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Human Flesh Dumplings
On the 29th of the twelfth month, the fire at Duan Mu An Guo's birthday banquet had become a memory that would be hard to forget in this life. For the members of the Duan Mu family especially, that was a disaster, a humiliation and that had caused feelings of horror and danger to burrow themselves into their hearts.
Prince Lian had turned the topic of discussion to that large fire, and Duan Mu Cong's expression immediately changed. The fingers that held the cup of wine suddenly held it tighter, and his arm slightly trembled. Even his eyes revealed a fiery look, as he said through gritted teeth: "The Duan Mu family will definitely get revenge for that!"
Prince Lian went "pft" and immediately began laughing, "Get revenge?" She wagged her finger, "I fear that is impossible! This prince heard that this fire was started by Da Shun's imperial daughter Ji An. She's just a girl in her early teens, yet nobody in your entire manor was able to catch her. Instead, she was able to take care of half of your manpower. With just this bit of ability, you want to get revenge?"
While discussing this matter, the disclosure of weakness was what they feared most. Chatting idly was perfectly fine, but once a weakness was exposed, they would not like to hear this. Yet Prince Lian did not take the common route. Instead, she specifically prodded at the Duan Mu family's sore spot. Time and time again, how could this be permitted!
Duan Mu Cong was on the verge of a mental disorder from being angered by her. He was still able to maintain his consciousness; however, he had lost the majority of his ability to reason. The Prince Lian that he did not dare offend was now someone that he was prepared to go to war with. Expose weakness? He could also do it, "Hmph! Back then, Qian Zhou sent out its Divine Archery team to Da Shun to kidnap that imperial daughter's younger brother, hoping to use that to threaten the imperial daughter. What was the result? Weren't the lives of all those guards and divine archers lost, and all that there was to show for it just the single finger from that child's hand? We have both suffered the same, so neither can be ridiculed."
Prince Lian covered her mouth and laughed. After a while, she said: "They were already a group of idiots; however, they still wanted to go against Da Shun, which has a foundation built over many centuries. If they don't suffer a few losses, how can they learn their lesson. Moreover, there is someone responsible for every grievance and a debtor for every debt. They didn't have the ability to fight against the ninth prince and imperial daughter Ji An, but they will take action against a child. They really are lacking in maturity."
"Your Highness Prince Lian really is carefree." Duan Mu An Guo heard this conversation and interjected, "Could it be that your Highness has forgotten how imperial daughter Ji An treated Qian Zhou's princess Ru Jia?"
Prince Lian raised an eyebrow and looked at him, saying in a very confused tone: "Ru Jia is imperial cousin's own niece but not this prince's. What should this prince care! Despite Ru Jia's personality, Kang Yi was still willing to bring her to Da Shun. This made it clear that she was sending her daughter there to die. If her own mother wanted her to die, why should I care."
Duan Mu An Guo looked at Prince Lian for a while then stopped speaking. Duan Mu Cong, however, added: "As I see it, Qian Zhou only taking one finger from imperial daughter Ji An's brother is too little for her. That little one should have been killed then turned into stuffing for dumplings."
Prince Lian grimaced, saying with a disgusted and shocked tone: "It turned out that great leader's son like to eat human flesh dumplings? That's really quite good. The people that died at the great leader's manor on the day before yesterday can be cut up for you to eat. They've even been roasted, so the taste should be even better."
Having a profound experience of what it was like to hear fierce multilayered words, Duan Mu Cong returned to his own seat, defeated. In secret, he made up his mind that he would not say another word to Prince Lian.
At quarter past noon, the person that had been sent to deliver money to the Fu family then fetch a painting from Xian Zi Pavilion had returned. Kneeling before Duan Mu An Guo, he reported: "This subordinate went to the Fu family and found that they do indeed have a daughter named Fu Ya. A few days ago, she was selected to enter the Illusory Hall." As he spoke, he raised the three paintings above his head, "These are the paintings that were stored in Xian Zi Pavilion. Would my lord please take a look."
Duan Mu An Guo nodded, gesturing for a servant to bring the paintings over. Feng Yu Heng looked over, intending for herself to be exposed. She wanted for Duan Mu An Guo to see clearly.
The three paintings were held separately by three servants in front of Duan Mu An Guo. The girl in the paintings had calm and natural expressions. She did not smile, she was not sad, and it was as though everything was unrelated to her. She was indeed beautiful; however, it was not that delicate and charming type of beauty. Instead, she was like a flower of ice, as a chilliness emanated from her essence.
He then looked to look at Feng Yu Heng, standing behind Prince Lian and saw that they had the same face. It was just that it looked a little more clever and a little angrier than in the painting. But this was the difference between a live person and a painting. This was not uncommon.
Duan Mu An Guo furrowed his brow. Although this girl looked to be Fu Ya based on the painting, why did he feel that she looked like the one that had started the fire that day? He asked the attendant that had returned: "These paintings were stored in Xian Zi Pavilion?"
The attendant nodded: "That's right. These are paintings of the Fu family's daughter taken from Xian Zi Pavilion. This subordinate personally saw the painters bring this out. They even have the dates marked down."
Duan Mu An Guo glanced at the date then did not continue to ask. He could see that these paintings were indeed real. If they were painted recently, the paint could not possibly be like this. Could it be that he was overthinking it?
With these doubts in mind, the 100 family banquet continued until quarter to 3PM. When Duan Mu An Guo finally announced the conclusion of the banquet, Feng Yu Heng poked at Prince Lian, who had fallen asleep on the table, and said with a frown: "Hey, wake up."
The two maids that held the ice lanterns looked at her for a while but did not say anything. One of them just moved the lantern that they held closer to Prince Lian. The cold aura emanating from the lantern combined with its fragrance immediately caused Prince Lian to wake up.
The woman took a couple deep breaths then comfortably stretched herself. She then stood up and dragged Feng Yu Heng away from the scene without paying any heed to Duan Mu An Guo.
Ever since Duan Mu An Guo had expressed the desire to submit and pledge allegiance to Qian Zhou, Qian Zhou had set up a posthouse in Song Zhou. When Prince Lian came on this trip, she stayed in Qian Zhou's posthouse.
Feng Yu Heng followed Prince Lian back to the posthouse. Right before leaving the Winter Palace, she did not get a chance to see Ban Zou. She did not know if it was because of the changing of the guard or if he had found a new job. Feng Yu Heng thought that he should have seen everything that had happened in the Winter Palace, thus he should be hidden somewhere nearby at this moment, right? Just like before, he would be her shadow?
"This cloak has been touched by Duan Mu An Guo. Take it and have it burned." After Prince Lian entered the posthouse, she removed the cloak and threw it to a servant, "That old thing Duan Mu An Guo has a weird smell, and it's really disgusting."
Feng Yu Heng believed that these words were correct.
A room in the posthouse was left to her. Prince Lian did not mention what she wanted for her to do, and it seemed that she was treated slightly differently from the other servants.
Feng Yu Heng returned to her room and went to lie down in bed, closing her eyes to get some rest. She had been training fervently in the IllusoryHall the previous day and practically had no chance to sleep. In addition to this, there had been no shortage of fuss over the past few days. Now, she really was sleepy.
Unfortunately, not long after she closed her eyes and before she could fall asleep, she heard a quiet sound come from the door. Immediately following this, someone sneakily entered the room. Although the footsteps were as gentle as possible, they were still extremely loud to Feng Yu Heng.
Quietly sighing, she helplessly said: "I really can't even get some proper sleep!" After saying this, she suddenly sat up.
The person that had snuck in was nearly frightened to death. After letting out a shriek, they patted their chest and repeatedly said: "You scared me to death."
Feng Yu Heng rolled her eyes, "Your Highness Prince Lian, is something the matter?"
"Hah, you're really no fun." The person that had come was Prince Lian. This person seemed to favor red clothes. Although she had clearly changed her clothes, she still wore a dazzling-red color. Combined with her pale complexion, it looked very odd. "Would it kill you to just pretend?" While saying this, she took a sip of date tea then handed it over to Feng Yu Heng: "Have a taste. It tastes very good, it replenishes blood and helps nourish your skin."
Feng Yu Heng shook her head, "I am still young and don't need this kind of thing." She had a good feeling about Prince Lian, and it was not just a bit, but she needed to control this feeling to prevent it from becoming too prominent. Since this person was from Qian Zhou and was a member of Qian Zhou's imperial family, due to the enmity that she held toward Qian Zhou's imperial family, she had no intention of forgiving anyone with the surname Feng. This included any lackeys that those people raised.
Feng Yu Heng retreated a bit, not wanting to get too close to Prince Lian. Although they were both women, the softness emanating from the other person left her feeling a little uncomfortable.
Prince Lian did not appear unhappy. She just said to her: "I had someone prepare some food for you. You spent the day standing around in the Winter Palace. You must be tired and hungry. Duan Mu An Guo, that old thing, only knows how to do these worthless things. For such performances to continue so long, it could bore someone to death."
Feng Yu Heng did not accept her kind intentions, "I'm not hungry. I'm very full."
"Hm?" Prince Lian was puzzled, "When did you eat?"
"When you were sleeping during the 100 family banquet, I finished your fish." Feng Yu Heng spoke truthfully. That fish was truly delicious. Even to this moment, the aftertaste continued to linger.
Prince Lian opened her mouth wide and looked at Feng Yu Heng with a worshipping look: "Well damn, you really are good! You actually dared to eat your master's fish in front of so many people. But, hah! Tell me, what sort of expression did that old thing, Duan Mu An Guo, have when you ate that fish?"
Feng Yu Heng thought back carefully to the expression that Duan Mu An Guo had. After a while, however, she shook her head: "I can't remember. I was only focused on eating and did not even look at him."
Prince Lian was a little disappointed, "Hah, you definitely missed out on the most spectacular expression of this year. I will tell you that Duan Mu An Guo pays far more attention to these fish than any living person. Did you not see his face when the two fish were brought up? Really, you should have taken a couple more looks back then. Or you should have woken me up. To see that old thing be humiliated is truly something worthy of celebrating."
Feng Yu Heng was puzzled, "What exactly is the enmity between you and Duan Mu An Guo? Also, why did you take me in? Are you not worried that I'm a bad person?"
Prince Lian waved her hand, "I've seen plenty of bad people in this world. I saw that you did not look like one, thus you definitely are not. As for the enmity between me and Duan Mu An Guo, hmph!" As she spoke, her expression became cold. It happened in the blink of an eye, as the cheery and smiling face immediately became covered in a thousand-year permafrost. It was as though the person had become a ghoul or a demon. It was just like the transformation that occurred in the scariest of monster stories that had been passed down over 5000 years of Chinese history. It was truly a chilling sight for anyone to behold.
Even if it was Feng Yu Heng, she still trembled in place and tried to ask: "What happened to you?"


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Products by the Dutch company are used by many big event organisers for events of all kinds, and that for good reason. Prolyte sets itself apart through a unique customer-service and high-quality products. But safety is definitely their first priority. All of their products are made of the best materials and undergo strict quality controls. They are guaranteed to always comply with the latest DIN and EN norms. In order to be the first ones to react to amendments to the law, Prolyte employees are part of industry-specific EU committees which set the safety standards in the industry. This enables them to always be ahead of their competitors.
Unique is also the flexibility of their product range. Customers can order custom truss and stage constructions. So, if the conventional designs don't fit your needs, no worries. Just let us know and we will contact the manufacturer for you! Prolyte's factory is situated in Europe, which makes it possible for shipments to reach every event location in no time.
Another aspect which makes the truss special is that it comes with a serial number. This enables you to easily distinguish your trussing from everyone else's. Unique are also the Prolyte hybrid couplers. These are colour coded and marked with a logo (blue with Prolyte logo). If the quantity you order exceeds 3000 coupler, it is possible to get them in your company's colours and with your company's logo printed on them.
The innovative Verto coupling system was introduced in 2006: quick, quiet and tool-less.
Prolyte trussing represents highest safety standards and quality for fair prices.
Stage decks are one of the cornerstones of stage constructions. Without them many shows, such as concerts, fashion shows or product presentations, would only be half as successful. They are however also very popular with smaller clubs, schools and theatre productions. Because stages constantly have to bear high weights they have to follow the newest safety regulations. For all of the above reasons we distribute high-quality stage decks by Prolyte.
This Dutch company's product range of staging equipment includes decks, legs, stairs, ramps and railings. The decks designed for indoor use are called Basicline. Those intended for outdoor use are the so-called WeatherLine/BasicTop and the Topline, which is able to carry heavy duty railings with a weight of up to 100kg per meter. All deck elements are made of high-quality wood and their surfaces are coated in water resistant and non-slip materials. The Basicline however is also available with a transparent or frosted acrylate surface. The decks come in standard sizes of 2x1m, 1x1m, 2x0.5m and 1x0.5m and also come as corners and circles. With these platforms it is super easy and quick to create a multitude of stage layouts. But sometimes you might simply not be able to find the exact piece you are looking for. If that is the case, no worries! Prolyte is always willing to create custom solutions for your staging needs. They also design big stages with a Prolyte EasyFrame system substructure or a Layher substructure. Because their factory is located in central Europe, quick and smooth shipment is guaranteed.
All of the aforementioned decks possess a standard middle beam. This gives the stage greater stability and reduces noise and vibrations. It also ensures that the platforms can carry a load of up to 750kg per m². What really sets Prolyte apart however is that they let their customers know which parts of the stage are able to bear how much weight. None of their competitors offer this degree of customer service. Their stage decks furthermore don't possess any plastic parts which could break and hurt the construction workers.
But what makes assembling these stages so quick and easy? One of the contributing factors is Prolyte's unique system of standard, adjustable and telescopic legs. They offer heights of up to 1.7m and are connected to the decks through the simple switch of a lever. But connecting individual decks to each other is also super easy, thanks to the deck-to-deck clamps.
When it comes to safety, Prolyte is always one step ahead of its competitors. Their products adhere to the newest German and European safety regulations like DIN (DIN 15921 especially) and EN.
For fair prices you can therefore get high-quality and durable products which are sure to perform exceptionally at all kinds of events.
The most important aspect of rigging is safety, and not just the safety of the performers and audience but also the safety of the rigger. To ensure that your team is well equipped for every event, we offer equipment such as couplers, PSA, safeties, straps and much more by the companies Admiral, Edelrid and Safetex.
Admiral is a Dutch company which produces couplers, clamps, gismos, cable guides and a modular rigging system. All of their products are TÜV certified and fulfil the newest safety standards. Because the company only uses high-quality materials during the production process the durability and robustness of their products increases significantly. With their innovative modular rigging series, Admiral has developed a unique system which is best suited for permanent installations, showrooms and mobile applications. This series includes downriggers, floor racks, drop arms and single racks which allow you to place spotlights at various heights and thus create impressive lighting effects. Other revolutionary innovations are the so-called Snake Cable Guides. These cable guide systems are most useful in the theatre and for permanent installations. They are available at different widths and lengths, in black or silver and can be coated in any RAL colour, on request.
Edelrid produces safety equipment for all of those working in great heights. This German company's product range includes PSA, rope, helmets, karabiner, clamps, slings and casters. All of their products are "Made in Germany" and comply with the newest safety regulations. Ever since their founding in 1863, they value innovation and outstanding quality very highly. For these reasons you can always rely on their equipment to keep you safe.
And last but not least, there are shackles, safety wires, round slings, and straps by Safetex. The company specialises in producing everything that a rigger might need to do his job safely. Their products are top-quality and go through rigorous quality controls and fulfil all German and European safety standards. Their blackline, straps and round slings have been manufactured here in Germany, according to the following principles: high performance, high durability and a carefully thought out design. Another aspect which sets them apart from their competitors is their customer oriented flexibility. So if you ever find yourself in need of custom designs, no problem. Safetex will come up with solutions tailored to your wishes.
The topic of transport dollies is no small issue, because nothing damages expensive equipment more than negligent transport and unsafe storage. Investing in the right transporting solutions makes the assembly and dismantling of stages nearly effortless for the workers. For these reasons, Admiral has set itself the task of coming up with ergonomically designed and cleverly devised dollies and meatracks for the transport of stage decks, truss, baseplates, lighting equipment, cables and smaller tools.
The StageDex dollies are best combined with Prolyte's Basicline and Topline, which are indoor and outdoor decks. The dollies have lengths of 1m or 2m and can carry up to 6 decks. To ensure a smooth handling you can insert the decks at an angle and then tilt them until they reach 90°. They are then secured to the side of wagon via a bolt. This process is back-friendly and time-saving. But there is also the StageDex transporter PRO. It is truly unique because it is the only dolly available which can fit beneath 40cm stages and be stored there.
When it comes to the transport of truss you can choose between multiple options. One of them is the Strong Boy which consists of a steel base and is coated in zinc to increase its durability and longevity. It is also equipped with rubber studs which provide optimal friction between the truss and the base and make it suitable for 30 and 40 truss. But, if you desire more flexibility you should have a look at Admiral's Teckel system. A Teckel is a metal beam to which 2 castors can be fastened to. If you connect two Teckels which each other via two metal tubes you get a simple transport solution for truss. You can freely combine Teckels with each other so that they fit all kinds of truss' lengths. Skid-resistance and safety are of course guaranteed.
The transport of baseplates is very similar to the transport of stage decks. Here, the dolly consists of two individual components: the flightcase and holders, which can also be purchased separately. They are available in different sizes and are suited for 6mm, 8mm and 10mm wide and 73cm, 80cm and 100cm long baseplates. It is of course possible to also carry all necessary connectors in the dolly itself.
And don't worry, Admiral hasn't forgotten about your lighting equipment. They have designed meatracks of various widths and 110cm or 203cm heights. Fitting the racks with several metal tubes allows you to transport as many moving heads, lighting bars, spotlights, etc. as you need.
And last but not least, there are the cable racks. They come with 80mm wide brackets which are fitted to metal beams which prevent the cables from bending and damaging their internal wiring. Here, the placement of the brackets is completely up to you.
In theatre, especially, it is important that the audience can fully focus on what's happening on stage and is not distracted by their surroundings. It is therefore often necessary to cover truss constructions and stage substructures through cloth. With backdrops and molton rolls by Admiral this is made super easy.
Backdrops are often used to cover up stages and walls. The backdrops by Admiral are unique because they consist of a very light and yet sturdy material which only weighs 320g/m² and is very crease resistant. All backdrops are of course flame retardant in accordance with DIN 4102 B1. That means that you can go all out when it comes to using special effects. These backdrops are available in the following sizes: widths of 3m or 6m and lengths of 3m, 4m, 5m or 6m. If these sizes don't fit your stage, don't worry! Admiral is always willing to come up with custom solutions.
Deco-molton is used to cover up the edges of a stage. It is available in black and white and comes in rolls of 60m length and 20cm, 40cm, 60cm, 80cm and 100cm width. This material is designed with ease-of-use in mind and you will hence also get 3 rolls of double sided tape with each roll of molton.
Our accessories are all about cables. They are essential when it comes to powering lighting and sound equipment. For this reason, we offer you 3- and 5-pin DMX and XLR cables by Admiral. These high-quality products are available in lengths of 0.5-20m and guarantee an exceptional signal transmission.
And in case you want to assemble your own cables, we also offer separate plugs and chassis. Here, too, you have 3- and 5-pin options, in male and female models.
Another important category are the cable ties. They are used to bundle cables quickly and efficiently and are available in 3 different lengths and 8 different colours. Admiral has created something truly special with the cable tie "Jan Willem". These are re-usable rubber bands in the lengths 8cm, 16c, and 23cm. From now on, you will no longer need plastic cable ties or gaffa tape. They can be loosened and refastened very easily and create a very clean look. They are furthermore nearly indestructible.
And last but not least, there are the cable bridges. They protect your cables from strong forces and ensure that the inner wiring isn't damaged during use. They are available in many different shapes with 1 to 5 channels.
Item number: 753830000170
Clip for attaching the Asteri headtorch on a helmet without headband.
Shipping time: 4 - 6 workdays
Please note the minimum purchase of 2 units
Max quantity limit per purchase
- Weight (g): 8- Asymmetric : nein

subset: commoncrawl


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Brian Fleming
inFamous: Second Son fan Q&A yields new insight, Delsin's appearance changes with karma levels
inFamous: Second Son producer and Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming has conducted a fan Q&A focused on the team's March 21 release. It's got some new insight into the Seattle setting, and how karma affects not just Delsin; but those closest to him as well.
Brian Fleming headlines
Sucker Punch didn't "cash out" with Sony acquisition, says co-founder
Sly Cooper and InFamous developer Sucker Punch didn't join the Sony Worldwide Studios family for financial reasons.
Sucker Punch blames itself for lack of inFamous support at launch
Sucker Punch's Brian Fleming believes inFamous was turned out to be "an okay game," but it could have been better if the firm had supported it more.
inFAMOUS man talks side-kicks, power-grids, more
Speaking at PAX, inFAMOUS producer Brian Fleming's adding a fair bit of detail to inFAMOUS's setting, including the fact the protagonist, Cole, will have side-kicks in the game.The third-person action adventure sees Cole take on electricity-related super-powers, which are stocked up by sucking powers from the city's general supply.There's more in the there as well […]
Brian Fleming latest


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About Revolution Games
Revolution Games is here to start a revolution in fun game play. Our goal is to create fun and unique games that utilize every aspect of the player's mind, environment and movement. Try out Sherwood Forest Archery to understand the experience!
See if you can be part of the Merry Men and test your skills in Sherwood Forest Archery.
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Are they any different from the Broadarrow version that were flying about a few years back ? I love CWC but the prices are a joke recently.
Ive long been a fan of the mil-diver and, like a lot of other people, missed the boat when CWC prices were reasonable.
My first expensive watch was the Omega 2264 which is obviously a firm nod to a previous era of such watches. Ive also owned Eddies current incarnation of the Precista branded PRS-3 which is a hell of a watch, if slightly on the large and heavy side.
Having owned several Zeno Ive always been very impressed with the quality of fit and finish so I cant really explain why Ive not bought the PRS-3 before now. Never the right time I suppose.
A week or so ago I got the chance to buy one at a great price (especially when compared to the used CWC prices) so took the plunge.
Firstly Ive not worn anything else since the moment it arrived! My thoughts after a week are:
The good:
Perfect size for my 6.75 inch wrist
Combination of brushes and polished surfaces is spot on
Lugs at 20mm are much better than the 22mm on the Precista
Second hand hits every marker
Crown, stem and assembly are form and smooth (admittedly theyve just been replaced at Zeno)
Bezel action is firm
Looks fantastic on loads of NATOs and straps
Spring bars are a lot more convenient than the CWC fixed bars
Im not so keen on:
Green dial lume
Lume on dial and hands dont match and have different brightness in the dark
All-in-all I think its a fantastic little watch that represents great value for money.
Some pics:
Are they any different from the Broadarrow version that were flying about a few years back ? I love CWC but the prices are a joke recently.
Also why is the crown out ?
Your observations are spot-on, David.
I've handled one and it's a decent watch for the money.
I guess I've become spoiled by my Damasko and Citizen Chronomaster, but sapphire crystals without effective AR coating are a pet peeve of mine that can really ruin a watch for me.
Looks excellent on the bracelet, a worthy addition to a cracking watch.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.
The Zeno PRS-3 is an awesome watch. Mine is on an Isofrane-clone (Borealis) which is an excellent and comfortable fitting strap.
< here should be a pic but it doesn't show in preview while in every other browser the link works >
The screw-back is still marked PRS-3, Broadarrow, 30 BAR, which raises the question whether they used leftovers from previous production runs.
Lume lasts all night, not very bright but useable; however the dial is more faint than the hands. This is no problem, unlike others I think the difference in brightness between hands and dial enhances readability. I'd rather have the T for Tritium replaced with L for Luminova, it's just fake and who needs tritium anyway. The ZENO-marking could have been a little more sophisticated.
My specimen doesn't tic on the markers but gains only ca. 4 to 5 s/month which is pretty decent.
Especially attractive is the highly polished stainless chapter ring combined with the wide diameter but narrow bezel, it makes the watch look smart.
In short: an attractive and very useable grab-and-go watch with 10 years battery-life.
Just seen this through idlebrowsing, what a cracking combo on that unbelievably cheap bracelt. Superb!
Do these have the same 10 year battery life movement of the venerable original (PRS-3)
I should never have sold this one 😥


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This little gizmo was placed in one of our facility's lobbies this week. (No, it's not being used to get your boarding pass on your way to the airport, but it is amazing the parallels health care is taking with the airline industry):
Click to enlarge
Instead, it's used to check in patients presenting to have their blood drawn for prothromin times.
Click to enlarge
Just swipe your credit card, confirm your appointment, sign your name, and away you go!
On seeing this, one doctor exclaimed, "But INR checks are my patient's only chance to get out and socialize!"
Fortunately for now there are still helpful assistants there to help them learn how to use the device.


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GRID technology
Grid computing is a phrase in distributed computing which can have several meanings:
- Multiple independent computing clusters which act like a "grid" because they are composed of nodes not located within a single administrative domain or at a single geographical location.
- Offering online computation or storage as a metered commercial service, known as utility computing, computing on demand, or cloud computing.
- The creation of a "virtual supercomputer" by using spare computing resources within an organization.
- The creation of a "virtual supercomputer" by using a network of geographically dispersed computers. Volunteer computing, which generally focuses on scientific, mathematical, and academic problems, is the most common application of this technology.
These varying definitions cover the spectrum of "distributed computing", and sometimes the two terms are used as synonyms. This article focuses on distributed computing technologies which are not in the traditional dedicated clusters; otherwise, see computer cluster.
Functionally, one can also speak of several types of grids:
- Computational grids (including CPU Scavenging grids) which focuses primarily on computationally-intensive operations.
- Data grids or the controlled sharing and management of large amounts of distributed data.
- Equipment grids which have a primary piece of equipment e.g. a telescope, and where the surrounding Grid is used to control the equipment remotely and to analyze the data produced.
- 1 Grids versus conventional supercomputers
- 2 Design considerations and variations
- 3 CPU scavenging
- 4 History
- 5 Fastest virtual supercomputers
- 6 Current projects and applications
- 7 Definitions
- 8 See also
- 9 References
- 10 External links
Grids versus conventional supercomputers
"Distributed" or "grid" computing in general is a special type of parallel computing which relies on complete computers (with onboard CPU, storage, power supply, network interface, etc.) connected to a network (private, public or the Internet) by a conventional network interface, such as Ethernet. This is in contrast to the traditional notion of a supercomputer, which has many processors connected by a local high-speed computer bus.
The primary advantage of distributed computing is that each node can be purchased as commodity hardware, which when combined can produce similar computing resources to a multiprocessor supercomputer, but at lower cost. This is due to the economies of scale of producing commodity hardware, compared to the lower efficiency of designing and constructing a small number of custom supercomputers. The primary performance disadvantage is that the various processors and local storage areas do not have high-speed connections. This arrangement is thus well-suited to applications in which multiple parallel computations can take place independently, without the need to communicate intermediate results between processors.
The high-end scalability of geographically dispersed grids is generally favorable, due to the low need for connectivity between nodes relative to the capacity of the public Internet. Conventional supercomputers also create physical challenges in supplying sufficient electricity and cooling capacity in a single location. Both supercomputers and grids can be used to run multiple parallel computations at the same time, which might be different simulations for the same project, or computations for completely different applications. The infrastructure and programming considerations needed to do this on each type of platform are different, however.
There are also some differences in programming and deployment. It can be costly and difficult to write programs so that they can be run in the environment of a supercomputer, which may have a custom operating system, or require the program to address concurrency issues. If a problem can be adequately parallelized, a "thin" layer of "grid" infrastructure can allow conventional, standalone programs to run on multiple machines (but each given a different part of the same problem). This makes it possible to write and debug programs on a single conventional machine, and eliminates complications due to multiple instances of the same program running in the same shared memory and storage space at the same time.
Design considerations and variations
One feature of distributed grids is that they can be formed from computing resources belonging to multiple individuals or organizations (known as multiple administrative domains). This can facilitate commercial transactions, as in utility computing, or make it easier to assemble volunteer computing networks.
One disadvantage of this feature is that the computers which are actually performing the calculations might not be entirely trustworthy. The designers of the system must thus introduce measures to prevent malfunctions or malicious participants from producing false, misleading, or erroneous results, and from using the system as an attack vector. This often involves assigning work randomly to different nodes (presumably with different owners) and checking that at least two different nodes report the same answer for a given work unit. Discrepancies would identify malfunctioning and malicious nodes.
Due to the lack of central control over the hardware, there is no way to guarantee that nodes will not drop out of the network at random times. Some nodes (like laptops or dialup Internet customers) may also be available for computation but not network communications for unpredictable periods. These variations can be accommodated by assigning large work units (thus reducing the need for continuous network connectivity) and reassigning work units when a given node fails to report its results as expected.
The impacts of trust and availability on performance and development difficulty can influence the choice of whether to deploy onto a dedicated computer cluster, to idle machines internal to the developing organization, or to an open external network of volunteers or contractors.
In many cases, the participating nodes must trust the central system not to abuse the access that is being granted, by interfering with the operation of other programs, mangling stored information, transmitting private data, or creating new security holes. Other systems employ measures to reduce the amount of trust "client" nodes must place in the central system such as placing applications in virtual machines.
Public systems or those crossing administrative domains (including different departments in the same organization) often result in the need to run on heterogeneous systems, using different operating systems and hardware architectures. With many languages, there is a tradeoff between investment in software development and the number of platforms that can be supported (and thus the size of the resulting network). Cross-platform languages can reduce the need to make this tradeoff, though potentially at the expense of high performance on any given node (due to run-time interpretation or lack of optimization for the particular platform).
Various middleware projects have created generic infrastructure, to allow diverse scientific and commercial projects to harness a particular associated grid, or for the purpose of setting up new grids. BOINC is a common one for academic projects seeking public volunteers; more are listed at the end of the article
CPU scavenging
CPU-scavenging, cycle-scavenging, cycle stealing, or shared computing creates a "grid" from the unused resources in a network of participants (whether worldwide or internal to an organization). Typically this technique uses desktop computer instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted at night, during lunch, or even in the scattered seconds throughout the day when the computer is waiting for user input or slow devices.
Volunteer computing projects use the CPU scavenging model almost exclusively.
In practice, participating computers also donate some supporting amount of disk storage space, RAM, and network bandwidth, in addition to raw CPU power. Since nodes are apt to go "offline" from time to time, as their owners use their resources for their primary purpose, this model must be designed to handle such contingencies.
The term Grid computing originated in the early 1990s as a metaphor for making computer power as easy to access as an electric power grid in Ian Foster and Carl Kesselmans seminal work, "The Grid: Blueprint for a new computing infrastructure".
CPU scavenging and volunteer computing were popularized beginning in 1997 by distributed.net and later in 1999 by SETI@home to harness the power of networked PCs worldwide, in order to solve CPU-intensive research problems.
The ideas of the grid (including those from distributed computing, object oriented programming, cluster computing, web services and others) were brought together by Ian Foster, Carl Kesselman and Steve Tuecke, widely regarded as the "fathers of the grid[1]." They led the effort to create the Globus Toolkit incorporating not just computation management but also storage management, security provisioning, data movement, monitoring and a toolkit for developing additional services based on the same infrastructure including agreement negotiation, notification mechanisms, trigger services and information aggregation. While the Globus Toolkit remains the defacto standard for building grid solutions, a number of other tools have been built that answer some subset of services needed to create an enterprise or global grid.
Fastest virtual supercomputers
- BOINC - 525 teraflops, as of 4 Jun 2007 [2]
- Folding@Home - 1224 teraflops, as of 23 Sept 2007 [3]
Seminal work done:
Current projects and applications
Grids offer a way to solve Grand Challenge problems like protein folding, financial modeling, earthquake simulation, and climate/weather modeling. Grids offer a way of using the information technology resources optimally inside an organization. They also provide a means for offering information technology as a utility for commercial and non-commercial clients, with those clients paying only for what they use, as with electricity or water.
Grid computing is presently being applied successfully by the National Science Foundation's National Technology Grid, NASA's Information Power Grid, Pratt & Whitney, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Co., and American Express.[citation needed]
One of the most famous cycle-scavenging networks is SETI@home, which was using more than 3 million computers to achieve 23.37 sustained teraflops (979 lifetime teraflops) as of September 2001 [3].
As of May 2005, Folding@home had achieved peaks of 186 teraflops on over 160,000 machines.
Another well-known project is distributed.net, which was started in 1997 and has run a number of successful projects in its history.
The NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility (NAS) has run genetic algorithms using the Condor cycle scavenger running on about 350 Sun and SGI workstations.
Until April 27, 2007, United Devices operated the United Devices Cancer Research Project based on its Grid MP product, which cycle scavenges on volunteer PCs connected to the Internet. As of June 2005, the Grid MP ran on about 3,100,000 machines [4].
The Enabling Grids for E-sciencE project, which is based in the European Union and includes sites in Asia and the United States, is a follow up project to the European DataGrid (EDG) and is arguably the largest computing grid on the planet. This, along with the LHC Computing Grid [4] (LCG) have been developed to support the experiments using the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The LCG project is driven by CERN's need to handle huge amounts of data, where storage rates of several gigabytes per second (10 petabytes per year) are required. A list of active sites participating within LCG can be found online[5] as can real time monitoring of the EGEE infrastructure.[6] The relevant software and documentation is also publicly accessible.[7]
Today there are many definitions of Grid computing:
- In his article "What is the Grid? A Three Point Checklist"[8], Ian Foster lists these primary attributes:
- Computing resources are not administered centrally.
- Open standards are used.
- Non-trivial quality of service is achieved.
- Plaszczak/Wellner[9] define grid technology as "the technology that enables resource virtualization, on-demand provisioning, and service (resource) sharing between organizations."
- IBM defines grid computing as "the ability, using a set of open standards and protocols, to gain access to applications and data, processing power, storage capacity and a vast array of other computing resources over the Internet. A grid is a type of parallel and distributed system that enables the sharing, selection, and aggregation of resources distributed across 'multiple' administrative domains based on their (resources) availability, capacity, performance, cost and users' quality-of-service requirements" [10]
- An earlier example of the notion of computing as utility was in 1965 by MIT's Fernando Corbató. Fernando and the other designers of the Multics operating system envisioned a computer facility operating "like a power company or water company". http://www.multicians.org/fjcc3.html
- Buyya defines a grid as "a type of parallel and distributed system that enables the sharing, selection, and aggregation of geographically distributed autonomous resources dynamically at runtime depending on their availability, capability, performance, cost, and users' quality-of-service requirements".[11]
- CERN, one of the largest users of grid technology, talk of The Grid: "a service for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet." [12]
Grids can be categorized with a three stage model of departmental grids, enterprise grids and global grids. These correspond to a firm initially utilising resources within a single group i.e. an engineering department connecting desktop machines, clusters and equipment. This progresses to enterprise grids where non-technical staff's computing resources can be used for cycle-stealing and storage. A global grid is a connection of enterprise and departmental grids which can be used in a commercial or collaborative manner.
See also
- Distributed computing
- List of distributed computing projects
- High-performance computing
- Network Agility
- Render farm
- Semantic grid
- Supercomputer
- Computer cluster
- Computon
- Grid FileSystem
- Edge computing
- Metacomputing
- Cloud Computing
- Space based architecture (SBA)
Alliances and organizations
- Open Grid Forum (Formerly Global Grid Forum)
- Object Management Group
Production grids
- Enabling Grids for E-sciencE
- NorduGrid
- Open Science Grid
- OurGrid
- Sun Grid
- Xgrid
- Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications DEISA
- FusionGrid
- INFN Production Grid [5]
- UC Grid [6]
International Grid Projects
|Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute Europe (OMII-Europe)
|May 2006
|May 2008
|Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE)
|March 2004
|March 2006
|Enabling Grids for E-sciencE II (EGEE II)
|April 2006
|April 2008
|Business Experiments in GRID (BEinGRID)
|June 2006
|November 2009
|September 2006
|August 2009
|Europe and North America
|January 2001
|January 2003
|European DataGrid (EDG)
|March 2001
|March 2004
|Europe (Baltic States)
|November 2005
|April 2008
National Grid Projects
- D-Grid (German)
- GARUDA (Indian)
- National Grid Service (UK)
- VECC (Calcutta, India)
- China Grid Project
- INFN Grid (Italian)
- KnowledgeGrid Malaysia
- NAREGI Project
- Singapore National Grid Project
- Thai National Grid Project
- BELNET Grid, Belgium [12]
- Hellasgrid (Greek) [13]
- Swiss National Grid Association [14]
Standards and APIs
- A Simple API for Grid Applications (SAGA)
- Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA)
- Distributed Resource Management Application API (DRMAA)
- Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI)
- Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)
- Open Grid Services Infrastructure (OGSI)
- Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF)
Software implementations and middleware
- Advanced Resource Connector (NorduGrid's ARC)
- Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
- Globus Toolkit
- Message Passing Interface (MPI)
- Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM)
- Simple Grid Protocol
- Sun Grid Engine
- ProActive
- SDSC Storage resource broker (data grid)
- gLite (EGEE)
- NInf GridRPC
- IceGrid
- Invisionix Roaming System Remote (IRSR)
- Java CoG Kit
- Alchemi [15]
- GridGain [16]
- gridGISTICS [17]
- Gridbus Middleware [18]
- Java Parallel Processing Framework (JPPF) [19]
- Vishwa [20]
- ^ Father of the Grid.
- ^ [1], accessed 4 Jun 2007
- ^ [2], accessed 23 Sept 2007
- ^ Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid offical homepage
- ^ http://goc.grid.sinica.edu.tw/gstat/
- ^ http://gridportal.hep.ph.ic.ac.uk/rtm/
- ^ http://lcg.web.cern.ch/LCG/activities/deployment.html
- ^ What is the Grid? A Three Point Checklist (pdf).
- ^ P Plaszczak, R Wellner, Grid computing, 2005, Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco
- ^ IBM Solutions Grid for Business Partners: Helping IBM Business Partners to Grid-enable applications for the next phase of e-business on demand.
- ^ A Gentle Introduction to Grid Computing and Technologies (pdf). Retrieved on 2005-05-06.
- ^ The Grid Café - What is Grid?. CERN. Retrieved on 2005-02-04.
- Davies, Antony (June 2004). "Computational Intermediation and the Evolution of Computation as a Commodity" (pdf). Applied Economics.
- Foster, Ian; Carl Kesselman. The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. ISBN 1-55860-475-8.
- Plaszczak, Pawel; Rich Wellner, Jr. Grid Computing "The Savvy Manager's Guide". Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. ISBN 0-12-742503-9.
- Berman, Fran; Anthony J. G. Hey, Geoffrey C. Fox. Grid Computing: Making The Global Infrastructure a Reality. Wiley. ISBN 0-470-85319-0.
- Li, Maozhen; Mark A. Baker. The Grid: Core Technologies. Wiley. ISBN 0-470-09417-6.
- Catlett, Charlie; Larry Smarr (June 1992). "Metacomputing". Communications of the ACM 35 (6).
- Smith, Roger (2005). Grid Computing: A Brief Technology Analysis. CTO Network Library.
- Buyya, Rajkumar (July 2005). "Grid Computing: Making the Global Cyberinfrastructure for eScience a Reality". CSI Communications 29 (1). Mumbai, India: Computer Society of India (CSI). ISSN 0970-647X.
- Berstis, Viktors. Fundamentals of Grid Computing. IBM.
- Ferreira, Luis; et.al.. Grid Computing Products and Services. IBM.
- Ferreira, Luis; et.al.. Introduction to Grid Computing with Globus. IBM.
- Jacob, Bart; et.al.. Enabling Applications for Grid Computing. IBM.
- Ferreira, Luis; et.al.. Grid Services Programming and Application Enablement. IBM.
- Jacob, Bart; et.al.. Introduction to Grid Computing. IBM.
- Ferreira, Luis; et.al.. Grid Computing in Research and Education. IBM.
- Ferreira, Luis; et.al.. Globus Toolkit 3.0 Quick Start. IBM.
- Surridge, Mike; et.al.. Experiences with GRIA – Industrial applications on a Web Services Grid. IEEE.
- Stockinger, Heinz; et al. (to be published in 2007). "Defining the Grid: A Snapshot on the Current View" (pdf). Supercomputing.
- Global Grids and Software Toolkits: A Study of Four Grid Middleware Technologies
External links
News & info
- Grid Computing Info Center
- GridToday
- GridsWatch
- IEEE Distributed Systems Online, Grid Computing Section
- International Science Grid This Week
- Primeur magazine - HPC and Grid computing news
- UtilityComputing.com
Portals and Grid Projects
- World Community Grid: Focuses on advancing scientific projects to benefit humanity, such as researching possible cures for cancer and muscular dystrophy, sequencing human genomes, finding better drug molecular structures to combat AIDS, etc. Open to anyone who wants to contribute idle PC processing time.
- Wikipedia article on the World Community Grid: Contains additional links for each project being conducted on the World Community Grid.
- DataSynapse
- GridGain Systems
- EnterTheGrid directory on Grid computing
- EELA: E-Infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America
- Enabling Grids for E-sciencE
- Fura GPL Ready to use grid
- IBM Grid Computing website
- ICEAGE: International Collaboration to Extend and Advance Grid Education
- Java Parallel Processing Framework
- ParadisEO, a C++ framework coupled with Globus and Condor-G for combinatorial and continuous optimization on grid support
- GridSphere Portal Framework (JSR-168 compliant)
- GridSummit.com
- Gridalogy
- BigBlueRiver
- NICE EnginFrame: Grid computing portals for research and industry
- Nivio: Virtual Desktop Based on Grid Computing
- Rechenkraft.net (German)
- gridGistics: service virtualization and grid computing.
- myGrid: bioinformatics and eScience research project built by several UK universities and EMBL-EBI.
- Consortsium SIRENE (Sharing Infrastructure and REsources iN Europe)
- Vendor-independent documentation on Grid-compliant open source portals
- BREIN: Business objective driven reliable and intelligent grids for real business.
- O'Reilly article about grid computing software
- Grid Café, the place for everyone to learn about the Grid
Associations and conferences
- Open Grid Forum
- Israeli Association of Grid Technologies (IGT)
- International Conference on Grid Computing (Grid XY)
- International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid XY)
Past events
- GridWorld Washington 2006
- IEEE Richmond Section Blog. Meeting — 5 October 2006: "Autonomic Grid Computing: Concepts, Infrastructure and Applications"PDF (3.61 MiB).


text:
The Cardassian Central Command (sometimes known as the High Command or simply The Central Command) was the military authority of the Cardassian Union. Officially it reported to the civilian Detapa Council; in reality, Central Command, together with the Obsidian Order – which the Central Command had a long-standing distrust of – ruled the Cardassian Union. The Cardassian Union, the Detapa Council, the Central Command and the Obsidian Order were formed in the 19th century. Central Command was overthrown in 2372 in favor of the Detapa Council. The Obsidian Order had collapsed a year previously after the disastrous Battle of the Omarion Nebula.
Every Cardassian ship, outpost, and space station within the Cardassian Union could be controlled by Central Command's primary base on Cardassia Prime. This same base was later used by the Dominion for their headquarters to oversee all aspects of the war. To ensure that no intruders could penetrate their doors and force their way inside, the doors to the base were made of solid neutronium, a metal impenetrable to all known explosives.
In late 2374, General Martok told Captain Benjamin Sisko and Admiral William Ross that "by this time next year, the three of us will drink bloodwine in the halls of Cardassia's Central Command". Martok was right in his assumption, though Ross and Sisko refused to drink in the wake of such catastrophic loss of life. (DS9: "Tears of the Prophets", "What You Leave Behind")
References Edit
- "Necessary Evil"
- "Profit and Loss"
- "The Maquis, Part I"
- "The Maquis, Part II"
- "The Wire"
- "The Search, Part II"
- "Second Skin"
- "Defiant"
- "Life Support"
- "Improbable Cause"
- "The Die is Cast"
- "The Way of the Warrior"
- "Indiscretion"
- "Return to Grace"
- "Ties of Blood and Water"
- "Waltz"
- "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night"
- "Tears of the Prophets"
- "Treachery, Faith and the Great River"
External linkEdit
- Cardassian Central Command at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works


text:
About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago technology and intellectual property attorney. Need assistance? Call Evan at (630) 362-7237, send email to ebrown [at] internetcases.com, or follow him on Twitter @internetcases.
Marcus v. Rogers, 2012 WL 2428046 (N.J.Super.A.D. June 28, 2012)
The answer to that question may depend on whether you knowingly exceed your authorization. A New Jersey court recently held that a defendant was within the bounds of the law when he accessed and printed a co-worker's personal email after the coworker left the computer without signing out of her account.
One morning when defendant, a teacher, sat down in the computer room of the school where he worked to check his email, he bumped the mouse of the computer next to him when he sat his drink down. That stopped the screen saver on the other machine, revealing the inbox of a coworker's Yahoo account. Defendant saw that some of the emails' subjects mentioned him, so he clicked on them, printed them out, and later used them at an adminstrative meeting to further some points in a work dispute.
The coworkers whose email communications defendant had accessed in this way sued him for violation of New Jersey's equivalent of the Stored Communications Act (N.J.S.A. 2A:156A–27). The plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on their claim, but the court let the question go to the jury. That jury found defendant had not violated the statute.
Plaintiffs appealed the denial of their motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the court affirmed, holding that the jury properly got the question to consider.
Under the New Jersey statute, a plaintiff has a cause of action if, among other things, another person knowingly:
- accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided, or
- exceeds an authorization to access that facility
The court briefly discussed whether the term knowingly applies both to "access without authorization" and "exceeds an authorization". It held that it does.
Then the court went on to evaluate whether the jury should have gotten the question in the first place.
The court held that as a matter of law, defendant did not access the email account without authorization. Because the "index to the inbox" of the co-worker's Yahoo account was displayed on the screen when the coworker left the computer, defendant did not access the "facility" without authorization. The accessing of the facility had been accomplished by coworker. There was no evidence of hacking or other unauthorized access to her account.
As for whether defendent exceeded his authorized access, the court held that the lower court properly submitted the question to the jury. The court held that the facts could not preclude a jury finding that defendant did not exceed his authorized access. Indeed, six of the seven deliberating jurors found that defendant had not exceeded his authorization. And all of the jurors found that the coworker had provided "tacit authorization" for him to access the account. (The case does not specify what that evidence of tacit authorization was.)
So the jury's finding that defendant did not exceed his authorized access stood.
An obvious pro-tip from the case is to remember to log out of shared computers. But the decision is potentially relevant to contexts other than email accounts on desktop computers. Does a person who finds another's mobile device have the right to rummage through all the accounts (e.g., social media, email, dating sites) that the phone's owner is logged into? This case underscores that the answer will be, frustratingly, "it depends." It's best to put some facts into play — like even the simple requirement of a 4-digit password — to establish contours for authorization which, when exceeded, are clear.


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- 5.0
Very luxurious for a standard brand car
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- This event has passed.
Bukit Timah Monkey Walk
October 26, 2019 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
We are not the only primates in Singapore – the long-tailed macaques, Raffles' banded langurs, and the Sunda slow lorises are three other primate species native to this island.
The most 'visible' of them are the macaques, and you might have seen them at MacRitchie Reservoir Park and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Macaques are intelligent and have a complex social network, making the observation of their day-to-day lives interesting.
Unfortunately, there have been human-macaque conflicts due to our lack of awareness on how to behave around macaques. We believe that our behaviour influences theirs, one way to eliminate conflicts is to start by understanding them and behaving appropriately.
Want to know more? As part of our efforts to share knowledge about the macaques, JGIS has collaborated with NParks to conduct monthly guided walks. The walks are conducted by our Monkey Walkers, primatologists or guides trained by our primatologists.
This event is suitable for adults and children above 8 years. If you have any questions, please email to email@example.com.


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Saturday, 31 July 2010
Music to my ears
My beautiful friend Amina has recently embarked on her solo singing career.
Even though we grew up together, her passion for music still astounds me every day. I have always encouraged her to follow her dream and am so happy to be able to be a small part of her journey.
I really hope you guys can join me in supporting her by checking out her myspace page
, where you can listen to her stunning, soulful voice. My favourite song is "I miss U".
If you are interested in reading more, you can also check out her latest interview for Fashion Records
All the photos used in the article, as well as on her myspace were created by myself (makeup, hair, styling, photography, editing etc.) so I would really appreciate your feedback!
Thank you all so much my lovelies, I know this isn't really the type of post I normally write, but I know the industry is a very tough one, so we both really value your support!! xxx
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Friday, 30 July 2010
Let's talk eyelashes ladies.
We all know I love my makeup, this blog wouldn't exist if it wasn't one of my passions. However, on a day-to-day basis I feel as I have got older I have become more comfortable with my looks and can get away with fewer cosmetics. There are however certain things I still obsess about - clear skin and eyelashes. Even if I am running to a dance classes or popping out to buy Diet Coke I will always take a second to dab on some concealer (be it for blemishes, or just to hide the effects of yet another late night on my under eye area) and mascara. There is nothing more flattering than mascara, it opens the eyes, defines them and creates instant impact with minimal fuss. I am always on the look out for the next best thing, but I have come to realise that no matter how good the formulation (or hefty the price tag) as mother nature hasn't blessed me with naturally long, full lashes I will never be satisfied.
Some of you may remember that last Spring I started using Lilash. It worked wonders on my lashes and after 8 weeks they were so long and curly that I even had to trim a few just to keep them in check. Just look at them with one tiny coat of mascara. They may be a little too spidery for some, but I loved them.
I know they are just eyelashes, but I'm vain like that. Unfortunately, as you all know the effects are not permanent and after I finished the tube (and had scraped out every last drop) I was not looking forward to splurging out another £90. So now I am back to square one... tiny little lashes, that even the best mascara can't fix.
A year later, with many positive reviews spurring me on, and I have decided to embark on my second lash enhancing experiment. I purchased Rapidlash online from Boots.com for the slightly less hefty price of £39.99. Meet my new friend
This baby promises to thicken and improve the appearance of lashes in 8 weeks. I am not going to go into the glaucoma medication mumbo jumbo, of course there are dangers (some people worry about irritation and change of eye colour), but as I had no significant issues with Lilash, fingers crossed this will work just as well.
With proteins, vitamins and moisturising agents it claims to provide protection against breakage, replenish and rejuvenate, provide strength and shine, provide superior hydation and improve flexibility and elasticity. Enticing no?
So here are my little lashes after two weeks of use.
Of course I am not expecting any results yet, but what I have noticed is a tiny bit of swelling and pink around my lid. (I had this before with Lilash so I am not worried. My eyes are extremely sensitive and many makeup products tend to make my eyes a little irritated).
So there we have it. Let the journey begin. I shall see you here in 6 weeks to document my findings. I'm not going to lie... I'm expecting miracles ;).
Have you tried any ash growth products? What have been your experiences? Are you tempted? xxx
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Garden Girl
A fun, bright tropical look perfect for the summer!
*****You can now get 10% OFF the Garden Girl Palette featured in this video by entering the coupon code "Natalya" at checkout @ www.cocobeau.co.uk*****
I must apologise for the horrendous lighting! It was a really sunny day so the light coming in from the left has made the left eye look much lighter than the right in this video. Just look at the pictures for a better representation of the makeup :).
Products used:
Sheer Cover foundation
MUFE concealer
BeeLuscious Garden girl palette (from
Eyeshadows: denim blue, washed denim, yellow diamond, distressed khaki and envy.
Besame face powder
Urban decay 24/7 liner in zero
Estee Lauder Sumptuous volume mascara
Coral Sun blush
Micro Tickled Pink Lipstick
I hope you guys enjoyed this video! Thank you all so much for watching! xxx
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Curly Wurly
So many of you have sent me messages asking me how I do my hair in the mornings (since most of the time I have curly hair in my Work It Out post series). I didn't think this was really worthy of a tutorial, or even a post as I really spend no time on my hair in the morning, and it usually takes as long as I have before I must get out of the door (so 5-10mins max).
Now, had I been blessed with lovely glossy hair this would be understandable, but I unfortunately was not. My lovelies, you have to understand that my hair is CRAZY. I know many people state this, but really I don't believe them, and many of my friends didn't until they saw mine in its
natural state
(read angry lion mane). It is curly, wavy, frizzy, Monica-esque and takes hours to dry. So much so that if I go to bed with wet hair it will still be wet (not damp) in the morning. Therefore, it is a daily gruesome battle and the only thing that saves me hours of blow drying or straightening is the Babyliss curling wand.
This baby heats up in seconds and let's me tame the frizz into curls. I usally do about 4 sections on each side and alternate the directions of the curl (wrapping away from my face at the front and towards at the back). It's super easy and simple. Then I just pull my fingers through my hair to separate the curls, add a few quick sprays of hairspray and some serum or a little argan oil and I am ready to face the world. Taaa-daaa!
If I could only have one hair tool in the World, it would undoubtedly be this one. It is amazing. Try it, buy it, you won't regret it! xxx
P.S. I got mine on e-bay for under £30.
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Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Lash Royalty
The Lash Royalty website launched in June 2010 and over the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to trial a range of their lashes. I therefore thought I would share with you some photos I took while creating an exclusive video for Lash Royalty on how to apply false lashes.
These are the Duchess lashes - subtle, natural and very wearable.
The Chloe lashes add drama and interest.
These are the Luxe-2 lashes, full, dramatic and flirty.
If you want to see more lash styles or watch my exclusive video detailing how to apply false lashes you can visit the Lash Royalty website
I personally love the Chloe lashes, which are your favourite? xxx
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Work It Out: Installment Quatorze
One of the best ways I have found to stretch your wardrobe is to use pieces that you wouldn't immediately associate with work wear, but combine them in an appropriate way. As I have two wardrobes (work and fun!) I often move certain items around and find new ways of encorporating them into my daily wear.
With the weather turning slightly chilly I have started wearing one of my favourite ensembles - a blouse/shirt and dress. In this case I took a satin long sleeved tunic (which I usually wear with a thin belt and leggings) and a plain black dress, which shows of the decolletage, but is long enough to still look sophisticated.
Dress (actually knee length, but my weird posing has made it ride up) and Tunic both from ZARA (I really never realised just how much I have purchased from ZARA over the years, I need to branch out)!
So yes, here we have it. Party-wear to work wear through layering, particularly useful if you are planning an evening out and can't face the fuss of changing (or are lazy like me).
I think it works, what do you think? Now if only I could figure out how to make those frilly, strapless Summer dresses office friendly... ;).
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Monday, 26 July 2010
Fun in the weekend sun.
This weekend was lovely, but rather hectic (as per usual). It seems that often I look forward to the quiet days, but there is just too much fun to be had in London. So today I am squeezing two outfits into one post, akin to my weekends...
This dress is from Kookai *gasp*, do you remember Kookai? I have seen the odd Kookai corset lurking around House of Fraser (and select stores in France), but long gone are the days when they could be found on every high street. It's a shame really, as they did have some lovely, structured dresses. I may be giving away my age, but this dress is about 5 years old, and I still love it. It has boning in the top portion, which keeps it in place, is shaped beautifully to fit every curve, and even has a little pleat in the back for comfort when walking (pencil skirt designers take note, I would like to walk with my knees more than 2 inches apart every now and again lol). I wore this dress with white heels and a casual shawl for the evening. I love versatile pieces that can easily take you from lunch with friends, to tea and a few glasses of bubbly to a Summer garden party.
I also wore this beautiful gold necklace that was sent to me by the lovely Zoe from
Junk Jewels
. I am usually a fan of bold, costume jewelry as I am tall (and not the smallest person in the world overall), so I feel I can carry it off better than really soft, delicate pieces. However, I had so many compliments on this necklace that it completely won me over.
I'm not sure of you can pick up the detail in the photo (well any detail other than my horrible freckles), but inside the little book are the words Je t'aime. I thought this was so lovely, right up until my bf saw it and enquired (euphemism for got huffy and demanded to know) who had given me such a romantic gift... hehe ;).
On to a more casual Sunday...
This is a cat print playsuit I fell in love with on ASOS. Although I feel a little bit like an overgrown toddler in it, the print is just too adorable (and strangely reminscent of Miu Miu, which makes me like it even more).
Hope you had a fun weekend my lovelies! I think I need another weekend to rest after my weekend ;). Does anyone else find that to be the case pretty much every week? xxx
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Work It Out: Installment Treize
Pretty plain and uninspiring. Some days you just have to grab and go out of the door. At times like these I reach for neutral separates.
Blouse: ASOS (on sale and also available in blue). Panelled grey and black skirt: Zara. Brown and pink pearl bracelet: Accessorize.
Makeupwise I am wearing YSL teint resist foundation with a splash of Dior Forever (to make it darker) and Chanel bronzer universelle (or whatever they have decided to call it now). For blush I have been using the ELF mineral blush in pink almost every day. It's bright, yet still perfectly wearable and adds a lovely flush. For eyeshadow I swiped a layer of Benefit's creaseless cream shadow in birthday suit across the lid and added some definition with Eyeko's black liquid liner. For lips I have been really enjoying the Clarins Instant light glosses - sheer, moisturising, non-sticky and they smell absolutely delicious!
How do we feel about neutrals? Fab or drab?
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Sunday, 25 July 2010
Just stopping by...
To say Happy Weekend! I hope you are all enjoying a lazy Sunday evening on the sofa... no? Maybe just me ;).
Oh and Maxie says Hiiiii :) xxx
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Friday, 23 July 2010
John Frieda Go Blonder- Winners
Thank you all for your brilliant hair tips! I am currently sitting here with Argan oil in my hair, so I guess my favourite Summer treat would be to put oil (argan/ olive/ coconut) in your hair over night. When you wash it out in the morning (make sure you shampoo twice) your hair will feel much more manageable. It has done wonders for my dry scraggly ends!
So without further rambling. The winners of the John Frieda Go Blonder Shampoo and Conditioner are:
Glitterish Allsorts
With her style and care tip in one!
"In Summer evenings I like to have lots of tousled curls tumbling down my back. However I worry that daytime sun dries hair out and am reluctant to add to that damage by adding heat via curling tongs. So during the day I suggest spritzing hair with a heat protectant spray, then twisting sections of hair and securing them via Bobby pins. The heat protector spray will add some defence from the sun and by the evening when the pins are taken out, you have a cascade of curls!"
Brilliant idea! I often do this myself - blow dry my hair till it's mostly dry and keep it in a bun or braid for most of the day (which also keeps the hair off your back and neck in the heat), then in the evening when you take it out you are left with gorgeous, natural waves.
Our second winner is:
With her eco-friendly hair advice.
"My tip is wash your hair every other day to prevent stripping it of its natural oils, also too its saving water and thats good for the environment."
I try to stretch my hair and wash it every three days. The less you wash it, the better for your hair as its natural oils are the best conditioner, no need for expensive products, just a little patience and some dry shampoo for emergencies ;).
to our lovely winners! Please e-mail me your details so I can get your prizes to you ASAP!
If you are keen to find out more about the John Frieda Go Blonder range, check out the video below:
Almost the weekend!! xxx
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Thursday, 22 July 2010
Work it Out: Installment Douze
Yet again the BBC lied to me by telling me it would rain all day. I think they should do their regular forecast and then change it to the opposite when they publish it, and then maybe they would get it right for once! I may be giving myself away here, but I am one of those strange people that checks the forecast every evening and every morning.. but I have my reasons. Curly hair! Enough said ;).
Dress: ASOS (in the designer section, but very obscure make). Jacket: Zara. Belt: Reiss. Necklace: Juicy Couture (a little wish bone pendant with script wrapped around it).
Makeup wise, even though I usually stick to the same things as I grapple bleary eyed around my desk in the morning, I do try to switch a few products up every day. As I am losing my tan (sob sob) I have started mixing YSL teint resist (lightest shade) with my Dior Forever foundation. Not only does it give a sheerer coverage, but it sinks straight into the skin so I can slap it on messily with my fingers and minimal time is needed to blend. For blush I have been loving MAC's peachy keen and ELF mineral blush in pink. Liquid eyeliner can make a horrible mess if you aren't careful, so the eyeko eyeliner (read felt tip) is used pretty much every day. For lips I have been obsessed with the Beaute weightless lip cremes. The colours are so soft and beautiful and they look really natural on the lips - without the heaviness of a lipstick or the gloopiness of gloss ;).
What are your must have products on sleepy mornings? xxx
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Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Sunday's OOTD (again)
I'm sorry this blog is becoming a bit of a 'now let's see Natalya posing in front of a mirror' fiasco. It's shameless really, and yes I am pretty full of shame. Recently I have been much more (well always have been) into fashion, perhaps because it is one of the few ways I can still express myself, as makeup and generally outlandish behaviour has to be toned down during the day ;). If you guys are getting bored do let me know!
That said here is another gratuitous outfit post...
Tunic Dress: Zara (usually worn with black leggings as it's quite short, but this heat makes it impossible). Belt: Miss Selfridge. Gold sandals: Oscar de la Renta.
Please do let me know what kind of posts you guys prefer. I know many of you read and never comment, but please do! I would love to hear your thoughts :) xxx
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Work it Out: Installment Onze
You can wear bright colours to work. Really you can! I usually stick to blocks of colours and break them up with accessories and a black cardigan or jacket.
Dress: Mango (last season). Pearl and Onyx mix Chanel necklace (I found this in a vintage store at an n
of the price and couldn't believe my luck).
I'm just going to take a moment to put this out there - Mango you have some very pretty pieces, but please sort out your sizes! I have clothes in my wardrobe ranging from XS to L (like this dress!?!) and it is horrible to think they consider size 10 a Large. It also makes shopping online impossible. Is it just me? Have you guys had the same problem with Mango sizing?
Black tuxedo jacket from Zara. You probably won't be able to tell in the picture, but the collar is a more shiny material (not sure what it is) than the rest of the jacket. I love classic pieces with a little special detailing, still versatile, but a little more interesting.
As much as I love grey and black I can find it somewhat draining after a while. Do you dress in colour or stick to neutral palettes? xxx
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Saturday, 17 July 2010
Work it Out: Installment Dix
Last night I was heading straight from the office for drinks to celebrate a few of my work girlies' Birthdays. What a night it was... and what an awful day it has been today.
Dress: Zara (later worn with black cardigan). I also wore black patent heels from New Look. I really don't like NL very much because most of the clothes are such poor quality. Personally I would rather save and buy one nice item, that will last, than ten that are going to disintegrate in the wash. However, the shoes in NL are nothing to be sniffed at. They have some nice designs, are super affordable, comfortable and give me peace of mind as so often expensive shoes get ruined (after one outing in the lovely London rain).
I hope you all had a good Friday night my lovelies! I'm going back to bed to nurse my poor head. My own fault really.. why did I ever think it would be a good idea to mix about 14 different types of cocktails and shots in one night??? :( xxx
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Friday, 16 July 2010
Work it Out: Installment Neuf
I assure you no zebras were harmed in the making of this outfit ;). This shirt is definitely not for everyone, but my love of Cougar Town knows no bounds and when I saw it I had to have it. During the day I wore it with a plain black cardigan so only the collar and cuffs were on show, which toned it down and made it much less 'flashy'.
Shirt: Hawes & Curtis. Pearl cufflinks: Hawes &Curtis. Fishtale skirt: M&S.
Since it was raining (and excrutiatingly windy to the point where I had to cling on to a wall for support in my stilettos) I decided to braid my hair into a simple side swept fishtail braid. I was inspired by the numerous gorgeous, thick, tousled braids on the catwalk recently, though you definitely need quite a few wefts of clip ins to recreate the look! I made mine sleek and trapped the flyaways with lashings of Andrew Collinge serum (akin to Frizz Ease).
So tell me.. did I scare you with the satin zebra ;)? xxx
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Thursday, 15 July 2010
All about hair :)
So many of you have requested a video showing what products I use in my hair, that I finally succumbed. To tell you the truth, my hair is not in great shape atm. I hated my last haircut and since then have been curling it pretty much every day in an attempt to hide the horrible disjointed, choppy layers. So now, I have ended up with very dry and split ends, but am still very wary of getting it cut again as the top layers are far too short.
I have been using the products mentioned below to try and combat the dry frizz and hopefully let my hair grow.
Products mentioned:
S-free Shampoo (Sulphate and Paraben free)
Andrew Collinge Moisture and Protect Shampoo (two for £7 in Superdrug atm!):
Aussie 3 Minute Miracle:
Cold Pressed Argan oil: One of the rarest oils in the world, Argan is rich in vitamin E and is ideal for skin and hair repair. Rich in EFAs, it helps to renew cell structure and revitalize the skin. Recommended for acne, stretch marks and chicken pox and conditions such as eczema and psoriasis.
Batiste Dry Shampoo (brunette):
Big Sexy Hair Powder Play:
Andrew Collinge Heat Defence Spray:
John Frieda Frizz-Ease Moisture Barrier Firm Hold Hairspray:
What products are you currently using to fight the battle against heat/ humidity/ frizz/ limp hair? xxx
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Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Work it Out: Installment Huit (Yay for rain!)
Since it was raining all day, and I didn't want to wear a jacket or trench, I decided to dive back into my winter wardrobe.
Dress: Zara. Strappy top underneath to hide the inappropriate decolletage: Zara. (Can you tell I love Zara yet?) Silver necklace: Lisa Taves (from Lorraine Stanick's blog).
This dress is pretty warm as it is part wool, but as it has short sleeves it's still versatile. I definitely look out for cap sleeved work dresses as they are flattering on the 'bingo wings' and I feel they look much more professional (sleeveless can leave a little too much on show, some people really underestimate the power of bare shoulders) ;).
On a side note I have to confess that I am so grateful for the rain! My hay fever has abated and I can actually breathe for the first time in months :). I am sure all you poor allergy prone lovelies know what I am talking about. Summer is beautiful, but from March to October I wake up with what feels like a horrible cold every morning - sore, itchy throat, watery eyes and a nose that won't stop running/ sneezing/ hurting no matter how many antihistamines I ply it with.
Are you all as relieved as I am to see some precipitation on the horizon? xxx
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Gibson back on track, Twins top Mariners 5-4
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Both Kyle Gibson and Glen Perkins got much-needed bounceback outings on Friday night.
Gibson allowed one run in seven innings, Brian Dozier and Josmil Pinto homered, and the Minnesota Twins held on to beat the Seattle Mariners 5-4.
Dozier and Trevor Plouffe each hit RBI doubles in the third inning against Chris Young (3-1) to give the Twins an early lead on their way to their fifth win in their last six home games.
Gibson (4-3) hadn't earned a victory since winning his first three starts this season. He struck out four and recorded 13 groundball outs to lower his ERA to 4.20.
"It's always good to be on the winning side of a game," said Gibson, who only lasted two innings and allowed six runs in his last start against Detroit. "A lot of groundballs tonight. Good to see that again."
Robinson Cano reached base for the 24th consecutive game and broke the Mariners' 21-inning scoreless drought with an RBI double in the fifth.
Ron Gardenhire left Gibson in to face Cano in the seventh with runners on first and third and two outs, a spot where the Twins manager might have turned to his bullpen last season.
"I thought he was throwing the ball really well," Gardenhire said. "I wasn't worried at all. I thought that was his ballgame at that point."
Dustin Ackley's triple made it 5-3 in the eighth. Mike Zunino followed with a sacrifice fly that made it 5-4, but the rally ended when reliever Casey Fien struck out James Jones looking.
Eduardo Escobar's RBI single that made it 5-1 in the sixth proved to be the game-winner.
"I wish I would've kept it to three and we would've won the game, but I just wasn't as sharp as I needed to be, and the ball didn't have as much life as I needed it to have," Young said. "I dug the guys too big a hole, but they gave it a fight and tried to come back."
Perkins, who blew his second save Thursday, stranded Michael Saunders at third after a leadoff single in the ninth. Corey Hart popped out and Perkins made a nice play coming off the mound to throw out Justin Smoak at first for his 11th save.
What did Perkins throw Hart to get him to pop out?
"A hanging slider," Perkins said with a grin. "Same thing I threw to Smoak. That's just the luck of the draw. Yesterday I didn't have any luck and today I threw a lot worse pitches than I did yesterday and I got two outs out of it. That's baseball."
Young came into the game 3-0 with a 1.83 ERA in his last three starts, but was cooled off by a Twins lineup that has totaled at least 10 hits in five straight games.
The 6-foot-10 right-hander allowed five runs on 10 hits — including a season-high seven extra base hits — in seven innings.
Seattle's 21 scoreless innings streak tied a season high set April 12-14 and was nine innings shy of the club record.
Hart was still thinking about the hanging slider from Perkins after the game.
"I saw a slider up, something that I could at least hit up in the air," Hart said. "I just got under it. It's one of those situations you want to be in and it's tough when you don't get it done."
The Twins have now won 4,224 games in Minnesota, one more than when the franchise was in Washington.
Five of Minnesota's last six wins have been by one run.
"Another exciting baseball game," Gardenhire said. "Guys come out swinging, and we kind of had to hang on there a little bit."
NOTES: Twins OF Sam Fuld said he felt better after having a setback Wednesday in his recovery from a concussion sustained two weeks ago. ... Injured Mariners lefty James Paxton (strained back) will throw two innings in a simulated game and right-hander Taijuan Walker (sore shoulder) will throw 45 pitches in a bullpen session on Saturday. ... Left-hander Roenis Elias (3-2, 3.69) makes his ninth major league start for the Mariners on Saturday afternoon. He will face Samuel Deduno (0-2, 3.64), who is making his third start since joining the rotation after Mike Pelfrey went on the DL with a groin strain. ... Pelfrey made his first rehab start for Triple-A Rochester on Friday and allowed one earned run in five innings. ... Injured Twins OF Josh Willingham (hand) was 0 for 4 in his first rehab start in Rochester.