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Authors: George Rajna
A new study investigates when the 'a-ha!' moment takes place in the brain, and how similar it is to other brain processes. [28] Researchers discover both the structure of specific brain areas and memory are linked to genetic activity that also play important roles in immune system function. [27] The inner workings of the human brain have always been a subject of great interest. Unfortunately, it is fairly difficult to view brain structures or intricate tissues due to the fact that the skull is not transparent by design. [26] But now there is a technology that enables us to "read the mind" with growing accuracy: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). [25] Advances in microscopy techniques have often triggered important discoveries in the field of neuroscience, enabling vital insights in understanding the brain and promising new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. [24] What is the relationship of consciousness to the neurological activity of the brain? Does the brain behave differently when a person is fully conscious, when they are asleep, or when they are undergoing an epileptic seizure? [23] Consciousness appears to arise naturally as a result of a brain maximizing its information content. So says a group of scientists in Canada and France, which has studied how the electrical activity in people's brains varies according to individuals' conscious states. The researchers find that normal waking states are associated with maximum values of what they call a brain's "entropy". [22]
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CONFERENCE 101 - UX, Agile, collaboration : une formule gagnante en développement de projet complexe
Annemarie Lesage, Ph.D.
UX Director, Research and Design at Yu Centrik
Annemarie Lesage is the UX Director at the UX Agency Yu Centrik, she leads Yu Centrik's team of analysts, UX strategists and UX designers, while integrating collaborative design, co-creation to our ideation and innovation process.
She holds a PhD from the Design School of University of Montreal and has focused her research on the emotional dimensions of user experiences. Her research on the emotional Peak, a dimension of the user experience, is integrated into the design thinking process.
Annemarie joined Sapient's user experience modelling group (XMod) in 2000, in New York.
Since 2003, she has taught various courses at Université Laval (co-teaching design research in 2005), Concordia, UQAM and Université de Montréal (experience design, since 2010).
Annemarie is very involved in teaching the UX-PM Certification program developed in collaboration with UXalliance, a global network of User Experience Experts.
Gaétan Racine, Ing.
Gaétan Racine is Director of Special Projects at Stelvio, leading projects related to the company's various products. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sherbrooke and has more than 30 years of experience in the field of Information Technology.
Gaétan began his career in 1985 at a company developing image processing solutions, using hardware to enable the capture and processing of digital images.
In 1991, Gaétan participated in the creation of Stelvio, specialising in the field of Digital business solutions. Over the years, he has participated in the development of complex IT solutions, becoming Project Manager, and eventually Director.
He has managed several major projects with finance companies in North America and Australia. He introduced Agile methodology to the teams at Stelvio in 2010 and has had an interest for the UX approach since 2012.

subset: commoncrawl


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A gorgeous Purple Czech fire-polished crystal necklace finished with Sterling Silver lobster clasp and findings.
This lovely necklace measures approximately 18″, and supplied in a gift box.
All of our products are designed and handcrafted in the UK and we use only the highest quality materials, crystals and gemstones.
This necklace will bring a wonderful unique and classical artisan style to your look.


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- About Us
- For Organizations
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- Get Involved
- St. Mark's Historic Landmark Fund
2017 Birthday Party!
NPC's 18th Birthday Party!
Sunday, November 5, 2017
St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, NYC
On Sunday, November 5 at the landmark St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, we celebrated our 18th Birthday and the dozens of community groups that have "graduated" from the NPC workstations & incubator office program. As we applauded these groups, we also celebrated the importance of civic involvement and the impact of individuals and grassroots efforts in making cities vibrant and livable. It was a wonderful event. Our thanks to everyone who was able to join us. In particular, our very special thanks to the following who made the event possible:
- The Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery.
- Our VIP Salon guest panelists, Laura Hansen, Managing Director of Neighborhood Plaza Partnership and Justin Garrett Moore, Executive Director of New York City Public Design Commission.
- Our Sponsors: AYON Studio, Bethany Wall, CTA Architects P.C., Edelman Sultan Knox Wood / Architects, Francoise Bollack Architects, Joe Sultan & Sandy Chilewich, Katherine Moore, Laura Delano & Bob Celli, Sheryl Woodruff, and Stephen Facey.
- Our Organizational Sponsors: The Fine Arts Federation of New York, The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Historic Districts Council, and Third Street Music School Settlement.
- The generous food and drink purveyors that provided such delicious sips & nosh: Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, Five Acre Farms, Lagunitas Brewing Company, Malt & Mold, MUD Coffee, Nicoletta Pizzeria, Redhead Hot Sauce, Taste Wine Company, Veniero's, Veselka, and Wagamama.
- The talented musicians: Art Baron, Chris Kuffner, Clay Herndon, Ellen Mandel, Jeannine Otis, Jorgen Kjar, Karlus Trapp, Michael Lydon, Mike Weatherly, and Nat Seeley.
- Our friends at Danspace Project and Chris Brown for creating the lighting design in the Church's Sanctuary.
- Our graphic designers: Peña & Porter
- Our sketch artists -- Joanie Aglaia Choremi, Pixie Yates, and Sam Giarrantani -- who captured the afternoon's excitement with takeaway drawings.
- And, last but certainly not least, our volunteers for all their hard work and dedication to NPC: Casey Wolf, Dona Yu, Elizabeth Volchok, Isabel Miesner, Nicholas MacDonald, Paula Cafiero, Theresa Kunda and our guest bartenders: Brian Handler, Jack Carlisle, and Matt Morowitz.
Pictures from the event can be seen here.


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by Cliff Janzen My how time flies. It seems like only yesterday I wrote the post Got Meterpreter? Pivot! (/blog/2012/04/26/got-meterpreter-pivot), but it has been four and a half years. In our industry, the only thing constant is change and Mr. Ed Skoudis gave me the opportunity to revisit this topic to see what has … Continue reading Got Meterpreter? PivotPowPY!
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After using a Mac for a few years, I wanted to go back to a PC. I've never really owned a powerful enough computer to run games above Low/Medium settings, so I figured I'd build an awesome PC that would last me a while. I'll be using it mainly for gaming as well as programming. Visual Studio is quite resource demanding so having a fast SSD along with lots of RAM really helps.
I'm absolutely loving the speed of the SSD, really happy that they're relatively affordable these days :)
I'm using a BenQ BL3200PT monitor (2560x1440) purchased two years ago.
CPU stress test performed using IntelBurnTest, GPU stress test performed using FurMark.
Part Reviews
It's a processor. It seems to process stuff. A+++ would process again.
Pretty good motherboard. This motherboard has one PCI Express 16x slot and two PCI Express 1x slots. If you use a dual-width graphics card, there'll be barely enough space to insert one additional PCI Express card in the third PCI Express slot, without blocking the graphics card's fan. If you'll be using more than one PCI Express device, it might be worth getting the "MORTAR" (http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-b150mmortar) rather than the BAZOOKA, due to the fact that it has one additional PCI Express slot.
The white LED backlighting is barely noticeable (at least in my case) so it's more of a gimmick than a useful feature. I don't really care about it that much.
Cheapest DDR4 memory available. Works well.
Fantastic SSD, super fast! My machine cold boots in seconds. For me it was affordable enough that I just used a single 1 TB SSD rather than a smaller SSD combined with a traditional HDD.
Video Card
Works well along with my BenQ BL3200PT monitor. Unfortunately the box doesn't appear to come with an AMD/Radeon sticker.
Fantastic case. Looks great, very quiet, and lots of room for cable management on the right-hand side (non-window side) behind the motherboard.
Power Supply
My computer hasn't exploded yet.
Optical Drive
Pressing the button results in a cup holder ejecting from the drive, great for if you're drinking a hot beverage near your computer.
Oh, it also reads CDs and DVDs. Haven't tried burning one yet.
Wireless Network Adapter
Solid connection, no issues so far. Bluetooth works well too. Note that Bluetooth requires an internal connection to one of the USB headers on your motherboard, so you need to ensure your motherboard has one spare USB header. My motherboard had three USB headers and they're all in use now - Two for the front of the case (1 x USB 3.1 and 1 x USB 2.0) and one for the Bluetooth connectivity of this wifi card.
- 47 months ago
- 2 points
- 47 months ago
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- 46 months ago
- 2 points


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- Location and Space. If your backyard is large, beautifully landscaped and you have plenty of space for guests, it will definately work.
- The Details. Details make a backyard look amazing. I love when good china is introduced, rather than paper plates. But if china is not on the budget, go with a higher end disposable tableware. Check out: www.eventswholesale.com
- Flowers. If you can splurge on flowers, go for it. I recommend Costco, Sam's, local farmer market, or a flower broker to save money. Having real flowers gives your backyard a gorgeous touch. To create your own stunning DIY flowers, check our Pinterest for great ideas. Just make sure you don't over do it.
- Tables and chairs. You can contact a local event rental company. Check out http://www.forgetmenotvintageinc.com for awesome ideas and prices. Here's a great idea for you. Make it one long table, Tuscan style. It really helps with people interacting with each other.
- Lighting. Okay here's the big one! Lighting! Basically, if you've hired a professional photographer, they need light to create beautiful photos. Call around for companies that rent and set lighting for you or go to Target and save. Wrap every tree and line the fence. My personal favorite is hanging lamps and lanterns.
- Tents or not. Tents are real nice if you're planning a formal style wedding or if the weather isn't just perfect.
- Music. Hire a professional DJ, you won't regret it.
- Beverage. Having a bartender is a great idea, but if the budget does not allow it, line up metal buckets and designate each for alcohol, water and sodas.
- The food. If your family wants to handle the cooking, that's great, make sure they have plenty of help. You want them to enjoy this day with you as well.
- Neighbors. Don't forget to let the neighbors know that you're getting married and that cars will be lining the street. Send them an invite... Better than a visit from the local police.
- Wedding Party. One big stress for the bride and groom is having too many people getting ready at the same place. Sounds like fun, but in the end, the space is a total mess and the bride and groom end up stressed out.
- Last but not least, hire a professional photographer. Amazing photos on your special day are a must. Arrange for a park or beautiful location near your home for the bride/groom photos.
Many couples consider getting married backyard style... especially in Phoenix Arizona and Southern California areas where the weather is almost always sunny. Backyard weddings can be intimate and at times extremely beautiful. There are so many reasons why backyard wedding are a great idea, here are a few tips to help plan a successful backyard wedding.
Check out our Pinterest board for more great ideas!


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Find the latest Willows at Lake Rhea homes for sale in Windermere Florida! Up-to-date real estate in The Willows at Lake Rhea community!
Windermere Florida is located in Orange County, FL and has great private schools as well as A+ public schools plus a great location close to attractions, fine shopping and dining. The Orlando International Airport is an easy commute, and Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Sea World are just around the corner. Windermere has a small town atmosphere with exquisite mansions which grace the shoreline of the Butler Chain of Lakes where residents enjoy boating through 11 interconnecting lakes.
Windermere Florida has championship golf courses and professional golfers call Windermere home and play on premier local courses such as Isleworth, Bay Hill and Keene's Point. There are no vacation / resort communities in Windermere.
The Willows at Lake Rhea Homes
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42 start-ups chosen for the EIT Health European Health Catapult semifinals
The best biotech, medtech and digital health start-ups will compete to get to the finals at the EIT Health Summit in Paris
Our colleagues from the Department of Pathology from the Academisch Medisch Centrum (Universiteit van Amsterdam) are presenting this week their newest work on MMP inhibitors, blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity and epilepsy during the Dutch Neuroscience Meeting.
This year, the annual Dutch Neuroscience Meeting (DNM) is being held on 20-21 June. DNM gathers numerous multidisciplinary scientists and clinicians and offers the opportunity to share their research in the neuroscience field.
We are pleased to announce a new publication on the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta – Biomembranes titled "Molecular basis for the protective effects of low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1)-derived peptides against LDL aggregation". The study has been led by Dra.
11th February 2019. Double date: International Epilepsy Day and International Day of Women and Girls in Science, two very different events with a high social responsibility weight. Iproteos has joined both initiatives to raise awareness on Epilepsy and gender inequality in Science.
On Tuesday 30th of April 2019, Iproteos will celebrate an Ordinary General Meeting. More information is given in the link below.
El Martes 30 de Abril de 2019, Iproteos celebrará una Junta General Ordinaria. Se puede encontrar toda la información necesaria en el siguiente enlace:
On Tuesday, 9th of April 2019, Iproteos will celebrate the Trade Union assembly. More information is given in the link below.
El martes 9 de Abril de 2019, Iproteos celebrará una Asamblea del Sindicato de Voto. Se puede encontrar toda la información necesaria en el siguiente enlace:


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ELCAS and NEBOSH
How would you like to start a new career or enhance your current one all while using the ELCAS credits you have earned? We can help! Contact us to get the process started and use your ELCAS credits for a NEBOSH qualification.
The MOD's Enhanced Learning Credits Scheme can help Armed Forces members continue their education outside their military career. Although the process can be a bit daunting, we are there to help you navigate it. You are not alone!
Better yet, you can use your credits for all three or any combination you need. NEBOSH recommends that those taking the Oil and Gas course already have at least one of the level three health and safety qualifications such as the NGC or IGC. You will increase your chances of passing the IOG course by already have one of those qualifications. We can help you figure out the best way forward based on your goals and experience.
With our NEBOSH courses, you have the option of our classroom course or our eLearning courses. We can help arrange your exams here in the UK or even overseas at British Council. All of our courses come with full tutor support. Our eLearning course are available 24/7 so you can study around your own busy schedule.
If you are ready to make a difference, we can help. Contact us today!


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One of Labour's targets is to secure an overall majority in Merton – it already has a minority administration there. It is a modest enough ambition on paper – especially as the Conservatives have been hit by defections to UKIP.
Labour has made little secret of its hope that UKIP will do the work for them – by taking enough Conservative support to split the vote and allow a clear Labour victory. However UKIP has not managed a full slate of candidates and the town hall machinations of defections has not resonated on the doorstep.
I am hearing that the Conservatives still have a sporting chance. Their local manifesto offers a strong, clear pledge to cut the Council Tax by 10 per cent over four years.
It says:
We will improve services whilst reducing your Council Tax by 10% over our first four year term of office.
We will end Labour's annual £12.5 million Council Tax overcharge, drive out waste and inefficiency, review all contracts to deliver better value for money, invest in technology and scrap bureaucracy to deliver a lean and efficient council for the long term, allowing us to reduce the average Band D Council Tax bill by £110 per year. We will do all of this whilst improving the services that you receive.
The Conservatives would reduce the number of bus lanes to improve traffic flow. They would encourage the establishment of new free schools. They would maintain a weekly bin collection. They would ease parking charges to help boost small businesses. Libraries would all be kept open and the parks improved.
Volunteering will be encouraged. There will be a Business Rates "holiday" for new businesses starting up.
Planning policies would encourage attractive new homes rather than modernist "bland boxes" and blocks which "scar the landscape." Home ownership would be promoted and priority given on the housing waiting list to those who have served in the armed forces.
This amounts to an attractive vision for the future of Merton. By contrast Labour have resorted to scaremongering. They have suggested cutting the Council Tax would be impossible without slashing services – a difficult message to sustain given that Wandsworth is a neighbouring borough.
Also Labour council candidates have been asking for votes to "Save St Helier Hospital". However the hospital is not closing – and, in any case, its future is a matter for the NHS rather than Merton Council.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has been to visit – winning the pop star euphoria that quite rightly is a customary feature of his visits around the capital.
This will be a close battle. To gain power the Conservatives may rely on winning a couple of seats from the Lib Dems in West Barnes. A minority Conservative administration would also need the acquiescence of the Merton Park Ward independents. Naturally the Conservatives would also need to win the seats they held last time – including those now occupied by UKIP defectors.
Then there would still need to be one or two Conservative gains from Labour. That is a challenging list but by no means impossible.
In any event should the Conservatives beat the odds and triumph in Merton it will mean more than just a few seconds flashing up on the TV screens during the results programmes. The Conservatives have serious plans to make a positive difference to their community.


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- A leisure battery for use with all BOLA machines.
- Fitted with a carrying handle for portability.
- Designed to be run flat and recharged as necessary (unlike automotive batteries).
- Give between 2 and 6 hours between recharges.
- Charge from 12 volt car charger or BOLA Power Pack.


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Texas Health Care Assocation
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ARLINGTON, Va. -- The former head of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office was acquitted in civilian court Wednesday of assault and battery against a woman who said he had grabbed her buttocks, but Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski could still face military discipline.
After two days of testimony in Arlington County Circuit Court, a seven-member jury took just over an hour to deliver a not guilty verdict in the case, which drew widespread attention after Krusinski's May 5 arrest near a strip of Washington-area bars.
The case came on the heels of a series of scandals that led critics to charge the military was not adequately addressing a growing problem of sexual assault in the ranks, including furor over an Air Force general's decision to overturn a verdict against an officer convicted of aggravated sexual assault.
Misdemeanor charges of sexual battery against Krusinski were dropped in July, but the regular misdemeanor assault charge carried the same potential penalty of up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,500.
Jury forewoman Alison Kutchma, from Falls Church, Va., said the jury had sympathy for the woman, but felt the evidence simply did not prove the charges. Kutchma said she didn't want to discuss specific weaknesses of the case, fearing it might be hurtful to the accuser.
"It's very clear that a lot of lives were impacted," Kutchma said. "But that's not what we were asked to look at."
Krusinski, who left the court without speaking to the media, now faces the prospect of action by the Air Force. Among the possibilities is a court-martial, because the principle of double jeopardy does not apply when the military justice system takes up a case formerly prosecuted in civilian court.
Attorneys and investigators from the Air Force, who wanted jurisdiction in the case but were rebuffed by Arlington County prosecutors, have been monitoring the case closely.
"Now that the civilian trial is complete, we will separately assess the facts and evidence in the case and determine if there are applicable disciplinary or administrative actions that are appropriate," Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Laurel Tingley said Thursday in an email.
But military justice experts predicted Krusinski would not face another trial in military court for the incident.
Retired Maj. Gen. John Altenburg Jr., who served as deputy judge advocate general of the Army and now practices law in Washington said the Air Force may take into consideration what he called unfair treatment of Krusinski as his case proceeded.
"I think [a military trial is] highly unlikely," Altenburg said. "For one thing, it appears there was an overreaction by the media to this case, and it led to a lack of presumption of innocence by the public."
It's not unusual of for the military to prosecute a case -- particularly involving a serious charge like murder -- that civilian prosecutors dropped, or that had been overturned in a civilian court, Altenburg said. But the Krusinski case, a misdemeanor, is unlikely to trigger such a response, he said.
Attorney Greg Rinckey, who represents military defendants, agreed that a follow-on prosecution is unlikely. But if it did happen, it would likely have to be initiated by Air Force brass, and could raise the question of unlawful command influence.
"If I were his defense attorney in that case that's what I'd say," he said. "I'd argue this is unlawful command influence, and they're pursuing this only because of his former position in the Air Force and because what he was accused of makes the military look bad."
A lesser response from the Air Force, including a career-ending letter of reprimand, is far more likely, Rinckey said.
In closing arguments, Krusinski's defense attorney, Barry Coburn, reeled off a litany of what he said were inconsistencies in the testimony of state witnesses. He focused particularly on testimony from the alleged victim about her response to Krusinski's alleged grope.
The accuser had previously testified that she hit Krusinski three times with her fist to defend herself. But a number of other witnesses said she followed and repeatedly hit a passive Krusinski with her phone, apparently causing profuse bleeding.
Coburn also had suggested that Krusinski's staggering, drunken condition could have resulted in incidental contact that the woman misinterpreted.
In her closing argument, the prosecutor, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Cari Steele said that the woman's response after the alleged assault was not the issue. She pointed to another witness who said she had been groped by Krusinski as evidence the contact was not accidental.
"There is no doubt that he touched her and there is no doubt she didn't like it," Steele said. "She felt totally violated."
Rinckey said testimony from many witnesses that Krusinski had been heavily intoxicated in public -- and his attorney's suggestion he may have unintentionally lurched into the woman -- could indicate Krusinski will face some consequences from the Air Force.
"If he was drunk in public to extent he can't control himself physically, as an officer, that's a problem," Rinckey said.
Altenburg argued that the outcome of the Krusinski case takes steam out of the argument put forth by advocates of sexual assault victims and critics in Congress that the military can't police itself when it comes to sexual assault.
"These cases are always very complicated," he said. "And people have been taking cheap shots at the military and saying we can't handle this issue, but the fact that this happened (in civilian court) shows how difficult these cases are."


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A revised model of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF sixteen-1), is efficient for proposals submitted, or due, on or after January 25, 2016. Whether you are in school and in search of an internship or a current graduate, chances are high Lowe's has the right opportunity for you to learn and grow your career at one of our Contact, Corporate or Distribution facilities or at a Lowe's store. PECASE: Each 12 months NSF selects nominees for the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from among the many most meritorious recent CAREER awardees. An necessary sub-set of career info is labour market information (LMI), resembling salaries of various professions, employment charge in varied professions, obtainable coaching applications, and present job openings. Career information describes information that supports career and learning decisions.
Whether this is your first time otherwise you simply need a … Read the rest


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Archive for the 'Advertising' tag
Reading Around on June 10th
Some additional reading June 10th from 19:41 to 19:41:
- Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive « alex.moskalyuk – Number 7 sounds like Apple's iPhone 3GS and 3G pricing model:
"A more expensive product makes the old version look like a value buy. An example here is a Williams-Sonoma bread maker. After an introduction of a newer, better, and pricier version, the sales of the old unit actually increased, as couples viewed the new item as "top of the line", but old product was all of a sudden reasonably-priced, even though a bunch of features were missing"
Brian Sanders Creates 'Mad Men' Poster for New Season
Earlier today…
The image recalls work that Mr. Sanders did for an even more famous screen project. In 1966 he was asked by Stanley Kubrick, who had seen some of his experimental, noncommercial collages, to spend months with unfettered access to the set of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and illustrate scenes from the filming. Most of the images remained unpublished for decades. (Kubrick, famously averse to set photographers, seemed to have been ambivalent even about drawings.) But the experience was a formative one for Mr. Sanders in honing an illustration style that balanced slightly trippy abstraction with a concrete feeling of reportage.
Brian Sanders Creates 'Mad Men' Poster for New Season
Do You Work for a Fee, or for Free? | Small Agency Diary – Advertising Age
Is it me, or is there a growing trend in people seeking free ideas from those of us in the business? I'm not referring to spec pitches; I'm speaking about a phrase that I hear more and more: "I'd like to pick your brain." Am I right? Have you been getting the same request?
For whatever reason, in my world, there are more brain pickers out there than ever before. My assistant even has a code for it when people call and ask to meet me for coffee to run something past me: "Another 'Brain Picker,' Marc. Want to take the call?" So who are these people, what do they really want? How can we make them pay for what we do for a living?
Brain Pickers come in all shapes and sizes. They are relatives. Friends of relatives. Close friends. Friends of friends. Relatives of clients. Friends of clients. Industry veterans. And industry rookies. Some want an hour of your time. Others just a quick call.
Do You Work for a Fee, or for Free? | Small Agency Diary – Advertising Age
TV Stations Accept Political Ad Cash — and Leave Viewers in the Dark | Free Press
Media analysts project that campaigns, Super PACs and "social welfare" groups will spend a record-breaking $3.3 billion on political ads by Election Day.
And let's consider these stations — are they offering any local news coverage to debunk the lies in these ads? Are they exposing the deep-pocketed interests behind the groups buying ad time?
…Free Press took a deeper look at local news coverage in five of the cities — Charlotte, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Milwaukee and Tampa — where ad spending has been highest.
We inspected the political files of stations in these markets, identified the groups most actively placing political ads and pored over hundreds of hours of local news transcripts. In all five of these markets, we found that local newscasts were lacking when it came to covering the ads that dominated their stations.
In other words, they provided no local stories exposing the special interests behind these ads, and only one station among the 20 surveyed devoted eve
TV Stations Accept Political Ad Cash — and Leave Viewers in the Dark | Free Press
No Matter How Strenuous the action
(click to embiggen)
No Matter How Strenuous the action, Harris Dacron Slacks are Pressed for Life. And orgies!
Abandoned Schiltz Sign on West Grand
Taken with the newish Ina's 1935 film addition to Hipstamatic. Located on a wall at the southwest corner of the Damen/Grand intersection. There are apparently less than ten of these Schlitz globe signs still existing in Chicago. Most are better preserved than this one. In fact, some might even be given "landmark" status.
The Schlitz brewing company of Milwaukee was the most prolific builder of tied houses in Chicago. Designed by the architectural firm of Frohmann & Jebsen, Schlitz tied houses are generally executed in a revival style such as Queen Anne or Baroque with varying levels of accuracy and detail. One common factor in most Schlitz tied houses are the distinctive globes encircled by a belt, as if Schlitz had a stranglehold on the world. Another common feature is the alternating red and cream face brick which can be found in different patterns.
(click to continue reading Tied Houses | Forgotten Chicago | Chicago History, Architecture, and Infrastructure..)
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Farewell, Facebook
Here's why I'm selectively changing a lot of my information in Facebook – faking my demographic details and so forth – Facebook wants so desperately to make a dollar off of my data, they have become skeevy, and untrustworthy. I'm old enough that there isn't too much that is embarrassing in my Facebook profile, but I don't every corporation in America to have access to my information without my permission1
The chorus of pro-privacy, anti-Facebook bloggers is getting louder. Facebook wants to keep track of everything you "like" — all over the Web and even in the real world. McDonald's has signed on as Facebook's first geolocation partner. Whatever that means. The Observer has a deeper relationship with my Facebook page than my best friend. Today I'm deactivating my account. Here's why.
Then I stumbled upon a list of the various third-party groups that have access to my account. In all, there were 32, including the makers of "Which Jane Austen heroine are you?" (I'm Fanny Price), The Awl, a snarky, high-brow commentary site, and Business Insider. The latter two I didn't recall approving. The media sites, I discovered, were installed automatically when I browsed their websites while logged in to Facebook. Jane Austen, I'm afraid, I must take responsibility for. Reports are unclear as to what information applications can pull from your account. Some warn that developers have broad access and do not distinguish between what you mark as public and private, and some quizzes even get access to friends' information.
Considering Facebook's track record of shifting privacy settings, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation wraps up here, and you can get a visual sense of here, it seems pretty much guaranteed that user control over personal information will only get weaker. At the same time, Facebook is collecting new data based on user browsing habits across the Web. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently unveiled Facebook's "Connect," a tool integrated with sites across the Web so users can "like" everything from articles on major news sites such as The Washington Post, to items for sale on retailer sites. Those connections are public, and if you don't like it, Facebook has this advice to offer: "If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection."
At the same conference, Zuckerberg also announced that the company will let third parties store information longer (previously, outside developers could store user information for no longer than 24 hours). So not only do we have to worry about Facebook's policy; we also have to worry about the huge ecosystem of parties that hold Facebook data.
(click to continue reading Farewell, Facebook | The American Prospect.)
One could just delete one's Facebook account, or take the guerrilla warfare route, and make lots of false data points. The latter option sounds more fun, actually.
Senator Al Franken of all people, with the help of The Consumerist, has published some detailed instructions on how to modify your Facebook privacy settings, which at the very least you should glance at.Footnotes:
- such as, if I purchase a new Nikon, I've given Nikon permission to update their records of me, and so on. McDonald's on the other hand, shouldn't have any information about me as I haven't stepped into one of their restaurants in decades [↩]
Sarah Palin and TLC
The rumors are Discovery Communications1 is paying Ms. Palin $1,000,000 an episode for some Alaskan reality-esque show. Nice work if you can get it, no? But will it be worth it to the network? Will the controversy keep blue chip advertisers from sponsoring the show, ala the highly successful boycott of Glenn Beck's show?
Sarah Palin used to say the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom was lipstick, but now she might hope that advertisers didn't take that line too seriously.
It's the hockey mom, after all, that would attract more marketers to "Sarah Palin's Alaska," the eight-part documentary series that Discovery Communications has acquired for its TLC channel.
The show will be supervised by Mark Burnett, the force behind such TV hits as CBS's "Survivor" and NBC's "The Apprentice," and will strive to "reveal Alaska's powerful beauty as it has never been filmed," as Discovery's chief operating officer, Peter Liguori, said in a statement today. "The deal was just concluded this week and now we begin the development and production," a Discovery spokesperson added. "TLC is about strong characters and compelling narratives, and there is absolutely no intention of making a political program whatsoever."
But Ms. Palin, a figure as polarizing as she is charming, will be the star attraction. Even though the show won't be political, her central role will have an effect on its audience and ad support.
Ad buyers are already suggesting that the show may not attract advertising from big marketers that need to appeal to the broadest possible audience. Smaller players, on the other hand, may see opportunity.
[Click to continue reading Will Marketers Buy Into 'Sarah Palin's Alaska'? – Advertising Age – MediaWorks]
And as many others have pointed out, Sarah Palin on a science channel? Sarah Palin who doesn't believe in evolution, as if evolution is just an opinion to agree or disagree with; Sarah Palin who thinks man and dinosaurs walked the earth together, slightly over 6,000 years ago? Sarah Palin the avowed hater of secular liberalism, and presumedly anti-science? She's the one getting multiple millions of dollars to appear on TLC? Why not just piss your corporate dollars in the ear of a dead moose and film that?
In tough economic times, "a lot of cable networks are walking away from their brands and trying to get ratings," said Mr. Berger2. "They'll do anything they can do to get ratings and it's a short-term fix, but I think it's really hurting many networks in the long term," because such stunts often draw broader audiences that don't stick with the channel.
Critics have already pointed out that Ms. Palin's track record on the environment doesn't necessarily pair up with that of Discovery Communications, TLC's parent. In 2008, the company launched Planet Green, a cable channel devoted to sustainability, and a companion website, TreeHugger.com. Ms. Palin, on the other hand, has come to be associated with the chant "Drill, baby, drill," for advocating the drilling of natural gas and oil in her home state.
Classmates.com Settles Lawsuit
Thankfully, the ubiquitous Classmates.com banner ads are less prevalent than they once were. I never had a weak moment and signed up, but some did, and some got compensated for their blinding loneliness.
Classmates.com has agreed to refund nearly $10 million to users who were told that long-lost school chums were looking at their profiles, only to find, once they'd ponied up a subscription fee, that no one they knew was looking for them at all.
The proposed settlement would end a lawsuit filed in November 2008 on behalf of Classmates.com user Anthony Michaels who sued after he spent $15 to upgrade to a Gold Membership at Classmates.com, one of the net's original social networking sites. But that fee was a rip-off, he said.
"Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts … Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile," the complaint read. "Of those www.classmates.com users who were characterized … as members who viewed Plaintiff's profile, none were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter."
While Classmates.com denies it engaged in any deception, it agreed to pay up to $9.5 million to the estimated 3.16 million people who signed up for the service after seeing ads and e-mails encouraging users to upgrade in order to see what members had been looking at their profiles. Each will be offered $3 in cash or a $2 certificate towards future membership.
[Click to continue reading Lonely Classmates.com Users Get $9.5M in Suit]
The real winners, of course, are the class action lawyers1, who as always get the major portion of the settlement. Most members of the class get $3, if you were a primary defendant, you get $2,500, but the attorneys get $1,300,000. Pretty much par for the course.
update: see here for more details, but
But this week, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put a damper on the business model of legal extortion by trial lawyers filing frivolous lawsuits.
Frank has become the proverbial fly in the trial lawyers' ointment, objecting again and again to bogus nuisance settlements that make up the bread and butter for some. In January, his objection helped convince a court to throw out a settlement between Classmates.com(the online social site with the annoying popup ads) and some users who felt they had been duped into signing up.
In that case — whose merits appear much stronger than the Bluetooth case — the lawyers had negotiated $117,000 for the aggrieved class, and a million-plus-dollar fee for themselves.
Frank's organization, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), is currently fighting settlements that are overly generous to trial lawyers in cases against Kellogg, Volkswagen and Toys "R" Us, among others.
- note: this link to the PDF is currently not working [↩]
Cellphone place based advertising
Am very leery of this new kind of advertising, as it has the potential to be extremely irritating.
LIKE many retailers, the North Face has been having trouble luring shoppers into its stores. The company, which sells outdoor apparel and gear, is about to try a new tactic: sending people text messages as soon as they get near a store.
Advertisers have long been intrigued by the promise of cellphones, because they live in people's pockets and send signals about shoppers' locations. The dream has been to send people ads tailored to their location, like a coupon for a cappuccino when passing a coffee shop.
The campaign was created by Placecast, a location-based mobile ad company in San Francisco. It uses a practice called geo-fencing, which draws a virtual perimeter around a particular location. When someone steps into the geo-fenced area, a text message is sent, but only if consumers have opted in to receive messages.
Placecast created 1,000 geo-fences in and around New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston, cities where the North Face has many stores and areas that get a lot of snow or rain, so the company can tailor its messages to the weather. In urban areas, the fences are up to half a mile around stores, and in suburban areas they are up to a mile around stores
[Click to continue reading Advertising – North Face Campaign Sends Texts When Shoppers Near Stores – NYTimes.com]
Some corporations are fairly loose in their definition of "Opt-in", if these businesses start sending text messages, there are going to be a lot of angry customers. We'll soon see.
Google Invades Privacy With Buzz
The Google Buzz seems a little half-baked, if you ask me. Perhaps there should have been a public beta first before Google just turned Buzz on for all of its customers.
But what Google viewed as an obvious shortcut stirred up a beehive of angry critics. Many users bristled at what they considered an invasion of privacy, and they faulted the company for failing to ask permission before sharing a person's Buzz contacts with a broad audience. For the last three days, Google has faced a firestorm of criticism on blogs and Web sites, and it has already been forced to alter some features of the service.
E-mail, it turns out, can hold many secrets, from the names of personal physicians and illicit lovers to the identities of whistle-blowers and antigovernment activists. And Google, so recently a hero to many people for threatening to leave China after hacking attempts against the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, now finds itself being pilloried as a clumsy violator of privacy.
As Evgeny Morozov wrote in a blog post for Foreign Policy, "If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I would immediately dispatch my Internet geek squads to check on Google Buzz accounts for political activists and see if they have any connections that were previously unknown to the government."
[Click to continue reading Critics Say Google Invades Privacy With New Service – NYTimes.com]
And The Grey Lady is too delicate to link directly to Harriet Jacobs complaint:
In an expletive-laden article that was widely cited on the Web, a blogger who writes about issues related to violence against women complained that Google had made her fearful. She said that she had unexpectedly discovered a list of people, which may have included her abusive ex-husband or people who sent hostile comments to her blog, following her and her comments on Google Reader, a service for reading blogs and automated news feeds.
In a further effort to contain the fallout, Google reached out to her and made changes to enhance the privacy of shared comments on Google Reader.
But Gizmodo isn't:
Oh, yes, I suppose I could opt out of Buzz – which I did when it was introduced, though that apparently has no effect on whether or not I am now using Buzz – but as soon as I did that, all sorts of new people were following me on my Reader! People I couldn't block, because I am not on Buzz!
Fuck you, Google. My privacy concerns are not trite. They are linked to my actual physical safety, and I will now have to spend the next few days maintaining that safety by continually knocking down followers as they pop up. A few days is how long I expect it will take before you either knock this shit off, or I delete every Google account I have ever had and use Bing out of fucking spite.
Fuck you, Google. You have destroyed over ten years of my goodwill and adoration, just so you could try and out-MySpace MySpace.
Harriet Jacobs is the nom de plume of the author of Fugitivus. She's a mid-twenties white girl living in the Midwest, working at a non-profit that assists families and deals with a lot of racial politics. Harriet has had a fucked-up life, and Fugitivus —fugitive—is her space to talk, where the fucked-up people who did the fucked-up things couldn't find her and be creepy.
Ms. Jacobs has now hidden her blog from the public, at least for a while, and who could blame her?
For me, I'm less concerned with embarrassing details leaking to a salacious public as I've always tried to keep a so-called Chinese Wall separating public and private sphere. Of course occasionally I blab too much, but then I'm happy to remain low profile enough so it doesn't really matter anyway.
As far as Google Buzz, not really sure what the point of it is, but hey, I'm no stock-holder in Google, so if they want to dip their corporate toes in social networking, that is their decision to make. I'm much more interested in having access to super-fast network provided by a less obnoxious telecom, as Google also mentioned this week.
Dirty Dirty Dirty
Nobody wants to be on The List, of course, but at least TripAdvisor seems to have more credibility than a site like Yelp! who allows the process to be subverted by financial concerns.1
Those are just a few excerpts from reader-generated reviews of various hotels in Britain, culled from the "2010 Dirtiest Hotels" lists published recently by TripAdvisor.com, the online network of travel sites. TripAdvisor says it has reviews of more than 450,000 hotels around the world.
In the United States, hard-hitting online travel reviews cause a lot less commotion, even though TripAdvisor's reviews of the "dirtiest" hotels in the United States are just as blunt as the rest of the worldwide lists. ("Sleep in your car, not here!" warns LuckyDude, Chicago.)
Web sites using online reader-generated commentary are rewriting the rule book for travel reporting, and no site has as much impact as TripAdvisor, which is owned by Expedia and is one of the biggest online reader review sites. So it was a good time to talk with TripAdvisor's chief executive, Stephen Kaufer.
The dirtiest hotels lists are a tiny part of what TripAdvisor does, of course. But Mr. Kaufer was happy to address the criticism.
"You bet, if you're a hotel on that list, it is not a good sign for your business," he said. "We have advertisers who call us up after they see one of their chain properties on the list and say, 'Come on, I spent money with you advertising, and you put the property on the list?' The sales guys tell them, 'The editorial team looks at all the reviews; they look at what the guests say on the site — and one bad review does not get you on the list. But when it's consistently ranked as a bad hotel by lots of people saying terrible things, hey, we are not shy.' "
"Please believe me," he added, "we are careful about the lists, so a hotel isn't named just because there are four bad reviews. We are dealing with someone's reputation. It's the ones that are consistently bad that make it — and I challenge any curious ind
[Click to continue reading On the Road – A TripAdvisor List That No Hotel Wants to Be On – NYTimes.com]
Surprisingly, the Hooker Hotel Radisson near Dallas Love Field did not make the TripAdvisor 2010 list, though the reviews of that shit hole are nearly as bad as they should be.2Footnotes:
We Can Do It!
We Can Do It!, originally uploaded by The U.S. National Archives.
Other Title: Rosie the Riveter
U.S. National Archives' Local Identifier: NWDNS-179-WP-1563
From: Series: War Production Board, compiled 1942-1943 (Record Group 179)
Created by: Office for Emergency Management. War Production Board. (01/1942 – 11/03/1945)
Coverage Dates ca. 1942 – ca. 1943
Persistent URL: http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=535413
Repository: Still Pictures Unit at the National Archives at College Park (College Park, MD)
For information about ordering reproductions of photographs held by the U.S. National Archives' Still Picture Unit, visit: www.archives.gov/research/order/still-pictures.html.
Reproductions may be ordered via an independent vendor. The U.S. National Archives maintains a list of vendors at www.archives.gov/research/order/vendors-photos-maps-dc.html.
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
love this image
Harper's Magazine in Trouble
Ru-oh. I've subscribed to Harper's Magazine continuously since the 1980s; it has shaped me in all sorts of subtle ways. I can't imagine a world without it, but apparently, I better quickly grok the idea.
In a rambling 40-minute monologue that left many attendees perplexed, John R. MacArthur, 53, talked about the problems facing Harper's: readership was down 35,000, newsstand sales were plummeting, the only direct-mail piece that seemed to work was 20 years old. Worse, Harper's seemed irrelevant — "the mainstream media is ignoring it to death," he said — according to people who were at the meeting.
What he did not address was the chief concern on everyone's mind: two days earlier, without warning, he had fired the magazine's well-liked editor, Roger D. Hodge, in a five-minute conversation as Mr. Hodge was finishing his breakfast croissant.
The episode has sent ripples through the placid magazine, which has long been an outlier in the fast-paced New York publishing world.
Harper's is a nonprofit that relies on the support of Mr. MacArthur's foundation. As advertising revenue in publishing has declined, many organizations have considered that foundation model — combining traditional revenue with donations — to finance quality journalism. But as the Harper's situation shows, no publishing model is immune to change — especially when one influential person runs the place.
[Click to continue reading Rick MacArthur Shakes Up Harper's as Sales Fall – NYTimes.com]
Lewis Lapham is like my third grandfather, but he's no longer editor, and hasn't been for a few years. I have no solution to proffer, just hope Harper's doesn't vanish. Harper's is also one of the few magazines I subscribe to that I want to keep after I've read: I have several years worth of back issues. I know I shouldn't keep them – what's the point, right? Very rarely would I think to go browse an old issue, but still, they feel substantial, so I keep them on a shelf until they fall victim to one of our periodic house cleaning purges. We subscribe to plenty of periodicals, but most are ephemeral, of the moment. Harper's Magazine isn't.
Harrison Ford at the Haymarket
Harrison Ford at the Haymarket, originally uploaded by swanksalot.
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: BlacKeys B+W
Flash: Off
billboard for Extraordinary Measures looking at Marry Brogger's Haymarket Riot Memorial statue


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Tokyo Dome is a 55,000-seat baseball stadium in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. It opened in 1988. The stadium is the home field of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, and has also hosted other events including music concerts, basketball games, American football games, puroresu (pro-wrestling) matches, mixed martial arts events, kickboxing events, and monster truck races. Also in the stadium is the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, which chronicles the history of baseball in Japan.
Affordable nearby hotels like the Dormy Inn Suidobashi with three spa tubs, the Hotel Metropolitan Edmont in the center of rapid transit, and Hotel Villa Fontaine which offers free breakfast, are all great choices. Finally, Tokyo Green Hotel Korakuen offers simple, clean, and comfortable guest rooms and is within a five-minute walk of the stadium.
In addition to seeing an event at the Tokyo Dome, there's plenty to do in the attached Tokyo Dome City complex itself, so staying nearby means you are close to many dining and entertainment options. Hotels near here are also within a short walk of the subway, making getting around from here easy.
Tokyo Dome is part of a greater entertainment complex known as Tokyo Dome City, which includes an amusement park with a roller coaster and a ferris wheel. The grounds also have shops, restaurants, video game centers, the largest JRA WINS horse race betting complex in Tokyo, and Oft Korakuen, which caters to rural horse races, so there is plenty to see and do here!
© 2020 Hipmunk® and Concur® Hipmunk® are trademarks of Hipmunk, Inc. and Concur Technologies, Inc.
© 2020 Hipmunk® and Concur® Hipmunk® are trademarks of Hipmunk, Inc. and Concur Technologies, Inc.


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About a year ago a new trend emerged, âfitness fashionâ. What is fitness fashion? Is it fitness wear that has brighter prints and colors? Is it design? Is it fabrics? Is it less function but more fashion or the other way around? What is this buzz word anyway?
I have a definition of fitness fashion that Iâve never heard expressed before. Itâs divided into two parts, Fitness and Fashion. To me, fitness apparel combines several important elements that are mandatory if youâre serious about exercise of any sort. The fabric, fit, and function all have to be incorporated for the apparel to qualify as high performance athletic apparel. Those elements include fabrics with 4 way stretch, moisture wicking, thermal regulation and compression for maximal exercise capacity. It must include function where the athlete isnât restricted by design allowing freedom of movement. The final component is the fit of the performance apparel. Fit is a combination of feel and function. Pants that slip down and require constant tugging is bad fit. Too tight or too loose feels bad and likewise represents a poor fit.
So what is fashion? To me fashion represents style. It represents the runway. It represents on trend design with color blocking, asymmetry, silhouetting, contour seaming, ruching, deep V necklines and subtleness of color or at least trending color. It represents high quality fabrics with the hand feel of lusciously soft textiles. It represents high quality trims and notions seen on the runway. Thatâs what fashion is to me.
OK, so that gets us back to fitness fashion. Are there really any lines out there that truly exemplify my definitions of fitness and fashion? I know of only one, Turn It On Fitness www.turnitonfitness.com which is the brainchild of former runway model and fitness enthusiast Juetta West. This line combines the function, fit, and fabrics of high performance apparel with on trend fashion designs as seen on the catwalk.
These are performance fabrics that feel like high quality textiles. With these fabrics, itâs all in the finish of the fabric. Todayâs blends are truly amazing in their performance characteristics and the hand feel that is possible if you pay for it. The on trend styling from this line includes color blocking, asymmetry and all the other design features I included in my definition of fashion.
But the truly unique aspect of this line is the âcrossover conceptâ. Â Here we have a line that functions as stand-alone fashion, high performance fitness wear, or both.
Convenience is what simplifies a womanâs life. Being able to go to work looking fashionable with heels, jewelry and accessories is one thing. But doing it with a backpack with tennis shoes to change into, followed by a full workout without changing or lugging a bunch of clothes around is what the âcrossover conceptâ is all about. Is this the wave of the future? Is the pendulum swinging back away from the slouchy sweat-pant look to a more stylish line of fitness wear with a duality of function? Is this fitness or fashion? You decide.
Juetta West
Founder of Turn It On Fitness
Juetta is a former high fashion runway model for fashion luminaries such as Oscar de la Renta, Bob Mackie, Bill Blass, and many more. She is a former NFL cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals and is on the panel which selects Ben Gal cheerleaders. She is a former 4 time twirling champion for the State of Ohio and today she excels in a lifestyle of fitness, nutrition, and fashion inspiring women of all ages to understand that beauty has no expiration date and that every day it is necessary to take action on behalf of your own health and style.


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A young child breathes in toxic methane gas as she pokes through the massive garbage dump; younger children risk disease as they play nearby, while their mother desperately searches through the enormous trash heap looking for any items she can turn into cash. Her dreams for her family did not start in this pile of trash, but each day those dreams of a safe and secure life fade slowly into distant memory. Determined that a giant pile of refuse will not kill this mother's dream, Safe Passage is on the scene.
More Information
Safe Passage works with the poorest at-risk children of families living around the Guatemala City garbage dump. Within a safe and caring environment, they provide a comprehensive and integrated program that fosters hope, good health, educational achievement, self-sufficiency, self esteem, and confidence.
Working with poverty-stricken, at-risk children living in and around the Guatemala City garbage dump, Safe Passage offers a caring environment with the goal of creating opportunities and dignity through education. They provide safety, care, comfort, and financial support to these children who are finally able to afford enrollment fees, not to mention the school uniforms, shoes, supplies and books which were previously far from reach.
Volunteers and donations make it possible for every child to attend a local public school for the half-day term followed by educational reinforcement at the Safe Passage center. With volunteer funding, they have provided a comprehensive and integrated program that fosters hope, good health, educational achievement, self-sufficiency, and self confidence, and have so far educated and assisted 500 children.
Quick Facts
HQ Address:
81 Bridge Street
Suite 104
Yarmouth, ME 04096 USA
Countries of Presence:
Year Founded:


text:
Cutting-edge mobile website
Cutting-edge mobile website
AdNovum supported the South East Asia based online insurance company DirectAsia.com in building cutting-edge mobile websites for the Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand markets.
DirectAsia.com has a mission to bring the best value insurance policies and customer service to the region and aims at optimizing user experience via all channels. Through the new mobile websites, customers can now receive the company's latest product and marketing news, get instant quotes and conveniently acquire travel and car insurance. Deployed on an advanced and secure mobile technology stack, the sites offer a visitor experience optimized for speed and usability across different mobile platforms.
DirectAsia.com's new mobile websites for Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand markets offers:
- multi-language support
- user-friendly mobile access to company, product and sales information
- full online quote process for travel and car insurance
- online call-back appointments
- mobile purchasing of travel and car insurance via smartphone
- user profile view and update with two-factor authentication protection
- convenient insurance policy renewal
- integration with DirectAsia.com's content management system
- full analytics integration
DirectAsia.com is the first insurance company in Singapore to offer customers a fully mobile e-commerce website for car and travel insurance products with the following benefits:
- faster online quotations and purchase due to mobile optimized processes
- mobile-friendly interface facilitates positive touch-screen-based visitor experience
- supports both product research and purchase behaviour whilst 'on the move'
- increased sales conversion rates for mobile visitors


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The Artistic Mayhem of Susan Pfeiffer
What's New
I am addicted
to the performance of craft. May it be through the medium of drawing, animation or painting, beading, costuming, sewing and
cross stitching, my fingers are compelled to move. Never one to shy away from exposure I offer up my efforts, Past & Present,
to your scrutiny.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
are what we think.All that we are arises with our thoughts.With our thoughts, we make our world.
Visit me :D
"No matter
where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai


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In End of Davis Cup as We Know It, Croatia Tops France for Title
Cilic lived up to his status of team leader. After beating Pouille, he was surrounded by the Croatian team on the court and his shoulders were covered with the Croatian flag. The country's president, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, warmly hugged him.
"It's not every day that you become a world champion," Cilic said. "For us, it's a dream come true, for this nation, we are so passionate, you can see the fans. And I feel that in Croatia, it's going to be incredible too."
Croatia won the Davis Cup for a second time, after its victory in 2005, and denied France an 11th crown. This was the last time in the 118-year-old history of the competition that the final was played in a best-of-five matches format and over a three-day weekend. Starting next year, the title will be decided in a season-ending 18-team tournament at a neutral site.
The International Tennis Federation believes this format, with matches played in best-of-three sets, will be more attractive to elite players who often decline to compete for their countries because of a crowded schedule.
The French tennis federation supported the change. The country's players and captain, however, did not. "Last year, I was crying of joy; this year I was crying because I was sad," Pouille said after the loss. "I'm not going to change my mind about the new format. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to play in the Davis Cup anymore. That was the last time."
France's captain, Yannick Noah, who will be replaced by Amélie Mauresmo, also strongly opposes the overhaul. "It will never be the same, it's going to be something else," said Noah, who guided France to three titles. "I really hope this is not going to be called the Davis Cup. Playing two sets is not the Davis Cup. They are lying."
Source link


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After studying this lens and realizing that there are such a lot of comparable games, my fingers are itching to play them once more. 85.37% of 30370 players like the cell recreation. Another great game by Last Day of Work, the creators of Virtual Families, Digital Villagers places the participant accountable for a village of survivors.
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There are additionally infinite multiplayer options, if you happen to'd rather take your abilities to the web environment. Presently, there are three video games in the sequence and several other enlargement packs to associate with them. Whether or not you play online through our digital tabletop or in particular person using our character sheet and dice rolling application, Roll20 will prevent time and allow you to focus on enhancing your favourite parts of tabletop gaming.


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I have added support for caching to Sweave.sh script as implemented in cacheSweave R package written by Roger D. Peng. Now, one can set caching on for chunks that are time consuming (data import, some calculations, ...) and the Sweaving process will reuse the cached objects each time they are needed. Read the details about the cacheSweave package in the package vignette. Option --cache for Sweave.sh script should also be easy to understand. However, here is a minimalist example:
Now, one can run the following command:\documentclass{article}
n <- 10
s <- 15
Let us first simulate \Sexpr{n} values from a normal distribution and add a \Sexpr{s} sec pause to show the effect of caching.
<<simulate, cache=true>>=
x <- rnorm(n)
Now print the values:
<<print, results=verbatim>>=
Sweave.sh --cache test.Rnwand the output on the command line is:
Run Sweave and postprocess with LaTeX directly from the command line
- cache mode via cacheSweave R package
R version 2.8.0 (2008-10-20)
Copyright (C) 2008 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.
R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.
Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.
> library(package='cacheSweave'); Sweave(file='test.Rnw', driver=cacheSweaveDriver);
Loading required package: filehash
filehash: Simple key-value database (2.0 2008-08-03)
Loading required package: stashR
A Set of Tools for Administering SHared Repositories (0.3-2 2008-04-30)
Writing to file test.tex
Processing code chunks ...
1 : echo term verbatim (label=setup)
2 : echo term verbatim (label=simulate)
3 : echo term verbatim (label=print)
You can now run LaTeX on 'test.tex'
When you repeat the Sweaving process, which you more or less always do, there is no need to wait for 15 second since cacheSweave package takes the x object from the cache! Excellent job Roger!


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Western civilization inclines repeatedly towards fascism.
My second-year French professor in 1968 digressed delightfully in his classes. His favourite theme that fall was not Proust, Pascal, or Prudhomme. It was the prospective fascist state under Richard Nixon, should he be elected. He was, and the rest, as they say, is history…
Time magazine privileges history's unfolding as function of great players, not great events. Two instances were 1990's front-page photos, one captioned, "The Face of a Hero", the other, "The Face of Evil". General Norman Schwarzkopf was the former, Timothy McVeigh the latter.
My French prof taught that perspective is everything. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 innocents, and was executed. Yet he is martyr and hero amongst white supremacists and similar ilk crackpots. General Schwarzkopf, celebrated American hero, was contrarily hated in Iraq in the first Gulf War, responsible in fact for the death of thousands of combatants and civilians, most infamously on "the highway to hell", when thousands of retreating Iraqi troops and civilians were relentlessly slaughtered "like a turkey shoot".
When it comes to violence resort, one person's hero is ineluctably another's killer. The most startling and least followed ethical insight of humanity is, end and means are one. Resort to violence, reap violence; in violent response to resort to violence, reap violence. There is no nonviolent violence.
The above is borne out in the research of arguably the greatest contemporary theorist on violence: René Girard. From Charles Bellinger's discussion in The Genealogy of Violence, Girard's theory begins with the experience in all cultures known to history of existential lack or ontological sickness, which lack leads to endless societal cycles of imitation or mimesis of others, which invariably elicits violence. Society consequently seizes upon a victim and kills him/her to meet its own psychological needs. Humanity historically prevented itself from descending into a chaos of self-destruction by choosing a scapegoat whose death would create a new sense of social unanimity and cohesion. This may be routine sacrifice of victims in ancient Incan and Mayan "civilizations" to secure blessings from the gods; mob lynching of Blacks to protect "righteous" white folk; immolation of Jews in Nazi Holocaust to excuse collective German guilt; prosecution of a minority of "criminals" through imprisonment and the death penalty to let the "law-abiding" off the hook; Allied saturation bombing of civilians to make the world "safe for democracy". There is a fundamental moral and psychological falsity to, an endless recycling of, all scapegoating violence.
Girard applies a hermeneutic of suspicion to foundational social phenomena. The ubiquitous scapegoat mechanism is one side of the great either/or of human existence: either our civilization (and any other) will continue sacrificing victims to meet the psychological needs arising out of universal "ontological sickness", or humans will learn to follow the way of "love" of neighbour and enemy at its most broadly political and social application. "Civilized" society invariably acts throughout history the exact opposite to the way of nonviolence, which summation is "love your neighbour/enemy as yourself". For Girard, the spiritual immaturity of modern Western civilization creates an inability to recognize and love its "victims" (which all civilizations known to history invariably generate) as neighbours. At the heart of violence is a mimetic desire that results from a failure of individuality. The person who has become an individual (truly human) is a person responsive to the charge: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." Such receptiveness opens up the way to a new kind of society, quite simply a community of love and respect for all people without exception.
There are increasingly open comparisons between President Bush in his "War Against Terror" and various fascist leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini. But the cancer goes far deeper. "The Face of Fascism" in fact is "Everyman" who ultimately endorses sacrifice of "others" for self-preservation (though it invariably be whitewashed as "democracy" and "freedom" in the West).
Here are the chilling words of CIA operative "Anonymous" concerning potential civilian casualties in an interview about his new book Imperial Hubris to be published July 4: "That's the way war is. I've never really understood the idea that any American government, any American elected official is responsible for protecting civilians who are not Americans." His is scapegoating violence at its most pragmatic. This is Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's recent "final solution" to fighting the Muslims: "What we can do is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans." This is Hitler towards the Jews and six million liquidated. It is also General Curtis LeMay who boasted that "we scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo on that night of March 9-10 [1945] than went up in vapor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." The "clash of civilizations" (Samuel Huntington) is in truth the "clash of barbarisms" (Gilbert Achcar), as René Girard so compellingly presents.
"The Face of Fascism" turns out to be my face and your face, unless we turn our faces collectively towards the neighbour and enemy in relentlessly creative new embrace. The "how" begins with the "why". My French prof was right: it is the only way of becoming human.
Either we discover and embrace our true selves in the other –" neighbour and enemy –" or we as a civilization are destined towards endless cycles of fascism fundamentally at odds with everything human.


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Know Before You Go
There's limited free parking for one hour.
Lucy, the world's largest "elephant," celebrated her 128th birthday in 2009 in her hometown of Margate City, New Jersey. Built of tin and wood in 1882 by James V. Lafferty as a publicity stunt, Lucy was modeled after Jumbo, P.T. Barnum's real life "Largest Elephant on Earth." Lucy is much larger then Jumbo was and stands 65 feet high, 60 feet long, 18 feet wide, is made of nearly one million pieces of wood, and weighs about 90 tons.
Housing a small building space, Lucy has held business offices, a restaurant, and a tavern over her years. Today, for a small fee, tourists can enter via a spiral staircase in her leg. Inside Lucy is a small museum of her history, with old photographs and a short film.
Lafferty designed and built three other giant elephant buildings; Lucy was the first, followed by another on Coney Island, New York, and the third one in Cape May. Lucy is the only surviving elephant, saved from demolition plans in the 1960s by a "Save Lucy" campaign.
She was struck by lightening in 2006, blackening her tusks. Lucy is now a National Historic Landmark, and is two miles south of Atlantic City.
There's limited free parking for one hour.


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Time Heals
Reader comment on item: The Middle East Forum Debates Moderate Islam
Submitted by Jon, a Brit from Euroland (France), Mar 31, 2014 at 09:59
Mr. Pipes, I am sure that within 20 centuries Islam will have made some steps to reconcile itself with reality. That these steps will be enough I am sure there is room for debate, and I presume that they will be significant.... otherwise there will be little room for debate.
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Everyone knows Apple is publicly favoring augmented reality over virtual reality, but that doesn't mean the company has no interest in the fully occluded experiences you get from your average VR headset. Apple is a company known for prototyping many different products, with only the best seeing the light of day, so news that a wireless headset is being worked on in secret at Apple shouldn't be a shock.
Quoting CNET's Shara Tibken:
Apple's headset would connect to a dedicated box using a high-speed, short-range wireless technology, according to a person familiar with the company's plans. The box, which would be powered by a custom Apple processor more powerful than anything currently available, would act as the brain for the AR/VR headset. In its current state, the box resembles a PC tower, but it won't be an actual Mac computer.
This article describes a headset capable of VR and AR experiences with an 8K-per-eye display which connects wirelessly to a standalone box. Should Apple decide this headset is ready to be a consumer product, the rumor is it wouldn't be a thing until 2020. Which makes sense, because the wireless tech needed to drive a headset like this isn't going to be ready until 2019 at the earliest. Outside of that hardware requirement, there are a few unique things Apple could bring to a headset like this to make it stand out in a serious way.
Display quality: If there's one thing you can universally say about Apple's products right now, it's how great the displays are. The real-to-life color quality is something that matters even more in VR and AR experiences than it does on a phone in your hand, and the use of an 8K display would target a desire to never ever see the "screen door" caused by so many headsets today. Apple could be the company behind the VR headset offering the most realistic experience just on its display quality.
Apple-made processor: As we've seen with the iPhone and iPad, Apple is very good at squeezing quite a bit out of its internally designed processors. A headset powered by uniquely Apple hardware would create an opportunity for unique VR and AR experiences powered by chips that appear less capable on paper while outperforming the competition. And as the conversation regarding Apple and Intel splitting up continues to grow, custom chips for bigger computers starts to make a lot of sense.
Inside-out tracking: Following the rumor that this headset would not only be wireless but also require no external tracking hardware, it seems likely Apple would lean on lessons learned from ARKit to make that tracking more accurate. With motion sensors in the headset and ARKit-capable cameras on the front, Apple would be able to use the existing ARKit systems to build a tracking system which rivals what is currently available.
Are we going to see an Apple headset with VR and AR features operating together? It's too soon to tell, but with reports of headset sales passing 20 million last year there are a lot of good reasons to make something great as this space grows.
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Apple's latest patent shows an all-glass iMac
Apple patents tons of things and the latest suggests we could see an all-glass iMac eventually.
'Powder' is Apple's latest 'Shot on iPhone' video featuring iPhone 11 Pro
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Apple has been ordered to pay WiLan the sum of $85M over a patent infringement, following a retrail of a case last year.
Try on a pair of shoes using augmented reality and your iPhones camera
Shoe companies are using Apples ARKit to let consumers try on shoes without having to leave the house.


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How a sea turtle grows into an adult
150 million years ago when dinosaurs were alive sea turtle existed. Sea turtle are species that are endangered that we need to protect. They can live up to approximately 100 years. Newborn sea turtle is actually a size of a ping pong ball and can fit on a palm of a human's hand.
The female turtle pushes the sand to the surface. Once it's found a spot to lay its eggs it digs a hole with it's back legs and lays its eggs to keep them warm and safe. The mother turtle can lay about 50 to 200 eggs which is insane. After 6 weeks the eggs start to hatch. About 20% out of 100 eggs don't hatch and that leave 80 eggs. When the baby sea turtle hatch they push their way out of their shell, they dig their way towards the surface and there they start their big journey. They quickly rush to the ocean encase predator attack them. This is way sea turtle hatch out when it's night time so that predators don't find them. They find there way to the beach by following the moon's light.
Half of 80 sea turtle survive, because of predators like seagulls, crabs and humans. When the turtle's make their way to the sea they start to find more dangerous and bigger predators. About 20 of them survive at this stage. When the sea turtle squirm up to the surface to breathe, many get eaten by more predators like seagulls, killer whales, sharks and dolphins. They also get dragged away by the current. Another 50% of sea turtle die from that.
10 years later the sea turtle will be a size of a dinner table. This means they're now in the stage of an adult sea turtle. The adults sea turtle are less harmed because they're now very large. They have less predators because their shells are very hard which keep them protected and safe. Only 10 of them survive when they are adults. Then the life cycle start all over again where the mother sea turtle scrambled her way to the surface.


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"He is a dumb person, illiterate, ignorant. At the same time, he thinks he knows everything. But he can hardly speak to be understood.''
And of Osama bin Laden, whom Rocketi met only once, shortly before 9/11: "Far more intelligent and well-educated. I had no idea about his planned attacks against the United States. He's a very secretive man and this mission was known only to a few people. Even so, he scared me. I was worried that he would make many problems for us and the Taliban would be blamed. And that is exactly what happened.''
A beefy 51-year-old who speaks only Pashto, Rocketi was the highest-ranking Taliban commander to turn tail and swap sides after the American-led toppling of Omar's regime. This "treachery'' makes him particularly anxious that the insurgents never again seize Kabul.
"Oh, they would kill me for sure. I'm surprised they haven't managed to assassinate me already.''
At his modest campaign office in the capital – Rocketi is among 38 candidates vying for the presidency in next week's elections in Afghanistan – a small private militia guards the premises. Visible beyond the thick walls of the compound are the grandiloquent and gaudy mansions built in this neighbourhood by drug lords and war profiteers. Not one of them will contribute so much as a slim Afghan dollar towards paving the hardscrabble, cratered road, where human effluvium chokes the gutters. They're waiting for the Ministry of Public Works to do that.
As if.
On several fingers of hands the size of ham hocks, Rocketi sports heavy platinum rings. Those digits would seem to lack the dexterity required for the delicate task of fashioning and placing bombs. He waves the suggestion aside, explains that he was a rocket-man, the best, hence the nickname that has now become his formalized surname – Rocketi.
"This is my professional name, you understand? I could get into places nobody else could reach in order to fire rocket grenades at the Russians.''
Rocketi was only a teenager then and the occupying Soviets were the enemy. That's why he joined the mujahideen. "I was serving the people of Afghanistan.'' He pauses, coffee-bean eyes twinkling. "Also, for a young man, this was fun.''
With the Soviets shockingly sent packing, Rocketi became immersed in the subsequent civil war launched by competing mujahideen factions and later, when the Taliban emerged as a corrective to all that chaos, threw in his lot with the black-turbaned forces.
"My belief was that they would bring stability to the country. Then they turned into the problem instead of the solution. Everything they did was by force – making men wear long beards, forcing everyone to pray every time they passed a mosque, taking young men from families to fight. I didn't recognize my country anymore. Also, the Taliban government consisted of only one ethnic group – the Pashtuns. They kept everybody else distant.''
Whatever his reservations – retroactively – Rocketi must have been loyal enough, and committed enough, to rise through the ranks. While describing himself now as a man of peace, he was not beyond kidnapping and violence. By 2001, Rocketi was the Taliban's top military commander for the strategic provinces of Nangarhar (on the border with Pakistan), Kunar and Laghman.
The epiphany occurred only when Omar and the Taliban and Al Qaeda were on the run, fleeing American bombardment. Rocketi chose not to join the scramble into Pakistan and surrendered.
He was an early beneficiary of reconciliation, never prosecuted, never imprisoned. "Why would I be? I was not a criminal. I was a military commander.''
By 2005, Rocketi had won a seat in the Afghan parliament, from which he's mercilessly attacked President Hamid Karzai. "He hasn't been able to shrink the drug trade, he hasn't been able to improve security, he hasn't stopped corruption, he hasn't been able to give Afghans any future to believe in.''
While widely perceived as among the no-hopers on the presidential slate, Rocketi persists in projecting himself as the country's saviour. "What I can do is bring peace through negotiations with the Taliban. Karzai is crazy if he thinks Mullah Omar will ever talk to his government. It's doubtful they will negotiate at all while foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. But if those troops leave, there will be chaos.''
Rocketi did travel to Saudi Arabia last year, meeting with King Abdullah as part of Karzai's bid for the monarch to host peace talks.
However, it is highly unlikely that the Taliban would ever parley with a defector.
Rocketi – who must wonder at times whether he made the right call eight years ago, the insurgency reconstituted and ever-more muscular – admits that the neo-Taliban, should any consider casting a ballot, would probably not vote for him either, former comradeship notwithstanding.
"We are no longer friends.''


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Ghost soldiers
When President Abraham Lincoln signed his Emancipation Proclamation, "there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting in the Union army."
— PunditFact
on Monday, July 27th, 2015


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