text:
With its payment platform Alipay, e-commerce giant Alibaba is now helping US merchants to gain a foothold in a Chinese retail market that has long been off-limits to international businesses.
Mobile payments, which, according to a recent report from Forrester Research, will account for 54% of all online sales by 2018, are an area that is full of promise for the tech giants who are striving to outdo each other with ingenious ideas designed to provide innovative solutions for this market. Among the digital payment platforms already up and running are ApplePay, which is expected to account for 14% of the Brand's total revenue in 2017; and PayPal, which today boasts 162 million active users in 203 countries. Alongside these, though, it is impossible to ignore the glittering rise of China-based payment solution Alipay, whose figures speak for themselves and may be giving the US players cold shivers. In fact the various constituent parts of the Alibaba ecosystem – first and foremost Alipay – and those of its competitors, may potentially serve as a commercial bridge between China and the United States, providing US companies with a foothold in this colossal market.
The vast potential of Alipay linkup
Jingming Li, Alipay's President & Chief Architect in the United States, outlined the enormous success of Alipay at this year'sTransact'15, the flagship event hosted by the association of electronic transactions players, held in San Francisco in late March/April. The Alipay application, which is not only compatible with Alibaba services such as Tmall and Taobao but also those of third-party retailers, is now used by some 300 million Chinese to carry out transactions worth a total of €80 million every day.
Alibaba CEO Jack Ma hinted at a Wall Street Journal live event last year that he was interested in cooperating with US players, specifically Apple, without revealing any precise details of how the linkup might be done. A partnership of this kind would represent a tremendous advance for the payments industry. Meanwhile, the Chinese e-commerce giant launched last October its Alipay ePass suite of products, which combines payments, logistics and marketing services designed to enable US merchants to sell products directly to Chinese consumers from their existing online retail site. Explaining the move, Jingming Li underlined that "having a digital presence is a first step but it's crucial to also have a payment method configured to suit Chinese consumers."
If any illustration were needed of the vast purchasing power of Chinese shoppers and the income they could generate for international retail businesses, Gilt provides an excellent example. Founded in 2007 and having raised €286 million in capital, this online high fashion apparel flash sales specialist lost no time in integrating the new Alipay ePass option into its online checkout system in October, thus making it easier for Chinese customers to purchase top designer brands. This move has led to a 693% hike in sales in six months. Other players have also seized the opportunity offered by Alipay to gain entry to the Chinese market. US store chain Macy's conducted a pilot test in partnership with Alipay ePass around Black Friday 2014. In a more recent move announced by Jingming Li at the Transact'15 event, Delta Airlines became the first US airline to offer Alipay to their Chinese passengers.
Bridges to China for US business
Growth in cross-border retailing is actually one of the main trends for mobile payments in 2015 and in this context Alipay and its suite of services looks like being an indispensable tool for US e-tailers going forward. It is of course no less true that now that digital platforms have created a sort of global shopping mall, Alibaba's competitors also represent potential gateways to the Chinese market. First and foremost there is Tencent with its WeChat messaging platform, a savvy mix of social network, payment service and e-commerce website that numbers over 400 million active users. This player has taken the concept of 'social network' to a new level, offering its users a real multi-function platform.
Baidu, Alibaba's number 2 competitor, which is one of the major investors in alternative taxi service startup Uber, is Google's main rival as a search engine provider in China.
Any company looking to win over Chinese customers will therefore need to carefully study the full range of potential access points to the country and work out a precise strategy to reach consumers in a market that has now been unlocked.


text:
English | Espańol
All Issues > Volume 32, Issue 2
The Pharisees and Sadducees had hearts for their own honor. Before Jesus chastised them for their pride, He wept over them, lamenting that in their desire for honors, they had completely missed "the path to peace" (Lk 19:42). Moreover, their pride caused them to be badly misled and fail to understand the power of God (Mk 12:24). God's plan is to touch the hearts of sinful men and women with self-sacrificing, humble love.
Lent is the season to humble our pride and bow before the Lord. One of the best ways to do this is to make a sincere, truthful Lenten Confession. In the Archdiocese of Cincinnati on this night for the last several years, every Church opened its doors for Confession from 7-9PM. Surely many returned to the Lord (Jl 2:13) in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Lord Jesus opens His arms wide to embrace His people. Our sins cannot keep His love away; it's only our stiff-necked pride that keeps Him at arms-length.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord (1 Pt 5:6). Confess your sins to Him (Ps 32:5). Receive His forgiveness, love, and peace. "Make things right" and be washed clean.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Turns out on-call car service Uber compiles a lot of data about its customers. They can get a pretty good idea of what you are up to just by the way you use their service. Are you surprised? How much privacy is there in the age of the internet?
Marc Rotenberg is a lawyer specializing in privacy and civil rights. He is president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group involved in privacy litigation and public policy. He also teaches about these issues at Georgetown University Law School in Washington D.C.
Rotenberg says he doesn't use the word fear when discussing civil liberties in the information age. It is disempowering, he feels. Rather, there are challenges to be met, problems to solve. Rotenberg sat down with Steve Scher in late November, 2014, to discuss those challenges.


text:
|19 Jun 2012
multiple OS installs on both HDD & SSD over 6 months...still BSODs
First, my system specs & some details:
-I purchased the hardware & assembled my machine in late December 2011
-Full Retail version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
-Multiple (at least 4) clean installations of the OS over the past 6 months, all BSODing
-Initial OS installations (at least 2 from Dec. to Feb.) were performed on a WD hdd...all had BSOD problems
-RAM: In January performed "stick by stick" & "slot by slot" testing with Memtest86+. No reported errors on Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600 CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B
-SSD: This latest clean OS installation is the 2nd clean OS installation onto a Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Series purchased & installed in late February & updated to the latest FW update (CXM03B1Q) prior to any OS installations. Using the latest Samsung SSD Magician software & its OS optimization
-CPU: Intel i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core cooled with Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
-Video Card: XFX DoubleD HD-687A-ZDFC Radeon 6870 1GB 256bit GDDR5 PCIe
-MB: Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX w/ UEFI bios
Secondly, I have a 'method' whereby I've been able to increase my chances and/or rapidity of this intermittent but consistent BSOD I'm experiencing. Although I've experienced BSODs while doing all of these particular things in this combined method singly, I've seemingly had it happen in any and many other unremembered scenarios. In other words, I'm not necessarily convinced of any specific causation or any conclusion as a result of using this method to more quickly guarantee the eventual BSOD. It just works. I used this method to solve my curiosity as to whether I could induce a BSOD while also in SAFE MODE a few days ago. It was successful. I'm not sure if this fact is helpful or not.
All the programs or tasks comprising this are opened and then ran simultaneously. This "method" of inducing an eventual BSOD...sooner rather than later...is as follows:
1. Open Media Center and play a recorded show. (When attempted in Safe Mode, I was only able to open WMC but unable to playback an actual recorded show.)
2. Run a full scan of Microsoft Security Essentials
3. Run a full scan of Malwarebytes
4. Open 3 different browsers (Chrome, IE & FF) and have all 3 browsers simultaneously playing a lengthy YouTube video playlist.
Again, this is after yet another clean install of the OS. I most often get through full scans of MSE or Malwarebytes w/ no problem or detections just in case someone is trying to send me down the malware causation route. These are a compilation of tasks that where more notably underway in a singular form when previous BSODs occurred. These are however not the only singular or combined scenarios in which BSODs have happened over the past 6 months of numerous clean OS installations on both an HDD & an SSD.
Thirdly, more in regards to the Asus motherboard and Corsair RAM. In this latest clean installation of the OS (6/13/2012), I've updated the MB with the very latest bios and been sure that any other Asus available download for my MB is up-to-date via the MB's OS specific support page. I've also used the Intel Driver Update Utility to be sure that everything is current on that front also.
Delving into my BIOS & my MB manual before proceeding in the most recent round of Memtest86+ v4.20 testing over the past two days raised a few questions and things I'm not exactly sure about which I'll address momentarily. Having previously completed (back in January) both a full 16GB config test AND also literally every conceivable "stick by stick" & "slot by slot" & 'extended tests' testing possibility with no errors, I opted this time to only run the Memtest86+ in my full 16GB configuration since I seriously doubted to encounter any error detection anyway. Here are results of Memtest 86+ over the past 2 days for my Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4 GB) 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B:
1st Test Results: No Errors after 8 passes taking nearly 18 hours
SETTINGS: **668 MHz (DDR3-1337)** CAS 9-9-9-24
2nd Test Results: No Errors after 8 passes taking 17 1/2 hours
SETTINGS: **802 MHz (DDR3-1605)** CAS 9-9-9-24
Here's where my questions and uncertainties arise and why I ran the Memtest86+ in the two different settings mentioned above to be sure I wasn't missing something. unfortunately, I'm not very sure if the following is relevant or helpful but it is defintiely unclear to me. I've read the MB manual and noted the default settings. I'm not necessarily any clearer on things however. I was trying to determine a few things so that I could expedite the troubleshooting. I was trying to figure out the following 2 things:
1. Although I know the processor is capable of over-clocking via the MB, I haven't learned enough about to to be comfortable with doing so. I'm trying to ensure that I'm NOT overclocking and I'm finding that not so easy to determine precisely via the MB manual or BIOS.
2. The "Ai Tweaker" menu found in the Advanced Menu of my BIOS is slightly confusing to me in regard to the "Ai Overclock Tuner". Yes, I'm trying NOT to overclock but I don't see anywhere to specifically keep it from overclocking per se. Having noticed some differences that in DRAM speed while trying to figure out the Advanced Settings in BIOS, I decided to Memtest BOTH speeds that showed up most often when trying to figure out what the heck I actually had or should be using. I kept seeing 1337 or 1336 and 1600 and even 1648. This became more confusing to me.
In summary, I don't really know if I am over-clocking. I'm not trying to and don't want to...especially for the purposes of this debugging...therefore due to my uncertainty I've set my "Ai Overclock Tuner" to "X.M.P." so that the seemingly appropriate 1600 actually shows up when I re-enter and view the details in my bios. Having said that does that mean that I'm not overclocking and begs this question. Why is it that when I otherwise tinker in that menu of my advanced bios do I end up with 1337 which is below the RAM's 1600 rating? Which should I even use. In summary, I don't know if I'm over-clocking so I tested 2 different RAM settings for the Memtest86+. Being that I get still get no errors on Memtest after all this, is any of this even a problem, a red herring or maybe something I still need to get to a proper setting or baseline for proceeding any further with troubleshooting and debugging?
I'm not sure what's the most logical progression from here. I'm wanting to focus my effort on whatever is relevant and next. I've attached the required files. I'd be grateful for any and all who can make clear my path for working to debug and troubleshoot my 6 month ongoing BSOD problem, specifically in this latest incarnation. If you made it this far, many thanks as I really appreciate your time.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
Been reading around and I'll try this out in the meantime: "While waiting for a reply, please run Driver Verifier according to these instructions: Driver Verifier Settings"
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
An hour after running Driver Verifier according to the instructions in the link listed above, I received another BSOD. While trying to then immediately run the "BSOD Dump & System File Collection app" upon reboot, I encountered a second BSOD. However a second reboot allowed me to generate a new "Windows_NT6_BSOD_jcgriff2" report & System Health report that are newly attached.
I used my previously mentioned method of inducing or expediting the BSOD occurrence. While doing so it may be noteworthy that MSE stopped working 2 or 3 times with error notifications that it was no longer working or active and with a prompt to be reactivated and sending of an error report to Microsoft...before the BSOD occurred. Each time I restarted MSE and also restarted a full scan.
Not sure how to continue with Driver Verifier so I'm making no changes yet. I'm assuming later, at some point, I'll either want to separately use it on Microsoft drivers and/or add them to the other drivers already subject to Driver Verifier's scope or parameters.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
A lot of the crashes point to the AMD software installed with the drivers. See what happens if you install your drivers without Catalyst Control Center/Vision Engine Control Center. Download the version of ATI drivers that you want to install, and then do the following steps.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
Thanks @writhziden! This addresses the nuance of getting the driver installed without the driver bloat that may be exacerbating my BSOD situation. But I had an ideal trying to bypass the insanity of uninstalling and reinstalling that driver altogether for right now..just for the process of elimination so here is what I tried and what happened. I used the "Uninstall Programs" to uninstall the AMD drivers and Catalyst Control center. I had a BSOD when first attempting to do so. (Not sure if Driver Verifier still being activated has anything to do with that or not. That accounts for the BSOD minidump @ 6/19 9:30 PM GMT)
After the reboot I was subsequently able to successfully uninstall it the second time via "Uninstall Programs" and then rebooted. I ran Driver Sweeper and removed the remains of any AMD drivers then turned OFF my machine. I then physically removed my AMD Radeon HD Graphics 6xxx series PCIe card. Plugged my monitors DVI connection into the motherboard DVI input, enabled the CPUs onboard Intel HD 3000 graphics (IGX) via the BIOS, then rebooted. Upon restart, I again verified that there were no remains of any AMD drivers. I then started my previously mentioned & proven method of inducing a BSOD and within 45 minutes I indeed had another BSOD. Now I say that with one possible caveat that I'm not sure that matters or not...I still have Driver Verifier enabled for everything but Microsoft items...but I'm not sure if that is relevant or not.
I'm attaching the latest set of files that should show this subsequent BSOD on 6/19 @ 10:17 PM happened while using the onboard Intel HD 3000 Graphics. "WhoCrashed" is apparently pointing to the Intel RST drivers. Again, I'm not sure if having Driver Verifier in use is noteworthy in that regard. That brings me to my next question. Being that I'm not using a RAID setup, I don't believe I need to have the Intel RST installed. Can't I just go ahead and uninstall that and also eliminate that from this whole ongoing BSOD situation.
I installed the very latest BIOS update as per the ASUS support site specifically for my MB's OS. I also noticed that the BIOS prior to this latest one detailed important steps to follow in regard to updating and activating Intel RST. I followed it to the exact letter and thought it somewhat odd that my last "WhoCrashed" report seemed to point to the Intel RST. Since that is useful primarily...as best I can follow...for RAID setups, I was contemplating uninstalling it to possibly eliminate any conflicts since I seemingly might not need it anyway. I've also however seen a number of people say not to mess with it although they give no solid evidence that deleting it is detrimental. So I'm not really sure how to approach that possibility or peel away another layer that seemingly gets me no closer to the root cause.
Your previous post is extremely helpful in regards to getting the lightest of proper driver installations possible once I'm able to again attempt a physical return of my AMD video card...after I'm hopefully successful at determining the exact cause(s) of my continuing BSODs.
Am I getting anywhere?I'm sensing either that I'm narrowing down to something I've missed RAM-wise(maybe Bios), driver &/or driver verifier, something really weird mobo-wise or the unlikeliest scenario that something may be wrong/corrupt with my DVD copy of Windows. I'm spit-balling now under the stress...lol.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
A few questions before you decide to remove IRST...
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
Yes, I knew that I was using Marvell controller drivers for my data drives. No, I wasn't aware that I could find those drivers on the Intel site. 'Software Informer' program notifications about my Marvell controller drivers sent me on a google search skewed to pages of spammy, incorrect, or Russian sites. I'll probably look like even more of a total idiot on this third one: "...Intel Desktop Boards..." within the title of your 3rd link would have led me to believe (had I even found it) that it was some literal, specific Intel motherboard product (not chipset-like...if that even makes any sense) and therefore not applicable to my Asus MB. I wrongly assumed that I'd find the latest &/or most correct one on the Asus support page for my MB & it's specific OS. well, at least I'm laughing at myself a little bit now, haven't done that much lately...ha!
Ummm, let me take care of this definite oversight on my part. Many thanks & I'll take care of these and see if there is anything else similar that I'm overlooking.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
Nah, I don't think you're an idiot at all. Drivers are difficult to find, and many of us are only good at finding them because we work on these forums helping others find them and have become accustomed to poorly described drivers and inadequate language. :)
Also, many drivers are fine to get directly from the motherboard. With SSDs, it is a completely different game with driver finding because all drivers related to HDDs and SSDs must be as up to date as possible. Chipset drivers must also be as up to date as possible (have you checked for an update for this on Intel, by the way?), and BIOS and firmware updates must be current (it sounds like you covered this one already).
Another thing many do not know is that if you use the automatic driver update utility from Intel, it will tell you the driver you have is valid, but that does not mean it is up to date. You still need to click on the link to find the latest update.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
After encountering the Intel RST driver nuance on the Asus MB support page (in regard to the updated BIOSs) I began to see & to understand that there was a difference between Intel's app validating drivers and what was really up-to-date. I was using the Intel update Utility very regularly and had a false sense of security that it was telling me everything I needed to know. I now see more fully the depth of this difference between valid and up-to-date. I'm going to exercise some due diligence first (also double check the chipset) so I don't waste your time and if I'm iffy on something I'll ask before attempting to put anything to the test again. Although I was able to research & do this first-ever build all on my own, it has however taken me 6 months to figure out I didn't know quite enough to make it truly work stably without help. I'll get it right yet.
|My System Specs
|19 Jun 2012
Building your own system is always a learning experience, even when it is your fifth or sixth system. Hardware evolves, so we have to evolve with it. You'll learn a ton from your first build that will help you with future builds, and everything new you learn with future builds will seem minor in comparison. :)
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Cheese & Crackers With Fig Spread/
Oh my goodness! Say hello to the most perfect appetizer ever: cheese & crackers with fig spread! This dish is unbelievably easy to put together and pairs perfectly with a nice bottle of wine!
What You Will Need:
+ Nut-based cheese (see list below)
+ Crackers
+ Fig Spread
The creamy nut-based cheese is what really makes this appetizer. It's an herb-garlic soft French-style cheese from Treeline. The cheese is nut-based so it is suitable for most people, with the exception of those with nut allergies.
A Bit About Treeline
Treeline is a dairy-free cheese company that believes that milk is only made for baby cows. They are vegan-based and use pure, natural ingredients in their products. The cheeses are sold nation-wide in various Whole Foods and other such stores. For more info check out their website.
Other Recommended Nut-Based Cheese Brands (find in store or online)
+ Kite Hill
+ Dr. Cow
+Punk Rawk Labs Vegan Nut Milk Cheeses
+ Nouveau Raw
Also, there are recipes all over the internet for nut-based cheese so feel free to make your own!


text:
Drivers are warned that lanes will be closed on the M23 today (Wednesday October 10).
The M23 southbound between junctions J9 and J10, near Crawley, will see lanes 1 and 2 closed.
Roadworks are planned from from 9pm until 6am tomorrow (October 11.)
'Nightmare!' Drivers' dismay at Crawley roundabout work
Drivers warned of months of delays during roundabout work
Sussex dad shares shocking video of son running into the path of a car


text:
The alarm wakes me early, a flashing light rather than the raucous beep rousing Phil. Morning hours in my Northwest home are dark, frigid, chilling me as I push back the comforter. No time for tea to chase away the sleepiness while I rush to get ready.
Excitement fully caffeinates me. We are going to Haiti!
Passport- check
Camera- check
Flip-flops, cotton skirts , bug spray, a couple of good books to read along the way.
Did I forget anything?
By the time we arrive on the other side of the country excitement is waning, worn thin by weariness. Disloyal thoughts push persistently in.
What are you thinking? Haiti? Land of sweltering humidity, rodent-sized bugs, mud-flecked waifs with pleading eyes.
Pushing through the dread, I edit and add and delete and rearrange my notes.
Still too many words.
How do I tell my story short when it must be told in two languages? How do I talk about pain to a people who hurt every day? How dare I?
I sleep uneasy in a worn airport hotel, unacknowledged fears causing crazy dreams.
3 a.m. Bleary eyed, I follow Phil mutely to the shuttle. A Haitian driver blesses us for traveling to his land. Five duffel bags of gifts for the women I will be teaching cause a ruckus at the check-in counter— the official bumps us to first class when he learns what we are carrying to the land of his birth. Two brothers in line talk to Phil. One, an American citizen now, is escorting his brother to the airport as he heads back to Haiti. Both are pastors and they embrace Phil when they learn the reason for the hold up.
My fears subside as I realize I am being escorted by Believers sent to guide and guard us on our way.
7:30 a.m. Just a few steps into the Haitian airport and we are met by a man wearing a crisp white uniform, hand extended, welcoming us. Madame Juene wheedles her way past security to embrace me, face damp with that delicious moisture the women wear like make-up on their smoky skin. Sisters, bound by the same Father, on similar paths in different lands. Mike joins us, Zebby too! A van full of welcome weaves through chaos I barely see as we talk and question and chatter and digest a year's worth of living. Doris stares silently at the pictures of my granddaughters. The blackness of Sunday's skin glues us together and she laughingly agrees she has my nose. We arrange marriages to keep us all in the same family.
After a tour of Grace Village, presentation of a plaque still sticky with varnish, speeches made by Bishop Juene, Pastor Mike, Pastor Phil, Sister Phil (!), and the school principle, I am drenched in not-so-delicious moisture.
The hotel that night feels decadent.
6:30 a.m. I've slept in!
More work on my notes, strong coffee, we get on our knees by the bed and remind God what He clearly knows— we don't know how to do this.
A half a dozen times people have asked me if I am excited to go to Haiti. They want me to say yes, I want to say yes. But the real truth is no.
The real truth is that I am here because my Father told me to come. Yes, we were invited, but how easily we could have said No, not this year. We're too busy, too much work at home, too many people will be inconvenienced, we will be inconvenienced.
But both of us felt that persistent push. As if God wasn't impressed with out busy-ness. As if He was waiting to hear a different answer. A yes.
I remind myself on our way to the venue. Over and over as my insides clench and that voice on my shoulder reminds me again and again that I am not adequate. Over and over my spirit fights back. My adequacy is in Christ. I am here for Him.
And then I see these Haitian women. Dressed in their best, timid, as afraid of me as I am of them. We worship and sway and sweat and sing and all fear flees. Of course I am excited to be here! Yes, yes, yes!
For almost an hour I talk. Madame Juene translates, two sisters wrapped in different shades of skin, side-by-side, given courage to give courage to courageous women.
I tell my story of failure in suffering.
A white woman born to privilege hurts too?
They cry and we laugh and they embrace me as one of their own. And suddenly it dawns on me that the only reason I have anything at all to say to these Haitian pastor's wives is because I suffer.
Deafness is my platform. Failure is the door to intimacy.
Next comes the teaching.
Now they sit forward, they take notes, the literate flip through their Bibles, grey heads nod and catch my eye and say something I understand without words, young women listen.
For another hour we talk. They're my girls now, my daughters and sisters.
The heat feels fine, I love this land!
For lunch the men join us. When I see Phil he is as white as a ghost. I push water and worry until I realize that his paleness may have more to do with my looking into beautiful brown faces all morning than illness. He's fine— full of laughter and all that charisma and the camaraderie that comes with men in ministry. A man's man, he is welcomed into a world not all that unlike his own.
In the sweltering afternoon we teach together for the first time. Mics fail, the fan doesn't work, there's not room on the pulpit for both our notes… and we love it!
I listen amazed at his uncanny ability to admonish and encourage all at the same time. The men laugh, they take notes, these men who have learned a different way of fathering.
Phil waves his big black Bible and I tell stories. The men clap for me— and I think they're really clapping for Phil as I tell them how he enamored our children with the Scriptures.
We have no idea until later that we've inadvertently taught a way so long hidden that these men are shocked by the truth that no one teaches here.
To teach and love and encourage your children? To eschew anger as a method of discipline? To listen to your wife as she hears their hearts? Really?
Phil's long lists of specific Scriptures for each point nail it.
Back in our air-conditioned hotel we both fall in bed exhausted, exhilarated, wondering how in the world we'll do it again tomorrow.
5 a.m. More editing. Slash, cut, we've got to make this shorter.
I am hit by a dark wave of insecurity. I want Phil to tell me that I'm a great teacher, riveting, hilarious. Man-like he's all about the task. Faintly I hear the echo of my own notes but manage to ignore wisdom and get myself to the edge of panic.
What am I doing here?
I fake my way right up until I get up to teach, but that dark voice won't leave me alone. I think it's me talking sense to myself. My sista, Zebby,watches from the front row and spots it. She prays. All of a sudden everything changes. My tangled tongue straightens, the women laugh and I don't know why, we're clicking again and I know it, feel it, love it.
Afterwards we know a demon is defeated by Zebby's praying. I wonder what would have happen if she hadn't.
I sit on a plane humbled. Again.
How is it that God keeps insisting on using this weak woman? Why would He? I fail again and again and He just sends someone along to help and sends strength to do what I cannot and takes the words that stumble awkwardly out of my mouth and turns them into something good.
And I haven't told you half the stories of all the nice things He did along the way. Bumped to first class, switched to the exit row, a chance to pray, eyes wide open, with a new Believer who needed courage on the other side of the ticket counter in Florida. New friends, reunions, time to hear stories and marvel and laugh and tease and hold hands and be together.
So good.
Tonight Matt will take us home. He'll fill us in on Monday's Jesus Pizza at Grant High School, on theology classes at Multnomah, on friends and people and jokes and fun. I'll soak polluted pores in a hot, scented bath and sleep under mounds of fluff.
I'll be home. And happy.
From my heart,


text:
The UK's leading door and window control system manufacturer, GEZE UK, has made a major new appointment which is already significantly improving service to their customers.
Operations Manager Jim Collins was appointed in the summer and is responsible for all aspects of production, technical, purchasing and warehousing. This new role has been introduced to ensure a more efficient production process and a more integrated approach to planning work.
Jim commented: "My first priority has been to develop new ways of working in our Lichfield-based factory which means we can now accept orders until later in the day, for next day delivery. I will also be looking at the automatics side of the business and how we can carry out more preparation in the factory and so send out a more complete operator, which will cut down installation time on site, making the job easier and quicker."
He continued: "As the company has grown, the factory has taken on a range of work, including supply only, supply and fix and product servicing. My aim is for us to manage these different processes more efficiently and get better at planning the peaks and troughs in demand."
Managing Director Kaz Spiewakowski commented: "Jim brings extensive operational experience from other industries and he is already making a significant difference to GEZE customers."


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Here are some fun facts about our beloved Loons that grace Squam Lake in New Hampshire during the summer months and allow us into their world for a short time.
- Loons were thought to mate for life. However, banding loons to allow the identification of individuals has shown that loons will sometimes switch mates after a failed nesting attempt, sometimes even in the same breeding season. Courtship and mating are a quiet time, with the pair swimming and making short dives together. Eventually, the male leads the female to a suitable spot on land to mate. Nest building then begins on Squam Lake in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire
- Loons have busy lives. They spend a good portion of their day preening to keep their feathers looking good. They squeeze oil from a gland at the base of their tail onto their bill and draw their feathers through their bill. The oiled feathers provide a degree of waterproofing and ensure a loon's buoyancy. The remainder of their day is spent caring for their young, resting and hunting/eating
- Loons are generally solitary birds. However, they will sometimes gather for short periods in small groups of up to 20 birds in late summer and fall.
- Loons can live for 30 years or more
- Because their bodies are heavy relative to their wing size, loons need a 100- to 600-foot "runway" in order to take off from a lake
- The common loon has four calls. The tremolo, which sounds a bit like maniacal laughter, is an aggressive call. The wail is a long, drawn-out sound. The hoot, a shorter call, is used to communicate among parents and young. The yodel is sounded by male loons guarding their territory.
- Unlike most birds, the loon has solid bones which give it more weight and reduce its buoyancy, making it easier to dive under the water.
- Named for their clumsy, awkward appearance when walking on land
Come and enjoy a tour of Squam lake in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire with the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and experience the Loons world. The Manor On Golden Pond can make those reservations for you to take a step back in time to a more peaceful setting.


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SANTIAGO, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Chile's environmental regulator is re-evaluating penalties on Barrick Gold Corp's Pascua-Lama project, a process that could include cancelling the embattled mine's permit, the head of the government body told a local daily newspaper.
"The new sanction can fall anywhere on the spectrum allowed by the law, which goes from a warning to revoking the environmental permit, including fines," Cristian Franz, head of the SMA, said in an interview published on Wednesday in Diario Financiero.
"I can say that I don't rule out any scenario," Franz added.
Chile's environmental regulator, known as the SMA, fined Barrick $16 million in May 2013 for not complying with some of the country's environmental requirements for its massive gold and silver project.
But then the country's Environment Court found the fines were not properly determined and subsequently the Supreme Court said it would not hear an appeal by the Canadian miner.
That left the door open for the SMA to re-evaluate the fines it previously imposed.
At one time its biggest new development project, Pascua-Lama's development was halted by Barrick in October 2013 after it spent more than $5 billion.
The project, straddling the border between Chile and Argentina, had been plagued by political opposition, permitting issues, labor unrest, cost overruns and a falling gold price. (Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)


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Colin Glen Forest Park is regarded as Belfast's 'green lung'. Following the Colin River through the beautiful wooded glen on surfaced paths creates the opportunity to experience great views of the glen, the Belfast Hills (Black Mountain) and Belfast City.
The Forest Park is popular throughout the year with the public and visiting groups for a variety of outdoor activities, educational visits and events.
4 miles
Sheet 15 + Belfast Street Finder
Stewartstown Road, Belfast
Parkland & Grassland, Riverside
Surfaced paths, some steep hills
Wildlife pond, wild flowers in spring
Other Area
From the car park go through the pedestrian gate into the park and follow the main path past the red suspension bridge, keeping the Colin River on your right.
Following the Hannahstown Trail, (red way marking arrows), keep left at the next two junctions, climbing uphill through the woodland. Views will open up across the glen, the hills above and the city below. On your left is a former landfill site.
At the next junction turn right which leads down the 39 steps to a wildlife pond. Take the path to the left, following it until you reach the Tri-bridge. If you turn right this leads you to the Cantilever Bridge under the Glen Road into Upper Colin Glen, a National Trust property.
If you turn after you cross the bridge, this will take you back down the glen. Pass the Weir and Gamekeepers Bridges' and return down the glen back to the car park.
Translink - journeyplanner.translink.co.uk
Car park at Colin Glen Centre - entrance signposted off the Stewartstown Road.
The following facilities are available for users with limited mobility:
|Café (wheelchair accessible)
|Disabled toilets
|Disabled parking
Colin Glen Forest Park Centre - car parking, toilets, cafe and information, opening hours apply.
A Walk in the Park, Colin Glen Leaflet.
Belfast City Council Parks + Open Spaces Dept - Tel 028 9032 0202 ext 3199 or email email@example.com. Leaflet also available to download on this webpage.
Print this walk
Very.goos for wildlife
Today I spent a wonderful three hours seeing the Christmas card snow & ice of Colin Glen. It was with about 20 others on the Belfast Hills Partnership 'Winter Warmer'. White, white, white... trees, glen, tracks, people and dogs. Walking on frozen mud up to quarries and waterfall. So beautiful. Thanks Jim and Andrea.
Know a good walk that is not included on the site?
Every care has been taken to ensure accuracy of the information. We cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions but where such are brought to our attention, the information will be amended accordingly.
Whilst all the clubs, associations and activity operators listed on this website generally operate according to which is accepted as current best practice, it is the responsibility of the participant to ensure that they are credible and all appropriate safety standards are adhered to. Outdoor Recreation Northern Ireland have, nor assume, any responsibility for the accuracy or the completeness of the information supplied or the service and level of care afforded by any of the clubs, associations and activity operators listed on this website.


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Motor Trend gets all the new cars, which doesn't bother us none, since we wouldn't have much use for a 2015 Honda Fit, or whatever the latest MPG-er is. Every once in a while though, MT gets access to something we want to know more about, and they are kind enough to invite us over to play. Such was the case last week when GM Camaro Chief Engineer Al Oppenheiser stopped by the offices with the 2014 z/28 Camaro and a new SS.
The original Z/28 was designed to take on the Mustang and Barracuda in Trans-Am road racing, and it did so with suspension upgrades, a powerful smallblock and a lightweight, no-frills option package. Under the Penske Sunoco name, a Z/28 won half the races in the series (and the championship). With a Smokey Yunick-built engine, a Z/28 made waves at Bonneville. As is the case with most muscle cars, over the years the Z/28 got bigger and more heavily optioned, getting the 350 'Vette motor in '70, which was good, but getting the axe in '74, which caused bowtie-shaped tears. In '77 Chevrolet brought back the Z badge, and in the early '80s it was one of the better cars available, however, that's not saying much. Despite a well-regarded handling package, with less than 200hp, the '80s Z/28 was hardly the equal of the Penske '69. Things were looking grim for the zippy Z. Then, at the New York Auto Show this past spring, GM announced the return of the Z/28, with the naturally aspirated ZO6 7-liter and many of the track-specific goodies from the Zl1, including cooled diff, multi-pickup gas tank and aero front end and belly pan. Oh, and it's lighter, has a back seat and doesn't come standard with air conditioning. Intrigued? So were we, so we sat down with Motor Trend and Chevrolet Performance to find out more.


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Posted by Peter Camilleri on August 14, 2002 at 17:47:27:
I am currently completing a low cost housing design that could be supplied to virtually anywhere in the world on a large scale. The desig utilises an all steel framed constrction that is completely different to anything else on the market. The construction is very fast and using simple tools. Local labour could easily be trained in pretty much any country. My aim is to find interisted countries and parties in selling this product to the world. At this early stage the first of the housing designs is approximately 50 square metres in size and everything is supplied from piers to flooring and internal walls. Electricity and plumbing including bathroom and kitchen shall not form part of the standard kit. The initial pricing indicated that the house should const in the vicinity of AUD$15,000 or US$7,500 plus shipping and any other taxes depending on which country it is going to.
Could any interisted parties please send me an e mail introducing yourselves.
Yours Faithfully,
Peter Camilleri
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Slaughter And Could
Our travel and leisure group provides specialist recommendation to businesses and insurers working within these difficult sectors. Collectively we are dedicated to offering a degree of non-public service, which exceeds the best expectations, enabling passengers to travel in fashion, safety, superior consolation and appreciable peace of mind. Aside from the World's Finest Awards, the journey and leisure journal also has what they call T+L 500 Finest Inns and America's Favourite Cities where subscribers and journal readers rank cities in the U.S. based mostly on several classes. The journal is famous for their World's Greatest Awards which is introduced every August and has been practiced since 1995.
Our specialists are thought to be 'leaders in their discipline' by Chambers & Companions legal directory, able to assist travel and leisure clients who want high-quality authorized advice with both full-service and area of interest necessities. It was fairly an honor to be included amongst a gaggle that focuses on the perfect travel and tour firms.
Our travel titles faucet into both the magic and practicalities of planning a vacation, from the award-successful Cruise Worldwide, to BRITAIN – The Official Journal, which offers an excellent, visible sweep of the nation's rich heritage and history.
Wherever the vacation may happen-safari holidays, seaside resorts, spas and salons or even on the comfort of 1's house-it would not matter. Travel + Leisure has had stories serialized in The Finest American Journey Writing yearly for the past decade. Our client base encompasses tour operators, hotels and holiday locations, plus each type of transport and leisure experience. With structured and sustainable growth, we have increased our travel and leisure model portfolio with franchisee agreements with each Costa and WHSmith. The survey has been developed with the steering of a dedicated Advisory Crew of trade consultants to ensure that it serves the needs of the Travel and Leisure industry. Thanks and congratulations to all our pals who had been also selected for this esteemed honor in Asia and the Pacific of their category.
Palamon Capital Partners and Star Parks on the sale by the Star Parks Group of five of its seven European theme parks to Compagnie des Alpes, the European leisure and ski resort operator. Please notice that the expiration date within the Magazine Subscription Manager is not going to replicate in case you had been already on file with the publisher.


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Off-the-Grid Community ManagmentPosted by crossman Jul 21, 2010
What does it take to be an effective community manager?
Many talents are necessary, of course, but one in particular presented itself as I began planning recently for a family vacation. The skill in question was what Dawn Foster called "workaholic tendencies," and the idea isn't that you are literally working all day but that you're available nearly anytime to respond to questions or to moderate hotly debated topics. My problem wasn't the vacation, but that my family was traveling to the "large square states" in the western United States where cellular data reception isn't always available. I was also traveling to western Canada where data roaming charges will question any employee's committment to "stay connected" to the workplace.
The other key behavior that comes into play is what Dawn calls "self motivation," but what others might describe as "control freak." You can definitely use that second term for me. It's okay; I wear it like a badge of honor. But, it's kind of hard to stay connected to your community and stay in control when your next bit of network connectivity is six or eight hours away. Plus, it might be nice to actually spend time with the family on the family vacation.
So, what's a good community manager supposed to do?
Most communities aren't led by a single person, so community managers definitely need to foster collaboration within their support teams. In my case, we have an extensive set of training and reference documents in our "Help" space for our internal employee instance of Jive called Matrix. This content is customized for our environment and addresses features and functionality, access/login issues, and other frequently asked questions. My support colleagues used this material to learn Jive quickly, and it is often useful in responding to questions from our users.
Secondly, we developed a series of templates for responding to common questions. These are used to respond to Helpdesk tickets or direct emails to our admin team's email alias. This keeps the messaging/tone consistent and is an efficient way to handle common questions that have links to reference docs or training. We store these in a restricted-access space available to the support team, and each of us can edit these over time to keep up with changes to our site.
I was very fortunate to have a great team working with me. This allowed me to really let go and trust the team to support the community in my absence. This is perhaps the most important part of the formula, because if you stress out over every possible and nuanced "I wouldn't have said it exactly like that" support response you'll never have a trouble-free moment ever again. You learned how to do this stuff through trial and error, and your colleagues deserve some consideration and freedom in this area too. So, you have to give your team opportunities to learn for themselves.
With these in pieces in place, our community was well supported even with the community manager off the grid.
In all honesty, I was impressed by my colleagues' efforts in supporting Matrix while I was away. And I impressed myself by letting go, at least for a couple weeks .
Kevin Crossman is the Enterprise Community Manager at Juniper Networks. He helped launch Juniper's Jive SBS based environment and supports other content management and collaboration tools at Juniper.
Kevin is a proud member of the 2.0 Adoption Council, a collection of managers in large enterprises that are charting the course for 2.0 adoption.
You can connect with Kevin via direct message or via Twitter at @kevincrossman
The views expressed here are my personal opinions, have not been reviewed or authorized by Juniper Networks and do not necessarily represent the views of Juniper Networks.


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The Shoe Game
Shoes. Oh my god...shoes.
If you've been following my blog, by now you have seen my extensive shoe collection. There's something about a pair of shoes that just draws me in.
When I was young, my oldest sister took me shopping and I remember eyeing this pair of black sandals. I tried them on, walked around in them, and when my sister asked if I wanted them, I said...no it's ok. (I have always had a problem with accepting gifts from others)
After leaving the mall, I couldn't stop thinking about those shoes. I even had dreams about them! Although I never got that pair of sandals, I've made it up for it in adulthood. My closet is stacked with boots, flats, heels, etc. etc. etc.
What I truly love about shoes is how you can take one outfit, change the shoes, and BAM you have a whole new look!!
I really feel that a girl can never have enough shoes! After all, they make the outfit!


text: Combines the durable strength of steel at this great price!The new Blue Lagoon™ pool will give you and your family many years of outdoor pool fun. This revolutionary new pool has all the features of a more expensive pool, at a very economical price:SUPER STRONGSteel construction ? made of high quality treated steel, this pool will outlast plastic or vinyl pools.FULLY FUNCTIONAL SKIMMERUnlike Intex skimmers the Blue Lagoon?s skimmer is fully functional. It will keep your pool free of surface debris and standard automatic cleaners and manual vacuums easily hook up to the pools return. Blue Lagoon is easy to clean and maintain.QUALITY PUMP AND FILTER SYSTEM WITH MULTIPORT VALUEBlue Lagoon comes standard with a easy to use sand filter system and high performance pumps. They ensure proper filtration so your pool is easy to keep crystal clear and germ free.CORROSION PROTECTIONAll steel parts are protected by a zinc alloy coating that gives Blue Lagoon superior corrosion resistance. Backed by a 15-year warranty.Blue Lagoon has all the quality features that usually cost hundreds of dollars more. The pool is easy to install and it comes with complete installation instructions. Round sizes only. Get your family into a quality Blue Lagoon pool at this great price. Our package comes complete with:


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In the 1980s I would regularly stop by the AIGA offices in NYC to browse the library and view design shows. It helped me feel connected to the design profession. But here in the Capital District with our local chapter spread out over hundreds of miles I've never been very involved (despite being a member for 20+ years). Once I was part of an organization called The Creative Club. With professionals in a variety of fields—we had fun and we networked but we lacked focus and fizzled. When I started Aurora Design, I joined The Graphic Artists Guild for education and support. And, for a few years, I joined the American Marketing Association. The one local organization I seemed to avoid was the Ad Club. I was a graphic designer. I don't sell things, I don't work in advertising, and I don't particularly like cocktail hours. So how could I fit in?
Despite my reservations, over the past dozen years I've entered and been to several Ad Club award banquets. And, like a self-fulfilling prophecy I was an outsider. I wasn't part of an agency with a reserved table and loud cheering. (The year I brought a client with me, and the evening involved dancing Oompa Loompas definitely didn't help my attitude.)
Last Friday was the 2015 Prom Night-themed Addy's award banquet. Goofy theme and all, as I pulled into the parking lot, I found that I was really looking forward to the evening. This year was different. This year a group of freelancers reserved a table of our own. We work by ourselves every day but this one night we joined together to cheer, honor and support one another.
That one simple change made all the difference.
As I had in past years I saw former clients, old friends from my Creative Club days, beloved students and colleagues from across the region. (And was told I was one of the industry old guard. Thanks Derek!) We socialized and caught up and as the program started the crowd broke up as we each found our way to our tables. And this time instead of lamely joining a mixed table of people that don't know one another—I went to a welcoming table of friends. These amazing, funny and talented graphic designers all know the struggle of balancing creative work and business, loneliness and being at our clients beck and call. We laughed (a lot). We cheered (a lot). We took silly pictures. And we had fun. And the icing on the cake, we ended the evening with six awards in front of us.
So while the Addy's are outwardly all about competition. It is important to remember that they are also a celebration of community. My hat is off to everyone who entered, was a finalist and a winner. You are all winners in my book.
(You can see my two silver winners, Sanavi organic-flavored sparkling spring water, and Grumeti Fund on my design page.)


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Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: The Remaining Four Principles of Transmedia Storytelling/
3. Immersion vs. Extractability These two concepts refer to the perceived relationship between the transmedia fiction and our everyday experiences. At the Studio Ghibli Museum outside of Tokyo, there's a fascinating exhibition on the history of motion pictures. Much of what is there could have been in a western museum on the same topic - various motion toys designed to capture and exploit the persistence of vision. Yet, there are also panorama boxes - little minature worlds which you have to kneel down to look inside, worlds constructed of plastic figurines in front of cellophane backdrops. On the wall, there's a quote from animator Hayao Miyazki, who explains,
"just as people wished to make pictures move, they wished to look inside a different world. They yearned to enter a story or travel to a faraway land. They longed to see the future of the landscapes of the past. The panorama box with no moving parts was made much earlier than the Zoetrope."
Miyazki is making the case, then, that immersion - the ability of consumers to enter into fictional worlds - was the driving force behind the creation of cinema and has fueled the development of many subsequent media. It is certainly not hard to move from the microworlds constructed in the panorama boxes to the microworlds created for contemporary video games. But if we step outside the museum proper and into the gift shop, we see another principle at play. Here, one can buy tiny figures and massive models of key characters, props, and settings from Miyazki's films, or we can buy props and costumes which can become resoures for Cosplay. Ian Condry has made the case that the toy industry in Japan and its need for extractable elements has dramatically shaped the development of anime and manga.
In immersion, then, the consumer enters into the world of the story, while in extractability, the fan takes aspects of the story away with them as resources they deploy in the spaces of their everyday life.
Again, neither principle is new: just as we had panorama boxes in Japan, the movie palaces which sprung up in the United States in the 1920s were instruments of immersion, offering fantastical environments within which to watch movies which were themselves often exploring exotic or faraway worlds, and we might extend immersion to include more contemporary amusement parks, such as the soon to open theme park that seeks to reconstruct the world of Harry Potter or the Dubai based theme park focused around Marvel superheroes to open in 2012 (assuming either Dubai or the world doesn't end before then). On the other end of the spectrum, we can see early examples of extractable content growing up around Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Buster Brown, or Charlie Chaplin, to cite a few examples, even around Nanook of the North (which helped to introduce the Eskimo Pie to the American buying public).
4. Worldbuilding.
In Convergence Culture, I quoted an unnamed screenwriter who discussed how Hollywood's priorities had shifted in the course of his career: "When I first started you would pitch a story because without a good story, you didn't really have a film. Later, once sequels started to take off, you pitched a character because a good character could support multiple stories. and now, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and multiple stories across multiple media." This focus on world building has a long history in science fiction, where writers such as Cordwainer Smith constructed interconnecting worlds which link together stories scattered across publications.
We can point towards someone like L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz books, as someone who had a deep investment in this concept of the author as world builder. For most of us today, The Wizard of Oz is a story - really reduced to a single book from the twenty or so Baum wrote and from there, to only those characters and plot elements that appeared in the MGM musical. Baum would have understood Oz as a world and indeed, he presented himself as the "geographer" of Oz, giving a series of mock travelogue lectures, where he showed slides and short films, which illustrated different places within Oz and hinted at the events which had occurred there. Oz as a place got elaborated not simply through the books but also through comic strip series (recently reprinted), stage musicals, and films, each of which added new places and characters to the overall mix. Some of the Oz books were novelizations and elaborations of stories introduced through these other media. And consistently, the logic of these stories were focused on journeys and travel, so that the Oz franchise was constantly uncovering more parts of the fictional world.
This concept of world building is closely linked to what Janet Murray has called the "encyclopedic" impulse behind contemporary interactive fictions - the desire of audiences to map and master as much as they can know about such universes, often through the production of charts, maps, and concordances. Consider, for example, this map of the character relations which have unfolded in the X-Men universe over the past 40 plus years and compare it to the complex social dynamics ascribed to the great Russian novels, such as Tolstoi's War and Peace or Anna Karenina. Pushing back even earlier, we can see this world building impulse at work in something like the Sistine Chapel Ceiling Murals, which seek to stitch together characters and stories from across many different parts of the Bible into a single coherent representation.
The concept of world building seems closely linked to the earlier principles of immersion and extractability since they both represent ways for consumers to engage more directly with the worlds represented in the narratives, treating them as real spaces which intersect in some way with our own lived realities. Witness the production of travel posters for fictional locations, for example. Many transmedia extensions can be understood as doing something similar to Baum's travel lectures as offering us a guided tour of the fictional setting, literally in the case of a real estate site created around Melrose Place, or simply flesh out our understanding of the institutions and practices.
Increasingly, transmedia producers are creating the media which exists in the fictional world as a way of understanding its own logic, practices, and institutions - so we see, for example, the production of fictional pirate comics within Alan Moore's original Watchmen graphic novels to show us the fantasies of a world where superheroes are a reality, or the newscasts created around the film version of Watchmen, which help us to understand the altered history created by the superhero's intervention into 20th century events.
These extensions may take physical forms, as in the park benches for District 9, which helped us to experience the segregation between humans and aliens. They might include mock advertising campaigns, such as those for Tru-Blood, or political posters, such as those created in support of alien rights in District 9 or vampire rights in True Blood. And they might extend to the production of fictional media franchises and fandoms, such as Jesse Alexander has created for Sargasso Planet in his upcoming Day One miniseries.
5. Seriality
The idea of seriality has an equally long history, which we can trace back to 19th century literary figures, such as Charles Dickens or the Dumas factory, and which took on new significance with the rise of movie serials in the early 20th century. Indeed, Kim Deitch's Alias the Cat graphic novel uses this earlier historical moment to comment on our current push towards transmedia entertainment, with his protagonist gradually drawing connections between events depicted in movie serials, comic strips, live theatrical events, and news stories, suggesting ways that an earlier media system might tell a story across multiple platforms.
We might understand how serials work by falling back on a classic film studies distinction between story and plot. The story refers to our mental construction of what happened which can be formed only after we have absorbed all of the available chunks of information. The plot refers to the sequence through which those bits of information have been made available to us. A serial, then, creates meaningful and compelling story chunks and then disperses the full story across multiple installments. The cliff-hanger represents an archtypical moment of rupture where one text ends and closure where one text bleeds into the next, creating a strong enigma which drives the reader to continue to consume the story even though our satisfaction has been deferred while we await the next installment.
We can think of transmedia storytelling then as a hyperbolic version of the serial, where the chunks of meaningful and engaging story information have been dispersed not simply across multiple segments within the same medium, but rather across multiple media systems. There still is a lot we don't know about what will motivate consumers to seek out those other bits of information about the unfolding story - ie. What would constitute the cliffhanger in a transmedia narrative - and we still know little about how much explicit instruction they need to know these other elements exist or where to look for them. As we work on these problems, there is a great deal we can learn by studying classic serial forms of fiction, such as the serial publication of novels or the unfolding of chapters in movie serials or even in comic book series.
Early writing on transmedia (mine included) may have made too much of the nonlinear nature of the transmedia entertainment experience, suggesting that the parts could be consumed within any order. Increasingly, we are seeing companies deploy very different content and strategies in the build up to the launch of the "mother ship" of the franchise than while the series is on the air or after the main text has completed its cycle. So there's work to be done to understand the sequencing of transmedia components and whether, in fact, it really does work to consume them in any order. We are, however, seeing some very elaborate plays with time lines and seriality occurring as the stories of television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, or Supernatural extend into comics, or consider the ways that each of the Battlestar Galactica films has added some new chunk to the timeline of that particular universe.
6. Subjectivity
Transmedia extensions, then, may focus on unexplored dimensions of the fictional world, as happens when Star Wars games pick up on particular groups - such as the bounty hunters or podracers - and expands upon what was depicted in the films. Transmedia extensions may broaden the timeline of the aired material, as happens when we rely on comics to fill in back story or play out the long term ramifications of the depicted events (see for example the use of animation in the build up to The Dark Knight or The Matrix Reloaded). A third function of transmedia extensions may be to show us the experiences and perspectives of secondary characters. These functions may be combined as they were with the Heroes webcomics, which provided backstories and insights into the large cast of characters as the series was being launched. These kinds of extensions tap into longstanding readers interest in comparing and contrasting multiple subjective experiences of the same fictional events.
We may learn a good deal about this aspect of transmedia by looking at the tradition of epistolary novels. Works like Robinson Crusoe, Pamela, or Dracula, constructed fictional diaries, letters, even transcripts. While they are contained within a single binder, they can be described as transmedia works insofar as they imitate multiple genres, including both manuscript and print forms of prose, and thus invite us to construct the fictional reality from these fragments. Typically, the author constructed himself or herself as having found these documents rather than constructed them, much as ARGs often refuse to acknowledge that they are games or works like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity pretend to be constructed from found footage.
As we read such works, we are encouraged to be aware of who is writing and who they are writing for, thus using the letters or diaries to help further construct the relationships between characters. Something similar occurs when we look at the mock websites constructed around transmedia fictions - for example, District 9 was accompanied by a website for an alien rights organization which directly challenges some of the claims made by the government characters in the film and in some cases, we are seeing mock government propaganda footage as it is being "read against the grain" by these resistant organizations, thus creating a layered subjectivity. If Ghost Whispererr, the television series, is about a human woman who speaks with ghost, the webisode series, "The Other Side," shares the perspective of ghost who speak to human women. The promoters of 2012 recently sparked controversy when they created a mock educational website that while clearly marked as tied to a fictional film represented "scientific" perspectives on why the world was ending, a site which provoked responses from NASA who were concerned that it might be misleading the public about actual scientific thoughts and theories about the state of the universe.
This focus on multiple subjectivities is giving rise to the use of Twitter as a platform through which fans (Mad Men) or authors (Valmont) can elaborate on the secondary characters and their responses to events represented in the primary text. We even saw this focus on multiple subjectivities extend into reality television this season when Project Runway, which focuses on the designers, added a second series, which focused on the same events as experienced by "The Models of the Runway."
Transmedia texts often rely on secondary characters because it is too costly to bring the primary actors over to work in lower yield media like mobisodes and webisodes. Yet, we have a lot to learn about how to turn this into a strength by exploiting the audience's desire to see through more than one set of eyes. Battlestar Galactica's webisode series, "The Face of the Enemy," showed some of this potential in focusing around Felix Gaeta, a previously marginalized figure on the series, and creating interest as they lead into a season where he was going to play a much more central role; the episodes fleshed out his backstory, explored his motivations, and hinted at some of the future developments, all within a short and largely self-contained storyline.
7. Performance
In Convergence Culture, I introduced two related concepts - cultural attractors (a phrase borrowed from Pierre Levy) and cultural activators. Cultural attractors draw together a community of people who share common interests - even if it is simply the common interest in figuring out who is going to get booted from the island next. Cultural activators give that community something to do. My classic example would be the map flashed in short bursts in the second season of Lost. Hardcore fans were motivated to create their own screengrabs, share them online, construct their own maps, and try to decipher the cryptic text and figure out how it related to the depicted events. Increasingly, producers are being asked to think about what fans are going to do with their series and to design in spaces for their active participation. Sharon Marie Ross discusses these as invitational strategies, suggesting that these can be explicit (as in the appeals to vote on So You Think You Can Dance) or implicit (as in the depiction inside the series of fans in The O.C. or mobile social networks in Gossip Girl.)
But even without those invitations, fans are going to be actively identifying sites of potential performance in and around the transmedia narrative where they can make their own contributions. Indeed, much of the discussion at Futures of Entertainment this year centered around various ways that producers were engaging with these fans, supporting, "harvesting," or shutting down their own creative contributions. In my original talk, I refer to "fan performance" but it was pointed out through these discussions that producers are also "performing" their relationship to both the text and the audience through their presence online or through director's commentary. We typically think of these director commentaries as "nonfiction" or "documentary" breaking down the fiction to show us the behind the scenes production process, yet some authors - Ron Moore in the case of Battlestar Galactica or JMS in the case of Babylon 5 - deploy these platforms to expand our understanding of the fictional worlds, the characters, and depicted events, suggesting that they may also be understood as an expansion of the narrative and not simply an exposition on its conditions of production.
As Louisa Stein noted at the conference, there's still much to be explored as we expand the discourse of transmedia entertainment to engage more fully with issues being raised by those working in the fan studies tradition. I can't fully elaborate on these issues now, but in the talk, I simply pointed to some examples of these fan-made extensions, such as the performance videos on YouTube where fans re-enact or lip sinc musical numbers from Glee which Alex Leavitt discussed on the Convergence Culture Consortium blog recently, or The Hunt for Gollum, a fan constructed extension of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, or Star Wars Uncut, where each fan is allowed to reconstruct a single shot from the George Lucas film, which no unfolds through a giddy array of representational strategies (claymation, lego, drag queens, manipulated or re-enacted footage).
I also suggested that we can understand transmedia activism, such as that illustrated by the HP Alliance, which deploys themes, characters, and situations from the J.K. Rowling narratives to motivate real world social change, as a logical extension both of performance and of the tension between extractability and immersion. All of these represent unauthorized forms of extension which are not directly acknowledged in the primary text. Yet, a central theme running through the conference centered on how these fan productions and performances might feed back into the creation of the commercial transmedia franchise itself, with Purefold being held up as an emerging model which deploys crowdsourcing and Creative Commons liscensing to encourage viewer contributions to thinking through future directions in the series.
So there you have them - seven core principles of transmedia storytelling. Is this an exhaustive list? Probably not. Some of them weren't even fully on my radar at the start of the semester. These represent insights into the various transmedia experiments we've seen so far. Some of these have drawn a good deal of critical attention, while others represent new and unexplored spaces. Most point to ways that transmedia connects to historic cultural practices and thus can draw insights from historical and critical writing on those practices. Most point to ways that the study of transmedia narrative needs to reconnect with the study of commercial industries and fan communities if we are to really understand the dynamic being created by these interventions. And most of them point to new spaces for creative experimentation.
If you are enjoying this discussion of transmedia, stay tuned. More is coming next week including some previews of the work we are doing on transmedia activism. For now, you can check out two more of the sessions from Futures of Entertainment 4 which deal with transmedia issues.
Session 1: Producing Transmedia Experiences: Stories in a Cross-Platform World
Moderator: Jason Mittell - Middlebury College
Panelists: Brian Clark - Partner and CEO, GMD Studios; Michael Monello- Co-Founder & Creative Director, Campfire; Derek Johnson - University of North Texas; Victoria Jaye - Acting Head of Fiction & Entertainment Multiplatform Commissioning, BBC; Patricia Handschiegel - Serial Entrepeneur, Founder of Stylediary.net
Case Study: Transmedia Design and Conceptualization - The Making of Purefold
Moderator: Geoffrey Long - Gambit-MIT
Panelists include: David Bausola - Co-founder of Ag8; Tom Himpe - Co-founder of Ag8; Mauricio Mota - Chief Storytelling Officer, co-founder The Alchemists; C3 Consulting Practitioner; Leo Sa - Petrobras


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Available now are these sterling silver bracelets specially designed for the Reid R. Sacco AYA Cancer Alliance. Net proceeds from the sale of each bracelet benefit the Alliance's fight against cancer in young adults.
The Story Behind the Bracelet
At the center of this Kennebunkport™ Bracelet is "Reid's Knot", symbolizing strength of spirit and a commitment to living and loving. The bracelet's design and name symbolize multiple facets of Reid's legacy.
Reid loved the natural beauty and energy of Kennebunkport. He spent his summers there sailing and teaching children to sail. He began each course teaching his students a variety of strong sailing knots that would make them safe and competent sailors.
Like the band of the bracelet, Reid's life came full circle. Like the placement of the bracelet's knot, at the center of that circle was the strength of his love for life, family, and friends. Reid's life came full circle in too short a time, but his passion for life enabled him to live it to its fullest and to lead a complete life in the time he had. Shortly before he died, he asked his family and friends to be sure to live life to the fullest, no matter what happened to him.
Reid shared a devoted love with his girlfriend. That love survived the harrowing journey of an aggressive and courageous battle against a terminal disease. That love bonded their hearts together in a union unbroken by the tragedy that enveloped them.
Wearing or giving this bracelet symbolizes your belief in the spirit of life and your commitment to living and loving life to its fullest.
Ordering the Bracelet
Each bracelet is packaged in a simple and elegant gift box.
These Kennebunkport™ Bracelets are offered exclusively through Baubles Jewelry, Post Office Square, Lynnfield, MA 01940. If you are in the area, stop by and take a look at this unique and finely crafted item. You can place your order there. Or,
To Order by Phone, call BAUBLES JEWELRY at 781-592-6110.
In sterling silver: $199 plus tax.
In sterling silver & solid 14K gold (silver band and gold knot and gold braiding): please call for additional information
Remember that net proceeds from the sale of every bracelet benefit the Reid R. Sacco AYA Cancer Alliance and its fight to find cures for the cancers that extinguish the dreams of thousands of young adults every year.


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Speaker: Tracey TiefWritten by: Esha & Sheena Jain
Sexual pleasure is a topic that society considers taboo. According to Tracy TieF, a certified natural health practitioner, she believes that sexual pleasure is our birthright. She urges people to be aware of toxic sex toys and the potentially harmful effects of their materials. The sex toy industry is unregulated and so many are unaware of the potential health risks associated with the use of these products.
The main concern is the use of phthalates, a chemical used in adhesives, paint, insect repellents, polyvinyl chloride plastic, children's toys and cosmetics such as nail polish and perfumes. Phthalates, also known as plasticizers, are added to the plastic sex toy to make the toy softer and more flexible. Overtime these added phthalates leak out in a process called "off-gassing", which may be ultimately absorbed into the body.
According to Tracey, plastics can modify the fats and oils in our bodies. Fats are necessary for energy storage and act as a cushion for the brain. The argument is that if they were to be ingested or absorbed into the bloodstream, the off-gassing could modify these fats, potentially contributing to hormonal and neuronal disruptions. She believes that the hormonal disruption can contribute to reproductive issues, such as polyps and ovarian cysts, and are linked with the usage of sex toys due to the effects of phthalates and the permeability of the vaginal wall. Human studies are limited on the effects that these materials have.
What has been found is that these materials do have an overwhelmingly reproductive inhibiting effect. One study conducted by Hans Ulrich Krieg in 2000, a German chemist, found 10 chemicals emitted out of sex toys that were available in Europe. Of the chemicals found, diethylhexyl phthalates was among them and contained concentrations as high as 243,000 ppm, a value that was considered 'off the charts'. Phthalates are lipophilic substances, and therefore are drawn to fats. The theory is that the fat could aid in drawing the phthalates out of the plastic, and would be absorbed into the mucous membrane of the vaginal canal and rectum and eventually even be absorbed by the liver or kidney. In another study led by Greenpeace Netherlands, in 2006 found that vaginal or rectal exposure to these chemicals would cause endocrine disruption, fertility issues and may lead to certain types of cancer. The American FDA cites phthalates as a probable human carcinogen. Animal studies found that high doses of phthalates cause cancer in rats. In lower doses, the rats displayed problems with genital and fetal development, producing stillborn rats. Regardless of the limited studies, based on what evidence is presented, the FDA and Greenpeace state that these chemicals do pose a health risk to the population.
Currently, North America and the European Union have been able to take actions that restrict the use of phthalates in children's toys; however the issue still remains to exist for adult toys. According to Tracey, the loop hole lies in semantics. The packaging labels these products as "novelty" products, which means not intended for actual use. This allows manufacturers to avoid legal responsibility for what health risks may occur contributed to by the potentially harmful materials, and this industry labeling practice enables manufacturers to sidestep the need for government regulations. Therefore, manufacturers are not obligated to provide product lists of chemicals and materials used.
So what would a toxic-free, safer sex toy look like?
Firstly, the toy would not contain any strong chemical odours. If the toy is held over a flame it should not burn or melt. If it did burn, some percentage of plastic exists. Additionally, it would not contain any plastic, rubbery or jelly-like material and there should not be any expiration dates on the packaging. If the material is more porous, it could create space that may allow for bacteria to become trapped. Tracey also noted that porous toys cannot be sterilized and should be used with a condom. A non-porous toy is likely a stainless steel that is smooth with an impermeable surface and does not harbor bacteria in its surface. It can be sterilized with boiling water or through a dishwasher. Finally, alternate materials that can be safely used are as follows: wood, stone, metal, glass, non-porous, medical grade silicone, ceramics and crystal.
Discussion Questions
- What are plasticizers and why are they used in cosmetics?
Plasticizers make plastics more flexible. It's used to make the fragrance in cosmetics, personal care products and baby products last longer.
- Why is Bisphenol A added to plastic products?
BPA aids in making plastic clear and shatter proof.
- What are the effects of Bisphenol A (BPA) and Phthalates on children when ingested?
Children's products such as teethers, sippy cups, toys and cleansing baby products contain BPA and Phthalates. When children put these items in their mouth the chemical has the potential to leak from the product to the child. Animal studies have shown that BPA can have developmental effects and adverse effects on reproduction. Animal studies show that phthalate exposure can cause liver, kidney, male and female reproductive system adverse effects. Specifically when phthalates were exposed to fetuses in the mother's womb, it caused decreased sperm activity, decreased concentration, early puberty in females and testicular cancer. According to Tracey, it can contribute to asthma, autism and learning disorders in children. Unfortunately, the evidence is taken from mostly animal studies and human studies are limited.
"Bisphenol-A (BPA)." Westchester Gov.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2016. (http://health.westchestergov.com/bisphenol-a-and-phthalates)
Canadian Cancer Society. "Phthalates - Canadian Cancer Society." Www.cancer.ca. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2016. (http://www.cancer.ca/en/prevention-and-screening/be-aware/harmful-substances-and-environmental-risks/phthalates/?region=on )
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015. Web. 24 June 2016. (http://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/phthalates_factsheet.html)
Chemical Substances. Phthalate Substance Grouping. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2016.
Denning, Burke. "The Safety Dance: Sex Toy Safety for a New Generation." Kinsey Confidential RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2016. (http://kinseyconfidential.org/safety-dance-sex-toy-safety-generation/)
Gertz, Emily. "Ever Thought about the Toxins in Your Sex Toys?" Grist. N.p., 2005. Web. 24 June 2016.
"Plasticisers (phthalates) and Bisphenol A (BPA)." BabyCenter Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2016.


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The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering welcomes motivated, well prepared students to seek admissions to our graduate programs.
Admission into the ECE graduate programs is very competitive. Applicants applying to the master of science program, who have earned or will earn a bachelor's degree, are encouraged to have a 3.3/4.0 or higher GPA on their most recent 60 course credit hours. The master of engineering GPA requirement for admission is a hard minimum 3.0 GPA on the most recent 60 course credit hours. Direct-Ph.D. and Ph.D. applicants typically have a grade point average that exceeds 3.5/4.0 in their previous degrees.
Applicants applying to the Ph.D. program are encouraged to review the additional information provided. See Ph.D. Admissions in the Graduate Student Policy Manual for details.
For more information contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Applicants applying for admission to ECE Graduate Programs at all campuses are to use the online Virginia Tech Graduate School Application Form. All documents below must be uploaded in electronic format; the ECE Department does not accept paper application materials. It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that all application materials, including scores and letters of recommendation, have been submitted online. After applying, contact email@example.com if you have questions or to check the status of your application materials. Complete applications only will be reviewed by the EE and CPE Admissions Officers and the ECE Graduate Committee.
The complete application includes
ECE awards Graduate Teaching Assistantships and Fellowships each year to qualified applicants. Preference is given to applicants that submit their application materials by the suggested application deadline.
Applicants are encouraged to communicate amongst the faculty in our many research programs to find research assistantship support from their contracts.
Research oriented graduate students are given preference to funding opportunities. Financial support is not guaranteed with admission. See Fellowships for details.
The Bradley Graduate Fellowships are available each year to the top U.S. graduate students. Students must be US citizens to be considered.
The Bradley Fellowships enable highly motivated graduate students to pursue research in ECE focus areas.
Who: U.S. applicants to the ECE graduate program are auto‐matically considered for the Bradley Fellowship. Underrepresented minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.
What: MS degree fellowships:
Direct‐PhD Fellowship:
PhD degree fellowships:
For more information, view our 2019 Bradley Fellowship Brochure
Students applying for the Ph.D. program typically have a masters degree from an accredited college or university in EE, CPE, or a related field.
Highly qualified applicants without a masters degree who wish to apply to the Ph.D. program must apply for the direct-Ph.D. program.
A student graduating from Virginia Tech is only required to submit two recommendations, although more are acceptable. Virginia Tech students earning a bachelor's degree in ECE who have a 3.5 or higher GPA are not required to take the GRE exam.
Students from Virginia Tech who have a 3.5 or higher GPA on their last 60 credit hours of course work should consider applying to the Accelerated Undergraduate/Graduate Program section in the Graduate Student Policy Manual.
The Accelerated Masters Program is for Virginia Tech undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing graduate studies at Virginia Tech. Students must be accepted into the program prior to the beginning of the semester in which they would enroll in courses to be used in the accelerated program.Application Form
Students who are currently enrolled in the master's degree program at Virginia Tech, and desire to continue their studies toward a Ph.D. degree, must formally request admission into the Ph.D. program by the departmental admission deadline. The request should be made by using the online Virginia Tech Graduate School Application Form. In addition, one letter of reference from an ECE faculty member willing to commit to be the student's faculty advisor, with research funds, must be submitted to the ECE Graduate Admission/Recruiting Office.
All international students whose native language is not English and who have not earned a bachelor or masters degree from an American, Canadian, or British institution are required to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) Exam as well as the GRE. Their applications will not be acted upon until both the TOEFL and the GRE test scores have been received.
International applicants must provide proof of funding from their government, employer, or a graduate assistantship offer from Virginia Tech to support studies financially for the first year at Virginia Tech. This financial/funding information and documentation may be submitted along with the application for admission or after the admission decision has been made. This information is submitted to the Graduate School and not to the ECE department. More information on financial requirements for international students can be found on the Graduate School web site.
Applicants who do not have an EE or CPE degree or switching between EE and CPE are advised to be familiar with the ECE background requirements. See Students with Non-EE/CPE Backgrounds in the Graduate Student Policy Manual for details.
Deferral of admission will only be approved under exceptional circumstances. Typically a funding offer cannot be deferred. Students not offered admission and wishing to be considered for admission for subsequent semesters must submit a new on-line application, including new copies of all supporting documents.
To be fully considered for funding, the application deadlines are January 15 for fall admission and September 1 for spring admission.
Graduate student tuition and fees are detailed on the Bursar's Office website.
Recommended TOEFL scores for each test types are:
Internet based: 96-97
Computer based: 590-593
IELTS Band 7.5
Recommended GRE scores (RGT):
Jan 15: Deadline to be fully considered for funding
Feb 20: Deadline for international students applying for fall admissions (see the note above on the deadline for funding consideration)
Apr 15: Earliest date any University can require an applicant to notify them of their intent to accept a fall admissions offer with funding
May 15: Last day international applicants can be accepted for fall admission
July 1: Deadline for domestic students applying for fall admissions (see the note above on the deadline for funding consideration)
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Dec 1: Deadline for domestic students applying for spring admissions (see the note above on the deadline for funding consideration)
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The opportunity to design this house was unexpected and acted as a catalyst to begin our practice.
The site and scope promised much, combining two large terraces in Paddington into a single family home. The clients had only a few specific requirements: the new house needed to cope well with their large, busy family, it had to join the two distinct properties seamlessly and could in no way be 'over-designed' or fussy. Despite the scope, modesty was essential.
The central void in the design concept was crucial to the client's enthusiasm. The scheme developed around this void, with the ground floor living areas opening on to the north facing garden while the views from the upper levels (specifically of the much loved orange tree) were controlled and focused. Most of the existing fabric was demolished, while the front facades were restored. These remain distinguishable from one another, giving few clues to the amalgamation of the properties beyond.
The primary material chosen for the new construction was brick, bagged and painted, common to modest architecture in the area. The massing of the project, clearly defined by the brick volumes, steps down and out towards the rear of the property, responding to program, the existing levels and the neighbouring terraces. The project challenges the nature of the brickwork, floating the largest plains above the sliding oak doors to the ground floor.
The interiors are calm with a very limited palette of materials. The warmth of the oak used throughout is balanced by the white set walls. Natural light, abundant on the ground floor, is carefully controlled along the circulation path of the upper levels.


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Science is fun. Not "maybe", not "could be", not "sometimes". Science is fun ... period. Whether your making something, discovering something or exploring something, science is fun. That is the mantra we have lived by with Lil Monkey from the earliest moments.
This past weekend we attended a birthday party at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, in Houston's Museum District. We have been here about 5 times in the last 18-months and everytime is like the first time - for all of us. Every time Lil Monkey looks at a dinosaur its like he's seeing it for the first time. He is awestruck, excited and enraptured ... and quite verbal about it. At first I felt sorry for the other people at the museum when he'd run around trying to see everything and talking 100 mph, but then I thought, "maybe they need to see the excitement of a child when he sees all of these exhibits, maybe they can learn something from the questions he asks or maybe they will have the answers." Now that I am a mom, I am painfully aware of the fact that I do not have all the answers.
So, there we were, at a dinosaur exhibit with 15 or more 4, 5, 6 year-old kids and older. Most, if not all the kids were classmates and school mates of Lil Monkey, and they are taught to explore and ask questions. So while many of us moms tried to prevent the kids from playing or distracting each other on the tour, we were quite excited with the questions they were asking and how many were answering the guide's questions with thought out answers.
On this day, we only explored the dinosaur exhibit and the interactive space and planet exhibit, though the kids did get to hang out in a shark cage momentarily in front of that traveling exhibit.
The HMNS is definitely one of our favorite hometown museums. In previous visits we've explored the Hall of Ancient Egypt (not a favorite for Lil Monkey, but Prince Charming loved it), as well as game fish exhibit, Hall of African Wildlife, Earth Forum, and Texas Wildlife Exhibit. We also looked at (from afar) special exhibits such as the Faberge Collection, Shark Exhibit and Gemstone Carvings Exhibit.
These are some photos from our visit this past weekend ...
The tour guide said that this was actually fossilized dinosaur skin that they found near an almost completely intact dinosaur.
If you haven't visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science, or if it's been a while, you should definitely schedule a day to tour this amazing world of science. You're sure to find something to catch your attention, even if its a dinosaur food fight!
Until our next cup of tea ...