text:
Flags of Asia | Hundreds of Flags in Stock - Fast Shipping
Asia Flags
Asia is a continent of enormous size and diversity. Asia reaches the frozen tundra of Siberia to the scorching deserts of the Middle East, from the great steppe of Central Asia to the jungles of Southeast Asia. As one might expect, the countries of this massive continent are just as diverse as its landscape.
Asia is so massive that it is impossible to discuss the continent as a whole, the cultural similarities between Saudi Arabia and Japan are very slim for example. So, it is more useful to split up the continent into several regions that share a cultural history. Asia is usually divided into 5 regions: Southwest Asia (commonly known as the Middle East), South Asia (containing the countries of the Indian Sub-Continent), Central Asia (located on the vast steppe in the center of the continent), East Asia (containing China, North and South Korea, and Japan), and Southeast Asia (containing Vietnam and its surrounding nations).
The prime movers and shakers in Asia are the People's Republic of China and India, the two most populous nations on the planet.
For more information on the Indian and Chinese flags, as well as info about any other flag in this section, just click on the product and go to the product page.


text:
There are several of techniques in that it is possible to increase your income from a baccarat task. While some of them may possibly necessarily be legal, there could be others that anyone can implement that definitely count as legitimate measures of obtaining something done. If you feel that if you're getting enough money inside the usual game, then you may want to read additional info on the baccarat bonus. While one will most likely not say because a bonus in the true sense, it nevertheless is one challenge that you might want to much more about.
When either the urge to gamble again, take a few minutes download mega888 to visualize what it felt like for you, on your way back from the casino. You most likely will feel this horrible feeling prior to you making the decision to gamble again. Is the what you wish to feel again later without delay? That horrible emptiness and despair on the inside pit of your stomach. This visualization can be a powerful yard maintenance tool.
If people today around you're gamblers, as there are a very big possibility that you may end up like people today. The environment you are in can definitely very critical factor in contributing a new Gambling obsession.
First right move is being acquainted this particular game's vision. What is the supposed value with the cards? Are you winning? Ask these inquiries to yourself before and during play. Here's the trick: you need to have cash value of two cards close to 9 higher than the banker's cards. You also need bear in mind that each card has many own corresponding value. For example, an Ace could be 1 or 11.
Baccarat still carries an aroma of aristocracy and exclusivity. In American casinos, baccarat is played in a separated associated with the casino, hidden behind velvet curtains. Baccarat players are viewed as dressed up and the betting limits are higher comparing with table free games. In order to draw the medium budget players, a lower limit version of baccarat, called mini baccarat, was invented. Mini baccarat is played on the smaller table, inside the casino gambling area with lower betting limits than Baccarat.
The other sports gambling systems used widely are 360-0 Sports Betting System and then there is also is the fact Gambling Systems who specialize mainly in horse racing betting. Dependant upon the sport the bookies who pioneer area differ. But what you will need to remember Bookies aren't Jesus. They can just predict the outcome as up to a sport lover effortlessly.
Gambling finish up serious if not given proper attention. If this becomes a habit, it will become a hindrance to your relationships with others, particularly with your loved. When this becomes severe, you should go to counseling to counteract your gambling problems. Have someone to talk within order to. Your family can be of help simply because they're your first line of defense against gambling. But a majority of importantly, discipline should along with you. As a nobody in a position help we alone. Take into account that too much gambling will your life miserable, so avoid excess gambling.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Twinkle, twinkle kidney stone: With a push you could be gone
Just the mention of kidney stones can cause a person to cringe. They are often painful and sometimes difficult to remove, and 10 percent of the population will suffer from them. In space, the risk of developing kidney stones is exacerbated due to environmental conditions. The health risk is compounded by the fact that resource limitations and distance from Earth could restrict treatment options.
Scientists with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) are developing an ultrasound technology that could overcome some medical care challenges associated with kidney stone treatment. The new technology detects stones with advanced ultrasound imaging based on a process called "Twinkling Artifact" and provides treatment by "pushing" the stone with focused ultrasound. This technology could not only be beneficial for health care in space, but could also alter the treatment of kidney stones on Earth.
The project is led by NSBRI Smart Medical Systems and Technology Team Principal Investigator Dr. Lawrence Crum and Co-Investigator Dr. Michael Bailey; both are researchers at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington (APL-UW). Bailey said their technology is based on equipment currently available.
"We have a diagnostic ultrasound machine that has enhanced capability to image kidney stones in the body," said Bailey, a principal engineer at APL-UW. "We also have a capability that uses ultrasound waves coming right through the skin to push small stones or pieces of stones toward the exit of the kidney, so they will naturally pass, avoiding surgery."
Currently on Earth, the preferred removal method is for patients to drink water to encourage the stones to pass naturally, but this does not always work, and surgery is often the only option. In space, the threat from kidney stones is greater due to the difficulty of keeping astronauts fully hydrated. Another factor is that bones demineralize in the reduced-gravity environment of space, dumping salts into the blood and eventually into the urine. The elevated concentration of salts in the urine is a risk factor for stones.
Crum, who is a principal physicist at APL-UW, said kidney stones could be a serious problem on a long-duration mission. "It is possible that if a human were in a space exploration environment and could not easily return to Earth, such as a mission to an asteroid or Mars, kidney stones could be a dangerous situation," Crum said. "We want to prepare for this risk by having a readily available treatment, such as pushing the stone via ultrasound."
Before a stone can be pushed, it needs to be located. Standard ultrasound machines have a black and white imaging mode called B-mode that creates a picture of the anatomy. They also have a Doppler mode that specifically displays blood flow and the motion of the blood within tissue in color. In Doppler mode a kidney stone can appear brightly colored and twinkling. The reason for this is unknown, but Crum and Bailey are working to understand what causes the Twinkling Artifact image.
"At the same time, we have gone beyond Twinkling Artifact and utilized what we know with some other knowledge about kidney stones to create specific modes for kidney stones," Bailey said. "We present the stone in a way that looks like it is twinkling in an image in which the anatomy is black and white, with one brightly colored stone or multiple colored stones."
Once the stones are located, the ultrasound machine operator can select a stone to target, and then, with a simple push of a button, send a focused ultrasound wave, about half a millimeter in width, to move the stone toward the kidney's exit. The stone moves about one centimeter per second. In addition to being an option to surgery, the technology can be used to "clean up" after surgery.
"There are always residual fragments left behind after surgery," Bailey said. "Fifty percent of those patients will be back within five years for treatment. We can help those fragments pass."
The ultrasound technology being developed for NSBRI by Crum and Bailey is not limited to kidney stone detection and removal. The technology can also be used to stop internal bleeding and ablate (or destroy) tumors. Crum said the research group has innovative plans for the technology. "We envision a platform technology that has open architecture, is software-based and can use ultrasound for a variety of applications," he said. "Not just for diagnosis, but also for therapy."
NSBRI's research portfolio includes other projects seeking to develop smart medical systems and technologies, such as new uses for ultrasound, that provide health care to astronauts in space. Crum, who served eight years as an NSBRI Team Leader, said the innovative approaches to overcome the restrictive environment of space can make an impact on Earth.
"Space has demanded medical care technology that is versatile, low-cost and has restricted size. All of these required specifications for use in a space environment are now almost demanded by the general public," Crum said. "One of the reasons that translation from one site to another is possible is because of NSBRI's investment."
The ultrasound work by Crum and Bailey has also received support from the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the University of Washington and foundations associated with it to promote commercialization.


text:
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of AllHipHop.com
This piece originally ran on yourblackworld.net
Dr. Dre is one of the most successful entertainers in history, earning hundreds of millions of dollars by making great music. Much of this music moves because he has been able to successfully package urban/black culture, selling it to audiences around the world. One of the questions some have about those who readily use their blackness for profit is the following: What are you giving back to those who gave you so much?
It's hard to know exactly what Dr. Dre is doing for the black community, but we all know where he made his greatest gift. Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Lovine recently announced a whopping $70 million dollar donation to USC to create a new degree. The program is one that pulls together liberal arts, graphic arts, business, music and technology. Dr. Dre's donation is the largest ever given by any African American in history, and oddly enough, the money is going into the hands of rich white people.
As I prepared to give the commencement address at Simmons College, a growing HBCU in Kentucky with a very rich history, I heard a story about a group of ex-slaves who pooled their money to buy four acres of land so they could educate future generations. Without sacrifices like these, the school would not be giving so much to the community today. The school's extraordinary president, Dr. Kevin Cosby, has not taken a paycheck for his work for the last eight years and readily speaks of how the school is located in one of the poorest districts in America. He sees his contribution as a chance to lift up the community around him, rather than simply milk the community's resources.
If I could transplant Dr. Cosby's brain into Dr. Dre's body, black America would be changed forever. Also, had those ex-slaves been naive enough to give all of their money to the big white university down the street, the impact of their contribution would be minimal at best. One of the reasons that black Americans struggle economically is because we've been locked out of economic opportunities, while massive institutions like USC hoard the wealth to protect their own (take a look at the very low percentage of African Americans they hire or admit as students). Simultaneously, when we do have access to the resources necessary to begin our building process, we don't feel inclined to support those who look like us. That's the difference between the black and the Jewish communities: They teach their children to generously target their resources to protect them against oppression.
Some may argue that Dr. Dre can do whatever he wants with his money, and this point is valid: No one has the right to tell any of us what to do – a child has no obligation to care about his mother, a husband has no real obligation to provide for his wife, the list goes on and on. But the truth is that if you choose not to care about your community, then don't expect your community to care about you. Black people have always been incredibly loyal and supportive of Dr. Dre, particularly those who made him the defacto King of Compton and Long Beach. It would seem that his greatest economic gift should go to them instead.
Another person who had something to say about the gift is Dillard University president, Walter M. Kimbrough. Dr. Kimbrough was once the youngest president of any HBCU in the country and proudly considers himself to be a part of the hip-hop generation. In an op-ed in the LA Times, Kimbrough openly asks Dre why he chose to give so much money to USC, as opposed to one of the struggling HBCUs that really could have used those resources:
I understood their need to build a pool of skilled talent. But why at USC? Iovine's daughter is an alum, sure. And he just gave its commencement address. Andre Young — before he was Dr. Dre — grew up in nearby Compton, where he rose to fame as part of the rap group N.W.A. The Beats headquarters are on L.A.'s Westside.
Still, what if Dre had given $35 million — his half of the USC gift and about 10% of his wealth, according to a Forbes estimate — to an institution that enrolls the very people who supported his career from the beginning? An institution where the majority of students are low-income? A place where $35 million would represent a truly transformational gift?
Dr. Kimbrough is absolutely correct. USC's endowment is over $3.5 billion, which gives this school more money than every single HBCU in America combined. Even more stunning is that the school's endowment isn't even in the top 20 in the nation. The point here, and I hope Dr. Dre understands this, is that white people have plenty of money and they aren't going to use that money to help people who look like you. They don't exactly need black people making donations, since they've already earned over a billion dollars from their African American athletes, many of whom have mothers who can't even pay the rent.
Even worse is that much of this wealth was accumulated on the backs of slaves and black people who were locked out of the economic system. Schools like USC make it diffcult for black students to gain admission and even more difficult for black faculty to get jobs. The university sits down the street from South Central Los Angeles, a virtual war zone where prisons and funeral homes get rich from all the young black men being fed into the prison industrial complex. USC doesn't use many of its resources to help these individuals, it simply uses Dr. Dre's money to build higher walls so they can protect the rich white kids from the scary black ones.
I wonder if Dr. Dre knows that not only does USC admit very few black students, but the ones who are there are subject to serious racism and racial profiling. During a recent campus party, the LAPD sent over 70 police officers in riot gear with a helicopter to break up the party after noise complaints. All the while, the white kids were partying up in their fraternity houses without so much as a peep from the police.
Additionally, for Dr. Dre, his $35 million dollar donation (half of the $70 million he is sharing with Levin) is merely a drop in the bucket for a school like USC that is sitting on an amount of money that no HBCU will have for at least another 100 years. USC shed no tears when Dr. Dre's baby brother was murdered in the violence that has poisoned the black community. They did nothing when his son died from an overdose on the drugs that were dropped into black communities in the 1980s. HBCUs have scholars working to solve these problems, and thousands of students who will graduate to fight for black America. USC does NOT.
Dr. Kimbrough goes even further to explain why USC was a questionable donation target for someone who grew up as a struggling black kid in South Central Los Angeles.
USC is a great institution, no question. But it has a $3.5-billion endowment, the 21st largest in the nation and much more than every black college — combined. Less than 20% of USC's student body qualifies for federal Pell Grants, given to students from low-income families, compared with two-thirds of those enrolled at black colleges. USC has also seen a steady decrease in black student enrollment, which is now below 5%.
A new report on black male athletes and racial inequities shows that only 2.2% of USC undergrads are black men, compared with 56% of its football and basketball teams, one of the largest disparities in the nation. And given USC's $45,602 tuition next year, I'm confident Dre could have sponsored multiple full-ride scholarships to private black colleges for the cost of one at USC.
Dr. Kimbrough made a courageous decision to write this article. There are some who might criticize him as a "hater" or argue with his right to question what Dr. Dre does with his money. But I'm not talking to those people right now. Instead, we must look at the facts: Dr. Dre, a man who has made hundreds of millions of dollars selling back urban culture to the world has made his largest donation to a predominately white university that doesn't need the money and rarely admits black students unless they can play a sport. I love Dr. Dre's music, but I am dying to ask my good brother, "What were you thinking?"
By the way, as schools like USC have gotten rich from black athletes, HBCUs can barely pay the bills. All the while, almost none of this money is returned to the black community, and multi-million dollar USC athletes like Reggie Bush have their integrity questioned for receiving a few hundred dollars under the table. The fact is that these schools rob black people blind, don't give hardly anything to the black community, and laugh at the fact that we are ridiculous enough to turn around and give money back. If I were the president of USC, I'd be giggling under my breath and wondering how a group of people can have such little respect for themselves.
I think this is what some in the dotcom era might call an "SMH moment." Dr. Dre is a brilliant producer, but this move just doesn't make any sense. I hope he has something to say.
Dr. Boyce Watkins co-stars in the Janks Morton Film "Hoodwinked," starring Dr. Steve Perry, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu and Dr. Ivory Toldson. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
Listen to hear an interview between Dr. Walter Kimbrough and Dr. Boyce Watkins as he explains why he wrote this article.


text:
UGS Corp, a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, and Binghamton University today announced an in-kind software grant with a commercial value of $13.2 million that will provide faculty and students with valuable hands-on experience using leading ergonomics and human factors applications. The in-kind software grant is the largest in Binghamton University history.
UGS will provide Binghamton University with digital manufacturing simulation software from its Tecnomatix™ suite of products, which is used by major international companies to improve the ergonomics of product design and workplace tasks. With specific applications for use in industrial and systems science engineering classes, the Tecnomatix virtual human component software enables Binghamton University undergraduate and graduate students to create digital humans of various sizes in virtual environments, assign them tasks and analyze their performance. This information helps organizations improve the ergonomics of product design faster and cheaper, and create workplace tasks that are safer and more effective.
This latest grant from UGS builds upon earlier support. In 2004 and 2005, UGS provided Binghamton University with grants of Solid Edge® software, UGS' industry-leading 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software, which has been made available to all undergraduate and graduate students in the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science.
"UGS' ongoing support allows Binghamton University students to gain valuable hands-on experience using leading industrial software," said Binghamton University President Lois B. DeFleur. "The advances that our University can make by bringing together our bright students with inspired faculty and corporate friends such as UGS, strongly enhances the value of student experience at Binghamton University. These kinds of partnerships open many doors for instructional and research developments across our campus and have the potential to forge innovative relationships with small to mid-sized businesses in Greater Binghamton and across New York State."
The grant is being made through UGS' Global Opportunities in Product Lifecycle Management (GO PLM™) initiative, which leads the PLM industry in the commercial value of in-kind grants it provides at more than $42 billion annually. UGS' GO PLM initiative brings together five complementary community involvement programs focused on academic partnership; regional productivity; youth and displaced worker development; and the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) program. The initiative provides PLM technology to more than 860,000 students annually at nearly 8,400 global institutions, where it is used at every academic level – from middle schools to graduate engineering research programs.
"This software will provide Binghamton University undergraduate and graduate students with the same tools used in product innovation efforts by some of the world's leading global manufacturers," said Charles R. Westgate, dean of the Watson School. "A wide range of Fortune 100 and Global 50 companies use UGS' software and solutions so having our students gain experience with this cutting-edge technology will prepare them to be leaders in a global work environment."
Under the guidance of Mohammad Khasawneh, assistant professor of systems science and industrial engineering, Tecnomatix tools are also expected to create collaborations across the University's academic environment.
"This software will initially be used to enhance our human factors instruction but it has potential for so much more," said Khawasaneh. "The flexibility of Binghamton's academic environment will foster and encourage unique partnerships across disciplines to serve both instructional and research opportunities. We are also looking forward to the possibility of working with UGS to generate next generation products to serve an even broader clientele."
Tecnomatix also has the potential of serving small to mid-sized businesses in the Greater Binghamton area and across New York State through partnerships in Binghamton University's Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence (SPIR) program. These projects would offer businesses access to services that combine this industrial software and University expertise.
"Bringing the right products to market at the right time is one of the key business drivers for today's most competitive companies," said David Shirk, executive vice president of Global Marketing, UGS. "Providing software to leading universities like Binghamton University empowers knowledge for 21st Century engineers to tie into global innovation networks that the world's leading manufacturers are leveraging to build the most innovative products. UGS is committed to Binghamton University's outstanding students and dedicated faculty. UGS is proud to build on its relationship with the University and manufacturers in New York and beyond."


text:
Menu Close
I am just playing with posting via email as a photo blog.
Very much based on Share Images By Email to SPLOT Collector by Mr @cogdog
and auto posting instagram via IFTT some stuff I am playing with. No testing Integromat.
I mostly blog at John's World Wide Wall Display
© 2024 Mobile Photos.
Powered by WordPress.
Theme by Anders Norén.
from instagram


text:
The Director of 'Wedding Crashers' Finally Has An Idea For a Sequel
Wedding Crashers, starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as a pair of hard-partying dudes who love [checks notes] crashing weddings, grossed over $200 million in 2005, becoming one of the five biggest domestic hits of the year. Three of the other four biggest hits of the year all got sequels, but not Wedding Crashers, which is sort of surprising, since the movie was hugely successful, didn't cost that much to make, and was seemingly very easy to duplicate. (They [checks notes again] crash wedding again. Or maybe a few bar mitzvahs.)
The film's director, David Dobkin, explained why 2 Weddings 2 Crashers never happened in an interview with Uproxx about his very fun new Netflix movie, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Dobkin said the studio wanted another Wedding Crashers "by Monday morning of opening weekend" of its release. He even discussed the possibility with Vaughn and Wilson but, Dobkin explained, "I don't want to make the same movie again."
The studio would ask for a sequel almost every year — and every year he'd say no, but then a few years ago Dobkin realized that there could be a way to make a sequel fun and different, simply because they've waited so long to make it. More than 15 years later, the characters would be older, and they crashing would look a lot different. Here's how he described the idea:
My friends that are in their late 40s who, either their marriages didn't work out or they never even necessarily ended up with the girl that they wanted to marry. In either version, you can't just have the life you want because you want it. And when you get later in age and you find that even going out dating is weird and strange and you're looked at as a bit of an old man. I was like, that's funny. How can we take that? That would be the story I would want to see of these two guys, and so we started hashing it out and we played around with it. It seems very promising.
Dobkin says the movie is still just an idea, although he "connected" with both stars in recent weeks and "there's something that may be close." Right now no one is having weddings to crash, so take your time guys.
Gallery — The Best Comedy Movie Posters Ever:


text:
Ottawa cyclist Kevin O'Donnell has clearly had enough of blocked bike lanes and drivers randomly stopping and parking illegally.
On Wednesday afternoon on Laurier though, instead of confronting an offending driver, O'Donnell tried something different. He simply walked into traffic and stood in a car lane, explaining to frustrated motorists he was stopping "just for a minute".
He captured the sometimes tense exchanges on video and posted it online.
"I'm just going to stop here and see what happens", he says.
The driver who parked illegally in the bike lane can be heard telling O'Donnell he shouldn't be standing in the middle of the road.
"I'm not allowed to stand in the middle of the road is that what you're saying? Well you're not allowed to stop in that bike lane. I guess that's one each right?"
In less than two minutes, drivers become frustrated, and start swearing at O'Donnell and honking their horns.
"This guy's honking at me now because I guess he's sad that I'm in his way…but I'm just stopped here for a minute it's not a big deal", O'Donnell says.
Within about two minutes, O'Donnell creates a small traffic jam on Laurier, and more drivers start swearing at him and passing him very closely.
"Are you an idiot?" someone can be heard yelling.
"This is kind of awkward" O'Donnell says.
"I'll be gone in a couple of minutes", he says.
"So you see what happens, as soon as anything impacts car traffic, people get angry really fast" O'Donnell says during the recording. "When people block bike traffic, nothing really happens, we just put up with it."
Reached Thursday afternoon, O'Donnell said he sees bike lanes being blocked all the time, in every part of the city.
"My little protest was an illustration of how lackadaisical enforcement is. A pedestrian started heckling me, but nobody said anything about the driver."
By late Thursday O'Donnell's video had more than 40,000 views.


text:
March 30, 2006: What Jobs Won't Americans Do?
What Jobs Won't Americans Do?
By Selwyn Duke
Mar 30, 2006
One reason were supposed to rejoice at the pitter-patter of illegal feet is that foreigners are only coming here to do jobs Americans wont do. Its one of those basic assumptions upon which the argument in favor of forgetting we have borders, a culture and laws rests, and even President Bush mentioned this truth while speaking about immigration reform recently. And, undoubtedly, there are certain immutable laws of economics.
Only, this isnt one of them.
The next time someone mindlessly parrots this mantra, just ask, What jobs would those be? As youll soon learn, the answer doesnt really matter, but sometimes were shamed by didacts who oh-so-sternly say that illegals are the people who pick our fruit for us. So, fruit picking something that must be in league with being a rat catcher in Victorian London or Wile E. Coyotes stunt double is as good an example as any.
One amusing aspect of the fruit picking fiction is that millions of people in our country engage in this activity as a form of recreation. Why, there are folks who embark upon autumn ventures to the hinterlands to pick apples and consider it a fun family outing. But I digress.
I have to ask, if I paid you $800 an hour to pick fruit, would you do it? Except for the silk and satin set, I have a feeling most would beat a path to my orchard. And this brings us to what is a true law of economics.
There are no jobs Americans wont do. There are only wages Americans wont work for.
And this relates to a fact of contemporary American life: immigrants, illegal or otherwise, depress wages. Oh, some would dispute this? Well, theyre wrong and I intend to prove it.
Theres another universal, unchangeable law of economics called supply and demand, and most of us understand it. Regardless of what product or service is at issue, if demand increases relative to supply, prices increase; if supply increases relative to demand, prices drop. And this phenomenon is relevant here. Why?
Quite simply because, like it or not, within the context of a free market system, workers are commodities whose value is determined by supply and demand. For example, a skilled neurosurgeon doesnt make a half a million dollars a year because what he does is so important. If that were the case, hed earn more than people who hit, kick and throw balls around and sign autographs. No, his income is a function of his rarity; create 100 million more just like him and his salary will become relatively paltry.
Thus, increase the supply of workers relative to the jobs available and the value of workers decreases. This is not opinion, my friends, but hard, cold fact. Immigrants swell the worker pool, thereby increasing competition for jobs, allowing employers to pay less for the same employees. Weve all heard of a buyers market and a sellers market; well, high levels of immigration transform us from a workers market into an employers market. Big business loves it.
Of course, the immigration lobby has an answer at the ready when this truth becomes inconvenient. How much do you want to pay for a head of lettuce?! they exclaim.
Whats so ironic about this argument is that its proponents are generally the very same people wholl zealously campaign for increases in the minimum wage, an action that can also increase the cost of doing business and, therefore, retail prices. But since they say they want to help poor Americans, lets discuss that.
The natural, free market way to help low income Americans is to increase their value by making them rarer commodities. How do you do this? You guessed it, by severely curtailing (a moratorium would be ideal) immigration. Do that and America becomes more of a workers market, forcing businesses to offer more money to attract applicants.
Would goods become more expensive? Perhaps, but while this isnt the focus of this piece, that may be more than offset by the elimination of the social consequences (e.g., hospital, welfare and education costs) of absorbing millions of often illiterate (some cant even read and write their own languages) Third World immigrants into our nation. Regardless, this is the traditional, healthy, free market way of spreading the wealth around. And Id rather redistribute wealth through the market than through socialism.
Lastly, theres another irony here. Cesar Chavez, the head of the United Farm Workers Union during its heyday, is a hero of Americans of Mexican descent. So much so, in fact, that his name is often associated with the dual cause of promoting immigration and the re-conquest of California and the American southwest, known as La Reconquista. Conveniently forgotten, though, is a very inconvenient fact: when Chavez enjoyed the peak of his power, he was a fervid bordering on venomous opponent of illegal immigration. And he not only railed against it but often actually reported Mexican illegals to the INS so they could be deported. He also protested illegal immigration on the border in 1969 and had civilian border guards who were sufficiently heavy-handed to make todays Minutemen seem milquetoasty.
What motivated him? Quite simply, he was charged with the responsibility of keeping his union members wages as high as possible. And he understood the law of supply and demand.
We have a union called the United States. I just wonder if membership therein means anything anymore.
Of course, theres always cheap lettuce.
Copyright by Selwyn Duke


text:
Soap Dishes
Regular price $ 24.00
Simple, functional and beautiful. This dish will keep your soap from deteriorating into a big scummy mess and your sink game look swank AF.
Material: concrete
Dimensions: 3.25" w x 4.75" l x 0.5" w
Need some soap to go with that? We love this bar of soap from Public Goods.
Our concrete work is all individually hand cast from custom made rubber molds. Colors are integrally mixed into the concrete and results in each piece being unique. We use recycled materials and are able to create a finished product 30% lighter than traditional concrete. Although the sealer is food grade and safe we don't recommend using these for direct food contact. Natural voids occur during casting and some pieces will have very small pin holes.
Do not submerge in water. Wipe clean with mild soap and water.


text:
Meat & Poultry
Category Main Page Articles & Reviews
Main Nibbles
Main Page Articles & Reviews Of Foods From A To Z
Product Reviews
Main Page Food, Beverages, Books, News & More
Home Page
Connect to Other Sections: Newsletter Archives, Find Products, Food Fun, Home Zone
We're working like busy ranchers to find exciting gourmet beef and bison for you to enjoy. (The animal most people refer to as "buffalo" is no relation to the Asian or African water buffalo, but the American bison, a completely different species. Learn all about it.) If you have a favorite red meat company or product, use the Contact Us form on this page to tell us about it.
Find more at Blog.TheNibble.com.
Heirloom meats are a great gift for meat-lovers. They're a splurge your friends and family might not give themselves, and they'll be wowed by the difference. Even the barbecue chef who just makes makes steaks and burgers will appreciate an introduction to heirloom pork or lamb. If your friend is a beef eater only, give a gift of organic or natural beef from Dakota Beef or Niman Ranch.
© Copyright 2005-2024 Lifestyle Direct, Inc. All rights reserved. All images are copyrighted to their respective owners.


text:
Program search — Stiff neck with headaches
Name | Stiff neck with headaches |
Chapter | Pain relief |
Author | P. Schmidt |
Frequencies, Hz | 96.5 |
Save | Save this program to your account |
Listen | You can listen to this program in the bioresonance frequency synthesizer |
Statistics | 93 unique program auditions per year |
Program saved successfully
There is no such program, saving is impossible!
Server connection error. Try saving later!
Without a subscription you can save 10 programs. You can renew your subscription, or, before saving, delete some of the old programs from the section My programs.
iHerb — доставка продуктов для здоровья в короткие сроки и по всему миру!
Program search
ICD-10 class
Date created/modified
Frequencies, Hz
bioresonance frequencies
Save this program to your account
unique program auditions per year
Related Sites
This is a paid program.
Renew your subscription to receive data
Share program
This program has already been added before!
Without a subscription, you can save 10 programs in all groups in which you are an administrator. You can renew your subscription or remove some programs from these groups first.
Add this program to your group:
Additional Recommendations | |
Individual selection of frequencies | |
Pain Relief Products |


text:
Duke Nukem: Critical Mass is a run & gun shooter game, released on the Nintendo DS platform in 2011 by Apogee Software. The game was originally intended to also come out as a Playstation Portable game but was later cancelled for unknown reasons. Rumours on the game started early as the beginning of 2008 and were later in July of that year confirmed when Apogee Software announced a completely new Duke Nukem adventure: a Trilogy which would be developed for both systems in cooperation with publisher Deep Silver and which would be developed by Frontline Studios. After being rebranded to 3D Realms this would also be the revival of the Apogee brand in game development and publishing. The trilogy would consist of three separate games with Critical Mass being the first; its original release date set in the fall of 2009 and would be followed by the other chapters Duke Nukem: Chain Reaction and Duke Nukem: Proving Grounds.
Besides the storyline the games on DS and PSP would however be completely different from each other; the Nintendo DS version would be more of a side scroller while the Playstation Portable would be more of a third / first person shooter. The game would have on both platforms a multi-mode where players could easily switch between third person, first person, isometric and side scrolling views including some extra options as a sniper mode, a jetpack mode and different boss battle modes. The Critical Mass chapter would have 9 areas to complete, divided into 27 missions and the player was promised 15 different types of weapons, multiple and secret ways to achieve in-game points and on top of that both platforms would have cinematic rendered cut-scenes between levels. The huge difference between the Nintendo DS and the Playstation Portable, being two complete different machines can be seen in the two screenshots below which I took out of a promotional video released by Apogee in March 2009 made specially for the Game Developer's Conference; the promotional video was cut in two pieces and showed screenshots of both systems. Funny thing was that the PSP version was rated Mature and the DS was only rated Teen. So two complete different games carrying the same story.
In the first chapter of the trilogy some Earth Defense Organization had been sending out special agents on missions into the future to ensure the safety of the Earth; none of the sent agents however reported back and our hero Duke Nukem is sent into that same future to figure out what is going on. In that future Duke Nukem finds a ruined world in complete chaos and disaster, mankind is almost entirely wiped out and the remains of it are reigned and controlled by aliens. Duke then discover that things might have gone wrong because of him; the moment he left the earth for the future it was attacked by those same alien forces. In the second chapter "Chain Reaction" Duke heads back to the present time in hope of fixing things in the present and thus also in the future. In the third chapter "Proving Grounds" Duke would see things getting worse and ends up being involved in a new World War.
So the DS version was released, being it much later then planned: what happened to the PSP version of the game? In March 2009 Apogee Software confirmed that the release date of both versions was still set for September of that year. They then went a bit silent and rumors about Apogee's mother company 3D Realms closing its doors start to spread; everybody expected that the same would also happens to Apogee Software. Apogee however denied all rumors and stated that the company under no circumstances would be affected by the 3D Realms situation and that the development of the Duke Nukem Trilogy was going according plans. 3D Realms was at the time also working on Duke Nukem Forever. In May of the same year Take-Two, who was at that moment the holder of the publishing rights for Duke Nukem, filed a law suit against 3D Realms, stating that 3D Realms failed to deliver the game. In 2010 Take-Two announced that Forever had been shifted over from 3D Realms to Gearbox and that it had sold all the rights and the intellectual property to that same company. It was later announced that Critical Mass could no longer carry the Duke Nukem license. They decided to change the game with replacing all traces of Duke Nukem like player models, logos and even voice-overs. The name of the main character was also changed and replaced by a new hero called Cam Nash. Frontline Productions even had a new name for the game, "Extraction Point: Alien Shootout" and decided that the new game now would be released on the Playstation Network. Their biggest problem now was that they faced having to deal with a complete new IP, without a well-known and thus easier selling IP like Duke Nukem.
Things then got even weirder when later in 2011: Apogee Software stated that they did not lost the license for Duke Nukem and that the release date for Duke Nukem: Critical Mass was set for June 2011, but just the DS version. A PSP version was no longer spoken off and was said to be cancelled when developer Frontline was taken off the project; the real reason behind this decision still remains a bit vague but the confusion on loosing or not loosing the original license must have been a large part of that decision. Apogee Software denied that the decision to cancel the PSP version had something to do with the loss of any rights and they even said to have submitted a complete build of the game to Sony for final approval. Unfortunately Apogee declined all comments when asked why the game never got a PSP release.
The Nintendo DS version came out as scheduled in 2011. It was labeled as the worst handheld game ever and received some very hard and killing critics when reviewed. End of story? No not at all. There is a complete version of the PSP version of Duke Nukem: Critical Mass. Leaked? Nope. Later release? Nope. Port of the game? Also nope.
The Library of Congress in the United States is probably the biggest library in the world. It archives besides just books also things as magazines, comics and yes, also video games. Through the copyright registration process the library receives roughly 400 games in a year. About 99,99% these games are physically released and published computer games. In 2014 a technician of the library was performing an inventory of acquired video games and he stumbled upon a DVD-R labeled Duke Nukem: Critical Mass (PSP).
Most of the time however these DVD's contain footage of gameplay of a game. The technician was however triggered by a line of text in the copyright database record: Authorship: entire Video Game, computer code, artwork, music. He put the DVD in his computer and discovered a file directory with the source code of a complete PSP game; a game of which he later found out to be an unreleased Playstation Portable Game. All the contents of the found disc are however copyrighted material and the disc will be stored in the digital archive of the library. Unfortunately it seems that its content cannot be shared. According to Apogee the disc is an early alpha version of the game and it was submitted to the library as required for the copyright process. Duke Nukem: Critical Mass will probably remain another cancelled PSP game that will never be released.
- forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php
- www.shacknews.com/article/57852/duke-nukem-hitting-ds-and
- forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php
- www.ohgizmo.com/2009/03/25/gdc09-apogee-previews-duke-nukem-for-psp-and-ds/
- dukenukem.wikia.com/wiki/Duke_Nukem:_Critical_Mass
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=icxsDMklQmw
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K00DCK1l98
- arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/06/new-duke-nukem-game-revealed-possibly-cancelled/
- www.engadget.com/2011/04/07/duke-nukem-critical-mass-trailer-skips-the-psp-version-for-good/
- www.justpushstart.com/2011/05/duke-nukem-critical-mass-gets-na-release-date/
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem:_Critical_Mass
- www.ign.com/articles/2009/03/25/gdc-09-duke-nukem-critical-mass-hands-on
- www.ign.com/articles/2008/07/16/e3-2008-whats-up-with-duke-nukem
- www.ign.com/articles/2008/07/15/e3-2008-deep-silver-signs-co-publishing-agreement-with-apogee-software


text:
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Great \Great\ (gr[=a]t), a. [Compar. Greater; superl. Greatest.] [OE. gret, great, AS. gre['a]t; akin to OS. & LG. gr[=o]t, D. groot, OHG. gr[=o]z, G. gross. Cf. Groat the coin.] 1. Large in space; of much size; big; immense; enormous; expanded; -- opposed to small and little; as, a great house, ship, farm, plain, distance, length. [1913 Webster] 2. Large in number; numerous; as, a great company, multitude, series, etc. [1913 Webster] 3. Long continued; lengthened in duration; prolonged in time; as, a great while; a great interval. [1913 Webster] 4. Superior; admirable; commanding; -- applied to thoughts, actions, and feelings. [1913 Webster] 5. Endowed with extraordinary powers; uncommonly gifted; able to accomplish vast results; strong; powerful; mighty; noble; as, a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, etc. [1913 Webster] 6. Holding a chief position; elevated: lofty: eminent; distinguished; foremost; principal; as, great men; the great seal; the great marshal, etc. [1913 Webster] He doth object I am too great of birth. --Shak. [1913 Webster] 7. Entitled to earnest consideration; weighty; important; as, a great argument, truth, or principle. [1913 Webster] 8. Pregnant; big (with young). [1913 Webster] The ewes great with young. --Ps. lxxviii. 71. [1913 Webster] 9. More than ordinary in degree; very considerable in degree; as, to use great caution; to be in great pain. [1913 Webster] We have all Great cause to give great thanks. --Shak. [1913 Webster] 10. (Genealogy) Older, younger, or more remote, by single generation; -- often used before grand to indicate one degree more remote in the direct line of descent; as, great-grandfather (a grandfather's or a grandmother's father), great-grandson, etc. [1913 Webster] Great bear (Astron.), the constellation Ursa Major. Great cattle (Law), all manner of cattle except sheep and yearlings. --Wharton. Great charter (Eng. Hist.), Magna Charta. Great circle of a sphere, a circle the plane of which passes through the center of the sphere. Great circle sailing, the process or art of conducting a ship on a great circle of the globe or on the shortest arc between two places. Great go, the final examination for a degree at the University of Oxford, England; -- called also greats. --T. Hughes. Great guns. (Naut.) See under Gun. The Great Lakes the large fresh-water lakes (Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario) which lie on the northern borders of the United States. Great master. Same as Grand master, under Grand. Great organ (Mus.), the largest and loudest of the three parts of a grand organ (the others being the choir organ and the swell, and sometimes the pedal organ or foot keys), It is played upon by a separate keyboard, which has the middle position. The great powers (of Europe), in modern diplomacy, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy. Great primer. See under Type. Great scale (Mus.), the complete scale; -- employed to designate the entire series of musical sounds from lowest to highest. Great sea, the Mediterranean sea. In Chaucer both the Black and the Mediterranean seas are so called. Great seal. (a) The principal seal of a kingdom or state. (b) In Great Britain, the lord chancellor (who is custodian of this seal); also, his office. Great tithes. See under Tithes. The great, the eminent, distinguished, or powerful. The Great Spirit, among the North American Indians, their chief or principal deity. To be great (with one), to be intimate or familiar (with him). --Bacon. [1913 Webster]Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):
GREAT CATTLE. By this, term, in the English law, is, meant all manner of beasts except sheep and yearlings. 2 Rolle's Rep. 173.


text:
After participating in this educational activity, attendees should be able to:
1. Define the five major electro-mechanical properties of the heart.
2. Describe the hearts electrical activity in the sinue rhythms, with the waveform produced on ECG tracings.
3. Identify the gross anatomic structures of the heart.
4. Identify the P wave, QRS Complex, and T wav on given ECG tracings.
5. Recognize measure and interpret various sinus rhythms.
Carol Lynn MSN RN-BC
Coordinator Basic Cardiac Dysrhythmia
None of the members of the faculty and planning committee for this educational event have commercial relationships with any entity producing, marketing, re-selling or distributing health care goods and services consumed by or used on patients.
- 3.50 ANCC Contact Hours
- 3.50 BCIPE Instructional Hours


text:
Toward a useful quantum computer: Researchers design and test microfabricated planar ion traps
- Date:
- May 28, 2010
- Source:
- Georgia Institute of Technology Research News
- Summary:
- Researchers are designing, fabricating and testing planar ion traps that can be more readily combined into large, interconnected trap arrays. In the future, these arrays may be used to create a useful quantum computer.
- Share:
Despite a steady improvement in the speed of conventional computers during the last few decades, certain types of problems remain computationally difficult to solve. Quantum computers hold the promise of offering a new route to solving some classes of these problems, such as breaking encryptions. The tremendous computing power of these devices stems from their use of quantum systems, called "qubits," which can exist in a "superposition" of two states at the same time -- in stark contrast to the transistors in conventional computers that can only be in the state "0" or "1."
"Though a practical quantum computer may still be decades away, research being conducted today is laying the groundwork for such a device by bridging the vast gap between the theory and practice of quantum information processing," said Dick Slusher, a principal research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and director of the Georgia Tech Quantum Institute.
One path toward creating quantum computers is to use trapped ions as the qubits. However, it is currently difficult to scale up conventional ion traps into an array large enough to create a useful quantum computer.
At GTRI, researchers are designing, fabricating and testing planar ion traps that can be more readily combined into large, interconnected trap arrays. Details of the research effort, led by Slusher and GTRI senior research scientist Alexa Harter, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics on May 26 and 27.
The presentations were made by GTRI postdoctoral fellow Charlie Doret, GTRI research scientist Arkadas Ozakin and Georgia Tech electrical and computer engineering graduate student Fayaz Shaikh. This research is funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through contracts with the Army Research Office.
GTRI's microfabricated planar ion traps employ a combination of radio-frequency signals and static voltages applied to aluminum electrodes that are layered on silicon wafers.
"These planar trap geometries are advantageous because they are scalable to large systems of ions and also offer improved laser access compared to currently available traps," said Doret.
Lasers are applied to the ions to induce "entanglement" -- a quantum mechanical property whereby the states involved cannot be completely described independently. Using systems of trapped ions, researchers have measured entanglement clearly and can preserve it for extended periods of time. To date, however, the largest number of entangled particles ever achieved in a quantum computer is eight calcium ions. At least thirty ions are required to perform calculations that cannot be realized on a classical computer, so a major challenge for the future is to increase the number of trapped ions that can interact.
The GTRI team has used state-of-the-art computer simulations of the electromagnetic trapping fields and the trapped ion motion to design versatile traps capable of holding many ions. Trap designs were improved using genetic algorithms that fed back to the shapes and spacing of trap electrodes to optimize trap depth and minimize heating when ions were transported between trapping zones.
Prototypes of the designs were fabricated with the help of Kevin Martin, a principal research scientist in the Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Research Center. The research team then tested the prototypes in GTRI's ion trapping laboratory, where calcium ions were first trapped in October 2009 using devices designed and fabricated at Georgia Tech.
Experimental data on trap loading efficiency, ion lifetime and ion shuttling efficiency were used to validate the designs and provide feedback for additional improvements.
The GTRI team is working with researchers at Duke University to integrate optics directly into the ion traps, while researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are testing the devices in a cryogenic environment.
In collaboration with the University of Maryland, GTRI researchers are also investigating the use of an array of trapped ions and/or ultra-cold atoms trapped in optical lattices for applications in quantum simulation.
"We still have much to learn about individual quantum systems, how to connect them, how to control them, how to measure them and how to fix the inevitable errors," added Slusher.
Future work at GTRI will include testing new trap designs, such as linear traps optimized for holding long ion chains.
"This field requires a multidisciplinary effort and Georgia Tech has the synergy and strengths in the technology and science areas and the fabrication facilities to make real progress," added Slusher.
This material is based upon work supported by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Scaled Multiplexed Ion Trap project under U.S. Army Award No. W911NF-08-1-0315, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Optical Lattice Emulator program under U.S. Army Award No. W911NF-07-1-0576. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the researchers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Army.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology Research News. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page:


text:
Brothers Charles and David Koch are the subject of the new book Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty. The author, Daniel Schulman, describes the Kochs as having pumped hundreds of millions into remaking the American political landscape, trying to bring their libertarian views into the mainstream.
In addition to backing individual candidates who reflect their views, the Koch brothers have played key roles in the Libertarian Party and in the formation of the Tea Party. Their father, who founded Koch Industries, was also a founding member of the far right group the John Birch Society.
Koch Industries is now the second largest private corporation in the U.S., with $115 billion in annual revenue and a presence in 60 countries. Charles and David are tied in sixth place on the list of the wealthiest men on the planet.
Daniel Schulman is a senior editor in the Washington bureau of Mother Jones, and a founding member of the magazine's investigative journalism team. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about how the Kochs have contributed to today's political landscape.
Interview Highlights
On the Kochs' political stances
Their ideology is very much a libertarian one. They are currently considered Republican kingmakers, but there are really a lot of places where their philosophy doesn't jive with the mainstream Republican one. For instance, they're generally anti-war. They're civil libertarians; they are not social conservatives in any sense of the word. David Koch has said he's pro-gay marriage. You wouldn't see these guys advocating against reproductive rights. The area that is the sweet spot for them with today's GOP is really economic issues, and they are staunch economic conservatives — perhaps more hard-line than even the Republican mainstream...Charles has said in past that his view of government is that it really should be a night watchman that only exists to protect private property rights and to preserve the laws of supply and demand.
On the Kochs' political influence
In the Obama era, you've seen their political network grow by leaps and bounds. Part of this was because there was a major conservative backlash to Obama and the Kochs managed to capitalize on that. Part of this, too, was because the Democrats made the Kochs such boogeymen. They essentially drove a lot of Republicans into their arms.
The Kochs have always had an uneasy relationship with the Republican Party, or they traditionally did, because their politics aren't exactly Republican, they're very much more libertarian, and there's only a narrow subset of issues on which they actually agree with Republicans. But by demonizing the Kochs, [Democrats] made them hugely popular within the conservative movement.
On the size of Koch Industries
Koch Industries is massive. ... [It] really started as an oil and cattle ranching empire, but it's grown, really, by leaps and bounds beyond that. They're in petrochemicals. They're the third largest commodities trader in world. They own Georgia-Pacific, so brands such as Brawny, Angel Soft toilet paper, Dixie cups, those things are manufactured by Georgia-Pacific. ... Most people probably don't know the name Koch Industries, but what they don't realize is that every single day they're encountering products that were produced in some way by them.
They really haven't met a regulation that they liked.
On the Kochs' position on climate change
Across the board, the Kochs are anti-regulation. They really haven't met a regulation that they liked. In terms of climate change policy, you've seen them fund an array of groups that have sowed doubt about the existence of climate change. They view climate change and any regulation surrounding it as a major threat to their business model, which is a lot having to do with oil and petrochemicals. ... They have certainly funded an array of groups that have tried to create doubt about the very existence of it...
David is a man of science — I consider Charles a man of science too. [Charles] has two advanced degrees from MIT, one in nuclear engineering. These guys are not anti-science in any sense of the word, so to be putting any money towards denying the existence of climate change, where there is a scientific consensus about that, seems wrong to me.
On the Kochs' role in creating the Tea Party
There was this bygone strain of thinking that you saw in the John Birch Society — that their father had founded and of which Charles had been a member — where you really saw socialism around the corner of every move of government. And you really saw that strain of thinking come to the fore in the Obama era, and it really was no accident. The Kochs spent many years funding an intellectual infrastructure through a variety of think tanks. And in terms of actual organizing and financing of the Tea Party, their advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, really was there at the forefront organizing tea parties and whipping up the movement. So I'd say they played a pretty major role in the Tea Party movement. I know they downplay their involvement.
On Charles Koch as one of the founders of the libertarian movement
I think the reason we're talking about libertarianism today and the reason that it's a popular ideology owes quite a bit to Charles Koch. His funding of libertarianism really started in the '60s and he has been methodically institution-building ever since then.
The Charles Koch Foundation, in 1977, would be transformed into The Cato Institute, which is the libertarian movement's marquee think tank these days. It wasn't until later that David Koch joined in his brother's ideological projects. One thing I learned when researching this book is that there is quite a big distinction between the philanthropy of David and Charles Koch. David is more of a philanthropist in the classic sense of the word: He funds medical research, science; he funds the arts. Charles' lifelong mission has been to change the political culture and mainstream libertarian ideas and he's been doing this for more than five decades.
On why Schulman wanted to write this book
The Koch brothers, in the 2010 time frame, had become so vilified, I really wanted to understand their origins, their upbringing, the roots of their company, the roots of their ideology. And the more I dug into their family story I found they had just a phenomenally fascinating tale, tragic in some ways. And in a lot of ways this is a family that is much more significant than a lot of people realize, and their impact is going to be felt long into the future.
Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.


text:
This year has been the ideal year to study the myriad of ways Congress acts to spend money. The Congressional appropriations process this year has provided a multitude of interesting examples of the wide variety of tools available to Congress and the federal government for appropriating money, beyond just the ordinary appropriations bills in Congress.
Normally at this time of year, I am plowing through the details of the various appropriations bills, looking for details on some specific program or funding restriction, but not this year. The Appropriations bills in Congress this year were mostly moribund. Only three measures (Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs) were approved, while the others sit as a forlorn testament to one of Congress' guiding principles: if it does not have to get done, Congress will not press to get it done. Despite this truism however, the government continues to function and is spending more than ever.
Of course, how could this be, since one of the primary reasons for the creation any modern parliament or legislature is to provide a democratic body to control the public purse? There are a few forces coming together this year that have led to this appropriations situation. First, a variety of events and realities have collided this year to create real ambivalence in Congress towards the crafting appropriations legislation. Second, modern technology provides tools to transfer money that was unimaginable a short time ago. Lastly, very old concepts of government borrowing continue to let Congress off the hook on appropriations.
I begin with the federal bailout of Wall Street banks. While Congress did have to approve the authorization to do so, not a single penny of the $700 billion now available to the Treasury was actually appropriated by Congress. Congress merely authorized the Treasury to go borrow the money. In one week, an amount close to the cost of the seven years Global War on Terror was authorized by Congress to spend on a financial rescue package for Wall Street. An equal additional amount is currently being borrowed and spent (or loaned) by the Federal Reserve under its own independent authority.
Borrowing money is not new; for the U.S. government it is older than the Republic. Borrowing money without an appropriation is also not entirely new either, since vast entitlement programs function on automatic appropriation from Congress, most of which needs to be borrowed. The rescue package thus is a good example how Congress can fund government projects without having to worry about balancing the books.
Another example this year also runs counter to the normal appropriating process in Congress. Normally an election year would be a great opportunity for members of Congress to demonstrate their concern for their constituents by inserting thousands of earmark requests in appropriations bills, designating specific funding for pet projects back home. The pet projects provide a great opportunity to demonstrate the hard work the legislator has been doing in Washington, DC. This year it is just too difficult and there is just not enough time. The President will surely veto any measure that comes forth out of the Democratically controlled House, and the collegial, deliberative Senate would be hard pressed to make up the difference anyway.
A third example is a maneuver to counter the second point on earmarks. An adjunct part of the appropriations process has become the principle method by which Congress handles new spending priorities. This adjunct processs is a supplemental appropriation bill. It is not an unusual concept and has been used fairly often over the years, but has become a principle appropriations legislative vehicle this year. Its rise to increased prominence is the result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. All funding for the wars since their beginning has been through a supplemental appropriation that is normally reserved for extra funding for disasters that were not anticipated in the regular bills. Another convenient trait of supplemental appropriations bills is that concern about whether there is money in the Treasury to pay for things is usually igorned. The wars and most items in recent supplemental bills have not been offset by increased taxes or reductions in spending elsewhere.
The President has been consistent in insisting that supplemental appropriations bills only fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, while Congress has not felt the same way. The last supplemental bill that passed at the end of June included money for wars and more money for other things. The Iraq war and almost continuous weather calamities have created a situation where there is almost always a supplemental appropriations measure on deck in Congress. Perhaps now you understand why regular appropriations bills are not that necessary? Why bother when you have the opportunity to adjust spending priorities in a supplemental appropriations bill?
A fourth factor on appropriations relates to the process of passing a bill in Congress. It is always complex, but the current realities in Congress make it even more complex. In the House, the majoritiarian rules favor the Democrats, who can propose and pass any bill they choose with minimal or no Republican problems. But, the Republicans are not without some procedural tools. The procedural prerogative that frightened the Democrats to abandoning appropriations bills this summer was the fear of Republican maneuvers to garner a vote on increasing domestic oil production on the coasts and in Alaska. Making matters more uncomfortable is the fact that current prohibitions to offshore oil drilling were a restriction written into last year's combined appropriations bill. The restrictions were set to expire, along with all the other parts of the bill, on September 30, 2008.
Another complexity involves a strong and vocal minority within the Democratic Party in the House called "Blue Dog Democrats." Blue Dogs are strict about not spending additional money without offsetting it by taxes or cuts in other spending. The increasing complexity of the political calculations, especially in a pivotal election year, is a sure recipe for congressional inaction.
Yet another element relates to political considerations that are at play on the timing of appropriations bills. Democrats in Congress are counting on an improved majority in both chambers next year making the deliberative process much easier. They are also hopeful that a Democrat will be elected President, making complete passage of measures that reflect the party's priorities easy. They can wait until January 20, and quickly pass all the remaining nine appropriations bills, or pass one giant bill that includes all the unpassed bills from this fall, without any trouble. Of course, many different political and economic events could alter this plan in the meantime.
A seventh factor, and the most intriguing, is the rise of the idea of an "economic stimulus" measure. This is of course not new; the concept of a stimulus bill dates back to the Truman administration and usually was special legislation that adjusted something about federal fiscal policy, adjusted tax rates or instituted new tax credits to stimulate the economy. Stimulus bills were always very technical and hard to explain, but not now. The advances of federal tax technology have created a new tool for these types of bills. In 2001, Congress tried something very novel, couched in a quasi-economic stimulus and tax reform measure and led by a brand new President, by passing a stimulus/reform bill that sent cash directly to hundreds of millions of citizens. A check was cut at Treasury and mailed to every single taxpayer (who qualified, and most did). It was a novel idea and certainly Congress would have done it before, but the process of printing up millions of checks, and verifying taxpayer status, would have been too daunting in the old era of filing cabinets and carbon paper. Everyone was happy, and who wouldn't be?
The idea was resurrected this year as pure stimulus measure to try to revive the economy and the checks were sent out again over the summer. Another measure may be considered in November that sends out another check, this time for taxpayers to cope with the financial panic. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Democratic presidential nominee has called for an immediate energy rebate ($1,000 per family), which may happen next year. If earmarks were a good tool to demonstrate the hard work of Congress in Washington, DC, cold hard cash in the voters' hands on Election Day would be an even better tool. Again, why bother with the appropriations bills?
On February 1, 2008 the president proposed a $3.1 trillion fiscal 2009 budget. Congress proceeded to ignore the president's request and using the various methods I have noted, decided to spend, according to my calculations, an additional $2.3 trillion on an assortment of other worthy initiatives. Sometime next year, Congress will get around to approving the original $3.1 trillion, then work on next year's budget. Following the budget used to be boring job. Not anymore.


text:
A person's mind is their most powerful tool. Yet very few people take intentional steps toward "upgrading" their brain and trying to become smarter. Here are some scary statistics from an article in The Economist:
- In 1991 a worker with a bachelors degree earned 2.5 times as much as a high-school drop out.
- In 2010 a worker with a bachelors degree earned 3 times as much as a high-school drop out.
There is an obvious trend toward paying people who have "upgraded their brain" more money. This probably isn't too surprising, but consider this:
- 42% of people who graduate from college never read another book.
Wow! 42%!? To me that says that a good number of people get out of college and just assume they have arrived–no need to work on getting any smarter. Obviously there are ways to learn other than reading books, but books have traditionally been and still are one of the main ways you acquire formal knowledge. If you aren't reading, it is very unlikely you are growing. It is even less likely that you are actually getting smarter in ways that have value outside of the tasks you do on a weekly basis.
In this post, we are going to look at seven ways to upgrade your brain. They are:
- Read
- Get a degree
- Seek out new experiences
- Think
- Practice
- Write
- Do things that are hard
Reading is the primary way we educate ourselves. If you aren't reading, you are doing yourself a huge dis-service. With only a few exceptions, I'd go as far as to say that if you aren't reading your brain is dying. Reading is the fundamental bedrock of upgrading your brain and becoming smarter. You have to read regularly.
Not all reading methods and not all reading contents are equal. There is a very big difference between reading on a computer and reading a physical book. A few months ago I read a study that compared reading on an iPad or Nook to reading a book and the researchers found that people remembered less when reading from the iPad. It had something to do with the way we perceive a lighted surface vs. a reflective one. Perhaps because we associate lighted surfaces with TV and are less engaged.
Reading on the Internet is also quite different from reading a book. A book presents a clear start and end point. There are also more barriers to publishing a physical book than getting something up on the web. Chances are a book will have more thought behind it than an article published on a web page. In addition, it is much easier to jump from place to place on the web so Internet articles don't typically require or inspire the same level of concentration as what you might need for an intense book.
I'm not saying that reading from the Internet is bad. The web is an incredible tool and gives us access to information that would have been impossible in the past. However, we need to take care to not let it crowd out our traditional reading. We also need to be careful to use the Internet for things that the Internet is good for and use books for things books are good for. The Internet is great for looking up a single fact–something that can take a very long time with a book. Books are great for deeply studying a subject. (Obviously there are exceptions depending on what you are researching, but this is still true in general.)
So what should you read? Here are some suggested categories:
- Classic books
- Books related to your area of your current expertise.
- Books related to the expertise you will need to be competitive in 10 years.
- Books on topics from a completely different field.
For example, a computer programmer might read The Scarlet Letter for category 1. A book on advanced features of their programming language for category 2. A book on business management for category 3 and a book on neuroscience or physics for category 4.
An entry level accountant might read:
- Moby Dick
- A book on best accounting practices
- A book about preparing for the CPA exam
- A book on social media
This type of approach will help make sure you are getting a well rounded reading experience that helps prepare you for today AND tomorrow. Obviously there is nothing to keep you from reading other books like current fiction, etc. However, if all of your reading falls outside of these four categories, you probably are reading more for entertainment than for upgrading your brain.
Get a(nother) degree
If you don't have a college degree, get one. However, keep in mind that not every degree is equal. You can get a diploma without necessarily learning very much just like you can become very smart without getting a diploma. You need two things from a degree:
- You need the recognition that comes from having a formal college degree.
- You need the knowledge that comes from having worked hard at an academic pursuit.
Society has decided that everyone should go to college. Because of this people without a degree have a much harder time at getting jobs. Colleges have responded by lowering standards so a degree doesn't mean as much as it use to–particularly from some institutions.
This is why it is worth putting the extra effort into getting a degree that is well recognized and that will give you the best educational experience. We will discuss choosing a good school later on.
If you already have a degree, the same thing applies. Get another one. To be competitive in todays job market, most people are going to need the training and recognition that comes from studies beyond the bachelors level. Usually a master's degree is a good choice, but there are graduate certificate and citation programs that can be excellent options. Even if you are pursuing a master's degree, a graduate citation can be an excellent stepping stone that gives you a way to quantify your education as you pursue your master's degree. A resume that shows a graduate citation in X is better than a resume that shows you took some random classes.
When you get a degree, you are taking on the reputation of the school where you studied. The expectations that people have from a Yale graduate are different than the expectations of someone from a small community college. These expectations can strongly influence how people perceive you. If people think you are smart you will appear smart and they will think your ideas are good. (See this experiment for a better explanation of this phenomenon.)
This means that where you go to school can determine your ability to get interesting work. Having interesting work can be one of the best ways to upgrade your brain because it keeps you mentally active. So choosing a school is about more than just the academics and the educational experience. It is also about what type of opportunities it will give you and how rich those opportunities will be.
In the same spirit, you need to choose a school based on what type of academic experiences you will have. Generally you want to attend somewhere that you will be in the middle to top 75%. If you are the best student, you won't have the same push toward your maximum capabilities. It is very healthy to have at least a few people in every class who can outperform you if you don't try very hard. However, you don't want to go to a school where everyone is so far above you that you can't take advantage of the special opportunities that surround the academic environment.
If you are getting your first degree and just starting college, I'd suggest getting it in person at a traditional university–especially if you are a recent high school graduate. State schools offer reasonable tuition and can be very affordable. There is a local school here where one can pay for everything without loans while working full time during the summer and part time during the school year making minimum wage.
For your second degree, you may find that online degrees or some of the programs like an executive MBA are more suited to your social, family, career and employment situation. You have to be a bit more careful in selecting a school for an online degree as their reputation can vary much more than that of established traditional institutions. I would highly recommend pursuing something like my Master's Degree from Harvard. It was very cost effective, fairly flexible and Harvard generally keeps a good academic reputation particularly compared with the reputation of some other online schools.
The real "brain upgrade" value of a degree is the way that it will force you diversify. You can't just study the stuff that comes easy to you. A degree from a good academic institution is a well designed package to give you a well rounded education including studying things that you might not study on your own. My undergrad degree is in music composition, but I had to take a lot of classes outside of the topic of music. At my school I even had to take a physical education class and run three miles each semester in less than 21 minutes. To graduate you also had to prove you knew how to swim well enough that you wouldn't drown should you accidentally fall in a lake. Obviously making sure I could swim wasn't directly related to music composition, but it is part of what the college decided a well rounded person should know how to do.
At Harvard, I was studying software engineering. One of the required classes was on computational theory. It studies the theoretical aspects of what type of problems can be solved by a computer and what type of problems can't. For the most part, it isn't something you need to know to write typical software. However, the real value is in the way it changed my thinking. It forced me to learn a different area of mathematics. I can point to turning point insights I've had in areas unrelated to software engineering that were only possible because of the different way of thinking I learned in that class.
Seek out new experiences
Our brains grow when we do something new with them. If you aren't doing anything new, your brain is not growing. Reading new books, studying new topics, going back to get another degree are all things that can help give your brain new experiences. But what about more mundane things? Here are some ideas of simple things you can do that will help give you new experiences.
- Brush your teeth with your non-dominate hand a few times each week.
- Read a section of the newspaper or a magazine that you'd normally never touch.
- Go into a store that you've never had any desire to visit.
- Draw pictures
- Draw pictures with your non-dominate hand
- Drive to work a different way.
- Cook a type of food you've never had before.
- Watch a few movies that are in a different language.
- Attend a lecture on a topic you know nothing about.
- Spend a few hours in municipal court as an observer.
- Attend a city commission meeting.
- Go to a restaurant that is primarily frequented by people who aren't in your age group.
- Learn to juggle. (I highly recommend this.)
- Do your work outside for a few hours.
- Strike up conversations with people you normally wouldn't talk to.
- Visit a library you've never been in.
- Browse a section of a library that you've never been in.
- Attend an art display in a style you don't particularly care for.
- Attend musical recitals for different instruments and a modern composer.
- Take the stairs in a building where you've only taken the elevator.
- Listen to a different radio station.
- Spend some time reading in the room in your house where you spend the least amount of time.
- If you have land or a yard, go stand in part of it where you don't think you've ever been before.
- Try out a different operating system. (Many can run from a CD. See Haiku and Ubuntu)
- Go to a school board meeting.
- Go star gazing.
- Write a letter to someone you've never written to before.
- Ask an older relative about the things they remember when they were your age.
- etc.
None of those activities are likely to be life changing. However, each one will change you just a little bit and each one will give you brain something new to think about and process.
We think all the time, but most of us don't spend any structured, intentional time just thinking. We think just enough to start our next action. There is great value in taking the time to deliberately sit and think. One of the reasons we don't do this is because it usually just becomes day dreaming. Day dreaming isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't as directed as what we are trying to achieve by sitting and thinking.
The funny thing about thinking is that there really isn't that much information on how to go about doing it. There are books like How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci that are interesting but tend to focus on how to be creative less than on how to just think. On one hand this is disappointing, but on the other it makes sense. Thinking is a huge category and it is going to be very difficult for one person to explain how they think to someone else. What I'm going to do here is to try to give you some guidelines for productive thinking that work well for me. Obviously you'll have to find what works for you and adjust things to fit your personal needs, but these should give you a start.
1. Decide what you are going to think about
To be really productive your thinking needs to be directed. Here are some things you might want to spend some time thinking about:
- Your career plans and how to get the most out of your current job.
- A business idea.
- Personal goals – clarifying what you want to achieve and life and how to reach those achievements.
2. Find a quiet place without a lot of distractions
What qualifies as a distraction is going to be different for different people and may vary depending on what you are thinking about. A distraction free environment for clarifying your personal goals might be a coffee shop, but if you are working on coming up with a mathematical theorem, the same coffee shop might be full of distractions.
3. Write down what you hope to accomplish
Without a plan you won't know if you accomplished what you set out to do. Get it down on paper to make sure you are clear what you want to get out of this "thinking session." Your goal can be as specific or as general as necessary, but try to choose something that you can tell if you succeeded or not. Writing down "think about businesses" isn't something that you can really quantify as having done or not–or at least it is hard to tell if you really accomplished anything. "Come up with 3 ideas for a business I can run from home" is a bit easier to claim success.
4. Take notes
This may sound funny. Why would you take notes of your thinking? Getting something down on paper lets you see your though process much more easily than when it is just in your mind. Thinking is the process of interacting with information and getting some of that information out in front of you is a great way to focus and be creative. These don't need to be formal notes. You can jot ideas, draw diagrams, doodle pictures or create mind maps to help clarify what you are thinking.
Musicians and sports figures constantly practice, but most other people never practice. If you can find a way to practice your skills, you can become better at what you do. Practice can make you faster, more efficient and better at your job. The trick is to find a small unit that you can repeat in a way that will increase your skill.
Here are some ideas of things you might be able to practice:
- If you are slow at typing, practicing typing for 15 minutes per day can have a great return on investment.
- Public speaking is something that can be practiced and good presentation skills are essential to many careers.
- Writing is a skill that can be practiced. Few people wouldn't benefit from being able to write a bit better.
Some fields even have competitions setup to help you practice. For example, TopCoder lets programmers compete to solve short programming challenges. Other disciplines have competitions or other ways that you can potentially practice.
Writing is underrated. The discipline of getting thoughts from your head onto paper is very valuable and you can learn a lot simply by writing down your ideas and observations. Writing is the process of making your thoughts concrete and visible. it allows you to clarify what you are thinking and refine your ideas. Writing makes you smarter because it forces you deeper into a topic and shows you areas of your topic that you don't fully understand. For example, I recently wrote a post about finite state machines to help clarify my understanding and make sure I hadn't forgotten anything in the 5 years since I took a class on the topic. Not only was the exercise good for me by forcing me to think deeply about the topic again, but the interactions with people who read it and had suggestions, corrections or disagreements was personally rewarding.
I started Productivity501 in 2005 and the practice of writing on a regular basis has been extremely valuable to my career. I highly recommend starting at least a personal blog. A personal blog can cover pretty much any topic and gives you a way to get your content up where others can benefit from it and interact with you. It is a lot easier to have the motivation to write when you know someone might/will read it and a blog gives you that type of exposure without needing to do any type of extensive setup or expensive publishing.
Do things that are hard
I've talked about the importance of reading things that are hard, but the same concept applies to doing things that are hard. Doing things that are difficult raises your ceiling and increases your capabilities.
I've heard of basketball coaches that put a smaller ring inside of the basketball hoop during practice. This makes it a lot harder for players to make baskets during practice, but when the game comes and they are practicing on a normal sized hoop it seems much easier to make shots. They make practice harder in order to raise the bar on their performance when it really matters.
In some ways, this suggestion sounds like the suggestion to find things to practice and there is some overlap. However, doing things that are hard can involve doing big projects and larger scale work than finding something small that you can practice over and over again. If tackle writing a 100 page research paper, the 5 page papers you are subsequently assigned will seem trivial in comparison. A builder who completes a 10,000 sq. foot luxury home is probably going to find managing the construction of smaller sized homes much easier after they have stretched themselves to manage the larger construction project.
If you want your brain to be operating at its peak capabilities, you need to constantly be asking yourself, "When was the last time I did something where I felt truly challenged? When was the last time where I was seriously worried that I might fail?" If you haven't had any of those experiences recently, you may need to seek out a difficult assignment or project in oder to make sure your brain isn't becoming stagnant.
Your brain is your most valuable asset. Many people leave their brain's development up to chance. If you want to safeguard against becoming stale and irrelevant you need to make a conscious effort to upgrade your brain, develop your skills and insure that you are moving forward–not backwards.


text:
Making Hermosa hermosa!
We are a new neighborhood group, called the Hermosa Neighborhood Association, which is located in the Hermosa community area. Our goal is to help make our working class community a brighter and safer place for all. Hermosa means "beautiful" in Spanish and our slogan for our group is "Making our Hermosa hermosa."
Many neighbors have complained of a lack of vision in our community, and we're trying to combat that apathy through direct action and engagement. Our group is relatively new, only 4 months old, but we already have 25 members and we continue to grow. We've conducted several neighborhood cleanups, mostly around our neighborhood CPS school, Nixon Elementary.
We want to go further this summer by conducting ongoing block cleanups and school ground cleanups. While this is meant to be the job of Streets and Sanitation and janitors at the school, neither institution is aiding us, so with your help we want to take matters into their own hands.
We would like to purchase mostly native perennial flowers, grasses and shrubs and beautify some area roundabouts, as well as plant wildflower seeds to help beautify the metra track embankment near our homes. This would help brighten up these locations as well as attract insects and birds to the area.
We would also purchased clean & green tools, such as trash pinchers, large trash bags, rakes and shovels to help aid in our cleanups.
We regularly help neighbors clean the following blocks and locations:
2100 N. Keystone
2300 N. Keystone
2300 N. Karlov
2100 N. Kedvale
2300 N. Keeler
2200 N. Keeler
2300 N. Tripp
2200 N. Tripp
4300 W. Belden
2300 N. Kilpatrick
Nixon Elementary
Furthermore, we'd use some of the proceeds to produce "don't litter" signs which we have already designed.