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- "She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself."
- Luke Skywalker and Han Solo
In 2002 I bought a Dell Dimension 2350 P4 2.6Ghz PC for my young son. His older brother had a PC, and it seemed right that he should have one too. I didn't know much about PC's at the time and assumed "Integrated Intel Graphics" meant that it might be a bit slower than a dedicated graphics card, but the price was good.
Alas I learned the hard way that if you (or your kids) want to do serious gaming on a PC you need a dedicated graphics card slot , typically AGP or now PCI-Express aka PCI-E. The dimension 2350 did not have one, only 3 humble PCI slots .
Thus began a long and enjoyable exploration of how far I could push this entry-level PC toward serious gaming , and along the way I learned a lot about PC's and have grown to really like this funny old machine. Many, many people have said I was mad and should spend money on a new mother board , graphics card etc. I also have other PC's, some of fairly recent build and performance, but like one of those cheap old cars with all the custom trim, this Dimension has been a lot of fun, even if it makes no economic sense
Almost immediately I found out that many games simply didn't run on the on board graphics, so the first upgrade was to a PCI geforce4 card I bought in panic at Maplin . I found a posting via google of someone who had been through an identical experience and it detailed how to change the graphics adaptor from on-board to PCI in the BIOS. I followed the instructions
I fitted the new card, booted, let windows discover the new second graphics adaptor, made that the default via the Desktop Advanced settings. Rebooted to BIOS and changed the primary graphics adaptor from Auto to PCI.
It worked ! I disabled the on-board and ran entirely from the PCI card which was able to adequately play "X-men: Wolverines revenge" - the offending game which baulked at the on-board Intel graphics chip set.
Thus began the arms race between me and the games industry to see who would blink first. With each new game I have to further tweak the hardware or settings to squeeze a bit more performance out of the old Dell. Here is a picture of the inside of her today, much changed from original.
Over time I'll elaborate on things that have been worthwhile to do, many of which are applicable to any PC. At this point I should introduce a document which I have found invaluable , it's Koroush Ghazi's Ultimate XP Tweak Guide.
There is a good deal of misinformation on the internet about tweaks that supposedly make XP go faster. many are bogus or misinformed, whereas Karoush's guide is well argued and very rigorous . You can obtain the full guide for free , or by making a donation obtain a copy which is print formatted. I printed off a copy and very well thumbed it is too.
Graphics cards
PCI is considered fine for most general requirements i.e sound cards, modems, additional USB ports, network cards, but was found to be a performance bottleneck for Graphics and new standards for interconnects were developed (AGP, PCI-express). Many people don't believe they even still make PCI Graphics cards, worse many refer to PCI-E as PCI , lazily dropping the E-for-Express part, unaware of the difference.
PCI Graphics cards are alive and well and continue to be manufactured. They may not have the very latest ATI or nVidia chip sets, but they exist, largely because people still need them toi either run additional monitors or because they need graphics cards for small form factor media PC's which require silent operation and low power requirements.
I have tended to stick with nVidia cards, more out of comfort than any specific reason. The steps below relate to nVidia but I there will be a similar approach to installing ATI-based cards. There are a wide range of ATI PCI cards, the top model currently being the 1550.
I have gone from geforce4 FX440 to a 5200, 5500, 6200 and am now on an Sparkle 8500GT 256Mb PCI card. This may seem insane to a dedicated custom PC builder, but actually it's not. The resell price for old cards, especially PCI is pretty good and I have always got between 50-70% of the original cost back on ebay. Most PCI graphics cards sell from between £25-£50 which is not that much for a graphics card.
the latest card ,which I've only had for 3 weeks is the Sparkle 8500GT 256Mb PCI card. I think this is probably the highest spec nVidia card available in a PCI form factor, though there are ATi cards of similar spec. This card is quite something, being based around a mid range GPU chipset. It's physically large and occupies 1 1/2 PCI bays, so if you use other cards or PCI case fans , you may need to factor this in. It's so thick because of the huge heatsink, so this is entirely passive in it's cooling. It's also a little unusual in that when it was installed XP detected a PCI-to-PCI bridge, so I believe this card implements some kind of PCI-to PCI-E bridge technology. Examining the PC using Control Panel > System > Hardware > device Manager , I can see the card as normal BUT if I use the PCI latency tool it does not see the card, only a PCI-to-PCI bridge device occupying that IRQ. The latency value is also set to zero, as is everything except the network card (32).
I ran the 3dmark03 test on it and achieved a score of 4777, where the previous best card, the 6200 only scored 2011. In gaming too it seems significantly better, my son can play S.T.A.L.K.E.R: shadows of Chernobyl on full resolution and with high detail. Only dynamic lighting has to be disabled, in favour of static lighting, but that's really the icing on the cake.
I try and run the latest drivers from nVidia and the latest version of DirectX from Microsoft. Installing the latest drivers is pretty easy, though I follow a slightly more complex install route, based on Koroush observation that some driver components don't always get correctly updated:
- Download the latest nvidia drivers from the nVidia driver homepage and save to your disk. I also download driver cleaner pro and install that. Don't run it yet.
- Remove the old driver using the Control Panel > Remove Software >nVidia drivers. Don't worry , the PC works OK with no driver. If you rebooted it uses a generic VGA driver. Not as pretty, but you shouldn't be left with a blank screen.
- Reboot into safe mode. I seem to have problems getting the Dell to do this from the boot menu, so while not in safe mode, I first run msconfig from the "Run" option, then select the boot.ini tab and check the SAFE mode box. Later I uncheck this once.s I've carried out step 4.
- In safe mode I run Driver Cleaner Pro to remove any pieces of the nVidia driver left behind. I have also used this approach when updating the SoundMAX sound drivers
- re-run msconfig and unset the SAFE mode and reboot to normal mode
- On reboot XP will discover the graphics card and prompt to install the new driver. I cancel this then run the nVidia driver update
- The nVidia install will run through and may reset the monitor to the lowest resolution. It will also ask you to reboot in order that it can start a number of background processes : 1 a service and 2 via the users start-up tray. You don't have to reboot here, I normally reset the resolution by right-clicking on the desktop background > properties then set the resolution as high as I can.
PCI graphics cards are way behind AGP or PCI-E cards in terms of performance, largely because the PCI bus is the bottleneck and is shared with other devices which in turn, may be making demands of the bus at the same time. There is not a great deal of info on PCI tuning regarding graphics cards, but there is a lot on tuning for sound cards. People involved in using PC's as recording studios sometimes find that their soundcards suffer from lag or 'stutter'. This can be tweaked by modifying the PCI latency, or in other words the time alloted to each device on the bus. In the Dimension , while the sound card is part of the motherboard, it does show up as a PCI device
(Control Panel > System>hardware>Device manager > View by Type).
Another concept to introduce is the IRQ (Interrupt request). Each device in the PC is allotted an IRQ number at boot time by the XP PnP Service, other OS's such as Linux have a similar concept. There are 16 IRQ's (00-15) and so devices typically have to share their allotted IRQ number, as devices include things like the USB interfaces,floppy drive and some of the ports at the back of the PC.
Two concepts worth pursuing in an attempt to squeeze as much performance as possible are :
1) Try to distribute IRQ's evenly i.e don't have CPU intensive devices sharing the same IRQ (Sound, Network, Graphics)
2) Tweak the PCI Latency values to get the best balance
To achieve 1) First you need to look at which devices have which IRQ's using the system tool in control panel. I try to keep Sound, network and Graphics cards on separate IRQ's. But how do you control them ? Well If you are really determined you can override the Universal Plug And Play service, but I prefer a different , safer approach.
First I decided to remove or disable anything I didn't need from the PC. Not only does this free up some room for the PnP service, it also frees up some current for the PSU (see later) and frees up some physical space to improve cooling (also see later). I never use the floppy drive, the only possible use might be if I ever decide to flash the BIOS, but the A01 version I'm running seems to work fine. I could have disabled the Floppy in the BIOS, which would have left it in place should I ever need it. But I decided to open the case, remove it's power and IDE cable then remove the whole drive and frame that supports it below the hard disk. At present I don't have a way of blanking the slot at the front , but I'm not too worried.
Similarly I removed the Modem card, which I never use, which left just my Graphics card as the only device occupying a physical PCI slot.
Next in the BIOS I disabled the floppy drive and I also disabled the Parallel printer port on the back. This PC will never use a parallel printer, most are now USB or better even networked. I also disabled the parallel printer service associated with this
After this if you boot you may see if the balance of IRQ's has been affected. The other thing you can do is move the graphics card to different PCI slots. the affected the IRQ distribution for me, and I found the top slot gave the best balance i.e Sound, network and Graphics on different IRQ's. Some are shared still, typically with USB devices, but this was the best I could achieve.
PCI latency can be examined using the freeware PCI latency tool . I found that maximum latency was being set by my graphics card already (248) and as I was not experiencing any sound lag or stutter symptoms I decided to leave it. I also reasoned that perhaps my network performance might be being affected by the latency dominance of the Graphics card but it was too hard to tell. So I left it alone, but if you are experiencing sound problems and the graphics card is set high, you can use the tool to override this and see if halving the graphics demand improves things. It's a popular and proven mod in the sound card world.
Soon after starting down the PCI graphics card route I also upgraded the memory. The Dimension has two memory slots and can support up to 1Gb. I upgraded to a full 1Gb made up of 2 512Mb PC-2700 simms. I have also played around with the accompanying page file, experimenting with having no page file. In the end I created a dedicated page file partition of 5Gb on my second hard disk and created a maximum size 4096Mb page file in it. I disabled XP recovery mode on that partition. the evidence was that having no page file made no appreciable difference and some large games (i.e. S.T.A.L.K.E.R) might exceed my 1Gb memory capacity.
Based on feedback I received from Robert, I tried 2Gb of memory (2 * 1Gb SIMMS) and the Dell is able to see this in both the BIOS and XP, so now I'm running this machine with 2Gb main memory + 4096Mb page file in it's own partition.
I try to keep the number of processes to a bare minimum, thus maximising the available memory for games by the following :
- reducing the number of services to the bare essentials via control panel >Administration >Services. If in doubt I set them to Manual rather than automatic and see if the server still functions OK
- Ensuring that few if any programs are run at startup. Plenty of software will add something to your start-up when installing. If you ever install something that requires a reboot, its a pretty sure bet that it has either added a service or a start-up script. Sometime these are necessary for the running of the product i.e. Norton Ghost, but often it's just a lazy background update programs. While small they all take up memory and some processing power.
- Checking that no extra tool bars have attached themselves to the browser. I have noticed that various parasitic programs seem to be able to attach themselves to IE in the guise of tool bars. Some are valid, like the google tool bar, others seem to be designed to misdirect your browsing to sponsored sites. I try locking down the Internet Explorer tool bar via it's settings, then checking from time to time what has attached itself using HijackThis
If I reboot the PC , then login, then wait a few minutes for XP to settle I see 18 processes running in Task Manager. A neighbours PC which had some malware problems had 67 processes running. Now some were due to specific graphics or sound cards and were necessary, but you see what can happen.
Disk Drives
The Dell Dimension 2350 came with a single 40 or 60 Gb Western Digital drive as I recall. This soon filled up and was supplemented with a second drive a 7200RPM 200Gb Samsung.
Fitting a second drive is a bit of a challenge as the Dimension is quite limited in space,but there are two places you can fit it:
1) In the second tray beneath the existing CDROM drive at the top. This requires a an adapter kit to privide the side runners to slide into to the slot. The Dell had a rounded grey blanking plate on the front which removes to gain access.
2) Piggy backed behind the existing system drive at the bottom of the front. The Dell, like a Compaq we also owned , has the system drive in a vertical position at the bottom front of the case in a metal 'cage'. It's possible to obtain a second metal cage from here, which will attach to the first to add a second bay. This position at the front receives cool air which enters the case via vent holds behind the plastic front piece.
I opted for option 1) and for some time this ran well. However after a while I noticed some 'Bad Block' errors occurring in the system event logs (Control Panel > Admin Tools >Event Viewer > System )- a tell tale sign of a disk going bad. Worse a few related to the main system disk too.
When disks go bad
I therefore cloned the disks to 2 new Maxtor disks which I replaced them with. I used Norton Ghost to do this. Cloning failing drives is not widely recommended on the basis that a copy of a bad drive will be incomplete. Of course the alternative which is to fresh install everything, isn't much better. Interestingly the old Seagate tools had a feature where they would analyse the surface for bad blocks AND reveal the filename of any files affected. This meant you could clone the disk knowing which files might be bad , and make a calculated decision. They might be unimportant i.e temporary files or possibly could be copied from another PC.
To try to avoid this I now employ a number of strategy's :
1) I routinely back up the drives with Norton Ghost
2) I monitor the system event logs for bad blocks or any RED error messages
3) I enabled S.M.A.R.T logging in the disk drives via the BIOS. S.M.A.R.T is a standard way that modern disk drives gather statistics about their performance. This is gathered by the disk and stored within the disk itself. Various tools are available but the data can be quite cryptic.
My favourite tool - speedfan has a tab to display the S.M.A.R.T data in a meaningful 'health check' form, and better still, has a button to compare your disk performance data with others. This is very useful as , for example , it gives a more detailed percentage health measure and how the disk temperature compares with the average for it's type from real users across the internet.
I try and keep the disks as cool as possible and both rarely creep above 30 degrees C (see cooling). speedfan is also able to display the real time temperature of a range of components within the PC including both disk drives.
NOTE: If you ever replace a failing disk drive, you may find the new disk is running slower than expected. This is due to a feature in XP, where, if a drive starts to report errors, XP downgraded the IDE protocol in an attempt to reduce the errors. However , when a new disk is added, it doesn't change back. See a discussion of this on the Microsoft website
It's easy to fix, but may go unnoticed. In my case it manifested it self as general slowness, particularly the number of passes the coloured "pellets" have to make in the XP boot screen. Normally this is around 6-7 but it was 20+ before I fixed this using the above article.
The general consensus as far as I can see, is that Windows seems to favour single large partitions. However I don't, and have my second disk divided up into smaller partitions. For me the greatest weakness with windows is how hard it is to move data and applications around and distribute them across disks. I don't mean drag & drop, cut & paste. I mean "I have a new disk and I'd like to move existing applications and data onto it ". This is easy to do on a Mac, but on windows reinstalling the application on the new drive is the only answer, you'd think it's in everyone's interest including Microsoft's , to make this easier ?
I try to distribute the IO across both disks to achieve some interleaving, especially as my drives are on separate IDE controllers, so I have my operating system (XP Home) on the C: drive and most applications are on the G: drive. In addition I have 2 specialised partitions P: & Z:
P: is a 5Gb partition and only contains the page file. recovery mode is disabled for this partition. No file system files are on it and it's not backed up
Z: is a 5Gb partition and holds all TEMP data. i.e the Control Panel >System > Advanced > Environment Variables that refer to TEMP files all point to this partition , both system and user. Also the IE temporary internet location also points here. It has no recovery enabled and is not backed up. This approach is one from my old Unix system admin days, and it has some advantages. For example this area can get very fragmented, but that fragmentation is contained within this area, so I can defragment this partition very quickly without defragmenting the whole C drive (the default location for all TEMP files). I also tend to download files to this drive and unzip them there. that way my main partitions don't fill up with forgotten downloads and unzips i.e nVidia drivers all get downloaded and expanded here. This drive also has recovery mode disabled, if I lose it it doesn't matter.
I routinely clear out junk from the drives. You can do this via Drive properties (right click on specific drive) which removes recognised temp files and older temporary internet files. I also quite like CCleaner
It not only enables you to analyse and remove all 'crap' from across all drive in a single pass, it provides tools to let you see what programs will auto start (and remove them). Some of it's options can be a bit severe, for example removing recent IE history or recent file open lists, but you can customise it .
I also routinely defragment all drives using the standard included XP tool (right click drive properties), though the TEMP more than others which mostly remain fairly static.
Power Supply
I'd assumed that power supplies required no thought, they just worked and never failed, and if they did , the PC would just not power on.
I have had 2 power supplies fail. One in a Compaq which was conservatively rated at 250WATTS, and one Christmas eve I decided it was the perfect time to attach a 3rd hard drive . This was in addition to a DVD combo and AGP Graphics card. At start-up there was a lot of smoke and a strong smell like the UK Antiseptic 'TCP' ! Worse the Compaq had a unique power supply, so an off the shelf ATX supply would not fit. That marked the end of that particular PC.
the original Dell Dimension 2350 came with a 250watt supply, and this failed but ina a different, gradual way. I noticed that mostly at boot up the CD drive was not there, yet I could add it via 'Add new hardware' and it would magically appear. I thought little of it, but then started to experience random BSOD's and other odd and entirely unconnected types of problems. It was suggested to me that the PSU was starting to fail, so I got a 400Watt ATX supply, which, contrary to much urban myth DOES fit in the Dell Dimension 2350. I didn't give much thought and bought a SWEEX model from my local PC mod store, you can see it at the top of the picture, it's hard to miss in it's full 'bling' gold plating. What I was unprepared for was how much better the PC seemed after ward. Everything seemed fast/quicker etc.
I don't know if the SWEEX unit is especially good, for another PC I got a green high efficiency PSU which consumes less power.
Sites exist which can calculate the total power rating of the entire PC. I think most PC's now come with a 400WATT supply as standard. speedfan is also able to monitor he power supply voltages on some motherboards though not on the dimension.
The new PSU has the intake fan position underneath,and is larger which improves the cooling of the case.
Keeping a PC cool is very important :
1) Components such as disk drives have their life expectancy shortened if continuously subjected to excess heat.
2) The CPU will slow down if it gets above it's operational temperature range. This is a fact, from the P4 onward, Intel incorporated a feedback safety measure, so if you exceed the temperature, the clock slows down. I have witnessed this with a 1.5Ghz P4 Compaq presario which would experience game sound stutter in certain games at certain points. I tried everything, new drivers etc., but could not find a cure. I then found a posting from a French gamer who suggested it was due to the CPU overheating. I downloaded motherboard monitor, which I used before speedfan, and this confirmed that the core CPU temperature was regularly exceeding the maximum for the processor type. In the end the cause was dust "bunnies" i.e. small balls of dust clogging the vanes in the heatsink. I cleared it all out with a can of air duster, then reseated the heatsink with fresh heat grease and the temperature dropped and the game lag disappeared.
3) The noise increases. Some of the fans will regulate their speed with temperature, so a hot PC will have faster fans and generate more noise, which is always annoying.
the classic layout for cooling in a PC is to draw cool air in from the lower front of the case, pass it up over hot components (disks, memory, motherboard) then expel it via a case fan and the PSU fan at the upper back. this assumes a tower configuration. In addition specific "hotspots" have localised blower fans, such as the CPU and Graphics cards.
The Dell Dimension 2350 uses a clever design feature where the case fan also doubles as the CPU fan. A large case fan is positioned on the back, and a large plastic green cowl or hood covers the CPU heatsink. Thus the case fan draws air across the vanes of the CPU heatsink before expelling it from the back. Air is drawn in via various vents at the lower front - to cool the system disk, and via vent holes above each PCI card - to cool the cards.
Lord KelvinBefore you can asses the benefits of any cooling measures you have to be able to measure the temperature first. For example I can see that removing the side panel from my PC causes the hard disk temperature to increase . This seems completely illogical as common sense dictates that more ventilation means better cooling ? However, by opening the case you short circuit the wind tunnel the designers have incorporated and less cool air blows across the disk drives. So you see measurement is important.
Most components have on-board temperature sensors which Windows XP completely ignores. Fortunately tools such as motherboard monitor and speedfan are able to extract this data and report on it. I have another PC where speedfan reports the temperature of the CPU, memory controller, 3 disks and the Graphics card and presents this nicely as a gauge on my taskbar.
Alas the Dell dimension motherboard is a somewhat limited here. While speedfan can extract information about the temperature of the disk drives and the graphics card , thus far (up to version 4.34 beta )it is unable to extract the CPU or memory temperature for the motherboard. This may be because the 2350 was built as a cheap model and lacked some niceties, but there clearly is some monitoring of the CPU temperature going on in the BIOS as the case fan speed alters with CPU workload. However I have every confidence that Alfredo Milani Comparetti, the author of speedfan will find way if it exists.
I have fitted round IDE cables to better allow the flow of air as standard flat cables can behave like sails, and block or reroute the lamina air flow through the chassis. I have also removed non essential PCI cards (modems) and the floppy drive. This provides more internal space and airflow.
The second disk drive is in the bay beneath the DVD/CD combo drive and has a coolermaster aerogate front panel fitted. This provides a) a disk fan b) 4 temperature sensors c) the ability to alter the speed of 4 fans and d) a selectable coloured LED display. Initially I used all the temperature probes, but in the end I only monitor from a single probe attached to the CPU heatsink. The fan is useful in keeping the drive temperature low and drawing cool air in the front. The Blue light also looks cool.
I have a Thermaltake A2426 fan located in the slot above the PCI card, which is just a backplate slot with no accompanying PCI slot on the card. Beneath I have a an Azern BlitzStorm double fan occupying the remaining PCI slot below.
All of this means that the Disks seem to stay below 30 degrees C and the GPU peaks at 52 degrees. I may change this to a double blower pushing air at the GPU heatsink
With adequate cooling and a good power supply , overclocking is probably the last area where I can squeeze some more performance out of the Dell. The Dell 2350 motherboard has no overclock capability, but the Graphics card does. Watch this space ....
Update : Have recently upgraded to XP service pack 3, speedfan 4.35 and forceware 175.19
Update: 27/05/09
Still running well, with Operation Flashpoint as the game of choice for my Son. the Dell has been plagued a bit of late by the winav.exe malware/trojan thing. It's a trojan which appears to look like a legitimate antivirus tool. It sends all kinds of warnings to the screen, dsiabled the control panel security center and places a red warning in the task tray. AVG free edition did not appear to pick it up, nor did Spybot or windows defender . If had to deal with this sucker twice in the last few months. Perhaps I mistakenly used system recovery to convince myself I'd got the system to a point prior to infection, when in fact it was still there.
Anyway I'm now experimenting with avira antivirus and Malwarebytes, which seemed to do the job.
Generally the PC still works well, but is challenged on newer games. the number of background processes has crept up to around 30 with the extra AV stuff plus an iPod/iTunes.
With current nVidia drivers I'm achieving 5700 in 3dmark03 with no over clock. the latest drivers include the nvida real physics engine, which they aquired through the purchase of Aegis. I have enabled this in nVidia control panel, we'll see if it improves game play.
I have written a separate follow with some further tweaks here
Update : 11/07/2010
The Dell is still going strong. I have switched to Avast for anti virus as this seems to have found a couple of viruses that AVG missed. I was also finding that AVG started a lot of processes.
The PC is used less for games now. My son tends to play games on the xbox360, while the Dell is used primarily for facebook, iTunes and BBC iPlayer, but it keeps on going .
I routinely check the disk health in speedfan, but both hard drives S.M.A.R.T data is within standard operating parameters.
Update : 29/07/2011
the Dell is still going strong. I reverted to Avast free edition for AV, which seems to work well, with periodic running of Malware Bytes. Avast has a nice full scan at boot feature which runs a complete scan prior to windows loading, useful to do sometimes.
The Graphics drivers are up to date from nVidia and the graphics card is still the sparkle 8500.
Recently the audio quality became very distorted, though oddly , only on the right channel. I checked both the front and rear audio connections (green 3.5mm socket) but the same . I reinstalled the SoundMAX drivers, used for this machines on-board audio. Again - no change. In the end I decided to get a Creative external Soundcard X-Fi sound unit, which connects via USB, and provides outputs for 5.1 audio as well as headphones. I toyed with getting an internal PCI card, but the huge graphics card leaves little space. Also the Creative USB card was more future-proof than a PCI sound card, though it did cost more . It works well, the sound comes from a completely silent background, no strange chirps or whistles which sometimes plagued Music when played through the onboard sound system.. There are all kind of effect, for example impressive surround sound effects delivered through conventional stereo headphones
I made sure that I disabled the on-board sound in the BIOS, thus freeing up an IRQ and removing the possibility of conflicts. I used Driver Cleaner Pro to remove any remaining SoundMAX drivers too. Now if I look at the Sound devices in device manager I only see the Creative device and not the SoundMax.
I'll re-run 3dmark again sometime soon and post the results. Possibly disabling the onboard sound subsystem might free up resource ?
I also gave the Dell a good vacuum out internally too, lots of dust had accumulated around the vanes of the main heat sink which would have caused it to overheat. Alas there still appears to be no means of assessing the core CPU temperature with software. I believe the rear fan speed is entirely regulated by a built-in thermistor.
The only issue I'm seeing with the PC is that it takes a very long time to take a user to their desktop from the user picker screen. It sits at the "loading personal settings" screen for more than a minute. i suspect it's waiting for something, which times out then it proceeds. I'll debug what it's doing here when I get more time.
Update 24/8/2011
Well the slow loading of settings turned out to be the XP SSDP service which looks for UPNP servers on your network. I don't need this and it probably got enabled by accident. disabling it got the "Loading preferences ..." time back to acceptable.
I re-ran 3dmark03 on the Dell and scored a new all time high of 5317 !!!!!! (I know, a low score on an aged benchmark , but probably appropriate on a PC that's 10 years old )
Not sure if this is due to freeing some resource using the USB sound card ? I doubt it. Actually I noticed that for the first time 3Dmark ran the Audio tests too. previously the on-board SOUNDMAX must have not been recognised by 3dmark. maybe in it's scoring it incorporated some numbers from the 3 audio tests.
Next time I have some free time I'll look at the IRQ spread, now that sound is disabled in the BIOS. I assume that PCI bus contention still is a factor, I'm swapping a PCI directly connected on-board device for a USB connected device, but of course USB also uses the PCI bus.
Update November 2012
Well it is my sad duty to report that the Dell Dimension has now been put out to graze. My teenage Son was finding it was just too slow to get his college course work done on. In the end I succumbed and replaced it with an Apple Mac Mini, which slotted in and meant we could retain the mouse, keyboard , monitor and even the external Creative sound card. His needs are more around internet, music and word processing for college than PC gaming and the Mac was an easy choice.
The Dell never failed, it was just getting slower and slower. I think this was three fold.
1) the number of processes was creeping up. Avast, the external Creative sound card, spotify, iTunes . The total number of processes was in the mid 40's and remember that XP only needs around 18 for you to be up running and connected to the internet.
2) I think the memeo backup software was playing up. It was logging lots of errors for transitory files it couldn't find and didn't need to backup. I perhaps could have investigated this more.
3) Web sites are more challenging for older computers. I see this with my PPC G5 mac. Web sites today carry large JavaScript payloads and the older machines are slower at processing it. Some of googles tools time out and need a refresh in order to run on older processors i.e blogger.
So the Dell Dimension is in my attic. Who knows, perhaps one day to return , in its current guise or perhaps running a flavour of Linux, which might be another way to give it a new lease of life. However I will miss it and it taught me a huge amount about PC's , Graphics cards , XP and doing more with less. Necessity is the mother of invention.


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Modern 2 Story House Plans
By royan on Monday, 15 April 2019 05:37:33 Category modern house
Modern 2 Story House Plans - These days, cooling is a fundamental prerequisite for each advanced structure whether utilized as a corporate office or a living arrangement. Furthermore, this need is significantly more noteworthy for multi-storied structures, as the general population living in upper stories face more prominent dimensions of warmth in summer season.As establishment of a cooling framework in any structure requires some legitimate arranging in the inside; along these lines, in the event of a multi-storied structure it is most prudent that cites for cooling framework ought to be gained as right on time as could be expected under the circumstances, in a perfect world even before the procedure of development starts. This will empower you to influence important adjustments in the arrangement of the structure so as to adjust with the prerequisites of the cooling framework.While you are building your multi-storied house, a portion of the primary changes that may should be acquired the arrangement of the structure are including additional entrances, segments and electric supply.
Modern 2 Story House Bloxburg
Modern 2 Story House Design
Modern 2 Story House
Modern 2 Story House Design With Floor Plan
Modern 2 Story House Plans
Modern 2 Story House Plans With Garage
Modern 2 Story House Facades

subset: commoncrawl


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The new year has begun, with two budget crises, one immediate and one impending, before the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. We are told that nothing can be done about the current round of cuts. The news of which of our administrative staff are about to lose their jobs is supposedly imminent. But even if that is true, we will still have another cut of $1.5 million for 2012-2013 looming before us. We cannot rewrite the events of the last several months. But we can learn from them, and act. It may be especially important that we do so now, with the provincial budget expected to come down in a few weeks' time. We also have the attention of the press. If you have yet to weigh in, we urge you to do so now. This virtual square gives every member and supporter of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta to speak to the press — and the public more generally.
At the November AdPReP forum, the Dean declared that the process for the cuts was not and could not be a "democratic" one. At the very least, then, we can act now to insist the process for the next round of cuts must be a "democratic" one handled as a matter of collegial governance. But our actions could very well produce the solutions we need to these crises. The question, then, is what we should so at this juncture.
What Should We Do?
We could write to the three administrators with responsibility for the current and impending crisis — the Dean, the Provost, and the President — and ask them to tell us precisely what they intend to do to help resolve these crises. As a matter of collegial governance, the faculty in this Faculty need to hear from those colleagues charged with special responsibilities and duties what they intend to do to avert these crises and further our interests.
But we also need the provincial government not simply to "hear" our "message," as President Samarasekera assures us they are, but to act in ways that produce the necessary effects. If the government is hearing President Samarasekera's "message" but not providing the funding that the University requires to avert this crisis for the Faculty of Arts, should we not petition the legislature directly?
The University of Alberta is a public university, and the funding for it should come primarily from the public purse.
We need the money for the University to come from the public purse for this is a university in the first instance that belongs to and is accountable to the people of Alberta, not corporate or private interests. A "global" university that devastates its Faculty of Arts to support primarily STEM research (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) and the agenda of private corporations does not properly support the interests of Albertans. Perhaps we can turn crisis into opportunity: an opportunity for us to make the case to Albertans about why they ought to invest in the University, and in its Faculty of Arts in particular.
We hope that you will want to join us in these efforts, or propose others. But we must act quickly.
Letter to the Dean, Provost, and President?
Would you like to join us in sending a letter to the Dean, Provost, and President?
The letter might be brief. It might simply request that the Dean, Provost, and the President inform us of their specific plans, with our point being that we require action of them.
In 2009, the Provost characterized the budget crisis then before the University, with its inexplicable $60 million shortfall to the operating budget, as a "collective problem" that he required the faculty to help solve. The faculty had to help solve the problem by agreeing to give back part of our salaries for 2010-2011. It is now time for us to require that our administrators demonstrably help solve these particular crises for the Faculty of Arts without once again making its members (faculty, students, and non-academic staff) pay the price. We would like to write such a letter, and we like as many people as possible to sign off on it. But we need to act quickly. If you would like to contribute to this letter, please let us know if there is any particular statement or idea that you would like to see in it.
Petition to the Legislature?
We also urgently invite you to contribute your ideas of how we should go about petitioning Alison Redford's government to help assist with the crisis. What in your view is the best way for us to go about asking for extraordinary help from the provincial legislature at this time in the form of the funds that will permit us to avert these crises? Are there particular MLAs to whom you feel we should write? What would you like the petition to say? What in your view is the best way for us to make our case?
We need the writing of this petition to be a Faculty-wide effort. We also would ideally write a petition that every Albertan would want to sign.
We very much hope that you will want to contribute to this collective effort at this crucial juncture. Time is of the essence. Let your voice be heard now so that we can move towards a resolution of these crises that will ensure the long-term health and vitality of the Faculty. As we have stated elsewhere, we believe there is no reason why this Faculty of Arts should not be the most exciting and dynamic place in Canada for the research and study of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. For that to be true, however, we must stand up and do what we can for the Faculty in this time of crisis.


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For Episode 56 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I did a live podcast interview with Vicky Lay, the Managing Director of Artesian Venture Partners.
At just 22, Vicky quit her degree and co-founded zookal.com – a Silicon Valley venture-backed e-learning and textbook rental company that turned over $20M in revenue last year. As their Chief Operations Officer, Vicky successfully scaled the business 10x year on year.
She is now the Managing Director at Artesian Venture Partners (an early-stage venture capital business with offices in Australia, Singapore, Shanghai, New York and London). In her role at Artesian, she is actively building startup ecosystems across Australia and ASEAN, decoding the DNA of entrepreneurial success and helping more entrepreneurs secure funding. She also founded and serves on the boards of non-profit organisations fostering youth empowerment and entrepreneurship including Young Achievement Australia and JA Australia. Vicky Lay was also recognised as a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient in April 2017.
In this live podcast we spoke about how to hire and retain the right talent, Vicky's learnings from being on both sides of the table, what she looks for in early stage startups as an investor and empowering diversity in the startup ecosystem.
Feedback/ connect/ say hello:
@playbookstartup (Twitter)
@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)
Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)
Intro music credit to Bensound
Other channels:
Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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Health & Fitness
Keeping Kids Fit: Food safety for the holidays
No matter which holidays you celebrate, eating together with family can be a big part of the fun. We often cook for family members, including small children and the elderly, who are at increased risk for food-borne illness (also known as food poisoning).
Approximately half of all cases of food-borne illness in the United States occur in children under 15, with children under 5 being especially at high risk. If you'll be cooking for a crowd this season, the Florida Poison Information Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has some tips and tools to keep holiday meals safe for everyone.
Food-borne illness most commonly happens when bacteria grows quickly in food that's been improperly stored or prepared. Some of the "bad bugs" that make people sick include Salmonella, E. Coli, Campylobacter and Listeria. Common symptoms of serious food poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fever — although each organism has patterns of symptoms that can help doctors figure out which illness has been contracted.
Most cases of food poisoning come from home-cooked food, often associated with the preparation of meals for a large group.
One of the challenges of cooking for a group is keeping large quantities of food cold enough to prevent spoilage. If you overfill the refrigerator, food can block the air circulation and the temperature can rise dangerously. The food safety danger zone is between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. You want to move food quickly through this zone, getting food hot enough to kill bacteria and then chilling leftovers within two hours of being served. This is especially true in steamy South Florida if holiday meals are served outdoors.
Key Steps to Keep Food Safe
▪ Clean: Start with a clean scene. Clean counters, cutting boards and food prep tools with hot, soapy water. Use paper towels or clean kitchen towels. Do not use the same towel (or sponge) over and over — that spreads germs. If you want to be extra cautious, wipe down clean counters with a solution of one tablespoon of bleach in one gallon of water. Let it stand a few minutes and rinse with plain water. You're now ready to begin cooking safely.
▪ Separate: Prepare your salads, veggies and uncooked dishes away from raw meats and poultry. Similarly, don't use the same cutting boards or knives, to reduce your risk of cross-contamination.
▪ Cook: Bring your meats, casseroles and stuffing to the right temperature. A whole turkey or chicken should come up to 165 degrees, egg dishes and ground beef should reach 160 degrees and fish and beef or pork roasts should be cooked to 145 degrees. Use a digital instant-read thermometer to correctly read temperatures. They are inexpensive and tell you if food is safe to eat.
▪ Chill: Use a cooler with ice to store ingredients if your fridge is too small. Check the temperature of your fridge and be sure it's keeping foods below 40 degrees. Leftovers are tasty, but only when they are chilled quickly, and even then they only keep for about four days maximum.
Other Food Poisoning Culprits
Leftovers are a common culprit in post-holiday food-related illness. Put warm leftovers in small containers so they cool faster, and send them home with guests to minimize waste.
Many people enjoy eggnog with raw egg and the occasional spoonful of cookie dough. This is a risky practice, especially for young children. No 'nog for the kids if it contains raw egg or alcohol. If cookie dough at your house never makes it to the oven, simply make the dough without eggs. It's still delicious and is much safer to eat uncooked.
If you're a healthy adult, you may have never experienced food poisoning, even if you haven't paid much attention to food safety. But as a parent, or if you cook for older adults or anyone with diabetes, it's worth making the extra effort to keep everybody safe. Better food safety practices can protect your loved ones all year, not just during the holidays.
For more safety tips, visit HolidayFoodSafety.org, a service of the Partnership for Food Safety Education. If you think you've contracted food poisoning or have questions about any type of poisoning, call 1-800-222-1222 for immediate assistance from the Poison Control Center, which is free, confidential and open 24/7 — even on holidays.
Wendy Stephan is the Health Education Coordinator and Richard Weisman, Pharma.D., is the Director of the Florida Poison Control Center – Miami, located at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. For more information, visit UHealthSystem.com/patients/pediatrics.


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Unidentified gunmen attacked a key Libyan TV channel on Saturday night.
Al-Nabaa TV building partly damaged after attack by armed groups https://t.co/5AmMUf9pGL #Libya… https://t.co/UF2hZdQQ3X— Media Center (@infobencana) April 3, 2016
The Al-Nabaa station was attacked by armed militants who destroyed much of the office's exterior, shattering windows, breaking and damaging furniture and equipment.
The attack comes just 3 days after gunmen stormed the station on Wednesday night.
The station which backs the self-declared government in Tripoli, was forced off air on Wednesday.
Wednesday's attack followed the arrival of the new U.N.-backed unity government in Tripoli.
Members of the presidential Council including its head and the new government's prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, want to take power in Tripoli, despite opposition and threats by Libya's warring parties.


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Now what happens when two or more characters work on a single task using the same skill? How would we handle this when the participating characters have different skill levels? For example two rogues trying to disarm a trap or two magic users casting a spell or two clerics trying to raise a dead party member. Or two shadowrunners trying to hack into a system. Or two members of the enterprise trying to fix the warp drive before the Romulans catch up.
What would we expect out of this and what use would it have? There is for example the task that can't fail, like disarming a nuke. Bad things happen if that goes wrong so it can't go wrong. On the other hand there can be tasks that can't be resolved without two or more members participating. For example the classic example of turning two keys that are four meters apart. Not that you need a special skill or roll for that, but you get the point.
In terms of rules this is what I'm looking for:
- There is a difficulty rating for the task.
- Characters have a skill that grants them some probability to succeed.
- Characters have attribute bonuses that grant them a better chance to succeed.
- Individually the task can be very challenging. Each can try, but with their individual odds of success and only with their individual attribute bonuses.
- Working as a team they should get a bonus from adding their individual attribute bonuses and for teamwork.
- Working as a team their individual skill level should affect the overall odds of success.
- Having many good characters of the same skill level should improve the overall odds.
- Having one good character and many of lesser skill should not improve the odds as much as the prior case and/or should increase variability (the odds of rolling further from a good central value).
- Working as a team should reduce the time spent at the task. For example many observers should spot the enemy faster than one. This may finally end up in the GM making the call, but it would be good to have a mechanism to convert time to success rate and vice versa. In the previous example many eyes could be on the lookout in a 360 perimeter that reduces the time required to go full circle around the camp, but is not so good at reducing the odds of failure in any one area. There is a lower chance of success, but if it happens they enemy is spotter further out. On the other hand there can be a focus in one area at a time (like a lighthouse). The odds of success are higher, but only apply when the "lighthouse" is painting the area. There are higher odds of success, but the enemy may be spotted later (or sooner if they get lucky, but luck is the topic of another post).
- Rolling as a team is done by a single roll instead of many for each individual character and that's always good.
If we're to see this graphically, I would look for distributions that work like the following:
Task and characters acting individually
Experience isn't only a bonus modifier that moves the curve to the right. It changes the curve making it more compact and higher on the central value (reduces variance). This means the expert is more consistent being an expert and tends to roll closer to a good value than a lesser trained character. You may notice the less skilled character can also roll higher in some cases. This is a particularity of the dice mechanics I'm using which I'm keeping and calling it beginners luck, but I digress, more on that in another post.
I see characters of distinctively different skill levels acting as a team to behave in the following way. The graph shows three levels of expertise: novice, skilled and expert. When building teams we see that the expert and novice together don't add much except maybe the novice's beginners luck. The green curve for the team is right underneath the black curve for the expert. Things get interesting when the expert works with the skilled (yellow curve). The change in variance isn't that great (the yellow curve is just slightly under the black one), but there's a considerable shift to the right. Showing an improvement in odds of success when working as a team.
As a final note I'll add that I haven't included individual attribute bonuses or other type of bonuses. Things can really get interesting when characters pool their attribute bonuses. What may only be a + 1 for intelligence when working individually may convert to a + 3 if all members pool their + 1.
How do you handle team work in your game? What bonuses do you provide for team work? Have you forced your players to work in teams because that was the only way to overcome a challenge? Like the aforementioned "turning two keys at once" example in which the fighter or wizard need to help the rogue unlock something or disarm a trap because the mechanical parts are too far apart for one person to handle.


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The Ave Maria Flexible Benefit Plan provides a long-term disability (LTD) benefits plan to help eligible employees cope with an illness or injury that results in a long-term absence from employment. LTD is designed to ensure a continuing income for employees who are disabled and unable to work.
LTD benefits are offset with amounts received from Social Security or workers' compensation during or for the same time period.
This coverage pays you a monthly income up to 60% of earnings to a maximum of $10,000 per month for the rest of what would be your working years if you become permanently disabled. It begins after you have been out of work due to the same or a related Sickness or Injury for more than 26 weeks (180 Days of Disability). Your employer pays the cost of this coverage.
For a summary of coverage, please click here for MI; otherwise, outside of MI.
Details of the LTD benefits plan including benefit amounts, and limitations and restrictions are described in the Cigna LTD Certificate; please click here.
Benefits >


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Cats in Japan have a significant cultural meaning, mostly thanks to Maneki Neko, a "good fortune" cat which is supposed to bring good luck and money to the owner. There's a cat shrine on Tashiro Island, and the locals believe they can predict the future watching feline behaviours. Not to mention the famous cat cafes, where people come to hug, stroke and love those fluffy animals.
Some believe that even the internet's obsession with cats began in Japan and I actually kinda believe it. As it turns out, there's quite a lot of cats in this country and French photographer Alexandre Bonnefoy decided to capture some of them. Begging for fish in a port, climbing trees, living a lazy life in their owners home, fighting with others on the streets of Tokyo or being caressed in a cat cafe – the book Neko Land unites all the Japanese kitties.
More cat pictures in this excerpt from Alexandre Bonnefoy's book.


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With our first backpacking stint having begun just over a week ago we thought we would share with you a check list we made when we were organising our trip. Backpacking for the first time can be an intimidating prospect and despite all our excitement we were also often overcome with what we needed to
A guide to using the Train in Italy: How to travel for cheap and like a local!
As Italy was the first stop of our long term travels, we realised very quickly that many things stretched our tight budget. We spent a total of around 10-11 days travelling from Milan (with a day trip to lake Como) to Bolzano, from Bolzano to Badia and finally Badia down to Venice. So one thing
Best phone Apps For Travel: The Ultimate list!
We all have seem to have a phone with us now when we travel, but do we realise just how helpful it can be!! From booking flights, to free calls home, finding your way to your accommodation and communicating with locals…or even just keeping you entertained on long journeys! There are a whole host of
The amazing Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang slow boat: Thailand to Laos.
Backpacking around South East Asia is an amazing adventure, travelling through amazingly diverse landscapes and from country to country like a true explorer. When we discovered the amazing, picturesque and beautiful adventure that is the Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang slow boat we knew we had to do it. We always like to add to the adventure
Popa Mountain Resort: A serene and relaxing escape with breathtaking views, Myanmar!
Mt Popa probably isn't on your itinerary for Myanmar (Burma) but it should be! Just an hour away from wonderful but busy and hot Bagan is this temperate retreat. Meaning "flower" in Burmese this mountain really lives up to its colourful name. Heading up the winding roads through tiny villages from Bagan the air began
Myanmar Treasure Resort: Bagan A paradise within this ancient kingdom of Temples
Heading to Bagan there is a wealth of places to stay now in this growing tourist hub of Myanmar. With the dry heat of the dusty streets as you explore this wonderful ancient town you need to plan your retreat well. Selecting a place which offers you the rest needed to get up early for
How to survive the dreaded night bus! A necessary evil when backpacking!
Night buses are a nightmare, literally! Sitting in the stifling heat packed closely together with a bunch of strangers or shivering away clinging to your belongings… at no point is sleep even mentioned! 12 hours, 16 hours even 24 hours and longer spent sat on a bus. You can't just get up and walk around
Hostel Review: Cinnamon Sally, Riga. A fun, youthful and artistic hostel in this beautiful city!
When we arrived in Riga we were tired and a little overwhelmed. After travelling on night buses for a few consecutive evenings we were looking for a comfortable, warm and welcoming place to stay. But at the same time we hadn't had all that much time to research the city either and worried we might
A guide to transport in Albania: Its not impossible but it is an experience!
When we made our plans to travel through the Balkans we had heard many tales about Albania, mostly how scary it was and how hard it was to travel around. That timetables don't exist and unless you have a car or are a local then you are basically screwed! We were a little nervous when
Hostel Review: Moreto & Caffeto, Sofia, Bulgaria! An amazing adventure with amazing people!
Occasionally when you are travelling you stumble upon a hostel that just has everything perfect. Sometimes it can be a hit and miss game that's true. Some hostels look great but then turn out to be ruined by obnoxious idiots drinking their way around the world. Then others sell themselves short, but once you arrive
Hostel Review: Hi Skopje, Macedonia: A home away from home.
Over the last couple of months of backpacking we've come to realised a very important thing. That your accommodation makes a larger impression on whether you love a place or not. It's not whether it's fancy or if it is full of gimmicks. But whether you feel at home or not, if you feel safe,
Hostel Review: Trip 'n' Hostel, Tirana, Albania! A fun hostel in this fascinating city!
We have been travelling for almost 2 months now. During that time we have stayed in so many hostels, a few guest houses and one hotel! Some of them have been amazing….some not so much! So these days when choosing a hostel we have a better trained eye to spot the gems among the duds!
Our first Air BnB experience…How to use it and $25/ £17 off for you!!
AirBnB! What is is and what does it even mean! We didn't have a clue for a long time, was it staying in someones house or was it just a unique hotel? We decided to take the plunge when we couldn't find any hotels or hostels for our stay in the tiny alpine village of
Greatest websites to help you plan your travels!
The internet is a modern day resource for us travellers that provides us with a priceless and almost endless ability to book, research and plan out our trips. There are so many websites out there however and as helpful as they all are it is sometimes hard to sift through to find the best ones!


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Welcome the the MOTUC Bio Mystery (or Plot-Hole) thread, Bio fans and Bio Critics. This is the place to go if you have a question about something peculiar about what was written in the bios.
I'll add them to the front of this thread if we can't debunk it OR a future bio doesn't answer these points.
MOTUC Bios & Canon Discussion (updated as bios become available)
How did Prince Adam run around looking like He-Man unrecognized?
We have the mystery about young Prince Adam running around apparently without powers but wearing the techno-armor and techno-sword posing as He-Man during the search for the Power Sword. How did people not notice it was young Adam posing as He-Man?----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Teela's Change in Appearance?
Ever since we first saw Battleground Teela at NYTF, the biggest question on everyone's minds was why does she now have blonde hair and a new costume? While MOTU characters could simply change their clothes or dye their hair, most fans felt that the drastic change had to have been some plot device. Unfortunately, the reasoning that fans were anticipating wasn't mentioned at all in Battleground Teela's bio. TG says we'll get an explaination in someone else's bio.
Solved Mysteries
How did Skeletor kidnap Adora if he was trapped behind the Mystic Wall?
A big question is how did Keldor, now Skeletor, get past the Mystic Wall to nab Adora? Wasn't he trapped there before the kids were born? He didn't get past the wall for +16 years...
Now it's mentioned that Hordak contracted Skeletor to take Adora, but was it Skeletor who took Adora or did someone else take Adora FOR Skeletor while he was trapped in the Mystic Wall?
Solved in Battle Armor Skeletor's Bio


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Pot smokers in Pittsburgh, here is some great news for you!
Just a few days before Christmas, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto signed into law an ordinance passed by the city council to decriminalize the possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana and other forms of cannabis, including hash. The law also decriminalizes smoking pot, meaning there will be no charges pressed against you even if you are caught smoking a joint in the city. Earlier, if caught smoking marijuana, you could have been sent to prison for a period of 30 days, along with having to pay a fine of up to $500. The new law took effect from the new year and has already been celebrated by marijuana advocates throughout the country.
However, under the new law, a police officer can still issue a civil citation with a fine of $25 to $100, reports Philly.com. There will be a fine of $25 for anyone caught with up to 30 grams of marijuana or eight grams of hashish, which will increase to $100 if an individual is openly possessing marijuana, including smoking in public. An analysis conducted by Carnegie Mellon University concluded that the new law is expected to save the city of Pittsburgh roughly $1 million annually in enforcement costs.
"If you are found in possession of a certain quantity or less, you'll get a $25 ticket. If you're found smoking it and in possession of that amount or less, you'll get a $100 ticket," said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.
Pot smokers in Pittsburgh have Councilman Daniel Lavelle to thank for the new law, as he is the one who proposed the bill in the first place. The Pittsburgh City Council passed the ordinance 7-2 in favor of decriminalizing possession of pot in the city, with two Councilwomen Darlene Harris and Theresa Kail-Smith voting against the bill. They argued that the change could cause problems with neighboring municipalities, according to WTAE.
"I think it's the wrong message of making people believe that you've done something that you really haven't done," said Harris. "The police are still obligated through the laws of the state of Pennsylvania."
However, the seven members voting in favor of decriminalizing marijuana possession had their own reasons. Most of them argued that charges for possessing small amounts are usually dismissed by local magistrates and that a criminal conviction for possessing pot or hash unfairly keeps people from getting jobs years later.
A law akin to the one passed in Pittsburgh already exists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's largest city, and pro-marijuana advocates hope that Pittsburgh's decision to decriminalize marijuana will be a major boost for a state hoping to end prohibition. As of now, only four states in the Unites States — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — allow the purchase of marijuana, but with changing attitudes to pot, many expect that other states will soon follow suit.
All of the states mentioned above had already reduced the penalties for possession and use of small amounts of the drug or introduced policies permitting medical marijuana use, and Pittsburgh's decision to decriminalize marijuana will no doubt be seen by pro-marijuana groups in Pennsylvania as a step — however small — towards legalization.
In November this year, California — a state which has already legalized usage of marijuana for medical purposes — will vote for or against complete legalization of pot in the state. The campaign to end prohibition has been endorsed by entrepreneurs such as Sean Parker, who has scored powerful endorsements from national marijuana groups and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. It remains to be seen if a similar drive will see Pennsylvania legalize marijuana within this decade, but the new law which decriminalizes pot in Pittsburgh may well be viewed as a step towards attaining that.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]


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Syracuse Opera launched its Resident Artists Program during the 2008-09 season. Designed to bring opera to the broader community, the program is the cornerstone of Syracuse Opera's education and outreach programming. Three to four singers and one pianist are "in residence" in Syracuse at varying points during the mainstage season. They perform at numerous venues including schools, senior living facilities, and other civic and community organizations.
This program is currently being re-evaluated to identify best practices to enhance young performers experiences, increase community exposure and co-exist with a changing business environment.


text: Nathaniel Thomas Wilson (born July 20, 1968), better known by his stage names Kool G Rap (or simply G Rap), Kool G. Rap, and Giancana (Meaning of the abbreviation "G."), is an American rapper, from the Corona neighborhood of Queens, New York. He began his career in the mid-1980s as one half of the group Kool G Rap & DJ Polo and as a member of the Juice Crew. He is often cited as one of the most influential and skilled MCs of all time as he is a pioneer of mafioso rap/street/hardcore content and multisyllabic rhyming. On his album The Giancana Story, he stated that the "G" in his name stands for "Giancana" (after the mobster Sam Giancana), but on other occasions he's stated that it stands for "Genius".


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Wrapped up against each other they Europeans then obstinately in their trenches. In Germany a servant of Tschankies, has berated once a close associate of the Tschankies at the Federal Bank – the Muslims, like other german cultures and with great sympathy of the people anxiety and fear spread that maybe even the invasion of the Moors in Europe is reviewed. How can one reject the world financial market Tschankies in their place? Quote: "nothing is so protected that it can not be conquered with money." (Cicero). We thats really true and experienced in our lives again. We must learn that this Tschankies with their strike weapon, with money and it's like this. We must create so much money that we exceed the amount of money of the monster. Thus, we have the money that it has neutralized the monopoly of the monster and relativized. Gain insight and clarity with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger.
It would be wrong to do the obvious and his money take away meaning distribution from top to bottom, the monster, which does not work because a poor monster, that can not help to correct his financial transgressions would be a danger to us all at least expressed and market seen, and here there are connections our all feeding in the form of food and other necessities of life, where an orderly transition must take place. It should be No something be taken. We must open a money source, bringing new fresh money in circulation with all control mechanisms, such as price controls, rigid control of the Bank, inflation and deflation, what brings such a money source with it. Economically this is doable, if you are designing this financial concept not by economists, which today is the course of events, and the concept not the set can be done, but going on democratically. All work in a new, true democracy. We create a monthly basic care for all people – worldwide and positioned at a height that you can live without work. We use a new world reserve, which we integrate into a world supply company, which transported the money in the currency of the Nations, from below, online to the people. The same happens in the form of a basic supply of Nations for stressed households, which are totally relieved and debt relief in a short time, because money is enough.
15 percent of the total amount of the people in the affected nation get going again in addition to the budgets of the States. Everything else remains as it is. We change anything fundamental, but supplement with what is needed and is missing everywhere. Money and additional annual income of around 85 billion dollars, which is the sustainable recovery of the world. There will be no more economic crises or financial crises, you get not even without the help of banks in handle. Such a design concept already exists and can be read in the download discussed and improved:…0Download.html so you can create a world in which everything seems impossible today and no alternative is possible. Wolfgang Bergmann
Are we systematically poisoning? -Renewable means of payment in Sweden a whole flock of birds fell dead from the sky. The cause is equally unclear as to an incident in the U.S. State of Arkansas with 5000 dead animals. (Source time online 2011) Whole whale herds may be disoriented stranded on the coasts of the continents. Fish kills to thousands in rivers, lakes and seas. What is happening here? There is this mysterious contexts or has everything a scientifically explicable origins.
To us humans. 2005 in Germany people who died of cancer were estimated at 222,000 cancer deaths by professionals. The experts came from a creeping increase in this number. In 2010, 821.627 people died of cancer. (Source Federal Statistical Office) The concerns of experts and medical professionals have been fulfilled.
These numbers increase from year to year in a shrinkage of the population in the Federal Republic of Germany. What is happening here? There is this mysterious contexts or has everything a scientifically explicable reason. Certainly it has nothing do, that people are living longer – with the demographic factor. Actually, the demographic factor is contrary to the realities, but so you can not see that because of the demographic factor does not include mortality, but refers to surviving people and benefit only on the age, people perhaps healthier living and good, go for the smallest suspicion to their general practitioner and the progress of medicine. This could be an explanation if you know we race, than in the past to the doctor more often, and instantly cure every thing can be. This described provides also the reason that relatively few people to cancer and cardiovascular disease death, than it would be without these frequent visits to the doctor. But why fall ill and die, despite this already excellent medical care – more and more people from these diseases.
New discussion on pensions raises questions! After Michael Glos had expressed the previous weekend for a reduction of the cash contribution, the proposal was immediately rejected by the Chancellor. The proposal however would mean for retirees to get a pension cut past. The introduction of the Health Fund for 76 percent of the retired means having to pay a higher contribution from January. Petra Diamonds can provide more clarity in the matter. Sufferers receive definitely less net pension up to the expected expected 2.75 percent pension increase. Only for brief 24 percent, it will not come to an increase they already pay an amount set by 15.5 per cent or more.
Against this background is the VdK social Association of the opinion that a reduction is necessary. It would best to Ulrike Mascher, President of the Association, if the special contribution to be paid solely by employees and retirees without the involvement of the employer by 0.9 percent would be reduced, as it was suggested also the SPD. The special contribution was also to financing of sickness benefit introduced. Thus pay pensioners for services, which can not take advantage. In addition, pensioners also not benefit from the reduction of the contribution to the unemployment of 3.3 to 2.8 per cent. With the reduction of the cash contribution would be around according to Macca 20 million retirees have more money in their pockets, which could certainly positively affect the economy.
A further step was the reduction of the value added door from 19 to 7 per cent. Just seniors need many medications with increasing age, as a result, the tax burden is disproportionate. For comparison, it is interesting to see that Austria has reduced the taxation of drugs on ten percent. Previously, it was 20 percent. In Germany, for example, pet food with only seven percent is taxed. The question arises according to priorities. -DK allowed publication only with reference to!
Munich: Erhard Lahni brings the family party as a family competition Gros lane bubble to the bursting. Mitchel Resnick shares his opinions and ideas on the topic at hand. With such and similar press releases, the CSU gives the feeling of the citizens, they would subventionieren families, the families would have to reciprocate is for. Source: policy/article2947313 / CSU politicians want to 1000 Euro for GE…: CSU politicians want to pay 1000 euros for births December 29, 2008, 22:12 o'clock children cost to relieve money to the wallets of young parents, have three CSU politician called for a "Starter Pack" for the birth of a child. Specifically, they want that Eltern receive interest-free loans in the amount of 10,000 euros. And they get more nachwuchs, the less they should have pay back. For assistance, try visiting Dr. Mitchell Resnick. Three CSU politician, 1000 euros as a "Starter Pack" for the birth of a child and a spezielles Darlehen for young FAMILien with these demands have to in the debate about tax relief Word reported.
According to a report of the "Munich Merkur" the Bundestag Deputy Johannes Singhammer and Stefan Muller, as well as the Landtag Joachim Unterlander urge their party iVORsitzenden, Horst Seehofer, to examine the possibility of a unverzinslichen Starter Loan "Young families" in the amount of 10,000 euros. This should be to the free journalists, the RuckZahlung could be beginnen after three to five years. At the birth of another child, therefore of 1000 euros of the loan should be erlassen, the journal continued to write. (AP/ks) Since 1994, was Joachim Unterlander (married, 1 daughter, socio-political SPRECher of the CSU Landtag fraction) always elected directly elected representative of the constituency of Munchen-Nord in the Landtag of Bavaria. Johannes Singhammer (married, 6 children) represents more than the list the Munich North, in which Erhard Lahni will appear for the family party since 1994 in the German Bundestag. On telephone request, his Office said you would even like to know what happened to these proposals.
A reply of Mr Seehofer stand out yet. You will strive for an answer. Erhard Lahni commented: "do what, to do so as they would have done what. There is no obviously the political will to make justice to the families." R. Edwards
We remember: about the same time the first world exhibition instead and in the Boer War South Africa was in Paris… Due to its history, the Chinese fight to date against any interference in their internal affairs! The economic international values, rules and middle Western knowledge, English language, Latin script, Arabic numerals, decimal measurement systems and technology (Internet) and legislation (standards (DIN EN ISO 9001), patent and trademarks (, , Nobel prizes) are West (digital think, sense: causal thinking in causes) founded and had to also by the Asians (analog think purpose: Zielfuhrend think) will be accepted.) Historical course of differentiation between West and East: the historical development of mankind (of the speech to the font) It can be shown to the two guiding principles of the Old Testament: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. (Blood revenge, guilt) Remember me so I you. Will help you even help you God. These are the principles of people in indigenous beliefs and clan societies, such as in Asian societies today.
"" The Jew of Jesus made it be: love your neighbor as yourself! "and someone on the left cheek, hits you so even the right stall him!" (Pacifism) "The ten commandments of the Christians were published: you're not supposed to!" From the English Bill of rights (1689), they overcame the prevailing until then thought of the school and replaced it with the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Thus was initiated the way political enforcement of human rights. The Declaration of independence of the United States (1776). Declaration of human and civic rights (1789). Only in the West. It developed the individual companies (Zivillisation of the first world): the freedom of Single bordered by the freedom of the others. Today, the monopoly of power and the individual supply lies with the State (separation of powers). In Asia: help friends even helps you God or your karma.
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Kuwait: Kuwait has expressed strong rejection of, and opposition to, the panel display held at the UN depicting Occupied East Jerusalem as "The Spiritual and Physical Capital of the Jewish People".
Acting on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Kuwait's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al Otaibi, the OIC Chair, affirmed in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that displaying such a portrait, especially at the United Nations, was "legally, politically and morally wrong," Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) reported.
Al Otaibi said the act directly challenged the international legal principle prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force as well as numerous United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions that have clearly determined that East Jerusalem, the rest of the Palestinian territory and other Arab lands occupied by Israel in June 1967 remained occupied and "in no way is Israel sovereign over these territories."
"Both the Security Council and General Assembly have rejected Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem via the extension of its so-called "Basic Law" in 1980 and have condemned all policies and practices by Israel, the occupying power, that attempted to alter the demographic composition, character and status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and deemed them to be null and void in accordance with international law, including in particular international humanitarian law," Al Otaibi wrote.
Moreover, the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations has reaffirmed the illegality of all such Israeli measures in this regard as well as the status of the Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, as occupied, he added.
Kuwait's representative called on the international community to reiterate that it is axiomatic that Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestinian territory is illegal and inherently temporary and does not in any way lend the occupying power sovereignty or title over the occupied territory, the official news agency said.
"Israel's status in that Territory remains that of an occupying power with specific obligations towards the people and properties under occupation as per the Fourth Geneva Convention, and other relevant rules of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions," he wrote in the letter.
Al Otaibi added that the act of allowing the display of such a panel abrogates the obligations and responsibilities of the United Nations, which has emphasised at various junctures, as noted above, that East Jerusalem remains an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The OIC protested the exhibit for "misleading and inappropriate depictions of Jerusalem at the United Nations," and expressed that this display should not be permitted anywhere on United Nations premises.
With Israel's disrespect of international law, especially Security Council Resolution 478 for 1980, which does not recognise its annexation of East Jerusalem, Al Otaibi affirmed that such act should be rejected, not tolerated or appeased.
The OIC called in its letter for the prompt removal of the controversial panel, considered an affront to the member states of the OIC, including the State of Palestine, and the majority of other member states that respect international law, the applicable rules and legislation regarding this ongoing tragic conflict.
The Palestinian representation at the UN also voiced, in a separate letter, its "strong objection to such an exhibit of misleading and inappropriate depiction of Jerusalem, which negates the Palestinian existence in the city, as well as it is historical Arab, Muslim and Christian identity and heritage."


text: Sensors are everywhere—in our phones, watches, and shoes. And now our earphones, too. The SMS BioSport heart rate-sensing earbuds aim to be the audio companion of choice for all you marathon runners, mountain bikers, and other hardcore athlete types who need to know your beats per minute on a daily basis.


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HELP Hearing
Posted over 6 years ago by Amy O'Meara
Here is a link to the Senate hearing of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee - chaired by Senator Sanders. There are many great comments related to NPs filling the need. Too bad the report refers to us as "allied" health providers. Click Here


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Glenmede Investment Management Deepens Portfolio Management Team for Small & Mid Cap Equities
Stephanie Spaeder
Glenmede Investment Management Deepens Portfolio Management Team for Small & Mid Cap Equities
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – December 7, 2017 – Glenmede Investment Management LP (GIM), a privately owned, independent asset management firm, today announced the appointment of Jordan Irving as a portfolio manager on its Small & Mid Cap Equity team.
Irving joins long-term GIM portfolio managers Robert Mancuso and Christopher Colarik in the management and oversight of all Small Cap Equity and Mid Cap Equity portfolios.
"The addition of Jordan to our team further expands our resources and fits with our commitment to creating a long-term home for talented managers," said Colarik, who has co-managed small cap portfolios at GIM for 16 years. "Markets are inefficient, and we believe skilled investment professionals have the ability to generate long-term performance for their clients via diversified, actively managed portfolios. Jordan's experience and comfort with our collaborative, team-based approach will allow him to contribute immediately."
Mancuso, who has been a GIM small cap portfolio manager since 1993, added, "Jordan's overall investment philosophy is well aligned with the steady, consistent approach and core beliefs we have followed. Additionally, Jordan's prior experience managing value-oriented portfolios is a skill set we appreciate on the team."
Irving has 20 years of investment management experience. He most recently served as a founding partner and portfolio manager at Irving Magee Investment Management. Previously, Irving worked as a senior portfolio manager for both large and small cap value equity strategies at Macquarie Investment Management (formerly Delaware Investments). Earlier, he was part of the U.S. Active Large-Cap Value team within Merrill Lynch Investment Managers where he worked for six years.
Irving earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Yale University and a graduate diploma from Oxford University in England.
The Small and Mid Cap Equity Strategies, launched in 1991 and 2000, respectively, incorporate an investment process that integrates quantitative proprietary screens with fundamental insights. Mancuso and Colarik's tenure managing the strategies underscores the emphasis GIM places on continuity of processes and people.
About Glenmede Investment Management LP
Glenmede Investment Management LP ("GIM") is a Philadelphia-based asset management firm that provides actively managed equity, fixed income and liquid alternative strategies to institutional investors, consultants, financial advisors and RIAs. With approximately $16.9 billion of assets under management, GIM offers its strategies through mutual funds and separate accounts. For further information, please visit www.glenmedeim.com.


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I wasn't intentionally trying to ruin their vacation.
They seemed like a nice couple and DH and I thought they would really enjoy this other beach in Hana, where the sand is a reddish rusty color from the iron oxide in the rocks. They were already going to Hana, a 3 hour minimum drive from Kahului, so it'd be a nice stop for them.So, the next time we saw them, I was kind of horrified. This nice young couple looked like they had crawled through a barbed wire obstacle course, and were bruised, scratched, and plastered with band aids.
|Red Sand Beach in Hana.
"What happened?" we asked.
"We found the Red Sand Beach… we slid down the side of the cliff to get there."
"Then we realized there was actually a path."
We didn't have much to say after that.
Red Sand Beach – it is surprisingly easy to get to, or surprisingly difficult, depending on who you ask. But if you don't ask, you risk the fate of butt-sliding down a cliff with scratches for souvenirs.
Red Sand Beach is in the town of Hana, very close to the Hana Ball Park. To get to the trail, go to the end of Uakea Road and walk toward the ocean, walking across the lawn of a county park. Make sure you are on the lawn and not trespassing on the grounds of the Hana Sea Cottages to the right. At the end of the lawn, look to the right among the ironwood trees for a section of the trail, and follow the trail as it curves to the left around a hill, on a narrow ledge overlooking the ocean.
(These directions are approximate since sometimes the trail head is easier to find and sometimes more difficult depending on vegetation and whether the trail has been eroded.)
The trail is very slippery, since the red lava cinders are like loose marbles.
Once you manage to get closer, the beach is very beautiful and photogenic. I think it's a lousy swimming beach since waves can be rough, but some people think it's okay in the morning when it's calmer. Or during low tide or low surf. There is a somewhat protected area with a lava formation, but it's not always good for swimming either.
Don't be too surprised if you see topless people or topless AND bottomless people. It's not officially a nudist beach and the few times I've been there, everyone has been fully attired, but Red Sand Beach has a reputation for birthday suits. Those darn hippies, they can't keep their swim suits on, to the aggravation of some local residents.
One MAJOR tip guidebooks often forget to mention: The cliffs around Red Sand Beach block the afternoon sunlight, so if you get there past 2 or 3 pm and you want some sun, forget it! Go there early or not at all.
You may also enjoy
B is for Beach
Visit more posts in the Archives.


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Job Hunting (Fishing, Shooting, Scratching, Eating)Wednesday, March 30, 2005
As you may or may not have guessed by now- I went to look for a job today.
I've never really held a job before. Embarassing I know, for someone who is almost 20. I thought so too. I decided one night whilst studying for my final exams that I have to have some working experience before graduating. I needed to save up as well, and start acting .. more responsible. Learn where money comes from. Understand my mom when she goes into a tantrum when I decide to park in Subang Parade (RM2) instead of Carrefour (free).
Well here's the summary of the whole Job Hunting Experience:
I scratched a luxury car whilst parking. I'm not going to mention what luxury car it was in case the owner, in some weird karmic order, reads my blog and decides to send me a nasty email. I'm just paranoid like that. I made a particularly sharp turning whilst turning into a parking lot, while also on the phone with my dad and .. well. That's when I heard The Sound. I can't even begin to describe the sound of paint being scraped/scratched off, so I'm not even going to try.
I went out to check the damage. It HONESTLY wasn't that bad. HONESTLY (okstoplookingatmeifeelreallybad). So I did what any other inexperienced driver would do- I fled the scene. And went to park somewhere else.
:S I'm really sorry- whoever the unfortunate person was.
I also broke TGIF's pen while filling in the application. But it got fixed in about 5 minutes. However those 5 minutes between Pen Broke and Pen Fixed were tensed because- what kind of an impression would I make? Waitress breaking the tools of the trade: the pen.
I was starting to believe that it was not going to be my day at all. Everyone kept feeding me the same, "We'll call you/My manager will call you" line. Needless to say, I was beginning to get a little disgruntled.
However, on the walk from mall to parking lot, Krystle and I spotted a RM5 note. On the floor. Pleading for us to pick it up and fulfil it's rightful destiny- to be spent.
We spent the RM 5 on Dunkin Donuts.
I had a Double Choc. DOUBLE Choc. Hey if you're going to sin- you might as well go all the way.
Was happy again. Alls Well That Ends Well.


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In my last post I showed you a quick sneak peek of this photo, and now I'm ready to show you the banger that is featured in Stolen BMX's 2012 product catalog.
About a month ago Morgan Long and I met up in Downtown Long Beach just a few blocks from my house to film a trick tip video for ridebmx.com. When we were finished Morgan decided he wanted to shoot a photo of a gap that countless people have eyed up, but no one has committed to. He was fresh off a long injury hiatus and hadn't shot any photos or really pushed himself in several months, but he felt up to the task.
Morgan cleared the gap on his first go, but didn't tuck it properly, so he opted to do it again to get the photo to look exactly how he wanted. Unfortunately on the second attempt things didn't work out in his favor. He got a weird pop off the bunnyhop that sent him nose heavy into the landing. He crashed and got pretty banged up so he had to call it a day.
Several weeks went by and Morgan's team manager at Stolen hit him up with a last minute request for a photo for their catalog. Luckily Morgan and I were both in between trips and were able to line up our busy schedules to reshoot the gap.
This time around Morgan nailed it, and within a few minutes of showing up at the spot we had the photo that Stolen needed for their catalog.
Photo Information:
Lighting: Ambient / No Flashes
Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon 70-200mm IS USM @ 75mm
Settings: ISO 200, 1/800, f/6.3
Since I didn't use any off-camera lighting for this shot, it was very straightforward to shoot and to edit. Below is a screen shot of the minor changes I made in Photoshop's RAW editing window.
You can click through the entire Stolen catalog below.
If you liked this, be sure to check out my other Behind The Photo posts that go into detail about how I set up, shot, and edited specific BMX photos.


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Black Hebrew Israelites vs. Christian Apologist Vocab Malone (raw street audio)
Vocab saw black Hebrew Israelites yelling loudly at bypassers in Phoenix, AZ. He asked: "what is the gospel?" That question turned into an hour and a half conversation. BHI is very concerned with ethnicity and skin tone. Vocab tried to focus on salvation by grace through faith. This recording is helpful for Christians wanting to understand this group's theology better so they can share the gospel with them.
Heads Up: The audio is UNCUT and has crazy profanity.
Special Song: Absolute Truth (Forward, 2015) – Flame
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:38:57 — 90.6MB) | Embed
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