text:
Compare Cardiff Gearbox Specialist prices today with Who Can Fix My Car.
Post your job in seconds to compare competitive prices and reviews in Cardiff today.
Compare Cardiff Gearbox Specialist prices today with Who Can Fix My Car.
Not simply clutch kit replacement - flywheel needed doing; plus car pickup on flatbed. Subsequent issues with drive shaft seals were repaired with no labour charge. Good communication, friendly - and i believe trustworthy garage. Neil
Really pleased with the work that was done car is running great and the staff were really good and friendly,top job well done
Really quick service, I will come back and recommend to anyone.
The service was excellent. Booked me in straight after work at half three to look at the car. Completed the work the same day and I had my car back at six. It turns out the problem was not something I thought it was but the garage explained it and were very helpful. Hand break is now like brand new.
Very friendly, helpful and efficient service. Very good value for money. Will be using them again.
Great service, very thorough and good communication. I will use him again
Really professional service! Will definitely contact again.
Excellent Customer Service! Explained everything in detail, great value and will definitely go back again.
Would definitely recommend Automotive Cardiff Ltd. They have done a brilliant job, was great communication throughout and good after care as well!!
James nice decent fella nows his stuff well recommended wont hesitate to take all my familys cars to him
Great friendly service and good value, highly recommended.
Brilliant, friendly, knowledgeable and excellent prices
Excellent service, great price, will be using them again.
Great service including pick up and drop off.
Quick booking, repair carried out in time stated. Excellent service. Recommended
Identified root problem
Good service
Excellent. Very thorough and informative.
It can be very difficult finding a garage you can trust. I would definitely feel confident going to this garage again in the future and I would recommend him to others. Thank you Mark.
Great service. Needed a sill welding to pass MOT and the work was done to a good standard. Price was only higher than online quote as inspection was needed for a full quote.
Superb service. Quick response and very helpful. Would definitely recommend
Great service will definitley recommend, came early and gave me a great price, thank you very much, will use this service again
Paul was great and fixed everything within an hour and a half. Highly reccomend!
Very prompt and courteous service,always kept me informed on the work that was being done.. I highly recommend this man
I like Paul, He was half the cost of the main dealer and very competitive with other traders. Work was done in good time with parts supplied at the price given. This is my second time using Castle cars and no doubt will be back again
Awesome. Quick efficient and not a rip off
Very professional and quick service. Very happy customer.
I was so grateful to have my car collected and returned (and in time for the school run). That was really helpful
I would highly recommended the company
Friendly, professional I would highly recommend the company
1 reviews
They kept me informed and helped with all my question a brilliant service overall
A Gearbox is the device used to increase and decrease torque, a twisting force which causes rotation, through the increase or reduction of speed. Ultimately, the Gearbox is used to change the speed of the vehicle.
Auto gearbox repairs are so common as the parts naturally wear down over time due to the fact that a massive amount of friction is caused between parts when a car is driven.
There are a huge number of issues that could cause a gearbox to fail and that is why we have written this guide, to help you understand what is involved with gearbox repairs.
If you are putting your car into a gear, only for it to slip out, it's obvious you have a fault. A likely cause is that the gears themselves will be worn down.
You will have to have the parts replaced as a result of the damage as it will only get worse as time progresses.
It would also be wise to check your transmission fluid levels as the parts may have worn down as a result of low lubricants.
Like many of the issues listed on this guide, low levels of transmission fluid can be the reason for the problem.
If you are hearing more noise than usual from your car while it is neutral, then check the levels of fluid and try topping it up.
If this does not resolve the problem, then the most likely cause will be worn down gearbox parts.
As soon as you see 'Service Engine Soon' in yellow on your dashboard, that is exactly what you should do as it is an indicator that something is about to go wrong or already has.
There are a variety of sensors on different parts of your car including ones on the transmission. They are in place to detect specific signs of an issue developing such as vibrations or jerks which you may not be able to see, hear or feel.
Paying attention to the light could help you save money on a gearbox repair so make sure to do so!
A dragging clutch is caused when the flywheel and clutch fail to disengage which makes changing gears almost impossible.
This gearbox problem will likely be accompanied by a grinding noise being emitted every time you try to change gears.
Luckily a gearbox repair cost will not be extortionate if you are suffering from this problem.
If the clutch has too much slack in the pedal then the linkage between the clutch disk and the pedal wont be able to pull the two parts apart.
Therefore, the linkage simply needs to be tightened or replaced which isn't as expensive as other gearbox repairs.
If your car simply refuses to go into a specific gear it is worth checking the level of you fluid as this is a common issue, though can be resolved by topping the liquid up.
There are other potential issues that would prevent you being able to go into a specific gear.
Occasionally the computer which is part of your car can be the source of the problem, alternatively the shift cables could require adjusting.
A burning smell in a car is never a good sign and as soon as you notice it is vital that you call a mobile mechanic or break down assistance in order to diagnose the problem and find a solution.
When it comes to the gearbox, a burning smell can be the result of transmission fluid overheating.
If the fluid system fails, then other parts of the system will suffer as a result.
Transmission fluid acts as lubricant and a cooling agent for the moving parts of a transmission as they are in constant perpetual motion as a car is driven, this causes friction and a build-up of heat.
Therefore a lack of transmission fluid will be harmful to these parts and a burning smell will be emitted.
If you ignore the burning smell in your car then an entire transmission replacement is likely to be required.
A car should not grind or shake at all so do not think that its normal even if it is gradual and only minor.
If ignored the issue will get worse and you will end up incurring a higher gearbox repair cost.
Grinding and shaking is a common symptom of a faulty gearbox when you move from one gear to the next.
There may even be an issue with the clutch if you feel these effects after you change gears.
If so it is likely that your clutch will need replacing.
The gear synchronizers in your car may be also be badly damaged or worn down if you feel shaking or grinding.
The transmission system can only operate while automatic transmission fluid lubricates, cleans and conditions the seals while acting as hydraulic fluid.
Even if the transmission fluid is below normal levels, your car will suffer and if it all leaks, you will face serious problems.
Automatic transmission fluid (ATF) is bright red and, surprisingly, smells sweet (that is if everything is in working order).
If you detect a leak and the fluid fits this description then you are in luck, all that you require is a hole to be filled.
However, if you come across liquid which is dark and emits a burning smell then the issue is likely to be worse.
Typically this will require the entire transmission system to be flushed or changed as it has become contaminated and is no longer suitable for use in the engine.
ATF liquid is different to motor oil as the engine doesn't consume any of it, therefore, if it is below its normal level, it's a fact that you have a leak.
If you would like to check the fluid level, try to locate the transmission case (close to the fill plug) and perform a visual assessment.
Once more, if you have a leak, it is essential that you address the issue and find a clutch or gearbox specialist using WhoCanFixMyCar as we will be able to provide you with a range of quotes from local mechanics.
If you try to move into a certain gear and you feel resistance, or the gearstick keeps popping out, then there is definitely an issue.
There should not be any pushback when you go into gear and so if you even feel the slightest change you should take your car to a gearbox specialist or automatic gearbox specialist as soon as possible.
Typically, this is a problem involving the clutch as well so be prepared to replace it if you run into this type of issue.
It can be difficult to diagnose the extent of a gearbox problem which involves the clutch, so the best advice is to take your car into a clutch and gearbox specialist as mentioned above.
Hearing a strange noise from your car is probably the best way to know that something isn't right.
There are a plethora of issues which could be causing a noise to come from your car engine and the gearbox is one system which could be causing a new sound.
The specific noise will vary greatly on the model of the car, part and specific issue so it is almost impossible to specifically identify an issue from a sound alone.
The biggest indicator that your gearbox has an issue will be if you hear a clunking noise when you shift gears which sound mechanical, abrupt and loud.
The same can be said of automatic gearboxes, if you notice a clunking noise as you accelerate, slow down or drive on an incline, it would be indicative of an issue with the transmission.
Even if the noise sounds severe, it may be a minor issue, however it will turn into a major one if you do not diagnose the transmission problem.
The gearbox repair cost will spiral if you neglect to address the problem.
Whether you need to replace an automatic gearbox or replace a manual gearbox, the price will vary from one garage to the next and the cost will also vary on the model of the car.
A reconditioned gearbox is a part which has been broken but has been fixed by a transmission expert. If you suffer from a gearbox problem, there is the worry about spending money on new parts, however, it is often possible to salvage engine parts and a reconditioned gearbox is ideal from those wanting to avoid spending money on expensive new parts.
Reconditioned gearbox prices vary depending on the car model however it is always worth shopping around for the best price.
Finding a mechanic you can trust to do a good job and charge a fair price, is not always easy, which is why we've simplified the process.
Finding a mechanic you can trust to do a good job and charge a fair price, is not always easy which is why we have simplified the process.
We work with a network of over 12,754 mechanics and garages across the UK so we can find competitive Gearbox repair deals for you.
To find the best Gearbox Replacement or Repair service available in your region;
You can then compare the quotes and read reviews from previous customers to find the best Gearbox deal in your area, before booking the Gearbox Replacement or Repair online.


text:
Dave Stewart
Photo: Collin Stark
In The Ring With Dave Stewart
GRAMMY-winning artist Dave Stewart recently visited The Recording Academy's headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., to participate in an exclusive GRAMMY.com interview. Stewart discussed his brand-new album, The Ringmaster General, writing and recording the Eurythmics' No. 1 hit "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," winning a GRAMMY, and collaborating with other artists, among other topics.
"The great thing about creating with other people is you have to jump in the deep end of the relationship and there's not a lot of wasting time," said Stewart. "On life's great journey, the more interesting people you can collaborate with or have conversations with about these very interesting questions about relationships, the world [and] life in general, [the more] enriching [music can be]."
As a member of the innovative pop duo Eurythmics with Annie Lennox, Stewart earned his first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," the title track from the group's breakthrough album of the same name, which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200. That same year Eurythmics received a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist. In 1986 the duo won a GRAMMY for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal for "Missionary Man," a song from their fifth studio album, Revenge.
In 1989 Stewart released his debut solo album, Lily Was Here, which peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200. He has also collaborated with artists including Jon Bon Jovi, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Aretha Franklin, the Neville Brothers, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, among others. Most recently, Stewart produced Stevie Nicks' 2011 album, In Your Dreams; recorded an album with SuperHeavy, an all-star project featuring Jagger, Damian Marley, A.R. Rahman, and Joss Stone; and released a solo album, The Blackbird Diaries.
Released Sept. 4, The Ringmaster General was produced by Stewart and Mike Bradford (Stevie Nicks, Deep Purple, Uncle Cracker), and was recorded at Blackbird Studio, a Nashville-based facility he owns with Martina McBride. The album features collaborations with Diane Birch ("Just Another Fall"), GRAMMY winner Alison Krauss ("Drowning In The Blues"), Stone ("I Got Love"), guitarist Orianthi ("Girl In A Catsuit"), and singer/songwriter Jessie Baylin ("God Only Knows You Now"). Musicians contributing to the album include guitarists Tom Bukovac and Orianthi, drummer Chad Cromwell, bassist Michael Rhodes, and pianist Mike Rojas.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text: On Sep 9, 2008, at 7:41 PM, Robert G. Brown wrote: > On Tue, 9 Sep 2008, David Mathog wrote: > >> word. In the old days some of those crash events spewed garbage to >> the >> printer, and that resulted in a ream of nonsense on the floor, and >> more >> often than not, the paper mashed into an accordian behind a pinfeed >> jam. > > Nobody said it was EASY back then, right? Even when a system DIDN'T > crash, it dump reams of fanfold into the takeup box, most of it never > examined by human mind. ;-) A non HPC story... from someone who used to work at the Stanford IT shop way back when. He was a systems analyst or programmer working on upgrading various department JCL decks and batch jobs for some systems conversion, maybe new DASD or something. While testing a job for one department, the report seemed to come out correctly, but it was immediately followed by a five inch thick abend dump. Evidently, the space allocated on the old disk was longer than the file data, but shorter than the program was expecting. It would process the report, and then run off the end of the file and crash. The analyst converted the file for the new disk, set the length correctly, and went on to the next job. A month or two later, the department calls in to inquire "Where's the numbers report?" After some confusion back and forth, it seems that the department had been dutifully filing the abend dumps in a row of file cabinets, and wanted to know why they had gone missing after the upgrade... -Larry PS I never did work with old style big iron myself. I probably would have gotten fired for leaving my coffee cup on top of one of the printers when it opened for more paper. PPS When I got started, we had printer that the "0" was worn out. I had to patch the device driver to substitute capital "O".


text:
Alexander (Sasha) Sirotkin works on the LTE (Long Term Evolution) Project at Comsys Mobile. Alexander can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]
Joomla is an open source content management system (CMS) that has all the functionality that you would expect -- banners, contacts, RSS feeds, polls, and much more. Because it was designed to be extensible, there are hundreds if not thousands of modules and components written for Joomla. It is mostly written in PHP, uses MySQL database as a back end, and released under GPL.
Joomla has a flexible and powerful template system which has a huge number of both free and commercial templates available for it. Unfortunately Joomla templates tend to be too colorful with a bit non-professional and childish look, which is generally not what you would want for a commercial website. I came across this problem while working on one of my projects. After checking literally hundreds of templates I had to consider ordering a custom template from one of the companies specializing in this area or creating one myself. While the former is probably the option that most commercial companies would chose, I decided to go with the latter mainly because all I needed was a plain and simple Google-style template and I figured out that it might be fun to learn something new in the process of writing it. For both of the above reasons I did not want to modify an existing template but rather preferred to write a new one entirely from scratch. As it turned out, it is indeed surprisingly simple and fun.
With this in mind, in this article I show how to write a minimal, yet functional Joomla template from scratch, starting with Joomla 1.0.x then 1.0.x templates to Joomla 1.5x which has a very different API.
Joomla Templates
Joomla templates consist of a number of XML, PHP, CSS, and image files that control the presentation of the web site content. Templates allow for the separation between content and presentation, allowing the web designer to concentrate on the web site look and feel and forget about the content. This abstraction works well for typical Joomla-based sites that use standard components only. However, if you plan on having something more than a newsfeed and forum, you will probably need to do some tweaking. After all, it is probably too much to expect from an existing template that was created by somebody who has no idea about some special features of your web site to write a good looking visual representation for them.
According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards the document presentation (that is, the template), should be written entirely using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the content in HTML (or another language which generates HTML code dynamically, such as PHP). For various reasons, however, Joomla templates do not entirely follow this paradigm, requiring some PHP and HTML coding in addition to CSS.
Each Joomla template resides in a separate directory under "templates/". Later I will show you how to create an installation file, but for now (and during your template design process) it is more convenient to place all template files under the templates/example/ directory. The minimal template I present consists of three files -- templateDetails.xml, index.php, and css/template_css.css.
templateDetails.xml is an XML file that contains meta data which describes your template, such as the template author, the version and the creation date. The most basic file should contain at least the following fields:
<mosinstall type="template"> <name>example</name> <files> <filename>index.php</filename> </files> <css> <filename>css/template_css.css</filename> </css> </mosinstall>
The above file specifies the template name "example" and points to the two files which contain the actual template definitions -- index.php and css/template_css.css.
Roughly speaking, index.php defines which content elements (Joomla modules, etc.) are going to be displayed and css/template_css.css defines their look and feel. While the latter is pure CSS template, writing the former requires some knowledge of Joomla internals because is has to actually output the Joomla content using Joomla API. The most basic index.php file is:
<?php defined( "_VALID_MOS" ) or die( "Direct Access to this location is not allowed." );?>  <?php mosShowHead(); ?> <link href="templates/<?php echo $cur_template; ?>/css/template_css.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />
 <?php mosLoadModules('left');?>

 <?php mosLoadModules('top');?> <?php mosMainBody();?>

 <?php mosLoadModules('right');?>

The most important lines are thos that call void mosLoadModules ( [ string $position [, int $style ]] ) PHP function which is Joomla API that loads (and outputs) the module in the position specified by it's argument. The code in this example loads modules that were assigned "top", "left" and "right" positions in the Joomla Module Manager (accessible via Joomla Administration web page -> Modules -> Site Modules). Front page content is loaded separately by calling the void mosMainBody ( ) API. In this example, the content was logically divided using CSS div tags into three groups -- left-sidebar, content, and right-sidebar. This will be used later in the CSS file to define different layout and for each of these groups.
The rest of the file is just standard Joomla code -- the first line prevents direct access to this page, the third line with the call to void mosShowHead ( ) displays HTML header and the fourth line includes the CSS template, which will be described below. Note that even without any CSS code, with just two-file template (and an empty css/template_css.css file) you can already see the content of your website, although it would not be very usable at this stage.
The following minimal css/template_css.css defines what I think is the most logical layout for the above Joomla content elements:
#left-sidebar {float:left;width:20%;} #content {float:left;width:60%;} #right-sidebar {float:left;width:20%;}
Main content element is in the middle, and surprisingly enough -- left sidebar is on the left and right sidebar is on the right. That's it. You've just created your first simple but functional and useful Joomla template. Simple and clean (not to say spartan) design, as you can see here:
While an in-depth CSS tutorial is beyond the scope of this article, an explanation of the above CSS code is in order. Any CSS file is a list of CSS rules which consist of a selector followed by a declaration block. Let's take a look at the first rule with #left-sidebar selector (which selects the div tag named left-sidebar that was defined above in index.php file) and a declaration inside the curly braces. A declaration consists of a property name, followed by a colon, followed by a value. The above example sets two properties -- float and width. The float property specifies that the content element should float to the left, i.e. all the rest of the content will flow to the right of this element. The width property specifies the content width in percentage with respect to the width of the containing block, the whole HTML page in our case.


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NEWPORT BEACH — Mike Bryan said it's been a whirlwind.
That might be the best way to describe a month that has featured Bryan and his twin brother Bob capture their second Wimbledon men's doubles title, then play Davis Cup, and now settle in for a lengthy tour as marquee players in World Team Tennis.
Many people don't even use their first names; just saying "the Bryan brothers" suffices. The best doubles team in the world — arguably of all-time — came to Newport Beach on Wednesday night, playing for defending league champion Kansas City.
The Breakers didn't have enough to get a much-needed win, losing the match, 23-17, at a sold-out The Tennis Club Newport Beach.
It's the fourth straight loss for the Breakers (3-5), who fell to fourth place in the five-team Western Conference.
The Bryan brothers, originally from Camarillo, tied the record for team Grand Slam men's doubles titles (11) by winning at Wimbledon. Yet they're just as at home in the WTT format, playing their seventh straight year for the Explorers.
"We hate to lose," Bob Bryan said during a pre-match press conference. "If we do lose, we'll be pissed off. It doesn't matter what it is, Scrabble at home or WTT."
But the youngest Explorer was the one who sealed the deal for Kansas City (3-4). Madison Brengle, 21, beat Anne Keothavong for the second time in two weeks, 5-2 in women's singles. That came after the Bryan brothers edged Lester Cook and Travis Rettenmaier, 5-3, in a very entertaining men's doubles set.
"The margins are small," Rettenmaier said. "When you play against those guys you have to be so sharp. The most slight mistake, they expose it. But I actually thought we hung in there pretty well. We had a chance at three-all to get a break, but it was fun. It was high-quality; I'm pretty sure all four players enjoyed it."
The match didn't start well for Newport Beach in men's singles. Cook had a 4-2 lead on Alex Kuznetsov, and a 3-0 lead in the game on his serve. But he couldn't convert four set points and would eventually lose the set in a tiebreaker.
"I'd say three-all points got the better of us tonight," Breakers Coach Trevor Kronemann said. "I'd say game points got the better of us, let alone three-all points. We had a lot of opportunities to put games away and we just couldn't get the lucky end of the deal tonight. If you look at three-all points, I'm totally guessing but I'd say we're at 30% maybe. That's not good enough. We just have to get better on those three-all points by getting after it a little bit more, and being more aggressive."
Kansas City won 10 of 13 three-all points Wednesday, and the Breakers converted just three of 21 break points.
The Breakers did come back for a 5-3 win in women's doubles, as Anne Keothavong and Marie-Eve Pelletier beat Kveta Peschke and Brengle. Peschke is also coming off a Wimbledon win, in women's doubles with Katarina Srebotnik.
Annie Smythe of Huntington Beach also got a victory between sets. She hit the green target between the service line and baseline, winning a trip to this year's U.S. Open in New York.
"I'm just so surprised," Smythe said.
Pelletier and Travis Rettenmaier couldn't similarly surprise Mike Bryan and Peschke in mixed doubles. Bryan and Peschke won the last three games, rallying for a 5-3 victory that gave the Explorers a 13-12 advantage at halftime.
Newport Beach is off Thursday and plays at Sacramento (featuring Mardy Fish) on Friday. The Breakers are back home Saturday night to play the Capitals again.
"I think that now we'll be rested going Friday and Saturday," Kronemann said. "[We have an] all-day flight on Sunday and then we're really going to have to bear down for those last four matches. If we're going to make the playoffs, I haven't looked at the stats, [but] we're going to have to put together a good effort from here."


text:
Flavored cigars are the fastest growing
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Once again, the cigar world is in the presence of royalty. The Joya de Nicaragua Silver is a new release cigar produced by Joya de Nicaragua for their 50th anniversary.Joya de Nicaragua Silver was released in July 2018 at the IPCPR 86th Annual Convention. It joins the Joya family of decadent cigars full of flavour and complexity.A little History
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The Al Capone brand of cigars is so ingrained into the fabric of cigar
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No joy supersedes that of having a baby. A new baby represents the beginning of a new chapter in life and the official benchmark of adulthood. A new baby is a joyous occasion often celebrated with gifts for the mother. But what about the fatherWe believe the best gift to give to a new father is a cigar. In fact, there are cigar lines from numerous premium brands specially made for this occasion, the Its a Boy, and Its a Girl lines.Why CigarsThe tradition of gifting cigars to commemorate the bi...
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text:
York Region is located North of Toronto, Ontario and South of Lake Simcoe. It consists of the suburban and rural communities of Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Aurora, Newmarket, Stouffville, King, East Gwillimburry, and Georgina (including Keswick, Sutton, and Mount Albert). York Region is home of a diverse and fast growing population of over 1.1 million as of 2016. It boosts a strong employment market, being home of the Canadian headquarters of some well-known employers, including IBM Canada in Markham, State Farm Insurance in Aurora, Magna International in Aurora, AMD in Markham, Toys R Us in Vaughan, and many others. Between 4000 and 5000 new job openings are posted online every month, according to the Fairy Lake Jobs Regional Hiring Index Report. Most of these reports are with employers from the professional services and retail industries, but healthcare and manufacturing industry jobs also account for a significant portion of new employment opportunities. The majority of York Region's residents live in the southern part of the region immediately North of Toronto, in the towns of Markham, Richmond Hill, and Vaughan.
This is also where the vast majority of the jobs are, with employers in Markham accounting for more than three quarters of all new postings for York Region jobs advertised in the year of 2016. Many of the remaining job openings are located in Newmarket and Aurora, in the central part of York Region. However, the Fairy Lake Jobs York Region Hiring Index Report shows that Newmarket and Aurora generally have a higher portion of temporary and part-time jobs compared to communities in the south of the region. The remaining areas of York Region are home of smaller rural communities, that rely more heavily on farming and tourism industry jobs. Some of these communities are Stouffville, King, Keswick, Sutton, East Gwillimbury, and Mount Albert. However, since there are more jobs in Toronto than in any other GTA municipality including York, and because Toronto is only a relatively short distance away, there are many York Region residents who work in Toronto and commute on a daily basis. It is also not uncommon for York residents to work on jobs in Mississauga and Brampton. Many residents of the cities surrounding York Region commute to jobs in Markham, Vaughan, and other York Region locations as well.


text:
Monday, September 13, 2010
Be Not Afraid. . . Still, being worried might be appropriate
As you can see in the brief autobiography on the right, I served for twenty-two years in the United States Navy, and I'm very proud of that service. Today I received an e-mail from a man I knew in the Navy, although I haven't seen him in many years. His e-mail was troubling, to say the least.
The question is: How best to deal with this kind of ignorant, mis-informed and hateful attitude? The teacher as well as the deacon in me wants to explain the errors in this e-mail (which I realize has been around ever since the LAST Presidential campaign), but that might give it more attention than it warrants, and only serve to perpetuate it further.
I realize that this is not a posting directly related to the diaconate, but in another sense it certainly is. The perpetuation of this kind of religious intolerance needs to be addressed, and addressed with honesty and truth.
2 comments:
I'm not sure that Americans are hateful or ignorant or some other insulting negative for being worried about the growth of Islam in the United States and what some Moslems want to do to our country.ReplyDelete
I just heard two experts on Islam (former Moslems themselves) interviewed (who did not sound hateful, but rather academic) on the radio and they agreed that many American Moslems (not just radicals or terrorist types) want Sharia law in the U.S. instead of our Constitution (but many will not admit it they said). Just because we Catholics weren't really trying to get the pope to move the Vatican to America, as bigots would have it, doesn't mean that some other immigrant group might not come along really wanting to mangle our legal system. To say NEVER could happen is to be part ostrich.
I read of a group religious protest against the Koran burning (which burning I also oppose)which included Koranic readings in a Catholic cathedral in California.
According to the news article clergy of all types were there--Catholic, Episcopal Methodist, even Druids (all Western). But it struck me that in what was supposedly a complete list of who was there--there was not a single clergyman from any Christian Church whose roots were in the Middle East. No Maronites, No Eastern Orthodox, No Coptics, No Armenians, No Chaldeans, No Assyrians. Yet the West Coast has many such churches.
As one person said--They have suffered too much from Islam recently and in the past to be as complacent as Americans seem to have become. They should read the book: "It Can't Happen Here." But, of course, we Western Christians pay more attention to anyone, except the witness of Eastern Christians.
As one scholar said on the radio, until Western Christians learn the word "abrogate" they will never really understand Islam or the Koran.
"Abrogate" is the term that is used in regard to later writings in the Koran superceding earlier parts of the Koran on the same topics.
They said that the peaceful (constantly quoted in the West) parts of the Koran were written before Jews and Christians started refusing Mohammed's demands that they convert to his new religion. After that, they claimed, Mohammed's tolerance went downhill--fast--(even to the personal ordering of the genocide of a Jewish tribe.) Chilling passages were then added to the Koran. Thus, according to the Moslem rule of abrogation, it is the chilling intolerant passages that are now operative. And according to the scholars it is these later passages that are mainstream orthodox Islamic doctrine, though a FEW try to water it down. It is the reverse of how the New Testament's "turn the other cheek," etc. teachings are operative over the Old Testament's "eye for an eye."
It is the embracing of these later passages that acount for the favorite refrain "Death To (Fill-In-Blank)" of so many Moslem crowds (including against other Moslems in Islamic countries and in demonstrations in the West).
Dear John,ReplyDelete
Thanks for your comment.
The problem that I have is this: The e-mail I received had nothing of the reasoned approach of your comment. Rather, it consisted of short, one-line disclaimers about Islam, most of which were absolutely inaccurate (the meaning of the word "Allah", for example). The goal of the piece was NOT education or even persuasion. It was designed for one purpose, as far as I could tell, and that purpose was to engender both fear, and then an emotional reaction to that fear.
Certainly we should have intelligent conversations about the nature and growth of Islam and the current state of affairs. I'm not politically or militarily naive. But the kind of material I'm referring to is not something that anyone should take seriously or with any kind of credibility.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm concerned here with the demagoguery employed and its own appeal to fear and violence.


text: NEW YORK (AP) U.S. stocks are falling in early trading as investors look ahead to corporate earnings this week.The Dow Jones industrial average fell 59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,009 Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped five points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,980. The Nasdaq fell nine points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,476.Investors will get a sense of how companies are faring when some big names report quarterly results this week, including Alcoa and Wells Fargo.BioDelivery Sciences International surged 15 percent after the company said its pain treatment fared better than a placebo in a study.The Dow closed above 17,000 for the first time Thursday after the U.S. reported strong job gains. U.S. financials markets were closed Friday for July 4th.


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Thanks to the generosity of Viz, I have a subscription to Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. Starting January 21, 2013, there will be a simultaneous US release to coincide with the Japanese release of the magazine. I am curious to see how that's going to work, and to see what new series will be added to the magazine, so here is the first of my weekly looks at Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. The magazine looks great on my iPad, though I did have a bit of a headache before I was able to get my first issue loaded. All it took was an update to the Viz Manga app, but I didn't think of that until after wasting about 15 frustrating minutes. Always check for a software update! Note taken.
This issue kicked off with Bleach Ch 516. Whoa! I haven't read Bleach in ages, even though it is one of my favorite series. For shame! I spent the pages here wondering what the heck was going on, but by the last panel, had it figured out. I think. There will soon be an epic confrontation with Squad Zero, a squad comprised only of Squad captains. No peons in this group of warriors! There still has to be some kind of pecking system, some top dog to lord over the other squad members, right? Unless they are all so bad ass that they have a mutual fear and respect for each other. I am looking forward to learning more about them and catching up with Ichigo in future issues.
Naruto Ch 609 was next. Ch 609, folks! I am hopelessly out of my depth with this one, but there was fighting! Which I like. And Kakashi! Who I like. Naruto and Kakashi are duking it out with the bad guy Obito, who hates Kakashi. That is enough right there to elevate him to evil bad guy. Who could possibly hate Kakashi?! After a little help from Nine Tails, it looks like Kakashi is ready for more fighting, so next week, the battle with Obito and Madara will continue! This is comfort reading for me – mindless speed lines, over exaggerated poses, and endless wells of energy to keep up that toe-to-toe action.
Nisekoi Ch 51 followed. This is a new series for me, and I believe it just started it's run in the magazine. Raku, one of those impossibly hopeless, hapless guys who can barely comb his hair, has attracted a gaggle of girls, I think by being nice, which in manga usually means wimpy. Raku's gangster father has him engaged to Chitoge, who hated him at first sight, but she's come around and realizes that he's not such a bad guy and that she might really, really like him. To cast some mystery over his love life, Raku made a childhood promise to a girl, but he can't remember who the girl is! Her identity is locked in his prized pendant, but the lock is broken, so he can't open it to reveal his childhood love. You'd think he would remember the first girl he fell in love with! No wonder these manga boys are always single! I am actually going to have to read the sample that's on the Viz website to help wrap my head around this one.
Toriko Ch 22 – I don't have much to say about this one, because the entire chapter is nothing but character introductions for the upcoming Cooking Festival. I usually love cooking manga, but the endless parade of contestants bored me. Better luck next week.
Wrapping up this issue is Cross Manage Ch 10 is a sports manga about a girls' lacrosse team. I liked this story the best. It was easy to follow for a new comer, the art is engaging, and the characters are likable. Ex-soccer player Sakurai reluctantly agrees to manage the high school girls' lacrosse team. They need a lot of help! They can barely fill the roster, and they all pretty much suck at the game. I'm sure that under Sakurai's guidance they will quickly overcome their shortcomings. I love sports manga, especially with an underdog team, so I am looking forward to more of this one.
No One Piece! It's on break until the next issue, which is a bummer, because Luffy always makes me laugh.
To purchase Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, click here. You can check out the free Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha starter pack here. Viz is having a sale on their digital manga. You can get 20% off until January 8th! Click here for the deets.


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2014 Geodynamics Program Anthropocene: From Land to the Ocean
Student Participation and Course Requirements
Student meetings with guest speakers will be from 1:00 - 1:30 p.m. in the Carriage House with seminars afterward on Tuesdays starting February 4, ending May 13, 2014
Depending on the number of students, each visiting speaker will have at least one student host (preferably a post-General student). Hosting will entail organizing a small group of students to take the speaker to lunch (usually the Buttery with the program covering the expense).
All students will meet alone with the visiting speaker 1:00 -1:30 p.m. in the Carriage House to discuss readings provided by the speaker in advance readings will be made available as pdf copies on the website the week prior to each lecture). All students are required to read the papers, and it will be useful to have the speaker's host help lead the discussion.
This meeting will be followed by the speaker's talk, which is open to the WHOI community.
Please note on the Speaker Schedule that the day/date and venue for some of the talks is not on Tuesadys or in the Carriage House. You will be reminded of this venue/date changes by email.
Student Course Requirements
Credit for the seminar requires attendance at Thursday's or Thursday's meetings and completion of a research project (with oral presentations of results). Some of the requirements differ for pre and post-general students
Pre-generals students: carry out a research project related to this year's theme – preferably something outside their current field of research. They will be required to write this work up in an 8-10 page report, due at our last class meeting. In addition, they will give a 12-15 minute oral presentation at the end of the course, reporting the results of their findings. Project topics are generally solicited from the WHOI staff and posted on the program website under "Student Projects".
Post-generals students (exam and thesis proposal-wise): present results from their research or a topic of interest in a 12-15 minute oral presentation at the end of the course.
Study Tour Participation
The Geodynamics Program sponsors a study tour during the summer following the spring semester. Participating in the study tour is optional. Students coming on the study tour will research some aspect of something that will be seen in the field (instructors can give students a better idea once we finalize the field trip sites). Students will be responsible for giving a brief presentation (informal 10 minute) in the field on this topic to the group. In some past programs students have been able to work on these in pairs, and prior to the trip, instructors have compiled a list of potential topics for field trip schpeels.


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This page is now available as interactive hypermedia
at digitalbach.com/goldberg (Flash)
It seems that the Count, an insomniac, had asked Bach to compose something that might occupy his restless nights. For his trouble, Bach was rewarded with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or. Keyserlingk was so pleased that he thereafter referred to Bach's music as "my variations," but history has remembered "Keyserlingk's Variations" by the name of his harpsichordist: Goldberg.
The Goldberg Variations begin with an Aria Bach had composed in 1725, possibly for his wife This Aria appears in Anna Magdalena's Notebook, where it is written in her own hand. The Sarabande-like Aria becomes theme for a set of 30 variations to follow.
In theme and variation one expects the soprano to become the object of variation. This does not happen in the Goldbergs. Instead, Bach follows an Italian model known as ruggiero which varies the bass instead. Bach's ruggiero consists of eight phrases with every other phrase ended by the same ground bass but in different keys. Thus Bach's ruggiero is very nearly a chaconne (ostinato form in which the repeated element is a chord progression rather than a melody). The bass does not repeat verbatim, but its implied harmonies are always intact. If the bass had repeated exactly, the cycle might have been called a passacaglia--the favorite Baroque cousin of theme and variation. This similarity to the ground bass forms of chaconne and passacaglia led Albert Schweitzer to call the Goldberg Variations "a passacaglia worked out in chiaroscuro." There is nothing quite like it in all of music literature.
|Top of Document


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Looking for work, landing a job, and keeping a job can be difficult under the best of circumstances, but it can seem like minefield when you have a hearing loss. There are ways to successfully navigate the landscape even with a hearing loss, but you need to have the right information to help you reach your goals.
HLAA has developed an "Employment Toolkit" to provide information about the workplace for people with hearing loss.
In these pages, you will find news, tools and information to help you with employment issues.


text: It's pandemonium when Jim Henson's Fraggles manage to break into the studio during a Ben Folds Five recording session for the song "Do It Anyway." Luckily, as is the case with anything the Fraggles get their little felt paws on, the chaos only improves things. Better still? The video includes cameos by Anna Kendrick, Chris Hardwick and Rob Corddry.


text: If it's neon t-shirts, neon hoodies, neon hats, or safety shirts wholesale you are looking for, we have got you covered. Neon and safety t-shirts have the brightest colors of them all, and are a necessity when getting noticed is a priority. Ever-popular wholesale t-shirts like the Jerzees 29M are available in both vibrant neon t-shirt colors and bright safety shirt colors.


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For those who don't mind them, I offer an online feedback form. The format is beyond my control; I do not require your eddress; but you must enter at least "firstname.lastname@example.com" or similar or your message won't reach me. (That's beyond my control.) Apologies for the implied demand. Of course, if you want a reply, I need some way to contact you!
I'm usually pleased to hear from readers. My eddress is:
That's a graphic; copy/paste won't work for filling in the "To" box for an email to me. Copy it "by hand". (Don't post your eddress online in machine-readable form unless you want spam.)
If I get your email, I will usually reply at least "Got It" within 36 hours. Don't hesitate to "pester" me by re-sending things.
I'm most pleased to hear from people who send plain text emails, initially without attachments. We can discuss any need for attachments in subsequent emails.
My email software (Pegasus) lets me look at just the headers of incoming email before I download anything else. If your email has no subject, has a vague subject like "help me", or has the word "urgent" in it, I am unlikely to even download your email, let alone read it. Put something in the subject line that shows me that your email was triggered by the fact that you used my webpages.
I'm most likely to look at something with a subject that appears to have been composed by a human, and isn't a classic spam subject, e.g. not "Tk, you really want to read this...". Making intelligent reference to something in the page you are responding to gives you an edge.
A little bit about you in your email makes dealing with your enquiry more interesting for me. Don't put too much personal information in something to a stranger, but a not-too-specific indication of what you do, where you are, is appreciated. A visit to my freeware/ shareware for Windows page is even more appreciated!
For the technically proficient, not essential: If you put me in your address book, please tick the "plain text only" box. If you use Outlook Express: First: My sympathies. Try Pegasus or Mozilla's Thunderbird! Secondly: the "text only" box (in some versions of OE) appears at the lower left of my "page" in your address book.
If you want to send one email to several people, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not use "cc:", but, rather, use "bcc:" It works like "cc:", except it usually hides the list of who else has seen the email from each recipient. A small town professional, let's call him a lawyer, once sent "a friend" an "I want more work from you" email after my friend had stopped using the lawyer because his work was unsatisfactory. For the "want work" email, the lawyer used "cc:". And the email came with a virus. The lawyer didn't even thank my friend for being alerted to the problem. My friend felt a strong temptation to send an email to all the other people the lawyer had pestered. If the lawyer had used "bcc:", it would have been no more work for him, and he would not have supplied my friend with the eddresses of all those other people. (If you are using Pegasus, read the material in the help file on "bcc").
Want a link to your page from my page? I'm more likely to add one to a page on my site if you've already done a link to my site from yours.
I can be reached the old fashioned way as follows:
TK Boyd PO Box 367 Essex, CT 06426 USA
(Do not put me on mailing lists, please.)
I can be reached with a fax via a free service from www.efax.com. Signing up for it was simple and the questions reasonable. I receive a very few emails from eFax every year. You can "send a fax" to me as if I had a "real" fax machine on a dedicated phone line. But I don't. Instead, I receive what you sent as an email! I've had the number for many years now, am entirely happy with it. Recommended. I don't even seem to get any spam faxes... as of 3/13. I hope I haven't tempted fate by saying that! Beware: eFax is very "tough" if you receive more than a very small number of faxes in a month, for whatever reason, while you are on the unlimited free trial... even if you are promoting their service for them. I used to post my fax number here, but few people need it these days. Ask for it by email, if you "need" it, but be prepared to hear from me about other ways to send graphics!
Worried I'm not who I say I am? You should be... the net makes life too easy for the dishonest. Do you know about the Way Back Machine at www.archive.org? Besides being cool, it will show you that I've been around since at least December 1998. Just look up...
... and you'll find an earlier version of my eddress, 100665... there, at the bottom. (You can also check this page and the eddress on it.) Or, you can check TKBoydChi's profile at eBay.. that's me, too. Go to Google's newsgroup archives... you'll find many posts from me, especially years ago... and you won't find the complaints that arise about scam artists. If I can reassure you some other way, let me know?
Click here to visit editor's freeware, shareware page.
Editor's main homepage, with links to others he edits.
See graphic near start of page for my eddress (email address).


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Not sure if Ornamental Garden is the best term for it but I have sort of lanscaped this little bit as a special area.
In the photos below you'll see one with a bunch of nice fresh planted plants from Aug 2010. Well, they mostly all died, so its struggling, however I did reinforce it in April 2011.
Im hoping that this area with flurish with interesting specimens and become established. Its otherwise a bit of an odd space suited for very little due to it have a large slab, no light and being largely sheltered.


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On Sunday, a lesbian couple was kicked out of the Gertrude Stein exhibit at a San Francisco museum for the heinous crime of holding hands.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the couple were at SF's Contemporary Jewish Museum when they were accosted by a guard. Says onlooker Jane Levikow, "They were holding hands, and he told them they couldn't hold hands in the museum." When they opined that they damn well could hold hands in a museum, the guard tried to make them leave. The museum has apologized and has asked the private security company that employs the guard to reprimand him. Meanwhile, Levikow points out that trying to kick a lesbian couple of an exhibit on Gertrude Stein is especially ridiculous: "Does anyone see any irony here?"
This isn't the only place where lesbian couples have faced discrimination in the past few months. In June, two women were harassed by a security guard at Minneapolis's Target Field for kissing one another — he told them, "we don't play grab ass here." Apparently many people still feel free to interpret innocent displays of affection as somehow X-rated if the participants are two women. The result: patrons get deprived of their right to enjoy a public place, punished for the "crime" of dating while lesbian.
Guard Cracks Down On Hand-Holding At Stein Exhibit [SF Chronicle]


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As the top seed in the AFC, the Broncos will have the weekend off before resuming their quest for the Super Bowl.
Their offensive coordinator will not be spending the weekend watching potential opponents in the Wild Card games however. Mike McCoy is expected to interview with the Bills and Cardinals on Saturday before meeting with the Bears and Eagles on Sunday. McCoy admitted Thursday that he might be less than optimally prepared for some of the interviews because he's been focusing on the Broncos.
"You just have to go in there and be yourself. That is the No. 1 thing. It's an honor to be considered for those jobs. It goes to show the type of players we have here and the organization we have here. As coaches we are all products of the players we have and the other guys we work with. We'll see what happens," McCoy said, via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune. "Everyone has individual goals as a coach, as a player, but it is team first. We still have a lot left here. Hopefully, one day I will become a head coach. There is still a lot of football left here and we'll see what happens down the road."
McCoy also talked about not letting any outside talk about who's getting what job impact him, something he learned while interviewing for the Miami job last year. Given all that he's already got on his plate right now, it would seem hard to find the time to listen to much chatter anyway.


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Jane Abernathy
Sustainability Officer, Humanscale
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Get a leg up on the competition and leverage your professional development by attending SCALEX. Developed as a local version of SCALE: The ASID National Student Summit, SCALEX is a full day event, designed to bring innovative topics and discussions from renowned speakers directly to you.
SCALEX is an opportunity to hear from experts on topics that expand on what you're currently learning in the classroom. With real-life scenarios and expert-led panels, SCALEX will prepare you for a career in design.
SCALEX is for interior design students and educators who believe in the impact of design to transform lives. By attending SCALEX, students will prepared to take on their first professional role.
Get inspired by ways to make a difference on the human experience.
Advance yourself as an individual, present yourself as a leader.
Hear from the pros about real-life design projects.
Learn business skills that will impress first job managers.
Mark your calendars and register today. You canNOT afford to miss this opportunity.
All SCALEX attendees will receive a $49 credit to attend 2019 SCALE: The ASID National Student Summit or The Leadership Experience: Presented by ASID, July 19-21, 2018, in Washington, D.C.
8 – 8:30 a.m. | Networking Breakfast
8:45 – 9:15 a.m. | Welcoming Message
Speakers: Jon Strassner, LEED AP, director of Workplace Strategy, Humanscale; Jason Schupbach, director, The Design School, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University; Randy Fiser, Hon. FASID, CEO, ASID
Kick off your SCALE X experience with a welcome from your hosts followed by the event keynote.
9:15 – 10:15 a.m. | SCALEX Keynote: : The Evolving Role of Designers
Speaker: Todd Bracher, Strategic Product Design + Advisory, Todd Bracher Studio
An investigation into how designers' roles have evolved, and why good design, beyond aesthetics and function, needs to be strategic and make good business sense.
10:15 – 10:30 a.m. | Break
10:30 – 11:30 a.m. | Impact of Design Breakouts
Attendees select one breakout seminar from the following options.
The Story of Bureo, Making Plastic from Fishing Nets
Speaker: David Stover, co-founder, Bureo
Explore Bureo's design process, in which a source of waste was identified and leveraged to create positive solutions. Using disruptive innovation to put value into a previously discarded material, attendees will be given a detailed look into how an emerging company is aiming to inspire the next generation. Pushing the limits of sustainable design, Bureo will showcase examples for the new generation of products having a true positive impact on the environment.
Design for Humans – Workplace Functionality
Speaker: Johnathan Puleio, managing director, Humanscale Consulting
Designers cannot afford to ignore the ergonomics of workplace design. Employees are exposed to a multitude of musculoskeletal issues when they work in conditions that are not properly designed. Whether it is lighting levels, appropriate task seating solutions, or attention to work height, the human factor must be carefully considered in any workplace. Employees cannot safely work all day long on lounge seating or sofas. Effective workstations must be carefully planned and designed. Jonathan Puleio, a certified ergonomist with over 20 years of experience, will take seminar attendees on a carefully curated tour of effective workplace design through an ergonomic lens.
The Living Building Challenge: The Future of Healthy, High Performing Workplaces
Speaker: Kathleen Smith, LEED Fellow, Vice President, Living Building Challenge, International Living Future Institute
Companies and organizations are increasingly embracing the regenerative design principles within the Living Building Challenge to achieve healthy, high performing spaces. Attendees will learn about the Living Building Challenge and explore how the program can improve occupant health and well-being. Case studies of key certified Living Building projects will be provided including Etsy Brooklyn HQ, Google Chicago, and Glumac Shanghai.
11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m. | Lunch on Your Own
1 – 2 p.m. | Leadership Development Breakouts
Attendees select one breakout seminar from the following options.
Material Transparency and Net Positive Impact
Speaker: Jane Abernathy, Sustainability Officer, Humanscale
As designers, the choices you make will have a significant impact on the world. Manufacturers respond and adapt to design requirements, and the end user lives with the decisions every day. In this seminar, we will explore what makes a product sustainable and how to go about making optimal choices when evaluating product.
The Road to Leadership
Speaker: Matt DeGeeter, vice president, Education and Engagement, ASID
Why are associations important? How will they support you as an interior design student in your career? Discover your leadership path and how you can advance yourself as a design professional through ASID.
Experience of an Emerging Designer
Speaker: John Strassner, LEED AP, director, Workplace Strategy, Humanscale; Kirsten Keane, WELL AP
Learn what it was like acclimating from design school student to professional designer for Kirsten Keane, WELL AP. Interviewed by Jon Strassner, a 22 year veteran of the industry, Kirsten will answer questions related to adjusting to professional work, frustrating moments, rewarding experiences, and lessons that would have helped in preparing for the real world. Gain insight to help you prepare for your first professional role.
2 – 2:15 p.m. | Break
2:15 – 3:15 p.m. | Practice of Design Breakouts
Attendees select one breakout seminar from the following options.
Color + Design Vision 2018
Speaker: Justin Hicks, Global Showroom Design, Mohawk Group
Manking is in flux today, living between the pas tand the future, and the natural and digital worlds. This dichotomy is causing major shifts in human behavior and design has follwed suit. We call this Designkind, where a new generation of post-digital nomads is pushed to the limits, experiencing life on demand, and rethinking the value of what's important. This will create a new design language focused on the clash between city and country, new and old, virtual and real. Join Justin Hicks from Mohawk Group as he shares the 2017-2018 Color + Design Vision, exploring these relevant cultural themes and trends affecting design today. We will examine today's design trends across multiple disciplines to see how they create new visual expression. By looking at these themes, we will also share the 2017 - 2018 color forecast while giving examples of how culture influences color and design direction.
Water Sense: Efficient Shower Technology
Speaker: Christopher W. Jones, National Sales training manager, Hansgrohe
Journey through the evolution of the modern bathroom and how advanced technology is shaping bathrooms of the future. Attendees will learn about the current water regulation codes in certain parts of the country and how they are affecting shower systems. Attendees will also be able to distinguish between water efficient products versus ones that simply save water.
Your Role as a Designer: Presenting Your Ideas to Your Clients Speaker
Learn how to prepare and deliver design presentations to clients. As designers we are storytellers and place-makers. Our presentations need to convey our ideas to our clients so they embrace our design concepts and confidently approve our designs. The fundamentals of storytelling will be presented as well as tools and skills needed to bring those stories to life. Tips for effective presentations and examples will be provided.
Speaker: Beth Harmon-Vaughn, Ph.D., ASID, FIIDA, LEED AP, principal/managing director, Gensler
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. | Break
3:30 – 4:30 p.m. | Business of Design: Resume and Portfolio Review
Students will have the unique opportunity to have proven professionals review their portfolios and resumes and provide constructive feedback. Interview skills and overall knowledge will be enhanced instantly by these productive interactions.
4:30 – 5 p.m. | Closing Remarks
Speaker: Randy Fiser, Hon. FASID, CEO, ASID
Wrap up SCALEX with a recap on the day's experiences and how to apply them to your first professional role.
5 – 6 p.m. | Reception
Sustainability Officer, Humanscale
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Strategic Product Design + Advisory, Todd Bracher Studio
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Vice President, Education and Engagement, ASID
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As the sustainability officer at Humanscale, Jane develops the strategic vision for sustainability, which has taken the ambitious goal of having a Net Positive impact. Jane implements this vision by guiding the R&D effort to create the most sustainable products possible; and by working with manufacturing facilities to instill sustainability as a fundamental way of operating. Last year Humanscale's main production facility used captured rainwater for 100% of production, on-site solar energy for 90% of electricity, and achieved the highest recycling rates for manufacturing in New Jersey. Humanscale has been recognized as the first manufacturer to achieve the complete Living Product Challenge, is a founding member of the Net Positive Project, and a founding member of the NextWave initiative.
Todd Bracher is an industrial designer and design strategist who has guided some of the world's leading brands to realize strategic differentiation through design, including 3M, Jaguar, Herman Miller, Humanscale, and Cappellini.
With over 75 products in the market, two dozen patents, and numerous global awards, including Top 100 Global Design Influencer by Wallpaper* Magazine and two-time International Designer of the Year, Todd Bracher is recognized as the preeminent voice in American contract furniture design.
The studio, founded in 1999 and based in New York City, draws upon an international experience and expert network that Todd built over 10 years while living and working in Copenhagen, Milan, London, and Paris.
Matthew DeGeeter, ASID, is an award-winning designer and the vice president of Education and Engagement at ASID. With a passion for developing meaningful experiences, Matthew brings his background as a professional interior designer at a top-5 firm and as a past volunteer leader of ASID to programs, education, and professional development opportunities.
Previously, Matthew worked at the Washington, D.C. office of Perkins+Will where his design work focused on healthcare projects as productive and efficient workplaces for those who staff them, in addition to being places of healing and wellness. As part of local and national design teams, Matthew's projects received numerous awards and were featured in multiple publications including Architectural Digest, Interiors & Sources, and many more. His projects varied in scale from community health centers to ambulatory care centers, to medical center campus expansions.
As a volunteer leader with ASID, Matthew served as director-at-large on the ASID National Board of Directors, was a two-term chair for the Emerging Professional Advisory Council, and held various chapter positions. Additionally, Matthew consulted as a brand manager for The Global Good Fund, a non-profit that links social investors to high potential young leaders.
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Principal/Managing Director, Gensler
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Global Showroom Design, Mohawk Group
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Randy Fiser spreads the mission of "Design Impacts Life" through his work as the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) chief executive officer. As ASID CEO, Fiser leads the Society's 25,000+ members from commercial and residential sectors across North America to advance the profession and communicate the transformative power of design on people's lives.
Since being named CEO in 2012, Fiser has inspired change, playing a key role in advancing the interior design profession and the organization. He has invested heavily in research, enhanced ASID's reach through new partnerships with organizations like the Clinton Global Initiative, Delos, and the International WELL Building Institute, secured crucial practice rights victories in Massachusetts, and moved ASID headquarters into an award-winning "living laboratory" studying the impact of design in the workplace. His mission and message is evident in all that he does – to demonstrate that hiring an interior designer is not only a good return on investment but a decision that transforms lives.
Fiser's career has been built on his passion for making the world a better place. From K-12 education reform to leading advancements in work life balance to working on rebuilding communities in need with design-forward thinking, Fiser's past experiences leading him to ASID are proof of his power as a transformational leader with a continued drive for positive change.
With over 30 years of leadership experience, Beth Harmon-Vaughan serves as the managing director for the Gensler Phoenix office and leads teams in innovation and service as part of Gensler's one-firm philosophy. A recognized practice leader in the field of design, Beth is sought by end-users, design professionals, and academics for her synthesis of practice, research, education, and public service. Beth holds a Ph.D. from Arizona State University in sustainability and workplace productivity. Her body of work, which encompasses almost every type of commercial and institutional project, has been continually recognized for design excellence. Beth's ability to collaborate with and lead large teams delivers projects that are seamless in their execution. Her focus on the total integration of the client's vision and goals throughout the design and building process is integral on projects of large magnitude and technical complexity. She oversees the project's design development, management, and is responsible for the overall project strategy, providing technical and management support to the team. Additionally, Beth serves as the client's advocate, challenging the team to explore all options to ensure solutions are thoroughly developed.
Justin Hicks was born in Dalton, Georgia, the carpet capital of the world and graduated from Florida State University, where he studied Urban Planning with an emphasis on environmental planning and design. An avid architecture and design enthusiast, he believes in pairing design with sustainability and wellness practices to create spaces that are both beautiful and make us happier and healthier. In his current role as global showroom design manager for Mohawk Group, he has worked toward achieving both LEED Gold and WELL Certifications on their new flagship showroom in New York City, where he currently resides.
National Sales Training Manager, Hansgrohe
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Designer, Architekton
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Managing Director, Humanscale
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Christopher W. Jones is the sales training manager for Hansgrohe. He has 20+ years of experience in training and course development, not only Hansgrohe's field sales reps and their clients, but for professionals such as architects and designers as well. He is an experienced professional speaker, published author, and has a passion for delivering dynamic programs to the industry.
Humans interact with design on a daily basis. At work, design can influence productivity, efficiency, and error rates. At home, design can influence relaxation and refuge. Design delineates social spaces from private spaces. As designers, whether focusing on commercial, residential, public, or healthcare environments, we can use design to improve the well-being of the inhabitants of those spaces. Kirsten's interest as a designer is to tie the tenets of positive psychology to design and create spaces that make users feel fulfilled, engaged and happy--spaces where human beings flourish.
Kirsten graduated with a Master of Interior Architecture from Arizona State University. Combined with her B.A. in psychology, where she conducted research on memory and cognition, and her B.A. in journalism, she now works at the intersection of design and well-being, and strives to communicate the impacts of one on the other with clients and colleagues (and anyone who will listen). She earned her WELL AP credential in August 2017, and is thrilled to be part of the movement bringing health and well-being to the forefront of the built environment.
Jonathan Puleio is a board-certified professional ergonomist who holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees in human factors and ergonomics from Cornell University. As Managing Director of Humanscale Consulting, Jonathan is responsible for leading an international team of ergonomists. Jonathan has extensive experience in the areas of ergonomic program development, occupational health & safety, musculoskeletal injury prevention, and workplace design. He has worked with the International Standards Organization (ISO) on the development of international ergonomic standards for office environments and holds several U.S. patents for the design of ergonomic products. He is an adjunct professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering where he teaches the undergraduate course Human Factors in Engineering Design. Jonathan is based in New York City and has worked with Humanscale Consulting since 2002.
Director, The Design School, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizon
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Vice President, Living Building Challenge, International Living Future Institute
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Co-Founder, Bureo Inc.
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Jason Schupbach is the director of The Design School at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. He was previously the director of Design and Creative Placemaking Programs for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw all design and creative placemaking, grantmaking, and partnerships, including Our Town and Design Art Works grants, the Mayor's Institute on City Design, the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design, and the NEA's Federal agency collaborations. Previously, Jason served Governor Patrick of Massachusetts as creative economy director and was tasked with growing creative and tech businesses in the state. He was the director of ArtistLink, a Ford Foundation-funded initiative to stabilize and revitalize communities through the creation of affordable space and innovative environments for creatives, and has also worked for the Mayor of Chicago and New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs. Jason has written extensively on the role of arts and design in making better communities, and his writing has been featured as a Best Idea of the Day by the Aspen Institute
As vice president of the Living Building Challenge, Kathleen Smith oversees all aspects of the program including its continued evolution as the most innovative green building standard in the world. Additionally, she leads the Institute's strategic and technical consulting services with projects, institutions, and governments working to adopt advanced measures of sustainability related to the Living Building Challenge. She also directs the Institute's education work across all its programs including the Living Building Challenge, Living Product Challenge, and Living Community Challenge.
A LEED Fellow and nationally recognized expert in sustainable design, Kathleen is an architect by training with over 25 years of experience in sustainable design, construction, and education. Prior to her current role, Kathleen served in key roles in several organizations including principal of her own firm, Ecosmith Architecture & Consulting; national sustainability service line leader for AECOM; and project architect and director of consulting for Van der Ryn Architects.
She is recognized as an inspiring, passionate, and highly effective teacher and speaker and has lectured and taught extensively to a variety of audiences on numerous topics. Kathleen is the co-author of two books: Rebuilding Community in America and The Northwest Green Home Primer.
David Stover is a Co-Founder of Bureo Inc, an emerging company focused on developing innovative solutions to prevent ocean plastic pollution. An avid surfer and environmental enthusiast, David left behind a career in corporate finance when his global travels led him to the issues facing our ocean today. Currently residing in Ventura California, David splits time between Chile and the US and is actively involved in the global fight to prevent ocean plastic pollution.
Director of Workplace Strategy, Humanscale
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Jon has been with Humanscale since 1996 and has enjoyed being a part of the company's progression as an industry leader in people, productivity, and workstation functionality. In his 20 years with Humanscale, Jon has served as Canadian Sales Director and North American Director of A&D. In his current role, as Director of Workplace Strategy, Jon works to ensure the Humanscale brand remains top of mind and relevant. His deep involvement in the design industry informs the company's understanding of industry trends, salient conversations, and inspiring stories.
A LEED Accredited Professional, Jon is passionate about the role Humanscale can play in the Net Positive Movement and in creating healthy and restorative places to work and live.
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Drug Economy
Antiretroviral Renegade Fights Fashion with Didanosine Duo, Betting His Future on Genetic Barriers
"Souped-Up Monotherapy"
When it comes to the management of a fatal infection like HIV, it has been argued that self-experimentation seldom leads to knowledge. Others in this fix are quick to point out that current approaches to treatment are all just one big experiment, anyway. Opposite ends of an authoritative continuum, it would appear: "Do nothing without solid clinical evidence to back it up" -- and the hallowed imprimatur of some omniscient governing body, goes the thinking of the first camp. "Search out all there is to know, follow the heeding of your gut, and do what makes sense to you in order to stay well," the other. That the latter of the two approaches reverberates as the spirit in which the entire AIDS activist movement was born seems ridiculously self-evident. This
TAGline editor is keen to include himself among the ranks of the provocative, the circumspect and the headstrong -- and recounts his story here.
Like many people I know, I started antiretroviral therapy shortly after the Vancouver conference in the autumn of 1996. With T-cell counts that had see-sawed between 400 and 500 for nearly a decade, I'd always sort of been on the cusp of start/don't start. It was the three-years-to-eradication talk, which began early in the spring of 1996 and then reached its frenzied crescendo by late summer, that tipped the balance for me in favor of starting. After I'd taken my first dose I remember wandering the streets of the East Village, zombie-like, imagining the end of AIDS. Even if the big talk didn't pan out, at least I would give my immune system a break. And so that was the deal I made with myself: jump on the "It's the virus, stupid" bandwagon, see where it leads, give it a couple of years, then reassess the situation.
Contrary to the neatly organized stories of viral "set points," my viral load measurements had always been all over the map. Eighty thousand one month, a hundred and fifty the next; one hundred thousand in the spring, one hundred and eighty in the fall. Half a year of monthly DNCB paintings had appeared to bring my viral load down to 50,000 just before I started taking the pills. (No, there wasn't a control group.)
At that time there were only three protease inhibitors available. Ritonavir's reputation terrified me, and saquinavir seemed like protease-lite. Given the alternatives, indinavir seemed the safest bet. And I liked the twice-a-day schedule of d4T and 3TC, so that's where I began. Yet I under-estimated how intrusive the fasting requirements and thrice daily indinavir dosing would be in my life. I was obsessively compliant but was driving my boyfriend crazy. I lived my life by the ticking hands of the clock.
My viral load fell below 400 copies within a month. A few months later, when I changed doctors in order to gain access to the ultra-sensitive 50 copy assay, my virus was still detectable -- and took nearly six months to go below 50. My T-cells never really budged; five or six hundred was the most I ever got.
A couple months into the combo my skin and lips began to harden, dry and crack -- to the point where it was as if the skin from my elbows or heels had overgrown to the rest of my body. Under the sheets it was like sharing a bed with a pint-sized pachyderm. "The skin is the body's largest organ -- and a window to the immune system," I remember my dermatologist friend telling me. If this is what Crixivan is doing to my skin, I mused, god only knows the effect it's having on my insides! My boyfriend urged me to jump ship. He'd been one of those ritonavir people who, incredibly, had suffered no ill effects at all, not even the first few weeks. "Only twice a day -- and with food," he lobbied me to join him, but I declined.
Nelfinavir came along late that winter -- and I jumped. What a relief it was to have no more fasting requirements. Even for an urban gay man living on the outer reaches of a Barbie doll six-pack culture, planning for a full stomach was much more exciting than contemplating its opposite. Apart from the early diarrhea and the chronic loose stools, nelfinavir was a veritable vacation compared to indinavir. Some months later I would talk with friends who had also made the switch. We shared stories of shitting our pants in the middle of Manhattan, no time to search out a toilet. (Imodium anyone?) Wasn't life on Viracept grand.
The year 1996 had not even come to a close when researchers began explaining why the Perelson/Ho predictions were a fantasy. Memory T-cells would pose a significant hurdle, as would the existence of viral reservoirs untouched by treatment. The Diamond team's assumption of 100% viral shut-down was also to prove naive. As experiments at Hopkins, the NIH and UC-San Diego proceeded, the three-year cure timeline had been quickly extended to 60. The bandwagon, it seemed, had encountered an impasse.
In the spring of 1998, faithful to my earlier bargain with myself, I bid my triple combo farewell and opted for an experimental foray with a less intensive "maintenance therapy" regimen of ddI and hydroxyurea. ("High genetic barrier to resistance," and all that.) Never mind that the handful of such trials (ACTG 343, Trilège, ADAM) were not panning out. Most of them had been poorly designed, almost as if they had been set up to show failure. None of them had included hydroxyurea as part of the maintenance regimen. Little by little my viral load became detectable again. It plateaued at around 1,000 copies and remained there for many months.
Over the course of the past three years I have gone on and off my ddI/hydroxyurea bitherapy for increasing periods of time. First just a week, then two; later for a month, then longer. Each time I would test my viral load obsessively and go back on my souped-up monotherapy when the virus threatened to break out. Strangely, it always seemed to rise at a snail's pace. Emboldened, I began to take longer treatment breaks: two months, three months, five. But I'd grown complacent: my RNA results came back at 180,000; CD4s hadn't budged. I pulled the pills back out for a couple of months.
I am currently logging the progress of my longest time off therapy since this experiment began some five years ago. My March 2001 viral load, nine months off therapy, was a mere 12,000 copies; my CD4s, at 660, were higher than ever -- even on the protease triple combo.
Of course, it's possible that with only a moderately high baseline viral load I hadn't needed a triple combo in the first place. (Remember though, back in 1996 a mere 20,000 copies was considered immediately life-threatening, thanks to the pip-squeak arriviste John Mellors and his poorly preserved plasma samples from the MACS.) Perhaps ddI/HU would have been sufficient from the start. My doctors and I conceded that possibility in a letter to The Lancet (3 October 1998, 352:1149). The dinitrochlorobenzene pre-treatment spree was omitted from the Lancet letter. Why risk the ridicule?
Now, of course, we learn there may be individual characteristics -- genetic makeup -- which pre-determine the course of one's HIV infection. Chemokine receptors mutations (e.g., CCR2, SDF-1) and HLA subtypes. I didn't even know what HLA was, and yet researchers now talk of "advantageous" and "disadvantageous" alleles. (See "Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) and HIV Disease Progression" in this issue.) With all the progress the field has made, it boggles the mind to think how much we still don't understand.
My physician friend in Berlin talks of how shamefully crude our methods are some fifteen years into HIV care. The fact that we are still relying on CD4 cell counts and plasma viral loads in 2001 seems absolutely barbaric to him. Will we, a year or two from now, be routinely measuring patients' viral diversity, the breadth of their CTL response, cytokine signaling and antigen presentation?
I performed my own maintenance therapy experiment because I was less afraid of developing resistance to ddI than to a protease inhibitor or a non-nuke. I also wanted to thumb my nose at an oligopolistic biomedical industrial complex that delights in the stranglehold it exercises over the AIDS research agenda.
Who knows what my counts will be when I test again in a few weeks. Maybe it will be time to haul out the Videx again. It's even possible that one day ddI's high but not nonexistent genetic barrier will be reached, and I'll have to re-think this entire strategy. For the time being, though, I will keep on experimenting, "N of 1" or not. Sometimes self-experimentation's all a guy's got.


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Career Tips >> Browse Articles >> Job Seekers: Resume, Interview and More
Career Tips >> Browse Articles >> Returning to Work and Career Changers
6 Illegal Interview Questions to Avoid
Hamsa Ramesha
ILLEGAL: "Are you a U.S. citizen?"
LEGAL: "Are you authorized to work in the U.S.?"
Employers aren't allowed to ask about your national origin, and that includes inquiring about your citizenship status. Touchy immigration issues aside, this question makes unnecessary assumptions based on your looks and racial stereotypes. On the flip side, employers can ask if you're allowed to work in the U.S. By rephrasing the question, they're avoiding directly asking if you're a citizen, green card holder, or on a visa.
ILLEGAL: "How old are you? When did you graduate from college?"
LEGAL: "Are you over the age of 18?"
Whether you're 18 going on 48 or 60 going on 40, employers are not allowed to discriminate against age (which is what the first question implies). However, when asked differently, the question becomes legal; the legal phrasing implies an age range, not a specific number. After all, employers need to know their employees are over 18 years of age to work legally in the U.S.
ILLEGAL: "Are you married? How many children do you have? Who do you live with?
LEGAL: "Can you relocate if necessary? Are you willing to travel as a part of this job? Can you work overtime as necessary?"
Your marital and family status is not being interviewed here — you are. Anything about your living situation, roommates, fiancés, spouses, children, etc., is off limits. While employers might simply be trying to gauge how busy you are in your personal life to see if it clashes with work responsibilities, it's illegal to make a hiring decision based on this factor. As a potential employee, if you can commit to the necessary work hours and agree to the job requirements, your other responsibilities shouldn't matter. Women should especially be wary of being asked for their maiden name — not required for employers if it isn't legally your name. (But you can be asked if you've ever worked under another name.)


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In 2005, we were asked to put on a group exhibit of Detroit area Arab artists. We decided to create a thematic multi-media show that would include painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, graphics, video and audio installations, and a mural that we created in situ in the gallery during the duration of the exhibit. We decided on a theme called "Journeys & Distances", focusing on the concept of people in a constant state of "journeying," where people's lives and experiences, through migration and displacement, are linked to the old and the new, where their restlessness is ceaseless and they constantly migrate back and forth, mentally, emotionally or physically, in a search for themselves.
For the exhibit I focused on the intangible memory of land and home in a series of oil paintings.
In exploring our innermost voices, struggling with the mysteries of memory and loss is inevitable. The memories of a distant home are heard as whispers that want to manifest themselves in the outer world of images. I hear the images of a forsaken home, of a home that is like faint shadows of ourselves, of a home that is not familiar any longer, of a more ancient land from which our roots were yanked. Initially these images are intangible and not formed, and so the exploration of these images is an exploration of that which is elusive and pliable. Thus the paintings become abstractions of home and land. The search for these images occurs entirely through the very direct interaction with the media; the exploration of the paint takes form as a discovery of those faint visualizations of home.
The mural that we created in situ is 24 x 8 feet. It was a collaborative work that synthesized many of the themes that the various artists presented in their individual bodies of work. Issues such as migration, sacrifice, loss, cultural transplantation, melancholy, urban industrialization, rural roots, steadfastness, hard work, community, assimilation, identity conflict, heritage, and so on.
all paintings © Ibn Bint Jbeil


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Nuclear Power Station image from Shutterstock
For the first time in a generation, Japan is set to go nuclear-free next month. Nuclear energy has suffered a serious blow to its public image since the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, and Japanese authorities have been cautious about restarting idled nuclear plants. Over the weekend, Japan's Trade Minister Yukio Edano indicated that on May 6 the last operating nuclear reactor in the country is set to be taken offline, meaning that for the first time since 1970, Japan will be getting zero energy from nuclear power plants.
It's unclear at this point how long the nuclear pause will last, however. In Japan, nuclear reactors are typically taken offline every 13 months for regular safety checks, but due to public pressure, none of the reactors that have been idled have been allowed to restart. Last month, the second-to-last reactor was taken offline, and now it appears that the final reactor will be idled before any of the others reactors are restarted. Prior to the Fukushima crisis, nuclear power accounted for as much as 30 percent of the electricity produced in Japan. Since the disaster, polls have shown that 80 percent of Japanese citizens no longer trust the government's nuclear safety programs, and 57 percent oppose the relaunch of idle nuclear power plants.
There are a couple of immediate consequences of Japan's nuclear shutdown: more fossil fuel-based power and higher electricity prices. Bloomberg reports that Japanese utilities companies have been forced to turn to coal, oil and gas-fired power plants to electricity flowing, and because most of those resources have to be imported, it's much more expensive. Without nuclear power, meeting energy demands in the summer will be a challenge.
Meanwhile, there are still major concerns about the level of safety at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate's energy committee, toured the plant earlier this month and reported that Japanese authorities aren't moving fast enough to remove dangerous nuclear fuel rods from the reactors. Wyden argued that because of the sluggish cleanup effort another earthquake and tsunami could be even more devastating, and that the U.S. should offer its help.
Via Reuters
Photos by KEI and Flickr user Kawamoto Takou


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Should CSOs Have a Seat at the Table?
The World Bank has experimented with different approaches to including civil society organizations (CSOs) in its decision-making processes over the years. These have varied from regular policy dialogue with CSOs through the Bank – NGO Committee in the 1980s and 1990s, to establishing CSO advisory committees in several Bank units during the 2000s. Currently, two of these initiatives stand out: the Bank's Climate Investment Funds have invited 19 CSO representatives (chosen competitively through online voting) to serve as 'active observers' on its five Committees and Sub-Committees; and the Bank's Health Unit has established a CSO 'consultative group' to which it invited 18 CSO leaders to advise the Bank on its health, nutrition, and population agenda.
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- The World Region
- Governance
- The Gates Foundation
- Representation
- Policy Dialouge
- participation
- Pan African Farmers Organization
- global agriculture and food security program
- food security
- Farmer and Nature Net
- Decision-Making
- CSOs
- climate investment funds
- Civil Society Representation
- Civil Society Participation in Governance
- Civil Society Participation
- civil society organizations
- civil society
- Action Aid