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You leave your Nokia smartphone casually lying somewhere - like, watching the unattended dinner on the table - and when you suspect the culprit is there, you send a text to the phone. And it takes a picture!
And then the software sends the picture - or the video - back to you, automatically, via MMS.
Of course, ICamU (designer of the software) is assuming you've loaded this software onto your own phone, and haven't sneakily put it on someone else's. If you did, of course, the software would give itself away, right?
Actually, it seems that isn't right. According to Mobile Gazette: "In addition to stills photos, iCamCU can also send video and audio clips to an MMS-capable phone. Only the remote phone needs to be a Symbian Series 60 device, it can be interrogated with pretty much any MMS-capable handset. Access to the remote Symbian phone can be controlled through caller groups."
And then, the casual reveal: "It is also possible to run the iCamCU software in what amounts to a 'stealth mode on the remote handset'."
You can, then, turn someone else's phone into a webcam if they habitually leave it lying on its side, pointing at something of interest. About the only feature lacking, apart from a remote motion trigger sensor, is a remote control hand to point it where you want to shoot your video or pix.
Next time you see a phone lying about, cover it.


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CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami men's basketball team returned to Coral Gables late Sunday after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The team arrived at the Coral Gables campus about 11 p.m. Hundreds of fans greeted the team.
"It just shows that basketball can be important down here and we just want to keep working to make it so that it's like this every year," said sophomore guard Shane Larkin.
"Everybody's out here ready for us, showing us so much love," said senior guard Durand Scott. "It's just fantastic."
LINK: Join Local 10's Bracket Challenge
PRINT: 2013 NCAA Tournament bracket
The Hurricanes defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels 87-77 in the championship game Sunday. Larkin had 28 points and 7 assists in the win.
The trophy was on display inside the university's bookstore.
"When I went to class, everybody started clapping," said senior forward Kenny Kadji.
"The best part as a team was just the celebration," said senior forward Julian Gamble. "I mean, seeing that clock hit triple zeroes and knowing that you just did something that's never been done in your school's history is a feeling that's really hard to describe."
The Hurricanes also won the ACC regular season title.
"I think they realized that they're going through something very, very special and they're enjoying the moment," said coach Jim Larranaga.
READ: Larranaga has Miami poised for NCAA run
The Associated Press' college basketball poll had Miami ranked fifth.
The NCAA tournament selection committee gave the Hurricanes a two seed.
Related: Louisville top seed in NCAA tournament
Miami faces Pacific in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The game is scheduled at 2:10 p.m. Friday in Austin, Texas.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Big Easy is going easy on Nicolas Cage.
A lawyer for the "Con Air" star told People the New Orleans District Attorney has opted against filing charges against Cage in connection with his April 16 arrest for suspicion of domestic battery, disturbing the peace and public drunkenness.
"We are pleased that the process led to the correct result, despite inaccurate media reports, and that Nick has been cleared and all charges have been dropped," lawyer Harry Rosenberg told the mag. He said the case is now "closed."
U.S. & World
Cops had arrested Cage, 47, after the actor allegedly got in a heated argument with his third wife, Alice Kim.
Cops said he also yelled at them while stumbling around intoxicated, Reuters reported.
The financially troubled star was later bailed out of jail by reality star Dog the Bounty Hunter and reportedly attended his son Weston's wedding with Kim two days after the arrest.


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With just two days remaining to file a notice of candidacy for a seat on the state's highest court, primaries look likely in at least two races with new candidates throwing their hats in the ring in recent weeks.
Justice Robin Hudson, running for re-election and challenged thus far by Mecklenburg County Superior Court Judge Eric Levinson, a Republican, now has another contender to face: Jeanette Doran, who filed her notice of candidacy yesterday.
Doran, recently named to head the unemployment benefits review panel, has been the executive director and general counsel of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law, an organization long associated with state budget director Art Pope.
By year-end 2013, Justice Hudson had raised $133,000 for her campaign; Judge Levinson had raised $63,000.
And in the race for the seat currently occupied by former Court of Appeals Judge Cheri Beasley, Winston-Salem conservative attorney Mike Robinson has declared his candidacy, joining Beasley and conservative Brunswick County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Ola Lewis.
By year-end 2013 Justice Beasley had raised $81,000 for her campaign. Judge Lewis, who has yet to file a notice of candidacy, had raised $69,000.
In other races, Justice Mark Martin remains unopposed for the Chief Justice slot, and Court of Appeals judges Bob Hunter and Sam Ervin IV will face off for Martin's associate justice seat. All have filed notices of candidacy.
Read more here about the upcoming Supreme Court race.


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Nick Fielding
London Guardian
April 3, 2012
American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.
The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.
"It's pretty terrifying prospect," said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes. "Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot. There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both the public and government are struggling to keep up with the implications."
The highly sensitive research into what is termed "ultra-persistence technologies" set out to solve three problems associated with drones: insufficient "hang time" over a potential target; lack of power for running sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems; and lack of communications capacity.
Our 4th of July Super Sale has been extended! Get double Patriot Points and free shipping on the hottest items!


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I've mentioned before in this blog my affection for dolls, so when I recently came across an old project from an Adobe After Effects class I took at the School of Visual Arts, I thought I would share it. While it's a bit simplistic overall and certainly no match for Blythe Theater, it does say a lot about me and my general sensibilities. With art being so subjective, I did get some mixed interpretations as to what this piece might be about and some even thought it was sad or scary. Can you imagine? That's so far off of my intention which was a story about a doll (played by the vintage Betsy McCall) who gets to experience the joy of one last dance with her friends who have all gone on to broken doll heaven- in a fabulous Busby Berkeley kind of way, but I'm sure you get that.
Music is "Per Sempre"by the Friends of Dean Martinez


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JMU Earth science program wins 'Programs that Work' award
JMU's bachelor of arts degree in Earth science has been selected as one of projects across the state to receive a 2014 Programs that Work award from the Virginia Mathematics and Science Coalition. The award recognizes exemplary programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics that show evidence of a positive impact on student or teacher learning.
The BA in Earth science program was started in 2006 in the department of geology and environmental science so students could graduate with the requirements needed to teach Earth science in Virginia high schools. Before 2006, no such targeted programs existed and prospective Earth science teachers had to complete at least nine hours of additional coursework to meet state and federal requirements as "highly qualified" teachers.
Programs that Work awardees must have been conducted for a minimum of two full years, must include an evaluation component and must demonstrate that the program is sustainable and can be replicated by others. The Programs that Work Awards have been given by the Virginia Mathematics and Science Coalition for more than 10 years.
Dr. Eric Pyle, professor of geology and environmental science, helped start the program at JMU and will attend the awards ceremonies Monday, Jan. 13 at the Virginia General Assembly Building and at the Library of Virginia.
# # #
Published Jan. 10, 2014


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Christmas is just a couple weeks away and we all know it can be tough to find the perfect gift. Well don't worry, if you have to buy a gift for a Jeep enthusiast we got you covered from big to small gifts.
Sunglass Holder, Storage Pouch, 55-13 Jeep CJ & Wrangler
We all know you have that one person whose Jeep looks like a hurricane ran through it and they need help. Don't worry because with our Sunglass Holder, Storage Pouch, 55-13 Jeep CJ & Wrangler is perfect for them to keep everything in one place.
All Terrain Floor Liners
You can never go wrong with a good floor liner. Not only will you give them a gift of having clean floors but it will also look good with a custom fit! So give them the gift of a clean interior with All Terrain Floor Liners because we all know the outside will stay dirty.
Elipse Sun Shade
If you know they love riding with the top down than this Eclipse Sun Shade is the perfect gift. Protects you from the sun and easy installation without all the headache.
Drakon Wheel
If you know they are all about the looks of their Jeep than these Drakon Wheels will sure turn heads. The best fit and style available.


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- Prayer and Worship
- Beliefs and Teachings
- Issues and Action
- Media
- Bible
- Catholic Giving
- About USCCB
I will praise the LORD with all my hearta
in the assembled congregation of the upright.*
2Great are the works of the LORD,
studied by all who delight in them.
3Majestic and glorious is his work,
his righteousness endures forever.
4He won renown for his wondrous deeds;
gracious and merciful is the LORD.b
5He gives food to those who fear him,*
he remembers his covenant forever.
6He showed his powerful deeds to his people,
giving them the inheritance of the nations.
7The works of his hands are true and just,
reliable all his decrees,
8Established forever and ever,
to be observed with truth and equity.
9He sent release to his people,
decreed his covenant forever;
holy and fearsome is his name.
10*The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;c
prudent are all who practice it.
His praise endures forever.
* [Psalm 111] A Temple singer (Ps 111:1) tells how God is revealed in Israel's history (Ps 111:2–10). The deeds reveal God's very self, powerful, merciful, faithful. The poem is an acrostic, each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
* [111:1] In the assembled congregation of the upright: in the Temple, cf. Ps 149:1.
* [111:5] Food to those who fear him: probably a reference to the manna in the desert, which elsewhere is seen as a type of the Eucharist, cf. Jn 6:31–33, 49–51.
* [111:10] The fear of the LORD: reverence for God.
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sponsoring organizations.


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Compare cheap flights from Cairns to Honduras
Compare and book cheap flights from Cairns (CNS) to Honduras with Skiddoo. Use the Skiddoo flight explorer to find the cheapest time to fly to Honduras from Cairns on a range of leading airlines. Save with our exclusive Cairns to Honduras flight deals online today.
Honduras, a radiant country overflowing with clear turquoise waters, natural parks, flourishing jungles, spotless beaches, magnificent mountains, colonial villages and interesting ancient ruins is a republic in Central America. It is the 2nd biggest country in Central America. Honduras has several aboriginal cultures particularly the Maya. It was referred to as "Banana Republic" because it played a big role in the American banana business and one of the country's main export products are bananas.
The majority of Hondurans love soccer and politics. Many writers, like José Cecilio del Valle and José Trinidad Reyes, came from Honduras. López Rodezno a Honduran painter holds a regular contemporary art exhibit of murals done by various artists in the National School of Arts and Crafts in Comayagüela, which he founded. It is noticeable that most Honduran arts have the "rain of fish" theme, which is a traditional American theme. Bright colored handicrafts like animals made of clay or wood and jewelry flood places in Honduras.
Places worth visiting
You would enjoy a visit to the country's ancient Maya ruins in Copan. Colonial villages in Gracias and Comayagua are also something to appreciate. Honduras has great beaches and coral reefs where visitors can snorkel, swim and dive.
For a time out from your hectic schedules, have Skiddoo book a flight for you to Honduras.


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Last thursday, HASTAC hosted a webinar about the DML competition: Badges for Lifelong Learning. Erin Knight led a discussion about the foundational ideas underpinning digital badges and Mozilla's efforts to develop the Open Badge Infrastructure. Sheryl Grant considered the meaning and potential for digital badges, and Cathy Davidson historicized our current academic system while addressing some of the opportunities for badges and badge systems.
We had an excellent turnout that produced many wonderful questions. Some of those questions we were able to respond to on air and the remainder we gathered together in a working document—a document that the team is working to consider and answer. You'll find some of those answers on the HASTAC site. Erin pulled a few of those questions and responded to them on her blog.
Not surprisingly, there are a number of fairly philosophical questions about digital badges, some of them bordering on existential. Some of those question were tactical, but all were earnest. The audience expressed excitement, yearning, concern, and impatience. We take this all as encouragement.
We'd like to note that as we develop the Open Badge Infrastructure, the badge recipient is foremost in our minds. Paraphrasing Erin, users will control the privacy settings for badges pushed into the Open Badge Infrastructure. They will have to accept each badge into their Badge Backpack and all badges will be private by default, meaning they are only accessible to the user. However the user can decide to share badges with specific displayers (i.e. a social network or job site) through the Backpack and/or set badges to public making them discoverable through the OBI. As the badge ecosystem grows, recipients will have increasing opportunities to display their badges in new venues.
The Open Badge Infrastructure is one attempt to address learning, skills and competencies that are currently either unrepresented or underrepresented in traditional, formal personal representation on resumes and CVs. Soft skills such as community-mindedness, peer interaction, and mentoring present great assessment opportunities that may result in some of the most important badges to arise from the ecosystem. But as it's early on in this brand new system, we'll have to see where value arises. It may surprise us all. And while the academic community has responded mightily to the idea of open badges, the target audience is much broader and consists of organizations, institutions, individuals, groups, etc.—ideally anyone who would like to offer and support representations of learning, achievements, skills, and competencies.
During the session, Cathy Davidson noted that the Badges for Lifelong Learning DML Competition "is an experiment." As this experiment continues, we welcome your thoughtful comments.
– – –
If you missed the "Badges 101" webinar, you can watch the recorded presentation here. And we're offering another webinar Tuesday, 10/11 at 3:00pm ET: "Process and Application." https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/953425726 If you have any questions about the DML competition application process, we encourage you to attend.


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Get the most out of jquery! This portfolio template is a very stylish and clean complete website template for Your company, portfolio or even your own blog. The usage of jquery achieves fantastic usability and style!
This is what You get:
- Jquery: Header slide show with smooth image fade. Use as many images as You like.
- Jquery: Falling drop down menu with nice looking animation.
- Jquery: Accordion menu. Comes out when You click on the main item.
- Jquery: Portfolio with fantastic lightbox for large images.
- Jquery: A PHP contact form with intelligent form validation.
- automatically attached drop shadows for the images.
- A "welcome" page.
- A "portfolio" page with lightbox for large detail images.
- A "vita" page with jquery accordeon menu.
- A "contact" page.
A well documented help file and PSD is included too. I also made a lot of notes in the files so it's easy for to fit it to Your needs. Feel free to drop me a mail if You have any questions!
Hope You like the file!
Check out my other files


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GOP candidates united in debate
Though they differed on some issues, they agreed that any could do better than Malloy
BROOKFIELD -- They differed in style and on some of the issues, but there was one thing the candidates in Sunday's debate among Republican gubernatorial hopefuls agreed on:
Any of the candidates on the stage at Brookfield High School, they said, would do a better job running the state than Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Four of the six GOP candidates currently running -- state Sens. John McKinney of Fairfield and Toni Boucher of Wilton, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, and West Hartford businessman Joseph Visconti -- took part in the debate, which was sponsored by the Brookfield Republican Town Committee.
Absent were former ambassador Tom Foley, the party's nominee four years ago, who said he had a prior commitment, and Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti.
About 150 people attended.
Despite an occasional disagreement on the issues, the four scrupulously avoided taking potshots at each other, preferring to direct their fire at the incumbent Democrat, Malloy.
"We know Connecticut is headed in the wrong direction," said McKinney, currently the minority leader in the state Senate. "I think that we all agree that any of us up here will be a better governor," a comment that was repeated in various forms by the others.
What the state needs, the candidates said, was a governor that would end overspending, create a business-friendly environment to encourage job growth and end the unfunded mandates that place an increasing strain on local taxpayers.
They were unanimous in condemning the governor's education reform program.
"One-size mandates from big government don't work," said McKinney.
"Do we want to build widgets, or do we want to build people?" Boughton asked, adding that his administration would launch a surge in "getting more parents involved in the educational process."
Boucher said it might be time for state education officials to consider a seven-hour school day and a 200-day school year.
The four hopefuls also stressed the importance of putting forward a candidate who could convince unaffiliated voters and Democrats to vote for a Republican, because of their party's minority status among registered voters.
Visconti said he's heard from "tens of thousands of Democrats" in the 10 months since he announced his candidacy.
"They want Dan Malloy out," Visconti said.
All four also pledged that as governor, they would sit down with Metro-North officials to resolve the safety and service problems that have plagued the commuter railroad in recent years.
Despite their similarities, the candidates disagreed on other topics, with Boucher and McKinney stating their continuing opposition to recent moves to decriminalize marijuana and to permit its use for medical purposes.
McKinney said such efforts fly in the face of federal law which continues to ban marijuana use. And he said he's seen eager, bright-eyed children turn into high school dropouts because marijuana use.
Boughton was more restrained, noting that while he is concerned about marijuana's "gateway effects," the tide of public opinion is turning, and he would be keeping an eye on Colorado "to see how it winds up at the end of the day."
While taking care not to attack each other, the four each said they would be the best Republican to represent the party in November.
Boucher stressed her ability to appeal to Democrats who comprise a majority in four of the seven towns in her district, while Boughton highlighted his record of being the longest-serving mayor in the history of Danbury, a city with an overwhelming majority of registered Democrats.
McKinney cited his accomplishments in 15 years in the state Senate, while Visconti said his background in the construction and contacting field made him a candidate who would have broader appeal among voters, no matter their affiliation.
firstname.lastname@example.com; 203-731-3342


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The Olympic Games, or Olympics, are an international multi-sport event taking place every four years comprising of summer and winter games. Originally held in ancient Greece, they were revived by a French nobleman, Pierre Frèdy, Baron de Coubertin in the late 19th century. The Summer Olympics have been held every fourth year since 1896, except in 1916, 1940, and 1944 due to the World Wars.
A special edition for winter sports, the Olympic Winter Games, was first held in 1924. The first winter Olympics competitions were originally held as a non-Olympic sports festival, but were declared to be official Games by the International Olympic Committee in 1925. Originally these were held in the same year as the Summer Olympics, but since 1994 the Winter Games and the Summer Games have been held two years apart.
Los Angeles 1984
The Muppets appeared in An Olympic Gala, the television special kicking off the games.
Nagano 1998
Animal was the mascot of the U.S. Snowboarding Team for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. This was the first year that snowboarding was recognized by the Olympics, and the team adopted Animal as their mascot. The drummer made a television appearance on CBS with reporter Kennedy, who stapled his feet to a snowboard, and a series of short promos written by Craig Shemin and Jim Lewis.[1]
The appearance was shot on Whistler Mountain outside of Vancouver, rather than Nagano, Japan where the Games were held, and included a segment that was omitted from CBS's broadcast. To demonstrate how a snowboarder might stop, Animal was shown to have crashed into a truck, a bathroom door, and a tree. Shortly after the material was shot, Sonny Bono was killed in a skiing accident, and the segment was left unaired.[2]
Vancouver 2010
The Coca-Cola Polar Bear made appearances at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
London 2012
"Elmo Should Go to the Olympics" (or, ElmOlympian) was a social media campaign by Sesame Workshop, launched on June 4, 2012, the social media blitz followed Elmo as he made preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England. On June 7, 2012, Elmo appeared on Today to promote his cause.
Two new videos were released on July 23, the first announcing that Elmo would be joined by Abby and Grover at the Olympics, and the second with Elmo talking to Sarah Hughes. As of the second set of videos, the Facebook campaign page had been taken down, and text references to the Olympics were scrubbed from new videos.
Boxer Marcus Brown was featured in a third video. A USA Boxing representative said the segment was filmed in New York in mid-June, shortly after the USA Olympic boxing team was formally announced. Brown was recommended to producers, who were looking for New York-based Olympians.[3]
Tim Morehouse and Daryl Homer, two American fencers, discuss teamwork in another video. Morehouse met up with Elmo, Grover, and Abby at the Olympics itself, August 11, tweeting pictures of the encounter.
During their stay in London, Elmo, Abby and Grover appeared on Today (August 9), Milkshake! (August 10), and Rove Live (August 11).
Sochi 2014
To promote the release of Muppets Most Wanted, and to coincide with the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, the Muppets were featured in a series of TV spots and web videos themed around the Winter Olympics.
Additionally, a set of web videos supporting team Canada were released on Walt Disney Studio's Canadian YouTube channel featuring the Muppets.
PyeongChang 2018
The Sesame Street Muppets appeared with a variety of Olympians in advance of the 2018 Winter Olympics, in short spots for NBC:
- Cookie Monster talks about the sport of skeleton with Annie O'Shea and Matt Antoine, November 8 (video)
- Cookie Monster and Tucker West talk about the luge, November 9 (video)
- Cookie Monster with Maia and Alex Shibutani, November 22 (video)
Elmo and Cookie Monster sing "The Olympic Song" with Olympians Snowboarder Chloe Kim, Figure Skaters Nathan Chen and Karen Chen, and Freestyle Skiers David Wise and Gus Kenworthy. (YouTube)
- In 1995, Sesame Street spoofed the Olympics in Episode 3300, in which Slimey, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, competed in the Worm Summer Games. The material was later reused in the video Slimey's World Games.
- Sesame Street also spoofed the Winter Olympics in episode 3061 with the Worm Winter Games, which were held in Squggleville, France.
- The Olympics have also been spoofed in Muppet Magazine issues 21 and 24.
- In 1992, Good Morning America featured many Muppet skits. In one skit, "The Muppet Games", Louis Kazagger reported on the Geek Winter Games (a much cheaper alternative to the Winter Olympics), where founding geek Gonzo demonstrates demolition speed skating.
- Oscar's trash can contains an Olympic-size swimming pool.
- In "The Ojolympics," from Bear in the Big Blue House, Ojo created her own Olympic Games called The Ojolympics. This story was also made available as a book.
- Four Winter Olympics pins featuring Animal were released for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, that were also available at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
- In January of 2006, Kermit the Frog visited the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany, built for the 1936 Summer Olympics, to promote his Adidas Adicolor line of sports apparel. He took a brief, bare-flippered jog on the freezing cold track.
- A week of Plaza Sésamo episodes in 2006 parodied the Olympic Games with the "Plaza Olympiadas", even making a variation of the Olympics logo.
- In "Little Green Lie", Piggy says she'll always be on TV for Robin, unless it's a rerun or the summer Olympics are on.
- ↑ Craig Shemin on Facebook 0:57 video February 22, 2018
- ↑ Craig Shemin on Facebook 2:02 video February 22, 2018
- ↑ Stephen Hart, "Staten Island's Marcus Browne meets Elmo from 'Sesame Street'", Staten Island Advance, August 3, 2012.


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One hundred firms make up AdvisorOne's 2012 Top Wealth Managers, as measured by assets under management per client, with data as of 12/31/11.
Here we present a profile of the crème de la crème of the Top Wealth Managers—those 10 firms that topped the list in in our 2012 survey.
View the list of all 280 firms in our 2012 Top Wealth Managers survey.
Treasury Partners is an independent RIA within the larger multioffice, multicustodian HighTower, and its history is that of a brokerage team from a wirehouse seeking both independence and support from HighTower.
Says managing principal Richard Saperstein, "Treasury Partners was originally formed when I was at Oppenheimer." There, in 1988, he began to build the team that would eventually become Treasury Partners. When Oppenheimer sold its private client business in 2003, Saperstein and his team "migrated to Bear Stearns, and after JPMorgan rescued Bear Stearns, we spun out in May of '09 to HighTower." HighTower itself, a multioffice RIA, has brought in a number of big names who went in search of independence from the wirehouse model.
"From an investment and client service standpoint, we operate within the confines of the Hightower structure," Saperstein explains. "HighTower provides all the back office support we need to run the business, which includes legal, compliance, HR, payroll, benefits, desktop support, etc."
That leaves Treasury Partners free to do what it does best. "Because we don't originate any product or sell research or have competing sets of clients," Saperstein says, "we are completely unconflicted. We have an open architecture platform, don't represent any particular product or service, don't inventory any securities, so we're inherently free of any conflicts and answer only to our clients, not to any profit centers within the firm."
Heightened Correlation
Saperstein says that 2008 "really did a lot of things to everyone in the business, and in particular it highlighted the value of prudent diversification. So, effectively, there is diversification among asset classes, and then within an asset class, diversification among securities. Those [firms] that did not fully execute suffered within that '08 period."
The second issue brought to the fore in 2008, he says, was "an unprecedentedly high correlation among asset classes." Taking both of those factors into consideration, he says, "we clearly demonstrated that we properly diversified client portfolios and securities." The heightened correlations also led the firm "to re-evaluate all correlations of asset classes, and in doing so we wound up adjusting all client asset allocations to take into consideration the new correlations."
He continues, "In the '80s and '90s we were taught to buy large-cap, mid-cap, international, REITs, emerging markets, and ultimately if you diversify you'll have lower portfolio risk. But a funny thing happened in '08," he says, "where everything went down. Diversification didn't really provide the perceived benefits of the different asset classes."
Based on that, Treasury Partners re-evaluated the correlations of all asset classes, so that now the firm builds portfolios "specifically to guard against heightened correlations and the downside risk when everyone is running for the same exit door from all the asset classes."
Crisis Led to Referrals
The success of the strategy exercised by Treasury Partners during the meltdown and its post-crisis restructuring strategy, as well as client communication both during and after the crisis, says Saperstein, are the factors he believes responsible for referrals that have helped the firm grow. "It's really amazing," he says, "how great our clients have been in providing referrals, and how financial professionals have provided referrals. These endorsements have been one of the most defining characteristics of our platform."
While the client list and the AUM may grow, Saperstein does not anticipate much growth in top leadership. He is the "overwhelming majority owner" of the four partners, who have "collectively over 100 years of investment experience." He adds, "I don't foresee adding more chiefs."
The firm's "small army" of staff is "very efficient," he says. "We don't do a lot of things in-house," he concedes, "but what we do, we try to get a really deep knowledge and understanding of."
For operations that they outsource and for outside managers, he says, "we spend a lot of time kicking the tires and understanding what they do and how they do it." In looking for new staffers, he says, they look for "really bright, hungry people that want an opportunity."
Issues of Concern
When it comes to issues that could affect the firm and its clients, Saperstein offers several points. First, he says, is "the Fed's involvement in the yield curve. Effectively the yield curve has been nationalized," he says, "through the zero interest rate policy or the quantitative easings. The Fed has manipulated the yield curve, and that has distorted the cost of capital for issuers."
The second concern is the budget deficit. "Washington takes in $2.4 trillion and spends $3.6 trillion a year, and we issue Treasuries to cover that shortfall. That's got to be corrected."
The eurozone is third, with its chronic volatility. "The central currency is breeding—has bred—a major shortfall in amalgamating these different economic systems," says Saperstein. "And unless there is a federal banking regulator and what I'll call federalism, we're going to have continued and ongoing volatility out of this very large part of the world economy."
These are the three main factors "that concern me … from the perspective of having to decide what to do with my clients' money." The firm is an investment specialist, he says, "but we're in an environment where these exogenous factors really can't be evaluated based on the traditional experience that we have. It clearly makes the environment a little bit more uncertain, and as a result, we've got to reflect that uncertainty in client portfolios."
He adds, "It requires us to evaluate things like the political landscape of the eurozone or the success of Washington in addressing the budget deficit. These are not traditional investment analysis. But ultimately, look: over the last 30 years we've had to learn from the school of hard knocks, and that causes us to be more cautious in these environments."
For more on the 2012 Top Wealth Managers, please visit our home page.
For information on reprints of this profile and other 2012 Top Wealth Managers content, we invite you to visit our reprints partner, PARS International.


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Blog Archives
Pain due to overweight
What is the remedy for too much weight? My husband is overweight and I want him to get fit. He has high cholesterol also.
Due to weight, his knees pains while climbing stairs and is having vitamin D deficiency too.
I have a combination of flower remedies. He can try.
Ask him to keep the ring finger under the thumb daily for 15 minutes. This is FIRE MUDRA, which will reduce his weight.
Ask him to chant Switch words, "CHANGE DIVINE ORDER NOW ON"
I like to add my husband is also taking Allopathy for High BP, Vitamin D and for joint pain. So can he take the Flower remedies along with that?
Flower remedies are for mental state and not for physical problems.
Meanwhile, chant the mantra, "HARE RAMA HARE KRISHNA" for his joint pain.


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In our in-house application we are developing new features and fixing bugs with approximately 40 developers in total. Sometimes the installation of a new version of a database package "hangs" and eventually times out with a ORA-04021: timeout occurred while waiting to lock object". This is caused by another session that is currently executing the same package. When there's no time pressure, the developer just postpones the installation to the end of the day, or early next morning. But every now and then, a high priority bugfix or a project nearing its deadline cannot wait this long. The developer calls up the DBA and asks to bounce the developer database. The DBA sends an e-mail to warn everybody and kills all developers' sessions in the process of course. And some five or ten minutes later the DBA sends an e-mail to inform that everything is back to normal. This ritual is causing not only annoyance to 40 developers and a DBA, it also costs money: 41 times 10 minutes times X euros/hour.
Two or three years ago, I was wondering whether it is visible in the data dictionary who is executing the package that needed a new version. I stumbled upon this priceless script by Steve Adams, called executing_packages.sql. It lists the sessions that are currently executing stored code. He had found out that an object that is currently executing, has the sys.x$kglob.kglhdpmd column set to 2. See for example this question and answer. From then on, whenever I received an e-mail announcing the bounce of the developer database, I quickly turned to the developer experiencing the problem asking him the name of the package. I ran executing_packages.sql which revealed who is executing this package. Next, I called the DBA to stop the bounce and just kill one session instead. And I could hand over the sid/serial# of the session to be killed. Or even better, we just asked the responsible developer to end his session manually if possible.
But then we did an upgrade to 10.2.0.4. The script was originally developed for 8.0 and 8.1 according to Steve Adams' site, and I noticed more than once that it worked perfectly in 22.214.171.124. On 10.2.0.4 however, there are two problems:
- I used a special DBA-account to be able to execute the script. The same upgraded account is now unable to see the sys.x$ tables.
- Even when logged in as SYS, the sys.x_$ tables (note the underscore) are not there anymore.
I was surprised to see very little information about this when googling. I had imagined that such a useful script would be used anywhere and that several people would have bumped into the same problems by now. So this gives me the opportunity to find these things out myself at home.
It would be nice to address the first problem by defining a view under the SYS-schema and giving access to the view to all developers, and not just the DBA-account. The only thing that might worry the DBA's, is that the view might be used in the application. This can be addressed by granting access to the view to a role that every developer has. You cannot base new database objects on objects that have not been granted directly to you, so this will appease the DBA's.
The second problem was easy. Just remove the underscores in the table names and the query works: sys.x$kglob, sys.x$kglpn and sys.x$ksuse are still there in 10 and 11. I just want to extend the session information a little more. The existing script only shows the sid and serial#. In the new query, I added the username, program, module, action and client_info as well, as this additional information will help me in my conversation with the developer who has to end his session. I could have used the v$session view for this, but in the same style as the original script, I used sys.x$ksusex to get the "dbms_application_info" fields module, action and client_info. This results in this view:
sys@ORA11GR1> create view v_executing_packages
2 as
3 select
4 decode(o.kglobtyp,
11 o.kglnaown "OWNER",
12 o.kglnaobj "NAME",
13 s.indx "SID",
14 s.ksuseser "SERIAL",
15 s.ksuudnam "USERNAME",
16 s.ksuseapp "PROGRAM",
17 x.app "MODULE",
18 x.act "ACTION",
19 x.clinfo "CLIENT_INFO"
20 from
21 sys.x$kglob o,
22 sys.x$kglpn p,
23 sys.x$ksuse s,
24 sys.x$ksusex x
25 where
26 o.inst_id = userenv('Instance') and
27 p.inst_id = userenv('Instance') and
28 s.inst_id = userenv('Instance') and
29 x.inst_id = userenv('Instance') and
30 p.kglpnhdl = o.kglhdadr and
31 s.addr = p.kglpnses and
32 s.indx = x.sid and
33 s.ksuseser = x.serial and
34 o.kglhdpmd = 2 and
35 o.kglobtyp in (7, 8, 9, 12, 13)
36 order by 1,2,3
37 /
View is aangemaakt.
Normally I won't include an order by clause in a view, but in this case I only want to do a "select * from sys.v_executing_packages", and not bother about the ordering there.
For now I'll just grant the select privilege directly to my account. As said, granting to a developer role is better in real life.
sys@ORA11GR1> grant select on v_executing_packages to rwijk
2 /
Toekennen is geslaagd.
Below is a small test to see how this view can be used. In session 1 I'm creating a package that executes a long time:
rwijk@ORA11GR1> select sid
2 , serial#
3 from v$session
4 where sid in (select sid from v$mystat)
5 /
---------- ----------
136 35
1 rij is geselecteerd.
rwijk@ORA11GR1> create package mypck
2 as
3 procedure test;
4 end mypck;
5 /
Package is aangemaakt.
rwijk@ORA11GR1> create package body mypck
2 as
3 procedure test
4 is
5 begin
6 dbms_lock.sleep(3600); -- an hour
7 dbms_output.put_line('version 1.0');
8 end test;
9 end mypck;
10 /
Package-body is aangemaakt.
rwijk@ORA11GR1> exec mypck.test
And now session 1 is asleep for an hour.
In session 2 I'm trying to create a second version of the package, that will wait for session 1 to complete. This will eventually lead to a ORA-04021, after some 15 minutes:
rwijk@ORA11GR1> select sid
2 , serial#
3 from v$session
4 where sid in (select sid from v$mystat)
5 /
---------- ----------
139 37
1 rij is geselecteerd.
rwijk@ORA11GR1> create or replace package body mypck
2 as
3 procedure test
4 as
5 begin
6 dbms_lock.sleep(3600); -- an hour
7 dbms_output.put_line('version 1.1');
8 end test;
9 end mypck;
10 /
create or replace package body mypck
FOUT in regel 1:
.ORA-04021: Time-out tijdens wachten op vergrendeling van object .
Now I will use the view in a third session (or in session 2 after the time-out) to find out who is executing which package:
rwijk@ORA11GR1> select * from sys.v_executing_packages
2 /
--------- ----- ------------------------------ ---------- ----------
------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------
RWIJK SQL*Plus
RWIJK SQL*Plus
2 rijen zijn geselecteerd.
And this points to the SQL*Plus session 1.


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Army delivers medal haul in archery
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – With Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker in the crowd, the archery competition lived up to its billing at the 2013 Warrior Games presented by Deloitte.
Army rose to the occasion, capturing six out of the 12 medals in the archery events (two gold, one silver and three bronze) to outlast reigning champion Marine Corps. This year, the Marines took home four medals (one gold, two silver and one bronze). SOCOM also claimed a gold medal, and Air Force seized a bronze.
Frank Barroqueiro with his winning targets
The individual compound event could not have scripted better, with top-seed Army Capt. Frank Barroqueiro (Gainesville, Ga.) and Marine veteran Staff Sgt. Matthew Benack (Jacksonville, N.C.) battling in the first shoot-off in Warrior Games history.
Tied at 110, Benack shot an impressive nine, but was upstaged by Barroquerio's bull's-eye to score a perfect 10 and win the gold.
"Once I saw it hit the 'X,' I knew I had it," Barroqueiro said.
Benack, who pulled the upset as the No. 7 seed, added, "It was a solid goal, obviously gold would have been nice, but it comes down to a shoot-off. That's the way it should be in competition. The best of the best out there giving it their all."
Staff Sgt. Jessie White (Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md.) garnered Army its second medal of the day upon defeating veteran Air Force Tech. Sgt. Corey Carter (Columbus, Ohio), 107-106, for a bronze finish.
Army was on target yet again in the individual recurve event with a one-two finish to take the top spots on the podium. Surging back from a one-point deficit heading into the final round, first-time participant Army Sgt. Edward Patton (Lula, Ga.) demonstrated his talent against Army Staff Sgt. Curtis Winston (Wahiawa, Hawaii) to earn the win.
After struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, an exuberant Patton elaborated on his journey to gold, "I can't believe it. I'm still so excited. It just proved to me that I'm still a soldier – I can still fight and I can still win. I thought my injuries had stopped me. It's not true. You can rebound, you can come back. It feels great representing Army and winning gold."
Patton's win snaps the Marine's three year gold-medal streak in the recurve event.
An equally proud 2010 silver medalist Winston reflected on what may be his last year, "This year meant a little more, because it may be my last year to come back, so I was giving it everything I had."
He praised Patton's 104-103 performance by noting, "I couldn't have shot against a better soldier. It was close, he beat me, that's just how it goes on any given day. I'm proud of myself and Edward."
The compound team competition featured another thrilling finish as the determined Marines edged out hometown favorites Air Force, 158-157, to capture gold. Claiming the final spot on the podium, Army handily defeated the British Armed Forces, 166-123.
Top-seed Special Operations out-dueled the Marines, 137-132, in the recurve team event for gold. Meanwhile, Army continued to flex its muscles with a convincing win over Air Force to secure bronze.
With an exhilarating day four of Warrior Games in the books, 2013 silver medalist Benack exemplified the essence of the Warrior Games. In the face of his shoot-off defeat, Benack congratulated and shook Barroqueiro's hand. Brothers in arms, he repeated, "All one force. All one force."


text:
Paula Deen Takes a Break from Scandal to Celebrate Son Jamie's Birthday
The battle-weary cook Tweets birthday wishes – and a cake recipe – in honor of her elder son
Paula Deen might be experiencing the worst month of her career, but that didn't stop this Southern mama from celebrating her firstborn's birthday.
The struggling celebrity cook, who has watched her edible empire crumble this month following her admission that she used a racial slur multiple times in her past, took a break from the scandal Friday for some family time.
"Looking forward to some quality family time in honor of @jamie_deen's birthday. Have a blessed birthday, son!" she Tweeted, and included a link to a recipe for Jamie's Coconut Cake.
The Tweet caps an end to a horrific professional week for Deen, 66, who quickly lost deals with companies including Walmart, J.C. Penney, Target, Kmart, Sears, Ballantine Books, Caesars Entertainment, Smithfield Foods.The previous week, the Food Network dropped her after their 11 years together.
Birthday boy Jamie Deen, who turned 46 on Saturday, has repeatedly defended him mom during the scandal.
"Really proud of my mom. It was hard for me to watch and harder for her to do. I love you mom," he Tweeted on June 26th.
On Tuesday, he and brother Bobby Deen appeared on CNN's New Day and were adamant that their mother is no racist, and did not regularly use the N-word.
"We weren't raised in a home where that word was used," Bobby Deen told CNN. "Our mother is one of the most compassionate, good-hearted, empathetic people that you'd ever meet."


text:
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Stepping into a limousine should be a source of excitement. At Stop & Go Airport Shuttle Service, we're a customer service-oriented business. We know how to get around the Greater Orland Park region, and our chauffeurs are very approachable. You're invited to ask us about:
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Whatever requests you might make, we have the experience required to fulfill them. Our firm is locally owned and operated, so you can expect us to be able to navigate the area's roadways with ease.
Finding a company you can trust to put passenger safety first is simple when you have the chance to ride with Stop & Go Airport Shuttle Service in Orland Park, IL. Our vehicles are available for trips Monday - Sunday. If you're curious about taking a ride in a top-quality limousine, we'd be glad to schedule you a car. Contact our office today, and tell us more about your needs.
It's an unfortunate fact that sometimes, getting to the airport can be the most stressful aspect of your trip. Why not let Stop & Go Airport Shuttle Service Inc. make it easier to get to your local Orland Park, IL airport in a hassle-free fashion?
Should you have airport transportation needs, you can trust Stop & Go Airport Shuttle Service to handle them quickly. Our company has a strong focus on providing superb customer service, and we're happy to make arrangements for trips to and from locations throughout the Greater Orland Park area. If you're ready to set an appointment, we're available seven days a week and at all hours.
Whether you're headed to a wedding, party, or concert, you can make the journey almost as exciting as the main event itself. Our chauffeur services are designed to get you to your destination in style.
Are you tasked with arranging transportation for a large group of people? Whether you're planning an outing for your extended family, running a corporate event, or organizing a class trip, our coach buses are the perfect solution to all of your transportation-related needs.
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Stop & Go Airport Shuttle Service our hidden gem
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Friendly and Reliable
I was looking for a reliable shuttle service to the airport from the Southwest suburbs. These guys are great! They always pick me up on time, or early, and are very courteous. I really appreciate their email confirmations/receipts, and the 24 hour notification text messages. I've used them a few times, and will continue to do so.
Best service ever!
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We have been using Stop & Go Airport Shuttle for a few years now when our former service quit meeting our expectations. Stop & Go not only meets our expectations for limousine services but surpasses them to a great extent. The drivers, including Vince the owner, are friendly, professional, courteous, and always on time. The limousines are always neat, clean and well maintained. And, best of all, it is the only limousine service we have ever taken since moving to the suburbs in 1989 and going to the airport several times a year, that ensures confidence in its services. We receive an email verifying our call for service; we also receive a 24 hour text prior to pick up both going and coming from the airport. This is very reassuring. The customer service provided by Stop & Go can't be beat. We can't imagine using any other company.
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Sto n go arrived on time, professionally dressed, extra clean vehicle and got my family and I to where we needed to be on time as well as back home without fail. I highly recommend Stop n Go to anyone that is need of a dependable service provider. Stop n go you have a customer for life. Thank you for your great service.
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Very professional and friendly. Nice car and reliable
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I was extremely happy with the service. Vincent is extremely professional, prompt, efficient, and communicated clearly with details of pickup time, location, etc. it was a comfortable and worry free ride to and from the airport. I highly recommend this service.
Very professional service. I would highly recommend this company. Vincent was prompt, helpful, and courteous. The luxury van easily accommodated our group of 5. Thank you, Stop & Go!
Our experience with Stop n Go was fantastic The Limo was great The service was professional We would definitely use this in the future and recommend it to our friends
On time, ready to operate, respectful and all around great service.
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Professional and Friendly
I have used stop and go several times to and from ohare. Always on time and very friendly. I would not only recommend to a friend but to my grandmother as well.
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Service was outstanding in every way. I have my pick up times right on time at my departure and returned dates. But most importantly Vincent made us feel welcome and at home. I would recommend this service to anyone because you will receive complete satisfaction. Richard
Vincent was very courteous and very efficient. I would recommend him anytime. The car was very clean and well kept.
I had a great experience with Vince and Stop and Go Airport Shuttle. My flight was delayed over an hour and they had no problem waiting for me! Vince was right on time, the car was clean, and the price was great too! I highly recommend Stop and Go and will use them anytime I have to go to the airport.
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We used the party bus before for my school basketball game. It was very nice and clean. Also, on time to and from service. I highly recommend this service to anyone
Great service
Vince picked us up at my home to take 6 of us to the airport. We had my mother who had a wheel chair,oxygen,scooter and walker besides all of our luggage. He helped my mother into the van and was very helpful. He was on time and very friendly on the ride to midway. On our return trip he met us within a few minutes at the correct meeting point and delivered us safely home. I would highly recommend him for any of your needs. We will be using him again.
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We used Stop & Go to get to and from the airport for our vacation. Vincent was excellent and we will definitely use them again!!
This has been my third trip with Stop N Go. The ontime, professional experience is why I come back. Have two more booked for the future. Outstanding service
Vince is dependable, helpful and always cheerful and kind. I have a mild disability and he is patient and willing to help me. His vehicles are clean and in top shape. I have been using Stop and Go for a while now with never a problem. I'd recommend his services to all.
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I ordered the party bus to take myself and my granddaughters to church and then a reception for the oldest granddaughters wedding. My granddaughters are in their teens and loved the party bus. I am handicapped and wheelchair bound. I thought I would have trouble getting in and out but Vince was terrific. He was friendly and personable.It was a long ride but Vince smiled through out. He talked with me for the duration while my granddaughters enjoyed the blue tooth in the party bus. We had a wonderful time thanks to Vince. He was on tIme for all pick ups (three for the day) and my granddaughters loved the modern bus with its leather seats and snack bar. They want me to set up a downtown trip and hire Vince again. I definitely will! I would recommend anyone in need of this service call Vince first. The party buss was the highlight of our day.
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Celebrity Music Producer Subdues ANGRY African Wild Cat ... With His Bare Hands [VIDEO]
Celebrity Music Producer Subdues Angry African Wild Cat ... With His Bare Hands
Next on WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK! -- rapper-producer Mally Mall's pet serval turns on him ... violently ... and the scary encounter was all caught on tape.
The video was shot last week inside Mall's Vegas compound -- his living room, specifically -- where his pet serval was having some kind of meltdown ... probably because it's a wild animal inside a house ... and Mall sprang into action.
You have to see how it all unfolds -- somehow, Mall calms the cat down ... but not without a couple scratches.
You'll recall ... Mall's the same guy who gave Justin Bieber that monkey a while ago. Pretty wild.
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In December 2009, 10 red weather balloons were deployed from locations throughout the United States. The project's aim: testing the mettle of social media.
The Red Balloon Challenge, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense, laid out a simple objective: Use social media to identify the GPS coordinates for all 10 balloons, suspended at fixed locations across the country. The first team to do so would win $40,000. The challenge, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Internet, highlighted social networking's potential to solve widely distributed, time-sensitive problems.
More than 4,000 teams entered the competition. Many concentrated their efforts on coverage, reaching out over the Internet to people over as large a geographic area as possible. Some teams tapped into large databases such as college alumni listservs, while others appealed to audiences on Twitter and Facebook.
The winning team, a group of MIT students, cast similarly wide nets across various social networks, but with a twist: The team devised incentives that motivated people to forward its message to others. The team promised $2,000 to the first person who submitted the correct coordinates for a single balloon, and $1,000 to the person who invited that person to the challenge. Another $500 would go to the person who invited the inviter, and so on.
The system quickly took root, spawning geographically broad, dense branches of connections. After eight hours and 52 minutes, the MIT team identified the correct coordinates for all 10 balloons, doling out some of the prize money to people in the 10 winning chains and donating the rest to charity.
In the process, the team collected an enormous amount of data on the size and scope of Internet connections. The researchers analyzed the data, and have published the results in the current issue of Science.
Finding the carrot that will stick
Alex "Sandy" Pentland, director of the Human Dynamics Laboratory in the MIT Media Lab, says finding the right incentive is essential to mobilizing large groups of people on a given task. With the right incentives, Pentland says people can work across social networks to accomplish goals beyond balloon searches.
"You can imagine scenarios like emergencies," says Pentland, the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences. "'Where's there a power generator?' The word goes out, and it comes back in five minutes, and half a million people have thought about it for a microsecond. That would be amazing. Or there's a lost child, and suddenly you have 10 million eyeballs looking. You can see things like that being enormously valuable."
Using incentives to spread information over a social network is certainly not a new idea. Referral marketing programs commonly use incentives to attract, for example, new magazine subscribers, by giving coupons to friends who refer other friends.
Pentland and his team found their "recursive incentive mechanism" was far more effective than such marketing strategies. In such a system, a person doesn't necessarily have to pass the message along to the person who subscribes to a magazine. She can gain by simply passing the message along to someone.
This video illustrates how referral between participants of the MIT team spread on the continental United States before and during the DARPA challenge.
Video: Wei Pan
The team compared its results with those of an online newsletter subscription campaign, and found the number and size of "cascades," or branches of people recruiting others, was significantly larger for the balloon task. The researchers also observed their scheme produced a lower "attrition rate," or points where people failed to forward the message.
Pentland's group also found that their approach had the advantage of speed. The promise of a staggered reward spurred people to quickly reach out to others, versus newsletter subscribers, who exhibited a more delayed response.
A twist on tweets
The group also evaluated its performance against that of other top Red Balloon Challenge teams by analyzing data from Twitter. The students compiled more than 100 million tweets with the word "balloon" during the month before the balloon launch, analyzing them for the top five finalists.
Based on Twitter data, altruism wasn't the ideal incentive: A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology's Research Institute (GTRI), which placed second in the competition, generated a limited number of tweets through its altruism-based approach, which promised to donate prize money to the American Red Cross if people signed on to the challenge.
The data also suggested that existing Twitter audiences didn't necessarily help spread the word. Infamous iPhone and PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz, who has more than 35,000 followers on Twitter, prompted an initial burst of tweets when he announced the challenge on his feed. Similarly, a team named Geocacher appealed to an existing community of geocachers — people who use navigational techniques to identify hidden objects. Both teams, despite their established audiences, failed to sustain a large presence on Twitter for the Red Balloon Challenge.
In contrast, the MIT team started without a Twitter community. But within a couple of days, it was able to generate a Twitter following comparable to Hotz's. What's more, the team observed that when media outlets reported MIT as the winner of the challenge, the number of tweets actually declined, suggesting that the team's incentive structure played a large role in generating tweets.
Erica Briscoe, a research scientist and a member of the GTRI team, says MIT's extrinsic reward structure — promising monetary reward — helped the team generate a large social network quickly.
"I think the challenge brought up the question, 'What kind of incentives do you need to participate?'" Briscoe says. "And it does seem their incentive scheme was more motivation for people to form that network."
The MIT team's system was not without weaknesses: For example, Pentland says, people could have tried to register under multiple false names, in order to increase their chances of winning. However, the team found little evidence for that, possibly because of the competition's time pressures.
Pentland's group is currently investigating incentive structures to mobilize large groups in other scenarios, such as disaster response and exercising.
"Humans are really social animals," Pentland says. "We live in this web of social relationships, and a lot of what we do and the satisfaction we derive comes from the web of social relationships. So if you want to get people to coordinate or change their behavior, you have to first and foremost deal with the existing web of relationships, rather than treat people as isolated individuals."


text:
News Release 2008-50 | April 28, 2008
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Promotes Financial Literacy at Capitol Hill Event
WASHINGTON—The Office of Comptroller of the Currency participated in the Financial Literacy Day on Capitol Hill today to promote awareness of agency efforts to educate and support consumers of financial services. The Capitol Hill Financial Literacy Day was conducted as part of this year's National Financial Literacy Month.
"Events like Financial Literacy Day are excellent opportunities to provide the OCC's financial literacy information and resources to congressional staff, federal agencies, banks, and the general public," said Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan. "The OCC participates to promote our goal of enhancing consumer financial skills and extending the reach of banks' products and services to underserved or unbanked markets."
During the financial literacy event, OCC staff members from the agency showcased a number of OCC's public service campaigns which provide educational messages to local print and radio outlets in English and Spanish nationwide. OCC staff also conducted demonstrations of the OCC's new HelpWithMyBank.gov Website. The site, which made its debut last summer, provides information to customers of national banks and answers questions that are commonly asked of the OCC's Customer Assistance Specialists. HelpWithMyBank.gov includes links and references to financial information and resources and currently provides answers to more than 250 common questions, under such broad topics as credit cards, bank accounts, mortgages, consumer loans, insurance, identity theft, leasing, and safe deposit boxes. Since OCC launched the Website, HelpWithMyBank.gov has received approximately 5,000 visits per week.
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Media Contact
Dean DeBuck
(202) 874-5770
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text:
This month's theme for our Kulinarya Cooking Club is "Only in the Philippines". Tina from Pinay in Texas Cooking Corner and I are hosting this month and we wanted to focus on unique dishes that can only be found in the Philippines.
Being a Filipina, I love my rice. Growing up, it would be normal for me to have rice three meals in a day. So I thought it natural for me to chose a rice dish for the theme.
I love rice for breakfast. To make a complete meal, add egg and a meat.
What makes this dish unique to the Philippines is the name. Tapsilog. Filipinos like to abbreviate or replace words with acronyms. Tapsilog comprises of Tapa (Tap) sinangag (si) and itlog (log).
Tapa is cured beef. It's beef that's been marinated overnight and in some cases, dried then fried. I like my tapa not dried as it can get tough and chewy when not done right. I left out the drying step.
Sinangag is garlic rice. I love it. It's rice that has been fried with lots of garlic.
Itlog is egg. An oozy, runny egg is essential for this dish.
For the tapa:
- 700g thinly sliced beef tenderloin. I used sizzling steak
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 3tbs soy sauce
- 1tbs mushroom or dark soy sauce
- Pinch salt
Marinate the beef with the rest of the ingredients. Leave overnight or at least 4 hours.
To cook: in a large frying place the beef and marinade in. Let the beef simmer in the marinade until it dries out. Add some vegetable oil to the pan and gently fry until slightly browned and cooked through,
For the sinangag:
- 3cups of uncooked rice
- 1bulb of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- Pinch salt
To cook: cook the rice by absorption method. When cooked set aside to cool a bit. You can also use left over rice from the day before. When ready, add a little vegetable oil in a wok and gently fry the garlic till lightly browned. Add the rice and mix thoroughly and add the salt. Turn the heat to low and leave the rice to fry a little and for the garlic to infuse through. Mix every couple of minutes.
Fry the egg to your liking.
Bon appetite,


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Amgen Tour of California
When: Friday-Sunday
Stages: 6 through 8
TV: NBCSN and NBC.
Tracking the riders: amgentourofcalifornia.com/watch-live/tourtracker
Social media: twitter.com/Amgentourofcali; www.facebook.com/AmgenTourofCalifornia
Friday: Newhall (Main and Sixth streets, 11:35 a.m.) to Mountain High North, 94.4 miles (2 p.m., NBCSN)
Saturday: Santa Clarita (Town Center Mall, 11:40 a.m.) to Pasadena (City Hall), 88.7 miles (2 p.m., NBCSN)
Sunday: Thousand Oaks loop course (Towngate Road, 8:45 a.m.), 76.1 miles (10 a.m., Ch. 4)


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Arvin's 1993 Mazda RX-7 is a work of art. A brilliant tangerine example of one of the loveliest Japanese cars ever built. It's why he invited Ronnie Corado to photograph it for StanceNation.com. It's a good thing Ronnie got some nice shots before the burnout portion and the resulting unintentional fire.
Poor Arvin.
StanceNation details everything that went into this New Yorker's FD build, including stripping everything down and replacing the twin-turbo setup with one Garrett GT34R dual ball bearing turbo. It made a monster 505 horsepower while running 22 lbs of boost at one point.
Unfortunately, with great power comes great fire risk. What happened next is as sad as it is expertly photographed. We'll allow StanceNation to explain:
While the car was in the middle of doing the burnout, the harness being soo brittle from
the cold weather of the winter just collapsed, heated up and melted. That obviously had the positive & negative touching and sparking a small electrical fire under his secondary fuel rails. Thankfully Arvin noticed the fire on time because the car started breaking up…
The flames spread quickly and there was nothing to do but call the fire department and wait for them to finish their work. Arvin, for his part, is grateful that he escaped unharmed and that the first responders responded so quickly.
Nearly everything behind the bumper and ahead of the firewall is trashed, but Arvin isn't giving up on his baby. What's next? Maybe an LS swap.
The full set of hot photos can be found here.
Photo Credit: Ronnie Corado for StanceNation.com


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ALWIL Software is a finalist for the 2010 Red Herring 100 Europe Award
(PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, MAY 21, 2010) ALWIL Software, makers of avast! Antivirus Software, is a finalist for Red Herring's Europe 100 award, a prestigious list honoring the year's most promising European private technology ventures.
The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies based on criteria that includes financial performance, technology innovation, and position in their respective industries. This structured evaluation allows Red Herring to see past the "buzz" to discover the greatest business opportunities in the industry.
"This year was especially difficult," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists."
2010 is the first year that ALWIL Software entered the Red Herring competition. "We are relatively unknown as a company, but we still have over 100 million users of our avast! Antivirus software," said Vince Steckler, CEO of ALWIL Software. "As a Red Herring finalist, we are starting to get the corporate recognition that avast! already has with computer users around the globe."
Finalists for the 2010 edition of the Red Herring 100 Europe award will present their winning strategies at the Red Herring Europe Conference in Paris, May 25-27, 2010. The Top 100 winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony on May 27 at the event.


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To connect to a wireless network in Windows Vista, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, and then click Connect to.
2. Click the wireless network titled Laman, and then click Connect.
to choose service
Need Help? Browse all our answers to your questions.
The Laman Library System:
2801 Orange Street
North Little Rock, AR 72114
Phone: 501-758-1720
Map & Directions • Hours
420 Main Street
North Little Rock, AR 72114
Phone: 501-687-1061
Map & Directions • Hours
Copyright © 2020 Laman Library System. All Rights Reserved.


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Cardinal compares slain teacher to Jesus
KATONAH, N.Y. -- With New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan leading the way, the tearful, quaking family and hometown of Anne Marie McGowan Murphy bid a wrenching farewell Thursday to the slain 52-year-old special education teacher who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last Friday trying to protect 6-year-old Dylan Hockley from gunfire.
Dolan underscored her sacrifice. "Like Jesus, Annie laid down her life for her friends. Like Jesus, Annie's life and death brings light, truth, goodness and love to a world often shrouded in darkness, evil, selfishness and death," the cardinal said.
Murphy's husband, Michael, told the couple's four adult children and a standing-room-only congregation in St. Mary of the Assumption Church that his wife of 30 years had been true to herself in trying to defend the defenseless.
Dylan and the 19 other 6- and 7-year-olds who died at the hands Adam Lanza did not die alone, her grieving husband told about 300 people packed into the white clapboard church in the center of this New York City bedroom community. She was there with them, he emphasized.
Murphy was one of six teachers and 20 first-graders murdered when the heavily armed gunman broke into the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday and started firing a semi-automatic assault weapon into screaming children.
Police said Murphy's body was found shielding the special education student that she had worked with one-on-one.
Murphy had lived in Sandy Hook for the past 14 years.
Dolan, wearing the red cap and carrying the staff of his office, looked to soothe and inspire the red-eyed congregation, noting that Friday would be the shortest day of the year, with the longest night ahead -- before the dawn brings lengthening days of light. Murphy, the archbishop said, was in the light of heaven that awaited the Christian faithful.
There were light-hearted moments, such as when Dolan noted that scores of McGowans were present. Anne Marie McGowan had attended local parochial schools before going on to Southern Connecticut State University for a master's degree in education.
"Anyone here Irish?" Dolan asked. The congregation broke into laughter. Many mourners had spent the minutes before the service catching up on the comings and goings of various extended family members in a clan that brought far-flung cousins together for the first time in years.
Mourners included staffers from the elementary school where Murphy died. A woman in her 40s, with a Sandy Hook elementary school staffer badge attached to her purse, told her teenage son and daughter the service had been harder than she expected. "I can't believe I will go to work and she won't be there," the woman said, bent in grief. "I saw her every day."
Another mourner, whose wife was a distant cousin of Murphy, told a friend that the congregation should pray for the children left living by shooter Adam Lanza. The slain are "with Jesus," he said. "The children who are living and saw the shooting, they are the ones that need our prayers."


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A college or any educational institute flourishes and rises above the mundane and the ordinary only when it has a vision and endeavours to translate this vision. However, a vision cannot get translated without realising the real needs of its participants. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College epitomises the collective aspiration of the community that participates in this vision. And yes! Lest we forget to mention that this vision is the optimum realisation of an individuals potential and nurturing of progressive and liberal ideals for building a better world.
How does a college survive outside the University campus? May be by beautifying its grounds and investing in equipment or by simply investing in its manpower i.e. the students and the teachers.
How does a college take that quantum leap so that it stands apart from other such institutions? May be by turning every hurdle into a challenge and what is the challenge that this college faces year after year? We accept students with lower cut-offs during the admissions. Yet, by the end of three years of graduation; we convert them into higher percentages and some into University positions. There are no short cuts in this process; a relentless labour alone ensures such rich dividends.
How does a young college compete with the established and premier colleges of Delhi University? May be by carving out its own little niche and charting out its own terrain, similar and yet different.
Nestled in the crowded bylanes of Karampura this coll


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A local man was arrested today after police said he led them on a chase in a stolen ice cream delivery truck.
Francis Baptiste, 30, was charged with using a motor vehicle without authority, driving without a license, failure to stop for a police officer, possession of an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle, throwing glass on a public way, driving to endanger, six counts of failure to stop for a red traffic light and two counts of marked lanes violations.
Police said an officer in the Park Avenue/Chandler Street area received a broadcast that a 2012 Freightliner ice cream delivery truck had been stolen from a Millbury Street address.
Another officer nearby saw the truck near State Liquor on Park Avenue, and the two officers followed the truck, attempting to pull it over as it went 18 miles per hour down the road, police said.
The truck eventually made it to the Webster Square area, where the driver, later identified by police as Mr. Baptiste, threw a beer bottle at police.
The truck continued on Stafford Street into Leicester. Police said state police were notified, and came in to deploy "stop sticks" in the road.
The truck swerved around the device, used to puncture vehicle tires, just east of Route 56, police said.
The stop sticks were again deployed down the road in Charlton, where they were successful.
The truck came to a controlled stop soon after, but Mr. Baptiste would not come out, police said. They smashed the window and took him out.
He was taken back to Worcester for processing, police said. The truck was towed to a garage in Oxford.


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The history of all hitherto existing bike commutes is a history of, well, I don't know, pretty much the same thing this post is going to discuss right now. As much as there's a grand unifying vision that lends order and theoretical underpinning to all bike commute blogging, it's essentially this: no two rides are the same even if you take the same route. While a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters for a thousand years might be able to bang out some Shakespeare, a thousand monkeys on a thousand bicycles on a thousand rounds would only result in considerable traffic difficulties for all other road users for I doubt these monkeys would be cognizant of both the traffic laws and travel norms that allow us to have safe and functional commutes. And even if we somehow engaged our simian brethren in a series of classroom and road trainings related to the safe operation of bicycles and/or other vehicles (note: not pogo sticks), I hardly suspect that our message would get through to them. And such if the fate we suffer: if we launch Charlton Heston or any other actor into space, he would return to a world without bicycles and without statues of liberty and what kind of world would this be? Sure, they, the thousands of monkeys, would have re-created Shakespeare (now known as Ape-speare), but without bikes, could we even call them civilized? And should we? For same, theoretical monkey civilization of the distant future. For all of your humankind suppressing ways, you've neglected the most important lesson of all: to paraphrase (and butcher) Orwell "two wheels good, no wheels bad."
I rode down Massachusetts Avenue and took to the sidewalk when traffic got thick and backed up and I decided that I didn't want to wait in it. Prior to that, about halfway down the hill, shouted from across the way Kristen did: "HEY! WE FINALLY SAW EACH OTHER" because we've been riding up and down the hill on opposite schedules for a long time now. I shouted back and this is how conversations are had across 4 lanes of traffic. Apparently, the bike makes me rather spottable.
I continued down the hill and through the traffic and then through the traffic some more down 19th and then made a left on Penn and rode down Penn and over to through the car free plaza and to G Street to check on the status of the blocked bike lane from this morning. It was still mostly blocked by the fence blocking in the construction and I tweeted at DDOT and the world and I don't know if my effort at cleaving an additional foot of dedicated space for bicyclists will pay off. What I do know, however, is that in my attempts to position myself to take a picture, I was the ponce who blocked the bike lane for the other bicyclists heading in the opposite direction. Way to go, citizen helper. None of them kicked me, but it wouldn't have been out of line.
I took G to 11th, turned right and found myself waiting at the light at E. Why don't I always turn left on E, I wondered, instead of turning left on Pennsylvania one block later? Both streets go, generally, in the same direction, the direction of home, and E even has a gentler hill to climb than the Capitol grounds. A rare bit of ruminating, which I think is also the term for when you marinate something in rum. Some ruminated figs would be delicious, I bet.
I watched two drivers make u-turns on Pennsylvania Avenue. So much for the increased enforcement. I like my justice swift. But apparently, that's not how it's going to happen. Oh well.
I had the definite feeling that a guy was racing me all along East Capitol. I hate that feeling and I wish I had the good sense just to slow down and not care, but I don't have good sense and when caught in a pursuit (of a trivial nature...?) my inclination is to ride like I'm being chased, chased by a flying (note: not bicycling) monkey and so I did and while I didn't completely ignore traffic laws and ride with abandon, I certainly rode with greater haste than is my typical habit. He ended up passing me when I turned left from 11th around the park on East Capitol. Congrats, dude. You win.
Have a breezy weekend, y'all. Keep it real. I'll be around.


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RICHMOND, Va. – Let's take this opportunity to tip our cap to the Atlantic 10 Conference schedule-makers. Some might decry the short Thursday-Saturday turnaround, but this week the Rams will welcome the opportunity to get back to basketball.
In football, ESPN has an entire week to overanalyze why Tim Tebow didn't run more than four snaps in the wildcat. There are six days between games to stew on a loss, eight if you live on Skip Bayless' planet. Baseball players are pretty lucky in this respect. Whatever horror Tuesday wreaks, the sun will come up Wednesday and bring another ballgame with a chance for redemption.
That's why VCU (16-4, 4-1 A-10) should be happy about Saturday's game against La Salle at the Verizon Wireless Arena, which will tip less than 48 hours after the Rams heartbreaking 82-74 overtime loss to Richmond. That's not a lot of opportunity to irrationally dissect the season. It's human nature to act like this, but a quick turnaround affords a chance to turn the page. It's a long season, and one loss is just that. So the Rams aren't going to sweep the A-10 season. Other than that, what did we learn? That VCU is pretty unlucky when it comes to the opposition heaving desperation 28-foot 3-pointers with less than two seconds remaining on the road on weekdays against players whose names begin with a consonant? Terrific. Next!
"We've just got to move on quick and get ready for Saturday," junior Rob Brandenberg said Thursday night. "We play in less than 48 hours. We'll be able to do something about it then."
In my seven previous seasons covering the Rams, six ended with some type of postseason, including four NCAA tournaments. All seven years included at least 19 wins; In essence, seven great seasons. In those seven years, I've seen the Rams lose at the buzzer at George Mason (on Valentine's Day) and to a bad James Madison team (which led then-JMU Coach Dean Keener to commandeer the PA mic and blast some adrenaline-fueled plea for more fan support into the rafters — it didn't work, by the way).
There have been head-scratching losses at Hampton, UNC Wilmington, William & Mary, East Carolina, Western Michigan and Towson. This year's Richmond team is better than any from that quintet. Each loss caused us to obsess about basketball minutiae. We felt the same after each loss as do when we learn that Carson Daly still has a TV show: angry and disappointed, with an overriding desire to drive to Connecticut.
Look, by March, those games were long forgotten because the Rams picked themselves up and got back to work at Franklin Street Gym. They turned the page. Heck, in VCU's Final Four season, the Rams lost at a sub-par South Florida team and were thumped at Richmond. It's college basketball. It happens. Duke was absolutely pulverized by Miami (Fla.) the other night. And, as much as I enjoy piling on Duke (never gets old), the Blue Devils are still a very good basketball team; maybe the best team in the country. That doesn't change.
La Salle, which just stunned ninth-ranked Butler Wednesday, doesn't care what VCU did at Richmond Thursday, so the Rams shouldn't either. They need to be ready to guard the peach baskets at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
The A-10 is an incredibly competitive league. The championship teams don't always avoid a tough road loss – it happens to nearly every one – but they don't let Wednesday's (Thursday, in this case) loss beat them Saturday.
"We're in good position," VCU Coach Shaka Smart said. "We could've been in better position. It is what it is though. We've got to move on. I think emotionally, there are ups and downs, highs and lows to any season. We've had a lot of highs of late. The Saint Joe's game we were on the flipside. We were down late and obviously we came back and forced overtime and won. So, it's the maturity of the team and the guys on the team that's going to dictate how you're going to move on."
Cue the Silver Bullet Band.


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Atrial fibrillation
You can read about atrial fibrillation here. You will see there is a 'new' test to diagnose it. The new test takes 21 working days to give you the answer which is not exactly quick. But it might be worth knowing if you have atrial fibrillation. You might be more likely to have a stroke and you might be somebody who would benefit from anticoagulation. Dr Grumble is in the at risk age group but he has not had the new test for 'Afib' as they call it. Is that foolhardy? No. Dr Grumble can feel his pulse. It is regular. He hasn't got atrial fibrillation. A GP could do this and give you the answer straight away. It an old test but, if necessary, he could do a newer test, a twelve-lead ECG. But wait. An ECG could miss atrial fibrillation because it can be intermittent which is one of the reasons listed for having the new test. But look further down the page and you will see that the 'new' test will only diagnose atrial fibrillation if you have it while you have the test done. It doesn't sound as if the 'new' test is any better than a twelve-lead ECG. In fact it sounds rather worse. Are the public being conned?
Wait a minute. The new test is an ECG. Does any of this make sense?


text: AT&T has decided that just in time for the holiday season, or due to low sales volume, the BlackBerry Torch pricing point would get a good slashing - originally listed at $200.00 (w/ 2yr agreement), now for just a mere $99.99 the BlackBerry Torch can be yours! The holiday fun does not stop there however! AT&T has also introduced two new colors for the BlackBerry Torch - it is now available in Pure White, Sunset Red, and the original Charcoal. This is a great sales tactic on behalf of AT&T and RIM with the introduction of two new colors you now can get your own BlackBerry Torch 9800 if you have not already. If you already own one, they make a great stocking stuffer!


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Richmond, Virginia
Established in 1901, Sacred Heart Catholic Church is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in the Manchester area in Richmond, Va. Originally, Sacred Heart served an Irish and German congregation, and today it serves a growing Hispanic population. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
In 1990, the Sacred Heart Catholic Church community welcomed the Jesuits, and they still remain in residence today. That same year, the church opened the Sacred Heart Center in the former Sacred Heart School building.
The Sacred Heart Center is a non-profit community center serving the Hispanic community. Its mission is to create a hub for Richmond's Latino community that opens opportunities for economic and social integration, self-realization and community leadership. The programs offered include preparation for obtaining a GED as well as English classes and family literacy.
Additionally, the Sacred Heart Center partners with other nonprofit organizations and corporate volunteers to offer workshops on topics ranging from health and nutrition to parenting to financial literacy.


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A loud cracking or snap is usually the first sign your arm is broken. It also may appear deformed, swollen, bruised or bleed.
Other symptoms include extreme pain, increased pain with movement and loss of normal use of the arm.
Immediate Action
To slow bleeding and reduce swelling, raise the injured arm above the level of your heart. If a broken bone sticks out from the skin (open fracture), do not try to push it back in. Use a clean, dry cloth or bandage to cover it until medical help arrives.
It is important that you not try to use the broken arm. Moving a broken arm would also cause more damage to blood vessels, nerves and other tissues. To keep the broken area from moving, make a temporary splint, by taping a ruler or other supportive device to the arm. Even though a sling can be made from a scarf supported from the neck, the patient should go to the Emergency Room right away.


text: There's only a tiny amount of high-resolution Amsterdam. Dam Square in the centre of the city features a monument to Holland's WWII dead and is outside of the Royal Palace (the big white building). Follow the roads to the east and you reach the world famous Red Light District. Thanks: Auke Ypma, luckystarr, Chris & Ellen van Swieten (and Santiago for the correction).


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Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926 / Prague / Czech Republic)
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Elegy I
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
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