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I got several emails and private messages in my Facebook and Twitter about how will the Penguin 2.1 and the recent Hummingbird Algorithm from Google will affect the SEO and Inbound Marketing industry. I compiled some best content and categorized them for easy resource for everyone who wants to know more about the recent updates. These articles I believe best represent on the said issue.
Google has just released the second, more updated version of its Penguin spam fighting algorithm. Technically it's the fifth reiteration of it when you consider all the rollouts both major and minor but since it is based on the Penguin 2 (which is the fourth release) this latest version is dubbed the 2.1.
If that's a bit confusing don't be. Also don't be confused by thinking that Penguin 2.1 will take over for Hummingbird. While hummingbird is for the entire search engine ranking system, Penguin is the spam filter for it. This means that because it is a filter it gets changed periodically in order to get more spam out of your search engine results – hence the many reiterations of it.
What came before: Penguin 2.0 – Penguin 2.1 is a tighter update of its predecessor, Penguin 2.0. Knowing about the past is important so you can understand the underpinnings of the current spam filter from Google.
- Google's Penguin 2.0 Algorithm: The Definitive Guide – A guide for a better understanding of Penguin 2.0
- Dissecting Google Penguin 2.0: Why Sites Won or Lost Traffic [Study] – A case study as to the effects of Penguin 2.0
- Google Penguin 2.0: Now What for SEO? – Talks about Penguin 2.0 and its focus.
- Penguin 2.0: Your Roadmap to Recovery – What you can do to recover from Penguin 2.0
- Another Step Towards Higher Quality Sites – From the official Google blog talking about what Penguin 2.0 is going to do for website owners.
Related Article: Google Algorithm Hisotry and Updates
Understanding Penguin 2.1 – Understanding what the Penguin is all about is a big step in understanding what you can do about it. This can help you chart a better course so your site doesn't get affected as much.
- Penguin 5, With The Penguin 2.1 Spam-Filtering Algorithm, Is Now Live – Talks about how Penguin 2.1 is now live and what it's all about.
- Latest Google Penguin Update Is Now Live – Impacts 1% of Searches – Based on Google engineer Matt Cutts' announcement of the Penguin 2.1 launch.
- SEO alert: Penguin 2.1 live – A simple article on Penguin 2.1 and what you can do about it.
- The Google Penguin 2.1 Algorithm Update Is Here, And It's Scarier Than Ever! – Talks about what Penguin 2.1 is all about and what it can do.
- Penguin 2.1 Analysis and Findings (Based on the October 4, 2013 Update) – A simple analysis of Penguin 2.1
- Penguin 2.1 – New Anti-Spam Update 4 October 2013 – A short one on the 2.1 release.
- Google Penguin Update 2.1 Is Bigger Than Your Average Penguin Refresh – On the impact that Penguin 2.1 will have on websites.
- 3% Of Websites Affected By Update Google Penguin 2.1 Penguin 5 – Wait and watch for the effect before doing anything is their suggestion.
- The Ultimate Guide to Beating Penguin 2.1 – A guide to Penguin 2.1
Watch the videos for a better understanding of Google's Penguin 2.1
- What is Google Penguin 2.1? – A YouTube video by HubShout discussing the Penguin 2.1.
- Negative SEO Google Penguin 2.1 – The Negative SEO Guy talks about Penguin 2.1 and why it's another tool for negative SEO.
Hot topic in the forums – Because of what it means for a lot of sites the release of version 2.1 has been a very hot topic in the SEO forums as of late. No surprise as many are still figuring out how this new reiteration will affect them and their Google search engine rankings.
- Twitter: @MattCutts – A twitter discussion of those following Google engineer Matt Cutts.
- Webmaster World – Google SEO News And Discussion Forum – Discusses the tweet of Matt Cutts concerning the 2.1 release.
- Google Product Forums > Webmaster Central > Penguin 2.1 is the best and greatest Google algorithm update to date! Thank you Google! – Reactions to the 2.1 release so far.
What Now – With Penguin 2.1 Google has once again changed the face of search engines. For those webmasters out there, there are things that you can do in order to survive this new Penguin.
- 5 Things You Can Do Today About Penguin 2.1 – Talks about some response options you can make in order to give your site a fighting chance.
- The Ultimate Guide to Beating Penguin 2.1 – A guide to Penguin 2.1 and what you can do to beat it.
- How We Deal With Penguin 2.1 – A short one on how you can counter the effects of Penguin 2.1
There's also Hummingbird – Google Penguin 2.1 wasn't the only new update made by Google. It also updated its search engine algorithm that allows for more semantic and contextual searches. It's called Hummingbird and the name as chosen as a way of saying the search results will be quick and swift.
- The Google Hummingbird Algorithm: The Beginning of Contextual Search Results – Talks about the new algorithm and how it affects websites.
- FAQ: All About The New Google "Hummingbird" Algorithm – An FAQ on what Hummingbird is all about and what it can do.
- Google Update September 27, 2013 Cleaner Results – For better and cleaner search results.
- What Google's Hummingbird Update Means for Small Business – Discusses Hummingbird and what it means for businesses.
- Google Hummingbird: The New Google Algorithm and What You Need To Know – Things you need to know about the new search algorithm.
- Google Hummingbird, and what it means for Online Marketers & SEO – How Hummingbird affects SEO and searches.
Hummingbird and Content Marketing – Perhaps the biggest marketing strategy that will be effected is content marketing.
- 3 Ways Content Will Be Affected by Google's Latest Hummingbird Update – How Hummingbird will affect your content marketing strategy.
- Google Hummingbird and Your Content Marketing Strategy – What you should do with your content marketing strategy.
- Google Hummingbird: A Mobile Content Marketing Strategy Just Became Essential – Hummingbird embraces the questions of people on the go. What you need to know about your mobile content marketing strategy.
- How Google Hummingbird Affects Your Content Marketing Strategy – The new strategies you need to know for the new Hummingbird algorithm.
- Google Hummingbird, search rankings and on-site content strategy – How Hummingbird affects your online content strategy.
- 5 Ways To Optimise For Google Hummingbird – Starting Now – How you can optimize your site for this new search algorithm.
Watch the videos for a better understanding of Google's Hummingbird
- Google Hummingbird Explained and its Impact on SEO – HubShout talks about Hummingbird and how it affects SEO.
- Semantic Search and Google Hummingbird – The Digital Marketing Excellence Show talks about Google Hummingbird and the new semantic search ability. A discussion by experts.
- Life after the Hummingbird algorithm, or copy writing for social media – Yifat Cohen of GPlusGoToGal.com leads a panel discussion on Hummingbird and what it means for copywriting.
Since both Hummingbird and most especially Penguin 2.1 are relatively new, the online world is still picking up the pieces to see just how good or bad the effects will be. Drops in traffic have been reported in some places but until everyone has really taken the time to check the effects it will take a while before real progress reports are made.
How is your site doing now that Hummingbird and Penguin 2.1 is alive and kicking? Was the effect negative or positive for you?
Share your thoughts in the comment section below and let us know what's going on.


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subset: commoncrawl


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if the quotient obtained in dividing x^2 - 7x + b by x + a is x - 2, and the remainder is 5, then what are the values of a and b?
anybody can help on this?
Follow Math Help Forum on Facebook and Google+
We have . Expanding the LHS and comparing the coefficients on both sides we have
We are told:
Now, equate coefficients to get two equations, from which you may determine a and b.
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How to say succeed in Spanish səkˈsid
Would you like to know how to translate succeed to Spanish? This page provides all possible translations of the word succeed in the Spanish language.
- suceder, heredar, conseguirSpanish
Discuss this succeed Spanish translation with the community:
Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography:
"succeed." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2018. Web. 24 Feb. 2018. </translate/succeed/ES>.


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WHEN CURRYING FAVOR IS DISDAINED…May 25th, 2014
In the final chapter of 40 pages he lets fly at the media elites and their craven subservience to the political-financial ruling class. The reaction to the Snowden revelations exposed this rift very clearly with those who were the lackeys of that class condemning both Snowden and Greenwald in personal terms. With Snowden, they sneered that such a young man, a high school dropout from a lower middle class background, would have the nerve to think that he had the right to tell everyone what the government was doing in secret instead of trusting his 'betters'. And to compound his crime, he ignored the 'respectable' press and its courtier journalists but chose as his conduit someone they did not even consider to be worthy of being called a journalist.
Fortunately for us and unfortunately for them, Snowden and Greenwald and Poitras were the ideal team because they were not interested in currying favor with the elites. And in this they were greatly aided by the Guardian editors and reporters who, despite occasional wobbles and missteps, came through at crucial times. The editors' unilateral decision to give some of the Snowden documents to the New York Times, which was desperate to be part of the story, was one rift and angered the trio and Snowden especially since he despised the Times for its past history of colluding with the government and he especially wanted to exclude them from receiving anything.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know about the whirlwind unleashed by Edward Snowden. I can strongly recommend it.
–From Mano Singham's review of Glenn Greenwald's No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, The NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by way of My Electronic Chapbook…


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Eastern Kentucky Colonels vs Towson Tigers Point Spread: Betting Preview Hints At Winner
Towson Tigers vs Eastern Kentucky Colonels Odds
Bettors will hope to hit paydirt on Saturday when the Eastern Kentucky Colonels try to run the Towson Tigers off the court at Paul S. McBrayer Arena in college hoops action.
The Colonels sport records of 2-0 and 0-0 ATS heading into this battle, while the Tigers have 1-1 and 0-1 ATS marks on the season. The OVER/UNDER records are 0-0 for the Colonels and 0-0 for the Tigers.
View Towson vs Eastern Kentucky Odds and Stats.
Betting Line:
Bettors looking to side with Eastern Kentucky in this one found them as 4.5-point favorites earlier in the day. Watch for line moves and updates at Bovada before gametime.
Power Rankings / Prediction:
This game puts the Colonels, most recently No. 244 in the Odds Shark power rankings, up against the Tigers, who rate No. 299 in the latest survey. Meanwhile, math and computer-based handicapping simulations run on this game predict a potential 96-68 victory for the Colonels.
How They Match Up:
The game also pits Eastern Kentucky's No. 24-ranked offense, averaging 87 PPG, against a Tigers defense that ranks No. 246 at 71 PPG. The Colonels field goal percentage has averaged 53% so far, more than the Tigers marksmen have achieved on the year, 41.9% per game.
Defensively, Towson features the nation's No. 209-rated defense on the road, allowing 71 points per game. Eastern Kentucky, meanwhile, comes in at No. 54 nationally in scoring at home.
Towson was a 75-67 winner in their most recent outing on the road against Radford. Marcus Damas scored 21 points leading the Tigers to a 75-67 victory over Radford at Paul S. McBrayer Arena on Friday.
Eastern Kentucky was an 85-71 winner in their most recent outing at home against Kennesaw State. Eastern Kentucky earned an 85-71 victory over Kennesaw State on Friday, getting 21 points from Glenn Cosey at Paul S. McBrayer Arena.
Towson Tigers Trends:
When playing on Saturday are 1-4
After a win are 2-8
Eastern Kentucky Colonels Trends:
When playing on Saturday are 5-5
After a win are 3-7
A few Tigers at Colonels trends to consider:
Towson is 1-24 SU in its last 25 games on the road
Eastern Kentucky is 4-1 SU in its last 5 games at home
Eastern Kentucky is 4-2 SU in its last 6 games
Next up:
Towson home to Kennesaw State, Sunday, November 18
Eastern Kentucky home to Radford, Sunday, November 18


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Emtec Movie Cube S800 DVR
TiVo meets AppleTV?
Recording schedules went off without a hitch, but the S800's recording schedule is based strictly on time so if a show overruns, the recording will simply cut off. Some DVRs have the ability to detect when a programme is running over time and adjust the recording duration accordingly. Others will at least let apply an automatic early start and late finish to buffer you against overruns or premature starts.
Cute design
Emtec has also included a timeshift function which buffers the live TV stream, allowing you to pause, rewind and fast forward the feed. In practice, we found although the timeshifting worked, it slowed down the machine so much as to make it barely usable.
The story's better when it comes to playing back other media, as there's good support for the majority of common codecs, including MP3, WMA and Ogg for audio and MPEG 2, MPEG 4, AVI, VOB, DAT, MP4 and XVid for video. Furthermore, the S800 saves recordings in MPEG 2 format, allowing you to copy these onto a notebook or other media player to watch while you're out and about.
What it comes down to is that the entire recording structure harks back to the days when VCRs were just starting to get smarter. DVB-T provides a plethora of information in its transmission streams that can make life so much easier for everyone, if only Emtec's programmers would make use of it.
The one positive side to this is that none of these are problems are hardware related, meaning that they could overcome in future firmware updates. We're hoping that Emtec will continue to work on the S800's interface and EPG, but as it stands we simply can't recommend using the machine to watch live TV, though playing back recorded shows and other content is very easy.
We loved the notion of the S800 as a DVR with so much extra functionality thrown in, but the clunky EPG, the unfriendly recording systems and the poor timeshifting performance means that it's very hard to recommend the unit as a digital video recorder. If your prime interest is the media streaming and storage side, and the DVR functionality is secondary, it's not a bad box. If Emtec improves the firmware, then we'd give the DVR side the thumbs-up. Until it does, though, we can't rate it highly. ®
More Set-top Reviews...
Humax Foxsat-HDR
Epson EH-DM2
TVonics DTR-Z500
Western Digital WD TV
Sponsored: Minds Mastering Machines - Call for papers now open


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GRANBY, Colo.—The Colorado Avalanche Information Center says one person died after an avalanche on Parkview Mountain north of Granby.
According to KUSA-TV, ( http://goo.gl/jpWFdI) the avalanche was reported to Jackson County sheriff's dispatch at 1:19 p.m. Tuesday. The victim's name has not been released.
The avalanche center says three people were in the area when the slide happened.
Information from: KUSA-TV, http://www.9news.com


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Monday August 20th was opening night for the Breaking Bad Art Project show at Gallery 1988 Melrose. The pop culture gallery was packed with Breaking Bad fans along with line that stretched around the block to get in. Upon entering you instantly felt like you were in a familiar place; the super lab. Complete with barrels of methylmine, a lab setup, safety suits, and even a somewhat eerie setup of Gale's ultimate coffee contraption. The walls were covered with iconic imagery that demonstrated an excellent balance of concept & technique on various mediums.
To see all artwork created for the exhibition & purchase prints check out the Gallery 1988 and Breaking Gifs websites. You can also follow Gallery 1988 on twitter and like them on facebook.


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For all of us at KC Cafe Radio, the 27th Annual Folk Alliance International conference proved to be our most rewarding experience yet. It was an honor to host such an outstanding group of fine musicians from across the United States and around the world on our Showcase stage and on our air.
We wish to thank all of those musicians who shared their musical talent, making our nearly 20 hours of live coverage possible and entertaining. Thanks also to others who were not scheduled to perform on our stage yet dropped by just to say "hello" and lend their support.
Thanks to Sally Smith, proprietor of Whistlestop Antiques in Belton, Missouri, and a KC Cafe Radio board member, who assisted behind the scenes with our production efforts.
Thanks to Folk Alliance International, who placed us inside such a beautiful performance venue at the Westin Crown Center Hotel. It was a treat to look out our windows and gaze over Union Station, the downtown Kansas City skyline, and the Crossroads Arts District, while we enjoyed the live music.
And most importantly, thank you, dear listener, for supporting this excellent demonstration of Bringing You The World's Finest Original Music with your listenership of our live coverage. If you missed any of it, you will find the archived recordings elsewhere on this site, just search for "FAI2015."
Here are the interviews we recorded between performances at our Showcase stage:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download


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Daytona International Speedway, home to NASCAR's biggest, richest and most prestigious race the DAYTONA 500, will host its NASCAR Day celebration on Friday, May 16.
The event will help spread awareness of The NASCAR Foundation and its mission to ensure children can focus on learning by addressing their medical needs. All proceeds from the celebration at the "World Center of Racing" will stay in the local community and benefit The NASCAR Foundation's Speediatrics unit at Halifax Health in Daytona Beach.
Between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Daytona International Speedway will celebrate NASCAR Day in front of the Ticket and Tours Office with lunch specials, raffle prizes and music. In addition, OneBlood will host a blood drive on-site from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Lunch combos will be available for $3 and raffle tickets are $1 with prizes available such as:
The NASCAR Foundation pins and wristbands will be available for a donation.
Fans can follow NASCAR and The NASCAR Foundation on Twitter (@NASCAR and @NASCAR_FDN) and stay up to speed on the latest news by using hashtags #NASCAR, #forthekids and #speediatrics. Fans can also stay connected with Daytona International Speedway on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest for the latest news all season long. Fans can also follow the latest on DAYTONA Rising, the $400 million frontstretch renovation at the "World Center of Racing" by using #DAYTONARising on Twitter or visiting www.daytonarising.com.
The stars of NASCAR return to Daytona International Speedway on July 3-5. Tickets to the Coke Zero 400 Powered By Coca-Cola NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race and the Subway Firecracker 250 Powered By Coca-Cola NASCAR Nationwide Series race are available by calling 1-800-PITSHOP or online at www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com.


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Eli Lilly and Company (JOBS) to Acquire European Rights to Pfizer Animal Health (JOBS) Assets
Published: Mar 08, 2010
The products have been marketed by Pfizer and Wyeth's Fort Dodge operations. Elanco also will acquire a manufacturing facility in Sligo, Ireland, currently used in the production of animal vaccines. As part of the agreement, all Sligo employees will be offered positions with Elanco.
"The addition of this attractive portfolio of products and a world-class manufacturing facility is a natural fit for Elanco and positions us well for sustained growth," said Jeff Simmons, president, Elanco. "Through this acquisition, we will expand and diversify our European presence with new market-leading products, augment our growing portfolio of companion animal medicines, and acquire new biologic and vaccine capabilities. We are excited about these new opportunities to improve animal health and protein production, and deliver greater value to our customers."
The European Commission requested that Pfizer divest these products as a result of Pfizer's acquisition last year of Wyeth, including Wyeth's Fort Dodge Animal Health business.
Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly will acquire European rights to a portfolio of marketed products, as well as a biological manufacturing facility in Sligo, Ireland. In return, Pfizer will receive an undisclosed upfront payment. In order to ensure an uninterrupted supply of product to customers, both companies also have signed corresponding manufacturing supply agreements. Closing of the transaction is contingent upon clearance from European regulatory authorities and other customary closing conditions. No other terms of the transaction were disclosed.
About Elanco
Elanco is a global, innovation-driven company that develops and markets products to improve animal health and protein production in more than 75 countries. Elanco employs more than 2,300 people worldwide, with offices in more than 40 countries, and is a division of Eli Lilly and Company, a leading global pharmaceutical corporation. Additional information about Elanco is available at www.elanco.com.
About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers – through medicines and information – for some of the world's most urgent medical needs. C-LLY


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When the bill to authorize the Metro Development and Housing Agency to begin purchasing land for the proposed new convention center came up on the consent agenda at Metro Council's Tuesday meeting, only one Council member was willing to debate the bill on first reading.
That member was District 22 Councilman Eric Crafton, who said he intends to raise his concerns about the Mayor Karl Dean administration's step-by-step approach to building the estimated $635 million Music City Center at every opportunity.
Like all bills on first reading, the convention center bill was expected to pass on the consent agenda, but Crafton pulled it and delivered a four-minute speech criticizing the project.
"Probably people never want to debate this, they'd rather just sweep it through," Crafton said. "But I'm going to bring up the truth every opportunity I get."
Last year, Council unanimously approved the pre-development planning phase for Music City Center. Now Dean's administration wants to begin land acquisition so the process can move forward.
But Crafton — and a few other members — believe that Council should wait until a comprehensive financing package is presented before approving land acquisition. Crafton equated the step-by-step approach to approving Music City Center to Metro Council being caged like a buzzard, which can't escape.
"Council is getting boxed in to the point where we spend $5 million or $6 million to do a study and we spend $75 million to buy the property and before long we look like fools if we don't approve the project," Crafton said.
Crafton went on to suggest Metro taxpayers would ultimately be on the hook for Music City Center no matter what financing package is presented.
District 10 Councilman Rip Ryman immediately called for the previous question after Crafton's speech, thus cutting off further debate, and the bill unanimously passed on first reading.
State of Metro to proceed
Despite Dean's administration missing the filing deadline to pave the way for the State of Metro speech, the event will go on as planned. Council suspended its rules and passed a resolution approving the delivery of State of Metro.
An objection from a single member would have postponed Dean's speech.
The administration missed the filing deadline, but the resolution was passed unanimously without objection. The speech will take place at 10 a.m. Thursday in the upper level of the bus routing station Music City Central.
May Town studies approved
Council unanimously approved a resolution accepting a $125,000 grant from the developer seeking to build the $4 billion May Town Center development in rural Bells Bend.
The grant will be used to pay independent consultants who will conduct two separate studies, which were requested by the Planning Commission when the zoning proposal was deferred last year. One study will be conducted regarding the economic impact of the proposed May Town Center development on Nashville's economy. The other study will address the impact of traffic on west Davidson County.
The resolution's sponsor, District 1 Councilman Lonnell Matthews Jr., whose district includes Bells Bend, called the studies necessary for the Planning Commission and Council to make their decisions regarding whether to approve May Town Center, or not.
The proposal will be in front of Metro Planning in the near future, the developers have said.
Bill to punish habitual parking offenders advances
A bill to allow Metro Police to boot illegally parked vehicles owned by habitual parking offenders passed second reading.
The bill would allow police and parking enforcement officers to place boots on cars owned by individuals with multiple outstanding parking tickets.
The bill's sponsor, District 13 Councilman Carl Burch, said Metro is missing out on about $1 million in unpaid parking tickets.


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Themes and Characters
(Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults)
Although there are two characters involved in the story—an old man and the younger man who lives with him—it is really about a single character. An examination of the nature of the narrator's obsession shows how Poe sets up this story about a split psyche. The narrator insists that he loves the old man, has no personal animosity toward him, does not want his money, and has not been injured by him. Instead, he says he wishes to kill the old man because of his eye! Although there is no way to understand this obsession, the reader must determine the method and meaning of the madness. For Poe, there is no such thing as meaningless madness in fiction.
It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.
To understand what the old man's eye means to the narrator, it is necessary to examine the relevance of other themes and ideas. Besides the theme of the "eye," there are two primary motifs: the idea of time, and the identification of the narrator with the old man. The narrator says at various points in the story that he knows what the old man is feeling as he lies alone in bed, for he himself has felt the same things. He says the moan the old man makes does not come from pain or grief, but from mortal terror that arises from the bottom of the soul overcharged with awe. "Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening with its dreadful echo, the terror...
(The entire section is 498 words.)


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By Shaun Anzaldua
Ahh, the Pageant. My family's greatest Christmas tradition was the product of my mother's desperate struggle against in-laws for the rights to Christmas Eve. When the Pageant was born, twenty-five years ago, my brother Larkin and I were my mother's only adult children who lived close enough for her to realistically expect to see us every Christmas. We both married into families with strong cultural and religious customs surrounding the holidays. Our new families always gathered Christmas Eve for tamales, empanadas, presents, and church. Both of our in-laws are Catholic, the divas of ritual and tradition. On Christmas Eve they attended midnight mass, complete with incense and holy water. Our own Christmas Eve traditions had been less predictable. We were raised Quakers, so we had no midnight mass of our own. Some years we crashed the service at one of the local churches; some years we didn't. Most years my mother would try to coax us into singing Christmas carols, but once we became teenagers, Christmas Eve involved spiked eggnog and going out more than family togetherness. Not that my mother ever gave up trying. All in all, our family customs most certainly lacked the strength and conviction of our spouses'.
For the first several years of our marriages, Larkin and I tried to squeeze my mother into our holiday plans, but we rarely made it to her house on Christmas Eve to sing carols or drink hot cider. She was struggling against the bond between our spouses and their families, their mothers in particular. It was like pitting Elmer's School Glue against Gorilla Glue, an unfair contest by any measure. However, my mother is the little bulldozer that could. She is, as she will often say, a problem solver. She wanted to ensure that we would feel the same inexorable pull to her at the holidays that our spouses felt towards their mothers. She understood that what she needed was a compelling event that could carry the weight of Mary in a manger, holding dear baby Jesus, five pounds, six ounces, wrapped in a swaddling cloth.
And so, the Pageant. It was the story of the Nativity, to be performed on the evening before Christmas Eve. It started off small. Just the family, a few bathrobes and ties around our heads for the shepherds, a nightgown and shawl for Mary, and a plastic gold crown for King Hared. And scripts. My mother had written scripts for each of us. But overall the production was quick, simple, no room at the inn, star rises in the east, Mary has a baby, sing a few carols, and it's done.
The second year, my mother wanted to add depth and earnestness to the evening.
"Wouldn't it be great if each of us brought a gift for Jesus?" she said enthusiastically. "Just like the wise men!
"I could tell a story! Larkin could play a song on his guitar!" she continued with truly disturbing glee. She was blind to the looks of horror on all of our faces.
My sister-in-law once removed (I believe that's the technical term for the sister of a sister-in-law) was sixteen and a cheerleader at the time.
"Jen, how about you bring a cheer for baby Jesus?" my mother asked.
At sixteen, Jen did not yet have the wisdom or perspective see the golden opportunity in front of her. My beloved Never-Here-at-Christmas-Because-He-Lives-in Los-Angeles brother Josh, when told this story many years later, immediately rose to the occasion that Jen had passed over.
"Give me an 'N'! Give me an 'A'! Give me an 'I'! Give me an 'L'! Give me an 'S'! What's that spell? NAILS!!'" Josh cheered as he flung himself against the wall in the shape of a crucifix. Josh is decidedly not Christian. My Catholic middle school–aged daughters nearly wet their pants at this, and instantly decided Uncle Josh was the coolest person they'd ever known. The nuns at their school were less taken with the cheer when the girls performed it for their friends at school after the holiday break.
But Jen was just a teenager at the time and could only roll her eyes and say, "Ah, yeah. Great. I'll get right on that Mrs. Stallings."
I wish I could say that we entered into this yearly production willingly, lovingly, and with true holiday spirit. The truth is there was much rolling of eyes from all of us and whispers of how bossy my mother can be. But despite our resistance, she never gave up and, in fact, her zeal and resolve seemed to grow with every passing year. So while there were no cheers for baby Jesus, we did put on the robes and the ties around our heads and said our lines with as much sincerity as we could muster. We siblings do like to amuse ourselves however, so we lightened our load by adding in lines like "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way to Bethlehem," and "We three kings of orient are, smoking on a loaded cigar." My mother was too immersed in her role as director and producer to notice.
Over time the production became more and more elaborate. We invited friends, especially ones we could sucker into playing parts. We added real costumes with tunics and headpieces, feathered angel wings, sound effects (God on a boom box), and even a balloon star that did indeed rise … from behind the piano.
One year, ashamed of my bad attitude and failure to see the beauty in this humble play, I promised myself that my gift to my mother would be to surrender to the season and enter into the event with true love and kindness. I was doing well until we had to take a trip to the costume shop to buy new shepherd's staffs and donkey masks and, for goodness sake, a new crown for Hared. The first store didn't have good shepherd's crooks and frankly their crowns looked cheap. We needed to go to the costume store on the other side of town. It was the height of the Christmas shopping season and traffic was snarled. Every station on the radio was playing stale Christmas carols sung by barking dogs. I desperately wanted to abandon the quest, but my mother was high on Pageant crack, and nothing was going to stop her.
I tried. I really tried. But I reached my limit, forgot my promised gift and screamed like a nasty teenager. "It's a fucking pageant! A pageant we do in the fucking entry way of my house!" So much for true love and kindness.
My mother ignored my bad mood and on to the costume store we went.
As our children grew, much of the Pageant burden shifted to them. They advanced from sheep and donkeys to speaking parts. Heaven help the granddaughter foolish enough to bring home a boyfriend to play in our reindeer games because she was sure to be cast as Mary and her bewildered boyfriend as Joseph. Nothing cements a fragile adolescent romance like having to play an unwed pregnant teenager and her new baby daddy in front of an audience.
When the children were little, they looked forward to the Pageant and entered into it with joy. They were serious and studied their parts and had to be sure their costumes were just right. Then the grandchildren invariably hit an age where the only way to get them to participate was to say through clenched teeth, "Do you want to break Grandma Jane's heart? Do you? Do you want to be the one to ruin Christmas?" Later they go would off to college and begin to miss the symbols of childhood, and return, ready to mock and make snarky remarks with the rest of us. The year my mother turned eighty, we took the Pageant on the road and performed it in a little community center in the rural California town where my mother had moved. We graduated beyond the entryway of my house to a theater with a real stage. Her birthday guests never knew what hit them.
The Pageant successfully fulfilled my mother's purpose. For over two decades, she had a night all her own: a night that transcended Christmas Eve. She took it on like a Broadway pro. Each year she lovingly brought out and ironed the costumes, fluffed up the angel wings, and replaced the crooks that had been turned into swords or chewed by the dogs. She reviewed the scripts and assigned the parts and looked forward to an evening surrounded by family.
My mother is eighty-three this year, and travelling from California to Texas has become harder for her. For the last two years, she has lived in a retirement community where she has made a lovely circle of friends. This year, she told us she would not be coming at Christmas, and could we please send the costumes and scripts out to her. She has a whole new cast to direct, a group that will likely do much less eye rolling and complaining under their breath. I like to think of her and her elderly friends dressed as angels and shepherds and sheep. I wish I could be there to hear the lucky woman who gets to speak Mary's line about never having been with a man. In spite of my pettiness, the Pageant has come to mean Christmas to me. It has been a constant in my children's lives. Some years annoying, other years joyful, but always there. A thread that bound my family to my mother, year after year. I thought it was forever, just as I would like to believe my mother is forever.
Maybe this year I'll try to guilt my teenagers into wearing bathrobes and scarves. I am not the powerhouse that my mother is, but it's worth a try. I think I won't ask them to make up any cheers. At least not this year.
SHAUN ANZALDUA has a graduate degree from the University of California at Davis. She is a writer and real estate agent. Shaun currently lives in Houston with her three teenage children. She is a contributor to Brain, Child and is currently working on a collection of essays.


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Midomi beta (FAQ) is a music search engine with a difference - a singing search engine, if you like. It lets you search online for songs and other music in any of 6 languages, free. Just sing, hum, whistle, play etc the tune into your computer microphone or headset (or, in future, pick it out on an on-screen piano keyboard). And it actually works! What's more, it's a classic Web 2.0 service with user generated content and social networking for singers and music fans. Their searchable database of music (which their music recognition search engine uses for matching voice search queries) is 100% user-generated - it's been built up entirely by their registered members recording and submitting the music of their choice. And registered users can rate and comment on other members' renditions, share recordings they like, add recordings to their playlists etc, too. It also serves as a digital music store, if you want to buy the music that you've found through your search.
So to put a name to that tune that's been stuck in your head buzzing round and round, to figure out the unknown song or earworm bugging you which you can't get out of your mind, why not try midomi. Even if you can't remember the whole song, you can simply feed it the few notes you can remember. It's able to identify a song from a fragment of the melody, from just a few bars or lines - although the longer the sequence that you can give it, the more accurate its recognition is likely to be.
You can click to play items in the search results list to make sure you find the right song, and it'll play just the part which their software thinks matches what you sung rather than the whole song. You can hear sample extracts of original commercial recordings of the music discovered through your search - and even buy and download digital tracks legally for US $0.99 via a program you have to download from the site. They've licensed 2.5 million songs for sale.
I mentioned Sandra Uitdenbogerd's music information retrieval research in my post about Yahoo! Audio Search results now including audio samples as did others. A commercial version of that system is still a few years away; but midomi is already here, and (mostly) working, taking a much simpler yet very workable approach: why try to analyse the "signatures" of polyphonic audio with multiple lines, multiple instruments or sound sources and possibly complex harmonies, when you can make use of monophonic renditions of single melodies?
Midomi seem to be on an upward growth curve too. Their CEO Keyvan Mohajer gave A Consuming Experience the following statistics:
- Total number of recordings as of Aug 2007: well over 100,000 (when they launched they started with 12,000 songs)
- Number of new songs added per day: between 1000 and 3000
- Unique visitors in August 2007: close to 2 million per month
- Expected unique visitors in September 2007: over 3 million per month.
Remember Jakob Nielsen's 90-9-1 rule that generally 1% of users account for most of the contributions in social networks and online communities? If that holds true here, the figures on numbers of recordings (which would be by the most active users i.e. the 1%) suggests pretty impressive overall user numbers.
It would also be interesting to know how many users in each language have signed up, and whether users from cultures that are more involved in singing outnumber the English language users, e.g. are there more Japanese language users given the popularity of karaoke?
I don't know how I missed midomi before, as it was launched back in January 2007. In a way, though, it was just as well I did, as its database gets better with more additions of user generated content over time. I might not have been very happy with it if I'd looked at it when it first launched, because the data set was too small then for the degree of accuracy I'd like, and initial reports weren't that good. I think it's now reached the "enough samples to work properly" stage, though.
So, catching up, this post contains a description, howto and review, and some commentary on the interesting ways in which I think midomi exemplifies Web 2.0.
How does midomi work?With midomi, I think audio music search is coming into its own - it really does seem to be "next generation" voice search, or as they put it in their January 2007 press release, the "first search engine that can match human voice to human voice".
Midomi makes use of proprietary patent-pending MARS (Multimodal Adaptive Recognition System) technology, "the only way to match human voice to human voice by matching multiple features and without any manual intermediate indexing", invented by California-based Melodis Corporation - the company behind midomi.
Melodis was formed by a team of Stanford University graduates, the CEO being Keyvan Mohajer who I have already mentioned. He is himself a music lover and musician as well as electrical engineer - in fact he started playing the piano when he was 7. He says he is fairly good at music, especially music theory, and he enjoys all sorts of music, including classical, traditional of various countries, and pop /rock music.
He confirmed that in matching human voice to human voice to perform the search, their search engine (or "sing engine" as I've seen it called) matches many features: pitch variation, rhythm information, location of pauses, phonetic content and speech content, etc. In addition, for every query they adapt to the parameters that seem more important. For example, if you only hum a song, it ignores speech content. But if you sing it with the lyrics, it uses that information to make the search more accurate. He said the search is independent of key, tempo, language and singing quality. Yes, you saw that right, singing quality. Even if you're a bit out of tune, it will still work. If you're completely tone deaf though that's a different matter...
He also confirmed my speculation about how their technology and database work:
"The more people contribute the same song, the more accurate the recognition result of that song will be. If a song has been contributed multiple times, then we have more information about that song and the search becomes more accurate. As you know different people sing the same song differently, and this is the most effective method for creating our index. The good news is that the more popular songs get contributed more often to our database and this makes our engine even more accurate. Basically we use every piece of information we can get to make the search more accurate."
The browser user interface into midomi employs Adobe Flash Player (download Flash Player) for both the audio searching and recordings by users (on which more below).
The next part of this post is a practical how-to, and I'll end with some general thoughts on midomi.
How to set up midomiMidomi is (mostly) very easy to use. All you need is:
- a working microphone connected to your computer, e.g. built into a webcam, or even a headset or phone handset that you use for internet telephony
- soundcard and speakers.
The initial steps are:
- Go to the midomi website.
- Make sure your mic or headset etc (e.g. a Skype headset works fine) is connected to your computer, and working.
- Click "Test microphone", "Allow" camera and microphone access, choose your mike from the dropdown (e.g. headset or soundcard), click "Record 5 second sample" and make some noise (no need to sing if you don't want to!).
- After the 5 seconds it's supposed to play back your noise so that you can hear it's working.
- When it works for sure, click Save Settings.
Problem no. 1 - playback of sound test sometimes isn't audibleWhen I tried to test my headset mic, at first I couldn't hear my recorded sounds. It could be an issue with my browser, my XP PC, or Flash, or midomi, who knows, but I got nothing. The status during your test is supposed to show in turn as Recording, Uploading, Buffering, Playing, Stopped. The activity level % was going up and down with the volume, so the microphone was definitely registering something. But for me it skipped the Playing stage - it didn't play back my sound recording at all.
Tried both Internet Explorer and Firefox, nothing. Finally, I tried selecting my soundcard Creative SB Live! Series from the dropdown, gave it the 5 secs (nothing happened of course, no recording, no sound playback, because I don't have a mic connected direct to the soundcard). Then I switched back to headset and tried again, and this time it worked. Go figure. A troubleshooting tip: if you have difficulties too, you could try the same steps. You'll know it's finally working when you hear your recorded sound played back to you and it shows "Playing".
After I shut down Internet Explorer, however, it stopped working yet again (in all browsers, inexplicably. I had both IE and Firefox open). The same trick above didn't work. However, I kept reloading the "Test your microphone" page, and finally it worked. So that's another tip to try.
Is there a solution?I put the problems I had (there were a couple of others, see below), to Keyvan. He said all but one of the problems I'd encountered were very random and not a well known problem with a known solution, but as they were constantly improving the service he felt that many of these problems would go away.
My suggestion: just keep trying, maybe with different browsers. I agree they are random, inexplicably, but at least if it doesn't work one time it'll usually work the next.
Flash Player and mic access & how to adjust your settingsBeing asked to allow midomi mic access is a Flash Player, not midomi, feature. Flash Player has security and privacy protections so that when Flash content tries to use any camera or microphone attached to your computer, e.g. to record from your Webcam or headset etc, you'll get a prompt asking you if you want to allow or refuse the request to access your camera or mike.
If you think it's too much of a pain to have to click to give midomi access every time you search or record, you can choose to always permit access by a particular website by checking "Remember" or "Don't want to see this box again" etc:
If you later change your mind, in your browser just visit the Flash settings manager page and via your website privacy settings panel you can delete a site etc. I had trouble accessing those settings with Firefox, but then there seem to be issues with Firefox and Flash on occasion. You can always adjust it in Internet Explorer or Opera, which is what I did in the end.
How to search by singing via midomiIf you're shy, don't worry - Keyvan has confirmed that midomi won't automatically save your singing or humming if you're simply searching, and remember you don't need to register on their site if all you want to do is search. Before midomi will store what you've sung into their database you have to actively choose to register, then go to their "recording studio", on which more below, record your singing, and then submit the recording you like best.
You don't actually need to test your microphone first before searching, you could just go ahead and try it, but until some random problems with that are ironed out I'd recommend you do that just to save yourself some frustration if it doesn't work.
So, once you've done the "Test microphone", got it working and saved your settings, click "Start Voice Search", allow camera/mic access again if necessary, then sing or hum etc your search melody or song snippet. The longer the better, it needs at least about 5 seconds' worth of the tune.
Click Done when finished, and midomi will come up with the results most closely matching your search.
You can click to hear a contributor's own version of a song, and even play a sample of the original commercial recording.
Problem no. 2 - sometimes can't hear original clip on attempted playbackSometimes I found that there was a problem with the playback of the original 30-second samples, not so much from the search results page but more often from the recording studio pages, see below. You could see the playback bar progressing, but no sound was audible at all. Others have encountered this problem too.
Keyvan said they were aware of that problem and would fix it soon: "It is a known problem and we know the solution." I certainly hope they fix it on the recording studio pages too, where the problem seems more prevalent.
Problem no. 3 - voice search from search results pages doesn't always work On my system anyway, if you want to do another search next, the "Start Voice Search" button doesn't always work when you click Start Voice Search from the search results page. You are supposed to allow mic access, then click Record when ready, but on hitting Record, a lot of the time all I got was a continuous "Connecting..." I also tried the "Start Voice Search" link in the left sidebar of the search results page, and exactly the same thing happened, here's a screenshot from a few weeks back (it seems to be working better now):
Another tip: the fix for me, for this particular problem, was simply to go back to the Midomi home page and do the new voice search from there. So again, the voice search function or link seems a bit erratic. It didn't work from the search results page more often than it did.
What if you can't sing? Are there any other searching methods?Even if you're a little out of tune, indeed even if you make mistakes and sing some notes completely wrong, it seems to work. That's one of the interesting features of the MARS technology - it looks for similarity, not identicality. The "input query" doesn't need to exactly match the melodies in the database. As long as there's a certain amount of similarity, their music recognition engine can match and return results sorted by relevance (hear the deliberately wrong versions of "Happy Birthday" etc in the video demo mentioned below!).
But ideally you still have to feed the search engine some approximation of the right tune. So, what if you really can't sing for toffee? Well, it's still usable.
Play a musical instrument - and, sometime, an online keyboardYou can try whistling. Or if you're totally tone deaf and can't even whistle roughly in tune, you can try playing an instrument into the microphone. I asked Keyvan that question, and he confirmed that midomi works with instruments as well e.g. a piano.
It works best though if it is only one instrument, and not multiple notes playing at the same time. Their search matches both melody and lyrics (if lyrics are detected). If you play an instrument, the search automatically ignores matching lyrics and only uses the melody. There is only one possible gotcha to note here: since most users sing, the search engine is tuned, if you'll forgive the pun, to only consider notes that are in a lower kHz range (i.e. the normal frequency range of the human voice). So if you play the very high notes on the piano it may not work, but the middle and lower notes should work. I guess Queen of the Night coloratura or "whistle register" searches are out then!
What about people who don't want to sing or whistle, or can't, and don't have a musical instrument? If you could search by picking out notes on a Flash on-screen piano keyboard with your mouse (as George Ou has suggested), and perhaps even allow inexperienced musicians to record several renditions till they are happy with one that's closest to what they want to search for, that would be useful to many. Or maybe let the computer keyboard be used as a "piano" to pick out notes.
Keyvan told me that in fact they do have a piano flash interface - see this video demo (WMV, 7.8 MB) whose link he kindly sent me, which hasn't been made public previously, and which interestingly mentions that their music recognition engine can also search digital sheet music databases and that it may also be possible to input notes through a MIDI interface e.g. electronic piano keyboard connected to the computer. However, when they tested it on beta users they did not use it nearly as much as they used the voice search. So midomi decided to postpone its launch to avoid confusing the users for now. But they will release it in the future. My suggestion: if their search engine isn't sensitive to tempo because of MARS, they shouldn't make the user choose exact duration of each note as shown in the demo (crotchets, quavers etc, or quarter notes etc in the USA) - just record the time intervals between different notes being picked out, and use that, or people will be put off, especially those who can't read music.
What if a searcher nevertheless plays part of a song complete with full backing to the mic? That's what happens with Shazam's music recognition search service in the UK - dial their number, hold your mobile out towards the music that's playing, get a text with the song info (they charge for the text, obviously). How well can midomi's search engine handle polyphonic input? Well, it can still work because Keyvan said their engine tries very hard to extract the main melody from background noise and background music - but if the background music is very loud, obviously it may not work as accurately. Of course, if you are able to play a particular song into the mic, you probably already have a recording of it and don't need to search to find out what it's called!
Text search for song name or singerCovering all bases, midomi also has, as a backup or alternative, a "Search with your Keyboard" text search option where you can just type the name of the song or singer if you already know it, or indeed both song and artist names, to look for certain music, hear extracts with different people singing it, hear the original version, and then maybe buy it from their website. (The search will also return the names of midomi registered users, more on that below.)
Does it work? Is it any good?Given what's been said about how the technology works, it wasn't surprising that I found it works best when you sing the lyrics, not just la la la or humming or whistling, if you happen to know the lyrics that is. That's because, as Keyvan mentioned, it takes account of the lyrics info too if you can provide that. Remember too that it's similarity it looks for, it needn't be an exact match, so even if you misheard or misremembered the original lyrics and sing some of the words wrong a la "kiss this guy", you may still find the right song!
It does indeed seem independent of key and tempo. I tried singing the same song snippet at different pitches on different occasions, and also at different speeds i.e. faster and slower, and it still worked. Very clever. Of course, there are limits - if you sing chipmunk fast or too slowly it seems to confuse the search engine, so a middle ground is best.
I found it a bit variable, but largely very usable with all 3 browsers I tried. Most of the time it came up with the right song, if not at the top, at least on the first page of the search results. But as mentioned above I found it sometimes erratic in terms of whether and when it supported my microphone and speakers. It's best to do the "Test your microphone" thing in the browser you're going to use immediately before you start a search session, just in case.
A couple of times, humming the same tune (that I knew was in their database) doing a repeat search, at a different pitch or a different speed, did produce different results. But it's relatively early days yet for midomi. The way it works is, the more users who contribute to their database for the same song, the more accurate their search engine will be. The examples I mentioned where the same search at different times produced different results had only one user who sang that particular song, and when I sang it with the lyrics it worked much better.
The site seems rather slow too sometimes - possibly a sign of more users than they expected? Presumably they'll up their server capacity as their visitor numbers expand.
But it's a lot of fun listening to other people singing such a huge variety of songs, even songs you already know - and even if (especially if?) they're really bad!
What sort of music can you find through midomi? Pop, classical, instrumentals?The recordings are in different languages and different genres. Their database is 100% user generated. So if someone adds particular types of content to midomi's database, they will be searched, whether pop, rock, soul, music theatre or classical, whether vocal or indeed instrumental music. For example, they have the main theme of Godfather, and also the Imperial March from Star Wars, and there's one guy who's tried putting in the most famous tune from O Fortuna in Carmina Burana!
At the moment though their database seems to contain mostly popular music, not surprisingly, with a lot of non-English language pop songs.
How do you record a song to contribute to midomi?Anyone can search on midomi, but if you want to contribute your own recording of a song or indeed instrumental (Jaws, anyone?!), you need to register, which is free. Make sure your mic is plugged into your computer and working, of course. Do the usual Test to check.
Login to midomi, go to My Studio or Recording Studio, and search for the song you want to sing - you can include the artist's name as well as the title of the song to help narrow it down.
Then click Sing next to the version you want to record, sing it, and Stop when you've finished: ta-da, online karaoke!
One issue here is that if there are different commercial versions of the same song, e.g. live or studio, acoustic or electric, or sung by different artists, you have to plump for one of them. That is clearly very much from a sellers' "which commercial recording to flog to users" viewpoint, and I get that.
But I think from a contributor user's viewpoint, they won't really care in most cases what version, they just want to sing a particular song, and it can be confusing and offputting as well as taking up unnecessary time to make them choose a version at that point. It would be much better if the would-be contributor was just presented with one version of the song. The search results page is where I think where midomi should then be listing the different commercial versions available for sale, instead (and making sufficient versions available!). But I don't know if their set up has been designed in such a way that it wouldn't be possible to change this aspect.
The instructions are pretty clear and it's straightforward, click the red-on-yellow button to start recording, then sing away and click on the Stop button (similar) to stop; the green bar shows how far along you are. A warning will pop up if you're too loud at any point, so keep an eye on the screen, you may have to re-do the recording if so. It's a bit difficult not to be too loud if you're using a headset, I have yet to work out the best approach then - maybe remove the headset and just have the mike a few inches away!
You may have noticed the "Find Lyrics" link under the name of the song. That doesn't yet produce a new web page or window with the official lyrics of the song you want to record, which would have been helpful. At the moment all it does is a search on Google for the lyrics, which I guess is the next best thing as it usually works. Keyvan confirmed that they have already licensed and display lyrics on midomi.co.jp their official Japanese site. The English lyrics will most likely also appear in the near future once they clear the license. Which will be a great help.
You may also have noticed the "Preview Original" link. This plays a bit of the original song, so you can remind yourself of how it goes if you need to. Or rather, it should play it. See problem 2, above - I've not been able to hear any original sample from the Recording Studio page, so far. You can see the progress bar, but there's no sound.
You can also see that you have several "trials" or chances to get down the best rendition you can. You may have to delete an older version if you run out of trial slots. When you're happy with a particular version just hit Submit for it. You can obviously play back any of your recorded trials to compare them first.
Now you're supposed to just record one vocal line, because that's how it's designed to work, matching one voice singing one musical line. But some contributors try to record a vocal line with instrumental backing (or even with several voices in harmony) - and midomi don't discourage them. The single voice or instrument is ideal for the voice search, but a lot of users enjoy doing recordings with background music etc, and Keyvan said their search engine is smart enough to deal with it. It either won't search it or it will successfully extract the melody line from it, he said.
Social networking aspectsIt seems midomi have thought about the community aspects too, helping people with similar musical tastes get together. You can rate other users' recordings, comment on them (within reason, as you'd expect), add favorites and check your fan clubs, create playlists, get updates whose settings you can configure, share midomi user recordings with your friends by email; and they show midomi "stars" on the front page, have "up and coming" charts and rankings etc.
You have your own profile, as is standard, where you can add info about yourself, photos, post notes (typed or voice notes). And again as standard you can send other users private messages, etc.
What about copyright? DRM?2.5 million songs have been licensed for sale by download through midomi. Strictly, including recordings of copyrighted songs itself needs a licence from the songwriter/composer, even if they are amateur renditions rather than the original commercial recordings, and Keyvan confirmed that they had cleared licenses for streaming user generated renditions too: "We pay the publishers any time you listen to a user generated recording on the site." So it's legal, and the original writers get paid when people play back your recordings of a composer's song.
Why can't you buy more easily from midomi's website though? Why do you have to download special software before you can buy a song? That's because the download software is required by the record labels concerned for DRM (digital rights management) control, stopping buyers from copying the downloaded song etc. This isn't very good at all as far as I'm concerned, but I've made no secret of the fact that I'm anti-DRM (e.g. for BBC iPlayer). I think DRM technology unduly restricts legitimate customers while not actually being effective to stop organised large-scale pirating. The music industry seems however finally to be moving away from DRM, and about time too, so with any luck maybe they'll drop the DRM requirement from midomi - certainly the extra step of having to download the DRM software will be a barrier to many people buying from midomi, and of course restrictions on how/where they can play the music they've bought would be a big offputting factor too. I must admit I personally would hesitate to buy a DRM-crippled song, from midomi or anywhere else.
Other interesting points, and the future
Voice search is from MARS, text search is from, well, MARSBy which feeble attempt at that book reference I meant, Melodis's MARS technology can be used for more than just voice search:
"Our text search [i.e. on the midomi site] used to use MARS, but since we are internationalizing the site, we stopped using it for now, and we will use it in the near future again after we apply it to other languages. The text search will allow you to search without knowing the exact spelling of the song. Our text search in fact is being used by www.passalong.com. Try searching for "enrike eglecias" and you will find "Enrique Iglesias" That shows the power of MARS as applied to text search. As long as what you type "sounds similar" and/or "looks similar" to what you are looking for then MARS will find it. It will be available on midomi in the near future as well."
So it seems that MARS's "similarity search" technology can be used for text as well as audio search, coping with mistakes in spelling, typos etc - clearly there's a lot more potential for other applications of MARS and I shall look forward to that with interest.
Searching for lyricsTo be a complete song search site, in my opinion midomi needs to be able to allow visitors to search for songs by snippets of lyrics too.
I hope that when the licensing of lyrics is sorted, they'll enable text searching of lyrics and not just provide them for contributors to use when recording.
Searching for songwriters or composersI've suggested that midomi
Keyvan liked the idea and said it was more of a data limitation than a technology limitation. Once they had find a good reliable
source of data that info would be added to the text search engine. Again of course they could have their users assist in this by asking them to add composer info when they do a new recording, if there was a Composer or Songwriter field some of them might well complete it and help generate that data too.
Mobile phones etcMelodis have in mind that their technology could be used for
Musings on midomi betaI wanted to end with some general thoughts on midomi as I think it's a classic example of Web 2.0 service and social networking website, combining UGC with digital distribution of music / audio, a mashup in that way, if you like.
Why do I say it's the epitome of a Web 2.0 application and social sharing service? For several reasons. Taking Jyri Engestrom's 5 principles for Web 2.0 success, this startup hits the spot on almost all of them - with the exception that their business model seems to involve making money from ads and from users buying songs through their site. More likely, they'll probably just make a shedload from being bought up by Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. From the way they've set things up, it seems that midomi are run by very smart people too in a business and marketing as well as technical sense.
You don't have to register as a member just to search on midomi. But registered users (over 13s only as with most American sites) can contribute to their database of songs and other music, rate other users' renditions and buy music via midomi. Here, midomi are neatly harnessing the power of user-generated content.
Asking users to contribute tunes has two benefits. First, of course, it builds up midomi's database - the more songs that are contributed, the bigger their searchable database, and the more people who contribute the same song, the more accurate their engine's recognition of that song will be.
Second, many people are performers at heart, oh all right look-at-me show-offs!, and this website hooks into the addictiveness of karaoke, people just liking to hear the sound of their own singing voices, the competitive instinct of users who think they can sing a song better than another user who's already uploaded a song to their database (though midomi claim it's not a talent contest), the ego-stroking feeling of garnering "fans", perhaps the desire of some X-Factor, America Idol etc. wannabes to be "discovered" and make it as a pop or rock recording star.
Recording extracts for midomi can be quite addictive if you're a singer, you get a feeling of achievement too especially if it's a song no one else has uploaded yet - I know, I've been doing it, and it's hard to stop! (I'm not registered as "Improbulus" obviously, as my voice is too distinctive and recognisable and I blog anonymously. And no I'm not giving out my midomi username!)
But members don't have to contribute music - they can register just to rate other people's performances, become "fans", get to know other fans of similar music, etc. And again that taps into people's need for self-expression, for their views and opinions to count and make a difference, so successfully exploited by TV shows from Big Brother to American Idol and other talent shows where the audience can phone or text etc to vote for contestants. Not to mention the community aspects.
Midomi are clearly building up communities fast. As they put it, they are "humanizing social networking through voice. On midomi the human voice is getting people connected. We are a social network where you can experience and discover people that you like and experience and discover music that you like." Cleverly, given the (probably greater) popularity of singing in many non-English speaking cultures, they launched very quickly in French, Spanish, Italian, Chinesee and Japanese too.
I've already mentioned that I love the simplicity of midomi's approach, cutting the Gordian knot of music recognition by sticking to simple monophonic vocal lines and harnessing their users to generate their database, and the fact that the accuracy of their recognition can only get better and better with time and more user contributions.
If they iron out the issues I mentioned above I think they'll be a massive success - unless of course a competitor with better audio searching and without the bugs comes along fast! There are alternative music search engines, but they don't seem to work as well (e. g. Naiyo), do quite the same thing (e.g. Songtapper - rhythm search), work in the same way (e.g. Meldex), or are still in development (e.g. Amazon Web Services proof of concept mashup "What's That Tune"). So I think midomi have a head start here.
Do try out midomi - I would be interested to hear what others think.


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Chad's ex-ruler Hissene Habre has been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison at a landmark trial in Senegal.
The judge convicted him of rape, sexual slavery and ordering killings during his rule from 1982 to 1990.
Victims and families of those killed cheered and embraced each other in the courtroom after the verdict was given.
It was the first time an African Union-backed court had tried a former ruler for human rights abuses.
Habre has been given 15 days to appeal.
"Today will be carved into justice as the day that a band of unrelenting survivors brought their dictator to justice," said Reed Brody from Human Rights Watch, who has worked on the case for 17 years and was in court for the judgement.


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About Us
Radin Chiropractic is located in La Jolla, San Diego, California and offers a hands on approach to the functional correction of the spine and extremities.
David M. Radin, DC, CCSP, is a specialist in his field as a board Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician. He has years of specialized training and experience in spinal and extremity adjustments, rehabilitation techniques and exercises, advanced stretching and myofascial release techniques, and treating accident-related and sports injuries. His comfortable and effective treatment methods help return your body back to a state of well-being and optimum performance with the shortest recovery time possible.
Dr. Radin's practice philosophy focuses on spending the necessary one-on-one time with each patient, during every visit, to ensure the most comprehensive treatment with the fastest results. All treatment sessions are performed 100% by Dr. Radin and typically include adjustments, stretching the affected areas, and detailed instruction and performance of rehabilitative exercises. You can expect each chiropractic treatment session to be 20 - 30 minutes; however, duration of treatment can vary depending on the complexity of your condition.
Dr. Radin's commitment to helping you achieve the quickest recovery period possible means:
*No long term 10+ visit care plans.
*No sales pitches or contracts.
*Adjustments and treatment given on the first visit unless your history indicates that imaging or further evaluation is needed before safely starting care.
*Most conditions should feel significantly better within 3 weeks (6 visits) and rarely require more than 2 visit per week.
It is this conscientious and skilled approach to sports chiropractic that helps our patients get "out of pain and back in the game" as quickly as possible.
Dr. Radin is the #1 Chiropractor in San Diego, CA as rated on Healthgrades.
Most Insurance Accepted.


text: David Laight wrote: > On Tue, Mar 21, 2006 at 11:36:24PM -0800, Garrett D'Amore wrote: > > Another 2cents from myself... > > To my nowledge NOR flash (I don't know anything about NAND flash, except > from reading this thread) has the following properties: > > 1) The 'erase block' size is typically 64k (128k when two 16bit parts > are used to effect a 32bit device). > 2) Erase is the only way to convert a bit from a '0' to a '1'. > 3) Erase is very slow (~1 second on the devices I was using). > 4) There is a limit of the number of erase cycles that can be done > on each erase block before the data retention time is reduced > below an acceptable level. > 5) Individual bits can be written to change from '1' to '0'. > 6) Write isn't that slow. > 7) You can't do reads or writes while an erase is in progress. > I'm aware of all these. I've worked with NOR flash on a few different projects myself, including extensive modification of the NOR code used in the Sun Ray "automatic firmware update" logic. > Any simple mapping of the flash device to a filesystem will suck due to > the slow erase time. This can be alleviated by some simple caching > strategies - at the cost of losing data on a power fail. > Yes. I don't want to do a "simple" mapping. As I've said before. > Standard filesystems are 'flash unfriendly' for a variety of reasons, > including: > 1) Not telling the device when sectors are no longer needed > 2) Repeated writes of metadata sectors. > 3) Initialising data to 0 and not allowing both 0x00 and 0xff to mean > 'nothing present' > 4) inode atime/mtime updates > 5) Not using single large (aligned) writes for write to large files. > > I actually suspect that if the filesystem did (1), allowed directory > block and file allocation maps to be specified with 0xff => unused space, > and that some other common inode updates were not done (or modified) > the something like FFS could be used with a FTL that does a block lookup > using data saved in a couple of flash sectors. > (I'd write a logical_block+physical_block pair at the end of the lookup > table every time a block has to be reallocted. Using a couple of bits > to mark validity....) > My intent is to use "standard" filesystems in *readonly* mode. If you want to use read/write on flash, you either need to use the device directly (and have the logic in your own application code), or you should use a dedicated flash file system. I *hope* that either I or someone will create a filesystem suitable for use on flash. No promises yet. :-) -- Garrett > David > > -- Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division, General Dynamics C4 Systems http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/ Phone: 951 325-2134 Fax: 951 325-2191


text:
Generals rained out for second straight game
June 7, 2012 at 1:07 a.m.
Updated June 8, 2012 at 1:08 a.m.
The beer was flowing on the party deck at Riverside Stadium, but the field was soaked.
The Victoria Generals' Texas Collegiate League game against the McKinney Marshals was canceled Thursday because of rain.
The teams were warming up for the game when thunder and lightning was followed by a downpour.
The Generals' game at The Woodlands on Wednesday night was also rained out.
Thursday's game will not be made up since the Marshals do not return to Riverside Stadium in the first-half of the season.
Fans who had tickets to Thursday night's game can redeem them at any Generals home game the rest of the season.
The Generals will reschedule Victoria College Appreciation Night and Little League Night for later in the season, according to general manager Blake Koch.
The Generals have an off day Friday before traveling to Bryan to play the Brazos Valley Bombers on Saturday.
The Generals return to Riverside Stadium on Wednesday to play the East Texas Pump Jacks.


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I do that with cabbage too. - by YELLOWDAHLIA
I keep large pre-washed bags of kale or collards in the fridge to eat raw when I MUST have an in-hand snack. The crunch is satisfying (like chips) but the calories are negligible and the nutrition is undeniable.This Sparked Me! Leave a Comment


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In Love Your God with All Your Mind, J. P. Moreland presents a logical case for the role of the mind in spiritual transformation. He challenges us to develop a Christian mind and to use our intellect to further God's kingdom through evangelism, apologetics, worship, and vocation.This is an invaluable book aiding the concerned Christian in the battle for the Christian intellect. Love Your God With All Your Mind offers a no-holds-barred approach to fixing what's gone wrong in the Church. The author brilliantly identifies the reasons for the loss of the Christian intellect and how the Christian mind has been lost to the ever-growing popularity of anti-intellectualism.
©1997 J. P. Moreland and Dallas Willard; (P)2008 christianaudio.com
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"Great book!"
Although I do not agree with all the authors points of view; it is still a must read/listen for Christians.
Many will find some denominational differences. Try and put those aside and listen to the content.
"JP as always knocks it out of the park"
I enjoyed Dr Moreland as an Apologetics professor. this work brings back great memories and is compelling and refreshing. he brings the necessity of training our minds and expresses the need to revitalize our churches in the rigors of thoughtful study... to regain the ground once lost to the secular world.
"Thought provoking and inspirational! "
This book really explains the importance of having a well cultivated mind and and introduces many tools to attain this.
"More important than ever"
This book was written in the mid 90s but it is still completely relevant today maybe even more so, Unfortunately.
J.P. States a good case for us to seek a full understanding of what we believe to be true as followers of Christ by developing the intellectual part of our duties as Christians.
His conclusion in the end chapters for the changes we need to see in our American church seem "radical" but are practical and thought through solutions to real problems in our local congregations. I appreciate him proposing a solution rather than just describing a problem. It's definitely a good read that makes you evaluate your intellectual dedication to God rather than the typical plea for "sincerity of faith" found in more popular writings.
"Phenomenal insight and Wisdom"
J. P. Moreland uses some powerful arguments and has some phenomenal insight and wisdom in presenting his case for loving God with all your mind. This is a challenging book and a must read!!!
"very thought provoking"
I have to say that this book inspired me to not only begin to think alongside and with my faith but to go back and restudy done topics that he argues against, I an very glad to have found this book
"Great book,every Christian out to read."
this book is a great eye opener and if taken seriously could change our world.
Excellent book. Well structured, insightful, and important! JP Moreland addresses one of the most critical and overlooked areas in the church today. Shares many practical solutions for a church universal in decline.
"An essential read"
This book gives the biblical reasons why we must use are intellect to further the kingdom of Christ. It gives the history and why we are at this stage and step by ways to increase our influence in the world. Every Christ follower must read this book.
"quality audio book weird chapters"
it bugs me when the chapters of an audiobook do not match the chapters of an actual book
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Pre Order the HTC Desire X
HTC have announced their latest smartphone, the HTC Desire X. Featuring the latest version of Android OS, a dual core processor, 5 mega pixel camera and a 4 inch LCD touch screen display, the HTC Desire X is a great value handset at just above £200.
As with some of the most recent HTC releases, the Desire X comes with beats audio and free drop box storage. The HTC Desire X also features NFC technology, allowing you to use contactless technology. With WiiFi, 3G technology and Bluetooth, you can stay connected on your new HTC mobile phone.
You can pre order the HTC Desire X Sim Free online now from Unlocked Mobiles.


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Madison Bumgarner vs. Clayton Kershaw: Which Ace Lefty Is Better Right Now?August 21, 2012
Taking career accomplishments as a whole, there's little question that Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw has done more on the mound than the San Francisco Giants' Madison Bumgarner.
Kershaw's thrown nearly 400 more innings than Bumgarner, thanks to his nearly two-year head start. Plus, the biggest feather in Kershaw's cap is the 2011 Cy Young award, which the Dodgers ace took home after a brilliant 2011 campaign.
But if you start to look at the two stud lefties, and compare their accomplishments relative to age and experience, the discussion gets pretty interesting.
For example, this season, Bumgarner has a narrow edge over Kershaw in ERA (2.83 to 2.87), WHIP (0.99 to 1.00) and in the win column (14 to 11). Those numbers are all strikingly close, and the critical reader would be right to point out that they're too similar to really favor Bumgarner in a meaningful way.
But when you consider that Bumgarner is nearly a year-and-a-half younger than Kershaw, the fact that the Giants' ace has outpitched his Dodgers counterpart this season—however slightly—does take on some real significance. Despite Kershaw's advantage in the age and experience departments, Bumgarner has narrowly nosed past him.
There's also reason to believe Bumgarner will continue to improve, as he's already an expert in the one area where Kershaw has historically struggled. Though he's improved his command significantly over the last few seasons, Kershaw's control isn't as good as Bumgarner's.
This year, Kershaw's strikeout-to-walk ratio is 4.17-to-1. Bumgarner, though, is at 5-to-1. For their careers, the difference favors Bumgarner even more strongly. Kershaw's lifetime ratio is just 2.88-to-1, while Bumgarner's is 4.18-to-1. Because control is usually the last thing young pitchers perfect, Bumgarner's early mastery in that department bodes very well for his future development.
Going forward, Bumgarner's got another advantage over Kershaw, but not necessarily in the skill department. We're talking about value.
The Giants bought out Bumgarner's arbitration years by signing him to a six-year, $36 million contract in April of this year (the deal could include a couple more seasons if the options are exercised). If he keeps up his current level of performance, that will be an epic bargain for the Giants, who'll retain his services as he nears his 30s.
Kershaw, on the other hand, is only signed up with the Dodgers for two more years, for just $19 million. And while that's a phenomenal deal for a pitcher as good as Kershaw, it means he's going to hit free agency in his mid-20s. Wherever he signs, you can expect his contract to approach—and probably exceed—the record deal between the New York Yankees and CC Sabathia.
Strictly from a value standpoint, I'd much rather have Bumgarner than Kershaw.
The comparison between Kershaw and Bumgarner is an extremely close one. If you favor known commodities, Kershaw's longer track record of success is probably appealing. But if you look at Bumgarner's accomplishments so far, including the fact that he might well be slightly better than Kershaw right now, he starts to look pretty good, too. And, you can't forget that Bumgarner is younger and still trending upward.
Ultimately, any team would be ecstatic to have either ace. But as of this moment, Bumgarner might be the better option for the future.


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Defensive lineman Jason Jones agreed to contract terms with the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday.
Jones became the second starter from the Tennessee Titans defense to sign with another team since the start of free agency on Tuesday. Cornerback Cortland Finnegan signed with the St. Louis Rams a couple days earlier.
Jones, a second-round pick out of Eastern Michigan in 2008, started 28 games over the last two seasons. His deal with the Seahawks reportedly was for one season.
He had five sacks as a rookie and his production in that regard declined every years from there. He had three in 2011, when he was used primarily as a defensive end as part of the Titans' attempts to get bigger along the defensive front. He was a defensive tackle during his first three seasons in the NFL.
Even so, he ranked among the top 10 for NFL defensive tackles with 12.5 sacks over the last four seasons.
He also had 16 tackles for losses. His 12 in 2010 was the franchise's second-highest total during its Tennessee Titans era, which began in 1999.
Jones missed the first game of last season because of a knee injury and sat out the final game with an ankle injury.


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Robbed this off of diablofans and youtube, looks interesting.
Robbed this off of diablofans and youtube, looks interesting.
"Friends don't let friends be gnomes."
There is an interview with PC Gamer that talks about the potential for D3 on console
There was also an announcement about them hiring console developers for D3 I think, I wonder if I can find it.We don't see ourselves as a PC developer – we see ourselves as a game developer. It's just that the games that we wanted to make suit the PC platform," game director Jay Wilson told us. "We don't believe you can make a Starcraft style RTS and make it Blizzard great on a console. We do believe you could make an RTS that would be on a console, but we would have (to have) that idea, and that spark and that passion to make it.
"One of the reasons why we're exploring the idea of a console version of Diablo 3 because we feel that the controls and the style of the game lend itself to a console. With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I've been 'Oh this feels even better, with direct control…'"
Personally, I'd still play on PC even if a console version was released (and I'll be playing with my mouse and keyboard) - but it does seem like they are taking the future option of a console version quite seriously.
Edit: Here's the blue post I was thinking about
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Last edited by Shamanic; 2011-09-27 at 10:58 AM.
Moderator of Professions & Garrisons | General Discussion | Diablo 3 | General Off Topic
Please take the time to read the Forum Guidelines & Sig Guidelines
Opens the game up to a wider market. And yeah, I think D3 could work well on Console. Better on PC, but can work on Console.
But yeah, wider market means more money for Blizz. More money for Blizz means more games from them. Win win!
Can always plug a keyboard and mouse to your console, they better make support for that!
"Friends don't let friends be gnomes."
Loved D2 because i could play it all with the mouse and very little keyboard commands. Anyway, if it opens to the console market, i expect a really big boom in D3 sellings.
Why worry about the future when you can just asfatatotl.
For Panda!
I think Diablo 3 would do really well on console. I've just recently starting playing Dungeon Hunter on ps3, which is a dungeon crawler similar to D3. And it feels very nice to control. Of course ill be getting D3 on PC, but im almost tempted to get it for PS3 if it comes out for console a couple years down the road...
This is great news for some, I use my 42" 1080p tv as my monitor and its setup with a couch behind it since its also my living room TV. The only thing I like about console games is the ability to sit back and lounge on the couch playing some video games. So on those lazy days playing the lowbie's grinding out normal and nightmare acts this will definitely be nice! I already use my wireless 360 controller with xpadder to control the computer to access netfilx, hulu, and navi-x.
That diablofans article's comment section was filled to the brim with elitists; ideally, that won't happen here.
I'd love for this to happen because my crap computer won't handle this game too well. Probably won't be for a while though.
Wasnt the first Diablo also released on the Playstation a year or 2 after it was released on PC?
Last edited by Orby; 2011-09-27 at 07:48 PM.
Please don't turn into IncGamers authors what with their anti-console elitism, people: adding controller support to the PC version won't take away your options. The preceding only applies to dumb people; those with at least a double digit IQ can ignore it.
I plan to get the PC/OSX version, but I still would rather play THAT version with a console controller. Playing Diablo-esque games with console controllers in the past (including the original Diablo on PlayStation) feels very good.
Last edited by Axelhander; 2011-09-27 at 11:01 PM. Reason: I can't speel gud


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To help raise money for the British Heart Foundation, Radley is running an exciting 6-week event in all of their stores across the UK. Radley are asking customers to donate an unwanted handbag and in exchange will reward them with a £40 discount off a new handbag of their choice, priced £120 or more.
Working in partnership with the British Heart Foundation, the old handbags collected by Radley will be sent to British Heart Foundation shops around the UK, which are in much need of quality donated stock. This event is a great way to give an old handbag a new life and donate it to a very worthy cause, whilst treating yourself to a beautiful new bag from Radley's Spring collection at a discounted price.
Radley are delighted at the opportunity to help raise money for the British Heart Foundation, which will support the charity's valuable work in saving lives through pioneering research, patient care, campaigning for change and by providing vital information about heart and circulatory disease.
This event will take place until 30th April 2009 in all Radley stores across the UK. Radley has four London-based stores in King's Road, South Molton Street, White City and Covent Garden. Other stores are in the city centres of – Manchester (New Cathedral Street), Birmingham (Bullring Centre), Bristol (Quaker's Friar, Cabot Circus), Liverpool (Peter's Lane, Liverpool 1) and Glasgow (Royal Exchange Square).