text:
I wrote this essay as part of A Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) Periodic Publication entitled AI, China, Russia, and the Global Order: Technological, Political, Global, and Creative Perspectives edited by Nicholas D. Wright and Mariah C. Yager. For the full paper, visit the NSI website.
In my recent reflections about the exponential growth in artificial intelligence and the potential implications for humanity and the global order, a pulse fired across the synapses in my brain. Seemingly out of nowhere, I began humming a familiar tune set to Lewis Carroll's famous poem entitled Jabberwocky.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!"
The poem depicts a terrifying beast called the Jabberwocky and a valiant hero who takes up arms in a violent confrontation. For some strange reason, my brain substituted "AI Monster" for the Jabberwock in Carroll's poem, leading musical notes from the distant past to enter my mind. I hadn't sung or even thought about the tune since my days of singing in the St. Cecilia Youth Chorale—more than twenty-five years ago. What mysterious links was my brain connecting here?
Naturally, I turned to Google's powerful search algorithm for answers. I'd forgotten that Lewis Carroll wrote the nonsensical poem for Through the Looking Glass (1871), the sequel to his more famous novel Alice in Wonderland (1865). Both works were written by the mathematician under a pen name. Though considered children's books today, they were intended as scathing critiques of prevailing trends in the field of mathematics and designed to parody several of his colleagues. Immediately, I connected the dots between our perception of pending doom at the hands of AI to the dark atmosphere and intense feelings of disorientation and angst in Carroll's stories. The tale of Alice travelling down the rabbit hole to meet a sequence of demented, off-kilter, and nonsensical characters gives me a jarring sense of discomfort to this day—not much unlike my fears regarding the rise of AI.
After a moment of awe for the mystifying inner workings of the human brain, I felt another curious tug at my consciousness after reading Carroll's poem. I'd set out a pile of my favorite sci-fi films from which to draw inspiration for my next fiction project—a dystopian science fiction trilogy rooted in current digital trends. The movies were stacked in no particular order, and I decided to watch my all- time favorite, The Matrix.
My pulse quickened as Neo receives a message on his computer screen: "Follow the white rabbit." That's not Alice's white rabbit, is it? Shortly afterwards, Neo spots a white rabbit tattoo on the girl's shoulder and follows a wild rabble to an all-night rave. Then a thought crossed my mind. Is my brain showing me the link to the old musical tune? I reached the part where Morpheus meets Neo, and my buried memories started to surface. I froze in my chair, my heart now pounding against my chest. The blue and red pills are analogous to "Drink Me" and "Eat Me" in Alice in Wonderland, aren't they? A few moments later, Morpheus says to Neo: "I imagine you're feeling a bit like Alice… tumbling down the rabbit hole." Yes, Morpheus. Yes, I do.
By now, my mind was blown. In making my film choice, I didn't realize my brain was doing its thing again. It was drawing connections from the depths of my complex neural network and bringing them to the surface.
For the umpteenth time, this experience reinforced what I've always known to be true—that science fiction plays an important role in shaping our understanding of the implications of science and technology and helping us to cope with things to come. My brain was leading me down a rabbit hole to confront the horrifying AI monsters depicted in science fiction as one day disrupting the global order and destroying humanity—the automation monster, the supermachine monster, and the data monster.
The Automation Monster
In the first and oldest nightmare AI scenario, the future is automated. Humans have been completely sidelined by robots—stronger, tireless, and inexpensive versions of themselves—as depicted in Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano (1952). Fears about robotics have pervaded pop culture since Karol Capek, a Czech playwright, coined the term "robot" in 1920 in his play entitled Rossum's Universal Robots (RUR). The satire depicts robots performing the activities that humans typically find undesirable— the dirty, dull, and dangerous. As demonstrated in the end of Capek's play when the robots rebel against humans and eliminate nearly all of humanity, automation, though more convenient, cheaper and faster, presents new dangers.
In a series of short stories entitled I, Robot (1950), Issac Asimov effectively demonstrates how humans may lose control of robots, even if they are programmed not to harm humans according to his three famous laws. He warned that as automated systems become more complex, humans will not be able to anticipate all the unintended consequences of rule-based systems.
Potential scenarios about the loss of control were also featured in several classic films during the Cold War period. In Stanley Kubrik's Dr. Strangelove (1964), a doomsday device thwarts efforts by the US and the USSR to prevent nuclear war, leading to the destruction of both countries and a devastating nuclear winter. The removal of human meddling through automation was intended to increase the credibility of mutual assured destruction. The strategy goes awry because the Soviets fail to communicate its new capability to the US in a timely manner. Once the doomsday device is activated, it cannot be deactivated since automation is the essential property of the system.
Another Kubrik film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), features the HAL 9000 supercomputer (aka "Hal"), which was designed to automate most of the Discovery spaceship's operations. Although the computer is considered foolproof, the human crew discovers Hal made an error in detecting a broken part. The crew decides to disconnect the supercomputer, but not before Hal discovers their plan and manages to kill off most of the crew.
In WarGames (1983), doubts surface about military officers' willingness to launch a missile strike. Consequently, the government decides to turn over the control of the nuclear attack plan to the War Operation Planned Response (WOPR), a NORAD supercomputer, capable of running simulations and predicting outcomes of nuclear war. A young hacker inadvertently accesses the computer and launches a nuclear attack simulation, which begins to have real-world effects. To stop the computer from carrying out its automated nuclear attack, the system's original programmer and the young hacker must first teach the computer the concept of mutual assured destruction in which there is no winner.
The predicted outcomes of the automation monster range from terrible to apocalyptic. In the most likely scenario, robots will destroy our jobs, leaving humans out of work and without any hope for economic mobility. The impact on the global order would be devastating, potentially leading to mass migrations, societal unrest, and violent conflict between nation-states. These fears appear to be substantiated by a wide range of studies from companies, think tanks, and research institutions, which predict as many as 800 million jobs will be lost to automation by 2030 (Winick, 2018).
Another frightening scenario involves autonomous weapons going awry. In an era of autonomous weapons, warfare will increasingly leverage machine speed and pose a challenge to the need for human control. Whereas humans require time to process complex information and reach decisions, machines can achieve the same in nanoseconds. Despite advantages in analyzing complex datasets, however, the decisions reached by machines may not be optimal due to the nature of information— its inaccuracy, incompleteness, bias, missing context, etc. To prevent some nightmare scenarios, humans must remain in the loop. To prevent others, humans might need to step aside to let the machines lead the action… because speed can kill (Scharre, 2018).
In another terrifying scenario portrayed in GhostFleet (2016) by P. W. Singer and August Cole, overdependence on automation technologies creates critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited by adversaries. Recent news headlines regarding the vulnerabilities of US weapons systems and supply chains suggest that this scenario is a near-term possibility (GAO, 2018). US superiority in automation technologies offers our adversaries powerful incentives for conducting first-move asymmetric attacks that exploit theses vulnerabilities (Schneider, 2018).
Taken to the worst extreme, automation combined with machine intelligence could potentially lead to the destruction of the world by autonomous machines and networks of machines—the supermachine monster.
The Supermachine Monster
In recent years, the supermachine monster has dominated the tech headlines as the scariest potential AI scenario. A number of public figures including Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking have issued dramatic warnings about the prospect of reaching singularity in 2045—the point at which Futurist Ray Kurzweil suggests machine intelligence will match and inevitably exceed human intelligence.
Inspired by fears about supermachines, The Terminator (1984) tackles the theme of a coming war between humans and machines, a result of an automation scenario gone awry. A defense contractor builds the Global Digital Defense Network, an AI computer system later referred to as Skynet. The system is designed to control all US computerized military hardware and software systems including the B-2 bomber fleet and the nuclear weapons arsenal. Built with a high level of machine intelligence, Skynet becomes self-aware, determines humanity to be a threat to its existence, and sets out to annihilate the human race using nuclear weapons and a series of lethal autonomous and intelligent machines called terminators.
The Matrix (1999) picks up where The Terminator leaves off, depicting the aftermath of war between humans and machines, the initial triumph of the machines, and the enslavement of humans. The majority of humans are prisoners in a virtual reality system called the matrix and being farmed in pods as a source of energy for the machines. A small number of freed humans live in a deep underground colony called Zion and carry on a violent struggle against the sentinels. By the end of the trilogy, Neo convinces the machines to reach peace with Zion and to fight against a common enemy—a malignant computer program called Mr. Smith.
There are few scenarios more frightening than apocalyptic wars between humans and machines. Indeed, we are so afraid of the automation and supermachine monsters these days that we're failing to see the scariest monster of them all—lurking beneath the surface of our consciousness—the data monster.
The Data Monster
My brain made connections that were deep beneath my consciousness, linking Carroll's poem to Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole and The Matrix to the AI monster that keeps me up at night—the data monster. Lately, I've been wondering whether we are already controlled by the machines and just aren't fully aware of it yet.
In Plato's Republic, Socrates describes a group of people chained to the wall of a cave who think the shadows on the wall are real because it's all they've ever seen; they are prisoners of their own reality. How is it that we are not seeing the dangers of the data monster? Even while the pernicious beast stalks us everywhere, lurking in the corners, ready to enslave us at any moment. Or are we already its prisoners and unable to see the truth?
For me, the real Jabberwocky is the three-headed data monster combo of the Internet, digitization, and algorithms. Somewhere deep down, we realize the data monster is stealthily assaulting our sense of truth, our right to privacy, and our freedoms. Most of us sense this is happening, but we suppress such concerns in favor of obsessing over the other more sexy AI monsters. But if we don't take the red pill now and wake up from our digital slumber, we may end up prisoners in the matrix— controlled by our machines.
Much has changed since The Matrix was first released in 1999—particularly our inextricable relationship with smartphones, the rapidly accumulating crumbs of our digital trail, and our growing interconnectedness through the Internet of Things. The image of sleeping humans imprisoned in pods, connected to the machine world by thick, black cables attached to their spines, and ruthlessly exploited as an energy source hits home in a whole new way in 2018. At its essence, the matrix is a digital world designed by the machines to fool humans into thinking it is real. Are we in a matrix?
Our common sense of truth has been eroding for the past few years at the hands of endless political spin, outright lies, and allegations of fake news. The propaganda has gotten bad enough to invoke images from George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 in which Party Member Winston Smith works diligently at Oceania's Ministry of Truth to rewrite history based on the ever-changing truth propagated by the Party. The bleak world of newspeak and doublethink created by Orwell in 1949 resonates so well today, the novel became an Amazon bestseller in 2017. Although Winston rebelled against the Party, he was in the end compelled to reject the evidence of his eyes and ears. "It was their final, most essential command."
French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, a muse of the Wachowski brothers, argued that in a postmodern world dominated by digital technology and mass media, people no longer interact with physical things, but rather the imitations of things. And so, technology has altered our perceptions of reality and made it more difficult to identify truth. Our growing interdependence with machines causes intense confusion about what parts of our human experience on this earth are more real—those in the physical world or that in the digital one. How do we know what we know is true or real?
At the beginning of the movie, Neo asks "do you ever have the feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or you're dreaming?" Deep down, he senses the pernicious illusion of the matrix. When Morpheus meets Neo for the first time, he gives Neo a choice: take the blue pill and wake up as if nothing ever happened, or take the red pill and learn the truth. Later in the story, Neo's power as "The One" derives from his ability to see the matrix for what it really is. At times in the movie, it's unclear which form of existence is preferable—the matrix or the real world. Indeed, the villain of the movie, a freed human by the name of Cypher, betrays Morpheus for a chance to get back into the matrix and deny the truth of his existence.
But truth is not the only vital element under siege by the data monster. Slowly, but surely, the data monster has been jealously chipping away at our right to privacy. Here again, we are partners in our own demise. With every digital action, each one of us produces new data points—e.g., every email, text, and phone call, Internet download , online purchase, GPS input, social media post and contact, daily numbers of steps, and camera selfie. The list could go on and on. With all the data we produce, we are essentially handing over the tools of surveillance and control. But to whom?
In 1984, George Orwell creates a world in which the citizens of Oceania are monitored via telescreens, hidden microphones, and networks of informants. The notion that Big Brother is always watching keeps most citizens in line. For those who rebel, extraordinary measures are taken to bring them back in line by the Thought Police. Such a social control experiment, while leveraging technology, is happening in the real world as we speak.
Leveraging the data trail of its population, the Chinese government has begun testing a social credit system which assigns a trustworthiness score to citizens based on their behavior—including their social network, debt, tax returns, bill payment, tickets, legal issues, travel and purchase habits, and even disturbances caused by pets. Blacklisted Chinese citizens with low scores face limitations in their freedoms, ability to travel, employment opportunities, and much more. As such a credit system takes effect, citizens will conform their behavior to avoid negative outcomes.
Perhaps, many of us can breathe a sigh of relief—at least we don't live in China. Thus far, most democracies have resisted the alluring pull of monitoring technologies in the name of protecting privacy. Or have we? If our data trail is not being funneled to our government, then to whom are we giving the power? And do we trust them to do the right thing?
In Future Crimes (2015), Marc Goodman describes in compelling detail how we fail to see the reality of our digital actions and gambling away our privacy: we are the product of the tech giants. Every day, we have grown accustomed to exchanging small pieces of our privacy for free services by clicking the box "agree to terms and conditions." Most of us skip the pages of legalese to download the app and get access to the convenient and "free" services. When we use Gmail from Google, update our status on Facebook to share news with our friends, purchase stuff from Amazon to avoid going to the store, we agree to the use and tracking of our data.
All of this data is out there somewhere, waiting to be mined and exploited. Until something bad happens like a stolen credit card number or identity theft, most people don't think about the consequences. But if we're being honest with ourselves, the data monster probably knows us better than we know ourselves. And that means, there are private-sector companies that know us, too. Tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter already assign its users a reputation score based on activity and social networks. Big Brother is watching you.
But the power of data goes far beyond monitoring and surveillance to allow for predictive control. In Minority Report (1956), a short story by Philip K. Dick, a set of precogs are able to see and predict all crime before it occurs, eliminating crime in a future society. Instead, people are arrested and tried for precrimes based solely on the logical progression of their thoughts. We may shudder at the notion of such a world, but AI and big data are already being used to forecast our behavior on a daily basis— and shape our future behavior. For example, Amazon tracks every purchase you make on its website and uses its algorithm to predict what item you are most likely to buy next. This sees harmless enough. For now.
But what happens when machine learning tools begin making more important decisions than our retail purchases? The data we produce today will shape the future, possibly even control it. What is the nature of that data? How reliable is it? Has someone accounted for false information, missing information, partial truths, and bias?
Last year, the British police began using "predictive crime mapping" to determine where and when crime will take place. Some allege the system has learned racism and bias, leading to increased policing in areas with high crime rates and to self-fulfilling prophecies.
Machine learning tools analyze data, but they cannot determine what is true and what is false unless they've been trained to do so. If it's difficult for humans to identify truth these days, how can we expect machine learning tools to do itbe better? In a recent example, Amazon attempted to use a machine learning algorithm to simplify its hiring process. The training data included resumes submitted to Amazon over ten years, the majority of which came from male candidates. By using this dataset, the algorithm learned to prefer male applicants over females and downgraded the latter in making its recommendations.
Although Armageddon-like scenarios do not loom large for the data monster, its impact could be far more pernicious to us in the near-term.
Overcoming the Monsters
My brain was not merely connecting the dots across disparate images stored in my memory bank. It was also providing me with a primal emotional response to my fears about AI. Carroll's poem offers a good example of an "overcoming the monster" plot where characters find themselves "under the shadow of a monstrous threat" (Kakutani, 2005). At the climax, the hero has a final confrontation with the monster, deftly wielding his sword and slaying the Jabberwocky.
"One, two! One, two! And through and through, The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head, He went galumphing back."
In reality, we are still quite far away from the worst-case AI scenarios, especially in light of human adaptability, ingenuity, and resilience. To achieve sentience or mindedness of a human, a machine would have to excel in and leverage all forms of human intelligence simultaneously (Gardner, 1983).
It's time to put on our battle armor, wield our swords, and address the risks of AI head-on with creative determination—let's do what humans do best, to imagine the future we want for ourselves and put the pieces in place to achieve it. When we put aside our terror, we'll find the beast is not quite as powerful as we imagined. If we can overcome the data monster, then we can certainly triumph over the worst of the automation and supermachine monsters. Let's take the red pill and get started today.
The views expressed in this piece belong to the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
Dearden, L. (2017, October 7). How technology is allowing police to predict where and when crime will happen. Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home- news/police-big-data-technology-predict-crime-hotspot-mapping-rusi-report-research- minority-report-a7963706.html
Gardner, H. (1983). Multiple intelligences: Challenging the standard view of intelligence. Retrieved from http://www.pz.harvard.edu/projects/multiple-intelligences
Gonzalez, G. (2018, October 10). How Amazon accidentally invented a sexist hiring algorithm. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-artificial-intelligence- ai-hiring-tool-hr.html
Goodman, M. (2015). Future crimes: Inside the digital underground and the battle for our connected world. New York: Anchor Books.
Kakutani, M. (2005, April 15). The plot thins, or are no stories new? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/books/the-plot-thins-or-are-no-stories- new.html
Scharre, P. (2018). Warfare enters the robotics era. Retrieved from https://davemarash.com/2018/10/25/paul-scharre-center-for-a-new-american-security- warfare-enters-the-robotics-era/
Schneider, J. (2018). Digitally-enabled warfare: the capability-vulnerability paradox. Retrieved from https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/digitally-enabled-warfare-the-capability- vulnerability-paradox
Singer P. W. & Cole, A. (2016). Ghost fleet: A novel of the next world war. New York: Mariner Books.
Winick, E. (2018, January 25). Every study we could find on what automation will do to jobs, in one chart. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610005/every-study-we-could-find-on-what- automation-will-do-to-jobs-in-one-chart/


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Computer Policy
Bordentown Regional School District Information Technology Access Agreement
As a student in the Bordentown Regional School District, s/he will be aware of the significant responsibilities associated with the use of information technology and the Internet. The student will understand that if s/he does not adhere to these policies, s/he may lose or be restricted in his/her network and Internet privileges and s/he may be subject to disciplinary action.
Specifically, the student will agree to the following:
- Use district Informational Technology Resources for educational purposes only.This means game playing, and the use of proxy avoidance and social networking sites are prohibited;
- Treat with respect and exercise reasonable care in the use of all district computer hardware, software, and communications resources;
- Not reveal to anyone else passwords or other access codes assigned to the student so that s/he may use the Information Technology Resources of the district. Will not trespass in another's folders, work or files for any reason;
- Make reasonable, cost effective use of district consumable supplies such as paper, electronic media, and printer ink and toner;
- Make no attempt to in any way alter, modify, upgrade, or repair any district hardware, including, but not limited to, computers, interface cards, monitors, printers, scanners, wiring, or cabling;
- Make no attempt to change, modify, or upgrade any district software;
- Make no attempt to install programs of any kind on any district computer or network;
- Not develop, acquire, display or transmit any material by electronic means or hardcopy that could be considered by a reasonable person in our community as obscene, violent, harassing, racist, abusive, degrading to men or women by gender or demonstrating intolerance or prejudice toward any ethnic or religious group. Not use district technology resources to support political or religious causes or support candidates for public, elected office;
- Not use district technology resources to support political or religious causes or support candidates for public or elected office; and
- Not to violate copyright laws.
Violations of the BRHS Computer Policy will result in the following disciplinary actions.
1st Offense: Parent contact, two days of Central Detentions and two weeks of account restriction.
2nd Offense: Parent contact, one day of in-school suspension and four weeks of account restriction.
3rd Offense: Parent contact, three days of in-school suspension and permanent account restriction.

subset: commoncrawl


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The DC neighborhood of Petworth is known as an affordable, culturally vibrant, diverse neighborhood in Northwest, located near Manor Park and Columbia Heights. It's a laid-back and friendly neighborhood full of families, pleasantly green with venerable D.C. trees, and easily walkable. The Petworth metro station connects to the green and yellow train lines, your gateway to the entire city.
Keri Shull Team named Petworth one of Washington D.C.'s Top 3 Up-and-Coming Neighborhoods, along with Eckington and Kalorama.
Schools: Powell Elementary and Theodore Roosevelt Sr. High School are both nearby.
Things to see and do: While you're in Petworth, be sure to visit the variety of new creative restaurants and bars, like glam rock bar Slash Run or the literary cocktail bar Petworth Citizen and Reading Room. Don't miss the historic President Lincoln's Cottage, where Lincoln spent three summers with his family.


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Officer Lindsey Tote, Officer Josh MacMonagle and Officer Charles Jones were recognized for their bravery and disregard of personal safety while confronting the gunman.
Sunday May 30, 67-year-old Mervin Carroll Mims went to the store on Highway 55 and murdered ex-girlfriend Guadalupe Rosas. He fatally shot himself in the head when officers confronted him inside the store.
Tote told ABC11 Monday about the mayhem she and the other officers found when they got to the store. They had to try and figure out who was the shooter and who was just a bystander in seconds.
"Anyone who's not involved, get them out the door as quickly as possible. Anyone who is involved, just try to get them to put down the weapon and go from there," she said. "It was very frantic, mayhem, people running all over the place, running out of every door they can find."
Tote said Mims was sitting down when they found him.
"…very calm and collected and that's when all three of us started challenging him to show me your hands," she recalled "…There wasn't a whole lot of time before he actually shot himself."
MacMonagle said much the same.
"Didn't look at me, didn't make any motion, was staring straight ahead real calm. Took his hand out of his lap, revealed a pistol, and as soon as I could see it, he put it straight up to his head and took his life," he said.
The officers said their training kicked in that morning and they don't feel like heroes.
"We happened to be the first three to show up and the first three to go in. Had it been any other officer, they would've done the same thing," said MacMonagle.
"I just happened to be the person there at that time. I didn't do anything different than what anyone else would've done, it was just my turn to be there," said Jones.
Apex police said in a news release that the Medal of Valor is the highest award that can be given by the chief of police to any sworn member of the department.
The department also recognized the Apex Lowes store for their aid and support during the Target shooting. Police said the store gave support to officers and aid to the customers and employees of Target during and after the incident. Store manager Jackie Bunch was presented with a Citizens Medal.
It's the highest award that can be given by the chief of police to a citizen.
Also recognized for their efforts as the first officers on the scene at the Target incident were Corporal Michael Prince, Officer Dan Kotlarek, Officer Greg Bennett, Officer Matt Hunter, and Officer Chris Myers. Telecommunicator Beverly Beacham was also recognized for her outstanding performance in the 911 center. Captain Ricky Martin of the Wake County Sheriff's Office was given a special award for going above and beyond with his assistance.
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Since Spirton has become a blog that is mostly used for program releases and other related things, I thought it was time I started a separate blog for personal things.
So I registered klausburton.com.
That's where all my personal posts will be done from now on, while the program stuff (PS3MS, InterFrame, MPlayer, etc.) will still happen here like before.
Happy new year, too 🙂


text:
Today everything is fast paced. Efficiency is the number one priority of any project manager. Web project management capabilities are a necessity. Using the right app to keep track of calendar events, time, reports, progress, contacts are all a necessity in today's fast paced world.
Using the right app can easily cut your work in half. When you have everything you need at your finger tips, billing, tracking, improving comes naturally. The goal should always be to reduce the work load, communicate effectively to relay expectations and to be able to track the progress of the job.
Communication is Key
When you use web project management software to keep in touch you never have to worry about missing out on communications. You can also count on the right app to insure that your messages are being delivered.


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By Katy Savage
While many celebrated Memorial Day weekend with barbecues and plant sales, Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Marji Graf flew to Maryland to meet her new employers.
Graf resigned from her role in Vermont to take a position as president and CEO of the Rockville, Maryland, Chamber of Commerce, a position she starts on July 2.
"It all happened in the last two weeks," said Graf.
Graf had never been to Rockville before this past weekend. She saw the position advertised in a quarterly email that goes to chambers across the nation and submitted an application.
"They hired me on Facetime," she said.
Graf visited her new city during the annual Hometown Holidays Music Festival, which about 50,000 people attend every year. The festival includes more than 30 live performances as well as Taste of Rockville for area restaurants to highlight their menus. Graf will be in charge of running the Taste of Rockville portion of the event next year.
"I'm really, really happy," said Graf as she spoke from her hotel room in Maryland on Saturday before flying back to Vermont on Sunday. "There are so many opportunities here and nobody's telling their story. I think that will be my strength."
The position in Maryland will be different from Graf's job in Vermont. The city of Rockville has a population of 67,000. Unlike her current job, Graf won't be in charge of tourism or visitors. Instead, she'll be running the chamber for the city.
"The scary thing for me is that now I have to sell my house," said Graf.
Graf, who lives in Mount Holly, spent the past couple weeks saying goodbye and resigning from other roles. Graf was president of Vermont Association of Commerce Executives and she is past president of New England Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.
"I've been here 10 years and I've been really invested in Vermont," Graf said.
The Okemo Chamber includes 14 towns surrounding Ludlow. In her tenure, Graf grew the membership from about 200 when she started to about 425 members currently. Graf also helped launch the website, yourplaceinvermont.com.
"It's not going to be the same without her," said Sue Chadwick, director of member services at the Okemo Chamber. Chadwick and Graf were the only two employees at the Chamber.
"I think all of us were totally in shock just because she's always been there," Chadwick said.
Graf will be in Vermont for the next five weeks to help train the next yet-to-be-named CEO. A planner, she has already mapped out marketing and events for the year ahead. "The place won't miss a beat," she said.
Graf's departure comes when new Chamber board members were elected. Echo Lake Inn owner Tom Gianola will be the incoming president, Terry Bane from Imery's will be the vice president, Kevin Theissen from Skygate Financial Services will be the treasurer and Gail Graves-Beardmore will be the secretary.


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STORE OPEN NOVEMBER 1ST - 109 N Main St, Lake Mills, WI 53551
Are you looking for a great way to use 2 ½" strips? The Summer Bunting quilt is the perfect way to use a favorite Jelly Roll, add a background, and a few companion pieces for the stars. This quilt combines strip-piecing with dramatic star blocks to get a great dimensional effect. The pieces are large and uncomplicated, letting the fabric do the talking. This pattern includes step by step instructions with beautiful illustrations, through every stage, to make your rotary cutting, piecing, and assembly a breeze.
Finished Size: 65in x 81in
From Krista Moser of The Quilted Life
Companion Item: Creative Grids 60 Degree Mini Diamond Quilt Ruler - CGR60DIAMINI Designed by Krista Moser


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Continue Going With Go
A few months ago, I wrote an intro to Golang. I only covered how to install and a basic "Hello, World" program with variables. In today's post, I am going to extend that and cover functions.
Last time, we had one function:
func main() {
var name string := "Antony"
fmt.Println("Hello, " + name + "!")
As you can see, it is declared with the
func key word and a name. So far straight forward.
So I can rewrite the above function to be a separate function. Like so:
func main() {
func generateOutput(name string) string {
return "Hello, " + name + "!"
generateOutput takes a single parameter which has to be of type "string". Also, it's return type is declared as being "string".
You can see that I am using
generateOutput in the
main function in the place of a string. Hopefully, it is all very straightforward how this comes together.
You can actually declare multiple return types for functions. Here is a really simple example of how this is used.
Take the following function:
func addValues(a int, b int) (string, int) {
var status string
var result int
if a >= 0 && b >= 0 {
status = "OK"
result = (a + b)
} else {
status = "ERROR"
result = 0
return status, result
So it is called "addValues", takes two parameters that are integers and returns a string and an integer.
Inside, you can see how an if-else statement is structured in Go. In this case, it checks that both numbers are greater than 0. If they are, it sets the status as "OK" and adds the numbers. Otherwise it sets it to "Error".
You can see at the very end, it returns both the status and the result, thus satisfying the "string, int" return type.
To use it, you do something like this:
status, sum := addValues(5, 2)
:= notation is a short hand for declaring the variable and assigning the value (something that would normally have to be done separately). You will also notice that there are no types. This is because Go can infer types which means they are not strictly necessary to specify.
The return values would be assigned to each variable in the same order that you return them.
So if I modify the whole
main function and run it:
func main() {
status, sum := addValues(5, 2)
status2, sum2 := addValues(5, -2)
Results in:
The final thing that I want to show is variadic parameters. These are special parameters that can be of any size.
For example, we can change addValues to look like this:
func addValues(vals ...int) (string, int) {
...int says that
vals is a list of integers that is either empty or any size. So we can make the function work as it did before with 2 parameters and with any number of parameters:
func addValues(vals ...int) (string, int) {
var status string
var result int
for _, val := range vals {
if val >= 0 {
status = "OK"
result = result + val
} else {
status = "ERROR"
result = 0
return status, result
You can see inside, the syntax of a for loop:
for _, val := range vals
range is a key word that is basically loading
vals into the loop.
val becomes the current item of the loop.
_, could be replaced with a variable that is the key of the current item in the loop, but as we are not using the key, we use this special character to kind of ignore it. Go would throw a warning if we specified a variable here and did not use it.
So I add another use case in the main function (as I said, the other two cases should work as normal):
func main() {
status, sum := addValues(5, 2)
status2, sum2 := addValues(5, -2)
status3, sum3 := addValues(5, 2, 3, 4)
Which outputs:
I hope this guide has been useful in helping you get to grips with some basic concepts in Go!


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Download an HDRI pano single for free. This image was captured with about 18 stops of latitude.
This is my first drone pano. I was not sure how well the bracketed exposure process would go but it seems to have gone okay. This is also my first pano using PTgui 12 beta, which is great! They've moved a lot around and changed everything from the blending to the exposure fusion algorithm. It may take a little time to get used to but I'm finding the HDRIs perfectly usable.
This HDRI was captured above a city park on a sunny winter afternoon in the American mid-west.
This HDRI is equirectangular, Lat/Long mapped for use as a CG light source.
It is provided as a 32-bit .EXR
Use this HDRI in any way you see fit for either personal, academic or commercial projects. Credit is not required but it's always nice! If you are going to give credit please do so like this:
HDRI provided by
Mighty North LLC
There are 2 restrictions to this license:
You cannot resell this HDRI on its own or part of a package of HDRI. You can give it to others provided you acknowledge where you downloaded it from (here).
You cannot sell a derivative work that is not substantially different than this HDRI. I.E. You cannot sell prints of this image. You can however sell derivative works that are substantially different wherein this image is a portion either as lighting or background.
If you end up using this and would like to share how you've used it, please do so! Leave a link in the comments below. Let me know what sort of HDRI you'd like to see in the future and I'll see what I can do.
Kick in a Few Bucks
Send a few bucks my way to help me keep this site up and getting you free stuff for VFX, motion graphics and CG. I really appreciate your help!


text:
- From: Dr. Yves Forkl (SRZ) <firstname.lastname@example.com>
- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:37:06 +0200
- To: Romain Deltour <firstname.lastname@example.com>
- CC: XProc Dev <email@example.com>
Am 08.06.2012 18:03, schrieb Romain Deltour: > There are several way to do this. Romain, thank you very much for your valuable hints! You have shown me what I consider quite cute XProc tricks that did not emerge from the XProc material I could gain access to so far. As far as my original question is concerned, I am thinking about avoiding to deal with two documents at the XProc level for the task at hand. Instead, I will probably modify the order of some operations within my pipeline steps. This will allow me to obtain my second document no longer as the result of a step (which is working on the contents of the original file) but through simply loading the file using document() within p:xslt. Anyway, thanks again for your instant help. Yves -- Dr. Yves Forkl - Softwareentwicklung SRZ, Bessemerstr. 83-91, 12103 Berlin www.srz.de | Firmengruppe: www.besscom.de tel +49 30 75301-335 | fax +49 30 75301-11335 Satz-Rechen-Zentrum Hartmann+Heenemann GmbH&Co. KG Sitz Berlin | AG Charlottenburg | HRA 8089 Komplementärin Satz-Rechner-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH Sitz Berlin | AG Charlottenburg | HRB 4905 Geschäftsführer: Walter Fock
Received on Friday, 8 June 2012 16:37:44 UTC


text:
How climate won in 2021 elections
In early May, a series of elections took place across much of England and Wales. Some communities voted for local councils, others voted for their metro mayors and Wales voted to elect members of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament).
For a campaigning organisation like Friends of the Earth, they're a key opportunity to push for commitments on climate from our decision makers.
In the run up to the elections, our incredible grassroots network worked tirelessly in their regions, organising 36 election hustings and meeting 1:1 with candidates to secure action on climate.
Meanwhile, we centred our public campaign in England on highlighting the importance of metro mayors and and asking supporters to contact their mayoral candidates.
The importance of metro mayors
Metro mayors have the power to improve the lives and livelihoods of communities across the region and help tackle the global climate emergency.
Almost 12 million people across eight English regions have a metro mayor, meaning the elections impacted a significant percentage of the population.
In April, we launched an e-campaign action asking metro mayoral candidates to sign up to our Climate Action Pledge, no matter their political persuasion. With the help of our network in Wales, we also ran a similar campaign directed at Senedd candidates.
Thanks to our supporters, over 5,500 emails landed in candidates' inboxes. Those emails, and the amazing work by our grassroots groups, prompted some fantastic results.
The results
- Half of all candidates standing in the metro mayoral and London mayoral elections took our Climate Action Pledge.
- Of those that took the pledge, six are now the elected mayors of their region. In other words, six out of the total eight metro mayors promised to deliver Climate Action Plans in their region.
- All of the mayoral candidates in West of England took the Climate Action Pledge, ensuring whoever ended up in post would be held to account on climate.
- In Wales, 112 Senedd candidates took the Climate Action Pledge. Of those that pledged, 25 were elected to Senedd. That means well over a third of the Senedd (which has 60 members) pledged to prioritise climate.
What next?
We'll be holding those elected to their climate commitments across both England and Wales.
You can help now by joining with us and asking metro mayors to do two things within their first 100 days in office:
- set up a green jobs taskforce for young people
- meet with regional campaigners to talk through a proposed Climate Action Plan for the area.
Creating green jobs underpins climate action, and creating opportunities for young people is vital to recovery from COVID-19.
The Metro Mayor for West of England has already committed to this goal. Will you join us and make sure leaders of other regions do the same?


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Bus Driver Catches 7 Year Old Girl From 3 Story Fall [VIDEO]
A bizarre story comes from New York, where a bus driver was able to save the life of a 7 year old girl who fell from a 3 story window. She was dancing and jumping on a window air conditioning unit when she inevitably fell. The bus driver was able to catch her. Sources say she was a child with special needs.The man who caught her is a 52 year old bus driver, father of four, and his name is Saint Bernard. I guess he lived up to his name.


text:
News from Corel this week that they have just released a mid-version update for their end-to-end video editing software suite, VideoStudio.
Most editing software makers release a major version each year and supplement that version with intermittent hotfixes and patches throughout the year until the next version is released.
For a couple of years now Corel has been doing things a little differently.
Just so we are all on the same page, a hotfix is generally a small update to the existing version that is issued when a specific bug has been isolated and reproduced enough times to qualify as a bug.
Very often hotfixes are released because despite everyone's best efforts someone managed to do something or have a computer setup that wasn't foreseen.
On top of hotfixes we also have patches.
Patches or Service Packs are generally issued after the program has been released into the wild for a while and various little niggles have arisen.
They are often the result of outside factors changing such as file protocols, operating system updates and other hardware and software glitches.
The fixes for these are gathered into one update and issued as a patch or a Servise Pack.
Corel used to do this just like everyone else but over the past few years have added a little mid-year bonus to the arrangement.
So the announcement this week was that VideoStudio Pro has been updated from version X9 to X9.5.
They have added 40 more templates to the MyDVD module to enhance the creation of professional looking DVD menus and screens.
The Motion Tracking module has had the underlying engine enhanced to improve its performance as well as the usual fixes for other bugs and glitches that may have come to light.
Additionally they have made significant improvements to the Multi-Cam editing module (not that it really needed it) with smoother zooming performance, better synchronization of clips and a new source manager to make using it easier.
The important thing to note here is that none of these enhancements have been introduced because the existing module or function wasn't working.
Corel could have just sat on them until the new version release much later in the year… but they didn't.
This goes a long way in understanding why I like this software and why it has been one of my top choices for a few years now.
Pinnacle Studio Back from the Dead
One of the things that a lot of people have commented on regarding this site is that I haven't included a number of well know video editing software brands in the Video Editing Software Reviews section of the site.
Probably the biggest elephant in the room is Pinnacle Studio.
Given the sheer size of the Pinnacle Studio market share one would think that it would be a no brainer for me to include it here.
So here's the deal.
When video editing became accessible to the masses with the advent of digital video files there were a few early software makers that jumped on the bandwagon and started development.
Most of these developers saw the market as being strictly for the pro's given that at the time you needed access to expensive equipment to record the files and a computer with a decent amount of grunt to then edit them.
As a result the major players tended to aim their products at the pro end of the market and this gave rise to products like Avid , Creative Software's editor that later became Sony Creative Vegas, Adobe's Premiere Pro and others.
There were a few developers that attempted to approach the subject from the consumer point of view and easily the most successful in that market was Pinnacle Studio.
Now just because everyone bought that early software doesn't necessarily mean it was any good.
In fact it was awful!
The great difficulty for Pinnacle was that it was in a new and very rapidly developing digital area.
The Windows operating systems of the time were barely able to deal with a whole range of required processes and really, it was a case of everyone stumbling around trying to make it all work.
As the years passed more competitors entered the market, Windows improved significantly and very soon Pinnacle found itself falling behind.
The answer to that mainly lies in the fact that Pinnacle was based on concepts derived from the world of professional film editing which was a far cry from the market they were targeting.
It was an attempt to kind of "dumb down" existing methods rather than approach the subject from the perspective of the target market.
Sony did the same thing when they tried to develop a simpler version of Vegas for the consumer market and it wasn't until they separated Sony Move Editor into it's own development stream that they made any real progress.
Pinnacle also suffered from a lack of resources to aggressively redevelop the underlying code of the software to match the ever changing environments in which it was operating.
The result of all of this was that Pinnacle became known as being buggy, crashy and notoriously unreliable.
In the past I have revisited the software a few times to check what the state of it was and found that nothing had really changed all that much with it.
So that's why it has never made it on to this site.
A few years back Pinnacle was bought by Avid and I am guessing that Avid could see the potential in the consumer end of the market and figured Pinnacle would be a good foot in the door for them.
In hindsight this was a pretty dumb move because in order to get Pinnacle up and running it was always going to take two major factors.
First of these was that the software needed to be fully stipped down and rebuilt.
This takes time and money and I don't think Avid were either in a position to do it or had the desire to do it.
The second factor was that the abovementioned stripping and rebuilding would have to be done with a sharp insight into the consumer market as opposed to the pro market.
Avid clearly did not have this and just buying an existing piece of software is not going to get that expertise for you.
Simply put it was a deal that was doomed from the outset.
Cut to a few years later when Avid had realized the error of their ways in buying Pinnacle and along came Corel ready to snap it up, which they did.
The acquisition of Pinnacle from Avid by Corel happened back in 2012 so it has been with some interest that I have been following their progress with the software.
Initially Corel looked to be engaging in putting out brushfires with their various new releases and patches for the software most likely in an effort to get it stable.
What they were also doing at the same time was swapping out parts of the software and replacing it with whole sections of their already stable VideoStudio product.
To this day Pinnacle still shares a some of its functionality with VideoStudio.
It was probably around the time of their last new version that something became quite clear about how Corel were going to be moving forward with it.
Some major rewrites occurred and most importantly the style of the software was continuing to remain the same.
This showed the Corel saw Pinnacle as a product unto itself and were not going to be eventually merging it and it's user base into their existing VideoStudio user base.
Because of that and because of the substantial development in the software has undergone I have decided to take a fresh look at Pinnacle Studio to see where we are.
Right now they are lining up for a major new release so when that happens I'll be taking a look at it with fresh eyes and we shall see just we we are with Pinnacle.
Stay tuned!
6 Elements of Boosting Engagement in your Online Community
There was a time way back in the dark ages of the interwebs that all you had to do to get a gazillion views and followers on YouTube was to actually make a video and upload it.
Sadly those days are long, long gone!
These days YouTube has grown into an absolute behemoth as far as the number of uploaded videos goes and the rate at which new video is being uploaded doesn't look like slowing down any time in the foreseeable future.
YouTube is just not what it was back in the day!
This certainly doesn't mean that the rewards available from that service are completely out of reach but it does mean you have to be bringing your A game to the party to get anywhere.
There is a finite list of things you simply must attend to in order to lift yourself in the ranks of "everybody else!"
To get above that level, which is where you need to be you have to cover that exact same list with the difference being that you do it better.
This applies to the content you create, the way you present it, your video and channel optimization and your promotion.
You not only have to do it, you have to do it better.
One aspect of this that is becoming more and more important as time passes and the volume of videos increases is engagement.
If you have a million (not an exaggeration) possible videos that YouTube can serve up to a user based on a search then YouTube has to find a way of sorting them all out into some kind of importance.
It used to be that your optimization steps would do the trick but now that probably only eliminates about 500,000 of those results!
So now we still have 500,000 to sort so YouTube has placed particular attention on how much interaction your videos and your channel are getting to work out who goes on top.
One of the best sources of information I know of for learning the ins and outs of YouTube is Tim Schmoyer of Video Creators and this week's video is no exception.
Learning Camera Basics for Video
To a very great extent most of us in the world of the amateur video shooter and editor are trapped in point and shoot mode.
This is mainly through necessity rather than a lack of desire to do otherwise.
The average person shooting video these days does not have the luxury of time to set up a shot, adjust the manual settings of the camera and still get the footage they want.
You can do this possibly to a small degree for some shots at family events or similar but let's face it, most of the time we are just banging away in point and shoot mode in a desperate attempt to get enough footage to be able to later piece something together.
This doesn't necessarily mean that you should give up on the idea altogether though! In fact if you can manage to grab some manually setup footage and incorporate it into your auto stuff you can really get a lift in the appearance of any project you are engaged in.
The key to being able to do this is that you have to know at least a few basic settings and setups and you need to know how to arrive at them fast.
If you can pull someone aside at an event or gathering and do a fast accurate take of a conversation, or a simple shot or someone answering a question you are well on the way.
Of course as I said earlier, the key to it is being fast and in order to get fast you need to be able to manually set things up and execute with seed.
There are two steps to doing this.
The first step is knowing cold what the basic manual settings are of the camera you are using and what effect each one achieves.
And the second is practicing over and over how to get to those settings, lock them in and set up your shot.
Below is a link to a video cheat sheet from Tom Antos covering some of these things.
You don't have to learn all of them before you start.
Just take one setting.
Understand what it does and then go out and practice shifting from Auto mode to manual, getting the setting right and then getting the shot.
Once you get one under your belt, move on to another and another.
Pretty soon you will have a little box of tricks that can take your videos from mundane point and shoot projects up to a higher level.


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Dave & Ed Sheeran sit down to talk about High School, Music and Racism
24 Mar 2019
Ed Sheeran and Dave have sat down for a new episode of Love Music Hate Racism to discuss each others high school experiences, music and racism.
With the recent success of Dave's debut album Psychodrama which went to No.1 in the charts. Both artists disagree with the structure of school. But also reflect on how they educate the masses with the use of their music. Dave mentioned that he tries to educate people through the use of his storytelling within his music.
They both also discuss impacts on how to help slow climate change, saving the planet as well as how the world is changing overall.
Listen to the insightful interview below.


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Terror Squid
There is no hope
There is only
Rich May
The concept is simple, mastery is not. Unlike traditional Bullet Curtain games, you have to not only track the bullets you leave behind, but you have to do it wrapped around an ever rotating sphere.
The soundtrack is phenomenal, providing a driving beat with which to navigate with, yet maintaining a sense of tranquility as you swim around the play field. All of this adds up into a game you can lose yourself in for hours, and come back for more.


text:
This book was one of the few I first purchased when beginning my walk with herbs and natural healing. The introduction clearly states that herbs are a useful medicine, with Avila and Fetrow explaining why this is so, backing up their opinion, and stating why herbs have been turned away from.
Regrettably, their opinion seems to change once you actually read past the introduction.
95% or more of the book is a standard reference, listed alphabetically by herb. Every herb is discussed very, very briefly - this is a minimal reference guide at best. A paragraph is devoted to the herb, then a list of its use, then side effects, then the ending warning. That's it, really. It seems more like this is an herb-warning book than an actual herbal, as the bulk of the page will consist of cautions/warnings/contradictions, and not actual use of the herb.
Amusingly herbs are mentioned that every herbalist knows not to take without being extremely experienced, as the plants are poisonous. This book does not really mention that, instead making it appear like people and herbalists use these poisonous plants all the time and shouldn't. When it is recommended that an expert be consulted, very rarely does it say, "consult your herbalist or naturopath". Instead it's primarily "consult your physician."
I echo the reviewer who states they list any possible side effect, like 1 in a billion. You can read side effects here that won't be mentioned anywhere else, no matter how long you look. They also don't seem too fond in listing that some of these side effects are extremely rare, or common in almost every pharmaceutical drug out there – such as nausea, headache, - or that the symptoms can be mild. Even herbs which list almost zero side effects, WITH research listed that backs them up, they still find a way not to recommend it! They may say, while research shows this moderately works and is generally safe, you can try a prescription drug that works better. Seriously! It's a no win situation! To top even this off, they state in many herbs that no research exists, while I know for a fact there are studies out there.
Sometimes wording is effective brain washing. The first herb mentioned, Aconite, is toxic. It has been used by people in the past to commit suicide, as has every other poisonous substance. Yet they did not word it that way. Instead, "In fact, this herb was once used as a poison in arrows and has been linked to many suicides." Linked how, as in causing them? Is this a warning against the herb, as if the suicides are the herbs fault? Even in Aloe Vera, they say that studies indicate Aloe may be useful for healing, but are quick to point out in the same sentence that studies aren't well documented. And of course the standard follow up with the FDA recognizing the herb as generally safe, but not recommending it for any condition.
In the beginning of the book under general precautions, they state that one should not take any herb during pregnancy and that one should not take any herb for any serious condition. It would difficult to find many herbalists, homeopaths, naturopaths, or other natural care providers who agree with the above statements. Books have been written on pregnancy and childbirth involving herbs alone, and research really HAS been done. Claiming they shouldn't be used for any serious condition is dismissing them as folklore, right up front, intended only to try on mild, harmless sniffles and bruises. It creates a mind set; a subtle one, but still a mind set.
I didn't get the recommendation to never take an herbal cocktail, as they call it, where more than one herb is in a formula. They claimed experts don't know how herbs mix. (?) Which experts? Surely not experts who study phytomedicine or other non-biased research in combining herbs. As most pharmaceutical companies seem to be trying to push to promote 'drug based herbs' they can have control and profit over, standardization is recommended in products bought. For some strange reason, it also says not to buy products over the internet, in magazines, brochures or broadcast media. Do they think Walmart grows and does their own herbs, or other natural stores? From my experience, most of the "supplements" sold in those places are the lesser quality found anywhere.
The book finishes with a few indexes of natural health supplements, including royal jelly, bee pollen, shark cartilage, etc, and recommends not to use any of these. One of the biggest slaps in the face was their stating on bee pollen never having conclusive research; it is amazingly simple for anyone to type in the words bee pollen research, or something similar, and pull up countless supportive studies.
Sadly, this book is written by pharmacists and it shows. If the pharmacist were not bias, I would welcome his/her contribution, but this is - again - not the case. It almost seems like people are hired by the drug companies to pen herbals to subtly sway people away from seeking out natural healing remedies. This should be one of the bibles for those kinds. One of my favorite things to look forward to in an herbal is personal experience a clinician has had, and of course none is found here. I would doubt the authors use many herbs at all.
All this being said, there are redeeming points here and there on this book. Some of the side effects really do exist and it is nice to see a book not run from listing a potential reaction of an herb. Some books praise plants so much they almost seem afraid of listing real contradictions and issues that can be found with them. This book also discusses a very large amount of herbs, a welcome change from those that discuss "30" or less. Each herb had a great wrap up, listing other names it's known by and commercial products it is sold as. AND, finally, the book is very reasonably priced.
If you are interested in herbs and just starting out, I recommend a much less biased book, something that's actually fair and not so one sided. This one doesn't go into enough detail on any herb - what it does and why, or any credible personal usage - and it doesn't take the time to explain much else. It's a good reference for those who are looking for a list of side effects and precautions, and that already know a little on herbs and have other herbals lining their shelves, but that's it as a bare minimum.


text:
I got back from church today feeling a bit flat- which is not normally the way I'd normally feel.
I always leave church feeling fired up in my spirit and raring to go but I was abit distracted today.... distracted by my greed for more- I just want so much more!!! I don't want to be a nominal Christian, to have to occasionally be wary of the "evil in the world"- I want the evil in the world to BE WARY OF ME! I WANT TO BE POWERFUL!!!
As in, I want this so much, I sometimes wonder if it's a normal desire other people have.....
I yearn for the gifts of the Holy Spirit- just the way we were asked to in the bible- I actually REALLY yearn for it- I want a gift, JUST ONE WILL DO- understanding tongues, gift of knowledge, wisdom, of distinguishing between spirits, of healing, of miraculous powers, of prophesy- as in, I want one NOTABLE gift!
I've pondered on this on many occasions and realise that it's not enough to yearn for it, you need to back up your desire with Dedication- to God and to his Word, Determination- to put in the work that needs to be done to attain these spiritual heights, Obedience- to God and to His Word and total Commitment- to this desire. Again, I instinctively "know" what I need to do to get there, or at least I reckon I do, but then, how long before the cares of the world take precedence over these godly desires? Normally by the next hour or the next day, depending on how strongly I am feeling the divine call. I have often wondered if the first step to this would be taking a bold step of faith and going on a 40 days and 40 nights fast? I hear that major step launches people out into their ministry- I actually think about this alot! But then, I tend to move the possibility of undertaking such a fast into the future....
Some people who "know" me might laugh to think me wanting spiritual gifts and thinking I might have a calling but, to be quite honest with you, I have felt for a long time that I might have a certain calling BY GOD- I'm just not sure what it is for ( I had to put "By God" in capital letters because I heard a strange story recently very close to home about a lady- a wife and a mum- who suddenly began to act mysteriously and when we asked what was wrong, we were told that, "they said she has CALL". I remember we were dazed and asking the same question for a good 2-3 mins, " we don't understand, CALL for WHAT na? Is it altar call or is it- what is it?" Before we were told it was mammywater call.... Issorait.... moving on...). If not, how do I explain alot of things that I've been through? How do I explain some of the strange happenings and seeming bondages God has continually delivered me from? I truly think I must have a calling to be a GREAT woman of God..... I'm not bluffing.
Through all of the times I'd toed the wrong path, why have I always retraced my steps to God?
My mum has always said something to me, she says, "Ihe oma na ihe ojo no n'ime gi na agba mgba mana nke oma ga emeririli!".
Translation: the good and the bad in you are wrestling to gain control over you but the good must SURELY win!
For as long as I can remember, I was seen as a baddo for reasons I couldn't explain- from my young adolescent years. I just felt something was wrong with me, that I wasn't good enough- I was told I was the blacksheep from as early as 7 years old ( and way before that age ), that I was a failure at 11- infact, I'd just had it drummed into me over and over that I was the "bad" daughter- probably because I did the wrong things to be fair- but this belief followed me everywhere from my primary school to secondary school- don't get me started on my University years! However, in my junior secondary years, after I had mistakenly stayed through a protestan/pentecostal service, I felt something I'd never felt in all of my few years struggling to "get into" the cathoic fevour- I felt at peace, I cried as I worshipped and I felt a release! Amazed at the seniors and even juniors speaking in tongues, I watched in awe and wanted it. That didn't last long but that began my relationship with the pentecostal church and their mode of worship- it resonated with my spirit!
Since then, it's truly been a struggle between my good and "the bad" self- just as my mum rightly observed. I began to realise this with time and the realisation kept growing until I "knew" for myself that I actually had two active sides and, depending on which was fed, I was that which grew from being fed. I was good at being bad and good at being good- but I often struggled with my conscience when I was bad and this is where I believe the depression I've been said to suffer from actually came from. Hence, it is often baffling for anyone who saw me in my "bad state" to reconcile that "me" to the "good" me should they see me a couple of years down the line, it's like, "Honey, you've got a personality disorder thing going on! #sideeye", lol. My dear, it is the calling of God continually dragging me from the wrong path- no try to think am too much, just accept am as I tell you.
Often I tell God, "If you really want me, why not just show me a sign that I can believe 100%? A burning bush? A talking donkey? Or has it happened and I'm just not paying attention?....".
I do believe I have a calling from God.
Only time will tell.
Have a great week ahead my friends and I pray you achieve what you set out to do this week.
Stay blessed!
Love Always,


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Cedar Rose Int. Services Ltd is ISO 27001 certified. Find out more details
The following Cedar Rose Int. Services Ltd Website Terms of Service Agreement (the "Agreement") is between Cedar Rose Int. Services Ltd (the "Company") and the "Client" commencing on the "Effective Date".
WHEREAS, the Company is in the business of development, supply and operation of products and services relating to business intelligence and information; and
WHEREAS, the Client wishes to obtain or have access to products and services offered by the Company;
WHEREAS, this Agreement contains the Company's terms of engagement;
NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the mutual covenants and agreements herein contained, the Company & the Client hereto, intending, to be legally bound, agree as follows:
"The Company" or "Company" means Cedar Rose Int. Services Ltd a Company organised and existing under the laws of The Republic of Cyprus, under the number HE 205517 with its head office located at: Office 2A, Floor 2, Omiros & Araouzos Tower, 25 Olympion Street, 3035, Limassol, Cyprus.
"The Client" or "Client" "You" or "Your" means any natural person, or legal entity firm or company purchasing the goods or services supplied by the Company through its' website.
"The Agreement" or "Agreement" means the Cedar Rose Website's Terms of Service Agreement herein agreed between the Company and the Client for the sale of goods and/or services offered by the Company and governs the use of the website www.cedar-rose.com
"Effective Date" is the date the Client agrees to the Cedar Rose Int. Services Ltd Website Terms of Service through the Company's Website which is clearly and conspicuously presented on the Company's Website including on its homepage and prior to the Client registering in order to obtain and or have access to the Company's Data, Company's Products and Services Provided by the Company and or purchases, acquires, utilises, downloads, procures, commissions or instructs the Company to provide the Client with information, data, products and or services offered by the Company through the Company's website and via email through the website or as otherwise agreed with the Company in writing.
"Initial Term" means the period of one year starting on the Effective Date of this Agreement.
"Data" or "Services Provided" or "Company's Products" mean information viewed, accessed or made available to the Client, such as reports (including sample and trial), products or services offered and delivered or made available to the Client including business intelligence and information services and reports provided electronically by email, API or other means - or by fax or otherwise via prior agreement of both parties. Agreement to purchase goods or services is acceptance by the Client of the terms under this Agreement.
The "Company's Website" is www.cedar-rose.com or any other sub-domain hosted under cedar-rose.com domain including cris.cedar-rose.com, news.cedar-rose.com, api.cedar-rose.com etc.
The Company adheres to and makes every effort to conform to and to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulations also referred to as the GDPR. The Company will process personal data on individuals representing or employed by the Client in relation to the execution of this Agreement. The Company gives the rights to individuals whose data is processed by the Company in relation to this Agreement to be accessed, rectified, erased and objected to by contacting the Company's Data Protection Officer on email@example.com. For the purpose of this clause, personal data include name, email address, telephone numbers, postal or physical address, browser cookies, Internet Protocol (IP) address and other data which could directly or indirectly identify an individual.
Each Party undertakes that it shall not at any time disclose the other Party's employees or
representatives' personal data to any third party except as permitted under this Agreement or to the extent necessary for the proper performance of this Agreement or if required by law.
By signing this agreement The Client confirms and agrees to the following:
Using the online payment facilities on the Company's Website indicates that the Client has accepted this Agreement. All payments received by the Company via its online payment facilities through the Company's Website are subject to the following conditions:
Where agreed and in writing with the Company, billing by the Company occurs
The Company provides the ability on its Website to make prepayments on account which entitle the Client to carry out free company report downloads and/or obtain discounts. These prepayment Packages are subject to the following conditions:
The Company provides the ability on its Website to purchase Packages which entitle the Client to carry out PEP, Adverse Media and Sanction checks on individual and business entities. These prepaid CR COMPLY Packages are subject to the following conditions:
The Client may terminate this agreement by giving the Company a 90 days written notice at any time and will be liable for all work fees incurred up to that time. The Client shall not be entitled to cancel an order once accepted in whole or part, except by prior agreement with the Company.
Unless otherwise agreed in writing these conditions within this agreement shall prevail over any conditions stipulated by the Client.
The Company reserves the right to decline to trade with any other company or person. In the event that the Company declines to accept an order in respect of which payment has been received, the full amount of such payment will be refunded.
Any prices quoted may (unless otherwise stated in a quotation) be varied by the Company in accordance with cost variations.
The Client has 5 working days from the invoice date; to inform the Company of any discrepancy in the quality or quantity of the Company's Product or Products supplied to them.. Working days are The Company's working days which are Monday to Friday, from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm EET.
When and where maybe applicable, the amount of the invoice should be received in full by the Company, free of international transfer charges or any other deductions by the Client's bankers or any intermediary bank or financial intermediary.
The amount of the invoice should be received in full by the Company, free of international transfer charges or any other deductions by the Client's bankers or any intermediary bank.
The copyright in any Data provided to a Client is and remains the property of the Company. The Data may not be copied, distributed, sold, reproduced, licensed or dealt with in whole or in part without the prior written consent of the Company. All use of the Company's Data shall be accredited with the Company's moral rights.
The Company will not be liable for any delays or non-performance of its obligations under this Agreement directly or indirectly if such delay or non-performance is due the lack of adequate instructions from Clients, an act of God, fire, earthquake, explosion, accident, acts of public enemy, terrorist acts, war, strikes, work stoppages, slow-downs, boycotts, rebellion, insurrection, sabotage, epidemic, quarantine restrictions, transportation embargo, change of law or governmental regulations or requirements, unavailability of resources and other causes (whether or not similar in nature to any of those herein before specified) beyond the Company's reasonable control. If a delay or failure of a Party to perform its obligations is caused by, or anticipated because of, Force Majeure, the performance of that Party's obligations will be suspended.
All the terms and conditions of the present Agreement are to be conceived as essential and any of the Parties, which violates any of the above terms and/or conditions, and/or any of the Parties which fails and/or neglects and/or omits to comply with any of the said and/or provisions, shall be subject to payment of compensation and/or damages to the innocent party, and/or to any other remedy provided by this Agreement.
If any provision of this Agreement shall be declared void, invalid, or illegal, the validity or legality of all other provisions of the Agreement shall not be affected thereby.
Except as otherwise provided in this Agreement, all notices, demands and other communications hereunder shall be in writing and shall be delivered personally or sent by other electronic means or internationally recognized overnight courier service addressed to the party to whom such notice or other communication is to be given or made at such Party's address as set forth below, or to such other address as such Party may designate in writing to the other Party from time to time in accordance with the provisions hereof, and shall be deemed given when personally delivered, when sent electronically or 3 business days after being sent by overnight courier. For email notice to be effective, the sender must also request to receive a read or delivery receipt confirming delivery or receipt of the email or a reply to the email.


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This Bible can read the Bible to you, works without internet, and is loaded with 60,000+ study notes, Strong's Hebrew and Greek lexicons, definitions from multiple resources and more!
Touch Bible is so inexpensive. It's a lot of app for a tiny price!
** Audio Bible + Reading Plan**
Touch Bible's Audio Feature reads the Bible to you right out of Dial-a-Verse. You can start reading from any verse you pick. This feature can help you read through the entire Bible! (Please see the disclaimers below on the Audio feature, it needs free 3rd party android system components to work.) Use the Audio Bible with the reading plan to finally read the entire Bible in less than a year!
** Offline Study Bible **
60,000+ study notes and Strong definitions in Touch Bible will help you get more out of the Bible anywhere you go! It is more than a Bible reader, it gives you tools to help you comprehend what you are reading. You'll love ALWAYS having access where ever you go to the following:
- Many English versions: New English Translation, King James, World English Bible and American Standard included - No internet required!
- Multi-Version - see two versions of the Bible on one screen!
- 60,000+ NET Bible study notes
- Instant access to definitions from Strong's Concordance
- Instant definitions include information from combined resources:
+ "Strong's Lexicons" (Greek and Hebrew)
+ "Brown, Driver, Briggs Lexicon" (BDB)
+ "Theological Word Book of the Old Testament"
+ "Thayer's and Smith's Bible Dictionary"
+ "Kittel"
- Easy search, bookmarks, verse notes
- An interface that is so simple you'll be reading in no time
- Keep your own notes
** Strong's Lexicon **
What is a Lexicon? It is like a Bible dictionary. The words in the Bible have been numbered, and those numbers (Strong numbers) are tied to definitions from the original languages of the Bible. There was a time when it took several books or special, "numbered" bibles to connect these numbers to a definition. Not anymore!
Touch Bible makes looking up definitions easy. Click on a linked word in the KJV and you'll get so much information about the word. You can search for a Strong Number or look up a word for definitions or simply search for a word in and tap the word in scripture for the definition.
** More Benefits **
Touch Bible makes getting to scripture easy. It was made to be very easy to use. Here are a list of the features in Touch Bible that give you fast access to the bible:
- Dial a Verse: Touch Bible's way of looking up scripture FAST
- Search: Very Fast & intelligent keyword search with verse preview & many search options
- Bookmarks: Includes Verse Preview!
- Readability: spread out words, adjustable font sizes
- Night Mode: for reading in low light situations
- Online Study: Thousands of articles on topics about the Bible.
- Feel richly blessed by the biblical knowledge others have passed down.
- Install it to the SD Card
** Touch Bible Free **
Just need a Bible without the extra study content? Try Touch Bible Free. It is not watered down, not a demo app and not a downgrade. It's an app for God's word the way it should be... free, no ad distractions in the bible, and no need to be plugged in to the internet.
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â? TouchBible.com/speech
It is recommended you verify text-to-speech works before you buy. Audio Bible features work on most devices out of the box, but there is no guarantee it will work on your device. It needs the free, 3rd party, "Google TTS" engine. Touch Bible does not offer support for 3rd party components or apps.
Touch Bible Makes it easy to get Text-to-Speech:
Check to see if TTS is installed - If you see "Google TTS" or PICO somewhere in your device's settings, your device should be ready to read! Otherwise, Touch Bible will try to install it for you - but again there are no guarantees your device can support Google TTS. You can also try the guide at touchbible.com/speech to manually install it.
Performance Improvements
Audio Bible Improvements â? - touchbible.com/speech
Shop your favorite products and we'll find the best deal with a single click. Designed to make shopping easier.


text:
Allow yourself to dream. Give yourself permission to follow the path your heart has always wanted you to take!
Starting a journey to a new you and a life of freedom can be difficult. I'll not only give you the guidance that allows you to understand the process, but we'll work through whatever is holding you back from achieving your dreams.
No matter what life gives me, I choose to live in JOY. Are you ready to become who you were meant to be? Join me on a journey to live your best life! There are a variety of ways to get there, and I can help you in many ways, including:
• Physical concerns – overall health or weight
• Emotional issues – coaching you through them
• Spiritual interests – from Dream Coaching to group events
Click here to learn about all the ways to Love Your Life!
Are you feeling stuck?
Watch my "M.O.V.E." program, and learn 4 simple ways to "get unstuck". As your certified Dream Coach, I'll lead you to achieving your wildest dreams.
I have arrived at my destination – real happiness. But like you and everyone else, I am still growing, learning and expanding. I'm grateful for every step – and misstep – along the way. It's my truest hope and purpose in life to inspire you to do the same, to be true to yourself and stand in your own power!
Watch the short M.O.V.E video here.
Follow your dreams. Contact me today to get started.


text:
This isn't so much of a setting as it is a set, a small, defined area that can be dropped into any fantasy campaign setting with little to no adjustment. Other "campaign sets" off the top of my head include the City of Freeport, Mongoose's Cities of Fantasy series, and even Planescape's Sigil. Feel free to add other sets if you think of them(*).
Project Needs
- Roleplaying Worldbuilders to flesh out and create locations and characters.
- Artists and Cartographers to provide inspiration and map the valley, settlements, and encounter areas.
Project Participants: Propagandroid, Xagyg, [Ketherian]
Scourwind* Valley is an isolated region surrounded by states that have been warring for almost a century. It is a mystery(*) how the fertile, trail-laden valley has managed to escape the attention of the armies that cross the mountains each spring, but they are untouched by the devastation that a century of warfare brings.
What I'd Like to See
Let's develop this valley…the story, the locations, the people, and the adventures. I think it would be awesome to do this in a modular fashion, so that each new entry stands alone but is also tied into the Valley somehow. Interlinking elements can call out those links in the blocks. Here is an example of each type of element and the block format I'd like to use (as with everything, feel free to make suggestions as to how to change or add to these):
Story Element: Peace in the Valley
Scourwind Valley is under a self-imposed curse of its own. A local hero made a pact with what he thought was an angel of good, but turned out to be a demon, that has saved the valley from the surrounding wars. Three generations of the Valley's denizens were born monsters in human form, and after 100 years the monsters would take over their human hosts. The characters are of the first non-monstrous generation, and they're about to get a big surprise.
Adventure Seeds: How will the characters eventually discover this? In time to stop the reversion, or when they suddenly find themselves in a valley filled with monsters? *
- Could the characters have monstrous blood, giving them access to greater powers?(*)


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Yoko Nagayama (長山洋å Nagayama YÅko; born January 13, 1968) is a Japanese enka singer and actress.
Yoko was born in Tokyo. She started her career singing pop music in 1984. The first song she released was Haru wa SA-RA SA-RA (春ã¯SA-RA SA-RA), but it did not become famous. Her cover version of Shocking Blue's Venus finally brought her success in 1986. Her next song You're My Love was also a hit.
Jidaigeki fans know her for her role as OchÅ in the 1990 television series Sanbiki gi Kiru.
In 1993, she started a second career as an enka singer, a kind of melodramatic Japanese popular song. She received three prizes for her first enka song Higurashi(蜩). Suterarete(æ¨ã¦ã'‰ã'Œã¦) also became famous.
In 2003, she released Jonkara Onnnabushi(ã˜ã'‡ã'"ã‹ã'‰å¥³ç¯€). On TV or in her concerts, she sings this song with her shamisen, a three stringed Japanese music instrument.
She regularly presents enka programmes on Japanese TV.
This content from
Wikipedia is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article Yoko Nagayama


text:
As the school year gets into full-swing, adults, children, and families are returning to their old routines. The time for rest, vacation, and fun has ended and replaced by schedules, homework, and responsibilities. For many practical reasons, the adjustment from summer vacation to the school year is very difficult; however, underlying these difficulties is an experience of being thrown back into a reality that was put aside while on summer vacation.
Summer vacation is a wonderful time to 'unplug' from one's daily responsibilities and enjoy all the things that life has to offer. Rest and relaxation are essential and help us to face new challenges and responsibilities. A tricky aspect of summer break, however, is that this vacation can also serve as an escape from emotional and life challenges that we were dealing with prior to the summer. Children may have been dealing with difficulties in school, college students may have been struggling with relationships and friends on campus, and adults may have been overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility on their plates. When these stressors are removed, people feel better—the issue, though, is that these problems were never dealt with but just pushed to the future. Now that life has returned to its old routine, reality can be a painful and overwhelming experience as people find themselves, once again, facing the same struggles.
Unfortunately, feelings don't take a summer vacation and we cannot escape the problems that we are facing. My perspective is that the only way to overcome a problem is to face it or else it finds us at some other time in the future. This is easier said than done and can be a frightening thought. Through a therapeutic relationship, however, you or your children will have an opportunity to work with someone who is interested in your well-being and skilled in helping you to overcome the challenges you face. Over time, life, which once seemed overwhelming, will be easier to navigate and summer vacation will be enjoyed rather than needed.
If you notice yourself sad, anxious, or overwhelmed with the start of the school year, I encourage you to contact me or visit my website to learn more about how I can help you.


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The wine is made from Kangun grapes grown in the vineyards of Ararat valley.
It's a smooth, crisp and full-bodied wine with a rich bouquet and citrus aroma.
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Air is the ocean we breathe. Air supplies us with oxygen which is essential for our bodies to live. However, human activities can release substances into the air, some of which can cause problems such as smog, acid rain, the green-house effect, and "holes" in the ozone layer. Each of these problems has serious implications for our health and well-being as well as for the whole environment. Therefore, preventing air pollution is not only the duty of an individual but also the responsibilities of all people who are living in this earth.
First of all, we need to take a closer look at the various types of air pollution and the effects that they have on people so that we can find out some solutions for air pollution.
When people think about air pollution, they usually think about smog, acid rain, CFC's, and other forms of outdoor air pollution. But do you know that air pollution can also exist inside homes and other buildings? It can, and every year, the health of many people is affected by chemical substances present in the air within buildings.
In the United States, we spend about 80-90% of our time inside buildings, and so our exposure to harmful indoor pollutants can be serious. Therefore, it is important to consider both indoor and outdoor air pollution.
Smog is one type of large-scale outdoor pollution. It is caused by chemical reactions between pollutants derived from different sources, primarily automobile exhaust and industrial emissions.
Cities are often centers of these types of activities, and many cities are now suffered from the effects of smog, especially during the warm months of the year.
Another consequence of outdoor air pollution is acid rain. When a pollutant, such as sulfuric acid combines with droplets of water in the air, the water (or snow) can become acidified. The effects of acid rain on the environment can be very serious. It damages plants by destroying their leaves, it poisons the soil, and it changes the chemistry of lakes and streams. Damage due to acid rain kills trees and harms animals, fish, and other wildlife.
The Greenhouse Effect, which is also referred to as global warming, is generally believed to come from the build up of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is produced when fuels are burned. Plants convert carbon dioxide back to oxygen, but the release of carbon dioxide from human activities is higher than the world's plants can process. The situation is made worse since many of the earth's forests are being removed, and plant life is being damaged by acid rain. Thus, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is continuing to increase. This buildup act makes a blanket that traps heat close to the surface of our earth. Changes of even a few degrees will affect us all through changes in the climate and even the possibility that the polar ice caps may melt. (One of the consequences of polar ice cap melting would be a rise in global sea level, resulting in widespread coastal flooding).
Ozone depletion is another result of pollution. Chemicals released by our activities can affect the stratosphere, one of the atmospheric layers surrounding earth. The ozone layer in the stratosphere protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) from aerosol cans, cooling systems, and refrigerator equipment removes some of the ozone It causes "holes" to open up in this layer, and allows the radiation to reach the earth. Ultraviolet radiation is known to cause skin cancer and has damaging effects on plants and wildlife.
And last but not least, indoor air pollution also has great effects on people's health. Many people spend large portion of time indoors – as much as 80-90% of their lives. We work, study, eat, drink and sleep in enclosed environments where air circulation may be restricted. For these reasons, some experts feel that more people suffer from the effects of indoor air pollution than outdoor pollution.
There are many sources of indoor air pollution such as tobacco smoke, cooking and heating appliances, vapors from building materials, paints, furniture, and so on. They cause pollution inside buildings. For example, radon is a natural radioactive gas released from the earth, and it can be found concentrated in basements in some parts of the United States. Thus, pollution exposure at home and work is often greater than outdoors. The California Air Resources Board estimates that indoor air pollutant levels are 25-62% greater than outside levels and can pose serious health problems.
So far, we have already had some sketches about various types of air pollution. And now, it is also important to know how air pollution can hurt our health.
Air pollution can affect our health in many ways with both short-term and long-term effects. Different groups of individuals are affected by air pollution in different ways. Some individuals are much more sensitive to pollutants than are others. Young children and elderly people often suffer more from the effects of air pollution. People with health problems such as asthma, heart and lung disease may also suffer more when the air is polluted. The extent to which an individual is harmed by air pollution usually depends on the total exposure to the damaging chemicals, that means the duration of exposure and the concentration of the chemicals must be taken into account.
Examples of short-term effects include irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, and upper respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Other symptoms can include headaches, nausea, and allergic reactions. Short-term air pollution can aggravate the medical conditions of individuals with asthma and emphysema. In the great "Smog Disaster" in London in 1952, four thousand people died in a few days due to the high concentrations of pollution.
Long-term health effects can include chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and even damage to the brain, nerves, liver, or kidneys. Continual exposure to air pollution affects the lungs of growing children and may aggravate or complicate medical conditions in the elderly. It is estimated that half a million people die prematurely every year in the United States as a result of smoking cigarettes.
Today, research into the health effects of air pollution is ongoing. Medical conditions arising from air pollution can be very expensive. Healthcare costs, lost productivity in the workplace, and human welfare impacts cost billions of dollars each year.
Now, we have known that air pollution could causes extreme effects on human beings and the whole environment. Therefore, it is very important to know what is being done.


text: Richard Foster is a well established photographer who is increasingly branching out into moving image. This ad for Tom Ford is typical of his work, based on carefully constructed stills and a lot of post. The track is actually a library track by David O'Dowda. Re-edited, arranged and embellished by Toby for the ad.