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When Benjamin Franklin said that the only things certain in life were "death and taxes" most people didn't consider that they may be closely linked.
But problems with taxes can lead to the death of your small business unless you take steps to keep the taxman off your back.
With sales meetings, recruitment, salaries, cashflow issues, marketing, suppliers, and a whole string of other things for small business owners to worry about, there's no need to add the taxman to the list.
A robust financial system that keeps the tax authorities happy should be the foundation that underpins your business – allowing you to focus on the multitude of other issues that require your attention.
The specific requirements set out by your tax authority will differ by location but many of the basics remain the same wherever you are.
And most authorities are currently tightening the rules and clamping down on tax cheats and tax avoidance.
Nine of the most important general guidelines are detailed below: wherever you're located, whatever your business size, and whatever industry you're in, these will help you identify red flags in your tax setup:
1. Understand all the tax requirements – or find someone who does
Do you think your tax affairs are simple? They're probably not. Ninety-nine percent of small business owners don't fully understand tax legislation – so it's important to seek specialist help.
The temptation a business owner is to try to look after everything yourself. With tax, this can be a false economy: not only can it take ages to get to grips with what you need to do; it's likely that you'll miss something important. And the taxman will be on your back!
2. File returns on time
The general rule is to file tax returns within twelve months of the end of your accounting period, but this may vary with location.
Good planning in your business will ensure that you're ready for the process; you know when it's coming, have scheduled time to do it each year, and don't end up scrambling around at the last minute to avoid penalties.
3. Keep consistent & accurate records
You should already understand the importance of accuracy and consistency: quite apart from generating the management reports to make good business decisions, the tax authorities love you for it too.
Being consistent and accurate will help you flag any changes that affect your tax liability and explain any changes that raise questions from the tax authorities.
If you have some bookkeeping experience, you may be able to manage this yourself with user-friendly cloud software like Xero and QuickBooks Online. Otherwise, it's best to have a certified bookkeeper keep your accounting records up to date.
4. Keep the 'evidence' together
Keep the receipts and invoices for business expenses together. Most business owners know they should do this but it's surprising how many find themselves scrambling around looking for receipts when the time comes to do tax returns.
And even when they do find the receipts, they don't know what they relate to.
Keep it organized. All tax authorities want to know that there is sufficient documentation to justify business expenses. Receipts don't have legs. Your own inefficient system is responsible for losing them or causing confusion about their origin.
One of the benefits of using a cloud computing app such as QuickBooks Online is the ability to take a photo of a receipt with your smartphone to 'scan in' an expense receipt straight into QuickBooks Online; or you can use specialist apps that integrate with Xero such as Receipt Bank or Expensify.
5. File business & personal expenditure separately
It's easy to confuse business and personal expenditure. Unfortunately, it's one of the quickest ways to get offside with the tax authorities.
By keeping them separate, you can see at a glance what you can deduct and what you can't: that means two separate (probably electronic) filing systems. Don't be tempted to think "I'll sort them out when the time comes for my tax return". You'll forget or cause delays.
6. If you're a cash-based business, take extra steps
For small business owners such as tradespeople, who often get paid in cash, take extra steps to keep things transparent. You can guarantee that you will be on the taxman's radar at some point.
For income, keep additional records to back up bank deposit records, such as cash register printouts or manual records of daily sales that can be matched to the bank records.
One of the benefits of moving your accounting systems to the cloud, is the ability to do things faster and easier with paperless processes. For example, trades-based businesses can use apps like ServiceM8 to quote and invoice in the field and even take electronic payments on site.
If you're thinking, "I prefer to be paid in cash," the 'cash economy'—where a business does not declare all its income in order to reduce profits and therefore tax—is not such a great idea. Your business will be more valuable when it comes time to sell it if you have always shown all your sales revenue 'on the books'.
7. Create a clear policy for employee reimbursement
Tax auditors want to know that you're following the regulations with regards to employee reimbursement for travel, mileage, personal expenses, etc. They also want to know that expenses are appropriately signed off within the business to indicate that the business accepts liability.
Document a clear policy that determines what employees can claim for and how they go about claiming it. Make sure that this is clearly communicated to all employees.
8. Plan for your tax bill
There's no room for surprise tax bills on the path to success. Tax is generally predictable and consistent. This means that you can – and should – plan for it in advance.
Sit down with your tax professional, understand what's coming and when, and create a fund that can be used to pay the bill when it arrives. Maybe lock away a set sum every month. That way there are no nasty surprises ahead.
9. Never avoid the letters
Just because your tax authority writes to you asking questions or requesting records, it doesn't necessarily mean the worst. Never avoid or delay answering these questions, as they don't go away.
Answer in a timely fashion – there will normally be an expected response date detailed on the letter. Don't go beyond this.
Take some tax advice and answer the questions to the best of your abilities. Most tax issues can be solved relatively easily if they are dealt with before they spiral out of hand.
Don't get caught out by non-compliance with tax or it can cost you and your business. Get the right tax advice from the start and follow the tips above to keep the taxman happy.
If you need any specialist tax advice for your business, contact one of our advisors to talk it through


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Wednesday, March 09, 2011
The Thing
Denny's "thing" is his beautiful play bow, often followed by a jump like a buck or a goat, before they crash their heads together. Unfortunately it's so random, that I have not yet captured it.
Maggie's "thing" is leaning.
She loves desk chairs, and when they turn, she just walks with it.
When she was smaller she jumped up on desk chairs in the house, but she's getting too big for that now.
This was very early in the morning, I haven't even turned on all the lights yet, when she jumped up on the chair. At the time this was something I just realized she liked to do, and got a not so great shot of it. I didn't know she would do that again, and again.
This is my basement desk. I have one in my studio, equally cluttered as well.
Do your dogs have their own "things" as well?
14 comments:
- Kathy... said...
Sofee has a ritual before she goes to sleep at night. She licks the palm of my hand - constantly for about 10 minutes, and then lays her head down INTO the palm of my hand and goes to sleep. She's done that since she was a wee pup.
Aren't dogs just the most interesting creatures ever. I so enjoy your pooch posts, and videos of course. The one where Happy ran right into you - I made my husband watch that the minute he got home from work, and we laughed out loud --- over and over again! Thanks so much for sharing!! - March 09, 2011 12:23 p.m.
- momsue84 said...
Yes, indeed! Milo does his thing before we curl up to sleep. Once DH and I are in bed, he goes into the guest room and spends 5 minutes or so rearranging the guest bed into his own personal nest. He grunts and groans and really gets down to business. Once it is perfect, he comes back to our bed, we curl up around him, and fall asleep. Would love to know what this means.
- March 09, 2011 1:04 p.m.
- Rhonda said...
My not-so-little girl likes to sleep curled up on the footstool. She just barely fits but it's her thing!
- March 09, 2011 4:27 p.m.
- Michelle said...
Nimitz definitely has his routines but I can't for the life of me think of anything right now. He was at daycare all day followed by a rally obedience class and we're both exhausted now!
- March 09, 2011 7:46 p.m.
- Laurie said...
Wilbur likes to lean on a chair or couch and chew on a toy - guess he gets better leverage that way. He has a ton of funny little rituals that are uniquely him, and they sometimes change or new ones pop up. He has never been a dog who likes to build a "nest", but about a year ago, he started what we call the "Ten o'Clock Dig" where he digs his rug in the living room up into a ball, pushes it to one side, they goes to sleep on the floor. He'll wake up from a sound sleep at 10pm just to do this. So funny...
- March 09, 2011 8:24 p.m.
- Wanderingcatstudio said...
My cats have lots of things! I think I'll have to do my own blog post on them :)
Maggie is really losing her puppy looks! She's grown so fast, soon it's going to be hard telling her and Happy apart! - March 09, 2011 10:18 p.m.
- Katherinne McKay said...
I don't know if it's considered a "thing" but Willow will talk when she wants something. She won't bark, but rather kinda make a sound and then will look at someone, then she may spin, lay down and pat the floor, or drag her bottom on the floor (translations: I'm hungry; I'm bored; I need to go potty). She'll also play with her food dish by picking it up and throwing it if I'm not "paying attention to her" lol
- March 10, 2011 3:58 a.m.
- 2paw said...
Yes, they do all have their things, don't they?? Peri likes to be under her blanket, whether it is 3 or 35 degrees, then she erupts like a hot cyclone of hotness!! Gilly loves to stand with her front feet on the arm of the couch and her feet on the cushion and she wiggle and waggle and be higher than me and then she bumps my wear.
- March 10, 2011 7:32 a.m.
- Kathy said...
we don't have dogs, but our cats have their "thing." Sasha periodically rolls her head in a circle and looks behind her. Beckerman will mew and then cock his head to one side and wait to see what you do. He'll also do that when he's investigating something; he looks quite inquisitive.
- March 10, 2011 10:32 a.m.
- Kathy said...
Oh, and I saw Rhonda's comment - Beckerman sleeps in my lap every night. I sleep on my back most nights and he crawls up and sleeps with his bottom near my pelvic bone and then stretches out to my knees (he's a long cat). If I sleep on my side for some reason, he walks around the bed because he can't get comfortable. :)
- March 10, 2011 10:34 a.m.
- Debi3735 said...
My dogs also each have a thing, one of them includes an office chair.
My Jack Russell rescue mix, likes to sit behind someone with her head on the are of the office chair, when I or my DH are sitting in it. That is the only time she lays that way.
My Beagle mix, like to have me lay on the floor when I come home, and rub and roll and make funny noises with her.
Those seem to be strange things - March 10, 2011 6:29 p.m.
One day, shortly after we adopted Jake, my Bouvador rescue (that's a Bouvier/Lab mutt), stopped in front of me on the stairs. I leaned over and wrapped my arms around him for a good love and scratch. Since then, whenever he sees me headed towards the stairs he runs in front of me and stops blocking my way until I lean over and give him his due. It doesn't matter what is in my hands--coffee, laundry or knitting. No wonder I have so many coffee spills on the rug just there.
- March 11, 2011 2:12 p.m.
- Cecilia said...
my big, tough, all-black, gimlet-eyed GSD has a red kong ball that he will hold in his mouth while laying, sitting, running and chew chew chew - the guy has amazing jaws!
- March 11, 2011 6:30 p.m.
- CelticCastOn said...
How did Maggie Moo get so big??? crazy!!! I'd have to think about what Boss and Moolee do, it all just seems like everyday to me but I'm sure there's something.
- March 14, 2011 9:44 a.m.

subset: commoncrawl


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4 onces almond meal/flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
pinch of cream of tarter
3 1/2 ounces granulated sugar
large pastry bag
1/2 inch round pastry tip (I used #12 Wilton tip)
for the biscoff filling:
1 tbsp butter, softened
1/2 c. marshmallow fluff
1/2 c. creamy biscoff
3/4 c. powdered sugar
2-4 tbsp whole milk
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. Print the macaron template here and slide this under the parchment paper (don't forget to remove it before you slide the macarons in the oven!).
Pulse 1/3 of the powdered sugar, cinnamon and all of the almond meal together in a food processor until it forms a fine powder. Pour this mixture into a mixing bowl along with the remaining powdered sugar and sift 3 times. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a wire whip attachment, whisk whites and cream of tarter on medium speed until foamy and slightly bubbly. Gradually add granulated sugar until incorporated and scrape down sides of bowl and increase mixer speed to high, whisking until very stiff and glossy. Note: when you pull the beater out of the egg whites, my egg whites stuck to the beater and created a crater in the bowl. This is how stiff you want your egg whites to be.
Fold in 1/2 of the sifted dry mixture to the egg white mixture and continue until it has all been added and the mixture is smooth.
Transfer batter to a large pastry bag fitted with small round pastry tip and pipe rounds onto parchment paper using your macaron template. Hold the pastry bag straight up and squeeze straight down and let the batter form a circle on it's on. If you want to smooth the small peaks in the center of the cookies, wet your finger with water and lightly push down on the peaks to ensure smooth, flat macarons.
Once you have piped all the macarons, light bang the cookie sheets on the counter to release any air bubbles in the cookies. Let cookies stand on cookie sheet for 45 minutes or until they no longer stick to your finger when lightly touched.
Bake one sheet at a time for 10-12 minutes, rotating halfway though. Let macarons cool for 2-3 minutes on baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack. Let them cool before filling them.
To make the filling:
Cream the butter, biscoff and marshmallow fluff together. Slowly add in the powdered sugar and scrape down sides of the bowl after each addition. Lastly add milk and beat until smooth and creamy. Pipe filling onto a cooled macaron shell and sandwich with another shell and repeat until all shells are used.
Macaron recipe from Sur la table


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The Social services Agency of the Province of Lodi (Lombardy Region) is interested to get in touch with project leaders or with consortium in Europe in order to participate to the Daphne Call - Action grants to support transnational projects to combat sexual harrassment and sexual violence against women - JUST/2015/RDAP/AG/SEXV with deadline 13th october 2015.
The Agency (it represents 62 local municipalities) manages the strategic planning tool called "Piano di Zona" which aims to realize an integrated systems of measures and social services into Lodi area.
"Piano di Zona" has functions in the sector of the organization, coordination and assessment of educational and social services.
These duties are practiced through:
- system services and economic planning
- development of technical proposal to create social services network
- introduction of a social quality approach
The aim of the Agency is:
- to be involved in an international project in order to share its experiences and knowledge in managing social tools with partners;
- to develop actions to educate children (boys and girls), young people, men and/or women to prevent sexual harassment and/or sexual violence in these contexts by bringing about attitudinal and behavioural changes with regard to gender roles, stereotyping and sexualisation.
For more information about the Agancy and the strategic tool, please see the attached file.
Deadline of the partner search: 25th September 2015
The partner search is addressed to all private or public organizations wich are already planning to present a project in the contest of this Daphne Call (Universities, Research Institutes, Public Authorities, third sector organizations as associations or cooperatives, etc..)
We ask you to be so kind to disseminate the partner search among your local and regional contacts.
For further information and contacts:
Donatella Barberis
Azienda speciale consortile del lodigiano per i servizi alla persona
Piazza Mercato 5,
26900 Lodi (Italy)
Tel. +39 0371 409412
Piano di Zona is a strategic planning tool which aims to realize an integrated systems of measures and social services into Lodi area. Its authorities are constituted by 62 municipalities of the Province of Lodi, AziendaSpecialeConsortiledelLodigiano per iservizialla persona (consortium of Municipalities) has been appointed as lead body. In particular, Piano di Zona has functions like organization, coordination and assessment, in the field of educational and social services. These duties are practiced through:
- system services and economic planning
- development of technical proposal to create social services network
- introduction of a social quality approach
Planning functions are headed up by political bodies, Mayor Assembly and Piano di ZonaInstitutional group, with technical support of Ufficio di Piano and Technical Group.
Mayor Assembly is composed by tha mayors of all municipalities of Lodi province and it has the following tasks:
- Appointing 3 Districts Presidents
- Monitoring the achievement of Piano di zona objectives
- Updating annual priorities coherently with the triennial plan and the available resources
- Ratifying economic and financial plan
Piano di Zona Institutional group is constituted by: Mayor of Lodi, 3 Districts Presidents, one mayor for each District, Province president, Presidents of AziendeSpeciali (affiliated companies), Caritas Director, a delegate of Third sector, a representative of Lodi School District.
It carries out specific functions:
- Coordinating management and organizational decisions on the political level
- Monitoring the implementation of measures
- Evaluating technical proposals of Ufficio di Piano
Technical Group is the operating arm of political bodies above mentioned and it has the task of microplanning. Technical group is coordinated by Ufficio di Piano Manager who works side by side with Social Services Directors.
Finally, Ufficio di Piano plans and coordinate the implementation of social care measures and it develops proposals which have to be evaluated by political bodies.


text:
Organizations have used management systems for decades to help them create value and reach their objectives. They help companies manage in a systematic way issues related to a wide range of areas such as quality, occupational health, safety, environment, social and ethical.
When integrated and implemented well, they can help companies actively manage risks and continually improve their performance. But for management systems to continue to be a driving force for change, they must adapt to support companies to tackle the broader set of challenges they face.
We have through the last year gathered qualitative input from a range of companies in different industries and geographies in order to envision a future state of management systems and how they continue to add value for organizations in the years to come.
Explore the future with us through the eyes of five highly diverse companies in five very different industries. What is the transformation these companies will have to undergo due to industry and mega-trends? What changes, developments and radical innovations will these companies undertake in order to grow and continue to be viable businesses? And how have management systems evolved to support business processes and operations?
We see an optimistic future for management systems. But to help achieve it, we would welcome your involvement, thoughts and ideas and help us co-create the future of management systems. So please voice your opinion in our LinkedIN discussion group and our survey.


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In 2001, Guatemalan singer and songwriter Gaby Moreno left her country for Los Angeles, where she got into the local music scene and took classes at the Musicians Institute. Her soulful vocals and ability to switch languages and genres have made her a rising star.
Moreno is part of a batch of young, soulful Latina singers whose voices evoke Fiona Apple or Tori Amos. On her new album, though, Moreno also channels her inner Aretha. Her songs have been used on popular TV shows, and she has two albums out; her most recent is titled Illustrated Songs.
Moreno says she finds inspiration in old-fashioned music of the vaudeville era, and was intrigued by the early visual art form of projecting images with musical accompaniment — hence the new album's name.
Moreno's musical life began when she was 13, on a family vacation in New York. She says she and her family were walking through Times Square one night when something caught her eye.
"I saw this lady who was singing on the streets. I just froze," Moreno tells Weekend All Things Considered guest host Linda Wertheimer. "I can't even begin to describe to you what I felt when I heard her music. I asked her, 'What is that style you're singing in?' And she just looked at me like, 'You don't know what the blues is?' "
Moreno asked her mother to take her to a record store right away and buy her some blues records. Growing up in Guatemala, Moreno had been surrounded by Latin rock music, but she says it was never really an influence on her. Once she found the blues, however, it was all she could listen to.
"Those singers — they became my teachers," she says. "I would just lock myself in my room and sing Koko Taylor and Aretha Franklin."
Other favorites included Gladys Knight, Roberta Flack and Ella Fitzgerald. Listening to those singers, Moreno says she became fascinated with learning more of the English language so she could understand the lyrics.
"Sometimes, I would just go to the dictionary and look for the words," she says. "I could never tell what they were talking about, because it was all blues slang."
Now fluent in Spanish and English, the bilingual Moreno mixes languages as well as genres on Illustrated Songs. "Ave Que Emigra" includes the line "Vengo desde muy lejos, buscando el azul del cielo," or "I come from far away, looking for bluer skies." The song was inspired by Moreno's journey from Guatemala to Los Angeles, where she followed her dream of playing music while her friends and family stayed behind.
"I had just come out of high school, and I knew that I wanted to pursue music, and I was just convinced that I had to come here and do it here," she says. "I couldn't stay [in Guatemala]. There's not a very big music scene, especially not one for the kind of music I was into."
Stylistically, Ilustrated Songs is all over the map, but there is one constant.
"This is what makes me who I am," Moreno says of all the different influences audible on the album. "The common denominator there is my voice."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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"The brain processes 400 billion bits of information a second but we're only aware of 2,000 of those. That means that reality is happening in the brain all the time".
Joseph Dispenza from the DVD: What The Bleep Do We Know?!
If you were to look at a tree, you could probably see every leaf on that tree (depending on angle etc). But would you know how many leaves were on that tree?
If you tried to recall in great detail let's say your 5th birthday, could you do it?
Yet under hypnosis people have been taken back to events in their early life (such as early birthdays) and they can recall the events of the day in great detail. The brain is a phenomenal computer with massive retention of detail, be it the number of leaves on a tree or what present your Aunt Gertrude gave you on your 5th birthday, how it was wrapped and that fact that you already had one of them from the previous Christmas! But do you need that much recall? If you went through your whole life with all these facts, figures and memories bouncing around, it would be hard to function due to the overload of information. That is why our brains have filters, which cuts out some of the information that we perceive we simply don't need. They serve to keep our conscious mind only fed with the amount of information it can cope with and primarily focused on the most important things. For example, you become aware of the car coming down the road as you cross over, rather than how many petals there are on the tulips in the garden on the other side. One piece of information could save your life, so it prioritised over the other which will generally be filtered out.
Sometimes these filters malfunction a bit. Have you ever had the experience where you've lost something, looked all over for it and been unable to find it, then some clever bugger comes in as says "here it is", in a place that you looked closely at several times. You wonder how on Earth you could possibly have missed it!
Basically, your own brain sometimes gets a block and filters out information that you need, but fortunately this is not that common.
These filters are of course largely based on our upbringing and life experiences telling us what is and isn't important. However, we can often get things wrong and we can easily be filtering out important pieces of information!
Our social conditioning too can affect us. Is that guy offering to help carry a ladies groceries just being an old fashioned gentleman or is he trying to find an excuse to get closer to her and perhaps attack her later? Sometimes social conditioning and education causes our logic to over-ride a gut feeling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that any guy who offers to help is a potential rapist, but you can see how if somebody is raised to expect good manners, they may overlook some other warning sign!
"Your mind has a spam filter on it, just like your email. There are literally billions of calculations going on every second just in your body alone".
"Your spam filter is blocking out everything that is not important to you. Until you tell your brain that something is important, then it will keep it filtered out".
Andy Shaw, author of Creating A Bug Free Mind.
Bearing in mind that we are capable of taking in vastly more information than we are consciously aware of; sometimes our unconscious mind will notice something that our conscious mind has missed.
Maybe that friendly looking guy who is being so helpful was in the newspaper last year as a rape suspect or mugger. Your conscious mind doesn't have a chance of remembering, but your unconscious mind does. The unconscious mind cannot communicate this directly to the conscious mind, but it can communicate by emotions. It can give you that gut-feeling we call intuition!
I know this is a simplistic example, but it can take many forms. Let's say for example that you're walking home late at night and you have 2 options of which route to take. For no apparent reason, one of them just doesn't feel comfortable. Your logical mind tells that this route is shorter, reasonably well lit and you can't find a good reason why you don't feel safe. Perhaps your conscious mind has forgotten that you saw some shady looking character walking down that way earlier and your unconscious is concerned that they might still be lurking around. It sends you an uncomfortable "feeling" to warn you.
I've always believed that women tend to be more intuitive than men, as men rely on logic more. Sometimes logic is good, but sometimes it can be our undoing as there is a time and place for both. Women for example, often know when they are being lied to, yet if you ask them how they know; very often they don't have a clue. They just know, their intuition tells them. The giveaway signs of a tiny shift in a person's body language, maybe lack of eye contact, some almost undetectable change in tonality; the unconscious mind receives it all and process it even if the conscious mind can't.
So intuition can be a useful life skill in relationships, work, whilst driving, just about any facet of life including of course your self-protection. As with the examples above, it can save us getting into a dangerous situation in the first place by listening to the gut feeling which defies our logic and social conditioning.
Assuming that you gone somewhere and everything is fine, no warning signals and everybody is happy; then suddenly out of the blue without any warning, somebody starts to pick a fight. When somebody is picking a fight there are certain clues as to when they are actually going to stop talking and threatening and actually physically attack. That is not the subject of this post as to cover it properly would take too long. However, if you want to pursue this subject in depth then I recommend Geoff Thompson's book, Dead Or Alive.
If you asked most people to list the signs that a physical attack is imminent, most people wouldn't really be able to give an in depth answer. However, your unconscious mind will pick up every sign and feed it back to you, if only you are able to be aware able to notice these signals.
Even in a more friendly setting like a competition or just club sparring, some people seem to have the uncanny ability to automatically know just when their opponent is about to move no matter how much the opponent tries not to telegraph their technique. It is almost as if some people can "read" their opponents. This is basically intuition. Their years of training have taught them to read every sign, even the slightest of change of breath, the slightest change in facial expression or bodily tension before an before the opponent attacks, which gives away their intention. Again, the defender may not actually consciously realise that they know these signs or what these signs actually are, but their unconscious has long since learnt to recognise them. And if their conscious mind is calm and quiet, it is able to receive this warning information from the unconscious mind.
Developing your intuition is almost a side effect of Mushin (calming the mind and silencing the inner voice). The silenced conscious mind can receive ideas from the unconscious mind. It can receive, acknowledge and respond to the emotions sent by the unconscious mind in the form of a gut feeling or intuition. You could call it an instinctive knowing. I say "almost" a side effect of Mushin, because when we start to feel these intuitions, even if we have become good at Mushin, we still have to take the leap of faith and actually trust these messages that we have started to receive. Even if we can think very clearly in a crisis, we still have to learn to trust that sometimes we don't need to think, we just need to allow ourselves to respond automatically without any thought at all.


text:
Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Maria van der Hoeven, talked to Sarah Azau at EWEA 2014 Annual Event in Barcelona about power markets, subsidies and the Crimea.
Will the Crimean situation make a difference to our relationship with Russian gas? Or are we simply too dependent on it?
We are quite dependent on fossil fuel imports, but rather than gas I would look to talk about coal – Europe is burning more coal, more lignite than before and gas is being squeezed between coal and renewables, as the price of gas is rather high. But diversifying your energy mix is always good for a region.
Christine Lagarde has spoken out strongly on fossil fuel subsidies recently. What is your view on her comments?
There are two types of subsidies – subsidies on consumption, which is where the IEA works, and on production, which is what the OECD works on. But we spent $544 billion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2012 – that is a huge amount!
We can see this everywhere, for instance in a number of oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia, also in big countries like China, India and so on. But some efforts are already being made.
However, fossil fuel subsidies distort the market, they encourage wasteful consumption, they are not useful.
The wind industry and other campaigners are calling for a renewable energy target of 30% at least for 2030 in the EU. In your speech at today's opening session you said you welcomed a renewables energy target – is anything else needed?
Whenever there is a target, you need to have the instruments in place to meet that target, so if there are no EU national targets you will need a European mechanism to meet that target. We would like to see targets, we would like them to be clear and with a mechanism that can be implemented.
On infrastructure we don't necessarily think there should be a target, but we want interconnectors between different markets or there won't be a properly functioning market for energy. It is important to have an objective for interconnection and it must not be forgotten – at the moment it seems to be under the table. Europe needs to have flexibility, storage, and demand side measures. To have a good energy market in EU is of utmost importance.
In a recent report you found integrating 30 percent or more of annual electricity production from wind and solar PV into power systems can come at little additional cost in the long term. TSOs often say that they cannot integrate more wind because of the power system – what would your message to them and to EU governments be?
Let me say first that there is one precondition – in a stable system like Europe there is not much growth in power demand and there is overcapacity. In dynamic systems with growing power demand the situation is different, you can build your flexible system from the beginning, but in Europe you have to transform it. Some questions need to be answered – what are we going to do with most polluting power plants, how are we going to deal with stranded assets? Europe has to come up with an answer. But what is true is that by transforming your whole energy supply chain you can have flexibility, allowing variable renewables to grow.
How do you see the future of wind and renewable energy, in the EU and further afield?
That's a difficult question – Europe was at the forefront of renewables and paid the price for that. But without Europe the renewables issue would not be as it is in other parts of the world. But if Europe wants to keep its front position in renewables is has to transform its energy system and develop a market for renewables. It can't be done overnight, but it must be looked into to have a mature renewable energy sector.
By Sarah Azau


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Modern Robotics
This is the home page of the textbook "Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control," Kevin M. Lynch and Frank C. Park, Cambridge University Press, 2017, ISBN 9781107156302. Purchase the hardback through Amazonor through Cambridge University Press, or check out the free preprint version below.
Translations: You can also purchase the book in Chinese or Korean.
Modern Robotics is available as online courses on Coursera.
From the foreword:
"Frank and Kevin have provided a wonderfully clear and patient explanation of their subject." Roger Brockett, Harvard University
"Modern Robotics imparts the most important insights of robotics ... with a clarity that makes it accessible to undergraduate students." Matthew T. Mason, Carnegie Mellon University
From the IEEE Control Systems Magazine book review:
"It is the pedagogical strength of this book that concepts from Lie group theory (which form the building blocks of modern kinematics) are presented in a way that will appeal to undergraduate students as well as to researchers and roboticists in general. ... For some time, this approach was deemed too complicated to be taught in undergraduate robotics classes. However, this book by Lynch and Park should change the conventional wisdom on this issue. ... With its consolidated modern approach, Modern Robotics is destined to become a classic in the field." Andreas Mueller, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
Purchase the hardback through Amazonor through Cambridge University Press, or check out the free preprint version below. You can also purchase the Chinese version or the Korean version.
The current version of the book is the updated first edition (online preprint dated December 2019, printed published version from Cambridge marked "3rd printing 2019" or later). The updated first edition (also referred to as "version 2") includes several corrections and minor additions to the original first edition (first published in May 2017).
This book is the result of course notes developed over many years for the course M2794.0027 Introduction to Robotics at Seoul National University and ME 449 Robotic Manipulation at Northwestern University. The evolving course notes have been posted on the internet for years to support these classes.
The for-purchase version of the book from Cambridge University Press has improved layout and typesetting, updated figures, different pagination (and fewer pages), and more careful copyediting, and it is considered the "official" version of the book. But the online preprint version of the book has the same chapters, sections, and exercises, and it is quite close in content to the Cambridge-published version.
We are posting four versions of the book. All versions have exactly the same contents and pagination. They differ only in the sizes of the margins and the size of the print, as manipulated in Adobe Acrobat after latex'ing. Two of the versions have working hyperlinks for navigating the book on your computer or tablet.
With working hyperlinks. (To navigate the book using the hyperlinks, click on the hyperlink. To go back where you came from, choose the button or keystroke appropriate to your pdf reader. For example, on the Mac with Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, use cmd-left arrow. With Preview on the Mac, use cmd-[. Some readers on other operating systems use alt-left arrow. You can google to see which solution works for your pdf reader.)
- Default 8.5x11 or A4 version. Printable version with 10 pt font and large margins.
- Tablet version. Margins have been eliminated so that no space is wasted when viewing the document on a computer or tablet.
Printable versions without working hyperlinks.
- Large font 8.5x11 or A4 version. Printable version with 12 pt font equivalent and smaller margins than the 10 pt default version.
- 2up version. Printable version with 2 book pages per page, for saving paper if you have good eyes. Approximately 8.5 pt font equivalent.
These files have been compressed to about 7 MB. Let us know if you have any problems reading them. Please note that some versions of the default Mac OS X pdf reader, Preview, are known to have bugs displaying certain images in pdf files. If a figure is not appearing properly, please try a better pdf viewer, like Acrobat Reader.
Table of Contents:
- Preview
- Configuration Space
- Rigid-Body Motions
- Forward Kinematics
- Velocity Kinematics and Statics
- Inverse Kinematics
- Kinematics of Closed Chains
- Dynamics of Open Chains
- Trajectory Generation
- Motion Planning
- Robot Control
- Grasping and Manipulation
- Wheeled Mobile Robots
- Appendix A. Summary of Useful Formulas
- Appendix B. Other Representations of Rotations
- Appendix C. Denavit-Hartenberg Parameters
- Appendix D. Optimization and Lagrange Multipliers
Practice Exercises and Linear Algebra Review
- Practice exercises
- Practice exercises to give you more experience with the material. These practice exercises come with solutions, since Cambridge makes the end-of-chapter solutions available to instructors only.
- 2017 exams from Seoul National University, with solutions.
- 2018 exams from Seoul National University, with solutions.
- 2019 exams from Seoul National University, with solutions.
- 2020 exams from Seoul National University, with solutions.
- A linear algebra refresher appendix to accompany the book.
- Click here to watch the video lectures embedded in a convenient viewing environment.
- Click here if you prefer to watch the videos within the YouTube environment.
Videos are made with Northwestern's Lightboard. We have used this tool in the past to make the mechatronics videos at http://nu32.org.
You can see an excellent collection of robotics videos at the Springer Handbook of Robotics Multimedia Extension. Also check out the Robot Academy at Queensland University of Technology.
Slides for Classroom or Online Teaching
You can download summary slides for classroom teaching, covering much of the material in Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 13. (In my current class, I [Lynch] do not have time to cover any material from Chapters 7, 10, and 12, nor parts of the material from Chapters 8, 11, and 13.) These slides are summaries only, leaving out full derivations, and they are used in class after students have watched the videos on their own time. (In my class, students also complete lecture comprehension problems on Coursera before attending the live class.)
I project the slides in powerpoint and write on them using powerpoint's "Draw" function and a Wacom One tablet during class. (Or I print them out and use a doc cam to project as I write on the printouts.) Writing on the slides helps with pacing and makes the class more interactive. In the first part of class I review the material from the videos and reading, perhaps asking questions of the whole class. At the end of most slide decks, there are rather simple conceptual problems for small-group discussion. No computers or difficult calculation needed. These discussions, which may take place via breakout rooms on Zoom, are to encourage student engagement with the material. After the small-group discussions, we reconvene to share our answers.
Each slide deck is meant to roughly correspond to one 50-minute class, but some classes have more material than others. In some classes, more discussion time would be helpful. In others, class ends a bit early.
The slides are available in two formats, pdf and powerpoint. For each format, there are "original" slides and "edited" slides. I distribute the "original" slides as pdfs to the students in advance of class, and I write on these slides (in powerpoint) during class to produce the "edited" slides. If you decide to use the slides this way, you can look at the "edited" versions of the slides for ideas of what you could write on the "original" slides.
Before class, I add translucent white boxes (95% opacity) to cover up some of the material on particularly busy slides. Then, as I teach, I delete the white boxes when it is time to discuss that material. Covering up material that we are not yet discussing helps students focus on the parts of the slide I am currently talking about. I prefer this alternative to the option of turning a single busy slide into a several-slide sequence, giving the final file an artificially large number of pages.
Solution Manual
If you are an instructor, you can obtain a copy of the exercise solutions from Cambridge University Press. Go to the "Resources" section of the Cambridge University Press webpage for the book.
This book was written to be accessible to engineering students after taking typical first-year engineering courses. The student should have an understanding of:
- freshman-level physics, including f = ma; free-body diagrams with masses, springs, and dampers; vector forces; and vector torques (or moments) as the cross product of a distance vector and a force;
- linear algebra, including matrix operations, positive definiteness of a matrix, determinants, complex numbers, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors;
- some calculus, derivatives, and partial derivatives; and
- basic linear ordinary differential equations.
The student should also be prepared to program, but only basic programming skills are needed. Code is provided in python (freely available), MATLAB (for purchase, or you could use the freely available GNU Octave clone), and Mathematica (for purchase), so those languages are preferred.
Download the book software from GitHub.
The software accompanying the book is written in Mathematica, MATLAB, and Python. It is written to be educational and to reinforce the concepts in the book, not to be as computationally efficient or robust as possible.
The origin of the software is student solutions to homework exercises. A major update was committed in January 2017, correcting some bugs in the earlier version.
To report any issues with the software, please click the "Issues" tab in GitHub.
We have found the CoppeliaSim robot simulation environment (formerly known as V-REP) to be a valuable learning tool accompanying the book. It is free for educational use and cross platform. In ME 449 at Northwestern, we use it to experiment with the kinematics of different robots and to animate solutions to inverse kinematics, dynamic simulations, and controllers.
This page gets you started with CoppeliaSim quickly.
This page provides "scenes" that allow you to interactively explore the kinematics of different robots (e.g., the Universal Robots UR5 6R robot arm and the KUKA youBot mobile manipulator) and to animate trajectories that are the results of exercises in chapters on kinematics, dynamics, and control.
- A video of a UR5 trajectory created by solving numerical inverse kinematics (Chapter 6, Inverse Kinematics)
- A video of the UR5 falling under gravity for 10 s, assuming no friction or gearing at the joints (Chapter 8, Dynamics of Open Chains)
- A video of the KUKA youBot mobile manipulator using Jacobian-pseudoinverse-based control of the end-effector's motion (Chapter 13, Wheeled Mobile Robots)
Online Courses
Modern Robotics is now available as a MOOC (massive open online course) Specialization on Coursera!
This is a link to the Specialization home page. The Specialization consists of six short courses, each expected to take approximately four weeks of approximately five hours of effort per week:
- Course 1: Foundations of Robot Motion (Chapters 2 and 3)
- Course 2: Robot Kinematics (Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7)
- Course 3: Robot Dynamics (Chapters 8 and 9)
- Course 4: Robot Motion Planning and Control (Chapters 10 and 11)
- Course 5: Robot Manipulation and Wheeled Mobile Robots (Chapters 12 and 13)
- Course 6: Capstone Project, Mobile Manipulation
This page collects together some of the supplemental material used in the Coursera MOOCs.
The material in Modern Robotics also forms the basis for two edX online courses. These courses were created before the book was finished, so some of the notation used is a bit different from that used in the book.
Using the Online Course Materials in a Traditional Classroom Course
If you are using the book in a traditional university setting, you can ask your students to sign up for the relevant courses on Coursera (see above). They can audit the courses, so they don't have to pay. They will have access to the video lectures and to the video comprehension questions that follow each video lecture. They will also have access to discussion forums. (They won't have access to graded tests and peer-graded assignments, which require paying the Coursera fee.) If students watch the videos and do the reading before class, you can spend class time working on example problems, homework problems, or discussing points where confusion arises, rather than delivering a traditional lecture.
Supplemental Information
- UR5 parameters you can use for dynamic simulations (note: the values are not exact, and do not account for the effect of gearing at the joints)
- The UR5 URDF file from Chapter 4 of the book (.pdf format or .txt format). For learning purposes only, not actual use; it contains only kinematic and inertial properties, and does not fully account for the effects of gearing. This file is based on the UR5 URDF from the ROS-Industrial team.
- Peter Corke's excellent Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB and other robotics software linked to from his site.
- Open-source software for time-optimal time scaling (Chapter 9.4), courtesy of Quang-Cuong Pham.
About the Authors
Kevin M. Lynch is a professor and the director of the Center for Robotics and Biosystems and a member of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems at Northwestern University. His research focuses on dynamics, motion planning, and control for robot manipulation and locomotion; self-organizing multi-agent systems; and physically interacting human-robot systems.
He is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Conference Editorial Board, and a former Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. He is a co-author of The Principles of Robot Motion (MIT Press, 2005) and Embedded Computing and Mechatronics with the PIC32 Microcontroller (Elsevier, 2015), an IEEE fellow, and the recipient of the IEEE Early Career Award in Robotics and Automation, Northwestern's Professorship of Teaching Excellence, and the Northwestern Teacher of the Year award in engineering. He earned a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Frank C. Park received his BS in electrical engineering from MIT and his PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard University. From 1991 to 1995 he was assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Since 1995 he has been professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Seoul National University, where he is currently chair of the department. His research interests are in robot mechanics, planning and control, vision and image processing, and related areas of applied mathematics. He has been an IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Lecturer, and received best paper awards for his work on visual tracking and parallel robot design. He has served on the editorial boards of the Springer Handbook of Robotics, Springer Advanced Tracts in Robotics (STAR), Robotica, and the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics. He has held adjunct faculty positions at the HKUST Robotics Institute, NYU Courant Institute, and the Interactive Computing Department at Georgia Tech. In 2014 he received the Seoul National University Teaching Excellence Award. He is a fellow of the IEEE, former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, and developer of the edX courses Robot Mechanics and Control I, II.
Modern Robotics is written at the system level: you learn about the kinematics, dynamics, motion planning, and control of an entire robot system. If you would like to learn more about the details of implementation, e.g., joint-level feedback control, driving motors (including brushed, brushless, steppers, and servos), gearing, sensors, signal processing, etc., check out Embedded Computing and Mechatronics by Lynch, Marchuk, and Elwin, Elsevier 2015.


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Since we are young, we've been told to spend a little time stretching our muscles before strenuous activity. We've known it was the right thing to do all along.
As we age, stretching is important and everyone needs to be doing it consistently.
Stretching isn't just something that should be done for athletes, runners, and people who do yoga. When it comes to maintaining a healthy set of joints and muscles – it's important for everyone. Here are a few reasons why:
Stretching Increases Your Flexibility and Mobility
Having a consistent stretching routine will lengthen your muscles, which improves flexibility and allows your body to move more freely. Many people often don't make the connection between injuries and a poor range of motion or a lack of flexibility. Simply put, if you are looking to reduce or avoid your chances of suffering from back pain or other common injuries, you need to stretch more.
Stretching Improves Your Posture
When muscles become tightened, the alignment of your spine will often begin to suffer. It's very common for individuals to have tight muscle on one side of their body but not necessarily on the other, thus causing a postural imbalance. Over time, poor posture can create many different problems and injuries so it's important to work out those tight muscles before things get worse.
Stretching Reduces Stress
Taking the time to stretch and breathe is a very effective way to relax and de-stress. Pain in your neck, shoulders, and back can also be caused by having tension in some of your muscles due to stress. So, if you're starting to feel like you are burnt out, start a stretching routine and stick to it.
Stretching Keeps You Feeling Young
Did you know that as we get older, our muscles get started to become increasingly shorter and tighter? If you're not making an effort to be stretching every day, you're not taking proper care of your ageing body. Increasing your flexibility, range of motion, and stress levels will help you feel young and fit no matter what age.


text:
An AU Harry Potter site where Voldemort absorbed his soul anchors and faked his death when he failed to kill Harry Potter. years later, the world is preparing
swish, flick, weasley, riddle, ravenclaw, slytherin, potter, site, where, voldemort, absorbed, sorting, horcruxes, gryffindor, faked, #quidditch, death, when, failed, kill, harry, years, later
The forum for the Christchurch High Schools' Muggle Quidditch Leage :)
chch, high, school, muggle, #quidditch, league, christchurch, schools', leage
Free forum : complete freedom in role playing
harry, potter, pottermore, hogwarts, role, play, slytherin, ravenclaw, hufflepuff, gryffindor, hogsmead, diagon, alley, wizards, witch, death, eaters, order, phoenix, community, fandom, unity, family, writers, magic, #quidditch, voldemort, dumbledor
An RPG website for all those Potterheads out there! Come, take lessons, do Quidditch! Have fun and stay magical!
hogwarts, website, those, potterheads, there!, come, take, lessons, quidditch!, have, stay, magical!
Enroll at Hogwarts, be sorted into a house, take classes, earn house points, duel, play Quidditch, enter Tournaments, live the Hogwarts experience
harry, potter, hogwarts, #quidditch, experience, animagus, weasley, wand, newt, malfoy, dumbledore, hermione, magic, arithmancy, mythology, dada, muggle, wizard, witch, voldemort
Hogwarts: A New Adventure is a text based roleplaying site to display your wildest and best Hogwarts dreams & memories! You can play Quidditch, get jobs and more!
hogwarts, adventure, text, based, roleplaying, site, display, your, wildest, best, dreams, memories!, play, #quidditch
An RPG forum based around J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Become your very own wizard, attend classes, learn magic, play Quidditch, and have a great time!
welcome, hogwarts!, forum, based, around, rowling's, harry, potter, series, become, your, very, wizard, attend, classes, learn, magic, play, #quidditch, have, great, time!


text:
Your Geek is Toast, I have been out in the hot Texas sun all day today.. Working on a new project that is going to excite everyone when I announce what I am up to. I must have drank a gallon of water… But that does not stop the tech news and wait till you hear what a school district is doing it is going to blow you away. The voice mail hotline is open 24/7 619-342-7365 or email the show firstname.lastname@example.com You need to listen to win as well.
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Show Comments please call 1-619-342-7365 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com
Listener Links:
Mini Flying Robot Drones.
AT&T Hacked.
Airforce having all the fun!
Show Links:
iPad as Second Monitor.
FBI Investigating AT&T Security Breach.
Safari the Fastest?
Does AM need a Power Boost?
Electronic Tests?
South Korea Rocket Blows Up.
Second Life Layoff's
New XP Exploit!
T-Mobile to get iPhone Next?
iPhone 4 Fragile?
Limewire 1 Billion – BP 75 Million.
Adobe 10.1 Upgrade Now!
Solar Sail Success.
Fed Judge goes against DHS.
* School Sells out!
Judge may rule against Mass Doe Lawsuits.
More Copyright in Canada.
Tailban Hacked :)
Marines have Solution for Oil Spill MOAB!
Asteroid Probe ETA Earth!
How Deep is that Oil Wreck!
Google Background here this morning gone tonight.
25 Safari Extensions.
Twitter Death Sentence.
Kevin Rose to Leave Diggnation.
Send in your stories to email@example.com and be sure to provide a link to your websites!
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text:
Monumen Nasional - Jakarta, Indonesia
Kärcher cleans Indonesian national monument
As part of its international cultural sponsorship programme, Kärcher cleaned the Indonesian national monument, "Monumen Nasional", in Jakarta. The cleaning machine manufacturer from Winnenden had already removed damaging soiling from the 132-metre-high obelisk in 1992.
The 20-strong German-Indonesian cleaning team divided the project into two phases: first, an HDS 6/14 hot water high-pressure cleaner was used to remove deposits from the base of the monument. The dislodged dirt was then picked up when a BD 530 Ep scrubber drier was used to clean the ground, leaving the surface dry and fit to walk on.
In the second stage, two experienced cleaning experts went up high. Ropes were used to haul the technicians up to the visitors' platform 115 metres above ground level. Hot water jets were used to gently remove emission soiling such as soot, grease and oil from the marble surface – entirely without the use of cleaning agents. The hot water required for this was first pumped up to the viewing platform at a pressure of 25 bar and there it was collected in three 1,000-litre tanks which were used to feed the HDS 12/18-4 S hot water high-pressure cleaners. The water passed through 120-metre-long high-pressure hoses to the spray lances used by the operators.
The tower, with its gold-coated flame at the top, was opened in 1975 and is a symbol of Indonesia's independence. The project marked the launch of a series of further cleaning initiatives by the city of Jakarta, initiatives which will be supported by Kärcher.


text:
Robert Darnton was educated at Harvard University (A.B., 1960) and Oxford University (B.Phil., 1962; D. Phil., 1964), where he was a Rhodes scholar. After a brief stint as a reporter for The New York Times, he became a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard. He taught at Princeton from 1968 until 2007, when he became Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library at Harvard. He has been a visiting professor or fellow at many universities and institutes for advanced study, and his outside activities include service as a trustee of the New York Public Library and the Oxford University Press (USA) and terms as president of the American Historical Association and the International Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. Among his honors are a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award, election to the French Legion of Honor, the National Humanities Medal conferred by President Obama in February 2012, and the Del Duca World Prize in the Humanities awarded by the Institut de France in 2013. He has written and edited many books, including The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie (1979, an early attempt to develop the history of books as a field of study), The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984, probably his most popular work, which has been translated into 18 languages), Berlin Journal, 1989-1990, (1991, an account of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of East Germany), and The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France (1995, a study of the underground book trade). His latest books are The Case for Books (2009), The Devil in the Holy Water, or The Art of Slander in France from Louis XIV to Napoleon (2009), and Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris (2010), Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature (2014), and A Literary Tour de France: the World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution.
Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, Emeritus; University Librarian, Emeritus


text:
Oiseaux Avis de Recherche sur Internet
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text:
A cigar-shaped object seen floating through space could be an alien probe, Harvard researchers suggest.
In a study published last week by the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, researchers say the object, dubbed "Oumuamua," is the first object of "interstellar origin" observed in our solar system.
"Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth's vicinity by an alien civilization," researchers said.
NASA believes Oumuamua, which was discovered last fall by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 telescope, is about 400 metres long, and made up "of rock and possibly metals, has no water or ice, and that its surface was reddened due to the effects of irradiation from cosmic rays over hundreds of millions of years."
It is forecast to travel beyond Saturn's orbit, as it shoots through space at a speed of 38.3 kilometers per second.
The Harvard study's authors acknowledged that an alien space probe is a "more exotic scenario," and said Oumuamua could be either naturally occurring or accidental space debris, albeit still from a mystery source.
However, its mass-to-area ratio makes it unlikely that it's merely an oddly shaped asteroid or comet.
Either way, researcher said it was too late to photograph Oumuamua with existing telescopes or to chase it with chemical rockets.
Instead, researchers, and the rest of us, will have to wait for a new Oumuamua to appear before we can discover what it really is.
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.


text:
Seagrass Condo #01
Featuring stunning views of the surf and dunes, Seagrass Condo is the ideal weekend getaway at the shore. It's perfect for a romantic couples vacation or even a small group of friends. The ocean awaits you!
Seagrass Condo
The bedroom features a high-quality king bed to help you wind down at the end of your day. Two more guests will find linens to make a comfortable bed on the sleeper sofa in the living area. A full kitchen is stocked with pots, pans, flatware and everything you need to cook your own meals before enjoying them at the adjacent dining area.
The charming living area features a cozy couch, a coffee table and two overstuffed leather recliners, all centered around a new 43" SMART TV with a DVD player and a cozy, electric fireplace. From here, you can take in a cinematic view of the Pacific Ocean, the dunes and the seabirds that flit above them. In good weather, you can adjourn to the private deck to smell the fragrant sea air. Dogs are welcome with our standard per dog, per night fee.
About Hi-Tide Ocean Beach Resort
Facing the windswept dunes of the Pacific Coast, Hi-Tide Ocean Beach Resort offers 17 unique condos with stunning views, bbq grills, clam cleaning stations and easy access to the beautiful Moonstone Beach. Every condo is cleaned and refreshed for each guest, offering clean linens, towels and everything you need to make your visit to the shore comfortable and memorable.
Whether you're visiting Moclips for the summer sun or its winter wonderland, you'll find a perfect home-away-from-home at Hi-Tide.
About Moclips Beach
Are you booking one of our properties in Moclips? In this little community, you'll find an array of seaside activities for you, your friends and your family to venture into.
Fly a kite in a contest, build a sand sculpture or go sea kayaking. There are numerous nearby state parks that are perfect for hiking, surfing or just an afternoon stroll along the beach.
During the spring and summer, you'll be able to bird-watch or go crabbing. If it's warm enough, take a surfing lesson or go fishing, so you can catch something for dinner later!
Visiting us during the colder months is perfectly okay, too. There are beachside restaurants and museums between Moclips and Ocean Shores that will keep you busy while still being able to enjoy those stunning views.
The Hi-Tide Promise
Hi-Tide is the only full-stack vacation rental management company in the area. We vow to make booking with us simple and exciting. While others know their way around it, we know that booking a rental property home for your vacation can be unfamiliar territory for some. Because we know this, we ensure that each of our properties is up to high-quality standards.
We do our absolute best to provide support to our guests when booking.
We are available to assist you every day of the year if you have any questions or concerns before, during or after your visit to our home. We have onsite property management available 24/7 for anything concerning that may arise.
- Dogs Allowed
- Internet
- Clam Cleaning Station
- All Dogs Allowed
- Full Kitchen
- Electric Fireplace
- Pet Friendly Property
- Beachfront Resort
- Starry Starry Nights
- Dog Washing Station
- Front Desk open business hours
- Horse Shoes
- Name: Seagrass Condo #01
- Status: Active
- Rating:
- Type: Condo
- Country: United States
- State: Washington State
- Destination: Ocean Shores
- Location: Moclips Beach
- Resort: Hi-Tide Ocean Beach Resort
- Setting: Beach Front Resort
- View: Full Beach View
- Internet: Yes
- Sq. Ft: 600
- Floors: 1
- Entrance Floor: 1
- Bedrooms: 1
- Beds: KL
- Bunks: No
- Baths: 1
- Normal Occupancy: 2
- Sleeps: 4
- Max Occupancy: 4
- Parking: 1
- Pets: Dogs
- Checkin: 04:00 pm or later
- Checkout: 11:00 am or earlier
- Website: SeagrassCondo.com
- Manager: Hi-Tide Resort


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The other day I was reading Chris Scheuers post about crustless mini-quiches. It was about 11am and I was determined to make one for lunch. I dashed to the kitchen, turned the oven on and grabbed the butternut pumpkin/squash from the fridge and began peeling. I know Jamie Oliver says don't peel but he isn't my boss. I see those pumpkins lying in the dirt and I'm going to peel. I cut it into pieces about 3/8″ thick. I don't know what that is in metric. I know the equivalent of an inch but that's it.
Then I had some small potatoes and I peeled and sliced them the same thickness that I had cut the butternut and threw in some quartered onions. Next time I would cut the onions and sauté them in a pan or maybe cut the onions into smaller pieces. I made two quiches because John is not a cheesehead and I am.
Chris used yoghurt in her little mini quiches and I always use cream so I split the difference and used half yoghurt and half cream. She made more than I did because my recipe only calls for 3 eggs but there are only two of us and I just needed enough custard mixture to cover the veggies. I sprayed the dishes with oil and placed the roasted vegetables on the bottom, then sprinkled the cheese and then put them in the oven before adding the custard. No spillage.
The oven was set at 180C/350F and they cooked for 40 minutes until the center just puffed a little indicating the center was set and it was time for lunch. They were dreamy. I think these are more frittata than quiche but I didn't make them in a frying pan so I'm going with Chris and calling it a crustless quiche.
- 1¼ cups butternut squash (pumpkin) cut into narrow slices.
- ½ cup peeled and sliced small potatoes
- 1 onion peeled and cut into pieces
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- salt and pepper
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup cream
- ½ cup plain yoghurt
- ½ cup grated cheddar cheese
- ⅛ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt (you might like more than I do)
- pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon snipped fresh chives
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line a baking sheet with paper
- Place the cut butternut, potatoes and onions into a bowl. Add oil and stir to coat then place on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast until the vegetables are soft and just begin to take on some color.
- While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the custard.
- In a medium sized bowl, whisk the eggs, cream and yoghurt. Then add salt, pepper, nutmeg and chives.
- When the vegetables are done, take out of the oven and cool for 10 minutes.
- Spray the quiche pan with oil and place the vegetables at the bottom and sprinkle the cheese on top.
- Place the dish in the oven which is still at 180C/350F and pour in the custard, leaving enough room for the egg mixture to expand.
- Bake for about 40 minutes or until the center rises and then immediately remove it from the oven.
- Serve with a side salad for a perfect lunch.
If you don't follow Chris and Scott over at The Café Sucre Farine, well, you're doing yourself a disservice. She's one of the sweetest people on the planet.


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Anthropogenic climate warming is leading to consideration of options for geoengineering to offset rising carbon dioxide levels. One potential technique involves injecting artificial sea spray into the atmosphere. The sea salt particles would affect Earth's radiation budget directly, by scattering incoming solar radiation, and indirectly, by acting as cloud condensation nuclei, which could lead to whiter clouds that reflect more radiation.
But the potential effects of this method, especially the direct effects, are not fully known. Partanen et al. studied the effects of artificial sea spray using climate model simulations. They find that outside of the most heavily clouded regions the direct effect of scattering of radiation is an important part of the total effect. They also examined the effect of particle size and find that decreasing the size of injected particles could improve the efficiency of the geoengineering technique. In addition, they conducted one simulation with aerosols injected over all Earth's oceans to identify regions that were most susceptible to cloud whitening, then carried out simulations with aerosol injections just in those specific regions. They find that geoengineering in just those regions would not be enough to offset the warming from the doubling of carbon dioxide since preindustrial times, but if enough sea salt were injected into the atmosphere over all oceans, it would be possible to compensate for much of the warming due to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. The authors stress, however, that their study did not address some of the potential side effects of this geoengineering technique, such as changes in the hydrological cycle, and they note that models of sea spray geoengineering still have significant uncertainties.
SOURCE: American Geophysical Union
This free educational webinar will provide a detailed process for climate-driven "pre-response" in a variety of key areas including: Supply Chain Disruptions, Employee Safety and Productivity, Regulatory and Compliance Risks …and many more areas.


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The Tropics - Mint Decoupage Paper
Product Description
1 x one sheet decoupage paper
Made to be applied via normal decoupage methods and medium. These are very large and will create artworks from your furniture pieces
MINT decoupage papers have been created especially for furniture art and refurbishment. Each design is available in two sizes, A1 and A3 and printed on stock specifically chosen for decoupage.
We recommend using The Artisan Company Lacquer (Gloss or Matte) with this product.
A3 - 297mm x 420mm / 11.7" x 16.5"
A1 - 594mm x 841mm / 23.4" x 33.1"
Product Details
- Variant: A3


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Maciel "Ubiritan" Pereira
Maciel "Ubiratan" Periera was a winner plain and simple. Blessed with great size and exceptional speed, Ubiratan won 16 medals in major competitions during his illustrious career. He represented his native Brazil in four Olympic Games including the 1964 Tokyo Games where he won the bronze medal leading his countrymen to a 5-2 overall record. The year before that Ubiratan led host Brazil to a gold medal at the World Championships beating such stalwarts as the United States, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Brazil was a nation of soccer enthusiasts during Ubiratan's time and basketball barely registered in the national conscience. Still the crafty left-hander rallied his troops at every battle, anchoring the defense and inspiring a winning attitude in his teammates. He instilled fear in the opposition and was one of those rare players who gave his team whatever it needed on that particular night. Also known as "O Rey," meaning the King, Ubiratan inspired an entire country and ruled Brazilian basketball for more than 20 years.


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FOOT - DARNING B37/B38 - Free Motion Embroidery Foot - 502 060 13 84
The open embroidery sole offers a clear view of the embroidery area. Precise, creative free-motion works such as monogramming and Richelieu embroidery ('cutwork') as well as thread painting are simplicity itself with the free-motion embroidery foot. Also ideally suited to outline quilting, or the free-motion quilting of very small details ('microstippling'). Fits the Bernette B37 & B38.
We Also Recommend


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(original) January 16, 1994 | (slightly edited) January 1997 |
The following statements could sound very presumptuous. However, these facts can come into focus or "prove" themselves if they are seriously explored a step at a time. They could also sound very "doomsdayish." Though, in truth, they may be the most joyous "sound of music" to the ears and eyes of those who have been waiting for them. |
To Send Us an Email Use: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Organic cotton baby bodysuit
Made from 100% certified organic cotton, this comfy bodysuit will be the right step towards a more sustainable lifestyle. With its extra soft and stretchy fabric and envelope neckline, it'll be the perfect choice for all active babies.
• 100% certified organic cotton
• Soft and stretchy fabric
• 3 self-colored nickel-free poppers at the crotch
• Envelope neckline
• Fabric weight: 5.9 oz/yd² (200 g/m²)
• Binding at neck, arms, and legs for shape retention
This product is made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!


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3311.4 - Demography, South Australia, 2001
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 12/12/2002
Page tools: Print Page Print All | |||||
SA marriage and birth rates fall to 150 year low The lowest birth rate in 150 years has contributed to South Australia's population growth being 0.5%, well below the national rate of 1.3% in 2001, according to figures in Demography SA, 2001 released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today. The crude birth rate has been lower than all other states and territories from 1985 onwards. In 2001, the birth rate was 11.4 babies per 1,000 people. There were 17,281 births registered in South Australia - 578 fewer than in 2000. The median ages of parents having babies continued to rise and was 30.3 years for mothers and 32.5 years for fathers, reflecting the trend for couples to have children later in life. The South Australian crude marriage rate of 4.9 marriages per 1,000 people was the lowest since 1851. There were 7,434 marriages in 2001, the lowest since 1963. Almost half of all marriages (3,670) were performed by ministers of religion, the lowest number since 1933. The median age of brides rose to 28.7 years and bridegrooms to 30.8 years. There were 4,545 divorces granted in 2001, of which 50% were administered by the Federal Magistrates Service in its first full year of operation. The number of divorces granted was 13% above the 2000 figure, but only 6% above the 1999 figure. There were 4,584 children aged less than 18 years whose parents divorced in 2001. Of all Australian states and territories, South Australia had the highest proportion of people aged 65 years and over (15%). During 2001, the median ages at death of 76.7 years for men and 82.4 years for women were above those for other states and territories. Diseases of the circulatory system and neoplasms caused more than two-thirds (68%) of the 11,891 deaths registered in South Australia. Further details can be found in Demography SA, 2001 (cat. no. 3311.4). Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window. |


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End of Life Announcement for T46S-SFB
Dear Customers,
Yealink hereby informs you that the T46S-SFB has been discontinued since 2022-06-30. After the date, new orders for the product would not be accepted.
After the End-of-Life date, Yealink will not pursue any new feature development on T46S-SFB, but we will follow the industry standard practices regarding software support of the discontinued (EOL) products. Consistent with such standards, Yealink will continue to offer support and after-sale service.
The general policy guidelines are:
(1) For the first year from the End of Life date, Yealink will offer full support, including HW/SW Technical Support, Apply Existing SW Bug Fixes, New Non-Critical SW Bug Fixes, New Critical SW Bug Fixes and New Security Fixes.
(2) For the second year till, and including, the fifth year from the End of Life, Yealink will attempt to provide SW bug fixes. In the EOL support phase, a SW upgrade of the product to a newer existing release will also be seen as a fix to the SW bug. Providing a fix may not be possible in some cases due to the limitation of hardware or software architecture, and Yealink in its sole discretion will determine what fixes, if any, will be provided.
(3) Yealink will not offer any New Features/Enhancements support from the End of Life.
(4) Spares or replacement parts for hardware will be available depending on your local distributors. Please contact your local Yealink distributors for HW Technical Support and HW Repair and Return (subject to inventory availability). The local Yealink distributors will provide you the corresponding HW support in accordance with Yealink Return Materials Authorization (RMA) process.
(5) Since the sixth year from the End of Life, Yealink will not offer any Support.
Although every effort will be made to support End of Life products in accordance with our End of Life Policy, Yealink reserves the right to change its Policy as it deems appropriate. Yealink will announce any changes to the End of Life Policy through the Yealink Website at Yealink EOL Products and we encourage you to visit this site regularly as it contains useful information regarding Yealink's End-of-Life program.
Yealink would like to advise you to upgrade your products to our newer products which contains more features, in order to continue and enjoy Yealink's high level service. The recommended replacement solution to the T46S-SFB is MP5X Series, which offers functionally richer technology.
Yealink hopes that the end of sales of T46S-SFB will not affect the existing service relationship and service quality. We are consistently dedicated to providing you with excellent products and services. If you have any questions regarding this discontinuation, please contact your appropriate Yealink sales representative or your local distributors.
Thanks for your continued support for Yealink! For more information about Yealink delisted product, please click on http://support.yealink.com.
Yealink Network Technology Co., Ltd.
All right reserved.


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Entry conditions
1. Competition
The competitions are run by New Yorker in association with various partners (co-promotion partners), who also provide the prizes (prize sponsors). New Yorker represents the co-promotion partners during the competition and offers the prizes sponsored by them in their name. This does not give rise to any sponsoring obligations on the part of New Yorker unless New Yorker has sponsored a prize itself in an individual case.
2. How to enter
2.1 Participants enter the competition by sending in the requested text, audio material or visual material, filling
in the registration form and clicking on "send". Participants are responsible for the accuracy of details they
provide themselves, in particular their eMail and/or postal address. The answers to the competition questions and
the entry form must be received by the closing date of the competition indicated therein. The electronic record of
receipt of your eMail or the electronic record of receipt of your entry form will serve as proof that your entry was
received in time.
2.2 To enter the competition all personal details with an * must be given truthfully.
Non-compliance with this obligation can lead to disqualification. Should any discrepancies arise as to the identity
of the sender, the entry is deemed to be from the person who is the eMail account owner.
2.3 Only one entry per
person is permitted. Multiple entries will not be recognised. Nor will entries through competition clubs or similar
be accepted.
2.4 Entry is free of charge and not dependent upon the purchase of any products.
3. Eligibility for entry
3.1 Anyone aged 7 or over may enter the competition. Persons who are under the age of 18 require the consent of a
parent or legal guardian to enter.
3.2 The competition is not open to employees of New Yorker, the co-promotion
partners in question or their family members.
3.3 All entries must be received by expiry of the closing date for
receipt of entries. Entries received after this date will not take part in the draw.
3.4 New Yorker reserves the
right to disqualify entries received from persons who have infringed the conditions of entry. In particular, New
Yorker has the right to bar persons who have made use of unauthorised aids or used other forms of manipulation to
obtain an unfair advantage. In such cases New Yorker also reserves the right to strip winners of their prizes and
demand their return.
4. Procedure
4.1 By sending in text, visual material or audio material and thus entering the competition, participants declare
their express consent to the material in question being published on all or any of New Yorker's online channels.
4.2 The winners will be notified in writing or by eMail. New Yorker is entitled to publish the names of the
winners, and the winning texts, visual material or audio material on the website www.newyorker.de and/or any of its
other online channels. The winners explicitly consent to announcement in this form. New Yorker has the right to
provide its co-promotion partners with the data of the winners so that they can be sent their prizes.
4.3 If New
Yorker does not have the full or correct address of a winner, the winner will be notified by eMail. If a winner does
not contact New Yorker within four weeks of notification being sent, the claim to the prize will be forfeited and a
new winner will be drawn.
4.4 The claim to a prize will also be forfeited if the prize cannot be handed over to
the winner within two months of initial notification for reasons that are beyond the control of New Yorker.
The item actually won as a prize may differ from the item named as a prize when the competition was held. The
sponsor has the right to select an item of medium quality that is the equivalent of the item named as the
The sponsor or a third party acting on its behalf will send prizes in kind (with the exception of motor vehicles and
holidays) by forwarding agent or a parcel service to the postal address of the winner named by him/her.
Delivery will (with the exception of motor vehicles prizes) be free house in the Federal Republic of Germany. Any
additional transport costs and customs duties must be paid by the winner. Despite transport costs being assumed, the
place of performance will remain the domicile of the prize sponsor.
4.8 If the prize won is a motor vehicle, the
winner will be notified of the car dealer that will hand the vehicle over. If the vehicle is not collected within
the period set by the sponsor or the car dealer, the prize will be forfeited.
4.9 The winner will be liable for
all costs incurred in connection with collection of the vehicle as well as for all follow-up costs (taxes, fuel,
repairs etc.). The same will apply to motorcycles and comparable prizes.
4.10 If the prize won is a holiday, all
the holiday arrangements must be made directly between the winners and the sponsor in question or a tour operator
acting on its behalf. In cases in which the date of the holiday is not named in the competition, only the sponsor or
the tour operator has the right to set the date of the holiday. No claim to a specific holiday date exists. If the
holiday is not taken on the date or during the period set by the sponsor or tour operator, the claim to the prize
will be forfeited. By confirming the holiday, the winner agrees to the terms and conditions of the tour
4.11 The winner will be liable for the costs of travel to and from the starting point of the holiday
(airport, station, etc.) unless stated otherwise in the competition or explicitly agreed. The same will apply to all
costs incurred during the holiday (minibar, telephone etc.).
4.12 The value of the holiday indicated in the
description of the prizes refers to the high season and is, depending upon the time at which the holiday is taken,
subject to seasonal differences and exchange rate fluctuations. No payments will be made to compensate for this
difference in value.
4.13 Cash prizes will be sent to winners as a collection-only cheque to the address named.
However New Yorker reserves the right to transfer the cash prize to the bank account of the winner. The winner is
required to give his/her bank account details for this purpose. New Yorker has the right to pass these bank account
details on to the relevant co-promotion partner to enable it to make the credit transfer.
4.14 If it is not
possible to provide the prize or only in circumstances that are unreasonable, the winner will receive a substitute
prize of the same value. The same will apply if the original prize is no longer obtainable in the very same form as
the one described (change of model, product for one season only etc.).
4.15 Prizes or substitute prizes will not
be paid out in cash.
4.16 The claim to a prize or substitute prize is non-transferable.
5. Termination of the competition
5.1 New Yorker reserves the right to suspend and end the competition at any time without notice and without
indication of grounds. In particular, New Yorker will exercise this right if it is not possible to hold the
competition / prize draw in the due and proper manner for technical reasons (e.g. a virus in the computer system,
manipulation of or malfunctions in the hardware and/or software) or for legal reasons. Should such termination have
been caused by the conduct of a participant, New Yorker has the right to claim compensation from such a person for
the damage/losses it has incurred.
5.2 New Yorker will have discharged all its obligations at the time it hands
over the prize unless these entry conditions stipulated an earlier time.
6. Liability
6.1 New Yorker will only accept liability for damage or loss that was caused by New Yorker or one of its vicarious
agents with intent or due to gross negligence, or due to violation of a material contractual duty. This will not
apply to damage or loss caused by death, physical injury or damage to health.
6.2 In particular, the above
limitation of liability applies to damage or loss caused by errors, delays or interruptions in the transmission of
data or similar, faults in technical equipment or disruptions in service, incorrect content, loss or deletion of
data, viruses.
6.3 In the case of holidays won as a prize, New Yorker will not accept any liability for the
consequences of a justified change in the holiday offered or justified cancellation of the holiday by the tour
operator. The value of the holiday will not be paid out in cash.
6.4 New Yorker will not accept any liability for
material or legal defects in respect of the prizes provided by its co-promotion partners.
6.5 New Yorker will not
accept any liability for insolvency of one of its co-promotion partners or the ensuing consequences with regard to
holding the competition and the prizes.
7. Miscellaneous
7.1 The place of performance and place of jurisdiction of all disputes arising from and in connection with the
competition and the draw will – to the extent that this is legally admissible – be the Local Court (Amtsgericht) or
Regional Court (Landgericht) with jurisdiction for New Yorker. These conditions of entry are governed by German
Should any of the provisions of these conditions be without effect or become null and void, or anything have been
omitted from the present or any future version of these conditions, or should they be fully or partly without legal
force or impossible to implement or subsequently lose their legal force or become impossible to implement, this
shall not affect the validity of the other provisions. Instead of the ineffective provision a valid provision is
deemed to have been agreed that most closely reflects the meaning and purpose of the ineffective provision. If
anything has been omitted, a provision is deemed to have been agreed that in terms of the meaning and purpose of
these entry conditions most closely reflects what would have been agreed if the point had been taken into
consideration at the beginning.
8. Treatment of data
To enable you to enter the competitions held by us in association with our co-promotion partners, we need to know
your first name and surname, your postal address, your eMail address and your date of birth. We will use the address
details for identification purposes and to notify winners.
Further information is contained in our Data
protection declaration in chapter "NEW YORKER KANSSPELEN".


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Fuel Cost Adjustment - pnmprod
Fuel Cost Adjustment
Imagine if you had to project the amount of gas you plan to use in your car and how much it would cost every three months. You would probably estimate how many miles you normally drive, how much you think a gallon of gas will be and whether you are planning any extra car trips for your calculation.
PNM does the same thing with its fuel and purchased power costs. Just like the gasoline you use to power your car, the fuel PNM uses to power your life - whether it is natural gas, coal or nuclear fuel - is the largest component of electricity production. And just like when you fill up your car, the price of the fuels needed to create electricity fluctuates. The cost of fuel for power plants that use traditional fuels such as natural gas, coal and nuclear, can vary greatly. In comparison, most of the renewable energy generation sources we use to serve customers, such as solar and wind, obviously do not require fuel to create power. However, they are not available at all times of the day or night, so PNM uses a blend of traditional and renewable energy sources to meet our customers' energy needs 24/7.
The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC) approves our recovery of these fuel costs through the Fuel Cost Adjustment charge on your bill. Just like when you set a budget for your gasoline use throughout the year, our fuel cost projections may be higher or lower each month based on the actual costs at that time. Because you pay only the actual costs of fuel, PNM reports these costs to the NMPRC and regularly adjusts this pass-through charge based on the changes in our fuel costs over time.
Under previous rates, PNM recovered part of our fuel costs through the monthly energy charge on your bill, and the remaining amount was billed separately as the Fuel Cost Adjustment charge. In October 2016, our rates changed and 100 percent of the fuel cost for traditional resources is included in the Fuel Cost Adjustment section of the bill. Fuel charges are now listed in two lines under the Fuel Cost Adjustment on the bill as shown below. All of the costs PNM incurs to meet its renewable resources requirements are included in the separate Renewable Energy Rider. It's important to note that the costs in this section are not related to net-metered usage for participants in our Customer Solar Energy Program.
The fuel charges are listed in two lines under the Fuel Cost Adjustment on the bill as shown below:


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Research in Motion (RIM), the company behind Blackberry smartphones and the struggling PlayBook tablet, faces a new security threat after Ben Nell a consultant with the Intrepidus Group, and colleague Zach Lanier, a principal consultant with Intrepidus, announced the flaw during the Infiltrate Security Conference in Miami this week. The security flaw allows hackers to tap into a connection made between the tablet and handheld devices, according to a report on ThreatPost, a Kaspersky Lab security news site.
The report said the authentication token for Blackberry Bridge, which uses Bluetooth technology to connect the two devices, could be located and acquired, allowing a hacker to access sensitive information, including email accounts. ThreatPost quoted Lanier explaining while the Bridge is active, the token is in a place that is essentially world readable and the file being in a place that is world readable is the issue that causes the problem with the Bridge sessions.
"The BlackBerry PlayBook issue described at the Infiltrate security conference has been resolved with BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, which is scheduled to be available as a free download to customers in February 2012," RIM said in a statement published on ThreatPost. "There are no known exploits, and risk is mitigated by the fact that a user would need to install and run a malicious application after initiating a BlackBerry Bridge connection with their BlackBerry smartphone."
This isn t the first security flaw RIM has dealt with concerning the tablet, as it faces struggling sales in the light of competition from an increasingly crowded tablet market. In December, the company patched a flaw that allowed users to jailbreak the PlayBook, but hackers soon found another security hole to exploit. On Dec. 5, a team of hackers, led by "Neuralic," released Dingelberry, a jailbreak tool, to make it easier for users to jailbreak their own PlayBook tablets in order to gain root access on the device.
RIM released an over-the-air update Dec. 6 to fix the flaw, but within hours of the patch, there was an updated version of Dingleberry available, exploiting a completely different flaw. RIM said the jailbreak exploited a security flaw in PlayBook's operating system, based on software from QNX, and that the company's BlackBerry smartphones were not vulnerable.
RIM unveiled the long-awaited software update for the PlayBook at this week s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Dubbed PlayBook OS 2.0, the software update includes features demanded by users when the 7-inch tablet made its initial debut in April 2011. In addition to integrated messaging and calendar apps, the PlayBook will also offer a Video Store with new releases for rent or purchase. There is a palette of tools for rich-text email composing and editing, as well as updated document-editing capabilities. A new reading view for the Web browser will offer a streamlined way to read online news articles or Web sites with large amounts of text. RIM said it plans on making the update available for download in February.
To read the original eWeek article, click here: Blackberry PlayBook Tablet Security Flaw Discovered