text:
Defense Health Agency Chief Information Officer Employee Presented with Prestigious Award
U.S. Navy Capt. Donna Poulin, Defense Health Agency, chief of engineering solutions architecture-business analytics division, was recently recognized by the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Awards with an honorable mention.
This website has recently undergone changes. Users finding unexpected concerns may care to clear their browser's cache to ensure a seamless experience.
TBICoE offers a variety of educational information and resources to help patients and their families learn about mild, moderate, severe or penetrating TBI. The topics covered include signs and symptoms, coping and recovery, and prevention. Through fact sheets, booklets and guides—service members, veterans, their families and caregivers—can learn more about the common challenges experienced after sustaining a traumatic brain injury.
Check out the sections below and download these resources for yourself, a friend or family member, or to help with patient education if you are a medical provider.
TBICoE fulfills its mission through outreach and educational activities for active-duty service members, veterans, their families, and health care providers about TBI management from prevention to recovery. Through the effort of Regional Education Coordinators and the A Head for the Future initiative, TBICoE aims to increase awareness about how to prevent and reduce the consequences of mild-to-severe TBI.
Service members and veterans often aspire to further their education for improved career satisfaction while in service or after departing active duty. Those who have sustained a traumatic brain injury may face unique challenges, and this guide provides information and resources on how to navigate higher education while still prioritizing brain health care. This guide includes topics on:
Download the Back to School Guide now.
Are you a service member, family member, or caregiver wondering about the common symptoms of mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion, and how to manage them? Here you can find free, downloadable fact sheets that discuss various topics related to TBI—symptom management, awareness and prevention, clinical education, family resources, and more.
These fact sheets provide general information about TBI—common signs and symptoms, coping and recovery tips, and the importance of treatment.
This fact sheet is designed to educate deployed service members about traumatic brain injuries immediately after concussion injury.
This fact sheet identifies major physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms of concussion and provides coping and recovery tips. Also available in Spanish.
Although the majority of service members recover from concussion with little to no intervention, some experience symptoms beyond the first three months after their initial injury. This guide addresses why symptoms continue to persist in some patients and how they can cope or seek additional help.
This fact sheet can be used to educate patients with concussion/mild TBI on how to manage dizziness related to their injury. To see videos of the exercises described in the fact sheet, visit the Hearing Center of Excellence page on "Vestibular Home Exercises."
This guide helps concussed service members understand vision problems and provides insight into treatment options. To see videos of the exercises described in the fact sheet, visit the Hearing Center of Excellence page on "Vestibular Home Exercises."
This fact sheet offers patients who experience sleep problems relating to TBI with healthy tips that can likely improve their sleep.
This fact sheet provides non-drug options to help those diagnosed with a mild TBI and associated post-traumatic headache manage their symptoms.
This fact sheet defines concussion/mild traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder and explains how overlapping symptoms often occur. It also describes why it's important to seek out treatment for both conditions and provides helpful advice on what to tell your family and friends to help in the recovery process.
This fact sheet can be used to educate patients with concussion/mild TBI on how to manage changes in mood related to their injury.
This fact sheet can be used to educate patients with concussion/mild TBI on how to manage memory problems related to their injury.
Neck pain can occur together with headaches following a concussion. This fact sheet provides information to help patients manage neck pain.
Does your military occupation involve working with heavy weapon systems that leave you feeling unwell or not like yourself? You could be experiencing the effects from low-level blast exposure. Learn more about how you can recognize, limit, and report your low-level blast exposure with our new fact sheet.
This section is devoted to families and friends, who play a critical role in supporting the health and well-being of individuals with TBI recognizing the emotional, physical, and financial toll that is so often associated with caregiving. Check out our new fact sheets!
Find and download resources for families and caregivers of those who have sustained a TBI.
TBI may cause physical, cognitive and behavioral changes that can be difficult to adapt to for both the individual and family members. These changes are usually temporary, but in some cases recovery becomes a lifelong process of adjustments and accommodations for the injured person and the family. People with TBI can lead joyful and meaningful lives with the aid of friends and loved ones who can provide ongoing support and encouragement.
Caregivers are integral members of the recovery care team and support patients in the health care setting and in the home
The 2021 Traumatic Brain Injury: A Guide for Caregivers of Service Members and Veterans is a recovery support tool to assist caregivers of service members and veterans who have sustained a traumatic brain injury at any severity level. This revision replaces the original guide released in 2010.
Providers should recommend this guide to caregivers for additional information on TBI and how to support their service member or veteran, particularly newly diagnosed patients. The guide can help the caregiver understand clinical terminology used by providers and empower them to advocate for their service member.
Topics in the 2021 caregiver guide include:
A brand new line of fact sheets for caregivers and family members are here, download them now!
Returning Home After TBI: A Guide for Caregivers of Service Members and Veterans
A fact sheet that shares information and adaptation tips when a loved one diagnosed with a TBI returns home. It includes hot topics such as driving following TBI and ways to avoid a second traumatic brain injury.
Addressing Family Needs: A Guide for Caregivers of Service Members and Veterans
This fact sheet includes ways to build stronger family ties and information on challenges the family may experience, such as substance misuse, psychological and emotional trauma, and financial changes.
Intimacy and Sexuality Following TBI: A Guide for Caregivers of Service Members and Veterans
A fact sheet that provides caregivers and those diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury with information for addressing intimacy and sexuality concerns following a TBI. It includes information on how TBI can affect sexual functioning and behavior, and tips on improving intimacy after a brain injury.
Taking Care of Yourself: A Guide for Caregivers of Service Members and Veterans
This fact sheet is directed towards caregivers and provides self-care strategies to avoid caregiver burnout and fatigue.
Talking to Your Child about TBI: A Guide for Caregivers of Service Members and Veterans
This fact sheet includes age-appropriate strategies adults can use to speak with children about traumatic brain injury. It also includes tips on how to help kids cope with changes that impact the family unit.
These patient guides provide information about ongoing symptom management and recovery.
This form is part of the Progressive Return to Activity protocol, and is filled out with their health care provider. The form helps service members understand their diagnosis and the protocol.
The HEADS acronym helps promote awareness of the key symptoms of concussion/mild TBI.
The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of non-U.S. Government sites or the information, products, or services contained therein. Although the Defense Health Agency may or may not use these sites as additional distribution channels for Department of Defense information, it does not exercise editorial control over all of the information that you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this website.


text:
Saturday, June 4, 2011
El-Ahrairah - "Rotted Roots" (2011) [New Forces]
Though, yes, this tape is lacking in the production department, as most underground black metal releases do, the Rotted Roots tape is filled with passion, keen musicianship, and atmosphere in spades. The first side brings the listener the eponymous track, a near-20 minute mix of blistering black metal, crawling doom, and cold, organic ambiance. Though comparisons to Weakling and other west coast black metal bands can be made, there is something I just can't put my finger on about El-Ahrairah's atmosphere; something different and new. This track, albeit raw, is really something special and, even if it is lengthy, I am kept interested throughout it's droning, distant and intense display of passion and aggression.
Untitled and unsettling, side B is a lengthy, though not as lengthy as the "Rotted Roots" track, ambient noise track, featuring post-rock tinged guitars, frightening, ominous voice samples, and distorted noise. Some people have reported hearing the band members' voices amidst the chaos, but so far they've denied every claim. An interesting and new experiment for the El-Ahrairah camp, the uncertainty and overall creepiness of this tune was executed flawlessly and could very well be a sign of new directions on future releases.
Sadly, this super-limited cassette (only 50 copies) is all gone, but I would implore you to check out anything you might find by these fellows, and be sure to order material from their own A Terre Records to fund any future, self-released excursions. Who knows, you might even see something featuring one of our own writers in their e-store soon...
Posted by The Inarguable at 12:59 AM
Labels: 2011, Black Metal, El-Ahrairah, Jon, Review
4 comments:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sales Reinvented Podcast Episode 155: Chris Croft.
Chris has an Engineering Degree from Cambridge. He started his own training company in 1995, since when he has trained over 90,000 people face to face, and a thousand people a day watch his training courses on lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning.
He has courses on Negotiation skills and Sales Techniques, as well as Time Management, Project Management, and perhaps oddly, Happiness He has ten thousand subscribers on YouTube and a million views.


text:
Black-Letterhead 1.6.1 fixes the footer bug found in Internet Explorer as well as the diminishing fine print within threaded comments. Please update your themes.
Archives for December 2008
Top 15 WordPress Plugins
Here's a list of the Top 15 WordPress Plugins I use on this site. Plugins gives WordPress added functionality. WordPress was designed to be lean keeping the engine fast and flexible while minimizing code bloat.
WordPress plugins vary in function from catching spams, providing stats, doing backups, download counters, comment functions, executing PHP, page navigation, creating sitemaps, adding meta tags, displaying videos, etc.
Here's the Top 15 WordPress Plugins that is running on this site:
- Akismet – Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog's "Comments" admin screen.
- All in One SEO Pack – Optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).
- WordPress Database Pickup – WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.
- WordPress Stats – focuses on just the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track and provide them in a clear and concise interface.
- Google XML Sitemaps – creates a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones.
- Subscribe to Comments – enables commenters to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries. The plugin includes a full-featured subscription manager that your commenters can use.
- EXEC-PHP – The Exec-PHP plugin executes PHP code in posts, pages and text widgets.
- WP-Download Monitor – Download Monitor is a plugin for uploading and managing downloads, tracking download hits, and displaying links.
- Contact Form 7 – Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
- Author Highlight – Author Highlight is a plugin that prints out a user-specified class attribute if the comment is made by the specified author. It is useful if you would like to apply a different style to comments made by yourself.
- Audio Player – Audio Player provides you with a simple way of inserting a stylish Flash mp3 player on your WordPress posts and pages. Features include configurable colour scheme, enclosure integration, runtime options such as autostart and loop and ID3 tag integration.
- WP-Syntax – WP-Syntax provides clean syntax highlighting using GeSHi — supporting a wide range of popular languages. It supports highlighting with or without line numbers and maintains formatting while copying snippets of code from the browser.
- Sociable – Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites!
- Related Posts – WordPress Related Posts Plugin will generate a related posts via WordPress tags, and add the related posts to feed.
- WP-Page Navi – Adds a more advanced paging navigation your WordPress blog.
Do you any suggestions, recommendations, substitute? Please let me know.
Black-Letterhead 1.6
Black-Letterhead 1.6 featured with a sample header image.
Black-Letterhead 1.6 is now available. The latest version now supports WordPress 2.7 which comes with several enhancements. The bulk of the WordPress 2.7 enhancements is in the redesign of the administration page – the Dashboard. It sports a new vertical menu bar on the left side with lots of new features too numerous to mention here.
The new Black-Letterhead 1.6 theme have these new features:
Threaded Comments
Black-Letterhead 1.6 takes advantage of one of the latest enhancements of WordPress 2.7, particularly in the area of threaded comments. Threaded comments are replies within a reply. Replies are placed directly underneath a reply instead of at the end of the list. Threaded replies are also indented to display a thread discussion.
Threaded comments will need to be enabled in the `Settings – Discussion` for the threaded comments to show up on the screen. Once enabled, you will see `Reply` links on every comment. Clicking on the `Reply` makes the comment form jump to that particular comment. `Click here to cancel Reply` will restore the comments form to the bottom.
In addition, Black-Letterhead 1.6 was coded to be downward compatible, meaning it will work with older versions of WordPress, not just WordPress 2.7. The theme contains a code that detects if a new function in WordPress 2.7 called wp_list_comments() is available. If it is, the script will load `comments.php.`
If your blog is running an older version of WordPress, then the theme will run the `legacy.comments.php` file. This is where the old comments.php code is stored. The code here is essential to keeping the Black-Letterhead downward compatible to older versions of WordPress.
Colors and Page Widths
I've added a several new features to Black-Letterhead 1.6. The use of alternate stylesheets and a tiny Javascript allows for the theme to be styled with various colors and page widths. The change is instantaneous with just a click of mouse. The color options available are: the original orange color, red, blue, green, yellow, purple and teal. The two page widths are `default` and `wide` set at 760 and 960 pixels wide respectively.
To change colors or page widths, just click on `Preferences` located at the bottom of the Sidebar. The script sets a cookie in the user's browser for a period of 365 days. If the cookie gets deleted, it will revert back to theme's default setting. Cookies allow for browsers to remember the user's preference for a period of 365 days.
Rotating Header Images
Another feature in 1.6 is the support of multiple and rotating header images. To add a header image(s), just place a 960x200px header image or images in the `images` folder. The script automatically detects an image and will display it. If more than one image is present, the script will randomly display the headers. If there are no images, the theme displays in normal mode.
Black-Letterhead 1.6 comes with a sample header image in the `images` folder. Just delete the image if you don't want it. If you want rotating headers, just place 2 or more images in the same folder. The rotating script will randomly display the header images. If you use the Firefox browser, you may have to press Ctrl-F5 to refresh the screen.
As always, for support questions, please visit the Support Forum.


text:
What is really known about human response to colour, particularly in a healthcare setting? Are colour design guidelines for healthcare environments supported by scientific research findings? It appears the answers, according to Ruth Tofle and her team, are: very little and hardly any.
In 2004 the Coalition for Health Environments Research (CHER) commissioned a definitive review of existing research into the use of colour in healthcare environments.1A full copy of the report can be downloaded from here.
According to the authors, the purpose of the review was to separate "common myths and realities" in the applications of colour in healthcare design. In the process they have clearly shown that much of the knowledge about the implications of colour in healthcare environments is based on "highly biased observations, and pseudo-scientific assertions. It is this inconsistent literature that has been spun to capriciously colour trends in the healthcare market."
The scope of the review is extraordinary, spanning the disciplines of art, architecture, the physical sciences, behavioural sciences, and the combination of these fields.
The primary findings of the literature review are:
- There is not sufficient evidence to support direct linkages between particular colours and health outcomes of people.
- While the reviewed studies argue for the existence of colour-mood association, there is no reliable evidence to suggest a direct relationship between a given colour and a given emotion. 2
- There is some evidence to suggest that colour applications can affect the perceptual experience and performance of people in particular environments, for example, our sense of spaciousness can be affected by contrasting colours.3
- The popular press and the design community have promoted the oversimplification of the psychological responses to colour. Many authors of guidelines tend to make sweeping statements that are supported by myths or personal beliefs.
- Most colour guidelines for healthcare design are nothing more than affective value judgments whose direct applicability to the architecture and interior design of healthcare settings seems oddly inconclusive and nonspecific.
- The attempt to formulate universal guidelines for appropriate colours in healthcare settings is "ill advised". 4
What does it all mean?
In the wake of this review, as designers, we are left with a common evidence-based problem: how to work with unreliable evidence when we have to make design decisions, often with clients insisting on a performance-based outcome. On the plus side, this review goes a long way towards shattering some harmful myths that have become part of accepted disciplinary knowledge. At the very least, we now have the ability to advise our clients more clearly on what colour can and cannot do.
Although, currently, there appears to be no reliable evidence to help us understand the emotional impact of colour, there is some useable knowledge about how colour can affect our perception of spatial qualities and those concepts can be explored through design. Clearly, greater care should be taken to avoid attributing affective properties to the use of colour in any environment. However, as can be seen from the images of Hopkins Architect's ECH in London, and the RCH in Melbourne by Bates Smart and Billard Leece, colour can be effectively and creatively deployed in healthcare environments, particularly in children's hospitals. Our primary concerns should be limited to any assertions of predictable, performative value.
According to Ron Billard, director of the Billard Leece Partnership, the colour strategy was simply to create "a coherent, varied, integrated and child friendly environment, while assisting people with wayfinding through the hospital." The colour schemes directly referenced the natural Victorian environment and were intended simply as a distraction for children who are ill or undergoing difficult procedures. The degree to which the colour scheme plays a role in this distraction would be a worthy research project in itself.
When all is said and done, research about the use of colour in healthcare environment remains important and should be continued, although the subject matter is complex and multi-layered. Given the new digital tools available to us, it is inevitable that patterns of shared response will emerge in time, but more reliable research methods are needed and local variations must be accounted for. For this to occur, designers must become actively involved in this research effort because the application of research findings in healthcare settings also requires new thinking about how evidence is used in the design process. Data becomes a basis for design speculation, to stimulate creativity and not to search for absolute answers, and the outcomes produce new research questions.
The purpose of EBD is to provide designers with strategies for using even the most limited research, so in subsequent articles we will evaluate new research that has emerged (with mixed results) since the CHER review. In discussion with the authors, we will salvage what we can from over fifty years of theory in this contentious field.
There is general agreement amongst the authors reviewed by Tofle et al that colour can elicit emotional response, define volumes, alter sense of time, affect thermal comfort, perception of weight, size, etc. The problem is that there is no reliable evidence to support these assertions, nor is there agreement amongst the authors on how these effects are achieved.
The literature contains significant contradictions about colour associations: some see yellow as mood enhancing, while others argue it is unsettling, or it is to be avoided because of an association with urine. Some authors assign emotional meanings to particular colours. Some authors claim that red has qualities of energy and passion; yellow supports optimism; green provides unconditional love; blue promotes loyalty; and violet has spirituality, although these outcomes are unsubstantiated in the literature. Some suggest that cool colours make time pass more quickly, others say that time is overestimated with cool colours. Some say highly saturated colors are more appropriate for elderly patients than pastels and strong colors are good where muscular effort or action are required. Others argue that intense colours may be too controversial and trigger unpleasant associations in the mind. The list goes on.
Examples of the typical assertions include:
"Carefully adjusting the brightness to softer colors of the same hues helps avoid monotony, and in addition keeps the eyes from being distracted, causing them to work overtime and produce fatigue." 5
"Orange. Its nature symbol is the sun, defined often by its qualities of emotion, expression, and warmth. Orange is noted for its ability to encourage verbal expression of emotion." 6
"The right colors can help to change moods from sad to happy, help dispel loneliness, encourage conver-sation, and create a sense of peace and well-being." 7
According to Tofle et al, "these statements are nothing more than affective value judgments whose direct applicability to the architecture and interior design of healthcare settings seems oddly inconclusive and nonspecific…We naturally become suspicious when a color consultant prescribes a pink color for a patient room in order to influence her recovery from a surgery. The claim that the color of the room caused the recovery is an incomplete explanation…In our quest for understanding, we want to establish a causal account for the recovery."
Colour Theory
A significant part of the problem, according to Tofle et al, lies with the nature of Color Theory, which they refer to as "an ambiguous term that … combines scientific explanations based on empirical studies with personal assumptions grounded in individual experiences and observations of human behaviors."
The authors distinguish between positive (analytic, predictive) theories and normative (creative) theories, arguing that analytic theories are analogous to scientific theories. In other words, they are sets of general, abstract ideas through which we "understand and explain the material phenomena the world offers to our experience. They deal with how the world is, not how it might be. Normative theories, on the other hand, consist of statements on what ought to be."
Tofle et al argue that because the design process is substantially creative, it requires normative theories similar to those that exist in art. However, they also argue that because the design process is also predictive, it needs "the analytic theories of actuality and possibility." Because Environmental design is based on "a cyclical process that involves creative as well as predictive phases…The normative aspects of a theory tell the designer where to search for possible solutions in the creative phases, whereas the analytic aspects inform the designer how the solution will work."
The report concludes that, like other theories in environmental design, colour theories have too often been strongly normative and weakly analytic. They have been used (abused?) to create guidelines and prescriptions for action, but they are too weak in predicting what the settings will be like when completed and how its colours will influence the users.
The Way Forward
Since colours are experienced in the real world where "complex orders interact with the perception and behaviour of people", Tofle et al argue that they need to be studied in a context in which "form, colour, texture, light and other contributing design attributes can be controlled and detected. Tests in isolated, sterile laboratories are perhaps helpful for initial colour studies, but they lead to impoverished perceptions of reality."
The authors suggest that before we can specify colours, we need to recognize that humans react to colour on different levels. Some of these reactions are cognitive, others depend on perception, whereas other reactions are physiologically triggered. "The analysis of colour in any environment means respecting other kinds of processing forces such as culture, time, and location. But, while the detection of the psychological response to colour is imperative, the visual pathway from the eye to the brain is an important variable for the understanding of colour design."
According to Ruth Tofle, the specification of colours should center first on the role of the colour in the environment and the intended activities in the space: "The performance specification should be the starting point for the designer who should be allowed to create colour combinations for the sake of the users that drew both on art as well as science." The problem is that without reliable research, without a clearer understanding of what is possible and what us not, it is very difficult to produce performance specifications of any kind.
"If we want to have evidence-based guidelines, we need to understand what particular colours are supposed to do, and why, before we can proceed to implement them in a healthcare setting and before we can judge whether these colours do it well."
-Tofle et al
This new understanding can only come through more sophisticated longitudinal research in cross referenced, real-world settings.
The primary conclusions that we take from this review are these:
- The use of colour in healthcare settings, currently is not based on reliable research.
- The attempt to formulate universal guidelines for appropriate colours in healthcare settings is, according to Tofle et al, "ineffectual".
- We need to study systems, practices, and experiences outside of the laboratory, in their local context.
- We need to coordinate the methods that should be used to study and use colour in healthcare environments and these methods should be able to meet "the challenge of validity."
Clearly, the research of colour in healthcare environment is important but, the subject matter is complex and multifaceted so our approach to research and design practice must change. Giving the last word to Tofle et al : "As designers, we need to discover what is important rather than assume that guidelines can cover every possible eventuality and provide solutions for all design challenges."
Ruth Brent Tofle, Ph.D.; Benyamin Schwarz, Ph.D; So-Yeon Yoon, MA; Andrea Max-Royale, M.E.Des Color in Healthcare Environments – A Research Report (2004) produced for The Coalition for Health Environments Research (CHER) healthdesign.org/sites/default/files/color_in_hc_environ.pdf The report is freely available, however, CHER has now been amalgamated into the Centre for Health Design, who retain copyright. ↩
Despite contradictory evidence, consultants and designers continue to associate red tones, for example, with stimulating activities and blue tones with tranquility. According to Tofle et al, "The fact is that colours do not contain any inherent emotional triggers. Emotional responses to colours are caused by culturally learned associations and by the physiological and psychological makeup of people." (Tofle et al, 2004) ↩
There are indications that certain colours may promote a sense of spaciousness or confinement, however, the effect is attributed to the brightness or darkness of colour and is highly influenced by contrast effects between objects and their background. (Tofle et al 2004) ↩
Extract from Tofle et al 2004: "The plurality or the presence of multiple user groups and subcultures, and the complexity of the issues of meaning and communication in the environment make the efforts to prescribe universal guide-lines a waste of energy. Consider, as an example, the issue of communication in the context of colour in present healthcare settings: Designers may attempt to endow the settings with cues that the users may not notice. If the users notice the cues, they may not understand their meaning, and even if they both notice and understand the cues they may refuse to conform." ↩
Brawley, E. (1997). Designing for Alzheimer's Disease: Strategies for creating better care environments. NY: Wiley. p.108 in Tofle et al (2004) ↩
Zagon, L. in Marberry, S. O. (1997). Healthcare Design. New York: Wiley. p.229 ↩
Brawley, E. (1997) p.118. in Tofle et al (2004) ↩


text:
Listen up kiddios because Miss Plumcake is gonna lay down a little church on behalf of her many big sisters.
Skinny Girls:
I am not your funny fat friend.
I am not your wingman, I am not your ride to the club and I am not the girl you stand next to when you want to look thin. I am the queen of this rodeo and in fact, every rodeo where I deign to appear, so while I appreciate that popular culture and hour after hour of sitcoms, romcoms and whatever other sort of com you want to watch tells you otherwise: I am not the Skipper doll of your Malibu Dream Life. And P.S., Ken? Isn't holding out because "he respects you."
And I'm speaking on behalf of your One Black Friend, your Sassy Best Gay, and any other friend who conveniently fills a space on your United Colors of Benetton Bingo Card. Yes, I'm fat and I'm funny and you don't have to ignore that, but for the love of Susan Hayward, that's not my JOB (okay well it is MY job) I got other stuff goin' on.
I am not Robin to your Batman, but if you're lucky I might let you be the Thelma to my Louise.
Straight Boys:
You don't get to string me along into some sort of screwed-up friends with benefits situation where I have to sleep with you AND listen to you complain about your mother.
You get one or the other, bucko. If you want both you need to put a ring on it, and since no good ever comes from talking to the people you want to see naked, that had better be a pretty damn big ring. I want terrified sailors to warn their captains to change course when they see me coming, and not just because of those slightly blurry weekends I spent in Annapolis.
Also, when you tell me I'm hot, don't say it's because you find beauty on the inside. Why do you do that? Is it because you think it makes you sound evolved? You don't. My insides are filled with eels and you know it. My legs however, are worshiped as deities in several small Pacific island nations (or at least will be as soon as I cash in my frequent flier miles and blow this popsicle stand). Tighten up.
Big Girls:
Value your own stock.
You'll note I said I'm writing this on your behalf. That's because I don't have anyone in my life who treats me like that. Why? Because I don't let them. I know it's easier said than done, and it's a process, but if you see yourself in any of those situations, you've either got to cut these yahoos loose or gently –but clearly– correct them, which will save you the trouble of murdering them later (and honestly, how many of us can carry off prisonrape orange?)
The world will not end if you walk away. In fact, knowing you're capable of walking away can actually help you be more tolerant because you're making a choice, not hanging on out of desperation.
Your real friends will deal and be better people for it. The folks who freak out? Show them your bye-bye wave.
Gin and Tonics,
Miss Plumcake


text:
A Simulation for Business English Students
Do you think these products would sell?
- CATCHMAN - a radar to locate lost children
- QUICK DRY - dries wet umbrellas before entering post office, department stores, etc.
- SEASONAL HAIR - a tonic to encourage hair growth for balding men
- PASH - just push for toothbrush and toothpaste in one
- RAINBOW CAP - colorful cap for kids with retractable rain poncho
- SECOND SMILE - a stylish face mask for when you get allergies
{tab=Part 1}
Students in my Business English class dreamed up these ideas, gave the products names, slogans and descriptions, and designed radio, television and/or magazine advertising. How can you get your students to imagine that they are entrepreneurs and be creative using business vocabulary and concepts? It's easy, whether this is your students' first exposure to business English or if you want to use this project with a group who has a business background.
Course Objectives:
- Interact with Authentic Materials to Learn and Apply the Business Concepts
- Use Spoken/Written English in the Advertising Design
- Use Spoken/Written English in the Final Mock Trade Fair, or EXPO
Overview of Project:
- Business concepts introduced through authentic materials and modeling
- Students work in groups, teacher assists them as coach
- Students use their creativity to design a new product, name it, describe it, etc.
- Students come up with an advertising image, slogan and advertising media
- Students enjoy being creative and artistic as they prepare the product and advertising
- All of this is done in preparation for a mock trade fair, or EXPO, in which students show off their products to each other and evaluate each other
This project was designed for a class that is offered one time a week for 15 weeks for 90 minutes per class. This project has been successful with six groups of about twenty students each. Most students had not had any previous business English classes. The project compromises the last six lessons of the semester.
The class textbook is Meeting Objectives, a text/video series from Oxford University Press.
A brief description of description of six, 90-minute lesson plans follows. Corresponding handouts can be obtained by e-mailing the author.
{tab=Part 2}
The Lessons
Class I - SELLING SOAP
Students first use the video and textbook: Chapter 4, Meetings. The video shows a board meeting discussion about the launching of a new bar of soap. A humorous debate ensues about what the name and advertising for the bar of soap should be. After the students reinforce these concepts through text activities, students make groups and imagine that they are selling another new soap. Each group is asked to do a rough sketch of their product, and to list some other details. For example, they can decide the product name, price, colors, scents, packaging, etc. This is done in a fun, unstructured way without specific guidelines. Each group chooses a representative to show their illustration to the class.
Class II - DOGGIE DIAPER USED TO INTRODUCE PROJECT
In the next class, the teacher introduces new product design, advertising and EXPO as a long-term project. Students choose their groups, and are given a Product Design Agenda by which to guide them through the stages of the project. It is useful for both teachers and students if this Agenda is used throughout the project as a record of each team's progress.
Then, two native speakers model the process for brainstorming new product ideas, and comparing the pro's and con's of appropriate advertising media. During this simulation, students act as "teachers" and evaluate the so-called "students" using a checklist. Teamwork and creativity are on the Grading Checklist, as well as whatever else you want to reinforce as criteria.
At Trident, the two teachers perform an original skit for both classes about brainstorming product ideas and finally promoting a "doggie diaper." Joining classes is possible since the two teachers are always scheduled in the same time slot.
Students then return to their original classrooms and their groups to start their own brainstorming process, spurred on by the innovative ideas which the native speakers just presented. The teacher circulates and helps when needed, and also reminds students to write notes on their Project Design Agenda.
Class III - TOM HANKS LEADS THE WAY TO MORE GROUP WORK
From this third meeting until the sixth meeting, the majority of class is spent on group work with teacher supervision as needed. But how does the teacher keep the students from loosing steam? How do we keep these new business concepts fresh in their minds? Continuing to use authentic materials materials to introduce each class is the answer.
An amusing four-minute segment from the film "Nothing in Common" shows an advertising team developing a marketing proposal for an airline company. Students answer questions about advertising image, slogan, and target market, and discuss the answers as a class. As well, storyboards are used as a mock television commercial in the movie. This provides a springboard for discussion even more advertising methods with students. At Trident, we give students the option to do radio ads, magazine ads, storyboards or videos, or ads for the school newsletter.
At this point, we also introduce a Grading Criteria Checklist. To earn an A, students have to produce two types of advertising and a scale model or packaging model in a satisfactory fashion. To get a B, students should complete two of the above, and so on. Thus, each group can opt for what grade they want based on how much work they attempt.
The rest of the class is left for the students to work in groups, and for the teacher to facilitate as needed.
{tab=Part 3}
Class IV - MAGAZINE AD MANIA AND GROUP WORK
Like the previous class, authentic materials are used to boost students' creativity and interest, and to recycle the target vocabulary. This time, many magazine ads are put around the room and students use a worksheet to answer questions about the ads which they find most interesting. Then, the class as a whole discusses the magazine ads and compares their effectiveness. Group work follows.
Class V - INTRODUCE EXPO TASK SHEET AND GROUP WORK
Luckily, the students at Trident are very clear on the business concepts at this point. They are heavily into the creative process, and need no prodding to get to work in their groups. Their only requests are for more markers, construction paper, poster paper, scissors, etc. Students absorbed in the creative process is a beautiful thing to watch, isn't it?
However, the teacher does need time to go into more detail about the events planned for EXPO day. Students are asked to dress professionally. Students are encouraged to make the best presentation possible, for their teachers and for the other students. As well, the teacher tells the students that a questionnaire, or Task Sheet, will also be used during the EXPO. This Task Sheet is used at the EXPO to encourage students to interact with each other in English to learn about each product's slogan, image, target market, etc.
Class VI - EXPO DAY
EXPO day has arrived! It is most effective if you can schedule for two Business English classes to join in one room. If not, you might invite another English class and/or other teachers to give the students an audience for their exhibits.
During set-up time, each group chooses an area of the room for their product's presentation display. Posters need to be put on the wall, and cassette players and videos need to be set up. We've even had students bring table cloths and candies to entice people to visit their booths . . . real sales people, eh?
Next, each group is given a few minutes to give an overview of their product and their advertising. This can be done informally, without specific criteria given by the teacher, or could be an added "oral presentation" component of teaching and grading. Natural pride in their work comes out, as students showed their story boards, radio ads, posters, videos, etc. The whole room listens attentively, as students have a natural curiosity in each others' projects.
Next, it is time to get the students to interact in English using the Task Sheet. Each student in the room is responsible for filling out his/her own sheet. Within each group, students must take turns so that each member of the team has an opportunity to visit other exhibits and fill out the sheet, while at least one member stays at the booth to answer questions from visitors.
EXPOs at Trident have been a success with all six groups that have tried it. Students have shown innovative products, most groups have created the number of materials to earn an A, spoken English has been used during the entirety of the EXPO, and student's Task Sheets have clearly showed their knowledge of the target vocabulary .
One drawback is that during group work, students generally speak in Japanese. My students don't have the English ability to negotiate tasks and make decisions in English. However, the students do use English to complete the Product Agenda Sheet, which should be used to take notes on every class. Just a glance at this, and the teacher can ask questions and make suggestions about the project, and get the students to respond in English. As well, students may need to describe and request materials they need to create their advertising. So long as the teacher is helpful and encouraging, this group work time can be used for student - teacher communication in English.
Source: http://iteslj.org


text:
Sapphire has introduced two new miniature motherboards based on AMD's Ryzen Embedded V1000/R1000 APUs. The new platforms are designed for the most compact highly-integrated machines for industrial and commercial applications. Sapphire's NP-FP5 and BP-FP5 compact motherboards feature a 4x4-inch footprint and are based on AMD's Ryzen Embedded V1000 or R1000 APUs, which offer up to four Zen cores, an integrated Radeon Vega GPU, and a TDP of up to 25 W. The actively cooled systems support up to 32 GB of DDR4-2400 memory using two SO-DIMMs, feature one M.2 slot for an SSD with a PCIe 3.0 x4 or SATA interface, and one M.2-2230 slot for a Wi-Fi module. The basic NP-FP5 supports two display outputs (using two mDP 1.4 connectors), one GbE port, and two...
The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT Review, Feat. Sapphire Pulse: A New Challenger For Mainstream Gaming
While at this point we've pretty much reached the "mid-generation" point in the GPU space, that doesn't mean activity in the GPU market is slowing down. Indeed, just three...203 by Ryan Smith on 1/21/2020
Sapphire Shows Off 10-Way GPU Compute System with AMD EPYC 3000
Cryptocurrency mining boom may be over, but there are many applications that can take advantage of GPU compute horsepower besides mining. Sapphire has demonstrated its upcoming GPU compute system...21 by Anton Shilov on 5/31/2019
Sapphire Launches Mining-Focused Radeon RX 570 with 16 GB of GDDR5 Memory
Sapphire has introduced one the industry's first Radeon RX 570 graphics cards that carry 16 GB of GDDR5 memory onboard. The board is designed primarily for cryptocurrency mining, but...36 by Anton Shilov on 1/23/2019
Sapphire's GearBox Thunderbolt 3 eGFX Box w/ 500W PSU Now Available
Sapphire has started sales of its external Thunderbolt 3 enclosure for video cards. The GearBox TB3 eGFX box can accommodate a high-end graphics card and also offers additional USB...16 by Anton Shilov on 12/6/2018
Sapphire Unveils FS-FP5V: AMD Ryzen Embedded Mini-STX Motherboard
Sapphire has announced one of the world's first platforms based on AMD's Ryzen Embedded V1000-series APUs. The motherboard is aimed at various embedded applications that can take advantage of...28 by Anton Shilov on 7/9/2018
ASUS & Sapphire Release Pascal & Polaris-based Cryptocurrency Mining Cards
Even during the most bullish Bitcoin days, video card partners had shied away from creating specific SKUs for the purpose of cryptocurrency mining, and that has remained the case...30 by Nate Oh on 6/27/2017
AT20 Giveaway Day 6: Sapphire Sends Radeon RX 580s & Some Steins
We've hit the middle of the week, so that means it's time for day 6 of our 20 day giveaway celebration of AnandTech's 20th anniversary. This morning we have some...761 by Ryan Smith on 5/3/2017
SAPPHIRE Announces NITRO+ Radeon RX 480
This morning SAPPHIRE is announcing their latest card in the NITRO+ family, the NITRO+ Radeon RX 480. Some key features of SAPPHIRE's new NITRO+ RX 480 cards include higher...57 by Daniel Williams on 7/22/2016
Sapphire Readies Nitro R9 Fury: Custom Design and Enhanced Performance
Sapphire Technology is preparing to release its new graphics card — the Nitro R9 Fury — based on AMD's Fiji graphics processing unit that features its own custom printed...25 by Anton Shilov on 12/17/2015
The AMD Radeon R9 Fury Review, Feat. Sapphire & ASUS
A bit over two weeks ago AMD launched their new flagship video card, the Radeon R9 Fury X. Based on the company's new Fiji GPU, the R9 Fury X...288 by Ryan Smith on 7/10/2015
AMD Radeon R9 285 Review: Feat. Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC
Last month AMD held their 30 years of graphics celebration, during which they announced their next Radeon video card, the Radeon R9 285. Designed to be AMD's new $249...86 by Ryan Smith on 9/10/2014
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB Hits Retail: UK Only, £600
Back at CeBit 2014 we ran a news item regarding a couple of Sapphire branded AMD GPUs that used double the video memory of the standard R9 290X. It...18 by Ian Cutress on 5/7/2014
CeBIT 2014: Sapphire Shows Two R9 290X 8GB GDDR5 GPUs
Back when the 8800GT was launched, 512MB of video memory is all we needed. To have 2GB, 3GB or 4GB on a video card seemed like overkill. Fast forward...26 by Ian Cutress on 3/13/2014
Sapphire Combines the R7 250X with a Vapor-X Cooler
In order to differentiate yourself in the GPU market, a GPU vendor has to be creative and provide a feature that no-one else does. On the high end...8 by Ian Cutress on 2/23/2014
The AMD Radeon R7 265 & R7 260 Review: Feat Sapphire & Asus
The launch of the Radeon R7 250X earlier this week and today the Radeon R7 265 are part of a larger refactoring of AMD's mainstream desktop product family. AMD...52 by Ryan Smith on 2/13/2014
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC Review: Our First Custom Cooled 290
Ever since the 290 review there has been a lot of chatter and questions about when we'd see the first customized cards show up, and the answer is that...119 by Ryan Smith on 12/24/2013
Analyzing Power Use: 80 Plus Bronze vs. Platinum
I've been toying around with updating my computer lately, and one of the topics I wanted to look at was the choice of power supply. For the most part...79 by Jarred Walton on 10/30/2013
The Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Review
Today we're taking a look at Sapphire's Radeon R9 280X Toxic, the latest of the custom 280X cards to come rolling through our labs. With the Toxic series of...85 by Ryan Smith on 10/10/2013
AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review Feat. Sapphire: The First Desktop Sea Islands
Launching today is AMD's second new GPU for 2013 and the first GPU to make it to the retail desktop market: Bonaire. Bonaire in turn will be powering AMD's...107 by Ryan Smith on 3/22/2013


text:
"aren't you afraid?"
Belatedly following on from issue 3 of the podcast(!) – in which we spoke to producer James Mielke about Child of Eden – we finally get around to taking a deep dive into that game's synaesthesiac predecessor, Rez. Starting with the game's initial release on Dreamcast and PS2 in 2001, Leon, Josh, Michiel and Tony chart each subsequent version right up to the recent, virtual reality-enabled Rez Infinite – which some of the panel have been lucky enough to experience. As usual of course we also share memories of Rez from members of the community, and Jay pops in to tell us about the evening he spent hanging out with creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi himself.
Music used in this issue:
1: Buggie Running Beeps 01 by Keiichi Sugiyama
2: Fear (Rez edit) by Adam Freeland
Cane and Rinse 303 was edited by Jay Taylor (@JaySevenZero).
Don't forget, you can get the Cane and Rinse podcast a week early if you support our Patreon for just $1 a month!
Do you have an opinion about a game we're covering that you'd like read out on the podcast? Then venture over to our forum and check out the list of upcoming games we're covering. Whilst there you can join in the conversations with our friendly community in discussing all things relating to videogames, along with lots of other stuff too. Sound good? Then come and say hello at The Cane and Rinse forum
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:56:48 — 107.0MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS


text:
Posted By: Janice Sowers (email)
Date: 9/28/2003 at 20:36:52
Frank A. Zak, who carries on general farming on section 11, Howard Township, has spent the greater part of his life in Howard County, although born at Calmar, Iowa, in September, 1883. His parents were Frank and Catherine (Horkey) Zak, both of whom were natives of Bohemia, whence they came to the new world in young manhood and womanhood. They became acquainted and were married in Winneshiek County, Iowa, and settled on a farm near Calmar, Mr. Zak there renting land until about 1893 or 1894, when he purchased the farm in Howard County upon which his son, Frank A., now resides, acquiring title to one hundred and twenty acres of land. His attention was then given to the further development and improvement of this property up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1912. His wife had passd away two years after their removal to Howard county.
Frank A. Zak began his education at the usual age, attending the district schools and the parochial school at Spillville, Winneshiek County. Through vacation periods he aided in the work of the home farm and after reaching his majority he remained upon the old homestead and assisted his father in the further cultivation and development of the place. About four years prior to his father's death he took over the operation and managemant of the farm as a renter and about a year prior to his father's demise bought the home place, which he still owns and cultivates. He has worked diligently and persistently as the years have passed on and his success is the direct result of earnest labor. He is also a stockholder in the Maple Leaf Creamery Company.
In 1911 Mr. Zak was united in marriage to Miss Nettie Maravetz, a daughter of Joseph Maravetz, who is now living retired in Cresco. They have become the parents of three children: Ralph R., Jerome J., and Richard A.
In politics Mr. Zak is a democrat, but has never been an office seeker, preferring to concentrate his efforts and attention upon his farming interests. He and his wife are member of the Catholic Church and in the community where they reside they have become widely and favorably known. At an early age Mr. Zak realized the industry is the basis of all honorable success and throughout his entire life he has been a most industrious man, his labors bringing about the careful cultivation of the fields, resulting in the gathering of golden harvests.
Howard Biographies maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen


text:
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2004
- Messages
- 53
I was just curious, what does it take to get "chest-thumping" lowend at rather low spl's? For example, let's say we have a 13'x18'x8' room and I don't like the volume very loud, say 80db average. Now assuming we don't just crank up the sub, how many/size of drivers would it take to really feel it? I am not talking about hearing a lot of bass but really feeling it.


text: Jenny CarlessMar 6, 20181 min readAn Homage to Santa Cruz's Bakery/CafésCompanion BakeshopIt's easy to find Santa Cruz's best-known spots — the sandy beaches, the boardwalk and the breathtaking cliff walks. But locals have a few secrets too. One of these is that this coastal town has a surprising number of high-quality bakery/cafés. It's not clear how this happened, but we don't ask why — we just enjoy.These are Santa Cruz institutions, places where you can pick up a fresh-baked loaf or meet friends for coffee and a chat. Wherever your explorations of Santa Cruz take you, these neighborhood eateries, each with its own character and specialties, are great places for a treat or a full meal…Read the full article, which appeared in the LA Times travel section.#SantaCruzFood•Travel6 views0 commentsPost not marked as liked


text:
These are new earrings that have never been worn and I actually make each pair that you see listed.... My hopes are that you will enjoy wearing my creations just as much as I enjoy designing and making them....
Make a fashion statement with these "SPARKLING CLEAR CRYSTAL and FILIGREE EARRINGS".... For these earrings I have combined antique finished filigree pieces and accented them with sparkling Swarovski crystals. The perfect length and designer style make them an excellent choice for work, casual or evening. The shape of the filigree pieces combined with the motion of the crystals will bring compliments every time you wear them!
The crystals are new, high quality, Swarovski Austrian Crystal, world famous for more than a century for their magnificent colors and unmatched quality.
$ 15.00 - with 14K Gold Filled French Hooks - Pierced
$ 15.00- with Gold Plate Leverbacks - Pierced
$ 15.00- with Gold Plated Clip-Ons - Non-Pierced
Please email me if you have any questions - Response within 24 Hours
© Copyright 2003-2010 - Cheryl Hansen-Tighe. All rights reserved.


text:
Since the 1950s, artificial intelligence has been a favorite topic of scientific discourse. Now AI has become a reality: intelligent machines will change the way we work, the way we…Read More
George Achillias
How adaptive sourcing and digital transformation will put you in the winner's circle
These days, everybody has a plan to transform his or her business. Big companies aim to make the way they deliver services and products and how they interact with customers…Read More
Delivery relevancy
We are living in times when our understanding of what is physical or digital as a product or a service gets foggier than ever. Things change, and what really matters…Read More
Beyond the buzzwords
In our days, companies are wrestling with how to engage with their customers differently. Customer segmentation and what are known as customer journey maps are common ways to engage with…Read More
Cybersecurity in a hyper-connected smart city
In our days we read more stories than ever about the current size of the IoT field. The fact that we can connect any possible device on the Internet and…Read More
Design thinking
In our days, design becomes the cornerstone of digital transformation projects. Regardless of the industry or the verticals companies or consultancies operated based on, (what does this mean exactly?), design…Read More
Blockchain, or how everything will change
Blockchain proponents say it will revolutionize many industries — again. We've seen it before in smartphones, the cloud, and digital disruption. In those revolutions, the tech industry itself was among the first…Read More
Problem solving and digital
Nowadays, endless meetings between companies in need of help and advice and consulting take place. The one side has challenges to face, problems to solve, aggressive goals to catch, and great…Read More
The internet of things, user experiences, and design
One of the most critical elements of the modern design process is research. Design teams work long hours to make sure that they not only have access to the right…Read More
Customer journey: a new field for innovation
Mapping was always something really fascinating to me. The ability to describe something, to project it right, to make the reader understand the perspective, and of course to have the…Read More


text:
Shared Apartments - Rooms
Full Time
Au pair
Other Languages
Other Market
Forgot password?
Remember me
Don't Have an Account?
Forgot password
Don't Have an Account?
New password
Repeat password
Type your password twice
Already Have an Account?
User Profile
We detected you are currently off-line, please connect to gain full experience.
User Profile
Lipsticks: How They Have Changed and Where They Are Going
Lipstick is arguably the most enduring of cosmetic products. Both women and men have colored their
cosmetics for lip
at various times throughout the ages—though the practice fell in and out of favor, changing with society's value judgements. As lip-painting fluctuated in popularity, it manifested itself as a reflection of the modesty, moral austerity and/or accepted social norms of a particular era.1
Despite its sometimes negative associations, the act of coloring lips has persisted. The use of
auto liner for lip
has signified many different things—not necessarily related to aesthetic enhancement. For example, coloring lips has historically represented social status2 and been used as a form of protest to signify emancipation.3 More recently, women have used it to capture the glamour of Hollywood for themselves, or quite simply to enhance their natural lip color and boost their mood. Conversely, lipstick sales have also been linked to a downturn in world economies, and as such, acts as a barometer of the mood of the people.4 Lipstick performs as much more than a cosmetic: it is an emblem, a tool of ritual, and a marker for expression, seduction and femininity.
The most striking element of any lipstick is, without a doubt, the color—and red
is especially iconic today. Cleopatra is perhaps one of the most notable figures from historical times who reputedly added color to her lips using crushed cochineal beetles to extract the red carmine color.5 It also is reported that before Cleopatra, more than 5,000 years ago, Egyptians stained their lips using ochre and iodine.6 From this and other early forays into makeup application, the world's obsession for applying lip color began.
Since these first, crude methods of production, lipstick has thankfully become much more sophisticated. In today's world, consumers expect lipstick to go beyond color application, and women's minimum expectations for performance appear to increase with each passing decade—mirrored with the need for cosmetic companies to constantly deliver on brand promises and product performance claims, and to provide stand-out-from-the-crowd effects. The lipsticks of today are still recognizable descendents of the mass-produced formulations that began in the mid-twentieth century and consist, for the most part, of waxes, oils, alcohol and pigments. During lipstick's development, the industry has witnessed a number of evolutionary cycles, but the core formula type has remained fairly constant, and each of the ingredients plays an important part in the structural and aesthetic qualities of a lipstick.
For example, commonly used waxes such as beeswax, carnauba and candellila give substance and form to the final product. Therefore, balancing the correct wax blend is an important consideration for the formulator. The melting point of waxes impacts the softness of the end product; low-melting point waxes may render a softer stick that is difficult to contain within its pack and makes application messy and uncontrollable. A texture that is too hard can result in a difficult and unpleasant application with a poor sensorial experience.
Before inserting a lipstick into its container, it must be molded into the familiar bullet shape. Traditional molding equipment is made from aluminium or steel, and the process of filling involves simply pouring the hot, molten formula into the metal split mold. Once the formulation has cooled and set, the molds are split and the lipstick bullets are removed. Until the 1970s, this process employed manual labor, which was considerably intensive since it involved cleaning the molds and maintaining product overspill. The process for molding lipsticks was automated in 1971 when Weckerle invented the first fully automatic molding machine.7 Automation gave the industry a distinct advantage of quicker, more efficient production, in turn giving manufacturers the ability to deliver a higher volume of product. Essentially, the automated process still incorporates pouring the hot, liquid formulation into steel or aluminium capsules but moves through the various stages of molding on a conveyor.
Arguably, some of the most practical raw materials, in terms of lipstick manufacturing and within formulations themselves, come in the form of silicones. In the industrialization of lipstick molding, silicones have enabled the creation of soft molds—a more modern counterpart to the earlier metal molds. These are commonly used and provide greater scope for the branding, such as for imprinting logos or specializing the design of bullets themselves.
Further experimentation with different silicone types in the soft filling process could hold as-yet unrealized potential for lipstick production, especially taking into account the variety of characteristics that silicone compositions can offer in terms of hardness and porosity. For example, changing the hardness of the silicone can impart different effects on the surface of the mold, which can be especially useful with soft or sticky lipstick formulations. The silicone maintains a smooth and shiny surface that could not be obtained if a metal mold were to be used. For the traditional hard-filling process, ceramic, Teflon (a trademark of DuPont) and resins such as acrylic can also play an important role in mass manufacturing (see Table 1).
The automatic filling process can be split into five main technologies:
Push-out mold: In this case, the
lip oil
is pushed out from the metal mold and into the packaging.
Blow-out mold: Like the push-out mold, the lipstick bullet is blown out with compressed air from the metal mold and into the packaging component.
Soft mold: In the case of a soft silicone mold, the lipstick bullet is pulled out using a vacuum system.
Hybrid system mold: In a hybrid system mold, the bottom of the lipstick bullet is filled in a metal mold and the top, visible part of it is filled in a silicon mold.
Center core mold: Finally, the center core mold enables the filling of different bulks in the same bullet; i.e., double and triple core. For example, a lip balm formulation may be in one core while a lipstick formulation is in another core. Different colors and formulation types can therefore be poured into different segments of the same mold.
Also noteworthy is that in the case of metal molding, release agents are required to prevent the bonding of a formulation to the mold itself. However, release agents can complicate the product by affecting the sheen and finish of the surface of the formulation, or pose manufacturing challenges when used with bulks containing volatile silicones.
Lipstick Packaging
The well-known metal lipstick tube was born in 1915, first manufactured by Guerlain;8 prior to this, commercial lipsticks were wrapped in paper and sold in jars, pots or paper tubes. Two Americans are credited with developing this modern tubed pack. Maurice Levy invented the first metal dispenser that encased the lipstick bullet, and the pack had levers on the side to raise and lower the stick. James Bruce Mason, Jr., patented the swivel-up lipstick that remains a staple of the industry today.9
In lipstick's history, these two notable advances paved the way for the mass manufacture and distribution of
lip balm
. Lipstick had become compact, accessible to those who could afford it and a portable item ideal for a lady's purse.
Gaining Acceptance
Following advances in packaging, an array of flavors, shades and concepts in lipstick came onto the market—including those having long-wear properties and deodorizing effects, which increased the propensity for lipstick use. Mass manufacture, women in the workforce and greater disposable income—along with the rise of consumerism, magazines and movies—all helped contribute to a shift in attitude toward cosmetics. Ultimately, this meant cosmetic companies' advertising campaigns could engage with a wider audience, and product sales were able to first flourish then grow exponentially.10
Long-wear Concepts
In today's market, long-wearing lipstick concepts permeate. As reviewing recent commercial launches reveals, wear is an integral part of lipstick's key attributes, and the ability for it to last is a key consideration for formulators and marketers alike. For example, D&C Red 21, a commonly used red fluorescent dye, is one raw material used to create effective, lasting color. This dye combines with moisture on the skin, staining the lips so that color remains even after the product has worn off. Also, water-insoluble dyes or bromo acid dyes such as D&C Red 21, D&C Red 27 and D&C Orange 5 have been used since the 1920s to deliver blue-red and orange-red shades.11, 12
In the early twentieth century, chemist Hazel Bishop recognized a key consumer need and addressed it when she created a
lip color
. 13 The advertising campaign at the time, "It stays on you, not on him," captured very succinctly one of the biggest problems being encountered: transfer of the product from the lips. Bishop's attempts at developing a true long-lasting product were not without setbacks, however. Long-wearing formulas tended to dry out the lips, and this obstacle has persisted as a challenge to formulators yet today. Bishop's lipstick incorporated dyes for staining purposes in addition to pigments, which adhered firmly to the lips to achieve lasting wear while offering a richer, more substantive lip appearance.12
Bishop's attempts almost a century ago exemplify a concern that is still relevant today: the comfort factor. Formulators can be forgiven for believing that wear and comfort in a lip product are mutually exclusive; no sooner does one create a smooth, silky feel, then the wear is affected—and vice versa. In fact, so much so that creating a dual-ended product can be a very elegant solution to this formulation conundrum, and examples of this are common on the market today.
Formulators have also turned to solvent-based ingredients to create longer-lasting
. Isododecane is a solvent that can be used to help reduce product transfer. This volatile, synthetic substance flashes off on contact with the skin, binding the colorants to the lip as well as creating a lightweight and matte finish. Its very characteristics—i.e., volatile nature and lower flash point—make isododecane an excellent solvent and dispersion agent, allowing it to extend lipstick wear; however, these can also render the manufacture process more challenging.
Added Benefits
Aside from extending lipstick wear, treating pigments with coatings can contribute further benefits. For example, alkyl silicone can enhance wear, increase compatibility with other raw materials and improve skin feel. Isopropyl titanium triisostearate delivers similar benefits but also improves the compatibility with oils in the formulation. This aspect, in particular, allows for more pigment loading for higher color coverage and, therefore, enhances wear properties. Treating pigments with amino acids also improves skin adhesion and produces better coverage while enhancing softness and comfort.
Future Outlook
What is in the future for wear and color effects in lipsticks? Trimethylsiloxysilicate (TMS) has great potential for enhancing wear, delivering a glossy effect and increasing adherence to the lips. TMS is a highly cross-linked silicone resin that functions as a film-former. Its net-like structure and adhesive properties means it holds pigments in place, displays water-resistance and improves wear.
Also on the global market, new molecules are evolving that modify the compatibility of lipstick with raw materials to provide more affinity with skin and improve the transfer-resistance. One such example is polyphenylsilsesquioxane—a hybrid between silicone elastomers and TMS resin.
Pigment encapsulation is another potential route for extending lipstick wear; however, not all capsules are suitable for hot-pour products. A high-functioning encapsulation system that could withstand heat would additionally allow a broader choice of actives to increase lipstick performance. Entrapment platforms using polyurethane as a base are commonly referred to as "encapsulation," but true encapsulation, such as those that provide the means for flavor delivery, are technologies based on hydrolyzed corn starch and hydrated silica. There is perhaps potential in this arena to bring performance results from a pigment and flavor perspective.
While wear appears to be the core performance aspect of lipsticks, it is not the only consideration. The lines between skin care and color cosmetics are increasingly being blurred, and multi-functional and hybrid cosmetic concepts are in demand. There is increasing consumer demand to achieve the best results possible in the quickest, easiest way. This makes the role of an industry formulator not only more challenging but also more intriguing as they seek the latest technologies that drive innovative products.
Last Login:
Send Message
Send Message
tyoks45s advertisements
Advertisement Title
Chat room
Recently searched
Web Powered by
2009 - 2023


text:
The following is from Matt Freestone, a product manager at Adobe who is responsible for ExcelClient and ReportBuilder:
We have no short-term plans to discontinue support for ExcelClient. If in the future, should we determine to discontinue support for ExcelClient we will provide notice to our customers well in advance so that they can make plans accordingly. In the mean time, we support both tools. Development of new or advanced functionality will likely center around ReportBuilder, but we continue to provide bug fixes for ExcelClient.


text:
In the Erasmus+ KA2 project European Values in Education (EVALUE), teaching materials for secondary schools are developed which are based on EVS data. The goal of these materials is values education: values clarification and values communication. Students will get a more clear idea how to position oneself within a diversity of opinions and learn which explanations there might be for own standpoints but also for the viewpoints of others.
Key in the project is the webtool (www.atlasofeuropeanvalues.eu). This tool (available in seven languages) will allow to
- Create interactive maps displaying how Europeans think about a wide range of topics and to compare these values across countries, time, and between different groups in society.
- Create a digital classroom to display student's values and to compare these with the values of country populations or different groups in society.
- Use teaching materials, lesson plans, curriculum framework and background documentation to develop lessons about value education on contemporary themes like migration, democracy, environment, solidarity and tolerance.
The hosting of the webtool is provided by partner organization EUROGEO, which has been hosting EU funded projects since the late 1990s. Their hosting service can provide all relevant database capabilities and ensures a secure connection between the user and the server in order to protect user data being exchanged.
The Memorandum of Understanding between European Values Study and EUROGEO intends to secure this sustainable hosting and maintenance of the webtool by EUROGEO, and makes sure that we work close together to update the website and webtool with new data when they will be available.
Next to this, EUROGEO is a partner with a large network in Europe (including many relevant contacts). They organize impactful events and are involved in many EU funded projects.
In this project, the contact person for EVS is Inge Sieben (Tilburg University).


text:
How much is a dream worth? And for how long is it of value? That depends. On the quality and regularity of its upkeep.
Your Porsche will only retain its value in the long-term if it is consistently maintained by the right people. So to protect your investment, we recommend you use our Centre to service your car.
Your Porsche deserves to be cared for by people who know and understand Porsche cars. People trained by Porsche, people who live and breathe Porsche.
Our Porsche-trained Technicians take part in regular, ongoing training to ensure they remain experts in servicing your vehicle. They have access to the latest technical information from Porsche AG in Germany, ensuring that the knowledge and experience from over 60 years of sports car development is shared around the world.
They also undergo advanced driver training, so you can be rest assured your Porsche is always in safe hands.
Our Centre has access to Porsche Genuine Parts that will enable you to ensure your car remains 100% Porsche for maximum safety, reliability and value retention.
Our comprehensive range of Porsche Genuine Parts is kept on-site, each covered by a comprehensive two-year warranty, to return your car to the road as soon as possible.
Our Centre is equipped with the latest Porsche-approved tools and technology born out of lessons we learn on the track, things that can make the difference between satisfactory and perfect.
We use the sophisticated Porsche Integrated Workshop System (PIWIS) diagnostic tool. This analyses your Porsche's electronic control units to help diagnose faults and update software.
Our quality control systems mean we constantly assess and improve the standard of our work.
The better you know your Porsche, the better your ownership experience will be. It's about making high performance visible.
Our Direct Dialogue Bay allows you to accompany the Porsche-trained Technician on a thorough inspection of your vehicle from all angles (including the underside) before it enters the workshop, so that you can better understand the condition of your car and any work required.
To arrange an appointment, contact a member of our Service Team.Contact us
With our Fixed Price Servicing packages we agree a price upfront, no uncertainty, just one transparent cost using the very latest labour and parts data available. This covers the whole Porsche range and includes current and classic models. Discover more about our minor and major service offerings.Porsche fixed price servicing
Porsche Centre West London is proud to have been operating as an Approved Porsche Centre for over 30 years. As a Porsche Centre we offer the highest levels of service because:
To book your service or for any other Porsche requirements, please visit the Centre or contact us.Speak to our team
To keep you mobile and enable you to make effective use of the time whilst your car is being serviced we can collect and deliver your car, provide you a courtesy car, or offer you customer drop-off services*.
*These services are subject to availability and meeting insurance criteria, so please contact our Service team to book and avoid any disappointment.
With our designated customer lounge area, you can relax and use the complimentary Wi-Fi and enjoy refreshments while you wait for your car to be serviced. If booked in advance, we also have meeting rooms available to enable you to make effective use of your time.
Porsche Genuine Parts ensure that your original remains just that, even after repair or maintenance. The spare and replacement parts are optimally tailored to your vehicle and meet the high Porsche quality standards for maximum safety, reliability and value retention. This applies to both safety-related spare parts, such as brake discs, and to body panels. Furthermore, all work is fully backed by a comprehensive two year Porsche Warranty on all parts and labour.
Any Technician is only as good as their tools. That is why Porsche Centres use highly specialised technology such as the diagnostics tester for reading and deleting the error memory, the PCCB brake disc tester for detecting the degree of wear and tear on the ceramic brake discs, or the high-voltage test adapter for manually checking that no voltage is present on high-voltage vehicles.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookies | Regulatory | Applicant Privacy Policy | Slavery and Human Trafficking
© 2023 All rights reserved to Porsche Retail Group Limited and its licensors.
*Data determined in accordance with the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) as required by law. You can find more information on WLTP at www.porsche.com/wltp . For Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) range and Equivalent All Electric Range (EAER) figures are determined with the battery fully charged, using a combination of both battery power and fuel.
Values are provided for comparison only. To the extent that fuel and energy consumption or CO₂ values are given as ranges, these do not relate to a single, individual car and do not constitute part of the offer. Optional features and accessories can change relevant vehicle parameters such as weight, rolling resistance and aerodynamics which may result in a change in fuel or energy consumption and CO₂ values. Vehicle loading, topography, weather and traffic conditions, as well as individual driving styles, can all affect the actual fuel consumption, energy consumption, electrical range, and CO₂ emissions of a car.
** Important information about the all-electric Porsche models can be found here


text:
Apple Pie
- 168.75 g Tree Top Evaporated Apple Pie Pieces
- 100 g sugar
- 474 g water
- 1.15 g cinnamon
- Pastry for 2 crust pie
- 1.52 g salt
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Place apples in water and bring to a boil. Let cool in liquid. Drain. Do not discard liquid. Place apples in pastry-lined 9-inch pie pan. Sprinkle with mixture of sugar, cinnamon and salt. Add 1/2 cup liquid drained from apples, dot with butter, cover with top pastry.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until crust is golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.


text:
In 2015, the UK became the first country in the world to make legal a set of 'mitochondrial donation' techniques. These new reproductive technologies have the potential to enable women with diseases that are normally inherited via the mitochondrial genome to have children with healthy mitochondria. The extensive deliberations that preceded the legalization of these techniques involved a form of division of advisory labour that is common when new technologies are introduced. Groups like the Nuffield Council on Bioethics focused on the ethics of mitochondrial donation, while scientific issues were instead given over to more specialised groups of technical advisors. I use the case of mitochondrial donation to argue against the possibility of any strict separation of scientific and ethical evaluation, and also to argue that efforts to divide labour in these ways threaten to obscure important controversies around new technologies. I close by showing how these worries relate to more general philosophical issues around the 'value-ladenness' of science.
Academic & Research
Tuesday, January 26, 2016, 5:30 pm – 7:10 pm


text:
River gravel sand production line
River pebbles is a natural stone, abundant resources, low cost, in today's increasingly scarce natural sand, river pebbles artificial sand has become a new trend.
River gravel sand production line
River gravel sand making machine
River gravel sand making machine is improved after years of study and research and development specifically for the new generation of river gravel crusher, crusher machine integrate various reference works with new technology designed, its typical use is to adapt the current artificial sand industry, is the cone crusher, rod mill crusher, impact crusher, sand making replacement straight-preferred products. Deep cavity-type rotor aircraft after the design has been optimized to make the material throughput increased by about 30%, the whole life increased by 40% or more, a great saving costs and enhance efficiency.
River gravel sand of the general process
River pebbles from the use jaw crusher for coarse breaking work produced into a coarse material transported by conveyor to a second fine crushing machine breaking work, crushing stone into the shaker after screening out two kinds of gravel, sand meet machine feed size stones into sand making sand and partly feed back into thin broken. Sand stones made into part of sand, sand Jingxi machine (optional) cleaning products made of sand and partly into the crusher broken again.
Our company provides a full range of river pebbles stone equipment, 30 years of production experience, improve the comprehensive after-sales service, to provide you with the most appropriate river pebbles sand production line!
Contact Us
If you have some questions about our crushers or you want to know the price of them,you can leave a message by filling the forms. Every day we check the website message, and for the first time to respond to your needs .
- 上一篇:stone production line--YIFAN MACHINERY
- 下一篇:没有了
Crushing Machine
- CJ Jaw Crusher
- CCH hydraulic cone crusher
- PE jaw crusher
- VI Sand Making Machine
- CHP-CHS Impact Crusher
- CV Sand Maker
- CCM Hydraulic Cone Crusher


text:
Artists: Jean-Marie Appriou, Cory Arcangel, Bastien Aubry & Dimitri Broquard, Dewar & Gicquel, Piero Gilardi, Tilman Hornig, Renaud Jerez, Rachel de Joode, Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, Marlie Mul, Owen Piper, Hayley Tompkins, Anne de Vries
Exhibition title: Deep Screen
Venue: Parc Saint Léger, Centre d'art contemporain, Pougues-les-Eaux, France
Date: March 14 – May 24, 2015
Photography: Images courtesy of the artists and Parc Saint Léger, Centre d'art contemporain
"Deep Screen" proposes an in-depth exploration of the screens that now people our lives. In ever-growing numbers, computers, smartphones and tablets constitute a filter that is starting to replace the glass doors of galleries and other museums, and modify our perception of contemporary art. The idea of continuous depth in the exhibition's subtitle clearly echoes the spatial dimension of the featured works. The expression is also employed here as the opposite of superficiality and characterizes each of the pieces displayed in Parc Saint Léger. Far from trying to champion virtual visits, the immersive style of "Deep Screen" invites flesh-and- blood visitors to an exhibition experience that is completely of the physical world.
Since the border between the real and the virtual is increasingly porous, many artists today consider the internet, with its cycles, networks, fluids, pollution, folklore, and beliefs, as their new natural milieu. In this ecosystem, the majority of the artworks move about freely, unconstrained by lighting or how they are positioned on display, dehierarchized, "liked," shared, occasionally imitated, and living out an uninhibited existence in their documented form.
Borrowing the display-case exhibit form from museums devoted to popular arts and traditions,* "Deep Screen" presents a certain view of art in 2015 through a glass screen. These giant vivariums make it possible to conserve works of art within their glass walls, preserve them from change, and of course show them off to advantage, raising their cultural value. "Encasing" the show and keeping visitors at a remove inevitably induces a certain critical distance vis-à-vis a digital practice that may already have a whiff of outmodedness or obsolescence.
The diaramas can be seen as narrative collages blurring the borders between the natural world and an artificial arrangement, each one including works of different kinds posed before computer "wallpaper" designed by Owen Piper. Inside, a synthetic fantasized nature dreamed up by Piero Gilardi surrounds the postapocalyptic avatars created by Renaud Jerez and the display dummies sporting clothing from the Arcangel Surfware brand designed by the artist of the same name. The two latter artists, as well as Tilman Hornig, Marlie Mul, Anne de Vries, and Rachel de Joode, weave subtle ties with Post-Internet art** and demonstrate the attraction scientific phenomena, communication tools, flows, and organic materials exercise over a young generation of artists.
Some of them have chosen to pursue a manual practice inherited from traditional techniques that including ceramics, metal casting, and stone cutting. Jean-Marie Appriou, for example, poetically combines technical experiments with mythological references. Daniel Dewar & Gregory Gicquel engage in a very physical relationship with matter. Numerous handmade objects fashioned by Bastien Aubry & Dimitri Broquard, as well as Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, evince an undisguised interest in experiencing classic, even ancestral techniques. Finally Hayley Tompkins's practice is taking shape through painted everyday objects, symptomatic of a materialist excess.
We might see this collection of art works and objects from everyday life, along with the experimental methodology accompanying it, as a nonexhaustive ethnographic practice playing out at one and the same time in the thin layer of our smartphones' screens and the depths of our memory.
"Deep Screen" sketches out the contours of a contemporary artistic folklore that is seizing on traditional techniques with the aim of taming new technologies. Laid out like a museum within a museum, the show proclaims its status as a laboratory,*** reducing the borders between a history of art in the process of being written and contemporary popular cultures.
Camille Le Houezec and Jocelyn Villemont
* The Musée national des arts et traditions populaires (MNATP) is a public institution founded in Paris in 1937 by the French museologist and museum innovator Georges Henri Rivière (1897-1985). This ethnology museum offered a synthesizing view of France's traditional rural and artisanal society for the most part, from the nineteenth century to the 1960s.
** Post-Internet art is a school of art following in the wake of the democratization of the internet starting in the mid-2000s, reflecting the current hyperconnectivity. The term was proposed by the artist and theoretician Marisa Olson in 2008, and artists like Katja Novitskova, Brad Troemel, or Artie Vierkant have been narrowing and illustrating the concept since 2010. Post-Internet art differs from Net Art of the 1990s because of its existence outside digital networks. The term Post-Internet does not refer to a time that falls after the internet age, but rather describes a practice that places the system of diffusion, appropriation, and the free circulation of documents at the heart of the artistic process.
*** Laboratory-museum, a phrase dear to Georges Henri Rivière describing the Musée national des arts et traditions populaires and illustrating one of its many specificities, i.e., bringing together the museum's curators and a team of researchers around the task of elaborating the museum's collections.
Founded in 2009, the artist duo It's Our Playground is made up of Camille Le Houezec and Jocelyn Villemont. IOP productions involve exhibitions, internet projects, stage design and installations with a particularity: they use curating as an art medium. IOP engages in an uninhibited reflection on display modes, exhibition devices, and the internet's influence on contemporary life and output.
Since 2010, the website itsourplayground.com has served as a portfolio of the duo's activity in common, but it exists above all as an artist-run space on the internet that avoids the material constraints of a physical exhibition venue. IOP on-line projects deconstruct the hierarchy between various documents while questioning the digital presence of works of art.
From September 2012 to August 2014, IOP oversaw programing at SWG3 Gallery in Glasgow. The two artists currently live and work in Thorigny-sur-Marne.


text:
Cast:Rahul Khanna, Jimmy Shergill, Sharman Joshi, Tanushree Datta, Vishwajeet Pradhan, Vivek Shauq, Rekha Rao, Neena Kulkarni, Mona Chopra, Kishori ShahaneDirection:Anurag SinghProduction:Raj KanwarMusic:Pritam Chakraborty
Suspense thrillers are tough to make. And film-makers need to follow three golden rules to make a thriller work: Cast fine actors… The needle of suspicion should vacillate from one character to another, keeping the viewer guessing till the finale… The suspense should come as a surprise.
RAQEEB, directed by debutante Anurag Singh, holds your interest at crucial points. Even though the story bears a striking resemblance to two films — Venus/Abbas-Mustan's HUMRAAZ [in turn inspired by A PERFECT MURDER] and Tips/Ken Ghosh's FIDA — the film in actuality borrows from a different film altogether — MURDER BY NATURAL CAUSES [1979] — a lesser known English film. In the original, one of the leads wears a pacemaker. In RAQEEB, he's asthmatic.
RAQEEB is not without its share of deficiencies. Fortunately, the uppers outnumber the downers in this case. The twists in the storyline and the dangerous games indulged by the lead characters make up for the drab moments in the enterprise. In actuality, the film gathers speed minutes before the intermission and the graph only goes upwards as the reels unfold. But here's a direct question to the debutante storyteller: Why didn't you opt for an unconventional end, for that would've been the perfect icing on the cake? Sometimes, evil also wins!
In a nutshell, RAQEEB isn't great cinema. It isn't low on substance either. It floats somewhere in between. Watch it without expectations and you wouldn't be disappointed.
Remo [Rahul Khanna] is the owner of a highly successful software company. Remo's parents had died in a car crash when he was a child. Siddharth [Sharman Joshi] is his employee and probably, only friend. Siddharth is the exact opposite of Remo who is shy, introvert and asthmatic.
Siddharth constantly pesters Remo to socialize so that he can meet a few girls and fall in love with one of them. Remo seems to be averse to the idea until, one day, Siddharth plays a prank and sets Remo up for a blind date.
Remo meets the girl and after a misunderstanding falls in love with her. The girl is Sofie [Tanushree Dutta], a theatre actress. Everything is perfect until Remo and Sofie discover that her parents died in the same car crash in which Remo's parents had been killed. Sofie realizes that Remo's parents were responsible for the death of her parents.
Remo doesn't know how to deal with this tragic discovery. Siddharth persuades him to propose to Sofie. Remo proposes and after the initial hesitation, Sofie accepts. Remo and Sofie get married.
Sunny [Jimmy Shergill] is a struggling actor who is in love with Sofie. But Sofie always desired a luxurious life which Sunny was unable to provide. Hence, Sofie married Remo. When Sunny and Sofie meet again, the old love is rekindled. Thus begins a torrid affair between them.
Tired of having to meet secretly and only occasionally, they plan to kill Remo. The plan is to hide Remo's asthma medicine and then aggravate his asthma so as to trigger an asthma attack. Once the asthma attack occurs, Sunny has to pretend to shoot Remo with fake bullets so as to aggravate his condition further, eventually leading to death. The post mortem will reveal that Remo died of natural causes and hence, no one will be suspected of any foul play.
The D-day arrives and Sunny comes to Remo's house to execute the plan. But there is another twist in the tale. Sofie double crosses Sunny as well and he is arrested and accused of Remo's murder. But there's more to this story…
Unlike most thrillers that reveal it all in the climax, RAQEEB peels off the mask of the scheming wife much before the intermission card is flashed on the screen. The reason why this film works is because everyone's playing games here. That makes it extremely difficult for the viewer to guess the prime suspect — the manipulative and scheming mind.
The reason that prompts the prime suspect to indulge in dangerous games is completely justified. But the writer-director messes it up with such a tame ending.
Debutante Anurag Singh succeeds in presenting an unconventional theme with care. The idea of an ambitious woman in a relationship with three men at the same time is undoubtedly interesting. In terms of execution, Anurag handles the drama well, building the suspense beautifully.
Pritam's music is foot-tapping. 'Channa Ve Channa', 'Dushmana' and 'Qateel' are nice compositions. Fuwad Khan's camerawork could've been better. The locales of Thailand are striking, but the visuals don't make you scream 'Wow!'. Dialogues are well worded at places.
RAQEEB belongs to Sharman Joshi, who is evolving into a powerful actor. He slips into the role effortlessly and looks natural all through. Rahul Khanna is perfect as the suave tycoon. Why doesn't one see more of you, Rahul? Jimmy Shergill's role reminds you of the obsessed lover in DARR, but after he's shown getting arrested, this track is sidelined completely. Nonetheless, Jimmy does a worthy job.
Tanushree Dutta is a revelation. Although her makeup and outfits [why so much skin show?] continue to be atrocious, you have to give credit where it's due. She enacts her part very well, expressing a lot through her eyes. Vishwajeet Pradhan is hardly there. Rekha Rao is wasted. Vivek Shauq excels. He provides the much-needed light moments.
On the whole, RAQEEB is a fairly engrossing fare. At the box-office, the bold theme may find its share of advocates and adversaries. Besides, the not-as-aggressive promotion and minimal hype will tell on its business.