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Friday, June 28, 2013
I have always loved embroidery designs with His, Hers, Yours, Mine, and...............
10 comments:
- lil red hen said...
I would love your work in any room of the house!
- June 28, 2013 at 3:06 PM
- Laurie said...
I've never had a monogrammed anything, maybe it's time! When I embroider, I love to fill in with little flowers and french knots.
- June 28, 2013 at 4:57 PM
- Betty Lou said...
I thought that may e the Mr and Mrs towels for the newlyweds were dish towels, that would be good to see if the mister used his. Beautiful work.
- June 28, 2013 at 6:21 PM
- Miss Holly said...
Oh my gosh your work is so beautiful...your header picture Is amazing!!
And.....I just happen to designing a pillow as a wedding present....I was thinking of doing something along those lines....really fun project!!
- June 28, 2013 at 7:49 PM
- Preeti said...
Lovely stitching!! Adding rosé buds is a good idea...they look beautiful!!
- June 28, 2013 at 10:17 PM
- Cindy said...
The monograms are really pretty! And I like the tiny flowers placed around the other one. It really is shabby chic:)
- June 29, 2013 at 5:30 AM
- Karen said...
Kathleen, that towel is absolutely beautiful! The rosebuds are perfect! And yes, I do tend embellish a design with extra details as I go along. I think that's one of the most fun parts of embroidery!
- June 30, 2013 at 4:45 AM
- Marie said...
The little rosebuds add so much! Neat idea!
- June 30, 2013 at 9:03 PM
- Lady Linda said...
Everytime I visit your blog, I just love your posts! Such fun. I need to spend more time on embroidery work. Your work is so nice.
- July 1, 2013 at 7:40 PM
- janice15 said...
I have done some letter work but not to much I have a cross stitch pillow case that is almost finished and I was going to put initials on it.. I love your Mr. and Mrs. and love your roses on the towel below with the rose buds very sweet..Happy July with love Janice
- July 1, 2013 at 9:48 PM


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MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines will have at least five representatives in the 2016 Olympics set from August 5 to 21 in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. For some Phl sports officials, they wanted more.
Joey Romasanta, the Phl Olympic Committee's first vice president and the country's chief of mission, on Tuesday said they are eyeing at least six more slots in the quadrennial event with still four months to go before the actual games.
"We're looking to earn more Olympic berths but we're looking a minimum of 11. And we have five now," said Romasanta, during the press conference of "Road to Rio" or the slogan used by TV5 after it gained the official broadcasting rights of the games Tuesday in Makati City.
The five who have secured slots to Rio were Fil-Am sprinter Eric Cray, boxers Rogen Ladon and Charly Suarez, taekwondo jin Elaine Alora and table tennis' Ian Lariba.
Romasanta, who also heads the Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas, Inc. and the karatedo group, said he has high hopes boxing will produce more Olympic qualifiers.
"We hope there will be more from boxing, perhaps two more male boxers two more in the women's division," he said.
In the 2012 London Games, a total of 15 Filipinos qualified.
Apart from boxing, the country's other Olympic hopes could also come from weightlifting where Hidilyn Diaz hopes her recent performance will get certification and Gilas Pilipinas, which is seeking to top the six-team Olympic Qualifiers the country will host this July.
In the Olympic basketball qualifiers, Gilas will have its hands full against teams like France and Canada, which boasts of several NBA players in their fold.
According to POC honorary member Frank Elizalde, there is still hope in basketball.
"If we can beat a team like France, which has several NBA superstars playing here, we'll have a chance," he said.
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I'm doing this challenge on a daily basis but I will make one blogpost about it every week on sunday. I didn't want to spam all my challenge stuff along with all the others, I'm doing this for myself and not for anyone else, since I find it quite irritation to see the same tag pictures over and over again on my wall. So sharing it once a week is more than enough for me! But lets get on with the challenges of this week!
So far this week hasn't been a real challenge for me, I didn't knew what to expect so I was super excited when the first prompt came out. It was making a wishlist goal for you wardrobe. I didn't want to make a commitment with myself and saying only buy one dress this year or buy something less or more. Therefore I decided to make some goals that are easy to reach for myself.
This year I want to add a new coat to my wardrobe, I only have one long pink coat which is perfect in wintertime but doesn't suit with all my dresses. So adding a new coat to the collection will be a nice add.
Also this year I want to make at least one TaoBao order, I wanted to make one for may years but the fact that i haven't done this before scares me a bit. A couple of weeks ago I bought my first cut sew style blouse and I love it! It's super cozy and easy to wear on an everyday basis. You look super cute and it's easy to iron as well instead of all those blouses. And last but not least is adding an Innocent World dress to my collection, this brand has so many amazing non printed OP's and cute everyday wear so it's perfect for an everyday outfit.
For the second day I had a bit of trouble since I'm not a gallery fan my options where very limited, our challenge was to look up a list of museums in our area. In my city we do have 2 musea but they aren't the ones that I like to visit as a lolita. I took this day pretty serieus and wanted to find 3 places that where also suitable for lolita meeting locations. In the end I found 3 very different kind of museums that I found very interesting and want to visit in the future.
First up is Bokrijk, it's located in Genk. This is an open air musea that shows the historical way of living in Belgium. They have 4 different kinds of areas in the park, the Sixties, Haspengouw which shows the village Ulbeek, the actors will take you back to the year 1913 with amazing performances.
There is also the Kempen, this location shows you the farm life of the northern part of flanders. The cute houses are made from wood and clay and are a true pleasure for the eye. The last part is East and West Flanders, no typical village but characteristic houses filled with regional crafts and arts.
Alden Biesen is next in line, I love visiting castles and do castle tours. This pretty castle is located in Bilzen. You can have a guided tour inside and outside the castle telling you about it's history. But they also have many activities during the year you can attend. I haven't seen this castle yet so I really want to go one day.
Last in my list of must seen musea would be Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp. It's a musea full of old books and historical letters are my biggest love. I'm a big book lover and I love lettering especially hand lettering. I can spend a whole day in the musea and not getting bored for one minute. Just let me sit on a chair and enjoy the surroundings. If you're not a fan of old books they have and amazing garden as well which is perfect for making photo's. Like the castle above I haven't visited this one either but I'm planning this one in my agenda as well some day.
As for todays challenge I changed things up a bit, I'm not going to memorize a friends wishlist since a lot of them are pretty long like endlessly long! So I took some of my favorite pieces out of their wishlist so I know where to look for when I'm browsing online.
One of my dear friends Georgia is looking for one of these beauties. Just like me but I'm looking for the version she already owns. I hope that we both find this dress one day it's the Träumerei of Bright stars.
My dear friend Rosalynn is looking for a dress that I already own. It's the Memorial Cake halter JSK. It's such a nice print and she already owns a Sweet & Tiny necklace to go with it. She is only missing the dress itself. I keep my eyes open for her but at this point she hasn't had the money to buy the dress. It's not a mission impossible to find this dress so I bet she will find is soon enough as she saved up for it.
And the last one in this list of dresses is going to be one for Saltje. She really want to own Musee du Chocolate, I really wanted to own this dress as well one day but over time I'm starting to dislike it more and more for my own taste and style. Don't get me wrong I still like the dress but not for myself so I took in from my own wishlist in order to make room for an other one. But there is a change if I see in in person one day and with a nice coord it can make a comeback but for now I keep my eyes open for Saltje!


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Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment - disinformation
New Realtime 3D Modeling Can Turn You Into Any Celebrity on CameraToday, we can kiss reality goodbye. Stanford, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Max Planck Institute for Informatics unveiled
their latest project and it is very scary. They have developed a
technology that can manipulate youtube videos in real-time with a basic
web camera. The implications of these technology are very serious.


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This Florida cat is into the mountains. Poor guy has been cooped up in a camper and is finally getting some outdoor Colorado action. This is the first night on my own adventure into the next uncertain chapter of my existence. This campsite was just so peaceful and perfect. It's a gem and was very special find through freecampsites.net. I'm so stoked to be travelin, I feel so free and looking forward to seeing where this adventure is leading me. So grateful to have my cat and my camper.
Free Walking My Cat Through Mountainess Terrain
- That's my Colorado Kitty Man right there!! 🌲😸
- Duey Dynamite: Beyond The Limit of our Judgements


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"Partly as a result of intensive lobbying by our association and others there have been some positive measures in the areas of farm transfers and consolidations introduced in recent budgets. We'd particularly recognise the 'half rate' 1% Stamp Duty for transfers to close relatives, the extension of the Young Trained Farmers Stamp Duty Relief to 31 December 2015 and the Capital Gains Tax Restructuring Relief as logical and welcome. Those measures need to be built upon if we are to address the continuing problems around farm fragmentation and the possibilities of expansion that will loom large post-quota from 2015 onwards. For a start, the 1% rate for transfers to close relatives due to expire at the end of 2014 must be extended to facilitate expansion and sensible succession planning. The Young Trained Farmer Relief requirement for 50% of normal working time to be spent farming is difficult to establish and verify and should be changed to a five year retention of ownership and use of land qualification. Budget 2013 provided for an increase in the rate of CGT to 33% representing an increase of 65% since 2008. ICMSA totally opposes any further increase and calls for the reintroduction of indexation which was withdrawn in 2002", said Mr Comer.
"ICMSA believes that the reductions in the CAT tax-free thresholds in successive budgets have been excessive and have worked as a disincentive on land transfers. We believe that the retention of 90% agricultural relief for CAT is absolutely essential to ensure transfer from one generation to the next. We also firmly hold that farm families should be able to avail of the same tax relief for farm leases as non-related farm persons. The current tax code does not allow the same tax relief for land leases to related persons as non-family members which is causing difficulties for farm families that wish to lease the farm to the next generation prior to retirement age. We also urge the Minister to look at a measure for Budget 2014 that will permit stock relief whereby if the receipts from the forced disposal of stock this year due to the fodder crisis are reinvested in livestock in 2014 or 2015, the farmer concerned can claim stock relief at 100% with proportionate reductions if the farmer does not invest the full amount received from the forced disposal of live stock", he continued
"ICMSA draws attention to the National Farm Survey Preliminary Estimates 2012 that indicate that family farm incomes fell by 15% in that year. The cuts to farm schemes contained in successive budgets have contributed to this fall and the fodder and consequent financial crisis experienced in 2013 should alert the Minister to the requirement to fund fully the farm schemes on which so many families depend", concluded the ICMSA President.
Ends 6 September 2013
John Comer, 087-2057846
President, ICMSA.
Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758
ICMSA Press Office


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Hi my lovelies, hope you are doing well! This is the second to last post on the S/S '13 trend series. We are nearly nearing the end now!
In this post I wanted to mention denim as one of the key trends for the season. Firstly, because denim has been intricately reworked not only in the classic jeans, but there has been denim dresses, jackets and shirts which have been given a new modern twist. Secondly, the denim for S/S '13 is very light, causal and easy to wear. I think for the cool breezy spring days and the hotter summer days which we are quite nicely approaching into in England, finding comfortable denim jeans which are light and won't make you all hot and horrible in the day are essential; equally as important is having a classic denim jacket in your wardrobe. And we can't go without a good classic denim shirt for any time in the year. For me, investing in these three denim pieces especially around this time of the year is perfect, because it tends to happen that the denim shirts and jackets in particular are made from a lighter and softer denim than perhaps those that you find in A/W for example.
I practically live in my jeans, like seriously, which means I am always on the hunt for a pair of jeans which are the one. They must fit the following requirements for them to enter my wardrobe. a) super comfy, b) extra skinny, tight - because when they give, jeans tend to loosen and stretch and I don't like the look of a pair of jeans which are baggy around the knees and ankle and c) Long length, preferably L32 - I like my jeans to be slightly longer so that they have a ruched - type effect near the ankles or when I want to roll them up I can do so without them looking like they are way to small for me. Although, I am a girl who's all for a pair of tight fit skinny jeans over anything else - a new style as emerged. The boyfriend fit. A looser, more casual, some could even say (no doubt more comfy than a skinny would be) more comfier, but also perhaps defining 'sexy' in a pair of jeans?
Linked down below are some options for the new summer boyfriend fit -
Warehouse Distressed Boyfriend Jeans
River Island Boyfriend Jeans
New Look Light Blue Ripped Boyfriend Jeans
ASOS Slim Leg Vintage Wash with Rips Boyfriend Jeans
A chambray shirt in the summer is a must. Layered over a maxi, or if you are brave enough to work the double denim trend like Rihanna or Sarah Jessica Parker then go for it. Whatever you choose, a denim shirt will be a key interchangeable piece in your wardrobe that you will be guaranteed to pull out time and time again. Some choices to get you started -
As the name suggested this is a style which will suit all and will not date:
Warehouse Authentic Western Shirt
Forever 21 Long line Chambray Shirt
ASOS Only Shoulder Studded Shirt
And last, but by no means least. The famous denim jacket. With my own experience in the past, I was always afraid to get a denim jacket because I was scared of it looking old fashioned and almost manly. This is why I think its important that when choosing a denim jacket, you choose one that fits around the waist. I personally think that a cropped denim jacket works a lot better for the womanly figure because one that is longer can tend to swamp the figure, hence giving a masculine and broad physique. Rolled up sleeves give a trendier and relaxed feel to a jacket, but as always the choice is yours! Again, here are some choices for you to have browse through -
New Look Blue Crop Denim Jacket
Boohoo Emma Dip Dye Denim Jacket
Asos = Only Denim Western Jacket
Warehouse Western Denim Jacket
As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my posts. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I apologize for it being late once again, just haven't had the time. If you have any comments, thoughts, suggestions or requests please leave them down below and I will reply to you as soon as possible.
Much Love,
DISCLAIMER: All items listed here are NOT affiliated. I have researched and linked these items as potential choices and as a guide to help people. All opinions and comments made are my own, none of which are influenced by any other person or source.


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A huge thanks to Amiga enthusiast John "Chucky" Hertell for bringing his Amy-ITX to Neuss and letting people hug and squeeze Her. Chucky is the author of the wonderful DiagROM (Amiga replacement diagnostic ROM) and other cool open and free projects like the A3660 CPU accelerator!
Take a look over at www.hertell.nu


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ACE FANUC Robot Training
ACE - Automated Cells & Equipment, Inc.Updated 01/11/2010
In today's competitive environment, productivity and efficiency are key factors in cost-reduction programs at successful manufacturing facilities. Your manufacturing efficiencies are dependent upon the proficiency of your work cell operators. The cost to train your operators is a small percentage of what you've invested in the equipment. Have your operators been sufficiently trained? Are you getting top dollar out of your operators and robot cells?
For every dollar you spend training your employees, you will realize a return on your investment through increased efficiencies and reduced down-times. ACE realizes that training is essential to successfully using a flexible factory automation system. From research and development to trouble-shooting error codes, Automated Cells & Equipment, Inc. (ACE) will educate your technical staff to a level of expertise where they can operate and understand the complete automated system.
ACE offers a "hands-on" approach and has several "robot specific" training classes' available, as well as customized training to meet your needs. Contact us today to discuss a program suited to your training needs and budget.
Associated Categories


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Pillow Decor - May Flower Throw Pillow 20X20
14 Loves
Light and airy, the floral pattern of the May Flower Throw Pillow will brighten up your living space with its happy spring colors. Made from a wonderfully soft yet durable 100% cotton fabric, this pillow combines the artistic beauty of a watercolor painting with contemporary styling.
- Size: 20"x20"
- Fabric: 100% Cotton
- Same fabric front and back
- Knife edge seems
- Color matched, hidden zipper closure
- Poly Insert Included
Weight (lbs.):2
Length (in.):20
Width (in.):6
Height (in.):20
Ships To
Additional Item
Continental United States
Alaska & Hawaii
Puerto Rico
Contact us for express shipping rate quotes
This product usually ships in 4 business days and should be delivered in 15 business days.
Shop worry free! If you're not 100% happy with your purchase, you can exchange or return this item within 14 days of receiving it.


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Welcome to September Art Feast!
We are delighted to be launching a fantastic new project in association with Station 2 Station, the Curious SE27 Art Trail which will stretch the whole length of the high street from Rosebery's to Lantana Estates next to Tulse Hill Station.
Pick up the Curious SE27 Leaflet at Feast, take a look at the map and get exploring!
There will also be hands-on artistic activities going on during the day – you can create a mosaic at Family Wellbeing or explore patterns based on the work of famous artists at Artisans.
Plus, at the Portico Gallery you can view and bid on artworks donated by local artists and others, to be auctioned at Lambeth Open in October to raise funds for Southside Rehabilitation Association, a local mental health charity. Place a bid now and you could be a winner in October!
Family Wellbeing will be extra busy this month as Retro Village will be hosted there for the month of September – two hubs for the price of one! This is due to an upcoming auction at Rosebery's, so there will be an auction viewing on Sunday – Decades of Design, viewings 10am–2pm at Rosebery's.
Don't forget also that you can buy a child's packed lunch at Family Wellbeing: a very reasonable £2.50 for a ham or cheese sandwich, a piece of fruit, a bag of crisps and water or squash in a cup. Lunches go on sale about 11.30 and often sell out fast at busy Feasts (which September usually is!), so head up there early to avoid disappointment.
Plus we will have the usual packed entertainments schedule, with favourite performers, DJs and new talent on offer, Poetry Slabs at the Library – and including our very own West Norwood's Got Talent, WiNGiT, at Family Wellbeing.
Finally, if you haven't checked out the WeNo blog lately, why not have a nose around and discover our latest local business to be featured, B's Balloons?


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WELL!!! What a very busy, interesting and wonderful past ten days this has been! I am being a very naughty girl and getting this in a day late and I beg all of your forgiveness but I think you all will forgive me. Things are really starting to go in a positive direction even though I am back on the dreaded Island Plateau. According to my insane scale I am still flitting between 339 lbs and 342 lbs AND according to Dr. Polisky's scale that I was on earlier today when I finally got to see him I was 349 lbs… 5 lbs. less than 2 weeks ago when I first weighed myself on his new digital scale when I went for my blood test. I asked him how was it possible that I gained weight when I have been following the regimen he put me on and that I started? He knows how hard I work at it. He trusts me. I asked him could I be going towards CHF again? (congestive heart failure). He said no. He said very honestly 'who knows why this happens'. You can follow a diet regimen perfectly and your body just decides to do what it wants to do especially when you are diabetic. The same thing happens with blood sugar. You eat perfectly and your sugar spikes or it tanks. It is not a perfect science. The best you can do is to make adjustments like the ones I talked about in last weeks blog which I have been working on. He told me I am doing very well though with my taking off weight so do not give up. He also told me my blood work looked very good with my AC.1 level getting better all the time… it is now 6.3!!! Each time it gets lower. Now it is border line. I kept going the way I am next time my AC.1 will have normal reading!!! 😉 Dr. Polisky is letting me now start taking less insulin. Because of this I am going to have to be even more careful about what I eat to make sure I do not spike high. I also have to not stress too much as stress can raise your blood sugar too… that is going to be a challenge as some of you know how my life is and all of you know how dramatic I can be I will do the best I can. The less insulin I take the easier it will be to take off weight. Taking insulin does make it harder to take it off.
So when I got home I had just enough time to get ready for my rehearsal with my leading man from the film I start shooting at the end of this week. His name is Adam Marcinowski. He is a very talented actor and also a wonderful man. He is such a pleasure and easy to work with. I am VERY blessed and lucky. We had a VERY good rehearsal this evening. We are going to light and burn up the screen!! We are a FABULOUS team!!! Unfortunately I can't tell you all what we are doing and what the film is about because I am under a NDA ( that is a Non-Disclosure Agreement) but trust me everyone… you will all love it!!!
Last Wednesday was a very eventful day. It started out with an audition at Paramount Studios. It was so good to be back on that Lot again after all these years. It truly symbolized for me that I am back!!! The audition was for a part on the NBC sit com "Animal Practice" but the show was cancelled the next day. I was not upset because my audition was a very good one and the casting director could not have been nicer. She was not put off by my disability at all. I think I can safely say that I made a good impression and I will be called back by that casting director in the future!! After my audition Walter and I stayed on the Lot for a little bit and had some coffee. It felt so good sitting there. Everyone who walked by me said hello to me like I belonged. It was great!!!
Wednesday was also the 10th Anniversary of my mother's passing and Monday was my parents 56th wedding anniversary. Both my parents were cremated and their ashes were put in the Atlantic Ocean off the south shore of Long Island. My father's in the spring of 1991 when we rented a boat and went out on it with friends and my mother's in the spring of 2003 and we rented a boat again and this time it was Walter, my niece Victoria who was just 6 1/2 at the time and our dear friend Brian James Grace whom my mother liked a lot. While Walter and I were having coffee at Paramount I thought of my parents, particularly my mother and how happy they would be to know that I am starting to get my career back. That I have been fighting so hard for it. They both knew, especially Mom how for years I wanted so much to come out to California but things were always getting in the way. She wanted me to come out here and make my dreams to true. As I write this tears are streaming down my face as clarity is coming that she did help and contributed to make my dream come true. It's personal and I can't say how but those of you who know me can figure it out. That's what's makes it so so hard my getting sick out here and disabled and my dream almost dashed again. That's what makes it such a miracle and so so precious… so important. It's not just for me that my dream comes true but for her… for my mother. My mother's dreams were dashed and yes she gave me a very, very hard time and our relationship was tumultuous to say the least but in the end there was true forgiveness and peace between us and love… and mama left it so I can do what she did not have in her life… to have her dearest dream come true… "Mama… I FINALLY understand…"
Well, I'm catching my breath here. Sitting there in the Paramount Lot sipping my coffee I asked Walter if he would mind that since we were down in Hollywood anyway just a block away from Sunset Blvd. where we could take a bus all the way out to the Pacific Coast Highway where we could then get a bus that would take us right to my favorite place, Malibu Pier. I wanted to throw my mother's favorite yellow roses into the ocean for her and my father. Since it was just around noon and it was a gorgeous day albeit hot he said sure. He could tell it was important to me. We first bought the roses. We found some beautiful yellow tinged in pink ones just like the ones the grew in my grandmother's garden for years. She loved those roses. I took that as a sign that we were meant to do this. So on the bus we went. It took a while but it was a beautiful day. The Pacific Ocean was just magnificent. The sun just sparkled off of the water and it was so calm. I kissed each rose before I tossed each rose in. I especially kissed a rose for Brian as he asked me to. I had texted him that I was going out to the Pier to do this. He and my mother had a great relationship. When mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer and had her mastectomy and started her chemo she was very depressed and would not smile. She was with us when Walter and I were picking Brian up from work as Brian and I had a rehearsal together as we both were engaged as vocalists to sing at St. Rose of Lima Church in Far Rockaway Queens NY for Special Mass. Brian gets in the back seat of the car and they start talking. Mom says to Brian that she just started her chemo and she is going to lose her hair. Brain just looks at her in his very charming way and says sincerely " Well….wear a hat!!!" Mom just looks at him… total silence… then she just breaks out into this BIG smile and bursts out laughing!!! This was the first time mom had smiled or laughed since she was diagnosed. God bless Brian. I truly believe he saved her because her spirit was much better after that. After all the roses were tossed in we watched them for a little bit float out then started the journey back home…
My goodness this is a LONG one… there is so much more I want to say but I am afraid this could turn into a book and it's already almost 4:30 AM as I write this so I will bring this to a close for now.
I thank you all again for being here for me. You all are so wonderful!!! I look forward to hearing from you!!
Till next time!!! xxxooo


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Magbit Foundation
Biago Media is the proud developer and maintains the Magbit Foundation website. The Magbit Foundation website is used by individuals all over the world to find Magbit's mission and events easily. It also provides easy access for students, to download loan applications. For a list of other companies and organizations' sites we developed, visit our Portfolio. This site is set up on a user friendly content management system, to be easily updated and edited by the administrator, if necessary.
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Now retailers send catalogs monthly or even more frequently, so the thrill and anticipation is no longer the same. Today we have Amazon.
So it should come as no surprise that the nation's larger online retailer would find a way to drive its holiday sales though a more modern method of promotion – the app.
Today Amazon updated its universal iOS app, Amazon Mobile, to add some important new features for those shoppers concerned that their gifts arrive in time. In addition to some bug fixes, the app uses push notifications to send out alerts concerning deliveries.
Stay up to date on where your holiday gifts and packages are with delivery alerts. Turn on push notifications to get alerts on when your package ships from Amazon and when it's delivered. Plus get a daily notification for lightning deals. – App descriptionAmazon also recently launched a new app for the iPad called Amazon Santa which lets children and parents "create personalized, holiday wish lists to share with Santa, and your friends and family."
It's way too late to complain about the commercialization of Christmas, so let's just marvel at the fact that only a couple Christmas's after the launch of the original iPad we now are in a position where we are communicating with Saint Nick through a tablet. I wonder when the first app will launch that will allow our kids to FaceTime with the bearded fellow?


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Artist mocks Jeff Koons highest priced work using garbage bags
Gimhongsok – Canine Construction, 2009, 164x231x90cm
This Canine Construction by South Korean artist, Gimhongsok is one that anyone would fall in love with, coupled with the enigmatic quality it has. This work is the sculpture of a dog remains one of the artist's most well-known works in recent times. The creation involved using garbage bags, balloons, cardboard boxes, all assembled with expensive materials like resin.


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 4, 2016, Williams Lake, BC—The Invasive Species Council of BC congratulates one of its founders, Duncan Barnett, for his recognition by the Governor General of Canada with a Caring Canadian Award.
"For over 15 years, Duncan Barnett has worked to protect British Columbia's agricultural lands and environment, and still plays an active role in invasive species management, helping make BC a leader in that field," says Gail Wallin, Executive Director of the Invasive Species Council of BC (ISCBC). "Duncan helped develop the first Invasive Plant Strategy for BC starting in 2002, then chaired the newly formed Invasive Species Council of British Columbia in 2004. For almost two decades, his volunteer contributions have changed the approach and thinking on invasive species management within BC and beyond, and this recognition by the Governor General's award is well deserved."
Duncan Barnett, a rancher from 150 Mile House, was the longest serving Chair of the Invasive Species Council of BC, and helped shape and guide the Council to become a strong, respected organization. He is also an active volunteer in the Cariboo, where he has been a leader for local, regional and provincial cattlemen's associations and 4H and remains committed to healthy agriculture lands.
The Governor General's Caring Canadian Awards were presented today at a ceremony in Vancouver. These awards are presented by the Governor General on behalf of all Canadians to share inspiring stories, celebrate tremendous contributions to our society and connect with Canadians. The award recognizes those who have made a significant, sustained, unpaid contribution to their community.
About the Invasive Species Council of BC
The Invasive Species Council of BC (ISCBC) is working to minimize the negative ecological, social, and economic impacts caused by the introduction, establishment, and spread of invasive species. Their goals are to: educate the public and professionals about invasive species and their risks to ecosystems and economies through activities such as workshops, seminars and newsletters; coordinate and fund research relating to invasive species and make this available to the public; and undertake and support actions that improve the health of BC's natural ecosystems. For more information or to find your local invasive species committee visit www.bcinvasives.ca.
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Media contact:
Gail Wallin


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September 30, 2004
Out of the Dark Ages: Access to More Prices and Big Reduction in Trade-Throughs
Story Utilities
Are the dark ages of U.S. options trading finally over? It sure seems that way thanks to a system that has modernized the industry. The technology has accomplished what many thought was impossible it has built a new electronic link connecting the major options exchanges.
"Linkage allows specialists to access all prices on behalf of customers," Edward
Provost, executive vice president of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, told Traders Magazine. "This assures that customers receive the best possible execution at all times."
Before this linkage, as it is called, options traders had to navigate a hostile landscape of warring exchanges to find the best prices. With six major exchanges, the resulting markets could be very confusing. Traders routinely entered orders on one exchange only to find the same option trading at a better price on a competing exchange. For example, let's say that you bought 100 Intel October 20 calls for 1.30 on the PHLX, only to find that the ISE was offering them for 1.25. The nickel price difference translates into $500 that has vanished into the ether.
Prior to the introduction of multiple listing in 1999, the options markets were actually relatively orderly. A gentlemen's agreement between the exchanges limited most equity options to a single exchange. If you wanted to trade IBM options, your trade was executed on the CBOE. If you wanted to trade Intel, your order was executed on the Amex.
However, when the gentleman's agreement was broken by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the options market, practically overnight, degenerated into a fragmented and brutal business. Exchanges battled ruthlessly for volume. Competing market makers fought tooth and nail for pennies. While this intense competition benefited the customers by tightening markets, it also made trading options an exceedingly complicated process.
Trade-throughs became a regular occurrence. Demands for price-adjustments flooded the marketplace. Market makers soon became desperate to find a way to satisfy their customers without going broke. As a former market maker myself, I experienced this frustration on numerous occasions. Honoring competing markets may have sounded good in theory, but it was difficult to implement in practice.
In order to honor a competing market, a market maker had to stop what he was doing, pick up a phone, call a broker on a competing exchange, place an order for the options in question and then wait to see if his order was executed. Depending on how busy his broker was, and how far his broker was from the competing pit, it could take five or ten minutes to receive a confirmation.
As any trader knows, that is an eternity when you are waiting for a fill. During that time, the market could move against you, or the customer could cancel the order, leaving you with options that you never wanted in the first place.
The rivalry between the exchanges also made it difficult to satisfy customer orders. Trading crowds often refused to honor orders from competing broker dealers. That's even if they were sent on behalf of customers. On the few occasions when an order was honored and the customer was satisfied, the market maker was rewarded for his trouble with a hefty brokerage bill.


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Though being released worldwide for a number of months, Adele has released her video for beautiful somber ballad Someone Like You. Shot in Paris, the Brit singer walks along the Seine and French capital streets singing of a love she once had, however when to return to win his heart, to discover he has moved on to a better place and better someone!
The black and white video, directed by Jake Nava in the early hours of the morning, is haunting yet heartfelt and see's Adele sing about her lost lover. Don' you just hate the one the got away! Check out the video below.


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Checkmate! *Snap* * Snap* * Snap*!
He looked at me at said "Inthe…" and just grabbed me in the tightest hug ever. He stopped, looked at me again and pulled me in for another hug. I won't lie… it was….well…heartbreaking. It was walking down memory lane all over again. Half of me loved him still as my brother but another piece of me was being tempted to manipulate that love into something else.
We had shared a lifetime together; I remember being in pry 3 and him in primary 5 and him spilling his lunch on his uniform; he spent the day with oil on his shirt and it was hilarious. I remember almost a decade of christmas and new years at each other's house getting into trouble and having fun. I remember being in sec school with him and watching him develop into the "cool, popular guy"….I remember….how he had fit into every frame of my life.
Well, you know us 9ja's… the wedding was a 3 day event and we spent that time, talking, reminiscing over our childhood and catching up but we made sure never to broach the topic of him wanting to marry me. The hubster and Babyboy stayed at home so he respectfully asked of the hubster ( never calling him by name…lol) and my son and congratulated me for becoming a doctor.
It was safe and sweet until a weird scene happened. While we were taking bridal party pics when an older lady came up to me. She said
" Do you see that guy over there?" ( Pointing at him…")
"Yes, why what's wrong" I asked
"I don't mean to offend you but please be careful around him. I don't know if you know this but he is in love with you"
(Keeping my cool) " Why do you think so?"
"He has been watching every move you've made today, I can see it in his eyes. Dont you notice he is never more than a few steps away from you? and he is always maneuvering to sit close to you. I suggest when you are around him, hold your husband real close so he understands you are a married woman"
I thanked her for her advice and walked away; inside I was shocked because she must have been paying close attention to us.
At the end of everything, he and I had a heart to heart; we had unfinished business and couldn't hide it anymore. It was becoming impossible to ignore the past and where we had left off the last time we saw each other. He told me through out the wedding, he kept on kicking himself in the butt thinking " This girl could have been my wife right now if I hadn't been so stupid". I took a deep breath and said " Yes, I would have been yours if you hadn't been so stupid". If he had said "Yes" to me, the first time I opened up to him, I would have been his but without a shadow of doubt I would have ultimately regretted it.
His "stupidness" was actually God's wisdom and had been his greatest gift possible to me. His rejection and denial which had led to my shame and insecurities unbeknowst to me had been the greatest thing he could have ever down for me. I actually owed him a thank you. A thank you for rejecting me and freeing me to meet my true love; the hubster. It was the hubster, his love, acceptance, encouragement and genuine support that God used as a chrysalis to turn this caterpillar into a butterfly. I had blossomed into whom I was made to be. I was beautiful.
That was it, there was nothing else to say. We had both said our piece and it was time to move on….
When I boarded that plane to go back back home, I mentally and emotionally said goodbye to the past; with piece in my heart ( and a smirk on my face….I won't lie….lol) I closed a chapter to my life that had been left open a little too long. I couldn't help but smile because I knew that the man waiting for me on the other side was all I will ever need.
…when I got back home and gifted the hubster about all that happened, he smiled, shook his head and basically said " That boy lost his chance a loooong time ago…he needs to get over it" Hehe, I love that man!
THE END!!….there you go guys. The end! All this has been a true story! To those wondering if I am worried about the hubster finding out about this, rest assured, the hubster knew all about this before I even thought about writing it. I hold no secrets from him.
I learnt a lot from this chapter in my life and am going to write a " Moral of the story…" piece next (…or soon)
…Musings from atop the potter's wheel...


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Adjustable W.W.J.D BraceletsItem: 163-1468
Religious Party Favors For All Of Your Guests
Surprise your fellow church goers with colorful Adjustable W.W.J.D Bracelets. Give these inspirational bracelets to members of your church family for a fun reminder of the importance of faith in their life!
- 12 bracelets per package.
- Approximately 10″ long.
- Bracelets read "W.W.J.D".
- Red, black, purple, and green fabric bracelets in every package.
- Simply pull end to make tighter, loosen to make bracelet bigger in size.
- Black plastic closure.
Stock up on the religious favors, toys, and gifts you need to make your vacation bible school, Christian concert, or youth group gathering one to remember!


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A jQuery plugin which detects faces in pictures and returns theirs coords.
Decodes serialized form data and populates the form with that data. This method works upon text strings in standard URL-encoded notation, arrays containing objects of name/value pairs or objects containing key/value pairs.
FitVids.JS is a lightweight, easy-to-use jQuery plugin for fluid width video embeds.
PageSlide is a jQuery plugin which slides a webpage over to reveal an additional interaction pane.
File Upload widget with multiple file selection, drag&drop support, progress bars and preview images for jQuery.
Supports cross-domain, chunked and resumable file uploads and client-side image resizing.
Works with any server-side platform (PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, Java, Node.js, Go etc.) that supports standard HTML form file uploads.
Scrollorama is a jQuery plugin for creating eye-candy effects in parallel to the scrolling of web pages. By dividing the content into blocks, it simply lets us to animate elements on the page (when a block is reached) based on the browser window's scroll position.
Rhinoslider is a flexible jQuery slider plugin that can present any HTML element (text, images, videos, etc.). The plugin comes with lots of transition effects and new effects or styles can be added with ease .
It has options for every possible variable from the customization of the effects to auto-play, play direction, random display and navigation.
Backstretch is a simple jQuery plugin that allows you to add a dynamically-resized background image to any page. It will stretch any image to fit the page, and will automatically resize as the window size changes.
Filtrify is an advanced tag filtering plugin that you can search tags within tags and filter items by multiple tags from different categories and get a live feedback on the number of items containing related tags.
Camera slideshow is an open source project, based on Diapo slideshow, but improved a lot. You can download it and use for free.
Camera slideshow requires jQuery 1.4+ and other jQuery plugins are necessary if you want to use some functionalities: jQuery Easing and a customized version of jQuery Mobile to use Camera with mobile devices.


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Brutal chart shows how Chris Christie has probably missed his moment to be president
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is set to enter a crowded race for president on Tuesday, and he'll join the field as a clear underdog.
That's a surprising position for Christie to find himself in. Many Republican donors urged him to run against President Barack Obama in 2012. His popularity soared in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. And he cruised to a blowout re-election as governor in 2013.
(Photo credit: AP/Jim Cole)
But over the past year and a half, different elements have pummeled his image in and out of his home state. There's the Bridgegate scandal, to which he was never directly linked but which clearly damaged his reputation as an executive. Then there's the economic story under his governorship: He has endured nine credit downgrades under his watch and has had continual problems with his state's budget.
See Gallery
The chart below shows the change in Christie's fortunes, illustrating how the percentages of Americans who hold favorable and unfavorable views of the New Jersey governor have shifted over time. Christie's net favorability peaked in January 2013, when 51% of Americans had a favorable opinion, and just 23% had an unfavorable opinion.
Those numbers have flipped upside-down, with polling this month showing 27% favorable and 55% unfavorable:
NOW WATCH: This is the hardest part about being President Obama's personal chef
See Also:
- Chris Christie is going to sell himself as the straight-talking presidential candidate
- 2 states still aren't letting gay couples get married
- Activist takes down Confederate flag outside South Carolina state capitol
SEE ALSO: Only one group of Americans has become less accepting of homosexuality in the past 2 years


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Fresh Acts
Zakim Odogu – Surulere
Multi-talented Nigerian singer & songwriter Zakim Odogu comes through with a highly infectious tune which serves as his first official single in 2019 titledSURULERE.
The rhythmic cum harmonious song is produced by audio scientist Dessy Beats.
Leave a Reply
Fresh Acts
Follybwoy ft. Sammyoung – Olomi
After a successful release of his hit track Omo Ope which enjoyed massive airplay both home and abroad this time Follybwoy the Dubai based
performing artist and songwriter is out with another fantastic love song title Olomi on which he featured the Ace award-winning producer Sammyoung. This is a nice tune everyone can relate to download and enjoy good music.
DOWNLOAD Follybwoy ft. Sammyoung – Olomi
Fresh Acts
TeeQ Bello – Happy People
KINGSIZE MUSIC signee TEEQ BELLO begins the year with a brand inspiring song entitled HAPPY PEOPLE.
The song was produced by raving producer; TUZI, mixed & mastered by IGODAN.
TEEQ BELLO is currently working on his debut untitled ep, scheduled to drop later in the year.
Download & share!!
Fresh Acts
Dizzy Mane – Malaika (Gbe Body E)
The Ever Blazing Fast Rising Upcoming Artiste From Ikorodu. Fatai Oluwaseun Idris. Popularly Known As "Dizzy Mane" Is Out With Another Mind Blowing Street Banger Titled "MALAIKA" (Gbe Body E) Produced by: Niyocliff
Follybwoy ft. Sammyoung – Olomi
TeeQ Bello – Happy People
VIDEO: Lucky Star X Yung V – Ghetto Prayer
Dizzy Mane – Malaika (Gbe Body E)
Shegzy Marley – Mio Sha Le Para Mi
Olisa – Viktur Vital
Mister Yaga ft. Ebito Lemmy – All For Love
Tan – Get Away
Victor AD ft Erigga — Why
Mrblow – One Woman Is Enough
VIDEO: Dammy Krane – Balance Well ft. Olamide, Medikal & Pearl Thusi
VIDEO: Mr. Real – Antidote
VIDEO: Larry Gaaga – Iworiwo ft. 2Baba
VIDEO: Guccimaneko & Olamide – Follow Me
VIDEO: CDQ & King Promise – Flex (Remix)
MIXTAPE: DJ KHOLOW – Straight Outta IKD (Vol. 1)
Born MOHAMMED AHMED KOLO, popularly known as DJ KHOLOW. The Lagos born and breed disc jockey, and the...
DJ Ucee x DJ Wizben – Feelings Vol2
DJ Ucee x DJ Wizben shares another collaborative mixtape tagged "Feelings Vol2". Feelings Vol2 is a follow up mix to the very first Feelings mixtape dropped...
DJ Davisy – Nobody Fine Pass You Mixtape
DJ Davisy is back with another amazing mixtape titled "Nobody Fine Pass You" mixtape. 'Nobody Fine Pass You' is a...
MIXTAPE: DJ A-Berry – Top On Mixtape (Vol 1)
The Turn Up Machine DJ A-Berry comes through with a fantastic bit of melodic accumulation titled T.O.M Top On Mixtape...
BabyLynn Promotions New Year Light Up Mix Hosted By DJ Flexyru
Babylynn Promotions a Well respected Music promotion Brand known Internationally opens up the new year 2019 with...
Fresh Acts5 days ago
Olisa – Viktur Vital
Fresh Acts5 days ago
Mister Yaga ft. Ebito Lemmy – All For Love
Fresh Acts7 days ago
Tan – Get Away
Music7 days ago
Victor AD ft Erigga — Why
Fresh Acts5 days ago
Mrblow – One Woman Is Enough
Fresh Acts5 days ago
Feddy – Yuh
Entertainment Gists5 days ago
4 Sex Positions That Your Body Will Feel Extra Thankful For
News7 days ago
EFCC Arrests 8 Yahoo Boys In Ibadan (Photos)


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Orbs for the BlackBerry PlayBook
If you want to skip all the wax lyrical and just play the game, you can go here, or if you have a PlayBook, head here to download Orbs for free.
Never one to miss the opportunity to blag free stuff, I was immediately intrigued when I heard about BlackBerry's free PlayBook offer and set about creating something quick smart. Seeing as the time between when I heard about the offer and the closing date of said offer was a total of 6 days, I was never going to pull a Final Fantasy, but at the same time I didn't want to just do a quick port of another game such as Wikileakers (which would need a new control system in any case).
I settled for the idea of colour sharing orbs, which I thought would be nice enough to play on a tablet while at the same time being relatively easy to implement in the given time. As it's by nature a simple puzzle game, once the mechanics were in there, I figured it'd be relatively easy to just add levels until I had something passable. I already had an engine, as well as a kick ass
Colour class (which I might post at a later date) that would make blending colours easy, plus by using the AS3 Game Object Editor, creating levels would be a cinch.
What went right
1: The idea
The total development time for Orbs was a full weekend plus about 3/4 hours a day for the next few days up until the offer deadline. Without a doubt, keeping a simple idea let me actually release the game. Once the mechanics were in there (essentially creating and destroying links and mixing colours), it was just a matter of fleshing out some simple levels. The game design won't win any Game of the Year awards, but that was never the intent. I chose a simple concept and kept the game tight so that it could be finished.
2: The tools
From the start, I used the AS3 Game Object Editor to help be create and layout levels. Using the wonderful trick of conditional compilation in Flash, I routed everything through a
Controls class that only got included whenever I was testing in debug. Switch to release and everything was removed (including God mode access to all the levels).
Controls class itself is a simple class that essentially holds a number of functions that let me: toggle the game editor; create new Orbs at will; save the level XML data; and set the final goal colour.
The Game Object Editor worked on the
Level and
Orb objects, and only in debug mode (unless you specify
-keep-as3-metadata+=Editable in your project settings, the metatags are stripped out in release, so the Editor doesn't do anything with the class). For the
Levels it was simply to set the gold and silver times. For the
Orbs, it let me quickly set the position, colour and whether the orb was a goal orb or not.
After that, to set the goal colour necessary to win the level, it was simply a matter of creating the links as normal (same logic as playing the game), then using the
Controls class to store the colour and save the XML.
3: The gains
Orbs was created specifically to get a free PlayBook (about $500) and as an added bonus, BlackBerry removed the developer fee, so that was also a saving of $200. That pretty much blows my MochiAds earnings for the year out of the water, so even though the app is free, it's still more than paid for the development of the game.
The experience of creating a game for something other than the web was also an added bonus. As a first app, it's not too bad. It's nice to know that my engine stands up nicely on the PlayBook (with some small modifications; namely adding a check for
ContextMenu.isSupported, as ContextMenu doesn't work outside of the web - there's no right-click - so it was just causing a black screen on my app), and to get some quick info on what works and what doesn't work speed wise.
For the most part, you're fine in terms of what you do, though the first release of Orbs suffered from some pretty horrible speed issues. Once I actually got my PlayBook and I was able to test the thing, what was causing the slowdown was pretty surprising. I thought it'd be the particles, as I'm using a
ColorTransform to get the trail effect instead of just clear the
Bitmap. Doing that on a 1024x600
Bitmap probably isn't a good idea - and it does have a performance hit, so I used a scaled 512x300 one instead - but it wasn't what was killing the app. The final culprit was the simple 3D rotating background that was in the original. I was rotating it slightly using the
rotationX and
rotationY properties just to give a bit of movement to the background. This destroyed the performance. Perhaps you can play with the window modes - though I'm not sure if the PlayBook supports
gpu, but I just removed it and low and behold: silky smooth performance.
What went wrong
1: The BlackBerry tools
When I first started the app, the BlackBerry toolset was on the 0.9.4 evolution. They've improved a lot since then, to the point where this is no longer much of a problem, but by Christ, did the original tools make me want to brick my computer.
Take the simulator for instance. As we had no PlayBooks to test our code on, devs making apps had to use the simulator to see how their app would run. Obviously a simulator it no substitute for the real thing, but the 0.9.4 version was such a pain in the ass (it's vastly improved in the 1.0.1 version, to the point where it's a simple install). Once you got the VM installed the idea was simple: run the PlayBook ISO and you're golden. Aha. Ha.
I don't know if anybody got this working first time, but personally I spent about 2 days trying to find the magical combination of CPU's, memory, time left waiting at the splashscreen, clothes to wear, and hats needed to get into the main screen. The documentation was useless here: it conveniently ignored what would happen if you got stuck (and seeing the number of people that had this problem, a trouble-shooting guide would have been great). Add to that the fact that nobody knew what the actual problem was (though I figure it simply had to do with if your machine was powerful enough), so the forums were full of possible solutions which might as well have been "close your eyes and wish really hard".
The very first version of my game was submitted without even testing it on the simulator because I could never get it to run.
2: The inital release
When Orbs first came out into the BlackBerry App World, I had maybe, 50 downloads. Due to the horrible, horrible speed that it ran at (and it was not a proud moment in my life when I saw the actual speed), I received a total of 2 reviews: one middling, basically saying it was a good idea but let down with the speed; the other absolutly slating it. As a result, it has a current rating of 2 stars; not great by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing as the average rating for an app was 4.5/5 stars (I'm a little skeptical about this. I'm thinking either developers/developers' friends rating the app, the app playing public really think that Tic Tac Toe is the pinacle of modern gaming, or my sense of what's a good game vs. the public's sense of what's a good game are in no way related - which is entirely possible), that 2 star review means Orbs is pretty much sunk. Why play a 2 star game, when there's already hundreds of 4/5 star games waiting?
After I got my PlayBook and saw the speed of the game, I spent a lot of time debating whether or not to actually fix it. Before stoning me with rightfully indignant curses (and stones), I'll be brutally honest here. Orbs was made to get a PlayBook, period. It arrived, job done. The current review pretty much means that it's never going to be popular (I don't think I've passed 100 downloads yet), so I thought why bother? Also, for the $200 developer fee, you get something like 10 releases, and an update to an app counts as a release. Why waste a release (or $20) updating a game that no-one will play?. What changed my mind is that BlackBerry lifted that limit (thanks!) and my conscience got the better of me. My auld boy always said if you're gonna do something do it right because at the end of the day, it's your name that's stuck to it.
3: Puzzles
Orbs is a puzzle game, so by definition, it should probably have some in there. Even though the tools that I'd created meant that it was pretty easy to add levels, I still had to actually come up with them. My brain is not a puzzle brain. It's not the kind of game that I'm super excited to play, so I had real trouble coming up with the basic 16 puzzles that the game ships with.
Also, during playtesting (thanks Alexis!) it became obvious that the game was not obvious. Originally, goal Orbs had their own colour, which would mix with the final colour to produce the goal colour needed. However, this made it quite hard to figure out what colour you actually needed. Also, originally, there was no indication of how close you were (the percentage ranking on the goal Orbs). As the colour sharing algorithm produced similar, but subtly different colours if you mixed Orb A into Orb B, than if you mixed Orb B into Orb A, you got to the point that it looked like you had the right colour, but you were ever so slightly off.
With a quick redesign of the colour sharing algorithm and some better feedback, this got fixed, but at the same time made the game incredibly easy. The first 8 puzzles at the time could be done by drawing links any which way; it didn't really matter as the end colour was the same. So additional rules were added and I tried to redesign the puzzles. Which I suck at doing. Especially when you're trying to design a difficulty curve.
The final results are what I could come up with in the time - and believe me when I say this stretched the puzzle making part of my brain about as far as it's ever going to go - but you can still find yourself in a situation where it's simply too hard to figure out the right order (not that there's only one), and you end up just randomly trying links until you stumble across the right one.
I'll also add that I don't think colour theory is something immediately obvious to people, or something that they're especially strong with. Perhaps one or two links but I don't think many people find it easy to figure out what the final colour will be from a mixture of three. Unless the answer is "mud". So, I finally added some hints on each level and tried to base the puzzles around making shapes with the links as much as finding the right colour.
Final thoughts
As an exercise, Orbs more than paid for itself. I now have a shiny new PlayBook and I'm pretty much going to make my next game for it. The total gains for Orbs are around $700, which is not bad for a very simple game made in a few days.
It also gave me the opportunity to test some of the things that I've been sharing on the site over the last few months and I have to say, it wouldn't have went anywhere nearly as smoothly as it did without those things that I could just simple slot in as needed.
If you have a PlayBook, go download Orbs, it's free. Think about leaving a nice 5 star glowing review as well (perhaps mention how the speed it so amazing) :) If you don't have a PlayBook, then you can still play Orbs on the internet, so you can see what the hell I've been talking about.
I'll leave you with some screenshots of the game:


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For the next installment of our series on the Helix Review, we spoke to Shontaine, author of Married to Madness.
Tell us a bit about your book:
The book tells the volatile story of the marriage of eccentric Brandon and her charmingly domineering husband, Zack Cerasani. The adoration they share hasn't gone much unappreciated by either in over a decade. They raise their children and love philanthropy work in unison and with great pride. There's also the occasional moonlighting as vigilante killers that they do behind each others backs as well.
How would you describe your writing style?
I write in an offbeat, quirky, and "urban" voice. I take on writing like a good man, I ride until the wheels fall off.
Why did you decide to submit "Married to Madness" for a Helix Review?
It seemed interesting to get a general, in depth analysis of my book.
What did you learn from the review?
The review confirmed that I had an interesting story that was a simple enough to understand and follow through on.
What would you tell someone considering trying Helix?
It's actually very informative and useful. My comparison was fairly accurate overall.
For more information about John Locke and "Stuff I've Written So Far," please visit:
About the Helix Review:
Back in May we launched an experimental new offering called Helix, and dubbed it The Personality Test for Your Book. Helix is powered by The Book Genome Project, a massive database of over 100,000 of the world's best-known books. And basically, it gives you a way to upload your manuscript and get back an incredibly rich and unbiased perspective on your book.
Lulu authors are currently using Helix to gain a better understanding of their book for marketing purposes, and in some cases to gain insight into their writing style. For the first time, we've caught up with some of the earliest Helix Review customers to hear more about their book and writing style and what they hoped to learn from Helix.
If you are an author that has used Helix and would like to be featured in the future, please tell us about your experience here.
Meg Crawford writes for the Lulu Blog – Archived


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Leaving on a jet plane ...
I leave today for Brazil!
A week long conference in the middle of a giant South American country! I am very excited about the work and also hope to get in some time at the pool! My tan is definitely suffering with the 28 days of rain we have endured in The Little Town!
I plan to blog from the pool, so stay tuned!
This is the start of our busy, busy summer! RyGuy leaves for London this week, then we're both off to Buffalo, then Vegas!, then moving in together! Crazy good times in the next few weeks!


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We are delighted that you would visit with us! My family and I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to a service. We are closer than you think and many people from Clinton and other communities believe that it's not only worth the drive, but found Gospel Light a place to call home. We know that the first visit to any place can seem overwhelming. We completely understand, but we want you to be at ease. You will find our church to be warm and friendly. We are small enough to care and big enough to help. We believe in loving people where they are and building them up to where they can be.
About Us
First Visit
Our Pastor
Van Ministry
Service Times
10:00am Sunday School
11:00am Worship Service
6:00pm Evening Service
7:00pm Bible Study &
Children's Programs
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please don't hesitate to contact us.


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Make that HAPPY 2012!
(computer crash ate the original but my best wishes are still the same)
Cucki, I tried to post a comment on your personal blog but Google wouldn't let me. There's something that needs to be changed in your preferences, but I forget what it is. Nonetheless HAPPY NEW YEAR!!


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Affordances and Feminism in Games
I'm currently reading James Gibson's The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception, which seems like it would have nothing to do with literature at all -- except you'd be wrong. (It also seems like it'd be boring, but you'd be wrong there too, amazingly enough.) Basically, this book applies early systems theory to visual perception and moves it outside the eye and into the environment in a very painterly, "what sort of things do we actually see and interact with" sort of way. In it, he puts forward the theory of affordances, which is basically that things give us opportunities or possibilities when we interact with them depending on their physical qualities. That sounds simple enough on the surface, but really there's a wealth of applicability there to things beyond just the environment, particularly when it comes to literature.
If we look at literature as an assembly of concepts (setting, characters, plot, genre conventions, objects), then it's intentionally made. It forms a sort of virtual environment for the reader as they ramble about in the story, following the navigational path laid down by the author but able to skip around in time as they wish. Video games are like this, but with even more observational freedom to the player/reader, because often there's a sandbox element involved. Even when one follows a tight narrative path, there's often room for exploration and interaction outside the main plot (subplots, NPCs, minor quests, walking around, etc.). The narrative elements we encounter have purposes and applications for us, in terms of story, relationality, and impact on the reader.
The question is, then, what are the affordances for something like the BDSM nun assassins in Hitman: Absolution?
The poster above, as you can see, was a preview for the game. It features the Saints, as the hit team is called in game, with the word "TEASE" spelled out behind them. Of course, it's a tease as it's a promotional photo, but the shape of the "A" in the middle at hip/crotch level with the two central figures on either side, draws the eye straight there and leaves very little doubt as to the sexual implications of the image.
My husband's been playing the game (he picked it up used, as he's traditionally been a big fan of the series but couldn't bring himself to give the company money after the above campaign). The plot involves killing his oldest "friend" at the Agency for her betrayal (and doing so while she's in the shower, naked) and then trying to save her daughter/ward, whose identity is in question and who is more than she seems (although she's powerful, she's helpless the whole time and unable to protect herself), from the Agency who wants her back, ostensibly for experimentation. The Saints pictured above are a pet project of 47's old boss -- according to overheard dialog, they are all war orphans and juvenile criminals and foster kids that he picks up, trains, and turns into dominatrix nun sex worker / assassins (the former proven when we're shown a cut scene of her taking a call while "working." The assassin team, however, doesn't command any particular respect from the men they command (and yes, all the regular soldiers are men, unburdened by traumatic, weird/bad sex-laden pasts), nor do they pose any real threat to 47. They'll shoot at you the same as the rest of them, but mostly they wander around and wait to be killed.
So: ineffective emasculating traumatized women with daddy issues wearing porn-wear and waiting for you to kill them -- as a selling point of the game. What affordances does their presence in the game provide? Sexual arousal, almost certainly. A feeling of superiority, definitely. Ultra-feminized but in a punishable way? Yep. A minor challenge to be surmounted without much difficulty? Yep. Gendered appeal? Largely, yes. They aren't presented to be sympathetic to women or as an option for play (which would have its own eyebrow-raising issues). Appeal to taboo in the form of religion? Um, yeah.
On top of all that, what does killing fake sexualized nuns really do? They don't have a place in the game canon. They aren't an ongoing threat, despite the promotional images and trailer. It's one level in the game plus a prior cut-scene to set it up. That's it. There's no narrative significance to their deaths -- we don't get any speeches, any drama. The end of the level is picking up a phone and talking to the boss, who's pissed off at 47 generally, but not about the deaths of the women. At this point, they aren't women. They're obstacles, targets, corpses, and prizes, objectified and rendered inert.
Affordances don't just apply to the player/reader, though. If we take a step back and look at it from a creator perspective, what are the affordances/uses/possibilities the Saints provide? Effective "scandalous" sexualized marketing images? Definitely. Are those images directed at a particular demographic? Absolutely. They will, of course, drive away other demographics, but targeted sales are desirable, right? There are also questions of what satisfaction including these images/plot devices in this way may give the creators of the project, but those are questions we can't answer. It is clear, however, that they were purposefully included in this game with no precedent to consider -- so everyone ought to be asking themselves why.
See, I get why a certain demographic does not want the portrayal of women in games to change, looking at the above. None of the affordances above are things one can really ask for in polite society. It's easy gratification for some darker stuff that doesn't bear talking about -- it just is. The people who enjoy it don't have to admit to it, and the people who don't care one way or the other may wrinkle their noses a bit, but it's so woven into the backdrop of what we see in the entertainment world that it barely registers -- it's normalized.
Let me repeat that, just to let it sink in.
A game where you beating up sado-masochistic women costumed as sexualized nuns (who are virgins and brides of Christ, thus just hanging a lantern on the virgin/whore thing) for the entertainment of the heterosexual male viewer with a bit of kink is NORMALIZED.
More than that, even it's a selling point. A marketing win.
A tease.
I don't know about you, but those are some affordances I could live without.


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Prime Dunbar location, this home is situated on a level 50 x 130 ft lot. Future home may have potential water views and walk-out basement. Walking distance to Dunbar Village, Community Centre, Balaclava Park and close to St. Georges , Crofton House. Catchment school Lord Kitchener Elementary & Lord Byng Secondary. Do not disturb tenant
Taxes (2018): $10,155.76


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I have soooo many things that need to get done!
I'm determined to get everything done, though, so give me lots of support and encouragement to get me through this!
1. Fix up the playhouse.
I need to get it painted, install carpet, and add curtains this month!
2. Buy new outdoor lights.
I like these ones from Lowes, but I can't make up my mind on which ones would look best on the house!
Priced at $49.00
Priced at $49.98
Priced at $24.98
Priced at $19.98
Which one would you put on this house?
Please help me decide!
I was thinking maybe the $24.98 one. I like that it's a bit bigger. Since the light wires are on the tops of the doors, I think I need something to cast a downward light. And since I only can have one fixture per door, I think it should be the bigger one.
What do you think?
3. Get A's in my two Psych classes.
I dipped down to a B in one of them, but I'm determined to get it up!
4. Paint the entryway.
Here's what the green
This is what I got.
Wow! Seriously?! Quite the difference, right? That's okay, we'll just redo it. No problem!
5. Install my new flooring!
My carpet gets shampood at least once a week, and it still looks like this.
I'm soooo sick of it! This carpet just attracts dirt, even if I scotch guard it after shampooing it. So it's getting the same laminate flooring that's in my kitchen. I was coveting the bamboo, but it's more than double the price, and I have a huge living room. That wasn't in my budget!
It's sitting in the back of my vehicle, just waiting to be put in!
6. Begin erecting our fence!
I'm ridiculously excited about this one! We've been wanting to build a fence since we bought our house, and it's finally going to happen! I just sent in the money for a land survery, then I'm off to get my permit!
It's going to be 6' planks around the backyard, but the front yard is going to get a low picket fence with a gate. I can't wait to start the flower beds around my picket fence!
7. Begin getting my craft room ready.
We are getting rid of all of our basement furniture during our city's spring cleanup!
8. Trim out the rest of the kitchen cabinets.
I have all the trim already, I just need to force myself to get it done!
9. Transplant as many lilac bushes as possible!
My neighbor gave me free reign to split and take all of his overgrown lilac bushes! It's a big mass, but I know that once I split them, they will flourish! I'm literally going to have 20 lilac bushes in my yard...lol! It's my favorite flower! I couldn't be happier!
This is all overgrown lilacs:
10. Build my circle bench.
The lumber shouldn't cost me that much. I'll definately show you when it's done!
11. Buy some supplies to get my island transformation done.
Lol, yeah...like this is acutally going to happen...It's just wishful thinking!


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|Public Citizen is a Washington, D.C. consumer advocacy group, which seems to have a talent for misleading the public with information that is either wrong or intellectually dishonest. They've done it again.
This time, the topic is arbitration, a subject that is important to dealers because, for them, a fair and well-drafted arbitration agreement is the best first line of defense against class action lawyers and other predatory litigators.
On September 27, Public Citizen issued a press release that railed against credit card companies that have begun to use the arbitration process in collecting debts owed to them by consumers. The release also criticized the National Arbitration Forum, one of the largest arbitration organizations in the country, and claimed abuses in the arbitration process.
The foundation of the report is Public Citizen's claim, based on its study of nearly 34,000 collection cases, arbitrators found in favor of businesses in 94 percent of the arbitration proceedings.
That 94 percent evoked the following quote from Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen's President: "People shouldn't have to give up their legal rights just to get a credit card. This is a system that is unfair to consumers, many of whom are struggling financially, and a huge gift to big business. We need to ban arbitration clauses in consumer contracts now."
Evidently, the press agreed. Public Citizen's report was picked up by many news sources, and quoted liberally (no pun intended) and uncritically.
It's the "uncritically" part that really steams me.
Remember, Public Citizen tells us that these 34,000 arbitration proceedings were "virtually all" collection cases. What Public Citizen didn't bother to tell us was the percentage of consumer collection cases tried in court where the outcome is favorable to business. Remember that collection cases are nearly always straightforward. Consumers understand they owe the balance claimed, so they do not bother to contest the claim and often don't even show up for the trial. I do not know how consumers fare when defending collection lawsuits in court, but I am aware of at least one Georgetown University Law Center study indicating the percentage of courtroom outcomes in favor of businesses is as high as, if not higher than, the 94 percent that caused Public Citizen such anxiety.
Isn't the real question to be addressed, the question of whether arbitration outcomes are more or less favorable for the consumer than litigation outcomes? Public Citizen doesn't even hint that it might be appropriate to compare courtroom outcomes with litigation outcomes before jumping to unfounded conclusions. And, as far as I know, no reporter even bothered to ask the question.
That's the intellectual dishonesty in the Public Citizen report. What if someone actually bothered to look and the litigation figures turned out to be essentially the same as the arbitration figures? Will Joan Claybrook call for the abolition of the court system because businesses win 94 percent of their collection lawsuits?
Don't hold your breath.
Zotye Builds US Marketing Team
Chinese automaker Zotye announced has appointed Jan Thompson and Susan Bland Norton to VP positions on its Southern California marketing team.


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Title: Breaking Roman
Author: Alexis James
Series: The Moran Family #3
Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: June 27, 2017
They call me Romeo.
I love romancing women, and I'm good at it.
Too bad it is all a ruse.
Roman, the youngest of the three Moran brothers, is the only one who has ever believed in true love. Too bad his one special person barely acknowledges his existence.
Sabrina Morris spends her days running the HR Department of The Moran Group, and her nights corralling her teenage daughter. She doesn't have time for love. She's heard the stories, but Roman is not at all what she expects him to be. His gentle nature catches her completely off-guard. She doesn't expect to be attracted to him, and she certainly doesn't expect him to be equally drawn to her. But can she see past his Romeo façade and allow the warm, loving man into her life?
What is the biggest influence/interest that brought you to this genre?
My reading/genre influence was/is my mom. All through my childhood she used to read Harlequin Romances. When I was old enough (11 or 12), she began to share those books with me. That was back in the day when the characters wouldn't even kiss until the last few pages. I had always been a big reader as well, but it wasn't until I read those beautifully crafted romances that I developed a deep love and appreciation for romance. Over the years, I branched out from reading romance, but have always been pulled back in. It felt only natural to want to craft my own romance stories.
When writing a book, what is your favorite part of the creative process(outline, plot, character names, editing, etc)?
My favorite part of the writing process is everything before the actual writing itself. I love seeing my characters come to life; giving them backgrounds and personalities and flaws. It's so much fun making them into a "real" person; with a home, a car, friends. I do outline the story idea, and brief directions where I see the story going, but I won't outline each chapter ahead of time. I like to let that develop as I write.
When reading a book, what genre do you find most interesting/intriguing?
I'm intrigued by anything romance. Right now, I'm rather obsessed with Male/Male romance novels. The love seems deeper in these novels…like the characters have had to work twice as hard to make it happen (which I suppose they have).
If you could co-author with any author, past or present, who would you choose?
Tough question. I think Colleen Hoover would be hoot to write with. She's so brilliant it's scary, and crafts such beautiful words. I'd probably be too overwhelmed to contribute to anything we'd be working on together. I'd probably just sit back and watch her create magic.
Have you always wanted to write or did it come to you "later in life"?
I always liked the idea of writing, but I didn't write seriously until I hit my early 30's. I published my first book in my 40's, so I'm a bit a late bloomer.
Author Bio:
Alexis James lives on the beautiful Central California coast. When she's not spending time with her hubby of almost 30 years or her amazing kids, you can find her tapping away on the computer. She loves reading, spending time with family, reading, camping, reading….and writing too! She enjoys a good date night, an inexpensive glass of wine, and any story that can make her smile and/or cry.
Alexis's first novel, "Losing Faith", was released in September 2014. Her second novel, "Loving Emma", is a standalone, though it does feature some characters from "Losing Faith".
She invites you to visit her author pages on Facebook and Goodreads, and her website. You can also follow her on Twitter or you can email her.
EMAIL: email@example.com
Breaking Roman #3


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My goal this past year was to do a really good job at 2-3 structures. Two of my favorites {because they are super easy to implement with kindergarteners} quickly became Quiz, Quiz, Trade and Take Off, Touch Down. For Quiz, Quiz, Trade, each student gets card, then they stand up, put their hands up, and pair up with the person closest to them {this is also a strategy called Stand Up, Hands Up, Pair Up}. Then, the students greet each other {this is big in Kagan}, answer the question on their card/read a word/whatever the card has on it, give praise {something else that's big}, and then go find another partner. Every child is engaged! There is no one not interacting or learning! Here's a few pictures from when we used this structure with our word cards.
To check out the word cards we used for the structures above, click the picture below.


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i-studentglobal spoke to recent International Event Management graduate Megan Doyle about her study abroad experience in the UK at the University of Brighton.
What is International Event Management?
Many people assume that the course is just party planning, but there was a lot more to the subject than this. We took modules in economics, risk and crisis management, operations, business and the theory of event planning.
Why did you decide to study abroad in the UK?
There aren't many event management courses in the USA, and those which I found were in locations which were either expensive to live or not specifically desirable to me. I took this as an opportunity to move to the UK to broaden my horizon and have the chance to extensively travel.
What were your first thoughts when you arrived in Brighton?
When I first arrived in Brighton, the weather wasn't great and my first student house was in a bit of a state. However, once I moved houses and got settled into my course, things got considerably better from there on in. I'm still living in Brighton now after I've graduated.
Did you find it easy to make friends with UK students here?
I found that it was much easier to make friends with other international students, in particular students from Europe as I found them more laid back and open. Many of the UK students that I met seemed quite settled in groups already and were not necessarily familiar with international students. That said, three of my close friends from university are from the UK.
What did you do for your final year project?
I wrote my dissertation on the Burning Man Festival in Nevada, USA. I was looking at if the ritualism involved with the festival had an effect on the overall experience of the attendees. I chose this because I always found the festival fascinating and it is a goal of mine to attend it.
Which of your preconceptions of the UK were most accurate and which weren't?
I knew that the weather in the UK would not be as good as back home, or in Hawaii where I was previously studying, and that held true throughout the course, but I learned to enjoy rainy Sundays and cosy nights in. I knew that the UK had a dry sense of humour, but I'm pleasantly surprised at how much of it has rubbed off on me. Much of it is lost in translation when I go home and joke around with my friends and family.
Did you manage to gain any work experience whilst on your course and if so how did this help you with your studies?
As part of my course, we had to create our own event management companies and host charitable events for a grade. This motivated us even more to do well because our grades were at stake. We hosted music events at a bar to raise money for a local charity, Demelza – a hospice for children.
Is there anything about your course that you'd do differently if you were to start again?
I would advise to go and see your tutors any time that you have any questions or something is unclear. They are there to help you so don't be afraid to ask.
Finally, what advice would you offer to prospective international students to help them make friends when studying in the UK?
Join some societies at university because they are great ways to meet new people and to get involved in nights out, which can be great fun. Also get involved in themed nights out (fancy dress nights).
Megan is one of the employees at i-studentglobal. If you have any inquiries, feel free to contact her via email.
Interview with an Environmental Science Alumni - Rebecca Cavlan
Interview with a Vet Science Alumni - Carla Kelly


text: It's always fun to find little extras the programmers have left behind, and a treasure hunt through the LG Optimus S file system turned up a wild one. We're not exactly sure what the heck this is, but we are sure that it's not a sound you'll hear in the normal day-to-day use of the phone -- we hope. Check it out for yourself below, and remember, we warned you. [Android Central forums] Thanks trekkie1701c and his roommate for finding this one!


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What Were Twitter's Hottest Hashtags in 2011?
Most hashtags are fleeting; they're a good way to track the day's news or find a viral video, but they often quickly fade away. However, there are those select buzzwords that stick, and this year, those terms included serious subjects like #egypt as well as fluff like #tigerblood.
As a part of its year in review series, Twitter on Tuesday released a list of the top hashtags of 2011.
"The list of Hot Topics and Top Hashtags charts the keywords that rose the fastest in conversation over the course of the year," Twitter wrote in a blog post. "This reveals what grabbed our attention most dramatically in 2011, and which events, inventions, changes, and ideas made the deepest impression on us."
Topping the list is #egypt, thanks to the January revolution that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. Also listed at number eight is #jan25, the day the mass protests kicked off in Egypt and the hashtag used to communicate about the demonstrations.
But as the second most-popular hashtag demonstrates, the things we care about aren't always of international political significance. Twitter users eagerly tweeted about #tigerblood, referring to Charlie Sheen's very public meltdown at the beginning of the year.
But current events made the number-five spot, with #japan, which was hit by a devastating 8.9-magnitude earthquake in March.
The #superbowl also made the listnot surprising since a number of companies such as Mercedes, Budweiser, and Doritos began social media campaigns before the big gameas did conversation starters #threewordstoliveby, #idontunderstandwhy, and #improudtosay.
Twitter has been highlighting interesting tidbits that surfaced in 140-character form over the past year. For example, on Friday Twitter made note of some of the people that joined the Twittersphere in 2011Joe Biden, Pope Benedict, and Christina Aguilera, among others.
On the tech front, some of the most popular terms on Twitter were the Mac App Store, Sony NGP (now the PlayStation Vita), and Guitar Hero.
Last week, Ask.com released its list of top 10 questions for 2011. Earlier this week, Microsoft revealed that Justin Bieber was the most-searched person on its Bing search engine this year, followed by Kardashian. Stories about the Japan earthquake and the rumored 13th astrological sign, meanwhile, were also among the most-shared on Facebook, while the iPhone was the most-popular Yahoo search.
For more from Leslie, follow her on Twitter @LesHorn.


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Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Manu Kant
Comrade Manu Kant, is a journalist and editor from New Delhi, India. His haiku are refreshing, sharp and engaged - the most acute and politically active haiku I met until today in actual world of haiku... One of my favorite, perhaps haiku I wanted to write myself many times during endless formalistic discussion with American haiku poets:
haiku vs senryu business--
tell me instead if America
is a totalitarian capitalist state?
Other haiku too actual and sharp. How many of us dare to write so direct poetry?
Colorado gunman - a joker?
Who were the soldiers in Iraq?
& who are in Afghanistan?
Batman movie shooting--
I recall Reagan's words:
'The USSR is an evil empire'
another US shooting--
just like the cyclical crisis
of capitalism
a missing Alzheimer's patient--
oh, my Soviet nostalgia
so tenacious
before the mirror--
a Dalit* makes up
for a smile to alight on her face
* the lowest rung of Hindus in the casteist Hindu religion who generally do all the manual & menial work. Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as untouchable.
drought conditions--
the poor farmer's eyes
a broken mirror
12 killed in Colorado shooting--
I scatter feed to the pigeons
a rush of Soviet nostalgia
I inhale the
beedi's smoke
this talk, again
of Lenin's burial
why not his resurrection?
telling my daughter about the Soviet Union-
I begin with
once upon a time
my daughter's maiden flight
to see Lenin entombed
reading Krupskaya's reminiscences--
Lenin didn't get October
on a platter
with a human face-
there must be a copyright violation
*a big landlord in Russian
fresh reports of Lenin's burial--
reading Krupskaya's* reminiscences
Lenin springs to life
* Lenin's wife
you swear by your Santa--
I have seen kid ragpickers
giving our world a second chance
I bump into my ex-psychiatrist--
she tells me
'you can step into the same river twice'
Marx on hold--
my 8-yr-old daughter
still obsessed with Barbie
two decades after the Soviet Union
my class angst
at a boiling point
47th birthday-
my daughter counts the years
I am older to her
with my ex-Soviet girl
on the Moscow streets--
now bearing different name
winter early morning -
on the pot
reading Lunacharsky's Lenin
peering closely at the tag
American flag
made in China
rising above
the National Anthem
the ringtones
Posted by Kamesan 亀さん at 7:20 AM
2 comments:
- robert d. wilson said...
Kant's work is political diatribe and is in no way haiku. It is senryu, without meter but with lots of hatred.
- July 27, 2012 at 12:54 AM
- Izbrisani Delavec said...
I do not want to say Robert that you are not an expert for haiku (or poet) but your criterions about haiku are a little bit out of date or to much culturally determined. Have you heard for Gendai Haiku?
- February 2, 2015 at 3:29 AM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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I am kind of having difficulty on figuring out the following.
Provided that each of the mathematics department below has professors working in the area of my interest, how should I put them in order of toughness to get in?
1. Boston university
3. Rutgers
4.Stony brook
7.University of Arizona
8.Michigan state
9.UNC at Chapel Hill
Thank you guys.


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On Thursday January 17th, the South Jersey Writer's Group held its first monthly meeting of 2013 and we opened with a bang!
Since we are open for membership for a limited time, we were able to meet with many new members of the group. In addition, the Courier Post (South Jersey newspaper) came out to photograph the group for a possible feature in the paper (more on that in a moment) and we had a special guest speaker, media guru Don Lafferty, speak to the group.
Personally, I learned a lot from the presentation. Although I am familiar with, and use, social media on a regular basis, I picked up several pointers in how to use it for branding and promoting myself better as a writer. If you ever get a chance to attend an event with Don, I highly recommend it. He has an engaging and lively presence and he really Knows His Stuff.
On Thursday January 24th, the Courier Post did a front-page feature story on the South Jersey Writers Group, which quoted me and fellow members Amy Hollinger and Christine Hardy. We were all quite excited since it was great promotion for the group and for our anthology, Tall Tales and Short Stories of South Jersey!
The anthology has been a great success so far and I'm honored to appear in it with such fine local talent. Check it out for yourself at Amazon or local South Jersey cafes like Jersey Java in Haddonfield and The Treehouse in Audubon.


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In collection of strange projects arrived. Authors Symetium Smartphone PC are going to release a hybrid PC and smartphone. Technical specifications allow you to use the device in any role.
The invention looks like a normal mobile gadget. 5-inch device has a metal body and a display such as OLED. The screen resolution is 1920 by 1080 pixels.
The product turns in a computer with the special docking station. It provides the connection of the monitor and other peripherals (such as keyboards). Specifications have Symetium Smartphone decent. As the processor has a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 2.2GHz. There are 6 GB of RAM, a graphics accelerator Adreno 530, as well as modem 4G LTE. For storage use the SSD of 256 GB.
Even in the presence of stereo speakers on the front panel. Plus 2 cameras: 24 megapixel main and additional 5 MT. Powered device running Symetium OS. The software platform is based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Concept 35 – inch iMac
Concept hybrid smart phone, tablet and laptop
Computers future