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So You Want to Be an Actuary?
Actuarial and finance students worldwide will be interested in my recent interview with Professor Stephen Garrett about his new book, Introduction to Actuarial and Financial Mathematical Methods. In it he talks about fundamental applied mathematical tools and techniques.
Stephen is Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Leicester (UK). He is currently Head of Actuarial Science in the Department of Mathematics, and also Head of the Thermofluids Research Group in the Department of Engineering. These two distinct responsibilities reflect his background and achievements in both actuarial science education and fluid mechanics research. Stephen is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the highest grade attainable in the world's foremost aerospace institution.
Professor Garrett's new book, Introduction to Actuarial and Financial Mathematical Methods, provides a complete course of self-study for students of actuarial science and financial mathematics. It covers the subjects most often needed by non-mathematics graduates, such as fundamental calculus, linear algebra, probability, and basic numerical methods.
The easily-understandable text features examples, motivations, and lots of practice from a large number of end-of-chapter questions. For readers with diverse backgrounds entering programs of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, the Society of Actuaries, and the CFA Institute, Introduction to Actuarial and Mathematical Methods can provide a consistency of mathematical knowledge from the outset.
Stephen also is the author of another book, An Introduction to the Mathematics of Finance: A Deterministic Approach, now in its second edition. It offers a highly illustrated introduction to mathematical finance, with a special emphasis on interest rates. This revision of the McCutcheon-Scott classic follows the core subjects covered by the first professional exam required of UK actuaries, the CT1 exam. It realigns the table of contents with the CT1 exam and includes sample questions from past exams of both The Actuarial Profession and the CFA Institute. With a wealth of solved problems and interesting applications, An Introduction to the Mathematics of Finance stands alone in its ability to address the needs of its primary target audience, the actuarial student.
If you are interested in purchasing a copy of either Introduction to Actuarial and Financial Mathematical Methods or An Introduction to the Mathematics of Finance: A Deterministic Approach, Second Edition, visit the Elsevier Store. Apply discount code STC315 to receive up to 30% off the list price and free global shipping.
Economics & Finance
In the 21st century, both personal fortunes and global economies are tied more tightly than ever to corporate businesses and financial markets. For scholars and professionals, a solid grounding in economics and finance is critical, as is up-to-date knowledge of technology, law, and corporate structures and practices in these swiftly evolving fields. Elsevier provides content written by leading experts on key topics of currency exchange, bank regulation, mergers and acquisitions, entrepreneurship, real estate, environmental economics, industry development, project finance, and more. We also produce essential handbooks on the economics of health care, agriculture, education, and a wide spectrum of other areas of public policy.


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subset: commoncrawl


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A spooky Sunday.
David Leonhardt has been tracking covid numbers and he says that although we may not yet be out of the woods, we're definitely heading for a clearing. Jon Kamp and Brianna Abbott are seeing the same thing.
Daniel Nichanian, writing for New York magazine, explores the potential changes for public safety that a crop of new progressive mayors, including Michelle Wu, could bring in after the election. But other candidates in other cities are moving in another direction on crime. Meanwhile in St. Louis…
People travel as far as Iceland and Norway to see the northern lights. But thanks to increasing solar flares this week you may be able to see them in northern New England. That's great. Here's a forecast tool. The bad news is that the solar activity could trigger geomagnetic changes that could disrupt navigation and the power grid.
Following up on that Globe article on who goes where in Boston, hip, young travel site Thrillist wants its hip, young readers to go to Jamaica Plain, SoWa, Fenway, the Seaport, Somerville and Cambridge. Nothing recommended in Dorchester, Mattapan or Roxbury. Lonely Planet is just as bad.
And Neil Young has some new music on the way. (Separated at birth: Neil Young and Bill Belichick. It's uncanny.)


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See http://spatialreserves.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/abu-dhabi-environment-agency-launches-enviro-portal/ .
"As we state in our book The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data, areas around the world where not long ago it was very difficult for data users to obtain data are now opening up some of their data archives. One example is in Abu Dhabi, whose government is an extensive user of GIS technology. The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi recently launched an "Enviro-Portal", announced during the Esri Middle East and Africa User Conference on GIS Technology solutions at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition. This portal (http://enviroportal.ead.ae) offers access to environmental data such as geology, soils, flora, fauna, marine habitats, and protected zones within Abu Dhabi.
Some of the links offer historical data back to the 1990s. The site is available both in Arabic and in English. The "browse" function offers a straightforward way of offering the data, similar to a view of folders on one's own computer. The metadata on the site is quite useful, and the data areavailable in a variety of formats, depending on the data type, from design files to shapefiles and geodatabases. On the "Download" tab, data users can download data by providing an email address. The site also offers a map gallery, from which the data user can search by theme but it also offers very helpful searching by polygon, line, or point buffer, shown in the image below.
As with any data portal, unique features of this portal require the data user to spend some time getting comfortable with the features and options. However, the wealth of data themes here makes it worth spending time with, and for a fascinating and rapidly changing part of the planet."
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August 2023


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The ASB Financial Window is located on the north side of the Administration building. Students may purchase locks, PE clothes, and notebooks. Students will need to show their school ID card for all purchases. Replacement ID's are $5.
Yearbooks can be pre-ordered at www.jostensyearbooks.com. At the end of the school year, they can be purchased from the Finance Office.
Any student or parent wanting to purchase the official Muirlands PE uniform may do so online on the Muirlands Foundation Online Store www.muirlandsfoundation.org. Please see your PE teacher's syllabus for uniform options.
The Finance Office also sells Spiral College Ruled Notebooks with Vinyl Cover (ISN's) for $5, and Spiral Graph Notebooks for $5.
All checks should be made to "Muirlands Middle School", with the student's name in the memo section. Thanks.


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Help CenterHelp Center
In this section, you can find aerospace
examples in multiple Simscape Fluids
The fuel supply system represented in the example consists of three tanks and an engine. The engine is fed from the central tank, while fuel from the left wing tank and the right wing tank is pumped to the central tank with respective pumping stations. Each pumping station consists of two centrifugal pumps, connected in parallel, with check valves installed in the pump outlets to prevent back flow. The pumps are driven by prime movers at angular velocity of 7200 rpm. The movers are simulated with the ideal angular velocity source.
Model an aircraft fuel supply system consisting of three tanks and an
Models a Linde-Hampson air liquefaction cycle using the two-phase fluid components. The compressor drives the vapor air through two heat exchangers, recuperator, expansion valve, and storage tank. The first heat exchanger contains water at atmospheric temperature, while the second heat exchanger contains refrigerant. The pressure drops as the cooled air passes through the expansion valve which results in condensation. The air and entrained condensation then pass through a receiver tank where the condensation separates from the air. The liquid air is stored in a receiver tank while the vapor air is circulated back to the compressor.
Models a gas turbine auxiliary power unit (APU) based on the Brayton Cycle. The power input to the system is represented by heat injection into the combustor; actual combustion chemistry is not modeled. A single shaft connects the compressor and the turbine so that the power from the turbine drives the compressor. The APU is a free turbine that further expands the exhaust stream to produce output power.
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When it comes to news, I trust NO ONE to tell me the truth. I think it's as likely that Bill Maher tells me the truth as Katie Couric. Both work in media, after all. Both are known to stretch the truth to make a point.
So I don't trust them to tell the truth.
My recommendation is don't get your "news" from a cable comedy show. And, don't get your "news" from a journalist that freely admitted she edited an interview to make a point … while misrepresenting the people she was interviewing.
Today, I read Pew Research's latest finding about where people are getting their news today, and it saddens me to report that more and more people are getting their news from … online providers with no proven journalistic integrity. You know, companies like Google. Facebook. Verizon.
Big tech companies, every one. Proven to skirt the truth, every one. Pushing their agenda over truth, every one.
In the case of Google, they were investigated by the DOJ, who found that they were slanting their search algorithm to favor their profit over quality information. The specific case was about travel providers: they put their in-house company above outside providers even when the outside provider had better options for the traveler.
Did they disclose this? No.
Then, they were found to have skewed search results so that if you were using the auto complete function for searches, you might miss that Hilary Clinton was being investigated and might be indicted. Specifically, if you typed in "Hilary Clinton Ind" the auto complete suggestions were Hillary Clinton Indiana and Hillary Clinton India. The result that was actually 8 times more popular was "Hillary Clinton Indictment," and that wasn't an autocomplete option.
Facebook employees have gleefully disclosed that they made sure conservative news stories were de-emphasized in their member's news feeds. Was this sanctioned by management? By some management? No one is admitting it, of course, just as the IRS never admitted that it targeted conservative non profits. It just happened. Oops.
Verizon's case is just as insidious, and it's rooted in the idea of "net neutrality." Verizon believes that it should be able to sell its piece of the information superhighway to the highest bidder … so, if, for example, they can get more money from Fox News or CNN or ABC, then they should be able to provide that information to their subscribers in a powerful way. They want news that you get on "their" devices to be controlled by their profits. You, the subscriber, committed to a 2-year contract, should get no say in the matter.
According to Verizon.
Fortunately, that concept was just shot down – resoundingly – by the US District Court of Appeals. Perhaps Verizon won't get their way.
And that's a very good thing, as more and more people are getting their "news" from these high tech companies, and those companies are getting an ever-increasing share of the advertising pie … meaning that traditional media companies have fewer and fewer resources to provide good journalism that's vetted by multiple sources and untainted by a secret political agenda.
Here's how TechCrunch describes Pew's findings about our news consumption habits:
Pew found that nearly four-in-ten U.S. adults (38%) said they often get news from digital sources, including news websites or apps (28%) and social networking sites (18%). That still trails the 57% who often get news from a television source but outpaces both radio (25%) and print newspapers (20%).
Instead of news media benefiting from growth in digital ad spending, Pew notes how tech companies such as Facebook and Apple have succeeded in supplanting the choices and aims of news outlets with "their own choices and goals" as their platforms have become the dominant sources for content distribution, taking over the role that used to belong to newspapers.
And while the concentration of digital ad spending in the hands of a handful of tech giants began on desktop platforms, Pew says the data shows it "quickly took root in the rapidly growing mobile realm as well" — which the report also notes accounted for slightly more than half of all digital ad spending last year.
So, beware of who you trust in the information game. High tech companies have no legal responsibility to be "agenda neutral," and yet more and more people are trusting them to give them (key word: GIVE) information with a minimum of fuss.
Journalism, I mourn for thee.
New York Times: Court Backs Rules Treating Internet Like Utility, Not Luxury
Tech Cruch: Pew's 2016 News Media Report Is A Tough Read For Journalism
Wall Street Journal: How Google Skewed Search Results
Fox News: Google Helping Hillary Clinton
Gizmodo: Former Facebook Workers….
FierceWireless.com: MoffettNathanson: Net Neutrality Ruling….


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Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage diverse communities to create vibrant public places, helping people and nature thrive. Since 1976, KIB has helped its neighbors plant more than 40,000 trees and has been supported by more than one thousand individual donors towards those efforts. KIB accomplishes these goals through community driven, hands-on programs and initiatives to create vibrant public places. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful is a 501c(3), private, not-for-profit organization, and an award-winning affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB), the national organization dedicated to preserving the natural beauty and environment in American communities.
Each year, KIB supports an average of 500 community improvement projects with more than 30,000 volunteers. For the past three decades, we've partnered with neighborhoods, the public sector, and Indianapolis community groups and businesses to achieve our vision for a beautiful city.
Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. sees a vibrant city, with every neighborhood landscape thriving and well, and its people empowered, mobilized, and devoted toward that vision. The result: a city defined by strong neighborhoods; inspired places; and a clean, flourishing environment.
KIB relies upon the generous donations of people like you to continue its mission. We hope you will consider supporting our work to "green up" and clean up Indianapolis!
What your donation can do because every dollar counts:
$10 will buy 12 pairs of gloves
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To learn more, visit www.kibi.org, and sign up for our e-newsletter, or follow us on Twitter @kibiorg and like us on Facebook @kibiorg.


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Many plant species produce noxious chemicals to kill or otherwise inhibit insect feeding activity. Many of these secondary metabolites are very potent and often very specific. Extracts from these plants can be used as environmentally safe bio-pesticides for crops or other plants such as flowers to inhibit insect damage, often as part of an integrated pest management (IPM) program. These extracts are of particular interest for organic food production. Furthermore, if the specific identity of active compounds can be ascertained and are novel, then these compounds can be made by chemical synthesis and act as lead compounds for the generation of more selective or more potent analogues of interest to the agro-chemical industry.
Description of Technology
This invention is a simple plant extract prepared specifically from Verbascum species, that have not previously been investigated as a source of bio-pesticide compounds. This extract shows strong antifeedent activity against various arthropod species, including Colorado Potato Beetle. The extract can be formulated and used as an environmentally safe bio-pesticide.Additional purification and chemical characterization of the active compounds provides leads for chemical synthesis activities.
Key Benefits
A bio-active plant extract can be produced from harvested Verbascum and formulated as an antifeedent compound against arthropod pests, primarily for use in the organic food production industry where natural extracts are regarded as environmentally benign.The identification of individual bio-active compounds from the extract could be a lead-generation process for the agro-chemical industry to synthesize these compounds directly or to generate more refined analogs.
Patent Status
Patent Pending
Ayhan Gokce, Mark Whalon, Ibrahim Demirtas, Nazhun Goren
Tech ID


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Speaking before a critical White House showdown Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, Mr Obama tried to buy more time for "crippling sanctions" against Tehran to take effect before Israel decides to strike its nuclear facilities.
"Iran's leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment," Mr Obama told a major pro-Israeli conference in Washington. "I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon".
Stressing that a nuclear-armed Iran also threatened American security, he added: "I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests".
However, he urged Israeli leaders to "let our increased pressure sink in", emphasising: "Now is not the time for bluster" and citing Theodore Roosevelt's dictum to "speak softly, but carry a big stick".
"There is too much loose talk of war," Mr Obama said. "Such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the price of oil, which they depend upon to fund their nuclear programme."
Mr Obama received enthusiastic applause from the audience, which organisers claimed numbered 13,000, when stressing his threat of military action and paying tribute to the strength of US-Israeli ties. However his appeal to halt the drumbeat of war met total silence.
Mr Obama, who has repeatedly faced accusations of coolness to the US-Israeli alliance, told thousands of activists gathered for the AIPAC conference: "When the chips are down, I have Israel's back".
With his potential Republican opponents falling over each other to appear more pro-Israeli, he repeatedly sought to revive his support among Jewish voters, which has dropped since 2008.
Yet as he prepared to face demands from Mr Netanyahu for "red lines" that would trigger US action if crossed by Iran, he stressed that current assessments were that Iran had no weapon. "In 2012, the Iranian government faces the prospect of even more crippling sanctions," he added.
Mr Obama was praised by Shimon Peres, Israel's president, who told the conference he was "leading and implementing an international, complex and decisive policy" towards the crisis.
"There is no space between us," Mr Peres claimed of the US-Israel approach to the crisis. "Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon." His enthusiastic endorsement appeared to be an attempt to thaw the frosty relationship between Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu, who is frustrated with mixed messages emerging from Washington. Israeli officials have indicated their uncertainty of Mr Obama's commitment may force their own strike on Iran this year.
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, Sunday said American pressure would not affect Israeli thinking. "We are an independent sovereign state, and at the end of the day, the state of Israel will make the most correct decisions as we understand them," he said.
Israeli government sources suggested that in his own speech to AIPAC today, Mr Netanyahu would take a much harder line and "break new ground" in his remarks about Iran.
Mr Obama has toughened his rhetoric in the approach to their summit, telling an interviewer last week: "When I say that a situation in which Iran has nuclear weapons is something that is unacceptable, I meant it, I don't bluff." Former senior officials from the George W. Bush administration said Mr Obama should be taking a more aggressive stance.
Elliott Abrams, a senior White House aide to Mr Bush, said he believed Mr Obama's current stance was failing to dissuade the Israeli administration from attacking. "I just don't think it's going to do it," Mr Abrams told The Daily Telegraph. "They want a clearer statement that the US would absolutely prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Mr Abrams said "high-ranking Arab diplomats" were telling him that the US might as well attack before Israel does. "They say 'you're going to get blamed anyway if Israel strikes, because people will think you were complicit. The difference is that you'll do it a lot better – so do it'," he said.
• North Korea may have exploded an Iranian nuclear bomb in 2010 in a secret test, a German defence expert has claimed.
In an article published in the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Hans Ruhle, a former German defence ministry official, cited evidence of two small nuclear tests in April and May 2010, and argued that one of them was for a "foreign entity, in this case Iran".
The claim contradicts analysis from both Israeli and American intelligence that says Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, and, if true, could shift the balance of power in the Middle East.


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First, I want to apologize for not doing my job. Over the past couple years I've let this site become slightly stagnant. I won't attempt to make excuses, but I will say that I'm in a much better place now. Hopefully inspiration will continue to strike, and I will continue to put pen to paper… or finger to keyboard?
Over the past couple weeks I've put a fair amount of time and monetary resources into RouterJockey. I've fixed quite a few CSS bugs, without hopefully creating more. I purchased an SSL certificate and moved the site to HTTPS, which helps me more than it really does you… but in doing so, I've also enabled SPDY 3.1. SPDY should help load times, but Nginx was already doing a pretty good job. Oh, in order to get SPDY up to 3.1 I was forced to migrate away from the Ubuntu repo for Nginx.. but that's not a huge deal.
I've also spent some time redesigning the menu bar, adding new links, removing some useless ones, and writing an all new disclaimer. Please be sure to read and understand everything posted on that page before attempting to read any of my articles… /s
But seriously. I want to take the time to thank all of you for putting up with my stagnation, and for supporting my attempt at humor by selling t-shirts. I had planned on also putting some stickers on sale, but I cannot find a site like teespring for stickers. If you know of one, please let me know!
Network engineer turned management currently servicing the enterprise data center market. I started working on networks in the '90s and still feel like that was just a few years ago. Jack of all trades, master of none; I love to learn about everything. Feel free to ask me about photography, woodworking, nhra, watches, or even networking! — For feedback, please leave a comment on the article in question, and I'll respond as soon as I can. For everything else including fan mail or death threats, contact me via twitter.


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Our commitment to quality doesn't mean neglecting variety. As well as our specialities (cone cabbage, pak choi, sweet potato, and pumpkin), we grow over 50 different products in the course of the year, so we can always meet our customers' needs.
and, of course, variety
selection and monitoring
to continue enjoying old-fashioned flavour
We also offer the varieties with the best taste and texture, monitoring the production process at every stage, from sowing the seeds to the customer's shopping basket, ensuring the product is always fresh and in perfect condition.


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Every now and then a movie or TV show comes around that every fashion or beauty product or girly liquor wants to align itself with. In the weeks and months leading up to the premiere, desperate press releases pegging aimless brands to these films and television shows assault the in-boxes of fashion editors and writers. Eat Pray Love is, bafflingly, one such film. Julia Roberts prances around the whole time looking good, obviously, in a consistent uniform of J.Crew proper, but the most remarkable aspects of her appearance are her famous lips and always perfectly blended eye makeup — filthy environs of the ashram be damned. The biggest fashion statement the movie tries to make is that women should embrace the extra flesh that may come with indulging in delicious food. Too bad this feels about as authentic as when fashion insists that curves are "in."
In the scene where Roberts and her friend, played by Tuva Novotny, go to Naples to each eat whole pizzas, Novotny takes a few bites and then stops. She adopts an expression of deep sadness, as though she's just seen a child get hit by a bus, and says she can't eat anymore because her pants don't fit. What should perhaps be a moment of sisterly togetherness in the theater turns downright comical when Roberts tells her she should eat her pizza, because even if she does have muffin top, it won't stop her from getting laid. Roberts then says something about how she's gained weight, too, but doesn't care, and simply plans on buying bigger pants when she finishes her pizza. Then we get a montage of the women in the fitting room struggling to button their pants and squealing with delight at this, even though this never ever happens in real life, where changing rooms are just places of self-loathing. Women don't gain weight in their midsections and then roll around the floor in fits of laughter, overjoyed with their independent way of doing things and disregard for the caloric content of what they consume.
But what makes the scene so absurd is that if Roberts and her friend even needed new pants, it was probably a size 4 up from a size 2, because both look quite thin throughout their roles. In the Eat Pray Love book, Elizabeth Gilbert gains a bunch of weight in Italy, but Roberts didn't bother with that for this film. But maybe this diatribe about muffin top being okay will resonate with some women. Too many fashion people are certainly hoping for this movie to have a stylistic — if not spiritual — impact.
Related: Road to Myself [NYM]


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Official websites use .mil
Secure .mil websites use HTTPS
By C. Todd Lopez
DOD News
Strong relationships make for strong families, and with a strong family back at home, service members can focus on providing the nation with a strong defense.
To better help service members build a strong relationship or strengthen an existing one, the Military Community and Family Policy office will host the inaugural "Relationship Wellness Summit," Nov. 16-17.
The completely virtual event aims to provide military couples with tools and techniques to help them strengthen their marriages and to help parents develop stronger relationships with their children. Single service members are not left out. The summit also will feature a variety of experts with tips on how to navigate the social minefield of dating and provide techniques on how to stay resilient when dealing with the emotional complexities of a breakup.
"Our target audiences are military couples, single service members and parents," Kelly Smith, with the Military Community and Family Policy office, said. "Within each session, participants are going to be able to walk away with strategies that they can use to improve their relationships — really, tips and strategies they can use right there on the spot."
Military Community and Family Policy run the Military OneSource website and Smith says that the No. 1 reason service members and spouses seek non-medical counseling is for relationship issues.
That observation, she said, served as a catalyst for adding a relationship component to this year's Virtual Military Spouse Symposium, which happened earlier this year. That pilot effort gained a lot of attention.
Another driver for the summit, she said, has been the change in family and relationship dynamics that have arisen from COVID-19.
"A couple of our sessions, within the parenting track and the couple's track, are focused on strengthening your relationship during COVID and also how to parent through COVID," she said.
Another big area of focus, she said, is the amount of time spent online using social media, playing games or watching streaming services.
"It's an area where people struggle — how to find that balance with managing time on social media or screen time," she said. "We've seen couples and parents struggle to set healthy social media and screen time boundaries."
Among single service members and Americans in general, Smith said the struggle to deal with the fallout of a breakup can be hard. And evidence of that has shown up in numbers reported regarding suicidal ideation.
"There is a correlation between relationship challenges and risk for suicide, particularly within single service members who have experienced a breakup and started exhibiting maladaptive coping strategies," she said.
"We want to have a conversation around managing and breakups and how to identify when extra help, like non-medical counseling, is needed," she said.
The two-day relationship summit includes 20 sessions, meetup mixers and panels with experts on a variety of topics including breathing life into an existing relationship, dating in the 21st century, maintaining a long-distance relationship, positive parenting, the effects of social media on relationships, parenting in the COVID-19 environment and techniques on how to restore trust.
Relationships, counseling and dealing with emotional issues are subjects some service members tend to shy away from. But mission effectiveness and combat readiness are things the same service members are proud to embrace. Relationship challenges can negatively impact mission readiness and combat effectiveness, and it's something Military Community and Family Policy is committed to helping service members overcome.
"We believe in what we can see anecdotally from the relationship counseling provided through our non-medical counselors: when our service members are able to focus on the mission and not be concerned about their marriage, their relationships, or how their children are doing at home with regards to parenting, they can focus on the mission," Smith said.
Service members begin military-related training from the day they put on a uniform, and it never stops, Smith said. But nobody gets trained on how to build and maintain a strong partnership with a spouse or a child. And that's something the Relationship Wellness Summit looks to address.
"We will equip service members with the tools they need to help strengthen and support their relationships, and I feel that's directly connected to being mission-ready," Smith said.


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Poshmark School Market
Poshmark School Market is yet another Posh Market released by Poshmark, and we at PoshmarkSharer.com have all the info. So, what's the new market? Drumroll please…introducing the " Poshmark SCHOOL Market". We heard a lot of you loud and clear on our IG…"Yes, because you can't get folders for 18c at Walmart" – @theresalechic.posh. This is the thing, the new Posh Market is more than just pens, pencils and folders. Keep reading for all the Poshmark School compliant items
Well, I guess we should start with the obvious, you guessed it, PENCILS!
Poshmark School Market:
Pencils, Pens, Markers, Crayons, Chaulk…yea you get the point. Stationary is already flooding the new School Posh Market, so sharpen your pencils and get cracking on those pencil photoshoots and listing. Books such as binders, portfolios, calendars, journal's, diaries (does anyone say that anymore?) is also compliant and may be listed within the new School market.
Poshmark School Market:
Shipping Supplies
Shipping supplies such has decorative poly mailers, tapes and packaging have become increasingly popular within the reseller and Poshmark community. You will now be able to buy and sell shipping supplies on Poshmark. Shipping supplies include tape, poly mailers, bubble wrap, small boxes, label's, cards, tissue paper and, pretty much anything that qualifies as a shipping supply.
Poshmark School Market:
Label and Label Makers
Photo Source: Dymo
In the market for a new label printer and supplies? Or maybe it's time to sell your outdated Dymo. Labels and label makers are expensive, buying a second-hand label maker on Poshmark will now make it more affordable and practical to for you to own your very own. So far there are no labels or label printers on Poshmark, so seize the moment and list, list, list.
Poshmark School Market:
Party Supplies
Well, this is definitely not a school category but who can say no to a party? I don't know about you but every time I throw a party, I always have lots of leftover supplies which I don't know what to do with. If you're like me, you have a draw of mixed and matched supplies taking up space. Compliant Party Supplies are cake candles, cake toppers, cards & invitations, decorations, favors, gift wrap, hats, party lights, and disposable tableware. Say goodbye to those Peppa Pig cupcake toppers, its time sell all the party supplies from parties past.
Poshmark School Market:
Storage & Organization
This new category is a whole lot of yes, "storage & organization" is what we all could use. Compliant items for the storage and organization category are closet accessories like hangers and hooks, drawer liners, garments bags, jewelry organizers, makeup organizers, and other small storage solutions.
Source: Poshmark
The new "school" #PoshMarket does offer more than what you may think. There are not many or even any listings within certain categories so if you have some items to sell you should list them as soon as possible. We are definitely looking forward to seeing what all these new categories have to offer.
What are your thoughts on the new School Posh Market?
Comment your thoughts and closet names below!


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The IRS has provided some regulatory relief to the class of people I call moderate millionaires. Revenue Ruling 2017-34 eases the process for an executor to get relief from having failed to make a timely "portability election" to allow a surviving spouse to take advantage of a deceased spousal unused exclusion amount (DSUE). Fairly quick action (i.e. by the end of the year) may be required to take advantage of the relief.
The concept of DSUE comes from a simplification that was enacted when the estate tax was turned back on by legislation in 2010. It comes out of the interaction of what are probably the two most important provisions of the estate tax as far as moderate millionaires are concerned (A moderate millionaire has a net worth from $3 million to $20 million, by my entirely arbitrary reckoning. This distinguishes them from the mere millionaires ($1.0 to $2.9), who I found cannot get a bank trust department interested in overseeing their meager fortunes).
The two provisions are the unified credit, which protects $5.49 million from estate tax in the case of someone dying in 2017 (The number was set at $5 million for 2011 and indexed for inflation) and the unlimited marital deduction. The unlimited marital deduction allows any amount left to the surviving spouse to be free of estate tax - the entire estate, if that is what you want. I should mention the "unified" part of the credit means that the one credit applies to both lifetime taxable gifts and the estate tax payable after death. To keep things simple I'm ignoring taxable gifts.
A Simplification
Those provisions have been around a long time, but I am not going to do any tax archeology here. Back in the day the unified credit was a much lower amount, even when you consider inflation. A prime concern of basic estate planning was to make sure that a couple did not waste one of their unified credits. A typical scenario for people with mundane lifestyles where they grew old with someone they married in youth was to leave everything to the surviving spouse, who would then leave everything to their kids.
The problem with that mundane arrangement was that one of the unified credits would be wasted. When the unified credit was $600,000 a mere millionaire couple would end up subjecting a few hundred thousand to estate taxes. This created a decent amount of work for low-level estate planning attorneys creating trusts to preserve the unified credit for couples who were not really that worried about their spouses running off with the pool boy and not leaving anything behind for the kids. There was the credit shelter trust and the marital trust and in Massachusetts, there would be a third trust since the state threshold was different and the marital deduction was not unlimited.
The DSUE saves people that trouble. Assume Robin and Terry each have a net worth of $6 million. When Robin dies leaving everything to Terry, Robin's DSUE will be available to Terry so that combined with Terry's unified credit, almost all of Terry's resulting $12 million estate will escape estate tax.
Some People Just Do Not Get It
The only requirement is that Robin's executor file an estate tax return and make the election to allow Terry to use the DSUE. Unfortunately, there were a lot of executors who can't follow simple ---expletive deleted--- instructions. So the IRS over the last several years has been bombarded with requests to allow late elections. There was a simplified procedure for a while, that expired on December 31, 2014, but the requests keep coming. There is a user fee for those sorts of things and a good amount of process which has been overburdening the IRS.
The relief offered by Revenue Procedure 2017-34 is available to estates of decedents who died after December 31, 2010 where no estate tax return was required and none was filed. (Imagine if Robin had negligible net worth and Terry was worth $9 million. No estate tax return was required when Robin died, but the failure to file one along with the election costs a lot when Terry dies). The executor takes advantage of the relief by filing an estate tax return with the election and making a reference to the revenue procedure at the top of the first page of the return.
This new procedure is available until January 2, 2018 . After January 2, 2018 the procedure is available up to 2 years after date of death.
Who Should Concern Themselves With This?
This is a matter that moderate millionaires need to consider if they are surviving spouses of people who died after 2010, where no estate tax return was filed. You have to weigh the administrative hassle of accomplishing the filing against the chance that you might die with a net worth over the exclusion amount. Remember it is not your current net worth, but what your date of death net worth might be. Who knows maybe one of your ships might come in?
If you do think this is something you should do, jump on it now. There may well be a premium on estate tax preparation in December. If your spouse died in 2011, gathering the information to do the return might be a bit of a project.
Tax pros should think about their widow and widower clients particularly those who have substantially boosted their net worth since their spouse died.
There is more to the procedure than I have laid out here, but I think I have given you the primary action item.
Other Coverage
Laura Sanders broke this on the Wall Street Journal - Many Estate-Tax Payers Just Got a Reprieve from the IRS, but that's behind a paywall and might be missed by the thrifty among my readership.


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Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni (September 28, 1924 - December 19, 1996) was an Italian actor.
Born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines, Mastroianni grew up in Turin and Rome. During World War II, he was interned in a Nazi prison, but escaped and hid in Venice.
In 1945, he started working for a film company, and began taking acting lessons. His film debut was in I Miserabili (from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables) in 1947.
He soon became a major international romantic star, starring in Big Deal on Madonna Street, and especially when Federico Fellini cast him in La Dolce Vita, with Anita Ekberg, in 1960.
He followed that with another starring role in 8 1/2.
He earned Academy Award Nominations for Dark Eyes (1988), A Special Day (1978) and Divorce, Italian Style (1963)
Note: This profile was written in or before 2003.
Marcello Mastroianni Facts
|Birth Name
|Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastrojanni
|September 28, 1924
|Fontana Liri, Italy
|Date of death
|December 19, 1996 (age 72)
|1963 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical (for Divorce Italian Style)
Selected Filmography
|La Grande Bouffe
|La dolce vita
|8 1/2
|The Assassin
|Marriage Italian Style
|Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
|Sophia Loren: Award Collection
|Stay As You Are


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Coconut Mango - Handmade Soy Candle 8 oz
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Dominator Yachts has unveiled the new model 42M ILUMEN, the first hull already named luxury yacht PEPPERMINT and under construction for a German Owner. ... read full story
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Dominator Yachts announces new 42-metre Ilumen luxury yacht Peppermint at Cannes yachting Festival 2019
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36m and 38m Tri Deck yachts to join Dominator's fleet
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Two new models have been presented by Dominator, the 36-metre and 38-metre superyachts. ... read full story
27m Motor Yacht HANAA Available for Charter in the Mediterranean
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Launched in 2017 by Dominator, the 27.35m (89′ 9″) motor yacht HANAA is ready to take her guests on an unforgettable charter vacation around the Western Mediterranean. Hope on board and cruising along the beautiful coastline of the French Riviera, enjoy the fabulous history of Italy or have fun in the Balearics. With accommodation for... ... read full story
28m motor yacht VELLMARI available at reduced price in Croatia
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VELLMARI is available for a reduced rate in Croatia this September, don't miss out on this opportunity! ... read full story
Croatia yacht charter with LADY MURA at special reduced rate
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The 29m Dominator motor yacht LADY MURA is offering a special reduced rate with 20% off her weekly rate in September cruising Croatia. She features interior styling by Team 4 Design and offers spacious accommodation for up to 10 charter guests, over 5 cabins. Her interior décor is elegant, light and airy throughout. A generous... ... read full story
Croatia Charter Deal with 29m motor yacht LADY MURA
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Enjoy a special discounted rate for selected dates in July cruising aboard the Dominator motor yacht LADY MURA in Croatia. ... read full story
Dominator 28M Ilumen Motor Yacht ZALANKA Touches Water
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Luxury yacht builder, Dominator Yachts, has announced the launch of its Ilumen 28m motor yacht ZALANKA, a sister ship to Cadet V, which has taken place this past Saturday. ... read full story
Dominator 28M Ilumen motor yacht CADET V launched
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Dominator Yachts has announced the launch of the 28m Dominator Ilumen motor yacht CADET V, sister ship to motor yacht ZALANKA. CADET V is a customised vessel with dynamic design and beautiful interiors, boasting a semi-displacement hull and a shaft propulsion system. The yacht was designed by Dominator's in-house design team, led by interior designed... ... read full story
24m Yacht SAINT ANNA 1 Offering Discounted Charter Rates in Adriatic
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Open-style motor yacht SAINT ANNA 1 was constructed by Dominator and launched in 2009. Measuring 23.54m (77'3''), this charter yacht is a great option for both family vacations as well as getaways with friends or couples. Cruise the Adriatic's Croatia or Montenegro in comfort and style, while enjoying 10% off if booked by May 15th or 8 days for the price... ... read full story
Great Last-minute Early-Summer Charter Vacation Deals aboard 29m LADY MURA
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The 2010-built, 29m (95') Dominator motor yacht LADY MURA is offering a fantastic reduction in her weekly charter rates in the stunning Adriatic in the Eastern Mediterranean. Bookings made by 15th of May for charters in Croatia and surrounding charter grounds will receive a 10% discount or you can book 7 days and get one additional day... ... read full story


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Materials handling Equipment (MHE) and Returnable Transit Packaging (RTP) can mean a substantial investment. However investing time in careful specification and sourcing, whilst taking into account all of the requirements of users either within the single warehouse or throughout the entire supply chain should reduce operational costs over time.
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Canucks anthem singer Richard Loney dies
I'm sad to report that long-time Canucks anthem singer Richard Loney has died. Loney was a no-nonsense pro, who sang the national anthem at Canucks games for over 40 years.
Trevor Linden released this statement about him:
"The entire Vancouver Canucks organization is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of longtime anthem singer, Richard Loney. Richard sang the anthem at the first Canucks NHL game in 1970 and his rendition of our National Anthem remained a welcome tradition at Canucks home games for over 40 years. I was lucky enough to hear him sing O Canada so many times during my playing career. He's been such a big part of our team's history and was a true icon in BC, lending his one-of-a-kind voice to the Lions, Whitecaps, Giants, and even at Safeco Field when the Blue Jays would come for their annual visit. He supported sports at all levels and often volunteered for charities and for minor league hockey, baseball and soccer events around the Lower Mainland. He was such a nice man and I will miss him. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his wife Marion, and his family and friends."
I never had a chance to meet Richard Loney, but he was always a favourite of mine. I remember him most from the days of the Pacific Coliseum, where he was a fixture.
He was always the consummate professional until crunch time, as our own Wyatt Arndt recalls:
I will always remember the Canucks finally getting back into the playoffs in 2000. Richard Loney sang the American Anthem, all was well.
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) September 9, 2015
Then he ripped off his jacket and had a Canucks jersey on underneath, and the roof just BLEW OFF the place. Great showman, awesome singer.
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) September 9, 2015
Loney also sang both the Canadian and Russian national anthems in Vancouver during the 1972 Summit Series. He learned the Russian anthem by writing the words phonetically with the help of a friend who was a linguist at UBC. I told you he was a pro.
Apart from being an anthem singer, Loney was a high school teacher and a nice person, as some people recounted on Twitter:
Met Richard Loney a number of times. As a person, a true gentleman. As a singer, he treated the anthem with the respect it deserves. #RIP
— Scott Rintoul (@ScottRintoul) September 9, 2015
Very saddened to hear of the passing of Richard Loney. Listened to him as a kid. Privileged to meet him as an adult. Class act. Great man.
— Brook Ward (@brookwardtsn) September 9, 2015
@RobTheHockeyGuy he taught her in high school. It was an honour to talk to him regularly, and sort of get to know him. #TheBest
— Coop (@1Cooop) September 9, 2015
Rest in Peace Mr. Loney.


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An ongoing movement sparked by a demand for a living wage and better benefits will hit the American public with another dose of worker solidarity this Thursday, one year after the first mass strike around the country. Fast-food workers in 100 cities were expected to walk off their jobs in support of better wages ($15 an hour) and benefits from the $200 billion industry and the right to form a union without interference from management.
And no fast-food business will be left unscathed. McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are all expected to experience worker walkouts. Every region of the country will be covered. Clergy, elected officials and community supporters were all expected to join fast-food workers on the picket lines in every city—including Oakland, Calif., and Tampa, Fla.—that'll hold strikes.
The increased focus of the fast-food workers' movement stems from a report released in October that revealed that over 52 percent of their brethren rely on public assistance for food or medical issues, which cost American taxpayers more than $7 billion. McDonald's most recently reported that its profits were $5.5 billion.
Some groups decided not to wait until Thursday, however, and staged walkouts early.
On Wednesday, MoveOn.org members protested at McDonald's locations in five different cities—Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—and delivered a petition started by Low Pay is Not Okay on MoveOn.org's petition platform. The petition, which was addressed to McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's and Subway, also demanded a $15-an-hour living wage for all employees.
New York City Mayor-elect and current Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has already spoken out in favor of paying workers a living wage. During a speech at the New School in Greenwich Village in October, the mayor-to-be spoke about his plan to reduce income inequality. He said that the 2012 living wage law that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn allowed to pass left out too many workers, "carving out exceptions for 70,000 manufacturing jobs, the Hudson Yards development, grocery stores participating in the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health program and a range of other businesses."
De Blasio said that the living wage law should be pegged to increases in the cost of living over any development that receives over $1 million in subsidies from the city.


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FLYING ON INSTINCT. Canada's Bush Pilot Pioneers.
They were nicknamed Snow Eagle, Flying Knight, Bush Angel, Punch, Doc and Wop. They worked in open cockpits and flew through cold, snow and fog without the benefit of radios, maps or weather reports. They flew over the Barrens, frozen lakes, boreal forests and mountain ranges by dead reckoning and line of sight. They landed on makeshift runways, glaciers, muskeg, tundra and glassy lakes. Comrades of the wilderness, they were Canadas early bush pilots.
L.D. Cross brings us the incredible stories of the brave and enterprising pilots who rolled back the boundaries of western and northern Canada, delivering mail, medicine, miners and all the supplies needed by frontier settlements. Flying such planes as Curtiss, Bellanca, de Havilland, Fairchild, Junkers, Norseman, Stinson and Vickers, they were the off-roaders of aviation, venturing where no others dared to go. Climb into the cockpit with these pioneering pilots for an exciting trip into Canadian aviation history.
- See more at: http://www.heritagehouse.ca/book_details.php?isbn_upc=9781927051849N.sthash.7w4yfOmB.dpuf


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Episode 101: Rachel Yehuda talks about epigenetic inheritance, PTSD and the potential of MDMA therapies
// Jan 7, 2020
Today we talk with Dr. Rachel Yehuda whose pioneering research on cortisol and brain function has revolutionized worldwide our understanding and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rachel is also well-known for her studies on the intergenerational transmission of trauma and PTSD. This novel research has shown that the children of traumatized parents are at risk of similar problems due to epigenetic changes that are transmitted from the parents to their offspring. She has worked with war veterans, Holocaust survivors and other victims of trauma to detail the biological roots of PTSD.
She is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and the director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. She also is the director of the Mental Health Patient Care Center at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center.
Show notes:[00:02:31] Dawn begins the interview asking Rachel about her time as a child growing up in Cleveland. [00:03:17] After Ken mentions that Rachel's father was a rabbi, Rachel explains how growing up in an observant Jewish household shaped her. [00:04:46] Rachel talks about a biology teacher who inspired her to go beyond her interests in philosophy and pursue science. [00:05:50] Dawn asks Rachel why it seems that so many scientists start out with an interest in philosophy. [00:07:16] Dawn asks Rachel why she decided to major in psychology at Touro University in New York. [00:08:16] Ken asks Rachel why she decided to attend the University of Massachusetts at Amherst after graduating from Touro University. [00:09:03] Rachel explains how she went into graduate school looking for a way to become both a psychologist and a scientist. [00:10:08] Dawn asks Rachel about something Rachel's daughter observed about her: "You move to the beat of your own drum. You never do anything other than what the voice in your head tells you to do." [00:11:12] Ken asks if it is true that Rachel's first graduate advisor was not optimistic about Rachel making it through grad school. [00:12:33] Rachel tells the story of how she first met Bill Edell and walked up to him and said that she wanted to do clinical research. [00:14:38] Ken asks Rachel why she decided to do research on stress, particularly when stress wasn't a major focus of research in the 1980s. [00:16:05] Dawn mentions that after graduating from UMass Amherst, Rachel did her postdoctoral work in biological psychiatry at Yale Medical School. Rachel met Dr. Earl Giller there, who became Rachel's mentor and an early researcher in post-traumatic stress disorder. Rachel talks about how Dr. Giller had just completed a study on Vietnam veterans showing low cortisol levels. [00:18:40] Rachel talks about how for her post-doc at Yale she wanted to look into the biology of personality, but was told that it was a "dumb idea" for post-doc research. [00:22:06] Dawn asks about the paradox uncovered by Dr. Giller's research into Vietnam veterans showing low cortisol levels when stress is supposed to be associated with elevated cortisol levels. Dawn goes on to ask how this finding led Rachel to interview Holocaust survivors in her hometown of Cleveland. [00:24:43] Rachel tells the story of when she talked to a group of Holocaust survivors, a woman came up to her and said: You know, Dr. Yehuda, we don't have VA centers like your veterans do. [00:26:20] Ken asks about the program Rachel set up to help Holocaust survivors. [00:27:20] Dawn points out that in 2016 Rachel published the results of a study looking at the genes of 32 Jewish women and men. She and her colleagues at Mount Sinai studied Holocaust survivors who either had been interned in Nazi concentration camps during World War II or had witnessed or experienced torture. Rachel also looked at the genes of 22 children who were born to the Holocaust survivors after the war. Rachel discusses how the changes in the DNA of Holocaust survivors were in a way passed down to their offspring. [00:29:13] Rachel discusses the necessary caution we should take regarding our understanding of mechanisms and how effects get from one place to another, or from the experience of one generation into the biology of the next, because we simply don't have sufficient human studies that can truly pinpoint what truly causes the effects we see. [00:32:06] Ken asks about Rachel's realization that past effects could transform not only the narrative of a person's life but also their physiology. [00:33:59] Dawn describes Rachel's 2005 study with woman who were pregnant in the World Trade Center during 9/11, which showed, along with other studies, that children of traumatized parents are at risk of having similar problems as their parents due to changes occurring in the biology of the parents as a result of trauma exposure. Dawns asks about the process of epigenetic changes being transmitted to offspring, which has become known as "intergenerational transmission." [00:36:27] Ken asks if cortisol is uniformly low, or if there is substantial variation from person to person, since one often hears of elevated cortisol levels in first responders and military populations. [00:38:43] Ken asks Rachel how she ended up at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. [00:39:40] Ken asks about Rachel's role as the founder and director of the Division of Traumatic Stress Studies at Mount Sinai. [00:41:20] Dawn asks Rachel to describe what happens inside a person's body when they find themselves in a stressful situation. [00:42:47] Dawn mentions that in psychiatry and mental health, symptoms of trauma are treated as psychological, but that Rachel is finding that these problems of trauma also correlate to people having physical problems. [00:44:02] Rachel talks about her role as the Director of the Mental Health Patient Care Center at James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, which she has inhabited since 2009. [00:44:58] Rachel is asked to talk about how there are only a few approved pharmacological treatments for PTSD, and no approved medications to enhance resilience. [00:46:38] Ken asks about a study Rachel published in 2013 which indicated that effective psychotherapy can be thought of as a form of "environmental regulation" which is able alter a person's epigenetic state. [00:49:36] Ken asks how Rachel thinks the discovery of the epigenetic inheritance of trauma could change the way we approach and treat chronic health conditions, and if it is possible that much of what we are experiencing in terms of physical and mental illness as a society at large could be manifestations of trauma that has been caused by changes to epigenetic memory. [00:51:09] Rachel describes her excitement about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, an interest she is collaborating on with Dr. Dave Rabin, who was interviewed on STEM-Talk episode 99. [00:52:14] Dawn refers the MDMA study that Rachel and others are collaborating on with Dave, and how this study has started its phase III trial with the FDA. Rachel gives an overview of what is going on with this study and how MDMA could be licensed and become a medicine. [00:56:09] Ken asks Rachel about her quote where she said in an interview, "My career has been enhanced by the fact that early on nobody believed in PTSD. Well, now, I almost think we've been a victim of our own success in many ways because I think we've ended up really pathologizing it to a large extent." [00:58:37] Ken comments on how he relates to Rachel, in that his early career saw him also studying something believed to be impossible, AI, and that things have now been reversed and the power of AI is often overestimated. [00:59:45] Rachel explains that she is thankful to have become a scientist, even though she enjoyed philosophy in her youth, but that if she could no longer be a scientist for some reason, she would want to become a musician. [01:00:15] "Dawn mentions that Rachel has some experience appearing on stage as a singer, such as when she performed at the Meeting of the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology with colleagues Thomas Neylan and David Spiegel (interviewed on STEM-Talk episode 45). The song Rachel sang was titled "The Grant Song," Dawn closes the interview asking Rachel if she wrote the humorous lyrics.


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– my adventures at the two and a half day Bow Making Workshop at Primitive Pursuits in upstate Arnot Forest during prime fall colors…
By Elska á Fjárfella of the Dominion of Myrkfaelinn.
The third day started cloudy and quickly turned into drizzle. Even though we worked outdoors for most of the workshop, we fortunately had the luxury of a roofed pavilion, courtesy of Cornell University's Arnot Teaching & Research Forest, as getting the bow staves wet or even damp should be avoided (I'd brought mine home to stay the night in the car, instead of all alone under the pavilion.). Moisture can swell the wood and make it harder or inconsistent to work with, as one of the students found out the hard way after she got some raindrops on one of the limbs. For our tillering convenience, the instructors had come up with an ingenious clamp system to secure the bow stave out of some rope and 2×4's, which I duplicated at home the following week. I don't think it will be used only for bow making!
After we had carefully hacked out the main shape with the hatchet, while staying about 1/8th of an inch away from all pencil marks, the bow was now ready for rasping and scraping. We've been testing out the pencils from gear hungry and to date, I cannot find anything to criticize. Using one of the clamp stations, I clamped down my bow and with a farrier's hoof rasp started scraping off all tool marks right up to the pencil marks, leveled the back of the limbs, and shaped the handle. Most important in this stage is to keep checking progress so as to not go too fast, and to check both edges for symmetry (one limb side should not higher or lower than the other). The limbs are only as thick as their thinnest part, and special care needs to be taken in this regard, especially where the handle tapers off into the limb. From there on it's pretty simple. The widest and thickest part of the limb is right at the taper of the handle, and from there the shape should gradually get narrower and thinner up to about halfway, to then thicken again to compensate for the skinny tapered tip design. Using mostly my fingers I would run them up and down the limb and feel for thickness irregularities, especially around the knots, and carefully rasp and later scrape them down. The thinnest part of the limb is about halfway, which is where most energy is stored, and therefore the most bend should happen when pulled back to fire.
From this time on, the instructors were kept busy and would regularly swing by to check our bows, adding crosses to show where to stay away and squiggles where more wood needed to be removed. This step was quite a challenge as it is hard to see; the differences are minute and were mostly only 'visible' by touch. It sure helped that I have experience throwing pottery, as that's all about seeing with your fingertips too! Interestingly, as our instructors would remind us now and then, we're still not making a bow – we're making a bow shaped sculpture! Not until the tillering stage, where the limbs are starting to get flexed, is the bow sculpture slowly transforming into a bow.
When the limbs of the bow finally start to have a little bend, as tested by gently bending, it finally is tillering time! The first tentative bending is done by putting the tip on something solid like a concrete floor, pushing away on the handle with one hand (and that elbow braced on your hip if needed) – nowhere else – and steadying the upper tip with the other: the wood remembers stress and the wrong pressure in the wrong place can permanently alter the flex of the limb! Now the rasp gets put away and the scraping knife is put to good use. We used knives similar to carving knives, fairly long but with a slight burr added to one edge for efficient scraping. And once again, all tool marks, now from the rasp, are carefully removed and the backs of the limbs are smoothed out. Then it is a matter of carefully removing layers of wood from the belly of the limbs until they started bending more and more, and more evenly. Also at this time we made a bowstring using the Flemish twist technique, and added nock points to the bow tips with a small saw (handmade by three hacksaw blades taped together). Carving or filing nock points works as well; just don't carve into the back of the bow, only the sides and belly. The string would still be fairly long, so the bow bends shallowly and gently gets accustomed to becoming a bow.
With each removal & tillering check, we would string the bow and flex it shallowly about thirty times to exercise the stave so the wood becomes used to the flexing and compression needed for proper bow function. This exercise is also important as the changes just made with scraping take a while for the wood to remember and might not show up in the next tillering if proper exercise is omitted. We tillered both using a tillering stick, and with the help of our instructors and fellow students by putting a foot on the string and pulling the bow stave up while they would squat in front, look & critique. It was very instructive to see many types of trees and bow shapes and strengths and see how the limbs would bend differently from one to the other. The big thing to look for is where does it bend. Where does the limb curve, and where does it not? Ideally, the bow limbs curve most in the middle, with a bit less at the beginning near the handle, and near the end at the nock point. Where it bends too much (it's thinnest there), wood needs to be removed everywhere else, and where it is too stiff wood should be removed right there. Note that adding wood is not an option! And always check the edges of the bow to make sure they have the same thickness; that it does not slant from one side to the other, as this could introduce weakness and even twist.
Fairly quickly my bow stave was bending well and looking good. Interestingly, the limb with the two knots curved beautifully right from the start. The knot free limb had a reflex which was messing with the tillering, it kept looking flat and stiff. Rather than overcompensate and weakening that spot, the instructor decided it was easier to just heat treat the reflex straight. Which probably looked a whole lot easier than it was. When both limbs had a good bend, and looked even (also check the negative space when strung between stave and string), the bow still was too heavy for me. It drew in the upper forties which I thought is a bit much. But as the tillering was correct, instead of messing with the belly of the bow and making it thinner, which could change the tillering, now the best option is to make it narrower and thus remove from the sides. There is a balance between how thick a bow limb should be and how wide, as a wider bow has more air resistance which needs compensation in strength while thinning makes it weaker. Thus with the lower poundage draw weights it is better to go narrow in width than lose too much thickness. As mentioned before, twice as thick is eight times as strong, so taking off a little belly could quickly be way too much…
Finally, the time had come to completely sand the bow (except for the back of course!), measure the right length for the bowstring (about 6 inches from the top if I remember correctly) and string it! Use a brace height of about a hand width (between string at rest and handle) and do not immediately pull to full length, go little bits at a time. Never leave a bow strung longer than it needs to be, it can develop string follow (stays slightly bend when unstrung) and loose strength. And never dry fire a bow, the energy that would otherwise travel with the arrow does not leave and can blow up the bow instead… And then the most satisfying of sounds: the thock of hitting the target with your first arrow!
The bow is still 'young' and needs 'training'; exercise it regularly, shoot with it regularly, and not until it is a couple months old and you feel there is no more tweaking to be done is it time to finish. Oil, varnish or a stain – it does not really matter as long as you like it and it weatherproofs. Smooth the edges if you have not done so already. Carve pretty knock points. Add a leather wrapped handle. But most of all – take your bow and enjoy the great outdoors together!
One last thing: be patient while crafting your bow. Take your time, put it away, come back to it; have a conversation. Read books, talk to bowyers: there are many different styles and techniques, and another way might work better for you. I found this course to be such fun, that I am already scouting our woods for logs to harvest, and with the experience I had enough information to make a quick bow with my son (and the band saw) from a stick harvested a couple days prior. We made it together and you should have seen him, he was so proud to shoot an arrow with a bow he'd made himself…
Simon (at right) with his self bow made from a 2" diameter green stick. Using a bandsaw for general shaping and tillering greatly shortened the time needed to make a bow, this one took about two hours, but also gave much more room for error as it is very quick and easy to take too much off. To save time (and limbs) a blend of modern and traditional techniques seems to work best: rough shaping with the bandsaw, and fine tuning with rasp and knife.
Want to read more?
Traditional Bowyers Bible's Vol 1-4, Allely et al.; The Lyons Press, 2000
The Art of making Selfbows, Stim Wilcox
The Bow Builder's Book, Horning ed.; Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2007
The Heritage of the Longbow, Pip Bickerstaffe; self published UK, 1999
For more information on the Bow Making Workshop. click here.
All photography and drawings by Susan Verberg, 2016.


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Tourist destinations to consider near Saddle Road are listed below. Click on any name for complete information.
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By Ottawa Sportspage, For Cumberland Cobras Elite Academy
The Cumberland Cobras Elite Academy has long carried a simple formula to producing top players: train with the best players, with the best coaches, more often than others, and compete at the highest levels.
And then last year, the club added one more secret ingredient that's made an enormous difference: do it all by 5:30 p.m.
"It's kind of revolutionized things for us," Cumberland United Soccer Club General Manager Pavel Cancura says of his club's daily after-school Academy format. "It's an opportunity for them to train more than they ever have in an environment that's really unmatched any- where around here."
In order to facilitate afternoon travel, the Cobras setup bus routes to bring players from their schools to the Superdome Sports Centre or Millennium Fields training sites.
"A traditional soccer player will get home at 4 from school, scrambles to inhale something for dinner, back to train at 7 or 8, tries to do his homework after that – if you're doing it 3 or 4 times a week, that's a busy week for the family and the kids," highlights Cancura. "Here, they're done by 5:30. They can go home and have dinner, do their homework, some are taking up other activities.
"The feedback we've been getting is amazing."
Surveyed after the program's first year, participants reported major strides in player growth and family life.
"It's all outstanding," Cancura adds. "When we do quantitative tests with the players, they've been off the charts compared to anything we've ever seen."
That's the product of a well-researched and well-practiced program that's structured to achieve different targets each day and at different times of year. Training loads and schedules are carefully crafted so that players' physical, technical, tactical and social development is balanced and optimized across the entire season.
This includes the after-school training on each weeknight, and then 11v11 inter-squad sessions, friendlies, games or tournaments on Saturdays. It also involves cross-training (strength, conditioning, yoga and general athletic skills) and mental/psychological development (sports psyche, goal setting, nutrition).
"Everyone has become a bit of marketing machine, but this is legit," Cancura underlines. "You look at professional or elite academies around the world, and this seems to add up."
Players are welcomed for trials with the Cobras Elite Academy at any time, though fall is the best given it is the end of one season and the start of the next. Cobras Academy teams generally play up an age group in the top East Region Soccer League divisions, while the under-13 boys' and girls' squads will debut in the Ontario Player Development League come spring 2018.
"When you have this structure in place, we're not changing much," Cancura says of Cumberland joining the top level of youth high- performance soccer in the province. "For those players who want to go as far as they can with soccer, we're really excited to give them the opportunity to do it."


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Children as young as 10 are being recruited to fight for the Palestinian cause
Sky News has gained access to a young people's camp in Gaza, where the only lesson taught is how to kill Israelis.
Sky's Middle East Correspondent Emma Hurd said the camp, at an undisclosed location, had been set up to drill children in the ways of war. The recruits, some of whom are dwarfed by their AK-47 assault rifles, are taught how to carry out ambushes.
They are also made to do an obstacle course, crawling under barbed wire and leaping through hoops of fire while their instructors fire live bullets overhead.
Hurd witnessed one training session in which a militant, dressed as a Jewish settler complete with yarmulke skull cap, was ambushed in his car. Gunmen pulled the "settler" from his vehicle and Hurd was told if this had been real he would have been killed.
The boys even "graduate" at the end of their training, receiving a certificate from the camp commander.
Source: http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13154917,00.html


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Trail map
A real challenge, which becomes easier to bear looking up
to take in the view of Andorras highest mountain, Comapedrosa
The fourth stage starts at the Borda de Sorteny Refuge and continues towards the towns of El Serrat and then Llorts. On the way you'll pass by Camí Ral and Les Salines, where you'll find the trout centre that supplies the Principality of Andorra. Get ready as there's a fairly steep ascent to Clot del Cavall soon after, and within walking distance of the Comapedrosa Valleys Nature Park. It's an intense climb that is thankfully short. You'll also cross the shelter and lake in Angonella.
From there, you'll enter the parish of La Massana, a region where mountain landscapes abound. You'll have to be patient but you'll gradually discover them for yourself. At this point, go down to the shelters in Les Fonts and Pla de l'Estany, leaving behind Font Podrida hill.
You're now at the foot of Comapedrosa Peak (2,942 metres), the highest mountain in Andorra Follow the signs and head towards Aigüesjuntes. From here, you'll begin the last stretch until you reach the Comapedrosa Refuge. You'll need to take the road to l'Obaga d'Els Aspres.
The Comapedrosa Refuge where you'll spend the night is located 2,265 metres above sea level. It's located next to Les Truites Pond surrounded by steep mountains that are sure to wow you. As we told you before, it was a matter of time before you saw these dreamy landscapes you can now admire.
The duration of the stage is approximate, it depends on the physical state of each hiker and the number of stops that are made throughout the trail.


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Until this year, we had yet to experience flying Emirates business class, one of the "Middle East Three." We've experienced Etihad business class, and Qatar business class, but for an AvGeek like me there was a constant nagging reminder that we had yet to fly Emirates. Suddenly, we found ourselves not only flying them twice within a few months, but experiencing Emirates A380 business class.
Flying Emirates Business Class From Europe
One of the best things about the Middle East airlines is that they are a perfect gateway between Asia and Europe. Normally, it means a layover in Doha or Dubai, but it also means being able to land in Europe in some second tier airports, which are often more convenient for us.
On both of our recent trips from Europe back home to Bangkok, we ended our trips in the smaller cities of Bologna, Italy, and Lyon, France. Hardly major international hubs. But, Bologna in particular is a city where we are finding ourselves more and more as we eat our way through Emilia Romagna.
Emirates likes to tout their unofficial goal of connecting every city on Earth to Dubai. Lucky for us, Emirates started to serve Bologna's Guglielmo Marconi Airport. The airport is just 6 kilometers from the center of Bologna. Bologna is in the heart of Emilia Romagna. Getting to our favorite foodie destination in the world from our home base in Bangkok is now that much easier. It means two six hour flights and we are home.
How to Book Emirates Business Class
All of our first and business class travel has been booked on miles. I know we receive comments from friends on our Facebook page about our luxury airline travel, but we never get a free upgrade, and never purchase the tickets ourselves. We are not millionaires.
Or, are we?
When looking to book our Emirates flight from Bologna to Bangkok, Emirates was offering great rates on business class flights. A perfect storm of lower oil prices, a new route to a smaller European city, and Emirates running a half dozen flights a day to Bangkok meant business class was a steal. One way economy tickets from Europe were running about $600-800. Normally this route would be well over a thousand dollars, just for economy. Emirates business class was only about $1300.
We splurged on the tickets. As soon as we hit purchase on the Emirates website, a little buyer's' remorse set in, we knew there would be no other way to experience Emirates A380 business class. But as my mom said years ago, "if it's on sale, you have to buy it." Perhaps she's referring to cans of coffee at the supermarket and not business class airfare. But for an AvGeek, it seemed worth it, even if we had to eat ramen noodles for a month on our return to Bangkok.
Flying Emirates Business Class on the A380
We flew Emirates business class on their Boeing 777-300ER from Bologna to Dubai, and arrived rather late at night. We enjoyed the massive Emirates Business Class Lounge for a few hours, which involved a little snack and champagne, along with a well needed shower.
We boarded around 3:30am. Despite being tired, this was the flight we were most excited for. The Emirates 777-300ER was an acceptable flight, but we really wanted to experience the A380. We were determined to stay awake and make the most of our business class flight.
From the Emirates Business Class Lounge, we had direct access to our gate. We took an elevator down to the upper level of the A380 and walked right on board. It was one of the most convenient boarding experiences ever.
The upper level of our A380 was configured with 14 First Class enclosed suites and 76 Business Class seats. Until you step inside you just can't imagine what that looks like. In fact, I don't remember seeing First Class at all, I was so in awe of how large Business Class was. The cabin was more bright than on the 777-300ER, but still had a lot of use of gold and a bit too much bling for my taste. Even the bathroom was covered in wood paneling and gold and silver.
Emirates did a great job with staggering the seating in a 1-2-1 configuration. It allows every passenger access to the aisles, unlike on their Boeing 777-300ERs.
The seats themselves felt spacious, and offered food leg room. There was a digital control panel to adjust the seat.
It's also allowed Emirates to put in much bigger seats compared to the those on the 777-300ER. Where I was feeling cramped from Bologna to Dubai, I felt like a king on a throne from Dubai to Bangkok.
The Emirates business class offers fully lie flat seats, a personal mini-bar, and a 20 inch TV screen with noise canceling headphones.
Emirates business class offers different amenity kits for men and women. Amber wasn't as thrilled with her offerings, but in addition to Bulgari products, my amenity kit came with a deodorant and shave gel.
Emirates A380 In-Flight Bar
Funny thing is, during our five and a half hour flight to Bangkok, I think Amber and I spent all of one hour combined in our seats. Why? Emirates took inspiration from the Golden Age of commercial aviation and reintroduced the flying lounge. Taking up valuable seat space, the back quarter of the Emirates A380s features a full stocked lounge for Business Class passengers to enjoy prior to takeoff and during the flight.
The lounge was another first for Amber and I, and one we wanted to make the most of. With an aircraft the size of an A380, it takes some time for all passengers to board. This allowed us to head to the rear of the plane and meet our fellow passengers while enjoying a glass of Veuve Clicquot champagne.
We returned to our seats for take off. After take off, we returned to the bar, of course. There was no reason to try to sleep at this point. We were arriving in Bangkok in a few hours, with no scheduled activities. We knew we could sleep when we arrived. This was the time to make the most of the Emirates A380 business class experience.
We had wonderful conversations with a couple of passengers heading to Thailand for the first time, providing them food tips. We also enjoyed just chatting with the crew. One of the best moments during the flight was looking out the window and realizing that the sun was rising. Watching the sky go from black to dark blue, slowly transitioning to shades of orange and yellow was magical.
Certainly the size of the A380 compared to the 777-300ER allows Emirates to offer a much better Business Class product. It's roomier, more comfortable, and actually makes you feel like you are in Business Class. The meal on our A380 was comparable to the meal on our 777-300ER flight, nothing special but edible. The service on both flights was also comparable but being able to talk to the crew on board the A380 because of the Lounge make it a more memorable experience. I'm so glad that we splurged and upgrade to Business Class to see what many fliers consider the best in the industry. For me, I think there's room for improvement, but would certainly fly with Emirates again.
Making the Most of the Emirates A380
One of the reasons why we took full advantage of the on board Lounge was because we had no idea if we would ever be able to fly Emirates business class again. But, just a few months later, we had a similar experience on our trip from Lyon to Bangkok.
One of the reasons why I like flying Emirates business class is their pricing. Unlike many other airlines, which can sell business class tickets for crazy prices, like $5000 or more, Emirates offers reasonable prices for their business class tickets, which includes even last minute upgrades. Their pricing is standardized on routes and does not tend to increase as much as other airlines. It is always worth checking their pricing online before a flight, or even at the airport.
In the weeks leading up to our flight from Lyon, we toyed with the idea of upgrading. Over the weeks before and even on the day of, the price was always the same. In this case, we upgraded our flight at the airport for about $800 a person. Our economy class tickets were already paid for by one of our partners, so it seemed, once again, like a good idea. You only live once. We landed in Bangkok, ate ramen noodles once again to make up for it, but really enjoyed that Emirates business class experience!
See here for a review of Emirates Airlines economy class.


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Gaian Democracies: Redefining Globalisation and People-Power (Schumacher Briefings)
By Roy Madron, John Jopling, and Samir Rihani
In the midst of the prosperity and affluence of Western 'democracies' there is a pervasive sadness and sense of impotence about the future of our societies, of humanity and of the natural world.
Like millions of people, we have come to the conclusion that today's globalisation is fundamentally unjust and unsustainable. Like them we want to make a useful contribution to changing this unjust and unsustainable system of globalisation into a just and sustainable one.
But we believe that to bring about such a fundamental change in an enormous and complex system we first have to understand its main characteristics as a system.
The more we understand about systems, the better we will be at learning how to create the democracies that will enable our societies to become more just and sustainable. Systems thinking has been successfully applied in many fields; it is now high time that this approach was applied to government and politics.
Concern about what is happening in the world is usually voiced in terms of environmental issues or social justice—sometimes both.
At the risk of overgeneralising, environmental issues could be seen as concerned with the relationships between human societies and the larger systems of which they are part, whereas social issues are concerned with the relationships between human societies and their many sub-systems.
It is not just a question of a better system of control; what is needed is a better system of government.
Through the unrelenting destruction of local cultures, lifestyles, knowledge and communities, we are witnessing the steady erosion of humanity's cultural diversity, flexibility and capacity for self-sufficiency.
If we are correct in saying that the Global Monetocracy as a whole is responsible for what is happening, it follows that it is the Global Monetocracy as a whole that must be reconfigured.
The defining component of any purposeful human system is its purpose. The purpose of the economic system promoted by all Western governments is never debated.
In our judgement, the true purpose of the Global Monetocracy is that of money growth in order to maintain the current debt-based money system.
In systems-thinking terms, the growth imperative imposed by the debt-money system is a positive feedback mechanism—a vicious spiral.
The purpose of the Global Monetocracy explains why, for example:
• Our governments have persistently ignored all the evidence of the adverse effects of economic growth, including the repeated warnings of scientists over the last forty years.
• Our governments continue to claim that economic growth is the only viable strategy for tackling the world's horrific agenda of problems that have—in large part—been caused by the self-same economic growth.
Traditional representative democracies are designed to minimise public involvement in government, and to enable the dominant elite to remain continuously in control.
The vast majority of ordinary citizens are still excluded from active participation in governmental decision-making at all levels.
The proposition that representative democracy is the only practicable form of democracy in today's world is nonsense. It is one of the many myths promoted by the Global Monetocracy for its own protection.
Nation-states have co-evolved with representative democracies. The purpose of the nation-state was to enable the elites to sustain their power and privileges through constant territorial and economic expansion.
From a systems perspective, one of the most serious defects of the principle of national sovereignty and the nation-state system is that it has blocked the development of democracy for the human family as a whole.
In the last half-century, transnational corporate globalisation has replaced imperialism and colonialism as the mechanism for delivering global economic growth.
Environmental, human-rights and community campaigners have succeeded in making some small inroads into particular aspects of their operations.
But overall, unless the whole Global Monetocracy system is reconfigured, calls to change, or even to abolish, one or more of these instruments will not have a lasting impact on the Global Monetocracy as a whole.
'Ownership' of the Global Monetocracy rests with an international elite who effectively control both the corporations and the governments. Their purpose is economic growth for their own benefit
The corporation is the ideal legal structure for implementing the Global Monetocracy's purpose.
A vast web of financial institutions provides the machinery that enables people to make money out of money and, crucially, enables the global leadership cadre to exercise the power of money over the real economies of the real world.
The Global Monetocracy as a whole is also locked into its purpose of economic growth; and the culture of command-and-control pervades government throughout the system.
We can see why people have lost faith in 'democracy'.
Politicians are held in low esteem. A complete failure of democracy is staring us in the face.
In the resulting vacuum, the sway of 'market forces' inevitably increases.
Clearly, as long as a substantial proportion of citizens are politically inactive, they present no threat to the Global Monetocracy.
The truth is that, vitally important as it is, social defence can never be a substitute for fundamental political change. Somehow, the two strands have to be integrated into a coherent, multi-faceted global strategy—and that can only happen within a systems perspective.
The complex, adaptive, self-organising system we call 'humanity' is being driven by Global Monetocracy.
Unless we act 'humanity' will soon meet the same fate as any other system in a vicious downward sprial mode.
It is widely recognised that our industrial and economic systems must be reconfigured to work with natural systems, instead of treating them as an inexhaustible resource.
The Global Monetocracy is dominated by its purpose of economic growth in order to maintain the debt-money system.
It is the controlling imperative for all political and business leaders. As long as the Global Monetocracy remains in being, there is no way round it. And, at the moment, there is no political route out of it.
Put very simply, we have to change the way we think. Fundamental change in any purposeful human system starts to happen when a significant number of people within that system begin to think differently.
The shift in thinking that precedes fundamental change is already happening in every sphere outside the closed mind-sets of the Global Monetocracy.
The combination of a new vision and a new kind of democracy is what is needed to revive popular commitment to active citizenship.


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Sri Lanka
|I'd always wanted to ride on an elephant, and even to see them up close and walking around in Sri Lanka was an exciting event for me. The man in the photo on the left is a taxi driver I met when I got off the train in Anaradhapura. He took me to the government guest house, picked me up the next day when I wanted to go to Polonnaruwa, convinced me I should climb to the top of Sigiriya, and eventually talked me into hiring him for the rest of my proposed sightseeing, which was going to take almost a week. I never regretted accepting his offer (which was very reasonable)! When I saw my first elephant in the streets of Kandi, and showed my excitement, he asked if I wanted to see them bathing. This place was near Kandi, and the elephants were working and bathing. (I did ride this guy. His handler is behind me.) Another day, on the south coast near Matara, the driver took me to meet friends of his who cooked a very special dinner for me - outdoors, in the pouring rain. He took me to friends who were weavers, and he searched out potters for me, and he found another friend who showed me how to climb a coconut tree, and he showed me the tight-wire walkers between the high coconut trees who collect the juice to make an alcholic drink, and - he was - by the time I left Sri Lanka, quite a friend. We corresponded for a while, and he wanted me to come and stay at his house so his wife could teach me to cook Sri Lankan food. I still wish I could have done that.