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Deprecating Packages
Sometimes a package is intended to be removed from Fedora, but it is kept in Fedora for some additional (often indeterminate) time for various reasons including maintaining backwards compatibility. In order to prevent new packages from depending on such a package, it can be marked as deprecated.
Prerequisites for deprecation
If nothing in Fedora depends on a package, a maintainer may deprecate it at their leisure. A maintainer (or collection of maintainers) may also deprecate a set of packages together if no package in that set is a dependency of any package outside of that set.
If a package is a dependency of other packages in the distribution (which are not to be deprecated) then deprecation requires a FESCo approved Fedora change. A packager SHOULD communicate package deprecation to other maintainers, preferably via the devel or devel-announce mailing lists.
Marking a package deprecated
In order to mark a package deprecated, a special virtual provides is added:
Provides: deprecated()
If the package has subpackages and the packager intends to deprecate the package as a whole, packager MUST mark all subpackages as being deprecated.
Name: mainpackage ... Provides: deprecated() ... %package subpackage ... Provides: deprecated()
Alternatively, a packager MAY decide to only deprecate some subpackages.
A packager SHOULD add a comment in the spec explaining why a package is being deprecated. For example:
# net-tools (ifconfig etc.) have been obsoleted for ~20 years upstream. # We want to get rid of it from Fedora in favor of the iproute package, # however many sysadmins still expect ifconfig to be there, so we keep it # around as a deprecated package. Provides: deprecated()
If a date for the final removal of the package from the distribution is known, it MAY be included as follows:
Provides: deprecated() = YYYYMMDD
The special deprecated()
provide MUST NOT be added in any released branch of Fedora. It is acceptable to deprecate packages in rawhide (the master branch), the branch for an upcoming Fedora release (if one exists) up until the time of the Final Freeze, and to EPEL branches (at any time). Also note that because packages may exist in a deprecated state for some time, those packages can eventually enter release branches. The restriction is on the initial addition of the deprecated()
Consequences of a package being deprecated
Technically, nothing changes; a deprecated package works and behaves as before. However, other packages in Fedora MUST NOT add a dependency on a deprecated package (that includes Requires, BuildRequires, Recommends, Suggests, etc.). This applies both for updates of existing packages and new packages added to Fedora. Those submitting new packages, along with package reviewers, MUST check to see if any dependencies of the package they are submitting or reviewing have been deprecated. (It is, however, acceptable for a deprecated package to be renamed.)
Want to help? Learn how to contribute to Fedora Docs ›


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Here are the latest updates to the list of nomination candidates running in Alberta's next provincial election, which is expected to be held between March 1, 2019 and May 31, 2019:
– Wetaskiwin-Camrose MLA Bruce Hinkley is seeking the New Democratic Party nomination in the new Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin district. A retired teacher, Hinkley was first elected in 2015 and is a veteran NDP candidate, having run for the party in Wetaskiwin-Leduc in 1989, and his current district in 1993, 2012 and 2015, and for the party leadership in 1994. He was a candidate for the short-lived Forum Party of Alberta in Wetaskiwin-Camrose in the 1997 election.
Hinkley was elected in 2015 with 43.7 percent of the vote, defeating two-term Progressive Conservative MLA and Minister of Agriculture Verlyn Olson by 1,578 votes. A nomination meeting has been scheduled in Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin for January 8, 2018.
Morgan Bamford is seeking the NDP nomination in the new Camrose district, which includes the eastern portions of the Wetaskiwin-Camrose district. A nomination meeting in this district is scheduled to take place on February 2, 2019.
– Former city councillor Brian Pincott has withdrawn his candidacy for the NDP in Calgary-Acadia. Pincott wrote on Facebook that he is withdrawing because of his struggles with depression and concerns with his own mental health in the upcoming campaign.
Pincott served on Calgary City Council from 2007 to 2017 and was nominated as a the NDP candidate in this district on October 25, 2018 and was seen as a star candidate to replace outgoing NDP MLA Brandy Payne.
He ran as the NDP candidate against Jason Kenney in Calgary-Southeast in the 2004 federal election and against Lee Richardson in Calgary-Centre in the 2006 federal election.
– Former St. Albert city councillor Neil Korotash is seeking the Alberta Party nomination in the new Moriville-St. Albert district. Korotash teaches Biology and Urban Agriculture at Morinville Community High School and he sought the PC Party nomination in Spruce Grove-St. Albert ahead of the 2015 election. In 2001, Korotash became the youngest city councillor in St. Albert history when he was elected at age 21 in that year's municipal elections.
Korotash will be challenged for the Alberta Party nomination by Wayne Rufiange, the principal of R.F. Staples Secondary School in Westlock. Rufiange is the former principal of the Morinville Public School and previously worked as a vice-principal at various schools in the Sturgeon Public School Division.
The Alberta Party has scheduled a nomination meeting in Morinville-St. Albert for January 19, 2019.
– Tariq Chaudhry has withdrawn from the United Conservative Party nomination contest in Edmonton-Mill Woods and is claiming in an affidavit that Jason Kenney and the UCP cost him more than $25,000. Chaudhry claims Kenney encouraged him to run and asked him to sign up and pay for the $10-membership fee for 1,200 new members. Chaudhry claims he spent $6,000 on memberships and that Kenney's campaign asked him to organize Eid Mubarak events in 2017 and 2018, on which he spent $20,000, "so Mr. Kenney could be seen speaking to the Edmonton Muslim Community." Chaudhry is the owner of the Maharaja Banquet Hall.
– Chris Alders has been nominated as the Green Party candidate in Edmonton-City Centre. Alders is a long-time Green Party organizer and ran for the Nova Scotia Green Party in the 2006 and 2009 provincial elections in that province.
– Will Carnegie is seeking the Green Party nomination in Calgary-East. Carnegie is the president of the Forest Lawn Community Association.
– The NDP have now scheduled 20 nomination meetings in January and February, in what is expected to be a flurry of candidacy selection activity ahead of the next election. Along with the 15 meetings mentioned in my previous update, meetings will be held in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, Calgary-Edgemont and Calgary-Hays on February 2, 2019, and in Calgary-Beddington and Calgary-Glenmore on Feb. 3, 2019.
– The UCP have nominated candidates in 79 of Alberta's 87 electoral districts. The eight remaining nomination contests to be held for the UCP will take place in Calgary-North, Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood, Edmonton-Meadows, Edmonton-Mill Woods, Edmonton-Strathcona, Lethridge-East, and Red Deer-South. Dates for these nomination meetings have not yet been scheduled.
McLean resigns as MLA
Former cabinet minister Stephanie McLean has resigned as the NDP MLA for Calgary-Varsity. McLean resignation takes place less than two months before Alberta's fixed election period begins on March 1, 2019. McLean was appointed to cabinet as Minister of Service Alberta in February 2016 and removed from cabinet in June 2018 following her announcement that she did would not run for re-election in 2019.
McLean's resignation comes as no surprise as it has been rumoured for months that she was unhappy about her current status in the NDP caucus and looking for leave politics before the next election. McLean did not attend the session of the Legislative Assembly in fall 2018.
McLean was first elected in 2015, securing 43.9 percent of the vote. Long-time NDP stalwart Anne McGrath has been nominated to run for the in this district when the next election is called.
Photo: Premier Rachel Notley, Janet Hinkley, and Wetaskiwin-Camrose MLA Bruce Hinkley (source: Facebook)

subset: commoncrawl


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Gauntlet Hair
Over the last year and a half, Gauntlet Hair has seen its noise-pop anthems released on 7"s by tastemaker labels Forest Family ("I Was Thinking..." b/w "Our Scenery") and Mexican Summer ("Out, Don't..." b/w "Heave") respectively. And with the self-titled debut, the duo of Andy R (guitar, vox) and Craig Nice (drums, triggers) fulfill the booming promise of those now collectible singles.
Written and recorded in Spring 2011 at Andy's grandmother's Chicago-area house while she was away on vacation, Gauntlet Hair is a subtle refinement of the sounds we've come to associate with the band -- the trunk-rattling bass; the ecstatic, tinny post-punk guitar; the din of ecstasy. But what was once simply jarring in its audacity is now also bursting with new colors. While the band continues to mine the pulse-and-clap cues of modern club rap, the intricacies of Andy's Durutti Column-inspired, circular guitar lines come a bit more to the fore on Gauntlet Hair. They are at once oblique; pounding and glassy; melodic and exploratory. Standout "Top Bunk," with its tide-like suction and throb, is a cooled-out, coastal slowgrind. The songs multiple sections overlap and interlace through bass throb, elliptical guitars and affably shouted and falsetto-sung mantras. It's a shining, disorienting example of the careful, Byzantine sculpture behind each of these party jams. It's music made with the sole purpose of losing yourself -- both mind and body -- inside of it. They take the listener into the red, evoking that unmistakable feeling of being squarely in front of the speaker as it is screaming blissfully loud melodies.
Playing music together since they were teenagers, Andy and Craig relocated from Chicago to Denver three years ago to hone a sound that seems to have gained inspiration from enormity of the surrounding Rocky Mountains. In Denver, the duo is a crucial part of the avant-pop DIY scene that birthed contemporaries like Pictureplane, Woodsman and Hollagramz, and is anchored by the community built around all ages venue Rhinoceroplis. Beyond these inspiring cohorts, Gauntlet Hair finds itself mapping new boundaries for loud in pop music.


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TechRadar Verdict
If you do consider yourself a bit of a movie buff, we're pretty confident that the Sony 47W805's difficulties with dark scenes will annoy you from time to time.
- +
Bright content looks great
- +
Good online platform
- +
3D works well
- +
Gaming lag is excellent
- -
Average native contrast performance
- -
Flawed contrast boosting features
- -
Audio is uninspiring
- -
Online interface lacks sophistication
Why you can trust TechRadar
Having already been wowed this year by Sony's flagship Full HD TV, the 55W905A, expectations are sky-high for the step-down W805 series. After all, if the 47-inch Sony Bravia KDL-47W805 sat on our test benches can deliver the majority of the W905A's quality at a significantly lower price, then it may very well end up being the smash hit part of Sony's 2013 range.
Its feature sheet certainly looks promising enough, including as it does 3D playback, a variation of the very fetching 'Sense of Quartz' design introduced on the Sony 55W905, Sony's latest SEN online platform and the latest version of Sony's X-Reality Pro video processing engine.
The only possible areas of concern are that the Sony 47W805A doesn't boast the intriguing new Triluminos advanced colour system found on the W905A series, and the use of a passive 3D system rather than an active one.
This makes the Sony 47W805 - priced at £1,299 (around US$2,030 / AU$2,135) - the first passive 3D TV Sony has ever launched.
If you can live without 3D and want to save some money, you could step down to Sony's new W6 series, which still retains the SEN online support, a startlingly slim design and X-Reality processing.
Or if you want to try the Sony 47W805 out against some similar-level rival televisions, your best ports of call would be the slightly more expensive Samsung UE46F7000, with its active 3D and groundbreaking smart TV system, or the Panasonic P50GT60 plasma, with its excellent pictures and brilliantly friendly My Homescreen interface.
Even if you're not into 3D, for anyone who follows the TV world the Sony 47W805's single most intriguing feature is its passive 3D playback. Supported by the inclusion of four passive 3D glasses, this feature is particularly interesting here because it's the first time Sony has offered a passive 3D TV in its range, after years of dedicated support for the active 3D format.
In principle we applaud Sony's willingness to embrace both 3D formats in its 2013 range, on the grounds of offering consumers a 3D choice.
Yet there's a little voice in the back of our mind that can't help but feel slightly concerned about how having to shift to using one of LG's passive 3D panels might have upset the excellent picture balance Sony struck on the W905A series and last year's brilliant Sony HX853 models.
Doing a good job of putting this doubt to bed, though, is the Sony 47W805's retention of Sony's X-Reality Pro video engine. By cunningly comparing incoming sources against a huge installed database of different picture types and scenarios, X-Reality Pro is able to deliver a processing shortcut that should enable it to deliver more accurate results in real time than most - if not all - rival systems.
Obviously the effectiveness of this system depends greatly on the extent of the database and the ability of the processor's parser to correctly and quickly pair an incoming source up with the right database rules.
But these are precisely the areas Sony has most worked on in improving X-Reality Pro from its 2012 iteration. It's also reduced the previous three X-Reality Pro chipsets down to two, to reduce costs and improve performance efficiency.
Also a highlight of the Sony 47W805's feature list is its carriage of the latest Sony Entertainment Network (SEN) online platform. This sensibly focuses on providing plenty of video services, including such heavy hitters as BBC iPlayer, Lovefilm, Netflix, Demand 5, Sky News and Sony's own TV archive and Movies Unlimited services.
There's also a near-bewildering selection of smaller video channels, most of which carry very niche but occasionally still interesting content.
There's no disguising that Samsung and LG have trotted past Sony when it comes to providing A-list video content. Plus, as we'll see in the Usability section of this review, Sony's latest interface has fallen a bit off the pace too.
But Sony's smart TV stuff is nonetheless a very worthwhile addition to the Sony 47W805, and there are enough innovative touches around to show that Sony is still thinking on its feet where smart features concerned.
These touches include an NFC remote control so you can mirror the screens of secondary NFC-supporting devices onto the TV screen; a Fast Zapp option that provides a great way of quickly surfing both broadcast and on-demand listings without disrupting what you're currently watching; and a prettily presented control and content-sharing app for iOS and Android devices.
It's a pity, though, that this app doesn't follow the lead of many rivals this year by supporting second-screen sharing of what's being shown on the TV screen.
The Sony 47W805's multimedia support also extends to photo, video and music playback via DLNA and USB ports, of course, while its apparent commitment to picture quality can be seen in an extensive quote of picture calibration tools, including a (slightly offbeat) colour management system and white balance controls.
The Sony 47W805 carries its decent list of features inside a reasonably attractive body. The television's bezel is a bit wider than most these days, but it's given a welcome dash of panache by a sliver of reflective blue - or a 'Sense of Quartz', to use Sony's marketing jargon.
Also eye catching is a little silver box sitting in the centre of the bottom edge. Dubbed the Intelligence Centre, this houses the TV's processing brain, and rather niftily changes the colour of its light output in response to the source you're watching.
The TV's rear, meanwhile, sports a fulsome suite of connections, including four HDMIs, three USBs, and both LAN and built-in Wi-Fi network options.
The last thing worth covering here is the other ways in which the Sony 47W805 differs from the specifications of its W905 sibling. The main one is its use of an IPS panel design rather than the VA type Sony has used previously. This should result in wider practical viewing angles, though experience suggests it might also result in a reduced contrast performance.
The Sony 47W805 also applies less power to its motion handling, delivering a MotionFlow XR 400 (400Hz) system versus the MotionFlow XR 800 (800Hz) effect on the W9 series.
John has been writing about home entertainment technology for more than two decades - an especially impressive feat considering he still claims to only be 35 years old (yeah, right). In that time he's reviewed hundreds if not thousands of TVs, projectors and speakers, and spent frankly far too long sitting by himself in a dark room.


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(BPT) – Daydreaming of spring is something everyone does during the coldest days of winter — even pests. The promise of warmer weather on the horizon is also a boon for the numerous species of pests that inhabit your area, and when the temperature perks up, many of those pests come out of hiding and start looking towards your home for food and shelter.
Protecting your home and property from seasonal intruders is a year-long job, but your task could be simpler if proper preparations are made in advance of spring's first bloom. To help you do just that, the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) offers these tips for keeping your property pest-free this year:
* Identify the threats. To start your pest prevention effectively, the first step is to know what to look for. The winter months saw an influx of furry critters trying to invade homes, but springtime pests are more often of the six-legged variety. Ants, flies, bees/hornets, ticks, mosquitoes and termites are all common nuisance pests during this season. Visit www.pestworld.org to learn more about what threats are most common in your area and how to identify them.
* Block the openings. Even the smallest pests are able to find a way into your home, and in many cases that way is through your windows. Keep windows shut during swarming periods for insects like ants or termites and install screens and door sweeps to keep winged intruders, like flies, mosquitoes and hornets, out.
* Make your yard less inviting. Don't allow your yard to be a base of operations for future pest activity. Keeping your grass freshly cut makes the space less appealing to pests, and trimming trees and bushes near your home is a great way to prevent easy access for potential travelers. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you should also remove standing water from your property. Even an upside-down Frisbee can collect enough water to be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Fill wet patches with dirt, if necessary, and tip over any cups, flower pots or bowls that collected water during the winter.
* Look for signs of activity. A pest infestation can't stay hidden forever. Alive or dead insects in your home are a sign of a larger problem, as is damage to wood if you live in an area where termites are prevalent. Signs of a potential problem may exist outside, as well. Take a stroll around your home and check your roof for hornet nests. They will be small in the spring but will grow larger throughout the season if action isn't taken.
* Contact the experts. If you're looking for even more strategies to reduce the risk of pests infesting your home or you suspect your home has already succumbed to an infestation of some type, your local pest control professional can help you rid your home of existing threats and shore it up to prevent against new invaders. Visit www.pestworld.org to find a local exterminator in your area. It's the easiest way to turn your spring pest problem from growing to gone.


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Luxury isn't meant to be left desired - it's meant to be attainable. Designed in Lake Tahoe, USA, the ZLINE Autograph Edition 24" 1.2 cu. ft. Built-in Microwave Drawer with a Traditional Handle in Stainless Steel with Accents provides a professional culinary experience by pairing everyday convenience with a timeless style. Achieve ZLINE Attainable Luxury® excellence with unrivaled performance designed to enhance your kitchen's capability.
This product includes many unique features such as:
- Space-Saving - Free up your countertop space with an undercounter modern design with installation location flexibility to best fit your lifestyle
- Top Access Design - Easily transport hot dishes and prevent spills with an accessible top-loading design
- Convenient Microwave Modes - Achieve optimal results for every dish with sensor cooking, defrost, popcorn, and beverage settings
- Auto-touch Open and Close - Effortlessly open and close the microwave drawer with just the touch of a button
- Intuitive Control Panel - Enjoy an easy-to-use control panel that provides maximum convenience with a 45 degree angled design
- High-Powered Performance - Get the results you need with 11 different power levels and a powerful 1000 watt cooking power
- 1.2 cu. ft. Capacity - A large cooking area will easily fit your items, such as coffee mugs up to 7 in. tall and dishes up to 16 x 16 in.
- Reheat and Defrost - Minimize cooking time with convenient reheat and defrost functions
- Autograph Edition Series - Enjoy a timeless look in your kitchen with a Stainless Steel finish paired with accent handles, giving your kitchen an elegant, unmatched style
- Manufacturer Warranty - 2 year parts warranty
- ADA Compliant - Easy-to-use front touch controls with a 45 degree angle design provides ADA compliance


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Welcome to TeamRads
This is the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Horizontal Strand in Diagnostic Imaging educational website. Initially launched for the Johns Hopkins Radiology-Gross Anatomy Collaboration (MS1), it now has expanded to Neuroscience (MS1), Transition To Wards (MS2), PRECEDE for Clerkships (MS2,3,4), Resident joint procedure tutorials, Diagnostic Radiology Elective (MS3, MS4), Residency Match information (MS4), and more. This site is highly driven by the end users; feedback, comments, or suggestions are strongly welcome.


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Livestock could be critical to survival of African Agriculture as hotter weather and rainfall patterns shift, says new study
A new study by researchers from the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the United Kingdom's Waen Associates has found that by 2050, hotter conditions, coupled with shifting rainfall patterns, could make anywhere from 500,000 to one million square kilometers of marginal African farmland no longer able to support even a subsistence level of food crops. However, the land, on which some 20 to 35 million people currently live, may still support livestock.
Boosting livestock production could be an attractive alternative for millions of poor farmers across Africa who, in the coming decades, could find that climate change has rendered their lands unsuitable for crop cultivation yet still viable for raising animals, according to the study that appears this week in a special edition of the journal Environmental Science and Policy.
"Livestock, particularly animals that are known to be tolerant of heat and drought, can survive in conditions that are far more severe than what crops can tolerate,†said Philip Thornton, an ILRI scientist and one of the paper's co-authors. "Livestock can provide poor households with a buffer against the risk of climate change and, allow them to take advantage of the increasing demand for animal products in Africa."
"Any increase in livestock must be managed sustainably,†said Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI, which is one of 15 research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). "But our research shows there are many areas in Africa where over the next few decades climate vulnerability coupled with market demand for animal products will prompt many farming communities to add more livestock to their agriculture systems and we should prepare now for this inevitability. â€
The analysis is part of a range of studies published in the journal that emerged from an April 2008 conference at Oxford University on food security and environmental change. The publication coincides with a meeting this week in Bonn in which experts from around the world will consider how a new global accord on climate change can offer adaptation strategies for the rural poor.
Thornton and his colleague, Peter Jones of Waen Associates in the UK, sought to identify farm-dependent areas of Africa that might be most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. They focused on what are considered "marginal lands,†arid and semi-arid regions of West, East and southern Africa where, for example, scant precipitation already routinely causes crops to fail in one out of every six (or fewer) growing seasons.
The researchers then considered the impact of climate change in these regions and found that even in situations where climate change is moderated somewhat by global reductions in carbon emissions, a large number of farmers most likely will still face a considerable deterioration in growing conditions. The key measure was whether climate change under two widely used climate models—which offer projections based on high and low greenhouse-gas emission scenarios—would cause the number of "reliable crop growing days†to drop below 90 days between 2000 and 2050.
They concluded that under scenarios in which carbon emissions remain high, the number of reliable growing days would drop below 90 for almost one million square kilometers of marginal growing lands in Africa. Assuming a "lower emission scenario,†they project about 500,000 square kilometers would fail to reach the 90-day mark.
The researchers warn that if reliable growing periods drop below 90 days in these areas, "maize cultivation, already marginal, will basically no longer be possible as a normal agricultural activity.†They continue, saying that in some places, rain could become so scarce that "even the drought-tolerant crops such as millet†will be difficult to grow. They say that in these conditions, livestock could be the key to keeping food on the table and for earning income as well.
In particular, according to the study, livestock could provide a significant income boost for farmers trying to survive on marginal lands that are within a day's travel time of one of Africa's urban populations, where a growing demand for meat and dairy products could provide lucrative markets.
Thornton and Jones pointed out that looking to livestock as a bulwark against challenging climates is not a novel idea. They note that across Africa "livestock have proven to be a crucial coping mechanism for poor people who are trying to survive in difficult environmental conditions.â€
Thornton said the goal of the research is ultimately to use climate change projections to pinpoint specific areas in Africa—each of which may be relatively small in size—where it is appropriate to promote livestock ownership on small-holder farms and to help farmers deal with the risks inherent in such operations. But he said employing this kind of research to direct policy decisions would benefit greatly from obtaining better data at the local level,
including data projecting what local temperatures and rainfall patterns may look like in the future.
However, he and Jones acknowledge that "there is currently a mismatch between the kind of localised climate change impact information that is urgently needed, and what can objectively be supplied.â€
For example, even at large, regional levels, while there is consensus that temperatures will rise significantly, different climate models don't always agree as to how climate change may affect rainfall amounts and patterns in some parts of Africa. But they said investments in generating such details are warranted given the potential to bring new levels of precision and efficiency to aid programs focused on alleviating poverty among the rural poor in Africa, most of whom depend on small holder farms for food and income.
The researchers also observe that better data will inevitably show what some may be reluctant to see, but which must be confronted nonetheless: that in certain parts of Africa where growing conditions already are difficult, there are simply limits to what can be done to help farmers adapt to climate change. Harsh reality though it may be, Thornton and Jones said it is important for development agencies and governments alike to understand that as climate conditions become more inhospitable to agriculture in some places, there may be "a point at which households and farming systems become so stressed that there are few alternatives to an exit from farming.â€


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[Francisco Varela:] I guess I've had only one question all my life. Why do emergent selves, virtual identities, pop up all over the place creating worlds, whether at the mind/body level, the cellular level, or the transorganism level? This phenomenon is something so productive that it doesn't cease creating entirely new realms: life, mind, and societies. Yet these emergent selves are based on processes so shifty, so ungrounded, that we have an apparent paradox between the solidity of what appears to show up and its groundlessness. That, to me, is a key and eternal question.
As a consequence, I'm interested in the nervous system, cognitive science, and immunology, because they concern the processes that can answer the question of what biological identity is. How can you have some kind of identity that simultaneously allows you to know something, allows cells to configure their own relevant world, the immune system to generate the identity of our body in its own way, and the brain to be the basis for a mind, a cognitive identity? All these mechanisms share a common theme.
I'm perhaps best known for three different kinds of work, which seem disparate to many people but to me run as a unified theme. These are my contributions in conceiving the notion of autopoiesis — self-production — for cellular organization, the enactive view of the nervous system and cognition, and a revising of current ideas about the immune system.
Regarding the subject of biological identity, the main point is that there is an explicit transition from local interactions to the emergence of the "global" property — that is, the virtual self of the cellular whole, in the case of autopoiesis. It's clear that molecules interact in very specific ways, giving rise to a unity that is the initiation of the self. There is also the transition from nonlife to life. The nervous system operates in a similar way. Neurons have specific interactions through a loop of sensory surfaces and motor surfaces. This dynamic network is the defining state of a cognitive perception domain. I claim that one could apply the same epistemology to thinking about cognitive phenomena and about the immune system and the body: an underlying circular process gives rise to an emergent coherence, and this emergent coherence is what constitutes the self at that level. In my epistemology, the virtual self is evident because it provides a surface for interaction, but it's not evident if you try to locate it. It's completely delocalized.
Organisms have to be understood as a mesh of virtual selves. I don't have one identity, I have a bricolage of various identities. I have a cellular identity, I have an immune identity, I have a cognitive identity, I have various identities that manifest in different modes of interaction. These are my various selves. I'm interested in gaining further insight into how to clarify this notion of transition from the local to the global, and how these various selves come together and apart in the evolutionary dance. In this sense, what I've studied, say, in color vision for the nervous system or in immune self-regulation are what Dan Dennett would call "intuition pumps," to explore the general pattern of the transition from local rules to emergent properties in life. We have at our disposal beautiful examples to play around with, both in terms of empirical results and in terms of mathematics and computer simulations. The immune system is one beautiful, very specific case. But it's not the entire picture.
My autopoiesis work was my first step into these domains: defining what is the minimal living organization, and conceiving of cellular-automata models for it. I did this in the early 1970s, way before the artificial-life wave hit the beach. This work was picked up by Lynn Margulis, in her research and writings on the origins of life, the evolution of cellular life, and, with James Lovelock, the Gaia hypothesis. Humberto Maturana and I invented the idea of autopoiesis in 1970. We worked together in Santiago, during the Socialist years. The idea was the result of suspecting that biological cognition in general was not to be understood as a representation of the world out there but rather as an ongoing bringing-forth of a world, through the very process of living itself.
Autopoiesis attempts to define the uniqueness of the emergence that produces life in its fundamental cellular form. It's specific to the cellular level. There's a circular or network process that engenders a paradox: a self-organizing network of biochemical reactions produces molecules, which do something specific and unique: they create a boundary, a membrane, which constrains the network that has produced the constituents of the membrane. This is a logical bootstrap, a loop: a network produces entities that create a boundary, which constrains the network that produced the boundary. This bootstrap is precisely what's unique about cells. A self-distinguishing entity exists when the bootstrap is completed. This entity has produced its own boundary. It doesn't require an external agent to notice it, or to say, "I'm here." It is, by itself, a self- distinction. It bootstraps itself out of a soup of chemistry and physics.
The idea arose, also at that time, that the local rules of autopoiesis might be simulated with cellular automata. At that time, few people had ever heard of cellular automata, an esoteric idea I picked up from John von Neumann — one that would be made popular by the artificial-life people. Cellular automata are simple units that receive inputs from immediate neighbors and communicate their internal state to the same immediate neighbors.
In order to deal with the circular nature of the autopoiesis idea, I developed some bits of mathematics of self-reference, in an attempt to make sense out of the bootstrap — the entity that produces its own boundary. The mathematics of self-reference involves creating formalisms to reflect the strange situation in which something produces A, which produces B, which produces A. That was 1974. Today, many colleagues call such ideas part of complexity theory.
The more recent wave of work in complexity illuminates my bootstrap idea, in that it's a nice way of talking about this funny, screwy logic where the snake bites its own tail and you can't discern a beginning. Forget the idea of a black box with inputs and outputs. Think in terms of loops. My early work on self-reference and autopoiesis followed from ideas developed by cyberneticists such as Warren McCulloch and Norbert Wiener, who were the first scientists to think in those terms. But early cybernetics is essentially concerned with feedback circuits, and the early cyberneticists fell short of recognizing the importance of circularity in the constitution of an identity. Their loops are still inside an input/output box. In several contemporary complex systems, the inputs and outputs are completely dependent on interactions within the system, and their richness comes from their internal connectedness. Give up the boxes, and work with the entire loopiness of the thing. For instance, it's impossible to build a nervous system that has very clear inputs and outputs.
The next area of significant work involves applying the logic of the emergent properties of circular structures to look at the nervous system. The consequence is a radical change in the received view of the brain. The nervous system is not an information-processing system, because, by definition, information-processing systems need clear inputs. The nervous system has internal, or operational, closure. The key question is how, on the basis of its ongoing internal dynamics, the brain configures or constitutes relevance from otherwise nonmeaningful interactions. You can see why I'm not really interested in the classical artificial-intelligence and information-processing metaphors of brain studies. The brain can't be understood as a computer, in any interesting sense, and I part company with the people who think that the brain does rely on symbolic representation.
The same intuitions cut across other biological fields. Deconstruct the notion that the brain is processing information and making a representation of the world. Deconstruct the militaristic notion that the immune system is about defense and looking out for invaders. Deconstruct the notion that evolution is about optimizing fitness to live in the conditions present in some kind of niche. I haven't been directly active in this last line of research, but it's of great importance for my argument. Deconstructing adaptation means deconstructing neo-Darwinism. Steve Gould, Stuart Kauffman, and Dick Lewontin, each in his own way, have spelled out this new evolutionary view. Lewontin, in particular, has much appreciated the fact that my work on the nervous system mirrors his work with evolution.
My fourth area of concentration — the most recent one — consists of using the same concepts to revise our understanding of the immune system. Just as conventional biology understood the nervous system as an information-processing system, classic immunology understands immunology in military terms — as a defense system against invaders.
I've been developing a different view of immunology — namely, that the immune system has its own closure, its own network quality. The emergent identity of this system is the identity of your body, which is not a defensive identity. This is a positive statement, not a negative one, and it changes everything in immunology. In presenting immunology in these terms, I'm creating a conceptual scaffolding. We have to go beyond an information- processing model, in which incoming information is acted upon by the system. The immune system is not spatially fixed, it's best understood as an emergent network.
I've also carried out empirical work corresponding to these intuitions. These ideas are incarnated into new experiments, and provide new results. For example, in classical immunology you were dealing with an external response system that was always watching out for invaders. If this made sense, the system would shrink to nothing if there were no invaders. Yet when mice are raised in milieus free from external challenge, their immune systems are normal!
Classical medicine remains baffled by the spectrum of diseases known as autoimmune diseases. Why? Because autoimmune disease is outside the paradigm of immunology. There's nothing to vaccinate against; there's no bacteria coming from outside. It's something that the system does to itself. AIDS is a dramatic case of the deregulation of this coherent emergent property, much like ecological dysfunctioning. People think AIDS is an infection. This is, of course, true, but not true in the sense that once the system is infected with AIDS it triggers a condition of self- destruction of the immune system. HIV triggers a deregulation, which then amplifies itself and becomes its own nightmare. Thus when you look at the urine of an AIDS-infected patient, less than 5 percent of the dead lymphocytes are HIV-infected.
This is typical of an autoimmune condition: the system eats itself up. Consequently, it's beginning to dawn on people that looking for AIDS vaccines is a complete waste of time. From my point of view, the right approach is first to understand the nature of this global regulation. One hint of how to do this is to look for ways to reconnect the system. In this regard, autoimmune diseases are seen as a deregulation, a condition that cries for more connectedness, rather than as a condition susceptible to treatment with a vaccine. For example, look at drug addiction in terms of a social disease: Drug addicts are in some sense an autoimmune disease of society, because they end up destroying segments of society. What those people need is to be given support, jobs, and family care; you reconnect them back into the society. One approach we study is to provide new, normal antibodies that help to re-create the network. We are researching more sophisticated ways of doing this, but we need to have a pointer on where to go. Vaccines are not the answer.
I'm interested in establishing empirical correlations between a long-standing interest in Buddhist practice and scientific work. Western tradition has avoided the idea of a selfless self, of a virtual self. This egolessness, or selflessness, is truly the core of Buddhism. Over the past two thousand years, the Buddhists have developed philosophical, phenomenological, and epistemological sophistication, and they have invoked this intuition in a very hands-on way. We can use these insights much like people in the Renaissance used Greek philosophy to try to understand the science of Galileo.
Buddhism is a practice, not a belief, and every Buddhist is, in some way, lay clergy — involved in the way a scientist is involved in his or her work, or in the way a writer's mind is involved in writing, present in the background, all the time. People today have the leisure and sophistication to practice what before was only practical for monks. Buddhism affects Western culture through the individuals who practice it, through people who occasionally take it up as an escape. Buddhist ideas are prevalent throughout our culture — in physics and biology, for example, the basic ideas are Buddhism in disguise.
My view of the mind has been influenced by my interest in Buddhist thought. Buddhists are specialists in understanding this notion of a virtual self, or a selfless self, from the inside, as lived experience. This is what fascinates me about that tradition. Dan Dennett, incidentally, has come to the same conclusion in his own way. But while Dan focuses on the cognitive level, my own approach is to think about several biological levels, as I have mentioned, perhaps because I'm influenced by the broad idea of nonrepresentationalist knowledge. In my reality, knowledge coevolves with the knower and not as an outside, objective representation.
I see the mind as an emergent property, and the very important and interesting consequence of this emergent property is our own sense of self. My sense of self exists because it gives me an interface with the world. I'm "me" for interactions, but my "I" doesn't substantially exist, in the sense that it can't be localized anywhere. This view, of course, resonates with the notions of the other biological selves I mentioned, but there are subtle and important differences. An emergent property, which is produced by an underlying network, is a coherent condition that allows the system in which it exists to interface at that level — that is, with other selves or identities of the same kind. You can never say, "This property is here; it's in this component." In the case of autopoiesis, you can't say that life — the condition of being self-produced — is in this molecule, or in the DNA, or in the cellular membrane, or in the protein. Life is in the configuration and in the dynamical pattern, which is what embodies it as an emergent property.
I find it fascinating to apply this same line of analysis to my own mind, in the cognitive domain. My own sense of self, "me," can be seen in the same light. I have to be relentless to hold on to my identity. These ideas help us to come to a real appreciation of what it means to have an identity — to comprehend what we think of as our own mind. My mind has the quality of "being here" so I can relate to others. For example, I interact; but when I try to grasp it, it's nowhere — it's distributed in the underlying network.
Let me add that this emergence and nonlocality has nothing to do with the current hype about quantum mechanics and the brain. That stuff is perhaps an interesting hypothesis to entertain, but it has no scientific evidence behind it. On the other hand, I'm talking about thirty years' worth of results in cognitive science. I'd go one step further and dispute the typical physicist, who believes that he or she is dealing with fundamental reality. A physicist will say that we're made of atoms. Such statements, while true, are irrelevant. The statement "You're looking at me" doesn't have the same weight as statements concerning the cellular level. There is a reality of life and death, which affects us directly and is on a different level from the abstractions. We have to abandon the enormous deadweight of the materialism of the Western tradition, and turn to a more planetary way of thinking.
Excerpted from The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution by John Brockman (Simon & Schuster, 1995) . Copyright © 1995 by John Brockman. All rights reserved.


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Mission: To Certify Steps Towards Sustainable Prosperity
David contracts to various certifiers worldwide to assess organization's compliance to various ecological standards such as E-Stewards, R2, RIOS, Green Seal (GS) 1, 11, 33, 37, 40; 41, National Organic Plan; Forest Stewardship Council (FSC); ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System); OHSAS 18001, ISO 14020, 14024, and 14025 (Ecolabel programs), ISO 9001 and 14001, 17065-(Conformity assessment of certifiers), Sustainable Tourism.
He has gained expertise from a blend of international acumen, academic knowledge and engineering/manufacturing experience. David is an expert in Environmental Management Systems (EMS), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), project management and sustainability gap analysis. He has two degrees in Engineering (Mechanical and Industrial) from the University of Wisconsin and a Masters degree in Environmental Decision Making from the Open University in the UK.
David has over 20 years' experience in verifying organization compliance to a variety of standards.
In Japan, he created and managed a quality certification office for BVQI.
In the United States, David assessed over 100 organizations against the Quality Management System standard ISO 9001 for Underwriters Laboratory.
In 2000, he started his own company (Sustainable Steps), to contract to a number of certifiers to verify organizational compliance against a variety of standards, including Organic certification, FSC certification for wood and fiber, ISO 14001 and ISO 65.
David's masters dissertation researched the ISO 14001 differences in accreditation rules between the US and Europe, and how that effects registrar's audit procedures and the environmental performance of the organizations they certify.
With Green Seal, he managed over 100 projects in assisting hotels to attain Green Seal's GS-33 certification in Green Hospitality.
With Sustainable Travel International, he helped develop their STEP (Sustainable Tourism Eco-certification Program (STEP) and train students to audit to this standard.
David developed a tool to measure a product's level of sustainability. This tool combines economy with earth's carrying capacity. See www.sustainablesteps.com
David has been an ISO 14001 Technical Expert for RvA (Dutch accreditation council) and an ANSI Technical Expert for the recently established Ecolabel Accreditation program
He serves as an advisory board member to Responsible Purchasing Network (www.responsiblepurchasing.org)


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The Solution
J.D. Power's Customer Experience Strategic Assessment is an unparalleled approach to developing a blueprint for accelerated improvement of your customer experience. We combine more than 40 years of experience in customer satisfaction with a proven methodology and consultative expertise to deliver a practical plan for success.
The Customer Experience Strategic Assessment includes:
The Benefits
- Makes sense of mass of data with integrated view of Voice of the Customer
- Identifies unclear, misaligned value propositions
- Ensures you are measuring—and acting on—the right things at the right time as effectively and efficiently as possible
- Defines changes needed to management practices to create an environment that nurtures and sustains continuous customer experience improvement
- Brings focus to the vital few vs. the trivial many and ensures traction with bottom line-driven impact analysis and best practices-based action plans
- Creates business cases to justify resources needed to achieve meaningful progress


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DENVER (AP) — Crews in northern Colorado faced powerful winds Sunday as they battled a blaze that has scorched 87 square miles of mountainous forest land and destroyed at least 181 homes, the most in state history. Meanwhile, local authorities are focusing on another concern — looting.
The destructiveness of the High Park Fire burning 15 miles west of Fort Collins surpassed the Fourmile Canyon wildfire, which destroyed 169 homes west of Boulder in September 2010.
The firefighting force has steadily increased and by Sunday night officials said about 1,750 personnel were working on the fire, which was sparked by lightning and was 45 percent contained.
Julie Berney with the Larimer County Sheriff's Office said firefighters dealt with winds of 30 mph with gusts of up to 50 mph Sunday. Some rain moved through Saturday evening, but it wasn't enough to quell the fire.
"The problem is that when you have a fire like this, even if it rains it evaporates before it hits the ground,' Berney said.
Despite the winds, fire officials said crews Sunday were able to maintain most existing fire lines, with the fire chewing through about 1,000 more acres.
Incident commander Bill Hahnenberg said he was pleased with the firefighters' progress.
"A scenario could be we'll lose some line, and then we just go after it the next day and the next day,' he said. "We're going to do everything we can to protect facilities, and we're prepared to do that.'
On Sunday afternoon, high winds prompted fire managers to ground all helicopters working on the blaze and to send 96 notices to residents, ordering the immediate evacuation of the Hewlett Gulch Subdivision in the Poudre Canyon area north of the fire. It was unclear how many homes were affected.
Sunday night, Larimer County officials said evacuations orders were also issued for Soldier Canyon and Mill Canyon areas. The officials said 331 notifications were sent. A high wind warning was in effect all day, and crews are expecting more of the same Monday: winds of 30-50 mph, low humidity and high temperatures.
As firefighters try to get the upper hand on the blaze, which has burned large swaths of private and U.S. Forest Service land, local authorities have dispatched roving patrols to combat looting.
On Sunday, deputies arrested 30-year-old Michael Stillman Maher, of Denver, on charges including theft and impersonating a firefighter. The sheriff's department said Maher was driving through the fire zone with phony firefighter credentials and a stolen government license plate.
His truck was later seen near a bar in Laporte, and investigators say they found a firearm and stolen property in the vehicle.
"There's a handful out there that are taking advantage of others,' said Sheriff Justin Smith, adding that "if somebody's sneaking around back there, we're going to find them.'
Also Sunday, a fire erupted in the foothills west of Colorado Springs, prompting the evacuation of some cabins and a recreation area near the Elevenmile Canyon Reservoir. U.S. Forest Service spokesman Ralph Bellah told The Gazette that the fire was reported at about 12:30 p.m. and quickly grew to up to 100 acres.
Meanwhile, a fire near Pagosa Springs in the southwestern part of the state has grown to 11,617 acres and is 30 percent contained. Hot, dry conditions Sunday are expected to fuel the fire, which was sparked by lightning May 13.
Across the West: — California: Firefighters are building a line around a wildfire that has forced the evacuation of 150 homes in eastern San Diego County. The 450-acre blaze erupted Sunday near Campo and the Golden Acorn Casino Sunday. The fire has destroyed one structure, but officialshaven't been able to determine what it was. Meanwhile, a 2,200-acre wildfire that erupted Saturday in a remote area of Riverside County was 70 percent contained.
— New Mexico: A wildfire in southern New Mexico has destroyed 242 homes and businesses, and firefighters areworking to increase containment and keep an eye out for possible lightning. The 59-square-mile Little Bear Fire in Ruidoso is 60 percent contained. Dan Bastion, a spokesman for crews fighting the fire, says most of the fire is in the mop-up stage, but crews need to build more containment on the fire's active west side to deprive it of fuel.
— Arizona: Firefighters are focusing on protecting electrical transmission lines near a 3,200acre blaze on the Tonto National Forest in northern Arizona. Officials say hot weather and steep slopes remain a concern, and firefighters are on the alert for thunderstorms and possible lightning strikes. The fire is 15 percent contained.


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Dodgers owner Frank McCourt today told MLB Network that Joe Torre is prohibited from writing a book about his time with the Dodgers.Does that stop Torre from releasing other material about the Dodgers: a play, a graphic novel, a sonnet, perhaps a PowerPoint presentation?McCourt told the "Hot Stove" program, "Well Joe is a well known figure in baseball and I think his transition to L.A. has been a great one. We had a very successful season last year. I think he is very comfortable there and we're certainly very comfortable with him.
"The book was something that was in the works prior to the time that we made our deal with Joe. Having said that, in our contract with Joe there is a confidentiality provision that he can't be writing a book about the Dodgers or our team, so that was very important to us. Not because of the book, it's because we have that with all of our uniform personnel."
Torre told CNN's Larry King that the Yankees approached him about a similar confidentiality agreement but that he always refused to agree to it.
And anyone else hate the name "Hot Stove?"


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The Center helps people of all ages and stages navigate life's challenges.
We work with kids, teens, young adults/college students, adults, and couples to find meaning as they face life's changes and challenges. We believe with the right tools and insights, people can grow through their struggles to live the life they were meant to lead.
We address the health of the whole person.
That's why our approach isn't one-size-fits-all. Our team includes counselors and psychologists with a wide range of licensure, educational backgrounds, and specialties. That means you have access to individual counseling, and testing & assessments all within one organization. We explore what's going on mentally, emotionally and spiritually, honoring all faiths and the role faith plays in people's lives.
Our vision is to make mental health care accessible for everyone - we provide counseling where you live, work, play, and pray.
In addition to our main location, we partner with schools, churches, doctor's offices, and other organizations to expand the reach and availability of professional mental health services. Through our Partnerships for Accessible Counseling and Training (PACT) program, we make our services available to clients at local non-profits. You'll also find us giving talks and facilitating workshops to share our knowledge about key mental and emotional health issues that affect our communities.


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I'm heading out in a little while to do 6 miles from home and the Home world series. Anyone want to come along?
After that I'll be traveling to Winter Harbor then on to Columbia and then on to Jonesport. Anyone want to come?
Are there any easy caches or must do's in this kind of environment that you think I should do?


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Egypt's economy has demonstrated significant resilience and growth, as indicated by a marked reduction of 61.2% in its current account deficit, down to just US$ 5.3 billion. This figure, reported in the Central Bank of Egypt's Balance of Payments Performance for July/March of the fiscal year 2022/2023, compares favorably to a deficit of US$ 13.6 billion for the same period in the previous year.
A key factor behind this promising trend has been a 29.8% decrease in Egypt's trade deficit, now standing at US$ 23.6 billion. Bolstering the country's economic performance further, the services surplus has seen a twofold increase, amounting to US$ 14.5 billion. This rise is attributable to substantial increases in tourism revenues and Suez Canal receipts, both crucial components of Egypt's economy.
Moreover, the capital and financial account has displayed a net inflow of US$ 8.1 billion, as net flows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Egypt climbed to US$ 7.9 billion. However, it's important to note that portfolio investments in the nation continued to reflect a net outflow, standing at US$ 3.4 billion.
The tourism sector, a key pillar of Egypt's economy, displayed robust growth. Revenues from this sector soared by 25.7%, recording a healthy figure of US$ 10.3 billion. This surge was fueled by a 26.8% increase in tourist nights, tallying up to 110.5 million nights, along with a 32.0% rise in tourist arrivals, with 10.0 million tourists choosing Egypt as their travel destination.
Furthermore, transportation receipts exhibited an impressive increase of 41.4%, reaching a high of US$ 9.9 billion. This is largely due to the 22.3% rise in Suez Canal transit receipts, which amounted to US$ 6.2 billion, a significant increase from the previous US$ 5.1 billion. This growth was spurred by the upturn in the net tonnage of vessels by 14.5%, amounting to 1.1 billion tons.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's progressive policies have been instrumental in bolstering Egypt's economic resilience. The strategic focus on sectors like tourism, foreign investment, and the utilization of key national assets like the Suez Canal has clearly paid off. These developments have earned Egypt a position of respect on the regional map, marking it as a country that is not only thriving, but also contributing to regional growth.


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Just Like Magic
fabric description:
Handmade with only the softest, lightweight & stretchy knit fabrics for all the stylish babes!
Available in a turban, headband (match your mini!), piggies, or our BRAND NEW bows!
Meet the Mini (available in a clip or nylon), Middie (also available in a clip or nylon) & Biggie (only available in a clip)!
Refer to size chart below.
Preemie: 24-37 weeks | 10-12 inches
NB: 0-3 months | 12-14 inches
XS: 3-6 months | 14-16 inches
S: 6- 2 Years | 16-18 inches
M: 3-6 Years | 18-20 inches
L: 7-13 Years | 20-22 inches
ADULT: 13+ years | 22-26 inches
Sizes are based upon average head circumference for specific age groups. When in doubt, size up! Fabric stretch will vary.
**Any notes regarding your order should be indicated on the "view cart" checkout page.


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Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
My introduction to rugs was unexpected; I was working as a UX designer in New York when I fell in love with a Turkish-American architect. It was 2008. There were infinitely more opportunities for a young architect in Turkey than in the States, so we decided to move. Though I admit, I didn't really expect we would be there for six years. In that time, we started a design and architecture firm in Istanbul. I taught advanced design courses at Istanbul Technical University. And Mehmet, who had founded a wholesale rug business in New Jersey before going to Columbia to pursue architecture, started educating me in rugs. It was around this time that I also started getting all sorts of requests from family, friends, friends of family, friends of friends, to help them to find a rug — even though I was NOT in the rug business then. I was in Turkey, and for most people, that proximity was enough. Professionally, I've always been interested in finding elegant, simple ways around problems; selling quality handmade rugs to people turned out to be a problem, and I seemed to be in an interesting position to try to solve it. There was an gap in the market: a trustworthy, straight-talking rug company that is selling good quality handmade rugs at prices real people can afford. That is the space Floorplan is trying to fill. One of the ways we are able to sell such quality handmade rugs at reasonable prices is because we avoid the middleman. We travel deep into India, Pakistan, Turkey and elsewhere to source our products.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Word of mouth! Friends had friends looking for a rug, and they knew we would provide good advice, even if they didn't buy from us. Luckily, we had things that met their needs and budget, and they've been huge advocates for us ever since. Pinterest, Instagram and commenting on popular home accessories blogs drive the most qualified traffic to our site; other social media channels and Houzz provide good exposure but don't convert as well.
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
Sale Rack, MailChimp, Zendesk. MailChimp is the most critical in helping us to maintain communications with customers. One of the biggest lessons we've learned is that building your community — a REAL group of people interested in what you're doing — and communicating with them in meaningful ways is far more valuable than typical ad spend. We re-prioritized so that many of our efforts now are about building solid email lists. Rugs are a tough item to ship and since more than 90% of our products are unique, we pack and send them ourselves, usually through UPS.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
Focus on your core business, get your store up quickly and continually improve it. Look at analytics and see what people are interested in and adjust accordingly. Spend time on the tags and SEO description for your products. It's worth the time. Try different channels outside of your store to see what brings the most qualified traffic — qualified being the operative word. It's not a good use of marketing dollars or time/energy if you're not bringing people who are ready to buy.


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I'm writing the outline for my first novel, which has three main characters. I'm very happy with their names, however I recently noticed that I was naturally referring to the first two by first name, but to the third one by his last name. I think it is because 1) I like that last name, which is a very strong and rare one, and 2) it is the name of someone I've known for long and who I've always addressed as "Mr Last-Name."
The story is a thriller involving two members of the mafia and one old tired french cop, if it has any relevance to the question.


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At long last we're back into the crafting, and a crocheted rag rug is in the works! I always find that after a creativity/craft free hiatus, the first thing I always grab is a crochet hook, (in this case a 9mm hook) especially a chunky one that will help me make something fast! So those balls of sheet yarn that I made before Passover and posted about here, have finally come to use. Now the problem is I need some more sheets to continue this rug, as these rugs require really quite a few sheets. This one now measures 75 cm acrosss, and I've already gone through about six twin sheets and two pillowcase! Yes my friends, those last three purple rows (just inside of the two blue rows) used up one entire twin fitted sheet! I guess I'm gonna go see what else I can find in my linen closet......since I'm planning on a rug that measures about 100cm or even 120cm across. If you ever come across king sized comforter covers, those are the perfect size for making yarn and using towards the end of your rug to get at least a few good rows in one color!
Now I should add, that with the exception of the row of solid orange, all the sheets used here were very thin polyester (or something) sheets so this rug is quite a bit lighter than the last one I made with cotton sheets. One word of caution when using a variety of sheets, make sure to rip (or cut) the thicker sheets into much thinner yarn, or it becomes way too difficult to crochet with using the same size hook as with the thinner sheets. This happened to me and I had to tear out part of my work. Not to worry, it was only part of a row.
That's all for now, I'll let you know when the rug is finished, though once it starts to get on the big side it one row around takes forever, so no promises on when I'll make it to the end. Not to discourage you, crocheting rag rugs is a great way to up-cycle old sheets and make a fun machine washable rug for any room!
For some more inspiration take a look at the crocheted rag rug I posted about here, and start telling your friends to save you their old sheets!


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Flexible Plastic Bollard Highly Visible One Piece
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Flexible Plastic two piece Bollard, knock down bollard with chain loop
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Heavy-Duty Flexible Delineator
Introducing our Heavy Duty Delineator, a robust 5mm PVC guide post with a flexible mounting base for harsh environments. Sturdy construction, flexible design, and enhanced visibility make it ideal for diverse applications.
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Surface Mount - AUD $760.10 (Ex GST AUD $691.00)
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Magna-Post Magnetic Flexible Bollard
Flexible Bollard returns to position after impact, with strong magnetic attachment can also be quickly removed.
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NK80-FS Knock-in floor sleeve - AUD $12.10 (Ex GST AUD $11.00)
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Plastic Two- Piece Rebound Delineator with Cap
Two piece rebound delineator with flexible rubber joint and sturdy base for temporary applications.
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900 x 70mm Rebound Delineator - AUD $36.30 (Ex GST AUD $33.00)
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Two-Piece Knockdown Plastic Bollard
Two-Piece Rebound Bollards offer vehicle impact protection with elastic joints and rubber bases. They return to an upright position after impacts, thanks to the strong spring return. The bollards come in a fluorescent orange colour.
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text:
Enamel mug motive owl
Related products
Product detailed description
Gift box not included in price. For mugs 7 and 8 cm we offer an Eco-friendly gift box here.
Enamel mug
Our enamel mug is a great loyal drinking buddy for outdoor camping, hiking, or cycling trips, as they are resistant to extreme weather conditions and can be filled with water, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, mulled wine, or whiskey!. Mugs are heatproof and can be used on an open fire.
Or you can just enjoy a mug of tea or coffee in the comfort of your sofa, relaxing on the beach, on a picnic, by the campfire, or in your office.
Our original and fun enamel mugs are sure to make a great gift for a friend, a family member, or a colleague.
High-quality material:
Enamel mugs are made of enameled steel, which is durable, easy to clean, and perfect for everyday use as well as a decoration (flower pot, vase,
Our mugs come in various vibrant colors. All our designs are unique, created exclusively by us. Our enamel mugs can be used everywhere and anywhere and they are a lovely and colorful addition to any kitchen and also perfect for the outdoors, camping, picnics, garden parties - simply essential for outdoor entertaining.
Enamel mug features:
- Heatproof (can be used to cook with gas, electric and ceramic hob, oven, induction, open fire)
- Conducts heat quickly and evenly, making it easy for you to control the temperature when using on the hob.
- Dishwasher safe
- Hygienic and a food-safe alternative to plastic mugs - perfect for children of all ages.
- Ultra-durable - built to last!
- Not suitable for microwave.
Enamel mugs are a hand-crafted product which means each mug might differ slightly and may contain slight imperfections - all a testament to how unique and charming our enamel mugs are.
Get in touch:
Shop-owner wanting to sell our products? Get in touch: firstname.lastname@example.com and we'll happily provide more information!
Custom Orders: We design and manufacture all of our products in-house and can accommodate all types of custom requests for restaurants, shops, museums or galleries.
If you are after something slightly different please get in touch (email@example.com) and we will discuss the options with you, or check out this presentation.
Additional parameters
Category: | Sale enamelware |
Colour: | Cream |
Size: | 250ml/7cm diameter |
Design: | Owl |
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text:
Offers BLS instructors a cost-effective way to provide learners real-time feedback and an objective review of performance via summative feedback on the device.
Three modes for use: Feedback, Blind and Debriefing
Real Time Feedback:
- Compression Depth
- Compression Rate
- Incomplete Release
- Incorrect Hand position
- Ventilation volume
- Compression and Ventilation counter
Summative Feedback:
- Compression score xx%
- Ventilation score xx%
- Most severe errors on ventilations and compressions
- CPR duration mm.ss.
- Flow fraction xx%


text:
The breakdown of a plea deal with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an explosive British news report about alleged contacts he may have had with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange threw a new element of uncertainty into the Trump-Russia investigation.
On Tuesday, a day after prosecutors accused Manafort of repeatedly lying to them, trashing his agreement to tell all in return for a lighter sentence, he adamantly denied a report in the Guardian that he had met secretly with Assange around March 2016. That's the same month Manafort joined the Trump campaign and Russian hackers began an effort to penetrate the email accounts of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
The developments thrust Manafort back into the investigation spotlight, raising new questions about what he knows and what prosecutors say he might be attempting to conceal as they probe Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates in the campaign that sent the celebrity businessman to the White House.
All the while, Manafort's lawyers have been briefing Trump's attorneys on what their client has told investigators, an unusual arrangement that could give Trump ammunition in his feud against special counsel Robert Mueller.
"They share with me the things that pertain to our part of the case," Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told The Associated Press.
Giuliani also said Trump, who has recently stepped up his attacks on Mueller, has been enraged by the treatment of Manafort.
Other figures entangled in the investigation, including Trump himself, have been scrambling to escalate attacks and allegations against prosecutors who have been working quietly behind the scenes.
Besides denying he'd ever met Assange, Manafort, who is currently in jail, said he'd told Mueller's prosecutors the truth during questioning. And WikiLeaks said Manafort had never met with Assange, offering to bet London's Guardian newspaper "a million dollars and its editor's head."
Assange, whose organization published thousands of emails stolen by Russian spies from Clinton's campaign in 2016, is in Ecuador's embassy in London under a claim of asylum.
It's unclear what prosecutors contend Manafort lied about, though they're expected to make a public filing that could offer answers.
Dissolution of the plea deal could be a devastating outcome for a defendant who suddenly admitted guilt last September after months of maintaining his innocence and who bet on his cooperation getting him a shorter sentence. But it's also a potential setback for investigators, given that Manafort steered the campaign during a vital stretch of 2016, when prosecutors say Russian intelligence was working to sway the election in Trump's favor.
The prosecutors' filing underscored their exasperation not only at Manafort's alleged deception but also at the loss of an important witness present for key moments under scrutiny, including a Trump Tower meeting at which Trump's eldest son expected to receive "dirt" about Clinton from a Kremlin-connected lawyer.
"The fact is, they wanted his cooperation. They wanted him to truthfully reveal what he knew, so they're not getting what they wanted," said Washington defense lawyer Peter Zeidenberg. "This isn't like a good development where they're clapping their hands and saying, 'Now we get to crush this guy.'"
Manafort's motivation, if indeed he lied to prosecutors, also was unclear.
In an interview, Giuliani said Trump and his lawyers agree a presidential pardon should not be considered "now" but added, "The president could consider it at an appropriate time, as Manafort has the same rights as any American."
Giuliani also accused Mueller's team of mistreating Manafort in hopes of getting him to give false testimony against the president. He said Trump "thinks it is outrageous and un-American and sounds like something that would happen under an oppressive dictatorship."
Mueller's filing on Manafort came at a delicate time for investigators, who have gone months without new charges and continue to probe possible links between Trump associates and WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website.
As Trump continues raging against the investigation — he tweeted Tuesday that Mueller was doing "TREMENDOUS damage to our Criminal Justice system" and called the investigation "a total disgrace" — others in the crosshairs have filled the vacuum of Mueller's recent silence by publicly declaring their innocence, accusing prosecutors of coercing testimony or tempting fate by turning aside negotiations.
One associate of Trump confidant Roger Stone is contesting a grand jury subpoena in court. Another, Jerome Corsi, said he was rejecting an offer to plead guilty to a false statements charge and has complained in news media interviews about his interrogations by prosecutors.
Stone, under investigation himself for connections to WikiLeaks, has repeatedly disparaged Mueller's investigation and said his friend Corsi was at risk of prosecution "not for lying but for refusing to lie."
A document drafted by Mueller's team as part of a plea offer says Corsi tipped off Stone in August 2016 that WikiLeaks planned to release damaging documents about Clinton. The tip accurately forecast that WikiLeaks would publicity post the material, including messages from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, in October. It is the first known reference by Mueller to Americans close to Trump appearing to have foreknowledge of WikiLeaks' plans.
The draft document was first reported by NBC News, and a copy of it was posted online by The Washington Post. Stone has denied knowing about WikiLeaks' plans in advance.
Manafort, meanwhile, had been quiet since pleading guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy against the United States. He has met repeatedly since then with investigators.
He remained in the spotlight Tuesday when the Guardian published a report saying he had secretly met Assange around March 2016, when he was brought aboard the Trump campaign. The report suggested a direct connection between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.
Manafort called the story "totally false and deliberately libelous," saying in a statement that he had never met Assange or anyone close to him.
The Guardian cited unidentified sources as saying Manafort first met Assange at the embassy in 2013, a year after Assange took refuge there to avoid being extradited to Sweden over sex crime allegations. The newspaper said that Manafort returned in 2015 and 2016 and that its sources had "tentatively dated" the final visit to March.
There was no detail on what might have been discussed.
The Trump campaign announced Manafort's hiring on March 29, 2016, and he served as the convention manager tasked with lining up delegates for the Republican National Convention. He was promoted to chairman that May.
An AP investigation into Russian hacking showed that government-aligned cyberspies began an aggressive effort to penetrate the Clinton campaign's email accounts on March 10, 2016.
Justice Department prosecutors in Virginia recently inadvertently disclosed the existence of sealed criminal charges against Assange, though it's unclear what that case entails. Prosecutors were in court Tuesday arguing against unsealing any charge.
Meanwhile, a judge may soon set a sentencing date for Manafort now that his hopes for leniency appear dashed.
"The cooperating defendant usually is very aware of what's at stake," said Shanlon Wu, who represented Manafort's onetime co-defendant Rick Gates. "What I always say to any client of mine who's contemplating that — there is no going back.
"It's like being a little bit pregnant," he added. "There's no such thing."
Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London, Franklin Briceno in Lima, Peru, and Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2018 Capitol Hill Blue
Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved


text:
Ban welcomes start of dialogue to ease Venezuela tensions
Some 40 people have reportedly been killed in weeks of what began in February as protests over soaring crime rates and later turned into wider anti-Government rallies.
"The Secretary-General welcomes that a dialogue has begun in Venezuela bringing together the Government and members of the political opposition," his spokesperson said in a statement.
In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban saluted in particular the efforts of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), at the invitation of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to support the process of bringing all sides to the table.
He congratulated both the Government and opposition for their public commitment to the dialogue, which is being accompanied by a representative of the Holy See and by the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, representing UNASUR, as witnesses.
"The Secretary-General expresses his best wishes for the success of the dialogue and joins His Holiness, Pope Francis, in his call to all actors to engage in a dialogue aimed at finding common ground to overcome the current challenges faced by Venezuela," said the statement.


text:
Box without anything Measures approx 1 3/4"h x 2 1/8"
Compatible to use with the following machines sizzix, big shot, big kick, wizard, cuttlebug, vagabond and many more.
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Items shipped within 24-48 hours of payment received.
Many more Metal cutting dies available. Search our Store for more great items ~ Scrapbuck Deals
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text:
User talk:Gizmonic
Hello, Gizmonic, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Lst27 17:52, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)


text:
Salon reports the brothers are rebutting the story even before it appears in reliably friendly (i.e., biased) publications: the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller, and U.S. News and World Report. The Bloomberg story appears to focus on malfeasance or fraud.
According to Salon,
One of those episodes apparently involves bribery by a Koch subsidiary in France, according to the piece by Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott. He reports that "Bloomberg reporters have been trolling among former Koch employees overseas in search of disaffected voices willing to talk," but Tapscott suspects the story may be animated by bias against the Tea Party. And he notes that, "Koch USA officials say they were as surprised and angered as anybody else when they were first apprised of the bribery allegations, and moved as quickly as possible to get to the bottom of the situation and fix it."As usual, Wonkette's Ken Layne sees the hilarious aspect to all this:
Archvillain stereotypes David and Charles Koch are reportedly furious because rival New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg's media machine is reportedly about to publish some big scandal story that proves the Koch Bros. are even worse than previously thought.