text:
Producer Todd ("The Hangover") Phillips's "Project X" takes the high school party movie to new heights of onscreen debauchery – think one part "Risky Business," one part Michael Bay-style explosions – and that's because the off-screen debauchery wasn't far behind.
The "found footage" film's cast of promising young newcomers – Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Kirby Bliss Blanton and Alexis Knapp – reveal to PopcornBiz that most of them weren't epic ragers in real life, but they got a taste of just how far a party can go on the high-energy set where the extras kept things jumping even when the cameras weren't rolling.
Blanton: I didn't go to that many crazy parties when I was in high school, actually. I came out here [to Hollywood] when I was in like ninth grade, but most of the parties I went to in high school – I mean, there was definitely the beer pong, the flip cups, so I know that that all actually happens. As for the dog tied to the balloons and all the other stuff, I think that was a play on the fact that these things can go so far so quickly.
U.S. & World
Cooper: I only have one I can really think of. When I was 12, my brother and sister are a lot older than I am, and they had this crazy party and my friend's mom dropped me off in the minivan and there were cars all the way down, and she was like, 'Is it okay if I leave you here?' It was the craziest party and I was drinking beers at 12. That was fun. It was a good one, but I was never a huge partier.
Brown: I was a complete a**hole in high school. I definitely had a phase at one point where I wanted to be ghetto. I had both my ears pierced and thought it was cool and stuff, but I wouldn't say that I was like my character in high school. I was more like Thomas's character. I was a bit of a p***y. I didn't really want to have a party, and my friend was crazy, like, 'You're such a p***y. Come on, we're having a party!'
Mann: I can remember one time in high school I had a party at the house and the next day I was vigorously cleaning the whole house and the first thing my mom said when she walked in was, 'Did you have a party,' because the house was so clean.
Knapp: I do recall a New Year's Eve when I might have been 18, back in North Carolina… my friend's snake got loose. I made everyone stop and look for the snake – because I love snakes and use to have a lot of snakes, but now I just have one – so that was crazy because then the cops showed up and we were all underage and running around. I hid in an abandoned cottage for an hour until the cops left. That was pretty crazy.
Mann: My average party was 'Dreamcast' and popcorn. And tears. I didn't go to a lot of parties, and when I did it was never that awesome.
Brown: I think that they cast us because we aren't party people, per se. I feel like if you cast the three guys who always just were the sickest ragers in high school the movie would just be a douchebag factory.
Mann: I think the reason this movie was made is because it's a party that no one has ever seen before, or it's not really like anything... It definitely felt like a party. The on-set DJ would play even between takes and extras would be dancing even when the cameras weren't rolling. So in that case, the energy was always through the roof, but it was hard to play the scenes where I had to be stressed out and worried about my dad calling.
Blanton: Whenever you have 300 extras on a set its crazy, but we had the AD saying. 'Who wants to smoke the fake reefer?' So they were very excited to pretend to be partying. We would go home tired at the end of the shoot and they would be like, 'Where are you going?' And we're like 'We're going home to bed!'
Knapp: They got very into it.
Blanton: One girl started peeing. She squatted on the ground. It was funny because there were only a couple of toilets for us to use and there were like 200 extras so this girl was like, 'Whatever,' and started peeing and then a camera came over and started filming. They asked her to sign a waver and she didn't care because it was a pay upgrade, but now that she knows it's in the movie she is embarrassed. She's a friend of one of my friends that was doing extra work on the film.
Knapp: Project X is as real as it gets!


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|Grand Rapids, Mich.
|High School:
College: 2010-11: Played in seven games before suffering a season-ending injury .... Member of GLIAC Championship and NCAA-II Sweet Sixteen squad ..... Started four outings .... Hit a potential game-winning field goal at the buzzer that was eventually waved off after a replay review in an overtime exhibition loss against the Indiana Hoosiers .... Featured on ESPN's Top 10 Plays for a dunk versus Kentucky Wesleyan ..... Totaled 3.7 points and 3.9 rebounds a contest .... Played 20 minutes a game before his injury .... 2009-10: Joined the Bulldog program at the semester break and sat out the year ... Originally signed with former GLIAC member Gannon (Pa.) prior to the 2009-10 season ... Played two seasons as a starter on the junior college level at Columbus State (Ohio) ... Helped Columbus State to a 29-4 overall mark and a trip to the national tournament ... Averaged 10.3 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.7 steals ... Named to the All-Ohio Community College Athletic Conference honorable-mention team, ranking 4th among OCCAC players in field goal percentage (57.9%) ... Coached by Pat Carlisle ... Squad twice finished as the national runner-up.
High School: Was a two-sport athlete at Creston (Mich.) High School, participating in basketball and football ... Rated him as the #16 small forward in the state during his senior year ... Four-year letterwinner ... Also played football and baseball ... Team captain ... Two-time all-conference pick.
Personal: Son of Eric and Lynnell Talbert ... Has a brother and a sister ... Likes bowling and fishing ... Criminal Justice major.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tokyo Tourism and Tokyo City Keiba: 4 lovely days of horse racing in early November
Tokyo Tourism and Tokyo City Keiba: 4 lovely days of horse racing in early November
Joachim de Villiers and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
November starts today and if you have free time available between November 1and November 4, you have four fantastic days of horse racing at Tokyo City Keiba. Also, with hot and mild weather forecast for the next few days then Tokyo City Keiba is an ideal place to enjoy fantastic racing from the early afternoon to late evening.
Of course the emphasis is on horse racing and the views of every race can be seen by all because of the lovely layout of this horse race track. Not only this, you can decide on a little luxury if you desire because the amenities available makes everything so much more pleasurable.
The real beauty of Tokyo City Keiba is that the stunning lighting system and watching horse racing when the last rays of sunshine have dimmed, means that the atmosphere is electric. The owners of Tokyo City Keiba have managed to fuse together quality horse racing, a stunning atmosphere, places to eat and drink, abundance choice of viewing areas, and the modern feel of sport in the heart of Tokyo is "a real winner."
Tokyo City Keiba really cares about image and being user friendly. Therefore, this lovely horse racing track caters for all and sundry. This applies to your real horse racing enthusiast; business and hospitality; a romantic evening where you can watch horse racing and eat delicious food; a nice relaxing evening for friends and individuals; and creating a high quality race meeting which caters for the younger generation and ladies.
Also, if you have an early morning flight from Haneda Airport and you are staying in a hotel the day before you travel, then for the next few days you can enjoy your evening before your flight at Tokyo City Keiba. After all, this horse race meeting is so convenient and you have many nice restaurants to visit while you soak up the atmosphere of the best afternoon to evening sporting venue in Tokyo.
In the last article about Tokyo City Keiba by Modern Tokyo Times it was stated that "In 2003 the L-wing was opened and part of the aim of this was to attract more ladies to horse racing and the indoor gardens, color projections, restaurants, and other factors, all created modernity and a relaxing atmosphere. The L-wing was obviously designed to enhance Tokyo City Keiba for all clients but it was partly aimed at making the race meeting user-friendly for everyone."
"The L-wing and the contrasting light schemes enhance the atmosphere because the lighting change from dusk to "Twinkle" (night racing) is a nice touch. Therefore, it is clear that the owners of this race track are innovative and willing to make modern changes in order to reach new clients. However, all modern changes have flowed nicely because the management desire to keep regulars and attract new people to horse racing."
Not only this, the Diamond Turn area is a great place to enjoy scrumptious food, the spacious amenities provided and to relax in style while watching horse racing at its very best. Management at Tokyo City Keiba are innovative, always thinking one step ahead and because of this you have a lovely environment which caters for racing enthusiasts and new people to horse racing.
Both writers of this article have been to top notch horse race meetings in England and France (Aintree, Ascot, Chantilly, Chester, Epsom, Longchamp, and Newmarket) and without a shadow of a doubt Tokyo City Keiba provides its own unique ambience. This applies to the stunningly illuminated track; modernity of the horse racing stands; welcoming environment; and staff members who are available to help.
On top of all this, you have a wide choice of other areas which adds spice to the sporting nature and entertainment aspect of Tokyo City Keiba. This applies to restaurants, gardens, color projections, the natural buzz of watching horse racing at night and the warm hospitality on show.
Tokyo City Keiba is in the heart of Tokyo and only takes 25 minutes from Ginza and irrespective of where you stay in Tokyo, this lovely horse racing track is a real treasure. Therefore, Tokyo City Keiba adds spice to both the sporting nature of this ultra-modern city and the horse racing on show and the lovely environment is really enticing.
Finally, if your Japanese isn't up to scratch then don't worry because if you visit the website of Tokyo City Keiba, then you can learn how easy it is to bet because of quality guides to help tourists on this website.
Therefore, if you are lucky to have free time in Tokyo during the first four days of November or you have a flight from Haneda Airport, then why not visit Tokyo City Keiba? After all, you can enjoy a lovely day of quality horse racing and enjoy the fantastic entertainment provided by this stunning horse race track.
Tokyo City Keiba stands for "quality," "innovation" and "sporting excellence" and all this is provided in the heart of Tokyo. Why wait?


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RENTON, Wash. (AP) Pete Carroll was thrilled to be in the postseason but knew it was a mirage.
Two seasons ago, in his first venture back in the NFL from the college game, Carroll guided the Seattle Seahawks into the postseason with the dubious distinction of being the only team in NFL history to win a division title with a losing record. Seattle at least showed itself worthy of the playoffs by upsetting New Orleans, but was quickly dispatched at Chicago in the second round.
He knew the Seahawks needed to be younger, faster, more athletic and deeper. A makeover was needed.
``We're just so much deeper now and we've raised these guys in the program and I just think there's a common feel that we're on the same page,'' Carroll said Monday.
When the Seahawks (11-5) face Washington in Sunday's playoff opener, they'll do so with 33 new faces on the 53-man roster from just two seasons ago. The moves were drastic in some areas and subtle in others.
No matter what the changes were, it's made Seattle a far better and more deserving team for this postseason trip. Carroll said he believes the type of success the Seahawks found in reaching at least 11 wins for just the third time in franchise history should have come sooner.
Ultimately, it was the decision to draft Russell Wilson in the third round that finally made them a legitimate contender.
``I feel like I wish so much that we had got it done last year. We didn't capture it quickly enough. It just didn't come around like we wanted it to. But we'll take it. We'll take it where we are. It's been three terrific years for us in retooling the program and the roster and the staff and getting everything right. We really feel the momentum in the youth and the hopefulness for the future is there.''
When that 2010 playoff appearance came the Seahawks' way, they were a flawed team, fortunate to play in the worst division in football at that time. Carroll's defensive philosophies were still being implemented and the offense was a jumbled mess. There was little continuity on the offensive line. Marshawn Lynch had arrived in a trade from Buffalo but Seattle had yet to figure out the best ways to use its new bruising back. Most importantly, the quarterback position was unsettled with Matt Hasselbeck the entrenched veteran and Charlie Whitehurst the upstart.
They were rarely competitive, losing by an average margin of 21 points in their nine losses. Only one of their seven regular-season wins came against a team that finished with a winning record.
Fast-forward and while still having some flaws, this Seattle team is far more complete. The defense finished the season the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL, giving up just 15.3 points per game. They were No. 4 in the league overall, the highest year-end ranking for Seattle in team history.
Offensively, the Seahawks have morphed offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell's system around what Wilson does best, using his athleticism and quickness as a threat to complement Lynch's violent running. Lynch's success is largely because of the zone-blocking schemes implemented by assistant head coach Tom Cable and finding linemen who fit what Seattle wants to do.
From the playoff win over New Orleans in 2010 to now, the Seahawks will have 15 different starters on the field against the Redskins.
``We're young and we're fast and we're tough and we've created a physical nature about us that we're really proud of. It goes from offense to defense to special teams,'' Carroll said. ``We're just going to try to keep getting better. We've got a long ways to go.''
Wilson tied Peyton Manning's rookie record with 26 touchdowns on a third-quarter scoring pass in Sunday's win over St. Louis. He had a chance to hold the record himself, but instead ran for a 1-yard TD with 1:39 left to give Seattle a 20-13 win over the Rams.
Wilson finished the season with a 100.0 passer rating, the highest in franchise history. He threw for 3,118 yards, added another 489 rushing, had 30 combined touchdowns running and passing, and became the first rookie QB in NFL history to go 8-0 at home.
``Did Peyton go to the playoffs his first year? No,'' Seattle fullback Michael Robinson said after Sunday's win. ``OK. Then you know who I think is better.''
Notes: Seattle placed CB Walter Thurmond on injured reserve Monday, opening a roster spot for the addition of CB Brandon Browner, who is eligible to return this week after serving a four-game suspension for banned substances. Thurmond started initially in place of Browner, but suffered a hamstring injury before Seattle's Week 15 game at Buffalo and aggravated the injury last week trying to get back for the season finale. ... Carroll said he expects LB Leroy Hill to practice this week and be available. Hill missed Sunday's game with a hamstring injury.


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Merry Christmas! Yes. I know it's been, err… a while, but let's not get bogged down with that. Oddly, though I am still living in London, I'm writing from my real home – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Ahhhh… is there anything that says "Home for Christmas" like snow blowing across a highway with nary a turn sight?
Getting here at all, let alone in time for the holidays, was nothing short of a Christmas Miracle given the tragi-comedy that played itself out at Heathrow Airport over the last week. For those of you living under a rock: five inches of wet snow fell in an admittedly short space of time last Saturday morning and paralyzed Heathrow to such an extent that:
- Flights were cancelled for days on end and thousands, or more likely tens of thousands of people had their holiday plans ruined.
- Every day the newspapers were filled with pictures of people who'd been sleeping on the floor in the airport for two or three or four nights in a row, along with tales of woe about missed weddings and honeymoons, Christmas plans in tatters, and one particularly poignant story about a terminally ill little boy who missed his flight to Lapland to go see real reindeer. (Maybe he should have gone to Covent Garden, where they had real rein deer AND women in elf costumes…)
- The Prime Minister offered to send in troops to help clear the runways and get the planes moving.
- Colin Matthews, the man who heads up BAA (the company that runs Heathrow) and whose name will, I hope, become synonymous with indefensible and blatant incompetence for years to come, decided it might be politic to give up his yearly bonus for 2010.
- And, FIVE DAYS after a moderate snow fall that brought virtually every aspect of the English transport system – air, trains, and roads – to its knees, it was still very very unclear whether my flight would leave on time, or at all. (As an aside – Toronto's Pearson Airport can apparently clear a runway of snow in FIFTEEN MINUTES. Yes, they get a lot more practice but honestly, Heathrow is one of the busiest, most important airports in the world. They really need to up their game.)
But miraculously, I arrived on Wednesday to find things at Heathrow lurching back towards normality enough that I only had to wait outside the terminal building in a tent for about an hour, and eventually got checked in and boarded and took off almost as if the airport knew what it was about.
Camp Heathrow…. waiting to be let into Terminal 3. They were only allowing people to enter in batches. And only if you had a confirmed flight that was actually scheduled to depart. And only within about two hours of your departure time. Then again, they did give out tea and warm bacon sandwiches and Snickers bars to people waiting. They may not have snow plows, but they have catering.
And so I made it back to Winnipeg, a mere nineteen hours and six times zones after I left the house, and then spent the next day driving for eight hours to Saskatoon, and then went to bed very early feeling every-so-slightly ragged around the edges, and then woke up at three o'clock in the morning, which turns out to be an excellent time to get a lot of Christmas present wrapping done.
And how is life in London? Well, it's good and bad. I still feel very unsettled – work has turned out to be… challenging (to put it mildly), but I'm on to a second round of interviews for another job which is very good. Home (now in North London) is serviceable but just doesn't really feel like home, which is not great. But I get to move back to the big, happy house in Brixton in February, which is very great. I'm hashing quite a bit, which is good and fun, but I'm not doing a lot of proper running, which is bad. And you may have noticed I haven't exactly been blogging my face off. It's just been very easy to let the effort and weight of simply existing in the city in these dark, damp, cold winter months to consume all my energy. (I was shocked to realize during my long drive over the frozen prairie yesterday, that it gets dark at least an hour earlier in London than it does in Saskatchewan. I leave work at 4:30pm in London, and it's already pitch black. Charming.)
I guess what I'm saying is that the last few months have been sort of a grind. The weather, the darkness, the job uncertainty, it's all robbed me of motivation to do much of anything. So I've recently come to two conclusions:
- I have to get out and run more. I've just found a running club that turns out to do a Tuesday evening track workout at a park about ten minutes from my current digs (Hands up everyone who knew there was a 400-metre track and well-appointed clubhouse with changing rooms at Finsbury Park… yeah, me too.). And they do a Wednesday evening group run at Hampstead Heath. So that's definitely on the agenda, along with a race registration of some kind for the spring. Maybe not a full marathon just yet, but something to get me a bit more focused.
- I want to start blogging properly again (pause for delirious cheering and deafening applause….). It was always my intention to blog in London but like I said, the motivation has been lacking. It's now clear that I simply have to force myself to do it, and I think I'll feel better for it. There are things I'd like to tell you about life over there – quirky stuff, funny stuff, annoying stuff, interesting stuff, helpful stuff… just… stuff. And it may even be nice to continue to have somewhere to get out the demons that crop up too.
So that's the plan. Run more, blog more, and just try to wake up a bit. However, having said that, I also don't think that Go See Run Eat Drink is the place for this new plan. The trip – the planning, the execution, the aftermath – it's all ancient history already. (I can barely fathom that This Time Last Year I was "celebrating" Christmas in the pouring rain on the Serengeti.) So while I plan for the blogging to continue, it's not going to be here. I'm going to try and spend some time over the holidays getting a few new posts in the bag, and trying a new space on for size. I can promise you that the blogging won't be as prolific as it was when I was travelling, (especially near the end, when it seemed I could write two thousand words about lint), but I will give it an honest effort, and you're welcome to nudge me if I let things slide.
So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and watch this space for further news…
Festive me, with Rob H's Longer Hair Experiment still underway…


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As much of the nation is walloped by another storm, our transportation needs again come to the forefront. However, while the news focuses on delays and cancellations at airports and traffic on the roads, I am concerned about our sidewalks.
Prior to today Boston had been pounded by over 60 inches of snow. Day in and day out, I have trudged across banks of snow and over poorly shoveled walks in my trusty winter boots. But each time I do so I wonder how the elderly and those with disabilities are traversing their neighborhood streets. How are they getting to work, to the grocery store, even out of the apartment to walk the dog?
I am shocked by the pathetic response by homeowners and landlords to snow on their sidewalks. Many people have shoveled, but few fulfill the 42 inch requirement stated in the Boston Municipal Code. It seems even those who shovel rarely complete the responsibility within the time dictated by the law. In fact, there seems to be a proportionate inverse relationship between the amount a property owner drives and the quality of his or her sidewalk. I have been particularly dismayed by the sidewalks of many wealthy suburbanites.
However, cities like Boston do have recourse against what is not just lawlessness, but a disregard for civic responsibility. Local laws permit municipalities to fine those who do not appropriately shovel their walks. In a time of fiscal challenge for most municipalities actually levying the fines on not shoveling would have the dual benefit of raising revenue and creating greater incentive for property owners to shovel.
In the age of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there is no excuse for any property owner not clearing his or her walkway of all impediments, especially snow and ice in the winter.


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BANGKOK (Reuters) - Ivory is easy to find on the stalls of Chatuchak Market and River City mall in Bangkok. On display at just one shop are hundreds of kilograms of carved elephant tusk, unthinkable in most capitals but freely and legitimately for sale in Thailand.
As many as 30,000 elephants were slaughtered globally last year, environmental groups say, and populations are rapidly dwindling, with poachers undeterred by a ban on the international ivory trade in existence since 1989.
Thailand allows its nationals to trade in ivory from elephants that have died of natural causes inside its borders. But animal activists say the system is abused and ivory from Africa and elsewhere is "laundered" through the country.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) holds a conference in Bangkok from March 3 to 14 and - to the embarrassment of the hosts - environmental groups such as World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and TRAFFIC plan to table a motion calling for sanctions against Thailand.
"One of the reasons Thailand is being hit so hard in the CITES conference is, if you look at the numbers of domestic elephants and the numbers of Thailand's ivory carvers, it doesn't add up," said William Schaedla, director of Southeast Asia for TRAFFIC, an NGO for monitoring wildlife trade.
TRAFFIC estimates the country's elephant population and the natural death rate would provide only 8.4 kg (18.5 pounds) of ivory per registered carver a year.
But poor enforcement and regulation mean Thai merchants can lay their hands on much larger quantities. After the 1989 ban, countries were supposed to inventory their pre-existing stockpiles so CITES could keep tabs on them. Thailand never did, animal rights groups say.
"There's an undisclosed amount of ivory in the country, so essentially a bottomless pit to launder through," said Schaedla.
Thai ivory is supposed to be certified, but according to Schaedla this involves an easily forged slip of paper that the government doesn't bother to track, meaning African ivory can easily enter the market.
These failures mean Thailand now faces sanctions that, at their strongest, would ban its participation in international trade in the most endangered CITES-listed species, including reptile skins and rare orchids in which it has thriving markets.
Only Thai nationals should be able to buy ivory inside the country but buyers from Europe, the Americas and China are more common. Crackdowns are rare, and mostly occur during the run-up to CITES conferences, NGOs said.
Efforts have been made to clean up the laws governing elephants, but lobbying from ivory carvers and elephant owners derailed the process.
"The resolution of this issue is about political will, and Thailand has repeatedly kicked the can down the road," said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC's director for South and East Africa.
Some believe sanctions aren't enough, and that the only way to save Africa's elephants is to ban all ivory markets, including those in Thailand and China, the world's largest.
"Our position is any legal market provides a parallel illegal market," said Mary Rice of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a London-based NGO.
The EIA estimates over 90 percent of ivory on sale in China is illegally sourced.
"We must target the demand side and ensure markets in China and Thailand for ivory are banned. Ivory should be illegal without exception," Shelley Waterland of the Born Free Foundation told a news conference in Bangkok on Thursday.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on Wednesday Thailand would "consider" a ban on the domestic ivory trade, but some officials apparently see no need.
"The Thai government has a system to control the ivory trade from domestic animals already," said Theeraphat Prayurasith, deputy director of Thailand's Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Protection.
"We do not use African ivory in this country, and the quantities are not too large to be from domestic ivory. It is the right of Thai people to use domestic elephants," he said.
Activists will argue at the CITES conference that this system is not working, and the Thai ivory trade is a big factor behind dwindling African elephant populations.
"No one is going to hammer them and hit them with sanctions if they do something. But there's an appearance of subterfuge and stalling," said Schaedla. (Additional reporting by Pairat Temphairojana; Editing by Alan Raybould and Elaine Lies)


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Junior/Research/Senior/Leading Research Fellow - Institute for Bionic Technologies
- Recruiter
- Location
- Moscow (RU)
- Posted
- 08 Oct 2019
- End of advertisement period
- 31 Dec 2019
- Academic Discipline
- Engineering & Technology, Computer Science, Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Life sciences, Biological Sciences
- Job Type
- Academic Posts, Readers / Senior Research Fellows, Research Fellowships, Research Related, Other Research Related
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Junior research fellow, research fellow and senior research fellow or leading research fellow in the Institute for Bionic Technologies and Engineering
Job Description
The Institute for Bionic Technologies and Engineering of Sechenov University is looking for young highly motivated individuals with a new or recent academic degree in order to work on the project: "Artificial heart, circulatory support system for patients with functional single ventricle, neurostimulation of laryngeal nerves".
The requirements to perspective candidates:
1. A PhD or equivalent required;
2. Fluent in English;
3. Experience in writing and publishing research papers in journals indexed by Web of Science and/or Scopus.
4. Experience in conducting and developing research independently or in collaboration with a research supervisor;
5. Experience in implementing complex experiments and observations;
6. Experience in collecting, processing, analyzing and generalizing scientific information, best practices and results of experiments and observations;
7. Acquaintance with modern methods and means in planning and organization of research, experiments and observations;
8. Excellent interpersonal communication skills in multicultural and multidisciplinary research teams;
9. Highly motivated for research, ability to work independently and in a team;
10. Striving for continuous self-improvement based on constructive evaluation, self-analysis and learning.
If you are young, energetic and possess these qualities and skills as well as have the necessary experience, we offer you a job in the positions of Junior Research Fellow, Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow or Leading Research Fellow according to your qualifications on the following conditions:
1. An employment agreement for one year with an option of prolongation;
2. Accommodation on attractive terms at the University campus;
3. Travel costs compensation (in economy class) from the place of your living to Sechenov University's location;
4. Reimbursement of Health insurance expenses;
5. A monthly salary depending on your position, qualification and working mode;
6. Support by excellent mentors & professional administration.
The mandatory requirement of your work activities will be publishing papers after conducting scientific research in Q1 journals or with impact factor of not less than 2.5 indexed by Web of Science and/or Scopus.
Sechenov University is the largest educational, scientific and clinical complex that provides various type of trainings for the medical and academic personnel. Plentiful traditions of scientific schools of Sechenov University allow to effectively combine the fundamental and applied researches, experimental and clinical study testing, and introduction of the results into the educational process and clinical experience.
Based on the institutes and departments, there is everything necessary provided for young specialists to warm up their interest in gaining new information as well as to develop theoretical knowledge and practical skills, professional growth and career progress. Young specialists will be able to fulfil their potential in the specified fields, which are essential to solution of research and academic priority tasks in healthcare.
To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact:
Sazhina Marina , International Recruitment Manager, Department of Legal and HR
Tel: +7 495 609 14 00 (ext 26-70), email : firstname.lastname@example.com
For more information on all current vacancies, please visit our International Recruitment Platform : http://ir-sechenov.ru/en/
Sechenov University provides equal opportunity for everyone and prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, sex, religion, political and other beliefs.
More searches like this
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According to a new report, a big change is coming to the E! network hit reality show – Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami.
OK magazine is reporting the third season will be titled Kourtney and Khloe Take NYC. And it doesn't end there, according to the mag, the third season has already started filming in the big apple!
Khloe Kardashian's NBA hubby Lamar Odom confirmed the news to OK on Tuesday. When asked at the ESPY Style Studio if he would appear on the show he responded, "I think so. You will probably see me pop up here and there on the show."
The NYC location doesn't come as a big surprise as Kourtney Kardashian's babydaddy boyfriend Scott Disick, hails from NYC, and has expressed interest in wanting to move back to NYC with Kourtney in the past year.
The entire Kardashian family, including sister Kim Kardashian's new footballer boyfriend Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin also spent their 4th of July weekend in the city.
E! has also announced the upcoming new 5th season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians will debut in August.


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Bansko Travel Guide
Lying some 40km east of the main Struma Valley route, Bansko (Банско) is the primary centre for walking and skiing on the eastern slopes of the Pirin mountains. Originally an agricultural centre, it's witnessed massive investment in ski tourism in recent years, resulting in the unappealing sight of apartment blocks and hotels squeezed into the backyards of stone-built nineteenth-century farmhouses. Despite this overdevelopment, the central old town, with its numerous traditional pubs hidden away down labyrinthine cobbled streets, is as attractive as ever and the perfect place to wind down after a hard day on the slopes.
Though connected to Sofia and other towns by bus, Bansko can also be reached by a narrow-gauge railway, which leaves the main Sofia–Plovdiv line at Septemvri and forges its way across the highlands. It's one of the most scenic trips in the Balkans, but also one of the slowest, taking five hours to cover just over 100km.
Bansko centres on the modern pedestrianized pl. Nikola Vaptsarov, where the Nikola Vaptsarov Museum relates to the local-born poet and socialist martyr. Immediately north of here, pl. Vazrazhdane is watched over by the solid stone tower of the Church of Sveta Troitsa, whose interior contains exquisite nineteenth-century frescoes and icons. On the opposite side of the square, the Rilski Convent contains an icon museum devoted to the achievements of Bansko's nineteenth-century icon painters.
From the main square, ul. Pirin leads north towards the cable car, where there is a buzzing collection of ski-hire shops, bars and restaurants. Ski passes cost 55Lv per day (36Lv for children), and ski and snowboard equipment can be hired for around 30Lv per day. The cable car doesn't operate outside the ski season so the only option for reaching the summit in the summer months is to head west – on foot or by taxi – via a steep 14km uphill climb to the Vihren hut, where cheap dorm accommodation is available. This is the main trailhead for hikes towards the 2914m summit of Mount Vihren, Bulgaria's second-highest peak, or gentler rambles around the meadows and lakes nearby.
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Merkel Gets Tough as Russian Troops Hold War Games.
Russia launched new military exercises near its border with Ukraine on Thursday, showing no sign of backing down on plans to annex its neighbour's Crimea region despite a stronger than expected drive for sanctions from the EU and United States.
In an unusually robust and emotional speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of "catastrophe" unless Russia changes course, while a man was killed in Ukraine in fighting between rival protesters in a mainly Russian-speaking city.
At the U.N. Security Council, the United States circulated a draft resolution that would declare illegal Sunday's planned referendum on independence for Ukraine's Crimea region.
But Russia, one of the Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members, made clear it opposed the draft.
"Russia announced they will kill it," a senior Western diplomat told Reuters.
In Berlin, Merkel removed any suspicion she might try to avoid a confrontation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We would not only see it, also as neighbors of Russia, as a threat. And it would not only change the European Union's relationship with Russia," she told parliament. "No, this would also cause massive damage to Russia, economically and politically."
Secretary of State John Kerry said serious steps would be imposed on Monday by the United States and Europe if the referendum on Crimea joining Russia takes place on Sunday as planned.
Merkel, a fluent Russian speaker who grew up in communist East Germany, has emerged in recent days as a leading figure in threatening tough measures against Moscow.
Her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said that over the weekend, European states would draw up a list of Russians who will face visa restrictions and asset freezes.
Putin declared Russia's right to invade its neighbor on March 1, as Russian troops were already seizing control of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula with a narrow ethnic Russian majority and a Russian naval base.
Events have moved rapidly, perhaps signalling an effort by Moscow to turn the annexation into a fait accompli before the West can coordinate a response.
In the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, a young man was stabbed to death and more than a dozen people were in hospital after pro-Russian and pro-European demonstrators clashed. The violence was the worst since last month's overthrow of the Moscow-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich.
But in an apparently conciliatory move, Russia backed deployment of an OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine, including Crimea, the Swiss chairman of the European rights watchdog said.
The leader of pro-Moscow separatist politicians in Crimea, who took power there after armed men seized the regional parliament on Feb. 27, predicted a strong vote in favor of union with Russia in Sunday's referendum.
"We have a survey by renowned Ukrainian and Crimean polling experts showing clearly and plainly that more than 80 percent of people in Crimea are ready to join the Russian Federation," Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov told Reuters.
Aksyonov, whose election in a closed session of the regional parliament is not recognized by Kiev, dismissed opponents' accusations he will fix the referendum on Moscow's orders. "We guarantee that all aspects of European law will be followed, including security for voters," he said in an interview.
Western countries dismiss the vote as illegal. "The referendum on Sunday will have no legitimacy, no legal effect, it can have no moral effect. It is a piece of political theater that is being perpetrated at the barrel of a gun," Daniel Baer, the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, told reporters in Vienna.
At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said time was running out for a peaceful solution. She urged Russia to listen to the "remarkably unified" voices of its 14 fellow members of the Security Council and the Ukrainian people.
Diplomats said the one-page resolution would urge countries not to recognize the results of the vote in Crimea. A vote on the draft was postponed until Saturday at the latest to allow time for more negotiations.
Russia has taken territory from its former Soviet neighbors in the past with no serious consequences — in 2008 it invaded Georgia and seized two breakaway regions. But if Putin was hoping for a similarly tepid response this time, he may have misjudged.
In particular, he seems to have alienated Merkel, the Western leader with whom Putin, a German speaker who was once a KGB spy in East Germany, has had the closest relationship.
Merkel was initially more cautious than other Western leaders on the Crimean crisis, but in recent days she has pushed the European Union to match U.S. sanctions. EU action is critical because Europe does 10 times as much trade with Russia as the United States, buying most of its gas and oil exports.
The prospect that EU measures could be implemented as soon as Monday has weighed down the Russian economy.
Goldman Sachs revised its prediction for Russian economic growth this year down to 1 percent from 3 percent, blaming the tension over Ukraine for capital flight that would cripple investment. It said $45 billion had already left Russia this year, mostly Russians stashing money abroad.
The Russian stock market hit a 4-1/2-year low on Thursday and is down 20 percent since mid-February. The cost of insuring Moscow's debt against default rose to its highest level in nearly two years.
The crisis has already forced several Russian firms to put plans on hold for public offerings to raise cash abroad.
Yet none of that appears to have slowed down Putin, who told officials of the Winter Paralympic Games he is hosting in Sochi that Russia was "not the initiator" of the crisis.
The Russian Defense Ministry said 8,500 troops were taking part in new military exercises near the Ukrainian border, testing artillery and rocket launchers.
It was the second big exercise Moscow has ordered since the crisis began; the first, involving 150,000 troops, started a few days before Russian forces seized Crimea.
In a gesture of support for NATO's eastern members, U.S. F-16 fighter jets landed at Poland's Lask air base on Thursday.
Among efforts by the West to isolate Russia politically, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a 34-member rich nations' club, announced it was suspending membership talks with Russia, under way since 2007.
Moscow has pledged to respond in kind to any Western sanctions. The prime minister of Lithuania, a former Soviet republic that is now an EU member state, said Russia had suspended food product imports through its port of Klaipeda.
But European leaders appear to be calculating that the damage to Russia would be far worse than to Europe. EU-Russian trade makes up 15 percent of Russia's economy and just 1 percent of Europe's. Although EU countries depend on Russian gas imports, storage tanks are full after a mild winter.
Diplomatic lines have been open between Russia and the West throughout the crisis: Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Thursday, as they have nearly every day. They are due to meet in London on Friday.
Russia's top general discussed Ukraine with the chairman of NATO's Military Committee by telephone on Thursday, the Interfax news agency said.
The crisis over Crimea began after Yanukovich fled Kiev and pro-European politicians took charge, following three months of demonstrations.
© 2014 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
Source: Newsmax.com


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In Costa Rica, the burden is on the driver to check if they've been cited by a red light camera.
The Department of Homeland Security has a pre-crime program that is reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report."
Oldest running car in the world sold for 4.2 million. It runs on coal.
Photo gallery of vintage Soviet cars, including the Zaz, which appears to be driving in reverse all the time.
Gallery of hand-painted Russian film posters.
Fatal Shriner car accident.
Short documentary on the Occupy Wall Street community.
Meanwhile, some participants in Occupy Albuquerque are being accused of spitting on people....
The state of the New Mexico film industry.
A woman in Texas is upset not just because she was arrested, handcuffed and possibly having a heart attack but also because the cop refused to turn off Rush Limbaugh's radio show in his cruiser.
Ohio Amish "hair and beard attacks."
Five myths about voter fraud.
Steve Jobs liked L.S.D.
On this day in 1973, Elvis and Priscilla Presley's divorce was finalized.
Elvis and his bullet-proof corset.


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PENTAX K-50 - Overview
The complete Outdoor DSLR
- Weather resistant body
- Stabilized 16 MP CMOS sensor
- ISO up to 51 200
- Continuous Shooting 6fps
- 100% Pentaprism viewfinder
Awardsread more
Descriptionread more
The PENTAX K-50 boasts outstanding basic specifications that rival many upper-class models, including high-speed continuous shooting at approximately six images per second, super-high-sensitivity shooting at ISO 51200, and high-precision AF with accurate tracking of moving subjects. This means that beginning digital SLR users and casual family photographers can enjoy high-quality digital photography with very little effort. The K-50 also features a weather-resistant, dustproof construction to assure solid performance under demanding outdoor conditions, and also to reduce the need for maintenance. It even provides a wide range of advanced shooting features, such as full HD movie recording and a selection of creative tools such as digital filters, to accommodate various shooting requirements. It can be powered by easy-to-obtain AA-size batteries,** in addition to the standard lithium-ion battery.
Launched simultaneously with the K-50 camera body, two lens kits feature simplified weather-resistant lenses — the smc PENTAX-DA L 18-55mm F3.5-5.6AL WR, and the smc PENTAX-DA L 50-200 F4-5.6ED WR — to enhance the reliability and dependability of the K-50 imaging system.
The K-50 is offered in 120 different color variations. The color-to-order service has been extremely popular as a unique, stylish way for PENTAX camera users to express their own style in the choice of their camera system.
* Based on PENTAX research, as of June 1, 2013.
** The optional D-BH109 AA Battery Holder is required for AA-battery operation.
PENTAX K-50 VideoCheck out our latest video showing the new PENTAX K-50 in action
High-resolution, super-high-sensitivity shooting at ISO 51200
The K-50 features the state-of-the-art CMOS image sensor with a large image-capturing area measuring 23.7mm by 15.7mm, to assure high-speed image data readout. This image sensor is coupled with PRIME M — the same high-performance imaging engine incorporated in upper-class models — to deliver super-high-resolution, rich-gradation digital images with approximately 16.28 effective megapixels. The K-50 also offers super-high-sensitivity shooting at a top sensitivity of ISO 51200, allowing the photographer to handhold the camera for beautiful nighttime snapshots.
Reliable weather-resistant, dustproof body
Thanks to the 81 seals set in its compact, lightweight, portable body, the K-50 is built to be weather-resistant, dustproof and cold-resistant, even at temperatures as low as -10°C. This means that the K-50 can be taken along on outdoor activities such as camping, mountaineering and sports, for the joy of high-quality digital SLR photography without worrying about weather conditions. Its compact, functional body is carefully contoured with delicate curves, assuring that even a photographer with a small hand will have a firm grip of the camera.
Innovative SR mechanism
The PENTAX-developed SR (Shake Reduction) mechanism effectively compensates the adverse effect of camera shake to deliver sharp, blur-free images, even under shake-prone conditions such as when using a telephoto lens, shooting in the dark without flash illumination, or taking landscapes at twilight. This innovative mechanism works with almost all PENTAX interchangeable lenses — even those developed for film-format cameras.*** Thanks to the SR mechanism's flexible design, which tilts the image sensor unit in all directions, the K-50 offers several useful features to assist the photographer during shooting, including an Automatic Horizon Correction function to assure high-precision image framing and effortless adjustment of horizontal alignment; a Composition Adjustment function to allow minute adjustment of image alignment both to horizontal and vertical directions, as well as slant-wise rotation; and an ASTRO TRACER mode to simplify astronomical photography in combination with the optional O-GPS1 GPS Unit.
*** Lenses compatible with this mechanism: PENTAX K, KA, KAF, KAF2 and KAF3mount lenses; screw-mount lenses (with an adapter); and 645 and 67system lenses (with an adapter). Some functions may not be available with certain lenses.
High-precision autofocus with SAFOX IXi+ AF module
The K-50 features the state-of-the-art SAFOX IXi+ AF sensor module, which assures responsive, high-precision autofocus operation with 11 sensors (including nine cross-type sensors in the middle). It also features a spotbeam projector to assist AF operation at poorly lit locations. Its select-area expansion function keeps the sensor module tracking a moving subject, even when it moves out of a pre-assigned auto-tracking area, by assessing the distance data collected by neighboring focus sensors. This means not only greatly improved accuracy and speed of detecting moving subjects during autofocus operation, but also the enhanced auto-tracking performance of moving subjects when using a telephoto lens.
Specifications read more
|Type - Camera Type
Digital-still SLR camera, chassis made of highly rigid stainless steel.
|Lens - Mount
|PENTAX KAF2 bayonet mount (AF coupler, lens information contacts, K-mount with power contacts)
|Sensor - Type
|CMOS with primary color filter
|Sensor - Effective Pixels
|approx. 16.28 MP
|Body - Height
|Body - Width
|Body - Depth
|Body - Weight
Approx. 650 g (loaded and ready with the dedicated battery and SD Memory Card), Approx. 590 g (body only)


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Fantasy Rugby 2020: ESPN's new, improved and free Six Nations game is now live!
Think you know more about rugby than your mates? Well it's time to prove it -- and be in with the chance of winning some great prizes -- with ESPN's free Fantasy Rugby game!
One year after his son died playing rugby, a father's fight goes on
Nicolas Chauvin's death altered the laws of rugby, but father Philippe cannot rest. "The final thing at my door today is that Nicolas did not die for nothing."
Love, rugby and a sport's crucial battle with concussion
On the eve of the Rugby World Cup, Tom Hamilton assesses how far the game has come and how far it still has to go in its understanding of the most prevalent -- and damaging -- injury in rugby.


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What will I learn during my studies? What career opportunities will I have after graduation? And do I have everything I need to study at IUBH? You will find answers to these and other questions on the following pages.
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Malaysia is a big tourist destination, yes. "Malaysia, Truly Asia" has been constantly advertised on CNN International for years, Penang and Langkawi are resort hotspots and Kuching and Kota Kinabalu are big culture/adventure travel destinations. But, compared to its neighbors, Indonesia with Borobudur and Bali, Cambodia with Angkor Wat, the international hub city of Singapore and of course Thailand, Malaysia pales as a tourist destination. This sort of seems like a fact of life, but why? What about Malaysia makes it relatively unappealing, so lame-seeming? It can certainly be good value, with many services at first world levels for discount prices. The food is excellent. Melaka and Penang have intriguing history and there is natural beauty galore on Borneo. Is Malaysia's poor reputation unmerited? Admittedly we've spent little time in Malaysia, just a couple weeks in Borneo and about a week in Peninsular Malaysia, but our answer would be no. Malaysia just isn't in the same league.
The first problem with Malaysia is, apparently, violence. I do not know the statistics on this, but Malaysia is the only country in Asia (other than the Philippines) where I have heard repeated safety concerns from other travelers. Yes, you may be conned in Bangkok and there are certainly some government-related issues in Burma and China, but East/Southeast Asia as a whole (other than the Philippines) is extraordinarily safe, one of the region's many strengths for travelers. Even Jakarta, which I had at one point ignorantly feared, feels astonishingly safe on the ground. In sharp contrast, in the short time that we were in Kuala Lumpur (KL), we heard two separate stories about muggings, and I was physically attacked in the main bus station (more on this below).
The second problem with Malaysia is racism and racial tension. While Malaysia has a history dating from the 15th century or so as a Malay-ethnic sultantate, Malaysia as a modern country is largely the product of colonial powers (first Portuguese and Dutch and then British) and labor brought in by those powers (the Chinese for manual labor and commerce, the Indians for administration and the service sector). Well into the twentieth century, the principal cities of Malaysia were largely built, owned and populated by Chinese, who made up nearly half of the country's population. The smaller Indian population is augmented by the presence of overseas workers from the subcontinent. Yes, Malaysia is a multicultural society, but Malaysia's vision of itself as a country where all three of the major ethnic groups live together in complete harmony sometimes seems to be more dream than reality.
The biggest problem, in my view, is discriminatory Malaysian laws. I do not deny that it is unfortunate for your "homeland" to be taken over by an outside ethnic group that has been brought in by a colonial power (the Palestinians certainly can identify with that)–the Chinese minority is still disproportionately economically powerful–but the policies put in by the majority Malay (now some 60% of the population) amount to little other than discrimination against and theft from the Chinese and Indians. Public companies are required to be at least 30% owned by Bumiputras (i.e., "sons of the earth," or Malays and certain other "native" groups), new housing construction is required to be sold to Bumiputras at a discount, Bumiputras are allowed affirmative access in higher education and many government contracts and permits are given to Bumiputras on a preferential basis. This racist system is enshrined in the Malaysian constitution, and although the provision was supposed to be temporary, and there is occasionally talk of trimming back on its application, it remains in place.
The laws are no doubt both an effect of and a cause of racial sentiment that seems prevalent throughout the country. Malaysia is certainly not the only country with racial tension (Indonesia in particular is infamous for racial riots that have occurred in its history), but, currently, Malaysia is, outside of the U.S., the country in which I've felt the greatest amount of animosity among different ethnic groups. Our conflict at the bus station was with Malay-ethnic Malaysians, and Chinese-ethnic Malaysians who were present immediately came to our defense, telling us that as Americans in a position of relative influence we had to report what had happened to us. One middle-aged Chinese woman said that "they" (meaning Malays) commit all kinds of crimes, especially against defenseless South Asians, and get away with it. She was also mistrustful of the police, and told me that I should make sure to keep copies of all reports that we make, to ensure that they are not subsequently doctored. An Indian police officer who handled our matter said that such violence was a "national epidemic," with the subtle implication that it was a Malay-ethnic problem. A Chinese taxi driver told us not to take Indian taxis, because they would rip us off (perhaps in this case a justified prejudice, judging from our limited sample). Surveys have shown that racial stereotypes are widely held in Malaysia, with people believing Malays to be lazy, Chinese greedy and Indians dishonest.
Third, Islam is manifesting itself in Malaysia in strange ways. People may think of Malaysia as the more modern and cosmopolitan of the two Muslim Southeast Asian nations, but, it seems to me, Malaysia, far more than Indonesia, is turning to a sort of fundamentalist version of Islam that is bizarrely conservative and reactionary. (I have read that the rise of fundamentalist Islam in Indonesia was at one time called "the Malaysian problem" because Malaysia was the Asian source of the movement.) All Malays are subject to sharia (or Islamic law) courts, which have ruled apostasy a crime. Malaysia is famous for having pursued, essentially as a political crime, a sodomy charge against a former prime minister. Our bus station altercation involved an argument with a woman, whom I had to shake off of me at one point because she was forcefully grabbing my arm and not letting go–a person standing by told me that I should have my hand cut off for fighting with a woman ("chop chop chop," she cheerfully said, making a chopping gesture with her hand), a demented vision of Islamic punishment. Ideas which are out of date seem even more backward when placed in a foreign cultural setting–it may make sense for some Arab countries to wish to revert back to a more glorious Arab past, but in Malaysia the adoption of the foreign code of behavior feels not only anachronistic (shifted in time) but misplaced (shifted in space and culture).
Finally, however Malaysia may try to sell itself as a developed country, the primitive state of some of its public transport culture shows that it is in some ways still very much a third world country. First, the taxis. I remember, not too long ago, when taxis in Korea used to rip customers off–overcharging foreigners, refusing to use the meter, refusing to go to certain parts of town, etc. At some point, some combination of the government, drivers and customers recognized that developed countries do not behave this way, and taxis are now, for the most part, totally clean. Vietnam is clearly still on the developing end of the scale, according to this metric, while Thailand with its combination of meters and crooked drivers falls somewhere in between. The taxis in KL are some of the absolute worst for ripping travelers off–perhaps the only place we've seen worse is Delhi, and that's saying an awful lot. Drivers in central KL routinely refuse to use their meters and instead quote astronomical rates that are multiples of the proper fare. Rather than turn their meter on or accept a reasonable fare, they will simply tell you to get out of their car. The government apparently lacks the will or the means to clean this up, despite the extremely poor impression it makes on travelers to Malaysia, while the lack of dignity on the part of the drivers reveals a grave deficiency in the levels of civics and ethics.
But even worse than the taxis (after all, a common problem, even if not to the level of KL) is the situation at Puduraya Bus Station. Puduraya is the country's largest bus station and is located right in the heart of KL. If you've been in Korea or Turkey or Mexico or any other country with well-developed bussing, you know that bus lines can be extremely comfortable and professional. I recall that the main bus terminal in Mexico City is pretty much like an airport in terms of modernity and efficiency, Turkish busses famously have attendants that give you cologne and Korean busses leave precisely on time, almost to a fault, with many offering 2-1 seating (two seats on one side of the aisle, one on the other). Even Indian bus stations, for all their chaos, are pretty well run, with reliable schedules and fares by state-owned companies.
Puduraya is, simply put, the worst bus station we've ever seen. The place is in congested central KL (has no-one thought to move this thing a bit out of town?) and, in steamy Malaysia, not air conditioned. All of the guidebooks refer to it as a den of pickpockets. There are some fifty or so ticket counters–competition run amok with no sense of regulation–and no centralized way to figure out when what busses are going where. Worst of all are the many scams. We fell prey on the one ride we tried to take out of Puduraya and met another tourist who was also an angry victim. Reports online suggest that the scams are extremely common, not only but especially for tourists. It goes something like this: You buy a ticket, and at some point someone pretends to be a ticket agent and tears off your stub. Given the chaos of the station, with literally dozens of companies, almost no-one in uniform and multiple companies operating in each bay, this does not happen only to the naive. Then, when it comes time for you to get on your bus, you are told that your ticket is invalid and your assigned seat has been sold to another passenger.
What happened to us was a slight variation on this. We showed up for our bus exactly seven minutes early, but didn't find a bus. Bus station employees who were standing at our bay told us to wait, and then tore off our ticket stub. After waiting for twenty minutes, we realized that our bus must have left without us (as we learned later, after filling our seats with other passengers who were charged an on-the-spot premium for getting on an earlier bus), and so went angrily to ask for a refund. At the counter, we were told that our tickets could not be refunded because the stubs had been torn off, despite the fact that we were not the only passengers who had been waiting, promptly and in the right place, and never even saw the bus. Basically, this ploy allows the companies to sell more tickets than there are seats on the bus. In our case, with a typically Malaysian twist it turns out, this dispute led to the crook running up behind me and hitting my head with a heavy walkie-talkie.
When Derek defended me with a quick punch to my attacker, an angry crowd of Malays converged, all siding with the attacker (later we learned that they were likely other resident con-artists who were part of the same gang). But many others knew exactly what was going on. A taxi driver (figuring it best to get out quickly, we opted for an expensive long-distance taxi instead of trying another bus) told us that there's a "mafia" of ticket sellers and con artists operating at the station, selling tickets to buses that don't exist and otherwise getting people to pay for tickets that they cannot use. It is equally well known among well-seasoned travelers. To quote Lonely Planet's Thorntree message board:
"Having been traveling for over 16 months through Northern Asia, Latin America, Australasia and now South East Asia we have seen a lot of bus stations (at the moment we have used over 115 intercity buses on this trip) but we agreed that Puduraya was the worst we had seen so far in terms of ease of use, safety and reliability. "
"Agreed, Kuala Lumpur's Puduraya Bus Terminal is a hellhole. Those of us who know Puduraya would love to avoid it, but when going through KL [by] bus, there are few options. For a country that pretends to be on the treshold of joining the First World league of nations, it has some of the worst bus terminals anywhere; even India's are better; Malaysia's bus terminals are not even Third World, but more like Fourth World. "
Given these safety concerns, the institutionalized racism and racial tension and "fourth world" transportation hassles, is it any wonder that so many travelers prefer to go to friendly Thailand, rustic Laos or service-focused Bali?


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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Lorenzo Brown scored 18 of his season-high 24 points after halftime to help No. 25 North Carolina State pull away to beat Stanford 88-79 on Tuesday night.
Scott Wood scored 15 of his 17 in the first half for the Wolfpack (8-2), who earned a fourth straight win with another high-scoring performance at home. It also allowed N.C. State to avenge a road loss last year in which the Wolfpack blew a 12-point lead in the second half.
Richard Howell finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Wolfpack for his fourth straight double-double.
Dwight Powell continued his recent strong play for the Cardinal (7-4), scoring 23 points for his fourth 20-point performance in five games. But Stanford gave up its highest point total of the season.
N.C. State, which came in leading the country by shooting nearly 53 percent, finished this one at 56 percent.


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Adding Attachments to Excel 2007 Email Hyperlinks
I write a lot of books. More importantly, I support my books through email, sometimes long after they were published. I enjoy solving puzzles when you guys ask me to help, and if it helps sell books, great.
Five years ago, I wrote an Excel VBA book, Excel 2003 VBA Programmer's Reference. More succinctly, I updated a second edition of this book, so only some of the content was mine. In short, this book is five years old and I don't have Excel 2003 anymore. (I upgraded to Excel 2007 a year or so ago.) But, a reader wrote me and asked how he could use an email address hyperlink in his spreadsheet and add an attachment based on a filename in an adjacent cell. Thinking this would be easy, I tried to tackle it. (Like everyone else, I am busy and get a lot of requests from readers, so easy is better.) As it turns out, it doesn't appear to be easy.
The example in this article shows you how to use VBA (and Excel) to add an attachment to a hyperlink email from a worksheet cell and includes a quick reminder on Windows API declarations. Now, if some of you very clever readers know a simpler way then I encourage you to share it (and let me know).
Creating a MailTo Hyperlink Cell
To add a mailto hyperlink—one that will generate an email—pick a cell and type the moniker mailto:, and an email address, for example:
The result should look something like Figure 1.
Click here for a larger image.
Figure 1: Use the mailto moniker to create a hyperlink that will generate an email address.
If you right-click on the hyperlink and select Edit Hyperlink, the Edit Hyperlink dialog will appear (see Figure 2). (The recently used email addresses show you all of the ways I tried to tease the attachment in easily. They didn't work.)
Click here for a larger image.
Figure 2: The Edit Hyperlink dialog supports subjects but not attachments. (This should probably be changed at Microsoft. Hint. Hint.)When you click on the link in Figure 1, your default mail provider should pop up with the email address filled in.
What you want to do next is complete the email along with an attachment and send it. The next piece of information to add is the name of the attachment in an adjacent cell. The results might look like those shown in Figure 3.
Click here for a larger image.
Figure 3: Adding the name of the attachment in an adjacent cell.
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This article was originally published on August 29, 2008
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FREMONT — A Fremont police civilian employee suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries when her motorcycle collided with a Fremont police patrol car and a truck Friday evening, authorities said.
The sequence of events leading to the crash was not immediately known, according to Fremont police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques.
The driver of the truck and the police officer in the patrol car were not injured.
The 29-year-old woman, an employee with the department for the past 18 months, was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive, Bosques added.
The accident was reported around 3:55 p.m. on northbound Fremont Boulevard just past the intersection of Thorton Avenue, and the road has since been shut down to traffic in both directions. Police originally said the road would be opened around 6:30, but the road is now expected to reopen around 10 p.m., according to Bosques.
Because the crash involved two Fremont police employees, Newark and Union City police will mount an independent investigation of the crash, Bosques added.
Check back for updates.
Contact Katie Nelson at firstname.lastname@example.com and follow her at Twitter.com/katienelson210.


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Adorable Jared Gilmore is leaving "Mad Men" behind for ABC's "Once Upon A Time," and it appears there's at least one cast member he won't miss – January Jones.
When asked for his advice by TV Guide for the actor replacing him, the youngster had a few things to say.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Shows & Stars of Fall Television 2011
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
"Be careful around January [Jones]. She's not as approachable as the others," Jared told the mag. "She's really serious about what she does. Everyone else is so nice."
Jared's character, Bobby — the son of January's Betty Draper and Jon Hamm's Don Draper — will be recast.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: All Access: 'Mad Men' Season 4 Premiere
Instead of January, Jared finds a new TV mom in former "House" and current big screen "Warrior" star Jennifer Morrison in "Once Upon A Time."
Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: It's Hamm-er Time! Hot Shots Of 'Mad Men' Star Jon Hamm
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Scenes & Stars From AMC's 'Mad Men'
PLAY IT NOW: Jennifer Morrison's 'Warrior' Praise For Joel Edgerton: 'He's Just An Incredible Human Being'
PLAY IT NOW: Access Hollywood Live: Get That Dapper 'Mad Men' Look!
More from Access: [ Mad Men January Jones ABC ]


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There is no sunshine, no liberty, or freedom, or joy for farmed pigs; there is only suffering and misery from the day they are born to the day they die.Many people who know pigs compare them to dogs because they are friendly, loyal, and intelligent - they have the mental intelligence of a three year old child.
Pigs spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy warehouses, under constant stress from the intense confinement and denied everything that is natural to them. As piglets, they are taken away from their mothers when they are less than 1 month old, their tails are cut off, some of their teeth are cut off, and the males have their testicles ripped out of their scrotums (castration), all without any pain relief.
They spend their entire lives in overcrowded pens on a tiny slab of filthy concrete. Breeding sows spend their entire miserable lives in tiny metal crates where they can't even turn around. Shortly after giving birth, they are once again forcibly impregnated. This cycle continues for years until their bodies finally give out and they are sent to be killed. When the time comes for slaughter, these beautiful and sensitive animals are forced onto transport trucks to travel to be slaughtered.
Start by imagining a space not much bigger than the computer screen you're looking at right now. Smaller in size than an A4 sheet of paper. Now, imagine trying to fit a whole adult chicken inside that space, and keeping her there for her entire life. You don't even have to imagine a perch or nest, as a hen in a battery cage wouldn't have these either.Then, imagine that same hen is in a wire cage with four other hens, and surrounded by hundreds, thousands, millions of other hens just like her.
That's how many hens are living in this situation in Australia right now; over 12.5 million hens producing more than 193 million eggs each year. They will never be able to walk around, peck or bathe in the dust, stretch or flap their wings. If this was a dog or a cat, this would be illegal. Yet these hens continue to suffer, every minute, of every hour, of every day in battery farms all over Australia.
BROILER CHICKENS - By Ambassador Against Factory Farming - Matthew Ng
Each year 550 million chickens are produced for meat in Australia and most are factory farmed. They live in close confinement with up to 60,000 chickens in a single shed, never stepping outside.
The conservative Australian Chicken Meat Federation describes most commercial meat chicken farms as "intensive, highly mechanised operations that occupy relatively small areas compared with other forms of farming." I think this defines how chickens are treated by the industry itself as objects rather than living, breathing beings.
Chickens are harshly denied their natural behaviour in factory farms. They live in extremely close confinements with tens of thousands of other birds with personal space less than the size of an A4 paper. Standing on their on their own faeces, with no sunlight they are unable to perform some of their most fundamental behaviour's such as roosting and nurturing their young.
Through selective breeding the meat industry further discomforts these sentient beings that can feel pain and emotion just like usthrough unnatural methods all in the name of money and efficiency.
By using newly developed methods chickens are made to grow faster than ever. Over 50 years ago it took 98 days to reach slaughter weight. Today it takes just 35 days.
The consequences of rapid body growth to factory farmed chickens are broken bones, swollen joints, acute heart failure and spinal damage causing unimaginable pain. Some chickens even grow so heavy due to their unnaturally large breast muscles they can hardly move, crouching in corrosive wet litter and develop painful breast blisters.
Their death is not much better but slow and inhumane. After being brought of the trucks the birds are shackled upside down into metal stirrups on an overhead conveyor. The conveyor carries them through an electrified bath that is intended to stun them but several terrified birds lift their heads when they reach an automatic slaughtering knife and some birds even miss this too and are agonized by being lowered into a 50 degree scalding tank to help remove their feathers.
On top of this farm animals such as chickens are not protected under law but are "regulated" by a moral code of practice made up by the meat industry. This is no surprise seeing that animals are legally classified as property under Australian law.
Just don't eat chickens.
Scientists have proved conclusively that fish feel pain. The idea that fish don't feel any pain is ridiculous - they have a brain, a nervous system, pain receptors and are very sensitive to slight changes in water temperature and pressure. When under stress and faced with dangerous situations, they display symptoms including pounding heartbeat, fast breathing, adrenaline rush, writhing and gasping. The Farm Animal Welfare Council Report on the Welfare of Farmed Fish states:
"The fact that fish are cold-blooded does not prevent them from having a pain system and, indeed, such a system is valuable in preserving life and maximising the biological fitness of individuals. The receptor cells, neuronal pathways and specialised transmitter substances in the pain system are very similar in fish to those in mammals."
When hauled up from the deep, fish undergo excruciating decompression. The intense internal pressure ruptures the swimbladder, pops out the eyes and pushes the oesophagus and stomach out through the mouth. Fish caught in nets will die of crushing or suffocation, or have their bellies sliced open on the decks of the ships.
Fish farms are of two types, in-land farms and sea farms. Almost half of the salmon, 40 percent of the mollusks, and 65 percent of the freshwater fish consumed today spend most of their lives in captivity. Salmon, trout and other species are reared in dirty, cramped, underwater cages and pens. Due to overcrowding, infections and diseases spread easily. Many become ill with painful lice, which eat them alive from the outside in. The industry tries to control the lice through the use of antibiotics and toxic pesticides.
In-land farms use concrete tanks measuring up to 35 meters in length; the light and food are tightly controlled and monitored. The farms at sea consist of 70 meter diameter cages floating along the shore line at the estuaries of rivers. The fish are packed tight and confined in these cages each of which may contain more than 50,000 salmon or 270,000 trout. That's similar to having a 2.5 foot salmon in one bathtub of water.
Salmon are typically killed by first being clubbed on the head and then having their gills cut so that they bleed to death. Many trout are condemned to a slow and agonising death by suffocation in air or on ice.
To learn more about fish check out FISHING HURTS.
Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do—to feed their babies.To keep giving milk, cows must be forcibly impregnated through artificial insemination every year. The cows' babies are generally taken away within a day of being born - male calves are destined to become veal, while females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers.
Mother cows on dairy farms can often be seen searching and calling for their babies after they have been taken away. In the U.S.A the cattle expert Dr. T. Grandin wrote of a visit that he made to a dairy farm and of the great distress of bellowing that was heard when he arrived: "They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning, there was one cow outside the stockade, roaming, looking for her calf, and bellowing, she wanted her baby. Bellowing for it, hunting for it. She stops for a while, and then starts again. It's like grieving, mourning—not much written about it. People don't like to allow them thoughts or feelings".
The mother cow will be hooked up several times a day to machines that take the milk intended for her calf. Through genetic manipulation, and intensive milking, she will produce about three times as much milk as she would naturally. According to the industry's own figures, between 30 and 50 per cent of dairy cows suffer from mastitis, which is an extremely painful condition. A cow's natural lifespan is 25 years, but a cow used by the dairy industry is killed after only four or five years. By the time they are killed, an industry study reports that nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the filth, intensive confinement, and the strain of constantly being pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat, their bodies too "spent" to be used for anything else.
Peta has some really good info here to learn more: The Truth about Cows
A writer named Gene Franks wrote an article that was published called 'Milk Sucks - Bossies Revenge' which is a really interesting read all about the milk industry propaganda that we are raised to believe. We've picked out a few 'facts' for you to think about and although it is an American article, the facts are worth considering.
Here are several things about milk that the ads don't tell you:
1. Milk is "a natural" only for baby calves. Calves have fours stomachs and double their body weight in 47 days. Human babies have only one stomach and a much slower rate of growth. It takes human babies 180 days or so to double their weight, so they don't need nearly as much protein as calves. Cows' milk is 15% protein (it has 15% of its calories as protein); human breast milk is 5 % protein. Much of the rationale for believing that cows' milk is an ideal food for human babies was based on research done with rats early in this century. The milk of mother rats is 49% protein and baby rats double their weight in just 4 days. This is yet another example of the difficulties we create for ourselves by trying to imitate rats.
2. Continuing to drink milk into adulthood is unnatural to all species. Only man could rationalize such weird behavior and learn to view it as "natural."
3. Decades of meat and dairy propaganda have made Americans the world's most outrageous protein gluttons. The most frequent question vegetarians hear is, "Where do you get your protein?" The answer is, "Where do horses, cows, gorillas, elephants, and giraffes get their protein?" Corpse-milk-egg protein is secondhand protein, inferior in quality to plant protein. And all plants, even lettuce, have protein. Here again is George Bernard Shaw: "Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into a giant oak! Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay! "
4. Although the officially recommended daily requirement for protein is probably more than double what we really need, government and university experts regularly advise that we take in an extra 30% or so just to be safe. More is better. When asked who needs this extra 30%, Dr. David Reuben, who popularized the importance of dietary fiber, replied:
The people who sell meat, fish, cheese, eggs, chicken, and all the other high prestige and expensive sources of protein. Raising the amount of protein you eat by 30% raises their income by 30%. It also increases the amount of protein in the sewers and septic tanks of your neighborhood 30% as you merrily urinate away everything that you can't use that very _ day. It also deprives the starving children of the world of the protein that would save their lives. Incidentally, it makes you pay 30% of your already bloated food bill for protein you will never use [and] puts another $36 billion a year into the pockets of the protein producers.
5. Question: Where do people who don't drink milk get their calcium?
Answer: Where do cows get their calcium?
6. Question: Who needs the excess calcium that experts recommend?
Answer: The people who sell milk, cheese, and other high prestige and expensive sources of calcium. Raising the amount of calcium you eat by X amount raises their income by X amount.
7. Nutrition writer Frieda Kabelac says:
We have been thoroughly mis-educated about calcium and proteins, thanks to the dairy and meat interests, which have penetrated the school systems with their propaganda. So ingrained is the idea that we need milk after the weaning period for calcium that people doubt that we can get enough calcium from plant foods.
8. Calcium deficiency usually does not arise from too little calcium but from too much protein. Dr. John Scharffenberg writes:
A very high calcium intake is necessary in the United States diet because a high-protein diet increases excretion of calcium. In one study, men 18-20 years of age were given protein ranging from 48-141 gm. daily. The higher levels of protein doubled the urinary excretion of calcium when both calcium and phosphorus intake were held constant.... A diet high in meat with its high protein content will therefore increase urinary excretion of calcium.... Vegetarians have significantly greater bone density than omnivores; thus vegetarians appear to be less prone to osteoporosis.
9, The dairy industry has spent millions funding a variety of research schemes aimed at proving that milk is good for us. Meanwhile, what is probably the most extensive epidemiological study ever undertaken in the field of nutrition found, decisively, that the opposite is true.
10. If you plan to "cut down" on the fat overdose by drinking "low fat" milk, consider Bob LeRoySiBrava's advice: "Healthwise, shifting from fattier meats to 'leaner' meats, cutting skin off poultry, reducing the number of times per week you eat egg yolks, and substituting 1% milk products for most whole milk products, is comparable to cutting smoking down to one pack per day."
11. If cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis aren't enough, here are a few more health problems that have been associated in medical literature with milk and excessive calcium: kidney stones, gallstones aging and wrinkling of the skin, "frozen shoulder," tendonitis, bursitis, heel spurs, otosclerosis ( which leads to deafness), bloating, cramping, diarrhoea (of various types), colic, runny nose, bronchitis, asthma, inflammatory arthritis, eczema, ulcerative colitis, lymphatic leukaemia, Hodgkins disease, multiple sclerosis, iron deficiency (due to milk-induced gastrointestinal bleeding), and even crime. [An article in the Journal of Orthomological Psychiatry (8:149, 1979) reported that the juvenile offenders studied drank twice as much milk as the control group.]


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|The Harvest Moon on Hangawi (Newsis)
Today is Korean Thanksgiving Day, the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, which is referred to in Korean by a variety of different names including Chuseok (추석(秋夕)), Jungchu (중추 (中秋)), Jungchujeol (중추절 (仲秋節)), Gabae-il (가배일 (嘉俳日)), Gawinnal (가윗날), and Hangawi (한가위). It is widely believed to originate from Gabae (가배 (嘉俳)) that involved Gabe (가베) or Gilssam (길쌈), a month-long hemp cloth weaving contest held by King Yuri, the third king (24–57) of the Silla Dynasty (57 BC–935 AD).
According to Samguksagi (삼국사기, "History of the Three Kingdoms"), starting the 16th day of the 7th month through the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, two groups of women respectively led by two princesses were gathered together in the royal courtyard every morning to weave hemp cloth. On the last day of competition, the team that had woven more cloth was announced as that year's winner and the defeated team treated them to a feast and also entertained them with songs and dances. Such festivities were called Gabae (가배(嘉俳)), a phonetically translated word (from native Korean into Chinese).1 I think the "ㅂ" sound in the word was "ㅸ" (순경음 비읍, "light labial sound ㅂ")2 which sounds like /v/ as the word changed to Ga-oe (가외) in the 17th century then to Gawi (가위) in the 18th century.3
Even though this is the most popular hypothesis about the origin of Korean Thanksgiving Day, Hangawi, it's still quite controversial as some people believe the story of the weaving contest was made up based on the fact the word be (베, "hemp (cloth)") sounds similar to bae (배) of Gabae (가배 (嘉俳)), which is a phonetically translated Chinese word from the native Korean Gave (가베); and the meaning of gave (가베) is just "middle":
Major Korean national holidays set based on boreum, the 15th of the month when the moon reaches its fullest include Jeongweol Daeboreum or Sangweon (the 15th of the first month of the lunar calendar), Baekjung or Jungwoen (the 15th of the seventh month of the lunar calendar), and Hangawi or Chuseok (the 15th of the eighth month of the lunar calendar). The moon epitomizes birth, fertility, creation, and abundance and in ancient Korea, agriculture was the sole means of living; thus, good harvests determined the quality of their lives. In other words, farmers, the majority of the people of ancient Korea, always hoped for abundant output and a good year, so they earnestly prayed to the goddess of the moon, at the beginning of the year, that their hopes and wishes would come true. And they would be filled with the fullest anticipation waiting for the time the moon would reach its fullest - the ultimate symbol of abundance. And after the harvest, they gave thanks to the goddess of the moon; accordingly, it is also believed Korean Thanksgiving Day probably originates from the ancient shamanistic celebration of the harvest (full) moon.
And just like they do days before Seollal, over 31 million people who live mainly in Seoul and other major big cities, far away from their hometowns hence far apart from their parents and relatives, are already heading home starting yesterday (9/29/2012). Here's two typical Korean cliché headlines to describe all this hoopla: (1) Maeumun seollego balgeoreumun babbeuda (마음은 설레고 발걸음은 바쁘다), which translates to "(Homeward-bounders') fluttering hearts and busy feet"; and (2) Gosokdoroga juchajanguro byeonhaedda (고속도로가 주차장으로 변했다), which literally means "A highway turned into a parking lot," to describe so horrible a traffic jam that nothing is moving forward.
Homeward-bound vehicles for Hangawi holiday
form endless lines on a highway (Yonhap News: 9/30/2012)
This great exodus is called guiseong (귀성, 歸省), a Sino-Korean word (i.e. a word of Chinese origin), which has the same connotation of English phrase "coming home." In this phrase, "coming" can only be used when the person you're going to is already there; so you're "coming home" to your parents or relatives who live there. In a word guiseong, gui means "to return" and seong "to look after or take care of," so you're "returning home" or "coming home" after a long absence "to care for your parents' health if they are still alive or to visit their graves if they already passed away."
On the other hand, there are tons of people out there in Seoul or other big cities who cannot come home because they are too busy with jam-packed schedules, because they have an infant child who can't stand very long in a car, or simply because they can't afford a trip. So now we have a latest trend in coming home - yeokguiseong (역귀성, 逆歸省) which literally translates to "reverse coming home." These are creative actions taken by the old parents having to meet up with their not-so-young children. This reverse coming home has one outstanding advantage: Parents don't have to worry about traffic jams or exhaustingly crowded bus trips since everybody's going home when they're coming to cities like Seoul and after long holiday weekend everybody's going back to cities when they're coming back home. When parents come home to their kids, they never forget to bring two or four armfuls of homegrown produce or mom's foods for the kids.
Still, more than half of the entire population of South Korea (31 million people out of 50 million) is escaping from big cities, to come home to their families who have lived there for generations. And this morning, some fathers must have cleaned up every corner of their houses, expecting their grown-up children and/or grandchildren, and most mothers must gone groceries at traditional local markets or prepared traditional foods for Hangawi - all with fluttering hearts and busy feet.
1. Idu (or Yidu, 이두) is an archaic writing system that phonetically translates the native Korean words into Chinese. Some of those phonetically translated words are semantically identical with the Chinese letters used (e.g., balgui (발긔 → 件記(발기) "list")) while others just borrow the phonetic pronunciations of the Chinese letters used (e.g., jo-i (조이 → 召史(조이) "commoner's wife"). This system was conceived in the Gojoseon period (2333 BC–108 BC) and started being used in earnest in the period of the Three Kingdoms of Korea (57-668). It was mainly used by the (royal) officials thus was named Idu (이두(吏座)) in which i (이(吏)) and du (두(座)) respectively mean "officials" and "place/status."
2. The Korean alphabet, Hangul, originally had 28 letters consisting of 17 consonants and 11 vowels (Their sounds are described based on the English IPA chart for the sake of your easy understanding.):
Consonants: ㄱ(/g/), ㅋ(/k/), ㄷ(/d/), ㅌ(/t/), ㄴ(/n/),
ㅂ(/b/), ㅍ(/p/), ㅁ(/m/), ㅈ(/ʒ/), ㅊ(/t͡ʃ/),
ㅅ(/s/),ㅎ(/h/),ㅇ(/ŋ/),ㄹ(/r/,/l/), ㆆ (light /h/),
ㅿ(alveolar /z/),ㆁ(velar /ŋ/)
Vowels: ㅡ(/ɯ/), ㅣ(/i/), ㅗ(/o/), ㅏ(/a/), ㅜ(/u/),ㅓ(/ə/),
ㅛ(/jo/), ㅑ(/ja/), ㅠ(/ju/),ㅕ(/jə/),ㆍ(/ʌ/ as in "but")
And there were 18 side-by-side double or triple consonants such as ㄲ(/gg/), ㄸ(/dd/), ㅃ(/bb/), ㅉ(/ʒʒ/), ㅆ(/ss/), ㆅ(/hh/),ㆀ(/ŋŋ/), ㅥ(/nn/), ㅳ, ㅄ, ㅶ, ㅷ, ㅺ, ㅻ, ㅼ, ㅽ, ㅴ, ㅵ; and 4 top-down double consonants such as ㅸ,ㅹ,ㆄ, andㅱ. Among the latter consonant group, ㅸ sounds like /v/ and was the only sound that was actually used.
There were also diphthongs such as ㅘ(/wa/), ㅝ(/wə/), ㆎ (/ʌi/), ㅢ(/ɯi/), ㅚ(/ø/), ㅐ(/ae/), ㅟ(/wi/), ㅔ(/e/), etc.
The modern Korean alphabet now has 28 letters consisting of 14 consonants and 10 vowels:
Consonants: ㄱ(/g/), ㄴ(/n/), ㄷ(/d/), ㄹ(/l/,/r/), ㅁ(/m/),
ㅂ(/b/), ㅅ(/s/), ㅇ(/ŋ/), ㅈ(/ʒ/), ㅊ(/t͡ʃ/),
ㅋ(/k/), ㅌ(/t/), ㅍ(/p/), ㅎ(/h/)
Vowels: ㅡ(/ɯ/), ㅣ(/i/), ㅗ(/o/), ㅏ(/a/), ㅜ(/u/),ㅓ(/ə/),
ㅛ(/jo/), ㅑ(/ja/), ㅠ(/ju/),ㅕ(/jə/)
including 5 double consonants (ㄲ(/gg/), ㄸ(/dd/), ㅃ(/bb/), ㅆ(/ss/), ㅉ(/ʒʒ/) and 11 consonant clusters (ㄳ(/gs/), ㄵ(/nʒ/), ㄶ(/nh/), ㄺ(/lg/), ㄻ(/lm/), ㄼ(/lb/), ㄽ(/ls/), ㄾ(/lt/), ㄿ(/lp/), ㅀ(/lh/), ㅄ(/bs/)) and 11 diphthongs (ㅐ(/ae/), ㅒ(/jae/), ㅔ(/e/), ㅖ(/je/), ㅘ (/wa/), ㅙ(/wae/), ㅚ(/ø/), ㅝ (/wə/), ㅞ(/we/), ㅟ(/wi/), ㅢ(ɯi)).
3. The obsolete light labial sound "ㅸ"(/v/) changes to /w/ or drops between vowels and such changes still remain in Korean (and you can also see such changes in the pronunciations of the letter "w" in German "wagen" (/vagen/) and in English "wagon" (/waegən/)):
● deobda(덥다): deoveoyo (더버요)→deowoyo (더워요) "It's hot."
● gomabda(고맙다): gomaveoyo (고마버요)
→gomawoyo (고마워요) "Thank you."
● gobge(곱게): govi (고비)→go-i(고이) "beautifully"
In the Gyeongsangdo province, located in the southeast of Korea, you can still see the remains of the light labial sound "ㅸ" though: Instead of Deowoyo (더워요, "It's hot"), for example, they use Deobeoyo (더버요, "It's hot").
Related Posts:
KOREAN CULTURE: Korean Thanksgiving Day (2)
Recipe: Pine Needle-Scented Rice Cakes (Songpyeon)
KOREAN CULTURE: Korean Thanksgiving Day (2)
Recipe: Pine Needle-Scented Rice Cakes (Songpyeon)
My Other Posts about Korean Culture & Holidays:(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
The First Full Moon Festival (Daeboreum): (1) (2) (3) (4)


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Noted on the Dell blog, the auto-entitlement system we rolled out to the US and Europe a few years ago is finally available worldwide. What is auto-entitlement, you ask?
If you've ever purchased a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription when purchasing a Dell PowerEdge server, shrink-wrapped alongside the CDs is a "registration card", with a long string of numbers on it. Upon unboxing your system, you had to a) not throw away that card; b) not lose that card; c) get that card to some responsible party at your organization; d) ensure that responsible party went to http://redhat.com/activate to activate the subscription, using the number on that card. See how many steps that took? Can you guess how many ways something could go wrong in the process?
With auto-entitlement, the system administrator is able to simply log their new system into Red Hat Network the first time they use it (as they would to get updates and to manage their system). Red Hat Network is then smart enough to recognize that the system was purchased from Dell, knows the subscription type and duration, and Bob's your Uncle. No registration card to lose, no extra steps to take. Oh, and if you manage to blow away the hard disk image and re-install RHEL before connecting to Red Hat Network for the first time – no worries – auto-entitlement will still work.
Oh, and while we're at it, the new 5-year RHEL subscription matches the available 5-year ProSupport hardware service contract, so there's never any mess with having out-of-sync support subscriptions.
Just two more ways Dell ensures Linux, in this case Red Hat Enterprise Linux, "Just Works".


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Cam Of The Month Winners
The performers with the most points accumulated during the month will win cash prizes. Cash prizes will be awarded in six categories (Female, Male, Female/Female, Male/Male, Male/Female, Transgender). In case of a tie, the total # viewers during the month will be used as a tie-breaker.