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Indocyanine Green (ICG) Angiography - Blood Vessel Imaging
Cones and rods are specialized receptor cells in the retina. Cones are specialized for color vision and detailed vision, such as for reading or identifying distant objects. Cones work best with bright light. The greatest concentration of cones is found in the macula and fovea at the center of the retina. The macula is the center of visual attention. The fovea is the site of visual acuity or best visual sharpness. Rods are specialized receptor cells that are located throughout the rest of the retina.
Your eyes contain more rods than cones. Rods work best in low light. Rods perceive blacks, whites, and grays, but not colors. They detect general shapes. Rods are used for night vision and peripheral vision. High concentrations of rods at the outer portions of your retina act as motion detectors in your peripheral or side vision.
The receptor cells in the retina send nerve messages about what you see to the optic nerve. The optic nerve extends from the back of each eye and join together in the brain at the optic chiasm. From the optic chiasm, the nerve signals travel along two optic tracts in the brain and eventually to the occipital cortex.
ICG is an eye test that is used to detect blood vessel problems in the choroid. This test is important because some blood vessel conditions can lead to vision loss if not diagnosed and treated early. The procedure uses an injected harmless green dye called indocyanine green. The dye reflects infrared light that is picked up by a special camera. An ICG is different than a fluorescein angiography, a similar imaging test and is often used in conjunction with a fluorescein angiogram to define a particular problem in the macula.
ICG produces detailed pictures that can show leaking blood vessels, blocked blood vessels, or vascular abnormalities. The test is also used to determine if laser surgery is possible and to plan laser surgery. ICG can pinpoint a blood vessel leak and determine the exact location to be lasered. ICG is used for many conditions, including age-related macular degeneration, choroid tumors, retinal detachment, retinal hemorrhage, and choroidal neovascularization.
You will need to have someone else drive you home from the test because your vision will be blurred following the procedure. Your doctor may have you discontinue taking certain medications prior to the test. You should tell your doctor if you are hypersensitive to iodine, allergic to X-ray dye, or allergic to shellfish. You should tell your doctor if you are pregnant or have liver disease.
Your doctor will dilate your pupils with eye drops. Your face will be stabilized with a positioning device for the test.
Your doctor will use special cameras to take pictures. The dye will be injected into your vein. Your doctor will take a series of photographs as the dye moves through your blood vessels.
Your vision will be blurred for several hours after your test. Your urine will be darker than usual for a few days, as the dye leaves your system. In rare cases, some people may be hypersensitive or allergic to the dye. Because the reaction can occasionally be serious, you should call your doctor immediately if you experience symptoms. Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, dry mouth, increased saliva production, a metallic taste in your mouth, feeling dizzy or faint, hives, sneezing, and increased heart rate.
Copyright © - iHealthSpot Interactive - www.iHealthSpot.com
This information is intended for educational and informational purposes only. It should not be used in place of an individual consultation or examination or replace the advice of your health care professional and should not be relied upon to determine diagnosis or course of treatment.
The iHealthSpot patient education library was written collaboratively by the iHealthSpot editorial team which includes Senior Medical Authors Dr. Mary Car-Blanchard, OTD/OTR/L and Valerie K. Clark, and the following editorial advisors: Steve Meadows, MD, Ernie F. Soto, DDS, Ronald J. Glatzer, MD, Jonathan Rosenberg, MD, Christopher M. Nolte, MD, David Applebaum, MD, Jonathan M. Tarrash, MD, and Paula Soto, RN/BSN. This content complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information. The library commenced development on September 1, 2005 with the latest update/addition on February 16, 2022. For information on iHealthSpot's other services including medical website design, visit www.iHealthSpot.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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The DUAL Arctic is a performance inflatable, with a cool sleek design. Inspired by the Northern Lights, the Arctic's subtle glow is like nothing else out on the water! Great at anything from surfing to flatwater it is the perfect fit and balance for riders wanting an all round SUP that does everything well. The Earth River SUP DUAL 10-7 S3 is the ultimate Swiss army knife of inflatable paddleboards. Fast, stable, agile, portable, the 10-7 earns all of the superlatives and is the ideal board if you can only have one. It will do everything, and go anywhere – the 10-7 is able to compliment your paddling environment, wherever it is. It is recommended for riders from 100 – 205 lb (up to 225 for experienced riders) with no limits on the types of paddling you want to do. Touring, surfing, whitewater, or just casual paddling are perfectly in sync with this highly versatile 32 inch width board. Perfect for riders of all sizes who want great glide and performance in flexible water environments – touring / exploring lakes and coastal waterways – fitness paddling – and some yoga, surfing, and whitewater.
Ride At A Different Level Guarantee. For full terms and conditions please visit www.earthriversup.com/buy and see user reviews on the DUAL 10-7 S3 boards.
For whitewater, the use of a standard leash is not advised. A quick-release leash, helmet, and an inherently buoyant life jacket are important safety equipment in moving river water.
The ERS 12VDC 20PSI Electrical Pump will inflate this board to 15PSI in approximately 9 minutes.
Dimensions: Length: 10 feet 7 inches - Width: 32 inches - Thickness: 5 inches
Weight: 25LB
Construction: ERS X9 Dual Core Construction + Enhanced Dynamic Rail
Fin Setup: LAKE RIVER COAST™ Fin System includes four US center fins (9", 8", 4.5", 3") and two sets of side click fins (4.5", 1"). Includes custom padded ERS Fin and Accessories bag. Center fin box is compatible with all US Fin Box compatible fins plus FCS Connect™ tool-less center fins
Included: Deluxe rolling backpack + high pressure double action pump.


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Over fifteen Broadway and National Tour performers will join notable personalities on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 7PM to celebrate New York City's Gay Pride at The LGBT Center in Manhattan. Broadway Sings for Pride: A Benefit Concert is being produced by Neal B of NealB.tv and will benefit The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. Attendees will enjoy the vast array of songs from Lady Gaga to The Beatles, along with a plethora of Broadway hits. Musical performances will feature cast members from The Book of Mormon, Wicked, Jersey Boys, Rent, Wonderland, Mamma Mia, Anything Goes and many more! Jim Lahti will serve as the evening's musical director and Carly Jibson (Broadway's Hairspray and Cry-Baby) will emcee. Musical accompaniment will be provided Jim Lahti on piano, Sean Harkness on acoustic & electric guitar and David Silliman on percussion. There will also be American Sign Language interpreters signing for the hard of hearing and deaf community.
Audiences will also hear first-hand stories of pride from some of New York's famous: Sonja Morgan ("The Real Housewives of New York City"), Reichen Lehmkuhl ("The Amazing Race", "The A-List: New York"), Randy Jones (multi-platinum recording artist, founding member of Village People), Darius de Haas (Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman, Carousel), Marti Cummings (Broadway Speaks OUT) and Matt Martin (Real Housewives of Twitter) will share their stories of pride.
The show will begin promptly at 7PM and will consist of speeches, and musical performances.
100% of the event's proceeds will be given to The LGBT Community Center of New York City
FOR TICKETS AND INFO: http://gaycenter.org/node/6779
Musical guests currently scheduled to perform are: Rory O'Malley (Broadway's "The Book of Mormon"), Raymond J. Lee (Broadway's "Anything Goes", "Mama Mia!"), Athena Reich (Singer/TV Personality, Outmusic Awards's Best Outstanding Pop Song of 2009), Russell Fischer (Broadway's "Jersey Boys" ), Tracy McDowell (Broadway's Final Cast of "Rent"), Rebecca Larkin (Broadway's "Avenue Q" & "South Pacific"), Matt Leisy (Off Broadway's "The Fantasticks"), King Aswad ("Rent" Hollywood Bowl Los Angeles, "Rent" National Tour), Renee Marino (Broadway's "West Side Story" "Wonderland"), Antoine L. Smith ("Cats" National Tour, Regional Tour of "Rent"), Luis Villabon (Associate Choreographer "A Chorus Line" National Tour, Off Broadway's "Naked Boys Singing"), Moeisha Mcgill (Broadway's "Rent" and "Mamma Mia"), Heather Parcells (Broadway's "Wonderland" "A Chorus Line", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"), Anthony Lee Medina (National Tour of "Spring Awakening"), Jenn Furman (National Tour of "Wicked"), Erica Ash (Broadway's "Baby It's You"), Derek St. Pierre (Broadway's "Rock of Ages"), Will Sheridan (Villanova basketball player, musician), Cristy Candler ("Wicked"), Cedric Leiba Jr. ("Miss Saigon" National Tour, "Rent" National Tour), Joshua Min (Singer/Songwriter), Tonya Thompson (Regional Tours of Little Shop of Horrors, Drowsy Chaperone)
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In one of the largest Twitter data breaches ever, 400 million Twitter users' data was up for sale on the dark web. One day earlier, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced their investigation into a previous Twitter data leak that affected over 5.4 million users. In late November, a previous breach was found. A sample of data was posted on a hacker forum to prove its authenticity.
User information includes email, name, username, follower count, creation date, and sometimes phone number. In the hacker's sample data, there are some really high-profile user accounts. Data from the sample includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, SpaceX, CBS Media, Donald Trump Jr., Doja Cat, Charlie Puth, Sundar Pichai, NASA's JWST account, NBA, Shawn Mendes, and WHO's Social Media.
Many more high profile users' data is included in the sample. Most of them will lead to the social media team, but a legitimate data leak could be quite damaging. Alon Gal, co-founder and CTO of Israeli cybercrime intelligence company Hudson Rock, believes that the data was obtained from an API vulnerability that allowed the threat actor to query any email or phone.
In his post, the hacker wrote, "Twitter or Elon Musk if you are reading this you are already risking a GDPR fine over 5.4m breaches. Buying this data exclusively is your best option to avoid $276 million USD in GDPR breach fines like Facebook (due to 533 million users being scraped)." A breach of this scale could blow up in Elon Musk's face following his sledgehammering of Twitter's business and policy.


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USDA Reports Provide Some Price Direction
On January 11, the USDA released a series of reports that provide important fundamental information for the crop markets. The information included the final estimate of the size of the 2012 U.S. corn and soybean crops, estimates of December 1 crop inventories, a winter wheat seedings estimate, and updated U.S. and world supply and consumption forecasts for the current marketing year.
For corn, the 2012 U.S. crop is estimated at 10.78 billion bushels, 55 million larger than the November forecast. The estimate of planted acreage of corn for all purposes was increased by 209,000 acres, the estimate of acreage harvested for grain was reduced by 346,000 acres, and the yield estimate was increased by 1.1 bushels per acre. The production estimate was larger than the pre-report average trade guess of just over 10.6 billion bushels, but the estimate of December 1, 2012 stocks of corn was actually much smaller than the average guess. Stocks were estimated at a 9-year low of 8.03 billion bushels, compared to the average guess of about 8.2 billion. The stocks estimate implies that feed and residual use of corn has not slowed as a result of the small crop and high prices that began in June of last year. Because of the harvest of a large quantity of corn before the marketing year began on September 1, 2012, feed and residual use should be evaluated over the six month period from June through November 2012. For that period, feed and residual use of corn totaled about 2.39 billion bushels, about 110 million more than use during the period from June through November 2011. Such an increase is a little surprising, but only because feed and residual use of wheat during that period was 125 million bushels larger than use in the previous year. As we have pointed out before, total grain feeding has been supported by only a very modest cut in livestock numbers and a sharp decline in the production of distillers' grain.
Unlike other years of small production and high corn prices, feed use of corn has remained large. Such a high rate of use has been possible because corn used for ethanol production has declined about 10 percent year-over-year and because exports have been almost non-existent. Exports during the first quarter of the 2012-13 marketing year were at a 41-year low of 220 million bushels. For the year, the USDA now projects exports at a 43-year low of 950 million bushels. Year-ending stocks of corn are projected at a 17-year low of 602 million bushels and the marketing year average farm price is expected to be record high, in a range of $6.80 to $8.00 per bushel. Based on the average price received to date, it appears that the average for the year will be near the low end of that range.
The 2012 U.S. soybean crop is now estimated at 3.015 billion bushels, 44 million larger than the November forecast, reflecting an average yield of 39.6 bushels per acre, 0.3 bushel above the November forecast. Stocks of soybeans on December 1, 2012 were estimated at a 9-year low of 1.966 billion bushels, implying a larger than average "residual" disappearance during the first quarter of the marketing year. The projection of marketing year exports was unchanged at 1.345 billion bushels, reflecting the continuing expectations of a record South American crop in 2013, a larger domestic crush needed to meet export demand for meal and oil, and limited supplies of U.S. soybeans. Year-ending stocks are projected at 135 million bushels, up only 5 million from last month's projection, and the marketing year average farm price is projected in a range of $13.50 to $15.00. Based on the average selling price to date, the average for the year will likely be in the lower half of that range.
The December 1, 2012 inventory of U.S. wheat was reported at 1.66 billion bushels, slightly smaller than the average guess. Feed and residual use of wheat during the first half of the marketing year was about 220 million bushels larger than use during the same period last year, prompting the USDA to raise the forecast for the year by 35 million bushels and to lower the projection of year-ending stocks by a similar amount. The projection of the marketing year average farm price was lowered by $0.05 per bushel, in recognition that much of the 2012 crop has already been sold.
Winter wheat seeded for harvest in 2013 is estimated at 41.82 million acres, 496,000 more than seeded for harvest in 2012. The increase was smaller than expected, with area seeded to soft red wheat up 16 percent and area seeded to hard red and white wheat down about two percent.
Taken together, the information in last Friday's reports may provide some short term support for old crop corn prices and for wheat prices. With such large crop prospects in South America, and the likelihood of a large rebound in U.S. corn and soybean production in 2013, new crop corn and soybean prices may remain under pressure.
Disclaimer: We request all readers, electronic media and others follow our citation guidelines when re-posting articles from farmdoc daily. Guidelines are available here. The farmdoc daily website falls under University of Illinois copyright and intellectual property rights. For a detailed statement, please see the University of Illinois Copyright Information and Policies here.


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Aardvark Animal Hospital is proud to have a fully stocked in-house pharmacy where you can purchase your pet's medications, flea, tick and heartworm preventives and prescription diets.
When you buy directly from us, prescriptions can be filled right on site, and you can be sure of their safety and effectiveness. Also, your purchase is logged in your pet's medical record, so our veterinarian knows your pet is getting the correct medication.
You should know that the manufacturers of many parasite preventives specify that their products only be sold directly by veterinarians. This is so product guarantees remain intact and ensures that manufacturers pay 100% of the diagnosis and necessary treatment of adverse reactions or product defects.We hope you appreciate our level of care and invite you to call us at 919-359-3595 if you have any questions or concerns.


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Twitch Extension Challenge: And the winners are…
For three months, the Twitch developer community has been hard at work creating, building, and launching Extensions for the Twitch Extension Challenge powered by AWS.
And now the winners have been announced!
Watch the announcement show with special guests now! (There's a unicorn onesie somewhere. 🦄)
People's Choice
Warp Post, created by Matt Jakubowski
This is panel Extension allows viewers to easily alert a streamer when a package is on the way to them. The viewer can post the tracking number in the same area, so the streamer doesn't have to worry about where the tracking numbers come from and all the info is in one nice easy spot.
Honorable Mentions
Cardboard.live IR Next, created by James Hsu, Sławomir, Pruchnik, Wilson Hunter
This Extension uses a service for Magic cards object detection and identification, such that viewers can click on the physical outlines of cards on-stream to see what the cards do. They also built a Magic decklist upload option, so that creators can display the hidden contents of a deck designed for a tournament.
Heat, created by Scott Garner
Heat is an Extension for interactive experiences through clicks directly on the video feed. It captures click data on the video feed and routes it to the broadcaster. Now, it provides a number of front-end demos and instructions for creating custom experiences with a simple protocol based on socket.io.
Chat Heroes, created by Nick Phillips, Matthew Snyder, Mike Freudenberg
Chat Heroes brings Chat to life with animated characters as well as helps increase streamer support using bits. It allows both the streamers and viewers to show love, say hello, get salty, etc. Chat Heroes provides multiple characters and interactions to choose from.
Playground, created by alondanoch
Playground is the ultimate audience engagement Extension. Create custom engagements, and let viewers contribute and participate in your stream. Share the love and give your viewers the recognition they deserve when they contribute to your channel!
Third Place
Chat Translator, created by Instafluff
With Chat Translator, viewers can talk to streamers and have conversations among each other, each in their own native tongue as if all other chatters speak the same language. It automatically detects and translates messages from 21 different languages to the currently-supported five languages.
Second Place
Reach Audience Worldwide, created by Kaan Baris BAYRAK
Imagine you can understand almost any language. This Extension is basically subtitles for viewers on a Twitch channel. Viewers can read subtitles in 20 different languages. With the help of this Extension, you can remove so many language barriers!
First Place
StreamBreak, created by David Fasching, Manuel Fleck & Oliver Wendelin
Multiplayer games for your audience! Keep your viewers during bio breaks and let them play mini games together! With StreamBreak, instead of a pause screen or a countdown, streamers can simply start a StreamBreak game and let their viewers play.
There were a total of 93 participants in the challenge, so there's much more to see. Check out all the submissions here.
Congrats to all the winners and thank you to everyone that submitted! You're not only helping to build the future of live entertainment, but also an awesome community.
Special shoutout to Devpost, our partner in running this challenge!
Ready to build interactive experiences on Twitch? Start now!


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"Risks are in your place". For the players of casinos whether in land-based casinos or in internet casinos the chance to get into something that you're not familiar with grow to be the most common risks in gambling. Specially in online casinos that the temptation and the urge of gambling is constantly present. With its flashy ads, great offers, and different kind of promo and privileges any player wouldn't resist its charm to hazard. And because of slot gacor this players straggle between taking the risks on online gambling or not. More or less, there are several of gamblers that take the first choice.
Upon entering the casino, look around or visit each Slot game. Extremely healthy ingredients . give which you better in order to have more play. Really are millions things to consider as you visit each slot on-line. If possible, have a pen and paper to an individual to note all of the following to ensure by straight away where you visit the casino, you won't consume period visiting each Slot again.
Many compulsive gamblers always believe normally has no that they are able to lose. When they hit loses, they always believe they will win back the previous losses over the following turn, a lot of the of the time they are disappointed. Gamblers who can't face their losses brought about by losing within the games end up being common victims of additive Gambling.
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text: Messias Anjos wants to keep up with you on TwitterTwitter connects you with everything you want to know, right now. Short bursts of information are readily available from news organizations, corporate entities, politicians, celebrities, local businesses - even your close friends and family. Also, if you have something to share with the world, Twitter makes it super easy. To join for free, click the link below. http://twitter.com/i/04bf0b9051984f3ea573e54b2589da7112c743c2 Thanks, @twitter About Twitter, Inc.Founded in 2007, Twitter Inc believes the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact. Every "Tweet" is limited to 140 characters of text or links which means they are easily written or read on a wide variety of services and devices including any mobile phone, social networks, television, Macs, PCs, and the Web. This message was sent by a Twitter user who entered your email address. If you'd prefer not to receive emails when other people invite you to Twitter, click here: http://twitter.com/i/o?c=%2BXF1abBORDG0nOI98fsW5j8tbFUrwvsQzxMQD8G3J6I744glWhjIJw%3D%3D Please do not reply to this message; it was sent from an unmonitored email address. This message is a service email related to your use of Twitter. For general inquiries or to request support with your Twitter account, please visit us at Twitter Support. |


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2041 Guru Purnima Pooja Date and Time, 2041 Guru Purnima Calendar
About Guru Purnima :
Here is the date of Guru Purnima 2041 :
2041 Guru Purnima Wallpapers Free Download →
About Guru Purnima :
Guru Purnima' is a famous festival of Hindus. Guru Purnima is a widely celebrated occasion in Schools, Colleges, Universities of India and Nepal. This festival is traditionally observed by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains to revere their chosen spiritual teachers / leaders and express their gratitude. It is celebrated on the full moon day in the month of Ashadh according to Hindu Calendar. Guru Purnima is a spiritual day and there is a difference between Guru and Teacher.
Here is the date of Guru Purnima 2041 :
Name of Festivals | Day | Date of Festivals |
Guru Purnima | Saturday | 13 July 2041 |
Guru Purnima Timing :
Purnima Tithi Begins : 3:36 AM - 13 July 2041
Purnima Tithi End : 12:29 AM - 14 July 2041
The celebration is marked by spiritual activities and may include a ritualistic event in honor of the Guru, Guru Pooja. Several programs and cultural performances are organized by spiritual organizations on this day.
2041 Guru Purnima Wallpapers Free Download →


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This article is more than 1 year old
Singapore most 'liveable' Asian city for ex-pat IT pros
Hong Kong needs to clean up its act.
Ex-pat IT professionals looking for a better quality of life abroad could do worse than try Singapore, the Japanese city of Kobe or Hong Kong – the top three most liveable cities in Asia according to new research from HR information provider ECA International.
The firm's annual Location Ratings system is designed to help firms decide what level of compensation, if any, is required to offer ex-pats who move abroad with work.
It studies a range of factors to evaluate the quality of life in hundreds of locations worldwide, and therefore the level of upheaval an ex-pat may have in relocating and living in a new land.
According to ECA, these factors include climate; housing and utilities; relative isolation; infrastructure; personal safety; political tensions; air quality and access to healthcare.
Singapore took number one spot among the 49 Asian cities studied, thanks to scoring "exceptionally well" in areas such as air quality, healthcare and infrastructure and low crime.
Kobe in Japan remained in second spot while Hong Kong jumped up two places to number three.
However, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) appears to be in the top three more as a result of Tokyo and Yokohama each dropping a place due to the effects of last year's massive Tohoku earthquake than any improvements Hong Kong itself has made.
ECA's regional director for Asia, Lee Quane, told The Reg that despite scoring well in areas like schooling, housing and transport, it is air quality that is letting Hong Kong down.
"Hong Kong's achilles heel is its air quality. For an advanced city to have air quality on a par with heavily polluted developing cities such as Beijing, Delhi and Mexico City is the major factor causing it to lag behind Singapore," he added.
"The fall in the rankings of the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama reflect the impact of last year's disaster on these cities. Given the infrastructure projects take time to complete and the fact that Japan has shuttered many of the nuclear power plants which once provided these cities with energy means that the big question is how long will it be before infrastructure, including utilities provision, is back at pre-disaster levels."
Diesel pollution from road vehicles in the heavily built-up urban areas of Hong Kong is a key factor in the SAR's poor air quality, but when locals are asked they usually point an accusing finger in the direction of China.
Heavy manufacturing in the Shenzhen region, across the border to the north of Hong Kong, is said by many to be the main culprit, especially when the wind is blowing from that direction as it is for much of winter.
The local government in Hong Kong is working with its counterpart in Guangdong and says steady progress is being made, but more days than not at the moment it's difficult to see Kowloon from Hong Kong island - a distance of around two kilometres - because of smog. ®


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Arsenic does not often form in its elemental state and is far more common in sulfides and sulfosalts such as arsenopyrite, orpiment, realgar, lollingite and tennantite. Due to the abundance of these arsenic bearing ores and the rarity of native arsenic, it is not an important ore of itself. Native arsenic is found in silver ore veins and is processed along with the silver ore and is therefore is a minor source of arsenic.
Native arsenic is usually found to have a trigonal symmetry but a very rare orthorhombic arsenic is known from Saxony, Germany and is named
An obscure variety name for the concentrically banded or "shelly" arsenic is "scherbencobalt". Some arsenic will have some antimony in its structure and native antimony is nearly indistinguishable from arsenic.


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She started her voyage by testing the pillows and the limits of the great pooch's tolerance.
Friday, February 3, 2012
"The Great White Pooch" by Miss M
She started her voyage by testing the pillows and the limits of the great pooch's tolerance.
27 comments:
- Kiira said...
Miss M Memoir Friday! She is so darn hilarious
- February 3, 2012 at 7:10 AM
- TheQueerBird said...
This made me laugh out loud! I think Fae would be a sleeper-on-dogs if Daph would tolerate it. Poor Miss M - foiled!
- February 3, 2012 at 7:16 AM
- Two Grad Students and a Pittie said...
This is soooo funny! I love the photo of Ms. M on Wilma!
- February 3, 2012 at 7:36 AM
- Molly said...
Oh my gosh! That is hilarious! Love it.
- February 3, 2012 at 8:09 AM
- In Black and White said...
I love this. Miss M is such a ham.
- February 3, 2012 at 8:21 AM
- dw said...
Miss M, forever in search of the elusive white ottoman! Call the writer Ishmael and watch her story unfold!!
- February 3, 2012 at 8:24 AM
- Gin said...
I love this! Poor Miss M just trying to get a comfy spot on Miss Bessie-Belle. And I'm guessing the reference is to the movie Losers. I love the whole The Pooch. I love reading about your guys adventures!
- February 3, 2012 at 8:27 AM
- Sarah said...
Miss M takes the dog pile to a whole new level!
- February 3, 2012 at 8:41 AM
- Millie and Walter said...
That first picture of Miss M cracks me up with that wrinkle across the top of her head. I think the problem for Miss M with Bessie Belle is that this foster is much older and wiser than your previous fosters and at her advanced age is not about to let anyone use her for a pillow.
Cindy - February 3, 2012 at 8:44 AM
- Of Pit Bulls and Patience said...
To be fair, Miss Bessie Belle looks very squishy and comfy! That's a tempting ottoman for any dog!
- February 3, 2012 at 9:18 AM
- The Daily Pip said...
Gosh, I wish I had another dog around to use as a pillow!
Your pal, Pip - February 3, 2012 at 9:24 AM
- goosie mama said...
That picture of Miss M and Wilma is so great!! Miss Bessie Belle is too funny (totally making an "I'm not so sure ..." face). This post is amazing!
- February 3, 2012 at 9:54 AM
- matt said...
thats so funny...my pit motley enjoyed the pictures!!! Motley thinks he can do that to me whenever he wants ha
- February 3, 2012 at 11:36 AM
- brooke said...
hahahha love this! I love how Miss M cuddles with the other pooches! So sweet!
- February 3, 2012 at 1:02 PM
- Tucker The Crestie said...
Too funny - Miss M. is relentless in her pursuit! Phoebe does this to Tucker all the time.
- February 3, 2012 at 4:04 PM
- A Wonderful Dogs Life said...
Miss M you are adorable! Poor Bessie Belle looks like she can't get outta there fast enough. One day they will snuggle. It just might be Miss M that's the pillow ;)
Emma - February 3, 2012 at 8:48 PM
- Cereal City Doggie Mom said...
No problem commenting. Loved the Great White Pooch!
- February 4, 2012 at 11:36 AM
- 2 Punk Dogs said...
Maggie & Duke like to snuggle, but Miss M takes it to the extreme! Mr. B, Levi & Wilma all look smooshed, but happy.
- February 4, 2012 at 3:06 PM
- Laura and Hans said...
Even though we rode our bikes to the library today I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't get your literary reference right off the bat! This is because I was laughing too hard at Miss M's failure to turn poor Bessie into her own personal ottoman.
- February 4, 2012 at 7:25 PM
- Kolchak Puggle said...
LOL, adorable post! I laughed out loud. I love the picture of Miss M practically crushing that foster pup. I bet foster pups are really squishy. I should replacce y pillow with one.
- February 4, 2012 at 9:14 PM
- PoochesForPeace said...
that is so funny, she's so cute :) Shadow does something similar to this, but only with humans, not with spuds. And she also does this in the form of always having to sit on someone or something soft...if your feet are on the floor in any way, she'll sit on them rather than the floor. Or even in bed, she'd rather sit on our legs or stomach (ouch!) than the bed lol.
- February 6, 2012 at 7:27 AM
- SWK said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- February 7, 2012 at 11:32 AM
what kind of camera do you guys use?
- February 7, 2012 at 11:42 PM
- KJR said...
Just discovered your blog and I love it! As a pibble lover and native to Chicago I can really appreciate your adventures. This post is adorable and I love that you captured it all in pictures. By the way, is that a PostSecret book I see? :)
- February 8, 2012 at 9:29 AM
- Sarge in Charge said...
THAT FACE at the end! Dying.
- February 22, 2012 at 7:25 AM
This post just made my morning... Miss M just cracks me up!
- January 24, 2013 at 10:24 AM
- liliana876 said...
- January 24, 2013 at 11:29 AM


text:
WiLCAS 2014 (Women's Life Choices and Attitudes Survey) is a nationally representative survey of women in Bangladesh between the ages of 20 and 39, designed to investigate how improved access to secondary schooling for women impact upon long-term outcomes related to employment, migration, marriage, childbirth and investment in children.
The survey is being conducted by the University of Kent and the University of Malaya in collaboration with DATA, Bangladesh (Data Analysis and Technical Assistance).
In the first phase of the survey, the enumeration team visited, between May and July 2014, all households included in the rural sample of the 2010 Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditures Survey which included at least one woman aged between 16 and 35 in 2010, and a random 50% of households in the same sample without any women in this age group. In addition, the enumeration team conducted a census of 75 urban primary sampling units (PSU) in Bangladesh, and 20 households were randomly chosen from each to be included in the survey.
For each household included in WiLCAS 2014, the team implemented a short household questionnaire and an individual questionnaire for each female household member between the ages of 20 and 39. The individual questionnaire included modules on education, marriage, childbirth and child-related investments, social networks, subjective well-being, aspirations, and attitudes towards traditional norms.
The first phase of the survey generated a sample of 7,974 households and 6,293 female respondents (for whom individual questionnaire was implemented) located in 478 different primary sampling units.
For the second phase of the survey, a random sample of 1,500 individuals were drawn from the pool of sisters of the first-phase female respondents who were alive, resident elsewhere and aged between 20 and 39 years. The sisters were traced to their current households, and a household questionnaire together with an individual questionnaire implemented for each of them.


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Fred Lerdahl
Fred Lerdahl studied at Lawrence University, Princeton, and Tanglewood. He has taught at UC/Berkeley, Harvard, and Michigan, and since 1991 he has been Fritz Reiner Professor of Music at Columbia University.
Commissions have come from the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Spoleto Festival, National Endowment for the Arts, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, Chamber Music America, and others. Among the organizations that have performed his works are the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, eighth blackbird, Speculum Musicae, Collage, Argento, Talea, the Peabody Trio, the Juilliard Quartet, the Pro Arte Quartet, the Daedalus Quartet, Ensemble XXI, Lontano, and the Venice Biennale.
He has been in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival, IRCAM, the Wellesley Composers Conference, the American Academy in Rome, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, the Etchings Festival, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Lerdahl's music has been commercially recorded on several labels and Bridge Records has established "The Music of Fred Lerdahl" portrait series.
His seminal book A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, co-authored with linguist Ray Jackendoff, is a founding document for the growing field of the cognitive science of music. His subsequent book, Tonal Pitch Space, won the 2003 distinguished book award from the Society for Music Theory and an ASCAP-Deems Taylor award. A third book (in progress), Composition and Cognition, based on his 2011 Bloch Lectures at UC/Berkeley, will bring together his dual activity as composer and theorist.
In 2010 Lerdahl was honored with membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Three of his works composed since 2000—Time after Time for chamber ensemble, the Third String Quartet, and Arches for cello and chamber orchestra—have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in music.


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Valentin Inzko
Exodus of young people from Western Balkans is linked to problems with the rule of law and lack of modernisation, speakers at enlargement conference warn.
A lack of justice is driving Bosnians to leave their country, Valentin Inzko, the EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said on 19 June in a critical assessment of the state of the country's politics and institutions. His concern that poor governance is encouraging emigration from the Western Balkans was echoed by other speakers from other countries at the Enlargement Day conference organised by the European Committee of the Regions.
The conference was held a day after EU member states decided to postpone a decision on starting accession talks with Albania and with North Macedonia, which changed its name earlier this year to settle a dispute with Greece and remove what had long been the principal obstacle to its hopes of joining the EU. There was unanimous support from the podium for North Macedonia's case for opening accession talks, with representatives of the European Commission noting that it has recommended that talks begin for the ten past years; but there were also strong voices that argued that the EU's financial support is, in other parts of the region, failing to spread European values – the main question of the conference.
"To be clear from the very beginning, I think the EU is not getting a fair return" on its investment, said Mr Inzko, who took up his post in 2009. "Despite the significant investments in Bosnia and Hercegovina, we have witnessed a remarkable decline in some of these areas, most importantly and worryingly the rule of law," he said, concluding that "we have to maybe reassess our approach", introduce deadlines to inject a sense of urgency and emphasise implementation. Over the years, he said, the international community had withdrawn its presence from institutions in the country, an approach that, he said, now looked like "a head-in-the-sand policy". The effects on the judiciary are now evident in "two scandals". One "scandal" is that Bosnia and Herzegovina is ignoring a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights ordering the country to stop preventing 300,000 people not of Serb, Bosniak, or Croat ethnicity from many public posts. The other is a recent decision by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council – "the highest body responsible for vetting, appointing, disciplining and dismissing prosecutors" – de facto to grant its president "not merely immunity, but impunity" by dismissing a disciplinary proceeding as "inadmissible". This was a procedure "that can only be described as a sham" that "sends a message that there is no justice" in the country.
His disappointment was mirrored by Valery Perry of the Democratization Policy Council, who said that the brain drain from Bosnia has turned into a "flood". The Dayton constitution was never about accountability and good governance, but ending a war. Now, she argued, the international community now finds itself providing external support for a worsening and dysfunctional status quo. Bottom-up constitutional reform is needed, she said, including greater agency and greater accountability for local administrations.
The need for reform at the local and regional level is a theme across the region, said Sonja Licht of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence. "I am deeply convinced that the issue of decentralisation remains unfinished task, to be very diplomatic in our entire region," she said, arguing that decentralisation must "go hand in hand with developing the strength of municipalities, local institutions, their cooperation with all other stakeholders at local level, and in achieving a serious effort in a bottom-up economic development". She continued: "The problem is that we all lack a clear-cut strategy" and that, while EU funding is helping, "it is very important to have a serious capacity-building effort".
She concluded by warning that "if the exodus of people from our region… continues, we will lose the agents of change, the men and women-power to really carry things through".
Vesselin Valkanov of the Regional Cooperation Council urged administrations at all levels to take an "honest approach…, backed with a financial commitment" and pressed local administrations to look too for partners across borders, saying regional cooperation "does not side-track you; it helps you advance".
The conference was preceded on the 18 June by parallel country-specific meetings, focused on topics ranging from the Dayton agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, good governance in North Macedonia, and the EU's pre-accession financial support for Montenegro, to the rule of law in Serbia and youth unemployment in Turkey. There were no specific meetings for local and regional politicians from Albania and Kosovo*[1] as the CoR's Working Group on Western Balkans has an alternating focus on Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.
European Commission representatives praised the "profound reform" undertaken by Albania, but greatest attention this year was on North Macedonia. The breakthrough in relations between Greece and what is now North Macedonia has been paralleled at the local level, with the first visits to Skopje and Athens by their mayors. The "law-making process is increasingly transparent and inclusive" and progress in areas such as public administration is improving the situation of local government, the European Commission said. Nonetheless, the EU, whose ambassador to North Macedonia has now visited half of the country's municipalities, is "very aware of the difficulties created by a lack of human and financial resources".
Petre Shilegov, mayor of Skopje, president of the Association of the Units of Local Self-Government of the Republic of North Macedonia (ZELS) and president of the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe (NALAS), said that local government in North Macedonia – as in other countries in the region – had suffered in the state-building process in the "very, very bad years" after the collapse of Yugoslavia. He predicted, however, that the process of decentralisation in North Macedonia will develop rapidly and that the rest of the region will follow. Central government has recently assumed some debts built up by local government, and speakers expressed the hope that a better matching of funding and responsibilities will follow.
There were also positive assessments about Montenegro, which became a candidate for EU membership in late 2010. At a meeting that offered an insight into how EU support operates at the local level, the European Commission described Montenegro as "probably the best performer in terms of utilisation" of twinning and the technical assistance and information exchange instrument TAIEX, and noted that the country is very active in cross-border programmes. The EU's collaboration with Montenegro is now in a more challenging phase, moving from a project-by-project approach to a more "holistic" approach – a change that, in practice, means that the EU considers not just, for example, the renovation of a school but teacher-training, school material, and budgeting when it supports a local education project. Darko Mrvaljević of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro said that local government needs more staff knowledgeable about the management of EU projects and said that "keeping people we have trained" is a "very important problem".
Progress was made, the Commission said, at the local level in Serbia, a country that otherwise was subject to significant criticism by the EU. Goran Vesić, mayor of Belgrade, Serbia's capital, said that local-government reforms in Serbia are being driven by the realisation that "more than 70%" of EU rules will require some action at the local level, and highlighted the "abolition of plastic bags" in Belgrade next year as an example of the ambition for change being driven by integration into the EU.
The Commission found that, across the Western Balkans, freedom of expression is "very limited" and noted that the number of journalists in jail in Turkey – 160 – is one of the highest in the world. The Commission also brought attention to Turkey's "serious backsliding" at home (including a "strong deterioration in human rights") and the country's continued drilling in Cypriot waters – a policy that was criticised by EU member states on 18 June.
[1] This designation is without prejudice to positions on the status of Kosovo, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/99 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence..


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text: Price Guide is updated frequently, with motorcycle prices from around the globe, many were not sold by or through bradsbikes! Thanks to friends from all over the place for sending me their favorite recent sale, much less the various auction events around the country and world! If you've recently sold a nice example of a vintage bike, please feel free to send us a picture and the price it sold for, and we'll post it if we don't have anything similar posted already. PLEASE NOTE: THESE BIKES ARE NOT FOR SALE, THEY'RE ALREADY GONE!!!


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By David Ramli
Crazy John's was once a quirky mobile phone brand borne of a working class man whose branches dotted suburban Australia. But in September it will cease to exist - almost seven years after the tragic death of its founder, John Ilhan.
Vodafone Hutchison Australia will on Wednesday announce that Crazy John's will be shut down and its 100,000 customers will be offered a move into the parent brand.
''It is a sad day and it's certainly the end of an era in name but his pioneering spirit is alive here,'' Vodafone Australia director of sales Ben McIntosh said. ''We look forward to welcoming those Crazy John's customers who are coming over to Vodafone, and we say goodbye to those who are leaving and thank them for their loyalty and support over the years.''
Mr Ilhan, 42, collapsed and died while walking near his Melbourne home in October 2007. His death triggered an outpouring of grief from politicians and celebrities to then-prime minister John Howard.
Vodafone Australia bought 75 per cent of Crazy John's from his widow, Patricia Ilhan, in 2008 for around $150 million.
The young entrepreneur who was the son of Turkish migrants loved the limelight and rode the mobile phone boom by turning his low-cost retail store into a national success story with 120 outlets and $200 million per year in revenues.
He sponsored football clubs, homeless youth shelters and food allergy fighters after discovering his daughter Jaida was unable to eat peanuts. He also tapped into antipathy about the national carrier, describing Telstra as a ''bully'' that was no longer competitive as part of his sales pitch.
But his greatest commercial legacy was Crazy John's - a name he claimed came to life because customers kept saying his marketing ideas were crazy.
The company was the first to offer $1 mobile phones that allowed customers to pay less up-front and more over the life of a contract. The practice is now common.
Vodafone Australia operated Crazy John's as a separate entity until January, 2013, when it decided to merge it with the parent company and close down 40 of the 60 outlets that had survived - a move that saddened Ms Ilhan.
Vodafone Australia's Mr McIntosh said that with customers down to around 100,000 users it no longer made sense to have both running.
He was keen to state that no staff would lose their jobs.
Crazy John's was then run as an online-only operation with its own customers and prices that went as low as $5 per month - plans that shall no longer be offered.


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Lightning Still Largely a Mystery
Some 44,000 thunderstorms rage worldwide each day, delivering as many as 100 lightning bolts to the ground every second. These dramatic, deafening flashes of electricity recharge the global battery by keeping the ground flush with negative electric charge and maintaining the ionosphere's positive charge. Lightning turns the Earth into an electric circuit, and it may have even delivered the spark that got life started in the primordial soup.
But for all we know, lightning might as well come from Zeus. Counting Ben Franklin's kite-and-key experiment as the starting point, 250 years of scientific investigation have yet to get to grips with how lightning works.
Atmospheric scientists have a basic sketch of the process. Positive electric charges build up at the tops of thunderclouds and negative charges build up at the bottoms (except for perplexing patches of positive charges often detected in the center-bottom). Electrical attraction between these opposite charges, and between the negative charges at the bottom of the cloud and positive charges that accumulate on the ground below, eventually grow strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow.
Like a herd of elephants wading across a river, negative charges venture down from the bottom of the cloud into the sky below and move haltingly toward the ground, forming an invisible, conductive path called a "step leader." The charges' path eventually connects to similar "streamers" of positive charges surging up from the ground, completing an electrical circuit and enabling negative charges to pour from the cloud to the ground along the circuit they have formed. This sudden, enormous electric discharge is the flash of lightning.
Related: 7 simple questions with no answers
But as for how all that happens — well, it just doesn't make much physical sense. There are three big questions needing answers, said Joe Dwyer, a leading lightning physicist based at the Florida Institute of Technology. "First, how do you actually charge up a thundercloud?" Dwyer said. A mix of water and ice is needed to provide atoms that can acquire charge, and updrafts are required to move the charged particles around. The rest of the details are hazy.
One theory holds that high-energy cosmic rays from space shoot down through the cloud, stripping off electrons from atoms as they go and dragging these negatively charged particles toward the cloud base, creating a charge imbalance. Dwyer said that although this process may play a role, it doesn't seem sufficient to explain the huge imbalance that scientists observe.
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The consensus among scientists, he told Life's Little Mysteries, is that charge separation is mainly achieved in a process called "non-inductive charging mechanism."
"You have a mixed phase of ice and water up above 5 kilometers [3 miles] or so, and somehow those interact with each other and you have some kind of precipitation, and you have updrafts blowing up," he said. "Somehow the ice and water interact and manage to separate into oppositely charged particles. The lighter particles acquire positive charge and get blown to the top, and the heavier ones are negative and fall down."
That aforementioned positive patch near the bottom of the cloud remains a head-scratcher. [The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]
The second point of confusion is called the "lightning initiation problem." Measurements of the electric fields inside thunderclouds have consistently yielded peak values that are an order of magnitude weaker than is needed to break down the insulating properties of air. Man-made spark plugs require a much bigger electric field, or voltage difference between one electrode and the other in order for a current to tear across the gap. So the question is, "How do you get a spark going inside a thunderstorm? The electric fields never seem to be big enough inside the storm to generate a spark. So how does that spark get going? This is a very active area of research," Dwyer said.
And once the spark gets going, the final question is how it keeps going. "After you get it started, how does lightning propagate for tens of miles through clouds?" Dwyer said. "That's an amazing thing — how do you turn air from being an insulator into a conductor?"
Lightning confounds much of scientists' understanding of basic physics. But according to Dwyer, progress has recently picked up the pace. "We have a lot of ways of measuring lightning and storms that weren't available a few years ago. We can look at the radio signals coming out of them. We can trigger lightning, so that we can know where to point our cameras and instruments. Ten years ago we realized that lightning produces X-rays and gamma rays, which was unexpected. This has given us new insight into what's going on. So we're making a lot of progress."
As of yet, it seems Zeus' wrath has technically not been ruled out.
Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover or Life's Little Mysteries @llmysteries. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
Natalie Wolchover was a staff writer for Live Science from 2010 to 2012 and is currently a senior physics writer and editor for Quanta Magazine. She holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Tufts University and has studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with the staff of Quanta, Wolchover won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing for her work on the building of the James Webb Space Telescope. Her work has also appeared in the The Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best Writing on Mathematics, Nature, The New Yorker and Popular Science. She was the 2016 winner of the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award, an annual prize for young science journalists, as well as the winner of the 2017 Science Communication Award for the American Institute of Physics.


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I'm a freak, I know. I love January. Time to start over, it's even better for new pencil cases than September. A friend once told me that it's a lousy time to start those physical processes of transformation, like detoxes, if you live in the northern hemisphere. All we want to do is hibernate.
I'll try to take the blog out of hibernation a bit more (woohoo says the world. Oh, no it doesn't) but as it turns out I'm writing loads elsewhere which is why this has been so sadly neglected. I left an unfilling job and now I'm freelancing - all over the place. And I've had s-u-c-h-f-u-n for the past three months! Some interesting work has already coming my way and there will be more.
I've been cooking a lot, and watching a lot of movies. Jen, I have some new partners in crime for cinema outings. I miss the edginess of watching a film with you though, as I could never tell if you were going to walk out on me, heh. However the boy has a new Magic Cinema Card and he's just dying to use it.
So this week there's been:
On Friday, The Road. The world has ended, the survivors have descended into cannibalism. Viggo's wife has walked off into the night and he's following her last words, to 'go south'. So many questions about this movie. Like, why did they replace the normal kid-sized kid from the movie with his much smaller doppelganger for the poster. It's not a barrel of laughs this one but the landscape is stunning. The ending irritated me. The kid really irritated me. Also Viggo looks a bit like my dad. Freaky.
On Sunday, with a remit to choose something less mournful, we saw Up in The Air. Clooney being Clooney. Interesting tableau of modern relationships and how to be alone - and lonely - in a crowd of people. Best title sequence I think I've ever seen. It's from the director of Juno (also - good soundtrack) and while there are laughs in it, given that it deals with two very fundamental issues - relationships and redundancies, it's not ostensibly one to have you falling about. It's also that much more real than the former.
And for various reasons, we went to see The Book Of Eli on Monday. I'm a big fan of From Hell, also directed by the Hughes Brothers. This movie is going straight there. I thought the Guardian review wasn't keen and then read the Observer one. Note: next time will read before going to the cinema. It's like a remake of the Road after the directors found God. I so nearly walked out, but wrongly thought the boy was immersed.
All I could think was 'If Jen was here... we wouldn't be....'


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text:
Most of us have an area in our life we wish we were performing better in. That part of us that doesn't quite fit into our own skin. It could be a touchy subject that our spouse and friends know to steer clear of, the elephant in the room. It could be the promotion you still haven't received, the credit card you haven't paid off, or the weight you were supposed to lose by the beginning of summer… in 2012.
And because you're wearing this very uncomfortable skin that's not quite your size I am happy to tell you that you are exactly where you chose to be today.
I can already hear the objections rising up so let me explain why.
You see I totally understand your story. I understand because it's yours, mine, and everyone else's. Sometimes having a new baby, a busy time at work, or the worst timing for a medical emergency/broken down car/economic depression can happen. There are a million and one events in life that can derail us. They are not always fair and can seem impossible to overcome when they show up knocking at our door.
"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths."
-Arnold Schwarzenegger
At that point we do an admirable thing. We give up on our dream. We set it aside to go fix the problem. We change our identity and become the superhero who knows exactly how to work overtime and take care of a sick parent. We do it because we want to make sure the story has a happy ending. We do it out of love.
And life goes on.
And sometimes the situation gets better. And sometimes it doesn't. Either way, the situation that called for a superhero 6 months ago no longer needs a hero to save it. But there you stand in cape and tights committed to action. Except now it's time to go home. Time to write a new story.
Where you stand today is a result of many choices. Some of your hero moments were the big decisions that shaped your trajectory. Like I said, I'm proud of you for doing that. But now it's time to get back on the path. Your path. The one you stopped telling yourself that you wanted because it hurt too bad to think that it may never come true.
You might think it's too late (it's not).
You might want to try, but feel that you strayed too far (you haven't).
You have to remember you have the power of choice. And it's a good thing that you do. It gives you the power to turn your greatest adversity into your greatest strength. You always have the option to shy away or to stand and fight.
It's time for a new story. You're the hero and you're at the turning point in the movie of your life. So what are you going to do next?You've endured hardship, learned tough lessons, and fallen time and time again. Wouldn't this be a great time for everything to turn around?
Maybe you can recruit someone to help you get there, a long lost friend or a wise old mentor. Maybe you need to crank up "Eye of the Tiger" and experience the training it will take to achieve your success.
The time to act is now. Don't slip back into your old story. You are the hero. The power of choice brought you here. Your choice decides what happens next.
So what are you going to do?
[GYM OWNER:] Add a call to action here, like: "Schedule your Free Consult here" with a link.


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Johannesburg – At the time of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda a horrified missionary was famously reported as exclaiming there were devils left in hell and they had all gone to Rwanda.
The political legacy of that horror now appears to have moved to greater Johannesburg, as came into focus this week with the apparent assassination of shadowy former Rwandan spymaster ex-Colonel Patrick Karegeya in lurid circumstances in a room in Sandton's top-end Michelangelo Towers Hotel.
Though the one-time head of Rwandan strongman Paul Kagame's sinister external intelligence operation was apparently strangled – a bloodied towel and curtain cord were discovered in the hotel room's safe together with the lifeless body on New Year's Day – detectives were also investigating the possibility he had been drugged before the actual commission of the murder.
While the South African government has yet to point a finger of blame at Kagame's government and officially continues to investigate the killing as an ordinary and not political murder, details that have come to light around Karegeya's last hours strongly suggest a connection with the Rwandan regime.
According to Karegeya's political associates, at the time of his death Karegeya had been in the company of a Rwandan national, a businessman called Appolo Kiririsi Gafaranga. A figure with a chequered history – a poly-linguist and dealer in grey weapons, and also drug trafficker convicted under UK law – Kiririsi had apparently convinced Karegeya of his bona fides as a fellow conspirator against Kagame's authoritarian rule.
Though as yet no evidence has come to light of the presence of accomplices in the murder, Karegeya's close associate and controversial fellow Rwandan dissident and former army chief General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa has said there was evidence that "no less than three or four men" had been present at the killing.
Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, left, and his army chief of staff Maj. General Kayumba Nyamwisa consult their watches soon after addressing the first contingent of a Rwandan battalion who were pulled out of Congo at Kigali, the Rwandan capital in this file picture. (AP Photo/Rodrique NgowiI)
Rwanda has emphatically denied any involvement in the murder.
The country's high commissioner to South Africa, Vincent Karega, this week told sister paper, The Star, it did not make sense to blame his government for Karegeya's death.
"Why would we have waited six years?" Karega asked, referring to the years Karegeya had stayed in South Africa.
Meanwhile allegations have surfaced in intelligence circles of a series of high-level meetings in the area of Gikondo in Rwanda late last year – including a briefing by Kagame himself on December 20 – at which the assignation was apparently planned and directed. Involving a hand-picked group of close Kagame associates, including members of his immediate family, the claimed killing network is allegedly co-ordinated by the head of Kagame's military intelligence, Jack Nziza, and has been linked in the past to several kidnappings and attempted assassinations both inside Rwanda and in other African states, notably Kenya and Tanzania.
The dissident exile publication Ikaze Iwacu goes so far as to name the alleged six-man hit squad dispatched from Kigali to back up Kiririsi on his mission.
The same general network has been linked to two attempted assassinations on Nyamwasa in South Africa in 2010. In the same year, Karegeya – who had been living in exile in South Africa since fleeing Rwanda in 2007 – together with Nyamwasa and two other prominent former Kagame insiders established the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) in Johannesburg as an opposition in exile to their former political master.
17\03\06 Michelangelo tower in Sandton.Pic:Mike Dibetsoe 493
Two men arrested in connection with the attempted assassinations will appear in court later this month. In the wake of the attempted assassinations and the ongoing refusal of the government to accede to Rwandan demands that the dissidents be extradited to face Rwandan justice after being convicted in absentia, diplomatic relations descended to an all-time low with the recall of South Africa's ambassador to the Great Lakes country. More recently, South Africa emerged as a major driving force on the African stage in the deployment under the UN banner of a peace-keeping mission in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with an unprecedented mandate to use force against militants threatening stability in the region. Especially targeted by the highly effective UN intervention force – whose major military asset emerged as the South African Rooivalk helicopter gunship – was the M23 rebel grouping. Though Rwanda continues to deny any involvement in M23, observers as well as UN analysts have consistently linked the insurgency to Kagame's expansionist ambitions.
For its part, the Kagame administration – which, despite mounting evidence of human rights abuses and Machiavellian intrigue, presides over a strongly performing economy – accuses South Africa of meddling in its internal affairs and sponsoring its enemies. The claim is backed up by the fact that until 2011, Karegeya was under official South African protection and quietly furnished with political asylum. In the fallout from the 2010 assassination attempts, Nyamwasa continues to fall under the protection of the South African security apparatus, and no action has been taken against the RNC since its formation.
The International Crisis Group said Karegeya's killing raised more questions on the safety of exiled Rwandese. The group's Piers Pigou said South Africa and Rwanda "should engage" on the attacks.
"All we hear from the Rwanda government is denials and more denials. But there seems to be a pattern of attempts on lives of Rwandese in exile," Pigou said.
In the meantime, the official protest against the dissident grouping has been strengthened by reports of links between the RNC and Hutu billionaires and other fugitive power-players linked to the Hutu genocide of Tutsis in the 1994 horrors.
In offering shelter to the Rwandan dissidents, South Africa also appears to be playing host to what seems a deeply sinister spook culture. The role attributed by Kagame's critics to Jack Nziza was pioneered by Karegeya in his position as head of Rwanda's external intelligence – co-ordinating cross-border kidnappings and alleged assassinations, before falling out with the Tutsi strongman in 2006 and serving an 18-month sentence in prison before his South African exile.
In 2011, a curious report appeared in the Burundian press around the death in Johannesburg of Rwandan singer Jean Christophe Matata on a concert tour in Johannesburg. Though no foul play was reported at the time, an unnamed woman said the death had followed a sequence of events springing from a sexual triangle with Karegeya as the third point of reference.
As she narrated it, she had revived, on a clandestine basis, a long-standing relationship with the singer, while at the same time offering sexual favours to Karegeya, whom she described as her "Boss" since he paid her for sex.
Thinking her dalliance with Matata was unknown, she went to see Karegeya, who confronted her with details of the illicit affair. He then proceeded, she says, to say he suspected Matata had been sent as a spy by Kagame to infiltrate his networks, and he was looking to access evidence to this effect.
At this point, she claims, he tasked her with slipping a drug (which he provided) into the singer's drink at their next meeting, which would knock him out and allow for his baggage to be searched while he slept.
This, the woman claims, she did and Karegeya's agents duly searched Matata's effects. The plan, as she understood it, however, went awry when the singer never recovered from the sleeping draught, finally booking himself into hospital in Johannesburg where he breathed his last.
Hawks spokesman, Paul Ramaloko, could not be reached for comment yesterday. But on Friday he told the media the hunt for the killer of Karegeya was continuing. – The Sunday Independent
January 5 2014 at 11:55am
Find this story at 5 January 2014
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The early days of modern computing were downright weird, and the HP 9830B is a strange one indeed: it's a gigantic calculator, running BASIC, on a CPU implemented over a dozen cards using discrete logic. In 2014 dollars, this calculator cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000. [Mattis] runs a retrocomputer museum and recently acquired one of these ancient machines, and the walkthrough of what it took to get this old machine running is a great read.
There were several things wrong with this old computer when it arrived: the keyboard had both missing key caps and broken switches. The switches were made by Cherry, but no one at Cherry – or any of the mechanical keyboard forums around the Internet – have ever seen these switches. Luckily, the key cap connector isn't that complex, and a little bit of bent wire brings the switches back up to spec. The key caps were replaced from a few collectors around the globe.
Getting as far as booting the machine, [Mattis] found some weirdness when using this old calculator: the result of 2+2 was 8.4444444, and 3+1 was 6.4444444. Simply pressing the number 0 and pressing execute resulted in 2 being displayed. With a little bit of guesswork, [Mattis] figured this was a problem with the ALU, and inspecting the ROM on that board proved to be correct: the first 128 nibbles of the ROM were what they were supposed to be, and the last 128 nibbles were the OR of the last half. A strange error, but something that could be fixed with a new replacement ROM.
After hunting down errors with the printer and the disk drive, [Mattis] eventually got this old calculator working again. For such an astonishingly complex piece of equipment, the errors were relatively easy to hunt down, once [Mattis] had the schematics for everything. You can't say that about many machines only 10 years younger than this old calculator, but then again, they didn't cost as much as a house.