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Seems like the lesson of this story is that you should estimate your own discount rate early on and stick to it.
One of the most underrated financial x-factors in our lives is our relationship with money and the inner psychology of how we deal with our finances. I suspect that it is because it is the most difficult and intangible aspect of money management, and also the hardest to fix.
In my financial planning career, I saw a lot of different people with a myriad of financial backgrounds and attitudes towards money. For example, I'd like to share the story of a fellow who I shall nickname "The Monk With A Big Screen TV" (we'll call him Monk for short!):
Monk allowed money to flow right through his hands for most of his life, regardless of his income. In his early 20s he had a job for a few years in which he made over six-figures. It disappeared just as quickly as the years when he made under $30,000, and he had very little to show for either of those situations at the end of the day.
Finally he realized he was in financial trouble when collectors agents were banging down his door, he broke up with his girlfriend, and didn't even have enough cash to find a place to stay for the night. Despite the fact that he had a job, he actually became homeless for a few days until he could scrape enough together to start getting his life on track.
This was a real wake up call for Monk, but sometimes wake-up calls aren't enough.
Monk decided that the best way to get ahead would be to live like a monk and punish himself for getting into this financial squalor. He endured weeks not spending any more money than what he absolutely had to for survival. He ate poorly if at all, cancelled all his services (eg: phone, cable, internet, even heat at one point), and refused to spend money on anything. He even cut himself off from his friends and any social contact. His justification was that if he endured this period of sacrifice, he would be able to start to financially get ahead, and eventually breathe a little easier. He honestly didn't see moderation as a possibility - it had to be all or nothing.
Of course, subjecting yourself to such mental, physical, and emotional torture can't last long before the pendulum swings, and Monk was no exception. One month after his vigilant overly-frugal stint, he broke down, bought a big screen tv, a case of beer, and re-ordered his cable service.
Of course Monk soon realized that all his hard work and sacrifice in the previous month was negated by this splurge, and consequently felt guilty. So, back to the monk-lifestyle he went. Until he broke down again.
Poor Monk went through this vicious financial circle for years before he realized that he didn't have to live a life of extremes, effectively getting him nowhere. He hadn't made a dime of progress on his debts, and if anything his affairs were worse.
I had another client (a couple, actually), whose own personalities defined financial extremes. We'll call them Yin and Yang.
Yin never had much money. She (like Monk), spent money like it was water. She could justify a fancy dinner at an expensive restaurant just because it was the second Tuesday of the month. She cashed in retirement savings for vacations. She played a balancing game of maxed credit cards, only paying off enough to charge the next big extravagance. And of course, she had no investments to speak of. She justified every expenditure by saying that she didn't like her job, had very few things in life she truly enjoyed, and if she couldnât treat herself once in a while then what was the point of even being alive.
Yang, on the other hand, had quite a different view. A big night out on the town for him was renting a few movies at the local video store. He dreamed of travel, but never (in my years of knowing him) would he ever actually go anywhere, because he was forever convinced that there wasn't enough money for his future. He saved and squeezed every single penny he had, and brought new meaning to the word frugal. He even cut his teenage son off his allowance ($7/week for doing the chores) saying he couldn't afford it. He was also a workaholic, driven by the constant fear of not having enough money for the future or in the event of an emergency.
I'm sure it comes as no surprise that in addition to receiving financial counselling from me, Yin and Yang also received divorce counselling and are now learning their financial lessons separately.
But who was right? Yin who refused to plan for tomorrow in her desire to live for today?
Or Yang who refused to live for today in favour of planning for tomorrow?
How about Monk? Which was better? His monk-like lifestyle of sacrifice, or his extravagant splurges that brought him back to square one?
In a way, everybody was right. And wrong.
I was unable to continue to work with Yin and Yang as circumstance had it, but I continued to keep in touch with them.
Over the years, Yin's financial situation only worsened, and she also became quite ill. She had no money to deal with the illness, but some benevolent friends stepped in to help her in a time of need, which she was extremely lucky to have. What I can credit Yin for was her zest for life. If she dropped dead tomorrow, one could argue that she lived a full life with few regrets. Unfortunately, she will never ever be able to retire (or even slow down a bit as she ages), and will continue to be an increasing financial burden on her family and friends.
Yang, on the other hand, continued to save frantically for years. One day, to my surprise, he declared that he had reached his financial goals, and he could start to relax. He was scaling down his business, and would be fully retired by age 70 (which was surprising as I figured he would work forever out of financial fear). He was starting to enjoy life more, and treating himself once in a while. Unfortunately, his relationship with his (now adult) son only continued to deteriorate as he grew up, and they are relatively estranged today. From what I'm told when they do occasionally meet, it is strained, and of course Yang never pays. To bring the comparison full circle, if Yang dropped dead tomorrow, one could argue that he spent so much of his life planning for tomorrow that he never really lived.
Monk and I did continue to work together over a number of years, and his transformation embodied much of what Yin and Yang never really learned. He discovered that his pattern of vigilance and splurges was getting him nowhere, and in fact as time was passing him by his financial situation was getting worse, compounded by the fact that he wasn't able to invest any money for his future and allow it to grow.
Through debt management strategies and simultaneously squirreling an (initially) small amount away for the future and a safety net, he slowly but surely took hold of his finances. It was a long slow process, and he'll admit he had to learn his lessons many times over before he really redefined his relationship with money. Today he says he controls his finances, not the other way around.
If there is anything that Monk (and Yin or Yang for that matter) can teach us, it is that living a life of extremes is not constructive. If we can manage to keep our eyes on the future, but also manage to let loose a little today, then we can really start to enjoy what life has to offer.
And of course, it's easier said than done.
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Seems like the lesson of this story is that you should estimate your own discount rate early on and stick to it.
I see a lot of myself in "the Monk". I went through similar experiences, with the addition of the credit card onslaught when I started University. I had my dozen or so credit cards I got after falling for the "free shirt" trick on the first day of University. That followed by a string of high paying jobs, and feeling like I was on top of the world, but never setting aside money. And to top it off, losing a small fortune on stocks. I learned my lesson when I found myself sleeping on a friend's couch, with all my belongings either trashed or standing in one small corner of his living room.
Now I budget like I should have before, its been a few years, but I have a small nest egg, have money invested, even have my son's college fund going. At current rates, my son won't have to worry about tuition his first year, and he isn't even a year old yet.


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Hope you have had a wonderful week and have found some time to craft and do other activities you enjoy. Thanks so much to all who played in our Layer It Up challenge - so many stunning entries. We had such fun visiting your blogs. Also thanks so much to all who used one of Di's images!
Our winner this time who used 1 of Di's digis/CandiBean stamp:
46. myasperations
Before we get to our DT creations, we would like to offer a Warm Welcome to our newest DT member, please say hello to Heather. We know you will love seeing her creations each challenge.
Please remember a maximum of 3 entries per person and creations must be NEW. Otherwise, as long as you follow our theme of CHRISTMAS IN JULY, there are no product or image restrictions. Remember, that if you do use an image from DI'S DIGI STAMPS or any CandiBean stamp, you have a chance to win 2 images from DI'S DIGI STAMPS in addition to the sponsor prize. Entries must be received by 10pm EST on Friday, July 28, 2017! Have fun and can't wait to see what you create!!

subset: commoncrawl


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Women have been facing pay discrimination for decades – and unfortunately, continue to do so today. In fact, women earn 79 cents for every dollar earned by men, even though they make up almost 50 percent of today's workforce. [i]
When President Kennedy enacted the Equal Pay Act (EPA) in 1963, visit here http://www.eeoc.gov/, women were actually earning even less – or 59 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the National Equal Enforcement Task Force. The EPA was enacted for this very reason; so that men and women are given equal pay for equal work. The following year, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 further strengthened laws against discrimination by making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex for pay benefits, as well as race, color, religion, national origin, age, or disability.
Pay disparities as they relate to women is a much discussed and reviewed topic in the past century. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity (visit here http://www.pay–equity.org/info–history.html) , in 1942, because of the large number of women taking jobs during World War II, the War Labor Board urged that employers make adjustments to salary rates so that females were paid equally to men. Although pay equality was addressed, it was never enacted by employers at the time.
Following this, in the 1950s several bills were introduced by members of Congress to no avail. Enter 1963, and the Equal Pay Bill was introduced, followed closely thereafter by the Civil Rights Bill.
And decades still after the passage of the EPA, pay disparities between men and women continue to spawn the enactment of additional laws. Most recently, in 2009, President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to further equal pay for women. And in 2010 the National Equal Enforcement Task Force was created, bringing together various government agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), the Department of Justice ("DOJ"), the Department of Labor ("DOL") including the Office of Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), and the Office of Personnel Management ("OPM"). The mission of which is to further combat violations of equal pay laws.
In 2013 and beyond, it will be interesting to see if, when, and how, pay rates for women improve. Considering women's make–up in the workforce, contribution to family finances, and in some case the sole bread winner, gender should not be a determining factor as it relates to pay.


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My name is Finess Jewelz an upcoming artist from North Hills Pa. Located right outside Philadelphia. I've been making music for 10+ years and counting. I'm a very versatile artist that can capture a room with my soulful melodies and bouncy, catchy delivery I provide a range of vibes.
I fell in love and gained a deep passion for music at a early age, influenced by hip-hop, rnb/soul and gospel. Artist such as Fabolous, J.Cole, Missy Elliott, Musiq Soulchild and Kirk Franklin
IG: @finessjewelz
Music Links:
YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC01QtoZEFhNpQgJ41b9dE9g
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4qSCuVbNB1d73TxB8hizbf?si=GRcZrxOCTharTZ3JRYkTpQ
Apple Music:https://music.apple.com/us/artist/finess-jewelz/1385040795
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/nsmiSaUx6wCtkK5Z6
Contact Detail:
Company Name: Finess Jewelz
Contact Person: Finess Jewelz
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website Url: https://youtube.com/channel/UC01QtoZEFhNpQgJ41b9dE9g
Source: www.PRExhibition.com


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Game Cheats:
Secret Moglin shop
Talk to Twilly in the town of Falconreach. Select the "Reward Shop" option. He will tell you about the shop and ask for a password. Enter kthxHat! as the password. The shop sells Zorbak's, Twilly's, and Twig's helms.
Easy experience
Go to Ash and ask him about Amityvale, then go there. Go to the right and keep going until you see a sign with a pumpkin on it, and with a pumpkin field in the back. Go in there. This quest will give you over 2,500 experience points and lots of money. Repeat it as many times as desired.
Go to the right of town, then go to Yulgar's shop. Do the mill quest and kill all the Seed Spitters to gain a lot of experience.
If you do not have a good energy (electric) weapon, go to Yulgar's shop in Falconreach and buy the "Static" weapon for 6 gold. Then, go back until you get to the part with the inn. On the top right of the map, click on "Challenge". You can get a lot of experience points by doing this.
Easy money
Go to Ash and ask him about Amityvale, then go there. Go to the far right to where you meet up with a dog. Skip through the intermission sequence and follow the dog to the well. Go down the well. Complete the quest and you will get level 16 and higher weapons. This can be done about ten times. The member weapons can be sold at shops to get money. Repeat this as many times as desired.
If you are level 9 or higher, go to Warlic's portal. Go to the mountains, then go to right and enter the quest. Successfully complete the quest and earn money by selling weapons.
Easy PvP trophies
Go to the character selection screen and make a level 1 character and get its ID #. Go to the arena and use the "Battle ID" feature. Enter in the ID and keep defeating it to get trophies.
Recommended weapons
Go to Yulgar's shop in Falconreach and get the "Static" weapon. It hits over 10 and only costs 6 gold. It is the best cheap weapon for level 4.
Go north of Falconreach and go in the portal next to the Guardian Tower. Click Warlick's portrait and complete it. If you are level 7 or 8, you can buy the Shimmer (a very good light weapon) for only 100 gold.
Go to Oaklore, in the Keep, and go as far to the left as possible. There should be two knights and a catapult. Talk to the one on the ground. He will ask you to do a quest; accept it. All you have to do is defeat the storm elementals, most of which are fairly weak, and go to the chest. It contains a shop with three items, all priced at 0g. They are all energy weapons and have high damage levels (the sword hits for 10-20 damage). These are extremely helpful if you are just starting out.
In Oaklore, go to the left until you see Sir Casm (sarcasm) and Sir Vivor (survivor). Go near them and click on Sir Jing's (surging) weapons. They will talk about how good Sir Jing was and how good his weapons were. Then click on the "Quest" button, and you will have to face a lot of weak monsters. You must defeat all the monsters, then go up the stairs. You will face three easy Bosses (they might look familiar) named Positron, Tempest, and Flood. Defeat them and you will see a chest. Open it and get the weapon according to what class you are (for example, Mage: Staff, Rogue: Dagger, Warrior: Sword). You can also trade there for a lot of money if you know how to win the Aries Battlespire PvP arena. Note: You must be level 2 to do this.


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Premier Carriage – Wedding Cars
Premier Carriage – Wedding Cars
Wedding Cars in London
If you're looking for wedding cars in London, then look no further. At Premier Carriage, we offer an unrivalled range of wedding vehicles available for hire. Whether you're looking for a classic car or something a little more unusual, we can help.
MiniCab and Taxi Directory UK
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Whether you need a quick ride to the airport, a convenient city transfer, or simply want to navigate around town hassle-free, our directory offers a wide selection of licensed MiniCab and taxi operators, ensuring safe and efficient journeys for all your travel needs.
Navigate through our MiniCab and Taxi Directory to access a curated list of licensed and reputable transportation companies. With detailed information on service offerings, contact details, and customer reviews, finding the perfect MiniCab or taxi service has never been easier.
Whether you're a local resident or a visitor exploring a new city, rely on our directory to connect you with dependable transportation options for a seamless travel experience.
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Explore the world, one ride at a time. Our Travel Blog shares insider tips, destination guides, and taxi-related travel hacks from experienced adventurers. Get inspired for your next journey!


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Andrea Camilleri: Death to the information dump!
Camilleri's readers will have come to enjoy Montalbano's squabbles with the dedicated, ill-tempered and amusingly sarcastic pathologist Pasquano. Here, in addition to a brief insight into the sympathy of temperament between the two, Camilleri uses a shouting match between them to convey information.
By the time the antagonists have finished bellowing at each, the reader has been entertained. Just as important and perhaps more impressive, the reader knows how the murder victim was killed, about marks on her body, about traces of material found inside her fatal wound, about what she may have been wearing when she died, and about a possibly significant substance found under her fingernails.
That's a brilliant way to avoid the dreaded information dump, always a hazard when forensic pathologists come on the scene. Man, does that Camilleri ever know what he's doing.
© Peter Rozovsky 2009
Labels: Andrea Camilleri, Italy, problems, Salvo Montalbano, Sicily, Wings of the Sphinx


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Tracy Proctor is a third generation Calgarian, artist, teacher and founder of Swirl Fine Art and Design Art Gallery. Although a self-taught artist, she has completed encaustic programs in New York, California, Santa Fe and Seattle. Her background in Interior Design has influenced her love for color and composition. Tracy teaches encaustic workshops throughout Western Canada. She is a certified R&F encaustic instructor and currently, the President of the Federation of Canadian Artists - Calgary Chapter.
"I have a passion for encaustic (an ancient process fusing bees wax, dammar resin and oil paint with heat). I paint intuitively; layering, carving, scraping and fusing. The spontaneity of the process creates a real sense of energy. An unfolding of a mystery is revealed as each layer is built up and gouged away. Encaustic has the vibrancy of colour inherent in oil, sculptural texture and a quickness of drying that suits my impatient temperament. Yet the wax has an ethereal and luminous quality that cannot quite be achieved with any other medium. My style is a somewhat corky form of realism with vivid colour, texture and depth.""


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Public Reference Herbarium
Botanical Resource Centre, Australian National Botanic Gardens
The Botanical Resource Centre, next to the Friends Lounge at the Australian National Botanic Gardens houses a collection of dried plant reference specimens which represents the native and naturalised plants of the A.C.T., the Southern Tablelands, Australian Alps and the South Coast. This self-help collection is available for use by students, plant surveyors and people who just want to know more about plants. The plants are mounted in plastic sleeves in loose-leafed books to make them more robust for public use.
It is open for use by the public after they have had an introductory session from one of the Friends' Facilitators.
The Public Reference Collection is open from 9:30am - 4:30pm daily. Please give the Visitor Centre a phone call on 6250 9450 if you want to come and use it. This facility also has a microscope, access to an extensive library of botanical books and a computer with interactive identification tools and links to the Internet to help make the process of identifying plants easier.
You can discover more about the Australian National Herbarium and the research activities of the Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research by visiting their web site at www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/herbarium


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Ann Peebles
A diminutive singer with a powerful voice and an even stronger attitude, Ann Peebles was one of the artists who defined Willie Mitchell's legendary Memphis soul label Hi Records, along with Al Green and, later, O.V. Wright. Easily the best female singer in the Hi stable, Peebles ranked among the finest deep Southern soul singers of the decade, notching an instant classic with her 1973 hit "I Can't Stand the Rain." She co-wrote a generous share of her own material with husband Don Bryant, and while she cut plenty of love and heartbreak tunes, her persona was built on the grit and resilient strength she displayed on songs like "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down." Peebles wasn't always as appreciated on the charts as her work often merited, especially among pop listeners, but her best recordings hold up among the best of their era.
Peebles was born April 27, 1947, in East St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a minister and her mother a singer, and naturally Peebles began singing at a young age in her father's church choir. She also sang with the family group, the Peebles Choir, which had been touring the gospel circuit since Peebles' grandfather founded it a generation earlier. As a teenager, she sang secular music on the St. Louis club circuit, supported and accompanied by her father. There she met blues bandleader Oliver Sain, a local legend, and eventually joined his revue. Peeblescaught her big break in 1968 on a trip to Memphis, where she asked to sit in on a club set by trumpeter Gene "Bowlegs" Miller. Miller was already signed to Hi Records at the time, and duly impressed with Peebles' voice, he brought her to Hi house producer Willie Mitchell for a tryout. Mitchell, who was still in the process of shifting the label from country to R&B (and had not yet discovered Al Green), immediately offered Peebles a contract; she was still shy of her 21st birthday.
Mitchell teamed Peebles with singer and house songwriter Don Bryant, seeking a bit more seasoning in her R&B phrasing. Peebles andBryant soon began writing together (and would also end up dating). In the meantime, Peeblesrecorded her debut single, "Walk Away," a song written by Sain that just missed the Top 20 on the R&B chart in 1969. The follow-up, "Give Me Some Credit," was also a minor hit. Both songs were featured on the singer's debut album, This Is Ann Peebles. Her fourth single, 1970's "Part Time Love," was her first R&B Top Ten. 1972's Straight from the Heart was her first artistically realized LP, however; it featured several minor R&B hits in "I Pity the Fool," "Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love," "I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home" (later covered by Bette Midler), and "Somebody's on Your Case," plus the signature album track "99 Lbs." Her hot streak continued with 1973's I Can't Stand the Rain, which many critics still regard as her finest work. "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" was a decent-sized hit, and the brilliant title cut — written by Peebles, Bryant, and disc jockey Bernard Miller — became her biggest hit, peaking at number six R&B and famously becoming a favorite of John Lennon. She also charted with "(You Keep Me) Hangin' On" and "Do I Need You," but more importantly, married Bryant in 1974.
In the wake of "I Can't Stand the Rain," Peebles was a star on the soul circuit, even if she never duplicated its commercial success. "Beware," "Come to Mama," and "Dr. Love Power" were all charting singles from 1975's Tellin' It, but the rise of disco and the sale of Hi Records in 1977 would conspire againstPeebles' career momentum. 1977's If This Is Heaven produced only one single in the title cut, which was more polished than Peebles' usual fare; none of the singles from 1979's The Handwriting Is on the Wall cracked the R&B Top 50. With Mitchell and most of the Hi house band gone, Peebles took a hiatus from the music business to concentrate on her family.
Peebles reunited with Mitchell in 1989 for Call Me, an album released on Mitchell's short-lived new label, Waylo; however, longtime fans generally found it a disappointing comeback overpowered by sterile electronic instrumentation. Peeblesreturned to a more organic approach by signing with roots label Rounder's Bullseye Blues subsidiary for 1992's Full Time Love. Another effort, Fill This World with Love, followed in 1996, which featured guest spots from Mavis Staples and Shirley Brown. During the '90s, Peebles guested on several albums by Maria Muldaur. Meanwhile, "I Can't Stand the Rain" was covered by numerous artists, including Tina Turner, and revived by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott via sampling on her 1997 smash "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)."
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Press the space key then arrow keys to make a selection.


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Administrative Setup
Deputy Commissioner is head of the District Administration. The Deputy Commissioner's office consists of various branches headed by Shireshtedars or Managers who are responsible for supervision, guidance and overall management of work in their branch. Every branch consists of First Division Assistants and Second Division Assistants among whom all work of the branch is divided.There are various officials both at the district level and at the taluk levels to assist the Deputy Commissioner. They include the Assistant Commissioner's (Sub-Divisional Magistrate), Tahsildars, Shirstedars, Revenue Inspectors and Village Accountants.The Deputy Commissioner Court deals with cases pertaining to Revenue Appeals, Revenue Miscellaneous ( KLR Act, 1964 ), Prohibition of transfer of Certain Lands cases ( PTCL Act,1978 ) and inam cases( Inam Abolition Act ). One SDA and Manager of Judicial Branch assist the D.C by doing back office work.


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I summarized some of my own views on KA in an article in The Huffington Post on March 20 of this year, but this article focuses on another issue than the one I discussed there. Namely, the large numbers of fanatical supporters Khan has gathered, who respond to even the mildest and well meaning criticisms of anything Khan with venom, hatred, and personal attacks.
The first round of this new skirmish I was aware of (likely not the first to occur, since I check in only occasionally on developments in K-12 mathematics education, though now the excellent EdSurge provides me more useful news than I can possibly keep up with) was in February of this year when Mathalicious founder Karim Kai Ani posted a critique of KA pedagogy on his company blog. (Disclosure: I knew that posting was coming up, since Karim emailed me beforehand with questions about gamification and individually prescribed instruction, both of which he wanted to discuss in his article. I also voluntarily endorse his educational materials.)
The KA–Mathalicious deluge began within a few hours of the blog being published, with a lot of the venom unleashed on Y-Combinator's Hacker News. From the nature of many of the comments, which were personal, and often visceral attacks on Ani rather than reasoned responses to what was a very well thought out and cogently presented argument, it's a reasonable assumption that they were contributed by schoolkids. Which to my mind makes this phenomenon worth thinking about. For schoolchildren are what K-12 education is about. When a substantial number of our main customers speak, we should listen, even if the method by which the message is delivered leaves a lot to be desired.
Actually, I don't know what percentage of the K-12 population is represented in those Hacker News (and other) blog posts, but what we do know is that Khan Academy has a large and devoted following. In some ways, I too am a fan of sorts, though less so than when I participated in a TV discussion with Sal back in 2010. For sure, I am dismayed by the huge number of mathematical errors and pedagogic shortcomings in his videos. (We've learned a lot about mathematics education in the past fifty years.) In the early days it was easy to overlook them – any new enterprise is buggy, particularly a one-person show like the early KA. But once the Silicon Valley millions started to roll in, and with those funds a staff, it would have been an easy Web exercise to crowdsource curriculum improvement/development to the many mathematics teachers and university mathematics education specialists who would surely have been eager to help.
My enthusiasm came not from the KA site's contents, but from something else I saw: Sal Khan himself. Up close – and I have met him a few times – he comes across as a really nice, approachable guy with a great sense of humor. Well, so do a lot of people. But there is something else. Sal has the ability to project that identity and that personality over the Web, using just his voice and the trace of a digital pen on a tablet. In the Age of Social Media, that, it seemed to me, was powerful. And, at least to date, extremely rare.
Effective teaching is a human-to-human activity. Good teachers strive to achieve a connection with our students in the classroom. (I say "our students," since I like to think I am a good teacher, albeit not at the K-12 level.) I'm told my voice conveys my enthusiasm for mathematics when I go on NPR as the Math Guy. If true, and some people seem to think so, then I can't really take credit for it. I just speak into a microphone. No training, no rehearsing. Just me.
Sal Khan has that natural ability in spades. As he tells us (all Silicon Valley enterprises have a creation story, and in his case it's true), Khan Academy began as his attempt to help his younger cousins with their math homework, by posting video tutorials on YouTube. He did not set out to build an education empire. People outside his family simply came across his videos on the Web and found them useful.
From a pedagogic perspective, his videos do not provide student learning, they deliver instruction – a distinction I discussed in my March Devlin's Angle. It would be easy for me to critique them, and many have. (Read on.) But to me at least, providing learning is not where their real value lies.
Learning mathematics is hard. Very hard. It is easy to get discouraged and give up. Some of us, when we are learning math the first time, are lucky enough to have a parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt, older sibling, or family friend who can sit down alongside us and help us. I suspect that a great many of today's professional mathematicians owe their eventual success in the subject to someone who mentored them in the early days.
But not everyone has such a person in their lives. At least, they did not until Sal Khan came along: friendly, non-threatening, patient, and a good explainer (actually not brilliant, but that might be all to the good, since a brilliant instructor could easily discourage a less-brilliant student). Above all, human. A regular guy. Just think about that for a moment. It's a valuable weapon in the educational landscape.
Much of the attraction of KA came from its very amateurish nature. It really was just Sal Khan in his converted closet. Sure he did not really understand (as a mathematician does) a lot of the math he explains (though he knows an awful lot more than most people), nor was he trained in mathematics pedagogy. (Ditto for me, BTW – on both counts! – though I think I know more about both than Sal, which makes it possible for me to critique many of his lessons.) But that was a huge part of what made KA so popular. Millions of people around the world, young and old, whose experiences of math class was or had been awful, saw him as on their side. He was everyone's friendly, helpful Uncle Sal. (I hope this does not come across as a hagiography. I have a lot of issues with KA. But I am trying to understand what leads to KA having such a passionately supportive fan base. I think there is something for us all to learn here.)
For millions of users of KA, what they find on the site is far better than anything they have had or are getting. For them, it's not just a homework helper, it's a lifeline. Their only lifeline.
Sure, they probably don't really learn any mathematics. (I have yet to be convinced you can really learn mathematics over the Web, though that does not stop me wanting to try, as indicated by my other blog MOOCtalk.) The fact is, many people actually don't want to learn mathematics, they want to pass a math exam. And if Sal Khan helps them do that – and millions say that he has done exactly that – then is it surprising they become KA fans? (And educational establishment enemies!)
Then Bill Gates comes along, and KA goes global. Expectations change. Now things have gotten more tricky. When a resource like KA becomes the primary vehicle by which millions of people acquire many or all of their mathematical skills, the stakes become dramatically higher than when it was a one-man homework-help service. Like it or not, ask for it or not, KA now has (in my view) an obligation to get things right. Doing so without destroying a major part of its appeal, is clearly going to be tricky.
Which brings me to the more recent skirmishes.
On June 18, two math professors, John Golden and David Coffey, posted to YouTube a parody of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which they called MTT2K, in which they watched and critiqued a KA video (an old one, as it happens) about multiplying and dividing negative numbers. To my mind, the target of their theatrical sarcasm was not KA, rather the reverence that many seem to have for KA, but many Khan fans (perhaps the reverent ones) seem to have reacted differently.
In any event, KA immediately took down the video, replacing it with two new videos, one on Multiplying Positive and Negative Numbers, the other on Dividing Positive and Negative Numbers. The two new videos appear to have been made in direct response to the MTT2K critique. A short while later, Khan released another new video, Why a Negative Times a Negative is a Positive, providing further elaboration.Unfortunately, as John Jay High School (New York) physics teacher Frank Noschese noted, that third video was awfully similar to one produced some years earler by James Tanton. Things were escalating (or spiraling down, depending on your favored metaphor).
The pity was that critiques by knowledgeable teachers and pedagogy experts resulting in modifications to KA instructional materials is surely the way to take something that has value and make it even more valuable. But that tended to get lost in the MTT2K-parody sarcasm and the barrage of name calling that followed.
Incidentally, Noschese is a 2011 Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching awardee, and the author of an excellent science education blog Action-Reaction. He has commented and tweeted extensively (and to my mind constructively) on KA. I hope KA follows his blog and takes note of what he says.
Another experienced STEM teacher with excellent suggestions (for KA and for teaching in general) is Dan Meyer, a former Google Education Fellow and now a PhD student in education at Stanford. He joined in the MTT2K exchange in his usually witty fashion in two blogposts, Bill Gates Just Put Out a Hit on John Golden and David Coffey, on June 20 and Sal Khan Comments On MTT2K In Chronicle of Higher Education, on June 28.
The latter was about an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that day, summarizing the MTT2K affair. The Chronicle article was inspired in part by the article by Justin Reich in Education Week on June 22 about the "MTT2K Prize", a cash prize to be awarded for the best video commentary on a Khan Academy video. (Actually it's a great idea, if it can be done collaboratively with KA, absent any negativity.)
The final episode in this skirmish (at least so far, based on what I have seen) was an entry video to the MTT2K Prize competition on June 29, by Wired blogger Rhett Allain, an Associate Professor of Physics at Southeastern Louisiana University.
To my mind, Allain's blog description is better than his videoed critique. Allain just does not come across on video as well as Khan does. Many teachers, and most academics, spend a lot of their time critiquing one another. We get used to it. It's how we learn and improve. But when you put it on YouTube, it is viewed by millions of people totally unfamiliar with the process, and they can – and, in the cases I am citing, did – react negatively.
Which brings me back to my starting point. Education is hard, mathematics education particularly so. It takes a lot of different kinds of knowledge and expertise to get it right. The focal point is – and I think has to be – a single person, a teacher. Either in the flesh or over the Web. That teacher has to be able to connect to the students. Being a great classroom teacher does not make someone good at doing it on YouTube. In fact, most teachers come across pretty badly on video. But that does not matter if the people who are able to use the medium will listen to what they say.
Sal Khan's strength is that he comes across extremely well on video (with or without his face on screen!). I just wish he would work (with real experts) on the content more.
But the real problem is not the stuff on the KA site. Flawed as it is, it is, as I noted earlier, a lot better than many people have, or ever had, access to. The fact that many of Khan's fans describe him as "the best teacher ever" speaks volumes about the poor quality of the mathematics education that many receive. I've visited many math classrooms both in this country and around the world, and I've seen great math teaching. You won't find it on KA. Instead, you will find something else, something unique and of value.
Sure, KA has lots of weaknesses and could be improved. That goes for any product. The real problem is that the US (and other nations) identify mathematics learning with instruction and passing procedural tests. In that world, KA meets a clear market need for instruction to help people pass procedural math tests.
In contrast, Ani, Noschese, Golden, Coffey, Meyer, Allain, and all the other KA critics in the educational world are interested in facilitating something quite different: real learning among their students.
Sal Khan says he is trying to move into the real, conceptual learning space as well, but so far I have not seen much that would qualify, and as I noted earlier, my own interest in trying out the MOOC format notwithstanding, I have yet to be convinced that it is possible over the Web.
Khan has something of real value to offer, most uniquely his ability to do well both locally and at a distance what many teachers find hard or impossible even in the classroom, namely connect with and inspire students. But he seems not to have deep conceptual understanding of mathematics or knowledge of the highly complex field of mathematics learning, and given his background it would be strange if he did. (For a good, reasoned series of articles pointing out the problems with KA, see the 2011 articles by Sylvia Martinez of Generation YES.)
On the other side, there are many teachers and education researchers who do have knowledge of mathematics and mathematical pedagogy, but are not able to connect well, at least on video, where they come across as cold or impersonal or condescending – video is a harsh medium.
If each party recognized that the others had something of value to offer, and if we could get beyond the squabbles and the name-calling, we could produce something that benefits the people we all care about: the students.
Los Angeles police brutality victim Rodney King died recently. The words he famously uttered during the riots that followed his beating in 1992 seem equally pertinent to the current state of affairs regarding KA: "Can't we all get along?"


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Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
Listening #52
"Men must eat, though angels be their guests."
—William Laird, "Träumerei at Ostendorff's"
—William Laird, "Träumerei at Ostendorff's"
A few months ago, when an audio newcomer asked what I use for a music source at home, my first, casual answer fell short. When I responded by saying "a Linn"—which to me is the same thing as saying "a small Scottish record player"—my young friend was no less in the dark. I hadn't considered that, to an audiophile who came of age after the 1980s, "a Linn" could mean just about anything, ranging from a music server to an in-wall loudspeaker.
At least one precedent comes to mind: To many of us, "a Quad" is an electrostatic loudspeaker; yet to the audiophile who was active before 1957, a Quad is an amplifier, and always will be.
The distinction is more than merely semantic: It affects our understanding of how we got here, as a hobby—and, more to the point, who it was that led the way.
It's unlikely that Peter J. Walker, O.B.E., comes to many minds when people set about naming the greatest amplifier designers—generous though those folks may be with credit to Walker as a speaker designer, for his full-range electrostatics. I daresay the designers who do get the nod are, for the most part, not designers at all but merely rehashers: people who do little more than build—or, quite often, overbuild—modern-spec examples of original designs from such people as D.T.N. Williamson, Gordon Gow, David Hafler, Herbert Keroes, and Matti Otala.
Yet Peter Walker himself gave domestic audio one of its few original amp designs: the Quad II monoblock of 1953, arguably the first truly great domestic amplifier.
The class-A, push-pull Quad II amp used six capacitors, 13 resistors, one choke, two transformers, and five vacuum tubes to convert a line-level monophonic audio signal into 15W of output power, with virtually flat frequency response between 10Hz and 20kHz and no more than 0.1 % of harmonic distortion. The tubes were cannily chosen—a pair of EF86 miniature pentodes for voltage gain and phase splitting (in a single stage), a pair of KT66 "kinkless tetrodes" for output power, and a GZ32 full-wave rectifier—and the output transformer was designed and made with painstaking care.
The latter is especially important in Walker's littlest wonder: Eschewing both the triode operation mode preferred by his friend D.T.N. Williamson, and the so-called ultralinear output design of David Hafler and Herbert Keroes, Walker connected the screen grids of his KT66s to the same high-tension source as their plates—thus running his tetrodes as tetrodes—and split the primary of his output transformer between windings for the plates and the cathodes. (The Quad II is an auto-bias design, with a common cathode resistor for both output tubes, tied to a center tap in the above-mentioned transformer winding.) Walker's innovation accomplished two things in one stroke: It applied voltage feedback to the output tube, for lower distortion (the Quad II also used a small amount of global negative feedback); and, by allowing the KT66s to run at a lower plate voltage, it provided a boost in efficiency—and, consequently, lengthened the lives of the output tubes and other bits. So I suppose that's three things.
Jones and his plug
It haunted me like a wood sprite for years: always borrowed, never bought, always loved, never possessed. Finally, I decided to take the plunge and buy a Quad II. In fact, being a modern sort of audiophile, I decided to buy two of them, for stereo.
I began with an eBay search on the words Quad II. Sorry to say, most of my hits pertained to an eye-makeup product from a company called Bare Escentuals (sic), whose Quad II eyeliner kit contains the colors aquamarine, coffee bean, and firefly. I can't imagine why anyone would want eyelids the color of a mating insect.
I persevered, and wound up buying two Quad IIs from two different sellers. Both were said to be in mostly original condition—albeit minus the original tubes—and in good working order. Unlike my earlier experience buying Quad ESL loudspeakers (see my columns in Stereophile's June and July 2006 issues), it turned out that both of my new old Quads had been accurately described by their sellers. In a further sign that This Was Meant To Be, both arrived here on the same day, and their serial numbers were remarkably close to one another—an important characteristic when you're talking about amplifiers that were in production for a remarkable 18 years, with inevitable changes in part suppliers and specifications. Total expenditure so far: under $1000.
Now we come to the technical bits. The Quad II amplifier, whether sold singly or in pairs, was meant to be used with a Quad preamplifier, which had no power supply of its own, and took its DC plate voltage and AC heater voltage from the power amp. (This is why, anecdotally, Quad II amplifiers with the greatest need for power-supply servicing tend to be those that have been in service with Quad preamplifiers and other Quad ancillaries for the longest times.) Thus, any Quad II in original condition has an input socket not of the usual sort, but rather a thing called a Jones socket, intended to mate with a corresponding Jones plug. This was and is a six-tab connector, apportioned here among two 6.3V AC conductors, one 340V DC conductor, one line-level audio signal conductor, and one ground—the last connected by jumper to the remaining unused tab.
There is such a thing as a Jones adapter, in which the audio signal is connected to the center conductor of a phono socket, the ground is connected to the sleeve, and the high- and low-tension voltages go nowhere and are kept as far from one another and from ground as a small piece of plastic can manage. (One of my Quad IIs even came with such a thing free of charge: Merci, Jean-Pierre!) But because I'm an audiophile, and because the vestigial high-tension line made me nervous, I decided to get rid of Mr. Jones altogether and do a bit of rewiring.
Of course, I dispensed with the two 6.3V AC heater lines as well: They were the easiest to locate, running from terminals 5 and 6 of the Jones socket all the way toward the other end of the amp, to the secondary taps on the mains transformer. I removed those two wires from the socket, then traced them within the bundle that runs along the amplifier's front (Quad II nameplate) side, occasionally using a hobbyist's knife to slice into the quaint fabric lacing holding the bundle together. (Having been dressed in the same position for several decades, none of those wires was in danger of moving out of place.) Once I'd separated those two wires from the rest, I clipped rather than desoldered them from the secondaries, mindful of the risk of applying too much heat to a vintage trannie.


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EZ2 RESULT Today – Here is the result of EZ2 Lotto draw of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). Updates of the EZ2 result is refreshed every 2PM, 5PM and 9PM.
The above results are the official winning number for () for draw of EZ2 Lotto.
See UPDATED results for the following draws:
LOTTO RESULT Today, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 (updated 9PM)
EZ2 RESULT Today, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 (updated every 2PM, 5PM and 9PM)
SWERTRES RESULT Today, Wednesday, July 24, 2024 (updated every 2PM, 5PM and 9PM)
EZ2 Lotto Result Yesterday (, )
See also 3D RESULT TODAY, 6-Digit Lotto Result, 6/42 LOTTO RESULT, 6/55 LOTTO RESULT, STL RESULT, and SWERTRES RESULT pages.For other results, please visit the main page PCSO Lotto Result or Ez2 Result History for more Ez2 result summary.
PCSO Reminders
Based on the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), here are some reminders in playing the EZ2 Lotto:
- Only players 18 years old and above are allowed to play the lotto games.
- This lotto game has daily draws every 2:00 pm, 5:00 pm, and 9:00 pm daily.
- You can watch the draw live on YouTube (pcso gov) or through PTV4 channel.
- The lotto ticket for the EZ2 Lotto is at Php 12.00 each. It is already inclusive of the 20% Documentary Stamp Tax (DST).
- It is the responsibility of the lotto players to check on the accuracy of the data printed on the ticket.
In cases of holidays or certain special occasions where there would be no draws, the PCSO makes a prior announcement including the information on when the draw will resume.
How To Play the PCSO EZ2 Lotto
- Pick two(2) digits that will compose your combination. You will have to choose from a field of one(1) to three(3).
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- Mark your play amount which is from Php 12.00 to Php 600.00.
- For the Rambolito system play, you may choose two(2) digits and the system will automatically generate the possible combinations with regards to the digits you have chosen. The minimum play amount is at Php 12.00.
- For the Advance Draws, you may play the same combination up to a series of six(6) draws.
Prizes for EZ2 Lotto
- If you got the winning combination in exact order, you will win Php 4,000.00 for every lotto ticket.
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How To Claim the Prize
For Lotto Prizes between Php 20.00 and Php 10,000.00 – Winners may claim the prize through any authorized lotto outlet. You may also claim at a PCSO Branch Office nearest to you.
For Lotto Prizes at Php 10,001.00and up – Winners may claim the prize at any PCSO Branch Office. The prizes that are above Php 10,000.00 are subject to a 20% deduction pursuant to the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act.


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Ordering Information: Bookstores and Individuals
Copyright © 2000- WordTech Communications, LLC
Site design: Skeleton
Welcome to Diverse Poetry by Diverse Poets
Welcome! CW Books seeks to publish a wide range of poetry that celebrates the diversity of the art today. Many poetry presses focus on one or two styles, such as formalism or avant-garde, or one or two groups of poets, such as women. CW Books aims to publish a broader cross-section of American poetry in style and theme than other presses.


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Buy now on LeoVince US.
SITOPLUS for YAMAHA YE 50 ZEST 1994 - 1995
- Part #: 0556
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2.75 kg
dB(A) Level
- High performance steel replacement exhaust
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- Attention! Before ordering the product, it is recommended to check compatibility with the Type indicated on the Vehicle Identification Card.
- Attention! The homologation is valid only for the Types indicated in the ePass included in the User Manual or in the Homologation Certificate.
- All pictures shown and available sounds are for illustration purpose only.
- Actual product may vary due to specific product application.
What's in the Box
The kit comes complete and does not require any extra parts for installation on the vehicle, all included components are listed in the technical drawing and in the user manual.
LeoVince muffler
LeoVince stickers


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Keystone XL: Welcome To The Proxy Energy War – OpEd
By OilPrice.com
By Jen Alic
Now that elections are over, everyone is waiting for a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, but it's not so easy amid the atmosphere of protests that have even traditionally oil-friendly Texans putting up a fight.
Lawsuits, intensifying protests, conflicts of interest and the underlying notion that the pipeline is not really essential are causing the Obama administration no end of discomfort.
At stake in this atmosphere of civil disobedience is a $7 billion, 1,179-mile pipeline project that will transport Canadian tar sands to refineries in south Texas, courtesy of TransCanada. In Texas alone, the pipeline affects some 850 landowners.
TransCanada has been playing dirty, and Texans won't have it. If there is one state in the US where the phrase ' eminent domain' sparks revolutionary panic, it's Texas. And while the pipeline protests were earlier the strict purview of 'tree-hugging' activists, it became a local Texas issue when TransCanada started having private land condemned by the court so it could buy it up on the cheap. So far, it has acquired 100 tracts of land in this manner, out of the 800 it has to date acquired.
One Texan has gone so far as to sue the state over its handling of the pipeline, which is supposed to cross his land. Specifically, he's suing the Railroad Commission of Texas, which is tasked with regulating pipelines. According to the lawsuit, the Commission wrongfully granted TransCanada a permit and is failing to protect water supplies and ensure safety precautions. The landowner is also seeking an injunction and restraining order against the Commission.
On Monday, the situation took a headline-grabbing turn when two activists blockaded themselves inside a pipeline in East Texas.
In Oklahoma, things have gone a bit smoother, with construction already under way in full force.
In Nebraska, the pipeline is challenged by the environmental risk to the Sandhills region. On 4 December, a public hearing opened on the Nebraska route, which will lay the groundwork for a final decision by the state's governor.
In Washington, though, support for Keystone XL seems to be moving along nicely, though it still does not have the final approval of the State Department, which is necessary as the pipeline crosses an international boundary.
While some politicians say the pipeline is a no-brainer, others disagree. Democrats are divided over the issue, with those in states whose economies depend on oil generally supporting the construction, while others balk. Republicans are generally united in support over Keystone XL.
Will the pipeline bring thousands of jobs? Probably—estimates range from 3,000 up to 20,000. Is it vital to US energy security? In so much as Canada is vital to US security. So, not really.
Energy security expert Michael Levi, of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Oilprice.com that the Keystone XL Pipeline is both "non-essential to US energy security" and "not disastrous to climate change."
"It has been overblown by both sides in the debate. It is one pipeline that would carry a modest, but non-trivial amount of crude, and that would help create economic incentives to increase production, again, by a modest but not earth-shattering amount."
From Levi's perspective, the real issue here is trends. "I think if you replicate a pattern like the one that some would like to see for Keystone and you start blocking pipelines all over the place, then that becomes a larger economic problem."
So welcome to the proxy war over energy.
Overall, there is a general optimism that the pipeline will go ahead, eventually. But here's another new sticking point: the nomination for US Secretary of State, Susan Rice, who happens to hold shares in TransCanada, which is seeking State Department approval for Keystone XL.
It's a bit of a conflict of interest that promises to get messy. Rice and her husband have stock in TransCanada valued at between $300,000 and $600,000. She also has some $1.25 million in stock in Canada's Imperial Oil Ltd. (IMO), as well as in a handful of smaller Canadian oil companies.
Source: OilPrice.com


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[François] lives in Canada, and as you might expect, he loves hockey. Since his local team (the Habs) is in the playoffs, he decided to make an awesome setup for his living room that puts on a light show whenever his team scores a goal. This would be simple if there was a nice API to notify him whenever a goal is scored, but he couldn't find anything of the sort. Instead, he designed a machine-learning algorithm that detects when his home team scores by listening to his TV's audio feed.
[François] started off by listening to the audio of some recorded games. Whenever a goal is scored, the commentator yells out and the goal horn is sounded. This makes it pretty obvious to the listener that a goal has been scored, but detecting it with a computer is a bit harder. [François] also wanted to detect when his home team scored a goal, but not when the opposing team scored, making the problem even more complicated!
Since the commentator's yell and the goal horn don't sound exactly the same for each goal, [François] decided to write an algorithm that identifies and learns from patterns in the audio. If a home team goal is detected, he sends commands to some Phillips Hue bulbs that flash his team's colors. His algorithm tries its best to avoid false positives when the opposing team scores, and in practice it successfully identified 75% of home team goals with 0 false positives—not bad! Be sure to check out the setup in action after the break.


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Getting your braces off is definitely a cause for celebration. You can finally enjoy your new smile after all that work and effort! But getting your braces off isn't the end of treatment. Once your braces come off, you will enter the retention period of treatment. During the retention period, you will
Read more


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What would the world be like if PC companies designed and manufactured vehicles?
A few years ago, Bill Gates was quoted as saying something to the effect that if the tech industry built vehicles we'd have flying cars by now – highlighting just how much more quickly the technology market advanced. The response from the automobile industry?
Something to the effect that you'd also have vehicles that crashed and needed to be rebooted often which, I expect, would be particularly problematic if they were flying at the time.
Well, Dell recently collaborated with a company called Current Motor and this unusual marriage had an offspring – a hybrid cross between a tablet and scooter. They call it a SuperScooter and they've given it to me for
a month. Now I've been riding motorcycles for over 40 years (I started riding before I even had a driver's license) and even though I sold my last motorcycle several years back I find I still miss it.
Range Sucks
This is the big problem with electric vehicles. Battery technology today doesn't provide enough density for long trips, batteries take hours to charge and you generally have to make an ugly tradeoff between price, performance, weight, and capacity. Low price gives you less range but also less weight and higher potentially higher performance, you pay more and you get range but lose performance. Now there is an improvement coming, apparently they've discovered if you inject silicon into the batteries it significantly increases capacity and this may eventually solve this problem.
The other issue with current technology is that it takes a long time to charge and there are still very few places to charge away from home. This combination makes what would otherwise be a great long distance experience impractical. This too is being worked both with faster charging batteries and plans to build out charging infrastructure largely driven by Tesla and Qualcomm (Qualcomm is pushing for inductive charging in either streets or parking spaces). But this fix isn't here yet.
This means most electrics are good for short hops of between 30 and 50 miles round trip – depending on battery capacity. Now Current shipped me their under $10K value product which means I had about 30 miles of no risk range, light weight and moderate performance.
Fun Factor
This scooter is really quite a bit of fun to drive. It is dead quiet at speed so you can really hear what is going on around you. Given cars aren't that good at seeing two wheeled vehicles this allows to better keep track of where they are when you aren't looking in your mirrors or they aren't in front of you. On a quiet road it is like coasting on a bike but without that annoying sound the bike gears typically make.
It is really very pleasant, although I soon found myself wishing for a radio. One of the advantages of a Scooter
form factor is that it provides very good shielding from the weather. Unlike on a regular motorcycle your shoes, pants, shirts, and face are relatively protected from the elements so you can wear an open face helmet and better enjoy the weather with less fear of eating a bug.
It is no custom chopper but it is far cheaper, far more comfortable, and far easier to ride. It does draw a lot of attention particularly here in very green California. People do come up and ask about it but I think women would find it better and getting dates than men will. Since I'm married I view this as a lifesaving feature.
The Tech
There are several parts of this scooter that make it cool in a geeky way. First it uses Vehicle Wraps for
customization. Not only can you buy it wrapped from the factory (the one I've been using is wrapped in carbon fiber) there are tons of folks that do wraps and for a few hundred bucks they can pull and replace the wraps with anything from other finished like steel, flat back, or even fake wood (I'd avoid the fake wood) to custom graphics. Not only does it look cool but it is far more resistant to scratching than paint.
Second, and this is part of the Dell contribution, it has a tablet as a display and this device is equipped with a WAN connection with a specially coded cell phone app. Meaning, if you are having a problem Current Motors can remotely diagnose it. Plus, you can monitor the bike on your phone and the display will run apps like trip planning and GPS software.
Now you do have to boot the dash but only when you first uncrate the bike or after you've disconnected
the battery for storage (there is a breaker for this). Otherwise it activates when you get close to the bike or use the key to activate the vehicle.
Wrapping Up: Recommendations
The bike is just fine if you are just looking for something to get you to work or school and live in an area like the west where the weather is generally good and your commute is under 30 miles and doesn't involve much freeway.
In fact, this likely would have been a safer choice while I was in high school and college than the motorcycles I owned at the time and far better in weather. If you can figure out how to get a power cord to it, it is ideal for cities where you typically drive under 15 miles but have to navigate in heavy traffic. Scooters can get through areas where cars can't and electric vehicles love stop and go driving. Many think they are the future of in-city transportation.
However, if you are on the freeway a bit at speed or need more range the performance version would be
recommended because, at least in California no one drives 55 – making the 58 top speed of the base bike too slow. Being a freeway speed bump isn't that much fun and their more expensive configuration tops out closer to 70, all while boasting far more range.
If you are looking for something to go long distances, I would definitely say that electric isn't an option, at least not yet. And while you can buy performance motorcycles that are electric they are typically very expensive, far more exposed, and generally a very poor value against performance gas bikes. If you want to race you can't beat gas, but for quiet, cheap, reliable day to day short hops electric is a very pleasant option.
While this scooter isn't as cool as a bike, it is infinitely more cool than a Vespa (it is decent size) and it even has reverse so you don't look stupid when you try to walk it back out of a parking spot up hill (try that on your typical bike or scooter and you'll know why folks who ride make sure they park with their bikes pointed up-hill.
Current is replacing this bike with the performance version in a few days. For now, while the weather holds, look for my Cheshire grin in while I drive by gas stations this weekend. I find I'm enjoying that drive more and more.
Oh, and one final thought. Existing electric bike designs are typically based on their gas predecessors simply because we like to see familiar shapes. But given the actual motor is in the wheel hub and the battery can be custom designed, so you could build some truly wild things (Like this prototype from BMW or even this wilder one from BSG). I can hardly wait!


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text:
Your 2011 St. Patrick's Day Playlist
Ah, St. Patrick's Day, where everyone is Irish for a day. March seems to be full of days like that, since Fat Tuesday is the day where everyone is Catholic for a day.
Since we know many of you will be getting a full-fledged drink on this St. Paddy's Day, especially since it is also the first day of the NCAA tournament, we have provided a small list of songs about drinking, the effects of drinking, and the vow that many of you will make the following morning. Think of it as the bender that you never took; we love booze as much as the next guys, but sometimes those things are better lived vicariously.
"It's Time to Party," Andrew W.K.
With a whopping three songs about partying on his debut album, Andrew W.K. will forever remain our master of ceremonies when it comes to partying. Until we saw the grammar-challenged lyric video, though, we didn't know this song made a reference to a money shot. Yikes.
"Have a Drink on Me," AC/DC
The night is young. Everyone is flush with cash and feeling generous. Try and remember this moment when 1:30 rolls around and you're buying Natural Light pounders. For now, though, you're living on the top shelf.
Read the rest after the jump...
Tags: AC/DC, Alcohol, Andrew WK, Black Sabbath, Dead Kennedys, Def Leppard, Denis Leary, Drinking songs, drunk girls, George Thorogood, Gin & Juice, Have a Drink on Me, I Won't Ever Go Drinking Again, It's Time to Party, LCD Soundsystem, One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, Party Hard, Santana DVX, Shane MacGowan, Snoop Dogg, songs about drinking, Squeeze, St. Patrick's Day, That Woman's Got Me Drinking, The Lonely Island, Too Drunk to Fuck, Traditional Irish Folk Song, Trashed, Wasted


text:
its so good it seems unreal
ss 2 playthrough imminent
Earlier today, DrK found something on a French forum: yesterday, "Le Corbeau" posted two patches - one labeled "System Shock 2.4", the other "Thief 2 1.19". These are unofficial patches with a very, very long changelist, including graphical upgrades, bug fixes, a replacement for old LGVID.AX, removal or relaxation of lots of previously hard-coded limits, and a huge number of improvements to DromEd and ShockEd. There were also two demos posted (which I haven't tried, but which I think are just the official TMA and SS2 demos with the patches applied). These patches do not appear to be based on any existing patches like ddfix or tafferpatcher.
His original thread is here (in Thief General), and there's another thread in The Editor's Guild which is more focused on the editor improvements.
Various people (including me) have now tried it out and it appears to be on the level - it's virus free, and the listed changes, both to the main game and the editor, appear to work fine. I have to say it's pretty nice being able to play SS2, in 1680x1050x32, with working, widescreen cutscenes, with no need to taff about with codecs or core affinity.
As nice as this is as a player, from what I'm seeing in the Editor's Guild thread, the real meat of this patch is the editor improvements; people are already talking about how much this opens up in terms of Thief and SS2 FM creation. Modding is also apparently much easier thanks to things like built in support for DDS textures.
Sadly, thanks to school I don't have the time to do a complete playthrough of SS2 using this...but once I do, I'm definitely doing so, and I can't wait to see what the FM community does with this.
Here are the download links, taken from DrK's thread:
thief 2 V1.19 :
http://www64.zippyshare.com/v/33869454/file.html | md5 : 131cd0a1d9e626ee90e569571e8d0d01
System Shock V2.4 :
http://www64.zippyshare.com/v/89847252/file.html | md5 : 907489eccafe1cab55b01386f17a8efd
And 2 demos for it :
Demo Thief (Bafford's manor) : http://depositfiles.com/files/9qzqrf7mu | md5 : 6f297e85577c6faa89f62805e00fbc74
Demo System Shock 2 (Med/Sci deck) : http://depositfiles.com/files/q50s53phw | md5 : 062a84c68c4ff2b759f0820aedfa6d2f
Thanks Briareos H :
Thief 2 v1.19 : http://anodal.org/thief/t2_v119.zip
System Shock 2 v2.4 : http://anodal.org/thief/ss2_v24.zip
Thief demo : http://anodal.org/thief/Thief_Demo_HD_t2_v119.zip
System Shock 2 demo : http://anodal.org/thief/Shock2_Demo_HD_ss2_v24.zip
Thanks Brethren :
Thanks Kolya :
Bittorrent Magnet
And, from the included documentation, an abbreviated changelist:
- Added windowed mode
- Added single display mode option - no resolution change between menus and game
- Added ingame support for all common resolutions, including widescreen
- Added support for 32-bit color
- Textures can now be automatically promoted to 32-bit, improving quality and effectively eliminating the palette limit
- Added UI framerate cap option to avoid GPU fan spinning up in UI
- Added DDS/PNG image support
- Added full 24/32-bit TGA/BMP image support
- Increased the maximum number of frames allowed in animated textures from 20 to 99, and increased the allowable filename length for animated textures (before the underscore) to support more than 7
- Animated texture rate can now be specified via a material file for that texture
- Fixed a bug where Transparency property didn't (correctly) apply on objects that contain transparent polys
- Replaced video player lib with an FFMpeg based one to play cutscenes. LGVid.ax or other codecs are no longer required
- Option to use OpenAL (if available) instead of DirectSound. Includes support for audio effects in Windows 7 without an EAX-enabled driver (e.g. ALchemy)
- Added "head_bob" config var to control amount of head bob
- Added mousewheel support to options menu
- Fixed player ground contact tracking when walking off an object (caused footstep sounds to get "stuck" on previous material)
- Fixed sound cap per schema type bug and upped max sound channels to 48
- Changed screenshot output format to BMP and also added support for PNG screenshots
- Changed mouselook sensitivity to be resolution independent
- Added check to avoid trying to open files with reserved system name like com ports
- AIs now breathe from their head instead of their stomachs. They will no longer drown when up to their waist in water.
- Lowered player crouch height by a tiny fraction so he's less likely to get stuck on 4 unit tall spaces
- Added better support for binding actions to the mouse wheel (can bind wheel up and wheel down as separate actions, with modifier key support)
- Fixed star rendering
- Added "log_player_pos" command that dumps current player pos to log file (when enabled)
- Added the ability to detach from ladders by crouching
- Improved mantling a bit and added optional new mantling algorithm with lower failure rate
- Fixed a bug which limited number of sound channels to 16 even if more were selected
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused doors to float away into infinity
- Fixed (or at least greatly improved) a bug with edge triggered OBBs sometimes failing to detect collision (in particular for slow moving objects)
- Fixed framerate dependent speed issue for camvators/moving terrain (with collision type: none)
- Added "fixed_star_size" option for resolution independent star size
- Fixed some bugs when attaching to a ladder from water.
- AIs who are facing very close to a wall will no longer turn to face south when the game begins
- Fixed a crash when the "current" folder is missing (it will now be created)
- Added an option to only use a single binding file, eliminating the "broken use/shoot mode" bug once and for all
- Added option to have the quicksave save to a proper slot (now defaults to last regular save slot), complete with proper name (as opposed to "crouchhold")
- Removed four junk lines at the bottom of the map window
- Fixed gun jitter
- Added support for full game mode backup/restore
- Lightmaps are now properly displayed in the editor 3D view
- Added support for HW rendering in editor viewports
- Increased the maximum number of visible on-screen terrain polies from 1024 to 20480
- Increased the maximum number of visible on-screen objects from 128 to 1280
- Added some safety checks to object scaling operations to prevent objects with 1.#INF scale
- Fixed a crash when computing pathfinding with an improperly linked moving terrain object in the mission. An ignorable assert is thrown and the object is skipped gracefully instead of crashing.
- Prevented a crash if you apply a model of one creature type to an object assigned a different creature type
- Fixed "Attempt to mark from invalid room id 0" assertion to actually show the room id that is invalid, instead of always showing 0.
- Integrated csgmerge tool into editor exe
- Added support for 32-bit lightmaps
- Fixed the bug where cloning a multibrush with particles would duplicate every object in the mission
- Fixed a bug where the game would crash when deleting a large multibrush
- Added fallback check to find Motiondb.bin in resource paths
- Fixed resource lock errors when loading TGA images (for object textures and distance art)
- Fixed solo view editor issues when going back to edit mode from game mode
- Added ability to change the brush colors in DromEd via values in DromEd.cfg.
- Added light-based transparency property
- Vast improvements to editor dialogs, including crash fixes and improved functionality
- Increased brush limit from 7068 to 16384
- Increased rooms limit from 1024 to 4096
- Increased ambient sound limit from 256 to 1024
- Increased cell limit from 28672 to 32760
- Increased the maximum number of sides in a cylinder from 10 to 26.
- Increased automap location limit from 64 to 256 locations per page
- The texture rotation control can now interpret negative values
- Fixed a crash while generating reports
- Added a warning dialog when attempting to save one filetype (mis/gam/cow) as another
- Added new Windows-style texture palette (which also supports more than 256 textures)
- Added support for all editor window sizes
- Added Pendulum (/sinusoidal) curve type to tweqs
- Added DetailAttachement link type
- Added Distance Alpha property
- Added Bitmap Color property for custom modulation color on bitmap objects
- Added "Face camera (axial)" setting to Bitmap Worldspace
- Added color param, additive blending and spotlight cone falloff support to coronas
- Added "Editor Comments" property
- Added "show_vhots" command for debug visuals of vhot placement and numbering on objects
- Manually deleting links in the link view dialog no longer deletes attached object for ParticleAttachement/DetailAttachement links
- Added the ability to place graphical decals on book pages
- Corpses with Contains links no longer count as pickpockets
- The Auto-Multibrush property no longer crashes DromEd if the .vbr file was not found.
- The stimulus on existing receptrons can now be changed
- The intensity for sources is no longer reset when changing the propagator
- The receptrons list now correctly shows the max intensity value for existing receptrons
- Meshes can now be scaled with the Scale property
- Scaled objects now cast properly scaled shadows
- Objects can now obscure coronas
- Bitmap Worldspace objects can now be locally lit
- Precipitation will now collide with OBB objects as well as terrain
- The brush_to_room command can now be given a negative number, to be interpreted as an absolute size instead of a percentage (e.g. brush_to_room -0.1 would create a room brush 0.1 units larger than the selected brush.)
- It is no longer necessary to explicitly add the Hidden property to a secret object for the secret to be properly counted
- Added numeric keypad input support
- DromEd will no longer stop working after 03:14:07 on Tuesday, 19 January 2038
- Added "scroll here" option to the right-click menu for solo views, similar to the "teleport camera" option for non-solo views
- Fixed some issues with calculating which room cells are in (which might have caused problems with precipitation and fogging or elevable objects)
- Increased the time range of Tweqs to 0-65535
- The same property can no longer be added to an object multiple times
- Fixed a crash when adding the Texture Anim Data property to a concrete object
its so good it seems unreal
ss 2 playthrough imminent
This is amazing news. My #1 game of all time has just gotten better and now I must depart for it is calling me home.
Must. Play. Now.
Interestingly enough, after just finishing Black Mesa last night, I decided I was going to play SS2 again, for the first time since '99...I haven't played it yet, I've only installed the game, the SS2 Mod Manager, the SHTUP beta6 Mod (by the way, thanks ZylonBane), and DDFIX...All this was done only hours before finding out about the 2.4 patch!...After all these years it's going to feel almost like a new experience again, as I have only vague recollections after 13 years...I'm really excited about this...
Any mod suggestions before I get started?
Bloody hell. Looks like now I have no choice but to put out another version of SHTUP.
The good news is that I'm pretty sure you can now just feed the game a big pile of PNG or DDS textures and it'll Just Work.
edit: Yeah, there's a section in doc/modders_notes.txt:
There's another note further on about making non-destructive map and gamesys changes using DML scripts - if I'm not misreading this, this opens the door for having multiple mods that change the missions or gamesys coexist, without needing to manually merge them in ShockEd! So you could, for example, install Straylight's unofficial patch (if it were converted to DML format), and then on top of that install a gamesys mod that (say) makes bots hackable, and they should both work.Aside from the new image formats, the priority (which type can override another) has been slightly adjusted.
The priority order is as follows, where the first has the highest override priority:
Another change, to make texture overrides work seamlessly with objects and meshes, is that the image type specified
in the object/mesh files is disregarded. For example if object ARROW.BIN uses a texture named ARROW.GIF, the game
will search for any image named ARROW, starting with ARROW.DDS, then ARROW.PNG etc. until it finds an existing
file. Consequently it's a bad idea to create another object (usually for an FM), that uses a different image with
the same name but different image type. For example if you create a new object that uses an image called ARROW.PNG,
then the original arrow object will use that image too instead of ARROW.GIF.
I may need to test that at some point.
Should be, I think. Have a quick look through the config file (cam_ext.cfg), too - in particular you probably want to check out ui_scale_mode (upscale the HUD for higher resolutions) and, if you have a widescreen monitor, crop_movies (crop the letterboxing from the movies so they fill the whole screen).
I may actually cry
And it's so nice to see so many members coming together once again in celebration. God bless us everybody !!!
Well, I'll be darned. Looks mighty impressive. And quite unexpected too, to say the least...
EDIT: Now someone go and make one for Drakan :Order of the Flame too please. Might make me reinstall 3DSMAX again just to fool around with weapon models. Then again, just playing the game again might take priority.
Last edited by Assidragon; 26th Sep 2012 at 05:26.
Simply awesome! Runs smoothly! What a perfect news after months of Ir0NiXdark-only mumbling
It's not working for me on Win7 64bit.
I installed the game, patched it to 2.3, installed mod manager and mods, patched to 2.4, and it crashes as soon at I start a new game.
I also tried patching to 2.3, then to 2.4 and then installing MM and Mods. didn't work either.
I would be so grateful if someone could help me run this on my system again.
I finished a SS2 playthrough last month, but I'll definitely give this a go next weekend.
Maybe this time I'll be able to get the cutscenes working in Win7 64.
And later on I'll have to (finally!) post a news item in sshock2.com (not dead yet!), but so far I have no idea of whom to credit for this. All I have is that someone nicknamed Le Corbeau posted a thread with the links in a French forum, and then disappeared as misteriously as he appeared
try this: http://www.systemshock.org/index.php...45551#msg45551
until the new version of ss2 tool is out.
Holy crap, that's awesome.
By the way, is it possible to use SHTUP and Rebirth with this patch? I haven't had time to fully test this, but at least using the old instllation process for these mods doesn't seem to work.
You're right, it is using the SHTUP textures. But the Rebirth models don't seem to work. Which is weird, furthermore because the demo does show them being used.
Already posted this in the main Thief forum thread, but this bears repeating--
There's some buried gold in the new cam_ext.cfg file. I found a "d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay" setting that lets you set the HUD overlay to any "virtual" resolution you want. So now you can set the game to modern resolutions without having to bust out a magnifying glass to read the HUD text.
Here's an example from SS2:
Also, screenshots now go into a "screenshots" folder. And the PrintScreen key actually works for taking them. Neat!
"Hold on 'becca! I'll be there soon! Luv, Tommy"
No idea of what happened before, but a clean install of SS2 solved my problem with Rebirth.
And now I even have the cutscenes back, which was a problem that I could never solve, even with all the help that Kolya tried to provide \o/
Now time to install Thief Gold and Thief II.


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