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"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
Radio legend Paul Harvey was such a great storyteller that he could totally enthrall you before you realized you were listening to an ad.
Today, you'd call that sponsored content. The larger term is native advertising -- strategies that mesh branded messages into the media where they appear. They include articles on news sites; funny videos and animated GIFs on humor sites; tweets and Facebook updates, and more. Instead of interrupting the flow like a typical TV commercial, pre-roll, pop-up or print ad, it blends into its surroundings and, in theory at least, offers the reader/viewer/listener something interesting.
Pew Research Center's 2013 State of the News Media Report found that while the amount spent on native advertising in 2012 was comparatively low -- $1.5 billion compared with $8.6 billion for banner ads -- it's rising fast. Spending for sponsored content grew 45 percent in 2011 and almost 39 percent in 2012. That's second only to video ads.
Some fear sponsored content blurs the ethical church-and-state division between advertising and journalism, while others say the revenue keeps reporters employed.
Reuters' Jack Schafer put it strongly in a recent piece, "A Word Against Our Sponsor": "If, as George Orwell once put it, 'The public are swine; advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill-bucket,' then sponsored content is the meal so wretched that even pigs will reject unless sugar-frosted," he wrote.
But whether you love or hate native advertising, examining the recent history of the news business, including declining revenues and widespread layoffs, sheds light on why it's growing so quickly.
Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, told me that tough economic realities and the "anemic" growth of digital ad revenue opened the door.
"The grimmer news is that basically for every $16 that a newspaper is losing in print revenue, they're gaining $1 in digital," he said. "Just as the case with classified ads, which disappeared ... it's very possible that other forms of digital ad revenue are maybe more difficult than previously thought."
Forbes was the first major news site to integrate sponsored content. In 2010, I wrote about how Forbes Media chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin shook up the established formula with AdVoice -- which hosted sponsored articles on Forbes.com.
Forbes Media chief revenue officer Meredith Levien told me it was slow going at first, especially since few companies had the staff or mindset for content creation. But in the last 18 months it's grown dramatically, in part because the publication added a team of writers, editors and graphic designers -- separate from the editorial team -- to help brands produce their articles. "We can't staff it fast enough," she said, adding that BrandVoice was "No. 1 on the list" of factors that made 2012 revenues the best in five years.
Last year, Levien successfully lobbied for the name to be changed to BrandVoice.
"AdVoice conveyed the notion it was part of the advertising mix," she said. "This is really about content and thought leadership."
Levien adds that she was gratified to see the Washington Post adopt a similar model earlier this year. "I don't think we can take credit for it, but we were especially pleased to see the Post get into it," she said.
A recent random look at BrandVoice content showed a piece from Oracle titled "King Richard III: Villain, Hero, or Tragic Victim of Identity Theft?" NetApp offered "3 Steps To Build Your Personal Brand For Tomorrow's Business (Tips From The CIO)." The CapitalOneSpark credit card team offered: "Optimize Your Website To Convert Visitors To Buyers." The "Voice" pages include links to more from the sponsor, which in some cases includes press releases.
In February, Dvorkin blogged that BrandVoice now has 20 partners. While he remains passionately upbeat, others are more cautious.
Digiday recently quoted Businessweek.com editor Janet Paskin saying she's treading lightly: "Our credibly and integrity, for all journalists, is sometimes harder to defend than it should be. We don't want to compromise that or allow for that perception."
While the traditional journalism community remains divided, many edgier news and entertainment sites see no problem at all. Some of BuzzFeed's snappy content is sponsored, as is some of what you'll see on Cheezburger, Gawker, Vice and others.
Onion Labs, the in-house advertising and marketing team of The Onion humor site, works with sponsored content in several ways. It integrates brands into its own video content -- such as 7-Up's placement in its morning show, "Today Now." It creates original content for major brands. It also posts or links to content produced by the brands themselves, like this video for Adobe:
CollegeHumor CEO Paul Greenberg said his site embraced the concept five years ago. At the Native Advertising Summit in February, he said there's such interest that the site's inner workings now resemble a digital ad agency.
"We've really had to turn into a machine to super-serve the clients that come to us and meet the demand that we're seeing in the marketplace," he told me. Listerine, he says, saw a 17 percent jump in sales after its native ad campaign.
Matt McDonagh, vice president for national sales at The Onion, says a Nielsen study shows that humor is the best way to reach a young target audience. Even big names such as Hilton and Coke Zero are dipping their toes into the comedy pool. "Brands are willing to take a few more risks than they were a few years ago because to hit 18- to 24-year-olds -- you're not going to do that on '60 Minutes,'" he said.
It seems that when it comes to entertainment sites, sponsored content has found a comfortable home.
"Those kinds of sites have pretty seamlessly integrated this," Pew's Jurkowitz said. "It's a more controversial choice for traditional legacy news organizations."
In 2010, Gary McCormick, then-chair of the Public Relations Society of America, publicly warned that poorly labeled sponsored content could be confused with objective news, especially because disclaimers can be lost as information is shared. Three years later, he feels media and brands understand the need for authenticity and transparency.
"It may be that it's no longer always the 'buyer beware' -- it's now the 'manufacturer beware' of putting out false claims," McCormick said. "If you come out with something hidden behind the wall it only takes one consumer to spot it ... They're going to dig deep."
When The Atlantic ran a boosterish Church of Scientology native ad, then deleted critical comments, the outcry prompted an apology with the opening line, "We screwed up."
At the Native Advertising Summit, The Atlantic Digital's vice president and general manager, Kimberly Lau, called the Scientology incident a lesson in what not to do. "The whole experience clarified how it is people are going to judge these things," she said.
The Onion did a scathingly hilarious take featuring fake content praising the Taliban.
The Onion's McDonagh notes the parody came from the editorial, rather than sales side, but he feels their pain. "To The Atlantic's credit, they're testing some things out and trying to make themselves a smart digital publisher," he said. The key, he adds, is to understand and stay true to your audience.
The native ad boom is also already creating new business models -- maybe even a whole new advertising sector.
Take, for instance, the success of Sharethrough, which helps increase the reach of sponsored content. For example, if a brand creates a post for one site, Sharethrough carries it to other platforms such as WordPress, Forbes.com, The Awl and Thought Catalog, which direct traffic back to the original post. Videos can be embedded and viewed in a number of blogs and sites.
Although it's only four years old, it's worked with 20 of the top 25 brands of AdAge magazine's Megabrands list. Relationships with many websites and publishers helped it create the Native Advertising Summit. (As a matter of fact, it popularized the term "native advertising," building off the phrase "native monetization" used by venture capitalist Fred Wilson.) Sharethrough has also become a clearinghouse for information about the new industry with tools such as the Native Advertising Leaderboard, which is searchable by brand, publisher, topic and social actions.
"There's a lot of creativity happening in this space right now," said Chris Schreiber, the firm's vice president of Marketing & Communications. One recent project promoted an infographic Pop Secret developed about how people watch movies. "They were delivering value -- something you didn't know and was easily sharable," he says.
When sponsored content -- especially videos -- work, he says, it's great. "It's more about thinking what's valuable for the audience and the consumer rather than what's valuable for the marketer."
Microsoft met its marketing goals while engaging a new audience with its The Browser You Love(d) to Hate campaign for Internet Explorer 9. Roger Capriotti, director of Internet Explorer product marketing, hired producers to create visual content that targeted young people who might otherwise disregard the product. The effort relied on viral shares and news coverage instead of paid posts; the most frequently shared video recalled memories of growing up in the '90s:
As anyone who's tried to make a video go viral knows, 25 million video views -- including 22 million for "Child of the 90s" alone, is nothing to sneeze at, even for Microsoft.
"If we can build good content, we can engage them in a way that we haven't engaged them in the past," Capriotti says. The best part, he says, was reading positive reviews posted by new-found fans.
Jurkowitz, of the Pew Research Center, questions how far the native ad trend will reach.
"Obviously the growth rate is high, but we're talking about a universe of small numbers here," he says. "There's some momentum in this direction, understandably, but it's not by any means a foregone conclusion that this is going to become a dominant form of advertising in mainstream news outlets going forward."
But The Onion's McDonagh clearly sees brands moving away from conventional ad campaigns, and demanding more creativity. "Brands are trying to develop content and trying to act more like publishers, and that's a sea change from where we were three to five years ago."
Sharethrough's Schreiber notes that as soon as new platforms crop up, advertisers jump on them -- as they've done with Twitter's Vine app, which creates short videos. He expects newer platforms will arise specifically for native advertising. "You're going to see new media created with native advertising, knowing that's how they're going to make their money," he says. And brands, he says, will learn what works best for their audience and their message. "They'll find their voice," he concludes.
Usually at this point in a Paul Harvey show, he would knowingly say, "And THAT's ... the rest of the story." But right now, prospects for native advertising are not so clear-cut that any one person or group can claim to have the last word. The only thing that's certain is that they will continue to evolve.
Terri Thornton, a former reporter and TV news producer, owns Thornton Communications, an award-winning PR and social media firm. She is also a freelance editor for Strategic Finance and Management Accounting Quarterly. Follow her on Twitter @TTho
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If you want to save journalism, you might turn to journalism this year for all your Christmas shopping.
This weekend at NewsFoo, an O'Reilly "un-conference" for about 170 journalists and tech disrupters, the tech writer Mónica Guzmán posed a question: "Can't we [news organizations] sell anything besides articles?" Yes, it turns out, and there are numerous examples of them trying it.
A couple of months ago Guzmán was talking to an entrepreneur in Seattle who had just sold his latest startup to Google. "We got to talking about journalism, and I'm always fascinated to listen to people who come from an innovative mindset, but not a news mindset, look at news. What he said, basically, is I don't see how news is really going to innovate and move forward unless they can get past this idea that what they sell is just content."
News organizations have one big advantage in business: They know their audience.
"We have a huge leg up when it comes to organizing information communities," she said. "[News outlets] build those communities that can be really specific and really well defined." (NewsFoo is generally off the record, but Guzmán talked with me after her session.)
Here are a few examples of all the ways news companies are selling non-news products to consumers. Some might look better wrapped up under the tree than others, but if you feel like supporting the news, maybe there's room on your credit card for one or two of them.
For the oenophile in your life, buy a gift subscription to the New York Times Wine Club. Six rare wines (four red, two white) for $90 per shipment, or $180 for the most exquisite Reserve Club varietals. Each bottle is paired with tasting notes and an NYT recipe. Europeans can sample Telegraph Wines, "one of the UK's most respected wine merchants." A case of six bottles of Prosecco goes for £54 and includes two complimentary Champagne flutes.
The Telegraph doesn't stop at wine. There's a Telegraph Garden Shop, Motoring Shop, a travel shop for holiday cottages. You can buy earrings, duvet covers, snow boots, and clothes hangers. "They are the leading retailer of clothes hangers in the U.K.," said Jeff Jarvis in an April 2010 Editor & Publisher story. The newspaper raked in a quarter of its profit in 2009 from selling things, he said.
The Onion cheaply repurposes tons of its own content into coffee-table books and framed prints. NPR, almost true to stereotype, sells "green gifts," "gifts for gardeners," and "gift for tea lovers." None of those items have NPR branding, just the kind of things a typical NPR listener might like to buy. (And shoppers know their purchase helps support the news.)
The überaggregator Boing Boing sells stuff as weird as that which it aggregates, e.g., rubber finger tentacles, a remote-controlled flying shark, a bacon-scented air freshener. That site outsources the e-commerce software and payment processing.
There are plenty of smartphone and iPad apps that try to generate revenue for news organizations, but it's less common for there to be an app that doesn't have anything to do with the outlet's journalism. Just today we wrote about Condé Nast's new Santa app, which helps parents assemble and share lists of what their kids want for Christmas.
This summer Hearst Corp. launched its App Lab, a sort of digital R&D unit for the ad agencies who work with Hearst. It was Hearst that developed Manilla, a financial management product for consumers, earlier this year.
In September, the web-only Texas Tribune launched the Texas Tribune Festival, a first annual symposium that brought together politicians, wonks, lobbyists, and others from the universe of Texas politics. (I interviewed editor Evan Smith about it this summer.) Tickets cost $125, but the real money comes from corporate sponsorships. In 2010, before the festival existed, the Tribune raised about $600,000 in event sponsorship, Smith told me. The Tribune festival was modeled on the New Yorker Festival, which also sells tickets and big-name sponsorships. Forbes follows a similar model for its CEO conferences around the world, but those tickets are a lot pricier.
435 Digital is a Chicago consulting firm that does web design, SEO, and social media — actually, it's a division of Tribune Co., but you would never know that from looking at its home page. The group is made up of the people who gave us Colonel Tribune and the ChicagoNow blog network.
GannettLocal, too, offers marketing services for local businesses that advertise in Gannett-owned papers. Condé Nast sells its in-house creative talent to advertisers, competing with the very agencies whose work fills the pages of its magazines.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, as I wrote this summer, packages its reporters' in-house expertise about particular topics as paid webinars that cost as much as $96 apiece.
The premium content, the merch, the events, the consulting, the apps — they are all specialty products for niche audiences. Whether all of the offerings are making money is for another story.
"Last-minute shopping?" by Louise LeGresley used under a Creative Commons license.
Niemanlab :: Baratunde Thurston, Digital Director, The Onion "It's important to remember that The Onion is, overall, a satirical news organization. That extends across everything the organization does, not just social media. It starts with the content. The Onion works, and it's funny, because it reads like real news, it looks like real news, and it promotes itself like a real news organization. So when you think about, you know, a story that The Onion does and think, 'Oh, that's really realistic!' that's part of the joke. When we look at social media, we're also borrowing from — or in some cases leading — what the news industry itself would do, or is doing, or should do to promote its presence on these new digital platforms."
Andrew Phelps, Niemanlab: Questions for Baratunde Thurston: What The Onion can teach real news organizations about social media
Continue to read www.niemanlab.org
The Onion is funny because it looks and feels like real news. To do that well, The Onion has to act like a real news organization.
So when Baratunde Thurston, the newspaper's 30-something digital director who "resides in Brooklyn and lives in Twitter," describes the evolution of the Onion's social-media strategy, it sounds pretty familiar.
"The Onion can be, in some ways, a creatively conservative place when it comes to process," Thurston told me. "It was born out of a weekly print production and creative process. Breaking that down and reassembling it in a way that doesn't destroy everything we've built has been a part of the journey."
Over the past four years, Thurston has worked to bring both structure and experimentation to social media. The success is enviable: nearly 3 million Twitter followers, nearly 2 million Facebook fans, and an unusually loyal and engaged audience.
"When we look at social media we're also borrowing from — or in some cases leading — what the news industry itself would do, or is doing, or should do to promote its presence on these new digital platforms," Thurston said.
I met Thurston last month at MIT's Civic Media Conference, where he was a featured speaker and a judge for the 2011 Knight News Challenge. I was surprised to see a stand-up comic who works at The Onion address a group of journalists — that is, until it became clear that The Onion is dead serious about civic media. (Thurston himself will be delivering the keynote at the next SXSW festival.)
In a recent phone interview, Thurston outlined his three-pronged approach to live event "coverage," hinted at The Onion's state-of-the-art predictive news technology, and discussed the making of a 500-foot Osama bin Laden. What follows are lightly edited excerpts (long excerpts!) from our conversation.
Baratunde Thurston: It's important to remember that The Onion is, overall, a satirical news organization. That extends across everything the organization does, not just social media. It starts with the content. The Onion works, and it's funny, because it reads like real news, it looks like real news, and it promotes itself like a real news organization. So when you think about, you know, a story that The Onion does and think, "Oh, that's really realistic!" that's part of the joke. When we look at social media, we're also borrowing from — or in some cases leading — what the news industry itself would do, or is doing, or should do to promote its presence on these new digital platforms.
With social media, we started with promoting our material. "Let's set up an RSS feed that points to Twitter that lets those people know what we're doing." That wasn't revolutionary, it was just a basic plug-and-play, let's-not-ignore-this-community kind of thing.
Over time, though, what's become more fun, more interesting, more creative, is: "How do we take the unique thing that we do and sprinkle our own little Onion voice and fairy dust into this world?" Where we start to differ from actual news is that we're not actually reporting actual news. What we're often doing is building a parallel universe that people like to play with, and we are giving them more of an opportunity to play in that world than they previously had when we were just in print….
The approach we've taken that's most interesting is in the area of rapid-response news creation and promotion. We look at it in three levels. The first is, How do we get our take on actual breaking-news events out quickly? (And sometimes even before other media organizations.) So you look at a situation like Tiger Woods — this is obviously a while ago now — and he announces there's going to be a press conference Friday at 11 a.m. So the whole world — a big chunk of the wealthy, developing world, at least — pauses and waits for what Tiger Woods has to say. And people are at their offices literally not working because it's, like, a State of the Union for Tiger Woods address, and both houses of Congress convene to listen to Tiger.
And there's a big, gaping news hole — and we shoot into it using social media as a rapid-delivery system to publish a story that says: Tiger Woods Announces Return To Sex. And that becomes, for awhile, the news, because no one else knows what's going to happen, and we have predictive news technology, which allows us to get ahead of that story and dominate, for a term, the interest in what Tiger Woods has to say.Andrew Phelps: I'm sorry, predictive news technology? Is that an Onion "technology" or is that a real thing?BT: No, it's Onion technology. We built it, yeah. It's proprietary, so….AP: Right, right, can't get into too much detail about that. So while the world is in suspended-animation waiting, The Onion dominates the conversation.BT: People, when they're in search of information, will violently and radically attach themselves to the first hint of it. And they help spread that message. Our most successful example of that is with Donald Trump and the day that President Obama released his birth certificate. We immediately published just a photo with a headline: Trump Unable To Produce Certificate Proving He's Not… um…AP: Festering Pile Of S—?BT: Festering Pile Of S—, yeah. So that got almost 800,000 likes on Facebook, which is absurd. That's just ridiculous. And it got retweeted tens of thousands of times. We got over a million pageviews to that thing, because it struck a chord with the real world.
The second thing I think we've pushed the envelope on is live event coverage. This is just fun. And it's slightly insane. One of the things that we have done as a society is become more fragmented, more atomized — more selfish, to some degree — and our society is somewhat predicated on everyone having their own version of a thing. "I want my own car, my own driveway, my own pool, my own home theater system, my own music delivery system." So shared experiences are harder to come by. People also work more, they don't see their families as much. The water cooler is dying as a common ground for discussion of anything together. Social media helps reconstruct that water cooler and that shared experience. You see it on television shows, you see it around big news stories, you see it around celebrity silliness, and you especially see it around major cultural events like the Super Bowl, like the award shows, State of the Union addresses.
And what we've done is lend our voice and our massive platform in service of covering those events in real time — and so experimenting with a real-time flavor of journalism. Whenever there's a big event like the Oscars — I think we do about five a year at this point, in a major way — we will live-tweet the hell out of that event. And that's been a good way for us to increase our reach and our audience, because we're attaching ourselves to an existing conversation and often — always, I'd say at this point — dominating it. Having the "top tweets" on a trending topic is a valuable thing and a low-cost thing if you have good material. So we're exposing new people to what we have to say, and we're giving people who already know us another way of finding us and hearing us and seeing us. And it's also creatively fun. It gives the writer a different way to think about writing and about "journalism" (in big quotation marks).AP: With Tiger Woods, no one knew what the news was yet, so you could make it up and make a little bit of a point. But when it's live, everyone's watching what's really happening in real life. So what does The Onion do? Does it add more of a spin, or does it pretend to report facts as though they are happening even though they aren't?BT: In general, The Onion is not Daily Show-ish. We don't cover the real world, per se. We often comment on things that feel like the real world. In the live event world, part of what we have as our advantage is 22 years of coverage already. And a lot of what we've written in the past is still relevant today. Because most of what is written in The Onion is written in kind of an evergreen fashion. So it's about digging those things up.
For example, we started covering the Oscars by me doing a personal live-tweet session of the Oscars through my account. Just being silly, being funny, whatever; I wasn't thinking about the Onion. And then I saw a celebrity (I think it was Queen Latifah) take to the stage to present something, and I was like, "Wait, The Onion has a story about Queen Latifah. And the story is really just a headline and a photo that says 'King Latifah returns to claim queen.' And that's funny."
I tweeted it out as The Onion, and people reacted very positively, and I thought, "I wonder if I can just keep doing this." And so I was kind of watching the TV screen, listening for key words, searching the Onion website, manually digging up the story, tweeting it through our custom Bit.ly link, and you start to see the reaction, like, "Oh, wow, The Onion's live-tweeting the Oscars!" And it's like, well, sort of. We're live archive-reposting the Oscars.
That was the first version of it. And then second version was, "Why don't we actually intentionally prepare for this?" And so we gathered all the material we had that would be related to the films or the actors or the actual event of the Oscars itself and then we actually wrote for the event, things you know are going to happen.
And then there's actually live stuff. With the Super Bowl, a sporting event is much more difficult to cover in advance, so you write for conditions, you write for, "Well, if there's an interception, if there's a kickoff return, if there's a safety…" and then it's a matter of mentally connecting what actually happens with what you've written for possibly happening and getting it out quickly enough. And then the layer beyond that is actually writing in the moment. So you have a sort of real-time writers' room — at someone's apartment, in some cases, or just over e-mail and instant messaging — that allows you to react truly in real time. And so I think the combination of those things lends itself to a feeling of comprehensive, real-event coverage.AP: It's funny, because it doesn't sound all that different from what an old-school wire reporter would do to cover the outcome of a big trial or some live event that he needs to file quickly.BT: Exactly. News organizations have troves of obituaries for people who haven't died yet. We're doing the same thing. Even if it's not a formal process in a newsroom or a news organization, you are prewriting. You do have conditional headlines. We've just, in some cases, formalized that process and made it much, much funnier.
The third way that I think we have learned to play with this is to apply what we've learned from those first two completely to the world of news that we've created. And in this case, it's about, OK, if we do a story, if we know we have a story coming up, how do we stretch it out? How do we massage it and promote it and tease it as if it were an actual breaking-news event?
The recent case where we did this pretty well was a story we had of a 500-foot Osama bin Laden returning from the sea to destroy America. And I was like OK, this is a Big Story. What does a Big Story deserve? Big coverage. You don't just want to just put that out there; you spend weeks thinking about this stuff. Our graphics department — I'm sorry, our photojournalists — but our graphics department has done some impressive work to make this look super-realistic, so let's give the story the big coverage it deserves. So in that case we are applying the lessons especially of the last event coverage in the breaking news to the alternate reality. So we start that story with a rumor: "BREAKING: Seismic activity detected in the Indian Ocean near site of bin Laden burial. More coming."
And it's like, What? And people see that tweet and that Facebook post and think, What's going on here? Some people already get where it's going, because their minds move more quickly. Others are just totally confused. And then we start adding in a layer of more commentary than coverage. We have our character Twitter accounts and Facebook profiles… "I'm just getting in word that the Air Force whatever unit has been deployed off the East Coast of the states… We'll give you more… Unconfirmed reports of missiles fired… Spotting of bin Laden figure emerging from…" You're like, What is–? So then it's really starting to roll out. We have a layer of quotes that we're attributing to generals and citizens and merchant marines out on the ocean. And then finally you get a version of the story with a link back saying, "Confirmed: 500-foot bin Laden spotted off the coast head towards Atlantic region of U.S.," and there's this big picture of bin Laden emerging from the sea.
And then we've got people reporting what they're seeing. And this is all under the hash tag #500FootBinLaden. And where I think this differs from the breaking-news coverage and the live event coverage is, this is more open-ended. This is treated as, like, We don't really know what's going on here, we need your help. This is calling on the community to help fill in the blanks. And so we're asking, actively, People, tell us what you're seeing where you are. Have you spotted #500FootBinLaden? And people love to play along. They love to play along with real news, they love to play along with ours even more, because it doesn't require actual fact-finding. And so people are Photoshopping Osama Bin Laden in the Boston Harbor, saying, "He's in Boston right now, oh my God!" and adding their own flavor to it and using Twitpic and what not, and that is super satisfying. It becomes a collaborative news event. It has a full arc and life, just like "real news."
You see another example of this, even when it's not prompted, in our story about Planned Parenthood building an $8 billion Abortionplex.AP: …which really happened.BT: Right. And we didn't really build any layers around it, we just put the story out, but the community wants to play along. Also, people want to write for The Onion (that's probably not going to happen; it's a very small team), but they can help build out this world that was previously limited to our writers' individual creativity and minds. So someone on Yelp created an Abortionplex "venue" in Topeka, Kan., where the story said it existed, and they took details from the story and added it, and then the world just ran with it. There are, at this point, over 400 reviews of this thing we created. And it's been inspiring. That's a different level, when you don't even prompt the collaboration with the audience, they just run with it, because they can. And it doesn't require your permission, but it also doesn't undermine your mission.AP: I think a lot of news organizations would hear this interview and think: "Well, great, The Onion is very successful at engaging people, but they have the advantage of being hilarious and not having to talk about real news. The debt ceiling might not be so interesting, but it's really important. So what are we supposed to do?" I just wonder if you have any kind of advice for real news organizations who are struggling a little bit.BT: Think flexibly. Think loosely. I think there's a lot of fear and conservatism — not political conservatism, but brand conservatism — around letting loose your team or your voice in this new environment. We've done journalism this way for a really long time, we're really nervous about breaking it up. Not everybody thinks this way, but a lot do, and you can see it reflected. Sometimes you see the social media policy of Media Organization X, and it's like the 20-point bullet list of "don'ts." It doesn't leave much room for what you can do. I don't remember the organization, but one of them had a very fun post, like, "Our social media policy" — and it was just blank. That's the kind of open-ended attitude that lends itself to finding value in this space.
For us, what's been fun over the past few years is seeing the writers and the editors actually embrace social media and get inspired themselves and come to us and say, "Hey, can we do this?" And we're like, "Yeah! Great — by George, you can do that! We didn't think of that." When Brooke Alvarez, the host of Onion News Network on IFC, live-tweets, that's the writers of that show just doing it. It was a very, very proud moment for me. The way we used to do it, we would ask, "Hey can we get a batch of tweets from you guys around this thing?" And we'd kind of schedule it out and manually post it or use a tool to do it.
Now, we run a training session with them. We say, "Look, people are talking to Brooke. She should have something to say back to them." Basically give them a kind of framework, and they're like, "Oh, that could be kind of fun." And we literally handed over the keys. It was like a ceremony: "I give you the keys to the social media city."AP: That's really funny, because once again you sound like a real news organization, having won over the journalists, so to speak, to social media. I don't know why, but I didn't expect writers at The Onion to have any kind of resistance to new media the way you might see at newspapers.BT: The Onion can be, in some ways, a creatively conservative place when it comes to process. It was born out of a weekly print production and creative process. Breaking that down and reassembling it in a way that doesn't destroy everything we've built has been a part of the journey. I come in here like, "TWITTER! FACEBOOK! YAY, STREAMING!" And everybody's like, "Whoa, slow down, Twitter dude! We've got 20 years of awesome here, let's not just destroy it for the sake of the latest trend." And I think there's some healthy tension that allows us to get to a good place.
And what we do does apply to so many news organizations. When you think about live event coverage and how you try to add some kind of value — get your sports writer to cover the Oscars. Mix it up a little bit and do something a little different. It doesn't have to be funny, but it can be fun. It can be unique. I think the point is not to be funny, but to have a unique voice that stands out in an increasingly commoditized environment and space.
And then there's exploiting your archives. A lot of media organizations are decades old. You've actually been there and done that. This debt ceiling conversation isn't new. Unemployment isn't new. Isolationism versus expansionism isn't new. The role of religion in a democracy isn't new. When it comes down to it, there's not much new under the sun. So what have you already done? Basically, get more return on your existing investment. And the advantage that a deep media organization has over just the commentariat layer of cable news and the blogosphere is that you've actually done reporting, you've actually dug into records, so starting to think about your trove of data and analysis, and How do you slice that up? and How do you make it quotable and Facebookable and Tumblrable? is not exceedingly difficult. It takes some dedication, but it doesn't take that much money. It's not that expensive in terms of people and machine hours. That is something that we're doing, and we're not breaking the bank to do it.
And lastly, news organizations can open up to their community in some way. I'm not saying you're going to have your audience become, like, investigative reporters. But there are really interesting things happening on the edges of journalism. You see the Knight Foundation investing through these grant awards in some really cool ways of, not seeing your readers or this digital layer of people as competitors but as collaborators. The fact is, the world is too big for any one news organization to cover comprehensively. And maybe you're not going to ask your commenters to expose Watergate, but you might ask them to fact-check. You might ask them to help spot a pattern. You can have this sort of distributed research pool that can assist you in your journalistic mission to create an informed public.
We do it in a tongue-in-cheek way. We do it in a way which ultimately isn't building real institutions. It's building some intelligence, it's building a lot of fun, but I think what we're doing is even more important for an actual journalistic organization. And that's where we hand off the stick. It's like, "OK, our work here is done, but dear actual media organization, hey, give it a shot, you might just help our democracy."
"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
"Basically the price of a night on the town!"
"I'd love to help kickstart continued development! And 0 EUR/month really does make fiscal sense too... maybe I'll even get a shirt?" (there will be limited edition shirts for two and other goodies for each supporter as soon as we sold the 200)


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The proCUBE for Canon and Nikon has a very stylish design using metal which gives it a sleek & contemporary look. Compatible with the Canon E6 & HL-E6 / E8 & HL-E8 & the Nikon EL14 & HL-EL14 / EL15 & HL-EL15, this professional charger is the ultimate DSLR companion. This charger will also charge 4 x AA batteries simultaneously. The AA tray can then be used to store the AA batteries when not in use.
• Charges 1 or 2 DSLR batteries simultaneously • Intelligent fast IC charge control with LCD Display • Integrated 2.1A USB charger. Detects & charges most USB devices (iPad & iPhone, Samsung Note 8.0, Samsung Tab 3 (7") & all Samsung Smartphones) • Extra AA battery tray for charging of an additional 4 x AA • Supplied with interchangeable UK, Euro and US plugs • 12V Car Lead included
One Year Limited Warranty
Hahnel Industries Ltd warrants to the original end user/purchaser that for the warranty period of 1 year the product will be free of defects in materials and workmanship under normal use. The warranty period begins with the date of purchase. Proof of purchase must be provided with any warranty claim. Returned products must be shipped pre-paid, properly packaged and insured. Hahnel Industries does not accept any responsibility for loss or damage in transit.

subset: commoncrawl


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Kernel Panic Screen Saver 3
This little screensaver trick might be pretty old but it is fun to use. If you have ever decided to play around with your Mac, you may encounter Kernel Panics. I have only encountered one Kernel Panic when I first got my Mac, I still don't no how I did it. I haven't had one since. But Kernel Panics are the be all and end all for a Mac. They are similar to the blue screen of death. It is game over, restart time when you experience them. Thankfully they don't appear very often. As a result it is a great practical joke to have a Kernel Panic screen saver to play on unexpecting friends or work colleagues.
If you head over to Doomlaser, you can download the screen saver at the bottom of the post. Once as you install the saver by double clicking on it and following the prompts you can experience something similar to this.
Although it isn't 100% life like it will fool the average passer by. Probably funny to use on a friends computer while they are working on an important document, and tape their reactions.
A fun little trick, although it stops working once as a person moves their mouse. You can have a blue screen of death version if you really want to freak out your friends and passers by.


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Totally updated home in Valley Forge Homes - move right in. Kitchen has all new high efficient stainless steel Frigidaire appliances. Appliances include 5 burner gas stove, built in microwave, double door refrigerator with lower freezer drawer and garbage disposal. Granite counters with stone back splash. Stainless steel extra deep kitchen sink with high detachable faucet. New 43" cabinets and soft close drawers including corner lazy susan, lots of cabinets and drawers plus two pantry/storage closets. Recess lighting and eat at counter space. Great room and hallways features 5/8" dark bamboo floors. All new carpeting throughout the rest of home. New Samsung washer and dryer. Master Bedroom with walk-in closet, updated master bath with full tub with glass sliding doors and linen closet. Three additional bedrooms with great closet space. All new windows and doors, new vinyl siding new wiring and duct ventilation through entire home. Hot water heater 2011 and roof in 2016. This beautiful home is move in ready. Located close to public transportation, all major highways, King of Prussia mall and the new Wegmans town center.
Single Family, Single Family-Detached
2 Full
0.18 Acres |Case by Case Basis Sq. Ft.
Gas Water Heater, Public Water Service
Vinyl Siding
Public Sewer
1,255 sq. ft
Valley Forge Homes
School Information
Upper Merion Area
Detailed Room Information
- Bedroom(s)
- Master Bathroom
- Kitchen
- Eat-In Kitchen
Interior Features
- Appliances
- Range Hood, Refrigerator, Washer, Dryer, Dishwasher, Microwave
- Flooring
- Tile, Carpet Wall to Wall, Laminate
- Cooling
- Central Air, Electric
- Heating
- Electric Heating.
- Additional Interior Features
- Attic Storage
Exterior / Lot Features
- Exterior
- Vinyl
- Lot Dimensions
- 57
Financial Considerations
|Public Schools
|Private Schools
Data Provided by Onboard
Walk Score measures the walkability of any address, Transit Score measures access to public transit on a scale of 1-100.
Walk Score
Transit Score
Active Market Trends
Source: MLS DATA
Median list price
Days On Market
Properties For Sale
Sold Market Trends
Source: MLS DATA
Median sold price
Sales-List Price
Properties sold
Median Sq. Ft. Price
Arrows indicate 90 day trend
Source: Bright MLS


text: https://pictures.reuters.com/archive/POPE-PBEAHULPNBL.html DATE IMPORTED:December 31, 1999Pope John Paul II holds on to his staff during a years-end vespers service in St. Peter's Basilica December 31. For the second time in days the Pope did not walk up the central aisle of the Basilica. The Pope, who is fullfilling a personal dream of his papacy by surviving to lead his Church across the threshold of 2000, bade a mixed farewell to the old millennium. ??»Select usageCategorySystem ID:RTXJEXNImage ID:PBEAHULPNBLSize:1339px X 2048pxFile size:7MB ImageCity:Vatican CityCountry:Italy (Italian Republic)Photographer:Vincenzo PintoAdd to lightboxAdd to cart1 of 1


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Potato (Baby) 500 gm
Short Description :- Small Potatos are called Baby potatoes. Potatoes are nutrient-dense, non-fattening and have reasonable amount of calories. Include them in your regular meals so that the body receives a good supply of carbohydrates, dietary fibers and essential minerals such as copper, magnesium, and iron. In India, potatoes are probably the second-most consumed vegetables after onions.
Uses :- Fresh potatoes are baked, boiled, or fried and used in a staggering range of recipes: mashed potatoes, potato pancakes, potato dumplings, twice-baked potatoes, potato soup, potato salad and potatoes gratin, to name a few.
Benefits :-
1) Promotes Weight Gain
2) Easy to Digest
3) Skin Care
4) Treats Scurvy
5) Treats Rheumatism
6) Reduces Inflammation
7) Prevents Cancer
8) Lowers Blood Pressure
9) Proper Functioning of Brain
10) Prevents Heart Diseases
11) Treats Kidney Stones
12) Treats Diarrhea


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ISLAMABAD: A special committee has rejected the tax department's briefing on a matter pertaining to the decline of Rs60 billion in revenue from the tobacco sector.
The special committee meeting was held at Parliament House on Tuesday under the convenorship of Senator Kalsoom Parveen.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman informed the committee that 66pc people were involved in the legitimate tobacco business and were paying 98pc tax while the rest of the 34pc were only paying 2pc tax.
Besides this, the chairman said that production of the legitimate industry (multinational companies) has declined and the department cannot differentiate between the multinational from the domestic industry.
In addition, FBR policy member Dr Hamid Ateeq told the forum that the department was collecting four types of taxes (federal excise duty, sales tax, income tax and regulatory duty) from the tobacco sector.
He said although the cigarette production of multinational companies has been declining, but their profit has been continuously increasing.
The committee convener told the FBR chairman that the representatives of companies themselves informed him that they have earned 60pc more money, National exchequer has to bear Rs67 billion losses and you are telling that their production has been declined.
"The department has not taken any action against those who introduced the tier3 system and I know whose family members were doing what jobs in multinational companies," he added.
The chairman replied that no family member of the present management of FBR was working in any tobacco company and in fact, revenue has been increased through the imposition of tier 3 system.
The FBR policy member said that the department is going to stamp cigarettes from March this year in order to increase the revenue and control illicit trade.
He said the department would collect Rs115 billion from the tobacco sector this year while in the next year, it has estimated to collect Rs150 billion from this sector.
Senator Azam Swati said that weak enforcement was creating problems in the implementation. "If you catch two or three big fishes, I can assure matters can be solved easily," he advised the FBR office-bearers.
The representatives of Pakistan Tobacco Board informed the committee that there were 75,000 tobacco growers producing tobacco all over Pakistan, out of these more than 45,000 growers are located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa producing 95pc of Flue Cured Virginia over an area of 25,500 hectares. The sector is also one of the main contributors to the government exchequer and sourced Rs88 billion in FED/sales tax in 2017-18.
Senator Dilawar Khan was of the view that there was a dire need to revisit SRO 1149 (1)/2018 as multinationals companies can export GLT but local manufacturers could not.
Senator Kulsoom Parveen on the occasion said she was not satisfied with the FBR briefing and directed the board to revisit the SRO and its clauses in consultation with all the stakeholders. She said that she would once again arrange a sitting with the FBR to review the issue in detail.


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View the embedded image gallery online at:
The stylish interior creates unique conditions for organizing:
- all types of conferences
- training programs
- business meetings
We offer two meeting rooms prepared for you to comfortably and conveniently arrange a meeting for:
- 8 people or
- 25 people.
In addition to the conference services we offer:
- free Wi-Fi
- room service,
- parking,
- hotel services ,
- and catering services.
View the embedded image gallery online at:
As part of the gastronomy services we offer:
- coffee break
- coffee,
- tea,
- fruit juices,
- water,
- sweet extras
with a price of 15zł per person
- lunch
as a set of
- soup
-second course and
- dessert
with a price of 25zł per person
- we can also fit the menu to your individual needs.
View the embedded image gallery online at:


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How to Test Your Tire Tread Depth
Knowing the tire tread depth on your current tires is important! With all of your vehicle weight being supported by the 4 tires on your car, it's a true safety measure to make certain that your tires are safe and have a good amount of tread left. Anytime that you take your car to an auto specialist like Cassels Garage of Melbourne, FL, you can rest easy knowing that they are checking and testing your tires to make certain that they are safe to be on the road.
Tires: It's How We Roll
Usually we don't think about the tires on our vehicle until they need to be replaced or there is a problem. This goes along with one of our previous blogs regarding forming a relationship with your car, which includes reading the manual. Picture this: While driving the other day, a mysterious light appeared on my dashboard looking very similar to this: ( ! ). Had I familiarized myself with the warning lights and meanings and with the information provided in the manual stashed away in the glove box, I would not have been so confused, uniformed, and nervous. Let's take a look at some tire issues and why it is important to maintain and care for your car tires. Of course, if an issue should arise, Cassels Garage is a full service automotive repair shop for all makes and models. We focus on affordable rates and quality auto repair which includes tire service.


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It is believed that our current lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits reduce the serotonin levels of the organism. Low serotonin levels are related to depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or aggressive behavior. There are natural products that can improve these situations for our health that you can purchase at our online store.
Table of contents
5-HTP (hydroxytryptophan) is a nutritional supplement (which normally comes from Griffonia Simplicifolia) that can help to increase the serotonin levels in the organism. It is a natural and safe supplement that is tolerated by most people. We can find it in capsule format most of the time, like the 5-HTP by HSNessentials that is available at our online store.
5-HTP is commonly used as a natural remedy for obesity (diet), premenstrual syndrome, migraines, depression, stress, anxiety, sleep problems, and addictions.
Benefits of 5-HTP for health
5-HTP provides several benefits for our health:
- Relieving the symptoms of depression
- Calming effect
- Reducing the symptoms of fibromyalgia
- Support for weight-loss diets
- Improving the quality of sleep at night
- Relieving of the feeling of anxiety
- Increasing the serotonin synthesis
Does 5-HTP relieve the symptoms of depression?
5-HTP, from griffonia extract, helps to calm the symptoms of depression. This happens because 5-HTP increases the concentration of serotonin in the brain, which produces several benefits for our health as well as a good mood.
Clinical studies have shown that 5-HTP products (capsules) have many properties for our health and particularly for depression. 15 different studies showed that more than half of the patients with depression improved significantly after taking 5-HTP (hydroxytryptophan) products (capsules) for 2-4 weeks.
These are the most common symptoms of depression:
- Helplessness and lack of motivation
- Anxiety, fears
- Difficulty to fall asleep or to stay asleep
- Loss of interest in normal activities or that used to be pleasant before
- Loss of appetite
- Fast or abnormal weight loss or gain
- Mood swings (anger, fear)
- Change of behavior
Other studies have shown that 5-HTP can be as effective as conventional anti-depression therapies with fluvoxamine (SSRI) or tricyclic antidepressants like clomipramine or imipramine.
5-HTP and sleep
5-HTP (hydroxytryptophan) is the most effective natural product to fight insomnia and it significantly improves the quality of sleep by prolonging the REM sleep phase, which is a basic component for our rest and health.
A better quality of sleep means an improved quality of life, better mood, well-being, appetite control, more memory, personal motivation, longevity, as well as lower chance of suffering diseases.
Who can benefit from 5-HTP?
Taking 5-HTP, either capsules or other formats, is useful in the following cases:
- If you suffer the symptoms of depression
- If you are prone to suffer depression episodes
- If you are having difficulty to sleep
- If you are usually in a bad mood
- If you are looking for a natural way to control the feeling of anxiety and panic
- If you suffer one of the symptoms of fibromyalgia
- If you are looking for a natural remedy to control your weight
Combinations with 5-HTP
5-HTP (hydroxytryptophan) products tend to contain a combination of vitamins, minerals, and herbs to enhance its effects, providing serotonin to the body:
- L-theanine
- Ashwagandha
- Rhodiola rosea
- Ginkgo biloba
- Magnesium
- Vitamin B6
- Niacin
- Zinc
Where can I purchase 5-HTP?
HSN sells 5-HTP products (in capsules) at the best price. They will help you meet the basic recommended dose of serotonin. Each 5-HTP capsule by HSNessentials has 100mg of this ingredient that has been extracted from the natural griffonia seed. The recommended dose is one capsule a day, take it at night before going to bed on an empty stomach.
It is advisable to take these capsules along with a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. It can be combined with other natural supplements like L-tryptophan, GABA, vitamin C, or rhodiola rosea.
5-HTP Benefits and Properties
You can buy 5-HTP as a nutritional supplement without a medical prescription, and it has proven to be much safer and effective than many other medications that are typically prescribed to treat the symptoms related to low serotonin levels.
Read more
100% pure 5-hydroxytryptophan extracted from Griffonia seeds. Precursor of the serotonin synthesis. Natural product suitable for vegans.In stock. Immediate delivery.
200mg of 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) per capsule from Griffonia seeds with Vitamin C and Vitamin B6.In stock. Immediate delivery.
100mg of 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) per capsule, from Griffonia seeds.In stock. Immediate delivery.
200mg of 5-HTP per tablet. From Griffonia Simplicifolia seeds enriched with calcium.In stock. Immediate delivery.
50mg of 5-HTP with Vitamin B6 and Folic Acid.In stock. Immediate delivery.
5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan). It provides 200mg of 5HTP per daily dose. With vitamins.In stock. Immediate delivery.
It provides 50mg of 5-HTP (Griffonia simplicifolia) per daily dose.In stock. Immediate delivery.
It encourages a state of relaxation and improves the quality of sleep.In stock. Immediate delivery.
IT provides 100mg of 5-HTP (Griffonia simplicifolia) per daily dose.Temporarily out of stock
It provides 100mg of 5-HTP and 100mg of valerian extract.Temporarily out of stock
Good product - Ilan, 26/03/2020This product lasts quite a while since the serving is actually very small. I prefer powder because I prefer measuring the dose I want myself, but that's just a personal preference. It works fine, specially if you are feeling a little bit stressed out.
5-HTP PLUS 200mg + Vitamins C & B6
Better mood - Elizabeth, 29/10/2019I feel like I'm in a better mood because I sleep better thanks to the product.
5-HTP PLUS 200mg + Vitamins C & B6
Effective! - Susan, 22/10/2019This is a great product if you have trouble sleeping. Particularly if you combine it with GABA or melatonin from the same brand. They are all super affordable!
5-HTP PLUS 200mg + Vitamins C & B6
Restful sleep - Jeff, 04/10/2019I have been using this product for quite a while and I must say that I have never slept like this in my entire life!
5-HTP 100mg
Provides a restful sleep - Patrick, 29/06/2018It helps to keep the serotonin levels high, which keeps me active and also provides a restful sleep


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Shares in McMillan Shakespeare plumetted when the Rudd government announced it was axing the fringe benefits tax concession on cars.Is your portfolio too reliant on franking?
In Spread yourself out, but not too thinly, I said that diversification – spreading your investments across a variety of assets – means you're not overly exposed to the vagaries of luck. In particular it helps avoid "cliff risk" – the chance your investments might fall over one.
If you want to know what cliff risk looks like, take a look at Chart 1, showing the share price movements of McMillan Shakespeare, one of the country's leading salary packaging companies.
The moment when the Rudd government announced it was axing the fringe benefits tax concession on cars is pretty obvious isn't it?
The company recovered when the current government scrapped the change but it shows how badly a company's share price can collapse when affected by a change in law.
It's not just individual companies, either. Law changes can have a large impact on entire classes of shares, or the sharemarket generally. For instance, consider the current financial system inquiry and the push by some to do away with dividend imputation, better known as franking.
I doubt we're going to lose franking completely; it's enshrined in our investing culture and the basic logic is sound. But it's entirely possible we might see some tweaking of the rules.
It's worth remembering when dividend imputation was introduced in 1987 we didn't have refundable franking credits. Tax paid by companies reduced the tax bill on dividends (avoiding double taxation) but the shareholders couldn't just rock up to the Tax Office and ask for the money back.
That changed in 2000, when franking credits were made refundable to individuals and super funds. Since then, any business operating in Australia has, on a net basis, been paying tax at its shareholders' rate, not the company tax rate (unless foreign owned or paying tax overseas). To the extent it's owned by pension mode (tax exempt) super funds, it's effective tax bill on that part of the business is zero.
As super funds continue to grow, and Australians age, this isn't sustainable. The risk is that the Government will decide that refunding franking credits to non-taxpayers wasn't such a good idea and go back to the pre-2000 rules.
If it does, expect the share prices of those companies paying high, fully-franked dividends such as the banks and Telstra to fall over a cliff. Investments that specifically cater for franking credits – for instance, hybrids – would probably suffer an even worse fate. For a super fund in pension mode, they'd become a security paying an unattractive distribution and get sold en masse.
Other securities might benefit. Property trusts, for instance, wouldn't be affected, so their unit prices might rise as investors scramble out of shares that have franking credits priced in. And investments without an excessive yield focus – like international share funds and small companies – would be relatively untouched.
If you've got a diversified portfolio you don't have too much to fear from franking credit changes or one-off risks generally. But if you're loaded up on financials, hybrids and Telstra, you might be at more risk than you expect of your portfolio value dropping off a cliff.
Richard Livingston is the managing director of Intelligent Investor Super Advisor, an online service providing advice on superannuation and investing. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 282288).
Money readers can enjoy a free Super Advisor trial at super.intelligentinvestor苏州美甲美睫培训学校.au.
This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on 苏州美甲美睫培训学校.


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Pirastro Piranito 900700 Violin / Viola Rosin
Item ID: PIR-100700
or make 4 interest-free payments of $3.50 AUD fortnightly with More info
This Pirastro Piranito rosin is a orange violin/viola rosin. An attractively priced, simple and good rosin for beginners. Comes in a durable square plastic box and is attached to a fabric cover to protect the fingers, hard.
From the 10th to 12th century, people used resin obtained from fir and pine trees for painting and to make their wooden boats waterproof. It was also around that time that people from the eastern parts of the Mediterranean region started to look for new and better ways how to play their stringed instruments. Initially, they would use sticks made from dried sheep gut which had a rather rough surface to strike the strings. Later on, people discovered the benefits of using horsehair for bowing their strings. With a layer of rosin applied onto the bow hair this proved to be the perfect invention. Only bow hair coated with rosin would grab the strings enough for them to be caused to vibrate.
- Orange violin/viola rosin
- Hard rosin, perfect for beginners
Find out more about this product on the manufacturers website.


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I often say that I am the easiest person to buy a gift for – just get me a book and I'm on cloud nine! Be it history, thrillers, sci-fi, biographies, war stories, ghost stories, fairy tales, absolutely anything… I will read it happily. Although after reading a new book, I always go back to certain ones which I have owned eternally. For example, after reading thrillers and action-packed adventures I usually re-read Anne of Green Gables. Or sometimes I sift through the pages of Lord of the Rings for selected passages and poems. The same goes for my Tintin and Famous Five collection. I can't say why I do this; I've never been able to say why certain books keep pulling me back to them. But it makes me feel happy inside… almost safe and secure. Like meeting old friends after ages, or coming home after traveling the world. That satisfaction, familiarity and camaraderie is hard to describe.
One such book which has been with me since forever (I don't remember not having it ever) is a big, red, heavy volume called "Walt Disney's Storyland: 55 Favourite Stories" (anyone having read my last post will be well-aware of my Disney fixation). It has some fascinating illustrated stories. The best thing about it though is the first page – a blank page with a little yellow post-it stuck to it.
Over the years I've taken great care to never lose that tiny note. To
This Neetu, or "Neetu Didi" as I am told I called her, was the daughter of my father's friend. She had gifted this book to me when my family and I left New York to return to India for good. Interestingly, her message turned out to be a prophecy of sorts – I did eventually learn to read and this was one of the first books I ever read from cover to cover.
Also, she wasn't there to see me read it.
What's worse is I don't remember Neetu Didi at all… not her face, not her voice, nothing. She is, in effect, a complete stranger to me. Those being the pre-email, pre-cell phone days, Dad lost contact with his friend. We have tons of photographs from our New York years, but none of her. But I haven't lost hope. One day, I will find her and thank her personally for giving me the first book I ever fell in love with.
I sometimes sit back and think about all the people like her who have knowingly or unknowingly touched my life with their thoughtful actions. It's amazing how many strangers are kind to us and help us when least expected… and we never even get the opportunity to thank them properly.
My parents tell me one such story. When we left for New York, I was a baby. The long flight took a toll on my health and I got really sick in the plane. The airline staff wasted no time in helping out, without being disgruntled or disgusted. So thoughtful were they, that on alighting at the airport, the air-hostess handed Mom a packet of milk. "For your baby", she told her, "Keep this. You probably won't get anything for her at the airport. This will come in handy." They didn't have to do it; they probably didn't do it for everyone (they definitely don't nowadays!). But they did it for Mom and me. I shall remember that forever.
Another time in Mumbai, my sister and I got onto a crowded BEST bus with no vacant seats. As we were standing, a little 7 – 8 year old boy tugged at my sister's sleeve and offered his seat to her. Before we could say anything, he quickly jumped and sat on the lap of the man on the seat behind – his father. My sister politely declined and said she didn't mind standing, but he wouldn't budge. Then he whispered something into his dad's ear. The father turned to us and explained, "He's very happy to offer the seat. Today in school they were taught it was the sign of a gentleman to offer a seat to a lady." At this, the kid gave us the biggest 100-watt smile ever! My sister thanked him and sat down. His chest literally puffed up; he looked so proud and happy!
Then there was the time a salesman in a store gave the 3-year old me a free pair of sunglasses because, "she looked so sad all the grown-ups were buying sunglasses but no one bought her any." Or the time the lady behind the counter secretly gave me extra sprinkles on my ice-cream without my even asking for them. Or the guy at the Wagah Border in Amritsar who bodily guarded my sister and me from getting crushed under the stampeding crowds… the old uncle who proffered me a glass of hot tea in the Golden Temple when he saw me shivering with cold. Even the lady who literally appeared out of nowhere with a nice big bag on seeing me struggling with loads of stuff in my arms. I never got the chance to thank them properly, but whenever I think of them, I thank them in my heart and say a little prayer. I believe it reaches them.
Sometimes complete strangers smile at you, help you when you need it the most, make a difference to your life in the most unexpected ways. You will probably never cross paths with them ever again, but you can never forget them either. Where do they come from? Where do they go? Maybe we will never know.
People call them strangers. I call them angels.
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Mrunal Savkar
Latest posts by Mrunal Savkar (see all)
- Living Beyond Life! - June 18, 2019
- It's the Little Things that Matter. - May 4, 2019
- Mes fées françaises - February 26, 2019
- THE FORGET-ME-NOTS - January 21, 2019


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We want to make owning your Ford as easy and convenient as possible, which is why we offer the option to spread the cost of servicing your vehicle.
Ford Protect service sure is an economical way to keep your vehicle in good condition as it lets you spread the cost of your vehicles service and your maintenance schedule, and pay monthly for them.
Rather then paying for each individual service, you spread the cost of your future service schedule by fixed installments.
All work is carried out to the Ford standards by ford trained technicians using genuine Ford parts and the service plan can be tailored to your estimated annual mileage.
You can contact the service department on 01271 374173 (option 2) or by using the 'contact us' button at the top of the page for a quote


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Depending on where your Gerken work platform is to be used, additional accessories can be helpful and can reduce the operating time. At Gerken you can find the entire assortment of accessory parts – e.g. interchangeable baskets, on-board power generators, diesel particle filters and special fittings for the baskets.
When working in public places, the traffic regulations dictate safety barriers. Upon request, we will inspect your site of operation, take care of all formalities and offer you a complete professional service for securing your site by means of our Gerken site securing service.
Power way up high and without hindering cables? Many of our work platforms provide you with an integrated on-board generator for a vigorous power supply right in the basket and independent of the power grid. The new GL 70 II is even distinguished by a powerful 380 V connection in the cage – high voltage power at a 70 metre working height.
25 metre ceiling heights and higher are more and more common in today's hall construction. High-power diesel machines with their powerful drive are needed for these working heights. Thanks to effective diesel filters, our platforms can also be used indoors without any problems because 90 percent of the soot particles are filtered out.
GS-ArbeitsbühnenBusiness with new and used work platforms, also one year old mashines
Gerken Mietservice Tental-Service for containers, gardening design and landscaping accessories
Gerken Baustellen-Absperr-Service Professional traffic routeing and road safety measures


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Welcome to the last entry in our "blah blah blah Team Fortress 2 blah" daily series. The Orange Box came out today, so if you can be arsed to read this, I shall be truly surprised.
Having tackled every class individually, it's time for some general tips which should helpfully answer such questions as,
-What's the best way to get myself healed?
-How can I encourage team cooperativity?
-Will I ever be loved for who I am?*
Hit the jump for some general tips and the completion of our epic, ten-days-in-the-making serial saga.
*SPOILER ALERT: No.
-Bind "taunt" to a different key
G is far too close to the other keys you need, especially if you're a Spy who needs to rely heavily on the "last disguise" key (B). I've never been more humiliated than when I stabbed an enemy Sniper on a 2fort battlement, then tried to go back to my old disguise, only to engage in a long and unexitable taunt, giving an incoming enemy Medic all the time he needed to kill me with his syringegun.
As of now, I have "taunt" bound to my P key.
-Be annoying
If you're playing with strangers, don't be afraid to nag them into switching to Medic, if your team really needs one. Team Fortress 2 is a team-oriented game, and if your fellow players are too stupid to realize that they aren't helping the team, don't hesitate to bitch at those idiots until they see it your way. If you're on your last control point and five of your six companions are still Snipers, there's no harm in yelling at them. Or, perhaps more preferrably, transferring to a different server with a higher intelligence quotient.
-Play with your friends
If you play with your friends, you probably won't have to be annoying; you'll heal each other as a matter of principle rather than as an obligation, you'll be far more likely to take suggestion, and your team will have a general cohesiveness that you just don't get when playing with strangers. I'm not saying everyone should start clans or anything, but you'll do a hell of a lot better if you're communicating with people close to you, who will listen to and respect your ideas.
-Building destruction and point capture are just as important as kills
Destroying structures and capturing points can help your team just as much, if not more, than killing one or two people, and they still net you points. Most multiplayer FPS games tend to prioritize one's ability to massacre others far above legitimate teamwork or strategizing, so it's understandable that many gamers might have a hard time giving "property destruction" and "murder" equal importance. Once you do, though, you'll be a much better asset to your team.
-I forgot to mention the Soldier's secondary weapons in his article
His shotgun is adequate if you run out of rocket ammo, but his melee weapon is not a bonesaw
by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it isn't even close to a bonesaw
. It'll do the trick if you've literally got nothing else to use against your enemies, but the Soldier's shovel seems to be made of Play-Doh in comparison to some of the more effective melee weapons found in the game.
-Be ready to switch classes depending on the situation
Team Fortress 2 is a very dynamic game, focusing more on clashing strategies than twitch aiming and fast reflexes. As such, the landscape of a round can change multiple times as a game progresses.
First, a team might just have one or two Engineers. Then their flag gets stolen. Now they've got four or five Engineers. With this in mind, you might want to consider switching to Spy; if you're a Sniper, you've now got significantly fewer people to shoot, and are therefore helping your team significantly less by just standing around and praying for someone to walk into your line of fire. Be fluid, and don't tie yourself down to one class, even if it's your favorite.
-A balanced team is a successful team
Generally speaking, no team ever needs five Snipers or six Spies. Generally. The classes in TF2 complement each other, so try not to have too many of the same class on one team at one time; you don't want your team to have one large weakness which can be exploited just because you're all short or long range fighters. Mix it up, baby -- get Medics, Heavies, Engineers, Demomen. Variety is the spice of etcetera, and all that.
-The respawn room is your friend
It refills your health, ammo, and, if you're an Engineer, metal. Don't be afraid to spend the extra time necessary to run back to your respawn room and stock up again -- that is, unless your team is winning and you feel that the subsequent shortened respawn times make death a quicker solution to fully recharging yourself versus spending all the time it might take to run to the respawn point, and then run back to where yo uwere.
Oh, it also allows you to switch classes on the fly without dying or having to wait for a respawn time. This is goddamned invaluable if you suddenly find an Engineer sentry you need to take out, but you don't want to stay as a Spy for very long.
-During the 50 seconds of prep time in cp_well, don't stand so goddamn close to the doors before they open
From a certain angle, you can be shot at and killed. There's nothing more idiotic than getting shot to death before the round even starts.
-Get a headset
It's a hell of a lot quicker than voice commands or typing, and is by far the best method of communicating with your team. However, if you do all your communication through the headset, ignore the earlier "be annoying" suggestion; the absolute last thing you want is for people to mute you and not listen to your suggestions just because you were repeatedly yelling "SOMEONE GO MEDIC" at the top of your lungs.
-Play at least one full round as every character
Not only will it net you an achievement, but it'll get you used to the innerworkings of all the classes -- not just so you can utilize their strengths when needed and understand how to play as them, but also so you know how to defeat them. Playing as a character is a great way of learning about their weaknesses, as well as their strengths.
-Get to know the maps
This'll probably happen whether you actively practice at it or not, but try to memorize the different routes in each map, learning where enemies tend to be and how to best approach capture points. This strategy obviously isn't specific to TF2, but if you're someone who hasn't been in on the TF2 beta since it began, be warned; most of us have been playing for two or three weeks, and we know the initial six maps like the back of our hand. This puts you at an immediate disadvantage, so see to that.
-CVG has fifteen extra things you need to know
Original article hyah.
Including ignoring absolutely everything in this series. As more maps are released and more players discover the nuances of these classes, these strategies might become antiquated and require tweaking, or a complete overhaul. Do not be afraid to experiment; Team Fortress 2 is a very strategy-oriented team multiplayer game, and the ways the nine classes interact with each other can make for some very original, compelling battle strategies. Hell, coming up with your own methods is half the fun -- lawd knows that a majority of the tips left in the comments of my posts have often been more informative than the info found in the posts themselves.
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Paytm Registers Strong Growth in Mobile Recharges as Offline Market Shifts OnlineNovember 30, 2016 0 comments
Paytm has registered a strong surge in online recharges on its platform post the government's move to demonetize Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes. As millions of new consumers tried mobile recharges for the first time, Paytm has registered over 35 million online recharges in the last few days.
Backed by a strong payment ecosystem, Paytm currently dominates India's online recharges space with over 70 percent market share. Registering over 100 percent growth in its online recharges segment over the last couple of days, Paytm expects the recent surge in transactions to further increase its share.
Speaking on the announcement, Shankar Nath, Snr. Vice President – Paytm said, "At Paytm, we are humbled by the fact that people have used Paytm on a massive scale for online mobile recharges and bill payments. Millions of new consumers across the country have adopted digital, Cash free recharges and bill payments for the first time. We also noticed a trend of users recharging over 5-6 mobile numbers online to assist friends and family."
Fintech start-ups are the biggest beneficiaries of the government's demonetisation initiative.


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Statement from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse in Response to President Trump Declaring the Opioid Epidemic a National Public Health Emergency
Statement from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse in Response to President Trump Declaring the Opioid Epidemic a National Public Health Emergency
For the millions of Americans affected by opioid addiction, this issue is personal. But, to save lives, action is needed on a national level. President Trump's declaration of the opioid epidemic as a public health emergency has the potential to free up much needed federal resources to help prevent and treat opioid addiction and reduce overdose deaths. This is an important first step towards underscoring the urgency of this problem and encouraging the type of long-term investment our nation needs to solve the addiction crisis. Yet, it is not enough. Federal and state leaders must work together to address this epidemic, with the federal government providing states the resources they need to develop an effective response.
For state leaders seeking additional guidance on how to address the epidemic in their own region, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has developed Ending the Opioid Crisis: A Practical Guide for State Policymakers. This guide contains policy recommendations and best practices grounded in a public health framework -- an approach proven to be effective for addressing addiction. Our Center is available to partner with states to optimize federal and state funding to help end this epidemic.
By working together and developing an approach rooted in science, we know we can overcome this crisis.
Newsletter Additional Information
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Part I – STEM & G&T Education in the USA
Recent Federal Activity
Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) education has been a prominent issue in the United States for several years. The STEM Education Coalition's website provides an impressive list of relevant reports produced between 1996 and 2008.
More recently, the White House has sought to co-ordinate activity to support STEM education through the Educate to Innovate campaign launched in 2009. Educate to Innovate has three broad objectives:
- to increase STEM literacy so that all students can learn deeply and think critically in STEM subjects;
- to improve the performance of American students in relevant international comparisons "from the middle of the pack to top in the next decade"; and
- to expand STEM education and career opportunities for under-represented groups, including women and girls.
In September 2010, the President announced an expansion of Educate to Innovate through Change the Equation, the name given to a new not-for-profit organisation established by the business community to help in 'elevating STEM education as a national priority essential to meeting the economic challenges of this century'.
Change the Equation also has three stated goals:
- to improve STEM teaching at all grade levels;
- to inspire student appreciation and excitement for STEM, especially among women and under-represented minorities; and,
- To secure a sustained commitment to improving STEM education.
To coincide with this announcement, the President's Council of Advisors in Science and Technology (PCAST) – a group of 20 of the USA's leading scientists and engineers established by Obama in April 2009 – published a Report to the President setting out wide-ranging policy proposals for improving STEM education.
The press release marking publication singles out some of the most significant recommendations aimed at federal government, including that they should:
- recruit and train 100,000 great STEM teachers over the next decade who are able to prepare and inspire students;
- recognize and reward the top 5 percent of the Nation's STEM teachers, by creating a STEM master teachers corps;
- create 1,000 new STEM-focused schools over the next decade;
- use technology to drive innovation, in part by creating an advanced research projects agency for education;
- create opportunities for inspiration through individual and group experiences outside the classroom; and
- support the movement for shared common standards in maths and science.
The National Science Board
Not to be outdone, Some four months previously, another body, the National Science Board – the Governing Board of the National Science Foundation and Policy Advisors to the President and Congress – had published its own report which is the main focus of this post.
The NSB has 25 members from university and industry appointed by the President. The Board is responsible, along with the Director, for administering the activities of the National Science Foundation, established in 1950 to, inter alia, 'recommend and encourage the pursuit of national policies for the promotion of research and education in science and engineering'.
The NSB had formerly published, in October 2007, a 'National Action Plan for Addressing the Critical Needs of the US Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education System' . This sets out wide-ranging recommendations including the formation of a National Council for STEM education and development by the NSF of a 'national roadmap' for STEM education.
It subsequently offered a set of recommendations on STEM education to the incoming Obama administration in January 2009 which includes the proposal that:
'The Federal Government should ensure that we are developing the talents of all children who have the potential to become STEM innovators or excellent STEM professionals.'
This is further developed in the NSB publication 'Preparing the Next Generation of STEM Innovators: Identifying and Developing Our Nation's Human Capital' which effectively joins together the G&T education and STEM agendas in the USA, pointing to the importance of 'STEM innovators', defined by the Report as:
'those individuals who have developed the expertise to become leading STEM professionals and perhaps the creators of significant breakthroughs or advances in scientific and technological understanding.'
The focus of the Report can probably be traced to the fact that one of the current members of the National Science Board is Camilla P Benbow from Vanderbilt University, a psychologist and gifted education specialist perhaps best-known for her involvement with the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY).
The Report draws on the work of an ad hoc Task Group led by Benbow which was formed in August 2008 and an expert panel discussion held in August 2009. The Task Group was asked to identify strategies to increase the number of future STEM innovators and set out recommendations for how the NSF and federal partners might support their development.
The Arguments Advanced in the NSB Report
The Report begins by tracing interest in the development of American scientific talent back to the Second World War and the Sputnik wake-up call delivered by the Russians in the 1950s. It argues that this national sense of urgency was dissipated by the 1970s but needs urgently to be revived, given the strength of international competition.
It quotes PISA 2006 data showing that US 15 year-olds above the 90th percentile were rated only 30th in the world on maths literacy and 13th on science literacy. Furthermore, in the 2007 TIMSS study, the percentage of US 8th graders achieving the advanced benchmark in maths (6%) was dwarfed by Taiwan (45%), South Korea (40%) and Singapore (also 40%).
It also draws on data showing that the best qualified US students have for decades been disinclined to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in STEM subjects. It references the well-known evidence base for the argument that US G&T education is neglected, including the NAGC's 'State of the States' review and the 2007 Achievement Trap report, which drew attention to the underachievement of gifted learners from minority ethnic and socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Report cites survey and research evidence to support the contention that 'intellectual talent often generates attitudes ranging from ambivalence to outright hostility', going on to highlight the significant scope that exists to improve the identification and development of STEM talent:
'More often than not, across the educational ecosystem, we see a patchwork of individual, often ad hoc provisions implemented and funded at the local level: these approaches have been instrumental for many of today's STEM innovators and should continue. In addition, a coherent, long-term, state- or Nation-wide plan to develop the next generation of leaders in STEM is also needed. Our Nation has too often left to chance the fate of those with exceptional talent rather than ensuring widespread, systematic and appropriate opportunities to flourish.'
The NSB's Recommendations
The Report recommends a set of policy actions and a research agenda for three 'keystone recommendations'. While I accept that much remains unknown in the territory, I am not sure it will serve the US to invest too high a proportion of its scarce resources in generating further research studies. I have the ex-policy maker's preference for concrete action to change the situation described in the report, so I will concentrate solely on the policy recommendations.
First, the NSB argues that the country should provide opportunities for excellence in the form of 'co-ordinated, proactive, sustained formal and informal interventions to develop the abilities of its most talented students' by:
- encouraging the adoption of supportive policies at state and district level on differentiated instruction, acceleration and enrichment and transition between schools;
- improving access to and the quality of dual enrolment, college-level coursework and enrichment programmes;
- supporting high-quality STEM-focused professional development for teachers, including non-subject specialists working with younger learners;
- giving federal support to programmes with a proven record of success in stimulating potential STEM innovators;
- through the NSF, encouraging stronger partnership between universities, museums, industry, content developers and providers, research laboratories and schools to 'deploy the Nation's science assets in ways that engage tomorrow's STEM innovators';
- creating NSF-driven programmes that provide portable merit-based scholarships for talented students to take part in challenging enrichment activities.
- increasing online access and online learning activities in rural and low-income areas; and
- creating a national database of appropriate formal and informal learning opportunities and promote these nationally to parents, educators and providers.
Second, the US should cast a wide net to identify and develop all abilities amongst all student demographics by:
- improving the availability and 'vertical coherence' of existing talent identification;
- expand existing tests and identification strategies to ensure that spatial talent is not neglected;
- increasing access to above-level testing and other identification activity, especially in disadvantaged urban and rural areas;
- encouraging initial training and professional development of teachers in talent identification and development; and
- encouraging early childhood educators and paediatricians to improve awareness of early giftedness and how to respond to it.
Third, the country should foster a supportive ecosystem that celebrates excellence and innovation through a positive and inclusive culture by:
- establishing a national campaign to increase understanding and appreciation of academic excellence so transforming unhelpful stereotypes;
- encouraging through professional development the creation of positive school environments that foster excellence;
- increasing schools' capacity to engage their learners in peer-to-peer collaboration and connections between students and the scientific research community;
- holding schools – and potentially districts and states – accountable for the performance of their highest achieving students at each grade;
- arranging for the NSF in partnership with the Institute of Education Sciences to hold a high-level conference that brings together scientists and educators to discuss teacher education and pedagogical best practice in fostering innovative thinking in children and young adults.
What Impact will the Report Have?
The Report concludes:
'The Board firmly believes that the recommendations set forth in this report will help to ensure a legacy of continued prosperity for the United States and engender a renewed sense of excellence in our education system, benefiting generations to come.'
Well, maybe, but this is clearly a crowded area in US policy-making with a whole host of federal interests involved. Arne Duncan's statement on the publication of the President's Council Report acknowledges the contribution and involvement of the NSF amongst others.
But it is not yet clear whether the NSB will be successful in persuading the federal Government to invest in G&T education, albeit with a STEM focus.
I am not well-versed in how these things are handled on the other side of the Atlantic but, had I been the federal official charged with developing national STEM education policy, I could have wished for a somewhat clearer report with:
- some prioritisation between the different recommendations and a clearer delineation of responsibility for their implementation;
- greater clarity about how these recommendations relate to other parts of the Presidential agenda for STEM as set out in the publications referenced above; and, above all,
- some realistic costings showing how the recommendations can be achieved within a finite budget .
For I fear that, while much of the Report makes eminent good sense, it is insufficiently specific about how its recommendations can be delivered.
Time will tell whether the Report will influence directly the content of US national policy on STEM education. If it can do so, it is perhaps the best hope for the reform of US G&T education, especially if the vital connection between STEM support and narrowing the 'excellence gap' can be sustained.
November 2010


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Location Baltimore, Maryland
Project Detail
The Raven's NFL Stadium, featured in the movie "The Replacements" seats 68,400 fans on three levels and has 109 private suites. The stadium was completed September 1998 and is framed with a combination of cast-in-place concrete columns and bents supporting precast concrete double tee units. The upper seating deck is precast seating units and are supported on structural steel boxed plate girders and tapered columns.
Maryland Chapter of the American Concrete Institute
– Concrete Excellence, 1999


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Home fires are deadly, killing thousands every year in the United States alone—and they're almost always preventable. Still, while prevention is key, it's what you do in the middle of a fire that may save your life. Unlike other disasters that give you warning and time to get away, a fire isn't nearly as forgiving. Here's how to prepare, and what to do.
Before: Preparation (and Smoke Detectors) Is Everything
Remember, a house fire isn't just one thing—it's a deadly mixture of things: Smoke and toxic gases, lack of oxygen, crippling heat, scorching flames, and a lack of light are all dangerous on their own, and a house fire offers every single one of them. It's important to be prepared and act quickly if a fire occurs.
- Make sure you have a disaster plan. Your plan in the case of a fire should largely consist of an evacuation plan that you've practiced. Everyone in your household or office should be well versed in it, and you should have meet-up or rally points set at a safe distance from your home or office. Make sure you have multiple ways out of each room, even if that means you need collapsible fire ladders for upper-floor windows. If you live in an apartment building or high-rise, memorize the fastest way to the nearest stairwell, by sight and by feel. You should be able to get there even if you can't see—which you may not be able to in a fire.
- Make sure you can open windows, screens, security bars, and doors. You and everyone in your household should be comfortable opening security bars on windows, screen doors, anything that might slow down your egress from a burning building.
- Make sure you have smoke alarms installed and you change their batteries regularly. Dual-sensor smoke detectors are best, as they feature both ionization and photoelectric smoke sensors. If they're wired to the power in your home, that's best, but they should also have battery backups. Change those batteries regularly—every year is a good guideline, or every time daylight savings kicks starts or ends. Don't let cost hold you back—most fire departments will give smoke detectors and batteries out for free if you can't afford them. While you're getting smoke alarms, get a carbon monoxide detector too.
- Keep household fire extinguishers handy. If the fire is serious, do not try putting it out yourself. A household extinguisher can help keep a small fire from spreading, or help you clear a path to a safe area, but they're not for heroics. I like to keep one in my bedroom and another in the kitchen in my apartment. If you live in a larger house, you may consider two on every floor, especially near bedrooms, kitchens, furnaces, or water heaters.
During: Get Low, Get Out
During a house fire, escape should be your top priority. You may only have seconds to get out safely. You likely won't have time to grab a go-bag or run around the house collecting important items. Leave them and get out as soon as possible. If a fire alarm has gone off in your building, you may have a few moments, but if there's a fire in your house, there's no time to waste.
- Get to the nearest exit immediately. If there's smoke in the air, get as low as possible where you may be able to breathe and feel your way out. If there's smoke blocking your door, open the window. Before opening any door, feel the doorknob and the door body. If it's warm or there's smoke coming in from the other side, don't open the door—there may be a raging fire on the other side. Use your second exit, even if it's a window. If you have to open a door, open it slowly and be ready to shut it if smoke comes in.
- Once you're out, contact emergency services. Don't wait to contact them inside the house. Get out first. If you can't get to family members or pets on the safe way out, let them know when you call 911 and let them know where in the home they are.
- Do not go back into a burning building.
After: Stay Safe and Pick Up The Pieces
House fires are incredibly destructive. You likely won't be able to return to your home until well after the danger has passed. Wait for the fire department to tell you it's safe. Contact your insurance company, landlord, mortgage company, or any other relevant agencies to let them know about the fire. When the fire department has given you the okay to go back inside, try to collect valuable items like documents, records, or irreplaceable items and assess the damage. Before you leave a fire-damaged home, let the police know that you're leaving and the place will be unoccupied—fire damaged properties are often a target for burglars.
The US Fire Administration has an What to Do After a Home Fire checklist and guide to help you through the first 24 hours after a fire, including everything from insurance to replacement documents that may have been lost. Rebuilding after a fire is a long and draining process. It's not something that happens in a day, or even a few weeks—it takes a long time. Be ready for a long process, and give yourself plenty of time to recover. ARS, Ready to Serve. 888-498-8356 https://www.arsserve.com/


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Dana Glass
Associate, Ebby Halliday Realtors
- Direct (214)793-3165
- Work (972)987-3800
- Fax (972)335-1115
- Email firstname.lastname@example.com
- Preston Plano Parkway Office
- 5013 West Plano Parkway
- Plano, TX 75093
- DesignationsCNE, CRS
About Me
Dana's #1 Priority is her Customers!
Whether you are in the market to Buy or Sell a home an Experienced Realtor makes the difference!
Dana will listen to Your Needs and Expectations!
She will put together a customized Real Estate Plan to help You achieve Your Real Estate goals!
- Real Estate Expert - 25 + years' Experience
- Expert area knowledge - 37 + year Dallas Resident
- Experienced Relocation Agent - Dana has successfully helped hundreds of clients move in & out of the Metroplex over her career
- New Build Expert and Certified Negotiation Expert
Designations and Awards
- CRS - Certified Residential Specialist (3% nationally) One of the highest awards in the Real Estate Industry
- VIP Customer Service Award 2015, 2017
- Star, Platinum & Diamond award Company Winner
- Collin County Excellence Award
- 2016, 2017, 2018 Five Star Professional
Please call Dana today with any Real Estate questions! She is always open to work with any family, friends or co-workers and to help you with any of your Real Estate Needs!