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Fusion Face and Body Make up Neon colors are blacklight reactive and will shine bright in UV, neon or blacklight lighting. They do not require any special activation, they are applied and removed the same way non neon colors are applied. They can be applied directly to the skin, combined with all your other favorite brands and look great under normal lighting. Fusion Neon's paints stand out because of their intense pigment and are popular amongst face painters.
There is one disclaimer to mention with regards to Neon Pigments. Neon pigments are currently classified for special effects use, and not for cosmetic use. They are still being evaluated and awaiting further testing by the FDA before the existing pigments used in this formula can be labeled for cosmetic use. In all of our years as artists and painters, we have not encountered any issues using Neon colors in our face painting. As with any cosmetic there is always a chance of a reaction, but we do not believe there is an increased chance by using Neon pigments. We recommend using at your own discretion. If you are looking for a FDA compliant Neon Formulation we also offer Kryolan which is now made using FDA complaint neon pigments. Click Here for Kryolan Neon
For best use: Wet your brush or sponge, work paint into a lather and then apply directly to skin. Fusion will dry on the skin within 30 seconds.
To remove: Remove with soap and water, discontinue if irritation occurs and contact manufacturer to report issues.
Fusion Body Art make up is made in accordance with FDA regulations and include FD & C pigments approved for cosmetic use.
Container size: 32 gm measuring 2.9 inches in diameter Expect 75+ applications
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Feb.4 (GMM) Having shown darkly-lit 'sneak preview' images on its website that triggered a server meltdown, and scheduling a launch event for the afternoon, photographers at Jerez scrambled on Monday morning to take the first unofficial shots of Mercedes' new W04.
At the same time, Lewis Hamilton was being filmed for promotional purposes trackside, as he captured Nico Rosberg's debut laps on a Blackberry mobile phone — a gratuitous plug for the team's new on-car sponsor.
His 2013 teammate, Rosberg, was lapping on the day before official test action begins, after Mercedes booked the Spanish test circuit for a filming day.
Michael Schmidt, the correspondent for the specialist German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, was one of those at Jerez getting an early first glimpse at the silver car.
"The first impression is disappointing," he said.
"At first glance the car seems quite conservative, with long and relatively crude sidepods.
"With a first look we could not see any major innovations."
Meanwhile, Germany's Sport Bild is reporting that Michael Schumacher has been signed up by Mercedes parent Daimler as a brand ambassador.

subset: commoncrawl


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- Home
- City Government
- Departments
- Development Services
- Planning
- Planning Documents, Maps and Data
- Priority Conservation Area
Priority Conservation Area
The City established a Citywide Agricultural Lands Preservation Program within an area referred to as the Southeast Quadrant (SEQ). The SEQ area encompasses approximately 1,290 acres and is generally bounded by Condit Road and Highway 101 to the west, San Pedro Avenue to the north, Carey Avenue to the east, and Maple Avenue to the south.
A key goal of the project was to encourage the preservation and enhancement of open space/agriculture while identifying certain properties for compatible development with sports, recreation, and leisure uses. The project was anticipated to result in the development of a portion of the SEQ area, while ensuring that agricultural activity and open space is maintained and permanently preserved in the SEQ area and citywide.
The following is a list of the project components:
- Agricultural Lands Preservation Program - The establishment of a City-wide program to support the permanent preservation of open space/agriculture. The program would set forth mitigation to address the conversion of agricultural lands within the city limits and identifies policies and procedures for preserving viable agricultural lands and creating a greenbelt along the southern edge of the city's sphere of influence boundary.
- Boundary Adjustments - Adjust the City limits (i.e., annexation), urban service area, urban growth boundary, and urban limit line.
- Sports-Recreation-Leisure General Plan and Zoning Code Amendment - Establishment of a new Sports-Recreation-Leisure land use designation in the General Plan and Sports-Recreation-Leisure Zoning District in the Zoning Code.
- City General Plan Amendments and Zoning Amendments to amend the land use designations and prezone lands within the SEQ area, and adopt text amendments to the General Plan and Zoning Ordinance for project consistency.
- Property Owner-Initiated Applications - 5 property owner-initiated projects proposed within the SEQ area will be evaluated, including a private high school, outdoor sports fields, sports/recreation-themed retail and restaurant, agriculture, and limited residential units. The number of new residential units proposed by 1 of the property owners would be equal to the number of existing lots of record under the applicant ownership within the SEQ area (up to 38 lots), which by right can each now be developed with a single-family home under current County regulations.
October 2015: The City submitted an application for LAFCO (PDF) to consider the expansion of the Morgan Hill Urban Service Area boundary to include areas referred to as the Sports - Recreation - Leisure District and Monterey-South-Hordness.
July 2015: The City prepared an Addendum to the SEQ EIR on the Ballfield Project and Land Purchase for the properties directly southwest of the Tenant and 101 Interchange.
- SEQ Ballfields Addendum (PDF)
- Appendix A Community Health Risk Assessment (PDF)
- Appendix B Habitat Agency Geobrowser (PDF)
- Appendix C Phase 1-2 Environmental Site Assessment (PDF) (large file)
- Appendix D Noise Assessment (PDF)
- Appendix E Traffic Technical Memorandum (PDF)
- Traffic Data Appendices (PDF)
City Council Actions (November 2014 - July 2015)
- Summary of Actions (PDF) - Includes links to City Council Agendas and references to the Resolution and Ordinance numbers associated with the various Council actions.
January 2014: The public review comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) extended by two weeks, closed on Tuesday, February 18, 2014.
December 2013: After release of the Agricultural Policies and Implementation Program Public Review Draft (Program) in 2011, City staff met with a number of stakeholders to obtain feedback and recommendations for the Program. Based on the comments the City received, the Program was modified to incorporate a number of the recommendations. The Program, now titled Agricultural Lands Preservation Program, will be evaluated in the Environmental Impact Report for the SEQ Project.
The Agricultural Lands Preservation Program is available for public review:
- Agricultural Lands Preservation Program (PDF)
- Agricultural Lands Preservation Program Attachment (PDF)
December 2013: The Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Citywide Agricultural Preservation Program and Southeast Quadrant Land Use Plan is available for public review.
Links to Previous Documents
- Draft General Plan Land Use and Zoning District (PDF)
- February 18, 2010 Presentation - Overview and Land Uses (PDF)
- February 18, 2010 Presentation - Agricultural Mitigation and Preservation (PDF)
- Refined project description for the Southeast Quadrant and Agricultural Policies General Plan Amendment EIR (PDF)
Planning Division
Physical Address
17575 Peak Avenue
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Phone: 408-778-6480
Monday - Friday
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.


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GALLE: Hosts Sri Lanka hope to give retiring former captain Mahela Jayawardene a winning farewell when they take on Pakistan for a sixth Test series in as many years from Wednesday.
The elegant right-hander, sixth in the all-time scorers' list with 11,671 runs in 147 Tests since his debut in 1997, is due to quit the longer format after the series.
Jayawardene, 37, who retired from Twenty20 internationals after Sri Lanka's title-winning campaign in the World T20 in April, still hopes to compete in next year's one-day World Cup Down Under.
But he will be remembered most for his exploits in Test cricket, where he averages a commendable 50.09 -- with a monumental 374 against South Africa in 2006, the best of his 34 centuries.
Jayawardene starts the two-Test series against Pakistan just six runs ahead of his close friend and long-time team-mate Kumar Sangakkara's tally of 11,665 runs as Sri Lanka's leading Test batsman.
Thoughtful Sri Lankan cricket officials picked Jayawardene's two favourite venues, the Galle International Stadium and the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo, for what will almost certainly be an emotional farewell.
Jayawardene's 2,297 runs in 22 Tests in Galle and 2,863 runs in 26 matches at the SSC - which replaced the originally chosen P. Sara Oval for his final appearance - are the most by any batsman at a single ground.
Sri Lanka's captain Angelo Mathews, while admitting Jayawardene's retirement will "leave a big hole to fill", hoped the occasion will not distract his team from the goals ahead.
"We need to win the series both for him as well as the future of Sri Lankan cricket," Mathews said. "The task ahead is clear in our minds."
Sri Lanka's winning streak this year, when they won the Asia Cup one-day tournament, the World Twenty20 and the Test series in England, was broken by the 1-0 Test loss to South Africa at home last month.
The Proteas, led for the first time by Hashim Amla, won the Galle Test by 153 runs and then hung on bravely for a draw at the SSC to overtake Australia as the number one Test side.
Sixth-ranked Sri Lanka have defeated number three Pakistan in two of their last five series since 2009, losing just once. Two series were drawn including the most recent one in January in the United Arab Emirates.
The upcoming matches, which are not part of the Future Tours Programme, were finalised at Pakistan's request since Misbahul Haq's men faced a barren period from January to October.
Pakistan, looking for their first series win since defeating England in the UAE in 2012, have recalled fast bowling great Waqar Younis as head coach, with Zimbabwean Grant Flower as batting coach.
Spin is expected to dominate, with Pakistan boasting the prolific Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman, and the hosts banking on the trusted duo of Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera.
"Spin usually has a big say in Sri Lanka and I don't think it will be any different this time," said Misbah. "We have the resources to win, but need to be at our best."
The Test series, which ends on August 18, will be followed by three one-day internationals.
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Americans less than 30 years old seem to have substantially less interest in cars and motorcycles than their elders. I have had this discussion with various representatives of the motorcycle industry before. What is it that will get Gen Y away from high tech toys so that they can focus some attention on the latest two wheelers?
What if Steve Jobs had designed a motorcycle? Unlike most major motorcycle OEMs, Jobs didn't believe in market research, customer surveys, etc. He believed Apple could figure out what people wanted to buy, even though they had never seen it, or imagined it. Maybe it will take this type of approach to product design to get Gen Y interested in two wheelers.
I am not implying that the new 2014 Honda CTX700 and CTX700N, announced at the end of last week, represent the magic pill that will get young people interested in motorcycles again. Honda is thinking outside the box, however, and combining features that will appeal to new riders, including a very low seat height (28.3″), unintimidating power delivery and available automatic transmission.
These new models are reminiscent of Honda's poorly received (at least in this marked) DN-01 and, going even further back, Dan Gurney's motorcycle design, the Alligator. In addition to the low seat height, the CTX700N (naked) pictured above, as well as the CTX700 (faired, below) are powered by a 670cc parallel twin, first introduced by Honda in the NC700 bikes last year. These are not horsepower monsters, rather emphasizing smooth, low-end power delivery.
The brakes and suspension are fairly basic. The suspension is non-adjustable, and there is only a single disc up front (thankfully 320mm in size). The two machines will weigh rough 480 pounds wet.
The CTX700N will be priced at $6,999 or $7,999 with the DCT automatic, and ABS. It will be available in Candy Red or Black. The CTX700 is a bit more expensive at $7,799 or $8,799 with DCT and ABS. The CTX700 comes in Candy Red or Pearl White.
Honda says these models are just the first in a new line of CTX models to be introduced in the future. CTX stands for comfort, technology and experience.


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Immigrant Worker Center
Haga clic aquí para la versión español
Hotline Numbers: 617-505-8939 or 617-505-8940
The Immigrant Worker Center is a safe place for immigrants to speak up about workplace abuse and join with a powerful network of workers demanding safe, healthy working conditions. The Worker Center builds the power of immigrants and workers of color to mobilize for safe and healthy work conditions by:
- Providing training to workers to ensure that they know their rights, are able to identify and protect themselves from hazards and can organize for safe and healthy working conditions.
- Encouraging and supporting collective action by workers from the same workplace or industry.
- Linking workers with unions and community groups to support workplace-organizing efforts and to address gaps in government protections for immigrant and low-wage workers.
Resources and information
The Worker Center provides workers with the tools and information they need to protect their health and defend their rights.
- Workers' Hotline links workers with resources and information to take action.
- Weekly Worker Clinics educate workers about rights and offer support from other workers.
- Worker rights/health and safety workshops held at English programs, churches and community centers introduce workers to their rights and to ways they can defend themselves against abuse.
- A Leadership Institute helps workers develop skills in organizing, understanding legislation and effective use of the media to further their goals.
- Legal resources help worker center members achieve legal justice, using MassCOSH's network of private lawyers and legal organizations, such as Justice @ Work and Greater Boston Legal Services,
How to Get Involved
Call the Worker Center Hotline (617-505-8939 or 617-505-8940) to set up an appointment to learn more about:
Organizing support
The Worker Center supports workers' efforts to take action to improve work conditions. It involves workers bringing together their co-workers and going through a step by step process to develop an action plan. With support from community groups, unions, health professionals and attorneys, workers lead their effort to achieve safe, healthy working conditions ,
Worker leadership
Worker Center members oversee and guide the Center's efforts. Members reach out to other workers to involve them in the Center, educate their peers and support their workplace campaigns. A Steering Committee meets quarterly and an executive committee, elected by members, meets monthly to focus on priority workplace campaigns, leadership training planning, and policy efforts.
Policy advocacy
When MassCOSH and workers see abuses over and over again, together we look to identify ways to strengthen existing laws or procedures or establish new ones. Examples of current policy efforts are:
- In August, 2012, the "Temp Worker Right to Know" bill, giving temporary workers critical information and protections, was signed into law, a victory of the MassCOSH-convened REAL Coalition (Reform Employment Agency Law). Now the "REAL" Coalition is actively focused on ensuring that when the law goes into effect, on January 31, 2013, its achieves the strongest impact (click here to see the temp law)
- The Access to Comp Task Force works to remove barriers to immigrant and other low wage workers to obtain urgently needed medical treatment and wage benefits through workers compensation. MassCOSH and other Immigrant Worker Center Collaborative members, Justice at Work and Greater Boston Legal Services meet monthly with the state's Department of Industrial Accidents in an effort to increase the speed in which difficult injured worker cases are resolved and improve the ability of non-English speakers to navigate the agency.
Uniting workers across ethnicities and neighborhoods
Through the Immigrant Worker Center Collaborative (IWCC), worker centers join together to promote mutual learning and to develop collective campaigns for greater impact. IWCC includes MassCOSH, Brazilian Immigrant Center, Brazilian Women's Group, CCT, Chelsea Collaborative, Chinese Progressive Association, Fuerza Laboral, Metro West Worker Center, and the Worker Center for Economic Justice. Members from all participating worker centers convened last year and crafted the state's first Workers' Bill of Rights, a platform of baseline rights that IWCC members would use individually and collectively to assert workers' rights to decent working conditions. IWCC strengthens its effectiveness by collaborating with Justice @ Work, Greater Boston Legal Services, Community Labor United, unions and other groups.


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Hear ye! Hear ye! Enstar and the city of Homer are standing at the back of the church, getting ready to walk up the aisle. If you approve, throw rice. If you object, write a letter to the city. Correction: You must write a letter to the city, as all do-nothings will be counted as yes votes. At the time of this writing, 316 objections had been received; approximately 1,600 more are needed to void this marriage.
This sounds like insurmountable odds, but stay positive. You get one vote for every property that you own within the city limits, and one vote if you are a condo owner. Your letter has to be written on the city's official objection form, which you should have received as a property or condo owner. The city will fax or email you another copy if you've lost the first one. Please note that your objection has to be hand-delivered or received at the Office of the City Clerk by 5 p.m. Friday. If you have any questions, please call the city at (907) 435-3198. Thank you.
Nell Gustafson


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Easy Braided Bracelet
Easy Braided Bracelets and Friendship bracelets in general are one of the most classic crafts done at camps world-wide, and one of my favorites. There are a few basic types of friendship bracelets, but this is the easiest. It may not be challenging enough for older girls, but it's perfect for younger girls making their first friendship bracelet.
Want to share photos of your troop and finished projects? Contact Us!
Materials Needed:
- 3 colors of craft thread
- Masking tape or safety pins
- Ruler or tape measure
- Scissors
- Cut 5 pieces each of 3 colors of craft thread. Each piece should be 24″ long.
- With all the ends even, loop together at one end and knot. This loop will be the closure.
- Tape or pin the looped end on a clipboard, pillow, or book to hold it in place while you are braiding.
- Separate the 3 colors and braid together, taking the left group over the center group, then the right group over the new center group until the braid is long enough to wrap around your wrist.
- Once the braid is long enough, tie a knot at the end, leaving a 4″ tail and trim.
- Wrap the bracelet around your wrist and tie the tail end to the looped end.
Safety Tips!
- Only older girls should use the safety pins to secure the starting end of the bracelet.


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Next, one of my favorite things about February is having a reason to make sugar cookies! Valentines' day is the perfect opportunity. Now, I must admit, at this point in my life, I make these cookies for my children's choir and that's fun enough. However, if you have a Sweetheart or someone who's your Valentine, I don't know many people who dislike a good sugar cookie! I made these right after Christmas (and can't find my pictures! Sorry!) because I was not pleased with the recipe I had used earlier. As Anna says, they are perfect! Not too sticky when rolling them out and still pretty soft when eaten...though for some reason my dad thought they were hard. Seems that he was expecting something more like the kind you can buy at Walmart...you know, the fluffy ones with thick pink and yellow icing and sprinkles? I've never found a sugar cookie recipe like that! If anyone has a recipe like that let me know because those are SO good! Anyway, here is the recipe for "clean," quick, and easy sugar cookies.
No-Fail Cut Out Sugar Cookies from Cookie Madness (halved)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick butter, unsalted, cool room temperature
1/2cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 large egg (whisk and then put half in)
Thoroughly stir together the flour and baking powder; set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the salt, scrape sides of bowl and beat in egg, beating only until egg is blended in. Add the flour mixture gradually (1/2 cup at a time) and stir until incorporated. Form the dough into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Roll the dough onto a lightly floured surface to approximately 5/8″ thick. Cut the cookies into shapes and place the cut cookie shape on baking stone. Bake the cookies for approximately 10 minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden brown in color. Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.
Yield will vary depending on how big you make the cookies


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It's a crazy thing, but true...
I have been officially added to an independent record label called "Howlin' Wolf Records" to run their "On-line Magazine" and I could not be more happy. Please [CLICK HERE] and find out more about changes and the new look to my "Two Thumbs" site. At the very least stop over and say "Hello", I am a little fish who got a little bit bigger! Yes I was feeling like a small fish in the big pond, now I am part of an another army... can fish smile?Yeah I know it's a stretch, though this is a trick question!
The monster was the best friend I ever had.
-Boris Karloff


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Fred Hammond first introduced a contemporary male group to Gospel music in the '80s when he formed the seminal ensemble Commissioned. That group changed the look and the sound of the genre forever.
Recently, it fell onto Fred's heart to once again assemble a group of men to sing praises to God. He called vocal powerhouses Dave Hollister, Eric Roberson and Bryan Courtney Wilson and formed the United Tenors, which he describes as "men worshiping, inviting and gathering other men to come and worship." Hammond says that UT will be another instrument used by God to lead families and communities to have a fresh experience with the Lord.
The first single from the upcoming CD is "Here In Our Praise," a beautiful ballad that finds the men united in voice and heart to exalt the name of the Lord. "Here In Our Praise" was just serviced to radio, and will be available on iTunes and also as a ringtone on February 19.
"A few years back I heard a sound in the heavens of men singing contemporary praise and worship. The sound felt familiar but was still one I really hadn't heard before," says Hammond. "United Tenors is not a revamped or rehashed movement, it's a new moment with a familiar God and Savior attached to it, new wine for this season."
The United Tenors CD (United Tenors: Hammond Hollister Roberson Wilson) will be in stores March 26


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Remember the good old days when the print saturated media that cover MotoGP would take months to show us the first photos of the new season's race bikes? If a magazine wasn't on its game, there used to be a good chance you'd get your first glimpse of a team's new race livery at the season opener before you'd see it in your next issue of (insert publication name here).
Well the internet is changing all that, and now do we not only get near-live coverage of Ducati & Ferrari's Wrooom event with press releases and media photos, but tools like Facebook and Twitter are adding a dimension to the experience that not only brings us information and media faster, but adds an element of depth to the single-perspective reports we'd normally receive.
Such is the case with Valentino Rossi's Ducati Desmosedici GP11 race bike (first teased here), as MotoGP commentator Toby Moody snapped this camera phone photo of the bike as it was being carted around at Wrooom. Neon seems to be the name of the game, which is probably due to a combination of making the bike TV ready (there's an interesting discussion on Wikipedia about how the standard Rosso Corsa red color scheme has changed over the years because of TV quality and saturation), and integrating Valentino Rossi' unhealthy obsession with the color neon yellow into the Ducati Corse style. A shot of Nicky's bike awaits you in the gallery after the jump.
Source: Toby Moody (Twitter)


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If that seems somewhat fuzzy to you, it's because it is. Absent an experimentally verified and generally accepted theory of quantum gravity, nobody really knows what exactly spacetime foam looks like. A case for the phenomenlogists then! And, indeed, over the decades several models have been suggested to describe spacetime's foamy, fuzzy grains, based on a few simple assumptions. The idea is not that these models are fundamentally the correct description of spacetime but that they can, ideally, be tested against data, so that we can learn something about the general properties that we should expect the fundamental theory to deliver.
One example for such a model, going back to Amelino-Camelia in 1999, is that spacetime foam causes a particle to make a random walk in the direction of propagation. For each step of distance of the Planck length, lP, the particle randomly gains or loses another step. This is a useful model because random walks in one dimension are very well understood. Over a total distance L that consists of N =L/lP steps, the average deviation from the mean is the length of the step times the square root of the number of steps. Thus, over a distance L, a particle deviates a distance
where I have put in a dimensionless constant α - for a quantum gravitational effect, we would expect it to be of order one. See also the below figure for illustration and keep in mind that c=1 on this blog
While simple, this model is not, and probably was never meant to be, particularly compelling. Leaving aside that it's not Lorentz-invariant, there is no good reason why the steps should be discrete or be aligned in one direction. One might have hoped that this general idea would be worked out to become somewhat more plausible. Yet that never happened because this model was ruled out pretty much as soon as it was proposed. The reason is that if you consider the detection of lightrays from some source, the deviation from the normal propagation on the light-cone will have the effect of allowing different phases of the emitted light to arrive at once. The average phase blur is
If the phase blur is comparable to 2π, interferences would be washed out. See below figure for illustration
As it happens however, interference patterns, known as Airy rings, can be observed on objects as far as some Gpc away from earth. If you put in the numbers, for such a large distance and α ≈ 1 the phase should be entirely smeared out. To the right you see an actual image of such a distant quasar from the Hubble Space Telescope (Figure 3 from astro-ph/0610422). You can clearly see the interference rings. And there goes the random walk model.
There is a similar model going back to Wheeler and later Ng and Van Dam, that the authors have called the "holographic foam" model. (Probably because everything holographic was chic in the late 1990s. Except for the general scaling it has little to do with holography.) In any case, the main feature of this model is that the deviation from the mean goes with the 3rd root, rather than the square root, of N. Thus, the effects are smaller.
It is amazing though how quickly smart people can find ways to punch holes in your models. Already in 2003 it was pointed out, that with some classical optic formulas from the late 19th century, modern telescopes allow to set much tighter bounds. Roughly speaking, the reason is that a telescope with diameter D focuses a much larger part of the light's wavefront than just one wavelength λ. The telescope is very sensitive to phase-smearing all over its opening. Telescopes are for example sensitive to air turbulences, a problem that the Hubble Space Telescope does not have.
The sensitivity of a telescope to such phase distortions can be quantified by a pure number known as the "Strehl ratio." The closer the Strehl ratio is to 1, the closer the telescope's images are to those of an ideal telescope, showing a point-like sources as a perfect Airy patterns. A non-ideal telescope will cause an image degradation, most importantly a smearing of the intensity. The same effect would be caused by the holographic space-time fuzz. Thus, up to the telescope's limit on image quality, the additional phase distortion would be observable: it lowers the Strehl ratio of images of very far-away objects such as quasars. (Though, if it was observed, one wouldn't know exactly what its origin is.)
The relevant point is that, using the telescope's sensitivity to image degradation, one gains an additional factor of D/λ ≈ 108. In their paper:
- No quantum gravity signature from the farthest quasars
By Fabrizio Tamburini, Carmine Cuofano, Massimo Della Valle, Roberto Gilmozzi
the authors have presented an analysis of the images of 157 high-redshift (z > 4) quasi-stellar objects. They found no blurring. With that, also the holographic foam model is ruled out. Or, to be precise, the parameter α is constrained into a range that is implausible for quantum gravitational effects.
As it is often the case in the phenomenology of quantum gravity, the plausible models are difficult, if not impossible, to constrain by data. And the implausible ones nobody misses when they are ruled out. This is a case of the latter.
Thanks to Neil for reminding me of that paper.
PS: We were not able to find a derivation for the exact expression for the phase blurring as a function of the Strehl ratio, Eq. (5), that is used in the paper. We got so far that it's called the Marechal approximation. If you know of a useful reference, we'd be interested!


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Hello everyone and welcome back to a new challenge here at
The Sisterhood of Crafters!
It's Darlene and I'm happy to be your hostess today!
With Summer rapidly drawing to a close and Fall quickly approaching, I thought we'd have some fun creating with this theme in mind . . .
(tractors, scarecrows, apples, cornstalks, sunflowers, etc.)
The 'sistahs' have created some fun projects for your inspiration ... let's take a look !
Remember you can find more details on the teams creations by clicking on their name
and going to their personal blogs. Please pop on over & share your loving thoughts.
Now it's YOUR turn and we look forward to seeing what you create!
You will have until Sunday, August 20th to enter.
Winner's will be announced on Tuesday, August 22nd.
For your convenience, here's a quick review of our Rules:
- No backlinking ... only new creations.
- Three (3) entry limit.
- You can share with as many other challenges as you'd like.
- Must follow the challenge theme to qualify for the prize (when one is available).
- Direct link to your challenge entry ... not your entire blog.
- Link back to our challenge in your blog post.
- We would really appreciate it if you would turn OFF the word verification.
most of all ... HAVE FUN!!


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Tissue engineering is definitely an exciting field – the ability to create living biological tissue in a lab could allow scientists to do things such as testing new drugs without the need for human subjects, or even to create patient-specific replacement organs or other body parts. While some previous efforts have yielded finished products that were very small, a microfluidic device being developed at the University of Toronto can reportedly produce sections of precisely-engineered tissue that measure within the centimeters.
The process starts with separate "biomaterials" being introduced to the device, via multiple channels. Those materials are then mixed together, forming into a sheet of what is known as "mosaic hydrogel." This is a biopolymer that fosters the growth of cells into living tissues, so cells are seeded into the hydrogel as it's being created.
A number of different types of cells can be used, and they are deposited into the gel with extreme accuracy – enough so that they can be placed in such a way that they replicate the cellular structure of a given natural tissue. One not-so-natural example of the device's precise cell placement can be seen below.
The cell-seeded hydrogels can simply be taken from the device in their existing sheet form, or they can be wound around a drum as they're produced. If the drum is used, the gels can be built up into rolls that are many layers deep, which could serve as the source of three-dimensional blocks of engineered tissue. Exact thicknesses can be achieved simply through the number of layers used.
Presently, the researchers are looking into using the device to create skin grafts for burn victims. The technology is in the process of being commercialized by tech firm MaRS Innovation.
A paper on the research was recently published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Source: University of Toronto


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From Paid Content:
India's big media group TV18 Group is becoming the Fox Interactive of the space there…it has announced three new acquisitions in the online space...including cricket portal CricketNext.com...
Why is this a big deal? By itself it isn't. But what it hints at is something potentially huge: the Long Tail of global audiences for regional content. In sports, news and entertainment we're shifting away from thinking only about concentrated audiences in one geography to thinking about distributed audiences around the world.
One country's hits are another country's niches. In Japan Anime and Manga are mainstream; here in the United States they're niche. Telenovelas are mainsteam in Latin America, but niche elsewhere. And then there's that whole soccer thing, which is seemingly mainstream everywhere but the US, where outside of World Cup time it can hardly be found on TV at all.
Take cricket. It's huge in Commonwealth countries, as well as the Subcontinent and the rest of the former British Empire. In India, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand the the UK, all the big cricket matches are broadcast live on TV. Elsewhere they're virtually impossible to find. According to the economics of broadcast TV, this makes sense: you can only devote your scarce airwaves to content of mass appeal. But there are millions of cricket fans outside of those few concentrated markets. And they're as eager to watch live (or even recorded) cricket matches as their home-bound countrymen. Now, thanks to streaming web video, they can.
There are about 25 million people in the Indian Diaspora, most of whom are in countries that don't broadcast cricket on TV. Think of them as the Cricket Diaspora, a distributed audience of potentially immense scale. The same for the Rugby Diaspora, the Soccer Diaspora, the Sumo Diaspora and so on. Then turn the tables and do the same for the potential global audience for US sports: the Football Diaspora, the Baseball Diaspora the Basketball Diaspora. Then extend that to news, TV shows, music and more. See what I mean?
Today, as more and more TV migrates from the scheduled world of live broadcast to the on-demand world of streaming Web video, we're about to enter an era where distributed markets are as good as concentrated ones. Long Tail video will reunite disaporas through their common culture, even if they are seen as a niche culture in the world around them. We already see this in the rise of Latino radio in the US; soon that will extend to every other immigrant culture, here and abroad. We often think of the Long Tail as a force of fragmentation, but it can be a force of unification for the already-fragmented, too.


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My NYCBSDCon 2010 summary, or How I Spent My New York City vacation:
Things I learned on Friday: The only event was a get-together at the B Bar and Grill, down the street from the facilities. I realized I could recognize people better if they had their email address on their shirt.
Things I learned on Saturday:
- The BSD Certification group is a non-profit, and could use donations.
- What they are doing is a good idea, and it's very scientifically constructed.
- Psychometrician, the specialist who helps design the tests, is a great job title.
- The Automated Test Framework would be great for DragonFly, too. The next generation test was mentioned.
- My takeaway from the session on radmind/LDAP for administration was "Use puppet."
- Calyptix has managed to build OpenBSD machines into almost a managed service.
- They have tcpdump on a web page from the appliance they sell. That isn't necessarily that hard, but it makes an incredibly powerful tool very accessible to more people.
- PCSYSINSTALL sounds like a good replacement for SYSINSTALL in FreeBSD. Frankly, a poke in the eye would be a good replacement for SYSINSTALL, so the bar is low.
- Jeremy Reed is writing a colossal history of BSD, with so much detail pulled up already he couldn't even summarize it all in his hour of speaking. It's a huge project, with some very entertaining anecdotes. It also shows the issues we face nowadays are not really new.
- An early worker on BSD virtual memory was Özalp Babaoglu, which is the best name I've had to type yet. (I'm missing a ~ over the g, too.)
- Early BSD licenses were surprisingly restrictive, tying software to particular hardware. Back then, 3BSD cost $200, and the equivalent version of Bell Unix was $28,000. You can guess what most people bought.
- sendmail was originally named "delivermail".
- Jeremy Reed has a separate book publishing operation. He's selling pfSense: The Definitive Guide, which went like the proverbial hotcakes. (I bought one.)
- The IPv6 talk was … depressing. The talk was good, but the evaluation of IPv6 adoption isn't pleasant news. People just aren't switching fast enough, and vendor implementations are generally poor.
- Jason Dixon did a "Choose Your Own Adventure" presentation, which hopefully will be online soon.
- The evening concluded at the B Bar again, where I got to have some good conversations with Dru Lavigne, Michael Lucas, George Rosamond, and others.
Things I Learned on Sunday:
- Matthew and I had issues with the wireless service available at the con all through Saturday. Sunday morning, Matt turned around and said "here's the fix" – a few lines turning the hardware encryption off. Several of the various laptops at the convention using Atheros wireless chips had the problem, under other BSDs.
- In addition, terminal beeps can now be turned off, cause it was just annoying.
- Isilon (which was just bought for billions of dollars, holy crap) had a presentation on their FreeBSD-based multi-node storage product. It sounds interesting; they use SSDs to cache metadata. I've heard of that strategy before…
- James K. Lowden had a presentation that took the form of a call to arms; it can be summed up in a quote:
[SQL] is the biggest most popular worst language in the world.
- He had some very good points about how databases all use SQL and all are totally incompatible in terms of tools and data interchangeability. This was interesting enough I missed the session for the various BSDs to report status. The Third Manifesto talks about a language called "D" as an alternative. freedb.schemamania.org is another place to look – the slides are linked there, and the history page is a good summary.
- James Lowden is responsible in part for FreeTDS, which I've found very useful in the past for connections from Unix-land to Microsoft SQL Server. He was also the snappiest dresser at the convention. This was the most energizing talk.
- George Rosamond gave an informal talk about the state of the con. This was the best year yet in terms on attendance and sessions and facilities, and it looks like the con is going to come out with positive cash flow. All good news.
- The pfSense presentation made me buy a book, as I mentioned before. This will be useful for work; the pfSense product is very full-featured.
- It sounds like the changes needed for pf, in pfSense, will make it back to FreeBSD 9. Some of these changes would be great to have in DragonFly. Apparently some sort of dummynet is being implemented, which may mean ipfw2 could be dropped.
- Michael Lucas's "BSD Needs Books" was funny. The two good quotes I wrote down were:
"Someone should do this. Someone is you."
- and, when he was asking for book title suggestions from the audience, someone suggested "Kernel Hacking for Complete Idiots". His reply: "That would be a Linux book."
Summary: a great convention. The facilities were great, the catered food was excellent, and the topics were fun. The weather even cooperated.
In the future, watch for Jeremy Reed's Unix history book; it will be more than a year, probably, before it hits the shelves, but it will be important. Also, if you're going to listen to my prescriptions, get certified when the chance arises.


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What are CalPATH & PATH?
The CalPATH & PATH Home Loan Programs are available exclusively to Mountain West Financial clients and are designed to benefit those that serve our local communities... it's our way of saying "thank you!" Offering hundreds of dollars in upfront savings with reduced lender fees and thousands of dollars over the life of the loan with reduced interest rates!
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In March of 2013, Mountain West Financial was selected as the master servicer for the CalSTRS Home Loan Program. To read the official announcement, click here. During the first few months of collaboration, CalSTRS determined that due to market conditions, they would suspend the launch of a new program, visit the CalSTRS website regarding the suspension of the CalSTRS Home Loan Program.
In October of 2013, Mountain West Financial released CalPATH to fill a void left in the market due to the suspension of the CalSTRS Home Loan Program and introduced the CalPATH Home Loan Program. To learn more about the launch of the CalPATH program, click here to read the full press release.
In September of 2014, the program was expanded and the name changed to "PATH" as it became available to other states. Click here to learn more about the expansion of the PATH Home Loan Program into Colorado.
The PATH Home Loan Program continued to grow and become available in Arizona and Oregon. Click here to learn more about program enhancements and additional states.
As Mountain West Financial continued to grow, so did our reach of the program, PATH was made available in Nevada, Utah, and Washington. Click here to read more.
In early 2016, the program was again expanded to Idaho, Texas, and Wyoming. Click here to read more.


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Conservative Presbyterians: PC(USA) Not Walking the Talk
Responding to a recent document released by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that attempted to clarify the denomination's stance on debated issues, conservative Presbyterian leaders say the arguments are irrelevant.
"We think there is an unfortunate but clear distinction between what is on paper and what is the working theology of the denomination," said the Rev. Dr. D. Dean Weaver, senior pastor of Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and co-moderator of the New Wineskins Association of Churches – a network of dissident Presbyterians.
PC(USA)'s stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, and General Assembly Council executive director, Linda Valentine, addressed a letter to leaders within the denomination earlier this month to rebut a strategy report by the conservative New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) that "mischaracterizes" the denomination's positions on such matters as the singular saving Lordship of Jesus Christ, scriptural authority, and homosexual ordination.
The document, titled "The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord," cites the Book of Confessions and the Book of Order to argue that the PC(USA) affirms the saving Lordship of Jesus Christ, demonstrates full confidence in the authority of Scripture, and still upholds the constitutional standard requiring fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness for ordination, among other issues.
"The written standards of the denomination are precisely correct, but they are largely ignored," stated the Rev. Michael Neubert of the Presbytery of Southeastern Illinois, according to Presbyweb, a daily news source for Presbyterians. "And so, quoting the standard is pointless."
Controversy in the PC(USA) erupted when the 2001 General Assembly did not affirm the "singular" saving Lordship of Jesus Christ and instead adopted the language "the unique authority of Jesus Christ as Lord." Although the recently released document points to a 2002 General Assembly decision that affirmed the saving Lordship of Jesus Christ "in unmistakable declarations," Weaver points out that the document leaves out the rest of the 2001 adopted statement that stirred debate in the denomination.
The rest of the statement reads: "Although we do not know the limits of God's grace and pray for the salvation of those who may never come to know Christ, for us the assurance of salvation is found only in confessing Christ and trusting Him alone."
Although salvation through Jesus Christ is true for the Presbyterians, they can't say that it's true for everybody, Weaver summed up.
While the main concern of congregations discontent with the PC(USA) is who the denomination believes Christ is, other concerns include gay ordination.
A 2006 General Assembly decision adopted an "authoritative interpretation" of the ordination standard that allows some leeway to churches for homosexual ordination. The new PC(USA) document, which was developed by the Office of Theology and Worship, states that the constitutional standard "requiring 'fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman' or 'chastity in singleness' remains in place."
However, William Beau Weston, associate professor of sociology at Centre College in Danvill, Ky., says there are practicing homosexuals in ordained ministry now.
"Can practicing homosexuals now be ordained in the PC(USA)?" posed Weston in The Presbyterian Outlook. "The short answer is 'No.' The more complicated answer is 'Maybe.'"
The "authoritative interpretation" allows local and regional governing bodies to have the option to decide that the ordination standard is "not essential."
Is it true the PC(USA) on paper believes in the Book of Confessions? Yes, Weaver answered. But functionally, some do not believe the denomination is consistent with the written theology, he added.
"Many people are waking up to realizing that the PC(USA) may not believe what it says it believes," said Weaver, noting a growing anxiety about what the denomination really believes.
Kirkpatrick and Valentine stated that the document is simply being made available for those who seek to "interpret accurately the positions of our church." Weaver, however, believes the latest document may be an attempt to stop the "bleeding" of churches out of the denomination.
The document was released a week ahead of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church's (EPC) General Assembly which last week created a new non-geographic transitional presbytery for New Wineskins churches seeking membership along with transitional presbyteries for congregations wanting to join EPC's already established geographic presbyteries. The New Wineskins presbytery launches publicly with its first official presbytery meeting in October. Weaver clarified that the New Wineskins is not yet fully integrated into the EPC but they are intentionally moving toward it.


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I'm trying to find the universal covering space of the Klein bottle. I know that $\mathbb R^2$ covers the Klein bottle , but I don't know how to prove, I found this proof on internet:
Someone knows why this quotient map is a covering map or have an alternative solution? I found this solution a little bit weird due my lack of experience on this subject, if fact, I'm a really beginner on that.
Please, I need help


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Step by Step: Imperial Fist Space Marine
by Massive Voodoo
this week's tutorial voting was close in bringing us the garbage tutorial, but just close and it was not enough. The winner with 27 votes was the Marine Step by Step. Next time garbage maybe to really get rid of it? We'll see :D
If you want to keep track with an overview on what articles happened so far via MV's year of the painter 2 please check this link!
Support MV!
If you like to support the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale.
Allright, Roman will take over with the article now. We hope you enjoy!
While this world is going up in flames we spent our time with the following step by step of a Imperial Fist Space Marine, painted in a little unusal way.
This article will take you through my steps and thoughts. Sometimes I might miss a photo and I want to excuse myself. During teh process it is hard to push yourself to make a photo in every step.
I started preparing the plastic bits out of my bitzbox that I wanted to use for the Marine build up. I like to start with something I often forgot in the past when it comes to Marines: Drilling my guns!
I even did it from the side to the bolt pistol to have her look truely nice and 'realistic'.
While preparing my plastic miniature I took my blade and drill and added true material damage to the plastic armour.
With details like those small cables ...
Next I wanted to create some rivets on the armour. A easy to do so is using PVC glue and a toothpick. Take the toothpick, pick up glue, place it, let it dry, do it again if you want to have your rivets more obvious.
While going into the paintjob and my thoughts on it I want to keep the article very precise and clean, without further ado and blablub that might distract you... oO stop.
Allright, primed white and black.
Next I decided for a basic color for the main parts on the model. Of course this is the armour and as painting yellow can be a pain in the ass sometimes I tried to find my own way once again with this. I used VMC Japan Uniform for the basic color. Why? Because I am able to paint stronger yellow highlights on top with a lot of saturation powers later on.
... and I still wanted it even more desaturated. I added tiny drop of purple to it. Yellow and Purple are complementary colors and mixed they turn desatured.
I used the airbrush to spray a first layer of this color to the model, mainly focusing for an opaque look on the legs and lower torso part as this will be a shadow tone later on.
On top of this I used my pure Japan Uniform tone via the airbrush in several takes to ...
... recieve an opaque look. Did so mainly from a 45° angle over the top of the the miniature. I am doing this to keep my prepared, desaturated shadows from the step before still available.
Ok colors used so far. Now I add Golden Yellow from VMC.
Of course not pure. Here you can see my basic color (base), my first spray of my main color (1st) and now I add a tiny amount of Golden Yellow to my 1st to brighten it up.
I am again at the airbrush, hitting the model again mainly from a 45° angle and not from below. this brigthens up the shapes and volumes of the model and I am getting prepared to paint my highlights much stronger.
I am done with airbrushing for now and go over to the brush.
I am adding more and more Golden Yellow to my mix until - that's the plan - I am painting only with it. Increasing stronger highlights on the armour volumes.
More and more to recieve a clear look on my light situation. I am painting a strong zenithal light here.
Now I am using Army Painter's Soft tone to go back to some shadows again. I thin it rather well and do about 3 layers into the shadow areas.
It helps me to seperate different areas and get a dark line to wrinkles, bullet impacts and such. Mhyeah, I painted the base in some grey. Staying neutral until I know what I want to do with it :D
Now is a good step to make the miniature more readable for my eye. Pushing highlights and shadows in the yellow only will not lead me to a better understanding for the model. So Metal Parts painted with Scale75 Black Metal, red parts, leather parts and handgrenade.
I now can understand the model much better.
... and added a wash to the base.
I think it was Army Painter's Dark Tone with a drop of green color in it.
Next step again brings me back to the yellow armour. Now with everything seperated well I am able to add some white to my Golden Yellow to search for smaller areas of highlighting.
In this stage I often suggest to check back with a black and white photo of your model to see if there is enough contrast between dark and bright. For example, here it works fine, you can now imagine this guy as a blue, black, green, red, orange Marine, I am just talking about the contrast dark/bright. Sorry for the blurry photo.
Working more and more on the brighter yellow, putting them in contrast to darker areas. Going in for edge highlights.
Working on more detail here and there. Also taking care of all the true material damage to show them, but you can see that I mainly push the contrast in the upper torso area. I told you I am up to paint a strong zenithal light. Added highlights to the metals with a brighter metal tone.
Pushing, even forcing the contrast to paint my light situation.
Roman this is no yellow anymore?
Right. What I did next was using yellow and carefully glazed (tinted/put a filter on top) my bright surfaces more back to yellow. I also used a drop of Tank brown in some of the glazes.
I also decided to make the base a bit more powerful and to paint an athmospheric bounce light to the whole model. I like this stuff recently and do not mix it up with OSL. For this I used tourqouise.
I never think about OSL here, for me there is a whole planet looking like my base and that guy is fighting on it. The light of the sky hits the ground and bounces back to the marine. In fact it would influance everything standing there, even a soccer ball.
I worked on some more edge highlights and did a 'freehand' to the shoulder pad that looked not like an imperial fist, but somehow the shape of Bart Simpson.
I really enjoyed painting up this fella and loved how the true material damage came out.
I hope you enjoyed the article!
You can find more photos on Putty&Paint.
Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes


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Name: Gima
Colour: orange
Clan: Kelpie
Clan Backstory: Kelpie Clan was once a part of the Abaias but they split and established their kingdom in The Sea of Kailani. The Kelpie Clan can be found on sandy bottoms in bays or lagoons. They frequently bury themselves in the sand with only their eyes uncovered. Kelpies are collectors and merchants; they take everything they find on the bottom of the sea and either keep it or sell it. The Clan of Kelpie travels all around the Tinten islands in search of ancient artefacts. They believe that the possession of the Mask of the Blue God, The Book of the Cephalopody and the Holy Trident will open the door to a new world.


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The great things about having friends is that they send you stuff. I love getting links and articles from contacts all over the world. It is like Christmas every time I open my inbox...
OK, maybe not exactly like Christmas, but close!
Anyway, with no particular theme and in no particular order, here is a sampling of just some of the stuff that engaged my brain cells over the last few days:
Ten Simple Rules for Getting Help from Online Scientific Communities. This is actually a good list for anyone trying to get help from any online community.
Truthy. According to the site, "Truthy is a research project that helps you understand how memes spread online. Our first application was the study of astroturf campaigns in elections." They have just recently added a feature that allows you to map any Twitter hashtags that you find interesting (It was down earlier but might be up by the time you read this).
Why grad schools should be more like steel mills. Interesting essay on the current focus of graduate education and how it should change. Not a bad read if you are a grad student or a teacher of grad students. From Craig Zelizer on the Peace and Collaborative Development Network.
Do 'the Risky Thing' in Digital Humanities. More grad student advice. While this author focuses on digital humanities, I think the points apply to other disciplines as well. I am particularly drawn to the advice, "Make sure that someone's got your back, but do the risky thing." (Thanks to my colleague, Diane Chido!)
Preparing Grad Students for Careers Outside of Academia. This post aggregates comments from Chronicle of Higher Education readers about the opportunities and challenges facing graduate students.
Target-Centric Astronomy. Saved the best for last! My colleague, Steve Marrin, sent this out over the always useful IAFIE list. It compares how astronomers do their business to how Robert Clark says intelligence analysts should do theirs. Brilliant stuff!
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Getting Intel From Twitter, Getting Help From Online Communities, Getting A Job And Target-Centric Astronomy (Link List)
Posted by Kristan J. Wheaton at 10:43 AM 0 comments
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Credit: almaphotos.com |
It's almost that special time of year in Champagne where the Autumn air becomes heavy with the scent of grapes being gently pressed. It's a special time in be in France-a time when 4th generation champagne families who have been producing elegant bubbly since the 1820's get to work picking the gorgeous Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. It's a time full of harvest events and activities celebrating this time of year. Make sure to not miss it! For more info look at the event website here : http://tastysidetolifetours.com/Tasty_Side_to_Life_Tours/Harvest_Party.html
The past few harvests yielded quality wine, but the tumultuous weather conditions hampered fruit quantity and dampened some celebrations. This year, Mother Nature dealt the Champagne country a fantastic hand, so even with a late harvest there is plenty to celebrate. Shhhh.. don't tell but this just might be the best harvest in the last 17 years similar to the 1996 harvest which was the best in the last 30 years! That is something to celebrate!
Credit: almaphotos.com |
If you've ever romanticized about getting involved in the harvest then the Tasty Side to Life Tours and Le Gallais's party is the place to be. You will get a behind the scenes look at what happens during the harvest, you'll also have the opportunity to get involved, hands on. On Saturday Oct 5th 2013 you'll be able to come to Le Gallais in Boursault, France to pick grapes for 45mins to 1hr, sample pressed grape juice, and understand how champagne is made and even possibly taste it when it is fermenting. If you can't make this event then you can participate in other activities Oct 2nd-13th 2013.
You'll learn how to read a refractometer and gain a deeper understanding about the importance of the balance between sugar, PH and acid levels in wine grapes. You'll meet the Le Gallais family, sample their various cuvees (Extra Brut, Brut, Rosé) and enjoy a family style lunch on the property surrounded by gorgeous vineyards, a 183o's gorgeous Chateau and an old green house.
We will be roasting a pig and serve it with a nice salad all prepared by the Michelin star chef Michael Nizzero from the regional 1 Michelin star La Briqueterie. A couple glasses of top notch grower Le Gallais champagne will be accompanied by the food and there will be music from a DJ to top it off.
In 2014 watch out for a Spring Blending Session and a Fall Harvest Session where both consumers and professionals will get to experience sparkling wine from an educational point of view (which will require a lot of tasting and hanging around gorgeous champagne villages). Champagne is known for it's history, incredible underground world of caves and world-class quality so it's a great place to learn and explore!
Harvest Party is Saturday, October 5th| 10h – 14h30 | 150€
Additional events October 2nd-13 if you can't make October 5th. Please email to check availability.
To reserve your seat send an email here or to email@example.com with your Name, # in party and title it "Fete de la vendange"! Or leave a vm @ +33(0) 688151255.
Additional events October 2nd-13 if you can't make October 5th. Please email to check availability.
To reserve your seat send an email here or to email@example.com with your Name, # in party and title it "Fete de la vendange"! Or leave a vm @ +33(0) 688151255.


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Parul Agarwala – Is Upgrading Informal Housing A Step In The Right Direction?
No comments yetWorldbank.org. July 9, 2013. Submitted by Parul Agarwala, co-author Syed Usman Javaid
Within the next 30 years, urban populations in developing countries will double and UN-Habitat estimates that around 3 billion people will need housing and basic infrastructure. Already, 70% of existing housing in developing countries is built informally without appropriate structural standards. Thus, the challenge lies in reconciling informal settlements with existing and future planned environments.
In light of these challenges, the South Asia urban team at the World Bank, as part of its urbanization webinar series, organized a discussion on "Upgrading Housing in Informal Settlements." This webinar highlighted the challenges of upgrading housing in informal settlements, and shared lessons from around the globe where targeted policy interventions and grassroots movements have mobilized resources to create success stories. Guest speakers and experts around the world joined the discussion on informal settlements.
Read more: http://blogs.worldbank.org/upgrading-informal-housing-step-right-direction?
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The one bright spot was that my a-england order from llarowe arrived yesterday!!!
These are my first a-englands. I tried desperately to avoid jumping on the bandwagon, but I still caught the bug *sigh*. You can read my general thoughts at the end.
No topcoat in these pics, but I used Barielle HRF as my base coat.
a-england Guinevere - 2 coats, a medium dusty purple.
Comparison: a-england Guinevere and Essie Bangle Jangle - both 2 coats
Comparison: a-england Guinevere and Zoya Caitlin - both 2 coats
a-england Galahad - 1 coat, very nice formula! Reminds me of SH CSM Fairy Teal, but without stainage.
Comparison: a-england Galahad and Illamasqua Muse - I prefer the colour of Muse, but both are beautiful 1-coaters
a-england Perceval - homg! 2 coats, though it was opaque at 1 (it seemed richer with two coats). I'm guessing this is pretty similar to that Kleancolor metallic red and/or BL Knees Up, but I don't have any of those. So I am happy to have a metallic red like this! Definitely a keeper for me! Reminds me of Zoya Posh with topcoat, but finer shimmer.
a-england Elaine - dark, warmish purple. 1 coater as well!
Comparison: a-england Elaine and Zoya Pinta - Zoya is 2 coats here.
a-england Dragon - 1 coat. A warmish green with holo sparkle and a pretty, golden sheen to it. I'm a little lukewarm on this polish with my skintone. This brush was a little wonky for me, so I had to give it a bit of a haircut.
a-england Saint George - omgahhh. This one is to die for. 1 coat. It's really deep, jewel-toned teal. TOTALLY UP MY ALLEY.
Comparison: a-england Saint George and Speciallita Hits Hera over CND Urban Oasis (1 coat of each) - it looks closer in normal lighting, but the Hits is definitely more holo. The colour is less deep and dreamy XD.
a-england Lady of the Lake - 2 coats. Very pretty dark, grape purple with holo sparkle. This definitely needs two coats for me, a little sheerer, and so I think the holo shows up better
(I already purged Hits Dionisio, otherwise I would have done a comparison!)
Comparison: a-england Lady of the Lake and a-england Tristam - since I tend to get these two confused with one another
a-england Tristam - 2 coats. Dark blue with holo sparkle. Similar in formula to LotL. I like this too; it reminds me of one of the OPI Suede polishes (Ink Suede, I think)
My crazy-eyes, polish-addicted opinion:
- Very lovely formula across all bottles. Of course, other brands also have polishes with great formulas (e.g., Illamasqua Muse), but it's still worth noting how consistently good these are.
- I love the bottles (square/rectangular is my favourite!) and brushes (except Dragon)
- Interesting theme, although I personally don't care much about it as long as the polish is amazing ;)
- These don't seem to have balls! It worries me, because Galahad had streaky pigmentation when I first used it. I shook it up as much as I could, but it would have been easier if these guys were not ball-less.
- The polishes don't add much variety to my stash, colourwise. Most of these don't give me that intense burning feeling I get when I absolutely LOVE a polish.
- Other than the formula, the cremes are not that special.
- If you are expecting holo-rainbows with LotL, Tristam, Dragon, or St. George, I think you will be disappointed.
I bought mine at llarowe ($12 each), but you can also get them direct from Adina, the creator of a-england for 9GBP with free international shipping.
Have you taken the plunge and tried this brand? Am I totally missing out on one of their best shades? Tell me so I can buy more (bahahaha).


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Wells Fargo sees no end yet to sales scandal costs, gets tax boost
Wells Fargo & Co is not certain it has fully uncovered and fixed all problems related to a long-running sales scandal that has hurt the bank's reputation and sideswiped its efforts to cut costs, Chief Executive Tim Sloan said on Friday.
The third-largest U.S. bank by assets set aside a $3.25 billion reserve to cover litigation related to fake accounts and other customer issues in its fourth-quarter earnings on Friday.
The San Francisco-based company has been working to get to the bottom of its problems for more than a year, after reaching a $190 million settlement with regulators in September 2016 for employees creating phony bank and credit card accounts in customers' names without their permission.
Since then, it has discovered other problems in businesses ranging from mortgages to foreign exchange trading, while the number of possibly made-up accounts swelled to 3.5 million.
Wells Fargo has tried to rectify the situation by changing how employees get paid, improving corporate reporting structures and ousting several executives. Sloan's predecessor, John Stumpf, abruptly retired after the scandal came to light.
However, the bank is still scouring businesses for evidence of bad behavior, a process that will continue indefinitely, Sloan said on a conference call in response to an analyst who asked repeatedly why management could not give assurances that problems were resolved.
"I'd love to live in a world where I could give you an absolute guarantee and certainty, but it's not just the world we live in," Sloan said.
He later added: "We're never going to declare victory."
Shares of the bank were down 1 percent at $62.40 on Friday afternoon.
Despite that uncertainty, a new target management unveiled signaled that Wells Fargo's effort to control costs are gaining traction.
The bank expects to spend up to $54.5 billion this year, in line with what analysts had generally expected. However, the $58.5 billion in expenses it reported for 2017 were well above the $54.62 billion non-interest expense analysts had predicted, on average.
Wall Street Wells Fargo to offer more detail on costs, which topped 60 cents per dollar of revenue in the aftermath of the sales scandal, a level Sloan has called "unacceptable."
That figure, known as an efficiency ratio, is closely watched by Wall Street as a sign of how well a bank can manage extraneous costs. Elevated operating losses drove that ratio to 76 cents on the dollar for the fourth quarter, well above the 61 cents per dollar the bank had earlier predicted.
For all of 2017, the figure was 66.2 cents in costs per dollar of revenue, also higher than Wells Fargo's target range of 55 to 59 cents.
Wells Fargo will provide more details at its investor day event in May, Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry said. The bank has already vowed to slash $4 billion in costs by 2019 through branch closures and other measures. Half of that will be reinvested into businesses.
Overall, Wells Fargo's fourth-quarter profit rose to $5.74 billion, or $1.16 per share, up from $4.87 billion or 96 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.
The quarter included a $3.35 billion one-time boost from writing down its deferred tax liabilities to reflect new U.S. corporate tax rates.
While other banks will likely report one-time charges related to the tax law, passed in December, Wells Fargo gets a boost to its bottom line because it will owe less tax in the future on income from a set of businesses, including mortgage servicing, where revenues are recognized at different times.
Additionally, the 14 percentage point corporate tax cut will apply to income earned in the United States, and unlike lenders with a larger global footprint, Wells Fargo does very little business outside the U.S.
The new tax law is the first tangible evidence that President Donald Trump is making progress on plans to stimulate economic growth, more than a year after his election sent markets soaring, Shrewsberry said in an interview.
Wells Fargo was one of several major U.S. companies to announce employee pay raises following the law's passage. Shrewsberry expects that kind of extra income, plus increased business activity due to tax benefits, to have a positive effect on the U.S. economy.
"The only piece of that pro-growth agenda people can really sink their teeth into is that tax reform that just occurred... I see a lot to like in it," he said.
(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Bernard Orr and Bill Rigby)


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The city is responsible for sewer main lines and service lateral line repairs up to the customer's property line. If the back up is on the city lines please call the Public Works Department at 972.495.7600 during normal business hours, on weekends, holiday and from 5pm to 8am call Police Dispatch at 972.495.2271, option 2 and a crew will be dispatched. If the back-up occurs in the City line, the crew will clear the line. If there is a blockage in the customer line, we will notify you.
Potholes in street and alleys should be reported to the Public Works Department at 972.495.7600 or visit the
Water and sanitary sewer main in public right-of-way can be located by calling the Public Works Department at 972.495.7600 to request a locate. Locates can take up to 2-3 working days to complete. Franchise utilities, including gas, electric, phone and cable are located by a 3rd party company via the 811 service. State law requires notification of the 811 service to request locates before digging. This is for your safety as accidentally hitting an electric power cable or gas main can lead to serious injury or death. Gas, Phone, Cable TV and Electric Power lines can be located by calling 811. The City does not keep records regarding the location of water or sanitary sewer services on private property. Location of water or sanitary sewer services on private property can often be deduced by locating sewer main cleanouts or water control valves on the property.
Yes. Call Public Works at 972.495.7600 for repairs or make an online request


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Belden and Corning Optical Communications have forged an agreement to collaborate on furthering solutions for global broadband connectivity technology deployments.
In a joint press release, the companies said, "PPC Broadband Inc. (PPC), a brand of Belden (NYSE: BDC), and Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, a subsidiary of Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW), are pleased to announce an important technical collaboration in the broadband connectivity field. This global technical collaboration encompasses a range of connectivity inventions, and creates broader availability of connectivity solutions for system operators worldwide."
Notably, the statement added, "The agreement resolves pending patent infringement and related proceedings between the companies involving Corning's EFC series of coaxial cable connectors. The specific terms of the agreement are confidential."
"We are pleased to have reached an agreement on what we expect to be a long-term technical collaboration with the PPC team on this interconnect technology," commented Mike Bell, senior vice president and general manager, Optical Connectivity Solutions, Corning Optical Communications. "We expect the macro trends enabling the growth of this technology to continue in the future, as bandwidth intensity, cloud computing, and the number of devices connected to the internet continue to grow exponentially."
Dave Jackson, president of Belden PPC, commented, "This technical collaboration recognizes the value of intellectual property (IP) covering our innovative connectivity technology and expands our commitment to the industry as our customers build advanced networks to meet the future needs of broadband. The technology improves the reliability and efficiency of broadband communication networks, thus enabling advanced service offerings."
More information is available at www.ppc-online.com and www.corning.com.
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4 Green Veggies For the Vegetable Averse
Crisp green produce just looks like it's good for you, doesn't it? Out of all of the colors of the rainbow, I tend to prefer green veggies the most. While there are countless fresh and tasty options, at this time of year, it's hard not to be drawn to avocados, artichokes, english peas, and lettuce. Find out what we like to do with these bright green ingredients.
It's no secret in our office that we are crazy for avocados. We love the creaminess that they add to salad dressing, smoothies, and dishes like quinoa salad. And there's no stopping us with a savory bowl of guacamole. We even love them in popsicle form. But our standby avocado preparation is simple and addicting: toast with avocado and Tapatio.
Artichokes pack quite a unique and earthy flavor. Upon first glance, they seem completely inedible, but once you know how to prepare them, they are worth the work. If you want to keep things simple, just steam them and enjoy them with a little bit of oil and vinegar or lemon-pepper butter as an alternative to a side salad. You can also clean baby artichokes and cook them up with mushrooms for a satisfying warm salad.
English Peas
Every year when the English peas start appearing in grocery stores, it's a sure sign that Spring has arrived. You can boil them right out of their shells for a fresh side or enjoy them in a minty salad. They add a pop of color and flavor to hummus and act as a perfect throw-together dinner in an easy vegan soup.
A good head of lettuce can go a long way. There are few things that satisfy me as much as a simple yet juicy green salad. But lettuce also happens to be one of the main ingredients in a classic BLT sandwich. Typically it's eaten raw, but we're noticing a growing trend with cooking and especially grilling lettuce.
What green vegetables do you enjoy, and how do you use them?


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Small Businesses Expecting Better Holiday Sales
Small business owners are feeling some holiday cheer, as expectations ahead of the gift-giving season are brighter this year.
The National Retail Federation is predicting a slight increase of 4.1% in holiday sales this year. And according to a survey from Manta, 43% of small businesses are more optimistic about holiday sales this year, compared to 2011.
A growing percentage of business owners expect online orders to dominate sales. While 51% of those surveyed expect the majority of sales to come from in-store purchases, the percentage of business owners who anticipate most sales activity to take place online increased 10 points to 41%.
The online Manta survey was conducted last month and included 1,087 responses from small business owners.
"The holiday season can bring both immense pressure and great rewards to local small business owners, so this is the most critical time for them to leverage online tools and the vast expertise of other business owners," Manta chief executive Pamela Springer said in a statement. "We're pleased to see many of the small businesses in our community gaining awareness about how their online actions impact their business – from their online presence on sites like Manta, to selling goods and running promotions online – and sharing their best practices and advice with other business owners."
And with holiday sales fast approaching, small businesses are weary of offering online deals through discount websites like Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN). A large majority (82%) of respondents said they have not, and will not, run promotions on "daily deal" sites this year, and a mere 3% reported that such sites have brought them repeat business.
Meanwhile, more than half (53%) of small business owners consider Generation X shoppers as their most desired customers. Exactly one-third of those surveyed believed that Baby Boomers will be the biggest spenders this year.


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Lawmaker Seeks to End Pay Discrepancies Between Blue and White Collar Feds
Bill would stop inconsistent treatment based on locality areas.
Lawmakers and labor groups are pushing to fix pay discrepancies between blue and white-collar federal workers caused by differences in the way the Office of Personnel Management classifies wage areas.
Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., has introduced the 2013 Locality Pay Equity Act to end what he calls an "archaic" system that creates pay disparities between employees on the General Schedule system and those that are paid hourly. Cartwright cited the example from his home district; General Schedule employees at Tobyhanna Army Depot are subject to a 25 percent pay differential over hourly employees because OPM classifies the two groups of workers as living in different wage areas.
"The current wage inconsistency at Tobyhanna is an issue in which I have been interested since last year; the current system is dated and does not take into account current regional considerations and statistics," Cartwright said in a statement. He noted that the proposed legislation would "level the playing field."
The private sector does not vary the pay of salaried and hourly workers based on localities, according to American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. He recommended that the federal government follow suit.
"Treating salaried and hourly workers differently in this context is unfair and inefficient," Cox said. "It makes the blue-collar employees at military depots, federal prisons and VA hospitals feel like second-class citizens." Cox added that hourly workers face the same costs of living as their salaried counterparts, and said that the current system was "unconscionable."
The Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee -- the labor management committee that studies pay for federal blue collar workers -- voted to "end the practice of treating blue collar and white collar federal employees differently with regard to the drawing of local labor market boundaries" in November 2010, according to AFGE. OPM must submit the policy for public review before it can be officially implemented.
(Image via Robles Designery/Shutterstock.com)
NEXT STORY: More Dental, Vision Insurance Choices for Feds


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Our friends over at Facebook were nice enough to hook us up with an invite to the initial roll-out of the company's new messaging service announced this week. We've been messing around with the system for a few hours and thought we would put together some initial impressions for those who are interested or curious. Hit the jump and let's get to it.
The announcement of the new messaging feature, which was delivered by Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, hammered home a message that was clear and consistent: this is a new messaging platform, not an email killer. And we think that assessment is spot on. When Facebook activates its new messaging system on your account you are presented with the above screen asking you to upgrade. Once the upgrade is complete, Facebook asks you several questions in order to figure out how you are going to be utilizing the new service. The three questions are: would you like a facebook.com email address, would you like to setup your phone to receive SMS messages from Facebook, and would you like to take Facebook's chat client online (if it isn't already)? Once those preferences are configured the messages application looks the same but acts very different.
All messages you receive from a single contact are aggregated under that contact's name; from there, the list is sorted by date received. Below each contact's name (they are all burred in the above screen shot) is the subject of the message (if there is one) followed by a small snippet from the message. Messages are displayed in the following format:
Subject • Snippet from the message…
Once you enter one of these contact threads, the real magic begins. The threads present you with all of your correspondences that have been routed through Facebook with a particular contact. Facebook IMs, emails to and from your facebook.com email address, Facebook messages, and SMS messages. The Facebook team said they were trying to keep the context and consciousness of your message streams as they happen in real life — people often switch from email, to IM, to SMS, etc. — and they did a very good job.
Below is a threaded conversation between BGR President Jonathan Geller and myself. You'll notice that there is a small, gray icon directly to the right of each individual message's timestamp. This indicates the medium through which the message was sent. A small chat bubble indicates the message originated from a Facebook chat window, a small phone indicates the person used a mobile device, and an envelope indicates email. When you reply to a message it automatically uses the last medium the messages sender used. If your message came via email the reply is sent via email and so on.
During the course of our conversation, we seamlessly bounced between Facebook's messaging center and chat windows, the Facebook app on our mobile devices, and SMS. The entire correspondence was captured by the new message center.
If you have SMS setup, new chat windows actually allow senders (writing from Facebook's new system) to choose SMS as a medium; Facebook says this feature is for very important messages that required immediate attention, and the feature can be disabled or restricted. While still a little rough around the edges, the whole concept of switching communication methods without switching programs is pretty slick.
However, there were a few things we didn't like about the system. Push notifications of new messages when away from Facebook (currently only supported on the iOS client) were a little spotty. We couldn't find any way to set up our Google Voice number as the preferred SMS destination — to try and avoid Facebook blowing through our text messaging quota — so we ended up disabling the SMS option.
Also, as advertised, Facebook really did make digital communication feel way less formal… and we're not sure we like it. Now, we're in our late-twenties (Jonathan isn't but he's an old soul), which could make us too old to understand the new concept, but we sort of like the formality that is in emailing. A nice subject line, a salutation, paragraphs… if you write a friend, colleague, or family member a long, formatted email it says something about the subject matter and the value you place on it. Although thought-out messages are completely doable with Facebook's system, the way the content is laid out and presented sort of urges you to write a short, maybe even curt, response.
So what are our final thoughts? Don't be fooled; this is a great service. If you have a large group of friends on Facebook — and we're guessing if you are under 30 you do — it makes communicating, organizing, and viewing conversations with friends extremely easy. The messaging platform, which we remind you is still in the testing phase, does need some tweaking and refining, but it just may be where online communication is headed. Will hordes of people begin using facebook.com addresses as their primary means of communication? No, probably not anytime soon. Are we inclined to use Facebook's messaging system a lot more? Yes. And we're pretty sure that is the point.


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WIP-Thoughts IV
by Roman aka jar
I did start to paint up Kingha, the Amazon, which i converted a bit... i am trying to make her as a colour tribute to one of my favorite painter idol, Sebastian Archer aka automaton from Australia. I really love his style, feeling of colour and his great scenery and little and big conversions and detail accurate painting skills and his ... nah, i think you get what i mean, he is the man of harmony in everything - i love his stuff and he really is a great inspiration to me, everytime he finishs up a miniature. I took an old beloved piece of art from him for my colour inspiration... Lathiem, Oak Leaf... i really admire and adore this awesome and fantastic choice of colours here - also it is perfectly painted... ahhh... sweet and a model i could stare for hours with open King Kong mouth...
I first thought of trying using the same colours for my tribute... but i failed somehow, but didn't know when. I guess when it came to colour choice. Made my green with goblin green and ice blue from GW, funny start but far away from sebastian's colours in the end, haha. Let's see what happens on the further way she will go. I maybe feel that i did understand seb's great harmonic style of painting by using warm and cold contrast in everything on the miniature... just a feeling and i try to bring it further in Kongha: The model is still WIP and i am planning to paint some more hours on her, even i am not sure if i can make it in time til the End of September for the CMON Contest. So here she is somewhere between start and concept:
Bigger pictures on another day... i am damm tired right now and if Mr. Roberto reads this i would ask him to call me to get up at 9:00 am, pleeeeeaaaasssseeee - i need to clean up the flat before - you know!