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Reese Witherspoon: A Day at the Circus
On March 26, Reese Witherspoon was married to talent manager Jim Toth in a simple, elegant affair at her ranch in Ojai, California. Vogue's Jonathan Van Meter spoke to the actress a few months before her wedding and discovered that, although the actress learned to ride an elephant for her role in the film, that's nothing compared to balancing fame, love, and family.
Here she comes, waving like Miss America but looking like a blonde Audrey Hepburn. She is dressed in all black—leggings, cardigan, Wayfarers, and a kitten heel. The wave is hilariously exuberant, and even from a block away, as she strides purposefully toward me, I can see that the smile is comic: forced and way too big. And with that one winning gesture—a perfectly timed little burst of goofball—Reese Witherspoon signals that she is not only painfully aware that the sidewalk has suddenly become a runway lined with paparazzi yelling her name on an otherwise quiet Thursday afternoon in Santa Monica, but also that she is OK with it. Look at my weird life! she shouts without saying a word.
It's a beautiful sunny day in early February, and we are meeting at the Blue Plate Oysterette, a hip little seafood joint not far from the Santa Monica Pier. Witherspoon, still at the curb, stares at the outside tables for a moment and then looks back at the photographers in the street still snapping away. She glances at the hostess, then at me, and finally says, with an ironic exclamation point, "How about inside!"
One of the things about being a polite Southern girl saddled with a cumbersome fame is that you are in constant negotiation with your surroundings. You know, more often than not, that your presence will tilt the delicate balance of the workaday world in your direction. And one thing that every good Southern girl knows is: Don't make a scene. But that is exactly what happens everywhere Witherspoon goes. Indeed, just moments ago, people on this oceanside block were going about their noonday business: lunch, errands, sightseeing. And then—bam!—chaos.
As we take our seats, she shakes her head in weary bemusement and says, "Every dog has her fleas." (Witherspoon's essential Southernness frequently comes through in her language.) She takes a deep breath. "I wasn't planning on drinking," she says, "but now I am."
Is that commotion an everyday occurrence? I ask.
"Lately," she says.
All the wedding talk? (In case you haven't heard, Witherspoon is engaged.)
"Yeah," she says. "It usually heats up during, like, pregnancies or babies or marriage. It's the drama of real life. . . . It's interesting to people. Readers want to know! I was talking to an actress the other day who is pregnant right now, and she was like, 'What is it? What's the deal?' She said, 'Oh, maybe once I have the baby no one will pay any attention,' and I was like, 'Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!!' " She exaggeratedly tosses her head back. " 'Oh, yeah. They will leave you alone after you have the baby. Suuure. That's exactly how it works.' "
But then, perhaps not wanting to sound ungracious, she puts a different spin on it. "I get hugged a lot," she says. "Which is fun. Mostly it's all good, positive energy that comes to me. I like people. And at the end of the day, we're all just people, you know? We're all just going through it. Nobody's life experience is all that much different than anyone else's. We've all had our share of heartbreak. It's the universal language of life."
I can't help looking down at the four-carat rock sitting high on her hand, a ring proffered a few months earlier by the handsome 40-year-old CAA agent Jim Toth, whom she's been dating for a little over a year. What's he like? I ask. "He's wonderful," she says, beaming. "He's just a really great guy, and I feel really lucky. It's so cute: Over the holidays I was at a department store in L.A. with my friends, and these three women from Oklahoma came up to me, and they said"—she lays on a thick Southern drawl—" 'Reese. We are so happy for yeeew. We liiike this guy for yeeew.' And I said, 'You do?!' 'Yes, ma'am. We think he is a niiice man. We think he is going to treat you well and be good to yeeew.' I was like, 'Really?' So sweet! And I told them my mother likes him very much, too."
I had been hearing from people who work with Witherspoon that she is in, as they say, "a good place." When I mention these reports, she looks at me with one of those faces she is famous for, a look that telegraphs surprise tinged with irritation. "I mean . . . it sort of indicates that at other times I was not in a good place." She laughs. "Which is true. I have had my share of heartbreak. But I think your friends really know when you are at your happiest. Even though I am nervous and excited and all those things people feel when they are about to get married, I think I am mostly very calm right now. Usually, I'm a little bit of a squirrel. I have a squirrelly energy."
"Yeah," she says. "Like, you don't know where your next nut is gonna come from?" She stares at me with those unblinking blue eyes. "At the moment I am not buzzing around all squirrelly and nervous. I just feel really lucky to be with someone who cares so much and is so kind and loving. You know? It's a really nice thing to finally have that."
Witherspoon may be settling down in her personal life, but she's taking more risks than ever in the roles she chooses. Despite having recently said, "There's not a part for a 34-year-old woman in a robot movie" (implying she would never want or be able to carry an action flick), she will later this year star in This Means War, one of those new era–Hollywood hybrids (action-adventure/romantic comedy, anyone?). The director, McG, describes it as both "my answer to Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Ocean's Eleven" and "my ode to Billy Wilder." Witherspoon plays a busy working girl who is unlucky in love but suddenly finds herself with a glamorous problem: Two spies—one American, one British (played by new era–Hollywood hotties Chris Pine and Tom Hardy)—start using every weapon in their arsenals to woo her.
"It was new for her to be suspended in a rig hanging upside down in a Jeep from a building," says McG. "But it's just mind-scrambling to work with her in terms of her comedic timing, her sense of what matters, her inherent ability to be lit from within." McG also hopes to show audiences a different side of her. "I think you are going to see a sexy Reese Witherspoon the likes of which you have never seen. That was a challenge that I set out for her at the beginning of the process. I said, 'Men like you, but men don't covet you the way that I think they can.' "
It's anybody's guess whether this film will be watchable or whether Witherspoon will work in it or not. It wasn't that long ago when it seemed Witherspoon could do no wrong. As the nineties came to an end, she began delivering in one smart comedy after another: Cruel Intentions, Election, and the two Legally Blonde films, the Elle Woods franchise that put her newly formed production company, Type A Films, on the map and also gave her some real power in Hollywood. By the time she won the Oscar for Best Actress in Walk the Line, in 2005, she had taken on an air of invincibility. Was there anything this girl couldn't do? Turns out the answer is yes. She has lately been miscast a few times, most egregiously as a pro softball player past her prime in James L. Brooks's How Do You Know. (As one big Hollywood producer said to me, "What woman identifies with a person who has no interest in falling in love? Who is that supposed to be?")
It's far less of a stretch to imagine Witherspoon as the scrappy ingenue who will do whatever it takes to survive in the Depression-era circus world of her latest film, Water for Elephants, based on the best-selling novel and directed by Francis Lawrence. That role is the reason, a couple of days before our lunch, I find myself inside a giant circus tent pitched in a dusty lot near the train tracks in Riverside, California. Witherspoon appears in front of me and asks, "Wanna see something?" She leads me over to one of her costars, Tai, the 42-year-old elephant she spent six months with last summer, and coos, "Hiiii, laaaady," and then runs a hand down her trunk. "I love that her trunk is both her nose and her hand," says Witherspoon as the 9,000-pound creature begins sniffing around to see what sort of treat is in the offing. "She has this incredible dexterity; she can pick up a log, but she can also pick up something this tiny." Witherspoon holds up one blue peanut M&M and then flattens out her palm, and Tai gently plucks it from her hand and puts it in her mouth.
Set in the early thirties, the story follows a young Ivy League veterinary student played by Robert Pattinson, who, left with nothing after his parents die in a car accident, joins the circus, where he falls in love with Witherspoon's character, Marlena. Marlena is not only the star of the circus, whose act with four horses and then an elephant is the show's big attraction; she is also married to the charismatic, controlling ringmaster, played with sinister menace by Christoph Waltz.
Witherspoon has made more than a few films where she has had to train for months to learn an entirely new skill set before a single frame was shot: most famously learning to sing like June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. Now the circus. "About three months before the movie started, I went to circus school," she says, "doing trapeze and acrobatics with Cirque du Soleil performers. A lot of it is flexibility and learning to bend your body backward. I had been a gymnast when I was little, so getting that flexibility back was really fun." Then she went to a ranch to train with Tai; she was slightly nervous the first day. "She could crush you with her jaw, but she knows the exact right amount of pressure with which to pick you up but not hurt you. It's really incredible. I trust her more than any other animal I have ever been around."
Interestingly, the elephant in the room turned out to be the least of anyone's troubles. (As Pattinson puts it, "She was the most consistently professional creature I have ever worked with.") It was the horses—two white Andalusians and two black Friesians—that turned out to be high-strung and unpredictable. "Reese grew up around horses," says Lawrence, "and she owns a couple that she rides now, and even she was scared of them." Says Witherspoon: "I've always been a little bit of a tomboy that way, so I just always enjoy the thrill of doing something dangerous."
She got more than she wished for. Not only did she get thrown from a horse one day, Pattinson tells a story about shooting a scene in which one of the horses is lying down in a train car with Witherspoon curled up on the ground next to it when suddenly the horse jumped to its feet and stepped on her leg. "I could see in Reese's face that it must have hurt more than anything, and she played it off like it was absolutely nothing," says Pattinson. "And then the next day she had this enormous bruise. It could have quite easily broken her leg, but she didn't mention it to anybody. She is just incredibly brave that way."
Witherspoon's toughness was one of the main reasons Lawrence cast her in the film. "What I liked is that there's that determination, but there's also a sense of humor and a sense of vulnerability. It must come from her family and upbringing. You sort of feel like if she sets her mind to something, it's going to happen—nothing is going to get in her way. And that's part of what keeps her interesting—and oddly a little dangerous."
Pattinson, too, thinks there's more to Witherspoon than meets the eye. "In terms of public perception, she's thought of as America's Sweetheart. And she kind of is in a lot of ways. But I think that she's a lot bawdier than that, a lot more raucous. It did actually shock me to see that. She's tough. You wouldn't want to get into an argument with her at all." He laughs.
"You can always tell that she will be incredibly nice to anyone who's not an idiot, but it's always very clear that there's a line you really shouldn't cross." (When I tell Witherspoon that Pattinson said this, her response is classic Reese: "Oh, yeah. I'm a little junkyard dog.")
If only she had brought some of that edgy danger to her performance. Although her scenes in the ring with the horses and the elephant are breathtaking, not least of all because you know that she is doing all of the stunts herself, and she looks fantastic in 1930s cut-on-the-bias evening gowns (and even committed to dyeing her hair platinum for the movie), it unfortunately feels like she's holding back in some way. Perhaps it was hard to compete with the director's overheated take on an already melodramatic story, in which terrible things happen to everyone, animals and humans alike. A feel-good movie this is not.
But whatever the critical response will be, Witherspoon seems grateful for the experience: "I spent six months of my life last year with an elephant. Every day! Are you kidding me? And in leotards with sparkles all over them. I mean, come on! That's like a little girl's fantasy."
Two weeks after our lunch in Santa Monica, the day after the Oscars, Witherspoon calls me on the phone. She has just picked up her kids—Ava, eleven, and Deacon, seven—from some after-school activity, and she sounds a bit harried.
"What is that?" she says to her dog, annoyed. "Don't eat that."
Now that the Oscars are over, she has a couple months off—or "in town," as she puts it. "You know, it can be a crazy life. Sometimes you feel like you are on a speeding train and you just don't know where it's going. You can start to lose your identity and what it is that you are really working for." Like a lot of working women, she's constantly looking for the right balance. "I don't wake up to make movies. I wake up to have a wonderful family and to cultivate the best life for all of us, and it's great to now have a partner in that. We have a lot of family meetings. 'Mom's going to be away and coming home on the weekends. How does everybody feel about that?' It's always military operations around here. Lots of different moving parts. I have my moments when I feel like I'm just going to collapse and I can't do it anymore and I'm failing at everything. Like, you're kind of good at a bunch of stuff but not really good at anything."
Witherspoon, who turned 35 in March, seems acutely aware that she is on the cusp of an entirely new stage in her life. "I am really going through that right now. I've had some really kind of sad moments lately. You don't go backward! And I think 35 for a woman is a big thing. I remember when I was a little girl looking up at my mother at 35 doing her hair in the mirror, and I thought, my mother has never been more beautiful. She had years of wisdom you can't erase. And now I feel the same way when I look in the mirror. You can't pretend you are an ingenue. You can't pretend you are wide-eyed and innocent. It's on your face! It's in your body. It's in your voice. It's in your reactions to things when people say, 'I just did the most morally corrupt thing I've done in my life' and you literally don't blink." She laughs. "You've either done it yourself or you know someone who has."
Having a preteen daughter has also made her see herself in a new light. "There's a shift in your womanhood. That's the little girl, and I am the woman. There's a big difference. She's on the precipice of having her love affairs and her life."
I ask her what Ava is like. "She is curious and artistic and very smart," she says. "She really surprises me. I know it's corny, but being a parent to me is such a great privilege; that I get to chaperone these beautiful little souls through life. They astound me with their knowledge and their humor. Parenthood is not at all what I expected it to be. I thought you make little people in your image. But they are just nothing like me or their father [her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe]. They are their own individuals."
Because I first met Witherspoon eight years ago, when I interviewed her for this magazine, I ask her, What does 34 know that 26 didn't? "I definitely know now that I know nothing," she says. "When I was 26 I would have told you a lot of things that I thought I knew really, really well," she says. "I was a little more shut down in my 20s. I was really scared of a lot of things and a lot of people. I have gone through so many changes since then. Obviously, being divorced and having a couple of relationships. I'm much more open than I was. I think with life experience you go: I have no idea what's next. The unexpected doesn't surprise me anymore. It really shocked me then."
Would you say you were blindsided by things?
"Yeah," she says. "Really blindsided. I was always shocked about finding out things or behavior or people's attitudes toward things. You just realize that you don't know anything about love or relationships."
It is different interviewing Witherspoon now. For one thing, we are comfortably hanging out for a couple of hours in a restaurant shooting the breeze and drinking wine; eight years ago we sat in facing chairs with a coffee table between us at her production-company office, and she was all business—I felt as if I were in a job interview. Today she is sweet, relaxed, and full of thoughtful questions; but she is also a very sharp and funny lunch companion, and some of her retorts have real teeth. For example, if you don't talk as rat-a-tat fast as she does, she has a habit of finishing your sentences for you, but with her own particular take on things. At one point we were talking about fashion, and I said, "People who love fashion often . . ."
" . . . Lack perspective?" she said with a comically judgmental look on her face.
But one thing that hasn't changed is that she is as private as ever. Indeed, she seems almost constitutionally unsuited for the level of fame she has to live with. At one point, I ask her what is the worst thing about being Reese Witherspoon, and she pauses for a very long time. Finally she says, "I mean, I feel like an ingrate for even thinking anything isn't good. I'm very, very, very lucky. But . . . umm . . . probably that I parted with my privacy a long time ago. We went different ways. And sometimes I mourn it. Sometimes I will sit in the car and cry. Because I can't get out. That's the only thing: I mourn the loss of my privacy."
More than most people in her position during this era of constant self-revelation, Witherspoon has nonetheless managed to maintain a modicum of privacy. "I have to say, I have been through a few life experiences that have just made me feel really good about my friends because the truth never came out about certain things. And that made me feel like I have confidantes in them. I mean, look: I don't have that many friends. I have a few really amazing friends whom I consider family. But it means a lot to me that I have that, because so much of my life belongs to other people. Everyone always laughs about it and goes, 'Boy, they got that wrong!' It makes me feel like, Wow, maybe there's something that's still my own."
This is one of the strange conundrums of being Reese, the polite Southern girl with the cumbersome fame. She did not know she was parting with her privacy until the train had already left the station. "I just think you never think you are ever going to get to any level where it's going to happen to you. I mean, that would be extreme hubris."
Do you ever regret becoming an actor?
"Noooo!" she says, as if I had just asked her if she wishes she had married her high school sweetheart and stayed in Nashville. "With whatever I've lost, I've gained tenfold in life experience. I have an interesting life."
At our lunch a few weeks earlier, Witherspoon mentions that she and Nora Ephron are developing a film together about the singer Peggy Lee. (This explains why Witherspoon was humming standards under her breath to Tai at the photo shoot.) Lee, who grew up in North Dakota and who's best known for her inimitable cover of the Little Willie John hit "Fever," was one of the most influential jazz vocalists of all time, with a career that lasted six decades (she died in 2002). Ephron is writing and directing; Witherspoon will star. When I ask her how she feels about making another biopic about another American singer-songwriter from the heartland, she says, "When Nora and I began talking about Peggy Lee, it was really exciting because Nora has this unbridled enthusiasm for that era and that music. She knows every lyric to every song. So yeah, I am excited to revisit that." Has she herself ever considered singing as a career? "I am not going to cut an album," she says. "I'm not going to suddenly have a pop record on the charts." She laughs. "But if I was going to do it, it would be country, because I like country music a lot."
I tell her that Ephron once sat me down when I was going through a difficult time and gave me some very frank advice that I have been following ever since. "I had a moment like that with Nora, too," she says. "She really helped me through a hard time. It was like having the best girlfriend ever. She makes you laugh and she makes you think. I feel very lucky for her friendship."
When I call Ephron to talk about Witherspoon she says, "She's a really smart, really charming, dear, dear person. Everyone loves her. And lovely on the set, and she basically kills herself. I mean, you know, she took softball lessons for a year!" She laughs. "And she went through that divorce in a kind of . . . you would call it a textbook way, if anyone had written a textbook about how to do it. I have never seen anybody handle a breakup as brilliantly as she did. She didn't pretend to the people who knew her that it was anything but difficult and painful, but she was completely private. She made herself the winner of a situation that had been very difficult without suddenly appearing with a completely new look or dating someone wildly inappropriate in order to prove that she was fine. She lived her life in some dignified way, and it worked! I am just an enormous admirer of the way she handled that experience."
What made you think of her for Peggy Lee? "Just for fun, just to make myself feel really bad, I watched Walk the Line again, and it's such an amazing movie. And she is so brilliant in it. She just disappeared inside that character without losing her Reese-iness, which we love. But she is June Carter Cash forevermore. It's an astonishing performance. So that's one of the things that I'm excited about; she is going to do the same thing with Peggy Lee. What I really believe about her is that her great gift is for character acting. She can really transform herself. That performance in Election is just spectacular."
Tracy Flick, the character from Election who will stop at nothing to win, is one of the great gifts of modern cinema. Indeed, it is now a noun, a type of person, like saying "She is an Eve Harrington." When I ask Witherspoon about it, she says, "I think what's flattering about it is that I created a character that never existed within the Zeitgeist before. She became a point of reference to people that seems very individual and very singular. It's like one of those characters, like Chauncy Gardiner, whom you don't know how to describe any other way. They are just very . . . Tracy Flick! I don't think people think I am Tracy Flick. Not at all."
Hmm. Not so fast. Tracy Flick is nothing if not a determined little junkyard dog, a squirrelly Type A trying to figure out where her next nut is going to come from. As our phone call winds down, I ask Witherspoon about her own politics. "Well, I don't really get into that stuff," she says. "Everybody has their own choice, their political opinions. I don't think it's my place when talking to Vogue about movies that I'm making to use that opportunity to promote my political ideas. Not my cup of tea. It's sort of private. I was raised Southern, you know? It wasn't like you were told to talk about religion and politics at a dinner party. And don't get me wrong: I definitely have a lot of opinions. I am not opinion-free. But there's a time and a place for everything. But maybe I will change my mind! Look, if I wanted to run for office, I would. If I want to espouse my political opinions, I will run for office." She laughs. "And that's a possibility!"


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Naga City is the hardest dungeon in the game, but the monk, slime pit combo is currently almost/just as hard.
I mean what quests are supposed to be as hard as VICIOUS dungeons (Dark Souls is exempt)? There isn't supposed to be anything harder than vicious. Also, when there were cheap items this was possible, but now, no way.

subset: commoncrawl


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About Thinkbig
Sobre Thinkbig
I wrote this article for la ciudad viva months ago, which was very helpful for me to establish the foundations of thinkbig lab and to begin with this blog-collaborative agency, that is why it has the honour to be the first post. I have said to establish the foundations, but i hope that they will be always changing.
As Debord said in The Society of the Spectacle, only the moments of change are real, the rest is frozen history. All of us begin to assimilate that we are living in a time of huge changes. The economic situation has led to an ideological crisis and new (or not so new) technologies are leading to an excellent context to try to transform our reality and improve it.
I decided to write on this subject after seeing this TED by Tim Brown, which try to come round the designers to think big, to set aside the "cool" and ergonomics and turn to the really important issues.
Creativity has recovered a very important position in society, and as architects we should focus our skills to new challenges, whether they are related to the construction or not. The design or architecture thinking may be applicable to other problems. Not only deal with form and space but give formal and spacial solutions for services, experiences and organizations. Health services, education, mobility in the cities, emergency architecture, reverse innovation, organizational design, etc. The speed of change is forcing us to look not only to new ways to solve problems but to new problems to solve.
Talking about all this with a friend, he asked me (copied directly from the gmail chat):
How can we explain design thinking or architectural thinking not to seem a show off of the architect? Is it actually valid? Why? What is architectural thinking? What differentiates it from other ways to think? What does it make worth just now? Is not because we have no work?
I think we need to respond adequately all these questions otherwise with one question they will make you collapse.
For now it is very difficult to answer all these questions, but must be done as we go along while we carry out projects in this direction. Right now, we can mention a couple of ideas, knowledge and manage creative processes, and be a professional amateur:
+ Creative processes.
¨… the ability to constructively face the tensions of opposing models, and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model that contains elements of the both models, but is superior to each…consider the problems as a whole rather than split them and try to resolve in individual fractions¨ definition by Roger Martin (Dean of the Rotman School of Management) on the integrative thinking.
Brainstorming, prototyping, or think with the hands, visual thinking, empathy, optimism, experimentation, collaboration and integrated thinking are concepts and basic tools to deal with the problems from new perspectives. Issues which never have been faced with a firm approach from this methodology.
+ Professional amateur.
"…This hollistic perspective also needs a lateral vision. As great ideas can be discovered in diverse and unexpected places, we need to collaborate in new and surprising ways. We believe that the best ideas come from crashing, combining and contrasting disciplines and perspectives, and technology is enabling us to do this in very different ways. At IDEO, we often involve disperse and eclectic networks of consumers and experts in creating and evaluating ideas. The effect is sometimes fusion, and sometimes fision, but the result is always valuable…" The Future of Innovation is Hollistic and Networked. Tom Hulme (IDEO)
As non-specialists or professionals amateurs we are empowered to act in very different situations, jumping between scales and disciplines.
I close the post with this video where Uffe Elbaek, founder of The Kaospilot, explains how he realized that he must set up a business school based on creativity. As he emphasizes that signs of change, both in society and in us, are weak. What we have to do is stay alert.
samples and references:
Ideas4all. Building The Global Brain.
firstname.lastname@example.com: Zoomind Maps
IDEO | A Design and Innovation Consulting Firm
Uffe Elbaek: Be the Best for the World
Liberal Arts and the Bottom Line – Business – The Atlantic
Design Thinking – Articles – News – IDEO
Reverse innovation – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Future Of Innovation is Holistic And Networked" by Mr Tom Hulme
Why Design Matters – BusinessWeek
What is Design Thinking Anyway? : Observatory: Design Observer
Reinventing the MBA: 4 Reasons to Mix Business With Design Thinking | Fast Company
Tim Brown urges designers to think big | Video on TED.com
Juan freire: El valor de la diversidad: consenso y conflicto para la innovación
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm . Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman, Tom Peters.
Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value. Thomas Lockwood .
Change by Design. Tim Brown.
Translated by Ran Chen
Este es un artículo que escribí hace unos meses para la ciudad viva, me sirvió para establecer las bases de thinkbig lab y arrancar definitivamente con este blog-agencia colaborativa, y por eso, tendrá el honor de ser el primer post. Doy por inaugurado esto y por mucho que diga que he establecido las bases, espero que estén siempre en constante cambio:
Como dijo Debord en la sociedad del espectáculo, solo los momentos de cambio son reales, el resto es historia congelada. Todos comenzamos a asimilar que estamos viviendo en un momento de grandes transformaciones. La situación económica que ya ha derivado en una crisis ideológica y las nuevas (o ya no tan nuevas) tecnologías están propiciando un contexto inmejorable para intentar transformar nuestra realidad y mejorarla.
Read more…
Read more…


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Monday, December 19, 2011
On This Day ... December 19
Using one of the new reports available in RootsMagic 5, I have listed below all the historic events that happened today, saving the best for last.
211 - Publius Septimius Geta, co-emperor of Rome, is lured to come without his bodyguards to meet his brother Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla), to discuss a possible reconciliation. When he arrives the Praetorian Guard murders him and he dies in the arms of his mother Julia Domna.
324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor.
1154 - Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
1490 - Anne, Duchess of Brittany, is married to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.
1606 - The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery depart England carrying settlers who found, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.
1776 - Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis.
1777 - American Revolutionary War: George Washington's Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
1796 - French Revolutionary Wars: Two British frigates under Commodore Horatio Nelson and two Spanish frigates under Commodore Don Jacobo Stuart engage in battle off the coast of Murcia.
1828 - Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
1900 - Hopetoun Blunder: The first Governor-General of Australia John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, appointed Sir William Lyne as premier of the new state New South Wales, but he is unable to persuade other colonial politicians to join his government and is forced to resign.
1907 - A group of 239 coal miners die during a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
1912 - William H. Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over 1,000 people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after three-and-a-half-years in Sing Sing prison.
1916 - World War I: Battle of Verdun : On the Western Front, the French Army successfully holds off the German Army and drives it back to its starting position.
1920 - King Constantine I is restored as King of the Hellenes after the death of his son Alexander I of Greece and a plebiscite.
1924 - The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
1932 - BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service
1941 - World War II: Adolf Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army.
1941 - World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers sink the HMS Valiant (1914) and HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) in Alexandria harbour.
1946 - Start of the First Indochina War.
1956 - Irish-born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 patients. Eventually he is convicted only of minor charges.
1961 - India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.
1963 - Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
1964 - The South Vietnamese military junta of Nguyen Khanh dissolved the High National Council and arrested some of the members.
1967 - Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt is officially presumed dead.
1972 - Apollo program: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.
1975 - John Paul Stevens is appointed a justice of The United States Supreme Court.
1981 - Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.
1983 - The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro.
1984 - The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that the People's Republic of China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997 is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.
1986 - Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife from internal exile in Gorky.
1995 - The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indian tribe.
1997 - SilkAir Flight 185 crashes into the Musi River, near Palembang in Indonesia, killing 104.
1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives forwards articles I and III of impeachment against President Bill Clinton to the Senate.
2000 - The Leninist Guerrilla Units wing of the Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist attack a Nationalist Movement Party office in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring three.
2001 - A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khovsgol Province, Mongolia.
2001 - Argentine economic crisis: December 2001 riots : Riots erupt in Buenos Aires.
... and last, but definitely not least:
I think it goes without saying that the most important event that occurred on December 19 is that I was born.* Way better than all those other (mostly depressing) events up there, right?
*for the record - I was not alive for the majority of those events ... only for maybe the last one-third of that list!
2 comments:
- Liz said...
Happy Birthday, Jenny! Best newsworthy item in your list! Have a great day!
- December 19, 2011 at 2:11 PM
- Jenny Lanctot said...
Thanks Liz! It has been a great day - and even though I had to work, I got to wear my tiara all day (as a reminder for everyone to be nice to me)!
- December 19, 2011 at 5:35 PM


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Richard B. needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 60 designs submitted by 27 freelance designers.
Deal Processor needs a logo that is professional and easily used on a variety of mediums (print, web, embrodery, etc.) for it's image. Currently, we have been using a photoshop'd image of rendered text, but it needs something that is more interesting.
We've decided to remove the "No Pencils Required" from the catch-phrase.
Please read the description to get a better idea of what we are trying to accomplish.
http://www.dealprocessor.com (Deal Processor)
"Deal Processor" is our flagship product which as been developed in combination with its first client. Deal Processor is a disconected bid tool that the end user deploys and uses for creating quotes and contracts onsite during a demo with a client.
Systems like Microsoft CRM, and FileMaker provide similar functionality (the ability of generating a quote and subsequent contract), but do so in a "connected" model. What this means is that your sales force needs to have a connection to the Internet, which isn't alway's practical. (think about the last time you were in a basement bar, and tried to make a phone call on your mobile phone)
What we have created is a better system that allows the sales force to be in any area, any time, and can create a quote without having to worry about being connected to the Internet. The user then, once connected to the Internet, uploads the quotes and contracts to the home office, where they are then processed. In future releases of the product, there will be complete automation from closing the sale, to finalizing the installation. (this has been a part-time venture, so we're getting to the point where we want to be at slowly). We have given a sneek-peek to another company located in Seattle, WA, who's catch-phrase is "The Intuitive Restaurant POS system", and they came back as saying our solution was definately "intuitive", which is what we were striving for.
- We've been toying with a few "taglines", and one of the one's that we're considering is "Simple Sales Automation". The system is completely electronic, minus the final signature, so we thought that this tag line would encompass the product.
- We've been considering some logo ideas, and a few concepts that come to mind would be
- We consider the software to be a machine that takes a lot of the manual processes out of the sales associates lives. So maybe that is a tangent to take.
- The software produces a "portfolio" of a quote and/or a contract, and maybe somehow encompassing a portfolio with a modern-style pen laying on it would be sharp.
- Another idea was that the system takes a chaotic mess of documents, processes them, and creates a nicely ordered list of quotes and contracts that the owner of the company can easily reference.
- Whatever you can think of...
- a logo that can be embroidered, used on print documents, etc. This is going to be a B-2-B application, and we are envisioning an entire division of our company devoted to this product, so if we can get something that builds a full-on brand for it, that would be great.
- Maybe something that could potentially depict that the software is a disconnected system? Don't know how this would be done, but is just a possibility.
- for these two, unless you can come up with a crazy way of doing it that can really sell, I'd ask that you avoid them:
- a deck of cards.
- a microprocessor
- More than 3 basic colors
- "boring" logo that would run along the same lines as: http://www.ifinity.com.au/
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Orbiting Carbon Observatory – 3 (OCO-3) is a complete stand-alone payload built using the spare OCO-2 flight instrument, with additional elements added to accommodate installation and operation on the International Space Station (ISS).
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory – 3 (OCO-3) instrument consists of three high resolution grating spectrometers which collect space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to assess the spatial and temporal variability of CO2 over an annual cycle. After launch and docking with the International Space Station, the OCO-3 instrument will be installed on the ISS Japanese Experiment Module- Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) where it will be operating for the duration of the mission. The instrument will acquire data in three different measurement modes. In Nadir Mode, the instrument views the ground directly below the space station. In Glint Mode, the instrument tracks near the location where sunlight is directly reflected on the Earth's surface. Glint Mode enhances the instrument's ability to acquire highly accurate measurements, particularly over the ocean. In Target Mode, the instrument views a specified surface target continuously as the space station passes overhead. Target Mode provides the capability to collect a large number of measurements over sites where ground based and airborne instruments also measure atmospheric CO2. The OCO-3 Science Team will compare Target Mode measurements with those acquired by ground-based and airborne instruments to validate OCO-3 mission data. The OCO-3 instrument has a planned operational life of 3 years.


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The Obama administration's new guidelines for offshore oil drilling, which are intended to require much more detailed environmental reviews for deep-water drilling, have upset not only the oil industry, but environmentalists, too.
The recommendations unveiled by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the US Department of the Interior on Monday were touted as ratcheting back widespread uses of "categorical exclusions."
That designation by the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) had exempted many deep-water drilling operations from detailed environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
In the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, environmental and other groups found that BP's Macondo well that was gushing oil – as well as most other deep-water wells in the region – had been graced with a categorical exclusion.
"In light of the increasing levels of complexity and risk – and the consequent potential environmental impacts – associated with deep-water drilling, we are taking a fresh look at the NEPA process and the types of environmental reviews that should be required for offshore activity," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a statement.
While Congress wrangles over just how to tighten environmental requirements for offshore drilling, the Obama Administration says categorical exclusions will now be used far more sparingly. Steps the CEQ called for in its review include:
- Reviewing the use of categorical exclusions for outer continental shelf, or OCS, oil and gas exploration and development "in light of the increasing levels of complexity and risk – and the consequent potential environmental impacts – associated with deep-water drilling."
- Comprehensive NEPA review of individual deep-water exploration activities, including site-specific information "where appropriate," a loophole that angers some environmentalists.
- Amending the OCS Lands Act to eliminate the current 30-day timeframe for approving exploration plan – and modify NEPA practices to reflect new environmental findings since the BP oil spill.
"The recommendations in this report are targeted to ensure robust environmental reviews for future oil and gas exploration and development," Nancy Sutley, CEQ chair, said in a statement.
But limiting use of categorical exclusions could create costly delays and curb job growth, the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry lobby group says.
"We're concerned the change could add significantly to the department's workload, stretching the timeline for approval of important energy development projects with no clear return in environmental protection," Erik Milito, upstream director for API, said in a statement. "Environmental review of offshore operations under existing rules is extensive, and decisions on categorical exclusions, which are intended to avoid repetitive analysis, require review."
Many environmentalists, however, were only marginally less irked about the recommendations than the oil industry – arguing that there were too many loopholes that would still allow categorical exclusions.
Under a directive signed Monday by Michael Bromwich, the new director of the MMS's successor agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Enforcement and Regulation (BOEM) "shall narrow its use of categorical exclusions."
In the very next paragraph, the requirement "not to use" such exclusions is spelled out for equipment typically used in deep-water drilling – including floating drill rigs. But the last sentence in the paragraph also appears to leave open the possibility of a return to relatively light – some argue superficial – environmental review after the current six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling expires.
"If and when the July 12 suspension is no longer in force, all plans submitted for approval that propose an activity that involves [deep-water drilling equipment] shall be subject to an environmental assessment."
What that means, says Richard Charter, an offshore drilling specialist for the Defenders of Wildlife, is that a few months from now when the moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf is over, the standard for deep-water environmental review could be just an "Environmental Assessment," or EA.
Under NEPA, the EA is a cursory document of a few pages that could easily devolve into a rubber-stamping exercise, he says. What's needed, he argues, is an "Environmental Impact Statement" – a very detailed review – for each deep-water well proposal.
On the plus side, he notes, BOEM is planning to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement for the Gulf – a major evaluation that could do a lot of good, Charter says. Until then, however, the Bromwich memo paves the way for new activities in the Gulf to continue using categorical exclusions "if they are in shallow enough water and without certain risk factors," he says.
"The Bromwich memo cuts both ways," Mr. Charter says. "It does curb some excesses in the use of categorical exclusions.
"But this is also an interim step that will pave the way for Interior to declare that drilling can now proceed safely. We will just have to wait and see if that word 'safely' means anything or not," he says.
The BOEM will soon begin a formal comprehensive review and evaluation of its use of categorical exclusions, the Interior Department reported. While that review is going on, those exclusions will be used much more sparingly, Bromwich said. After the review is complete, BOEM says it will unveil a new approach that incorporates CEQ recommendations.


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A narrowboats journey through repair, cruising, and other joys of the english waterways.
posted by MortimerBones at
Welcome back! Too much hot water (and central heating) must be bad for one.
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Standing on the roof, with the wind in my hair, gulls cry I sigh, living it up here. The rain meanders along, soaking me to the bone, and ah, as I stand there... no longer alone.
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Transform your photos into one-of-a-kind, hand painted masterpieces!
by Faye Ziegler
Buddies by Faye Ziegler - 10.000" x 7.500"
Acrylic Print
Hanging Wire
Assembly Charge
Acrylic Print
Buddies acrylic print by Faye Ziegler. Bring your artwork to life with the stylish lines and added depth of an acrylic print. Your image gets printed directly onto the back of a 1/4" thick sheet of clear acrylic. The high gloss of the acrylic sheet complements the rich colors of any image to produce stunning results. Two different mounting options are available, see below.
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2 - 3 business days
Dale, really like this scene, congrats on your sale.
Beautiful work! So peaceful and sentimental... Congrats on your sale!
Congrats on your sale! :)
A wonderful watercolor painting and presentation Dale! I love those days of pals sitting on the bank fishing with cane poles, as it brings back many good memories of the days when life was more simplistic and enjoyable. Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful imagery and your talents with us. Got my F/V on this splendid piece of art work, and congrats on your very worthy sale!
Very beautiful work.
Mounting Option #1
Mounting Option #2
Bring your artwork to life with the stylish lines and added depth of an acrylic print. Your image gets printed directly onto the back of a 1/4" thick sheet of clear acrylic.
The image is the art - it doesn't get any cleaner than that!
All acrylic prints ship within 3 - 4 business days and arrive "ready to hang" with four aluminum mounting posts (Option #1) or hanging wire (Option #2).
The high gloss of the acrylic sheet complements the rich colors of any image to produce stunning results.
There are two different ways to mount your acrylic print.
Option #1 (Mounting Posts) - Attach your print to your wall with four aluminum mounting posts. The cylindrical cap of each mounting post can be removed, allowing you to thread a small screw along the center axis of the of post and into the wall. When you're finished, simply reattached each cap, and you're done. The mounting posts act as stand-offs and keep your print separated from the wall by 1". All of the required mounting hardware (i.e. posts, screws, and wall anchors) is included with your print. Click here for mounting details.
Option #2 (Hanging Wire) - With this option, your acrylic print is attached to a 1/4" thick black board which has a wooden frame and hanging wire attached to the back. There are no metal mounting posts at the corners. Simply put a nail in your wall, hang your print from the hanging wire, and you're done. Due to the thickness of the black board and mounting frame, your print is separated from the wall by 1.50" Click here for mounting details.
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Kyle Beltran
March 17th, 2019
Rae De La Cretaz
March 16th, 2019
Mike Disch
March 14th, 2019
Calvin Nelson Jr
March 9th, 2019
An Amish boy fishing near a covered bridge with his devoted dog.
ALTHOUGH Dale has worked in many media WATERCOLOR remains his favorite. Living and painting in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he is known for his interpretations of the surrounding lush farmlands and the local Amish community. He describes himself as a regional artist, painting what he loves and knows best. He works in the traditional watercolor manner, - - a direct approach, with luminous, transparent colors. After active army service in Hawaii and the invasion of Saipan during W.W.II, he attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, full time for four years. There he studied illustration under Henry Pitz, drawing with Fred Rothermel and Mary Sweeney, oils with Gertrude Schell and watercolor with W. Emerton...
Our return policy is very simple:
If you're not happy with a purchase that you made on FineArtAmerica.com, for any reason, you can return it to us within 30 days of the order date. As soon as it arrives, we'll issue a full refund for the entire purchase price. Please note - Fine Art America does not reimburse the outgoing or return shipping charges unless the return is due to a defect in quality.
Fine Art America sells thousands of pieces of artwork each month - all with a 100% money-back guarantee. We take great pride in the fact that hundreds of thousands of artists have chosen Fine Art America to fulfill their orders, and we look forward to helping you select your next piece!
All acrylic prints ship from our production facility within 2 - 3 business days of your order.


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Media Statements & Speeches
|Statement: July 17, 2008
|View Printable PDF Version
|Docket Nos. OA08-30-000, OA08-34-000, OA08-47-000, OA08-48-000, OA08-33-000, OA08-38-000, OA08-35-000, OA08-23-000, OA08-55-000, OA08-55-001, OA08-55-002, OA08-28-000, OA08-54-000, OA08-54-001, OA08-54-002, OA08-31-000, OA08-31-001, OA08-56-000, OA08-56-001, OA08-56-002, OA08-40-000, OA08-57-000, OA08-57-001, OA08-57-002, OA08-43-000, OA08-99-000, OA08-99-001, OA08-118-000, NJ08-5-000, OA08-25-000 and OA08-26-000
Commissioner Moeller's statement on open access transmission tariff planning
"It is a fact that our nation needs more transmission investment in every geographic region. However, as a native of the Pacific Northwest, I am particularly interested in the efforts by the Western transmission owners to develop transmission planning processes that get transmission built. ColumbiaGrid, WestConnect, Northern Tier Transmission Group, WECC's TEPPC and the Western transmission owners and providers should be commended for their efforts. Interested entities are now coming to the table to discuss transmission planning at the local, sub-regional and regional level. This is progress and we need to see the momentum continue.
This Commission has been very resourceful in setting up a process to engage interested parties to improve the planning efforts in each region. One of the greatest strengths of that process has been to let a region decide how to improve its transmission planning efforts for the benefit of the region.
However, controversial aspects of the planning process, such as cost allocation, may delay the process since there is a misperception of winners and losers. While some think of cost allocation as a zero-sum game, I do not. Benefits greatly exceed the costs for the majority of participants in nearly all cases. The Blue Ribbon Panel Report titled "A National Perspective on Allocating the Costs of New Transmission Investment: Practice and Principles" was issued in September 2007. This Report contained some excellent cost allocation principles and I remain interested in any feedback.
Also, in a recent conference with RTO and ISO leadership and their market monitors, we heard some good observations about the benefits of transmission organizations. One of the benefits that cannot be discounted is that while they have struggled with cost allocation, these transmission organizations have developed mechanisms to allocate costs with input from all stakeholders, including state regulators, neighboring utilities, customers and independent transmission owners.
Ultimately, I am glad to be part of a Commission that believes that building more transmission is necessary. Bringing additional energy to the market increases fuel choices for customers and will help to encourage long-term price stability."
|View Printable PDF Version


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commercial property for rent or lease, Industrial Space For Lease.
Oneida (PA) commercial property for lease, rent, and leased investments.
Find Oneida industrial buildings for lease, retail rentals, & shops. Locate a Oneida warehouse lease and any real estate for lease / investment, including industrial properties to rent and sale.
Many things should be considered when contemplating a new Oneida commercial lease and relocating to a new location. In addition to the actual dollar amount of the lease particular consideration should be made concerning the Oneida area for recruiting purposes and retaining existing employees. Study the areas available and the possibility of expansion should the Oneida business grow. If you are managing a start-up, your undertaking can be even more daunting as you may have no indication on how your Oneida business will evolve and the area you will need.
Search Oneida real estate and space for sale, lease and rent
While leasing may be short term, less risky, and less expensive than purchasing Oneida commercial property, signing a lease is still a binding and legal document. Seek legal advice before beginning your search for real estate, an experienced attorney in Oneida real estate law can help you to avoid signing a contract that may be signing you up for un-necessary expenses and liability that could potential harm business. If you lack time to scout and negotiate contract terms, a broker in Oneida may be a worthy asset to use.
Your long term Oneida business plan and real estate commitment should be aligned as most real estate leases and investments are long in duration. Business leaders need to anticipate future growth and requirements of the Oneida business to be positioned for the best and worst scenarios. Define the spaces you need and make sure the area can be designed to incorporate all requirements. Will the layout satisfy Oneida employee expectations and will any possible employee relocation, or commute, to a new venue be achieved to everyone's satisfaction. Consider proximity to Oneida facilities and amenities such as shopping, health care, childcare, etc.
Harleigh (Luzerne), Delano (Schuylkill), Saint Johns, Nuremberg, Analomink (Monroe), Clarks Summit (Lackawanna), Pocono Pines, Archbald, Pocono Summit, Sciota
in Oneida Pennsylvania (PA) (Schuylkill)


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Consumers across the United States will have a unique opportunity to come together and experience the new DRAGON QUEST® IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies game this summer as Nintendo offers interactive demo opportunities and special downloadable content at retail destinations from coast to coast. In addition to live game-play demos and the chance to enjoy the game's multiplayer mode with fellow DRAGON QUEST fans, attendees who bring their Nintendo DSTM system and DRAGON QUEST IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies game card to these upcoming sampling events will have the opportunity to experience the game's cooperative "Tag Mode" feature by connecting with other players and acquiring special downloadable treasure maps.
On July 31, select GameStop stores will host "The Ultimate DRAGON QUEST IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies Experience," inviting visitors to enjoy guided demos and connect with other DRAGON QUEST fans. Also at most GameStop stores, visitors will be able to access a special downloadable treasure map called "Zoma," available for the first time in North America, via the game's Tag Mode feature. Sampling events will also be held on Aug. 7 at select Best Buy retail locations, where attendees will have access to the "Estark" treasure map, available for the first time in North America.
From Aug. 7 to Sept. 19, weekend sampling events will be held at select shopping malls around the country, highlighting the game's rich customization options and multiplayer fun. Visitors to these mall events will have access to the downloadable "Malroth" treasure map.
To access treasure maps, players must have their Nintendo DS system running the DRAGON QUEST IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies game, set to Tag Mode. Once players reach the town of Stornway, they are able to access Tag Mode by talking to Erinn at the Quester's Rest Inn.
The latest installment in the popular DRAGON QUEST franchise, DRAGON QUEST IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies lets players embark on an epic hand-held adventure. Players can choose their own appearance, occupations, companions and special items to aid in their quest, and even connect wirelessly with friends for cooperative multiplayer quests. The game has already become a social phenomenon in Japan, selling more than 4.2 million units to date.
A complete schedule of events can be found at http://dqnine.com/#/do-you-dq/events/.
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A new working paper suggests that modest efforts to tackle climate change are not enough to protect the world's food supply.
|Scooped by CGIAR Climate
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Sam Sani Nzevela's curator insight, February 7, 2013 12:26 AM
In my view World Bank may need to focus on capacity building for innovative commerce and small indusries financing to build sustainbale micro economic communities.
Eli Levine's curator insight, April 14, 2014 3:46 PM
Let the mayhem begin!
Have fun people.
Espeically you rich people out there, who think that you've got everything under complete control.
Think about it.
Osk Reddy's curator insight, August 24, 2014 12:59 AM
We wish to bring to your notice that the "Green Universe Environmental Services Society (GUESS)" head-quartered at Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India was established in 1998. Since then we have been promoting various eco friendly concepts, pro-environmental initiatives and sustainable development projects. With our vast field-level practical experiences we have observed and noticed that the farmers of our country are facing severe crop loss issues due to wild boar & wild animal attacks, frequent natural calamities, global warming effects, non availability of labour, cost escalation and climate change issues. It is known fact that many of the wild animals have shifted their habitations from the forests to farm fields due to man-made mistakes such as severe deforestation and high level destruction in the forest areas.
Due to the above situations the farmers who make 70% of the Indian community are leaving agriculture and migrating to the urban habitations in search of livelihoods resulting in many of the villages are becoming deserts and the population pressure is at high level in urban areas which is causing various social & economic issues. It is fact that the most of the countries are shifting towards naturals in all walks of life and the demand for natural products is ever increasing and it is time to throw light on promotion of different eco-friendly sustainable farming measures & concepts to the struggling farmer community.
Keeping in view the alarming situation faced by the farming community due to wild boar & animal attacks which is great concern to the society today we have come up with an eco-friendly, cost-effective sustainable solution of "Henna Bio Fence." It is non-grazing & pest-free because it is astringent & pungent in nature which can be an effective NPM measure, sustains for longer period hence it is perennial, drought tolerant because it can pass through severe climatic situations, creates additional man days through raising & post harvest measures and also generates income because the demand for natural dyes is ever increasing. Hence "Henna Bio Fence" can be an eco-friendly cost-effective sustainable solution in place of highly expensive solar, chain linked mesh & barbed wire fences and can act as income & employment generating measure.
Natural dyes are pro-environment and obtained from renewable resources with no health hazards are traditionally used since ages to impart color. There is renewed interest in the application of natural dyes throughout the world today, as eco-friendly norms become stringent and the awareness about protection and preservation of environment grows day by day. The entire world is facing the side effects of synthetic products and there has been increasing interest in natural dyes, as the public become aware of health issues, ecological and environmental problems related to the use of synthetic dyes. Henna as natural dye is being used in Textiles, Handlooms, Leather, Beauty & Health Care, Cosmetics and Tattoo Industries etc.
Considering the above facts, concerns and in light of the multi beneficial advantages, as responsible NGO we have initiated this "Henna Bio Fence" project to help the struggling farmers. We request for financial collaboration to impart trainings, to create awareness, to transform the concept and to provide input cost to encourage an eco-friendly, sustainable and cost effective "Henna Bio Fence" to the farmers to protect the crops from wild boar & animal attacks and to improve their income levels. In addition to the crop protection measure there is lot of scope for employment generation through value addition and marketing.
Henna Bio Fence is also useful as NPM, NTFP, SMC & NRM measures. The Decoction of henna leaves because of its strong chemical composition can be used as Bio Pesticide for all the crops which reduces the pest management expenditure for a longer period. It also controls the cross pollination (Isolation) issues between different crops. Henna Bio Fence in one meter width all along the periphery of the crop fields in multiple (6-9) rows with close spacing will become as thick & strong fence which completely arrests the wild boar and animal attacks. Reducing crop loss itself is great benefit to the farmers and as well to the nation and also there are many social & economic advantages in addition to the crop protection measure.
Keeping in view the above facts, we request the International Organizations who are very much concern about environment & global warming effects for financial contributions from Carbon Trade Funds, Environment Protection Funds, Ecological Balancing Funds, Global Warming Budgets, CSR & CER initiatives to provide them an eco-friendly, sustainable and cost effective "Henna Bio Fence" for their farm fields to protect the crops from animal attacks and to improve the income levels of the farming community. Hence, we request your kind attention towards a noble cause of "Vruksho Rakshathi Rakshithaha" by providing them the input cost from different possible funds & measures to help the struggling farmers who are feeding our Nation. The detailed project report will be submitted after hearing from you. We await quick response in this regard to make this pro-environmental project successful. We are hereby providing the YouTube link of promo film on Henna Bio Fence for information.
Henna Bio Fence Video Link:
GUESS - Henna Bio Fence - English : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvzdK4qQbQo
GUESS - Henna Bio Fence - Telugu : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQTs9khJmQg
Thanking You
Best Regards
Ph. No. 919494947894 / 919848028410
Mail:email@example.com / email@example.com
Web Site: www.guessfoundation.org
FUCOL INGENIERIA's curator insight, March 2, 2015 5:29 PM
It decisibo change to raise awareness of global solutions to relief and recovery environment
Cynthia Cardenas's curator insight, September 8, 2015 5:22 PM
This article tell us that Asia is expected to suffer worse cases of droughts that will affect regional and worldwide food security. Their was a report that was published that talked about low Carbon Futures being China, Pakistan, and Turkey as the most affected producers of wheat and maize. This makes policy makers to focus on climate change and adaptation to avoid a food crisis. Droughts across Asia are said to be twice as worse in their soil moisture compared to some periods of time. I think that this is a serious issue because we might be affected as well in food security and their needs to be changes starting now. Droughts that last longer than three months affect people severely economically. This article is a reliable scholarly source because it was written by a professor from the University of Leeds and other professionals.
Lee Pearson's curator insight, February 4, 2013 5:41 AM
"Recent research done by different scientists in Africa has shown that production of important crops especially maize will decrease by 30% for the period of 20 years due to the effect of Climate Change."
Darran Upton's curator insight, June 3, 2013 9:21 PM
This is a great report to analise as a whole class on the smartboard. The report allows students to start evaluating the sustainability of products, services and environments considerations.
Sam Sani Nzevela's comment, December 14, 2012 6:40 AM
Lack of proper leadership at the community level is also another source of poverty. Good leaders should be able to help the community to manage the resources and create meaningful wealth. If we engage the community to plant trees then we must provide alternative energy and other meaningful economic activities to support live. Leaders must be able to form effective community teams - like saccos to initiate and take ownership of economic processes/activities, attract funding and apply proper implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of community projects
Sam Sani Nzevela's curator insight, December 14, 2012 6:44 AM
Agriculture, Climate Change and Politics, is the order that I see it. Very good topic. Keep it up.
Thierry Sanzhie Bokally's curator insight, October 10, 2017 10:06 AM
While there is broad agreement that the increased focus on climate change and agriculture provides important opportunities, the case studies suggest that it is too early to say whether these opportunities translate into benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable groups and how this should happen in practice.
The failure of the discussions on agriculture in Doha could be used as an opening to better understand what is at stake, and under what conditions concepts such as 'climate smart agriculture' could improve the lives of poor and vulnerable farmers.
Linus Ridge's curator insight, August 15, 2013 6:37 AM
A very good point and requires much political agreement to make it happen.


text: The MAC Theatre Belfast, or The Metropolitan Arts Centre, to call it by its full name, is one of the new incarnations of theatre in a spell of frantic arts regeneration in Belfast. Many residents will know it by its previous incarnation, The OMAC, Old Museum Arts Centre. The OMAC was housed in a Georgian building in the city centre; just aRead More


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New Movies in Theaters: 'Water for Elephants,' 'Madea's Big Happy Family'
Two new movies are opening nationwide this this weekend. One is a film adaptation of the bestselling novel 'Water for Elephants,' starring Robert Pattinson (in a non-vampire role) and Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon.
The other is a sequel in a long line of sequels in the 'Madea' franchise, called 'Madea's Big Happy Family.' It's hard to say which film will do better at the box office, as one looks to be aiming for Oscar consideration while the other is an ensemble comedy with a well-known leading character.
Take a look at their trailers after the jump.
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
What It's About: Based on the bestselling novel by Sara Gruen, 'Water For Elephants' is set during the Great Depression and focuses on a former veterinary student (Robert Pattinson) who abandons his studies to join a traveling circus after his parents are killed in a car accident. Get Tickets & Showtimes
Six Second Review: 'Water for Elephants'
Directed by: Tyler Perry
What It's About: Madea is back! But this time, the family has some bad news about her niece, Shirley, and her health. All Shirley wants to do is get the family together to share the news as a group, but everyone else is too involved in their own lives to let it happen. That is, until Madea steps in and does what she does best. Get Tickets & Showtimes


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Did Toys R Us Become Extinct?
Toys R Us will likely be a memory in a matter of weeks.
That stirs up a boat load of emotions for many of us.
For me, it conjures up the toys of my own children; Barney, Pokeman cards and Star Wars miniatures. This certainly dates me — and once again confirms that time will fly, whether we like it or not.
The same axiom also applies to the quickly evolving environments in which organizations live.
I frequently discuss how organizations have gone down the wrong path; how they've made the worst of decisions or invested in top leadership that has only led to problems. Usually, these discussions can draw a certain link between actions and outcomes. But, I'm not sure this is entirely the case with Toys R Us. Yes, they could have been more agile, shifting more intently to a focus on customer experiences. Yes, they could have been more concerned about becoming a destination — and more than a massive warehouse of dolls and trucks and basketballs. Yes, they should have been more mindful of Amazon and the e-commerce landscape.
However, I have a lingering feeling these weren't the only reasons that Toys R Us is leaving us.
You see, as an organization Toys R Us represents a by-gone era. A time when children only played with toys. When they were not glued to a screen of some sort. The brand represents a time when lingering in a toy store was on the "to do" list.
Somehow I can't blame all of that on them.
Toys R Us simply become extinct.
The environment wasn't able to support its species any longer.
That is an outcome, I may not be able to live with.
Dr. Marla Gottschalk is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist. She is a charter member of the LinkedIn Influencer Program. Her thoughts on work life have appeared in various outlets including Talent Zoo, Forbes, Quartz and The Huffington Post.


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Technical Support
Here are some helpful guides to keep your Canyon in top shape! Just pick the relevant category to find the solution to your issue.
Setting of rebound
Rebound adjust allows you to change the speed that the shock and fork rebound. If you didn't have rebound adjust these suspension elements would rebound at the same speed as they compress and this would cause the wheel to jump up off the ground. This would mean that the rider does not have full control of the bike. The suspension must therefore be suppressed during the rebound phase. This is achieved by means of rebound adjust.
If the rebound adjust is set too low, the fork or shock rebounds too fast after the compression phase and the wheel jumps off the ground. If the rebound adjust is set too high, the fork rebounds too slowly and cannot react to bumps in the ground which are very close together.
Knobs to regulate rebound
The rebound is mainly adjusted via a red adjusting knob. This knob is positioned either on the top of the fork crown or at the bottom of the fork stanchion. Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Often the knob is marked "Rebound". On Manitou products this rebound knob is blue and is positioned at the bottom of the right fork stanchion. On Marzocchi the knob is black and is positioned at the bottom of the left fork stanchion, sometimes covered under a black cover. Picture 4
The BoXXer R2C2 has two knobs at the bottom left of the fork which are used to adjust the rebound. The silver knob controls the rebound speed when the fork compresses only a little. The red knob controls the rebound speed when the fork uses the major part of its available travel.
On shocks the red adjusting knob is located in the position shown in the image. Picture 5 Picture 6 Picture 7 Often the knob is marked "Rebound".
The Vivid shock has two adjusting bolts for rebound. The silver knob controls the rebound speed when the shock only compresses a little. The red knob controls the rebound speed when the shock uses the majority of its available travel.
Adjusting the rebound
First adjust the shock on the rear triangle. To do this you click into your pedals out of the saddle, roll for a few meters and then bounce down onto the saddle with your entire body weight. Pay attention to the rear triangle and how it behaves. The rule of thumb is: The rear triangle should not bob more than once. If it does, then the rebound is set too low. Turn the adjusting knob in this case one or two clicks inwards. If the opposite is the case and there is no bob whatsoever, then the rebound is set too high. You should therefore gradually turn the adjusting knob outwards until you achieve the required adjustment.
Now press down on the fork and let go of the handlebar again. The fork rebounds back into its original position after the compression phase. Now turn the adjusting knob click by click, checking the rebound whilst doing so. The rebound speed should be adjusted so that the front wheel almost lifts off the ground. You can check for optimum adjustment by using the so-called curbstone test. Get on the bike and ride off the curb. The fork should only bob once.
When adjusting the rebound:
Extreme temperatures change the viscosity of the oil inside the shock. The shock can thus rebound more quickly or more slowly. This can then be compensated for via rebound adjust, too.
You can set up high- and lowspeed rebound and compression on the Cane Creek Double Barrel and DB Inline dampers. Picture 9 You can adjust the compression with the screws on the left hand side and the rebound with the screws on the right hand side.
You can adjust the lowspeed performance with the small screws and the highspeed performance with the bigger screws.


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I've been fighting the flu this week, so development has been a bit slower than I would like, but I'm happy to announce a new feature that will allow you to manage all your layouts that you upload to the Pixel Scrapper gallery!
The new "manage layouts" page will allow you to see all the layouts you have uploaded, along with their various stats (number of views, number of hearts, etc.), and be notified of any new comments on any of your layouts.
To access the new page go to your profile page, and select the "Manage Layouts" link from the "Designer Tools" drop-down menu:
You can filter your layouts by title:
Sort by the number of views, hearts, or comments:
And see if there are any new comments on any of your layouts:
I hope this will be a helpful new feature for everyone who has uploaded layouts. Note that we are still planning to implement a full comment notification system similar to the notification system Facebook uses, but until we get that implemented this new page will hopefully help you keep track of new comments on your layouts.


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Celeb Playlist: 10 '80s Hair Band Songs for 'Rock of Ages'
Get ready for Rock of Ages with Guns N Roses, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, and more!
-Lucia Peters
Rockin' shorts, cute skirts, cool sandals… Hoorah! It's finally summer! We here at BettyConfidential couldn't be happier that the warm weather is finally here to stay. And you know what summer is great for? Driving with the windows down with classic rock blaring from the radio. And this, my friends, is why Rock of Ages is such a great summer movie. What could be better than a musical starring Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough, Tom Cruise (pictured above in all his tattooed glory), Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Mary J. Blige, and Catherine Zeta-Jones with a soundtrack entirely composed of '80s rock? Big hair, thrashing guitars… we're totally ready for its release this Friday!
And so in honor of the occasion, we've assembled an '80s hair band playlist for you. All of these songs appear in the movie, so we figure we'd better brush up on the original versions first. Ready to rock out? 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4!
1. "Paradise City"
Original by: Guns N Roses, 1988
Rock of Ages version by: Tom Cruise
Perhaps because of the era in which I was a teenager, I will always associate this song with the movie Can't Hardly Wait. Anyone else?
Read Ready to Rumble:10 Incredible Fight Scenes With Amazing Female Heroines
2. "Pour Some Sugar On Me"
Original by: Def Leppard, 1987
Rock of Ages version by: Tom Cruise
We introduced you to Tom Cruise's version a month or so ago. Who's got the sugar bowl ready?
3. "I Love Rock and Roll"
Original by: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, 1981
Rock of Ages version by: Diego Boneta, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, and Julianne Hough
Fun fact: Joan Jett made a surprise appearance at a Foo Fighters concert I went to a few months ago. She's definitely still got it!


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Start your new trucking career today. Find a school near you!
Find a local truck driving school near Tucson. Get information about CDL Class A and B tractor trailer, truck, passenger vehicle and school bus training classes near you. We've helped thousands of men and women start truck driving jobs and tech careers by connecting them to CDL training and other trade schools in their area, we can help you too. Fill our free application and start your new trucking career.
There are no all-online Tucson CDL classes but there are online trade school programs in most areas.
Study resources: CDL tests - CDL cost - CDL pre trip checklist
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Assemblyman Mike Gatto's political director sent out an email blast urging Democrats in the 43rd Assembly District to show up with "as many friends and family as possible" on Jan. 12 at the IATSE union hall in Burbank to elect a dozen delegates to the party's state convention.
"Mike has endorsed a slate that is running, and there is another slate that has formed with individuals who have not supported Mike in the past. We would like to support the individuals who support Mike," wrote Stacey Brenner.
Her efforts were rewarded with a massive turnout, 388 people in all, who carried the Gatto slate to an easy victory over two other slates put together by the teachers union and Armenian activists.
Gatto, who lost eight of the 12 seats to these groups in 2010, expressed his delight on Facebook: "A heartfelt thanks to everyone who came out and voted in the delegate elections today. I am so happy that the Gatto slate won 12 of 12 spots. I appreciate so much everyone's hard work, and all of the support from the community."
Responded one excited supporter: "Wow, sounds like the beginning of the Gatto Machine!"
That's exactly what the head of the Burbank teachers union and a large group of Armenian Americans who attended the election felt — but in the most negative way imaginable.
They accuse Gatto's team, led by Brenner, of using threats, intimidation, unethical tactics and racial profiling of Armenians to crush all opposition — actions that smack of machine politics, and that have made the Democratic Party appear to bear a striking resemblance to those they have so sharply criticized for voter suppression tactics.
In an email exchange, Brenner denied the accusations, saying incongruently that "Mike didn't run a slate."
"Mike endorsed a group of people running," she continued, "just like he endorses people in other races … I did not challenge prospective voters. From what I saw, some voters were challenged because there was a concern that people were bringing Republicans to vote in a Democratic caucus."
Later in an interview, Gatto political consultant Mike Shimpock said: "We were merely trying to get our slate elected. No one was targeted based on ethnicity or for any reason other than we were questioning their eligibility to vote, which was well within the rules.
"In the give and take of politics, sometimes people get upset. If that's the case, I know Mike is always open to resolve those conflicts."
The teacher slate fell apart when school board candidate Steve Ferguson, who helped organize the successful 2010 delegate election, failed to show up, claiming Gatto threatened him.
"I got a call from Gatto and he made it very clear that he wanted me to abandon my slate and pass out literature for his slate or support for me in the school board race would be pulled," Ferguson said. "So I just stayed away and knocked on doors."
Burbank teachers union leader Lori Adams was so angry she fired off a letter to Gatto, copied to union leaders across the state, urging the assemblyman to stop using "unethical tactics."
"My only issue is that you do not have the right to threaten a candidate in order to suppress a vote. That is not democracy," she wrote.
Many participants came away infuriated, claiming Armenians were singled out by Brenner for challenges in an attempt to intimidate them out of voting — a claim that was given credence by the regional party official overseeing the election.
"There were 30-some challenges issued to voters, and it was relatively noticeable that most of the people who were challenged had Armenian surnames — whether that was intentional or coincidental, it certainly didn't look nice," recalled Karen Wingard, who oversaw two other delegate elections where there were no challenges or controversies.
"I doubt that an Assembly member who was a good Democrat would indulge in what appeared to be voter suppression. It had an unpleasant appearance. I have never seen anything like it so I emailed two party officials afterward about what happened."
The phrase "good Democrat" came up a lot that day.
A flier circulated at the meeting attacked Garen Yegparian, an activist and columnist for the Armenian publication Asbarez, regarding his tough criticisms of the assemblyman in a six-part series of articles labeled "Grimy Gatto." Noting his support for Republican election candidate and longtime friend Greg Krikorian, the flier questioned Yegparian's party loyalty, saying in large black letters that he "SUPPORTS REPUBLICANS OVER GOOD DEMOCRATS."
In an impassioned one-minute speech, Yegparian recalled saying: "I held up that piece of paper and said, 'It's all true except for one thing, Mike Gatto is not a good Democrat. Mike Gatto is a vile creature. We have to work to eliminate this blight from our district.'"
Zanku Armenian — a prominent community leader who writes an occasional online column for the Glendale News-Press — was more moderate in his language but no less angry over finding himself and his wife subject to challenges.
"The only person challenging anyone was Stacey Brenner," he said, contradicting Brenner's statement. "She was walking up and down the aisle essentially picking out people who looked Armenian because she thought those were people who would not support the Gatto slate."
He continued: "It's like such hatred toward certain people and they all happen to be Armenian. That's what is so disappointing and troubling. [Gatto] has the right to support who he wants, but what he doesn't have the right to do is achieve his goals through bullying and intimidation and outright violation of the party's values. When the party turns a blind eye, it is fueling a cancer."
At the least, there are a lot of hard feelings among Democrats in the district and, as Wingard observed, the appearance of serious misconduct. That ought to be sufficient for the Democratic Party's leadership to fully investigate what happened and clear the air.
RON KAYE can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Share your thoughts and stories with him.


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Five soldiers dressed in camouflage and carrying machine guns took cover behind a stack of wooden pallets. One yelled "incoming" and a few seconds later a large explosion ignited behind them, setting off a ball of flame rising 30 feet high. The soldiers fell to the ground from the force of the blast, a concoction of black powder and gasoline.
The scene was one of many pyrotechnic stunts performed Thursday at the Burbank Fire Department Training Center for a crowd of Southern California firefighters who were attending a three-day course on how to become a certified motion picture and television safety officer.
The California State Fire Marshal's office launched the program two decades ago to educate local fire department officials about potential hazards on films sets – including faulty wiring, blocked exits and flammable materials -- and how pyrotechnic specialists and stunt performers do their jobs.
-- Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times


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Hot Food Containers
Hot Food Containers is free HD wallpaper. This wallpaper was upload at February 24, 2019 upload by admin in Home.You can download it in your computer by clicking resolution image in Download by size:. Don't forget to rate and comment if you interest with this wallpaper.
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Official Preview: Equus "Story of the Horse"
Preview: Season 37 Episode 8 | 30s
The relationship between man and his noble steed is almost as old as civilization itself, allowing our species to explore, conquer and flourish side by side with the horse. NATURE traces this revolutionizing partnership with anthropologist Niobe Thompson in this two-part series.
Aired: 01/16/19Video has closed captioning.


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Last night, I did something I very rarely do: I bought a newspaper.
I very rarely buy newspapers because I very rarely have a need for them: I generally can find all the news and information I want for free online. Also, newspapers leave stacks of paper all over my house that I have to dispose of later and feel bad about wasting. So, there's actually a good reason NOT to buy newspapers.
So, why did I buy a newspaper last night?
Because there was some news in the newspaper that I wanted that wasn't available online for free.
Specifically, the newspaper had an article in it that described what had happened at a meeting held earlier this week that will determine the future of Nantucket Island. The meeting was about whether the Nantucket Conservation Commission will allow some homeowners to build a seawall to save their houses from rapid bluff erosion. I went to half of the "ConCom" meeting, and wrote about it here, but I wasn't able to attend the second half. So I needed someone to tell me what I had missed. I knew the local Nantucket newspaper, the Inquirer and Mirror, would do exactly that. I knew no other publication would do that, given that there's not much news competition on this island. I also knew the Inquirer and Mirror wasn't dumb enough to give me the information I wanted for free. So I rushed down to the grocery store in the rain and bought a copy.
As I had hoped, the Inquirer and Mirror told me all about the meeting I had missed half of.
That article alone was worth the $1.50 I had to pay for the paper. That price, by the way, was about half of what the same store charges for a blueberry muffin.
But there were other articles I enjoyed reading in the paper, too, none of which I could have found anywhere else. For example, I learned that a couple of swimmers had gotten caught in a current at a beach where my family swims and then been whisked out to sea (the swimmers were rescued, thankfully, which the paper also told me about.) And I learned that they are going to put a STOP sign at the intersection of Orange Street and Union Street, which is excellent news (it's high time they did that). And so on.
In short, I was extremely happy with my newspaper purchase, which delivered a lot more than $1.50 of value to me.
And that got me thinking about the much-ballyhooed problems and challenges in the news industry and how unbelievably boneheaded so many newspaper companies have been.
The main problem in the news industry, of course, is not that there isn't enough news coverage (a common complaint that newspaper people invoke to scare you into thinking that if their jobs and salaries aren't saved the world will go to hell in a handbasket).
The problem in the news industry, with many popular areas of coverage, is there is way too much news coverage.
There is so much news coverage, in fact--so many news organizations covering the same stories--that news companies have to give their news away for free (because, although journalism schools won't tell you this, the more there is of something, the less it is worth--supply and demand matters in this market, too).
It's not surprising that those engaged in this kind of news coverage will say anything to try to protect their jobs. But the fact that some of these commodity-coverage jobs are threatened isn't even remotely a threat to society. They aren't all threatened. We do need some news about, say, the White House . But if the number of news organizations that can afford White House correspondents gets cut in half, society will be just fine. We'll still have more news about the White House available for free all in real time than we could ever possibly consume.
The other trouble in the news industry is that, for the past 20 years, many news organizations haven't even charged for news coverage that there wasn't too much of--stuff that people would have paid for.
What news coverage is that?
News that other news organizations aren't covering.
The only way I could think of to find out what happened at that Nantucket Conservation Committee meeting was to buy the only newspaper that covered it--a newspaper that, wisely, did not also publish the article online for free. The newspaper did a good job covering the meeting, so I was happy to pay them for their effort.
The Nantucket paper, the Inquirer and Mirror, has always charged for its content, online and off. The boneheadedness that has crippled the rest of the newspaper industry, in other words, has not found its way onto this island.
In these two observations, by the way, lie the secrets to building a happy, healthy, and vibrant news industry of the future:
- Consolidate the "commodity" areas of the global news business, so that literally dozens of high-quality news organizations aren't covering the exact same stories and scratching and clawing just to survive, and
- Stop giving away for free news and information that people will happily pay for. What will people pay for? Well, for starters, they will pay for news they want that you have that no one else has. (They'll pay for other things, too, but you can worry about that later).
These things are already happening naturally, and they will continue to happen. And that's great news. Not just global news consumers, who now have access to more news at lower cost than they ever have in history, but for news professionals, too.
Contrary to what career newspaper folks will tell you, we are in a golden age for news. And as this transition period ends, and the industry consolidates and gets smarter, things are only going to get better.


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If you're a WordPress user and have an instance running on a Rackspace server, you should read this article to be sure you keep your site safe.
Just finished cleaning up a hacked client whose website is hosted on Rackspace Cloud hosting. I had discovered that there were a large number of people all on the same IP as my client a couple of weeks ago who all got hacked. [...] It looks like the culprit might have been a security hole in phpmyadmin. Hopefully this will turn out to be what was wrong, because Rackspace upgraded all of their installations of that package this past Saturday.
No matter the cause, there's a quick fix that can help protect your installation from the hack attempts making their way around. The problem was an injection directly into the wp_options table with the autoload turned on and a content field containing some PHP code. This code was executed each time the page loaded. They also include a bit of SQL you can run to check and see if there's any entries that might have made their way in.


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Super Marble Pebbles (White, Big, Unpolished) - 2 Kg
Type: Rough
Size: Big
Color: White
** for new paypal users only
Gardens can contain flowers, plants, herbs, vegetables, and decorative elements. Using pebbles in a garden brings different colors and textures to the garden. Pebbles can also fill up otherwise empty space in the garden, leaving a visual that might be considered more interesting and aesthetic than simple dirt, soil or mulch.
Pebbles in the garden can serve other purposes, such as creating a decorative border or a landscaped path, providing a pretty ground and soil cover, and providing dry garden beds. Pebble a garden with a mix of pebbles and minerals that complement the vegetation in the yard.
- Superior quality
- Recognized as the best landscaping stones
- Need no maintenance
- Efficiently polished
- Comes ad smooth edges, rough edges, transparent & more
- Available in various sizes, shapes and colors
- Used for decorating home and parks
- Landscaping
- Wall cladding
- Garden patios, pavements
- Waterfalls and realted decorations
- Used in aquariums and artistic monuments
- Garden walks / Pathways
- Water fountains
- Courtyard gardens.
- Used for decor purpose at hotels, restaurants as well as in households.
- Perfect for Flooring, Shower Floors & Walls and Pools etc.
What Customer says ?
Want to tell us your experience with this product ? Just login and add your comments
Some stone are not correct colour pls do it, squancely
very nice!
Satisfactory.. But I need more for my pots..
Satisfied with the quality of product
Any query about super marble pebbles (white, big, unpolished) - 2 kg


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Message Board
Kam Majd Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Majd has written!
Author Majd's Book Reviews
High Impact
Dell, Dec 2003, 6.50, 592. ISBN: 0440237580 In the Miami Airport pilot Kate Gallagher and her six year old daughter Molly head to the plane that the former will fly while her child rides as a passenger. A sickly looking man accidentally knocks into Molly with both feeling the electric shock that passes between them. The man apologizes before racing for his flight. However, the plane he rides suddenly loses all electrical power. The man, Evan ...


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hcaz32000 needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 26 designs submitted by 12 freelance designers.
BarNites.com is a video sharing script. The design is orange and black and we are looking for a logo.
Bar Nites
We need a a logo to match the design we have on barnites.com. This logo should be fun and match the theme.
We do not have any specific wants.
We are open on this logo.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.