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Manchester City 6-0 Tottenham: Spurs' centre-backs constantly exposed as City run riot
Manchester City continued their superb home form with a crushing victory over Tottenham.
Manuel Pellegrini fielded his expected line-up – Martin Demichelis continued at the back, in the absence of Vincent Kompany.
Andre Villas-Boas used Erik Lamela from the start for the first time in the Premier League, and played Aaron Lennon over Andros Townsend. He also used Michael Dawson and Younes Kaboul together at the back, for the first time in the league.
City went ahead within 15 seconds and were completely dominant throughout the game.
City dominant throughout
City went ahead before the game had settled down into a clear pattern, and they effectively started the proper tactical battle with a one-goal head start.
This meant Spurs immediately had to take the game to their opponents, which explains why they dominated possession against a side that generally retains the ball so effectively at home – but the more Spurs pushed forward, the more they were vulnerable to quick attacks.
Spurs lined up with Sandro as the main holding player, Paulinho ahead to his right, and Lewis Holtby as the most advanced of the trio. The structure in this central zone was rather uncertain – Holtby was theoretically the most attacking player but often dropped deeper than the other two to collect possession, and the trio frequently shifted between a '2-1′ and a '1-2′ format.
Sandro's positioning was particularly interesting – although on paper Paulinho should have been offering him protection towards the right of the pitch, Sandro was constantly dragged over towards that side, often to deal with Samir Nasri, who drifted inside dangerously from that wing. It meant Spurs' midfield didn't cover enough lateral ground – often Sandro was sweeping up in a position Paulinho should have been occupying, while Holtby was tooadvanced to offer any defensive support. Throughout the first half, the Spurs midfield was a mess.
Spurs did, at least, have a 3 v 2 in this zone. But City got around this by asking Alvaro Negredo to drop back on Sandro when Spurs had possession – this meant Sergio Aguero could stay higher up and use his pace in behind the defence.
No protection for the centre-backs
Villas-Boas' real area of concern was at the back, where Spurs were without a spare man against a two-man strikeforce. Dawson frequently looks uncomfortable in a high line against anyon, let alone when playing against someone as quick as Aguero, while this was Kaboul's first league start for 15 months. They desperately needed protection, but were left badly exposed by the midfield three.
It was also amazing to see Spurs' full-backs attacking so energetically throughout the first half, when City looked so dangerous on the break. Kyle Walker had some promising moments down the right, but this opened up space for Nasri to break into. On the other flank, Jan Vertonghen is a natural centre-back and could have tucked inside to offer more support to the two centre-backs.
One early moment, when Sandro made a last-ditch tackle on Nasri, who was through on goal, summed up Spurs' problems – the Frenchman was instigating the breaks, and Sandro was forced to make a succession of extremely risky tackles. When he was booked midway through the first half, the situation became even more desperate, and a little like Lucas against Everton the previous day, Sandro needed a teammate to come and sit alongside him for a while.
A more specific problem for Spurs, for the second goal, was them being caught out at the transition between two formations. Holtby briefly dropped into the back to form a back three, to get around the press of City's front two. But he then trotted forward into midfield, Spurs lost the ball, and Holtby found himself in the centre of a back three, and about eight yards out of position – this allowed Aguero space, and eventually City scored.
This was similar to Dortmund's problems against Napoli – if a midfielder drops into a back three as the centre-backs spread, he must be sure his side will be able to work the ball forward before rejoining the midfield, or else his side can leave the most dangerous zone of the pitch entirely open.
City quick on the break
This game was more about Spurs' struggles, but City were brilliantly ruthless at exploiting their weaknesses. The balance throughout the City side was absolutely perfect – they played with two strikers yet didn't become overrun in midfield, they had one wide player drifting inside and the other staying near the flank, they had two central midfielders who could burst forward, but primarily remained in position and protected their centre-backs.
Navas was a key player throughout the game. Vertonghen is a peculiar stand-in at left-back – as a converted central defender one might expect him to be cautious going forward but solid defensively – in fact, he's excellent on the ball in the final third, but gets caught out in wide positions. Navas started and ended the scoring, and also set up Aguero for a fine low finish.
City's performance was a perfect example of the value of using (a) a direct winger on one flank and (b) a creator drifting inside from the other flank. Navas and Nasri's chances created demonstrates that nicely.
City fluidly filled the number ten role, despite basically playing a 4-4-2. Negredo was the number ten at transitions, but then motored forward to become a second striker, with Nasri moving inside to play that role. On other occasions, although mainly in the second half and less frequently than you might expect, Yaya Toure stormed forward to become the attacking midfielder, too. City distributed their players evenly across the pitch, both from flank to flank, and from back to front – it was reminiscent of the way Pellegrini's Villarreal side worked.
Second half
Villas-Boas' half-time substitution, removing Holtby and bringing on Emmanuel Adebayor, and going 4-4-2, seemed amazingly naive. Spurs were being torn apart in the centre of midfield – despite, on paper, having a one-man advantage in that zone – and leaving Sandro even more exposed was suicidal.
It didn't take long before Toure waltzed through the midfield and defence, squaring for Aguero to make it 4-0. When Negredo turned past Dawson and made it 5-0, Villas-Boas saw sense and put Gylfi Sigurdsson on for Roberto Soldado, giving Spurs a third midfielder again, which stemmed the flow for half an hour, before Navas added the sixth on the break. The game was over by half-time, though, which made it amazing Villas-Boas went chasing it.
When Villas-Boas' system fails, it fails quite spectacularly. His insistence upon a high defensive line is always likely to expose his centre-backs against pace, but here the problem was how poorly Dawson and Kaboul were protected, with the midfield shape completely indecipherable, and the full-backs pushing high up. Villas-Boas' strategy can't be blamed for the early concession, and it's understandable that Spurs felt they needed to take the game to City, but they were crying out for some caution, rather than this naive, ambitious approach which played into the hands of City's attackers.
It's difficult to tell precisely what Villas-Boas is trying to do at the moment – whether Tottenham are meant to be controlling games through possession dominance, or transferring the ball quickly into attack. He's also in a peculiar position where he has multiple players in the same position of roughly the same ability, even if they're of different styles. It means he's chopped and changed constantly, and it's difficult to pinpoint one area of the pitch where there's a good relationship between two players – probably only Walker and Townsend, and Sigurdsson and Soldado, have combined consistently this season. None of those 'partnerships' were on show today.
This was a fine City performance, but even they must be slightly confused how they won 6-0 without having to move into top gear. The defining feature of Pellegrini's strategy is the effective use of space, and the way players shift positions as moves unfold. That was particularly obvious today, particularly with Negredo and Nasri's movement. The away form remains a huge concern – and it's something probably not best explained through tactics – but City's peak is greater than that of any other Premier League side.


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The holy city of Jerusalem recently held the gay pride parade. Many mixed emotions have spoke about today's event from both sides of the spectrum. I, as well, have given my two cents worth, as an American and Israeli with the right of free speech.
By all means, I am not a saint nor a person who is ultra religious. I do believe in God and His Torah and Jerusalem the special city and capital of Israel. What people do as far as sexual orientation should be behind closed doors, it's no one's business to see public displays of affection no matter if you are gay or straight.
Israel, as well as certain sects of Judaism, allows for gay marriage. Why is it a sin for people who believe in traditional marriage to say that the gay pride parade should not be in Jerusalem? And what is the point of wearing inappropriate, immodest, almost naked clothing? What does that have to do with gay rights?
Now I want to make one thing clear. Again, I have no problem with people choosing who they want as their life partner. God gave us free will to make these life choices. That is not what this battle is about. To me this is all about a war against God.
For starters, look at the gay pride parade itself. It is a rainbow colored flag. After God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for such acts, He created the rainbow as a promise to mankind, to show He will not destroy the world again. Now the LBGT community uses this symbol as a slap against believers who believe this act is wrong.
Jerusalem is supposed to be the most sacred Holy city. It is deep with religious values and conservative principles. Why is it such a crime to say no we do not want such a parade in our city? They can have it in other Israeli cities, like Tel Aviv is a perfect place.
My point is, this feels like more and more religious conservatives are being shut out and do not have the right to have anything of our own. When does it end?
When Israel gives land up for peace, terrorists take a mile for war. See what I am getting at? If one rule of Torah is allowed to be broken, then more and more rules are allowed, and we will lose the Jewishness of our city, of our country, of the principles which Israel was founded on.
Why are the LBGT protesting governments that allow them to live peacefully? Why aren't they protesting in their safe spaces against Muslim countries that would kill them in an instant. This is a lot like the hypocritical Liberal war on women where they turned it from what was supposed to be rights for women into an anti-Trump march.
While this is not meant to bash anyone personally in the LBGT community, I am against the tyrannical Left who silences religious conservative people. And since I am blessed with this opportunity to have a platform, I will use it to speak for the silent majority.

subset: commoncrawl


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A blog about dogs (and the parks and gardens where dogs are sometimes found).
Zeus looks very handsome amidst the magnolia blooms. And I can almost taste those little radishes. Thanks for the photos!
Good to see Zeus again Meade. Have there been any canine flu cases in Madison? Tim
One so far. Thousands in the Midwest.


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Hope Johnson, whom many of you know from our retail greenhouse, brought me this plant this summer, while muttering something about "bringing coals to Newcastle" and said it was a red morning glory she had started from seed.....well here it, a few months later, and just a beautiful morning riser. It only opens for a short while, maybe if it had been planted with mroe of a south eastern exposure it would stay open longer, but I just love it. It is a dark pink, not a true red (this often happens with flower color description), and the flowers are about the size of a silver dollar. Should we grow and sell this next year?
These Kennebecs have provided me with the most satisfying harvest of my potato growing life. They were planted in the best soil in my garden, the site of an compost pile, and I did not even hill them. They were virtually maintenance free save for some periodic weeding.
This corn was transplanted in late July from seeds that had been started in mid-July. I somehow did not make time for corn any earlier this year. As Elise and I transplanted, I kept wishing for some October corn and a warm fall. Well wishes do come true: while the ears are not terribly big, the flavor is sweet and the texture is just right. This has been going into a fabulous corn salsa recipe I have been canning.
This makes it all worth the toil. I heard this line from a Rilke poem yesterday:
Is not impermanence the very fragrance of this world?
A good thought for autumnal transitions.


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"I want to make a Chocolate bread. Not a batter bread with just baking soda, but a real, yeasted, chocolate bread. Can you help?"
Ask and you shall receive. I expect to hear how it turned out.
Chocolate Bread by David Lebovitz ala the Chocolate Alchemist
3/4 cup (180 ml) whole or low-fat milk, heated until just tepid 1 T active dry yeast
4 tablespoons (75 g) sugar
4 tablespoons (55 g) butter, salted or unsalted
6 ounces (85 g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups (280 g) bread flour
3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces, 90 g) chocolate chips or coarsely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup (70 g) toasted pecans, walnuts, almonds, or hazelnuts, coarsely chopped (optional)
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the milk. Add one tablespoon (11 g) sugar, then set aside in a warm place for 10 to 15 minutes, until bubbles form on the surface.
2. While the yeast is activating, in a small saucepan, melt the butter and 6 ounces chocolate over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir occasionally, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat.
3. Once the yeast mixture is frothy, mix in the remaining sugar, the egg, vanilla, and sea salt.
4. Stir in half the flour, then the melted butter and chocolate, then the remaining flour mixture, stirring until well-incorporated. If using a stand mixer, attach the dough hook and beat for five minutes, until smooth. If making by hand, mix vigorously with a flexible spatula for the same amount of time. The dough will seem quite moist, resembling sticky brownie batter when ready.
5. Cover the bowl and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours.
6. Butter a 9-inch (23 cm) loaf pan.
7. Stir in the chopped chocolate and nuts, if using. Then use a spatula to fold the dough over on itself in the bowl for about thirty seconds, then transfer it to the buttered pan, pressing a bit to spread it to the corners. Let rise in a warm place for one hour.
8. Ten minutes before you're ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC.)
9. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until it feels done and sounds hollow when you tap it.


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- Platform: WiiU, Wii, and 3DS
- Players: 1
- Achievements: No
- Retail Price: $59.99 (WiiU/Wii); $39.99 (3DS)
High Level Premise – An android with the ability to fly must save a kingdom from doom.
Graphics/Style – Dull, uninspired, last-gen graphics during gameplay; cute-ish 3D anime cutscenes and bright 2D, Nintendo DS style dialog scenes combine to create a jolting, disjointed visual experience.
Music/Soundtrack – Forgettable. Honestly, I don't remember. I was probably too busy gaping at the horrid controls and gameplay to notice any decent music.
Story – An interesting plot involving time travel, an android with a real heart, a daughter trying to do the right thing despite her father being a huge douche (a tyrannical douche who wants to take over the world) and some giant Shadow of the Colossus-like titan mechs.
Replay-ability – Not much. There are some collectables to be found but nothing worth going back for besides that.
Value – This may be a difficult game for many to finish given the difficult controls and lack of interesting enemies and landscape, it can be a chore to plod through. In this case you might not get your money's worth.
Favorite Element – The huge mechanical Titans that bring to memory one of my favorite games Shadow of the Colossus.
You know those moments in a Sonic the Hedgehog game when you're flying though the air after a frantic rush through a maze of tunnels and springboards and inverted loops, that moment when you have a split second to reflect on what you had just accomplished without hitting any mechanical crabs? It's so satisfying, it's fulfilling, you just want to tell your mom all about it. That feeling doesn't happen when playing Rodea: The Sky Soldier. The feelings elicited by Rodea are those of frustration and disappointment.
Rodea is an android who was given a real heart by the girl he is built to protect. The girl, Cecilia, is the daughter of an evil Tyrant named Geardo whose goal is to take over the world, or something. Cecilia decides she doesn't like tyranny and asks Rodea to use his power of flight to stop her father. You are thus thrown into a slightly-better-than-PS-two-quality landscape of green on top and grey on bottom islands floating through the sky.
This is where it gets sketchy. We have all dreamed of flying, right? Well in Rodea: The Sky Soldier it's not so elegant as one would hope. You are doomed to jump, suspend, aim, readjust camera, correct course by aiming again, boost... It is frustrating and exhausting and sometimes exhilarating all at once. This is the big hang up for me. I so badly wanted this to work well in order to realize those dreams of flying but we are not so fortunate. There are some excellent moments to be had but they are few. For example, there are some large shark-like bomber planes that you must disable, these are tense encounters when you factor in the limited amount of flying time before you fall, knowing you will have to climb the tall clock tower in order to reach them again. And some of the other Boss battles are exciting as well. A huge Titan must be destroyed and you feel the giant scale of this beast as it lumbers sadly in search of its prey. This is a game that has promise in its unique gameplay style but doesn't deliver on that front nor other fronts, namely its graphics which seem dull and uninspired.
Editors Note: We were provided with the Nintendo WiiU digital key which did not include the Nintendo Wii version. Apparently the Wii version is the "definitive version", and the WiiU version reviewed was just a port of the Nintendo 3DS title. So our recommendation is to check out the physical copy that comes with the original Wii disc. (above)


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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:07:46 — 62.2MB)
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In this podcast interview, James and fellow internet marketing experts, Clay Collins from LeadPages and Damian Thompson from linchPin, share their viewpoints and past experiences on affiliate marketing and management.
Topics in this podcast:
01:38 – Personal experiences on affiliate marketing
04:33 – The 80-20 rule
08:12 – Stopping my affiliate program
13:29 – Where my affiliate revenue goes
16:01 – Lack of control
21:18 – Be clear on who you want as an affiliate
23:00 – The most devastating blow
27:25 – An overview of reselling
29:45 – Starting affiliates, free promotion and partnerships
35:46 – Getting more affiliates
38:56 – Integration and white label suppliers
44:35 – Software vs. services
47:20 – Benefits of partner programs
51:24 – Managing your culture
54:26 – Side effects of switching your AP
56:11 – Final tips from James
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Let James show you the next ten things you can do to double your business HERE
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Start owning your brand. [Click To Tweet].
James Schramko here, welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. Today's discussion is a multi-part panel. And by part, I mean people, so don't take it the wrong way, guys. We've actually got Damian Thompson and Clay Collins on the line, and we're going to be talking about affiliate marketing. Good day, guys.
Clay: Hey James, great to be here.
James: So Clay, you know we catch up a lot on the show. And Damian, I've been on your show, it's great to have you on this show. And we're going to have an interesting discussion around the affiliate marketing subject, especially having a look at who's it good for, who's it bad for, what's your personal viewpoint on it, how important is it for people to consider at various stages in their business. Because I've actually been experienced with affiliate marketing for my entire time online.
It was, in fact, the most profitable and successful business model that I chose when I started, and certainly the foundation for my early success, of all the models that I tried. And it's something that I went through as a product owner, having my own product sold via affiliates, right through continuing to be a super affiliate for other people's products. So from my point of view, it's an integral part of my online experience. But I'd love to find out, what's been your experience with affiliate marketing. Damian?
Damian: Yeah, so, I'm definitely the noob of the bunch. I understand what it is, I've been around it for five-plus years, specifically the affiliate title, but in all honesty, I'm really affiliate for only a few products, Clay's being one of them, and you know, some marketing automation tools I use. I never really got into the hosting affiliate or anything like that, five or six years ago when I first got online.
But I do come from a software background, working for Semantic and McAffee, and they have what they would call a partner program, which is very similar, even in the big enterprise phase, when I was working in Sydney there. You know, in enterprise software licenses you sell this perpetual license. You sell annual subscriptions, and that subscription has partners that service that.
So it's like software partners, which would be an affiliate program. So I'm familiar with positives of having a partner community, help promote your brand. But me personally I've only really focused on a few real hardcore brands that are integral to my business.
James: Right. So you've raised a good topic and I think we'll come back to that, the difference between an affiliate program and a reseller or partner program, because there's a really good distinction there. I'd love to find out your experience with affiliate marketing, Clay.
Clay: Yeah, so I have kind of two roles in this experience. I've done affiliate marketing, and there are also people that do affiliate marketing of our product, LeadPages. And I've also watched a number of really interesting things happen and play out, kind of in this space. I've seen you shut down your affiliate program, while still being an incredibly successful affiliate yourself. And I benefitted from that: you're our, I believe, our top affiliate at LeadPages.
And I've seen so many different interesting facets of this thing happen. I heard Dan Andrews once come in and I believe he was talking with you, James, and he was talking about how affiliate marketing is… or affiliates are far and away the most expensive traffic source. And he was talking about how in his opinion – and I wish he were here, but – you're absolutely screwing the customer when you're essentially tapping on an extra 50 percent to… especially with these $2,000 information products… to cover the cost of some pretty light promotion.
And so I think there's just a number of different viewpoints here. I kind of started out, with LeadPages and LeadPlayer, we allowed anyone to be an affiliate. And then we only allowed customers to be affiliates. And now we only allow our pro customers to be affiliates. And there's a number of reasons why I did that.
So I'm here to participate, but I also really would love to hear at some point during this discussion, James, a little bit about why you shut down your program and the history and the plot behind that.
James: Yeah. So we're going to discuss some of the benefits, and some of the problems. I think, very first up, we should talk about what is an affiliate program, just in case you're listening to this and you don't know what an affiliate program is. It's really just like a salesperson's commission for promoting a product. And it's mostly with companies you can join as an affiliate without having to pay a fee.
It's like if you want to start selling a product, you have to follow the rules and the terms, and there are varying terms and conditions with each program. Some people are very, very tight on brand control, and they use a high-level affiliate program like Commission Junction to enforce rules, like you cannot bid on trademark names in pay-per-click search engines and that sort of stuff.
And then there's other ones that are a little bit loose that pretty much accept almost anyone as an affiliate. And the reality is, certainly as an affiliate program owner in the past, only a small percentage of your affiliates are going to generate the bulk of your sales. Do you find that that's the case with your program, Clay?
Clay: I do. You know, I've heard about the 80-20 rule and I think with us, it's probably like, oh, I don't know, 97-3. So like 3 percent of the affiliates or less are producing 97 percent of the affiliate revenue. So that's absolutely been the case. I think a lot of people like the idea of belonging to an affiliate program.
Like a lot of times when people purchase LeadPages, and I'm fine with this, but they'll purchase LeadPages and joining our affiliate program appears to be an immediate income opportunity. Like whenever they want to tell a friend about it, or what have you, they want to make sure they earn some income on it. And I'm often approached by a lot of people who are not customers, who heard of LeadPages, that literally want to tell one person about it and can't bring themselves to literally say the word "Leadpages" to someone else unless they're going to get a cut of the action.
So I think it ranges from folks like yourself, James, who are like huge value adds… I've spoken at your events, you've had templates put inside of LeadPages, we've done podcasts together, and it's a very high-level integrated partnership that has not only entailed the straight up affiliate piece, but also just a lot of connections that you've made for us, and a lot of advice that you've given us as well.
So it ranges from that to someone who literally, again, cannot bring themselves to say the name of our product to another human being, in person, on Twitter, in email or anywhere else, without an affiliate link. And I just wonder, what would happen if the consumer electronics base were monetized to the degree that Internet marketing was like literally if someone said, "What phone are you using?" You couldn't be like, "Oh, it's the iPhone." Like. "Oh, but here's the link." You know what I mean?
So it's gotten to I think an absurd extent in a lot of cases and the vast majority of affiliates simply do not bring sales and a very high percentage of the ones that… You know, when it comes to the 97-3 where 3 percent of affiliates take up 97 percent of your time, those are also the least high maintenance affiliates. And the highest maintenance affiliates that I found in most cases tend to be the ones that literally do not make a single sale ever. And so I can understand why someone like yourself would shut down your affiliate program.
James: Yeah, well I'm going to cover some of the reasons why, and I think you'll find them quite interesting, but it's super douchey when someone wouldn't even mention the product unless they're getting a cut. A classic example of the opposite is my relationship with some of the software that I promote where I don't get a cut. Yes, I'm an affiliate for some products, but there's some other products that I use that I love so much that I want to tell everyone about it because my heart is really in my customers' best interest.
And even if I don't make a commission, they might still become a part of my community, they might stick around and open up my emails, they might listen to a podcast like this and get good information without having to pay for it, and one day buy something. Maybe they'll go and click on my LeadPages link. Who knows?
But I think that's one of Dan's arguments, is that there's whole markets where the whole point, the whole reason people are pushing, and you might actually rename that as "pimping," is just for the cut, and there's no greater example of that in my mind than this direct sales-slash-MLM industry where the whole focus is on how much you're going to make, and it's like nothing to do with the product or the value or anything. And I think all of us on this particular podcast are coming from a place where we actually value good products and services that are helpful to humans.
And that being the case, that's why the affiliate program can be optional in markets like this. That's why the iPhone is talked about even without people making commission. But there's still a reseller market channel for things like that, and it is interesting to see how much the market can be distorted when you start loading a marketing budget to it, which was Dan's other point, that it's highly inefficient when you have to pay out 30, 40, 50 percent of your revenue back to people who are professional pimps. And here's one of the things I found, that not everyone values your brand or your core values as much as you might.
And I was finding stuff that bothered me a little bit about my own brand, especially an example. Like right now we're talking on Skype on a username that one of my affiliates registered. He registered my own name for his Skype account, and he went and registered my own name as a .org. And then he started putting up websites.
And it was really, literally passing off. It was actually being me, not being clear about the fact that he was an affiliate. It was him assuming my entity so that he could just scrape that 40 percent off the back of all the hard work that I do. And I found that that was a little bit on the nose. What do you think about that?
Damian: That's a bit creepy too, I think.
Clay: And I think this highlights the distinction between affiliates who add value and affiliates who are trying to leverage value that you've already created to get a cut of the sales.
James: And that, Clay, is one of the major reasons I shut my program, because when you look at my Pareto principle, there was just a handful of affiliates who were doing anything useful and getting most of the sales, but when I looked at where, guess what I found? They were squatting on my own name and ranking for my name. And I actually, this is where it became ridiculous, I had to hire two or three people, put them full-time on getting my own brand back for me, on the first page of Google for my name.
So I'm thinking, hang on, this doesn't make sense. I'm actually paying a cut of my commission to this affiliate, and I'm paying my team to win back territory for my own name that they're taking, because they're just harnessing… You know, when I go and talk on a podcast and someone types "James Schramko" into Google, I can either have it go to me, or I can have it siphoned off to an affiliate who's going to pretend to be me.
Damian: Yup.
Clay: I think that's spot on. Someone was buying ads on our brand name and creating all kinds of different variations of our brands and trying to get that traffic, and siphoning off brand searches from the brand itself is not a creation of value. That's someone who's just trying to, again, just siphon dollars away from your business without actually adding any value to the marketplace. I'm completely comfortable with an affiliate who adds massive value to what you're doing, getting paid for that value that they're creating for the marketplace.
Like stuff I've done with you, James, where like you've created courses, you've created tutorials, you've done objective reviews, you've done all kinds of things that have added a ton of value.
James: Yeah, we hold physical events where we educate people on how important this is. And then we have competitions, you know, like people trying to knock off my conversions template, which I donated. I actually woke up this morning and I got an email from you and in there was one of the split tests that I donated to you, and one of the incredibly simple things that I tested.And I want to share that with you, and I would do it, regardless of being an affiliate or not.
But when I am getting some commission back, let me tell you exactly where that affiliate revenue goes. The money comes into my account, and I redirect that… It actually supports a full-time person in my team whose role is to go and create more value on our websites, to put more in-depth articles and tutorials and pictures and screenshots and to run tests so that we can get more data and case studies that we can have something useful to talk about on our next podcast.
Damian: I think there's two really important things that both of you said there, but why I like Clay's affiliate program is, so, I'm an affiliate for Clay and I'm an affiliate for Clay because I'm using LeadPages anyway, like when I integrate LeadPages with Infusionsoft, or with OAP, with OfficeAutopilot, it just makes sense, it's a great tool to work for that, so I do it anyway. But the fact that I can be compensated for it means that I can develop.
Like we're about to start building some templates to upload, specifically for thank you pages, the sign-up page for these marketing automation funnels. Well that's money that I'd have to come out of my pocket for, but I'm going to use my LeadPages money to pay for that. So I think that's, to me, the qualification for whether I am an affiliate or a partner or, quote unquote, whatever you want to call it is, am I using the software internally and would I promote it anyway? And yes, so I don't think we're talking about Dan's $2,000 info products where I'm only going to make 25 percent of it because I have to rely on these hundred-thousand person lists.
I'm going to turn out real solutions that solve real problems. And I do think there's a number there, right? If Clay was giving 50 percent away for an affiliate, then you've obviously got to build that into your business plan. But at 30 percent or 10 percent or whatever that number happens to be, I think that's an acquisition cost.
James: Well I think, in simple terms, Clay's outsourced some of his marketing. And he's hoping that the incremental sales from that are more than if he just took control of the marketing himself, and given that Clay's got a hundred and eighty hours a month to work on his business, he can either hire a marketing person, or he can outsource it on a fee for performance basis to people like me. And I reinvest some of that budget back into resources like hiring a team member, running a website, doing podcasts. Like my time has a value on it.
So is it true that I would put a little more attention on it because the reward comes there? Yes. But I think at a core level most humans act in self-interest, so it's quite a clever thing to be doing. Now somewhere at this point I would think, now this sounds like the best thing ever, why wouldn't everyone do it? Well, I learned some other things too, especially when I was using one platform, which was very popular when I was starting out five or six years ago, it was called ClickBank.
I noticed when I put my product on there that a lot of people were buying through themselves. So they were buying it through an affiliate link that was almost an exact match for their domain name or website. And I noticed a hell of a lot of them just put through a refund before the refund period expired, and they were effectively helping themselves to a free product.
So it was the lack of control that I had with the affiliate program that was annoying. I couldn't filter people when they wanted to cancel, I couldn't ask them why, it just happened automatically. I was paying a big fee for this affiliate management. And people were just helping themselves and there was nothing I could do about it. It was very frustrating.
I touched on before the fact of brand control where people hijack you, but other little things, like people taking a screenshot off my site, squishing my head around, making me look like a fat alien or something… They don't care what I look like on the Internet, but I do. And they'll think nothing of taking something off any of my sites, squishing it around, jamming it onto the most horrifically ugly website ever, and passing off as me, and the real tipping point is when I start getting support tickets for people saying "I need my bonus," or you promised such and such would be with this product, and I'm like, we never promised that, and then I say, "Where did you see that?" and they show me a site with my name in it, and then like one little modifier, and there's all these basically outright BS on there, and I'm like, hang on. This is ridiculous.
Clay: Yeah. So I think that's an excellent case for taking down your affiliate program. I think another thing that we've seen where people have misrepresented are people…Like back when we used to let anyone join our affiliate program, people would create these fake reviews, like they'd have five different products that they'd want to review, and one of them would be ours, but we wouldn't be the one that necessarily gives the greatest affiliate commission rate, so they'd want the one that pays out the most to win.
But heaven forbid, like someone actually buy LeadPages who the review where they're promoting something else for the additional commission or for the reciprocation or for whatever, they wanted a cut of that as well. So we kind of wanted to make sure that only customers, that only people that actually used the product and had experience with it applied it.
And another reason why – and I know we're not playing devil's advocate, but I've definitely seen the dark side and I kind of want to speak to some of the benefits of doing this. So part of it, I would say, is outsourcing our marketing. I actually think we're pretty good at marketing and we're slowly growing our marketing team, but the real reason, and something that you just can't pay for, is the thought process of an absolute expert in their space. Engineering a situation where your offer is going to convert extremely well with their audience.
So for example, I did a webinar with Amy Porterfield, who works with social media people, and she's like, in order for LeadPages to convert a social media crowd, you need these two features, and we need to say this in the webinar, and you need to explain it like this. And there was literally no dollar amount that I could have paid that would have gotten her, that would have been too little for that advice. Because I literally added one feature and two bits about positioning, and our offer all of a sudden started to take off among the social media crowd.
But unless we incentivize it like that, I don't think I would have gotten her head applied to that specific situation in a very real way. And I'm so glad I did, and I've had this same experience with you, James, and with Pat Flynn as well where they're really just taking in a myriad number of facts and sources and synthesizing it with respect to our offer, our branding and our positioning, and giving us features messaging that we can then go off and scale.
Another piece is when someone like yourself or Pat Flynn or Amy Porterfield endorses us. That is not just about the sales that are made there. That is a signal to the market. And when you get enough of those big signals lined up, you get a lot more sales than are going to come through that affiliate link, which is why for certain levels of super affiliates, the affiliate commission is much higher, because I realize that a lot of people have bought LeadPages probably that heard of us because of you, James, that maybe have bought when I spoke at your event or whatever, but you weren't compensated for that.
So we'd like to increase that. And I'm a huge fan of how we're doing it now that we've dialled in, but prior to that it was an absolute fail for all the reasons that you're describing.
James: Right. So the main points there are that it can be really, really good and what we haven't talked about is when is a good time to have an affiliate program versus not. And you were in start up phase, so it would be fair to argue that an affiliate program early on in a product cycle can really help you get market exposure. That's how those big product launches work.
It's just making sure that every single person in the space knows about something quickly and of massive presence so I think a more established business, you can actually see a diminishing return. But I just want to close up on one point there. So if you're going to have affiliates, one of the clear points we've established is you really need to be clear about who you let become an affiliate. Clay is quite careful about who's an affiliate.
I just put up an affiliate review yesterday, or my team member, by "I" I mean my team member. I just searched for the product name in review, and I swear to God five of the results on the first page are for the product name, review scam. And that is a negative brand message. And that is a cheap old affiliate trick. Those people obviously have access to the program and they're doing more brand value degradation than they are uplifting, in my opinion.
So customers are great affiliates, rather than just the man off the street. It's really important that you screen your affiliates and set the frameworks for brand guidelines. And remember there's probably a liability too, if people are out there making fake claims, and someone buys what they have said, It really could pull back to you these days. I think there's some legislation around that.
So anyway, the next thing is at what phase in your business is an affiliate program useful and a lot safer? A lot of people starting out, they'd really want anyone on board telling the world about their product. So if it's front end-heavy on advertising costs and you're getting other people to do all the marketing for you and you're only paying them when they make a sale, then in theory that works really well.
But I want to alert you to something else that happened to me: that was the most devastating blow of my affiliate program. And that was I spent a month travelling Europe, and I had very limited access to the Internet, I had about half an hour a day on the Web, and when I got back, I found this raft of chargebacks in the post, and there was more than $29,000 worth of chargebacks that had been put through by fraudulent affiliates. And the way this one works is they join the affiliate program, they purchase the product with the stolen credit card, and then they try and collect the commission before the customer whose card was stolen figures out that their card's been used to purchase a product.


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His involvement with interest on federal taxes dates back as far as 1955, when he was of counsel for the taxpayer in the consideration by the Supreme Court of the United States of Premier Oil Co.
942, where interest on a deficiency extinguished by a carryback was discussed along with interest in other situations; the term "restricted interest" was applied to refer to interest that was limited or restricted by some statutory prohibition of interest.
Terminating interest on the due date of the amount against which the credit is taken coordinates with section 6601(f), which deals with interest on underpayments satisfied by a credit.
The IRS disallowed the netting of interest income with interest expense.
With interest rates at their lowest level in nearly 20 years (but expected to increase in the future), now may be the most opportune time to establish a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT) or a grantor retained unitrust (GRUT).
Interests in rental realty cannot be combined with interests in other trade or business activities.
Consequently, a MID will not be disallowed solely because a transferred interest, when aggregated with interests held by family members, would be part of a controlling interest.
93-12, that in valuing the shares, a MID will not be disallowed solely because a transferred interest, when aggregated with interests held by other family members, would be part of a controlling interest, it ruled that the swing vote attributes of each block should be considered in determining the value of each share.
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I'm always looking for new ideas to post, this one was just inspired by InspiredIdeology.com
For those new to graphic design, here's a quick lesson on Typography. Typography is the art and technique of type design, characters(glyphs) and arranging types. A variety of Illustration techniques are used in arrangement of typefaces, point size, line length, leading and letter spacing. Heard of Kerning?
Typography is performed by typesetters, typographers, graphic designers, art directors and other art junkie types. With the advent of Digital design, typography is now in the hands of new generations of visual designers. As your career blossoms in graphic design, so will your skills in typography. After all, isn't design about expression?
If you really want to get jiggy on Typography, I suggest you check out Inspired's 50+ examples of what they recently found inspiring in their quest to achieve typography greatness.
Image source: markoff.pl


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Pet World – Fairyland Match 3 v1.1 (Apk Mod Coins/Lives) Pet World – Fairyland Match 3 is one of the best match-3 puzzle on your phone. In a wonder zoo with Pet King are your guider, you will adventure from Wonder Zoo to fairy land with many various type of unique deluxe missions :
– Most simple: find the pet and match 3 same color or more to get enough score of mission
– Grass Eater: identical position of grass, and make pet match at those position to eat grass
– Miner Type: you must mine a some land to pass this mission, every level, you must mine a certain line.
– Collect mushroom: you must find the pet and swap them to the mushroom how to bring them to the bottom line them.
– Timed mission: some mission just let you play in some seconds, you must hurry and play fast.
If you love match 3 games, Pet World is the perfect game for you! Try to get all stars in each level to beat leader board and walk through more than 250+ levels in this completely new hit puzzle adventure. And in your journey, you will meet obstacle prevent you achieve the target:
– Box: pet match with is impossible .
– Chocolate: if in one move, you can't destroy one chocolate, it will grow up and change with pet.
– Fence: pet match between fence will be prevent.
But don't worry, if you meet a difficult mission, the lion king in this fairyland will give you item booster to help you easier than to find the pet and rescue in the same time, ayou could use it in any time you want:
– Hammer: find the pet and rescue pet at this position.
– Refresh: exchange all position in fairyland.
– Barrow: blast a column.
– Shovel: blast a row.
– Machine: harvest three row and column in wonder zoo.
How to Play:
– Swap wonder pet in link 3 same color or more to break it.
– Make the pet match more 3 to make special bomb and blaster, even amazing magic.
– Make the pet match 4 will create blaster could be blast entire row or column
– Match T-Shaped or L-Type pet to create bomb.
– Use combos to reach your targets and become pro.
– Every levels need you get a certain score to get 3 stars
– Achieve targets.
– Global, cross-platform leaderboard to compare score your friends and competitors.
– Stunning graphics, smooth juice splash animation.
– When you complete mission that remains move, you will get in bonus pet mania time, this will give you a huge score
– Very beautiful graphics, and simple gameplay.
– Easy and fun to play, but hard to earn 3 stars, and more difficult challenge to master .
– Daily mission will give you an new target in everyday.
– Everyday, you will give a bonus item or bonus coin, they will help you pass level easier.
– You can link with your friend in social network to play together and help them.
– Go top and become legend, a pet rescue heroes.
– Easily sync the game between devices and unlock full game features when connected to the Internet.
– Connect social and play with friend, help them, send them more live or send request to them. With every friend you invited, you will receive an certain coin, play with friend, more fun, and more exciting.
– Slot machine, extra lucky with free everyday.
Why you will love Pet World – Fairyland Match 3:
– Helpful boosters to help with challenging levels
– Daily bonus coin by share your result and slot machine.
– All levels are designed attentively, ultimate mission will be crazy and much difficult with you.
Please note:
Our game is funny free game, now and forever, but some of the contents can be purchased for real money.
If you have any feedback or meet any problem when playing game, please let us know by contact via email.
Enjoy Pet World – Fairyland Match 3 and have fun!
Jelly Match 3 Game.
Pet World – Fairyland Match 3 v1.1 (Apk Mod Coins/Lives)


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2 extremely popular drones for sale Christmas 2016
In case you were living under a rock for the past year or so, I have very big news for you – drones are among the most popular tech gadgets nowadays and as such, they should not be taken lightly. If you are living in the States, there is a huge chance that a couple of people you know use drones on a relatively regular basis. If that is true, then I am sure that you considered buying one for yourself at least once… Or at least now, otherwise you wouldn't be on this page! With the holiday season, just around the corner, many people are beginning to search for the ultimate drone for their beloved ones, and you can consider yourself rather lucky because of stumbling on this article. Why? Well, because it is going to make your life a lot easier by showing you the 2 most popular drones for sale in 2016. So, with this in mind, let's jump straight to business and take a closer look at these two most popular models that are currently available on the market:
Yuneec Q500 4K Typhoon Quadcopter Drone
If you want to purchase a great premium drone with a top-notch camera then you cannot go wrong with Yuneec's newest model. As you can see above, it is called Q500 and it sports a 4K camera capable of recording in true 4K resolution (not that upscale bs that we usually see with cheaper 4K action cameras) at 30 frames per second. In addition to this, it is able to capture slow motion full HD videos and is able to fly around for amazing 25 minutes ( same duration as DJi's flagships). Combine this with the fact that this bad boy can go up to 600 meters without noticeable lag and you got yourself a great drone for a reasonable price. In addition to all those things mentioned above, it is also very important to add that this is an extremely durable drone that is able to provide great flying experience even to people who have never operated with a drone before. All things considered, it is quite clear that Yuneec did not mess around when making the Q500 because it excels in all segments.
Max range – up to 600 meters
Flight duration – 25 minutes
Price – $777
Traxxas Aton Quadcopter
This drone is meant for all those people who cannot decide whether they want a racing drone or just a casual one that can shoot nice pictures. Why is that so? Well, it is because Traxxas Aton is able to achieve lightning fast speed in its sports mode (after you take off its camera gimbal) and at the same time provide a great platform for aerial footage in its second flying mode. For just $300 you get a beautiful looking drone that can fly up to 20 minutes and reach up to 300 meters without lag. All in all, Traxxas Aton is a great mid-tier drone for people who want to both race and record videos / images with their new toy.
Max distance – 200 to 300 meters
Flight duration – up to 20 minutes
Price – $300


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HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) - Authorities say they found country singer Mindy McCready's body on the same porch of her northern Arkansas home where her boyfriend was found dead of an apparent suicide last month.
Cleburne County Sheriff Marty Moss said Monday that it appears McCready killed her late boyfriend David Wilson's dog before she turned the gun on herself Sunday. The dog and McCready were found dead next to one another at the home in Heber Springs, a vacation community about 65 miles north of Little Rock. Moss says the dog's body was next to McCready's.
Authorities are investigating Wilson's shooting death as a suicide, but Moss says an official determination hasn't been made.
Moss says he expects McCready's official cause of death to be released soon, but that 'all indicators' point to suicide.
McCready's ex-boyfriend says she threatened to kill herself earlier this month after she lost custody of her sons, but was somehow released from rehab days before apparently following through on her threat.
Billy McKnight, a former longtime boyfriend who shares a son with the country singer, says the mother of two stayed in court-ordered substance-abuse rehabilitation for about 18 hours before checking out.
McKnight said Monday by phone from Tampa, Fla., that it was a 'big mistake' to allow McCready to leave rehab, in light of her fiance David Wilson's recent suicide and the loss of her children.
McKnight is working with authorities to get his son Zander out of foster care.


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Campbell River, BC1 Properties
$1,150 Monthly Rent
2 Bedrooms
1 Bathrooms
FAQs Take a look at our FAQ to find the answers to the most common rental inquiries. If you can't find an answer, feel free to contact us anytime!
Rental Tips In order to make finding your perfect place as stress-free as possible we've complied some useful rental tips from start to finish!
Latest Company News
New Site Is Launched
We are very excited to announce the launch of our new site! With our rental portfolio constantly expanding we new we had to create an accessible and informative site that would not only showcase our properties but also that was focused around our residents experience, from start to finish. Features of the new site include: […]
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Get to know your Neighbours
Do you know your Neighbours? Maybe you should It seems like knowing your neighbours is a way of the past but more often than not we live even closer to the person beside, bellow, or above us. Our yards are smaller, suites in homes are increasingly more common, and there are just plain more people […]


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the freedom tree
Last week I was searching my archive of photos for something orange. This one from 2009 is one of my favorites.
What: Flowers in a park. According to a nearby plaque, this is The Freedom Tree.
Where: Somewhere in downtown Los Angeles.
When: March 2009
Why: A few months earlier I'd been abruptly laid off from a job. I had some time on my hands, so I tagged along with Rich on a trip to California. He attended a conference and I bopped around Santa Barbara, Malibu, Venice and downtown LA with my first DSLR, a Nikon D80.


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Discussion in 'Components, Accessories and Clothing' started by Elmer Fudd, 25 Oct 2007.
Which ones to go for.
SKS, Tor-Tec or A.N.Other.
Running 700c x 40 wheels / tyres BTW.
I have SKS P55s on my hybrid (700C x 38). Great quality, not too bad to fit (take the wheels off - I'm sure that's obvious, but it wasn't to me, and I had a good couple of hours swearing before I twigged). I had to buy longer bolts for the front eyelets, but I suspect that might be down to my frame. I hear good things of the Zefal ones too, no experience of Tor-Tec, I'm afraid.
Question for you John, does the 55 as in P55s equate to being 55mm wide ?
I've had SKS on a couple of bikes for a few years without any problems.
Just fitted some Tor Tecs to my commuter (because that's what the LBS had) They're a bit heavier than the SKS, no bad thing, they also have reflective bands on the sides, a red reflector and mudflaps (the link only says front mudflap, mine also has a rear). The quality seems comparable, they're about the same price, I'd stick with SKS for my Audax bike, for my commuter the Tor Tecs are perfect.
One trip to the garage later...
Elmer, measured across the top (i.e. without bending the tape to follow the curve of the 'guard) they're about 50mm, I reckon. Following the curve, they're more than 60mm, so I don't think the 55 in the designation has any significance really. As User says, Wiggle, or SKS' website will tell you which size goes with which tyres.
SKS 'guards here, no probs.
SKS are perfect for my commuter - very good quality, and easy to fit.
Cheapest I found was here:
Hate guards, but necessary in British winter. SKS are ok. They take a bit of punishment and clean-up quite well.
Anyone found another brand that is streets ahead?
I have Tor Tecs on my GIANT SCR4, which is my winter bike, as P.H points out, the Tor Tecs benefit from the light reflective strip on the outside edge of the 'guards, which enhances your visibility, plus the reflector on the rear guard and the mud flaps on both front and rear which help to deflect a lot of the road crap away. And I only paid £8.00 for mine as they came fitted to the bike as part of the deal I got from LBS
Separate names with a comma.


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Home Tags Posts tagged with "best looking"
best looking
How to pick a smartwatch that's actually fashionable
I'd like to begin this with a disclaimer. As a fashion writer, the idea of walking into Best Buy with a mind to purchase a fashionable smartwatch hurts my stomach. The ever-warring camps of form and function have never been more...


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Dean Hamack needed a new web page design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 64 designs submitted by 16 freelance designers.
This is a fun, simple, and creatively stimulating task. I need a UFO inspired, patriotic landing page. Curious? Read on...
I need a design for a very simple landing page. I've got a couple of ideas for what I want, I just need someone to bring the design to life.
The sample code that will appear on the page is here:
It's just a few form fields, the company name, and a tagline.
The design needs to inspire patriotism and have a "save the world from aliens" kind of vibe. I have two general ideas:
1) A UFO with the logo to the right of it and a tractor beam that goes behind the search fields.
2) The top half of a planet behind the search fields, and an astronaut planting an american flag in it.
I'm also open to suggestions, so if you have another brilliant idea, fire away
The background can be white, or light blue (sky)
Things the design needs to contain:
- The brand name
- The tagline (it isn't final, so it needs to be editable text, not outlines)
- A trademark symbol next to the brand name
- A red, white, and blue, patriotic theme
- An american flag worked in somewhere (superimposed over the UFO, brand name, etc.)
- Vector format (ai or eps)
- The design needs to fit into an area approximately 760px wide by 450px high
- Bonus points for cool submit buttonsHere's some designs to use for inspiration:
- Mars Attacks Poster
- A cool UFO inspired design
- Dogpile
Something too dark, or too serious. This needs to be light, easy to read, and fun.


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Most reasonable people would agree that we have an energy problem, if not a full-blown crisis in this country. Yet our elected leaders seem, with few exceptions, to be afraid to actually have a serious and honest discussion of the issue. Instead of developing a workable and sustainable energy policy that will allow our economy to flourish and our standard of living to remain as high as it is today, we look for easy solutions. It's as if destroying the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge in search of oil that, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, will lower the price at the pump by about two cents a gallon in 20 years, or eliminating the federal gasoline tax for the summer is the answer.
A lot of hot air comes out of Washington about the need to develop cleaner technologies that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign sources of energy. It's hard to take such rhetoric seriously when nothing is being done to prevent the expiration of tax credits for development and production of renewable energy sources–wind and solar. In the most recent opportunity to adopt a tax policy that helps subsidize the development of those new cleaner technologies on June 10, a vote, largely along party lines, prevented a bill that had already been passed by the House from being considered.
The primary sticking point is that under Congress's fiscally responsible "pay-as-you-go" rules, those credits, totaling about $6 billion a year, would have to be offset by savings elsewhere, which in this bill called for reducing the tax credits given to the oil industry. Considering that ExxonMobil had a profit of more than $40 billion last year, not to mention the other petroleum giants, you have to wonder just why they need the tax break.
This lack of support for alternative energy isn't anything new in Washington, and it's not the first time that such tax credits have been allowed to expire. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), during previous periods when the wind energy production credit has lapsed–in 1999, 2001, and 2003–the number of new wind power installations has dropped by as much as 93% the following year.
Luckily, even though Congress and the current Administration don't appear willing to make a commitment to developing alternative and sustainable sources of comparatively cheap, yes, that's right, cheap energy, winds of change are blowing.
Where the Winds Are Blowing
Currently only about 1% of the nation's electricity needs are being met by wind power–that amount is higher in some of the windier parts of the country. Texas currently leads the pack in terms of wind power with some 3% of its electrical needs coming from wind turbines; it's also the site of four of the nation's five largest wind farms.
But as they say, everything's bigger in Texas and legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens has announced plans to build the world's largest wind farm in Pampa, a town of about 18,000 in the Texas panhandle. He's been heavily involved in developing natural gas as an alternative fuel for automobiles and his company, Clean Energy, is currently the largest supplier of vehicular natural gas in North America. Now he's turning his attention to renewable energy.
He's planning to invest some $2 billion in the initial phase of a project that will ultimately cost five times that amount. His company, Mesa Power, has already placed an initial order with GE to provide 600 turbines for the site.
As he noted in a statement announcing the project, "You find an oilfield, it peaks and starts declining, and you've got to find another one to replace it. With wind, there's no decline curve."
Pickens isn't alone in seeing the potential afforded by harnessing the power of the wind that blows free. Last year 3,100 wind turbines were erected and another 2,000 are reportedly under construction. In the first quarter of 2008 new installations with 1,400 MW of generating capacity were put in place.
The biggest obstacle to further rapid development of wind farms, in the short term anyway is a current shortage of turbines and their component parts. In late April AWEA held its first-ever power supply chain workshop in Des Moines, Iowa, in an attempt to expand the range of suppliers to the industry. There are some 8,000 components in the average wind turbine from the towers and blades to gearboxes, generators, castings, ball bearings, and electronics.
At the same time our elected officials were sidestepping the issue of wind power, some encouraging news came out of the executive branch, although putting the suggestions into action would go counter to many of the current Administration's policies.
Wind Energy 2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply, a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy in May predicted that by 2030 wind power could provide as much as 20% of U.S. electricity needs. That would be 304 gigawatts, as opposed to the current production of 16.8 gigawatts. However, to reach that level, the report noted that wind turbine installations would have to dramatically increase, up to 7,000 a year by 2017 and then continue at that rate.
The upside of such a scenario is pretty high. The reduction in emissions from achieving the goal of getting 20% of our electricity from wind power would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 25%, which would be equivalent to taking 140 million cars off the road.
The report stresses that its findings were not meant to predict that such growth in wind power would actually occur, only that it's a possibility.
There are a number of technical problems that would need to be overcome, but there were a lot of technical challenges involved in sending a man to the moon, or in creating a laptop computer with more speed and memory than the refrigerator-sized ones used for that previously mentioned moon mission. I don't have much doubt that the development of viable, renewable sources of energy is not only possible but inevitable, but the sooner we get there, the better off we'll all be.
Managing Editor Robert F. Keane can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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The Blueprint
Our mission is to help you shatter limiting thought patterns and design empowering belief systems, to propel you to a much higher and desirable level.
You were put here to shine, to live happy and be free. You have been locked in your "cage" for far too long, it's time you stretch out your wings and fly.
Your time is now!
The Journey
Life is truly one long journey, and may feel very lonely and difficult at times, but you don't need to walk alone anymore. We're here to walk with you, provided that you are ready to team up and make this adventure more fruitful, revealing your most powerful and most authentic self.
You're a beautiful soul that should be soaking up and embracing all of your blessings and inner gifts, like the rays from the sun.
On this journey, we're 110% invested in you! And we're with you every step of the way. This includes all the highs, the lows, and everything in-between.
This journey is not predetermined. This adventure we embark on together is entirely custom tailored to you, so that we create effective and lasting results.
Let's make this journey fun, motivational, and inspirational. Together and only together, shall we succeed!
If you want to go fast, go alone… If you want to go far, go together.
The Commitment
If you are absolutely ready to take the leap and enhance your life, the only thing we ask of you is to be 110% true, and dedicated to yourself and with us. This is the only way we can create the trust, and respect we both deserve in order to generate the results you desire to level up.
Since we only give you the highest value and the best of ourselves, we must choose wisely with who we work with.
It is only with a high sense of self-worth and through honest devotion, action and the willingness to succeed, that you will transcend to your desired altitude.
What We Offer
- Create a shift from egoic thinking to consciousness awareness
- Create stronger beliefs that align with your feelings
- Improve your career and enhance your relationships
- Motivate you to take Inspired Action
- Reveal your inner peace and self-love
- Shatter uncertainty and build confidence
Working together is monthly based, with an initial complimentary 30 minute session. All our Teaching sessions are conducted in-person, over the phone or on Skype, for your convenience. Weekly motivation, in various forms, plays a big role in our time together and is constantly present to keep you focused and on track.
Any information shared with us through our Teaching services, remains strictly confidential.
Our flexible pricing ensures that there is always a convenient option for you. To best suit your needs, please let us know exactly what you are looking for in our contact form below.
Please make all payments via email money transfer to email@example.com
We look forward to working with you to help you achieve your mission.


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Deem Work Fource: Business Travel Software That Works
Newly Launched Innovations Improve Business Travel Experience for Entire Ecosystem
San Francisco, Calif., April 19, 2017 – Deem, a leading mobile and cloud technology provider for the business travel industry, today announced general availability of its Deem Work Fource platform, a next-generation software suite that offers a much-needed alternative to the present corporate online booking tools used by many businesses.
Applying an array of advanced technologies, Work Fource provides optimized solutions for each of the four key constituencies in the business travel ecosystem: for travelers who want to book trips and manage changes on the go more quickly and easily; corporate travel managers who need better ways to control spend, improve traveler satisfaction, and ensure policy compliance; travel management companies who want to deliver a more convenient travel-booking experience to corporate clients while maintaining duty of care; and suppliers who want to expand their market, grow revenues and offer a superior experience to customers.
"Let's face it: we all concur that almost everyone finds the traditional corporate booking tools lacking in many ways," said John Rizzo, President and COO of Deem. "They are clunky, complicated and time-consuming for everyone involved. They've been stuck in the past, and haven't kept up with user centric designs, or taken advantage of the innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence and dynamic personalization; technologies which we've seen in more forward-thinking segments of the software industry. That's why we decided to rethink our solutions from the ground up."
The Work Fource suite combines an array of advanced capabilities – including machine learning, predictive analytics, adaptive personalization, and a best-in-class consumer-style user experience – in four groundbreaking solutions:
- Deem Road Work, for travelers: mobile and desktop apps for planning, booking and updating trips with unprecedented ease and flexibility, thanks to a variety of intelligent features such as personalized recommendations and pre-emptive assistance.
- Deem Clock Work, for corporate travel managers: a robust set of tools for managing travel programs, spurring adoption, and fostering compliance, driven by a uniquely flexible and comprehensive policy engine.
- Deem Book Work, for travel management companies: a fast, flexible and efficient set of administrative tools that streamline agency processes to better serve corporate clients while also growing revenue.
- Deem Net Work, for suppliers: powerful APIs and services enabling providers of air, hotel, rail, ground, and other logically adjacent content and services, to market their products and services in the Deem platform.
"This is software that travelers will actually like and use, leading to much higher adoption," said Rizzo. "Widespread adoption gives companies a greater ability to control travel costs. They can manage spend before it is committed, at the time of purchase and avoid being blindsided by expenses after the fact, when it's too late to do anything. It's difficult to reverse the flight or hotel after a traveler has filed the expense report."
Work Fource products are cloud-based and seamlessly integrated with each other and with external systems, such as calendar apps, expense and ERP systems. The platform also addresses the needs of global clients with a full suite of language, localization and content capabilities including air, rail, hotel, and ground transportation.
"Deem's approach is to optimize its platform to serve the needs of the entire business travel ecosystem, at the expense of no-one – that's an industry first," said Rizzo.
Deem's current cloud customers will be seamlessly upgraded to the new software as part of their scheduled release, with their existing data and settings preserved.
For a full list of features visit: https://workfource.deem.com/
About Deem
All Business. No Trip. The most difficult part of a business trip is too often the trip itself. At Deem, we spend a lot of time figuring out ways to cut through the crap so you don't have to. When you travel, our job is to make your job easier. When you manage your travelers, we've got the solutions you need. When you want to grow your business, we're right there with you. We streamline the booking experience, capture travel at the point of purchase and reduce costs every step of the way. With 35,000 corporate customers and the world's largest travel management companies on the Deem platform, we understand how to solve your why-isn't-this-easier challenges. We're Deem and we get it.


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I have been making a few unique head pieces for myself lately. In a blog post a while back I wore a butterfly fascinator that I made for myself and now I just finished making this apple fascinator. I already own an apple beret that I love but it is more of a fall and winter piece as it is made of wool and wearing wool on my head in this heat wave just isn't going to work! My goal was to find a more summery apple piece and finding the perfect one was harder than I thought. I couldn't find one anywhere so I decided to make my own to match my incredible Mary Frances apple bag! I think it turned out just beautiful and matched perfectly. Stripes are still a big trend right now and this dress is just fantastic for layering on some bold accessories!
If you like my style you could follow me on bloglovin!
Click Here!
I'd love it if you would follow me on facebook! Click Here!


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There have been all sorts of advances in technology that seem to make our lives easier, but can also complicate them. We didn't need cell phones, tablets, or laptops, but now we can't seem to picture life without them. Home temperature regulation systems, ceiling fans, and even locks on the front door now all seem to come with a corresponding smartphone application. This is all good and well, but what if the power gives out?
Kwikset is a name that I recognize solely because I have seen them all over the place. They are known for making dead bolts, door handles, electronic locks, and more. This time around, they have created the Kevo, which essentially eliminates the need for a key. So long as you have a key fob, or an iPhone 4s/5, you can simply touch the lock to open it.
Of course, even with the key fob, the power can die, and you would be locked out of your own home. This is why they left the traditional key hole. The Kevo operates on 4 AA batteries, and will give you plenty of warning both on the door and through your phone of needing to be changed, but it should last for a year. You can allow friends and family access through the app that is paired with this, which will tell you who is coming and going from your house. This won't work with other smartphones (Android) until they carry the same type of Bluetooth capabilities as their Apple adversaries. Thankfully, you also don't have to have the app open constantly as it only needs to go through a setup process before it will work its magic. These are currently on pre-order only, but the price tag seems to be $219 across the board. They'll start shipping out at the end of October.
Pre-order the Kwikset Kevo


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Africa Solar Impact Cases Report
The aim of this document is to zoom in on individual solar projects and cases, highlighting the involvement of the different types of actors in the creation of resounding impact on local communities and individuals. To go beyond the numbers and - through the stories and experiences of lesser-heard voices - showcase the significance of solar energy development. To do that, we have selected a small number of cases across the three segments to paint a human picture of the evolving solar energy markets of Africa.
The report includes 6 cases, touching upon the off-grid, microgrid, mini-grid and utility-scale solar segments. Read about the conception of the projects, the execution and maintenance of the solar systems, and the future outlook and scalability of the projects. Moreover, learn about how solar electrification changed the lives of people like:
Jessica Mukimba (Uganda), who works at the 10 MW Tororo solar plant as storekeeper and site cleaner, which has enabled her to send her 7-year-old son to school, buy new livestock and build a new house.
Ibrahim Chegi (Kenya), a businessman who could finally power his dream of a nightclub in the fisherman's village of Entasopia, for which he can rely on a steady power supply from the village solar microgrid.
Obert Joseph Ncube (Zimbabwe), deputy head of the Mashaba Primary School, which saw its conditions severely improved since the inauguration of a solar mini-grid, as reliable power has improved grade results and teacher retention.
Sikhangele Ndlovu (Zimbabwe), a nurse at Mashaba Clinic, which is now able to also work safely at night, performing surgeries and delivering babies with decent lighting and equipment.


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The media hub of the ever expanding empire of the Weird Teacher whose goal is total educational domination through the power of excellence.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
#WeirdEd Week 97- Dr Seuss Part 2
We have only doubled up a few chat topics here on #WeirdEd, but if there's one that deserves to be covered on an annual basis it's the good Doctor himself, Ted Geisel. Way back in Week 46 we chatted about him and since it's his birthday today we should do it again. After all, he is the greatest author of all time.
Yes, the greatest.
I will fight you.
He managed to work deep meaning and heavy messages into children's books on the regular. Even his less deep books, To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street for example, still carry the weight of inspiration and message.
I always assumed everyone was a giant Seussiphile. I understand that I get nerdy on stuff (just you wait for the next two weeks I've got planned) but Seuss seemed like someone everyone should just know. Doesn't everyone read his books for fun and seek out the lesser-known titles because they are still gems? The stuff you don't know as well as you know The Sneetches or The Lorax like The Butter Battle Book or Yertle the Turtle are heavy with darkness and meaning.
Let's take The Butter Battle Book as an example, since I read it to my class yesterday and it's fresh in my mind-
TBBB takes place in a land of Yooks and Zooks. Yooks eat their bread butter-side up and the Zooks, with "kinks in their souls" eat bread with the butter-side down. He's completely open about how angry this difference makes the Yooks and already your adult brain is making connections. The Yooks are so insulted by the Zooks, in fact, that they've got a Wall built separating their two countries. Oh, a wall? Hmm, now this came out in 1980 so that's not the wall we're all thinking about in 2016, but it echoes just the same. Our main character, a Yook soldier, is sent to the wall to take out Van Itch, his Zook counterpart. Each time he returns to the wall with a bigger, more dangerous weapon and each time he's met by Van Itch with either an even bigger weapon or the same weapon and a promise that if you hit us I'll hit you. The capabilities of the weapons become less and less defined until even the Yooks in charge admit they don't know what they'll do. And it ends with our hero and Van Itch perched on the Wall, each holding a Big Boy Boom-a-roo, waiting for the other to give an excuse to drop it.
That's where it ends. A children's book. Ends without an ending. Right in the heart of the cold war, poised on the edge of mutually assured destruction. It's his darkest book and I love it.
There's a lot to unpack here. There's escalation, which you can keep on a global scale or shrink all the way down to a classroom interaction one. There's propaganda. There's patriotism and xenophobia and blind hate and fighting instead of talking (there are no reasonable voices in the story) and cause-and-effect. And there's more.
Here's the fun thing about this book- I only had to unpack the Cold War metaphor for my kids, they got the rest of that on their own. And once the Cold War stuff is clear the book takes on an entirely new meaning. If my class were just a little bit older I'd have used it as a metaphor for the election. As it was we explicitly talked about hating people for ridiculous differences like color, religion, sexual preference. Were those author intent? I don't care. I can use them.
Tonight let's take Dr Seuss into our classrooms in a better way than a fun rhyming read-aloud, though if you're gonna do that do Fox In Socks because it's the best read-aloud ever.
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