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Convinced of Standsome, the key to a healthy worklifestyle? Our centrepiece, the Crafted Edition, goes even further: it is a standing desk for true wood lovers. Pure craftsmanship, something very special. The Standsome Crafted is manufactured in small quantities. Handcrafted, of course. In Germany. Every step of the work process is carefully chosen and follows the principle: high-quality wood harmony from root to crown. For all those who love the perfect symbiosis of ergonomics, sustainability and fair design.
Lifeblood [ˈlaɪf.blʌd] noun [ U ]
The Standsome Crafted is filled with lifeblood. It circulates, it pulsates and symbolizes: there is life in the Crafted Edition. Passion. Courage. Spirit of discovery. Countless hours of concentrated work. A lot has happened from the first concept until the final Standsome Crafted. It has developed, grown – and even gone beyond itself. The Standsome Crafted is not just a box, nor is it a carton: it is a stable desk attachment for the right standing. Dedication, work and passion have paid off. Our mission has proven itself: The Standsome was nominated for the German Sustainability Award 2021 in the design category. Our strengths: Work health, resources and fairness!
The Crafted Edition is made of FSC-certified birch wood. Like this we can guarantee that the wood is obtained from trustworthy timber industry. The natural material grows in agricultural forests and is brought to our owner-operated carpentries by short and low-energy transport routes. The cultivation of birches reduces the deforestation of natural forests and satisfies the increasing global demand for wood at the same time.
100% birch plywood. Sounds trivial? Well, it's not. The choice is very much deliberate. A total of nine layers. Maximum stability. Clear varnished solid wood veneer. Scratch-resistant and waterproof. For the Standsome Crafted, only the best parts, fine wooden planks – called "fillet of the tree" – are used. Carefully set and glued. Fibres in longitudinal direction. Each piece uniquely grown, each board individually. This is exactly what gives the Standsome Crafted its special character: grains, knotholes and coloration. Real wood. In addition, birch wood is durable and robust: just the right material for a product that is intended to last a lifetime and strengthen the back.
Great materials do not necessarily make a perfect product. What's missing? The right expertise and expert craftsmanship! Our professionals laser, sand and lacquer the Standsome Crafted. They take every part in their hands, check surfaces and edges. Correct and optimize. Every millimeter. With passion. Truly handcrafted.
A bundled beam of light hits a wooden board. Bright and precise. The light beam separates the wood in seconds. Burr-free edges and small corner radii. The wooden board maintains the characteristic appearance of the Standsome Crafted: Light wood. Lightly browned edges. Due to the birch wood the planes are compact and even, thus stable, but at the same time elastic and flexible.
Who thinks that the Standsome Crafted is finished after the lasering, thinks wrong. The shape is ready, yes! But the wood is still rough and grippy. No option. Therefore our team is sanding the boards until surface and edges are smooth and silky. Soft and delicate. Rough sanding. Fine sanding. Control sanding. Sometimes by hand, sometimes by machine – as required. Grain sizes and dispersion of the grains are selected by experts. Splinters excluded.
What use would a standing desk be if it wasn't equipped for everyday use? A coffee cup leaves a stain. A glass tips over. It rains through the open window. Anything can happen. However, that's not a problem! The Standsome Crafted is lacquered. Matt and clear. In other words: The wood structure remains recognizable. Still, every board can be wiped with a wet cloth without damaging the wood. Later, because the makers of the Standsome are perfectionists, it's time for another sanding. Another lacquering. And so on.
A crucial detail: the precious laser treatment that makes every Standsome Crafted unique. First of all, the Standsome logo, a registered trademark, underlines the quality of each Standsome Crafted. Moreover, the writing "As long as you stand, stand by me." reminds us, with a wink of the eye, to get up – cannot be said often enough. But that's not all! You are unique. That's why your Standsome should be too! You can individualize a model of the Standsome Crafted Edition with a laser engraving in accordance to your ideas. Whether lettering or logo; your Standsome will be just like you: remarkable. Individual. Irreplaceable.
Made in Germany – This seal of quality was first introduced by British people in 1887. We still believe in it today! We believe that we can provide the best quality control directly on site. We believe that by producing in our region, we can set an example against cheap goods. And we are convinced that a product does not need to be shipped around the world in order to have a good price-performance ratio. We create a product that combines high-quality production with environmental protection. And that is why not only the clear lacquer of the Standsome Crafted, but also its entire production process is transparent. See for yourself!
319,00 €
199,00 €
209,00 €


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Goo Goo Dolls MagneticReview • May, 2013 • M Music & Musicians Magazine
Last time out, on 2010's Something for the Rest of Us, the Goo Goo Dolls went deep, singing about paralyzed war veterans, the plight of the 99 percent and other bummer subjects far removed from the misunderstood soul who pined for true love in "Iris." For their 10th album, Magnetic, frontman John Rzeznik returns to familiar territory, penning inspirational tunes with titles like "Bulletproof Angel." Four producers—whose credits range from Bon Jovi and Green Day to Katy Perry and Train—coat Magnetic in a slick Top 40 sheen that makes it consistently pop from the speakers. Songs like the album's opener "Rebel Beat," "When the World Breaks Your Heart" and "Caught in the Storm" brim with big, buoyant hooks and empty sentiments. It's basically the Goo Goo Dolls on autopilot, doubling back after the misstep of the burden-heavy Something for the Rest of Us. Thankfully, there's nothing deep about it. –Michael Gallucci

subset: commoncrawl


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Studies demonstrate there are many clinical and economic benefits of telemedicne.
Nevertheless, two questions that agencies using telemedicine / telehealth need to ask are:
How do we make telemedicine work in our organization?
How do we measure effectiveness?
Developing a business plan for home telehealth is a key tool for:
• Monitoring the progress and growth of this service in your organization;
• Determining financial needs and outcomes;
• Learning more about your market; and
• Securing grant funding and/or revenue sources from payers.
One way that home telehealth can return its investment is by reducing trips to the home, while actually providing better care through more frequent contact with a patient. To determine the benefit of eliminating a trip to the home, first calculate the cost of salary+benefits for one nurse during the travel to and from the patient's home; then, add in the cost of transportation (vehicle).
Here's an example that assumes:
(1) cost of to/from travel is $60 per hour;
(2) a nurse makes one trip per week; and
(3) one HIPPA-compliant V2VIP™ Basic TeleMed Bundle, purchased at an annual cost of $249.99 (softphone, service and activation) or $428.99 (GXV-3240, service and activation).
Question: How long will it take to pay for equipment and service, based on saved trips to a patient's home?
Answer: 4-7 weeks ($249.99 / $60) or ($428.99 / 60)—after this period of time, return on investment begins.
Most financial folk consider the life of electronic equipment to be 3-5 years. Break-even for equipment and service is about 1 – 2 months; so, reasonably, for the next 34-60 months, the equipment is returning $60 with each home tele-visit or from $8,160 to $14,400 for each unit purchased.


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Business and Medical Answering Services for Aberdeen, South Dakota
A Courteous Communications is a leading answering service agency servicingAberdeen. Our company comes with a team of dedicated and hardworking individuals who aim to provide ultimate customer satisfaction. We2 have complete insight on your industry and ensure that you never miss a business opportunity with our high-value customer support. The best part: our virtual receptionists consistently email, fax, or text message you the calls and messages to keep you updated about your business. So, no matter wherever you are and whatever you are doing, our answering service for Aberdeen will provide you glitch free and useful service.
We've been providing our services to a large diverse population for over 28 years. Therefore, you can always trust us when it comes to the matter of providing high-value and consistent services. No matter if you are a local restaurant that needs help with reservations or a large scale medical facility like Dakota Plains Surgical Center, Aberdeen Surgical Associates, and Matushin Cliff DO, we are here to help you.
Currently, our company offers four plans to choose from. These plans are meant to support your business and at the same time be cost efficient. So, if you're looking for an answering service company that'll come with the best services at unbelievable rates, our answering service for Aberdeen is your best pick.
So now that you know why choosing our company matters, ditch the voicemail and choose A Courteous Communications to flawlessly handle your customer support! If you are looking for a local phone number, after choosing from one of our plans, please choose an available Aberdeen area code:


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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Spring Classics
It's time for the spring classics. Long rides, 300 km, possible weather, rough roads, short steep climbs, and hoards of cycling fans lining the roads. I would love to watch the peleton roll by.
posted by Rudi @ 12:49 PM 3 comments
3 Comments:
About Me
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Nick DeVito and Ben Goldacre
The US FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA 2007) requires certain clinical trials to report their results onto ClinicalTrials.gov within one year of completion. Our FDAAA TrialsTracker shows all individual trials that breach this legal requirement. Once a week, we write about one unreported clinical trial: you can read more background here and read past entries here.
Trial NCT00674570
This week's unreported trial is titled "Effects of Hydrocortisone and D-Cycloserine on fear extinction in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" (NCT00674570). This trial enrolled 138 adult participants. The study was randomized with factorial assignment and was masked for participants, investigators, and outcomes assessors. The interventions were hydrocortisone and D-cycloserine; the control group was given a placebo. The primary outcome was skin conductance change (as a measure of the fear response). The secondary outcomes were heart rate change and eye blink change. Each outcome was measured on days 7, 9 and 16 following treatment exposure.
Clinical discussion
A 2014 analysis of the US National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study cohort estimated that 8% of all US Veterans have suffered from PTSD. A 2015 meta-analysis found a pooled mean PTSD prevalence of 23.1% (± 8.4%) from 33 studies examining US veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). PTSD has a number of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment options. When first-line psychological therapies fail, pharmacological options have been shown effective in some instances. This study examines whether certain pharmacological treatments could aid in the effectiveness of non-pharmacological exposure-treatments related to fear extinction.
Legislative discussion
We intend that this series should occasionally shed light on interesting issues around transparency rules, and how registry data is used. You can read some general background about the FDA Amendments Act 2007—and why a trial is considered "due"—here and here.
This trial appears to have recently shared results in a conference abstract. It is useful to recall that publication of results anywhere outside of ClinicalTrials.gov does not meet the legal requirements of the FDAAA 2007. Previous research has shown results reports on registries are more complete than journal publications of the same studies, especially with respect to adverse events. Journal publications often insufficiently report registered outcomes. This trial is unfortunately no exception. We are not aware of cohort study data on completeness of reporting in conference abstracts, which are often extremely brief. This conference abstract reports only the primary outcome measured at 1 week post-treatment, and only for 88 patients compared to the 138 noted in the registry entry. Ensuring that trials are reported completely and in accordance with prespecified outcomes is essential for maintaining the integrity of clinical research.
The registry entry for this trial includes a link to this PubMed entry under the heading "Publication of Results." The inclusion of this link in the trial record does not count as a publication of results under the FDAAA 2007. Additionally, while the study was conducted by the same PI and covers PTSD and fear conditioning, it does not align with the trial described in the registry entry.
This unreported trial was sponsored by the VA Office of Research and Development in the US. The PI was Sabra S Inslicht, PhD of the San Francisco VA Medical Center. As of 23 July 2018, this trial is 52 days overdue to report. We hope the sponsors and investigators will report the results of this trial soon.
Ben Goldacre is a doctor, author, and director of the EBM DataLab at the University of Oxford. He co-founded the AllTrials campaign for trials transparency.
Competing interests: BG has received research funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, the NHS National Institute for Health Research School of Primary Care Research, the Health Foundation, and the World Health Organization; he also receives personal income from speaking and writing for lay audiences on the misuse of science.
Nicholas J DeVito is a researcher at the EBM Datalab at the University of Oxford.
Competing interests: ND is employed on BG's LJAF grant and is a Naji Foundation Scholar at the University of Oxford.


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my struggle book 1
posted in literature
hilton hotel (former)
from my struggle book 1 posted in literature by ratsnamgod
...It is the fourth of March 2008. I am sitting in my office, surrounded by books from floor to ceiling, listening to the Swedish band Dungen and thinking about what I have written and where it is leading...Outside, at the front of the enormous Hilton Hotel, which is still in shadow, the lifts glide up and down in three glass shafts. Next door there is a redbrick building which, judging by all the bay windows, dormers, and arches, must be from the end of the nineteenth century or early twentieth. Beyond that, there is a glimpse of a tiny stretch of Magistrat Park with its denuded trees and green grass, where a motley gray house in a seventies style breaks the view, and forces the eye up to the sky, which for the first time in several weeks is a clear blue.
- My Struggle Book 1, Karl Ove Knausgaard
us video
from my struggle book 1 posted in literature by ratsnamgod
All day long a regular stream of men went in and out of the door to US VIDEO, and having lived here for close to a year, in nine cases out of ten I could pick out who was about to go in and who would walk by.
- My Struggle Book 1, Karl Ove Knausgaard


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Horiyoshi III - Legacy
Product information "Legacy"
Legacy: The Horiyoshi III Tradition: An absolutely amazing book of photographs from Juan Puente. The book showcases the incredible work of Horiyoshi III, with the use of great photography from Juan we are shown all the details and intricacies of the masters work. A super book of reference and insight into pure Japanese tattooing.
Hardcover, Linen Bound, Embossed, With Slipcase, 176 Pages, 29 x 37cm
Related links to "Legacy"
Our comment on "Legacy"
£180.00 *
Ready to ship today,
Delivery time appr. 1-3 workdays
- Order number: LEG-BK
- Open text field 1: 2


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World's Most Expensive Hats
Chapeau d'Amour
Modeled by actress Alicia Witt at Christie's in London, "Chapeau d'Amour"—the "hat of love"—was created by celebrity couture designer Louis Mariette. Made of woven platinum and covered in stunning diamonds, the hat was inspired by ivy and bluebells.
The hat is valued at $2.7 million, making it the most expensive hat in the world. Unfortunately for hat collectors everywhere, Chapeau d'Amour is not for sale.
If you're looking for an expensive hat that is for sale, check out Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco on November 10th, 2010, where the "Nature of Opals" auction will see the "Deep Blue Sea" hat go to the highest bidder.
Deep Blue Sea
The hat is a collaboration between Australian hatmaker Ann Maree Willett and miners Vicki and Peter Drackett. Made with hand blocked Australian felt, the hat is decorated with feathers and twenty-six opals mined from Lightning Ridge, Australia. The opals were carved by Daniela L'Abbate and Christine Roussel and set in sterling silver and 18k gold by Gerd Gerold Schulz.
Lightning Ridge has the world's largest opal deposits, and the opal is Australia's national gemstone.
"Deep Blue Sea" is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $200,000.


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Showing 1–4 of 4 results.
Faith in Action
This handout challenges students to create a poster representing the ways they participate in Jesus' mission to serve others.
An Interreligious Interview
This handout offers guidelines for setting up an interview with a person from a different religion.
A Zoroastrian Symbol
This handout presents a Zoroastrian Symbol of faith and explains its elements. Students are then challenged to create their own symbol to represent their personal understanding of faith and human nature.
Interviewing a Married Couple
This resource offers a set of guidelines for how to interview a married couple.
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Forsaken is new tribe entering Xsyon; Some of the people that come from Mortal Online might already know us and they will tell you that we are one of the few true neutral entities you will find in game. We are true to our word and threat our friends and enemies with the same respect.
Forsaken has many goals across a wide spectrum. Our primary goal is to have fun as a tribe, and enjoy the game. However we do have some more focused goals, those being:
Found a tribe city
* We look to claim a small area as our own, and share it with like-minded friends.
* We will welcome friendly players into the area for trade, and strive to become a small trading hub and location for RP.
* We will work to provide security for our tribe members and friends in our region, and to travelers who are seeking refuge from the dangerous world outside our walls.
Establish a trading outposts in friendly/neutral towns
* Obtain permission from owners of player cities and towns to establish outposts or houses; a neutral location where all are welcomed and role play is encouraged.
* Our outpost will be used as "safe" meeting spots, RP resources, and places to look for adventurers to take up a quest for you!
* They may also sell some supplies and equipment, stocked by Forsaken or the host (town/city owner)
Collect wealth and knowledge
* Like most adventurers in tales, most of us strive to amass wealth from our adventures, or knowledge. Some of us may even desire power, as there is almost no limit to the alignment of our members, a lawful-good player is just as welcomed as a neutral evil. (chaotic-evil random PKers might not find themselves quite so welcomed)
* We look to become renown for the skill of our crafters, and sought out when players desire quality goods at fair prices.
* We will support our members ambitions and goals in these and all other endeavors as we are able.
Build a reputation
* While we do not focus solely on combat, nor crafting, we still look to become well known for our skills.
* We will do our best to make sure that on the battlefield, our name sparks both fear and respect.
* Off the battlefield, we want to be known as the guild that is capable of anything. A jack of all trades. Some members may be a mercenary, a hitman, or a thief, while others may be strictly a crafter or merchant. We want our members to be recognized as individuals, yet revered because of their membership within a reputable guild.
* Respect... simple. We want to earn respect from other tribes and all players in the game. Whether in the field of combat or not. We will behave in a manner that is not childish or annoying. We know that no one tribe can be the best at everything, but we expect to be well respected for our efforts.
* Strive to attain and maintain true neutral status with all willing tribes, political bodies, and other bodies, and to provide fair and equal services and goods at equal prices, adjusted according to local markets, supply and demand, and any applicable discounts. (which are also offered equally.)
Have fun
* We can't stress this one enough. As stated above, our primary goal is to have fun. Whether as a part of a small group within the tribe, a member run "house" of our tribe structure, or as a large group of the entire guild body, we desire to help players enjoy their time in Xsyon and add to the immersion of the world. Regardless of individual goals, this goal will always remain at our core.
Se you in game friends or fiends !


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One important quality all artist must have is perseverance. There are countless stories of writers, painters and musicians, among others, who found success only after they were rejected multiple times. If you believe in yourself, just keep trying. That is something that today's artist, LEK, got in his favour: he doesn't take no as an answer.
Born in New York and based in New Jersey, this multi-intrumentalist artist has led quite an interesting life. From leaving medical school to follow an Indian guru in California, to backpacking for months in Southeast Asia, India and South America, including teaching himself how to read and write Thai, he has done it all. Now, Lek is focusing on his music, having released 3 full albums in 2020 alone already, each one of them covering different genres: from psychedelic rock to acoustic folk going through Thai rock covers.
Now, I'm not a big fan of psychedelic music, and when LEK reached out to me to see if I would be interested in featuring one his earlier songs from that genre, I declined letting him know that. Then, when he was about to release his latest album, Surya, which leans more towards the indie/folk side, he reached out again to gauge my interest, which led me to discover World Cup. It got a nice melody with beautiful guitars and soothing vocals, but what really sets it apart are its lyrics. Had you heard before a folk song mentioning Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo? This is your chance!
Featured on the following mixtapes:


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|Book Cover
1. Hard Cover at $24.99
2. Paperback at $15.99
The book is right at 100 pages and should be available in 2 to 3 weeks. What I'd like to do is get a list of those who want to pre-order the book and who want me to put my autograph on it. If you want something special with the autograph like "To the best fly fisherman in the world", I can lie with the best of them.
I'm working on getting a Visa/Mastercard account set up that will also take American Express and Discover card too.
The plan is that once I get my hands on the books, go to the Post Office and find out the postage cost is, then send an invoice with the total amount.
If no autograph is required and I promise I won't be crushed if you don't want it, it will also be available on Amazon.com and electronically for Kindle, Nook, and a couple other online book stores or I can send just a book from here.
The author website should be up and running shortly (www.markkautz.com) and the book can be ordered there as well. Remember, on a new job it's quite common for things not to go well at first.
To those brave souls out there, drop me an email at email@example.com with your name, address, hard cover or paperback, and anything special you want with my John Hancock.
Thanks everyone.


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Laney's Memories of The Subterraineans
Big thanks to Laney for her memories of The Subterraineans:
The memories of my first Subterraineans gig (which was their penultimate one) are a little foggy. I do recall a strange amalgamation of patchouli soaked, leather-clad bikers and dirty footed, musk ensconced hippies, all squashed like sardines in a rather dank bar… their only common denominator being the desire to have a piece of whatever the singer was on. To say he was fashionably late when he arrived would be a gross understatement – he fell through the door and onto the stage with only seconds to spare, and whatever planet he was on at the time certainly wasn't the one the rest of us were on. I was fascinated with Dean from that very first moment I set eyes on him. He was a complete enigma.
Having recently gotten into a relationship with George (am I loud enough?), I was privy to many of The Subterraineans' rehearsals, most of which took place in George's Cowick Lane bedroom, facing a woodland mural and a king sized bed. I spent hours watching the guys perfecting their sound which was only interrupted for regular tea slurpage, 'deep sea frog' whisperings and fits of the giggles. Dean would break into laughter at the most inappropriate moments and for reasons we would never be aware of. I remember once asking him what was so funny, as he lay on the bed with tears streaming down his cheeks and his mouth all contorted in some weird Jim Carey-esqe fashion, but he had no idea. He just laughed. And laughed. And when he stopped laughing and picked up his mic, he'd just laugh some more. Those rehearsals lasted for hours.
If it's possible for a singer to have the ability to be both vulnerable and indomitable all at once, then Dean had it. At any given moment it was unclear whether he was about to take on the world or crumple into a heap on the carpet. His voice was captivating, the emotion behind his lyrics often painful to witness, but his stage presence was absolutely mesmorising. As Graham and Jerry kept a steady rhythm, Dean – rather than slot into a comfortable niche between them – would swoop and soar like a bird above and below and around them… with body and voice.He was enchanting. When Dean sadly chose to take his own life, it didn't surprise me in the least that he chose to 'jump'. Bless his soul.
Jerry – who had the sexiest mouth this side of the Channel Tunnel and made the word 'prunes' look decidedly pornographic – was as deliciously upright in morality as in stance. He was solid and dependable, an earnest bassist with a solid sound. I always saw him as the Daddy of the band – he was slightly older than the others, had a proper job, and ate regular meals. This isn't to say that he didn't enjoy the mid-song banter, but he always seemed keen to get back to the job in hand – making music – which he did with amazing grace and with a glossy mop of hair flopping rhythmically over his eyes.
Graham – dear Graham – was perhaps overshadowed by Dean's elaborate personality and shenanigans, which at times seemed to cause a bit of friction. I always felt that George – who was good friends to them both – had the difficult job of suppressing any angst between them. Most times he was successful. Graham loved drumming as much as he loved flicking his fag ash on his jeans and rubbing it in, and as much as he loved the attention of a fine looking, long haired woman. Which, I think, was rather a lot. What he may have lacked back then (in those early days) in technical proficiency, he certainly made up for in determination and stamina.
George – who more often than not was seen with bare feet, on and off stage – was a guitarist who in his own eyes would never be good enough and never be loud enough. It amazed me that for someone who in my eyes wrote consistently outstanding lyrics, he always felt that the music should take precedence. Perhaps he thought he was a better guitarist than lyricist? Or that the music would tell the most important story? We had many a debate over the fact that I always wanted more volume on the vocals when he was in the midst of mixing a demo. I guess I'm just a girl who likes to sing along…and one who perhaps doesn't understand the finer points of perfecting the blend.
Some people are musicians in their spare time, slotting it in to the free moments in their lives. But for George, music was his life. He had to live the rest of his life in the very little time which remained when he wasn't writing, rehearsing, gigging, mixing, (and later running Bandspace)and godknowswhat else. To say it was a passion is an understatement.
Latest News
- The Subterraineans: The Subterraineans Demo released to Bandcamp
- The Subterraineans: Demo upgraded
- The Subterraineans: new pages
- The Subterraineans: Demo repaired
- The Subterraineans: photos uploaded
- The Subterraineans: archive material uploaded
- The Subterraineans: demo uploaded
- The Subterraineans and Rough Terrain: Laney's biography


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You Are Not a Victim
YOU are not a victim, and you can stop believing you are one! If you have been feeling victimized, you may also have been believing you are powerless. A victim is usually regarded as someone who suffers harsh or oppressive treatment. If you cannot see a way out, well, there is one nevertheless. A good time to start proving this is now, today.
Among the first things we learn about ourselves in the Bible is that God made man in His image and likeness, and gave him dominion over the whole earth. So it's clear God did not make either victims or perpetrators. He enables everyone to behave with kindness. We have authority from God for viewing ourselves as strong and powerful and in control of our lives.
It is fear that makes people victims; so ending fear is important. Some of us want to please other people, but we should really want to please God first.
If you are often saying ''yes'' to people because you are afraid to say ''no'' to them, you are not in control. Now, we cannot behave with dominion and at the same time remain victims. The two states are mutually exclusive. So it comes down to choices: what will we believe? how will we behave?
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, explained Christ Jesus' teachings in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. One of the things she wrote was this: ''God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love'' (p. 106). God is omnipotent, omnipresent, the only power. You can pray to Him and ask Him to guide you by giving you an understanding of truth.
In the light of Christian Science, let's consider some of the truths from God Jesus referred to when he said, ''Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free'' (John 8:32). For a start, we are God's children. Also, we have an unbreakable, spiritual relationship to Him. Who can limit or take away what God gives? He gives health, peace, supply, happiness, and success. Nothing has power over you to deprive you of these things. Not fear of popular opinion, or lack, or domineering people, or social customs. Understanding that you have dominion-and the right to exercise it-can extricate you from whatever predicament you face. You can exercise that right and stop being afraid. After you understand what is spiritually true, you can declare that you have dominion and act like you have it.
Let God begin to direct your thoughts. Listen to the voice of Truth within. It will comfort you and bring your thoughts into line with God. Then you will know what you need to know in any given situation. This is the truth that makes free. It helps one cling to God in the face of opposition. It stops us from believing that circumstances or other people are to blame for our problems. God is our best friend, and He delivers us, giving us the right to be masters of our circumstances. This dominion comes from God alone.
There's a passage on page 340 of Science and Health that talks about just how powerful God is. As far as victimization goes, it pretty much covers the entire ground. It's this: ''One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,-whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.''
I will sing of thy power;
yea, I will sing aloud
of thy mercy in the morning:
for thou hast been my
defence and refuge in the day
of my trouble. Unto thee,
O my strength, will I sing:
for God is my defence, and
the God of my mercy.
Psalms 59:16, 17


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We welcome you to call or email us with any questions regarding potential demolition, lead, mold or asbestos removal concerns. We've served our great state of North Carolina for many years and are eager to take care of you and your next project. We look forward to hearing from you.
We want to hear from you
Call or email
EME Industrial Services, Inc.
8043 Thorndike Road
Greensboro, NC 27409
Greensboro, NC 27409
Fax: 336-664-0908
Estimating Department:
James Hamm, President
Alan Coble, Project Manager
Send an email
Bid Coordinator:
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Operation Managers:
Environmental, Kenneth Grimes
Demolition, Todd Loecher
Email Kenneth | Email Todd
Operations Support:
Wesley Hamm
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Neogen's newly approved Soleris® Direct Yeast and Mold (DYM) test produces accurate results in only 48 hours; conventional yeast and mold methods can take up to five days. This new test is designed for use in the Soleris rapid microbiology system, which accelerates and monitors microbial growth for faster time to results.
"The Soleris yeast and mold test was shown to produce rapid and accurate results—allowing for quicker product releases that improve profitability," said Neogen's Joe Heinzelmann. "Yeasts and molds are unique, as they represent a large and diverse group of microorganisms that can cause various degrees of deterioration and decomposition of foods. It is estimated that tests for yeasts and molds comprise as much as 15% of all microbiological tests performed worldwide. Soleris DYM enables food companies to ensure the quality and shelf-life of a wide variety of food products and provides advantages that allow companies to reduce costs through improved efficiency."
The Soleris DYM test offers significant time savings of up to three days over the reference procedure while also reducing the amount of technician labor required. The AOAC approval allows Safe Quality Food (SQF) companies to comply with testing requirements for rapid yeast and mold assays.
A variety of representative commodities were tested in the validation including: nonfat dry milk, ice cream mix, salad dressing, yogurt, dried fruit, orange juice concentrate, tomato juice, corn flour, cocoa powder, dry pet food, and black pepper, and the test should perform well on similar food matrices.
The Soleris DYM test expands a portfolio of rapid indicator tests that are AOAC approved including:
- Total Viable Count results in 24 hours; conventional methods take 48 hours or longer.
- E. coli results in 7–10 hours; conventional methods take 24 hours or longer.
- Coliform results in 9–10 hours; conventional methods take 24 hours.


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Orlando Gets the Games
If you're a sports fan, the weekend of March 17 of this year was a fine time to be in Orlando, Fla. The first games of the NCAA basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, were tipping off at the magnificent Amway Center (pictured above) on Church Street in downtown, with matchups featuring local favorites Florida State and the University of Florida. A few blocks away, the city had cordoned off some streets to host a March Madness street party. Further up Church Street, the Orlando City Soccer Club was playing against the Philadelphia Union in OCSC's brand-new, 25,000-seat, instantly sold-out stadium. Not far away at Bay Hill Club and Lodge, the 51st edition of the Arnold Palmer Invitational PGA golf tournament, one of the golf world's most prestigious events, was underway. Out at Lake Nona, a 9,000-plus-acre mixed-use development, the University of Central Florida Knights tennis team was matching up with the University of Tulsa at the brand-new United States Tennis Association National Campus, 100 courts strong and probably the best tennis complex in the world. And if none of that was your cup of tea, well, just wait a bit: Two weeks later Camping World Stadium, the site of January's NFL Pro Bowl, would host WWE's WrestleMania, gathering 75,000 hard-core fans for a night of artfully choreographed but undeniably athletic mayhem. "I marvel at some of the weekends we've had recently," Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer would tell me, sounding like he couldn't quite believe it himself.
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Let's get something out of the way early: You probably didn't expect a magazine article about Orlando to begin with a long paragraph about sports. Not to worry—neither would most folks. When the world thinks of Orlando and its Orange County environs, we think theme parks: Disney, Universal, SeaWorld. That's why some 66 million tourists came to Orlando in 2015, a new record by about 3 million. (Well—that and the Orange County Convention Center, but they inevitably overlap.)
And there's nothing wrong with that. The Orlando parks are brilliantly run marvels of technology and customer service that delight their visitors, and they fill the coffers of Orange County governments and businesses with cash. Every city in the world should have such a monkey on its back.
It's just that Orlando has, in the past 10 or so years, been changing, evolving. The outside world hasn't much noticed—those theme parks have decades of branding that has permeated the global consciousness—but locals have. "We're not just a place where people come and ride rides and get back on a plane and go home," says Rich Crotty, who was mayor of Orange County, which contains Orlando, from 2001 to 2011.
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Instead, Orlando has become something of a sports mecca. No, it's not New York or Boston or Chicago or Los Angeles, with their massive TV markets, century-old teams, tradition-filled NFL franchises and hallowed arenas. With the possible exception of the early '90s, when Shaquille O'Neal towered over opponents and the Magic were competing for NBA championships, Orlando has no athletic glory days. More recently, though, Orlando has quietly, surprisingly, developed into a city with a vibrant sports economy—not despite the theme parks, but with their active support. "We have become one of the premier sports destinations in the entire country," argues Dyer. "There's not an event in the world that we can't host now."
How Orlando has merged sports and entertainment to diversify its economy is a story that involves several stubborn-in-a-good-way politicians, some unusually cooperative civic leaders, a number of broad-minded business executives and an unpredictable dose of good luck. Oh, and some beneficial demographic trends. It's also a story that shows the positive impact that sports can have not just on the economy of a city, but also on its soul.
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If there's a natural place to start this story, it's probably with Buddy Dyer and his election as mayor in February 2003. Dyer didn't do it alone by any means, but if you ask Orlandoans who's most responsible for the growth of the city's sports business, Dyer is the first name they'll offer up.
Dyer is a quiet man, and it's probably fair to say that he's not a natural politician—he's of average height and build, he doesn't feel the need to dominate a room and he thinks more than he talks. But appearances can mislead. Over time, Dyer reveals himself as intense, passionate (quietly passionate) and determined; a man who states his goals and then, in a relentless, no-nonsense kind of way, goes about fulfilling them.
Born in 1958, John Hugh "Buddy" Dyer grew up in nearby Kissimmee, in Osceola County, which was in those pre-Disney days a center of ranching—Dyer's father drove a cattle truck and rode bulls in rodeos. Dyer left Florida to attend Brown University on a scholarship—he was likely the only student ambling across campus with a cowboy hat and a Southern accent—where he majored in engineering and cocaptained the rugby team. (Again: You would not expect it to look at him.) Dyer next headed home for law school at the University of Florida, where he was editor of the law review. Politics beckoned: In 1992, just five years out of law school, he ran as a Democrat for the Florida state senate and won. After a decade there, he ran for state attorney general, but in November 2002 lost a tight race to Republican Charlie Crist. Dyer was widely thought to be more qualified, but the telegenic Crist, as the Orlando Sentinel put it, benefitted from "political connections, fundraising prowess and slickly produced television advertisements." Crist took 53 percent of the vote.
Dyer was down, but not out. More or less concurrently, Florida governor Jeb Bush appointed Orlando mayor Glenda Hood to be Florida's secretary of state, which was fine for most Orlandoans because Hood was ready to leave Orlando, and Orlando was ready to wave goodbye. Dyer pivoted, announced he would run for mayor, and in February beat out several other candidates. His vision: to make Orlando a big, bold, self-confident international city. Dyer, said a columnist for Orlando Weekly, made Orlando residents "see the city he saw, its downtown bursting with energy, packed with skyscrapers and offering residents the amenities of a real metropolis."
It wasn't the Orlando that actually existed, particularly in the streets of a downtown that many Americans who've been to Orlando didn't—don't—even know. Downtown Orlando had come to life in the 19th century as a ranching center, then later became a locus of orange groves, and by the 1950s and '60s had become a modest but viable small-city downtown. "We had a car dealership, a Sears and a JCPenney's, a local haberdasher and a local you-name-it," recalls Crotty. "Downtown was where you went shopping. Then we started building malls…"
"The skyboxes literally hung from the ceiling," says Crotty, "and the players looked like ants on the floor. It was an obsolete building."
Those suburban malls slowly sucked the life out of downtown until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a new nightclub complex called Church Street Station started luring tourists from the still new theme parks, particularly after dark. But Disney and Universal put a cork in that trend when they realized that, if they built enough hotels and planned enough evening festivities—cue Pleasure Island and CityWalk—their visitors would never have to leave the premises. By the time Dyer was elected, downtown Orlando was populated with white-collar workers who'd pull in at 8:45 and out at 5:15. Its retail? Largely "wig shops and tattoo parlors," says former Orlando mayor Bill Frederick. The Magic had come to town in the late '80s, but their home, the Orlando Arena, quickly dubbed the "O-rena," was already in decline. "The skyboxes literally hung from the ceiling," says Crotty, "and the players looked like ants on the floor. It was an obsolete building." Adds Magic chief communications officer Joel Glass, "A lot of concerts were bypassing the arena because they heard that it was antiquated. They were passing on Orlando."
Truth be told, some Orlandoans were OK with that—they either didn't see a need for change, or didn't believe that Orlando could change. A relatively common mind-set: Things were good enough. "The town at that time still had a sort of 'that's not for us' mentality," remembers Steve Hogan, an Orlando resident since 1995 and head of a nonprofit called Florida Citrus Sports. When it came to new projects or events, "the attitude was, 'That's cool, but that's not for us.' Or, 'We could never have that, so we shouldn't try to get that.'" One popular plan to build a performing arts center for concerts and theater had struggled to gain traction. Beyond the theme parks, there just wasn't a lot happening in Orlando.
Dyer saw the problems and had ambitious solutions: He wanted to diversify the city's economy and revitalize downtown. I asked him why during a recent interview in Dyer's downtown office. Why wasn't the status quo good enough?
Dyer looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted a second head. "Why would you want to be in public service if you don't want to improve things?" he said.
He set to work on projects like eradicating the city's budget deficit (done), implementing an $8.50 per hour minimum wage for city construction workers (done) and working to lift up Parramore, a largely African American neighborhood that had suffered from decades of neglect (progress, but it's a long-term effort). And he focused on downtown.
Orlando, Dyer knew, was famous for its theme park entertainment. The parks were a blessing, but also a risk. During economic downturns, tourism suffered, and Orlando, which hosts only one Fortune 500 corporate headquarters (Darden Restaurants), also suffered. Sports, a different form of entertainment, could complement the parks while not competing with them; Disney had already shown that with its ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, which hosts youth teams from around the country. Sports could bring more visitors from more parts of the world while strengthening the connections that Orlandoans felt with their city. And sports downtown would help Orlando attract the young people the city needed for its future; Dyer may have come back after he left, but too many other young men and women just left. What was there to stay for?
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It's worth pointing out that, aside from the Magic, Orlando's track record with sports teams is—what's the word?—abysmal. Horrific. Uninspiring. Perhaps the most generous label would be "dogged." Among the professional sports teams that had taken up residence in Orlando before hanging up their jerseys were the Florida Blazers of the World Football League, the Orlando Renegades of the USFL, the Thunder of the World League of American Football, the Wahoos, the Titans, the Sharks, the Seals, the Jackals and the short-lived Miracle, the Magic's WNBA sister team that launched in 1999 only to hightail it out of town four years later…for Uncasville, Conn., the home of a Native American reservation with a casino. The Magic were the exception. Their original owners sold to Rick DeVos, cofounder of consumer-to-consumer marketing company Amway, in 1991. But in 1990, the Magic had a record of 31-51—and still sold out 40 of 41 home games.
A pessimist might have noted that Dyer didn't have a lot of raw material to work with. There was that plan for a performing arts center—not sports, true, but still potentially part of a downtown sports and entertainment district. The Magic were pushing for a new arena and a mayor can't afford to lose an NBA franchise, but polls showed that a healthy majority of Orlandoans opposed spending public money to build it. "That was one of the most difficult decisions I wrestled with," recalls Teresa Jacobs, who is now the mayor of Orange County but was then on its board of commissioners. "But if we lost the Magic, that loss would have been an extraordinary devastation."
Orlando also had the Florida Citrus Bowl, a football stadium built in 1936 and run by the nonprofit Florida Citrus Sports, which hosted college bowl games—including, of course, the Citrus Bowl—and "neutral-site" contests. But that stadium couldn't win against newer facilities with more comfortable seats, corporate boxes, better food, better everything. "The last neutral-site game was in 2000, Notre Dame and Navy," says Florida Citrus Sports' Hogan. "At that point, it was more about survival. 'Do you really want to lose what's now been 70 years of equity in the [college] postseason? We've got to fix the problem.'"
Working closely with Crotty, Dyer made a strategic bet: He would tackle all three projects—building the performing arts center and a new Magic arena, as well as renovating the Citrus Bowl—at one time. His logic was that of politics: If you focused on one venue at a time, competing interests would get territorial and oppose it. But if you lumped them together, indivisible, then the multiple constituencies would work together. "Everyone was making arguments for different things, but most people, when you got to the end…they knew what each venue brought to the table," Hogan recalls.
The greatest challenge was money. The estimated cost of Dyer's venue plan was $1.1 billion, an enormous amount for any city, an unprecedented one for Orlando. And it wasn't just the amount of money, but the source of it: Dyer and Crotty identified multiple revenue streams—a philanthropic fund for the performing arts center, a hefty contribution from the Magic, others—but about half of the money would have to come from the regional tourist development tax, a 5 percent levy on tourist spending. The theme parks generate the majority of TDT revenue. But those parks aren't actually in the city of Orlando. They're in Orange County. So Dyer and Crotty would have to win the support of the Orange County board of commissioners to devote about half a billion dollars that didn't come from Orlando to building projects in Orlando. "This was not an easy decision," says Jacobs. "There is a leap of faith that you have to take to move great projects forward."
"The county was the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it came to funding projects," explains Crotty. The argument? The venues weren't city assets but regional ones. Everyone would benefit. "More facilities leads to more visitors, which leads to more heads in beds," Crotty says, using the language of tourist-based economies the world over.
Dyer did his best to soften the economic blow. The mayor and the Magic agreed, for example, that Orlando would own and operate the proposed Amway Center, which would make it the only city to own its NBA arena. The reason? There are only 41 NBA home games every season, and Dyer wanted to keep the building busy the rest of the time. He also thought it was important to bond the community and the arena. "Beyond the Magic," he explains, "we were selling it as a community venue." To help a rising tide lift all boats, Dyer and his team created The Blueprint, a program to train the homeless, ex-cons and residents of Parramore to work construction on the venues. And they required that a quarter of the contracts go to women- and minority-owned firms.
They got buy-in from the parks, Disney and Universal in particular. In 2006, the Orange County board voted to raise the TDT from five cents on the dollar to six. Crotty cut a deal with Disney and Universal: For one year, half of the money raised from that new penny would go to an ad campaign to drive traffic to the parks. The other half would go to the venue package. "The parks were on board, but they wanted a piece of the pie in the first year," Crotty says. "Once I agreed to that, everything else was done."
On July 26, 2007, the Orange County board voted 5–2 to pass Dyer's venue plan. Ten years later, in offices all around Orlando, you can still see framed copies of the next day's Orlando Sentinel, featuring a big picture of Dyer and Crotty looking jubilant and the all-caps headline, "VISION FULFILLED."
There were challenges ahead, but the biggest hurdle was cleared. In 2010, the new Amway Center opened, a state-of-the-art basketball arena a few blocks from the mayor's office. The Magic haven't been good, but attendance is strong, and the city has also used Amway to host Easter services, back-to-school events and fundraisers. "We've done a lot of things that couldn't bear the freight if you had to pay the full cost of the venue," Dyer says.
In January 2014, renovation of the Citrus Bowl, down the street from the Amway Center, began; it was finished on time and on budget in November 2014. Back in business and rechristened Camping World Stadium in honor of a new sponsor, it began hosting events that wouldn't previously have considered the stadium: a Miami Dolphins preseason game in 2016, the NFL Pro Bowl this year, WrestleMania, concerts by bands like the Rolling Stones and Metallica. A reenergized Florida Citrus Sports and its offshoot, Lift Orlando, used the new energy (and money) to advance their mission of social progress in the surrounding West Lakes communities, investing in a $40 million mixed-income housing project, promoting health and wellness, opening schools and bringing local kids to the games free if they got good grades.
"Yes, we're going to have huge, nationally televised events," says Harold Mills, chairman of Florida Citrus Sports and a board member of Lift Orlando. "But the win should be, what if maybe for the first time ever a community that's largely been left out of the conversation of success gets healthy by what happens here? Wouldn't that be the cool story?"
Also in November 2014 the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts—named for the late Orlando orange juice magnate and philanthropist—opened to rave reviews. A piece of architecture that any city would appreciate, it included the 2,700-seat Walt Disney Theater for Broadway-type events and a 300-seat theater for smaller shows. In 2015, the New York Times pointed to the Dr. Phillips Center as a new reason to visit Orlando, noting that "the city is growing up." A second phase of the project, a 1,700-seat concert hall, broke ground this spring.
By 2010 the foundation of Dyer's vision was in place, and Orlando voters would reward him with increasingly strong reelection victories. At about the same time, Dyer's plan to transform Orlando into a sports hub got an additional boost from an unexpected source: a soccer-loving British entrepreneur named Phil Rawlins.
Rawlins, 58, had founded a tech sales and marketing company called the Sales Consultancy. He brought it to the U.S., grew the business, merged it with another company, helped sell it, then left in 2001 to pursue his childhood passion, soccer. He bought a 10 percent stake in the English soccer team Stoke City FC for £1.5 million and then decided to start a minor league team, the Aztex, in his new hometown, Austin, Texas. Rawlins is by all accounts a brilliant marketer, but the Aztex never really clicked in Austin; as Rawlins says now, their arena wasn't great, they couldn't sell beer at games, they had no suites for corporate sponsors and they were competing with the dominant brand in Austin sports, the University of Texas.
So in 2010, Rawlins says, "we reached out to Major League Soccer and said, 'We're willing to relocate the franchise, but we really need to get it right this time and get to a marketplace with potential [to become] MLS. Guide us to where we should look.' And they said, 'We have no coverage in the Southeast.'" So Rawlins did due diligence on cities like Atlanta, Charleston, S.C., Birmingham, Ala., Jacksonville, Fla., and Orlando. "And the more we looked at Orlando, the more it started to rise to the top of the list." In the city's favor, Rawlins says, were the facts that it's a big television market and a growing city whose average age is 34—perfect for soccer's millennial demographic.
In late 2010, Rawlins moved the team, now renamed the Orlando City Soccer Club and soon decked out in purple uniforms with a lion logo, to Orlando. The Lions, as they were known, played in the Citrus Bowl until renovation began, then at Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. Attendance grew from an initial 6,000 to around 9,000 per game—outstanding for a minor league team. From his experience with Stoke City, Rawlins knew that soccer fans want to feel deeply connected to their teams. "So we would go out and meet with the fans—we knew the fans," he says. "I was never afraid to go out to a tailgate, have a beer with them, sit in the stands with them."
In 2012 Rawlins went back to MLS officials and said, "We're ready—are you?" They responded with a list of four criteria: To gain MLS status, Rawlins had to prove that the marketplace was strong, that the team had substantial corporate support, that they had an ownership group with very deep pockets and that they had a plan to build a soccer-specific stadium downtown—again, to attract the young fans living and working in the city.
The first two elements were already there. To find the truly deep pockets, Rawlins brought in Flávio Augusto da Silva, a Brazilian who lived in Orlando but had made a fortune opening a chain of language schools in his native country. Impressed by the sport's growth and youthful demographics, da Silva had been looking for an opportunity to invest in U.S. soccer, and he would become a 70 percent owner. "Baseball," he says now, "has a fan base whose average age is 50. Soccer is 24." Without even really trying, Orlando had become home to a well-funded team, inspired by a passionate and energetic backer, just as the sport was beginning to explode in the U.S.
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In April 2013, Orlando bought land in between Camping World and the Amway Center on which to build a soccer stadium. In November of that year, MLS announced that OCSC would be joining the league. Orlando City played its first MLS game at the Citrus Bowl in March 2015 against New York City FC; an astonishing 62,000 fans attended. That year, Orlando City also announced the formation of a women's team, the Orlando Pride, one of 10 National Women's Soccer League teams.
Construction of Orlando City Stadium, which ultimately cost about $150 million, commenced in August 2015. Funding was entirely private, a decision da Silva made after state aid got bogged down in the legislature. "We brought in investors and didn't use any public money," he says. "It was a very serious commitment. It's not like staying for a little while—it's like a marriage. It's long term."
The stadium opened this spring, and it was widely hailed as an architectural and popular triumph. Seating about 25,500, it features natural grass, a sunken field to amplify crowd noise and a "safe-standing" area for the hardest-core fans, who stand for the entire game, fueled only by their passion for the team—and the contents of their cups in the holders that line the section. Some 18,000 season tickets have already been sold, and there's a waiting list of several thousand for future ones. This year, Orlando City Stadium will also host the 2017 NWSL Championship.
There's no question that OCSC has caught on in Orlando in a way that no one expected—they could be the most popular team in the city, and their fans are almost certainly Orlando's most intense. "It may be the most exciting thing, sports-wise, that's happened here," says Crotty. "You have to see these fans to believe them," Mayor Jacobs says. "They can make anybody young again."
More quietly, under the leadership of VP of community relations Kay Rawlins (Phil's wife until they recently separated), Orlando City has been engaging with the Parramore community. The team's Orlando City Foundation built six "mini-pitches" for local kids and are working to fight childhood obesity in various ways including the planting of community gardens. Once a year, they bring local kids onto the field, 100 children between the ages of 8 and 10, to play 50 at a time versus OCSC's starting lineup. It's quite a scene. "The players are laughing so hard," Rawlins says. "Everywhere they go, they've got 40 kids around their ankles."
And Orlando City has been socially engaged in other ways. When same-sex marriage became legal in Florida in 2015, Kay Rawlins recalls, the team changed its Facebook profile picture to a rainbow flag in solidarity. "We did have some fans who came on [the page] and said, 'I can't support this club anymore,'" she says. But the rest responded by saying, "We don't need you as fans—don't let the door hit you on the way out."
That connection between the team and its fans would manifest itself most powerfully after the June 12, 2016, massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub. OCSC's next game was on the 18th, and on their own, organizing on social media, their fans created a deeply moving tribute. Section by section at Camping World Stadium, as per their social media plan, OCSC fans wore shirts matching the colors of that rainbow flag, perfectly coordinated and completely united.
It's not that Orlando is done, finished, voilà. Yes, it's got beautiful new buildings, WrestleMania, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Magic, OCSC. And it has a growing infrastructure of educational institutions and businesses that support the sports economy—places like Full Sail University, the Golf Channel and gaming company Electronic Arts. And it's got great synergies with the theme parks, some of the most powerful brands in the world.
But skeptics point out that the city still lacks major league baseball and, most glaringly, the NFL. With three other NFL teams in Florida—the Dolphins, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Jacksonville Jaguars—it's unlikely to get one anytime soon. Nonetheless, folks in Orlando will tell you that, heck yeah, they'd love a pro football team.
But in some ways, the hardest work is done. Dyer has succeeded in commencing the transformation of a downtown and diversifying the economy of his city. He's changing the way the outside world sees Orlando, and perhaps most important to him, he's changed the way Orlando sees itself.
Fourteen years ago, when Dyer was first elected and kept talking about sports and downtown, "a lot of people couldn't see the vision," he recalls now. "But you look at the things we've done….We have created an environment where everything we do can be world-class."
Read the interview with Katrina Adams, the USTA's first African American CEO, about how expanding opportunities for tennis. Full Sail University


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ZTE's sub-brand Nubia has launched two new smartphones – Nubia N1 and Nubia Z11 in India following the launch of Z11 Mini. Both these phones made their first appearance in China back in the month of July. The Nubia N1 is targeted towards budget users as it is priced at Rs. 11,999 while the latter is a priced at Rs. 29,999 and offers impressive hardware for the price.
The budget friendly Nubia N1, which is mainly aimed at the youth, has a 5.5-inch full HD display with 401 PPI pixel density. At the heart of it, there is Helio P10 octa-core chipset clocked at 1.8 GHz. It features 3gigs of RAM to keep multiple apps active in the background and 32 GB of expandable storage (up to 128GB ). The phone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow based nubia 4.0 OS.
Also read: Amazon Prime Videos Launched In India
For shutterbugs, there is a 13-megapixel sensor on the back with f/2.2 aperture lens, phase detection autofocus (PDAF) with capabilities of shooting videos at 1080p resolution. Up front, there is a 13-megapixel camera optimized for selfies. The phone has a 5000mAh capacious battery and supports most of the usual connectivity options including dual SIM 4G LTE, dual band WIFI, Bluetooth 4.0, USB Type C and more. The Nubia N1 also comes with a fingerprint sensor at the back of the phone.
Nubia Z11, on the other hand, is more of a flagship device with a curved edge bezel-less design. Hardware specifications are similar to OnePlus 3. The phone has a 5.5-inch display with 1920 x1080 pixels resolutions. Under the hood, it employs mighty Snapdragon 820 chipset along side Adreno 530 GPU, 6GB RAM and 64GB of expandable internal storage.
Must read: Is Your Digital Wallet Safe? Qualcomm Says No
The phone has a 16-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture with PDAF, OIS, and dual-LED flash. Nubia has sourced Sony IMX 298 CMOS sensor for the camera. On the front, there is an 8-megapixel camera with f/2.4 aperture and 80-degree` wide-angle coverage area. The Nubia Z11 battery is also equivalent to OnePlus 3's 3000 mAh and also comes with a USB Type-C based charging port.
Nubia N1 & Z11 India Pricing and Availability
The N1 and Z11 will be available from December 16 on Amazon.in and will be priced at Rs. 11,999 and 29,999 respectively.
Nubia N1 and Z11 Specifications:
|Nubia N1
|Nubia Z11
|5.5-inch, Full HD, Corning Gorilla Glass 3
|5.5-inch Full HD, IPS Panel, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 403 ppi
|Mediatek Helio P10 Octa-core SoC, Mali-T860MP2 GPU
|Snapdragon 820 quad-core chipset with Adreno 530 GPU
|Internal Storage
|64GB(expandable via microSD card)
|64GB(expandable via microSD card)
|Rear Camera
|13 MP, f/2.2, phase detection autofocus, LED flash, 1080p video recording
|26 MP, f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, OIS, dual-tone LED flash, 1.12 µm
|Front Camera
|13 MP, f/2.2, 1080p video recording
|8 MP, f/2.4, 1.4 µm pixel size
|Android Marshmallow based nubia UI 4.0
|Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, nubia UI 4.0
|5000 mAh, non-removable
|3000 mAh, Quick Charge 3.0
|4G LTE, Fingerprint sensor, dual SIM
|4G LTE, fingerprint sensor, Dual SIM, Dolby Atmos audio, fingerprint sensor, USB Type-C port


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Friday, February 12, 2010
Vennemindevejens farvehandel.
Back in the days everyone used to buy their spray paint at this shop. You could also buy the first graffiti magazines here and you always knew if there were a national holiday in Norway, then the Norwegian writers had been here and bought all the paint.
Posted by HuskMitNavn at 23:12


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Rev 383 | Rev 386 | Go to most recent revision | Blame | Compare with Previous | Last modification | View Log | RSS feed
* Copyright (C) 2009 by Claas Anders "CaScAdE" Rathje *
* email@example.com *
* Project-URL: http://www.mylifesucks.de/oss/c-osd/ *
* *
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify *
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by *
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License. *
* *
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, *
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of *
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the *
* GNU General Public License for more details. *
* *
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License *
* along with this program; if not, write to the *
* Free Software Foundation, Inc., *
* 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. *
*compass characters bigger
*battery position
+voltage-symbol to battery-voltage
(Character Set 208 needs to be reflashed since compass chars are in it)
*fixed bug in Character Set 128 (reflash it if you already flashed it!)
+another set of vario chars
*changed vario to use new characters
*moved vario/home-bearing positions
*big vario now enabled via menu or BIGVARIO
(Character Set 112 needs to be flashed)
+big vario for testing purpose
(Character Set 192 needs to be flashed)
*variometer uses more steps (9 instead of 5)
*home-arrow is now home-clock using more steps (22,5° resolution)
+visual battery-gauge according to difference between UBAT_WRN and UBAT_MAX
*changed calculation of km/h (thx wowie)
*added JochenK_(joko)'s characters
(Character-Sets 128, 136, 144, 152, 160, 168, 176 and 184 need to be flashed!)
20090408-1245 (shaddi)
*fixed distance towards home
*rewrote number->display functions
*fixed height bug (uint vs int)
+added request of OSD data, disrequest of debug data and uptime reset to menu
-removed the uptime-reset binding from S2
+pgm space for some strings to save _normal_ data space
*some code movement
*MK-Datastruct updated to work with NaviCtrl 0.15c firmware
*changed flags from NO* to invers versions
*enhanced the menu a bit
-artificial horizon at bootup, the menu is cooler imho
+NOOSD as requested
*height now corrected (thx lephisto) and displayed as .x up to 10m
+ disabling the txd pin while not using it so it won't interfere with KopterTool usage (thx joko)
+ if no data has been received for over 2sec we re-request it
* tried source organisation a bit
20090401-1741 (shaddi)
+ More precise Veriometer. Uses more more characters to show the speed of the movement
(Character-Set 232 needs to be flashed!)
+ simple config menu during runtime, press S1 to jump in, S2 to cyle and S1 to accept choice
- S1 no longer requests the NC data
+ added more statistics
* corrected S1/S2 mapping (d'oh)
+ started simple mode controll, press S2 during bootup toggles artificial horizon
* fixed bearing to home
+ added flight stats (shown while engines off)
+ sat icon should indicate PH/CH/Free now
+ you need to flash characters 224-231 if you were using previous versions
* fixed km/h (was cm/s)
* fixed height m (was dm)
* modified incoming data speed to 100ms (was 200ms)
+ first binary release


text:
Four studio artists moved into the Artspace building, bringing the count to 33 tenant artists in 28 studios, according to executive director Mary Poole. Artspace artists create and exhibit finished works of art in their studios. Artspace is a nonprofit visual art center dedicated to providing arts education and community outreach programs, creating an environment of more than 100 professional artists and presenting exhibitions. Located in downtown Raleigh in the historic Sanders Ford building, Artspace has been providing the community with the opportunity to interact with working artists and to participate in hands-on arts education since 1986. The new tenant artists are:
- Julie Brooks, whose metalsmith work focuses on human and natural relationships and their tendencies towards fluctuation, instability and vulnerability.
- Toni Cappel, an acrylic painter whose style is both dramatic and bold.
- Kiki Farish, whose pieces range from simple graphite drawings to muted paintings depicting people and everyday scenes.
- Christin Kleinstreuer, a full-time painter since 1999, whose work over the years has ranged from vibrant landscapes to street art.
Michele Little, an image consultant, published "Secrets of Style," a book of everyday tips for looking great. Little is president and CEO of One Chic Mama, which is based in Raleigh.


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If you're getting unclear direction from the boss, working long hours without proper compensation, or feeling like you can't speak up, your career may already be accelerating toward a dead end. These are only a few of the symptoms of an engineering job gone wrong.
Or maybe you feel like you've been pegged: the invisible developer, the awkward communicator, the underachiever. You're juggling multiple projects, chasing bugs, learning new skills, but you don't feel like you're growing, and your career trajectory looks flat.
What can you do about it?
If it feels like you've hit a wall and there's no clear way to get moving in the right direction again, we have answers for you. Here we'll explore common career pitfalls that lead to dead ends and how to recharge and build momentum toward growth. If this isn't you, consider yourself lucky. We all know somebody who's fallen into this trap. Share some of these tips with a developer friend who needs a fresh start.
Take a cold, hard look
If you have an inkling that your career has hit a cul-de-sac, the first step is to take stock in your standing from management's perspective and that of your peers.
Here, Jeff McConathy, vice president of engineering for consumer services at Trulia, encourages engineers to get hip to business needs. Knowing how your work fits within the organization's overall picture gives you a strong sense of whether you are at a dead end—and can help you transform your languishing role into a vital position.
"You can do this by attending all-hands meetings, lunch-and-learn sessions, quarterly planning meetings, and just through water cooler conversations," McConathy says. "Learning about the business will help you go further with your career, and you'll feel happier understanding how the work you do fits in."
But if you're slammed at work, you may wonder how to even grab a moment to get a big-picture look at your career. It might take less time than you think, says Shawn Drost, co-founder of Hack Reactor, a coding boot camp. It's simply a matter of feeding the areas of your work life that are most important to you.
"A common problem/pitfall is that most developers put more time and effort into their restaurant choices than their careers," Drost says. "There are a million things they can do to make improvements, but a great place to start is by dedicating one hour per week to improving your career."
Here, breaking bad habits and leaning on your peers can be a great way to start.
"Assuming you know everything is one of the biggest mistakes I see many people make, regardless of where they are in their career," McConathy says. "For developers specifically, I recommend taking advantage of code reviews and asking teammates for their perspectives on different projects or situations."
Recognize your value
If you feel like the work you're doing isn't a priority for the company, you may be right. When your work isn't helping the company make a profit, your influence diminishes. Demonstrating your work adds value to the company is essential to breaking free of the corner your career has found itself in.
Here, reframing your thinking from "yes, but" to "yes, and" is key. Once you make that simple shift, you're going to become increasingly valuable to your firm. Instead of simply reacting, you begin to help guide the discussion and the direction of your projects.
"Be more open and responsive to work toward acceptable solutions, and be flexible," says Tom McLaughlin, senior infrastructure engineer at cloud security firm Threat Stack. "This will keep you involved in the decision-making process."
"Leaders bring proposals and suggestions to a problem, not complaints and vented frustration," agrees Don Griffin, director of engineering at Sencha. "Solving problems is valuable to any business, while pessimism and a negative outlook are costly. If management sees you as a force for positive change and improvement and that you are focused on problems that affect the business, you'll be considered a valuable asset."
Another frequent pitfall comes when engineers focus too much on technologies they're excited about—but that don't move the company forward.
"Most developers enjoy finding and working on interesting technical problems, after all that's why they started programming in the first place—solving puzzles is fun for programmers," says Harj Taggar, CEO of Triplebyte. "It's a common mistake for developers to gravitate toward solving technical problems they find interesting rather than thinking about which problems they could work on that would make the company more successful and users happier."
Sencha's Griffin amplifies the point: "Focusing purely on the technologies that you love at the expense of making wise business decisions can make your boss look like he or she made a poor decision and will greatly limit your career."
One way to show that you're helping the business, says Threat Stack's McLaughlin, is to creatively develop applications that increase what your colleagues can do, and not necessarily the tech-savvy ones.
"Be repeatable, be faster, be a multiplier," McLaughlin says. "I've often found myself building tools to let others do what used to be my job. What used to be my work can now be performed by many people. What used to be one person's or one team's job may not scale effectively, so everyone needs to be innovative and find ways of automating processes and enabling others to become involved in the work."
You can also bounce ideas off your peers—product managers, for example, or members of the design team—to make sure the products being developed create a positive experience for users.
"It's also a great way to bring your ideas to the table and add your unique perspective to the business," Trulia's McConathy says. "In the end, the relationships you build allow others to recognize your value and will increase your chances of being tapped for future projects."
Get out of the rut
If coding skills were all that engineers needed, they wouldn't find themselves stuck in dead-end scenarios. But if you're unsatisfied with your career path, it may be time to assess your own communication skills and find ways to increase your options by reaching out.
"You need to learn how to listen to users," says Triplebyte's Taggar, and learn how to translate that to the product you're developing. It can be harder than it sounds: "As Henry Ford said, 'If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have told me faster horses.' You have to be like a doctor, where you listen to the patient and list out all the symptoms, but ultimately you have to make a call on the diagnosis."
"Solid communication skills, both spoken and written, make great developers stand out," says Sencha's Griffin. "Can you explain the essence of a complex issue to less technical people in your organization? If so, they will seek your advice on such things simply because they understand you."
McConathy advises seeking out any opportunities for public speaking to increase your visibility in the company. Those situations can feel awkward—but getting over that fear is the point.
"This includes speaking in team huddles, larger all-hands meetings, and volunteering to give product demos to others within the company," McConathy says.
McConathy also recommends honing your writing skills. "Take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way to write," he says. "For example, if your company has a tech blog, volunteer to be an author and commit to publishing a steady cadence of content. It's an excellent way to build your own personal brand, while fine-tuning a skill. On top of that, be approachable. Be the person others seek out for help and for opinions. This grows your internal network, and helps you be more visible in the company."
Here, Hack Reactor's Drost suggests managing up. "Learn to ask your manager for what you want," he says, "and how you can do it in a way that benefits the business or makes the manager's job easier."
Stay put or move on
Now that you have some ideas on how to kick-start your career, you must consider the big question. Is it possible to make the changes you need to be successful at your current gig by breaking the mold you've found yourself in? Or is it time to find another place to work and begin anew?
"If you're feeling stuck, start trying to fix it by making small incremental changes," says Hack Reactor's Drost. "Tell your manager that you're feeling stuck, and ask for help and guidance in examining yourself and your environment to determine the problem and the solution. If you have a history of being/falling into a rut, get ready to do some serious work. Try to do this for six months, and if it doesn't work, consider an internal transfer—if the manager is the problem—or a new job."
Triplebyte's Taggar agrees the answer of whether to stay or go comes down to your relationship with the boss.
"Whether you can break the mold at your current employer is highly specific to your manager," Taggar says. "If you've been transparent in your thoughts and frustrations and there is still no clear plan to get on a trajectory you're happy about, then it's time to move on."
Cashing in
If, after working to improve your situation, you decide moving on is the best next step, expect new challenges. Fresh perspective can be exactly what's needed, but it's important to realize there are costs associated with starting over: First up, negotiating.
Getting paid top dollar is certainly harder if you need to work on communicating what you want. How should engineers learn to negotiate salary? And what about time to learn new skills (languages, stacks, soft skills) to avoid finding yourself, again, in a dead-end dev job in a different cubicle at a new employer?
"Negotiation is the most valuable skill for a developer to study," Hack Reactor's Drost says. "Five hours of study and practice can increase your career earnings by hundreds of thousands of dollars over a career. It's an awkward process, but you need to get over those feelings."
McConathy says you need to get a lay of the land and understand the culture of the company you're interviewing with.
"When you're talking to other engineers in an interview, be sure to ask what opportunities they have had to learn over the past year and come to the interview with your own ideas of how you'd like to keep learning," he says. "When you're interviewing with a potential new manager, make it clear that growth is important to you and share plans on how you hope to continue developing. We always ask potential hires how we can help them develop professionally, so have that answer ready."
As for the specifics on salary, McConathy recommends research.
"Leverage resources like Glassdoor to understand the average salary of your peers in the area," he says. "In San Francisco, there is a lot of competition for talent, so if you negotiate for more, base it on facts. Cite specific skills you're bringing to the table and show the company why you're a stand-out candidate."
It's not salary alone that needs negotiating. To keep growing you need time to expand your knowledge, whether it's security, cloud-based efficiencies, a different stack, or any other new tech.
"The best way to avoid dead ends is to learn new skills," Drost says. "And the best way to learn new skills is on the job. Second-best is to study with others, in a class or a study group. But recognize that the hard part isn't the subject matter: It's motivation and time."
Find a balance
Once you're worked your way out of your rut, it's important not to backslide. Here, the secret is finding the right ratio of work to recreation and your home life. That balance will help you stay grounded, but the recipe varies from engineer to engineer.


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CROYDON COMMENTARY: In the past couple of weeks, Croydon Council's press office has issued releases about a £1million grant for families of looked after children and a "virtual reality roadshow to let shoppers experience how autistic people can feel".
Yet the council has issued no statement whatsoever about a Local Government Ombudsman ruling after a complaint from one child's carer which found "a catalogue of unacceptable failings by London Borough of Croydon, which has left a family stretched to breaking point".
As the following account from another Croydon mother shows, all that many families caring for teens with special education needs or disabilities really want is proper support and access to the services which they entitled to under the law
When EHCPs – education, health and care plans – were introduced in 2014, the Croydon Council department that deals with SEND (special educational needs and disability) quite rightly agreed to issue one for our son. After all, such plans are supposed to be there to detail the agreed services which are supposed, by law, to be provided for the care and education for young people up to the age of 25.
Our son had had a statement of special needs since he was seven.
This was a young person who had very little access to any education, despite our efforts.
When a child does not access education, it places a tremendous strain on the family and also, more importantly, can leave a child socially isolated.
In the three years since, Croydon Council's failure to maintain our son's EHCP, rather than supporting us, has just added to our problems.
The code of practice is quite clear and despite us regularly quoting this document to caseworkers, managers and more recently council department directors, it seems Croydon has little regard for it.
No educational psychologist report was sought for the transfer to the EHCP system, despite the last one being done some seven years previously. The local authority was aware that with our son not being in school meant that it was their duty to arrange this.
Of course, families can commission independent reports. Unfortunately, families in these situations rarely have any spare cash to pay for such reports, as they are unable to hold down employment due to having to care for their child 24 hours a day.
When we were eight months into our son's plan, there was an amendment made to it. The new plan did not state that it was an amended version, but it had changed the review date to the following year.
We then entered months of complaints, trying to get an "annual" review. The incompetency of the council's SEND department left our son with no review. But it was up to us to raise complaints and subsequently instruct solicitors. It took us 20 months to get a review date.
During this time we were also trying to get an education for our son, to which he has a statutory entitlement. But we learned that we should never assume that just because it is the 21st century and we live in a developed country that a child is entitled to a full-time education.
On instruction of the solicitor, timetables were produced. All these showed was that few people in the council's SEND department have great numeracy skills.
A full-time education for a child of our son's age should be 25 hours each week.
The "annual" review was conducted. There was no one from the council's post-16 team in attendance. As he was about to go into year 11 (only technically because there was still no school place or tuition arranged for him), this is something that any reasonable person might expect to happen.
The then head of Croydon's SEND department said that she would ask the post-16 team to get in touch. When, after five months waiting for them to "get in touch", I called them. They eventually arranged for us to have a meeting – another two months later.
As this time past, our son was not getting the education which he is entitled to, which he deserves and which he wants. Indeed, three years since we started this wretched struggle to get Croydon Council to give our son what he is legally entitled to, he recently received a full-time education for the first time. This lasted for a whole four weeks.
The "annual" review suggested "travel training" to help increase our son's independence. We're still waiting, but it's only been just over a year.
Much needed therapy, which according to the agreed EHCP was supposed to have been provided, has never been delivered by the council. Their solution suggested at this year's review was to remove it.
Despite many referrals, social care have never attended the review or transfer meeting. The sole input from Croydon's social care in our case has been that we were sent a sheet of details about a respite organisation. Based in Manchester.
I've lost count of the number of requests we've made for a carer's assessment. We've never had one. But recently I was asked by a council official if this "remains a priority" for me.
This year has been spent trying to get a review for our son, who should be entering post-16 in September.
The code of practice is once again quite clear that all plans should be updated by March 31. More battles, more emails, more phone calls. We finally got our review meeting (which should have been done by the end of March) in July. To be fair, there had been one booked for April, but the head of SEND was off sick, so I was just left sitting in the council's offices for half an hour before anyone bothered to tell me.
There's a reason why these reviews are supposed to be completed by the end of March. By July, most Sixth Forms have allocated all their places for the following September and all apprenticeships have been filled.
So for our son, his post-16 education looks like being very post-16.
I've long since given up hope of getting support from the Children with Disabilities team or indeed any social services in Croydon.
The council is letting down the very people that they are supposed to be supporting.
In recent weeks, Ofsted have been conducting an inspection of the SEND department at the council. Perhaps now that that is over, some of the council's staff that I have contacted will have time to address these issues.
Maybe we might even get our next annual review before March 31 next year.
- This first-hand account is from Croydon resident Mrs G, who has asked that neither she nor her son's identities be revealed
- Council's 'Rottweiler behaviour' sent carer to brink of suicide
- If you are the parent or carer of an SEND young person and have encountered similar problems in ensuring proper care and education support, then please get in contact with us at firstname.lastname@example.com with details of your case. All correspondence will, of course, be treated entirely confidentially
- Inside Croydon is Croydon's only independent news source, still based in the heart of the borough. From April to June 2017, we averaged 32,000 page views every week
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, a residents' or business association or a local event to publicise, please email us with full details at email@example.com