as in other schools. Potential Peers were then asked to submit Peer Applications.
• Workshop for Peer Review Facilitators
All Peer Review Facilitators were prepared for their tasks in a joint one-day workshop in early October.
• Mentoring
Seven experienced Peers res. Peer Facilitators who had taken part in one of the two previous European Peer Review projects were selected as Mentors. A briefing workshop for potential Mentors was held in early September to ensure a common level of information of all Mentors and to clarify tasks and responsibilities.
Mentoring activities are to be geared towards the needs of the pilot institutions and may include giving general information on Peer Review as well as sharing Peer Review experiences with the school. Another key task is advising and supporting the Peer Review Facilitator in the preparation of the Peer Visit.
Mentoring partnerships have already been started with school visits of the Mentors planned for the next months.
• Peer Training
Peer Trainings will be held for the Peer Teams of the pilot schools in November 2008 and January 2009.
• Peer Visits
The two-day Peer Visits will be carried out between February and May 2009.
Feasibility Study on Peer Review
öibf has been commissioned to conduct a Feasibility Study on the introduction of Peer Review in the Austrian VET system by ARQA-VET, the Austrian Reference Point for Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training www.arqa-vet.at.
The feasibility study intends to clarify the conditions for implementation of Peer Review in Austrian initial VET. All stakeholders - schools and colleges, regional quality managers in QIBB, regional boards of education, the ministry of education and social partners - have been involved.
First results of the study are due by the end of 2008.
ENQA-VET Thematic Group Peer Review
Peer Review has been included in the ENQA-VET Work Programme 2008-2009.
A Thematic Group on Peer Review has been set up in spring 2008 involving 12 European countries. The tasks of this group are to promote and support Peer Review activities, to develop a framework/process/structure for Peer Reviews and to compile and maintain a register of Peer Review experts. A first meeting was held on June 12, 2008 in Vienna.
For further information consult the ENQA-VET website: www.enqavet.eu
Peer Review Reader (German)
As a first product of the project "Peer Review Extended II" a "Peer Review Reader" in German has been published which describes the experiences of the Austrian schools and Peers. The Reader has also been distributed to participants of the Austrian Quality Conference in Vienna on Oct 6, 2008.
The Reader is available online.
For a hard-paper copy please contact us.
Download: Peer Review in der Berufsbildung. Projekte und Erfahrungen. Ein Reader
Externe Evaluierung durch Peer Review
Maria Gutknecht-Gmeiner's dissertation on Peer Review has been published in the German Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. It gives background information on how Peer Review is used in different sectors and attempts a first definition of Peer Review in VET. The heart of the dissertation is a comparative analysis of Peer Review case studies collected in an international research.
Gutknecht-Gmeiner, Maria (2008): Externe Evaluierung durch Peer Review. Qualitätssicherung und -entwicklung in der beruflichen Erstausbildung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, ISBN: 978-3531162331.
Download (German): Inhaltsverzeichnis
Conference "Quality in VET", Oct. 06, 2008, Vienna, Austria
"Qualität in der beruflichen Bildung"
Peer Review has been on the agenda of the Conference "Quality in VET" organised by the National Agency for Lifelong Learning and ARQA-VET, the Austrian Reference Point for Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training on Oct. 6, 2008 in Vienna.
Peer Review as external evaluation method and its practical implementation at VET providers were discussed in a workshop:
WS 2: Peer Review - an external evaluation method for quality assurance and development
Chair: Maria Gutknecht-Gmeiner (öibf)
Speakers: Victoria Puchhammer-Neumayer (TGM) & Eva Dousset-Ortner (Hertha Firnberg Schulen für Wirtschaft und Tourismus), Michaela Hoke & Thomas Wallisch (Berufsschule für Verwaltungsberufe, Wien 5), Johann Klanschek (HTL Mössingerstraße, Klagenfurt)
A workshop report is available in German here.
For further information please consult the ARQA-VET website www.arqa-vet.at/arqa_vet/q_konferenz_2008 (German).
"BANANA-TREE" Lary-Hofinger KEG
Johanna Hofinger
Praterstrasse 25/23
1020 Wien
E: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
United States Shipping: Our clocks will normally be shipped by UPS ground within two business days of receipt of order, and will be delivered approximately 3 - 5 business days after that (in the continental US). If there will be a delay in shipping, we will notify you, and give you the option of canceling your order. Expedited delivery is available at extra charge. If you have questions, please e-mail us at [email protected] or call 1-888-742-5625. Indiana sales will be charged 7% sales tax.
Please e-mail us for a shipping quote to Alaska or Hawaii.
Free Shipping: Items marked "Free Shipping" will be shipped at no charge to you within the 48 continental United States. The free shipping is by UPS Ground or Priority Mail, at our option. Free shipping does not apply to shipments to Alaska, Hawaii, or outside of the United States. If you return the clock for a refund, the amount we paid to have the clock shipped is not refunded.
Grandfather Clocks Grandfather clocks are shipped by motor freight, and will take about 3 - 4 weeks to arrive. The delivery company will bring the clock into your house, and unpack and set it up. Grandfather clocks will be shipped to the 48 continental United States only.
Shipping Outside the United States: Our smaller clocks can be shipped out of the USA. Please e-mail us at [email protected] and ask for a shipping quote. Please give the model number, country and postal code. You (the customer) will be responsible for paying the import duty, if any.
Bill's Clockworks has been in business since 1991. We sell clocks online and at our shop in Flora, Indiana. Member of the Better Business Bureau and the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.


text:
Want to get ahead on the flying jacket trend?
Still can't get enough of studs?
Considering getting back into flared jeans?
All of the above and more? Well I make that four good reasons to watch the excellent BBC4 documentary, Heavy Metal Britannia. It showed last Friday and I totally forgot, but for once the BBC got something right and it's still on the iPlayer and On Demand. Watch it here and watch a great collection of metal bands at the Beeb here! Both available until this Friday and both really well done with some great talking heads (what no Gambaccini?).