text:
Volume I - Chapter VI - Of The Diverting And Important Scrutiny Which The CUrate And The Barber Made In The Library Of Our Ingenious Gentleman
He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece for the keys of the room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and right willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying, "Here, your worship, senor licentiate, sprinkle this room; don't leave any magician of the many there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge for our design of banishing them from the world."
The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate laugh, and he directed the barber to give him the books one by one to see what they were about, as there might be some to be found among them that did not deserve the penalty of fire.
"No," said the niece, "there is no reason for showing mercy to any of them; they have every one of them done mischief; better fling them out of the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to them; or else carry them into the yard, and there a bonfire can be made without the smoke giving any annoyance." The housekeeper said the same, so eager were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate the titles.
The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was "The four books of Amadis of Gaul." "This seems a mysterious thing," said the curate, "for, as I have heard say, this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin; so it seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames as the founder of so vile a sect."
"Nay, sir," said the barber, "I too, have heard say that this is the best of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned."
"True," said the curate; "and for that reason let its life be spared for the present. Let us see that other which is next to it."
"It is," said the barber, "the 'Sergas de Esplandian,' the lawful son of Amadis of Gaul."
"Then verily," said the curate, "the merit of the father must not be put down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper; open the window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the pile for the bonfire we are to make."
The housekeeper obeyed with great satisfaction, and the worthy "Esplandian" went flying into the yard to await with all patience the fire that was in store for him.
"Proceed," said the curate.
"This that comes next," said the barber, "is 'Amadis of Greece,' and, indeed, I believe all those on this side are of the same Amadis lineage."
"Then to the yard with the whole of them," said the curate; "for to have the burning of Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and his eclogues, and the bedevilled and involved discourses of his author, I would burn with them the father who begot me if he were going about in the guise of a knight-errant."
"I am of the same mind," said the barber.
"And so am I," added the niece.
"In that case," said the housekeeper, "here, into the yard with them!"
They were handed to her, and as there were many of them, she spared herself the staircase, and flung them down out of the window.
"Who is that tub there?" said the curate.
"This," said the barber, "is 'Don Olivante de Laura.'"
"The author of that book," said the curate, "was the same that wrote 'The Garden of Flowers,' and truly there is no deciding which of the two books is the more truthful, or, to put it better, the less lying; all I can say is, send this one into the yard for a swaggering fool."
"This that follows is 'Florismarte of Hircania,'" said the barber.
"Senor Florismarte here?" said the curate; "then by my faith he must take up his quarters in the yard, in spite of his marvellous birth and visionary adventures, for the stiffness and dryness of his style deserve nothing else; into the yard with him and the other, mistress housekeeper."
"With all my heart, senor," said she, and executed the order with great delight.
"This," said the barber, "is The Knight Platir.'"
"An old book that," said the curate, "but I find no reason for clemency in it; send it after the others without appeal;" which was done.
Another book was opened, and they saw it was entitled, "The Knight of the Cross."
"For the sake of the holy name this book has," said the curate, "its ignorance might be excused; but then, they say, 'behind the cross there's the devil; to the fire with it."
Taking down another book, the barber said, "This is 'The Mirror of Chivalry.'"
"I know his worship," said the curate; "that is where Senor Reinaldos of Montalvan figures with his friends and comrades, greater thieves than Cacus, and the Twelve Peers of France with the veracious historian Turpin; however, I am not for condemning them to more than perpetual banishment, because, at any rate, they have some share in the invention of the famous Matteo Boiardo, whence too the Christian poet Ludovico Ariosto wove his web, to whom, if I find him here, and speaking any language but his own, I shall show no respect whatever; but if he speaks his own tongue I will put him upon my head."
"Well, I have him in Italian," said the barber, "but I do not understand him."
"Nor would it be well that you should understand him," said the curate, "and on that score we might have excused the Captain if he had not brought him into Spain and turned him into Castilian. He robbed him of a great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the level of the originals as they were first produced. In short, I say that this book, and all that may be found treating of those French affairs, should be thrown into or deposited in some dry well, until after more consideration it is settled what is to be done with them; excepting always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called 'Roncesvalles;' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass at once into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into the fire without any reprieve."
To all this the barber gave his assent, and looked upon it as right and proper, being persuaded that the curate was so staunch to the Faith and loyal to the Truth that he would not for the world say anything opposed to them. Opening another book he saw it was "Palmerin de Oliva," and beside it was another called "Palmerin of England," seeing which the licentiate said, "Let the Olive be made firewood of at once and burned until no ashes even are left; and let that Palm of England be kept and preserved as a thing that stands alone, and let such another case be made for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius and set aside for the safe keeping of the works of the poet Homer. This book, gossip, is of authority for two reasons, first because it is very good, and secondly because it is said to have been written by a wise and witty king of Portugal. All the adventures at the Castle of Miraguarda are excellent and of admirable contrivance, and the language is polished and clear, studying and observing the style befitting the speaker with propriety and judgment. So then, provided it seems good to you, Master Nicholas, I say let this and 'Amadis of Gaul' be remitted the penalty of fire, and as for all the rest, let them perish without further question or query."
"Nay, gossip," said the barber, "for this that I have here is the famous 'Don Belianis.'"
"Well," said the curate, "that and the second, third, and fourth parts all stand in need of a little rhubarb to purge their excess of bile, and they must be cleared of all that stuff about the Castle of Fame and other greater affectations, to which end let them be allowed the over-seas term, and, according as they mend, so shall mercy or justice be meted out to them; and in the mean time, gossip, do you keep them in your house and let no one read them."
"With all my heart," said the barber; and not caring to tire himself with reading more books of chivalry, he told the housekeeper to take all the big ones and throw them into the yard. It was not said to one dull or deaf, but to one who enjoyed burning them more than weaving the broadest and finest web that could be; and seizing about eight at a time, she flung them out of the window.
In carrying so many together she let one fall at the feet of the barber, who took it up, curious to know whose it was, and found it said, "History of the Famous Knight, Tirante el Blanco."
"God bless me!" said the curate with a shout, "'Tirante el Blanco' here! Hand it over, gossip, for in it I reckon I have found a treasury of enjoyment and a mine of recreation. Here is Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan, a valiant knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight Fonseca, with the battle the bold Tirante fought with the mastiff, and the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves and wiles of the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the squire Hipolito—in truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best book in the world. Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills before dying, and a great deal more of which there is nothing in all the other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it, for deliberately composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the galleys for life. Take it home with you and read it, and you will see that what I have said is true."
"As you will," said the barber; "but what are we to do with these little books that are left?"
"These must be, not chivalry, but poetry," said the curate; and opening one he saw it was the "Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all the others to be of the same sort, "these," he said, "do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can hurt no one."
"Ah, senor!" said the niece, "your worship had better order these to be burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping; or, what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable and infectious malady."
"The damsel is right," said the curate, "and it will be well to put this stumbling-block and temptation out of our friend's way. To begin, then, with the 'Diana' of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be burned, but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage Felicia and the magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of verse: let it keep, and welcome, its prose and the honour of being the first of books of the kind."
"This that comes next," said the barber, "is the 'Diana,' entitled the 'Second Part, by the Salamancan,' and this other has the same title, and its author is Gil Polo."
"As for that of the Salamancan," replied the curate, "let it go to swell the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo's be preserved as if it came from Apollo himself: but get on, gossip, and make haste, for it is growing late."
"This book," said the barber, opening another, "is the ten books of the 'Fortune of Love,' written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet."
"By the orders I have received," said the curate, "since Apollo has been Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets, so droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its way it is the best and the most singular of all of this species that have as yet appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has never read what is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more account of having found it than if they had given me a cassock of Florence stuff."
He put it aside with extreme satisfaction, and the barber went on, "These that come next are 'The Shepherd of Iberia,' 'Nymphs of Henares,' and 'The Enlightenment of Jealousy.'"
"Then all we have to do," said the curate, "is to hand them over to the secular arm of the housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never have done."
"This next is the 'Pastor de Filida.'"
"No Pastor that," said the curate, "but a highly polished courtier; let it be preserved as a precious jewel."
"This large one here," said the barber, "is called 'The Treasury of various Poems.'"
"If there were not so many of them," said the curate, "they would be more relished: this book must be weeded and cleansed of certain vulgarities which it has with its excellences; let it be preserved because the author is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other more heroic and loftier works that he has written."
"This," continued the barber, "is the 'Cancionero' of Lopez de Maldonado."
"The author of that book, too," said the curate, "is a great friend of mine, and his verses from his own mouth are the admiration of all who hear them, for such is the sweetness of his voice that he enchants when he chants them: it gives rather too much of its eclogues, but what is good was never yet plentiful: let it be kept with those that have been set apart. But what book is that next it?"
"The 'Galatea' of Miguel de Cervantes," said the barber.
"That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to my knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His book has some good invention in it, it presents us with something but brings nothing to a conclusion: we must wait for the Second Part it promises: perhaps with amendment it may succeed in winning the full measure of grace that is now denied it; and in the mean time do you, senor gossip, keep it shut up in your own quarters."
"Very good," said the barber; "and here come three together, the 'Araucana' of Don Alonso de Ercilla, the 'Austriada' of Juan Rufo,
Justice of Cordova, and the 'Montserrate' of Christobal de Virues, the Valencian poet."
"These three books," said the curate, "are the best that have been written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the most famous of Italy; let them be preserved as the richest treasures of poetry that Spain possesses."
The curate was tired and would not look into any more books, and so he decided that, "contents uncertified," all the rest should be burned; but just then the barber held open one, called "The Tears of Angelica."
"I should have shed tears myself," said the curate when he heard the title, "had I ordered that book to be burned, for its author was one of the famous poets of the world, not to say of Spain, and was very happy in the translation of some of Ovid's fables."


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At Microsoft, our vision for Azure is to enable every developer to be able to create, deploy and manage any application in the cloud, regardless of the tools, technology, architecture or platform they prefer. We continue to innovate in delivering services on Microsoft Azure, often in close partnership with leading innovators across many technologies, to ensure open source and third party offerings have first-class support on Azure. Today we're announcing new technologies and capabilities that advance our mission to make Azure the preferred cloud for any app and every developer — from back-end cloud services to higher level platform services, to the development process itself.
For building highly scalable back-end services in the cloud many developers are turning to microservice architectures. The independent nature of these microservices offers superior application lifecycle management, performance at scale, 24×7 availability and cost efficiency compared with traditional monolithic architectures for service based apps. Today, we're announcing the public preview of Azure Service Fabric, Microsoft's platform for developing and operating microservice-based applications. Service Fabric also brings new innovations to microservice development with support for reliable, stateful services for low-latency partitioned data access at scale, and the Actor programming model which drastically simplifies building high-scale microservice applications.
We've already seen strong interest in Service Fabric with over 300 customers and partners already building on the platform during the private preview. With the availability of public preview in Azure, you can now explore the scale-out potential of Service Fabric combined with dedicated Visual Studio tooling. Today, Service Fabric is available on Azure and will extend to Windows Server, Linux and other cloud providers next year providing application portability and hybrid scenarios. To get started, download the SDK, check out our getting started videos and documentation and deploy your application to a cluster live in Azure.
For developers who want to build powerful, enterprise grade web and mobile apps that connect to data in the cloud or on-premises, Azure App Service is a highly productive platform for building scalable apps in .NET, NodeJS, PHP, Python or Java as well as engaging mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows. Azure App Service is one of our most popular Azure services used by more than 60% of customers to host over 700,000 apps. Building on this success, today we announced new capabilities in Azure App Service including:
- Single sign-on using EasyAuth across all app types making authentication easy, everywhere
- Code-free interface and data design for rapid development of data-driven Node.js apps
- API app innovations extended to all app types, eliminating the need for an API gateway
You can try Azure App Service for free today without an Azure subscription.
In addition to developer platforms, the cloud presents many opportunities to improve the development process and how organizations build and test software. Test environments in the cloud have been a great success story, making the most of the unlimited capacity in the cloud and the pay-as-you-go model for spinning up test environments that may only be used periodically. To help IT departments harness this potential in Azure while adding necessary governance and cost controls, today we announced the public preview of Azure DevTest Labs. Azure DevTest Labs is a solution for IT professionals who need to provide test environments for developers in their organization while keeping an eye on cost and resources.
For developers, DevTest Labs provides an easy self-service way to rapidly configure and provision test environments in Azure, without delays associated with procuring hardware or spinning up VMs in a local datacenter. The elastic nature of Azure means that developers can simulate massive environments if required while only paying for resources for the time they are in use. This not only saves money but also improves software quality by opening up testing scenarios that were cost prohibitive, pre-cloud. For IT professionals, DevTest Labs provides governance over the Azure resources that their developers are using as a means to control and monitor costs, for example ensuring developers shut down testing VMs when not in use. For more information on DevTest Labs and getting started with DevTest Labs please visit the team blog.
More and more developers and organizations are making the move to Microsoft Azure because they find it supports the unique way they want to build apps to support their business, without compromising their goals. We'll be showcasing many more cloud development innovations at the Connect(); event including the new Azure SDK version 2.8 and Azure Storage Explorer.
To learn more, or if you haven't looked at Azure for a while, take a look at the breadth of choice we offer to help you build any app with cloud confidence.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Nội dung phim
Ah Jie lost everything in the stock market due to a severe economic crisis. He spends his days in his sealed apartment, smoking joints and looking after the marijuana plants that he secretly grows in his wardrobe. In desperation, he calls a suicide helpline and gets to know Chyi, whose sweet and gentle voice causes him to fall in love with his fantasized image of her. He tries to ask her out but is repeatedly rejected. He begins projecting his fantasy of Chyi on Shin, the new girl working at the betel nut stall downstairs. Shin is always sexily dressed in order to lure male customers. Ah Jie becomes closer to her and soon the two of them sink into a world of erotic and psychedelic pleasures. At the same time, Ah Jie begins to stalk Chyi.


text:
Save products on your wishlist to buy them later or share with your friends.
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text:
On the run . . .
Elena Gilbert's love, the vampire Stefan Salvatore, has been captured and imprisoned by demonic spirits who are wreaking havoc in Fell's Church. While her friends Bonnie and Meredith explore the evil that has taken over their town, Elena goes in search of Stefan.
In order to find him, she entrusts her life to Stefan's brother, Damon Salvatore, the handsome but deadly vampire who wants Elena, body and soul. Along with her childhood friend Matt, they set out for the slums of the Dark Dimension, where Stefan is being held captive. It is rumored to be a world where vampires and demons roam free, but humans must live enslaved to their supernatural masters. . . .
Elena will stop at nothing to free Stefan. Yet with each passing day the tension between Elena and Damon grows, and she is faced with a terrible decision: Which brother does she really want?
Back in Fell's Church, Bonnie and Meredith have made some dire discoveries. They hastily try to follow Elena and warn her—only to be caught up in Elena's most dangerous adventure yet.


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The use of Sass on compiled themes is being deprecated, and stylesheets should migrate to native CSS features. For more information on this change and how to use Sass locally in your theme development workflow, please read our announcement blog post on deprecating Sass.
In part one of this series, I introduced you to Sass in Shopify themes, explained variables and nesting, and discussed the limitations of the online store editor with Sass.
This article will focus on some of the more creative parts of Sass development — the things that can make your stylesheets smarter. We'll take a look at using some of the operators built into Sass, as well as using some native Sass functions. We'll also look at creating Sass mixins and extends.
This is part two in a three part beginner's guide to Sass with Shopify.
Check out part one of this series, a beginner's guide to Sass and Shopify themes.
Arithmetic operators
Sass has standard arithmetic operators baked in. These can be super helpful when trying to do calculations in your stylesheets, and have to support older browsers (IE8/IE9 reliably or Opera Mini) that don't play nicely with the CSS calc()
function. The calculations are done on compilation, and rendered as a specific value.
In Sass, we have access to the +
, -
, *
, /
, and %
math operators.
For example:
.page-wrapper {
width: 100%;
.site-content {
float: left;
width: 600px / 960px * 100%;
.site-sidebar {
float: right;
width: 300px / 960px * 100%;
Compiles to:
.page-wrapper {
width: 100%;
.site-content {
float: left;
width: 62.5%;
.site-sidebar {
float: right;
width: 31.25%;
When Sass gets compiled, the evaluation of the math we've done outputs to the final values in our stylesheet. This means that these values will work in browsers that don't support the calc()
CSS function.
Note that when Sass interpolation #{}
is used near operators like /
, those operators are treated as plain CSS rather than math operators.
For example:
p {
$font-size: 100%;
$line-height: 1.5;
font: #{$font-size}/#{$line-height} Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
Compiles to:
p {
font: 100%/1.5 Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
Where #{$font-size}
and #{$line-height}
resolve to 100%/1.5
, instead of Sass trying to divide those two values by one another.
Sometimes it can be tedious to write in CSS over and over. Mixins differ from functions in that a function's main objective is to return a value, whereas a mixin enables the creation of a reusable chunk of CSS. Think of a @mixin
like an include or snippet.
To create a mixin use the @mixin
directive, and give it a name. Mixins can take multiple arguments in the form of variables, which are comma separated.
A simple example of this is to create a reusable button style. This mixin also includes a Sass function, which you can read more about in the next section of this article.
For example:
@mixin link($color-link) {
text-decoration: none;
color: $color-link;
.link {
@include link(#2980b9)
.link {
text-decoration: none;
color: #2980b9;
In the example above, @mixin link()
is passed an argument of $color-link
. Then, the $color-link
argument is used throughout the mixin property values. To use the mixin you would use the @include
directive, followed by the mixin name, and pass it the appropriate argument. In the case of this mixin, it's a color value.
Below is a mixin I use to visually hide an element when I build themes, but still allows for that element to be read aloud by screen readers. Using a mixin for this makes it clear that the element is visually hidden in the styling. As a mixin, it then can be used multiple times throughout your styles, all while keeping accessibility in mind.
For example:
@mixin visually-hidden() {
position: absolute !important;
overflow: hidden;
clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
margin: -1px;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
.logo {
background-image: url(logo.png);
.logo span {
@include visually-hidden();
.logo {
background-image: url(logo.png);
.logo span {
position: absolute !important;
overflow: hidden;
clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
margin: -1px;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
You may also like: Developing Shopify Themes with Accessibility in Mind.
In Sass, you'll hear about two types of functions, functions which you write yourself using the @function
directive, and functions which are shipped with Sass.
Creating custom Sass functions
There are some pretty useful functions that you can create yourself. A function you create yourself uses the @function
directive, followed by the name of the function. It must be declared first, and once declared, can be used later on in your stylesheet by calling on the name of your function.
The output of a function is a single value. This value can be any Sass data type, which includes: numbers, strings, colors, booleans, or lists. Functions can accept multiple arguments in the form of variables, which are comma separated.
I usually put custom Sass functions at the top of my stylesheet, just after variables, or in a separate file that's imported after variables, but before all my other styles. We'll talk more about file structure and workflow in part three of this series.
I often use an em()
function. The function converts px
values into em
values ✨ auto-magically ✨ for you, based on a set base font size.
For example:
$browser-context: 16; // default
@function em($pixels, $context: $browser-context) {
@return #{$pixels/$context}em
h1 {
font-size: em(72);
h1 {
font-size: 4.5em;
This simple function converts to em
values for you, which makes things much simpler than calculating them for yourself. Using em values for all sizing is especially helpful. If a user increases or decreases the size of their text, and you've used em
sizing for layouts as well, things will automatically scale and flow appropriately.
Using native Sass functions
There are also a huge list of functions that ship with Sass, which come in handy when theming. These native Sass functions are super helpful when creating consistent variations for a specific color within your theme. For example, you might want to create a button, that uses your primary color as a background, but darkens that background when it's hovered or active.
We're going to use the Sass darken()
function in the example below, to darken the $color-primary
for our hover states.
The darken()
function takes two parameters, a color (which can be of any format), and an amount to decrease the lightness by, which is a percentage from 0%
- 100%
darken($color, $amount)
In this example, we set the $color-primary
as the background-color
of the button. Using the Sass function darken()
, we set the :hover
and :focus
state for the button to a darker background-color
based on the $color-primary
For example:
$color-primary: #2980b9;
$color-button-text: #ffffff;
.button {
color: $color-button-text;
background-color: $color-primary;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 1em 1.5em;
display: inline-block;
border-radius: 3px;
&:focus {
background-color: darken($color-primary, 15%);
Compiles to:
.button {
background-color: #2980b9;
color: #ffffff;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 1em 1.5em;
display: inline-block;
border-radius: 3px;
.button:focus {
background-color: #1b557a;
There are a ton of other built-in Sass functions that you can access. You can check them out in the official Sass documentation, and try experimenting with different ones! Follow this tutorial to create dynamic color schemes using Sass functions and theme options.
You may also like: An Introduction to Theme Options.
The @extend
directive lets you share a set of CSS properties from one selector to another. This can be incredibly useful if you don't have access to update or change markup, but need to style an element. Note that when one uses the @extend
selector, it extends all nested selectors as well.
For example:
.box {
background-color: #f5f5f5;
h2 {
color: red;
.block {
@extend .box;
Compiles to:
.box, .block {
background-color: #f5f5f5;
.box h2, .block h2 {
color: red;
Notice that Sass doesn't "go get" the styles from .box
, inserting them below into .block
, then duplicating the styles. Instead, when Sass compiles it, the comma separates both selectors, applying the styles more efficiently.
Be careful not to abuse @extend
. When you want to use @extend
ask yourself if creating another class and adding it to your Liquid template might be more appropriate. There are some other gotchas that arise when you use @extend
that you should be aware of, these include lengthy output, and selector order issues.
You're on your way to making your theme smarter!
By using Sass operators, mixins, and functions, you can begin thinking about how you can make your styles more efficient. Already, you can start to see how much less typing you'll have to do when styling.
Stay tuned for part three of this beginner's guide to Sass with Shopify!
Do you know any helpful mixins or functions for Shopify Themes? Tell us about your favorite ones, and why you love using Sass in the comments below!


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Summer has simply flown by. And if I'm being honest, the fact that I am back at work today makes me want to cry a little – or a lot. I've enjoyed working on the blog full time and have certainly disrupted my normal school year sleeping habits. I'm trying to get back into a normal routine, so I woke up super early on Friday morning and decided to whip up some summery cupcakes. It was pretty much a desperate attempt to hold onto my last weekend of summer.
I was staring into my refrigerator for inspiration and after moving some stuff around, (yeah I totally need to add clean fridge to my to-do list) I discovered about a cup of leftover lemon curd and immediately had a plan. Lemon Meringue Cupcakes – perfect for the last few weeks of warm weather.
Because it was 7:30 am and I had only downed a quarter cup of coffee, I decided that I'd stick with the basics. So I went with my favorite lemon infused white cupcake recipe, cored the center and added a dollop of homemade microwave lemon curd. Then I added a beautiful swirl of 7 minute frosting and then gave a quick pass with my kitchen torch.
The result was an ultra light, sweet, yet perfectly tart cupcake that was so incredibly delicious it totally made me forgot about my impending 5:30 am wake up time!
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes
For the Cake
2 1/4 cups cake flour (I used Swan's Down brand)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk, room temperature
4 large egg whites, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
lemon zest from two lemons (finely grated)
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Filling
1 cup lemon curd
7-Minute Frosting
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
6 large egg whites, room temperature
For the cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake tins with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg whites.
4. Place the sugar and lemon zest in the bowl of your mixer or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter and, working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs, beating until the batter is thoroughly combined. Add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2-minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
5. Using a large scoop (about 3 tablespoons), distribute the batter between 24 muffin wells, filling each well 2/3 full.
6. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until the cupcakes are springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the centers come out clean. Cool on wire rack.
7. Once cupcakes have cooled, hollow out a small circle in the center of each cupcake; I use an apple corer because I am little OCD and obsessed with symmetry. Spoon or pipe in a dollop of lemon curd.
For the frosting
1. In a small saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups sugar with the water and corn syrup; clip a candy thermometer to side of pan. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling, without stirring, until syrup reaches 230 degrees.
2. Meawhile, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. With mixer running, add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, beating to combine.
3. As soon as sugar syrup reaches 230 degrees, remove from heat. With mixer on medium-low speed, pour syrup down side of bowl in a slow, steady stream. Raise speed to medium-high; whisk until mixture is completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl) and stiff (but not dry) peaks form, about 7 minutes. Use immediately.
4. Frost cooled cupcakes. Use a kitchen torch to lightly brown the meringue frosting.
- Cake recipe from Dorie Greenspan
- 7-Minute Frosting from Martha Stewart
- Cupcake liners from Bake It Pretty
- Cupcake tip used to pipe these cupcakes is the Giant French Tip from Bake It Pretty
Follow Jamie on Instagram. We love to see what you're baking from MBA! Be sure to tag @jamiemba and use the hashtag #mbarecipes!


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The Disabled Puppy With Pigeon BFF Got a Tiny Wheelchair
You may have heard about Lundy and Herman recently. This YouTube video from Inside Edition says that Lundy, the chihuahua puppy, showed up at the Mia Foundation which is an animal rehab center in Rochester, NY, unable to walk about two months ago. Herman, a pigeon that can't fly, has been there for about a year. The two have formed a friendship that is just heartwarming and their story went viral (naturally).
Well, there's an update -- and things just got more heartwarming and cute.
According to a report from WMUR, a New Hampshire company donated a mini-wheelchair for Lundy so he can walk.
Walkin' Pets sent the Mia Foundation a little tiny wheelchair that is small enough to fit teeny-tiny Lundy and enables him to walk.
The WMUR report says the people at Walkin' Pets want us to know that a mobility problem doesn't mean it's the end of the road for our pets.
Also, judging by the video, it seems that many people are interested in adopting Lundy (and hopefully Herman, too). If you're interested, contact the Mia Foundation.
Be sure to check out Mia's Story. Grab some tissues.


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Size: 16 oz.


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If men could become pregnant, they'd probably visit the doctor more often.
But without a compelling inducement like contraception to get them in the door, they often miss out on sexual and reproductive health services that could protect not only them but also their partners.
In 2009, 66 percent of women ages 18 to 44 visited a primary care provider, compared with 52 percent of men in that age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.
A study published in 2007 found that a tad less than half of men aged 20 to 44 received any sexual or reproductive health services in the previous year. Of those, the most commonly reported service was a testicular exam.
At the same time, more than a third of men who were sexually active but unmarried or living with someone said they hadn't used a condom during sex in the previous month.
Condom use decreased with age: 26 percent of teenagers aged 15 to 19 reported they didn't use condoms, while 73 percent of men aged 40 to 44 didn't use them. Nearly a quarter of men said they'd had sex with 15 or more women over their lifetimes, increasing their risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
The health care overhaul makes many preventive services related to women's sexual and reproductive health available free of charge. But it doesn't do the same for many services men may need.
When men visit the doctor, "One of the things that is absolutely missing is screening for sexual health and sexual activity," says Dr. Arik Marcell, an assistant professor at the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "If you don't know if (the patients) are sexually active, you don't know what may be at risk," he says. Depending on the individual, patients may need reproductive health planning, screening for sexually transmitted diseases or other sexual health services.
Part of the problem is that there are no comprehensive guidelines that spell out which sexual and reproductive health care services men should receive at various ages and stages in their lives. "Providers don't have any organized approach for addressing what are men's needs," Marcell says.
Marcell hopes to change that. He's leading a group of that's developing clinical guidelines for men related to family planning and sexual and reproductive health for the federal Title X family planning program. The group is on track to release a white paper that previews their recommendations at the beginning of September, he says.
"For the first time, across the lifespan of men, we're articulating reproductive health services and family planning needs," he says. "We hope it will become the standard of care."
Copyright 2023 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit Kaiser Health News.


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Neverland Manila
Neverland Manila is a brand new outdoor EDM festival in Manila that will take place at the SM MOA Concert Grounds on Friday October 3 2014 with DJs Afrojack, Knife Party, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Ferry Corsten, Bassjackers, Shermanology, Apster, D-Wayne, and StadiumX.
Neverland is the Philippines first real full-length EDM festival with a complete line-up of only international DJs and act in an amazing setup and professional production that this country has never seen before (think Tomorrowland, DanceValley, EDC, Ultra, etc). The festival is not only the longest – a full 12 hours with some of the world's best DJs – it's also the biggest EDM festival Manila has ever seen. This is something you do not want to miss! Check the official trailer below and get your tickets before they are sold out.
Neverland Manila
October 3 2014 (6pm – 6am)
Mall Of Asia Concert Grounds
DJs: Afrojack, Knife Party, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Ferry Corsten, Bassjackers, Shermanology, Apster, D-Wayne, StadiumX and more
Gold: PHP 5,500
For VIP tables please call: +632 507 0810
Tickets can be bought on SMTickets.com and NeverlandManila.com
Neverland is not a one-time event. There will be many more editions of Neverland Manila and it will happen sooner than you think. The team behind Neverland Manila, which is lead by Dutch national Matts Caspers, has a lot in store for the Philippines. Below you can find some more info about Matts and Neverland Manila
The Man Behind Neverland Manila
You've heard all about it in social media. They currently have 161,000 Facebook fans and counting, and a powerhouse festival line-up. Being able to bring in all nine international acts for one night got everybody curious on who they are. But what is Neverland Manila anyway?
Neverland Manila started as a rumor in social media early this year, until there were Facebook sponsored ads, a fan page came out, and a full EDM (electronic dance music) festival line up months after which convinced everyone that it is indeed real and happening. "It (actually) started with a dream and now it's a reality," says Matts Caspers, CEO/President of Neverland Manila. "Being festival goers ourselves, after seeing the supposed biggest EDM event early this year, we saw an opportunity to make a difference. And then we decided, 'Let's try to do this ourselves.' "
When you think of Neverland, one automatically associates it with the childhood character Peter Pan. "But other than that it's about happiness and being and feeling young," he adds. "Music is for everybody, and it makes it possible for everyone to be equal. We want everyone to forget about their problems for a while, and let us entertain them. During the event, you'll (just) think of happy thoughts."
A Dutch through and through, Matts Caspers is an entrepreneur who started at the age of 20, and became an investor at 26. After numerous successful investments, he teamed up with his good friend Ruben Wolf, a sales expert in the financial industry and together they created an investment company specializing in media, entertainment, software, and finance. In doing such, they became part of different international music festivals for a couple of years. With EDM being a worldwide trend and everything happening as fast as the DJ's drops and beats, one has to be on top of everything 24/7 to keep up with the latest in music and in the industry. Caspers believes that with the immense success of EDM festivals all around the world, the Philippines is one of the best avenues for these kinds of gatherings, if not the best. "Filipinos are born ready for these kinds of events. EDM is a worldwide trend, and being Asia's number 1 fastest-growing economy, it is but anticipated that Pinoys would take a dip to this fantastic world of music."
"With the immense preparation and planning for all these greatness to happen, of course it has its own set of challenges," says Caspers when asked to share his team's pre-event efforts. "However, I know that when my team and I see everyone going ecstatic, it makes us so proud to create something this huge and beautiful. It makes all the 24/7 working really worth it for me and my team."
Despite his fast-paced professional life, Caspers is a laid-back person who binge-watches various TV series, listens to soul, classic rock, and jazz, and would want to be a veterinarian had he not worked in this industry. "I love traveling and clubbing around the world, but when I'm at home I just love to be outdoors with my two dogs," he adds.
Among all the EDM artists, he names Armin Van Buuren, Afrojack, and Martin Garrix as his favorites. "With Armin, he's just really amazing and he definitely changed the EDM scene. Martin Garrix, on the other hand, has lots of talent at such a young age and I expect to see a lot more from him. Afrojack—that's my number 1 DJ—I'm amazed by his creativity and his ability to create various music for different artists, his evolution and innovation for music, is just impressive."
At the moment, he likes the industry he's in and sees Neverland Manila as a big company in the country for years to come. He mentions, "I'll be staying the Philippines to let people know that Neverland Manila is indeed here to stay. We may be new in the Philippine events industry, but we are here to change the game, as everyone can probably feel."
What should the Filipinos expect on October 3? He shares with a smile, "Two words: Neverland. Manila. Expect it as you feel it. Neverland Manila is all about giving the Pinoys an unforgettable experience, and it's about time that we show everyone how a real outdoor EDM festival should be."
Neverland Manila will be held on October 3, 2014 at the SM Mall of Asia Concert Grounds. Get your tickets at the Neverland Manila website (www.neverlandmanila.com), smtickets.com, and all SM Tickets outlets nationwide.
afrojack, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, edm, edm festival, festival, Knife Party, never land manila, neverland, neverland festival, neverland manila, neverland manila 2014, neverland philippines


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As I've mentioned before, I've been taking Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class at Studio Calico
and, my goal was to keep up with the class and hopefully complete it in May.
Well, Sketch 7 was posted on Tuesday and, since I had the day off yesterday,
I was able to make a layout & a card with it.
I know I probably won't get Sketch 8 done before the end of the month
(we're off in Winnipeg today volunteering at a taekwondo tournament
and tomorrow, our local theatre is having a Jurassic Park marathon),
but I'm still pretty pleased with staying as caught up as I have!
I'm not allowed to post the sketch here on my blog,
but here are my projects that I made it.
Here's the layout:
It's not the best quality photo, but I love it!
I stuck pretty closely to the sketch on this one.
The background cardstock is Bazzill Basics Classic Smooth White.
The aqua woodgrain patterned paper is American Crafts and I created
the music note patterned paper by stamping a Clearly Besotted stamp
over some Echo Park cardstock.
I added a Crate Paper tag and layered a Crate Paper chipboard frame over top.
I stamped the "bon voyage" from Papertrey Ink's Get Lost stamp set.
Here's a close-up of my journaling:
And here's the super quick card that I made using
all pre-made embellishments & no stamping or diecutting!
(I know! I'm pretty shocked, too!)
I reversed where the photo & sentiment were placed on the sketch,
but I'm really pleased with how it turned out!
I used a Crate Paper tag that I switched the tie it came
with for some button twine.
The flowers are all Heidi Swapp.
Thanks for looking!


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An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( LockA locked padlock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Designated Agency Ethics Officials
Walter M. Shaub, Jr. Director
OGE Launches the Institute for Ethics in Government MAX Community
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has launched the Institute for Ethics in Government (IEG) on the MAX.gov website. The IEG is the new home for all of OGE's education offerings, making learning opportunities available to all Executive Branch ethics officials, regardless of geography, experience, or grade. This platform will provide high quality continuing education, both live and on-demand, to government ethics practitioners at all levels. It also will provide useful tools and products to support ethics officials in advising employees at their agencies. OGE has designed these educational products to support both large and small ethics programs in meeting the internal professional development needs of their staffs. You can visit the IEG homepage anytime at: https://max.omb.gov/community/display/OGEExternal/OGE+Institute+for+Ethics+in+Government .
When you visit the IEG community pages on the MAX.gov site, you will find resources for all of the following:
The IEG welcomes your comments, input, and participation. If you have any questions or if you would like to find out how you can get involved, please contact Kaneisha Cunningham at email@example.com. Below is additional information about some featured highlights of the IEG site.
Education and Training Products
In the IEG Store section of the community, you will find a variety of OGE-created job aids and education and training products, as well as a space for agency ethics officials to upload and share products they have created. If your agency has a product or presentation to add to the "Agency–Share" section of the IEG Store, please upload it directly to the MAX page or email it to the Registrar, Kaneisha Cunningham at email@example.com.
Distance Learning
The IEG offers two distance learning opportunities per month through its Ethics Fundamentals and Advanced Practitioner Series.
The Ethics Fundamentals Series is a webinar series designed to address the fundamentals of government ethics in a format convenient to part-time ethics officials and ethics officials in the field. The series takes place on the second Thursday of each month at 2:00 PM Eastern Time.
The Advanced Practitioner Series is a webinar series designed to address advanced topics in a format that is convenient for experienced ethics practitioners. The series also provides a forum for ethics officials to share their experience and expertise with one another. The series takes place on the third Thursday of each month at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. If you are interested in appearing as a guest in an Advanced Practitioner broadcast, please contact Patrick Shepherd at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Courses and Curricula at the IEG
Twice annually, the IEG will offer an intensive and comprehensive curriculum of courses to new ethics officials in supervisory, or otherwise critical, ethics roles. This curriculum will include: the New Ethics Official Certificate Program; Introduction to Conflicts of Interest; Public Financial Disclosure Review; Gifts from Outside Sources; and Conflict-Free Post-Employment Activities. Course participants will meet one day per week for eight weeks and will be assessed at the close of each unit. The successful completion of all units will earn a "Certificate of Accomplishment" from the IEG. Ethics officials interested in the intensive curriculum must commit to attending all sessions and submit an application in order to be considered.
The IEG will also seasonally offer a limited number of live, instructor-led courses. For example, prior to and during the financial disclosure filing seasons, the IEG will offer a limited number of workshops and seminars for confidential and public financial disclosure reviewers. These courses will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
Instructor Development
The IEG will offer a semi-annual instructor development program for experienced agency ethics officials. Successful completion of the program will qualify attendees to teach IEG-created courses to Executive Branch ethics officials for IEG credit. Applicants may select among several available courses, including: the New Ethics Official Certificate Program; Introduction to Conflicts of Interest; Public Financial Disclosure Review; Gifts from Outside Sources; and Conflict-Free Post-Employment Activities.
Successful applicants must commit to attending all required sessions for each course selected, must have significant substantive ethics experience, and considerable demand for ethics official training within their agencies. Details about the IEG instructor development program and application information can be found on the IEG MAX site.
On a semi-annual basis the IEG will partner with another agency to host up to one day of substantive ethics official training at the partner agency's facility. These symposia should be larger than a typical OGE class, hosting 150 or more participants. The issues covered will range from fundamental ethics training to advanced topics, and may also include such ethics-related topics as travel and Hatch Act regulations. The goals of the symposia are to address the continuing education needs of ethics officials, and to provide opportunities for networking in the ethics community. If your agency is interested in partnering with the IEG to host a symposium, please contact Kaneisha Cunningham at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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DRYTECH® Aurora TCT SB 70 x1.0x20H x 60T for carbon fiber reinforced plastics with wall thickness < 10mm
Our dry cutting technology eliminates the need for lubricants. Sawing with our saw blades is therefore particularly environmentally friendly.
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Application : Robots, Milling Center, 5-Axe CNC Machining Center or common Aluminum and Wood Working Machines


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3. A Passive House for everybody
1 - Video presentation
You are interested in the Passive House concept, but you don't want to live in a wooden box in Germany?
Don't worry, the Passive House concept works for many kinds of buildings. Whether you are into curves, organic or square architecture, you will find many different examples of Passive House buildings.
Check out the smallest Passive House in the world, energy-efficient skyscrapers or a whole Passive House district. There is way more than residential units - you can also enjoy yourself at a Passive House museum or swimming pool building. Wether you fancy concrete or natural materials, traditional or modern architecture, there is something for each taste and budget! Most Passive House buildings are new, but old buildings can be efficiently retrofitted using passive house components and techniques.
Moreover, there is no fixed set of parameters to reach the Passive House standard. Compact buildings are ideal but a less compact shape can be compensated with better quality windows and airtightness for instance.
And no matter your location, the Passive House standard works everywhere, because it is based on the laws of physics! Be it warm, cool-temperate or hot and humid, get a draught-free, cosy and airy building right now! Need some more inspiration?
Then check out The Passive House database! Passive House buildings are just normal buildings built better!
- Passive House buildings can be
- of any shape
- of any size
- of any type
- of any architectural style
- of any construction material
- new or retrofitted
- built worldwide!
- No fixed set of parameters to reach the Passive House standard


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Bishop Armando Xavier Ochoa was born in Oxnard, California, in 1943, the second child to Angel and Mary Ochoa. He received his education at Santa Clara Elementary and Santa Clara High School, also in Oxnard, and graduated in 1961. In 1962 he entered St. John's Seminary College and having graduated, continued his studies at St. John's Seminary School of Theology. Bishop Ochoa was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on May 23, 1970, by Cardinal Timothy Manning. He served as Associate Pastor at St. Alphonsus Church in East Los Angeles; St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park; and St. Teresa of Avila Church, Los Angeles. Bishop Ochoa was appointed Pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Los Angeles, in December, 1984. While an Associate Pastor at St. Teresa of Avila, he was named a Monsignor, Chaplain to His Holiness, in 1982.Prior to his Ordination to the Episcopacy, in February, 1987, as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Regional Bishop of the San Fernando Pastoral Region, he served as a board member and later as co-director of the Permanent Diaconate Program for the Archdiocese. He also headed the Secretariat for Ethnic Ministry Services. Bishop Ochoa also served as a board member for both Don Bosco Technical High School and St. John's Seminary. On June 26, 1996, Bishop Ochoa was installed as fifth Bishop of the Diocese of El Paso in Texas.
Bishop Ochoa was installed as the fifth Bishop of the Diocese of Fresno on February 1, 2012.
Throughout Bishop Ochoa's Episcopacy, he has held the following USCCB positions: Member of the Sub-Committee on Lay Ministry, Committee on Migration, Sub-Committee on Hispanic Affairs, Committee on Laity, Committee on Vocations, Committee on the Diaconate, Committee on the Millennium/Jubilee Year, Sub-Committee on Lay Ecclesial Ministry, CLINIC Board of Directors and Region XIII Administrative Committee. Bishop Ochoa has also been a Consultant on the Committee on Migration and Sub-Committee on Hispanic Affairs. Other National and International responsibilities have included member of the Alta/Baja California Border Bishops Council, United States Delegate to the Eucharistic Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, and member of the Texas Mexico Border Bishops' Council.


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The 2019–2020 Charles S. Peirce Society Essay Prize
Topic: Any topic on or related to the work of Charles Sanders Peirce.
Awards: $1000 cash prize; presentation at the Society's next annual meeting, held in conjunction with the Eastern APA (in Philadelphia, PA, USA, Jan. 8–11, 2020); possible publication, subject to editorial revision, in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.
Submission Deadline: August 1, 2019
Length: Because the winning essay may be published in the Transactions, the length of contest submissions should be about the length of an average journal article. The maximum acceptable length is 10,000 words, including notes. The presentation of the winning submission at the annual meeting cannot exceed 30 minutes reading time.
Open to: Graduate students and persons who have held a Ph.D. or its equivalent for no more than seven years. Entries from students who have not yet begun their graduate training will not be considered. Past winners of the contest are ineligible. Joint submissions are allowed provided that all authors satisfy the eligibility requirements. The essay may be in any language, provided a 1,000-word summary of the paper's argument, written in English, is supplied. The winner will be required to present the paper in English and to translate it into English for publication in the Transactions.
Advice to Essay Prize Entrants: The winning entry will make a genuine contribution to the literature on Peirce. Therefore, entrants should become familiar with the major currents of work on Peirce to date and take care to locate their views in relation to published material that bears directly on their topic.
Entrants should note that scholarly work on Peirce frequently benefits from the explicit consideration of the historical development of his views. Even a submission that focuses on a single stage in that development can benefit from noting the stage on which it focuses in reference to other phases of Peirce's treatment of the topic under consideration. (This advice is not intended to reflect a bias toward chronological studies, but merely to express a strong preference for a chronologically informed understanding of Peirce's philosophy.)
We do not require but strongly encourage, where appropriate, citation of the Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition. Ideally, citation of texts found in both the Collected Papers and the Writings should be to both CP and W.
Submissions should be prepared for anonymous evaluation. Authors who submit their entry electronically should be sure to remove any identifying information from their document properties/metadata. Entries must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Cover letter or email should include complete contact information, including mailing address and phone numbers, and a statement that the entrant meets the eligibility requirements of the contest.
Electronic submissions are preferred. Submissions should be sent as email attachments (Microsoft Word documents, RTF files, or PDF files only) to Richard Kenneth Atkins, Executive Director of the C.S. Peirce Society: firstname.lastname@example.com. Please include "Peirce Essay Prize Submission" in the subject line of your email.


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For the second consecutive year, Blend has been named to the Inc Best Workplaces list! Read the full press release here.
Thoughts from Blend Interactive
One of Blend's core values is a dedication to advocacy and progress — to expand upon and give back to the community that fuels us. This is where those thoughts live.
Search Results List
Episode 18: Select an Implementation Partner (w/ Tony Byrne) Off-site link
Corey and Deane discuss what clients should look for when selecting an implementation partner. Then, Tony Byrne, co-author of The Right Way to Select Technology and President of Real Story Group, joins to talk through the implementation partner selection process, including common mistakes, the value of domain knowledge, and how most projects should focus on technology first.
Beyond Blend.
Blend doesn't just write here: we also write books, create videos, and dive deep into our individual disciplines. Check out some of our external sources of knowledge.
The Web Project Guide
A phase-by-phase look at the web design and development process, providing context to each step.
Coding with Bob
A YouTube series by our director of development, focusing on .NET coding and Optimizely development.
Eating Elephant
A blog about content strategy, information architecture, and understanding user needs.


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Back to school: time for illuminating examples, not shining models
We have arrived at the time of the year when we are reminded to be attentive to all that is required to go back to school. It's prompted me to consider the modern practices employed by many universities and other institutions of higher education to promote their schools as optimal choices for parents to make on behalf of their children. For this purpose, many universities research how their recent graduates and distant alumni are doing in their careers. They then synthesize the data along with contemporary values of their prospective students or their parents and develop models of what their ideal graduates and alumni look like.
As we begin our school year as Catholics either in Catholic schools or in other forms of education, we might consider two things in light of the practice that I have just described. The first point is that any model is not real and is limited in what it can show us to inform our decisions. Models are synthesized ideals that are abstract and not real nor concrete. Models are entirely up to our interpretation and so they can be presented in a way to coax a desired understanding on the part of the agent offering the model.
In comparison with the conceptual design of a model, God offers us examples. Examples are real people who teach us by how they live and give witness when we engage them in conversation or simply by observing them through our daily contact with them. As Catholics we have the real examples of Christ, the Blessed Mother, and the saints to serve as our guides in word and deed. We also have our educators, chief among them being our fathers and mothers, older siblings, and our teachers — all of whom are real people and not synthesized values and concepts. A quote from Saint Thomas Aquinas seems particularly apt to clarify the importance of this distinction, "Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate."
Such examples lead us to the second point for our consideration: the overarching goal of Catholic education is to come to know and to love the fullness of the truth that Jesus taught — the free love of God and neighbor. Jesus set an example for us in this regard by His consistently clear preaching, His compassionate healing through miracles, and His selfless and saving action on the cross culminating in His resurrection and ascension. He has taught us to go and do the same. This overarching goal is our ultimate end and purpose in life and the measurement by which each of us assess our personal priorities that are unique to us but also fused together by our common human nature directed to common excellence and flourishing.
There is a particular challenge today for us entrusted with the mission of authentic and Catholic education: to teach as Jesus taught. That challenge is the false presumption among many in our world today that the highest good to be obtained — the Summum Bonum, the overarching purpose of education — is not love of God and neighbor, but the attainment of an affluent lifestyle that affords a person an egocentric self-sufficiency in this world, with Catholic and religious faith as an afterthought or as the mere decoration of one's private familial or cultural history. This affects many of us who are mothers and fathers of children who are returning to school in pursuit of an education, and who feel pressure and anxiety for their children not to have enough of this world's goods to live but rather, to possess more than enough material goods to be completely autonomous.
The start of the new school year is a time for us to examine again our value for education and our responsibility in this apostolate as parents and educators to set a good example. It is a time for us to ask God for clarity of mind and firmness of purpose to set rightly ordered priorities directed to love of God and neighbor and to courageously carry them out with trust in the real providence of the all-loving God.


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In just a few lines of MATLAB code, you can prototype and validate computational finance models, accelerate those models using parallel processing, and put them directly into production.
Leading institutions use MATLAB to determine interest rates, perform stress tests, manage multi-billion dollar portfolios, and trade complex instruments in less than a second.
- MATLAB is fast: Run risk and portfolio analytics prototypes up to 120x faster than in R, 100x faster than in Excel/VBA, and up to 64x faster than Python.
- MATLAB automatically generates documentation for model review and regulatory approval.
- Analysts use prebuilt apps and tools to visualize intermediate results and debug models.
- IT groups can deploy IP protected models directly to desktop and web applications such as Excel, Tableau, Java, C++, and Python.
- MATLAB includes an interface for importing historical and real-time market data from free and paid sources including Bloomberg, Refinitiv, and FRED
- MATLAB handles big and streaming data from traditional and alternative data sources.
"MATLAB enabled us to concentrate on our core competencies as investment professionals and deploy a quantitative risk management and portfolio optimization dashboard that has added value from day one across our team."
Mathew John and Jason Liddle, SMMI
Govern, develop, validate, implement, and monitor models across business lines
Using MATLAB for Finance and Risk Management
See progress in clean energy products, climate research, and financial risk and sustainability.
Learn moreInvestment Management
- Build and evolve dashboards for portfolio managers, with intraday risk reporting, valuation, and trade execution capabilities.
- Use prebuilt tools for performing portfolio optimization using mean-variance, mean absolute deviation (MAD), conditional value-at-risk (CVaR), and Black-Litterman methods.
- Measure investment performance using risk-adjusted alphas, tracking errors, maximum drawdowns, and the Sharpe ratio.
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Risk Management
- Automate, augment, and provide executable reporting throughout the risk model lifecycle. Take models through model validation, model review, implementation, and regulatory approval in just three months.
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Explore Customer Success Stories:
Financial Forecasting and Modeling
- Use point-and click apps to fit time-series data with econometric models (e.g., ARMA, ARIMA, GARCH, EGARCH, GJR) or machine learning algorithms.
- Interface to DSGE models to forecast key economic variables.
- Use functions for interest rate modeling and forecasting based on parameters estimated from the Nelson-Siegel or Svensson models.
Derivatives Pricing
- Calculate price and greek variables of exotic options using Monte Carlo simulation in MATLAB significantly faster than running them in Visual Basic, R, and Python.
- Choose various pricing methods (e.g., closed-form equations, binomial trees, trinomial trees, and the stochastic volatility model) to price options. These include European options, American options, Asian options, barrier options, caps, floors, swaps, and multi-underlying asset derivatives.
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- Interface with Numerix.
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- Analyze large data sets, create custom actuarial models, and easily accelerate the simulations using parallelization.
- Build custom risk models using MATLAB as a platform for Solvency II.
- Price various insurance products such as variable annuities, guaranteed minimum benefit options, term assurance, and endowment policies.


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There was a lot of grumbling when Titanium 1.8 came out, and CommonJS was introduced. People had built apps using the best practices of 1.7, but suddenly there were a whole new set of best practices. It took me a bit to get used to the syntax, but once I got over that hurdle, the lightbulb turned on. Coming from a Flex background, it dawned on me that I could finally make my Titanium apps more object-oriented.
I keep seeing code in the Q&A that frankly makes me cringe. The strict-typing in actionscript forced me to use some great best practices, and CommonJS lets us move closer to that style of coding.
I figured that the most common UI element that gets reused in any app is the humble TableViewRow. So, let's look at my BeerRow module:
The first thing you'll notice is the retina variable I set once in the module. Like the comment implies, most Ti.Platform calls are expensive, so you should do your best to minimize those calls.
Next, there's the BeerRow method, which takes a beer object as a constructor parameter, and returns a TableViewRow. The code inside is pretty standard, creating a row, adding a picture and a title. This row is overloaded though, where I add the getter and setter methods pushBeer and pullBeer, respectively. Since the actual ImageView and Label objects won't be accessible to the outside world, the pushBeer method has to update those for us. Note that the slightly unconventional names are because you can't add methods that start with "get" or "set" to Titanium proxy objects.
Last, we assign our BeerRow method to module.exports, because, well, that's how CommonJS modules work. I really like the coding conventions of actionscript, where object classes are UpperCamelCase, and variables are lowerCamelCase, so you'll notice that my filename and constructor methods are both BeerRow.
So, we have this wonderful row, how do we use it? It's actually very easy to do:
First, we use require() to include our module. Again, I give my variable the UpperCamelCase so I know it's the object itself, and not an instance of the object.
Next, I'm looping over my beers array and creating a row for each one. We create an instance of our BeerRow using new BeerRow(beers[i]).
Just after that, I add a click event listener. Inside that event listener, you can see I call my custom getter method, pullBeer, to display the name. Typically, you would probably take that beer object and use it in the constructor of a new window.
I add the row to my array of rows, and then set the TableView's data to that array. Now you're playing with code-reuse!
You can find the full source-code for this sample application in my blog-samples project on GitHub.


text:
and all of us seniors were looking our best.
Our glasses, how sparkly, our wrinkles, how merry;
Our punchbowl held prune juice plus three drops of sherry.
A bedsock was taped to each walker, in hope
That Santa would bring us soft candy and soap.
We surely were lucky to be there with friends,
Secure in this residence and in our Depends.
Our grandkids had sent us some Christmasy crafts,
Like angels in snowsuits and penguins on rafts.
The dental assistant had borrowed our teeth,
And from them she'd crafted a holiday wreath.
The bed pans, so shiny, all stood in a row,
Reflecting our candle's magnificent glow.
Our supper so festive -- the joy wouldn't stop --
Was creamy warm oatmeal with sprinkles on top.
Our salad was Jell-O, so jiggly and great,
Then puree of fruitcake was spooned on each plate.
The social director then had us play games,
Like "Where Are You Living?" and "What Are Your Names?"
Old Grandfather Looper was feeling his oats,
Proclaiming that reindeer were nothing but goats.
Our resident wand'rer was tied to her chair,
In hopes that at bedtime she still would be there.
Security lights on the new fallen snow
Made outdoors seem noon to the old folks below.
Then out on the porch there arose quite a clatter
(But we are so deaf that it just didn't matter).
A strange little fellow flew in through the door,
Then tripped on the sill and fell flat on the floor.
'Twas just our director, all togged out in red.
He jiggled and chuckled and patted each head.
We knew from the way that he strutted and jived
Our social- security checks had arrived.
We sang -- how we sang -- in our monotone croak,
Till the clock tinkled out its soft eight-p.m. stroke.
And soon we were snuggling deep in our beds.
While nurses distributed nocturnal meds.
And so ends our Christmas at Rock-Away Rest.
'fore long you'll be with us, We wish you the best!


text:
Anna remembers a time before boys, when she was little and everything made sense. When she and her mom were a family, just the two of them against the world. But now her mom is gone most of the time, chasing the next marriage, brining home the next stepfather. Anna is left on her own—until she discovers that she can make boys her family. From Desmond to Joey, Todd to Sam, Anna learns that if you give boys what they want, you can get what you need. But the price is high—the other kids make fun of her; the girls call her a slut. Anna's new friend, Toy, seems to have found a way around the loneliness, but Toy has her own secrets that even Anna can't know.
Then comes Sam. When Anna actually meets a boy who is more than just useful, whose family eats dinner together, laughs, and tells stories, the truth about love becomes clear. And she finally learns how it feels to have something to lose—and something to offer. Real, shocking, uplifting, and stunningly lyrical, Uses for Boys is a story of breaking down and growing up.


text:
Please take a moment to click the "rules" link in the top navigation bar and read (and follow) them.
Specifically, people have been treading on the following points, that need more attention:
- Quoting previous posts: only quote relevant sections you are replying to, and don't quote the entire post. Also, use common sense when to quote: especially if the post you are replying to is right above it, be as sparse as possible in your quoting. If you can reply without quoting anything and it's still clear, then that is what you should do.
- Stay on-topic: "I don't want to make a new thread for this other question I have" is no excuse. Please do not do this. Creating a new topic isn't any more work than replying to an existing one. At the very least it will require moderator intervention to split a thread (which is a lot of unnecessary work) and at the worst you're completely derailing a thread. One discussion topic per topic, please.
- If an issue is marked as "closed", don't continue posting in it unless it is directly relevant, additional information that is essential to the already-solved topic. Otherwise do not post in those threads and make a new one.


text:
All of our vinyl is made from 100% interior safe, removable vinyl that appears painted right on the walls, perfect for permanent or temporary decorating! All wall decals are available in multiple sizes and over 40 different colors! Decal designs are exemplary for windows and nearly any flat, smooth surface. Design sizes within a close approximation.
Select a row below to filter reviews.


text:
Community Living Sarnia-Lambton's employment model has been shared and adopted by other communities across Ontario and even internationally.
Vision: A community where everyone is valued and can participate.
Volunteers are the bridge between the community and the services that we provide
Community Living Sarnia-Lambton has grown to support more than 400 children and adults with developmental and intellectual challenges.


text:
T-Shirt Audrey
100% cotton t-shirt with personalized graphics. An exclusive design by our team of designers, a unique t-shirt. An unmistakable style, that of Bumble Bee. The inks with which our t-shirts are printed are washable.
Any small imperfections make our tshirt unique and inimitable, thanks to the work performed by artisans expert in the field.


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Browser Backgrounds
Browser Backgrounds is the new Firefox extension that lets you install wallpaper directly on your browser. Add, Edit, Change and Share your wallpapers on your Firefox browser.
Till now users would only install backgrounds on their computer desktops. But Browser Backgrounds is the new Firefox extension that lets you install wallpapers directly on your browser. Think about having your favourite music band or NBA player wallpapers right on your browser window, without leaving the browser and stopping the web experience even for one second.
The highly efficient and easy to use extension lets you install infinite numbers of wallpapers and manage them. Installing wallpapers ranging from your favourite Football player to Hollywood stars is just a matter of seconds. You can even install your own photos on your browser. Your beautiful girlfriend or lovely mother will look amazing on your browser.
Where I can find it?
thanks for this!


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McNairy County, Tennessee, World War 1 Veterans
This index reports that 656 individuals served from McNairy County during World War I. There were 592 soldiers in the Army and 2 were officers. There were 49 sailors in the Navy and 1 was an officer. There were 6 soldiers in the Marine Corps. There were 9 fraudulent enlistments, discharges, dishonorable discharges, or desertions.
McNairy County, Tennessee, World War 1 Veterans Read More »


text:
Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
Art. Restoring all this 19th century gear is pretty cool. But, why don't you use that Rega P9 you have in your closet to listen to vinyl? You know, that P9 someone gave you to review, and then forgot to ask it back (and you cannot find them)?
I'm pretty sure it will be somewhat better than that Flintsone era Thorens... I still give you a thumbs up for restoring it.


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Developing *with* the web, eh? Speaking at the domain convergence in Toronto, Canada
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 12:19 pmI have just returned from Toronto, Canada where I spoke at the second Domain Convergence conference about web development with distributed data and about using the social web.
First of all I have to say that this was an eye-opening experience for me as I never even knew that there is a whole community of "Domainers" – people who buy, sell and "develop" internet domains much like other people do with real estate.
The organisers (an old friend of mine hailing back from the time when we created C64 demos together) wanted me to talk about web development with APIs and the social web as the current state of this in the domain market is very much random. The common way of creating some content for a domain is to hire a developer on rent-a-coder, get a $99 logo, write some content and put it live. The main goal for the site thus created is to make people click the ads on it – selling the domain is secondary step.
This is totally the opposite of what I consider web development but instead of condemning it I loved to get the opportunity to show another way of building web sites on a very small budget and without much technical know how. This is what I had to say:
The presentation SlideCast
- You can also listen to or download the audio recording at archive.org
Following are the notes that I was meant to say during the presentation. I ad-lib a lot though. Can't help it, eh?
Developing with the web
The current financial crisis is reported to have its toll on the web business as well. Whilst that is true to a degree (declining ad sales show that) there might be a different reason though: the web moves on and so do the habits of our users.
Build it and they will come doesn't cut it any more
Anybody who builds a web product and wonders why there are less and less comments, visits and clicks must realise that they are part of a massive network of sites and offers. People use the web and multi-task their social interactions.
Back when this was all fields
I remember that back when I started as a web developer you had one browser window. If you wanted to have several pages open you needed several windows. All of these used up memory of which we didn't have much. As computers were slow we maybe had another chat client open or an IRC client and an email client. In any case, working and surfing were two different tasks.
The web 2.0 revolution
With web 2.0 this changed. Computers became more powerful, browsers started supporting multiple tabs and software moved from bulky desktop to lighter web-based interfaces. The web turned from a read to a read/write media and its users started actively defining their web experience by altering it rather than just reading online content.
Bring the noise!
The next wave was more and more social networks, blogging, micro-blogging and messaging systems. As humans we are hard-wired to communicate and tell the world about everything we do. Only our social standards and learned manners changed that. As neither seems to be of much significance on the web we are happy to tell the world what we do – no matter if the world is interested or not. After all, once we found something out and told the world about it it is time to go back and find the next big thing.
Oh, shiny object!
This wealth of real-time information causes an overload and makes people easily distracted. It also cheapens communication and forces us to give more and more information in shorter and more to-the-point formats.
If you can't fight them…
Enough complaining though. The funny thing is that the distributed web we have right now is exactly what the web should be like. Web sites are not radio or TV channels – they are small data sets that tie in with a much larger network of data. So in order to be part of this we need to distribute our content.
Spreading and collecting
The way to have fun with the web of data is to distribute ourselves around the web and bring the data back to our sites.
The first step is to spread our content on the web:
- upload photos to Flickr
- bookmark and tag URLs atDelicious
- write short and succinct news updates at Twitter
- upload videos to YouTube
- link addresses and set up driving instructions with Google Maps
- write CVs and bios at Xing or LinkedIn
The benefits of this approach are the following:
- The data is distributed over multiple servers – even if your own web site is offline (for example for maintenance) the data lives on
- You reach users and tap into communities that would never have ended up on your web site.
- You get tags and comments about your content from these sites. These can become keywords and guidelines for you to write very relevant copy on your main site in the future. You know what people want to hear about rather than guessing it.
- Comments on these sites also mean you start a channel of communication with users of the web that happens naturally instead of sending them to a complex contact form.
- You don't need to worry about converting image or video materials into web formats – the sites that were built exactly for that purpose automatically do that for you.
- You allow other people to embed your content into their products and can thus piggy-back on their success and integrity.
If you want to more about this approach, check out the Developer Evangelism Handbook where I cover this in detail in the "Using the (social) web" chapter.
Bringing the web to the site
The other thing to think about is to bring the web to the site and allow people to use the services they are happy to use right in your interface.
One of the main things I found to be terribly useful there is Chat Catcher. Chat Catcher is a wordpress plug-in or PHP script that checks various social networks for updates that link to your web site. That way you can get for example Twitter updates with links to your site as comments on your blog. This showed me just how much people talk about my posts although I didn't get many comments. The only small annoyance is that re-tweets show up but that can be tweaked.
Another interesting small tool is Yahoo Sideline which allows you to define searches for the Twitter network, get automatic updates and answer the tweets.
Cotweet does the same thing but on a much more professional level. Cotweet was build for corporations to manage their Twitter outreach and it helps you not only to track people talking about certain topics but also to define "shifts" for several people to monitor Twitter during a certain time period. Using this in a company with offices in various parts of the world you can have a 24 hour Twitter coverage without having to log in from several locations to Twitter itself.
Another way to take advantage of the social web is to allow visitors of your web site to update their status on various social networks directly from your site. This could be as easy as adding a "tweet this" or "bookmark this in delicious" button or as complex as implementing third party widgets like on the new Yahoo homepage.
Digging into the web of data.
Bringing the social web to your site is the first step. Using information of the "web of data" in your site is much more powerful, but also a bit more complex to accomplish.
Getting to the juicy, yummy data
The web is full of nice and juicy data and there is a lot of it around. Our attempts to get to it can be quite clumsy though. What we need is a simple way to access that data. One classic way of doing that is Yahoo Pipes.
Yahoo Pipes is a visual interface to remix information from various data sources like web sites and RSS feeds. The interface reminds the user of visio or database organising tools and is very easy to use. The issue with pipes is that it is a high tech interface (users who can't see or cannot use a mouse have no way of using it) and it is hard to change a pipe. Any change means that you need to get back to the pipes interface and visually change the structure of the pipe. The good news is that you can clone other people's pipes and learn from that.
A much easier and more flexible way of mixing the web is YQL. The Yahoo Query Language, or short YQL is a unified interface language to the web. The syntax is as easy as very plain SQL:
select {what} from {service} where {condition}
Say for example you want kittens on your site (who doesn't?) the following YQL statement would grab photos with the word "kitten" in the description, title or tags from Flickr.
select * from flickr.photos.search where text="kitten"
Say you only want 5 kittens – all you need to do is add a limit command:
select * from flickr.photos.search where text="kitten" limit 5
Nice, but where can you get this? YQL is an API in itself and has a URL endpoint:
Output formats are either XML or JSON. If you choose JSON you can use use the data immediately in JavaScript.
Re-mixing the web.
You can nest several YQL queries to do complex web lookups. Guess what this does:
select * from flickr.photos.info where photo_id in (
select id from flickr.photos.search where woe_id in (
select woeid from geo.places where text='london,uk'
) and license=4
What this does is:
- Find London, England using the places API of the Yahoo Geo platform. This is needed to make sure you really find photos that were taken in London, England and not for example of a band called London. The Geo places API returns a place as a where on earth or short woe ID.
- Search Flickr photos that have this where on earth ID
- Get detailed information for each photo found in Flickr.
- Only return photos that have a license of 4 as this means the photos are creative commons and you are allowed to use them. This is extremely important as Flickr users can be very protective about their photos.
Display them using free widgets!
You can use systems like the Yahoo User Interface Library to display the photos you found easily in a nice interface.
Using several APIs via YQL and the YUI CSS grids you can show for example information about a certain location without having to maintain any of the content yourself. This example about Frankfurt,Germany shows what this might look like. This page automatically updates itself every time the wikipedia entry of frankfurt is changed or somebody uploads a new photo of Frankfurt, the weather changes in the Yahoo weather API or somebody adds a new event happening in Frankfurt.
All of this works using APIs
The driver behind all these things are Application Programming Interfaces or short APIs. An API is a way to get to the information that drives a web site on a programmatic level and a chance to remix that information. Say for example you want the currently trending topics on Twitter. You can either go to the Twitter homepage or you can open the following URL in a browser:
This will give you the currently trending topics in JSON format – something you can easily convert and use.
API issues
There are of course a few issues with APIs. First of all, there are a lot of them out there. Programmable Web, a portal trying to keep up with the release and demise of APIs currently lists over 1400 different APIs. This is great but the issue is that most of them don't follow any of the structure of others. Authentication, input and output parameters and access limitations vary from API to API and can make it hard for us to use them. This is where YQL comes in as an easy way out.
The other issue with APIs is that they might only be experimental and can get shut down or change even without warning. Therefore you need to write very defensive code to read out APIs. Expect everything to fail and keep local copies of the data to display should for example Twitter be offline again for a day.
Conjuring content?
The generation of content-rich web products without having to write the content yourself sounds like a dream come true. It is important though to keep reminding us that we use other people's content and that we are relying on them to deliver it.
Content issues
Whilst you can automate a lot it remains a very good idea to have a human check third party content before putting it live. All kind of things can go wrong – bad encoding can make the text look terrible, a hickup in the CMS can seed wrong content into the category you chose, texts can bee too large to display and many other factors. Therefore it is a good idea to write a validation tool to shorten text and resize images in the data you pull.
Lack of context
One usability issue is that there might be a lack of context. Earlier we showed that it is important to distinguish between a geographical location like Paris, France and a person like Paris Hilton. The same applies to content you get from the web. People are happy to share their content but can get very cross when you display it next to things they do not approve of. Remember that people publish data on the web out of the good of their heart. Don't cheapen this by displaying information out of context.
UGC issues
One thing professional journalists and writers have been critising for a long time is that while there is a lot of immediacy in user generated content there is also a lack of quality control. Sadly enough in a lot of cases the people that are most driven to state their opinion are the least appropriate ones to do so. Comments can be harsh and make people stop believing in web2.0 as a means of telling people your thoughts. The trick is to take the good with the bad. For you this means once again that the amount of UGC data is not what you should measure – the quality is what you need to care about.
Bad placement can cheapen the whole idea of the web of data. If you for example show photos of laptops of a certain brand next to news that these models are prone to explode or die one day after warranty expiration you won't do yourself any favour. Again, showing people's reviews and blog posts next to bad news might also get them cross.
Legal issues
Which brings us to legal issues. Just because data is available on the web doesn't naturally mean that you can use it. You can have a lot of free data on the web and use it to make the now more or less useless parking sites for domains more valuable to the reader. You do however also need to make sure that you are allowed to use that content and that you display it with the right attribution.
Demos and resources
Here are a few things to look at that any developer can use and build with a bit of effort.
- My portfolio page is completely driven by YQL and maintained outside the server. If I want to upgrade it, I either post something on my blog, change some of the blog pages, add new bookmarks to delicious or upload new slides to SlideShare
- Keyword Finder uses the Yahoo BOSS API to find related keywords to any item you enter. The keywords are the keywords that real users entered to reach the top 20 results in a Yahoo search
- YSlow is a Firefox add-on that allows you to analyse why your web site is slow and what can be done to make it more nimble and thus create happier visitors.
- GeoMaker is a tool build on Yahoo Placemaker to find geographical locations in texts and turn them into maps or embeddable microformats.
- Blindsearch is a side-by-side comparison of Yahoo, Bing and Google search results and thus a fast way to find out how you rank on all three.
- Correlator is an experiment in alternative search interfaces. Instead of getting a catch-all search result page you can filter the results by interests, locations or people.
- The developer evangelism handbook is a free online book I've written and in this chapter I go into more detail about the subjects covered here.
- Web Development Solutions is a book I've published with Friends of Ed dealing with the subject of web development using distributed data.
Play nice!
As one of the last things I want to remind you that it is important to play nice on the social web. It is all about giving, sharing and connecting and if you abuse the system people will complain about you and cause a stir that is very hard to counter with PR or marketing. If you however embrace the social aspect of the web you can have quite an impact as the following example shows.
Colalife is a great example how using the social web can have an impact on the life of people. The organisers of colalife used the social web (Facebook and Twitter) to persuade Coca Cola to ship free medication with their drinks into third world countries. Coca Cola has world-wide distribution channels with chilled storage and the Colalife people designed a special device that would allow to store contraceptives and rehydration medication in bottle crates without taking up extra space. Coca Cola agreed and now medication is delivered to those who need it for free and the company creates a ton of good will. It was one person with an idea and a network of millions to freely tell a corporation about it that made it happen.
That's all I wanted to talk about, thanks.
Extra achivement
As an extra, I am happy to announce that because of my inventiveness in ordering drinks the Radisson Hotel in Toronto now offers a new cocktail of my invention called "keylime pie" which consists of Smirnoff Vanilla, Sour Mix and Soda. This was another first for me – I never had any of my inventions featured on a cocktail bar menu!
Tags: canada, dataweb, development, domainconvergence, domainers, ontario, social media, toronto, webdevelopment, yql, yslow, YUI


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Three British journalists who were charged with hacking the phones of celebrities and others for a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid have pleaded guilty in advance of a trial, according to a prosecutor in London Wednesday.
Ex-news editor Greg Miskiw, ex-chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, and former reporter James Weatherup faced charges that they eavesdropped on the voicemails of story subjects while they worked for the defunct News of the World.
Eight other former News employees -- including editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson -- will proceed as defendants in the trial, which includes charges that they made illegal payments to government officials for exclusives.
The journalists have denied the charges, but the pleas show "there was a conspiracy which involved a significant number of people," according to prosecutor Andrew Edis.
The trial began Wednesday as the prosecutor made arguments that the journalists cracked into voicemails by obtaining the password of the phones belonging to celebrities, politicians and crime victims.