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Australia denied desperately unlucky South Africa a dramatic comeback win with a late converted Mat Rogers try for a 20-18 Tri-Nations rugby victory at the Olympic stadium yesterday.
The Springboks, who were humiliated 49-0 by the Australians in Brisbane three weeks ago, were leading 18-13 and on track for a backs-to-the-wall victory before Rogers' game-stealing try four minutes from full-time.
The winning try was conceived and executed by three players off the reserves bench with scrumhalf Sam Cordingley and flanker Phil Waugh combining to send flyhalf Rogers sprinting past Springbok fullback Percy Montgomery to the left corner.
Stirling Mortlock's sideline conversion hit the near upright and bounced over the crossbar, clinching victory to the joy of the 60,522 home crowd.
The Wallabies' last-gasp win keeps them in the hunt for the Tri-Nations title, three points behind New Zealand, but having played an extra game. Australia face the All Blacks again in Auckland in a fortnight.
"It wasn't a pretty win but it was a good win," skipper George Gregan said.
Springbok captain John Smit said his team did everything but win.
"It's heartbreaking, we worked so hard for 80 minutes," he said.
"We knew from the start we could win this game, we did enough to win it, but we just didn't come through when it really mattered so we'll take a lot more out of this game than the last one and we are looking forward to playing in our home Tests," Smit said.
From the kick-off Australia faced a far more committed South African team than the one they thrashed three weeks earlier and they slogged out a dour first half.
Mortlock put the Wallabies ahead with an 11th-minute penalty after South Africa's forwards were penalized for diving into a ruck.
"It's not a swimming pool," French referee Joel Jutge was heard to say to the Springboks as he awarded the penalty.
Montgomery missed two relatively easy penalty attempts before the Wallabies were gifted try eight minutes before halftime.
Flyhalf Butch James sliced his intended kick crossfield and Wallaby winger Mark Gerrard then surged through between Bryan Habana and Montgomery, setting sail for the try-line from halfway.
His against the run of play try, converted by Mortlock, pushed the Australians out to a 10-0 halftime lead.
Some of the Springbok tackling was ferocious, but legal, with James smashing Mortlock in a chest-high hit inside South Africa's quarter and open-side flanker Juan Smith picking up playmaker Stephen Larkham in a driving tackle.
Two errors from Larkham in the opening minutes put South Africa in a strong attacking position and George Smith was penalized for hands in the ruck to give James his team's first points.
Center Wynand Olivier sliced through and sent winger Akona Ndungane deep inside Australia's half before he was cover-tackled by Gregan to save a try.
Larkham was penalized for coming into a ruck from the side and James had South Africa trailing 10-6.
Gregan dropped a pass off a scrum win on halfway and it was toed through for centre Jaque Fourie to win the chase and score. James converted for South Africa and the team hit the front for the first time at 13-10 after 55 minutes.
The Wallabies hit back and Gerrard just missed scoring his second try when he could not gather a kick ahead but South Africa's backs were penalized for offside at a ruck and Mortlock levelled the scores at 13-13 minutes later.


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Winchester Floods – Novel Idea Gets Road Open | Winchester Today
Posted by News Editor
Posted in News
Winchester Floods – Novel Idea Gets Road Open | Winchester Today
In spite of persistent flooding and rising ground water levels, Hampshire County Council has taken action to get one of Winchester's main arterial roads reopened in time for this evening's rush hour (Monday 17 February).
Over the weekend (15 and 16 February), highways engineers have been working on Andover Road to erect a temporary elevated carriageway to enable traffic to travel on one lane of the northbound dual carriageway and relieve the pressure on other roads going out of Winchester.
Winchester Floods – Novel Idea Gets Road Open – The Solution
Councillor Seán Woodward, Executive Member for Economy, Transport and Environment at Hampshire County Council, says on an average day, 6000 vehicles travel northbound on the Andover Road: "Its closure has obviously led to increased traffic congestion and we were concerned that the city could become gridlocked if other routes in and out of Winchester were to become similarly affected.
"The solution we have come up with is the construction of a temporary elevated carriageway. This has involved using 68 concrete barriers to retain 160 tonnes of 40mm stones and a further 160 tonnes of crushed concrete, finished off with over 500 square metres of tarmacadam road surfacing (pictured below).
"It is a solution we have used successfully before in the county, 14 years ago, to keep traffic moving on the A31 at Ropley.
"I am pleased to say that every effort was made to get this built as soon as possible in time for the Monday evening rush hour. The elevated carriageway should ensure that the road can remain open to single file traffic even though water levels may fluctuate."
The northbound dual carriageway on the Andover Road has been closed since 8 February and a diversion has been in place using the B3049 Stockbridge Road – or through Littleton, which has itself been hit by floods.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Niall and Hazel been best friend since they were little,...
Dangerously In Love (16+) [Finished]1708312398
- by NiallNandosxx
- Rating:
- Published: 17 Feb 2014
- Updated: 29 Apr 2014
- Status: Complete
{Warning; Explicit content, Graphic sex scenes, regular swearing} I walked down the ally way trying to be as quiet as possible but then I hear a BANG, so I run but I see someone behind me running way faster than me, the person catches up to me and grabs me and holds me with one hand on one side of my arm and the other of the other side of me but all I see is some curly hair and green eyes.
Join MovellasFind out what all the buzz is about. Join now to start sharing your creativity and passion
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text:
PALE SKETCHER - 'Seventh Heaven EP' OUT NOW!
"Justin K. Broadrick's Pale Sketcher alias fuses the Godflesh / Jesu founder's longstanding obsessions, fusing metal-grade emotional heft to ambient-tinged electronic excursions. On the Seventh Heaven EP, Broadrick follows up his 2010 debut, Pale Sketches: Demixed, with yet another stylistic shift, deepening and coloring the Pale Sketcher sound in ways that have only been hinted at previously.
From the opening strains of "Seventh Heaven"—a grid of repeating, micro-sampled melodic noise and vocals buttressed by a dancefloor-ready beat—it becomes apparent that Broadrick is growing as a producer, and Pale Sketcher is reaping the rewards. The slow-motion dronescapes of Demixed have given way to a positively light-on-its feet rhythmic sense and a Seefeel-esque attention to textural detail. "The Rainy Season" furthers the theme, draping shoegazing guitar filigree over a grimy breakbeat and an achingly lovely vocoded melody. King Midas Sound (aka UK's The Bug, Broadrick's sometime-collaborator in duo Techno Animal) remixes Demixed's "Wash It All Away" into a doomy alternate-universe Portishead single, featuring Hitomi on vocals to this originally instrumental track wth a feminine quaver and frying the low end to a crisp. The EP's final two tracks—the snowy ambient static of "Resonanz Therapy Music" and the head-nodding lullabye of "Drag Your Feet"—both hint at the limitless future of Justin K. Broadrick's Pale Sketcher, one in which beauty and ugliness, sadness and joy intermingle and merge into a different animal altogether."
'Seventh Heaven EP' @ Ghostly
'Seventh Heaven EP' @ Boomkat on FLAC & mp3
ON iTunes UK / EU
On iTunes USA


text:
Search for more flights to Beijing (PEK)
Return: 2020-01-26
Things to do in Beijing
Beijing has retained many traditions while transforming into a modern political and business center. China's bustling capital city offers a unique journey through the country's past and present.
Beijing's top attractions
- Step inside the imposing walls of the Forbidden City and see the opulent halls, courtyards and pavilions.
- Tour a hutong, a traditional housing area.
- Stand in the large Tiananmen Square, which is surrounded by important buildings including the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall.
- Discover why the National Stadium is nicknamed the Bird's Nest.
- Admire the grand Temple of Heaven and stroll through its lush gardens.
- Spend an evening at the Peking Opera, also known as the Beijing Opera.
- Take a day trip to the Great Wall of China.
Best time to travel to Beijing
Beijing is a year-round destination, with spring and fall generally offering the most pleasant weather. Fall is a popular time for festivals, including the Fall Fragrant Hill Red Leaf Festival, highlighting the changing foliage, the Beijing 798 Art Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chinese New Year, each winter, is the largest annual celebration. See ice sculptures at the Longqing Gorge Ice and Snow Festival and the Bird's Nest Ice and Snow Festival, both held in the winter.
Find your vacation package to Beijing with United Vacations.


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Yosemite Falls
Make Yosemite your everyday backdrop! Browse the gallery below to select and download a free Facebook cover photo or a wallpaper image for your desktop or mobile device.
To get started, click your favorite photo, and then use the links provided to download and save the image to your computer, phone or tablet. For more help, see detailed instructions below.
Yosemite Falls
At 2,425 feet, Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in North America. In 2005, Conservancy donors funded major improvements at the approach to Lower Yosemite Fall (one of the three waterfalls that make up this iconic natural feature), including a new accessible trail, habitat restoration and educational exhibits.
Photo: © Keith Walklet
Browse Wallpaper
Wallpaper Help
Let Yosemite's beauty be your backdrop! Browse our gallery of free park photos and add some Sierra scenery to your desktop or mobile device. Follow the directions below to download your new wallpaper image or Facebook cover photo.
Mobile Phone/Tablet Users:
Select the download action for your device (Android or iPhone) from the menu beside the photo. Once the photo has loaded fully, press on the image until a list of options appears. Select the "save" option, and then use your phone's photo gallery or display settings to set the image as your wallpaper.
Desktop Windows Users:
Select the "Desktop" option from the menu beside the photo.
If using Google Chrome: When the photo has loaded fully, right-click and select "Save Image As." Once the image is saved to your device, use your computer's Control Panel to update your desktop background with the new image.
If using Firefox or Internet Explorer: When the photo has loaded fully, right-click on the image and Select "Set As Wallpaper" or "Set As Background" from the drop-down menu. Check your desktop to see the new background.
Note: You may need to restart your computer for the wallpaper to be installed.
Desktop Mac users:
Select the "Desktop" option to download to your computer. Once the photo has loaded fully, click the image and drag it to your desktop. Open "System Preferences" and select "Desktop." Add the photo to the Desktop pictures window by dragging and dropping it, or by selecting the image file from the side bar. Select the image to set it as your wallpaper.
Note: You may need to restart your computer for the wallpaper to be installed.
Facebook Covers:
Click the "Facebook Cover" link to open the image file. Save the photo to your computer (on Windows, right-click on the image; on Mac, either CTRL-click or drag the image to your desktop). Sign into Facebook and upload the file as your cover photo. Share Yosemite's beauty with your social media network — and inspire others with your commitment to preserving and protecting the park!


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- Welcome to the Kancolle Wiki!
- Currently account creation is by request only. Once you submit your request please wait 1-2 days for our administrators to process your request.
- You can also visit our IRC channel at #kancollewiki to directly contact an administrator.
Difference between revisions of "Combat"
(→Main Formula)
(→Anti-Sub Warfare: adding suggestions torn from 5-1 edits)
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Any enemy submarines will force Destroyers, Light Cruisers, and Torpedo Cruisers to target them. Cut-In and Double Attacks are ignored. In normal Night Battles, ASW damage is scratch damage only. In battles starting at night, Formation Modifiers apply.
Any enemy submarines will force Destroyers, Light Cruisers, and Torpedo Cruisers to target them. Cut-In and Double Attacks are ignored. In normal Night Battles, ASW damage is scratch damage only. In battles starting at night, Formation Modifiers apply.
As of June 30, 2016, Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Torpedo Cruisers and Training Cruisers can now perform a preemptive Anti-Submarine Attack on enemy submarines. [[Isuzu#Second Upgrade|Isuzu Kai Ni]] can do
As of June 30, 2016, Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Torpedo Cruisers and Training Cruisers can now perform a preemptive Anti-Submarine Attack on enemy submarines. [[Isuzu#Second Upgrade|Isuzu Kai Ni]] can do unconditionally; other light cruisers as well as destroyers, torpedo cruisers and training cruisers need to have an equipped sonar in addition to have at least 100 ASW (counting equipment stat adjustments but not improvement through [[Akashi's Improvement Arsenal]]).
=== Common Setups ===
=== Common Setups ===
Revision as of 00:20, 16 July 2016
For detailed explanations on specific mechanics, see their respective pages:
- 1 Combat Stages
- 2 Formation Selection
- 3 Detection
- 4 Aerial Combat
- 5 Opening Stages
- 6 Day Combat
- 7 Night Combat
- 8 Damage Calculations
- 8.1 Main Formula
- 8.2 Base Attack Power
- 8.3 Pre-Cap Modifiers
- 8.4 Light Cruiser Fitted Gun Bonus
- 8.5 Attack Power Cap
- 8.6 Critical Modifier
- 8.7 Post-Cap Modifiers
- 8.8 Remaining Ammo Modifier
- 8.9 Player Damage Taken
- 9 Combat Equipment Setup
- 10 Victory Conditions
- 11 Additional Explanation/Details
Combat Stages
For most combat engagements, the battle will begin in day combat and follow the following set of stages. Several stages will not occur unless certain conditions are met.
- Combined Fleet uses a modified combat order.
- For Air Battle Only nodes (1-6 and certain event map nodes; may be a single-fleet or Combined Fleet), there is no Opening Torpedo Salvo, and Day Combat is completely replaced by a second round of Aerial Combat.
- Thus ships that cannot participate in Aerial Combat cannot attack. They can still perform Anti-Air Defense, as usual.
|Formation Selection
|With 4 or more ships in a fleet, a fleet formation must be selected before combat. The selected formation affects ship damage, hit rate, and defense.
This step is skipped if you have 3 or fewer ships.
|Requires planes or high detection stat (usually from RADAR).
Success increases accuracy and evasion.
Failure prevents participation of allied planes in the aerial combat phase (and will result in your Air Superiority value treated as 0).
If no message is shown, it is treated as a failure.
|Aerial Combat
|Participants: CVLs and CVs equipped with fighter or bomber planes; BBVs, CAVs, AVs, and SSVs equipped with seaplane bombers; some enemy-specific ship classes
If a side achieves Air Superiority or Supremacy in this stage, that side can use Artillery Spotting.
All ships capable of launching attack or bomber planes will launch them in this stage (unless Detection is failed), regardless of current HP status.
This step is skipped if there is no eligible participant.
|Opening Stages
Supporting Fire from Sortie Support Expeditions. This has an aspect of randomness and may not trigger.
The orientation of the allied and enemy fleets is displayed. The engagement form affects both fleets equally.
|Day Combat
Participants: All ships except:
Firing order alternates between allied and enemy sides, starting with allied.
Participants: Same criteria as 1st round.
Participants: Requires current HP > 50% of Max HP, Base Torpedo Value > 0 and being one of the following classes:
Like the opening torpedo salvo, all participants attack simultaneously.
|Night Combat
| Participants: All ships except:
The first slot allied ship attacks, then the first slot enemy ship attacks, and so on. If a ship is sunk or critically damaged, the game will skip its turn.
For certain nodes and events, combat begins in the Night Combat stage, then proceeds to Day combat if certain conditions are met.
Formation Selection
With 4 or more ships in a fleet, a fleet formation must be selected before combat. The selected formation affects ship damage and hit rate.
- Combined fleet uses a different set of formations unless it is a night battle only node. Click here for details.
Formation Modifier
|Formation Icon
|Surface Damage Modifier
|Anti-sub Damage Modifier
|Anti-air Modifier
|Day Shelling Hit Rate
|Day Torpedo Hit Rate
|Night Battle Hit Rate[1]
|Flagship Protection Rate
| Line Ahead
単縦陣 (Tanjuu-jin?)
| Double Line
複縦陣 (Fukujuu-jin?)
| Diamond
輪形陣 (Rinkei-jin?)
|Very Low
|Very Low
| Echelon
梯形陣 (Teikei-jin?)
| Line Abreast
単横陣 (Tan'ou-jin?)
|Very Low
- The surface damage modifier applies to both shelling and torpedo attacks, but does not affect Aerial Combat or Anti-Submarine attacks.
- Diamond Formation is only selectable as a formation with 5+ ships.
- Flagship protection is the situation where a non-flagship ship protects the flagship from being damaged by receiving the attack instead.
- Line Ahead has the highest offensive power for surface combat. It is the default choice for encounters after the 3rd battle node to preserve firepower because of the remaining ammo penalty.
- Double Line is generally a good formation for heavy BB/CV fleets. There is a significant accuracy increase that benefits the typically lower accuracy carriers, while BB often still have enough firepower.
- Line Abreast is the best formation for anti-sub purposes.
- Echelon has not been tested extensively, but it is hypothesized to be a defensive formation for submarines.
- Fleet LOS affects Detection rate.
- Success increases fleet accuracy and evasion.
- Failure prevents participation of allied planes in the aerial combat phase.
Aerial Combat
Split into a separate page due to its length.
Opening Stages
The Opening Stages of combat proceed in order with the Supporting Expedition effect, the Opening Torpedo salvo, then the display of the engagement form
- In World 5 and Event Maps, the Sortie fleet can receive a salvo of Support fire from fleets deployed on Support Expeditions. The type of supporting fire depends on the composition of the expedition fleet.
- The Opening Torpedo Salvo is fired by Submarines over level 10, ships with the Type A Ko-hyoteki (CLTs, AVs, SS) equipped, and the Enemy Battleship Re-Class.
- Torpedoes are fired from all ships simultaneously, and accuracy is affected by the selected Formation type.
- Ships capable of firing in this phase will launch torpedo even if suffering moderate / heavy damage (which prevents launching torpedo during Closing Torpedo phase).
- Opening torpedoes will prioritize targeting ships that can be damaged by them. If no such target exists, the torpedo will launch but always miss.
- The Opening stages finish with the display of the Engagement form and the formation of the two fleets.
Engagement Form Modifier
|Damage Modifier
|Chance with Saiun
|Parallel Engagement
同航戦 (Doukousen?)
|Head-on Engagement
反航戦 (Hankousen?)
|About 40%
|Crossing the T (Advantage)
T字戦有利 (T Ji-sen Yuuri?)
|Crossing the T (Disadvantage)
T字戦不利 (T Ji-sen Furi?)
- All engagement forms affect both sides equally, including crossing the T (Advantage or Disadvantage).
- Regular night battle and aerial combat are not affected by engagement forms. Nodes starting with Night Combat, however, do take engagement forms into consideration (despite it not being displayed).
- Equipping a Saiun effectively makes what would have been Crossing the T (Disadvantage) become Head-on Engagement.
- It is speculated that the Engagement form also impacts accuracy.
Day Combat
Day combat is split into 2~3 phases: 1st Shelling, 2nd Shelling (if applicable), Closing Torpedo
|Ship Class/Armaments
|1st Shelling Phase
(Range Order)
At the start of the 1st shelling phase, the firing order is fixed as Allied Ship with longest Range → Enemy Ship with longest Range → Allied Ship with second-longest Range → …
|Carrier Attacks
Hayasui Kai (if equipped with )
Must be equipped with either or to attack
|Regarding Seaplane Bombers
CAVs, BBVs, and AVs
Cannot utilize seaplane bombers (shelling attack is based on own firepower), unless performing anti-submarine warfare (see below)
|Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)
DDs, CLs, Katori, Kashima, and CLTs
If enemy submarines are present, depth charges will be dropped instead of normal shelling attacks
CAVs, BBVs, AVs
If enemy submarines are present and the ship is equipped with either seaplane bomber, Autogyro, or ASW Liaison, ASW attacks (via plane dropping depth charges) will be carried out instead of normal shelling attacks
|Hayasui Kai (if equipped with ) and CVLs
If enemy submarines are present and the ship is equipped with or , ASW attacks (via plane dropping depth charges) will be carried out instead of normal shelling attacks
|No ASW attacks will be carried out, regardless of equipment setup.
|Regarding Range
In order: Very Long → Long → Medium → Short → Very Short
|2st Shelling Phase
(Lineup Order)
Only takes place when any of the following ships is present (in either side): BBs, BBVs, or the enemy has one of the special ship classes (鬼 Oni/Ogress, 姫 Hime/Princess) that acts like a BB/BBV.
|Closing Torpedo Salvo
|Torpedo attacks
Requires Current HP > 50% of Max HP (i.e. not in moderate or heavy damage).
Night Combat
- Night battle damage depends on both the Firepower and Torpedo stats for attack power. Consequently, DDs, CLs, CLTs and CAs have drastically increased strength at night.
- Any vessel at night must not be heavily damaged (red) before attacking in order to participate in night battle.
- Certain combination of weapon equipment (Main Guns, Secondary Guns, Torpedoes) will cause Cut-In or Double Attacks at night, greatly increasing accuracy and/or firepower
- Auxiliary equipment (e.g RADAR, SONAR, Depth Charges, Searchlights, Turbines, Special ammunition, Pure AA Equipment, Torpedo Bulges, and Midget-subs) will not affect the combination.
- If night combat nodes are anticipated, it can be very helpful to utilize specialized night battle equipment such as Star Shells and Searchlight. Type 98 Recon Seaplane (Night Scout) is also an option.
- Damage against submarines is greatly reduced during regular Night Battles (to scratch damage).
- Formation damage modifiers do not apply in Night Battle (always 100% for regular shelling).
- Nodes begin with Night Battle and in Combined Fleet Night Battle, Formation anti-sub damage modifiers apply.
- The Engagement Form is not explicitly shown in Night Battle nodes, but the modifier will apply.
- The animation for ships equipped with 2 different torpedoes may be different but the damage output is still the same.
- A Prototype FaT Type 95 Oxygen Torpedo Kai + 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount will show a cut-in animation of FaT+Quint+Quint and if equipped the other way around, the cut-in animation will show Quint+FaT+FaT. However, both animation produces the same damage output.
Damage Calculations
Main Formula
|Pre-Cap Attack Power = Base Attack Power + Night Spotting Bonus
|Attack Power Before Cap = [Pre-Cap Attack Power × Pre-Cap Modifiers + Light Cruiser Fitted Gun Bonus]
|Cap-Adjusted Attack Power =
|Attack Power Before Cap, if it is less or equal to the Attack Power Cap
|Attack Power Cap + √(Attack Power Before Cap - Attack Power Cap), if Attack Power Before Cap is over the Attack Power Cap
|Effective Armor = Enemy Armor × 0.7 + Random(0 ~ Enemy Armor -1) × 0.6
|Final Attack Power = [Cap-Adjusted Attack Power × Critical Modifier] × Post-Cap Modifiers
|Damage = (Final Attack Power - Effective Armor) × Remaining Ammo Modifier
| Notes:
Base Attack Power
|Base Attack Power
|Opening Air Strike
|Modifier × ((Bomber's Dive Bomb or Torpedo stat) × √(Number of Planes) + 25)
|Number of planes is post anti-bomber combat and fleet anti-air defense
Modifier is 1.0 for dive bombers, either 0.8 or 1.5 (50% chance for either) for torpedo bombers
|Shelling (Carriers)
|{[Firepower + Torpedo + Effective Bonus (Shelling) + (Dive Bomb × 1.3)] × 1.5} + 55
|This is also the formula for Land-Based Abyssal ships during shelling rounds. (Uses the standard Night Battle formula at night.)
|Shelling (Others)
|Firepower + Effective Bonus (Shelling) + 5
|Torpedo + Effective Bonus (Torpedo) + 5
|Applies to both Opening and Closing Torpedo Salvo.
|Anti-sub warfare
|√(Base Ship ASW) × 2 + Equipment ASW × 1.5 + Effective Bonus (ASW) + Ship Class Constant
|Ship Class Constant: 13 for DD/CL/CLT, 8 for CAV/BBV/AV/CVL/LHA
|Night Battle
|Firepower + Torpedo + Effective Bonus (Firepower) + Effective Bonus (Torpedo)
|This is the formula for all ships participating in night combat (including Standard Carrier Wo-Class Flagship and Light Carrier Nu-Class Flagship).
|VS Regular Installation
|Day: 250% (if Type 3 Shell Equipped) × [Firepower + Effective Bonus (Firepower) + Shelling Modifier for the fleet (+5 for regular fleet, varies for combined fleet)] + WG42 Bonus
Night: 250% (if Type 3 Shell Equipped) × [Firepower + Effective Bonus (Night Battle) + Night Contact Modifier (+5 if Type 98 Recon Seaplane (Night Scout) triggered)] + WG42 Bonus
|WG42 Bonus:
This applies to all land-base enemies that Type 3 Shell is effective against.
|VS Other Land Structures
|Supply Depot Princess, Artillery Imp, Isolated Island Princess all take extra damage from Daihatsu-class Landing Craft, Daihatsu-class Landing Craft (Type 89 Medium Tanks & Marines), and Type 2 Ka-Mi Tank.
The effective bonus comes from improving equipments, see that page for details.
Pre-Cap Modifiers
These are the factors directly applied to your ship's attack power.
- Formation Modifier (see "Damage modifier")
- Engagement Modifier
- Health Modifier
- ASW Synergy
- Night Attack Modifier
Effects from the modifiers are multiplied cumulatively. Formation Modifier, Engagement Modifier, and Health Modifier are applied sequentially.
Ship's Health Modifier
|Minor damage (小破, Shōha?) or less
|Moderate damage (中破, Chūha?)
|Heavy damage (大破, Taiha?)
These modifiers do not affect Aerial Combat.
ASW Synergy
|Equipped Both Depth Charge and Sonar?
Having 2 sets of sonars and depth charges does not increase the synergy bonus.
Night Attack Modifier
Certain Equipment setups have a chance to trigger special attacks at night, giving boost to both attack power and accuracy. This stage is usually the most rewarding / dangerous because both sides have drastically increased attack power.
The ship must be able to participate in the night battle in order to trigger the special attacks.
|Special Attack
(Double Attack and Cut-In Attack)
|120% for Double Attack.
Varies for Cut-In Attack depending on type.
See here for details.
|Any misses on Cut-In Attack and Double Attack becomes scratch damage instead.
Damage cap applied to each attack separately for Double Attack and Cut-In Attacks that calculates damage twice (such as Torpedo Cut-In).
|0% for regular map nodes
Formation Modifier for Combined Fleet battle nodes and Night Battle nodes.
|This results in scratch damage against submarines during normal night battles.
Engagement Form modifiers will apply for Combined Fleet battle nodes and Night Battle nodes.
Light Cruiser Fitted Gun Bonus
This is a bonus incorporated when the fitted gun system on light cruisers was introduced. Details may change as more testing is done.
[math]\text {Light Cruiser Fitted Gun Bonus} = \sqrt{\text{# of Equipped Lightweight Naval Guns }} + 2 \times \sqrt{\text{ # of Equipped Lightweight Twin Gun Mounts}}[/math]
This bonus applies to light cruisers (CL), torpedo cruisers (CLT), and training cruisers (CLp), and this bonus counts the following guns:
- Lightweight Naval Guns: 14cm Naval Gun, 15.2cm Naval Gun
- Lightweight Twin Gun Mounts: 14cm Twin Gun Mount, 15.2cm Twin Gun Mount, 15.2cm Twin Gun Mount Kai
Example: A ship equipped with a 14cm Naval Gun, a 15.2cm Twin Gun Mount, and a 15.2cm Twin Gun Mount Kai gets a bonus of [math]1 \times \sqrt{1} + 2 \times \sqrt{2} \approx 3.8 [/math]
Some items to note:
- Pre-Cap Modifiers do not apply to this bonus, but this bonus applies before attack cap is calculated.
- 15.5cm Triple Gun Mount (Main), 15.5cm Triple Gun Mount (Secondary), OTO 152mm triple extended machine gun and the such are not counted for the purpose of this bonus.
- The bonus provided will be lower compared to when the ship is equipped with multiple 20.3cm Twin Gun Mount (and its variants), so please keep that in mind.
Attack Power Cap
Applies after the pre-cap modifiers. This is a soft limit on your effective attack power.
Condition: If your Attack Power Before Cap exceeds:
- 150 for Day Battle,
- 300 for Night Battle, or
- 100 for Anti-submarine attacks,
then the Attack Power Cap will kick-in, reducing attack power. The calculation is:
[math]\text {Cap-Adjusted Attack Power} = x + \sqrt {\text {Attack Power Before Cap} - x}[/math], where x represents the attack power cap applicable to the attack.
Daytime Attack Cap (150) often makes it important to utilize Artillery Spotting since they boost your attack power after the cap, while Night Combat can be very dangerous and/or rewarding due to having a very high cap (300) and the summation of torpedo and firepower being used to calculate the base attack power.
Critical Modifier
All attacks have a chance to be a critical hit (although bombing during aerial battle has significantly lower chance to do so). The damage modifier applies after the cap.
|Attack Type
|Normal Attack
|Critical Hit
A few notes:
- Any attack that deals 40 or more damage always display as critical damage regardless of whether it actually is a critical hit or not.
- Any attack that deals 14 or less damage never display as critical damage even if the attack actually is a critical hit.
- If an attack is determined to be a critical hit, the attack cannot be evaded (the evasion check happens after the critical hit check).
- A rounding-off takes place after Critical Modifier is calculated, prior to calculating the other Post-Cap Modifiers shown below.
Post-Cap Modifiers
In damage calculation, Post-cap modifiers apply after the cap, but before enemy armor reduction. Thus they are very effective approach to boost your damage output (esp. against heavy armor enemies).
Currently, the post-cap modifiers are from:
- Contact (Opening air strike)
- Artillery Spotting (a.k.a. Day time special attacks)
- AP Shell
- Contact takes place during the Aerial Combat phase. It increases bombing damage for all allied bombers.
- When successful, an image of the squadron performing contact is shown in the opposing fleet's formation indicator, with the text "触接中".
- Trigger conditions:
- More air control than Air Denial
- At least one carrier scout plane, seaplane scout, or torpedo bomber equipped.
- Seaplane bombers, Type 3 Spotter, and Ka-type Autogyros cannot perform contact.
- It's thought that each carrier scout plane, seaplane scout, and/or torpedo bomber slot equipped is given a chance to trigger contact. Once successful, the bonus applied is chosen at random with weighting from all eligible equipped planes.
- Different types of planes have different trigger rates. They are roughly estimated as (if only one is equipped):
|Contact Rate
|Torpedo Bomber
|Night Scout
|Seaplane Scout
|Carrier Scout
Contact Damage Modifier
- Type 2 Recon Aircraft is useful in the case that the bombing damage bonus is desired while not removing the chance for T-disadvantage, due to its high trigger rate.
- With contact, the maximum attack power of bombing (before defense, critical and ammo) is around 180. With some luck, it's possible to sink even Ru-class Flagships (Armor = 99) in one strike without a critical.
Artillery Spotting
Certain equipment setups provide a chance to trigger special attacks during day battle, giving boost to both attack power and accuracy. The damage modifiers are applied after the cap (150), thus very effective against heavily armored targets. Note that the ship requires at least 1 seaplane on board to perform Artillery Spotting; it does not benefit certain ships (such as Tenryuu) due to their carry capacity of 0, and it will not trigger if all the seaplanes are shot down (more commonly seen when seaplane bombers are used in cases of CAV/BBV).
AP Shell
When either Type 91 AP Shell or Type 1 AP Shell is equipped alongside a large caliber gun, damage against certain ship classes are increase. The effect works also for enemies in Exercises (PvP).
Eligible targets in which this bonus applies are BB, FBB, BBV, CA, CV, Demon (Oni), Princess (Hime), Fortress. Demon (Oni) and Princess (Hime) include the subtypes of War Demon (War Oni) and War Princess (War Hime) as well as Installation-type enemies, but may exclude Destroyer Princess and Light Cruiser Demon. Unknown whether the bonus applies to armored carrier (Taihou) or CAV.
|Equip Combination
|+ +
Remaining Ammo Modifier
|Remaining Ammunition
|50% or more
|Scratch Damage
- More specifically, the modifier is [math]\min \{ 100 \%, 2 \times \text {% of Ammo Remaining} \} [/math]
- The Remaining Ammo Modifier affects all phases, including the opening Aerial Combat Phase.
- At the end of the combat, 20% of Maximum Fuel is consumed for all ships. Depending on whether both day and night battle phase occurred, either 20% (if only Day or Night battle occurred) or 30% (if both Day and Night Battle occurred) of Maximum Ammo will be consumed.
- When entering night battle (from day), the Remaining Ammo Modifier on a vessel remains same as the day battle.
- Even if you do not engage in night battle along the way, if the boss node is the 5th battle of the sortie, the damage dealt is dramatically reduced. It is even worse if it's the 6th (or later!) battle, as you can only deal scratch damage. Either scenario will dramatically reduce the chance of you winning.
- An example of the latter scenario would be 2-4's northwest route. Because node G is a combat node if coming from D, the boss battle ends up being the 6th battle. This is the primary reason why players typically end the sortie early if sent on that route.
- This is also the reason to avoid night battles and maelstroms along the way when trying to win at a boss node.
- Submarine-only nodes on limited-time event maps do not consume ammo in Day or Night Battle.
Player Damage Taken
While the above formulas and statements are generally true for damage taken by a player's ships, there are additional limits that apply to friendly units only.
- For ships entering battle at chūha (orange) or higher HP:
- Damage taken cannot reduce HP below 1 (i.e. ship cannot sink).
- At 1 HP, any further hits will become misses.
- For flagships, as well as ships with 20 morale or more (i.e. not red face):
- If the incoming damage is greater than or equal to current HP, it is instead reduced to 50%-79% of current HP, rounded down.
- For attacks with multiple hits (such as night battle torpedo cut-in attacks), each hit is calculated separately (and reduced if appropriate).
Combat Equipment Setup
- See Artillery Spotting for day-time attack setups.
- Night Battle Special Attacks
- Common Setups
- Full Setup List
Night Battle Special Attacks
Night battle special attacks allow your ship to double attack (DA) and cut-in (CI) at night. These special attacks are less demanding on the conditions, but more reliable and powerful than artillery spotting in the day.
- Ability to act at night
- Current HP > 25% of Max HP
- Certain equipment setup (see below)
Set up and Attack Modes
Different set ups have chances to trigger different modes of attack. Attack modes are only determined by the prerequisite. Any auxiliary equipment (AP shell, seaplane , AA gun, etc.) can be added without changing the attack mode.
- When your set up fulfills the prerequisite for multiple attack modes, the one closer to the bottom of the list will be considered.
- If two simultaneous attacks are made, the total damage is displayed together but the Damage Cap (and Enemy Armor reduction) is applied separately to each attack.
- When either DA or CI is not triggered by chance, the ship will just do a normal single attack.
Night Double Attack Chance
Has a very high (~99%) and relatively consistent activation chance.
Activation rate decreases with damage states (source required), but is not dependent on luck. This typically results in more consistent and higher average damage than cut-in setup for ships with normal luck values.
Night Cut-in chance
[math](\text{Luck} + \text{Placement Modifier} + \text{Health Modifier} + \text{Searchlight Modifier} ) \% [/math]
In the old formula, it was Luck × 0.85.
- Therefore, the torpedo CI chance for Yukikaze (60 luck) would be around the same level as Shigure (50 luck).
- Either diminishing returns or a hard cap on luck over 40 for three gun cut-ins. (source)
- Therefore, ships with high luck will suffer from 5~10% lower cut-in chances when using the 3 gun cut-in setup compared to two-torpedo.
|Little or no damage
|Minor damage (小破 Shōha)
|Moderate damage (中破 Chūha)
|Star Shell
- According to various reports, the exact values of flagship and minor damage modifiers are still in controversy. The mean values are shown in brackets, with deviation of +/- 5.
Anti-Sub Warfare
Any enemy submarines will force Destroyers, Light Cruisers, and Torpedo Cruisers to target them. Cut-In and Double Attacks are ignored. In normal Night Battles, ASW damage is scratch damage only. In battles starting at night, Formation Modifiers apply.
As of June 30, 2016, Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Torpedo Cruisers and Training Cruisers can now perform a preemptive Anti-Submarine Attack on enemy submarines. Isuzu Kai Ni can do preemptive attacks unconditionally; other light cruisers as well as destroyers, torpedo cruisers and training cruisers need to have an equipped sonar in addition to have at least 100 ASW (counting equipment stat adjustments but not improvement through Akashi's Improvement Arsenal).
Other ships that are good choices for preemptive attacks are:
- Jintsuu Kai Ni for high base ASW and firepower
- Yuubari due to having 4 slots allowing for more ASW equipment.
- Abukuma Kai Ni for high base ASW. It may be necessary to give up preemptive torpedo strike to enable her for preemptive ASW.
- Naka Kai Ni, Kinu, and Yura for higher than average base ASW values
Common Setups
|Slot 1
|Slot 2
|Slot 3
|General Use
Main Gun
Main Gun
|12.7cm Twin Mount Type-B Kai 2 can be substituted for 10cm Twin High-angle Mounts, and are especially effective after being improved and equipped onto a high-firepower destroyer like Yuudachi or Ayanami. Otherwise, 10cm Twin High-angle Mounts or 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + Anti-Aircraft Fire Directors are preferred for their fleet AA defense modifier, though the latter is difficult to obtain.
|High-Luck Night Battle
or Auxiliary
|Auxiliary equipments typically are equipped on destroyers; however, luck-based destroyers benefits the most from adding an additional torpedo to their equipment in terms of night battle damage output.. Candidates for night battle cut-ins without luck modernization include: Yukikaze, Hatsushimo, Shigure, Ayanami, and Ushio.
|Anti-Sub Warfare
Depth Charge
|On maps with few subs, or where you don't need to kill the subs, two main guns and a sonar in the third slot are useful.
|Anti-Air Cut-In
|High-angle Gun
Anti-Aircraft Fire Director
Anti-Air RADAR
High-angle Gun
|Using an Air RADAR increases the effect of the Anti-Air Cut-In at the cost of night battle damage (cannot perform double attack with only 1 gun equipped).
|Ship-Specific Armaments
|Slot 1
|Slot 2
|Slot 3
Main Gun
Main Gun
|These two have high firepower, so they are typically equipped with guns. Priority equipment includes 12.7cm Twin Mount Type-B Kai 2 and 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + Anti-Aircraft Fire Director, or any improved small caliber main guns.
High-angle Gun
Anti-Aircraft Fire Director
|Ships boasting both high luck and AA can also be outfitted for mixed cut-ins instead of torpedo to better utilize their AA capability at the cost of lower effectiveness of the cut-in attack (both chance-to-activate and damage).
High-angle Gun
High-angle Gun
|Anti-Air RADAR
|Akizuki and Teruzuki can perform anti-air cut-ins without a fire director; they only need either two high-angle guns or a high-angle gun and an AA RADAR.
- Light Cruisers
- Light Cruisers gain access to the Medium size Main guns to buff their firepower as well as seaplanes (with a few exceptions with regards to seaplanes, those being CLTs, Isuzu Kai Ni, Yuubari and both of the Tenryuu class), making Artillery Spotting setups feasible and effective against moderately armored enemy vessels.
- For light cruisers facing enemy fleets, a setup with 2 Main guns and a Seaplane ( ) offers a potent double attack in both daytime Artillery Spotting and Night Battle.
- For fleets without air power, one medium main gun and two 15.5cm Triple Gun Mounts () will maximize firepower while maintaining double attacks in Night Battle.
- Yuubari (and Ooyodo in cases where she is not equipped with a recon plane) can elect to use or .
- The special class of the Torpedo Cruisers deserves some mention here: their specialty lies in their torpedoes and should almost always be equipped with a Type A Ko-hyoteki (to enable opening torpedo strikes). To diversify their damage output, typically two medium main guns and/or 15.5cm Triple Gun Mounts are equipped to increase shelling damage and enable Night Battle Double Attacks ().
- Before a Torpedo Cruiser's final remodel, due to limited slots it's advisable to use Type A Ko-hyoteki and a torpedo () to make the most of their preemptive attack.
- Heavy Cruisers/Aviation Cruisers
- Heavy Cruisers see the introduction of 4 slot setups after remodeling and all of them feature the ability to launch seaplanes for artillery spotting. While they are still limited to the Medium main guns, their higher firepower and armor can make them solid combatants when Battleships are unavailable or overkill.
- The go-to setup for most situations will be the 2 main guns, RADAR, seaplane setup ( ) which provides day and night double attack potential.
- Certain Event bosses take additional damage when a ship is equipped with Type 3 Shells. ( )
- Heavy cruisers Myoukou and Prinz Eugen have high base luck, allowing reliable torpedo or mixed cut-ins at night. , is recommended for day-time artillery spotting and potent mixed cut-ins at night.
- Aviation Cruisers can use seaplane bombers instead of regular recon seaplanes; they also can equip SCAMP to increase their attack range and damage.
- Battleships
- Battleships feature a selection of Heavy Main Guns and massive resulting firepower in addition to the potent Armor Piercing shells which can cause brutal critical hits. Setups for battleships are similar to those of heavy cruisers, with one notable addition.
- The Armor Piercing Shells that battleships have access to allows for the highly effective 2 Main gun, AP Shell, Seaplane setup ( ) which has a more effective Artillery Spotting Cut-In, while providing better stats than secondary guns.
- Note: Official tweets state that overuse of cannons larger than what a BB is meant for will make it "overweight" and incur a "minor" accuracy penalty. (I.e. Too many 46cm or even 41cm cannons on Fast Battleships such as Kongou-class and Bismarck.)
- As with Heavy Cruisers, the Type 3 Shell setup ( ) is effective against installation-type/land base enemies.
- Carriers
- Planes. Enough Fighters to achieve Air Superiority or Supremacy, fill out with Torpedo Bombers on larger slots for preemptive bombing damage and/or Dive Bombers on smaller slots for shelling damage.
- Torpedo Bombers and Dive Bombers are roughly equivalent to each other. While Torpedo Bombers have the advantage in the preemptive aerial bombing, their damage are dependent on number of surviving planes, making air superiority very important for them. In cases where Air Superiority is not feasible, using more Dive Bombers may prove more effective.
- It is possible to equip Secondary Guns like the 15.5cm Triple Gun Mount or the special SCAMP to increase the carrier's range and put it higher in the Range Order shelling phase, which can be very useful for prioritizing the CV(L) damage when in a DD heavy fleet.
- To save bauxite (especially in exercises against other fleets), a combination of two 15.5cm Triple Gun Mount and/or SCAMP with a Saiun and a single bomber in the 4th slot can allow powerful shelling attacks at the cost of opening airstrike potency ( ).
- This, however, has the downside that when the bomber is completely shot down, the carrier becomes unable to attack. This is a dilemma in maps where enemy fleets boast strong anti-air abilities (CL Tsu-class Elite comes to mind).
Full Setup List
- What follows is an (non-extensive) list of possible equipment setups (and if applicable, whether they can perform Artillery Spotting and/or special Night Battle attacks).
- Some specific equipment notes:
- All high-angle guns have the icon, but could be either a main cannon (shown as below) or secondary cannon (shown as ); find the appropriate setup below according to the role of the gun.
- Type A Ko-hyoteki does not count as a for special attack purposes; if equipped, look at the equipment setup only considering the other equipments to see what special attack the setup will generate (if any).
- Remember that a combination of two or more guns and/or torpedoes must be equipped for any special attack to be possible.
- Yellow: Cut-In or Double Attack Possible
Two Slots
Three Slots
Four Slots
Victory Conditions
Damage Gauge calculation: (Sum of enemy fleet HP reduced) / (Sum of enemy fleet HP at start of combat) × 100% In PvP, even those considered "sunk" are treated as having 1HP remaining for gauge calculation. (This is clearly visible against a submarine fleet.) Higher conditions have higher priority on this list. Unless specified, the condition assumes no friendly ship sunk.
- Perfect S
- All enemy ships sunk and Enemy Damage Gauge is 0%.
- In PvP, no damage taken and all enemy ships considered "sunk".
- S (Victory)
- All enemy ships sunk.
- If any friendly ship is sunk, it is B Victory instead.
- In PvP, all enemy ships "sunk".
- If any friendly ship would be considered "sunk", then it would be a B Victory instead, as well.
- A (Victory)
- Required number of enemy ships sunk.
- In this case damage gauge does not matter.
- Enemy flagship does not need to be sunk.
- Cannot happen if enemy fleet consists of only 1 ship.
- B (Tactical Victory)
- Note: This rank is the minimum requirement to clear maps without boss gauge.
- Enemy flagship sunk (in this case damage gauge does not matter)
- Enemy flagship alive, A victory condition not met, Damage gauge at least 2.5 times of the enemy damage gauge.
- Enemy flagship alive, friendly ship sunk, A victory condition met, Damage gauge at least 2.5 times of the enemy damage gauge.
- Enemy flagship alive, friendly ship sunk, A victory condition not met, Damage gauge at least 3 times of the enemy damage gauge (multiplier in question)
- Enemy flagship sunk, friendly ship sunk, number of friendly ships sunk < number of enemy ships sunk.
- C (Tactical Defeat)
- Enemy flagship alive, Damage gauge higher than enemy gauge but not reaching 2.5 times as much.
- Enemy flagship alive, friendly ship sunk, A victory condition met, Damage gauge higher than enemy damage gauge but not reaching 2.5 times as much.
- Enemy flagship alive, friendly ship sunk, A victory condition not met, Damage gauge higher than enemy damage gauge but not reaching the multiplier required for B Victory (see 4th B Victory condition)
- Enemy flagship sunk, friendly ship sunk, number of friendly ships sunk ≥ number of enemy ships sunk. (Note that maps with boss gauges, such as 4-4, 5-3, event maps, etc, can be cleared under this condition.)
- D (Defeat)
- Enemy took less than a certain amount of damage (Own gauge is less than 0.05%).
- Both sides taking 0 damage is also D.
- Enemy flagship alive, damage gauge lower than enemy gauge (C is possible under this condition if both sides have a high gauge)
- Enemy flagship alive, friendly ship sunk, damage gauge lower than enemy gauge, but not fulfilling E loss condition.
- E (Defeat)
- Enemy flagship alive, over a certain number of friendly ships sunk. (see below)
- The Minimum Sunk Requirement:
- 4 ships out of a fleet of 6
- 3 ships out of a fleet of 5
- 2 ships out of a fleet of 4
- 2 ships out of a fleet of 3
- 1 ship out of a fleet of 2
- Victory status affects the chance of getting drops and rare drops on the specified node.
- B rank or above is necessary to obtain drops.
- A rank or above is typically necessary for obtaining rare drops.
- S rank has a higher chance of obtaining rare drops than A rank, and is required for some very rare drops.
Additional Explanation/Details
- ↑ Source: 艦これ-チラ裏検証- / 夜戦陣形と命中回避 (Jan 1, 2015). Currently the hit rates only apply on nodes starting with night battle (eg. 5-3-C). In addition, please be aware that given limited sample sizes from the exp't, the measured hit rates by using different formations are NOT differing on a large scale, thus using "higher / lower" not simply "high / low".
- ↑ Source: 半製造BSアレコレ雑記帳 / 「艦これ」砲撃命中率について・複縦陣 中間報告 (Dec 5, 2014). If more relevant sources are discovered please add them in.


text:
David J. Lynch and Robert Schmidt
Thursday, 10 July 2014 03:27 PM
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s proposal for what could be the largest initial stock offering in U.S. history is sailing through Washington with few bumps.
While a federal commission has warned that the offering by the world's biggest Internet retailer poses "major risks" for investors, the reaction from securities regulators, Congress, cabinet secretaries and competitors has been a collective shrug.
Alibaba owes its success navigating Washington's political shoals in part to a handful of key hires over the past three years. The Hangzhou, China-based company retained a lobbying firm headed by Ronald Reagan's last chief of staff; a former general counsel from the U.S. Trade Representative Office; and an ex-chief of staff at the Treasury Department to oversee international communications and government relations.
The Securities and Exchange Commission — the principal regulatory hurdle Alibaba must clear before raising perhaps $20 billion — has shown no sign it will decline to approve the stock sale that could come as early as next month. Questions about the firm's corporate structure, accounting and sale of counterfeit goods have gone unexplored by the administration of President Barack Obama or by companies Alibaba dwarfs in sales, including Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc.
"This is going to be a watershed IPO," said Anant Sundaram, a corporate governance expert at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "How come nobody at the U.S. Trade Representative, nobody at the Department of Commerce, nobody at some congressional oversight body is saying, 'Guys, what is going on here?' It just puzzles me that nobody is concerned."
Casey Letter
Senator Robert Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sounded a rare discordant note this week, asking the SEC to show how it's addressing risks for buyers of stock in Chinese offerings structured like Alibaba's.
"American investors in Chinese companies often do not enjoy the same protections and legal guarantees that they are afforded when they invest in American firms," Casey wrote in a July 8 letter to the agency.
Alibaba has flown under Washington's radar for several reasons. The company, with embryonic U.S. retail operations, has avoided attracting competitors' fire by stressing its focus on the underdeveloped Chinese e-commerce market. It's also defused U.S. government criticism by intensifying efforts to prevent pirated goods from being sold on its websites.
The company's version of a much-debated corporate structure has been designed to minimize potential risks to investors. In any case, Alibaba has little reason to expect regulatory trouble: The SEC has assented to the same device in dozens of public offerings since 2000.
Staff Review
The SEC's anticipated approval of the offering documents will follow a staff review and won't be voted on by the full five-member commission. The process isn't designed to judge the offering, only to ensure investors are alerted to all risks.
"The federal system is very much a non-merit based regulatory system," said David Martin, a former head of the SEC's division of corporation finance who is now a partner at the Covington & Burling law firm in Washington. "It effectively takes the position that you can sell anything you want, as long as you disclose it accurately."
Ashley Zandy, an Alibaba spokeswoman, said she couldn't comment because the company is in a pre-IPO quiet period. As required, the company has listed risks to investors in its SEC filings, including warnings about the transparency of its audits and the chance that Chinese regulators could challenge the legality of its structure.
Pork Controversy
Alibaba's Washington reception contrasts with the spotlight trained on other China-related issues in a town where a mere whiff of controversy can spawn congressional hearings, talk-show debates and dueling advocacy reports. The House Appropriations Committee last month approved legislation renaming the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington for imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo. In 2013, a Chinese company's acquisition of Smithfield Foods Inc., a pork producer, stirred congressional complaints about alleged threats to U.S. food security.
Contributing to Alibaba's momentum is a frothy market — the Standard & Poor's 500 index has doubled over the past five years — coupled with great investor interest in Chinese Internet firms.
Michael Wessel, a member of the U.S.-China Security Review Commission that last month released the report critical of Alibaba's proposal, said the market's enthusiasm reminds him of the 1990s Internet boom, before many technology stocks plunged in value. "A lot of people are looking with glassy-eyed enthusiasm at some of these companies," Wessel said.
'Intricate Ruse'
The U.S.-China commission's staff review took particular issue with the corporate structure that Chinese tech companies often use to go public, equating it to an "intricate ruse" that leaves a small cadre of executives in control while giving American shareholders few rights.
Known as a variable interest entity, or VIE, the setup allows Chinese companies to dodge a home-country prohibition against foreign investment in key industries, including the Internet and telecommunications. All of the major Chinese Internet companies that list on U.S. exchanges use the structure, including search firm Baidu Inc., online retailer JD.com Inc. and Weibo Corp., a micro-blogging service.
Common Structure
Some multinationals, including Amazon, also use the structure in China, leaving them poorly placed to raise questions about Alibaba.
Under a VIE, a Chinese company incorporates offshore, usually in the Cayman Islands, and uses that vehicle to go public. It then operates in China through a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary and a VIE with the latter containing the parts of the business, such as the license to operate an Internet company, that are off limits to foreign ownership.
The VIE is linked to the publicly-held parent via contracts rather than ownership. The arrangement, although tolerated by the Chinese government, "can be considered illegal in China," the security review commission's report said. Any dispute would force shareholders to sue in Chinese courts.
"This puts Enron to shame," Wessel said. "These could be some of the riskiest investments anyone could engage in."
Alibaba's proposed structure, including having a board majority appointed by its partners, kept Hong Kong regulators from endorsing its listing, prompting the firm to go to the New York Stock Exchange instead.
Yahoo Surprise
Alibaba's use of VIEs has already come under scrutiny. In late 2010, its chairman and co-founder Jack Ma took personal ownership of Alipay, the company's electronic payment unit, when Chinese regulators refused to award it a banking license as a VIE. The move surprised and irritated Alibaba's major shareholders, Yahoo! Inc. and Softbank Corp.
"The VIE arrangement should be receiving scrutiny because Alibaba itself has done things that raised questions about VIEs," said Yasheng Huang, professor of global economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of five books on the Chinese economy.
In the U.S., the SEC has approved dozens of initial offerings of Chinese companies using VIEs since 2000 when it was first employed by Internet company Sina Corp. to go public.
Alibaba has been building a Washington presence since at least 2011, when it retained the Duberstein Group, run by Reagan's former chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein. It pays the firm $100,000 a quarter, according to Senate filings.
SEC's Questions
In May the company announced that it had hired Jim Wilkinson as its head of international corporate affairs. A former executive vice president at PepsiCo Inc., Wilkinson also was chief of staff for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the financial crisis and a senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The SEC has no special procedures for high-value offerings, current and former SEC employees say. Alibaba's filings are being vetted by a securities lawyer and an accountant in the agency's corporation finance division, said a current employee who spoke on condition of anonymity.
While the agency's discussions with Alibaba won't be made public until after the IPO, some of its questions can be discerned as the company submits revised filings in response to questions from the SEC staff.
In June, for example, Alibaba laid out additional details on the 27 people who control the majority of board nominations — a key corporate governance issue. It also provided new financial details for the company's main shopping sites, Tmall and Taobao Marketplace.
'Gotten Religion'
Alibaba designed its corporate structure to mitigate potential objections to VIEs, according to Paul Gillis, a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management.
Unlike earlier Chinese companies, which went public with as much as 99 percent of their revenue assigned to the VIE, less than 12 percent of Alibaba's revenue and 8 percent of its assets are sequestered inside the structure.
"Alibaba Group is one of the best in terms of minimizing the amount of business conducted in the VIE," said Gillis, who spent 28 years with the accounting firm PwC. "Alipay was one of the worst. They've gotten religion here."
Alibaba also defanged potential Washington opposition by addressing longstanding complaints from U.S. apparel makers, movie studios and software firms about its role in facilitating the sale of pirated goods.
The company was included for three years in the U.S. Trade Representative's annual listing of "notorious markets," where phony or pirated goods were routinely available. Taobao was named for four years, through 2011.
Pirated Goods
In April 2012, the Chinese company hired James Mendenhall, former general counsel in the U.S. trade representative's office, to spearhead its drive to escape Washington's black list. An attorney with Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, Mendenhall worked for the trade office from 2001 until January 2007, including representing the agency on the Treasury panel that scrutinizes for national security implications the takeovers of U.S. businesses by foreign investors.
Alibaba in September 2012 announced a partnership with the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, an industry group, to tighten its policies on removing purveyors of pirated goods.
Previously, trying to get Taobao to remove an offending item required companies to navigate a lengthy and frustrating process. The first step -- registering a trademark with Taobao - - could take six months, according to Robert Barchiesi, the coalition's president. Then, companies had to submit evidence of the phony sales, which could lead to repeated exchanges with Taobao and the accused vendor.
"It wasn't very user friendly," said Barchiesi.
'Real Efforts'
Now, under a streamlined system, the coalition's 250 member companies, including Levi Strauss & Co., Microsoft Corp. and Pfizer Inc., can register in one or two days, Barchiesi said. The subsequent complaint and investigation process is "very quick," he said.
Ensuring that none of the 760 million items the site offers are phony or stolen has been a problem. In the first 10 months of 2013, Taobao removed 114 million allegedly counterfeit listings, more than eight times the number during all of 2010, according to the company's filings.
In 2012, the U.S. Trade Representative dropped the company from its notorious markets list, saying it had made "notable efforts" to eliminate counterfeit products.
"We have been encouraged by Taobao's real efforts to address our concerns," said Adam Coates, managing director for compliance and enforcement for the Software Alliance, which includes companies such as IBM and Oracle.
'Sometimes Outstanding'
Not everyone is satisfied with Taobao's efforts. Earlier this year, Nintendo Co. Ltd. complained to the Trade Representative that Taobao was still selling pirated computer games despite three years of requests to stop.
"Taobao's compliance with Nintendo's take down requests is sometimes outstanding, but also can be inconsistent and nearly non-existent at times," wrote Devon Pritchard, the company's senior vice president and general counsel.
Likewise, the American Apparel & Footwear Association says its members -- which include brands such as New Balance, Perry Ellis and Under Armour -- still find too many counterfeit versions of their products on Taobao. The association objected to the government's decision to remove the Chinese company from the 2012 notorious markets list, said Steve Lamar, the association's executive vice president
Protection Gap
Alibaba, like other Chinese companies, also faces questions about its accounting due to a dispute over international audit inspections. The Chinese government has prevented the U.S. accounting oversight board from reviewing the work of auditors in China, a stand-off that Alibaba notes in its prospectus may cause shareholders to "lose confidence in our reported financial information and procedures."
Daniel Goelzer, a former acting chairman of the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, said the lack of regulatory reviews is worrisome. "It is a gap in investor protection," he said. "Having an inspection contributes to the reliability of the audit."
Still, such concerns may be less weighty to investors than the performance of other Chinese companies using corporate structures akin to that of Alibaba.
Baidu, another Chinese Internet company, went public in August 2005 at a split-adjusted price of $2.70 per share. It closed Wednesday at $184.94 in New York.
"Chinese companies' governance is wildly out of line with U.S. standards," said Damon Silvers, director of policy at the AFL-CIO labor union who advises regulators on issues of importance to institutional investors. "On the other hand, China is rapidly becoming the world's largest economy and a lot of people want to play."
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text:
It's an understatement to say that quantum computing is a hot topic in physics right now, and we've seen many demonstrations of qubits and toy computers—or, rather, registers—performing example computations. If you were slightly cynical, you might note that quantum implementations of algorithms, which are supposed to run faster than in classical computing, are all very, very slow. But that's how research goes.
How far does the field have to go? We haven't even settled on the best way to make a qubit, the basic unit of quantum information. Indeed, there's still plenty of research focused on finding the best implementation, even though it's arguable that we're not even sure what we mean by "best."
Just to shake things up even further, a presenter at Physics@FOM has now shown results indicating that a system verging on being classical still exhibits enough quantum behavior that it may well make a good qubit.
Building a better qubit
Sergii Denega is working with gallium arsenide—some of you may now be thinking of quantum dots (yawn), but you would be wrong—in bulk, doped with a small amount of silicon. If the silicon atoms are well separated, they are all independent of each other, so they behave a bit like quantum wells. But they're better than quantum wells; if you shine a laser on the sample, you manipulate and measure the response from a large number of silicon atoms, meaning that there's potential for robust information storage and manipulation.
What makes this system special is that when put into a magnetic field, the ground state of the silicon atoms splits into two. Silicon cannot transition directly between these two ground states—it must go to an excited state first. So far, nothing too different from something like a cold rubidium gas. (And that's a good thing, because the classic cold rubidium gas was one of the first things researchers thought of when considering systems that might make good qubits.) But things get strange when we consider the excited state.
The excited state is dominated by the way silicon is bound up in the crystalline structure of the gallium arsenide. There are several ways that silicon can incorporate itself into the the lattice of gallium arsenide, which means that each atom has a slightly different excited state, which in turn has consequences for how the laser light acts on the silicon.
Imagine that I select a single silicon atom. It will absorb light at a specific color, but its neighbor, being bound slightly differently, won't. So, to get both atoms to absorb, I need to shine two different colors of light on the gallium arsenide. Expand that to a billion or so silicon atoms, and you have something that requires a broad range of colors if you want to get every silicon atom to absorb the light.
What this broad absorption means is that all the atoms will respond in a slightly different way to a laser light. And that should mean that one of the critical components of a quantum computer—coherence, or, more basically, having all your quantum bits responding to light in exactly the same way over a given period of time—only lasts for a few picoseconds.
Classically coherent
What Denega and his colleagues have done is very clever. They recognized that interest lies in the coherence associated with the two ground states for computation, which—provided we don't leave the silicon in the excited state too long—might hang around for a while. Now, normally the classical nature of the excited state would destroy any coherence between the two ground states. But, for reasons that aren't entirely clear yet, this isn't the case here.
Denega used short light pulses to create a coherence between the ground states and then probe that coherence with a second pulse of light. His team found that the coherence lasts for a good 400ps. Even better, if you time the light pulses correctly, you can keep the coherence alive indefinitely—a technique first developed for a cousin of MRI called nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
I'm not certain that this is "coherence" in the fashion that I would normally understand the term. And, to be fair, Denega is quite careful to say that the oscillations he observes are not the usual sign of coherence (Rabi oscillations). Instead, he is observing changes in the orientation of the electric field of a second light pulse that is reflected off the material after the first light pulse has done its job. Now, while there is coherence, there will be an electric field within the sample, called the polarization, that will alter the orientation of the reflected light pulse's electric field in a time dependent manner. And, this is, indeed, what he observes. So, yes, it is coherent. I just don't understand why.
400ps may not sound like a lot, but the pulses of light used to create the state are only about 1ps long, so, in principle, you could do a lot of operations before having to refresh the coherence. Of course, researchers also need to demonstrate entanglement and perform single and multiple qubit operations before they are ready to start making claims about quantum computing.
Still, a long-lived quantum memory in something like gallium arsenide would be a significant development all on its own.


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Denislav Shishev's an 18-year-old Bulgarian who probably does more before breakfast that you do all week. In 2009 he took a wrecked BMW M Coupe and put in a 530-hp BMW V10. Now he races it professionally.
Young Denislav started racing carts when he was just 7. At 14 he was competing in drift competitions. By 17 he was winning Time Attack races and racing his E30 M3 professionally. Last year he decided to upgrade.
Denislav and his racing team purchased a rolled and forlorn junkyard BMW M Coupe and set to work on it. They completely stripped the busted body work off, installed a full roll cage, new suspension bits and joyous amounts of chassis reinforcement. Why? Because they were also putting in a rootin' tootin' 530 hp BMW 5.0L V10 salvaged from and E60 M5.
They actually had to stretch the crash beam mounts a few inches to make it fit, but Denislav and his buddies took what was already a pretty power dense machine and turned up the heat. The V10, its transmission, and a donor M5 rear end were swapped into the petite M coupe, everything was finished off with a coat of many BMW colors and the result is a one-of-a-kind racer packing 442 rear wheel horsepower. Suh-weeeet!
Denislav will be piloting the beast in the 2010 Bulgarian championship series and probably causing a few rules changes along the way. We've known a few Bulgarians in our time and they're all this awesome. Go check out his website were there are literally hundreds of photos of the build process. [Denislav Shishev via E90 Post]


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In the case of the political class, the elephant in the room involves a blunt conversation about taxes — which most people don't relish paying — as a tradeoff for providing government services they're accustomed to receiving and do like.
For TV, it's the question of advertising, and whether the traditional system can survive if consumers continue to indulge their technology-given right to circumvent ads whenever possible.
The second heart-to-heart talk boils down to a simple query for TV viewers: "If you like these shows, what are you willing to give up to keep them viable: Time or money?"
One of the most interesting wrinkles in analyzing the new fall TV season has been the boost networks are seeing thanks to DVR viewing. Ratings increase more than 20% for many shows (the percentages sometimes appear inflated because the base was so low) once three-day averages are included. The DVR bump is more pronounced than it was a year ago, reflecting higher penetration of the devices and more usage.
Moreover, live-plus-three-day gains are generally higher percentage-wise among key demographics — those most important to advertisers. This seems logical, since younger adults are presumably more fluent in time-shifting strategies than, say, their grandparents, who tend to watch more.
That people are still finding and sampling new shows is, of course, welcome news for broadcasters. Yet while networks fought hard to win concessions from media buyers about counting time-shifted viewing when selling spots, the growth in DVR-mediated consumption doesn't bode well for an ad-supported model, given how easy it is — even without something like Dish's ad-skipping Auto Hop function, which triggered outrage among broadcasters — to zap past commercials.
Yes, networks can point to counterintuitive research that shows viewers still see a surprising number of ads, even when watching on a delayed basis. According to this argument, ordinary people are less zap-happy than media-saturated critics, yielding headlines like "Do Americans Watch More DVR'd Commercials Than You Think?"
Even if true, this argument is somewhat self-defeating. If your audience is too inert, ignorant or indifferent to realize they can watch an episode of "The Good Wife" in roughly 43 minutes by excising all the clutter, it's questionable whether they're a particularly desirable bunch at which to target upscale products in the first place.
Anecdotally, on Sunday night I efficiently sped through ABC's trio of scripted one-hour dramas in about 140 minutes. In the course of that span I saw innumerable bumper promos for "Nashville" — hard to miss or avoid those — and one spot for DreamWorks' upcoming movie "Rise of the Guardians." That's it.
The Obama campaign has spoken of "economic patriotism," trying to persuade voters (particularly those in upper-income brackets) to accept anteing up, tax-wise. Networks may need to embrace a similar strategy — advocating "programming pragmatism," perhaps — to reinforce the idea that TV fans can't expect a completely free ride.
Just as the government needs tax revenues to function, those who want "free" TV programs must pay the freight too, either by shelling out cash directly — as they do for Showtime or HBO — or enduring commercials. And while networks remain understandably fretful about "unintended consequences to messing with the TV ecosystem," as the Los Angeles Times recently put it, it's only a question of what form the messing will take.
The newspaper industry clearly suffered for being slow about prodding customers to understand the shifting realities assailing its business model. While TV is better situated to cash in on digital and on-demand technology, migrating consumption to the digital realm is fraught with peril as well, and efforts to thwart ad-skipping methods in that space will almost certainly face their own challenges.
As noted, Hollywood and Washington have been in lockstep when it comes to balking at initiating these uncomfortable conversations; instead, the tendency is to delay, hoping the bill finally comes due on some other poor slob's watch.
Think of it as another form of delaying — in this case, maybe the inevitable.


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As I sometimes tell my students, my research is directed toward the role of the oceans in climate change. Over the last several hundred thousand years, the folks in the back room who designed our planet were pretty clever. We have clear evidence that different parts of the earth's climate system are linked in very subtle yet dramatic ways.
The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth's climate system is engineered climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation.
We place strong emphasis on using isotopes as a means to understand physical mixing and chemical cycling in the ocean, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do and the climate history as recorded in marine sediments. We cannot make good predictions about future climate change and the climate history as recorded in marine sediments.


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How to Sew Beads Onto Crochet
In bead crochet, you can sew beads onto completed crochet work or crochet the beads right into the fabric. Sewing beads after you complete your crochet design works well when using larger beads or making a crochet design with just a few well-placed beads.
For smaller beads, use a regular sewing needle and matching sewing thread or clear nylon thread. For large beads, use a yarn or tapestry needle and the yarn used to crochet the piece:
Using the threaded needle, insert the needle on the wrong side of the fabric in the spot where you want your bead to be positioned and draw it through to the right side.
Leave several inches of thread on the wrong side of the fabric. Make sure to insert your needle within the strands of yarn, rather than in the spaces between the stitches.
Thread a bead onto the strand of thread or yarn.
Slide the bead down close to the fabric.
Insert the needle (from the right side to the wrong side) back through the fabric.
Insert the needle close to the bead.
Cut the thread or yarn.
Leave several inches at the end.
Tie the two loose ends of thread or yarn together on the wrong side of the fabric to secure.
Weave the remaining ends into the fabric to hide them.
Make sure that the weight of the yarn is compatible with the weight of the beads. If you're using a lightweight yarn, don't use heavy, oversized beads. The weight of the beads can cause the stitches to droop and pull, creating an unsightly mess. On the flip side, if you're working with a heavier weight yarn, choose beads that won't get lost in the stitches.


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Jane Horrocks did those Tesco ads for so long, it came as a bit of a surprise to see her in an actual programme last night. But plus ça change: despite Horrocks having an acting CV that stretches from Life Is Sweet to Little Voice via Absolutely Fabulous, Trollied was set in a supermarket not a million miles from your average Tesco.
It's the first of half a dozen new scripted comedies to be shown by Sky1 over the next few months. Sky has promised that they will venture far from the metropolitan middle-class life regularly depicted by BBC sitcoms, and Trollied is duly set in the Warrington branch of a fictional supermarket called Valco.
The admirable difference from Outnumbered and Miranda was obvious from the start, with Horrocks joined by a full cast of blue-collar characters. Horrocks was pitch-perfect as the insecure and lonely social climber Julie, desperate to hold on to her "interim" position as deputy store manager. She was ably backed up by Jason Watkins as her boss – and unrequited romantic crush – Gavin, and Mark Addy as the supermarket butcher with hidden depths.
But sitcoms, like all big-budget telly, tend to be made by people who are metropolitan and middle-class. The pitfall trap awaiting Trollied was that it would appear patronising – as if it was there just to point a knowing finger at unsophisticated supermarket workers and laugh. Unfortunately, Trollied fell straight in.
Within the first seven minutes, there had been crude and obvious gags about masturbation and defecation, as well as another sexual joke best not spelt out in a family newspaper. The dentists of My Family don't hurl such distasteful jokes at each other in the workplace, and it's a fair bet that supermarket staff in Cheshire don't either.
Perhaps Trollied's stellar production team – including executive producer Ash Atalla, who made his name on The Office – just thought they had to throw in a few simple laughs early on to get things going. And thankfully, the toilet humour soon faded, to be largely replaced by a much subtler, observational wit. Some of the laconic punchlines – "Besides, fat Beth's got epilepsy" – even had shades of the north-west's biggest comic talent, Victoria Wood.
As it made its way through its second episode – wisely shown as a double-bill – Trollied started to show some real promise, especially in the development of its characters. Julie's dual hankerings for career status and true love, lying as they do in the cack-hands of the same man, promise rich comic pickings.
But just as Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis stole the show in The Office as frustrated lovers Tim and Dawn, so young Nick Blood threatens to do the same as Kieran, the junior butcher, with his unspoken yearnings for checkout girl Katie (Chanel Cresswell). And Kieran, like Trollied, will do much better if he holds his nerve.
Over on Watch (one of UKTV's modishly renamed pay-TV channels), The TA and the Taliban also suffered from overdoing it a bit. The programme was a cracking idea: an observational documentary about members of the Territorial Army who go off to war in Afghanistan – and the effects on their families.
Few documentaries about the Armed Forces try to engage female viewers, but this one surely did. Both of last night's TA case studies, electrician George Moffitt and PE teacher Daniel Majid, were catalogue-model handsome. And the focus was not on their shiny war toys, but on the children (George) and grandmother (Daniel) they left behind.
Just six weeks after his deployment to Helmand, Daniel was blown up by an IED, his arm perhaps irreparably injured. Later, George went on an expedition aimed at driving the
Taliban out of a local stronghold, only for his unit to be fired on so relentlessly that the documentary cameraman suffered a gunshot wound to his leg. The stories of Daniel's rehabilitation and George's deployment were heart-rending, enough by themselves to make even the most hardened militarist wonder what we are hoping to achieve in Afghanistan – and if it can really be worth all this blood and treasure.
All of which made it a shame that the film's producers felt it necessary to ramp things up with sentimental music, and even a sledgehammer edit of the footage to create a cliffhanger about Daniel's fate across a commercial break. David Tennant, narrating, also trowelled it on. His tone in describing Daniel's childhood – "an adventurous and physical young boy" – was, for example, just fruity enough to be distracting.
By the end, Daniel had recovered enough to go skiing, and George was back in England with his sons. Simple, powerful stuff that was always going to hit home – even without the violins.


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Mixed Doubles: To the New Yorkers out there who are looking for some fashion-forward tennis (or ice cream sandwiches — or both) in the LES, consider this weekend's Gargyle x United Bamboo SMASH! Tennis Challenge 2011 at the Seward Park Tennis Courts. It's true: they are awarding a "Best Dressed" Award (and with teams like hatmaker Eugenia Kim and L.A.-based denim designers THVM Atelier in the mix, you know that winning that is as important as the tennis itself).
More info: Smash! on Facebook.
Recap: Here are pics from the 2010 event.
(image via Gargyle)


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Clinique Springtime Beauty Essentials Gift Giveaway./
Just in time for Spring, Clinique introduces a fantastic limited edition gift with purchase. The Macy's spring gift with purchase is not only a 6-Piece skincare and makeup gift, it includes an exclusive brush set and pouch, all packaged in a colorful, spring inspired cosmetics bag.
These bright and sunny floral cosmetic bags hold must-have beauty essentials to achieve healthy skin and a flawless, makeup look including:
- Cosmetic Bag
- High Impact Mascara in Black
- Eye Shadow Brush
- Blush Brush Duo
- Brush Pouch
- Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion
- 7 Day Scrub Cream
- Lipstick (choice of Pink or Violet)
- Compact with Eye Shadow, Blusher and Bronzer (choice of Pink or Violet)
Pink choice includes Eye Shadow Duo in Pink Slate, Soft-Pressed Powder Blusher in New Clover, and True Bronze Pressed Powder Bronzer in Sunkissed.
Violet choice includes Eye Shadow Duo in Twilight Mauve, Soft-Pressed Powder Blusher in Pink Blush, and True Bronze Pressed Powder Bronzer in Sunkissed.
The exclusive, one-of-a-kind Clinique springtime beauty essentials gift (worth $65) is available free with your Clinique purchase of $25.00 or more and is available exclusively at Macy's and Macys.com from March 25 through April 14, 2013.
I have 5 Clinique Springtime Beauty Essentials Gifts to giveaway. That means 5 lucky winners will receive an entire set. To enter, please leave me a comment telling me what you change about your makeup look for spring. Do you go for brighter or softer shades? Do you lighten up your look? I want to know! Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment on this post now.
The Clinique Springtime Beauty Essentials Gift Sweepstakes (the "Sweepstakes") is intended for participation only in the United States (excluding Rhode Island) and shall be construed according to, and governed exclusively by, United States law. Do not participate in the Sweepstakes if you are not a legal resident of the United States (excluding Rhode Island) physically located in the United States (other than in Rhode Island) or are a health care provider at the time of entry or do not fall within the eligibility requirements set forth in these official rules.
PROMOTION DESCRIPTION: The Sweepstakes begins on or about March 27, 2013 at 12:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time ("EST") and ends on or about April 14, 2013 at 11:59 PM EST (the "Promotion Period"). By participating in the Sweepstakes, each entrant unconditionally accepts and agrees to comply with and abide by these Official Rules and the decisions of Beautiful Makeup Search ("Sponsor"), which shall be final and binding in all respects. Sponsor reserves the right to modify or terminate sweepstakes if conditions arise that compromise its integrity or intended play.
ELIGIBILITY: Only legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia (excluding Rhode Island) who are eighteen (18) years of age or older and located in the United States and the District of Columbia (excluding Rhode Island) at the time of entry are eligible to enter the Sweepstakes. Employees of Sponsor and Sponsor's advertiser partners and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, distributors, retailers, sales representatives, advertising and promotion agencies and each of their respective officers, directors and employees (and immediate family members and those persons living in the same household of any such officers, directors and employees) (collectively, the "Promotion Entities"), are ineligible to enter the Sweepstakes or win the prize. Subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Void in Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, all U.S. territories and possessions and overseas military installations, and where prohibited.
TO ENTER: "Post a Comment" telling me how you change your makeup look for spring. Each comment is assigned a number and five winning numbers will be randomly selected by random.org on or about April 15t, 2013. Winner will be notified by email left by entrant in the comment form. Winner has 48 hours to respond or prize will be forfeited. All decisions by the sponsor are final.
PRIZE DELIVERY: Sweepstakes prize will be delivered by representative of Clinique within 6 weeks of sweepstakes promotion period ending.
By entering this sweepstakes, you agree to all official rules.
Congratulations to the following randomly selected winners: Rachel, Lori, Ashleigh, Ro and Elizabeth. All winners have been notified.


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mspec 1.5.17
MSpec is a specialized framework that is syntax-compatible with RSpec for basic things like describe, it blocks and before, after actions. MSpec contains additional features that assist in writing the RubySpecs used by multiple Ruby implementations. Also, MSpec attempts to use the simplest Ruby language features so that beginning Ruby implementations can run it.


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mazonmarketing needed a new print or packaging design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 23 designs submitted by 2 freelance designers.
Midwestern Industries, Inc.
Midwestern Industries is a US manufacturer of screening equipment for industries in the pharmaceutical, food, shot peening, and countless more industries. We are upgrading our trade show 10 x 10 booth with a new back wall, the Myriad® by Skyline Exhibits. Midwestern would like assist in designing the back wall graphics.
Our audience is mainly engineers and plant facility operators consisting predominately of men between 35-55. We are trying to grab the attendees attention while walking down a crowded aisle at a trade show – no small task!
We are looking for a forward thinking design that will compliment our current color scheme and aesthetic. We are also looking for the following:
The design to have movement and flow.
Have longevity – designed to be relevant for the next 5 years.
Must have "Manufactured in the USA" on it (somewhere)
The Myriad® consists of three panels. In the future Midwestern would like to interchange the two outside panels keeping the center panel consistent. I have attached the Design dimensions and specs - This project is designed in RGB.
Custom built to meet your production needs.
Solid Construction – rugged durability.
Available in a wide range of sizes and finishes.
Your one source for all replacement screens.
On time delivery – no waiting
Able to meet industry specifications.
Custom woven mesh available.
In addition to the content, please include the photos from files from "Must Have - Equipment" and "Must Have - Screens".
Please view our website for a little more information about our company: http://www.midwesternind.com


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1001 Inventions Asian Premiere in Kuala Lumpur
Official Launch by Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia
Opening Hours - Admission - Location (Map)
KUALA LUMPUR, OCTOBER 02, 2013 – Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister launched the internationally renowned 1001 Inventions show at the National Science Centre today. The award-winning exhibition, which was declared the world's best by the European museums Industry in 2011, will welcome visitors at Kuala Lumpur's Pusat Sains Negara until end of May 2014. - Extended till 30th of June 2014.
The exhibition was officially opened by the country's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Tan Sri Dato' Haji Muhyiddin bin Mohd Yassin, who is also the patron of 1001 Inventions in Malaysia, at a lavish ceremony held at the host venue.
Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, was guest of honour
and patron at the official launch event
1001 Inventions has already received more than three million visitors at blockbusters residencies in London, New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Istanbul, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dhahran and recently began a new European tour in Sweden. The exhibition highlights a thousand year period of history when Muslim Civilisation led the world in scientific, technological and cultural achievement – known as the "Golden Age of Muslim Civilisation."
~ Click here for Media/Press Coverage ~
Ahmed Salim, Producer and Managing Director of the brand, said: "1001 Inventions features a diverse range of exhibits, hi-tech games, interactive displays and dramatisation that bring to life historic role models from Muslim Civilsation who will serve as an inspiration for modern Malaysia's young people to pursue careers in science and technology."
From the seventh century onwards, men and women of many different faiths and ethnic backgrounds worked together, building on knowledge from ancient civilisations, to make groundbreaking advances in the fields of medicine, engineering, astronomy, agriculture, geology, mathematics, music and architecture. Their achievements still have an impact of the way we live our lives today, and also paved the way for the European Renaissance a millennium later.
Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, taking a closer look at the Al-Jazari's Elephant Clock, which is the main attraction during the exhibition (source)
Mr David Oh Seong Keat, Operations Director of Science Discoveries Sdn Bhd, said: "Malaysia is chosen as the exhibition's premiere in this region and this will surely help boost our nation's tourism industry as it is a unique, world class exhibition.
"1001 Inventions will also introduce Malaysians to a world of science and technology that will inspire the younger generations to become the pioneering minds of tomorrow," said Oh.
Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin at the "1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilisation" exhibition in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. With him are (from left) Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Ewon Ebin, Axiata chief executive officer Datuk Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, National Science Centre director Associate Professor Dr Irmawati Ramli and Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Abu Bakar Mohamad Diah. Pic by Sairien Nafis (source)
The exhibition has been immensely popular in Europe, America and the Middle East, where a dual language Arabic-English version enjoyed blockbuster residencies across the Arabian peninsula. The Malaysian version of the exhibition features more than 60 exhibits targeting all age groups. This hands-on, interactive and state-of-the-art family-friendly show introduces visitors to the wonders of scientific advancement we have inherited from Muslim Civilisation.
1001 Inventions was voted the world's best touring exhibition by the Museum and Heritage Excellence Awards in London in 2011, and currently has more than three million online fans on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, watching the students playing educational games in 1001 Inventions Exhibition (source)
Visitors have the opportunity to enjoy five interactive 'Zones' that reproduce some of the most astounding inventions of the Golden Ages and demonstrates the broad influence that Muslim Civilisation has had on the way we live our lives today.
Visitors will be introduced to the wonders of Muslim Civilisation through an internationally award-winning educational film The Library of Secrets that is projected onto a five-metre-high screen.
Told as a short story, the 10-minute movie follows the journey of young children exploring the era of the historically mislabeled 'Dark Ages' and this will give them a better understanding and appreciation when they start exploring the main exhibition.
Rapt attention: Students from SMK Bukit Bandaraya looking at an interactive exhibit at the 1001 Inventions exhibition at the National Science Centre (Source)
Oscar-winning actor, Sir Ben Kingsley, plays renowned 12th century engineer, Al-Jazari, who introduces the wealth of innovation and advancement that occurred throughout the Muslim World from 7th and 17th centuries.
Ahmed Salim, from 1001 Inventions, stated: "The exhibition is a powerful educational tool that brings the history of Muslim Civilisation to life in high-tech, exciting and engaging ways that will appeal to school children and adults alike.
"The positive messages of public support we have already received have been overwhelming, and we are confident that 1001 Inventions will be as popular in Malaysia as it has been in Europe, America and the Middle East. I'm also confident that the example of inter-racial, inter-religious harmony provided by Muslim Civilisation will also be a powerful message that resonates with the young people who visit our show."
Deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin at 1001 Inventions Exhibition
in Malaysia National Science Centre (source)
Ahmed Salim, Producer and Director of 1001 Inventions
The launch event was also attended by Datuk Dr. Ewon Ebin, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, and Dr Irmawati Ramli, Director of National Science Centre. 1001 Inventions Malaysia is organised by Science Discoveries Sdn Bhd in partnership with the National Science Centre. Science Discoveries had previously brought several science exhibitions to Malaysia from the London Science Museum. The exhibition is open daily from 9am to 5pm.
1001 Inventions exhibition in Malaysia is sponsored by Axiata Group Berhad and supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Tourism Malaysia and supported by the Ministry of Education.
1001 Inventions is a leading and award-winning international science and cultural heritage brand reaching over 100 million people around the world.
1001 Inventions uncovers a thousand years of scientific and cultural achievements from Muslim Civilisation from the 7th century onwards, and how those contributions helped create the foundations of our modern world.
Through its award-winning educational programmes, books, blockbuster exhibitions, live shows, films and learning products, 1001 Inventions showcases the contributions of inspirational men and women of different faiths and cultures in a civilisation that spread from Spain to China.
1001 Inventions has produced a world-class range of exciting and engaging educational experiences, productions, products and resources that are all extensively researched by academics and experts from the UK-based Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation.
- Brand reaches over 100 million people worldwide
- Award-winning films seen by over 33 million viewers
- Blockbuster exhibitions visited by over 3.3 million people
- Over 200,000 worldwide book sales
- Over 16.5 million website visitors.
- Over 2,5 million registered member fan base
- Media Coverage in 78 countries
- 27 International Awards
Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation (FSTC)
The Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation (FSTC) is the global academic and knowledge partner for 1001 Inventions. FSTC is an international network of historians, scientists, engineers, educationalists and museum professionals working to popularise awareness of the historic roots of science. By highlighting role models from the past and how their achievements and inventions live on in the modern world, FSTC aims to inspire young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Further information is available on FSTC's popular website: FSTC.org.uk
Duration: 9 months (ends 30th of June 2014)
Opens 9am-5pm daily
FREE ENTRY to Pusat Sains Negara with every purchase of 1001 Inventions tickets
For other ticket purchases anf for more information please click here.
Pusat Sains Negara (National Science Centre)
Pusat Sains Negara Persiaran Bukit Kiara, 50662
Kuala Lumpur, Bukit Kiara, Malaysia


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McDonald's may have dumped the pink goo, but it's adding an even brighter color to its menu. The fast food giant will sell leprechaun-green shamrock shakes at 14,000 of its U.S. restaurants, according to CNN Money. The shakes have been around for a long time but haven't been a chain regular until now.
The shamrock shake itself isn't new. It's been offered by McDonald's restaurants at or around St. Patrick's Day since 1970. But in the past, only certain restaurants offered the familiar green shake.
In its 42 years of existence, the shamrock shake has developed what McDonald's refers to as a "cult-like" following among certain aficionados who prize its vivid-green hue.
So where does the shamrock shake gets its color? It's basically a vanilla shake with mint flavor, said (spokeswoman Ashlee) Yingling, and it gets the green hue from the syrup.