text:
BS&T Survey: Banks Take to Cloud Computing
How strongly do some bankers feel about cloud computing? "We will never buy another data center," said Michael Harte, CIO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, in an April speech to the Committee for Economic Development in Australia.
"We will never buy another rack or server or storage device or network device again," Harte continued. "I will never let any organization that I work for get locked into proprietary hardware or software again. I'll never tell my teams in the business that it will be weeks to get them hardware provision. I'll never pay up front for any infrastructure and certainly would never pay for any, or rent any, infrastructure that I would never use."
[Ed. Note: Contrary to a rash of media reports in May, though, Sydney-based Commonwealth is not forming a cloud-buying consortium with Bank of America and Deutsche Bank. It is, however, a member of TeleManagement Forum's Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council and is in talks with Amazon about using its web services.]
Harte's comments encapsulate the two clearest benefits of cloud computing for banks: the ability to buy computing capacity, storage, network bandwidth, etc., on demand -- paying only for what's used, rather than buying hardware or software up front or paying a preset annual subscription fee; and the speed and ease of provisioning and managing hardware and software when you tap into a true internal or external cloud.
In fact, in a recent survey of 186 banking technology professionals conducted by Bank Systems & Technology and InformationWeek Analytics we asked bankers who expressed an interest in cloud computing why they care. The majority -- 73 percent -- pointed to the ability to meet user demands quickly and achieve scale in the cloud.
"That's agility," comments Alan Boehme, SVP, IT strategy and enterprise architecture, at ING Americas. "The bottom line is that cloud provides a lot of agility within a reasonable cost structure, which should in turn allow the organization to provide services to its business lines faster. The business can in turn create new products and services quickly and grow the top line. At the same time, the virtualization aspect of the cloud should drive costs down."
Many banks see cloud computing as a way of bringing new capabilities to market quickly, with a variable cost structure, adds David Boyle, a senior executive and technology expert in Accenture's financial services group. "Folks are looking at the infrastructure they use for development and testing, and they're looking to access and leverage lower-cost environments they can tap into via cloud," he says. According to Boyle, one of Accenture's North American bank clients recently mandated that all application development and testing be done through its virtual environment, so it can provision infrastructure in hours rather than weeks.
But not every banker is convinced of the benefits of cloud computing. Nonetheless, our research shows that the majority of bankers are testing and researching cloud environments and are intensely interested in seeing what cloud concepts might accomplish for their IT organizations and the businesses they serve.


text:
Northern delights: Delta Diner's burgers are one-of-a-kind experience
Ted Peck, Special to The Gazette
October 9, 2013
Bucher's iconic Delta Diner now draws clientele from hundreds of miles in all directions.
"I could not let Delta die," Bucher said while pressing a thick patty of ground steak against the sizzling grill. "This town used to be a railroad hub back in the day when loggers entered the forest with two-man saws and double-bit axes. Today, the footprint of man is covered primarily with freshly fallen leaves."
Bucher said all that while putting the finishing touches on a "Hosni," one of the diner's signature burgers.
It is a Monday. The Delta Diner serves hamburgers only on Mondays. It is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays so the effervescent staff can rest up to offer jalapeno pancakes and similar gastronomic delights bright and early every Thursday morning.
"We only do hamburgers on Monday to ensure residual auras from food like sausage or bacon has no influence on the final creation," hostess Jen Rossman said.
"The steak is ground less than an hour before we open the door on Monday morning," she added. "Buns are baked fresh several times on Monday."
Deciding which burger might satisfy is a study in metaphysical torment as Rossman coos intimate entrée details from memory. She realizes that my wife, Candy, and I are overwhelmed and suggests a malt or shake to help us ponder the possibilities.
A rich chocolate malt is delivered, crowned with a cloud of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry stem begging for harvest. Two straws protrude from the crafted glass like rabbit ear antennas, with the frosty contents that would not fit in the glass waiting at table's edge in a stainless-steel carafe.
Candy looks across the table and smiles. It's date night again after 42 wonderful years of marriage.
Jen returns with a broad smile, knowing we are ready to order. I go with the Hosni, which arrives with fresh cremini mushrooms nestled in a melted carpet of Swiss cheese.
Candy opts for the Chili burger. It arrives topless to taunt the taste buds with an intricate array of poblano and Anaheim peppers and a savory blanket of pepper jack cheese.
Our table has no condiments, and none are required. Ketchup and mustard could only offer desultory input on this party in the mouth. We also share a side order of deep-fried mac and cheese with homemade chipotle mayo dipping sauce.
Our conversation is limited to eye contact and contented throaty sounds for the next 20 minutes. Then Jen returns to tempt us with pie, which is also baked at the Delta Diner several times each day.
The aroma of fresh pie trumps input from our overfilled bellies. We opt for a single slice of salted caramel apple. It arrives a la mode, with another cloud of whipped cream to balance the plate and two forks.
Candy mentions something about the "best meal ever." I smile with the knowledge that the love of my life is content.
A Mustang convertible with Michigan plates pulls into the parking lot from County H as we leave the Delta, drinking in the peak fall color in the cool, blue north. We wonder if this 1965 classic has been on the county road for a while or has just turned left after passing through a canopy of brilliant oak and birch trees on Delta-Drummond Road, which beckons off Highway 63 north of Hayward.
We talk with fellow travelers who come in from the other direction. They say the drive from Duluth, Minn., along Lake Superior is unbelievable, but eating at the Delta Diner is the highlight of their day.
Inside his silvery cocoon of a restaurant, I know Bucher is smiling as he crafts another of his 300 hamburgers, each of which will brighten someone's day. He has built it. They have come. His lifetime dream is realized.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Modification of sales conditions
See example of business letters |
This is a type of business letter in English language that companies send to customers, agents and distributors in international markets. It can be sent by postal mailed or, more usually, by e-mail in digital format. This letter sample is written using a characteristic language of international business in a way that manages to offer a professional and formal image of the sender. The letter template is in Word format so that you can add the names of the sender and recipient, describe products, indicate dates and deadlines, insert paragraphs, edit text, signatures, etc. The language of this letter is English. It is also available in Spanish. |
4,00 €


text:
Key Question: Generally, do any of these teams have a chance of "pulling a Pittsburgh" and going from Wild Card Weekend all the way to a Super Bowl win? (My take: The Pats are always in that conversation until you see their losing score with your own eyes, and the Eagles going all the way would be so hilarious and disruptive -- because of the Garcia-McNabb factor -- that I could easily imagine Philly finally winning the Super Bowl... when their fans least expect it.)
More questions:Chiefs at
Cowboys at Seahawks: Which team has even LESS momentum than the other? Do the Cowboys fold? Do the defending NFC champs get bounced? PICK: SEAHAWKS.
Jets at Pats: Can protege beat mentor? Can we please stop hearing about the protege-mentor relationship? PICK: PATS
Giants at Eagles: Does any team deserve to win this game less than the Giants? Does any team deserve to win this game more than the Eagles? PICK: EAGLES
What do you think: Key questions? X-factors? Storylines to watch? I'm much more interested in your analysis than mine. -- D.S.


text:
Rescue Stories
Pets Health
Written By A Cop: Take A Minute Out Of Your Day To Read These 10 Important Tips
You don't need to look very far to find something dangerous in life. It's unfortunate, but it's the world that we live in. Some of us are all too aware of the dangers that exist outside of the home and we fear the day that they may cause us harm in some way or another. It happens when we have to rub shoulders with other people or anytime we are out in public. The reality is, there are many violent people out there that are angry and will put an end to your life without even thinking a thing about it. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to deal with one of these people, there is no need to panic. Just use these tips and stay alive: 1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do : The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do! 2. Learned this from a tourist guide. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you… Chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION! 3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy.. The driver won't see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives. 4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.
If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, Repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead, gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it. As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location. 5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage: A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat. B.) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars. C.) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.) 6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!) 7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; and even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably in a zig-zag pattern! 8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well-educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked 'for help' into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim. 9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her 'Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.' The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, 'We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.' He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night. 10. Water scam! If you wake up in the middle of the night to hear all your taps outside running or what you think is a burst pipe, DO NOT GO OUT TO INVESTIGATE! These people turn on all your outside taps full blast so that you will go out to investigate and then attack. Everyone should take 5 minutes to read this. It may save your life or a loved one's life.


text:
What Are Gastrointestinal Infections?
Diarrhea, which is characterized by frequent and watery bowel movements, is often caused by gastrointestinal infections, although it can also come from other illnesses or changes in diet. Germs such as parasites, viruses, or bacteria all can cause gastrointestinal (GI) infections.
Which germs are responsible for diarrhea depends on the geographic area a person lives in and its level of sanitation, economic development, and hygiene standards. For example, countries that have poor sanitation or use human waste as fertilizer tend to have outbreaks of diarrhea when intestinal bacteria or parasites contaminate crops or drinking water.
In developed countries like the United States, outbreaks of diarrhea are most often caused by what we call food poisoning. Food poisoning happens when toxins made by bacteria in food that is not handled, stored, or cooked properly make a person sick.
The viruses that cause diarrheal illness, also known as viral gastroenteritis, can pass through a household (or a college dorm or other place where lots of people live together) quickly because they're highly infectious. Luckily, the diarrhea usually goes away on its own in a few days. For healthy teens and adults, viral gastroenteritis is a common but minor inconvenience. But for small children and people with chronic illnesses, it can lead to dehydration that requires medical attention.
Many different types of bacteria and parasites can also cause GI infections and diarrhea. Most are not serious and go away after a few days, but others can be quite serious.
Common GI Infections
Here are a few types of GI infections that you may have heard about:
· Salmonella bacteria lead to between 1 and 5 million cases of diarrheal illness in the United States each year. These bacteria are a major cause of food poisoning and are frequently found in raw chicken or eggs.
· Shigella bacteria are highly contagious and spread easily from person to person. They attack the intestinal wall and may cause ulcers that bleed. Shigella infections account for more than 160 million cases of diarrhea around the world each year.
· E. coli bacteria are found in the bowel movements of people and animals. Some strains of the bacteria secrete a toxin that can be life threatening for small children and older people. Others can cause traveler's diarrhea, a milder infection. E. coli infections spread through direct person-to-person contact or contaminated water or food, such as undercooked beef in hamburgers or unwashed fruit that came into contact with animal manure.
· The Giardia parasite, which spreads easily through contaminated water and human contact, is another common cause of diarrheal infections in the United States. This parasite can spread in water parks and pools because it is resistant to chlorine treatment. Bathing in and drinking water from contaminated streams or lakes can also lead to an infection and chronic diarrhea. Infants in child-care settings often become infected with Giardia and can bring the parasite home, causing diarrhea in family members.
· Another parasite, Cryptosporidium, is a common culprit behind diarrhea epidemics in childcare centers and other public places.Cryptosporidium often causes watery diarrhea that can last for 2 weeks or more.
What Are the Signs and Symptoms?
Usually GI infections cause abdominal cramping followed by diarrhea. You may also experience:
· fever
· loss of appetite
· nausea
· vomiting
· weight loss
· dehydration
· mucus or blood in the stool
These symptoms typically last for a few days or longer. If your symptoms last for more than 2 weeks, however, you have chronic diarrhea. Call your doctor if you think that you have chronic diarrhea or if you see blood in your stool.
When Will Symptoms Appear?
The incubation period for a gastrointestinal infection can vary depending on the particular germ causing it. For example, theShigella incubation period is usually 2 to 4 days, but the period for viral infections ranges from 4 to 48 hours.
Parasitic infections generally have longer incubation periods, such as a Giardia infection, in which symptoms can take from 1 to 4 weeks to appear. Then, depending on the type of germ and the person's overall health, a diarrheal infection can last for a few days or a few weeks.
How Long Are GI Infections Contagious?
Diarrheal infections are highly contagious. They can spread from person to person via dirty hands, contaminated food or water, and some pets. Most cases are contagious for as long as a person has diarrhea, but some infections can be contagious for even longer.
Can I Prevent These Infections?
The most effective way to prevent contagious diarrheal infections is to wash your hands frequently. Dirty hands carry germs into the body when you do things like bite your nails or use your hands when eating.
It's important to always wash your hands with soap and water thoroughly after using the bathroom and before eating, especially if you know there's an illness going around. Making sure your bathroom surfaces are clean can also help to prevent infections.
Food and water can also spread germs that cause diarrhea. To help protect yourself, cook foods thoroughly and wash raw fruits and vegetables well before eating them. Avoid eating pink hamburgers or other undercooked meat, and always refrigerate leftovers quickly — your delicious turkey dinner can grow nasty bacteria after just a few hours of sitting on the counter.
Make sure your kitchen counters and cooking utensils are clean, too, especially after they've been in contact with raw meat, eggs, and poultry. Avoid eating food that's been left out for a few hours, even if it's been reheated, because toxins can still survive in the food.
If you're traveling or camping, never drink from streams, springs, or lakes unless local health authorities have certified the water safe for drinking. In some developing countries, you may want to stick to bottled water and drinks rather than tap water — and be careful about buying food from street vendors.
Pets, particularly reptiles, can also spread germs if they aren't kept away from family eating areas. Never wash pet cages or bowls in the same sink that your family uses to prepare meals. And always wash your hands after handling your pet!
Should I Call My Doctor?
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you can't prevent diarrheal infections. Tell an adult if you have diarrhea, fever, vomiting, or severe abdominal pain. That person can help you decide whether to call your doctor.
If you feel listless and your mouth and skin feel dry, or if your bowel movements contain blood or mucus, you should contact or see a doctor right away. You should also go to the doctor if you are vomiting so much that you can't keep down fluids or if your symptoms last more than 3 days.
How Are These Infections Treated?
Most infections that cause diarrhea, especially viral infections, will go away without treatment. Taking it easy at home and drinking plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration are the best ways to ride out the illness. If you do become dehydrated, you might need to go to the hospital for intravenous (IV) fluids to replace those lost to diarrhea, vomiting, and fever.
If you end up visiting your doctor, you may need to give a stool sample so he or she can find out what type of infection you have. Whether you need medicine will depend on which germ is causing the illness. If you have a parasitic infection, it will probably be treated with antiparasitic medicine to cure the illness.
Most GI infections caused by viruses and many bacterial infections do not need treatment, but someone with a weakened immune system who gets a bacterial intestinal illness may need to take prescription antibiotics to prevent the infection from spreading throughout the body.
What Can I Do to Feel Better?
You'll feel better if you stay well hydrated, so drink lots of water. In addition to fluid that is lost during bouts of diarrhea, electrolytes (sodium and potassium) are also lost and need to be replaced because the body cannot function properly without them. Try sipping broth or soup, which contain sodium, and 100% fruit juice (with no added sugar), which contains potassium.
When you feel ready to eat something more substantial, try soft fruits or vegetables, which also contain potassium. Avoid milk products and fatty, high-fiber, or very sweet foods until the diarrhea subsides, and don't drink sports drinks or soft drinks — although they contain electrolytes, their high sugar content may aggravate diarrhea.
As uncomfortable as diarrhea may be, it is usually short-lived. Drink enough fluids and follow your doctor's instructions, and usually you'll be feeling better in no time.
Source: http://kidshealth.org/teen/infections/intestinal/diarrhea.html#


text:
Ingredients :
230g rice flour
45g corn starch
840 ml coconut milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pandan paste
A few drops yellow and red colouring
For the syrup
280g castor sugar
250ml water
3 pandan leaves
1. Combine sugar, water and pandan leaves in a saucepan. Bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar. Set aside to cool.
2. Put rice flour, cornstarch and salt into a large mixing bowl. Pour in coconut milk mix well. Stir in syrup. Strain the batter to ensure it is free from lumps.
3. Divide batter into 3 equal portions. One add in the pandan paste (green), one in yellow coloring and one in red coloring. From each color portion divide into 3 equal portions (this will ensure you will get 9 layers of kueh)
4. Place a greased 8 inch tray in the steamer and heat up for 4–5 minutes.
5. Steam the batter layer by layer. Pour the 1st layer of batter on the heated tray. Cover and steam over medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until set.
6. Follow by the next color and steam for 2-3 minutes and then the next layer.
7. Repeat the procedure, alternating the color until all the batter is used up.
8. After the final layer is set, steam the kuih for a further 20 minutes.
9. Cool the kuih thoroughly before cutting into it.
I enter this kueh in Indigo Welcome To Wonderland 18th birthday blog party.
Note : For this Kueh you can use any color or as many layers as you like.


text:
Bee removal Kendall FL
Need Bee removal Kendall FL?
Proterra Pest Control, headquartered in Homestead, FL is a highly regarded pest control company in Miami-Dade County. Some of the services Proterra Pest Control provides include: rodent control, bug & insect control, birds & bats control, small animal control, and mosquito control.
Butch Gagnon is the owner and operator of Proterra Pest Control. When it comes to providing Bee removal Kendall FL, nothing takes the place of experience. Butch began working in pest control 20 years ago and started Proterra Pest Control in 2015.
Our goal is to provide Miami-Dade County clients with professional, high quality, and affordable services. People often choose Proterra Pest Control because we outwork the competition and win as a result. We work hard and play hard and believe life is to be fully enjoyed and appreciated. Life is short and we want to make our mark on our community while we can. We always do our best and produce more than our customers request or expect every time. Our team provides the highest quality service, materials, products and deliverables to our clients. Nothing is ever done halfway. Bee removal Kendall FL is always done to the very best of our potential.
We also believe our precious earth deserves to be protected. We only use people and pet friendly products to deliver Bee removal Kendall FL. The result, one of the most successful pest control companies in Homestead!
Bee removal Kendall FL
Just ask our customers! Here is what they have to say.
One happy client wrote, "My tech Mauricio came out today, he was very thorough and did a great job. Answered all my questions and was very professional. He took the time to talk to my neighbor as well about her concerns regarding the product and her aging dog. I love this service and recommend it to anyone! "
Another wrote, "Pests have always been an issue in my house, I've been to Home Depot and tried many home remedies but nothing works, then I tried Proterra and all of my problems have magically disappeared. Not only are there products organic, family friendly, and scent-less unlike other companies, it gets the job done. If there's any issues, they come back to make sure I'm fully satisfied. Proterra will always be my pest control company!! "
Need a reliable pest control service? Give us a try!
Call Today!


text:
Most Americans say they aren't directly affected by the shutdown. But some pockets of society, beyond furloughed federal workers and their families, are being severely hit.
We used NPR's social media network to ask about the impact and were deluged by messages from people who are worried and scared, especially veterans and the disabled, and many others who are angry and frustrated.
Small-business owner Michelle Detry in Albuquerque, N.M., says her consulting operation is "being decimated" by the shutdown. Students like Paul Nooney at the College of St. Rose in Albany, N.Y., say they can't get research done or financial aid forms completed because government databases — from the Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service to the National Science Foundation — have gone dark.
As for those who live paycheck-to-paycheck waiting tables, caring for children or providing adventures to tourists at the nation's shuttered national parks? Some face potentially devastating damage to their wallets.
Here are individual stories from across the country:
Background Check Bottleneck
Emergency medical technician Jennell Leveque is among those who have been unable to start new jobs because background checks, including fingerprint scans, aren't being processed by federal agencies. The company that hired her in Santa Clara County, Calif., "can't clear me until the government goes to work and does the background checks," she says. "I was on my last day of training after being unemployed for far too long, and now, because of the government, I still cannot earn a living."
Mission Failure
A rocket launch scheduled at the Spaceport in Truth or Consequences, N.M., was to be a grand experiment monitored by a documentary crew with cameras in the spaceship, and watched in classrooms by high school students. "This experiment was to verify that we could be able to send and receive [tweets] and other Wi-Fi capabilities during space launches that are going to take place more frequently from the Spaceport here in southern New Mexico — if Virgin Galactic has their way," filmmaker Philip Lewis told us. But the rocket touchdown area was going to be on federal land. Experiment aborted.
Career Program For Blind Suspended
For more than four decades, the World Services for the Blind in Little Rock, Ark., has partnered with the IRS to provide unique career training for blind or visually impaired adults, Melanie Jones of World Services tells us. Classes are on hold because the instructors work for the IRS, and a dozen currently enrolled students from around the country are sitting tight, waiting to hear when and if their program will resume. Jones sent us a YouTube video of the empty classroom hallways. She titled it, "It's Too Quiet Up Here."
Booze Backlog
"None of our spirits formulas or labels are getting approved!" Sarah Manski of Ascendant Spirits Inc. in Santa Barbara, Calif., lamented in a note to us. She was one of a number of brewers and distillers who told us the shutdown means that the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which handles such applications, isn't open for business. "Everything has come to a screeching halt," says David Monahan of Feisty Spirits Distillery in Fort Collins, Colo., "and our new product releases for the holidays is in jeopardy."
The Arts Go Dark
Tourists in Washington know that productions at the historic Ford's Theater have been suspended because of the shutdown, but innovative productions in other parts of the country have been scuttled, too. That includes the We Players performance of Macbeth planned for staging at San Francisco's Fort Point, a Civil War-era fortress under the Golden Gate Bridge. We Players, says artistic director Ava Roy, has worked since 2008 with the National Park Service, staging Hamlet on Alcatraz Island, and The Odyssey and Twelfth Night on historic ships. "We had to cancel numerous shows, which affects over 1,000 ticket holders and could easily mean financial collapse for our small, nonprofit arts organization," Roy tells us.
War Re-Enactors Shut Out
Adrienne Robertson, who works at the Library of Virginia in Richmond, says that beyond the potential of feeling the shutdown squeeze at work, she worries what will happen to Civil War re-enactors like her, who are in the middle of a cycle of 150th anniversary celebrations. "The closed parks mean a lot of commemorative events either will not happen, or will be severely underplayed," Robertson says.
Agricultural Uncertainty
What is this seed? How many people live in this county? What is the official definition of "free range" eggs? These are the kinds of questions Nicole Sanchez says she routinely gets as an area extension agent who works with commercial fruit and vegetable growers, and a local farmers market, in North Carolina. "There have been a wide variety of questions that I have not been able to answer for my clients because of the shutdown," Sanchez says, mainly because websites like the one run by the U.S. Agriculture Department are shut down. "I have been very frustrated with this situation because it seems so unnecessary to shut down websites during this fiasco," she said, adding that she understands it's to prevent furloughed employees from doing work.
Fledgling Aviators Grounded
Did you know that the University of North Dakota has one of the largest collegiate flight schools in the country? Troy Merritt at the university says that students wanting to obtain the required certificates and ratings before getting their degrees in aviation have to take written exams issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. "Due to the government shutdown, we are not allowed to take these tests, and, as a result, the issuance of these airman certificates has been halted," Merritt says, adding that research he's been doing for an advanced aerodynamics class also has been hampered by the shutdown of NASA's website.
Telemarketer Bonanza
Brendan Bell of Elk Grove, Calif., tells us that he's seen a spike in telemarketing calls since the government shutdown. When he went online to list his number with the federal do not call registry, he found this notice: "Due to the Government shutdown, we are unable to offer this website service at this time. We will resume normal operations when the government is funded."
Less-Healthy Eating
You could say this could count as a ripple-down effect: James Erard, whose wife is a furloughed National Institutes of Health primate behavior researcher, has turned her off-work attention to baking — "practicing for the holidays," she's told her spouse. Erard, of Frederick, Md., reports: "My consumption of baked goods has increased exponentially."
Final Words
We'll give these to Christopher Dupee of Vermont:
"Of course the shutdown affected my life. The people I elected to act in my best interests have shirked their responsibility completely. The worst part of this is I have no recourse. I cannot fire my representatives. I cannot hold anyone liable in court. I can only wait until November and hope enough other people are as angry about this as I am."
The next congressional election is November 2014, when all House seats and a third of the Senate seats are up.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
NEW YORK - Somebody hacked Burger King's Twitter account on Monday, posting obscene messages and changing its profile picture to a McDonald's logo.
The tweets stopped after a little more than an hour, and Burger King said it had reached out to Twitter to suspend the account. A Twitter spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message left on Monday.
Late Monday, Burger King tweeted: "Interesting day here at BURGER KING, but we're back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!"
Burger King, which usually tweets several times a week, typically does so to promote sales on chicken sandwiches, or to ask questions such as how many bites it takes to eat a chicken nugget.
But just after noon (midnight Singapore time) on Monday, someone tweeted via Burger King's account, "We just got sold to McDonalds!"
They also changed the icon to rival McDonald Corp.'s golden arches and the account's background picture to McDonald's new Fish McBites.
About 55 tweets and retweets followed over the next hour and a quarter, including some that contained racial epithets, references to drug use and obscenities.
The account tweeted: "if I catch you at a wendys, we're fightin!" Monday's appropriation of Burger King's Twitter account was a relatively mild example of cybersecurity problems, which are causing increasing concern in Washington and for industry.
Media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have all said this year that their computer systems were breached, while several NBC websites were briefly hacked in November.
White House officials and some lawmakers are pursuing legislation that would make it easier for the government and industry to share information on how to defend against hacking.
Burger King didn't know who hacked the account, and no other social media accounts were affected, said Bryson Thornton, a spokesman for Miami-based Burger King Worldwide Inc.
Its social media team and an outside agency manage the Twitter account, but Thornton declined to say how many people knew the account's password. He said they hope to have it working again soon, and will post a statement on Facebook later Monday apologising for the tweets.
Twitter acknowledged on Feb. 1 that cyber attackers may have stolen user names and passwords of 250,000 users. It said at the time that it notified users of the breach.
Competitors were sympathetic.
McDonald's responded on Twitter that it empathized with its Burger King counterparts. "Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking." "My real life nightmare is playing out" on Burger King's twitter feed, wrote Wendy's social media worker Amy Rose Brown.


text:
Cee Lo Green sentenced to community service after pleading no contest to giving woman ecstasy
By Anthony McCartney
LOS ANGELES _ Cee Lo Green has pleaded no contest to one felony count of furnishing ecstasy to a woman during a 2012 dinner in Los Angeles.
The Grammy-winning singer entered the plea during a brief court hearing on Friday. He also entered a special plea in which he maintained his innocence in the case.
Superior Court Judge Mark Young sentenced the 39-year-old singer to three years of formal probation. Young said Green, whose real name is Thomas DeCarlo Callaway, will be allowed to travel for work.
Green entered the plea just before a preliminary hearing, which would have disclosed potential evidence against him, was scheduled to begin.
Prosecutors rejected a rape charge against Green when he was charged with the felony drug charge in October 2013. His attorney Blair Berk has said Green had consensual sex with the woman he gave ecstasy to during the 2012 dinner.


text:
Send good wishes to a loved one or a friend with this funky ecard.
Please subscribe if you enjoyed this video. Pi day has come and gone again, a whole...
On Pi Day, send hugs, infinite in number, just like pi.
With this cute ecard, send your hugs, infinite like pi!
Make a loved one or a friend feel happy with this cool ecard.
A wish on Pi Day for someone who is special in infinite ways.
A cute wish on Pi Day.
On Pi Day, wish infinite good times, just like pi.
Greet your near and dear ones with this ecard.
Send this ecard to friends to cheer up their day.
A fun ecard to wish your friends/ loved ones.
Wish a Pi Day full of infinite smiles.
Click a smile on your friend's face with this ecard.
Happy up your friend/ family/ sweetheart with this cute ecard.
This Pi Day, send infinite smiles with this cute wish.
Please wait...
Please wait...
Get a weekly dose of stories on friendship, love, misadventures and special offers. It's free, read it once and you're hooked!
Read the latest newsletter or Editor Bob's Blog


text:
Hussein Chalayan was based around the idea of a mirage, though that fact was no MIRAGE as the sunglasses said, "MIRAGE". Dad jokes! In all seriousness, because this is serious business, as things always are around here, I first thought it was sort of arbitrary, but the more I looked through it and thought about it the more it made sense, and the fact that it was hard to understand at first only made me like it more. And made it more, of course, like a mirage. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, MR. CHALAYAN.
There were binoculars stuffed up with shearling and leather, hazy nebula-like prints, foggy sheer fabrics, and crocheted jackets that only half-covered the top part of the body. Without the concept, the clothes didn't seem to flow from one look to another too well, but I don't think a Hussein Chalayan collection can be viewed without knowing that there has to be a concept, anyway.
The "mirage" sunglasses reminded me of New Year's Eve sunglasses, in a good way.


text:
Continue reading for all the delicious new content, including info about Nami, a new Varus skin, a better look at the upcoming Nidalee visual update, more on the preseason item update, a tour around the new HUD/Shop UI, details on the complete set of new mastery changes, and SO MUCH MORE!
Our upcoming support champion, Nami, is currently making a splash on the pbe.While she is missing her splash arts and release skin ( Koi Nami ), she is fully available for resting and, if I must say, quite fun.
Kit + Ratios:
- (Q - Hydro Blast) Sends a bubble into the air towards a targeted area, when it lands deals 75/130/185/240/295 (+0.75) magic damage to all enemies in the area of impact and encases them into bubbles. Enemies hit by the bubble are lifted into the air and stunned for 1.25/1.25/1.25/1.25/1.25 seconds before being dropped to the ground. [Cost: 65/65/65/65/65 Mana] [Cooldown: 16/14.5/13/11.5/10] [Range: 825.0]
- (W - Surging Tides) Unleashes Surging Tides that alternates between allied and enemy champions.On Ally Hit: Heals for 50/80/110/140/170 (+) and will bounce to a nearby enemy champion.On Enemy Hit: Deals 50/90/130/170/210 (+0.5) magic damage, and bounces to any nearby allied champions.Can only bounce to each target once, hits up to 3/3/3/3/3 targets. [Cost: 60/75/90/105/120 Mana] [Cooldown: 9/9/9/9/9] [Range: 0.0]
- (E - Aqueous Empowerment) Empowers an allied champion for 5/5/5/5/5 seconds or until they have attacked 3/3/3/3/3 times, their basic attacks deal 25/40/55/70/85 (+0.2) bonus magic damage and slow the target hit by 15/20/25/30/35% for 1/1/1/1/1 second. [Cost: 55/60/65/70/75 Mana] [Cooldown: 11/11/11/11/11] [Range: 0.0]
- (R - Tidal Wave) Summons a Tidal Wave outward from Nami's position. The Tidal Wave briefly knocks up enemies that it comes in contact with and slows them by 60/65/70% and deals 150/250/350 (+0.8) magic damage. The slow duration increases based on how far the Tidal Wave has traveled, with a minimum duration of 3 seconds and a maximum of 5/5/5 seconds. [Cost: 100/150/200 Mana] [Cooldown: 150/130.5/110] [Range: 2200.0]
New Skins
A new skin for Varus hit the PBE, although it is missing several particles ( as you will notice in the video ) and is not yet available for testing.
Nidalee Update
The previously announced Nidalee Visual update has hit the PBE, although a few of the skins are missing textures.
Item Reworks
The massive item overhaul is also wrapped up in this patch. If you would just like an overview of the changes, I'd suggest you check out Morello's earlier post, if not here is a list of items and prices, a gallery of item screen caps, and a video of some of the new effects/particles.
Here is the list of item prices and Names
Most items got changed in some way or another. Here is enourmous gallery of all the items, arranged by gold cost. It's sloppy but I would recommend using the image above to help guide you.
Lastly, here is a brief video preview of many of the new item effects / particles. I forgot to put Malady in there, whoops!
New Shop & New HUD
Threw up a short video showing them both off, complete with me sounding like an idiot. Enjoy!
Mastery Changes
Lots of new stuff here, especially in the utility tree. I wasn't sure the best way to do this so here is an IMGUR album with screen caps and a text version.
- Summoner's Wrath: Exhaust lowers targets MR/Armor by 10, Ignite gives +5 AD / AP when on CD, Ghost speed increased to 35%, Allied Garrisoned turrets deal 50% splash damage.
- Fury: + 1/2/3/4% attack speed
- Sorcery: + 1/2/3/4% CDR
- Butcher: + 2/4 damage to minions.
- Deadliness: + 3/6/9/12 AD at level 18 ( .17 AD per rank per level )
- Blast: + 4.5/9/13.5/18 AP at level 18 ( .25 AP per rank per level )
- Destruction: Increase damage to turrets by 2.5/5%
- Havoc: Increase damage by 0.67/1.33/2%
- Weapon Expertise: 8% Armor Pen
- Arcane Knowledge: 8% Magic Pen
- Lethality: + 2.5/5% Critical Strike Damage (5%/10% for melee champs)
- Brute Force: + 1.5/3 AD
- Mental Force: + 1.5/3/4.5/6 AP
- Spellsword: deals 5% of your AP as magic damage in each autoattack
- Frenzy: Grants 10% attack speed for 2 seconds after landing a crit hit.
- Sunder: +2/4/6 Armor Pen
- Archmage: +1.25/2.5/3.75/5% bonus AP
- Executioner: Increase damage by 5% to targets below 50% health
- Summoner's Resolve: Increases the duration of Cleanses disable reduction by 1 sec, Heal grants +5 champion HP per level, +10 gold on smite use, increases Barrier amount by 20
- Perseverance: up to 2/4/6 health regen per 5 based on missing health
- Durability: + 27/54/81/108 health at level 18 ( 1.5 hp per rank per level )
- Tough Skin: reduce damage taken from monsters by 1/2
- Hardiness: + 2/4/6 armor
- Resistance: + 2/4/6 MR
- Bladed Armor: Deals 6 damage to any enemy monster that attacks you
- Unyielding: Reduce damage taken by champions by 1/2
- Relentless: Reduce effectiveness of slows by 7.5/15%
- Veteran's Scars: +30 health
- Safeguard: Reduce damage taken from turrets by 5%
- Block: Reduce damage taken from champion basic attacks by 3
- Tenacious: Reduces the duration of crowd control effects by 5/10/15%
- Juggernaut: Increase your max health by 1.5/2.75/4%
- Defender: + 1 armor and MR per nearby enemy champion
- Legendary Armor: + 1.25/2.5/3.75/5% armor and MR
- Good Hands: Reduce time spent dead by 10%
- Reinforced Armor: Reduce damage taken from critical strikes by 5/10%
- Honor Guard: Reduce damage taken from all sources by 3%
- Summoner's Insight: Grants bonus health on Revive for 2 min, reduces teleport cast time by .5 sec, reduces cooldown of flash by 15 seconds, increases Clarity's mana restore by 25%, Grants additional vision of enemy units revealed.
- Wanderer: + 0.66/1.33/2% MS when out of combat
- Meditation: +1/2/3 mana per 5
- Improved Recall: Reduces cast time of recall by 1 sec and improved Recall by .5
- Scout: Wards gain 25% increased vision for the first 3 seconds
- Mastermind: Reduces the cooldown of Summoner Spells by 4/7/10%
- Expanded Mind: + 72/126/180 mana at level 18 ( +4 per rank per level )
- Artifacer: Cooldown of activated items are reduced by 7.5/15%
- Greed: +0.5/1/1.5/2 GP10
- Runic Affinity: +20% buff duration
- Strength of Spirit: + up to 1/2/3 HP per 5 for each 400 points of mana you posses
- Biscuiteer: Start the game with a regenerative biscuit that restores 80 health and 50 mana over 10 seconds
- Wealth: Increase starting gold by 25/50
- Awareness: increase experience earned by 1.25/2.5/3.75/5%
- Vampirism: +1/2/3% lifesteal and spellvamp
- Explorer: On Summoner's Rift, grants a ward at the start of the game that can be placed to reveal the surrounding area for 60 seconds. On all other maps, +25 starting gold
- Pickpocket: +3 gold ( ranged)/+5 gold melee for each basic attack against an enemy champion has a 5 second cooldown
- Intelligence: +2/4/6% CDR
Nimble: +3% MS
Here are examples of the removed terrain mentioned in Morello's patch notes.
Rune Changes
Runes are getting reformatted to basically be named after whatever they do. Save for penetration ( in lieu of item changes ), stats have not changed.
Balance Changes
Every champion has had their movement speed increased by 25 to make up for the boot changes, just as was promised in Morello's post earlier.
Speaking of Morello's post ( for the millionth time; I'm so glad they gave us a set of notes this time ), here is the info he provided about the jungle changes.
- General
- Leashing has been changed
- Jungle monsters now attack the closest hostile target rather than chasing their original target until reaching their range limit
- Whenever jungle monsters switch targets it counts as a "leash" - the maximum amount of leashes after which jungle monsters will reset has been increased
- Jungle monsters now deal bonus damage to summoned minions
- Initial difficulty of all jungle camps has been increased
- Overall camp Health has been increased
- Camp difficulty and rewards have been re-distributed more into the large monster in each camp
- The largest monsters at each camp are generally more resilient but also hold most of the rewards
- Scaling difficulty and rewards of the primary jungle camps has been significantly increased
- Health and Attack Damage growth per minute significantly increased
- Gold and Experience growth per minute significantly increased
- Overall rewards have been re-distributed between the 3 primary
jungle camps (Wolves, Wraiths, Golems) to better match their difficulty
and convenience
- Wraiths are the fastest-respawning, most convenient camp and have the lowest rewards
- Golems and Wolves are more difficult and are worth more
- New jungle items have been added to the store and old jungle items have been adjusted
- Hunter's Machete - new jungle starting item that builds into Madred's Razors and Spirit Stone
- Spirit Stone - jungle item geared towards casters and tanks that has 3 upgrade paths
- Madred's Razors and Wriggle's Lantern have been modified to build out of Hunter's Machete
- The "Banking" system that caused jungle monsters that have stayed alive for a long duration to have slightly increased rewards has been removed
- Leashing has been changed
- Wolves
- Critical Strike damage bonus reduced to better normalize damage output
- Movement Speed slightly reduced
- Wraiths
- Reduced their vulnerability from enemies that engage them from outside of the camp
- Camp has been repositioned
- Big Wraith's Attack Range has been reduced
- Reduced their vulnerability from enemies that engage them from outside of the camp
- Golems
- Movement Speed and Attack Range increased to reduce vulnerability from kiting
- Magic Resist reduced to negative values
Viktor's Accidental Changes
Viktor erroneously received an addition upgrade for each of his Augments. Each upgrade furthers the selected stats / abilities and provides an additional effect for his ultimate, Chaos Storm.
Although it's not all good news! Solcrushed has already responded saying these are old iterations ( not current in the test cycle ) and are about 99% not what they would be pushed to live as.
"Uh oh.. this is part of one of my past versions of work on Viktor that got mixed into the chaos. Sorry for exciting you guys with something that's still a bit off. Viktor will not be different in the PBE.
He is still not going to come anytime very soon as he needs more work, but since you've seen this version feel free to give me feedback on them to utilize
Also, this version is broken, don't try denying it lol. I intentionally overtuned to see how the effects feel."
BIG THANK YOU to the multiple people who helped me with screen shots and stuff tonight <3.


text:
Drew Brees threw for 392 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Saints in a 49-17 drubbing of the Cowboys at the Superdome. Mark Ingram ran for 145 yards and a TD while Pierre Thomas added 87 yards and a score. Thomas also had a receiving touchdown while fellow running back Darren Sproles scored once on the ground and once through the air. The Saints recorded an NFL-record 40 first downs in the dominating triumph. Marques Colston had seven catches for 107 yards and a TD as New Orleans racked up 625 total yards and moved to 7-and-2. DeMarco Murray ran for 89 yards and a touchdown for Dallas, which managed just 193 total yards in defeat. Tony Romo threw for 128 yards and a touchdown to Terrance Williams. The 'Boys fell to 5-and-5, but still remains tied atop the NFC East with the Eagles.
social mediaArchives
November 2013
Authorthanks for checking out the site. email me at [email protected] |


text:
New York Times reports that Google's plans for a service that puts you in control of your health information start to take shape. This service could help you make more informed decisions about your health, get personalized recommendations from specialists and share this information with other people.
A prototype of Google Health, which the company has shown to health professionals and advisers, embodies the consumer-centered philosophy. The welcome page reads, "At Google, we feel patients should be in charge of their health information, and they should be able to grant their healthcare providers, family members, or whomever they choose, access to this information. Google Health was developed to meet this need."
A presentation of screen images from the prototype - which two people who received it showed to a reporter - then has 17 other Web pages including a "health profile" for medications, conditions and allergies; a personalized "health guide" for suggested treatments, drug interactions and diet and exercise regimens; pages for sharing information, receiving reminder messages to get prescription refills or visit a doctor, and pages to access directories for nearby physicians and specialists.
More about Google Health straight from the horse's mouth:
* Health care information matters - "Health information should be easier to access and organize, especially in ways that make it as simple as possible to find the information that is most relevant to a specific patient's needs."
* How do you know you're getting the best care possible? - "There is a lot of material out there about drugs, diseases, procedures and treatments. How do you know what is trustworthy and what isn't? Search is great at finding us places with relevant information, but it is hard to know which links are reliable and which are less so."
* Is there a doctor in the family? - "We have been talking to many medical experts to understand what the best guidelines are, and how we can determine which ones apply in different circumstances. If such guidelines were more available to patients, they might be able to, by inputting information such as age, gender or medications, learn about recommended screening tests and other preventive measures, or about harmful drug interactions."
* Some screenshots of the prototype.
{ The first screenshot is licensed as Creative Commons by Philipp Lenssen. The second image, where you can see Adam Bosworth (VP at Google and Google Health's architect), is licensed as Creative Commons by AlphachimpStudio. }


text:
The heart of effective quality management for any business is understanding and delivering products and services in line with clients' requirements, with maximum effectiveness.
Mining Quality, Health, Safety and Environment
Monitoring Volatile Air Toxins Through Canister Measurement Services.
One of the most reliable methods of testing for volatile organic compounds (VOC) in air is through the use of canisters.
ECBH will accurately assess your air quality through canister measurement services. For the confidence of knowing that your air passes the test, call our accredited team today.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted into from a number of sources – outdoor air, industrial processes, products and appliances, building materials and equipment. Many emissions are toxic and can build up in poorly ventilated areas, contributing to what is commonly called 'sick building syndrome'. Long-term exposure can have adverse effects on the health of your workforce, affecting your daily productivity and your annual profits. Some VOCs, such as chlorofluorocarbons, are banned or highly regulated for the quantities that employees can be exposed to in the workplace. To be confident you are meeting regulatory requirements and providing a safe workplace, trust us to manage an air monitoring program for you.
The best way to monitor VOCs is to collect air samples over a period of time using evacuated canisters. Canisters are easily transported, allowing for on-site sampling with laboratory analysis. They can be used to analyze multiple sites using exactly the same system, making it cost-effective for multi-site operations that require consistent solutions. Unlike other tests, this method reduces the impact of water vapor and this improves the accuracy of the results.
Our reporting documentation can be used to support regulatory checks and audits. As the world's leading inspection company, our accredited testing teams will take care of your environmental management plan for you, allowing you to carry on with your core business.
Our range of innovative, bespoke solutions could include better building design, improved ventilation and air conditioning indoors and emissions regulation in the outside work space. We will also support you with a sustainable maintenance plan to ensure a clean workplace for the future.
Contact us for a meeting today to take control of your workplace air quality.


text:
Hip Replacement Surgery
(Total hip arthroplasty, hip arthroplasty. Total hip replacement, Hip Replacement)
Procedure overview:
What is a hip replacement surgery?
Hip replacement, also called total hip arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure to replace a worn out or damaged hip with prosthesis (an artificial joint). This surgery may be considered following a hip fracture (breaking of the bone) or for someone who has severe pain due to arthritis.
Various types of arthritis may affect the hip joint. Osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that affects mostly middle-aged and older adults, may cause the breakdown of joint cartilage and adjacent bone in the hips. Rheumatoid arthritis, which causes inflammation of the synovial lining of the joint and results in excessive synovial fluid, may lead to severe pain and stiffness. Traumatic arthritis, arthritis due to injury, may also cause damage to the articular cartilage of the hip.
The goal of hip replacement surgery is to replace the parts of the hip joint that have been damaged and to relieve hip pain that cannot be controlled by other treatments.
A traditional hip replacement involves an incision several inches long over the hip joint. A newer approach that uses one or two smaller incisions to perform the procedure the procedure is called minimally invasive hip replacement. However, the minimally invasive procedure is not suited for all candidates for hip replacement. The physician will determine the best procedure for a person. Based on that individual's situation.
Joints are formed when bones meet. Most joints are mobile, allowing the bones to move without friction or discomfort. The hip joint is a ball-and socket joint, which allows backward, forward, sideways, and rotating movements. The ball part of the hip joint is the head of the femur (thigh bone) and the acetabulum is the socket, a cup-like structure in the pelvis.
A hip joint consists of the following:
Cartilage. A type of tissue that covers the surface of a bone at a joint. Cartilage helps reduce the friction of movement within a joint.
Synovial membrane. A tissue that lines the joint and seals it into a joint capsule. The synovial membrane secretes synovial fluid (a clear, sticky-fluid) around the joint to lubricate it.
Ligament. A type of tough, elastic connective tissue that surrounds the joint to give support and limits the joint's movement.
Tendon. A type of tough connective tissue that connects muscles to bones and helps to control movement of the joint.
Reasons for the procedure:
Hip replacement surgery is a treatment for pain and disability in me hip. The most common condition that results in the need for hip replacement surgery is osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is characterized by the loss of joint cartilage in the hip. Damage to the cartilage and bones limits movement and may cause pain. People with severe pain due to degenerative joint disease may be unable to do normal activities that involve bending at the hip, such as walking or sitting, because they are painful.
Other forms of arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis and arthritis that results from a hip injury, can also lead to degeneration of the hip joint.
Hip replacement may also be used as a method of treating certain hip fractures. A fracture is a traumatic event that may result from a fall. Pain from a fracture is severe and walking or even moving the leg is difficult.
If medical treatments are not satisfactory at controlling pain due to arthritis, hip replacement surgery may be an effective treatment. Some medical treatments for degenerative joint disease may include, but are not limited, to the following:
Anti-inflammatory medications
Glucosamine and chondrolin sulfate
Pain medications
Limiting painful activities
Assistive devices for walking (such as a cane)
Physical Therapy
Before the procedure:
Your doctor will explain the procedure to you and offer you the opportunity to ask my questions that you might have about the procedure.
You may be asked to sign a consent form that gives your permission to do the procedure. Read the form carefully and ask questions if something is not clear.
In addition to a complete medical history, your doctor may perform a complete physical examination to ensure you are in good health before undergoing the procedure. You may undergo blood tests or other diagnostic tests.
Notify your doctor if you are sensitive to or are allergic to any medications, latex, tape and anesthetic agents (local and general).
Notify your doctor if you have a history of bleeding disorders or if you are taking any anticoagulant (blood-thinning) medications, aspirin, or other medications that affect blood clotting. It may be necessary for you to stop these medications prior to the procedure.
If you are pregnant or suspect that you are pregnant, you should notify your health care provider.
You will be asked to fast for eight hours before the procedure, generally after midnight.
You may receive a sedative prior to your surgery to discuss rehabilitation.
Stop smoking, as smoking can delay wound healing and slow down the recovery period.
Lose weight if needed.
Perform conditioning exercises as prescribed to strengthen muscles.
Arrange for someone to help around the house for a week or two after you discharged from the hospital.
Based on your medical condition, your doctor may request other specific tests of examinations.
During the procedure:
Hip replacement requires a stay in a hospital. Procedures may vary depending on your condition and your doctor's practices.
Hip replacement surgery is performed while you are asleep under general anesthesia or sedated under spinal anesthesia. Your anesthesiologist will discuss this with you in advance.
Generally, hip replacement surgery follows this process:
- You will be asked to remove clothing and will be given a gown to wear.
- An intravenous (IV) line may be started in your arm or hand.
- You will be positioned on the operating table.
- A urinary catheter may be inserted (after you are asleep)
- The anesthesiologist will continuously monitor your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and blood oxygen level during the surgery.
- The skin over the surgical site will be cleansed with an antiseptic solution.
- The doctor will make an incision in the hip area.
- The doctor will remove that damaged parts of the hip joint and replace them with the prosthesis. The hip prosthesis is made up of a stem that goes into the femur (thighbone), the ball (head joint) that fits into the stern, and a cup that is inserted into the socket of the hip joint. The stem and cup are made of metal. The ball may be made of metal or ceramic. The cup has a liner that may be made of plastic or ceramic. The two most common types of artificial hip prostheses used are cemented prosthesis and uncemented prostheses. A cemented prosthesis attaches to the bone with surgical cement. An uncemented prosthesis attaches to the bone with a porous surface onto which the bone grows to attach to the prosthesis. Sometimes, a combination of the two types is used to replace a hip.
- The incision will be closed with stitches or surgical staples.
- A drain may be placed in the incision site to remove fluid.
- A sterile bandage or dressing will be applied.
After the procedure:
In the hospital
After the surgery you will be taken to the recovery room for observation. Once your blood pressure, pulse, and breathing are stable and you are alert, you will be taken to your hospital room. Hip replacement surgery usually requires an in-hospital stay of several days.
It is important to begin moving the new joint after surgery. A physical therapist will meet with your soon after your surgery and pain an exercise program for you. Your pain will be controlled with medication so that you can participate in the exercise. You will be given exercise plan to follow both in the hospital and after discharge.
You will be discharged home or to a rehabilitation center. In either case, your doctor will arrange for continuation of physical therapy until you regain muscle strength and good range of motion.
At home:
Once you are home. It is important to keep the surgical area clean and dry your doctor will give you specific bathing instructions. The stitches or surgical staples will be removed during a follow-up office visit.
Take a pain reliever for soreness as recommended by your doctor. Aspirin or certain other pain medications may increase the chance of bleeding. Be sure to take only recommended medications.
Notify your doctor to report any of the following:
Redness, swelling, bleeding, or other drainage from the incision site
Increased pain around the incision site
Numbness and/or tingling in the affected leg
You may resume your normal diet unless your health care provider advises you differently.
You should not drive until your doctor tells you to. Other activity restrictions may apply. Full recovery from the surgery may take several months.
It is important that you avoid falls after your hip replacement surgery because a fall can result in damage to new joint. Your therapist may recommend an assistive device (cane or walker) to help you walk until your strength and balance improve.
Making certain modifications to your home may help you during your recovery. These modifications include, but are not limited to the following:
Proper handrails along all stairs
Safety handrails in the shower or bath
Shower bench or chair
Raised toilet seat
Stable chair with firm seat cushion and firm back with two arms, which will allow your knees to be positioned lower than your hips
Long-handed shoe horn
Reaching stick to grab objects
Firm pillows to raise the hips above the knees when sitting
Removing loose carpets and electrical cords that may cause you to trip
Your doctor may give you additional or alternate instructions after the procedure, depending on your particular situation.


text:
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Long Shadow of AD&D
Now, as everyone knows, I was introduced into the hobby through the Holmes "blue book," which is an edited and pared down version of OD&D, even though, for marketing reasons, it sometimes presents itself as if it were an introduction to AD&D (it's not). Despite that, my friends and I eventually "moved on" from Holmes to AD&D anyway, as it seemed to be the only way to go. In 1980, which was our first full year of roleplaying, getting the AD&D Players Handbook was the only pathway to levels above 3 that was readily available to us. The Moldvay/Cook/Marsh sets were still a year in the future and, though we knew of the existence of the LBBs and supplements, for some reason none of us ever considered the possibility of using them in conjunction with Holmes. Plus, the PHB was a 128-page hardcover book selling for (I think) $12.00 , while Greyhawk or Blackmoor was half that length, softcover, and $5.00 -- hardly worth it in our opinions.
And so it was that we all became AD&D players. Or, rather, we became users of AD&D books to play Dungeons & Dragons. I honestly don't think we ever played AD&D using all of the rules it presented. I'm not talking about stuff like weapon speed factors (which we never used) or weapon vs. AC adjustments (which we sometimes). I'm not even talking about psionics, bards, unarmed combat, weapon proficiencies, or any of a dozen other rules that, in my experience, lots of gamers ignored, then and now. I'm talking about really basic stuff like initiative (has anyone ever used AD&D's version?), armor types (I still have trouble with "unarmored" being AC 10, not AC 9), and damage vs. different-sized opponents. AD&D's peculiar (to us, anyway) divergences from Holmes were honored more in the breach than in the observance.
Yet, if someone had asked us back then, we would have unanimously claimed to be playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, especially once Moldvay/Cook/Marsh was released, which we tended to look down on as "kiddie D&D," even as we bought them and the adventure modules associated with them. In our adolescent minds, AD&D was "a man's game," so to speak and we proudly carried about our Gygaxian tomes, even though we regularly ignored the man's actual words when it came to running our games. I don't imagine we were the only ones who did so. Indeed, as the years pass, I have become ever more convinced that very few people ever played AD&D as written, instead simply using Gary's books as source material to flavor games that were, in their essentials, far closer to the LBBs, Holmes, or Moldvay than what's presented in the three volumes released between 1977 and 1979.
I'd hazard a guess that more people entered the hobby through some "basic" version of D&D than directly through AD&D and yet it was AD&D that was the favored son at TSR. Some of this, I am sure, had to do with the disputes between Gygax and Arneson over OD&D, but that doesn't explain it all. As a younger person, when I thought of "D&D," I always thought of AD&D, an association I still haven't shaken to this day. It's not for nothing that I have an image from Dave Trampier's PHB cover on the masthead of this blog, for example. But, when I returned to old school gaming in late 2007, I never seriously considered playing AD&D despite my fondness for it. I found that I like a lot of the Gygaxian flavor of the game, but I preferred OD&D's presumed association with flexibility and open-endedness.
I don't think it can be denied, though, that, even amongst people who don't prefer AD&D over other versions of the game, it remains their mental "default" for imagining "Dungeons & Dragons." Why is it, for example, that we call WotC's current version "Fourth Edition?" That implies that AD&D is "First Edition" and that is what most people call it, including myself. Yet, in truth, AD&D isn't the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons and, to its credit, never claimed to be. The term "First Edition" arose only after the game's revision in 1989. Prior to its release in 2000, you might remember that there were references to "AD&D Third Edition." Even though WotC ultimately dropped the word "advanced" from the title, the company still called its new version "3e" or some variation thereof. The third edition of what? AD&D, of course.
Now, I actually think the name "Third Edition" is an accurate one. For all the ways in which D&D III differs from its TSR ancestors, it still retains a lot of ideas and even verbiage that can be traced directly back to Gygax's manuals (take a look at many of the spell and monster descriptions, if you doubt this). D&D IV, so far as I can detect, can make the claim far more tenuously (especially when it comes to verbiage), but WotC still promotes it as "Fourth Edition." Again, fourth edition of what? The game implicitly presents itself as a successor to Gary Gygax's Advanced D&D, not any other version of the game, even though it's now employing imagery not derived from it.
AD&D casts a long shadow over the subsequent history of Dungeons & Dragons. Every version of the game that has been released in its wake, from Moldvay/Cook/Marsh down to WotC's latest offering, is, to varying degrees, influenced by or reacting against it. It's a testament to its enduring power that, more than three decades on, AD&D remains as iconic as it does. I'm far from certain that that's a wholly good thing (I'm pretty sure it isn't), but there's no denying it. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is the proverbial elephant in the old school living room; it simply can't be ignored.
46 comments:
I confess, back in the day we'd say we were "playing AD&D". And when I got back into the hobby myself in a big way, there really wasn't all that much of a choice, because even after all the intervening time, I could still run a game of AD&D off the top of my head, without cracking open a book. So, yes, I would agree; AD&D does indeed cast a long shadow, if for no other reason than it was the game of choice for so many years.
Although I did play a TON of 2nd edition when it came out, and I am ashamed to say I had completely forgotten how the armor class system worked until I had occasion to check something. So 2nd edition didn't make nearly as much of an impression on me, detail-wise.I have problems with AC starting at 9, no doubt because I started playing with AD&D. We used Weapon Prof. and Dmg vs. Large, but ignored weapon speed and weapon vs. ac. We used the ever popular d10 for initiative and casting times & segments were an important part of our combat rounds. The AD&D unarmed combat rules were never even attempted.:)
ReplyDeleteMy introduction to D&D was through the basic boxed set (the one with the Erol Otus art), but we quickly acquired the AD&D books. Early on we played a mish-mash of basic and AD&D, but in later years used primarily AD&D, dropping any rules we thought were too cumbersome or confusing to use. But deep down I've always preferred the lighter rules set of basic D&D.
ReplyDeleteI have the problem of never having really encountered the Holmes/Metzer editions until long after I'd started on the original LBB. And then, given that AD&D came out next (as far as we were concerned*), simply because it gathered a lot of the necessary information in one place (characteristic bonuses, price list, classes, and spells in the PH, monsters in the MM, and treasure in the DMG, and that was all anyone I knew really used). We didn't differentiate between the various means of getting your hit. It was all D&D if it had levels and rolled a d20, although some people, myself included, were infamous of having folders of house rules. Or in at least one case, a filing cabinet.
The only time we had to hew directly to what was written was when running a tournament, and even then we still used the same limited sections of the "rules" (we just actually read the spell descriptions a little more carefully). <grin>
And that's the thing I like about D&D. Everyone knew how to play the game. But I think that if you went back and examined everyone, you'd discover that they were all playing different games that they thought was D&D. There weren't just 7 or so "editions;" There was one for every group.
[* Mostly this was because of how the games were distributed in Australia at the time (generally through general game and puzzle stores, or having to be ordered directly from the local distributor's fairly incompetent (at the time) retail arm). So why make a special effort to get something that was portrayed as a set of introductory sets of rules when you already had the full game?]We used the AD&D books and some of the rules, but always just called it "D&D." I think if Moldvay or Mentzer allowed you to mix and match race and class, even if if were just in the Expert set, AD&D might not have held onto the title belt. :)
I suppose it's also possible that the implications of a royalties settlement led TS to push the Advanced line as "The real D&D."Played basic D&D for a while, but after me, my brother and our friends got a hold of AD&D we read those books cover to cover and tried use everything we could (even encumbrance). To our 12 year old minds, it was great being able to play the "Advanced" version of D&D. Although I don't think we ever tried the grapple rules...
I still remember breaking the news to one of the kids in our neighborhood that his PC could no longer run around with a magical ring on each finger! I think that was a rule introduced with AD&D, right?
Anyway, good times...
:-)I wonder if it's because the AD&D books were what thrust D&D (and roleplaying in general) into the public mainstream. I hadn't heard of the game in 1980, and most of my friends were not the type who could have told a Conan from a Gray Mouser. In fact, two of the first three people I saw talking about playing it were on our football team with otherwise little interest in the genre (for a brief moment, there was no stigma attached to the game).
By about 1982/1983, everyone seemed to be playing it. It was on TV, on the News, Pat Roberston waving the books around. And when they did talk about it or show pictures, it was the AD&D books they showed. When I first saw a group of kids playing in the basement of a local bank in February 1983, it was the "1st Ed." books. True, the name suggested some form of D&D that wasn't advanced, but since everyone appeared to be using the 'Advanced' rules, why go back?
Yes, the first version I got was a boxed basic/expert set (on sale) at a Walden's Books. But the books I first saw at school and in Christmas catalogues and on the news were the 1st Ed. MM, DMG, and PH. Those were the ones that introduced the concept to the world at large. Maybe that's why they're the icons.I started with the Tom Moldvay version, although my classroom at school had a copy of the blue box Holmes edition (which had the amazing third level magic user spells). I did buy copies of AD&D but it was quite a while before I ever played that version (and never with the full range of rules). We did play 2nd edition almost exclusively when it showed up, though.
So I definitely fit the typical entry criterion that you describe.Other than that:
Psionics: Sometimes. As per my recent "Defending Psionics", I rather like AD&D's system.
Weapon proficiencies: Yup.
Bards: Yup. They're essentially just very hard to qualify for dual class characters with lots of HP. Nothing game breaking in practice. Players very rarely even decide that they're worth the time and trouble to work toward anyway.
Weapon speed: Yup. Really make melee a lot more strategic for fighter types.
Weapon vs. armor: No. In effect, these rules just make what are already the best armors downright godlike by giving them big extra bonuses against most weapons. Having a great AC in the first place ought to be all the reward one needs for wearing plate mail.
Unarmed combat: Too slow. I just wing it. Unarmed damage might be 1d3 or 1d4 with 75% of it being temporary (unless you're trying something silly like punching an ooze or a stone golem, I guess). Overbearing might be an attack roll followed by a save modified by the attacker's strength/bulk relative to the defender's. And so on.
Overall, I guess I prefer AD&D because I'd rather have these rules there to pick or choose from as I please than not.And that's the thing I like about D&D. Everyone knew how to play the game. But I think that if you went back and examined everyone, you'd discover that they were all playing different games that they thought was D&D. There weren't just 7 or so "editions;" There was one for every group.
I think that's still probably true. I also think it's a good thing.But how can you blame us when Holmes repeatedly refers readers to the "more complete rules" in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons?
Not at all. It'd be many years before I discovered that those references to AD&D were pure marketing nonsense inserted ex post facto and didn't reflect the reality of what Holmes was and was intended to be: a well-written, edited, and organized intro to OD&D.I wonder if it's because the AD&D books were what thrust D&D (and roleplaying in general) into the public mainstream.
It's a chicken and egg type question, but, yes, there's no question that those AD&D hardcovers were the books that everyone saw back then, especially during the years of the "Satanic panic," since the PHB and DMG both offered much better "proof" of the game's dark intentions than did, say the Holmes or Moldvay covers.The majority of the modules (even though we didn't use them - modules were a 'cop-out' for the dm) were said to be for AD&D. They were hardback books. They had tiny printing, and brooked no distracted off-hand reading. They had a proliferation of tables and.. mathematical theory! AD&D demanded to be taken seriously. You were truly in it now, kid!
I had started out dm'ing with Moldvay, and we had a great time. Then a couple years later one of our older friends, who had originally heard about D&D from us, came home from the university and had been playing the Advanced game. Our characters were older, but one of us had only just gotten close to demanding the Expert rules for the arcane secrets of 4th level. Pfft.. 4th level? Our friend from college played a character with over 100 hit points! He shared tales of battling scores of orcs at once! Trolls! Giants!
Clearly, we had been outclassed and surpassed. He agreed to usher us into Advanced fun. We borrowed his book around, astounded at the degree of Advancement evident in rolling up characters. You even rolled your height and weight! It was clearly.. well.. advanced.
We played AD&D that summer, and I promptly got very enamored with buying books I wasn't going to use (since I wasn't the dm for AD&D, and since that group of friends didn't play after that summer.) But my decided impression then, and in the many AD&D groups I played in afterward, was that, in fact, NO one knew all the AD&D rules.. let alone used them.I am slowly coming around to the conclusion--despite the fact that my current game is Microlite 74 plus house rules--that AD&D is the One True D&D.
And by that I mean: all houseruled other D&Ds converge on it. Look at Microlite 75, or indeed, OD&D+Supplements 1-3. Note that at last year's GaryCon, Frank Mentzer was running, you guessed it, AD&D.
Except that, of course, the One True D&D is AD&D with the clunky and non-working bits omitted."Exactly, and that mystique made them just about the coolest nerd-targeted products ever."
And yet it's funny. The ones I first saw playing weren't 'nerds', and it really didn't click as something that only 'nerds' would play. Remember Elliott's brother Michael? He was set up to be the cool kid, the jock, the football player who picked on his uncool younger brother. Yet what are they all playing when young Elliott discovers E.T.? That's right, at least a D&D knock-off (and if it had been universally seen as just for nerds, a crack cultural connoisseur like Spielberg c. 1981 wouldn't have used it to establish the characters who were supposed to be cool). Just like it was a combination of kids that weren't the most popular, along with some of the school jocks who were, that I noticed playing.
Oh, it didn't take long. Especially after that movie with Tom Hanks in it. I seem to remember the number of kids who had been playing it drop like my bank accounts a day after that. But if there was some stigma ahead of time, it seemed to be more in the minds of those already playing. Those of us who stumbled in during the 'craze' time didn't see it as any different than Trivial Pursuit. Just different in that parents and others were making a big fuss about it - which made it a guaranteed kid magnet.
I know that's a little off topic, but I find it interesting that there's a sense that D&D was, alpha and omega, for nerds only, when I remember it differently when I first discovered the game (heck, the quarterback on our junior varsity football team was one of the three I first heard discussing it all those years ago).Agreed. To a great extent AD&D is D&D for me a many gamers, even though we started with Holmes or Moldvary. I suspect that it's due in large part to the standardization/marketing push in Dragon Magazine. There was a lot of pressure to play "the right way".
You see this today in software markets (the analogy with which I am most familiar)--a homogeneous user base makes for a broad user base and lower support costs.I started with AD&D (Player's Handbook checked out from the library) and then found the Moldvay version of Basic D&D and Expert in a bargain bin of my FLGS.
I never had much of an issue with "Race as Class" since "Class" simply means a group of something with similar traits. It also has roots in math and biology.
Moldvay's & Cook's D&D seemed to streamline the process of making a character, and with one set of attribute bonuses for everything, which made more sense game-wise.
13-15 +1
16-17 +2
18 +3
The great thing is that the similarity of AD&D to D&D meant that elements could be ported over easily, and my Monster Manual and Fiend Folio found pretty steady use during our BECM campaigns.@Dave G:
"[I]f it had been universally seen as just for nerds, a crack cultural connoisseur like Spielberg c. 1981 wouldn't have used it to establish the characters who were supposed to be cool."
There are arguments to be made that Spielberg, especially in the 70s and early 80s, was just a geek as well, not a cultural connoisseur. To wit, this post from an old-schooler:
But overall, I think you're right. However geeky I was at that time, the people who introduced me to D&D were stoners, listened to metal, had water-beds and smoked at high-school, which was both scary and unfathomably cool to me. They taught me how to TP houses in 3rd grade, which gave me a mystique through junior high that could not be drowned out my own nerdiness."On a completely unrelated note - have you seen what the cover of that player's handbook has inspired?"
Some of the most stupid looking people imaginable standing around making me swear that I would do anything to be able to magically jump into their illustrated world and beat their insufferable asses to a pulp like some kind of ultraviolent A-Ha video? :)"There are arguments to be made that Spielberg, especially in the 70s and early 80s, was just a geek as well, not a cultural connoisseur."
He appears to have been both. Quite the geek (and one who to this day enjoys the fact that he can rub it in the face of those who treated him like one), but also one with a keen sense of what was happening in the culture of the time - hence his ability in those days to hit one after another out of the ball park. I think it's likely he was right to portray the game as he did, because again - for a brief, maybe very brief moment - playing D&D was the latest cool thing to do, not the bastion of all things nerd it became portrayed as in subsequent years. Just why and how that happened, of course, is probably worth it's own study.- AnonymousSeptember 19, 2010 at 9:56 AM
the Erol Otus covers are up there for me just because they were the first thing i seen, but also around that time the Fiend Folio was a book my brother had and it scared the hell out of me. the Githyanki invaded my imagination with crazy crap as a young child since it was like a proto-undead looking creature with the ability to sort of dust into invisibility from the art work. later on the cover of the PHB creeped me out too because of the idol. all good stuff.
ReplyDelete I grew up in rural Ohio and it took a family vacation to upstate New York in early 80's for me to discover D&D. My cousins got me into a game. Like James, I got my books at the local Sears -- which was kinda surreal given that the only products on display were washing machines and sofas. You went to counter and looked up what you wanted in the mighty Wish Book (I knew the page by heart) and the clerk disappeared into storage either to return with your prize or the the dreaded phrase, 'we'll have to order it.' The juxtaposition of obtaining these magical, exotic tomes from Sears!? It was like finding a tomb behind a corkboard at the DMV.
I started with Moldvay because of two misconceptions; First, I honestly thought that one acquired mastery by learning basic, then expert, THEN advanced. It wasn't until a few years ago that I learned that BX came out after AD&D.
Secondly, I had no idea where else to get polygonal dice other than the box sets. They even gave you a little crayon to color in the numbers with.Several observations/recollections:
I recall at the time throughout the 80s, regular D&D was for not-too-serious RPGers, meaning that it didn't present much depth in it's game mechanics and character development/creation (race as class). Not that any of this is true, but D&D had this reputation of being "generic".
AD&D OTOH, was just the opposite: rich in depth of game mechanic (at the time) and PC creation was a little more complex (i.e. race and class separate).
Another appeal to AD&D me was that, quite frankly, I thought D&D was just too easy to grasp. I wanted something a little more complex and esoteric (am I using the word right?)to learn and play.
AD&D had rules for everything: unarmed combat, poison types, rules for siege warfare,(IMO) many more interesting magic items, etc.
But one of the beauties of the game is that if you didn't want a set of rules (like the aforementioned unarmed combat), the system didn't break down. IT still worked. Even if you used your own version, or someone else's (Dragon Magazine was THE place to look), the game still worked.
AD&D was as complex or simple as you wanted it, because it was modular. Not that it was intended that way, but that's how it turned out.
Then you get into the various home or game club games with "house rules" for AD&D. Another beautiful aspect of the game: by it being unintentionally modular, a DM could make it his own by creating "house rules" for the game. Therefore each game/campaign was unique and personal.
How many of us went into a new game at a game club/convention and asked "Are there any house rules?"
IT was AD&D at it core (basic combat resolution, Vancian magic system, saving throws, race and class mixtures), but some little bits and pieces in the periphery of the core could be fiddle with and given a personality which is a direct reflection of the DM and his players.
Another aspect that appealed to me was the modules: most of the best modules were written for AD&D. The whole GDQ campaign was epic. So was ToEE. How about the S-series of modules or the Saltmarsh series?
With the exception of B2, X1, and the Desert Nomads series of D&D modules, no others IMO stand out as particularly exciting.
Again, this is just my opinion of what I thought in the past. Through the OSR and many more years of gaming, I see both AD&D and D&D can be as complex and simple as you want it to be.I just starting running a group through AD&D's "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" this past Friday, using the original AD&D rules (somewhat mixed with OSRIC).
And, I pretty much dropped or changed the exact same things that James mentioned. I found from reading the rules 25+ years later with "fresh eyes" that we never played the game "by the book" back in the day. I learned to play from friends, versus from reading the books, and I always assumed they had taught me the right way. But, like most people, we played either a simplified version of AD&D, or else an "expanded" edition of Moldvay Basic.
Just trying to read through the Surprise, Initiative, and Unarmed Combat rules in the PHB and DMG was giving me a headache on Friday, so we just make some house-rules on the spot and moved on.I think that a big reason AD&D was "D&D" was, as others mentioned, that the balance of the published material was for AD&D. Even more so when 2ed rolled in. I'm not sure if TSR would have put it this way, but it certainly seemed to be the flagship game. That probably was the case orignally because Gygax wanted to reduce the royalty payments to Arneson (Gygax pretty much admitted to that in at least one interview). However, I don't doubt that a lot of folks bought AD&D because it was more complex, and thus seen as having more depth.
On a side note, while I probably would have agreed at the time that D&D was a nerdy pastime, the group I was playing with in late high school included a member of the wrestling team, a member of the tennis team (myself), a member of the baseball team and a kid who played baseball in one of the local leagues. Another kid was also a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. All in all, we had more folks who played at least one sport than those who did not. And this was well into the 2ed. era.Like Jim, I thought you had to go in order of Basic, Expert, then Advanced. Like nearly everyone else, I ended up with a hodge podge that Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edtition Companion nails right on the head.
Interestingly enough, I added many of the ignored combat rules after I started using the combat computer wheel that came in an issue of Dragon (anyone else remember that one?). It had the AC modifiers for weapons printed right on it.
As far as the coolness factor, every single kid in my high school gaming group from '83-'87 would have been considered in the "cool" group. This was also at a large urban high school (2500 students). We all played multiple sports, had girlfriends (some of whom tried to play), and were considered popular. There was definitely a window then where the nerd stigma had not completely plagued the game.We started with the blue book that was, I guess Second Edition at the time...that is the one with the people fighting a dragon in a cave on top of a heap of gold on the cover. You could only get to level 3, so when we became very excited about the whole thing and had a lot of fun with it over a 1980/1981 winter's weekend (with the Dio version of Black Sabbath blaring an accompaniment) we >had< to get AD&D. We used all the rules we could figure out. None of us were nerds, really. Except maybe the guy who was in the high school band. I was a cheerleader for heaven's sake... ^^
ReplyDeleteAs near as I can tell, I found this post 14 years after all the cool kids, but it super resonated with me. My group of 12 year old proto-nerds definitely thought AD&D was "grown up" D&D, and Basic was just training wheels. When I went to the local library to play on Saturdays, all the college kids had the AD&D books, so for sure that's what I ran out and bought.
I also have to admit we were just playing Basic with some AD&D flavor all along, but I wouldn't have realized that had I not read this post. Anyway, I'm an OG gamer who's spent the last few years trying to claw his way back into the hobby - big thanks to you and all the guys who kept the lights on while I was away.