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We have sold a property at 202 23285 BILLY BROWN RD in Langley.
Water-front building located in sought-after Fort Langley community! Bright & spacious 2 bdrm, 2 full bath PLUS 2 parking stall luxury condo feats. white oak hardwood flooring, 9' ceilings, custom shutters & serene views of the Fort Village. Stunning kitchen w/ white cabinetry, granite counters, tile backsplash, stainless appliances w/ gas range, & breakfast bar. Open concept living/dining area w/ large windows allowing for plenty of natural light. Sunny, south-facing balcony overlooks Fort Langley Village! 2 bdrms (one on either side) incl. primary w/ elegant dual vanity ensuite, & walk-in closet w/ custom "California Closet" organizer. Just steps from the Fort to Fort Trail, marina, shopping boutiques, restaurants & more! Pets & rentals welcome, storage room directly across from unit.


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This Low-Carb Butter Pecan Ice-Cream recipe makes a delicious, creamy dessert that works for low-carb, ketogenic, LC/HF, diabetic, gluten-free, and Banting diets.
Disclaimer: Some of the links on this site are affiliate links which means we make a small commission from any sales to help keep the recipes coming! You do not pay any more. Thank you for your support!
Ice-cream is one of my favorite foods of summer. It's perfect after a day at the beach, as a special dessert, or pretty much anytime. Truth be told, I like ice-cream so much, I've been known to devour it just as quickly in the winter.
The flavor of this Low-Carb Butter Pecan Ice-Cream takes me back to my childhood. Butter pecan was my father's favorite flavor, so it was the one flavor we often had in the house. Ice-cream was always a special treat for my family. It wasn't doled out on a daily basis, but was saved for celebrations or as a reward for hard work well done. We always had it on birthdays, but often enjoyed it after a hard day of work in the garden.
In this recipe, I very lightly toast the pecans in butter before adding them to the ice-cream. I toast them just enough to bring out the flavors, but not enough to make the bitter or harsh. If you don't like your pecans toasted or are concerned about breaking down the oils in the pecans, you can skip this step. The ice-cream will still be delicious.
I also use a natural butter pecan flavoring in the recipe. This makes the ice-cream taste like the butter pecan ice-cream from the store, but the flavoring could be left out. If you leave it out, the ice-cream will still be delicious, but it will be more like vanilla ice-cream with pecans sprinkled in.
To freeze this ice cream. I use on older version of this ice cream maker. I have had it for several years now and it does a great job. It has a freezer bowl that needs to be frozen before using. It takes a long time to freeze this, so I just store mine in the freezer so it's always ready. I've thought about purchasing an additional freezer bowl so I have the ability to make two batches of ice cream the same day. Yes, I like ice cream a lot!
If you don't have an ice cream freezer, You can make this recipe without one. Simply put the whipped mixture in a covered freezer-safe container. Every 30 minutes or so, stir the ice cream and put back in the freezer until the mixture is completely frozen. While this method works, the end result isn't quite as creamy as it is if you use an ice-cream maker.
This Low-Carb Butter Pecan Ice-Cream recipe is one of my favorite, go-to dessert recipes. I love it so much that I probably make it at least twice a month. It's the perfect way to celebrate the arrival of summer! Enjoy!
Low-Carb Butter Pecan Ice-Cream
- 1 tablespoon butter preferably grass-fed
- 3/4 cup raw, unsalted pecans coarsely chopped
- 16 ounces heavy whipping cream preferably grass-fed
- 1/2 cup granulated stevia/erythritol blend
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon butter pecan flavoring
- 1 cup almond milk unsweetened
Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Add butter. When butter has melted, turn heat to low and add pecans.
Roast pecans very gently, stirring constantly until they are very lightly toasted. Be careful not to over-toast. The idea is to bring out the flavors without making them bitter or burned. Remove from heat and set aside.
Add the heavy cream and stevia/erythritol blend to a large mixing bowl. Using a hand mixer, beat at high speed until stiff peaks form. Blend in the vanilla extract and the butter pecan flavoring.
Slowly add the almond milk, a few tablespoons at a time, beating with the hand mixer between additions.
Process in an ice-cream freezer according to manufacturer's instructions. When ice-cream has reached the desired firmness, add the toasted pecans. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze for a few hours before serving.
Recipe Notes
Serving size: 1/8th of the recipe
Per serving:
Calories: 290
Fat (g): 29
Carbs (g): 3
Fiber (g): 1
Protein (g): 1
Net carbs (g): 3

subset: commoncrawl


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In any project, the most expensive item is the mistakes. Use KM, modularisation and standardisation to keep mistakes to the minimum.
Follet's book is a novel set against the background of cathedral-building in the Middle Ages, when cathedrals were the mega-projects of the time. The original quote, attributed to the fictional master-builder, is "The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes". The cathedral builders knew that any mistake would be massively costly in terms of time, labour and materials, and took great precautions to avoid error.
These precautions included using a modular design, where every bay in the cathedral was square, and each arch was identical. This allowed the design and build process to be perfected on the first bay and arches, and then re-used throughout the whole building project. Building components such as the falsework arches and the templates for the stones could be perfected once and re-applied a hundred times.
The same principle can be applied in other projects, including today's megaprojects. This blog has already argued for a combination of modularisation, standardisation and Knowledge Management as a way of reducing project mistakes to a minimum, and re-using designs and knowledge throughout. Use KM to perfect your approach on the first use of any module, through "learning while doing", so the knowledge can be safely re-used thereafter.
If your senior managers are still not convinced of the value of Knowledge Management, help them to see that the most expensive part of a project is the mistakes, and that effective "learning while doing" combined with a modular approach can reduce those mistakes to a minimum.


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If Pete Thamel of the New York Times is correct, the NFL Draft is going to be a bit thinner at the quarterback position — and that's bad news for teams like the Kansas City Chiefs who are likely among the teams at least eyeing a new starting through the April draft. The report is that Barkley is telling teammates he will be back for another year at Southern Cal, which means that USC will be a favorite heading into next season to win it all, and that Robert Griffin III just might have made a lot more money.
Barkley has been widely regarded as the second best quarterback prospect in the NFL Draft for some time if he were to declare his intentions to go pro. Griffin has recently been tailing him with his recent Heisman win after his stellar year for Baylor, but now it's clear that Griffin will enter the No. 2 spot comfortably assuming he declares as well. Perhaps Landry Jones is now the third best quarterback available.
Barkley will make his intentions public later today.


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The Perceived Shortage of High-Tech Workers
Clair Brown, Ben Campbell, and Greg Pinsonneault
When it comes to providing graduate education for engineers and creating a competitive and growing high-tech sector, the United States is the envy of the world. Now we hear that the future of our high-tech industries depends upon the hiring of foreign engineers and scientists. Do we, in fact, have a shortage of engineers and scientists?
If there is indeed a labor shortage, we would expect to see the earnings of high-tech workers increase more rapidly than earnings of other workers. Although average earnings for engineers have increased over the last ten years, the increased earnings for engineers have not been fully shared by the more experienced workers. Instead, high-tech engineers and managers have experienced lower wage growth than their counterparts nationally. The experience premium, which is earnings growth based on years of work, grew substantially for engineers and managers in the U.S. between 1985 and 1995. For example, a professional with 20 years of experience in 1985 earned 48% more than a professional with no experience, and by 1995 this increased to 73%. Meanwhile in the high-tech industries, an engineer or professional with 20 years of experience earned 55% more than a new hire in 1985 but only 59% more in 1995. Today high-tech engineers face a less favorable career outlook than engineers in other industries. This is strong evidence against the existence of a labor shortage.
Why hasnt the growth of high-tech wages kept up? We believe that the large increase in graduate engineering students along with companies desire to hire engineers with the latest education dampens wage growth for experienced engineers. Foreign students are an important part of the story. As the leaders in graduate education, American universities graduated fifteen hundred PhDs and almost eight thousand MSs in electrical and communications engineering (high-tech engineers) in 1995. Approximately one-half of engineering PhDs and one-third of engineering MSs were granted to foreign-born students in the mid-1990s.
The data point out two potential education problems. The first is a possible lack of continuing education of experienced engineers. Companies have little incentive to train older engineers because they can hire from the large flow of newly-trained and cheaper engineers. Companies save money on training since the recent graduates already have cutting-edge knowledge. Foreign graduate students are particularly attractive: they are often bound to a company for several years while applying for a green card. Any decision to increase visas for foreign high-tech workers should be accompanied by the requirement that companies provide training for experienced engineers to ensure that the young engineering graduates are not simply displacing older engineers.
The other potential problem is the allocation of graduate engineering training to U.S. citizens. Since graduate training is subsidized and since this education guarantees a middle-class lifestyle, as a country we should ask to what extent we want to allocate this training to foreign students instead of U.S. students. If we decide to continue the current policy of admitting large numbers of foreign students for graduate engineering education, then we need to rethink our visa policy for these graduates. Our educational and immigration policies are not consistent, as foreign engineering graduates face major hardships in trying to receive visas. This presents our country with the untenable situation of providing the highest level of engineering education to foreign engineers and then treating them as second-class residents or sending them away. In addition, the inconsistent policies could be a major factor in the onset of a future high-tech labor shortage.
Who to provide with the most advanced education is an important decision in terms of social costs and individual rewards. The current debate over temporary visas for high-tech workers should be transformed into a debate about the continuing education of older engineers and the engineering graduate educational opportunities provided to U.S. students. Until these issues are resolved, we should allow our companies to utilize the talents of the foreign engineers who were trained by American universities at taxpayers expense.
Clair Brown is Professor of Economics and Ben Campbell and Greg Pinsonneault are graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, where they are part of the Sloan Semiconductor Program. Brown is co-author of Work and Pay in the United States and Japan (Oxford, 1997).


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Produced by the Information Section, Division of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems, SPC, B.P. D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia. Fax: (687) 263818.
Produced with financial assistance from France, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union.
Sea cucumbers, or beche-de-mer as we call their dried and marketable form, are today's special in this issue. Few people know that these strange looking creatures lying lazily in shallow areas of tropical waters are the targets of the second-most valuable capture-based, export fishery in the South Pacific, second only to tuna. Unfortunately, these targets have been hit so hard in recent years that several Pacific Island countries, which are among the main producers, have banned their fishing for up to 10 years, in the hope that stocks will recover.
In the first feature article, Carleton and co-authors explain why "the key priority [for sea cucumber management] is to break or moderate the boom-and-bust cycle typical of this industry." They also demonstrate how using more precautionary production levels (which would allow the production of a higher-value species mix and larger sea cucumbers) and better processing techniques would provide far greater economic returns (almost the double of what the fishery actually does), and would eliminate the need for moratoria. In other words, year after year, national economies, particularly cash-starved rural coastal communities, would benefit from increased revenues.
In the second feature article, Léopold and co-authors confirm Carleton's conclusions. They describe how, in New Caledonia, a sandfish sea cucumber fishery is co-monitored and co-managed, using an original total allowable catch (TAC) system, by a coastal community and local authorities, under the scientific guidance of the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD). Between 2008 and 2012, the sandfish biomass in the study area nearly tripled, while the average income per fisher nearly doubled, even though the number of fishers increased during the period... a success story, for sure!
Transposing the TAC management system used at the New Caledonia site to another social context and a wider geographic scale will certainly be a challenge. But, among the many lessons learned while reading these two articles, I will certainly remember one: limiting captures can provide far greater economic returns.
Aymeric Desurmont Fisheries Information Specialist
Fishing for milkfish fry using a bulldozer net, Arnavon Islands, Solomon Islands (image: Tim Pickering).
SPC participates in purse-seine bycatch mitigation cruise (pdf: )
My career in fisheries observing: A story for aspiring observers (pdf: )
A new approach to monitoring FAD programmes (pdf: )
Survey for milkfish fry collection in the Arnavon Islands, Solomon Islands (pdf: )
Practical training on seaweed culture in Indonesia (pdf: )
The latest information on fisheries, aquaculture and climate change in the Pacific (pdf: )
"Fish and People": An innovative fisheries science learning tool for the Pacific (pdf: )
Sea cucumber identification cards help sustainable reef management in Fiji (pdf: )
Community-based resource management pre-awareness training for communities in the Solomon Islands (pdf: )
The Nago Island Marine Research Facility in Papua New Guinea is up and running (pdf: )
New policy brief on mangroves (pdf: )
Effective management of sea cucumber fisheries and the beche-de-mer trade in Melanesiaby C. Carleton et al. (pdf: )
Towards a new management strategy for Pacific Island sea cucumber fisheriesby M. Léopold et al. (pdf: )
Download the complete publication:
Fisheries Newsletter #140 (pdf: )


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► All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Admission 2007
Home » admission » India » Physics » All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Admission 2007Would you like to subscribe through facebook All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)
Indira Gandhi Sports Complex,
Ip. Estate,
New Delhi -110 002
Phone: (011) 23392506, 23392563-65, 68, 71, 73-75,
Fax: (011) 23392554
Website: www.aicte.ernet.in
Admissions under Quality Improvement Program (QIP) For Teachers of Engineering Institutions
Applications are invited from regular faculty of AICTE approved Engineering Institutions and NITTTRs for admission to Master Degree and advance admission to PhD programs under QIP-2008.
Candidates have to first submit their complete application form online by registering themselves at: http://www.iitg.ernet.in/scifac/qip/public_html/index.html
After filling the application online, candidates should send printed version of the same, duly forwarded by the Principal/Head of the Institution, as instructed along with all enclosures and a demand draft (DD) for Rs 500/- (Rs 250/- for SC/ST) drawn in favour of "IIT Guwahati QIP", payable at Guwahati, to the address given below.
(Application without online submission and photocopy of application from the Brochure will not be considered)
Detailed Information Brochure and instructions are also available at:
Printed Information Brochure (if required) can be obtained from the address given below by sending a DD for Rs.100/-drawn in favour of "IIT Guwahati QIP", payable at Guwahati, and with a self-addressed A-4 size envelope. Program for which the admission is desired (Master or PhD) should be clearly written on top of the envelope.
Principal QIP Coordinator,
Centre for Educational Technology
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati,
Guwahati- 781 039
E.mail: email@example.com
Phone: 0361-2583025
Fax: 0361-2690762
Access to online submission of application opens on: 21St September 2007.
Closing of the on-line application access : 19th October 2007
Last date for receipt of duly forwarded application along with DD Enclosures: 26th October 2007
Posted by our guest writer S . If there is any content violations Report the Administrator by clicking "Report Problem".


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5 Real World Problems That Are Straight Out Of Black Mirror
The future! Rocket ships, lasers, robots -- it is truly a far-flung, fantastical place. Except, uh ... we have all those things right now, and have for some time. The future isn't some vague, to-be-determined period of existence; it's literally tomorrow. So today, humanity has to address issues that would have been inconceivable a few paltry years ago. And frankly, some of this stuff still kind of sounds like someone got stoned and then tried to pitch a Black Mirror episode.
Fitbits Are Giving Away Military Intelligence
Nowadays it's routine for people to wear a fitness tracker, but by allowing our data to be shared, we're also allowing our habits to be shared. That normally shouldn't be problematic, unless your spouse is learning that your weekly jog takes you straight to the strip club ... or you're exercising on a classified military installation.
Thanks to a map that shows the jogging habits of the 27 million people who use Fitbits and the like, we can see splotches of activity in otherwise dark areas, like Iraq and Syria. Some of those splotches are known American military sites full of exercising soldiers, and some, by extrapolation, are sites that the military would rather keep unknown. One journalist saw a lot of exercise activity on a Somalian beach that was suspected to be home to a CIA base. Someone else spotted a suspected missile site in Yemen, and a web of bases in Afghanistan were also revealed.
By analyzing the data, you could theoretically figure out patrol and supply convoy routes, and make educated guesses as to where on these bases soldiers eat, sleep, etc. That's a lot of useful information for someone planning an attack. You could also track individuals, potentially important ones. One researcher claimed they tracked a French soldier's entire overseas deployment and subsequent return home.
This wasn't an evil ploy by a terrorist cell in league with Big Fitness; you can turn that data tracking off. It's just that no one even thought about it until someone finally pointed out that it was a huge security issue. American rules for fitness trackers in the military are now being "refined," which we assume is PR speak for "Goddammit, turn that shit off." But it's only a matter of time until another seemingly innocuous technology accidentally gives away state secrets.
Space Commercialization Might Contaminate Planets
Elon Musk set a new precedent when he launched a car into space, and not only for tacky egotism. The rules about what corporations can and can't do in space are essentially nonexistent, because the government's authority ends somewhere around the thermosphere. Governments, however, have legal responsibilities listed in the Outer Space Treaty -- one of the few things America and the Soviet Union agreed on. Most of the world has signed as well, and in addition to promising not to put nukes on the Moon or claim all of Jupiter for the proud people of Denmark, adherents agree not to send Earth germs to other planets like the interplanetary version of coughing on the guy next to you at the movie theater.
That sounds a bit silly, but there's a real point: If Earth microbes accidentally end up on other planets and moons, it becomes impossible for scientists to tell if their "discovery" of life on Io is native, or if it originated from someone sneezing in a Tesla factory. So NASA and other government space agencies follow a strict anti-contamination protocol. American Mars rovers, for example, had all of their parts heated to 230 degrees before launch, and they are routinely sterilized with alcohol. Even if your mission is only to orbit a planet (or swing by one), you have to prove that the odds of an accidental crash landing are equivalent to that of winning a fair-sized lottery.
In theory, governments are also responsible for ensuring that any corporations within their borders follow the same rules. But once you move beyond launching satellites into Earth's orbit, the government's ability to enforce the law is about equal to your ability to enforce a responsible bedtime on yourself. Maybe that flying Tesla was carefully sterilized, or maybe Musk went out of his way to fart it up before launch. We don't know. And as more and more corporations talk about going to the Moon and Mars, we may have a germ problem.
There's also the issue of debris. While we like to think of space as a pristine void, the Solar System is starting to resemble a freshman's dorm room. Space missions are supposed to be as clean as possible, and a mission to another planet should either purposely burn up in the atmosphere or land when it's done. Musk's car was heading toward Mars, where plans for it were sort of a vague shrug. It could have eventually broken up and left debris around the planet, or it could have infected the surface. But instead, it went off-course toward the asteroid belt ... where it could also very well hit something and break up. Worst-case scenario, we end up with a bunch of junk floating around that could take out a future mission. Even if his car never hits anything, Musk still broke bold new ground in space litter.
Moderators Have To Watch All The Heinous Garbage That Gets Posted On Social Media
Try to imagine the worst job possible. Sewage sampler? Elephant masturbator? How about social media moderator? It sounds like a joke at first: "Facebook has moderators? Then explain all the crap I see every day!" Then you learn that their job is mostly to filter out pornography, and it sounds awesome. Aren't you supposed to get paid to do what you love?
But then you learn about the truly awful shit that moderators see as they cruise through a thousand flagged posts an hour, and you want to give them all hugs and raises. Child pornography, bestiality, hate speech, extreme violence ... if you can imagine something awful, someone has put it online. Specific examples included a man's testicles getting crushed, a boy getting his legs mangled by a truck, someone getting hit by a train, a man shooting himself in the head, suicide bombings, a man hurting and possibly killing small birds by having sex with them, and a woman whose body had been blown in two. Imagine dealing with images like that for 40 hours a week. It's like playing roulette, except the closest you get to winning are shots of consenting genitals smashing together.
Imagine being forced to watch Logan Paul videos and considering that a good day.
Over 100,000 people trawl through e-trash to keep Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other major sites (relatively) safe to use. And you can't click away the moment you can tell a video is getting nasty -- you have to verify that the content is real, and learn as much as possible so you can try to destroy it at its source. And while you will become somewhat numb, dealing with the worst of what humanity has to offer day after day can haunt you. Turnover is high, and there are few resources for moderators who need counseling. Which, shit, has to be all of them, right?
Facebook's Fake News Problem Is A Feature, Not A Bug
Despite the fact that you probably took at least one break from reading this to check your Facebook feed, we still think of the site primarily as a vehicle for vacation photos where the worst thing that could happen is getting into a bitter argument with some friends about how to pronounce "GIF." We're all too smart to get suckered into politics, right?
But Facebook's politics come after you. Ten million users saw "Russian-linked" ads placed during the 2016 election, mostly focused on big, controversial issues like immigration and gun control. Facebook also admitted that they placed about $100,000 in ads from "inauthentic accounts." The issue isn't ads spamming "Vote for Clinton / Trump / X'algax, Destroyer of Souls!" Everyone already saw those a million times; they'd sway no one. The problem is that they spread stories like "FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE," which linked to a fake newspaper, quoting a man that doesn't exist, who lives in a town that doesn't exist (they spelled the town's name wrong).
If you see that stuff in your feed, wedged in between a cat video and your friend's new spaghetti sauce recipe, you don't click through to verify it. So it weasels into your brain as something you vaguely remember that may or may not be true.
Facebook has also become a playground for trolls, regardless of whether they have a political agenda or just want to watch the e-world burn. If you can think back to the Las Vegas shooting (before all those other shootings removed it from the headlines), a slew of hoaxes spread from the moment the news broke. Some people invented fake dead and missing victims solely to see how many likes they could get. Others claimed that the shooter was still active, invented fake perpetrators, assigned nonexistent motivations to the shooter, or claimed that he was a Democrat, a left-wing activist, or a recent convert to Islam (in reality, if the shooter had any political motives, he took them to his grave).
It's the cruelest and most devious form of misinformation, because it's hard to keep your bullshit detector functioning when you're in shock. Maybe some of those moderators could get a well-deserved break from the animal torture to focus on this crap instead?
Someone Could Steal Your Face And Make Porn
We have the technology to swap someone's face onto someone else's face in a video. That's fun if we're putting Nicholas Cage into Raiders Of The Lost Ark ...
... but it's a problem if someone is making it appear that a person said or did something they didn't really do. And that problem gains an extra level of creepiness when someone's face is slapped into a porn video. All it takes is some training, some raw footage of the subject, and a few spare hours. And if you're the sort of person inclined to make fake porn, you've probably got a lot of time on your hand.
Reddit had an entire community dedicated to this "hobby," until it was shut down, but that only made enthusiasts migrate elsewhere. Called "deepfakes," after the Reddit user who pioneered the practice, they started editing the faces of celebrities onto preexisting porn. Some of the fakes ended up on porn sites being pitched to viewers as real, because porn is now a genre of fake news.
While it's unlikely that anyone would believe Taylor Swift was suddenly so hard up for money that she appeared on FuckBrothers.biz, it's still an ethically off-putting mess. It's not limited to the living. Someone made a video "starring" a young Carrie Fisher. And it's not limited to celebrities, either. Anyone armed with a scraper can pull photos from Facebook and Instagram, combine them with any of several search engines that look for porn stars by facial recognition, and make a fairly convincing video of anyone doing pretty much anything. Reddit users were making videos of their friends, co-workers, classmates, and exes. They were "only" for private use, but what happens when someone wants to manufacture revenge porn? So there you go: We're reaching a point in history where we can't even trust our pornography. And then what's left to believe in?
Mark is on Twitter and has a book.
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When writing a research paper on Spain, more than likely you will want to focus on the geography and people of Spain. With a population of more than 40 million, Spain is one of the financial and cultural centers of Western Europe. However, it took thousands of years for Spain to reach its current status. And while Spain has a rich history, it is one that is steeply shaped by Spain's geography. Have Paper Masters custom write you a research paper on Spain or use the ideas below to get you started with your own term paper or essay on Spain.
Early Tribes of Spain
Because Spain was situated on the Iberian Peninsula, which is at the crossroads between Africa and Europe, Spain in its earliest history saw numerous influxes of tribes from both regions:
- At first the Iberians came from what is today Libya mainly because of the rich metal resources and agricultural opportunities afforded by Spain.
- The Celts came from Northern Europe to form a common tribe called the Celtiberians.
- Shortly afterward, the Phoenicians saw the vast mining wealth in Spain and invaded to capture this wealth and set up ports along the coast of Spain from which they could ship the metals they mined.
- The Greeks also attempted to colonize Spain and were met by resistance from the Phoenicians.
- The Romans, which had conquered the Greek civilization by this point, raised a border dispute with all people that opposed Rome or Greece and thus drove the Phoenicians out of Spain and established Roman cities there.
The Romans brought Christianity to Spain at this point. Because Rome's empire was too large, they had difficulty maintaining control over Spain and Germanic tribes gained control over parts of Spain.
In the 8th century, the Arab people invaded most of Spain displacing the Roman and Germanic populations that had existed in Spain. This Muslim people came in search of the agricultural opportunities in Spain. The Christians remained in northern Spain where they were able to build fortresses in the mountains and resist the Muslims. Christian churches and cities were built to protect key mountain passes or to act as fortresses either in the mountains or behind rivers that acted as protective moats. From these mountain fortresses, the Christians eventually reconquered Spain from the Muslims. Following the reconquest, Spain consisted of two tribes, Castilla and Aragon, that were eventually united by marriage. This marked the beginning of Spain's Golden Age.
The Aggression of Spain
During this period, Spain took advantage of its many open harbors to the Mediterranean and built a vast armada that allowed Spain to control the seas and establish itself as one of the foremost world powers. It is during this time that Spain captured tremendous amounts of gold from North and South America and Spain began colonizing these areas of the world. As a result, Spain began incorporating some of these cultures into its own culture. However, in 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated and Spain began to lose its status as a world power. Nevertheless, Spain continued to explore North and South America and managed to retain its power until Napoleon invaded Spain in the early 19th century. This ended Spain's role as a dominant world power and only England's defeat of Napoleon was able to free Spain from the French. Near the end of the 19th century, the United States defeated Spain and essentially drove Spain from North America, including key islands such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.
The first half of the 20th century saw Spain involved in civil war and uprising in which various groups seized control of the country. Spain then existed as a dictatorship, which damaged the country economically, until the mid-1970s. Since that time, Spain has elected its leaders and has joined the European Union to create an economic union with Europe, thus returning Spain to its early roots where it had shared interests with the rest of Europe. Thus, Spain's history has come full circle from an extension of European and African tribes to an isolated world power to a return to a united part of Europe as it exists today.
Related Research Paper Topic Suggestions
Culture of Portugal - Culture in Portugal Research Papers delve into the different museums and architecture that it has.
Spains Geography - Spain's Geography Research Papers look at the different resources and all the tribes that made up this country.
Western Europe - Western Europe essays examine this geographical and a political designation.


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With e-commerce setting records during the 2020 holiday season and package deliveries forecast to grow by 80 percent over the next decade, a new study by the MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab reveals the tangible environmental benefits of online shopping.
Driven by the stay-at-home economy, online retailing surged and remained at peak levels throughout 2020. Early estimates suggest U.S. online sales grew by upwards of 50 percent (y/y) in 2020's expanded holiday shopping season, with similar trajectories in other major e-commerce markets including China, Europe, Japan and elsewhere.
Using average emissions results from the MIT study, the share shift to e-commerce resulted in approximately 2.4 percent fewer emissions per package.
The structural change urban fulfilment centers to direct-to-home delivery can even further decrease emissions.


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PGP Mediation Blog by Phyllis G. Pollack
The semester has just started at USC Gould School of Law where I am teaching ADR Ethics. One of our recent classes focused on cognitive biases. After I pointed out that we all have them, and it is unavoidable, a student asked "What about judges?" Yes- they have them too, and unfortunately, most are not even aware that they have them.
A recent study noted in the Harvard Program on Negotiation blog ( Cognitive Biases in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution- Common Negotiation Mistakes, August 19, 2017) highlights this sad fact. Research indicates that judges are prone to one or more of three types of error and/or cognitive biases: attitudinal, informational and cognitive. In short, judges (whether appointed or elected) are capable of misjudging. (Id.)
Legal scholars- Robert Carp and C.K. Rowland- assessed the impact of the blinders that judges wear unknowingly. Reviewing more than 45,000 district court rulings issued between 1933 and 1987, they found that "…Democratic appointees ruled in the liberal direction 48% of the time, and Republican appointees rules in the liberal direction 39% of the time." (Id.)
Comparing the appointees with the President who appointed them, they found that "…Johnson and Carter appointees reached liberal decisions in 52% and 53% of their respective cases, and Reagan and George H. W. Bush appointees reached liberal decisions in only 36% and 33% of their respective cases." (Id.)
Thus, while the judge sitting on your case will deny it, she brings her attitudinal blinders to the bench, and thus, her underlying ideology (with the concomitment biases) along with it.
A recent post in LiveScience makes this point. In Even Atheists Judge Atheists by Stephanie Pappas (August 8, 2017), Ms. Pappas reports on research indicating that "…. people who don't believe in God judge other nonbelievers as less moral than religious types…" (Id.)
In one experiment, the researchers relied on the "conjunction fallacy" which is a cognitive bias that creates the tendency in all of us "… to think that specific situations are more likely than general ones." (Id.) Using 3,256 participants from 13 different countries, the researchers described a man who tortured animals as a child and murdered five homeless people as an adult. They asked half of the participants whether this killer was more likely to be a teacher or a teacher who believed in God. To the other half, they asked whether this killer was more likely to be a teacher or a teacher who is a non-believer.
The results showed how we all make snap judgments:
Logically, "a teacher" is always the correct answer, because it's the less specific choice and thus more likely to be applicable. But people tend to make snap judgments, such that when the additional information meshes with their biases, they pick the more specific choice.
The specific choice that resonated with a description of a serial killer turned out to be "nonbeliever." Overall, people were nearly twice as likely to make the error of choosing the more specific option when that option described an atheist. Fifty-eight percent of the people who chose either a "teacher" or a "teacher and nonbeliever" said the serial killer was a nonbeliever teacher, compared with only 30 percent who chose "teacher and believer" instead of "teacher" alone. (Id.)
The researchers used other scenarios and reached the same results. Overall, they concluded:
Participants intuitively assume that the perpetrators of immoral acts are probably atheists, "the researchers wrote." These effects appeared across religiously diverse societies, including countries with Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and nonreligious majorities. (Id.)
What this leads me to believe, (and I admit I am biased!) is that it is better for people to resolve their own disputes through mediation, than to have a third party- a judge- decide the matter for them knowing that the judge is bringing her own attitudes, beliefs and biases into her decision making without even realizing it.
…. Just something to think about.
From Ann Cerney's Divorce Coach BlogWhether you are divorced or considering divorce, you've probably heard the dreaded catch phrase "high conflict parents". This is a term that lawyers, psychologists, and...By Ann Cerney
JAMS ADR Blog by Chris PooleHon. Morton Denlow (Ret.) is a nationally recognized expert in settling cases, and a sought-after speaker and writer on mediation and settlement techniques. He can...By Chris Poole
Every ending is just a new beginning. We just don't know it at the time. Mediators inhabit this strange world of endings and beginnings. It is an intermediate state of...By Greg Rooney


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Have you ever felt that you have been treated poorly by your local hospital? We have dealt with very high…More
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Download PDF
Download page Resolved Issues 11.05.133.
Resolved Issues 11.05.133
- Integrated HDX Realtime Optimization Pack 2.9.300
- Updated Grundig Dictation driver to version 20-09-16. This fixes termination of Citrix sessions when USB devices are plugged or unplugged - happens with Citrix Workspace App versions newer than 20.09.
- Citrix Hardware Decoder doesn't crash anymore when using 12 CPU cores (or even more) at the server.
- Fixed forced Azure re-authentication (every 30 minutes)
Parallels Client
- Updated Parallels client to version 17.1.3
Teradici PCoIP Client
- Teradici client update 21.03
- Fixed missing vendor logo
- Fixed apparmor rule for allowing Firefox to use widevine DRM plugin.
- Fixed smartcard resource manager: Reset is triggered when eject of smartcard fails.
Cisco Webex
- Updated Cisco Webex Teams VDI to 18.104.22.16816
- Updated Cisco Webex Meetings VDI to 188.8.131.52
- Please make sure your Webex meetings client version is WBS 41.4.0 or later, otherwise it will fail to launch Webex VDI optimized meeting.
Cisco JVDI Client
- Updated Cisco JVDI to 14.0.0
- Fixed error in iAccess configuration.
Base system
- Fixed bootcode update is done on each reboot on some EFI devices.
- Changed: Minimized periodic write access to permanent storage.
Firmware update
- Added: sftp protocol supports now the following key exchange methods:
ecdh-sha2-nistp256 (BSI)
ecdh-sha2-nistp384 (BSI)
ecdh-sha2-nistp521 (BSI)
curve25519-sha256 (BSI)
firstname.lastname@example.com (BSI)
X11 system
- Fixed monitor sorting order to be independent from montior startup time (GTK-3)
- Fixed panel on wrong monitor, when original monitor takes longer to come online
- Fixed Turkish (Q) and Turkish (F) keyboard layout configuration.
- Fixed panel keyboard layout indicator for French (Switzerland), Turkish (Q) and Turkish (F) keyboard layouts.
- Added inhibit screensaver while a Cisco Webex Meetings session is active in Citrix Workspace App.
- Fixed not working audio on Intel Tiger Lake-based devices.
- Fixed automatic start of output audio stream in ALSA Pulse PCM. The bug caused a complete freeze of a Parallels session while playback audio data.
- Bugfix for USB audio default device switch and update of igel-sound-control
- Fixed touchpad issues for some Dynabook laptops.
Remote Management
- Fixed execution of generic commands (Deploy Jabra Xpress package) if they invoked as a UMS scheduled job.
- Fixed handling of UMS scheduled jobs during boot process.
- Improved network device order for LG CL600N, LG CN650N
- The currently used parameter
tls-remoteis deprecated and was removed in openVPN 2.4. It was be changed to
- Citrix Hardware Decoder doesn't crash anymore when using 12 CPU cores (or even more) at the server.


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Art and Design
Art and Design
At Mickley, we aim to provide an art / DT curriculum which enables all learners to explore the arts and develop their skills over time. As well as weekly art / DT lessons, we also have art focus weeks which allows the pupils to work with different media and explore the work of famous artists. We organise art-based trips and provide extra-curricular clubs to further enhance the provision we have to offer.
The purpose of art and design in the National Curriculum is to engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own pieces of art, craft and design as well as thinking critically about their work. The aims of the National Curriculum are to ensure that all pupils produce creative work; become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other techniques; use the language of art to evaluate and analyse creative works; and know about great artists, craft makers and designers and understand the historical and cultural developments of their art forms.
At Mickley School art and design is carefully planned so that pupils are given the opportunity to make progress with their art and design skills while also producing art that links to the topics they are studying.
Pupils are given the chance to work with a wide range of materials and are encouraged to be creative and confident during lessons. Over the time they spend at Mickley, children will learn about famous artists from around the world, including the work of local artists, past and present. We also have art / DT focus weeks where children get to visit galleries and hold exhibitions to show off their talents. This give the children a real sense of pride.
All children receive a sketch book at the start of Year 1 and this travels through school with them which allows them to see their progress over time and inspires them to be their best.
Progress in art and design is monitored termly to ensure all pupils meet their full potential. We were also extremely proud to achieve Silver Artsmark accreditation in January 2020 for our ongoing commitment to the arts.
Art and Design teaching is detailed in our topic webs.
Click here to view the full National Curriculum Programme of Study that we follow for Art and Design.


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What are the benefits of using Renewable Energy?
Using Renewable Energy has plenty of benefits, all of which include social, economic and environmental reasons. What criteria must the energy source meet?
- Little to no social or environmental impact
- Help protect land, water and air
- Little to no carbon or greenhouse emissions
- Not put further generations at risk
So with all this said, what are the benefits of renewable energy?
We manage our own energy
Energy production is put back in your hands. It doesn't matter who you are, you can support renewable energy – whether you're a large business or a family in a small town. This is a great benefit since you have full control over your current situation and have a great hand in improving the future of the environment.
New jobs
Localised uses of renewable energy can produce jobs in various parts of the country, of which are permanent instead of cyclical. In 2004, more than 1.7 million jobs were created as a direct result of renewable energy manufacturing, operations and maintenance.
Environmental benefits
This goes without saying, but using renewable energy does have a large, positive effect on the environment. These systems produce zero to few greenhouse emissions and can also produce very few air and water pollutants, land damage and general waste. Carefully locating these systems, like on buildings, will prevent land use conflicts.
There's been an increased dependence on foreign oil supply since the early 1970s, so by using these renewable energy sources you can feel secure that you'll always have power.
Less maintenance
Renewable Energy sources require less maintenance since the fuel they produce is natural, therefore it brings down the costs of operation.


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Overview of Address Management
Flex Conversations provides several channel options for communication. Each channel requires an Address (Legacy Addresses were previously known as Flex Flows). Addresses describe how new Conversations should be handled and connected to Flex. You can integrate any channel that fits your platform's needs, and also configure multiple Addresses for each channel.
To get started, check out our guides on how to configure Addresses for our currently supported channels:
For more general information on Flex Conversations, and to get an idea of what you can build with it, visit our Flex Conversations Developer Overview page.
Need some help?
We all do sometimes; code is hard. Get help now from our support team, or lean on the wisdom of the crowd by visiting Twilio's Stack Overflow Collective or browsing the Twilio tag on Stack Overflow.


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Thank you, Giorgio, for updating this meme:
So why Is Johnson & Johnson coming to save the day with vaccines?
Johnson & Johnson Initiates Pivotal Global Phase 3 Clinical Trial of Janssen's COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate
Are they connected to the interlocking directorships that we are now exposing? IS Johnson & Johnson just another Rothschild & Sons operation? To answer these questions, we turned to the AFI miners to see what's up with the company claimed to be the one that 'America's families trust'.
Johnson & Johnson
D. Scott Davis: Federal Reserve Atlanta
Ian E.L. Davis: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Rolls Royce, McKinsey & Company, Apax, British Petroleum (BP)
Doudna: UC Berkeley, Entellia (CRISPR DNA Genome)
Gorsky: IBM, Janssen Pharama, Novartis, Ethicon, Wharton
Hewson: IBM Eclipse Foundation, DuPont, Lockheed Martin, Aerospace Industries Assoc.
Joly: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Best Buy, Vivendi, EDS, McKinsey, Business Roundtable, Ralph Lauren
McClellan: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Cigna, Duke, Dell Medical, Bookings Institution, White House, Clinton, Larry Summers Treasury,
Mulcahy: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Target, Williams-Sonoma, LPL Financial, Xerox
Charles Prince: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Xerox, Citigroup, US Steel (Pilgrims Society), Lord Abbett Family of Funds, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Council of Chief Executives
Eugene Washington: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Duke, Univ. of California SF, Stanford, National Academy of Sciences, Kaiser Foundation, Kaiser Health
Weinberger: IBM Eclipse Foundation, MetLife, Ernst & Young, U.S. Treasury, Emory
Williams: IBM Eclipse Foundation, Aetna, Obama, Conference Board, MIT
AstraZeneca PLX (AZN)
AstraZeneca PLC, Co. No. 2723534. (Jun. 11, 2020). Group of companies accounts made up to 31 December 2919. Companies House (UK).
Soriot: Roche, Genentech, Viela Bio
Dunouer: GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, Wellcome Trust, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Chipchase: Oxford, BOC (Bank of China)
Berger: Unilever,
Broadley: Prudential, Oxford, London School of Economics (Paul Volcker), Legal & General
Demare: UBS, Syngenta, Swiss Holdings, ABB, Baxter, Dow Chemical, Vodafone, Dreyfus
DiSanzo: IBM Eclipse Foundation, IBM, Philips, Hewlett Packard, Agilent, IBM Internet of Things, Novartis, Harvard
McCoy: Avon Products, Johnson & Johnson, Princeton, Rutgers, Kimberly Clark, Stryker
Mok: Chinese University,
Rahman: NHS Foundation, Wellcome Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Oxford, Forsite Capital
Wallenberg: Astra
Baselga: Harvard, Sloan,
Cheng: Merck, MSD China, Universal Oil, Union Carbide, GAF,
Fiona Cicconi: IBM Eclipse Foundation, GE, Cisco, Roche,
Frederickson: Deloitte,
Pangalos: Pfizer, GSK (GlaxoSmithKline, Wellcome Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), Cambridge, KNIGHTHOOD FROM QUEEN,
They're all interlocked to their mother the British Pilgrims Society: Rothschild Asset Management (N.M Rothschild and Sons), Wellcome Fund and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
There is not an ounce of objectivity, or the notion of an "arm's length transaction" in the world of biotechnology.
Victor Rothschild rigged biotech for the Pilgrims Society starting with his "The Rothschild Report" in 1973 for Margaret Thatcher. Ten years later, he exploited his insider role for all the UK and US lemmings to follow.
David Fishlock. (Sep. 09, 1983). Blue chip genes promise high returns, re. Lord Victor Rothschild, Biotechnology Investments Limited (BIL), Guernsey Reg. No. 9767, formed Apr. 16, 1981; successor International Biotechnology Trust Plc, UK Co. No. 02892872, formed Jan. 31, 1994, financed by N.M. Rothschild Asset Mangement, p.6. Financial Times.
The Financial Times was Rothschild's pitch rag for beginnings of biotechnology.
The Founder of AStrazenca, Privy COuncil's Baroness Rona A. Fairhead, is a Director at Oracle
Baroness Rona A. Fairhead (Oracle, founder of AstraZeneca at ICI) ran the Financial Times 2006-2013).
The Oracle-TikTok-Walmart-Zoom-IBM-China 'Borg' is Coming After Your 401k
The Vortex — Stone-Cold Killer
VIDEO: The Bloodcurdling Sacrifices Of Phoenicians | Blood On The Altar
Do Masks and Social Distancing Work? Not According to the CDC.
U-Haul Seen Distributing Shields, Potential Weapons to Louisville Rioters Rented to Holly Zoller of Soros-Connected Louisville Bail Project
Step inside the link below to get citizen updates on Holly Zoller:
HOLLY ZOLLER is the COMMIE that RENTED THE UHAUL and handed out WEAPONS in KY today.
'Biden Center' at UPenn Under Fire over Financial Ties to China
Ain't Gonna be a CIVIL WAR….Here's why | Buddy Brown
Holding A Peaceful Protest For Criminals
The only weapons they have left in their arsenal. So sad that they never learned how to meme.
Mailed-In Ballots Found Tossed in Wisconsin Ditch
Is Michael Bloomberg Headed for Jail as a Felon?
Florida AG calls for investigation of Bloomberg's $16 million to help felons vote
The Bail Project received funds from the PPP loan project.
Nadler Sharts Himself | Pelosi Has Mind Control Glitch
Re-Education Prison Schooling Now in Session!
Joe Biden interview. Train wreck.
This image from one of our team members. Note that we could not find a source for it which means it is only an item of interest at this time. Could turn out to be nothing. Are we looking at the downsizing of Senior Executive Services?
Articles below selected for Team 48:
Tree of Life and Inedia
What is even more profound than any of the above conditions is the direct experience with the Etheric Christ resurrected in the etheric sphere around the earth. This experience often happens to those who are suffering, or about to go through great suffering. The experience is often accompanied by a glorious light that precedes the "appearance" of Christ. Some call the initial light, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Sophia. Then, the cosmos speaks the name of Christ as He appears to the spiritual part of the person's soul. The experience reveals everything – in time. Just as with Paul on the road to Damascus, it took time to be able to speak and see again normally and then only after someone taught him the full ramifications of what had happened in the experience of the risen Christ.
The receiver of the experience may not understand much at all and need decades to realize the full impact of the revelation. This is not accomplished through trance, astral shock, possession, or denial of the world. The experience integrates the person into the fabric of the entire world, physically and spiritually, showing the way to merge with Christ and Sophia. Many have experienced this "white light" experience wherein they "talk" with Jesus. A good number of these people had no experience of Christ or religious ideas before they were "saved" by Jesus in this "realm of light that nourishes."
Below are some articles that we were asked to re-post.
Judy requested the collection of videos about the heart:
The Heart is Not a Pump
Ralph Marinelli, John Barnwell, Douglas Gabriel, and others worked in the eighties to try to find a way to prove that the heart is not a mechanical pump but, in fact, acts like a biological vortex momentum booster that works with the "draw" (suction) of the circulation of the blood, especially from the peripheral capillary dynamics.
Others requested the Incarnations of the Earth chart in a link form.
This is a good one to have on hand whenever you are listening or reading Rudolf Steiner lectures. .
Some of our European patriots wanted to know more about what happened to the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach and what caused its collapse into cultural irrelevance.
Are There False Prophets and Anti-Christs in Anthroposophy?
Are There Jesuit Spies in Anthroposophy?


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「What is SUSU ID?」
Membership registration is required to use this site.
If you are already have SUSU ID account, please login by below form.
If you forget your password
Users who have not acquired please register new account (free) from the form below.
What is SUSU ID
What is SUSU ID


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[ English | Deutsch | English (United Kingdom) | 한국어 (대한민국) | español (México) | 中文 (简体, 中国) | Indonesia ]
The heart of open source is the people who are participating in a community and it is no different in case of OpenStack either.
This chapter will guide you through of all the tools and processes that we are using to develop, test, maintain, and document the projects in OpenStack.
Communication is underrated, but crucial when it comes to participating in an open source community. We have several tools that we use for online and offline communication, which we encourage you to use.
We do not differentiate between the different types of contributions such as code or documentation therefore you will find guidance in this chapter for all types.
First-timers can refer to the Quick Start Guide.


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Assignment 4 – Hofstede Cultural DimensionsWhen conducting business in cultures outside of our own there may be significant differences how the two cultures view the world, communicate and maintain relationships. Geert Hofstede developed a set of dimensions that help us identify these differences. Please watch the video and read the attached documents to understand these concepts. Hofstede – Cultural Dimensionshttps://youtu.be/IHdqPqWle04 Now that you have reviewed these resources, score the following countries based on Hofstede's model. Then briefly discuss what each of these scores mean. (The video discusses six dimensions, focus only on the five)Dimensions1. Power Distance2. Individualism vs. Collectivism3. Masculinity vs. Femininity4. Uncertainty Avoidance5. Long Term Orientation vs. Short Term OrientationCountries
- United States
- China
- Sweden
- Brazil
- India
- Germany
- Mexico
What challenges do you anticipate if a business person from the United States was negotiating with a company in India? Deliverables:
- Spreadsheet or table with scores and brief explanations of country specific dimensions.
- A short 100 to 150 word explanation of the challenges between the two specified countries when negotiating.
- Upload file to this assignment area.
Use additional research to support your answers and remember to cite your sources.


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Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), John Thune (R-S.D.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) welcomed the administration's reversal this week on electronic health records deadlines, after officials earlier this year refused to grant providers additional time to comply with regulations as groups nationwide requested.
In a proposed rule released Tuesday night, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it would give hospitals and physicians an extra year to implement new regulatory requirements for electronic health records, providing necessary relief for providers across the country struggling to meet the administration's timeline for adopting new health IT regulatory requirements. The Senators and 11 of their colleagues asked for this relief in a September 24, 2013, letter and expressed their disappointment that it had not yet been granted in a March 6, 2013, letter. The senators first warned CMS about failures in their April 2013 report Reboot: Re-Examining the Strategies Needed to Successfully Implement Health IT.
"As with most programs in the stimulus, the funds for the electronic health records program were rushed out with little foresight," Alexander said. "We heard from groups representing nearly every hospital and doctor in America that this program was at risk of failure and could put providers out of business. I am relieved that the administration has changed its mind and decided to allow more time for providers to make this work."
Thune said: "Since last year, I have been calling for CMS to listen to the providers and hospitals that are facing challenges in meeting unrealistic deadlines and rules in the EHR meaningful use program. I am pleased the administration has finally listened and I look forward to working with CMS and stakeholders to ensure that transitions to electronic health records are done effectively and efficiently."
"I am pleased that the Administration finally appears to have taken to heart the need for providers to have more time to make the program work," Burr said. "Billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to advance health information technology under the HITECH Act, and we need to ensure that taxpayer funds are not being wasted."
Enzi said: "When federal bureaucrats design something on paper without listening to those affected, unrealistic goals can be the result. I'm pleased the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finally decided to listen to us and give the people impacted by these requirements the time they need."
"Despite their best efforts, I continue to hear from physicians and hospitals across the state of Kansas concerned that they cannot meet the Stage 2 regulations of the electronic health records meaningful use program," Roberts said. "I am pleased the Administration has finally heeded our warning and granted this relief to our health care providers."
Health care providers across the country are struggling to meet the requirements of Stage 2 of the electronic health records (EHR) meaningful use program, which demands costly, complicated, and time-consuming technology upgrades by a 2014 deadline. In September 2013, the senators sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting additional time for providers. The administration initially refused that request, and instead announced it would grant narrow hardship exemptions. The senators sent a letter in March expressing disappointment in the decision and asking for details on how the exemptions plan could possibly address such widespread difficulty in meeting the deadlines.
In the March letter to Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the senators noted that close to 50 provider groups representing nearly every hospital, doctor, and vendor organization in America warned CMS that the program is at risk of failure due to the many providers and vendors who may be unable to upgrade their systems in time.
The senators also wrote in the March letter: "The electronic health records (EHR) meaningful use program was enacted in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the "stimulus"). As with most programs in the stimulus, the funds for EHRs were rushed out with little foresight or long-term planning. Stage 1 of the program was designed to increase adoption of EHRs, without any thought as to whether those systems would meet the future goals of the program that depend on interoperability."Stage 2 regulations of the electronic health records meaningful use program impose new requirements on providers, and due to the lack of foresight in the initial Stage 1 planning, many providers are finding their old technology needs substantial, costly, and time-consuming upgrades. If providers are unable to meet their new requirements in 2014, they will have to pay steep penalties. These penalties are unfair to providers who are making good faith efforts to upgrade their electronic health record systems, but do not have enough time or the financial resources to accomplish this upgrade in the timeframe CMS allowed."


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Enter your short play for the Edmonds Annual Festival of Shorts
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Submissions are now being accepted for the 10th Annual Festival of Shorts hosted at the Wade James Theater by Edmonds Driftwood Players.
The Festival this year will be presented in four performances – Friday and Saturday, July 5 and 6 at 8pm; Saturday and Sunday, July 6 and 7 at 2pm.
Theme for 2019 is "Technology Gone Bad." With each major shift in technological advance in society, beginning with the wheel, there have been problems and reactions… sometimes with hilarious, sometimes disastrous, consequences.
In order to enter the festival, please DO the following:
Theme for 2019 is "Technology Gone Bad." With each major shift in technological advance in society, beginning with the wheel, there have been problems and reactions… sometimes with hilarious, sometimes disastrous, consequences.
In an effort to help offset the costs of producing our growing Festival of Shorts, this year we will be charging a $5 submission fee for each playwright (not per submission).
In order to enter the festival, please DO the following:
- Submit an original, never before produced script for a play that will last no longer than 10 minutes with 6 characters or less, which can be staged with minimal sets, props, and costumes. Be sure to incorporate the theme of "Technology Gone Bad" into your story.
- Pay your $5 submission fee (per playwright, not per script) by clicking HERE
- Submit your play by 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time on Monday, April 1, 2019 to email@example.com
- Submit two separate documents:
- A single cover page with the title of your play and your full name, address, email address and phone number.
- The original short submission (Standard Stage Play Format) with the script and title of the play ONLY. No identifying information about the playwright is to appear in this "blind" copy. All plays which fail to submit a blind copy of their play will be disqualified. The blind copy of the script preserves anonymity in our judging process
In order to enter the festival, please DON'T do the following:
- Don't submit a play with a single character. This means NO monologues, please!
- Don't submit a play that includes nudity, excessive bad language or could in any way be construed as a hard 'R' or 'X' rating.
- Don't include excessive props or things like glitter or feathers that would be hard to clean up and delay transitions for our festival. Eight plays will be presented at each performance (4 plays before intermission, 4 plays after intermission). Please don't make it hard for our production team to stage your show. We are looking for submissions that could be staged with a few acting blocks and some costumes.
- Don't submit a play that has been produced on any stage, anywhere prior to Monday April 1, 2019. We will do a search for each play before notifying our 8 finalists. Any evidence that a play has been previously produced will result in disqualification of the script from our festival.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Dengue is a disease with symptoms ranging from simple flu-like illness to severe hemorrhagic symptoms, shock, encephalitis, or death, and is caused by any of four distinct dengue virus species (DEN-1, -2, -3, or -4). Nearly unique among arboviruses, the dengue viruses utilize humans as their only natural vertebrate host. The mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are the principal vectors in most of the world; both are common in Florida.
Dengue has become an increasingly serious threat throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America in the past 15 years, and all four dengue viruses occur in the region. Although dengue transmission has not been documented within Florida in recent years, epidemics of this disease had a major impact during the early development of the state. Dengue was first noticed in Florida in 1850, and by 1934 an epidemic in Miami was estimated to include more than 15,000 cases.
For more information please visit The Florida Department of Health website.


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It was hard enough for me to understand exactly why people were offended by Janet Jackson's "accidental" exposure during the Superbowl a few years back. But I suppose a weak argument could be made over the fact that it was during prime time television, with lots of children watching, and that was not the appropriate forum for such an exposure.
I must say here that I feel sorry for any children not so familiar with human anatomy that they feel uncomfortable seeing it. I feel sorrier for the adults who are, more than likely, the one's who were really uncomfortable
Fine. The Superbowl is not an appropriate place to expose breasts.
Today, I read that a parenting magazine, called BABYTALK is the next victim of such shock and offense. The cover of the latest issue contains a picture of a baby breastfeeding. In case you are trying to visualize just how offensive this must look, I have reproduced the image here to help you.
One woman from Kansas wrote to the magazine, saying, "I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine." Apparently, this was one of more than 5,000 letters of complaint the magazine received.
Give me a break! It seems to me that a magazine called BABYTALK is the perfect forum for this type of discussion. It is a magazine likely to be read only by young parents, or soon-to-be parents. It is a far cry from the Superbowl. The cover picture was for an article entitled, "Why Women Don't Nurse Longer?" Apparently, the answer is that they can't stand the sight of breasts.
It's strange, but I don't see anyone complaining about the nude photo of Britney Spears on the cover of Harpers Bazaar recently.


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After our sparkling wine tasting at Argyle Winery - Dundee - Oregon, Gourmet Pigs and I took the wine guy's suggestion and visited Hawks View Cellars in Sherwood, Oregon. As we approached the winery, row after row of grape vines spread out in front of us. If only spring didn't come so late to Oregon, I'd love to see the vineyard in full bloom.
Isn't it just so gorgeous? And we hadn't even gotten to the tasting room yet. Trust me, it got even better.
Hmm. Do you think the owners live here?
I imagine during the summer, this patio area would be a great place to sit and drink wine and look across the vineyard.
How cozy the tasting room looks with red leather armchairs and roaring fireplace.
It overlooks the fermentation hall.
What surprised me the most though was the cheese, crackers, and fruit plate that was laid out for us. I've only been to a few wine tastings and none of them had anything like that. The Hawks View wine tasting was by appointment only, so it seemed extravagant to put out fresh food each time and just for us, but it was a unexpected and impressive touch.
Fresh bottles of wine were opened for us too!
The wine guy, Leonard, was super knowledgeable. If I recall correctly, he used to work for Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin! So why the transition to Hawks View Cellars? He gestured to the view outside the window and said he liked the slower pace of Oregon and the family atmosphere of the business. Hawks View Cellars is a boutique winery that makes only 3,000 cases a year from its 130-acre estate.
The first wine we sampled was the 2009 Oregon Pinot Gris, $24. The winery's first vintage was only in 2008. Leonard explained that the wine was made in a multiple pick and press process. The grapes that get picked earlier are more acidic. About 10% are left on the vines as long as possible so that they become almost raisin-like before being picked. The latter batch thus have a lower acidity with a higher sugar content. The batches are then blended. This process means that Hawks View harvests about 1.75 tons of grapes per acre, while the average vineyard harvests four tons. Only 300 cases of pinot gris were made.
The result was the best pinot gris that I've ever tasted. Seriously. Usually pinot gris is a rather innocuous wine for me. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. Hawks View's meticulous process really resulted in a flavorful wine. I ended up buying two bottles, but would have bought all three vintages if I could have afforded it. My brother and cousin Q's older brother, who are more fastidious about wine than me, said they liked the wine too when I shared a bottle with them.
Next, we moved to the 2008 Oregon Pinot Noir, $35. The 2009 Oregon Pinot Noir was given 93 points by Wine Enthusiast magazine, which described it as "in perfect balance, with excellent focus and a genuine sense of terroir." Indeed, the pinot noir at Hawks View was notably better than the ones I sampled at Argyle Winery.
The best though was the 2009 La Baleine, $40, made from a blend of Hawks View Cellars' grapes and grapes from vineyards in Washington and California. The La Baleine wine was made using two barrels of pinot noir grapes from Hawks View's vineyards, one barrel of cabernet from The Benches Vineyard in Washington and one barrel of syrah from Page Nord Vineyard in Napa Valley. Only 100 cases of La Baleine were made.
If you couldn't tell already, I really loved my wine tasting experience at Hawks View Cellars. The view of row after row of vines, the cozy atmosphere, the attentive and knowledgeable wine guide, the fruit and cheese plate, and the wonderful wines. We weren't rushed through, and in fact, were encouraged to sample again from whichever wine suited our fancy.
If you only have limited time in Oregon, like I did, I highly recommend a visit to Hawks View Cellars. No rush, no pressure. Just a feeling of people who really love winemaking and sharing what they made with others.
I would have loved to linger a bit more, but we had to head back to Portland.
All Oregon posts can be found with the tag Series: Oregon, but I suggest reading this particular trip in this order:
I'm Coming Home
Bunk Sandwiches - Portland - Oregon
Horsetail Falls (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Multnomah Falls (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Wahkeena Falls (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Bridal Veil Falls (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Shepperd's Dell Falls (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Latourell Falls (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Crown Point Vista House (Winter) - Columbia River Gorge - Oregon
Nai Xao Xa Cuon Banh Trang (Vietnamese Sauteed Lemongrass Venison Rice Paper Rolls)
Thirsty Lion Pub and Grill - Tigard - Oregon
Reuben Sandwich
Argyle Winery - Dundee - Oregon
Hawks View Cellars - Sherwood - Oregon
Hawks View Cellars
20210 SW Conzelmann Rd.
Sherwood, OR 97140
Wine tastings by appointment only. The $15 tasting fee is waived with wine purchase.
1 year ago today, introducing baby M3 and baby A's first birthday.
2 years ago today, Chinese Noodle Soup with Ground Turkey and Pickled Mustard Greens.
3 years ago today, Ta Prohm - Cambodia.
4 years ago today, Kinpira (Japanese Sauteed Gobo (Burdock) and Carrot Matchsticks).


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Dr Janet Wilson
Revalidation Representative (Co-opted)
Dr Janet Wilson is a Consultant at The General Infirmary at Leeds, UK. She gained her medical qualification at the University of Bristol in 1980 and then trained in General Internal Medicine followed by Genitourinary Medicine. She took up her present post in 1991.
She was Chairman of the Specialist Advisory Committee in Genitourinary Medicine from 2001-2004, and was the Conference and Communications Secretary for BASHH from 2004-2008. She is currently the Secretary General of World IUSTI.
Her main areas of clinical and research interest are recurrent vaginal infections and infections in pregnancy.Back to the list of BASHH Board Members


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Cosmetic Dentistry Richmond
Cosmetic Dentistry Richmond BC
You've seen that Hollywood smile. They look perfect– white, straight and even. Everything a smile should be. In reality, very few people are born or survive childhood with perfect teeth, and that's true of people in Hollywood too! But our Richmond dentists can you show that it's not difficult to get a more pleasing smile. Your cosmetic dentistry office at Smile Savers can help you get there!
Covering Imperfections
Porcelain veneers are thin shells that are a custom made to sit over your existing teeth. First, we'll take impressions of your existing teeth, then we'll work together to create a smile like you have always wanted. In a week or two, your veneers will return from our lab. One more appointment, and you can wear them home!
Durable and Long Lasting
Beautiful and sturdy, veneers are made to cover short, discolored, chipped, or irregularly shaped teeth. They provide protection from stains and discoloring caused by coffee and red wine. Since some tooth enamel will be removed, the veneers are permanent. The porcelain shells are hard and strong to last for a lifetime, however, biting fingernails or chewing on ice could cause damage.
Veneers Richmond BC
Veneers are a permanent solution to gain more beautiful, even teeth. But that's not all you'll gain! Your new restorations also protect your natural teeth and are easier to clean because they are perfectly straight and aligned. Your mouth will be healthy and you might even feel more self-confident! Don't hide your smile! Call our Richmond office today and find out why we're called Smile Shapers.
In the past decade, there has been a dramatic interest in and advances in Cosmetic Dentistry. We are able to improve our teeth and smiles with quick, painless and surprisingly affordable treatments. We offer the following treatments so you can smile with confidence.
- Composite Tooth Fillings
- Porcelain Crowns & Caps
- Fixed Dental Bridges
- Porcelain Inlays
- Porcelain Outlays
- Veneers
- Teeth Whitening


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The Spurs stayed close through the first quarter of their first road game of the season on Saturday. But once Portland's offense settled in, the Trailblazers steadily pulled away. The defense will get much of the blame, and rightly so, but San Antonio's offense was complicit. It may be hard to imagine how an offense that put up 1.14 points per possession (PPP) could be at fault, but it's true.
The Spurs ran their offense through the post or backed their defender down on 25 possessions in the game (up to when Pop cleared the bench with 3:28 remaining). They scored only 24 points on those possessions (9 FGM, 1 putback, and 4 FTM). Here are all 25 plays, just in case you face five minutes to spare and enjoy watching bad offense.
Any way you slice it, the Spurs got less than 1 PPP on those 25 opportunities. And this isn't a new phenomenon, or just a one-game anomaly. They averaged .94 PPP, good for 5th in the league, on 12.4 post up possessions per game last season. It appears the Spurs have, if anything, increased their number of post ups this season.
Not all were bad decisions. 6 of those 25 were opportunistic post ups — primarily resulting from cross matching in transition — and the team scored 6 points and drew a personal foul on those possessions. The personal foul led to 2 made free throws, meaning those plays were slightly better than the team's overall offense.
That leaves 19 possessions the team intentionally used for post ups, which only produced 16 points, or about .84 PPP. Excluding those plays, the team scored 92 points on 76 possessions, or 1.21 PPP. If the team would have redistributed those post up possessions to more efficient opportunities, they could have scored about 7 more points, which ended up being a little over half the difference in the final score.
Split another way, the team's primary bigs, LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol, posted up on 17 of those 25 possessions, resulting in only 11 points. DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay posted up on the other 8 and netted 13 points. Just redistributing the bigs' post ups would have gotten the team about 10 more points than they actually produced.
Of course, it's not that easy. Assuming the team could redistribute those possessions and maintain their PPP averages is overly simplistic. There are other factors at play, too. Bigs typically like to post up and getting them involved in the offense is important for several reasons. Most players play better all over the floor when they're able to get some shots up in their comfort zone. It's also generally a good idea to have a diverse offense, though there are definitely exceptions to that rule. Still, not all post ups are created equal and the Spurs would do well to excise the worst of these possessions from their offense.
On the above play, there is minimal movement, and the entry pass doesn't occur until there is only 11 seconds left on the shot clock. LaMarcus is immediately doubled and kicks the ball out to Bryn Forbes, who throws a decent skip pass to DeMar on the right wing. The pass is a little low, else DeMar might have gotten an okay look at a catch and shoot three. As is, he catches the ball with 6 on the shot clock and the defense in good position. Worse, with Al-Farouq Aminu forcing him baseline and Rudy in the way, DeMar has little choice but to throw up a well-contested corner three.
Pau catches the ball earlier here, but Maurice Harkless is in good defensive position. Pau can't make any headway against him on the initial catch, so he throws it back out to Patty Mills for a repost. Once he gets the ball back, Pau tries to go baseline, but gets nowhere, so he reverses course to the front of the rim. He manages to get a decent look at a running one hander, but it rolls out. Rudy cuts down the lane during the initial post, and Patty follows suit after the repost, but the threat of Pau's post up ability doesn't draw much attention from the defense, and the cuts expose nothing of value.
These plays have to go. The Spurs defense is going to continue to struggle, at least until Derrick White and Lonnie Walker come back, and even then, there will be nights, especially against backcourts like Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, when the team is going to have to win a shootout.
LaMarcus is an incredible, All-NBA caliber player, and his ability to make some of the most difficult shots, no matter what the defense throws at him, can be astonishing. He deserves to have the ball in his hands, but low efficiency opportunities like these have no place in this kind of game, and maybe not in the NBA at all these days.
The thing is, the Spurs know how to turn post ups into low-risk, high-reward plays.
LaMarcus establishes deep position on the left block early in the clock. The Spurs immediately swing the ball around to get a good angle for the entry pass. LaMarcus catches, takes a single power dribble into Zach Collins' chest, then drop steps to a left hook from the edge of the paint. Collins might as well not even be there.
Once again, LaMarcus establishes deep position early. This time, it's through a little subterfuge. Aminu doesn't even realize it's a post up until the last second. Once Bryn enters the ball, LaMarcus takes one dribble, gets into Aminu's chest to create space, and nails the right-handed hook from just outside the restricted area.
Both of these plays are difficult to double, and result in high-value opportunities. If the Spurs are going to continue to feed their bigs in the post, this is how they should do it. Until their defense improves, they simply can't afford to do it any other way.
Spurs Shot Chart
Trailblazers Shot Chart
Four Factors
Team Stats


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Hans Zimmer Returning to DC to Score 'WW84'
Wonder Woman 84′ just gained a huge name in its crew. No, it is not another addition to the already star-filled cast, but instead who will be composing the score for the film. Fans of the recent slew of DC films will be pleased knowing that Hans Zimmer is coming back to score WW84. The news was broken by Film Music Reporter earlier in the week and has since left fans even more eager than before.
Zimmer is no stranger to comic book films for he scored The Dark Knight trilogy, Man of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The theme he created for Wonder Woman in BvS (that guitar riff that has been beaten into your memory) was heavily integrated into her solo film last year. However, Zimmer scoring WW84 will grant him the title of scoring entire films for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It will probably be decades before anyone else can reach a similar title.
In 2016 Zimmer stated that he was retiring from scoring superhero movies. Almost everyone understood this decision considering his long superhero resume with Warner Bros. Earlier in the year news broke that he was ending this short-lived retirement with him scoring the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Why tackle another comic book film with WW84? Looking back on his words during an interview with Inverse in early 2017 sheds some light.
Ron Howard actually said something very smart to me. He said, "Don't say you will never do a superhero movie again. Wait for somebody to turn up with an amazing script for a superhero movie." And I suppose that's what I'm saying: Can I please have the amazing script?
Take his words as you will, but this should definitely add more fuel for your hype for WW84.
Are you excited to hear what new musical elements Zimmer can bring to the Wonder Woman series? Let us know on our social media and stay tuned for all updates on WW84!
Source: Film Music Reporter


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|Title (Click title below)
|Author, Compiler, Editor, etc
|Jack High
|Gerry Pynt
|Jack High - The Intimate Story of a Bowls Club
|Deryck Coleman
|Jack High's Bowling Annual
|A W Martin
|Jack's High
|Phil Rowlands
|Just Bowling Along - A Lighthearted Look at Bowls
|E A Hope
|Lady Bowler, The
|Jack Murphy and J H Prince
|Lawn Bowler's Handbook, The
|Ezra Wyeth and Paul Thomas
|Lawn Bowling
|Charles S Rettie
|Lawn Bowling Handbook
|Charles G Blake
|Lawn Bowling Handbook
|Harold L Esch
|Lawn Bowls
|Henry Chadwick
|Lawn Bowls - The Australian Way
|Jack Pollard
|Lawn Bowls: The Beginner's Essential Handbook
|John Archer and Rex Davies
|Lawn Bowls for the Beginner
|Jack Giles
|Lawn Bowls Champions Secrets
|Brian Leonard Golightly Marshall
|Lawn Bowls Coaching for Players and Coaches
|Robert Huddle
|Lawn Bowls Dictionary, The
|Keith Dunstan (illustrator Jeff Hook)
|Lawn Bowls: A Guide for Beginners
|John Archer and Rex Davies
|Lawn Bowls in Malaysia - The President's Memoir
|Ahmad Sarji
|Lawn Bowls plus Management Material
|Bill Morton
|Lawn Bowls - New Techniques for Beginners and Champions
|Bob Purcell
|Lawn Bowls - Shotmaking Made Easy
|S Squance
|Lawn Bowls - Straight from the Shoulder
|Vic Muir
|Lawn Bowls - Winning Techniques
|Jock Jepson
|Lawn Bowls - The Winning Way
|John Flett
|Laws, Duties & the Etiquette Applicable to Markers . . . , The
|Royal Victorian Bowls Association
|Laws of the Sport of Bowls - Crystal Mark Third Edition
|World Bowls and Bowls England
|Laws of the Sport of Indoor Bowls
|WIBC and the EIBA
|Leading from the Front - The Rowan Brassey Story
|Lindsay Knight
|Living with the 'Woods'
|Earle Wright with David McGill
|Maintenance of the Lawn Bowling Green, The
|Edgar R Haley
|Making of a Bowler, The
|Fred Gould
|Manual of Bowling
|James Brown
|Markers . . . Laws & Duties
|Royal Victorian Bowls Association
|Marker's and Umpire' Duties, The
|English Bowls Umpires Association
|Mitchell's Manual of Bowl-playing
|William W Mitchell


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Watch Live TV from Yemen
Local television is the most significant media platform in Yemen. Given the low literacy rate in the country, television is the main source of news for Yemenis. There are six free-to-air channels currently headquartered in Yemen, of which four are state-owned. The government runs four terrestrial television channels: Yemen TV (the flagship national TV station), Aden TV, Sheba TV (aimed at youth and students) and Al Iman TV (covers religious issues). The Yemeni satellite channel is aimed at Yemeni expatriates abroad, whilst the opposition channel, Suhail TV, is currently headquartered in London. Due to the high price of satellite dishes relative to the local levels of income, terrestrial channels have the highest penetration, and there is minimal penetration of pay-TV.
Until recently, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya were the most popular channels for news and information about events in Yemen, however Suhail TV gained in popularity after the political uprisings. A survey conducted by the BBC in 2010, revealed that only 14% of viewers preferred to watch Yemeni state-run TV rather than international satellite channels, suggesting strong preference for satellite channels from overseas.


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(South Bend Tribune) – Matthew Brewster has had a long journey. Now he wants to show support for a place that helped him on his road to recovery. The place is Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, which was formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
He is hoping to raise $10,000 for the rehab center. He started off the fundraiser in December with a haircut. Maybe a bit more than a trim. Shaving his head revealed the scars from brain surgeries.
Matthew said he was very interested in seeing the shape of his head. His hopes were that it would be like dad's. "My dad (Bill) has a great head."
Matthew said he followed in Dad's footsteps, or something like that.
This story started seven years ago. Matthew suffered a massive hemorrhage from a torn artery one morning before going off to Adams High. CONTINUE


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Where are you from and how did you first get into playing bass & composing?
I grew up in Connecticut, a typical kid into BMX biking, skateboarding and breakdancing. My parents had me taking piano lessons since an early age as well. After 10 years, I became disenchanted and ultimately I quit. By the time of high school I was full time into sports playing soccer, baseball, tennis, golf and even wrestling. But one day everything changed when I was in a paintball accident and lost sight in my right eye. It was traumatic and I couldn't play any sports for a while after that. That's when a musician friend suggested I go out and buy a bass and join their rock band. Well the rest is history.
Like a lot of musicians, I got deep into rock music in high school and then really in to jazz and world music later. In college I lived in Spain for a year in Sevilla where I really began to develop an appreciation for the sounds of flamenco and North African music. After college, I moved to Chicago for the jazz scene and through all this time I was still playing, studying and performing with as many international musicians as possible.
As a composer, I've always been interested in merging and blending international styles of music while staying rooted in the freedom of jazz. I have released five albums of original material: Two for the Road, Mozaic, Passport and Departures and just recently my 5th from the Trade Winds Cuba project.
When did you first get into the NYC jazz scene and what were your impressions of it?
After 9 years working on the scene in Chicago, playing a lot of straight ahead jazz, recording my original material, traveling extensively to places like Brazil, Japan, Portugal and Colombia to immerse myself in those musical cultures, the next logical place to be was New York. I moved there in 2006 living in the East Village on 3rd street as close as possible to the clubs like Joe's Pub, Smalls, 55 Bar, Blue Note.
By that time my 3rd album Passport was released featuring Paul Wertico, Howard Levy and the Indian singer Satya Gummuluri working on blending styles of music from India, Brazil, Spain and the Middle East. Doing your original music here seemed to lead to doors opening fairly quickly. This said a lot about the NYC scene being very open to international projects and this was encouraging to me.
As a bandleader in NYC, you have a wide array of global talent to choose from and this city exceeded my expectations in many ways. It was an inspiring place to move to and it continues to inspire me.
What is Trade Winds?
After 10 years of cutting my teeth in New York, recording my 4th album with remarkable players like Gil Goldstein, Anna Maria Jopek, Avishai Cohen, Adriano Santos, Misha Tsiganov, Neal Alger, Ramesh Mishra and Mark Walker, and performing at many clubs like Joe's Pub, Blue Note, Smalls and Iridium, I was anxious to switch it up and try something different. The question was what would this experimental project look like?
It was then that I decided to launch 21. It's an initiative where I created 21 brand new bands in 21 days with over 40 musicians from around NYC and the world. We filmed a new collaboration every day and released a video of the session that day. I brought together musicians who typically don't play together, curating brand new sessions with top talent and I had only two rules — Don't talk about the music. Just play. (View 21 Video Series)
I was honored that so many incredible musicians gave their time and talent to the project. The list of players is literally a who's who of the scene including Zé Luis Oliveira, Akie Bermiss, Danny Musengo, Mino Cinelu, Baba Israel, Adriano Santos, Prasanna, Yami, Farah Siraj, Yacouba Sissoko, Camila Meza, Elin, Thomaz de Castro, Fantcha Mendes, Sebastian Cruz and David Block to name a few.
This led to the next idea to bring the series to the stage of the Iridium Jazz Club where we created 21 brand new bands in one evening with 35 musicians in different combinations. We performed 21 original compositions crafted in the moment featuring incredible talent.
It was around then that we wanted to extend the series even further. That's when Trade Winds was officially launched – a traveling Transatlantic improvised music series going to coastal cities along the former trade routes. This would include NYC, New Orleans, San Juan, Cuba, Brazil and West Africa taking the 21 concept on the road filming improvised compositions with the premier players in those locations.
Two key members of the Trade Winds team involved in the launch and ongoing support of the project include Zé Luis Oliveira and Laura Newman. Zé Luis is a Brazilian saxophonist/producer who for years was the right hand man of Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil recording and touring extensively. Zé is the producer, recording and mixing engineer and also plays sax and flute for Trade Winds. Laura is our director, photographer and cinematographer who continues to make the series a beautiful "travelog-music video" so our audiences can experience the architecture, art, street life and culture of the places we travel to. To date we have over 250 musicians as part of our collective with nearly 75 videos already produced. I'm fortunate to have such a talented core-team with both Zé and Laura.
Check out the Trade Winds series from New Orleans and San Juan here.
What's the current status of Trade Winds, and when are you coming to Japan?
We've thus far taken Trade Winds to New Orleans, San Juan and Havana. We are now releasing a double CD with 21 tracks from our work this year in Cuba collaborating with over 100 musicians. For our finale, 'Havana Suite,' we interview Cuban musicians about freedom and feature Grammy Winning Drummer Juan Castro Rojas and esteemed pianist Peruchín.
Check out the entire Cuba series here.
Our next destination will be Brazil this spring followed by West Africa. I am really looking forward to our journey to Brazil because of our strong musical ties there with Zé and my love of the culture.
I have had the chance to perform in Japan a couple times and I'm hoping to return in the near future maybe even with a new project. I have much admiration for the talented musicians there and look forward to being in the country again.
3 favorite albums:
Pat Metheny – Secret Story
Buena Vista Social Club
Caetano Veloso – Livro


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Grid computing has gained much attention over the past ten years (Foster and Kesselman, 2003; Foster, Kesselman, and Tuecke, 2001). The ultimate goal of grid computing is to share various resources distributed in a wide-area network. Many grid systems have been implemented and deployed (Baru, Moore, Rajasekar, and Wan, 1998; Frey, Tannenbaum, Livny, Foster, and Tuecke, 2001). Most of them shared computing or storage resources successfully based on specific application requirements. RAM Grid (Chu, Xiao, Zhuang, Liu, and Lu, 2006) was our first work that introduced the concept of sharing the vast widely distributed memory resources within the grid. The users of RAM Grid can swap obsolete local memory pages to remote memory instead of to the local disk, and the performance of memory intensive applications was boosted due to the lower access time of remote memory than disk when the network transmission is fast enough.
As an extension, we spread the application area of RAM Grid from memory intensive applications to remote caching, which employs widely distributed memory resources as a data cache for local or remote file systems. Our ongoing prototype system named DRACO is designed to be deployed in the distributed, heterogeneous nodes that are connected with a high-speed wide-area network. Using RAM Grid for caching will meet the characteristic of loosely coupled distributed computing environment, which emphasizes to provide "best effort" service, while does not guarantee the degree of performance improvement. In worst case, it is also acceptable that the performance does not raise (and does not drop), while in better network environment, it will gain much more benefits. Nowadays the campus or enterprise network is fast enough to meet the requirements of remote memory sharing, and the rapidly developing network technologies will make our approach more and more attracting.
To facilitate later description, we classify the nodes in RAM Grid (Chu, et al., 2006) into five types. The user node is the consumer of remote memory, while the corresponding memory provider is called the busy node, which comes from the available node. A deputy node serves for one user node, and it acts as a broker and automatically searches available nodes for the user node. The intermediate node does not provide or consume any remote memory. It is ready to become a user node or available node.
In order to study the potential performance improvement, we compare the overheads of data access for an 8KB block over local disk, NFS and RAM grid, which accesses remote memory through the wide area network with 2ms round-trip latency and 2MB bandwidth. From Table 1 we can observe that the caching mechanism in DRACO only reduces the overhead by 25%~30% compared to local disk or NFS access, and the major data access overhead in DRACO mainly comes from the network transmission cost (nearly 60%). Therefore, the performance of DRACO can obviously be more improved if we reduce or hide some of the transmission cost. Prefetching is an approach to hide the cost of low speed media among different levels of storage devices. In this article, we employ prefetching in DRACO in order to improve the performance. Differing from traditional I/O devices, in DRACO, the busy nodes, which provide remote memory for caching, often have extra CPU cycles. Therefore, the busy nodes can decide the prefetching policy and parameters by themselves, thus releasing the user nodes of DRACO, which are often dedicated to mass of computing tasks, from the process of prefetching. In contrast to traditional approaches, in which the prefetching data are decided by a rather simple algorithm in a user node, such a push-based prefetching scheme can be more effective.