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This world needs more DeSu.
And by that, I mean Devil Survivor games. This show sucks.
Table of Contents
Release Information
Episode details.
Release format: MKV (290 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: Sometimes they use honorifics, sometimes they don't.
English style: American English.
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/gN0CgdKF
Speed: Quick (<48 hours)
Note: The timing has been raped harder than the average camel in Saudi Arabia.
Note 2: The chapters are wrong.
Note 3: Anime-Koi's leader notes this episode wasn't edited and is not reflective of general Anime-Koi quality. Probably should have asked me not to review this ep, then. ^_^
External links.
Group website: http://www.anime-koi.com/
IRC channel: #[email protected]
Fansub.co screenshot comparisons: http://fansub.co/devil-survivor-2-the-animation/
Subbusu screenshot comparisons: http://www.subbusu.com/view.php?id=1
Visual Review
Opening. I guess Anime-Koi tried to do this right, but they really bungled it up. Lines change color to match the characters being highlighted on the screen, but the characters often are switched up frequently, meaning the dominant colors need to change as well. But Anime-Koi doesn't manage the changes correctly, leading to scenarios like the first screen, where the colors don't fit.
The karaoke effect works well when you're just watching the opening and not paying much attention to anything, but if you want to use it as karaoke, the effect doesn't really help you with that. Basically, you need to be looking a syllable ahead, and that's not really the best way to run it.
Rating: Okay-.
Ending/Insert. Well, it's… existent. I guess.
Rating: Okay-.
Well, the typesetting's not going to win any awards, but it…
It's not going to win any awards.
Script Review
While half the song is in Engrish, the entire translation is.
I have not thought about a living until yesterday
It's just a scene with lie a one's end or feel like I 'm burned
Or I have a feels slightly changing
I feel like almost crying
Me inside on canon night
Boy you have to believe
I take in!
Close your eyes, emerge with you, must do that
Close my eyes, anytime that I pray for Joys
Just believe in far away,
To live for that…
We're gonna do this all the way
Yeah, yeah, yeah…
Just believe in far away
To live for that…
Can you try to teach me peace
No, that's not a good thing.
The OP also sucks, but to a lesser degree. Not gonna bother taking screenprints when I already have so many to show the issues with the main script.
Edit: HQDniuhk successfully argued it's probably too much to expect high quality from the ED. I agree. So while my criticism stands, it will no longer affect A-Koi's score.
Main Script.
Here, she says "Hibiki-kun", so leaving it like this would be fine if they weren't using honorifics in this release.
…but they do use honorifics in this release sometimes. The standard appears to be applied somewhat randomly.
"Without interference, the dead-face clips are guaranteed to be accurate."
Done, fixed, let's move on.
He didn't repeat "soredemo" twice, so I don't know why you guys introduced this repetition.
Prepare yourself. Anime-Koi fucked a whole kennel of pooches with this release.
Try "As for who I am?"
That's not how you ellipsis.
few -> little
What the shit, Anime-Koi? More scrub mistakes? I honestly didn't think you were a bad group until today. :/
That's, not how you use, commas.
What in the fuck am I reading? This entire scene was gibberish.
Put periods at the end of your sentences. Also, put a gun to your head and pull the trigger.
She's not a demonic summoner, she's a demon summoner. "demonic" means "demon-like" and she's the furthest thing from it.
The way this is phrased means it should be read as "Io-chan is all right."
This needs to be phrased as "Io-chan is pretty, all right." for it to be read as "Io-chan is pretty."
This line is four syllables in Japanese and 12 in Anime-Koiglish. Not even close.
I'm sure thought never crossed your brain once.
Anime-Koi. What are you doing.
Watchability: Watchable if you hate yourself enough.
Visual grade: C
Script grade: D
Overall grade: D
The HorribleSubs script by itself is terrible, and Anime-Koi's pathetic edit didn't make it any better. Goddammit, I'm gonna have to throw Commie a re-review on the offchance their use of spell-check can make up for their contempt of audience. There are really no good options for this show.


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What Drove Apple's Drop on Friday?
Apple bulls took off for the weekend early, letting the bears call the shots on Friday. Shares dropped more than $15, or nearly 3%, on a day when the broader market was relatively flat, as the three major indices were each up less than half a percent. What caused the weakness, and do investors have anything to be concerned about?
Back to the Mac
Market researcher NPD said on Friday that consumer electronics sales over the holidays fell 7% relative to a year ago, to $13.7 billion. Looking at the five weeks spanning Nov. 18 to Dec. 22, sales were strong for the first two weeks and fell off from there. NPD said that aggressive promotions during Black Friday and Cyber Monday have successfully shifted spending toward the start of the holiday shopping seasons.
Microsoft Windows 8 has done little to spur notebook sales, and Windows laptop sales over the holidays were down 11% with average selling prices, or ASPs, roughly flat at $420. Apple wasn't immune to the weakness in laptop demand, with MacBook sales falling 6%, although ASP increased by nearly $100 to $1,419.
While the news is certainly negative for Apple, it's not exactly a shocker that the broader PC market isn't so hot right now. Mac portables have accounted for 11% of trailing-12-month sales, so expectedly declining MacBook sales can't hurt too much. The ASP figure that NPD came up with is on the high end, as Mac laptop ASPs haven't topped $1,400 since 2008. MacBook ASP rose sequentially last quarter to $1,356, potentially with the release of Retina display models that carry premium prices.
Also, and perhaps more importantly, NPD's definition of consumer electronics excludes tablets such as the iPad and Surface and mobile phones. That means the broader 7% decline that NPD is reporting has no bearing on the two product categories that matter the most to Apple: iPhones and iPads.
Copying the copier
Reuters also reported on Friday that Samsung is expected to widen its lead over Apple this year as the top smartphone vendor in the world, a title that Sammy earned in 2012. The estimates come from Strategy Analytics, which also expects Apple to broaden its iPhone lineup beyond the singular model it releases every year.
Of the 875 million smartphones expected to ship in 2013, Samsung is expected to move 290 million units, compared with Apple's 180 million units. Those figures represent market shares of 33% and 21% for Samsung and Apple, respectively. Strategy Analytics specifically cited Samsung's "larger multitier product portfolio" as a strength in its competition against Apple. This is particularly interesting, because Apple's strategic focus on product depth over product breadth has been a key reason to its precipitous rise over the past 15 years.
However, releasing only one model each year inevitably entails risks if that device doesn't appeal to enough consumers. Specifically, there are two market segments of the smartphone market that Samsung is addressing quite well that Apple is overlooking: low-end devices and large displays. Samsung offers a wide range of smartphones, some of which occupy lower price points, while it's doing quite well in the phablet category with its Galaxy Note II.
Playing in those markets has helped Samsung grow its market share, which makes the case for why Apple should consider potentially expanding the iPhone family. Some analysts think this is in the cards, and that Apple will launch an "iPhone Mini" this year with a smaller display to target lower-end markets, particularly in emerging markets and countries where carriers haven't adopted the subsidy model that Apple relies heavily on. It's also a possibility that Apple will copy Samsung next and go larger with the iPhone to sell to consumers interested in larger smartphones.
Hope is on the horizon
Ultimately, Apple is still more profitable than Samsung in smartphones, in part because of its hesitance in addressing lower-end segments. More importantly, Apple is about to report fiscal first-quarter earnings in less than three weeks. If Apple posts a blowout, which is a distinct possibility, Friday's chatter will promptly fade.
What's inside Supernova?
Apple has been a longtime selection of Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner, helping lead his stock picks to gains of more than 120% in our Stock Advisor service since it launched in March 2002. Compare that with the S&P 500's return of 29% over that same time frame. David has managed to trounce the market by always being on the lookout for revolutionary stocks and recommending them before Wall Street catches on to their disruptive potential. If you're interested in how David discovers his winners, click here to get instant access to a personal tour behind David's Supernova service.
The article What Drove Apple's Drop on Friday? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Evan Niu, CFA owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and owns shares of Apple and Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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subset: commoncrawl


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I was in EMS for 22 years before retiring due to a back injury. One of my most memorable experiences was responding to New York City as a Paramedic in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I will never forget that experience. What I saw and did are still with me, as is a type of asthma from breathing the dust. My Experience as a Paramedic on 9-11-01
As the years have gone by, I've noticed that people are not remembering this terrible event like they did the first few years after. I know that my EMS, Fire and Police colleagues all do, as do the brave men and women of our armed forces who fight every day against terrorism.
I've also noticed less being done in schools lately. Most of today's students weren't even born when 9/11 occurred. Please teach them about it (facts only please) and make sure they understand what it means.
Yesterday, this photo was taken showing a rainbow leading right to the WTC site and the Freedom Tower!
United We Stood, United We StandToday is a day Americans will never forget.It is a day of remembrance, a day of reflection and a day to be proud. It is a day we honor and remember the thousands of lives lost, the survivors, and those who rose up in service in response to the attacks on 9-11-2001. It is a day we pay tribute to and reflect on the sacrifices of the public safety workers and the men and women in our military who serve us and protect us 365 days a year. It is a day Americans can be proud of the way we came together following the attacks on 9-11. United We Stood. United We Stand. |
Here are some more resources about my experience on 9/11 and 9/11 in general:
My Experience as a Paramedic on 9-11-01
Remembering 9/11 (from 2009)


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This is more of an FYI for others, as I've just found the solution.
I am running Tomcat 5.5.28 and the Lightstreamer, (always want to call this lightsaber for some reason), separately.
I configured the Tomcat to run on port 9999, (as I have various other servers on the same machine). I have Lightstreamer running on port 9898. After following the "DEPLOYING THE DEMOS ON AN EXTERNAL WEB-SERVER" document, running the Tomcat server, and then running the Lightstreamer server, I was getting:
¬í�sr�5javax.management.remote.message.HandshakeB eginMessageß,"‹Î6�L�profilest�Ljava/lang/String;L�versionq�~�xppt�1.0ysr�5javax.manageme nt.remote.message.HandshakeErrorMessageÇ�Ü^>rI� L�detailt�Ljava/lang/String;xpt�Ajava.io.StreamCorruptedException: invalid stream header: 47455420y
This was in Firefox. IE had another way of dealing with the error.
Long story short: Tomcat can't use port 9999 as the Lightstreamer uses that port for the JMXMP Connector for JMX.
I changed the Tomcat port to run on 18080, 8080, and another one and it runs fine.
Took me about an hour to figure this guy out, so hopefully this lil' post will help others.


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In this section
Wilm's tumor
What is Wilm's tumor?
Wilm's tumor, also called nephroblastoma, is a malignant (cancerous) tumor originating in the cells of the kidney. It is the most common type of renal (kidney) cancer and accounts for about 6 percent of all childhood cancers.
Approximately 400 children in the US are diagnosed with a Wilm's tumor each year.
The disease can occur at any age between infancy and 15 years, but, in most cases, the tumor is detected by the age of 3. This cancer affects males and females equally.
The tumor can be very large and it may spread (metastasize) to other body tissues. The most common site for Wilm's tumor to metastasize is the lungs. Lesions may also occur, however, in the liver, the other kidney, brain or bones. In approximately 5 to 10 percent of children with Wilm's tumor, both kidneys are involved.
What causes Wilm's tumor?
It is uncommon for Wilm's tumor to run in families. Less than 2 percent of cases will have an affected relative. Most cases of Wilm's are considered sporadic (occur by chance) and are the result of genetic mutations that affect cell growth in the kidney. These mutations generally arise after birth, but, in some cases, children are born with a genetic alteration that predisposes them to cancer.
A small percentage of patients with Wilm's tumor have one of three genetic syndromes, including the following:
- WAGR syndrome - the acronym WAGR stands for the four diseases present in WAGR syndrome, including: Wilm's tumor, aniridia (absence of the iris, the colored part of the eye), genitourinary malformations and mental retardation. This is caused by loss or inactivation of a tumor suppressor gene called WT1 on chromosome #11. Tumor suppressor genes usually suppress the growth of tumors and control cell growth. When altered, they no longer control cell growth and tumors may form.
- Denys-Drash syndrome - this syndrome is characterized by kidney failure, genitourinary malformations and tumors of the gonads (ovaries or testes). This is also caused by loss or inactivation of a tumor suppressor gene called WT1 on chromosome #11. Tumor suppressor genes usually suppress the growth of tumors and control cell growth. When altered, they no longer control cell growth and tumors may form.
- Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome - this syndrome is characterized by large birthweight and a large liver, spleen and tongue; low blood sugar in neonatal period, malformations around the ear, asymmetric growth of the body, abdominal wall defects near the navel (omphalocele) and tumors of the liver and adrenal glands. This is thought to be caused by an overactive copy of an oncogene on chromosome #11, called IGF2. Oncogenes control cell growth, but, if mutated, uncontrolled cell growth may result.
What are the symptoms of Wilm's tumor?
The following are the most common symptoms of a Wilm's tumor. However, each child may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
- A non-tender mass, or lump, felt or seen in the abdomen.
- Swelling of the abdomen.
- Veins that appear distended or large across the abdomen.
- Blood in the urine (hematuria).
- Pain in the abdomen from pressure on other organs near the tumor.
- Decreased appetite and weakness or tiredness.
- Fever.
- High blood pressure (hypertension).
If a tumor is suspected in the child's abdomen, it is important not to apply pressure to this area. Careful bathing and handling of the child is necessary before and during any tumor evaluation. Rupture of the tumor may lead to cancer cells spreading to other tissues in the body.
These symptoms of Wilm's tumor may resemble other medical conditions or serious illnesses. Always consult your child's physician for a diagnosis.
How is Wilm's tumor diagnosed?
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, diagnostic procedures may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Abdominal ultrasound - a diagnostic imaging technique which uses high- frequency sound waves and a computer to create images of blood vessels, tissues and organs; can provide an outline of the kidneys, the tumor and determine if there are problems in the renal or other major veins in the abdomen. It can also determine if there are any lesions or tumors in the opposite kidney.
- Abdominal computed tomography scan (Also called a CT or CAT scan) - a diagnostic imaging procedure that uses a combination of x-rays and computer technology to produce cross-sectional images (often called slices), both horizontally and vertically, of the body. A CT scan shows detailed images of any part of the body, including the bones, muscles, fat and organs. CT scans are more detailed than x-rays.
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) - a diagnostic procedure that uses a combination of large magnets, radiofrequencies and a computer to produce detailed images of organs and structures within the body. MRI can determine if there are metastases (spreading), if there are any tumor cells in the lymph nodes, and if any other organs are involved. Wilm's tumors can compress other organs in the area causing effects on their function.
- Chest x-ray - a diagnostic test which uses invisible electromagnetic energy beams to produce images of internal tissues, bones and organs onto film. A chest x-ray can determine if there are metastases (spreading) in the lungs.
- Blood and urine tests - to evaluate kidney and liver function.
- Biopsy - when a sample of tissue is removed and examined under a microscope. A biopsy of the tumor to evaluate cells, extent of disease and diagnosis.
- Surgical removal of the tumor and kidney (nephrectomy) - surgery may be necessary for a definitive diagnosis and determining the extent of the disease.
Treatment for Wilm's tumor
Specific treatment for Wilm's tumor will be determined by your child's physician based on:
- Your child's age, overall health and medical history.
- The extent of the disease.
- Your child's tolerance for specific medications, procedures or therapies.
- Expectations for the course of the disease.
- Your opinion or preference.
Treatment may include (alone or in combination):
- Surgery (to remove all or part of the affected kidney and any involved structures).
- Biopsy of the tumor (if the tumor is too large or involved in surrounding structures to be removed; a biopsy is also necessary for diagnosis and staging the disease).
- Chemotherapy (to shrink the remaining tumor or to treat metastasis or recurrent disease).
- Radiation (to shrink the remaining tumor or to treat metastasis or recurrent disease).
- Medications (to control pain, hypertension, nausea, and infections).
- Blood pressure monitoring (essential when a kidney tumor is present).
- Continuous follow-up care (to determine response to treatment, detect recurrent disease, evaluate function of remaining kidney and manage late effects of treatment).
Long-term outlook for Wilm's tumor
The factors for determining the prognosis and long-term survival of children with Wilm's tumor include the following:
- Histology, favorable or unfavorable.
- Extent of the disease.
- Age and overall health of the child at diagnosis.
- Size of the primary tumor.
- Response to therapy.
- Your child's tolerance of specific medications, procedures or therapies.
- New developments in treatment.
As with any cancer, prognosis and long-term survival can vary greatly from child to child.
Prompt medical attention and aggressive therapy are important for the best possible prognosis. Continued follow-up care is essential for the child diagnosed with a Wilm's tumor. Side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, as well as second malignancies, can occur in survivors of cancer. New methods are continually being discovered to improve treatment and to decrease side effects.
Contact us
Need more information or an appointment? We're happy to help.
For appointments, contact the individual programs within our MACC Fund Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.
Get a second opinion
It's important to know what your options are. We can provide expert opinions to verify or give more information about an initial diagnosis. Contact us today.


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John Corcoran is a former White House Writer, speechwriter, an attorney, an author and a podcasting and lead generation expert. He started his career as a Writer in the Clinton White House, and today is cofounder of Rise25, LLC with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, who is the longtime host of the top rated INspired INsider podcast, and former senior producer for the groundbreaking Mixergy podcast.
Rise25 helps B2B businesses to connect with their ideal clients, referral partnerships and strategic partners using a combination of a done-for-you podcast and content marketing combined with LinkedIn. In both cases, Rise25 provides strategic advice and counsel aimed at helping clients to get great ROI by building proactive relationships with their ideal clients, referral partners and strategic partners.
He is a recovering attorney and the creator of Smart Business Revolution and the Smart Business Revolution podcast, where he shares strategies for using intentional relationship-building to grow your network and your income, and since 2012 he has interviewed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs about how they have used relationships to grow their businesses and their careers.
John is the author of 3 books about relationship building and client acquisition, and has been profiled in Forbes and in the books Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press 2017) and Stand Out (Portfolio 2015) by Dorie Clark, The Connector's Advantage (Page Two 2019) by Michelle Tillis Lederman, Success Is In Your Sphere (McGraw-Hill Education 2019) by Zvi Band, and The Successful Mistake by Matthew Turner, and his writing has appeared in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Art of Manliness, Lifehacker, Business Insider, and numerous other publications, blogs and websites.


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I can't play their Monopoly game any more. I go to McDonald's only when I have coupons, which nowadays is not very often and not usually coincident with the game. I'd say treat it as a bonus if you win one of the food prizes.
Several years ago, to my shame, I got hooked on the McDonald's Monopoly Game. My friends and I were eating there daily to share tokens and hopefully bag that big prize. But the chances of winning were non-existent (certainly on the big prizes anyway) because the whole thing was rigged. However, now that it's all above board, could you actually win the big $1 million, or even some of the smaller prizes? Well, yes. But your chances of winning are all based on the odds of finding one particular piece from each set. (See also: 6 Ways to Win Free Stuff From Blog Giveaways)
What are those pieces?
Like any professionally organized, mass-market game, the odds of winning the big prizes are never in your favor. There is no randomness here; it's not like McDonald's just printed up a whole bunch of pieces and let them loose on the community. There are very few of some pieces and literally millions of others. When you get a yellow piece, for instance, it will almost never be Ventnor Avenue. That's one of those pieces that is controlled. The table below outlines the piece from each set that is in demand, the prize for getting it and the number of pieces available in the game.
So, what does this mean? Well, if you scour eBay right now, or your local Craigslist, you will see dozens of people either looking for the pieces above, or selling large collections of pieces that contain none of the above. Either way, you should stay away. If you have one of the pieces above, you have technically won, as getting the other pieces in the set is very easy. But if you're looking to buy pieces, unless someone has stumbled on one of the rare pieces without knowing it, you're just buying worthless tokens.
With this in mind, print the table above and keep it on you if you're playing the Monopoly game. When you get a piece, check it against the list; if it's there, you're a winner. If it's Boardwalk, please, feel free to share your winnings with the humble writer of this story.
Disclaimer: The links and mentions on this site may be affiliate links. But they do not affect the actual opinions and recommendations of the authors.
Wise Bread is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
I can't play their Monopoly game any more. I go to McDonald's only when I have coupons, which nowadays is not very often and not usually coincident with the game. I'd say treat it as a bonus if you win one of the food prizes.
Right now they are offering trick or treats for just a $1.00 you get twelve coupons for free stuff anywhere from a hamburgar to a drink, ck it out.
For the last 3 years, BB was the sponsor - with DDing and SASEs, you could get a 300+% ROI... Sorry for abbreviations - those who know what I'm talking about will understand. ;)
Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope, I think. the other two I'm stumped on. Feel like sharing the wealth Guest?
I should also mention that employees throw away loads and loads of game pieces every day, or they take them home and give them to their friends. I once spent a happy evening opening a HUGE stack of hashbrown wrappers because I knew someone who worked there. Didn't get any special pieces though. The board was filled with those filler game pieces.
BB stands for Best Buy (I believe) and Guest is saying that you could get Best Buy dollars by sending in for game pieces. Since the minimum Best Buy "buck" was $1, you could do pretty well that way. I managed to save up enough Best Buy pieces to buy a new computer game for myself.
Last year, the average return per entry was $1.33. DD stands for double-dipping - using the same BBB (BestBuy Buck) online and in store, thus raising the value to $2.66 - in exchange for the investment of ~$.82 - 2 stamps and 2 envelopes.
what about their online board game? is that a generated game that has fixed probability on the dice as well?
It is indeed fixed. One thing I've found is: The website hangs just after you enter your code(supposedly because of "high use.") McD then expects you to get tired of waiting and re-enter the site. But, even though your code was apparently never used cos the site "brokedown." Your code is registered as "used already." So you get ripped off for that play. It's happened to me several times in the past week. Another thing was when I was going for a third railroad. The dice roll changed to a 9 from an 8 so that I'd miss that particular RR by one space!
yeah talk about the online game being rigged! so far this week I have "lost" 210k because of the dice roll thing or if the I roll a 9 they only move me 8 spots! talk about making a girl mad!!
sounds like me you dont know how to count. I've played the game every day online since it started, 10 plays per day. All it does is make you land on the same spaces over and over again. It will never roll the number you need to collect the final property of the group. I now land on the same properties every trip around the board.
If online stalls after entering code, without closing out of that game, open anothr tab and start game again. That same code will work.
Yeah the game does know which dice to show, that's obvious. Sure seems like that's a violation of some law somewhere.
All they're doing is ensuring the correct ratio of prizes to players. Electronically, they have to make some changes to make sure they don't give away the farm in the first week. It's the same thing they're doing offline by limiting the number of pieces, only they're using electronic methods to achieve the same result. Not that I'm a supporter of McDonalds at all, just explaining their methods.
I had the two blue million dollars pieces just at dif times when i had one i couldn't find the other, that was about six years ago i was 12 and it's been in the back of my head ever since. :(
Not to be sarcastic or anything but I swear to god the same thing happened to me about 4 years ago, i had the park place at my home in VA and I was in NY and got the boardwalk and put it in my pocket like a jackass and lost it!
we'll the board walk is the actuall winner seein' as they only make 3 of them worldwide., all u had to do was go buy some meals and u would have had parkplace within a week.
My online gameboard looks just like the paper one. I've collected all but one of each set.
It absolutely has to be rigged because they say there's ONE chance per hour to land on GO and one chance per day to land on Free Parking to win some money. There's a free code on all the paper gameboards and the Mcdonalds paper bags. I got four doubles in a row with that code- which is the same code everywhere.
Right now the game is sitting open in my browser doing nothing after I entered a code and clicked submit.
I too have all the colors except one for each and all it does is either land on tax or land on the pieces I already have. It also has gotten stuck and stolen pieces. I am on a diet and now unfortunatly addicted to the dumb game because I keep saying what if...
I will check back on this message boards and hope one of us can crack it because this is really frustrating although unusually fun. Mean to say but I feel better now that I know it's not just me it's happening to. I just wish we can enter more than one a day, hehe!
im a vegatarian and i play the damn game. have all the pieces less than the ones you actually need. if i do win, im going to donate the money to PETA in hopes they use it against factory farming in which mcdonalds supports. i hate myself.
Don't worry, I'm VEGAN and I play. I shouldn't even bee looking at a mcdonalds! I've been surviving on a diet of hash browns and coffee in the morning; soda and fries in the afternoon in hopes of winning. I must be the unhealthiest vegan out there.
Good luck too you...
Now I know. The board hangs after entering a code. Thinking I need to exit out and then re-enter, I do. Then it says code has alread been used. Screwed me three times.
Hi there!
I experienced the exact same thing. That's pretty frustating.
It seems to be set up such that people loose chances of winning.
That's why I usually skip a year in between participation.
That's how long it takes to recover from the frustration.
I am ashamed to report that I looked in the garbage bin at a McDo after eyeing some unopened stickers and collected them when nobody was looking. I got Marvins gardens and St. James Place...Not worth it!!!
dude i totally found another code if u go on the online game, then go to how to play, under how to play go to how to redeem prizes or what ever it says, then go to prizes at online or it might say something a little different i'm not so sure though, but it will show a pacific avenue stamp that has a code on it and it has a red circle/oval thing around the code type it in. i got Park Place then i got a double off park place, then i got Baltic Avenue and got a double off that, then i got Vermont Avenue
That's actually the same "free" code that comes on their bags, that code will always give you doubles for a trip around the board.
I tried it too, and it works! I think part of winning is looking for hidden clues on their website too. That code just gave me three free chances.
yeah if you look at the code they give to everyone youll see that thats what they call the free rule!!!!
I've known this for a long time.
Like 8 years or so back, I had a paper route, along with my brothers, and each newspaper had an advertisement in it with the Monopoly coupons, which we took out. ;)
Every year, we quickly filled up the entire board, except for one in each set.
After several years of the same results, we concluded that the missing coupons were practically impossible, so we gave up.
Got tons of free food though. D:
and it took you several "years" to figure that out? You're not to bright - that fact should be common sense.
dudes the game is like totally rigged and it like impossible to win anything above 50 dollars and i won the 50 by buying ten medium cup from every mcdonald by my place
I have noticed if your near the property that you entered you end up at that location.
E.G. If your on Oriental Avenue and you enter a code for St. Charles Place you will end up on it. So there is a data base of some sort that the game checks against and your roll is predestined if you will.
So, if you find that Boardwalk besure to use the code online and roll out your 50K from there too.
Thank you for exposing the hard dirty truth about this Monopoly game. I too got caught up in winning, but now that I read about the odds and facts of the game, I feel terrible that I subjected my body to the greasey fatty food. As of now....I'm boycotting McDonalds! No more. They got me...and will get many more, but don't fall for it hopeful winners, it's BS! I'm mad. Thank you
This seems to happen to me every year. I go to McDonald's during their Monopoly promotion and intentionally order food/drink which I know will have the game pieces. Unfortunately, a lot of times, 1 or more of the food/drink items will not have the 2 game pieces on it. Of course, I'll ask the cashier why it doesn't have the game pieces on it, but all I usually get is a blank stare from the cashier, followed by the cashier asking a shiftleader about it. Usually they'll end up giving me an empty medium cup or empty fries to make up for any missing game pieces.
A few suggestions for McDonald's:
- Train your employees about the promotion. They should know more about it than I do.
- Make sure you have enough of a supply of game pieces to last the entire promotion. You know it's a popular promotion, so make sure you stock up. I know the fine print says "while supplies last," but there's no excuse for me not receiving game pieces at 3 different McDonald's locations before the promotion is even half over.
- If you do run out of game pieces, inform all your staff so that they are aware. If a customer orders a food/drink item for which you've run out of game pieces, the cashier should automatically give the customer game pieces from an empty cup/fries/etc. Don't make the customer have to ask for it. If you forget to give one to the customer, don't cop an attitude when the customer requests the missing game pieces.
- Don't leave the promotional signage up in the store or on the menuboard if you don't have the game pieces to back it up. If I see a "Play Monopoly!" decal on the menuboard next to the Chicken Selects, it is not unreasonable for me to expect to get my game pieces on the Chicken Selects.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
Well stated sir...It always seems to surprise, although it shouldn't, that the customers who get suckered into playing the game, end up more informed than the employees working at McDonalds.
As i sit here eating my large fry (that I only got for the game pieces)I am reading and nodding, but planning what time of day I will go to McDonalds tomorrow. Its all in fun!
If you read the rules for the online game very carefully it explains the set up. Essentially there are "instant win" prizes online, like the $200 go, chance $$, free parking $$ and community chest (free game download). The computer is set to pick a randomized time per (hour, day, etc. depending on the prize) and only the player who enters a good code at the designated time can win. If multiple players enter a code at the same winning time, it will randomly pick one as the winner. The dice will then roll appropriately to put you in the winning spot, even by a series of double rolls. The "collect to win" spots, I am not sure but I believe are tied to specific "winning" codes with odds that match the board game version, if not worse. If you're not entering a pre-determined winning code, and you also do not enter a code at the "magic" time of day, you will simply roll around the board forever. I was playing 10 codes a day (the max) since day one (given by friends) until I got frustrated and looked into it. The dice rolls are not randomly generated, although I did manage to snag one of the free game downloads, I assume by entering at the "winning prize time". Its perfectly legal for them to "rig" the dice, so long as they have legally informed you via the rules.
I'm happy to let you in on the odds. After all, we all know that winning the Powerball is almost impossible, with odds that are millions to one. But McDonalds make it seem so much easier to win on Monopoly, and the truth is far from easy. Bottom line...probably best not to fill your body with all that sodium and fat just to get a chance at that rarest of rare prizes, the $1 million. If there are only three winning game pieces in the whole country, you'd have more chance of finding Wonka's Golden Ticket.
I'm so glad to come across this info from you guys. I should have known all this but it makes so much more of an impression to have all, of you chiming in. I never eat at McDonalds except during this rotten game!!! I too am hooked. That's it! I'm boycotting McDonalds!!! Long Live Burger King and Wendy's!!! HA HA HA
I am so glad I found this site! The online game was hung up--again--which I knew meant I would lose my code and feel ripped off--again--so I went looking for someplace to vent my spleen about these constant problems (all the stuff the rest of you have pointed out about the online game). I don't play the lottery, but I let myself get sucked into this game. I admit, I got suckered by how easy they made it sound, quoting past years' winners. (Plus, it's Monopoly, right? We all grew up playing it; we know it's winnable. You keep thinking that one more roll of the dice is all it will take.) I don't even like McDonald's. Well, I'm done. Your comments have helped me tremendously. (And I've bookmarked this site.)
I too looked into this because the online game locked up on me. I tried it at a friends house because I thought it had something to do with my connection. Nope. It still does it on his computer too. I've been screwed out of so many dice rolls. Ugh...sad truth is, even though I'm aware of the problems, I'll probably still keep trying. Which is why they can get away with it...ppl like us perpetuate it.
I just stumbled across this site today.. I've been playing the McDonalds game since it started (I get a bacon ranch salad and med drink almost everyday for lunch).
Anyhow, looking through my collection, I have Tennessee ave!!! I also have New York Ave and I'm missing St James Place. I need to get St James Place.... I guess I'll go around to McD's tomorrow and keep buying til I get it. By the way what do I do when I have all 3? Do I go to the manager?
There are only 50 of those out there. I'll check what few I have collected, if I find it you can have it. If not, I'm sure it won't take long to get it. It's not a rare piece at all. When you have all the pieces in the set, the rules vary according to the size of the prize. For $5k, I suspect you'll have to mail it in. If that's the case, take a hard copy of your pieces and send the actual pieces registered mail with signature confirmation.
Thanks for reading! I'm not jealous...honest.
1) Ask before you order
It feels dissapointing to order a meal expecting to get the playing pieces in all of them, just to find out that they "run out" for that specific size.
I ordered a large size expecting to get them in all, but fries and drink had none. I asked about it and the answer was "while supply last", then I realized cups with playing pieces hidden in one corner, and asked for mine.
Turned out they were medium size and I had ordered large...I ended up buying the medium drink after I tried to calm myself for the "manager's" attitude.
2) Matching club
I know, it's just like Jonh Lennon's "Imagine" song...but imagine if we all could match pieces and split prices. Wouldn't that be great?
If you know of any site, group doing this already, please post the link.
Good luck to all, I think that winning it aint easy, but neither impossible.
I sold cars and computer and a lot of other things, So i guess you guys are saying what does that have to do with us. Every place i worked at ran a contest like this. By law McD's is only required to give out one prize. It can be any thing well as you can tell, on the paper game board they are giving out food. On the Online they are giving out game downloads. So they have done their part. Now it's the customers part to come in and buy up all the food they can eat. The scam is the same any where. In cars you get the flyer that says you won a car or a gas card and most times it's the gas card for 5 bucks. You could win a trip just to come and find out its one of those you have to buy this and this to get the free trip, and the items are over priced to make up for the free trip. It's the same Scam every where and they should do away with it in my book.
does anyone know why i get to the homepage and there's nothing for me to click on so i can enter my code. The arch in the left and the american express in the right corner are roads to nowhere. There's a "how to play" at the top of the page and a food item with money sticking out of it but those don't do anything. could someone please help me.
I am having problems entering any codes with the letter O on it. I thought perhaps my key was stuck so I moved to another computer in the house and then another...to my surprise it was not my computers...anyone else out there struggling with this issue?
No struggle, but I suspect that there are no O's - only zero's.
It's probably an inside joke about the losers who fall for this bull**** "contest".
I wasn't able to enter the letter F. Also, the pieces from the large fries that are a guaranteed win, the bigger ones that are for toys r us and footlocker. The code is longer on them, and won't let me enter the whole thing.
Go out and make a living like everyone else does, leave the prizes for me and the other 1,500,000 homeless people who save up their weeks worth of collecting change just to buy that big mac, get lucky and win our tickets out of our cardboard boxes. Do you hear us bitching and moaning about the odds of winning this game? **** no! We're just thankful we get to have a little fun gambling with our only meal of the week!
Sounds like a great idea for next year's promo commercials - You could have different clips of homeless people who are hooked on the game. One could be rifling through the garbage can out front hoping for a discarded gamepiece or two, maybe another one is mugging some kid for his BigMac? Or how about the Homeless Family standing at the counter when Dad orders ONE Toasted sandwich (for the allimportant GAMEPIECES) instead of four valupics so everybody can eat. WOW!
Better yet, you could end the commercial with some idiot homeless retard sitting under an overpass typing furiously into his laptop. His brain is so wasted away from eating too much Mcdonalds "food" that HE'S ACTUALLY DEFENDING THE MONOPOLY GAME AGAINST CRITICISM.
Why doesn't he sell the computer and get a clue, or go to a soup kitchen for a real meal and save his money for a lottery ticket?
Hey gamaholic, just wondering, what kind of internet connection do you have going on in that box you claim to live in?
Oh wait, you're just being sarcastic, nevermind LOL
if you're so homeless, maybe you should sell the computer you're using to post comments about a mcdonalds game.... just a thought.
My sister and I have been hooked on the McDonalds Monopoly game for years... We'd buy McDonalds 1-3 times a week and get the game pieces.. we'd usually go for breakfast and get a ton of hashbrowns.. One year, we were playing and I had to go to the doctor in Seattle, I went to McDonalds while I was there, and I got boardwalk... but I didn't have the other game piece to win the million.. about a week after the Monopoly game was over, my sister and I were throwing away our game pieces, bummed that we didn't win.. and we were looking at each others pieces, and we both noticed at the same time that the other had the missing piece... we were so pissed off that if we had combined our pieces sooner that we would of won.. getting to the point:
The game is rigged, they distribute different game pieces in different regions.. My sister and I live in Detroit, and I went to Seattle... that is why I got boardwalk.. also.. they only distribute Boardwalk on the CHICKEN SELECTS MEAL...
I hope that this will help others, as my sister and I have given up.. Although I do still play it now and again, like.. I have boardwalk right now, and I know that I have no chance of winning since I am not going anywhere by Novemeber 13th... so anyways...
Toodles, and Good Luck,
You are so full of crap. Boardwalk and park place are distributed together. There are only 3 boardwalks and are not distributed by region.
you are so wrong. There is not regional distribution. Park place and boadwalk are distributed together so there is no trading needed.
If you have boardwalk right now, you have won! What part of that do you not understand? Park place is one of the most common pieces. I have six right now. You could probably find them in a garbage can. Why would you waste the chance to get a million dollars? jeez sister, share the wealth!
wow i never knew tht. i live in illinois and im playing 4 the first time (not that i will ever play again after reading this blog) but n e way i have 2 park places but i alredy entered them both =(
I dont eat at McDonalds but everyone I know does, so they give me the codes off their game pieces, so far I have won 2 monopoly games on line. Only problem with that is Real Arcade will charge u after having the game a month. So u cant keep thye game forever. Also I;ve noticed that playing on line the dice roll one number, count how many spaces and ur game token moves either one to many or one not enough.several times I was to be on
"go" and it moved to the next space.
I always collect Monopoly pieces when Mickey D's starts the game, although I never bother with the online stuff. I'm a bit old-school, although my kids call me technically challenged, and it's a miracle I found your site, but I'm very glad I did. Anyway, I've been eating and playing all month at various MD's around northern Kentucky and in Las Vegas during vacation. Saturday I bought breakfast for the girls at work and one of them offered their game pieces to me since she knew I'd been playing. Low and behold, it was a green one, the first green one that I had seen since the start. My mind started churning and I realized this has to be one of the select pieces to make a winning combination. I figured there had to be a way to connect with others online to get the other pieces needed and share in the $50,000 prize. My biggest dilemma was how much should I give to my friend as a finder's fee, since I technically bought it and then she gave it willingly to me. Of course, that problem has quickly vanished, since finding your site and realizing that North Carolina isn't the special green piece after all. Thanks for the quick info and I'll be sure to check your site when the game begins next time so I'll know what to be looking for. In the meantime, keep playing that lottery!
I know someone else has already said this in so many words, but I wanted to vent my personal frusteration. I've noticed that there are almost NO restaurants AT ALL that have the 3 piece chicken selects with game pieces anymore. I live in the suburbs and commute to the city. I have my choice of 6 McD's en route. I have gone to ALL SIX and only ONE of them had pieces on the box! They know that this is one of the most popular meals for obtaining game pieces so they should make tons extra. And I have a big dance audition soon so I shouldn't be eating this crap, I only do because I think I have a chance at winning some money to pay off my student loans. I've known it was rigged to a degree but thought I had a shot at the online game - after reading this I see that I don't so I guess I should just quit while I'm ahead :-/
I have a strong feeling that online MCD will face possible investigation by some authorities. I would love to see class action law suit againt McD and would LOVE to be a part of it.
Its all about how you deceive people by staying in the legal limits. Its time for change my brothers and sister.
Count me in . . . I won a $750.00 prepaid credit card in the 2007 game but the website mysteriously "froze" and wouldnt load the web page for me to claim the prize. . . . Happened to my girlfriend also on Chance. . . .anybody else have this problem ??? lets get together
Ive been playing like all this week with 10 stamps aday and the only thing ive won was a hr of wifi. some one need to address this issue so count me in contact me at my email address
I play the game for fun with the hopes one day I might be a Millionaire and never have to eat mcdonalds again...lol
Just kidding..Im lovin it!!
yeah i just read that explination of how the winners are picked on the online game.. thats terrible.. i've been playing 10 things a day for a while .. even purchased 250 game stamps on ebay for 20bux.. so far i have one 27 game downloads.. but they only offer two games .. so i've been forced to give the codes away on a forum.. absolutely ridiculous!!
someone should form a class action suit for getting us addicted to the game and not saying "play responsibly" like they do for the lottery!
My husband and the guys he works with were pooling their game pieces together. They had the pieces for $1000 and when they entered it on the site which after he hit enter it froze; has been trying to get ahold of someone with the company to see what to do but guess what....no one is responding...once again rippppped off by McDonalds; that is why I don't worry about playing any of their games.
I should have realized when the "Free Code" (I6L6V4N4T2) was the same for everyone, but it didn't really click with me until I clicked the dice 4 times (once for each family member) using separate logins. Each time a FIVE was rolled. Soooo, it would appear that the dice roll is not random per click but pre programmed per code. Am I the only one who thinks that is the same as rigging? The roll of the dice should be random and not programmed. I am no math genius, but I would think that there would be ways to program controlled rolls that would make it harder to win and less likely to win anything of value. I won a free hour of Wi-Fi. Aren't you jealousy!!! Did everyone else roll a five with their Free Code???
Paul Michael maybe this deserves another look or at the very least an article.
I'm pissed. The McDonald's in Cairo, Upstate NY didn't give any game pieces with the Big Mac.... It's Oct 8th already.
so...wtf is the deal with thes new pieces arches ave and golen ave....and does anyone know anything because i have arches i want to know if arches is the rare one or if golden is its on of those $100,000 ones.....ive never seen it before or anything
I've spent so much cash playing this addicting game, thinking that i was getting so close but now i realize its all bs! So to make a statement i took a poop on a monopoly board and left it on the front steps of my mcds.
I have a lot of other pieces, just tell me what you need and I will go through the stash of extras to see if I can accomodate the request. Thats if you really want them.
I've been to McD's like twice a day since I got a text message saying the game had started. I enter in every code I can get my hands on. I figure if I do that for a month I might win something... I hope. If I don't win, I'm never playing monopoly ever again. I throw away most of the food (i can't help but take a few fries and some sips of coke). The online game is starting to land on stuff I already have though and I'm racking up coke points left and right and I never even go to Foot Locker but I have like 10 of those 25% off things... guess I could get myself a few pairs of shoes.. or socks...
Thought I would at least ask...my husband collects those coke rewards points and didn't know if you want your codes. If not would you please send the codes to me as I would really be appreciative. Heather
yeah i work at mcdonalds and i have every piece except for the ones listed above and i got them in like 2 days. so there really easy to get. its a total rip off.


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(This question was posed to me by a colleague; I was unable to answer it, so am posing it here instead.)
Let $f: {\bf R}^n \to {\bf R}^n$ be an everywhere differentiable map, and suppose that at each point $x_0 \in {\bf R}^n$, the derivative $Df(x_0)$ is nonsingular (i.e. has non-zero determinant). Does it follow that $f$ is locally injective, i.e. for every $x_0 \in {\bf R}^n$ is there a neighbourhood $U$ of $x_0$ on which $f$ is injective?
If $f$ is continuously differentiable, then the claim is immediate from the inverse function theorem. But if one relaxes continuous differentiability to everywhere differentiability, the situation seems to be much more subtle:
- In one dimension, the answer is "Yes"; this is the contrapositive of Rolle's theorem, which works in the everywhere differentiable category. (The claim is of course false in weaker categories such as the Lipschitz (and hence almost everywhere differentiable) category, as one can see from a sawtooth function.)
- The Brouwer fixed point theorem gives local surjectivity, and degree theory gives local injectivity if $\det Df(x_0)$ never changes sign. (This gives another proof in the case when $f$ is continuously differentiable, since $\det Df$ is then continuous.)
- On the other hand, if one could find an everywhere differentiable map $f: B \to B$ on a ball $B$ that was equal to the identity near the boundary of $B$, whose derivative was always non-singular, but for which $f$ was not injective, then one could paste infinitely many rescaled copies of this function $f$ together to produce a counterexample. The degree theory argument shows that such a map does not exist in the orientation-preserving case, but maybe there is some exotic way to avoid the degree obstruction in the everywhere differentiable category?
It seems to me that a counterexample, if one exists, should look something like a Weierstrass function (i.e. a lacunary trigonometric series), as one needs rather dramatic failure of continuity of the derivative to eliminate the degree obstruction. To try to prove the answer is yes, one thought I had was to try to use Henstock-Kurzweil integration (which is well suited to the everywhere differentiable category) and combine it somehow with degree theory, but this integral seems rather unpleasant to use in higher dimensions.


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For over 25 years, Holiday Autos have made securing the best price and quality service for vehicle rental across the globe their business. This year, on behalf of their customers, the UK's leading car hire agency has brokered fantastic savings in a series of ten daily flash deals.
Holiday Autos are offering customers who book their rental car online the chance to snap up a great deal. For ten days, the broker is promising discounts of up to 30% on bookings made to a different group of countries each day. Customers can benefit from huge savings on offers ranging from car hire in Ibiza for a few weeks, to rentals in the UK for just one day providing their vehicle is collected between the 7th January - 31st October 2013.
A spokesperson for Holiday Autos said,
"January is always a really exciting time for us and our customers. It's that time of year when we all start considering where we'll take the annual getaway and what our customers tell us, is that in this current financial climate, getting a great deal is one of the biggest factors in helping them choose how to spend those precious few weeks away from daily life. We're really pleased that we've been able to secure some great deals for them in some of the world's most popular destinations."
Among those already announced, holidaymakers heading to Germany, Austria, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and Norway can snap up a bargain and it's expected that discounted car hire in Paris with Holiday Autos, as well as offers for Spain, Portugal and the Balearics will be announced in the next few days.
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To find about more about the Holiday Autos January Sale, visit holiday autos here.
Source Holiday Autos - 9-1-13


text: Your affiliation with the Wharton alumni network can be transformative, both personally and professionally. The School's greatest strength is its people. Even if you haven't been in touch since graduation, it's easy to reconnect. Wharton's global network extends to 97,000+ alumni in 153 countries. As alumni, you have access to many points of connection. This section will help you to explore the many ways to become involved with the School and access the valuable resources available to you. Together, we will ensure Wharton's position at the leading edge of business scholarship and practice, achieving great things for Wharton—and creating economic and social value worldwide.


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When I pre-grease the cupcake molds, instead of flour I added unsweetened desiccated coconut, so you'd see some of it stick on the cakes.
One banana.
Not a bunch, only a single one. I was in awe when I saw a lady buy one banana (that when I was still new in Barcelona).
In the countries that I used to live, we often buy a bunch or at least half a bunch of bananas, later on we stuff ourselves silly... So that moment my reaction from feeling odd was quickly turning into feeling appreciated, appreciate the fruit sellers in Barcelona are so flexible.
I only need one banana in this cake as this time I am not aiming for very banana-y and wet cake. I wanted my cake nutty, chocolate-y, moist (that's the banana for) and still spongy (that's one banana for). Right before serving drizzle some warm chocolate glaze, we all would forget to complain the still winter-y weather!
Recipe of Hazelnut, chocolate and banana cake (yield 5 - 6 cupcakes)
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup of finely ground hazelnut
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 tsps baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 100 g butter, soft
- 1 Tbp corn oil
- 1 medium/ medium-small banana, mashed
- a small handful of chocolate chips, roughly chopped (if you don't add the glazing, you may add a bit more chocolate chips as the cake itself isn't too sweet)
For the chocolate glaze: 130g dark chocolate (finely chopped), 2 Tbsps butter, 2 - 3 Tbsps corn syrup
- Pre-heat oven to 350F, pre-grease the cake molds with butter and flour (I used coconut), or simply line them with cupcake paper
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, hazelnut, baking powder and salt, set aside
- In another mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light anf fluffy. Then coperate with the egg, corn oil and the mashed banana, set aside.
- Combine the flour mixture, the butter mixture and the chocolate chips. The batter is soft and paste-like, fill the cake molds 3/4 full. Bake them ... sorry I forgot to check the time... but check the done-ness by inserting a toothpick in the center, if it comes out almost clean, the cake is done then.
- Unmold the cakes, cool off completely on a rack. Wrap them well and keep in fridge overnight (the flavor would develop further). Since the cakes have a dome top, if you intend to present them more nicely or add the glazing, slice off the top, turn the bottom side up.
- To make the glazing: melt the chocolate over the double-boiler, then add the butter and syrup until everything combines nicely. Pour the hot/warm glaze over the cakes.


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Need help filing your tax return?
Trained volunteers statewide offer free services to help to low and moderate income households prepare federal and state income tax returns
By Vicki HillTax season may have a silver lining this year for those who use the VITA program to prepare their taxes. The dismal economic climate paired with the rising cost of living doesn't need to keep taxpayers from having a reliable tax preparer at their fingertips. The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program makes it easy for clients with low to moderate income to access its free service provided by IRS-trained and certified volunteers.
VITA sites tend to be located in public places like churches, senior centers, credit unions, libraries, universities and community centers. There are 650 free income tax assistance sites in North Carolina, according to Grace Francis and Dianne Maldonado, both senior tax consultants with the IRS Outreach Department. Some of these sites are VITA-Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, and some are TCE-Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE has now extended its base to serve all age groups as does VITA).
VITA volunteers can prepare computerized federal and North Carolina tax returns for clients regardless of age and residence as long as they meet eligibility guidelines. Most returns are filed electronically; however, clients can choose to mail their paper return. Each return is reviewed for accuracy and to determine that all applicable credits and deductions have been applied. Tax preparation and e-filing are free of charge.
"Since the early 1980s, Orange County government through the Orange County RSVP Volunteer Program has partnered with other agencies, including the IRS, to ensure that taxpayers have access to this free tax preparation service," said Kathy Porter, director of the RSVP Volunteer Program. Last year Orange County RSVP's 99 VITA volunteers were stationed at a number of locations in Orange and Chatham counties to serve more than 1,800 clients.
RSVP Volunteer Programs are one of many agencies nationwide that recruit new volunteers to join veteran volunteer tax preparers. "Volunteers return year after year to help these clients," Porter said. VITA volunteers run the gamut from U.S. ambassadors to accountants, lawyers to college students. Some are retired but many are still employed and find time to volunteer. They must test to IRS standards, including passing an ethics and confidentiality test.
"It is such a rewarding feeling to be able to help someone to prepare their tax returns," said 20-year VITA veteran Jill Hallenbeck. For the past four years, she has served as the RSVP-VITA coordinator for Orange and Chatham counties. RSVP Volunteer Programs are federally sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service-Senior Corps with additional support from local sponsors.
What to bring
1. Photo identification
2. Social security cards and birth dates for everyone listed on the return
3. Copies of 2011 federal and state tax returns
4. Wage and earning statements Form W-2
5. Information about income and expenses, such as social security, pension, unemployment, alimony, etc.
6. Interest and dividend statements from banks (Forms 1099)
7. Amounts paid for day care or afterschool care and provider's identifying tax number
8. Education Credits: 1098T statement along with expense receipts for books, computer and internet charges
9. Receipts for mortgage interest, personal property tax, real estate tax, vehicle tax
10. Home sold 2012: All records of home sales, including closing statements for original purchase and sale of your home
11. Stock sales 2012: All records of stock sales and the date and price of original purchase
12. Bank routing and account numbers for direct deposit of your refund
13. Both spouses must be present to sign joint returns.
To learn more about eligibility and find assistance sites, call (800) 906-9887 or search "free tax preparation" at www.irs.gov.
About the Author
Vicki Hill is with the Orange County RSVP 55+ Volunteer Program, Chapel Hill.-
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- February 26, 2024
Raymond Rudolph, 91, of Longboat Key, died Jan. 12.
Born Jan. 7, 1919, in New York City, he worked for more than 70 years as an accountant to a family. He liked to say that he never officially retired. He was a longtime resident of Longboat Key.
Mr. Rudolph was preceded in death by his wife, Lillian. He is survived by his son, Chuck Rudolph, of New York; daughter, Donna Seligman, of California; brother, Alfred Rudolph, of Longboat Key; five grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and four nieces and their families.


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My only claim to anything News of the World-y is a story I wrote in 2008 as a staff reporter for a London-based news agency. It was about gigantic eco-offensive sunlamps used at Emirates Stadium to keep the pitch green all year round. Click here to read before it's taken down, unless the NOTW website gets archived into what we can only guess will be the Sun on Sunday.
Bummer is though, there's a big typo in the headline. So despite the work that went into it (read below) I bury it in my cuttings.
My story got sold, rewritten - Screwed if you like - and a NOTW byline slapped on, something you learned to be OK with pretty much immediately working for a news agency.
As was often the case in that job, because I was always rushing to submit multiple stories, crucial and trivial constituent parts of bigger stories, raw investigative and shoeleather research, I missed my pitch sunlamps story and never got a cut of the hardcopy.
What I do have is a web printout, detailed memories of the week-long ordeal and a rather hilarious set of pictures of me getting the story, thanks to the good-humoured pap who was as always getting the pictures to go w/ the story -and helping to make light of the crazy ass shit we were asked to do in the name of news.
I was sent by my boss, whose idea the story was, on a tour of Emirates Stadium to get as much on the lights as I could whilst pretending to be an Arsenal fan.
The shots of me in the players' quarters show the funny side of me not caring enough about football to appreciate the cool gig I was on.
The other agency reporter was a big Gunners fan but had been sent to Wales or something that day to work on something dull. He was livid.
He got his revenge by making fun of how long after my stadium tour I was still working on the story. Most days we got through several stories before being sent across town or out of it to work on something else. Every time I filed this story they wanted more. I must have filled half a notepad with shorthand and figures on wattage, voltage, pitch conditions, grass and soil science and EU environmental law.
I recall sitting in Starbucks at Green Park for several hours phoning, among a dozen or so experts the same electrical engineer over and over to ask him more about big fucking lightbulbs and mathematical detail proving how the lighting rigs being on year-round equated to the energy needed to light up a small town.
But when it got Screwed it got stripped of much of the science it was packed with when it left my laptop.
Since the shock announcement that the NOTW would shut forever, I see how an earlier chapter of my reporting life hovers in the timeline of the red top's phone hacking scandal.
As a Richmond and Twickenham Times reporters I, along with five others, covered the double murder trial (and one attempted) of Milly Dowler's killer, Levi Bellfield.
For four months we reported on the trial and each of us has powerful memories of the verdict reading. I was perched on the edge of a table with a French journalist inches from attempted murder victim Kate Sheedy and her family, and feet away from the quiet and dignified French parents of murdered student Amelie Delagrange. Stories of the abyssal sadness in their lives since hearing their daughter was dead haunted me for years. I still often recall a section of the Delagrange's post-verdict statement about Amelie's childhood love of crocuses in early spring.
Kate Sheedy, above, and parents of Amélie Delegrange
photos by Colleen McDonnell
Since the news broke that Milly Dowler's phone messages were allegedly accessed by the NOTW and messages deleted giving false hope to her family and potentially altering the police investigation I, like a lot of journalists, have been asked how far is too far when it comes to getting the story.
In my experience if you are employed to get information and stories directly or indirectly for a British national newspaper tabloid or otherwise, you're going to end up pushing the boundaries. I was never directly asked do anything illegal. All that is expected is that you get the story and get it quickly.
They don't want to know how you plan to get more when everything else hasn't worked, and don't dare ask how they suggest you get it when they still want you to get it and the kosher methods have come up dry.
If you've got it you're in a good place - you're on fire in fact. If you've failed, you get punished and points stack against you.
I did some things I should be ashamed of. I harassed relatives of baby killers, spied, rummaged, got kicked out of a mosque, twice. I doorstepped all walks of celebrity and political life with such frequency it became an addiction, got chased at a respectable clip down an entire residential block and around a corner by a Hollywood actor's wife who, when I stopped asked me "why?" To which I answered "because I have a dumb job".
That was intended for her to let me on my way. I loved my job even though in the darkest hours I questioned why I just didn't quit and dramatically improve my mental and physical health.
What is intensely worthwhile to me as a reporter and as news consumer is truth.
I don't have time for slapdash reporting, premature facts on breaking stories that aren't cushioned with heavy caution that they might not be true, speculation without a diamond backboned source giving it oxygen with their own comments, which brings me to my biggest pet hate: unattributed quotes.
Watching, observing, rummaging, listening, investigating, going there, digging, waiting, going back and then going back again and again, that is the truth. That is reporting.
Confusing the broken hearts of a bereaved family by deleting messages is is arrogance.
Proper journalists want to report the truth. Others want a story, the truth they could take or leave.


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Please tell me if:
- Node.js will make our site faster!
- Node.js will consume fewer server resources, we can save money!
- Node.js will make us more productive!
- Node.js means we can share client and server side JavaScript code.
To clarify, we're rewriting a frontend server, which will talk to our existing Ruby on Rails application as an API. Meanwhile, we'll refactor our Ruby on Rails application into services.
More details on the existing architecture:


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So here it is: iTunes 11. A lot has changed, but not so much that you'll feel lost. Here's what we've found after our first poke around inside.
Apple understands that people might feel discombobulated by the changes in iTunes 11, so it has put a helpful overlay in place to guide you to the essentials. This is also where you have to make a decision: will you "share details about your library with Apple" or not?
The explanatory web page is thin on details. It mentions getting album artwork, although the "Get album artwork" menu item is still present (in a new location, under File – Library).
Look closer at the menus, and you'll see the Advanced menu has gone. No one needs to think about doing anything "advanced" with iTunes any more.
Visually, the controls look flatter. They don't look like buttons any more, they look like icons. Like software. The sidebar is hidden by default – hit Command+Option+S to show it again. You can still get around without it, by using the drop-down menu at top left and the big "Store" button at top right.
The new mini player is one of my favorite features in iTunes 11. It's a work of art, and it does much more. Click the arrow next to your album artwork to call up a context menu with ratings, playlist and Store links. Click the search icon to search your library and switch to another song or album without leaving the mini player at all. The search box finds songs, artists, albums, and playlists, and offers you sensible hyperlinked next steps. It's fantastic. I used to get so annoyed with the mini player, because I'd constantly be switching back to the main window to find stuff. That's no longer necessary.
The first view you get of your music is the Albums view. Now speaking as a 40-something, I love this. I still listen to albums, but I have a feeling many people don't bother to do that any more, and prefer the flexibility of playlists, Genius, and shuffle mode.
Stick with the albums view for a moment, though, because you get this gorgeous expanded view of any album you click on:
It's very iOS, of course, but it works. I love it, but that's because albums are still the primary way I listen to music.
In Artists view, you get this fabulous overview of each album:
What's changed? The columns have gone. All those columns of metadata you could display if you wanted. Actually they are mostly still there (look under the View menu, mainly when looking at the Songs view) but by default, they're gone.
You get less, but as Jony Ive would say, you get more. There's less chance that browsing your music collection will start to feel like listening to a spreadsheet, and more chance that you'll listen to good songs.
The Store has been given a makeover. It looks and feels much more like its iOS 6 counterpart, especially the Apps section. It feels somewhat faster to load. Generally speaking, the changes here are not too dramatic, just cosmetic. There's still the black intra-Store navigation bar, the breadcrumb links above each title, and lots of side-scrolling lists.
In recent years iTunes has earned quite a lot of criticism, partly for its looks and partly for being overburdened with features.
That second criticism still applies. iTunes remains the hub that connects your computer to your iDevices, and that means it has to deal with so much more than just music and podcasts.
What version 11 does achieve, though, is some degree of sensible dividing-up of those many, many features.
By clearing the sidebar out of sight, you can concentrate on one thing at a time. Get some music playing, then dive into the Store and go shopping without getting distracted by playlists and stuff. It's an improvement. It feels better than it did before.
The sleek looks have Ive's stamp on them, and look sleeker than they have for many years. Remember when OS X was made of stuff that Steve Jobs called "lickable"? Well, iTunes 11 is far, far away from that. It looks electronic. Digital. Not a metaphor for something else, but a statement of function. I much prefer it over the iTunes some of us thought we might get – something like wood-edged horror that lurks on my iPad 2. Ugh.
My favorite thing in iTunes 11, by a huge margin, is the mini player. I can see myself making a lot of use of that. I've got a feeling that this is just the beginning of a new era for iTunes, though. There are more changes to come.
What do you make of it so far? What do you like and dislike?
Source: Apple


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While economists and politicians continue to debate the impact a minimum wage increase will have on businesses, members of the foodservice industry are better served minding their P's by focusing on processes, procedures, people, products and platforms, writes consultant Juan Martinez.
Will the government increase the minimum wage and if so how will this impact the restaurant industry? This is a big question on the minds of many in the foodservice industry. We all presume the government will increase the minimum wage but it's anybody's guess as to when it might happen. As for the impact it will have on the foodservice industry, well, that's nowhere near as clear. Some economists predict an increase in the minimum wage won't cut jobs in the restaurant industry but will slow hiring, particularly among fast food chains where low costs are keys to survival.
While we can't control the government's actions we can focus on ways that minimize the impact a mandatory wage hike will have on profitability by letting individual members of the foodservice industry work their magic by developing new and innovative ways to drive efficiencies.
In fact, the pending minimum wage increase represents but one concern the restaurant industry needs to address. Challenges such as food costs, real estate costs along with other forces are forcing brands to create more compact and inexpensive concepts.
So what is the solution to help mitigate rising costs?
It is simple: Mind your P's, your operating and investment parameters!
- Process and procedures to deliver the menu
- Place design
- People (labor) deployment
- Products and promotions
- Equipment and technology platforms
The processes and procedures developed can make a big difference. The simpler it is to make a product and deliver menu innovation, the less labor it will take. The customer, in turn, receives better service and a higher quality product, since the simpler process facilitates more consistent execution. The application of several industrial engineering techniques such as time and motion and work sampling can provide great insights to optimize these, in order to deliver efficient menu innovation.
Optimum place design is key. A smaller, more compact and more efficient back and front of house design will result in the same impact, as outlined above. Don't design small for the sake of making it smaller, rather focus on designing space efficiency and the end result will come out in the right fashion. By the way, a smaller back of the house reduces the amount of energy a foodservice operation needs to function, further affecting profitability.
Using the right people (labor) deployment techniques and tools is the best way to optimize this very expensive resource. Work content-activity based labor systems, with controls in the software that provides on-going information to the operators on how the labor is being used is a must.
New platforms, whether equipment or technology, can help keep operating costs down while driving better customer service and product quality. Sometimes the platforms may cost more on the front end but if they provide a payback it is money well spent. Let's not forget in this conversation different ordering methods like kiosks, online and smart phone and even electronic payment systems, but also different ordering modes, like catering.
So you can get preoccupied with the minimum wage increase discussion and hope for the best in an area that often seems to be out of the control of the typical person, or you can take action to drive efficiencies in all the operating and investment parameters (The P's), so the eventual minimum wage increase impacts your brand less.
The choice is yours!


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KH75a Flexi
KH 75a Flexi
Length: 10.4
Width: 7.2
What's included
Check out our A1homes material specifications to give you an indication of what is included in your standard home package - everything from framing to whiteware.
Builder's risk Insurance whilst under construction
Standard concrete slab foundation based on 'good ground' and a level building platform
James Hardie 180mm Linea weatherboard (upgrades available)
ThermalHEART insulated, double glazed with pre-primed liners from the standard colour range
Insulated powder coated aluminium panel with lever handle (if applicable)
Dominator powder coated door from standard colour range with remote openers (if applicable)
Downlights, switchgear, extraction to bathrooms. Layout in accordance with design
Suitable to size and specification of home
For all dry and wet areas
Ventilated wire shelf with rail to robes and ventilated wire shelving to HWC
To a level 4 paint finish
Englefield Valencia Elite corner contour acrylic showers, size as per plans
Englefield Valencia 1670mm bath (if applicable)
Englefield Valencia wall hung vanities, size as per plans
Englefield Evora back to wall toilet suites
Heated towel rail, toilet roll holders, polished edge mirrors to vanities
This price covers delivery of materials within a 50km delivery radius from our supplying stores. Outer area deliveries POA
All A1 Built homes include a Master Build 10 Year Guarantee for your total peace of mind. All products used in the construction are covered by applicable manufacturers warranties
*At the current time H1 energy requirements are not included and need to be discussed with your A1 regional representative.


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Pharmacy Jobs
Soliant knows pharmacy professionals do so much more than fill prescriptions — you fulfill a calling. On the frontlines of today's emerging model of care, patients consider their regular pharmacy to be an ally in their healthcare. To help nurture this critical relationship, Soliant offers hundreds of pharmacy job opportunities throughout the country. Take your pick of setting — maybe you'd like the pace of a busy retail environment or prefer to help patients in long-term care facility or a hospital? Wherever you'd like to apply your talent, we're here to help you make the most of it. Discover the options waiting for you now at Soliant.
Soliant offers a variety of pharmacy job types that are not only limited to the typical pharmacist role. As a Soliant pharmacy director, you can work in a variety of hospital settings, from big-city healthcare systems to small-town hospitals. We have rewarding pharmacy director jobs in great locations on a travel, per diem or permanent basis. You can also apply to be a pharmacy technician with Soliant, with options to work on a full- or part-time basis in travel, per diem or permanent pharmacy tech jobs in every state in the U.S.
If you are passionate about exploring new places while you work, a travel pharmacy role might be the job you've always been looking for. You have the advantage of being able to travel wherever you would like within the country, earning different salary and workplace benefits as you go. We have travel pharmacy jobs available in healthcare facilities and pharmacies across the nation.
Whatever your unique preferences, we have the resources and connections to place you into the pharmacy opportunity that works best for you. You'll be able to choose from hundreds of pharmacy jobs across the U.S. in a variety of settings, including retail pharmacies, hospitals, long-term care facilities and more. Search all Soliant's pharmacy jobs and apply today.
Pharmacy Jobs by Category


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We're expressing ourselves through more channels than ever before, but what are we saying? That might well be the question driving this riveting new contemporary dance work by Portland performance company Teeth, which debuts this week. In it, two men (Philip Elson and Noel Plemmons) and two women (Molly Sides and Shannon Stewart) embody the image manipulation, incessant chatter and selective hearing of the information age. Well-articulated unisons give way to self-conscious posturing, rough partnering and the herky-jerky movement of wind-up toys. Some of the imagery is provocative, and much of it is intentionally unpretty, although the dancers, with their technical chops and laserlike focus, do it beautifully. Their onstage vocals, from mumbles to yelps, are also manipulated as part of the ambient score, which is partially prerecorded and partially digitized live, cocooning the audience in white noise.
Local dance presenter White Bird has commissioned Make/Believe, with choreography by co-director Angelle Hebert and music by her composer and partner Phillip Kraft. This is not the first time Hebert and Kraft have tackled identity and communication issues. A previous work, Grub, drew inspiration from the time they found themselves emailing each other from laptops perched on the same table. Since its 2006 inception, the company has moved from elaborately staged shows toward the more emotionally raw aesthetic of their 2010 duet, Home Made, which White Bird cofounder Paul King described as "an earnest depiction of who they are."
Hebert and Kraft continue to peel away artifice in part, they say, because they'd like to tour internationally (less baggage or all kinds makes you more attractive to promoters), but also out of a desire to communicate more effectively with viewers, and with each other.
For her part, Hebert is reluctant to discuss the work before its debut, for fear of feeding viewers preconceived ideas. But, she added with a laugh, "We can talk afterward."
SEE IT: Lincoln Hall at Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Jan. 26-28. $20-$30. Tickets at whitebird.org.
WWeek 2015


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A utility is opposing a $2.9 million bankruptcy settlement that would fund projects to benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in January.
West Virginia American Water says Freedom Industries shouldn't use money from its insurance proceeds to pay for the projects. The water company filed its opposition last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston.
Freedom's spill in January spurred a tap-water ban for days. The company filed for bankruptcy eight days later.
The water company says the proposed settlement would keep creditors from recovering on bankruptcy claims. James Lane, the case's claims agent, said in early August that thousands of claims were seeking more than $170 million combined. More were being tallied.
"Ultimately, the proposed settlement driving the motion would prevent creditors from receiving any payment out of millions of dollars contained in the estate," West Virginia American Water wrote in its filing. "In short, it is just wrong!"
The utility is seeking $1.1 million after replacing its carbon filters. It also wants Freedom to cover its potential damages in spill lawsuits. Its parent company, American Water, has said in quarterly filings that it intends to "vigorously contest" 58 lawsuits partly blaming the company for the spill that tainted its water supply.
The proposed settlement would let a yet-to-be-determined panel pick what to fund, potentially including long-term health monitoring. It would let claimants opt out and file their own claims.
Under a liquidation plan that includes the settlement, West Virginia American Water says it would only be able to recover $29,000, or 1 percent of the insurance pot, if it kept pursuing its claim.
"This arbitrary amount provides no meaningful alternative to those parties who do not want their claims extinguished by the settlement," the company wrote.
Freedom and 24 residents and businesses that sued after the spill proposed the deal, which would settle their cases.
Former Freedom executives have also objected. Their lawyers said the insurance should cover their related legal costs.
They said more extensive coverage should apply, which would cost insurer AIG Specialty more.
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From Abracadabra to Zombies | View All
Ectoplasm is stuff that allegedly oozes from ghosts or spirits and makes it possible for them to materialize and perform feats of telekinesis, such as lifting tables in the dark (the stuff was sometimes called teleplasmic mass).
In the heyday of séances—the 19th and early 20th centuries—ectoplasm oozed from various orifices of mediums (known as physical or materializing mediums). A bit of white cloth-like (very cloth-like) material oozing from someone's mouth, ears, or nose was considered strong evidence for the afterlife by those who think spirits are not dwelling in Heaven or Hell or some other distant gated community but are floating around the earth trying to give us material hints of their existence. Most photographs of ectoplasm make it look like the kind of stuff you could pick up at the local yardage store or buy from Amazon.
One of the more notorious materializing mediums in America was Mina Crandon, wife of Dr. Le Roi Goddard Crandon, a physician who had been mesmerized by the story of the belle of Belfast, materializing medium Kathleen Goligher (Christopher 1975: 192). Goligher's story was told by William Jackson Crawford, a rather odd paranormal investigator—Houdini thought he was insane—with an underwear obsession (Roach 2005: 132 ff.). Whether he was mentally unbalanced or not, Crawford was not the most astute investigator. He gives a detailed description of what he felt in the dark during a study of Goligher: "...the part I felt was like bones, close together...or toes of feet" but rather than conclude he was feeling her foot (which she was probably using to produce some sort of material effect), Crawford thought he was touching her "psychic structure" (Roach 2005: 133). When he examined imprints on putty that had been placed under the séance table and found imprints of a woman's shoe, a stockinged heel, or a big toe, it did not occur to Crawford that the imprints might have been made by a woman's foot. He thought they were made by psychic rods.
According to Crawford, the psychic rods were mainly gaseous, and only the free end appeared hard and capable of organization. Geley [Dr Gustav Geley, "Ectoplasmie et Clairvoyance"] notes that the ectoplasm is very variable in appearance, being sometimes vaporous, sometimes a plastic paste, sometimes a bundle of fine threads, or a membrane with swellings or fringes, or a fine fabric-like tissue. It may be white (the most frequently observed colour, probably because it is naturally the most visible), grey or black in colour; and it may even be luminous, as if phosphorescent. Its visibility may wax or wane, and to the touch it may feel soft, elastic, fibrous or hard. It has the power of self-locomotion, and moves generally with a slow reptilian movement, though it is capable of moving with extreme rapidity. It is capable of both evolution and involution, and is thus a living substance. It is extremely doubtful whether it ever, even in its most perfect formations, actually loses contact with the medium and pursues an independent life, even momentarily, though such a supposition must be borne in mind as being a possibility. (Materializations by G. C. Barnard)
Apparently, it was ideas like the reptilian movement of gossamer that inspired Dr. Crandon to encourage his wife to try her hand at getting in touch with these earthbound spirits. The rest, as they say, is history. Mina Crandon, known to us as "Margery," would "become the most versatile psychic every known" (Christopher 1975: 193). She was especially versatile with the ectoplasm. Some of her followers "believed that a mysterious spirit rod extruded from between her legs to produce phenomena" (Christopher 1975: 206). Skeptics suspected the ectoplasm was coming from her vagina (Christopher 1975: 212).
A committee to investigate Margery's psychic abilities was set up by Scientific American. Harvard psychology professor William McDougall wrote:
There is good evidence that "ectoplasm" issues, or did issue on some and probably all occasions [from] one particular 'opening in the anatomy' (i.e., the vagina). (quoted in Roach 2005: 137)
Not all on the scientific investigating committee agreed with McDougall and even McDougall didn't consider the vaginal ectoplasm to be conclusive evidence that Margery was a fraud. Houdini, another member of the committee, and independent investigator J. B. Rhine both thought Margery was an obvious fraud. Rhine's evaluation is especially interesting since shortly after he and his wife Louisa went to Duke in 1927 to work with William McDougall, they investigated an allegedly telepathic horse called Lady Wonder. They declared that they could detect no trickery and that the horse was genuinely telepathic. In a follow-up study, the horse couldn't perform and the Rhines declared that Lady Wonder had lost her psychic ability.
One member of the Scientific American team, Dr. James Malcolm Bird, publicly proclaimed that he was convinced of Margery's psychic abilities in a book called "Margery" the Medium. Houdini called Bird a "super liar" and wrote that "he is so gullible that he can not see through the simplest parlor tricks of magic" (quoted in Christopher 1975: 219). Bird claimed that the Crandons were willing to allow "a full anatomical probe" of Margery before a performance, a sign that they had nothing to hide. Houdini announced that Dr. Crandon had "emphatically refused to allow any such examination to be made ... and if anyone demanded an anatomical examination of Mrs. Crandon, he would stop the séances." In 1930, Bird resigned from the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) shortly after he submitted a report in which he admitted that he actually thought Margery was a fraud. He also admitted that Mina Crandon had approached him to produce fake results to fool Houdini. The ASPR suppressed Bird's report for a number of years (Williams 2000: 205), showing they had just as much integrity as Dr. Bird.
In 1924, Eric John Dingwall of the British Society for Psychical Research, arrived in Boston and began to assist in the testing of mediums. He requested that Margery perform in tights. No can do, she said. However, mediums "active in the 1930s were subjected to thorough body cavity searches by researchers before each séance" (for details see Roach 2005: 141). To avoid this rather major invasion of privacy and yet provide an adequate safeguard against fraudulent vaginal or rectal ectoplasms, magician and medium investigator Harry Price invented the "séance garment." It covered the medium from head to foot, including her hands, so that only her head stuck out. Who knows if even that would work. Hiram Maxim tells the story of a materializing medium who was put in a garment which had been sewn tightly at the neck. The medium ripped open the neck of the outfit and stuck flowers under her breasts for later materialization (Christopher 1975: 212).
Price was the author of Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship. He suspected that some mediums were swallowing stuff and regurgitating it during the séances. The feasibility of this rather nauseating stunt is explained by Mary Roach (2005: 144 ff.). Roach also offers a much simpler explanation for the production of ectoplasm. Have your husband sit next to you during the séance. Make sure he has stuffed his shirt or pants with stuff to slip to you under the table when the lights are out.
See also automatic writing, channeling, electronic voice phenomenon,
medium, Ouija board, séance, spiritualism,
A Short
History of Psi Research by Robert Todd Carroll.
further reading
Christopher, Milbourne. (1970). ESP, Seers & Psychics. Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
Christopher, Milbourne. (1975). Mediums, Mystics & the Occult. Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
Keene, M. Lamar. (1997).The Psychic Mafia. Prometheus,
Roach, Mary. (2005). Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. W.W. Norton.
Williams, William F. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Facts-on-File. "Margery Controversy," pp. 204-205.


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[Greg] sent in his biometric pistol safe lock. He keeps his guide light on details so not every Joe can crack the system (there is a thread to sift through if you really wanted to), but the idea runs fairly simple anyway. [Greg] took an old garage door opening fingerprint scanner and wired it into a half broken keypad based pistol safe. While he did have some issues finding a signal that only fired when the correct fingerprint is scanned, a little magic with a CMOS HEX inverter fixed that problem quick.
This does bring one question to our minds, are fingerprint scanners as easy to crack as fingerprint readers?