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Long time no update! It has been a very busy last few weeks, partly because I was traveling across Europe. I actually went outside, lived life, and didn't touch a computer or watch TV the whole time. I'm basically a whole new Johanna.
Anyway, spending time outside of Japan is always good for reminding you of the reasons why you like living here despite it's various foibles. I'm feeling pretty refreshed, so here is my quick list of why Tokyo is an awesome place to call home.
1. Trains are on time and easy to understand. (Germany, I'm looking at you when I'm writing this.) Most places in Tokyo will have coloured AND numbered diagrams for the subway and train lines, so figuring out how to get from A to B is not a huge ordeal. There are also usually station employees around to ask questions, and they will probably give you the right answer. (Again, Germany I'm looking at you.) If a train is cancelled, then expect to be showered in apologies. (Hi Germany, remember me?)
2. 24 hour convince stores. Want 200 mL of milk at 2am, BAM. No big deal. Need to withdraw cash, buy a specific flavour of green tea, then pay your water bill? DONE. The more places I go to, the more I realise how unique these 24 hour beacons of convenience truly are.
3. FREE toilets. I was prepared to pay for the bathrooms, but you have to drop .50 to 1.00 euro to use the facilities even in department stores and some bars (and that is just asking for trouble.) The toilets in Japan still reign an unwavering first place in my heart.
4. Very specific portion sizes. We tried to cook at home a few times when we were traveling, but it is hard to buy groceries for just 1 meal. Japanese supermarkets usually sell 食べ切り (tabekiri, eat up in one go) size selections of cheese, vegetables, meat, etc, so I was faced with figuring out how to deal with leftovers. I cannot eat 300 grams of cheese in one sitting. Total first world problem, but if you are just cooking for 2 people who only eat at home half of the time, excess food tends to go to waste more often than not. **Nerd Alert** I understand that the unit price will increase with the purchase of smaller portions, but I really hate wasting food and am willing to pay a "premium" just for the portion I need in most circumstances.
5. Your stuff will almost never be outright stolen, and lost items are highly likely to be returned in the condition it was found.


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Waterfront home on Lake Seminole
Waterfront Retreat/Gulf Access/Decatur County, Georgia
Asking Price $235,000
3 bed · 2 1/2 bath · 1950 sq.ft
Enjoy spacious cottage living on beautiful Lake Seminole and access to Apalachicola, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico by a leisurely day's boat ride. This 3 bedroom/2.5 bath home boasts gorgeous waterfront views with professionally landscaped yard, dock access on the main body of the lake (1+ mile wide view). Home features eat-in kitchen with custom bead board cabinetry and stainless appliances, dining room open to large living area complete with masonry gas fireplace, and three bedrooms including an oversized master suite with cast iron footed tub, separate tiled oversized shower, double vanity and walk-in closet. In 2005 the home was completely gutted to the foundation and all interior walls were torn out and replaced in '05. Because of the amount of work being done to the home the county required that the entire home had to be be brought up to the new code standards. This included new insulation, wiring, plumbing, septic and drain field, heat and ac as well as a new electrical service to the home. Outside of heart-pine beams and the bricks in the fireplace that were reclaimed and refinished for decoration inside the home- there is very little of the 1961 home remaining. Owner is a licensed realtor.

subset: commoncrawl


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For teachers and interested students
This 30-hour anatomy and asana course will deepen your understanding of body mechanics during yoga practice. It will reinforce and supplement the fundamental anatomy covered in most 200-hour teacher trainings—but you needn't enter the program with prior anatomy instruction. All curious movers are welcome! Yoga students will glean an enhanced comprehension of the body that they can use to inform their personal practice. Teachers will hone their observation skills and their understanding of anatomical variations and how to modify postures to suit individual needs.
We will meet for three hours each morning and for three hours each afternoon, with a two-hour lunch break in between. Mornings will be devoted to anatomical study; during the afternoons we'll conduct asana clinics to apply the morning's anatomy lessons. Sign up for only one day or for all five.
Day 1
Anatomy of the foot, ankle, knee, hip
Standing poses
Day 2
Anatomy of the shoulder, elbow, wrist
Down dog clinic, handstand, forearm stand
Day 3
Anatomy of the spine
Backbends, twists
Day 4
Anatomy of the core
Arm balances, headstand, shoulder stand
Day 5
Kinesiology and biomechanics
Anatomy of the nervous system


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How Ductwork Functions
How does new duct work distribute the air and heat throughout your home or business?
In order to understand how a heating and cooling system works, it's easiest to think of it in terms of being a circulatory system, rather than a respiratory system. Air circulates from the HVAC unit, through the ductwork to the rooms, and then is returned to the HVAC unit to be heated or cooled again.
Delivery system
Ductwork, whether for a home or business, is comprised of steel, aluminum, polyurethane or fiberglass panels or sheets, or flexible coils which deliver air from the air handler to the registers.
Through the branches
The supply air, in the supply plenum, is pushed by blowers through a supply duct trunk, where it is connected to smaller branch ducts by fittings called takeoffs. If or when the air has to move in a vertical direction, stacks, which are wide, thin, vertical ductwork, can be required to move the air through walls. They are connected to the main horizontal ductwork with a stack boot. At the top, a stack head connects the stack to more horizontal ductwork which reaches to the end of the house.
Turning vanes
Turning vanes are used to guide air smoothly when it's necessary to change the direction of the air flow (up to 90 degrees) unless flexible ductwork is used. If flexible ductwork is used, it's imperative that the duct tubing isn't damaged, crushed or bent at more than a 90-degree angle.
Register heads
Register heads connect the ductwork to wall-mounted (or sometimes floor-mounted) air registers. Each room in the house should have at least one air register, although they often have more than one in a bigger room. Volume control dampers at the register (or even within the ducts themselves) control the amount of air flow.
Air return register
An air return register sends the air through a return plenum, which takes the air from the return register back to the central air handler. In a residence, this is usually where the air filter is located and is known as an air filter return. In a commercial distribution, a diffuser or grille is used as a return register.
Balance of the system with the area
Duct design determines the flow of conditioned air or heat throughout the building. The size of the HVAC unit, ductwork and registers depend on the size of the area to be heated and cooled. If the HVAC unit is too small for the ductwork, it will blow without creating enough pressure to deliver air to each of the registers, If it's too large, it's cost prohibitive, since HVAC units vary greatly in price based on the type and the number of BTU's they can deliver. So, it's important that the system is designed for the space that it heats and cools.
Other factors which affect ductwork installation include the type of HVAC, the layout of the house, the number of registers, and the number of temperature-controlled zones. A badly designed or improperly installed ductwork system can decrease the efficiency of an HVAC unit be as much as 40%.
If you have Phoenix heating and cooling needs, want to know more about ductwork or are having problems with your HVAC system, give us a call! 911 Heating, Cooling and Plumbing can service all commercial and residential HVAC and plumbing needs. Call 602-795-2900 today!


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A mother's story
How life insurance can transform lives and help bring peace. A young man demonstrates his love for his mother with a solid plan for her future. (4min: 09sec)
This is the current opinion of Craig Silverman and is reflective of Craig Silverman's personal opinions and not necessarily those of AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company or its affiliates.
The experiences expressed here may not be representative of the experiences of all of our clients.
The experiences expressed here are no guarantee of future performances or success.
This material should not be considered legal or tax advice. Consult your own tax and legal advisors regarding your particular circumstances. Accordingly, any tax information provided in this material is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used by any taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer. Always consult with tax and legal advisors regarding individual circumstances.
Life insurance is not a deposit of any bank, is not FDIC insured, is not insured by any federal government agency and is not guaranteed by any bank or savings association.
Life insurance products are issued by AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, New York, New York or MONY Life Insurance Company of America (MLOA), an Arizona stock corporation with its main administrative office in Jersey City, NJ and are co-distributed by AXA Network, LLC and AXA Distributors, LLC 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104. MLOA is not licensed to conduct business in New York and Puerto Rico.


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President's Message
Dear Clerical/Technical Unit I Member :
Welcome to the AFT College Staff Guild, Local 1521A website. The AFT Staff Guild is the exclusive representative of the Clerical/Technical Unit of the Los Angeles Community College District.
Our continued effectiveness as representative depends to a large degree upon the participation of our members. You are most cordially invited to attend our meeting and become involved in the work of our committees. There are Worksite Meetings, Executive Board Meetings, General Membership Meetings, as well as Conferences.
All Staff Guild members are entitled to participate in a series of CFT/AFT insurance programs.
The Staff Guild exists to serve its members by representing their viewpoints and ideas to the administration and before the Board of Trustees, and the Personnel Commission, by initiating and effectuating educational and personnel reforms, by protecting the member's professional standards, status, and rights and by representing Unit I classified employees at the collective bargaining and consultation table.
If there is any way in which we can be of assistance, do not hesitate to call the officers of the Staff Guild, your colleagues in the District.
In Strength and Unity,
Velma J. Butler, President
AFT College Staff Guild, Local 1521A
Office(323) 851-1521, Ext. 201, Mon-Fri


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Life is a Test
Semangat Pudar
Surgery on saturday and MC for the whole week. Ohh dear, I'm so bored. But what can I do.
To those who visited, including my close friends, Megat, Nadia, Suffian, Yew Wing and Muzakkir and his sis, I really really appreciate it. You guys are the best. We will have more fun when all this pain is over k.
Sincerely, I love you guys.
Me, 22Nov2010
Damansara Specialist Hospital
happy birthday my soul sister. sorry i can't be there.
Kid Again
Woww. It has been a long long time since my last post. Internet connection in KY has not been good. So I couldn't update my blog at the chalet. Anyway, a lot have happened. That includes SAT (ohh don't ask me how it was :/) a book (a good one from a friend) and people (you just can't get away with it. People, we're everywhere!).
After my SAT, I had a great time with my family. Well, obviously they tried to cheer me up. Turn out no good however. Because the very next day, I'm back in KY. You know this feeling, when I'm out of KY I want to be in KY so much. The minute I'm approaching tol Lembah Beringin, I want to cry as much. Then how la? Park the car in the middle. Heheh.
A book. It's called VERSUS by the way. A malay novel. A normal storyline I guess. Not too thick. But I shall say that it reminds me of things about my life and my religion. And it gives me hope. No, not gives me, but, it reminds me, that I had this hope. This faith. And that I still have it. Like what's written in the book, "untuk awak yang ingin berubah". If that's you then, give it a go. (:
People. People. People. A few notes I received from people this few weeks.
*Let you go. Totally let you go, if that's what you want. Cause it'll just hurt to not do that. Plus, pray for the best for you. InsyaAllah, things will be good for both of us.
*You've got a point there. Yeah, accept a person as someone new, not someone from the past. That made me think. Yeap it did. But will you do the same? Maybe we'll soon find out. Maybe.
*Do not be in the same group with guys, I'll end up doing the whole presentation slides on my own. But the presentation overall was good, guys. Thanks. :D
*Be yourself. Just be yourself. I'm sure people would like you for who you really are. Be in the moment. They'll accept you, just the way I do.
*It's hard to be a perfectionist, true. But if the satisfaction totally outweighs the hard work, I'll be a perfectionist anyway. (:
*Don't be afraid to make a change. Laugh together if people is laughing at you. As long as you know, that you are doing what is right.
I always need my reminder. Always.
Off for now. More to come soon, insyaAllah.


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Not quite ironic enough for FailBlog, but still funny. Now if only the same ad appeared for [hanky-panky]...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Looking for a good home: Sammy
This is Sammy. He's a foster cat from the Humane Society who's currently living with us to get a break from the shelter. He's totally adorable so I'm looking for a good home for him!
Sammy's been with us for nearly 2 weeks and he's been super low-maintenance. He's very friendly; he'll immediately walk up to new people rather than hiding or shying away. He has long whiskers and soft, silky fur which only gets silkier the more you pet him. He loves to be petted, especially on his face and belly, and he'll purr pretty much as soon as you touch him.
He seems to really like being around people, and is very amenable to whatever ways you want to give him attention. He doesn't mind sitting on your lap, being picked up, cuddled, used as a pillow, etc. He's also very happy to just sit in the same room as you while you're doing whatever; we've spent many hours sewing, knitting, and surfing the web together. He doesn't get freaked out by noises (like the sewing machine, or even the vacuum cleaner). I think he would make a great match for anyone looking for a lap cat, or a companion to just hang out with while watching movies and putzing around the house.
Incidentally, he doesn't do any of the bad stuff that my cats do, like chewing on cords or tipping over wastebaskets and playing in the trash. And he doesn't scratch the furniture (although he does like to knead his claws into the carpet when he's really happy).
If you or anyone you know is looking for a cat like this, please let me know (or contact the Humane Society directly)! You're also welcome to come over and meet him. More photos here.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Performance Measurement for Small and Large Scale Deployments
As well as powering a few cool tools, Linkscape is a data platform. Performance (and its measurement) isn't just important to reduce user latency, or cut costs. It's actually something we're hoping is part of our core competency, something that adds significant value to our startup. And the shortest path to performance is measurement.
For those in a hurry, jump straight to the tools we're using.
This post is inspired by (and at times borrowed from) an email I sent to some friends for a consulting gig I did recently. But it rings so true, and I come back to it so often, that I thought I would share it. Alex and Nick, I hope you don't mind me sharing some of the work we've done on your very neat, very fun Facebook game.
Let me motivate the need for performance monitoring with a couple of case studies taken from our infrastructure:
This dashboard (above) illustrates 28 hours of load on our API cluster. I can immediately see service issues on the first server (the red segment of the first graph). This is correlated with a spike in CPU and some strange request patterns on the second server (the layered, multi-colored bar on the graph below). The degraded service lasted for a few hours, which was a configuration issue I solved in our monitoring framework. It should have guaranteed downtimes of no more than 4 minutes.
Even after solving our monitoring issue I still needed to investigate the underlying issue: I can see the CPU and request pattern are related. Ultimately I solved this issue within two weeks. Without this kind of measurement I would not even have known we had an issue, and would not have had the data to solve it.
From part of our back-end batch-mode processing, we had thought we'd tuned our system about as well as we could. At times we were pulling data through at a very respectable pace, roughly 10MB/sec per node. but we had also observed occasional unresponsiveness on nodes, with a corresponding slowness in processing. We left the system alone for a while, thinking, "don't fix it if it ain't broke". But recently we've been tuning performance for cost reasons; so we came back to this system.
Once we instrumented our machines with performance monitoring (illustrated above) we saw that the anecdotes were actually part of a worrying trend: the red circles show this. Our periods of 10MB/sec throughput are punctuated by periods of extremely high load. The graphs above show load averages of 10 or more on 4 core nodes, along with one process spiking up to hundreds of megabytes and nearly exhausting system memory. This high system load dramatically reduced our processing throughput.
It turned out that the load was caused by a single rogue program which consumed all available system memory due to buffered I/O. Usually we have a few I/O pipelines and give each many megabytes for buffering. However, this program has many dozens of pipelines, altogether consuming nearly a gigabyte of memory. This lead to significant paging and finally thrashing on disk.
Once we reduced the size of buffers (from roughly 40-100MB per pipeline to just 1-2MB per pipeline) we saw dramatic improvements in performance: a nearly 60% boost! And the nodes have become dramatically more responsive—no more load averages of 10+. The graphs above show load average maxing out at 4 and plenty of memory available. The data suggest that we might even be able to nearly double our performance with the same hardware by increasing parallelism and running another pipeline on each node.
All of this work is powered by simple monitoring and measurement techniques. Sometimes this has lead to significant, but necessary engineering work. But sometimes it's lead to a single afternoon's efforts yielding a 60% performance boost, with an opportunity to nearly double performance on top of that.
We're using a few tools:
- collectd measures the system health dimensions (cpu, mem usage, disk usage, etc.) and sends those measurements to a central server for logging.
- RRDTool records and visualizes the data in an industry standard way.
- drraw gives me a very simple web interface to view and manage my visualizations.
- Monit watches processes and system resources, bringing things back up if they crash and sending emails if things go wrong.
These tools work together, in an open, plug-in powered way. I could swap out individual components and move to other tools, such as Nagios (which I've used for other projects) or Cacti (which I have not used).
Whether you're an on-the-ground operations engineer looking to watch system health and fix issues before they turn into downtime, or you're managing large-scale engineering, looking to cut costs and squeeze out more page or API hits, these tools and techniques point you in the right direction and give you hard data to justify your efforts after the fact. We've had many high ROI efforts initiated and justified by this kind of measurement.
Posted by
Nick Gerner
1 comments
Labels: software - technology
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Why is this Report So Slow: Let the Database Handle the Data
We have a data-rich report in our Linkscape tool with even more in our Advanced Report. We think the data is great. But the advanced report can be awfully slow to load. Don't get me wrong, we think it's worth the wait. But this kind of latency is a challenge for many products, and clearly, there's room for improvement. We're finding improvements by porting logic from the front-end into the data layer, and by paging through data in small chunks.
We present our data (links) in two forms. One is an aggregated view, showing the frequency of anchor text, one attribute of each link:
We also present a paged list of links, showing all the attributes we've got:
The time we spend on each request is very roughly illustrated by this diagram. From it you can see each component in our system: disk access, data processing, and a front-end scripting environment. I've included the aggregate time the user experiences as well. We have a custom data management system rather than using a SQL RDBMS such as MySQL. But I list it as SQL because SQL presents the same challenge.
In total the user can experience between 15 seconds to three minutes of latency! The slowness comes from a couple of design flaws. The first is that we're doing a lot of data processing outside our data processing system. Saying that programming environment doesn't matter is a growing trend, which has some advantages; rapid development comes to mind. But (and I'm a back-end data guy, so I'm a bit biased) it's important to let each part of your system do the work it's best at. For presentation and rapid prototyping that means your scripting environment. But for data that means data processing.
We're currently working on moving data processing into our data layer, resulting in performance something like that illustrated in the diagram below. The orange bars represent time spent in this new solution; the original blue bars are included for comparison.
In addition to latency improvements, pulling this logic out of our front-end adds that data to our platform and consequently makes it re-usable by many users and by applications. The maintenance of this feature will then lie in the hands of our data processing team, rather than our front-end developers. And we've taken substantial load off of our front-end servers, in exchange for a smaller amount of extra load on our data-processing layer. For us this is a win across the board.
The other problem we've got is that we're pulling up to 3000 records for every report, even though the user has a paged interface. And those 3000 records are generated from a join which is distributed across our data management platform, involving many machines, and potentially several megabytes of final data pulled from many gigabytes of source data.
The other big improvement we want to introduce is to implement paging at the data-access level. Since our users already get the data in a paged interface, this will have no negative effect on usability. And it'll make things substantially faster, as illustrated (again very roughly) below. The yellow bars illustrate the new solution's projected performance. Orange and blue bars are included for comparison.
The key challenge here is to build appropriate indexes for fast, paged, in-order retrieval of the data by many attributes. Without such indexes we would still have to pull all the data and sort it at run-time, which defeats the purpose.
In the solution we're currently working on we've addressed two issues. First, we've been processing data in the least appropriate segment of our system. Process data in your data management layer if possible. Second, we've been pulling much more data than we need to show to a user. Only pull as much data as you need to present to users; show small pages if you can. The challenges have been to port this logic from a rapid prototyping language like Ruby into a higher-performance language like C or stored procedures, and to build appropriate indexes for fast retrieval. But the advantages of this work are substantial, and are clearly worth it.
These issues are part of many systems out there and result in both end-user latency problems, as well as overall system scalability problems. Fixing those problems results in higher user satisfaction (and hopfully higher revenue), and reduces overall system costs.
By the way, we haven't released anything around these improvements in performance yet. If you want to keep up to date on Linkscape improvements watch the SEOmoz Blog or follow me on Twitter @gerner.
Posted by
Nick Gerner
Labels: software - technology
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
High Performance Computing at Amazon: A Cost Study
In building Linkscape we've had a lot of high performance computing optimization challenges. We've used Amazon Web Services (AWS) extensively and I can heartily recommend it for the functionality at which it excels. One area of optimization I often see neglected in these kinds of essays on HPC is cost optimization. What are the techniques you, as a technology leader, need to master to succeed on this playing field? Below I describe some of our experience with this aspect of optimization.
Of course, we've had to optimize the traditional performance front too. Our data set is many terabytes; we use plenty of traditional and proprietary compression techniques. Every day we turn over many hundreds of gigabytes of data, pushed across the network, pushed to disk, pushed into memory, and pushed back out again. In order to grab hundreds of terabytes of web data, we have to pull in hundreds of megabytes per second. Every user request to the Linkscape index hits several servers, and pages through tens or hundreds megabytes of data in well under a second for most requests. This is a quality, search-scale data source.
Our development began, as all things of this scale should, with several prototypes, the most serious of which started with the following alternative cost projections. You can imagine the scale of these pies makes these deicions very important.
These charts paint a fairly straight forward picture: the biggest slice up there, on the colocation chart, is "savings". We spent a lot of energy to produce these charts, and it was time well spent. We built at least two early prototypes using AWS. So at this point we had a fairly good idea, at a high-level of what our architecture would be, especially the key costs of our system. Unfortunately, after gathering quotes from colocation providers, it became clear that AWS, in aggregate, could not compete on a pure cost basis for the total system.
However, what these charts fail to capture is the overall cost of development and maintenance, and many "soft" features. The reason AWS was so helpful during our prototype process has turned out to be the same reason we continue to use it. AWS' flexibility of elastic computing, elastic storage, and a variety of other features are aimed (in my opinion) at making the development process as smooth as possible. And the cost-benefit of these features goes beyond the (many) dollars we send them every month.
When we update our index we bring up a new request processing cluster, install our data, and roll it into production seamlessly. When the roll-over is complete (which takes a couple of days), we terminate the old cluster, only paying for the extra computing for a day or so. We handle redundancy and scaling out the same way. Developing new features on such a large data set can be a challenge, but bringing up a development cluster of many machines becomes almost trivial on the development end, much to the chagrin of our COO and CFO.
These things are difficult to quantify. But these are critical features which make our project feasible at any scale. And they're the same features the most respected leaders in HPC are using.
All of this analysis forced us to develop a hybrid solution. Using this solution, we have been able to leverage the strength of co-location for some of our most expensive system components (network bandwidth and crawling), along with the strengths of utility computing with AWS. We've captured virtually all of the potential savings (illustrated below), while retaining most of our computing (and system value) at AWS.
I would encourage any tech leaders out there to consider their system set-up carefully. What are your large cost compentents? Which of them require the kind of flexibility of EC2 or EBS? Which ones need the added reliability of something like S3 with it's 4x redundancy? (which we can't find for less anywhere else). And which pieces need less of these things? Which you can install in a colocation facility, for less?
As an aside, in my opinion AWS is the only utility computing solution worth investigating for this kind of HPC. Their primitives (EC2, S3, EBS, etc.) are exactly what we need for development and for cost projections. Recently we had a spate of EC2 instance issues, and I was personally in touch with four Amazon reps to address my issue.
Posted by
Nick Gerner
Labels: software - technology


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Program Communications
The Science of Learning School's Partnership Initiative brings together Melbourne University researchers with teachers and school leaders to improve educational outcomes in schools.
We are excited to present you with the first in our series of blogs on learning sciences research, designed to help you start thinking about research evidence and how it could look in your classroom.
Our first blog introduces metacognition – there is a large and growing body of evidence to suggest that metacognition has a medium to large positive impact on student learning.
We are excited to present you with the first in our series of blogs on learning sciences research, designed to help you start thinking about research evidence and how it could look in your classroom.
Our first blog introduces metacognition – there is a large and growing body of evidence to suggest that metacognition has a medium to large positive impact on student learning.
Keynote 3: The 3H Strategy Toolkit
This term we are trying something a little different, and instead of providing an hour-long online keynote where a researcher describes their work to you, we have asked Professor Lorraine Graham from MGSE and Lynn Alder from the University of New England to create an online resource that lets you apply their work on the 3H Strategy in your classrooms. This is a mnemonic strategy that helps students answer comprehension questions. It is suitable for middle school students and the toolkit helps you understand this strategy and implement it in your classroom. The toolkit includes sample passages and questions, a lesson plan, prompt cards and other resources. It can be accessed at: https://solcnetwork.com/the-3h-strategy/
Resources from Intensive 3: Thursday 1st August 2019
Online Evening Forum on the 30th of May
Please follow the link to access the Google Form: Planning a pilot program in using Student Voice
Resources from our second Intensive on the 6th of May
Keynote 1: Student Voice and Student Agency
In this presentation Sophie Murphy defines student voice and student agency and discusses how a strong sense of agency can support student learning. Sophie provides practical strategies that you can use to enhance student voice and student agency in the classroom.
Click HERE to view the presentation and access the resources
Resources from our first Intensive on the 25th of February
Resources from Tom Cain and Luke Mandouit's workshop on student voice:
- Tom Cain's Presentation on Student Voice in Schools
- Jigsaw resources
- Grouping Cards
- Self-Assessment and Improvement Tool
- Graphic Organiser
We would also appreciate if you could provide us with feedback by following this link to a google form survey.
Science of Learning Blogs and Vlogs
- Showcasing innovative education research and interventions from around the world
The feedback that parents and teachers give to children can become internalised as self-talk.
Watch the first of our video blogs, which features Luke Mandouit's insightful interview with Aisling Mulvihill, an expert on attention, self-talk, and self-regulation.
Teachers are constantly giving their students feedback. The problem is that students often don't receive it. So how can we improve both the feedback that we give and the capacity of our learners to receive and act upon feedback?
In this interview, Luke Mandouit from the University of Melbourne discussed effective classroom feedback practices with Dr Cam Brooks from the University of Queensland.
An Educational Intervention Turning Young People into Published Authors in One Week
Writing a novel is hard for anyone, but for children or teenagers to work together to write, edit, and publish one in five days seems impossible. Yet one research team in the UK is allowing them to do just that through an innovative program called 'White Water Writers.' The program has been run with children, teenagers, and young adults in schools, universities, foster homes, and prison. Their voices and personal experiences are crafted into their stories and the novels are published and available for purchase online. The success of authorship provides young people with new skills, friendships, and motivation for future accomplishments.


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Jesus Went Away to Pray: An Invitation to Reflect on 2017
We read about Jesus going off to pray. We don't read much about his other habits. We know he is in the Synagogue quite a bit because this is often where the religious of the day are debating with him. We know he has command of Scripture because he often quotes it. We know he prays.
Matthew 14:23, Luke 3:21, Mark 6:46, Luke 6:12, Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, Matthew 26… just to name a few. What do you think he prayed for? How do you think he prayed? Luke 11 gives us some insight there.
Why am I writing about prayer? Because the year is winding down. You might have a job that is still going gang busters, and you may still have quite a bit to do to get ready for Christmas, but the year is winding down. And so, I want to encourage you to "go off to pray."
Pray about this past year. Reflect on it. Ask God to show you what He wants you to remember, and what He is leading you to in the coming year.
You and I will no doubt be inundated with Year-in-Review articles and "Top Tens" of 2017. Best albums, books, movies and more… Best sports victories, top news stories, and even celebrities who died. Tragedies, violence, scientific breakthroughs, financial ups-and-downs… this list (of lists) could go on. Beyond these lists are people, people who need Jesus.
As I reflect on 2017 at The Pocket Testament League, there were so many opportunities to invite people to meet Jesus.
- This year, God challenged us like He never has before to reach China for Christ, and you believed, and 10 million to 25 million people were invited to meet Jesus.
- Amid violence in Manchester, UK, Las Vegas, USA, and more, you responded.
- After Hurricanes, tornados, fires, and floods, you were there.
- When our military and first responders needed hope, you were there, too.
- And that's not to mention the millions – and I mean millions! – of small and quiet, but no less important, ways that each and every one of you has shared the Gospel faithfully, one-to-one, whenever and wherever the Lord has led you this year.
These large and small acts of faith may not make any viral lists, but as I reflect on 2017, there were situations every day where the world was crying out for the Word of God—and you were there.
Look, it is all for God's glory. I don't write these words to puff you, or me, up. Rather, I write these words for three reasons:
- To say thank you. Thank you for being faithful and obedient in inviting as many people as possible to consider Jesus.
- To encourage you. It may seem like we are a bunch of random individuals who love the Lord, and it can be easy to feel like we don't make a difference. However, collectively we are a strong community, offering hope, and united in our desire to see people to meet Jesus.
- To invite you. To invite you to go away and pray.
The 2017 Lists will soon appear. I predict all of them will draw our focus to humans and not God. Hey, that is okay. We, us humans, are created in the image of God. God loves us more than we know. It is okay to think and reflect on all that happened to us.
But can I invite you—invite you to go away and pray, and ask God to speak to you?
Ask God about the hurts you have endured. To heal them. To teach you. Ask Him where you need to forgive. Ask God to bring to your mind the moments of joy. To hold onto them. To be more grateful to for them. Ask God about His hopes for you in 2018.
I am doing the same. I will update you in early 2018 from my time away with Him. And I hope to hear from you, too.


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This App Founder Says Anonymous Comments Allow People to Be More Honest
Bindu Reddy says she wasn't looking to create the next big thing with her app Candid, which allows users to post messages anonymously. She already runs a large social-media marketing company called MyLikes, and has managed apps and services for Google, among others.
So why do it then? According to Reddy, her desire to start what became Candid gradually coalesced over the past year or so as she became less and less enamored with Twitter (TWTR), Facebook (FB), and other social apps. It also happened as she noticed many of her friends and colleagues were also moving away from such networks for similar reasons.
"Over the last year or two, there has been this kind of repulsion to most social media, especially Facebook and Twitter," Reddy tells Fortune. "And the reason is that it's hard to say anything opinionated or even remotely controversial without facing a huge backlash. You can post your puppy photos or whatever, but the minute you post something about politics, it becomes a huge problem."
But doesn't having a completely anonymous app encourage the worst possible behavior: trolling and spam and abuse of all kinds? Reddy admits that it does. More than 40% of what gets posted on Candid—and at times as much as 70%—is removed for those reasons, she says.
In that sense, what the company is struggling with is very similar to what Twitter and Reddit have been trying to get a handle on since they were created. Namely, how do you have a platform that encourages free and even controversial speech without having it turn into a den of abuse? The anonymous app Secret shut down in part because it couldn't find a way to solve that problem.
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However, Reddy says that despite the large volume of messages the service has to take down, she still believes in the value of anonymous comments. Why? Because she sees it every day, she says.
"I definitely think it's possible to create a place where people can have thoughtful discussions anonymously," says the Candid founder. "I see examples of that every day."
In particular, Reddy said she has seen multiple cases of people posting messages about having problems in their personal lives and then getting thoughtful, helpful responses from a host of complete strangers. In many cases, these problems are ones that they would likely feel uncomfortable discussing in public.
"If you don't have identity associated, then you can have much more frank discussions," says Reddy. "So if I say I'm going to get divorced, on Facebook that might seem really awkward and no one would respond, because everyone's politically correct. But on Candid, I would get dozens of people responding."
Anonymity allows people to "get a sense of connection on a topic right away—it breaks down barriers," Reddy says. "People don't know who I am, so they're not judging me—saying 'Here's this brown girl saying this,' or 'Here's this old white guy.' Instead, people connect around the idea."
Reddy says that she has looked at what Reddit has been through with abuse in user-moderated forums, which it has been trying to crack down on, and she stipulated there is a key difference between how Reddit handles anonymity and how Candid handles it.
"The big problem I've seen is that Reddit and other communities have anonymity, but they have a persistent identity," Reddy explains. "So you can get these cliques that form and gang up on someone because of what they've posted in the past, or super-users become all powerful because of their following, etc. But we don't have persistent identity on Candid. You get a new identity for every post."
The difficult part, Reddy admits, is that providing someone with a different auto-generated identity each time they comment helps cut down on some bad behavior, but it also makes it difficult to add the kinds of positive features that other large, online communities have been able to foster.
How Twitter's white, male diversity leader is making a difference. Watch:
"One thing we can do is we can see when two people are interacting more than they are with other people," Reddy stresses. "Others might not see that, but we can. So maybe in the future we will show more posts from those kinds of people to each other, and do some curation around that." Candid also tries to provide feedback to users by giving them badges that only they can see, such as "All Star" or "Hater."
Reddy acknowledges that the company is still relatively small, and that getting a huge, Snapchat-style user base is not what she has in mind. (Although she highlights Candid is in the top 100 on both the Apple Store and the Google Play store.) Instead, Reddy posits she is hoping to spark some intelligent discussion around difficult topics. The total message base is currently in the 100,000 range.
Building on her experience at Google, Reddy says even before the company launched, they built a lot of machine-learning models to identify troublesome posts as well as tools to do sentiment and contextual analysis. The company also has a 10-person team in India working around the clock, deciding whether to take specific posts down. Only the worst hate speech or threats get taken down, she notes.
Despite all the work that his kind of moderation takes, Reddy says she is still convinced that Candid can generate enough value for users to keep them coming back.
"I think people can just be much more honest and authentic on an anonymous service, and some of the best conversations I've seen on Candid have shown this," Reddy says. "Yes, there's a lot of bad behavior, but there's also much more potential for real human connection. In real life, maybe people see a Muslim guy and they have these preconceptions. But on Candid, there's none of that. That's what keeps people coming back."


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Its really impressive how many apartment projects have been influenced by MVRDV's WoZoCo... The Lanserhofwiese Residential Project by Wimmer Zaic Architects is an interesting project, almost looking fake the way its perched atop those spindly legs. Intended as a high density housing solution, providing interest and interaction with its neighbors, it seems somewhat, although not entirely successful. Obviously, the neighbors will be intrigued by the project (and its bright colors!), but the building actually seems somewhat isolated to me. It could be plopped down on any flat lot anywhere in the world... It doesn't seem to me as if its interacting with the neighborhood at all.
What do you all think?


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I couldn't let a Thursday roll by without joining up with my fellow Lounge Lizards for our weekly linkup.
This week the delightful Kim Frost from Falling Face First is our host this week, and the topic is Work Woes, Crap Jobs, Career Blips, and so forth.
Kim has written amusingly about her forays into customer service jobs in her youth. I'm taking a leaf out of her book and retracing my steps through my various pocket money jobs back in the day.
In what is undoubtedly a fairly gutting admission for someone like me who basically likes to whinge and complain about everything, I am sorry to say that my youthful part time jobs were actually mostly quite good. Didn't stop me feeling bitter and resentful that I had to work over my Christmas holidays while my cousins could loll about and do whatever they pleased. You'd think I had been forced down a coal mine by my parents the way I carried on sometimes.
Anyway I am doing a hardcore last minute post due to bad time management and vomiting kid, so I will briefly run through the highs and lows of my early working life.
The Local Shop for Local People
My first job was as a 15 year old, working Saturday afternoons at our local corner shop. This job was randomly offered to me by the owner, we shall call him Len, for that was indeed his name, and his wife..um...Mrs Len. Maybe Judy? Can't remember. I have my suspicions that he gave me this job because he had secret designs on my grandmother's beautiful old Ford Fairlane car. Once he had weaseled his way into our lives he did indeed purchase said classic vehicle from Nana so my thesis is sound.
Pros: I got paid for the first time, even if I did funnel most of my $5/hour wage back into the business with my regular purchases of bags of mixed lollies.
Cons: Regularly being harangued by well heeled elderly people for not knowing my sums when they said confusing things like "I've got the 25 cents, will that help you?". No it won't fucking help WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU OLD GITS I'VE ALREADY RUNG IT UP ON THE CASH REGISTER HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REVERSE THAT SHIT? It took me a good year to realize how to give change correctly.
The Clean Team
I left the local shop job when my school friends encouraged me to apply for a job on the Clean Team at the local cinema, where they were already lucky enough to be working. I was so excited at the prospect I could barely contain myself. I aced the interview and got the job, and was entitled to don the noble uniform aka a huge white tshirt emblazoned with "CLEAN TEAM", sneakers and black shorts. So hot right now.
Pros: SO many. Working with all me mates. 50c movies. Seeing the last 10 minutes of all the films showing at the cinema. Actually that was a con. Having money.
Cons: Um..the actual job. IT WAS CLEANING MAN! I am not built for that shit. One time I was called into a cinema during a movie. Some kid had spewed on the floor. I had to clean it up while her whole family sat there and watched me.
Sugar Sugar
I was promoted at one point on account of being so freaking hardworking and motherfucking diligent. I became part of the coveted Candy Bar team, and got to wore a much hotter uniform. A lime green pencil skirt, court shoes and a stripey blouse with a little tie. Cute right? It was the best job ever. I used to complain bitterly about it. UNGRATEFUL WRETCH! We used to make choc top ice creams, bag lollies, make popcorn. It was like working in bloody Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.
Pros: Friends, money, cute uniform, 50c movies, access to lollies to nibble on.
Cons: Being yelled at by mental customers because it cost $20 for three popcorn kernels. Not my fault dudes, I was but a gormless youth who had only recently worked out how to give change properly. ALso, smelling of popcorn. Actually not a good thing. As well as my general resentment that I had to WORK to earn money. I've basically never shaken this feeling. NOT FAIR. I just want to LIE AROUND AND READ.
Library bitch - beginner level
I kept doing the candy bar job for a bit after I moved to Brisbane for uni, but got tired of going back home every weekend to work, so my auntie helped me get a job as a book shelving person at the uni library. In this glamorous position I got to wear black pants or skirt and a voluminous red polo shirt. Sex-ay. My job was to put ALL OF THE BOOKS away. Over and over again. Bloody science students and their bloody huge textbooks. Always USING THEM. It never ended.
Pros: Location, having money, peaceful nature of workplace. I did some extra work over Christmas once in the Engineering library. Turns out engineers don't use books. So I spent my shifts hiding in a corner of the library reading. Gave me a rather unrealistic impression of librarianship I have to say.
Cons: Heavy books. Working with librarians who are a bit...um..something. I am a librarian now so I can say that. Also being regularly berated by one of the fulltime shelvers who thought I was really boring. He was a middle aged man whose main passion was playing in a folk music band. He interpreted my eye rollingness at all his tales from the 70s as "wowserism". As if. *rolls eyes*.
Cirque du Slapdash
At one point I got an extra job on top of the library work to save money for an overseas trip. It was with the...wait for it...Cirque du Soleil. NOT, I hasten to add, as a performer. More's the pity. No, I was hired by some Class A Bitchface Employment Agency Bitches to work the bar. They hated me from the word go because I had another job as well and was constantly turning down their offers of extra shifts. Also I burnt the popcorn once. And was a bit up myself and also a bit gloomy and depressed.
Pros: Money. Kind of interesting I guess working out at a circus site. I had to sell popcorn in the Grande Chapiteau (aka Tent). This started out as a negative, but I decided to pretend I was part of the act and so walked around the stands yelling "POPCORN GET YOUR POPCORN" in a sort of DRAMATIC and ARTISTIC way and it became quite fun. I developed an excellent champagne bottle opening technique. I even had a callous! Cool.
Cons: Bitchface employment HR agency bitches. Weird hospitality industry co worker types who didn't like me and were always PARTYING ON afterwards when I was slinking home to be sad and depressed. General vibe of being disliked. Poo heads.
So there you have it, that's a brief wrap up of my youthful working life. From it I think you can surmise that I am a lazy, ungrateful, fairly unlikeable snobbish wretch. I needed a smack on the bottom.


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The Texas Commandery of the Naval Order Annual Banquet and Nimitz
Leadership Award presentation will be on Saturday, 18 FEB, 2017
at the Houston Racquet Club,
10709 Memorial Drive Houston, Texas
All companions and their guests are invited and urged to attend.
General Michael Hagee, USMC (Ret) will receive on behalf of
Captain Norman "Dusty" Kleiss, USN (Ret/Deceased)
2016 Nimitz Leadership Award
A no-host cocktails reception period, i.e., pay as you go, will begin at 1830.
Dinner will commence at 1930 followed by the presentation of the 2016 Nimitz Leadership Award and remarks by General Hagee.
A. Chicken Piccata – sautéed, served on a bed of herb rice pilaf; seasonal vegetables; lemon caper compound butter; cost - $ 55 per person
B. Shrimp and Crab – four jumbo shrimp stuffed with jumbo lump crab meat dressing, served with roasted sweet potato puree and steamed broccoli, finished with choron sauce; cost - $ 66 per person
C. Sea Bass – sautéed, served on a bed of wild mushrooms with balsamic glazed young onions, scallop soufflé potatoes, finished in champagne beurre blanc; cost - $ 70 per person
Warm Center Cake
Warm liquid Chocolate Center Cake, served with Chocolate Rum Sauce and topped with Vanilla Ice Cream
Please make your reservations by completing the attached form and forwarding with payment to LT Steven Howell, USNR (Ret), TCNOUS Treasurer, 1836 Norfolk Street, Houston, TX 77098; C – (713) 822-0363E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Reservations, with payment, are due to LT Howell NLT Monday, 13 February 2016.
DRESS: Dinner Dress/Mess Dress Blues, Tuxedo, Business Suit


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Miami Dolphins
From 'big brother' to draft boss, Dolphins' Chris Grier ready for his closeup
Mock and Roll - NFL Draft Time with Greg Cote
Long before Mike Grier was a trailblazing star in the National Hockey League, he was a nervous senior in high school without a ton of collegiate options.
His brother, Chris, is older by a half-decade. But the two were close growing up in their sports-crazy home some 30 miles outside of Boston.
And so when Mike Grier was at a life crossroads nearly a quarter-century ago, Chris couldn't help but sense it. Big Brother, who was out of the house, decided to give Mike a long-distance pep talk right before the year's biggest tournament.
"He wrote me a real nice letter, just telling me that he's proud of me, that I'm a good player, that everything was going to work out and to keep working hard," Mike Grier told the Miami Herald on Thursday. "I kept that with me."
Big Brother was right. Mike starred in the tournament, impressed Boston University enough to earn a partial scholarship, and 15 NHL seasons later is easily the most famous member of his impressive family.
Chris is the most anonymous. And he is just fine with it.
But that all changes Thursday night, when Bobby Grier's oldest son makes his first draft pick as an NFL general manager. Chris Grier will have control of the Miami Dolphins' draft room when they go on the clock with the 13th overall pick (or earlier, if they trade up).
"I'm not nervous," Grier said of this weekend's draft. "I've been doing it, been in this business for so long, and I think we're prepared going through our process. I'm excited."
He should be. Thursday night is the realization of a lifelong dream. As a teenager, Chris spent his free time breaking down college tape on VHS in the hopes of someday following in the family business.
Dad Bobby is a legendary football scout whose long career will end with this weekend's draft. Bobby Grier spent more than three decades in the NFL, first with the Patriots and then the Texans. He will retire next week.
Houston might be home now, but his sons grew up in New England. The Grier family moved to Holliston, a picturesque, colonial speck of a town, when Chris was just 7. Roughly 10,000 people lived there during his childhood, but Holliston's gene pool was special. Holliston might have the nation's highest per capita of famous (and near-famous) people produced.
Along with Grier and his brother, actor Michael Mantenuto (star of the movie Miracle), country music star Jo Dee Messina and longtime major leaguer Mark Sweeney all grew up there at roughly the same time.
Football was fun in Massachusetts, but hockey was king. So Bobby got his boys skates and pushed them on the ice. Chris was a goalie, but knew relatively early on that football was his passion.
Mike, meanwhile, couldn't play football. He was simply too big.
"Massachusetts had a weight limit, 115 [pounds]," Chris Grier said. "He was bigger so he could never play. He was a really good baseball player. And then hockey, he was in [Sports Illustrated's] Faces in the Crowd when he was 9 years old."
Mike was a terror on the ice, earning national acclaim after scoring 200 goals in two seasons as a Mite.
The Grier brothers might have had sibling rivalry, but the pecking order was never in dispute — even when Mike outgrew Chris.
"As I got older, I was a little bit bigger, but I was still scared of him," said Mike Grier, a 6-foot, 224-pound forward who scored 162 goals in 1,060 career games. "I didn't realize I could probably take him. He had the big brother edge on me."
Chris' take?
"You know how it is, he always wanted to hang out," he said. "My friends and I would play tackle football. We'd rough him up and stuff. We tell him, 'We made you tough and what you are right now.' "
Now, it's Chris looking up to Mike, at least in terms of titles. The younger Mike owns a Stanley Cup ring earned as a scout for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2015.
The older Grier, meanwhile, has been to the playoffs just three times since joining the Dolphins as an area scout in 2000. In the time since, he's survived eight coaching changes and five general managers plus Bill Parcells.
After yet another housecleaning this winter, Stephen Ross and Mike Tannenbaum decided the best hire they could make was already in the building. The Dolphins promoted Grier to GM, making him the highest-ranking black executive in franchise history — two decades after his brother became the first black American-born and trained player to play in the NHL.
At team headquarters, Chris Grier works in concert with Adam Gase to make up one of the youngest coach-personnel chief tandems in all of pro sports.
"I know there are a lot of people looking at what we're doing right now, and he's making sure that we're prepared and making sure that we're all on the same page," Gase said. "The communication with him has been off the charts and it's easy in my position to be around a guy like that."
No one will pay closer attention to Grier's weekend than father Bobby and brother Mike. After four decades in the background, it's finally Chris' time in the spotlight.
"He's gone about it the right way," Mike Grier said. "I hope he definitely becomes more famous than I am in the sports world. And if that came true, nothing would make me happier. I think he'll do a great job."
Adam H. Beasley: 305-376-3565, @AdamHBeasley


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Ashley Melillo's journey to eating plant-based was not only her own journey, in many ways she shared her journey with others as she grew her blog from a general food focus to vegetarian to finally plant-based.
Hear her story on today's episode and deepen your own connection to plant-based food.
Do you have a question or concern about your journey to eating plant-based vegan food? Reach out to Mark Dillon at MarkDillon.com/Contact
Check out the blog and join the conversation at MarkDillon.com or directly to the blog post with all the links mentioned for this episode at MarkDillon.com/88
Book Recommendation:
Quick, Easy & One of the Hottest Kitchen Appliances:
Stay in touch at:
Restaurant Recommendations:
Some links may contain affiliations that offer compensation for Mark Dillon and/or MarkDillon.com


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Husband (to wife): Dinner?
Wife: Margarita.
Husband: Call ------ Restaurant and see if they have a full bar.
(insert phone call here)
Wife (upon hanging up): They have plenty of empty seats at the bar. I quote.
Husband: !
* yes, this is a true story from this weekend (via the office). I heart Fullerton.


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Emergency Medical Authorization
It's vital that we have current medical information on each band student. Even though you have submitted it to the school, we're not able to pull those every time we travel to away games, parades or band shows, so we need our own copies to take with us. There have been instances where we have had to seek medical care and had to refer to the form. The form is available here as a downloadable PDF and can be e-mailed to either Mrs. Moniaci or the Boosters, who will forward to her.


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Open Access This article is
- freely available
- re-usable
Sustainability 2012, 4(12), 3377-3386; https://doi.org/10.3390/su4123377
The Genes of Tulou: A Study on the Preservation and Sustainable Development of Tulou
School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 19 October 2012; in revised form: 28 November 2012 / Accepted: 11 December 2012 / Published: 18 December 2012
This paper analyzes the formation of Tulou villages and the characteristics of Tulou buildings. The genes of the Tulou are examined within the unique physical forms and the significant social culture background. The paper is concerned with how to apply the valuable genes in the preservation and sustainable development of Tulou with a special case analysis.
Keywords:Tulou; genes; preservation; sustainable development; Hakka culture; earthen buildings; round houses; sustainability
1. Introduction
Tulou is a unique type of rural dwelling in China which carries with it its social background, history, and local culture [1,2,3,4]. The Tulou provides an important architectural gene pool, in which many valuable genes can be abstracted for contemporary architectural design [5,6]. The gene of Tulou refers to a combination of factors which affected the formation and development of Tulou, as well as its morphological characteristics. It includes both recessive genes of social culture, and dominant genes of physical characteristics. There are two groups of genes in Tulou. One group includes genes of social culture, which note the history of society and culture. Each Tulou village reflects the order of consanguinity habitation, environmental concern, respect for nature, a concept of fully using local resources, etc (Figure 1). The other group is comprised of genes of physical morphology, such as varied building styles, a self-contained system, use of natural colors, cohesive space, feasible techniques, among others. All these genes deserve in-depth understanding for suitable preservation and sustainable development of Tulou.
Figure 1. The relationship between Tulou and nature is that it expresses the Chinese ancient philosophy of harmony between man and nature.
2. The Genes of Social Culture
Since the beginning, Tulou has been recording the society, the history and the culture of the time [3]. It is a good interpretation of the relationship between the Chinese people and nature. It also embodies the typical oriental philosophy.
2.1. Record of Society, History and Culture
Tulou evolves with the development of society. It is evidence of the migration from the central plains to refuge in southern area of China (Figure 2). As the footprint of the history, Tulou is of great significance to anthro-sociological study. From the aspect of sociology, a Tulou is usually occupied by one large family clan of several generations. The family clan unites together to face risk and defend each others, the Tulou house in which people are living together is the effective stronghold space. It exhibits its unique characteristic as a model of the community housing of equals. Moreover, one vertical set of Tulou section from ground floor to "penthouse" floor serves as a living unite. Each family does not only maintain its privacy, but also enjoys social communication with others. Nowadays, the community dependence is weakening while emphasis on private property is strengthening. Both communal living and privacy should be fully satisfied. The many inscribed tablets, the couplets on pillars and in the ancestral hall, are the location of cultural life in Tulou. In the active scenes of life in the Tulou, one finds the concept of "Fengshui", a farming-learning culture, as well as the Confucian ideology of order. The overall harmony is the essence of traditional culture and it should be actively promoted (Figure 3).
2.2. Adaptable to Conditions, Respect of Nature
In China, the classical philosophy insists on the harmony between the building and the surrounding nature. When selecting the site of settlement, the natural environment is deeply considered and respected, such as choosing a site with water in front and a hill at the back. This is what is called "Feng-Shui" (Chinese traditional concept for the relations between human being and nature), in Chinese history, it has become a pattern language (Figure 4). There is a kind of interdependent relation between the Tulou village and the natural environment. The mountains provide rich sources for living and production. The rivers give the convenience of come-and-go. Tulou forms the ecological connection with the nature over a long period of time (Figure 5). On the contrary, with the expansion cities today, people are the first priority, and natural ecology is ignored to some extent. It is becoming more and more difficult for the city to deal with disaster under extreme weather conditions. We should learn from Tulou to improve the relationship between the nature and urbanity.
2.3. Local Material, Adaptable Technology
The construction of Tulou is conditioned by the level of technology, economy etc. The Hakka made the most use of local resources. They chose adaptable technology to build houses comfortable to live in (Figure 6). The rammed earth wall building technology is efficient. It saves labor and is easy to get all the necessary local materials (Figure 7). The adaptable technology applied in Tulou provides many significant examples of energy conservation. Tulou has many artistic, technical and ecological values for architecture.
3. The Genes of Physical Morphology
Genes of physical morphology can be absorbed and applied in an effective way for architecture preservation. These include the free styles of overall layout of Tulou villages, and the strict round or square shape planned for an individual Tulou house. Characteristic expression in form, space, construction and material, etc.—all of these have been inherited into a vital gene pool of Tulou, from which we can learn a lot for the regional architectural design of today (Figure 8).
3.1. The Genes of Tulou: The Overall System
Tulou entirely follows the architectural tradition of China: Overall balance and order of building groups. The axis hold in a Tulou cluster is based on physical geography, instead of on social hierarchy. The layout of the building group adjusts the relation between nature and society in a topological method depending on who is living in the Tulou and using the Chinese special pattern language of architecture, such as Feng-Shui, Confucian philosophy, or Taoism and Buddhism (without professional architects). Collective consciousness and public participation promote the adjustment. Paying close attention to the overall environment is vital in the preservation and sustainable development of Tulou.
3.2. The Genes of Individual Tulou Houses
The plan prototype of Tulou includes circles, squares, rectangles, or a combination. It follows the precise composing principles, this morphology is very interesting and forms a lot of special space spirits. The fine order of Tulou is worth inheriting in order to improve today's architectural design language. The overall appearance of color of Tulou matches the earth around it, and obtains the organic connection with the earth, yet still bears some vivid colors in the window frames, door heads, spring festival scrolls, etc.
The two-storey bottom of a Tulou is solid, with no windows, for the purpose of defense. Windows are open only from the third to fifth storeys, with varying sizes. Extended eaves are used to prevent rain from dampening the rammed earth walls. The shine shadow of the windows and eaves makes rich layers and gives a stereoscopic feeling; Tulou presents a unique beauty.
The concept that "the form follows the function" is well embodied in the Tulou house, which is full of vitality even today. Poetic architectural space is made by adaptable techniques, such as regional construction methods and use of local materials. The earth-wood-structured Tulou focuses on the ecological factures of material, which mirrors some sustainable design concepts.
The inside and outside spatial patterns in Tulou are differentiated. The layout of Tulou followed the "closed outside, open inside" concept: An enclosure wall with living quarters around the periphery and a common courtyard at the center. The interstitial space between one Tulou house and another is very special, as people can get a feeling of being "in between" when in it, and the space of "in between (gap)" of the Tulous provides a variety of living scenes and is the spirit of the space of Tulou. Nowadays, some new elements intervene in the self-enclosed Tulou that will help to adapt it to a new situation. The mix may bring the genetical modification in its form, space, material and concept. The in-between space does have potential value for the preservation and sustainable development of Tulou.
4. Thinking about Protection and the Sustainable Development of Tulou
4.1. Protection and the Sustainable Development of Tulou
As another type of architecture, Tulou has the following properties: Time and space, technology, artistry, ethnicity and regionalism, history and age. The Tulou gene is an important part of the protection development of Tulou. The socio-cultural gene and physical gene of Tulou should be used in different types of approaches and concern in its protection and development. Tulou protection is focused on the protection of traditional culture and history of the nation, the inheritance of the harmonious spirit, and the concept of natural ecosystems. The key to all the elements above is a holistic and systemic protection, such as treating a Tulou village as a complete system and thus protecting a whole village and its surrounding environment. Tulou sustainable development lies in learning and development of Tulou genes for today's design. We engage our Tulou regionalism design with modernism. The following features are, indeed, feasible: A natural experience, climate conscientiousness, cultural heritage, form abstraction, space creation, materials and tectonics—all these should be combined with modern life and aesthetics to create sustainability development out of the Tulou gene. Abstractly, Tulou protection and sustainable development thinking can be summarized in the following Table 1.
|1.Tulou gene protection
|whole village protection
|Protecting culture and history
|nature harmony
|2.Tulou gene sustainable development
|Combining modern tech with traditional skill
|modern life adaptation—aim
|culture heritage, space creation,
|the soul of cultural gene—duty
|natural experience, climate conscientiousness, using local materials
|the essence of regional gene—essence
Shaosen Wang 2012-11.
4.2. Tulou Regionalism Design Project—Case Analysis
This project is a hotel with Tulou style, located in the Tulou region near a river in Ruijin Hakka region. The basic information of the project is listed in Table 2.
|Site area
|2.77 ha
|Total area
|41000 m2
|hotel and resort
|Jiangxi Ruijin (Hakka region) China
|Shaosen Wang, Guangming Gao
|Design time
Shaosen Wang 2012-11.
The designer excavated the river into the site, designed a water garden between the hotels and resorts, and made the master plan close to nature with some other differently sized gardens. The design obtained an organic connection with nature that is the Tulou gene essence; the hotel was designed with circular morphology to match the crossroads corner, as well as with a connection to the Tulou prototype. The architectural form, color, and space were abstracted from Tulou with professor Shaosen Wang's pan-architecture diagram method, which uses a diagram to study urban architecture and landscape abstractly (Figure 9). This design attempted to analyze Tulou gene application and embody the combination between Tulou regionalism and modernity (Figure 10 and Figure 11).
Figure 10. Design with Tulou regionalism (the site plan was designed with a natural hill and river).
5. Conclusions
The study on the genes of Tulou is an essential part of preservation and renovation of Tulou. The two gene groups have different applying methods, and different functions in the preservation and development of Tulou. Genes of social culture value the preservation of the harmonious spirit of Tulou. Genes of physical morphology value both the overall system and the genetic modification by new intervention in Tulou building. Through this genetic modification, Tulou will maintain its sustainable development in the new era.
Conflict of Interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).


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Stain Removal Methods for Carpets
Carpets are good in insulating the floor making it a good home commodity. With many colors and designs available, it also enhances the indoor aesthetics of the house. Most people worry about the dirt and dust on the carpet which they have to remove frequently. The worse thing is stain which cannot be removed as easily as dirt particles. People have to use various cleaning techniques as well as products in order to clean the carpet without damaging it. If you end up damaging your carpet or failed to remove stains from it, it is a good idea to hire a professional carpet cleaner.
Different Carpet Cleaning Techniques
Carpet Absorbent Method
The Key Elements of Great Carpets
This is a cleaning technique of dissolving the dust and dirt materials with the use of water. Aside from the water, it is combined with a cleaning solution that can be applied on the carpet to dissolve the stain before a vacuum finished. It does not take much time to do while still cleaning the carpet effectively. The time it takes to dry the carpet after applying the cleaning solution is very short.
A Simple Plan: Businesses
Bonnet Method
A lot of people would use this technique for cleaning their carpet on stains that cannot be removed easily. The carpet does not have to get wet a lot with a rotating brush effectively removing stains. This cleaning method requires minimal water unlike other types of carpet cleaning techniques. For optimum cleaning result, use cleaning detergents made for bonnet method.
Carpet cleaning through shampoo solutions is popular around the world. The shampoo technique is divided into two ways. You can choose a method of soaking the carpet with a shampoo solution and use a vacuum to dry the carpet. There is also the option of aerosol foam shampooing. The aerosol foam is sprayed on the stain area and letting it dry naturally. You still need to vacuum the carpet. Make sure not to use shampoo that is ammonia based or the carpet will stink.
Steam Technique
This is considered the most popular carpet cleaning technique. Vacuum is the first equipment to use with this method. Next is stain removal as well as the left dirt with the help of pressurized and steamy water. Steaming technique works well with shampoo or detergent solution. Even the stubborn stains and hard to remove dirt can be solved through this. Wait for around half an hour after applying the cleaning solution before steaming the carpet.
Avoid placing the carpet on the floor when you are not sure if the carpet is really dry. There are equipment like vacuum that can help dry the carpet quicker. If you are not comfortable cleaning the carpet, contact a carpet cleaning company. Just choose the cleaning company carefully.


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BOC news hounds! Here's a torrent of hard boiled facts for this succulent month of April:
LA venue change! Largo decided they didn't want to host our show, 4 days ago... That is to say, 4 days before the show. We'll just leave it at that.... Forced to scramble, we scrambled well and landed a showcase slot at Genghis Cohen ... 8 to 10pm. Now you will be able to watch our LA show AND eat premium Chinese food before or after... And tix are only ten bucks - the least we could do to say "sorry for the hassle" to our LA folks. Raina Rose, that quiet wonder of melody and wordisms, opens the night. 8 sharp.
We continue to be grateful to the NPR mothership for loving us up - the latest ultra cool show to throw Real Midnight some love is World Cafe, featuring us in a playlist with other struggling upstarts like Tom Waits and David Bowie ( Rest easy sweet Star Man) ... We plan to do a live taping with the great WC folks soon - stay tuned...
We were lucky and honored to be harmony singers for Rhiannon Giddens - the undisputed queen of 21st century roots music -- for her Tomorrow is My Turn Tour concert taping for Infinity Hall Live which will air on PBS this summer. It is going to be previewed on IHL's website on April 8th. Here is a IHL web exclusive sneak peak of Rhiannon's version of Lost on the River (co-written with Bob Dylan!) which she originally recorded with The New Basement Tapes... It was a truly magical night- Rhiannon is breathtaking, masterful, at the height of her powers.
And finally we are thrilled to announce that we will be joining the great Luther Dickinson for a Special Double Bill Friday May 13th ( it's auspicious and lucky!) at one of our favourite venues in this world, Old Town School of Folk Music, which also happens to be in our home town! Tickets go on sale for members tomorrow and to the general public April 8th- this will be a night to remember!
see you down the road soon,
with love, your BOC


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I decided to start off my already long holiday weekend by calling in sick on Thursday and trekking down to Canterbury Park for a little live poker action. If there's one thing I learned while in Vegas a few weeks ago, it's that sitting in front of my computer in my poker bubble, grinding out small wins day-to-day just isn't that much fun. It's a good method for avoiding the dystentery, but I'm not ready to go all Howard Hughes and avoid everything, not yet anyhow.
I was immediately pointed to an open seat on a $4/$8 game in the middle of the room, stopped by the cage to buy two racks of blues from the cute asian girl behind the counter and promptly sat my ass down in the hard number 7 seat.
5 hours, numerous kicks to my groin, and that whole buy-in later, I'm dealt my best hand of the day; two black kings. I'm the first to act. I look around at the old and disheveled, say "raise" and everyone folds like a house of cards in a hurricane. I picked up my huge $6 win for that hand, tossed the dealer a chip, laughed while wishing the rest of the table good luck, and walked out of the cardroom with a smile on my face. Just one of those days.
On my way out, though, I tried to exact revenge on the cardroom by 'stealing' three free poker magazines. That whole revenge and spite thing only works if the other person involved cares, or I don't know, isn't getting the issues for free. So, in reality I paid over $200 for $17 worth of free poker magazines. Take that, Canterbury! I got you good, you fucker!
While playing live is much more fun, not to mention rewarding(you just mentioned it, 'tard.), I really would appreciate it if other players wouldn't eat a tub of buttery popcorn to the table. He did ask if we wanted any, so he does get a B+ for generosity, but come on. Popcorn? While tickling poker chips? Get off my table, sir.
After returning from Vegas, I deposited a little money in both Doyle's Room and Stars. The money on Stars--not more than $150--is almost gone after a drunken 3/6 6max session this last weekend with Joe Speaker(and Spaceman as a railbird). Never again, sirs. Never again.
The money on Doyle's was shifted over to Full Tilt last night because I just can't take it anymore. Doyle's has a glitch so annoying, and it makes me wonder if I'm the only player to complain about it. I can't be, but it hasn't been fixed in the 10 months of continuous emails to support, so I feel like I am. I'm so rone-ree.
The software has an annoying attribute that causes a table to override everything else you're doing when it's your turn. You know how Party has that little gold pop-up in the lower right hand corner when it's your turn on another table? Instead of something useful like that, Doyle's forces you to act on a table, even when you're trying to type in a bet on another table. It's annoying, and makes it almost impossible to multi-table full ring games. Forget chatting, and don't even think about writing while playing. Live blogging is a definite no-no.
But I don't play full ring games. I play 6 max, almost exclusively. And Doyle's in-your-face, act now or die! attitude means I can't get through a whole session without wanting to toss me laptop at the wall.
Add to that the lack of pokertracker support(Pat said he's working on it right now), and Full Tilt gets my business until things change for the better. I fear that adding PT support to the site will squeeze out all the soft tables and bad players, though.


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With my interest in fashion, I have been very excited about the upcoming Perth Fashion Festival, 4 – 12 September 2008 – its 10th anniversary!
I had the opportunity to meet up and chat with Mariella Harvey-Hanrahan, director of the Perth Fashion Festival, to find out more about her, and to have a little peak into what's going to be cool and exciting at this year's festival.
I discovered that it was in fact Mariella herself who first founded the festival in Perth 10 years ago. At that time, she was working as a fashion writer at a magazine, Bridal Options, which she also founded, and she had a fashion jewellery label called Lou Lou.
She has since moved on from both the magazine and her boutique, and now dedicates her time to running the PFF. She also happens to be a mother of two, and so of course, I completely appreciate the energy and passion she must have.
Mariella was lovely to talk to. She was glowing with energy and excitement for the Festival and what it does for all facets of the Western Australian fashion industry – fashion designers, emerging designers, models, photographers, stylists, retailers and more – all making a contribution to the national and international fashion scene.
This year marks the 10th Anniversary of the Perth Fashion Festival, with the theme 'A Decade of Fashion'.
The Festival will run over 10 days, featuring runway shows, awards, free events for the public, guest appearances by designers and celebrities and many other events. The full details will not be revealed to the public until the official programme launch on Tuesday 29th July, which is also when the 2008 website will be launched.
Tipped to be the highlight of the event is the new 'WA Designer Collections 1 and 2'. Collection 1 will feature 15 already successful Western Australian fashion labels, and Collection 2 will showcase 10 emerging and independent WA designers.
I'll be at the programme launch, and I can't wait to see who these designers are!
Until then, you can visit the 2007 Perth Fashion Festival to see what went down last year.
Photo credits: Garment by GOSPEL, Neckpiece by Yang Li.


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Thursday, June 25, 2009
Digital Storytelling and Animoto are Mutually Exclusive.
While Animoto is a very slick, flashy tool that creates eye-popping results, it really isn't a suitable tool for Digital Storytelling, in my opinion. I guess the first thing is to define "Digital Storytelling." For many, it has morphed into virtually any movie making, visual and sound project. However, ther term coined by Joe Lambert and the late Dana Atchley refers to a personal sharing experience rooted in narrative. What animoto creates is what Lambert refers to as "Digital Spectacle." The emphasis in animoto is visual effects...not story.
The second thing I question is exactly what kids learn by dumping pictures and music into animoto? Even the intro says, "No two movies WE make are the same." Wouldn't we be better off having kids do the creation?
Here's the thing: I guess it has to do with expectations. If the teacher's goal is to create dazzling visual spectacle, then, yes, animoto is a great choice. However, if the focus is on developing a story with a point, dramatic question, containing emotional content through the fusion of story, carefully-chosen images, voice, and soundtrack, then perhaps another platform might serve better. I use Photostory 3, I have seen great stories done in iMovie, Movie maker, Adobe Premier, Pinnacle Studio, and even Voice thread. The difference is the control of the student.
14 comments:
- K. Shelton said...
Your points are very well made and so on the money. I use animoto and love it for the visual spectacle of a "story" but for digital storytelling it is not the best or wisest option.
- June 25, 2009 at 2:04 PM
- Joe B said...
I'm with you there, Jon (and Ken).
- June 25, 2009 at 2:06 PM
- eplybon said...
I agree - I do use Animoto in my classroom, but for very different purposes than digital storytelling. It is one of the tools that I always tell teachers they need to really watch how much they are using it because it has little value in the digital storytelling world.
- June 25, 2009 at 2:08 PM
- jorech said...
Thanks, Ken. Glad you made the distinction. Glad you also use the term "Spectacle."
Joe, We are kindred spirits.
- June 25, 2009 at 2:09 PM
- jorech said...
To eplybon: Right on...a little knowledge can be dangerous.
- June 25, 2009 at 2:15 PM
- Amor8 said...
Hola Jon!
I'm leaving a link for you from José Picardo's Spanish class. http://www.asisehace.net/blog/?tag=animoto
His students used audacity to do a voice over in Animoto. Granted this is more like research project rather than DST, but they used the target language and images to put together presentations that lasted 1:30-2:30 minutes in length. For a language class, that is enough speaking time. I think that they are pretty good examples. I still prefer Voicethread for the same purpose, but I think his student projects were well executed and met several standards. Let me know what you think.
- June 25, 2009 at 2:50 PM
- jorech said...
Hola Sherry,
I wish my Spanish were better. My question is how closely does the narrative line coincide with each image. Second, how much control do you have over the order, and duration of images? Seems like they are all on about the same amount of time. There are some great images in the first one, it is a shame there are so many wild transitions that draw attention away from either story or the images themselves.
Let's talk more next week.
- June 25, 2009 at 5:51 PM
- Amor8 said...
You are right about the images and the oral component. The images are thematic and don't specifically correspond to what the boys are saying. In my opinion, Voicethread works better because the kids can record directly on the application. The Animoto projects would require production of the visual separate from the audio. Voicethread also allows for control of the images and narration. I think the author in Animoto has some say as to which images should be emphasized, but the transitions and fade ins & outs are random.
- June 26, 2009 at 7:06 AM
- Gareth Morlais said...
Daniel Meadows stresses the importance of the _considered_ narrative. I feel the storyteller needs to be in control of their own visual narrative as well as the audio narrative. The randomness of some of these automatic slideshow generators can lead to serendipitous sequences but a DS based entirely on this lacks personal consideration.
- June 26, 2009 at 8:52 AM
- Craig said...
You nailed it. We've been looking for something as simple as PhotoStory. I thought Animoto would do it, but it's too much uncontrolled flash, and not enough of the thoughtful elements and assets that make digital story telling great.
- November 3, 2009 at 8:41 AM
- Randy Rodgers said...
I found your post searching for examples of digital storytelling using Animoto. I am going to play the role of devil's advocate here. I think your definition of a digital story is too narrow, if you indeed don't think Animoto is a suitable tool. There are many ways to tell a story, and they don't all require text or speech. Art, music, and dance are powerful examples. When a user uses Animoto to combine poignant images and music that reinforces the theme, I feel it is a fantastic tool for telling digital stories, and, in fact, requires greater creativity on the part of the storyteller. As an example, I recently made a show using images from my daughter's infancy through the present day to celebrate her 10th birthday. The music I selected was Dancing with Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman, available from Animoto. The show moved many who viewed it to tears, as the music and images did a beautiful job of communicating my feelings of love and pride in my daughter and the bittersweet realization that her childhood is fleeting.
I'd add that good examples of text-free or text-minimal stories are seen in truly high-quality PowerPoint presentations. When a creator takes the time to find the most powerful and memorable images, the effects are actually greater than when they rely upon text.
I don't see Animoto as the end-all-be-all digital storytelling tool, but it certainly isn't "mutually exclusive." Such a view limits the possibilities for creative expression, in my opinion
- October 11, 2010 at 7:48 PM
- jorech said...
Hi Randy,
Sorry to take so long to respond. Thank you for your thoughtful post. Lately, many people have expanded the term "Digital Storytelling" to encompass a wide range of movies. I guess we need to define it then, right? According to Joe Lambert (the inventer of the genre) DST has 7 essential elements: Point, Dramatic Question, Emotional Content, Pacing, Gift of your Voice, Soundtrack, adn Economy. Can animoto have some of these qualities? Yes. All 7? not usually. There is no doubt that the presentation you made for your daughter was quite moving for your family, and will be treasured, and for something like that, animoto is ideal...a montogage of pictures and music brought together artfully. The problem I have is that most of the creation is out of the hands of the "creator" and placed on the program, (panning, zooming, transitions, slide duration, pausing) also, the emphasis seems to be on flash rather than story, or what Lambert calls "Digital Spectacle." I do agree with you that "story" can be told in many ways, I just want to make sure the focus is on story. and not on flash. Thanks for your comments.
- November 15, 2010 at 12:44 PM
- James Gubbins said...
Plain and simple and right on target (as always)! Not only does an application like Animoto not lend itself to Digital Storytelling. It also does not seem to adhere to any of the NETS standards without an extreme blurring of the boundaries. It does all the work for you and does not allow for thought process. Animoto is more of a "Toy" than a "Tool". I may have to "borrow" this post as a clear example for my session on Wednesday! Thanks as always for a great post.
- February 21, 2011 at 7:09 PM
- justsoyouknow said...
I think Animoto is great for school presentation too, especially long ones, can help student visualize more rather than describing it in words great for the academic advantage.
- September 19, 2012 at 12:04 AM


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The one thing I've learned is that the only thing you can never change about your house is the location.
So many of these "must-haves" are changeable - like the style of tub or fixtures. If it's a must-have, then it's a dealbreaker.
Dog door sized for those giant breed dogs, and a bedroom of their own
On the HOA front, we didn't have one where we lived, and the house next to us got really run down after a divorce. Like saplings growing in the yard because of no mowing for years, gutters falling off, trash in the yard. Town wouldn't do anything about it because the property taxes were paid, and when we moved to another state, we had at least one buyer who drove by, saw the neighbor's house, and decided not to make an offer. We only had 2 other offers, one of which was "foreclosure priced", so that was significant. So we are not as anti-HOA as we used to be, we are now in a townhouse with one, and we picked a neighborhood and HOA that wasn't super strict so there is some flexibility. The risk is that that could change, of course, but so can neighbors anywhere.
Quote from: Rural on February 19, 2016, 10:36:20 AMDog door sized for those giant breed dogs, and a bedroom of their ownHAHA. That's amazing if you can get it to work. They'll still want to sleep in YOUR spot, in YOUR bed.
Wow, not sure exactly how people are coming up with answers to that. I'm a very different person now than I was ten years ago. Ten years before that, I was a very different person. Ten years from now, I'll probably be a very different person. No place is perfect, and no place will be ideal forever. You can get used to living just about anywhere and may change your mind over time. Because of that, the idea of a 'forever' house is a bit silly to me.
12. A wood deck or concrete patio off the back of the house for grilling, relaxing & entertaining
I am doing my research to make sure I don't want to repeat home buying/selling again. A paid off house is our LAST and FINAL goal before FIRE.


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Inspiring and Empowering Entrepreneurs
Starting a business is about more than just making money; many of the benefits of starting up are actually independent of whether or not the business is commercially successful. Entrepreneurs learn many new skills that can help enhance their employability. Starting a business can help a person build their confidence, offer a sense of achievement and raise self-esteem.
Business, whether for profit or not, can also drive positive change. So starting a business can allow an entrepreneur to make a difference in areas they care about the most - and to do so without having to fundraise and organise volunteers.
Above all, entrepreneurship is the most effective mechanism for enhancing both absolute and relative social mobility, which is critical to providing greater pathways to equality in society.
Of course starting a business is not easy. It's not something that is taught in schools and while the internet is overloaded with advice and guidance aimed at those wishing to start a business, it can be hard to cut through the noise and find the information that is most valuable. Entrepreneurship is all about how you react to what is happening around you - the only way you can truly learn is by doing it for yourself. So a lack of money and experience of starting a business is enough to prevent many people from having a go - it makes it a daunting prospect.
Virgin Start Up is a not-for-profit organisation, founded by Sir Richard Branson, that supports entrepreneurs through the process of starting a business. They work with entrepreneurs from all backgrounds, no matter their financial circumstances, whether they have experience in business or not, to develop their idea into a fundable proposition. They then offer a start-up loan of anything between £500 and £25,000 in order to turn the idea into reality and an experienced mentor to help guide the entrepreneur through their first year in business.
Ian was appointed Head of Strategic Development for Virgin Start Up shortly after its founding and has played a key role in the development of the organisation that now supports hundreds of entrepreneurs every year.
To find out more about the work of Virgin Start Up in supporting entrepreneurs to realise their dreams of starting a business, visit their website: www.virginstartup.org.


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Honi Honi Tiki Cocktail Lounge- Tropical Sips in the Heart of Hong Kong
Living in the concrete jungle of Hong Kong, I look for any and all opportunities to find a little oasis. Whether that be jetting to the hills for some fresh air and greenery or cruising around the islands on a junk boat let's just say, amongst the chaos one MUST find their own haven. That's not to say that all havens must be found by evacuating the city, no no, that is not it at all, I'm just saying you gotta find YOUR place. Honi Honi is a wonderful oasis in the heart of Central. Step into this Polynesian themed cocktail lounge and forget about the buzz and chaos that lies just outside. With a lush terrace and beautiful design perfectly incorporating Polynesian elements, you will feel like you've stepped out of the city and into a little slice or sip (if you will) of paradise. Serving up the freshest AND tastiest cocktails in town trust me when I say, you won't have trouble forgetting about the the city mayhem! Now when I say that Honi Honi serves up the freshest cocktails in town I mean THE FRESHEST. If your cocktail contains fruit juice, you better believe it will have come straight from the source. That's right, ALL of Honi Honi's cocktails are made with fresh juice (made in store)!
Now if that's not enough to make you wanna wet your whistle, think cocktails served in tiki character cups and sharing cocktails served in pineapples, watermelons and globes....Ahhhmazing. Not into cocktails, never fear, Honi Honi offers up one of the most extensive rum lists I've ever seen! Now with an extensive rum list, you might need some help navigating. Although my rum knowledge starts and ends with Captain Morgan and Bacardi, Honi Honi definitely doesn't lack experts who can help you choose one suiting to your tastes. Now the cocktails on the other hand...
Tropical Storm & Maori Spring Punch
These two gorgeous cocktails are my faves on the menu! Tropical Storm is oh so amazing and delightfully fruity! Concocted with Grey Goose vodka, passions fruit puree, elderflower syrup, guava nectar and strawberry puree, the only problem you'll have with this cocktail is drinking it too fast.... Now Maori Spring Punch on the other hand is not your typical cocktail but nonetheless fabulous! Think sweet, spicy and refreshing. Made with Grey Goose Vodka, lemon juice, watermelon, red thai chili, lemongrass, honey syrup and watermelon syrup. NOM.
Honi Honi All the Way
Say hello to the new best friend. Share sips from this ginormous watermelon filled with Bacardi, Gosling Black Seal Spiced Rum, Grand Marnier, passion fruit purée, watermelon and orange juice!
Honi Honi: 3/F Somptueux Central, 52 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong, 2353 0885
So Hong Kong, make sure you check out this Hong Kong haven on your next night out!
Until next time, your stay THIRSTY Hong Kong,
And remember, your diet starts tomorrow!