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Criminal Law
Criminal Law Questions? Ask a Criminal Lawyer.
I truly aim to please you as a customer, but please keep in mind that I do not know what you already know or don't know, or with what you need help, unless you tell me. Please consider that I am answering the question or question that is posed in your posting based upon my reading of your post and sometimes misunderstandings can occur. If I did not answer the question you thought you were asking, please respond with the specific question you wanted answered.
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You can always request me through my profile at http://www.justanswer.com/law/expert-paulmjd/ or beginning your question with "For PaulMJD…"
Thank you. I had a quick question of clarification concerning your response to my original question. You say that I can still bring claims of false arrest, malicious prosecution in addition to a 1983 civil suit. I was under the impression that complaints against an officer acting under color of law, such as false arrest and malicious prosecution were filed under USC 1983. Are you saying that there is a way to file those charges separately from a 1983? Also, since the statute of limitations for my charge of excessive use of force has passed (in AZ it is 180 days and my arrest was in mid-June) then a charge of false arrest would also be past the statute of limitations from that same date, correct? So I would only be dealing with malicious prosecution?
EDIT: re-read your response and noticed that you might not have been referring to false arrest as a charge but that I can bring claims of malicious prosecution and 1983 for the false arrest. Sorry, the way you wrote it that was unclear. At any rate, still would like clarification, are malicious prosecution and 1983 different things or would I file a malicious prosecution under 1983?
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Have you met Clara Kasavina? If not, get ready to fight the urge to splurge...
Because the bridal clutches and jewelry by this New York-based accessories designer are to-die-for! And if you're a fan of the metallic wedding trend, you'll definitely swoon for these sparkly stunners! And if you feel that your wedding jewelry is more worthy of a splurge, Kasavina's statement necklaces are one-of-a-kind!
The Lucky necklace (in photo 7) is gorgeous for your something blue, and the vintage-inspired Erin pendant is dainty, delicate and dazzling. I really can't say enough great things about this fabulous bridal accessories designer!
What do you think? Are you smitten just like me?

subset: commoncrawl


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The Cartographers Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateursall are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.
Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.
Wow. That's beautiful! Is that watercolor?
Thanks a lot Chashio for the comment. I was not using the forum for a long time now, over a year due to several issues so I haven't see your comment until now.
Yes I 've used watercolors on a print out light grey scale map that I had created using cartographic software.


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UK Continental Shelf Oil Well Records (Paperback)Great Britain
Paperback Published: 05/08/1998
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Future meets past in present at Lackawanna Historical Society's Children's Day
Lackawanna Historical Society's headquarters gem, the Catlin House in Scranton, was abuzz Saturday with the pitter-patter of little feet, pickup sticks and pitching pennies.
The society's annual Children's Day at the museum at 232 Monroe Ave. also featured face painting, pony rides and crafts.
The event is a good way to expose youngsters to the history of the city, county and region, and promote the group, society Executive Director Mary Ann Savakinus said.
"This is a fun way to do it because the children come in with their parents, and hopefully they'll join and become members," Ms. Savakinus said. "If we can get them exposed when they're this young, hopefully they'll stay engaged."
Some simple games of yore, such as pickup sticks and pitching pennies, were conducted on the floor of the hallway by society members Joan Hodowanitz and Ann Marie O'Hara, both of Scranton.
Crafts included making crowns and bookmarks, while archaeological and American Indian artifacts also were displayed and explained. Olivia Bernardi of Clarks Summit painted kids' faces on the porch of the Catlin House, which is nestled within the campus of the University of Scranton.
"I love the history that it gives to the community," Ms. Bernardi said of the society. As for its youth-geared event, she added, "I think it's great for the kids to get a taste of what history's all about."
Saleen Beauchamp, 11, of Archbald, was one of the several children who got a glimpse of the past.
"I love it, honestly. It's so cool to see all of the things (at the Catlin House) and to see how they used to do things back then."
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RM News
Fourth of July Style
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Fourth of July is just around the corner, and we're getting pumped for backyard bbqs, hanging poolside, watching fireworks, and you know, just not working.
But before you head off to the beach, lake or mountains, you need to make sure you have enough cute options packed so you can celebrate our nation's birthday in style.
Check out Rebecca's edit of everything you need to outshine the fireworks this Independence Day.
4. Malone Top
7. Genny Flat
8. RM x Drink Up – Let's Meet at the Beach Towel
10. Wrap Shorts


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|14-year-old Border League All-Stars
|Written by Holyoke Enterprise
Three Holyoke players have been selected to compete on the 14-year-old Border League All-Stars team. They enter the state tournament in Rocky Ford next week.
Team members are pictured from left, front row, Brody Bueltell of Fleming, Kyle Lengfelder of Fleming, Tanner Serrato of Fleming, Tyler Vandenbark of Fleming and Trevor Chintala of Fleming; and back row, Jeff Sherman of Chappell, Neb., Brady Heinz of Haxtun, Jaydin Goldenstein of Holyoke, Jordan Karg of Caliche and Logan Zeiler of Holyoke. Not pictured are Jesus Hermosillo of Holyoke and Lucas Lingreen of Fleming.


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Zero Dark Thirty represents a revolutionary idea — a woman who doesn't need any man to come in and rescue her. Moreover, she's the ball buster in the room. She's the one who says it's time to put the pressure on (a reminder that I am looking at the film as art and not debating torture) and she's the one who sticks to her guns when the men want to turn tail and run. We spend much of the time on Maya's face, watching her thought processes as she works it out, as she zeros in on her target.
At the end of the day, no one really knows what to do with this character. We prefer movies where the men fix everything because that's what we're used to, that supposedly controls the box office, that is the status quo that has been choking the life out of modern Hollywood. What do we do when a whole movie is about the internal life of a female character that isn't a positive experience? By the end of Zero Dark Thirty Maya has done her job and done it well, as she had been trained to do by the CIA but that doesn't mean she's happy. There are no knights in shining armor to rescue her. She doesn't get a pat on the back and a gold star. She doesn't right the wrongs of our society. She suffers silently, alone, with nowhere to put her own torment.
Mark Boal wrote the character as a woman to make the point that in America women aren't treated the way they are in the fundamentalist Muslim sects we're at war with. In fact, there are two women in the film who are each in charge. This is something you saw back in the 1970s and in the 1980s even but you never see now. Women are meant to be wives and girlfriends but not singular protagonists.
The shame about Zero Dark Thirty, and even The Help, is that the controversies surrounding them might mean that movies like that don't get made again. It is not our job to seek perfection in art; it is the artists job to seek their own perfection. The critics should not have abandoned Zero Dark Thirty for the safer choice because of the controversy. Either the movie is a brilliant work of art or it isn't.
If Maya had been less sure of herself, like, say, Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs who learned much from and was sort of pushed along by the men in her life, Hannibal Lecter among them, would there still be the same kind of agitation? Is it that old theory that men don't trust women behind the wheel? Do none of us trust women behind the wheel?
Zero Dark Thirty is threatening in many ways that have nothing to do with torture. It is quietly the only film in the Oscar race by a woman and about a woman. Yes, the screenplay was written by a man but the uniqueness of the Bigelow/Chastain collaboration should not be discounted, particularly when we are in the rut we've been in for the past two years, where the majority of movies that land in the Oscar race are by and about men featuring men doing great things and women being subdued and supportive in the background. It feels like the 1950s all over again — except for back then movies like All About Eve were winning Best Picture.
Bigelow herself is threatening. After Twitter Asshat Bret Easton Ellis put out the "Kathryn Bigelow is overrated because she's pretty" nonsense, then tried to retract it, it was obvious that Bigelow would be judged differently simply because she was a woman. But I think we can be sure that if, say, Clint Eastwood or Jim Cameron had directed Zero Dark Thirty the controversy would have been minimized. Face it, we're used to men being the smart ones, men being in charge. One of the great things about last year's winner, The Artist, was that Peppy was a character in her own right. Sure, the film was really about the guy's inner world but Peppy was the successful one. She rescued him. In Silver Linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence is also the rescuer but she doesn't seem to have anything else on her mind except him. That appears to be the way so many of the younger generations, at least the ones I read on Twitter, want things to be – that is how they see strong women.
I am heartened by the way my 14-year-old daughter and her friends talk about gender roles in the media. They recognize that there's a problem. I hope they become uppity women because without uppity women the world would be a very boring place. "Well behaved women seldom make history."
Not enough is celebrated about what Zero Dark Thirty is, how it's a tiny revolution that may slightly alter the landscape of American film and the Oscar race. The invisibility of women is not a concern in Europe and other countries that showcase at Cannes. This is an American problem. Hats off to the filmmakers who remembered that 50% of the population in America are female and we're not letting go of our power any time soon. Spielberg's Lincoln, Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild and most importantly, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty.
I watched Bigelow take the heat and respond with cool prowess, just as Hillary Clinton faced down Senate inquisitors with firm assurance when she was grilled at the Benghazi hearings. If I were arguing the point of history and torture I would have different things to say but we are still dwelling in the world of art, and in that world Bigelow is a quietly defiant hero. Whether Zero Dark Thirty or Beasts of the Southern Wild or even Lincoln win a damned Oscar or not is really beside the point. You can't really beat back popular opinion. But the saving grace in this mishegoss is that we have these works of art for all time. They are worth more than a gold statue, which is really like the Maltese Falcon when you get right down to it — a futile pursuit.
So here's to you, Kathryn Bigelow, and you, Mark Boal for doing the impossible — delivering a strong onscreen female who really is just interested in the work. Some might think the "feminist dream" of a woman who can say, "I'm not the girl who fucks" is a nightmarish stereotype, but that's only because they've never lived inside the body of a woman who really does just want to work, to make her voice matter, to do everything a man can do and maybe sometimes do it better.
Sasha Stone is the founder of Awards Daily.


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|LA21/Councils Feedback Submissions Site Map Courses Get News on your WAP
|Corporate > Finance > Insurance
Wednesday 21 July 2004
Royal Bank of Scotland back BTC pipeline
Friday 06 February 2004
FTSE4Good raises human rights criteria.
Monday 14 April 2003
Brown set to raise green taxes.
Thursday 24 October 2002
Climate change to cost $150bn a year UN.
Wednesday 09 October 2002
Monday 28 February 2005
The ethical performance of finance companies is now becoming an increasingly important consumer issue. Within the insurance industry, ethical performance generally refers to issues such as investigating where money is invested etc. However the more general view of ethical performance relates to the relationship between the industry and sustainable development. More insurance companies are now looking at a more comprehensive approach to ethics.
The increase in extreme weather conditions around the world has prompted insurance companies to look at the causes and effects of climate change, in order to re-evaluate calculations which were traditionally based on past findings. Dealing with the problem at source makes more sense than simply increasing rates every year. Therefore both the environment and consumers benefit from the ethical practices of insurance companies.
Personal Finance
Monday 28 February 2005
Like all ethical oriented finance schemes, ethical insurance companies are not involved in amoral practices such as environmentally-damaging acts, humanity crimes, animal abuse, arms trading, neither do they deal with other companies with such involvements.
Some ethical insurers fund environmental and animal protection charities, ensuring their ethical stance is upheld.
The market for ethical investment and banking grew from £6.3bn in 1999 to £7.7bn in 2000.
Eagle Star
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BioVision 2013: The World Life Sciences Forum
BIOVISION, The World Life Sciences Forum, organized since 1999 by an independent non-profit organization, la Fondation pour l'Université de Lyon, brings together international decision makers from the academic, private, policy-making and civil society sectors to foster a productive dialogue on life sciences discoveries and their impact on society, and to translate innovative ideas into actionable solutions for the benefit of citizens.
BIOVISION leverages a unique multi-stakeholder approach with the opportunity for innovation projects and initiative holders to meet, connect and build collaborative networks with potential private and public partners. In 2013, BIOVISION introduced a theme reflecting this positioning:"From Life Sciences to Sciences for Life".
Date: 5&6 June 2014
Location: Lyon, France


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Kayur Patel, Steven Drucker, Ashish Kapoor, and Desney Tan
July 2011
A human's ability to diagnose errors, gather data, and generate features in order to build better models is largely untapped. We hypothesize that analyzing results from multiple models can help people diagnose errors by understanding relationships among data, features, and algorithms. These relationships might otherwise be masked by the bias inherent to any individual model. We demonstrate this approach in our Prospect system, show how multiple models can be used to detect label noise and aid in generating new features, and validate our methods in a pair of experiments.
Change Display
52 projects
Sorting and clustering large numbers of documents can be an overwhelming task: manual solutions tend to be slow, while machine learning systems often present results that don�t align well with users' intents. We created and evaluated a system for helping users sort large numbers of documents into clusters. iCluster has the capability to recommend new items for existing clusters and appropriate clusters for items. The recommendations are based on a learning model that adapts over time � as the user adds more items to a cluster, the system�s model improves and the recommendations become more relevant. Thirty-two subjects used iCluster to sort hundreds of data items both with and without recommendations; we found that recommendations allow users to sort items more rapidly. A pool of 161 raters then assessed the quality of the resulting clusters, finding that clusters generated with recommendations were of statistically indistinguishable quality. Both the manual and assisted methods were substantially better than a fully automatic method.
Steven M. Drucker, Danyel Fisher, and Sumit Basu, Helping Users Sort Faster with Adaptive Machine Learning Recommendations, in Proceedings of Interact 2011, Springer, September 2011
Interactive clustering refers to situations in which a human labeler is willing to assist a learning algorithm in automatically clustering items. We present a related but somewhat different task, assisted clustering, in which a user creates explicit groups of items from a large set and wants suggestions on what items to add to each group. While the traditional approach to interactive clustering has been to use metric learning to induce a distance metric, our situation seems equally amenable to classification. Using clusterings of documents from human subjects, we found that one or the other method proved to be superior for a given cluster, but not uniformly so. We thus developed a hybrid mechanism for combining the metric learner and the classifier. We present results from a large number of trials based on human clusterings, in which we show that our combination scheme matches and often exceeds the performance of a method which exclusively uses either type of learner.
Sumit Basu, Danyel Fisher, Steven M. Drucker, and Hao Lu, Assisting Users with Clustering Tasks by Combining Metric Learning and Classification, in Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2010), American Association for Artificial Intelligence , July 2010
A human's ability to diagnose errors, gather data, and generate features in order to build better models is largely untapped. We hypothesize that analyzing results from multiple models can help people diagnose errors by understanding relationships among data, features, and algorithms. These relationships mig
|Publication type
|Published in


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About Us
At Cardon Children's, we take a different approach to the cancer and blood diseases program. As a top-notch medical program, we rely on highly qualified experts and specially trained staff members, along with the latest clinical information available.
But we are dedicated to care that revolves around patients and families. Along with diagnoses and treatments, we have parties and celebrations. We work together to make sure all of our children's physical needs are met, including the need to kick back and just feel like a kid.
Here are just some of the ways we are different.
- Family-centered care
- Parties and play
- Special events
- Traditions
- Special visitors
- Patient rooms and amenities
|A different approach. Cardon Children's is dedicated to family-centered care, which means families and patients are included in the plan of care and play an active role in the decision making. Our interdisciplinary team rounds with families to ensure they have the most current information.
Parties and play
Special Events
Special visitors
Patient rooms and amenities.


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The Dave and Adam's Card World offices will be closed Monday, May 30th
in observance of Memorial Day
Orders placed after May 27th at 4:00 pm EST ship Tuesday May 31st when our normal customer service and shipping schedule resumes.
Each deck box includes 60 cards, 1 Hero card, a rulebook, a quick start guide, and 1 War of the Elements booster pack.
A majority of the cards included in decks are reprinted from previous expansions, though there are some new quests and unique allies included in each deck. Potential loot cards include the common Sandbox Tiger, uncommon Owned! (Flag of Ownership), and rare El Pollo Grande (Magic Rooster Egg).
Sorry, it looks like your browser doesn't have cookies enabled. Dave & Adam's only uses cookies to keep track of your shopping cart while you browse dacardworld.com. Please enable cookies to further enjoy your shopping experience. If you have cookies enabled, please refresh your browser.


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Whether you are looking for Moroccan Furniture or Furniture, Hotfrog is the place to go to. Browse the businesses below in Miami, FL or extend your search to nearby suburbs by using the left navigation menu. Hotfrog makes your search easier.
Be chosen by customers first with your ad at the top of pages like this.
Miami, FL
Select from a beautiful variety of Moroccan furniture and Moroccan decor such as exotic Moroccan lanterns at truly affordable prices
Moroccan LampsMoroccan lightingMoroccan LanternsMoroccan Rugs
We specialize in Creative & Elegant Moroccan Nights, Arabian Nights, Indian Bollywood Themes for Corporate and Social Events we offer Partial or Turn Key event production, Lighting Designs, Catering services, Enter…
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Riado products have also been featured in Southern Living magazine, Brides Magazine, Home Accents Today, to name a few Our products can be seen at major trade shows including High Point Market, HD Boutique, Ne…
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Kristy Swanson & Lloyd Eisler Win Skating With CelebritiesMarch 2, 2006 10:48:15 by Joe Blackmon
Jillian Barberie & John Zimmerman and Kristy Swanson & Lloyd Eisler face off as the last two couples in the Skating with Celebrities finale. Kristy & Lloyd lead by four-tenths of a point after Monday's performances. To kick things off in the finale, each team gives an encore performance that is not scored by the judges. The previously eliminated skating couples also return for one last group performance.
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | 6 Comments »
Skating With Celebrities – Bruce Jenner Loses Skate-OffFebruary 14, 2006 12:25:08 by Joe Blackmon
The skating couples are challenged to complete a one-footed edge glide, side-by-side jumps, and a 3 revolution spin. Instead of a musical theme, each couple skates to a song selected for them by the judges.
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | 3 Comments »
Skating With Celebrities – Dave And Nancy EliminatedFebruary 7, 2006 12:26:16 by Joe Blackmon
The skating pairs are challenged to complete side-by-side jumps and a one-legged lunge in their routines. They skate to the background musical them of songs from the top forty. Kristy Swanson and Lloyd Eisler skate first. Their previous performances have been sporadic, ranging from first place to last place. Judge John Nicks calls their performance, "pretty good, pretty good." The judges award the couple with the highest score so far of the competition.
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | No Comments »
Skating With Celebrities Offers Three All New February Sweeps EpisodesFebruary 6, 2006 12:05:00 by Joe Blackmon
In three all-new February Sweeps episodes of SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES (Monday, Feb. 6, 13 and 27, 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT), the competition has everyone on edge as the remaining celebrities and their professional figure skating partners hit the ice to impress the judges and perform required elements while trying to complete graceful routines on skates – not an easy feat for the celebs!
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | No Comments »
Skating with Celebrities Results – Confusion ReignsJanuary 30, 2006 10:00:42 by Joe Blackmon
The scoring slate is wiped clean for the third episode of Skating with Celebrities. The celebrities are challenged to have synchronized footwork and to do a one-legged lunge. The background music for the skating is the soulful sounds of Motown.
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | No Comments »
Skating With Celebrities ResultsJanuary 19, 2006 12:59:56 by Joe Blackmon
For the premier of Skating with Celebrities, the celebrities are challenged to do a spin while skating to music from the movies. The judges are John Nicks, Mark Lund, and Dorothy Hamill. The celebrities vary wildly in regards to their skating skills.
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | 5 Comments »
Skating With Celebrities Announces ParticipantsSeptember 6, 2005 06:12:04 by Joe Blackmon
SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES will partner six famous personalities with six professional figure skaters to compete for an unprecedented figure skating title on FOX. Hosted by Olympic gold medalist and world champion Scott Hamilton, the competition will feature some of the most recognized and celebrated names in professional figure skating and a mix of celebrities who span a wide spectrum within the entertainment industry.
Topics: Skating With Celebrities | 2 Comments »


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When this PSN game was first shown, the grimaces of pain during the trailer seemed quite appropriate. PAIN, a downloadable title for Sony's online network, seeks to combine Havok physics with a giant slingshot. Hey, that's what you get from a development team that cites MTV's Jackass as an inspiration.
The premise is simple - cause as much pain to your poor subject as possible. Slingshot through a window and watch the glass become lodged in your ill-fated avatar's body, or better yet aim at the nearby propane tank for a massive explosion. Interact with the environment in countless ways in game modes such as HORSE, Mime Toss, and Spank the Monkey.
The game will feature Game 3.0 inspired user-created content, and have a replay system similar to SKATE (created by EA), in which you can upload your most painful moments onto the web for the masses. No price point has been announced, but the developers have been quoted saying it will be "reasonable."
Check back in with PSU as we'll have the price point and release date for you when they become available.


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While most well known for the SNAP Outreach Project, the work of the Hunger Center extends well beyond this project with a focus on protecting the well-being of low-income Rhode Islanders through a variety of activities. Hunger Center staff work closely with administrators at the Department of Human Services to address issues around statewide policy and administration of SNAP. Hunger Center staff share their expertise with state and community colleagues by serving on local advisory councils as well as national and regional advocacy groups. They also collaborate with many community partners and stay abreast of local events as participants of several local community initiatives. Staff offer expert testimony at the RI General Assembly when issues of public benefits and poverty are being debated.
Staff at the Hunger Center develop materials and frequently make presentations to local civic groups, social service agencies, and faith based communities to assist them in learning more about the issue of hunger in their community.
RI General Assembly
Legislative Session 2014
During the most recent legislative session, Hunger Center staff attended hearings and presented testimony around 4 different pieces of legislation.
Senate Bill 2382 – Requirement for photo identification when using EBT. February 25, 2014. Dr. Gorman testified against this bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee (see attached for full testimony).
House Bill 7314 – Requirement for photo identification when using EBT. March 5, 2014. Dr. Gorman testified against this bill before the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare (see attached for full testimony).
House Bill 7661 – Public Assistance Act, Fraud Prevention. April 30, 2014. Dr. Gorman testified against this bill before the House Finance Committee (see attached for full testimony).
House Bill 7567 – Joint resolution making appropriation of $100,000 to Department of Human Services. Dr. Gorman testified in support of this bill before the House Finance Committee (see attached for full testimony).
Statewide Policy
The Hunger Center director chairs the monthly SNAP Advisory Committee meeting. This meeting brings DHS staff together with community members to discuss issues of SNAP policy, DHS procedural changes and SNAP issues arising in the community.
When federal and state policies change the Department of Human Services provides periods of time when their rule promulgation is open for comment. Hunger Center staff provide testimony or comment at these times to share their expertise from working directly with clients. Past issues addressed by the Hunger Center have included proposed changes to replacement EBT card procedures, in office versus telephone interview requirements, and DHS office locations, as well as other issues through informal communications and discussion.
Local Advisory Councils
Since first being established in 1999 the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America and the URI SNAP Outreach Project within it have developed a reputation as an expert source of information on issues of hunger, poverty and government nutrition assistance programs. Committees and agencies throughout the state have sought out Hunger Center staff to serve on advisory councils to ensure in depth policy and client expertise are considered in their work.
Hunger Center staff serve an advisory role with United Way/211, RI Kids Count, DHS Work Supports Strategies group, LISC, and the RI Food Policy Council.
Hunger Center staff participate in a variety of local coalitions and community meetings. These meetings present opportunities for collaboration with community partners as well as offer an important source of information sharing between and among local and statewide agencies serving similar low-income clients.
Hunger Center staff are regular participants of Westerly Basic Needs Network, Bristol Basic Needs Network, Providence Re-entry Council, Women Ending Hunger, and the RI Community Food Bank community forums.
Community Highlight: Healthy Places by Design
In 2011, The Rhode Island Department of Health received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund Healthy Places by Design. The grant sought to strengthen land use, transportation and urban design policies and local ordinances that guide the decision making process for the built environment to be more supportive of health, particularly as it relates to physical activity and healthy eating. The Rhode Island Department of Health awarded funding to three municipalities: North Kingstown, South Kingstown, and Pawtucket.
Each municipality paired with a nonprofit organization to assist in community engagement through workshops, focus groups, community events, a week-long community summit, surveys, etc. Through this engagement, the municipalities were able to identify its community's strengths as well as obstacles to healthier lifestyles. Each community then drafted an action plan to address ways to better support healthy living. Part of each municipalities' action plan included changes to its Comprehensive Community Plan to address changes to the built environment and policies. At the conclusion of the grant in 2012, community organizations and grass root groups (some of where were created as the result of community members' participation in the grant) helped to continue the purpose of the Healthy Places by Design Grant.
Dr. Gorman served as an initial consultant to the statewide project and co-facilitated forums in each of the 3 communities. Upon completion, she has continued as a task force member of the South Kingstown HPbD work group and recently collaborated with other community members and URI faculty to establish a URI-South Kingstown Memorandum of Agreement (document pending). For more information about these efforts, follow links below.
National and Regional Advocacy
The staff at the Hunger Center play an important role monitoring the impact of both state and federal policies on low-income Rhode Island families and make policy recommendations to elected officials at the state, regional and national level through the Center's involvement with the Northeast Regional Anti-Hunger Network (NERAHN) and association with the Food Research Action Council (FRAC).
The Feinstein Hunger Center, along with the RI Community Food Bank, represents the state of RI at the Northeast Regional Anti-Hunger Network (NERAHN). NERAHN serves as a coalition of anti-hunger agencies from the seven states that make-up the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Northeast region (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York). NEHRAN was created in 1966 with a two-fold mission:
- to reduce hunger by maximizing resources through collaborative efforts; and
- to work collectively to design and implement action on state, regional and national levels.
Hunger Center staff work closely with national partner, FRAC, throughout the year but also attend a large annual conference and invitation-only, Hunger Leaders meeting in Washington DC each year. Both events allow staff to network with anti-hunger advocates from across the nation, share and learn best practices to improve their work in RI.


text:
I got a Shimano Hone crankset and I either lost the pedal washers or none came with it. Are they essential or can I get by without them?
I note that the diagram for the M600 doesn't include the washers but the diagram for the M601 does include them, so if I am sure that I have the M600 I take it I don't need them?
Thanks for any help


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We slept in this morning, until 8am! 😉
On our way to breakfast we passed a market where most of the stall holders were still in the process of setting up.
One stand that was ready was the hat stand. I needed something that offered more sun protection than a cap so got myself a cowgirl hat!
Next to the market is the Loretto Chapel, the home of the miraculous staircase. This staircase makes over two complete 360-degree turns, stands 20 foot tall and has no center support. It is made of an apparently extinct wood species, and was constructed with only square wooden pegs without glue or nails.
My photo didn't work out too well, so here is a photo of a photo which is displayed in the chapel that shows the staircase before the banister was added (so the nuns didn't fall off).
It was definitely time for breakfast so we walked over to the Guadalupe cafe, which had been recommended to us. We got a table outside.
We were able to order juice and coffee quite quickly but that was almost the end of it. We had to wait a while to get someone's attention to order food, and then we waited some more, and some more, and some more. People who had ordered after us got their food…
I was watching what was going around us, and three tables had had their orders stuffed up. We got a waitresses' attention to enquire about our food and she said it would be two minutes. The countdown was on. J had cash out ready to leave on the table for the drinks and we were about to stand up and leave when our breakfast finally arrived. I think it would have been well over half an hour since we ordered and it was not busy.
I can't remember what we ordered but we both had variations of eggs, potatoes and green chile. J's was a bit too cheesy for his liking.
I loved mine though and wish I could have eaten more of it.
The best part however was the home-made bread and English muffins. They were amazing.
So, great food at the Guadalupe cafe, but some of the worse service I have experienced.
After eating we walked over to Canyon road for a spot of shopping, walking past more interesting street sites.
After purchasing a bracelet and a piece of art, we ambled back to the hotel and checked out at around 12pm.
I think we both would have liked to spend more time in Santa Fe, it is a really pretty town and there was lots more to explore both in the town itself and outside the town limits.
In saying that, out first stop was only a 45 minute drive away, in White Rock. Here we caught the shuttle bus to Bandelier National Monument.
Bandelier is 33,000 acres of canyon and mesa country and there is evidence of humans living there going back over 11,000 years. Due to a combination of fire and flood, visitors can't drive into the monument themselves but have to take the bus for the 30 minute trip from White Rock.
Once out there you get an introductory talk from a ranger and then can join a guided walk or wander the marked path yourself. There is a fee to enter the monument and annual park passes are accepted.
We did the loop path ourselves and it took about an hour. The first half is through open country and takes you up into the cliff dwellings.
The path back to the bus and facilities crosses over a creek which you then walk beside under the trees before crossing back over and into the car park. We got the bus back to White Rock and moved onto Los Alamos.
Los Alamos is where the Americans developed and built the bombs that were dropped on Japan in the second world war. The National Laboratory is still the focus of the town and even has guard booths on one of the main roads leading in and out of the town, which was slightly confusing as we were thought we were headed into the lab itself!
We had lunch in Los Alamos. We pulled into a Sonic drive in outlet. Here you pull into a stall, browse the menu and then press the intercom button when ready to order. The food is delivered to your car and you can eat right there in your car if you wish.
However, we drove around to the main street and ate next to the park. I had planned to take a photo of my flatmelt sandwich but misplaced my camera after taking the above shot, turns out I was sitting on it!
It was raining so we didn't go for a walk but instead went to the information center and got directions to a supermarket!
We stocked up on snacks, water, wine and beer.
I am not sure how the pricing works at this supermarket (Smiths) but I was asked if I had a club card, which I don't. I am not sure if the lady serving me did something but the price on the screen went down by almost $20, even though I wasn't a member. Not going to complain about getting a discount!
It was then back on the road for the long drive north to Farmington.
We stopped a few times to take photos, especially through the Jemez Mountains.
Five hours later, at 8pm, we arrived at the Hampton Inn and Suites. We got checked in and went straight into the centre of Farmington for dinner at the Three Rivers Brewery.
The cool table tops.
We shared excellent corn chips and salsa. The black chips are made with blue corn.
J had chicken fried steak. Which is not chicken but beef, basically a beef schnitzel. The menu describes it as "a huge hand breaded "Certified Angus Beef" cube steak topped with country gravy. Served with homemade mashed potatoes and today's vegetable".
I had the smothered black bean burrito (black beans and green chile wrapped in a flour tortilla smothered with a pork green chile sauce and melted cheddar-jack cheese. Shredded lettuce, sour cream, diced tomatoes, and black olives on the side, with the addition of guacamole), which was really good.
I can't remember whether we ordered these fries or if they came with one of the meals, but they were so good. I had to move the bowl across the table so I couldn't reach it, otherwise I would have scoffed the lot!
After dinner it was back to the hotel and bed.


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Barbara Walters Tells Donald Trump He's Only Hurting Himself
By Mack Rawden 4 years ago
Like most observers, Barbara Walters was less than thrilled with the offer Donald Trump had for President Obama yesterday. The mogul promised big news that could alter the course of the election, but what he delivered was a continuation of his widely discredited birther theory. If POTUS is willing to turn over college and passport applications, The Donald will donate five million dollars to any charity of Obamas choosing. Assumedly, the Celebrity Apprentice headman thought his offer would be treated with intrigue, but instead, its been widely ridiculed on Twitter, Facebook and now, by his own friend on The View.
Walters and Trump have known each other for decades, and in all likelihood, thats why the journalist decided to get so pointed on todays show. Looking directly at the camera, she told the real estate investor that hes making a fool of himself and needs to stop immediately. Heres a portion of the actual quote, as per The New York Daily News
Donald, you and I have known each other for many years, and you know that I am your friend, and I think you are a brilliant businessman, and you are great on television and you have a fascinating personality. Donald, you're not hurting Obama, you're hurting Donald, and that hurts me because you're a decent man."
If ever there was a case of a smart man picking the wrong horse, its Trump with this stupid birther controversy. Almost everyone is willing to admit Obama was born in Hawaii apart from a small minority of conspiracy theorists. The Republican establishment wouldnt have anything to do with it before Obama released his birth certificate, and they certainly dont want anything to do with it now. Why the hell Trump is so invested is one of the great mysteries of all time.


text: #2212: Add the 24 bit support in numpy.fromstring -------------------------------+-------------------------------------------- Reporter: bred | Owner: somebody Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Unscheduled Component: numpy.core | Version: 1.6.2 Keywords: 24 bit fromstring | -------------------------------+-------------------------------------------- In some real world applications, like audio or image processing should be possible that data in organized in words of 24 bit. So would be useful to have an efficient 24bit string decoder. Actually the situation is a bit depressing, for example if we read a 24bit audio file, we generate a string that is very difficult and slow to be reeded. For example the code should look like ... : {{{ import wave wave_read = wave.open( file_name , 'r' ) sample_width = wave_read.getsampwidth() # sample_width == 3 !!!! X = wave_read.readframes( wave_read.getnframes() ) Y = numpy.fromstring(X, dtype="int24" ).reshape( nframes , 2 ) }}} If the sample width is 3 (24bit) this very simple procedure don't work. Tnx -- Ticket URL: <http://projects.scipy.org/numpy/ticket/2212> NumPy <http://projects.scipy.org/numpy> My example project


text:
NOV 16, 2013 - GottaBeMobile
A Must Read - Share
LG G Flex's Curved Design Not the Most Exciting Feature is a post by Kevin Purcell from Gotta Be Mobile.The LG G Flex wowed the tech community with its curved design. But a more interesting feature for daily use might come on the back of the phone, according to a video posted on the LG YouTube channel. LG describes the back plate as "self-healing," which means that when a user scratches the back of their phone, it will seemingly buff out those scratches on its own. The video shows the back of the phone compared to a standard back plate with a swinging wire brush scraping
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Trapped 2002
Play trailer
Play trailer
It was going to be the perfect crime. After four devilishly conceived and successful kidnappings, Joe (KEVIN BACON; Hollow Man, Stir of Echoes), and Cheryl Hickey (COURTNEY LOVE, The People Vs Larry Flynt) next set their sights on the Jennings; a quietly successful family with a young daughter, Abby (DAKOTA FANNING, I am Sam). After kidnapping her, they turn their twisted gaze on her parents, Karen (CHARLIZE THERON, Sweet November, The Cider House Rules) and Will (STUART TOWNSEND, Queen of the Damned). Although isolated by their captors - Karen by Joe, and Will by Cheryl - the bond between them and the love for their daughter are about to deliver more than the kidnappers ever imagined. Even though their lives have been shattered and with an unspeakable outcome threatening them, Karen and Will Jennings are about to discover the terrifying lengths to which they will go to get their daughter back.


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I'm attempting to connect to a SQL Server Compact Edition database from F#, and attempting to use a type provider. This is in the Visual Studio 11 Beta, so I realize there might be an issue because of that, but I think it's more likely that I just don't have the know-how yet.
However, I have noticed that there's no CE-specific type provider in Microsoft.FSharp.Data.TypeProviders and I'm unsure that a regular SqlDataConnection will do the trick, so that may be the issue right there.
However, when I try to create the connection, the IDE seems to recognize that I'm trying to hit a CE database, at least.
So, I have the following code:
type SqlConnection =
.SqlDataConnection<ConnectionString = @"Data Source=C:\\Path\\Database.sdf">
let db = SqlConnection.GetDataContext()
So it's pretty standard, more or less straight out of the add new LINQ to SQL with type provider item menu.
The tooltip I get over the connection string is "Provider 'System.Data.SqlServerCe.3.5' not installed." Looking that up seems to indicate that it's a problem with not having Sql Server CE installed, but I've got the libraries, am able to connect to the database using a regular SqlCEConnection and running SqlCeCommands and such. And since it's 4.0 and not 3.5, I'm not sure if it's looking for the wrong provider. I created the database right in VS 11 beta, so I was figuring that all versions should match up and such.
So in short, I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if the VS11 beta type provider libraries don't support CE 4.0 yet, or if there is something else I need to do to make it happen.


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Kids and Relaxation Meditation
Everyone needs relaxation periods to refresh and rejuvenate - kids, too. Did you ever notice how easily a baby can relax into sleep? They know how to naturally and take it when needed.
Here is how to teach kids relaxation meditation when they feel stressed and need a break, or they need uninterrupted quiet time to work out solutions to problems.
You are going to be the director for this lesson rather than a participant as with teaching sitting and walking meditation. After all, you would not be able to see how your kids are doing if you were lying down with the group.
Provide a quiet area that is carpeted, or has a thin mat or thick blanket on the floor or grass for each child.
Preferably kids should remove their shoes.
You and the children begin by sitting cross-legged in a circle facing in. This is time to give the kids the philosophy about relaxation meditation.
Philosophy by age group
If your group is school age you could say something like: "Relaxation meditation is a time to rest your body and mind. When your body is fully resting and you are breathing evenly and regularly it is easier for you to work out solutions to problems you may be having a home, school, or with friends."
If your group is preschoolers you can say something like: "You are pretending to rest with a starfish laying on a rock at the sea, feeling so calm and warm. Taking time to lie all stretched out on your back is a way to feel good if you are upset, and need quiet time to think of ways to be happy again with your friends and family."
Begin the relaxation meditation
Ask kids to lie back with everyone pointing their toes into the center of the circle, with enough space between them so they are not touching their neighbor.
Instruct the kids to close their eyes and let their legs rest about a foot apart and their arms rest down alongside their bodies, but not quite touching their sides.
Ask your group to pretend they are lying in warm sand and feeling very comfortable.
Clench and relax muscles
Have the kids clench up then relax their muscles in this order: toes, legs, tummy, arms, and to squeeze their face into the expression of "something icky" and then relax it once again. And then roll their head to the right, left and back to center, and now stay still and relaxed.
Go on to the breathing directions: Ask the kids to breathe in and out evenly in a pattern like breathe in one count, and breathe out one count, and breathe in one count and continue. If your group is too young to count, demonstrate the even breathing and ask them to do it the same as you. Continue the even breathing for 15 seconds to a minute for an older group of kids.
Then ask the kids to just remain lying so still and resting like that starfish on the rock in the warm sun, and to use this quiet time to think about a kind way to act toward someone after the relaxation meditation.
To end the session, ask the children to open their eyes, stretch out, sit up, stand up, and go on with their day and plan for kindness.
How to Teach Kids Sitting Meditation
How to Teach Kids Walking Meditation
I invite you to join me in a daily world peace group cyber meditation. Click the article here to read about it.
Meditation Lessons for Teens and Adults
More than 70 offerings, from guided meditation techniques to on-the-go stress relief and relationship meditations interspersed with verse, and a section of special occasion prayers. 114 pages. PDF Ebook | EPUB | Paperback | Mac Users | B&N NOOK eBook
Meditation for All Kids
Sitting, walking, dance and group circle meditations, along with positive affirmations, verses and benefits of meditation for kids of all ages and abilities in a 100 page book with illustrations. PDF Ebook | EPUB | Paperback | Mac Users | B&N NOOK eBook
Sign up below or in the right-hand column for our meditation site newsletter. It only requires your email address and is never given out or sold to anyone. If at any time you wish to stop receiving it, each newsletter contains a link to unsubscribe. Each person must sign up themselves. We can't sign up for you. It is an easy way to keep abreast of new articles on the meditation site. Make meditation part of your daily routine and let the Bellaonline meditation articles help you select just what kind of meditation is right for you, whether you are a child, teen, or adult, a beginner, or advanced practitioner.
Article by Susan Helene Kramer
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I want a cross bike to use as a commuter/entry level racer. I am 6'6" and around 240 quite muscular and not as lite as the average cyclist. That said looking to spend anywhere between 800 and 1500 I am trying to figure out what bike I should get. My typical LBS only carries Trek and Specialized so I tested out a tricross sport and it wasn't bad but I don't want to limit myself to those two brands.
any suggestions would be much appreciated. thx


text:
According to a post by Red 5's Mark Kern on the official Firefall forums, PvP has been taken out of the game for the time being. The team indicates that PvP wasn't attracting enough players and that it needs to be tabled and overhauled.
Dear Firefall Fans:
As you know, Firefall started with PvP. We have gone through several iterations, and for some time, pursued the controversial e-Sports route. As many of you know, its not working very well. Our last big attempt was a pure PvP eSports mode, Jetball. While very fun, its a high skill game and doesn't attract many of our players (less than 3% PvP in Firefall).
Also, PvP has suffered as our focus has had to focus on the popular PvE part of our game. People want more content, fewer bugs, and more polish on these world systems. For these reasons, we have made the tough decision to suspend PvP and take the system offline so that we can rethink it and relaunch it. PvP is an important part of our game, and we want to get it right.
So we're going to regroup, rethink, and deliver the best PvP system we can that can be enjoyed by everyone. We don't have a timetable for this, but at some near future point we will shut off the PvP aspect of the game, which we feel does not represent Firefall at its best, and relaunch that part of the game when its ready.
Thank you for your understanding. We only want to deliver the best experience that entertains all of our players, and we feel that by taking the time to completely rethink our PvP and re-implement it to the highest standards, we can do much better.
- Mark Kern
CEO, Chief Creative Officer, Red 5 Studios
Thanks, Dakirm, for the tip!


text:
Sump Pump Maintenance Tips & Preventing Sewer Backup
Inside the home:
- Install a battery back up for the sump pump
- Check the sump pump yearly to make sure it is working by following these simple steps;
- Remove the cover from the sump pump pit
- Make sure the drain hose is connected properly
- Slowly pour water into the pit
- Fill the pit until the float rises high enough to activate the pump
- If the pump does not work, call a professional to repair
- Install a sewer backflow check valve if sewage has ever backed up through the floor drain
Outside the home:
- Install window well covers
- Have proper drainage away from the foundation of the home
- Remove all trees growing next to the foundation – the roots can crack the foundation walls allowing water to enter
- Install gutters and downspouts – keep them clean
- Install downspout extensions if water from the downspout collects near the foundation
Visit DisasterSafety.org for additional information on how to prevent water damage.
These recommendations were developed using generally accepted safety standards. Compliance with these recommendations is not a guarantee that you will be in conformance with any building code, federal, state or local regulation regarding safety or fire. Compliance with these recommendations does not ensure the absolute safety of your occupation, business or residence. It is the property owner's duty to warn any tenants or occupants of the property of any safety hazards that may exist.


text:
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All posts tagged Ace Lexington Daily Photo
Ace's Lexington Daily Photo 7.16.2012 "Nice Ass."
Ace Lexington Daily Photo 7.16.2012 "Nice Ass." By Ian Davis. Submit Lexington Daily Photos for consideration via acelist at aceweekly.com, or tag us on twitter, facebook, pinterest, tumblr, or instagram. Your photo may be shared with Ace readers in every […]


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Egyptian Cancellation of Gas Supply Threatens Treaty with IsraelMonday, April 23rd, 2012
Egypt's sudden cancellation of its natural gas treaty with Israel is a flagrant violation of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, according to Israeli officials.
Egypt claims that Israel is in "violation of contractual agreements" of the 2005 Egypt-Israel gas deal, a pact decried by leaders of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt.
Since the beginning of the uprising on January 25, 2011, the pipelines supplying gas to Israel have been sabotaged 14 times.
Israel called the Egyptian decision "unlawful and in bad faith", and a failure to meet obligations. Egypt, said Israel is four months in arrears on payment, a charge Israel denies.Malkah Fleisher


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Even after a late start, I was still floored by all the great projects you entered in this week's Mad Skills party! You guys rock!
The project with the most view this week came from Ashley at No Apologies! She was inspired to make this fantastic Alphabet Wall Art for her daughters after seeing something similar in Better Homes and Gardens.
At No Apologies! you will also find some great tutorials, like this post detailing how to make your own intricate stencils.
Ashley made up this beautiful damask stencil to create some Wall Art for her bedroom. I love how well the art plays off of her bedding!
Head over to No Apologies! and check it all out!


text:
Body Brush
Out of stock£10.00 Write a review
Using upward sweeping motions, starting from your ankles and working your way up the body, this luxury body brush helps to stimulate circulation, improve skin texture and banish cellulite. Featured in Women's Weekly as a must-have beauty product for 2015!
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text: I am a runner and wanting to start triathalons. Cost is a concern, as I am not sure I will like tri's. I have had a MTB in the past and know I don't want to use that for the tri's. Any suggestions on what to start with. Do I get a cheap bike and if I like tri's get a tri bike for the races? HELP!!!


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A Near-Term Vision for Everyware: Synthetic Serendipity
Published: March 9, 2009
In "First Fictions and the Parable of the Palace," I provided an overview of everyware's roots in early depictions of ubiquitous computing by Mark Weiser and others. I also considered the critical role of user experience in the coming world of everyware and described some of the challenges we face in designing everyware / lifeware user experiences.
In this and the next installment of my column, let's look forward from the present day, using stories by well-known science fiction authors as the source for vision or concept scenarios that describe some possible experiences of living and working with everyware. While these concepts are clearly speculative, they help define the boundaries of the potential scope of everyware—in both the near-term and distant future. Though these stories may lack the metaphoric and literary significance of Borge's "Parable of the Palace," their visions shed light on everyware's likely implications for design within more concrete contexts. I'll review only the elements of the stories that are most relevant to designing everyware. (For the curious, I recommend reading the stories in full.)
Everyware in the Near Term
Vernor Vinge's entertaining short story "Synthetic Serendipity" [1]—first published in the IEEE magazine Spectrum in 2004—presents a near-term future that is fully permeated by everyware. The narrative is from the perspective of a high-school student named Mike, who likes to play games.
Though publication of the story in Spectrum does not constitute an official endorsement of the future "Synthetic Serendipity" presents, the story's appearance there—in combination with Vinge's reputation, professional background, and outlook—tends to validate its premise as a possible future.
Vernor Vinge is an award-winning science fiction author and former professor of computer science who anticipated the rise of cyberspace, describing it in his 1981 story "True Names." Vinge is also the leading exponent for the concept of technological singularity, that moment in the future at which machines eclipse human intelligence, accelerating their own evolution. Spectrum is "the flagship publication of the IEEE, the world's largest professional technology association." [2] While Spectrum publishes fiction on occasion, its primary audience is the professional community of engineering and business technology.
"Synthetic Serendipity" begins, "Years ago, games and movies were for indoors, for couch potatoes and kids with overtrained trigger fingers. Now they were on the outside. They were the world." [1] With this opening, Vinge deliberately inverts two essential aspects of the world most people take for granted—that games are distinct from reality, and media is separate from the wider environment—thereby requiring readers to suspend their mental models of play and entertainment.
The remainder of "Synthetic Serendipity" elaborates on this inversion, showing a world in which alternate-reality games (ARG's) and augmented reality (AR) have converged with ubiquitous computing to erase the boundaries between entertainment and real life.
As the story progresses, protagonist Mike Villas is playing a game with friends while walking to high school. Vinge describes the augmented landscape around the group of boys:
"The canyon was not a dead zone. Not at all. County Flood Control kept the whole area improved, and the public layer was just as fine as on city streets. As they walked along, Mike gave a shrug and a twitch just so. That was enough cue for his Epiphany wearable. Its overlay imaging shifted into classic manga / anime: the manzanita branches morphed into scaly tentacles. Now the houses that edged the canyon were heavily timbered, with pennants flying. High ahead was a castle, the home of Grand Duke Hwa Feen in fact, the local kid who did the most to maintain this belief circle. Mike tricked out the twins in manga costume, and spiky hair, and classic big-eyed, small-mouthed features. 'Hey, Jerry, look.' Mike radiated, and waited for the twins to slide into consensus with his view. He'd been practicing all week to get these visuals." [1]
From the design perspective, this paragraph is dense with implications for the nature of the everyware experience. Vinge presents a world in which the average adolescent seemingly has free and ubiquitous access to a pervasive, geo-localized information and communications infrastructure layer the local government maintains. Further, Mike Villas and his friends use this pervasive network to join an active, geographically distributed community that stages complex, extensively customized alternate / augmented-reality games. Mike and the other participants play these augmented reality games using a range of sophisticated wearable computing-hardware devices.
These wearable systems employ gesture, audio, video, haptic feedback, and possibly other sensory channels as their primary interaction and control mechanisms. This is not the world of the keyboard and mouse we know today and goes far beyond multi-touch. Synchronously shared personal displays with stylized visualization themes let game players define and exchange their individual viewpoints on the augmented-reality landscape surrounding them. Broadcasting and sharing players' individual views facilitates cooperation and competition. Players create, manage, and enjoy games by exchanging their reference points. Shared augmented visualizations, integrated social elements, and communication capabilities such as presence, identity, and conversation let players maintain layered, nuanced dialogues with other players and people who are either nearby or linked remotely from afar.
All of these social and co-creative dimensions allow, or perhaps—given common social pressures for self-presentation and peer sociality—require players to define and manage multiple digital identities. [3] Technically, their avatars—the digital identities Mike and his friends create for playing games—persist outside game contexts, remaining present as elements of the networked public space. [3, 4]
In addition to the pervasive information layer in public areas of the landscape that is devoted to utilitarian purposes, some private-property locations serve as enhanced game environments that offer richer experiences for players, or co-creators. Vinge describes an example of this sort of public / private area as follows:
"Pyramid Hill had all the latest touchy-feely effects. These were not just phantoms painted by your contact lenses on the back of your eyeballs. On Pyramid Hill, there were games where you could kick lizard butt and steal raptor eggs, or games with warm furry creatures that danced playfully around, begging to be picked up and cuddled. If you turned off all the game views, you could see other players wandering through the woods in their own worlds. Somehow the Hill kept them from crashing into each other." [1]
Some of the identifiable mechanisms of everyware to which Vinge refers include
- three-dimensional projections of information onto contact lenses
- multiple game styles and visualizations
- overlapping networks of players who are either physically present or remotely and digitally present
Vinge describes a system that smoothly coordinates all of these interacting elements throughout an augmented-reality domain.
In the park, Mike and his companions encounter a large dinosaur creature of Mike's design, which promptly 'eats' one of them.
"'Ahh!' the monster opened its mouth and vomited horror. It was scary good. Mike flicker-viewed on reality: Fred was standing in the steaming remains of his raptor. His shirt was pulled out of his pants, and he was drenched in slime, real, smelly slime. The kind you paid money for.
"The monster itself was one of the Hill's largest robots, tricked out as a member of Mike's new species." [1]
Here, we can see that Pyramid Hill offers an entertainment environment populated by large, autonomous or remotely managed robots. Its multi-sensory special effects, adaptive system rules, and shared visualizations support the game experience. Altogether, Pyramid Hill sounds a bit like Disney's trademark imagineering approach to amusement park design—though the enormous socio-technical possibilities of everyware amplify its consequences.
When Mike arrives at school, everyware is also part of his out-of-game experience:
"Indoors, the choice of view was not entirely his own. Mornings, the school administration required that the Fairmont School News appear all over the interior walls…. He followed the little green nav arrows with half his attention…and abruptly realized he had climbed two flights of stairs. School admin had rearranged everything since yesterday. Of course, they had updated his nav arrows, too. It was a good thing he hadn't been paying attention." [1]
Vinge's future school directly controls some aspects of what students' wearable systems display. The school provides personalized wayfinding, based on both Mike's course schedule and facilities management decisions. In design terms, Mike's wearable is coordinating multiple organizational and procedural layers of rules and information to direct him to his next assigned classroom, using time and location awareness—which are presumably supported by a mixture of sensors, mapping / cartography, and geographic coordinate systems. While this may be convenient for students who are thinking of other things on their way to class, the ability to literally control what someone else sees raises critical questions about privacy, surveillance, and control. School policy in "Synthetic Serendipity" requires students to appear in person:
"That was why the school made you show up in person for most classes; you had to pay a little bit of attention just because you were trapped in a real room with a real instructor. Chumlig's lecture graphics floated in the air above them. She had the class's attention; there was a minimum of insolent graffiti nibbling at the edges of her imaging." [1]
Like the dramatic reframings that open the story, this description of school policy represents another profound inversion. In the world of everyware, physical presence in a classroom setting limits students' range of activities—particularly, their access to social interactions, other information, and modes of communication—rather than enhancing access to knowledge, instruction, and the professional guidance of teachers. Virtual absence constitutes truancy—which merely reflects physical absence.
In addition to affecting administrative policy, everyware permeates educational practices and tools in "Synthetic Serendipity"—such as the three-dimensional display teachers use to focus the class's attention. And it seems Vinge's future is at least partially hackable, given the mention of graffiti.
In class, Mike uses many of the same elements of everyware that support the augmented-reality games he plays in his free time, letting his attention wander "…from viewpoint to viewpoint around the room. Some were from students who'd set their viewpoints public. Most were just random cams." Here Vinge suggests a mixed palette of shared visualizations, originating from the cameras and sensors of fellow students, as well as cameras with unspecified, though presumably non-human origins. Vinge uses the dense deployment of instrumentation and networked sensors throughout both man-made and natural environments that is stock in trade for many depictions of the future of ubiquitous computing.
As students often do, Mike has mastered skills that let him avoid the attention of teachers while in class:
"Like most students, Mike kept lots of stuff saved on his wearable. He could run a search like this very close to his vest. He didn't route to the outside world except when he could use a site that Chumlig was talking about. She was real good at nailing the mentally truant. But Mike was good at ensemble coding, driving his wearable with little gesture cues and eye-pointer menus. As her gaze passed over him, he nodded brightly and replayed the last few seconds of her talk." [1]
Interaction designers might note Vinge's mention of "ensemble coding," a carefully learned technique for using wearable computers that minimizes any signs one's attention is not focused on the social roles and interactions that are supposed to be in the foreground—for example, the relationship between teacher and student. Ensemble coding is an advancement on contemporary usage practices that aim to hide or disguise when people are working with computing devices—the familiar crackberry—forbidden in group settings like personal and professional gatherings, classrooms, and business meetings.
Like business people who have learned the art of working during meetings, Vinge shows Mike Villas putting his attention on other goals:
"Mike sent out a couple hundred queries, mainly pounding on certificate authorities. Even if the certs were solid, people and programs often used them in stupid ways. Answers came trickling back. If this weren't Friends of Privacy chaff, there might be some real clues here. He sent out follow-up queries…." [1]
This passage makes it clear that skilled and savvy students can discretely conduct sophisticated information retrieval exercises against large collections of locally cached data, as well as the wider cloud of the Internet. Mike is using his equipment and advanced searching skills to investigate the background of his fellow students, part of a business arrangement—called an affiliance—that relies on anonymous agents, brokered contracts, identity certificates, electronic payments, and deep reservoirs of publicly accessible, personal information. He finds "lots about Ralston Blount [an adult student] that was public record, even some legacy newsgroup correspondence. That was always good for shaking up your parents and other grown-ups…." Vinge invokes the stereotype of younger generations adapting to new technologies more quickly than their parents and grandparents and also reminds readers that a world of everyware is a world of mediated public information.
Teachers, with a good eye and their own skills at hiding interactions with computing devices, can use the same techniques to monitor and manage students, as Mike discovers here:
"Suddenly a message hung in letters of silent flame all across his vision:
"Chumlig > Villas: You've got all day to play games, Mike! If you won't pay attention here, you can darn well take this course over.
"Villas > Chumlig: Sorry. Sorry!
"Most times, Chumlig just asked embarrassing questions; this was the first time she'd messaged him with a threat.
"And the amazing thing was, she'd done it in a short pause, when everyone else thought she was just reading her notes. Mike eyed her with new respect." [1]
Vinge shows a classroom that is thoroughly permeated by digital elements such as presence, surveillance, traffic and activity monitoring, messaging, and communication with semi-autonomous query agents. All of these digital elements directly affect the social norms and dynamics of the classroom environment, which is itself repositioned not as an enhanced means of sharing information, but as a venue with increased barriers to the normal flows and interactions of ubiquitous computing.
"Synthetic Serendipity" presents a wide-ranging vision of the experience of interacting with everyware, in terms of
- enabling devices and user interfaces
- social norms and patterns, in settings ranging from education to business, play and cooperation
- supporting public and private infrastructures
- architecture and land-use practices
- local and supra-local forms and mechanisms of government
- economic and political structures
- shifting demographic and generational power balances
The first four topics are naturally of most interest to user experience designers, but the contexts in which the everyware arises and the environments it permeates are also important.
It's Everyware Right Now
The games-versus-reality inversion, truly pervasive network, and gesture-driven wearable computers of "Synthetic Serendipity" may seem farfetched, as do many of the other components of everyware that appear in the story. But a brief survey of existing technologies—some new since 2004—shows many of the foundational elements of Vinge's vision are available now in some form.
Gestural Interfaces
Vinge's ensemble coding and shared visualization spaces may be quite close at hand with the launch of technologies like g-speak. According to its creators at Oblong, g-speak is a "spatial operating environment" that is "built around free-hand, three-space gestural input. Applications are controlled by hand poses, movement and pointing. Finger and hand motion are tracked to 0.1mm at 100 Hz; pointing is pixel-accurate. Two-handed and multi-user input are fully supported." [5]
g-speak's creators claim their software platform is ideal for supporting spatially aware interactions among groups of people, and is already in use for
- analysis of large data sets
- operation of three-dimensional interfaces
- construction of efficient multi-user collaborative applications
- integration of large screens and multiple computers into room- and building-scale work environments
- development of large-scale applications that run interactively across enterprise networks [3]
These contexts resemble many of the activities and ideas that appear in "Synthetic Serendipity," including
- Mike's investigation of extensive background information about his fellow students
- 3D visualizations Mike's wearable generates
- group design activities in a shop class, which are featured in the story
- a shared virtual classroom environment
- Pyramid Hill's augmented-reality game space
Figure 1 is a video showing the g-speak environment being used for film and video editing.
Figure 1—g-speak video editing
Augmented Reality
"Synthetic Serendipity" assumes technologically savvy people have pervasive access to deep layers of public and private information attuned to their current location. A present-day antecedent to this sort of experience might be Wikitude, an application Mobilizy developed for the G1 Android phone shown in Figure 2, which delivers an augmented-reality experience. The application offers users geo-localized information from a variety of sources like Google Maps and Wikipedia, superimposing Internet data on live images from the phone's camera. Wikitude uses combined location and image information to recognize elements of the landscape that the G1 camera sees, identifying landmarks and local points of interest.
Figure 2—Wikitude's augmented view of reality
Wearable Devices
"Synthetic Serendipity" does not describe the wearable computing system Mike and other students use in any detail, leaving its size, weight, components, visibility, and other physical attributes to the reader's imagination. But video eyeware manufacturer Vusix is chasing Vinge's future scenario. The company sells lightweight 2D / 3D video display glasses in both military models and the civilian model shown in Figure 3. Vusix glasses visualize many kinds of input at VGA and SVGA+ resolutions, creating an experience that is similar to looking at "a 60-inch monitor as seen from 9 feet." New models have transparent lenses, allowing wearers to maintain their awareness of the real world while using the video displays.
Figure 3—Vusix's Wrap 920AV ambient awareness glasses
Social Norms
Creating effective and affordable wearable hardware is primarily a technical challenge. However, the broad social acceptance of people who are encrusted with information technology and entertainment devices throughout the course of their everyday lives presents a very different threshold. Yet a November 2008 survey on mobile usage habits "finds 36 per cent of Canadians spend more time with their cell phone each day than their significant other." [6] The same survey found substantial indications that the perceived social weight of mobile devices is declining rapidly:
- 30 per cent of those surveyed said they sleep with their cell phone beside their bed.
- 30 per cent of Canadians admit to using their cell phone secretly in the bathroom."
The Near Future: SIXth Sense
Commercial technologies like g-speak, Vusix, and Wikitude have already fulfilled part of the "Synthetic Serendipity" vision, but prototype devices like SIXth Sense have greater potential for realizing the wearable systems of everyware. A project of the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT showcased at TED 2009, SIXth Sense has capabilities that echo many aspects of the wearable systems Vinge envisions in "Synthetic Serendipity." As described by its creators, SIXth Sense intends to "redefine our interaction with the digital and physical worlds." [7]
SIXth Sense uses a combination of off-the-shelf devices, including a camera, mobile phone, and projector, which together act as "a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen. The wearer can summon virtual gadgets and Internet data at will, then dispel them like smoke when they're done." [8]
The inventor's intent for SIXth Sense is pure lifeware:
"SIXth Sense frees data from its confines and releases it into the world, seamlessly integrating information and reality. SIXth Sense bridges this gap by augmenting the physical world around us with digital information and proposing natural hand gestures as the mechanism to interact with that information. SIXth Sense brings the intangible information out into the tangible world. … SIXth Sense sees what you see and visually augments any surfaces or objects you are interacting with. SIXth Sense projects information to any surface, walls, and the objects around us, and [lets us] interact with the information through natural hand gestures, arm movements, or with the object itself. SIXth Sense is having the entire world as your computer."
The videos in Figures 4 and 5 show SIXth Sense in action.
Figure 4—SIXth Sense wearer demonstrating the prototype
Figure 5—SIXth Sense wearer shows prototype's capabilities
The researchers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and creative technologists behind SIXth Sense and its like are pioneers, working to design the ubiquitous experience of lifeware in the absence of well-established tools, methods, and perspectives. The people designing lifeware are already confronting the challenges of creating balanced experiences within complex contexts. What do these early examples of everyware tell us?
Rob van Kranenberg of the Institute of Networked Cultures identified three implications of rising ubiquity in his pamphlet "The Internet of Things." First, according to van Kranenberg, "When computational processes disappear, the environment becomes the interface." [9] For example, the Vusix eyeware unit projects video-display overlays onto its lenses that its wearers see in combination with actual reality. This requires a shift in the framing of design that recognizes the locus of computing and interaction is no longer distinct from the surrounding context. Instead, this locus is immersed in the environment. For designers, the everyware interface is not a strictly bounded or controllable space.
Second, van Kranenberg noted, "In such an environment—where the computer has disappeared as a visible technology…human beings have become designable and designerly information spaces." [9] From the perspective of design, this means the subject / object positioning of people changes—people themselves become objects of design. Both the first and second implications are readily apparent in the SIXth Sense demonstration video. The wearer makes a telephone call by dialing a touchpad that is projected onto his palm—human body as user interface—checks the time by drawing a circle on his wrist—human body as user interface—and projects data about someone else directly onto that person's body during a face-to-face meeting—using another human being as a designed element of a user interface.
Third, van Kranenberg declares, "Design decisions inevitably become process decisions." [9] Designing everyware means taking into account all relevant contexts, and as "Synthetic Serendipity" shows, the greatly increased complexity of the user experience directly affects how design is done. The designers of everyware must successfully determine how to integrate the many different layers of everyware experiences—including those that are personal / universal, local / global, synchronous / asynchronous, as well as co-created. Foregoing or incorrectly balancing these contexts can adversely affect the experience. For example, the designers of SIXth Sense discovered the sensitive implications of projecting possibly embarrassing information into the social contexts of face-to-face conversations.
As everyware continues to evolve, all three of these implications will take on greater significance and urgency. I'll revisit these issues again in the next installment of my column, which looks at the more distant future of everyware.
The More Distant Future: Post-Humanity
One of the fundamental tenets of everyware is that computing power will expand beyond the tight confines of dedicated machines and permeate the wider world, becoming, as Mark Weiser said, "Machines that fit the human environment…." [10] In this view, as I've discussed in this column, computing is deeply integrated into the surrounding environment, yet remains external to human beings themselves.
In the next installment, I'll review a science fiction scenario that considers what happens when the boundaries separating humans from the environment blur and dissolve—in which humanity itself becomes, as van Kranenberg foretold, an object of design.
[1] Vinge, Vernor. "Synthetic Serendipity." IEEE Spectrum Online, July 2004. Retrieved January 1, 2009.
[2] IEEE. "About IEEE Spectrum." IEEE Spectrum Online. Retrieved February 1, 2009.
[3] Boyd, Danah. "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life." In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Edited by David Buckingham. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
[4] Meadows, Mark Stephen. I Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2008.
[5] Oblong. "Commercial Overview: Platform and Products." Oblong, November 13, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
[6] CTV.ca News Staff. "One-third of Canadians Sleep with Cell Phones: Study." CTV.ca, November 12, 2008. Retrieved December 1, 2009.
[7] SIXth Sense. "About SIXth Sense." SIXth Sense. Retrieved February 1 2009.
[8] Zetter, Kim. "TED: MIT Students Turn Internet Into a Sixth Human Sense—Video." Wired News, February 5, 2009. Retrieved February 5, 2009.
[9] van Kranenberg, Rob. The Internet of Things: A Critique of Ambient Technology and the All-Seeing Network of RFID. Amsterdam: Institute Of Network Cultures, 2008.
[10] Weiser, Mark. "The Computer for the 21st Century." Palo Alto Research Center, 1991. Retrieved October 15, 2008.
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Has broken three world records in swimming and will represent Zimbabwe in the 2008 Olympics.
Coventry will be competing in the swimming at the 2008 Olympics. At the the last Olympics, the 2004 Olympics, she won a gold, a silver and a bronze.


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Business Law
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I see your edit and that does partially address my follow up question.
What I was thinking is that the fee would be paid to the LLC for each transaction, another broker, not myself and not my principal broker would be paid a fee or commission for representing the LLC in the transaction, and I would pay myself a salary from the LLC for managing the LLC.
Do you think that would work?
Just to clairfy, when I said "... the fee would be paid to the LLC..." I was refering to the assignment fee and not the broker fee/commission. Still the same answer?
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New York State has held off the drilling industry since 2010, when it imposed a moratorium on fracking to give state regulators time to conduct an environmental review and develop a regulatory framework.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is expected to release the results of the review later this month.
DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens and Health Commissioner Nirav Shah have been tapped by Gov. Cuomo to jointly analyze the public health impacts of fracking. Environmental groups, although they welcomed the state's move, wanted an independent study. The Cuomo administration, by keeping the study in-house, can be seen as tossing a bone to the environmental lobby and hedging its legal bets.
The administration is caught in a squeeze play between the gas drilling companies and their well-funded lobbyists, and the state's rising and increasingly well-coordinated grassroots anti-fracking movement. In response to the drilling industry's claim that fracking will create jobs, opponents argue that destroying the state's natural beauty, its clean water and its clean air -- at taxpayer expense -- would kill jobs in the vacation and agricultural sectors and increase public health costs.
Since 2008, when New York initially dodged the fracking bullet ripping through Pennsylvania and Ohio, natural gas prices have plummeted. If the drilling industry can't manage to break into New York State by the end of November this year, the drilling lobby will be back at square one in a bid for an extension, triggering another public comment period and a better-coordinated response from the anti-fracking movement.
Last time around, New Yorkers organized anti-fracking protests around the state and blasted the DEC with 80,000 comments to its proposed fracking rules. Since then, the anti-fracking movement has grown exponentially as New Yorkers have waked up to the realities of fracking.
Fracking involves blasting millions of gallons of laced with toxic chemicals, water and sand into bedrock to free trapped methane gas. The net result of this destructive, resource-intensive process is poisoned water, land, people, and animals. Although the federal Environmental Protection Agency has yet to complete a study of fracking's effects on the nation's clean water supply, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence of fracking's widespread negative impacts on the environment and public health.
New York State was targeted by the gas drilling industry because it sits on the edge of the Marcellus Shale outcrop, which contains natural gas. The drillers say there's 20 years' worth of methane in the Marcellus. They don't talk about the long-term costs to us of getting it out.
Twenty New York towns have now banned fracking withing their limits. A drilling company, Anschutz Exploration Corp. and Cooperstown Holstein Corp., a dairy farm that sold Anschutz a lease, have appealed decisions by New York judges upholding the bans.
Cuomo, while dangling the state in front of the fracking lobby, has said he supports the power of local governments to ban fracking.
The article from Bloomberg Businessweek.
"Fracktivists" keep the heat on Cuomo [The Nation.]
Gas drilling boom underwritten with federal tax dollars [Yahoo.]
Fracking: boom or doom? [Village Voice.]