text:
The situation at an Algerian oil field that was raided by Al-Qaeda militants yesterday can be described with one word: chaotic.
Reports have suggested that as many as 35 foreign hostages were killed during the Algerian military's rescue operation. The latest report from the Algerian government itself suggests at least 32 are unaccounted for.
Algeria is reported to have turned down assistance from the U.K. and the U.S., and began the operation without informing the Brits. One British security source told CBS News that "the Algerians were firing from helicopters at anything that moved."
Geoff Porter, founder of North Africa Risk Consulting, Inc., a political risk firm specializing in North Africa, explains Algeria's policy with terrorists in an article for Foreign Policy. Porter argues that the country's history with Islamist terrorism has created a policy of responding with overwhelming military force and ignoring outside help:
Algeria's experience with Islamist insurgency during the 1990s defines its response to events today. During that conflict, a debate emerged within the Algerian government about how to deal with the violent Islamists. One side favored a negotiated solution. The other, known as the eradicateurs, said killing the Islamists was the only approach. The eradicateurs won -- and they still remain in the drivers seat in today's Algeria.
Angelique Chrisafis, writing in the Guardian, backs up Porter's analysis:
Faced with the return of major terrorist operations on its home turf, Algiers seemed likely to want to send a stark message to its own population, that dramatic hostage-taking would be met with a dramatic response.
The fact that the attack took aim at Algeria's oil industry — vital for the country's economic future — is also a huge factor — Algeria's "eradicateurs" wanted a response that showed they would not back down.
"If this attack was intended as a game changer," Porter writes, "if it was intended to be a harbinger of future attacks, then Algeria had to send a clear signal that the new tactic would not succeed."


text:
The only "Dilemma" the new Vince Vaughn comedy presents is how to recover from watching it. Most everyone in this film is a jerk or a rube, and nearly every joke has been made countless times before.
The opening scene finds Ronny (Vaughn), Beth (Jennifer Connelly), Nick (Kevin James) and Geneva (Winona Ryder) sitting around a dinner table discussing how well you can know someone. Here's a better question: How did two attractive, successful women end up with a pair of slobs who are on the verge of bankruptcy?
"The Dilemma" confronted by Ronny in this uninspired tale is whether or not to tell Nick that Geneva is stepping out, which frankly is not a dilemma. Let's be clear about this: if your best friend's being cheated on, tell him/her. There's an admittedly funny line about when the best time to drop such news might be, but it's the only entertainment value the issue provides.
Remember when Vaughn burst onto the scene in "Swingers"? Gangly, handsome, hyperactive— he was a one-man charm offensive. Sure, he was grating, but he made it work. Somewhere along the way he lost his mojo and now seems content to make bad romcoms about crappy relationships (see: "Wedding Crashers," "The Break-Up," "Couples Retreat"). Maybe now that he's happily married in real life, he can move on.
Not only is Ronny angry with Geneva for cheating on her man, but he also manages to make a villain of Beth, who is a saint in this film. If Ronny's got any reservations about marrying her, they can only be predicated on the self-esteem issues that keep her with a man so beneath her. Honestly, what the hell is Jennifer Connelly doing in this film? Hopefully it's freeing her up to do more interesting work.
How bad is "The Dilemma"? Channing Tatum gives far and away the best performance in the film, as Zip, the man with whom Geneva is cheating on Nick. Tatum brings the crazy, as a dopey rocker who feels a little too deeply. He's the only one in the film who appears to even be trying to enjoy himself.
There was a time when Ron Howard made slightly demented and joyous comedies, like "Night Shift" and "Gung Ho," that had their limitations, but were at least kinda fun. Then he transitioned to more adult fare with "Parenthood," which was a reasonably smart, semi-serious comedy about the challenges of family life. In "The Dilemma," he can't settle on the tone he's after, shifting from dopey romp to drama to romcom, the whole thing littered with sophomoric humor. It doesn't work.
The only good to come out of "The Dilemma" is the cash infusion enjoyed by the great rock duo The Black Keys, who have two songs featured on the soundtrack, thereby ensuring their financial stability for at least a couple more albums. Otherwise, "The Dilemma" is an exhaustingly trite, unfunny, vaguely misogynistic noncom that has bad answers for stupid questions.
Review: Seeing "The Dilemma" a Bad Choice
The only "Dilemma" the new Vince Vaughn comedy presents is how to recover from watching it. Most everyone in this film is a jerk or a rube, and nearly every joke has been made countless times before.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Keep checking BNN for the breaking news updates, and discuss it on the forums or in the Bulbagarden Discord server.Want to write an article? Go ahead! Have an opinion to share? An idea for a new column? Contact us!
Changes related to "Category:Anime"
From Bulbanews, your community Pokémon newspaper.
This is a list of changes made recently to pages linked from a specified page (or to members of a specified category). Pages on your watchlist are bold.
7 July 2020
5 July 2020
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text: The young German design student and trained cabinet maker Sebastian Schneider recently presented this hinged table and bench – an elegant and smartly translated alternative to the typical German "beer bench". The tripod base is composed of three loosly connected legs a joining rod and a collet made from aluminium and gets stabilised with the weight of the user. And the best thing is – all those who have had a few to many beers in a typical beer tent once know what I am talking about – due to the tripod you may sit on the one side and the bench will not overturn.


text:
Product Details
Made from 100% linen
Double hand-turned hem
Machine washable
All Brahms Mount textiles are prewashed and preshrunk
All Brahms Mount products are made in the USA
Twin 72" x 90"
Full 80" x 90"
Queen 90" x 90"
King 110" x 90"
Feel-Good Fibers
Sustainability is not a new idea at Brahms Mount. Natural fibers and earth-friendly practices were woven into the fabric of our company from day one. Every part of our process, from sourcing yarns to manufacturing products, involves making choices with minimal impact. We use colorfast, eco-friendly dyes to achieve our vibrant hues. We follow the safest possible methods to give our whites their characteristic brightness. Our natural fibers are just that – pure and undyed, with a clean, untreated finish. Feel-good fibers, in every sense.
- great blanket
Posted by Katharine on 8/27/19
- Love
The rich blue color is lovely.Posted by Delta on 6/13/17
- Linen flat weave blanket
Posted by Lois on 6/15/16
- Great deal-It's irregular, so?
Posted by Melissa on 1/27/16
- A very warm blanket
Posted by Nancy on 1/25/16
- High Quality
Posted by CPM on 11/11/15
- Go Natural
Posted by Janice on 8/17/15
- Worth it
Posted by Robin K on 6/15/15
- Inheritable
Posted by Susan Bingham Mickey on 1/13/15
- Everyday Joy
Posted by Jonathan on 9/11/14
- A luxury you use every day
Posted by Maura Colling on 6/5/14
- Long Lasting Greatness
Posted by Pamela Miller on 5/6/13
- Thank you
Posted by Cat on 12/8/12
- 100% linen blanket
What I would really like is a quilt or comforter made with linen fabric, batting and thread! Any suggestions?Posted by Cook Island Ministries on 10/1/12
- Linen Blanket Review
Posted by MFH on 6/19/12
- Linen Blanket
Posted by Lena P. on 6/18/12
Posted by Jeanne Dille on 6/17/12
- creature comfort
both comfortable and beautiful.Posted by brian on 6/17/12
All Brahms Mount blankets and throws are pre-washed and pre-shrunk. While our products have the ease of home washing and drying, they are still made of natural fibers and should be cared for accordingly.
- Wash separately in cold water on a short, gentle cycle, with as much water as possible to allow for movement
- Avoid harsh detergents
- Use a liquid detergent without bleach or brighteners
- Always pre-dilute your detergent
- Tumble dry on delicate setting, low or no heat. Linen will become brittle if it is dried at a high heat temperature or for an extended period. When the fabric rubs on itself in a "dry" condition, it will abrade and show fiber on the surface.
- Tumbling keeps a soft drape.
- You can line dry, but the fabric will be stiff initially
- It is better to remove the product slightly damp from the dryer than to "bake and break" the fibers. Avoid exposure to direct sunlight over long periods
Brahms Mount keeps rolls of woven fabric on our shelves. An in stock product may not yet be finished and ready to ship. For this reason, all orders should be expected to ship within two weeks.


text:
(in limbo.)
we were sitting on the swings at a park in the aftermath of a snowstorm. you asked me if i had any cigarettes and i told you no. i don't know how many times i've told you i don't smoke and i don't have any cigarettes, but it never seems to strike a chord with you, and i guess i get that. smokers have a certain sick sad desperation to their vice. wow, that sounds redundant. what i'm trying to say is despite the insurmountable odds that i don't have a cigarette, you still always ask me if i do. maybe it's not desperation. maybe it's hope. faith in what is most likely not true.
you were glowing. you were always one of those girls who made sense bundled up in the middle of colorado winter. your cheeks looked good with a little extra red to them.
"that's okay," you said about the cigarette, "because i have this invisible cigarette."
you spared no artistic expense with this. you reached into your jacket and pulled out an invisible package of cigarettes. you pulled out one cigarette.
"phew. last one." you said, "unless you want one, in which case i have one more?"
"no, i'm good," i said. you looked a little disappointed.
you put the invisible box back in your jacket and swinging a little you pulled out an invisible lighter. i watched you actually inhale. you were smiling. one of those good smiles. one of those true smiles that wasn't based on some social situation that makes you feel obliged to smile. you were experiencing actual joy, sitting in that park, freezing our asses off.
and then for the high point of your performance, you blew out cold air, and i swear to god, you somehow made it billow like actual smoke.
"very well played," i said.
"thank you, thank you," you threw your fake cigarette onto the ground, "fake cigarettes aren't the same though. they don't have any sense of danger to them. you don't feel any fire in your lungs,"
"i wouldn't know. i've never smoked," i said.
"yes, you have,"
"no. no i have not,"
"you're a fucking liar," you said, "i distinctly remember last time we were drunk in denver, you were chain-smoking,"
"i don't remember this at all, so clearly it never happened," i said.
"you are a liar,"
"why are we out in this?" i asked.
"because we both are twenty-four and living at home,"
"yeah, i didn't see that one coming," i said.
"you have nothing to be ashamed of," you said to me, in that sympathetic way you say everything, "you are just in limbo between places,"
"i guess that's true,"
"i, on the other hand, am a bum,"
"no, you're not."
my sympathy didn't sound as good as yours.
"yeah, i kind of am. rich parents are a blessing and a curse. the blessing is they show their affection towards you through money, the curse is the same,"
"your parents love you,"
"i'm not denying that. some days it just feels like their world is moving too fast and sometimes it's a dry cleaning ticket that gets lost in the madness, or a pair of car keys, but sometimes it's me,"
i don't think you, or most people for that matter, realize how often they talk in poetry.
"wanna make out?" i asked, smiling some deadbeat frozen smile.
"you're funny," you said, but i wasn't trying to be funny. maybe it was a poor word choice on my part, or maybe we were just gonna keep on living in this land of indecision. maybe we're destined to swing back and forth together in this white nothingness at some time between night and morning.
02.2013 is a twenty-eight day project chronicling my february of 2013 through poetry. to read the entries from the beginning CLICK HERE


text:
Vodafone customers relying on Sure Signal boxes for mobile connectivity have been hit by an update that left them less connected than ever.
The boxes are femtocells – small cellular base stations – hooked up to punters' broadband connections to boost Voda's phone network in areas with patchy coverage.
Not every Sure Signal box was affected, but a vocal minority of users have taken to the Vodafone forums to complain that the overnight update knocked out their connectivity, though some are reporting that the recommended turn-it-off-and-back-on-again procedure fixes the problem.
The update was sent out on Tuesday morning and promptly prevented many users from making outgoing calls. Those seeking support were frustrated by a lack of official response (echoed in our own inability to get anything official from Vodafone on the matter) with a recommendation to try power-cycling everything (including the broadband router) finally getting posted on Tuesday evening.
The problem is that Sure Signal, in common with other femtocell devices, has to listen for a long time before deciding on a radio frequency to use. When it was launched, a Sure Signal box could take six hours to boot up, and while that's now down to around an hour, the customers still felt they were being fobbed off with the request.
Sure Signal is Vodafone's branded femtocell, a tiny phone mast which routes calls over the public internet using the customer's broadband connection. When launched it broke the belief that femtocells could only be deployed where the mobile operator also provided the broadband connection to ensure quality of service.
By operating over the public internet, Sure Signal can't guarantee quality, but given the speed of most internet connections, and the minimal requirements of a voice call, there's normally enough bandwidth to spare (Vodafone recommends a minimum of 1MB/sec).
But as market leader Vodafone has suffered from more that its share of technical hiccups, upsetting many Sure Signal users who are required to buy the box, and to pay for calls as well as paying for the bandwidth over which they're carried. Other operators, including O2 and Three, also have femtocell products but don't promote or sell them, only offering them as freebies to valued customers who complain loudly enough about a lack of coverage.
So slow has the femtocell revolution become that the Femtocell Forum has renamed itself the "Small Cell Forum" as the technology developed for femtos percolates upwards into micro-, mini- and macro-network components. But femtocells do continue to slowly propagate – only coming to our attention when they fail, as Vodafone's did on Tuesday. ®


text:
Come out and enjoy the summer weather before it's gone with some outdoor screenings around the city. July is almost over but you still have August! Enjoy!
TIFF in the Park: A Summer of Romances
From now until August 28th, TIFF is hosting free outdoor movies every Wednesday at the David Pecaut Square.
July 31 at 9:00pm — The Way We Were
August 7 at 9:00pm — Clueless
August 14 at 9:00pm — Sense and Sensibility
August 21 at 8:30pm — Roman Holiday
August 23 at 8:30pm — TBD
August 28 at 8:30pm — The Notebook
Open Roof Festival
Click on the titles for more information and tickets.
July 25 — Unhung Hero
August 1 — Bones Brigade
August 8 — Gimme The Loot
August 15 — How To Make Money Selling Drugs
August 22 — Kings of Summer
Movies in the Park at Riverdale Park East, 550 Broadview Ave
August 4 at 8:45pm — ET the Extra Terrestrial
August 18 at 8:30pm — Ferris Beuller's Day Off
For more information, visit the website here.
Sail-In Cinema
From August 15-17 at dusk, head to Sugar Beach (25 Dockside Drive) for movies by the lake. Check their website for more information about films to be announced.
Free Flicks at Habourfront (Lower Simcoe & Queen's Quay)
Films start at 9:00pm. More information here.
July 31 — Streets of Fire
August 7 — The Triplets of Belleville
August 14 — That Thing You Do!
August 21 — Josie and the Pussycats
August 28 — Audience Choice/TBD
Christie Pits Film Festival
Screening starts around 9:00pm at Christie Pits. More information here.
July 28 — This Last Waltz
August 4 — That Thing You Do!
Richmond Hill's Moonlight Movies
Begins at dusk, for more information here.
July 31 at Richmond Green — Rise of the Guardians
August 7 at Langstaff Community Centre — Jumanji
August 14 at Richvale Community Centre — Oz the Great and Powerful
August 21 at Oak Ridges Community Centre — E.T.
August 28 at Rouge Woods Community Centre — The Croods


text:
Maybe you've already trekked the AT, the PCT, and an alphabet soup of other thru-hikes. I know. Those simply whet your appetite for more. So now you're looking for something a little more exotic, of course with more than its fair share of challenges. Well, you're in luck.
Recently we heard about five new trails established across the Alps. The Via Alpina loops from Italy's Adriatic Coast to Monte Carlo on the Mediterranean. By combining a network of pre-existing long distance routes, the Via Alpina traverses the continent along the backbone of the Alps for an amazing 5,000 kilometers or more. Designed as a European cultural itinerary, you can experience jaw-dropping Alpine beauty, culture, nature, ecology, history and cuisine in whatever region you choose – for as long as you can get away.
The Via Alpina offers something for everyone.
I share your sweet addiction for what I call "slow, deliberate travel." For me, it was born on the wild steppes of Tibet as my wife and I hiked 1,100 kilometers from Lhasa to Kathmandu – and it's become my passion. So I wanted to be among the first to hike the Via Alpina's entire length across eight countries: from Trieste, Italy through Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, and finally down to Monaco. I hoped to descend to lower altitudes in the French Alps-Maritime before snow hid the trail in autumn.
It was bound to be more difficult than any other I'd ever attempted. That was an understatement. Each and every day meant climbing at least 3,000 feet from valley to mountain hut where I'd sleep.
The Via Alpina route map.
Still, as a veteran of ten long-distance thru-treks, the Via Alpina sounded perfect; a physical and mental challenge combined with the best way to discover the Alps. I already knew it was an area of more than cheese and gnomes. In my mind's eye, I envisioned it as a European Appalachian Trail – only with better food and wine. Even lite-trekkers travel on their stomachs, and sausage, fresh alpenkäse, corn polenta, and wine sounded a little better than peanut butter, tinned meat, and beer.
From a Holiday to a Temporary Stay
Faster than you can say strudel, I convinced my wife Cheryl to join me. But first, we had a laundry list of details to face. After realizing it'd take five months to hike this 1,200+ mile trail, we discovered we had to apply for visas. This was a first for us in Europe, but not too much of a hassle. Nowadays with the new Schengen Agreement, Americans can stay in EU treaty countries for only ninety days at a time, not per country.
So, combining one adventure with another dream, we thought, 'Why not apply for one-year residency visas in Italy? That'd give us time to complete the trek, remain behind to write a book about our experiences, and discover Alpine life – up close and personal.'
On the downside, it meant we had to leave our home and jobs, lighten our life by selling most of our possessions, and trek off together into the unknown on this latest adventure.
Yeah, Cheryl's pretty understanding…
Support Team
With that settled, we immediately began equipping for this ultimate challenge. We've long been confirmed lite trekkers and have whittled down our necessities to seven kilos (15 lbs). I know, some folks trek with less, but we were talking about a four-month hike where weather conditions are notoriously fickle. We'd encounter rain and high altitude sun in temperatures ranging from near freezing to 90 degrees. There might still be snow in June. At 6,000 to 9,000 feet, it can be sunny, raining, snowing, hailing, and fog-covered – all on the same summer day. And we'd been warned about dry Föhn winds that can drive hikers more crazy than usual.
With this in mind, we eagerly approached GoLite, whose gear has already seen me through several thru-treks, including one from France to Israel while founding the Templar Trail in 2006. We upgraded to their latest Pinnacle pack and added their down sleeping bags, down jackets, and wicking t-shirts that'd prove handy in any condition. Then, after researching lightweight tents, we approached Gossamer Gear and chose their Squall Classic. Although the information from the Via Alpina organization showed either mountain huts or pensions along the routes, we could never be certain to complete a stage each day. It all depended on trail conditions, weather, and our own physical state.
Mountain huts take trekking to a whole new level.
At any age, hiking 20-30 kilometers a day for months over severe elevation changes is an unknown. It's one thing to go to 12,000+ feet and remain there for a month, as we had in Tibet. It's a different story to make a tough climb and descent each and every day. We packed a dependable lightweight tent just in case of emergencies.
Finally, we stocked up on topographic maps to cover the route in greater detail. Past experience told me it's not always possible to find good maps en route. Omni Resources came through and supplied us with nearly thirty, which also gave us time to plan each day's trek more in-depth. Given their weight, we each carried a few at a time and arranged for new ones to be mailed along the way.
Over four months, as plans came together and our visas were approved, Cheryl and I worked out at Upcountry Maui Fitness every other day, attempting to beat our average bodies into Alpine shape. This trek was no walk in the park. We spent extra hours on their incline treadmills to simulate climbs, then lifted weights and worked on balance exercises with dreadlocked Izaac, our trainer.
The Trek
At long last, we left for Trieste in June 2009 and set off on what was to become a 111-day hike across the Alps. I can now admit, just like any thru-hike, from the very start it was an expedition of highs and lows (although these were higher and lower than most.)
For example, even though our topo maps covered most of our route, searching for trail markers became a frustrating daily routine across beautiful, bewildering Slovenia. Often they were on half-buried posts in snow. One hut they claimed was simply "closed" was permanently shuttered – wiped out in an avalanche.
Early on, even in the Julian Alps, the trails were slow going. It was impossible to make it back to Mt. Triglav as planned, and we were forced to improvise. In June, ice fields blocked our paths across narrow, slippery scree. Without ice axes and crampons, we dug footholds and inched our way across the steep scree inclines, flattened, using our LEKI Nordic sticks as anchors.
Remember Ötzi? He's the 5000-year-old Alpine hunter recently discovered beneath a receding glacier. We didn't want to end up like him.
Watch your step in Slovenia's Julian Alps.
What's a day without another scree scramble?
Even with our caution, Cheryl ended up dangling over a 1,000-foot precipice, anchored to the ice only by a slender pole. A badly injured knee threatened to end her Alpinist days then and there, but her tenacity and improvisation came through again. Considering her limping condition and the relentless rain and too-close-for-comfort lightning, we ducked into the valley where we shadowed the upper trails until her Q-tip shaped knee grew stronger and the storm front passed.
That brief detour took us down into timeless Tyrolean villages, which gave us a chance to discover their unique mountain culture, music, food (including the baseball glove-sized "Mother Schnitzel"), local wines like Müller Thurgau, and unfiltered Hefeweisen beer, a meal in itself.
Soon we were back on the Red Route enjoying nature one step at a time. We hiked through secluded verdant valleys looking like something out of Lord of the Rings, and past the donka-donk of bell toting cows. We found a profusion of wildflowers, orchids, edelweiss, and alpenrose, while Steinbok, chamois, ermine and roly-poly marmots might appear around any bend.
Our Rivendell had fifteen waterfalls, near Meiringen, Switzerland.
Steinbok are surprise companions, as well as chamois, ermine, and marmots.
Edelweiss, alpenrose and orchids brighten foggy Austrian days.
Walking Jazz
It didn't take long to realize there was no way we could finish the 161-stage Red Route in one season. That would often mean hiking two stages a day. So we improv-ed once again (we call it "walking jazz") and soon connected to the Via Alpina Green Route, aka the Swiss National Trail, to trek in the shadows of legendary mountains like the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. We then rejoined the Red Route in France for a circuit around Mt. Blanc to connect with the Blue in southern France to again meet the Red for the final surge into Monaco.
Keep an eye out for 'easy-to-spot' markings.
That's a unique aspect of this trail vs. American paths. There is no one route. There are five interconnecting trails. Mix and match them to adapt to your condition, time constraints, weather, or regions of interest.
Believe me, trekking the Via Alpina is an incredible experience on many levels. No two days are alike. Just as there is no one trail, there is no one Alps. Each valley can mean a change in languages, customs, food, and trail conditions. In one section, trails are elusive. In another, they're marked by wide stripes every 200 yards. The paths are equally varied: running through deep valleys, across scree, wet bogs, down forest trails, over mountains of cow patties in alms, through villages, down ski runs, and back up to eagle perch mountain huts for jaw-dropping sunsets.
Nothing beats reaching a summit, Mt. Blanc from Col de Brévent, France.
Sweet Dreams
We usually spent the night at huts, many run by the local alpine clubs. It was a great way to meet fellow trekkers and locals. Bunk beds in their dorms (15-25 euros) often included a hot shower. I know, a real extravagance. The food was hearty, drinks were cold, but prices a little high given the dollar's anemic exchange rate. The huts, by the way, are busier than trails, especially in August, when reservations are recommended.
It's possible to wild camp in some secluded spots. Outside villages, you can always ask a farmer. However much of the trail runs through national parks which generally have a "no camping" policy. Then again, sometimes you might be able to pitch your tent at dusk and leave by dawn. But no fires are allowed.
Some Swiss villages offer "Schlafen in Stroh" (Sleep in the Straw) in the summer (18 euros) when the cows are up in the pasture. You simply roll out your sleeping bag atop fresh straw in the barn. It's an eye-opening way to experience today's farm life, complete with handmade cheese – and authentic Alpine aromas.
Local legends are another part of the Alpine story. After all, this is the land of gnomes, elves, talking animals, and wayward knights. One grand old lady who manages a hut facing Mt. Blanc delighted us with the tale of Mt. Jolly and the lovelorn shepherd whose tears froze to form the glacier at its base.
For much of the trek we too were alone, a welcome change after the popularity of some trails. We only encountered a few folks each day trekking or mountain biking only portions of the Via Alpina. Otherwise, we had much of the trail to ourselves.
Kicked back in the shadow of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
Skivvies and Schnapps
As usual, we met eccentric folks along the way. One such hiker, an Irish wolfhound of a guy, insisted on stripping down to his skivvies to show one startled woman at dinner just how "lightly" he packed. (She was sorry she asked.) But as you know, laughter lightens any load.
And how could we forget the food? One of my fondest memories is of a rainy night at a shepherd's stone hut. First, the quiet fellow grilled steaks, onions, and potatoes. Luxury! We no sooner finished that serving than he appeared with seconds… then thirds. Then, since it was another guest's birthday, he appeared with a three-layer cake topped by fresh berries. Before saying goodnight, he offered bottles of schnapps, insisting we help ourselves.
Overall, the Via Alpina has one thing in common with other long distance trails. We rediscovered simplicity and balance. We disconnected and reveled in the quietude of nature.
Finally, this was the challenge of a lifetime. For the record, from June to mid-September we ascended and descended almost 700,000 feet total – the equivalent of climbing twelve Mt. Everests from sea level. Each night I chronicled our very real and gritty adventures while muscles still ached. I hope our "unsanitized for your protection" tale feeds your wanderlust. Join us for an always candid, sometimes painful, often humorous look at our journey – and at an everyday couple who followed their gonzo dream.
And yes, even today, we're still in the Alps!
Italy's Dolomites are breathtaking, especially for hikers.
Gear List:
- GoLite Pinnacle Backpack
- GoLite Down Sleeping Bag
- GoLite Down Jacket
- Gossamer Gear Squall Classic Tent
- LEKI Super Makalu Air Thermo Nordic Sticks
- Packing Cube With:
- 2 GoLite Wicking T-Shirts
- 2 Pair GoLite Air-eator Socks
- 2 Pair Hiking Liner Socks
- GoLite Reed Waterproof Pants
- GoLite Nylon Shorts
- Altus Poncho
- Convertible Pants
- Cotton Kerchief
- Synthetic Towel
- Cotton Hat
- Nylon Gaiters
- Small MagLite
- Plastic Foldable Cup
- Nylon Cord (10 yd)
- Compass
- Garmin GPS Backtracker
- Toilet Paper
- Zip-Fizz Energy Powder
- Waterproof Matches
- Olympus U700 Digital Camera
- Montrail Continental Divide Shoes
- (So-Called) Waterproof Hiking Boots
- Casio Altimeter Watch
- Swiss Army Knife
- Journal & Pen
- 30 Topographic Maps (Split, 7 at a time, each)
- Water Bottle
- Nylon Pouch With Passport, ATM Card
- Sunglasses
- First Aid Kit:
- Antibiotic Cream
- Athletic Bandage
- Small Mirror
- Petroleum Jelly
- Aspirin
- Naproxin
- Voltaren Muscle Cream
- Earplugs
- Athletic Tape & Ace Bandage
- Small Sewing Kit
- Shaving Cream & Razor
- Soap
- Nail Clippers
- Sunscreen
- Toothbrush & Paste
- Compeed Bandages
Approximate Total Pack Weight: 15 pounds (7 kg)
|Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps by Brandon Wilson, the Lowell Thomas Gold Award-winning author, was published by Pilgrim's Tales in October 2010. It's the first trans-Via Alpina travel narrative published in English, with 53 photos, maps, and custom illustrations by Ken Plumb. Available from Amazon or your favorite bookshop.


text:
I am gearing up for our school fundraiser "Jump Rope for Heart" and I'm "Going Red for Heart Disease" every Friday this month.
In addition to the projects we've done for the e-book, decorating hearts has been a popular activity in our art center. My favorite valentines are always the sweet homemade kind.
If you'd like to donate $5 to the American Heart Association, you can click here and get a free copy of the heart project e-book as a thank you.
You can order a printed copy of the heart project book here for $20.
I'm giving away a free copy of the heart project e-book right here. Leave me a comment (with your email address) telling about your favorite Valentine card or gift between now and Monday, February 20th. On Tuesday, February 21, one random comment will be chosen to receive a free copy of the heart project e-book!
**Winner will be drawn from random comments and notified via email. If the winner does not respond to notification within 72 hours, a new winner will be chosen.**


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On this day, the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, as well as the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, escape from the French port of Brest and make a mad dash up the English Channel to safety in German waters.
The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst had been anchored at Brest since March 1941. The Prinz Eugen had been tied to the French port since the Bismarck sortie in May 1941, when it and the battleship Bismarck made their own mad dash through the Atlantic and the Denmark Strait to elude Royal Navy gunfire. All three were subject to periodic bombing raids–and damage–by the British, as the Brits attempted to ensure that the German warships never left the French coast. But despite the careful watch of British subs and aircraft, German Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax launched Operation Cerberus to lead the ships out of the French port.
The Germans, who had controlled and occupied France since June 1940, drew British fire deliberately, and the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Prinz Eugen used the resulting skirmish as a defensive smoke screen. Six German destroyers and 21 torpedo boats accompanied the ships for protection as they moved north late on the night of February 11.
In the morning, German planes provided air cover as well; ace pilot Adolf Galland led 250 other fighters in an unusually well coordinated joint effort of the German navy and Luftwaffe. The British Royal Air Force also coordinated its attack with the Royal Navy Swordfish squadron, but a late start–the RAF did not realize until the afternoon of February 12 that the German squadron had pushed out to sea–and bad weather hindered their effort. All three German warships made it to a German port on February 13, although the Gneisenauand Scharnhorst had been damaged by British mines along the way.
The British lost 40 aircraft and six Navy Swordfish in the confrontation, while the Germans lost a torpedo boat and 17 aircraft. The "Channel Dash," as it came to be called, was extremely embarrassing to the British, as it happened right under their noses. They would get revenge of a sort, though: British warships sunk the Scharnhorst in December 1944 as the German ship attempted to attack a Russian convoy. The Gneisenau was destroyed in a bombing raid while still in port undergoing repairs, and the Prinz Eugensurvived the war, but was taken over by the U.S. Navy at war's end.


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A federal judge in San Diego ruled that Facebook can exclude users if they install a program that changes its website and swaps out its ads.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo dismissed an antitrust complaint made by Sambreel, an advertising company that offers products such as PageRage that let users alter the look of their Facebook page.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"We are pleased by the decision," Facebook's lead counsel, Craig Clark, told GigaOm.
Sambreel's lawyers did not respond.
Facebook earlier this year prevented users who had PageRage software from logging on to the social network, something called "gating." Sambreel began fighting Facebook both legally and in the media, saying the company broke antitrust laws by preventing use of its software.
However, the federal judge didn't agree.
There is no fundamental right to use Facebook; users may only obtain a Facebook account upon agreement that they will comply with Facebook's terms, which is unquestionably permissible under the antitrust laws. It follows, therefore, that Facebook is within its rights to require that its users disable certain products before using its website.
The ruling gives technology companies such as Facebook (as well as Google and Twitter) a little more control of their own platforms and products. Even if it does provide a free service, Facebook is a private company and can still make rules on how its product can be used.


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Transferring / Re: Transferring from SIU Law to the U!!« on: December 25, 2006, 02:48:33 PM »
Yeah, I am going to apply to Denver if I am Top half as soon as I get my rank. If I am top third, I am going to apply to Boulder. I don't really see the reason to o to a place nicer than #30something Boulder (I just want a district federal clerkship or a staff position in a federal department)....I guess I would apply to Washington(#20 something), but I doubt I would get in, even if I was #1.


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Mich. breakout required planning, lots of snow
- Elliot crawled through snow to get through prison fence
- He is serving time for four murders
- 2 prison officials suspended%3B investigation underway
DETROIT -- He planned to go somewhere warm, like Arizona or Utah, where he would live in the woods.
He'd eat whatever he could find until he figured something out.
Michael David Elliot, 40, wore a couple of layers of white thermals underneath a blue uniform, and tore it a little bit so he could rip it off easily when he dived into the snow at the Ionia Correctional Facility on Sunday.
He also had white shoes, white gloves and a white ski mask made from thermal material when he went outside, as if he were going to exercise rather than escape.
"As soon as they turned their back a little bit, I dove in the snow and crawled to the path I had in mind," Elliot said.
It was an escape he said was less than four months in the making — a daring snowy disappearance that began Sunday night and ended the next evening more than 150 miles away in La Porte County, Ind., when he was stopped in a stolen car.
Elliot, who was convicted of four murders, is back behind bars now, awaiting extradition to Michigan, and spoke exclusively to the Detroit Free Press during his one phone call, detailing the escape.
"I just seen an opportunity," Elliot said Friday. "It was relatively simple."
First, he had to decide if he was going to attempt it, knowing that if things didn't go as planned there would be consequences.
The key to the brazen escape: blending in with the environment and getting around the obstacles that kept him behind the prison walls.
Snowy camouflage
Elliot dived into the snow, put on his mask, crawled to a fence and went under it. Then he went to an area where prisoners are transported in and out of the facility, and used a leather belt and his hands to unravel the fences so he could slip through, he recalled during the 20-minute interview.
He knew he couldn't get through the other fences, but the sally port gate presented an opportunity — it lacked the same concertina wire and electric fences.
"So I made my way to that," he said. "And that's what I went through."
When a guard drove past him, just 20 to 30 feet away, Elliot laid on his belly, burrowed into the snow and didn't move.
"Any time I seen anybody I stopped," he said.
Then he carried on in the cold with his fingers numb and sticking to the metal gate.
It took at least 30 minutes, he estimated, to escape and another hour or so to run to the city of Ionia, as he jumped in the snow every time he saw a car.
The Michigan Department of Corrections said Elliot broke through the second fence around 7 p.m Sunday and was discovered missing at 9:15 p.m. during a count of inmates.
The department stayed mum on many specifics of the escape Friday, citing the ongoing investigation it's conducting, which is expected to be completed some time next week.
The area Elliot escaped through didn't have the same security systems as other places, Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said. But the fence he got through has a sensor that is supposed to go off when you approach it.
It didn't detect Elliot as he made his way to temporary freedom.
On Friday, an officer and a shift commander working at the prison the evening Elliot escaped were suspended, Marlan said.
Meanwhile, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced Friday that state Attorney General Bill Schuette will conduct an investigation into the escape.
"We'll follow the facts to find out what happened and why," Schuette said. "We will issue a full and complete report."
Hijacked for a ride
Elliot, who got to Ionia wet and cold, said he didn't want to bother anybody and looked to see if he could find a car running, armed with a box cutter and hammer he picked up along the way.
Then he spotted a woman who was a U.S. Census worker.
"I went up to the car and I said, 'Hey move over," Elliot recalled. "She said, 'No I'm not doing anything.'"
He told her he was convicted of murder and just escaped from prison before getting in the back of her 2004 red Jeep Liberty.
"I assured her all the way there that I wasn't going to do her any harm," he said.
He wanted her to know his situation was serious and that he was inconveniencing her for one night then she would be back home with her family.
"All I wanted to do was just get away," he said.
Elliot wanted to go somewhere warm and looked in newspapers for locations before his escape, seeing Florida and Texas as options.
The woman drove to a gas station in Middlebury, Ind., and he changed into a dry pair of her cargo pants and some undergarments that she had stashed in the Jeep.
He took the keys and went inside to pay, and the woman, who had a cellphone, called 911 and then said she needed to use the restroom.
Elliot took off in her Jeep and she stayed in a locked bathroom waiting for police to arrive.
"Right as I was taking off, I seen the store clerk acting funny," he said. "And then as I'm pulling away I seen the cops come."
Second car, and arrest
He ditched the Jeep before stealing a car and was arrested in Kankakee Township trying to outrun deputies. Elliot remains in the La Porte County Jail as officials in Michigan work to bring him back to the state, a process that could take weeks.
"We're not set up to hold quadruple convicted murderers," said Capt. Michael Kellems, the La Porte County Jail Commander. "Quadruple murderers belong in maximum security prisons."
They've ramped up security while he's in custody there.
When Elliot was asked if he had any regrets or would do anything differently, he responded: "In a way, I wish I wouldn't have did it."
He still maintains his innocence in four murders that took place in Gladwin County in 1993, said he never intended to hurt anybody during his escape and hopes somebody will be willing to take another look at his murder case.
Elliot said while on the run, he walked around the same streets as schoolchildren with a box cutter in his pocket.
"If I was some kind of crazy lunatic, I'm sure I would have hurt somebody," he said.
Relief over his capture
Before Sunday's escape, Elliot had spent two decades locked up already for the murders of Vicky Currie, Michael Tufnell, Bruce Tufnell and Kathy Lane, who were killed at a home in Bentley Township, north of Midland.
Dorothy Tufnell, Michael Tufnell's mother and Bruce's aunt, sat through Elliot's trial and said there was a lot of evidence against him.
"He's certainly not innocent, I will tell you that," the 76-year-old woman said.
He had the .38-caliber gun that 10 of the 15 bullets used to kill the victims came from, she said.
It's the gun Elliot had on him when he was arrested in Saginaw days after the killings. In court documents, he said he bought it after the murders.
Tufnell said Elliot belongs in a maximum security prison, doesn't deserve a second chance and she is glad he was captured.
"With somebody like that he could have killed more people or injured them badly," she said. "Even fleeing from the police, he could have hit another car and killed people."
Contributing: Paul Egan of the Free Press


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The characters are looking very polished at this stage and there is even another look a the Mosquito towards the end of the clip.
It is certainly a massive difference to the character skins we saw all those years ago.
With vast resources and enormous military might, the professional army of the Terran Republic have ruled over Auraxis for hundreds of years. For the first time ever, we are revealing an exclusive 360 degree look at some of the tools the TR military use to enforce the will of the Republic and strike fear into those who would defy it.


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Jocelyn Ramirez On Making Healthy Food More Accessible
In our series, Making History, we're talking to people who are leading the charge to bring much-needed diversity to wellness. They're sharing with us the work that they do, highlighting the voices that need to be heard, and telling us what we as a wellness community aren't talking about—but should be. This week, we spoke with Jocelyn Ramirez, the founder of Todo Verde, a healthy food community specializing in plant-based food options on the East Side of Los Angeles. Todo Verde was born after Ramirez noticed the lack of healthy food options on the East Side, where she grew up. Now Todo Verde offers catering with a full menu of Mexican and South American–inspired foods and workshops that inspire healthy cooking at home. Ramirez believes a significant part of making wellness more accessible is having more people of color in positions to make decisions that affect things like food policy in the city. She shares how Todo Verde empowers the local community and beyond.
I'd love to know more about you and how you started Todo Verde...
Well, I am born and raised in Los Angeles, grew up in a southeast suburb called South Gate, which, growing up, was considered a food desert. I had within a mile radius a McDonald's, a Jack in the Box, a Tacos Mexico, a liquor store, that were kind of staples as a kid growing up, places we would go and eat. My parents were both working full time, and that meant that my mom would come home tired a lot and wouldn't always prepare the traditional meals that she grew up eating from her mom's side. So our healthy alternatives were at Pollo Loco, Subway, things like that. When she wasn't too tired, she would prepare things like–she's from Zacatecas, Mexico—so she would prepare things that are known as guisados. So like chicken or pork or beef stews and lots of veggies or nopales and potatoes and things like that.
It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I started to really see the health implications of the things that we were eating. What triggered me to start to look at my diet was when I was diagnosed with a thyroid issue. The doctors wanted to remove my thyroid and have me start taking hormone pills, and I didn't want to do that.
So I turned to vegetarianism to try to see if I could find ways to cure the things that I was dealing with. During that time, my mom was diagnosed with high blood pressure and my dad has had diabetes since I was a teenager. So diabetes was something that we were all kind of fearful of.
It wasn't really until my dad got diagnosed with cancer, not once but twice, that my whole family realized, "Wow, what's going on?" We didn't really make too many dietary changes in the family until round two, when he was diagnosed with cancer in the same area of his body. He had throat cancer.
My dad saw that I was getting healthier with the type of food that I was eating. He said, "All right, I'm willing to do whatever it takes."
He changed up his diet, mostly doing superfood smoothies. I cleaned out their whole fridge and their cupboards and took them to farmers markets, Whole Foods [Market], and Trader Joe's. We had a month leading up to surgery, and all his doctors said, "Wow, what are you doing?" They were shocked that he was getting better and that the cancer wasn't advancing as much as it was before.
What made you think of turning to vegetarianism when you were dealing with your own health issues?
Honestly, there's a number of reasons. Part of it was growing up as a kid, I wanted to be a veterinarian. So there was always a little part of me that thought, "I feel bad for the animals, or I know it's bad for the planet, or I know that I eat an excessive amount of meat," because at that time, I did.
I looked into a few articles that were about thyroid glands, and I looked up bringing kelp into my diet, bringing in iodized salt, cutting out as much meat as possible, and trying to bring in less fat. The way I was practicing wellness with my body was almost nonexistent at the time, so I really flipped the script and tried to change things. I decided I wasn't going to purchase any meat.
It wasn't until I attended an indigenous veganism workshop led by my now friend and mentor Claudia Serrato, who's based here in Los Angeles, that I decided to go vegan. That was about a year after going vegetarian or so.
How did you go from healing yourself and helping your dad to feeding other people and changing how they approach food through Todo Verde?
I was really trying to create the same dishes that my grandmother had been making for our family for a lot of years, much of it plant-based. She is from a ranch in Mexico, where you mostly ate from the land. You ate meat here and there, and when you did, it was very special. So really thinking about, "How could we work together to create variations of this recipe [that usually has meat] to make them vegetarian or vegan?"
I would get my family together for meals, and every time we would eat these meals that were now vegetarian or vegan, they just said, "Wow, this actually is really good. You should open a restaurant."
I thought, "If I were to leave my full-time career in higher education, maybe I'll just start with superfood smoothies, the way I started out with my dad and see where that takes me. Then I'll start working at a restaurant shortly after that, or maybe I'll expand the business."
You've exceeded your Indiegogo goals to fund Todo Verde's new plant-based café. How does it feel to be opening people's minds to the possibility of delicious food connected to a culture that's also plant-based?
Everybody thinks that the area that I'm looking at, like the east Los Angeles area, is risky. It's too risky to open a restaurant in this area because people don't want it and don't have the money. That crowdfunding campaign showed me that people do want this, that they're ready for something like this in their neighborhood, and they can financially make it happen. They might not have hundreds of dollars to contribute toward the campaign like the one that I led, but they may have $5, $10. The average campaign has about 90 backers, and the campaign that we led had over 700. That showed me that people really are excited about this.
Can you talk about why you chose East LA?
If you go over to the West Side, you can probably find dozens of plant-based places to eat, different types of restaurants that we just don't have here on the East Side.
What you see a lot more of are liquor stores and fast food chains sprinkled in with places that sell what we call bionicos or licuados, so smoothies.
I feel like we deserve something like this on the East Side. Just like the name itself, Todo Verde, it's this new generation of Chicanos and Latinos across Los Angeles that are born and raised here from immigrant parents who came to this area and who are still coming back because they want to create some sort of an impact there. I feel like it's really time for us to have more things that are for us.
Who did you want to reach with Todo Verde?
When I first started Todo Verde and was building our social media accounts, I thought, "I want to be really intentional about showing people of color across our page." Most health and wellness accounts that you see are geared toward white folks, which is great, but we're not represented in those spaces at all.
My target demographic from the beginning has been this Latina woman from age 24 to 35. In all the efforts that we have, I tried to speak to her. What does she do for a living? Does she work a 9-to-5 job? What does she like to see on social media? It's really trying to bring that power back into the hands of women.
Can you talk a little more about the idea of "decolonizing your diet" and how it applies to what you're doing?
When a lot of people think about a vegan diet, they tend to think, "Oh, you're going to be eating kale salads and green smoothies and juice." A decolonized diet is really thinking about what did our ancestors eat for generations prior to colonization. How did they survive for as many generations as they did in a healthy state, without things that are now common in Latino communities like diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure?
So it's trying to find the in-between of what we were and how that's still ingrained in literally our being, in our flesh, and how do we integrate that into what's available to us here in a major city.
You have a vision for the café also being a community center. Can you talk more about that?
I want to create a type of space that is empowering rather than just giving somebody a plate of food and saying, "Here you go." There's that old saying, "You can give someone a fish or you can teach someone to fish."
So, really thinking about this space being a hub where there could be skill shares happening on everything from how to prepare jackfruit or make cashew-based cream or nut cheese rather than eating the typical cheeses that you find around. Also things like meditation, yoga, or workshops like the one that I went to on indigenous veganism.
As a Latina woman working in the healthy food industry, what do you think needs to change in overall wellness to make it more accessible to everyone?
I think that it needs to come from a more organizational level, where there are people sitting at the table that wouldn't normally be sitting at the table making decisions for what would happen at a city level, for example. What types of campaigns are going to be led by the city around food, and are they led by people of color? I'm actually on the leadership board for the LA Food Policy Council. It's great to see folks giving someone like me an opportunity to speak up and say, This is what I think. Being able to have a voice in those spaces is really important and impactful.
What does your personal wellness routine look like?
I've been trying to be better about that with myself because the busier I get, the trickier it gets. The main things for me are waking up at a consistent time every morning, which has been between 6:15 and 6:30 every morning, and taking some time to sit and meditate and get ready for the day.
I'm also a yoga instructor, so yoga is also part of my healing practice, which is hard because I teach it, so when I teach, it's not really for me; it's more for others. I make time to go to classes and learn from new teachers. I also play soccer.
How can people support Todo Verde and your mission?
People can support by spreading the word and seeing if there's a possibility of getting involved. We did that crowdfunding campaign, and we met the goal before the deadline, but it's actually still an in-demand space, which means people can still donate to our Indiegogo campaign. People can also follow up on social media channels to see what's going on and see if there are potential ways to partner together.
What is your favorite dish on the Todo Verde menu?
Right now my favorite is this pipian rojos dish. We make it with jackfruit, so pipian is the mole sauce of where my mom is from. It's a pumpkin seed base, and we use guajillo chilies and a couple of other chilies, then we sear jackfruit, and we put it together. So the jackfruit's in the pipian sauce—that really, for me, feels like home.
Want your passion for wellness to change the world? Become A Functional Nutrition Coach! Enroll today to join live July office hours.


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If you leave a job interview thinking you could have done a better job, you're not alone. But, instead of being frustrated or discouraged, try asking a few questions before you go to the interview. Asking pre-interview questions will not only increase your chances of getting a second interview, it will give you valuable insight into the employer's needs.
Going on an interview without knowing the specific skills the employer needs prevents you from making the best impression to the employer. You can better prepare if you know some basic information about the position. Here are a few to get you started, next time you are invited to interview for a position.
- Ask for a job description. You may have one if the job was advertised online, but it doesn't hurt to ask if there's a more detailed description to send you. Highlight key areas and match your skills and expertise accordingly. The job description is a road map to assist you in asking questions during the interview.
- Ask about the job interview schedule. Who will you be meeting? Will this be a group interview, and how much time should you block out? If you have the opportunity, ask about the background of the person who will be interviewing you. Acquiring knowledge about the interviewer's background will help you establish rapport with them. Information gleaned from this question will help determine if this is a screening interview, where each candidate is scheduled for a shorter, very defined period of time. Interviews lasting 45 minutes to an hour are usually screening interviews. If you are a strong candidate. other interviews will follow.
- Ask what on your resume or in your background interested the employer. This will help you define the employer's needs. What you assume to be the employer's areas of need may not be the case. Again, if you know what the employer's key concerns are, you can better prepare by matching your skills to their needs.


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Stand by Me
'Web Rockstar', in recent
I wanted to know what music they listen to when their head is deep in to work. I asked whether they could name three tracks or explain what kind of music they need to work or what music inspires them the most.
Thank you to all who got involved in the post, I really appreciate it. My music choice when I've got my head down is the Gladiator OST and most important 'The Battle' Track. Hans Zimmer is an absolute god when it comes to working music.
Success – Jay-Z and Nas
Wonderwall – Oasis
Mr. Carter – Lil Wayne and Jay-Z
Below the 3 songs that are the most inspiring for me when designing !
Yiruma – River Flows in you
Counting Crows – Round Here
Remedy Drive – Daylight
Control by Mute Math – Really, their entire discography is just flat out sick, especially their version of the Transformers theme. Good song to do some sketch work to.
Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin – This song just flat out rocks, great for keeping things interesting while coding.
Voyager by Daft Punk – Definitely puts me in "design" mode, ready to conquer Photoshop. I love Daft Punk.
I'd also like to give mad props to UK designer and musician Elliot Jay Stocks, whose Sourhaze EP is super awesome to design to as well.
An excellent question 🙂
Best of Bread (album)
Pavement: Slanted & Enchanted (album)
Anything by Guided by Voices
That's tough because it can vary a lot depending on the kind of work I'm doing. Sometimes, I need focus (I'm a code geek) and other times, upbeat and loud works well… Three types of songs that always work for me though would be:
Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard (or anything by Glen Hansard or Damien Rice)
The Art of Suicide – Emilie Autumn (Love Emilie, Tori Amos, any angsty gurl singer)
Why? – Bronski Beat (Jimmy Sommerville has one of the best voices evAR. I have a whole library of awesome 80's new wave for "those days")
Sorry… Picking three is just SO tough. 😀
1: Sky.fm's salsa station
3: Metric
4: Chet Baker
Sure this is an easy one! (well, kinda hard cuz I listen to so much music)
I'll pull some from my recent playlist lol, here are the 3 tracks!
Filter – I'm Not the Only One
Placebo – Follow the Cops Back Home
Loreena McKennitt – Egyptian
Hey Gav, no worries mate.
This is a tough question actually, depends on the mood, I listen to sooo much music at work, lol.
Gold Fish (Artist) – Great NuJazz/AfroHouse music, we've been following them religiously since 2004 when they were just starting out.
Infected Mushrooms (Artist) – All their pre-2004 Tracks are so intricate and awesome, it takes you to another zone!
Any Soulcandi (local record label) and Café Del Mar album. – Both really great CD series, one local house music, the other European. And at Obox we dig our House 😉
Other mentions – Sublime, The Roots, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Daft Punk, Paul van Dyk… aaaaaaahhhhh so much!
Because of my musical background, I can't work while listening to music. I pay too much attention to music to ignore it while designing or writing.
If I absolutely have to play music while working — for instance, to drown out a loud studio mate — it's most likely to be something ambient and non-vocal, since I also can't ignore lyrics while writing or designing.
Here are some typical playlists:
I listen to dance music – I like the way it's consistent and rhythmic. I think it helps keep my mind focused in one direction, whereas usually it branches off into many directions at once.
I like to think it stops the mind fidgeting by giving it something trivial to do. Anything more complex and I start to think about the music, which wreaks havoc with my concentration.
Dance music is really just white noise.
I particularly like trance and house for this – Tiesto's In Search of Sunrise 7 is my favourite coding music, and Cream is good, although pretty much any trance album will do.
Gavin, Thank you. I'd be honored.
What music keeps you going?
Lately to "reawaken" myself is the Ting Ting's the song "That's not my name" or "Shut Up and Let Me Go" or ABBA's "Waterloo"
What music do you listen to when your head is deep into your work?
I pick songs that were mainly in the Jazz/Swing category. This is partly because I used to swing dance.
Three tracks; This is a difficult one!
Michael Bublé – Pretty much anything on his "Call Me Irresponsible" album. My favorite song is "The Best is yet to come" "Summer Wind"
Norah Jones – "Shoot the moon"
Ray Gelato – "My Kind of Girl"
Can you tell I'm a bit of a romantic and old fashioned? 😉
When I am working, I don't listen to music. I prefer to work with no background noise. When not working, I like pop, house, trance and fusion jazz.
Ohhh this is tough for me. Hmm…
1. M. Ward – Never Had Nobody Like You
2. City Sleeps – Not an Angel
When all else fails:
3. Thrice – Paper Tigers
There's so many songs I like, but I think these 3 are my best "keep me going" songs.
Surething – I'd be honored 🙂
Let's see… this is tough… I'd have to say…
1. Airbag – Radiohead
2. Sentimental Man – The Dismemberment Plan
3. Impossible Germany – Wilco
Nice, one question I can handle!
I don't really have a short answer for this, to be honest. I listen to music constantly while at my desk – my Last.fm profile (http://www.last.fm/user/MattBrett) is a testament to that. I go through phases, though. More often than not, I'm listening to instrumental film, tv, and video game scores. Among my favourites are the Battlestar Galactica series, The Bourne Identity, and the Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Oblivion. When it comes to actual bands, I listen to a lot of ska and reggae, but mostly punk rock. A Wilhelm Scream always fit the bill. As do The Aggrolites, and The Slackers.
So how about that? 3 soundtracks and 3 bands.
I'm a huge fan of Piano Music, it helps mostly with the late nights, I would highly recommend Scott Davis, I have two of his CD's, my favourite song being Swiftwater which you can listen to on Youtube.
I find listening to Piano music to be better for my productivity over other music because there are no words for me to sing along to so I don't get interupted. I also love Jazz and my two favourite peaces are Tenderly and Dave Brubeck's Take Five!
Oh, that's easy 😛
1. DJ Tiesto's ClubLife Podcast (not so much a track, but definitely a great hour of music every week)
2. Sigur Ros : Glosoli
3. Explosions in the Sky : First Breath after a Coma.
I'm always up for a little questionnaire 🙂
Music that keeps me going:
Amusement Parks on Fire – Out of the Angeles
Vitalic – La Rock 01
dEUS – Instant Street
I don't listen to music while working — it's too distracting, for me. I'm virtually incapable of listening to music passively. If music is playing, I focus on it, and usually end up signing, drumming on my desk, or even dancing around the room. As such, it's not particularly helpful for getting things done. I'm jealous of those who can rock headphones all day! I wish I could!
Well I seem to have a very random and eclectic taste when it comes to music. I have no specific type of music that I listen to when working so I suppose three songs I seem to be listening to regularly at the minute would be:
All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix (Ever since I saw Watchmen)
Volcano – Damian Rice (Theres a live version on YouTube that is just awesome)
CrushCrushCrush – Paramore (I've got a thing for Hayley Williams ;-))
It's hard to say because I listen to a lot of different music depending on what type of mood I'm in at the moment. It's always rock of some sort, sometimes I prefer heavier music and other times not. A few albums that I have been listening to a lot recently are Skillet, Comatose – Remedy Drive, Daylight is Coming – and Blindside, Silence.
Here's my three tracks:
Step One Two – Kaskade
Light – Benassi Bros.
Human After All – Daft Punk
A State of Trance 2008 for an album
di.fm's Progressive or Trance streaming audio
Let me see if I can name real quick 3 tracks that I love to listen to when I'm working.
1. M83 – Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun
2. AIR – Space Maker
3. The Album Leaf – Eastern Glow
My music library — and musical tastes for that matter — is constantly evolving, changing, growing. Right now, I find anything from Explosions in the Sky is the perfect music to design by. Top picks are "First Breath After Coma" (best song title ever, isn't it?) and "Your Hand in Mine". I'll reserve the third pick for a song I have yet to discover from Explosions in the Sky.
Oh sadly I don't actually listen to much music so I probably won't be much help on this one (weird I know!)
Songs I love the most when working… For this I had to cheat by looking at my iTunes play count! Here they are:
Melt My Heart To Stone – Adele
I usually click on this one because it's at the top of my playlist, but it's a good chilled out tune nevertheless! I can't listen to anything too abrasive when I'm fixing CSS for IE6.
Crush – Dave Matthews Band
I don't think I could ever get sick of this song! I think I probably sing along without realizing it when it comes on. Definitely a good tune for when I'm deep into my work.
You Get What You Give – New Radicals
This song always gets me in a good mood, particularly when I'm really stressed out by demanding clients and fast approaching deadlines.
I rarely listen to music while I work and when I do it is normally randmly selected music picked by my followers on Twitter using Spotify.
The music I listen to most would probably be classed as Rock, and depending on the my mood this can change. So the 3 songs that currently get me motivated the most are:
Elbow – One Day Like This
I first heard this song on the channel 4 "Autumn" advert, and made me feel very uplifted.
Richard Thompson – Coyotes
On the album for the "Grizzly Man" documentary, the saddest documentary I've ever seen, yet rather inspiring film and song
Arctic Monkeys – Flourescent Adolescent
But if that all fails i just listen to the whole Alkaline Trio Discography! I can listen to their stuff from start to finish all day every day."
When I'm in full-on design or code mode — as opposed to managing or writing — I'm more or less constantly plugged into music, and genres can and will run all over the map. (I have what friends euphemistically refer to as, "eclectic" taste. Shuffle mode turns up 70s punk and Philip Glass in equal measure.) Here are a few tracks I've been turning to lately when I'm in need of a good creative kick in the pants:
I'm a Man – Black Strobe
Elctroclash + Bo Diddley = Many levels of awesome.
People Who Died – Jim Carroll
A song that answers the question, "What could possibly go wrong?" with the reply, "Everything."
ToyBoy – Stuck in the Sound
Check, check, check, shake!
If I really need to get into the creative flow, I always turn to Muse or NIN. It was really hard to choose individual songs because I usually play a range of tracks in a playlist, but these 3 songs occasionally get the repeat treatment when they come up while working.
The Great Destroyer – NIN
Hysteria – Muse
Time is Running Out – Muse
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer by John Lee Hooker
Comptine d'un autre été by Yann Tiersen
Heartbeats by José González
When I am really concentrating or am trying to grasp a concept… I more often than not, turn off all music. I use the quiet as a sounding board to repeat back my thoughts. On the other hand, when I don't have to think too hard, but have to get something done, some Armin Van Burin helps me. Basically anything with electronic or consistent beats seems to speed up arduous tasks like emails & contracts….that or Metal. When I am in a slump and need to force myself to think outside the box, I'll listen to Greenday, The offspring, Panic at the Disco or LIT. Something with some kick.
3 Tracks I have gone back to for years are 'Mr. Blue Sky' by ELO, 'I'm not sick but not well' by LIT & a newer one, 'You're gonna go far Kid' by The Offspring.
I actually listen to a range of music while working as I have my iTunes on shuffle, but my top three listened to songs from that list are;
Turn the Page – by Metallica
November Rain – Guns N Roses
Alive – Pearl Jam
Pandora 😉
Rob Dougan – Will You Follow Me?
My teenage years were spent falling in love with both indie and orchestral film scores. I adored everything from Jesus Jones and The Supernaturals through to James Horner and Danny Elfman. Rob Dougan's album Furious Angels combines both, although Will You Follow Me? is purely orchestral. It's uplifting, fulfilling, gracious and note perfect.
Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Possess Your Heart
My favourite place in the world is New York, so whenever a song gets stuck in my head while I'm there, the two become linked and I'll play the song to fill the voids in between visits. Not that Death Cab For Cutie are from NYC (they're from the West Coast) but the vibe of the song fits the city.
Electronic – Feel Every Beat
Another song from my college years – specifically the cellar bar in Perry's, Darlington with my friend Adrian Taylor. Electronic (Bernard Sumner from New Order and Johnny Marr from The Smiths) deserved to be bigger and brighter than they were, they were the grown up side of Madchester. Great energy and harmony, very mellow.
It really depends on my mood but i like electro-indie best, as i find it both inspirational and relaxing. My three fave tracks to work to would be:
1. Pnau – With You Forever
2. Empire Of The Sun – Walking On A Dream
3. Bat For Lashes – Daniel


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O! How thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.
O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain.
Sonnet 39: Translation to modern English
How can I proclaim your worth with due modesty when you are my better half? What could I get out of praising myself, and what else am I doing but praising myself when I praise you? For this reason we should part and our great love lose its common identity so that I can give you the praise that you deserve for yourself alone. Oh absence, what a torment you would be if it weren't that the ill-intentioned leisure you give me allows me the pleasure of passing the time with thoughts of love, which makes it pass so swiftly. And that you teach me how to bring us together through my praising him here, while he remains elsewhere.


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The threat of winter precipitation today has forced area schools to make changes to their athletic schedules.
The threat of winter precipitation today has forced area schools to make changes to their athletic schedules.
North Lenoir�s home basketball games against Erwin Triton, South Lenoir�s basketball games at East Duplin, Greene Central�s basketball games at SouthWest Edgecombe, Ayden-Grifton�s home basketball games against Princeton and Parrott Academy�s basketball games at Henderson Kerr-Vance Academy were all postponed on Thursday due to the impending weather.
Instead of playing today South Lenoir and East Duplin will play on Saturday with the JV boys tipping off at the usual time (4:30 p.m.). Greene Central, Ayden-Grifton and Parrott Academy will play their games on Wednesday.
The Triton-North Lenoir games have been rescheduled for Monday.
Jones Senior announced today that its basketball games at East Carteret have been postponed until Tuesday.
Today�s non-conference wrestling match between Ayden-Grifton and host South Lenoir has also been postponed, but a make-up date for the match has not been determined.
Prep basketball
APA at Kerr-Vance (ppd. to Wednesday, Jan. 30)
Princeton at A-G (ppd. to Wednesday, Jan. 30)
Greene Central at SW Edgecombe (ppd. to Wednesday, Jan. 30)
Jones Senior at E. Carteret (ppd. to Tuesday, Jan. 29)
Mt. Calvary at Lumberton Riverside Christian (still scheduled)
Triton at N. Lenoir (ppd. to Monday, Jan. 28)
S. Lenoir at E. Duplin (ppd. to Saturday, Jan. 26)
A-G at S. Lenoir (ppd., no make-up date announced)
Men�s basketball
Allen University at LCC, 7 (still scheduled)


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Home > News & Events > Wayland Press Release Archives > 2005 News Releases > April 2005 > Seniors put their best foot forward in art exhibit
Seniors put their best foot forward in art exhibit
PLAINVIEW – Three seniors from Wayland Baptist University are joining forces for the final art exhibit of the spring semester in the Abraham Art Gallery.
Lara Manley, Jennifer Parrish and Doug Shelton will be displaying their work in an exhibit running through May 2 in the gallery, located in the lower level of the Mabee Learning Resources Center. A reception for the trio is planned for April 28 at 6 p.m. in the gallery and the atrium area, with refreshments served. The public is invited to attend and meet the young artists.
Manley is the daughter of Don and Beverly Manley of Plainview. Her show, titled "Illumination," consists of acrylic and watercolor paintings, chalk drawings, photography and multimedia pieces. Manley's work focuses on the quiet beauty of everyday things and the subtlety of noticing details.
During her time at Wayland, Manley has earned the Ted Bell Memorial Art Award and the award for Outstanding Student in Art, and was a runner-up for Homecoming Queen. She was also a finalist in a national photo competition and earned a second-place award in the Plains Art Association Spring Show.
Manley will graduate April 30 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in art and minoring in mass communications.
Parrish, a native of Albuquerque, N.M., is also earning a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in art and minoring in Spanish. She is the daughter of Janice Parrish of Albuquerque.
Her portion of the show includes pencil drawings, acrylic and watercolor paintings, collages and sculptures. An artist from a young age, Parrish prefers painting and drawing and putting items together in collage. She enjoys artwork involving portraits and human faces.
She plans to pursue a career in computer graphic design.
Shelton, a native of Albuquerque as well, is the son of Ira and Diane Shelton of Quemado, N.M. He will graduate April 30 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious education, minoring in art.
"Art is something I've always enjoyed," said Shelton, who plans to pursue a career in youth ministry. "Before I came to Wayland, all I ever did was draw, but now I enjoy all types of art, including sculpture, photography and painting."
Shelton's show, titled "the flip side," consists of primarily photography and photo illustrations created using Adobe Photoshop software. Shelton is also exhibiting some sculptures and ink drawings on non-traditional surfaces.
Shelton noted that his pieces will be for sale, joking that "we're offering authentic art at bargain basement prices. I'm graduating and getting married and I need the money."
All three students had work on display at the Lubbock Arts Festival, held April 15-17, in the first Schools of West Texas Gallery. A total of 50 pieces, the work of approximately 20 Wayland students, were included in the show.
"We got a lot of good comments on it, and people were impressed with the work," said Dr. Candace Keller, professor of art.
The senior art exhibit is open during regular gallery hours: from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays, and from 2-5 p.m. on Saturdays. Admission is free.


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Purell 1/2 oz. bottles of hand sanitizer are the perfect size to take on an airplane. Purells 8oz bottles fit easily into your drawer at work. Keep your keyboard clean with Purell wipes. ReStockIt.com offers Purell for the lowest prices around.
If you're looking for Purell hand sanitizers, refills and Purell wipes, ReStockIt.com is your online superstore. ReStockIt.com offers discounted Purell hand sanitizers, without sacrificing quality. So when you're looking to fight off cold and flu germs this season, Purell hand sanitizers and Purell wipes are cheaper at ReStockIt.com


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American pipeline workers are blasting a decision to delay the Keystone XL process, saying the move by the Obama administration has erased a few thousand high-paying jobs this summer.
One union — the Laborers' International Union of North America — called the move gutless, and accused the government of announcing it on a holiday weekend in the hope fewer people would be paying attention.
One member of that union says his phone is ringing off the hook.
Ron Berringer says he has received more than 30 calls since Friday, when the U.S. State Department announced Keystone XL would be delayed indefinitely. A presidential permit is on hold, apparently until next year at the earliest.
Union members are calling to ask what the move might mean for their livelihoods — and Berringer cringes every time the phone rings.
"When they call, I almost dread even picking it up," said Berringer, a semi-nomadic construction worker and shop steward for his Nebraska-based union local.
"I know what they're gonna talk about, and I know what I've got to tell them. And what I've got to tell them is, 'I just don't know.'"
Berringer is among the thousands of workers who will build the rest of Keystone XL, if it ever gets approval.
Their role has become central to the debate, with pipeline proponents arguing it will create thousands of construction jobs. Opponents, however, insist it will only result in a few dozen permanent jobs once it's complete.
The pipeline hardly seems like a macroeconomic game-changer in Nebraska, which has the third-lowest unemployment rate in the country — just 3.7 per cent last month. Even President Barack Obama has played down the project's potential jobs impact, calling the claims of its proponents overblown.
Berringer, however, insisted the project would make a difference in thousands of lives.
Construction is an unpredictable business, and pipelines mean guaranteed income for an entire season, he said — not to mention tens of thousands of dollars in overtime pay, weekend bonuses and per diems as crews work extra-long hours in an attempt to get the bitumen flowing by winter.
Berringer is growing frustrated with having to tell his fellow workers year after year that the pipeline isn't happening.
"They tell me, 'Well, how am I gonna make house payments and car payments and stuff?' And I felt sad for them, because I don't have an answer for that," he said.
"There's a lot of Laborers who would've made sure they were able to pay all their bills. They could've got their head above water. Now their head's gonna go below water."
The Obama administration has cited the uncertainty in Nebraska, where the pipeline's proposed route is currently the subject of litigation, as the reason it can't make a decision on the pipeline for now.
Nearly one-quarter of landowners in that state are refusing to sign easement deals with Calgary-based pipeline builder TransCanada Corp., and they're in court fighting a law that would have forced them to open up their property.
Berringer generally comes across as a pretty mild-mannered guy. But when asked to assess what's happened, he emits a couple of curse words about what he considers the bovine-fertilizer political theatrics surrounding the debate.
His brother Jason is in a similar spot. He'll be busy the next four weeks, helping to repair a Nebraska City power plant. Then he'll add his name to a list of union members looking for their next job, hoping something comes up by summer.
"It's not good," Jason said.
"I wish these (pipeline opponents) would get online and actually look and see what it costs them in the end, whether putting it though Nebraska or buying it from a foreign country. I know Canada's a foreign country, but they're our neighbours, too."
Jane Kleeb, an anti-pipeline activist in Nebraska, said a lot more jobs are at stake as a result of a Republican budget proposal currently before the House of Representatives that would strip $52 billion in spending on roads and infrastructure.
Kleeb is urging all sides of the Keystone debate to get together to press Congress to increase infrastructure spending.
As for pipeline workers, Kleeb said there are currently so many jobs in the sector that the Nebraska Laborers union has to bring in out-of-state employees like the Berringers.
"We know that pipe welders are in very short supply," Kleeb said. "From what we understand, there is no huge lack of jobs like the Laborers have tried to portray."


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Steve Pinker discusses the idea that language is an instinct, as innate to us as flying is to geese. This book covers the biological origin, acquisition by children and the grammatical structure of human language.Pinker, Steven is the author of 'Language Instinct How the Mind Creates Language', published 2007 under ISBN 9780061336461 and ISBN 0061336467.[read more]
{{post.questionOneAnswer|unescape}} {{post.questionTwoAnswer|unescape}}[read more]
You can find lots of answers to common customer questions in our FAQs
View a detailed breakdown of our shipping prices
Learn about our return policy
Still need help? Feel free to contact us
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With our dedicated customer support team, 30-day no-questions-asked return policy, and our price match guarantee, you can rest easy knowing that we're doing everything we can to save you time, money, and stress.


text:
Afterdawn.com and the BBC report that Norway's Supreme Court has upheld the trial court's earlier ruling and decided that linking from a website to MP3 files is illegal even when the actual MP3 files aren't hosted by or in any way associated to the website linking to them. This case concerns a Norwegian teenager, Frank Allan Bruvik, who set up a website called napster.no back in 2001 and allowed his users to submit direct links to MP3 files that would then become a huge browsable list of links to MP3 files across the Web.
By providing links to 170 MP3 files (compare this to millions available on P2P networks), Bruvik was held to have violated Norway's copyright legislation and was ordered to pay 100,000 kroner (€12,126; $15,807) to Tono, the music industry's lobby group in Norway. The ruling was identical to the lower court's original decision back in 2003, which was later overruled by Appeals Court who decided that Bruvik didn't violate any laws, but the users who put up the links, did. Tono's representative said that they were satisfied with the ruling, because it showed that music piracy would not be accepted.
The IPKat is worried about the inconsistency between different European jurisdictions in their attitudes towards linking. This isn't something the European Union can cure by itself, since countries such as Norway aren't part of it. Perhaps a WIPO/WTO initiative will do the trick. He also thinks this debate has moved on a bit. Much of the market for illicit file sharing has surely been removed by a combination of the growth of authorised sites and the fear instilled by legal actions against individual downloaders.
Merpel is more interested in how they punish naughty Norwegians...
provided exclusively to the IPKat


text:
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Just in time for Labor Day! Get them while they last. Our Ole' Glory shirt is available in long and short sleeve in colors blue and grey. We are excited about this design because it will never go out of season.
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text:
Provided by: libperl-critic-perl_1.134-1_all
Perl::Critic::Policy::Miscellanea::ProhibitTies - Do not use "tie".
This Policy is part of the core Perl::Critic distribution.
Conway discourages using "tie" to bind Perl primitive variables to user-defined objects. Unless the tie is done close to where the object is used, other developers probably won't know that the variable has special behavior. If you want to encapsulate complex behavior, just use a proper object or subroutine.
This Policy is not configurable except for the standard options.
Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <email@example.com>
Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Imaginative Software Systems. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of this license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module. perl v5.28.1 2Perl::Critic::Policy::Miscellanea::ProhibitTies(3pm)


text:
Get A Homeowners Insurance Quote.
What many people think: Buying homeowners insurance is complicated. Time-consuming. A drag. A pain in, well, the neck. I paid too much, and I'm still not sure I have the coverage I really need in case of an emergency.
What HomeownersInsurance.com users know: Buying homeowners insurance is simple. Easy. Painless. I got coverage I can count on at a really good price.
Why the disconnect when it comes to purchasing home insurance?
The HomeownersInsurance.com advantage:
A licensed agent at HomeownersInsurance.com will need some basic information before securing your quote. Here are some of the questions you'll likely be asked:
When you purchase a homeowners insurance policy, you're buying protection for a number of specified perils as wind, hail, fire, and others, including theft.
Standard home insurance policies typically cover the physical structure of your home, other structures such as sheds and detached garages, and your possessions, including furniture, electronics, and clothing. Should your home become uninhabitable because of a covered peril, your policy also can help pay your additional living expenses, including restaurant and hotel bills. Last but not least, there's liability coverage in case you're deemed responsible for property damage or an injury.
What's not covered by a standard policy? Flooding, earthquakes, sinkholes, and sewer backups. You'll need separate protection for each of these.
How much homeowners insurance costs depends on a number of factors, including which state you live in. Why does that matter? Because the potential risks can be much greater in some states than in other. For example, homeowners in a state in Tornado Alley could expect to pay higher premiums than those in a state that doesn't face major weather threats.
Find your state in the list below for more information about coverage and costs there: Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wyoming Washington Wisconsin
The other way your location plays into setting homeowners insurance premiums is through local building costs. Much of your premium is based on how much it would cost to rebuild your home in case it is destroyed by a covered peril. That can vary even within a state.
The size and age of your house.
The age of your house, particularly the age of such features as your roof and your plumbing and electrical systems, can help predict the likelihood that you'll file a claim. Older roofs can be much more vulnerable to damage from covered perils such as wind and hail. Older plumbing can lead to water damage from burst pipes. Older electrical systems can be more prone to fire.
Your claims history.
Insurance providers believe that customers who have filed claims in the past are much more likely to file claims moving forward.
Your credit report.
What's credit have to do with premiums? Providers believe parts of your credit report can help them predict your likelihood of filing claims.
Most homeowners insurance providers offer a number of discounts to help lower your premiums. These price breaks, however, vary greatly by provider and state. Here are some common ways you can save:
Bundle: If you purchase home and auto insurance from the save provider, you can save on your premium.
Make your home more secure: AAdding a security system can result in savings. Don't want to go that far? Adding deadbolt locks on exterior doors can also help you save.
Reduce fire risks: Adding smoke alarms can result in a price break.
One other way to save on your premiums is to increase your deductible – the amount you pay out of pocket when filing a claim. However, it's important to keep your deductible at a level you'd feel comfortable paying should it be necessary to file a claim.
You can depend on HomeownersInsurance.com to help you find a great combination of coverage and price.
Call 1-877-579-4133 and let a licensed agent get started on your quote right now! You can count on us to be in your corner and help find the best homeowners insurance policy for you. Act now!


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Prisma by L a Design
L a Design Creates The Prisma Portable Ultrasonic Flaw Detector
L A Design, the author of the award winning design Prisma - Portable Ultrasonic Flaw Detector by L A Design points out, Prisma is designed for non-invasive material testing in the most extreme environments. It is the first detector to incorporate advanced real-time imaging and 3D scanning, making flaw interpretation much easier, reducing technician time on site. With a virtually indestructible enclosure and unique multiple inspection modes, Prisma can cover all testing applications, from oil pipelines to aerospace components. It is the first detector with integral data recording, and automatic PDF report generation. Wireless and Ethernet connectivity allow the unit to be easily upgraded or diagnosed. .
Prisma by L a Design Images:
End of the article, click here to go back to previous page, or alternatively go back to Design Mediator homepage.


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Square Enix: DRM Is Here To Stay
from the no-it-isn't dept
There may have been a time in the past few years when you'd have sworn DRM was on its way out the digital door. Between free-to-play games, strong consumer feedback, and the overall failure of DRM to actually stop anyone actually interested in pirating games, movies or music, there just didn't seem to be much point any longer. With the advent of new crowdfunding business models, DRM made even less sense. But not only is DRM still around, legacy players using it are actually torpedoing otherwise useful leaps forward in business in story after story. And, despite the fact that some entrenched industry players are wising up to the futile nature of DRM, others are digging in their heels.
Such appears to be the case with Square Enix, the game producer responsible for such franchises as Final Fantasy. Square says DRM is here to stay, despite all of its problems.
Adam Sullivan, Square Enix America's Senior Manager of Business and Legal Affairs, informs TorrentFreak that the company's choice to include DRM in its products has its roots in a simple concept – maximizing revenue.It's an interesting comment, in that it doesn't make a great deal of sense. The consuming public is notoriously anti-DRM, all the more so assuming Square Enix is primarily listening to the feedback of actual customers. Why would they be in favor of DRM? They're already paying. As for the feedback of the sales and vending partners, I assume it's no secret to them how laughably easy it is for anyone interested to circumvent DRM and pirate simple games if they're so inclined. Here's the amazing thing: most people aren't so inclined. Assuming a product is of a certain quality, priced to meet customer demand, and convenient to purchase, most people aren't interested in pirating these items. I know this because, as already stated, piracy isn't that tough, yet Square makes a great deal of money.
"We have a well-known reputation for being very protective of our IPs, which does deter many would-be pirates," Sullivan adds. "However, effectiveness is notoriously difficult to measure — in short, we rely on the data available to us through our sales team and various vendors, along with consumer feedback."
"The key to DRM is that it can't interfere with the customer's ability to play the game," Sullivan says. "It's not uncommon for people to get a new computer every few years, or to have multiple computers. Sometimes they don't have reliable internet connections. There's no perfect solution yet."Sure, but such imperfections only effect paying customers, which is the entire problem. There isn't a single pirate out there jumping through your DRM obstacle course, or finding themselves unable to jump through it. Just the paying customers. And Square's reaction to this?
"This depends on your definition of DRM, but generally yes — I think DRM will be essential for the foreseeable future," Sullivan explains.Essential isn't the word you're looking for. The correct word would be futile. But, hey, go on throwing those obstacles up for your customers while the pirates walk around them; I'm sure that will work out well in the long run.
Filed Under: customers, drm, video games
Companies: square enix


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Gearing up for the October 22 release of good kid, m.A.A.d city Kendrick Lamar recently sat down with 101.5 JAMZ/Phoenix and explained how he came to collaborate with Dr. Dre and when he thinks we'll hear his music with Lady Gaga.
Kendrick admitted that he has a studio on the bus and much of the record came together while touring with Drake.
"It was just me going to a show, recording at night all the way to the morning," he said. "[I] probably got two hours of sleep [then] got back up in the morning, do radio, do rehearsal, go to the show again at night, record, wake up and do it all over again."
An exhausting process, Kendrick is excited for fans to hear the new album.
"It's been a journey just knowing how far I've came from scratching the surface and asking bloggers to put your music up or asking can you open up for certain venue," he said. "It's a process and I don't take that process for granted. I knew that I've developed myself and my team developed me to get to where I'm at."
One of the tracks on the album, "Compton" features Dr. Dre and Kendrick revealed what it was like working with the rapper.
"He threw me off just the fact how humble he was. Everything else was everything I imagined as far as the music and the work ethic," he said. "What threw me off was how humble he was because when you see these people on TV, they're not human to you especially coming from a kid's perspective. [I've been] watching Dre my whole life, but he's a down to earth person and he just wants to work. That's a great feeling and made me up my game 100 times more."
Another much talked about collaboration in the works is Kendrick and Lady Gaga. While Gaga has previously explained why we won't be seeing their track "Partynausous" on Kendrick's record, he revealed how the two came together.
"She basically just said she's a fan of the music and a fan of the project I just put out and she liked the work. It's been chemistry and vibes since then," he said.
So when can we hear what they've been recording?
"We have a couple records in the can. We don't know where they'll go but they're in the can," he said. "She has an album in the works and hopefully it lands a spot on that one."
-Annie Reuter, CBS Local
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Join us as we explore the Letters of the New Testament (and not the usual ones!) From 1 Timothy through to Jude, we will look at a different letter each week, consider the context and content of the letter, and then focus on a specific passage that might be a) exciting, b) challenging, c) encouraging, d) bizarre or e) something else entirely!
- October 30, 2018 at 12pm – 1pm
- Multifaith Chaplaincy Centre
Rev. Adrian Sukumar-White


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Worked on a load last night of 25.0 gr Hodgdon Benchmark, with a 55 gr JHP BT Sierra GameKing (not Speer) I took picture and then realized that it was not the Speer bullets but the Sierra bullets, so rather than re-take the pictures, I edited on the target and figured I'd just mention it in here. 100 yards, and 6 shots. Normally I shot 3 shot groups testing, or a 5 shot group for point of impact, but last night I ended up making one extra bullet, so thought.. what the heck. Group on the furthest holes measured 0.891" center - center. It seems to open up a bit more with an extra .5 grain of powder, and it could also be to the fact that I'm shooting hollow point as opposed to FMJ (same bullet mfg, Sierra). Another thing is these hollow points don't have a cannelure for crimping lightly, so I probably don't have an "exact" crimp as I did before.
I'm off a bit from the bullseye, but I had the scope and mount off of the rifle the other day, shooting with iron sights, and when I put it back on, I tried to adjust a bit down and over to the right from a previous target I shot and over corrected a bit on the down part, but the L-R windage seems pretty good.