text:
Invention Challenge 1
2016 - 2017
Theo and Gavin
From the makers:
First, we made a classic 4- wheel car and tested that out. It did pretty good. 17 feet and around that. Then, we watched other people test and pinpointed the best cars and followed those designs. The best one we saw was 6 wheels, so we did that. We tested and got 24'10! But we realized the car to be to wiggly and flexible, so I put a brace on it –even worse. So we realized flexibility is definitely good. Then, when we had to do the weight challenge we realized the weight did not help in any way. The top 3 theories we came up with are as follows:
1. Our car should be very flexible and bendy.
2. The weight and streamlining need to be in the goldilocks zone
3. Our car should be aerodynamic.
Best distance: 44'
Competition status: Gold medal winner
Rosalie and Sophie
Rosalie and Sophie
Note from designers:
The Caterpillar is our car. We chose the name Caterpillar because of its long caterpillar like body recently we have been hitting 24ft and up. We used to have steering problems but we found a solution. Our vehicle is long and skinny. When we tested the caterpillar with the wooden blocks it had more momentum to hit the wall faster and harder. We went through a lot of car but then decided on the Caterpillar.
· We think that the wooden block will help us in the first round because the wooden block pushed it more.
· We also think that the size of the car should match the size of the wheels.By the records we think that The Caterpillar will do pretty good in the competitions if we get to the second round.
Best distance: 37' 9"
Competition status: Silver medal winner
Tube o lube
Vann and Nick
From the makers:
"We use chemicals to make our car faster."
When we started our name was "Indestructible". It was originally get only 7 to 10 feet but we kept on improving and we got over 18ft. We called our vehicle 'Indestructible' because when we were testing our car, Vann decided to crush the vehicle. We fixed the car to the original model again… But then I crushed it. So we gave up on that model, then we made the model we have used since we crushed the old one. We got over 19ft with the new model. Then Vann bought something named Tube-O-Lube, Also known as Graphite. The graphite made us get 24'10 over 10 times, this was a huge improvement. So we decided we would make our vehicle be named Tube-O-Lube. Someone got a "copy off" brand of Tube-O-Lube because they saw our car improving.
1: We thought the graphite would help because we knew it was meant to lubricate axels and cut down friction.
2: We started with no weight added to the back, and then we added a wooden block Mr. Allen gave the whole class for a test. It helped hit 24'10 more frequently.
3: Me and Vann decided that my launching was better than his. Because when he launched our car it steered off into infinity, but my launching skills were way more efficient than Vann's so now I only launch the car.
Best distance: 37' 2"
Competition status: Bronze medal winner
The Sphynx
Dakota and Coral
The Sphynx
The Sphynx is an amazing vehicle that has a record of 36.6 feet! The Sphynx started off with a completely different design. At first, we had a bendy K'Nex that looked super cool in the front, but we figured out that it didn't have a good design, or good speed. Our current design for The Sphynx is basically just a rectangle with large wheels and studs to hold the wheels in place. A sphynx is a cat with no fur. We named our racecar The Sphynx because our cart does not have much flare. We have tested The Sphynx over 20 times and we discovered that the block of added weight helps The Sphynx go faster. We love The Sphynx!
The Sphynx
We think that the three most important factors for The Sphynx is are the wheel size, the design, and the block.
The wheel size is very important because we have tested small wheels and medium wheels in the past and the big wheels have worked the best. The small and medium wheels slowed The Sphynx down.
The design of The Sphynx is also very important. We built The Sphynx in a sturdy way so that it won't have much of a steering problem, or so it won't flip over.
The block is a major part of the Sphynx. The weight helps it move faster.
Best distance: 37' 9"
Competition status: Fourth place
100 Pi
Andre and
Andre and
From the makers:
The Saga of 100 Pie
We chose 100 pie because it got 24`10 11 times in a row. It has small wheels in the front and medium sized wheels in the back. We decided to apply hob-e-lube all over the wheels. The hob-e-lube has been offensively called a rip off from tube-o-lube by someone ahem, ahem. 100 Pie has been very successful getting a record distance of 29`11. We named it 100 Pie because one of the people in our group is obsessed with pie. We hope the best for 100 Pie!
We think that these are the 3 most important factors:
· Weight, and therefore the amount of friction that is created, either making the car faster or slower.
· Amount of balance, because it could create steering problems and then shorten the distance the car would travel.Number of wheels, which could create friction - 4
Best distance: 36' 1" NEW WORLD RECORD
Competition status: Quarter finalist
Stella and Neha
From the makers:
Best distance: 32'(2nd best distance of all-time!)
Competition status: Quarter finalist.
The Heir
Sam and Conor
From the makers:
At first, there were two cars: The heir, and the SHIP. The heir had all six wheels at first, and didn't get very good scores… While the SHIP, we took a different approach. We covered it in knex, and put an arrow like at the front, hoping we would get 24ft 10. They both took many types and forms, and the Heir even reached 23 feet! It was a hard thing to do, and we never really got that good until the final time…
The showdown between the two cars. It was Ship versus the Heir. The ship got 20ft 4, a close match, but finally. FINALLY the heir got 24ft 10, ending our quest. Now, we wait for our final match with the Chicken. We can put weight, we can add speed, and we will win this together. Now that is done, let's talk about each Major phase for ship and heir.
Ship: part 1. Design was a very simple car, wheels in the front and back, and a bit of friction.
Ship: Part 2. Covered in knex, we thought we should add weight, thus giving the extra bounce for 24ft 10.
Ship: Final design: With Massive wheels for the back, and non- rubberized wheels for the front, it was a very durable car. The problem was it had a TON of friction, thus knocking it out of the race.
Heir: part 1: design was 4 wheels, two separated at the back, while the others connected at the front. This was a very weird design, but it got us going to a good start.
Heir: Part two: Made it extremely long, and with a maximum of six wheels. This was the legend that got 23ft, and set our spirits to get ready for the competition ahead.
Heir: Final design, using for competition: It had a big handle in the middle, with a basic car design. It has no friction, with big wheels in the back, and small wheels in the front.
Now onto our personal theory's and our educated guesses.
· Conor's perspective.
· My hypothesis is that the Heir will go farther because there is less friction on the heir, and it was definitely minimized when we got 24ft 10.
· The wheels are good, because the bigger the wheels, the faster it goes. Not only that, but our car is slanted with the ramp, so it will help get momentum.
· With less friction, the car goes farther and faster. Less friction the better, as I always say!
Sam's Theories.
· Personally I think that it is good that we added the handle, the more weight the better I say! Not only that, it makes it super mobile!
· I took away a lot of friction, and that helped a lot. We didn't use the block because it screwed up the design a bit, thus slowing it down.
· I'd like to end this by saying that with the low amount of friction, the right size of wheels, and a little bit of luck, we can win this.
Best distance: 24' 10"
Competition status: Quarter finalist
Purple Taco
Sarah and Gabriela
From The Makers:
History and Review
Our vehicle started as the Small Flame. We immediately didn't have one of the top vehicles. It was a small, rickety little vehicle, and mostly had colors like red, orange, and yellow. Eventually, we graduated from that vehicle.
Our next vehicle was called the Flame. It was our best vehicle. I liked its little front attachment. With it, we made the Flame go way faster. Our high score with the Flame was 22 feet. That was our best score. Then one day, we forgot to put our beloved Flame in our bucket. That was the last day we saw the Flame.
Now, our vehicle is called the Purple Taco. (It was named by Sarah.) Its high score is 13 feet, but it's actually not our worst score. Unfortunately, our official distance is 11'10. That is our history of the Purple Taco.
The theories for the Purple Taco are;
· Weight in the back.
· Small
· Sturdy
· Five wheels
We think these are important theories because, if there is weight in the back, we figured out it goes faster. Without weight, we went wayless than we are now. We think that having a small vehicle is important because, if the vehicle is small, it is more lightweight and therefor goes farther. Sturdy is important because, if the vehicle is flexible, than it could be off balance and it could slow down. Finally, if the Purple Taco has five wheels, than we think it goes faster.
Best distance: 25' 6"
Competition status: Quarter finalist
Black Wolf
Avery and Roan
From the makers:
History of Black Wolf
First Black Wolf had 3 axles with 2 wheels on each axle. Then we took off 1 axle so it was like a car. Next we made it into a tricycle. Then we used 4 little wheels and that didn't work out. Then we remembered that the best vehicle was our first design so we did something like our first design, we put 3 axles with 2 wheels on the front and back and 1 wheel in the middle. That is now our design.
· I think that it is important to have the right amount of weight in because too much weight can cause friction but enough weight can make it go faster.
· I think that it is also important to place the weight in the right place so it doesn't have steering issues.
· I think that balance is also important because without balance it will fall over.
Best distance: 20'
Competition status: First round
The Chicken
Maggie and
Our car is called the Chicken. Our car has lately not been so well. Before our car was very good at hitting the wall. We noticed some things that were not good for the chicken. It had a steering problem and we tried to fix it and now it does not have steering but it does not go as far as it used to. We also noticed that extra weight is bad for the chicken. It caused one of the K'Nex to fall off and that caused a major steering problem. Hope you root for the Chicken.
1) We think
the first important factor is the amount and size of wheels you put on
the car .
2) We think
the amount of weight you put on is also important. You do not want your
car to be too heavy or too light .
3) We also
think sturdy axles that do not pop off are important .
4) Friction is very bad. It causes your car to slow down.
Cheer (in the rhythm of the chicken dance)
I want to be a chicken
I don't want to be a duck
So I shake my butt
Bum, bum, bum, bum
I don't be a duck
I just want to be a chicken
So I sing this songBum, bum, bum, bum
Best distance: 23'
Competition status: First round
Best Distances Awards
Flash (2015 - 2016)
Best distance: 44' 9" NEW WORLD RECORD
Thunderblast (2015 - 2016)
Best distance: 44' 3" (2nd best distance of all-time!)
Winner - Most Unlucky Award 2015
Wheelpopper (2016 - 2017)
Best distance: 44' NEW WORLD RECORD
Pink Fluffy Unicorns (2015 - 2016)
Best distance: 40' 4"
Wheelpopper (2016 - 2017)
Best distance: 39' N
The Epic Ride (Science Class 2016 - 2017)
Best distance: 38' 11"
Dark Gladiator (2015 - 2016)
Best distance: 38' 6"
Caterpillar (2016 - 2017)
Best distance: 37' 9"


text:
Oracle won its protracted legal disagreement with the European Commission Jan. 21 when the agency's antritrust regulators approved the company's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
The world's second-largest software maker now can do business combined with Sun in the 27-country European Union. Oracle sells more than 20 percent of its software in the European sector, so the commission's approval was urgently needed for the deal to be completed.
It took more than five months for the EC to execute due diligence before deciding that Oracle's ownership of a key Sun asset, the popular open source MySQL database, would not be a detriment to free trade and continued development.
There was no immediate reaction from Sun or Oracle. However, the Redwood City, Calif.-based database and middleware provider was confident enough about the sanction that on Jan. 20 it called a news conference for Jan. 27 to unveil its "Oracle+Sun" strategy for 2010 and beyond.
Further reading
Oracle is still awaiting similar sanctions from Russian and Chinese regulators. Both jurisdictions have said they would wait until the EC's decision before making their own determinations. Oracle has said it also expects to obtain approvals in those countries.
The EC said in a statement to the press that "after an in-depth examination, launched in September 2009, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it."
The No. 1 sticking point for months has been MySQL, an open-source database that Sun bought for $1 billion two years ago. The EC has been withholding approval of the acquisition since August 2009, seeking some kind of assurance that MySQL, which originated in Finland and Sweden, will be allowed to innovate and compete fairly in the IT marketplace.
That Oracle's own proprietary database potentially can compete with MySQL in some markets is seen by many industry people as a conflict of interest. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison contends that MySQL does not compete directly with his company's high-margin databases, but a large number of people working in relevant fields disagree.
EC 'Satisfied That Competition Will Be Preserved'
"I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products," EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in the Jan. 21 statement.
The EC said that "athough Sun's share of the database market in terms of revenue is low, as users of MySQL can download and use the database for free, given its open source nature, the Commission's investigation confirmed MySQL's position as the leading open source database. The Commission's investigation therefore focused on the nature and extent of the competitive constraint that MySQL currently exerts on Oracle and whether this would be affected by the proposed transaction.
"The Commission's in-depth investigation showed that although MySQL and Oracle compete in certain parts of the database market, they are not close competitors in others, such as the high-end segment," the EC said.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Lately, we've been spending a lot of time "stress-testing" our method for the computation of the Expected Value of Partial Perfect Information (EVPPI $-$ I know: the terminology is a bit strange and possibly not-very helpful, as "perfect" information doesn't really exist, in statistical terms...).
I have mentioned this already here, here and here and the idea is to combine results from spatial statistics (and INLA) and Gaussian Process regression into the health economic problem.
In a nutshell (I'll avoid all the technical details here), the "data" for our model consist on a vector of values $\mbox{NB}(\theta)$ (the "monetary net benefit", which determines the utility of a given health intervention) and a matrix of simulations from the (joint posterior) distributions of a set of relevant model parameters. The idea is that the multivariate parameter set can be split in a subset of "parameters of interest" ($\phi$), while the rest ($\psi$) are sort of "nuisance" or "unimportant" parameters.
Following up on the work by Mark Strong et al, the relevant model can be written as
$$ \mbox{NB}(\theta) = g(\phi) + \varepsilon $$and the objective is to estimate the function $g(\phi)$, which is then used to compute the EVPPI. This saves up a huge computation time, in comparison to other methods.
In our model, we extended this framework and modelled
$$ \mbox{NB}(\theta) = H\beta + \omega + \varepsilon$$where $H\beta$ is a linear component depending on the simulations for all the "important" parameters, while $\omega$ is a spatially structured component, which accounts for the correlation among the important parameters. The big advantage is that using this formulation we are able to make inference based on INLA/SPDE, which is super-fast and can save up a lot of time even in comparison with the already fast "standard" Gaussian Process regression model.
Our first tests were giving very good results (as reported here). Then we've used a more complex model and found that while still being faster, our method was losing in accuracy for some specific parameters. This was a bummer, but it also meant that we had to go back and try and understand a bit better what was going on.
I'll make this sound very easy (when in fact Anna has spent a lot of time on this $-$ and wishing she never met me and started her PhD on this, I'm sure!), but eventually we figured out what the problem was. Firstly, in very complex situations (which are not that uncommon in real health economic evaluation problems), there may be quite a large correlation and non-linearity in the relationships among the parameters in $\phi$. This means that the combination of the standard linear predictor and the spatially structured effect cannot model properly the observed data, resulting in lower accuracy in the estimations. But, interestingly, extending $H\beta$ to include interactions among the relevant parameters can fix this problem, with only a small increase in computational cost.
Secondly (this is a bit more technical, but also quite interesting), the spatially structured component is based on constructing a mesh which describes the relationship between the parameters in a Euclidean space. If the "boundaries" of the resulting mesh are too close to the range of the observed points, then the estimation procedure will return several predictions at 0 $-$ in a rather vague sense, something like: the boundaries are areas where the estimated smooth curve is 0. But this means that in the computation of the EVPPI there is an artificially large number of 0 values, which produces an under-estimation of the "true" value.
We have fixed this by modifying the evppi function in the development version of BCEA and now the user can specify a non-linear part as well as fiddle with the INLA-specific parameters defining the mesh for the spatially structured component. The results seem to be much more accurate, still with some substantial computational savings. I'll try to put some R script to help people test the function (although I've also modified the help for evppi) to guide through the example involving the (simpler) Vaccine model


text:
Travel Insurance
Are you thinking about getting travel insurance before traveling?
People often ask me if it is really necessary to be insured when going on a trip. This may sound like an odd question—you can just up and go on your way, no insurance required—, but it is best to be covered, just in case.
From the several times I took out travel insurance, I had to file two claims: the first, when I lost my camera; the second, when my luggage got lost.
If you're asking yourself: "Should I Buy Travel Insurance for My Next Trip?"
So, yes—I do think taking out travel insurance is a great idea and a must thing to do before traveling. Stuff happens, and you will be covered. It is always a peace of mind, especially abroad.
I always buy one of the World Nomads travel insurance packages.
5 things to know about World Nomads
- You can get covered even when you are already abroad.
- Worldwide coverage.
- Insurance extended while you are away.
- Over 200 adventure activities covered.
- Free security alerts on the road.
What your travel policy should cover
- Various medical expenses.
- Emergency evacuation back to your home country.
- Safe return of your under-aged child.
- Trip cancellation or interruption.
- Flight delay.
- Loss, theft or damage of personal effects / money – travel documents included.
- Luggage delay and emergency replacement of vital personal effects.
- Legal aid.
- Personal liability and damage on your car rental.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are some of the questions you might have on travel coverage. I will try and answer them in the clearest possible way to help you navigate this very important topic.
What is travel insurance?
Travel insurance is a service you buy and it covers several types of accidents, medical expenses and losses incurred while traveling.
Why take out travel insurance?
Getting covered gives you the peace of mind and confidence needed to fully enjoy your trip abroad. Accidents happen: money can get lost or stolen; luggage can get lost at the airport; you can get sick and be in need of medical attention; flights can get delayed and you may need lodging while waiting for another one; and so on. Travel insurance plans cover these expenses and help you feel protected, safe.
What does travel insurance cover?
Medical expenses and emergency evacuation: Hospitalization 100%; outpatient / specialist treatment 100%; prescription medication 100%; prescribed physiotherapy $2,100; dental care $265; ambulance ride 100%; medical evacuation / repatriation 100%; evacuation 100%; flight back home 100%; emergency repatriation 100%; lodging expenses, including boarding, and local transportation for an escort accompanying the insured person $4,352 ($265 a person per day).
Luggage – loss, theft or damage: maximum coverage per person / trip $1,600. While traveling outside your country of permanent residence, the following items should be covered by your travel insurance: bags / luggage; electronic devices, such as your laptop or cell phone; money; plane tickets; travelers cheques; credit cards; securities; passports.
Passport and/ or money loss: maximum coverage per person / trip $160.
Baggage loss: maximum coverage per person / trip $372. Insurance covers all reasonable expenses for emergency effects, such as clothing, toiletries and medication, in case your luggage gets delayed for more than five hours after arrival time at your destination abroad.
Flight delay: maximum coverage per person / trip $372, maximum $74 per day.
Hospital benefits: maximum coverage per person / trip $1,539, maximum $37 per day.
Security and Legal Aid: maximum coverage per person / trip $7,640.
Trip cancellation: maximum coverage per person / trip $1,539. This cover benefit ceases the moment you leave your country of permanent residence.
More serious stuff: all insurance companies cover graver events, like disability and such. Still, it is not worth getting into that now, since there is no room for gloomy stuff on this page. I am sure it will all turn out just fine for you all.
What doesn't travel insurance cover?
There are a few aspects not usually covered by travel insurance plans, such as:
Pre-existing medical conditions: any medical condition you may have prior to your trip or your travel insurance policy is activated is not covered by your travel insurance. On the other hand, any illnesses you may get on the road (except for sexually transmitted diseases) are usually covered by your travel policy.
Deliberately putting your life in danger: if you decide to act like a daredevil and purposely risk your life, insurance will not cover those activities and their consequences.
Situations involving drugs and/or alcohol: we all know the risks of drinking and/or doing drugs. These double when you are in a foreign country. So, any problems you should come across abroad while under the influence won't get your claim paid.
The cost of taking out travel insurance: this varies according to the length of your trip—buying travel insurance for a two-week trip won't cost the same as for a two-month one.
Where should you take out your travel insurance?
I always take out my travel insurance through World Nomads , the most well-known and loved online insurance company for travelers. These guys have it all—it is extremely easy to get your coverage online with them and they offer amazing benefits.
Taking out travel insurance
Fill out your personal information below and buy your travel coverage online.


text:
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Blessing Owl:
[AUTO]: When this unit is placed on (RC), choose another of your «Gold Paladin», and that unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of turn.
The young rebels set out on a journey to find the legendary armor of the seven sacred beast.
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text: Last Saturday, June 25th, I had the pleasure of having had a piece read by one of the leading orchestras in Europe: l'Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France. Under the supervision of Beat Furrer and conducted by Dylan Corlay, the orchestra brought my short but intense piece, surface | division to life — more like set fire to it (in a good way). On Friday, July 1st, the soloists of Ensemble intercontemporain will perform my chamber piece SKRWL for clarinet(s), trombone, viola, cello, and piano. It's great to be back in Paris and to work with this marvelous musicians!!!


text:
BC: Our journey begins...
FC: Gill & Julaine Sheats Wedding May 2, 2009
12: This is beginning of wedding. The maid of honor and bridemaids walked down aisle
13: As my father walked me down the aisle, I was filled with anticipation of becoming Mrs..Gill sheats,Jr | when I got closer to the alter i could see the gleam in Gill's beautiful dark brown eyes, filled with joy along with the big smile on his face.
19: After we took our vows we were followed out of the church by my Maid of honor Rashanda and Best man Brandon, bridesmaid Nicole and Groom Landon , Bridesmaids Jasmine and Groom Reggie ,Groom William then flower girl Nette and Ring bearer Matthew, then Gill's Parents Mr & Mrs Gill Sheats ,Sr , followed by my parents Elaine holness & Howard Codner.
20: Our Wedding Ceremony
27: "Man & wife, being two, are one in love."
29: true | Love
30: Father and Daughter danced
32: We Were Cutting the wedding cake and feeding each other
42: We are honored to have everyone here and celebrate this day with us.
43: Best man Brandon Groomsman Landon Groomsman Reggie Groomsman William Maid of Honor Rashanda Bridesmaids Nicole Bridemaid Jasmine Flower girl Nette Ring Bearer Matthew Flower girl Nette James and Ring bearer Matthew Brown
45: Best best and groomsmen | They are handsome | Gill's little brother is the best man and Landon and Reggie , and William is the groomsmen
50: "Believe in happily ever after, and it will come true"
51: Our wedding day has finally come...
52: G | & | J | I love you not only for what you are, but for who I am when I am with you.
53: "There is only one happiness in life, to love and to be loved."


text:
Sir Philip Craven re-elected as IPC president in Athens vote
- From the section Disability Sport
Sir Philip Craven has been re-elected as International Paralympic Committee president ahead of Alan Dickson.
Craven secured 127 votes compared to the 20 won by fellow Briton Dickson at the IPC General Assembly and Conference in Athens on Sunday.
The 63-year-old from Bolton will now serve his fourth term of office.
"It's a great relief to win," he said. "I'm very pleased about it. Now I know we can get on with the work and expand this incredible movement."
"I'd like to thank (Alan Dickson) for his candidacy and I'd like to thank him for the competition. And it was tough competition."
Dickson, a former president of the Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association, had been critical of Craven's bid.
While he recognised the legitimacy of Craven's candidacy, Dickson claimed it was against the spirit of the organisation's rules.
Craven, who was backed by the British Paralympic Association, among others, was first elected as president of the association in 2001 but allowed to run for a final term of office because of a change in the rules in 2005. In future, the presidency term will be a maximum of three four-year terms.
Upon his re-election, Craven said: "It's about athletes. It's about developing an even wider athlete base in all our nations. It's also to maintain the momentum with regard to the Paralympic Games [in Rio in 2016].
"People were saying we'll never repeat Beijing [in 2008]. But then we had London [in 2012] and we'll never repeat London. We're going to create something amazing in Rio.
"But my mind is on Sochi first for the winter Games. I'm not thinking about Rio. And we'll be there in three months time."
The 2013 Paralympic Sport Awards were also held in Athens with Great Britain's David Weir among six athlete award winners.
Weir won Best Male after his performances at London 2012, where he won four golds in eight days in the 800m, 1500m, 5000m and marathon distances in the T54 class.
"It's just great being recognised for what I did in London," Weir said.
"It was an amazing achievement, and obviously the IPC could see competing in the T54 events and coming away with four gold medals was one of the toughest things in the world. I fulfilled my dream of coming away with four gold medals at a home Games."
Netherlands' Esther Vergeer won Best Female after finishing one of Paralympic sport's most successful careers with her fourth wheelchair tennis singles title, and also a gold in doubles.
Dutch double-amputee sprinter Marlou van Rhijn won Best Female Games debut after claiming 100m silver and 200m gold in the T44 sprints at London 2012. She also set new T43 world records in both distances.
Italy's Alex Zanardi received the award for Best Male Games Debut after picking up golds in the individual road race H4 and individual time trial H4 at London 2012. The ex-Formula 1 racing driver also won silver in the mixed team relay H1-4.
Brazil's football 5-a-side squad were awarded Best Team for winning their third consecutive Paralympic gold in the sport, while the title of Best Official was awarded to Germany's Sylvia Sekowska, head table official for wheelchair rugby at London 2012.
In the media awards, BBC World Service won the Radio award for its Games coverage.


text:
May 27, 2004
off I flew
When I woke up it was slightly light outside. My flight was leaving at about 6:30, which meant I should leave home at around 5:15 to allow ten-minute drive to the local airport and one-hour for checking-in, security checks, and boarding. "It can't be light now", I thought in the bed, "sunrise would be at around 5:30 and we set the alarm clock at 4:45 and I haven't even heard it rang... what time is it???" He looked up the clock and said, "we've gotta go right now, it's 5:57". We jumped off the bed, got dressed, took my luggage out, and got in the car and off we went.
Against the worries, I made it. I mean I made it to Honolulu, where I change flights back to Tokyo – the problem was, the inter-island airline company couldn't find my name in the reservation list for the international leg on their computer system at my local airport. Instead, they found my name for the wrong flight on the same day – Tokyo-Honolulu one. I got a bit panicked, but I had no choice but to take the flight to Honolulu anyways and there I would talk directly with United people.
Again, things went quite smooth. At a United's desk in Honolulu Airport, they instantly found my reservation for the Honolulu-Tokyo flight, even though there also was a reservation for that wrong flight, as well. I don't know how they came to create the wrong reservation – it would have been hectic to fly from Narita leaving in the evening of the 22nd, arriving at Honolulu at seven or eight in the morning of the same 22nd (due to the 19-hour time difference), and fly all the way back to Tokyo leaving Honolulu at 10:00 on the same day.
The flight was fine. I had a vegetarian meal, not because I am a vegetarian, but just because I was kind of tired of all those "chicken or beef?" question. On today's flight, they had what sounded like Boeuf Bourguignon as a choice of beef. Boeuf Bourguignon a la in-flight meal?? I was really curious how good (or bad) it could be, so almost decided to decline the vegetarian meal that had been made exclusively for me upon the request from myself (what the heck!), but by the time the food cart reached to our seat row, beef packages were all gone and there were a lot of chicken something. Well, those chicken dishes didn't sound quite exciting enough for me to have them throw away my vegetarian dish, so I let them know that I had ordered a vegetarian meal (they hadn't spotted my seat) and there it came. I had steamed white rice with supposedly chili beans and… something that I can't figure out what it was. It was a dish of what looked like lentils but tasted like... quite nothing else. They are seasoned with spices but very plain, or quite frankly, tasteless. I suspect they might be some kind of pasta made from white flour but I'm really not sure. Does anyone have any idea what they are?
5 comments:
- Santos said...
oh my goodness, the last time i had a vegetarian meal on a united flight was from dc to la almost 10 years ago, and i think it was the same thing you had...some sort of orzo thingy, which is a rice or barley shaped pasta, with overcooked peppers and a bad dressing.
have you checked www.airlinemeals.net? people send in photos of their in flight meal. scary but funny!
- 5:56 AM, June 07, 2004
- chika said...
yeah, it was exactly like that - it's quite impressive that those United folks have been serving the same stuff for ten years...
I checked airlinemeals.net and it was fun :-) Didn't seem like anyone figured out what that was, though...
- 8:09 AM, June 07, 2004
Looks like orzo to me. It's a classic Italian pasta that is relatively flat and has pointed ends... Hard to discern in the picture. But it is quite like any other pasta, but used quite a bit as a pasta for salads.
- 10:46 AM, June 22, 2004
- chika said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- 12:43 AM, June 28, 2004
- chika said...
hello someone,
thanks for the info - I have never heard of "orzo", but sounds like that's it, except that I can't believe that thing can be categoried as anything "Italian" - it was nowhere close to al-dente. After all, it was an airline meal, so they might have meant it to be an orzo dish. We never know. Thanks anyways!
- 12:49 AM, June 28, 2004


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Saturday, November 24, 2012
Via Quora: How has eBay's review system evolved in the past few years?
The feedback system and "feedback score" is one of the first things associated with eBay (maybe second only to auction). The main purpose of any feedback system is to harness the "signals" community members send to "feedback processor" to encourage and "enforce" desirable behavior. Anyone who ever thought about or design a rating or feedback system knows that the task is not as easy as it may first seem. And the first step is to understand what the different attribute of a feedback system is.
A member of Quora community asked me to answer the question "How has eBay's review system evolved in the past few years?". The question provided me with an opportunity (and a little push) to talk about six attributes of any feedback system. See here for the full answer and if you are not using Quora, I strongly recommend you consider using it. It is addictive.
Posted by Farhang (@farhangkassaei) at 3:47 PM 2 comments


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From Friday 17th - Sunday 19th July White Mexicans is FREE on Amazon Kindle. Grab a copy if you're interested in words that go alongside other words to form sentences.
|Please note the book does not include a
digestive biscuit.
Too poor to escape Los Angeles, too weak to survive in it; Doug Morgan takes a job writing an Exploitation movie to pay the bills. Struggling with the pay-off between art and commerce he finds himself on the path to redemption, if he can scrape himself off rock bottom.
Half novella, half short story compilation, White Mexicans is an American tale told in the Irish yarn tradition. Populated with Louden's usual spit and spite dialogue, off-colour humour and poetic lamentation of a world gone wrong; his third outing is a mix of fable and low-life fiction.
"Really funny." -Nik Everleigh
"Powerful and thought provoking." -Hugh Cron
"Bukowski's style and to the point attitude." -Adam West
"A witty, self-deprecating humour […] the final sentence did make me grin and wince at the same time." -Diane Dickson
"A rare voice." -Anthony Wobbe
"A lot of style to it and dark humour in abundance […] tackles every story subject with ferocity and without fear." -Nik Everleigh
Lost Angeles | Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l]
David Louden is the Belfast born author of two roman á clef novels, Lost Angeles and Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] revolving around his semi-biographical alter-ego Douglas Morgan.
In 2014 he received an Independent Writer Award from the Arts Council via NI Screen to write a Noir-Comedy for television. It is currently in development. Louden has recently teamed up with Belfast artist Chris Ellis (of Ellistration) to produce a Sci-Fi comic book expected later in 2015.
AMAZON U.S [click here]
AMAZON U.K [click here]
* The statement that all stories "definitely happened" is one used for entertainment purposes and should not be considered factual or legally binding. All too often Mr. Louden is full of shit.


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Saturday, January 4
the start of 2014
For the past week, I've forgotten what it's like to have an alarm or how to put on eyeliner.
I've also sort of forgotten about the internet entirely. Oops.
This week, I felt grateful for parents that teach me gym glares to ward the wondering judgmental eyes while you're lifting 7 pound weights and that it's okay to listen to One Direction as a 48 year old woman. My parents are the coolest and by that I mean the least cool. And I wouldn't want them any other way. Growing up and getting to know my parents as people is a pretty neat thing. I see myself in them now in a way that 15 year old me would want to dye her hair black and spend more time at the skate park if she knew I'd turn out exactly like them.
Spending time with my sister has also been, well, humbling. You know what? I am totally an annoying older sister. I totally worry way too much about what she thinks of me. I totally love on her too much. But this realization is a good one. A great one. My sister is her own person and she rocks it. I am my own person and I need to rock it more instead of worrying what other people think.
My boyfriend traveled across the border to visit me this week. It was only about five minutes before he showed up on my doorstep that I realized I had never introduced a new boy to my parents before. Upon telling my dad he was coming his response was, "That dude is coming here?" I think he fully expected me to introduce him to another skinny-jean-wearing metro piece of eye candy so I like to think that by the end of the trip when my dad had texted his few friends to come over to meet my new boyfriend that he was impressed by the floppy hair lanky marching band geek I brought home.
Have I mentioned lately I'm a really big fan of nice boys? NICE boys? The boys I wrote off in high school when I wanted someone who would write me poetry and go shopping with me?
On his last day, I wanted to go somewhere I'd never been. It took only thirty seconds and a few texts to declare that we were going to go the Palouse Falls where apparently the world record for biggest waterfall ridden by a kayaker is held. 186 feet. We took my trusty Subaru on the voyage and thanks to my overpacking tendencies, we shared a bag of pistachio nuts which was our only means of food for the entire afternoon. Oops. We listened to the likes of Beyonce and Arctic Monkeys on the drive. We found the treacherous trail that took us to the cliff's edge of the 200 foot waterfall.
This world and this life are pretty great when you make the most of a single day's potential. I'm going to miss this winter break. I'm going to miss it so badly. Every joyous splendid simple moment of it with the best people in my life.
5 comments:
- Emma Jane said...
I've spent my whole life writing off the floppy haired nice boys for the dark, troubled, poetry writing boys. After my most recent experience with heart break, I've finally seen the flaw in that plan. Nice boys truly are something special and they are so under utilized. It's time to start appreciating them.
Tightrope to the Sun
- January 5, 2014 at 1:23 AM
- Maggie Shirley said...
I love all these pictures. That place looks gorgeous.
- January 5, 2014 at 4:56 AM
- Natalie said...
Everything about this adventure sounds so beautiful. So much happiness.
- January 5, 2014 at 4:44 PM
- Shelby said...
my word, i feel like we are in the exact same boy boat. i have always gone for the mysterious, artsy boy that seems to always have a temper, and is just a stupid and mean human. for once in my life i finally went with the nice guy, and it is truly the greatest decision i have ever made. the image of a perfect boy (in your mind) is completely overrated. it took completely forgetting that to find someone i love so much, and that actually treats me like a human being. and don't even get me started on my dad's opinion! there is seriously nothing better than your dad saying he LOVES your boyfriend. seriously, the greatest moment my entire life!!
p.s- the picture of Palouse Falls that you put on Instagram... took my breathe away. How lucky to live so close to something so insanely beautiful!
- January 5, 2014 at 4:45 PM
- Kaili at impeccablykaili said...
Dating a nice boy? I should try and learn from you!
- January 6, 2014 at 6:22 PM


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Build the custom recording solution you need:
Up to four Pan-Tilt-Zoom Internet Protocol (IP) cameras can be recorded per room; each camera can have up to two PTZ presets programmed for different scenarios within that room. Viso allows remote start/stop recordings, as well as PTZ adjustments within the software, from any location with a Viso Recorder. In conjunction with camera recordings, screen capture can also occur, which provides a complete overview of the scenario.
Moreover, the complete integrated setup includes a professional microphone and speaker system that enables high quality audio recordings in sync with video.
Need to quickly intervene, or provide extra instructions during testing? Use the software's push-to-talk button to communicate directly with trainees or colleagues in a recording room.
The Scheduling Module allows you to set up recordings in advance and automatically start and stop these recordings at a scheduled time. It is simple because there is no manual intervention needed; participants enter the recording room and perform their tasks while their session is recorded automatically.
Watch this animation for more information about the Scheduling Module.
Viso uses an internal network of cameras and computers. All cameras operate via IP and therefore can be connected anywhere within the local network. This means that recording rooms, and even facilities, do not need to be adjacent or in the same building! For example, the control room could be in a separate building on campus from the testing rooms.
Lab managers, researchers, or trainers can also start and stop a Viso recording from any viewer; that viewer does not need to be in the central recording location. Provided the viewer is on the network, recordings can be controlled from down the hall, or from a different floor. One can even control recordings by accessing Viso via a web interface on their tablet or smartphone. How? Simply connect to the Viso network via wifi and control the selected recording through the web interface. Viso even handles security concerns, as recordings can only be accessed by users who are logged in.
Curious how this works? You can request a free demo of Viso.
More about Viso: Record and manage easily →


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BeachesApartments on the Beach is located in San Juan most beautiful Beach Ocean Park. You can enjoy many activities like windsurfing, swimming or just relax with our complimentaries beach chairs, umbrellas and towels.
SnorkelingWhat could be more enjoyable than to sit back on a gorgeous catamaran, sip tasty rum concoctions, and be transported like a V.I.P. to snorkeling paradise? It's an all day, all-inclusive trip of a lifetime. Snorkeling in the Spanish Virgin Islands is one of our favorite guest recommendations!
NatureLess than an hour from your beach hotel in San Juan is El Yunque National Rainforest Puerto Rico. Every season is rainy season at El Yunque, where over 250 inches of rain fall each year. Encompassing 28,000 lush acres, visitors have a chance to see the endangered Puerto Rican parrot, hike trails to waterfalls, and marvel at giant tree ferns as well as hundreds of species of trees, plants, and other birds. Listen carefully for "El Coqui," a noisy, but reclusive tiny tree frog native to the island
FoodApartments on the Beach is just a few steps away from one of San Juan best Restaurant, Pamela's Caribbean Cuisine. At Pamela's you can enjoy a Caribbean-fusion menu and its one-of-a-kind beachside location. All meals are made from the freshest ingredients; local seafood, the finest cuts of meat, and area fruits and vegetables are featured. Be sure to leave room for dessert—an array of homemade delectable treats are not to be missed!
ShoppingCalling all shoppers! San Juan shopping offers a wide-range of choices close to your beach hotel. Whether you prefer the open-air marketplaces and charming storefronts of Old San Juan or would rather explore the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean, San Juan shopping satisfies all.


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Court upheld Ukrainian activist's detention in Crimea
Today, the 28th of February, Crimean court has left pro-Ukrainian activist Volodymyr Balukh in custody until March 4.
"Everything that happens is the pressure on me because I remain a human being in this disgusting surrounding. It's not so hard to see my appeals and cassation complaints to be sure that I was threatened to be planted weapons and ammunition a year ago to do what has been done — to deprive me now of my livelihood, to warp my life. But it's useless, you can deprive me of my livelihood and even life, but you are helpless to tame my unbroken spirit," said the activist in the court.
As a reminder, the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia came searched the village of Serebryanka in Crimea December 8, 2016. The searches were carried out a few hours in the houses of Vladimir Balukh and his mother. The FSB's officers allegedly found ammunition and dynamite on the roof of the activist's house. Human rights activists believe that ammunition was planted during the search with the aim of falsifying a criminal case against the activist, who does not hide his pro Ukrainian position.


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Rhythm & Hues Files For Bankruptcy
Posted February 28, 2013 3:45 pm by Glumpuddle
Rhythm & Hues, the VFX studio behind a lot of the digital effects in Disney/Walden's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has filed for bankruptcy, despite winning the Academy Award for their work in Life of Pi. Some controversy has arisen from their acceptance speech, which was was cut short just as Bill Westenhofer began talking about the company's "severe financial difficulties." Read the full story. And here is a video on the visual effects in Narnia that was released in 2005. Thanks to Reepi for the alert.
5 Comments For This Story
catherinejoy33 says: February 28th, 2013 on 5:20 PM
Poor guys. I was so excited when i saw them win an Oscar on Sunday for Life of Pi. I thought that would have helped them. I hope it does help them in the future. I was so blown away by the digital effects in Life of Pi, that they literally put me in awe, and i was moved by the effects alone. Thanks Rhythm and Hues for working on such a spectacular movie, and making it beautiful. You deserve the credit and support. And the Oscar 🙂
boke_wyrm says: February 28th, 2013 on 6:59 PM
Well, you never know in these parlous times, but bankruptcy isn't a death sentence. It's possible they can recover, like MGM did.
fxFan_inmexico says: March 1st, 2013 on 1:16 PM
R.I.P. Rhythm en Hues, you did good an beautyful work.
ShiningStar says: March 1st, 2013 on 1:29 PM
This is really strange, because also the company who is responsible for the post-production VFX for "The Seventh Son" (Ben Barnes' latest fantasy flick) also filed for bankruptcy, and something about another company picking it up to finish the project?? I heard about that on the IMDB somewhere, but hopefully they can get the film finished somehow…
btw, congrats to Life of Pi, it was probably one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen (beside the Hobbit).
Hermit of the Northern March says: March 4th, 2013 on 6:07 PM
Thanks to Rhythm and Hues for doing such a good job with Aslan's face in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. You guys are very talented.


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Tween Sky Blue Crayon Dress Costume
- Dress
- Hat
- 100% polyester
- Officially licensed
- Ties in the back for a fitted appearance
- Poly-foam headpiece
Did you know that, when it comes to Crayola's long and colorful (geddit?) history, even the color "Blue" hasn't stayed the same?
The crayon which the company named "Blue" when Crayola first got its start in 1903 was not the same "Blue" by the 1930s. It was given a new name, which no longer exists today, and "Blue" became a brighter shade of the color! Confused? It's okay! Up until a few years ago, no one - not even Crayola - had recorded a full history of their crayons. Then Ed Welter, a former Nike project manager from Oregon and a devoted collector, decided to take up the project, and it even took him a whole eight months to piece together Crayola's blue color timeline and history (14 years of collecting to piece together Crayola's entire color history, which, as it turns out, is absurdly complicated!) which he described to The Huffington Post as "complex" and, pun intended, "colorful."
So when you wear this fun, colorful Tween Sky Blue Crayon Dress, you're not just stirring up childhood nostalgia (was there anything better than opening up and using that brand new, fresh box of Crayola crayons?), you're also representing a fascinating part of American art and industry history! Made of 100% polyester, this officially licensed costume features ties in the back for a fitted appearance and it even comes with a poly-foam headpiece! And we've got a ton of different colors to choose from, so get all of your friends together for the funnest, coolest Halloween group costume around!
|Standard (10-12)
|10 - 12
|10 - 12
|Standard (10-12)
|28" - 34"
|71cm - 86cm
|Standard (10-12)
|26" - 34"
|66cm - 86cm
|Standard (10-12)
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text: SkisFreeride SkisSalomon Qst 106 Ski Only Salomon QST 106 Ski Only $1,299.99 Normally: $1,299.99 SAVE 0% ($0.00) () Or 4 payments of $ 325.00 using Unavailable. Please enquire. Maroon/Orange, 174 In stock email will be sent. Instock notification already exists. Please sign in first. Quantity Add To Favourites Add To Wishlist SKU #102-81029705 Summary Shipping Salomon QST 106 Ski Only Click here to view the full Shipping Details and Returns Policy. Salomon Qst 106 Ski Only Reviews Write Review × Write Review Your Name: Your Email: Comments: Rating: Website URL No Thanks Submit Review There are not yet any reviews on this product. What's Popular scott remit ski pole From $79.99 sidas winter 3feet high footbed From $65.99 sidas 3feet mid footbed From $65.99 × Please enter your email address In stock email will be sent. Instock notification already exists. Please login first. Close Submit Send us an email for this product Message sent Failed to send message, please try again Name Email Message Website URL Close Send


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My deepest apologies to you loyal readers. 2013 has been nothing but crazy for me schedule-wise. I have no intention on shutting the blog down. I just have to do a better job burgering! If you're still there, thanks for hanging in there! I'm trying to get back on track!"
Ever since Hickory Lane opened a few months ago, there has been a lot of talk about their burger. I took a mental note, but with most places in Fairmount, I didn't think I'd make it out there anytime soon. This past weekend, however, I had a burger craving to satisfy and wasn't feeling lazy about it!
The Hickory Lane Burger is made up of a 12 oz. custom MPZ (initials of Chef Matt Zagorski) meat blend (pork belly, brisket, and deckle), topped with aged cheddar, tomato, and bibb lettuce. It's sandwiched between a Wild Flour Bakery challah bun.
The meat was cooked to medium-rare and was super juicy and full of flavor. The size was perfect as each bite to the very end had burger in it. The simple toppings of aged cheddar, tomato, and lettuce compliment the already flavorful burger well. The challah held up to the juices and was perfectly airy and buttery. The accompanying house cut fries & garlic aioli were also delicious.
The only downer? The burger started to fall about about 3/4 of the way through.
Hickory Lane
2025 Fairmount Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19130


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The Hope in Brighton is a great little venue, intimate with a clear, punchy sound system. Last year I'd seen Tom Williams And The Boat play there with support from Binko Swink, tonight I was there to see WALL Featuring Lyla and Dan from Binko Swink (joined by Bear Driver's Oli) supporting Saint Saviour
A friend had turned me on to Saint Saviour after he linked a track on her Soundcloud account to me, I liked it, and further investigations through her tracks led me to believe that here we had a true eclectic artist, who had many styles- but all her own. What nailed it for me though was her cover of Siouxsie And The Banshee's Happy House. Saint Saviour also made an appearance on the excellent documentary about an independent record shop called Sound It Out Records in her hometown of Stockton-On-Tees, recently shown on BBC4, catch it if you can, if not you can buy it here.
WALL I had been following for some time- their 'Black cab Session' spawned the first single from both the Black Cab Session project and WALL,'Magazine'. So when a notification came through from Lyla that said WALL Would be supporting Saint Saviour, well, I got meself a ticket immediately.
Tonight started off with a Brighton/London combo called Uber=Tone- their singer, Dobi, informed us we would be hearing a set of their version of House Music, and what a version it was, uplifting and inspiring- the grin never left Dobi's face, her vocals were soulful, catchy and never cheesy- her synth and the ubiquitous apple mac, were backed up with live bass and drums which gave energy and warmth- if this is the sound of UK house then I, for one, am encouraged. Check them out at their site here.
WALL Were on next with their understated songs of heart break- fittingly underpinned with the rhythm of a heartbeat. With Lyla's sweet voice, this could be like any other angsty, lofi pop- but, WALL are a bit darker than that, underneath all of this, the soundscapes are more a-kin to industrial music, stripped back to reveal the underlying beauty, the harsh beats and noises of the genre are there- but muffled or merely hinted at, and the live tweeking of sound Lyla does on her synth is both simple and effective. Amongst their half hour set, they played two tracks I knew-'No Secrets',set finisher, their single 'Magazine'. We were introduced to a new track called 'Shoestring'- homage to early 80's Radio Private Eye Eddie Shoestring? Probably not.
The general sound of WALL couldn't help me think that an ideal producer for them would be Ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde (listen to Piano Magic). Please go ahead and listen to this band (and, indeed Bear Driver and Binko Swink) as there's a delightful unconventional-ness about their seemingly straight forward approach.
Full Set List
Left To Wonder
No Secrets
Place Too Low
All Alone
Now it was Saint Saviour's turn. Dressed in trenchcoat, Becky Jones (for she IS Saint Saviour) set her stage just so- LED light strips and light bulbs placed on the floor, laptops set at the back and her keyboard on a very impressive thick, white stand- which wouldn't look out of place on the Death Star.
The lights provided a different feel to the stage, being uplit rather than spot-lighted from above and gave the stage an intriguing ambiance. The futuristic LED's mixed with the old school familiar white lightbulbs provided a brilliant(!) luminance metaphor of the sound- piano and cello of yesteryear augmented with contemporary and futuristic beats.
The parallels between Saint Saviour with artists like Tori Amos and Kate Bush is all too obvious. Quirky Red Head, skipping through genres without a sweat, fantastic voice and a sure confidence in what she is doing- sometimes sitting behind the keyboard, often bopping and pogoing up and down very much like a 21st Century Siouxsie Sioux, her time with Groove Armada has certainly taught Saint Saviour the art of stage presence and many of the songs played felt restrained in the way that at any time they could explode into dance floor filling crazyness, but they just held back at the right time, leaving you wanting more- but not disappointed in what you had experienced.
I'm fairly new to Saint Saviour, so I'm not too familiar with the song names, it wouldn't matter though- I was so taken by the sound and vision that details became blurred. Latest single 'Tightrope' sounded majestic, her vocals are astounding, chilling at times but always with a heart warming beauty- the line 'You acted like you knew me', falling away with a pregnant pause no man (or woman) could respond to…
The set finished by two solo(ish) pieces the first, 'Reasons' had a wonderfully somnolent Cello accompaniment and this was followed by a very popular (well the lass next to me was bellowing out the title, and Becky was merely feet away!) 'Horse', and what a beautiful tune that is.
That old walk off stage and come back on chestnut couldn't happen- in a venue so small with the band having to walk through the crowd, Becky just said "Where would I go?", so the evening was bought to an end with one of the reasons I was here in the first place, my original introduction to the band- a rousing cover of The Banshees 'Happy House'- and it was, grins everywhere, me and the lass next to me having a boogie and at last the floor filling sounds the set had promised.
Further info/listening:
Uber=Tone- www.ubertonemusic.com/
Wall- www.thisiswall.com/
Saint Saviour- saintsaviour.co.uk/


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On the last evening in Hawaii, I enjoyed this wonderful and traditional dish – Kalua Pig. It is eaten with cabbage, pineapple and rice as you see on the plate.
Kapiolani Beach, Waikiki
We spent our final evening in Hawaii along the shores in Waikiki.
Waimea Bay
On day 3 of the 4 day conference, when the work was over, Iris and I headed back to the North Shore again. This time we went to Waimea Bay. On the way there, we saw a sign on a building that looked rather familiar…
Kalbi Beef
On my recent trip to Hawaii, I experienced some delicious food that I hadn't had the pleasure of, and looked forward to replicating them in my kitchen. Here is the first – Kalbi Beef. Kalbi Beef is grilled, and because it is thin it cooks very quickly. It is a perfect weeknight meal! This could …
Haleiwa on the North Shore
One evening after the conference, we drove up to the quiet little town of Haleiwa on the North Shore of Oahu.
Around Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
While in Hawaii for the Army Family Action Plan Conference, we would have breaks at lunch to go get something to eat. Generally, we would just walk over to the PX and eat at the food court. This was the lovely view while walking over. In the mornings, this field is full of soldiers doing …
Around the Hotel at Schofield Barracks
The day I arrived in Hawaii, after getting settled in the hotel, I walked around outside taking pictures of all the vegetation around the hotel and the hotel courtyard. The "Inn at Schofield" was nothing fancy, a pretty typical military "hotel." The customer service was atrocious, and the internet service even worse. But outside? Ohhhh, …
Traveling To Hawaii
Last week, I traveled for the USARPAC Army Family Action Plan Conference. As it happens, the headquarters of USARPAC is in Hawaii….somewhere I never thought I would go, until a couple weeks ago. After three, long overnight flights of misery (I can't sleep while traveling) I saw my first signs of LAND!!!


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For your reference, here's how I installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6)
Now to update to 10.6.6, once I've booted to my desktop (I used the USB booter to boot up the 311 but chose my internal hard drive instead), I just ran Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) and rebooted.
Up to this point, the USB Installer with Retail Pack 0.9 installed would boot up 10.6.0 up to 10.6.6 with no problems at all.
But of course, we wanna stay on the bleeding edge so we're gonna follow the progress made by the developers.
Note though that there are different setups and up until now, we're all stumped at why the user experience is so inconsistent even among those who have practically identical hardware specifications like RAM amount and WiFi card. So, please don't assume this is supposed to work flawlessly and then complain :)
And as this is about sharing my current setup with you - if you wanna try it - I've taken the liberty of just getting the stuff I currently have in my system and then zipped it up to be able to discuss things the simplest possible way I can.
HP Mini 311 05 Feb 2011
I am no longer booting with EFI. Before proceeding with this, make sure to initialize/delete that 200MB partition from your hard drive. To do this launch "Terminal" and type this command:
sudo newfs_hfs -v EFI /dev/disk0s1
Press Enter. Type in your pasword when prompted. Enter.
My HP Mini 311-1002TU added specs:
Atheros N 9280 in half height PCI slot
Stock HP Broadcom 4312 with integrated Bluetooth (the WiFi part doesn't work, only BT)
Tools Needed:
- Lizard
- Kext Utility
What To Do:
1. Unpack the zip file you just downloaded and you'll get a folder named "HPMini311_05022011". Inside this folder, you'll see the following:


text: DCM_119037 Sep 9, 2018 | Bonfire | Prints & Download Download Sized for print at retail photo labs 4" x 6" Standard Print Edge-to-edge print on professional lab paper 4" x 6" 8" x 12" Giclee Signature fine-art print with margins on archival paper 13" x 19" Add to Cart Checkout Info Captured Sep 9, 2018 08:05 am Camera NIKON D750 ISO 640 Shutter Speed 1/250 f/5.3 Focal Length 93mm Albums Albums Not in any personal albums yet Add to Album Registered users can add photos to personal albums. Create an account today to get started. TagsFirst Cut Add Tags Registered users can click the photo to add tags. Create an account today to get started. 0 1 285 [img]http://dion-c.me/wp-content/uploads/DCM_119037-640x427.jpg[/img] [url=http://dion-c.me/gallery/bonfire-2018-first-cut/dcm_119037/]DCM_119037 at Student Bonfire[/url] Click to copy forum code Go to TexAgs.com More from Bonfire 2018, First Cut


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|Living/Nonliving Cut and Paste Sheet
click on picture to link to file
I am a Montessorian. I love teaching children using the Montessori Method. I have spent countless hours developing my own garden of printable materials, and have made enough mistakes to learn a lot. I truly believe in this work, and want to see as many people have free access to great quality for teaching. Thanks to anyone who gets my blog site out there by linking or sharing.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Living Nonliving Cut and Paste Work
I have been looking around my files to see what else I have forgotten to put online. I have found a few things. This sheet is a companion work to the Living/Nonliving cards used in this post. The children can cut them out, sort them, and paste them to another sheet to complete this work.
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This section provides general information and tips for those considering applying for a grant from the ACT Government. Eligibility requirements, assessment criteria, and budget information differ across ACT Government programs. It is essential that you contact the agency responsible for the program to which you are most interested in applying, so that you have all the required information.
Important note: the following information is a general overview only and does not in itself constitute assessment criteria.
On this page
- What type of grant should I apply for?
- Is there anybody I can talk to about my proposal?
- Are there other resources that can assist me to write an application?
- Who is eligible to apply?
- Can joint applications be submitted?
- Does my organisation need to be incorporated to be eligible for grant funding?
- Do I or my organisation need to be Goods and Services Tax (GST) registered and what does that mean?
- Does my project need public liability insurance?
- What will not be funded?
- What funds are available per application?
- How detailed does the budget need to be?
- What happens after I have submitted my application?
What type of grant should I apply for?
The ACT Government administers a range of grant programs for a list of the two broad funding 'streams' that are available:
If you are not sure where your project best fits, please contact the agency that is responsible for the grant program you think is the most suitable and they will assist you to determine if your project meets the eligibility criteria for that program.
Is there anybody I can talk to about my proposal?
Yes. Please contact the agency that administers the relevant program to discuss your proposal prior to the closing date. They will let you know what is required for that particular program.
Some ACT Government agencies also run information sessions about their grant programs, which applicants are strongly encouraged to attend.
Are there other resources that can assist me to write an application?
The application processes are competitive, to improve your chance to receive funding, check that your application meets the aims, target groups and elegibility criteria of the program.
Most ACT Government agencies will provide information booklets, information sheets and other resources for their respective grant programs. Please make sure you have all the information you need. Some ACT Government agencies that offer grant programs periodically conduct training sessions for potential applicants. It is recommended that you get in touch with the appropriate contact officer for information on these resources.
Some applicants find it useful to have a member of their own community read their application to ensure it is a comprehensive proposal. There are useful internet sites that may assist, such as the Community Building website.
You may also find it useful to refer to:
Who is eligible to apply?
Eligibility criteria varies between programs. Some programs are only available to organisations, whilst others are open to individuals and groups. Please check the guidelines of the relevant grant program for details.
A Political Party is not eligible for government funded community grants.
If applying on behalf of an organisation, you may be required to submit a short description of the organisation, describing your mission, history, achievements and long-term goals. It is important to give yourself time to prepare your application and if necessary, for your Board or Management Committee's approval process to be finalised. Again, please check the application requirements with the relevant contact officer as it may vary considerably from program to program.
Can joint applications be submitted?
It will depend on the grant program. However, if you are applying with others, an individual or an organisation will need to be responsible for the management of the grant, including the acquittal.
Some grant programs encourage a partnership or community support to conduct a project. Please refer to program guidelines for specific details.
Does my organisation need to be incorporated to be eligible for grant funding?
No, only for some grant programs. However, the relevant grant guidelines will make this clear.
If you need to be incorporated to apply for a grant program, your group/organisation can either:
- become incorporated (for information on how to become incorporated, please visit the Office of Regulatory Services website or phone (02) 620 70473); or
- be auspiced by an incorporated organisation (to meet eligibility criteria).
For more information on the incorporation process, go to the ACT Council of Social Service website.
If you are in the process of becoming incorporated, you may need to supply various documents like a certificate of incorporation, financial statements, annual report, insurance details etc as part of your applications. Allow enough time to source them before the closing date. Check with the contact officer for more information on what is needed for the specific grant program.
Do I or my organisation need to be Goods and Services Tax (GST) registered and what does that mean?
No, an individual or an organisation is not required to be GST registered. However, if an individual or an organisation is not GST registered, and does not have an Australian Business Number (ABN), a Statement by Supplier form can be completed. The form is available at the Australian Tax Office website.
If this form is not completed, then the funding body is required to withhold 49.5% of the grant in lieu of tax. More information on GST for community organisations at the Australian Tax Office web site.
Does my project need public liability insurance?
Public Liability insurance is generally required if any aspect of your activity will be carried out on ACT Government - owned land. If you are being auspiced by another organisation because your group is not incorporated, it is possible to use their insurance but it must be agreed in writing, and discussed with their insurance company.
Further information about public liability insurance can be found at the ACT Government's Public Liability Risk Advisory Service website.
All other insurance requirements should also be in place where necessary and appropriate.
What will not be funded?
Grants cannot be made retrospectively (to cover money already spent). If you have received other ACT Government grant funding, then you will be considered for a new grant only if you have satisfactorily met your acquittal requirements.
Check the grant guidelines of the specific grants program for details of what type of project will be funded.
What funds are available per application?
If there is a maximum amount per application, it will be advised by each grant program.
How detailed does the budget need to be?
Your budget needs to be detailed enough to explain your request and how you worked out the funding amount. Individual grant programs may provide a budget template for you to use, some templates provided are mandatory program requirements.
In general, your budget should be appropriate and realistic. You should also show other contributions you have received or sought for this project/program and separate these from the grant amount requested from the ACT Government.
For details on what exactly to include in your budget, check the guidelines of the grant program to which you are applying.
What happens after I have submitted my application?
Applications are checked to ensure all required information has been submitted:
- Eligible applications are assessed by a panel, which can include community and expert members.
- Some grant programs will have a ministerial appointed body that will be responsible for grant assessment, for example the ACT Cultural Council.
- Generally, recommendations are then made to the relevant Minister who makes the final decision.
- Once the decision has been reached, successful applicants will be informed and a public announcement made. Most funding programs will advise applicants of the funding outcomes in writing, usually prior to the public announcement.
- A deed of grant is developed and provided to the applicant. Once it is signed and co-signed by the ACT Government, the funds will be released.
Sometimes the ACT Government will offer a grant on the basis that certain conditions are met. These will be made clear to you before you sign the Deed of Grant.
If your application is unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek feedback from the relevant agency on how you might strengthen your application prior to applying for other funding opportunities.


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Raj Babbar Biography
Raj Babbar is a Hindi & Punjabi film performing artist since 1980 .Babbar was conceived in Agra, India. He is a former student of the 1975 clump of National School of Drama and moved on from Agra College.
Profession :
He was prepared in the Method school of acting at NSD, which has extremely solid radical leanings, and enthusiasm for Street Theater. After his preparation in New Delhi he moved to bombay to attempt his good fortune. In spite of his acting capacity, he has been not able to achieve the hotshot picture in Indian silver screen.
He began inverse one of the surely understood performing artists of that time Reena Roy in the Hindi film Sau Dina Saas Ke, which prompted their having an unsanctioned romance which was useful for his future profession. (100-days of relative).
He accomplished open acknowledgment through an extremely very much assumed part of a rich playboy-attacker in B.R. Chopra's Insaaf Ka Tarazu (Balance of equity), which featured profoundly acclaimed female star Zeenat Aman and was the introduction film of the 13 year old Padmini Kohlapure.( There was a noteworthy discussion over the respectability of demonstrating the horrendous assault of a 13-year old on-screen, which was considered by most to be titillating and exploitative – and maybe of that the motion picture was extremely fruitful economically).
He turned into a reliable player on B.R. Chopra's movies; Nikaah with Deepak Parashar and Salma Agha, Aaj Ki Aawaz with Smita Patil whom he had an exceptional affir with and along these lines wedded, notwithstanding being hitched with two youngsters at the time.
He worked with top flags and top stars of his period, and in spite of a couple unique hits, never truly accomplished star-status. As he has matured, he has begun accomplishing more character parts, playing the miscreant with incredible elan and danger – a return to his begin as the best-cherished attacker of 1985 in Insaaf Ka Taraazu.
Contribution to Punjabi Cinema :
He likewise made progress in Punjabi silver screen as he gave noteworthy exhibitions in Chan Pardesi (1980) and Long Da Lishkara (1986) – two arthouse motion pictures, with genuine topics treated in a for the most part reasonable way – and a long ways from the sensational & verging on crazy tenor of most Punjabi movies of the time.
He additionally featured in the hit Punjabi movies Aasra Pyar Da (1983), Marhi Da Diva (1989), Mahaul Theek Hai (1999), Shaheed Uddham Singh (2000), Yaaran Naal Baharaan (2005), and Ek Jind Ek Jaan (2006). It has been said that Babbar regularly does Punjabi movies for nothing, as a demonstration of liberality to Punjabi film.
Individual life :
He is a punjabi hindu, he wedded Nadira Zaheer little girl of Theater Director, Activist & his educator at The National School of Drama Sajjad Zaheer and Razia Zaheer). Arya Babbar and Juhi Babbar are his two youngsters from Nadira Babbar.
His second marriage, which numerous vibe was as self-serving & in light of a legitimate concern for his profession as his to begin with, was to the late Smita Patil – a performer who originated from a persuasive & politically associated Maharashtrian family, and had officially made a name for herself as one of the best on-screen characters in India's Alternative Cinema.
After the conception of their child Prateek Babbar, Smita Patil kicked the bucket of baby blues confusions following couple of days. After her demise Raj Babbar showed up which to numerous appeared to be thought up & devious at the time. He in this way fixed up with his first wife Nadira Babbar, despite the fact that Prateek Babbar lives with the folks of Smita Patil.
Juhi Babbar attempted her hand at acting in 2003 in a film entitled "Kaash…Aap Hamare Hote" inverse vocalist turned-on-screen character Sonu Nigam. She has not acted in any movies since. She is currently hitched.
Prateek Babbar as of late appeared in Aamir Khan's creation and Abbas Tyrewala's heading Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na where he assumes the part of Amit Mahant, the idiosyncratic sibling of the primary female character, Aditi. His part has been extremely generally welcomed by both the overall population and faultfinders. He was recompensed an exceptional notice authentication from the jury for this part at the 54th Filmfare Awards 2009.
Politics :
He joined Samajwadi Party and got to be Member of Parliament of India three times from his local body electorate of Agra.
Because of open feedback of Amar Singh, Raj Babbar was suspended from the gathering. Raj Babbar accentuated communism as proliferated by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, the premise of arrangement of Samajwadi Party, however Amar Singh has associations with industrialists and different VIPs in Hindi silver screen, which brings impact and cash power crucial for survival in India's political framework.
On 5 October, 2008 he joined the Congress Party, in maybe his last self-serving offer to some way or another recover his broke political & cinematographic predetermination.
Raj Babbar Profile
Name: Raj Babbar
Date of Birth: 23 June , 1952
Birthplace: Agra, India
Raj Babbar Body size/Measurements
Height ; 5'7″
Weight ; N/A
Eye color ; N/A
Hair color ; N/A


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Tim Geithner boarded the 6 a.m. US Airways shuttle to Washington last Wednesday at La Guardia, slid his rail-thin frame into seat 5C, then stared into the middle distance. Geithner is invariably described as boyish, but that morning he looked every one of his 47 yearsand then some. He wore a dapper blue suit, a spread-collar shirt, and dark circles under his eyes. For days, Geithner had been consumed in the unfolding AIG fiasco. He'd been running nonstop, laboring to contain the fallout, to explain how this bonus-related abomination had occurred, what he knew, when he knew it, why he seemed so impotent. But Geithner was too smart to harbor any illusions about the efficacy of those efforts. He knew that what awaited him in Washington was going to be ugly. When the plane touched down, he gathered his things and walked silently toward the jetway. He had the look of a man about to enter a burning building in a suit soaked with gasoline.
What greeted Geithner in the capital was a full-blown firestorm. Republicans were howling and screeching, calling for his head on a pike. Some Democrats privately agreed. On Wall Street, meanwhile, where Geithner's stock has been falling precipitously for weeks, a prominent Democratic banker (and Obama backer) told me, It's not that everyone here thinks he should be fired. It's just that there's no one who would stand up right now and publicly throw their support behind him.
Geithner's survival appeared to be hanging by a thread. Even before the AIG maelstrom, a certain slow-drip sense of disillusionment had been setting in about his up-to-the-jobness among certain White House officials. The tax thing. The terrible speech. The lack of confidence in the financial markets. And yet, for the time being at least, Geithner retained the support of the only White House constituency that mattersthe constituency known among old executive-branch hands as the constituency of one. Which is to say, Barack Obama.
Tim Geithner didn't draft these contracts with AIG, Obama said, adding that Geithner has his complete confidence. Nobody's working harder than this guy. You know, he is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand.
That Obama would defend Geithner on AIG comes as no great shock. According to the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, Obama regards the bonus imbroglio as a distraction from more urgent economic priorities; his goal is to move past it and allow Geithner to get back to the business of rescuing the financial system. Yet AIG will not be so easily brushed aside, for it has brought to a boil the simmering doubts about not just Geithner but also his partner Larry Summers, director of Obama's National Economic Council, and the economic approach they are fashioning and advancing for the administration.
When Obama appointed Geithner and Summers back in November, the reaction in Washington and on Wall Street was the same: first relief and then elation. (The day the news of Geithner's selection leaked, the Dow rose 6.5 percent.) They were brilliant, experienced, crisis-tested, market-minded but progressive, a kind of economic-policy dream team. Since then, they have worked side by side along with Fed chair Ben Bernanke to quell an economic crisis as monstrous as any since the Great Depressionwhile formulating an economic agenda as ambitious as any since FDR's. They've unveiled big plans, talked big talk, and crafted and shepherded into law the biggest fiscal-stimulus package in American history.
But Obamanomics represents something even bigger than all that. At a moment when the fundamental precepts of market capitalism and government's relationship to the economy are up for grabs, the Obamans are attempting nothing less than a redefinition of progressivism, which could alter the terms of political engagement and the ideological balance of power for decades to come. With their budget, they have laid out a vision that, as former Labor secretary Robert Reich puts it, reverses and repudiates the economic philosophy that has dominated America since 1981. Obamanomics isn't merely the end of Reaganomics, in other words. It's the end of Rubinomics, too.
An agenda this transformative is bound to stir up criticism, and so it hasfrom the left and the right, Wall Street and Main Street, arch-Establishmentarians and hot-eyed populists in roughly equal measure. The complaints of these factions vary wildly, but they share a point of agreement: that the administration so far has badly mishandled the banking crisis; that it's dithered, dawdled, and dinked around instead of delivering bold, decisive action. For Obama, confronting this issue poses a vexing dilemma. Saving the banks is the sine qua non for the country's emergence from its ever-deepening miasma, but in doing so, Obama risks incurring a tsunami of bailout rage. If, on the other hand, he appeals too much to populism, he risks driving elites away. Either outcome could deny him the support he needs for the rest of his agenda. Getting the economics right may be devilishly difficultbut the politics are even trickier, and just as crucial.


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There are so many blessings in my life, but none better than the gift of good, old friends - in every regard. As many of you know, I recently had the privilege of working once again with the original members of The Manhattan Transfer - good, old friends. No, great old friends! It was a blessing to us all to reconnect musically after all these years.
Gene Pistilli recently wrote this short piece on the subject, and I could not resist sharing it with you! Gene has an uncanny way of capturing the essence of the moment. Enjoy!
Had a check up on Thursday that showed everything's good and gettin' better. So, "Hurrah!" for practically everything! Now, you may think I'm wandering but stay with me, the story is worth it.
My old pal - well, not as old as I am - Erin Dickins from our Manhattan Transfer hippie days is back recording and performing live, which is so much livelier than doing so dead, don't you think? She mixes new stuff and some wonderful versions of great classics. The most recent cut I heard by Erin on YouTube is Carl Fischer's "We'll Be Together Again," which has what might be the best bridge lyric of all time and Erin just nailed it:
"Times when I know you'll be lonely
Times when I know you'll be sad
Don't let temptation surround you
Don't let the blues make you bad."
Top that, all you hip hop lovin', rappin', jitterbuggin' jive turkeys!
Speaking of jive, there's one tune Erin cut that we used to do with the nascent Manhattan Transfer: The Ink Spots' "Java Jive." Backed by a very cool jazz trio, she makes it so light and happy that I want to start skipping whenever I hear it. I said "want to" because I don't know about you but lately my mind's been making too many appointments that my body just can't keep. So, I guess what I do now might be called virtual skipping. But to continue...
Pat Rosalia, the other gal from the original Transfer, found an old 78 of the original recording and brought it to a rehearsal. Up to that point we were sort of like "Spanky & Our Gang," doing folky stuff, a few old country classics and some of my tunes. But when she played that old 78 for us the bell rang and the lights started flashing. We put it in our show as soon as we could learn it, and it was to be the song that set us on the course of working out great arrangements of great old tunes that may have been forgotten, but deserve to be heard again. And it would help make Tim Hauser and the rest of the new singers in the Transfer become icons who are still drawing crowds world wide. (New? The youngest out of all of us is sixty. And they're probably lying.) Although the original group disbanded you can still hear our version of "Java Jive" on the radio now and then.
Sadly, sweet Pat, the woman with the world's greatest laugh, left us a short while back and it's a real tribute to a great singer and a great lady that Erin is dedicating her recording of "Java Jive" to Pat's memory. Erin wanted the surviving members of the original group -Tim Hauser, Marty Nelson and me - to sing background on it. Of course we did and it turned out swell - shiny as a new dime. Get yourself a copy when it comes out some time this winter. Erin asked us each for a picture she might use in the music video, and this is the one of me I like the best.
Thank you to lens master, E.J. Holmes Dawson. And thank you, Erin, for showing all our friends, old and new, that we can still shake 'em down!
In closing, may I wish you all a really spooky Ghost & Goblin Day, a thankful Thanksgiving and the best Christmas you ever had.
God bless us, everyone!
Much love and affection from your only contact for zeppole in Nashville,
Jose Annoya
And God Bless you, Gino, for so many years of love, friendship, music and laughs. You are one in a million.


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Collected by: Library of Michigan
Archived since: Dec, 2006
This collection contains captures of web pages created by Michigan government agencies from the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Archived pages of the State of Michigan websites prior to December 2006 are available on the Wayback Machine, http://www.archive.org/web/web.php. Suggested urls to search include; http://www.michigan.gov, http://www.state.mi.us, http://www.michiganlegislature.org, and http://www.courts.michigan.gov.
Subject: Government - US States, Government , Judicial Branch, Legislative Branch , State of Michigan, Executive Branch
Creator: Archives of Michigan, State of Michigan, Library of Michigan, State of Michigan
Publisher: State of Michigan
Date: 2006-
Rights: Material available in this collection may be copyrighted or have other restrictions on use. Please contact the authoring government agency if you have questions about the use or re-use of this material.
Notes: This collection contains the material that was available online at the moment of capture and may not accurately reflect current information (such as policies, rules, forms, laws, etc. Please contact the appropriate Michigan government agency for current information., Search features captured as part of Michigan government web pages will not function in this interface.
Collector: Archives of Michigan, Library of Michigan
Additional Help: If you are unable to find the information you seek, or need assistance navigating this site, please contact the Library of Michigan at 517-373-1300, or email@example.com.
Collected by: Maryland State Archives
Archived since: Mar, 2011
This collection archives the Maryland General Assembly website which provides access to House and Senate proceedings, bills, and session information.
Subject: Government , Government - US States, Legislative Branch
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text:
2 May 2012
Cost, provision and enforcement of parking, potholes, congestion and safety
Cost, provision and enforcement of parking, potholes, congestion and safety are some of the motoring issues that will weigh heavily on the outcome of local elections this week.
In an AA Populus survey of 21,202 AA members, 51% say motoring matters.
Despite this, three quarters of drivers aren't persuaded that any of the main political parties are motorist friendly.
Sixteen per cent rate motoring issues as very important and 35% quite important. Only 15% consider them unimportant.
Older drivers aged 65 or more are most strident about how councils treat motorists (20% very important, 36% quite important). As the majority of pensioners vote in elections (70% to 75%), getting roads, parking and other motoring policies right contributes significantly to a council's re-election prospects.
Regionally, Scots (57%) and Londoners (55%) are most likely to scrutinise motoring-related election promises and their delivery, while they are a much lower priority in Northern Ireland (40%).
Three quarters of drivers (73%) either think none of the main political parties are motorist friendly (42%) or don't know (31%) which are. Conservatives may rate as 'car-friendly' but only by 13% although, in Scotland, they lose out to the SNP (10%). Labour are rated motorist friendly by 5%, Greens 3% and Liberal Democrats and UK Independence Party by just 2%.
However, in London, a 22% rating for Conservatives (Labour 4%, Liberal Democrats and Green Party 3%) suggests that mayoral policies achieve a much better balance. In Wales, 4% rate Plaid Cymru as motorist friendly.
The importance of motoring issues in local politics has been highlighted in recent years:
Edmund King, AA president, said: "Potholes and parking are major 'political' issues for many driver voters. Local politicians bear the scars of playing with parking provision so we appeal to all parties to consider the plight of the driver before changing transport policy."
(1 May 2012)
AA/Populus poll conducted between 20 and 27 April 2012


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By now, you've probably heard about the new Xbox One X, the console that was previously known as "Project Scorpio". This is Microsoft's latest console in the Xbox One family, and it's their most powerful to date. While its specifications have been known for a while, we hadn't seen the console itself before, or known about the price. At $499, the hardware on offer is quite a steal. Let's delve into it in more detail, as well as discuss the same Achilles heel it shares with Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro.
I said the Xbox One X (or XBOX, as I'd like to call it temporarily) is Microsoft's fastest console to date, and I'm not lying. Based on the same AMD APU architecture as the Xbox One and the One S, XBOX has eight AMD Jaguar-based cores clocked up to 2.3GHz, as well as a total of 2560 Graphics Core Next shaders that form the heart of its built-in GPU. Like the PlayStation 4 Pro and the Xbox One S, the GPU in these newer consoles is a bit of a mish-mash between the architecture that started life out as Pitcairn with the Radeon HD 7000 series on the desktop, along with a little bit of AMD's Polaris and Vega architectures thrown in to spice things up. While Microsoft hasn't officially talked about the XBOX's capabilities, there's almost certainly AMD's latest memory compression technology on there, as well as smarter shaders, better tessellation performance, and higher throughput clock-for-clock.
Those GCN shaders are all running at a baseline clock speed of 1172MHz, which puts the XBOX in the range of AMD's Radeon R9 390, and is actually slightly faster than that. There's 12GB of GDDR5 memory on board, with bandwidth at 326GB/s spread across a 384-bit memory interface. AMD isn't selling this kind of product to consumers on the desktop, so both AMD and Microsoft can rightly claim that this is the world's fastest APU.
Ticking the checkboxes, Microsoft also throws in UHD 4K Blu-Ray playback, using the same drive found in the Xbox One S, while also includes a 1TB hard drive as standard.
For $499, or roughly R6500 in local currency (before import fees and shipping costs from distributors), this isn't a bad deal. Microsoft is offering a much higher tier of performance against computers with a similar price point, and they're not reneging on clock speeds either. By using a ridiculously expensive vapour chamber cooler made out of copper in addition to active cooling from a fan, Microsoft is able to keep heat at manageable levels and still keep the console slim.
Exotic cooling solutions isn't typically Microsoft's thing for consoles, so this is both a clever workaround to the thermal issues present in a tiny chassis, as well as a direct response to the heat they're feeling from the PlayStation 4 Pro. Microsoft wasn't content to be equal to the PS4 Pro, and in fact is being as aggressive as possible in their pursuit of the performance throne.
In their promos for the console, Microsoft's demos showed off all the advanced lighting and texturing now possible for their first-party and partner titles, including great visuals for titles like Metro Exodus and Forza Motorsport 7. With all the extra horsepower, the console is set to be a stunning platform for really good-looking games. The fact that a new Metro is already running on it is impressive, because 4A Games is usually on the cutting edge of hardware punishment with their engines.
But it is the pursuit of performance at all costs that, I feel, may take its toll on the brand despite the engineering efforts required to make this possible. The pricing is one pain point. While XBOX is going to sell relatively well among its existing fans from the Xbox 360 and Xbox One pools (One S owners probably aren't digging into their pockets for yet another console), the PlayStation 4 Pro is getting many of the same games and "timed exclusives" that Microsoft trotted out during its conference, and is already $100 cheaper.
There will probably be people decrying the existence of an external power brick (how else are you going to power 150W worth of GPU horsepower quietly?), but I think that Microsoft would have a better chance against Sony's platform this year if it was $50 cheaper. It's possible to nab a PS4 Pro, a one-year PSN subscription, and an additional controller for less than the price of an XBOX, a product which only ships on 7 November 2017.
The other thing that's going to be a pain to the Xbox One X's adoption is that it fits into Microsoft's ecosystem, but like the Xbox One S it ignores the excellent Cortana integration and Kinect capability altogether. To use the former, you need a microphone attached to the controller. To use the latter, you have to separately purchase the Kinect camera at $82 along with a USB adapter priced at $39. It's designed to take over the duty of an older Xbox One or a One S, and the ports are even arranged similarly to make it easier to swap over, but it's not a straight swap for day one Xbox One adopters.
Looking at the port selection, HDMI Pass-thru is still preserved, and the unit has optical out, HDMI 2.o capability with AMD FreeSync capability (Microsoft didn't say anything about the feature in their show), as well as USB 3.0 all-round. It's a solid fit for a media centre, just like the Xbox One was.
Microsoft's other issue is how they'll market this console. 4K gaming is super nice, but not everyone can afford, or owns, a 4K TV yet. XBOX supports HDCP 2.2 content protection, but anyone who bought a first-generation 4K TV has to upgrade if they want to play 4K Blu-Ray content. Gaming at 4K isn't enough of a draw on its own to make people want to buy into the platform, which is why PS4 Pro is priced at $399 to encourage launch PS4 owners to upgrade to fill in the market for developers. At least gamers on a 1080p display can enjoy supersampling to produce a cleaner, sharper image, and there's HDR capability as well.
VR, of course, would have been a big draw for the platform if it was already baked in for launch, but it currently isn't. Microsoft's VR platform in Windows 10 sets them up perfectly to get people to develop VR and AR applications on Windows 10 and demo or sell them for Xbox One, One S, or One X owners, and Xbox One X is extremely capable of running those kinds of workloads for fast-paced VR environments. Since it isn't there yet, I expect that we're going to see a lot of people use PSVR as a talking point about why Sony's offering is stronger.
Overall, Xbox One X is a powerhouse in a very small package, and I'm interested to see what Microsoft has in store for VR capability in the future. For now, the console only really appeals to ardent fans of the platform and the Xbox ecosystem, and I think that's ultimately going to be a much smaller number than the 20 million-plus Xbox One owners out there already.