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Your download should have started already. If it has not then click below to start your download. File sizes may be 3-5 MBs and therefore may take several minutes to download.
Download Now for Windows — Filename: RSSCD_43138.zip
Vista Users Click Here — Instructions for Vista Users
This is a compressed file, meaning that the contents have been compressed to make them download faster. Because of that, you will need to decompress the file once it is on your computer. See below for instructions. 1. As soon as your download starts, you should see a question, asking you if you want to Open or Save this file. Click Save to continue. |
2. Choose a location to save the file, preferably on your Desktop. Then click Save. |
3. Your file will begin downloading. Once it is complete, click Open to continue. |
4. A folder will open, showing the contents of the compressed folder. But we still need to decompress it. Click "Extract all files". |
5-7. The Extraction Wizard opens. Click Next to continue, and Next again. Select the option to "Show extracted files" and click Finish. |
6. A window will open, containing your files. You will now have 2 folders on your desktop; • RSSCD_43138 You may delete the zip folder at any time. See below to continue with Burning to CD. |
1. To begin, insert a blank CD into your drive. You should see a message asking what you'd like to do. Choose "Open Writable CD folder using Windows Explorer" and click OK. 2. Windows will open a new window named CD Drive. |
3. Drag the contents of the RSSCD_43138 folder (not the folder itself) over to the CD drive window. |
4. The CD is now ready to be created. Click "Write these files to CD" in the left hand column. |
5. Next the CD Writing Wizard appears. just give the CD a name, such as the property's address, then click Next. |
6. The files will be copied to the CD. |
7. Once the CD is complete, you have the option to make anohter copy. Once you're done, click Finish. |


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The Best Song From Every Steely Dan Album
Steely Dan started out from a pretty intellectual place. After all, they memorably named themselves after an obscure sexual aid from William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel Naked Lunch. By the time they released the jazz-inflected Aja, however, the famous writer had become disenchanted. "These people are too fancy," Burroughs famously groused. "They're too sophisticated."
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker did, indeed, become ever more sophisticated. The former classmates at Bard, a small college in upstate New York, were always interested in toiling more literate soil. (Their first band was winkingly called the Bad Rock Group, and featured future comedian Chevy Chase on drums.) Over time, they sought to create music that was just as cerebral as the lyrics – and increasingly meticulous, too. That ultimately meant shedding the very idea of a band, as Fagen and Becker traded steady collaborators for a parade of talented role players who were mixed and matched to fit the moment.
Credit their friend Gary Katz for casting Steely Dan's first lineups, for helping the group establish their offbeat sound – and for getting them out to California in the first place. Los Angeles only beckoned when Katz took a job with ABC with a stipulation that Becker and Fagen were hired as contract songwriters.
Their debut surprised everyone, including Steely Dan, by producing a pair of hit songs. "We had zero expectations. In fact, we were amazed that ABC bought the album at all," Becker told Rolling Stone in 1977, snickering. "It was like a dream come true."
Steely Dan gained more and more confidence – at first Fagen didn't want to sing, and they tried out another frontman in David Palmer – even as their songs gained more narrative complexity and musical depth. By the time their third album arrived, Steely Dan was evolving into something else entirely: A studio creation. They became legendary for endless searches for just the right sound, or just the right take.
Four albums later, this impulse toward perfectionism had reached a frustrating zenith and they decided to take some time off. Like, 13 years off. Then the strangest thing happened when Becker and Fagen finally got back together, after producing one another's early '90s solo projects: They became road warriors.
Steely Dan toured off and on for seven years before releasing the first of two late-era albums. In fact, Steely Dan remained on the concert trail even after Becker's unexpected death. Fagen continued studio work, but Everything Must Go – issued more than a decade prior to Becker's passing – appears to be Steely Dan's swan-song studio recording.
Which individual moments from this fascinating journey rose to the top? Here's our list of the best song from every Steely Dan album ...
The Best Song From Every Steely Dan Album
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso

subset: commoncrawl


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You have many options for finding new friends via online and mobile apps. These new video technologies make it easier to establish a human connection with someone who is thousands of miles away. Chathour is an anonymous online video chat site where strangers can meet up. You can connect with strangers, have a chat, and discuss anything you want. Chathour was originally created for Russian-speaking people around the globe, but it is now being used by anyone who speaks any language. This is a wonderful website to improve your French.
Chathour allows you to start random video chats without having to log in. It doesn't take much to sign up. Simply click the "start" button to instantly match up with a partner. To instantly connect with another person, tap the "Next" button whenever you get tired of the person that you are talking to. We recommend that you use your phone's camera or your computer's webcam to have the best possible experience. You can even create a nickname for yourself and a status update that includes a description of you. Chathour is available to you in many languages which allows you to reach a larger audience through the random chat app. Meet people from all around the globe!
It has many cool features that allow you to connect with strangers from all over the globe and instantly connect. To match people with people from specific locations, you can use the country selector. This allows you to meet people close to you and maybe even make a connection in real life. The website offers mini-games for users to play together when they run out conversation starters. These cool features create an engaging and immersive video chat platform people can use anonymously without sharing any personal information. Until you decide otherwise, you remain completely strangers. As soon as you feel more comfortable with someone you can add them as a friend to Chathour.
All Chathour users are strongly advised to ensure that they have read and understood all rules. Chathour reserves the right to ban any user found violating its terms and conditions of service. Report anyone who is not following the rules. There is a team of over 20 people who work 24/7 to monitor and respond to all reports. If you have security concerns, press F7.
Chathour is an app that allows you to video-chat with random strangers, whether on a smartphone or a computer. You can choose any country you wish, or let our app select someone randomly from that country. You never know, the next person you meet on the cam could be your future love or another friend you made online.
You don't need to pay anything for Chathour Enjoy unlimited cam chats absolutely free! You don't even have to pay anything. Unlimited access to the crazy fun, random online dating and video chat app with strangers.
To start viewing random people on webcam, simply press on "Allow" and then press on the large "Start" button.
As a random chat site, we have not developed many filters because we want to keep the entire concept of this chat site random. However, you do have the ability to filter users according to their location. In order to do so, click on the Country dropdown menu near the top of the screen and choose a country that you wish to meet people from. You can either choose to meet people from one country at a time or you can view all users randomly.
There are two ways for you to communicate with the people you meet on Bozocam – you can either text chat by typing in the text area or you can talk directly into the microphone/webcam if you have enabled your microphone.
Swapping between users is the easiest thing ever! Simply press on the "Next" button, which is located under your own webcam and you will instantly be brought to someone else's webcam. Keep pressing the "Next" button to go from cam to cam.
Absolutely! There is a "Stop" button located right under your webcam screen – press it at any time to immediately stop viewing webcams. You can resume viewing webcams at any time by pressing on the "Start" button.
DISCLAIMER: All guidance, whether in the form of Guidelines or Frequently Asked Questions, is meant to supplement or explain provisions in the Terms of Use. Nothing contained in this guidance should be construed to limit our Terms, in the event of any conflict between this guidance, and our Terms, the Terms control, nothing contained herein is presented as an exhaustive list of prohibited behaviors.
Copyright 2021, All rights reserved. StrangerChat.net


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Pick up times from the bakery
Mon- Fri 8.30am-11.30am
Sat 8am – 10am
Closed Sunday
Delivery times are
8am - 1pm Tuesday to Friday
6.30am-1pm Saturday
No Deliveries Monday and Sunday
*Order must be in by 10 am for same day delivery Tuesday - Friday only . Orders must be in by 9 am Friday for Saturday deliveries. No deliveries Monday and Sunday
Product Description
The cake is 15cm OR 6" in diameter, 10cm in height and feeds 12 to 14 guests.
Cake details
3 layers of cake filled and covered in vanilla frosting
Choose your flavours: when ordering for Sunday, be aware that the Vanilla sponge will tend to dry out as we do not use preservatives in our mixtures. We suggest sticking to the mud flavours.
Triple deck is the most popular and is always available. Any other flavour requires 2 hours' notice to prepare so keep this in mind when needing for same day delivery.
THE FLOWERS sometimes may vary from the pictures however will always match
Customise an Image:
If you want a custom image, please email email@example.com with the image that you would like in jpeg or high-resolution format OR what you would like us to do and we will find the image for you. We will also match the icing decorations to the image OR call us at the bakery 02 9743 4009 to discuss all details including the age and name you would like printed on the image (if at all).
Acyclic Cake toppers:
These toppers can be custom made and require 2 days' notice prices range $45-65
"Happy birthday" toppers come in gold, silver and black $15
Please call the bakery if you would like us to add to your order
Fresh flowers:
We can usually organise the flowers on the same day (that's if you are happy for us to get whatever is available on the day)- If you want it to match the flowers to the product you are ordering pls give us 1 days' notice
Handmade cake toppers:
We hand make all our toppers in the bakery – they take a week to set please take this into consideration when ordering online-in some cases we can make some quicker try your luck by calling the bakery to ask if we can get it processed quicker
This cake can be made in other sizes: 8", 9", and 11" please call the bakery for price 97434009


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A Cinematic Thrill-Ride
by Zac Ryan
A visually stunning love letter to cinema, Holy Motors may be light on plot, but it delves deep into multiple genres and may have one of the greatest performances of the early twenty-first century.
I recommend that you go into Holy Motors without much knowledge of the story, the characters or the visual candy in store for you. Coming off of its successful screening in Cannes earlier this year, I was told to avoid anything in the press and any trailers if I wanted to have the ultimate experience. Before sitting in the darkened multiplex to witness Leos Carax's latest film, I had seen the trailer only once, but little can actually be gleaned from it. So I leave you here dear reader, if you want to have one of the best film experiences in several years, and admonish you to turn away from the rest of the review and let the mind wander when you actually see the film.
In the opening images of Holy Motors, the director Leos Carax wakes in a room wallpapered to look like a forest and is freed by inserting a key into the wall that is part of his finger. From there, he looks over a group of theater-goers, watching a flick on the big screen. Then suddenly, a dog is wandering down the aisles. Maybe this old dog represents Carax and his old ways of cinema compared to the splashy special effects-laden films currently being churned out by the studios. Maybe there is another meaning, or maybe the director wants you to dig deeper into the film with multiple viewings to fully grasp his messages.
From the cinema we meet Monsieur Oscar, played by long-time Carax collaborator Denis Lavant, as he leaves his palatial estate and jumps into the back of the waiting stretched limo. What emerges from the limo after its jaunt across Paris, but a hunchbacked woman, who heads onto the town to beg for change. This is one of the many characters or "appointments" he will have over the course of a single day.
In between each appointment, Oscar sits in the back of the limo, which has been set up as a makeshift changing room. He transforms easily into each character with a mixture of prosthetics, wigs and acting chops. Neither Oscar, nor Carax, ever explains what the mission is or why he's set upon these "appointments." Viewers are left to make up their own minds, as Lavant plays eleven different characters over the course of the day. Not only is he the beggar, but also an emotionally abusive father, a performer in a motion capture session, and a sewer dwelling, flower-eating madman who kidnaps a fashion model (Eva Mendes). The latter character was previously featured in Carax's segment "Merde" in Tokyo!
With each new vignettes, Carax mixes between genres. One minute the audience may be laughing at the antics, while in the next segment the film shifts gears and hits a serious moment, all before breaking out in a song as an interlude. And Lavant flawlessly embodies every character. It is the type of role actors dream of, but as films often rely heavily on the use of actors against green-screened backdrops, an actor is hardly given the chance to explore multiple facets within the same movie. Just like Cloud Atlas, Motors wants the viewer to dig in deeper to find the meanings between the connective tissues. It may not be easy in the first viewing, but as you pull back the layers, you may just be able to see what Carax wanted to share with all of us.


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Smoky Quartz Point
Smoky Quartz Point
This smoky quartz point from Brazil has calcite inclusions and is 2.5" in height and 2" wide.
A stone of magic and inspiration, quartz is an extremely versatile stone and is known as the most powerful energy amplifier of all of the healing crystals. It is widely available around the world and has a multitude of uses, making it a suitable stone for any area of your home.
All crystal + aroma products ship within 1-3 business days after your purchase. Our made-to-order wood stands and products are hand-made with care in our studio and ship within 3-5 business days. If you've ordered multiple items that include made-to-order pieces, all products will ship within 3-5 business days. We ship through USPS and UPS to all locations within the U.S. All orders over $50 are eligible for standard free shipping. Express shipping does not qualify for free shipping offer.
All orders come with standard tracking and insurance. After your order is shipped you will receive a confirmation email and your shipment details. We are unable to re-route a package after it has left our studio and cannot be held responsible for any missing orders marked as 'delivered' by USPS or UPS.
For any questions regarding your order please message us at email@example.com.
We want you to be completely satisfied with your purchase. You have 30 days from date of purchase to contact us at email@example.com to initiate a return or exchange. All returned items must be in the same condition that they were received in. Customer is responsible for all additional shipping costs.
For any other questions or to initiate a return or exchange, please contact us at email@example.com.
For any questions regarding our products or your order feel free to email us at email@example.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok @anzastudio.


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It's Limerick-Off time, once again. And that means I write a limerick, and you write your own, using the same rhyme word. Then you post your limerick(s) as a comment to this post and, if you're a Facebook user, on Facebook too.
I hope you'll join me in writing limericks using BUNK or DEBUNK at the end of Line 1 or Line 2 or Line 5. (Homonyms or homophones are fine.)
The best submission will be crowned Limerick-Off Award Winner. (Here's last week's Limerick-Off Award Winner.)
Additionally, you may write themed limericks related to BOATING, using any rhyme scheme. And of course I'll present an extra award — one for the best BOAT-related limerick.
How will your poems be judged? By meter, rhyme, cleverness, and humor. (If you're feeling a bit fuzzy about limerick writing rules, here's my How To Write A Limerick article.)
I'll announce the winners on September 18, 2016, right before I post the next Limerick-Off. So that gives you two full weeks to submit your clever, polished verse. Your submission deadline is Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time.)
Here's my limerick:
The media's drowning in junk;
Scams and falsehoods it fails to debunk.
Though we're succored by Snopes,
We're still suckered like dopes,
And on hoaxes and dupery drunk.
Please feel free to enter my Limerick-Off by posting your limerick(s) in my comments. And if you're on Facebook, I hope you'll join my friends in that same activity on my Facebook Limerick-Off post.
To receive an email alert whenever I post a new Limerick-Off, please email email@example.com Subject: MadKane's Newsletter. Thanks!


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The Country Music Association announced another round of performers for the 52nd annual CMA Awards: Lauren Alaina, Brad Paisley, Ricky Skaggs, and Chris Stapleton with Maren Morris and Mavis Staples.
Previously announced performers include Kelsea Ballerini, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Dan + Shay, Old Dominion, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley with Brothers Osborne, Florida Georgia Line with Bebe Rexha, Kacey Musgraves, Pistol Annies, Thomas Rhett, Jason Aldean with Miranda Lambert, Garth Brooks, Luke Combs, Midland, and Brett Young.
In addition, Lindsay Ell, Vince Gill, Sierra Hull, Chris Janson, Ashley McBryde, David Lee Murphy, Jon Pardi, Carson Peters, Marty Stuart, and Cole Swindell are scheduled to make special appearances during the show.
Hosted for the 11th consecutive year by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, the CMA Awards will air live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. CT on ABC.
Nominees are below.
Entertainer of the Year
Jason Aldean
Luke Bryan
Kenny Chesney
Chris Stapleton
Keith Urban
Female Vocalist of the Year
Kelsea Ballerini
Miranda Lambert
Maren Morris
Kacey Musgraves
Carrie Underwood
Male Vocalist of the Year
Dierks Bentley
Luke Combs
Thomas Rhett
Chris Stapleton
Keith Urban
Vocal Duo of the Year
Brothers Osborne
Dan + Shay
Florida Georgia Line
Maddie & Tae
New Artist of the Year
Lauren Alaina
Luke Combs
Chris Janson
Brett Young
Single of the Year (Awarded to Singer, Producer and Engineer)
"Broken Halos" – Chris Stapleton
Producers: Dave Cobb, Chris Stapleton
Mix Engineer: Vance Powell
"Drinkin' Problem" – Midland
Producers: Dann Huff, Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne
Mix Engineer: Justin Niebank
"Drowns the Whiskey" – Jason Aldean (Feat. Miranda Lambert)
Producer: Michael Knox
Mix Engineer: Jeff Braun
"Meant to Be" – Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line
Producer: Willshire
Mix Engineer: Serban Ghenea
"Tequila" – Dan + Shay
Producers: Scott Hendricks, Dan Smyers
Mix Engineer: Jeff Juliano
Album of the Year
From A Room: Volume 2 – Chris Stapleton
Producers: Dave Cobb, Chris Stapleton
Golden Hour – Kacey Musgraves
Producers: Ian Fitchuk, Daniel Tashian, Kacey Musgraves
Graffiti U – Keith Urban
Producers: Keith Urban, Dan McCarroll, J.R. Rotem, Josh Kerr, Jason Evigan, Greg Wells, Benny Blanco, Ed Sheeran, Johnny McDaid, Jesse Shatkin, Jimmy Robbins, Oscar Holter, Matt Rad, Eric Valentine, Ian Kirkpatrick, Mike Elizondo, Captain Cuts, Ross Copperman, Dann Huff, Peter Karlsson
Life Changes – Thomas Rhett
Producers: Julian Bunetta, Jesse Frasure, Dann Huff, Joe London, Thomas Rhett
The Mountain – Dierks Bentley
Producers: Ross Copperman, Jon Randall Stewart, Arturo Buenahora Jr.
Vocal Group of the Year
Lady Antebellum
Little Big Town
Old Dominion
Song of the Year (Awarded to Songwriters)
"Body Like A Back Road" – Zach Crowell, Sam Hunt, Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne
"Broken Halos" – Songwriters: Mike Henderson, Chris Stapleton
"Drowns the Whiskey" – Songwriter: Brandon Kinney, Jeff Middleton, Josh Thompson
"Drunk Girl" – Songwriter: Scooter Carusoe, Tom Douglas, Chris Janson
"Tequila" – Songwriter: Nicolle Galyon, Jordan Reynolds, Dan Smyers
Musical Event of the Year
"Burning Man" – Dierks Bentley feat. Brothers Osborne
"Dear Hate" – Maren Morris (Feat. Vince Gill)
"Drowns the Whiskey" – Jason Aldean (Feat. Miranda Lambert)
"Everything's Gonna Be Alright" – David Lee Murphy (with Kenny Chesney)
"Meant to Be" – Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line
Music Video of the Year (Awarded to Artist & Director)
"Babe" – Sugarland (Featuring Taylor Swift)
Director: Anthony Mandler
"Cry Pretty" – Carrie Underwood
Director: Randee St. Nicholas
"Drunk Girl" – Chris Janson
Director: Jeff Venable
"Marry Me" – Thomas Rhett
Director: TK McKamy
"Tequila" – Dan + Shay
Director: Patrick Tracy
Musician of the Year
Jerry Douglas, Dobro
Paul Franklin, Steel Guitar
Dann Huff, Guitar
Mac McAnally, Guitar
Derek Wells, Guitar
photo by Jason Simanek


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Memento Pajamas and Shirt Giveaway
There's nothing comfier than hanging out in a pair of pajamas! (And fuzzy slippers, too!)
Enter for a chance to win a set of monogrammed pajamas! Enter below, then leave me a comment - thanks!
Memento Monogrammed PJ + Pocket Shirt Giveaway
Apr 10-12, 2013
Open to US
Monograms have a cool history for personalization. In ancient times, people were using different tools and mediums to leave their names on different objects. At one point in some cultures, it was only the ruling class who was allowed to personalize the possessions.
Those times have become history. And today, we are enjoying different ways to instil a special feeling into personalization process.
To honor your needs for personalization, we would like to offer you this pure and simple giveaway prize – A PJ and Pocket Shirt Set. The Memento company has put its magic into the embroidery, colors, technology they're using to bring up attention to your lettering – your Monogram.
(Your Choice Of Colors & Monogram)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
(This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.)


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by John Perry Barlow
Previously published in the July, 1992 issue of Communications of the ACM.
A little sunlight is the best disinfectant. --Justice Louis Brandeis
Over a year ago, in a condition of giddier innocence than I enjoy today, I wrote the following about the discovery of Cyberspace: Imagine discovering a continent so vast that it may have no other side. Imagine a new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust, more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs enough to exploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate which expands with development.
One less felicitous feature of this terrain which I hadn't noticed at the time was a long-encamped and immense army of occupation.
This army represents interests which are difficult to define. It guards the area against unidentified enemies. It meticulously observes almost every activity undertaken there, and continuously prevents most who inhabit its domain from drawing any blinds against such observation.
This army marshals at least 40,000 troops, owns the most advanced computing resources in the world, and uses funds the dispersal of which does not fall under any democratic review.
Imagining this force won't require the inventive powers of a William Gibson. The American Occupation Army of Cyberspace exists. Its name is the National Security Agency.
It can be argued that this peculiar institution inhibits free trade, has damaged American competitiveness, and poses a threat to liberty anywhere people communicate with electrons. Its principal function, as my colleague John Gilmore puts it, is "wire-tapping the world." It is free to do this without a warrant from any judge.
It is legally constrained from domestic surveillance, but precious few people are in a good position to watch what, how, or whom the NSA watches. Those who are tend to be temperamentally sympathetic to its objectives and methods. They like power, and power understands the importance of keeping it own secrets and learning everyone else's.
Whether it is meticulously ignoring every American byte or not, the NSA is certainly pursuing policies which will render our domestic affairs transparent to anyone who can afford big digital hardware. Such policies could have profound consequences on our liberty and privacy.
More to point, the role of the NSA in the area of domestic privacy needs to be assessed in the light of other recent federal initiatives which seem aimed at permanently denying privacy to the inhabitants of Cyberspace, whether foreign or American.
Finally it seems an opportune time, directly following our disorienting victory in the Cold War, to ask if the threats from which the NSA purportedly protects Americans from are as significant as the hazards the NSA's activities present.
Like most Americans I'd never given much thought to the NSA until recently. (Indeed its very existence was a secret for much of my life. Beltway types used to joke that NSA stood for "No Such Agency.") I vaguely knew that the NSA was one of the twelve or so shadowy federal spook houses erected shortly after the creation of the Iron Curtain with the purpose of stopping its advance.
The NSA originated in response to a memorandum sent by Harry Truman on October 24, 1952 to Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Defense Secretary Robert Lovatt. This memo, the very existence of which remained secret for almost 40 years, created the NSA, placed it under the authority of the Secretary of Defense, and charged it with monitoring and decoding any signal transmission relevant to the security of the United States.
Even after I started noticing the NSA, my natural immunity to paranoia combined with a belief in the incompetence of all bureaucracies continued to mute any sense of alarm. This was before I began to understand the subterranean battles raging over data encryption and the NSA's role in them. Lately, I'm less sanguine.
Encryption may be the only reliable method for securing privacy in the inherently public domain of Cyberspace. I certainly trust it more than privacy protection laws. Relying on government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.
In fact, we already have a strong-sounding federal law protecting our electronic privacy, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act or ECPA. But this law is not very effective in those areas where electronic eaves dropping is technically easy. This is especially true in the area of cellular phone conversations, which, under the current analog transmission standard, are easily accessible to anyone from the FBI to you.
The degree of present-day law enforcement apprehension over secure cellular encryption provides evidence of how seriously they've been taking ECPA. Law enforcement organizations are moving on a variety of fronts to see that robust electronic privacy protection systems don't become generally available to the public. Indeed, the current administration may be so determined to achieve this end they may be willing to paralyze progress in America's most promising technologies rather than yield.
Push is coming to shove in two areas of communications technology: digital transmission of heretofore analog signals, and the encryption of transmitted data.
As the communications service providers move to packet switching, fiber optic transmission lines, digital wireless, ISDN and other advanced techniques, what have been discrete channels of continuous electrical impulses, voices audible to anyone with alligator clips on the right wires, are now becoming chaotic blasts of data packets, readily intelligible only to the sender and receiver. This development effectively forecloses traditional wire-tapping techniques, even as it provides new and different opportunities for electronic surveillance.
It is in the latter area where the NSA knows its stuff. A fair percentage of the digital signals dispatched on planet Earth must pass at some point through the NSA's big sieve in Fort Meade, Maryland, 12 underground acres of the heaviest hardware in the computing world. There, unless these packets are also encrypted with a particularly knotty algorithm, sorting them back into their original continuity is not very difficult.
In 1991, alarmed at a future in which it would have to sort through an endless fruit salad of encrypted bits, the FBI persuaded Senator Joseph Biden to include certain language in Senate Bill 266. The new language in the bill required electronic communications services and those who created communications devices to implement only such encryption methods as would assure government's ability to extract the plain text of any voice or data communications in which it took a legal interest. It was as if the government had responded to a technological leap in lock design by requiring all building contractors to supply it with skeleton keys to every door in America.
The provision raised wide-spread concern in the computer community, which was better equipped to understand its implications than the general public. In August of last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in cooperation with Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and other industry groups, successfully lobbied to have it removed from the bill.
Our celebration was restrained. We knew we hadn't seen the last of it. For one thing, the movement to digital communications does create some serious obstacles to traditional wire-tapping procedures. I fully expected that law enforcement would be back with new proposals, which I hoped might be ones we could support. But what I didn't understand then, and am only now beginning to appreciate, was the extent to which this issue had already been engaged by the NSA in the obscure area of export controls over data encryption algorithms. Encryption algorithms, despite their purely defensive characteristics, have been regarded by the government of this country as weapons of war for many years. If they are to be employed for privacy (as opposed to authentication) and they are any good at all, their export is licensed under State Department's
International Traffic in Arms Regulations or ITAR.
The encryption watchdog is the NSA. It has been enforcing a policy, neither debated nor even admitted to, which holds that if a device or program contains an encryption scheme which the NSA canUt break fairly easily, it will not be licensed for international sale. Aside for marveling at the silliness of trying to embargo algorithms, a practice about as pragmatic as restricting the export of wind, I didn't pay much attention to the implications of NSA encryption policies until February of this year. It was then that I learned about the deliberations of an obscure group of cellular industry representatives called the Ad Hoc Authentication Task Force, TR45.3 and of the influence which the NSA has apparently exercised over their findings.
In the stately fashion characteristic of standard-setting bodies, this group has been working for several years on a standard for digital cellular transmission, authentication, and privacy protection. This standard is known by the characteristically whimsical telco moniker IS-54B.
In February they met near Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. At that meeting, they recommended, and agreed not to publish, an encryption scheme for American-made digital cellular systems which many sophisticated observers believe to be intentionally vulnerable. It was further thought by many observers that this Rdumbing downS had been done indirect cooperation with the NSA. Given the secret nature of the new algorithm, its actual merits were difficult to assess. But many cryptologists believe there is enough in the published portions of the standard to confirm that it isnUt any good.
One cryptographic expert, who asked not to be identified lest the NSA take reprisals against his company, said: "The voice privacy scheme, as opposed to the authentication scheme, is pitifully easy to break. It involves the generation of two `voice privacy masks' each 260 bits long. They are generated as a byproduct of the authentication algorithm and remain fixed for the duration of a call. The voice privacy masks are exclusive_ORed with each frame of data
from the vocoder at the transmitter. The receiver XORs the same mask with the incoming data frame to recover the original plain text. Anyone familiar with the fundamentals of cryptanalysis can easily see how weak this scheme is."
And indeed, Whitfield Diffie, co-inventor of Public Key cryptography and arguably the dean of this obscure field, told me this about the fixed masks: "Given that description of the encryption process, there is no need for the opponents to know how the masks were generated. Routine cryptanalytic operations will quickly determine the masks and remove them."
Some on the committee claimed that possible NSA refusal of export licensing had no bearing on the algorithm they chose. But their decision not to publish the entire method and expose it to cryptanalytical abuse (not to mention ANSI certification) was accompanied by the following convoluted justification: "It is the belief of the majority of the Ad Hoc Group, based on our current understanding of the export requirements, that a published algorithm would facilitate the cracking of the algorithm to the extent that its fundamental purpose is defeated or compromised." (Emphasis added.)
Now this is a weird paragraph any way you parse it, but its most singular quality is the sudden, incongruous appearance of export requirements in a paragraph otherwise devoted to algorithmic integrity. In fact, this paragraph is itself code, the plain text of which goes something like this: "We're adopting this algorithm because, if we don't, the NSA will slam an export embargo on all domestically manufactured digital cellular phones."
Obviously, the cellular phone system manufacturers and providers are not going to produce one model for overseas sale and another for domestic production. Thus, a primary effect of NSA-driven efforts to deny some unnamed foreign enemy secure cellular communications is on domestic security. The wireless channels available to Americans will be cloaked in a mathematical veil so thin that, as one crypto- expert put it, "Any county sheriff with the right PC-based black box will be able to monitor your cellular conversations."
When I heard him say that, it suddenly became clear to me that, whether consciously undertaken with that goal or not, the most important result of the NSA's encryption embargoes has been the future convenience of domestic law enforcement. Thanks to NSA export policies, they will be assured that, as more Americans protect their privacy with encryption, it will be of a sort easily penetrated by authority.
I find it increasingly hard to imagine this is not their real objective as well. Surely, the NSA must be aware of how ineffectual their efforts have been in keeping good encryption out of inimical military possession. An algorithm is somewhat less easily stopped at the border than, say, a nuclear reactor. As William Neukom, head of Microsoft Legal puts it, "The notion that you can control this technology is comical."
I became further persuaded that this was the case upon hearing, from a couple of sources, that the Russians have been using the possibly uncrackable (and American) RSA algorithm in their missile launch codes for the last ten years and that, for as little as five bucks, one can get a software package called Crypto II on the streets of Saint Petersburg which includes both RSA and DES encryption systems.
Nevertheless, the NSA has been willing to cost American business a lot of revenue rather than allow domestic products with strong encryption into the global market.
While it's impossible to set a credible figure on what that loss might add up to, it's high. Jim Bidzos, whose RSA Data Security licenses RSA, points to one major Swiss bid in which a hundred million dollar contract for financial computer terminals went to a European vendor after American companies were prohibited by the NSA from exporting a truly secure network.
The list of export software containing intentionally broken encryption is also long. Lotus Notes ships in two versions. Don't count on much protection from the encryption in the export version. Both Microsoft and Novell have been thwarted in their efforts to include RSA in their international networking software, despite frequent publication of the entire RSA algorithm in technical journals all over the world.
With hardware, the job has been easier. NSA levied against the inclusion of a DES chip in the AS/390 series IBM mainframes in late 1990 despite the fact that, by this time, DES was in widespread use around the world, including semi-official adoption by our official enemy, the USSR.
I now realize that the Soviets have not been the NSA's main concern at any time lately. Naively hoping that, with the collapse of the Evil Empire, the NSA might be out of work, I learned that, given their own vigorous crypto systems and their long use of some embargoed products, the Russians could not have been the threat from whom this forbidden knowledge was to be kept. Who has the enemy been then? I started to ask around.
Cited again and again as the real object of the embargoes were Third- World countries, terrorists and... criminals. Criminals, most generally drug-flavored, kept coming up, and nobody seemed concerned that some of their operations might be located in areas supposedly off- limits to NSA scrutiny.
Presumably the NSA is restricted from conducting American surveillance by both the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978(FISA) and a series of presidential directives, beginning with one issued by President Ford following Richard Nixon's bold misuse of the NSA, in which he explicitly directed the NSA to conduct widespread domestic surveillance of political dissidents and drug users.
But whether or not FISA has actually limited the NSA's abilities to conduct domestic surveillance seemed less relevant the more I thought about it. A better question to ask was, "Who is best served by the NSA's encryption export policies?" The answer is clear: domestic law enforcement. Was this the result of some plot between NSA and, say, the Department of Justice? Not necessarily.
Certainly in the case of the digital cellular standard, cultural congruity between foreign intelligence, domestic law enforcement, and what somebody referred to as "spook wannabes on the TR45.3 committee" might have a lot more to do with the its eventual flavor than any actual whisperings along the Potomac.
Unable to get anyone presently employed by the NSA to comment on this or any other matter, I approached a couple of old hands for a highly distilled sample of intelligence culture.
I called Admirals Stansfield Turner and Bobby Ray Inman. Their Carter administration positions as, respectively, CIA and NSA Directors, had endowed them with considerable experience in such matters In addition, both are generally regarded to be somewhat more sensitive to the limits of democratic power than their successors. And their successors seemed unlikely to return my calls. My phone conversations with Turner and Inman were amiable enough, but they didn't ease my gathering sense that the NSA takes an active interest in areas beyond its authorized field of scrutiny. Turner started out by saying he was in no position to confirm or deny any suspicions about direct NSA-FBI cooperation on encryption. Still, he didn't think I was being irrational in raising the question. In fact, he genially encouraged me to investigate the matter further. He also said that while a sub rosa arrangement between the NSA and the Department of Justice to compromise domestic encryption would be "injudicious," he could think of no law, including FISA (which he helped design), which would prevent it.
Alarmingly, this gentleman who has written eloquently on the hazards of surveillance in a democracy did not seem terribly concerned that our digital shelters are being rendered permanently translucent by and to the government. He said, "A threat could develop...terrorism, narcotics, whatever...where the public would be pleased that all electronic traffic was open to decryption. You can't legislate something which forecloses the possibility of meeting that kind of emergency."
Admiral Inman had even more enthusiasm for assertive governmental supervision. Although he admitted no real knowledge of the events behind the new cellular encryption standard, he wasn't disturbed to hear it might be purposely flawed.
And, despite the fact that his responsibilities as NSA Director had been restricted to foreign intelligence, he seemed a lot more comfortable talking about threats on the home front. "The Department of Justice," Inman began, "has a very legitimate worry. The major weapon against white collar crime has been the court-ordered wiretap. If the criminal elements go to using a high quality cipher, the principal defense against narcotics traffic is gone." This didn't sound like a guy who, were he still head of NSA, would rebuff FBI attempts to get a little help from his agency.
He brushed off my concerns about the weakness of the cellular encryption standard. "If all you're seeking is personal privacy, you can get that with a very minimal amount of encipherment." Well, I wondered, Privacy from whom?
Inman seemed to regard real, virile encryption to be something rather like a Saturday Night Special. "My answer," he said, "would be legislation which would make it a criminal offense to use encrypted communication to conceal criminal activity."
Wouldn't that render all encrypted traffic automatically suspect? I asked.
"Well," he said, "you could have a registry of institutions which can legally use ciphers. If you get somebody using one who isn't registered, then you go after him."
You can have my encryption algorithm, I thought to myself, when you pry my cold dead fingers from its private key.
It wasn't a big sample, but it was enough to gain an appreciation of the cultural climate of the intelligence community. And these guys are the liberals. What legal efficiencies might their Republican successors be willing to employ to protect the American Way? Without the familiar presence of the Soviets, we can expect a sharp increase in over-rated bogeymen and virtual states of emergency. This is already well under way. I think we can expect our drifting and confused hardliners to burn the Reichstag repeatedly until they have managed to extract from our induced alarm the sort of government which makes them feel safe.
This process has been under way for some time. One sees it in the war on terrorism, against which pursuit "no liberty is absolute," as Admiral Turner put it. This, despite the fact that, during last year for which I have a solid figure, 1987, only 7 Americans succumbed to terrorism.
You can also see it clearly under way in the War on Some Drugs. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution has largely disappeared in this civil war. And among the people I spoke with, it seemed a common canon that drugs (by which one does not mean Jim Beam, Marlboros, Folger's, or Halcion) were a sufficient evil to merit the government's holding any keys it wanted.
One individual close to the committee said that at least some of the aforementioned "spook wannabes" on the committee were interested in weak cellular encryption because they considered warrants not "practical" when it came to pursuing drug dealers and other criminals using cellular phones.
In a fearful America, where the people cry for shorter chains and smaller cages, such privileges as secure personal communications are increasingly regarded as expendable luxuries. As Whitfield Diffie put it, "From the consistent way in which Americans seem to put security ahead of freedom, I fear that most would prefer that all electronic traffic was open to government decryption."
In any event, while I found no proof of an NSA-FBI conspiracy to gut the American cellular phone encryption standard, it seemed clear to me that none was needed. The same results can be delivered by a cultural "auto-conspiracy" between like-minded hardliners and cellular companies who will care about privacy only when their customers do.
You don't have to be a hand-wringing libertarian like me to worry about the domestic consequences of the NSA's encryption embargoes. They are also, as stated previously, bad for business. Unless, of course, the business of America is no longer business but, as sometimes seems the case these days, crime control.
As Ron Rivest (the "R" in RSA) said to me, "We have the largest information-based economy in the world. We have lots of reasons for wanting to protect information, and weakening our encryption systems for the convenience of law enforcement doesn't serve the national interest."
But by early March, it was clear that this "business-oriented" administration had made a clear choice to favor cops over commerce even if the costs to the American economy were to become extremely high.
A sense of White House seriousness in this regard could be taken from their response to the first serious effort by Congress to bring the NSA to task for its encryption embargoes. Rep. Mel Levine (D- Calif.) proposed an amendment to the Export Administration Act to transfer mass market software controls to the Commerce Department, which would relax the rules. The administration responded by saying that they would veto the entire bill if the Levine amendment remained attached to it.
Even though it appeared the NSA had little to fear from Congress, the Levine amendment may have been part of what placed the agency in a bargaining mood for the first time. They entered into discussions with the Software Publishers Association who, acting primarily on behalf of Microsoft and Lotus, got to them to agree "in principle" to a streamlined process for export licensing of encryption which might provide for more robust standards than previously allowed.
But the negotiations between the NSA and the SPA were being conducted behind closed doors. The NSA imposed an understanding that any agreement would be set forth only in a "confidential" letter to Congress. As in the case of the digital cellular standard, this would eliminate the public scrutiny by cryptography researchers.
Furthermore, some cryptographers worried that the encryption key lengths to which the SPA appeared willing to restrict its members might be too short for the sorts of brute-force decryption assaults which advances in processor technology will yield in the near future. And brute force decryption has always been the NSA's strong suit. The impression engendered by the style of the NSA-SPA negotiations did not inspire confidence. The lack of confidence will operate to the continued advantage of foreign manufacturers in an era when more and more institutions are going to be concerned about the privacy of their digital communications.
But the economic damage which the NSA-SPA agreement might cause would be minor compared to what would result from a startling new federal initiative, the Department of Justice's proposed legislation on digital telephony. If you're wondering what happened to the snooping provisions which were in Senate Bill 266, look no further. They're back. Bigger and bolder than before.
They are contained in a sweeping proposal by the Justice Department to the Senate Commerce Committee. It proposes legislation which would "require providers of electronic communications services and private branch exchanges to ensure that the Government's ability to lawfully intercept communications is unimpeded by the introduction of advanced digital telecommunications technology or any other telecommunications technology."
This really means what it says: before any advance in telecommunications technology can be deployed, the service providers and manufacturers must assure the cops that they can tap into it. In other words, development in digital communications technology must come to a screeching halt until The Department of Justice can be assured that it will be able to grab and examine data packets with the same facility they have long enjoyed with analog wire-tapping.
It gets worse. The initiative also provides that, if requested by the Attorney General, "any Commission proceeding concerning regulations, standards or registrations issued or to be issued under authority of this section shall be closed to the public." This essentially places the Attorney General in a position to shut down any telecommunications advance without benefit of public hearing.
When I first heard of the digital telephony proposal, I assumed it was a kind of bargaining chip. I couldn't imagine it was serious. But it now appears they are going to the mattresses on this one.
Taken together with NSA's continued assertion of its authority over encryption, a pattern becomes clear. The government of the United States is so determined to maintain law enforcement's traditional wire-tapping abilities in the digital age that it is willing to cripple the American economy. This may sound hyperbolic, but I believe it is not.
The greatest technological advantages this country presently enjoys are in the areas of software and telecommunications. Furthermore, thanks in large part to the Internet, much of America is already wired for bytes. This is as significant an economic edge in the Information Age as the existence of a railroad system was for England one hundred fifty years ago.
If we continue to permit the NSA to cripple our software and further convey to the Department of Justice the right to stop development the Net without public input, we are sacrificing both our economic future and our liberties. And all in the name of combating terrorism and drugs.
This has now gone far enough. I have always been inclined to view the American government as fairly benign as such creatures go. I am generally the least paranoid person I know, but there is something scary about a government which cares more about putting its nose in your business than it does about keeping that business healthy. As I write this, a new ad hoc working group on digital privacy, coordinated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is scrambling to meet the challenge. The group includes representatives from organizations like AT&T, the Regional Bells, IBM, Microsoft, the Electronic Mail Association and about thirty other companies and public interest groups.
Under the direction of Jerry Berman, EFF's Washington office director, and John Podesta, a capable lobbyist and privacy specialist who helped draft the ECPA, this group intends to stop the provisions in digital telephony proposal from entering the statute books.
We intend to work with federal law enforcement officials to address their legitimate concerns. We donUt dispute their need to conduct some electronic surveillance, but we believe this can be assured by more restrained methods than they're proposing. We are also preparing a thorough examination of the NSA's encryption export policies and looking into the constitutional implications of those policies. Rather than negotiating behind closed doors, as the SPA has been attempting to do, America's digital industries have a strong self-interest in banding together to bring the NSA's procedures and objectives into the sunlight of public discussion.
Finally, we are hoping to open a dialog with the NSA. We need to develop a better understanding of their perception of the world and its threats. Who are they guarding us against and how does encryption fit into that endeavor? Despite our opposition to their policies on encryption export, we assume that NSA operations have some merit. But we would like to be able to rationally balance the merits against the costs.
The legal right to express oneself is meaningless if there is no secure medium through which that expression may travel. By the same token, the right to hold unpopular opinions is forfeit unless one can discuss those opinions with others of like mind without the government listening in.
Even if you trust the current American government, as I am still inclined to, there is a kind of corrupting power in the ability to create public policy in secret while assuring that the public will have little secrecy of its own.
In its secrecy and technological might, the NSA already occupies a very powerful position. And conveying to the Department of Justice what amounts to licensing authority for all communications technology would give it a control of information distribution rarely asserted over English-speaking people since Oliver Cromwell's Star Chamber Proceedings.
Are there threats, foreign or domestic, which are sufficiently grave to merit the conveyance of such vast legal and technological might? And even if the NSA and FBI may be trusted with such power today, will they always be trustworthy? Will we be able to do anything about it if they aren't?
Senator Frank Church said of NSA technology in 1975 words which are more urgent today: "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny. There would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capacity of this technology."
San Francisco, California
Monday, May 4, 1992
The EFF encourages any organization which might have a stake in the future of cyberspace to become involved. Letters expressing your concern may be addressed to: Sen. Ernest Hollings
Chairman, Senate Commerce Committee
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC and to
Don Edwards
Chairman, Subcommitee on Constitutional Rights
House Judiciary Committee.
Washington, DC
I would appreciate hearing those concerns myself. Feel free to copy me with those letters at my physical address,
John Perry Barlow
P.O. Box 1009
Pinedale, WY 82941 or in Cyberspace -- firstname.lastname@example.com.
If your organization is interested in becoming part of the digital privacy working group, please contact the EFF's office at:
1001 G St. NW
Suite 950 E
Washington DC 20001 USA
+1 202 347 5400
EFF also encourages individuals interested in these issues to join the organization. For basic EFF info and membership form, send any message to firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Scooby Doo: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom
Just as parents nowadays still whip out dog-eared boxes that hide long-neglected board versions of Life and Monopoly and exclaim, "I haven't played this for years, let's have a family night!" I have no doubts that future generations will reminisce with their children about the good ol' days of playing You Don't Know Jack or Scooby-Doo: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom on their computers (of course there will also be the usual nostalgic misgivings, such as, "We didn't need these hologram games to have fun when I was a kid, we made do with 3D). SouthPeak Interactive and Engineering Animation have teamed up to bring the young cartoon crime busters from the early 70s into the computer generation with a multimedia production that is a multimedia cross between Clue and Mouse Trap.
In what has become a rarity in today's marketplace, SouthPeak has included a free miniature Scooby Doo comic book in the packaging. Since I do have three Scooby-loving sons, it was a mighty struggle to see who would obtain ownership of this prized gem. Let me just say that when the smoke had cleared, I stood victorious, clutching the comic in my sweaty paws.
Scooby Doo: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom is a mystery/adventure game that puts the entire gang–Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Fred–at the Gobs o'Fun Amusement Park, where they must attempt to discover the identity of a phantom whose nocturnal hauntings have closed down the park. The game gets off to a rocking start, and the entire family will be singing along as the original Scooby Doo theme song blares from your computer speakers. The foundation for the story is then set as we view the opening scenario from an actual episode of the show. An elderly couple (the trembling voice of the elderly woman is a hoot) has been forced to shut down their amusement park. Now it is up to you to choose a character and scour the park searching for incriminating pieces of evidence.
The game is played much like an episode of the cartoon series. You must find clues and collect sufficient data to confront one of six suspects. Once you think you have solved the crime, you can then spring one of nine different traps–similar to those in the Mouse Trap board game–comprised of items found from various locations in the park. A successful guess will be rewarded with an animated video of the villain's capture. Guess wrong and–zoinks–you will have to start over. The game does become more complicated, though, and I would strongly suggest playing a few games by yourself until you get the basics down–otherwise you may find the early going frustrating.
Scooby snacks have been hidden throughout the park and can be used to enlist the help of the canine sleuth. The snacks are invaluable as they can be used to perform additional tasks during a turn, to thwart opposing players, or to bribe Scooby to pose as bait to set a trap. The phantom will also occasionally chase players, who must then win a "Phantom Chase" game or risk capture and the loss of a turn. The multi-player feature increases the fun level and the difficulty as you must now choose between activity-limited or time-limited turns (we opted for the activity-limited). There is always the option, though, to choose from three levels of difficulty so the game can be enjoyed equally by the youngest or the oldest members of your Cartoon Network brood.
The game passes from board game to multimedia experience with its sparse, but effective, use of voices and sound effects during gameplay. The game "board" is viewed from a third-person, three-quarter overhead point of view that is broken into nine regions of the park. Each area contains a park ride and clues or trap pieces for the player to collect. If there is a major shortcoming in the game, it is with the park rides. All of the favorites are here: the Screamer roller coaster, the Water-Logged flume ride, the Bumper Car Derby, the House of Hee-Haws, and more. Yet, in what is one of the cruelest acts ever perpetuated in a computer game–you cannot ride any of the attractions! The park, you see, is closed due to the apparitions, but even if you successfully capture the phantom–you still can not enjoy the rides. This is an experience akin to putting a snack on Scooby's nose and then telling him he cannot eat it! It's tantalizing, it's right in front of you, but you cannot enjoy it.
The decision to purchase Scooby-Doo: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom is a no-brainer, especially for parents who cringe at the sound of Pikachu's cutesy voice. At a retail cost of $19.95, it would make an excellent Christmas gift for the young adventurer on your list. The ability to play alone, multi-player, or over a LAN line, combined with random villains, clue locations and trap components in every game, make it the ultimate in replayability. So break out the Scooby snacks and ice-cold milk and prepare to hunker down for an evening of computer sleuthing.
Final grade: B+.
System Requirements:
Pentium 166
Windows 95/98
45 MB free hard disk space
4x CD-ROM
2 MB Video Card


text:
So, I survived my first plane ride. If you've never been on a plane before, you're not missing much. Its kinda like being in a really big car with a whole bunch of strangers. Except instead of driving for a few hours without ever leaving the state you fly for a few hours and end up in a place like Texas. That part is awesome.
If you're lucky, there will be an empty seat on the plane and you'll get to hog the whole thing. And if you're extrasuperlucky, the plane people will think you're cute and feed you pretzels. Not that pretzels are all that exciting. But airplane pretzels are cooler than regular ones and food is food, right?
Anyway. I haven't been in Texas long enough to be and expert on it or anything but here's what I know so far:
1. Texas likes pickup trucks.
2. People here are crazynice
3. The highways are just crazy. Even Droid gets lost on them.
4. It's windy.
5. Planet Best Buys are pug friendly just like back home.
That's all I know for now, but tomorrow we're getting a guided tour from a local and I'm sure I'll know everything after that. When I know, you'll know too.


text:
Click Chemistry[1] describes pairs of functional groups that rapidly and selectively react ("click") with each other under mild, aqueous conditions. The concept of Click Chemistry has been transformed into convenient, versatile and reliable two-step coupling procedures of two molecules A and B[1-5] that are widely used in biosciences[6-8], drug discovery[9] and material science[10].
We distribute CLICK products from VectorLabs (former Click Chemistry Tools & Fluoroprobes product portfolio) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Didn't find the product you are looking for? Just contact us!
Introduction to the concept of Click Chemistry
[1] Kolb et al. (2001) Click chemistry: diverse chemical function from a few good reactions. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 40 (11):2004.
[2] Sletten et al. (2009) Bioorthogonal Chemistry: Fishing for Selectivity in a Sea of Functionality. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.48:6998.
[3] Jewett et al.(2010) Cu-free click cycloaddition reactions in chemical biology. Chem. Soc. Rev. 39 (4):1272.
[4] Best et al. (2009) Click Chemistry and Bioorthogonal Reactions: Unprecedented Selectivity in the Labeling of Biological Molecules. Biochemistry.48:6571.
[5] Lallana et al. (2011) Reliable and Efficient Procedures for the Conjugation of Biomolecules through Huisgen Azide–Alkyne Cycloadditions. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 50:8794.
Overview of Click Chemistry Applications
[6] Grammel et al. (2013) Chemical Reporters for biological discovery. Nature Chemical Biology 9:475.
[7] Xie et al. (2013) Cell-selective metabolic labeling of biomolecules with bioorthogonal functionalities. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology 17:747.
[8] Su et al. (2013) Target identification of biologically active small molecules via in situ methods. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology 17:768.
[9] Zeng et al. (2013) The Growing Impact of Bioorthogonal Click Chemistry on the Development of Radiopharmaceuticals. J Nucl Med 54:829.
[10] Evans et al. (2007) The Rise of Azide–Alkyne 1,3-Dipolar 'Click' Cycloaddition and its Application to Polymer Science and Surface Modification. Australian Journal of Chemistry 60 (6):384.


text:
Last week's economic news included Case-Shiller Home Price Index reports, pending home sales, and consumer confidence readings. Weekly readings on average mortgage rates and new jobless claims were also released.
Case–Shiller: Home Prices Higher in January
According to Case-Shiller reports released last Tuesday, average home prices increased in January. The national average home price rose 0.20 percent from December to January; year over year, home prices grew by 5.90 percent. Home prices were 0.90 percent higher on a month-to-month basis when seasonally adjusted. The West continued to dominate home price growth. Seattle, Washington reported 11.20 percent growth in home prices year-over-year. Portland, Oregon reported year-over-year home price growth of 9.70 percent and Denver, Colorado reported that home prices grew by 9.20 percent year-over-year.
San Francisco, which posted double-digit home price growth in recent months, posted year-over-year home price growth of 6.20 percent. Home prices declined 0.40 percent month-to-month. While short supplies of homes for sale continued to drive up home prices, slower home price growth rates in San Francisco, California posted fell by 0.40 percent month to month and were 6.30 percent higher year-over-year. San Francisco posted double-digit year-over-year growth in recent months; slower home price growth over a period of months could signal a cooling of red-hot home prices in high-demand markets.
The three cities with lowest home price growth rates were Cleveland, Ohio and Washington, DC, where home prices rose 3.90 percent year-over-year. New-York City posted a year-over-year gain of 3.20 percent.
Pending Home Sales Rebound in February, Mortgage Rates Drop
The National Association of Realtors® said that pending home sales reached their second highest reading in ten years. Pending home sales rose 5.50 percent in February as compared to January's negative reading of -2.80 percent. The Pending Home Sales Index rose to 112.30 in February as compared to January's reading of 106.40. Unseasonably warm weather, home buyers rushing to buy before mortgage rates and home prices go higher. Improved jobs markets and few layoffs were also seen as boosting consumer confidence in buying homes.
Freddie Mac reported lower average mortgage rates last week the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell by nine basis points to 4.14 percent. The average rate for a 15-year fixed rate mortgage was five basis points lower at 3.39 percent. The average rate for a 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage was six basis points lower at 3.18 points. Discount points averaged 0.50 percent for 30-year fixed rate mortgages and 0.40 percent for 15-year fixed rate mortgages and 5/1 adjustable rate mortgages.
Lower mortgage rates could help first-time buyers who've been sidelined due to rapidly increasing home prices and mortgage rates.
In other news, new jobless claims were lower than last were with 258,000 new claims filed as compared to last week's reading of 261,000 new jobless claims. Analysts expected a reading of 247,000 new claims filed. Spring holidays and school vacations can create additional volatility in week-to-week first-time jobless claims.
Consumer sentiment index readings for March increased to 96.90 against expectations of a 97.60 index reading. February's index reading for consumer sentiment was 96.30.
What's Ahead
Next week's scheduled economic reports include readings on construction spending, ADP payrolls, Non-farm payrolls and the national unemployment rate. Mortgage rates and new jobless claims will also be released.


text:
Allen Charles Graham is single, but he understands the meaning of the word "commitment." He started sponsoring children in 1989 when he lived in the United States, working at a TV network. Currently, he lives in Ecuador and is the Training Director at HCJB Global Voice radio station.
"This was something I always wanted to do ever since I looked at the advertising spaces in some magazines."
Allen had the opportunity to take a closer look to the blessing of sponsoring children when he came to Ecuador for the first time back in 1989 as a "working visitor" for HCJB. He was assigned a prayer partner, who happened to sponsor an Ecuadorian child.
When the prayer partner visited his sponsored child at the coastal city of Guayaquil (260 miles from Quito), he came back and he showed pictures to Allen and shared about that experience.
That was when Allen received that special motivation and knew he was going to commit to sponsor a child as soon as he went back to the United States.
Actually, that was one of the first things Allen did when he was back home. He looked for a Compassion ad in a magazine, cut the invitation to sponsor a child, filled it out, and sent it including this note: "I prefer an Ecuadorian child."
"In September 1989 I received a package with the information of a boy, Marcos from Guayaquil."
This boy, the first child he sponsored, was 10 years old.
Surprisingly, a couple of months later in 1990, Allen received an invitation to give some lectures at the English Fellowship Church in Quito. Of course, he took the opportunity to visit Marcos.
So in July of that year, Allen met Marcos in Guayaquil. Marcos was 11 years old by that time, and he just talked and talked all the time.
"I didn't speak Spanish and Álvaro, the translator, couldn't translate fast enough all the things Marcos said."
Sign language and, most of all, the language of love … hugs, tickles and smiles, let Allen and Marcos establish a strong friendship bond. When they were saying their good-byes at the airport, Marcos said, "I will pray a lot for you to come back to my country." … And God did answer his prayer!
Allen was called by God to move to Ecuador as a missionary. In March 1992, HCJB accepted his application and later that year he traveled to Costa Rica to learn Spanish.
August 19, 1993, is a day Allen will never forget since it was the day he arrived in Ecuador after a special call by God. He was not just willing to be a missionary with HCJB, but was yearning to see little Marcos again, for Marcos had stolen his heart, and God had listened to Marcos' innocent prayer.
Since that time, Allen has sponsored a half dozen children. He is currently sponsoring two children — a girl in Ecuador, Mariuxi, and a boy in Bolivia, Pedro.
From all those children, Marcos is the one who left a very deep imprint in the life of this communicator highly committed to children.
At the present time, Marcos is 30, and this sponsor/sponsored-child relationship has evolved almost into a father-son relationship.
Marcos comes from a dysfunctional family. His father left them when Marcos was only 4 years old, so his childhood had traces of solitude, scarcity and the lack of the warmth of a real home.
"I didn't know what a home was; my mom worked way too much so I never saw her … the truth is I was raised by several people; my grandma had me for a year, then my aunt maybe for another year, and I even spent another year at the house of some neighbor."
It's been 19 years since Allen and Marcos met for the first time; 19 years that brought love, comprehension and hope into Marcos' life.
From Allen's perspective, "I believe I have given hope to Marcos, and hopefully, I have also been the role model of a man who is constantly looking for God's presence in his life."
From Marcos' point of view, "Allen has been a father, a counselor and a friend to me."
The letters and frequent personal encounters have strengthened this relationship in a very significant way. Allen has served in Ecuador for 15 years now and his presence in Marcos' life has helped Marcos to escape from wrong paths that may have led him to death:
"When I was 16 I was indirectly involved with gangs. I didn't find my way … but thank God, Allen was there to give good advice to me … I got to talk to him and so my life took a different turn."
Today, Marcos is a responsible grownup with a beautiful family: Tatiana, his wife, and their two children, Allan (4) and Marquitos (17 months).
Marcos is deeply grateful to Compassion and mostly to Allen.
"The project to me was like home. I used to enjoy being over there with my friends and our tutors … but without a doubt the best part of Compassion was meeting Allen. We have a close relationship until these days. Allen is like a father to me and now he has even turned into my children's grandpa."
But this is not all: Marcos works at a very important Ecuadorian iron company — IPAC. The Production Manager says about Marcos,
"He has learned and developed faster than many other employees here. Nowadays, Marcos is one of the operators of a new machine that is the first of its kind in Latin America. Thank God, Marcos is right where he is now because of his big effort and huge interest."
Marcos' life is the true evidence of the fruits of a man's committed love. And certainly, Allen is an example of many other anonymous sponsors whose commitment to God has turned them into channels of blessing and transformation for thousands of boys, girls and young people all over the world.
This is how we have witnessed, once again, the fulfillment of the Scripture,
"'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" – Matthew 25:40 (NIV).
There's one question that will always be asked of any sponsor: "What was your motivation for becoming a sponsor? Why did you do that?"
Allen states that his answer to that question may sound simple to many people, but to him it carries the weight of an unavoidable commandment:
"It is God who puts the desire of sponsoring children in people's hearts, but there's also the part of being in touch with the kid or kids you sponsor, and that's exactly what the ministry of Compassion International puts special emphasis on."
He knows that very well because he volunteered with the Advocates Network before traveling to Ecuador. He was in charge of attending prayer meetings, Bible studies, concerts, etc. to talk to people and present the ministry of Compassion to them.
When asked about the most important element to assure a successful relationship between sponsors and their sponsored children, Allen replies:
"First of all, it is prayer, and then it is seeing children in a different way and not just like simple numbers.
"When volunteering as an advocate and working with children's packages, it's very easy to start looking at them as mere statistics, as numbers, but God said to me: 'Hey! These children have names; they are important to me.'"
Allen highlights the part of looking at each child as a person to commit to, instead of a number searching for a sponsor. Any person willing to sponsor a child needs to think more personally, "I'm going to be part of Juan, María, Alfonso or Mariuxi's life. He/she is going to be very special to me."
Regarding the prayer element, Allen believes a sponsor is a child's prayer partner. He or she who sponsors a child must be committed to pray for that child.
Allen has talked to various sponsored children attending child development centers all over the country, so he knows they pray for their sponsors too. This is a reciprocal relationship.
"It's not just about sending money every month; it's about committing to them through prayers."
According to Allen, a sponsor should know how his/her child is doing in the spiritual area: Has the child made a decision for Christ? If so, the sponsor should encourage the child to be baptized instead of leaving everything in the hands of tutors and project directors.
But he also clarifies: "We have to be very sensitive and never, ever force or push children to do that. Anyway, we must help them through prayers all the time."
Communication is another important point to Allen.
Maybe not every single sponsor has the chance or even the interest in learning his/her sponsored child's mother tongue, but in the case of Allen, speaking Spanish brought a special "sparkle" into his role as a sponsor; it made it more real.
In addition, when it comes to writing to a child, Allen suggests sponsors change their perspective into a child's point of view.
"Normally, it is very easy for us to tell 'I do this or I do that …', but it is way better to take the child's interests into account.
"Writing things like 'This weekend my family and I went skiing' to a child from Guayaquil is not really helpful, since that city is located in the coastal region of Ecuador and therefore that child has never seen snow in his or her entire life. They don't even have big mountains around!
"We are talking about things that may seem important to us, but cannot actually be used to bond with our sponsored child. We should look for stuff that helps us to get closer to the child, so questions are more appropriate in these cases.
"Another good idea is to look for similarities and say things like: 'In California our beaches are like this … how do beaches in your country look like?"
Even though Allen admits it's not always easy, a sponsor should try to visit and meet the child in person. He recommends living the experience and being part of the child's environment, center and home at least once. Personal contact is very important.
"If the sponsor desires he or she could always see that trip as 'vacation with purpose.' A sponsor's visit can have a very strong impact, not only in the life of the directly involved child, but in the lives of the rest of children from the project and everyone working with them. It encourages them to know these contacts can be real."
Allen's trajectory as a sponsor is the evidence of a deep commitment to God at first, then to our ministry, and certainly to each boy and girl he has sponsored during the almost two decades he has been linked to Compassion.


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Subak Shiv-Parvati Art
Material: Metal (Rust free, Waterproof)
Size: 10 inch
Weighs: 0.5 Kgs
Product Specification: Bright non fading print. Quality non breakable metal plate. Easy to hang and clean. Asthetically designed, perfect for your home and gifting loved ones.
Usages: Ideal for both indoor as well as outdoor area
Place Recommendation: Living Area
Package Includes: 1 plate


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'UFC Undisputed 3′ Wants To Fight For Your Love
When you're pinned to the canvas with knuckles in your ribs, a knee in your kidney and hundreds of pounds of sweaty man-flesh urging you to tap out before you lose consciousness, it's definitely time to re-evaluate what you're doing. Such was the metaphorical situation in which the fledgling UFC series found itself a couple years back, unable to capitalize on the sports' skyrocketing popularity with robotic, cookie-cutter efforts.
Instead of just plugging along and waiting to become obsolete in the manner of Tony Hawk or 'Guitar Hero' games, publisher THQ waited nearly two years to unleash the follow-up, and the patience paid off. Like a Jon Jones roundhouse kick to the jaw, 'UFC Undisputed 3' is a wake-up call to MMA simulations. A genuine step forward for the genre, it's rowdier, sloppier and less mechanical than its predecessors.
A comparison of the 'UFC Undisputed' to the mullet is in order. If the previous games were the business in the front, the threequel is the party in the back. The game has a looser feel in general, more a heated back alley rumble than 'Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.' Your old strike, block, strike and shoot in to take the opponent to the ground will no longer work so well. Now fighters more convincingly half-block and deflect hits rather than stop them as though their forearms are riot gear. You know how UFC matches can end in an instant when someone whips their foot into the side of someone's skull? Now that happens here, too.
If you're going up against someone who is quick with a long leg reach, you're reduced to a cowering fool, desperate to slip in a lucky cross before it's too late. Every enhanced attack has a counterpoint. If someone wants to take you down, you can brush them off with a quick knee to the jaw. If someone's got you pinned and going for a knockout punch, you can shimmy to the side and try for a counter.
Despite the refined strategy, there's still room for button-mashers. Multiple control schemes allow for more technical precision, while an amateur option treats your frenzied improvisation with more forgiveness. Slugging through each round made our forearms and hands genuinely sore, meaning some training is in order until we get into fighting shape.
It may be Valentine's Day and all, but hopefully our wives and girlfriends will understand that we've got some work to do to be able to defend their honor in online bouts.
Rating: 8.5/10
UFC Undisputed 3 ($60) was developed by Yuke's, published by THQ and is available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Rated T. The publisher provided a copy of the game for review.
Read Phil Villarreal's blog at becauseitoldyouso.com and follow him on Twitter:@philvillarreal


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Monogramm Perfume Dog Toy Grey-Blue
The perfume dog toy is the latest release of the Monogram collection and both loved by dogs and their owners. Handmade in Germany from cotton velvet it is filled with a polyester cotton fleece blend that is non-allergenic and certified Oeco-Tex Standard 100. Like all Pillow Cake products the perfume dog toy is durable, easy to care for and machine-washable.
- Grey-Blue cotton velvet
- Measurements: 14 x 19 cm
- Material: 100% cotton velvet
- Machine-washable
- Made in Germany


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text:
Hi Elena,
This is to inform you that we safely arrived into Milan on Monday.
I want to thank you for all: everything was perfect and this is thanks to you. Also the girls I have met in both Irkutsk and Baikal lake were very nice and helpful.
The trip was fantastic and your country is wonderful.
Be sure that I will give your contact details to everyone who will ask me about a trip to Russia.
All the best,


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Bobbleheads Body Styles
Male Bobbleheads
Head to toe fully personalizedized bobbleheads for 1 person
Current Reviews: 11
Current Reviews: 11
Usually you can get your own bobbleheads in 2-3 weeks, If you want to get it faster, you can choose upgraded sculpting options that ships within 15 days/ 10 days/ 5 days.
Our custom bobblehead figures are perfect gifts for nearly any occasion- From birthdays, graduations, weddings, Anniversary, promotions, retirements, to achievements, Christmas and more. You are buying driectly from bobbleheads factory! With our Factory-direct pricing,You buy the highest quality bulk order bobble heads at the lowest prices from a trusted wholesale source.


text:
How was your Christmas? Unfortunately there was a great deal of illness in our family this holiday season, but that didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves anyway. I somehow avoided becoming sick (so far). Fingers crossed.
Get any cool gifts? Here's a list of several of mine:
The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us - David Thomson
Cronenberg on Cronenberg
Quiet - Susan Cain
Sight and Sound film magazine subscription
DVDS, all of them random surprises:
Backwoods (2006)
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
The Black Dahlia (2006)
Looking over my film watching numbers the last two or three years, I regret watching too many average new films. So one of my mini goals for 2013 is to cut back on that, and focus on diversifying film watching, so I watch films from different decades.
I've decided to simplify things, and rank my favorites by IMDb year, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and so forth. I've seen so many from those four years, and some years way back hardly any, so that it's very unbalanced viewing.
I'd love to compile a Top Fives by Year, which other cinephiles are working on. Perhaps going back to 1920. It's a lifelong hobby. I stumbled upon Jandy's and Jeff's. Looking at their ambitious lists puts me to shame (:
I've taken a step in that direction by compiling a blindspot list for 2013 of about 50 classic films I've not watched. If I watch half of them, I'll be happy.
On the music front, I don't have anything definite planned. I feel a similar way as above, that I ought to listen to the old albums a lot more, and diversify.
Here are a few on my list to explore:
60s: The Beatles, Bob Dylan,
70s and 80s: Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake,
90s and 00s: Beck, Joan As Police Woman, Nick Cave, Fiona Apple, The Antlers,
Which mini goals, in terms of movie watching, or life in general, do you have for 2013? Receive any great gifts from under the tree? I hope you had a nice Christmas, and wish my readers a Happy New Year!


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35 Creative and Amazing Personal Blog Designs
The origin of the concept of blogging can be traced back to the last half of the 20th century when the bloggers mainly treated these platforms as right place to uphold his opinion on an issue and also get valuable feedback from the readers at the same time. However in the due course of time the whole concept of blogging has undergone a thorough change. In the present time, blogs are regarded as one of the most important marketing platform that can boost the sales of the online as well as real time business.
Though the numbers of personal blogs have reduced drastically but if you search well on the internet, you are surely going to come across some personal blogs where followers still actively participates in the topic raised by the bloggers. The web design of the blogging sites are fundamentally different from that of the blogging sites that are used for marketing. The personal blogs have a personal touch that can be readily associated with the personality of the blog writer. These web designs can be developed very easily; all the blogger needs to do is download the right one from the thousands of alternatives available on the internet and apply them in the correct way.
Since the alternatives available are many it might turn out to be really confusing when it comes to making an ideal choice. Therefore we have shortlisted the web designs of the best personal and provided the screenshots of these sites in this article blog to make your decision easier.
1. Crssrd
2. Spunqi
3. Douglas Menezes
4. Hugs for Monsters
5. Jenifer Dake
6. Stephen Caver
7. Made in Space
8. Gareth Dickey
9. Design Swap
10. Lucia Soto
11. Mc Kinney
12. Kevin Lucious
13. Sarah Camp
14. Francesca Battistelli
15. Allison Weiss
16. Matt
17. Veerle
18. Grain and Gram
19. Kilian Muster
20. Gary's real Life
21. Marie Guillaumet
22. Colly
23. Mark Forrester
24. Sanimani
25. Fernandoleite
26. Biggest Apple
27. Crayons Life
28. Trent Walton
29. J Stone
30. Massimo Dutti
31. Mark Lawrence Design
32. Adelle Charles
33. Sketch Blog
34. Ricky Downs design
35. James Garner
via Web Design Blog, Web Designer Resources http://www.2expertsdesign.com/web-designs/35-creative-and-amazing-personal-blog-designs?source=rss


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INTERACT COMMANDS; Investigators can interact with any agent, location, object or event by inputting a command (into the comment section). Commands take time to process (sometimes days) and are not always guaranteed to work. You can also invent your own command to perform more specific actions with an item, as long as you reference the items name or ID(#123456) code.
AGENT: An agent is a potential contact with a phantom, entity, AI or other form of intelligence. To interact with an agent simply input your messages into the comment section. As more information on an agent is acquired the AI generated image will update. It's recommended to read our advanced guide as interactions are a high risk activity. More info: https://immortalabyss.com/agent/
OBJECT: An object is a collectable item that can be purchased with IA Tokens (free). These items are stored in your account along with a private key, you can build up an inventory, trade or even interact with an item in the simulator. Be aware that if an item becomes out of stock or disappears, you might lose your chance to ever collect that item.
SATNEST: SatNests are found structures, seemingly place to obscure larger underground networks. These nests are known to broadcast weather forecasts and are areas of high paranormal activity. If our AI downloads a nest photo it's up to investigators to help us locate the exact coordinates. More info: https://immortalabyss.com/satnest/
DISCOVERY: A discovery is a found location, event or potential item of interest revealed by investigators or admin. Discoveries can lead to new areas of interest and solve mysteries.
INVESTIGATOR: An investigator is our official record of people that have entered the Abyss Discord / community. Be aware that the location of an investigators on the map is relevant to any activity in proximity to it. It's not advised having your marker removed as it offers some level of protection. Investigators may also comment on each other's pages as a way of collaborating and direct messaging each other. More info: https://immortalabyss.com/investigation/
ADMIN: An admin is a direct link to the Abyss admin. Please be aware our locations unlike investigators are obscured. Please be aware of the Abyss rules before attempting to communicate in the comment section with the Source or other admin. More info: https://immortalabyss.com/administrators/


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What makes the Madrid water tank project particularly important for Peikko, is the magnitude of it: the tank is 265 m x 100 m in size and once complete, it will have the capacity to supply water to half a million people in Madrid. The work involves the demolition and removal of existing water storage facilities that are out of service and replacing it with a new underground water tank with 157.000 cubic meters capacity consisting of six interior modules made using precast columns and beams.
Approximately 1400 pcs of Peikko connections were used in building the tank. More than 350 columns were connected to a slab foundation by standard column shoes and short anchor bolts. PCs® corbels were used to connect precast beams with the perimetral in-situ walls in some parts of the water tank. In addition, a few PETRA® hangers were used to make openings in hollow core slabs floors.
The project is important also because of the leading role Canal de Isabel II has played in the development of Spain's water infrastructure since the establishment of the company in 1851. Today, the firm manages the water infrastructure for more than six million residents in Greater Madrid; it, among others, manages 14 reservoirs, some 270 water tanks, 150 wastewater treatment plants and has a distribution network of nearly 15.000 kilometers.
Massive project comes with multiple challenges
Fernando Martínez, Managing Director of precaster Grupo Berma, said the Madrid water tank project was a particularly demanding one because of its magnitude. Grupo Berma manufactures, transports and erects structures, slabs and other precast concrete products with more than two decades of experience. "The Madrid water tank project really challenged us because of its massive size, the tight schedule and the difficult accessibility to the site, as well as the number of firms working on it at the same time," Martínez said. Adrian Liste, Sales Engineer at Peikko Spain, said Peikko convinced the companies involved in the project to choose Peikko's products underlining the system's ability to ensure reliability, safety and the fast assembly of the structure so that construction could be completed within a very short timeframe. There were many trucks passing through the construction site, so Peikko's immediate rigid column connection system was more suitable to the conditions than other insecure and non-rigid connections systems.
Adaptability of Peikko's products also attracted the precast concrete company. "With standard Peikko column shoes, the production of columns at the factory was effective and their assembly at the building site fast and easy. Peikko's system offers complete rigid connections so there was no need for additional bracings which would make internal movements at the building site difficult," Martínez added.
Site visits and close cooperation
Peikko Spain visited the building site, the precast factory as well as the Canal de Isabel II offices several times during the project to supervise and coordinating all the people involved in the building work. "Peikko's team visited the building site in several times to assist and train all parties involved in the project. We are really satisfied with the collaboration we have had with Peikko throughout the project," Engineer Luis Casas of Arquing engineering and architecture company noted. "We did not only calculate the connections of the project and teach the customer how to do it independently, but arranged visits to the building site and were thus actively involved in the design and development of the project," Liste added.
The project had a tight schedule – the structure of the water tank had to be built in only 12 months – but thanks to the quick delivery of the products and the fast and safe assembly process, all parties were able to keep to the agreed timetable. Enrique Hernández, Managing Director of Peikko Spain, admits the Madrid water tank project was a massive challenge also for Peikko, and is already proud of the outcome. "We are really satisfied with the results of this project and the positive feedback from our customers" "Peikko systems offer large 3ZkSiKpoQzKiFPELUMfn6Q projects like this numerous advantages. In Madrid water tank project hundreds of columns were manufactured 200 kilometres away, transported to the site and assembled. The whole process was fast, safe, and easy, and had no effect on the neighborhood. Savings in excavation, concrete, reinforcement, assembly teams and cranes, generated by the use of Peikko system were significant. We are sure we will do many similar water tank projects in the future", Hernández added.
Key benefits of Peikko's products in the project Canal de Isabel II
Adrian Liste, sales engineer at Peikko Spain, lists the key benefits of using Peikko's products at the precast underground water tank in Madrid:
• When using the Peikko short bolt type /L, there is no need to increase the thickness of the slab foundation as is with traditional methods. This keeps costs incurring from extra excavation, concrete and reinforcement as well as construction site labor force at check.
• Interference between Peikko's bolts and reinforcement of the slab foundation, which is often very heavy in this kind of projects, is minimum compared to other traditional connection systems for precast columns.
• The thickness of the slab foundation is less than in traditional systems. When making the foundation of the project this saves materials (concrete, reinforcement, formwork, etc.) and time (fewer hours of excavation, concreting, auxiliary work). The bigger the project, the more important cost savings described above are.
• Faster assembly system for precast structures compared with traditional systems, which involves shorter periods of assembly and cost savings in specialized workers and cranes, which in the case of big capacities are very costly.
• Safer system during and after installation of the columns compared to traditional systems. This greater safety is very important in large scale projects where there are many jobs and movements in the building site at the same time.
• The connection of the columns using Peikko's system is rigid immediately after tightening the nuts, so it is not necessary to brace the structure during the assembly of the columns, or during the process of grout mortar sets. This brings savings in braces and installation labor costs, and eliminates the need for auxiliary elements on site, which would complicate the access of cranes and lorries, slowing down the pace of construction work.
• The system allows assembling the column quickly and easily and leveling several centimeters in height in relation to the height of the project (-2 cm, +3 cm depending on anchors models used)
• Total adaptability to all types of meteorological factors; not affected by cold weather or rain when being assembled.


text: 1. 135. Adulteration of Bonaparte's Croqunignole Oil, Bonaparte's Croquignole Paste, and Bonaparte's Quinine Hair Pomade. U. S. v. Bonaparte's Beauty Culture and Products Co., Inc., and Louis Bonaparte. Pleas of guilty. Each defendant fined $150 on count 1 of the information; sentence suspended on remaining counts. Defendants: Bonaparte's Beauty Culture and Products Co., Inc. Issue Dates: September 1947


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Cross Bookmark
Here are two thread crosses I crocheted with #10 thread. I used a "C" crochet hook (2.75 mm) for both. The first one I used a single strand of #10 thread and the larger one was crocheted using double strands of thread. The small one is 6″ long and the larger one is 7″. The pattern calls for a #7 steel crochet but it was too small for me as I tried to work the pattern. But now that I know how to work the pattern, I want to try it again with the steel hook.
The pattern indicates that you can use it to make a cross bookmark or ornament so I may just not add the tassel and use these for ornaments. Here is the free crochet pattern link for the cross bookmark.
This was my first real experience using thread to crochet. I got two small balls at the thrift store for 49 cents so I wanted to give it a try. I love the pretty and delicate look of thread but it's a far cry from crocheting with recycled plastic bags like I usually do. I do love my thread crosses and hope to make more for Christmas gifts now that I've learned to crochet with the very thin yarn.
Tags: bookmark, crochet, crocheted-cross, cross, ornament