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For You. And for Them.
Welcome to Always There In-Home Care. We provide a wide variety of in home services in Birmingham, Huntsville, Pell City and the surrounding areas. Some people use our services for a short period of time for help during recovery and other families choose private duty home health services as an alternative to nursing homes. Our services can be tailored to the specific needs of your family.
We offer assisted living and sitter services to cover a wide range of non medical, basic home care needs. These services include bathing, grooming, dressing, errands, laundry and more. In addition, this type of assisted care provides your family member with the comfort of trusted companionship and reliable transportation to appointments and shopping.
We also provide medical home care services, including skilled nursing services, RN medication management, disease education and more. In some cases insurance covers temporary home health services, but most of the time our services are paid for privately. When hiring someone to care for a family member, there are many things to consider. Always There handles all the administrative hassles, from screening, hiring, managing and scheduling providers to payroll and W2s.
Browse our website to learn more about our skilled nursing and assisted living services and read informative articles on many topics related to home care. Contact us for more information or answer the questions on our online evaluation form for a custom assessment of your specific home care needs. We can help you determine the services you need from sitter services to private duty nursing services. Learn more today.


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This dress is crafted from the finest upcycled viscose. Style with pumps and a clutch.
The model measures 168 cm and is wearing a size XS.
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subset: commoncrawl


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He was elected Bishop of Nyssa (in Lower Armenia) in 372, a period of great tension over the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. Briefly arrested after being falsely accused of embezzling Church funds, Gregory was restored to his see in 378, an act met with great joy by his people.
It was after the death of his beloved brother, Basil, that Gregory really came into his own. He wrote with great effectiveness against Arianism and other questionable doctrines, gaining a reputation as a defender of orthodoxy. He was sent on missions to counter other heresies and held a position of prominence at the Council of Constantinople. His fine reputation stayed with him for the remainder of his life, but over the centuries it gradually declined as the authorship of his writings became less and less certain. But, thanks to the work of scholars in the 20th century, his stature is once again appreciated. Indeed, St. Gregory of Nyssa is seen not simply as a pillar of orthodoxy but as one of the great contributors to the mystical tradition in Christian spirituality and to monasticism itself.


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By Caleb Kingston
18 Dec.2020 ·
4 min read
W hether working with them at an agency or as a freelancer, it's important to think about the best way to present or share documents with your clients to get the most valuable feedback from them. In the past, you may have used options such as sharing static images or PDFs for review, but this never gives clients the ability to really experience the look and feel of the design as intended. You may have also considered sharing the project with clients for review (for example, via Adobe XD's live Coediting feature) but this often causes issues (more to come on that further down).
Your goal in presenting your designs should be to share only the designs and prototypes that you have reviewed and deemed ready for feedback. Having control over what your clients see will keep the review process efficient and valuable; in short, present your ideas only when necessary and when they are ready.
Adobe XD has a few great features to help you present or share your designs. Below, we'll take a look at how to share a design review link and how to share a recorded video of your prototype.
Generating and sharing a link to your XD design/prototype lets your clients view and interact with it on the web and, thanks to the commenting feature, they can provide instant feedback. One great benefit of using these links is that they link to the version of your project as it was when you created the link in the first place. This means, if you're still working on your design, your clients will not see any changes made after you created the link; they'll never end up accidentally commenting on a design still in progress.
Let's go over the steps needed to share your designs in XD:
When you're ready to share your design, click the Share tab next to Design and Prototype. Then, in the Share panel, give your link a title and choose Design Review in the View Setting panel. This option will allow your clients to click through the prototype, receive hotspot hints and provide comments on any piece of the design.
Pro Tip: Learn about how each of these presets work.
In this same panel, you can choose who has access by either choosing Anyone with the link or Only invited people.
Note: If you do choose to share with only the people you invite, you will have to create the link before you can choose who is invited to it. When this link is passed around, each member will have to log into their associated account before the design can be viewed. You can also control whether or not someone you invite to view your link can invite additional reviewers to your shared link.
Now that you have set the proper settings, all that's left is to click Create Link and in a few seconds, you'll have a fresh new link to share with your clients.
Your clients will now have quick access and be able to experience the prototype as you intended or browse the artboards individually. They can also provide quick feedback that is immediately sent to you. Clients can add general comments or use the pinned comments feature to provide more specific feedback on a particular part of the design.
An additional option for sharing your prototypes is to use the record setting found in the prototype preview (Mac only). This method of sharing is very helpful when you want to guide your clients through the experience and showcase the latest updates you've made to the design.
To record your prototype, simply click the preview button in the top right of the preview window. You can also choose to enable the microphone to record audio, allowing you to talk through the prototype during a demonstration. That option can be found by clicking the down arrow next to the recording icon in the preview window.
I love using this method with clients after we discuss new ideas to implement; it allows me to explain how I propose to execute the new changes we talked about.
Adobe XD is a great tool for collaborating with designers and other stakeholders, thanks to its robust live Coediting feature. With Coediting, you can invite multiple designers to work together on the same designs in real time. There are a few big reasons, however, why you would not want to invite your client to be a co-editor on your prototype. Aside from them not fully understanding XD (and possibly going in and breaking pieces of your design), this would also give them a real-time window into your work. This causes you to lose control over what your client sees and when you receive feedback from them; they may spend unnecessary time critiquing unfinished concepts.
In conclusion, XD gives you many options for sharing work with clients in ways that give them the full experience while keeping you in control, all to ensure an efficient review process. We covered shared links as a great option for them to experience the design/prototype and offer feedback and recording prototypes to share video demonstrations walking them through the prototype.
Now if these two features are still not enough to convince your clients to move away from the old-fashioned PDFs they might be used to, XD offers PDF export as well!
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Caleb Kingston
CEO, BRAINSPIN and XDI, Adobe
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Following on the recent roundup here of the top 130 Minnesota tech companies on Twitter, here's a look at some top individuals in Minnesota's tech scene.
There are a few key differences between the top companies post and the list here. First, this is a list—not "the list"—of the top people, as there is no way to make a list like this definitive. There's no question I inadvertently missed some important names; if you know of any, leave a comment.
Second, this is an alphabetical list (by last name) rather than rank-order by number of followers. While anyone who tweets on behalf of a business Twitter account should seek to maximize the company's relevant following, it's different for individuals. The people on this list use Twitter in a variety of ways, which is totally fine. You do you.
Also, this makes it easier to find specific names.
[Read more…]


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VEB-5316ESFL | Valve: 4″ 2W Flanged, 254 CV, Proportional, Failsafe
Sign in with a qualified account to view pricing or
learn how to buy KMC products.
OVERVIEW | Valve: 4" 2W Flanged, 254 CV, Proportional, Failsafe
KMC VEB-53 series control ball valves are two-way flanged valves, designed for control of hot water, chilled water, or low-pressure steam. These valves range in size from 4 to 6 inches with equal-percentage flow characteristics. Leak-proof, blow-out-proof stems, and stainless steel ball and stem make these valves ideal for many applications.
These valves use KMC MEP-75xx ControlSet actuators with proportional or tri-state inputs. Proportional models accept a 0–10 VDC, 2–10 VDC, or 4–20 mA control signal input from a thermostat, controller, or building automation system. A user-initiated, automapping feature provides better equipment control by reassigning the input signal range over the desired reduced rotation range (from 45 to 95?). Plus, they feature a feedback voltage output that is proportional to the actuator position. Tri-state models are designed for use with floating thermostats, controllers, or building automation systems.
An optional, long-life, capacitor-driven fail-safe feature allows simple switch-selectable fail direction in either direction upon power loss. Optional auxiliary switches are available for remote position indication or controller and equipment interface. A gear disengagement button allows positioning of the valve stem/plug without energizing the actuator.
See also VEB-56 series three-way valves.
Actuator Type | Electric |
Auxilary Switch | Accessory |
Brand | KMC Controls |
Control Input | 0-10 VDC, 2-10 VDC, 4-20 mA |
Fail-Safe | Yes |
Fail-Safe Type | Electronic |
Feedback | Voltage |
Input Types | Proportional |
Normality (Fail) | Selectable |
Power Supply | 24 VAC, 24 VDC |
Selection Guide | Valve And Actuator |
Timing (sec) | 30 |
Torque | 180 in-lb |
Valve Connection | Flanged |
Valve Piping Style | 2W |
Valve Size | 4" |
Valve Type | Ball |


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Cigarette smoking among U.S. high school students has dropped to the lowest level in 22 years, federal health officials reported Thursday.
The percentage of students who reported smoking a cigarette at least one day in the last 30 days fell to 15.7 percent in 2013, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a large federal survey that has been tracking youth smoking since 1991.
That's the lowest rate since the survey began, and it means the United States has met the federal government's objective of cutting teen cigarette use to 16 percent or less, officials said.
But officials say the fight against tobacco use remains far from over.
"We're encouraged to see high school students are making better choices in some areas, such as smoking," Dr, Thomas Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters during a briefing Thursday. "But we still face big challenges in reducing overall tobacco use."
Too many kids still smoke cigarettes, and there are other disturbing trends in tobacco use, Frieden said. More kids are using hookahs, for example, and more are using electronic cigarettes. In addition, too many still use smokeless tobacco, and the decline in cigar use among teens has slowed.
In addition to the decline in cigarette smoking, the survey also found the percentage of kids getting into physical fights has dropped, as has the percentage who are sexually active. But 41 percent reported texting or emailing while driving, and condom use among those who are sexually active has fallen.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Prepared by Dr. Matthew Templeton - October 2007
RX And — a CV in transition?
The final months of the year bring one of the more remarkable cataclysmic variables back into evening view for Northern observers. Nearly every CV -- dwarf novae, nova-likes, and AM Her stars -- has something unique to say with its light curve. But this Variable Star of the Season -- RX Andromedae -- is truly remarkable. Since its discovery in 1905, RX And has undergone nearly every type of behavior seen in the dwarf novae, creating one of the more interesting light curves among the CVs. In 2002, Matthias Schreiber, Boris Gänsicke, and Janet Mattei published a phenomenological study of RX And's remarkable behavior, and came to the conclusion that it is a previously unrecognized transitional object -- not merely a Z Cam star but a member of the VY Scl class as well. Their analysis helped to answer the question of why the VY Scl stars exhibit their deep minima, and also gave clues as to how CVs in general evolve over time. We hope you take the opportunity to get to know this particular star -- it's really something to see.
Discovery and History
A DSSII (blue) image of RX Andromedae
(DSSII image copyright: Caltech)
RX Andromedae was discovered by the British astronomer A. Stanley Williams in 1905, and although it was first incorrectly classified as a long-period Cepheid, it was noted to have similarities to the then mysterious object SS Cygni, now known to be one of the dwarf novae. RX Andromedae was eventually recognized as one of the U Geminorum variables, and subsequently placed in the subclass of objects known as Z Camelopardalis stars, marked by the irregular occurrence of standstills in the light curve. During these standstills, the Z Cam stars remain at a high brightness level for lengths of time that can vary from days to years.
It is very interesting to read the discussion of these objects in (for example) Payne-Gaposchkin & Gaposchkin's Variable Stars, published in the 1930's. Very little was understood about why the "SS Cygni variables" behaved the way they did, and although there was much speculation about why they varied, fundamental astrophysical understanding simply hadn't come far enough at that point to yield an answer. Even in the late 19th Century, SS Cygni and U Geminorum were known to have emission lines of hydrogen and calcium at minimum, and absorption lines at maximum; spectroscopy of RX And in the 1930's and 1940's showed the same thing. This is one piece of evidence that perhaps the source of light transitions from an optically thin emitter to an optically thick one during outbursts. The final pieces of the observational puzzle wouldn't yet be available until these objects were discovered to be X-ray and ultraviolet emitters, and until very high time-resolved photometry and spectroscopy became possible. It wasn't even known until the 1950's (and the work of Crawford & Kraft) that the secondary stars in dwarf novae were overflowing their Roche lobes and transferring mass to the primary star.
Even as late as the 1990's the final details of why the dwarf novae went into outburst were still being hashed out by observers and theorists in the field. Although it was by then known they were binary stars in which a white dwarf accreted matter from a dwarf secondary star, the outburst mechanism wasn't yet proven. And even at that late date, RX Andromedae was still held up as a prototypical example of the Z Cam class (see France Cordova's review of Cataclysmic Variables in X-Ray Binaries for example). It wasn't really until astronomers took a long, hard look at the light curve itself that RX Andromedae revealed its true nature.
Z Cam stars and high-accretion rate systems: life above the period gap
An artists' conception of a dwarf nova system. Matter is transferred from the secondary -- a main-sequence dwarf star -- to the white dwarf primary, forming an accretion disk. In this case, star spots on the secondary may enter the spilling point where matter falls off the secondary, temporarily quenching the mass transfer. (Image credit: A. Beardmore, University of Leicester, UK)
The physics of dwarf nova outbursts came to be understood in the early 1990s, and are now known to be caused by instabilities in the accretion disk. If the temperature in the disk reaches a certain threshold, it transitions from being optically thin to optically thick, and dramatically increases in temperature. This is what causes the disk to become very bright until such time as it can slowly cool down to the point where it becomes optically thin again. The Z Cam subclass dwarf novae are now known to be high accretion rate systems, in which the accretion disk can occasionally be locked into its bright outburst state until such time as it can transition back down to a more normal cycle of quiescence and outbursts; the mass accretion rate is so high that the disk sometimes gets stuck in a state where it can't cool off, become optically thin again, and return to quiescence. The high accretion rate systems are mainly limited to those with orbital periods larger than the period gap (between 2 and 3 hours), and are believed to be relatively young CVs whose orbits haven't evolved much since the formation of the white dwarf primary.
One-day averages of visual observations of Z Cam, 1985-1989. The long stand-stills are hallmarks of the Z Cam class of dwarf novae, and indicate times when the disk is stuck in a bright state.
Z Cam stars aren't the only high accretion rate CVs, though. The other two main types are the VY Sculptoris stars and the novalike variables. VY Sculptoris stars (like TT Ari, for example) are marked by alternating bright and faint standstills, while the novalikes remain in a permanent bright state. VY Scl was itself first thought to be a Z Cam type star because it, too, had very long standstills. In fact, it is more similar to the other novalike variables which stay in a permanent high state without exhibiting typical dwarf nova outbursts. But unlike the novalikes, VY Scl stars also exhibit very faint quiescent standstills, which can also last for very long periods of time. The standstills are believed to be caused by temporary reductions in the mass transfer rate, as well as the high temperature of the white dwarf primary. Although the mass accretion rate is generally high in VY Scl stars, it is thought that magnetic activity on the secondary star can temporarily halt mass transfer. Because the white dwarf is very hot, it keeps the inner accretion disk hot, allowing the disk to drain more completely than in other dwarf novae in the absence of mass transfer. When the disk disappears, the system enters its low state, and remains there until mass transfer resumes and the disk re-establishes itself.
One-day averages of visual observations of TT Ari, 1981-1986. TT Ari is a VY Scl-type star, and also an intermediate polar. The long, faint interval is a hallmark of the VY Scl class, and the fact that it occurs both in magnetic and non-magnetic CVs means whatever causes the faint intervals cannot be in the disk -- magnetic CVs don't have them! The VY Scl-type fadings are now believed to be caused by variations in mass transfer from the secondary to the white dwarf.
All of the high accretion-rate systems are believed to be young CVs. As these systems get older, the primary and secondary stars spiral in towards one another due to magnetic braking. Eventually, they reach a period minimum, and then start to move apart again due to gravitational radiation, by which point the secondary has been greatly reduced in mass. So it appears that the novalikes, the Z Cam stars, and the VY Scl stars are all freshly minted cataclysmics. The question then becomes this: is there evolution between one type and another, or are there fundamental differences among the various classes?
RX Andromedae: the light curve tells the story
The classification of RX And as a Z Cam-type dwarf nova wasn't controversial, because the most pronounced features of its light curve were the occasional standstills seen in every other Z Cam star. But RX And also exhibited some behaviors not seen in other Z Cam stars. For one, RX And has a higher amplitude than most Z Cam stars (nearly six magnitudes, as opposed to 2.5-3). For another, RX And occasionally enters low states where the star stops outbursting entirely, and fades to about a magnitude below the normal minimum -- just as the VY Scl stars do.
The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit. Multiwavelength observations of dwarf novae -- particularly those made from space-based observatories -- have been key to understanding the physics of these objects. (Image credit: NASA)
One piece of evidence for the mixed classification of RX And came from detailed spectroscopy with the Hubble Space Telescope by Ed Sion, Paula Szkody, Boris Gänsicke, and collaborators in the late 1990s. Observations of the system during quiescence and outburst showed that the temperature of the white dwarf was very high at 34000 K, among the hottest of white dwarf primaries. The fact that the white dwarf is so hot suggests it could in principle take after the VY Scl stars, if the mass transfer rate were variable enough. But the real key to understanding the system came from simply examining the light curve itself.
RX Andromedae has a long and well-observed light curve in the AAVSO archives, with near continuous coverage throughout the 20th Century. Early on, the behavior matches that of a fairly normal Z Cam star. But as time went on, the system began to exhibit the long faint states typical of the VY Scl stars (even before VY Scl was itself identified as a unique class of object in the 1960's-1970's). Schreiber, Gänsicke, and Mattei published a short letter in Astronomy & Astrophysics in 2002, describing the light curve and showing examples of the long quiescent standstills exhibited by RX And (including those around JD 2443500 and 2450400). In their paper, they also note that this kind of behavior is seen in other kinds of systems including those with magnetic white dwarfs like AM Her. This is important because it says the deep fadings cannot be due simply to something happening to the accretion disk -- because the AM Her stars don't have them! AM Her stars funnel the accretion stream directly along their magnetic field lines onto the white dwarf, so the fact that the quiescent fadings are seen in magnetic CVs, too, means that something is happening to the mass transfer at the source, namely the surface of the secondary. The exact cause isn't known, but one plausible explanation is magnetic activity or star spots on the secondary star. If a spot passes through the Lagrange point where mass is transferred from the secondary to the primary, it may prevent matter from flowing off of the secondary, like "turning off the tap" temporarily.
One-day averages of visual observations of RX Andromedae, 1995-1998. Note the alternation between Z Cam-like bright standstills and outbursts and VY Scl-like faint standstills. This particular interval of time was key to understanding the transitional nature of RX And.
The reason why the Schreiber, Gänsicke, & Mattei paper is so interesting is because it seems to prove that RX And is a transitional object. Prior to this work, it had been argued that because there were no Z Cam stars seen with large variations in mass transfer, there couldn't be evolution between the Z Cam stars and the VY Scl stars. Furthermore, the phenomenology of the two were so different, it seemed that something else distinguished the two classes. Z Cams take after the classical dwarf novae, and VY Scls are more novalike in behavior. But it seems clear from the behavior of RX And that it does indeed show large mass transfer variations, and straddles the boundary between the two classes. As Schreiber, Gänsicke, & Mattei say in their paper:
...the answer to the question... "And why is there no transitional object between a [Z Cam] and a [VY Scl]?" is: such objects do exist! Moreover, one has to conclude that Z Cam and VY Scl stars are obviously not distinctly different systems although dwarf nova outbursts have a different physical origin (disc instabilities) than the typical VY Scl variability (strong mass transfer variations). One is prone to speculate whether Z Cam stars do in fact evolve into VY Scl systems, and whether RX And with its orbital period of 5.04 hr is just at the beginning of this metamorphosis.
The light curve tells the story! RX Andromedae was the variable star of Monograph 9 and its supplement of the AAVSO Monograph Series.
Observing RX Andromedae
RX And is well-placed for observers in the northern hemisphere, and can (in principle) be observed year-round for observers at high northern latitudes. When it is in its Z Cam-like state, it goes into outburst every 14 days or so on average, although it also exhibits both high and low standstills at random times and with random durations. RX And was recently in AAVSO news as one of the targets of the monitoring campaign of Alert Notice 345. But as an object with a well-observed (and well-studied!) light curve, continued observations are important to keep the record of RX And's behavior up-to-date. The paper by Schreiber, Gänsicke, & Mattei was based entirely on visual magnitude estimates, and continued visual monitoring is crucial. Using the Variable Star Plotter (VSP) you can create charts of all scales for use in making visual or CCD observations.
The recent light curve of RX And shows that it was probably in a short Z Cam standstill during the last annual gap, and it may be entering another bright standstill again after a few months of normal dwarf nova outbursts. The last major quiescent standstill occurred all the way back in November 1996 (around JD 2450400), although there was a short one in June 2000 (2451700), and some reduced activity around May 2005 (2453500). Because RX And exhibits such a wide range of behavior, it's important to keep track of what it's doing, particularly around the times when the Sun interferes. We encourage all AAVSO observers -- visual and instrumental -- to add RX Andromedae to your list of stars to watch. Given all of the odd behavior it shows, you might see something extraordinary when you look!
For More Information
- The recent light curve of RX And
- VSP charts for RX And
- Alert Notices 232 and 235 on the 1996 deep minimum
- Mattei, J.A., Waagen, E.O., Oppenheimer, B.D., & Foster, E.G., 1996, AAVSO Monograph 9: RX Andromedae 1963-1995
- Mattei, J.A., Malatesta, K.H., and Waagen, E.O., 2002 AAVSO Monograph 9, Supplement 1: RX Andromedae light curves 1996-2000
- Hellier, C., 2001, Cataclysmic Variable Stars: How And Why They Vary (Chichester, UK: Springer-Praxis)
- Sion, E. et al., 2001, "Hubble Space Telescope Spectroscopy of the Dwarf Nova RX Andromedae. I. The Underlying White Dwarf", Astrophysical Journal 555, 834
- Sion, E. et al., 2000, "The Rotation Rate and the Surface Temperature of the Hot, Accreting White Dwarf in the Dwarf Nova RX Andromadae", JAAVSO 29, 1
- Sepinsky, J. et al., 2002, "Hubble Space Telescope Spectroscopy of the Dwarf Nova RX Andromedae during Outburst Rise and Decline", Astrophysical Journal 574, 937
- Schreiber, M.R.,Gänsicke, B.T., & Mattei, J.A., 2002, " RX And: An intermediate between Z Cam and VY Scl stars", Astronomy & Astrophysics 384, L6
- Warner, B., 1995, Cataclysmic Variable Stars (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press)


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Are North Country schools bleeding out?
The story in the Plattsburgh Press Republican last week said it all. Peru's central school district is scrambling to close a $2.9 million gap for next year's budget — and this follows in the wake of roughly $1 million in cuts last year.
"It's been painful," School Board member Lisa Crosby said at the meeting, according to the P-R. "This year is going to be devastatingly painful."
The same narrative is playing out across the North Country. District after district is moving forward, year by year, with "incremental" cuts that are slowly gutting the quality and richness of our public schools.
Today's Glens Falls Post Star talks about school districts making "desperate choices."
"We are trying to stretch out ours as long as we can," Fort Ann Superintendent Maureen VanBuren told the newspaper. "None of us want to be the first ones to figure out what to do if we become insolvent."
It's like that old tale about the frog. You throw a frog into a boiling pot of water and it does its best to hop out. But if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly turn up the heat, it'll cook without ever noticing.
That's what we're seeing happen before our eyes. Education programs are hollowing out. Value-added programs for talented kids are being stripped away.
Support programs for children with special needs shelved or trimmed back to the point of meaninglessness.
And the thing is that everyone knows we're still just setting off on this journey. Schools across the region see their population of kids dwindling, their funding going down.
Unless we get a grip on this, it will be a million dollars in cuts here and million dollars in cuts there until someone turns out the lights.
Before I talk about possible solutions, let me first acknowledge the hard work that boards of education, administrators and teachers have been doing already
When the economy tanked in 2008, the state budget toppled into a meat grinder, and property tax revenues flattened. The poor folks running our schools found themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of a global meltdown.
Then, when the 2% property tax cap sailed through the legislature, they were promised help with mandate reform that never arrived.
While everyone else was talking in abstract terms about lean government — this means you, Governor Cuomo — local schools had to do the brutal work of actually cutting important programs.
But the hard truth is that this is the future.
No one I talk to thinks that funding for education is ever going to soar back to the growth levels we once enjoyed. Nor are costs for things like pensions, energy, and healthcare going to shrink.
So the time has come for education leaders in our region to pivot from desperately bailing the old life boat to building a better new boat that will survive the coming storm.
Here are six concrete steps that can help save (at least some of) our public schools.
1. Stop talking about the past. Stop denying that fundamental change is inevitable.
I get it, we all love our schools. We wish they could continue to look the same and do the same things going forward that they used to do. But that's over.
The truth is that everything changed about five years ago and we're just waking up to the fact. Unless we put all our options on the table and talk about how to create a new, affordable model for schools, the future will be extraordinarily painful.
2. Each school district needs a new vision, driven by community values.
Districts should convene community dialogues to decide what exactly it is that schools can and must do. What is the core, the heart, the essential mission? This will guide the rest of the conversation.
When we cut programs (and we will cut programs) which should be held sacred? When we're forced to partner with other districts (and we will be forced to partner and share and merge) how do those alliances serve our core values?
When should we be willing to go beyond the 2% property tax cap?
It's also important to clarify which local values match (or don't match) the educational mandates coming from Albany. That way, we'll know which fights to pick.
3. All the old turf garbage has to be thrown out. Right now.
The Los Angeles Central School district educates more than 640,000 kids, spread over a vast geographic area, tackling levels of cultural diversity and neighborhood conflict that we can't even begin to imagine.
In our hearts, we all know that the north Country's balkanized, village-by-village education system is a throwback to the horse and buggy days.
So no more muttering about how different Keene is from Elizabethtown, or how awesome the geographic and cultural divides are between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake. Start partnering and sharing and merging. It's time. It's do-or-die.
Even if you do all the things in steps 1, 2 and 3, things are going to get tough. Especially if some of your core values require some lofty or expensive goals. So talk honestly about that.
If your community insists on maintaining a fully autonomous district, even if you have only a few hundred (or a few dozen) kids, make it plain that that approach will almost certainly cost local taxpayers — big time. Lay out the numbers.
5. Open a new dialogue with teachers.
Teachers have values too, obviously, and those go beyond salary and benefits. So put everything on the table. What's the new model for fair and reasonable, sustainable and respectful compensation?
Take the conversation deeper than a traditional short-term contract negotiation. What will give teachers real job satisfaction? More job security? Better pupil-teacher ratios? More training or support in the classroom?
Are there innovative trade-offs that can make teachers happier and more affordable at the same time? Teachers, meanwhile, need to force their unions to think more broadly than pushing for annual pay increases and holding the line on pensions.
Again, stop denying that fundamental change is inevitable.
5. Be sure to set positive goals as well as negative ones.
Yes, your plan going forward will include painful decisions. Consolidation, closed buildings, fewer teachers and programs. All those are possible, and even likely.
But once you have your values in place, find some programs that are important enough that they need to grow and get better. Become a magnet school. Develop some specialties.
When you have to go beyond the property tax cap to pay for the school district's core values, don't be afraid of asking voters to do that.
In the end, I suspect that a lot of schools won't engage this kind of transformational, values-driven discussion. They'll keep fighting to maintain something that resembles the familiar and the normal.
They'll keep thinking year-to-year, stretching out those fund reserves as long as possible. They'll keep making what feel like responsible, pragmatic short-term decisions.
Meanwhile, the heart of the education experience will bleed out.
But those North Country districts that will still be strong in the year 2026 — when the current batch of kindergartners will be graduating from high school — are those that begin right now to plan for the inevitable transformation.
Tags: adirondacks, economy, education


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When Obamacare's individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form will require disclosure of a taxpayer's personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate.
As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, "taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment".
So why will the Obama IRS require your personal identifying health information?
Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacare's individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme. Every January, health insurance companies across America will send out tax documents to each insured individual. This tax document—a copy of which will be furnished to the IRS—must contain sufficient information for taxpayers to prove that they purchased qualifying health insurance under Obamacare.
This new tax information document must, at a minimum, contain: the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare's "exchanges."
This will involve millions of new tax documents landing in mailboxes across America every January, along with the usual raft of W-2s, 1099s, and 1098s. At tax time, the 140 million families who file a tax return will have to get acquainted with a brand new tax filing form. Six million of these families will end up paying Obamacare's individual mandate non-compliance tax penalty.
As a service to the public, Americans for Tax Reform has released a projected version of this tax form to help families and tax specialists prepare for this additional filing requirement. Taxpayers may view the projected IRS form at www.ObamacareTaxForm.com or see below. On the form, lines 3-4 show where taxpayers will disclose their personal identifying health information.
Follow the authors on Twitter: @Ryanlellis and @JohnKartch


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Robin Williams' ashes scattered in San Francisco Bay
Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams was found dead on Monday from an apparent suicide at his home in Northern California, Marin County Sheriff's Office said. He was 63. [Photo/Agencies] |
Billy Crystal to commemorate late actor Robin Williams at Emmys |
Chinese film fans mourn for star |
Comedian Robin Williams' ashes have been scattered in the San Francisco Bay following his apparent suicide, according to a death certificate released by Marin County on Thursday.
Williams, 63, was found hanged in his Tiburon, California, home last week. The "Mrs. Doubtfire" star had been suffering from severe depression, anxiety and early Parkinson's disease before his death.
Williams' cremated remains were released on Aug 12, the day after his death, according to the document.
Williams' death stunned his former Hollywood colleagues, who remembered him for his generosity and humble nature.
The actor's madcap comic style launched him to prominence as a friendly alien in the late 1970s TV series "Mork & Mindy," and his dramatic versatility also earned him an Oscar for his role as a fatherly therapist in 1997's "Good Will Hunting."
Williams' family has not announced plans for a memorial.
Fellow comedian Billy Crystal will give a tribute to Williams at the annual television Emmy Awards on Aug 25.


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Peoples Bank is a locally owned and operated, independent community bank. Headquartered in Bellingham, Washington, the Bank was founded in 1921 and operates 24 branches located throughout WA
At U.S. Bank, we're actively engaged in developing, strengthening and energizing our communities. Individually and together, we live our brand. It's all of Us serving you


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Up Front: Boobs!
279 Responses
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It'd be remiss of me not to thank the women whose words and ideas helped me with this post enormously: Megan, Danielle, and Lucy.
Loved your tweet about this yesterday:
Oh, now I see. Proudly showing cleavage - not feminism. Calling other women idiots/sluts/whores/tramps - feminism. I was confused.
In the name of science, burn those bras!
I shall be cheerfully participating, probably in a wrap-around top, immodestly remaining in the workforce at seven months pregnant. If anyone is inspired to earthquake-causing adultery by the sight of me (at a time when my getting stuck between a desk and a door is a far more pressing matter than the depth of my cleavage), then truly my powers are even greater than those attributed to women in general by the cleric.
I'm certainly with you, Emma, on what I think of as the feminism of dress. I don't think we get anywhere by attacking the dress choices of individual women, since it's such a quick step from that to identifying adjacent events as the consequences of those choices, and thus conveniently stripping away the agency of other actors (like those who choose to commit sexual assault).
This photo essay puts the discussion in the context of women and breastfeeding, but makes a similar point with regard to modesty and individual choice. Let the woman decide her set-point herself.
ShakeNZ is what you'll need locally to monitor the scientific relationship between the Boobquake event and actual earthquakes. Internationally, you can't go past the USGS worldwide real-time earthquake monitoring site.
Another Boobquake Day tweet:
@CyclingAuckland: Another good excuse to wear a skirt and cycle ;-)
Loved your tweet about this yesterday:
I'd just come out of about two hours of reading comments. I was quite cross. Boy, are those close to me fucking sick of hearing about this.
Also, a while back, for some reason, I promised people I would go out for an evening showing absolutely no cleavage at all. Turned out my wardrobe was incapable of providing. OTOH, I do wish they'd done this at a slightly warmer time of year. Australians women are very happy, as Boobquake is a public holiday for them. We should be gleeful because, like every world-wide event, we'll be First to See the... Sun.
Another good excuse to wear a skirt and cycle
Ah, the answer to my frequent high-school problem of having to pull my skirt out of my gears: shorter skirts.
Not to shake any boobs here, but
The absolutism of this statement;
This is nothing to do with men.
Seems to conflict with the characterized motivation;
Briefly, this event was sparked by the comments of a senior Iranian cleric that;
It's not that I'm not in full support, merely that boobs for boob's sake trumps boobs for argument's sake. I hope it's warm enough and more importantly that there's no ill-timed earthquake to feed the ignorant minds, have fun!
Ah, the answer to my frequent high-school problem of having to pull my skirt out of my gears: shorter skirts.
I suspect that may have caused "high-school problems" for others :)
Really great post Emma.
I especially like that you point out the importance of what the participants get out of the event over the reaction of men (or whoever). Although somehow the same argument could not be made for Boobs on Bikes.
I think we need govt tv advertising about male ogling/stupid excuses for men behaving like dicks/psychopaths. Something like;
"It's not the liking of boobs, its the WAY we like boobs."
...and as silly as that sounds, I kinda mean it.
Immodest clothing is all very well, but what about this "leading young men astray and corrupting our chastity" business? What's being done on that front?
Sigh. Just reminds me of this sort of thing.
What's being done on that front?
Are you requesting some corruption?
Although somehow the same argument could not be made for Boobs on Bikes.
And yet, it was Emma that made me think about the language I was using about the women who do BonB in a blog post one time. Her observations were instructive.
Although somehow the same argument could not be made for Boobs on Bikes.
Why not, and don't start on the road to choice versus exploitation. My tits and I would do what I felt like on the day/ whatever day I live in. If a person and their tits wants to drive down the road on the bike for a totally legal parade/ rally, who am I to argue? Why would I need to grant my permission, just as any person can wear what they like on this day in question.
Why not, and don't start on the road to choice versus exploitation.
Fair enough I guess, but I was thinking more along the lines of activism versus commercialism (boobs on bikes is advertising is it not?). Which is also a thin line I suppose.
So I would like to remove myself from any further argument relating to feminism and/or public nudity. I consider myself entirely unqualified to judge!
I was thinking more along the lines of activism versus commercialism (boobs on bikes is advertising is it not?)
Which is totally fair enough, it IS different. But what Russell is referring to (I believe) is me pointing out that people were able to have long conversations about Boobs on Bikes without ever asking what the women involved thought or felt about it, robbing them of all agency over their own actions and all importance in the debate. So the point about making the reaction of the men of supreme value and not caring about the experience of the women stands in that instance as well.
Don't stop on my account . You go for gold. Nothing wrong with speaking your mind. Imho :) -
I don't get what's so scary about boobs (but then I'm no cleric)
There seems to be an awful lot of conflation of failing to conform to some arbitrary standard of modesty and dressing sexy in order to court the male gaze in some of that criticism.
I'm really glad that the women who felt their breasts were "too small" tended to get kindly responses but the underlying beliefs that those statements reflect are very sad - both that small breasts aren't worth showing off and that big breasts are inherently less modest.
US tv networks refuse to screen advert for big bras.
'Our new commercials represent the sensuality of the curvy woman who has more to show the world than the typical waif-like lingerie model.
'What we didn't know was that the networks, which regularly run Victoria's Secret and Playtex advertising on the very shows from which we're restricted, would object to a different view of beauty.'
it did dawn on me that if there is a giant earthquake anywhere in the world tomorrow (or the next day) there will be a whole lot of "I told you so" coming from Iran
Hussy Science - surely there was a Russ Meyer (sp?) film by that name?
Being a modestly (pun intended) sized woman (that means I'm in the same league as Keira Knightly, and I will be exceedingly RUDE to anyone who tries to commiserate with me about it, because actually, I'm very happy with my body), showing cleavage is a little ineffective, if not actually impossible. But I'm thinking tight jeans, and a lacy-is-it-see-through-or-isn't-it-and-perhaps-if-you-look-a-bit-harder-you-might-be-able-to-work-it-out-possibly-just-before-you-realise-that-it's-not-the-done-thing-to-go-around-staring-at-women's-breasts close fitting top, showing every proudly-earned post-baby roll.
it did dawn on me that if there is a giant earthquake anywhere in the world tomorrow (or the next day) there will be a whole lot of "I told you so" coming from Iran
As the author has said though - it's not the boobs et all that cause earthquakes, it's the adultery from corruption that causes earthquakes. It's just that THAT is caused by boobs.
Hussy Science 201 explores the statistical patterns of boob/quake lag I believe.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.


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In recent weeks, the European Union, especially the 16 countries that share the euro as their currency, has been shaken by a fiscal policy crisis in Greece.
Greece has the worst fiscal policy position of any EU country, with net government debt of more than 100 percent of GDP and a budget deficit of more than 12 percent of GDP. Official euro area fiscal policy rules mandate a debt ratio of no more than 60 percent, and a deficit of no more than 3 percent.
After last year's elections, fear that the Greek government was unable to manage its finances frightened lenders. By February, they were willing to roll over Greek government debt only at punitively high interest rates, more than 3 percentage points higher than those paid by countries like Germany and the United States.
Faced with this kind of crisis, a government has only three options: default on its debt; pay its bills with newly issued money (even at the risk of runaway inflation); or implement harsh fiscal reforms. As a member of the euro area, Greece lacks an independent central bank, so the option of monetization is technically impossible. As a member of the European Union, default was unthinkable. In the end, Greece was pressured by its neighbors into painful tax increases and spending cuts, at the cost of strikes and violence in the streets.
How does the fiscal situation of Greece compare with that of the United States? Side-by-side comparisons of Greek and US data show some sobering parallels. Neither country took advantage of the boom years of the mid-2000s to put its fiscal house in order. During the crisis, the US deficit has risen as high as that of Greece, and the US national debt is fast approaching the 100 percent level that Greece has already breached.
The bottom line: The middle of a recession is the worst time to carry out painful tax increases and spending cuts. However, that is exactly what countries are forced to do if they do not make timely reforms during years of prosperity. The United States still has a strong credit rating, at least for the time being, so it has escaped a Greek-style budget emergency during the current recession. Unfortunately, projections by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office show no sign on the horizon of needed reforms. If business-as-usual continues in Washington, a crisis is only a matter of time.
Follow this link to download a free set of PowerPoint slides with a discussion of the Greek budget crisis, including graphs with side-by-side comparisons of Greek and US data. If you find this material useful in your courses, please post a comment or send me an e-mail.


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September 2004
(This essay is derived from an invited talk at ICFP 2004.)
I had a front row seat for the Internet Bubble, because I worked at Yahoo during 1998 and 1999. One day, when the stock was trading around $200, I sat down and calculated what I thought the price should be. The answer I got was $12. I went to the next cubicle and told my friend Trevor. "Twelve!" he said. He tried to sound indignant, but he didn't quite manage it. He knew as well as I did that our valuation was crazy.
Yahoo was a special case. It was not just our price to earnings ratio that was bogus. Half our earnings were too. Not in the Enron way, of course. The finance guys seemed scrupulous about reporting earnings. What made our earnings bogus was that Yahoo was, in effect, the center of a Ponzi scheme. Investors looked at Yahoo's earnings and said to themselves, here is proof that Internet companies can make money. So they invested in new startups that promised to be the next Yahoo. And as soon as these startups got the money, what did they do with it? Buy millions of dollars worth of advertising on Yahoo to promote their brand. Result: a capital investment in a startup this quarter shows up as Yahoo earnings next quarter—stimulating another round of investments in startups.
As in a Ponzi scheme, what seemed to be the returns of this system were simply the latest round of investments in it. What made it not a Ponzi scheme was that it was unintentional. At least, I think it was. The venture capital business is pretty incestuous, and there were presumably people in a position, if not to create this situation, to realize what was happening and to milk it.
A year later the game was up. Starting in January 2000, Yahoo's stock price began to crash, ultimately losing 95% of its value.
Notice, though, that even with all the fat trimmed off its market cap, Yahoo was still worth a lot. Even at the morning-after valuations of March and April 2001, the people at Yahoo had managed to create a company worth about $8 billion in just six years.
The fact is, despite all the nonsense we heard during the Bubble about the "new economy," there was a core of truth. You need that to get a really big bubble: you need to have something solid at the center, so that even smart people are sucked in. (Isaac Newton and Jonathan Swift both lost money in the South Sea Bubble of 1720.)
Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Now anything that became fashionable during the Bubble is ipso facto unfashionable. But that's a mistake—an even bigger mistake than believing what everyone was saying in 1999. Over the long term, what the Bubble got right will be more important than what it got wrong.
1. Retail VC
After the excesses of the Bubble, it's now considered dubious to take companies public before they have earnings. But there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that idea. Taking a company public at an early stage is simply retail VC: instead of going to venture capital firms for the last round of funding, you go to the public markets.
By the end of the Bubble, companies going public with no earnings were being derided as "concept stocks," as if it were inherently stupid to invest in them. But investing in concepts isn't stupid; it's what VCs do, and the best of them are far from stupid.
The stock of a company that doesn't yet have earnings is worth
It may take a while for the market to learn how to value such companies, just as it had to learn to value common stocks in the early 20th century. But markets are good at solving that kind of problem. I wouldn't be surprised if the market ultimately did a better job than VCs do now.
Going public early will not be the right plan for every company. And it can of course be disruptive—by distracting the management, or by making the early employees suddenly rich. But just as the market will learn how to value startups, startups will learn how to minimize the damage of going public.
2. The Internet
The Internet genuinely is a big deal. That was one reason even smart people were fooled by the Bubble. Obviously it was going to have a huge effect. Enough of an effect to triple the value of Nasdaq companies in two years? No, as it turned out. But it was hard to say for certain at the time. [1]
The same thing happened during the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles. What drove them was the invention of organized public finance (the South Sea Company, despite its name, was really a competitor of the Bank of England). And that did turn out to be a big deal, in the long run.
Recognizing an important trend turns out to be easier than figuring out how to profit from it. The mistake investors always seem to make is to take the trend too literally. Since the Internet was the big new thing, investors supposed that the more Internettish the company, the better. Hence such parodies as Pets.Com.
In fact most of the money to be made from big trends is made indirectly. It was not the railroads themselves that made the most money during the railroad boom, but the companies on either side, like Carnegie's steelworks, which made the rails, and Standard Oil, which used railroads to get oil to the East Coast, where it could be shipped to Europe.
I think the Internet will have great effects, and that what we've seen so far is nothing compared to what's coming. But most of the winners will only indirectly be Internet companies; for every Google there will be ten JetBlues.
3. Choices
Why will the Internet have great effects? The general argument is that new forms of communication always do. They happen rarely (till industrial times there were just speech, writing, and printing), but when they do, they always cause a big splash.
The specific argument, or one of them, is the Internet gives us more choices. In the "old" economy, the high cost of presenting information to people meant they had only a narrow range of options to choose from. The tiny, expensive pipeline to consumers was tellingly named "the channel." Control the channel and you could feed them what you wanted, on your terms. And it was not just big corporations that depended on this principle. So, in their way, did labor unions, the traditional news media, and the art and literary establishments. Winning depended not on doing good work, but on gaining control of some bottleneck.
There are signs that this is changing. Google has over 82 million unique users a month and annual revenues of about three billion dollars. [2] And yet have you ever seen a Google ad? Something is going on here.
Admittedly, Google is an extreme case. It's very easy for people to switch to a new search engine. It costs little effort and no money to try a new one, and it's easy to see if the results are better. And so Google doesn't
to advertise. In a business like theirs, being the best is enough.
The exciting thing about the Internet is that it's shifting everything in that direction. The hard part, if you want to win by making the best stuff, is the beginning. Eventually everyone will learn by word of mouth that you're the best, but how do you survive to that point? And it is in this crucial stage that the Internet has the most effect. First, the Internet lets anyone find you at almost zero cost. Second, it dramatically speeds up the rate at which reputation spreads by word of mouth. Together these mean that in many fields the rule will be: Build it, and they will come. Make something great and put it online. That is a big change from the recipe for winning in the past century.
4. Youth
The aspect of the Internet Bubble that the press seemed most taken with was the youth of some of the startup founders. This too is a trend that will last. There is a huge standard deviation among 26 year olds. Some are fit only for entry level jobs, but others are ready to rule the world if they can find someone to handle the paperwork for them.
A 26 year old may not be very good at managing people or dealing with the SEC. Those require experience. But those are also commodities, which can be handed off to some lieutenant. The most important quality in a CEO is his vision for the company's future. What will they build next? And in that department, there are 26 year olds who can compete with anyone.
In 1970 a company president meant someone in his fifties, at least. If he had technologists working for him, they were treated like a racing stable: prized, but not powerful. But as technology has grown more important, the power of nerds has grown to reflect it. Now it's not enough for a CEO to have someone smart he can ask about technical matters. Increasingly, he has to be that person himself.
As always, business has clung to old forms. VCs still seem to want to install a legitimate-looking talking head as the CEO. But increasingly the founders of the company are the real powers, and the grey-headed man installed by the VCs more like a music group's manager than a general.
5. Informality
In New York, the Bubble had dramatic consequences: suits went out of fashion. They made one seem old. So in 1998 powerful New York types were suddenly wearing open-necked shirts and khakis and oval wire-rimmed glasses, just like guys in Santa Clara.
The pendulum has swung back a bit, driven in part by a panicked reaction by the clothing industry. But I'm betting on the open-necked shirts. And this is not as frivolous a question as it might seem. Clothes are important, as all nerds can sense, though they may not realize it consciously.
If you're a nerd, you can understand how important clothes are by asking yourself how you'd feel about a company that made you wear a suit and tie to work. The idea sounds horrible, doesn't it? In fact, horrible far out of proportion to the mere discomfort of wearing such clothes. A company that made programmers wear suits would have something deeply wrong with it.
And what would be wrong would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the quality of one's ideas.
the problem with formality. Dressing up is not so much bad in itself. The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as "suits."
Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
6. Nerds
Clothing is only the most visible battleground in the war against formality. Nerds tend to eschew formality of any sort. They're not impressed by one's job title, for example, or any of the other appurtenances of authority.
Indeed, that's practically the definition of a nerd. I found myself talking recently to someone from Hollywood who was planning a show about nerds. I thought it would be useful if I explained what a nerd was. What I came up with was: someone who doesn't expend any effort on marketing himself.
A nerd, in other words, is someone who concentrates on substance. So what's the connection between nerds and technology? Roughly that you can't fool mother nature. In technical matters, you have to get the right answers. If your software miscalculates the path of a space probe, you can't finesse your way out of trouble by saying that your code is patriotic, or avant-garde, or any of the other dodges people use in nontechnical fields.
And as technology becomes increasingly important in the economy, nerd culture is
with it. Nerds are already a lot cooler than they were when I was a kid. When I was in college in the mid-1980s, "nerd" was still an insult. People who majored in computer science generally tried to conceal it. Now women ask me where they can meet nerds. (The answer that springs to mind is "Usenix," but that would be like drinking from a firehose.)
I have no illusions about why nerd culture is becoming more accepted. It's not because people are realizing that substance is more important than marketing. It's because the nerds are getting rich. But that is not going to change.
7. Options
What makes the nerds rich, usually, is stock options. Now there are moves afoot to make it harder for companies to grant options. To the extent there's some genuine accounting abuse going on, by all means correct it. But don't kill the golden goose. Equity is the fuel that drives technical innovation.
Options are a good idea because (a) they're fair, and (b) they work. Someone who goes to work for a company is (one hopes) adding to its value, and it's only fair to give them a share of it. And as a purely practical measure, people work a
harder when they have options. I've seen that first hand.
The fact that a few crooks during the Bubble robbed their companies by granting themselves options doesn't mean options are a bad idea. During the railroad boom, some executives enriched themselves by selling watered stock—by issuing more shares than they said were outstanding. But that doesn't make common stock a bad idea. Crooks just use whatever means are available.
If there is a problem with options, it's that they reward slightly the wrong thing. Not surprisingly, people do what you pay them to. If you pay them by the hour, they'll work a lot of hours. If you pay them by the volume of work done, they'll get a lot of work done (but only as you defined work). And if you pay them to raise the stock price, which is what options amount to, they'll raise the stock price.
But that's not quite what you want. What you want is to increase the actual value of the company, not its market cap. Over time the two inevitably meet, but not always as quickly as options vest. Which means options tempt employees, if only unconsciously, to "pump and dump"—to do things that will make the company
valuable. I found that when I was at Yahoo, I couldn't help thinking, "how will this sound to investors?" when I should have been thinking "is this a good idea?"
So maybe the standard option deal needs to be tweaked slightly. Maybe options should be replaced with something tied more directly to earnings. It's still early days.
8. Startups
What made the options valuable, for the most part, is that they were options on the stock of
. Startups were not of course a creation of the Bubble, but they were more visible during the Bubble than ever before.
One thing most people did learn about for the first time during the Bubble was the startup created with the intention of selling it. Originally a startup meant a small company that hoped to grow into a big one. But increasingly startups are evolving into a vehicle for developing technology on spec.
As I wrote in
Hackers & Painters
, employees seem to be most productive when they're paid in proportion to the wealth they generate. And the advantage of a startup—indeed, almost its raison d'etre—is that it offers something otherwise impossible to obtain: a way of
In many businesses, it just makes more sense for companies to get technology by buying startups rather than developing it in house. You pay more, but there is less risk, and risk is what big companies don't want. It makes the guys developing the technology more accountable, because they only get paid if they build the winner. And you end up with better technology, created faster, because things are made in the innovative atmosphere of startups instead of the bureaucratic atmosphere of big companies.
Our startup, Viaweb, was built to be sold. We were open with investors about that from the start. And we were careful to create something that could slot easily into a larger company. That is the pattern for the future.
9. California
The Bubble was a California phenomenon. When I showed up in Silicon Valley in 1998, I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900. Everyone was so cheerful and healthy and rich. It seemed a new and improved world.
The press, ever eager to exaggerate small trends, now gives one the impression that Silicon Valley is a ghost town. Not at all. When I drive down 101 from the airport, I still feel a buzz of energy, as if there were a giant transformer nearby. Real estate is still more expensive than just about anywhere else in the country. The people still look healthy, and the weather is still fabulous. The future is there. (I say "there" because I moved back to the East Coast after Yahoo. I still wonder if this was a smart idea.)
What makes the Bay Area superior is the attitude of the people. I notice that when I come home to Boston. The first thing I see when I walk out of the airline terminal is the fat, grumpy guy in charge of the taxi line. I brace myself for rudeness:
remember, you're back on the East Coast now.
The atmosphere varies from city to city, and fragile organisms like startups are exceedingly sensitive to such variation. If it hadn't already been hijacked as a new euphemism for liberal, the word to describe the atmosphere in the Bay Area would be "progressive." People there are trying to build the future. Boston has MIT and Harvard, but it also has a lot of truculent, unionized employees like the police who recently held the Democratic National Convention for
, and a lot of people trying to be Thurston Howell. Two sides of an obsolete coin.
Silicon Valley may not be the next Paris or London, but it is at least the next Chicago. For the next fifty years, that's where new wealth will come from.
10. Productivity
During the Bubble, optimistic analysts used to justify high price to earnings ratios by saying that technology was going to increase productivity dramatically. They were wrong about the specific companies, but not so wrong about the underlying principle. I think one of the big trends we'll see in the coming century is a huge increase in productivity.
Or more precisely, a huge increase in
in productivity. Technology is a lever. It doesn't add; it multiplies. If the present range of productivity is 0 to 100, introducing a multiple of 10 increases the range from 0 to 1000.
One upshot of which is that the companies of the future may be surprisingly small. I sometimes daydream about how big you could grow a company (in revenues) without ever having more than ten people. What would happen if you outsourced everything except product development? If you tried this experiment, I think you'd be surprised at how far you could get. As Fred Brooks pointed out, small groups are intrinsically more productive, because the internal friction in a group grows as the square of its size.
Till quite recently, running a major company meant managing an army of workers. Our standards about how many employees a company should have are still influenced by old patterns. Startups are perforce small, because they can't afford to hire a lot of people. But I think it's a big mistake for companies to loosen their belts as revenues increase. The question is not whether you can afford the extra salaries. Can you afford the loss in productivity that comes from making the company bigger?
The prospect of technological leverage will of course raise the specter of unemployment. I'm surprised people still worry about this. After centuries of supposedly job-killing innovations, the number of jobs is within ten percent of the number of people who want them. This can't be a coincidence. There must be some kind of balancing mechanism.
What's New
When one looks over these trends, is there any overall theme? There does seem to be: that in the coming century, good ideas will count for more. That 26 year olds with good ideas will increasingly have an edge over 50 year olds with powerful connections. That doing good work will matter more than dressing up—or advertising, which is the same thing for companies. That people will be rewarded a bit more in proportion to the value of what they create.
If so, this is good news indeed. Good ideas always tend to win eventually. The problem is, it can take a very long time. It took decades for relativity to be accepted, and the greater part of a century to establish that central planning didn't work. So even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change—big enough, probably, to justify a name like the "new economy."
[1] Actually it's hard to say now. As Jeremy Siegel points out, if the value of a stock is its future earnings, you can't tell if it was overvalued till you see what the earnings turn out to be. While certain famous Internet stocks were almost certainly overvalued in 1999, it is still hard to say for sure whether, e.g., the Nasdaq index was.
Siegel, Jeremy J. "What Is an Asset Price Bubble? An Operational Definition."
European Financial Management,
9:1, 2003.
[2] The number of users comes from a 6/03 Nielsen study quoted on Google's site. (You'd think they'd have something more recent.) The revenue estimate is based on revenues of $1.35 billion for the first half of 2004, as reported in their IPO filing.
to Chris Anderson, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.
The Long Tail
Russian Translation
Japanese Translation


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Rhode Island Social Security Disability Lawyers
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Need Help With Social Security Disability?
You've come to the right place. If you or someone you know is unable to work because of a long-term disability, a social security disability law office can help. Disabled workers may be eligible to receive social security disability (SSD) benefits from the government.
Use FindLaw to find a social security disability lawyer near you to help guide you through the claims process and resolve any problems that arise with Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims and SSDI benefits.
What is Social Security Disability?
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is one of the largest of several United States Federal programs with the purpose of providing assistance to persons with disabilities. Workers pay into SSDI out of their paychecks. When a worker suffers an injury or disability, they can file a claim to get benefits if they are no longer able to work. Before a disabled worker can get SSDI benefits, they have to qualify and go through the application process. Unfortunately, some workers are improperly denied benefits and have to turn to a Social Security disability lawyer for legal advice.
Who Qualifies for Social Security Disability?
Disabled workers can qualify for Social Security disability benefits but assistance is not automatic. An eligible individual has to apply to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and be approved to receive benefits. To qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, an eligible applicant has to:
- Earn enough work credits; and
- Be considered "disabled" under the Social Security Administration's standards.
Work credits are based on annual wages and quarters of work. The amount of earnings to earn one quarter of credits changes every year. Most workers can earn up to 4 work credits per year. To qualify for SSDI, an individual needs 40 credits, with at least 20 credits earned in the 10 years prior to the disability.
The number of qualifying credits can be reduced for workers who have not worked long enough to accumulate 40 credits. Some people may be able to get benefits if they do not work, including disabled children, veterans, disabled young people, and surviving spouses.
A disabled worker also has to qualify with a disabling condition. The SSA has a list of qualifying impairments, which includes multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and certain types of cancer. For impairments that are not listed conditions, it is up to the SSA to determine whether the disability qualifies. Each person who files a Social Security disability claim has to provide the medical evidence to show an impairment and the severity of the impairment.
How Much Does a Social Security Disability Attorney Charge in Rhode Island?
Many Social Security disability law firms provide Social Security disability representation on a contingency basis. A contingency fee agreement means that the lawyer will only be paid after you win your claim. Contingency fees for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) cases must qualify under Social Security Administration (SSA) fee agreement guidelines.
Additionally, Social Security disability attorneys are only able to charge fees up to a maximum that is set by statute. This means that the lawyer should be able to tell you up front how much their services will cost based on your situation.
A Social Security disability lawyer may also offer a free consultation. A free initial consultation can help you find a Social Security disability lawyer that can represent you without having to spend anything out-of-pocket.
Can a Social Security Disability Attorney Help Me File a Claim?
Disabled workers can file their own claim or a Social Security disability attorney can help you file a claim. After you find a Social Security disability attorney, your lawyer can advise you of your rights and options, help you compile the medical records necessary to support your claim, and file the claim with the appropriate Social Security Administration (SSA) office near Rhode Island. If your claim is denied, your experienced attorney can handle the appeal to make sure you get the benefits you deserve.
Why Was My Disability Claim Denied?
Social Security disability cases can be denied for several reasons. If the Social Security Administration (SSA) denies your claim, it may be because you did not earn enough work credits to qualify, do not qualify under an exception, or your medical condition is not considered disabling. However, an SSDI claim can be improperly denied for an injured worker because of clerical errors or the SSA employee made a mistake.
Can My Denied Disability Claim Be Reconsidered?
In general, you have 60 days to file a reconsideration if your claim is denied. The SSA should provide a specific reason for the denial. This can provide the information necessary to file a reconsideration. A Social Security disability lawyer can help you gather evidence in support of your claim, get a qualifying medical diagnosis, and file your reconsideration. If the reconsideration is also denied, you can request a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
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You or your disability attorney can request a Social Security disability hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). An appeal has to be requested within 60 days after you receive notice of the SSA decision. If your appeal is filed too late, your claim may be dismissed. Claimants have the right to legal representation during the hearing. The hearing may be in-person or through video teleconference.
Your Social Security disability lawyer can submit any additional evidence to the judge before the hearing. During the hearing, the judge may question the applicant, and ask to hear from witnesses and the applicant's doctors. You and your lawyer may also be able to question any witnesses and submit additional evidence. After the hearing, the judge will provide a written decision regarding your claim.


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Parshat Vaera
G-d tells Moshe to inform the Jewish People that He is going to take them out of Egypt. However, the Jewish People do not listen. G-d commands Moshe to go to Pharaoh and ask him to free the Jewish People. Although Aharon shows Pharaoh a sign by turning a staff into a snake, Pharaoh's magicians copy the sign, emboldening Pharaoh to refuse the request. G-d punishes the Egyptians and sends plagues of blood and frogs, but the magicians copy these miracles on a smaller scale, again encouraging Pharaoh to be obstinate. After the plague of lice, Pharaoh's magicians concede that only G-d could be performing these miracles. Only the Egyptians, and not the Jews in Goshen, suffer during the plagues. The onslaught continues with wild animals, pestilence, boils and fiery hail. However, despite Moshe's offers to end the plagues if Pharaoh will let the Jewish People leave, Pharaoh continues to harden his heart and refuses.
The Real Thing
"...and Aaron's staff swallowed their staffs." (7:12)
You can't fake the Real Thing.
When Aaron's staff swallowed the staffs of the Egyptian sorcerers in front of the king it became clear who was authentic and who was not.
Jewish history has been plagued by other movements purporting to be the Real Judaism.
The most successful of these is undoubtedly Christianity, but there have been many others who have tried to authenticate themselves as the 'real' Judaism. Some break away from normative Judaism and change their name, and some try to usurp the authority of the Torah Sages and call their beliefs 'Judaism'.
During the Ottoman Empire, the Karaites attempted to gain recognition for themselves as the 'authentic Jews'.
They approached the Sultan, wanting to be recognized as the legitimate 'People of Israel', and that the Jewish People should be disenfranchised as being fakes.
The Sultan summoned a representative of both the Karaites and a Rabbi to appear in front of him at the royal palace. After hearing both their cases, he would decide who was the authentic "People of the Book".
Of course, as was the custom of the east, both the Karaite and the Rabbi were required to remove their shoes before appearing in front of the Sultan. The Karaite removed his shoes and left them by the entrance to the throne room. The rabbi also removed his shoes, but then he picked them up and carried them with him into the audience with the Sultan.
When the Sultan looked down from his throne he was struck by the somewhat strange sight of the Rabbi holding a pair of shoes, and he demanded an explanation.
"Your Majesty." began the Rabbi "As you know, when the Holy One, may His Name be blessed, appeared to our teacher Moses, peace be upon him, at the site of the burning bush, G-d told Moses, "Take off your shoes from on your feet!"
"We have a tradition," said the Rabbi, "that while Moses was speaking to the Holy One, a Karaite came and stole his shoes! So, now, whenever we are in the company of Karaites we make sure to hold onto our shoes!"
The Karaite turned to the Rabbi and blustered, "That's nonsense! Everyone knows that at the time of Moses, there were no Karaites!"
The Rabbi allowed time for what the Karaite had said to sink in, and then quietly added, "Your Majesty, I don't believe there is a need for more to be said."
You can't fake the Real Thing.
- Source: Heard from Rabbi Zev Lef


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When I arrived in Haiti as ambassador, unemployment was rampant, the government could not provide basic services such as education and health care, and only 12 percent of the population had access to electricity. And that was in August 2009 – months before the devastating earthquake that struck the country almost one year ago.
The 35 seconds of terror that Haiti suffered on Tuesday, Jan. 12, resulted in 230,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries, left almost 2 million people homeless, decimated the economy and exacerbated many of the problems the nation already faced. Haiti also lost up to 30 percent of its civil service and all but one of its main government buildings.
As President Obama put it, it was as if the United States, "in a terrible instant, lost nearly 8 million people; or it's as if one-third of our country – 100 million Americans – suddenly had no home, no food or water."
Today, the United States remains committed to helping build a more prosperous and stable Haiti. Like many of Haiti's international partners, we are providing more than $400 million in humanitarian relief funding to lay the foundation for long-term development, along with $1.15 billion, pledged at the March 2010 donors conference, to help rebuild. Our efforts are part of an internationally coordinated reconstruction program that embraces innovation to restore Haiti's economy, which before the earthquake had experienced several consecutive years of growth.
The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, co-chaired by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and Bill Clinton, ensures that relief and development projects are coordinated and sequenced, so we don't build any "bridges to nowhere." Member countries from Canada and Brazil to France and Venezuela, as well as member institutions such as the United Nations and the Inter-American Development Bank, are all committed to helping Haiti realize a better tomorrow. Unlike previous efforts to rebuild the country, the IHRC also includes representatives from Haiti's government, private sector and civil society.
The U.S. government is also bringing to bear the expertise of multiple agencies as we make targeted investments in agriculture and food security, infrastructure and energy projects, health care, and governance and security programs.
We have also embraced innovation. Mobile phones allowed Americans to donate to Haitian relief and recovery efforts – more than $35 million, given in $10 increments – and they will empower Haitians. Working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we are offering cash incentives to encourage competition in Haiti's private sector to bring banking services to residents through their mobile phones. This week we will award a $2.5 million prize to the first company to launch a mobile banking service.
Haitians are very entrepreneurial. Just days after the earthquake, I saw lottery booths, beauty shops and even movie theaters in the camps. And in the months since, businesses have been reopening and new ones taking shape. But most of these entrepreneurs have no means to track their money or put it somewhere safe. Mobile banking is just the beginning of innovations that could improve the lives of millions in Haiti.
We know progress is not always visible, and we understand people's frustration with the pace of reconstruction. But progress – though not as much as we need or as fast as we want – is here. The Haitian government undertook a proactive communication and flood-mitigation effort before the rainy season last year, and it led the international response to Hurricane Tomas in November. Haitian scientists in the Ministry of Public Health and Population identified cholera as soon as it appeared, and the ministry has coordinated the international response to the outbreak. An important component of this response is public health and hygiene information, and the ministry's public service announcements – often directed at children who recite them verbatim with pride whenever someone passes by – are ubiquitous on the radio.
For our part, the United States has employed 350,000 people in cash-for-work programs, which have boosted the economy. We have also invested in agricultural initiatives, helping increase crop yields by about 75 percent over the previous year's harvest in some areas. And we have been a critical player in the effort to remove rubble. The progress is incremental, but like many at the U.S. Embassy, I have seen progress each day on my way to work – ruined buildings demolished, then the areas cleared of rubble and converted into construction sites. The work continues.
Governments, multilateral organizations and the private sector are collaborating to marry development dollars and private investment to create permanent jobs. The State Department has signed two agreements with the government of Haiti, the Inter-American Development Bank and two of the world's largest garment manufacturers, from Korea, to explore the possibility of building an industrial park that would produce tens of thousands of permanent jobs and permanent housing for thousands of Haitians. During my three diplomatic assignments here, I have seen the importance of job creation for Haiti, and these kinds of agreements make me optimistic.
We face a long and difficult journey, and now we pause to mourn the dead. But we renew our commitment to the living by helping build a more prosperous and stable Haiti, and a future that its people want.
Source: state.gov


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Country + Americana Artists With January Birthdays
It's always exciting to see who will give birth to the first baby of the new year: Will the baby be born at midnight on Jan. 1, or will it be a few minutes after? Will its "Happy Birthday" song be sung along with "Auld Lang Syne"? Several country artists were born in January -- but are any of them New Year's babies?
Country stars such as Dolly Parton, Patty Loveless and Lucinda Williams and more will be celebrating their birthdays during the first month of the year. Other artists in the photo gallery above are no longer living, but their legacies in country music will continue to ring on for years to come.
Click through the photo gallery below to find out which country artists will be blowing out their candles during January. Happy birthday to all of them!