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Longitudinal structure in electron density at mid-latitudes: upward-propagating tidal effects
- Hui Wang1Email author and
- Kedeng Zhang1
© The Author(s) 2017
- Received: 13 July 2016
- Accepted: 27 December 2016
- Published: 4 January 2017
- Mid-latitude ionosphere
- Electron density
- Longitudinal variation
- Lower atmospheric tides
- TIEGCM model
The equatorial lower atmosphere is coupled to the F region ionospheric electron density (Ne) (England 2012). A prominent wave-4 longitudinal structure is reported by a number of satellite observations (Sagawa et al. 2005; Immel et al. 2006; England et al. 2006b; Lin et al. 2007; Lühr et al. 2007; Kil et al. 2008, 2015; Pedatella et al. 2008; Scherliess et al. 2008; Wan et al. 2008; Liu et al. 2009; Kwak et al. 2012) and simulations (Hagan et al. 2007; Jin et al. 2008; Ren et al. 2010). These wave-4 structures are believed to be caused by the non-migrating DE3 tide (Hagan and Forbes 2002; Henderson et al. 2005; Sagawa et al. 2005; England et al. 2006a; Immel et al. 2006). When the DE3 E layer wind dynamo electric field is mapped to the F layer, it causes DE3 changes in the electron density through vertical transport processes. The annual and seasonal variations of DE3 are similar to those of ionospheric parameters, which support the E-F layer electric field coupling mechanism (Lin et al. 2007; Kil et al. 2008; Wan et al. 2008; England et al. 2009; Fang et al. 2009; Oberheide et al. 2009; Häusler and Lühr 2009; Mukhtarov and Pancheva 2011; Brahmanandam et al. 2011; Wu et al. 2012; Pedatella et al. 2012; Nogueira et al. 2013).
Whether or not the lower atmosphere is closely coupled to the mid-latitudinal ionosphere is still not well understood. Previous regional and global observations have disclosed prominent wave-2 and wave-1 longitudinal structures of the Ne in the F layer in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (Zhang et al. 2011; Zhao et al. 2013; Xu et al. 2013; Wang et al. 2016). Wang et al. (2016) found a wave-1 longitudinal structure of Ne existing in the E layer in both hemispheres. The longitudinal variation of thermosphere and ionospheric parameters are often related to non-migrating tides, either generated in situ or upward-propagated from the lower atmosphere (Wu et al. 2012). A recent model study by Wang et al. (2015) quantitatively investigates in situ physical processes in F regions in association with the wave-2 and wave-1 longitudinal structure of the Ne. It shows that the vertical motion of plasma, caused by the zonal wind, accounted for 80% of the wave-2/wave-1 variations in Ne in the Northern/Southern Hemisphere. Meridional wind, neutral composition, and solar heating are responsible for the remnant. In the E layer, the dominant in situ process is solar heating (Wang et al. 2016). These results indicate that local/in situ physical processes contribute to observed longitudinal variations of Ne in both the E and F regions and can compromise the model–observation differences. However, the roles of upward-propagating migrating and non-migrating tides from the lower atmosphere are still not well understood and need further investigation. Wang and Liu (2015) revealed that the longitudinal differences of the F region's Ne over NA were enhanced by 15% when migrating tidal inputs were turned on at the model's low boundary. But its effect on the E region's Ne was not discussed.
The aim of this work is to examine, in detail, the upward-propagating tidal effect from the lower atmosphere on the ionospheric Ne using the National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR) TIEGCM (Heroux and Higgins 1977). In the following section, the phrase 'tides' means those that originate from the lower atmosphere. The questions that we want to address here are: (1) what is the role of the lower atmosphere tides in the E and F regions? (2) how do lower atmosphere tides affect the low and upper ionosphere? Various researchers have studied tidal effects on ionospheric parameters at equatorial regions using the TIEGCM model. (Heroux and Higgins 1977; Heroux and Hinteregger 1978; Heelis et al. 1980; Dickinson et al. 1984; Emery et al. 2008; Wu et al. 2012). With respect to the mid-latitudes, several recent model and observational studies showed that for manifesting the mid-latitude summer night anomaly, tidal components such as DE1 and DW2 in combination with SPW1 are predominant in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas D0 in combination with SPW1 are the major components in the Southern Hemisphere (Chen et al. 2013; Jones et al. 2013; Xiong and Lühr 2014; Chang et al. 2015). However, origins of these non-migrating tides, especially the quantitative contribution from the lower atmosphere, are not completely understood.
Model and observation
TIEGCM is a three-dimensional time-dependent model of the coupled thermosphere and ionosphere. It consistently solves ion continuity, momentum, and energy equations. The TIEGCM model is driven by a high-latitude electric field (Heelis et al. 1982), solar EUV, and UV spectral fluxes parameterized by the F10.7 index (Richards et al. 1994), and tides (global scale wave model) at the low boundary (Hagan and Forbes 2002). Its outputs are global winds, plasma and neutral temperatures, and densities.
The horizontal resolution of the model is set to be \(2.5^{\circ }\) by \(2.5^{\circ }\) in geographic longitude and latitude, respectively. There are 57 pressure surfaces extending from 97 km to about 700 km (depending on the solar activity) with a vertical resolution of a quarter scale height. All simulations are run for the 2002 March equinox. The input parameters are: hemispheric power = 39 GW, cross-polar cap potential = 60 kV, and F10.7 = 200 sfu. The model is run for 48 h to reach a quasi-steady state and then continued from the start-up simulation for another 24 h; these data are used for analysis. The electron density is sorted into geographic longitude and magnetic local time (MLT) bins with a resolution of \(15^{\circ }\) in longitude and 1 h in MLT. The longitudinal mean value is subtracted from each MLT sector to better explore the quantity's longitudinal variation. The study focuses on the mid-latitudes between \(\pm 40^{\circ }\) and \(\pm 60^{\circ }\) magnetic latitude (MLat). We run the TIEGCM model, separately with and without migrating tides (sun-synchronous) and non-migrating tides (longitude dependent) imposed at the lower atmosphere, in order to study the tidal effects on Ne. The tidal amplitudes vary considerably depending upon the season at mid-latitudes in the MLT (e.g., Laskar et al. 2016). The tidal components in March are specified by GSWM-02 including both the diurnal and semidiurnal harmonics.
Global scale wave model (GSWM)
GSWM is a two-dimensional, linearized, steady-state model. It solves the extended Navier–Stokes equations for tidal and planetary wave perturbations as a function of latitude and altitude for a specified zonal wave number and periodicity (refer to http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/research/tiso/gswm/gswm.html for additional details). GSWM-02 is used in TIEGCM model (Hagan and Forbes 2002, 2003). GSWM-00 includes monthly variable migrating tidal results in response to solar radiation. GSWM-02 includes both GSWM-00 results and the migrating and non-migrating diurnal and semidiurnal tides that are excited by latent heat release due to tropical deep convection, and offers monthly outputs. GSWM-02 provides 13 diurnal and semidiurnal tidal components, such as standing diurnal and semidiurnal tidal components as well as eastward and westward propagating harmonics with wave numbers from 1 to 6 (W6-E6).
Oberheide et al. (2006) performed a comprehensive study by comparing non-migrating tidal components from GSWM-02 with those from TIDI measurements of zonal and meridional winds in the mesosphere/lower thermosphere on board TIMED. Monthly averaged amplitude and phase for seven tidal components are presented at altitudes between 85 and 105 km. A comparison of the results indicates that there is good quantitative agreement between TIDI and the model predictions during equinox, but the latter tend to underestimate the westward 2 diurnal tide and standing diurnal tide during solstice. For westward 2 and standing diurnal tidal forcing, both latent heating and planetary wave/migrating tidal nonlinear interactions are equally important. As a linear tidal mode, the GSWM cannot account for nonlinear processes, such as planetary wave/migrating tidal interaction forcing.
CHAMP had a near-polar (\(83.7^{\circ }\) inclination) orbit (Reigber et al. 2002). The Planar Langmuir Probe (PLP) on board CHAMP measured the electron density every 15 seconds. Data, from 2002 and 2003, were selected representing high solar activity. A length of 131 days, centered on the March equinox, is chosen in order to cover the full local time cycle for CHAMP. The magnetic local time hours were covered on different days, but because the data being considered cover 2 years, local time seasonal correlation was somewhat smeared out. The study focused on the mid-latitudes between \(40^{\circ }\) and \(60^{\circ }\) MLat. We presented the results in magnetic latitude and magnetic local time because, for a given geographic latitude, the electron density showed a significant longitudinal dependence due to the tilt of the Earth's dipole axis. This dependence was greatly removed by using magnetic coordinates. The electron density was sorted into geographic longitude and MLT bins with a resolution of \(15^{\circ }\) longitude and 1 h in MLT. The longitudinal mean value was subtracted from each MLT sector to better explore the quantity's longitudinal variation.
Results and discussion
Data–model comparison
The simulated \(\Delta Ne\) is compared with the CHAMP satellite observations at 400 km altitude. The longitudinal and magnetic local time variations of the CHAMP \(\Delta Ne\) in the Northern (left) and Southern (right) Hemispheres are shown in Fig. 1. In observations, there exist a wave-2 structure (one peak and trough over NA (\(180^{\circ }\hbox {W}{-}0^{\circ }\)), another peak and trough over the Europe-Asia sector (\(0^{\circ }{-}180^{\circ }\hbox {E}\)) in the Northern Hemisphere), and a wave-1 structure (one peak and trough) in the Southern Hemisphere. Both peaks and troughs shift eastward as the local time increases. The wave amplitudes are larger in the Southern than in the Northern Hemisphere. Wang et al. (2016) showed that such longitudinal and diurnal features existed throughout the whole year and for all solar activity levels. Wang and Liu (2015) indicated that local physical processes (i.e., thermospheric neutral wind and solar heating) contributed to the observed longitudinal structure of the Ne.
The TIEGCM simulated \(\Delta Ne\) is shown at the bottom of Fig. 1. Here, the lower atmospheric tides are not added; therefore, the model's results represent in situ processes. These results are generally consistent with observations in large-scale structures, showing obvious wave-2 and wave-1 longitudinal patterns in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The hemispheric and local time asymmetries are also well reproduced by the model. These affirm that the model can be used for theoretical studies. Some small-scale structures are not reproduced by the model, which might be due to the fact that the model is a 1-day result with 131-day averaged solar wind and IMF parameters as input, while the observations are an accumulation of results over 131 days, as well as due to the fact that the tidal effects are not included in the model.
Migrating tidal effects
The altitudinal and longitudinal variations of the residual \(\Delta Ne\) at 14 MLT are shown in Fig. 3, to demonstrate the tidal effects at E and F regions. The longitudinal absolute differences in the \(\Delta Ne\) (top panel) are negligible at altitudes below 200 km, which is due to relatively lower density at the E region in comparison with that at F region. When looking at the relative differences (bottom panel), the longitudinal variations are quite comparable at altitudes below 200 km and above 200 km. The amplitudes of the longitudinal absolute differences reach a maximum at altitudes of around 300 km and then decrease with increasing altitudes. It is interesting to note that the longitudinal structure does not change significantly with altitude. The tidal effects at both the E and F layers indicate the upward propagation of tides from the lower atmosphere into the thermosphere.
The vertical velocity due to neutral winds is shown in Fig. 6, separately for the zonal wind (\(V_y\)), meridional wind (\(V_x\)), and neutral wind (\(V_y+ V_x\)). The plasma vertical velocity \(\Delta V_y\) driven by tidal zonal wind is shown at the top of Fig. 5: \(V_y = U_y \sin D \cos \mid I\mid \sin \mid I\mid \), where \(U_y\) is the tidal zonal wind, D is magnetic declination, I is the magnetic inclination angle, and D and I are derived from IGRF model. In the Northern (Southern) Hemisphere, there are two (one) zones of negative declinations (D) and two (one) zones of positive declination angles (D). \(\Delta V_y\) correspondingly shows two positive and negative zones because of \(\sin D\) (see the top of Fig. 6). The tidal zonal wind is westward in the pre-noon and evening sectors, while negligible in the post-noon sectors. The westward zonal wind causes two bands of upward and downward movement of the plasma in the Northern Hemisphere and one band of upward and downward motion of the plasma in the Southern Hemisphere (see top of Fig. 6). When the plasma is moved upward to the low recombination region, the plasma density becomes enhanced, and vice versa. When we compare \(\Delta V_y\) with the \(\Delta Ne\) (Fig. 6 vs. Fig. 4), we find that the upward (downward) plasma motion coincides with the enhanced (reduced) \(\Delta Ne\) except for a 4-h time delay. This confirms that the tidal zonal wind effect on the \(\Delta Ne\) is through the vertical motion of the plasma along the magnetic field.
The non-wind effect constitutes a major charge of the \(\Delta Ne\) under migrating tidal input, which is shown at the top of Fig. 7. Its effect on the \(\Delta Ne\) is nearly \(180^{\circ }\) out of phase to the tidal wind. The differences between the peak and trough of the \(\Delta Ne\) are calculated for quantitative comparison. The tidal non-wind processes provide about 64% of the contributions, while the neutral wind accounts for approximately 36% in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, the tidal wind effect is the opposite to that of the tidal non-wind effect. The neutral composition ratio \(\Delta O/N_2\) shown at the bottom of Fig. 7 exhibits a similar structure to the \(\Delta Ne\) driven by non-wind processes. This confirms that the neutral composition change is one of potential candidates in disturbing the \(\Delta Ne\) under migrating tidal conditions.
Another point needs to be addressed here. By using the GITM model, Wang and Liu (2015) showed an enhanced \(\Delta Ne\) wave in NA (\(180^{\circ }\hbox {W}{-}0^{\circ }\) GLon) produced by an upward-propagating migrating tide when compared to those caused by in situ processes. However, the TIEGCM shows a reduced \(\Delta Ne\) wave in the NA sector (see the left-hand side of the bottom panel in Fig. 2). The reason for this contradiction is that the GITM only includes the tidal wind, but excludes the tidal neutral compositions in the coupling between the lower atmosphere and thermosphere, while the TIEGCM includes both disturbances in the lower and upper atmosphere coupling.
Non-migrating tidal effects
The tidal non-wind effect is in major charge of the \(\Delta Ne\) under non-migrating tidal input, which is shown at the top of Fig. 12. For the non-migrating tides, the wind effect is opposite to the non-wind effect. The neutral composition ratio \(\Delta O/N_2\) is shown at the bottom of Fig. 12, which exhibits a similar structure to the \(\Delta Ne\) driven by non-wind processes. This confirms that the neutral composition ratio is one of potential candidates in disturbing the \(\Delta Ne\) under non-migrating tidal conditions.
Tidal decomposition
Tidal decomposition of \(\Delta Ne\) for three conditions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres
Northern Hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
No tide
Migrating tide
Non-migrating tide
No tide
Migrating tide
Non-migrating tide
The quantitative contribution from the lower atmosphere to the \(\Delta Ne\) at F region, as described earlier in our introduction, is not completely understood. To further understand this phenomenon, we performed tidal diagnostics of the \(\Delta Ne\) at F region for three cases. The major non-migrating tidal components are listed in Table 1. The case with no tide represents the local physical process effects, in comparison with those from migrating and non-migrating tides.
The two major tidal components, under no tidal input conditions, are D0 and DE1 in the Northern Hemisphere, and D0 and DW2 in the Southern Hemisphere. Those are listed in bold in Table 1. With migrating tidal input, D0 and DE1 can be enhanced by 8% and 3%, respectively, in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas D0 and DW2 can be enhanced by 13% and 21%, respectively, in the Southern Hemisphere. With non-migrating tidal input, D0 and DE1 are enhanced by 3% and 10%, respectively, in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas D0 and DW2 are enhanced by 3% and 2%, respectively, in the Southern Hemisphere. These represent the quantitative contribution from the lower atmosphere to the \(\Delta Ne\) in the F region. It can be seen that the DW2 and D0 components are less affected by non-migrating tides from lower atmosphere, which is most likely generated in situ by nonlinear interaction forcing in the upper thermosphere. This is consistent with the conclusion by Oberheide et al. (2011) who present a climatological tidal model of the thermosphere (CTMT) of upward-propagating migrating and non-migrating diurnal and semidiurnal tides from 80–400 km and pole to pole. This is based on Hough Mode Extension fits to 2002–2008 TIMED satellite tidal diagnostics in the lower thermosphere. They validated the CTMT with CHAMP tidal diagnostics at around 400 km. Their results proved that the theoretical model captured the observed non-migrating tides well, indicating that these waves propagate directly upward without significant weakening. The exceptions are the DW2 and D0 components, which are believed to be most likely generated in situ by nonlinear interaction forcing in the upper thermosphere.
This study investigates the upward-propagating migrating and non-migrating tidal effects from the lower atmosphere on the longitudinal variation of electron density (\(\Delta Ne\)) at mid-latitudes during March equinox. Twelve runs, using TIEGCM for investigation, are conducted. The \(\Delta Ne\) at altitudes above 200 km are affected by upward-propagating tides. Migrating tides result in reduced longitudinal differences in the \(\Delta Ne\) over North America and in the Southern Hemisphere. Non-migrating tides result in a wave-4 structure of the \(\Delta Ne\) in both hemispheres, but with weaker amplitudes as compared to migrating tides. The neutral composition changes play dominant roles in regulating the \(\Delta Ne\) under both migrating (accounting for about 64%) and non-migrating (approximately 60%) tidal conditions, which oppose the tidal wind effects. The \(\Delta Ne\) driven by tidal meridional wind (accounting for about 70%) is stronger than tidal zonal wind (approximately 30%) under both migrating and non-migrating tidal conditions, except for the southern hemisphere under migrating tidal input.
Authors' contributions
HW made contributions to theoretic interpretation of results and drafted the manuscript. KDZ made contributions to data analysis, model work, and helped to draft the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
The operational support of the CHAMP mission by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Dr. B. Foster at NCAR HAO for help comments. This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 41674153, 41521063, 41431073).
Competing interests
Both authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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h/t to Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight on the NYT's website.
A daily check for me during this high political season.
This page contains a single entry by Nigel published on September 27, 2012 7:41 PM.
Smile Ride Day 7 - Carpinteria to Santa Monica was the previous entry in this blog.
For the record is the next entry in this blog.
Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

subset: commoncrawl


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|Description | Partners | Researchers | Publications | Links
SharMe project was a research cooperation project with Nokia Research Center, partly financed by Tekes, and lasting from 06/2006 to 03/2007. The study was based on an abstract concept developed by NRC. SharMe has produced one MSc Thesis and several other publications are "under construction".
Archiving life moments has been a predominant user trend for several years. Hence, there is a need to study the overall concept of SharMe from the user perspective and to further develop the concept of context-aware capturing, storing, retrieving and sharing ones memories with a mobile phone.
Figure 1. The vision of SharMe concept
The main objective of the project was to bring the end-users' perspective to the development of the SharMe
concept. SharMe
touches the very personal parts of people's lives - their memories - and thus it is especially crucial to understand the in-depth needs, fears
and requirements of potential users of such system. Fluent and pleasant interaction with the system must be possible in the mobile and
stationary usage contexts, in order to provide satisfying user experience to the diverse consumer groups.
To study the user needs, requirements and fears related to life memory management, a wide set of user-centered study methods was used. Firstly, single and pair interviews and focus group interviews were conducted to gain insight into the users' needs and attitudes. Then, an applied version of Contextual Design (Holtzblatt 2005: Rapid Contextual Design) was conducted to study the current usage patterns with personal content management systems. Based on the user study results, a mobile phone prototype of life memory management application was designed. Finally, the prototype - its user interface and ideology - was evaluated both with paper prototyping and with various interviewing methods and scenario roleplaying with the finalized concept application.
Figure 2. The study process.
If you have any questions about the SharMe project, please email to


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Electrical Installations - Harrogate Area
From replacing a light fitting to full and part re-wires, I have the skills and experience to meet your requirements.
Recent electrical installations include:
- Several house re-wires
- Commercial garage re-wire
- Door entry system installation
- Extra sockets
- Outside lighting
- Extra telephone/ TV points
- Electrical fault finding
- Replacement fuse boards
Insurance backed guarantee
All work carries an insurance backed guarantee to give you peace of mind.
For a free, no obligation quotation, please contact me on:


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Everything turned out to be well worth the trouble and like I said this was the best waterfall experience we ever had. Once you got there and paid the money and had your life vest and helmet on you started a long hike to get to the first waterfall. Our biggest regret was bringing an uncharged GoPro, we had to have one of the German girls share all her photos with us. Once you get to the top you start your journey jumping and sliding down the waterfalls and swimming and running through the streams between them all.
Once we got safely back to Casa Mango we realize our moto is gone. We search everywhere we go down and tell the police and make a report. We are so stressed out and can not believe our luck. As it turned out the guy we rented the moto from came and picked it up because he thought that was the day to get it. When we figured all this out we had to go back to the police to explain what happened and the owner was so sorry he gave us back our money for that day. It amazes me some of the things that happen out here. Around every corner is a new surprise.


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Video recap: Experiencing humanity
The Chicago School students visit Berlin to explore the experience of refugees for the "Immigration in Context" study-abroad course.
Studying abroad is a transformative experience. It challenges perspectives and introduces students to various cultures while preparing them to tackle pressing issues they'll face as professionals. Hands-on experience is vital to this, providing students with real-world experience as they advance their education while making an immediate impact in communities.
The Chicago School emphasizes this type of engagement and interactive educational experience.
Check out our amazing video recapping a 10-day visit to Berlin, where the "Immigration in Contexts" course provided an opportunity for students to influence issues on a global scale by bringing them face-to-face with the plight of refugees — a growing, global focal point due to the ongoing crisis in Syria. It was the first installment in the "Education Beyond Borders" initiative of TCS Education System.
The brief visit provided valuable experience, often unavailable for students juggling work, family, and school.
Students toured the emergency refugee shelter of the Berliner Stadtmission (a.k.a. "The Balloon"), an air-inflated shelter assembled in 2014 to assist in housing a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers.
The PhotoVoice project paired students with a shelter resident who, given a camera, toured Berlin tasked with using photography to answer a simple question: "Who Are You?" The photos eventually became displayed during an exhibition to conclude the trip.
Experiencing humanity in its darkest hour, many students found that even in darkness there remains a beacon of light.
Students also toured the city and its many landmarks, attended lectures, and participated in discussions regarding immigration.
Real-world engagement is what sets an educational experience apart. Not only does it offer an opportunity for practical experience to increase knowledge and confidence when dealing with real people, but it allows students a chance to immediately begin contributing to underserved populations.
Watch the full video to realize how you can begin making an impact around the world.
Are you interested in learning more about The Chicago School of Professional Psychology? Fill out the form below to request more information, visit our programs page, or you can apply today through our application portal.


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Ben Grosser contacted me one day about doing an interview. I'm thrilled that he did because he's brilliant www.bengrosser.com. He works with "new media," which may be an unfamiliar term to some, but we all know it very well. Please read on and find out more about Ben and his work.
MICHAEL: Hey Ben! New media? If you said this term to the average person on the street, I'm not sure which would give them more pause ... "new" or "media." How do you define "new media" and what exactly do you do with it?
BEN: I tend to think of new media as media that are going to become old soon - they just haven't done so yet. For example, when painting first emerged, it was a new medium created using cutting-edge technology and it enabled an entirely new method of image-making. But over time, painting became an established medium, painters developed its long history and technology (mostly) moved on to other things.
So in some sense, new media are those ways of making that are contemporary to our time and engaged with current technologies. Thus things like software art, robotics, interactive installations, video games, etc., all fit within this description. But I think what distinguishes today's new media from yesterday's is the fact that it's fundamentally intertwined with the everyday experience of humans. The technologies that drive new media art are the same ones that drive our interconnected digital world, enabling everything from social media and web searching to cars and smartphones. In other words, our lives are now enhanced by, dependent on and subject to the same technologies that new media artists use in their work.
However, the digital technologies that power our lives are not neutral - they are designed by humans and thus come with intended and unintended biases. As an artist, I tend to focus on the specific role of software - the brains behind these technologies - looking for its cultural, social and political effects. I use these same technologies as my medium, constructing interactive experiences, machines and interventions that make the familiar unfamiliar, revealing the ways that software prescribes our behavior and thus, how it changes who we are.
MICHAEL: I would imagine that one of the main challenges for your work is making it relate-able to people. I mean, most people who work on their computers, watch TV or listen to the radio aren't really interested in knowing how those things work. They simply want them to work for their intended purposes, no?
BEN: I find that using everyday technology as my medium and subject works both for and against me when it comes to making my work relateable. As you mentioned, many just want to use the tech without thinking about it. But increasingly, people are starting to wonder who their tech is working for. It it for them or for someone else?
One of my primary strategies, which works for both camps, is alienation of the familiar. For example, in my work Facebook Demetricator, I take the same interface we use every day and change something about it. In this case, I remove all "metrics," such as like, friend and comment counts. No longer can we see how many people like our photos or how much people like our status. This subtle, but significant change reorients the user, drawing attention to something that wasn't previously in the foreground.
By using a platform like Facebook as a space of manipulation, my viewer/user base opens up significantly. Many come to try Demetricator without thinking about it as an art project. As a result, some find it annoying. Some find it utilitarian. But others, including many who didn't expect much at first, find themselves focusing on how Facebook metrics are changing their use of the system.
While some of my works are more easily understood than others, I always aim to provide multiple points of entry. When I use common platforms like Facebook or Google, this is perhaps a bit easier than when I don't, but with every work, I try to make tangible connections with everyone's technologized experience.
MICHAEL: People these days seem to be more interested in making "connections" rather than true communication. And if they do communicate, which requires some commitment - however limited - they expect to get something out of it. You may not agree, but to me, this permeates everything, including art. Thoughts?
BEN: I think humans have always sought out connections with others, but to me - and I think to you as well - the interesting question is how has this changed lately? How has the value of a connection changed in light of Facebook, Twitter, email, texting, etc.? And what is the relationship between connection and communication?
To take Facebook as an example, its very design encourages constant connection-making while at the same time discouraging communication. When you first join Facebook you have zero connections and thus, your news feed is silent. The more you make new connections ("friends"), the more your news feed lights up with something to look at. However, eventually, the more friends you add, the noisier the news feed becomes, and thus, less useful. Facebook's response to this is to algorithmically cull that news feed, trying to predict which of your friends' communications are most relevant to you and cutting out the rest. All the while, the one thing Facebook doesn't encourage is removing friends. The system is designed for you to always accumulate more, and this is constantly reported to you in the form of a metric: e.g. "412 Friends", "29 likes", or "8 shares".
These constant enumerations of connection and interaction play right into what I refer to as our capitalism-inspired "desire for more." This isn't surprising as we're living in a time when our collective obsession with metrics plays out as an insatiable desire to make every number go higher. How much money did I earn? How many choices do I have?
I would argue that this desire for more, in the face of social network metrics, is changing how we act not just inside Facebook, but outside of it as well. We are becoming more focused on accumulating connections than developing them. And as you mentioned, this reaches into the art world as well. What kind of art produces more "likes" and more "shares"? How is our desire for more thus changing the art we make in the first place? In art, as in life, more is becoming the goal.
MICHAEL: Ben that is brilliant. And what this ultimately means is that we're not even living in the moment. People are so busy striving and attaining that they CANNOT enjoy the achievement or even those new designer shoes. Maybe that's one of the reasons why art is so difficult for people ... because it forces them to stop and "BE" for a moment with no promise of anything?
BEN: No doubt. Presentism, as Douglas Rushkoff has coined it, is rampant. I really don't need to know that my friend's meme post went live "23 seconds ago" rather than "49 seconds ago", or that my colleague ate her banana "23 minutes ago" rather than "30 minutes ago". But these constant enumerations of age - an interface fixture of systems like Facebook and Twitter - reveal an ideological preference for the new and a disdain for the old. These streams of information come so fast that it can be hard to absorb them. I think this is one of the reasons I like working within these present-focused spaces - that the insertion of art into them forces a kind of reflection that might not be happening otherwise.
MICHAEL: Very interesting. What concepts and principles are you exploring now? What's going on in the world and in your life that has you inspired and wanting to create and express?
BEN: I've been thinking a lot about Google lately. How does the design of Google's indexing algorithm change what we write and how we write it? As the world's information becomes increasingly accessible only via search, how will we adapt our outputs to match the search system's desired inputs?
My obsession with metrics continues unabated. How does showing us our friend count on Facebook change our definition of friend? What would our physical interactions be like if we displayed our friend counts there too? On Twitter, would we follow as many as we do if we weren't shown follower metrics for ourselves and others? What kinds of competition emerge from the revealing of these numbers?
Also on the topic of metrics, I'm thinking about all the Facebook metrics we don't see. For example, users aren't told how many things they "like" per hour, how many ads they click each day, or how effective the "People You May Know" box is getting them to add more friends to their network. But they're there, informing Facebook's internal algorithms. I'm wondering if I can estimate these in some way.
Along the same lines, I'm intensely following the recent revelations about the expanded surveillance we're subject to by the National Security Agency. How will widespread knowledge of the PRISM program change our behavior online? How is the software we use everyday enabling the government to watch us? I'm working on a piece related to this now. And in a related way, the topic of agency is very present for me right now. As all of these software systems gain increasing levels of intelligence, as they are made to make their own decisions about the things they see and hear - where does agency lie? Is it with those who program these systems? Is it with the corporations that pay for the programmers? Or is it with the systems themselves? To what degree are these intelligent systems developing their own interests and acting on them? This has been a thread throughout many of my works in the past (and present, as it's a topic in a work I'm going to release shortly). But in light of PRISM, autonomous drones and other government technologies, my focus on agency is becoming less theoretical than it used to be.
MICHAEL: Wow. Ben, your work seems most concerned with processes and how things work which is cool, but how do you convince people that this is art? As you know, most folks have very traditional ideas about what constitutes art and they're not even buying into that!
BEN: I guess I don't spend much time trying to convince anyone that what I make is art. Some of my installation works more directly fit what people expect art to look like, due to their direct engagement with the visual and the types of spaces they inhabit like galleries. But other works of mine are more involved with computational aesthetics than visual aesthetics and thus don't have the traditional look of an art object. However, they do what I want art to do, which is to provoke questions about something important and to reveal a bit about my position on those questions. Through strategies of interaction, I try to enhance that provocation, enabling the viewer to experience the matter at hand for themselves. Hopefully, this exchange gives them a glimpse of how the system at issue is changing their own experience of the world. I definitely don't sell much, though I also don't focus on it. I've released some of my code as open-source, so that opens up interesting questions about ownership. Would someone ever want to buy Facebook Demetricator, for example? What would they be buying if they did? I'll happily have this discussion with anyone who wants to name a price, but so far nobody has.
MICHAEL: Many talented artists don't sell as much of their work as they would like. Do you feel this is a function of how people view contemporary art today?
BEN: I think artistic labor is taken for granted, especially in the US. Musicians, composers, visual artists, everybody wants their output for free these days. I suppose work like mine only confuses the issue, given that I don't always produce a thing that can be exchanged for capital. Of course, we're now living in an era when most of us produce creative work for free all day long. The texts we type into Twitter, the images we post on Tumblr and the email we send with Gmail are all used to make money, but only for the corporations who own these systems. Facebook would be nothing without its billion+ users typing away all day long, liking this, sharing that. But outside of academic discourses on digital labor, you rarely hear anyone complain. While most Facebook posts aren't made with the care of an artist's painting or sculpture, I think our comfort with giving free labor to corporations spills over into other spaces, leading us to expect others' labor to be free as well.
MICHAEL: Boy, did you say a mouth full there. It's way too late to change the current model unless everyone wakes up and decides to do things differently. Doesn't it seem like everyone is so busy "doing," but no one seems to be thinking about why they're doing it or the long term consequences? Most people are intelligent enough to figure this out. I totally don't get it.
BEN: Yes, I think the model that we'd need to change is capitalism itself. Capitalism encourages production without reflection. It's always about do more, make more, consume more. Capitalism creates an obsession with more because its very survival is dependent on endless growth. That doesn't mean everyone is having identical reactions to this pressure to consume, but we're all subject to it in one way or another.
Software systems like Facebook reinforce this desire for more by quantifying everything. Facebook constantly foregrounds how much of anything and everything you have, keeping you focused on quantity over quality. I hope my own work (w/ Demetricator) helps people break out of that cycle a bit, but as a work of emancipatory politics, it's a relatively minor intervention. In other words, Demetricator won't change the world to be sure, but hopefully it creates some of that thinking you're looking for.
MICHAEL: Your robotic painting machine is genius. When, why, where and how?
BEN: Thanks so much! I had the idea for this piece many years before I finally decided to build it. But the scale of doing so was big enough that I wasn't sure how to start. At the time, I was mostly consumed with a very absorbing full-time career and I just couldn't see a way to build the machine and have the job too. So I took a leap and left the job in order to build the machine. After about a year of working on it, but not making lots of progress (due to working on other pieces as well as non-art related tasks), I decided to get a new studio outside the house and applied to art school to get my MFA.
This got me into high-gear and I was finally devoting all of my time to building the machine. But the scale was still daunting. I had to learn about robotics - controllers, stepper motors, etc. I drew from an open source plan to build the Cartesian robot at the base of it, but adapted the plans to make it as fast as possible. I fabricated every piece, mostly out of MDF. I researched components and assembled a controller box out of old and new parts. I selected an open source controller software package that would take care of the low-level manipulation of the motors (e.g. getting the machine to a specific X/Y/Z position).
After all of this building and researching, which took months of full-time work, I entered art school with a mostly figured out physical machine that could move where I told it to, one command at a time. But it was dumb. It didn't know what to do and had no brains to help it decide. At this point, I was developing my interests in questions of agency. Given that our everyday interactions are increasingly mediated by technologies (phones, chat systems, social networks), and that these systems are designed to anticipate and support our needs and desires, I wondered how the "intelligence" built into those systems was changing our interactions? Moreover, how might they be evolving to have their own needs and desires?
That last question served as my launching point for developing the brains of the system. Does an art-making machine of my design make work for me or for itself? How does machine vision differ from human vision and is that difference visible in its output? Is my own consciousness reinforced by the system or does it become lost within? In other words, would a machine that makes its own paintings be alive, with agency as yet another piece of the technium, or is it our own anthropomorphization of the system that makes us think about it in these ways?
So to make the brains I used what's called a "Genetic Algorithm" (GA), an artificial intelligence strategy that is patterned after the workings of natural genetics. I wrote code to enable a series of movement patterns, such as lines, points, arcs, and fills. I tied these "gestures" into the GA, allowing the system to consider these gestures as evolvable entities. In other words, one gesture could combine with another to form a new gesture. Finally, to help the machine decide which gesture was better than another (e.g. survival of the fittest), I gave it ears so it could hear what was going on around it.
What I ended up with was an Interactive Robotic Painting Machine that uses artificial intelligence to paint its own body of work and to make its own decisions. While doing so, it listens to its environment and considers what it hears as input into the painting process. In the absence of someone or something else making sound in its presence, the machine, like many artists, listens to itself. But when it does hear others, it changes what it does just as we subtly (or not so subtly) as we do when influenced by what others tell us. In other words, the machine doesn't directly map sound to paint, but rather acts as an artist who can't help but digest what it hears while painting.
The machine functions in multiple contexts. In an exhibition environment, it listens to the viewers in the room. In this kind of a setup, I often critique it in real-time, telling it what I like and what I don't. Interestingly enough, I find that I tend to dislike these paintings more than others it makes, suggesting that listening to a constant critique of one's creative process may not be productive!
I've also used it in a musical performance context. In addition to creating paintings the machine also makes sound. I've amplified all of its motors and the speeds of those motors are just as considered by the GA as the color of paint it chooses. So it's really a musical instrument in addition to being a painter. On a work titled Head Swap, I collaborated with an old friend and colleague, Zack Browning, who wrote a score for a violinist to play with the machine. The violinist had to watch what the machine painted in order to know how to play the score. At the same time, the machine listened to the violinist and was influenced by the sound. So you ended up with a feedback loop, where each one influences the other over the course of the performance.
I spent my whole first year of art school writing the software to give it its "brain." The musical performance happened at the end of that year. So from idea to finished work, it took about four years. But from the first cut of MDF through all of the coding and other pieces it was about 1.5 years of work.
MICHAEL: Wow. Ben I could go on chatting with you for quite some time, but let me wrap it up and ask you ... what's the point of art? Most people don't get contemporary art anyway. Isn't it all just a waste of time and money that could be spent on something more productive like the law, medicine or high tech startups?
BEN: I'm all for better health care, more humane laws and high tech solutions to everyday problems. But as a country, we spend more money on health care than everyone else, but don't have the best health. Congress debates endlessly about our laws, but it doesn't protect us from constitutional violations imposed by government. High tech startups sometimes produce things of use, but many propose solutions to problems that don't exist. In other words, despite an ever-increasing focus on those areas, they aren't necessarily getting any better.
I'd step back to your previous question about a general lack of reflection in society. Why don't people stop and think anymore and what is that absence of contemplation doing to our culture? Capitalism drives us to do more and this drive is at odds with a reflective frame of mind. I think at its best, art resists capital's imposition of a desire for more. It is art's lack of usefulness that makes it interesting. We don't need it, so why do we make it? Yes, a few artists make a living from their work and some art ends up as an object of trade within capital markets, but much of it serves as a non-monetized method of cultural exchange. Artists use art as a way of sharing their untraditional research about the world. Instead of providing answers, artists provoke questions. Art gives us a second or two during which we can break out of the prevailing systems of thought and commerce, a moment in an alternative space that enables new ways of thinking. I aspire to make art that works like this and I wouldn't want to live in a world without it.
Thanks so much for the great discussion, Michael. It's been a blast!
MICHAEL: It most certainly has. Thanks Ben. You're brilliant.
Check out Ben Grosser at www.bengrosser.com.


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Dr. Anne C. Fox-Clarkson, an elementary school principal in Coeur d'Alene, ID., and two parents from her school, Carol Rankin and Kathy Curran, founded Children's Village in 1983. Dr. Fox-Clarkson made a promise to a brother and sister who had been victims of child abuse that she would build them a home.
Children's Village, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 in the State of Idaho and is designated as a non-profit 501(c)3 charity by the IRS. The facility is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors and the daily operations are managed by a dedicated administrative team. The agency has a double check and balance financial system with an outside annual audit by a local CPA firm. To date, the corporation remains debt free owning fifteen acres and two large homes and a shop. The governing board is committed to following "best practices" and adheres to industry standards. They take pride in being prudent stewards of the community's trust and financial support.
The First House
The Moyer Home opened in 1990 to serve children who are abused, neglected, homeless, or in severe family crisis. Children ages birth through 18 may live in this licensed group foster home - permanently if needed. Brothers and sisters are kept together and residents are transported back to their schools of origin throughout the Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls and Lakeland School Districts. Over 2,000 children have been sheltered since the doors opened.
In 1995 a group of faithful supporters of Children's Village formed the Children's Village Foundation, Inc. This incorporated foundation is designated as an Idaho State 501(c)3 charity by the IRS. The mission of this body is to ensure the future and financial stability of Children's Village and to support the programs serving children.
Children's Village Foundation holds the endowment funds, securities, restricted funds, tangible gifts and gifts secured through capital campaigns and special projects. The Foundation sponsors annual charity auctions, including spring and winter events and special fundraising projects. Governed by a volunteer Board of Directors, the corporation has an outside annual audit by a local CPA firm.
A Second House
The Miller Home opened in 1996 and operated as a residential treatment facility and school until December 2011.
Responding to the continuing need in the community, the Miller Home re-opened in March 2015 as a continuation of the services provided at the Moyer Home. With the capacity for growth in the Miller Home, Children's Village is able to grow from 12 children a night to 24 children a night and increase program support to over 150 children a year.
Agency Credentials and Awards
- State License: Under the State of Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Children's Village is licensed as a Children's Residential Care Facility in accordance with Chapter 12, Title 39 of Idaho Code and subject to annual audits.
- Local Standards: Located in a residential area of the City of Coeur d'Alene, the County of Kootenai, Idaho, Children's Village exceeds the city and county standards for facilities caring for children. Complying with all building codes during the construction process and receiving occupancy for both homes, this agency is annually inspected by: Panhandle Health District, Food and Environmental Department; City/County Fire Department; and Furnace Safety Inspections.
- Agency Affiliations: Children's Village has been a long time member of KACF | Kootenai Alliance for Children and Families. This non-profit organization's mission is to foster a safe, healthy, and drug-free community through strong partnerships and effective programs that reduce at-risk behavior in our community's youth and create strong families. KACF exists to build healthy families by promoting community collaboration to reduce substance abuse among our youth and eliminate the duplication of services.
- Agency Awards: Award of Excellence – From Region I, Idaho Department of Health & Welfare (1995)
- National Family Week Award: From Alliance for Children and Families (2002) one of two member agencies in America to receive this award
- Children's Empowerment Award: From Kids Day America/International (2002)
- Child Advocate of the Year: From the Idaho Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics awarded to Tinka Schaffer, Retired Development Director, Children's Village Foundation, Inc
- Brightest Star Award: From Dirk Kempthorne, Governor, State of Idaho (2004 & 2005)


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Request a Quote
Home > Our Promotions > Request a Quote
Request a Quote
Looking for a free quote?
Merry Maids Canada
5462 Timberlea Boulevard
Mississauga, Ontario
Phone: 1 (877) 782-9201
Local: (905) 670-0000
Fax: (905) 670-0077
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
All services promised are done. The cleaning products used leave a pleasant light lemony scent. I have severe allergies; the products are hypoallergenic and cause me no problems.-Markham, ON


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20 Jan
Speaker: Paul Handford MBE
The talk is about a collection of medals and papers Paul purchased relating to a Mr Kendal, a civilian volunteer ambulance driver. The collection suggested he had been killed in Action on the Western Front in May 1918 whilst driving his ambulance in support of the French Army.
His death was not recorded or indeed recognised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Paul commenced a four year journey of research, which included translating French War Diaries, examining records contained at the International Red Cross (Geneva) and other research material.
Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, King Edward Sq, Sutton Coldfield, B73 6AB
20 Jan 2018 14:00


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Using Class Listservs
A listserv is like a hobby club. It's a gathering place for people who have similar interests. It just happens to occur in cyberspace through the medium of email.
Listservs are great places to meet people with similar interests in a safe environment. You will meet a variety of people on most listservs--from true experts in the field to novices. Listservs are great places for teachers to get their classes introduced to the power of email.
| Some terms you need to know:
Moderated ľ this means that you will monitor the messages and approve them before they are sent to the whole list.Advantages: .Not difficult to administer, and it ensures that only appropriate material is posted to the list.Unmoderated ľ this means that messages are posted directly to the entire list without further approval.
| Yahoo Groups gives you a number of options to choose from. You can
Getting students to participate on a Listserv
This is always a challenge, so if many of your students are reluctant to publicly post to the listserv, itĺs pretty normal. Some suggestions follow:
| English Resources |
Internet Instruction | Social
Studies Resources |
ę 1997 Email to: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Jorja Smith has announced the details for her new single.
The British singer/songwriter christened "On My Mind" – featuring Preditah – as her next promotional cut and will release it on August 24 via iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Tidal and all other digital streaming platforms.
The track was co-written with Ed Thomas, whose resume boasts further works with Purple Ferdinand ("Birds"), Zak Abel ("Say Sumthin"), Kiah Victoria ("Cold War"), Maverick Sabre ("Falling Again"), Charli Taft ("Higher Ground"), Jacob Banks ("Witness") and Sinead Harnett ("Dollar Bill").
As mentioned in earlier posts, Smith's upcoming debut studio collection – featuring the Charlie Perry-assisted singles "Teenage Fantasy" and "Beautiful Little Fools" – is expected to arrive later this year.
On the still-untitled project, Smith has also worked with producers and songwriters including Felix Joseph (Elli Ingram), Joel Compass (FKA twigs), Amanda Ghost (Elle King), Illangelo (RAYE), Laura Dockrill (Dua Lipa), Josh Record (Pixie Geldof) and Two Inch Punch (Sabrina Claudio).
Stream the audio clip for "Teenage Fantasy" below.


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Customer's like lower costs while uncomplicating thier initiatives. IpTL delivers both with highly secure and transparent connectivity with our "World's Longest Ethernet Cable"
Baltimore, MD (PRWEB) March 28, 2016
IP Technology Labs, the leading provider of VoIP, Video/UC, LAN/WAN secure networking appliances, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued US Patent #9,294,4343 covering a method of connectionless communication. The proprietary technology fills-in specific technology gaps between how applications and devices automatically find, configure, connect, and communicate with each other.
"IpTL has always been a pioneer overcoming the challenges of the access network," said Scott Whittle, President of IP Technology Labs. "Our forward-thinking enables customers to uncomplicate their initiatives, particularly when connecting multisite VoIP, Video, and Unified Communications over the Internet. This patent is an important component of our overall intellectual property portfolio and underscores the marketplace momentum for connectivity anywhere, anytime, and with any device."
Connectionless communications is a key enabling technology addressing the growing needs of software defined networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV.) Applications, devices, and Internet of Things (IoT) need a way to seamlessly communicate, configure, and respond to the network. IpTL employs this technology in all its FastLane appliances to enable automatically secure Ethernet connectivity.
As the World's Longest Ethernet Cable™ IpTL FastLane solutions place your LAN securely anywhere in the world while integrating all your wireless and wired devices seamlessly. Using any Internet connection an enterprise can create its own virtualized, private, and secure LAN network. IpTL appliances work especially well in network environments where NAT, Nested-NAT, or Dynamic-IP/DHCP is present on both ends of a link.
Contact marketing(at)IpTechnologyLabs(dot)com for additional information and opportunities to cooperate with IpTL.


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The cold weather will soon be upon us. That means it's time to schedule your furnace safety check!
Last winter was incredibly mild! If you've spent any time in greater Cleveland, you know that this winter is going to be colder and we'll have more snow than we had last year. Now's the time to schedule your furnace safety check.
Don't wait for freezing temperatures to find out that you have a problem! Get our safety check done as soon as possible, and you'll have peace of mind all winter long. (Oil furnaces not included.)
If you need a furnace or air conditioning upgrade, we'll be glad to give you a FREE estimate.
An American Standard high-efficiency furnace will save you money!
If your furnace is more than 10 years old, it's not nearly as efficient as the new models being offered by American Standard. And it's costing you some serious money.
Switching to a high-efficiency furnace can have a big impact on your energy consumption (and bills) while also helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
* a 95 percent efficiency furnace saves you money
* high quality and efficiency mean a high standard of comfort for your home
* our Platinum Series includes the innovative Acculink communicating capability
Just need a furnace repair? No problem! Call us today for more information or for a furnace evaluation. We repair ALL makes and models.
Schedule your furnace check up by calling 330-626-1676 today!


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I bought a 50ml from the Bellabox website fore $29.95 (you can also buy a 30ml bottle) I also picked up a 10pk or Yes To Cucumbers Facial Towelettes as I wanted to used 100 of my Bella points but to do so the balance had to be minimum $20 so in total I paid like $23 and got free shipping as this was one of the products in the Bellabox this month.
What I really liked about this one is that it's Australian Certified Organic Cold Pressed Oil the box mentions "The oil is extracted from the seeds without using heat, solvents and chemicals" which I think is fantastic I'm really starting to take notice with the types of products I use mainly on my face. I also like that it is 100% Rosehip Oil so it doesn't contain any nasties or anything else so you know exactly what you're putting onto your skin.
I have been using this oil for about a week and so far am loving it. I have oily skin on my face and my legs and arms tend to be more on the dry side so i use a few drops of the oil and rub it onto my arms and legs at night and I add a small drop mixed in with my moisturizer and apply it to my face every night. So far the results have been great my skin feels softer and smoother. I have this weird dry patch on my arm and the oil has really been helping with that. I love this product and will keep using it and hopefully the results will keep on coming :).
So I bought the Rosehip Oil & the Yes To Cucumber Towelettes and as usual with ordering with Bellabox they threw in a handful of samples. I'm really pleased with the ones I got this time. I bought the items in the last week of November they still had the free necklace offer and I'm so glad I got the blue one as that is the one I originally wanted in my first order.


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This post may contain affiliate links.
It is Back-To-School time and I wanted to share with you a cute and inexpensive teacher gift idea! My friend Mindy created these for her daughters teachers and I wanted to share the idea with you. It is a really easy and inexpensive way to start the school year off.
All you need is to purchase a bag of Flipz Pretzels that you can pick up at your grocery store. Print out a cute tag that says "I'm doing Flips that you are my teacher" and attach to the bag! You could even ask your kids to make the card! How cute and simple is this! As a former teacher it was always special to me when I received a small gift at the beginning of the school year. Often times we give gifts to teachers at Christmas and the end of the year but why not start the year off with a small token of appreciation!
Do you have any other teacher gift ideas?
Gift Ideas:
Inexpensive Teacher Appreciation Gift Idea
Inexpensive Teacher Gift Ideas
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I really like this idea! It's so neat and creative!


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Vivog UV sterilizer grey.
Vivog sterilizer grey - UV sterilizer VES020B groomer needs.
The professional UV sterilizer of Vivog is suitable both as a tabletop sterilizer as well as wall sterilizer.
The sterilizer with ultraviolet rays is germicidal and essential for every dog salon due to the latest hygiene regulations. The sterilization woks out cold, caused by UV rays with short waves. These rays have a high germicidal action and destroy in a very short time bacilli, bacteria, spores, molds, and each microorganism, directly or by reflex. The germicidal effect is instantaneous:
5 minutes radiotherapy rich and your tools are ready for use again.
Dimensions of Vivog sterilizer B 40 cm H 21 cm D 26 cm
- Counter-top
- Wall-mounted
- high germicidal effect
- destroyed bacilli
- destroys bacteria
- destroys spores
- destroys mold
- and micro-organism directly or by reflex
- easy to use
- Automatically switches off when the lid is opened in order to avoid eye damage
- Colour grey with transparent - blue lid
Vivog Sterilier special online price.
>>> back to the sterilizer <<<
You are pet groomer or retailer and interested in selling our products then please register as a reseller.
suitable accessories
Replacement lamp for sterilizer VES020
Regular Price: €55.00
€34.05 *


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Barn Salvage in Long Island, New York
Green companies like Reclaim Everything in Northport New York are reconditioning old barn wood or old growth wood to save new forests. In many cases this wood is 100 years old or more. Most wood that's over a 100 years old is said to be more durable, because of the extra time it received to properly mature. New aged wood doesn't get the opportunity to fully mature to provide strength and durability. Our reclaimed lumber is normally used for home building, architectural details, furniture, cabinets and flooring. We also create garage doors made from quality pieces of wood.
The beauty of wood often gets better with age. These wood grains cannot be duplicated with any engineered wood. The wood is extremely durable and hard. The best part about this wood is no single piece is alike. All recycled wood is praised for its unique structure of grains and extremely rich color.
Just recently Johnson's, a Long Island Farm, in Commack NY, is having Reclaim Everything dismantle their barn. This barn was built in the early 1900's, it's made from 100% old growth wood. Our plan is to salvage the barn and have it materials re-used in homes and business of Long Island. It's exciting to have the opportunity to help recycle Long Islands wood and contribute to the cause of an environmentally conscious future.
WOW! Recovery of wood helps save our environment.


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How to Make People Crazy
When the people we love or with whom we have a deep connection stop caring, stop paying attention, stop investing, and stop fighting for the relationship, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in. Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fears - the fears of being abandoned, unworthy, and unloveable. What can make this covert betrayal so much more dangerous than something like a lie or an affair is that we can't point to the source of our pain - there's no event, no obvious evidence of brokenness. It can feel crazy-making. -Brene' Brown, Daring Greatly
I tell extremely long stories. In my defense, I do think my long stories have a point - I like to give people context, paint the whole picture, if you will. Nevertheless, I will gladly own up to this tendency, as it can be tedious to the people closest to me. I have found that nothing shuts a story down faster than someone who is outwardly disengaged. If you start to look at your phone, give me a passive nod, and people watch out the car window, I get it. I'm done. Time to come up for air, Griffin.
We practice this kind of disengagement daily. We cut someone off at the end of their sentence, flip the channel as soon as a show gets stale, and open up a new webpage when we are tired of what we're reading. Our culture is unbelievably adept at checking out. In one of my leadership courses, we had a huge discussion about authentic listening and how, to truly listen to someone, you can't be thinking of your response while they are still talking. You need to sit back, let them explain, and process everything they've said before your respond. How often do any of us actually practice real listening?
As Brene' Brown eloquently wrote, disengagement is the source of a great deal of unnamed pain in our culture. If you look at the problems in your personal relationships, your interactions with your coworkers, or your poor communication with your boss, you probably can trace them down to a few key points: you don't feel understood and you don't feel cared about. When these emotions begin to surface, the natural thing to do is disengage even more.
Let's look specifically at the workplace. If we disengage with our coworkers, our ability to collaborate as a team will become a moot point. If we disengage with our employer when we are asked to do something we disagree with or our employees when they don't share our passion as an owner or founder, we rob ourselves of the ability to create company culture. We don't get freebies - you can't choose to engage some of the time. Engagement is not an action, it is a lifestyle. You can't be disengaged in certain relationships and fully engaged in others. The way you treat one friend will be indicative of the way you treat another. If you live life this way, you will end up having far less relationships than you started with.
Practice consistency to be consistent. Build habits to form habits. Isolating yourself and disengaging will make the people who care about you crazy, but only for a while. Eventually, they will get the point and let go altogether. People are resilient, but you can't spend your life disengaged and expect a different response in return.


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Log In:
- Rated:
Hershyon Sep 03
Gorgeous scene!
- Rated:
irishmurron Aug 27
I recognize this place! Some of my ancestors actually built this mill -- and I have plenty of photos of me, my children and now my grandchildren standing in front of it. Love how you included the flowers in the shot -- lovely perspective!
- Rated:
349390pitchingwedge33on Aug 26
super colors and details...
- Rated:
paulbellingeron Aug 25
Nicely done, there's a lot going on in this photo.
- Rated:
100987laurajohnsonon Aug 25
Lovely, charming scene.
- Rated:
photofreakon Aug 25
Beautiful capture. Looks like an interesting place to visit!
- Rated:
Happy Treeon Aug 25
Lovely composition!
- Rated:
PhotosByZolaon Aug 25
I like the bright color framing the old wood
- Rated:
Howard's Photographyon Aug 25
Beautiful capture, great comp!
- Rated:
Donna McCommonon Aug 25
Wonderful comp. I missed this place on my trip. This is beautiful. Great capture.


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Missing Rochester Teen Found Safe
Rochester Police are reporting a happy ending to the search for a missing teenager.
Police Captain John Sherwin says a police investigator located 13-year-old Journee Malone at a residence in northwest Rochester at around 5:15 Friday afternoon. She was safe, and Sherwin says she is no longer considered an endangered missing person.
The police department issued a request for the public's help in finding the girl on Wednesday, when officials indicated she had not been seen since Monday in the vicinity of her home at the Gage East Apartments. At that time, the teenager was described as a vulnerable juvenile due to her last known mental state.
On Friday morning, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension issued a statewide alert for Malone.
For 24/7 news and sports check KROC AM and follow KROC-AM on Facebook.


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Once, a woman had a son sick with epilepsy. He experienced seven to eight seizures a day. She cured him by brewing several mouse pups (or two to three grown mice) in a half-liter of vodka for one week. She gave her son a tablespoon of this mixture before every meal. Now he no longer has seizures.
Baptize your daughter, and with God in your heart, begin the treatment. Cross the medicine before taking it and bless it with a prayer.
(folk medicine, a recipe from a newspaper cutout posted on a Russian blog, and forwarded to me by my brother).
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Mice Might Help
Posted by The other Olga at 8:35 AM
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Plus Size Ginger Bootcut Jean In Rockwall
Additional Information
The Ginger Boot is our skinniest fit in a mid-rise for your curvy shape. The sleek bootcut features a sexy shape that celebrates your curves with cool whiskering effect. It's made to beautifully balance your proportions with your figure in mind.
- FIT: Mid-rise curvy fit through the hip and thigh with a bootcut leg
- Front rise: 11.5 inches, Back rise: 18.5 inches, Leg opening: 21.5 inches (Size 18)
Fabric & Care
95%COTTON3%POLYESTER2%ELASTANE Machine Wash Cold IMPORTED
Customer Reviews
- Write a Review
Reviewed by 3 customers
Displaying reviews 1 - 3
Bobbie 3/11/18
The sizing is way off on these from the normal lucky jeans. These are sitting in my closet unworn with the tags still on. Waste of Money
Size way down from normal
Erin 3/4/18
Good fit!!
Great fit for me.
Mere 2/9/18
These look great, feel great. Love them.
All i wear is lucky
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