text:
From THE BRIGADE, Chapter VIII.
[A young woman is being recruited into the Northwest Volunteer Army. It should be pointed out, for those who worry about such things, that while the character of "Ma" is Identity Christian, THE BRIGADE and the other Northwest novels are non-sectarian and have many Odinist, National Socialist, pagan and non-religious characters. We are a movement of blood, not faith.]
Kicky called the bogus trip in and pulled out into Broadway. "Okay, where are we really going?" she asked.
"Just head toward Gresham," he said.
"Uh, okay, what happens now?" she asked.
"You're going to meet someone and have a talk with them," said Wingo genially. "And with me."
"Get to tell my life story, huh?" remarked Kicky, navigating through the traffic. It was still light out, so she had no need for headlights.
"We already pretty much know that," said Wingo. "We actually think you can be of some use to us. This cab, for instance. Cabbies are people we like to recruit. Taxis can go anywhere, be seen on the streets at any time of day or night, and no one thinks they're out of place or questions their presence. For the time being, a lot of your work for the NVA will be doing just what you're doing now, driving people and sometimes packages here, there, and everywhere. Of course you'll have to get creative about your trip sheet. We've wanted to get someone with access to an Excelsior Cab for quite some time now. Most of the more upmarket fleets have GPIs installed in their cars to keep track of where their vehicles are going, make sure the driver's not cooking his sheet or running off the meter or fucking off, that kind of thing. But Excelsior is owned by a couple of Bangladeshis who are too cheap to spring for the system. You might say you're uniquely positioned. How bad was it down in Coffee Creek?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject.
"It wasn't one of my more edifying experiences in life, thank you," said Kicky sourly.
"I've been there myself. Angola, in Louisiana," he told her.
Kicky was tempted to ask him if that's where he was from, and what he had gone to prison for, but the old convict code immediately kicked in. You never asked. "That's worse," she admitted. "Even out here we've heard of Angola."
"Any society that permits a place like that to be, has to be destroyed," said Wingo, not angry or bitter, simply stating a self-evident fact.
"Is that possible?" asked Kicky, genuinely interested. "I mean, I meant what I said, I want in, but it seems to me we're either going to have to have some kind of secret weapon to bring these bastards down with, or else just get really lucky."
"There's an old Norse saying: 'Luck often enough will save a man, if his courage hold,'" Wingo replied. "McGee. That's Irish, right?"
"Yeah, way back," she said. "Both sides. My mom was a Harrigan. I remember my dad used to get drunker than usual every St. Patrick's Day, before he split. I guess that's about all of Ireland we kept with us. Some of my tats are Irish. The Book of Kells thing, and also I have a Celtic Cross on my ankle."
"Well, the Irish never gave up for eight hundred years," said Wingo.
"I hope we can win a bit sooner than that," said Kicky with a small laugh.
"The Army Council is basing all its strategic thinking on an assumed thirty-year conflict," said Wingo seriously.
Kicky glanced into her side mirror. "Cops coming up in the left lane," she said. "Two cars. They always move in pairs now."
"I see them," said Wingo. He shifted slightly and Kicky was sure he'd pulled out a pistol. "Just watch your speed and wave at them if they look at you when they go by. Don't look away."
The two police cars slowly pulled up alongside the cab in the left lane; the cops in the passenger side looked into the cab. Kicky waved casually; Wingo looked them right in the face but did nothing. The two units pulled on ahead, and after a few minutes made a left turn onto a freeway entrance ramp.
"No problem," Wingo remarked.
"How did you know they wouldn't try to pull us over?" asked Kicky.
"That was just a regular patrol," said Wingo. "They might have tried to pull you if you'd been speeding, or they had a warrant on you, or something else routine, but they're under orders not to tangle with any Volunteers they detect. They're supposed to hang back, keep us in sight, then get on the horn and yell for an RRT, a rapid response team. Those are the ones you have to watch out for, small convoys with multiple squad cars and one or two armored trucks or vans with them. The armored personnel carriers have a squad of muscle men in body armor and all kinds of heavy weapons inside. Some of them have concealed .50-caliber machine guns in a kind of retractable turret. Remember, ordinary police will never engage any suspect or enemy whom they even suspect might have equal or greater firepower. They always maintain distance and call for backup. Preserving their own lives is a very serious priority with them, and they are trained to operate in those parameters."
[Some passages redacted so as not to give away essential plot details.]
The taxi was now driving down a residential street of ranch-type houses that would have been called middle class, back in the days when America still had a middle class. Dusk was falling now, and the street seemed desolate and deserted; there were no lights shining from about half the houses on the street. At the far end of the street Wingo told her to pull into the driveway of one of the apparently darkened homes. He got out, and she followed suit. "Some day you may have to pick yourself a location for a meet like this," he said conversationally. "Let's see how sharp you are. Why do you think we chose this house?"
"Uh, I see a front and side door, and I assume there's a back, so a lot of exits," said Kicky. "That looks like a big open field in the rear, vacant lots or something like that, and this street is a straight shot down to the end here, so you can pretty much see who's coming a good ways off. It would be hard for anyone to sneak up on us. All kinds of side streets around here you could slide around in and most of them feed onto main arteries, so once you got loose either in a car or on foot, you'd have a pretty good chance to get away, especially in the dark.
"Very good!" he said approvingly.
The lights flashed on a car parked down the street; it started and moved slowly toward them, then into the driveway. The door opened and a small, birdlike woman with gray hair got out. She was wearing a simple dress and carrying a large battered handbag. "Hey!" she called cheerily as she walked up to them and the car pulled away. "Y'all eaten supper yet?" Her accent was more distinctly Southern than the man's.
"We're fine, Ma," he said. "She'll cook at the drop of a hat," he said in an aside to Kicky. "Ma, this is Kicky McGee. Kicky, this is Ma. She kind of does the hiring for female Volunteers. She's the one who decides tonight whether we bring you into the NVA, or whether we kill you and bury you in the basement."
"Now you just hush!" scolded Ma. "Who are you tonight, anyway?"
"Thumper," Wingo told her.
"Don't mind Thumper, dear," said the old woman. "He's got a bug up his ass about women in general. He's just trying to see if you scare easy."
"Of course I'm scared!" snapped Kicky. "But I'm here, aren't I?"
"Come on inside," she said. She took the house keys out of her handbag and opened the door. She took them right into the kitchen and turned on the lights. Kicky didn't see too much else of the home other than a darkened living room. Then she put the kettle on the stove and rooted around in the cupboard for cups. "Have a seat, both of you, and I'll make us some tea. Tell me, dear, are you a Christian?" she asked Kicky suddenly, taking her by surprise.
"Uh…I don't know how I'm supposed to answer that, ma'am," Kicky said. "I think you already know what I am."
"Yes, dear, I know," said the old lady kindly, "But the two have never been as mutually exclusive as people tend to think."
"Judge not lest ye be judged in turn and all that?" asked Kicky.
"Oh, poppycock!" said Ma. "This idea that no human being is supposed to ever make a moral judgment on anyone else is horse hockey. The Bible is full of people who did nothing but that. They were called prophets. There are all kinds of people running around today who are in urgent need of being judged. People make moral judgments all the time. The hog-jawed doo-doo birds who run this country have judged our entire race and condemned us all to death, and by God we need to start returning the favor!"
"Hog-jawed doo-doo birds?" laughed Wingo in amusement. "I never heard that one before. I'll have to remember that."
"You do that, young man. No, honey, the reason I asked was that I need to know what your moral universe is like. Everybody has one."
"Uh, I don't think I do," said Kicky carefully. "I mean, where would I get a moral universe and what good would it do me if I had one? I just want in with the NVA to try and make some kind of better life for me and my baby, and well, I told myself I'd be honest with you, so I'll say it. I want revenge! Revenge against some specific people who have hurt me, yes, but mostly just revenge on this whole damned filthy world that has never done anything except shit on me! I am just so tired of bad people winning all the time, so sick of nothing ever being right or good anymore. Why should it always be the bad people who win, and me who hurts? Goddamned niggers and Mexicans taking everything, goddamned cops beating me and shaking me down and locking me in a cage with animals, fucking Jews and rich bastards looking down their noses at me and treating me like dirt, I just want to hear them scream, and watch everything they have burn …" She put her hand to her mouth, and realized with sudden astonishment that she had begun to cry. "Jesus, where did all that come from?" she asked in a shaky voice.
"I'd say from the heart," commented Wingo. "And ma'am, there ain't a damned thing wrong with anything you just said."
Ma took her hand. "Honey, if you'd given me some long speech that sounded like you'd been reading our books, and I thought you were telling me what you think I want to hear or something you'd been coached to say, I would have been suspicious, but you would be plain astonished to learn how many of us come into this thing running on nothing but pure rage. It is a righteous rage, the true Wrath of God, and it is a thing to be gloried in, not ashamed of. You have been done a terrible wrong, from the very moment of your birth, as has every man and woman with a white skin born in the past century. You have been denied your birthright, which is this world and everything in it, and you have every right to desire revenge and to seek it though our Army. Later on we'll educate you, give you things to read and teach you how and why this terrible wrong has been done to you and to all of us, and by whom, and why, but pure righteous rage in your heart is a good starting point."
"It's just that—damn it all, things shouldn't be like this!" Kicky sniffled, tears streaming down her face.
"And that tells me that you do indeed have a moral universe in you somewhere, in spite of the bad things you've done and in spite of the way you've lived your life," said Ma. "That's one of the things that make us different from these dark-skinned animals around us, Kristin. They glory in the filth of this world. They wallow in it like hogs in a trough. They love it, because like animals they don't know it's wrong. The muds have no knowledge of good or evil. They have only appetites to be sated. We know, and the Jews know as well, only the Jews worship that evil as their god. I think that was the secret of the forbidden fruit that Eve partook of in the Garden so long ago, that knowledge of right and wrong and the instinctive choice of right. For better or for worse, we ended up with that knowledge in our souls, and a hundred years of Jew lies and political correctness can't eradicate it. In spite of everything, it's still there in you, girl. You're still good inside. The rest we can work on. The rest you can change."
For the next hour, they simply sat around the kitchen table and talked. Kicky calmly went over her whole life, such as it was, from her childhood to the present, and with the exception of the events of the past couple of weeks, every bit of it was true. However deeply they had investigated her background, she knew it would all check out. "I was going back to the life to try and make money so I could get out of Oregon, and take Ellie," she admitted. "But I knew it was only a temporary fix. It Takes A Village is everywhere, and whatever file they have on me and Ellie would catch up with us, eventually. Then I recognized your guy Lockhart in Jupiter's Den that day. I thought about it all day, and that night I was going to ask Lenny to introduce me, but he ended up dead. The rest you know. I don't know what else to tell you guys," she concluded. "If I'm going in that hole in the basement tonight, you'd better go get the shovel."
"I didn't think to bring one," said Wingo.
"So what happens now? What do you want me to do?" asked Kicky.
"The next step is that we will arrange for you to receive a copy of the old Party Handbook and the new NVA General Orders," said Ma. "The General Orders you need to memorize, and I do mean memorize, and then destroy the sheet of paper that they're printed on, because if you're caught with them in your possession it's a federal felony carrying a death sentence. No kidding. These tyrants are killing people now simply for having a single sheet of paper. You need to have the General Orders committed to memory not just for your own security, but because you will be expected to obey them. Always. Without fail."
"And not obeying the sheet of paper carries a death penalty from our side," concluded Kicky, careful to use the word our. "Okay, I get it."
"I hope you do, honey," said Ma with a sigh. "The Handbook you need to read because it explains a lot of other things you need to know, deeper and more complicated things. It explains the nature of the corrupt and satanic society in which we live, why it must be brought to an end, and how we will accomplish that. The big picture, so to speak. Copies of the Handbook are too large to be destroyed except at necessity, although if you think you or your premises are about to be searched, for God's sake hide it or destroy it. The Handbook is just as deadly dangerous to be caught with as the General Orders. Once we get a copy to you, you need to read it right away, because we can only let you have it for a few days and then we'll need to get it back from you to pass on to the next person."
"So when do I get to be a Northwest Volunteer?" asked Kicky.
"You don't, not at first. We need to take a good long look at you and see how you perform, like any job," said Wingo. "To begin with, you'll be what some crews call an asset, what others call a candidate member. If we were niggers we'd use the term wannabe, if we were the Mob we'd call you connected but not yet made. That taxicab of yours still intrigues us," he continued. "We have people and materials that need to do a lot of moving around. We start you out simple. We arrange a lot of business for you, posing as street hails because calling your dispatcher and asking for you specifically would raise suspicion. You drive people and stuff from point A to point B, you dummy up your records to make sure it all looks copacetic on paper, and we'll pay you the meter and a good tip so you can actually make a nice legal income. If everything works out and you're looking good to us in a few months, we start giving you some more stuff to do."
"Okay, there is one thing I need to tell you guys right up front," said Kicky hesitantly. "I know this may make you suspicious of me, but I can't lie about it." She took up a deep breath. "I don't know if I can kill anybody. I know what I said about wanting revenge and all, and it's true, but I just don't know if I could point a gun at anybody and pull the trigger myself. I'm not saying I couldn't, you understand. Hell, maybe I can. But I just don't know, and if that's the kind of test you want to give me to become a member, I'm not sure I can pass it."
"You won't be asked to make your bones for a good while," said Wingo, "And even then, it will be voluntary on your part. This is not a regular war. Our people have to carry an immensely personal and crushing burden on their shoulders, and that goes far more so for the shooters and the bombers. Only a small number of people have the right combination of steady hand and nerves of steel, along with—oh, hell, I suppose you'd call it a lack of introspection, the ability to just do the job and then not worry about it afterwards. If they're not right for it, their conscience gets to eating at them, they start losing their nerve and going to pieces and muttering about finding Jesus and getting forgiveness. No offense, Ma."
"None taken," said Ma. "It does happen, and then there are problems all across the board. White people are the greatest killers the world has ever known, but we have in fact been subjected to that century of social engineering and behavior modification through propaganda that I mentioned earlier, and in a lot of our people, that predator gene does seem to have been bred out. The NVA understands that as badly as we need combat soldiers, it's just not a good idea to force somebody into that position. Kicky, we have got some women in this outfit that will shoot a man just as soon as look at him, if he is an enemy of our race. I know because I'm one of 'em. Maybe you'll be one of 'em one day, maybe you won't. You will never be asked to do anything that is beyond your strength. But you will find that as time goes on, and you come to understand who you are, that your strength is greater than you think. Now I reckon you and Thumper better be getting' on back into town so you can finish your shift."
Kicky went back out to the cab. Wingo hung back. "What's the verdict?" he asked Ma.
She sighed. "That girl's got something eating at her, but from what we know of her, it could be any one of a dozen things. If we excluded everybody with secret sorrows and secret sins in their hearts, there wouldn't be too many Northwest Volunteers. I can't down-check her."
"Hardly a ringing endorsement," commented Wingo.
"We can't get so paranoid that we can't function," said Ma. "I'll tell Oscar I think you should try her out, just keep her at arm's length, which is what we do with new recruits anyway."
"Got it. Say hello to Carter and Rooney and Shane for me when you get back to Dundee," said Wingo as he headed out the door.
On the cab ride back, Wingo ran down for Kicky the procedures that would be used for providing her with her "special" fares, simple pickup codes via text message and cell phone for her rendezvous points with Volunteers needing transport, etc. As they neared the center of town, Kicky asked him, "What did Ma mean when she said you had a bug up your ass about women?"
Wingo sighed. "Same thing you probably feel about men. I've just been betrayed once too often. Nothing personal. I think that's the worst thing that the Jews have done to us, in a way. Made white men and women hate and fear and mistrust one another. I know it's wrong. I know all white women aren't like the one who sent me to prison, and I figure you're smart enough to know that all white men aren't like Lenny Gillis."
"Yeah, I know it in my mind," said Kicky. "It's just common sense that there have to be some good men left out there somewhere. But why the hell don't I ever meet any?"
"The mutual consensus seems to be that white women are all neurotic and treacherous bitches teetering on the edge of outright insanity, who view men as enemies to be overcome and humiliated and scored off, while white men are all overgrown adolescents who are still playing with toys at age forty, and who don't ever intend to grow up and take on any responsibility in life," said Wingo. "And you know, there is a hell of a lot of truth in both those assessments. That's what the Jews have done to us, may God damn them all to hell."
"Does the NVA have a lot of women members?" asked Kicky.
"Mmm, some. Look, I'm afraid I still presume most white women are write-offs, but I will say this: the few remaining exceptions have more range than men do. The good ones are better, the smart ones are smarter, the brave ones are braver, and the vile ones are viler. Okay, tell you what, let's just leave that subject. I know it's rude, and there's no call to be rude."
"Well, I will say, you have yet to make any snide cracks about my lurid past," admitted Kicky. "That's encouraging."
"You've already said that you know where you've been," said Wingo with a shrug. "No call for me to remind you. Here, pull over on this corner. You'll probably start getting some of our special trips tomorrow night. One of the people you drive will give you a copy of the Handbook and the General Orders. I'll repeat what Ma told you, because this is important. Memorize the General Orders and then live by them. There's only ten of them, just like the Commandments, and like the Commandments they're just what they say they are: orders, not suggestions. You'll have a couple of days to read the Handbook, and then you need to give it back to the next comrade who will ask for its return. Do not show it to anybody else or allow yourself to be caught with it, Kicky. Possession of a copy of the Party Handbook or the Army General Orders is considered by the ZOG court system to be prima facie evidence of NVA membership or association, and gets you a short ride strapped to a gurney into a little room with a needle in it. We're not joking about that."
"I know you're not," She pulled over and he opened the door. She did not look back at him. "Hey, Thumper, do I get some way to contact you if I need to?"
"Not yet," he said. "No offense."
"None taken," she replied. "One more thing: if Ma had given you a thumbs down tonight, would you really have killed me?"
"Yes," he said. "Does that bother you?"
"It would have bothered me more if you'd lied about it," she said, looking back at him. "Have a good one."
"You too." Then he was gone.


text:
Guest poem submitted by Masha Saakova:
(Poem #1831) My Name
One night when the lawn was a golden green and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered what I would become -- and where I would find myself -- and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard my name as if for the first time, heard it the way one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off as though it belonged not to me but to the silence from which it had come and to which it would go.
You already have three Mark Strand poems up, but this one is, by far, my favorite. I saw it last year in The New Yorker. I don't want to dissect this poem too much because I have read it over and over again simply for the experience. It also seems that Strand poems do not necessarily have a singular or definite meaning, and that's really part of their beauty. "My Name" needs to be read aloud -- the sounds are musical (he does a lot of near-rhymes, consonsance, assonance, alliteration.) I love the stillness and, yet, the suspense and darkness of the night. The numerous details convey his awareness of self and of the nature, the surroundings, the world of which he is a part and still separated from. To me (emphasis on me,) this poem is about enjoying a moment and the world that is all ours to take in, but it is also about realizing our insignificant role in it. I've read this poem at least a dozen times, and each time I make a discovery -- I think that's what Strand intended. Hope you like it. Thanks for your time, Masha

subset: commoncrawl


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The GORE-TEX Transalpine Run across the Alps demands just as much mental toughness as endurance. For those who have what it takes, an unforgettable adventure awaits.
Suunto-supported trail runner Philipp Reiter has competed in and photographed the GORE-TEX Transalpine Run four times, including the 2016 edition that finished in September. He and teammate Iker Karrera won the 2012 edition.
The seven-stage, 247.2 km race was the 12th edition and followed a new route. It included 14,862 m of vertical ascent, rocky trail and a glacier crossing. All participants must compete in a two-person team.
Due to injury Philipp couldn't compete this year, but he was there to photograph its beauty and intensity. He tells us all about it below.
Stage one: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany to Lermoos, Austria
Distance: 36.7 km
Vertical ascent: 2088 m
Vertical ascent: 1791 m
Highest point: 1634 m
Experiencing the cultures of the Alps is part of the fun. © Philipp Reiter
I've seen the same thing every year; some of the top teams start too fast and push too hard and bomb out because one team member becomes exhausted. It's important to remember there are six more days after the mountain run on the first day. It's best to hold back.
Stage two: Lermoos, Austria to Imst, Austria
Distance: 33.8 km
Vertical ascent: 2009 m
Vertical descent: 2237 m
Highest point: 1742 m
© Philipp Reiter
A lot of teams from north Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark compete. Maybe they're good runners, but they underestimate the terrain – the rocky trail and the ascent. They don't move fast enough to meet the cut off times of each stage. It's more like a speed hiking race than a running race. You have to train your muscles to climb day after day.
Stage three: Imst, Austria to Mandarfen-Pitztal, Austria
Distance: 47.9 km
Vertical ascent: 3037 m
Vertical descent: 2144 m
Highest point: 2292 m
© Philipp Reiter
[To properly prepare] you have to get your body used to doing endurance workouts many days in a row. Usually people work so they only have the weekend. But you need to try to do long sessions six or seven days in a row. Your body has to know what that feels like.
Stage four: Mandarfen-Pitztal, Austria to Sölden, Austria
Distance: 25.7 km
Vertical ascent: 1887 m
Vertical descent: 2214 m
Highest point: 2982 m
This year's race included a glacier crossing. © Philipp Reiter
[My mental strategy] is to cut the course into smaller pieces and objectives. For example, I focus on going from food station to food station or from stretch to stretch, climb to climb. Getting to that next location becomes the only goal.
Stage five: Sölden, Austria to St. Leonhard in Passeier, Italy
Distance: 33.3 km
Vertical ascent: 1453 m
Vertical descent: 2111 m
Highest point: 2492 m
© Philipp Reiter
Everyone goes through ups and downs. If you and your race partner get along well then he or she motivates you and the other way around. Usually one is up and the other is down and you can help to pull each other along. If you work together you can equalise the weaknesses of each other.
Stage six: St. Leonhard in Passeier, Italy to Sarnthein, Italy
Distance: 33.6 km
Vertical ascent: 2440 m
Vertical descent: 2153 m
Highest point: 2683 m
© Philipp Reiter
This year a lot of people struggled during stage six. The mood was at a really low level, with a lot of tired faces. One team took a taxi and went home.
Stage seven: Sarnthein, Italy to Brixen, Italy
Distance: 36.4 km
Vertical ascent: 1934 m
Vertical descent: 2348 m
Highest point: 2440 m
© Philipp Reiter
I enjoy this race because for the seven days you live in your own little world, with hardly any influence or contact with the outside world. You can switch off and focus on this one simple undertaking.


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A ninth-floor aerie on Gramercy Park owned by Ed Snider, the chairman of Comcast Spectacor and owner of the Philadelphia Flyers, is set to enter the market at $8.75 million, reports the New York Times.
The home has a loftlike great room with a 22-foot expanse of 12.4 feet ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a wood-burning fireplace, plus custom waxed-plaster walls. The kitchen boasts Miele appliances, a large stone center island, a built-in banquette, and lacquered resin cabinetry. The master suite has a sycamore walk-in closet and the master bath has a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Gramercy Park, Manhattan's only private park.
The building amenities offer a gym membership to the hotel's gym, and room service from restaurateur Danny Meyer. The monthly maintenance fee is $11,528.
U.S. & World
Snider paid $7 million for the "wow factor" heavy apartment three years ago.
Read more on the New York Times.


text:
Robotics Case Studies
Case Studies
- This case study is filed under:
- Industry
- Application
- Peripherals
Robotic Submerged Arc Welding
by Wolf Robotics
Wolf Robotics, A Lincoln Electric Company Posted 07/02/2009
Cast Iron Pipe
Thrust Collars
Ductile Iron Pipe
Automates the subarc welding process
Adapts weld program to part variations
Controls all aspects of the production cycle
Improves product quality and consistency
Tracks service and maintenance requirements
The welding cell consists of two individual IRB 4400 robots mounted on risers and equipped with a Wolf Cell Control, Lincoln PowerWave power sources, submerged arc welding torches with flux hopper and a linear transducer head, flux recycling conveyor and collection area, large capacity welding wire drums, Tactile Sensing and protective fencing.
The cast iron pipes are brought into position with a conveyor system and loaded on turning rolls. The robots are equipped with Tactile Sensing to determine pipe location and the weld program starting point. The robots then position the linear transducer head on the ductile pipes. Fluctuations in the pipe surface curvature are compensated for with the transducer head as it maintains a consistent wire-to-surface distance and clock and weld angles.
Flux is dispensed onto the welding surface and the arc is struck. The pipe begins rotating at the prescribed rate for the desired weld bead. The flux dispenser is fed by a pressurized flux hopper located outside the robotic working area. As the pipe rotates, the used flux and resulting slag falls onto a conveyor system that transports them to a collection area where the slag is separated from the flux and discarded. A needle scaler located at the bottom of the pipe assists in the slag removal. The flux is then separated from the slag and then returned to the flux hopper for reuse.
The subarc welding wire is supplied by a large capacity welding wire drum and distributed to the welding torch using a wire feeding mechanism. An automated wire cutting device is also used to maintain the proper wire stickout.
Robot automation is accomplished through the initial location sensing, weld equipment and program control, process monitoring, information documentation and maintaining the production operation with minimal operator involvement.


text:
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With the deficit panel coming up short, the parties are gearing up for renewed debates over spending and tax issues
Already referring to failure as a fait accompli, supercommittee members and aides are turning their attention to the immediate and nasty fights expected to result.
"When failure's announced, it's going to be off to the races," a senior Democratic aide familiar with talks said Sunday.
In appearances on Sunday shows, committee members offered little hope for a last-minute deal. Immediately, the panel's inability to cut a deal would force congressional attention to year-end fights members hoped the committee would resolve: preventing the alternative minimum tax from hitting swaths of middle class Americans; protecting physicians who accept Medicare patients from losing fees; and extending a payroll tax cut for employees and unemployment benefits. Members of the supercommittee are expected to announce on Monday that they've been unable to agree on a deal.
Moving into 2012, Republicans will immediately begin attempts to alter the Budget Control Act's requirement that half of $1.2 trillion in cuts over a decade triggered by supercommittee failure hit defense spending. Democrats say they will block that effort unless the GOP allows Bush administration tax cuts to expire for top income earners.
"We have a year to avoid sequestration and also to deal with extension of payroll tax cuts and the doc fix on Medicare -- and every time the issue [will] be the same: their refusal to raise any taxes on wealthy to pay for things the country wants by huge proportions," the Democratic aide said. "Pressure's gonna keep building."
Failure by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to cut a deal will throw the issues it was charged with resolving, and others members hoped it would address, back to the full Congress, which is largely paralyzed by dueling control of the chambers and positioning for the 2012 election. The panacea that creators hoped would result from the panel's extraordinary power to recommend legislation that would get fast-track consideration, and pressure on its members, has not materialized. The supercommittee, as critics noted from its creation, faces the same crippling political pressures that incapacitate Congress.
The fallout will not only be between parties. Republicans were divided over offers by GOP committee members to eliminate some tax deductions. Republicans are also at odds over how aggressively to attempt to "turn-off" sequestration, according to GOP aides. Some members worry the threat to undo the automated cuts will threaten the government's bond rating.
Supercommittee failure will revive efforts by advocates of a "big" deficit reduction plan worth about $4 trillion in deficit reductions over a decade. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) a founding member of the so-called Gang of Six senators, wants the draft framework that group outlined this summer to receive a vote if the supercommittee offers no plan. That push earns scorn from some Democratic committee members and leadership offices. Senior staffers to committee members routinely note the gang never agreed on a plan that could be scored or written into legislative language.
The gang will face pressure "to put their high-fallutin' self-righteous 'principles' into legislative form which they haven't been able to thus far," the Democratic aide said.
Image credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
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The top of the Big 12 looks familiar, with Kansas in first place and ranked in the top 10.
The rest of the league doesn't appear to be nearly as deep as usual this season, its first with West Virginia and TCU instead of Missouri and Texas A&M.
No. 24 Oklahoma State (8-1) is the only other league team to join the ninth-ranked Jayhawks (8-1) in the Top 25 and nobody else received a single vote for Monday's poll.
This wasn't entirely unexpected, of course. Missouri won the conference tournament before bolting for the SEC and its currently ranked 12th. But beyond the Cowboys, nobody has emerged as a serious threat to the Jayhawks with non-conference play winding down.
Big 12 teams are just 2-10 against opponents ranked in the Top 25 and the league is seventh in overall RPI - behind the Atlantic-10 and the Mountain West. The inconsistent play of Baylor and Texas has a lot to do with that.
The Bears (7-3) were picked to finish second in the preseason poll, while the Longhorns (6-4) were slotted fourth. But Baylor has been up and down, while the Longhorns could find themselves at 6-6 at the end of the week.
Baylor's biggest win was about as big a resume builder as a team could ask for. The Bears knocked off Kentucky in Rupp Arena on Dec. 1, 62-55, snapping the Wildcats 55-game home winning streak. But Kentucky later fell out of the Top 25and Baylor lost at home to Northwestern.
The Bears have already lost to Charleston in Waco. But they've got a chance to pick up a pair of quality wins before meeting Texas in the league opener on Jan. 5. Baylor hosts BYU and plays at Gonzaga on Dec. 28.
Baylor coach Scott Drew said he saw positive signs after his team led by just two at halftime before rallying to beat USC-Upstate, 73-57.
``Early in the year I think that you are always adjusting, changing and tweaking,'' Drew said. ``I'm so pleased with this effort though because we were able to defend and still take care of the ball and win. I thought that we made some extra effort passes. We made a more conscious effort to get the ball inside. We're learning how to get more touches inside.''
Texas is scuffling in part because of a challenging schedule and the absence of point guard Myck Kabongo (NCAA eligibility investigation) and forward Jaylen Boyd (left foot injury).
If the Longhorns want to turn their season around, this would a good week to get started.
Texas, which doesn't have an upperclassman in its starting lineup, hosts No. 23 North Carolina on Wednesday and plays at No. 20 Michigan State on Saturday. A pair of wins would be a massive boost for a team that has lost to Division II Chaminade and by 23 points to No. 15 Georgetown.
``You've just got to go into it with a mindset of getting better every day. Build on the positive. And that's what we've been trying to do as a young group,'' Texas freshman guard Javan Felix said.
Of course, not everyone in the Big 12 is off to a slow start.
Kansas brought a seven-game winning streak into this week. Oklahoma State has already beaten Tennessee and North Carolina State behind freshman point guard Marcus Smart, who is averaging 13 points, seven rebounds and 5.2 assists a game and is on the short list of the game's top freshmen.
New coach Bruce Weber got Kansas State off to a respectable 7-2 start, and Oklahoma beat old foe Texas A&M 64-54 on Saturday to move to 7-2.
Iowa State (8-3), which was picked to finish eighth in the league, has lost to three quality opponents; Cincinnati, UNLV and Iowa.
Coach Bob Huggins led West Virginia to five straight NCAA tournaments out of the brutal Big East. Right now, the Mountaineers find themselves last in the Big 12.
West Virginia (4-5), fresh off a 15-point loss to No. 2 Michigan, is one of the nation's worst shooting teams at just 38.9 percent. The Mountaineers have lost to Gonzaga and fellow Big 12 team Oklahoma, but they've also fallen to Davidson and Duquesne.
``We'll win. We've won before and we'll win again,'' Huggins said. ``We've got to continue to guard better and we've got to continue to rebound the ball better.''
Follow Luke Meredith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LukeMererdithAP


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Yung Stack (Stack Bundles Little Brother) Freestyle In The Whip!
Yung reports "Stack Bundles Lil Brother Lettin The World Know He Is Out There... I Do Rap N I'm Comin For The Throne"
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Monthly Archives: November 2011
Mobile app: Pediatrics Digest
Brief review of the mobile medical app Pediatrics Digest.
Promoting library services: the neverending challenge
Successful outreach and promotion of library resources and services involves forming partnerships with other departments and organizations, as well as using social media and the latest Web 2.0 tools to educate and inform new and underserved patron groups.
When Information Literacy Informs Health Literacy
Discusses a notable example of a journalist going beyond the claims of a recently published study by a for-profit company to sort out what is valid from what will sell.
Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research
Social media can be a powerful tool in research. We offer a few examples, and links to the thoughts of other bloggers.
Great Apps for Librarians
Highlight list of iPad apps for librarians from iLibrarian blog.
Mobile app for gross anatomy: Muscle System Pro II
Review of the NOVA Series mobile app Muscle System Pro II for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
eReaders and Mobile Devices for Check-out
The Library has purchased three iPads, three Motorola Xooms, six Amazon Kindles and six Nooks from Barnes and Noble for faculty and students to check out and try. Details available at the front desk.


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Tbh, yeah, I find this thread rather pointless. System requirements are not out, game not optimized yet (I REALLY hope that's the case, because ->), people with 6-core CPUs, tons of RAM and great videos reporting 30 fps, etc. And yet random people advice other people how the game would run on their PCs. I mean, for real?
DON'T YOU HATE ON MAH CHARR BABBYS.That thing dying is a bad thing?
(Yes, babbys. It's the only word I've picked up from Simon and Lewis that stuck.)
If only every publisher/developer rolled out simple DIAG tools to run a check on their hardware specs.
Phenom II 1090T @ 4.2 Ghz
Msi r lightning 6970 xfire @ 1045 core
16 Gigs of vengeance 1866 Mhz
Crosshair v Formula mobo
Win7 64 bit
Im hoping for good crosfire support, and a more balanced Gpu/cpu spread of workloads so the game wont be so limited like say wow.
Last edited by Maruii; 2012-03-05 at 10:48 PM.
Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.
Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Will it run on a Acorn Archimedes? Is it Windows 3.1 compatible? Seriously if you already play games on your computer that are not 10 years old you should be fine, even if they where making it for high end computers upon start of development, those high end computers now are bottom rung if not lower then what is sold in stores now for $300, so unless your computer was barely mid grade 6 years ago which would put your computer older then Windows Vista then you don't have to worry to much.
I'm going to bump this for people who have questions about this but can't find it with the search feature. Hopefully this will stay in the first page or two to prevent additional threads on the topic (not worth a sticky and if I sticky it nobody will read it ;_
Edge, change the title to GW2 System Requirements, close the other threads. Then sticky this thread and remove the GW2 One Thread from the stickies.
1. Changing this thread title will return more results in the search.
2. Newcomers are more likely to search the phrase System Requirements than "The will my computer run GW2 thread". Too sloppy.
3. Closing the other threads funnels this thread.
4. The 'GW2 One Thread' is now a general chit-chat @ GW2 thread. We don't need it sticky as a relevant information dump- which there are 2 of already in the Video and Mass Info threads.
5. Apologies for telling you how to do your job, but I am sorta awesome.
6. <3s, dear.
My laptop has fallowing hardware with Win7, 32bit
- Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P8400 2.26, 2.27 GHz
- NVidia GeForce 9600 GT 512MB(+1278 MB from RAM) total of 1790 MB
Do you think I can run with low graphical settings? And there is another problem for me that is I can't play if FPS is under 40. Do you think I can run it over/at 40 FPS?
AMD E-350 @ 1.6ghz.
I'm gonna have to upgrade this.
Question, though, how 'bad' will I be able to run it?
6gb ram
Radeon HD 6310
I was able to get SWTOR to low/med (except for draw distance, thanks for not letting me lower that, Bioware!)
Warcraft was med/high. I only really ran into issues with a certain Ultraxxion bug.....
It's a Lenovo B575 laptop, btw.
Oh just to mention, to those that don't know...
You will need to approximately double the spec requirements of the recommended of any MMO to play it at its best quality. Trust me, even though I met the requirements for RIFT, I am still unable to play the game and raid with low settings with high fps.
Win 7 ultimate
Intel(R) Core (TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz 2.79 GHz
NVidia GTX550 Ti
(what settings roughly)
Last edited by mmocb423f40a80; 2012-04-05 at 06:46 PM.
Greetings fellow MMOC'ers. My g/f did the "Can you run it?" for GW2 on her PC, and her computer failed... which SHOCKED both of us. Since it is because of the card (ATI Radeon 4200), what would you tech savy people suggest as far as affordable (under $100-150) upgrade?
Also, I realize there may very well be a power supply issue as well with this upgrade, any and all suggestions will be welcome.
^Picture result from the can you run it page
Last edited by theredviola; 2012-04-07 at 04:06 AM.
"Do not only practice your art, but force yourself into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine." -- Ludwig Van Beethoven
---------- Post added 2012-04-07 at 04:53 PM ----------
As you say, you may also need to replace the power supply - but be aware, many people will "overquote" the power supply you need. I'm using a 570GTX in my machine with a Core i7 2600K, it runs happily on a 550W (but don't get a "me too" 550W - it needs to be a good, reliable HONEST 550W).
Make sure your computer can run it, however. (Power supply, motherboard, all that stuff)
Last edited by Larynx; 2012-04-07 at 07:30 AM.


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This past weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to attend an AAC (Augmentative Alternative Communication) Family Camp sponsored by Camp Waban and Mark Hammond Associates. Brian just recieved his communication device at the end of the school year and we were still unsure of how to incorporate it throughout our daily lives. This camp was such an eye-opener for us and has inspired us beyond what we had even imagined it could.
Here's our top 5 takeaways from the weekend:
- Core words. Core words. Core words. This is the second time I've heard Mark give us a lecture on core words and I had the same reaction as I did the first time. It's a light bulb moment for me. Give Brian a picture dictionary and he could probably verbally label half of the words in it. But you can't have a conversation with just nouns. And that's what his vocabulary consists of. A study done by Banajee found that 26 words make up 96.3% of the conversations toddlers have (and they aren't nouns!). Another study by Marvin lists 333 words most commonly used and it makes up 78% of the language we use. This is what we need to focus our AAC users on.
- The importance of seeing others communicate with an AAC device. Sunday morning I watched as Brian had a conversation with a 19 year old boy via their devices. I watched as Brian really stared and focused as the other young man constructed his sentence. It was the first time that weekend that I really saw him pay attention to another child's device. I like to think it was a light bulb moment for him, "Wow, this kid can communicate to me and I can communicate to him all through these devices." I hope to find more social situations where he will be able to be with other children using AAC devices after this experience.
- Just because we can understand Brian's verbal output doesn't mean others can. Sometimes we get lazy because we know what Brian wants when he does talk to us. But Brian has a dual diagnosis of autism AND apraxia. So when he does talk it doesn't always come out clear (not that he doesn't have super clear moments that we just love!). At one point this weekend I heard him say to one of the speech therapists, "Help me". She didn't understand him. For us, we always understand "Help Me" but the fact that she didn't know and asked me what he said was another big moment for me. Even when we understand him, we need to teach him how to also say it on his device. In the real world, when we are not around, he will need to use his talker to be understood by the everyday listener.
- Expanding his language. Even when he tells us "Juice" or "iPad" we need to not take the lazy route and give him what he wants. We need to make him go to his talker and construct a whole sentence. First it will be "I want iPad" and then we can expand it to "Can I have the iPad?" and then to "May I have the iPad please?" and so on. Because that is when he will learn those core words (refer to #1) and that is when he'll truly start to master language.
- The importance of him asking us questions. With a child like Brian, people are always asking him questions. What do you want? Do you want this or that?
What is that? And so on and so on. And he can answer with nouns. Brian has so little desire to ask us questions but that is the key for him to be a conversationalist. As Mark said at one point during the weekend, "A truly great conversationalist is someone who can keep the other person talking." We learned this weekend how to set up situations where Brian has to ask questions. So last night when I asked him if he was hungry and he responded in the positive, I had him go to his talker and ask, "What's for dinner?". I responded, "Pizza". I made him then ask, "Where is it?". And I said, "Dominos is bringing it" (hey, I was lazy after a long weekend). Then I had him ask, "How much longer?". And so on. It's just a whole different way of thinking about how we want him to communicate with us.
For more pictures and great moments from our weekend, make sure to check out The A-Word's Facebook page!


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Article content
PHILADELPHIA - A New Jersey commercial fisherman who saved nearly $12,000 in cash for an engagement ring lost it when it fluttered from his backpack while he was riding a motorcycle.
Matthew Camp, 32, said the sad tale could have a happy ending.
A highway cleanup crew on the Garden State Parkway has found $4,000 of the cash and now another person has stepped forward to say he found another $5,300 and wants to return it on Wednesday night.
Camp said he lost the money on Sept. 9 after cashing a $12,000 cheque earned during a good scallop run on his boat, the F.V. Nancy Elizabeth out of Cape May, New Jersey.
Camp stuffed the money into a backpack, which had a broken zipper, and planned to ask longtime girlfriend Tabitha Bohn to marry him. He rode his motorcycle to the dock and, while changing into work clothes, discovered the cash was missing, Bohn said.
"It was heartbreaking," said Bohn, who with Camp has two children and is raising two others from previous relationships. "He was finally going to break down and buy me a ring."
Camp raced back up the parkway, where the crew that found $4,000 offered a description of a new model silver truck whose occupant also picked up some cash.
The truck occupant, who wants to remain anonymous, recently contacted Camp after reading about the incident in the local newspaper. He agreed to turn over his found treasure to Camp later on Wednesday.
As for fishing? Camp was supposed to go out on Wednesday, but the boat's captain delayed the trip to give Camp time to get the cash back.
tap here to see other videos from our team.


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Wishlist - Hardware - Novel Devices
From Openmoko
This page details hardware some would like in future OpenMoko devices that are very different from the Neo1973. DVD/media players, cameras, ...
Hard Drive
Providing a hard drive, will allow storing music, movies, etc. Add USB storage device capability to use the device as an external hard drive.
PCMCIA slot
Extensibility would be nice. Standard pcmcia would be great for allowing wireless too. And pcmcia cards tend to be very low power.
- 1. can be used for a spare battery (is this possible?)
- 3. i can use my Echo Audio Indigo I/O
- 2. can be used for different cards around
This is certain not to happen in a production phone, it's simply far too large, and requires complex support in hardware, which does not exist in most system on a chip devices as are used in phones. Even for the Expansion_Back it would be too large. --Speedevil 06:05, 28 February 2007 (CET)
Cameras & Imaging
Interchangeable Camera Lenses
A camera phone with a lens mount would allow swappable camera lenses and filters. Camera phones are usually stuck with tiny fixed lenses that don't allow focusing. Imaging being able to swap out the default lens with one that provides a better focus... or even a zoom!
The C-Mount or T-Mount would be a good choice. Both are standard lens mount with many supporting lenses. Minolta, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, & most other lens manufacturers also have mount adapters for their proprietary lenses. Then share lenses between your camera & cell phone. The mount hole would need to be about 1 inch in diameter and go about 1/4 inch into the camera-phone (with the focal plane array chip at the bottom of this hole).
Added bonus If you work somewhere that doesn't allow cameras: The lens could be removed and a blank insert could be screwed in. The camera capability would be physically disabled!
Business Card Reader
This is probably technically difficult if not impossible, maybe you could do it with the embedded camera hardware & software
I want to be able to place a business card face down on the the screen, and have the device automatically read the card and enter the info in the contacts.
- There is no simple way of reading something placed on the screen, for the basic reason that the screen is in the way.
- Of course you could always just take a picture of the card with a camera-phone. Then store it as it is or image recognition software could do character recognition & extract the information.
Solar Panels
My old pocket calculator had solar panels, why not my phone?
Fuel Cell
Some people want to put them in laptops & fuel cells are the way of the future.
Cork Screw
Every multi-tool has to have a cork screw


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Features & Benefits | File Types | Tips & Tricks | Languages | Screen Shots | Testimonials | Buy Now | Download
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Otherwise, buy EditPad Pro now! You can't go wrong buying this mighty fine text editor for only US$ 59.95.
The difference between this free evaluation version and the full version is that the evaluation version will remind you to purchase your personal license key if you wish to continue using EditPad Pro. All of EditPad Pro's features are available in the evaluation version, except for the spell checker (to reduce the download size of the evaluation version) and the configurable print headers (the headers in the trial version are fixed, reminding you to purchase EditPad Pro).
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Embattled smartphone company Research In Motion (RIM) has been hard at work trying to restore its slightly tarnished reputation of late by unveiling the BlackBerry BBX next generation mobile platform. The new release is accompanied by a series of developer tool updates, including WebWorks for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook, and a developer beta of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 with support for Android applications.
BBX combines both BlackBerry and the QNX Real-Time Operating System (RTOS). The BBX platform will include BBX-OS and will support BlackBerry cloud services and development environments for both HTML5 and native developers. BBX will also support applications developed using any of the tools for the BlackBerry PlayBook — including Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash, and WebWorks/HTML5, as well as the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps on future BBX-based tablets and smartphones.
"With nearly 5 million BlackBerry apps downloaded daily, our customers have made BlackBerry one of the most profitable platforms for developers," said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO at RIM. "We're giving developers the tools they need to build richer applications and we're providing direction on how to best develop their smartphone and tablet apps as the BlackBerry and QNX platforms converge into our next generation BBX platform."
BBX will also include the new BlackBerry Cascades UI Framework for advanced graphics and bring what the company has called "Super App" capabilities to enable advanced capabilities including deep integration between apps, always-on Push services, and the BBM Social Platform.
RIM has also announced the availability of the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook (1.0 gold release). The Native SDK is said to allow developers to build high-performance, multi-threaded, native C/C++ applications and enables programmers to create advanced 2D and 3D games and other apps with access to OpenGL ES 2.0 and Open AL, as well as device-specific APIs. Applications developed with the Native SDK will run today on the BlackBerry PlayBook and will be forwardly compatible on BBX-based tablets and smartphones.
The Native SDK includes support for C/C++ POSIX library and compliance, device events like gesture swipes and touch screen inputs, access to code-management systems using industry standard Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tools), and advanced debug and analysis tools. QNX Momentics Tool Suite, an Eclipse-based integrated development environment, is also included. It provides memory profiling, application debugging, and memory usage statistics to help developers debug sophisticated programs, including hardware accelerated OpenGL applications.


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Blessings from Lord Kumeka
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Hoseh – Version Sounds
Tuesday, August 11 2020
"Version Sounds is my interpretation of radio communication, my version. At its roots, the show credits reggae dub for adding so much to the music we listen to today. From there the branches continue to sprout via a myriad of genres and time spans. Colombian cumbias meet Germanic techno dub meets British twee pop. Stereolab and Sun Ra lounge around as Stars of the Lid jam with Prince Jammy. You never know what to expect but you are guaranteed that the now sounds of 2013 will have a toast with the happening sonics of 1968 and beyond!" love, Hoseh
See more events at this location »


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Customize your JAMA Network experience by selecting one or more topics from the list below.
Blum JA, Freeman K, Dart RC, Cooper RJ. Requirements and Definitions in Conflict of Interest Policies of Medical Journals. JAMA. 2009;302(20):2230–2234. doi:10.1001/jama.2009.1669
© 2020
Author Affiliations: Brown University College of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island (Dr Blum); University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington (Dr Freeman); Denver Health and Hospital Authority and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver (Dr Dart); and David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (Dr Cooper).
Context Conflicts of interest (COIs) may influence medical literature. However, it is unclear whether medical journals have consistent policies for defining and soliciting COI disclosures.
Objective To determine the prevalence of author COI policies, requirements for signed disclosure statements, and variability in COI definitions among medical journals.
Design A cross-sectional survey of Instructions for Authors and manuscript submission documents, including authorship responsibility forms, for high-impact medical journals across 35 subject categories available from March through October 2008.
Main Outcome Measure Presence of language referring to COI disclosure in the Instructions for Authors or manuscript submission documents.
Results Of 256 journals, 89% had author COI policies. Fifty-four percent required authors to sign a disclosure statement, and 77% provided definitions of COI. Most definitions were limited to direct financial relationships; a minority of journals requested disclosure of other potential conflicts such as personal relationships (42%), paid expert testimony (42%), relationships with other organizations (26%), or travel grants (12%). The prevalence of policies varied by subject category: all internal medicine, respiratory medicine, and toxicology journals studied had comprehensive COI definitions, with 19 of these 24 journals requiring signed disclosure attestations. In contrast, 6 of 19 geriatrics, radiology, and rehabilitation journals requested author COI disclosure. Most journals that officially endorsed International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines had COI policies (68/69), compared with 84% of journals not endorsing the guidelines (158/187).
Conclusions In 2008, most medical journals with relatively high impact factors had author COI policies available for public review. Among journals, there was substantial variation in policies for solicitation of author COIs and in definitions of COI.
The failure of some authors to disclose competing interests that conflict with patient care has shaken the confidence of both the general public and health science professionals in peer-reviewed medical literature.1-3 In an effort to protect the integrity of research and improve the public trust, the Institute of Medicine, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors, and Committee on Publication Ethics have published ethics guidelines that include specific recommendations for disclosure of information about authors' conflicts of interest (COIs) as a means for improving transparency.4-7 Similarly, journal policies calling for authors to disclose COIs have evolved.8-12 World Association of Medical Editors guidelines suggest that journals' COI policies should be "readily accessible to everyone involved in the publication process by publishing them with instructions for authors."5
A recent study of financial COI disclosures in articles reporting on coronary stents found that author disclosure statements varied from article to article.13 Variation between journals in handling information about COI may contribute to these inconsistencies. Recent studies examining the content of COI policies among journals with a clinical focus are limited.14,15 We therefore examined the COI policies of medical journals to determine the prevalence and variability of COI disclosure requirements and definitions.
Our study included the top 10% of 2117 medical journals by impact factor in the Institute for Scientific Information's Web of Science for 35 subject categories. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of Instructions for Authors and manuscript submission forms for journals from March through October 2008. All data examined are publicly available on journal Web sites. We chose a sample size including 10% of medical journals to provide adequate representation of journal policies and a sample size that could be analyzed within a discrete period, because journals may update policies at any time. We selected the highest-impact journals, because the disproportionate influence these journals have on the medical literature imparts particular relevance on their disclosure policies. We used the 2006 Impact Factor published by the Institute for Scientific Information Journal Citation Reports, which was current at the outset of data collection in March 2008, because publication occurs 18 months after the reference year (the indexing agency cannot calculate the impact factor until all of the preceding year's publications have been received).16 We selected Journal Citation Reports subject categories likely to contain clinical journals, including those subject categories that corresponded to specialties and subspecialties accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
To ensure sampling from different clinical areas, we included at least the top 6 rated journals for subject categories with fewer than 60 journals listed (eTable). If a journal title overlapped between categories, it was assigned to the category in which it ranked highest. Instructions for Authors and manuscript submission documents were acquired and archived using the WebCite scholarly Web-reference archiving system (http://www.webcitation.org).17 We included any guidelines or instructions pertaining to authorship or manuscript submission (eg, "Manuscript Submission Guidelines"), along with all available documents related to manuscript submission (eg, "Authorship Form," "Copyright Assignment," "Disclosure Statement," or "Submission Agreement").
Documents for each journal were reviewed independently by 1 of 2 trained abstractors (J.A.B., K.F.), using a standard form (eAppendix). To identify all text related to COI, we searched each document electronically for the phrases "conflict of interest," "disclosure," "financial," "financial relationship," "support," "fund," "acknowledgement," "competing interest," or "dual interest." Because coding was objective (the key words appear or do not appear), we decided that concordant review of a small number of samples would be adequate for establishing interrater reliability of data abstraction. We randomly selected 5% of journals for both abstractors to review independently and calculated interrater reliability as the simple agreement for each objective data point between 2 reviewers.
We used a descriptive approach for data analysis and present the prevalence of COI policies and the content of these policies as frequencies and proportions. Comparisons between a journal's COI policies and the journal's subject category, impact factor ranking, or endorsement of the ICMJE's conflict of interest policy18 are presented without statistical testing. We used Excel 2003 (Microsoft, Redmond, Washington) and Stata version 10 (StataCorp, College Station, Texas) for analyses.
We identified 2117 medical journals across 35 subject categories (Table 1). The median number of journals per subject category was 49 (interquartile range, 30-85), with a range of 8 to 147 journals. Our cross-sectional sample included 262 journals from these 35 subject categories (eTable). Of 262 journals, 256 (98%) provided a URL linking to Instructions for Authors, manuscript submission forms, or both. Six journals (2%) solicited manuscripts by invitation; because Instructions for Authors were not available, these journals were excluded from analysis. Within the Instructions for Authors, 25% of journals included online links to policy statements or articles on COI.
In addition, 14% of journals were part of a journal group, with shared Internet domains and similar formats for their online instructions, based on the following affiliations or owners: Nature Publishing Group (11 journals), American Medical Association (9 journals), British Medical Journal Group (6 journals), American Heart Association (5 journals), The Lancet (4 journals), and Annual Reviews (4 journals). We noted that some journals within a group had distinct definitions and disclosure requirements despite having similar wording. In other journal groups, the instructions, manuscript submission forms, or both were identical. For the purposes of this study, each journal was reviewed independently and received equal consideration in our analysis. Interrater reliability of data abstraction was 97% concordance of all objective data points recorded for each journal.
We found that 228 of 256 sampled journals (89%) had language requesting author COI disclosure (Table 1). Eighty-five percent of journals requested COI disclosure in the Instructions for Authors; an additional 4% requested COI disclosure only in manuscript submission documents, for a total of 89%. Of 256 journals, 138 (54%) required authors to submit signed disclosure statements.
We then examined specific details, examples, and definitions of COI provided by each journal (Table 2). Of 256 journals, 197 (77%) defined or gave examples of possible COIs for submitting authors. Of 197 journal COI definitions, most included direct financial relationships such as "equities interest or stock ownership" (89%) or "consultancies" (84%). A minority included other potential conflicts such as personal relationships (42%), paid expert testimony (42%), relationships with organizations (26%), or travel grants (12%).
To describe the variations in COI policies that we observed, we divided journals by subject categories. The prevalence of policies varied by subject category. For example, all internal medicine, respiratory medicine, and toxicology journals studied had comprehensive COI definitions, with 19 of these 24 journals requiring signed disclosure attestations. In contrast, only 6 of the 19 highest-impact journals in geriatrics and gerontology; radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging; and rehabilitation requested that submitting authors discolose COIs.
Despite choosing the top 10% of journals by impact factor, there was a wide range of impact factors within our sample (0.9-63), so we explored differences in prevalence of COI policies as a function of impact factor. Journals in our sample set were divided into top and bottom quartiles based on impact factor; the prevalence of COI policies in the top quartile was 94% compared with 89% in the bottom quartile (Table 3). We noted that several journals with an impact factor greater than 10, including Immunology Reviews, Molecular Psychiatry, and Seminars in Immunology, did not require submitting authors to report COIs or submit signed disclosure statements.
Lastly, we examined the COI policies of the journals based on the journal's endorsement of ICMJE guidelines. At the time of this study, 69 journals in our sample had officially endorsed the ICMJE guidelines, and 187 journals had not. Nearly all journals that officially endorsed ICMJE guidelines had COI policies (68/69), compared with 84% (158/187) of those journals that did not endorse ICMJE guidelines (Table 3). We noted that some journals, such as Cephalalgia and Journal of Nuclear Medicine, appear on the ICMJE list of journals that follow the ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals,18 but they did not ask authors to disclose COIs in their Instructions for Authors or manuscript submission forms.
In the interest of transparency, and under intense public scrutiny, the ICMJE and editors of leading medical journals have implemented increasingly comprehensive policies regarding disclosure of authors' financial interests and other potential conflicts.10-12,18 Conflict of interest policies and their implementation have evolved over time. For example, JAMA initially encouraged authors to disclose conflicts, but authors were not required to sign disclosure statements until 1998. In 2006, JAMA began to require that authors not only sign a disclosure statement but also publicly disclose all potential COIs in the Acknowledgment section of submitted manuscripts.10
Our study provides new data on COI policy availability, content, and requirements for signed disclosure statements among high-impact medical journals from March 2008 through October 2008. In 1997, Krimsky and Rothenberg found that only 16% of 1396 journals across all scientific disciplines had COI policies.19 By comparison, in our sample, in 2008, 89% of medical journals had COI policies available for public review. While the journals sampled and methods were different, this suggests a substantial increase in the prevalence of COI policies over the past decade.
Even when editorial COI policies exist, the policies may not be available to submitting authors. In 2004, Ancker and Flanagin illustrated this weakness of COI policy in a survey of 84 journals across 12 scientific disciplines, finding that only 33% of journals had online published COI policies, although 80% reported having such a policy when surveyed.14 In that study, all general medical journals had published COI policies for authors, while none of the journals in biology, engineering, physics, and zoology had published policies. Another survey (published in 2006) of the editors of 91 medical journals found that 93% of medical journal editors reported having a COI policy.15
Unlike these studies, our prevalence estimate was based on having the policy available to submitting authors, not only in the Instructions for Authors but also in the manuscript submission agreement or other available documentation. We did not survey the journal editors, and our study's reliance on review of journal policies available on the Internet might be considered a limitation. This methodology could lead to underestimation of the prevalence of COI policies if COIs were only requested by editors in communication with authors after submission. However, in the interest of transparency, the COI policy should be available for review by submitting authors and also by the public readers of the journal.5
Our finding that most journals' COI definitions were limited to direct financial interests is not surprising. Some of the first COI disclosures in the medical literature were financial disclosures, and Ancker and Flanagin found that the author COI policies of most journals addressed financial interests.14 Conflict of interest disclosure recommendations have expanded with the recognition that conflicting interests arising from professional, intellectual, or academic competition can also lead to bias.5,18,20 The infrequent appearance in our sample of definitions including more subtle conflicts illustrates a lack of uniformity among journal editors on what constitutes COI. The variability that authors encounter as they submit to different journals may limit the intended goal of COI policies.
We found that only 54% of journals evaluated required that each author sign a COI statement. This discrepancy between journals having COI policies (89%) and requiring signed statements (54%) is important, because the corresponding author may be the only author of the manuscript to review a COI policy provided only in the Instructions for Authors. The lack of required signed attestation for each author of a specific manuscript may limit dissemination of the policy to authors of a manuscript beyond the corresponding author, potentially leading to failures of some authors to disclose.
We explored differences in journals based on subject categories, impact factor, and the following of ICMJE guidelines. Interpretation of differences between subject categories was limited by the small sample size for many of the journals (n = 6 for many categories) and our method of sampling higher-impact journals. When compared by impact factor, the prevalence of disclosure requirements between top and bottom quartiles of journals was similar (94% and 89%, respectively). A 2006 survey of editors from 84 scientific journals (7 medical journals) found that the highest-impact journals were most likely to have a published COI policy.14 Our comparison by impact factor quartiles is again limited by our method of sampling the higher-impact journals from each category. We also compared journals based on the ICMJE list of publications that follow the ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.18 The ICMJE requirements specify that journals should have COI policies in place with specific definitions. We found that overall, journals that follow the ICMJE guidelines more frequently request author COI disclosure and provide definitions than those journals not following the guidelines. However, we also found that some journals listed did not actually appear to follow the ICMJE's Uniform Requirements with regard to COI disclosure practice.
In an attempt to make the process of disclosure easier for authors and less confusing for readers, ICMJE member journals have recently published a uniform vehicle for recording and submitting COI disclosures.21 This uniform disclosure form has standard definitions and disclosure requirements and enables authors to save online copies of the forms that can be updated as needed. This eliminates the need to reformat disclosure information for each submission to ICMJE member journals and other journals that would eventually accept this universal disclosure form. The ICMJE member journals are testing this form and the universal disclosure process and are asking for feedback until April 2010.
In summary, we found that most high-impact medical journals had author COI policies available for public review in 2008. These findings are encouraging. However, many journals did not require authors to sign disclosure statements, and there was variability in how COI was defined. With little uniformity among journal requirements, authors may encounter differing, and at times confusing, requests for disclosure or no requests for disclosure. We only assessed the means by which the journals defined and solicited disclosures and did not determine their publication practices. Readers should consider the potential for undisclosed COIs in medical journals that lack explicit disclosure requirements. Future investigations should determine whether all disclosures of authors are published by journals. Furthermore, it is important to assess whether detailed COI policies and mandating signed disclosure statements from all authors increases accurate reporting of author COIs.
Corresponding Author: Kalev Freeman, MD, PhD, University of Vermont, Given Bldg D312, Burlington, VT 05405 (email@example.com).
Author Contributions: Dr Freeman had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Study concept and design: Blum, Freeman, Dart, Cooper.
Acquisition of data: Blum, Freeman.
Analysis and interpretation of data: Blum, Freeman, Dart, Cooper.
Drafting of the manuscript: Blum, Freeman, Dart, Cooper.
Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Freeman, Dart, Cooper.
Statistical analysis: Blum, Freeman, Dart, Cooper.
Administrative, technical, or material support: Blum, Freeman.
Study supervision: Freeman, Dart.
Financial Disclosures: Drs Dart and Cooper reported serving on the editorial board of Annals of Emergency Medicine and receiving stipends for providing editorial services. No other authors reported disclosures.
Funding/Support: This study was designed and conducted without funding or sponsorship.
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This 3 beds 2 baths Single Family property located by address '278 E Welch Ave, Columbus, OH 43207'. Current property is no longer listed for sale on IndexPost and we are unable to track its current status. Date when property was set to OFF MARKET: 9/22/2015 2:54:52 AM
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The given property positioned at Columbus, OH. Address: 278 E Welch Ave, Columbus, OH 43207. The county is Franklin County.
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Modern Family - S09
Year: 2016
Duration: 22 min
IMDb: 8.5
Country: USA
Actors: Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Ed O'Neill, Sofía Vergara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Rico Rodriguez, Nolan Gould, Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons
Told from the perspective of an unseen documentary filmmaker, the series offers an honest, often-hilarious perspective of family life. Parents Phil and Claire yearn for an honest, open relationship with their three kids. But a daughter who is trying to grow up too fast, another who is too smart for her own good, and a rambunctious young son make it challenging. Claire's dad, Jay, and his Latina wife, Gloria, are raising two sons together, but people sometimes believe Jay to be Gloria's father. Jay's gay son, Mitchell, and his partner, Cameron, have adopted a little Asian girl, completing one big -- straight, gay, multicultural, traditional -- happy family.


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The Brown Waxed thread is used for Automatic Sewing Awl.
Approximately 14 metres in length.
Also available in: Black, Tan
The perfect compromise between machine and hand sewing for stitching in heavier materials such as car seats, convertible tops, carpet edges, etc. Not only that, you can also use the Speedy Stitcher to repair of leather goods, canvas tarps, climbing and camping gear, saddlery and tack items, athletic equipment, even shoes and belts!
Automatic Sewing Awl comes complete with straight needle, curved needle, one reel of waxed tan thread, and instructions for use.
Now you can make effective repairs without removing materials from your car.
Spare Curved Neelde and Spare Bobbin are also available separately.


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The U.S. spends $200 billion each year -- about 8% of the nation's healthcare tab -- on medical care stemming from improper or unnecessary use of prescription drugs, a new report out Wednesday says.
Much of those costs result from unneeded hospitalizations or doctor visits, according to the study by IMS Health's Institute for Healthcare Informatics, which provides data and other consulting services to the healthcare industry. Medical costs are driven up by patients who don't get the right medications or fail to take their drugs, the misuse of antibiotics, medication errors, and inadequate oversight when patients take multiple drugs.
Even though the use of lower cost generic drugs is high, further increases could shave $10 billion in costs, the report says.
Some private and government pilot programs aiming to better coordinate patient care have helped reduce the problems, the report said.
Some provisions in the federal health law that create financial incentives to better coordinate care and to reduce hospital readmissions may further that progress, said author Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.
The report notes "that even though avoidable costs are significant, encouraging progress is being made in addressing some of the challenges that drive wasteful spending in many parts of the healthcare system.
Medication adherence among large populations of patients with three of the most prevalent chronic diseases – hypertension, (high cholesterol) and diabetes – has improved since 2009 by about 3%.
The proportion of patients diagnosed with a cold or the flu – both viral infections that do not respond to antibiotics – who inappropriately received antibiotic prescriptions has fallen from 20% to 6% since 2007.
And, for diseases where lower-cost generic medications are available, use of generics reached 95% in 2012."
This article, which first appeared June 19, 2013, was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.


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The resort of Whistler has almost as many different places to stay as it has activities to keep visitors entertained.
From the five-star luxury resort properties to the feel-like-home pensions, there is something for everyone.
Whistler.com, the resort's official booking site, offers a unique deal called Suite Secrets. This is an ideal option for those who are flexible about where to stay. If you use it, you get to book at unbelievable prices but won't know where the accommodation is until the transaction is complete. That's because these prices are so low, hotels won't advertise them under their brand name.
The Internet is a good place to find owner-to-visitor direct rentals. Allura Direct is one such company (www.alluradirect.com), while Aloha Whistler is another (www.alohawhistler.com).
Local hotels also run Web specials, so once you've got a name from the tourism sites you can look them up and see what is on offer. It is also a good idea to subscribe to the Tourism Whistler's Whistler Insider electronic newsletter to get all the latest information.
The resort is also universally accessible and accommodations do cater to this growing tourism market.
There are several top-rated hotels such as the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, the Four Seasons, and two Pan Pacific Resorts.
Both the Four Seasons and the Pan Pacific were recently rated in the Top 10 for ski hotel deals in North America by Conde Nast Travel. At the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre, if you book by Jan. 31 through the hotel's website, you get the equivalent of your fifth night free: You get 10 per cent off a three-night stay, 15 per cent off a four-night stay or 20 per cent off a five-night stay, through April 25, subject to blackout dates.
At the Four Seasons, you get a third night free if you stay after Jan. 18. This brings the rate down to $224 per night.
All have outstanding service and amenities and are very close to the base of the mountains for skiing. The Fairmont was recently voted to serve the best martini in town, and its awesome wine room was praised as well. Locals also voted it the best place to have a scotch and its Wildflower Restaurant chef Vincent Stufano got top place accolades as well.
At Games time, the best way to find accommodation will be through the Internet using 2010Destinationplanner.com.
At this time, most hotels in Vancouver and Whistler are not accepting any individual or group reservations for the Olympic period (Jan. 30 to March 21, 2010). Most hotel inventory won't be active until February or March 2009, 12 months prior to Games time.
It is expected that all visitors during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games period to be able to find accommodation, some of which will be non-traditional, such as home rentals. Most of the hotel rooms in Whistler will be booked out by organizations associated with the Games, but there should be many condos available.
Olympic spectators should also consider accommodation in Vancouver's surrounding cities such as Richmond, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Abbotsford and Squamish. The Sunshine Coast, Victoria and cities on Vancouver Island are also options, and BC Ferries has committed to offering additional sailings between Feb. 12 and 28, 2010, to service these locations.
Business travellers are also advised to book their business missions to Vancouver outside of the Olympic period, as accommodation will be limited.
It was concern over the visitor experience that drove Olympic host tourism agencies in B.C. to band together and invent 2010Destinationplanner.com, first Olympic Web portal attached to the official 2010 Games website (www.vancouver2010.com).
"This is a progressive approach and our idea is that as the ticketing programming evolves . . . we want to be in a position where we will be able to provide selection," said Breton Murphy, Tourism Whistler's manager of corporate and member communications in an interview.
Traditionally the earliest a hotel will take a reservation is one year in advance.
"The intent [with the web portal] is to make booking easier," said Walt Judas, vice-president of marketing, communications and 2010 strategies for Tourism Vancouver said.
According to Judas, it is expected that 350,000 people will come to see the Games.
Of those, up to 60 per cent will not be locals and one in three of those will choose to stay with family and friends.
The closet major airport to Whistler is in Vancouver about two hours drive away, most of it along the scenic Sea to Sky Highway, which is receiving a $600 million upgrade. Renting a car is one of the most popular ways to get here, but visitors need to make sure the car is equipped for winter driving. Police will turn back cars without snow tires or chains on the highway if it is snowing.
If you would rather leave the driving to someone else you can take a bus.
Pacific Coach (www.pacificcoach.com) has ticket counters at the Vancouver airport and departs 12 times a day. Rates are $51.45 each way.
The Snowbus (www.snowbus.com) departs from various stops in Vancouver, the closest to the airport being the Richmond stop about three minutes away. It's not as convenient as Pacific Coach but it is cheaper at $42.86 for a round-trip from the city.
The Whistler Mountaineer Train also provides a way up to the mountains, but only from April to October. Rates for 2008 were $199 for a round-trip. Similarly, Whistler Air is open from May to October and provides guided tours along the coast and mountains, starting at $129 a flight.
If you drive, you'll be passing several landmarks worth seeing, such as the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, Shannon Falls, the B.C. Museum of Mining (where Scooby Doo and the X-Files were filmed), the Stawamus chief, canyon gorges, massive hydro electric dams, freight trains and finally - the welcome to Whistler sign.
Whistler is quite a laid back and casual town. Even the fancy restaurants don't really require people to dress up.
As far as what to wear during the day, remember that you are in the Coast Mountain range of British Columbia and the weather can change dramatically during the day no matter what the season, so dress in thin layers and bring a pair of waterproof shoes.
If you don't pack appropriately, don't worry. Whistler has plenty of shops and clothing stores (www.tourismwhistler.com/www/things_to_do/shopping_services/) where you can find everything you might need.
Even though the travel industry is impacted by the economic downturn, the good news is 2009 is the year of the great travel bargain. Your dream vacation may cost a lot less this year because of discounts, extras and upgrades. And some of the most popular travel destinations are seeing smaller crowds, which can make your visit a more enjoyable experience.
To get started, visit www.whistler.com or call 1-800-WHISTLER (1-800-944-7853).