text:
Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the Edge of Science
Carl Sagan
Skeptical Inquirer Volume 10.3, Spring 1986
In Greece of the second century A.D., during the reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, there lived a master con man named Alexander of Abonutichus. Handsome, clever, and totally unscrupulous, in the words of one of his contemporaries, he "went about living on occult pretensions." In his most famous imposture, "he rushed into the marketplace, naked except for a gold-spangled loincloth; with nothing but this and his scimitar, and shaking his long, loose hair, like fanatics who collect money in the name of Cybele, he climbed onto a lofty altar and delivered a harangue" predicting the advent of a new and oracular god. Alexander then raced to the construction site of a temple, the crowd streaming after him, and discovered—where he had previously buried it—a goose egg in which he had sealed up a baby snake. Opening the egg, he announced the snakelet as the prophesied god. Alexander retired to his house for a few days, and then admitted the breathless crowds, who observed his body now entwined with a large serpent: the snake had grown impressively in the interim.
The serpent was, in fact, of a large and conveniently docile variety, procured for this purpose earlier in Macedonia, and outfitted with a linen head of somewhat human countenance. The room was dimly lit. Because of the press of the crowd, no visitor could stay for very long or inspect the serpent very carefully. The opinion of the multitude was that the seer had indeed delivered a god.
Alexander then pronounced the god ready to answer written questions delivered in sealed envelopes. When alone, he would lift off or duplicate the seal, read the message, remake the envelope, and attach a response. People flocked from all over the Empire to witness this marvel, an oracular serpent with the head of a man. In those cases where the oracle later proved not just ambiguous but grossly wrong, Alexander had a simple solution: He altered his record of the response he had given. And if the question of a rich man or woman revealed some weakness or guilty secret, Alexander did not scruple at extortion. The result of all this imposture was an income equivalent today to several hundred thousand dollars per year and fame rivaled by few men of his time.
We may smile at Alexander the Oracle-Monger. Of course we all would like to foretell the future and make contact with the gods. But we would not nowadays be taken in by such a fraud. Or would we? M. Lamar Keene spent thirteen years as a spiritualist medium. He was pastor of the New Age Assembly Church in Tampa, a trustee of the Universal Spiritualist Association, and for many years a leading figure in the mainstream of the American spiritualist movement. He is also a self-confessed fraud who believes, from first-hand knowledge, that virtually all spirit readings, séances, and mediumistic messages from the dead are conscious deceptions, contrived to exploit the grief and longing we feel for deceased friends and relatives. Keene, like Alexander, would answer questions given to him in sealed envelopes—in this case not in private, but on the pulpit. He viewed the contents with a concealed bright lamp or by smearing lighter fluid, either of which can render the envelope momentarily transparent. He would find lost objects, present people with astounding revelations about their private lives which "no one could know," commune with the spirits and materialize ectoplasm in the darkness of the séance—all based on the simplest tricks, an unswerving self-confidence, and most of all on the monumental credulity, the utter lack of skepticism he found in his parishioners and clients. Keene believes, as did Harry Houdini, that not only is such fraud rampant among the spiritualists but also that they are highly organized to exchange data on potential clients in order to make the revelations of the séance more astonishing. Like the viewing of Alexander's serpent, the séances all take place in darkened rooms—because the deception would be too easily penetrated in the light. In his peak earning years, Keene earned about as much, in equivalent purchasing power, as Alexander of Abonutichus.
From Alexander's time to our own—indeed, probably for as long as human beings have inhabited this planet—people have discovered they could make money by pretending to arcane or occult knowledge. A charming and enlightening account of some of these bamboozles can be found in a remarkable book published in 1852 in London, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay. Bernard Baruch claimed that the book saved him millions of dollars—presumably by alerting him to which idiot schemes he should not invest his money in. Mackay's treatment ranges from alchemy, prophecy, and faith healing, to haunted houses, the Crusades, and the "influence of politics and religion on the hair and beard." The value of the book, like the account of Alexander the Oracle-Monger, lies in the remoteness of the frauds and delusions described. Many of the impostures do not have a contemporary ring and only weakly engage our passions: It becomes clear how people in other times were deceived. But after reading many such cases, we begin to wonder what the comparable contemporary versions are. People's feelings are as strong as they always were, and skepticism is probably as unfashionable today as in any other age. Accordingly, there ought to be bamboozles galore in contemporary society. And there are.
In the past hundred years—whether for good or for ill—science has emerged in the popular mind as the primary means of penetrating the secrets of the universe, so we should expect many contemporary bamboozles to have a scientific ring. And they do.
Within the last century or so, many claims have been made at the edge or border of science—assertions that excite popular interest and, in many cases, that would be of profound scientific importance if only they were true. These claims are out of the ordinary, a break from the humdrum world, and often imply something hopeful: for example, that we have vast, untapped powers, or that unseen forces are about to save us from ourselves, or that there is a still unacknowledged pattern and harmony to the universe. Well, science does sometimes make such claims—as, for example, the realization that the hereditary information we pass from generation to generation is encoded in a single long molecule called DNA, in the discovery of universal gravitation or continental drift, in the tapping of nuclear energy, in research on the origin of life or on the early history of the universe. So if some additional claim is made—for example, that it is possible to float in the air unaided, by a special effort of will—what is so different about that? Nothing. Except for the matter of proof. Those who claim that levitation occurs have an obligation to demonstrate their contention before skeptics, under controlled conditions. The burden of proof is on them, not on those who might be dubious. Such claims are too important to think about carelessly. Many assertions about levitation have been made in the past hundred years, but motion pictures of well-illuminated people rising unassisted fifteen feet into the air have never been taken under conditions which exclude fraud. If levitation were possible, its scientific and, more generally, its human implications would be enormous. Those who make uncritical observations or fraudulent claims lead us into error and deflect from us the major human goal of understanding how the world works. It is for this reason that playing fast and loose with the truth is a very serious matter.
One of the most striking apparent instances of extrasensory perception is the precognitive experience, when a person has a compelling perception of an imminent disaster, the death of a loved one, or a communication from a long-lost friend, and the predicted event then occurs. Many who have had such experiences report that the emotional intensity of the precognition and its subsequent verification provide an overpowering sense of contact with another realm of reality. I have had such an experience myself. Many years ago I awoke in the dead of night in a cold sweat, with the certain knowledge that a close relative had suddenly died. I was so gripped with the haunting intensity of the experience that I was afraid to place a long-distance phone call, for fear that the relative would trip over the telephone cord (or something) and make the experience a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, the relative is alive and well, and whatever psychological roots the experience may have, it was not a reflection of an imminent event in the real world.
However, suppose the relative had in fact died that night. You would have had a difficult time convincing me that it was merely coincidence. But it is easy to calculate that, if each American has such a premonitory experience a few times in his lifetime, the actuarial statistics alone will produce a few apparent precognitive events somewhere in America each year. We can calculate that this must occur fairly frequently, but to the rare person who dreams of disaster, followed rapidly by its realization, it is uncanny and awesome. Such a coincidence must happen to someone every few months. But those who experience a correct precognition understandably resist its explanation by coincidence.
After my experience I did not write a letter to an institute of parapsychology relating a compelling predictive dream which was not borne out by reality. That is not a memorable letter. But had the death I dreamt actually occurred, such a letter would have been marked down as evidence of precognition. The hits are recorded, the misses are not. Thus human nature unconsciously conspires to produce a biased reporting of the frequency of such events.
Precognitive dreams are typical of claims made on the boundary or edge of science. An amazing assertion is made, something out of the ordinary, marvelous, or awesome—or at least not tedious. It survives superficial scrutiny by lay people and, sometimes, more detailed study and more impressive endorsement by celebrities and scientists. Those who accept the validity of the assertion resist all attempts at conventional explanation. The most common correct explanations are of two sorts. One is conscious fraud, usually by those with a financial interest in the outcome. Those who accept the phenomena have been bamboozled. The other explanation often applies when the phenomena are uncommonly subtle and complex, when nature is more intricate than we have guessed, when deeper study is required for understanding. Many precognitive dreams fit this second explanation. Here, very often, we bamboozle ourselves.
I make a distinction between those who perpetrate and promote borderline belief systems and those who accept them. The latter are often taken by the novelty of the systems and the feeling of insight and grandeur they provide. These are in fact scientific attitudes and scientific goals. It is easy to imagine extraterrestrial visitors who looked like human beings, flew space vehicles and even airplanes like our own, and taught our ancestors civilization. This does not strain our imaginative powers overly and is sufficiently similar to familiar Western religious stories to seem comfortable. The search for Martian microbes of exotic biochemistry, or for interstellar radio messages from intelligent beings biologically very dissimilar, is more difficult to grasp and not as comforting. The former view is widely purveyed and available; the latter much less so. Yet I think many of those excited by the idea of ancient astronauts are motivated by sincere scientific (and occasionally religious) feelings. There is a vast untapped popular interest in the deepest scientific questions. For many people, the shoddily thought out doctrines of borderline science are the closest approximation to comprehensible science readily available. The popularity of borderline science is a rebuke to the schools, the press, and commercial television for their sparse, unimaginative, and ineffective efforts at science education; and to us scientists for doing so little to popularize our subject.
Flying saucers, or UFOs, are well known to almost everyone. But seeing a strange light in the sky does not mean that we are being visited by beings from the planet Venus or a distant galaxy named Spectra. It might, for example, be an automobile headlight reflected off a high-altitude cloud, or a flight of luminescent insects, or an unconventional aircraft, or a conventional aircraft with unconventional lighting patterns, such as a high-intensity searchlight used for meteorological observations. There are also a number of cases—closer encounters with some highish index numeral—where one or two people claim to have been taken aboard an alien spaceship, prodded and probed with unconventional medical instruments, and released. But in these cases we have only the unsubstantiated testimony, no matter how heartfelt and seemingly sincere, of one or two people. To the best of my knowledge there are no instances out of the hundreds of thousands of UFO reports filed since 1947—not a single one—in which many people independently and reliably report a close encounter with what is clearly an alien spacecraft.
Not only is there an absence of good anecdotal evidence; there is no physical evidence either. Our laboratories are very sophisticated. A product of alien manufacture might readily be identified as such. Yet no one has ever turned up even a small fragment of an alien spacecraft that has passed any such physical test—much less the logbook of the starship captain. It is for these reasons that in 1977 NASA declined an invitation from the Executive Office of the President to undertake a serious investigation of UFO reports. When hoaxes and mere anecdotes are excluded, there seems to be nothing left to study.
Once I spied a bright, "hovering" UFO, and pointing it out to some friends in a restaurant soon found myself in the midst of a throng of patrons, waitresses, cooks, and proprietors milling about on the sidewalk, pointing up into the sky with fingers and forks and making gasps of astonishment. People were somewhere between delighted and awestruck. But when I returned with a pair of binoculars which clearly showed the UFO to be an unconventional aircraft (a NASA weather airplane, as it later turned out), there was uniform disappointment. Some felt embarrassed at the public exposure of their credulity. Others were simply disappointed at the evaporation of a good story, something out of the ordinary—a visitor from another world.
In many such cases we are not unbiased observers. We have an emotional stake in the outcome—perhaps merely because the borderline belief-system, if true, makes the world a more interesting place; but perhaps because there is something there that strikes more deeply into the human psyche. If astral projection actually occurs, then it is possible for some thinking and perceiving part of me to leave my body and effortlessly travel to other places—an exhilarating prospect. If spiritualism is real, then my soul will survive the death of my body—possibly a comforting thought. If there is extrasensory perception, then many of us possess latent talents that need only be tapped to make us more powerful than we are. If astrology is right, then our personalities and destinies are intimately tied to the rest of the cosmos. If elves and goblins and fairies truly exist (there is a lovely Victorian picture book showing photographs of six-inch-high undraped ladies with gossamer wings conversing with Victorian gentlemen), then the world is a more intriguing place than most adults have been led to believe. If we are now being or in historical times have been visited by representatives from advanced and benign extraterrestrial civilizations, perhaps the human predicament is not so dire as it seems; perhaps the extraterrestrials will save us from ourselves. But the fact that these propositions charm or stir us does not guarantee their truth. Their truth depends only on whether the evidence is compelling; and my own, and sometimes reluctant, judgment is that compelling evidence for these and many similar propositions simply does not (at least as yet) exist.
What is more, many of these doctrines, if false, are pernicious. In simplistic popular astrology we judge people by one of twelve character types depending on their month of birth. But if the typing is false, we do an injustice to the people we are typing. We place them in previously collected pigeonholes and do not judge them for themselves, a typing familiar in sexism and racism.
Those skeptical of many borderline belief-systems are not necessarily those afraid of novelty. For example, many of my colleagues and I are deeply interested in the possibility of life, intelligent or otherwise, on other planets. But we must be careful not to foist our wishes and fears upon the cosmos. Instead, in the usual scientific tradition, our objective is to find out what the answers really are, independent of our emotional predispositions. If we are alone, that is a truth worth knowing also. No one would be more delighted than I if intelligent extraterrestrials were visiting our planet. It would make my job enormously easier. Indeed, I have spent more time than I care to think about on the UFO and ancient astronaut questions. And public interest in these matters is, I believe, at least in part, a good thing. But our openness to the dazzling possibilities presented by modern science must be tempered by some hard-nosed skepticism. Many interesting possibilities simply turn out to be wrong. An openness to new possibilities and a willingness to ask hard questions are both required to advance our knowledge.
Professional scientists generally have to make a choice in their research goals. There are some objectives that would be very important if achieved but promise so small a likelihood of success that no one is willing to pursue them. (For many years this was the case in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The situation has changed mainly because advances in radio technology now permit us to construct enormous radio telescopes with sensitive receivers to pick up any messages that might be sent our way. Never before in human history was this possible.) There are other scientific objectives that are perfectly tractable but of entirely trivial significance. Most scientists choose a middle course. As a result, very few scientists actually plunge into the murky waters of testing or challenging borderline or pseudoscientific beliefs. The chance of finding out something really interesting—except about human nature—seems small, and the amount of time required seems large. I believe that scientists should spend more time in discussing these issues, but the fact that a given contention lacks vigorous scientific opposition in no way implies that scientists think it is reasonable.
There are many cases where the belief system is so absurd that scientists dismiss it instantly but never commit their arguments to print. I believe this is a mistake. Science, especially today, depends upon public support. Because most people have, unfortunately, a very inadequate knowledge of science and technology, intelligent decision-making on scientific issues is difficult. Some pseudoscience is a profitable enterprise, and there are proponents who not only are strongly identified with the issue in question but also make large amounts of money from it. They are willing to commit major resources to defending their contentions. Some scientists seem unwilling to engage in public confrontations on borderline-science issues because of the effort required and the possibility that they will be perceived to lose a public debate. But it is an excellent opportunity to show how science works at its murkier borders, and also a way to convey something of its power as well as its pleasures.
There is stodgy immobility on both sides of the borders of the scientific enterprise. Scientific aloofness and opposition to novelty are as much a problem as public gullibility. A distinguished scientist once threatened to sic then Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew on me if I persisted in organizing a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in which both proponents and opponents of the extraterrestrial-spacecraft hypothesis of UFO origins would be permitted to speak. Scientists offended by the conclusions of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision and irritated by Velikovsky's total ignorance of many well-established scientific facts successfully and shamefully pressured Velikovsky's publisher to abandon the book—which was then put out by another firm, much to its profit—and when I arranged for a second AAAS symposium to discuss Velikovsky's ideas, I was criticized by a different leading scientist who argued that any public attention, no matter how negative, could only aid Velikovsky's cause.
But these symposia were held, the audiences seemed to find them interesting, the proceedings were published, and now youngsters in Duluth or Fresno can find some books presenting the other side of the issue in their libraries. If science is presented poorly in schools and the media, perhaps some interest can be aroused by well-prepared, comprehensible public discussions at the edge of science. Astrology can be used for discussions of astronomy; alchemy for chemistry; Velikovskian catastrophism and lost continents such as Atlantis for geology; and spiritualism and Scientology for a wide range of issues in psychology and psychiatry.
Scientists are, of course, human. When their passions are excited they may abandon temporarily the ideals of their discipline. But these ideals, the scientific method, have proved enormously effective. Finding out the way the world really works requires a mix of hunches, intuition, and brilliant creativity; it also requires skeptical scrutiny of every step. It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science. In my opinion the claims of borderline science pall in comparison with hundreds of recent activities and discoveries in real science, including the existence of two semi-independent brains within each human skull; the reality of black holes; continental drift and collisions; chimpanzee language, massive climatic changes on Mars and Venus; the antiquity of the human species; the search for extraterrestrial life; the elegant self-copying molecular architecture that controls our heredity and evolution; and observational evidence on the origin, nature, and fate of the universe as a whole.
But the success of science, both its intellectual excitement and its practical application, depends upon the self-correcting character of science. There must be a way of testing any valid idea. It must be possible to reproduce any valid experiment. The character or beliefs of the scientists are irrelevant; all that matters is whether the evidence supports his contention. Arguments from authority simply do not count; too many authorities have been mistaken too often. I would like to see these very effective scientific modes of thought communicated by the schools and the media; and it would certainly be an astonishment and delight to see them introduced into politics. Scientists have been known to change their minds completely and publicly when presented with new evidence or new arguments. I cannot recall the last time a politician displayed a similar openness and willingness to change.
Many of the belief systems at the edge or fringe of science are not subject to crisp experimentation. They are anecdotal, depending entirely on the validity of eyewitnesses, who in general are notoriously unreliable. On the basis of past performance most such fringe systems will turn out to be invalid. But we cannot reject out of hand, any more than we can accept at face value, all such contentions. For example, the idea that large rocks can drop from the skies was considered absurd by eighteenth-century scientists; Thomas Jefferson remarked about one such account that he would rather believe that two Yankee scientists lied than that stones fell from the heavens. Nevertheless, stones do fall from the heavens. They are called meteorites, and our preconceptions have no bearing on the truth of the matter. But the truth was established only by a careful analysis of dozens of independent witnesses to a common meteorite fall, supported by a great body of physical evidence, including meteorites recovered from the eaves of houses and the furrows of plowed fields.
Prejudice means literally pre-judgment, the rejection of a contention out of hand, before examining the evidence. If we wish to find out the truth of the matter we must approach the question with as open a mind as we can, and with a deep awareness of our own limitations and predispositions. On the other hand, if after carefully and openly examining the evidence, we reject the proposition, that is not prejudice. It might be called "post-judice." It is certainly a prerequisite for knowledge.
Critical and skeptical examination is the method used in everyday practical matters as well as in science. When buying a new or used car, we think it prudent to insist on written warranties, test drives, and checks of particular parts. We are very careful about car dealers who are evasive on these points. Yet the practitioners of many borderline beliefs are offended when subjected to similarly close scrutiny. Many who claim to have extrasensory perception also claim that their abilities decline when they are carefully watched. The magician Uri Geller is happy to warp keys and cutlery in the vicinity of scientists—who, in their confrontations with nature, are used to an adversary who fights fair—but is greatly affronted at the idea of performances before an audience of skeptical magicians—who, understanding human limitations, are themselves able to perform similar effects by sleight of hand. Where skeptical observation and discussion are suppressed, the truth is hidden. The proponents of such borderline beliefs, when criticized, often point to geniuses of the past who were ridiculed. But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
The best antidote for pseudoscience, I firmly believe, is science:
- There is an African fresh-water fish that is blind. It generates a standing electric field, through perturbations in which it distinguishes between predators and prey and communicates in a fairly elaborate electrical language with potential mates and other fish of the same species. This involves an entire organ system and sensory capability completely unknown to pretechnological human beings.
- There is a kind of arithmetic, perfectly reasonable and self-contained, in which two times one does not equal one times two.
- Pigeons—one of the least prepossessing animals on Earth—are now found to have a remarkable sensitivity to magnetic-field strengths as small as one hundred thousandth that of the Earth's magnetic dipole. Pigeons evidently use this sensory capability for navigation and sense their surroundings by their magnetic signatures: metal gutters, electrical power lines, fire escapes and the like—a sensory modality glimpsed by no human being who ever lived.
- Quasars seem to be explosions of almost unimaginable violence in the hearts of galaxies which destroy millions of worlds, many of them perhaps inhabited.
- In an East African volcanic-ash flow 3.5 million years old there are footprints—of a being about four feet high with a purposeful stride that may be the common ancestor of apes and men. Nearby are the prints of a knuckle-walking primate corresponding to no animal yet discovered.
- Each of our cells contains dozens of tiny factories called mitochondria which combine our food with molecular oxygen in order to extract energy in convenient form. Recent evidence suggests that billions of years ago the mitochondria were free organisms which have slowly evolved into a mutually dependent relation with the cell. When many-celled organisms arose, the arrangement was retained. In a very real sense, then, we are not a single organism, but an array of about ten trillion beings and not all of the same kind.
- Mars has a volcano almost 80,000 feet high which was constructed about a billion years ago. An even larger volcano may exist on Venus.
- Radio telescopes have detected the cosmic black-body background radiation, the distant echo of the event called the Big Bang. The fires of creation are being observed today.
I could continue such a list almost indefinitely. I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as "night-walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers." But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer universe, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder. And it has the additional and important virtue—to whatever extent the word has any meaning—of being true.
Copyright ©1979 by Carl Sagan. Excerpted from Broca's Brain, by permission of the author and the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.


text:
Kovo needed a new web page design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 32 designs submitted by 10 freelance designers.
Company name: Contact Center Compliance
Marketplace: USA
Product: Do not call list software. Used by Fortune 1000 firms and Telemarketing firms so that they do not call end users on the "Do Not Call List"
Domain name: http://www.DNC.com
Here are some of our competitors websites:
I like these colors: http://redcondor.com/
Product : DNCScrub
- Mostly interested in an upgrade to the Navigation bar, colors and graphics.
- Web 2.0 style ok
- Want rich colors...
- Want updated graphics (add'l recommendations ok)
- Seeking fancier Navigation bar (rollover, etc..)
-Navigation bar - continue to use drop down menu's
-Navigation bar buttons: Change "Solutions" button to - "Products and Services" with drop down functionality
Add'l Navigation bar buttons: Compliance News, Blogs, Forums, Support, About Us, Contact Us.
Page Format: Leave page format the same.
Forms: Leave as is
- Want a world class look
- New design shows attention to detail
- Winner will furnish graphics and HTML code or PSD for the site upgrade
no rainbows...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Bobbie Pyron, Dog Diaries, Dog Reads, Dr. Zhivago, Jessica Powers, Kate Klimo, Kathi Appelt, Lara's Gift, Lassie, Marion Dane Bauer, Mary Hooper, Read the World, Sarah Lean, World Reads
When I was a little girl, I was drawn to stories like Lassie Come-Home and often dreamed of having a best friend just like Lassie. As I got older, although I still enjoyed a good dog story, I became increasingly more interested in world events and fell in love with stories like Dr. Zhivago for introducing me to new worlds and characters I cared about.
Because tools like the internet—let alone blogs—didn't exist when I was a kid, it was often hard to find stories featuring a canine protagonist and/or one set in a foreign land unless the title specifically included 'dog' or the name of a country in it. So I was constantly coming up with zero finds from the card catalog (yes, the card catalog!) and started bugging the librarian on a weekly basis for book recommendations. And even she, despite her will and background, had a hard time coming up with a new title every week.
It is out of my childhood love of these kinds of stories that my own novel, Lara's Gift—a Lassie-meets-Dr. Zhivago story—evolved. It is also out of the same childhood desire, as well as my interest as an author of young adult stories that I have created the blog, Read the World where I "house" running author interviews of two distinct types:
(1) On Mondays, I post interviews with authors who who have written a story set outside of the United States in World Reads; and
(2) On Thursdays, I post interviews with authors have written a story about a key canine character in Dog Reads.
I have categorized each Dog Read post by breed of dog and by the author's first name. Likewise, each World Read post is listed by country and by the author's first name. This way readers can easily search for and find a book about a Shetland Sheepdog by Bobbie Pyron or a book set in Mexico by Laura Resau for example, by perusing the categories I have set up under each sub blog within Read the World, the home blog.
Readers can sign up to receive both posts through the subscribe link in Read the World or they can sign up to receive individual posts from either Dog Reads or World Reads depending on interest.
Read the World launched on Monday, February 4, 2013 with an interview featuring Dog Diaries: Buddy by Kate Klimo. Upcoming interviews are scheduled with: Marion Dane Bauer, Kathi Appelt, Sarah Lean, Kathy Nuzum, Dori Jones Yang, Jessica Powers, Mary Hooper, and Terry Lynn Johnson to name a few.
Read the World will run as long as there are titles being published and authors writing these kinds of stories. If you have a favorite dog book or story set outside of the United States, I would love to hear from you. It could be a recent title or an older title. Although my focus is on middle grade and young adult novels within these 'dog' or 'world' subjects, I am also open to featuring picture books that fall within the respective subject matter.
If you are a publisher or author, I want to hear from you, too!
It is my hope that Read the World will become a go-to-resource for teachers, librarians, parents, and kids who share similar reading interests.
Don't be shy! Send me your book recommendations and I'll do my best to feature them in Read the World.


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The Claremont City Council approved and adopted parking permits and closure hours for the Claremont Hills Wilderness Trail and the Thompson Creek parking lots while adding an exemption for veterans displaying special license plates.
The item was approved at Tuesday night's regular city council meeting.
City manager Tony Ramos said at the meeting that construction on the Claremont Hills northern parking lot is several weeks behind schedule because of recent rain and it's anticipated to open by the middle to the end of February pending weather.
Special license plates include:
– Pearl Harbor Survivor plates
– Legion of Valor plates
– Former American Prisoner of War plates
– Congressional Medal of Honor plates
– Purple Heart plates
– Other plates issued by another state that indicate a similar status
The Claremont Hills wilderness hours and its north parking lot on Mills Avenue near the entrance are open:
– January 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
– February 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
– March 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
– April 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
– May 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
– June 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
– July 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
– August 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
– September 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
– October 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
– November 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.
– December 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Temporary parking permits for $3 for up to four hours can be purchased for a fee at on-site meters in both the Claremont Hills park and the Thompson Creek parking lots. Annual parking permits will start at $100 per calendar year and be prorated based on the quarter of the year they are purchased.
Claremont resident and Claremont Colleges student parking permits will permit free parking in the south Thompson Creek Trail parking lot, at the corner of Mills Avenue and Mt. Baldy Road. A maximum of two parking permits can be issued per household. Permits must be renewed at the end of the third year.
The south lot parking times will coincide with the Thompson Creek Trail hours, which are from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily as set forth by the Claremont Muncipal Code.
In a separate item, council also approved eliminating all parking on Mills Avenue, north of Pomello Drive and on Mt. Baldy from Mills to Via Padova, which coincides with the opening of the north Claremont Hills Wilderness Park parking lot and the implementation of the paid parking system.
The item includes a study of parking on the west side of Mills from Pomello to Mt. Baldy as part of the overall parking plan to be developed for the wilderness park.
For questions about the parking permit program, contact the Alexander Hughes Community Center at 909-399-5490.
firstname.lastname@example.com 909-483-8549 or http://www.insidesocal.com/claremontnow/ or on Twitter at @ClaremontNow


text:
Slender - The Final Night. A game where Horror, Dark lights, and Slenderman, come together and make one great horror game for everyone. There are many levels to play, so play now! Or know that without putting up a fight with the Slenderman, your next. Slender - The Final Night Play now! This game may be archived soon. Give me a reason why I shouldn't in the comments below, to make this game stay up!
Needs a 32-bit version because 64-bit crashes if you try to run it with the primary graphics processor.


text:
September 29, 2008
The consummate man behind the lens who works to capture beauty and preserve memories for others, Wabash College Professor Emeritus of Chemistry John Zimmerman H'67 had a Kodak moment of his own Friday night.
Not only did his photograph "San Antonio River Walk" win the Antique Study Club Award at the opening of the Art League of Montgomery County's Seventh Annual juried Downtown Crawfordsville Art Exhibit, but Zimmerman also was named an honorary member of the Art League.
"That was an absolute surprise," said Zimmerman, whose photography exhibit "Come Travel with Me" graced the Mary Bishop Memorial Art Gallery at the Crawfordsville District Public Library with 95 photographs from around the world earlier this year. "The Honorary Art League citation list includes so many distinguished regional artists. To have my name added to a list that includes Rob O'Dell, Jerry Smith, and Jene Burns—each of whose work hangs in our home—is indeed special."
Zimmerman has spent years supporting local school and community events, recording world travels by Wabash College study groups, setting up technical facilities for art conferences, and photographing special programs. The College's "official unofficial photographer," "Dr. Z" has helped preserve Wabash history in photographs for decades and was named an honorary alumnus of the College in 2001. He is now one of three Wabash professors—along with painter Greg Huebner and sculptor/photographer Doug Calisch—to be named an honorary member of the Crawfordsville Art League.
Zimmerman described this year's Crawfordsville Art League show as "simply stunning."
"In my opinion, it is the best to date," he said of the 123 pieces by 66 artists. "The quality is uniformly high over a wide range of media. As I talk with folks about the show, I find my observations to be universally held."
He was impressed by the College's involvement in the show. Twelve artists with ties to Wabash exhibited, and during Friday's opening ceremony, four—Steve Miller '08, Nick Roudebush '09, Terry Jackson '71, and Zimmerman—earned honors and cash awards for their art.
Zimmerman also worked behind the scenes of this year's show and noted that two members of the Wabash family deserved special recognition for their efforts.
"Peggy Herzog coordinated the entire operation with considerable 'can do' enthusiasm," Zimmerman said. "And in addition to being a selected entrant, Kim Johnson [the College's public affairs marketing specialist] is the behind-the-scenes computer-based organizer. She prepares the first rate PowerPoint presentation of all the entries that is the key to efficient judging. She also cranks out all the organization-to-entrant communication as well as the signage that graces each exhibit."
Reflecting on his Art League awards, Zimmerman added, "The high point of winning an award is sharing the joy with others. A case in point: one Art League member came up to me Sunday and said she was "so excited" for me. Another photographer friend mentioned the award and said, 'It doesn't get any better than that!'"
Wabash community members also exhibiting their work in the Art League show include Susan Albrecht, CJ Charles, Robert Foote, Karen Gunther, Kim Johnson, Steve Morillo, Tom Runge '71, and Molly White. The exhibit continues through October 5 and works can be seen in the downtown shop windows any time of the day or night.
In photo: Art League Award winners from Wabash included Steve Miller '08, John Zimmerman H'67, and Nick Roudebush '09. Not pictured: Terry Jackson '71


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According to the health care industry trade publication, the facilities included on the list are "home to many medical and scientific breakthroughs, provide best-in-class patient care and are stalwarts of their communities, serving as academic hubs or local mainstays."
"This recognition by Becker's Hospital Review is a great tribute to the work that is performed at Scripps on a daily basis," said Gary Fybel, senior vice president and chief executive of Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. "Everyone in our organization, including physicians, staff members and volunteers, works together to provide safe, high-quality and compassionate care to all of our patients."
The Chicago-based publication is geared toward upper-level hospital administrators and served a circulation of about 18,500. It evaluated hospital ranking sources such as U.S. News and World Report and Truven Health Analytics in determining its findings.
The 318-bed hospital was the first in San Diego to receive a designation for nursing excellence. The campus is home to Prebys Cardiovascular Institute, scheduled to open in 2015.
In 2013, Truven Health Analytics named Scripps Health one of the top 15 health systems in the country. U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Scripps La Jolla Hospitals and Clinics—which includes Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Green Hospital, its affiliate—the No. 6 hospital in California and one of the top 50 in the country for six specialties, including cardiology, orthopedics and gastroenterology.
Founded in 1924 by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, San Diego-based Scripps Health is a nonprofit, integrated health system based in San Diego, Calif. It treats 500,000 patients annually and employs 2,600 affiliated physicians and 13,500 hospital personnel among its five acute-care hospital campuses, hospice and home health care services. It maintains an ambulatory care network of physician offices and 26 outpatient centers and clinics.
In a related development, the hospital is one of three Scripps facilities to earn high-level performance achievement awards from the American heart and stroke associations.
The award recognizes 24 consecutive months of exceeding the national benchmark in several categories of stroke care.


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Britain's Channel 4 News has acquired video footage of Benazir Bhutto's assassination that appears to establish that Ms. Bhutto was shot before the suicide bomber exploded his device. You can see the footage in Channel 4's report below. The gunman and the bomber are both visible; they approach Bhutto's vehicle while she is standing up, waving to the crowd from the sun roof of her vehicle. The gunman fires three shots. It appears that you can see at least one bullet strike Bhutto. She disappears through the sun roof and, immediately after, the bomb explodes:
The video, along with other physical evidence, seems to disprove the Pakistani government's theory that the force of the bomb's explosion caused Bhutto to strike her head against a lever on the sun roof, fracturing her skull. This is fueling charges of a "cover-up" by Musharraf's government. But a cover-up of what? Channel 4 says that the regime may be trying to downplay the extent of the security lapse that led to the killing, but it's hard to see how this makes any sense. The gunman and the bomber approached to within a few feet of Bhutto's car; the security lapse is no greater whether the gunman's bullets hit or missed their target.
Nevertheless, the apparent conflict between the government's account and the video and other evidence will no doubt fuel claims of a conspiracy. Benazir Bhutto appears to be destined to go down in Pakistani history as a combination of Princess Diana and John Kennedy.
UPDATE: A number of readers argue that the video proves Bhutto was NOT shot. Dan Aronstein writes:
You are wrong to jump on the "Bhutto was shot" bandwagon.
The video actually proves she wasn't shot.
Everyone describes her as being shot, but there's no blood, and rather than slumping down she is actually ducking back into the vehicle. Watch Bhutto VOLUNTARILY move her right arm up & back FIRST – as if cogently trying to duck back into the vehicle. This is not what a person shot on the head and neck does.
When I first saw the video, it seemed clear that Bhutto was back inside the vehicle when the bomb went off. I've now watched it several more times in slow motion, and I still think that's right, although there is perhaps some ambiguity, and the camera moves away just before the bomb goes off. So the video might not rule out the theory that the concussion of the bomb caused her to hit her head on a lever.
As I've said before, I don't think it makes any difference whether she was shot, hit by shrapnel, struck her head due to the blast, or some combination of all three. The killers succeeded in their mission, regardless. As I understand it, those who were in the car with Bhutto say that she was shot, and I believe that was the first report that came out of the hospital as well. This is not, obviously, a question on which there should have been any uncertainty. It is unfortunate that the multiplicity of stories that have come from various sources, combined with what I still think is an unlikely official account, have needlessly created controversy and suspicion.
To comment on this post, go here.


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FAIRHAVEN — High above the steel frame of the new Wood Elementary School, two workers for CTA Construction Company crawled with spider-like dexterity on the ridges of two I-beams.
FAIRHAVEN — High above the steel frame of the new Wood Elementary School, two workers for CTA Construction Company crawled with spider-like dexterity on the ridges of two I-beams.
Holding onto the beam's upper ridge for support, they quickly moved one work-boot-clad foot in front of the other to reach the edge, where they perched, waiting to secure the last 12-foot-long steel beam in place.
Project Superintendent Richard Senna applauded as the men secured the steel beam atop the school's library. An American flag attached to the steel flapped in the wind.
The topping-off ceremony is "a tradition in the steel business," Senna explained. "It means you're making progress."
Construction of other areas of the school is more advanced than in the library, with exterior walls and concrete floors already installed.
"Little by little, the side with the library will begin to look like this," said town Executive Secretary Jeffrey Osuch, standing in what is soon to be a kindergarten classroom. "Of course, this part will continue to change and the other side will follow it until we are done."
On Thursday, 40 men were at work, welding and bolting and weaving iron rebar in different parts of the building. By next month, when bricklaying will start at the school, Senna expects there will be a total of 80.
There was a scissors lift in the gymnasium and a crane in the office. Steam rollers and excavator shovels grumbled below as they traversed gravel in what is soon to be a parking lot.
Senna said the crew is on an "accelerated schedule" in an effort to complete the building by August so students can use it at the beginning of the 2013 school year.
The new building has been designed to look almost exactly like East Fairhaven Elementary but with lighter-colored brick, Osuch said as he surveyed the work site.
On Friday, 450 students of the Oxford and Rogers Elementary schools, who will attend Wood next year, will be signing two tube beams that will be installed and visible in the library.
"It's exciting that the kids will be able to put a personal touch on this project," Senna said.
Senna, who attended Wood Elementary School 35 years ago, said he can identify with the students. "The trees we are retrenching outside the front of the school are ones that my class planted when I attended here," he said. "I want those kids to feel the same pride looking at the beams that I felt when I come back now to work."


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pixeldesigner needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 179 designs submitted by 19 freelance designers.
Shannon Range Photography
The client IS the photographer. She's just purchased a new studio and she wants to upgrade her corporate identity along with it. Your logo will be used on business cards, flyers, the website and much much more!
Mostly females between the ages of 21-60, who are looking for wedding and family photography services. They want someone who can not only work the tools of the trade, but work well with people in order to produce images that tell a story.
We are looking for an elegant logo, with scripty fonts and soft autumn/fall colors (file available for download). It should appeal to an upscale clientele. Nothing bold or modern please. Here are some of the competitors website, for reference:
And here is Shannon's existing website (which we will be working on after the logo):
If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to ask!
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Lotta talk these days about Bolon Yokte, the Mayan god in charge of bad things, including war, conflict, the underworld and "Gangnam Style." It is Yokte, as he is known among the wags knocking 'em back most nights at Red's in Wilton Manors, who will be coming down to end the world on Friday. But as he will freely admit after a few VRBs (they were having conversations about Yokte in 635 A.D., so, yeah, he needs to hit the Stoli-double-Red Bull pretty hard), it's not going to happen. Apparently, the world will continue to exist on Saturday because Yokte, great god of the 12-21-12 cataclysm, is no match for the powers of … Santa. Yokte refuses to get into specifics — he still hopes to end the world at some point — but hinted the other night that the only thing saving the planet is the unifying belief in St. Nick. "Will Ferrell doesn't know how right he got it in 'Elf,' " Yokte says. "I love Will Ferrell, by the way. I'll really hate to end him."
The mighty power of Kringle will be out in force on Saturday night, when SantaCon returns to Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale and Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach for a night of caroling and carousing. The costumed processional will gather several hundred locals dressed like Santa and saucy elves at Huizenga Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale for a Santa picnic (BYOEverything) at 4 p.m., and then start moving east on Las Olas at 7 p.m.
The crowd will get as far as Mangos, where the costumed can get a $2.50 Blue Moon, and then swerve back along Las Olas (stopping at American Social) toward Himmarshee for more revelry and the traditional elf-tossing SantaCon party in the Green Room (109 S.W. Second Ave.). If you're late or lost, check @santaconftl tweets for updates on where the action is. Info: Facebook.com/SantaConFortLauderdale.
In Delray Beach, SantaCon meets at 8 p.m. in the pavilion at Atlantic and A1A, where a group photo will be taken at 9ish. The pack is expected to hit Sandbar, Boston's, Blue Anchor, Deck 84, Hurricane, Johnny Brown's, Bru's Room and Park Tavern, among others. Drink specials for Santas are definite at Sandbar, Boston's and Hurricane, with other spots being negotiated. Organizers hope to do a second group photo in the courtyard at Worthing Place at the end of the night (shall we say, 1ish?). Info: SantaConDelray.com or on Facebook.
In real life, Thomas Carter is a business analyst for a health care staffing company in Boca Raton, which may be why the Delray Beach native needs spend Saturday night strutting Atlantic Avenue in a Santa suit. And it's a Mac Daddy suit: "A friend of a friend's dad used to wear it for his kids back in the '80s or '90s. It's velvet, and it's legit," he says with a laugh.
Carter and Kevin McCarthy founded the Delray Beach SantaCon in 2009. The turnout was them and five other Santas. This year, Carter expects more than 400.
"Give us a try," Carter says to the skeptics. "It's a great excuse to get out, dress up, and walk around with a few hundred Santas. How often do you get the chance to do that?"
Despite evidence to the contrary, the events are not ALL about getting your red-nosed Rudolph on. (One of the rules in Delray Beach states: "Every time you call SantaCon a bar crawl, a sugarplum fairy dies.") There is charity: Kids in Distress in Fort Lauderdale and Toys for Tots in Delray Beach, which could each use a donation of an unwrapped toy from all participants.
There's also the simple spreading of good cheer. All Santanistas are asked to bring small toys and candy to hand out to kids big and small along the way. Said Fort Lauderdale organizer Daniella Bagdadi for last year's SantaCon: "That's really the best part. To see the kids smiling and laughing."
The Heavy Pets, whose nimble melodies and wit are the perfect antidote to end-of-days gloom, will throw a hometown "End of the World" party on Friday at the Culture Room (3045 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale). THP, which just offered the three-song "Everywhere Sessions" EP as a free download (check TheHeavyPets.BandCamp.com), will be joined by the electronic grooves of Greenhouse Lounge. Tickets: $12 advance, $15 at the door. Info: CultureRoom.net, 954-564-1074.
If you are looking for a savior, the hip, young singers of Seraphic Fire give us one on Friday with their annual performance of Handel's "Messiah" at 7:30 p.m. at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church (100 NE Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton). The popular production also can be heard in Coral Gables 8 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church (536 Coral Way) and in Fort Lauderdale 4 p.m. Sunday at All Saints Episcopal Church (333 Tarpon Drive). Tickets, a few dozen inexplicably available at presstime, cost $65. Info: SeraphicFire.org, 305-285-9060.
The irreverent souls at Undergrounds Coffeehaus (3020 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale) are buying into the wrath of Bolon Yokte with their tongues firmly in cheek during "Disaster Day," an all-day festival of films with a theme. Beginning at 10 a.m. Friday, it's the four-hour 2005 CBS miniseries "Category 7: The End of the World," followed by the 2004 NBC earthquake miniseries "10.5," and then "Volcano," "Twister," "Poseidon," "The Day After Tomorrow" and, of course, "2012." Admission is free, but it wouldn't hurt you to buy a coffee and something sweet. Info: 954-630-1900.
The ArtsPark on Young Circle in downtown Hollywood is taking no chances, invoking the magic of the Claus with a free outdoor 8 p.m. screening of the Tim Allen romp "The Santa Clause" (pictured above). Admission is free, and blankets, chairs, snacks welcome. The movie goes on at 8 p.m. Info: 954-921-3404.
Because it has been up in the air whether the world would be ending on Friday, Respectable Street (518 Clematis, West Palm Beach) decided to go out with male strippers. "Stocking Stuffers" is the name of a night of music, games and dancing by the hirsute Hurly Burly All-Male Burlesque Review. The entertainment is from 8 to 11 p.m. Cover: $5. Info: RespectableStreet.com, 561-832-9999.
Vibe (301. E. Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale) will attempt to show you what the typical pinup looked like during the age of Yik'in Chan K'awiil during Friday's End of the World party, featuring Mayan-inspired dancers and decor. Info: VibeLasOlas.com, 954-713-7373.
Did we say how much we like the Deftones' "Koi No Yokan" album, released last month? (The title is a Japanese expression that very loosely equates to the English "love at first sight.") The band's seventh album, released last month, is yet another vivid dispatch from a dark landscape, the ethereal gloom pierced with crackles of shimmering light and beauty. Songs like "Swerve City," "Leathers," "Tempest" and "Entombed" are particularly gratifying. The Deftones hit the Fillmore Miami Beach on March 19, and general-admission tickets ($33) go on sale 10 a.m. Friday at LiveNation.com, 800-745-3000 and at the Fillmore box office. Info: FillmoreMB.com.
Andrew Rudnick actually did serve matzo ball soup when he was getting his Matzo Ball concept off the ground back in the 1980s. But the Boca Raton resident says he no longer needs that kind of marketing gimmick for the Matzo Ball, which will draw thousands of mostly Jewish singles to three big parties on Christmas Eve. In Delray Beach the party's at Il Bacio (29 SE Second Ave.), and in Hollywood at Pangaea & Gryphon at the Semnole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino (5707 Seminole Way). Hours for both are 9 p.m.-2 a.m., with tickets $30 (advance and at the door). The Miami Beach event is at LIV nightclub (4441 Collins Ave.) Hours: 8 p.m.-2 a.m. Cost: $30 advance, $40 at the door. Hit the link for more on Rudnick and Matzo Ball 2012.
Slainte Irish Pub and Kitchen in Boynton Beach was supposed to introduce its new renovation and new menu this week, but instead turned Wednesday's reopening party into a fundraiser for families affected by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Owners Rosa and Francis Feeney sent 100 percent of the proceeds picked up between 11 a.m. and 2 a.m. that day to the school support fund through the United Way. That kind of spirit should be nurtured. So what's say we all swing by and have a drink or a meal at Slainte sometime soon, just to say thanks? Slainte is at 1500 Gateway Blvd. No. 150, in Boynton Beach. Info: Slaintepubs.com, 561-742-4190.
Know anyone who likes to eat, drink and listen to music? How about the gift of tickets to the 2013 Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festival, which always sells out before you can turn around? And here's a unique event: The official festival closing party on Feb. 24 pairs Food Network rock star Guy Fieri and reggae royalty Ziggy Marley, who will perform and introduce his line of Ziggy Marley Organics healthy food products. The 12th annual edition of SBWFF is Feb. 21-24. Tickets and info: SobeFest.com, 877-762-3933.
Get daily updates on South Florida entertainment and things to do at SouthFlorida.com and on Twitter at @BenCrandell.


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Don't Tell Anyone, But The Secrets About Celebrities Are Here
You have to generate new leads, but how? What does it take to bring in people who really want what you're selling? It takes determination and skill, but it also takes knowledge. To start your education, check out the many helpful tips and tricks below as soon as possible.
Try a fax campaign to increase your lead generation. Fax may seem very 1980s in terms of business communication, but most companies still rely on these machines. So many people have ignored the fax machine in the 21st century. But that only means that you have less clutter to battle. Your message will be more likely to hit!
Make an offer to potential leads that is hard to refuse. This can be a discount, a give-away, or some source of information that they've been dying to have. It needs to be relevant to them, or else you'll never get them to respond. Try a few different things to see what works the best.
Test a small market sample if you are trying to generate leads in a new way or area of consumer spending. While online marketing can be very economical, you don't want to waste a lot of resources on something that's going to go bust. Test a sample and if it generates a few leads, go for it! Otherwise, simply live and learn and move on.
Invite potential customers to actually opt into joining your community on your website. You'd be amazed at how many website browsers will make the decision to provide their email. Make sure, though, that you've got relevant content to share with them afterwards. Think about developing a newsletter or a series of tips emails.
Open up your business to the world. There are events such as Doors Open at which businesses allow customers to come in and see how they work. Even if you're an architect or real estate agent, you can let potential customers in to see how organized and authentic you really are, which can generate leads.
Find some way to rate your potential leads. Not all leads are created equal, so before you start generating them know how you'll grade them. Otherwise you can find yourself overloaded with potential leads with no way to decipher which ones are worth your time. It's a critical step to help you be efficient.
One thing you must do is to start and grow your "opt in" process for generating leads. You need a marketing newsletter or email marketing or mobile marketing plan for this. You can ask them to opt in on your website, through forums you've joined, blogs and in other places.
Target people seeing freebies as part of your list generating efforts. While giving things away doesn't usually make money right away for you, there will be plenty of people ready and willing to sign-up for the free stuff. Keep this list separate from your others, but include it in all your future campaigns.
Search engine optimization can take awhile to get going, as can other lead generation techniques. While they are the best, and while some experts saying purchasing leads is a bad idea, it's not always the case. Buying leads from a trusted source within your niche can actually be extremely beneficial.
Talking with relevant businesses in your area can help. For instance, you could show them how to keep their office organized if that is your field. Yoga instructors can give tips for easy stretches that can be done quickly through the day. Is it possible for others to learn from you and thus generate business?
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November 9, 2011
First Time Major Cities Have Convened a Working Group to Share Strategies on Data Analytics
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Chief Advisor John Feinblatt today convened representative from major cities to share information and techniques used in employing data analysis to solve urban challenges. Representatives from Boston, Philadelphia, Newark, and Chicago joined members of the Mayor's Policy and Strategic Planning Analytics Team in the first session of a new working group that will discuss the various technologies and methods each city is developing to enhance data analytics driven towards maximizing the return on taxpayer dollars.
"I've long said that my time in business and government has taught me that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Our Administration has made usage of data a hallmark of our problem-solving strategies. Like us, other cities across the country are also working to come up with innovative ways to use data – particularly in these times of fiscal discipline – and we should all be learning from each other's experiences."
"The City's Policy and Strategic Planning Analytics Team – led by Michael Flowers – has been leading the charge on data analytics and is sure to continue its strong work as the cornerstone of this new working group," said John Feinblatt. "Analytics programs increase efficiency, create cross-agency transparency, tailors responses to problems that are rare but catastrophic, and enables innovation all while reducing the cost to the taxpayers. It's the future of government."
Data-driven analytics is the systematic use of information to find patterns of interest. For cities, this means looking inwards at the detailed data that city agencies continually collect – citizen complaints, licenses and permits, transactions, violations – and identifying new areas of high risk and high cost.
Cities can then respond to these findings by prioritizing the high impact areas appropriately. In the past, individual agencies have been limited in their ability to conduct large-scale analytics by mandate, scope, and organizational structure. City agencies across the country, which each already have a prescribed list of duties they must fulfill to keep the city running smoothly, often do not share data with one another, nor are they equipped analyze it. In an era of shrinking budgets, however, many cities, including New York, have made new efforts to solve this problem by creating teams existing specifically for the purpose of data investigation that can cross agency boundaries, with promising results.
In the past year, Mayor Bloomberg's Policy and Strategic Planning Analytics Team has launched successful analytics programs in three areas: fire risk, prescription drug abuse and mortgage fraud.
To identify properties with a higher-risk of fire death, the Analytics Team combined FDNY data with data on illegal conversion complaints, foreclosures, tax liens, and neighborhood demographics. They found that certain factors strongly correlate with fire risk, including multiple illegal conversion complaints, the owner's financial condition, the year of construction, and socioeconomic factors of the neighborhood. The Team then used this analysis to create a risk assessment model, which it is now using to give enforcement agencies a weekly list of the highest risk properties with illegal conversion complaints, which are then inspected jointly by the Department of Buildings and FDNY.
The improvement in resource allocation from this project has been dramatic. From 2008-2010, the City had found seriously hazardous conditions in less than 15 percent of all of its illegal conversion inspections. However, using the risk assessment model over the past six months to target high-risk properties, the joint inspection teams have found and eliminated seriously hazardous living conditions in more than 75 percent of their inspections, a rise of over 400 percent.
Similarly, the Team is using data-based targeting over property transactions to detect and respond to incidents of mortgage fraud.
Today, representatives from each of the five cities participating gave presentations of their cities' work to date. Issues discussed included 311 logs, housing and foreclosure issues, mapping public transportation, and benefits allocation and distribution.
During the working session, representatives of Kroll, a risk consulting company, gave a presentation on open source data mining and analysis. Going forward, the cities will participate in a monthly call, and the working group will create a joint website where members will share methodologies, challenges and successes in implementing analytics programs in their respective cities.
Stu Loeser/Julie Wood (212) 788-2958
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Reserve Your Virtual Reality Guided Tour Room(s) By The Hour - $10 Reservation Fee (Subtracted From Total Cost On Tour Day)
- 所在地: Sunriver, Oregon
- 製品コード: SunriverVR - 1-5 Guests Regular Room
Regular Virtual Reality Rooms for 1-5 Players - Virtually go anywhere in the world, hunt dinosaurs, battle zombies, defend your castle gate, play fetch with "Mono" your robotic dog, be a noble knight, fly spaceships, shoot down drones, save the world... there are over 1,600 mind blowing games and experiences to choose from, with 10-15 new added every day:
$10 - Room Reservation Fee paid per room, per hour, is Subtracted From Total Cost of Room, On Play Day. Room rentals balance is collected at End of Session.
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NEW SUMMER HOURS from 11AM to 8PM Seven Days A Week.
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$5 Sanitation Fee – Paid at end of session
WHEN BOOKING, LEAVE A COMMENT IN "Special Requirements" TO LET US KNOW HOW MANY IN YOUR PARTY
Walk-in Hours from 11AM to 8PM Seven Days A Week
Sessions May Be Booked from 11AM to 8PM By Calling 503-407-8936. Call for special arrangements, or last minute bookings.
SunriverVR is located between the Circle K and Subway in the Sunriver Business Park at 56896 Venture Lane, Sunriver, Oregon - just 20 minutes south of Bend Oregon. With a full clear 10' x 10; play area where you will have both the space and time to get into some serious fun - solo or with your family and friends.
The Future is Here and It's GREAT!!! Find your favorites - you've got the time to explore and go where very few have gone before!
The experience can not be properly described - it must be experienced first hand. Young and old alike have a great time.
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56896 Venture Lane, Sunriver, Oregon


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The Presidential Innovation Fellows program combines the mass of the federal government with the velocity of cutting-edge innovators. What's been accomplished since the program launched?
When the Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program launched last summer, it elicited a great deal of interest from both the public and private sectors. The unique initiative represents the first time the federal government has asked for help from the private sector in such a specific way and provided a vehicle to accomplish it.
Created under the direction of President Barack Obama and his administration, the PIF program's overarching goal is to improve how the federal government serves the public. It does so by pairing innovators from the private sector, nonprofits and academia with innovators in government to collaborate on key programs.
"The Presidential Innovation Fellows program presents a transformational opportunity to bring outside talent into the federal government," said Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel.
But the projects launched under PIF won't be the typical drawn out, multiyear government endeavors. Instead, PIF was designed to bring programs to a point where they can deliver significant results in just six months.
In spring 2012, nearly 700 innovators from across the country applied to the program. Of those, just 18 were selected as fellows based on their skill sets and relevance to the challenges. Those chosen also included cross-sector teams of innovators adept at rapidly prototyping and testing solutions in an iterative way to achieve speedy success. The 18 presidential fellows were hired directly by the federal agency sponsoring their given PIF project.
"These private-sector innovators bring their entrepreneurial expertise to the table that has helped jump-start high-tech companies, increase efficiency and public engagement, and redefine how technology is used in business," said Federal CTO Todd Park.
Each fellow agreed to spend six months in Washington, D.C., to work on one of five high-impact projects. The projects selected represent tough but tractable challenges whose solutions can provide immediate benefits and cost-savings to citizens, entrepreneurs and businesses. The projects also were required to be impactful, with the potential to save lives, save taxpayer money or fuel American job growth.
On Feb. 5, 2013, PIF was formally renewed and expanded, and round two of the program was announced. Public CIO wanted to know what's happened to the original projects since the program launched last summer. The following is an update on three of the original five projects.
Most U.S. citizens don't have easy access to their health records. But the Blue Button for America project aims to change that by allowing anyone to easily and securely download their health information electronically.
Blue Button for America builds on the success of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Blue Button program. The VA — working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Defense Department and others — developed Blue Button to let veterans, service members and Medicare beneficiaries securely download their health information via a simple text file. The file includes information such as current medications and drug allergies, claims and treatment data, and lab reports. The goal of the Blue Button for America project is to extend the Blue Button program to all Americans.
"Our goal with this project is to allow every American access to their health records digitally in a safe and secure way," said Ryan Panchadsaram, a PIF member and founder of Pipette, a San Francisco-based company that developed a remote health monitoring platform and was recently acquired by Ginger.io. "By developing tools to help individuals utilize their own health records, we hope to empower them to improve their health and health care."
Photo: Innovation fellows are working with the U.S. Department of Education to figure out how open data can improve student achievement. Photo by Paul Williams
Panchadsaram is one of three fellows assigned to the Blue Button for America project. The team is working with the CTO of Veterans Affairs as well as with members of the health-care community to devise a data standard that will allow traditionally siloed health-care data to begin to flow in a structured way. Last fall, the Blue Button for America innovation fellows worked on redesigning patient health records, which typically are difficult to understand. Using a crowdsourcing model, the fellows asked 240 designers to reimagine what a health record could look like. Twelve designs were chosen as finalists. Soon, the team will pick one design to serve as the basis for a new human-readable, open medical record.
"From a patient perspective, this is a way to consolidate all your medical history," Panchadsaram said. "And it will help patients coordinate care better. Access to records can help caregivers guide their loved ones through their health issues, and maybe even catch medical errors before the doctor does. Finally, it will help people better manage their health expenses."
Many of the best technology companies in the U.S. view the process of selling to the federal government as too long and complex. The result is bad for both the government and the companies, which potentially miss out on large federal opportunities. The RFP-EZ team is building a streamlined prototype that would provide easier access to the government marketplace for high-growth startups. RFP-EZ is sponsored by the Small Business Administration.
"This project is an experiment," said Clay Johnson, PIF member, author, open government technologist and entrepreneur. "We are building a platform that makes it easier for small businesses to navigate the federal government, and enables federal agencies to quickly source low-cost, high- impact IT solutions. Can we break the language barrier between government and small businesses so they speak same language at the same time? Can we simplify the bidding process so smaller companies can afford to bid? These are the questions we are asking."
RFP-EZ launched the new platform in January. More than 200 businesses signed up almost immediately, and nearly 50 percent of those companies were new to government contracting.
"I have seen firsthand the difference between what government pays and what the private sector pays for the same thing," Johnson said. "It's a complicated problem. RFP-EZ has the ability to empower a network of small businesses to serve their country and at the same time allow government to be more flexible and nimble when it comes to procuring the newest technology systems at the best prices."
A second phase of RFP-EZ now under way aims to improve federal procurement by building a portal that shows prices paid by agencies under their contracts. The sharing of pricing information, both within and between agencies, should cut costs and deliver better products and services to the federal government, according to those involved in the project. If the pricing information prompts agencies to shift their purchasing to contracting vehicles that offer better value, the program could save substantial amounts of money each year.
"We hope to also make it a thousand times easier to run a federal procurement," Johnson said. "Right now, procurement officers are doing a lot of low-value work that can be done by computers. We want to make the process more automated and shift federal procurement workers toward more high-value work like price negotiation."
The RFP-EZ experiment has been successful so far. "We got our first bid within 30 minutes of launching the site," Johnson said. "In the end, we are developing a soup-to-nuts procurement system that can have an impact far beyond the federal government. We are pretty excited about its potential."
The Open Data Initiatives program aims to "liberate" government data and voluntarily contributed corporate data in order to improve the lives of Americans. The program models the Health Data Initiative, launched by the Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2010. The Health Data Initiative opened health-related knowledge and information from the vaults of the government and made it available to the public in computer-readable form. Since then, hundreds of companies and nonprofits have used the information to develop new products and services that help Americans make smarter or more economical health-care decisions.
Working closely with the federal CTO and an array of agencies, the Open Data Initiatives team is expanding the Health Data Initiative, and rolling out similar efforts in the energy, education, public safety and nonprofit sectors.
Innovation Fellow Marina Martin leads the Educational Data Initiative being run from the U.S. Department of Education. "The goal of the project is to figure out how data can help students achieve their goals, particularly in light of the Common Core standards," Martin said. "We want to see all parents and students have access to their own educational data in a machine-readable, standard format. That data can reveal how a student best learns math, for example. We believe having access to that data and having it be interoperable can help students get the most effective learning experience."
Among other things, the Educational Data Initiative is examining an Arizona State University program called Knewton Math Readiness. The Web-based, professor-assisted course teaches students basic math skills. The platform delivers individualized learning content based on student proficiency and continually assesses, remediates and reassesses student progress.
"These types of programs can help students determine what time of day they learn math best, for example," Martin said. "It knows if you are guessing or what helped you get unstuck. We are watching and learning from these types of programs to determine how they can be applied on a broad scale to improve the process of teaching our students."
As the second round of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program gets under way, Park and VanRoekel praised the progress so far.
"Throughout the federal government, in every agency where fellows have been working, we've been thrilled to see the exciting advances they've been achieving in concert with their government teammates," they said in a Feb. 5 whitehouse.gov blog post. "We are excited to announce that the program is extending and expanding — and that we are ready to welcome applications for our next round of Presidential Innovation Fellows."
Photo: Steve VanRoekel, Federal CIO


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ATS, Inc. needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 86 designs submitted by 25 freelance designers.
Instant Internet Marketing
We build custom training programs for companies and curricula for consulting and training companies.
Small business owners and professionals.
We would like a sleek logo that caters to professionals. It can have a Web 2.0 look, but don't go too far in this direction as the target market is comprised mainly of 30-60 year olds. The image should communicate "instant" or "instant communication" and it can also incorporate an "online media" type theme.
No specific colors in mind but it should be colorful--don't want a one-color logo with black or grey.
Attached are some images of logos we like based on how clean and unique they look.
Feel free to get creative on this and we are open to any ideas that fall within this general framework.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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I know we have some great CBA minds on this board, so maybe they can pitch in.
I've always found it "odd" the Seahawks never have their PS rotation backfire on them. With Bradford, there's NO reason a team like the Giants, New Orleans, Atlanta, to name a few DONT make a play for him. He'd conceivably be an instant upgrade to their backups, and may be good enough to start on a few teams, IMO. So, what's stopping them?
Are the Seahawks allowed to offer additional incentives for these players to stay? I know facilities and "perks" aren't under the CBA. Its probably similar to working in corporate America. I stayed employed by Mr Ballmer a lot longer because of the benefits. Is it similar?
It just strikes me odd...and you know..."Pete the Cheat...."


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Bausch Health's mission is to improve people's lives with our health care products worldwide
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Scientists believe they have identified a time in history, which provides the most complete picture of how the planet might respond to rising CO2 levels.
The world is warmer, by around 2-3 degrees C. The tropics are wetter, sea levels are higher, there is less ice and CO2 levels are rising above present levels. A vision of our future climate, perhaps, but in fact this is Earth just over 3.2 million years ago, in a period of our planet's history known as the Pliocene. And it's a window into the past that a group of UK scientists hope could be the best chance so far of revealing the consequences of human-induced climate change.
The team believe they have identified a time in our Earth's climate history, where everything like the planet's orbit and the position of the continents closely match conditions of today, but with slightly higher levels of CO2 – those we are predicted to see by the end of the century. Not only that, but for the first time scientists have managed to narrow in on a geologically small timeframe of just 10,000 years. "It's a unique window into Earth's past, with the greatest relevance to the future," says Dr Aisling Dolan at the University of Leeds, who was involved in the study.
The hope is that the geological information within this 10,000-year-timeframe could help scientists improve predictive models for how the Earth will react to an increase in carbon dioxide. Just like weather forecasters use models to make predictions about the weather, climate scientists use models to help them understand more about how our climate is changing, and how the planet is going to react to those changes.
Understanding how the planet reacted to higher CO2 levels in the past is an important step. Throughout its history, Earth's climate and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has changed naturally. "Changes in the levels of CO2 are caused by several unrelated processes," says Dr James Riding at the British Geological Survey. "Volcanoes, plants and animals, destabilisation of the oceans, methane in the sea floor, these are all natural mechanisms for altering CO2." However the increase since the industrial revolution has been larger than it should by these natural causes alone. "We know we cannot explain this increase," says Professor Bette Otto-Bliesner, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "There has to be a human influence."
Historically, the Pliocene has been examined because it is geologically accessible, and also closely matches our current world in terms of plant species and geography. Previous efforts to map the Earth's climate during this time involved working out the mean climate state over a period of 300,000 years. Geologically, it's very difficult to get narrow intervals, you need to match up samples from different sites around the world and this involves painstaking research and a large amount of samples.
But the problem with looking across a 300,000-year period is that Earth's climate changes naturally over this time. As well as naturally varying CO2 levels, our orbit around the sun alters roughly every 100,000 years (because of the gravitational affect of the other planets in our solar system), and coupled with the fact that the planet wobbles on its axis (an affect known as precession), this varies the amount of heat we get from the Sun – and in turn the climate of Earth.
So, the narrower the timeframe in the past, the better the information to put into climate models. "What we had was a shopping list of criteria that needed to be met," says Professor Alan Haywood, a palaeoclimate modeller of the University of Leeds, who led the research. "By looking at sediment records we are able to understand how the Earth's climate has changed," adds Dr Erin McClymont, a physical geographer at the University of Durham, also part of the research team. "To narrow down on the interval, we look at oxygen isotopes in the chemistry of shells." This is because carbonate built by organisms use the sea to make shells and the chemistry of the sea changes in response to changes in our environment. All this information then had to be combined with models of the Earth's orbit and things such as stomata in leaves (which react to changes in CO2 levels), to create a more complete global inventory. "It all became a bit of a detective story," says Haywood.
Thanks to the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, an international research initiative that studies the planet's history as recorded in sediments and rocks beneath the ocean, scientists have over 40 years worth of samples to pour over. We need to analyse these samples so we can start to improve the information we have, says Professor Mark Williams, a geologist at the University of Leicester. "Now is the right time to do it."
It's important to note that models can only go so far, though. For example, all climate states spring from previous ones, and the Pliocene period inherited a different state to the one we have now. "But this gives us a lot of info on how things do change in Earth's environment because of increased CO2," says Dr Harry Dowsett, of the US Geological Survey. Riding at the British Geological Survey agrees. "To help policy makers understand the potential for global change," he says, "you can use this period as a laboratory for potential change."
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Genetics and genomics testing and technologies will be increasingly used by healthcare professionals in the care of patients and families. Having an understanding of the basics of genetic and genomic information is therefore central to providing healthcare today. The resources in this section provide basic information about genetics and genomics in clear language and provide links to online resources.
Last Updated: April 30, 2015